I was contrasting my level of trust in Hawking as an exemplar of brilliant scientist with Falwell as an exemplar of someone I don't trust on the truth of anything.
We're extremely OT at this point, but I'd point out that I think it's unwise to ever rule out a message because of the messenger. In general I agree with your treatment of human trust. I too would take Hawking's commission more seriously (especially if it was a commission on astrophysics as opposed to, say, anthropology). The one difference, is that I would not reject Falwell's commission a priori. Realistically I probably wouldn't find time to study it myself, and so would never accept it either, but I think it's a bad idea to positively reject any idea based on lack of trust.
And so theStorminMoron used selective reasoning to deny human impact on climate change as the planet rapidly warmed.
Clever rhetoric. But like most myopic partisans, you have your radar set to friend-or-foe. If I don't agree with what you say, then I must disagree with all of it.
I simply did not "deny human impact on climate change". I didn't say I deny it, and I don't deny it. I certainly don't deny that the planet has warmed. What I'm rejecting is a type of argument not the conclusions of a particular argument.
Looks to me like you are claiming that since we can't do reproducible tabletop experiments on climates with scientifically controlled variations, we can't do real science on Earth's climate. I'm sorry if that's not what you meant, I can only go on what you wrote.
Certainly. And I maintain that arguing about whether or not something can fall under scientific scrutiny is the philosophy of science, not science. This should be obvious, since there are certainly no scientific tests you can run to determine whether or not something is science. You can't use a system to define itself.
But the statistics of temperature variation (and other weather related measurements) are more stable.
Well yeah. So if the global warming argument is "the temperature has been rising for the past x years" then we are dealing with a statistical temperature variations. That is not however, the extent of claims in the global warming debate. We also have two far trickier types of claims:
1. And it's the fault of humans 2. And we can predict future effects.
Dealing with causes is notoriously tricky and pretty much impossible without controlled experiments. Controlling for observational data is a world trickier. Then there's the problem of predicting future effects in what we both agree is a chaotic system. Those are the elements of the global warming argument that I consider un-scientific in the strict sense of the word.
The only reason we ended up in this conversation (instead of me not responding to your second comment) is because you presnted your argument using words that mean something completely different. You, of course, justified your incorrect terminology by saying that you are using the "technical" definition, which is utter bullshit.
The original terms were "stimulus/response". The context was as follows:
Reducing an activity to stimulus/response may seem clever, but the trouble is that it works for pretty much every human behavior imaginable. And it certainly works for every leisure activity.
I think it's fairly clear that I'm using the terms stimulus and response as they refer to human behavior. I'm discussing reduction of an activity, and I mention that it works for every human behavior imaginable. The context, I think, is pretty clear.
Your response went something like this:
The trouble is that, while it sounds good, it's just plain wrong. Most human activities fall into a stimulus-reasoning-response pattern. There is even a mathematical description of stimulus-response [wikipedia.org] that explains why you are wrong.
The referenced wikipedia page (here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulus-response_mod el) clearly refers to "stimulus/response" in the statistical sense. You are thus conflating two different meanings of the words, from the realm of human behavior and from the realm of statistics. I'm not making up anything here, nor is this bullshit. I do statistical analysis for a living. I'm working on my masters degree right now, and in the last lecture in my "Statisttics for Engineers" class the usage of the terms "stimulus and response" was a brief tangent the professor took. So it's fresh in my mind. I really don't know what else to tell you on that part.
Frankly, I'm not too worried about convincing you. Since your chosen form of argumentation involves repeatedly calling your opponent an idiot (not to mention arguing based on baseless assumptions about their free-time activities), I'm well-aware that trying to change your mind is likely a lost cause. This is purely intended for the odd lurker who may (for whatever reason) stumble across this thread.
Alternatively, you use a word (chaos), and then later say you were refering to chaos theory which is something completely different.
In point of fact I did not use the word "chaos". Feel free to look through my posts if you like. Use the find function to speed things up. I did, however, use the term "chaotic". This is the original context:
We're talking about a highly complex (e.g. chaotic) system.
Thus I am clearly referring to complex/chaotic systems. I'm sorry if you expected to find the mathematical definition of either "chaos" or "complexity" in the OED. You should have tried wikipedia first. Here's the relevant section on complex systems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system I would direct your attention to a quote near the bottom: "Every decade or so, a grandiose theory comes along, bearing similar aspirations and often brandishing an ominous-sounding C-name. In the 1960 it was cybernetics. In the '70s it was catastrophe theory. Then came chaos theory in the '80s and complexity theory in the '90s." Cybnernetics is considered by many to be the birth of systems engineering (my field). Chaos theory and complexity theory are developments in this field (although systems engineering is by definition multi-disciplinary).
So this leaves us with two examples in which I used a term in what I thought was fairly clear context. In the first term you jumped from one discipline (human behavior) to another (statistics) and used a specialized definition from the latter to contradict my usa
I'm not being obtuse. You're just not understanding my point. There are two arguments here: the argument about whether or not global warming exists, how bad it is, and whether or not it's our fault, and the argument about how that argument is conducted. I'm not arguing the merits of the global warming debate. I'm making an argument about the form of that argument: it's the philosophy of science as opposed to science itself.
As for your "evidence" itself, we're talking an extremely complex system and you want me to accept your 2 + 2 = 4 analysis? I'm a systems engineer, complex/chaotic systems are what I study. The whole point of these systems is that a relatively minor variation in starting condition escalates to enormous changes just a few steps down the road. 2 + 2 = 4 may be true, but 2.000001 + 1.999997 may be -17. That's the point of complex systems, and the reason I don't buy your pat analysis.
Science as an authority is a GOOD thing, unless you have some sort of radical agenda that is threatened by actual reason, logic, and knowledge.
You don't get it. If you treat science as authority, you no longer have the capacity to judge whether it has some radical agenda. That's the whole point. You don't see the danger I'm pointing out. This would be just like early Christians saying "Religion as an authority is a GOOD thing, unless you have some sort of crazy psycho who decides to use religion as an excuse to start wars and, you know, basically violate every tenant of Christianity there is." And a few hundred years later you get the Crusades.
Your implication is that we should wait until there's proof of something that can never be proven until it has already happened. You are an idiot and a danger to the human race.
Such kind words. You must have been champion of your debate team. In any case what I'm actually saying is that you can't treat consensus as evidence. I'm not saying that you should wait for evidence to act. But it's possible to say "we've got no scientific evidence, but we need to make a decision now anyway". That's perfectly reasonable. It's only irrational when you say "we've got no scientific evidence, but we're going to call this decision scientific anyway". That's what I'm annoyed by.
