Repression/Emotionalism

[BaalChatzaf]

On 12/7/2016 at 1:53 AM, anthony said:

Well, thank you. But you've skipped the point, which is I think you make too much of it. One always has the choice to think otherwise, a different way. And so far little of what I've said has touched on emotional relations to other people.

Look, we all play to our strengths, is that not so? Which means we all tend to avoid our weaknesses. If you sense a lack in yourself in one area, it's understandable that you'll always resist going there.  If early you're considered (rightly, wrongly) a "people person" for example, that's where you tend to go interest-wise, career wise, and so on. If you've had an aptitude to draw well and you've always been called "artistic", no surprise that you will be motivated to pursue art. For sciences, and the science-minded especially also. All these preconceptions and influences ~may~ be self-limiting (particularly if one relies heavily on others' judgments of one) equally as much as finding out one has ADD or AS and is not "normal". Whatever "normal" is believed to mean. Useful to know, as it helps explain differences of approach or manner from other people, but ultimately so what? Does it define who you are? and, should you let it?

In attempting to clarify emotions, there are systems of thought I've been focusing on, empiricism-skepticism for one. Objectivity, plainly another. One's "system" is ultimately one's own to choose and (most essentially) to continually put to practice, it's not "given".

Branden: man is self-programable. (Rand: A volitional consciousness). (For myself, and although religion never took much hold, I had a strong need for some undogmatic method and morality to replace god and all that). What I'm getting at, is one doesn't have to take one's pre-eminent talent/ability - or shortcoming - and concentrate only on that at the loss of a fuller experience of living. That's largely what I see in the late 20thC drive to 'specialization': self-limitation (and allowing others to delimit you, which is almost as bad). And those 'splits' and compartmentalizing that have accompanied it. Normal - abnormal. Logical - artistic. Mind - emotion. IQ - EQ. And so on. There's a fatalistic and determinist fallacy in here.

The "implicit" you mention. It is significant, but is secondary. I often think the great task of philosophy is to make explicit what is implicit so that nothing escapes "between the lines". Introspection 'only' requires practise and confidence, and the connectivity from reality to thought to emotion to action becomes gradually clearer. Picking up "signals" from others is good and matters somewhat, and can be improved by teaching oneself to be more observant, but it's not everything. (After all, it's only the few or several chosen individuals we have intimate understanding with in our lives that really count, not the world of people). We primarily deal, 'head to head', with reality, and what's real and apparent.

What each person can and should review and gain power over is HOW to think - which method you choose - and I suggest once more that while empiricism is superb as scientific method, as a philosophy eliminating or down-playing the conceptual consciousness, it bears no relation to the reality of what one is as human and rational. 

 

My choices are bounded by the way my brain operates.  So are your choices.  We are all physical biological entities and we operate according to the way our parts and structure dictate. 

[jts]

58 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

If other forces are acting on the hammer it might not fall the way you expected.  

I know very well other forces can act on the hammer. That should be understood without being stated. The question is how can I be sure that next time gravity won't make the hammer fall up?

 

[jts]

2 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

The same way you should.  By Bayesian Analysis.  Bayesian Inference is the logic of induction.  

I doubt I ever in my life made a decision based on bayesian. Maybe that's the way aspies make decisions in the face of uncertainty. That's not the way I make decisions in the face of uncertainty, with few or no exceptions.

 

[BaalChatzaf]

2 hours ago, jts said:

I doubt I ever in my life made a decision based on bayesian. Maybe that's the way aspies make decisions in the face of uncertainty. That's not the way I make decisions in the face of uncertainty, with few or no exceptions.

 

Have you ever revised your  expectations or probability estimates based on evidence  received after your initial estimate?  Do you know  what Bayes Theorem is?   

[jts]

10 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Have you ever revised your  expectations or probability estimates based on evidence  received after your initial estimate?  Do you know  what Bayes Theorem is?   

