The Competition of Memes

As I stated briefly in the "Origins: A skeptics..." thread, the off-topic exploration of Dialectical Materialism vs. Idealism in the book serves as the primary motivator to why dhw, David, George, and myself cannot come to any concise agreement.-At this stage of the game, we are simply ignorant of the nature of origins--though we're better off than we were 100 years ago. But in the book Shapiro constantly says that we're in-between paradigms right now--which to me chillingly recreates my long-ago point that the research needs to find a "pidgin chemistry," some combination of bio/organic/inorganic chemistry that simply doesn't exist at this point.-But to stick to the thrust of my thread; the only disagreement we really have is really due to the differing levels of skepticism exercise.-Lets review the present nature of the endeavor:-Thus far, science can create some, but not all of the needed components for life. Life, when pared down as far as we can get it, requires DNA (for information storage) and enzymes (to carry out the functions of the cells.) The present state is a "Chicken and egg" conundrum. -I can say now that I do have a deeper appreciation of the intelligence argument. However, I'm completely in line with Shapiro that invoking a Watchmaker isn't science and cannot be substantiated. The reason for this is because in my epistemology, I only accept what amounts to material evidence as knowledge. But note that it is exactly at this point where we all diverge; at the level of personal frameworks or "memes" as it were. -David argues a 'la Adler; that because we have been unable to create life from scratch, we can conclude at this time that it did not have a spontaneous (as in spontaneous generation) origin--perhaps for no other reason that it required intelligence for man to do it in the first place. -dhw argues more like Shapiro or myself; though I can only guess at his framework for evaluating claims, though it appears quite similar to my own: Caution is key. Only state what we KNOW. The amount of truth that can be attributed to a claim is paramount--and in the case of a creator we can't "KNOW," and we also have no reason to believe in spontaneous generation. -George (Though I have rather limited experience with him here) seems to argue very much like Dawkins. (Religions are debunked purely by the fact that nearly all their claims on the material world have been proven false; so why bother?)-The problem, is that thus far it appears that the only avenue for raw materialism is spontaneous generation. We're just not close enough for anyone to be satisfied. It is more truthful to the actual state to say "I don't know" than to assert (and it is only assertion) atheism or theism.-As we can tell; personal frameworks litter this landscape. So what--should we do to remedy this?

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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.\"

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MATT: dhw argues more like Shapiro or myself; though I can only guess at his framework for evaluating claims, though it appears quite similar to my own: Caution is key. Only state what we KNOW.-My framework is certainly similar to yours, though from a far more limited base. As you know, my scepticism towards all definitive answers is balanced by my willingness to consider all approaches that seem to me to have a degree of credibility. I would not countenance any theory that went against the scientific consensus (e.g. that the world is only 6000-10,000 years old, that every species has been individually designed from scratch, that there are fairies at the bottom of the garden), but I remain open-minded on matters relating to the so-called "paranormal" (mystic and psychic experiences). My agnosticism basically is one of non-belief, not disbelief, and of a wide-ranging "maybe".-I'm intrigued by your closing comment: "personal frameworks litter this landscape. So what -- should we do to remedy this?" -"Remedy" suggests that personal frameworks are a fault, but I'm not so sure they are. (Ha, these agnostics are never sure!) Firstly, there is no way round our subjectivity, because there is no way we can possibly acquire objective knowledge of the ultimate "truth". To avoid the pitfalls of subjectivity, we would simply have to give up the search, and I don't think you, David, George, BBella, Tim or I will ever do that. But secondly, it's this exchange of personal frameworks that I personally find so educational and stimulating. If we agreed on everything and shared exactly the same framework, we would learn nothing and there would be no discussion. As it is, we are all constantly being made to question our frameworks, and I find that very rewarding.-Thank you for your enthusiastic recommendation of Shapiro and your kind offer to send me your copy. I will try to get hold of one at this end. If it is as enlightening as David's own book (which I suspect provides the best guide to his thinking!) it will be well worth the effort.

