bruto
Penultimate Amazing
That shows consistency but nothing else. A delusion dearly held is not correct for being consistent.
Reincarnation as a trivial scientific fact
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That shows consistency but nothing else. A delusion dearly held is not correct for being consistent.
Reality Check
Penultimate Amazing
Hi Wolfgang, Entropy can be defined in several ways. However the order/disorder interpretation is fraught with difficulties. The biggest one is actually defining what disorder is (read the Wikipedia entry on entropy). In your example we know that some of the gas in the box must have ended up in the just hatched chick. This is an increase in order. We can argue that 1 thing (an egg) has become 1 thing (a chick) and that has not affected the order of the system. It looks like you take the view that an egg is more ordered than a chick because the chick results from "blind downhill processes" and this overwhelms any other increase in order.
Luckily the second law of thermodynamics comes to our help: the system as a whole has experienced a loss of entropy. This means a loss of order. But there is no way to allocate this loss of order between the components of the system. Therefore we cannot say whether the chick, remains of the egg, atmospheric gas or anything else in the box has become more or less ordered.
Dorian Gray
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Here's my contribution: if you rearrange the letters in 'wogoga' you get 'woo gag'?
wollery
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No, you argue against several scientific principles by trying to point out their inconsistencies or errors. But your arguments reveal that you do not understand those areas of science, since they point out things that aren't so.
Irrelevant to the argument, and wrong. Evolution deals only with what happens to life over the course of time. It does not deal with how life got started. To
You do lack understanding, as your arguments reveal.
It is naive. You compare apples and oranges, and marvel that they aren't the same. Of course they're not the same, whoever said that they were?
Heat.
Put the egg somewhere cold and nothing will happen. It needs heat to form the chemical bonds in the cells of the chick. That's why the hen sits on it.
If the system is closed then the total entropy of the system will not change. You again show your lack of understanding of entropy. If the air in the box is warm enough the chick will form in the egg, and the air in the box will cool down. The cooling is a loss of energy to the egg. The air loses heat (and increases its entropy) whilst the egg forms into a chick (and decreases its entropy) whilst the entropy of the system (air plus chick) remains constant.
To put it in terms of order - at the end of the process the air is less ordered and the chick is more ordered than the egg was.
That I have to explain the simple fact that the total entropy of a closed system is constant shows very clearly that you don't understand entropy.
The population of Giant Pandas has been dropping steadily for a very long time, and the reason is ridiculously simple. At some point in the past, the Panda went from being a carnivore to being a vegetarian, eating a diet of little but bamboo. The reason for this change is unknown, but maybe the animals they ate became too rare to give them a steady food source so they started eating the most abundant food available to them - bamboo. Whatever the reason for this change the gut of the Panda is not equipped to draw enough energy from the bamboo to allow them to do much except eat, sleep and defecate, and mating and gestation both require energy. So Pandas don't like to mate, and when they do there is a high rate of miscarriage. Their captivity has allowed the population to increase from the wild population. If you ever get the chance you should visit the Giant Panda centre in Chengdu, Sichuan province where they do a lot of research and breed Pandas very successfully. You might learn a few things.
Strange how food and habitat do make such a difference then. Take for example the rabbit population in Australia. When rabbits were introduced to Australia they underwent an exponential population growth, exactly analogous to the one you suggest would be the case for reductionist materialism.
My argument is essentially independent from such definitions. Blind downhill processes lead from a state of lower probability to a state of higher probability. A good example is decay in general or the decay of a bacterium after death in special. Another example is the dilution by random movements of a group of particles suspended in a liquid (Brownian motion).
Imagine that one autotroph bacterium starts replication in a corresponding culture medium and that after some time the culture medium is full of bacteria. According to common sense, the transformation of simple molecules into such highly complex chemical factories constitutes not only a transformation from a state of higher probability into a state of lower probability but also an increase in order.
In the case of e.g. gravitation (of our planetary system) or Brownian motion, computer simulations can easily be made, because what happens in nature can be well explained by physical laws. In case of life however, simulations based on physical or chemical laws do not exist. Why? Those believing in quantum mechanics sometimes claim that such simulations are possible in principle, but that the needed computing power exceeds all existing computers.
However, I'm convinced that every unprejudiced examination leads to the conclusion, that no physical laws (as the basis of chemistry and biochemistry) can be formulated and implemented as a computer simulation in order to explain e.g. the construction of the Bacterial Flagellum, as shown in this animation. The behaviour of such enzymes must be explained by assuming that they somehow are able to sense their environment and to perform goal-directed movements. This only means that enzymes resemble rather insects than the dead particles of Brownian motion.
That's not an argument from incredulity, but from common sense and from consistent logical reasoning. By the way, the less one knows and understands, the more seems possible.
Cheers, Wolfgang
Reality Check
Penultimate Amazing
That is beside the point. Entropy in your example will increase or remain the same. So disorder will increase. But there is no way to allocate the increase in disorder between the components of the system unless you can calculate the entropy of each individual component. You do not present any such calcuation. You seem to assume that the chick is that only thing that will be more disordered.
"Blind downhill processes" has 2 assumptions - the process is blind and the process is downhill (I assume that means decreases in energy?). But chick development is not blind and may not be downhill.
Another small tiny point - an egg in a isolated box will never hatch. Eggs need energy to develop. That is the reason why chickens incubate them. It is also the reason why eggs in the supermarket do not develop into chicks. In your example the egg will cool down and there will be no chick.
"Blind downhill processes" has 2 assumptions - the process is blind and the process is downhill (I assume that means decreases in energy?). But chick development is not blind and may not be downhill.
