Hydrogen Cyanide and the Origin



[email protected] (John Wilkins) wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> Perplexed in Peoria <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> "John Wilkins" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> news:[email protected]... [big snip]
>> > Human intentions may be the results of NS processes
>> > (and they surely are), but they do, and most other NS
>> > processes don't, have narrative structure. The worst
>> > categorial error one can make is to think that what
>> > we do heuristically must be a fact of the things we
>> > learn *about*. Aristotle made that error; it's time
>> > to drop it.
>>
>> Hmmm. So, if I understand you, the process whereby a
>> human designer designs an aircraft wing has narrative
>> structure. But the process by which Nature/NS quasi-
>> designs a bird's wing does not have narrative structure.
>>
>> But even if I got that right, I still don't understand
>> you. What is "narrative structure"?
>
> We think of sequences of events as being significant, as
> implying agency, and as being of moral - that is, value-
> based, importance. In short, we tell ourselves stories to
> make sense of our social interactions.

> When we ask what some designer has worked to achieve, or
> what the artifact is for, we are asking, in effect, for
> a story: what was in his or her mind when the object was
> designed, what is the purpose they had or we are to
> have, and so forth. An aircraft wing has a story behind
> it. The designer wanted to maximise lift, reduce drag
> and keep fuel costs low. The bird's wing, though, merely
> resembles human designed wings - it was not designed to
> reduce drag or maximise fuel efficiency. Those that did
> better than others and were hereditable spread to
> fixation in some ancestral population. There *is* no
> design here. There is nothing wrong with a high drag
> wing in evolution, so long as it maximises locally the
> reproductive fitness of that allele.

You tell a very interesting tale - but I think that is
only one part of your mind rationalizing decisions made by
other parts of your mind. I design things for a living,
and most of my design effort consists of copying an
earlier design and in some cases trying a new variation on
it. Now I would like to think that my variations are
informed by intelligence, but for the most part that has
little to do with the outcome - either the variation works
and becomes a part of future designs or it doesn't and
falls by the wayside.

>> It is certainly true that the "inventor" of the aircraft
>> wing was trying to create a machine that flies. And one
>> would certainly be foolish to conclude from this that
>> Nature/NS was "trying" to create a flying animal when she
>> "invented" the bird's wing. But it would be equally
>> foolish, I think, to claim that there are not analogies
>> between the way a human designer improves a suboptimal
>> aircraft wing design and the way Nature/NS improves a
>> suboptimal bird wing quasi-design. Both, it seems to me,
>> are maximizing an objective function subject to
>> constraints that are not well-understood at the outset.

> There are physical constraints in common, to be sure. But
> the analogy between NS and design lies in the process by
> which variant forms are tested, so to speak, in the field.
> We test in order to ensure that the design meets the goals
> for which the design was undertaken. NS merely allows
> things to do what they do - there is no goal (not even
> survival: selection can drive populations extinct), and
> certainly no "knowledge" in an NS process.

Say what? Real civil engineers test the design against the
specifications using standardised criteria which have
generally been developed by trial and error. We have no way
to "ensure that the design meets the goals for which the
design was undertaken", other than by testing it against
standards which have in the past been shown to be good
indicators that it will meet the goals. This is not exactly
how natural selection works, but it is I think a closer
approximation than you are allowing.

You have previously argued against emergent properties, but
on this thread you seem to be arguing that in fact human
"designs" do represent an emergent property - that humans
are capable of internally directed goal seeking rather than
being driven by the same mechanisms that cause the
teleomatic (or whatever the term was) behavior evinced by
natural selection

Yours,

Bill Morse
 
[email protected] (John Wilkins) wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> William Morse <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> [email protected] (John Wilkins) wrote in
>> news:cb7rtg$mpl$1 @darwin.ediacara.org:
>>
>> > <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> >> By the way, the bag-of-lipids with set of replicators
>> >> that we were discussing a few weeks as possible pre-
>> >> life, worked in a statistical/analog way regarding
>> >> frequencies (abundances) of the various replicators,
>> >> but in a digital way regarding presence or absence of
>> >> a particular replicator in a particular bag. (DNS
>> >> should read DNA above, sigh.)
>>
>> > "Presence" and "absence" defined according to which
>> > threshold? :)
>>
>> I expect he meant presence and absence defined according
>> to whether either there is one or more of a particular
>> replicator in the bag or there are none of a particular
>> replicator in the bag. But of course this is a "digital"
>> definition, so it couldn't possibly be right :)
>
> Oh, sure. But what if you have an assay that cannot
> discriminate below, say, 1ppb, and so can't tell you if
> that digital condition is satisfied? What if the only
> "replicator" you have is an allotrope of the target
> replicator? What if it has a few percentage points lower
> efficiency than the target molecule? What if the
> replication rate of the target molecule varies according
> to the (analog) presence of a catalyst molecule? etc...
>
> It is easy to get binary states if you define them into
> existence.

Assuming you are a normal human being - OK that's a stretch
but we'll go with it for now :), you have two arms, two
legs, two eyes, two ears, two lungs, one heart, ten fingers,
ten toes, etc. etc. You may notice a pattern here - all
these numbers are integers. I will also wager heavily that
if you have a wife, and if she has any children, she has an
integral number of them. Did I just define these into
existence? No. All of these results are produced by analog
processes (at the next level down), and all of them are
digital results.

To get back to your response above: what if I am not
making an assay, and what if there are no allotropes of
the replicator, so there is no difference in efficiency,
and what if the rate doesn't vary according to the
(_digital_) number of catalyst molecules present. Then the
point is correct.

Robert Maas's original discussion was in fact spot on.
AFAIK, from a purely theoretical standpoint, analog
processes can be modeled by digital processes and vice versa
to whatever degree of accuracy is required. And at the heart
of quantum mechanics analog and digital mesh into one. But
for the world we live in, some processes are best
represented as digital and others as analog.Note that analog
is spelled with six letters, not
1.9 x pi letters:)

Yours,

Bill Morse
 
Tim Tyler <[email protected]> wrote:

> Larry Moran <[email protected]> wrote
> or quoted:
>
> > Evolution has no purpose and no goal and it does not
> > produce designed species. That's the result we see
> > around us.
>
> What are you going to do when nature starts producing
> species designed for particular purposes - using genetic
> engineering and directed mutations?
>
> It seems to me that that has already happened.
>
> Are these things not part of the process of evolution?
>
> Are they not designed - despite being made by human
> engineers?
>
> What gives?

I (prior to Larry agreeing with me - I came over all faint)
never said there was never any design. Of course design
occurs when designers make
it. And those makers of design are evolved organisms. This
gives us the following situation:

Teleomatic includes teleonomic includes teleological, or

Regularities include end-resulting include end-driven
processes.

If we now start to regulate evolution in a few cases (and it
will only *ever* be a few cases) this does not invert that
subsetting. Design processes (and outcomes) are *still* a
subset of end-resulting processes, and they are still only a
subset of regularities.