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The biggest issue--and it is a BIG issue for me--is on how to deal with paranormal claims. To me, they always boil down to the issue of needing to "trust" that the person who's telling you the claim is telling you what he says he's telling you. In short; it's based largely on the word of the person telling you what's going on. -Then we need to look for more witnesses; did other people see the same thing?-This might give more credence, but what about claims that fly right in the face of common sense, such as a man coming back to life after being dead for three days? I can't speak for you, but in my case it's pretty simple: People don't come back to life when they're dead. All the evidence points to the opposite, and I'm not willing to suspend the laws of nature to allow for the risen Christ. -To me this is because the process of reasoning for Christ is identical to evaluating anyone else's claim about a ghost, OOB, etc. -Then--we need to take the reliability of eyewitness testimony into account. Don't know about the UK but here in the United States, eyewitness testimony accounts for 75% of cases that were eventually exonerated:-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyewitness_identification-So what this means, is that we can't even trust claims about other people in TODAY's time regarding more vulgar--but normal human actions? At best, we can trust 1 in 4; but how do you pick that 1 in 4?-So armed with this evidence in the background, what say you to my lack of trust in paranormal claims? Do you see a way around this that I do not have?

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In relation to the "paranormal", Matt points out that we have to "trust" the people who recount their experiences. Very often there are no other witnesses, and even when there are, eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. "So armed with this evidence in the background, what say you to my lack of trust in paranormal claims? Do you see a way around this that I do not have?"-To your lack of trust in general, I would say good for you. But if your lack of trust turns into automatic dismissal, I would ask you simply to consider each case on its merits. Just who are you expected to trust? An account written 1900 years ago concerning miraculous events purported to have taken place 100 years beforehand, with no (even unreliable) eyewitness reports and no evidence beyond hearsay passed on from generation to generation does not earn my trust either. But I would not put that on a par with unexplained experiences of my own, of my wife's, of close friends, or of other people who I think should be taken seriously. That does not mean belief ... it means open-mindedness to the possibility. If a professor of biophysics publishes evidence that, for instance, a particular bug can withstand the rigours of space travel, I certainly won't dismiss his claim just because I don't know him personally. Similarly, if a cardiologist publishes accounts of interviews with patients who have survived clinical death and have shared similar strange experiences (in some cases entailing the unexplained acquisition of knowledge that has been confirmed by third parties), I will not dismiss either his or their claims either, even though I don't know him/them personally. Maybe the bug man will one day prove to have been incompetent or fraudulent (scientists have been known to fake or distort evidence); ditto the NDE doctor, and ditto his patients. Maybe in a hundred years, people will laugh at 50% of the theories accepted as scientific facts today. Maybe in a hundred years scientists will have come up with physical explanations of so-called psychic phenomena. But we can only judge according to the evidence we have now, no matter how subjective that evidence and our judgement may be. And my judgement is that there are SOME cases I cannot dismiss. Indeed it would be insulting if I were even to question the integrity or the intelligence of the people who have reported them. -I have to take this argument one step further. We agree that one of the biggest obstacles to our acceptance of materialism is the absolute mystery of consciousness. Neither you nor I nor anybody on this planet can understand how cells and nerves and electrical impulses can produce consciousness, thought, memory, imagination ... you know the list already. I am not prepared to accept the materialist interpretation of these processes without convincing evidence. Build me a brain that can function in the same way as our own, and I will reconsider my position, but until you can do so, I will remain open to the possibility of a dimension beyond that of the known physical world ... a form of identity which uses the brain cells and is not produced by them. As you wrote in relation to spontaneous generation: "We're just not close enough for anyone to be satisfied. It is more truthful to the actual state to say "I don't know" than to assert (and it is only assertion) atheism or theism."