Another small tiny point - an egg in a isolated box will never hatch. Eggs need energy to develop. That is the reason why chickens incubate them. It is also the reason why eggs in the supermarket do not develop into chicks. In your example the egg will cool down and there will be no chick.
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wollery
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If you want to talk about scientific processes and laws you need to use the same definitions as they do, otherwise you're just talking garbage.
That's actually nearly correct!
No, since the laws of QM are probabilistic, not deterministic, no such precise simulation is possible. It would be possible to produce a simulation that gave a probable outcome, but not a certain outcome, as is possible for Newtonian mechanics.
Try watching this video instead. Simple evolution with no guiding thought process.
There is no must about it. You're just anthropomorphising again.
It is an argument from incredulity, to whit, you can't believe that such a thing could happen without the enzymes being able to sense their environment. Pretty much the definition of an argument from incredulity - "I can't believe that that could happen unless the enzymes can sense their environment, therefore they must sense their environment".
Or was there some other point to your argument?
There's your problem, right there. A lot of science is contrary to "common" sense, and if you throw out stuff just because it doesn't make sense to you then you are again making an argument from incredulity.
I'll admit that your reasoning might possibly be consistent.
I really can't say anything to damn your ideas more than your own words do right here.
zeusbheld
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i suspect therein lies the secret.
"The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy in the combination of a system and its surroundings (or in an isolated system by itself) increases during all spontaneous chemical and physical processes." (Wikipedia)
The second law is a logical consequence of the randomness of molecular motions. That a big enough number of random motions can only transform a state of lower probability into a state of higher probability is obvious. However, humans can transform states of higher probability into states of lower probability, because we are able to sense our environment and are able to purposefully move our bodies. The same is valid also for animals and for bacteria.
But what about DNA polymerase enzymes which replicate DNA in vitro? The decay of DNA is the normal reaction, leading to a state of higher probability. Therefore, such enzymes doing the opposite create states of lower probability. Because random motions only could create states of higher probability, we are forced to admit: the motions of such enzymes are not random.
"It has been reported that during incubation, large eggs produce more heat than small eggs. Large eggs also face more difficulties to remove the surplus heat from the egg, as a result of the decreasing ratio between egg surface and egg content with increasing egg size and the reduced air velocity over the eggs in commercial incubators." (Source)
A decade ago, I wrote in a discussion with somebody who argued like you:
"Your comments show a further time that you do not understand at all the (original) second law. This law is aequivalent to the impossibility of a perpetuum mobile of the second kind. What you write is exactly the contrary: thermal energy can be transformed into energy of chemical bonds. It would be possible to convert thermal energy without temperature differentials into chemical energy. If certain bonds are built up at a temperature of about 37° Celsius, there must be other bonds which can be built up at lower temperatures, e.g. 10° Celsius. In any container we could produce chemical energy by simply cooling down the environment!"
But now I had to learn:
"On the other hand, some reactions need to absorb heat from their surroundings to proceed. These reactions are called endothermic. A good example of an endothermic reaction is that which takes place inside of an instant 'cold pack.' Commercial cold packs usually consist of two compounds - urea and ammonium chloride in separate containers within a plastic bag. When the bag is bent and the inside containers are broken, the two compounds mix together and begin to react. Because the reaction is endothermic, it absorbs heat from the surrounding environment and the bag gets cold." (Source)
Yet this could be further evidence for what I wrote at that time:
"Most time of my life I have been sure that a perpetuum mobile of the second kind is not possible, but now I'm no longer sure."
Cheers, Wolfgang
PixyMisa
Persnickety Insect
Ah, thanks for the link to your post 96, I hadn't read that one.
Having read that, I can safely say that you are completely delusional, either knowing nothing of history, demographics, or human motivation, or simply discarding all knowledge of such to fit your bizarre personal beliefs.
PixyMisa
Persnickety Insect
In a closed system
Which the Earth isn't.
No, it's complete nonsense. We can reduce our local entropy at the cost of an increase in global entropy.
Eos of the Eons
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Oh, clearly that is psychonic proof that woggo is not a woo woo, just full of it. I'm convinced, as this was a very very scientific process.
*grins*
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wollery
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I apologise, you are correct, the entropy of a closed system can increase, but not decrease.
Of course, that doesn't make your argument right, it just means that that particular criticism of it is wrong.
The Earth, as has been pointed out by others, is not a closed system, so the entropy of the Earth can decrease with no contradiction of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
Not a closed system. An input of energy can spontaneously decrease the entropy of a system with no need for conscious intent.
And yet the eggs still need a constant input of heat energy.
No, because such a perpetuum mobile would require constant replacement of the reactant chemicals, which would take more energy than that released by the reaction. It would also require a heat source to supply the heat or it would rapidly reduce its surroundings to absolute zero.
In other words, you have to keep heating the thing up or it will stop working. Doesn't sound like a perpetuum moblie to me.
Furthermore, there are still several criticisms of your argument which you have failed to address. I notice you have made no comment on my latest point about the pandas or the Australian rabbit population. You have not even acknowledged my criticisms of your analogy between abiogenesis and the dice, your "final laws of nature", your errors in particle physics, the formation of fullerenes, or your lack of evidence for several things that you assert as existent (to name but a few).
So you concede that the rather deterministic than probabilistic construction of the bacterial flagellum cannot even in principle by explained by quantum mechanics and similar theories?
And here you can find a short refutation of the hypothesis that a bacterium-like Adam as the result of purely materialist abiogenesis could have started Darwinian evolution. By the way, one should not forget that the existence of a high enough concentration of corresponding building blocks (simple organic molecules) is a prerequesite for any materialist trial-and-error abiogenesis process to start. The famous Miller–Urey experiment is strong evidence against such a high concentration of the needed building blocks on the early earth.
