Re: Bleeding Edge
First up, Ray, I want to say that I'm sorry to hear about your friend.
It is not an insult to clearly define what someone is actually doing.
Unless you are Scott Steiner, Marilyn Manson or possibly Whodini, back in the day, then I have never heard the word "freak" used in a non-insulting manner in any context. Are you trying to tell me that you cannot comprehend how someone could find being described as a "freak" as a little less than polite?
Some people refer to their soul as their "subconscious", and indeed, the makeup of the soul drives the personality in much the same way as Freud's Id/Ego/Superego model suggests.
The point of fact is, if you ignore/deny your soul, then you allow it to "run open loop" on your conscious mind.
I don't deny that I have a subconsious. Your theory here seems to be that if I deny that I have a soul (whch I do, indeed, deny), then my consious mind cannot have any control over my actions - that I cannot kurb my baser instincts. Is the British stereotype not that we're more repressed in our behaviour than you Americans are? I do not believe that anything called a "soul" exists. Yet, I can control my behaviour and am not ruled by my subconsious.
Let me try it from another tack, which you will likely just try to debunk[...]
That you even say this clearly shows that you do not know the "real me" half as well as you may like to think that you do.
Do you REALLY know who you are talking to while you are debating back and forth with me?
I'd have thought that would have been obvious from the fact that I'm debating some of the claims you have made about yourself. Of course I don't know. We live in an age where every couple of weeks there's launched yet another campaign for keeping children safe from paedophiles posing as children in internet chatrooms.
As it is, I don't think that anybody can ever truely know anybody. Even with the advantages of face-to-face contact, body language, prolonged daily contact for most of my life...my friends and family can still surprise me at times. So, no, I don't think that anybody will ever know another person completely.
I continue to engage you because I can sense that your soul WANTS to be recognized.
Okay. There's a few things I want you to note, here. Firstly, I, the alleged "control freak" gave you 100% control over this conversation, and whether it was even to take place. I gave you complete free choice, and the descision to continue down this path has been yours. Now, given this, and that you know how I will challenge things which I find to be lacking in one way or another, you are going to have to get over the fact that I will debate with you. You know what I do and how I do it on these forums and you, alone, have chosen to continue to interact with me in this manner in this place and time. As such, I would appreciate it if you no longer complained about the fact that I will debate you, or that I will attempt to debunk that which I consider bunk. If not, my offer remains open - tell me you do not with to debate with me, and I will respect those wishes completely.
I am here for no other reason than because your soul called me forth.
Hmm, I think this needs a little clarification. How did my soul call you forth, exactly? Directly? Indirectly, through my typing? Are you just talking about this latest interaction, or all of our interactions? If the former, then what does that mean about the times you stopped responding and ignored me? And, if the latter, then why were you here before?
Whatever, I like the new, altruistic spin you've given this conversation.
I know who I am debating with in this thread.
I'm really not sure that you do, certainly not half as much as you think.
Are YOU getting out of this conversation what is intended? I certainly hope so, but so far the evidence is saying not.
I don't know. What is intended? And how come you don't know? You claim to be more in touch with who I am and what and who my "soul" is than I am. Should you not know before I do?
I would define it, in my own words, much the same way that Shannon and Bateson viewed/defined information: Those observations which reduces uncertainty of a given physical state. In my field, the measurement of the velocity of an air vehicle with respect to the airmass is "information", because that measurement reduces uncertainty, and permits trajectory control of the vehicle.
You were talking about the context of it with reference to computers. What is the "given physical state" that has uncertainty reduced in that context?
In point of fact, there is no such thing as "true knowledge".
Would that not depend on how you defined "true knowledge"?
You, on the other hand, appear to take the role of branding thoughts which do not conform to today's "true knowledge" as heretical.
I wouldn't say that. I do say that ideas which challenge established modes of thinking should have something in the form of real evidence or proof to back tham up, rather than loose circumstantial connections and faluty reasoning, logic and "proof".
You like to stay stuck in the past (not even in the present) with statements such as "there is no evidence to support what you are saying" or "this is just flat-out wrong".
You may have noticed that I usually use a fair few qualifiers in what I'm saying. This is because I try to make what I say as accurate and precises as possible. I certainly don't always succeed in this aim, but it is an established mode of address for me, particularly when unable to enhance my verbal communication with gestrures, expressions and noises. So, for me to make a concrete statement like "flat-out wrong", you have to know that I'm pretty sure of myself.
