"intelligent design" or "natural selection"

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Neale,

Sorry to take so long responding to this.

The use of the words "principles" and "govern" was merely an epistemological convenience and very likely sloppy metaphysics. Sorry.

The point I was trying to make is that differences and similarities exist in the universe with respect to entities (and their attributes, actions and relationships). This includes life cycles and species in terms of living beings.

We cannot identify what does not exist.

Calling these features "principles" is a misnomer. That goes for "govern," too. They merely exist as part of the identity of the existents.

"Description" as you suggested actually is a better word for this as a... er... description.

Michael

[Roger Bissell]

Michael and Neale -- I don't see how "description" is at all an improvement on "principle" or "law." It is just as epistemological. And epistemologically, it is more primitive and less integrative.

I understand the need to distinguish between a fact and the knowledge of that fact, e.g., between the omnipresent fact of gravitation and the Law of Universal Gravitation, or between the consistent ways in which things behave and the causal principles that explain those behaviors, or between the universal fact of causality and the Law of Cause and Effect, or (the fact of) Identity and the Law of Identity.

But I don't think that we need to jettison our standard ways of speaking of such things as objects "obeying" the Law of Gravity or the principles of DNA conversion "governing" living organisms, as long as we keep in mind their metaphoric nature. For instance, when I say the apple that hit Newton's head "obeyed" the Law of Gravity, I am not saying that it somehow consciously decided to act in obedience to someone's mental grasp of the fact of gravitation. What I am saying is that the apple acted in a way that was consistent with the way ~all~ material objects act, with the way that our mental grasp of gravitation identifies all objects as acting--and that my understanding of the nature of things includes seeing that the apple could not have acted otherwise, that it was causally ~determined~ ("governed") by its nature to act in that way.

As for ~description~, that is the necessary first step toward understanding ~anything~ in an integrated fashion. But to understand it completely, we must go beyond mere description to a causal understanding of ~why~ it acts the way it does or has the attribute it does, and we must relate that understanding to our other knowledge. A description does none of this, and as such it is simply a more abstract form of observational data, an identifying of a general pattern, with no insight into the reason for the pattern.

REB

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger,

This is a big problem in discussing metaphysics: how to eliminate or isolate epistemology. Essentially it cannot be done other than to say that reality exists independently of awareness.

I have seen argued an extreme misunderstanding of Objectivism that the stuff concepts are made of (similarities and differences) do not really exist, that this is only a form of mental organization, as if existents did not have such features.

I hold to the standard view that we cannot be aware of something that does not exist in the first place. That includes similarities and differences. And once this extends further than entities to include their actions, attributes and relationships, we add causality.

I have no great love of the word "description" so I will not insist on it. But as causality can be described, I have no objection to it, either.

Michael

[Roger Bissell]

Michael, the point is that Neale wants to replace "principle" with "description," as though the latter were less objectionable in science and metaphysics. There are no descriptions ~or~ principles "out there" in reality, only in our minds as we seek to identify and understand reality. It makes no more sense (less, actually) to speak metaphysically of the Description of Causality than it does to speak of the Principle or Law of Causality.

Also, if we content ourselves with descriptions, we are stopping at the Humean level of knowledge, with noting that certain patterns of action occur, but having no integrated understanding of the causes of those patterns or their relations to other things. Whether he realizes it or not, that is what Neale's approach would result in. It is very much in keeping with the Disintegrated (viz., D-1) approach that Peikoff discusses in his DIM lectures--and not at all with the I (Integrated) approach of Aristotle and Ayn Rand.

And to reiterate: it is perfectly legitimate and vital to keep using the terms "principle" and "law" when referring to our ~grasp~ of generally existing and occurring facts. You can keep from conflating facts and awareness simply by being careful, for instance, to use "Causality" when referring to the universally occurring relationship between entities and their actions--and "Law of Causality" when referring to our grasp of that relationship. But really, the context should do that for you, unless someone just wants to nitpick.