As to directed mutations - ask how they come to be directed?
Do we intuit or know via clairvoyance what mutations will
do, and how fit they will be in a given environment? No, we
use trial, error elimination, and retention of success. When
this happens in biology unsupervised, it is called natural
selection. Nature is not obviated because we design
something.
--
Dr John Wilkins [email protected]
http://wilkins.id.au "Men mark it when they hit, but do not
mark it when they miss"
- Francis
Bacon
 
Jim Menegay <[email protected]> wrote:

> [email protected] (Larry Moran) wrote:
> > On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 04:29:26 +0000 (UTC), John Wilkins
> > <[email protected]> wrote:
> > ><[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > >> I disagree. The *noun* "design" *does* apply in this
> > >> case. The result of the random process of mutation
> > >> and selection was a "design" in the sense of some
> > >> pattern that is useful toward functionning of some
> > >> device. The "design" in a bird's wing is part anatomy
> > >> and part biochemistry. The principals of operation of
> > >> a bird's wing are such and such (involving
> > >> neurotransmitters, muscle cells, tendons, leverage,
> > >> porous bones, feathers to catch air, tipping angle of
> > >> attack to vary drag and lift, overall balance, etc.).
> > >> What single word, other than "design", would you
> > >> prefer for such principals of operation of a naturally-
> > >> evolved device (more correctly: an artifact of a naturally-
> > >> evolved genome)?
> > >
> > > "Anatomy"? "Life-cycle"? Why use a loaded term like
> > > "design", other than because such terms resonate with
> > > our inherited tendency to anthropomorphise nature?
> >
> > I agree with John. I do not think that life looks
> > designed. I think that living species are the end result
> > millions of years of evolution. Evolution has no purpose
> > and no goal and it does not produce designed species.
> > That's the result we see around us.
> >
> > We do see adaptations, among other things. Adaptations
> > are not design. Adaptations are the end result of
> > perfectly natural processes that we understand quite
> > well. Adaptations have the appearance of design but
> > that's an illusion based on our anthropomorphic view of
> > the world.
>
> It should be noted that not all professionals share the
> aversion to teleological language exhibited by Wilkins,
> Moran, and Mayr. For example:
>
> In biology, the use of informational terms implies
> intentionality, in that both the form of the signal and
> the response to it, have evolved by selection. Where an
> engineer sees design, a biologist sees natural
> selection.
>
> John Maynard Smith, in "The Concept of Information in
> Biology", Philosophy of Science, 67 (June 2000) p177
>
> Of course, JMS does not say here that NS produces designs,
> but he does say that she produces, whatever it is that she
> produces, with "intentionality". This strikes me as even
> more provocative than "design".

I'm aware of that paper - I heard him deliver it at a
symposium (with too little drinking for a philosopher to
bear), and it is one of the things that set me off on this
apparent act of madness.
>
> But, in any case, there is no danger of interpreting JMS's
> language as an attempt to sneak a proof of creationism in
> on the sly. I would have hoped that the same would apply
> to myself and Bob Maas. Apparently not. Meanwhile, on
> another thread, complete nonsense regarding the direction
> of natural selection is spouted without even a hint of
> protest from the local language police.

I am not concerned about creationism or any form of anti-
evolutionism here. I am concerned only with the slow erosion
of good ideas by intentional language. If JMS can make such
a mistake, how much more important is it to avoid it in
lesser mortals :)

[Note to Moderator - he used the c-word first!]

More seriously, this is a general issue of parsimony. If we
can avoid using a concept and still deliver the same
empirical results, then the concept is otiose and should be
dropped. Intentionality in anything but an intentional
system (so far as we know, one with a central nervous
system) is not necessary, and the dangers associated with it
(of anthropomorphising the non-human biological world) make
it urgent we shoudl drop it, quite apart from the confusions
it permits the willingly ignorant.
--
Dr John Wilkins [email protected]
http://wilkins.id.au "Men mark it when they hit, but do not
mark it when they miss"
- Francis
Bacon
 
William Morse <[email protected]> wrote:

> [email protected] (John Wilkins) wrote in
> news:[email protected]:
>
> > Perplexed in Peoria <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >> "John Wilkins" <[email protected]> wrote in
> >> message news:[email protected]... [big
> >> snip]
> >> > Human intentions may be the results of NS processes
> >> > (and they surely are), but they do, and most other NS
> >> > processes don't, have narrative structure. The worst
> >> > categorial error one can make is to think that what
> >> > we do heuristically must be a fact of the things we
> >> > learn *about*. Aristotle made that error; it's time
> >> > to drop it.
> >>
> >> Hmmm. So, if I understand you, the process whereby a
> >> human designer designs an aircraft wing has narrative
> >> structure. But the process by which Nature/NS quasi-
> >> designs a bird's wing does not have narrative
> >> structure.
> >>
> >> But even if I got that right, I still don't understand
> >> you. What is "narrative structure"?
> >
> > We think of sequences of events as being significant, as
> > implying agency, and as being of moral - that is, value-
> > based, importance. In short, we tell ourselves stories
> > to make sense of our social interactions.
>
> > When we ask what some designer has worked to achieve, or
> > what the artifact is for, we are asking, in effect, for
> > a story: what was in his or her mind when the object was
> > designed, what is the purpose they had or we are to
> > have, and so forth. An aircraft wing has a story behind
> > it. The designer wanted to maximise lift, reduce drag
> > and keep fuel costs low. The bird's wing, though, merely
> > resembles human designed wings - it was not designed to
> > reduce drag or maximise fuel efficiency. Those that did
> > better than others and were hereditable spread to
> > fixation in some ancestral population. There *is* no
> > design here. There is nothing wrong with a high drag
> > wing in evolution, so long as it maximises locally the
> > reproductive fitness of that allele.
>
> You tell a very interesting tale - but I think that is
> only one part of your mind rationalizing decisions made by
> other parts of your mind. I design things for a living,
> and most of my design effort consists of copying an
> earlier design and in some cases trying a new variation on
> it. Now I would like to think that my variations are
> informed by intelligence, but for the most part that has
> little to do with the outcome - either the variation works
> and becomes a part of future designs or it doesn't and
> falls by the wayside.

I don't see how that is contrary to what I recount in my
"narrative". If we are a community of mind, as Minsky says,
or if we run vicarious selection in our heads as Cziko
argued, the end result is designing behavior. The workings
of the blackbox in our heads can be as internally Darwinian
as you like.

