On 11/02/2015 06:34 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > > Excellent point! And I suppose by analogy or extension, (which is the > extension of which), Nick's original concept of "being rational" suffers the > same issue.
Yes, mosdef. > I think it might be obvious that my point was that in anything but the most > dedicated circumstances can one even credibly *pretend* to have done enough > research to make a "scientific decision". And if I understand your point, > even then, it is at best, "in the limit" good enough to make a > tentative/interim conclusion. So to contradict your analysis of my > description, I would say that we are not in disagreement, that in fact what > you describe as "the reasoning by which I reached my conclusion" was a > mis-statement. Your own description is more appropriate to what I meant, > rather than what I said. Nice! Now we're meta-arguing, arguing about whether we're arguing. 8^) You're right. But we can extend it further. It is the false belief in the existence of "scientific decisions" that is the delusion. It _enables_ ordinarily rational people to believe/justify some wacky things. So even if it's obvious to _some_, it's unwise to rely on it being obvious to anyone. You, I, one simply cannot make "scientific decisions" because such things don't exist. I don't see a benefit to hemming and hawing about it, confusing victims of celebrities who want to hawk colon cleanses, skin lotions, and delusional spiritual principles http://www.celebrityloa.com/ > And even within oneself. I believe that we often use "surrogate > reasoning"... we tell stories that are either easier to articulate or perhaps > just easier to agree with. Perhaps in the vein of the Red Queen, I find > myself in this mode of analysis/description believing a continuous stream of > (logically?) impossible things... or more to the point, articulating them in > place of a deeper, more intuitive, possibly unstate-able understanding? Well, again, if we keep in mind that thoughts are really just physiological states, then it's easier to imagine the triggers for some stories over others. Rich's posts about nonduality are a great example. I haven't forrmulated a response yet because his post is "out of context" for me. I have no physiological states from/to which I can make a continuous transition to talking about nonduality. If you find yourself engaging in surrogate reasoning, then the best thing to do is examine what you ate that morning, where you are, what air you're breathing, whether you've got some alpha wolf huffing in your face, or whatever. > I'd say "innovate" and I don't necessarily mean "technologically". I think my > "confidence" pivots around the diverstiy of our natures... our ability to > adapt physically (as warm blooded mammals) as well as socially (as complex > social creatures with an existing significant diversity in modes of living in > groups) and personally (put 50 bozos on 50 deserted islands and *some* of > them will survive in spite of being bozos). Yeah, I probably agree with you about 1/2 the time. But when I see the inextricability of our youngsters from their social fabric, I fall out of agreement. Hell, most of them can't even drink regular tap water. It has to be bottled by Nestle or they won't drink it. (yes, I have the data! ... ok, not really ... get off my lawn!) > You may misunderstand that *I* imagine that *I* (or my progeny) will survive > (well)... I imagine that we (humans, first-worlders, caucasians, etc) will > NOT be as successful at surviving our own mistakes as, say, cockroaches, but > we may well do better than say, whales or gorillas. I'm not sure that > first-world technologists will generally do better than say natives currently > living in semi-harsh, subsistence circumstances. Yep. You use "we" in the same way I use it, I think. -- -- ⊥ 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