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xeno wrote: "George (Though I have rather limited experience with him here) seems to argue very much like Dawkins. (Religions are debunked purely by the fact that nearly all their claims on the material world have been proven false; so why bother?)" -That's close enough.-xeno: "The problem, is that thus far it appears that the only avenue for raw materialism is spontaneous generation."-The correct term is abiogenesis, which is seen as a gradual process. Spontaneous generation means the sudden appearance of already complex life forms from inanimate matter.-xeno: "We're just not close enough for anyone to be satisfied. It is more truthful to the actual state to say "I don't know" than to assert (and it is only assertion) atheism or theism."-The actual state of knowledge is (a) that from the big bang to the appearance of life the universe is satisfactorily described in purely materialistic terms, (b) life then appears in some form and evolves according to the processes of natural selection. Abiogenesis is the problem of the transition between (a) and (b).-Theists ADD to this situation MANY further hypotheses: that there was some kind of preexisting life form that could somehow exist either inside or outside the universe and that had somehow acquired the capacity of intelligence and the technological or magic capability to intervene in the physical processes of the universe to bring about the origin of life, similar in some way to its own life-nature but brought about by complex chemical processes. The exact details of how this occurred, and the precise nature of the designer differ from one theist to another, and no consensus has ever been reached.-The Atheist position is simply the default position that makes no such outlandish hypotheses. Furthermore the Theist hypotheses appear to assume what they are trying to prove, namely that life already existed before life could be created, which simply creates another problem of where this hypothetical life- force came from in the first place.

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GPJ

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xeno wrote: "George (Though I have rather limited experience with him here) seems to argue very much like Dawkins. (Religions are debunked purely by the fact that nearly all their claims on the material world have been proven false; so why bother?)" 
> 
> That's close enough.
> 
> xeno: "The problem, is that thus far it appears that the only avenue for raw materialism is spontaneous generation."
> 
> The correct term is abiogenesis, which is seen as a gradual process. Spontaneous generation means the sudden appearance of already complex life forms from inanimate matter.
> -The only problem here is that the current state of abiogenesis is between paradigms; the book by Shapiro that David has mentioned a couple of times demonstrates pretty visibly that abiogenesis is currently at a very infantile stage when compared with more established fields of study. At present, we have no evidence whatsoever that will convince me that we're anywhere close to where we need to be. -In terms of the current state of the research; if one asserts that abiogenesis is without doubt what happened, then your only resort according to current evidence is some kind of spontaneous generation. Shapiro (in the book) proposes a protein-first view that sounds valid, but there's no evidence to separate protein first, vs. enzyme first, vs. RNA first. These are all competing philosophies and none are in a state to match the current state of the problem. -> xeno: "We're just not close enough for anyone to be satisfied. It is more truthful to the actual state to say "I don't know" than to assert (and it is only assertion) atheism or theism."
> 
> The actual state of knowledge is (a) that from the big bang to the appearance of life the universe is satisfactorily described in purely materialistic terms, (b) life then appears in some form and evolves according to the processes of natural selection. Abiogenesis is the problem of the transition between (a) and (b).
> 
> Theists ADD to this situation MANY further hypotheses: that there was some kind of preexisting life form that could somehow exist either inside or outside the universe and that had somehow acquired the capacity of intelligence and the technological or magic capability to intervene in the physical processes of the universe to bring about the origin of life, similar in some way to its own life-nature but brought about by complex chemical processes. The exact details of how this occurred, and the precise nature of the designer differ from one theist to another, and no consensus has ever been reached.
> -You're very generous in calling them hypotheses. Something untestable doesn't qualify. -> The Atheist position is simply the default position that makes no such outlandish hypotheses. Furthermore the Theist hypotheses appear to assume what they are trying to prove, namely that life already existed before life could be created, which simply creates another problem of where this hypothetical life- force came from in the first place.-The theist position starts from belief and tries to find data to accommodate its belief. It's more semantics, but I view agnostic as the "default" position. If you're claiming atheism you're declaring assertively that gods do not exist. I suspect that this is true, but I view it unnecessary to make a claim without positive evidence. No evidence of god(s) is just that, no evidence of god(s). -If you saw a glass of water in the desert, would you assert "half-full, half-empty," or simply "There's water in the glass." Only one of these statements is certain.

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The Competition of Memes (Humans)