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Date:      Thu, 12 Sep 2002 18:42:48 -0700
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>
To:        "Neal E. Westfall" <nwestfal@directvinternet.com>
Cc:        Joshua Lee <yid@softhome.net>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Fw: Re: Why did evolution fail?
Message-ID:  <3D814298.6E3D3675@mindspring.com>
References:  <20020912143905.L69462-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan>

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"Neal E. Westfall" wrote:
> > The mathematical formalism of symbolic logic.
> 
> Now you are contradicting what you said earlier.  You said that
> a person *can't* evaluate their reason against an objective
> standard.  Which is it?

A person can't evaluate *their* reason against an objective
standard; they can, however, evaluate *another person's* reason
against a subjective, yet *consensus*, standard.


> > > > "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts".
> > >
> > > Yes it is.  But it is *your* premises that preclude the possibility
> > > that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
> >
> > No it doesn't.  Look up the word "emergent", and tell me that
> > again, without being disingenuous.
> 
> Just admit that your clinging to the concept of "emergence" is a faith
> commitment.  Just once!  Or show how it is possible given your
> naturalism.

Because it's not directly based on faith.

In the limit, it reduces to an argument based on three of the
things which I hold to be axioms.  You could call each of these
"items of faith".  But you must go through many steps to work
back to those.  Here.  Let me help you.  One of them is "the
external universe exits independently of my perception of it".



> > > I'm not arguing that the whole is less than the sum of its parts.
> > > I'm arguing that *your* premises lead to that conclusion.
> >
> > Well, you are wrong.  My premises lead to emergent properties
> > and self-organization and the Anthropic Principle and Mach's
> > Hypothesis.
> 
> No, your premises *are* those things.

No, they aren't.  They *lead* to those things.

Just because *you* don't know why you hold certain things to be
true, doesn't mean that I don't know why *I* hold certain things
to be true.


> > Then do us the favor of not insulting our intelligence by using
> > rhetorical techniques which you know to be deceitful.
> 
> Why don't *you* do us all a favor and present a proper refutation
> instead of just asserting that my arguments are unsound?

OK.

I refute your right to appeal to divine authority to refute
evolutionary theory.  Please demonstrate:

1)	That God exists
2)	That the Bible is, in fact, the revealed Word of God
3)	That the contradictions in the Bible are the result
	of transcription errors
4)	That the meaning of the statements which you use in
	support of your arguments are *not* the result of
	transcription errors, the existance of which you
	will have proven in step #3.


> > > If you think that human reason can be accounted for by the action of
> > > the laws of physics on matter, you need to show how human reason
> > > does not reduce to determinism.
> >
> > No, I do not.  I merely need to show that human reason can be
> > accounted for by the action of the laws of physics on matter.
> 
> Which you *have not done*.

I have referenced work which I am also capable of deriving.  I have
avoided referencing work which I'm not capable of recreating, since
I want to avoid an appeal to authroity argument.

Are you going to insist that I rewrite the text of the books I
have referenced, on the basis of calculation carried out on the
mailing list, in order to be able to use the references?


> > I don't have to show a thing about determinism.  Determinism is
> > irrelvant.  It's only you who holds free will to be sacrosanct,
> > and thus part and parcel with human reason: not me.
> 
> Are you, or are you not a determinist?

I am not a determinist.  Nor am I, or have I ever been, a member
of the Communist Party, Senator McCarthy.


> > If you want to drag determinism into this, then you need to prove
> > that it's even relevant to the discussion.
> 
> I did.  The reductio showed that your presuppositions lead to
> determinism.

No, It did not.  It failed to account for Heisenberg's Uncertainty
Principle, which permits a mechanistic universe to have indeterminate
outcomes to macro events by means of quantum coupling.


> All the ranting and raving about my reductio being
> unsound is only that, ranting and raving.

No, it's physics, which we can accurately utilize to predict
attributes of matter, such as the color of a compound before
we create it.


