Rev. Michael Dowd, Death-Cult Environmentalist? |435|

We are here talking about a global crisis - whether natural or human induced - that has come about at a time when we do have a global culture to large degree. Its not uniform or homogenous however. So I am not sure how one can equate a single culture's environmental overreach with global phenomenon. Here I am asserting the climate is changing - but I do not know the cause.

I gave this a like, Michael, in part because of this para. I agree with what you say except that I don't actually know the climate is changing significantly; don't assert that is so. Sure, climate changes over time, but is it changing significantly right now? I don't know, but if so, I don't believe it's anything to do with anthropogenic CO2 production.

I believe the emphasis on climate change rather than global warming is just a calculated and cynical way of making it seem more threatening and to blame any change, be it in weather or climate, as being a result of CO2-induced AGW. More snow, less snow, more or less ice, higher or lower sea-levels, any bloody thing at all can all be laid at the door of human beings, who apparently have become the greatest threat to the planet. It's all profoundly anti-human and I wonder that it's gripped the minds of large numbers of people.

I see it as a fashion, a fad, as tulip mania on steroids. It's perhaps a symptom of an underlying angst in Western societies quite possibly arising at least in part from their abandonment of spirituality in favour of materialism. Nihilism, and a feeling of powerlessness, have somehow combined in this period of identity politics to produce something sick and in need of remediation.

And what might the remedy be? Maybe a good dose of optimism, but that might only come with a conscious return to spiritual values. So maybe it will not come at all, in which case the West might decline into insignificance. That would be the true catastrophe, but at least most of the rest of the world isn't so materialistic, and so eventually this madness could dissipate.
 
Poor little Greta doesn't agree with him because she thinks we can do something to avert catastrophe. Even most of the scientists he relies on are implicitly in disagreement with him. Otherwise, why would there be all the brouhaha about doing something and doing it now? They evidently think that not everything is lost; that the same entities -- namely we human beings -- who putatively screwed everything up, can in fact unscrew everything up (not that I agree with them).
great point. implied but never explicitly stated because it completely contradicts the fake science they've built the thing on.
 
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interesting. sorry I missed this first time around. can you point me to yr post.

also, do you think you could help us get Behe on Skeptiko?
I think Stephen Meyer at the Discovery Institution would be an excellent guest as well. Darwin's random view of genetic mutation has been undone by DNA/protein research and simple combination mathematics. Intelligent Design is now the way to go. A good start is a quick read of David Galertner
Sure - here you are - it is a whole thread!

http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/behes-argument-in-darwin-devolved.4317/

I mean think what it really means, if all the creatures on earth were literally designed!

Unlike others at the DI, I haven't managed to get through to him by email.

David
David, you're exactly right. It shatters the random materialist paradigm. I assume you've tried Steve Meyer at the Discovery Institute as well. He'd be great to have on.
 
this issue is all about control. plain and simple. nothing has changed in mankind since we first walked the
Earth. these folk who lead do not give a whit about the planet that is why they fly first class and take first
class train seats like Greta. Check Greenland ice cores for temp history
 
I think Stephen Meyer at the Discovery Institution would be an excellent guest as well. Darwin's random view of genetic mutation has been undone by DNA/protein research and simple combination mathematics. Intelligent Design is now the way to go. A good start is a quick read of David Galertner

David, you're exactly right. It shatters the random materialist paradigm. I assume you've tried Steve Meyer at the Discovery Institute as well. He'd be great to have on.


I tried contacting Stephen Myer several times and I think David did as well. It’s worth another shot though. He would be a great guest.
 
I think the problem is the DI is a Christian organisation, and it is probably difficult for its prominent members to come on a show like ours. I'd love to be proved wrong though, because I think the realisation that the whole of life on earth was a project for someone/some group of beings is completely mind blowing !

I only came to realise the strength of the DI case after I joined Skeptiko. It was after long discussions on here with Paul C. Anagnostopoulos and Lone Shaman.

