Purposes and goals of mindfucks

[LMNO]

Are you saying that a "good" model of reality takes into account the existence of things outside your own mind?

[Captain Utopia]

You don't know what you're talking about. LMNO knows what he's talking about when it comes to quantum mechanics. He's covered many topics including the double slit experiment in this forum. All you have to do is use the search engine.

I'm not disputing that. I'm disputing my ability to find it since I don't know exactly what I'm looking for.

If we take our ancestors, as the original poster did, as a barometer of what we should consider "valid choices" then please explain to me how the reference to the amount of genetic material we share is an irrelevant point. Putting aside my mistake with ancestry/cousins - the DNA is the agent of replication, not the host.

1) why should we take from our ancestors "valid choices"?

I don't think we should. It was the person I was responding to who claimed that. Same way that an individual should feel no obligation to serve societies wishes, a person should feel no obligation to serve the "wishes" of their DNA.

2) Its not irrelevant. You just shouldn't talk about it because the sort of shit you were saying is why people are damn confused in the first place, and its honestly up to biologists (like me) and other scientists (like Thurnez the paleontologist) to try to sort the public out. Hearing the "we came from chimpanzees" line for the 1000 time just about boils my gray matter. So please, just don't talk about it. Read, learn, don't talk till you actually know what you are talking about.

How do I know when I actually know what I'm talking about? I'm not trying to play word games because, the chimpanzee slip aside, I think I do know what I'm talking about. Or rather - I'm not a biologist, and I don't know nearly as much as you about the details and how those details impact the whole, but I think I know pretty much as much I'm going to need to know.

And I'll talk about evolution until I get it right. Emergence seems to be one of the most important features of the universe, I'm not going to stop trying to understand more about it just because you choose to get sanctimonious on my ass. Educate me, please.

You obviously don't know anything about me if you think I'm bothered by talk of Emergence.

I wasn't trying to bother you at all. I only mentioned Emergence because I see it as a superset of Evolution. What bothers you about it?

[Captain Utopia]

Are you saying that a "good" model of reality takes into account the existence of things outside your own mind?

No, I'm saying that a "bad" model of reality is one that only takes into account things inside your own mind, which may exist or not. The difference in emphasis determines the direction you take.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You obviously don't know anything about me if you think I'm bothered by talk of Emergence.

I wasn't trying to bother you at all. I only mentioned Emergence because I see it as a superset of Evolution. What bothers you about it?

If anyone was still doubting that this guy is trolling...

[Captain Utopia]

I wasn't trying to bother you at all. I only mentioned Emergence because I see it as a superset of Evolution. What bothers you about it?

If anyone was still doubting that this guy is trolling...

? I see emergence as the ability of the universe to create order from disorder - a solar system is "neater" than a massive cloud of interstellar dust. I see evolution as the way emergence acts on the level of species. I guess the super- or sub- set definition is relative, but that is the level of my understanding as it is.

I haven't read the hundreds of thousands of posts on this forum, and if I'm mixing up my terms then it might be easier to just correct me than to just assume that I'm trying to piss you off.

[Kai]

You obviously don't know anything about me if you think I'm bothered by talk of Emergence.

I wasn't trying to bother you at all. I only mentioned Emergence because I see it as a superset of Evolution. What bothers you about it?

If anyone was still doubting that this guy is trolling...

Yeah....he's either A) trolling or B) doesn't know wtf he's talking about or C) both

Where to begin.....Emergence, as a phenomenon, can be summed up by the statement "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts". In other words, when you have close knit systems of similar bits and pieces in interaction with each other, there is a certain level of interaction that yields higher structure and properties than that of the individual parts. These higher systems are not reduceable; they have their own set of rules while not violating the rules below. For example, biology is an emergent system from chemistry; it doesn't violate rules of chemical action but it also has it's own set of rules. That emergent creativity and complexity is a feature of nucleic acid chains and protiens, both of which are long sequences of relatively simple parts put in close interaction which ends up building something far more complex than individual interactions.

Evolution is not a subset of Emergence. I'm assuming you're using the word in the biological sense and not the general sense for this (and if you are using the general sense, the whole thing is different but similar). Bio-evolution, also known as descent with modification (the term C Darwin preferred) or transmutation (the term I prefer as evolution comes with the connotation of "unrolling" onto perfection, which isn't the real case) is composed of two parts. How much each of these things are in play and important to transmutation is an argument that continues.