I fully agree with you that design is a process largely of
recombination of prior examples and ideas - the best account
of this I have seen is Margaret Boden's:

Boden, Margaret A. 1990. The creative mind: myths and
mechanisms. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

As Darwin said of nature (well, Henri Milne-Edwards did, and
Darwin quoted him) culture is "profligate in variety, but
****ardly in innovation".
>
>
> >> It is certainly true that the "inventor" of the
> >> aircraft wing was trying to create a machine that
> >> flies. And one would certainly be foolish to conclude
> >> from this that Nature/NS was "trying" to create a
> >> flying animal when she "invented" the bird's wing. But
> >> it would be equally foolish, I think, to claim that
> >> there are not analogies between the way a human
> >> designer improves a suboptimal aircraft wing design and
> >> the way Nature/NS improves a suboptimal bird wing quasi-
> >> design. Both, it seems to me, are maximizing an
> >> objective function subject to constraints that are not
> >> well-understood at the outset.
>
> > There are physical constraints in common, to be sure.
> > But the analogy between NS and design lies in the
> > process by which variant forms are tested, so to speak,
> > in the field. We test in order to ensure that the design
> > meets the goals for which the design was undertaken. NS
> > merely allows things to do what they do - there is no
> > goal (not even survival: selection can drive populations
> > extinct), and certainly no "knowledge" in an NS process.
>
>
> Say what? Real civil engineers test the design against the
> specifications using standardised criteria which have
> generally been developed by trial and error. We have no
> way to "ensure that the design meets the goals for which
> the design was undertaken", other than by testing it
> against standards which have in the past been shown to be
> good indicators that it will meet the goals. This is not
> exactly how natural selection works, but it is I think a
> closer approximation than you are allowing.
>
Sure - but NS does not have intentions (even if the
intentions we have are the result of prior cultural or
biological evolution), and it does not model processes the
way we do when we design. It *is* the thing that would be
modeled in a design process.

I am and have been in the past a strong supporter of the
isomorphism between biological evolution and cultural and
intentional selection. But let's not allow the analogy to
run away with us here. There are differences between
evolution, whether by selection or not, and what we do in
our heads and socially. In fact, so far as it goes I think
both processes are special cases of a *broader* class of
dynamics (including Humean induction, contrary to claims
that induction is a special case of evolution by Popperians
and many others).
>
> You have previously argued against emergent properties,
> but on this thread you seem to be arguing that in fact
> human "designs" do represent an emergent property - that
> humans are capable of internally directed goal seeking
> rather than being driven by the same mechanisms that cause
> the teleomatic (or whatever the term was) behavior evinced
> by natural selection

It's no more an emergent property than having a
structural vertebral column. It's just an evolved trait,
that's all. Like all evolved traits, it cannot do the
impossible (predict the future), but it can, at least,
learn from the past...

--
Dr John Wilkins [email protected]
http://wilkins.id.au "Men mark it when they hit, but do not
mark it when they miss"
- Francis
Bacon
 
"John Wilkins" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Jim Menegay <[email protected]> wrote:
> > In biology, the use of informational terms implies
> > intentionality, in that both the form of the signal
> > and the response to it, have evolved by selection.
> > Where an engineer sees design, a biologist sees
> > natural selection.
> >
> > John Maynard Smith, in "The Concept of Information in
> > Biology", Philosophy of Science, 67 (June 2000) p177
> >
> > Of course, JMS does not say here that NS produces
> > designs, but he does say that she produces, whatever it
> > is that she produces, with "intentionality". This
> > strikes me as even more provocative than "design".
>
> I'm aware of that paper - I heard him deliver it at a
> symposium (with too little drinking for a philosopher to
> bear), and it is one of the things that set me off on this
> apparent act of madness.

Better pour yourself a stiff one, John. You haven't heard
the last on this subject. ;-)

> > But, in any case, there is no danger of interpreting
> > JMS's language as an attempt to sneak a proof of
> > creationism in on the sly.[snip]
>
> I am not concerned about creationism or any form of anti-
> evolutionism here. I am concerned only with the slow
> erosion of good ideas by intentional language. If JMS can
> make such a mistake, how much more important is it to
> avoid it in lesser mortals :)
>
> [Note to Moderator - he used the c-word first!]

Sorry. I didn't realize that it was verbotten to even
mention them. Though I suppose that makes sense. It is hard
to mention them without abusing them, and it is unfair to
abuse them in a forum where they cannot abuse back. I'll be
careful to limit my abuse to card-carrying materialists
from now on.

[moderator's note: I try to tread a sensible line here; in a
sense, forbidding people to even speak its name makes the
subject all the more obvious. It's okay to mention it; it's
not okay to talk about comparing and contrasting creationism
(and crypto-varieties, like "Design Theory") with, say, the
Modern Synthesis. It's a little like the famous definition
of pornography -- I can't define for you what constitutes
objectionable creationism references, but I know them when I
see them. Okay? - JAH]

> More seriously, this is a general issue of parsimony. If
> we can avoid using a concept and still deliver the same
> empirical results, then the concept is otiose and should
> be dropped.

I strongly disagree. This is an issue of appropriate levels
of explanation. Thermodynamics has been successfully reduced
to statistical mechanics, but engineers still talk and think
in terms of heat flow. They certainly don't talk about the
propagation of random molecular motion, even though they
know that that is what is really going on.

The case with intentionality is a little more complicated.
Human intentionality has not been successfully reduced yet,
whereas the "intentionality" of natural selection is
understood by reductionist thinking (using "reduction"
loosely here). Therefore, we don't know for sure whether the
two phenomena share any scrap of commonality in their
explanation. We must certainly take care that when we use
the same word to describe both phenomena, we are not making
any commitment to postulating a common explanation. But, to
return to my thermodynamic analogy, the use of "heat flow"
to describe conduction, convection, and radiation does not
commit the engineer to a belief that there are shared
mechanisms.

> Intentionality in anything but an intentional system (so
> far as we know, one with a central nervous system) is not
> necessary, and the dangers associated with it (of
> anthropomorphising the non-human biological world) make it
> urgent we should drop it, quite apart from the confusions
> it permits the willingly ignorant.

I am happy that you are willing to permit intentional
language for our fellow chordates. However, you must be
aware that even this concession contrary to human uniqueness
was considered unscientific not too many years ago.

I also see an urgency here, an urgency that the linguistic
high ground not be surrendered to the proponents of central-nervous-
system uniqueness. Searle and his Chinese Room strike me
as a far greater threat to a correct view of nature and
man's place in it than anything that is concocted in The
Other Place.

There. I have admitted it. I have a hidden agenda. I believe
in strong AI. I believe that intentionality can be
understood, deconstructed, and then reconstructed in another
medium. My belief that nature already exhibits a weak form
of intentionality is only the "camel's nose" of what I want
to "bring into the tent".

So, I see the dropping of intentional language in cases
where it appears to be phenomenologically appropriate as
dangerous, in that it implicitly commits to an incorrect
philosophy - that it can't be "real" intentionality if we
already understand it.
 
