Marriage is under fire!!

[Kevin Aylward]

JeffM wrote:

bastardy...was about succession (for royalty)
and property dispersal (for everyone).
Mark L. Fergerson

celibacy for clerics...
Rome realized that priests were leaving property to their children.
JeffM

why would the priests have more private property then non-priests?
Kevin Aylward

I'm not sure how "more" got into this.

priests only have *use* of church owned property,
and would therefore not have been able
to pass that property on to offspring anyway.

I think that was exactly the point--possession being 9/10,
Rome being far away (in many cases), and all that.


a better argument for celibacy is the meme argument.
Family responsibilities
can form a significant impediment to external church work.

OTOH, having to deal with his own family's problems
gives a cleric insight and empathy that he wouldn't otherwise have.

Maybe, but that isn't necessarily relevant to meme replication. Memes
can spread independent of whether or not they are actually useful or
true (the religion meme is itself, trivially known to be false). Someone
devoting all his time to meme (religion) propagation arguably gives a
significant advantage to that memes replication ability, so that is what
we should observe.

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[Kevin Aylward]

andy wrote:

On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 07:14:07 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:

andy wrote:
On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 18:24:11 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:

andy wrote:
On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 11:37:32 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:


Its that simple. "Hate"
(http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/emotions.html) is just a
trait that has evolved to maximise the numbers of memes/genes,
therefore it makes perfect evolutionary sense for hate to be
directed against traits that do not maximise the numbers of those
Replicators holding that trait meme.

for that to be true, wouldn't gay men have to pose some kind of
threat to the replicability of straight men's genes?

Not really. Its a threat to the replicability of straight men's
memes.

only if they define their own straightness in terms of
not-being-gay.

Err... pardon? Not being gay, means either being heterosexual, or not
sexual at all. Either way it excludes any concept of being gay, by
definition.

I meant something like - if the 'meme' you are talking about is
'straight men are good/ok; gay men are bad/evil; i'm not gay so I
must be ok', then gay men are a threat to that. But if someone
doesn't see it that way, then the existence of gay men needn't be any
threat to that person's beliefs.

Humans copy memes. If a meme is popular, then there is a fair
probability that it may be useful to maximise numbers. If an individual
has offspring, you do not what it exposed to a "be gay" meme as this
might increase its chances to also be gay by accepting that meme, and
therefore not have more offspring with that individuals genes. So,
existence of gay memes is indeed a maximisation threat to heterosexuals.

Human Replicators are a complex function of both memes and genes.

maybe.

No maybe about it.

depends if you want to call beliefs/values 'memes' -

A meme is any peice of information..

http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/definitions.html

that carries a
whole load of other associations beyond just the idea that people's
character and behaviour is a product of both their genetic
inheritance and later social influences.

Oh? Just what piece of magic, other than the hardware and software
programming of humans do you think is relevant to humans?

The only escape, excluding magic, from classical determinism for all of
human behaviour, is quantum uncertainty. However, a random trait
generator, is by definition, random, therefore an "I" can have no
control over it. Any non-random control, is the result of prior memes
and genes.

So, what else do you actually suggest, again excluding magic?

http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/specialreplicators.html

they (we) also have a self-reflexive consciousness and ability
to see them (our) selves as people-among-others. or something.

I don't understand your point here. Conscious awareness is a VDU. It
has no control over any action we take. The electrochemical machine
(brain) does all the work, and simply reports this to what we call
consciousness
(http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/consciousness.html).

you're stating this as fact, but it's only a hypothesis/opinion isn't
it?

Its *derived* based on the assumed axiom. "There is no magic".

Of course, if this axiom is false, so is the derviation. Do you have any
credible evidence that magic exists (e.g. a sole)?

My point is that looking at your table of 'what emotions really are',
there's something slightly screwy about a lot of them when you look at
them from the point of view of real life human experience,

Oh? maybe you should look at this a bit deeper.

rather
than a theory about what humans are that someone might create from a
detached 'god's-eye-perspective'.

There is no "creation", its Darwinian evolution.

I can't exactly claim to be an
expert on love,

I am.

being pretty much a loner mostly, but to me it means
some kind of awareness of another person /as/ another person, not
just a vehicle for your interests.

With all due respect here, you just haven't gave this enough thought.
Clearly, this is new to you so you are having trouble assimilating these
ideas. Most of my papers is actually, well accepted standard evolution,
that is not debated by any biologist. I do add a few twists though.