Paul A tried to brush off all the arguments regarding combinatorial explosion - I'd probably better not try to reproduce his materialistic arguments here, because he ceased to be active some time ago, I suppose it reminded me of lengthy discussions I had with people at university who wanted me to remain a Christian, and failed. In the end, the discussions with the above members convinced me that evolution by RM_NS is false. By now it seems obviously false.

David
 
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I think the problem is the DI is a Christian organisation, and it is probably difficult for its prominent members to some on a show like ours. I'd love to be proved wrong though, because I think the realisation that the whole of life on earth was a project for someone/some group of beings is completely mind blowing !

I only came to realise the strength of the DI case after I joined Skeptiko. It was after long arguments on here with Paul C. Anagnostopoulos and Lone Shaman.

Paul A tried to brush off all the arguments regarding combinatorial explosion - I'd probably better not try to reproduce his materialistic arguments here, because he ceased to be active some time ago, I suppose it reminded me of lengthy discussions I had with people at university who wanted me to remain a Christian, and failed. In the end, the discussions with the above members convinced me that evolution by RM_NS is false. By now it seems obviously false.

David

I feel like the materialistic explanation for the rise of civilization (and things in general) is quite literally the most intuitively absurd thing I’ve ever heard. It’s as if one placed a bunch of random particles into a can and started shaking it, then when they opened the can a billion years later the particles had produced bethooven symphonies and New York City. Every step is so extraordinarily silly and improbable that, to me, each proposed step is near impossible. But this extraordinary “accident” really can’t stop itself from occurring constantly and over and over again. It even caused minds to rise? WHOOPS! Quite the accident.

When I combine this thought with the study of NDEs, STEs, Mediums (anecdotally and in the lab), Shared NDEs, Psi Phenomena, channeled information, and what Quauntum physics SEEMS to be telling us about consciousness, It’s the obvious thing. There’s a conscious purpose behind this.

We already know that consciousness affects matter and that consciousness contains purpose. We know from STEs And NDEs etc that our lives contain purpose. Since our purposeful lives contain bodies for use in achieving these purposes, and since consciousness affects matter, I can’t find a single reason to believe that any of this is accident. It fails on an intuitive and evidential level.

What guys like Rupert Sheldrake call things like “Morphic Resonance” I just call consciousness. It permeates and affects everything. It might even be everything, as people like Bernardo Kastrup postulate.
 
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I feel like the materialistic explanation for the rise of civilization (and things in general) is quite literally the most intuitively absurd thing I’ve ever heard. It’s as if one placed a bunch of random particles into a can and started shaking it, then when they opened the can a billion years later the particles had produced bethooven symphonies and New York City. Every step is so extraordinarily silly and improbable that, to me, each proposed step is near impossible.
To be fair to Darwin, back in his time, it wasn't known what genes were - and certainly not that they consisted of long strings of DNA bases, which are more akin to paragraphs of text that have to be almost word perfect to work. I think if this had been realised back then, what we know now, RM+NS would not have been considered. The nub of the problem is that if a new gene forms by progressive mutations of some area of DNA, Natural Selection(NS) can only help in the last mutation or so. The bulk of the 500+ mutations would be totally unguided, and produce a combinatorial explosion.

David
 
To be fair to Darwin, back in his time, it wasn't known what genes were - and certainly not that they consisted of long strings of DNA bases, which are more akin to paragraphs of text that have to be almost word perfect to work. I think if this had been realised back then, what we know now, RM+NS would not have been considered. The nub of the problem is that if a new gene forms by progressive mutations of some area of DNA, Natural Selection(NS) can only help in the last mutation or so. The bulk of the 500+ mutations would be totally unguided, and produce a combinatorial explosion.

David

I have previously read that the prevailing idea back then was that cells were basically full of just a gelatinous substance and that this was basically all there was inside of a cell. Not sure if that’s exactly true but yes; new Findings have changed things.

“Natural selection” always to me sounded the same as saying “what nature does” but did not suggest the actual mechanism. Isn’t that what Darwin had in mind? I don’t think he proposed a technical mechanism did he?

