In the thread “Biologist Replicate Key Evolutionary Step”, have links and excerpts that I have found of interest and related to the topic. Post 7 is when I started adding links when I run across them and touches on the underlying premise for selecting the articles. Of the three links you provided, the first two I would consider relevent, the third I would have looked over and probably would not have included. Actual experimentation and observation vs. a program that models our interpretations. Models may serve as a tool for generating inquiries, playing what if’s according to current algorhythms, but reality, and not a computer output, should govern our epistemological needs.
Thank you. =] I look forward to reading it.
And yeah; I don’t put much stock in computer models either and it really isn’t relevant. I just thought it was cool; thus worth sharing.
No. Chance is best construed as making a conclusion with uncertainty present. It is near impossible to ever figure out for sure how a dice will land. Thus, probability. There is no error of knowledge here.
Yes, ‘error’ was erroneous because human beings aren’t omniscient, which makes probability necessary so long as man is man. But I dispute whether we should consider it an inherent property of nature or simply a property of ‘this topic at this moment’. (to not know with certainty isn’t error; it’s human)
I think that if you knew A, B, C, D and E (like the dice toss scenario) you would already know the ‘random’ element, R. If it’s virtually impossible to ever really know ABCDE with any sort of accuracy, well, tough; that doesn’t make it actually impossible. (to not know with certainty is human; to assert that there is no way anybody could ever accurately know it strikes me as a mental surrender)
That’s pretty absurd as far as claims though. Actually, it’s a great example of an arbitrary claim. What reason could there be to suppose a tornado could possibly make a computer?
The scenario should be considered possible because it wouldn’t contradict anything else in the entirety of all I know? (I could successfully integrate it?)
I confess; I’m not familiar with Peikoff’s position on arbitrary assertions. It doesn’t seem arbitrary to me but I don’t explicitly know the criteria; I’ll respond to that section once I’ve remedied that.
(See? That which I know-that which I will know)
Huh? So, volition, as a form of teleology, is a form of determinism?
Alright, I’m still pretty fuzzy on the official Objectivist definition of volition (something about a choice to focus being similar to the “choice” to wake up. . . which doesn’t seem quite right, but I haven’t gotten around to researching yet) but this is what I mean:
Free will is self-control, which is control of your own mind. Control is a relationship between someone and something, in which someone is able to alter something at will, to suit his desires; control requiring knowledge of the controlled-thing.
If your teeth chatter from cold, you can’t control it; it’s beyond your volition. (mostly; you get the idea) If you once had a traumatic childhood experience involving a heavy metal band, and to this day their songs make you tense and edgy, that’s involuntary as well (associative connection; some animals’ form of cognition). But if you realize that girls like it when you get edgy (hypothetically) and then decide to start your own heavy-metal band, or something similar, et cetera; that’s a conceptual connection, which is within your volitional capacity and which is a direct result of man’s introspective capacity (and directly results in the popular ideas about self-control)
“Man is a being of self-made soul.” Now, as determinism.
Input, as sensations, enters your brain where the entire content of your mind filters it into perceptions which then cause a decision (the ones you don’t have to think about; pizza or hamburgers for dinner? drive in the correct lane or not?) and then you carry that decision out. The bit you control is the entire content of your own mind, which dictates how you’ll perceive reality and which decisions will be “obvious” in the future. And the bit you can control, your own ideas; you alter, revise and rearrange them according to your prior knowledge and current mental mechanism. Ultimately, your mind is a deterministic process.
But this isn’t an affirmation of fate, destiny or any such thing; your own voluntary decisions, which are deterministic, are yours alone to make.
“Volition isn’t an escape from causality; it’s another form of causality.” [i paraphrase]
That’s my take on it; that’s what I meant by that. (teleology is determinism)