Re: cancer rates (was: e: How do you calm down the hot-heads?)

From: Robbie Lindauer (robblin@thetip.org)
Date: Fri Sep 12 2003 - 14:56:18 MDT

  • Next message: Robbie Lindauer: "Re: cancer rates (was: e: How do you calm down the hot-heads?)"

    On Friday, September 12, 2003, at 10:59 AM, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
    > Like hell they are not (deterministic) -- its pretty clear at this
    > point
    > if you have certain mutations in the p53 gene (or a number of other
    > tumor
    > suppressor genes) they will become nonfunctional and you will likely
    > develop cancer at some point.

    Obviously you don't know the meaning of "non-deterministic"

    "likely ... at some point" are "non-deterministic" phraseology.

    Consider the opposite:

    "Definitely at 3:00pm" - that would be determinism.

    >
    >> On this I think we all agree. Take away the toxins - who knows.
    >> Take
    >> away the age - who knows. After that it's ALL conjecture.
    >
    > As has been noted, some low level of toxins may be helpful.

    > it will *not* be a "who knows" situation
    > in the future when we have that technological capability.

    It's hard to say whether or not this is an epistemological lack or an
    ontological "missing piece". I've heard that the human eye can
    distinguish difference of light intensity of 10 photons. (I think JR
    Lucas said this, I don't know where he got his data).

    In any case, it may be strictly speaking NON-DETERMINISTIC whether or
    not someone will get cancer. It may not. But right now since the
    underlying physics of EVERYTHING is non-deterministic, we should expect
    it simply to be non-deterministic even in the case of higher-level
    biology.

    As far as I know Hume's criticism of "deterministic causation" qua
    constant conjunction is still a devestating argument against causal
    determinism. In statistical sciences (like epidemiology) it's
    axiomatic.

    That there's a possibility that in the future our underlying theory of
    everything might change is always a negligible possibility. There's no
    concrete proposal there to be asserted or denied.

    Best,

    robbie



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Sep 12 2003 - 15:07:54 MDT