Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit on NDT philosophy

Kevin Behan

 If a dog has a ToM capacity, and since higher cognitive functions are said to moderate emotion, then a dog should be able to disguise its feelings. This is your logic.

No, that's your' perverse corruption of the argument. As usual your straw man army is of no value, learn about IF-THEN statements before making more of them.  Please learn to read for comprehension and take some courses in critical thinkings skills. It may be that all 4 combinations are possible.

Kevin Behan

Yes, something is going on in the mind of the dog, but my argument is that the body is more important than the brain in this mental life, which is why I'm arguing against thought as in ---> comparing one moment or point of view to another

Well, in that case it's an ignorant argument since we have some good evidence that's the case.

Kevin Behan

So I don't see how ToM capacity stands up to the fact that a dog never hides what it's feeling, and I don't know of a dog masking pain.

Kevin Behan

In fact, if you consider the dogs most stoic to pain, the ones that are the quickest to dish it out, are the ones that squeal the loudest, so this reveals more about Temperament than about masking due to a perceived necessity or advantage.

Kevin Behan

In fact there is the famous example of what most call "feigned injuries" which I don't believe are feigned at all, but are rather being relived.

Kevin Behan

I would also note that when a dog is "in drive" it doesn't perceive pain as making it the "object of attention" and thereby triggering negative memories. Rather, it is oblivious if not stimulated to a higher state of arousal by these sensations.

The evolutionary advantages of selectional attentiveness are obvious and we can reasonably posit that lack of such a mechanism would be highly disadvantageous.  How often would a predator eat if it stopped to assess itself every time it got bitten, kicked, slammed during the capture.  How long would herbivores survive, if they stopped running from the pain of the claws/jaws of their predators.  The animals that stopped because of a little pain during physical same sex competitive mating rituals would never mate.

It is also well known, and supported by PET and MRI studies that attention plays a role in our perception of pain. Focus in all occasions determines how well or poorly we perceive a stimulus - any stimulus.  It's a brain thing, Behan. Brains have a limited processing power.  That's because nocireception occurs at the spinal level while pain involves the cortex.

Kevin Behan

 I admire Einstein too, especially his willingness to challenge dogma.

How can you admire something you know nothing about?

Einstein didn't challenge dogma. He used the work of Maxwell, Lorentz and others and expanded on it.  

See, Behan, he worked with the EVIDENCE, and proposed a TESTABLE, FALSIFIABLE theory that had mathematical validity. HIS work didn't demand that we toss out Newton, or Maxwell or Faraday - all that work was still valid.

Focus on these words, TESTABLE, EVIDENCE, FALSIFIABLE.

 So your position is that a dog has capacity for ToM, understands cause and effect over time, capable of deception, capable of modifying emotional affective systems by higher cognitive function toward adaptive ends, but is not capable of faking or denying a feeling?

Kevin Behan

 So your position is that a dog has capacity for ToM, understands cause and effect over time, capable of deception, capable of modifying emotional affective systems by higher cognitive function toward adaptive ends, but is not capable of faking or denying a feeling?

 I am ignoring the emphasized contradictory phrases.

Who are you addressing?  Actually, you are the only one saying a dog cannot disguise its state of mind. I think everyone else says they do in many ways. 

I think we can sum things up by articulating a fundamental point of divergence. I'm pointing out that the logic that's been developed on the side of ToM and all the rest that's been discussed, ultimately means that dogs can fake a feeling. Their higher order cognitive processes can override an affective system and substitute another one out of context if it suits their self-interest. As you put it, a dog can "disguise its state of mind." In contrast I don't feel they can hide what they're feeling. If the former is true, many other problematic implications will follow as well. For example, reading a dog's body language is not necessarily accurate and Turid Rugaas book could just as easily be called "Conning Signals."  

I think we can sum things up by articulating a fundamental point of divergence.

 That would be good.  It's a strange keynote to end with, though...the ToM and disguise issues seem tangential to all the back and forth we have seen here.  But, so it goes - like Buddhist sand paintings, forum chatter has a limited value.

True but very straightforward. No jargon, a clear line of demarcation. Is it real, or is it Memorex? (Sorry for the dated pop culture reference)

Kevin Behan

 I admire Einstein too, especially his willingness to challenge dogma.

Einstein: Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. 

You don't seem to like the scrutiny that science requires, so you confabulate - over and over.  Usually, even those who challenge dogma are found to be right or wrong in their opinions based on new knowledge derived from experimentation or other hard evidence.   

Einstein took from Maxwell the calculated speed of light, which is approx 300,000 km/s, roughly 186,282 mi/s. From the Michelson-Morley Experiment with it's null results, he surmised there was no aether. Yet the transforms he used to describe the effects of objects at the speed of light came from dutch physicist Lorentz and colleague FitzGerald, with both of those guys believing in an aether. And Einstein's use, specifically as he expanded it into his ideas about gravity in the General Theory of Relativity represent, essentially, a mathematical aether. And any evidence to support Einstein's theories is interpreted with these formulas. Which is circular logic, something that seems to be in large supply.

The speed of light was proved experimentally, by using time as an abstract constant. Then, Einstein said that time was not an abstract constant but a physical function of velocity, thereby invalidating the standard of time. And, more recently, the Smithsonian Institute wanted to change the definition of a second from the longstanding tradition of how many oscillations of a cesium atom to defining it as the duration it takes for light to travel 300,000 km in space. The very same space that Einstein says changes the duration of time. When challenged with the nature of light, itself, Einstein said that light was a massless particle. Carte Blanche. Anything to support the theory with no way to test and prove it. Man, does that sound familar. Light is affected by mass, even if we follow Einstein's General Theory. To whit, objects of mass bend space. Light travels in space and follows its curvature. This is observable in eclipses. It is also observable in refractive behavior of different media, such as water.

