Forums Barber posted:Of all the crazy Eripsa-isms we've seen, relying on somethingawful.com to archive his 'work' for him is my new favorite. That actually surprised me and slightly lowered my opinion of him, and I didn't think he could get either response from me again at this point. I don't know what's funnier, that he's so goddamn bad with technology itself despite being whatever flavor of techno-guru he's styling himself as at the moment or that he thinks anything of any value whatsoever was lost.  I would pay actual money to PPV his thesis defense; if they're as insightful and critical as every defense I've ever witnessed it's going to be the biggest cringe-comedy since Scott's Tots.
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May 8, 2014 10:38
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Negative Entropy posted:http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin%27s_Dangerous_Idea First, that's not what Newton did. As I said, Newton, who was crazy religious, refused to address the motive forces such as gravity. Newton absolutely thought a creator was necessary, and his writing is full of that. quote:On The Origin of Species also described biology as being guided by simple, mechanistic laws which acted in a predictable fashion not at all necessitating a Creator. Natural selection selects random mutations with a purpose. Mutations unfit for survival are eliminated while mutations fit for survival prosper. Second, Eripsa's claim was that Darwin unified 'biology' with laws that had been shown to be true in other areas. Darwin definitely didn't unify, or try to unify 'biology', he focused on one--vastly important--area of biology, the diversity of species. Third, I think what Eripsa may be mis-remembering is that Darwin thought that 'natural law' was a much more elegant assumption for how God had produced varieties of species than constantly fiddling around with stuff; that fit Darwin's religious beliefs better. He didn't think that the laws governing evolution were the same as laws governing other things--as, indeed, they're not. And Paley actually thought that God was a 'lawgiver' too, but he thought that he continued to modify, that he didn't limit himself to just the action of the laws. Paley's views are a lot more nuanced than Eripsa has portrayed them, which is why he inspired Darwin, and why Dawkins calls himself a 'neo-Paleyist'. The only extent to which Darwin 'unified' biology and other sciences is that Darwin was a materialist. But he didn't work on any broad theories of biology, just on evolution, which may be one of the most important ideas of biology but does not define the field. Basically, Eripsa is just calling anyone who significantly advanced a scientific field a 'unifier', and crowning himself one too, with his typical astonishing amount of arrogance.
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May 8, 2014 11:22
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wheez the roux posted:I don't know what's funnier, that he's so goddamn bad with technology itself despite being whatever flavor of techno-guru he's styling himself as at the moment or that he thinks anything of any value whatsoever was lost. When all else fails, you can become a digital prophet like shingy... http://valleywag.gawker.com/sxsw-in-one-photo-shingy-on-a-wrecking-ball-1540026486
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May 8, 2014 11:47
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wheez the roux posted:I would pay actual money to PPV his thesis defense; if they're as insightful and critical as every defense I've ever witnessed it's going to be the biggest cringe-comedy since Scott's Tots. I feel that there is a distinct chance that his defense is actually a Google+ Hangout with some guys from HackerNews
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May 8, 2014 12:45
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Eripsa threads: Garbage in, garbage out.
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May 8, 2014 13:10
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Obdicut posted:Third, I think what Eripsa may be mis-remembering is that Darwin thought that 'natural law' was a much more elegant assumption for how God had produced varieties of species than constantly fiddling around with stuff; that fit Darwin's religious beliefs better. He didn't think that the laws governing evolution were the same as laws governing other things--as, indeed, they're not. And Paley actually thought that God was a 'lawgiver' too, but he thought that he continued to modify, that he didn't limit himself to just the action of the laws. Paley's views are a lot more nuanced than Eripsa has portrayed them, which is why he inspired Darwin, and why Dawkins calls himself a 'neo-Paleyist'. Far be it from me to defend Eripsa at all, but unless I misread you, I think you are completely wrong about Darwin. By the time Darwin published the Origin of Species, he was atheist - the death of his youngest girl completely crushed his belief in God. He avoided talking about the theological/philosophical implications of the Origin of Species because he didn't really enjoy controversy (he let Huxley do the fighting for him) but you are completely mistaken if you think Darwin believed in natural law.
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May 8, 2014 13:14
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Obdicut posted:The only extent to which Darwin 'unified' biology and other sciences is that Darwin was a materialist. But he didn't work on any broad theories of biology, just on evolution, which may be one of the most important ideas of biology but does not define the field. This is wrong. Evolution absolutely unified the field of biology, and it's the linchpin of modern biology, quite literally. If we somehow suddenly discovered that some of the mechanics of evolution don't actually work the way we thought, the wheels will come off of the entire thing and it'll crash and burn. Of course, that can't happen any more than we could suddenly discover that the quantum mechanical theory that tells us how transistors work is wrong. Modern evolutionary synthesis is called that for a reason, it brought together all of the disparate subfields of biology and attached them to each other like conjoined twins.
