Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

The Adapted Mind (1992) shared material on the evolutionary foundations of visual and spatial esthetics; Ed Wilson also talked about them in Consilience. We are drawn to arrangements similar to those of a savanna with a near, middle, and far planes and Japanese gardeners trim trees in shapes like that of an Acacia. Further, most of us sense comfort with images of water, sunrises, or sunsets and the sound of white noise and I suspect that a swimming fish has similar preferences both to a painter's audience and a motorcycle rider.

Africa, however, may not be the whole story or even its backbone. Dr. Wilson described the importance of a 20% redundancy factor in calligraphy, decorations, and paintings but couldn't account for it except to correlate it with CNS arousal. Emergent networks could be a clue not only to the 20% phenomenon but also to the victories of modernism. And Miller's points about the importance of sexual selection in art and Coe's resistance to them could be just a skirmish.
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I went to the mall on a rainy morning and passed an abstract painting, the kind that I would like to create, in the front window of an art store. (I remain as trained some 40 years ago: an abstract expressionist but a tidy, Apollonian one.) The composition showed three women sitting in a bar and I found a pattern: from left to right, light background became light foreground; dark background became dark foreground in the opposite direction. There were other emergent tricks discovered and exploited by the art world: we become watchful when darker tones and simpler forms alert our brainstem that something important happens. And consistent with Stu Kauffman's models from statistical physics, colors and values are often triangulated: one large anything is balanced by two smaller anythings of about the same hue or value.

Power laws describe collections in which one or two large events are accompanied by many small ones. Did the painting have this pattern? Perhaps. Can Seurat be captured by a log-log equation? Probably. Our CNS evolved twice by power relationships, once in phylogeny and again in ontogeny, and there may be a match between that kind of organization and the inputs that attract it.

We find a similar matching between receptor tuning and target characteristics. The sensitivity of a spider's hearing peaks about 500 Hz, the frequency made by a struggling fly. This matching may be no accident but not just for the obvious reasons. First, a power law organization suggests change over time and, in a very primitive way, reveals that it might be alive. (Trees, earthquakes, and madness have power characteristics and we pray to them.) Second, a power law organization lets minds predict major events (hubs) on the basis of a node: small events warn of larger ones. Even the Law of Effect might operate not only on the basis of random associations but also in a more powerful, less accidental way. And some visual and auditory sequences will just feel like home but for reasons that predate our time in Africa.

The next step? Collect computer-renderings of biological networks and adjust the physical size of the nodes in accord with their connectivity. Do the light-dark reversals, triangulate some of them, and toss in the brain-stem magnets. Could be a masters or doctoral project...and a way to make money, capture territory, and attract women. But that takes me back to Miller and Coe...

JimB

Copyright James Brody, all rights reserved, 2006

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

We all want so desperately to wrap our left brains around the mystery of life and the human mind. But, it's really a fools errand. You are much closer to reaching this goal by doing art than analysing it. We all so easily resort to our preferred means of coping with such a dangerous world, our wonderful logical western European brain-computer.

This was brought home to me very well recently when I watched another one of those Netflix films. This time it was the 2005 film Crash. From the jacket, After seeing this film I was really hit with the absurdity of our feeble attempts to discuss things like ethnic prejudice in terms of how the human mind works. With all due respect to Steven Pinker, even though he's way ahead of me, both in his understanding of these things (analytically) and his ability to express it using words - a film like this, excellent art, is really the only way such a complex topic can be adequately approached.

All our talk about emotions and synapses and morality and cognition - is just so much crap really. It dosn't even come close to the real thing. In fact, it degrades whatever real knowing of these things is available to us and probably keeps us further from whatever truths there are.

I think you should paint some pictures. I'd probably learn more from one or two of those than from arguing over who's silly words are closer than someone else's - to describing things that are simply not available to that part of our minds to start with. And I should certainly stop criticizing your maddening unexplained metaphors. With those you are surely on a better track to knowing something about this universe than my own overly-analysed and effete prose.

Before any of us try to intelligently discuss ethnic prejudice here I suggest we all try to see this film. Aside from the pleasure of seeing really good art, maybe we'll be able to make some sense to each other on this topic. The only knowing of these things that makes any difference is ultimately in our emotional selves.

Suggestion: If you do watch it, do it when you are fully awake and focused. Things are happening on many different levels that required my full attention to appreciate.

Margaret

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

Speak for yourself, Margaret.

Just because a phenomenon is staggeringly complex does not mean that it can't be approached from a scientific perspective . . . history is laden with examples in which seemingly impossible-to-explain systems were deemed the works of God (the Ultimate cop-out), but then later incorporated into a mechanistic framwork (e.g. the solar system, life on earth, etc.). This is effectively what you're saying about our brains: they're so complicated, that trying to understand them bottom-up is a dead end. Someone, someday, will prove you wrong on this point.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

At times the stories in Crash felt somewhat contrived to me, although I’m inclined to agree with what seemed to be its premise—that all races, all ideologies, all of us, no matter how fair-minded we may be convinced we are, automatically/instinctively infer things about others based on “race.” As far as the movie being “excellent art,” I thought it was mediocre at best (albeit rather emotional at times), the various incidents in the story merely portraying the obvious—that we all have an innate propensity (our evolved biology) to instinctively, subconsciously, automatically infer things about others based on “race.”

Surprise, surprise . . . but only to those who lack a basic appreciation for the biology of our primitive, subcortical emotional/motivational neural systems; and/or to those that believe in blank slates; and/or to those that believe that human differences result primarily from environment/culture.