At any rate, I don’t doubt that physical form has progressed in some manner. But I don’t think they should pretend to know how it’s happened, if it’s even happened in the way we imagine it has. The fossil record isn’t even that compelling imo. The only thing that seems for sure to have happened is that more complicated life forms appeared over time. The exact relationship of these life forms to each other I think is highly in doubt
 
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gave this a like, Michael, in part because of this para. I agree with what you say except that I don't actually know the climate is changing significantly; don't assert that is so. Sure, climate changes over time, but is it changing significantly right now? I don't know, but if so, I don't believe it's anything to do with anthropogenic CO2 production.

Hi Michael

I am just considering my own direct experience. For me the climate is changing - summers hotter and winters milder - in an unmistakable way. I have no idea why. I don't know enough science to believe the assertions of climate scientists without having to make a choice based on faith - and that's not something I am disposed to so. So I ask what are the repercussions of climate change, regardless of cause, and what is the value of urged remedies or responses on their own. I find myself generally agreeing with the remedies as good things to do in any case.

I think we need to look at an act as virtuous in itself, rather than for the reward. For me the climate debate has become transactional with a coded debate about economics and power -rather than virtue.
 
Interesting, Dan! As I read your thoughts, I wondered how you would react to my idea of clear semantic modelling. Here, too, there is scope for the "semantic model" to be merely "speculatively theoretical" - that is, to be based on speculative contingent facts rather than grounded facts - and thus in a sense to be merely a "useful" model rather than a model "known to be true". At the same time, there are criteria for ensuring that even a purely theoretical model is "clear", which basically amounts to it being "rationally and optimally expressed" in some sense, I guess you could say.

I am not so sure how clear semantic models would relate to art as you describe it, but as for your notion of ideas being "introduced into the ecosystem", I wonder whether my notion might be used to evaluate those introduced ideas for "clarity"? Of course, you might argue that this notion of "clarity" as I have defined it is not "necessary", in the sense that "utility" need not entail "clarity", but... anyhow, I leave the resulting analysis/assessment to you!
Hi Laird,
I am honored that you would ask my opinion about your idea of clear semantic modelling. My first response is that several items from the bulleted lists are reminiscent of principles one may learn when learning to write in school. Specifically I am thinking of learning to write research papers in the humanities, which are basically persuasive arguments. I'm recalling specifically how a big part of writing research papers in humanities courses in college involved creating an arguable thesis, which would basically be a truth claim that you would then support.

Some of the bullet points would also apply to other forms of writing. "Relationally integrated", for example, applies as much to a novel or short story as it does to a persuasive argument. Probably would also apply to a symphony as well, though harder for me to parse as I am not an expert in music.

Also, "non-extraneous" and "piecewise necessitated" are also important principles in the arts. If you take a creative writing class, for example, you are taught to cut as much extraneous material as you possibly can. It's a big issue for a lot of writers who can't or won't cut material that doesn't support what they're trying to do. Actually defining what one is trying to do with a creative work can also be a battle.

"Justified", "parsimonious", "optimal" --- In one form or another these are important parts of really any piece of writing, and are either specifically taught or one hopefully learns through workshopping or from getting feedback from teachers, editors, or whoever.

"Essential" --- this is an interesting one to bring into the art perspective. I have wondered for a long time about whether art is truly essential or not. I have enjoyed practicing arts, but in the grand scheme of things, are arts necessary? I won't speak for ALL arts or for any individual art work, but in the sense of the perspective I am exploring, I am trying to see if I can expand what I consider to be art. For example, in this view, I could consider your semantic model of consciousness to be a work of art in the sense that it's an expression of inner thoughts that are important to you. It could be seen as a mutation in the cultural evolution metaphor. Mutations are important in the metaphor, though only some will be "selected" and many will not be widely selected. But in this way of looking at things, it feels like the "essentialness" of art becomes more apparent, as new ideas/mutations are critical for forward momentum(?) and I think even inevitable as responses to the environment.