The logic as to what emotions are, is inescapable. e.g. emotions are the
direct result of brain DNA. This DNA is well selected and replicated,
therefore they *must* be "selfish"
(http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/replicatortheory.html) according
to the mathematics of Darwinian evolution. Its 101 evolution, although
many have not actually looked at this issue.

Or if it's about interests it's to
do with the human need to connect and communicate rather than in the
sort of rational-maximiser way you're talking about.

Nonsense. I don't see this as debatable. As I have explained, it all
*trivially* follows from the Darwinian axioms (replication, selection
and random variation/generation). We are made from DNA. This is not
debatable. DNA undergoes all of the Darwinian processes, this is
fundamentally a local maximisation process.

What do you mean be "human need to connect and communicate". How is this
any way an explanation for anything? It says nothing. Why do humans want
to communicate? Again, this is trivial, doing so maximises the numbers
of human replicators
(http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/altruism.html). Loners simply are
not very successful.

Have a skim through my papers so that you get a feel of the flow. Its
simple, trivial assumptions, that explain all. The overview of life is
very, very simple, its only the details that are complicated.

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[Rich Grise]

andy wrote:

On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 06:41:37 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:
The only escape, excluding magic, from classical determinism for all of
human behaviour, is quantum uncertainty. However, a random trait
generator, is by definition, random, therefore an "I" can have no
control over it. Any non-random control, is the result of prior memes
and genes.

So, what else do you actually suggest, again excluding magic?

what do you mean by magic that you insist on excluding it?

To Kevin, if it's not something that he can clamp in a vise and
measure with a micrometer, it doesn't exist and is fantasy. There's
no such thing as an idea or a personality - only the output of a
complex, intricate quantum-billiard-ball Turing machine, that came
into existence purely by random chance, of course.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[John Larkin]

On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 06:38:27 GMT, "Kevin Aylward"
<salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk> wrote:

Too many believe that drivel on the Frazier show. Which by the way, has
Frazier acting as a dreadful psychologist not a psychiatrist as he is
claimed to be. Psychiatrists *never* psycho-analyse. They only deal with
hardware faults in the brain.

Freudians still do. They get an MD, then get qualified in psychiatry,
then spend a lot of time in a serious psychoanalytic institute getting
worked over a lot themselves. And then spend the rest of their lives
in analysis themselves. I had a good friend who did all this. She said
that Freudian analysis was mostly crap, except that once in a while
she got a patient that it *really* worked for.

John

 

[andy]

On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 06:41:37 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:

andy wrote:
On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 07:14:07 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:

andy wrote:
On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 18:24:11 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:

andy wrote:
On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 11:37:32 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:


Its that simple. "Hate"
(http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/emotions.html) is just a
trait that has evolved to maximise the numbers of memes/genes,
therefore it makes perfect evolutionary sense for hate to be
directed against traits that do not maximise the numbers of those
Replicators holding that trait meme.

for that to be true, wouldn't gay men have to pose some kind of
threat to the replicability of straight men's genes?

Not really. Its a threat to the replicability of straight men's
memes.

only if they define their own straightness in terms of
not-being-gay.

Err... pardon? Not being gay, means either being heterosexual, or not
sexual at all. Either way it excludes any concept of being gay, by
definition.

I meant something like - if the 'meme' you are talking about is
'straight men are good/ok; gay men are bad/evil; i'm not gay so I
must be ok', then gay men are a threat to that. But if someone
doesn't see it that way, then the existence of gay men needn't be any
threat to that person's beliefs.

Humans copy memes. If a meme is popular, then there is a fair
probability that it may be useful to maximise numbers. If an individual
has offspring, you do not what it exposed to a "be gay" meme as this
might increase its chances to also be gay by accepting that meme, and
therefore not have more offspring with that individuals genes. So,
existence of gay memes is indeed a maximisation threat to heterosexuals.

unless as someone else said, there's some way that gay men contribute
indirectly to the survival of the gene combination that makes them gay. If
it is like that at all - I don't know all the arguments. There's a bit in
one of Kurt Vonnegut's novels (Slaughterhouse 5) where some aliens
investigating the human race claim to have discovered seven different
sexes, all equally necessary for human reproduction.

Human Replicators are a complex function of both memes and genes.

maybe.