Now, I had a friend go through your mathematical claims about Phi and DNA and their relative scalings, and your thinking, your standards of evidence and your maths simply didn't stand up to scrutiny. You have since refused to address the issue.
I don't think it's being "stuck in the past" to wish for extraordinary claims to have at least a
little bit of evidence to back tham up. Do you
really think that? That would seem to dismiss the entire basis for science, logic and reason.
I also don't think it's being "stuck in the past" to say that maths which has been incorrectly applied is wrong. Just as it wouldn't be being "stuck in the past" to say that claiming that "E = 2m3c" was flat-out wrong. I'm a fan of qualifiers and avoiding absolutes, but sometimes wrong is just wrong.
If evidence came to light that did support my proposal, then that would mean I was "right" all along. And how would that reflect on you and your tactics?
Again, wanting evidence for claims is not "tactics", unless every scientist on the planet uses the same "tactics". You sometimes have a very odd and disparaging choice of words.
However, what would this situation show about my mindset? That I am only prepared to believe things when they have been proven to my satisfaction, and that I am not easily swayed to irrational and unsupported conclusions, no matter how appealing they may or may not be to me. It would also show that my views are mutable, and are based on evidence as opposed to supposition and insinuation.
That seems like an admirable state to be in, as far as I'm concerned. And if it's not good enough for anyone else...well, tough titty, frankly.
I wonder where those people are today, now that NASA WMAP (and other probes) are providing evidence for dark energy?
I have no interest in where anybody else is now. The point is that I am more accepting to the idea than I was when there was no evidence. I was never entirely dismissive of the theory, as the theory was based on sound scientific knowledge, and was to account for a gap in that knowledge. You will note that before people have accepted the theory (in fact, I believe that it's not yet established as scientific fact), that they demanded evidence. That's simply the way it works.
I'm sorry if you find the burden of evidence and proof a hard one, but that's the fact of logic, reason and rationality. Without it, we would still believe that demons caused illness and that the best cure was bloodletting.
He'd eat you for breakfast... and if you think *I* am rude, you should see the way he dresses-down the naysayers of his theories on the exotic vaccuum and ZPE.
And is he content to accept your claims without any corroborating evidence of any kind?
But by the same token, when I tell you that "you will eventually come to understand" it would be good for you to stop taking it as a patronizing insult, and at least acknowledge the possibility that I understand something that you do not, even if I am not great at explaining it to your satisfaction.
It is, at the very least, patronising to claim to know what I will believe in the future. Without evidence, I will not believe something, and that is a simple fact. Unless you provide evidence, then I will not "understand one day".
See my post to Roel on the Global Consciousness Project, as this exhibits one form of evidence for why it *is* significant when a large mass of people focus their energy in a common manner.
If all that is required is "a large mass of people", then why did you feel the need to specifically mention that some scientists believe in a higher intelligence?
And, are you really saying that if a large number of people believe something, then that something must be true, in one form or another? For years it was believed that black people were less human than white people by a very large number of people. A large number of people still believe this, in fact. I, personally, think that this view is wrong, no matter how many people believe it to be true.
But, as I said, pick an example, because there are a lot of people who believe in a lot of things. That doesn't necessarily make any of them true.
However, without a "critical mass" of people adopting the belief, and internalizing it within themselves and within a subculture of the American psyche, it never would have come to pass.
Hmm, I'm not sure I agree with your conclusions here. Sure, there were most likely issues of funding which couldn't have been achieved without public support, but public support wasn't necessary for the completion of the project. Over here in England, pretty much the entire country was against the building of the Millenium Dome. And yet, there it is. The vast majority of the country were against us being involved in the invasion of Iraq. And yet there we are.
No, I think that, on the whole, things happen, and they don't care if you believe in them or not.
Note that I was not discussing Phi, or even claiming these scalings were related to Phi.
Not
yet, you weren't.
I was not even claiming it was "solid proof" of anything. I was using it as an analogy to show how our tiny DNA could also come to a "reasonable conclusion" that there is no evidence of a higher-level creative being (us).
So why, rather than saying this at the time, did you start talking about Phi and the Fibonaci sequence?
This is destructive, not constructive, in that you are trying to lead the conversation away from a subjective measure to an objective measure.