Although I missed it, I suspect that the Ang Lee’s Brokeback may have been a better example of how a “complex topic [cowboys in love?] can be adequately approached.”

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

Not to take MM’s side on this issue, but let’s face it Carey, whereas the evolution of the solar system is superbly explained and predicted by Newton’s and Einstein’s equations (along with all the science/evidence for the Big Bang), the explanation for the evolution of life by “natural selection” and “random mutations” is much ado about nothing—a circular explanation that merely substitutes God with natural selection/random mutations.

Hell, everything evolves—is the fact that life evolves over time supposed to be some sort of revelation? OK, maybe it was a bit of a leap for Darwin since the groupthink back then seemed to imply that life was formed in a several day period; but beyond that, what does evolution by natural selection/random mutations actually tell us or predict? It’s a circular explanation telling us, essentially, that the fittest traits/individuals survive and reproduce; otherwise, after all, if they weren’t the fittest, they’d not have survived . . . and beyond that, the explanation doesn’t really tell us how/why life started, nor does it really predict where life’s going, and it certainly doesn’t explain how/why we see human consciousness . . . although it seems to have spawned shit-loads of scientific sounding just so stories and textbooks.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

Regarding circularity, I think you are confused as to the nature of evolutionary biology, but I've explicated this point before and will only refer you back to that discussion.

On substituting God with mutation/natural selection . . . yes, that's the whole point. Before Darwin, most were of the mind that biological entities were so complex that they could not possiblly have arisen by any other means than design by an intelligent agent (speaking of circularity . . . that's gotta be the biggest monster of a circular statement in the history of humanity: humans are too complex to have arisen by virtue of a blind mechanistic process; therefore, a human-like intelligence must have built them!). Darwin's contribution was critical because it allowed us to consider that complex living things could arise by virtue of a simple algorithm, and so took the mysticism out of natural philosophy.

My point to Margaret was that even though some phenomena, like human consciousness or racial discrimination, are so mind-bogglingly complex that they seem impossible to explain in cold, hard scientific terms, that doesn't mean that it isn't possible. Perhaps it's a long way off, but eventually we will do it (it may require different tool sets than the ones we're currently using, but it will happen).

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

Well, I suppose one could argue that “discrimination” is not terribly “rational,” but is it really so mind-boggling when understood in terms of evolution and primitive subcortical emotional/motivational circuitry? OTOH, human consciousness, unconstrained by Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem no less, supposedly arising “by virtue of a simple algorithm” . . . well now, that’s mind-boggling, not to mention unattainable based on what we actually know, understand, and can prove.

And I’m not saying that “God did it”—I’m merely stating what’s obvious, that your so-called “simple algorithm” is nothing more than a belief. As noted in that thread you referenced (and I thought I more or less won that argument), even Dawkins, Darwinian atheism’s high priest, when asked,” "What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?” acknowledged: A veritable Apostle’s Creed for Darwinian atheists, the true believers.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

You didn't win that argument . . . I stopped participating because you weren't responding to what I was writing. I argued against the point that evolutionism is a "belief", in the sense that it is supported by an overwhelming abundance of facts. I also explained why it appears that evolutionary biology is circular upon superficial glance, and why that is not truly the case. Evol. biol. is a form of history that invokes non-circular processes to explain past events and current patterns (and, in certain contexts, to make predictions . . . but there's an inherent limit to predicive power in evolution because contingency - stuff that can't be predicted - often plays a big role). But, again . . . you prefer to respond only to specific phrases within my posts, rather than to their entire meaning.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

The bottom line is that Dawkins acknowledges that all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all 'design' anywhere in the universe, being the direct or indirect product of Darwinian natural selection, is something he believe to be true even though he cannot prove it.

IOW, Darwinian natural selection is something that you and Dawkins believe is true, but can’t prove it; whereas I see it as being a circular explanation, that ultimately doesn’t really explain all that much, for the obvious fact that life “evolves.”

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

Well, you see it wrong, my friend. Evolutionism is a belief because Richard Dawkins says so? Give me a break - if I were to tell you that such-and-such were true because Dawkins says so, without actually substantiating my argument, you would readily rip me a new one.

PLEASE, Fred, go read an intro textbook on evolutionary biology and then come back to tell me that you still believe that it "doesn't explain all that much" - I'm going to provide you here with one example illustrating that you are mistaken. I encourage you to find out about others, which are abundant and all very interesting.

************************************************** **********

Parasitoid wasps lay their eggs inside the bodies of other animals, often caterpillars of some kind. The eggs hatch and then consume their hosts from within before emerging to pupate and metamorphose into an adult (BTW . . . explain to me why a benevolent Intelligence would ever put together such an arrangement). As you may or may not know, wasps possess an unusual mechanism of sex determination (haplodiploidy) - when a mother allows one of her eggs to be fertilized by a sperm, the egg developes into a diploid female offspring. When a mother lays an unfertilized egg, it develops into a haploid male. Thus, these wasps have relatively precise control over the sex of their individual progeny.

Crucially, in parasitoid wasps, females benefit more from larger body size than males (due to the demands of egg production, finding hosts in which to lay eggs, etc.). Adult body size in these insects is directly related to the amount of food available during the early part of their lives - i.e., when they were inside their unfortunate caterpillar hosts. Because 1) females benefit more from larger adult body size than males; 2) a given mother wasp can roughly predict the amount of food available to her offspring (by gauging the size of the larvae into which she is laying eggs); and 3) mother wasps have control over the sex of individual offspring; it was PREDICTED that mother waps will preferentially lay female offspring in larger host larvae, and male offspring in smaller host larvae. This prediction relies completely upon the paradigm of evolution driven by differential reproductive success: mother wasps that bias the sex ratio of their offspring toward females when laying eggs into large hosts will have more grand-children in the long run than mother wasps that do not do this, leading to the fixation of sex ratio bias behavior. Some famous experiments by Charnov in the 1980's, and an abundance of work thereafter, confirmed that this is the case. In many instances, there is not only a qulitative but also a quantitative match between predicted sex ratio bias and that observed under experimental conditions.

