bombus

To bombus

Your statement that Lomborg must be wrong is a reflection of the almost certainty that you have not read him. I actually introduced the example you note in a new thread on this forum some time ago, and asked members if they could come up with examples of species that had been made extinct purely by habitat loss. No-one could.

You (and Lomborg) were totally blown out of the water in that thread, but just wouldn't accept it.

I can list from memory any number of species that have gone extinct for one major reason only, when that reason is overhunting/overfishing by humans, or when the reason is introduction of an alien species into the environment.

Introduction of an alien species IS HABITAT LOSS! Why can't you understand that simple point!?

Trying to list species that have gone extinct for the dominant reason that their habitat has been destroyed (say by deforestation) is an almost impossibility.

The Chinese River Dolphin is the latest. Many others are on the brink but kept from going extinct because of 'artificial' conservation effort. Many others were all but destroyed by habitat loss but some other factor was the final nail in the coffin. Either way, you are wrong.

I am sure there are examples, but they are few and far between.

Because of huge conservation effort.

Thus, for Lomborg to say that habitat loss is a minor cause of extinction is actually quite correct.

Maybe, but it's totally incorrect for one to infer from that statement that habitat loss is not the greatest threat to species. I'd actually disagree with Lomborg on that point as well though.

Bombus, I strongly suggest you read Lomborg before you criticise him. His work is meticulously researched. His bibliography is massive. Everything he says is supported by references.

Which he misuses due to his basic misunderstanding of science.

The fact that you do not like his conclusions does not make him wrong.

SkepticLance, Lomborg is a fool who, due to his lack of a scientific grounding is totally incapable of interpreting the data in a meaningful way. Like I have said in past threads, using Lomborg's logic, guns have never killed anyone, bullets have never killed anyone, blood loss has never killed anyone, 'cos it's all down to a lack of oxygen to the brain.

Really, SkepticLance, Lomborg is WRONG WRONG and thrice WRONG! If you think he's correct I suggest you read more scientific literature, 'cos you obviously have not read enough if you can be fooled by Lomborg's smoke and mirrors.

bombus

 

Have your read Lomborg's book? You need to. I recommend it.

 

The thing is that he offended the delicate sensibilities of those people who firmly believe that everything humans do is destructive. Those people needed a solid kick in the fundamentus. Sadly, presenting truth does not mean truth is accepted, and most people still think with their gonads.

Of course I haven't. Anyone so fundamentally stupid to say that species extinction is not linked to habitat loss is not worthy of my attention. I might as well read the Bible for explanations. Lomborg's just out to get a name for himself, get the gullible on his side, and earn cash. He's no scientist and not capable of writing scientific literature. He should be ignored.

The Scientific American attacked Lomborg for eleven pages, yet only came up with nine factual errors despite their assertion that the book was "rife with careless mistakes."

Nine factual errors is rather a lot! Maybe it took eleven pages to satisfactorily destroy these nine of Lomborg's arguments. If they'd addressed every error there'd have been no room for the adverts!

Lomborg is just an attention seeker.

Nope, competition drives costs down, that has been proven over and over again. But, in the chase for profits, lower margin services might be sacrificed for higher margin services. Instead of making parts for you tape recorder, they make cd players. Instead of offering cheap x-rays for patients, they go for the MRI. Instead of fixing cleft pallets, they provide boob jobs.

Competetion does NOT decrease prices when a nationalised monopoly is concerned. It actually increases them. Simple economics.

Please define this and give us some sources, as well as a description of how this causes extinction, especially of widely distributed species or groups of species.

Hewzulla, D., Boulter, M.C.,Benton, M.J. & Halley J.M., 'Evolutionary patterns from mass originations and mass extinctions', Philisophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (1999)

Bak, P. How nature works: the science of self-organized criticality. New York. Copernicus 1996.

Basically, the theory says that SOC causes extinctions because species evolve into new species exponentially, filling in niches, creating new niches, which then get filled ad infinitum. When the rate of speciation reaches a certain steepness there tends to be a collapse (extinction). There are many small extinctions and fewer larger ones (mass extinctions) as the system follows a Power Law: variables that plot as a straight line from any organized system.