No maybe about it.

depends if you want to call beliefs/values 'memes' -

A meme is any peice of information..

http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/definitions.html

'meme' is also a concept and a way of talking about things that makes
people think about questions in one way rather than another. If you say
'belief' then that has another set of associations.

that carries a
whole load of other associations beyond just the idea that people's
character and behaviour is a product of both their genetic
inheritance and later social influences.

Oh? Just what piece of magic, other than the hardware and software
programming of humans do you think is relevant to humans?

The only escape, excluding magic, from classical determinism for all of
human behaviour, is quantum uncertainty. However, a random trait
generator, is by definition, random, therefore an "I" can have no
control over it. Any non-random control, is the result of prior memes
and genes.

So, what else do you actually suggest, again excluding magic?

what do you mean by magic that you insist on excluding it?

http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/specialreplicators.html


they (we) also have a self-reflexive consciousness and ability
to see them (our) selves as people-among-others. or something.

I don't understand your point here. Conscious awareness is a VDU. It
has no control over any action we take. The electrochemical machine
(brain) does all the work, and simply reports this to what we call
consciousness
(http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/consciousness.html).

you're stating this as fact, but it's only a hypothesis/opinion isn't
it?

Its *derived* based on the assumed axiom. "There is no magic".

Of course, if this axiom is false, so is the derviation. Do you have any
credible evidence that magic exists (e.g. a sole)?


My point is that looking at your table of 'what emotions really are',
there's something slightly screwy about a lot of them when you look at
them from the point of view of real life human experience,

Oh? maybe you should look at this a bit deeper.

rather
than a theory about what humans are that someone might create from a
detached 'god's-eye-perspective'.

There is no "creation", its Darwinian evolution.

I wasn't making a religion vs. science argument - just a way of talking
about how scientific theorising about human behaviour can create a weird
kind of self-consciousness where you partly forget that the entities you
are theorising about are those that you are one of. I don't mean at an
intellectual level - more a deeper structuring of consciousness/identity.

I can't exactly claim to be an
expert on love,

I am.

how?

being pretty much a loner mostly, but to me it means some kind of
awareness of another person /as/ another person, not just a vehicle for
your interests.

With all due respect here, you just haven't gave this enough thought.
Clearly, this is new to you so you are having trouble assimilating these
ideas.

I haven't thought about stuff like this for some time, no.


--
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[Jonathan Kirwan]

On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 17:48:09 GMT, Rich Grise <null@example.net> wrote:

To Kevin, if it's not something that he can clamp in a vise and
measure with a micrometer, it doesn't exist and is fantasy.

Natural facts are based on theory and result. If you have something better with
which to replace science, let's hear it.

I'm not saying that there isn't other information than fact derived from theory
and supported by result -- for example, your emotive statements about your value
orientation or the way you feel about the world do communicate information to
others. But they aren't facts about our shared natural world, per se.

Point is, you can believe what you want. But regarding nature, fact derives
from theory when supported by experimental results, themselves the interpretive
result of more prosaic theory and result. To summarize in your words, I
suppose, this means "clamp in a vise" and "measure with a micrometer."

So be it.

There's no such thing as an idea or a personality -

It depends on what you mean. Perhaps if you could provide an adequate
theoretical description for "idea" or "personality" -- one that is sufficiently
rigorous that others can make the same deductions to given circumstances from
the theory, as you do, then it might be possible to decide the question.

only the output of a
complex, intricate quantum-billiard-ball Turing machine,

Well, here you are putting words into Kevin's mouth. But what's wrong with
being a complex intricate quantum-billiard-ball Turing machine, anyway?

that came
into existence purely by random chance, of course.

And here, too.

We have an excellent, very comprehensive, well-described theory, spectacularly
well supported by myriad result. The interwoven theories of neo-evolution are
brilliant science. And until you are able to present a comprehensive, honest,
sufficient, and deductive theory to replace it, I think we can consider it as a
fact of science.

I'm sure you have your religious views. But so far as I've experienced, they
aren't couched in rigorous science language, cannot be used to make specific
deductions, or tested or otherwise evaluated. In other words, when examined
against what we can independently observe and compare in nature, they either
boil down to (1) "undeclared claims" where any evidence is taken as being
congruent no matter what (a kind of "whatever will be, will be" point of view)
or else they boil down to (2) "multiple outs" where there is an inexhaustible
source of excuses to explain away what is observed (a kind of "heads I win,
tails you lose" point of view.)