Again, you're an idiot. In order to have an irrational trust in authority, your trust actually has to be irrational. That means not based upon observable facts and evidence. Unfortunately for you, your skeptical-of-global-warming crowd lost the reality test.
Look, I'm just going to throw this out there, but not everyone enjoys it when online debates devolve into name-calling. There are a lot of smart people on Slashdot, many of whom are experts in fields I'm just an amateur in (at best). I'd like to have an environment where instead of making unfounded attacks on people (e.g. I'm not really opposed to global warming, I'm just unconvinced at this point) we can actually disagree constructively. Could we try that?
Umm, just because computer models for weather related systems aren't accurate, doesn't mean they produce complete bull.
I could have been more clear. My point was not that they produce complete Bull. It was simply that a model of the earth is NOT the earth. Thus experiments on the simulation are NOT experiments on the earth. Thus climatology has no real experiments.
Consensus is not proof. It can never be proof. But it's the next best thing we have.
I keep referring people back to this post, and I will do it again: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=207698&cid=169 31486 Consensus is not proof, it's a heuristic. I agree that we should use it, but HOW we use it is the key. To treat is as just another piece of evidence is the fatal flaw. It's not just another piece of evidence, it's a heuristic that is dangerous because, by correlating truth with agreement, it is likely to correlate other things that correlate with agreement with truth. Things like ideology and respect for authority.
We need to screen our heuristic of consensus for these factors. Failing to do so is what got me all riled up.
Consensus is not proof, and it never will be. However you are right that it does have a role to play. And that role is best characterized as "heuristic". As opposed to an algorithm, a heuristic is not guaranteed to get you the right answer - or even a good answer. However in the absence of an applicable algorithm, it's better than inaction. That said, however, there's a significant chance of selection bias in application of this heuristic. We're essentially saying that "when a lot of scientists agree, they're probably on to something". We're correlating truth with agreement. This means we're very susceptible to ideology and other factors that correlate with agreement other than preponderance of the evidence.
If a panel of 10 experts selected by Stephen Hawking reached a consensus of 8 or higher, I think I'd go along with them, regardless of my understanding of the details.
In my mind, this is the perfect example of what NOT to do. My first reaction to this result would be to pay attention to, at the very least, what the other 2 said. Once you apply the consensus heuristic, you've GOT to apply some kind of additional filter to try and detect ideology or authority. For example, what if 8 of those 10 were former students of Hawking? Don't you think that would affect your confidence?
When we use the consensus heuristic without additional testing we're setting ourselves up for failure. That's the point I'm trying to make here. Not that we shouldn't use consensus ever, but that it is NOT proof, it is something else, and it therefore can not be treated like proof (or even like scientific evidence).
I share your desire to understand more for ourselves, but doesn't science as an institution depend on some level of trust in the "experts"? That is a troubling concept but an accurate description of what we need to do to "believe" anything.
You've hit the nail on the head. And I'm not sure how we can handle this tricky problem. The institution of science, in society at large, is by definition non-scientific. At the very least, however, we need to stop pretending that it is. This is the problem I don't have the answer to yet.
We can only make accurate predictions for the future based on accurately measuring similar events that have occurred in the past.
Shall we wait until all the effects of our self inflicted global warming can be measured before we attempt to do anything about it?
Just because we don't 'know' with 100% certainty what will definitely happen in the future does NOT mean we'd be wisest to do Nothing...when we DO know with 100% certainty that we ARE indeed having a negative effect on our planet.
Your arguments are valid: but they reinforce the proposition that global warming is not being propogated based on science. This is OK. That doesn't mean it's false. Just as if you wake up one night and someone is prowling around your house. You don't have time to do repeatable experiments to determine if the intruder means you harm or not. So you're quite justified in reacting unscientifically.
The problem I have is with proponents of global science who want to fast-track to the "we must do something NOW" phase AND claim to be scientific. You can't argue (quite rightly) that there's no opportunity for science AND claim to be scientific.
Agreed. I would, rather, put it in these terms: Science must not be allowed to become a religion in the same sense that any other faith has become religious, largely because faith is in essence the antithesis of science.
It depends on your definition. And I admit that your definition is valid. If you are defining religions by the preponderance of historical examples, than I agree with you: religion is the anti-thesis of science, and religion must not be allowed to become science.
I was using an alternative definition of religion, however. For ease of use, let me say "spirituality" instead. I don't think that there's anything wrong with spirituality, nor do I believe that spirituality and science contradict. Quite the opposite - they both use similar rules of logic and reasoning. It is this type of religion - spirituality (for lack of a better term) that I consider valid and that I consider myself a practitioner of.
In terms of science OR religion, my stance is simply that I refuse to belive anything simply becase an "expert" tells me. I reject the teachings of pastors/priests/etc who justify their beliefs with contradictory or fallacious arguments just the same as I refuse to place full trust in a "scientific expert" who cannot prove his stance (or has questionable objectivity).
I agree 100%. The sole difference is that I believe there are types of religion that do not rely on argument for authority or contradictory or fallacious reasoning.
I suspect that you don't even really understand the problems
Oh wow, ad hominem attacks. Great. Actually, I do understand the problem. And, to the best of my knowledge, the only serious attempt to get "proof" from inductive reasoning stems from Bayesian analysis. And even that is not proof, as in 100% certainty, just a quantifiable measure or probability based on formal induction.
Scientific consensus is the closest we can get to proofs of hypotheses
No, it's not. It's not even related to proof. If you want to prove a hypothesis - you need evidence. "Because these people said so" is only evidence to the extent that you believe those people. Unless you are testing their evidence (in which case you've got direct evidence and don't need to reference other people) you are relying on their authority. Argument from authority is not evidence: it's a logical fallacy.
The simple fact is that science produces testable theories which seek to correctly describe the world around us, while religion does not
Hahahahaha!! Is that so? Then please conduct an experiment in which you demonstrate global warming. Not in some computer model (I do computer models, I know how "realistic" they are for weather-related systems) but using the world. Whoops! We've only got one! And no time travel (to repeat experiments with same initial conditions)! And, for that matter, no ability to tell the world what levels of pollutants to release into the atmosphere. In short: no experiments.
Guess climatology is a religion now?
As for your enshrinement of argument from authority, that has been well-enough dispatched by the AC who replied before me. So I'll let that stand instead of repeating it.
I'm not sure why you went off and attacked the concept of consensus because I wrote (correctly) that the scientific debate on this matter had ended.
Looking for consensus isn't proof, but it's a good heuristic
I appreciate this argument. But it's a heuristic that has a very specific type of failure: ideologues would be the most likely to share a common consensus.