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May 8, 2014 13:53
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iFederico posted:Far be it from me to defend Eripsa at all, but unless I misread you, I think you are completely wrong about Darwin. This is stripping out most of the nuance. Darwin probably was, before the death of his youngest girl, a 'pantheist', and struggled with that belief and others for the rest of his life. Darwin was very much inspired by Paley's ideas of 'natural law', and wrote about that inspiration. I'm even more confused because 'natural law' doesn't actually imply any sort of supernatural origin for those laws, so it makes no sense to say that Darwin was an atheist, therefore he didn't believe in 'natural law'. BUSH 2112 posted:This is wrong. Evolution absolutely unified the field of biology, and it's the linchpin of modern biology, quite literally. If we somehow suddenly discovered that some of the mechanics of evolution don't actually work the way we thought, the wheels will come off of the entire thing and it'll crash and burn. Of course, that can't happen any more than we could suddenly discover that the quantum mechanical theory that tells us how transistors work is wrong. Modern evolutionary synthesis is called that for a reason, it brought together all of the disparate subfields of biology and attached them to each other like conjoined twins. First of all, the modern synthesis wasn't done by Darwin. Second of all, there's a lot of biology that doesn't depend on evolution. Saying that evolution is absolutely important to biology is not the same thing as saying it 'unified' it. You can examine protein folding and production, even the way that particular genes being on or off affect that protein, without taking into account evolution. You might as well say that 'cell theory' unifies biology. Basically, the problem is that Erpisa argues by analogy. There is no way in which Newton, Kant, and Darwin all tried to 'unify' anything with any meaning that's remotely similar, but in each case you can make an argument for a totally different meaning of the word 'unify' that kind of holds water, though is arguable and subjective. Newton tried to explain the mechanics of motion, without addressing the origin of the forces. Darwin tried to explain the variety of species, without addressing the mechanism that drove speciation. In a similar way to how he thinks that because Wikipedia is a 'common' resource the tragedy of the commons applies to it (and is absolutely and utterly wrong), he's wrong that these scientists tried to 'unify' science. They didn't even try to unify their fields. Only Kant and Marx can be said to be attempting unification, though i doubt Marx would agree that he was.
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May 8, 2014 14:14
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Obdicut posted:[Darwin] didn't think that the laws governing evolution were the same as laws governing other things--as, indeed, they're not. quote:1) A = A quote:1) Organisms are mortal
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May 8, 2014 14:17
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GulMadred posted:This is the crucial bit. It's possible to imagine a scenario in which Darwin sought new insights in biology by logical inference from known scientific laws, such as: Yeah, exactly. He was convinced, ironically partially by Paley, that there were laws underlying the variety of species that we saw, that they hadn't been hand-designed each and every one but that there was some interaction of laws that produced variety. Whether or not he believed in God is actually a complete red-herring; he could believe God created these laws, or that they were a natural output of the physical forces of the universe, either is compatible with evolutionary theory. To expand on what you said, if Darwin nor any other Darwinian had existed, we would have eventually stumbled across evolution through observation of DNA & RNA, or even more basically, through protein topology. That's where biology really connects to other scientific domains. Darwin's stuff is cool precisely because he had a visionary concept that didn't depend on applying knowledge from other domains.
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May 8, 2014 14:27
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Obdicut posted:This is stripping out most of the nuance. Darwin probably was, before the death of his youngest girl, a 'pantheist', and struggled with that belief and others for the rest of his life. Darwin was very much inspired by Paley's ideas of 'natural law', and wrote about that inspiration. I'm even more confused because 'natural law' doesn't actually imply any sort of supernatural origin for those laws, so it makes no sense to say that Darwin was an atheist, therefore he didn't believe in 'natural law'. It is very, very difficult to believe in natural law in the absence of a creator - since natural law presupposes a 'telos'. There might some some atheists who believe in natural law, but I don't know of any. Even if they do exist, they are the overwhelming minority. Even so, Darwin's break with religion came before his publication of The Origin of Species, and by the time it was published, he no meaningful connection at all with any organized religion. At that point, speculating about Darwin's secret influences strikes me about as productive as Freudian investigations into the motives of Leonardo. quote:First of all, the modern synthesis wasn't done by Darwin. Second of all, there's a lot of biology that doesn't depend on evolution. Saying that evolution is absolutely important to biology is not the same thing as saying it 'unified' it. You can examine protein folding and production, even the way that particular genes being on or off affect that protein, without taking into account evolution. You might as well say that 'cell theory' unifies biology. I agree with the former part (the Darwinian synthesis was mostly the work of Fisher and his colleagues) but the latter point is untrue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_in_Biology_Makes_Sense_Except_in_the_Light_of_Evolution - while you can study the folding pattern of a single protein using molecular dynamics and ignoring evolution, you can also study the way an electron interacts with a charged plate ignoring the fact electromagnetism and the weak force are united - does that mean that the electroweak theory doesn't provide a compelling unification, since you can momentarily ignore it if you focus on a single problem? quote:Basically, the problem is that Erpisa argues by analogy. There is no way in which Newton, Kant, and Darwin all tried to 'unify' anything with any meaning that's remotely similar, but in each case you can make an argument for a totally different meaning of the word 'unify' that kind of holds water, though is arguable and subjective. I agree completely, and that's the crux of the problem. Unification is a 'fuzzy' word, and except in very rare cases like the electroweak force (which is pretty much the Hesperus/Vesperus problem of Russell & Quine) it's very hard to say what unification means.