"Consistent" "Unequivocal" --- These are interesting, too. In some of the art approaches, one will sometimes wish to express ambiguity, inner conflict, contradictory feelings, paradox, moral dilemmas, etc. Also, wordplay and the fuzziness of language can sometimes be seen to be something to play with and explore as part of the exploration. Even some philosophers make use wordplay, such as Derrida, who may have leaned toward expressionism as I am exploring it.

"Distinct" --- Any items in the list that want to define a model as a discrete unit can lead to issues, ultimately, I think for the model. My gut feeling on this one is that how you draw the boundaries around model to make it a discrete unit is going to be related to the vulnerabilities of the model. In my view, any big model like Kastrup's or yours are going to be vulnerable I think to different perspectives that assume different axioms or starting points or even goals, and I don't think there's any one discrete model that can avoid that vulnerability. Partially, I am trying to address this by suggesting my views are expressions of psychological states or mutations that may or may not be adopted or may not be "forever" solutions or "Ultimate Truths".

So my ideas as I wrote them out in the previous post aren't "thought through" enough to tick all the boxes on your checklist for clarity. ;)

as for your notion of ideas being "introduced into the ecosystem", I wonder whether my notion might be used to evaluate those introduced ideas for "clarity"? Of course, you might argue that this notion of "clarity" as I have defined it is not "necessary", in the sense that "utility" need not entail "clarity", but... anyhow, I leave the resulting analysis/assessment to you!

I appreciate your insights here. I haven't exactly been thinking about clarity, but I do follow what you're saying, and I agree that clarity as you are working on it would not be seen to be absolutely necessary in order for an idea or model or whatever influence a community or culture. That said, clarity and the techniques or forms that support clarity are extremely powerful and useful and I would not suggest discarding them.

In some ways, I wonder if you are reverse engineering what I think of as argumentation or proposing a truth claim and supporting it with evidence/arguments. To me, these forms of discourse remain extremely important and powerful, but are perhaps not powerful in limitless ways. To go back to the arts, it is common for artists to want to experiment with the interplay of form and function. Some artists like to play around with different mediums (forms).

I would see argumentation as a form that well supports many kinds of intellectual exploration, but not ALL kinds of intellectual exploration. For example, to use Raymond Moody's example, one could propose "there is life after death". As Moody explains, this statement is in itself a fatal contradiction from a logical standpoint. So it is hard to argue using the argumentation (which also happens to be the default form of discourse of much of academia.) I believe it CAN be argued to a point, but one is going to be wrestling with the form to try to achieve that function. So what other forms might be available?

It is kind of like a person who wants to use Microsoft Excel to write a novel. It CAN be done, but they are going to be wrestling with the software.
So trying to find a form that supports what one is actually trying to do seems like a worthwhile pursuit to me. On this forum and others, we like to talk about these notions that can be very difficult to shoe-horn into standard argumentation. In my view, that doesn't mean we need to throw logic and reason out the window, but it may mean that there is value in exploring playing around with expressionistic forms that may better support some aspects of exploring the weirdness of it all. ;)
 
Hi Dan,

I enjoyed reading your thoughts. You had some insightful things to say. I agree that some of the criteria I've developed for clarity are similar to principles for good writing, both academic and creative - probably that's where they percolated up from into my consciousness when I was developing them. I think you slightly misunderstood the "essential" criterion - its intent is to ensure that the model has an "essence"; some simple, core concept that it is trying to express, and which the model as a whole supports, but your thoughts which you developed from the question as to whether art is "essential" in the sense of "necessary" were interesting. Semantic models as art? Why not? But, conversely, I'm not sure that all art can be viewed through the lens of semantic models, or, at least, that if it can be, there can be and are alternative criteria as to whether an artwork's semantic model is (or even ought to be) "clear": as you point out, some art legitimately expresses ambiguity and conflict, which my existing criteria don't support. Clarity in art is, perhaps, a different matter than clarity in, say, a scientific (semantic) model or an academic paper that implicitly builds a semantic model in the form of a supported argument. I agree, then, with your suggestion that "trying to find a form that supports what one is actually trying to do seems like a worthwhile pursuit". A play or a novel is typically not going to take the form of a semantically clear model, though it might well reference or contain such models.
 
