Questions on Objectivist metaphysics

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

The We The Thinking site (Nathan Hawking's site) is not on the Wayback Machine except as a place-holder. You can submit a URL and they will dig it out of the files. They say it will be up within 6 months. I will see what I can do.

Michael

[bmacwilliam]

Dragonfly wrote :

"As I said in an earlier post, we don't have the data yet to say which theory is correct, but each theory can explain the emergence of life in a completely natural manner without having to resort to extraordinary, supernatural hypotheses. "

I agree with this, but also somewhat agree with Michael's angle - at least somewhat. The puzzling thing about life arises out of the fact that it's NOT supernatural. The fact that it's a natural part of the universe makes it all the more mysterious - or at least fascinating.

I think that because we can create simple machines, we see ourselves and life in this light too. Perhaps a little too much though. I for one agree that evolution can explain a great deal - especially in the human behaviour area, but that's off topic.

We are much more than our simple notion of machines, because we are spontaneous, self-aware, replicating machines. A reductionist point of view, I think, cannot escape the conclusion that at the very lowest levels of subatomic particles there must exist something:

1) Consciousness-like

2) Self organizing

There is something deep and mysterious (not supernatural) about life, and therefore matter and energy. Jam it together in the right combination and look what happens - us. That's why, I think that digging into QM and low-level reality must be extraordinarily strange and counter-intuitive.

I can't begin to imagine how to understand consciousness at the low-level, but I think it has to exist. Otherwise it makes no sense to me how it exists when atoms combine. The universe is not just a collection of atoms, it's a self-aware collection.

Bob

Edited March 14, 2007 by Bob_Mac

[Ellen Stuttle]

The puzzling thing about life arises out of the fact that it's NOT supernatural. The fact that it's a natural part of the universe makes it all the more mysterious - or at least fascinating.

Bingo, Bob. And you know what? I think a lot of reductionists -- a lot of them I've met anyway (I have met a lot of them) known this in uneasy squirms somewhere, which is why they become so insistent even obstreperous in claiming that the answers -- re life, consciousness, volitional behavior -- in principle are known and they immediately try to decry as "mystical," "supernaturalist" anyone who says "But, but, but, you're leaving something out here." The fact is, humans exist; the human capacity for directed behavior and for attempting to understand the world exists. But if strict reductionism really were true, just how come we're here is more than a little puzzling. (Dragonfly, I expect to respond, true to form, "Not at all," but he's never said anything specific in his explanations which convinces me. Nor has any other real reductionist I know of.) My view remains not that the answer is supernatural but that there's an as yet unidentified error in the basic reductionist paradigm.

Ellen

___

[Brant Gaede]

The puzzling thing about life arises out of the fact that it's NOT supernatural. The fact that it's a natural part of the universe makes it all the more mysterious - or at least fascinating.

Bingo, Bob. And you know what? I think a lot of reductionists -- a lot of them I've met anyway (I have met a lot of them) known this in uneasy squirms somewhere, which is why they become so insistent even obstreperous in claiming that the answers -- re life, consciousness, volitional behavior -- in principle are known and they immediately try to decry as "mystical," "supernaturalist" anyone who says "But, but, but, you're leaving something out here." The fact is, humans exist; the human capacity for directed behavior and for attempting to understand the world exists. But if strict reductionism really were true, just how come we're here is more than a little puzzling. (Dragonfly, I expect to respond, true to form, "Not at all," but he's never said anything specific in his explanations which convinces me. Nor has any other real reductionist I know of.) My view remains not that the answer is supernatural but that there's an as yet unidentified error in the basic reductionist paradigm.

Ellen

___

The error will refute reductionism? I think some people are so afraid or put off by ignorance--ignorance is loneliness of a kind--that they displace it with myth if not science. Science has to battle both myth and ignorance. Great advances in scientific understanding have often been preceded by tremendous gathering of observational data, as in astronomy. As for me, I don't know why we are here and am hardly curious. How I might leave is of some concern.

--Brant

PS: I don't think of myself as a "reductionist."

[Dragonfly]

I can't begin to imagine how to understand consciousness at the low-level, but I think it has to exist. Otherwise it makes no sense to me how it exists when atoms combine. The universe is not just a collection of atoms, it's a self-aware collection.

