Origenes: “The Emergence of Emergentism: A Play for Two Actors”

_{kairosfocus

December 8, 2022

Intelligent Design}

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The stage is in darkness, with sombre mood music, then light rises . . .

Origenes, 226 in the Pregnancy thread:

<<Two desperate naturalists in a room.

A: “I feel completely desperate. There is no way we will ever be able to explain life and consciousness.”
B: “I feel the exact same way. The main issue is that we have nothing to work with. All we have is mindless particles in the void obeying mindless regularities. Starting from that, how can we possibly explain life, not to mention personhood, freedom, and rationality? There is simply no way forward.”
A: “Exactly right. Sometimes I feel like such a loser. The other day I heard that current science cannot even explain liquidity.”
B: “What did you just say?”

**POOF**>>

THE END.

Comments

@44 I would agree up to this point: Hume, whom I more than admire, is very close to what is called in Buddhism "the two truths doctrine": there is the conventional reality, in which there are both stable and enduring objects, with synchronic and diachronic identity and definite physical properties and stable and enduring selves, with synchronic and diachronic identity and definite mental properties. But there is also ultimate reality, which has neither objects nor subjects, nothing has identity, and there are no properties. We live in conventional reality, but enlightenment consists partly in understanding that conventional reality is not absolute reality. As my nom de plume suggests, I find skepticism quite fascinating, especially in the demanding version that has become known as the Dilemma of the Criterion. Overcoming it is one of the most -- if not the most -- intellectually demanding problems of Western philosophy. It's been argued that Hegel succeeded, and that Hegel's solution was given a less metaphysically extravagant reformulation by Peirce. I think that's basically right. I don't know how we got off on this tangent. Anyway, back to making sense of emergentism!PyrrhoManiac1_{December 13, 2022
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PM1, of course one can always manufacture an invitation to the grand delusion thesis and say, prove me wrong. The problem is not with the power of assertion it is one of the roots of the hard question nature of philosophy, self-referentiality. We exist, undeniably; by memory and observation, we are going concern entities (of finite lifespan). We are capable of reasoning, and anything that casts hyperskeptical doubt on that is self referential. Which is precisely where we are with this case. The argument would "prove" too much, undermining reason thus the arguer from Hume forward to Popper et al. Skepticism, especially in hyper forms, of course, is an inferior good substitute for due prudence. Which last would reply, any claim that asserts, implies or opens the door to grand delusion may be set aside as self referentially absurd thus self defeating. There is no reason to dismiss distinct identity (foundational to logic), or the stability or continuity of beings with core characteristics. In that context, it is unsurprising to see patterns that are sufficiently consistent to be taken as marks of such characteristics. For instance, in human computer arithmetic techniques, patterns of results from adding, multiplying etc are taken advantage of to greatly speed up and enhance reliability of arithmetic results. That is how my late dad, was able to add three columns of decimal digits to any length, with sufficient speed and reliability that he would habitually mentally cross check calculators. Similarly, there is no good reason to arbitrarily doubt the reliability of the day-night cycle, the seasons, that unsupported heavy objects near Earth's surface fall at 9.8 N/kg initial acceleration, that this lets us weigh the Earth, or that Stars fall into the Hertzsprung-Russell pattern, etc. Yes, we cannot prove to arbitrarily high absoluteness, but we cannot live by such hyperskepticism. We cannot presume food and water poison unless absolutely proved otherwise, and much more. And even the concept poison implies stable characteristics. KFkairosfocus_{December 13, 2022
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@34 The paper by Dykes is clearly argued and it suggests that Popper's critical rationalism depends upon assumptions he inherits from Hume and from Kant. And I agree with Dykes that those assumptions are questionable -- if one were to reject those starting-points, Popper's critical rationalism is much harder to defend. But, Dykes doesn't do much to justify his preferred starting-point, either. I agree with Dykes that if one assumes an ontology in which there are things with essences and those things endure over time, then Hume's riddle of induction just disappears. Hume's riddle of induction depends upon an ontology of separate, discrete events, where all connections between them are only psychological projections. (Kant basically shares the same underlying ontology of sense-impressions: they are separate unconnected events and all connections between them are a result of the mind imposing order on sensory chaos.) That said, I don't share Dykes's assurance that it's just obvious that a thing-ontology is true and an event-ontology is false. I think that one would still need an argument for why we ought to prefer an ontology of things over an ontology of events, and then use that to motivate a critique of Hume and Kant. I'm no expert on Popper, so I'll leave aside whether Dykes is right to say that Popper depends on Hume and Kant. But for a counter-point to Dykes, I did find this: A Refutation of Nicholas Dykes on Karl Popper. Might be worth your time. I suspect that Dykes misses Popper's point when he says that Marxism and psychoanalysis were not irrefutable but were decisively refuted (pp 12-13). When Popper says that Marxism and psychoanalysis are pseudosciences, he's talking about the attitude held by the advocates of those doctrines. As Popper sees it, the real problem with Marxists and Freudians is that they are unable to imagine ever being wrong. That is, for Popper, the opposite of the proper scientific attitude: a scientist is always inviting reality to prove them wrong, and will do everything they can do discard their own favorite hypotheses. It's surely no inconsistency for Popper to have held that Marxism was at one point a science because Marxists had regarded their hypotheses as tentative conjectures that could be tested against reality, and that Marxism ceased to be a science when the propositions of Marx and Engels became self-confirming dogma.PyrrhoManiac1_{December 12, 2022
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Seversky@ // follow-up #39
If it were found to be possible for self-awareness to emerge from a sufficiently complex computer simulation then it might be possible that we are no more than avatars running on some vast cosmic computational system. In that case, how “real” can we say that “I” is? How certain is our “knowledge” of self?

Ori: One would still be unable to doubt one’s existence. Nothing can change that.
