No??!! (What is with this natural selection fetish here at this board?)
Evolution is only one aspect of nature, my friend.
Well, a mousetrap implies design.
And what could have been simpler?
Spiritus
Well, that’s because you implied the man was mad. (It didn’t occur to him that he could simply get change for a twenty.) Crazy people can’t give meaningful consent.
I don’t know what that means. Please rephrase. What “further traits”? What do you mean by a “population of the economy”, the people?
No, it ain’t.
That’s like saying that the reason you can’t measure the duality of an electron is because you don’t have instruments that are sophisticated enough.
The data is old, even if you examine all of it immediately after it occurs, because the moment represented by the data is gone, just as the moment represented by a picture you take is gone.
No, as you see, it isn’t.
Even politicians and bureaucrats understand that “past performance is no indication of future success”. In fact, they make economic prognosticators say it when they’re selling their prognostications as advice.
Lib:
Yes I mean the people. People make economic transactions, therefore we can speak in probabilistic terms about what transactions people will make, just as we can speak about social trends and mob psychology.
So are you saying Hayek argues that quantum duality is significant economic transactions? This requires some serious support. Or are you saying that Hayek argues that like quantum duality an economy will never be predictable. That is an interesting hypothesis, but how does he demonstrate it? In quantum dynamics, there are rigorous mathematical supports for the uncertainty principle. Has Hayek produced similar mathematics to support the contention that an economy can never be accurately predicted?
I suspect his argument is based more upon induction and our present state of knowledge, but I am quite willing to examine the other possibility.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
Lib, you are the one implying a designer, not me. If you think a cat is simpler than a mousetrap, well… I’m speechless. As to what could be simpler than a cat, you could even have a simpler cat. Just like you and I, much of a cat’s DNA is junk.
My point is that nature does not work the simplest way possible. I could function quite well without my psuedogenes, tonsils, appendix and wisdom teeth. They are unnecessary complications which are remnants of an evolutionary heritage. If you wish to postulate a designer, be my guest. But I’m afraid you will have to do so without evidence, including an argument from simplicity. And I must comment that your designer is inordinately fond of beetles
I would argue that since your arrival, the board’s fetish has mutated from evolution to libertarianism :rolleyes: And yes, I am trying to hijack your thread as you are often accused of doing to others.
Part of what I admire most about you is your lustful intellect. This is one of those cases where a nutshell encapsulation is too difficult, at least for me.
If you find the subject interesting (and who wouldn’t!), then I can only recommend you to the source itself. Read first Human Action by Ludwig von Mises, the greatest masterpiece in deductive logic you will ever see, and then read Hayek’s work. Hayek was Mises’ student.
HardCore
All existence is defined by frames of reference, HardCore. A mousetrap is simple for a man, but nature constructed its own mousetrap as simply as it could — through mutation and natural selection. What could be a simpler way to make a creature into prey, than to make for it a predator?
But mistakes, the randomness of nature (not to be confused with the pseudo-randomness we oft assign to it), are further testament to its simplicity. Your psuedogenes and wisdom teeth mean simply that natural selection works.
Nonsense.
I’ve never seen a message board where the notion of peaceful honest people pursuing their own happiness in their own is so castigated as in this one.
The only reason the specialized libertarian threads on mundane issues are popping up now is because a couple of people with great clout have expressed that they prefer, when I have a comment to make, that I segregate myself away from the general population and make my comment there.
They prefer me, I suppose, out of sight and out of mind.
Lib:
I’m not sure when I will get to them, but I have added those works (well, one work and one author) to my list. I will reserve further comment on whether a free market is a gestalt for now, except to say that I view the hypothesis as unproven.
That sounds a little like a persecution complex, Lib. I must have clicked on the “leave gen-pop and enter Libertaria” button without realizing it.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
I think you and I are basically in agreement, with just a slight variation in the definition of our terms. Typically, when someone postulates an intelligent designer, it is done in opposition to evolution. However, I think you are saying that the designer set everything in motion with the Big Bang, then let natural forces take over from there. If so, this sounds rather…well, intelligent to me. That’s how I would do it if I were the supreme being, but of course I am rather lazy.
Although I don’t necessarily agree with the need for a designer, you’ll get no argument from me if this is your position. From this frame of reference, I suppose you could say that the universe operates in a simplistic manner. But I hate to call anything simple that I don’t understand very well.
Language! Its ambiguity and its nuance, they are what is both so terrible and so wonderful about it. Most reasonable people, I think, will, like you, allow a certain latitude or license with vocabulary or content in a medium like this message board for the purpose of letting a discussion evolve.
It is quite impossible in this format to post formal deductive proofs (they can run hundreds of pages — people who demand them are either foolish or ignorant) and, unless you intend to hunker down in one or two threads exclusively, it is very difficult even to induce, particularly if one side becomes beligerent about “sourcing” (which, after all, is a fallacy anyway — argumentum ad verecundum). Sources conflict. It becomes a battle of who can give the most links. But then, guess what. When you give links, they complain anyway.
I think discussion is something you’re very good at. You allow a discussion to develop and grow. You give your debating “opponent” the opportunity to expand and revise his remarks. I believe that you do this because what you seek is genuine debate and understanding. And that makes you very first class.
Yeah, I have no idea how the universe got started. Maybe it was a Big Bang. Maybe it was more like a Big Blow, like blowing a bubble from a film of soapy water. Who knows? And scientific opinion on the matter seems to change as often as the FDA’s opinions on eggs and butter.
Natural selection seems obvious to me. I accept it as axiomatic. And I think it is the simplest process I’ve ever heard of. Basically, it simply means that what works works. God Himself is simple, and I believe that for two reasons. One, He defines Himself as I AM. There is nothing simpler. And two, He expresses gratitude that He has revealed Himself to those who think simply, like children.
At the same time, He is complex. (Remember how I differentiate complex from complicated? The former being based in simplicity, like a crystal or a well written computer program? And the latter being based on disorder, like a lukewarm bowl of water or a poorly written computer program?) God is ablative. He says, “I am in you, and you are in me.” He is many, but He is one. He calls many, but He choses few. He says that the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.
