It's not rocket science. — apokrisis
Tour pulls the usual creationist trick. Imagine the world as the sterile laboratory of the synthetic chemist where everything has been pulled apart and kept well away from anything that might let it react or develop a structure. — apokrisis
This is where such an effect – a downward control – can be first clearly exerted. A tiny bit of machinery can harness a vast amount of material action with incredible efficiency. — apokrisis
It's actually a lot more complicated than rocket science. Rockets are simple. — Wayfarer
I googled James Tour, he denies being creationist, — Wayfarer
But I think the question still remains. The cardinal point of any living structure is that I manifests purpose, right from the very first. There has to be that purposive action for anything to be regarded as an organism, as distinct from a mineral. That intentional ability - not conscious intention, but the ability to adapt in pursuit of the goal of survival - that is unique to living forms, is it not? And that is what seems a cardinal difference from anything in the inorganic domain. — Wayfarer
His line is that he is a messianic jew who thinks it is important to read the Bible every morning and meditate on its meaning — apokrisis
It all starts when the ontically distinct thing of information enters the world. — apokrisis
But I guess the former outweighs the latter, right? — Wayfarer
It's not lumpen materialism, but it's still materialism, insofar as the overall principle is physical, namely, entropification, which just happens to throw up apparently meaningful things, like people, in the process. — Wayfarer
But my argument allows humans to invent their own meanings if they like - so long as they are intelligent enough to understand the constraints that have formed their nature so far. — apokrisis
But my argument allows humans to invent their own meanings if they like - so long as they are intelligent enough to understand the constraints that have formed their nature so far.
— apokrisis
That was a good post. — MikeL
And yes, any number of research patents and papers in his field of synthetic chemistry don't outweigh faulty arguments motivated by a metaphysical prejudice. — apokrisis
So having a religious view amounts to a prejudice, but having an aversion to religious philosophy does not. — Wayfarer
Life has to be understood as 'self-generating', for ideological reasons, not for empirical reasons. — Wayfarer
It seems that there is a strong cultural predisposition to the notion that life must be essentially fortuitous, and the universe essentially meaningless, as a presupposition of science. — Wayfarer
It is the third thing of their interaction which is the process making a world. — apokrisis
There is a world of difference between a prejudice and a hypothesis. One accepts measurement, the other strives to avoid it. — apokrisis
As science has demonstrated, that is a huge way indeed. — apokrisis
Talk of divine causes or transcendent being collapses in the usual familiar fashion. It becomes in the end just another way of saying "I don't know what makes existence self-generating, so there must be something more". — apokrisis
It seems that there is a strong cultural predisposition to the notion that life must be essentially fortuitous, and the universe essentially meaningless, as a presupposition of science.
— Wayfarer
But that is hardly my position is it? — apokrisis
And where the hidden dualism lies- the Cartesian theater you wish to avoid. — schopenhauer1
You constantly change the goal post. — schopenhauer1
My guess is you are in the camp that thinks a newborn has no internal sensation (inner experience) because they have not learned distinction (between sensory nuances like "green" and "blue") etc. — schopenhauer1
If all you have is a hammer..... — Wayfarer
Which might even - shock, horror - amount to an admission that there is something we don't know. — Wayfarer
...suggest simply a sense of humility. — Wayfarer
You just said, up-thread, that humans are capable of 'devising their own meanings'. But the 'meaning' you see in 'pan-semiosis' doesn't really express any meaning, other than the running-down of entropy; 'negentropy' is a kind of sleight-of-hand of dumb stuff, appearing to be smart, so it can get to non-being that much faster. — Wayfarer
But Peirce's philosophy was an idealist philosophy - if you google the term 'objective idealism', Peirce comes up as the #1 hit. So when I raise that, oh well, that's the aspect of Charlie that's a bit of an embarassment - Uncle Charlie's been raiding the Christmas plonk again. We can do with all his methodology, the hard-nosed pragmaticist, but the starry-eyed idealist Charlie - let's not mention that. — Wayfarer
was right. Sleight of hand. — schopenhauer1
One of the factors that seems has to be ruled out, is the notion that there is any kind of intentionality in the creation and evolution of life. Life has to be understood as 'self-generating', for ideological reasons, not for empirical reasons. Or rather, if life is seen as something that is not self-generating, or as something which can't be understood in terms of the physical sciences, then that undermines the very basis of empiricism itself; — Wayfarer
I recognize that a deity could have created this universe by fiat 27 years ago and could come back and fiddle with things any time she wants, but that's not how I see the world. — T Clark
If you are brought up in Yoruba — apokrisis
In the end, fuck humility — apokrisis
Well, it does undermine the very basis of empiricism. Is that what you mean by "ideological reasons?" It's more a methodological reason. — T Clark
You are standing up for uncritical belief. — apokrisis
I think I get what Wayfarer is saying. Empiricism these days addresses only the materialist notions of that which can be perceived through the physiological senses + logic/maths; is, in a way, itself at times a kind of placeholder for materialism, implicitly at least......Basically, for what its worth, imo, its not the methodological reasoning that would be undermined, but the very metaphysical foundations upon which today's global community is, for the most part, materialistically built. — javra
Generally, I buy into those assumptions, but I recognize it takes a leap of faith. — T Clark
Empiricism these days addresses only the materialist notions of that which can be perceived through the physiological senses + logic/maths — javra
...this is all an example of where you draw your lines, of the division you see between the naturalist, which to all intents is 'things which science can explain', and then all the boo-word metaphysics that you think belongs to anyone who questions naturalism. — Wayfarer
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