Cogito, “I do something, therefore, I exist”, cannot be doubted, but it does not provide us with a defined knowledge of “I” and/or existence. Surely, “what is consciousness?”, “what is being?” are still questions to be answered. So, does one know what one is talking about when one concludes “I exist”? Perhaps that is your larger point here. I would say that Descartes’ argument functions because the terms it uses are general, “wide enough” to encompass all possible coherent definitions of “I” and “existence.” Whatever “I” precisely is, whatever “do something” precisely is, whatever “existence” precisely is, the argument holds. The terms are like icebergs and although we cannot see the (larger) parts below the water line, we still know that we must be right.Origenes_{December 12, 2022
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Sev:
what Popper is claiming is that, while we can have greater confidence in the truth of some propositions rather than others, in no case does that confidence rise to a justifiable level of absolute certainty
Thus, self referential and self defeating. What is warranted is to claim that weak sense knowledge, though tested and reliable, is in principle generally defeasible. That is, it is an act of supported belief. However, there are some things that are utterly certain, especially the self evident. It is also warranted to say, we have had many things once widely thought to be pretty certain knowledge, corrected. Newtonian dynamics is case no 1. We walk by faith and not by sight, indeed. KFkairosfocus_{December 12, 2022
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PM1:
But Popper thinks that that’s how inductive reasoning works, in the following way. The inductivist is someone who reasons: 1. If hypothesis H were true, then observation O would follow. 2. We observe O. 3. Therefore, H is true. Popper thinks that the inductivist is making a logically invalid argument because the two argument schemas are the same.
This is actually a strawman on Newton (and Locke etc). Here is Newton in Opticks, Query 31.
As in Mathematicks, so in Natural Philosophy, the Investigation of difficult Things by the Method of Analysis, ought ever to precede the Method of Composition. This Analysis consists in making Experiments and Observations, and in drawing general Conclusions from them by Induction, and admitting of no Objections against the Conclusions, but such as are taken from Experiments, or other certain Truths. For [speculative, empirically ungrounded] Hypotheses are not to be regarded in experimental Philosophy. And although the arguing from Experiments and Observations by Induction be no Demonstration of general Conclusions; yet it is the best way of arguing which the Nature of Things admits of, and may be looked upon as so much the stronger, by how much the Induction is more general. And if no Exception occur from Phaenomena, the Conclusion may be pronounced generally. But if at any time afterwards any Exception shall occur from Experiments, it may then begin to be pronounced with such Exceptions as occur. [--> this for instance speaks to how Newtonian Dynamics works well for the large, slow moving bodies case, but is now limited by relativity and quantum findings] By this way of Analysis we may proceed from Compounds to Ingredients, and from Motions to the Forces producing them; and in general, from Effects to their Causes, and from particular Causes to more general ones, till the Argument end in the most general. This is the Method of Analysis: And the Synthesis consists in assuming the Causes discover'd, and establish'd as Principles, and by them explaining the Phaenomena proceeding from them, and proving [= testing, the older sense of "prove" . . . i.e. he anticipates Lakatos on progressive vs degenerative research programmes and the pivotal importance of predictive success of the dynamic models in our theories in establishing empirical reliability, thus trustworthiness and utility] the Explanations. [Newton in Opticks, 1704, Query 31, emphases and notes added]
It is better to see this as an argument on empirical support, backed by observed reliability, driven by the underlying thesis of a generally orderly, in key part intelligible world. That, as you know, comes from the Judaeo-Christian worldview that God holds all things together by his word of power. Hence, laws of nature. Obviously, Newton and others are open to correction and recognise that results are subject to such further observations. Warrant, to be knowledge in the commonly used sense, does not have to be certain, just well founded and reliable. I have described this as weak form/sense knowledge. The kind we have from history, courts, serious news reporting, medicine, common sense, science. Warranted, credibly true (and so, reliable) belief. Knowledge, after all, is a term from ordinary usage, and it is a common, widespread phenomenon. The sort of tightened claims I have seen, turn it into a rare phenomenon. That difference is telling, these are distinct phenomena. KF PS, Dallas Willard:
To have knowledge in the dispositional sense—where you know things you are not necessarily thinking about at the time—is to be able to represent something as it is on an adequate basis of thought or experience, not to exclude communications from qualified sources (“authority”). This is the “knowledge” of ordinary life, and it is what you expect of your electrician, auto mechanic, math teacher, and physician. Knowledge is not rare, and it is not esoteric . . . no satisfactory general description of “an adequate basis of thought or experience” has ever been achieved. We are nevertheless able to determine in many specific types of cases that such a basis is or is not present [p.19] . . . . Knowledge, but not mere belief or feeling, generally confers the right to act and to direct action, or even to form and supervise policy. [p. 20] In any area of human activity, knowledge brings certain advantages. Special considerations aside, knowledge authorizes one to act, to direct action, to develop and supervise policy, and to teach. It does so because, as everyone assumes, it enables us to deal more successfully with reality: with what we can count on, have to deal with, or are apt to have bruising encounters with. Knowledge involves ~~assured~~ [--> warranted, credible] truth, and truth in our representations and beliefs is very like accuracy in the sighting mechanism on a gun. If the mechanism is accurately aligned—is “true,” it enables those who use it with care to hit an intended target. [p. 4, Dallas Willard & Literary Heirs, The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge, Routledge|Taylor& Francis Group, 2018. ]
kairosfocus_{December 12, 2022
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Seversky, 36@
If it were found to be possible for self-awareness to emerge from a sufficiently complex computer simulation then it might be possible that we are no more than avatars running on some vast cosmic computational system. In that case, how “real” can we say that “I” is? How certain is our “knowledge” of self?
One would still be unable to doubt one’s existence. Nothing can change that. A question for you: Suppose your scenario, suppose that one day a computer acts on its own accord. Suppose it creates new code that cannot be traced back to a programmer. What would be the materialistic/physical explanation for that? What would be identified as the physical source of the new code?Origenes_{December 11, 2022
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Seversky:
In effect, what Popper is claiming is that, while we can have greater confidence in the truth of some propositions rather than others, in no case does that confidence rise to a justifiable level of absolute certainty.
