Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
¡Oh! Pues si no me entienden no es maravilla que mis sentencias sean tenidas por disparates.
User ID: 1525
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
1yr ago
God, yes. That tweet feels like a breath of fresh air among all the "go to therapy" posts.
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
1mo ago
The fact that in practice there's no difference between "evolution" and "natural selection" is proof of the extent to which biologists are prejudiced in favour of Darwin, even though most biologists I've known haven't even read his book. But the distinction does exist, and I bring it up because people keep saying that I'm denying evolution by saying that Natural Selection is a tautology. I care not how much conceptual depth you find in it.
Now, my argument is nothing of the sort, I think you read a comment I made to another person on this thread and got stuck with it, because the accusation you make has nothing to do with my original post and is aimed at said comment, which was justified in the context of that specific conversation. If you wanted to reply to that, then you should have replied there.
You'd agree that what Democritus called "atoms" has nothing to do with what physics nowadays call so, other than the name and the fact that they were both supposedly undivisable, but we now know that this last thing is not true. This is exactly what happens with what you say. Your definition of fitness is not Darwin's, because Darwin didn't define fitness as an individuals "proficiency at replicating itself". So Darwin is Democritus and you are John Dalton. But Darwin's fitness and your fitness share nothing but the name. Your definition is not tautological, Darwin's is. You'd say of course! Biology has progressed since Darwin's time, and we now have information that Darwin lacked. That's fair, but just as Democritus is not the father of modern physics, Darwin can only be the putative father of modern "evolutionary theory". Think about it this way: What do we need Darwin for? In a universe where people knew nothing of Natural Selection, but we still had genetics, mathematics, paleontology and evolutionism, would we be unable to predict the SFS of tumors? You'd say: But Darwin did exist in this universe, and there's evidence that he was right. Well of course, as Darwin's statement was tautological, literally everything is evidence for it. Every green and red car is evidence that red is not green. The polemic part of Darwin's theory, and I'm sick of repeating it, is that it was based on economics. The polemic part of Darwin was Malthus, who was actually the one who discovered the aptly named Malthusian growth model.
You say that psychology enthusiasts will gladly cite papers with vague definitions and findings. Well, they love the theory of Natural Selection, so what conclusion should we extract from that? The people talking about Darwin nowadays are not mathematical biologists, they are people like Jordan Peterson.
Addendum: IQ may be clearly defined and well-quantifiable but intelligence isn't.
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
1mo ago
My argument is that Natural Selection is tautological, so it does not add any new knowledge. It doesn't matter if it's "systemized" or not.
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
1mo ago
Before Darwin people made all sorts of predictions about population growth and the proliferation of benetial traits. They learned, for instance, that after a flood certain species of plants were more plentiful. They then copied this process to create agriculture, etc.
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
1mo ago
I recently made a post about Darwin related to this. Since there are many definitions of "human being", people usually refer to biology as the "objective" definition, but Darwinian biology can only define mankind by the mere fact that it survives. Insofar as being alive means not being dead, human dignity relies on the conservation of the means by which existence is preserved. The problem is that existence itself becomes condition not only necessary, but sufficient, to human dignity. This is where the prejudice of caring about the welfare of human beings qua human beings comes from. From this perspective human life is sacred, but only the objective share of human life, that which relies on nourishment, breathing, reproduction and defecation - all things that human beings can control. To paint a rather gross picture, this is like changing the definition of "human being" to "poop-making machine", and then congratulating ourselves with big parades to celebrate that we've solved the human mistery by inventing a more efficient way to ingest food and excrete it. Your conclusion is absolutely on point: This not only does not solve anything, it also clouds our vision and that of the future generations from the heart of the problem.