The above example illustrates that evolutionism 1) explains not just that life evolved, but also how and why it evolved, and 2) makes testable predictions . . . two things that you have repeatedly denied out of a lack of understanding of natural selection, and a lack of reading experience in this field of science. So, Fred, give it a rest until you can come back and dish out an argument, rather than a statement of personal conviction, on this matter.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

Yeah, essentially survival and perpetuation of the traits/individuals that are the “fittest.” I don’t doubt that life “evolves” and that the traits that result in higher survival and reproduction rates are going to, well, survive and reproduce at higher rates . . . I mean how could it be otherwise? All we need do is attempt to determine the specific traits/individuals that are actually surviving and reproducing at higher rates, and we simply back into our predictions—can’t go wrong unless we somehow misidentified the required traits, in which case we’d simply reassess things, maybe get more grant money for more “research,” re-determine the required traits, and eventually a correct prediction is inevitable, even for a “fawning undergrad psych student,” using one of MM’s characterizations.

Hell Carey, using your paradigm of evolution driven by differential reproductive success, I’ll even make a prediction: Since atheists typically have lower birth rates, and are also a rather small percentage of the population, I’d predict that folk having religious traits will continue to have more offspring than atheists . . . but then the Bible has more or less already predicted that religious folk will inherit the earth.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

So, to summarize, the problem is that natural selection is ultimately nothing more than a circular explanation that, as Dawkins has acknowledged, many believe is true but that can’t really be proved. It doesn’t really predict any more than common sense and maybe a bit of imagination would predict—the individuals/traits having higher survival and reproduction rates are going to, you guessed it, survive and reproduce at higher rates—how could it be otherwise? What is needed is a theory for the phenomena of biological evolution that is as coherent and convincing as our present theories of the inanimate world.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

There already is one, but you just haven't invested the effort to find out about it. You portray only a charicature of what evolutionary biology really is, so of course you find it unsatisfying.

For everyone's sake, Fred, read some source material on evolution, and see what you've been missing. It's obvious that all you know of the subject has been gleaned from scant reading here and there, which gives you no sound basis upon which to argue about the basic principles involved. The simple fact is that evolutionary biology, and all of its extensions, both explain and predict far more than mere common sense ever could (though the core idea of natural selection does indeed appeal greatly to common sense, as you've pointed out yourself). Perhaps my parasitoid wasp example didn't convince you, but if it's mathematical principles you require, there are many sources available at your disposal (key phrases: population genetics, quantitative genetics, Price theorem). You simply need to make an effort to learn about them, and then we can actually have a discussion about this.

Potential starters:
1) Compilation of classic papers
2) Readable textbook

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

I’ll admit that “natural selection” can be quite compelling. But I’d say that you and those from whom you have learned are probably too in love with your core belief (as Dawkins acknowledges that it is indeed a “belief”) in the circular notion of “natural selection,” and perhaps also somewhat threatened by the ID folk, to ever acknowledge that natural selection isn’t anywhere near as coherent or convincing as are the superb theories that we have for the inanimate world.

But then Ernst Mayr has acknowledged that, “biology is not the same sort of thing as the physical sciences,” and that the “philosophy of biology has a totally different basis than the theories of physics.” So I suppose we really shouldn’t expect that anything coming out of the “philosophy of biology,” will ever be as coherent and convincing as theories coming out of the physical sciences. Nevertheless, I’m disappointed that you can’t see and/or acknowledge that natural selection is obviously circular and ultimately not all that explanatory . . . hell, we could say that stars and galaxies are a result of cosmological natural selection, but what the hell would that actually tell us? (Except that some may find it more palatable than saying, “God did it.”)

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

And so, to reiterate, the problem is that natural selection, although somewhat compelling, and probably superficially true, is ultimately nothing more than a circular explanation that, as Dawkins has acknowledged, many believe is true but that can’t really be proved. It doesn’t really predict much more than common sense and maybe some imagination would predict—the individuals/traits having higher survival and reproduction rates are going to, you guessed it, survive and reproduce at higher rates—how could it be otherwise?

As physics/cosmology doesn’t rely on some sort of circular cosmological natural selection to explain the evolution of stars, galaxies, or the solar system (although one could argue that there is a “selection” process in the forming of such things); so too biology must find a more coherent and convincing theory(s) than the circular “natural selection” to superficially explain biological evolution.

Keep an open mind Carey, don’t blindly accept what your books and the establishment are preaching, and maybe you yourself will discover a more coherent and convincing theory(s) . . . and if I’m still alive maybe you’ll want to apologize for calling me myopic.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

Okay Fred . . . you've AGAIN repeated your opinion on this matter, to my chagrin. I want to be able to discuss this subject with you - I really do. But we just cannot hold such a discussion until you've made some attempt to really dig into the literature on evolution. Believe me, Fred, I take everything I hear with a grain of salt, but natural selection is one of those ideas that just doesn't break down under even the most intense scrutiny. That is not to say we know everything there is to know, or that the field isn't still rife with controversial arguments, but everyone agrees on the validity of Darwin's core ideas - not because we're fawning over previous generations of scientists, but because natural selection is an extremely powerful explanatory tool. Again, you can see this for yourself by reading source material (I glean that you've read Mayr's philosophy of biology, but that isn't the right vein - you need to see some basal theoretical and empirical work on the subject to get a better feel for what it is in practice).

