Housekeeping 24 Feb 2011 So, I’m back online. I have lots of ideas but little to show for them, so instead of saying much, I’ll note that Tam Hunt is continuing his panpsychism at his own blog, and that I remain unconvinced. Also, I think that I can take an aspect of systematics and apply it in a limited manner to the Problem of the Criterion, which is interesting. I may blog this later… I now have the use of an iPad, which is cool, and means I can work while commuting. So this is my first iPaddery… Metaphysics Systematics
Evolution Dreams of memes and replicator machines 7 Aug 2009 Susan Blackmore is a really interesting person. She thinks broadly about many things and her conversation is great fun. But her recent article in New Scientist is less fun and more handwaving, and the reason why is, I think, of the greatest importance to thinking about evolution… replicators. Read More
Metaphysics On hierarchies 29 Jun 200922 Jun 2018 We often make an appeal to hierarchical relations, in social and political discourse, in religion, in metaphysics (or that odd part of it called mereology) and more recently in social behaviour in animals, called ethology. But what we don’t do much is discuss what it is that a hierarchy is,… Read More
Epistemology Does teleology hang on in Venice? 18 Dec 201022 Jun 2018 Here’s an interesting paper, which I haven’t had time to digest, but which I thought I’d better mention before it enters the fog my brain contains these days… It’s by David Depew, one of my favourite philosophical writers on evolution (in no small part because he takes a historical approach… Read More
iPad sounds nice. I just got a new iPod Touch that I like very much. So far, just using it for audio books.
I have a 1st gen Touch which I still think is cool although its showing its age compared with the later generations. I use it for music, videos and the Net when I’m in a WiFi hotspot. It’s a little slow but the screen is really good, although I wouldn’t want to go any smaller, and it handles video really smoothly. Of course, it’s not an iPad…not that I’m jealous or anything…
I now have the use of an iPad, which is cool, and means I can work while commuting. Not on a motorcycle, I trust.
I can’t ride a motorcycle any more. I had to sell the Beast. My neck/ankylosing spondylitis factory can no longer support a helmet.
That’s a bummer, I’m sorry. Years back I had a bike. It was only a little Honda CB175 but it was great fun. In the end, though, it had to go in the interests of a more practical from of transport.
Seems to me that Tam Hunt is confused about the nature of definitions. Statements like “Natural selection = differential reproduction” define the terms. Yes, they’re tautologies. So is the statement “red is a form of light with wavelength 400–484 THz.” The measurement is concrete enough, by why is red 400-484 THz, not 400-500? Well, because 484 to 500 are orange and orange isn’t red. Why not? And so forth. Circular, you might say, or even content free, but that wouldn’t be saying anything useful. Definitions are tautologies that teach us about words and ideas so we can use them well. The idea of natural selection, defined, helps a person ask questions that help us understand the world around us. It explains the standard by which to measure the success or failure of genes and organisms. It helps us frame questions about why animals and plants, etc., are the way they are. Those questions, and their answers, involve very non-tautological matters of color, size, bone lengths or strengths, hairiness, and the million other traits of organisms, and how those variations help or hinder the organisms, in terms of their survival and reproduction, and the reproduction of their close relatives. True, natural selection isn’t the only process by which organisms change — the diverse processes we lump together as “genetic drift” can produce effects we humans can consider wonderfully creative. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of the process we define as natural selection is wonderful. We have no need to look around for vague forces for complexity inherent in all matter. By the way, as a botanist, I find the idea that evolution leads inexorably to increases in perception . . . laughable.