Another heuristic is to pay more attention to people who admit uncertainties
Agreed. And this is the perfect counter to the above fault. I like what you're saying. But the review was clearly NOT following this heuristic at all. And it was the review that I was responding to.
b) If they [all the experts in this area] reached a consensus, one would assume that they reached it based on the preponderance of evidence in favor of a certain way of interpreting the facts. They are scientists after all, not ideologues.
Are you serious? I didn't realize that when you got your "scientist" badge, it also conferred immunity against being an ideologue. Besides, as I pointed out earlier, you don't necessarily need scientists to be ideologues. All you need is for a few major media editors to buy into it for sensationalism and you've manufactured the consensus that the handful of ideologues (if they exist) would need.
In any case, you're belief in the infallibility (in a an ideological sense) of scientists is extremely sinister. That's the kind of implicit trust I give to no one.
A. There is not always a consensus at all. From Google search of "Define: consensus" = A consensus implies that debate has taken place, the solution is generally accepted rather than a grudging compromise, and that agreement is deep-rooted enough that it can stand for some time without need to revisit the issue.
B. If the evidence leads to a consensus, that's great. But it's still not proof. It's not even direct evidence.
In science, the best you can do are experiments whose results seem to support or not support a theory.
Yeah, and consensus is not an experiment. Not only is it not proof, it's not (as I stated earlier) direct, scientific evidence at all.
Even a devout Catholic can't look at the history of the Catholic church and say that organized religion has been anything other than a monstrosity for most of its history. From the Inquisition to the Crusades to anti-Semitism to political and social oppression - the history of Catholicism is sordid and shameful. Most organized religions fare no better, and the shame of their history simply depends on how long they've been around. The Mormons, for example, have the Mountain Meadows Massacre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_Mas sacre).
However, just as science has been misused to support things like phrenology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology) the argument can be made that what we've seen historically is not necessary to organized religion. It is instead what happens when organized religion falls prey to lust for political and economic power. As far as I'm concerned the chief difference between the evils of organized religion and the evils of science are that religion is a much, much older social institution than science. As a result, religion has had time to be perverted in all kinds of ways that science has not yet and - if we are vigilant - never will be.
In short: People who believe in organized religions should be the ones who are the angriest about what religious institutions have done throughout history. It's our duty to try and make sure the same mistakes of the past aren't committed again.
As far as my anti-authority stance goes, yes: there is a certain amount of intellectual tension in both adhering to a standardized body of theological belief and the scientific method. But tension is not the same thing as contradiction. I happen to think that part of the purpose of an organized religion is to make our intellectual lives harder - not easier. Intellectual tension is the motivator for intellectual growth in the same sense that necessity is the mother of invention. This means I don't hold my spiritual beliefs as sacrosanct and my scientific ones as conditional. All belief is conditional. I don't expect everyone to believe that, especially given religion's dearth of credibility on Slashdot, but that's the intro to the answer to how a devout Mormon also holds anti-authoritarian beliefs if you're curious.
The short answer is yes, he does. There are minor errors. They don't detract from Gore's main point, on which the scientific debate has ended.
Consensus is NOT proof. I don't know how else to say this. When someone tells you that there is a consensus among scientists on a certain issue, they have proved nothing about the issue itself.. I'm not arguing that global warming is not real, or is not the fault of humans. But I'm tired of people trying to strong-arm me into acquiescing to the point using blatantly un-scientific methods.
The troubling side-issue no one wants to talk about here is that in our modern world of super-specialization it has become increasingly impossible to fact-check our experts. There are at least 3 distinct parties in this conversation: scientists, the media, and the public at large. If either scientists or the media have a bias at all on this issue anyone who believes the tired-old "scientific consensus" argument can be led around just like those religious fools they love to mock: a subject to an irrational trust in authority. Scientific consensus is the argument used to sell us toothpaste and mouth rinse - not to argue substantively for the biggest scientific crisis the world has faced.
This troubling side-issue of authority vs. science won't go away. We are in danger of becoming a society where science is the new priesthood, universities are the new temples, and PhDs are the new bishops of a timid and trusting flock. I'd say this corruption of science is almost as alarming as global warming, and far easier to demonstrate. Any true follower of science must reject "consensus" for what it is: argument by authority. It is, fundamentally, the same monstrosity that corrupted organized religion 1,000s of years ago. It must be rejected if science is to escape the fate of those organized religions.
I don't mean for this to distract from the central point of global warming. That's an important issue as well. The trouble is: how do we make up our minds about the issue if we reject scientific consensus as proof? The only thing I can think of is to understand as much of the issue as we can for ourselves rather than from the media. That's something I definitely need to work harder on.
Why can't a system that contains parts which behave randomly when observed individually produce random output?
In general, it can. In this case, however, the only parts of the system that behave randomly are sub-atomic particles. Unless you have a different suggestion for the non-deterministic elements?
Quantum physicists say that the movement of individual particles is completely random. Isn't that enough of a quantum detector?
Exactly, that's why I made referrence to a quantum-detector. The problem is one of scale. There's no way that a neuron, which is a cell composed of millions of atoms, could be sensitive to the quantum variations in any given atom. Nor is there any evidence of a kind of escalator that could some how amplify a quantum event to a level that could influence a neuron. So when I said "quantum detector" I'm explaining that even though there's plenty of random behavior in the brain at the sub-atomic level, there's nothing at the cellular level that is affected by that quantum behavior. That's where you need a detector: at the cellular level. No biologist that I know of seriously entertains the notion that such a detector exists.
As far as whether random fluctuations get you a "will", I don't think they do. I'm not a combatibilist. I think random fluctuations aren't what we want when we talk about "will" at all.
For any given state of a neural network, you can describe a direct map between a set of inputs and the output.
You are again displaying your ignorance. In order to describe the map between a set of inputs and the output, you'd need a description of the state of a neural network. We don't even have that! And we're not close to it either. We don't even have a definition for "neural network". Where do you set the boundary? The spinal cord clearly plays a role, so don't say "the brain". So every single nerve from brain to tip of the toes? Fine - use that as a starting point. You seriously think we can model an entire neural network? We're not even close. Once we get there, we can see whether or not the inputs map to the output, but I'm still fairly certain they won't. We'll get to why once I address your misconceptions about "chaos".
Frankly, while the rest of what we're discussing is philosophical, that statement is just bullshit.
