John Edser wrote:
Tautologies can be continuously expanded (e.g. mathematics). However
they
only remain rational if they can be deduced from a NON tautology (become
the
subject of an assumed predicate and not the reverse). I consider this is
what Gödel has proven. All of mathematics remains just a tautology which
can
only remain rational if mathematics is entirely deductive from a
predicate
outside of mathematics.

Why not find out what Gödel actually did prove? As an antidote against
the kind of metaphorical rambling you seem to prefer,..

I suggest you
have a look at the late Torkel Franzén's page on the incompleteness
theorems at

http://www.sm.luth.se/~torkel/eget/godel.html

I propose that this predicate is the supposition of the universal set.

Though there are certain marginal set theories with a universal set,
such a set is not a part of ordinary mathematics or set theory.

In any
case, it is difficult to see how the "supposition of the universal set"
is "outside of mathematics".

The
question at issue for this layman is one of whether the
notion of "survival of the fittest" falls into the category
of logical fallacy known as "hoc, ergo proctor hoc."

This issue has been done to death already, IMO:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolphil/tautology.html

--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ tim@tt1lock.org Remove lock to reply.

This issue has been done to death already, IMO:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolphil/tautology.html

That's an incredibly bad article, that needs to be revised and updated.
One day.

JE:-
Tautologies can be continuously expanded (e.g. mathematics). However
they
only remain rational if they can be deduced from a NON tautology
(become
the
subject of an assumed predicate and not the reverse). I consider this
is
what Gödel has proven. All of mathematics remains just a tautology.."

I, too, sense in John's assertions at times some commitments to
metaphors that rest upon postulational eclecticisms different from
my own; and I realize that -- to challenge John on his own
postulatational choices -- is difficult. That is to say, GIVEN his
assumptions, he seems inclined to resort back to them.

But this does not make John so very different from most of the
brightest individuals I have met in all my humble little life. Most
of them seem to me to be inclined to have been inculcated
(acculturated) to accept certain choices of postulates in their lives,
OR to have examined many alternative postulates about this
life, and accommodated their own intuitions about them to the
point of *internalizing* them. That is to say, that they have
arrived at their own unique eclectic of stances and have -- in
their own minds -- substituted them for "givens."

In my own life and thoughts, I strive humbly, sincerely, diligently
to open my mind and to defer to the fact, at least, that other
postulational stances than those I have been "taught" to prefer,
or that I have selected for my own belief system, are not "givens"
but intellectual choices.

This allows me personal intellectual freedom to reach different
conclusions than others reach, and still appreciate their "logical"
conclusions which differ from my own.

At one time in my many decades of living, I was bound up in a
belief that only rigorous postulational thinking, whereby specifically
defined terms, crystal clear unambiguous postulates regarding them,
and precise manipulations of those by logical operations,
constituted the epitome of sound reasoning.

HOWEVER, I found myself unable to apply such definitions to the
real world, unable to be certain which postulates complied with
which material reality precisely, and unable to determine WHICH
formal logic operations apply to the analysis of which actual set of
phenomena in this "reality" where different operations apply to
different scenarios.

The sensory lens (as a generalized metaphor
to encompass all the human so-called direct sensory experiencing,
direct and indirect) does not allow me -- nor anyone -- to have
exhaustive "knowledge" of all the parameters of anything, to
discern all the mechanisms at work in the progress of things I
perceive only in part, nor to know in every case what algorithm
is "the" algorithm playing out in each natural set of phenomena.

We humans are forced to rely upon "informal logic" -- although this
might seem to be an oxymoron if we think of logic as fixed and
inflexible, or otherwise not logical.

As I experience John's views, in many instances, I find I do not
agree with him, but nonetheless can see, in a sense, his wheels
turning. If I allow him in my mind his own postulational stance,
as a set of *GIVENS*, then he is usually "right."

The problem is that I do not concur with some of the postulational
stances John seems to have "internalized" at the very bottom-most
level of his hierarchy of informal logic. That being the case, I
simply read his conclusions reached, and allow myself to be
stimulated to articulate in my own thoughts where some of the
things John seems to perceive to be "GIVENS" are eclectic
assumptions (postulations) to which I believe he is entitled but,
also, which are not "self-evident" nor empirically provable nor
disprovable.