For me the climate is changing - summers hotter and winters milder - in an unmistakable way.

I have two comments on that:

1) The official science of 'climate change' finds only a fraction of a degree difference in the average global temperatures since we were kids. Do you think that amount of change could account for what you experience? Part of my objection to all this hysteria is that the actual measured change (which may itself be exaggerated) is is absurdly puny. Obviously, extrapolated far enough into the future it would be a threat, but it can't explain any changes right now!

2) This summer in the UK has been wet and very mild. Last winter was fairly mild, except that there was a huge blast of cold air near the end that blocked roads with snow and ice. 2018 gave us an exceptionally warm summer.

David
 
nd what might the remedy be? Maybe a good dose of optimism, but that might only come with a conscious return to spiritual values. So maybe it will not come at all, in which case the West might decline into insignificance. That would be the true catastrophe, but at least most of the rest of the world isn't so materialistic, and so eventually this madness could dissipate.

Michael, while I take your point here, I would caution against a presumption that the 'West' is more materialistic than the rest of the world, and that its decline might relieve the madness. I would observe that, despite efforts in the US, it is the West that drives [or is attempting to] essential changes in addressing environmental hazards. Other nations like China and India place growth over human and ecological health and throughout so-called 'developing' nations humans and environmental concerns take a back seat.

The trouble with humanity and religion is that while religion has long been a brake on human desire and lust, contemporary religion is also a permission giver to abuses and offences. The sacred has been debated into dogma that is self-serving. Dowd is pointing in the right direction in asserting that reality can be a moral teacher by confirming the need for restraint - a brake. But he errs in the sense that religion has always anticipated rational knowledge. Whether we call it divine guidance, intuition or deep intelligence - knowing without empirical evidence has been the hallmark of effective religions. Dumb humans have to touch the hotplate to learn not to do so.

When arrogance and pride lead us to believe our intellects are superior to inner guidance we have dumbed down our consciousness to materialistic stupidity.

But the moment we take the brakes off our lust for material benefit by debasing or corroding religious practice and authority we lose the logic of self-subjugation to invisible and irrational wisdom. That's hard to recover on a personal basis and even harder to impose on a societal basis. The taste of unfettered liberty is hard to quench willingly. Catastrophe is what sobers us up and humbles us.
 
I have two comments on that:

1) The official science of 'climate change' finds only a fraction of a degree difference in the average global temperatures since we were kids. Do you think that amount of change could account for what you experience? Part of my objection to all this hysteria is that the actual measured change (which may itself be exaggerated) is is absurdly puny. Obviously, extrapolated far enough into the future it would be a threat, but it can't explain any changes right now!

2) This summer in the UK has been wet and very mild. Last winter was fairly mild, except that there was a huge blast of cold air near the end that blocked roads with snow and ice. 2018 gave us an exceptionally warm summer.

David

I don't do science. I do experience. So I have no idea whether any level of change measured by climate scientists has anything to do with what I experience. I have long learned that if people tell me that the official opinion is A and what I experience is B - and I am told my experience is ergo invalid because it does not conform with the official interpretation - I say bollocks to that.

I have no idea what you experience in the UK. What I know is that where I am now, and have been since Easter 2002, has now very different weather patterns than it had back then. I understand that the same thing has been happening in my beloved Tasmania, but its been a few years since I have looked at data in any detail. I rely, these days, on reports from family.

i take a simple view. If I am riding a horse I don't need some egg head to grab some horseshit, put it through a battery of tests and tell me its a hamster or a horse.