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May 8, 2014 14:29
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iFederico posted:It is very, very difficult to believe in natural law in the absence of a creator - since natural law presupposes a 'telos'. There might some some atheists who believe in natural law, but I don't know of any. Even if they do exist, they are the overwhelming minority. I have no idea how you're using the phrase 'natural law', but it just means 'scientific law'. quote:Even so, Darwin's break with religion came before his publication of The Origin of Species, and by the time it was published, he no meaningful connection at all with any organized religion. At that point, speculating about Darwin's secret influences strikes me about as productive as Freudian investigations into the motives of Leonardo. No clue what you're talking about. Darwin's religion isn't important, and his inspiration from Paley wasn't religious, it was intellectual. quote:I agree with the former part (the Darwinian synthesis was mostly the work of Fisher and his colleagues) but the latter point is untrue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_in_Biology_Makes_Sense_Except_in_the_Light_of_Evolution - while you can study the folding pattern of a single protein using molecular dynamics and ignoring evolution, you can also study the way an electron interacts with a charged plate ignoring the fact electromagnetism and the weak force are united - does that mean that the electroweak theory doesn't provide a compelling unification, since you can momentarily ignore it if you focus on a single problem? Electroweak theory unifies two things in physics; this is a very small and limited meaning of unification, different from Eripsa's claims. quote:I agree completely, and that's the crux of the problem. Unification is a 'fuzzy' word, and except in very rare cases like the electroweak force (which is pretty much the Hesperus/Vesperus problem of Russell & Quine) it's very hard to say what unification means. True, which is why it kind of baffles me that you're arguing on this. There is no way that Kant, Newton, and Darwin 'unified' in the same way. Netwon specifically did not attempt to address the origin of forces, Darwin wasn't applying laws from or true in other scientific fields to biology, he was doing his own thing, Kant's unification was a broad, philosophical one mainly concerned with consciousness and knowledge. Darwin, in fact, is the best anti-example: Not only did he not unify or try to unify, even under the most trivial meaning of the term, he actually created a 'problem'--what mechanism made evolution work--that had to be later unified (in the small sense) through the modern synthesis. "Unification" sounds nice, though, like "architectonic". Sounds real important.
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May 8, 2014 14:40
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Obdicut posted:I have no idea how you're using the phrase 'natural law', but it just means 'scientific law'. This is perhaps why I was finding what you were saying so confusing. When I hear natural law, I was thinking of natural law in the Aristotelean/Scholastic sense, not in the sense of 'a law of nature', and attributing the former to Darwin made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
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May 8, 2014 14:50
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iFederico posted:This is perhaps why I was finding what you were saying so confusing. When I hear natural law, I was thinking of natural law in the Aristotelean/Scholastic sense, not in the sense of 'a law of nature', and attributing the former to Darwin made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Okay, that's the problem then. When Darwin (or Paley) talked about natural law, they meant a law observable in nature, underpinning material reality. Paley's big philosophical mistake was in saying that these laws showed or proved the existence of a creator, an 'enforcer' of that law. This is why Dawkins called his book The Blind Watchmaker, underscoring that Paley was right about there being a 'watchmaker', just wrong about it being a conscious, scrupulous entity. Paley gets a bad rap, often simply playing the role of the foolish religious sop that Eripsa has regulated him to, but he was an inspiration to Darwin and to other biologists precisely because he argued for the existence of laws underpinning biological processes, which is why Dawkins calls himself a neo-Paleyian. Obdicut fucked around with this message at 15:27 on May 8, 2014 |
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May 8, 2014 15:00
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Obdicut posted:There is no way that Kant, Newton, and Darwin 'unified' in the same way. Obdicut is still arguing about unification without saying what he thinks the terms means, using the term in a specialized way disconnected from the actual literature to give arguments he doesn't understand. He is a Bad Thinker. He thinks that since Darwin didn't talk about Newton's Laws his theories can't be called "unifying", even though all of modern biology recognizes evolutionary theory in terms of a modern synthesis. His sticking point is that Darwin didn't himself argue for the synthesis, which he thinks somehow undermines the analogy. It doesn't at all. This whole tangent on evolutionary theory is just him covering for a mistake he's yet to admit to. I've defined "unification" a bunch of times, but instead of dealing with the definition explicitly he's using the term without explicit interpretation to give an argument that doesn't make sense. A unification happens when disparate phenomenon are understood to be explained by the same basic theories. Paley, like Darwin and Dawkins, was a mechanist (hence the watchmaker), but Paley adamantly believed that biological phenomenon couldn't be explained in terms of mechanism alone, and Darwin('s elaborated theory) showed how that was possible. Darwin was inspired by Paley, but he also argued for a unified theory where Paley thought none was possible. Obdicut also thinks that Newton being a mystic alchemist somehow undermines the claim that Newton's theories unified the fundamental scinces. The fact that Newton believed in God or alchemy doesn't matter one way or the other, what matters is that Newton unified terrestrial and celestial mechanics, which on Aristotle's view were disparate phenomenon requiring distinct explanations. Newton knew it wasn't a complete theory of everything, but it's obtuse to object to calling it a unifying project; Obdicut seems to be okay calling Kant's theory a unified theory. I think he thinks a unified theory has to talk about morality, and since Darwin didn't and Newton appealed to traditional moral theories then they can't be called unifiers. But this is just a thick-headed, knee-jerk reaction to the argument I've put forward. The important point is that Newton('s elaborated scientific theories) unifies a vision of the natural world, and this Newtonian vision was a major inspiration for Kant's transcendental idealism; and similarly that Darwin('s elaborated scientific theories) unify a vision of the natural world that served as a major inspiration for Marx's dialectical materialism. Marx's theory is different from Kant's, of course, but they are both comprehensive philosophical theories inspired by the cutting edge science of the day. There's lot of nuances and disanalogies if we go through the details of the analogy, but the basic point is solid as a rock, and is a completely appropriate way of introducing the relation between network theory and digital philosophy. I'll point out for the record that my goal in giving the analogy was to help explain the relation between network theory and digital philosophy as I described in a densely sourced post on the previous page. Obdicut's tangent into evolutionary theory is entirely a red herring for the argument I've given, since the issues he's discussion about how Darwin wasn't a unifier don't bear at all on the analogy I've given, or the argument I've tried to make by using it. Obdicut has a vendetta against me, and that's caused him to give a half-assed and historically ignorant interpretation of my posts and say a bunch of sloppy things that aren't true. Multiple people are calling him out on his sloppiness, yet he refuses to admit to his mistakes (either about the facts or in his interpretation of my posts) and yet he's still convinced that the garbage in the thread is coming only from me and that his self-righteous half-assed posting is sufficient to demonstrate the inadequacy of the theories I've presented. Instead, all he's done is distract and confuse everyone and derail the thread. RealityApologist fucked around with this message at 15:59 on May 8, 2014 |
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May 8, 2014 15:43
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Oh, and I was informed by a mod that the other thread was getting too "helldumpy", which is why it was hidden. I don't know if that means we'll ever get it back, but considering that my last two posts in it were 1500+ word pieces of fiction I'm not sure how much responsibility I should shoulder for this turn of events. It would be nice to have some official word from the mods. It seems weird to hide that thread and make us all come here for a disjointed discussion which imho was going much better in the other thread. But these things are not for me to decide.