But... I know a few bona fide geniuses who are more set in their
convictions and philosophical commitments even... than John is.

I certainly do see eye to eye with you on the assertion that the
idea of a "universal set," is *UNDEFINED* in any applied
sense.

John Wilkins wrote:-
This issue has been done to death already, IMO:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolphil/tautology.html

That's an incredibly bad article, that needs to be revised and updated.
One day.

JE:-
I agree entirely. Who wrote it, Dr L Moran?

Some undergraduate...

My comments on John S. Wilkins' comment on the article at
link provided by Tim Tyler. (See below.)

Perhaps you might rebut, or rewrite that article, John. I,
for one, would be delighted to read what you would write.

MEANTIME, let me convey that I am surprised no one (yet)
has corrected me on my rather not-quite-right defining of
"fitness" as the *concept* is well-utilized by researchers.

(See in this paragraph.) As you can see, this old layman is
about trying to understand things -- not take intractable
stances. "Fitness," as the term is used in peer-reviewed
writings applies to more than just (as I too narrowly put
it) *having* just survived. It is at least broad enough to
mean "survived and reproduced" and may might ought to
include "survived and reproduced offspring capable, also
of surviving and reproducing, and in sufficient numbers
to maintain their niche in a given ecology."

Does that accord with what some posters who are actually
in research, and actually have written papers for peer-review
would include, and not exclude, as covering your usage of it?

g
g wrote:
And, as far as
the term "fitness" having a pragmatic value in research,
there is no question of it. "Fitness" is the quality of
*having* survived. That is not the question at issue. The
question at issue for this layman is one of whether the
notion of "survival of the fittest" falls into the category
of logical fallacy known as "hoc, ergo proctor hoc."

This issue has been done to death already, IMO:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolphil/tautology.html

That's an incredibly bad article, that needs to be revised and updated.
One day.

--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."

Why not find out what Gödel actually did prove? As an antidote against
the kind of metaphorical rambling you seem to prefer, I suggest you
have a look at the late Torkel Franzén's page on the incompleteness
theorems at
http://www.sm.luth.se/~torkel/eget/godel.html

Damn! I miss Torkel (he died recently). We will not have another like
him for some time. When people spewed nonsense about Goedel's results,
Torkel would come down upon then like the Avenging Angel of Mathematical
Logic.

Tim Tyler <seemysig@cyberspace.org> wrote:
g wrote:

Sometimes this layman ponders evolutionary mechanisms in the abstract.

Let me explain.

We are all too familiar with the wide-spread popular notion
of "survival of the fittest." As this layman has submitted
previously (and shall not beat the drum again here), he
discerns that the expression "survival of the fittest" is
at worst a begging of a circular logic, wherein that which
is most fit survives, and the way we know -- therefore --
what species or individual is most fit? Because it's still
here.

But, again, that is at its worst. And this layman, liking
to look at all the various sides of any idea, does not wish
to bog down in any logically circular cul de sac, but
wishes to see as much sense as can be seen. And, as far as
the term "fitness" having a pragmatic value in research,
there is no question of it. "Fitness" is the quality of
*having* survived. That is not the question at issue. The
question at issue for this layman is one of whether the
notion of "survival of the fittest" falls into the category
of logical fallacy known as "hoc, ergo proctor hoc."

This issue has been done to death already, IMO:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolphil/tautology.html

That's an incredibly bad article, that needs to be revised and updated.
One day.

"dkomo" <dkomo871@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:eogg3v$btd$1@darwin.ediacara.org...

g wrote:


Sometimes this layman ponders evolutionary mechanisms in the abstract.

Let me explain.

We are all too familiar with the wide-spread popular notion of "survival
of
the fittest."
As this layman has submitted previously (and shall not beat the drum
again
here), he
discerns that the expression "survival of the fittest" is at worst a
begging
of a circular
logic, wherein that which is most fit survives, and the way we know --
therefore -- what
species or individual is most fit? Because it's still here.


Don't mean to sound captious, but are you aware your prose comes out
looking like the above on my newsreader? The line wrapping is all
screwed up.


--dkomo@cris.com


YES !

Thank you for bringing attention to the fact it is controllable. How do you
control it?