The divinization of mere life has also an impact at a social level, and I believe this was the aim from the beginning. The objective of utilitarism was to be a foundation for law that was objective and did not depend on religion or tradition. A universal law everyone could agree with, and if any disagreements did arise then a simple calculation would suffice to solve it. This allowed the State to take complete control over the life of its citizens. In ancient times there was a divine randonmess to life: Death, disease, famine, love, they were all regarded as private affairs over which the State did not directly intervene. But through the divinization of mere life, the State could take over the management of health, food, marriage, funerary services, etc. Every aspect of objective existence has come under scrutiny of the State in order tu secure the existence of its subjects, and as the subjects need to be alive regardless of their personal convictions or beliefs, they need the State. So when a person decides to invest is his dog rather than in a random person, they can justify their behavior by stating the fact that they pay taxes, which is precisely the fee an individual pays to guarantee the common good. So if you need help, if you suffer ill-fortune and look for a loving neighbor, ask the State. But on the other hand, the State is -supposedly- justified to intervene over the existence of any individual in order to secure the common good. The modern State is a devilish trap: The more it fulfills your needs the more you give up your freedom, until there's nothing but mindless, soulless satsifaction.
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
2mo ago
I don't understand why you keep trying to defend psychiatry when nobody's attacking it. I guess you wrote your answer as you read the text because you literally quoted my saying that psychiatry is legitimate. Psychiatry may be quircky and not as epistemologically sound as other branches of medicine, but it is still medicine, still scientific, and still helpful. I would say though that psychopathology is a placeholder. I understand that you have a pragmatic point of view, and you really should. This doesn't really change anything for psychiatrists, and they don't need to worry about this, so I thank you for taking the time to engage in this discussion. But should we really be satisfied by having a placeholder instead of a psychopathology? I don't know if you agree that your belief that depression is a brain disease is just that, a belief, but I believe that's the case because the evidence I've seen is not conclusive. Yes, it's impossible to be depressed without having a brain and depression is something that exists and changes your brain, but here is when it's important to think what comes first. We can agree that treating people with depression should be our first and foremost concern regardless of existential questions, but why stop at that? Why not try to understand what's going on? This shouldn't change the attention and the care we give to depressed people, but it can help us think more acurately about the problem and who knows, maybe even come up with more effective solutions in the future.
Furthermore, I think that believing that psychopathology is something different than a placeholder opens room for all sorts of abuses. Psychiatrists are scientists and know the limitations of their discipline (or at least they should), but psychopathology is being used in all sorts of contexts where it has no business whatsoever, and this is in part because it is an epistemologically bankrrupt concept. Just as a currency undergoes inflation and looses value, concepts that are no rigorous enough are more likely to be overused. Psychologists are the worst offenders here, or maybe it's just my perception because I'm a psychologist myself and of course I know many people in my profession, so I'm surrounded by people who very loudily make all sorts of claims. The best psychologists I know are aware that psychopathology is a placeholder, but most don't or ignore that fact. And as psychologists feel insecure about the scientific status of their discipline they overrely on psychopathology to sell their services.
There is something very funny about the history of psychology, because as you must know computers where made with the specific objective to imitate human thought. But then in the 70's a bunch of psychologists saw computers and were astonished at how much they reasembled human thought, and came to the conclusion that the human mind works like a computer. I'm personally against the expression "Artificial Intelligence" because computers are neither intelligent nor dumb. They do what they are programed to do. An animal, for instance, can be intelligent or dumb because it is directly involved in the outcome of its decissions, and they can be wrong or right. Computers are never wrong, therefore they lack the ability to be implied in their decissions. So even if LLMs resemble human speech, we would be wrong to believe that speaking to an LLM is the same as speaking to a person. In that sense, just the fact that we can treat depression as a brain disease does not mean that it is a brain disease. This is only technically correct because it ignores the problem by fixing over it.
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
1mo ago
Alright, so: Those who survive, survive, and therefore can reproduce. Because those who don't survive are less likely to reproduce. You don't solve a tautology by adding another. Surviving is a sine qua non condition to reproducing, the dead don't reproduce. So no, as I understand there's no set of rules that would allow the dead to breed, unless we change the meaning of "dead" to "alive".