What we have with modern evolutionary theory is marvelously predictive, clearly
deductive, and a superior example of science theory and result. Religious
dogmas are pale and frightened superstition, by comparison.

Jon
--
"Saying religion is the source of morality is like saying a squirrel is the
source of acorns" -- Jon Kirwan, 2002.

 

[Kevin Aylward]

John Larkin wrote:

On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 06:38:27 GMT, "Kevin Aylward"
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk> wrote:


Too many believe that drivel on the Frazier show. Which by the way,
has Frazier acting as a dreadful psychologist not a psychiatrist as
he is claimed to be. Psychiatrists *never* psycho-analyse. They only
deal with hardware faults in the brain.

Freudians still do. They get an MD, then get qualified in psychiatry,
then spend a lot of time in a serious psychoanalytic institute getting
worked over a lot themselves.

I stand corrected. My "never" was an engineering statistical
approximation

And then spend the rest of their lives
in analysis themselves. I had a good friend who did all this. She said
that Freudian analysis was mostly crap, except that once in a while
she got a patient that it *really* worked for.

Oh dear, so a one off that "works" is proof that it works? Like if I say
I can use ESP, to predict a dice throw, and once in a while I get it
right, so that proves the ESP?

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Rich Grise wrote:

andy wrote:
On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 06:41:37 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:
The only escape, excluding magic, from classical determinism for
all of human behaviour, is quantum uncertainty. However, a random
trait generator, is by definition, random, therefore an "I" can
have no control over it. Any non-random control, is the result of
prior memes and genes.

So, what else do you actually suggest, again excluding magic?

what do you mean by magic that you insist on excluding it?

To Kevin, if it's not something that he can clamp in a vise and
measure with a micrometer, it doesn't exist and is fantasy.

If it is not measurable, than whether or not it exists is completely
irrelevant. It cant be observed, by definition.

There's
no such thing as an idea or a personality

Not at all. These concepts are well accounted for by Darwinian
processes.

- only the output of a
complex, intricate quantum-billiard-ball Turing machine,

Not at all. All of existance appears to be a Darwinian machine, not a
Turing machine.

that came
into existence purely by random chance, of course.

The generation of traits are random (but can be non randam as well), but
the selection process is decidedly non random, as the laws of physics
are non randam.

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[Kevin Aylward]

andy wrote:

Err... pardon? Not being gay, means either being heterosexual, or
not sexual at all. Either way it excludes any concept of being
gay, by definition.

I meant something like - if the 'meme' you are talking about is
'straight men are good/ok; gay men are bad/evil; i'm not gay so I
must be ok', then gay men are a threat to that. But if someone
doesn't see it that way, then the existence of gay men needn't be
any threat to that person's beliefs.

Humans copy memes. If a meme is popular, then there is a fair
probability that it may be useful to maximise numbers. If an
individual has offspring, you do not what it exposed to a "be gay"
meme as this might increase its chances to also be gay by accepting
that meme, and therefore not have more offspring with that
individuals genes. So, existence of gay memes is indeed a
maximisation threat to heterosexuals.

unless as someone else said, there's some way that gay men contribute
indirectly to the survival of the gene combination that makes them
gay.

Its still a threat, even if there is a contribution to maximisation for
being gay. What maters is the net numbers. Do the advantages of being
gay outweigh its disadvantages. For example, caring for other related
offspring does not require being gay, therefore the argument that gays
might car more for related offspring is not convincing in itself. This
situation can occur without a "gay gene/meme". One needs to provide an
argument why having same sex sex and *only* that aspect, results in a
*net* continuous advantage.

If it is like that at all - I don't know all the arguments.
There's a bit in one of Kurt Vonnegut's novels (Slaughterhouse 5)
where some aliens investigating the human race claim to have
discovered seven different sexes, all equally necessary for human
reproduction.

Oh? what has this got to do with reality?

that carries a
whole load of other associations beyond just the idea that people's
character and behaviour is a product of both their genetic
inheritance and later social influences.

Oh? Just what piece of magic, other than the hardware and software
programming of humans do you think is relevant to humans?

The only escape, excluding magic, from classical determinism for all
of human behaviour, is quantum uncertainty. However, a random trait
generator, is by definition, random, therefore an "I" can have no
control over it. Any non-random control, is the result of prior memes
and genes.

So, what else do you actually suggest, again excluding magic?

what do you mean by magic that you insist on excluding it?

Anything that isn't a part of mass-energy physics.