Cheers, Wolfgang
wollery
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Nope. I said that it's only possible to produce probabilistic models in QM. That doesn't mean that the actual evolution of the flagellum is impossible. One is a predictive model, which can only be probabilistic in nature. The other is reality, which has already happened. It can be explained in terms of QM, but it can't be predictively modelled.
Besides, the evolutionary model of the evolution of the flagellum isn't based on QM, it's based on comparison of the enzymes involved in the flagellum and the functions each individual enzyme has on its own, and careful thought about how they might have evolved into the final system. It's a post hoc model of a possible evolutionary path.
Again, you compare apples and oranges, and marvel that they aren't the same colour.
No. The Miller–Urey experiment was an ad-hoc experiment, which shocked everyone involved by actually producing biochemical building blocks. Furthermore, the concentrations required are unknown, although estimates may exist, nobody can be certain.
As for your "Knockout blow to neo-Darwinism", it's more of a tap with a sponge. You start badly, stating that "it is a (logical) fact that
abiogenesis is a prerequisite for neo-Darwinism", which is patently untrue, since evolution only concerns existent life. It would be as true in a reality where a god set life going as in one where it started on its own.
Next you go on to state some "concrete assumptions". Let's ignore, for a moment, the oxymoronic nature of such a statement and the fact that your assumptions are totally flawed. You start with a complete cell capable of replication and assign it attributes such as a number of genes and a replication rate. You then show how this cell, with these attributes couldn't possibly survive past a few generations of replication. Of course, to do so you assume further that it couldn't possibly mutate in a beneficial way, which is yet another unwarranted assumption. You may, however, be right in that conclusion, but your argument is in fact a straw man. All you have shown is that a particular individual cell with particular attributes couldn't have survived and evolved. You have not shown that abiogenesis is impossible. All you have shown is that you can imagine a cell that can't evolve in its environment. Congratulations on destroying a model that was designed to be destroyed.
To disprove abiogenesis you must prove conclusively that the building blocks of life could not have formed by undirected chemical reactions. Nowhere have you even attempted to do this, you just assert it.
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"I'm still confused about the localization of psychons."
Localization and spacial extension are attributes of matter. Whereas mass/energy and space are divisible continuous quantities, psychons are indivisible units. Yet psychons can only be active, inasfar as they eventually interact with mass/energy. Take for instance youself as an acting and experiencing subject:
When you move a finger you do not affect the finger but neurons in your brain. A pain in your foot you do not perceive directly but only in your brain. Optical effects you perceive neither directly nor on the retina but as neural states. These states are the result of a complex process, starting with photoreceptor cells.
Brain research has shown that optical attributes such as form, movement and colour are processed in various regions of your brain, though an object appears to you as a unity. It is you, i.e. your soul, which perceives the states of different brain regions as a consistent picture of the object.
"How do these psychons know what country to inhabit? Are they physical?"
Primitive psychons are "physical" inasfar, as e.g. the physical behaviour of photons, the catalytic properties of platinum or the very complex and goal-directed movements of enzymes all depend on corresponding psychons.
Due to the continuous transition from primitive psychons to human souls, also human souls must be considered physical resp. empirical entities. And if souls are real then also the relations between souls can be real, i.e. empircally relevant. The more times souls of the same species have been in contact with each other and the closer these contacts have been, the more evolutionary related are such souls.
"Are they sentient in and of themselves?"
Psychons can only be sentient if they are active, i.e. if they ultimately have an effect on mass/energy. The consciousness of enzyme psychons could maybe be compared with the consciousness paralleling the instinctive behaviour of a newborn.
"Some cults are of the opinion that souls choose their recipients. Are they right?"
Souls without bodies cannot act in any way, so they cannot choose their recipients. Our perception, feeling and thinking is so closely linked to the human body and especially to the human brain, that the assumption of feeling, thinking and acting without a brain is completely brainless.
It was Ludwig Feuerbach, who argued in such a way against bodyless ghosts or souls. Nevertheless Feuerbach never adhered to militant atheism and was rather sceptical of pure emiricism and pure materialism. He was also a great admirer of Spinoza's philosophy, in the same way as later Albert Einstein, whose inborn atheism, which became manifest in his youth, was essentially Feuerbachian.
"If so, why can they not move from country to country as necessary? If that is so, wouldn't the soul distribution be unrelated to nationality or ethnicity?"
The baby boom in the United States caused by the many deaths in Europe during World War II is a good example showing that souls "move from country to country". Where souls are reborn can only be answered in a probabilistic way. This is essentially the same probabilistic nature which can be found in the world of quanta (see also).
The soul distribution actually is related to nationality and ethnicity, because nationality and ethnicity are related to evolutionary relatedness and environment continuity. The closer evolutionary relatedness of a given soul to potential parents, the higher is the probability of a conception with this soul. Evolutionary relatedness of a given person having lived all recent lives in Japan, is much higher with persons living in Japan than with persons living elsewhere. So it is very probable that this person will be reborn in Japan. But what is decisive is not the country as a geographic region but the souls living in the country. If all Russians moved to Japan and all Japanese to Russia, then a typical Japanese soul would be reborn among the Japanese in Russia and not among the Russians in Japan.