REB

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger,

I think we are on the same page.

Apropos (and this is another issue entirely), I tend not to use the DIM classifications and there is a reason. (The following is merely an example.) I would never limit the word "description" to just one definition, but accept the fact that it has several meanings—as given in any dictionary—and determine the meaning from the context. When a DIM kind of classification kicks in with certain people (and I do not mean you), they would look at your explanation, throw the word "description" in the sense we were discussing it under D-1 for a general meaning, and then start pretending that "description" means that and only that. This grows to other contexts until phrases become formed, like "a description is never an explanation," "a mere description means nothing," "a description is too D-1 to have much value," etc.

I do like the three general categories of DIM, though. I think they accurately describe states of entities (both individual ones and artificial or extended ones) and intellectual approaches toward them.

Apropos again (and this is even another issue), I have noticed some Objectivists have difficulty with certain causes or principles or whatever you want to call them when applied to human beings. The first that comes to mind is "species." They want to be individual so much that they cut the individual off from the human species. If we look at this from the view of DIMMERS, I suppose they could call this an D-1 error.

Michael

[Guyau]

Hello, Neale!

You remarked that it is an error to think “the Universe and everything in it, including the so-called Laws of Science, are ruled, governed by Laws or Principles which are somehow separate, prior or superior to natural processes.” Yes.

You suggested that “a simpler perspective is that all such Laws and Principles are the concepts formed by the minds of men as they grasp the processes and formulate explicit Definitions or Descriptions. This perspective seems to be in accordance with Rand's Epistemology with all of man's concepts based on direct perceptions of reality processes. All we need to do is change the name of the highest-level scientific concept from Law to Description. What do you think?”

I think we need to retain the distinction between the laws of nature attained in science from other true scientific descriptions of nature, and indeed, from other scientific descriptions of nature that are true generalizations. Here is an exhibit of some of the usefulness of retaining as distinct a class of truths that we call scientific laws of nature. This is a remark I made in the philosophy journal Objectivity.

I cannot agree . . . that statistical patterns, such as the Poisson distribution, are causal laws in the sense that Archimedes’ Principle or Mendel’s Laws are causal laws. Chance events, individually and collectively, are certainly real. They have identity. Part of their collective identity is their statistical pattern. Such patterns are generated by random sequences (or ensembles). An endless sequence of binary bits (generated, say, by coin flips) that cannot be contracted by any algorithm is random. In a random sequence of bits, there is no statistical correlation across the bits. Where there is no correlation across, there can be no algorithm across. A causal law of nature connecting one bit to others would give us an algorithm across the bits. No such algorithm implies no such causal law.

I concur with Rand’s metaphysical thesis that existence is identity, but the metaphysical law of identity does not imply that every pattern over collections is as such the result of some causal law, only that everything that is is something specific and particular. Patterns of randomness, such as the Poisson distribution, do not require a causal explanation (other than randomness, or absence of any specific causal law) any more than existence as a whole requires a causal explanation. (V2N5, 160–61)

Edited June 7, 2007 by Stephen Boydstun

[Guyau]

I would also like to share with readers and students here the entry for “Laws of Nature” in the Objectivity SUBJECT INDEX. I have not allowed the programmers to institute this index yet at the Objectivity Archive site, because this index is not yet finished. (It is about 80% complete, and this particular entry is probably complete for all twelve issues of the journal.) Meanwhile, scholars can print out the entry below, and use it for researching topics pertaining to Laws of Nature.