I seldom or never make probability estimates. I tend to think causes (or cause factors) instead of probability.

One example where I revised my probability estimate might be with my spinal cord tumor that cripples me neck down. Ever since diagnosis by MRI in April, 2006 and the talk with the surgeon who didn't want to do the surgery because it was too dangerous, I've been trying to beat it by anti-tumor diet and fasting. After 10 years of nothing happening to the spinal cord tumor, I was not particularly inspired. But recently I experienced the first sign of improvement. Now I think I can (with the necessary effort) beat the spinal cord tumor.

I looked up bayesian on Google. It's about probability.

 

[anthony]

8 hours ago, jts said:

I seldom or never make probability estimates. I tend to think causes (or cause factors) instead of probability.

One example where I revised my probability estimate might be with my spinal cord tumor that cripples me neck down. Ever since diagnosis by MRI in April, 2006 and the talk with the surgeon who didn't want to do the surgery because it was too dangerous, I've been trying to beat it by anti-tumor diet and fasting. After 10 years of nothing happening to the spinal cord tumor, I was not particularly inspired. But recently I experienced the first sign of improvement. Now I think I can (with the necessary effort) beat the spinal cord tumor.

I looked up bayesian on Google. It's about probability.

 

I think you have the nub of it, jts. 'Probability' (which I equate with 'predictability') of outcome. Could it be as simple as that? that science has turned away from causality ( identity and identification) to its pale step-child, probability? Spare a thought for the modern scientist and empiricist. He's called upon now - as priests were traditionally - to make predictions accurate to xyz decimal places in order to satisfy all those once-religionists' need of the guarantee of a safe (and 'meaningful') world.

[william.scherk]

12 hours ago, BC said:

revised ... expectations or probability estimates based on evidence  received after ... initial estimate?

Revised expectations -- leads to a revised mental model of the future.  Certainly.  Simple, homely examples are found in ordinary life.  Whether or not one calculates the odds (outcomes) formally or not.  I go to the store, expecting mangos.  No mangos. I ask when they are expecting more. They say it depends on the number of jumping-spiders found in landed boxes of mangos.  I don't go back to the store the next day, expecting mangos.  I haven't exactly sat down and used Bayesian analysis with a formula. I did discover a small report that border and port authorities had seized a new shipment of mangos with jumping spiders, so I am not expecting any mangos this week at all.

If the store had said, "pretty soon, come back tomorrow,"  I would have revised my expectations.

Like when I bought a Pony.  Did I know that the Pony could burst into flames when rear-ended?  Not when I bought it. And I didn't just dump it on the used-car market once I read the first story of fire and explosion. I waited for a better estimate of my car's tendencies. Once that came in, I traded the Pony for a Pacer.

4 hours ago, JTS said:

I seldom or never make probability estimates. I tend to think causes (or cause factors) instead of probability. [...] 

Sure, and that is what is at the heart of Bayesian analysis, even informally.  That there are factors at play to cause future situations.

Doing nothing (as your doctor told you was the only surgical option) cannot get in between the cause and the effect. Knowing what 'caused' the tumour or suspecting what caused the tumour, you can experiment with yourself.  For each new 'experiment,' you can adjust your expectations.  Knowing which added factors might cause shrinkage of the tumour is a Bayesian enterprise in underlying personal logic. New information comes in, new calculations are made.

I have a lot of sympathy for you with your tumour, Jerry. Getting at causal factors is not easy work.   If I had been told I had a spinal cord tumour, I would first hear Tumour and hear Malignant Tumour.  I would change my life-enjoyment expectations depending on further particulars. What kind of tumour is it?  What is the 'probable' prognosis? What are the expectationss of 'medical science'?  How do I fit in the clinical  picture?

I'd think that future scenarios of my health and well-being are related to ongoing experiment with my own body processes.