The extinctions come from within the system itself. Examples could include the evolution of oxygen producing organisms causing the extinction of many of the early anaerobic life forms, the evolution of dinosaurs causing the extinction of many of the large amphibians, evolution of placentals causing the exintinction of most the marsupials, evolution of humans causing the extinction of mammoths, sabre toothed tigers, chinese river dolphins, humans!

As the Earth system includes every natural process on Earth I suppose it might also include the effects of plate tectonics, vulcanism etc, but that could be pushing it. There is also the effects of meteorite impacts to consider which add a bit of randomness to the system.

It's got my vote anyway.

They do. Population genetics is the mathematics of natural selection. However, biology/ecology/evolution also incorporate contingency. Because events outside biology can profoundly influence biology (such as solar input or plate tectonics), biology/evolution can never be as deterministic as classical physics. Also, since individuals vary, this also forbids biology/evolution from being strictly deterministic, but instead being probabilistic.

I agree with that. I would describe the system as being fundamentally deterministic, but with a high degree of variability/randomness due to the factors you mention.

The chances of finding something like that, even if it did exist, would be next to zero.

 

Stone buildings only 1,000 years old are still hard to find (sometimes all they are are a discolouration of the dirt and rocks). Imagine finding something that was 65,000 times (or more) older.

 

However, if we did find even a small "building" it would be one of the most amazing pieces of archaeology to ever be discovered. It would rank up there with finding intelligent life on another world.

Indeed, 'tis so. It would make the human race shudder and think again methinks - perhaps even more than finding intelligent life elsewhere...

I still go for Self Organized Criticality as the most likely cause, with the meteorite being a final nail in the coffin. I think biology/ecology/evolution follow mathematical principles and patterns. Everything else seems to so why not. Extinctions follow Power Law principles - lots of small extinctions with fewer large ones. The Earth is all one huge dynamic system, perhaps with plate tectonics being part of it.

What is the advantage to the system without regard to economics?

 

Why do the best doctors flee from countries with universal healthcare?

They don't

At least it is not completely shit like the UK one.

The UK one is NOT completely shit at all. For most people it's far better than you'd get in the US. It's just that the US has better services if you can afford to pay for them. If you have no insurance in the US, and get shot, they'll send you home the same day after patching you up a bit. That wouldn't happen in the UK. They'd keep you in until you're fit to go home, and you wouldn't be charged a penny.

Cuba has one of the best health services in the world by the way.

The point is, in a privatized system someone is always making a profit on top of the actual cost.

In a not-for-profit system services can be offered cheaper (coz you get everything at cost price) so you can do more with the same money.

That's the bottom line really.

sshurely everyone knows what happened? Intelligent, bipedal, technologically advanced dinosaurs ruined their ecosystem causing extinctions of many families. Climate chaos then lead to nuclear war which finished them all off (apart from the few that escaped in flying saucers).

All we gotta do is find the remains of dinosaur cities...

Work undertaken using the Fossil Record 2 database suggests that we are in the middle of a mass extinction that started around 10,000 years ago.

It looks likely that regardless of global climate change we are going to lose all the large mammals.

The question is, are humans a large mammal?

I think probably.

I have it on good authority that we have around 400 years!

Einstein did it before he died. Unfortunately the set of equations he came up with had an infinite number of solutions.

Maybe that's the way God likes it.

A circle is a square with infinite sides after all...

can someone explain to me what "Everything" actually means?

A 'unified field theory' that combines the laws of electromagnetism and gravitation.

From a review of Dennet's book:

The conventional arguments against both free will, on the one hand, and scientific materialism, on the other, rests on the belief that in a deterministic universe there is simply no room for freedom. If every state of the universe has been determined by a previous state then in what way could any act be said to be 'free'? Is it not simply the inevitable outcome of a series of causal links that goes all the way back to the Big Bang?