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May 8, 2014 15:52
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RealityApologist posted:Obdicut is still arguing about unification without saying what he thinks the terms means, using the term in a specialized way disconnected from the actual literature to give arguments he doesn't understand. He is a Bad Thinker. He thinks that since Darwin didn't talk about Newton's Laws his theories can't be called "unifying", I never said anything like that, no. quote:I've defined "unification" a bunch of times, but instead of dealing with the definition explicitly he's using the term without explicit interpretation to give an argument that doesn't make sense. A unification happens when disparate phenomenon are understood to be explained by the same basic theories. Paley, like Darwin and Dawkins, was a mechanist (hence the watchmaker), but Paley adamantly believed that biological phenomenon couldn't be explained in terms of mechanism alone, and Darwin('s elaborated theory) showed how that was possible. Darwin was inspired by Paley, but he also argued for a unified theory where Paley thought none was possible. What's cool here is you say Paley was a mechanist and then literally in the next sentence say he wasn't. That's pretty rad. quote:Obdicut also thinks that Newton being a mystic alchemist somehow undermines the claim that Newton's theories unified the fundamental scinces. I think that Newton explicitly not addressing the question of 'what causes gravity' undermines the claim that Newton's theories unified the 'fundamental sciences'. quote:Newton knew it wasn't a complete theory of everything, but it's obtuse to object to calling it a unifying project; It's not in any way a unifying project in the same way that Kant's or Marx's was, yeah. Your use of 'unifying' is incoherent and makes no sense at all. I just unified myself with a bagel, look at me, I'm like Kant. quote:The important point is that Newton('s elaborated scientific theories) unifies a vision of the natural world, and this Newtonian vision was a major inspiration for Kant's transcendental idealism; and similarly that Darwin('s elaborated scientific theories) unify a vision of the natural world that served as a major inspiration for Marx's dialectical materialism. Marx's theory is different from Kant's, of course, but they are both comprehensive philosophical theories inspired by the cutting edge science of the day. There's lot of nuances and disanalogies if we go through the details of the analogy, but the basic point is solid as a rock, and is a completely appropriate way of introducing the relation between network theory and digital philosophy. Oh, for gently caress's sake, you just mean they inspired each other. What a bizarre-rear end way to try to say that. A lot of the problem, Eripsa, is so much of what you speak is just corporate-managment style bullshit. this whole paragraph: quote:Put simply, the scientific and technical resources developed over the last 40 years (networks in all their guises) have created both the room and the need for a systematic philosophical narrative to account for our place in history and to help us understand the tools at our disposal. Digital philosophy is that narrative. This narrative doesn't provide answers so much as it coordinates our efforts. This narrative is not completely developed (neither is the science and math, for that matter), but over the last 10 years especially it has come to take a very distinct shape in the public discourse suitable for discussion at the very abstract level I've attempted in these threads. This narrative isn't mine, in the sense that I've shaped it from raw materials; people have been telling it in many ways over the last 40 years, perhaps most famously by D&G's discussion of rhizomes, and somewhat less famously in Koelstra's discussion of holons. But digital philosophy isn't just the bankrupt psychoanalytic appropriation of scientific terminology, or a new age design philosophy. As best represented by the digital humanities, digital philosophy is driven by earnest attempts to get the science right, because that's critical for encouraging the participation of all the parties that need to be involved. It's full of things that aren't even remotely defined, gross assumptions, begged questions, and in the end says basically nothing. No one is any closer to understanding what 'digital philosophy' is before or after reading this paragraph. And again, you fail to 'get the science right'. You don't give a poo poo about the science. You're unwilling to learn the science. Learn the science. Go learn stuff. Read some basic econ textbooks, some game theory. Read it and try not to cram it into your preconceptions and the poo poo you've already decided is true. Go actually learn.