Laws of Nature V1N3 14, 29, 35, 39, 48, 86–87, 89–90, V1N4 15, 68, 70–71, 73–77, 79, V1N5 13–17, 82, 144–46, 157, V1N6 77–78, 181–83, V2N1 34–35, 40–43, 134, V2N2 33, 61, 65, 113, 117–20, 124, V2N5 18, 160, V2N6 132–41, 164–67, 169–71;

as Axioms V1N5 82–83, 87, 90–91, V1N6 181–83;

and Causality V1N3 9, 28–30, 39–40, V1N5 13–15, 74–75, 142–43, V2N1 44, 126–27, 134, V2N3 54–56, V2N5 21–24, 160–61, V2N6 165–66;

Frame-Invariance of V2N2 27, V2N3 62, V2N6 131–54, 158, 164–81;

and Generalization V1N2 13–14, 25, 38, 40–41, V1N3 4, 37–43, 64–65, V1N4 12–14, 15–16, V1N5 138, 141, V1N6 41–42, 65–66, 76, 78, V2N1 134, V2N2 33–34;

and Identity V1N3 25, V1N4 36, 73–77, V1N5 116–17, V2N4 187, V2N5 160–61, V2N6 184-85;

and Quantitative Characterization V1N1 27–28, V1N2 25–26, 28–30, V1N4 16, V1N5 14–17, 75–79, V1N6 70, 102, V2N1 32–41, V2N2 64, V2N4 105, V2N6 131–32, 166.

See also Hypothetical-Deductive Method; Explanation, Scientific; Induction; Relations, Essential; Relations, Physical; Possibility.

Edited June 7, 2007 by Stephen Boydstun

[James Heaps-Nelson]

~ Funny thing is, even Einstein believed in a 'Logos' as some kind of 'blind watchmaker' for the cosmos. He seems to have been a bit exceptional even in his 'reasons' for accepting the 'Watchmaker Argument.' Regardless that he sometimes referred to 'The Old Man', methinks he never bought into Abraham's 'god' (ie: a 'goal-directed' person-type of caretaker/parental-monitor); he saw merely a 'force' of some kind that, in effect, 'determined' (in some...subtle...way), just exactly how, in a Laplacian way, the whole cosmos, well, 'worked.' Yet, it was not the complicatedness of biology that he seemed ever concerned with; it was with the intelligence-appearance of the 'patterns' (as he saw things) in the non-biological, most-basic aspects of the cosmos he was attracted to finding out about.

2Bcont

LLAP

J:D

John D,

I think a lot of "religious experience" comes from the fact that the brain is an instrument of pattern recognition. The "Eureka" feeling is very powerful. There are also temporal lobe epilepsy and other distorting patterns in a significant fraction of the population that lead people to think they've had a religious experience.

Jim

[Aeaeae]

I've been reading some of the older posts I missed. I haven't seen the vid mentoned in the original post, due to my crappy dialup connection. What Roger Campbell has written is quite interesting.

Roger Campbell, post #19

What Dennett doesn't seem to have a clue about is the actual source of resistance to good evolutionary thinking among linguists, psychologists, and the like. He imagines that they have been dazzled by Stephen Jay Gould, when in fact the source of their confusions is not their conception of biological evolution, but rather their conception of knowledge. He should have been pointing the finger at those who imagine that knowledge is qualitatively different from everything else in the universe, "therefore" it could not have emerged from anything else. But this would entail pointing the finger at Noam Chomsky and his allies, not at Stephen Jay Gould.

I'll try to pick this up later on the other thread...

What are linguists and psychologists resisting about evolution? That their academic realm will be engulfed by evolutionary psychology?

Even if knowledge is qualitatively different from the rest of the universe, it would not mean it is exempt from evolutionary principles. After all, the first bacterium would be qualitatively different from the preceding non-bacteria-filled environment, yet it is subject to evolution.

The evidence is very strong that intelligence and behaviour are evolved. There is an increasing synergy between the neurosciences and computer science. It's very possible that research on say, learning rules of neural nets, will have a lot to say on the nature of knowledge in the epistemology of the future (if it would still be called epistemology then).

But perhaps this is better suited in the epistemology forum.

Where is the other thread?