Though Bob may not have given a perfect explanation of Bayesian 'thinking,'  it is to me quite probable that each of us will recall using its informal kin:  changing estimation and expectation in light of later information. 

4 hours ago, JTS said:

I looked up bayesian on Google. It's about probability.

It is.   And what makes it neat is that each of us makes estimates of 'probable'  by our own lights.  Updating expectations is what we do during reasoning. When we make personal distinctions between 'likely' and 'unlikely,'  when we make value estimates, when we plan for the immediate and long-term future.  If we weren't ready to make changes in our expectations when new information becomes available, we would be lesser primates, and not celebrating the life of astronauts and the achievements of astrophysics.

4 hours ago, TG said:

'Probability' (which I equate with 'predictability') of outcome. Could it be as simple as that?

On first glance, of course it is that simple.

The concept of probability will come into play when making predictions.  One can make a very firm prediction that doesn't depend on any calculations at all (except perhaps by subconscious 'sums'). The way you see predictability of outcome -- in ability to assess the likelihood of a future event -- it becomes apparent that the more reliable information you have in pocket, the better your forecast will be, all things considered. This doesn't mean that you cannot make confident predictions, hold firm expectations, just that the 'calculation'  is important to a more-or-less correct prediction.

"All things considered" rendered into Randian means all 'reliable,' fruit-of-reason things:  evidence, as Bob puts it. New items of evidence, new revisions of prediction.  

Quote

Could it be as simple as that? that science has turned away from causality ( identity and identification) to its pale step-child, probability?

It sure makes rhetorical sense.  

Of course equivocation on the term 'science' allows any rhetorical gloss.  Not 'science as astrophysics,' not 'science as atmospheric physics,' not 'science of chance' ... but science as pale half-breed, science-on-big-canvas, riddled with error, riddled with a false-friend concept of probability.  As if Lady Science had stumbled down a lane where only Bayesian statistical wizardry was given pride of place, where she has been mugged.

But no, few things are as simple as that.  Reductionism and determinism could make of Bayesian thinking a central and feeble attempt to avoid predictions.   Down with imprecise precision. Up with revision. Down with revision. Down with assessing probability. Up with using reason to predict events. 

Or, for Judith Curry fans:  the Uncertainty Monster.

Quote

Spare a thought for the modern scientist and empiricist. He's called upon now - as priests once were - to make predictions accurate to xyz decimal points in order to satisfy all those once-mystics' need of the guarantee of a safe (and 'meaningful') world.

You are kind of using slag terms, slur terms, Tony.   "The Modern Scientist" does not exist but on an abstract plane.  "The Modern Empiricist" is also decoupled from the world of individual beings and their minds-in-action.  Let us compare that "Modern Scientist" to something better. Let's give him or her a name and an identity. Let's call him Feng Zhang.  Let's say Zhang is a pioneer in developing today's revolutionary CRISPR technology.

What kind of predictions, probability theory, individual estimations and imagined futures are Empiricist (in its 'bad' sense) or non-mystic? 

Accurate predictions are possible, if not probable, but it depends on the prediction's zone, purpose and its use.  Zhang made a predictive 'bet' against the house, so to speak. He predicted he would unlock the potential of RNA and gene-editing within a living cell.  And he made the improbable a reality.  

What point of prediction==probability to him and his work, Tony?  Is he treated as a Priest, called upon to utter fiendishly-precise numbers -- and does his 'answer' to the knowledge-seeking "parish" contain a precise prediction of a safe world?  Or, to put it into simple terms, did he use Bayesian thinking at any point in the labours of his lab?

I bring this back to repressive and emotional.  Does 'The Modern Scientist' fit into one of these slots?  Does the One True Empiricist Scotsman fallacy lead to repressing (forcing from conscious awareness) emotion in favour of numbers, mere numbers, mere percentages?  Empiricism sure seems to have a lot to answer for ...

Edited December 9, 2016 by william.scherk
Empiricism sure seems to have a lot to answer for ...

