Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id WAA29031 (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 22:55:36 +0100 From: <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 16:58:08 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Determinism Message-ID: <3AD73020.26741.337A84@localhost> In-reply-to: <20010413163507.A1851@reborntechnology.co.uk> References: <3AD610F4.26664.8FC3C3@localhost>; from joedees@bellsouth.net on Thu, Apr 12, 2001 at 08:32:52PM -0500 X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 13 Apr 2001, at 16:35, Robin Faichney wrote:
> 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?
>
No, some percentage of replications are simply going to be flawed,
for no reason(s) we have been able to ascertain, although
superdeterminists will assume that there HAS to be one (or more);
while one cannot a priori judge of every individual gene that it will or
will fail to replicate correctly; a degree of error is part of the
system. Notice that such mutations are not tied to the particular
environmental pressures that they might alleviate; no
Lamarckianism here!
>
> > 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? :-)
>
Thinking, and the capacity to do so well, has everything to do with
it.
>
> > > 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.
>
Okay.
>
> > 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?
>
Distinguishable and separable are two different matters; while
source and object are abstractly (in theory) distinguishable, they
are concretely (in practice) inseparable.
>
> > > 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.
>
You didn't say "impurely objective', either, didja? I'm supposed to
read your mind to the point that I can intuit your privately held
caveats? I can only work with what you post, and you did not
adverbially modify "objective" as necessarily being (inter)
subjective, but instead specifically opposed it to intersubjectivity.
>
> > No
> > matter what the level one is trying to explain, the level FROM which
> > one attempts to do so never changes, for explanation 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.
>
Actually, one cannot be a PURE nihilist as long as one has the
definition of nihilism (or any other meaning) flitting through one's
brain. They can, however, fallaciously believe themselves to be
such. How's that for a maya?
>
> > 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.
>
Once again, theory and practice, while theoretically
distinguishable, are empirically inseparable (in praxis). However,
investigations should precede pronouncements, and inform them.
> --
> Robin Faichney
> Get your Meta-Information from http://www.ii01.org
> (CAUTION: contains philosophy, may cause heads to spin)
>
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>
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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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