An interesting take on this would be that the universe itself is evolved from mathematical randomness (Process Physics). That is, information theory, sufficiently advanced, would be sufficient to be a basis for a 'Theory of Everything', from which all the rest of physics follows... then chemistry... biology... Of course, Process Physics is very speculative at best right now.

If true, however, this would be the ultimate proof that there is no God, or at the very least, disprove that an intelligence is necessary to account for existence.

Regarding the immediate post above, by James Heaps-Nelson, I seem to remember that there was an experiment where stimulation of certain brain areas led to people having a "God" experience. Just imagine an EMP device that targets that particular part. BOOM! A weapon of mass conversion! :devil:

[Aeaeae]

And to add my own contribution to the ongoing "Plag-Hunt".

Pross, V., post #7

The main objection to the argument from design involving complexity is that many systems which display complex order and structure can, in fact, be explained as the end result of perfectly ordinary natural process. This does not, of course, prove that ALL ordered systems have arisen naturally, (as argued in the video) BUT it makes us cautious about the inferring the existence of a supernatural designer purely on the rather superficial grounds that something looks too complicated to have arisen by chance.

Davies, P.C.W., "God and the New Physics," Penguin: London, 1990, reprint (pp.165-166)

The main objection to the argument from design involving complexity is that many systems which display complex order and structure can, in fact, be explained as the end result of perfectly ordinary natural processes. This does not, of course, prove that all ordered systems have arisen naturally, but it makes us cautious about inferring the existence of a designer purely on the rather superficial grounds that something looks too complicated to have arisen by chance.

Does this mean the thread goes to the Garbage Pile? Or that only the Pross posts get deleted?

The main objection to the former would be the argument that only two Pross posts are on the thread, and there are no direct replies within the complex order and structure of the other members' posts. To which infers, of course, that the process of deleting merely the Pross posts would preserve the ordered thread that has arisen naturally. The superficial semblance of this paragraph to the ones above can be taken as grounds for something that looks too complicated to have arisen by chance.

This could become a popular pastime here, as an intellectual (albeit masochistic) exercise of sorts.

(Note from MSK: Thank you, Aeaeae. Duly edited.)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Does this mean the thread goes to the Garbage Pile? Or that only the Pross posts get deleted?

Thank you Aeaeae. Please have a go at it.

The post will be edited on my return. It is noted and in queue.

Only the most useless threads are now going to go in The Garbage Pile (like one I put there with no discussion). Kat figured out a better solution (the signature).

Michael

[william.scherk]

Anonymous† writes: What Roger Campbell has written is quite interesting.

Roger Campbell, post #19: I'll try to pick this up later on the other thread...

Anonymous: "What are linguists and psychologists resisting about evolution?"

Who know? I had hoped also that Robert Campbell might get back at this. He's pretty darn busy. I too have not a clue what the other thread is. Considering how freakingly easy it is to add context and references these days, I will add lazy-at-times to busy, but this is by no means directed solely at Robert, whom I respect.

A good starting off point is the professional list Evolutionary Psychology board (hosted by the brilliant Ian Pitchford)

Anonymous: Regarding the immediate post above, by James Heaps-Nelson, I seem to remember that there was an experiment where stimulation of certain brain areas led to people having a "God" experience. Just imagine an EMP device that targets that particular part. BOOM! A weapon of mass conversion!

John Horgan took a trip to Sudbury to strap the machine (stupidly dubbed "The God Machine") on his head. Search on the god machine trans cranial magnetic stimulation persinger . Horgan is a solipsist/crypto-mystical pretender pretending to be a skeptic, but he does deflate the pretensions of Persinger's popularizers (while misunderstanding Persinger and misunderstanding what 'research' means . . . see his book The End of Science, an excellent read if a shitty book, unlike Horgan's other solipsistic trawl through the mind, which was an excellent book, if a shitty read.

Anonymous: This could become a popular pastime here, as an intellectual (albeit masochistic) exercise of sorts.