Cheers, Wolfgang
PixyMisa
Persnickety Insect
Why did those souls move from Europe to the US, when Europe was also going through a baby boom? Where did those spare souls come from, when, despite all the deaths in WWII, the population of Europe significantly increased between 1930 and 1950?
bruto
Penultimate Amazing
There's also a wee bit of a problem there if ethnicity is a factor in the distribution of souls, because I don't recall that the baby boom over here reflected the great losses of certain ethnic groups in the holocaust. It might be hard to figure out for large and varied ethnic groups such as the Jews, since I'm sure American Jews participated well enough in the American baby boom, but smaller groups that were also heavily and disproportionately thinned in that time should have seen an enormous and equally disproportionate increase in their numbers that would stand out noticeably. American and Irish Gypsies and Travellers, for example, should have seen an unprecedented and conspicuous population explosion after the terrible toll paid by their European cousins. If not, why not?
MattusMaximus
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six7s
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I have lost track of the number and variety of questions that have been addressed to and ignored by the OP (Wolfgang aka wogoga aka woogaga)
I have a hunch that the reasons for this sorry state of affairs AND the answer to "why not?" are inextricably linked to two simple factors:
- the OP is talking out of his ass
- the OP hopes that others will be blinded by his bull-science to the point where we can only see how wise he is
I might have missed some posts... Am I right in thinking that has he yet to answer the Q about how he knows (i.e. why we should accept) that souls (and therefore psychons and everything else that rides on this whacky concept) are anything other than a feature of popular fantasy-fiction?
Eos of the Eons
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A lot of people have signed onto scientology and that fiction writer's pseudoscientific woo woo. It claims to cure all ills and make you perfect on earth while alive.. unlike most other religions. It has it all, and uses the same kinds of made up words about souls and past lives affecting the present.
All woogag has to do is tack on the cure for all ills... by curing the soul too. What sets the psychon straight to make the physical body perfect too?
New cult in the making?
All woogag has to do is tack on the cure for all ills... by curing the soul too. What sets the psychon straight to make the physical body perfect too?
New cult in the making?
The problem we are dealing with is the goal-directed construction of the flagellum by enzymes. The even more problematic evolution of such a complex rotary engine (powered by the flow of protons across the bacterial cell membrane) is a different question.
You wrote that "since the laws of QM are probabilistic, not deterministic, no such precise simulation (of the construction of the bacterial flagellum) is possible".
But how can the purely probabilistic laws of QM or similar be responsible for the very determined construction of such a complex rotary machine? How can the probabilistic behaviour of quanta lead to a rather deterministic behaviour of enzymes being capable of efficiently building such a complex machine?
If QM-based simulations of the deterministic happenings in living cells are in fact impossible as a matter of principle, then it is a trivial logical consequence that QM cannot explain the happenings in living cells.
However, the non-deterministic nature of quanta resp. elementary particles can be seen in a new light: this non-determinism is a prerequisite that a psychon of a higher organisation-level can have an effect, because a fully deterministic nature of the parts would not allow any freedom to the whole.
For instance, if a transcription factor in a human cell were fully determined by its electrons, protons and neutrons, then its movement as a whole would only resemble Brownian motion, but the transcription factor would not be able to find its destination on the incredibly long DNA. In order to do that, a transcription factor as a whole must be able to purposefully move (similar to migratory animals), and this implies an effect on the behaviour of its parts.
Cheers,
Wolfgang (the psychon guy aka the woo gag)
wollery
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Anthropomorphism. How do you know that the flagellum was the goal? This is a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning.
What problem? I directed you earlier to a youtube video showing one possible way it could have evolved. Each stage in the evolution model gives the bacterium an evolutionary advantage, which is precisely what you'd expect from undirected evolution.
That a result occurs is not surprising. The laws of QM are probabilistic. This means that it is impossible, a priori, to know for certain what the outcome will be. This does not mean that there will not be an outcome, just that you don't know what it will be before you start. Of course, building such an evolutionary model from QM would be extremely problematic in terms of computer memory and processing power, but if you could, and could run it a few billion times, you might well end up with a flagellum from one simulation.
You are once again comparing apples and oranges. You marvel about the impossibility of something improbable happening!
That's so wrong it's off the chart. I never said simulations were impossible, I said the outcomes were probabilistic in nature, so for any particular post hoc result you may not get a simulation that matches it exactly. That doesn't mean the simulations are bad, or that the laws are wrong, just that there are a lot of possible outcomes.
Unwarranted assumption.
Nope. The motion is determined by attractive and repulsive forces (those would be the electrons and protons at work). You're anthropomorphising, yet again.
MattusMaximus
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A lot of people have signed onto scientology and that fiction writer's pseudoscientific woo woo. It claims to cure all ills and make you perfect on earth while alive.. unlike most other religions. It has it all, and uses the same kinds of made up words about souls and past lives affecting the present.
All woogag has to do is tack on the cure for all ills... by curing the soul too. What sets the psychon straight to make the physical body perfect too?
New cult in the making?
The $cientologists have their "body thetans" and this weirdo has his "soul-psychons"... if L. Ron Hubbard can get away with it, why not this jackass?
I swear that if I had no scruples and simply wanted to make a butt-load of money, then I'd start a religion/self-help/pseudoscience cult as well. Far too many folks seem susceptible to this kind of twisted thinking.
bruto
Penultimate Amazing
A bit of sideways drift here, but if you have never read Mark Twain's essay on Christian Science, you should.
Eos of the Eons
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http://www.bestofmarktwain.com/christianscience.html
Interesting, I never knew that even existed. Thank you.
Eos of the Eons
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http://www.classicreader.com/booktoc.php/sid.2/bookid.1286/
Is this all of it?
I'm lovin it...
Does remind me of my assessment of scientology too.