In responding to this, I'm going to more or less repeat an argument made in one of our older discussions. I want you to directly address these two parallel points in your response, to make sure that we're on the same page. Don't simply refer to Dawkins and say that evolution is a belief - I want you to present an argument of your own.

1) Evolutionary Biology, like other forms of history, is inherently circular, for it attempts to explain current patterns based upon past events. Because the end-result is already known, the explanation must, almost by definition, be circular. This is what I think you really mean when you refer to the circularity of evolution. In this sense, Fred, EVERY possible explanation of life MUST be circular. If we agree that evolution happened, what remains to be explained is the mechanism by which it happened; this leads us to the central issue of natural selection.

**We've accepted that evolution, as a form of history, contains an element of circularity . . . we're now moving on to the different potential mechanisms by which evolution may have occurred.**

2) Evolution by natural selection entails the differential survival and reproducion of replicating entities in time, leading to the biased preservation of heritable information that is better able to make copies of itself in a particular environment. One moves from generation A to generation B to generation C, ad infinitum . . . the process of natural selection is therefore non-circular both temporally and logically, and it arises by virtue of heritable information and differential reproduction alone (This leaves open the question of how the first replicating entities arose, but the mechanistic explanations for it are certainly non-circular, while the supernatural explanations are highly circular). Yes, Fred, the core principle of selection can be drawn from common sense (funny that no one thought of it until 150 years ago) . . . but the extensions of this principle are not at all obvious. You will immediately see this if you look into the references I've provided for you. If you want math-oriented work, go for something on population genetics, or read Fisher's classic Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (this one takes months to digest, though).

Now consider an alternative mechanism of evolution: e.g., divine influence. This idea proposes that an intelligence of some kind was already present at the beginning of everything, and eventually produced intelligence of its own ilk in the form of human beings. I cannot imagine a more blatantly circular mechanism of evolution . . . it proposes that the end-result (intelligence) was already present at the beginning, thus incorporating the phenomenon under investigation into the definition of the mechanism by which it arose. You can't get much more circular than that.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

I think we’d agree that “selection” more or less satisfactorily explains the primary mechanism utilized (supposedly “artificially,” by humans) to “evolve,” for example, wolves into shi-tzus, and that humans have been using that mechanism for more than 150 years on various plants and animals; so I’d argue that humans have been aware of “selection” for far more than 150 years (although they may have used other terms, e.g., “breeding” rather than “selection”)—but of course Darwin was clever enough to put a “natural” in front of “selection,” and voila! we now have “natural selection,” a new and, you insist, “extremely powerful explanatory tool,” to explain an evolution that is nevertheless, supposedly, ultimately purposeless, directionless, blind, and essentially unpredictable. Go figure.

Most things seem to “evolve,” and some sort of “selection” usually, if not always, seems to be implicated in the process.

But invoking “selection” and calling it “natural,” and maybe even embellishing it with the cool sounding “differential reproductive success,” to “predict” how/why “mother wasps that bias the sex ratio of their offspring toward females when laying eggs into large hosts will have more grand-children in the long run than mother wasps that do not do this,” which initially may sound impressive, is nevertheless ultimately circular, and just not terribly enlightening.

Regarding the “circular mechanism” of “divine influence,” greater minds than ours have already considered such things, like Einstein’s spirit vastly superior to that of man manifest in the laws of the universe, or Planck’s conscious and intelligent Mind that is the matrix of all matter, or Penrose’s universe that has a purpose and that’s not here somehow by chance.

So anyhoo, I still think that Dawkins got it right, that “natural selection” is a belief that can’t be proved.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

. . . you didn't even attempt to understand the general point of my example, which was that we can make very clear, testable predictions about many aspects of wild populations under the framework of evolution by natural selection. Additionally, you have once again neglected the point I made about non-circularity of selection vs. circularity of any historical explanation of life. In our discussion about a year ago on this topic, I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed you just skimmed over that argument, but now I believe you see it, realize that you cannot argue against it, and instead re-state your opinion on this matter without actually confronting the details.


I don't care if a bunch of smart guys have indicated their support for deism. Once again, you failed to address my clear argument that ANY deistic explanation of life is inherently circular, and instead opted just to cite other people. By the way, Fred, wasn't it you who told me a few posts ago not to blindly accept what some authorities have written on this matter? And yet here you are, doing exactly that with Einstein, Planck, and Penrose. What's that I smell . . . ? It's Fred's duplicity!!


READ A BOOK on the subject and then come back to tell me what you think about it.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

Well Carey, if you’re saying that the individuals/traits having higher survival and reproduction rates are always going to, well, survive and reproduce at higher rates, and that therefore we can always predict that, well, the individuals/traits having higher survival and reproduction rates are always going to, well, survive and reproduce at higher rates—unless something changes where those individuals/traits no longer have the higher survival and reproduction rates, in which case other individuals/traits will have higher survival and reproduction rates, well then, yes, I’d say that’s a slam-dunk . . . although I still find the circularity less than satisfying.

OTOH, I doubt that you could persuasively argue that, say, Newton’s laws of motion/gravity and/or Einstein’s general relativity explanations are circular. Plus there is always the nagging problem of how it is that a universe with low entropy ever began in the first place (14 billion years ago), providing the opportunity for life to evolve, but perhaps that is beyond the scope of this discussion.