Perplexed in Peoria <[email protected]> wrote:

> "John Wilkins" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > Jim Menegay <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > In biology, the use of informational terms implies
> > > intentionality, in that both the form of the signal
> > > and the response to it, have evolved by selection.
> > > Where an engineer sees design, a biologist sees
> > > natural selection.
> > >
> > > John Maynard Smith, in "The Concept of Information
> > > in Biology", Philosophy of Science, 67 (June 2000)
> > > p177
> > >
> > > Of course, JMS does not say here that NS produces
> > > designs, but he does say that she produces, whatever
> > > it is that she produces, with "intentionality". This
> > > strikes me as even more provocative than "design".
> >
> > I'm aware of that paper - I heard him deliver it at a
> > symposium (with too little drinking for a philosopher to
> > bear), and it is one of the things that set me off on
> > this apparent act of madness.
>
> Better pour yourself a stiff one, John. You haven't heard
> the last on this subject. ;-)

On a debate that goes back to Aristotle? I never
thought I had.
>
> > > But, in any case, there is no danger of interpreting
> > > JMS's language as an attempt to sneak a proof of
> > > creationism in on the sly.[snip]
> >
> > I am not concerned about creationism or any form of anti-
> > evolutionism here. I am concerned only with the slow
> > erosion of good ideas by intentional language. If JMS
> > can make such a mistake, how much more important is it
> > to avoid it in lesser mortals :)
> >
> > [Note to Moderator - he used the c-word first!]
>
> Sorry. I didn't realize that it was verbotten to even
> mention them. Though I suppose that makes sense. It is
> hard to mention them without abusing them, and it is
> unfair to abuse them in a forum where they cannot abuse
> back. I'll be careful to limit my abuse to card-carrying
> materialists from now on.

No need. So long as we are discussing biology, we can admit
those non-materialist biologists (or, as I call them, the
misled) into the discussion.
>
> [moderator's note: I try to tread a sensible line here; in
> a sense, forbidding people to even speak its name makes
> the subject all the more obvious. It's okay to mention it;
> it's not okay to talk about comparing and contrasting
> creationism (and crypto-varieties, like "Design Theory")
> with, say, the Modern Synthesis. It's a little like the
> famous definition of pornography -- I can't define for you
> what constitutes objectionable creationism references, but
> I know them when I see them. Okay? - JAH]

This would be the famous Hayes Test?
>
>
> > More seriously, this is a general issue of parsimony. If
> > we can avoid using a concept and still deliver the same
> > empirical results, then the concept is otiose and should
> > be dropped.
>
> I strongly disagree. This is an issue of appropriate
> levels of explanation. Thermodynamics has been
> successfully reduced to statistical mechanics, but
> engineers still talk and think in terms of heat flow. They
> certainly don't talk about the propagation of random
> molecular motion, even though they know that that is what
> is really going on.

That is not a supererogatory concept. There is a direct
reduction of talk at one level to talk at another. But if
they talked about what heat "wanted" to do, and it led them
to ascribe misleading properties to heat ("it's a Saturday,
so it's less likely to do useful work, as it's tired") would
you then think it so harmless? And lest ye think this
frivolous, I have heard people say similar things about
computers. Not experts, of course, unless they were joking
or "explaining" to the laity, but even so...
>
> The case with intentionality is a little more complicated.
> Human intentionality has not been successfully reduced
> yet, whereas the "intentionality" of natural selection is
> understood by reductionist thinking (using "reduction"
> loosely here). Therefore, we don't know for sure whether
> the two phenomena share any scrap of commonality in their
> explanation. We must certainly take care that when we use
> the same word to describe both phenomena, we are not
> making any commitment to postulating a common explanation.
> But, to return to my thermodynamic analogy, the use of
> "heat flow" to describe conduction, convection, and
> radiation does not commit the engineer to a belief that
> there are shared mechanisms.

Human intentionality has been suitably reduced, either in
detail or on a strong promissory note, for my money. What it
hasn't been it suitably *characterised* - that is to say,
while every aspect of what usually falls under the rubric
"intentions" has or shortly shall a neurobiological account,
we are quite unclear what "intentionality" is supposed to
cover. We all have this vague, largely forensic and moral,
notion of intention to act; but when science gets right down
to it, the exemplars of intention fall squarely under
neurological explanations.

Now consider "design" - we all think we know what it is
- there is a Hayes Test for it, too, but when the
exemplary features are considered by cognitive
psychologists, it evaporates somewhat. In short, it is
an umbrella concept of heterogenous phenomena. So using
it in biology is misleading, in part because we
anthropomorphise more strongly than we realise, but also
because the concept is *less* clear than the ones I want
us to replace it with, not more.
>
> > Intentionality in anything but an intentional system (so
> > far as we know, one with a central nervous system) is
> > not necessary, and the dangers associated with it (of
> > anthropomorphising the non-human biological world) make
> > it urgent we should drop it, quite apart from the
> > confusions it permits the willingly ignorant.
>
> I am happy that you are willing to permit intentional
> language for our fellow chordates. However, you must be
> aware that even this concession contrary to human
> uniqueness was considered unscientific not too many
> years ago.

Sure - but that's a non sequitur in this case. Now we *have*
made this advance, and we are sharpening our notion of what
can* be intentional. Let us restrict ourselves to that when
dealing with actual phenomena.
>
> I also see an urgency here, an urgency that the linguistic
> high ground not be surrendered to the proponents of central-nervous-
> system uniqueness. Searle and his Chinese Room strike me
> as a far greater threat to a correct view of nature and
> man's place in it than anything that is concocted in The
> Other Place.
>
> There. I have admitted it. I have a hidden agenda. I
> believe in strong AI. I believe that intentionality can be
> understood, deconstructed, and then reconstructed in
> another medium. My belief that nature already exhibits a
> weak form of intentionality is only the "camel's nose" of
> what I want to "bring into the tent".

That is not, I believe, Strong AI so much as strong
reductionism, with which I am heartily in agreement. But
that term "intentionality" has both, as we philosophers say,
a denotation and a connotation. It denotes a restricted
class of real phenomena (humans and similarly endowed
organisms' behavior in problem solving). And that class
carries connotations (fellow-travelling implications and
shades of meaning) that spill out from their proper
application and contaminate other domains of discourse.
>
> So, I see the dropping of intentional language in cases
> where it appears to be phenomenologically appropriate as
> dangerous, in that it implicitly commits to an incorrect
> philosophy - that it can't be "real" intentionality if we
> already understand it.

I don't undertsand your point. It can't be "real"
intentionality unless it has a brain. We understanding it or
not is irrelevant.
--
Dr John Wilkins [email protected]
http://wilkins.id.au "Men mark it when they hit, but do not
mark it when they miss"
- Francis
Bacon
 
<[email protected]> wrote:

> > From: [email protected] (John Wilkins)
> (Proposed alternatives to "design" (noun) or "operational
> methodology":)
> > "Anatomy"?
>
> No, that deals only with physical layout, not how the
> chemistry works, and really not even fully how the device
> works mechanically.