I can't exactly claim to be an
expert on love,

I am.

how?

being pretty much a loner mostly, but to me it means some kind of
awareness of another person /as/ another person, not just a vehicle
for your interests.

With all due respect here, you just haven't gave this enough thought.
Clearly, this is new to you so you are having trouble assimilating
these ideas.

I haven't thought about stuff like this for some time, no.

Its truly amazing, just how much "that which is mostly observed, is what
replicates the most" "explains". That is, it is a global statement that
applies whenever an object that can be replicated exists.

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[andy]

On Sat, 14 Aug 2004 06:40:05 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:

andy wrote:

If it is like that at all - I don't know all the arguments.
There's a bit in one of Kurt Vonnegut's novels (Slaughterhouse 5)
where some aliens investigating the human race claim to have
discovered seven different sexes, all equally necessary for human
reproduction.

Oh? what has this got to do with reality?

nothing necessarily - just a way to provoke imagination.

that carries a
whole load of other associations beyond just the idea that people's
character and behaviour is a product of both their genetic
inheritance and later social influences.

Oh? Just what piece of magic, other than the hardware and software
programming of humans do you think is relevant to humans?

The only escape, excluding magic, from classical determinism for all
of human behaviour, is quantum uncertainty. However, a random trait
generator, is by definition, random, therefore an "I" can have no
control over it. Any non-random control, is the result of prior memes
and genes.

So, what else do you actually suggest, again excluding magic?

what do you mean by magic that you insist on excluding it?

Anything that isn't a part of mass-energy physics.

That just seems ignorant to me - it's assuming that one of the most
complex things we know of in the world must be explicable by theories
developed mainly to explain much simpler things, and that any theory we
come up with to explain the human mind/brain must be reducible to one
expressed in terms of those simpler laws. Neither of which is necessarily
true.

I can't exactly claim to be an
expert on love,

I am.

how?

being pretty much a loner mostly, but to me it means some kind of
awareness of another person /as/ another person, not just a vehicle
for your interests.

With all due respect here, you just haven't gave this enough thought.
Clearly, this is new to you so you are having trouble assimilating
these ideas.

I haven't thought about stuff like this for some time, no.

Its truly amazing, just how much "that which is mostly observed, is what
replicates the most" "explains". That is, it is a global statement that
applies whenever an object that can be replicated exists.

You snipped the point that actually matters to me, about how scientific
theories about human life involve a strange kind of
consciousness/identity, that makes it impossible to talk about many
aspects of life that are obvious when you're not in that consciousness.


--
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[andy]

On Sat, 14 Aug 2004 06:38:45 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 06:38:27 GMT, "Kevin Aylward"
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk> wrote:


Too many believe that drivel on the Frazier show. Which by the way,
has Frazier acting as a dreadful psychologist not a psychiatrist as
he is claimed to be. Psychiatrists *never* psycho-analyse. They only
deal with hardware faults in the brain.

Freudians still do. They get an MD, then get qualified in psychiatry,
then spend a lot of time in a serious psychoanalytic institute getting
worked over a lot themselves.

I stand corrected. My "never" was an engineering statistical
approximation

And then spend the rest of their lives
in analysis themselves. I had a good friend who did all this. She said
that Freudian analysis was mostly crap, except that once in a while
she got a patient that it *really* worked for.


Oh dear, so a one off that "works" is proof that it works? Like if I say
I can use ESP, to predict a dice throw, and once in a while I get it
right, so that proves the ESP?

If you have a batch of unmarked transistors, and try to use the ebers moll
equation to build circuits with them, and find it works for a few and not
the rest, then one possible explanation is that a few are bipolar
transistors, and the rest are mosfets. Just pointing out that you're
jumping to conclusions as well.

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bin unless notified with

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[Rich Grise]

Kevin Aylward wrote:

Rich Grise wrote:
....
To Kevin, if it's not something that he can clamp in a vise and
measure with a micrometer, it doesn't exist and is fantasy.

If it is not measurable, than whether or not it exists is completely
irrelevant. It cant be observed, by definition.

There's
no such thing as an idea or a personality

Not at all. These concepts are well accounted for by Darwinian
processes.

- only the output of a
complex, intricate quantum-billiard-ball Turing machine,

Not at all. All of existance appears to be a Darwinian machine, not a
Turing machine.

What, exactly is a Darwinian machine, and how, specifically, is
it different from a Turing machine?