Regarding smart guys supporting deism, I don’t know that your charges of any supposed circularity are terribly relevant—those guys, and I, more or less acknowledge that our deism is a belief, although a belief by those who have studied and understood the mathematics and the science and evidence involving the more profound mysteries of the universe; whereas you are denying what Dawkins, the credentialed Oxford zoologist (and raging atheist), readily acknowledges—that natural selection is a belief that can’t be proved.

And regarding my appealing to authority, well, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea frigging culpa. But then I’d say that we all, more or less, appeal to some sort of authority, and perhaps argue what we perceive to be the most credible/persuasive/convincing points and conclusions made by such authority.

So it boils down to this: Although you seem to acknowledge, to some degree, the circularity of natural selection, you temper that by asserting (unconvincingly IMO) that all explanations of life must be circular; and additionally you refuse to acknowledge, as Dawkins acknowledges, that natural selection is a belief that can’t be proved. Fine, I understand—natural selection is your baby, and no one likes admitting that their baby is ugly.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

"I'm going to provide you here with one example illustrating that you are mistaken."

Bless you all by whatever gods may be, that I can vanish for a week or more and no one changes!

Love you all...well, almost all!

JimB

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

You're missing the big picture . . . the whole point is that survival and reproduction are context-dependent - the goal is to understand why particular phenotypes are fit in particular environments, at which point it's quite easy to see that there's nothing circular about selection. Rather, there is a feedback process between gene pools and environments, which is dynamic in time and space due to variation in both elements of the interaction. There is nothing circular about natural selection when you understand it correctly as the result of the interaction of organisms with each other and their surroundings within and across generations.


This isn't even relevant to the debate - if you can even call our discussion a debate, as you're not really reading what I'm writing.


Blah blah blah . . . you're just hiding behind your big-name references. A strength of evolution by natural selection is that it actually provides testable predictions, and so can move beyond the realm of "belief"


I have a strong feeling that you have misinterpreted whatever Dawkins was saying - please send me the source material in which you think he stated that natural selection is a belief.


No, actually, I've been arguing based on principles, while you've just been referring to what others have stated, believing that their clout is proof of their correctness.


No, Fred . . . go back and read my posts more carefully.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

I previously have stated what I believe to be an axiom of human nature: This is a shorter version of my thesis that intellect is greatly over-rated as a determinant of our most important decisions about life. Intellect holds only a secondary position - it is only used to justify what we already believe (know emotionally) to be true about the world and our place in it.

That's why it is amazing to me that you can carry on a discussion with Fred and believe that he is lazy, or unwilling to do the reading to understand the most basic scientific explanations of biology. You said to Fred, You continue to make reasoned arguments, believing against all hope that you'll finally state it in such a compelling way that Fred will be forced to understand the reasoning behind your assertions and will be forced by his intellectual honesty to accept them - or be revealed as intellectually dishonest.

Fred can't do that for you - any more than he can for Tom (or me, chuckle). Fred believes in a fundamentally different meta-narrative of life and existence than you do. That narrative is guiding his mind - not reason - just as ultimately yours is guiding yours. For Fred, any evidence or argument that falsifies or even casts doubt on his narrative - must be rejected and ridiculed. Anyone attempting to falsify his narrative must be opposed. His large number of posts provide massive and incontrovertible evidence for that. Fred's very reason for being here is to carry on that mission in this particularly heretic rich environment.

A narrative is a set of inter-related beliefs about the world that support each other and tell a larger story. A meta-narative is a set of inter-related narratives that support each other - like the Christian meta-narrative of why life exists and its purpose - as decribed in the many narratives of the gospels. The scientific meta-narrative that tries to address similar question using a different (and opposite) framework is Darwinian evolution..

I am not saying Fred is a bad or dishonest person - despite my frequent anger at him. We all start from a fundamental narrative of life and existence - and once that narrative becomes integrated into our identity we must defend it - just as Fred is doing. What makes one person different from another - in these discussions - are a few events in our early lives - probably in our teens - where we found we were more comfortable (we felt emotionally more satisfied) harboring a scientific vs. a theistic meta-narrative.

Which side of this divide we decided to spend our lives on was not determined by our intelligence or honesty. It had to do with even earlier childhood experiences, our relationship with our parents and siblings, our friends and their parents and siblings, our church and school experience, etc. It was a purely emotional decision tied in the most intimate ways to our identity - to who we are - as all such crucial decisions are.

Your meta-narrative, scientific naturalism, was not chosen because you were intelligent - any more than Fred's was. You are both well above average IQ, I am sure.

It is an accident of your past that you ended up on the side of that divide that lends itself to justification according to relatively straightforward rules of scientific evidence. And it was a similar accident that now Fred needs to reach for more philosophically grounded justifications for his. That's even to his advantage in some ways because philosophic lemmas are neither easy to understand nor refute.

My point is that there is no point - for persons with opposite meta-narratives to argue the relative merits of evolutionary explanations for life with each other. You both think you are arguing points about that topic but you are both incapable of violating your respective meta-narratives.

Obviously, I made the choice long ago to go with the scientific (non-theistic) view. All that really means though, is that scientific ideas feel better to me when I consider them - and religious explanations feel coarse and uncomfortable in my mind. I have no emotional choice but to savor the former and expell that latter.