Functional anatomy, comparative anatomy and physiology all
do more than this. I was just picking up on a single term to
cover them all.
>
> > "Life-cycle"?
>
> No, that deals with just the overview of how one form
> transforms into another form etc. until a true daughter of
> the same form as the original finally results. For
> example: egg -> larva -> pupa -> adult -> eggs.

It is way more than that. It not only covers ontogeny, but
also the ecological impact of stages in the lifecycle. For
example, apart from the environmental impact on alternate
generations and differential morphologies in newts, for
instance, there is also the issue of what lifecycle traits
work well in which environmental regime.
>
> Neither term is a complete substitute for the "principals
> of operation" or the "operational methodology" or "how it
> works" of some device. (You probably don't even like the
> term "device" because you believe it implies that somebody
> consciously devised it?)

Of course not, and the fact that you cannot see the problem
merely reinforces my point.
>
> > But, to be consistent, I will reject "function" too, as
> > a term that properly applies only to a transformation in
> > a model that represents a natural system. I really must
> > submit that piece to a journal...
>
> What is the function of a bird's wing? To push air
> relative to the bird so as to propel the bird in the
> opposite direction. So what word would you allow to
> replace "function" in that sentence?

My point would be that you have a model in answer to a
problem - the problem may be "how does a bird fly?" or it
may be "what contribution to a bird's reproductive capacity
do wings make?" These are abstractions. In them, you have an
abstract transformation - "bird wings of size S (or some
other trait) contribute to [flight/reproduction/some other
"goal"] according to the function F". The "function" of a
wing, is thus contextually relative to the problem and the
model. If you asked different questions, you get different
functions (e.g., the use of wings as insulators, as
offensive weapons against other males, as mate attarctors,
as camouflage, etc.). *Each* of these is a function relative
to the model/problem pair of the interlocutor.

But in the physical world, bird wings do whatever they do,
and as a result, birds survive to reproduce or not,
individually and species-relatively. the "functions" are
answers to *our* questions. I do not say we should not ask
questions, nor do I say we should not use functional
terminology, but we *must* understand that just because
something falls out in our answer, it is true only insofar
as it represents a proper answer to our question. Otherwise
we end up asking why noses are the shape they are, and run
the danger of answering, so they hold our spectacles.
>
> > This verb/noun thing seems to me peripheral. There is no
> > "designing" action, there is no design.
>
> English is not a contrived language like Esperonto, where
> each word has exactly one meaning, and verb/noun forms
> have exactly analagous meanings one derived from the
> other. English is a cultural artifact, whereby most words
> have several different meanings, and verb/noun forms don't
> always match. For example, there are uses of the noun
> "design" to simply mean a pattern, not necessary any
> pattern that anybody created in any way, not related to
> the verb "to design". Are you denying that English as-is
> is a valid language to use, claiming instead that any noun
> meaning not derived from some verb meaning of the same
> spelling must be abolished from the language? One place in
> this thread I posted a list of noun and verb definitions
> for "design" from an online dictionary. Did you see that
> article? If so, what is your impression of the particular
> noun meaning of "design" that I felt best expresses a
> pattern or operational principles of a device without any
> implication that it was the result of a designing process?

Scientific English, however, *is* a construct like
Esperanto, at least when terms are coined (scientific
language has its own cultural evolution - vide "deme" or
"taxon" - and ordinary English is not an artifact in the
sense it was designed by anyone. Language is defined in the
use, and this is the end result of millions of people using
it as it serves their needs, not as it was designed).

You simply cannot argue from a dictionary and expect it to
constrain the way terms are used. Dictionaries are a post
hoc map of usage - and they are not responsive to sub-
community variations. A good many dictionaries define
"evolution", fo rexample, in ways that are totally
unbiological. This is because the term has meanings outside
biology. In *biology*, though, it has a [number of]
technical meaning. I am saying that this is also true of
"design", a term which applies properly only when there is a
CNS, a memory store, and the capacity to internally
represent reality and make plans.
>
> > The issue is what final causal claims we must make about
> > biological systems - that is, are there teleological
> > aspects?
>
> I think we're all in agreement that the operational
> methodology of a bird's wing etc. was the result of
> natural selection whereby genes for less effective
> methodologies were eliminated from the gene pool. (If you
> don't accept my use of "methodology", then please suggest
> an alternative word which has the same meaning but which
> you would accept. Note whatever word you specify must be
> agnostic in regard to whether the methodology was
> intelligently designed or simply fell out of NS.)

Process or dynamic. Method is a process or dynamic
agents use.
--
Dr John Wilkins [email protected]
http://wilkins.id.au "Men mark it when they hit, but do not
mark it when they miss"
- Francis
Bacon
 
Tim Tyler <[email protected]> wrote:

> John Wilkins <[email protected]> wrote or quoted:
> > Tim Tyler <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > Larry Moran <[email protected]> wrote or
> > > quoted:
>
> > > > Evolution has no purpose and no goal and it does not
> > > > produce designed species. That's the result we see
> > > > around us.
> > >
> > > What are you going to do when nature starts producing
> > > species designed for particular purposes - using
> > > genetic engineering and directed mutations?
>
> [...]
>
> > I (prior to Larry agreeing with me - I came over all
> > faint) never said there was never any design. Of course
> > design occurs when designers make
> > it. And those makers of design are evolved organisms.
> > This gives us the following situation:
> >
> > Teleomatic includes teleonomic includes teleological, or
> >
> > Regularities include end-resulting include end-driven
> > processes.
> >
> > If we now start to regulate evolution in a few cases
> > (and it will only *ever* be a few cases) this does not
> > invert that subsetting. Design processes (and outcomes)
> > are *still* a subset of end-resulting processes, and
> > they are still only a subset of regularities.
>
> I don't think design can be confined to "only a few
> cases".

Of course it can. Of all the processes in biological
evolution we can never control or direct but a few, unless
we beggar the ecosphere to almost nothing. And of all the
things in the physical world, we control at best a very
small part of it, even if you allow that bad control is
control of some kind.
>
> What would happen if one of the descendants of dozens of
> new means of transmitting heritable material with high
> fideltiy across generations replaces DNA as the means with
> which organisms store their genes?

Then it too will result in evolution that runs contrary to
and independent of the intentions of those that carry it. We
already see this in cultural evolution.
>
> Under such cirumstances organisms would be displaced by
> new organisms based on the new techology.

Rubbish. New heredity will replace old heredity only when
there is a selective advantage; you assume too much if you
think that an engineered heredity is somehow superior merely
in virtue of having been engineered. In Another Place we
often refer to the Law of Unintended Consequences. I prefer
to think of it as the Pandora Principle.
>
> Much the same thing happened long ago - when DNA
> replaced RNA.

But yet, we still do have RNA, and I doubt that RNA was
*replaced* so much as it made possible DNA heredity. No
organisms in the modern sense had RNA heredity; DNA made
organisms in the modern sense possible.
>
> IMO - the next time it happens, the medium will most
> likely be the product of intelligent design - and in the
> future all organisms will have a substantial designed
> element.