Not so, says Dennett. Such a view confuses determinism and inevitability. Suppose I'm playing baseball and the pitcher chucks the ball directly at my face. I turn my head to avoid it. There was, therefore, nothing inevitable about the ball hitting my face. But, a sceptic might say, I turned my head not of my own free will but was caused to do so by factors byond my control. That is to misunderstand the nature of causation, Dennett retorts. What really caused me to turn my head was not a set of deterministic links cascading back to the beginnings of the universe - though that certainly exists - but my desire at that moment not to get hit by the baseball. At a different moment I might decide to take a hit in the face, if by doing so I help my team win the game.

This appears to totally fail to address, let alone answer the problem! Dennet agrees that there are deterministic links cascading back to the beginnings of the universe, but manages to exclude his brain/mind from this. Maybe I'll have to just read the book.

Where does free will fit into all this? For most people, conscious will derives from what they would call the 'self'. But this notion of the self, according to Dennett, is an illusion. The self is not the entity that governs brain processes, but is the outcome of those processes. Echoing the neurologist Daniel Wegner, Dennett suggests that 'People become what they think they are, or what they find others think they are.'

I would agree with all of this. Dennet seems to be confusing free will with personality development. They exist at completely different levels IMO.

You should read about compatibilism. In my opinion it's a flawed attempt to salvage free will, but I think it's still quite popular among philosophers.

Thanks

Just read about Compatibilism. One explanation is:

For example, you could choose to keep or delete this page; while a compatibilist will not try to deny that whatever choice you make will have been predetermined since the beginning of time, they will argue that this choice that you make is an example of free will because no one is forcing you to make whatever choice you make. In contrast, someone could be holding a gun to your head and tell you that unless you delete the page, they will kill you; to a compatibilist, that is an example of a lack of free will. (The compatibilist account sometimes includes internal compulsions such as kleptomania or addiction.)

This is not free will IMO. This merely accepts that free will is actually an illusion. What is the fundamental difference between someone holding a gun against your head, being in the path of a falling rock, or having electrons in a certain 'place' in your head at a certain time. It's all things created by the universe affecting your mind.

This idea fails to address the problem.

http://members.aol.com/NeoNoetics/CONSC_INFO_PANPSY.html

Thanks! Great stuff.

Yes, I saw that several years ago, shortly after What the Bleep came out. Made by the same people, and they were collaborators with Penrose, particularly on the What the Bleep book, which also featured Penrose's ideas.

Are you suggesting that they have twisted the results of this? I can assure you they have not!

Consciousness had nothing to do this.Waveform collapse was initiated by the structure of the system, not a conscious agent.

So why does the result change depending on what you are looking for?

Granted this behavior plays an important role in the relationship between the observer and the observed when studying quantum behavior (and the inability of the experimenter to separate themselves from the experiment).

A fundamental role, not just an important role.

The problem of the observer being in the same system as the observed has immense ramifications for how modern theory is approached and reasoned about.

Agreed.

It has nothing metaphysical to say about consciousness and quantum waveform collapse.

It might, it very well might, and that is what Penrose et al is hypothesising.

As far as quantum theory is concerned consciousness doesn't exist. There's no "consciousness field" which can interact with the other forces.

Agreed, but irrelevant to my argument.

I espouse Dennett's compatibilism as advocated in his book Freedom Evolves. This thoroughly rules out any form of freedom from causality.

OK, I shall look that up, however, Penrose's hypothesis does not require a total severence from causality.

Instead, identity, which is shaped by our life experiences, serves as executor of our will.

How can you make free-willed decisions in a totally deterministic classical system?

Penrose doesn't have a theory. If he did he'd publish it in a paper in a peer-reviewed journal. Instead, he wrote a book. He did make a number of arguments in his book, but the subsequent "peer review" that occurred when people scrutinized his book completely discredited the idea.

 

Penrose has a hypothesis, and every attempt to put it on scientific footing has been met with contradictory evidence or the discovery of logic errors.

Apologies for calling it a theory. His ideas have by no means been completely discredited, that is an extreme exaggeration to the point of being wrong! Also, it took a long time before the mechanism of Darwin's theory was discovered.

Can you point to one argument for putting quantum cosnciousness on scientific footing which has not been discredited?