Any collection that is big enough can in principle become conscious; those wonderful properties are not in the elements, but in the specific combination of elements, just as a chess computer is not built from atoms that have something "chessy" about them, it is the organization of the elements that does the trick. Consciousness is merely the latest layer of a whole series of increasingly complex processing systems. We can observe the whole range in the living and even not quite living nature: even the simplest viruses can replicate and evolve, while they are usually not considered to be alive. "Lower" animals like protozoa, sponges or worms are rather like clever automatic machines. When organisms become more complex, their programs become more sophisticated. Instead of a fixed set of instructions for behavior their programs become more and more flexible, which allows greater adaptability to the environment, they become real information processing machines. At a certain level of complexity the possibility arises to process not only information that comes directly to them from their environment, but also information about their own information processing, making self-reflection and consciousness possible. Evolution is a process that has a slow start, but once the trick of multicellular organisms is "discovered" the process really takes off, and it seems then inevitable that the machines become increasingly complex and sophisticated.

What is so fascinating and also difficult to grasp is the fact that this is a completely automatic process based on random variations and natural selection. It is that automatic selection that in fact does the trick, that is the driving force behind the development of all these fantastically efficient systems.

A book that goes deeper into the aspects of this process is Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea which I highly recommend. It may take away some of the mystery for you how a dumb process may generate intelligent systems.

[bmacwilliam]

A book that goes deeper into the aspects of this process is Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea which I highly recommend. It may take away some of the mystery for you how a dumb process may generate intelligent systems.

Gotta read that! Thanks.

Bob

[Dragonfly]

Bingo, Bob. And you know what? I think a lot of reductionists -- a lot of them I've met anyway (I have met a lot of them) known this in uneasy squirms somewhere, which is why they become so insistent even obstreperous in claiming that the answers -- re life, consciousness, volitional behavior -- in principle are known and they immediately try to decry as "mystical," "supernaturalist" anyone who says "But, but, but, you're leaving something out here."

Well, if we are going to psychologize, two can play at that game... many of the anti-reductionists I've met probably know in uneasy squirms that their "there must be more" is based on an illusion, that they think their existence would have no value if it turns out to be the result of a blind, mechanical process, that is why they become so insistent and even obstreperous in claiming that reductionism can't be true, that there must be "more". No, they can't tell you what that "more" is, when you ask them they always become very vague.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Bingo, Bob. And you know what? I think a lot of reductionists -- a lot of them I've met anyway (I have met a lot of them) known this in uneasy squirms somewhere, which is why they become so insistent even obstreperous in claiming that the answers -- re life, consciousness, volitional behavior -- in principle are known and they immediately try to decry as "mystical," "supernaturalist" anyone who says "But, but, but, you're leaving something out here."

Well, if we are going to psychologize, two can play at that game... many of the anti-reductionists I've met probably know in uneasy squirms that their "there must be more" is based on an illusion, that they think their existence would have no value if it turns out to be the result of a blind, mechanical process, that is why they become so insistent and even obstreperous in claiming that reductionism can't be true, that there must be "more". No, they can't tell you what that "more" is, when you ask them they always become very vague.

Guess what. I, too, have met plenty of anti-reductionists who I think are doing just that. The ranks of religionists are full of them.

Ellen

Te-he; a gremlin interfered with my first attempt at posting this and chopped off part of the text. God is watching us?

___

Edited March 14, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

We are much more than our simple notion of machines, because we are spontaneous, self-aware, replicating machines. A reductionist point of view, I think, cannot escape the conclusion that at the very lowest levels of subatomic particles there must exist something:

1) Consciousness-like

2) Self organizing

There is something deep and mysterious (not supernatural) about life, and therefore matter and energy. Jam it together in the right combination and look what happens - us. That's why, I think that digging into QM and low-level reality must be extraordinarily strange and counter-intuitive.

I can't begin to imagine how to understand consciousness at the low-level, but I think it has to exist. Otherwise it makes no sense to me how it exists when atoms combine. The universe is not just a collection of atoms, it's a self-aware collection.

Bob,

This is really, really close to what I think. I just go one step further. Why does this consciousness-like and organizing force (or whatever it is) have to be at the subatomic level? I don't deny that it is, I merely don't agree that it must be based on what I have read so far.

