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> On Feb 9, 2014, at 1:28 PM, david <[email protected]> wrote: > > Horse said to dmb: > > I agree with much of what you say but it's still very important to remember > that DNA-based life is no more than one possible way for life to exist and > that it involves an environment and a context. Not having experienced > something (or maybe mis-interpreting something that we do experience) should > not blind us to the probability that it exists. Isn't this part of the > 'Cleveland Harbor Effect'? > > dmb says: > I think the lesson of the Cleveland Harbor Effect is other way around. "It > was a parable for students of scientific objectivity," he says. To say "he > rejected the observation and followed the chart" is to say to ignored the > actual experience because of what he thought. What he thought acted as a > static filter, "shutting out all information that did not fit." (This is good > description of what's known as "confirmation bias".) > > The idea of life that's not DNA-based is not exactly comparable, because > there are no observations or experiences being ignored. The idea, I think, is > only based on extrapolating upon the biological charts we already have. I > mean, nothing like that has been observed. It's reasonable and I don't think > there is any ideological resistance to it but it is pure speculation, a > plausible abstraction for which there is no empirical evidence. As far as I > know, anyway. > > The Cleveland Harbor Effect is about throwing out NEW "facts" when they don't > fit with the intellectual patterns. "When a new fact comes in that does not > fit the pattern we don’t throw out the pattern. We throw out the fact." Here, > I think, "facts" are empirical reality while the patterns are conceptual (and > for a radical empiricist like Pirsig empirical reality always comes first and > concepts are always secondary). It seems to me that non-DNA life forms would > be greeted as an exciting discovery. Sci-Fi writers and real scientists have > been dreaming about it for a while. If a "contradictory fact has to keep > hammering and hammering and hammering, sometimes for centuries, before maybe > one or two people will see it," then alternative life forms would be > something like the opposite. It's an abstract pattern that keeps hammering > and hammering and lots of people desperately want to see it - but nobody ever > has. Ron: I think that is going to raise some Debate but I believe you hit it square With the Cleveland harbor metaphor, He rationalized explanations thereby Justifying the rejecting of the empirical "facts". It has practicle Consequences in experience. However I sense some dispute in That a dialectical arguement regarding deduction inference and verification Not to mention imagination and intuition will be leveled on Your post. On this I can only agree that experience must inform our deductions inferences and intuitions Not the other way around. There is a difference between verifying a theory and justifying Belief, it's what seperates scientific Method from alien conspiracy theories, or Bigfoot hunts. . > > > > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
