Science vs Teleology: Which lens is best for viewing 911?

[twinstead]

I thought the Osama conundrum was that the FBI had no hard evidence to charge him.

So a group that could pull of the biggest hoax in the history of the world couldn't trump up a little 'hard evidence' to charge him? Well, they also weren't able to produce those WMD's to justify the invasion of Iraq, so perhaps their magic powers simply wore off after pulling off 911.

Yea. That's it.

 

[RedIbis]

The standard of evidence is the same, though. If you must have pictures of something in order to believe in it, then, logically, you must not believe that there were bodies in the rubble of the WTC. Why don't you? Because non-pictorial evidence led you to that conclusion.

Why isn't Gravy's list sufficient?

The expectations of what evidence will be found in a particular location is not the same so please stop distracting the discussion by bringing in unrelated topics.

 

[RedIbis]

So a group that could pull of the biggest hoax in the history of the world couldn't trump up a little 'hard evidence' to charge him? Well, they also weren't able to produce those WMD's to justify the invasion of Iraq, so perhaps their magic powers simply wore off after pulling off 911.

Yea. That's it.

And yet you're still going to have to reconcile the fact that there is no hard evidence against OBL. That doesn't bother you in the slightest?

Besides you never saw me claim that the criminals, whoevert they may be, were flawless, perfect or had superpowers.

 

[1337m4n]

The expectations of what evidence will be found in a particular location is not the same

Evasion noted. Why isn't Gravy's list sufficient? Why don't you demand pictures of bodies in the WTC?

so please stop distracting the discussion by bringing in unrelated topics.

Well, this thread was originally a discussion of science vs. teleology and here you are making your typical non-direct but transparently obvious claims that the Shanksville crash was faked, so basically, you're complaining that I'm derailing from what was already a derail.

 

[1337m4n]

And yet you're still going to have to reconcile the fact that there is no hard evidence against OBL. That doesn't bother you in the slightest?

It does not fit into any logical conspiracy theory and therefore does not belong in the Conspiracy Theories subforum. If you'd like to take it to the Politics subforum I'm sure people there would be happy to discuss it.

Unless you would like to come up with a conspiracy theory into which it fits?

 

[John Blonn]

Then answer my question. Why oh why are pictures the gold standard here? Do you not trust the testimony of rescue personnel, among others?

Please answer this question, Red.

 

[1337m4n]

Please answer this question, Red.

He will not. He will dodge by either asking you a question of his own, or by giving you a vague non-answer. He will desperately avoid giving a direct answer to anything that damages his silly ideas.

 

[Max Photon]

Do you have any deus ex machina?

Greetings everyone, I'm back.

Hey, my fruit basket from NIST finally arrived!


Thanks to everyone for....er....participating on (all over?) my thread. I'll start chipping at responses bit by bit as I settle in.

Max


P.S.

Pomeroo, why play the Jew card? We're not playing Go Gefilte Fish.

http://www.beingjewish.com/kresel/smiley.gif

Please do not hotlink

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: LibraryLady

 

[1337m4n]

Well, this thread was originally a discussion of science vs. teleology and here you are making your typical non-direct but transparently obvious claims that the Shanksville crash was faked, so basically, you're complaining that I'm derailing from what was already a derail.

In fact, if I'm reading this thread correctly, it was YOU who originally started said derail, RedIbis, by nitpicking a tiny portion of one of Mackey's posts.

I await your apology for derailing the patient, courteous, good-natured Max Photon's thread.

 

[Max Photon]

Science vs Teleology: The cleanup begins

Returning to read a thread that has been swimming free for awhile is a bit like slitting open the belly of a shark.....parts everywhere.


The first thing I noticed in the thread is a lot of noise generated in response to the weakness of my OP. Sorry about that. But there is an interesting area of discussion in there somewhere, so let's see if we can bring it out, bit by bit.


First, I complete agree:
Science vs teleology
Is a false dichotomy.

 

[R.Mackey]

The first thing I noticed in the thread is a lot of noise generated in response to the weakness of my OP. Sorry about that. But there is an interesting area of discussion in there somewhere, so let's see if we can bring it out, bit by bit.


First, I complete agree:
Science vs teleology
Is a false dichotomy.

Welcome back, Max. I apologize for my part in derailing the thread. A couple of well-placed splits could probably get it back on track.

I agree that pitting the two processes against each other is a bit of a false dilemma. Science is the process of understanding "why" things happen in the sense of the underlying mechanism, i.e. causal relationships and physical laws; this is perhaps better phrased as "how" things happen. But it usually cannot answer "why" as in the motivation or ultimate goal of directed processes. It is not generally possible to predict free will unless those motivations are known, and even then randomness will occur. Where science begins to tread on these frontiers, we have "soft sciences" such as psychology that are very much unsettled and open for debate, unlike the "hard sciences" of mathematics and physics.