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Rich Grise]

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 17:48:09 GMT, Rich Grise <null@example.net> wrote:

To Kevin, if it's not something that he can clamp in a vise and
measure with a micrometer, it doesn't exist and is fantasy.

Natural facts are based on theory and result. If you have something
better with which to replace science, let's hear it.

Heavens, I never implied anything like that. Science is great! Science
is, after all, the quest for knowledge. Ultimately, Science will get
to Ultimate Truth. One day, we'll have instruments sensitive enough
to detect things that we now deny the existence of.

Science Will find God, and Goddess, for that matter, or it ain't
science.

Anything that you think you know to be absolutely immutable, proven
fact is probably wrong. And a closed mind is about the least scientific
instrument in the Known Universe.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Rich Grise]

Kevin Aylward wrote:

Oh dear, so a one off that "works" is proof that it works?

I guess it depends on which meaning of "it works" you use. ;-)
Or maybe more importantly, what your definition of "proof" is.

Prove to me that water is wet. I dare you.

Cheers!
RIch

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Rich Grise wrote:

Kevin Aylward wrote:

Oh dear, so a one off that "works" is proof that it works?

I guess it depends on which meaning of "it works" you use. ;-)
Or maybe more importantly, what your definition of "proof" is.

Proof, is beyond all reasonable doubt by those that are qualified to
make such an assessment.

Prove to me that water is wet. I dare you.

Trivial. Water is wet by definition.

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[Kevin Aylward]

andy wrote:

On Sat, 14 Aug 2004 06:38:45 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 06:38:27 GMT, "Kevin Aylward"
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk> wrote:


Too many believe that drivel on the Frazier show. Which by the way,
has Frazier acting as a dreadful psychologist not a psychiatrist as
he is claimed to be. Psychiatrists *never* psycho-analyse. They
only deal with hardware faults in the brain.

Freudians still do. They get an MD, then get qualified in
psychiatry, then spend a lot of time in a serious psychoanalytic
institute getting worked over a lot themselves.

I stand corrected. My "never" was an engineering statistical
approximation

And then spend the rest of their lives
in analysis themselves. I had a good friend who did all this. She
said that Freudian analysis was mostly crap, except that once in a
while she got a patient that it *really* worked for.


Oh dear, so a one off that "works" is proof that it works? Like if I
say I can use ESP, to predict a dice throw, and once in a while I
get it right, so that proves the ESP?

If you have a batch of unmarked transistors, and try to use the ebers
moll equation to build circuits with them, and find it works for a
few and not the rest, then one possible explanation is that a few are
bipolar transistors, and the rest are mosfets. Just pointing out that
you're jumping to conclusions as well.

My conclusion was that the fact that it worked does not constitute proof
that the method was correct. This is still the case. Its irrelevant
whether or not the claim might turn out to be true. So, no, I am not
jumping to conclusions. My logic is correct.

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[Kevin Aylward]

andy wrote:

On Sat, 14 Aug 2004 06:40:05 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:

andy wrote:

If it is like that at all - I don't know all the arguments.
There's a bit in one of Kurt Vonnegut's novels (Slaughterhouse 5)
where some aliens investigating the human race claim to have
discovered seven different sexes, all equally necessary for human
reproduction.

Oh? what has this got to do with reality?

nothing necessarily - just a way to provoke imagination.



that carries a
whole load of other associations beyond just the idea that
people's character and behaviour is a product of both their
genetic inheritance and later social influences.

Oh? Just what piece of magic, other than the hardware and software
programming of humans do you think is relevant to humans?

The only escape, excluding magic, from classical determinism for
all of human behaviour, is quantum uncertainty. However, a random
trait generator, is by definition, random, therefore an "I" can
have no control over it. Any non-random control, is the result of
prior memes and genes.

So, what else do you actually suggest, again excluding magic?

what do you mean by magic that you insist on excluding it?

Anything that isn't a part of mass-energy physics.

That just seems ignorant to me

Not at all. This process actually works.

- it's assuming that one of the most
complex things we know of in the world must be explicable by theories
developed mainly to explain much simpler things,

Why shouldn't it be? We cant actually show the discrepancies that we
actually know exist in physics, e.g. QM v Relativity, with out making
say, particle accelerators as big as the galaxy.

So far the assumption seems justified. What do you actually suggest
requires new physics in explaining the "mind"? I don't see any.

and that any theory
we come up with to explain the human mind/brain must be reducible to
one expressed in terms of those simpler laws.