Yes, the fact that free will cannot exist in a classical deterministic system. Either free will is an illusion (and maybe it is) or it is real. If real it cannot be adequately explained by classical theory.

Hey, have you got a reasonably good link to what pansychism is supposed to mean? I'd be interested if it involves matter/energy holding 'conscious' properties, in an 'unconscious' way.

There is also this if you can find it:

Consciousness, information and panpsychism

JCS, 2 (3), 1995, pp. 272-88

William Seager,

University of Toronto,

1265 Military Trail,

Scarborough,

Ontario M1C 1A4,

Canada.

Email: seager@lake.scar.utoronto.ca

Abstract:

The generation problem is to explain how material configurations or processes can produce conscious experience. David Chalmers urges that this is what makes the problem of consciousness really difficult. He proposes to side-step the generation problem by proposing that consciousness is an absolutely fundamental feature of the world. I am inclined to agree that the generation problem is real and believe that taking consciousness to be fundamental is promising. But I take issue with Chalmers about what it is to be a fundamental feature of the world. In fact, I argue that taking the idea seriously ought to lead to some form of panpsychism. Powerful objections have been advanced against panpsychism, but I attempt to outline a form of the doctrine which can evade them. In the end, I suspect that we will face a choice between panpsychism and rethinking the legitimacy of the generation problem itself.

I think what some are saying is that determinism is unsatisfactory for free will. After all, the choice has effectively been made in advance; anyone with enough computational power could compute what you would choose. And there is no way you could change your mind. Chance likewise is unsatisfactory, besides which it is obvious that we are not completely random. And what manner of choice is the requrement to flip a coin? If that were so, the coin would have free will. Finally, one might consider that free will could be a combination of laws and chance. Yet, if there is no free will to be found in laws and none in chance, where would the free will in this combination come from? Could you write a computer program with a random number generator that would have free will?

 

<Occam Razor mode = off>One might say that chance allows for a loophole into the metaphysical world. If God decided to play dice (apologies to Einstein) and fiddled with the "random" results of quantum mechanics (in such a way that the probabilities remain unchanged, of course), would that not allow for massive yet undetectable control over the physical world? Likewise, if someone's spirit could similarly control the quantum events inside "his" body, you could have someone controlled by a metaphysical spirit, rather than just his brain.</Occam>

 

And yet, even if it were so, scientists would then want to ask, what sort of laws does that metaphysical free follow? One might conclude that free will, as some wish it to be, is completely out of the realm of science.

 

On a more serious note, isn't random chance a total cop-out? Kind of like saying "God did it" but without the metaphysical implications?

very well said!

And your generic brushoff and subsequent silliness prove that you don't understand what I was saying. I think you have misplaced confidence in this stuff because it's being said by an important scientist. And if it were actually physics being discussed, I would take it seriously, but it isn't. It's metaphysics. Scientists have a long history of trying to reinvent the wheel in this area in their spare time and failing spectacularly. Most commonly it takes the form of false dilemmas like this one. (Even Einstein thought - wrongly - that QM was impossible because it contradicted certain metaphysical necessities. They aren't necessities, and it doesn't contradict them, anyway.)

 

So yes, I am quite familiar with what you're talking about, and in fact I've had to put up with a whole lot of it in academia in both the physics and philosophy worlds. It really really has no merit. I swear.

My subsequent silliness! You don't seem to understand the very basics of the argument. Yes it is where physics meets metaphysics - that's the big issue! That's the problem.

Metaphysics asks some very basic questions, such as 'What is the nature of reality?'. Does not Science try to use an evidence based approach to answer this same question? Now whether or not Penrose's orchOR theory is correct is not the point (he may well be wrong in the exact explanation at this stage), but the questions still remain, and I think that the effect of QM is the answer. Quite how I do not know, but I do not believe the answer has already been discovered via classical theory!

Bascule:

Have you watched the animated film about the double slit experiment? Do you agree that consciousness appears to cause wave function collapse?

Most seem to think of free will in terms of freedom from causality. I certainly believe this is not the case.

