[FRIAM] What's so bad about Scientism?

[Frank Wimberly]

Actually Nick is competitive with you for skepticism.  We were discussing
probabilities and he said you can't know the probability of an event based
on past observations.  He basically said just because the probability of an
event has always been P, how do you know it still is?  Is that a fair
characterization of what you said, Nick?

----
Frank Wimberly

www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Mon, Jul 9, 2018, 12:05 PM uǝlƃ ☣ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

> Sorry for the extra post.  But it occurred to me you might be asking
> whether *my* autonomous nervous system believes in the utility of these
> measurements.  If so, I can give a full-throated "No."  My doubt comes from
> listening to my S.O. (Renee') talk about things like blood pressure and how
> they're used in clinical settings as well as my own experience as a
> patient.  "Assessing the patient" by an intuitive, signal fusing, machine
> (nurse, doctor, anesthetist) seems to have much more utility than any given
> particular (linearized) measurement of a subsystem.  The utility of, say,
> the heart rate, is waaaaayyy below my threshold for belief.
>
> On 07/09/2018 10:53 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> > Interesting insertion of "utility", a kind of meta-variable to be
> considered.  To be clear, I'd say the organism believes in heartbeats, lung
> pumping, etc.  But to ask whether the organism believes in the
> usability/utility of (subjective) measurements of such things smacks of a
> hidden assumption.
> >
> > But to answer as authentically as I can in spite of that hidden
> assumption, I'd answer that *after* the yogi did such a full cycle
> manipulation successfully at least *once*, then that yogi might believe
> that meta-variable. (By "full cycle manipulation", I mean taking conscious
> control and reinstalling the new behavior into the autonomous part.)  After
> such success, the yogi organism has some experience with whether, how, and
> what impact any particular part may have had.  For example, perhaps
> heartbeat plays no role in her ability to take conscious control and
> reinstall the new program.  Hence, she might doubt the utility of
> heartbeats but believe the utility of lung pumping regulation.
> >
> > Again, though, whether the yogi organism believes in this meta-layer
> "utility of X" would depend on where they draw the threshold.  I can
> imagine very process-based yogis who, like me, put little stock in belief
> and more in the process of doing, staying "hands on".  And I can imagine
> yogis who idealize the process (perhaps similar to chi?) and may even write
> books about it.  I have no experience with how yogis actually are, of
> course.
> >
> >
> > On 07/09/2018 10:21 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> >> I think the answer may be in what you just wrote, but a bit of
> assistance please. If we were to anthropomorphize your autonomous nervous
> system would you say it 'believed' or 'doubted' the utility of heartbeats,
> lungs pumping, etc.?
> >>
> >> My interest arises from studies of Yoga adepts who "take conscious
> control of breathing" and upon achieving total conscious control, delegate
> the control back to the autonomous system which maintains the regularized,
> 'managed' breathing instead of the 'normal', somewhat chaotic/strange
> attracter-ish breathing regimen prior to the application of Yoga technique.
> >
>
> --
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
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