Alex
Administrator
sceptical views on AGW.
have you seen:
wish she woulda followed thru with her Skeptiko interview.
sceptical views on AGW.
Sui Huang uses the idea of "intrinsic constraint" by which he means the dynamics of the system. People asked how proteins started folding in the first place. This leads to a regress of questions that can go back to: why does an electron bind a nucleus? The forces, the dynamics, just work out this way. Well, why electrons, why nucleons? That is the standard model of particle physics. Then one asks: why the standard model? That was the point of building the large hadron collidor, to get inside into this issue.
Overall, what the field of protein evolution needs are some plausible, solid hypotheses to explain how random sequences of amino acids turned into the sophisticated entities that we recognize today as proteins. Until that happens, the phenomenon of the rise of proteins will remain, as Tawfik says, “something like close to a miracle.”
yea, I hope we can get Tarpley for an interview, but he's a little cagey... and I'm not sure I agree with where he takes all this. I mean, does this have to be a grand conspiracy spanning 100s of years, or do the consistency applied forces of power/greed/control explain it... or maybe they are one in the same.Yeah, I told you this stuff is a big deal. It is the history that shows how the "soul" got ripped out of science at the very beginning. Here we are 400 years later trying to put it back. It helps to see how it was excised in the first place. Then, people like Searle (or his ilk, not to single him out per se) look more like chumps of this history than anybody we should try to argue with or worry about. It would be great to get The Man himself to come on and discuss this stuff. And of course, I'm happy to talk any time! Glad you took a look at this, Alex. I really do think it is an important part of the puzzle to have incorporated into our thinking.
Best,
Don
Does this make sense?Don
To skip on the biological jargon, there seems no doubt in the question of proteins, that it is self regulated. This does not tell us much. A protein must have a function. So which came first the protein or the need for the function as well as the systems in the downstream effects? It is somewhat of an engineering feat.
Teleology is easily observed in evolution in the form of convergent evolution. The same systems evolve in different lineages, go extinct then evolve again. It is rampant and very aparent. Darwinists just point to it and say convergent without batting an eyelid. It is a complete contradiction. It exists on the genetic level as well.
However proteins are very diverse, turns out there's a fraction that are specific to each species with no homologues.
IMO it has teleology written all over it. It is a dirty word in biology. But it is there looming over everything.
I think another of the poorly framed dichotomies is material - vs - immaterial. Immaterial has a connotation of having no substance, hence no structure.Hi David, thanks for the reply.
Dynamics are just mathematical patterns. Patterns that happen to be of utility for describing material and immaterial systems. When dynamics is applied to thought processes as is currently being done in cognitive psychology, one can rightfully speak of dynamics of an immaterial system.
This is the deep meaning of the word "gunas": they are the dynamical patterns found at all levels of relative being.
That is what I am trying to do with What Is Science? is raise the level of the discourse past all these tired old cliches of materialism, idealism (no offense Michael!), random vs deterministic, etc etc, blah blah blah. These are just encrustations that have gummed up the Western intellect for centuries. Trying to force the yogic ideas in the mold of Western thought is like forcing a college student to read 3rd grade reading lessons. Its an insult to the college student.
Anyway, if you want to trip up a materialist ask them: what is mathematics? Don
That is what I am trying to do with What Is Science? is raise the level of the discourse past all these tired old cliches of materialism, idealism (no offense Michael!), random vs deterministic, etc etc, blah blah blah.
have you seen:
wish she woulda followed thru with her Skeptiko interview.
Hilbert anyone?
I think another of the poorly framed dichotomies is material - vs - immaterial. Immaterial has a connotation of having no substance, hence no structure.
Material vs informational makes perfect sense, instead.
When I use vague terms like 'other people' I'm almost always referring to Alex and his many apologists on this forum.
Another example I would use is Timothy Freke. It's fine for him to talk about many or all of our 'common sense' ideas about the self, freedom and morality being 'illusions', because we know he's a good guy, is 'spiritual', is on our side, etc., but if anybody on the 'dark side' talks about something being an 'illusion' they get absolutely hammered for it, and we're told that their ideas will lead to the end of civilization as we know it.
People here often attack the materialists/atheists/skeptics for the way they seem to delight in undermining our common-sense ideas and showing that everything we thought we knew was wrong, but when other people do this it's OK apparently.
time, place and people. A formulation that might work at one particular time in one particular place for a certain group of people tends to get outmoded and lose its mojo. The underlying truth never changes, of course, but if we try to apply today the whirling dervish dances, say, which Rumi introduced in the 13th century for the rather phlegmatic people of what is now Turkey (because they needed a bit of stirring up), they won't work because the world has moved on and people's psyches are different these days. It's necessary, so the claim goes, that an expert reformulates the system to suit changed circumstances.
be sure to check out the Q&A at the end, some folks press the issue... her response is interesting.Wow! I have'nt seen this before. I'm wondering why she hasn't posted it at her own blog, which I visit virtually every day. She's one of my heroes: a true scientist and genuine sceptic in the very best sense of that word. Thanks for posting: I'll watch it all the way through later.
