Janus

Since you claimed that planets and stars "have more entropy than an evenly distributed gas", and that " the most symmetrical objects have the highest ...

And the answer is that it is correct now to say that under the present definition of 'planet' it was, and is, not a planet, and that under the past de...

There is a useful distinction between tendencies which are inherent and those which are the result of "habituation". Whether all tendencies that are i...

Why should "planets and stars and other "gravitational clumping"" be thought to possess more symmetry than "an evenly distributed gas".

Any explanation which is given in mechanistic terms, in terms of atomistic simples such as "molecular machinery" is reductionist "in the strong sense"...

If you mean to say that I still don't really grasp how order necessarily evolves out of chaos, and am therefore somewhat skeptical of the idea, then y...

I don't know, you've stumped me there, I don't have the math or the physics background: I'm just kicking a few ideas around... Edit: Maybe in the case...

Would you say that dissipative structure is the actual playing out of entropy? I think of dissipative structure as dynamic process, as the temporal fl...

Yes, this makes sense to me. But now I want to make a distinction between asymmetry (necessity) and asymmetries (contingency) and between entropy (nec...

They are the exceptions that prove the rule? :s

Yep, I certainly agree with that! :)

What I am trying to get at is that it seems to me that without asymmetry there is no entropy and without entropy there is no asymmetry. Asymmetry seem...

I agree, but it is only wasteful (or not) from some perspective, no?

I don't for a moment believe that Newtonian atomism is the truth; but I do see an inherent problem with the inevitably mechanical nature of human mode...

But wouldn't the energy that gets wasted in any specific causally efficient process we might be focused on, always be the efficient cause of other pro...

You seem to be talking about entropy as a formal principle here. The question this raises for me is whether you think of formal principles as being an...

There is another significant and problematic difference that is fatal for your analogy and argument here. 'Triangle' means "three angled shape" and an...

But isn't it the case that the material asymmetries of the set up, like all asymmetries, are the result of entropy, or even better, isn't it the case ...

I don't think I've misunderstood at all. It is not simply a matter of being a planet; it is a matter of being considered to be a planet. If the word '...

The problem with this analogy is that planets are entities with much more complex sets of properties than triangles, so the fact that it seems semanti...

Perhaps MU is using 'intend' to mean something like 'inward tendency'. The inward tendency of plants to produce seed could be said to be a function of...

On the contrary, I would say that if Pluto isn't a planet then either it was never a Planet, or being-a-planet can be reduced to having certain materi...

OK, so I am saying being of a certain kind is a matter of identification, and not a matter of identity. What category we place things in has no effect...

I don't think it is merely a matter of satisfying 'preferences'. Some of the greatest satisfactions in life come from mastering difficult tasks, like ...

Yes, I know what you mean, and I do tend to agree...

Ooooohhhh...

It's true that something may be identified, for example, as a planet, but I don't think identification equates to identity; the former is more a matte...

No, I would say the identity of a thing is not the same as the name of a thing. The name is merely a placeholder. When Pluto was considered to be a pl...

Yeah, I'm not real big on physics either; but taking a stab, I would say that the global tendency to go from higher to lower energy states, although a...

Yes, exactly, I had forgotten it was 'horses', but that is the one I had in mind.

Then, if such a causal chain could be definitely established, it might work for a particular planet; but it seems it might still get into difficulties...

So, the atomists would say that meaning is established by a causal chain back to something like Kripke's "initial baptism".

Oh, God, I hope not! :-d

Fuck.... Michael and TGW.... I have just realized that you pair of obsessives have argued, beyond reasonable termination, over precisely this pedantic...

I'm not wanting to valorize reductive thinking. I'm trying to look at the issue from the POV of the thinker who says (as apo and SX apparently do) tha...

Pleasure and pain may certainly be associated with, and the joy or suffering attendant upon them amplified or diminished by, "attitudes towards experi...

I agree with what you say, against the idea that naming is totally arbitrary and determinative of the ontological status of things; but the criteria f...

There is a threshold of mass above which gravity ensures that agglomerated celestial objects become, at least in appearance, spherical. I think that w...

After further reflection on what you have written, I can't see how it could be that claiming that everything that appears to us as order is really dow...

OK, thanks apokrisis and StreetlightX, your replies have given me plenty to think about.

I think the Neo-Darwinian idea is that general, statistically predictable variability within a gene pool just is the expression of novel mutations. Fo...

Are there organisms that are wholly unconscious? I guess it depends on what is meant by "conscious". In any case, even if I must be (at least sometime...

One could surely only be aware of thinking of having unconscious intentions if one were conscious?

Surely you don't deny that we might have unconscious intentions?

Thanks SX; I was familiar with most of what you wrote, except the "left-handedness of neutrinos and the right-handedness of the DNA helix. I suppose t...

Try as I might I cannot begin to grasp how it could be that entropy "prompts" the formation of local negentropy. This may well be due to my lack of pr...

Yep, the path of the addict or the path of the warrior. Scintillating discussion, Schop!

Firstly, it is being competely detached from pain which is at issue here. Drugs such as opiates and nitrous oxide show this to be possible. In any cas...

How is it that you feel qualified to speak for "all"?

Sustainable by whom? You? Or others?