[BaalChatzaf]

10 hours ago, jts said:

I seldom or never make probability estimates. I tend to think causes (or cause factors) instead of probability.

One example where I revised my probability estimate might be with my spinal cord tumor that cripples me neck down. Ever since diagnosis by MRI in April, 2006 and the talk with the surgeon who didn't want to do the surgery because it was too dangerous, I've been trying to beat it by anti-tumor diet and fasting. After 10 years of nothing happening to the spinal cord tumor, I was not particularly inspired. But recently I experienced the first sign of improvement. Now I think I can (with the necessary effort) beat the spinal cord tumor.

I looked up bayesian on Google. It's about probability.

 

You only think you don't make probabilistic estimates.  But  you and I do every time we act on incomplete knowledge of a situation.  Also estimates of what is  important and what is negligible are implicit probability estimates.  

[jts]

Perhaps I should clarify the deal with my spinal cord tumor. The doctors offered me nothing. Surgery was discussed but not done, too dangerous according to the surgeon. I repeat, the doctors offered me nothing. I became my own doctor. I was not following their advice. They offered no advice. I mentioned autolysis in a phone conversation with the doctor who diagnosed the tumor by MRI. She said and I quote: "I disagree and I'm a doctor." Right then and there I knew 2 things about her: ignorant and arrogant.

So far as I had an expectation, it was that if I did it right I almost certainly would succeed. And if I did not succeed, it would almost certainly be because I did not do it right. The ideal way would be to do a long fast under qualified supervision, but that was not an option for me. From the start I strongly suspected I would need to do a long fast (at least 40 days) and maybe more than one. With few or no exceptions, fasting doctors say don't go more than 3 or 5 or so days without supervision. So I did a series of short fasts (typically 6-8 days) hoping that they would have the same effect as a long fast or at least accomplish something. I learned since that a series of short fasts is not likely to equal a long fast. My diet was about avoiding pro-tumor things and doing anti-tumor things. In 2012, I did a 22 day fast. By this time my body seemed to be adapted to fasting and I lost much of my fear of a long fast and I came off all the fasts well and I started to have confidence that I didn't need supervision even for a long fast. But for some reason, I didn't feel like fasting for a long time after the 22 day fast; I don't know how much of this was physiological and how much psychological. This usually happened to me after a fast. Perhaps the body wants to rebuild the reserve of nutrients or whatever. I was somewhat disappointed that the 22 day fast didn't result in a change in the tumor, even tho it was a good fast. I noticed that I was sensitive to things, a sign that my body now had little tolerance for poisons. Recently I did a 15 day fast, intending to go at least longer than 22 days. But I collapsed on the 15th day because I was cold during the fast (poor heating here). To my surprise, the first sign of improvement. And another surprise, I improved again after the fast. (Shelton wrote that sometimes a process that begins during a fast will continue after the fast.) Maybe the next fast will finish the job, if it's done right. I am now sufficiently accustomed to fasting that it's almost an enjoyable experience if I am the right temperature.

 

[anthony]

19 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

If other forces are acting on the hammer it might not fall the way you expected.  

The same way you should.  By Bayesian Analysis.  Bayesian Inference is the logic of induction.  

Illogic. Ludicrous non-reality. When and if objects do ever fall 'upwards' - say - there will be nobody to witness it. Because that event presupposes that gravity will have failed and in the earlier instant the Earth will have perished in a cataclysm of one cause or another. The anti-certainty brigade enjoy posing probabilities of apocalypses - e.g. - of the Sun not rising tomorrow. So? One day it won't (100% actuality) since it will have exploded (there will be no one alive to view the final sunrise). Until then, 100% "probabilty" it will continue to rise. I guess Bayesian stuff is good enough for actuarial tables and whatnot, from brief reading it's all about the science of stats.It is (as I kinda see it) 'empirical induction', not conceptual induction. (Bob: having knowledge of uncertainty is not having uncertainty of knowledge).