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
1mo ago
I think you still don't understand what a tautology is. All evidence in the known universe points at the fact that every red car is not green. Is that statement true and correct? Well yes, if that's what you wanna call it why not. But it's also dumb and useless, unless you want to use it as an example in a logic lecture. There's this common trend on this thread, where people mention Newton for the dullest of examples. For the hundreth time no, Newton did not discover that things fall down when you drop them. But Newton is a good example of a scientific theory that is not tautologic, so you can look that up.
You also seem to have quite a childish idea of religion, where religion = dumb. I guess it's because you like Richard Dawkins, or as I like to call him, Dick Dorkins. No, people didn't believe that praying was a solution to everything, the Angelic Doctor didn't wrote his Summa Theologica exploring the relation between faith and reason just to conclude that reason = big bad. I mean, there have been people who believed that but they still exist today, so being dumb has nothing to do with being religious. Furthermore, there are plenty of biologists and scientists who are religious, I'd say that most have been. For instance, Mendel was a catholic monk, but did he just sit down and pray waiting for the tastiest peas known to man to magically appear? Absolutely not, he went and invented genetics, the absolute madman.
And yes of course, I do have sources for that. It's not a polemic claim at all, there's nothing incompatible between the idea of evolution and creationism. For instance:
If the origin of species was attributed to divine action, the temporal emergence of these species was not necessarily instantaneous. Such a doctrine was the basis of Augustine of Hippo’s (354–430) theory of the original creation of primordial seeds (rationes seminales) of each species at an original moment in time, but with the emergence of species in historical time a possibility (Augustine, VI.13.23–25, [GL, 175–76]). This theory of a temporalized creation, put forth explicitly in detail in his treatise The Literal Interpretation of Genesis, allowed Augustine to argue that species emerged sequentially in historical time rather than all at once.
Source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evolution-before-darwin/#MediRevi
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
1mo ago
I mean, if you are going to mix up taxology and taxidermy at least be a good sport about it. The difference is not trivial, and there's a minimum of knowledge required to understand the history of biology. You don't have to believe me, go ahead and check Wikipedia again, it clearly says taxonomy. You can also look up the definition of it while you are at it. Taxidermy is only mentioned once on Linnaeus' page, and it's only a reference to a trip bro took to Hamburg where he was shown the taxidermied remains of a seven-headed hydra by the mayor of the town. Wild stuff.
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
1mo ago
Lol, that's cute. You meant to say TAXONOMY not taxidermy. Of course neither Linnaeus nor Aristotle spoke about evolution or natural selection, I never said they did. I said they knew about the branching tree of life, because that's what taxonomy is. But don't worry, there are also a bunch of people who spoke about the evolution of species before Darwin. Would you like me to list them? And just so you know, Aristotle was a huge nerd and spent his free time studying and collecting mussels in the Mediterranean.
And yes, I'm only criticizing Darwin for his theory of Natural Selection.
You know, there's really no proof that we don't live in the whacky god-controlled universe, so the discussion is not over. I'm noy saying Darwin had an economic agenda, but the implications of his theory are economic. That's why I said that there were conscious and unconscious consequences for Darwin's theory.
You say:
Creatures survive because they can reproduce and survive in the environments where they live.
And why is that? Well, because of Natural Selection of course! Now change Natural Selection for "God", and how does that change anything? If this is a popularity contest then yes, Darwin is winning by a landslide. But Darwin wasn't arguing against the idea of a watchmaker God, that was Dorkins. Darwin was agnostic, and never meant to refute the idea of God. I honestly don't care about winning any debates here, who cares if I'm right and some XIXth century fella was wrong.
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
1mo ago
We could also predict the change in coat lenght without the theory of natural selection...
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
1mo ago
It may be an emergent effect but it is a tautologic. Like, every red car being red could also be understood as an "emergent effect", but why would you?
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
1mo ago
Well, no. If Lamarck were proved to be correct that wouldn't make Darwin wrong. In fact, modern synthesis uses both darwinian and lamarckian ideas. So please explain how Natural Selection could be proved wrong in a possible universe.
The theory of Natural Selection is not just language, but that's the only useful part of it. What you call "core metaphysical assumptions" we could do without and nothing would change. Of course, there are metaphysical assumptions that are necessary, but Natural Selection is not one of them.