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May 8, 2014 15:59
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iFederico posted:I agree completely, and that's the crux of the problem. Unification is a 'fuzzy' word, and except in very rare cases like the electroweak force (which is pretty much the Hesperus/Vesperus problem of Russell & Quine) it's very hard to say what unification means. I'd disagree that the electroweak unification is "very rare"; Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism are another case of unification of pretty much the exact same sort. But more importantly I don't think rarity is an important factor here; you might as well object that fundamental paradigm shifts of any sort are rare in the sciences. I'm not sure that matters to the argument I've made. I think you're wrong that "unification" is a fuzzy word. A unifying theory is one that takes two apparently disparate phenomenon and reveals them to have the same basic explanation. In the sciences, both Newton and Darwin's theories are fundamental unifying theories that trigger major paradigm shifts in the way we understand and explain the world. The sense in which these are unifying theories is commonly accepted within the literature, and is surely not as controversial an interpretation of the history of science as Obdicut's criticisms suggest. Do you mean Frege's Hesperus/Phosphorous? I'm not sure how the debate is relevant here. H/P has to do with sense and reference, but that's not the issue in unification. We're not talking about two terms referring to the same object, we're talking about distinct theoretical explanations for the same phenomenon. The more important reference has to do with the web of belief from Quine's Two Dogmas. Quine's naturalism suggests that all of science is an interconnected web: quote:The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience. A conflict with experience at the periphery occasions readjustments in the interior of the field. Truth values have to be redistributed over some of our statements. Re-evaluation of some statements entails re-evaluation of others, because of their logical interconnections -- the logical laws being in turn simply certain further statements of the system, certain further elements of the field. Having re-evaluated one statement we must re-evaluate some others, whether they be statements logically connected with the first or whether they be the statements of logical connections themselves. But the total field is so undetermined by its boundary conditions, experience, that there is much latitude of choice as to what statements to re-evaluate in the light of any single contrary experience. No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly through considerations of equilibrium affecting the field as a whole. Perhaps Quine leaves this idea fuzzy, but my own elaboration of the view appeals to network theory precisely to make the idea formally explicit. In particular, I argued that explanations are constituted by depictions of organized networks. So a unifying theory is one where formerly disparate phenomena are revealed on a network analysis to have the same organizing structure. Newton's and Darwin's theories are both of this sort, and more importantly Baez's network-theoretic Rosetta stone suggests an even deeper unification across physics, topology, computer science, and logic, with perhaps more dramatic philosophical implications. Appropriately critical questions to raise: 1) Can network theory actually accomplish its purported unification? 2) Will network theory actually have practical consequences for the rest of the sciences? 3) Is there any reason to think this unification has philosophical import? 4) Is science actually unified in the way Quine suggests? Inappropriate criticisms: 1) Darwin didn't unify nothing. 2) Paley inspired Darwin, you idiot. 3) Newton believed in God and alchemy so he barely even counts as a scientist. 4) Dawkins likes Paley too. 
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May 8, 2014 16:40
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Obdicut posted:It's full of things that aren't even remotely defined, gross assumptions, begged questions, and in the end says basically nothing. No one is any closer to understanding what 'digital philosophy' is before or after reading this paragraph. And again, you fail to 'get the science right'. You don't give a poo poo about the science. You're unwilling to learn the science. Obdicut, there was no actual content in your post at all. Nothing even approximating an argument with content that I can respond to. It's just you whining about my writing, you aren't contributing anything productive whatsoever to this thread. If it bugs you so much gtfo. No one cares that you don't like something.
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May 8, 2014 16:43
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Obdicut posted:First of all, the modern synthesis wasn't done by Darwin. Whoa wow, thanks for enlightening me! I had no idea that an idea that existed before, and helped to create, modern biology wasn't, in fact, modern biology. quote:Second of all, there's a lot of biology that doesn't depend on evolution. Saying that evolution is absolutely important to biology is not the same thing as saying it 'unified' it. You can examine protein folding and production, even the way that particular genes being on or off affect that protein, without taking into account evolution. You might as well say that 'cell theory' unifies biology. Let's see, what's the one thing that underpins all of cytology, all of genetics, all of taxonomy ... hmmm. It's almost as if there's this one idea that unifies them all and serves as a framework for understanding them and how they came to be. quote:Darwin tried to explain the variety of species, without addressing the mechanism that drove speciation. Ahh, yes. Darwin famously had no idea that natural selection drives speciation. Good call.
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May 8, 2014 17:20
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You are attempting to control the debate so much that you don't realize your talking to people with different backgrounds and experiences. His point is that this conversation is flawed because your arguments are flawed. Just look at your list of "acceptable things you can debate me with" and "gross simplifications of the critiques I don't like". The fact that you argue you're being substantive by producing walls of text on the internet leads people to believe you aren't thinking things out critically of your own bias.
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May 8, 2014 17:21
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RealityApologist posted:Obdicut, there was no actual content in your post at all. Nothing even approximating an argument with content that I can respond to. It's just you whining about my writing, you aren't contributing anything productive whatsoever to this thread. If it bugs you so much gtfo. No one cares that you don't like something. Good thing you responded to it then, thereby doing the same, instead of addressing substantive criticisms.
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May 8, 2014 17:28
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FADEtoBLACK posted:You are attempting to control the debate so much that you don't realize your talking to people with different backgrounds and experiences. His point is that this conversation is flawed because your arguments are flawed. Just look at your list of "acceptable things you can debate me with" and "gross simplifications of the critiques I don't like". The fact that you argue you're being substantive by producing walls of text on the internet leads people to believe you aren't thinking things out critically of your own bias. In fairness, he doesn't really know what constitutes a real background or real experience.