> > You *assume* that the laws of physics are a clockwork, and that
> > therefore if human reason *can* be accounted for by the action of
> > the laws of physics on matter, that this contradicts *your*
> > doctrine.
> 
> I think I see why you object so vehemently to the reductio.  It's
> because you agree with the reductio's conclusion.  You don't think
> determinism is absurd at all?  If that's the case, why didn't you
> just say that?

I disagree that the laws of physics result in a clockwork universe.

I disagree with your conclusion, because the assumptions you put
into it -- that if the universe is *only* governed by the laws of
physics, it *must* be a clockwork -- does not follow.

The universe can *both* be governed *only* by the laws of physics,
yet *still* not be a clockwork.


> > > Given your premises, there is no way you can know whether *your*
> > > reason is correct and that other people's reasoning is fallacious.
> >
> > I can.  I can test whether or not one or the other is more predictive.
> 
> What good would that do?  On your view there would be no way to correct
> one's own reasoning, since it is hardwired into the system.

That really depends on whether or not you are willing to discard
axioms, when someone proves to you, on the basis of your own
internal rules, that the resulting internal model of the universe
does not match observation, or that your model has an internally
invisible, yet externally visible, inconsistency.


> > > It may be fallacious according to the internal laws of logic that
> > > are pre-programmed in *your* head, but that wouldn't prove anything,
> > > since you don't know that what is in your head is what is in anybody
> > > else's.
> >
> > Yes, actually, I do know.  I rather expect that the mathematics
> > necessary to prove this is beyond you, however.
> 
> Oh, that's convenient.

No, it's a pain in the ass, because without that, you are going
to blindly cling to your model because it's all you understand.


> > You don't know whether I believe this is "a random chance universe"
> > or not.  You only know that I have argued for evolution, and certain
> > aspects of the universe which you have taken, inaappropriately, to
> > mean that I believe the universe is a clockwork, which is not a
> > conclusion you can legitimately draw from my statements.
> 
> *You* are the one who brought up randomness as an out for saving
> reason.

No.  I  merely stated that it was emergent.  Not that there was
randomness from which it emerges.  It was your posting of 29 Aug 2002
that brought in "random".


> I assumed it based on your own appeal to it.  If you would
> clearly outline exactly what it is that you *do* believe, it would
> certainly clarify things a bit.

If I were to delineate all my axioms, and you shared all of them,
you would not automatically share all my conclusions.

I would have to demonstrate the derivation of all intermediate
ideas, until I got to, as an example, evolution, so that I could
demonstrate that it followed from my -- and your -- axiomatic
basis.  I would need to "show my work".

For this to be successful, you would have to already understand
your own axiomatic basis, and you would need to address every
single intermediate contradiction, through application of self
examination.

Maybe there's a shortcut.  If there is, I don't know it.


> Of course, then you are borrowing (again) from *my* worldview.

I do not need to borrow from your worldview.  I have come to
many conclusions which happen to coincide with social consensus,
including certain aspects of Biblical and Judeo-Christian doctrine.

I will say that society is *very lucky* my derivations of
principle match its own to such a high degree.  Personally, I
would argue "evolutionary pressure resulting in concordance",
rather than "luck".  8-).

I will tell you that I do not act as I act out of fear, and that
I think there are very few people who can honestly say that.


> Ironically, this is exactly the state that the apostle Paul says
> in Romans 1 that unbelievers are in.  They willfully *suppress* the
> truth about God and themselves in unrighteousness.  8-)

Faith requires that you not have proof, but believe anyway.  Say
you could successfully derive all of the observable universe from
a set of axioms which did not include a belief in God.  And say
further, that God was not part of the observable universe, by
which I mean that you could not prove God's existance from an
axiomatic basis that did not include the existance of God as an
axiom.  Now say you believed in God anyway.  THAT would be faith.

-- Terry

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