I daresay that this nuttiness is oddly more acceptable than atheism. Atheism, in all that it offers in non-nuttiness is regarded as more evil than cults that actually cause harm. Very twisted, this world of full of people that would rather embrace insanity over just thinking there is simply just a physical world to appreciate around us.
Is this all of it?
I'm lovin it...
Does remind me of my assessment of scientology too.
I daresay that this nuttiness is oddly more acceptable than atheism. Atheism, in all that it offers in non-nuttiness is regarded as more evil than cults that actually cause harm. Very twisted, this world of full of people that would rather embrace insanity over just thinking there is simply just a physical world to appreciate around us.
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Try post #29 with links and maybe also #154 and #158.
Psychon is a basic concept of a theory. Only by comparing the logical predictions of the whole theory with reality we can decide whether such psychons do exist or do not exist. A world with a limited number of human and other souls, all being the result of evolution and representing a huge amount of information concerning e.g. instinctive behaviour and intelligence, cannot be identical to a world where living beings are essentially soul-less machines.
So in order to decide whether psychons or reductionist materialism correspond better to reality, it is enough to look at empirical (e.g. demographic) data. Especially in demography it will become increasingly problematic to always explain after the fact by mutually inconsistent ad-hoc hypotheses what has been predicted before the fact by demographic saturation.
By the way, you seem to ignore the whole philosophical tradition, always having opposed the concept soul to the concept matter. And why do so many persons on such forums become angry or even feel personally attacked when they are confronted with a purely scientific concept, similar to a religious concept of the past. Even before the advent of Christianity, Aristotle considered such concepts part of natural science. And do all the persons trying to ridicule panpsychism actually consider themselves superior to the outstanding panpsychists of the past such as e.g. Nicolas of Cusa, Giordano Bruno, Kepler, Spinoza and Leibniz?
Could it be that such persons becoming angry when confronted with scientific hypotheses not agreeing with the prejudices of their current world view are in fact reincarnated religious zealots of the past? We should not forget that our descent from Adam and Eve was once considered by the educated majority in the same way a fact as today reductionist materialism is considered a fact.
Sorry, Wolfgang
Is somebody sceptical of all not agreeing with orthodoxy sceptic or orthodox?
wollery
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You might start with the Giant Panda and the Australian rabbit population.
Why not?
Except that your theory of demographic saturation has been shown to have holes in it large enough to drive an oil tanker through.
I don't oppose the concept of the soul, but have yet to see any evidence at all to support it.
Please provide quotes from people who have become angry or admitted to feeling personally attacked. Such complaints usually precede the complainant leaving in a huff.
Appeal to authority.
Possibly. Possibly not. Or was that a rhetorical question?
Apples and oranges again. Descent from Adam and Eve never had any observable evidence to support it.
I'm sorry, do materialists have "mutually inconsistent ad-hoc hypotheses" for demographic changes? The null hypothesis, as far as I'm aware, is "different populations grow or shrink due to the complex interaction of economics and culture with individual family planning choices." Do you have examples which show this approach to be "increasingly problematic"?
As for it being "ad-hoc"---sure it's ad-hoc, that's how cultural/economic studies are done. For example, let's look at a series of statements much like yours:
- "Mutually inconsistent ad-hoc hypotheses are used to explain trends in popular music from 1910-2008"
- "Mutually inconsistent ad-hoc hypotheses are used to explain the price of gold"
- "Mutually inconsistent ad-hoc hypotheses are used to explain the successes and failures of post-colonial democracies"
- "Mutually inconsistent ad-hoc hypotheses are used to explain differential adoption of chili peppers in world cuisines post-Columbus"
Do each of these observables need a single unifying explanation? We lack of a unifying cause for trends in popular music---does that, by itself, discredit rational materialism? The best we can say about the price of gold is that "it fluctuates and/or stabilizes depending on current trends in mining and on perceived instabilities in major currencies"---is that an acceptable solution? Why is that more/less acceptable than a similar statement about how populations fluctuate and/or stabilize?
Why does the ad-hoc nature of demography tell you that we need a Demography Psychon? Does the ad-hoc nature of other socioeconomic complexities lead to a Gold Psychon, a Pop Music Psychon, and a Post-Colonial Democracy Psychon?
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six7s
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Thanks for at least trying... but, alas, having read those posts twice, I am only closer to thinking that:
six7s said:
Wolfgang, please note that using looooooong strings of looooooong words in a seemingly random and definitely incoherent manner does NOT make you an authority on the subject of souls
However, although incoherent, your posts are not indecipherable and, after a bit of effort, I gather that you are either reluctant and/or incapable of answering a simple question, let alone proffering a concise and coherent argument
I assume, given the 'rationale' in your 'logic', that you have jumped to a conclusion (one that fits with how you would like to see the world) and then tried to build a hypothesis to support it all. Alas, your logic is fundamentally flawed - insofar as you are basing your ideas on something (the concept of souls) that is, for all we know, pure fantasy
Only? Nonsense - even if psychons do exist, our comparisons may well be flawed simply by using a vague and incoherent hypothesis (N.B. not 'theory')
If I were to assert that pink unicorns are shielded by the cloak of the Great Underpant Monster and are, therefore inconsequential in terms of thermal variance, my claim would not be further justified by the 'logical prediction' that there is a probability of 0.42 that 42% of all the corn dogs that go missing in the night are down to there being a pink unicorn in every domestic refrigerator
OK... lets try some numbers... eschewing the emotive phrase 'soul-less machines' in favour of 'the same as any other species of mammal'
Q. Can a world with ZERO human and other souls be identical to a world where living beings are essentially the same as any other species of mammal?