This is why I step outside the box to look at other possibilities. Why can't it be beyond our awareness? (I'm not saying it is, either. Just asking.) We certainly see the products of something beyond subatomic randomness or determinism in creating larger forms and energies. The fact alone that both randomness and determinism are embraced in science is an indication that this issue is far from resolved rationally.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

My view remains not that the answer is supernatural but that there's an as yet unidentified error in the basic reductionist paradigm.

Ellen,

Bingo. This is my view and it has nothing to do with trying to find meaning in life and feeling threatened, etc. It has more to do with certain things not making any sense at all to me. My posts above present some of those issues.

Any collection that is big enough can in principle become conscious; those wonderful properties are not in the elements, but in the specific combination of elements, just as a chess computer is not built from atoms that have something "chessy" about them, it is the organization of the elements that does the trick.

Dragonfly,

That is an amazing statement. Do you mean that a planet (which is a pretty big collection of subatomic particles bound together by several forces, including gravity) can in principle become conscious? Do you have any thoughts on what the nature of the "organization of the elements" that you mentioned is?

What is so fascinating and also difficult to grasp is the fact that this is a completely automatic process based on random variations and natural selection. It is that automatic selection that in fact does the trick, that is the driving force behind the development of all these fantastically efficient systems.

I have a real hard problem with conceiving of selection being carried out without a selector. If "natural selection" occurs, is this, in the reductionist view, an inherent property of all subatomic particles: the ability to select?

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

What is so fascinating and also difficult to grasp is the fact that this is a completely automatic process based on random variations and natural selection. It is that automatic selection that in fact does the trick, that is the driving force behind the development of all these fantastically efficient systems.

I have a real hard problem with conceiving of selection being carried out without a selector. If "natural selection" occurs, is this, in the reductionist view, an inherent property of all subatomic particles: the ability to select?

Michael

Michael,

You fell into a gap there left by a verbal leap of a sort Dennett makes in a number of places, in this case from the "natural selection" of the biological evolutionary process to such a process as thinking. "Natural selection" -- Darwinian, evolutionary "natural selection" -- needs no "selector" to explain the outcomes. As I described in a post to Mike Hardy on the Ethics thread, the basic process is that there's a range of variations amongst the organisms of a type, some of which variations are favorable in the sense of conferring greater likelihood that the organism will survive long enough to produce offspring. Over the course of numerous generations, the advantageous variations increase in frequency in the range. That's "natural selection." In brief, it's differential death rates with the result of a slow modification of the organism type. Getting from there to human thought process, however, I think is rather more difficult than Dragonfly indicated. ;-)

Ellen

___

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

This is not so much a verbal gap when you imagine that life according to reductionists is nothing more than a process, where decay is "natural" and is akin to death for living organisms. For instance, I constantly find an attempt in Dragonfly's posts to blur the difference between living and non-living entities.

I suspect that reductionists use "natural selection" to mean a little more than what Darwin meant (with Darwin restricting it to biology). Natural selection is based on "nature" in the Darwin-based approach and I consider this ("nature") to be a "top-down" principle (or, to be exact, a set of principles and laws). That is the selector in my sense and it is innate in all living organisms. Natural selection operates because of death and survival. This has nothing to do with the subatomic level and everything to do with reproduction of the "fully developed systems" (to use reductionist jargon). To be more precise, the living entity uses the subatomic level through reproduction for species survival, not the other way around (the subatomic level using the entity).

I was not ignoring Darwin. I was leaving out his restrictions because I was surpassing him in the manner I imagine reductionists do. My comment should be qualified by this consideration and it still stands.

If reductionists think entities are formed from subparticles by some kind of natural selection, I am at a loss to understand what does the selecting. An innate capacity in the subparticles?

Michael

[Dragonfly]

That is an amazing statement. Do you mean that a planet (which is a pretty big collection of subatomic particles bound together by several forces, including gravity) can in principle become conscious? Do you have any thoughts on what the nature of the "organization of the elements" that you mentioned is?

I'm not saying that any large collection of particles will become conscious, either there must be some kind of evolutionary system that can generate increasingly complex systems or some intelligent being (which must of course itself have been evolved) can design a conscious system. Im only saying that it is possible if there are enough building blocks. A conscious system is an (very complex) information processing system or a computer. Not the kind of computer we know now, it's still much more complex and sophisticated, but the basic principles are the same.

I have a real hard problem with conceiving of selection being carried out without a selector. If "natural selection" occurs, is this, in the reductionist view, an inherent property of all subatomic particles: the ability to select?