So, Seversky, you are saying: “we cannot be certain about any proposition”, right? It seems to mean the same thing as Popper’s “all knowledge remains conjectural.” Here we go again: 1. We cannot be certain about any proposition. 2. [“We cannot be certain about any proposition”] is a proposition (universal & affirmative BTW). 3. We cannot be certain about [“We cannot be certain about any proposition”]. - - - - These attempts come awfully close to the mother of all self-contradictory statements: "true statements do not exist" or "truth does not exist." One is well-advised to stay as far away as possible from that whopper.Origenes_{December 11, 2022
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Origenes/34
Popper’s central thesis and it is obviously self-referentially incoherent, but if you cannot decide for yourself, don’t take it from me, here is N. Dykes:
More pointedly, the proposition “all knowledge remains conjectural” is a contradiction in terms. The objection gathers strength when one notices that Popper’s proposition is itself not conjectural. Universal and affirmative, it states that “All knowledge remains conjectural” – which is a claim to knowledge. The proposition thus asserts what it denies and is self-contradictory on a second count. [Nicholas Dykes, ‘Debunking Popper: A. Critique of Karl Popper’s Critical Rationalism’.]

Does Popper specifically exclude his own proposition? If not then the claim that all knowledge is conjectural can include itself without raising a contradiction. In effect, what Popper is claiming is that, while we can have greater confidence in the truth of some propositions rather than others, in no case does that confidence rise to a justifiable level of absolute certainty.Seversky_{December 11, 2022
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Origenes/29
There is but one thing which cannot possibly be an illusion: the “I”
If it were found to be possible for self-awareness to emerge from a sufficiently complex computer simulation then it might be possible that we are no more than avatars running on some vast cosmic computational system. In that case, how "real" can we say that "I" is? How certain is our "knowledge" of self?Seversky_{December 11, 2022
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Follow-up #34
: "The quest for certainty.. . is mistaken .... though we may seek for truth ... we can never be quite certain that we have found it" (OSE2 375). "No particular theory may ever be regarded as absolutely certain .... No scientific theory is sacrosanct ..." (OKN 360). "Precision and certainty are false ideals. They are impossible to attain and therefore dangerously misleading ..." (UNQ 24). He summed up with an oft repeated aphorism: "We never know what we are talking about" (UNQ 27). Accordingly, Popper refused to grant any philosophical value to definitions: "Definitions do not play any very important part in science .... Our 'scientific knowledge' ... remains entirely unaffected if we eliminate all definitions" (OSE2 14). "Definitions never give any factual knowledge about 'nature' or about the 'nature of things"' (C&R 20-21). "Definitions .... are never really needed, and rarely of any use" (RASC xxxvi).
Origenes_{December 10, 2022
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PM1 @
I don’t think there’s any danger of self-referential incoherence in Popper.
Don't just assume based on authority. Observe and draw your own conclusions.
Popper: “All knowledge remains conjectural.”
Popper’s central thesis and it is obviously self-referentially incoherent, but if you cannot decide for yourself, don’t take it from me, here is N. Dykes:
More pointedly, the proposition "all knowledge remains conjectural" is a contradiction in terms. The objection gathers strength when one notices that Popper's proposition is itself not conjectural. Universal and affirmative, it states that "All knowledge remains conjectural" - which is a claim to knowledge. The proposition thus asserts what it denies and is self-contradictory on a second count. [Nicholas Dykes, ‘Debunking Popper: A. Critique of Karl Popper's Critical Rationalism’.]
More self-referentially incoherent stuff from Popper :
"The way in which knowledge progresses, and especially our scientific knowledge, is by unjustified (and unjustifiable) anticipations, by guesses, by tentative solutions to our problems, by conjectures. These conjectures are controlled by criticism; that is, by attempted refutations, which include severely critical tests. They may survive these tests; but they can never be positively justified: they can be established neither as certainly true nor even as 'probable' ..." (C&R vii). Elsewhere, Popper put the matter more succinctly: "all knowledge is hypothetical" (OKN 30) or "All knowledge remains ... conjectural" (RASC xxxv); and it is in the form 'all knowledge is conjectural' that the essence of his philosophy has been captured - and has influenced others."
Origenes_{December 10, 2022
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Well PM1, I don't blame you for backtracking on your quoted statement, and now claiming you are an atheistic naturalist who endorses agent causation. (after all, It is par for the course for atheists to believe in contradictory things, indeed an atheist must believe in contradictory things if he is to live his life with any semblance of sanity),
The Heretic – Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him? – March 25, 2013 Excerpt: ,,,Fortunately, materialism is never translated into life as it’s lived. As colleagues and friends, husbands and mothers, wives and fathers, sons and daughters, materialists never put their money where their mouth is. Nobody thinks his daughter is just molecules in motion and nothing but; nobody thinks the Holocaust was evil, but only in a relative, provisional sense. A materialist who lived his life according to his professed convictions—understanding himself to have no moral agency at all, seeing his friends and enemies and family as genetically determined robots—wouldn’t just be a materialist: He’d be a psychopath. https://www.sott.net/article/260160-The-Heretic-Who-is-Thomas-Nagel-and-why-are-so-many-of-his-fellow-academics-condemning-him
But alas, the only way atheistic naturalism can be made compatible with agent causation, and/or free will, is if Baron Munchausen really does have the ability to pulls himself free out of a swamp by his own pigtail. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pull_oneself_up_by_one%27s_bootstraps i.e. It just ain't gonna happen no matter how much you may hope/imagine, it to happen. You are simply up to your neck in the swampy morass of insane atheistic metaphysics and no amount of pulling on your own pigtail is ever going to free you from catastrophic epistemological failure inherent therein. Of supplemental note, even leading atheists have honestly admitted that it is impossible for them to live their lives as if they do not have free will,
Darwin’s Robots: When Evolutionary Materialists Admit that Their Own Worldview Fails – Nancy Pearcey – April 23, 2015 Excerpt: Even materialists often admit that, in practice, it is impossible for humans to live any other way. One philosopher jokes that if people deny free will, then when ordering at a restaurant they should say, “Just bring me whatever the laws of nature have determined I will get.” An especially clear example is Galen Strawson, a philosopher who states with great bravado, “The impossibility of free will … can be proved with complete certainty.” Yet in an interview, Strawson admits that, in practice, no one accepts his deterministic view. “To be honest, I can’t really accept it myself,” he says. “I can’t really live with this fact from day to day. Can you, really?”,,, In What Science Offers the Humanities, Edward Slingerland, identifies himself as an unabashed materialist and reductionist. Slingerland argues that Darwinian materialism leads logically to the conclusion that humans are robots — that our sense of having a will or self or consciousness is an illusion. Yet, he admits, it is an illusion we find impossible to shake. No one “can help acting like and at some level really feeling that he or she is free.” We are “constitutionally incapable of experiencing ourselves and other conspecifics [humans] as robots.” One section in his book is even titled “We Are Robots Designed Not to Believe That We Are Robots.”,,, When I teach these concepts in the classroom, an example my students find especially poignant is Flesh and Machines by Rodney Brooks, professor emeritus at MIT. Brooks writes that a human being is nothing but a machine — a “big bag of skin full of biomolecules” interacting by the laws of physics and chemistry. In ordinary life, of course, it is difficult to actually see people that way. But, he says, “When I look at my children, I can, when I force myself, … see that they are machines.” Is that how he treats them, though? Of course not: “That is not how I treat them…. I interact with them on an entirely different level. They have my unconditional love, the furthest one might be able to get from rational analysis.” Certainly if what counts as “rational” is a materialist worldview in which humans are machines, then loving your children is irrational. It has no basis within Brooks’s worldview. It sticks out of his box. How does he reconcile such a heart-wrenching cognitive dissonance? He doesn’t. Brooks ends by saying, “I maintain two sets of inconsistent beliefs.” He has given up on any attempt to reconcile his theory with his experience. He has abandoned all hope for a unified, logically consistent worldview. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/04/when_evolutiona095451.html
bornagain77_{December 10, 2022
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@31
Why in blue blazes should anyone take you seriously PM1? You are not in control of what you are saying!