The first part is the random aspect. You could call this the Emergence aspect. This is random mutation, creative emergence of new sequences by random events. This is also genetic drift, the change in population gene frequencies over time simply due to randomness. Again, many scientists dissagree how important genetic drift is to transmutation, but all will agree that mutation is important for creating varation. That's where creative emergence is in transmutation (ignoring ecology and other higher Emergence systems for the space of this; models filter reality for our sake, so we don't go nuts trying to hold it in concept all at once, break it into parts), in the new and different sequences of ammino acids that come out as novelity.

The second part is Selection. When you have variation in a continuum, the environment  will play selectively on that variation, as some will be more suited to continuing under the conditions than others. Darwin stated it as such 1) Variation exists [ie Emergence creates variation] 2) Some of that variation is inheritable [the variation exists in a continuum] 3) there is overproduction of offspring [there is more variation than will continue; obviously, or there wouldn't be anything, or the universe would be static] 4) there are selective deaths [the environment whatever that may be works selectively on the variation and some of that does not continue]. Therefore, through successive generations, species change over time. That's transmutation, which includes both Emergence and Selection in function.

Actually, using the brackets above you can apply the Emergence/Selection paradigm to any non static process in the universe (is there a such thing as a static process? O.o). Emergence, complexity and creativity arising from interactions between parts, leads to variation in a continuum, and the interactions with the environment lead to the continuation of some of that variation and the discontinuation of others. At the same time, Emergence continues with creativity. Therefore the universe didn't just wink out of existence in self annihilation, and isn't a static featureless place; change is constant.

I hope the above doesn't fall on deaf ears.

Are you saying that a "good" model of reality takes into account the existence of things outside your own mind?

No, I'm saying that a "bad" model of reality is one that only takes into account things inside your own mind, which may exist or not. The difference in emphasis determines the direction you take.

How is what LMNO just said any different than what you just said? If a bad model of reality only takes into account things inside your mind, and whats left over after "inside your mind" is "outside your mind", then via deduction wouldn't it stand that the opposite GOOD model of reality would include things outside your mind? FFS

[Thurnez Isa]

This could be also he's very clumsy way of asking a question

[Template]

You don't know what you're talking about. LMNO knows what he's talking about when it comes to quantum mechanics. He's covered many topics including the double slit experiment in this forum. All you have to do is use the search engine.

I'm not disputing that. I'm disputing my ability to find it since I don't know exactly what I'm looking for.

USE THE SEARCH FUNCTION AVAILABLE IN THIS VERY FORUM, AT THE TOP-RIGHT OF EVERY PAGE, THIS ONE INCLUDED.

If we take our ancestors, as the original poster did, as a barometer of what we should consider "valid choices" then please explain to me how the reference to the amount of genetic material we share is an irrelevant point. Putting aside my mistake with ancestry/cousins - the DNA is the agent of replication, not the host.

1) why should we take from our ancestors "valid choices"?

I don't think we should. It was the person I was responding to who claimed that. Same way that an individual should feel no obligation to serve societies wishes, a person should feel no obligation to serve the "wishes" of their DNA.

My thrust was more memetic than genetic: People used to do X, and they got away with it.  You're biologically equipped similarly to them, so you might get away with it, too.  Nobody can compel you to take good advice, or to tell good advice from bad.  I was suggesting the keeping of tradition (in so many words) as a way to survive.  It's everyone's choice as to whether or not they want to survive that way.

2) Its not irrelevant. You just shouldn't talk about it because the sort of shit you were saying is why people are damn confused in the first place, and its honestly up to biologists (like me) and other scientists (like Thurnez the paleontologist) to try to sort the public out. Hearing the "we came from chimpanzees" line for the 1000 time just about boils my gray matter. So please, just don't talk about it. Read, learn, don't talk till you actually know what you are talking about.

How do I know when I actually know what I'm talking about? I'm not trying to play word games because, the chimpanzee slip aside, I think I do know what I'm talking about. Or rather - I'm not a biologist, and I don't know nearly as much as you about the details and how those details impact the whole, but I think I know pretty much as much I'm going to need to know.

Well, maybe you've been playing them with yourself so long that you have to try to not play word games.

I noticed many very close by usages of the word "model" in the same, shortish paragraph.  I hypothesize that you're experiencing things (possibly weird or annoying to yourself), that you could talk about at much greater length.  Otherwise, it looks increasingly like you're just a schmuck with some pet phrases.

Edit:  The varying font size looks terrible.  Just doing my part to make this the worst forum on the internet, or  .

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You obviously don't know anything about me if you think I'm bothered by talk of Emergence.

I wasn't trying to bother you at all. I only mentioned Emergence because I see it as a superset of Evolution. What bothers you about it?