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May 8, 2014 17:34
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RealityApologist posted:Obdicut, there was no actual content in your post at all. Nothing even approximating an argument with content that I can respond to. It's just you whining about my writing, you aren't contributing anything productive whatsoever to this thread. If it bugs you so much gtfo. No one cares that you don't like something. My argument: That paragraph, which purports to in some way explain digital philosophy, does not do so. Since you're apparently eager for more detailed criticism, here you go. quote:Put simply, the scientific and technical resources developed over the last 40 years (networks in all their guises) have created both the room and the need for a systematic philosophical narrative to account for our place in history and to help us understand the tools at our disposal. Why is this true? What is it about the scientific and technical resources developed over the past 40 years--which you say are 'nettworks'-- that have created the room and the need for 'a systematic philosophical narrative'? What is a 'philosophical narrative'? When you say the 'tools at our disposal', the tools for doing what? quote:Digital philosophy is that narrative. This narrative doesn't provide answers so much as it coordinates our efforts. This narrative is not completely developed (neither is the science and math, for that matter), but over the last 10 years especially it has come to take a very distinct shape in the public discourse suitable for discussion at the very abstract level I've attempted in these threads. What does 'coordinate our efforts' mean? What is this 'distinct shape' that it's taken? quote:This narrative isn't mine, in the sense that I've shaped it from raw materials; people have been telling it in many ways over the last 40 years, perhaps most famously by D&G's discussion of rhizomes, and somewhat less famously in Koelstra's discussion of holons. So now 'digital philosophy' is post-modern. And somehow it's related to the true and interesting but limited observation that something can be a whole, part of another whole, and a collection of other wholes, at the same time. Great. Again, you're kind of waving your hands and talking about stuff, but not actually drawing the connections or explaining anything. quote:But digital philosophy isn't just the bankrupt psychoanalytic appropriation of scientific terminology, or a new age design philosophy. As best represented by the digital humanities, digital philosophy is driven by earnest attempts to get the science right, because that's critical for encouraging the participation of all the parties that need to be involved. Again, you try to say what it isn't, which isn't useful. Then when you do say what digital philosophy is, it's 'earnest attempts to get the science right'. You never actually say anything substantial about what digital philosophy is, how it is related to things that have come about in the past 40 years, what the 'shape' of it is, or really, anything about it. Nobody would be able to read that paragraph and say anything at all about digital philosophy, except that it's somehow connected to postmodernism to you. And this is typical of most of your 'argument'. It's not an argument, it's an assemblage of references, buzzwords, allusions to other philosophers, humble-bragging, and in the end, absolutely no takeaway for anyone, no message, no meaning to actually glean. That paragraph is completely useless as information.
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May 8, 2014 17:43
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FADEtoBLACK posted:You are attempting to control the debate so much that you don't realize your talking to people with different backgrounds and experiences. His point is that this conversation is flawed because your arguments are flawed. Just look at your list of "acceptable things you can debate me with" and "gross simplifications of the critiques I don't like". The fact that you argue you're being substantive by producing walls of text on the internet leads people to believe you aren't thinking things out critically of your own bias. Since I'm explicitly talking about a philosophical project that spans a diversity of scientific disciplines, I don't think I'm ignoring the complexity of a diverse audience. I've tried to make explicit the references motivating my interpretation, and provide the sources and science to justify it. Obdicut thinks the argument is flawed, but the criticisms he's giving are just uncharitable interpretations borne of his conviction that I'm wrong about everything, and he's chased this conviction to the point that he's mangling interpretations of basic science and history. In other words, he's guilty of exactly the same kind of sloppy thinking he's accusing me of. Obdicut's stubborn refusal to acknowledge these difficulties makes him a hypocrite, but I'm driving the point home because the thread consistently fails to recognize the difficulty of writing anything philosophically abstract for a diverse audience. The fact that he's struggling with the same basic things I'm struggling with indicates that perhaps his concern trolling about my writing is dramatically overblown. People can argue that I've failed to justify aspects of the view, but those criticism need to adjust when arguments and evidence are produced that addresses these issues. Obdicut decided from the beginning that my arguments are trash and continues to argue as if I've done nothing to support my claims since. No one has said a word in this derail about abstract explanation and network organization, but these are the central concepts around which my argument depends. Newton/Kant/Darwin/Marx were given as examples of the basic point, and Obdicut threw us on a tangent about whether the examples even make sense (hint: they do), but none of this has gone any way towards establishing the validity or invalidity of the argument I've presented. Frankly Obdicut has shown not even the faintest glimmer of understanding the argument, and certainly no evidence of caring enough to give it due consideration. He just charges into the thread with insults and knee-jerk denials and pretends as if it's a convincing refutation. It isn't. It's just shameless trolling, and it's done nothing whatsoever to establish the inadequacy he is so certain my views exemplify.
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May 8, 2014 17:53
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Anyone who looks through the history of this thread, or the attention-economy thread, can see that I ask on-point, substantial questions over and over, and that you dodge them, or fail spectacularly in resolving them. For example, in the 'attention economy' thread, I brought up the problem of attention being fakeable, and your bizarre counterargument was that attention can't be faked. Eripsa, I decided your arguments were trash after many, many, many pages of asking you to explain them, giving you the chances to do so, and seeing you fail continuously. I'm also not alone in this. It may in some way comfort you to rewrite this thread, and all your others, as you vs. me, but that's really not the case. I'm hardly the only person calling you out for being a bullshitter who knows next to nothing about the topics he's speaking on and refuses to actually learn or engage with the experts. For god's sake, your last-now-deleted thread was called "Strangecoin: A nonlinear currency" when you didn't actually know what 'nonlinear' meant, and it took you like five tries to actually come up with an equation that was nonlinear. You thought Wikipedia was a 'commons'in the meaning of 'tragedy of the commons'. These aren't just things I observed and critiqued you for, but many other people did, as well. It's getting a little creepy how much you're trying to turn this into a me vs. you thing, with me as a mustache-twirling villain.