Of course I'm in control of what I'm saying, especially when writing, when one has the luxury of erasing and rewriting an inapposite turn of phrase. And control of what one says is exactly what I asserted we do have, as you would know if you were follow a line of thought beyond a single quotable sentence. Self-control consists precisely in the ability to decide whether or not to say what one thinks, and if so, how to say it -- as well as in the ability to decide whether or not to act on one's desires, and if so, how to do so. I know it's quite crucial to your worldview that naturalists cannot endorse agent causation, but since I am a naturalist who does endorse agent causation (see here), you might consider whether you understand naturalism as well as you think you do.PyrrhoManiac1_{December 10, 2022
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"I don’t think there’s any danger of self-referential incoherence in Popper." Boldly proclaims the person who also claims that he has no control over his own thoughts
Origenes: “Does rationality require a person who is in control of his thoughts?” PM1: “No, I don’t think so.” https://uncommondescent.com/mind/the-thought-that-stops-thought/#comment-771074 also see Origenes response to PMI at post 72 of the same thread
i.e. Why in blue blazes should anyone take you seriously PM1? You are not in control of what you are saying! :)bornagain77_{December 10, 2022
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@19
My concern with this is that Popper’s claim is itself well within the realm of science. IOW the claim itself is a scientific theory/hypothesis.
I don't think there's any danger of self-referential incoherence in Popper. He is making claims about science, not making a scientific claim. (Which is not to say that scientists themselves can't or don't also make claims about science.) There are some good reasons for rejecting Popper's philosophy of science (as Bornagain77 notes with his remarks about the importance of induction in scientific practice), but I don't think that the allegation of self-referential incoherence is one of them. What I like in Popper is his admiration for the epistemic virtues of good scientific practice: creativity, tenacity, a willingness to allow the universe to prove that you are mistaken about your most cherished beliefs. I just think he was mistaken to reject the importance of induction. He took Hume's problem of induction too seriously. Rather, I think that good scientific practice requires an interdependence between abduction, deduction, and induction: abduction for recognizing the explanatory role that a hypothesis needs to play, deduction for testing those hypotheses as rigorously as possible, and induction for determining the degree to which to the data confirm the hypothesis. A bit off-topic, but some of you might be interested in this book about how we came up with the very idea of such a thing as "the scientific method". A major figure in this history is William Whewell, a British polymath who coined, among other words, the English word "scientist". (Prior to this, scientists were called "men of science" or "natural philosophers.")PyrrhoManiac1_{December 10, 2022
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Bornagain @28, Alan Fox
I know that you exist as a real person, and you most definitely know that you exist as a real person. In fact, the fact that you really do exist as a real person is the most certain thing that you can possibly know about reality, (Descartes).
One’s existence must necessarily be one’s most certain truth. For any person, the existence of “I” cannot be doubted in principle, precisely because, there is no position a person can occupy independent from “I”. The “I” is no object between objects. Everything external to the “I” can be doubted, without being self-referentially incoherent. Life on earth can be thought of as an “illusion”; a dream. One cannot draw a circle around “I” and proceed with arrogating oneself a position outside the circle and judge the existence of “I”. There is no outside of the circle, one does not have an ontological right to assume a position independent of the “I”. Everything external to the “I” can be doubted, without being self-referentially incoherent. To think that solipsism is true is anything but self-referentially incoherent. Life on earth can be coherently thought of as an illusion, it could be part of a dream. There is but one thing which cannot possibly be an illusion: the “I”.
Daniel Dennett: Consciousness is an illusion.

Bill Vallicella: Consciousness cannot be an illusion for the simple reason that we presuppose it when we distinguish between reality and illusion. An illusion is an illusion to consciousness, so that if there were no consciousness there would be no illusions either.
Origenes_{December 10, 2022
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Alan Fox tries to have his cake and eat it to, AF: "I’ve just checked and I’m alive and well, comfortably ensconced in my self-designed and constructed niche." I know that you exist as a real person, and you most definitely know that you exist as a real person. In fact, the fact that you really do exist as a real person is the most certain thing that you can possibly know about reality, (Descartes). But alas, your worldview of Atheistic Naturalism itself is what cannot possibly ground your existence as a real person. Much less, since Atheistic Naturalism denies the existence of agent causality, and/or free will, can your Atheistic worldview possibly ground you 'self-designing' your own "constructed niche". i.e. Your beef is with your Atheistic worldview, not with me. I know that you exist and that you, as a causal agent, bring about 'intelligent' effects in the world that have no possible naturalistic explanation. Every single sentence that you write is undeniable evidence that you are a real person who, via your free will, brings about real, and intelligent, effects in the world.
