Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id RAA28343 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 13 Apr 2001 17:54:53 +0100 Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 16:35:07 +0100 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Determinism Message-ID: <20010413163507.A1851@reborntechnology.co.uk> References: <3AD4D833.2591.2B5C17@localhost>; <20010412114633.A1523@reborntechnology.co.uk> <3AD610F4.26664.8FC3C3@localhost> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.15i In-Reply-To: <3AD610F4.26664.8FC3C3@localhost>; from joedees@bellsouth.net on Thu, Apr 12, 2001 at 08:32:52PM -0500 From: Robin Faichney <robin@reborntechnology.co.uk> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Thu, Apr 12, 2001 at 08:32:52PM -0500, joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On 12 Apr 2001, at 11:46, Robin Faichney wrote:
>
> > You obviously don't think that only one factor can be nonrandom.
> > That would be silly. You just expressed yourself clumsily. But you
> > also missed the point. Big time. Skimming instead of reading, as
> > usual, I expect. Whether the mutation is random depends on one's
> > perspective. In evolutionary terms, it is, because the cause is
> > outside of that explanatory framework, but a radiologist might very
> > well take a different view. (Be careful to shield your gonads, Joe!)
> >
> Sometimes genes (a small statistical percentage which is
> unresolveable to particular genes a priori) just fail to precisely
> replicate. Sometimes ambient radiation or chemical exposure can
> cause breaks. Particular mutations are not determined by any
> environmental conditions which have anything to do with the kinds
> of mutations produced; in that sense, they are random with
> reference to the environment in which they must subsequently, and
> nonrandomly, succeed or fail.
Then you were agreeing with me, weren't you?
> I did not express myself in sufficient
> depth on the matter, as I have had problems with people being able
> to follow me when I do so generally.
Why do you think that is, Joe? :-)
> > Truth nearly always depends on context. "Free will" is meaningful in
> > personal and interpersonal terms, but not in microbiology. That's not
> > Relativism, just realism.
> >
> I never claimed that microbes are free;
I never said you did. I'm very, very well aware you'd never say any
such thing. I was making a more general point.
> that would require self-
> conscious awareness <hehe>. But, in fact, beneath the level of
> self-conscious awareness, which is the level which can impose
> categories of meaning upon items of brute being, meaning does not
> exist at all.
You've said this many times, I've agreed with it almost as often, I'm
almost absolutely certain nobody here has disagreed with it.
> It does not exist in microbiology, but microbiological
> facts mean something to self-consciously aware microbiologists.
> You can NEVER phenomenologically extract the level at which you
> operate from that which you purport to peruse; you can only delude
> yourself that you have succeeded in doing so.
Given that most people are not familiar with "phenomenological
extraction", you just seemed to contradict yourself. You spend several
lines emphasising the differences between these levels then appear to
say they can't be separated. Care to clarify?
> > Straighten out your levels of explanation,
> > distinguish between theory and practice and between inter/subjective
> > and objective theoretical frameworks, and you'll be home and dry in no
> > time.
> >
> There is no such thing as a purely objective theoretical framework,
> only intersubjectively agreed upon ones (which are usually so
> agreed upon because they are seen by many to fit the data).
Did I say "purely" objective? I don't think so. Your favourite sayings
don't, unfortunately, always address the issue.
> No
> matter what the level one is trying to explain, the level FROM which
> one attempts to do so never changes, for explamation necessarily
> is perfused with meaning, and that requires entities capable of
> signification, i.e. self-consciously aware entities.
But Joe, that's only a problem for someone who is trying to deny such
things. You need to leave aside your obsession and accept that not
everyone who disagrees with you is a nihilist.
> And theory is
> best drawn from practice (from the experientially derived data), not
> imposed upon it a priori.
Another procrustean attempt to fit the discussion to your own personal
framework. I said that theory had to be distinguished from practice,
not that it should be imposed upon it.
-- Robin Faichney Get your Meta-Information from http://www.ii01.org (CAUTION: contains philosophy, may cause heads to spin)=============================================================== This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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