The climate changes. I grew up in a period of apparent stability, and now things are shifting. That's all I know. How far and to what end? No idea. For how long? No idea. I know the egg head and nerds are super excited, and are running around with their electronic slide rules and abacuses - and good luck to them. Who is right and who is wrong? No idea. Don't care because dominant ideas have been wrong so often. Look how long it took for quantum science to be accepted.

So here's my point. In the absence of any compelling reason to believe anybody, are any of the responses worth considering? Do we need some grand theory of global warming to stop spewing crap into our air and turning cities into stinking zones of toxic air? Do we need prospects of impending social breakdown to be nicer and more supportive of each other?
 
Hi Michael

I am just considering my own direct experience. For me the climate is changing - summers hotter and winters milder - in an unmistakable way. I have no idea why. I don't know enough science to believe the assertions of climate scientists without having to make a choice based on faith - and that's not something I am disposed to so. So I ask what are the repercussions of climate change, regardless of cause, and what is the value of urged remedies or responses on their own. I find myself generally agreeing with the remedies as good things to do in any case.

I think we need to look at an act as virtuous in itself, rather than for the reward. For me the climate debate has become transactional with a coded debate about economics and power -rather than virtue.

BUT -- are the remedies being proposed, directed towards dealing with CO2, actually virtuous? Why spend billions on this if it won't have a useful effect? If those billions were instead spent on addressing environmental issues that we know are actually problems, wouldn't that be much more appropriate?

If the changes in climate in your neck of the woods that you think you have perceived (maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, I can't say) are a result of natural processes that we can't directly influence, then we should perhaps think in terms of spending money on ways to deal with or adapt to those.

Spending a lot of money on the wrong thing inevitably means spending a lot less on the right thing. It isn't as if spending it on things like CO2 sequestration is inherently virtuous even if it happens to be pointless. And where would the money be coming from? Why, from various forms of taxation, some in addition to existing taxation.

Not to forget that some of the measures being vigorously pursued by people who imo are suffering from climate derangement syndrome (and are not being disabused by climate scientists largely because of an orchestrated fear campaign against dissenters) could cause significant fatalities. I speak, for example, of the effects of relying on inherently unpredictable power sources (e.g. solar and wind). It's less of a problem in large parts of Australia -- but here in the UK and even more so elsewhere in Europe and North America, we get bloody cold winters, and cold kills more people than does warmth.

Like I say, I'm not averse to spending money on environmental issues, but for heaven's sake let's be sure we're spending it on the right things. And as for people like Michael Dowd, who's even more deranged than Greta Thundberg, if they had half a brain between them, they'd be even more dangerous.
 
So here's my point. In the absence of any compelling reason to believe anybody, are any of the responses worth considering? Do we need some grand theory of global warming to stop spewing crap into our air and turning cities into stinking zones of toxic air? Do we need prospects of impending social breakdown to be nicer and more supportive of each other?
It isn't crap! If some lunatic found a way to scrub all the CO2 out of the atmosphere, the whole ecosphere would die, because plants need CO2 and animals need plants. Coal came from plants, which themselves absorbed CO2 from the atmosphere. In a way, we are doing no more than recycle some of that CO2 back into the atmosphere!

I don't deny that the climate is changing because it always has - long before industrialisation - so why do we need some egghead to think of a special reason for that change, which would only apply now? It is like blaming the fact that everyone ultimately dies, on the fact that we produce a lot of high frequency radio signals (Wi fi etc). The basic flaw in that theory, is that they always did die long before we had computers!!!

David
 
I am not saying it is David. Just that I don't know - and, frankly, I don't care. I can't see why we need to insert scientists into what should be a moral / values proposition.
Well the problem is that 'decarbonising' will cost every advanced nation hundreds of billions of dollars to achieve. If you think that sort of waste is not a moral issue, well I beg to differ.

David
 
I'd like to hear more about this, in what way does panentheism avoid superfluity as an explanation?
If I tell you that each of the apples has golden seeds, that these are the holiness in each of them, I have said something new about them. It may be speculative, but it's not superfluous. Please search panentheism / it is common parlance in more than just mystical Christianity.
 
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