I'm doing something wrong, and have experimented to try to correct it,
and failed. I tried just letting my email client program wrap at will, and
have tried wrapping where I think the news server wants me to, and it
still comes out jagged.

Can you tell me how to fix it?

JAH, too... what am I doing wrong to cause this????

Also, JAH, when I subscribed to the news group on my new, non-SCSI
hard drive, the archiving of postings is TOTALLY DIFFERENT from
the way it comes out on the old (gradually being phases out) hard drive.

Thanks, dkomo871.

(By the way, I have a PhD biologist friend whose name is Comeaux
-- corrupted French descent (:>). He is a world class vinologist.
Can't help wondering if your email address conceals another spelling.
But DON'T RESPOND TO THAT, if it is a decoy name to divert
spammers.)

Nontheless, the first five sentences correctly explain the issue
and its resolution:

``The simple version of the so-called 'tautology argument' is this:

Natural selection is the survival of the fittest. The fittest are
those that survive. Therefore, evolution by natural selection is a
tautology (a circular definition).

The real significance of this argument is not the argument itself,
but that it was taken seriously by any professional philosophers at
all.

'Fitness' to Darwin meant not those that survive, but those that
could be expected to survive because of their adaptations and
functional efficiency, when compared to others in the population.'

JE:-
snip
The correct
subject and predicate is not "organism and survival" it is "organism and
reproduction": Those organisms which reproduce more per population are
considered fitter than those which reproduce less simply because only
those
which reproduce more can ever replace others over time, no matter how
short
in life span the fitter organism happens to be.
snip

Gene populations expanding _within_ organisms do not constitute a
phylogeny
of genes within evolutionary theory. It is the organism induction which
includes organism reproduction which remains absolutely essential for any
testable evolutionary science. In fact, each organism must also be fertile
just to be able to replicate genes phylogenetically allowing better
"phylogenetic survival"! IOW the Darwinian selectee is exactly one fertile
organism and not just any organism.

This issue has been done to death already, IMO:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolphil/tautology.html

That's an incredibly bad article, that needs to be revised and
updated.
One day.

JE:-
I agree entirely. Who wrote it, Dr L Moran?

Some undergraduate...

That's my stand this week, anyway.

John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."

I strongly suggest you replace your consistent rhetoric (previously I was
accused of "babbling" and now I am accused of "metaphorical rambling") with
NON EVASION.

I have read the article with exasperation. AT NO TIME does Torkel Franzén
even mention the concept of a TAUTOLOGY let alone include
how it necessarily contrasts to a NON tautology within any
RATIONAL system.

The closest we seem to get to this seems to be:

"Gödel's proof makes essential use of what is called the diagonal lemma for
T. This is a general result about T stating that for every formula B(x) with
one free variable x - meaning that B(x) asserts something about the
unspecified number x - a formula A (known as a fixpoint for B(x)) can be
constructed such that

T |- A<=>B(#A)"

Perhaps you might to like explain why "<=>" does not mean "entirely
reversible" proving just a tautologous logical linkage?

Franzen clearly noted what he considers to be a CORRECT statement in WORDS
(i.e. as a non reversible rational proposition with a subject and a
predicate) as to what Gödel had discovered:

"The mathematician Godel proved that a system of axioms can never be based
on itself: statements from outside the system must be used in order to prove
its consistency."

Your argument that "though there are certain marginal set theories with a
universal set, such a set is not a part of ordinary mathematics or set
theory" was not correct.

It remains easy to see: the universal set is the defined PREDICATE, i.e. the
INDUCTIVE ASSUMPTION from which everything else exists as just a deduction
(including all tautologies nested within it).

"g" <gillawton@earthlink.net
JE:-
Gil, this is a science list and not just a logic or mathematics list. What
is required of everybody here, including myself and Mr Koskensilta, are
the
following three things.


i) Defined terms.

ii) Use of self consistent arguments (no contradictions allowed).

iii) Provide verifiable and refutable premises not just premises which
can be verified or non verified.

If I label terms differently (which I take great pains to avoid doing but
I
may have to define new concepts with new labels because the concept has
not
been previously employed) then all that has to be done is for the
respondent
to provide the more accepted label.

From the best of my experience and thoughts that I can come up
with, in contemplating your stance on any given thing, or the stance