A. Yes
If you have a problem with this, then, erm... that's your problem... build a bridge, and get over it
Huh? Are you serious? If so, think again... or perhaps start thinking and quit with the wishful dreaming
Again, quit with the loooooooong strings of loooooong words that, collectively, mean nothing
You say that like it's a bad thing?Huh? what relevance does this have to the discussion? None! You are, it seems, simply projecting your frustration onto others in a desparate attempt to deflect attention from your unsubstantiated woo. TIP: it doesn't work
Which "purely scientific concept"? Your woo dressed up in a lab-coat?
If all else fails, try the (wholly irrelevant) 'appeal to authority'
Quit with building straw-men
No one is here to "ridicule panpsychism", we're here to assess the evidence - and, so far, you haven't provided any
Don't conflate the circular 'reasoning' in your woo-affirming woo as being 'evidence' for anything other than you being an über-wooist
Given that you have NOT put forward ANY scientific hypothesis, its fairly obvious that, of all the contributors to this thread, you are the one "confronted with scientific hypotheses not agreeing with the prejudices of their current world view"
Try channelling that anger
The "same way"? This is so mind-numbingly WRONG! that I suspect your deluded worldview will forever blind you to reality
You said it... but please note that the comma is superfluous
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bruto
Penultimate Amazing
Reality seems hard to come by in your world.
Concerning the Giant Panda you can find all what seems relevant to me in post #160. In post #164 you objected:
"The population of Giant Pandas has been dropping steadily for a very long time, and the reason is ridiculously simple. At some point in the past, the Panda went from being a carnivore to being a vegetarian, eating a diet of little but bamboo."
However, this would only be relevant if it had happened in recent times. If the Giant Panda population actually had substantially decreased in the last centuries and fertility were nevertheless so low that the population could not recover, then this actually would constitute strong evidence against my evolution-by-reincarnation theory. The assumption that the population of a related species* has been growing in the recent past at the expense of the Giant Panda is not plausible, because the only closely related species, the Red Panda has a similarly small number. So only a few thousand panda souls exist, and the populations of the two panda species are limited by their very low soul numbers.
*Such a situation could have happened at the end of the last ice age with elephant populations increasing at the expense of the mammoth populations.
The exponential growth of European rabbits in Australia at a time when these animals seen as agricultural pests were losing more and more of their habitat in Europe isn’t astonishing at all. Hundreds of millions of rabbit souls exist. And the decision to ban all rabbit farming in Australia even increased the problem.
"All rabbit farming for meat production was banned until 1987, when Western Australia changed its legislation to allow farming of rabbits in that state. New South Wales and Victoria followed suit in 1995 and 1997, respectively, and now farming for meat is allowed in all states with the exception of Queensland. Despite the ban on farming, Australia has had an established rabbit meat industry for many years, based on harvesting wild rabbits. In the early 1990s, over 2.7 million wild rabbits per annum were sold for meat. With the release, in 1996, of rabbit haemorrhagic disease as a biological control agent, the population of wild rabbits was dramatically reduced, with only 100,000 being harvested per annum in the late 1990s." (Farmed Rabbits in Australia)
Instead of banning rabbit farming, they should have captured wild rabbits and used them for farming. It is an obvious fact that domestication and aquaculture is paralleled by a decrease of the corresponding wild populations. So the decline (having started already in 1950) of wild rabbit populations in the 1990s was simply caused by the spread of rabbit farming in Australia and the rest of the world.
"The centre of world rabbit production is Europe, where demand is highest, accounting for 75 percent of world production. In 1990, total global production was estimated at 1.5 million tonnes." (Breeding rabbits for food and income)
To these 1.5 million tonnes rabbit meat of 1990 corresponded around 1 billion rabbits and at least 250 million rabbit souls, because rabbits are generally ready for slaughter at about 11-13 weeks of age when they weigh around 3 kg, and 50% of the weight at slaughter is meat (source).
Cheers, Wolfgang
calebprime
Penultimate Amazing
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The entire JREF performs a full frontal assault on Wolfgang, but the brave lads are eviscerated by his sharp teeth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcxKIJTb3Hg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcxKIJTb3Hg
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wollery
Protected by Samurai Hedgehogs!
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Such a shame that your argument is rendered moot by the fact that the Red Panda and the Giant Panda aren't related. The Giant Panda is a bear, of the family Ursidae, which are carnivores. The Red Panda (Ailurus fulgens) is in a family of its own, and is actually most closely related to raccoons. See this paper.
Care to try again, this time with the correct attribution of related animals?
Which brings me to another question. If souls are specific to each ethnicity of humans (such as the Japanese), with human ethnicities being separated by only very small differences in DNA, how come they can happily cross from one species to another in the animal kingdom?
How fortunate that there were all those spare rabbit souls floating about waiting for a population boom.
six7s
veretic
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Obvious? To whom? You, who wants/needs to twist observations to fit your hypothesis?
Reading your long-winded obfuscations, the only thing that is obvious to me is that you know very little about farming and/or hunting/gathering
www.puresalmon.org » Effect of aquaculture on world fish supplies (PDF)
Nature 405 said:
Note how scientific research doesn't resort to woo in order to account for observations and findings... Observe first, hypothesise second
Nature 405 said:
TIP: when reality is in conflict with your hypothesis, twist your hypothesis, not the facts
Anyhoo...
You are still talking as though souls actually exist in reality (as opposed to simply being part of your fantasy)
WHY?
The effect of aquaculture on correponding wild stocks
Thank you for the interesting paper from June 2000. If may be true that "global aquaculture production still adds to world fish supplies", because lower mortality rates in captivity lead to higher saturation rates with more fish (souls) living and growing at the same time.
