Fred56

I think the normal body flora are the culprits, yes. Sometimes an enclosed cavity of infection forms within the bone matrix (a defense mechanism), and can persist for decades, apparently. Sinuses, being cavities, can clog up and get infected. Osteonecrosis can be the result. Also some of the roots of upper teeth are quite close (~1mm) to the sinuses.

Mine doesn't. Straw, unless it's damp, burns quite well (what sort of argument is this one?) So what are these 18 semantically distinct versions of "copy" that you claim to be able to find in some dictionary, again? You made it up, right?

How about the entropy of the information (in a chimp's brain)? they 'forget' how to do this stuff a lot more quickly than we tend to forget things. If the entropy is higher (they're 'faster' at this particular intelligence test), does it dissipate more quickly too? Just a.. thought...

Isn't he talking about something like: "although I've never been to Paris, I believe there is a thing called the Eiffel tower there." i.e. to confirm its existence, is it enough to be told by others who have seen it, or is it absolutely necessary to go and see it? Is the first kind of believing (others) a 'borrowing', and different from the second, epistemological (direct sensory) apprehension? What about watching a travel show? Religious faith (belief in something that can never be directly observed, only "approached" in some metaphysical sense), is qualitatively different, but it's still belief (even if it's wrong or a delusion).

It's one of those "self-referential" types of definition. "A is what A does", type of thing.

Oh, right, that one. Writing the word "analysis" down somewhere, or including it in a sentence is not doing anything more meaningful that seeing if you can spell it. Your claim that you have demonstrated anything simply doesn't stand up (i.e. it falls over). When a judge makes a decision, usually an analysis is laid out as a part of that decision, on several sheets of paper. This includes all of the "matters" they considered, why they were considered, and what their thinking was. In short, an explanation is provided (to the public record) of why and how (what the judges thinking -philosophy- was) the decision was reached: an analysis. Now tell me that I think you should study Law... Therefore evolution looks a lot like it is "trying" to produce organisms that are "the best fit". This is because it appears purposeful to us.

Again, this is a philosophical distinction. The "drive" to have progeny is purposive. The genome and the associated functional 'operators' that read and maintain it are an "agency with purpose" or 'intent' - which is to "allow" an organism to "contribute" (via reproduction) to a process we call evolution. This process 'arises' from the evolved and evolving 'gene-space', or it is the 'arising'... At a Biochem lecture once, the class was told (by a Professor Daniel) in one of those "at the end of the day" statements (if he had used that particular phrase I would've probably groaned involuntarily) about Life and the subject we were studying; he said (this has "stuck" with me since): "Life is just chemistry". I guess so, but it's a really complicated chemistry: multiple reactions and feedback "control" mechanisms. Lots of interconnections and "structure" you don't find in a beaker or test-tube with reacting chemicals in it. Structure "defines" life; Life is a kind of "structured entropy", or alternately, life "emerges" from the structure much like a car or a washing-machine "emerges" not from its parts, but from the way they are put together (structured). Is a chemical reaction (chemistry) purposive? Is Life 'just' a chemical reaction? Is self-assembly of 'parts' purposive? Is a DNA repair enzyme an agent with "purpose"?

Question: Norman, or anyone, do you know what the difference is between E8 and F8 groups? Or is it maybe just someone's typo that got "ghosted" by the unfamiliar? I've found 1 or 2 refs to "F8", but most refer to "E8"...?