This is the what, second time you've used a copy/paste "definition" to prove I'm wrong? Third? And it's the second or third time you've been completely, totally wrong. The simple reason for this is that I'm using these terms in their technical sense. I used stimulus/response in the philosophical/neurological sense, you mis-applied their statistical definitions. In this case I'm referring to chaos theory/complexity theory. Looking the words up in websters or dictionary.com is not going to get you the technical definition I'm working with.
I really don't have the time or inclincation to give you a full tutorial on chaos/complexity theory. Honestly, I don't have the academic backgroun either. I haven't even finished my masters in System's Engineering yet (which deals with complex systems). But let me take this statment for starters: Chaos is practically synonymous with nondeterminism.
Contrast your statement with this (from wikipedia's entry on chaos theory): As a result of this sensitivity, the behavior of systems that exhibit chaos appears to be random, exhibiting an exponential error dispersion, even though the system is deterministic in the sense that it is well defined and contains no random parameters
So we're back to what I originally described. As a chaotic/complex system, the brain is deterministic. No randomness. Despite this it exhibits some of the characteristics of randomness. Thus, quite fairly, the brain can be both deterministic AND not have the inputs relate DIRECTLY to the outputs in the conventional sense. Not only is that possible, it's kind of the point of chaotic/complex systems.
If anything you have further strengthened my opinion that most human behavior is not purely stimulus/response... In fact, given the same stimuli repeatedly, a human may not respond the same way twice simply because there are many factors in the response that cannot reasonably be considered stimuli. Furthermore, given exactly the same stimuli, people have the capability of choosing a response arbitrarily. You may argue, though, that context is a stimulus.
1. First of all, there is no evidence that humans can actually decide "arbitrarily". In order to be genuinely arbitrary, you'd need to have some kind of a biological genuine random-number generator. Unless you think humans have little quantum-detectors in their brains, it's hard to imagine how this could work.
2. "factors that cannot reasonably be considered stimuli" What might these factors be? In a materialist universe *all* you have is the physical state of the brain/mind and the physical input to that system. But this system is a result of past stimulus, is it not? Either a thing physically effects the brain (e.g. is stimulus) or, in a materialist universe, it does not exist. Thus, quite literally, you've got nothing but a physical system that is determined by previous stimuli, and then additional stimuli. That is *all*.
It's fine with me if you're position is "strengthened", but it's pretty clear to me that you had no logical basis for it in the first place, and are continuing to react to my viewpoint viscerally instead of rationally.
How can you not see that those two statements contradict each other? You're saying that the inputs don't map directly to the outputs (presumably because you don't know how to describe the mapping), and then you are saying that the inputs do map directly to the output.
OK... way to tell me what I'm saying instead of read what I wrote. The difference is this: the connection between inputs and outputs is deterministic, but not direct. "Direct" is not a scientific term (as far as I know) so I'll explain further. If you are subject to a vector of inputs at time t1, the output (at time t1+x) will be a result of the not just the stimuli from time t1, but also the condition of your brain at time t1, which is in turn a consequence of vectors of inputs received at times t1-y (y>0). Thus the system as a whole is entirely stimulus/response, but *part* of the response of the system is to change (in deterministic ways). Thus it is not "direct" since the systems makeup changes over time. In addition, "direct" can also refer to the fact that the human neurological system is very complex (that's the modern term for chaotic). What this means, by definition, is that a very small change in the inputs or state of the system (the initial conditions) can result in dramatic changes in the output. Thus you can't possibly subject the system to "repeated stimulus" because with every new stimulus the system changes. These changes are complex, and therefore the resulting changes can be orders of magnitude more dramatic than the (approximately) identical stimuli.
So, are you saying that the statistical model doesn't apply because we have to take the "cogs of the machine" on faith? If so, you seem to be describing yourself as a materialist using an argument that is spiritual.
The cogs of the machine are not taken on faith. They are called neurons. As well as other biological entities. Do you disbelieve in neurons? Would you consider neuroscience to be "spiritual"?
Actually, you have no idea what "my kind" is. This is clear because you think I play WoW when, in point of fact, I've never played the game in my life. So much for your brilliant deductive reasoning.
Sadly your mathematical "proof" does you no better. The stimulus/response referred to in this article are meant in the statistical sense. This is an article about regression modeling and has nothing to do with human behavior. Stimulus/response, in statistical terminology, are just a better way of saying "independent/dependent variables". We don't like to use independent/dependent (as is done in high school) for the simple reason that independence and dependence have specific meaning in statistics. So, in short, your wikipedia link is utterly irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
I'll try to clarify the context I have in mind for "stimulus/response":
It's not as simple as a direct mathematical function from one variable (or vector of variables) to another. We're talking about a highly complex (e.g. chaotic) system. So it would be naive to expect the inputs to map directly to the outputs. What I'm actually referring to is materialism in general. According to materialist theories for human cognition, the "self" is massively modular. That means that you've got a vast array of systems, all of which act deterministically. You feed in input (stimulus) and the output is determined by the system (response) without any intervention of a human will. The will, in essence, disappears into the cogs of the machine. Instead of an actual entity, human will becomes merely a simplified description of the system as a whole. And this is leaving out the possibility of randomness (although whether true randomness, in the form of quantum events, could possibly have an effect on neurons - and thus behavior - is dubious at best). So "stimulus/response" just refers to the fact that there's nothing between the input (stimulus) and the output (response) except, as Newton would put it, billiard balls on a billiards table. Every step along the way is deterministically defined.
I'm not trying to wow you with my mumbo jumbo pseudo-science babble. I realize that I'm still an amateur in this field. I'm just trying to explain to you that there's a lot more going on. When I see someone say "stimulus/response" I immediately think: "deterministic". To me it doesn't matter how many intermediaries you throw up between the stimulus and the response. You could have an entire rube goldberg contraption that would make any simple function-mapping impossible, but would fail to alter the fundamental nature of "stimulus/respones" - determinism. If you are seriously interested in this topic at all, check out "Elbow Room" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbow_Room) by Daniel Dennett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett).
In particular, pay attention to his analogy regarding the digger wasp. From wikipedia:
Dennett describes the mechanical behavior of the digger wasp Sphex. This insect follows a series of genetically programmed steps in preparing for egg laying. If an experimenter interrupts one of these steps the wasp will repeat that step again. For an animal like a wasp, this process of repeating the same behavior can go on indefinitely, the wasp never seeming to notice what is going on. This is the type of mindless, pre-determined behavior that humans can avoid. Given the chance to repeat some futile behavior endlessly, people can notice the futility of it, and by an act of free will do something else. We can take this as an operational definition of what people mean by free will. Dennett points out the fact that as long as people see themselves as able to avoid futility, most people have seen enough of the free will issue. Dennett then invites all who are satisfied with this level of analysis to get on with living while he proceeds into the deeper hair-splitting aspects of the free will issue.