[william.scherk]

Thanks for the clarification, Jerry.  Medical science gave up on you, and you gave up on medical science. If you had tried to pick the most awful condition, you couldn't have found a worse one than a slow-growing spinal cord tumor. Nobody knows exactly how they arise, and the "I am sorry, but you have no medical options" is the grim prognosis for some patients. That will sound cruel no matter what mouth it came from. No cutting, no poisons, no radioactive or laser beam, nothing of that kind on the menu. I would feel defeated and I would certainly experiment with diet-based and fasting-based attempts to engineer a 'cure' not otherwise offered --  if I believed they could possible help.

So, it has been some seven years since you found out the tumour is responsible for the symptoms, and that no surgical operation was safe or effective enough to be gambled with at that time.  Cruel indeed. What also seems cruel is that you haven't been able to access a supervised fast.  It makes me want to crowdsource you a couple of months with Loren Lockwood or the other guy.

On last cruel thing I might bear in mind ... that the onus was always on me. If fasting did not appreciably improve my disabilities, then it was my fault, I did the fast wrong.  If the effect of fasting is true, I must be the one doing it incorrectly.  The fact that I developed a tumour is another bit of evidence that I did something wrong already.  Heads I lose, tails the fasting hypothesis wins.

You have given me a fresh bit of carpet to chew over. At least as autolysis of non-cancerous masses is concerned. You can't be the only person on earth with faith in Shelton and a particular spinal case that doesn't yet respond after seven years of trying.  You can't be alone in this experiment.

Key words:  spinal-cord surgery non-cancerous tumour, dura, dangers, prognosis, etiology, palliation (this page has 'em all)

[jts]

The tumor diagnosis was in 2006, ten years ago. The foot tumor vanished in 2009, right idea, wrong tumor. The ALS diagnosis was in 2000; then they changed it in 2006. I was almost disappointed when they changed the diagnosis because I didn't know what to do with what I had learned about ALS. They say the cause of ALS is unknown, but ALS can be produced in laboratory animals at will. I asked a neurologist a few questions and it was obvious he didn't know anything. Then I lectured him. It wasn't a pretty sight. He should have been lecturing me. Much to my surprise he listened to me. I learned from another doctor that he was impressed by my knowledge. I had some hope of beating ALS even tho that is supposed to be not possible. Then they changed the diagnosis. Goddammit!

I don't look upon medicine as a science but a profession that may or may not use science.

I am perfectly okay supervising my own fasts. I can't leave my place anyway. I have no fear of the tumor. Judging by symptoms, it stopped growing a long time ago; but the thing to do is make the same thing happen to it as what happened to the foot tumor and I figure I can do that. Getting rid of the spinal cord tumor is going to be fun. But probably not in winter because it's too cold.

I don't have faith in Shelton. I don't have faith. It is common for non-cancer tumors to autolyze during a long enough fast no matter who the doctor is. Fact, not faith.

If I don't succeed, I didn't do it right. I see that in a positive way. Do it better and succeed. The real problem would be if I did it right and did not succeed.

 

[BaalChatzaf]

6 hours ago, anthony said:

Illogic. Ludicrous non-reality. When and if objects do ever fall 'upwards' - say - there will be nobody to witness it. Because that event presupposes that gravity will have failed and in the earlier instant the Earth will have perished in a cataclysm of one cause or another. The anti-certainty brigade enjoy posing probabilities of apocalypses - e.g. - of the Sun not rising tomorrow. So? One day it won't (100% actuality) since it will have exploded (there will be no one alive to view the final sunrise). Until then, 100% "probabilty" it will continue to rise. I guess Bayesian stuff is good enough for actuarial tables and whatnot, from brief reading it's all about the science of stats.It is (as I kinda see it) 'empirical induction', not conceptual induction. (Bob: having knowledge of uncertainty is not having uncertainty of knowledge).