What can I say? Thanks for the cookie. I'll see if doG wants it. P.S. If you seriously "believe" that you have demonstrated something with your "last post", I would say you need to practice the bugle a bit harder. I can't see anything that refutes a single statement I have made. Saying "Some are invalid, others are just completely unsupported" without doing anything more analytical than claiming it's all up the creek is not any sort of analysis. You have simply posted your opinion, which you should at least acknowledge if you do it. "Sheeeyt, brutha, ain' no thang..." "In genetics, we have the complete DNA sequence of several organisms, including man, and we are rapidly learning what many of these genes "do." But this analytic approach cannot tell us how the life of a buffalo differs from that of a butterfly, or even what accounts for the special unity and active wholeness of buffaloes or butterflies or the purposive efforts they make to preserve their own specific integrity." - Leon R. Kass, M.D. "Evolution works without either plan or purpose" … "Evolution is random and undirected” (Kenneth R. Miller & Joseph S. Levine’s Biology (4th ed. 1998), pg. 658) --These guys need to explain, in that case, why evolution produces valid, well-adapted organisms. In short, I believe they are incorrect. "[W]hat about the accusation that Darwinism is mechanistic and devoid of purpose? Here Goodenough answers that all machines, whether built by humans, like a car, or resulting from mutation and natural selection, like the bacterial flagellum, have a purpose: "organisms, like machines, are nothing if not purposive." -John C Greene National Center for Science Education etc and etc. P.P.S. What was the purpose of your last communique, bro?

The information set we have collected so far on metabolic systems is pretty big, but do we know how closely it describes what happens in a cell, or bacteria? How complete a picture do we have of a particular pathway? Going deeper and determining any subatomic 'reality' at the metabolic level would increase the information, but again, how closely would this define or describe the bigger picture? What sort of processor would we use to crunch it? Isn't it the case that all we know (despite all the info) is that we still don't know a lot of stuff? Protein folding is still an NP-hard kind of problem, I think, because we don't yet know enough to model this all that well, plus we don't yet have the processing ability to crunch a problem like that? The only scientific connection I have heard about is quantum Darwinism (which seem to pop up in SFN a bit lately), which is a theory about how life observes, or how the indeterminate quantum state becomes a single observed 'event', or how we 'select' a value from an indeterminate set. Beyond that, sorry I'm not so confident I can say I understand what you are really asking...?!

Well, the idea is that the word "authority" means "status of observational/decision-making ability". To explain this: if you see something odd-looking up in the sky, what's the first thing you think about? Is it possibly asking someone else if they can see what you can? If so, then what you are doing is placing greater trust (status, authority) in group observation than your single observation. The larger the number of 'agents' who observe (or believe they observe) the same thing, the more status the observation is given (by each individual and thus the group itself). This explains mob behaviour to an extent. People tend to believe what they are told if they also invest a sufficient authority (status, observational ability), in the agent or agency that tells them something. We like to "trust" those we believe have a greater observational ability, and in the decisions they make: doctors, judges, generals, politicians ...(say what?), but not generally street-sweepers, say. This explains the assignation of leadership (elected leaders). Kings and monarchs used to be elected or selected on their intelligence and "leadership", military skills, and so on (early Roman Kings, for example). But eventually these "leaders" convinced everyone they were special enough to warrant the exclusion of any other group members from the "leadership"; that they themselves were the best "selectors" of a successor; that they and their progeny (or personal choice in the case of the Roman emperors) were the only available men for the job.

Purpose and purposive aren't distinct except syntactically (one's a noun, the other's an adjective), but the question was: "does Life have purpose" -i.e. is Life purposeful... There's a metaphysical distinction between "a purpose" (specific), and "purpose" (general). Once more with feeling: The universe is "purposeful" because it is active (changing), therefore its "purpose" or purposefulness is (to) change. We observe it doing this, but any "intelligence" or agency we assign really can't go any further than this (the change we observe). Or we're into anthropomorphism --but we're probably unable to step outside this viewpoint anyway, so that leaves the recognition that any "intelligent" aspects of the inanimate world are entirely of our own making. Only life is an intelligent agent, which can be "independent" (though this is a philosophical kind of distinction, because life depends on the world and its change). We're lifeforms. Life is purposeful, therefore we also are purposeful, or exhibit purposefulness. Compared to an inanimate universe, we lifeforms appear able to "choose", to direct ourselves (and other lifeforms and inanimate things), to our individual and group purposive agency. Inanimate things don't exhibit this same apparent agency. The world has (purposive) agency only in the sense that life is obliged to "keep up with" the changes in it; i.e to evolve. (or maybe I'm all wrong about this, in which case please feel "free" to correct any mistakes...)

