site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   38221 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Like, what is the natural process that results in the probabilistic construction of a jet engine?

Can I not just as easily ask “what is the natural process that results in the probabilistic construction of a self-replicating molecular organism?”

What is the evidence these two things are of similar likelihood?

You seem to think the jet engine is vastly less likely, so apparently you think there is evidence that bears on this question. What is that evidence?

You seem to think the jet engine is vastly less likely, so apparently you think there is evidence that bears on this question. What is that evidence?

Observation? I can look around me and see life in a variety of forms. Great and small, simple and complex. All of them apparently formed from naturalistic processes. Yet never once have I, or anyone, seen a jet engine formed by anything other than the labor of people to build one.

You don't have independent examples of abiogenesis, I'm pretty sure.

I would be very interested to see your evidence that abiogenesis happened exactly once!

I'm pretty sure it's the scientific consensus that all life that we've seen has a common ancestor? Or are you saying across the universe, in which case that seems comparable to Russell's teapot—we have no evidence in any direction, so we need to resort to estimates of base rates.

I was saying this since you were trying to use the prevalence of life in our surroundings to argue that life is prevalent across the cosmos, but the prevalence of life in our surroundings is clearly influenced by the anthropic principle, and shares a common ancestor.

As another comment points out, the available scientific evidence suggests multicellularity evolved independently multiple times. I would be pretty surprised if this wasn't the case for single cellular life as well.

That aside, I'm happy to say my prior is that inorganic matter becoming organic matter via natural processes is more probable than natural processes spontaneously forming a jet engine.

All life on Earth is remarkably compact when it comes to biochemistry, fundamental pathways of metabolism and biosynthesis, and genetics. In particular, the genetic code (the rule translating sequences of nucleotides into sequences of aminoacids) is almost identical in all living species, despite being, as far as we know, arbitrary.

Multiple abiogeneses might very well have occurred, but in that case it seems the product of one has assimilated or destroyed the products of the others -- or perhaps, the products of multiple events have mixed together so tightly, in a period in which organisms were a lot more porous and promiscuous than even modern bacteria, that the different components cannot be told apart.

Multicellularity seems much more likely to me. Eusociality, which is very similar, also occurred several independent times. But that's taking existing life guided through evolution, not creating new life. We'd need to look at the actual complexity or difficulty of making a self-replicating thing through entirely unguided processes to have a sense of how likely it could be expected to be. If it's fairly easy, why not. If it's very hard, even given the size of the earth, then not likely. The impression I'd been given was that the second was more accurate.

This is question begging. You observed the naturalistic origin of life? You can’t say “I know life originated naturalistically because I observe the existence of organic life but not its initial origin.”

I observe that jet engines are vastly less likely to occur in nature than life is. What is the counter evidence, that they are similarly likely to occur?

ETA:

To be clearer. I have a simple observation that there are vastly more and varied forms of life in existence than jet engines. Consider two explanations for this phenomenon.

(1) Jet engines and life are both equally (or similarly) likely to be produced by naturalistic processes but a supernatural process has intervened to create life but not jet engines.

(2) It is vastly more likely for naturalistic processes to produce life than jet engines.

What is the reason, the evidence, for believing (1) over (2)?

Can I not just as easily ask “what is the natural process that results in the probabilistic construction of a self-replicating molecular organism?”

You could, and you would have gotten a response that it's ordinary organic chemistry swayed by Brownian motion, that happily proceeds on scales in question and no doubt proceeded in the primordial ocean of our world. It is another question just how many trials in an average run it would have taken to produce a self-replicating system; I personally think «more than our Hubble volume is likely to have seen». But the basic physical plausibility is not in question. The entire trajectory from there to here exists and does not involve a single supernaturally improbable step like synchronized quantum teleportation of macroscopic objects; only a great deal of churn.

At which point @Gillitrut would have very reasonably asked you again how a jet gets formed without human labor.

Wait, do you think it’s physically impossible for a fighter jet to arise from natural processes, like random quantum fluctuations and collisions? I thought it was just unlikely. Don’t most physicists agree that with enough chance events this could occur? Sean Carroll has given weirder examples of things he thinks happen due to the multiverse existing, such as that there must be a universe somewhere where unembodied human brains just appear in the middle of a tiny space due to random fluctuations of “something something quantum mechanics”, with a supportive environment that allows them to live.

I am not sure but I think there has not been a single case in the history of our (finite volume) universe where 1g of matter under normal conditions has ended up «teleported» by 1m in a coherent manner, this sole event is less plausible than the emergence of life. My physical knowledge is lacking though.

And if you stipulate infinities then there's no good objection to basic anthropic principle and the whole theological argument falls apart.

A fighter jet did arise from natural processes, because humans evolved and built a fighter jet. This is merely a restatement of the original argument, which is the point.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats