[FRIAM] What's so bad about Scientism?

[Frank Wimberly]

p.s.  I also said that the probability of heads for a fair coin is 0.5.  Of
course, that's a definition but since he was denying the reality of
probability I think that cut some ice.

----
Frank Wimberly

www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

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

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Mon, Jul 9, 2018, 12:50 PM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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