When you argue with Fred, you are not arguing about the vailidity of evolution as you seem to think you are. You are both trying to falsify the other's meta-narrative. That could be an even more interesting discussion to follow if you had the inclination to do that directly - although equally futile - but there's no way you'll make progress discussing Darwinian evolution with Fred, or any other theist. :rolleyes:

I'm not pointing this out to show some shortcoming in either of your minds - I think they both work very well - but to use your discussion to illustrate that universal way that all our minds work, For either of you to win this argument one of you will have to become a different person. Good luck on that. ;)

Margaret

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

Hmmm, sounds like a version of dumb and dumber . . . and yet, somehow, MM made a “choice,” “long ago to go with the scientific (non-theistic) view.” I wonder if even a “fawning undergrad psych student” would find MM’s propositions to be circular and/or vacuous? Carey, I’m so glad that MM is on your side.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

Aw shucks Jim, Margaret ain’t so bad . . . except for the paranoia; the ideology; the use of terms such as “bully,” “coward,” “asshole,” “ideologue,” the "Full Monte” of the “writings of a famous racist” . . . oh, never mind.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

Actually, buddy, she condescended to both of us in that post of hers, so she's not really on either side.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

Condensending? Like telling Fred that, Now, that's condensending.

My intention was to state that you can't argue identity beliefs with reason - and I was pretty clear about that. Neither of you will be able to accept a reasonable argument that negates your identity. I also put myself subject to those same limitations - so maybe I'm being condensending to myself. :rolleyes:

If you don't agree with what I said, just say so. Don't pretend it's condensending.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

I could say that to Fred because it was actually true . . . perhaps he's read my posts more carefully now, but at the time, it was pretty clear that he hadn't. I don't think he's lazy for a moment, but I do think that, on occassion, he will pick up only on the parts of my posts that he wants to read and respond to them alone, rather than to the whole message.

You, on the other hand, wrote a long post describing how our discussion is essentially useless, for all of our core thoughts are governed by accidents of history, and neither one of us is really capable of changing his mind (what's the point of debating with someone who doesn't already share your belief system, then?). I like to think that I am open to change, even on the most fundamental of my "identity beliefs" . . . I'm not going to switch to deism any time soon, but I'm more than willing accept a fault in, say, natural selection, if someone has reasonably argued that there really is one. Fred has not done that to my satisfaction, hence the continuing discussion.

Even if you're correct about meta-narratives and identity beliefs, we will continue to argue anyway because it's fun.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

Couldn’t have said it better myself, Carey.

BTW Carey, did you notice the similarity of JimB’s thinking to my own regarding the circularity thing—i.e., using his words, “‘If it's alive, it was selected,’ has problems?”—But not to worry, you don’t need to apologize for your less than kind emotional outburst, in all caps no less, indicating that I myself was “THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS SO.” And besides Carey, I suspect that JimB probably still likes you best.

Hugs and kisses.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

Carey, Just when I think this forum has gone well beyond the point where anyone has anything interesting to say, someone comes up with a post that actually contains thoughts and ideas worth considering - like your post that this is in reply to.

I realize that what I am saying goes against the CW and also that any premise that demotes the role of intellect in human discourse will be seen as insulting to many. But, that only reinforces my contention that we all believe what feels good and use our brains to justify it. It doesn't feel good to violate the CW. We instinctively feel that others will ridicule us and say mean things to us - as you and Fred and JB do to me continuously. Likewise, it doesn't feel good to think that our logical arguments are often just extensions of our identity beliefs - made to defend them. It's interesting that my ideas violate different core beliefs in each of you and so you each try to attack me and my ideas from different positions - although you do gang up occasionally. ;)

You said, Your most fundamental identity belief is in rationalism and scientific process. Are you ready to accept some supernatural theory of soul or spiritual possession of human minds in place of the currently incomplete explanations of human nature offered by evolution and neurobiology? Of course not.

No matter what Fred says that cleverly tries to make a toe-hold for such an explanation - you will find a rational way to discredit it. You think you are offering rational alternative explanations and giving Fred a lesson in evolutionary theory. Really though, there is nothing you could say that would shake Fred's belief in a theistic basis for human nature - his fundamental identity belief. And certainly by now, you know that.

Note that your discussion with Fred is a microcosm of the ID debate raging elsewhere. While the audience is limited here, I believe the motives, the kinds of arguments and emotions being felt by both sides are quite similar. This similarity in patterns (emergent networks some might call them) tells me that something important about human nature is going on here.

So, the interesting question to me is why do you persist? I propose it is because Fred's ideas violate your core belief in rationalism - and your answers are to provide you the emotional satisfaction of responding to that emotional insult. As a scientist you have the tools in your possession to do a pretty good job of that. But aside from the tacit approval of JB and perhaps Todd, and the emotional satisfaction that comes from that, you know your tools will do nothing to cause Fred to change his core beliefs. As you said yourself, Please, do not read my posts as insults. There's no way I can honestly discuss this without violating both the CW and your personal belief that you only make arguments for rational scientific reasons. Both of those views will be interpreted emotionally as insults (or perhaps condescension) by most who are exposed to them. That's not my purpose. I really think this is an important idea that explains many perplexing aspects of human behavior. I'd even say it's possibly an important missing link in evolutionary psychology that has been well insulated from discussion and consideration by our human natures (and our cognicentric view of the mind) that it hopes to explain.

I am trying to get past that wall. I am finding however, that even in a forum supposedly dedicated to objective discussions of human nature and psychology, it is extremely difficult if not impossible to do. No doubt, much of that difficulty is the result of those times when I have responded angrily to what seemed like provocation at the time. As I have said before, usually right after I responded, I regret those and would retract them if I could.

I still hope that we could discuss these things (that I believe are very important concepts) without the emotional discomfort that I know they produce.

(I follow up on this on the other thread "Implications of Somatic Behavior Choice".) Link

Margaret

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

You bet I saw it . . . will respond as coherently as possible in the thread that JimB started.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

First - I don't intend to insult you . . . my attacks, if that's really the appropriate word, are always aimed at your ideas, not you personally. But, given the blurry distinction between a person and the ideas he or she possesses, it's easy to see why you perceive counter-arguments as personal insults.

