"Conceptual and technological tools developed within computer science are starting to have wide-ranging applications outside the subject in which they originated, especially in sciences investigating complex systems, most notably in biology and chemistry. Indeed, we believe computer science is poised to become as fundamental to biology as mathematics has become to physics. We postulate this because there is a growing awareness among biologists that to understand cells and cellular systems requires viewing them as information processing systems. We believe this is a potential starting point for fundamental new developments in biology, biotechnology and medicine."

From http://research.microsoft.com/...

[p.s. Sorry, this was intended to be posted in a different thread. But it's interesting nevertheless.]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…Hahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Somehow I imagine this maniacal laughter being followed by a coughing fit and the first scotch-and-soda of the day.

Zachriel: So, can we call an apple an "apple" Or does this present a problem for you?

stunney: Haha…

So, can we call an apple an "apple" Or does this present a problem for you?

Nay, not even "objects". Just sensations. All abstractions are mental constructs.

Humans share a large number of experiences and give utterance to those experiences. What is an "apple" but the experience of an apple said out loud; its perceived shape and color, our memory of its sweetness.

We can confirm that others use the same utterance by a process of sharing and learning. Most people learn a basic vocabulary at a very young age.

So, can we call an apple an "apple" Or does this present a problem for you?

Comment by Zachriel "” June 18, 2007 @ 8:17 pm
# keiths Says:
June 18th, 2007 at 10:14 pm |

Raevmo wrote:

Did you know that 8341 is an apocalyptic power? Meaning that 2^8341 contains the consecutive digits 666? It's more than just number-worship, it's devil's worship!

Raevmo's not kidding!

That explains a lot about stunney.

Comment by keiths "” June 18, 2007 @ 10:14 pm
# keiths Says:
June 18th, 2007 at 10:59 pm |

Zachriel replied:

Nay, not even "objects". Just sensations. All abstractions are mental constructs.

Indeed. The objective delimitation of an object is just as much a mental process as the delimitation of a set.

For example, when does a gas molecule diffusing into the skin of an apple become part of the apple?

At what point along the stem does it cease to be part of the apple?

If a person takes a bite of apple, at what point during the digestion process does it become part of her, and no longer a part of the apple?

Nature is no respecter of our arbitrary boundaries.

Stunney, I thought you were a philosophy major. Didn't your profs cover this stuff?

Comment by keiths "” June 18, 2007 @ 10:59 pm

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

:lol::lol::lol:

WHAT a bunch of frickin JOKES!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

:lol::lol::lol:

Apart from minds, all the apples in the world, for instance, are just a lot of individual objects.

Zachriel replied:

Nay, not even "objects". Just sensations. All abstractions are mental constructs.

Indeed. The objective delimitation of an object is just as much a mental process as the delimitation of a set.

For example, when does a gas molecule diffusing into the skin of an apple become part of the apple?

At what point along the stem does it cease to be part of the apple?

If a person takes a bite of apple, at what point during the digestion process does it become part of her, and no longer a part of the apple?

Nature is no respecter of our arbitrary boundaries.

Stunney, I thought you were a philosophy major. Didn't your profs cover this stuff?

Did you know that 8341 is an apocalyptic power? Meaning that 2^8341 contains the consecutive digits 666? It's more than just number-worship, it's devil's worship!

Raevmo's not kidding!

That explains a lot about stunney.

stunney: Apart from minds, all the apples in the world, for instance, are just a lot of individual objects.

Nay, not even "objects". Just sensations. All abstractions are mental constructs.

Humans share a large number of experiences and give utterance to those experiences. What is an "apple" but the experience of an apple said out loud; its perceived shape and color, our memory of its sweetness.

We can confirm that others use the same utterance by a process of sharing and learning. Most people learn a basic vocabulary at a very young age.

So, can we call an apple an "apple" Or does this present a problem for you?

What about an infinitude of particularly wooden personalities? Even if it's not per se a set, it is an infinity. Well, yes. Except that there is no infinitude of particularly wooden personalities. No such infinitude exists. It would be like an infinitude of unicorns, or an infinitude of bright 'brights', or an infinitude of horseshit.

As I've said before, sets are mental contents. They don't exist in some Platonic realm. They exist in minds. For reasons that I have referenced several times before, an ultimate physical theory would have to form an infinite set. But it's hard to make out an intelligible difference between an infinite set ACTUALLY EXISTING and an infinite mind actually existing.

Let me also quote from Plantinga's lecture notes on the Argument from Collections:

Charles Parsons, "What is the Iterative Conception of Set?" in Mathematics in Philosophy pp 268 ff.

Hao Wang, From Mathematics to Philosophy chap. 6: iterative and constructivist (i.e., the basic idea is that sets are somehow constructed and are constructs) conception of set.

Note that on the iterative conception, the elements of a set are in an important sense prior to the set; that is why on this conception no set is a member of itself, and this disarms the Russell paradoxes in the set theoretical form, although of course it does nothing with respect to the property formulation of the paradoxes…

Cantor's definition of set (1895):

By a "set" we understand any collection M into a whole of definite well-distinguished objects of our intuition or our thought (which will be called the "elements" of M) Gesammelte Abhandlungen mathematischen und philosophischen, ed. Ernst Zermelo, Berlin: Springer, 1932 p. 282.

Shoenfield (Mathematical Logic) l967 writes:

A closer examination of the (Russell) paradox shows that it does not really contradict the intuitive notion of a set. According to this notion, a set A is formed by gathering together certain objects to form a single object, which is the set A. Thus before the set A is formed, we must have available all of the objects which are to be members of A. (238)

Wang: "The set is a single object formed by collecting the members together." (238)

Wang: (182)

It is a basic feature of reality that there are many things. When a multitude of given objects can be collected together, we arrive at a set. For example, there are two tables in this room. We are ready to view them as given both separately and as a unity, and justify this by pointing to them or looking at them or thinking about them either one after the other or simultaneously. Somehow the viewing of certain objects together suggests a loose link which ties the objects together in our intuition.

Even if the infinitude of numbers evenly divisible by 8,341 were not necessarily a set, it is still an infinity. According to you, that makes it God. Does your priest approve of your number-worship?

Did you know that 8341 is an apocalyptic power? Meaning that 2^8341 contains the consecutive digits 666? It's more than just number-worship, it's devil's worship!

I'm sure Allen can defend his own comments, but here is how I read them:

Allen_MacNeill: What is becoming abundantly clear is that the vast majority of evolution that has been and is going on is non-adaptive, and therefore irrelevent to ID theory.

This is an important point. Much of evolution is non-adaptive, especially on the molecular level.

Allen_MacNeill: Indeed, this suggests that a major revision of evolutionary theory is currently taking place, a revision that relegates Darwinian evolution (i.e. evolution that produces adaptations via selection) to a relatively minor role compared with the essentially random processes that produce the overwhelming amount of "non-adaptive" genetic code embedded in the genomes of eukaryotes.

Though Allen states that selection is relegated to a "relatively minor role", this is a bit of an overstatement. Turbulent variation and selection are both of critical importance, which Allen makes clear in the next statement.

Allen_MacNeill: Selection doesn't give us a pan-adaptationist biosphere; it is instead apparently the only thing that prevents the random processes that dominate at the level of molecules from tearing the biosphere apart."

Certainly, the only thing holding the biosphere together"”selection"”is important in this depiction of evolution. Evolution is a cauldron rather than a stately progression.

Allen_MacNeill: …at its deepest levels there is only chaos.

By the way, stunney, chaos does not mean random.