This appears to be where the semantic manure hits the discursive fan. What I meant to imply by the statement "evolution begets life", is that the process is the 'agent' that produces new, improved, or even regressed, lifeforms. If your interpretation tells you I'm saying "evolution came first", as you imply, then I apologise for not making this clear. We cannot say one came before the other, or is the proximate cause of the other. i.e. Life didn't "beget" evolution, either, which is what you seem to imply with: evolution began once life "got around to" it? How did it get around to it; via what process? I shall make "some kind" of effort to clarify any meaning that might present semantic problems in future, or "moving forward", as "they" say. P.S. but I don't know that I can agree with the atrophy of functionality -limbs, whale rear legs, our missing tail, the appendix, blind cave-fish- as "regressive", it's still moving in the same direction as every other kind of life, i.e. forwards, not backwards, so I apply the label "redundant scientific distinction" to such observations, that are made by observers and thinkers, and do not concur with it, silly me. P.P.S. You might want to keep closer tabs on my post-posted edits. I like to read it again and sometimes alter the odd thing while I still can -or is this seen as bad netiquette?

So the 'correct' term is "equivalent relativistic mass", if referring to photons of energy? "mass equal to" doesn't cut it? Unless you're Albert Einstein? This might be why cosmologists don't refer to mass very often... (please excuse any sarcastic tone, I really can't help it -and they won't let me out of the ward)

(darn it, that quote en francais I posted needs a few extras between one or two woids, stoopid keyboards... ) láide = l'áide; aùn = a ùn; Roan Stallion "The atom's bonds breaking, Nucleus to sun, electrons to planets, with recognition Not praying, self-equaling, the whole to the whole, the microcosm Not entering nor accepting entrance, more equally, more utterly, more incredibly conjugate With the other extreme and greatness; passionately perceptive of identity..." Robinson Jeffers

"There is no logical or causal connection, to the observed behaviour of humans to allow or assign more status to a group observation than their own or any individual observation. This could well be an incorrect thing to do. The fact that we do it does not imply correct or incorrect thinking. Calling the alternative -we don't assign more status to a group observation- a mistake does not lead to the conclusion that we are correct to assign more authority to any group. The reasons for doing this have little to do with preference for assigning authority to any observation, or person or group of observers." I don't believe it.

A word which someone has placed quotes around implies the definition of that word is only itself "implied"... At least when I learned to read it was. But feel free to reach your own conclusions here... When was this, do you think. Are you saying that after some sort of organisms first appeared, they didn't evolve until they, 'evolved' the capacity to reproduce (how did this come about)? Why didn't these lifeforms just die out (because of the entropy thing)? Inherent falsity should be self-evident, or surrender to analysis. When have I said that Evolution is what caused the appearance of Life? "A simultaneous appearance is a much more likely scenario... IOW, Life and (its) evolution are the "same" thing." Can wit help itself? I wonder... Defensive argument is a bit of a "thread" in this thread. You're accusing me of doing what you (and others) are doing as well. P.S. Some might imagine that I am pounding away on my PC's keyboard, and getting all angry or upset or something. Actually I think this is all pretty heuresement. Watch out for that brick wall.