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May 8, 2014 18:02
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Obdicut posted:Anyone who looks through the history of this thread, or the attention-economy thread, can see that I ask on-point, substantial questions over and over, and that you dodge them, or fail spectacularly in resolving them. For example, in the 'attention economy' thread, I brought up the problem of attention being fakeable, and your bizarre counterargument was that attention can't be faked. So you admit that this recent derail on evolution is a complete trolling derail? I'm not making this a you vs me, you are picking on me for reasons that have nothing to do with my arguments, and I'm just calling a spade a spade. edit: Obdicut, you are not raising serious criticisms, you are just cataloging the knee-jerk reactions you have from reading my post. Some of the questions are good, in the sense that they are good for you to think about for a while to help you interpret and understand what I've written. But none of them are worth responding to as a serious attempt at engaging my work. For instance, "what is a philosophical narrative" is a good question. I've said tons about what I think philosophical narratives are. I've given examples from Kant, Marx, Quine, Deluze, etc to help elucidate the point. Its still a difficult question, but I've left plenty of evidence for what I take a reasonable answer to this question to be. A charitable interpretation of my post would attempt to work out, from the material I've presented, what my answer to this question would be. Perhaps some interesting comments or criticisms might arise from considering this point, and I'd love to hear what thoughts arise. But you've not indicated any attempt to try thinking about these issues. Your question "what is a philosophical narrative" completely overlooks the last 2 pages of discussion on exactly the topic. You've admitted yourself that you made your mind up already that you think all my writing here is worthless. So a charitable interpretation of your writing here suggests that you have no interest in giving my writing due consideration and reflection. You think you've demonstrated some fundamental failure in my views, so all that's left is to whine about how I'm a fraud. In fact you've done nothing of the sort, and made a whole lot of mistakes yourself in the process, and the result is just a lot of whining. RealityApologist fucked around with this message at 18:17 on May 8, 2014 |
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May 8, 2014 18:11
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RealityApologist posted:So you admit that this recent derail on evolution is a complete trolling derail? No, it wasn't. Darwin didn't attempt to unify biology with the other sciences, as you claimed. I have no idea why you'd say "so you admit", since nothing I wrote is in the least bit 'admitting' that, 'cuz it isn't true. My critique there is a similar one to a general critique I have of you: You are horrible at defining your terms, and when you do so, you then flagrantly contradict that definition. You did this with 'attention', too. The reasons I'm 'picking on you' entirely have to do with how bad I find your arguments: That's why I talk about your arguments, and point out the ways that they are bad. Or, sometimes, how they're not even arguments, just a bunch of phrases you've put together and called an argument. Edit: That post where you talk about what digital philosophy is, that I criticized, was the first time you used the phrase 'philosophical narrative' in this thread. You passed up, just now, an opportunity to actually answer the question of what you think 'philosophical narrative' means, instead preferring to complain that I didn't figure it out from every thing you've said about philosophers previously. Can you explain what a philosophical narrative is, and how it is different from a philosophy, please? Obdicut fucked around with this message at 18:21 on May 8, 2014 |
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May 8, 2014 18:15
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RealityApologist posted:So you admit that this recent derail on evolution is a complete trolling derail? I'm not making this a you vs me, you are picking on me for reasons that have nothing to do with my arguments, and I'm just calling a spade a spade. I'm curious how you managed to draw that conclusion from the post you quoted, as it didn't address the evolution derail at all.
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May 8, 2014 18:16
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ITT we discover what happens when the abyss gazes into itself. 
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May 8, 2014 18:17
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Muscle Tracer posted:ITT we discover what happens when the abyss gazes into itself. Frankly I don't think Eripsa is giving my posts a charitable interpretation. 
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May 8, 2014 18:23
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LGD posted:I'm curious how you managed to draw that conclusion from the post you quoted, as it didn't address the evolution derail at all. Because obdicut's argument works like this: Premise: Eripsa is wrong Observation: Eripsa said X Conclusion: X must be wrong The evolution derail was about something I said (Darwinian science is a unifying theory). Obdicut is still obstinately claiming that it's wrong for reasons I find baffling, but he's stopped defending that particular point and has started referring to lots of other things because his real interest is in establishing the premise that I'm wrong. His response to the argument from me and other people that he's wrong about Darwin is to show that I've been wrong about lots of other things too. I take this as a concession that his evolution derail had nothing to do with evolution but was only meant to make the point that I'm wrong about things, and if that doesn't do it he has plenty of other examples that will. Which is to say that it was just trolling.
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May 8, 2014 18:28
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Obdicut posted:Frankly I don't think Eripsa is giving my posts a charitable interpretation. He isn't. But that's ok, because I think "charity" is pretty clearly another concept he doesn't understand as he apparently thinks it's supposed to be an infinite level of forbearance applied to judging his output and behavior. It manifestly isn't, and I genuinely think people who are encouraging his behavior are being less charitable than those advising him to put this project aside until he is in a better position to tackle it. RealityApologist posted:Because obdicut's argument works like this: LGD fucked around with this message at 18:35 on May 8, 2014 |
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May 8, 2014 18:30
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Obdicut posted:Frankly I don't think Eripsa is giving my posts a charitable interpretation. Well maybe if you had a few more supporters and an exponentially larger Network Impact Quotient™, you'd be more deserving of charity, you cretinous buffoon. 
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May 8, 2014 18:32
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RealityApologist posted:The evolution derail was about something I said (Darwinian science is a unifying theory). Obdicut is still obstinately claiming that it's wrong for reasons I find baffling, His reasons for calling you wrong about your invocation of Darwin are very simple: you were wrong, factually wrong, about what you claimed Darwin was doing.
