Dragonfly

Let me elaborate a little further on your earlier comment on perceptions and concepts both being abstractions by stressing again their differences in a way that undermines representationalism. Representations can, in their function as representations, be off -- they might misrepresent. This can be the case with concepts -- as in the problem of overgeneralizing. In that particular case, a concept is covering more than it should and, thus, misrepresenting reality. Don't you agree? A perception can never do this. Why? A perception is not a representation. It's simply a discrimination of something external to the perceiving mind. This might seem wrong. After all, for example, you see a mirage and, say, "Aha! My perceptions are misrepresenting reality!" But, in fact, it's not your perceptions that are off, but your judging that hot air moving over land is really water.

No, perception implies an interpretation of what you see, otherwise it would be only a sensation, so the perception of a mirage as water is wrong. You perceive water, but it is hot air.

I think I've found the bug: the number of the post should now no longer be enclosed between ' ', but the automatic post link option (in 'other styles') still puts those ' ' there. When you remove them afterwards, you get a correct working link, like this one, in code:

[post=95334]this one[/post]

Dragonfly,

Try highlighting the text, then clicking on the "Insert link" button (it should be next to the Smiley). That's what I do.

I will try to play around with the BB code you use, but as you can tell from the changes in the Quote feature during the upgrade, this software uses its own form of some commands.

EDIT: In your profile settings, make sure you choose the "visual (RTE)" editor. I suspect you do not like this option. I know I don't, especially since I was very comfortable using BB code all the time. But it seems like we get forced into using more automatic bells and whistles over time in the informatics world, whether we want to or not.

When the older stuff starts glitching, it's time to bite the bullet. That's what I have perceived...

Michael

[here 

I still get the wrong output. It's now bedtime for me, perhaps tomorrow it'll work better with a rested computer (I've now also problems with  the search function)...

Dragonfly,

I don't understand your request.

I am linking to your post here"]here.

It should open to your post. It does for me.

It seems you use a different method to link to the post, as your code is much longer. I use the [other styles] -> [Post link] method, which has always worked fine (and still works fine in my previous posts). I'll link to that same post now here. Still wrong! The code is:

[post='95329']here[/post]

Until now it has always worked (it's a very easy and convenient method and the code is quite simple), but today it suddenly gives the wrong output.

The linking to posts on OL suddenly no longer works here. Instead of a link to for example post [12345], I get something like 39;12345] in the preview, which of course doesn't work... An actual example: let's try to link to this post. No, again not a valid code...

Besides, evolutionary determinism isn't only explanation of emergent properties of the living organisms. Most probably spontaneous self-organization plays very important role in this process. As J. B. Edelmann and M.J.Denton observed: "Biological self-organization witnessed classically in the folding of a protein or in the formation of the cell membrane—is a fundamentally different means of generating complexity. We agree that self-organizing systems may be fine-tuned by selection and that self-organization may be therefore considered a complementary mechanism to natural selection as a causal agency in the evolution of life. But we argue that if self-organization proves to be a common mechanism for the generation of adaptive order from the molecular to the organismic level, then this will greatly undermine the Darwinian claim that natural selection is the major creative agency in evolution."

Of course natural selection is still the major creative agency in evolution, biological self-organization is merely a very useful toolbox that increases the number of possible solutions, but in itself it would be powerless, as the probability that it would spontaneously generate a useful solution for surviving is virtually zero - as every creationist will be quick to point out (thereby committing the deadly sin of ignoring the power of natural selection).

Determinism is incompatible with life as it's incompatible with mind.

Not at all. Determinism (at a biological scale) is quite compatible with life and with the mind. Moreover, Edelman's self-organization is no less deterministic than the classical darwinian mechanism.

I think you have to be careful here. Evolution is not the mechanism that drives changes - it is the name given to the process.

I didn't say that, I said it implies that mechanism, meaning that it is not just some random changes.

Hsieh? Isn't that that health and diet nut? Someone should tell her that continuously kissing Peikoff's ass is very unhealthy.

Thus evolution, metaphysically considered, refers to the process of gradual change itself, not to the causes of that process. We cannot say that a given series of changes was "caused" by evolution, since that would mean, in effect, that a series of changes was "caused" by a series of changes.

In fact every cause can be seen as a series of changes. What biological evolution of course implies is the mechanism that drives these changes (in general random variation in the genes with natural selection). One can study the details of this process for specific cases, but there is nothing wrong in considering the general principle of that process as the cause of the existence of all living beings on Earth (and not for example the divine creation of each species nor generatio spontanea).

