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Yes, because these are emergent phenomenon. Ecosystems are by definition too complex to have anything cognizable as intent. New diseases are an emergent phenome

by SllX 3y ago

Yes, because these are emergent phenomenon. Ecosystems are by definition too complex to have anything cognizable as intent. New diseases are an emergent phenomenon because the new species of bacteria or viruses we either find or which evolve around us interact with us in new ways, and those are all emergent phenomenon. If something is emergent, that is by definition not with intent. My intent and your intent and everybody else’s intent creates both strong and weak interactions which percolate through society, recognizable through other phenomena which we measure such as economy, births, deaths, elections or whatever sum up into a society which is recognizable as a describable body but which is emergent and without an intent of its own but rather multiple sometimes overlapping and sometimes clashing intents. Ecosystems are like that: full of creatures with intentions of their own, but without any sort of intent. It cannot use anything without a body (a tree, a bee, a fox, a bacterial culture, a virus) taking action, therefore it cannot weaponize anything. Or put another way, you can go into the Jungle, and you might die, and some lazy mofo might say you died from the Jungle but what actually killed you would be a crocodile, a jaguar, some kind of infection from an identifiable bacteria or virus even if left unidentified, maybe your inability to metabolize due to protein starvation, or something else, but the Jungle itself will not be the thing that killed you.

deleted 3y ago
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__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
First: > Ecosystems are a collection of species and are about as harmonious as a poison jar over time, but the jar itself has no intentions, it’s just a jar. Then: > Ecosystems are by definition too complex to have anything cognizable as intent. Which is it, are they too complex, or too simple? I do think that "cognizable" is the right word though. It's not about complexity. Whether a phenomenon is emergent, or the result of intention, depends on how we're thinking about it. It's a rhetorical choice, stylistic, not a matter of fact. It has to do with how you're telling the story, with whether its a character or the environment that does the thing. I can see that you have different preferences over how to style conversations about ecosystems, and that's fine, but do you think there will ever be evidence that sorts this out for us, or are we just fighting over words?
- SllX 3y ago
  Fighting is a strong word. I wouldn’t say we are, but perhaps you want to fight about that? :) > Which is it, are they too complex, or too simple? Poison jars are not simple. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, the basic idea is that you place a collection of venomous insects and animals within a jar together and they essentially kill each other; the theory being that the poison from all of them would be concentrated in the survivor which would then be fed upon by larvae of which the last surviving larvae would hold the more complex poison. It’s an imperfect analogy, but to break it down: the jar in this analogy is Earth, and everything living on it is competitive in a way which results in a complex but violent system of interactions. The jar could also be a given ecosystem smaller than Earth. The poison is is the result of the struggle. It’s an old Chinese idea, if you want to look it up look up “Gu” with “poison jar” in your search terms. The actual use of the poisons aren’t any more interesting to me than rhino horns or Astrology but the form of production itself is interesting, but I digress. This complex system of interactions is basically life as we know it, and while it is not always clear to us how an interaction causes a significant impact on us either specifically or generally, we do know that occasionally something seemingly unrelated to us does. Earth is a closed system full of biomass quite literally the world over. > Whether a phenomenon is emergent, or the result of intention, depends on how we're thinking about it. It's a rhetorical choice, stylistic, not a matter of fact. It has to do with how you're telling the story, with whether its a character or the environment that does the thing. These are mutually exclusive. Emergent phenomenon can be caused by the complex interactions of intentional acts, but the phenomenon themselves have no intent. It’s not merely a rhetorical choice, because ecosystems tell no stories, we can only ascribe stories to them. Or put another way, I’m anti-ing your entire conception that an ecosystem of any sort at all would take any kind of action against an individual species within it because that would require an ecosystem to have some form of intent. Even if you didn’t mean it literally, it is a turn of phrase which encourages in others to see something in the natural world that simply isn’t there. That you can get bit by a tick that causes a beef allergy is interesting and the tick, the cause of the allergy and what exactly happens that is beneficial to the tick are interesting questions; but the only intent here is the tick taking a bite out of its food because it was hungry and it does what ticks do. Unfortunately this also causes a beef allergy in some people but that is neither here nor there from the perspective of the tick or the environment from which it came.

by SllX 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago

First: > Ecosystems are a collection of species and are about as harmonious as a poison jar over time, but the jar itself has no intentions, it’s just a jar. Then: > Ecosystems are by definition too complex to have anything cognizable as intent. Which is it, are they too complex, or too simple? I do think that "cognizable" is the right word though. It's not about complexity. Whether a phenomenon is emergent, or the result of intention, depends on how we're thinking about it. It's a rhetorical choice, stylistic, not a matter of fact. It has to do with how you're telling the story, with whether its a character or the environment that does the thing. I can see that you have different preferences over how to style conversations about ecosystems, and that's fine, but do you think there will ever be evidence that sorts this out for us, or are we just fighting over words?

SllX 3y ago
Fighting is a strong word. I wouldn’t say we are, but perhaps you want to fight about that? :) > Which is it, are they too complex, or too simple? Poison jars are not simple. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, the basic idea is that you place a collection of venomous insects and animals within a jar together and they essentially kill each other; the theory being that the poison from all of them would be concentrated in the survivor which would then be fed upon by larvae of which the last surviving larvae would hold the more complex poison. It’s an imperfect analogy, but to break it down: the jar in this analogy is Earth, and everything living on it is competitive in a way which results in a complex but violent system of interactions. The jar could also be a given ecosystem smaller than Earth. The poison is is the result of the struggle. It’s an old Chinese idea, if you want to look it up look up “Gu” with “poison jar” in your search terms. The actual use of the poisons aren’t any more interesting to me than rhino horns or Astrology but the form of production itself is interesting, but I digress. This complex system of interactions is basically life as we know it, and while it is not always clear to us how an interaction causes a significant impact on us either specifically or generally, we do know that occasionally something seemingly unrelated to us does. Earth is a closed system full of biomass quite literally the world over. > Whether a phenomenon is emergent, or the result of intention, depends on how we're thinking about it. It's a rhetorical choice, stylistic, not a matter of fact. It has to do with how you're telling the story, with whether its a character or the environment that does the thing. These are mutually exclusive. Emergent phenomenon can be caused by the complex interactions of intentional acts, but the phenomenon themselves have no intent. It’s not merely a rhetorical choice, because ecosystems tell no stories, we can only ascribe stories to them. Or put another way, I’m anti-ing your entire conception that an ecosystem of any sort at all would take any kind of action against an individual species within it because that would require an ecosystem to have some form of intent. Even if you didn’t mean it literally, it is a turn of phrase which encourages in others to see something in the natural world that simply isn’t there. That you can get bit by a tick that causes a beef allergy is interesting and the tick, the cause of the allergy and what exactly happens that is beneficial to the tick are interesting questions; but the only intent here is the tick taking a bite out of its food because it was hungry and it does what ticks do. Unfortunately this also causes a beef allergy in some people but that is neither here nor there from the perspective of the tick or the environment from which it came.