Whoa! Whoa! dhw take notice!!! (The limitations of science)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Friday, April 18, 2014, 23:04 (3873 days ago) @ dhw

MATT [in 2011]: I've said before that the "filter" is the most important part of the process. 
> 
> Dhw: Actually, before you saw the error of your ways (nasty dig, but you've earned it!) you said that the filter WAS the process. And if you've made this statement before, may I plead with you not to make it again. How can the filter be THE most important part? What would be the point of a filter if there was nothing to be filtered? Every phase in the process is indispensable. In other words, evolution could not happen without life, reproduction, adaptation, innovation and NS. Time to move on?
> 
> MATT [in 2014]: 3 years with no response... yikes... I probably seem awful...
> What would be the point of a filter if there was nothing to be filtered?
> That's a little "meta" but the short answer is that it is the *filter* that determines the outcome: What actually is, vs what could be.
> 
> Welcome back, Mr Van Winkle. But even three years later, I still fail to see how the filter can be THE MOST IMPORTANT part of evolution. Yes it determines the outcome, but you can't have an outcome if there's nothing to come out. You are saying that the process by which life diversifies into different forms is less important to evolution than the process by which some of those forms survive and others perish. Ask yourself: would evolution be possible without reproduction? No. Without adaptation? No. Without innovation? No. Once life began, it could not have advanced beyond the level of bacteria. So all these phases are INDISPENSABLE to the process, and it's pointless to allocate degrees of importance to them or to NS. I need to make a tiny adjustment to the final sentence of what I wrote three years ago:
> 
> Time to move on!-My perspective when I wrote that was this: Without the filter... there is no observable change. No observable change means stasis. Before we can start explaining differences--the differences have to be manifest! So yes, I do think its fair to assign a higher weight towards the filter: All the sources of change you bring up quite literally mean *nothing* otherwise. -I think a basic analogy works: Picture a bowling ball at the top of a ramp. Without an initial force or bump... there's nothing to make the ball roll down the hill. -Imagine a device that sits under the ball and keeps increasing elevation. That's your genetic changes collecting. WIthout an initial force to knock it down the ramp, the system is simply gaining potential energy... but its never going to use any of it without a nudge. In this analogy, the nudge is natural selection.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"