Helium filled balloons "fail" upward.  In an orbiting vehicle  hammers don't fall at all (relative to the interior of the vehicle).  Mag Lev trains  do not fall onto the roadbed because magnetic forces hold them up.   Steel hammers do not fall if there is a powerful enough magnet  pulling them up.   I have given several examples of things moving away from the center of mass of the earth.  

Bayes Statistics is used when there is little data and no established frequency of occurrence.  As new data is acquired the probabilities are updated. 

[anthony]

7 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Helium filled balloons "fail" upward.  In an orbiting vehicle  hammers don't fall at all (relative to the interior of the vehicle).  Mag Lev trains  do not fall onto the roadbed because magnetic forces hold them up.   Steel hammers do not fall if there is a powerful enough magnet  pulling them up.   I have given several examples of things moving away from the center of mass of the earth.  

 

Those are deductively-derived statements. I feel you're mixing up deduction with induction. Imagine you are in orbit but haven't the slightest clue (just say) about gravity-lack in space, but you observe a hammer "floating". Ah - you will induce - my body, my space capsule - and everything - are all also weightless up here. You have inferred the general from a particular instance. Conversely, if you already know the property of magnetism (or gravity or helium) a priori, you are able to "deduce", anticipate or predict, that a hammer can be suspended within a magnetic field if strong enough (or it will be weightless in space, or a helium filled balloon will rise) and so you've inferred the particular from the general principle/concept.

[Brant Gaede]

9 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Helium filled balloons "fail" upward.  In an orbiting vehicle  hammers don't fall at all (relative to the interior of the vehicle).  Mag Lev trains  do not fall onto the roadbed because magnetic forces hold them up.   Steel hammers do not fall if there is a powerful enough magnet  pulling them up.   I have given several examples of things moving away from the center of mass of the earth.  

Bayes Statistics is used when there is little data and no established frequency of occurrence.  As new data is acquired the probabilities are updated. 

For how long do they so move?

An orbiting vehicle has not escaped earth's gravity and will tend to return to earth eventually.

The moon orbits the earth and is moving away slowly, but won't it reach a point where that will reverse?

What pulls the magnet up that pulls up the hammer?

If I jump up aren't I moving away from earth's center mass?

--Brant

no commentary from me on "Bayes Statistics," but sounds interesting

[Brant Gaede]

On 12/9/2016 at 2:17 AM, jts said:

I seldom or never make probability estimates. I tend to think causes (or cause factors) instead of probability.

One example where I revised my probability estimate might be with my spinal cord tumor that cripples me neck down. Ever since diagnosis by MRI in April, 2006 and the talk with the surgeon who didn't want to do the surgery because it was too dangerous, I've been trying to beat it by anti-tumor diet and fasting. After 10 years of nothing happening to the spinal cord tumor, I was not particularly inspired. But recently I experienced the first sign of improvement. Now I think I can (with the necessary effort) beat the spinal cord tumor.

I looked up bayesian on Google. It's about probability.

Good surgeon. Your doctors left you to yourself instead of doing pretend medicine and giving you any false hope.

It surely sounds as if your spinal cord tumor is non-cancerous. I see cancer dealt with by surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and (long) fasting. Isn't there a new technique using a "gamma knife" that could be used on a non-cancerous tumor? I know someone who had it done on cancer located in the neck. They strapped him down for two hours while the surgeon programmed the machine then the machine did all the work in a few seconds. He walked out of there soon after.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

6 hours ago, anthony said:

Those are deductively-derived statements. I feel you're mixing up deduction with induction. Imagine you are in orbit but haven't the slightest clue (just say) about gravity-lack in space, but you observe a hammer "floating". Ah - you will induce - my body, my space capsule - and everything - are all also weightless up here. You have inferred the general from a particular instance. Conversely, if you already know the property of magnetism (or gravity or helium) a priori, you are able to "deduce", anticipate or predict, that a hammer can be suspended within a magnetic field if strong enough (or it will be weightless in space, or a helium filled balloon will rise) and so you've inferred the particular from the general principle/concept.