Can you provide evidence that I have made invalid conclusions: which is what you're implying --I can't make my "invalid claim" more valid by repeating it? repeating it? Or can you provide evidence that "repeating myself" adds no evidence? Or that I am claiming (asserting, conjecturing, voicing an opinion about) something? I seriously doubt that you can. But, by all means... What, on (God's good) Earth is "regressive evolution"? Is this "evolution going backwards" (which I'm sure it doesn't)? "Evolution is a chance process" that has yielded an "efficient" array of lifeforms (at exploiting current conditions). This evolved set of Evolution's functional representatives, is mapped to the environment it "finds itself" in, which is constantly changing. Detrimental random "evolutionary changes" do not get mapped, they are disconnected (the evolved set of "functions" does not function as well, and dies out) unless it can exploit some change that occurs subsequently, in which case it needs to be "lucky" twice -to have "made" the genetic change, and to have "anticipated" an external one- it "usually" happens the other way around. This does not imply that evolution and random mutation respond to external change in some "intelligent way", but there is no problem with describing evolution as a response (of some kind)) to external change. Quite. Looks like I failed pretty miserably, then. P.S. If you've assumed that the "best possible example of [my] own failure" I posted was concocted for this particular thread, you have done so mistakenly... P.P.S. I'll repeat myself again: I'll repeat myself again: Evolution is what "begets" lifeforms. Therefore Life (in all its forms) is a result -the range of the function of evolution; and so it is perfectly ok to say "Life is Evolution". Even in a psychiatric ward. Even in a psychiatric ward. (apologies for responding in reverse order). This is a "chicken vs egg" argument. Evolution did not "occur" before Life existed, Life somehow "arrived" and evolution came later? A simultaneous appearance is a much more likely scenario... IOW, Life and (its) evolution are the "same" thing.

First sentence is (almost) complete rubbish (approaches the limit, at least): "Evolution has 'a' purpose - to evolve organisms that are more 'efficient' at living, at exploiting available resources, gathering and accumulating information. The gene-space has or is a surface against which that measurement occurs. The process is some kind of operator, or set of operators..."[/me] Not sure about your reasons for posting the second one. "Pre-designed" implies a designer. Evolution (Life) is its own designer. A 'plan' is something it definitely can be said to have, though, just not in the "usually accepted definition" of plans and planning. Its description is something we apply. I don't grasp your meaning here. It does 'look back', though. What does DNA represent? Evolution 'begets' Life. Therefore Life is also evolution (an evolving process). Evolution does not 'emerge' from Life, it's the other way around, viz: "... complex operators or functions, some as old as [E]volution itself, with a complex variable space; many 'variables' are their own complex system, or subsystem. Like a mesh or network, an organisation. This is bound (compelled) by any particular ecological situation, or, what the surface looks like that it's against at the time. Efficiency and its improvement is a goal. It changes its "tune" as the background harmonics change, but it's following an external conductor." [/me]

Phew, for a sec there I thought this one was about a religious group... The strong force is asymptotic. It gets stronger as quarks "try" to leave their bound configuration, so they get "pulled back" (just like in that movie). The force is weakest at very small ranges (inversely asymptotic, I guess). The discovery has to do with scattering experiments and deflection angles. There are some good explanatory articles in earlier SA editions -the 80s-90s ones. Sorry, can't give you any better refs. just now.

There was no 'time' before the Big Bang, there was no 'before', either. The "Big Bang" wasn't an "explosion" like a bomb going off in empty space, because there was no "empty space". There was absolutely nothing (something we have to give a label, because we're simply unable to conceive "nothing" -it has to be "something" so we can "picture" it). Same problem, there was no "where", or "how". Except for some radiation (the CMB), which we can't explain otherwise...

It came from a jokes thread. It isn't anyone's "scientific" opinion or political leaning (well, maybe). Sorry, it arrived in my email without anyone's name on it... -the thread's in the 'watercooler' section. "I would say that part of the reason an individual is, or group of individuals from a group are selected as 'leaders', is due to the group perception that the subset is better at observing and making decisions, possibly. Leadership appears to be something related to the desire to abrogate responsibility, and therefore accept or surrender your individual observational and decisive ability." Can we return to the long and winding (and vague and ambiguous) path about what individual/group authority 'means'? Not that I'm expecting a whole lot of anything in particular...

And you obviously believe that this is what I am doing, based on what looks like a fairly flawed set of logical arguments. Think again. How did you come to this particular packaged conclusion? Care to show an analysis? What paths of logic or conjecture (or opinion) did you use?Obviously, I have failed to grasp this. So why has evolution continued to 'evolve' organisms? Why, once lifeforms existed that satisfy the 'sufficient condition' -ability to reproduce- arrived, didn't it stop, having achieved its purpose? (my attempt to return to the conjecture you made a while back) P.S. This discussion hasn't touched on viral forms of life yet. What sort of purpose do the viri exhibit, and how is this different (or is it different)? P.P.S "virus" is a Latin word -'wiroos'- (how strange...) which means "venom or acrid element".

