Quidam comments on Undiscriminating Skepticism - Less Wrong

97 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 March 2010 11:23PM

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Comment author: FAWS 15 March 2010 11:13:01AM 6 points [-]

You need to define what you mean with molecular self-organization. presumably you don't believe that some supernatural force is involved in arranging water molecules in snow flakes.

Comment author: Quidam 15 March 2010 01:40:58PM *  -1 points [-]

I guess that is kind of the problem, isn't it? People tend to use words like self-organization (or supernatural) to mean something, without every really thinking about the consequences if it would exist.

Personally I believe that all "stuff" is either naturally generated or artificially created? Which doesn't leave any room for anything "supernatural" to exist, either "supernatural" is just another way to say "not naturally generated"? OR they see it as a (proper) subset (or maybe superset) of the term "natural", maybe for extremely rare occurrences? So what does "supernatural" really mean? Likewise, I dont really know what people think when they talk about "self-organization" as if it was real; To me it's obviously clear that it does not exist.

In many ways it's almost as if self-organization is just a synonym for "supernatural force"... because it is used in almost the same way: Where the mystic appeals to the supernatural to explain away the unknown so too does the quasi-physicalist who makes an appeal to self-organization as if this would explain anything. Neither actually explains anything. It does not answer the how-question. The mystic answers with an "who" and the physicalist with an "what". Neither is all that helpful.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 15 March 2010 02:14:35PM 4 points [-]

Certainly, "self-organisation" can be used as a mysterious answer. But who are you arguing against, who is using it like that? It doesn't occur in the post you're commenting on.