Second - I find your general argument to be frustrating for the following reason. You say that Jimb's, Fred's, and my "attacks" are born of defensiveness with regard to our core beliefs. This makes sense at first glance and I accept that it may be relevant. However, the general idea that our thoughts are motivated primarily by emotional processes doesn't make any sense to me in a large number of cases - for example, how can the mathematical theory of physics, chemistry, population genetics, etc. be produced by non-intellectual means?

Moving beyond that point - consider your argument suggesting that my responses to your posts are motivated by a perceived threat to my core beliefs, and are therefore, in a sense, automatically invalid. This just seems to be a mechanism by which any objection to your idea is inherently flawed because it's not based on logic, but on emotional response. It's hard to put this sentiment into words precisely, but your argument seems effectively designed to put an invincible bubble around the somatic behavior choice hypothesis, which provides an avenue whereby every example of behavior (including our responses to your posts) can be explained post-hoc. How can such a hypothesis be productive?

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

I’m inclined to agree with much of what you say here Carey, although I’d say that MM has not knowingly, at least not consciously, “designed” her arguments to, as you say, “put an invincible bubble around” her “hypothesis,” although that certainly is, as you indicate, the effect.

It seems that she doesn’t truly comprehend the circularity, that her premise assumes her conclusion is true, and the resulting uselessness, of her “axiom of human nature”—

“People believe what feels good to them,” and “use their brains to justify it,” which proves (at least to MM) that you, Carey (as the rest of us), do indeed use your brains to justify whatever feels good to you b/c you believe what feels good to you, and b/c if it didn’t feel good to you, you wouldn’t believe it, and therefore you obviously wouldn’t justify it . . . and also, since what you’ve justified may not feel good to MM, then MM obviously wouldn't believe it, and so her brain obviously wouldn’t justify it, which provides still more proof that the only reason your brain justified it was only b/c it felt good only to you, which is the only reason you believed it, and which is the only reason that you justified it with your brain b/c, after all, MM’s brain certainly wouldn’t have justified it.

Hell Carey, it’s a slam-dunk, at least for MM, although you yourself may find the circularity somewhat painful . . . and trust me when I tell you that I feel your pain.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

Carey, Thanks for the thoughtful response. I see your general point and I see the problem. You said, a) I was describing your response to Fred's posts in this exchange, not to mine - which I generally agree with.

b) I didn't say they were invalid. In fact, I agreed with your assertions and said that you are well equipped to make them with your scientific background. Just because someone makes an argument to support their identity beliefs neither means that their beliefs are irrational nor that their arguments are.

I made a poor choice to use your argument with Fred as an example of my hypothesis at work. It was bound to create confusion - and even opposition. I'll try to use third-party examples in the future such as the one I posted at:

One Stark Implication of SBC: Death

You ask a good question when you say, Well, I certainly didn't design the hypothesis so it would have a bubble around itself. I was trying to find a better way to explain a lot of perplexing human behavior - that existing theories seemed unable to do. As for an answer - I'm not sure I have one. In a sense, everything exists because alternative forms do not. As JB points out, mathematics, Fred's favorite example of objective reality and truth in the universe, is the ultimate tautology. It is certainly true that species exist - because they haven't become extinct.

But that doesn't mean that there is no value to trying to find more useful ways to describe how things like evolution or human behavior choice work.

Thanks for making me examine my ideas very carefully,

Margaret

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

"We all want so desperately to wrap our left brains around the mystery of life and the human mind. But, it's really a fools errand. You are much closer to reaching this goal by doing art than analysing it. We all so easily resort to our preferred means of coping with such a dangerous world, our wonderful logical western European brain-computer."

Maggie:

1) I started as an art major and eventually carried a heavy minor in sculpture while working 3rd shift and guarding suicides at Colorado Psychopathic and keeping my As going in the honors program. I still paint abstract expressionism stuff, do some sculpture (in wood or in human lives), and have held two photo shows.

2) You need to read before you spout. Again, Wilson's "Consilience" has a magnificent chapter on the creative arts and you will find provocative material in "The Adapted Mind." AND please read each of these sources a half-dozen times before you deny their import.

Otherwise, you validate Pinker's conclusion that your verbal apparatus is a "spin doctor"...

JB

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

Using MM’s “axiom of human nature,” I suppose MM might say that she “used her brains to justify” that belief of hers—that mathematics is the ultimate tautology—apparently b/c that’s what she believes b/c that’s what feels good to her b/c, as her “axiom” asserts, “people believe what feels good to them,” and then “use their brains to justify it.”

Marvelous, except that mathematics isn’t a tautology.

As noted in Wicki, a tautology is a statement containing more than one sub-statement, that is true regardless of the truth values of its parts—e.g., the statement "Either all crows are black, or not all of them are," is a tautology, because it is true no matter what color crows are.

Objective mathematical truths, OTOH, are timeless objective truths for which there are unassailable proofs—examples include the fact that there are infinitely many primes and that they are irregularly spaced; and the “four-square theorem” where every positive integer can be expressed as the sum of four squares of integers (e.g.: 31 = 5^2 + 2^2 + 1^2 + 1^2); and pi, the ratio of diameter to circumference, which is a transcendent irrational number, which exists, apart from time and our physical world.

It is objective mathematical truth, not tautologies (and certainly not “what feels good”), that makes real science possible. Newton’s laws of motion & gravity and/or Einstein’s general relativity equations are not tautologies, but rather provide us with equations and utilize objective mathematical truths to give us a noncircular view of how things actually work.