There is no selector - the watchmaker is blind! You can have selection without a selector, it is an automatic process. Random variations in the genome of a living being will in most cases either be detrimental to the effectivity of it or neutral (not worse, not better). But once in while (which may be very rare, but with millions of copies of the genome and enough time the probability becomes significant) one variation may improve the effectivity of the creature in surviving and producing offspring with that new feature. With a higher reproduction rate this new version will produce relatively more offspring than its competitors and so supersede them. The selection is determined by its environment, a variation that is an improvement in one environment may not be so in a different environment. A good example is the evolution of bacteria in the hostile environment of antibiotics. Without antibiotics some nasty bacterium can thrive well in our body, but it will be killed by the antibiotic. If one of those bacteria now produces a variant that happens to be immune to that antibiotic, it will easily outcompete the other variants that succomb to the antibiotic. That's the reason that indiscriminate use of antibiotics tends to create resistant strains, the antibiotics create a selection pressure that automatically drives the evolution of the bacteria to those strains that are resistant. Now this may be an artificial created selection pressure (created by zealous doctors), but in normal circumstances there is also always a selection pressure: better adaptation to get food or to escape predators or to resist droughts etc., resulting in a higher reproduction rate. So what selects is not some intelligence (that happens with cat and dog breeders for example), but the environment in relation to the capacity for survival and producing offspring. That explains for example the evolution of the eye: being able to see your environment will be in most cases an advantage as you can better avoid predators and easier find prey or other food. Even some simple light-sensitive cells may be an improvement over blindness, but then the accidental forming of a hollow space will increase the efficiency as the animal now not only can discriminate between light and dark, but also can distinguish a direction of the light or some rough pattern. Then the forming of a lens will improve the accuracy even more as a more detailed image of the environment is formed etc. It's therefore not surprising that the eye has evolved independently more than once in the course of the evolution. The evolution of the eye has also successfully been simulated by a computer program (genetic algorithms in computer programming are based on the same principle, even if the selection pressure is here applied by the programmer to get the desired result).

Now this is necessarily only a very sketchy description. If you are really interested in this matter you should absolutely read Dennett's Darwin's Dangerious Idea. Dennett tells it much better than I can do, in much more detail, and he gives a thorough discussion of all the controversions and problems. Really, before you continue this discussion you should read it. And read at least Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker as well.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dragonfly,

I am aware of how evolution works, although without going into such detail. (Your knowledge of facts always impresses the hell out of me. Seriously.)

My problem is with the argument that effortlessly jumps from "large collection of particles" to terms like "living being" and "creature," but after insinuating that the difference between inanimate beings and living ones is not really a difference at all. Suddenly things like "natural selection" get thrown in, thus I assume that the concept of "natural selection" applies to inanimate objects as well as animate ones, being that the difference is not really a difference. And since everything boils down to subparticles, I assume "natural selection" applies to them, too.

How does natural selection apply to inanimate objects, anyway? Is there reproduction? Does a better environment improve such reproduction? Are the different forms due to these factors or similar ones?

Or is there really a difference between living and non-living entities? Or do you propose to have it both ways and step outside of logic?

btw - Those works are on my reading list.

Michael

[Dragonfly]

My problem is with the argument that effortlessly jumps from "large collection of particles" to terms like "living being" and "creature," but after insinuating that the difference between inanimate beings and living ones is not really a difference at all.

I don't say that there is no difference between inanimate beings and living beings, only that there are no essential physical differences: both obey the same laws of physics and chemistry. It is the special organization of their system that makes living beings different, just as there isn't an essential physical difference between a working machine and a pile of all its parts, it is the special organization of those parts that makes the machine something special.

Suddenly things like "natural selection" get thrown in, thus I assume that the concept of "natural selection" applies to inanimate objects as well as animate ones, being that the difference is not really a difference.

In fact natural selection is with self-reproduction one of the defining characteristics of life.

And since everything boils down to subparticles, I assume "natural selection" applies to them, too.

No, that unit is too small. For natural selection you need objects that can reproduce themselves, allowing for the possibility of generating variants. For that you need at least molecules, and probably fairly complex ones. Such a molecule must be able to have one or more chemical reactions with other molecules in its environment to make a copy of itself. See for example here.