Actually, that's not what I was trying to do there. I was merely trying to show how the example you offered didn't seem to me to strengthen the point I thought you were trying to make. As you ran with the point and continued the discussion down this path, how was I supposed to realise that what you were saying wasn't what you were actually saying at all? You may claim to be able to see past the words on the screen to see the "soul" of the person you're interacting with, but I can't. All I have to go on is your words, and if you don't let me in on information, then you cannot expect me to act on that information.
For the record, when I said that your reasoning seemed like confirmation bias at it's worst (a post which I note you didn't include as my actual response, instead skipping over it and citing a post which was a response to a different post entirely as my initial response), your response was to say:
The point was scaling, and resolution with respect to how a system and subsystem are related....especially from the point of observational horizons. Scale and resolution variance are a central pillar of fractal geometry in terms of how boundaries are defined between one scale and another.
And then went on to chastise me for not having studied fractal mathematics. Which is not the same thing as saying that all it was was an analogy at all. Your next reply again chastised me for not having studied that mathematics of fractals, chaos theory and Multiple Resolution Analysis. Which is again hardly indicative of these things being irrelevent, as you were simply making an analogy. And, it was
then that you (yes you, not me) brought up Phi and that that's what you expected the ratio to turn out like. In fact, you said "If my off-the-cuff observation of DNA/human and human/universe were computed, and both of these reflected (approximately) the Golden Mean Ratio, this *would* be a strong bit of evidence for statistical significance of their being highly self-similar." How was I supposed to intuit from that that Phi and fractals and chaos theory and, in fact, maths of any kind was irrelevent to the point you were making?
FWIW, I didn't think that Phi was at all relevent at the time, but didn't like to say anything, as I beleived I'd get the same "if you'd studied fractal theory, then you'd see the relevence" responce that I'd already recieved. But it's a good example of why you can be frustrating to debate with. Here you have brought up something irrelevent (Phi), then later claimed that it was not relevent, and even chastised me for having thought that it was. If you cannot be consistent with what you're claiming, what you believe and what is relevent to that - then how am I supposed to argue coherently against that?
So, once and for all, is Phi relevent to the scale of DNA relative to humans, and if not, then why on Earth did you bring it up as if it was not only relevent but highly significant in that discussion?
BTW, just for the sake of novelty, when someone seems to get what you're saying wrong, why not try assuming that they've genuinely misunderstood your intention, rather than that they're deliberately trying to be a smart-arse? Remember the saying "never assume malice where ignorance will do".
So...no, I do not see you as being a constructive contributor to a discussion when you do things like this.
I think that people see people's behaviour in different lights is a given.
So it's really just more of a form of entertainment, than it is any solid, scientific attempt to validate what may be real?
I'm not entirely sure what you're saying here. Derren has shown that certain effects which some claim are of supernatural origin - such as seances and the manipulation of people through the use of voodoo dolls - can be replicated through non-supernatural means. You cannot disprove all supernatural claims, no. It can be shown that the effects of a seance can be exactly recreated by known corporeal means - it cannot be proven that a seance held by a specific person at a specific time didn't contact the spirits of the dead.
In exactly the same way, you can debunk all the counter-arguments, and show the proof and evidence as much as you like, but some people will still believe that man has never landed on the moon.
I've yet to see how you have shown me lacking in these areas.
I can re-post the dissection of your maths, if you like.
My credibility and honor stems from interactions with people who seek mutually beneficial interactions.
You misunderstand my intent, there. I was phrasing what I was saying as if in a courtroom setting. The "your honour" was as if addressing a judge. I'm sorry if that was not clear but, truth be told, I think I was remarkably coherent and articulate considering that I'd drunk 12 pints of strong beer at the time.
The point was that my pointing out how you had capitulated on 5 discussions with me, and then flat-out ignored any mention of the subjects therein speaks to your credibility. If you cannot defend the ideas you espouse, and are unwilling to debate the basis of those beliefs, then that is detremental to your credibility as someone who a) has faith in their own ideas, b) has the necessary tools to debate on anything other than a surface level, c) is consistant in and can stand by what they claim and d) has the knowledge they claim to have. That's the point, not my ego.
I infer that you are referring to your penchant for music.
Indeed, it's another statement I wouldn't have bothered making, but for the beer. The basic point is that I believe that the best reason for the invention of the LPF is that of resonance and harmonics. An entirely irrelevent aside.