Einstein said large velocities are not additive. Which means they could not be graphed in analytical geometry, or even topology, for that matter. Topology must also follow the rules of orthongal references for it to mean anything. So, I drew blood in one debate years ago when someone tried to 3-card monty with the Lorentz Group in topology using hyperbolic trig. Until I pointed out that they were trying to interpret in violation of the postulates required to make topological descriptions work. Bad ron, bad ron ...

Well, ron, what about E = mc^2? Oh, you mean Newton's kinetic energy equation reduced and solved for the behavior of an atom? Why do things the hard way? Never mind the possible evidence that the equation quite likely came from Mrs. Einstein, who also went to the same university that Albert would usually skip classes at. She graduated and received a degree.

Challenging dogma didn't make Einstein right. And I don't mean to beat up on Albert. He can't help it that he didn't have a firm grasp on math. Actually, he failed algebra, twice. He was a visual thinker, rather than an analytical thinker.

In practice, if we ignore Einstein's statement that velocities are non-additive, we have fixed aperture radar mapping. And Einstein himself ran up against that wall when he finally got to studying the actual behavior of particle collisions. The only way to accurately describe the evidence he saw was to use orthogonal axes to write force vectors, ergo, component velocities are additive. It was in his autobiographical notes, which I have read in the original german, and english translation.

Sorry to digress. I'm just a caveman electrician, thawed out from a glacier by your scientists ...

 Ron

 Reading this reminded me of Gov Ann Richards long ago describing Bush 1, but the real problem for so many people is summed up as

You are right here, corgidog. I think that it is most likely that he was a precosious student that was good at Math and Physics but not so hot at managing people like teachers. My guess is that he may not have hidden his disdain for them.

In the days before anti streaming at schools, (my era) it was not so unusual to get a good solid grasp of integral and differential calculus by Einstein's age. I was quite young at my school (15  1/2 by the end of high school) and had a pretty reasonable mastery, but couldn't get linear algebra to save myself, or chemistry for that matter. I got very good marks in Physics. I am not even on the same planet as  Einstein though!!!  A couple of my class mates did and went on to do PhDs in  various subjects. This BTW was at quite a normal public school in  a pretty bad area. Kids would quite often jump straight to second year at Uni.

It was in the town that Rutherford studied at, if you like the founder of atomic physics Christhchurch where Canterbury University is located.

http://christchurchcitylibraries.com/kids/famousnewzealanders/ernest.asp

Reading Einstein's letters to his wife shows some remarkably chilling lack of empathy... It helps fill in the picture a bit . It is the reason for my statement about the way he may have managed his teachers.

ron2

Einstein took from Maxwell the calculated speed of light, which is approx 300,000 km/s, roughly 186,282 mi/s. From the Michelson-Morley Experiment with it's null results, he surmised there was no aether. Yet the transforms he used to describe the effects of objects at the speed of light came from dutch physicist Lorentz and colleague FitzGerald, with both of those guys believing in an aether. And Einstein's use, specifically as he expanded it into his ideas about gravity in the General Theory of Relativity represent, essentially, a mathematical aether. And any evidence to support Einstein's theories is interpreted with these formulas. Which is circular logic, something that seems to be in large supply.

I will offer a slight defence of Einstein. It is normal for Maths to run ahead of discovery. Within the last 1/2 decade i have seen a closed form solution for a common issue that i face in day to day professional life that was derived from a 17th century discovery. You can bet that the students who discvered the link took the kudos and all power to them!!

Lorenz himself did not see the truth that Eisntein saw in his equations. 

Of late, i have seen a relatively young engineer discover a huge simplification of a method almost by accident. He did it because he thought it might work and he tried it out. It is his he who put the bits together and i am very supportive of his work. I will do what i can to get it out there. Of course i am peeved that i didn't get there first!!!

The basic ideas undelying relativity seem to me quite simple. I enjoy the thought behind it. I don't debate it a whole lot, and to some extent rely on it for such things as naviagtion. So i have no issues with it.

From what i have read, Einstein may have been a little difficult to deal with, a little lacking in an ability to sustain personal relationships. Many of us are like that, but i wont take away the brillance of his discoveries for that

poodleOwned

ron2

Einstein took from Maxwell the calculated speed of light, which is approx 300,000 km/s, roughly 186,282 mi/s. From the Michelson-Morley Experiment with it's null results, he surmised there was no aether. Yet the transforms he used to describe the effects of objects at the speed of light came from dutch physicist Lorentz and colleague FitzGerald, with both of those guys believing in an aether. And Einstein's use, specifically as he expanded it into his ideas about gravity in the General Theory of Relativity represent, essentially, a mathematical aether. And any evidence to support Einstein's theories is interpreted with these formulas. Which is circular logic, something that seems to be in large supply.

I will offer a slight defence of Einstein. It is normal for Maths to run ahead of discovery. Within the last 1/2 decade i have seen a closed form solution for a common issue that i face in day to day professional life that was derived from a 17th century discovery. You can bet that the students who discvered the link took the kudos and all power to them!!

Lorenz himself did not see the truth that Eisntein saw in his equations.

Of late, i have seen a relatively young engineer discover a huge simplification of a method almost by accident. He did it because he thought it might work and he tried it out. It is his he who put the bits together and i am very supportive of his work. I will do what i can to get it out there. Of course i am peeved that i didn't get there first!!!

The basic ideas undelying relativity seem to me quite simple. I enjoy the thought behind it. I don't debate it a whole lot, and to some extent rely on it for such things as naviagtion. So i have no issues with it.

From what i have read, Einstein may have been a little difficult to deal with, a little lacking in an ability to sustain personal relationships. Many of us are like that, but i wont take away the brillance of his discoveries for that