My point regarding "stimulus/response" is essentially just a rej
Slashdot Mirror
Oh wow, I didn't even notice the first time that you called me "theStorminMoron". Wow. Total bonus points for the ad hominem.
You sure showed me.
-stormin
I was contrasting my level of trust in Hawking as an exemplar of brilliant scientist with Falwell as an exemplar of someone I don't trust on the truth of anything.
We're extremely OT at this point, but I'd point out that I think it's unwise to ever rule out a message because of the messenger. In general I agree with your treatment of human trust. I too would take Hawking's commission more seriously (especially if it was a commission on astrophysics as opposed to, say, anthropology). The one difference, is that I would not reject Falwell's commission a priori. Realistically I probably wouldn't find time to study it myself, and so would never accept it either, but I think it's a bad idea to positively reject any idea based on lack of trust.
-stormin
And so theStorminMoron used selective reasoning to deny human impact on climate change as the planet rapidly warmed.
Clever rhetoric. But like most myopic partisans, you have your radar set to friend-or-foe. If I don't agree with what you say, then I must disagree with all of it.
I simply did not "deny human impact on climate change". I didn't say I deny it, and I don't deny it. I certainly don't deny that the planet has warmed. What I'm rejecting is a type of argument not the conclusions of a particular argument.
-stormin
Looks to me like you are claiming that since we can't do reproducible tabletop experiments on climates with scientifically controlled variations, we can't do real science on Earth's climate. I'm sorry if that's not what you meant, I can only go on what you wrote.
Certainly. And I maintain that arguing about whether or not something can fall under scientific scrutiny is the philosophy of science, not science. This should be obvious, since there are certainly no scientific tests you can run to determine whether or not something is science. You can't use a system to define itself.
But the statistics of temperature variation (and other weather related measurements) are more stable.
Well yeah. So if the global warming argument is "the temperature has been rising for the past x years" then we are dealing with a statistical temperature variations. That is not however, the extent of claims in the global warming debate. We also have two far trickier types of claims:
1. And it's the fault of humans
2. And we can predict future effects.
Dealing with causes is notoriously tricky and pretty much impossible without controlled experiments. Controlling for observational data is a world trickier. Then there's the problem of predicting future effects in what we both agree is a chaotic system. Those are the elements of the global warming argument that I consider un-scientific in the strict sense of the word.
-stormin
The original terms were "stimulus/response". The context was as follows:
I think it's fairly clear that I'm using the terms stimulus and response as they refer to human behavior. I'm discussing reduction of an activity, and I mention that it works for every human behavior imaginable. The context, I think, is pretty clear.
Your response went something like this:
The referenced wikipedia page (here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulus-response_mod el) clearly refers to "stimulus/response" in the statistical sense. You are thus conflating two different meanings of the words, from the realm of human behavior and from the realm of statistics. I'm not making up anything here, nor is this bullshit. I do statistical analysis for a living. I'm working on my masters degree right now, and in the last lecture in my "Statisttics for Engineers" class the usage of the terms "stimulus and response" was a brief tangent the professor took. So it's fresh in my mind. I really don't know what else to tell you on that part.
Frankly, I'm not too worried about convincing you. Since your chosen form of argumentation involves repeatedly calling your opponent an idiot (not to mention arguing based on baseless assumptions about their free-time activities), I'm well-aware that trying to change your mind is likely a lost cause. This is purely intended for the odd lurker who may (for whatever reason) stumble across this thread.
Alternatively, you use a word (chaos), and then later say you were refering to chaos theory which is something completely different.
In point of fact I did not use the word "chaos". Feel free to look through my posts if you like. Use the find function to speed things up. I did, however, use the term "chaotic". This is the original context:
Thus I am clearly referring to complex/chaotic systems. I'm sorry if you expected to find the mathematical definition of either "chaos" or "complexity" in the OED. You should have tried wikipedia first. Here's the relevant section on complex systems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system I would direct your attention to a quote near the bottom: "Every decade or so, a grandiose theory comes along, bearing similar aspirations and often brandishing an ominous-sounding C-name. In the 1960 it was cybernetics. In the '70s it was catastrophe theory. Then came chaos theory in the '80s and complexity theory in the '90s." Cybnernetics is considered by many to be the birth of systems engineering (my field). Chaos theory and complexity theory are developments in this field (although systems engineering is by definition multi-disciplinary).
So this leaves us with two examples in which I used a term in what I thought was fairly clear context. In the first term you jumped from one discipline (human behavior) to another (statistics) and used a specialized definition from the latter to contradict my usa
whatev.
Stop being obtuse.
I'm not being obtuse. You're just not understanding my point. There are two arguments here: the argument about whether or not global warming exists, how bad it is, and whether or not it's our fault, and the argument about how that argument is conducted. I'm not arguing the merits of the global warming debate. I'm making an argument about the form of that argument: it's the philosophy of science as opposed to science itself.
As for your "evidence" itself, we're talking an extremely complex system and you want me to accept your 2 + 2 = 4 analysis? I'm a systems engineer, complex/chaotic systems are what I study. The whole point of these systems is that a relatively minor variation in starting condition escalates to enormous changes just a few steps down the road. 2 + 2 = 4 may be true, but 2.000001 + 1.999997 may be -17. That's the point of complex systems, and the reason I don't buy your pat analysis.
-stormin
It is far better to act on the basis of authority than not act at all.
9 31486
Agreed. But better still to act on the basis of authority without falling into the trap of accepting an argument based on authority. This is possible.
Details: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=207698&cid=16
Science as an authority is a GOOD thing, unless you have some sort of radical agenda that is threatened by actual reason, logic, and knowledge.
You don't get it. If you treat science as authority, you no longer have the capacity to judge whether it has some radical agenda. That's the whole point. You don't see the danger I'm pointing out. This would be just like early Christians saying "Religion as an authority is a GOOD thing, unless you have some sort of crazy psycho who decides to use religion as an excuse to start wars and, you know, basically violate every tenant of Christianity there is." And a few hundred years later you get the Crusades.
Your implication is that we should wait until there's proof of something that can never be proven until it has already happened. You are an idiot and a danger to the human race.
Such kind words. You must have been champion of your debate team. In any case what I'm actually saying is that you can't treat consensus as evidence. I'm not saying that you should wait for evidence to act. But it's possible to say "we've got no scientific evidence, but we need to make a decision now anyway". That's perfectly reasonable. It's only irrational when you say "we've got no scientific evidence, but we're going to call this decision scientific anyway". That's what I'm annoyed by.