Yeah, it makes good sense. All I will say is that Yoga may not be the only way of providing empirical evidence for oneself. I'm aware of several other traditions that make the same claim, and for all I know, they could all be equally useful. One guy climbs the mountain following one route, and another, another. You find Yoga particularly useful to you, and I find other things useful to me: and I daresay others reading this also have their own particular approaches.
I suppose the most famous allegory is of the blindfolded men feeling an elephant. Un-blindfolded people of course can perceive the whole elephant and the interrelationship of its parts, but how they came to realise they were wearing blindfolds and how they removed them could be very different stories. No matter, the important thing is the seeing of the elephant in its full glory.
Yeah, I'm obsessed at the moment trying to figure out this guy's deal. I'm reading these essays by Herman Weyl, Hilbert's most successful student. Excuse my French, but that was some crazy shit these guys were involved with at the turn of the 20th century: Cantor, Hilbert, Russel, Godel, Weyl, Turning, Brouwer. What a crazy bunch! These were the guys that ushered in the information age. And they fought like hell about it. Crazy stuff.
to be brilliant and cool... sometimes a photo says it all.
I think that is simplifying a little too much. Nothing for free Don!. In fact the very thing I bring up is the subject of the article linked.
I know there have been studies suggesting what was called "systems controls" directly refering to engineering principles. As in self regulation, James Shapiro has much to say on this. However he cannot explain the emergence of the systems that he determines as driving evolution. It is a perfectly reasonable question to ask. And simply follows the scientific method, discovries lead to new questions. We don't have to regress to the atom. And yet still we should.
http://www.asbmb.org/asbmbtoday/asbmbtoday_article.aspx?id=48961
The article is called "close to a miracle" for good reason.
If intrinsic constraints is as it's name implies it does not seem appropiate as these are better described as controls and not constraints.
Some protiens can fold and then refold for another function and a billion other dazzling tricks as you know. The range of function is enormous, but the sequences are not. And again as more genomes are sequenced the more singleton proteins are found. I don't see how a constraint will account for the specificity and also the non specificity of some proteins to recognize other proteins as well as misfolds in others, that cut and splice and repair DNA. Ones that can refold for a different function, and even using electrons to test DNA for errors like a circuit. Or so it is assumed.
No one has explained this.
That's a lot of free miracles Don.
Hi David, thanks for the reply.
I suggest nuance is in order here. What are dynamics? You can speak of the dynamics of atoms, or the dynamics of stars, or planets, or population biology dynamics, or the dynamics of the heart or brain. .......
Mind if I cut in? Thanks.The dynamics of the solar system doesn't 'decide' to do anything, it is a passive construction that we can use to compute the positions of the planets at a future time. Conceptually it is no different from a huge look-up table.
In a simplified way, a chemical object. like RNA, can correspond to code (as object-oriented programming), which can represent a mental or abstract object. Don, can you comment from your perspective do you observe dynamical patterns at each of these levels of "objects"?
There has been recent philosophical comment that math "objects" could be viewed as a subset of information "objects".
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12130-010-9096-6#page-1
Good points, Michael, one and all. I don't have much to add...No offence taken. Matter of fact, I've been trying to say some of this in my recent responses to you. It's just that I'm allowing the possibility that a purely intellectual understanding of Yoga might also be a tired old cliche.
One thing you may not know of is that in the Sufi (and possibly other) traditions, there's the concept of time, place and people. A formulation that might work at one particular time in one particular place for a certain group of people tends to get outmoded and lose its mojo. The underlying truth never changes, of course, but if we try to apply today the whirling dervish dances, say, which Rumi introduced in the 13th century for the rather phlegmatic people of what is now Turkey (because they needed a bit of stirring up), they won't work because the world has moved on and people's psyches are different these days. It's necessary, so the claim goes, that an expert reformulates the system to suit changed circumstances.
But when we look around, we see a lot of fossilisation and loss of dynamism in various erstwhile truly spiritual and effective systems. There's no reason why Yoga couldn't be presented in a form more suitable and effective for modern people, though it would require a skilled teacher to do that, and it might end up being virtually unrecognisable as Yoga. For all I know, such might already exist.
It's also claimed, incidentally, that a time will come when no formulations are necessary: when everyone will be able to realise the Truth for themselves without external guidance. Roll on the day!