There's no such framework. Reverse-engineering is that, reverse engineering. It wasn't invented by Darwin. Everything we can do with Natural Selection we can do without it. I'm quite clear about arguing that the theory of Natural Selection is a tautology, so I don't see how you would be confused about my intentions. It may be that I don't understand this subject well enough, but you certainly haven't proven me wrong. Now, if you could prove that Natural Selection may be false, then my argument would be dead.
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
1mo ago
I'm not saying evolution is a tautology, I'm saying the theory of Natural Selection is. People think that the theory of Natural Selection = The theory of evolution, but they are two different things. In fact, there's no "theory of evolution". What you say is true but it says nothing about the subject at hand, the theory of Natural Selection.
I won't get into the mathematics argument because I've already addresed it in other comments.
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
1mo ago
¡Oh! Pues si no me entienden no es maravilla que mis sentencias sean tenidas por disparates.
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
2mo ago
Of course animal brains are special, the fact that they can be simulated doesn't make them less so. The fact that you can take a picture of The Garden of Earthly Delights does not make it any less special. If you really want to be a nerd then no, nothing is made of electrons and quarks. In fact, nothing is made out of nothing and nothing exists at all, and if an atomic bomb were to explode right here beneath my chair nothing would change and everything would remain exactly where it is and where it has always been.
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
1yr ago
But think it this way: The more bandages you put, the better you get at it. So psychology is efficient, if only by the mere fact that it's been doing the same thing for several decades now.
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
1mo ago
First of all:
God protects all animals and won't allow any of them to suffer
You mean something like this?
When we reflect on this struggle, we may console ourselves with the full belief, that the war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply.
That is a quote from Darwin btw. Besides neither St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas believed that animals do not suffer. That counterexample of yours is nothing but a strawman.
I'm trying to understand what you are saying...
You seem to understand it well enough to judge it as nonsensical. Or don't you understand what "nonsensical" means either? In any case, it doesn't get much clearer than this: The theory of Natural Selection is a tautology. For the rest all I can say is: ¡Oh! Pues si no me entienden no es maravilla que mis sentencias sean tenidas por disparates.
Erratum: Somebody did predict antimicrobial resistance.
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
1mo ago
I'm aware of Mark Fisher's work, and I am aware that Darwin wasn't the one responsible for what you call "realist inevitability". I'll admit I have a personal bias against Darwinism, so I'll confess I don't really have a long-term strategy here. I just smelt blood and attacked the perceived weakness. The fact that Darwinists make all sorts of bold claims about nature and human behavior makes them more atractive targets.
The correct response to genetic realism, should always be to find new ways to grant our ideals control over our genetics.
I don't know about that but I do know what Gómez Dávila says: "With pessimism and a sense of humor, it's impossible to be wrong or bored."
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
1mo ago
Well, if I know that red is not green I can predict that if something is red, it won't be green. But this prediction is no enlightenment at all.
Gregor
Fuge, late, tace.
1mo ago
You seem to be saying...
I'm not. Why don't you focus on what I actually said? I won't respond to the "then everything is a tautology" claim because I've already done so several times on these comments, even on this very thread if I recall correctly.
Newton says...
No he does not.
It does seem that you are complaining about...
Key word: Seem. I'm only stating that there's no counterexample to a tautology. Because I'm trying to explain that the theory of Natural Selection is a tautology.
So that is how it differs from Darwin's explanation.
Yes, St. Augustine is not the same as Darwin. But in practical terms, Divine Selection and Natural selection have the same explanatory value. That is, none at all.
And yes, the Wikipedia article says that Flemming "predicted" antimicrobial resistance, but he "predicted" it in 1945, that is, 17 years after he discovered antibiotics. And he "predicted" it because he already observed the resistance in his laboratory. So no, he didn't "predict" it, he discovered it.
What do you mean by self filter? I believe I've only claimed that Darwin's theory is a tautology. For the rest, depends on what you mean by "fine". Should we burn Darwin's books? I guess not. Should we continue believing that the theory of Natural Selection has any explanatory value? Definitely not.
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