I gave counter examples to your general assertion. 

I know the difference between induction (of the empirical sort)  and deduction.  

And inferring the particular from the general is valid reasoning.   Inferring t he general from a finite set of particulars   is classic empirical induction.   I have seen a zillion white swans therefore all swans are white.   Widely believed until black swans were discovered in Australia.  

All it takes is one pesky counter example to refute a general (universally quantified) proposition.     Ea(~Pa)  ==  ~(x)P(x)

[anthony]

2 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

 I have seen a zillion white swans therefore all swans are white.   Widely believed until black swans were discovered in Australia.  

All it takes is one pesky counter example to refute a general (universally quantified) proposition.     Ea(~Pa)  ==  ~(x)P(x)

And you believe that!? Have you ever personally SEEN a "black" swan? I lay a bet you've not. Then how do you know?

You have seen a photo ... right? Which everyone's seen. Except, you know how those Aussies are - clearly they dummied up a white swan caught in an oil slick just to catch the gullible. It's a conspiracy.

[anthony]

6 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

...induction (of the empirical sort)...  

 

I'm very glad you make the distinction. I mean that.

Induction of the objective "sort" needs to be dynamic, fluid and organic, I think, constantly perceiving, integrating, growing, re-checking and adjusting as it goes.

Empiricists/ scientists/ academics by their nature consider posterity (not to forget: Publish or Perish!) so endeavor to be "right" for future times and a majority of students and they will tend to be static, hidebound and suspicious of induction-- all the more when they (the empiricists) skeptically undermine men's concepts and their own.

Not that the objective mind is any less stringent, but it's of the individual - and the individual has to primarily aim for "versimilitude" selfishly for his benefit, given his limited life time. Induction/deduction and concept forming is actually how man's minds work. It is not just "a theory".

[BaalChatzaf]

3 hours ago, anthony said:

And you believe that!? Have you ever personally SEEN a "black" swan? I lay a bet you've not. Then how do you know?

You have seen a photo ... right? Which everyone's seen. Except, you know how those Aussies are - clearly they dummied up a white swan caught in an oil slick just to catch the gullible. It's a conspiracy.

I have seen photos of black swans taken in the wild (not in captivity).  I know some people who have seen black swans alive and whole.  I will take their word for it.

A zillion instances does not make a general truth.

 

[william.scherk]

42 minutes ago, anthony said:

Empiricists/ scientists/ academics by their nature consider posterity (not to forget: Publish or Perish!) so endeavor to be "right" for future times and a majority of students and they will tend to be static and suspicious of induction-- all the more when they (the empiricists) skeptically undermine men's minds and their own.

Name one.  Name one currently publishing /whosis/ who tends 'static and suspicious of induction.'  Or name two, or name the labs or fields they work in, since it seems like there are a lot of them. 

What you describe as a lovely dynamic objectivism couldn't be similar to the sturm und drang methodology of any named science or scientist-researcher, could it?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Feng Zhang.  Not only skeptically undermining men's minds (and their womenfolk's) but his very own. In public, so to speak, exposed to the market, even. Wanting to fix in time some empirical finding (hah) for all future times and learners. And their little dog and students too.  CRISPR banged in aspic. 

No, no, I give you the scientist who evaded empirical scrutiny of her blood-test tech.  Did she publish? Prospectuses, oh yeah.  The holy grail of cheap-ass pin-prick blood analysis.  Aspic.  Fudge. What is the name of that company. Empirica? Fauxranos? Bullshetizon?

Seriously, Tony, give a name or ID badge to some of these awful counter-rational people slash cohort.  

Slushing together vague nomenclature doesn't do a job. "Empiricist slash scientists slash academics" doesn't describe. It is a label of convenience. It aches for an underlying example -- without which it is just a sticker.