Hello?

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

Fred, First, my statement was . . . I was going from memory of what JB said. I should have quoted him more accurately as, I apologize to all for not quoting more accurately - although I did not use quotes which should give me some wiggle room. I stated what seemed to me a conclusion that could be drawn from his sentence - that if his statement was true, then, it seems that mathematics, the daughter of logic, would be the ultimate tautology.

That may or may not be an accurate conclusion to be drawn. But, the important thing is that I was not making an assertion of personal belief - the one you have gone to some trouble to ridicule. I was referencing a statement that JB made. I was using an authority - the one you most often appeal to - to point out an error in your thinking.

I'm not arguing against your use of scientific scripture at all. I just think it's interesting that you use such pronouncements to try to validate your unscientific beliefs about atheists and morality. It seems such a stretch to me but you are really good at it. (No sarcasm intended. I think you are a bright guy.)

Margaret

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

JB, You certainly do despise me. I probably spend more time composing and editing my posts - and being as honest as I possibly can about my motivations and assertions than anyone else here, except perhaps Todd.

Yet, you repeatedly insult me. I'd say I also put a lot of effort into not responding to insults in kind (those mostly from you and Fred) - although admittedly, sometimes I'm not so successful at that. Your insults started almost with my first posts here when you had me pegged for some kind of a socialist / feminist / whatever.

I know what beliefs I have that make Fred so angry - I'm an atheist and I don't put up with his Godly rants. It's not so clear to me whichever of your identity beliefs I have violated as you've held them pretty close to your chest - probably my liberalism.

You've chosen instead to attack me personally instead of going after my ideas. Granted, you have told me my ideas suck in so many words - but that's not much of an argument - which would be more interesting for me. Whenever I have tried to engage you on that level and have asked for a clarification of some cryptic assertion you have made - you have blown me off with more insults.

I don't really care, but if you don't want me to post here, just say so and I'm gone. But, if I stay, then please don't refer to me (however obliquely) or address me in your posts unless you can do so without insulting me. I don't mind the insults on a personal level - it's just that they are so distracting when I'm trying to focus on an idea.

I don't think you really care about this, but my comments about art were rhetorical - even somewhat complimentary in that I would assume that any artist could be plugged into levels of knowing that are unavailable to most non-artists. But, like Fred (and sometimes Carey) there's nothing I can say that you won't construe in the worst possible way. That's a sure sign that you have identified me as an ideological enemy - who could not possibly have anything reasonable to say about anything. Que lastima!

Margaret

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

So then you’re saying that you’ve “used your brain to justify” something that you don’t “believe” and doesn’t “feels good to you?” Congratulation MM, you’ve just disproved your “axiom of human nature.”

Be that as it may, the actual point is that mathematics isn’t a tautology. I love JimB, he knows a lot, I’ve learned a lot from him and his forum, but frankly, between you and me, he’s less than perfect, and, believe it or not, occasionally gets things wrong, although not necessarily the things that you, Margaret, think he gets wrong; and fortunately, for me anyway, he doesn’t turn into a thin-skinned bitch whenever I decide to splain things.

BTW, Margaret, regarding your rant against JimB above, remember the advice Carey once provided you—that if you can’t take the heat, get back in the kitchen, or something like that? Really MM, get over yourself.

For anyone interested, here’s a little excerpt from something I found somewhere (somewhat paraphrased I think)—
OK my EP friends, repeat after me: Mathematics is not a tautology.

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

Margaret:

I think that, without intending or realizing it, you talk down to people. Your previous post paints you as primarily the victim of verbal attacks, when in fact I think you contribute equally to the occassionally hostile environment that is created in here. My purpose in this post is to illustrate how this has happened, so that you can accept your share of the responsibility.



Example 1:
I'm not convinced that JimB pegged you as a socialist/faminist. Even if he did, there's nothing inherently bad with those labels, anyway (although I think everyone can agree that socialized medicine sucks - just look at the NHS) . . . But you then proceeded to tag Jim as a KKK wizard, which is clearly a very bad thing.



Example 2:
In the thread on brains and internal conflict, you wrote that you had a criticism of the paper I'd highlighted, without really substantiating it. I asked you to provide more justification, to which you provided this comment:
Your response was highly condescending, even insulting . . . implying essentially that I can't read very well (to accompany your calling me a fawning wannabe). I had done nothing to provoke this, other than to ask for more detail on points for which you had provided bones, but no flesh and blood. This example highlights that you are just as defensive as the rest of us, and are willing to be nasty in response to an argumentative challenge. It also demonstrates that you occassionally write statements for aesthetic, rather than conceptual, effect. In this case, you wrote that you had a criticism of Livnat and Pippenger (2006) - but when pressed as to what your criticism really was, you backed out and admitted that you didn't really have one. I am NOT writing this to belittle you, and I know that most of what you write is intended for conceptual, not aesthetic, effect . . . but when you do the latter, it's really annoying.



Example 3:
You have here claimed that all of our scientific attempts to explain the mysteries of life are essentially fruitless - that the phenomena are just too complex to grasp with our relatively frail tool sets. The wording is insulting to anyone who has invested (or plans to invest) a lifetime of effort and creative output into these so-called mysteries. If you plan to make a sweeping statement along the lines of "you're all just grasping in the dark" (even if you include yourself within "all"), you've gotta provide us with more than bones.

Best (really),
Carey

Re: Emergent Networks and Fine Art
 

I spent some time composing a reply to this - but after thinking about it overnight it now just seems like a really pointless exercise. Again, I make the mistake of grossly overestimating others' motives. My bad.