Yet the authors speak also of "an underlying paradox: aquaculture is a possible solution, but also a contributing factor to the collapse of fisheries stocks worldwide". And they even ask: "does aquaculture enhance – or diminish – the available fish supply?". Two quotes from the paper:
This obviously implies a decline in large and valuable species and a growth in less valuable species. We conclude that feeding valuable fish in aquaculture with less valuable wild fish rather decreases the wild stocks of the aquacultured species than the wild stocks used as food for them! This at least suggests that the reason of wild stock declines lies not in the fishing industry but in aquaculture.
The authors write that "Salmon catches worldwide actually rose by 27% between 1988 and 1997" and use this and cases of "relatively stable" catches in order to conclude: "These examples show little obvious effect of aquaculture production on capture rates of wild fish".
We must take into consideration that technological progress made it possible to more efficiently detect and catch fish and shellfish. So we cannot necessarily conclude from stable or increasing catches that the wild stocks themselves have not declined.
However, it is easy to find evidence that aquaculture of salmon negatively affects the wild populations, for instance:
On the decline of Pacific salmon and speculative links to salmon farming in British Columbia:
Aquaculture's Troubled Harvest:
Or from a recent newsletter:
For shrimp, the situation is quite similar. Quotes from Disease: Shrimp Aquaculture’s Biggest Problem:
This 1993 crash in China was probably at least partly caused by aquaculture successes in other countries. For instance in Thailand, the annual production of farmed shrimp increased from less than 50’000 tonnes in 1998 to more than 250’000 tonnes in 1994 (see Figure 3 of Shrimp Farming in Thailand’s Chao Phraya River Delta).
By doing an internet search with e.g. aquaculture, wild, stock, collapse or similar you can convince yourself whether my quotes are representative or not.
Cheers, Wolfgang
Thank you for the interesting paper from June 2000. If may be true that "global aquaculture production still adds to world fish supplies", because lower mortality rates in captivity lead to higher saturation rates with more fish (souls) living and growing at the same time.
Yet the authors speak also of "an underlying paradox: aquaculture is a possible solution, but also a contributing factor to the collapse of fisheries stocks worldwide". And they even ask: "does aquaculture enhance – or diminish – the available fish supply?". Two quotes from the paper:
The use of wild fish to feed farmed fish places direct pressure on fisheries resources.
Capture fisheries landings as a whole have plateaued at around 85-95 megatonnes per year. Moreover, there has been a gradual shift in wild capture from large and valuable carnivorous species to smaller, less valuable species that feed at lower trophic levels.
Capture fisheries landings as a whole have plateaued at around 85-95 megatonnes per year. Moreover, there has been a gradual shift in wild capture from large and valuable carnivorous species to smaller, less valuable species that feed at lower trophic levels.
This obviously implies a decline in large and valuable species and a growth in less valuable species. We conclude that feeding valuable fish in aquaculture with less valuable wild fish rather decreases the wild stocks of the aquacultured species than the wild stocks used as food for them! This at least suggests that the reason of wild stock declines lies not in the fishing industry but in aquaculture.
The authors write that "Salmon catches worldwide actually rose by 27% between 1988 and 1997" and use this and cases of "relatively stable" catches in order to conclude: "These examples show little obvious effect of aquaculture production on capture rates of wild fish".
We must take into consideration that technological progress made it possible to more efficiently detect and catch fish and shellfish. So we cannot necessarily conclude from stable or increasing catches that the wild stocks themselves have not declined.
However, it is easy to find evidence that aquaculture of salmon negatively affects the wild populations, for instance:
Salmon are a resource treasured and shared by all Indigenous Peoples within British Columbia.
A Salmon Aquaculture Review was undertaken which gave a cautious "okay" for fish farming to proceed. The Review did not fully investigate the impact that fish farms have upon wild stocks and the environmental damage they can create. For example, the Review overlooked the fact that in some countries wild salmon have been almost entirely wiped out as a result of fish farms.
A Salmon Aquaculture Review was undertaken which gave a cautious "okay" for fish farming to proceed. The Review did not fully investigate the impact that fish farms have upon wild stocks and the environmental damage they can create. For example, the Review overlooked the fact that in some countries wild salmon have been almost entirely wiped out as a result of fish farms.
On the decline of Pacific salmon and speculative links to salmon farming in British Columbia:
Pacific salmon abundance along the West Coast of Canada has been in sharp decline since the early 1990s.
The most likely reasons for the decline in Pacific salmon stocks include a combination of climate change, overfishing, and freshwater habitat destruction. There have also been suggestions that salmon farming in British Columbia has contributed to the decline of salmon stocks. The hypothesized effects of salmon farming include potential ecological interactions as well as disease concerns.
Although farmed salmon are also a potential source for these disease pathogens, surveys of pathogens in wild and hatchery fish show no patterns that could be attributed to salmon farming.
The most likely reasons for the decline in Pacific salmon stocks include a combination of climate change, overfishing, and freshwater habitat destruction. There have also been suggestions that salmon farming in British Columbia has contributed to the decline of salmon stocks. The hypothesized effects of salmon farming include potential ecological interactions as well as disease concerns.
Although farmed salmon are also a potential source for these disease pathogens, surveys of pathogens in wild and hatchery fish show no patterns that could be attributed to salmon farming.
Aquaculture's Troubled Harvest:
Spurred by a politically powerful commercial fishing industry, Alaska outlawed salmon farming outright. British Columbia, on the other hand, welcomed the industry with open arms.
