Evolution quotes: The context of arguments 2 May 2013 105. All testing, all confirmation and disconfirmation of a hypothesis takes place already within a system. And this system is not a more or less arbitrary and doubtful point of departure for all our arguments: no, it belongs to the essence of what we call an argument. The system is not so much the point of departure, as the element in which arguments have their life. [Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty] This is Ludwig’s way of discussing the logical context of arguments. Philosophy
Philosophy Burke on Definition 25 May 2009 I was discussing whether science or religion can be defined, when I was reminded of this: No lines can be laid down for civil or political wisdom. They are incapable of exact definition. But, though no man can draw a stroke between the confines of day and night, yet light… Read More
Evolution Tautology 6: A resolution 3 Sep 200922 Jun 2018 If, as Byerly and Michod think, along with many others such as Brandon (1990), there are two kinds of “fitness”; actual and expected, and only with actual fitness is there any possibility of a tautology, we need to work out what expected fitness is. Brandon calls it “adaptedness” proper; a… Read More
Biology Some loose ends – Reductionism and Phylocode 26 Aug 201018 Sep 2017 I’ve been asked in the comments to cover two topics, neither of which I want to discuss at length because they are not easy to cover, and because they aren’t the focus of my rather intense monomania right now. They are: Reductionism and Phylocode. Read More
So that is what confabulation is about. I’ll work on it for a month or two. In the meantime I will concentrate on the point of departure – of a portrait Charles Darwin which has yet to wing its way from this Sceptred Isle in your direction.
“Ludwig” has always to me seemed incapable of discussing one topic at a time. Here he drags in approximately one level of metatopic, which for him is a miracle of simplification.