The actual mechanics of the "mind" should be explainable by such
theories, otherwise there must be magic. In the absence of any evidence
for magic, making an assumption that involves magic would be pretty
daft.

It seems pretty clear that some very simple axioms indeed explain much
behaviour (http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/malefemale.html) without
introducing any magic.

Neither of which is
necessarily true.

I agree that conscious awareness is itself not derivable from the laws
of physics (http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/thehardproblem.html),
but any action that such a conscious awareness may take is still bound
by them.

With all due respect here, you just haven't gave this enough
thought. Clearly, this is new to you so you are having trouble
assimilating these ideas.

I haven't thought about stuff like this for some time, no.

Its truly amazing, just how much "that which is mostly observed, is
what replicates the most" "explains". That is, it is a global
statement that applies whenever an object that can be replicated
exists.


You snipped the point that actually matters to me,

Sorry.

about how
scientific theories about human life involve a strange kind of
consciousness/identity, that makes it impossible to talk about many
aspects of life that are obvious when you're not in that
consciousness.

I don't understand what you are trying to say here. We cant explain,
just what it is that is when you feel pain, but we can explain why such
emotions have evolved in the sense that they are a processes that has
evolved maximises the number of Replicators. e.g. all emotions are
selfish (http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/emotions.html). That is,
we don't need reams of psycho-babble pontificating, we just need 3
simple principle, that is replication, selection and random generation.
Its wonderful. That's what science is all about, explaining the most
with the least number of assumptions.

If you have anything that isn't explained in a global sense by theses
principles, do let me know.

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Rich Grise wrote:

Kevin Aylward wrote:
Rich Grise wrote:
...
To Kevin, if it's not something that he can clamp in a vise and
measure with a micrometer, it doesn't exist and is fantasy.

If it is not measurable, than whether or not it exists is completely
irrelevant. It cant be observed, by definition.

There's
no such thing as an idea or a personality

Not at all. These concepts are well accounted for by Darwinian
processes.

- only the output of a
complex, intricate quantum-billiard-ball Turing machine,

Not at all. All of existance appears to be a Darwinian machine, not a
Turing machine.

What, exactly is a Darwinian machine, and how, specifically, is
it different from a Turing machine?

A Darwinian Machine is one that calculates by the darwinian process of
replication, random generation/variation and selection. Look up neural
nets.

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Rich Grise wrote:

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 17:48:09 GMT, Rich Grise <null@example.net
wrote:

To Kevin, if it's not something that he can clamp in a vise and
measure with a micrometer, it doesn't exist and is fantasy.

Natural facts are based on theory and result. If you have something
better with which to replace science, let's hear it.

Heavens, I never implied anything like that. Science is great! Science
is, after all, the quest for knowledge. Ultimately, Science will get
to Ultimate Truth.

There is no Ultimate Truth.

One day, we'll have instruments sensitive enough
to detect things that we now deny the existence of.

And what would these things be that exist, that we deny?

Science Will find God, and Goddess,

Not a chance in hell. God dosnt exist. Period.

for that matter, or it ain't
science.

Right on.

Anything that you think you know to be absolutely immutable, proven
fact is probably wrong.

There are no absolutely immutable, proven facts in science. We have
non-unique models that work. However, there are also models that don't
work, therfore false.

And a closed mind is about the least
scientific instrument in the Known Universe.

Well, I have an open mind, but not so open such that my brains fall out.

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[Rich Grise]

Kevin Aylward wrote:

Rich Grise wrote:
Kevin Aylward wrote:
Rich Grise wrote:
...
To Kevin, if it's not something that he can clamp in a vise and
measure with a micrometer, it doesn't exist and is fantasy.

If it is not measurable, than whether or not it exists is completely
irrelevant. It cant be observed, by definition.

There's
no such thing as an idea or a personality

Not at all. These concepts are well accounted for by Darwinian
processes.

- only the output of a
complex, intricate quantum-billiard-ball Turing machine,

Not at all. All of existance appears to be a Darwinian machine, not a
Turing machine.

What, exactly is a Darwinian machine, and how, specifically, is
it different from a Turing machine?


A Darwinian Machine is one that calculates by the darwinian process of
replication, random generation/variation and selection. Look up neural
nets.

OK, fair enough. Now, what's powering this machine? What's motivating it?
What rule accounts for consciousness? Can you write your own transfer
function?

Thanks,
Rich