That belief is perfectly acceptable, but it is just a belief at the moment - a hunch, like my belief. Could you explain your 'hunch' a bit more?

Penrose effectively concedes every one of Fefferman's points then goes on to say "But you didn't debunk my argument in Chapter 3!" This echoes a creationist who posts dozens of specious arguments and receives answers to a subset, conceding those, but continues harping "What about all my other arguments? You didn't disprove those!"

That's not a very good comparison. All Penrose is saying is that the arguments/inaccuracies do not affect the meat and bones of his theories, which is the important bit!

Penrose answers back (including to Solomon Feferman):

http://psyche.csse.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-23-penrose.html

Not to Tegmark though.

It's more than breeding. As I pointed out, the cute dog in Little Rascals was a pit bull. Pit bulls are not necessarily agressive. They are taught to be that way by humans.

 

So "the answer" is also to make such training illegal and then fighting illegal. Which we have.

 

However, note that we do NOT consider it immoral to breed and train guard dogs! That is, to train them to act violently in particular situations -- usually violently to specific classes of humans (such as thieves or muggers).

It is more than breeding, but breeding helps a great deal. This is why wolves don't make great pets. Also, any dog taught to be aggressive (including police dogs) is not one I'd trust with small children.

what a load of bollocks

Unless Tegmark's measurements are wrong, the decoherence time is too short for quantum effects to impact microtubule behavior. Penrose never tested his hypothesis experimentally. Tegmark did, and the results demonstrate it to be incorrect.

And what if someone does the same and gets different results. I'm not going to change my views on the basis of one paper.

If you're asking what's the source of volition, it's consciousness, which is ontologically distinct from the brain.

Semantics

No, particle interaction causes wavefunction collapse. "Consciousness" has nothing to do with it.

Have you seem the little film?

Yes, just like opinion is divided between evolution and creationism.

Hardly

Penrose's Godelian argument was in the form of a mathematical proof. There's no room for opinion in a proof. The proof is either correct or contains an error. Penrose's proof contains errors, as Solomon Fefferman demonstrated. It is therefore wrong.

We shall see

Penrose's microtubule hypothesis is predictive, and therefore falsifiable by experiment. Tegmark carried out the experiments, and they do not support the hypothesis.

I'm willing to wait

I've posted about Penrose extensively, including multiple threads about the Road to Reality and Shadows of the Mind. Have a look here:

http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/search.php?searchid=352214

Penrose is a great example of why the opinion of a single scientist carries little weight when not expressed in the form of a peer reviewed paper. Don't get me wrong, he's done excellent physics work, but he's really gone off the deep end with this "science of consciousness" crap. As I said: it's intellectually dishonest.

You're just scared!

Bombus:

 

bascule is completely right about this. Free will is a state of thought in which decisions are consciously made between weighed alternatives. That's it. It exists, because it is a subjective experience. Nothing we discover about the universe could possibly change that. Determinism certainly does not preclude it, it just means that you have definite reasons for making whatever choices you do. Randomness, which is the alternative to determinism, does not "help" in any way. If anything, it makes it trickier, because it means there's no real reason you choose one or the other.

 

But that is not even the biggest error you're making. You're arguing that a particular version of objective reality exists merely because you want it to. More specifically, because you think it is the only way something which you think you want can also exist. This is very, very bad science.

I disagree. You say that because maybe you don't understand why I am saying what I am saying. I suggest you have a look at some articles on the subject. Start here:

http://www.imprint.co.uk/hardprob.html

Can you explain to me how Tegmark's measured decoherence times don't falsify Penrose's hypothesis?

They do not falsify, they merely give an opposing view. Big difference. Anyway, Tegmark's theories are opposed by many - have you visited his website? He has some great theories by the way.

They aren't "controlled", they are interconnected systems which feed each other

How are those interconnected systems controlled, or have you no power of independent thought?

"Free will" is a philosophical position which makes certain metaphysical assumptions which can't be proven or disproven by science.