Again, you're an idiot. In order to have an irrational trust in authority, your trust actually has to be irrational. That means not based upon observable facts and evidence. Unfortunately for you, your skeptical-of-global-warming crowd lost the reality test.
Look, I'm just going to throw this out there, but not everyone enjoys it when online debates devolve into name-calling. There are a lot of smart people on Slashdot, many of whom are experts in fields I'm just an amateur in (at best). I'd like to have an environment where instead of making unfounded attacks on people (e.g. I'm not really opposed to global warming, I'm just unconvinced at this point) we can actually disagree constructively. Could we try that?
-stormin
Umm, just because computer models for weather related systems aren't accurate, doesn't mean they produce complete bull.
9 31486 Consensus is not proof, it's a heuristic. I agree that we should use it, but HOW we use it is the key. To treat is as just another piece of evidence is the fatal flaw. It's not just another piece of evidence, it's a heuristic that is dangerous because, by correlating truth with agreement, it is likely to correlate other things that correlate with agreement with truth. Things like ideology and respect for authority.
I could have been more clear. My point was not that they produce complete Bull. It was simply that a model of the earth is NOT the earth. Thus experiments on the simulation are NOT experiments on the earth. Thus climatology has no real experiments.
Consensus is not proof. It can never be proof. But it's the next best thing we have.
I keep referring people back to this post, and I will do it again: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=207698&cid=16
We need to screen our heuristic of consensus for these factors. Failing to do so is what got me all riled up.
-stormin
Please see this post: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=207698&cid=169 31486 (which REALLY need to be modded up).
Consensus is not proof, and it never will be. However you are right that it does have a role to play. And that role is best characterized as "heuristic". As opposed to an algorithm, a heuristic is not guaranteed to get you the right answer - or even a good answer. However in the absence of an applicable algorithm, it's better than inaction. That said, however, there's a significant chance of selection bias in application of this heuristic. We're essentially saying that "when a lot of scientists agree, they're probably on to something". We're correlating truth with agreement. This means we're very susceptible to ideology and other factors that correlate with agreement other than preponderance of the evidence.
If a panel of 10 experts selected by Stephen Hawking reached a consensus of 8 or higher, I think I'd go along with them, regardless of my understanding of the details.
In my mind, this is the perfect example of what NOT to do. My first reaction to this result would be to pay attention to, at the very least, what the other 2 said. Once you apply the consensus heuristic, you've GOT to apply some kind of additional filter to try and detect ideology or authority. For example, what if 8 of those 10 were former students of Hawking? Don't you think that would affect your confidence?
When we use the consensus heuristic without additional testing we're setting ourselves up for failure. That's the point I'm trying to make here. Not that we shouldn't use consensus ever, but that it is NOT proof, it is something else, and it therefore can not be treated like proof (or even like scientific evidence).
I share your desire to understand more for ourselves, but doesn't science as an institution depend on some level of trust in the "experts"? That is a troubling concept but an accurate description of what we need to do to "believe" anything.
You've hit the nail on the head. And I'm not sure how we can handle this tricky problem. The institution of science, in society at large, is by definition non-scientific. At the very least, however, we need to stop pretending that it is. This is the problem I don't have the answer to yet.
-stormin
We can only make accurate predictions for the future based on accurately measuring similar events that have occurred in the past.
Shall we wait until all the effects of our self inflicted global warming can be measured before we attempt to do anything about it?
Just because we don't 'know' with 100% certainty what will definitely happen in the future does NOT mean we'd be wisest to do Nothing...when we DO know with 100% certainty that we ARE indeed having a negative effect on our planet.
Your arguments are valid: but they reinforce the proposition that global warming is not being propogated based on science. This is OK. That doesn't mean it's false. Just as if you wake up one night and someone is prowling around your house. You don't have time to do repeatable experiments to determine if the intruder means you harm or not. So you're quite justified in reacting unscientifically.
The problem I have is with proponents of global science who want to fast-track to the "we must do something NOW" phase AND claim to be scientific. You can't argue (quite rightly) that there's no opportunity for science AND claim to be scientific.
-stormin
Agreed. I would, rather, put it in these terms: Science must not be allowed to become a religion in the same sense that any other faith has become religious, largely because faith is in essence the antithesis of science.
It depends on your definition. And I admit that your definition is valid. If you are defining religions by the preponderance of historical examples, than I agree with you: religion is the anti-thesis of science, and religion must not be allowed to become science.
I was using an alternative definition of religion, however. For ease of use, let me say "spirituality" instead. I don't think that there's anything wrong with spirituality, nor do I believe that spirituality and science contradict. Quite the opposite - they both use similar rules of logic and reasoning. It is this type of religion - spirituality (for lack of a better term) that I consider valid and that I consider myself a practitioner of.
In terms of science OR religion, my stance is simply that I refuse to belive anything simply becase an "expert" tells me. I reject the teachings of pastors/priests/etc who justify their beliefs with contradictory or fallacious arguments just the same as I refuse to place full trust in a "scientific expert" who cannot prove his stance (or has questionable objectivity).
I agree 100%. The sole difference is that I believe there are types of religion that do not rely on argument for authority or contradictory or fallacious reasoning.
-stormin
I suspect that you don't even really understand the problems
9 31486 That's the best you can do with consensus: make it a heuristic. And it's a dangerous heuristic that needs to be carefully applied.
Oh wow, ad hominem attacks. Great. Actually, I do understand the problem. And, to the best of my knowledge, the only serious attempt to get "proof" from inductive reasoning stems from Bayesian analysis. And even that is not proof, as in 100% certainty, just a quantifiable measure or probability based on formal induction.
Scientific consensus is the closest we can get to proofs of hypotheses
No, it's not. It's not even related to proof. If you want to prove a hypothesis - you need evidence. "Because these people said so" is only evidence to the extent that you believe those people. Unless you are testing their evidence (in which case you've got direct evidence and don't need to reference other people) you are relying on their authority. Argument from authority is not evidence: it's a logical fallacy.
Check this post out: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=207698&cid=16
-stormin
The simple fact is that science produces testable theories which seek to correctly describe the world around us, while religion does not
q uote04.html
Hahahahaha!! Is that so? Then please conduct an experiment in which you demonstrate global warming. Not in some computer model (I do computer models, I know how "realistic" they are for weather-related systems) but using the world. Whoops! We've only got one! And no time travel (to repeat experiments with same initial conditions)! And, for that matter, no ability to tell the world what levels of pollutants to release into the atmosphere. In short: no experiments.
Guess climatology is a religion now?