They could have a Microsoft trademark for all I care. The
evolutionary process leading up to it, and the evolutionary
process after it, will be the same sort of process. There is
nothing magical about intelligence.
>
> Maybe you are sceptical about this - but I don't think
> anyone can realistically rule out such scenarios - and
> assert that only in a few cases will organisms be
> designed.
>
> Maybe eventually all organisms will be have substantial
> designed elements. That's quite possible - and IMO pretty
> overwhelmingly likely.

I think you read too much science fiction (as do I).
>
> > As to directed mutations - ask how they come to be
> > directed? Do we intuit or know via clairvoyance what
> > mutations will do, and how fit they will be in a given
> > environment? No, we use trial, error elimination, and
> > retention of success [...]
>
> ...and computer modelling, extrapolation, interpolation,
> gradient desent methods, logic, reasoning, experience,
> rules of thumb, market research - and many other
> approaches.

Let's look at each of these and ask, does it lack trial,
error elimination, and retention of successful outcomes
(TEEROSO), and also, does it involve some process that makes
TEEROSO otiose:

TEEROSO? Beyond TEEROSO? Computer
modelling Yes No Extrapolation Yes No
Interpolation Yes No Gradient thingy ?
? Logic Yes No Reasoning Yes No
Experience What do you think? Rules of
thumb ... Market Research Oy...

C'mon, Tim - *every single one* of these is simply a
special case of a technique formed from past experience,
trial and error.
>
> Trial and error is not the only approach to finding fitter
> organisms - though it is a component of many approaches.
>

> directed mutations.
>
> When they wanted to make a fluorescent mouse their
> approach was to take a gene for a fluorescent protein -
> and insert it into a mouse genome.

And I wonder how they knew that the gene would work the same
in a mouse genome? Trial and error, perhaps?
>
> I.e. rather than using random forces to generate
> mutations, they used logical deduction to go straight
> for the one they wanted.

Logic can fail if you use the wrong premises. How do you
know what premises to use? Why it's TEEROSO...
--
Dr John Wilkins [email protected]
http://wilkins.id.au "Men mark it when they hit, but do not
mark it when they miss"
- Francis
Bacon
 
<[email protected]> wrote:

> > From: [email protected] (John Wilkins) Mistakes
> > also get made that show that this process is not digital
> > at all, but merely a high-fidelity analogue process -
> > despite the bonding sites, G can mispair with A and C
> > with T.
>
> No, it's not analog at all, it's digital, with occasional
> mistakes. But
...

Rather than answer you point for point - there is a
fundamental distinction here that I am making that appears
not to be getting across. Of course, I may just not be
convincing you of this, which is another matter, but allow
me to make the positive case.

A digital device is a purely abstract object. Consider the
granddaddy of digital devices - a universal Turing machine
(UTM). This is a frictionless, energy-less device on an
infinite strip of paper, with a read-write head that can
move left or right without making a single error, with an
infinite amount of ink, etc. It computes any algorithm
infinitely, should that algorithm never halt. No
thermodynamic considerations apply to it. It never crashes,
jams, or runs out of electricity or ink.

Now consider what *we* call digital devices. My laptop can
crash due to heat, dust shorting out circuits, a failure of
the RAM or magnetic storage media, or because it got rained
on. It generates signals by way of a waveform that can fall
below the threshold of the logic gates, producing noise. It
can run out of electricity. The screen can fail and the
printer I attach it to jam and run out of ink. My kids can
drop jam on the keyboard, etc...

The difference between what a *logician* would call
"digital" (Turing's abstract device) and what an
*electrical engineer* would, is that in a Truly Digital
Device error is not possible. If the algorithm is an error
with respect to a problem, nevertheless the algorithm will
go on doing exactly what it is programmed to do for all
eternity, should it not halt.

DNA is simply not digital. It is a high-fidelity but still
error-prone molecular structure that can carry heredity from
cell to cell. But it is, for all that, analogue (unless you
are a neo-Pythagorean who wants to claim that all analogue
and all digital processes are at base the same thing). DNA
is subject to the laws of thermodynamics, while a digital
device would not be. At the *very* best we *approximate*
digital devices with computers and DNA. No physical device
can *ever* be purely digital.

I hope this makes my point clear. If not, then we are left
at an impassé.

--
Dr John Wilkins [email protected]
http://wilkins.id.au "Men mark it when they hit, but do not
mark it when they miss"
- Francis
Bacon
 
"John Wilkins" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> ... "design", a term which applies properly only when
> there is a CNS, a memory store, and the capacity to
> internally represent reality and make plans.

I don't mean to disrupt the flow of this discussion, but
why, John, do you insist on a CNS? I can readily see how
those other requirements fit into your intentions for
"design", in fact, I used them myself for the related idea
of "strict teleology". But I am at a loss as to how the CNS
fits into your system. Is it the C or the N that is crucial,
or some synergism between them?
 
Perplexed in Peoria <[email protected]> wrote:

> "John Wilkins" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > ... "design", a term which applies properly only when
> > there is a CNS, a memory store, and the capacity to
> > internally represent reality and make plans.
>
> I don't mean to disrupt the flow of this discussion, but
> why, John, do you insist on a CNS? I can readily see how
> those other requirements fit into your intentions for
> "design", in fact, I used them myself for the related idea
> of "strict teleology". But I am at a loss as to how the
> CNS fits into your system. Is it the C or the N that is
> crucial, or some synergism between them?

It is a post hoc observation that design occurs with so-
endowed organisms only. All else is tenuous metaphor.

But if you had a functional equivalent, fine.
--
Dr John Wilkins [email protected]
http://wilkins.id.au "Men mark it when they hit, but do not
mark it when they miss"
- Francis
Bacon
 
"John Wilkins" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> ... It can't be "real" intentionality unless it has
> a brain.

Please revise this to read "It can't be "real"
intentionality unless it has a mind, and, as I see it, minds
can only arise from brains."

I don't know how you do things "down under", but where I
come from it is considered bad form to attempt to close an
open philosophical issue by dictating what words must
mean. Though I doubt that it is a very successful tactic
in any venue.
 
Perplexed in Peoria <[email protected]> wrote:

> "John Wilkins" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > ... It can't be "real" intentionality unless it has a
> > brain.
>
> Please revise this to read "It can't be "real"
> intentionality unless it has a mind, and, as I see it,
> minds can only arise from brains."
>
> I don't know how you do things "down under", but where I
> come from it is considered bad form to attempt to close an
> open philosophical issue by dictating what words must
> mean. Though I doubt that it is a very successful tactic
> in any venue.

Words mean what they are used to mean (Wittgensteinian view
of meaning), and a term has an exemplary application from
which we generalise and metaphorise. "Design" means the sort
of intentional activity done by agents, all of whom have a
brain, as we know. (I am not concerned with 17th century
uses of "mind" here. We are discussing the proper scientific
use of a word. "Mind" is so vague as to be useless in a
scientific context.)

