hackenslash wrote:That's a reasonable point, though I'm not sure it's really as useful as poetry or music. Point taken, though.

There is no one more committed to metaphysics, then the fellow who thinks he has none.

John P. M. wrote:If I hazard to return the question and ask 'Why these forms over others', what would the answer be?

I am unsure what you're asking. Like, why does a dog not take on the form of a cat?

Why do dogs have 42 teeth and not 38?

Why don't dogs lay eggs?

OlivierK wrote:

Mick wrote:

OlivierK wrote:

Fallible wrote:

Suddenly we want others to give us quotes from larger bodies of work.

And besides that, what Mick is asking for is easily found. Here are the definitions of deformity from the first two medical dictionaries on Google:

deformity /de·form·i·ty/ (dĕ-for´mĭ-te) distortion of any part or of the body in general.

Source: http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictio ... /deformity

Any malformation or distortion of part of the body. Deformities may be congenital (present from birth), or they may be acquired as a result of injury, disorder, or disuse. Most congenital deformities are relatively rare. Among the more common are club-foot ( talipes) and cleft lip and palate. Injuries that can cause deformity include burns, torn muscles, and broken bones. Disorders that may cause deformity include nerve problems, some deficiencies, such as rickets, and Paget’s disease of the bone. Disuse of a part of the body can lead to deformity through stiffening and contracture of unused muscles or tendons. Many deformities can be corrected by orthopaedic techniques, plastic surgery, or exercise.

Source: http://meddict.org/term/deformity/

They are simply descriptive definitions that make no reference to values or ends.

You're muddling issues.

My initial claim was that the sciences cannot support claims such as 'x is deformed', but 'here I mean deformity in its prescriptive sense. The sense wherein we would say that something went wrong. I am we'll aware that the sciences have a descriptive sense, and I already articulated that sense earlier. I also criticized it.

And you said that medical dictionaries supported your (prescriptive, end-driven, value-judging) ideas:

Mick wrote:That is useless to me. Give me a quote from a medical dictionary or a biology dictionary, or anything of that sort, and show me that it gives your understanding of deformity. A simple search for that online supports my ideas, not yours.

They don't.

Mick wrote:That they have a descriptive sense makes sense though, since they are descriptive sciences. My point remains: sciences cannot tell us that something is wrong or not working properly, since that implies natures or ends. On evolutionary theory, one without ends and forms, there is no proper way of being. All we can do is make statistical generalizations or intercalate subjective values.

Correct, there no "proper" way of being. Fuck me, Mick, if you just grasped that simple fucking fact, you could stop spending so much effort chiding teh gays for their innate impropriety.

Mick wrote:My debate with hackenslash is in regards to his silly ideas about deformity within evolutionary science. His idea is so weird I asked for support from a medical dictionary, and he failed to do that. That his definition escaped criticism from all of you speaks levels about how willing you guys are to be critical towards each other.

Hack said that survival value is the value adopted by science (in this case, by medicine), as a yardstick to define disease and such (correct me if I'm wrong, hack). That seems pretty non-controversial.

No, I said that it supports my view-the descriptive analysis I gave. I can quote if need be.

I am aware that modern science does not deploy an understanding of proper being; and that is precisely the problem! Because of that, we have no basis for thinking that there is anything intrinsically wrong with my deafened ears. On the view of modern science, it would be false to say that my ears are working improperly, since there just is no way ears ought to be. Matters become even more interesting when we also impose that inhibition on cognition, perception, memory, and intelligence. Of course we don't think like that (we call it kidney failure, for instance).

Anyhow: please support hackenslash's construal with links, definitions, anything. Tell me how it would constitute hammer toe as a deformity.

OlivierK wrote:

Mick wrote:

OlivierK wrote:And history has borne that out: the theory of forms has zero predictive power about the behaviour of matter (Mick: feel free to provide an example of how the theory of forms allows us to successfully predict a material behaviour that is in any way different to what we would expect from biochemistry, physics, etc).

There's a reason that the theory of forms didn't survive the scientific revolution: under science, ideas that are demonstrably useless or wrong are disposed of. The theory of forms makes testable claims about the behaviour of matter, none of which are demonstrable. It's a falsifiable theory that's been falsified. It's no better an explanation for the behaviour of matter than phlogiston, or prayer.

I've already explained the explanatory benefits of forms. I've explained what we would expect to see if they existed, and I explained why you and others cannot equally explain what they can.

Link? Or just restate the example, because I don't remember you doing that.

It was in the first few posts of when I brought the whole thing up. I started it with the whole humor me thing

OlivierK wrote:Why do dogs have 42 teeth and not 38?

An evolutionary account is fine for this, so long as it is not exclusively mechanical. Hylomorphism suggests that the whole picture is something more, that science doesn't offer the full picture. It doesn't take anything away from scientific explanation. It adds an additional means to explain things science cannot.

Mick wrote:

hackenslash wrote:That's a reasonable point, though I'm not sure it's really as useful as poetry or music. Point taken, though.

There is no one more committed to metaphysics, then the fellow who thinks he has none.

More vapid twattery from the master.

Mick wrote:

OlivierK wrote:Why do dogs have 42 teeth and not 38?

An evolutionary account is fine for this, so long as it is not exclusively mechanical. Hylomorphism suggests that the whole picture is something more, that science doesn't offer the full picture. It doesn't take anything away from scientific explanation. It adds an additional means to explain things science cannot.

Hylomorphism is just assuming your conclusion. Give me an actual example of when an exclusively mechanical evolutionary account is insufficient.

Mick wrote:

John P. M. wrote:If I hazard to return the question and ask 'Why these forms over others', what would the answer be?