(1.) I do something. (2.) A thing that does not exist cannot do something —— from nothing nothing comes. From (1.) and (2.) (3.) I exist https://uncommondescent.com/cosmology/from-iai-news-how-infinity-threatens-cosmology/#comment-766606
You can try, and indeed you have tried, to trivially rationalize, and/or 'hand-wave', these fatal problems away as if they are no big deal for your worldview of Atheistic Naturalism, yet these 'problems', no matter how much you may try to ignore them, and/or rationalize them away, are catastrophically fatal for your worldview. And if you are to maintain a shred of intellectual honesty, even a shred of intellectual sanity, you are forced, (indeed you should be more than willing), to give up the sheer insanity inherent in your 'chosen' worldview of Atheistic Naturalism and adopt a worldview that can reasonably, and sanely, ground your existence as a real person who brings about real effects in the world. i.e. Ground your existence as a real person who, via their free will and/or agent causality, has the capacity to bring about about real, and intelligent, effects in the world. Might I suggest Judeo-Christian Theism as an alternate, and sane, worldview that can ground your existence as a real person who, via your free will, brings about real, and intelligent, effects in the world?
Comprehensibility of the world Excerpt: ,,, Bottom line: without an absolute Truth (i.e. God), (there would be) no logic, no mathematics, no beings, no knowledge by beings, no science, no comprehensibility of the world whatsoever. https://uncommondescent.com/mathematics/comprehensibility-of-the-world/ The Great Debate: Does God Exist? - Justin Holcomb - audio of the 1985 Greg Bahnsen debate available at the bottom of the site Excerpt: When we go to look at the different world views that atheists and theists have, I suggest we can prove the existence of God from the impossibility of the contrary. The transcendental proof for God’s existence is that without Him it is impossible to prove anything. The atheist worldview is irrational and cannot consistently provide the preconditions of intelligible experience, science, logic, or morality. The atheist worldview cannot allow for laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, the ability for the mind to understand the world, and moral absolutes. In that sense the atheist worldview cannot account for our debate tonight.,,, http://justinholcomb.com/2012/01/17/the-great-debate-does-god-exist/
Verse:
Genesis 2:7 Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person. “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” George MacDonald - Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood - 1892 “It is because we, (as souls), have a faculty of (immaterial) mind that we are capable of having concepts, thoughts, beliefs,,, things like that.”,,, – J.P. Moreland – Is the Soul Immortal? https://youtu.be/QzbdT0GxAdk?t=209
bornagain77_{December 10, 2022
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Phil asked previously:
So AF holds that the ‘niche”, not AF himself, is responsible for the information that he himself is writing in his posts?
To which I replied: Yes, sort of, though I don’t know... To help Phil, let me expand. I don't know how life got started on this planet, but I am convinced all existant and extinct life we know of share a common ancestor. The adaptation to available niches led to the diversity of life and to the appearance of humans. Of course I don't know every detail of the process. Nor do I know how tightly we are bound by our physical make-up that makes us human. I reject strict determinance and I am convinced humans have the constrained ability to make choices. Part of that constraint stems from our physical make-up such as our cognitive capacity which are products of an evolutionary pathway. Hence "sort of".Alan Fox_{December 10, 2022
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Another startling conclusion from the science of consciousness is that the intuitive feeling we have that there’s an executive “I” that sits in a control room of our brain, scanning the screens of the senses and pushing the buttons of the muscles, is an illusion.
Does Phil agree with Stephen Pinker? Startling? More like obvious, I would say.Alan Fox_{December 10, 2022
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@ Phil I've just checked and I'm alive and well, comfortably ensconced in my self-designed and constructed niche.Alan Fox_{December 10, 2022
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AF: "One more data point for my hypothesis." Correction, one more data point for your "niche's" hypothesis.
BA77: “So AF holds that the ‘niche”, not AF himself, is responsible for the information that he himself is writing in his posts?” Alan Fox: “Yes, sort of, though I don’t know,,,” https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-evolution-news-for-darwinism-pregnancy-is-the-mother-of-all-chicken-and-egg-problems/#comment-771084
In other news, AF's 'niche' also holds to the hypothesis that Alan Fox does not actually exist as a real person, but that AF is merely a 'neuronal illusion'. (Which is, needless to say, bad news for Alan Fox).
The Confidence of Jerry Coyne – Ross Douthat – January 6, 2014 Excerpt: But then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession (by Coyne) that yes, okay, it’s quite possible given materialist premises that “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” At which point the entire edifice suddenly looks terribly wobbly — because who, exactly, is doing all of this forging and shaping and purpose-creating if Jerry Coyne, as I understand him (and I assume he understands himself) quite possibly does not actually exist at all? The theme of his argument is the crucial importance of human agency under eliminative materialism, but if under materialist premises the actual agent is quite possibly a fiction, then who exactly is this I who “reads” and “learns” and “teaches,” and why in the universe’s name should my illusory self believe Coyne’s bold proclamation that his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” and worthy of devotion and pursuit? (Let alone that they’re morally significant: But more on that below.) Prometheus cannot be at once unbound and unreal; the human will cannot be simultaneously triumphant and imaginary. https://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-confidence-of-jerry-coyne/?mcubz=3 The Brain: The Mystery of Consciousness – Monday, Jan. 29, 2007 Part II The Illusion Of Control Another startling conclusion from the science of consciousness is that the intuitive feeling we have that there's an executive "I" that sits in a control room of our brain, scanning the screens of the senses and pushing the buttons of the muscles, is an illusion. - Steven Pinker - Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University http://www.academia.edu/2794859/The_Brain_The_Mystery_of_Consciousness
bornagain77_{December 10, 2022
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And having worked in the chemical industry for years, trouble-shooting and fixing various problems in chemical plants...