If you have animosity against some actors or currents of scientific inquiry in re philosophy, fair enough. But what if I asked you in conversation to help me visualize or instantiate the slash slash phrase -- would you resist the question?  Would I be able with your help to figure out who you are talking about, and how wide the generalization net is cast?  Would I find a person or persons under the label?

 

Let a hundred flowers bloom. Just make sure they all came from the Ayn Rand rootstock.  Amirite?

[BaalChatzaf]

5 hours ago, anthony said:

And you believe that!? Have you ever personally SEEN a "black" swan? I lay a bet you've not. Then how do you know?

You have seen a photo ... right? Which everyone's seen. Except, you know how those Aussies are - clearly they dummied up a white swan caught in an oil slick just to catch the gullible. It's a conspiracy.

There are also  black swans living in New Zealand  and a few have wandered as far as New Guinea.  

[anthony]

1 hour ago, william.scherk said:

Name one.  Name one currently publishing /whosis/ who tends 'static and suspicious of induction.'  Or name two, or ...

 

Let a hundred flowers bloom. Just make sure they all came from the Ayn Rand rootstock.  Amirite?

Seriously. Induction, as Bob has noticed and was gracious enough to imply, differs by degree (and type, I'm beginning to think) from the empirical methodology and the philosophy of Empiricism, to objective epistemology--where it is hugely central to concept formation i.e. "reason". There's a mode of thinking for scientists and then there's thinking for ordinary Joes like me, it seems. I didn't create the distinction, it is a false distinction from the "Philosophers of Science" and I think the gap is widening. "Name one"? I admit, it was by inductive means from many sources that I inferred "many". Is that cheating? Every thinker who has been influenced to this day by David Hume and others. Look into him, read him up. And any others who came to empiricism independently.

When I hit a nerve, I hear the scream. ;)

(And if you think I am one to blindly take Rand's word without thinking it and living it through, you're not as perceptive as I thought).

[anthony]

2 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

 

A zillion instances does not make a general truth.

 

I can't see what the fuss is about.

I got it! Not all swans are white!

When the object of the exercise is one's conceptual knowledge (not Immaculate knowledge for the Ages), when new knowledge comes in one ~could~ simply open a sub-category under "swan"-- "black swan". Why over load your concepts though? "Swan" says it all and includes the whole species. To say again - of course - all one's inductive input has to be reviewed and re-integrated continuously. But how much time does one get? If one can achieve it, 90%(say) probability is not bad going for one life.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here is something on emotional repression out of the blue.

Ayn Rand always gushed over a playwright named Terence Rattigan. 

I always thought playwright meant playwright only, so I never looked for Rattigan's works (I kept putting it off for some undefined later when I would do a deep dive in the theater again). Recently a friend posted a video bio of Rattigan and I saw it. I also saw he was a famous Hollywood screenwriter right around the time Rand was. Undoubtedly she knew him. This is probably in her bios, but if so, it never jumped out at me. A name is a name is a name until it has something attached to it in one's mind.

Anyway, Rattigan wrote a work whose theme is emotional repression, The Browning Version. I just saw it a couple of days ago (and one other work by him, The Deep Blue Sea). Now I am a duly official Terence Rattigan fan. Seriously, this guy rocks and he does some mighty fine storytelling. 

I'm posting the video below and cross-posting it to a discussion we had on OL back in 2010 on a thread called The Browning Version. There are some interesting comments over there, so I recommend it. Unfortunately a couple of the posters have passed away since (Chris Grieb and Steve Reed, who called himself Greybird).  btw - In the cross-post to the other thread, I included comments by Ayn Rand and Kay Nolte Smith.

I don't know how long this video will stay up, but for now it's on YouTube. Believe me, if you can find the time to watch it, you will find that this is time much better spent than what we all spend on most of the garbage in our pop culture right now.

Michael