Could become? Is, I would argue. The Argument from Ignorance is a constant in the O Online world. Some folk get all Randteous about it, but basically it boils down to: "I, me, me me me, I don't understand it, so it must be wrong/stupid/against Randogma and my emotional preferences and ignorant impressions" . . . &cetera randtcetera r&tcetera. Peikoff by no means pioneered this murky and fallacious y evasive stupidity, but he has perfected it. I mean, why give a reference. You have your frigging PhD, which establishes your scholarship. Once you have the ticket, you never have to give another citation again.

If the O Online world is a circus, audiences seem to prefer the main ring be reserved for 'this popular pastime.' I love it too, it is what makes being O veddy interesting, and puts the asshole back into Objectivism.

wss

+++++++++++++++

† -- Why is Anonymous anonymous? Not a clue.

Edited June 30, 2007 by william.scherk

[Robert Campbell]

WSS and Aeaeae,

I've been amassing PDFs of my journal articles so they can be quickly linked from here.

My 1998 essay review of Daniel Dennett's book Darwin's Dangerous Idea gets into the issue of anti-evolutionary implications from modern cognitive science. No one has to draw implications from Chomskyan linguistics; it is explicitly anti-evolutionary.

Here's the review:

http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/overlooked.pdf

I'll be posting links to other related articles over the next couple of weeks.

Robert Campbell

[BaalChatzaf]

WSS and Aeaeae,

I've been amassing PDFs of my journal articles so they can be quickly linked from here.

My 1998 essay review of Daniel Dennett's book Darwin's Dangerous Idea gets into the issue of anti-evolutionary implications from modern cognitive science. No one has to draw implications from Chomskyan linguistics; it is explicitly anti-evolutionary.

Here's the review:

http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/overlooked.pdf

I'll be posting links to other related articles over the next couple of weeks.

Robert Campbell

You made some very good observations. Sequences of nucleotides G, A, T, C are not just letters in some arcane alphabet. They are -causative- agents that make things happen in accord with physical laws. So the genetic sequences are not mere conventions to be parsed and decoded by conscious beings. They are pieces of The Machine. They are (in a manner of speaking) the cogs, gears, cams and dies of the biological processes.

That distinction is one of the problems with characterizing the genetic structures as a -code-. A code is first and foremost a convention. It is a construct. Its purpose is to transmit information volitionally formulated in a manner that makes reading it difficult. Or it is a way of compressing more verbose conventional sequences of signs. In any case, a code (strictly speakings) is an artifact. While a sequence of -codons- is a natural thing that arise from the deaf dumb and blind operations of nature.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Dragonfly]

You made some very good observations. Sequences of nucleotides G, A, T, C are not just letters in some arcane alphabet. They are -causative- agents that make things happen in accord with physical laws. So the genetic sequences are not mere conventions to be parsed and decoded by conscious beings. They are pieces of The Machine. They are (in a manner of speaking) the cogs, gears, cams and dies of the biological processes.

That distinction is one of the problems with characterizing the genetic structures as a -code-. A code is first and foremost a convention. It is a construct. Its purpose is to transmit information volitionally formulated in a manner that makes reading it difficult. Or it is a way of compressing more verbose conventional sequences of signs. In any case, a code (strictly speakings) is an artifact. While a sequence of -codons- is a natural thing that arise from the deaf dumb and blind operations of nature.

Of course the genetic code is a code. The essential characteristic of a code is not that it is man-made, but that it is a series of symbols and rules that can generate instructions to do something. It is not relevant whether that code is represented by electronic gates in a computer (the code for executing a computer program) or by sequences of organic molecules in the DNA of a living being (the code for building a living being). That the first one is designed with rather arbitrary rules and the second one has evolved automatically is not relevant to the essence of being a code. We have also designed lenses, sonar and jet propulsion, but we don't hesitate to use these terms also for similar systems that have evolved in living beings.