Another engineer! One more data point for my hypothesis. ;)Alan Fox_{December 10, 2022
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Bornagain77 @ I agree with your analysis. It seems to me that Popper's claim can be paraphrased as: "we can never be certain about anything", which applied to itself is, of course, a full-blown self-referentially incoherent statement. People often wrongly assume they occupy a position independent of what they are talking about. We have both witnessed some extreme examples of this phenomenon in the past couple of days. E.g. how can someone claim that he doesn't **think** that rationality requires control over his thoughts? How does that not lead to a 'self-referentially incoherent experience'? BTW I found one 'Popper-makes-self-referentially-incoherent-statements-post', this one contains just 8 statements; there must be other posts on this subject.Origenes_{December 9, 2022
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Thanks for pointing out Popper's 'philosophical overreach' Origenes. I had an inkling of it, but I did not know just how bad his overreach actually was. As to this one self-refuting claim in particular, “Scientific theories can never be ‘justified’, or verified. (p.317)” [Popper ‘The logic of Scientific Discovery’]
1. Scientific theories can never be ‘justified’, or verified. 2. [“Scientific theories can never be ‘justified’, or verified”] is a scientific theory. From (1) and (2) 3. “Scientific theories can never be ‘justified’, or verified” (is a scientific theory that) can never be ‘justified’, or verified.
And we can even include this following claim from Popper to falsify that preceding claim that he made,, i.e.,,, “In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable: and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.”
“In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable: and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.” – Karl R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery
And from that we get,
1. For a scientific statement to speak about reality it must be experimentally falsifiable. 2 “Scientific theories can never be ‘justified’, or verified" is a scientific statement. 3. Yet “Scientific theories can never be ‘justified’, or verified" can't be experimentally falsified. 4. Therefore, “Scientific theories can never be ‘justified’, or verified" does not speak about reality.
Moreover, the reason I take exception to Popper's blanket claim that "Scientific theories can never be ‘justified’, or verified"" is that Special Relativity, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics have all been through nothing less than 'experimental hell'. And yet those mathematical theories have come through 'experimental hell' unscathed. i.e. Although Herculean experimental efforts have been made trying to find any discrepancy between what the mathematics of those theories predict, and what we experimentally observe, there is simply no discrepancy to be found in the mathematical predictions of the theories and the observations of our experiments. (with the caveat, of course, being, as far as measurement accuracy will allow us to tell)
“Recent experiments have confirmed, to within one part in one hundred million billion (10^17), that the speed of light does not change when an observer is in motion.” Douglas Ell – “Counting To God” – pg. 41 – 2014 Experiment with speeding ions verifies relativistic time dilation to new level of precision - Sept. 19, 2014 Excerpt: A team of researchers,, have conducted an experiment using ions pushed to 40 percent of the speed of light to verify time dilation to a new level of precision.,, the team describes how their experiment was conducted and how it allowed them to validate the time dilation prediction to just a few parts per billion.,,, The experiment allowed for measuring the shift in laser frequencies relative to what the transition frequencies would be for ions that had not been accelerated. By combining the two frequency shifts, uncertainties could be eliminated making it possible to validate time dilation predictions to an order of precision much higher than previous limits,, http://phys.org/news/2014-09-ions-relativistic-dilation-precision.html “When this paper was published (referring to the circa 1970 Hawking, Penrose paper) we could only prove General Relativity’s reliability to 1% precision, today we can prove it to 15 places of decimal.” Hugh Ross PhD. Astrophysics – quote taken from 8:40 mark of the following video debate – Hugh Ross vs Lewis Wolpert – Is there evidence for a Cosmic Creator https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLMrDO0_WvQ Dark energy alternatives to Einstein are running out of room – January 9, 2013 Excerpt: Last month, a group of European astronomers, using a massive radio telescope in Germany, made the most accurate measurement of the proton-to-electron mass ratio ever accomplished and found that there has been no change in the ratio to one part in 10 million at a time when the universe was about half its current age, around 7 billion years ago. When Thompson put this new measurement into his calculations, he found that it excluded almost all of the dark energy models using the commonly expected values or parameters. If the parameter space or range of values is equated to a football field, then almost the whole field is out of bounds except for a single 2-inch by 2-inch patch at one corner of the field. In fact, most of the allowed values are not even on the field. “In effect, the dark energy theories have been playing on the wrong field,” Thompson said. “The 2-inch square does contain the area that corresponds to no change in the fundamental constants, and that is exactly where Einstein stands.” http://phys.org/news/2013-01-dark-energy-alternatives-einstein-room.html Clumped galaxies give General Relativity its toughest test yet – June 24, 2014 Excerpt: Nearly 100 years since Albert Einstein developed General Relativity, the theory has passed its toughest test yet in explaining the properties of observable Universe. The most precise measurements to date of the strength of gravitational interactions between distant galaxies show perfect consistency with General Relativity’s predictions. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140624215938.htm Introduction to The Strange World of Quantum Mechanics Excerpt: quantum mechanics is the most successful theory that humanity has ever developed; the brightest jewel in our intellectual crown. Quantum mechanics underlies our understanding of atoms, molecules, solids, and nuclei. It is vital for explaining aspects of stellar evolution, chemical reactions, and the interaction of light with matter. It underlies the operation of lasers, transistors, magnets, and superconductors. I could cite reams of evidence backing up these assertions, but I will content myself by describing a single measurement. One electron will be stripped away from a helium atom that is exposed to ultraviolet light below a certain wavelength. This threshold wavelength can be determined experimentally to very high accuracy: it is 50.425 929 9 ± 0.000 000 4 nanometers. The threshold wavelength can also be calculated from quantum mechanics: this prediction is 50.425 931 0 ± 0.000 002 0 nanometers. The agreement between observation and quantum mechanics is extraordinary. If you were to predict the distance from New York to Los Angeles with this accuracy, your prediction would be correct to within the width of your hand. In contrast, classical mechanics predicts that any wavelength of light will strip away an electron, that is, that there will be no threshold at all. http://www.oberlin.edu/physics/dstyer/StrangeQM/intro.html Experimental non-classicality of an indivisible quantum system – Zeilinger 2011 Excerpt: Page 491: “This represents a violation of (Leggett’s) inequality (3) by more than 120 standard deviations, demonstrating that no joint probability distribution is capable of describing our results.” The violation also excludes any non-contextual hidden-variable model. The result does, however, agree well with quantum mechanical predictions, as we will show now.,,, https://vcq.quantum.at/fileadmin/Publications/Experimental%20non-classicality%20of%20an%20indivisible.pdf