If anyone was still doubting that this guy is trolling...

? I see emergence as the ability of the universe to create order from disorder - a solar system is "neater" than a massive cloud of interstellar dust. I see evolution as the way emergence acts on the level of species. I guess the super- or sub- set definition is relative, but that is the level of my understanding as it is.

I haven't read the hundreds of thousands of posts on this forum, and if I'm mixing up my terms then it might be easier to just correct me than to just assume that I'm trying to piss you off.

Nice edit, fictionpuss. I put back what you edited out, which is where Kai says "You obviously don't know anything about me if you think I'm bothered by talk of Emergence." which you followed up with "I wasn't trying to bother you at all. I only mentioned Emergence because I see it as a superset of Evolution. What bothers you about it?"

That was clumsy. Your cover is blown, troll over.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You obviously don't know anything about me if you think I'm bothered by talk of Emergence.

I wasn't trying to bother you at all. I only mentioned Emergence because I see it as a superset of Evolution. What bothers you about it?

If anyone was still doubting that this guy is trolling...

Yeah....he's either A) trolling or B) doesn't know wtf he's talking about or C) both

Dingdingdingdingding

[Captain Utopia]

You obviously don't know anything about me if you think I'm bothered by talk of Emergence.

I wasn't trying to bother you at all. I only mentioned Emergence because I see it as a superset of Evolution. What bothers you about it?

If anyone was still doubting that this guy is trolling...

? I see emergence as the ability of the universe to create order from disorder - a solar system is "neater" than a massive cloud of interstellar dust. I see evolution as the way emergence acts on the level of species. I guess the super- or sub- set definition is relative, but that is the level of my understanding as it is.

I haven't read the hundreds of thousands of posts on this forum, and if I'm mixing up my terms then it might be easier to just correct me than to just assume that I'm trying to piss you off.

Nice edit, fictionpuss. I put back what you edited out, which is where Kai says "You obviously don't know anything about me if you think I'm bothered by talk of Emergence." which you followed up with "I wasn't trying to bother you at all. I only mentioned Emergence because I see it as a superset of Evolution. What bothers you about it?"

That was clumsy. Your cover is blown, troll over.

I routinely snip older quotes as I think they get ugly and don't help clarity. I didn't understand why you thought what I had said there was indicative of a troll, which is why I asked for clarification. If I had understood what you were meaning, then why would I purposefully try to "hide" the "evidence", the removal of which would be "proof" that you were right?

It seems like you already made up your mind before I posted. Are you still upset about me putting your avatar in that picture yesterday? It was just for fun, I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings.

[Captain Utopia]

I hope the above doesn't fall on deaf ears.

Thanks - I appreciate it. I think my problem is that I've been conflating "emergence" with the "workings of the universe". As in, the universe as a system which is more than the sum of its parts, in which case, my incorrect definition of Emergence would make it a superset of Evolution, but also become a meaninglessly broad brush in the process?

But my biggest fallacy in that case would be to use the same term for an observable phenomenon (i.e. the role of emergence in evolution), with that of a hypothetical role - the workings of the universe?

Are you saying that a "good" model of reality takes into account the existence of things outside your own mind?

No, I'm saying that a "bad" model of reality is one that only takes into account things inside your own mind, which may exist or not. The difference in emphasis determines the direction you take.

How is what LMNO just said any different than what you just said? If a bad model of reality only takes into account things inside your mind, and whats left over after "inside your mind" is "outside your mind", then via deduction wouldn't it stand that the opposite GOOD model of reality would include things outside your mind? FFS

I'm probably being pedantic about which way the filters should point, and perhaps meaninglessly so, but I'm currently on a kick where I'm trying to expunge "insight" that I cannot use in any practical nuts'n'bolts way. I hope that makes some sense.

[Kai]

I don't know about fallacies. You're biggest downfall is using many big words and difficult concepts in awkward ways, using a completely different language set than your audience, and expecting them to understand.

Emergence simply happens (for whatever reason; maybe because It's required for anything to exist). Evolution is what happens in a nonstatic universe.

You haven't defined your terms. What is "the working of the universe"? What is "insight"? You use words in ways that are unfamiliar and you give no context for their meaning. When a reader fails to come to terms with the author, that is, when the reader fails to understand the terms (be they words or phrases) the author uses with the author's intended meaning, there is no common ground for the reader and author to work from.

[Thurnez Isa]

bigs words make you sund smrat

[Kai]

bigs words make you sund smrat

And the people that count will know you don't know how to use them properly.