Everything in science is a philosophical position. Science is a philosophy. (PhD = Doctor of Philosophy)

Furthermore, it's an ambiguous position and there are several alternatives which you can choose from. Kant suggests one form which is thoroughly compatible with both monist thinking and the brain as a classical physical system. Dennett suggests another which is in-line with materialist/physicalist thinking. Regardless of whether you espouse monism or physicalism, neither depend on the brain being a non-classical system.

And some would argue they don't work

I suggest you read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. By adopting a monist position and Kantian metaphysics, it's possible for absolute metaphysical free will to exist even if the brain is deterministic without involving any form of dualism.

OK, I will.

QM would suggest that future states (in non-classical quantum systems) are determined by the random (but statistically predictable) way in which waveforms collapse.

Aaaaah, I see your problem. The point is that consciousness can cause the collapse of wave function into a discreet value (c/f the double slit expt), thusly in the brain this 'randomness' can be controlled by consciousness and give us the ability to think freely without our brains being totally dependent on what state they were in before.

What does consciousness, which I hope you'd consider ontologically distinct from the physical world, have to do with the double slit experiment?

That is the whole of the question!

The double slit experiment demonstrates that probability waves can interfere even in the case of a single particle passing through the slits.

A bit more than that - quite a bit more. Try here (it's fun too):

Penrose has been thoroughly debunked by the scientific, mathematical, and philosophical communities.

That's not true. Opinion is just divided - and that's just in relation to the orchOR theory.

The microtubule hypothesis has been discredited by Tegmark (see above)

Not discredited, just challenged.

The Godelian proof in Penrose's Shadows of the Mind has been disproven by Solomon Fefferman (among others, here's a simpler description) Oddly enough, Fefferman is a neutral monist who does not see consciousness as being computable, but has enough intellectual honesty to argue against Penrose's attempted proof.

These critiques can often be full of misunderstandings and errors, although I'm happy to check it out.

The article you link equates computationalism to physicalism. This is entirely incorrect. Computationalism is compatible with a number of forms of monism, including epiphenominalism.

???

Penrose and Hammeroff are misusing science and mathematics to make metaphysical statements about consciousness. This is both intellectually dishonest and incorrect. I've linked refutations of their attempts. They have made more arguments and there are more refutations available if you don't consider these substantive.

Penrose is a giant among scientists. I think to say he is misusing science is like saying that the Beatles ruined music! Like I said, believe what you like, but I am confident Penrose and Hammeroff et al will be proven correct to some degree.

I'm a bit sit-on-the-fence when it comes to Nuclear Power. The trouble with nuclear power is that it's actually very expensive. If that same amount of money was spent on energy efficiency instead we could start closing power stations!

Also, if you drill deep enough it gets very hot. We could spend the money developing geothermal power instead which has none of the problems of nuclear. (not to mention tidal, biomass, solar).

Nuclear power should perhaps be a very last option once all other options are exhausted.

Nuclear power is a good source of cheap energy. The electricity could also be used for electroysis to make hydrogen for automobles. One of the main problems with nuke power, it is not considered a good investment due to environmental foot dragging. These cost billions to build and can now be tied up in court because a little snail happens to live nearby. The result has been the need to stay with fossil fuels until alternate technology is able to become feasible. Protecting a little snail led to global warming. If they had said, the heck with the snail, we need nuke power, we would not have the potential of a global disaster. It would have only been local.

Mmmmm, if the snail is endangered and threatened by a development (of whatever type) then its protection should be considered in any planning application. I think much of the court stuff is usually due to local people protesting!

well, that's kinda what I'm alluding to. To do the job properly would take a lot of energy would it not? Even just people monitoring it. Over 100,000 years it could build up!

sorry!

Not sure where to ask this, but here goes...

It's often said that nuclear power stations do not emit CO2 and so may be able to solve our energy problems with regard to global warming.

However, considering that the radioactive stuff is dangerous for at least 100,000 years, and has to be 'dealt with' over this period of time, has anyone ever done the calculations to work out whether more energy is spend dealing with the 'mess' of nuclear power stations over 100,000 years than the ernergy they actually produce in their operational lifetime?

But like how does it actually work? Why does it work?