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May 8, 2014 18:34
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RealityApologist posted:Because obdicut's argument works like this: Darwin didn't unify biology with other sciences. It's just not something that's at all true, on any level. He didn't originate the idea of 'natural law' underpinning biological reality, and the theory of evolution doesn't unify biology with other sciences, either. quote:His response to the argument from me and other people that he's wrong about Darwin is to show that I've been wrong about lots of other things too. If you actually read the responses between me and other people, you see that this isn't, actually, true. I defend, as above, that Darwin didn't 'unify' biology in the way that you claimed, and I'll still happily defend it. You are wrong to say that Darwin unified biology with other sciences, or that he attempted to do so. quote:I take this as a concession that his evolution derail had nothing to do with evolution but was only meant to make the point that I'm wrong about things, and if that doesn't do it he has plenty of other examples that will. Which is to say that it was just trolling. This is a really interesting look into your thought process, that you saw that as a 'concession'. Again: Darwin didn't unify biology with other sciences. The idea that there were laws underpinning biology predates Darwin by a good measure, including being held by Paley, the guy you oddly shat on, but even that idea doesn't 'unify' biology with the other sciences. Likewise, there's no meaning of 'unify' that binds together what Darwin, Kant, Newton, and Marx did in any meaningful way.
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May 8, 2014 18:35
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LGD posted:He isn't. But that's ok, because I think "charity" is pretty clearly another concept he doesn't understand as he apparently thinks it's supposed to be an infinite level of forbearance applied to judging his output and behavior. It manifestly isn't, and I genuinely think people who are encouraging his behavior are being less charitable than those advising him to put this project aside until he is in a better position to tackle it. Charity is the idea that people in a conversation should interpret the words of others so that most of their claims come out as true. More generally, discursive charity is a method of interpretation that tries to interpret the words of others in the best light possible, especially given a holistic interpretation of their work. A charitable interpretation doesn't need to agree, but at the very least charity requires not making a strawman of your opponent. A huge fraction of the criticisms coming at me (from basically everyone who has been uncritically echoing Obdicut in these threads) is that: 1) I have no knowledge whatsoever of science or history or human behavior 2) I have done no work whatsoever to describe any coherent theory 3) I have done no work whatsoever to think through the implication and practical consequences of the theory 4) I'm completely ignorant of all the available literature dealing with any aspect of the theory I've failed to describe 5) I'm making things up off the top of my head with no rhyme or reason 6) I have no methodological or philosophical principles I'm committed to and change the goalposts wherever and whenever I feel like it 7) I don't care about science and I'm not interested in learning about it Now, I've granted there are holes in my knowledge (especially economics), and that I've not worked out a complete view and there's lots of details left to cover. And its fair to criticize that I've performed inadequately across some of the areas listed above. But all of 1-7 are clearly false on their face, and any charitable interpretation of the thread would bear that out. Perhaps it is inadequate, but it's just hyperbolic and obstinate to claim, like Obdicut does, that I've done no work whatsoever, especially given how half-assed his own work in these threads are. I have done a lot of work in all these areas, and its completely uncharitable to claim otherwise.
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May 8, 2014 18:45
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RealityApologist posted:Charity is the idea that people in a conversation should interpret the words of others so that most of their claims come out as true. More generally, discursive charity is a method of interpretation that tries to interpret the words of others in the best light possible, especially given a holistic interpretation of their work. Right, which is why we're saying you're incapable of applying it to others. I'm endlessly baffled that you are able to argue against yourself so incredibly effectively, and are capable of nailing yourself to every single cross, even the ones with which you have bludgeoned others only a few posts prior. When will we next hear about "reading comprehension?"
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May 8, 2014 18:49
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RealityApologist posted:
I think this is my favorite post of yours so far.
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May 8, 2014 18:50
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Obdicut posted:Again: Darwin didn't unify biology with other sciences. The idea that there were laws underpinning biology predates Darwin by a good measure, including being held by Paley, the guy you oddly shat on, but even that idea doesn't 'unify' biology with the other sciences. Likewise, there's no meaning of 'unify' that binds together what Darwin, Kant, Newton, and Marx did in any meaningful way. Darwin himself didn't unify the sciences, but Darwinian theory unified biology and made it consistent with the rest of the sciences, and Darwin's theory is itself the linchpin holding biological theory together. Plenty of other people have justified the idea adequately enough in this thread. I've given a theory of unification where each of these theories are structurally similar in the relevant way. You've not made an argument against the view, you've only said its wrong over and over. This is not an argument, it is just naysaying. In response to my argument you could: 1) argue that the conception of unification I've given is inadequate 2) argue that the conception of unification I've given doesn't cover the examples I've given 3) argue that some relevant dissimilarity prevents these examples from being unified in the sense relevant to the analogy I've given. But you've not done any of these things. Using a still-mysterious personal sense of "unification" which you've still failed to explain to us, you've merely asserted that these are all not cases of unification, without any argument or justification whatsoever. The best you have is that Paley was a mechanist. Mechanists believe that the natural world is explained by Newton's mechanical laws. Paley thought that biological organization could not be explained by Newton's laws. He was still a mechanist, but he though biology required a nonmechanical, teleological explanation. So he was both a mechanist and an ID theorist. These are compatible positions without evolutionary theory. But the modern evolutionary synthesis shows how biological evolution can be explained entirely by mechanisms compatible with Newtonian science.
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May 8, 2014 18:53
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