Or is there really a difference between living and non-living entities?

Where you draw the line will always be somewhat arbitary, just as the line between day and night. Even for entities that exist today the line isn't always clear: is a virus a living being or not? (The general consensus is that it isn't, but that's still somewhat arbitrary.)

Or do you propose to have it both ways and step outside of logic?

Come on Michael, that kind of Victor-like remarks is not your style.

btw - Those works are on my reading list.

The question is: how long will they remain on that list? (Sorry, I'm just an inveterate skeptical cynic...)

[Ellen Stuttle]

Now this is necessarily only a very sketchy description. If you are really interested in this matter you should absolutely read Dennett's Darwin's Dangerious Idea. Dennett tells it much better than I can do, in much more detail, and he gives a thorough discussion of all the controversions and problems. Really, before you continue this discussion you should read it. And read at least Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker as well.

Michael,

I strongly recommend that you read The Blind Watchmaker first, before attempting the Dennett. Darwin's Dangerous Idea is a long book and although it does explain some basic theory, it's addressed more to the issue of why so many people react negatively to evolutionary explanations. Dawkins is a biologist and knows the subject in working detail from within the field. The Blind Watchmaker is the best introductory book I'm aware of. And it isn't the near "tome" the Dennett is. ;-)

Ellen

___

[Robert Campbell]

Michael,

I'm going to second Ellen's nomination.

The Blind Watchmaker is an excellent book. What's more, Richard Dawkins is one of the greatest popular science writers of all time. Daniel Dennett can communicate with the general public, but his skills aren't quite on the Dawkinsian level.

While Darwin's Dangerous Idea has some great passages in it (for instance, when Dennett explains why evolutionary explanations allow "cranes" and disallow "skyhooks," or when he extracts a legitimate principle of behavioral evolution from the long-neglected Herbert Spencer), about a third of it is driven by Dennettite ego issues (why do people like that Stephen Jay Gould fellow better than me?) to which the rest of the world is justly indifferent.

A further problem with Dennett's book is its manifest failure to account for the emergence of mind and knowledge. Dawkins is weak in that area as well, but Dawkins is a biologist and Dennett is a philosopher of mind. The reader ought to expect more from Dennett in this crucial area.

Robert Campbell

[Dragonfly]

While Darwin's Dangerous Idea has some great passages in it (for instance, when Dennett explains why evolutionary explanations allow "cranes" and disallow "skyhooks," or when he extracts a legitimate principle of behavioral evolution from the long-neglected Herbert Spencer), about a third of it is driven by Dennettite ego issues (why do people like that Stephen Jay Gould fellow better than me?) to which the rest of the world is justly indifferent.

I think this is not a fair characterization. I've read the book many times, but I can't remember anything like that. The only passage that might remotely resemble your characterization is the following:

In my own work over the years I have often appealed to evolutionary considerations, and have almost as often run into a curious current of resistance: my appeals to Darwinian reasoning have been bluntly rejected as discredited, out-of-date science by philosophers, psychologists, linguists, anthropologists, and others who have blithely informed me that I have got my biology all wrong - I haven't been doing my homework, because Steve Gould has shown that Darwinism isn't in such good shape after all. Indeed it is close to extinction.

In some 50 pages he then carefully dissects Gould's ideas and he certainly makes mincemeat of some of Gould's cherished notions, like the idea that punctuated equilibrium is some revolutionary notion which is not contained in Darwinian theory or that there is no conflict between religion and evolutionary theory. I see nothing of Dennett's "ego-issues" in this discussion, he's merely mercilessly dissecting incorrect arguments. No doubt that hasn't made him popular with Gould adepts, but Dennett is here on the same wavelength as Dawkins and his points are important, because of Gould's prestige among the general public. For that matter Dawkins in his books hasn't minced his words in that respect either, and somewhere he's made a similar remark about Gould as Dennett's quote above (I don't have it at hand now).

[Ellen Stuttle]

A further problem with Dennett's book is its manifest failure to account for the emergence of mind and knowledge. Dawkins is weak in that area as well, but Dawkins is a biologist and Dennett is a philosopher of mind. The reader ought to expect more from Dennett in this crucial area.