[BaalChatzaf]

That distinction is one of the problems with characterizing the genetic structures as a -code-. A code is first and foremost a convention. It is a construct. Its purpose is to transmit information volitionally formulated in a ms also for similar systems that have evolved in living beings.

The G, A, T, C are shorthand names for specific molecules (see any textbook on genetics). They are natural, they are not an artifacts and they are NOT a convention, as are the letters of a man-made language. They -ARE- the cross members of the DNA molecule and they do control the production of proteins and enzymes. Regarding them as a code is a particular way of understanding these natural things but it is NOT what they -are-. It is like saying atoms are the encoding of matter. Not so. Atoms are the natural -constituents- of matter. Atoms do not -spell out matter-. Atoms constitute matter.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited July 28, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[tjohnson]

The G, A, T, C are shorthand names for specific molecules (see any textbook on genetics). They are natural, they are not an artifacts and they are NOT a convention, as are the letters of a man-made language. They -ARE- the cross members of the DNA molecule and they do control the production of proteins and enzymes. Regarding them as a code is a particular way of understanding these natural things but it is NOT what they -are-. It is like saying atoms are the encoding of matter. Not so. Atoms are the natural -constituents- of matter. Atoms do not -spell out matter-. Atoms constitute matter.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Not so, Ba'al Chatzaf, ' G, A, T, C ' ARE merely 4 letters, you speak about what they represent, not what they ARE.

[Dragonfly]

The G, A, T, C are shorthand names for specific molecules (see any textbook on genetics). They are natural, they are not an artifacts and they are NOT a convention, as are the letters of a man-made language.

Irrelevant. The essence of a code is NOT that it is a man-made convention.

They -ARE- the cross members of the DNA molecule and they do control the production of proteins and enzymes. Regarding them as a code is a particular way of understanding these natural things but it is NOT what they -are-. It is like saying atoms are the encoding of matter. Not so. Atoms are the natural -constituents- of matter. Atoms do not -spell out matter-. Atoms constitute matter.

A code is not some material thing, the logic gate of a computer isn't a code either, it is the specific abstract structure of all those gates together that can be described as a code for generating specific actions. Atoms in themselves do not constitute a code. For the genetic code the situation is quite different, however. The nucleotides in the DNA are read sequentially, just like the bits of a computer program on disk or on tape are read sequentially, generating specific amino acids (in computer terms: the bits and bytes are interpreted as low level instructions), which combine to polypeptides and proteins, which ultimately in a series of complex interactions form the body of the living being. This is exactly what a code means, it is a series of instructions, which at the lowest level (like the bit level in the computer version) can be described by a series of symbols like G, A, T and C. A certain combination of these letters (which in the hardware is realized by the corresponding sequence of nucleotides) can stand for a particular feature of the animal (the coding is often more complex than a simple correlation between a given sequence and some feature of the phenotype, but that is equally true, mutatis mutandis, for the code of a computer program). Like the computer code, the code in the genome can contain errors or can be misread (reading starting at the wrong place for example). There is nothing like this for atoms that just constitute matter, there is no code read from the atoms, or it would be the trivial code in which the codon forms the "phenotype" itself, so the comparison with atoms doesn't hold.

[BaalChatzaf]

starting at the wrong place for example). There is nothing like this for atoms that just constitute matter, there is no code read from the atoms, or it would be the trivial code in which the codon forms the "phenotype" itself, so the comparison with atoms doesn't hold.

A code implies an encoder. Who encoded the genetic material? You are reifying an analogy. Shame on you!

And what do the "letters" of the genetic "code" consist of? Atoms. Yup.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Dragonfly]

A code implies an encoder. Who encoded the genetic material? You are reifying an analogy. Shame on you!

Come on, now you're repeating the tired creationist argument of Paley's watch. Just as there is a blind watchmaker, there is also a blind encoder.

And what do the "letters" of the genetic "code" consist of? Atoms. Yup.

Nope. The letters don't consist of anything. They represent very specific molecules (nucleotides).