"Government - agency that comes into power, claiming to solve all society's ills, then refuses to on the grounds it will put them out of a job." -hypography.com

K, time to pull my logic to bits and see if I can glue it back together: "In many ways, belief has been relegated to the realm of religion, to be discussed by priests and pseudo-priests called philosophers, who attempt to describe the meaning and nature of existence in terms devoid of a creative impulse. [Knowing] means we have had experience, we have had whole experience with our sense and therefore we have authority. If you have manifested the ability to ride a bicycle, it can be said that you have developed authority with that skill. You are in knowing with that skill. No one can 'argue you out of that': you will just go and show them that they are incorrect and that get on the bike and ride it. Then they will know that in fact you DO know how to ride a bicycle." -Jay McCormick BELIEVING and KNOWING " * If a judgment is valid for everyone, its ground is objectively sufficient and the holding of it is entitled conviction. * If the ground of a judgment lies in the special character of the subject, it is entitled persuasion. o Persuasion is mere illusion. * Truth depends on agreement with the object. o The judgments of every understanding must be in agreement with each other. * The touchstone whereby we decide whether holding a thing to be true is conviction or persuasion is external. o It must be possible to communicate it and find it valid for all human reason. o There is at least a presumption that the ground of the agreement of all judgments with each other rests upon the object, which proves the truth of the judgment. * Persuasion cannot be subjectively distinguished from conviction. o We have to test validity against the understanding of others. * I cannot assert anything, that is, declare it necessarily valid for everyone, save as it gives rise to conviction. * The holding of a thing to be true has three degrees: o Opining: holding a judgment which is consciously insufficient both subjectively and objectively. o Believing: holding a judgment which is sufficient subjectively but insufficient objectively. o Knowing: holding a judgment which is sufficient both subjectively and objectively. + Subjective sufficiency is termed conviction (for myself). + Objective sufficiency is termed certainty (for everyone). * I must never presume to opine without knowing at least something by means of which the judgment secures connection with truth. o The law of connection must be certain. o Opining is never permissible in judging by means of pure reason or in the principles of morality. * It is only from the practical point of view that the theoretically insufficient holding of a thing to be true can be termed believing. o The subjective grounds upon which we may hold something to be true are not permissible in speculative questions. o The practical point of view is either in reference to: + Skill which is concerned with optional and contingent ends. + Morality which is concerned with absolutely necessary ends. * Once an end is accepted, the conditions of its attainment are hypothetically necessary. o It is sufficient if I know with certainty that no one can have any knowledge of any other conditions which lead to the proposed end. o Contingent belief, which yet forms the ground for the actual employment of means to certain actions is entitled pragmatic belief. o Pragmatic belief always exists in some specific degree according to the interests at stake. * In purely theoretical judgments there is an analogon of practical judgments to which the term belief is appropriate and which we may entitle doctrinal belief. o This is when we are dealing with an object about which nothing can be done by us and in regard to which our judgment is therefore purely theoretical. We may regard ourselves of having sufficient grounds but there is no existing means of arriving at certainty. o The doctrine of the existence of God is a doctrinal belief. o Doctrinal belief is unstable; we often lose hold of it, owing to the speculative difficulties which we encounter, although in the end we always return to it. * With Moral Belief it is absolutely necessary that something must happen. o The end is completely established. o There is only one possible condition under which this end can connect with all other ends and thereby have practical validity, namely that there be a God and a future world." -Immanuel Kant Critique of Pure Reason Hmm, looks like this Kant dude might have done a bit of thinking about this one. So is he saying that belief comes first (i.e. we believe we are able to "know" -to determine the truth or falsity of an assertion or opinion)? How does an infant 'acquire' knowledge; does a newborn believe or know nothing, and has neither science or philosophy? Do these require a 'theory of mind' to develop first?