I consider we should try to ascertain the clear and central
sense of a disputed term first, before we consider if it
rightly applies elsewhere. This is not exactly stipulation -
I can't do a Humpty Dumpty and define them any way I like -
so much as a look at the terrain the map is supposed to
represent.

--
Dr John Wilkins [email protected]
http://wilkins.id.au "Men mark it when they hit, but do not
mark it when they miss"
- Francis
Bacon
 
"John Wilkins" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Perplexed in Peoria <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > "John Wilkins" <[email protected]> wrote in
> > message news:[email protected]...
> > > ... It can't be "real" intentionality unless it has a
> > > brain.
> >
> > Please revise this to read "It can't be "real"
> > intentionality unless it has a mind, and, as I see it,
> > minds can only arise from brains."
> >
> > I don't know how you do things "down under", but where I
> > come from it is considered bad form to attempt to close
> > an open philosophical issue by dictating what words must
> > mean. Though I doubt that it is a very successful tactic
> > in any venue.
>
> Words mean what they are used to mean (Wittgensteinian
> view of meaning), and a term has an exemplary application
> from which we generalise and metaphorise. "Design" means
> the sort of intentional activity done by agents, all of
> whom have a brain, as we know.

As you believe... I have friends who believe in the
existence of disembodied minds that are quite capable of
doing a little designing. And, while I disagree with them, I
don't consider their belief to be absurd or to be a product
of inappropriate use of the word "design". I have heard it
speculated that collective entities such as bureaucracies
and ant colonies might be said to possess some of the
attributes of mentality. (Certainly they can act as agents).
I might speculate that somewhere in the universe, there
exist minds as powerful as our own that are not based on
anything remotely resembling a brain. Such entities might
have arisen through natural selection or they might be AIs,
created by intelligent design.

> (I am not concerned with 17th century uses of "mind" here.
> We are discussing the proper scientific use of a word.
> "Mind" is so vague as to be useless in a scientific
> context.)

Funny, I thought I understood what "mind" meant. But I have
no idea what an "agent" is in your mind (or should I say
"brain"?), perhaps because I have become contaminated by
technical uses of the term in computer science and game
theory. In these fields, the posession of a brain is by no
means required to "get your agent's license".

> I consider we should try to ascertain the clear and
> central sense of a disputed term first, before we consider
> if it rightly applies elsewhere. This is not exactly
> stipulation - I can't do a Humpty Dumpty and define them
> any way I like - so much as a look at the terrain the map
> is supposed to represent.

I am perfectly happy to take human intentionality and
mentality as the central exemplar for all of this disputed
language. And that is the terrain that we can look at. But
the map is not yet drawn. I want to draw the map with some
open spaces beyond the known terrain - marked, if
appropriate, with the warning "Here there be dragons." You
seem to want the map to cover only the terrain that was
considered exemplary.

Perhaps you ought to revise the quote that started this
discussion to read "It can't be exemplary intentionality
unless it has a brain". I might agree to this. However, as
the previous paragraph indicates, my agreement doesn't
commit me to much.
 
Perplexed in Peoria <[email protected]> wrote:

> "John Wilkins" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > Perplexed in Peoria <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > > "John Wilkins" <[email protected]> wrote in
> > > message news:[email protected]...
> > > > ... It can't be "real" intentionality unless it has
> > > > a brain.
> > >
> > > Please revise this to read "It can't be "real"
> > > intentionality unless it has a mind, and, as I see it,
> > > minds can only arise from brains."
> > >
> > > I don't know how you do things "down under", but where
> > > I come from it is considered bad form to attempt to
> > > close an open philosophical issue by dictating what
> > > words must mean. Though I doubt that it is a very
> > > successful tactic in any venue.
> >
> > Words mean what they are used to mean (Wittgensteinian
> > view of meaning), and a term has an exemplary
> > application from which we generalise and metaphorise.
> > "Design" means the sort of intentional activity done by
> > agents, all of whom have a brain, as we know.
>
> As you believe... I have friends who believe in the
> existence of disembodied minds that are quite capable of
> doing a little designing. And, while I disagree with them,
> I don't consider their belief to be absurd or to be a
> product of inappropriate use of the word "design". I have
> heard it speculated that collective entities such as
> bureaucracies and ant colonies might be said to possess
> some of the attributes of mentality. (Certainly they can
> act as agents). I might speculate that somewhere in the
> universe, there exist minds as powerful as our own that
> are not based on anything remotely resembling a brain.
> Such entities might have arisen through natural selection
> or they might be AIs, created by intelligent design.
>
> > (I am not concerned with 17th century uses of "mind"
> > here. We are discussing the proper scientific use of a
> > word. "Mind" is so vague as to be useless in a
> > scientific context.)
>
> Funny, I thought I understood what "mind" meant. But I
> have no idea what an "agent" is in your mind (or should I
> say "brain"?), perhaps because I have become contaminated
> by technical uses of the term in computer science and game
> theory. In these fields, the posession of a brain is by no
> means required to "get your agent's license".

Jim - do you really understand what "mind" is? Then rush
into print immediately and settle the last 500 years of
debate. Because dualists and monists, epiphenomenalists and
connectionists, all do not know what that term "means". They
have accounts of how brain activity generates behavior, and
of how we systmise and classify complex phenomena, and how
hormone levels affect our reaction systems, but nobody can
"define" mind.

We have two options when we take a word that has a folk
usage and import it into exact discourse of any kind - one
is to identify that term as being the equivalent of a number
of better understood theoretical entities; and the other is
to show that what that term commonly refers to is, in fact,
a heterogenous class of other things that are better
understood. "Mind" means partically nothing in
neurophsychology, but all the apparently identifying
features of "mind" are better understood as the latter, a
class of heterogenous processes of brains, societies, and
languages,

The common error of western thought for the past 2500 years
has bene to identify a noun as referring to a thing, no
matter if that thing has a theoretical basis. But pretty
well all the stuff that "mind" accounted for in legal, moral
and social explanation prior to the modern era has been
dispersed into theoretical domains that do not tie together.
There is no need to reify "mind" any more.
>
> > I consider we should try to ascertain the clear and
> > central sense of a disputed term first, before we
> > consider if it rightly applies elsewhere. This is not
> > exactly stipulation - I can't do a Humpty Dumpty and
> > define them any way I like - so much as a look at the
> > terrain the map is supposed to represent.
>
> I am perfectly happy to take human intentionality and
> mentality as the central exemplar for all of this disputed
> language. And that is the terrain that we can look at. But
> the map is not yet drawn. I want to draw the map with some
> open spaces beyond the known terrain - marked, if
> appropriate, with the warning "Here there be dragons." You
> seem to want the map to cover only the terrain that was
> considered exemplary.

Well, I certainly want it to cover only that whioch has
actually been mapped.
>
> Perhaps you ought to revise the quote that started this
> discussion to read "It can't be exemplary intentionality
> unless it has a brain". I might agree to this. However, as
> the previous paragraph indicates, my agreement doesn't
> commit me to much.