[BaalChatzaf]

A code implies an encoder. Who encoded the genetic material? You are reifying an analogy. Shame on you!

Come on, now you're repeating the tired creationist argument of Paley's watch. Just as there is a blind watchmaker, there is also a blind encoder.

And what do the "letters" of the genetic "code" consist of? Atoms. Yup.

Nope. The letters don't consist of anything. They represent very specific molecules (nucleotides).

Which consist of atoms, yes? The molecules are natural. They existed long before Man appeared on the Earth. Alphabetic letters are man-made artifacts. Geneticists -regard- the sequence of nucleotides as an encoding. That is now they understand their function. In short, regarding nucleotides is part of a -model-. Nature produces the Real Thing. Nature does not care what the geneticists think.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Dragonfly]

Which consist of atoms, yes?

Not relevant. The basic unit for the coding is the nucleotide, not the atom.

The molecules are natural. They existed long before Man appeared on the Earth. Alphabetic letters are man-made artifacts. Geneticists -regard- the sequence of nucleotides as an encoding. That is now they understand their function. In short, regarding nucleotides is part of a -model-. Nature produces the Real Thing. Nature does not care what the geneticists think.

So what? F = dp/dt is also made of those man-made artifacts, letters. It is also part of a model. Is it therefore invalid? Does Nature care what physicists think? Models are the only way we can talk about the world, whether it is about momentum or about a gene. The genetic code looks like a code, it smells like a code and it quacks like a code; conclusion: it is a code. There is no divine law that states that only a man-made code is a code, give Mother Nature her due. If we can talk about momenta and forces in nature, we can also talk about genetic codes in nature. They are all part of human-made models.

[BaalChatzaf]

So what? F = dp/dt is also made of those man-made artifacts, letters. It is also part of a model. Is it therefore invalid?

It is part of a valid -model- of matter and motion. A theory is not the Real Thing. The description of the Thing is NOT the Thing described. The Map is NOT the territory that it describes and models. One should not reify artifacts. It leads to confusion and brain rot. Alphabets are man-made. The G, A, T, C molecules are natural objects that existed long before we did. They will still be here long after we are gone.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited August 3, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Dragonfly]

It is part of a valid -model- of matter and motion. A theory is not the Real Thing. The description of the Thing is NOT the Thing described. The Map is NOT the territory that it describes and models. One should not reify artifacts. It leads to confusion and brain rot. Alphabets are man-made. The G, A, T, C molecules are natural objects that existed long before we did. They will still be here long after we are gone.

A theory is the only meaningful way we can talk about the "Real Thing". The rest is religion (with capitals and all). The genetic code may have been here much longer than we are; it's still a perfect example of a code (which doesn't depend on a particular alphabet to represent it). It has for example also been the code for constructing dinosaurs, even if these didn't have an alphabet.

[BaalChatzaf]

It is part of a valid -model- of matter and motion. A theory is not the Real Thing. The description of the Thing is NOT the Thing described. The Map is NOT the territory that it describes and models. One should not reify artifacts. It leads to confusion and brain rot. Alphabets are man-made. The G, A, T, C molecules are natural objects that existed long before we did. They will still be here long after we are gone.

A theory is the only meaningful way we can talk about the "Real Thing". The rest is religion (with capitals and all). The genetic code may have been here much longer than we are; it's still a perfect example of a code (which doesn't depend on a particular alphabet to represent it). It has for example also been the code for constructing dinosaurs, even if these didn't have an alphabet.

And having a map may be the best way of getting around. But the Map is NOT the Territory.

An alphabet is a symbolic system for composing objects that convey information or represent sounds. It is an Artifact. Strictly man-made. Without men there would be no alphabets of -any kind- genetic or otherwise. The code aspects of codons are artifacts which help us to understand the natural molecules involved in genetic inheritance. Theories come and theories go. But Reality will always be there.

Ba'al Chatzaf