I am unsure what you're asking. Like, why does a dog not take on the form of a cat?

That sounds like a good question. How do you know that dogs aren't just deformed cats? I mean, they are not very good at being cats, are they? How do you know if a form like "dog" even exists, how do you know which entities it applies to if it do, and how do you know what properties this "dog" form has?

Mick's not in the business of answering questions. Mostly, his tenure here is for his own satisfaction.

You won't get a straight, non-bullshit answer for something as wispy and ill-defined as "forms" anyway. It reminds me of "kinds".

Mick wrote:I am aware that modern science does not deploy an understanding of proper being; and that is precisely the problem! Because of that, we have no basis for thinking that there is anything intrinsically wrong with my deafened ears. On the view of modern science, it would be false to say that my ears are working improperly, since there just is no way ears ought to be.

Sure there is. The ability to perceive sounds of given amplitude and frequencies provides an organism with concrete, tangible survival advantages, and within a population of organisms the range of normative function on these parameters can be determined statistically. Deviation from this normative range, then, is considered disorder. I fail to see what is gained by adding metaphysical mumbo jumbo to the mix.

If you are claiming there is one specific "way that ears ought to be", then it suggests to me that all ears are disordered, since no pair of ears that actually exists will match the ideal "form" of a pair of ears. A model of "disorder" in which every single aspect of every single being is "disordered" seems obviously absurd to me.

Shrunk wrote:
If you are claiming there is one specific "way that ears ought to be", then it suggests to me that all ears are disordered, since no pair of ears that actually exists will match the ideal "form" of a pair of ears. A model of "disorder" in which every single aspect of every single being is "disordered" seems obviously absurd to me.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the whole deal with forms? That there exists a more perfect you, or even a table, than the one you see, out in the metaphysical ether?

That's probably a very bad summation of "forms"

Well that's what happens when your metaphysics lacks technical detail.

Animavore wrote:

Shrunk wrote:
If you are claiming there is one specific "way that ears ought to be", then it suggests to me that all ears are disordered, since no pair of ears that actually exists will match the ideal "form" of a pair of ears. A model of "disorder" in which every single aspect of every single being is "disordered" seems obviously absurd to me.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the whole deal with forms? That there exists a more perfect you, or even a table, than the one you see, out in the metaphysical ether?

That's probably a very bad summation of "forms"

Well that's what happens when your metaphysics lacks technical detail.

I don't think it's actually a "you" or a "table", but the form of a "you" or a "table". For instance, an actual table might be made out of wood, so it would also partake of the form of "woodeness" as well as the form of "tableness". The form of a table would just be pure, unadulterated "tableness," and nothing else.

I think Plato's forms live out in the ether, but Aristotle's are immanent within objects themselves.

Hopefully someone will correct me on all that if I'm wrong

Who cares? The whole concept of forms is inherently circular reasoning. How do we know what a table-form is? We work it out by looking at tables. Why do tables have the properties they do? Because of the table-form directing their matter.

Shrunk wrote:

Mick wrote:I am aware that modern science does not deploy an understanding of proper being; and that is precisely the problem! Because of that, we have no basis for thinking that there is anything intrinsically wrong with my deafened ears. On the view of modern science, it would be false to say that my ears are working improperly, since there just is no way ears ought to be.

Sure there is. The ability to perceive sounds of given amplitude and frequencies provides an organism with concrete, tangible survival advantages, and within a population of organisms the range of normative function on these parameters can be determined statistically. Deviation from this normative range, then, is considered disorder. I fail to see what is gained by adding metaphysical mumbo jumbo to the mix.

If you are claiming there is one specific "way that ears ought to be", then it suggests to me that all ears are disordered, since no pair of ears that actually exists will match the ideal "form" of a pair of ears. A model of "disorder" in which every single aspect of every single being is "disordered" seems obviously absurd to me.

Right. Statistical norms. Those are not the norms I am speaking of. If everyone here and now becamed deafened, what then?

OlivierK wrote:

Mick wrote:

OlivierK wrote:Why do dogs have 42 teeth and not 38?

An evolutionary account is fine for this, so long as it is not exclusively mechanical. Hylomorphism suggests that the whole picture is something more, that science doesn't offer the full picture. It doesn't take anything away from scientific explanation. It adds an additional means to explain things science cannot.

Hylomorphism is just assuming your conclusion. Give me an actual example of when an exclusively mechanical evolutionary account is insufficient.

Sure. Take any mechanical evolutionary account. Pick one. I pick the same.

Ah, humpty-dumptyism. Good fucking luck with that.

Mick wrote:

Shrunk wrote:

Mick wrote:I am aware that modern science does not deploy an understanding of proper being; and that is precisely the problem! Because of that, we have no basis for thinking that there is anything intrinsically wrong with my deafened ears. On the view of modern science, it would be false to say that my ears are working improperly, since there just is no way ears ought to be.

Sure there is. The ability to perceive sounds of given amplitude and frequencies provides an organism with concrete, tangible survival advantages, and within a population of organisms the range of normative function on these parameters can be determined statistically. Deviation from this normative range, then, is considered disorder. I fail to see what is gained by adding metaphysical mumbo jumbo to the mix.

If you are claiming there is one specific "way that ears ought to be", then it suggests to me that all ears are disordered, since no pair of ears that actually exists will match the ideal "form" of a pair of ears. A model of "disorder" in which every single aspect of every single being is "disordered" seems obviously absurd to me.

Right. Statistical norms. Those are not the norms I am speaking of. If everyone here and now becamed deafened, what then?

Then supposing we didn't also suddenly forget we could hear yesterday, it would be a disorder. History matters in this context. Don't tell me this answer wasn't immediately obvious to you.