As for your enshrinement of argument from authority, that has been well-enough dispatched by the AC who replied before me. So I'll let that stand instead of repeating it.
I'm not sure why you went off and attacked the concept of consensus because I wrote (correctly) that the scientific debate on this matter had ended.
Because my main problem is with the idea that consensus is scientifically valid. It is not. Please read "Aliens Cause Global Warming" by Michael Crichton: http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speeches/speeches_
-stormin
Looking for consensus isn't proof, but it's a good heuristic
I appreciate this argument. But it's a heuristic that has a very specific type of failure: ideologues would be the most likely to share a common consensus.
Another heuristic is to pay more attention to people who admit uncertainties
Agreed. And this is the perfect counter to the above fault. I like what you're saying. But the review was clearly NOT following this heuristic at all. And it was the review that I was responding to.
-stormin
b) If they [all the experts in this area] reached a consensus, one would assume that they reached it based on the preponderance of evidence in favor of a certain way of interpreting the facts. They are scientists after all, not ideologues.
Are you serious? I didn't realize that when you got your "scientist" badge, it also conferred immunity against being an ideologue. Besides, as I pointed out earlier, you don't necessarily need scientists to be ideologues. All you need is for a few major media editors to buy into it for sensationalism and you've manufactured the consensus that the handful of ideologues (if they exist) would need.
In any case, you're belief in the infallibility (in a an ideological sense) of scientists is extremely sinister. That's the kind of implicit trust I give to no one.
-stormin
the evidence changes the consensus
A. There is not always a consensus at all. From Google search of "Define: consensus" = A consensus implies that debate has taken place, the solution is generally accepted rather than a grudging compromise, and that agreement is deep-rooted enough that it can stand for some time without need to revisit the issue.
B. If the evidence leads to a consensus, that's great. But it's still not proof. It's not even direct evidence.
In science, the best you can do are experiments whose results seem to support or not support a theory.
Yeah, and consensus is not an experiment. Not only is it not proof, it's not (as I stated earlier) direct, scientific evidence at all.
-stormin
Even a devout Catholic can't look at the history of the Catholic church and say that organized religion has been anything other than a monstrosity for most of its history. From the Inquisition to the Crusades to anti-Semitism to political and social oppression - the history of Catholicism is sordid and shameful. Most organized religions fare no better, and the shame of their history simply depends on how long they've been around. The Mormons, for example, have the Mountain Meadows Massacre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_Mas sacre).
However, just as science has been misused to support things like phrenology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology) the argument can be made that what we've seen historically is not necessary to organized religion. It is instead what happens when organized religion falls prey to lust for political and economic power. As far as I'm concerned the chief difference between the evils of organized religion and the evils of science are that religion is a much, much older social institution than science. As a result, religion has had time to be perverted in all kinds of ways that science has not yet and - if we are vigilant - never will be.
In short: People who believe in organized religions should be the ones who are the angriest about what religious institutions have done throughout history. It's our duty to try and make sure the same mistakes of the past aren't committed again.
As far as my anti-authority stance goes, yes: there is a certain amount of intellectual tension in both adhering to a standardized body of theological belief and the scientific method. But tension is not the same thing as contradiction. I happen to think that part of the purpose of an organized religion is to make our intellectual lives harder - not easier. Intellectual tension is the motivator for intellectual growth in the same sense that necessity is the mother of invention. This means I don't hold my spiritual beliefs as sacrosanct and my scientific ones as conditional. All belief is conditional. I don't expect everyone to believe that, especially given religion's dearth of credibility on Slashdot, but that's the intro to the answer to how a devout Mormon also holds anti-authoritarian beliefs if you're curious.
-stormin (and here come the flames...)
The short answer is yes, he does. There are minor errors. They don't detract from Gore's main point, on which the scientific debate has ended.
Consensus is NOT proof. I don't know how else to say this. When someone tells you that there is a consensus among scientists on a certain issue, they have proved nothing about the issue itself.. I'm not arguing that global warming is not real, or is not the fault of humans. But I'm tired of people trying to strong-arm me into acquiescing to the point using blatantly un-scientific methods.
The troubling side-issue no one wants to talk about here is that in our modern world of super-specialization it has become increasingly impossible to fact-check our experts. There are at least 3 distinct parties in this conversation: scientists, the media, and the public at large. If either scientists or the media have a bias at all on this issue anyone who believes the tired-old "scientific consensus" argument can be led around just like those religious fools they love to mock: a subject to an irrational trust in authority. Scientific consensus is the argument used to sell us toothpaste and mouth rinse - not to argue substantively for the biggest scientific crisis the world has faced.
This troubling side-issue of authority vs. science won't go away. We are in danger of becoming a society where science is the new priesthood, universities are the new temples, and PhDs are the new bishops of a timid and trusting flock. I'd say this corruption of science is almost as alarming as global warming, and far easier to demonstrate. Any true follower of science must reject "consensus" for what it is: argument by authority. It is, fundamentally, the same monstrosity that corrupted organized religion 1,000s of years ago. It must be rejected if science is to escape the fate of those organized religions.
I don't mean for this to distract from the central point of global warming. That's an important issue as well. The trouble is: how do we make up our minds about the issue if we reject scientific consensus as proof? The only thing I can think of is to understand as much of the issue as we can for ourselves rather than from the media. That's something I definitely need to work harder on.
-stormin
Should have included: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_engineering
-stormin
Jokes aside, it really isn't rocket science. TFA pointed it out: it's systems engineering. Which is not the same thing.
-stormin
Why can't a system that contains parts which behave randomly when observed individually produce random output?
In general, it can. In this case, however, the only parts of the system that behave randomly are sub-atomic particles. Unless you have a different suggestion for the non-deterministic elements?
Quantum physicists say that the movement of individual particles is completely random. Isn't that enough of a quantum detector?
Exactly, that's why I made referrence to a quantum-detector. The problem is one of scale. There's no way that a neuron, which is a cell composed of millions of atoms, could be sensitive to the quantum variations in any given atom. Nor is there any evidence of a kind of escalator that could some how amplify a quantum event to a level that could influence a neuron. So when I said "quantum detector" I'm explaining that even though there's plenty of random behavior in the brain at the sub-atomic level, there's nothing at the cellular level that is affected by that quantum behavior. That's where you need a detector: at the cellular level. No biologist that I know of seriously entertains the notion that such a detector exists.
As far as whether random fluctuations get you a "will", I don't think they do. I'm not a combatibilist. I think random fluctuations aren't what we want when we talk about "will" at all.
For any given state of a neural network, you can describe a direct map between a set of inputs and the output.
