Gil,
No, not really. I don’t care what you eat. But I do care how you THINK. The core of this thread is an attempt to find out the relation between reasoning and action in a group of people who regard themselves as rational. Given that many of the people in Friam have a scientific background, one would expect that “The Science” and “the Scientific Consensus” would play a big role in our day to day decision-making. So, if I turn to a member of the group who, for instance, denies the human origin of climate change, and say truthfully, “The scientific consensus is that humans are the origin of climate change”, the that statement should change the mind of denier, forthwith. But it never works that way. In fact, it rarely works that way in any argument in FRIAM On so many matters (diet and health, in particular) we feel, even though we regard ourselves as being of rational scientific disposition, the right – nay, even the obligation – to make our own decisions with respect to matters that are scientific at their core. It is that paradox I am trying to explore. How should scientists come to their beliefs with respect to scientific matters about which they are not fully qualified to come to a scientific decision, so to speak? N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Gillian Densmore Sent: Saturday, October 31, 2015 11:04 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: Meat Nick are you asking why I might choose my eating habbits or habbits In general? Diet wise I improved it some from not all that interesting to way more variety. I found I enjoyed cooking and getting away from the computer, Plus the whole ritual of making a meal, a bit of music, chopping vegis, and measuring spices has a nice ritual appeal. after grumbling about it some I enjoy a leisurly stroll so as to get out of my head and out of the house and frankly being anoyed at being out of shape I decided I want improve it, still very much a work in progress but an improvement. For what it's worth I thought people were Omnivores meaning can and enjoy a bit of this and that. On Fri, Oct 30, 2015 at 11:40 PM, Nick Thompson <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Hi, Owen, I agree with your focus on design. Many years ago somebody wrote a marvelous essay attempting to answer whether babies are “designed” to be crèched or carried. The argument was based largely on a comparative study of mammalian milk. Milk of crèching species is laced with fat (think seals); human milk is leaner. There were many other features of the argument which I now forget, but the basic pattern of argument – abductive – was very convincing. When on looks at human dentition comparatively, the most striking features of it is that it is vastly reduced and that the teeth are even. The evenness of the dentition seems to be an adaption for speech The reduction seems to be the result of the consumption for a couple of million years of consuming very high quality food … fruits, nuts, meat – which is afforded by central-location foraging. For a long time, we humans have been bringing food to a central location and processing it. . So in fact, while I applaud the form of your argument, I don’t think it is correct in this case. I don’t think human teeth ARE particularly well designed for processing [raw] meat and veggies. We lack the tearing teeth of a typical meat-eater (eg, cats and dogs) and we lack the heavily built molars of a typical plant eater (eg, gorillas). Our dentition is that of a creature much of whose chewing has been outsourced, and whose teeth have been partially repurposed for communicative function. Great to see you today! Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ From: Friam [mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore Sent: Friday, October 30, 2015 9:51 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: Meat We went on a vegetarian diet when we joined a Zen center in Rochester. Some years later, Dede broke her hip falling from a horse. They could not perform the required surgery due to Dede's iron count being so low due to diet. It took almost a week before the surgery could be performed. We now eat a Mediterranean diet (Italian) which is reasonable w.r.t. meat. I wonder why my teeth are so well designed to process both meat and veggies. -- Owen On Fri, Oct 30, 2015 at 5:42 PM, glen <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: An appropriately timed interview in The Reasoner! http://www.thereasoner.org/ Another thing I like about approaching argumentation this way is that it forces us to confront another question, viz., why do we argue? I mean that to be a teleological why with normative force—i.e., what should we want to get out of arguing?— not the why in search of a causal explanation. Epistemological and other cognitive considerations have to be prominent parts of an account of argumentation. Again, virtues approaches to argumentation embed arguing in a larger context: our cognitive lives. On 10/28/2015 04:05 PM, glen wrote: On 10/28/2015 02:24 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: [NST==>Ok, you are forcing me to own up to my basic question. Why do people who disagree with one another bother to talk? What is the good in that? I assume it’s because we are striving for the non-zero-sum gains of concerted action. Also, there is some evidence, I gather, that involving more than one person in a decision actually improves the quality of the decision. <==nst] Well, my opinion isn't very useful, here. I tend to think we talk _mostly_ as a replacement for grooming each other. Or perhaps I should phrase it as: most of the talk we engage in is meaningless jabber that replaces grooming. But perhaps each of us, all of us, does engage in some sort of reprogramming, at least sporadically and rarely. The best I can do is tell you why _I_ talk (including these tl;dr e-mails). It is in the hopes that I will be reprogrammed. Every word I read, every noise I hear, wherever it comes from, whomever it comes from, _might_ reprogram me. There are other ways to be programmed (working in the garden, driving, hiking, etc.). But there is a kind of nuance to talk-talk-based reprogramming that is difficult to get at any other way. -- glen ep ropella -- 971-255-2847 <tel:971-255-2847> -- ⇔ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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