I second that, strongly. Dennett perpetually just elides the crucial juncture. (Dawkins, as you say, is also weak on the emergence of mental processes, but Dawkins isn't presenting the appearance of offering an explanation which then is skipped.) I often think in reading Dennett of a line from "Rudigore": "With greater precision, without the elision...." Like, didn't we just SKIP something there, DD?

This isn't to say that I don't enjoy reading Dennett. I do enjoy reading him, and I've gotten from him a lot of insights I find valuable. BUT. I remain unsatisfied on how mind and knowledge emerge. (I should add: I don't think Rand, with her ignorance of evolution, provides so much as a clue.)

I still haven't gotten around to reading On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins, which has been touted as enlightening on theory of mind. That book is high on my must-read list.

Ellen

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

I see nothing of Dennett's "ego-issues" in this discussion, he's merely mercilessly dissecting incorrect arguments. No doubt that hasn't made him popular with Gould adepts, but Dennett is here on the same wavelength as Dawkins and his points are important, because of Gould's prestige among the general public. For that matter Dawkins in his books hasn't minced his words in that respect either, and somewhere he's made a similar remark about Gould as Dennett's quote above (I don't have it at hand now).

Actually, neither do I see "ego-issues" in Dennett's discussion of Gould (Stephen Jay). I think I know the passage from Dawkins you're talking about. It's in either The Blind Watchmaker or a footnote in the revised 2nd edition of The Selfish Gene. Haven't time to look now, but I recall Dawkins' being (justifiably, IMO) sarcastic on the subject someplace in one of those two books.

Ellen

___

[BaalChatzaf]

I have a real hard problem with conceiving of selection being carried out without a selector. If "natural selection" occurs, is this, in the reductionist view, an inherent property of all subatomic particles: the ability to select?

Michael

"natural selection" is a facon de parler. In -Origin of Species- Darwin likened nature to an animal or plant breeder who selects certain characteristics to be propagated and others to be culled. In the case of nature the "selection" is not conscious, but the interaction between organism and material factors and processes in their environment all operating according to physical laws. There is no consciousness at work. "Natural Selection", so called, is no more conscious that a potato sorting grid which works entirely according to mechanical laws.

There is no conscious design at work in evolution. There is no conscious agency at work. It is all physical. The fit of organism to environment is mediated by natural means but it gives the illusion of design, to folks like us who see it and want to see design account for the order.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

This isn't to say that I don't enjoy reading Dennett. I do enjoy reading him, and I've gotten from him a lot of insights I find valuable. BUT. I remain unsatisfied on how mind and knowledge emerge. (I should add: I don't think Rand, with her ignorance of evolution, provides so much as a clue.)

___

What mind? In side the skull you will find all sorts of sticky and gooey stuff. Not one sign of a mind. I recently took part in a study of "mental" functions in older folks. I got for my troubles a cat scan, a pet scan and three MRI scans. The MRI scans are very sharp. They reveal my brain in all its convoluted glory and not a glimmer of a mind. It is a three axis scan. It is very accurate and there is no sign of a mind.

I consider Mind right up there with Spirit, Soul, God, Angels, the Devil and Miracles. Each and every one, a figure of speech for which there is not evidence of substance.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

You sound like you think I believe in Intelligent Design or something. I don't.

I do have questions, though. For instance, could you tell me please, starting from the so-called initial singularity, when does a future entity stop being an expansion of the singularity and start becoming an entity? I mean only the general principle.

Or even more basic: do entities even exist?

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Bob,

You sound like you think I believe in Intelligent Design or something. I don't.

I do have questions, though. For instance, could you tell me please, starting from the so-called initial singularity, when does a future entity stop being an expansion of the singularity and start becoming an entity? I mean only the general principle.

Or even more basic: do entities even exist?

Michael

The Singularity is a placeholder for our ignorance. Our mathematics simply does not extend all the way to the Beginning or even before the Beginning (which is just North of the North Pole). Singularities and infinities which plague several attempted theories of gravitation (for example) are the result of mathematics that is simply not up to the job. So we have Singularity. We have Dark Matter. We have Dark Energy. These are place and concept markers for areas that require a lot more work.

It is not a good idea to reify or over-reify our abstractions. There is more in Heaven and Earth than can be comfortably cocooned in our equations.

Ba'al Chatzaf.

[BaalChatzaf]

Bob,

You sound like you think I believe in Intelligent Design or something. I don't.

Not at all. I apologize for giving you that impression.

Ba'al Chatzaf