You are again displaying your ignorance. In order to describe the map between a set of inputs and the output, you'd need a description of the state of a neural network. We don't even have that! And we're not close to it either. We don't even have a definition for "neural network". Where do you set the boundary? The spinal cord clearly plays a role, so don't say "the brain". So every single nerve from brain to tip of the toes? Fine - use that as a starting point. You seriously think we can model an entire neural network? We're not even close. Once we get there, we can see whether or not the inputs map to the output, but I'm still fairly certain they won't. We'll get to why once I address your misconceptions about "chaos".
Frankly, while the rest of what we're discussing is philosophical, that statement is just bullshit.
This is the what, second time you've used a copy/paste "definition" to prove I'm wrong? Third? And it's the second or third time you've been completely, totally wrong. The simple reason for this is that I'm using these terms in their technical sense. I used stimulus/response in the philosophical/neurological sense, you mis-applied their statistical definitions. In this case I'm referring to chaos theory/complexity theory. Looking the words up in websters or dictionary.com is not going to get you the technical definition I'm working with.
I really don't have the time or inclincation to give you a full tutorial on chaos/complexity theory. Honestly, I don't have the academic backgroun either. I haven't even finished my masters in System's Engineering yet (which deals with complex systems). But let me take this statment for starters: Chaos is practically synonymous with nondeterminism.
Contrast your statement with this (from wikipedia's entry on chaos theory): As a result of this sensitivity, the behavior of systems that exhibit chaos appears to be random, exhibiting an exponential error dispersion, even though the system is deterministic in the sense that it is well defined and contains no random parameters
So we're back to what I originally described. As a chaotic/complex system, the brain is deterministic. No randomness. Despite this it exhibits some of the characteristics of randomness. Thus, quite fairly, the brain can be both deterministic AND not have the inputs relate DIRECTLY to the outputs in the conventional sense. Not only is that possible, it's kind of the point of chaotic/complex systems.
Right.
If anything you have further strengthened my opinion that most human behavior is not purely stimulus/response... In fact, given the same stimuli repeatedly, a human may not respond the same way twice simply because there are many factors in the response that cannot reasonably be considered stimuli. Furthermore, given exactly the same stimuli, people have the capability of choosing a response arbitrarily. You may argue, though, that context is a stimulus.
1. First of all, there is no evidence that humans can actually decide "arbitrarily". In order to be genuinely arbitrary, you'd need to have some kind of a biological genuine random-number generator. Unless you think humans have little quantum-detectors in their brains, it's hard to imagine how this could work.
2. "factors that cannot reasonably be considered stimuli" What might these factors be? In a materialist universe *all* you have is the physical state of the brain/mind and the physical input to that system. But this system is a result of past stimulus, is it not? Either a thing physically effects the brain (e.g. is stimulus) or, in a materialist universe, it does not exist. Thus, quite literally, you've got nothing but a physical system that is determined by previous stimuli, and then additional stimuli. That is *all*.
It's fine with me if you're position is "strengthened", but it's pretty clear to me that you had no logical basis for it in the first place, and are continuing to react to my viewpoint viscerally instead of rationally.
How can you not see that those two statements contradict each other? You're saying that the inputs don't map directly to the outputs (presumably because you don't know how to describe the mapping), and then you are saying that the inputs do map directly to the output.
OK... way to tell me what I'm saying instead of read what I wrote. The difference is this: the connection between inputs and outputs is deterministic, but not direct. "Direct" is not a scientific term (as far as I know) so I'll explain further. If you are subject to a vector of inputs at time t1, the output (at time t1+x) will be a result of the not just the stimuli from time t1, but also the condition of your brain at time t1, which is in turn a consequence of vectors of inputs received at times t1-y (y>0). Thus the system as a whole is entirely stimulus/response, but *part* of the response of the system is to change (in deterministic ways). Thus it is not "direct" since the systems makeup changes over time. In addition, "direct" can also refer to the fact that the human neurological system is very complex (that's the modern term for chaotic). What this means, by definition, is that a very small change in the inputs or state of the system (the initial conditions) can result in dramatic changes in the output. Thus you can't possibly subject the system to "repeated stimulus" because with every new stimulus the system changes. These changes are complex, and therefore the resulting changes can be orders of magnitude more dramatic than the (approximately) identical stimuli.
So, are you saying that the statistical model doesn't apply because we have to take the "cogs of the machine" on faith? If so, you seem to be describing yourself as a materialist using an argument that is spiritual.
The cogs of the machine are not taken on faith. They are called neurons. As well as other biological entities. Do you disbelieve in neurons? Would you consider neuroscience to be "spiritual"?
-stormin
Sadly your mathematical "proof" does you no better. The stimulus/response referred to in this article are meant in the statistical sense. This is an article about regression modeling and has nothing to do with human behavior. Stimulus/response, in statistical terminology, are just a better way of saying "independent/dependent variables". We don't like to use independent/dependent (as is done in high school) for the simple reason that independence and dependence have specific meaning in statistics. So, in short, your wikipedia link is utterly irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
I'll try to clarify the context I have in mind for "stimulus/response":
It's not as simple as a direct mathematical function from one variable (or vector of variables) to another. We're talking about a highly complex (e.g. chaotic) system. So it would be naive to expect the inputs to map directly to the outputs. What I'm actually referring to is materialism in general. According to materialist theories for human cognition, the "self" is massively modular. That means that you've got a vast array of systems, all of which act deterministically. You feed in input (stimulus) and the output is determined by the system (response) without any intervention of a human will. The will, in essence, disappears into the cogs of the machine. Instead of an actual entity, human will becomes merely a simplified description of the system as a whole. And this is leaving out the possibility of randomness (although whether true randomness, in the form of quantum events, could possibly have an effect on neurons - and thus behavior - is dubious at best). So "stimulus/response" just refers to the fact that there's nothing between the input (stimulus) and the output (response) except, as Newton would put it, billiard balls on a billiards table. Every step along the way is deterministically defined.
I'm not trying to wow you with my mumbo jumbo pseudo-science babble. I realize that I'm still an amateur in this field. I'm just trying to explain to you that there's a lot more going on. When I see someone say "stimulus/response" I immediately think: "deterministic". To me it doesn't matter how many intermediaries you throw up between the stimulus and the response. You could have an entire rube goldberg contraption that would make any simple function-mapping impossible, but would fail to alter the fundamental nature of "stimulus/respones" - determinism. If you are seriously interested in this topic at all, check out "Elbow Room" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbow_Room) by Daniel Dennett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett).
In particular, pay attention to his analogy regarding the digger wasp. From wikipedia:
My point regarding "stimulus/response" is essentially just a rej