These are just crazy, almost incomprehensible, levels of experimental verification. To give a glimpse of just how insanely precise the measurement of 120 standard deviations is for 'Leggett's Inequality',,, (which is the main line of experiments from quantum mechanics that have falsified "realism",,, Of note:"realism' is the belief that an objective reality exist apart from our 'measurement and/or observation' of it))
Standard deviation Excerpt: In statistics, the standard deviation (SD) (represented by the Greek letter sigma, ?),,, Particle physics uses a standard of "5 sigma" for the declaration of a discovery.[3] At five-sigma there is only one chance in nearly two million that a random fluctuation would yield the result. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation#Particle_physics SSDD: a 22 sigma event is consistent with the physics of fair coins? - June 23, 2013 Excerpt: So 500 coins heads is (500-250)/11 = 22 standard deviations (22 sigma) from expectation! These numbers are so extreme, it’s probably inappropriate to even use the normal distribution’s approximation of the binomial distribution, and hence “22 sigma” just becomes a figure of speech in this extreme case… https://uncommondescent.com/mathematics/ssdd-a-22-sigma-event-is-consistent-with-the-physics-of-fair-coins/
Again, 120 standard deviations for Leggett's inequality, is just a crazy, almost incomprehensible, level of experimental verification. So thus my objection to Popper's blanket claim, “Scientific theories can never be ‘justified’, or verified" is that, (besides being a self-refuting statement), "by golly, special relativity, general relativity, and quantum mechanics" have all been through 'experimental hell', and their mathematical predictions have been experimentally verified' to insane levels of precision, and therefore we certainly are 'justified' in believing that they are accurate mathematical descriptions of reality.And until someone/anyone, can find any discrepancy in the theories, the belief that we now have, (what I have termed), 'platonically perfect' mathematical descriptions of the universe is a well 'justified' belief.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.
bornagain77_{December 9, 2022
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More Popper:
‘The problem of induction consists in asking for a logical justification of universal statements about reality . . . We recognize, with Hume, that there is no such logical justification: there can be none, simply because they are not genuine statements.’ [p.14 The Logic of Science']
So, Popper is saying: universal statements about reality have no logical justification and are not genuine statements. However, this statement is itself a universal statement about reality. So, It can (again) be applied to itself, and commit suicide. That is, it follows that the statement itself has no logical justification and is not a genuine statement ... For me this is typically Popper, a few years back I found dozens of statements by him to be self-referentially incoherent. I'm quite sure I have posted them on this forum, but I cannot find that particular post.Origenes_{December 9, 2022
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PM1:
From which it follows, as Popper makes very clear, that it is not logically possible to ever confirm a scientific hypotheses. All hypotheses fall into one of three categories: falsified, not yet falsified, and not even falsifiable.
Popper wrote:
“Scientific theories can never be ‘justified’, or verified. (p.317)” [Popper ‘The logic of Scientific Discovery’]
My concern with this is that Popper’s claim is itself well within the realm of science. IOW the claim itself is a scientific theory/hypothesis. So, we can (and must) apply it to itself, thus: 1. Scientific theories can never be ‘justified’, or verified. 2. [“Scientific theories can never be ‘justified’, or verified”] is a scientific theory. From (1) and (2) 3. [“Scientific theories can never be ‘justified’, or verified”] can never be ‘justified’, or verified.Origenes_{December 9, 2022
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PM1, again, your arguments might be far more persuasive to people here on UD if you were actually in control of your thoughts and you had the capacity to think rationally. Again, just a suggestion. Do with the suggestion what you will, (that is if 'you' can will yourself to do differently than what the random jostling of atoms of your brain tell you to do) :) Again, "you', (again assuming "you" exist as a real person and not as a neuronal illusion), are of course, and as usual, wrong. In your example, there is indeed an inductive 'bottom-up' feedback loop of empirical observation, "O", that is given the authority to falsify premise "H" in the deductive argument. "You" saying that, "Making a single observation is not the same as inductive reasoning, which involves generalizing over multiple instances", that claim from you is just a plain, and simple, flat out lie on your part (which is becoming a recurring theme with you), and that lie from you certainly does not negate the fact that a bottom up inductive inference is certainly being made from "O" to falsify the general claim "H".,,, Having multiple instance of empirical observations "O" that, in a 'bottom-up' fashion, falsify the general claim "H" only makes the inductive inference that "H" is false more secure. And indeed, in the real world of empirical science, and for the vast majority of times, it takes multiple instances of "H" being experimentally falsified by "O" to completely invalidate "H" as a claim. And having worked in the chemical industry for years, trouble-shooting and fixing various problems in chemical plants, I can most certainly tell you that 'bottom-up' empirical falsification was our bread and butter for sorting through various possible causes for a problem in order to find the correct cause of the problem and fix it. i.e. We were constantly 'reasoning up', in a 'bottom-up' inductive fashion, from empirical observation in order to sort through various possible causes of a problem in order to eliminate the wrong ones and find the right cause of the problem.bornagain77_{December 9, 2022
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@14
You are, of course, and as usual, wrong. Inductive reasoning is indeed included in the ‘deductive’ feedback loop you’ve indicated. 1. If hypothesis H were the case, that would entail observation O. 2. But we do not observe O. 3. Therefore, H is not the case. i.e. As you yourself indicated in your deductive argument, “bottom up” empirical evidence and/or observation, via step 2, is given ‘inductive’, i.e. ‘bottom-up’, authority to provide feedback and falsify a deductive premise.
Making a single observation is not the same as inductive reasoning, which involves generalizing over multiple instances. Observations must have epistemic authority in order to count as reasons for falsifying a hypothesis, but they aren't premises or conclusions in an inductive argument. (By the way, there's no such thing as a deductive premise or inductive premise: what makes an argument inductive or deductive is the form of the argument, not the content of the individual premises.)PyrrhoManiac1_{December 9, 2022
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Of related note to Atheistic Naturalists denying empirical evidence any ‘inductive feedback’ authority to falsify their premise of atheistic naturalism.