No, I want to make the strong claim - if it is truly
intentional, then inductively we know it has a brain,
because true intentionality involves brains. If we found a
case where it didn't, then empirically I'd have to revise my
induction.
--
Dr John Wilkins [email protected]
http://wilkins.id.au "Men mark it when they hit, but do not
mark it when they miss"
- Francis
Bacon
 
[email protected] (John Wilkins) wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> Perplexed in Peoria <[email protected]> wrote:

>> I strongly disagree. This is an issue of appropriate
>> levels of explanation. Thermodynamics has been
>> successfully reduced to statistical mechanics, but
>> engineers still talk and think in terms of heat flow.
>> They certainly don't talk about the propagation of random
>> molecular motion, even though they know that that is what
>> is really going on.

> That is not a supererogatory concept. There is a direct
> reduction of talk at one level to talk at another. But
> if they talked about what heat "wanted" to do, and it
> led them to ascribe misleading properties to heat ("it's
> a Saturday, so it's less likely to do useful work, as
> it's tired") would you then think it so harmless? And
> lest ye think this frivolous, I have heard people say
> similar things about computers. Not experts, of course,
> unless they were joking or "explaining" to the laity,
> but even so...

Now if they made the same "Saturday" statement with regard
to a human, would you agree? I assume from the way you
phrased your example that you would How about if they made
the same statement with regard to a chimpanzee, would you
then agree with it? If they made the same statement with
regard to a dog, would you agree? If they made the same
statement with regard to a mouse, would you agree? If they
made the same statement with regard to an ant, would you
agree? Just exactly when would you disagree? How stupid does
a person have to be, before they become a machine? How
stupid does a machine have to be, before it becomes "heat".
No I don't think this is frivolous, but I don't see where
you have provided any basis to differentiate heat and humans
with regard to their "intentions".

Yours,

Bill Morse
 
"John Wilkins" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> Perplexed in Peoria <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Funny, I thought I understood what "mind" meant. ...
>
> Jim - do you really understand what "mind" is? Then rush
> into print
immediately and settle the last 500 years of debate.

Of course not. No more than you understand what design is.
What I said is that I know what the word means - how it is
used. And, frankly, your persistent misrepresentations have
become tiresome.
 
"Perplexed in Peoria" <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

>
> "John Wilkins" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> Perplexed in Peoria <[email protected]> wrote:
>> > Funny, I thought I understood what "mind" meant. ...
>>
>> Jim - do you really understand what "mind" is? Then rush
>> into print
> immediately and settle the last 500 years of debate.
>
> Of course not. No more than you understand what design is.
> What I said is that I know what the word means - how it is
> used. And, frankly, your persistent misrepresentations
> have become tiresome.

Perhaps the problem here is that words don't have a one to
one correspondences with "meanings" - if they did language
wouldn't work. To use Pierce via Deacon, icons and indexes
may have a one to one correspondence, but symbols (words are
an example) don't. This poses a problem for Dr. John,
because he is a philosopher. While it should follow that he
loves knowledge (and in fact I think both he and you qualify
as philosophers under that definition), in practice it
implies that he needs to make language less meaningful
(quite literally), so that he can use it for logical
argument. You do understand what "mind" means in the
symbolic sense - but Dr. John needs to reduce it to the
indexical sense. To allow it to "mean" the whole panoply
that is associated with a symbol will make an attempt at
logical argument equivalent, in Dennett's phrase, to
"playing tennis without a net". Now it also happens that Dr.
John is singularly pigheaded, as witness our discussion
elsewhere on this thread
:), but I do not think he is misrepresenting so much as
:simplifying.

Yours,

Bill Morse
 
[email protected] (John Wilkins) wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> > From: [email protected] (John Wilkins) Mistakes
>> > also get made that show that this process is not
>> > digital at all, but merely a high-fidelity analogue
>> > process - despite the bonding sites, G can mispair with
>> > A and C with T.
>>
>> No, it's not analog at all, it's digital, with occasional
>> mistakes. But
> ...
>
> Rather than answer you point for point - there is a
> fundamental distinction here that I am making that appears
> not to be getting across. Of course, I may just not be
> convincing you of this, which is another matter, but allow
> me to make the positive case.
>
> A digital device is a purely abstract object. Consider the
> granddaddy of digital devices - a universal Turing machine
> (UTM). This is a frictionless, energy-less device on an
> infinite strip of paper, with a read-write head that can
> move left or right without making a single error, with an
> infinite amount of ink, etc. It computes any algorithm
> infinitely, should that algorithm never halt. No
> thermodynamic considerations apply to it. It never
> crashes, jams, or runs out of electricity or ink.
>
> Now consider what *we* call digital devices. My laptop can
> crash due to heat, dust shorting out circuits, a failure
> of the RAM or magnetic storage media, or because it got
> rained on. It generates signals by way of a waveform that
> can fall below the threshold of the logic gates, producing
> noise. It can run out of electricity. The screen can fail
> and the printer I attach it to jam and run out of ink. My
> kids can drop jam on the keyboard, etc...
>
> The difference between what a *logician* would call
> "digital" (Turing's abstract device) and what an
> *electrical engineer* would, is that in a Truly Digital
> Device error is not possible. If the algorithm is an error
> with respect to a problem, nevertheless the algorithm will
> go on doing exactly what it is programmed to do for all
> eternity, should it not halt.
>
> DNA is simply not digital. It is a high-fidelity but still
> error-prone molecular structure that can carry heredity
> from cell to cell. But it is, for all that, analogue
> (unless you are a neo-Pythagorean who wants to claim that
> all analogue and all digital processes are at base the
> same thing). DNA is subject to the laws of thermodynamics,
> while a digital device would not be. At the *very* best we
> *approximate* digital devices with computers and DNA. No
> physical device can *ever* be purely digital.
>
> I hope this makes my point clear. If not, then we are left
> at an impassé.
>

I don't know how you are left with Robert Maas, but you are
at an impasse with me. An analog device is also a purely
abstract object - at some point it becomes lumpy. And thank
goodness for that, because otherwise I would be typing this
reply with (square root of 26) fingers on a keyboard with
(102 plus or minus the square root of 2) keys. Pi is a
wonderful number, but it only expresses the ratio of
circumference to diameter for an ideal circle. If you draw a
circle and its diameter on a piece of paper, the ratio will
ultimately be digital if you are willing to go the level of
counting molecules.

So there is no point in making grand pronouncements about
whether something is digital or analog. At base they are
_not_ the same thing, but one can simulate an analog process
with a digital one and vice versa to any degree of accuracy
you care to name. The only question then is which makes the
better model for understanding a particular process. Clearly
a digital model is better for DNA and RAM, while an analog
model is better for a stereo speaker - even if the source of
the music is a
CD.

Yours,

Bill Morse
 
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