Today, Alaska's wild salmon fishery ranks among the healthiest, best managed in the world. But British Columbia's commercial fishing industry barely survives; in 1999, the wild salmon harvest was the lowest in 50 years.
Today, Alaska's wild salmon fishery ranks among the healthiest, best managed in the world. But British Columbia's commercial fishing industry barely survives; in 1999, the wild salmon harvest was the lowest in 50 years.
Or from a recent newsletter:
The study focused on Pink Salmon north of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, but when combined with the results of earlier studies, suggest that Salmon farming as practiced in the Pacific Canadian province poses an existential threat to some wild Salmon.
For shrimp, the situation is quite similar. Quotes from Disease: Shrimp Aquaculture’s Biggest Problem:
One U.S. aquaculture entrepreneur, Thomas Powell of Jacksonville, Florida, advises potential investors that in a worst case scenario, exotic disease will wipe out 80 percent of the wild shrimp stocks, leaving the market open for aquaculture products. "It's a guess, based on what we've seen in Mexico, " says Powell, referring to an outbreak of IHHNV (infectious hypodermal and hematopoietic necrosis virus), that originated in Mexican shrimp farms and reduced the blue shrimp stocks in the northern Gulf of California to levels that could not support a commercial fishery from 1987 until 1994.
"During the 1993 crash of the Chinese (shrimp aquaculture) system, there was a 90 percent reduction in the (adjacent) wild stock."
"During the 1993 crash of the Chinese (shrimp aquaculture) system, there was a 90 percent reduction in the (adjacent) wild stock."
This 1993 crash in China was probably at least partly caused by aquaculture successes in other countries. For instance in Thailand, the annual production of farmed shrimp increased from less than 50’000 tonnes in 1998 to more than 250’000 tonnes in 1994 (see Figure 3 of Shrimp Farming in Thailand’s Chao Phraya River Delta).
By doing an internet search with e.g. aquaculture, wild, stock, collapse or similar you can convince yourself whether my quotes are representative or not.
Cheers, Wolfgang
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I don't understand your reasoning. You had claimed that an alleged population decrease of the Giant Panda caused by low fertility is evidence against Giant Panda reincarnation. I answered that if such a population implosion had occurred in recent times, "then this actually would constitute strong evidence against my evolution-by-reincarnation theory".
This conclusion is based on the premise that no closely related species has been growing at the expense of the Giant Panda population in recent times. However, if not even the Red Panda is relatively closely related to the Giant Panda then my argument becomes even more straightforward, and you simply have to provide evidence for your original claim in order to seriously attack the psychon theory.
The question of the relatedness between the Giant and the Red Panda is very interesting. Two quotes from Wikipedia:
"For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the panda was under debate as both the giant panda and the distantly related red panda share characteristics of both bears and raccoons."
"The red panda and the giant panda, although completely different in appearance, share several features. They both live in the same habitat, they both live on a similar bamboo diet and they both share a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb, which allows them to grip the bamboo shoots they eat."
"The red panda and the giant panda, although completely different in appearance, share several features. They both live in the same habitat, they both live on a similar bamboo diet and they both share a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb, which allows them to grip the bamboo shoots they eat."
If the conclusion of the paper mentioned by you is correct and both Panda species are only very distantly related from the viewpoint of genetics then this is an interesting case of convergent evolution.
Future research may be able to decide whether animal souls (of a soul-species) can lead to convergent evolution in lineages drifting genetically apart, by alternately incarnating in the different lines. In the concrete case of the Giant and the Red Panda, such an assumption would imply that at least some of the souls of the Red Panda lineage were born in the Giant Panda branch after their separation from a common ancestor, and the other way round.
Such a propensity of their ancestors for incarnating in genetically quite different species could maybe also help to explain the extremely low soul number of the Red Panda (a few thousand), which is a rather small animal with a weight of only 3-6 kg. For comparison: for every Red Panda soul more than one million human souls exist.
As a possible scenario the following could have happened: Very difficult conditions, under which only a small number of the strongest and most capable individuals could survive and reproduce, lasted for a long period. Because at the same time the conditions were much better for another related species, the population size of this related species increased in the long run at the expense of the population (of the ancestors) of the Red Panda.
Independently of whether such a scenario is possible or not, it is a logical necessity for evolution-by-reincarnation that after a species has become extinct the souls are born within related species: the closer related such a destination species and the better its living conditions and reproduction, the higher is the probability of being born there; and the more distant this destination species from the extinct one, the more difficult it is for the soul of the extinct species to learn to survive to fertile age in the destination species.
Cheers, Wolfgang
six7s
veretic
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Probably because its based on reality, a concept you are evidently unfamiliar with
Huh??? Where?Nowhere?
N.B. Comparisons of fertility rates and populations are unnecessary in debunking your reincarnation fantasy, bearing in mind that:
Remember?
Please... it AIN'T a theory!
Furthermore, as all of your ideas are fundamentally flawed (being based on the the purely fantastic notion of souls), there is no need to make a big deal of one specific aspect being particularly nonsensical
You really don't understand how this forum works, do you?
Its quite simple:
- Woos turn up (with monotonous regularity) and start threads in order to make unsubstantiated and logically inconsistent claims
- The sceptical response is simply, rather than making counter-claims, to point out the inevitable gaping holes and ask if they can be plugged
- The woos fail to deliver
- Sceptics stay subscribed just in case this pattern is ever altered
Forget the pandas... they are completely irrelevant
Either:
- Address some of the many questions you have been evading
To refresh you memory:
Where is your evidence for the existence of souls as anything other than a feature of cheap sci-fi and fantasy fiction?
Or
- Admit that you are a troll