Evolution did not create our bodies. I don't know about you, but my body was created when one of my father's sperms fertilized one of my mother's eggs. That process is not called "evolution."

That is the proximate cause. The distal cause is evolution.

Evolution is also a theory.

Yes, also. But it is also obvious that Bob did mean the process, and not the theory.

But even viewed qua process, evolution did not "create" our bodies.

Yes, it did. To create isn't necessarily a human or an "intelligent" process.

Collins English Dictionary:

create:

1 (tr) to cause to come into existence.

2 (tr) to invest with a new honour, office or title

3 (tr) to be the cause of: these circumstances created the revolution

4 (tr) to act (a role) in the first production of a play.

The Free Dictionary:

1. To cause to exist; bring into being.

2. To give rise to; produce: That remark created a stir.

3. To invest with an office or title; appoint.

4. To produce through artistic or imaginative effort: create a poem; create a role.

Evolution created our bodies, and moulded our behaviour. What the (!*@&@ do you think created morality in the first place - Rand? God? Evolution did, without question.

How can a theory, including a good theory like evolution, create anything?

Bob wrote "Evolution created our bodies", not "The theory of evolution created our bodies". Evolution is a process.

Dude, if you were part of the discussion on this thread, I might care about your definition.

Huh? Are you telling us who is or is not part of a discussion? I didn't know that you'd taken over this site. Do you really think that we're interested in your stupid and uninformed claptrap?

Predictability is irrelevant to the discussion if that is your definition.

That is not my definition. I suggest you read first my previous posts on that subject, for example the links I gave earlier. Then I don't have to repeat it all here for the n-th time.

Well actually...

de·ter·min·ism   /dɪˈtɜrməˌnɪzəm/ Show Spelled[dih-tur-muh-niz-uhm] Show IPA

–noun

1.the doctrine that all facts and events exemplify natural laws.

2.the doctrine that all events, including human choices and decisions, have sufficient causes.

These are not scientific definitions. See my previous references or lookup determinism in Wikipedia.

Ba'al,

The Big Bang is thermodynamic bogus. So much for this "science."

C'est la vie

Nonsense.

Why can't life be deterministic on one level but indeterministic on another, higher level? This argument is always presented as an either/or thing.

Indeed. See for example here and here.

A. Quantum systems are based on rules and are therefore deterministic regardless of the presence of probability spheres

"Based on rules" is not the same as deterministic.

Barbara is one of the few Objectivists who doesn't try to fake reality.

Another fucking long post that nobody will read.

Quamvis sint sub aqua, sub aqua maledicere temptant.

No George, Rand's ethical "theory" was built backwards to justify her politics. In this way it works - it's rational and consistent (but wrong), and it leads her to clearly nonsensical, if not tautological premises. Man qua man, or man's survival qua man to be more accurate - fine, is WHAT SHE DECIDED IT TO BE! Guaran-friggin-teed this proper "survival" of hers is indeed the same "survival" of a good Objectivist. Is that a "technical" tautology? I don't know, you tell me, it smells like it. Perhaps it is a "begging the question" fallacy because the conclusion is completely built right into the premises/definitions. But it's certainly a big steaming pile.

Rand's "man qua man" trick has already been discussed extensively on this forum. See for example here, here and here.

But her conception of Atlas was of a world in an altered time frame from the start. She didn't delete from the manuscript historic references which she didn't put in it to start with.

How do you know?

I don't know if I've ever thought of this before, but it occurred to me yesterday: Although the maze of tunnels and the office building towering above the terminal mirror Grand Central, the location can't be where Grand Central factually is -- pretty much at the center of Manhattan. The Taggart railroad system is transcontinental. The transcontinental trains leaving New York City depart from Penn Station.

The New York (and other places, including America in general) in AS is not the same as the New York that we know. Yet she does use existing names in those cases.

2. Sacrifice means surrender of value and therefore loss by any definition. If you call exchange of a lesser value to a greater one a "sacrifice" (like in chess) then you define gain as loss. This is contradiction in terms.

You deliberately ignore what all the dictionaries say. So for example the first meaning of "sacrifice" in Collins English Dictionary:

"A surrender of something of value as a means of gaining something more desirable"

The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary:

"The surrender of something valued or desired, esp. one's life, for the sake of something regarded as more important or worthy"

In The Free Dictionary: "Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim"

The sacrifice in chess is perfectly in agreement with these definitions, so there isn't any contradiction in terms.