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Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 9:52 pm
by C Elegans
Curdis wrote:I just really dislike the 'unspoken assumption' model when it come to cosmology. From his own propaganda site: "With Roger Penrose he showed that Einstein's General Theory of Relativity implied space and time would have a beginning in the Big Bang and an end in black holes(Emphasis added by me)." Codswallop. There is more than one way to interpret this and Hawking and Penrose both know it. *sigh*
Sigh indeed. Although Penrose also is a mathematician he has written such a huge amount of highly speculative stuff in the realm of cognitive neurosciencen so him I have a hard time forgetting. Speculating about your own field of expertise is one thing, but speculating in fields you don't even have a basic education in, is another. Stephen J Gould is also a person who also couldn't resist speculating in areas completely outside his own field. Now, I can stand posting my very basic undergraduate level ideas about philosophy and physics on an internet message board as long as I check my references and I know I can be corrected by professionals, but I wouldn't exactly publish them in a popular science book meant to be read by a large audience!
I don't know CE, you appear to punch well above your weight in Philosophy :D . I'm looking forward to you "correcting some of your mistaken ideas".
I am not going to waste more time on the deteriorated Kant discussion unless Snoop is providing a background for his claims and manage to lift his posts above the level of accusations regarding my putative personal motives. Honestly, I am not very interested in Kant :D
The kind of metaphysics Snoop is talking about is not very productive for science, it is more an entertainment or exercise for the mind I guess. The fact that we cannot know whether we perceive the objective reality or not and how different philosophers dealt with this dilemma historically is of course an interesting but not very productive issue to ponder.

Anyway, Kant aside, I usually loose interest in discussions pretty soon when people refuse to provide references and demand that their word be taken for truth. Ad hominem level is also not very interesting. I'd rather remain The Evil Scientist who neglects religion since I really don't see any place in science for religion, or metaphysics in general. What many people who are focused on mystic/transcendent/religious/metaphysical issues often don't seem to realise is that natural scientists are not necessarily unfamiliar with the classical questions of epistemology and metaphysics (after all, most of us have to take classes in philosophy of Science even before we start a Ph D) - we simply do not think they are as important as experimental findings that lead to discoveries. The idea that the "human mind plays an active role in how information is categorized and all this implies" is trivial today, it's a condition but it's no reason to stop a lot of human activities like science or healthcare. It is a choice and a prefence what you choose to focus you life on, I guess.
Antonio Damasio? Wasn't he in the Da Vinci Code?
I doubt it, he is a neurologist and he is not doing anything conspiratory, mystical or religious:
http://www.uihealthcare.com/depts/med/n ... asioa.html
I take it your letting my provocative (on topic) comments pass? Wise woman.
:confused: Unattentive woman, rather. I don't even understand what you are referring to :D I've had a couple of hard days trying to understand some really puzzling findings :D Maybe they were a Ding an sich which I perceived only a limited representation of.

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 11:04 pm
by Curdis
[QUOTE=C Elegans]Sigh indeed. Although Penrose.. <SNIP>[/QUOTE]Don't get me started on Penrose....Although I was unaware he had stuck his nose anywhere other than cosmology (and topography) that it wasn't really required (or qualified to be).

[QUOTE=C Elegans]I am not going to waste more time on the deteriorated Kant.. <SNIP> [/QUOTE]Your just quiting because you don't reallyunderstand Kant, and you can't back up any of your spurious interpretations (All the preceding is a joke, you can stop hitting me now). I was waiting for some of the even more turgid German philospers or (gods spare us) the French Existentialists to be dredged up, they had no idea what they meant so the chance of the reader grasping it is pretty poor (O.K. so what they wrote did mean something :rolleyes: *goes to fetch some sort of bizarre holy symbol to ward off verbose ghosts of philosophy*.

Why indeed do those who seek to represent the spiritual dabble in the physical? They are quick enough to cast those who seek to represent the physical out of the spiritual. Locally a radio program called 'The Spirit of Things' globally supported its transmission of Alison's Dubois' completely falacious claims on the basis that it was a spiritual matter and, as such, did not need to be beholding to evidence of any sort, ever.

[QUOTE=C Elegans]I doubt it, he is a neurologist and he is not doing anything conspiratory, mystical or religious: <SNIP>[/quote]Forgive me CE I was making a not very funny joke based soley on the ethnicity of the name (technically a breach of the forum rules I believe). Another place where a rhetorical question smiley would have done service.

[QUOTE=C Elegans] :confused: Unattentive woman, rather. I don't even understand what you are referring to :D I've had a couple of hard days trying to understand some really puzzling findings :D Maybe they were a Ding an sich which I perceived only a limited representation of.[/QUOTE][QUOTE=Curdis]Despite the laudable work outlined in the article fronting this topic I really don't see why god didn't do it. They just used exactly that methodology. If I was Nick Patterson, Daniel J. Richter, Sante Gnerre, Eric S. Lander or David Reich, I'd be a little bit worried as most people don't like having their handy work scrutinised too closely, or their purse rumaged through[/QUOTE]Hardly worth the candle. Although the thought of a deity getting upset because someone was messing around 'under the hood' amused me. Don't work too hard. - Curdis !

Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2006 3:02 pm
by C Elegans
Curdis wrote:Your just quiting because you don't reallyunderstand Kant, and you can't back up any of your spurious interpretations (All the preceding is a joke, you can stop hitting me now). I was waiting for some of the even more turgid German philospers or (gods spare us) the French Existentialists to be dredged up, they had no idea what they meant so the chance of the reader grasping it is pretty poor (O.K. so what they wrote did mean something :rolleyes: *goes to fetch some sort of bizarre holy symbol to ward off verbose ghosts of philosophy*.
ROFL :D For people who want to show off some kind of argument from authority[/i], I think Kant is a pretty good choice because few people has read him and he doesn't say anything that is definitly pro or against neither science nor a specific religion. Let's wait for Jacques Lacan :D
Why indeed do those who seek to represent the spiritual dabble in the physical? They are quick enough to cast those who seek to represent the physical out of the spiritual.


I have never understand that either. Maybe the need for pseudo-science and pseudo-logics is in attempt to sell their ideology to people who are more sceptically minded? In the case of American Creationism/ID the need for pseudo-science is related to the possibilities of making a school-topic out of it and get it taught in science class. In other cases I don't know...

Forgive me CE I was making a not very funny joke based soley on the ethnicity of the name (technically a breach of the forum rules I believe). Another place where a rhetorical question smiley would have done service.


Oh, I see. I know so very well the guy is Portugese so I had to read this twice before I got that his name may sound Italian :D

Curdis previously] Despite the laudable work outlined in the article fronting this topic I really don't see why god didn't do it. They just used exactly that methodology. If I was Nick Patterson wrote: Hardly worth the candle. Although the thought of a deity getting upset because someone was messing around 'under the hood' amused me. Don't work too hard.


Ah, but this is important. The article has nothing whatsoever to do with the existence or non-existence of god. The association to religion was my own personal reflection when I saw that the authors proposed interspecies reproduction between early man and other primate species as an explanation for the way data looks. My idea was that since Creationists are so upset by the evolution of the species and especially hominoid evolution, they'd be even more upset if it turns out the proposed model is correct. That's all!

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 8:42 pm
by Curdis
[QUOTE=C Elegans]Ah, but this is important. The article has nothing whatsoever to do with the existence or non-existence of god. The association to religion was my own personal reflection when I saw that the authors proposed interspecies reproduction between early man and other primate species as an explanation for the way data looks. My idea was that since Creationists are so upset by the evolution of the species and especially hominoid evolution, they'd be even more upset if it turns out the proposed model is correct. That's all![/QUOTE]CE I'm deeply shocked and dismayed! :angel: You know that trolling is against the forum rules.:mischief: - Curdis !

Posted: Thu Jun 08, 2006 10:57 am
by C Elegans
[QUOTE=Curdis]CE I'm deeply shocked and dismayed! :angel: You know that trolling is against the forum rules.:mischief: [/QUOTE]

I am not trolling, I am completely serious and besides, I am the Evil Scientist Who Demand References :devil: Mwhaaahaaaahaaaaa! :devil:

The Evil Scientist Who Demand References is however still waiting for Snoopy to post any references that Kant "threaten" science OR logical positivism for that matter. In the abscence of such references, I can only conclude that it is very easy to state that anyone said anything.

Posted: Thu Jun 08, 2006 11:33 am
by Vicsun
[QUOTE=C Elegans]The Evil Scientist Who Demand References is however still waiting for Snoopy to post any references that Kant "threaten" science OR logical positivism for that matter. In the abscence of such references, I can only conclude that it is very easy to state that anyone said anything.[/QUOTE]
You might be in for a longish wait
Spoiler
look at his custom title

Posted: Thu Jun 08, 2006 12:31 pm
by C Elegans
[QUOTE=Vicsun]You might be in for a longish wait
Spoiler
look at his custom title
[/QUOTE]

I'm an optimistic personality type :) Besides, I have plenty of Evil Science(TM) to do in the meanwhile. ;)

Posted: Thu Jun 08, 2006 12:40 pm
by Ravager
Umm...he probably means that snoopy was banned for a week from yesterday. ;)

Posted: Thu Jun 08, 2006 1:13 pm
by C Elegans
I know Rav...I was just kidding. Hopefully Snoop will return after his temporary ban. At least that should give him/her plenty of time to collect references :D

Posted: Thu Jun 08, 2006 1:16 pm
by Ravager
Not everyone would know...it wasn't too obvious to me in any case. :p