There Is No Settled “Theory of Evolution” - Cornelius Hunter - November 10, 2022 Excerpt: What is evolution? The origin of species by: natural selection, random causes, common descent, gradualism, etc. Right? Wrong. Too often that is what is taught, but it is false. That’s according to evolutionists themselves. A typical example? See, “The study of evolution is fracturing — and that may be a good thing,” by Lund University biologist Erik Svensson, writing at The Conversation. Evolutionists themselves can forfeit natural selection, random causes, common descent, etc. How do I know? Because it is in the literature. So, what is evolution? In other words, what is core to the theory — and not forfeitable? It’s naturalism. Period. That is the only thing required of evolutionary theory. And naturalism is a religious requirement, not a scientific one. Aside from naturalism, practically anything is fair game: Uncanny convergence, rapid divergence, lineage-specific biology, evolution of evolution, directed mutations, saltationism, unlikely simultaneous mutations, just-so stories, multiverses … the list goes on. But this is where it gets interesting. Because if you have two theories, you don’t have one theory. In other words, you have a multitude of contradictory theories. And you have heated debates because nothing seems to fit the data. In science, that is not a good sign. But it is exactly what evolutionists have had — for over a century now. There is no such thing as a settled theory of evolution. On that point, textbook orthodoxy is simply false. - Dr. Cornelius Hunter - PhD. Biophysics https://evolutionnews.org/2022/11/there-is-no-settled-theory-of-evolution/ "Being an evolutionist means there is no bad news. If new species appear abruptly in the fossil record, that just means evolution operates in spurts. If species then persist for eons with little modification, that just means evolution takes long breaks. If clever mechanisms are discovered in biology, that just means evolution is smarter than we imagined. If strikingly similar designs are found in distant species, that just means evolution repeats itself. If significant differences are found in allied species, that just means evolution sometimes introduces new designs rapidly. If no likely mechanism can be found for the large-scale change evolution requires, that just means evolution is mysterious. If adaptation responds to environmental signals, that just means evolution has more foresight than was thought. If major predictions of evolution are found to be false, that just means evolution is more complex than we thought." ~ Cornelius Hunter
Here are a few falsifications of Darwin's theory that Darwinists simply ignore as if they do not matter,
1. Darwin’s theory holds mutations to the genome to be random. The vast majority of mutations to the genome are not random but are now found to be ‘directed’. 2. Darwin’s theory holds that Natural Selection is the ‘designer substitute’ that produces the ‘appearance’ and/or illusion of design. Natural Selection, especially for multicellular organisms, is found to be grossly inadequate as the ‘designer substitute. 3. Darwin’s theory holds that mutations to DNA will eventually change the basic biological form of any given species into a new form of a brand new species. Yet, biological form is found to be irreducible to mutations to DNA, nor is biological form reducible to any other material particulars in biology one may wish to invoke. 4. Darwin’s theory, (via Fisher’s Theorem in population genetics), assumed there to be an equal proportion of good and bad mutations to DNA which were, ultimately, responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. Yet, the ratio of detrimental to beneficial mutations is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever. 5. Charles Darwin himself held that the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Yet, from the Cambrian Explosion onward, the fossil record is consistently characterized by the sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record, (i.e. disparity), then rapid diversity within the group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. Moreover, Fossils are found in the “wrong place” all the time (either too early, or too late). 6. Darwin’s theory, due to the randomness postulate, holds that patterns will not repeat themselves in supposedly widely divergent species. Yet thousands of instances of what is ironically called ‘convergent evolution’, on both the morphological and genetic level, falsifies the Darwinian belief that patterns will not repeat themselves in widely divergent species. 7. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Yet as Doug Axe pointed out, “Basically every gene and every new protein fold, there is nothing of significance that we can show that can be had in that gradualistic way. It’s all a mirage. None of it happens that way.” 8. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.” Yet as Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig pointed out, “in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as modern versions of it.” 9. Charles Darwin himself stated that, ““The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God. Yet ‘our conscious selves’ are certainly not explainable by ‘chance’ (nor is consciousness explainable by any possible reductive materialistic explanation in general), i.e. ‘the hard problem of consciousness’. 10. Besides the mathematics of probability consistently showing that Darwinian evolution is impossible, the mathematics of population genetics itself has now shown Darwinian evolution to be impossible. Moreover, ‘immaterial’ mathematics itself, which undergirds all of science, engineering and technology, is held by most mathematicians to exist in some timeless, unchanging, immaterial, Platonic realm. Yet, the reductive materialism that Darwinian theory is based upon denies the existence of the immaterial realm that mathematics exists in. i.e. Darwinian evolution actually denies the objective reality of the one thing, i.e. mathematics, that it most needs in order to be considered scientific in the first place! 11. Donald Hoffman has, via population genetics, shown that if Darwin’s materialistic theory were true then all our observations of reality would be illusory. Yet the scientific method itself is based on reliable observation. Moreover, Quantum Mechanics itself has now shown that conscious observation must come before material reality, i.e. falsification of ‘realism’ proves that our conscious observations are reliable!. 12. The reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian thought holds that immaterial information is merely ’emergent’ from a material basis. Yet immaterial Information, via experimental realization of the “Maxwell’s Demon” thought experiment, is now found to be its own distinctive physical entity that, although it can interact in a ‘top down’ manner with matter and energy, is separate from matter and energy. 13. Darwinists hold that Darwin’s theory is true. Yet ‘Truth’ itself is an abstract property of an immaterial mind that is irreducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution. i.e. Assuming reductive materialism and/or Naturalism as the starting philosophical position of science actually precludes ‘the truth’ from ever being reached by science! 14. Darwinists, due to their underlying naturalistic philosophy, insist that teleology (i.e. goal directed purpose) does not exist. Yet it is impossible for Biologists to do biological research without constantly invoking words that directly imply teleology. i.e. The very words that Biologists themselves are forced to use when they are doing their research falsifies Darwinian evolution. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I6fT6ATY700Bsx2-JSFqL6l-rzXpMcZcZKZfYRS45h4/edit
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