Your original question, however, was well-founded -- which process is the best for September 11^th. And my answer remains that science is superior. This is because, almost without exception, inquiries of the Truth Movement focus on the "how" rather than the "why." Nearly every exponent argues from perceived physical anomalies, and these indeed must be treated through science.

Were this not the case, and instead we focused on the "why," i.e. "why exactly did bin Laden organize this attack," or "why did intelligence services fail to cooperate," my answer would be different. I don't think these questions lend themselves to science and we must instead lean on more rote investigation, ultimately coming down to interviews.

As before, if there is an open question that cannot be treated scientifically, that would be a good place to start. I expect they will all land in the latter category, but I could be wrong.

 

[Max Photon]

Examples of usage of the word "teleology"

Gentle readers,

The word "teleology" seems to have also generated a lot of noise, so I thought it might be helpful to look at how the word is used elsewhere. Below I present some examples.


One of the primary arguments against 9/11 being an inside job is that such a deception or hoax would be "mathematically impossible" or "infinitely vast".

I have long suggested that for those who buy the "it's impossible" idea - you know, "How could thousands of experts miss it?" - it might be expedient to study other grand real-world deceptions. And, being the generous type, I have even suggested what deception to look at: the USDollar and the gold demonetization hoax.

Below I abstracted two passages from two articles by the monetary scientist Antal Fekete. The word teleology is used in the passages.


From: THE GOLDBUG, VARIATIONS III: The Dismal Monetary Science (Antal Fekete)


Paul [Volcker] of course knew that I was a professional mathematician. He asked me if I would be interested in setting up a differential equation to describe the relationship between the foreign exchange rate and the spread between the rates of interest prevailing in the two countries. I guess if I had said “yes”, then I could have made a career as a contributor of dismal monetary science, with a fat research grant from the FR bank of New York. But I said “no” adding that, in my opinion, there was no such a thing. Differential equations describe the relationship of causality. They are quite useless if what you want to grasp is the relationship of teleology. And the relationship between foreign exchange rates and interest-rate spreads was a problem of teleology, not one of causality. You can’t treat individuals who have free will as if they were inanimate particles in a physical experiment. That’s the trouble with macroeconomics as opposed to microeconomics. It assumes that economic aggregates have their own lives, and in their hands individuals are lifeless, inert matter that, like playdough, could be given any desired shape.

* * *

From: The Gold Demonetization Hoax: (Antal Fekete)

Causality versus Teleology

The economists couldn't be more wrong on gold. No sooner had governments embargoed it than the price of gold soared. The economists never answered the question how they could ever make such a colossal blunder. We must do it for them. Doctrinaire belief in the supply/demand equilibrium theory of price has led them astray. Economists reasoned that if the demand for gold is cut abruptly then the value of gold is duty-bound to fall. However, the equilibrium theory of price is a linear model having a limited range of applicability. The world is non-linear. As long as causality prevails, monetary circulation can be approximated with linear models. But when teleology becomes dominant, as it sometimes does, the world no longer behaves linearly. As teleology replaces causality linear models, including the equilibrium theory of price, fail to be applicable. It is incumbent upon the scientist to examine the range of applicability of his model before applying it. This the economists have forgotten to do in studying the probable effects of gold-demonetization.

If we really wanted to understand the gold-demonetization episode of 1971, then we would have to look for the teleological context. We would find it in the fact that gold-demonetization was just a hoax, designed to cover up the fact of default on gold obligations and so to save the face of the United States. It has never ever happened in history that the paper of a defaulting banker would go to a premium. Yet that is exactly what the economists predicted. They forgot that the dishonored paper would always, without exception, go to a discount. This would happen even if further issues of the paper were drastically curtailed. The circulation of the dishonored paper is definitely not governed by the laws of causality, the quantity theory of money, or the equilibrium theory of price. Rather, it is governed by the laws of teleology. Frightened holders of the paper would try to get rid of it at whatever price they could, as they expected the discount to widen and, ultimately, to go to 100 percent. Time has nothing to do with it. Depreciation can take days, but it can also take decades to run its full course. It is not possible to forecast how long. The only thing certain is that time will not cure whatever ails the dishonored paper. Once in default, always in default. True, the banker may not be at the end of his rope. He may still have tricks up in his sleeves. He could use bribery, blackmail, and other forms of coercion to keep his dishonored promises in circulation. He may even be able to expand circulation. By hook or crook he might slow the rate of depreciation, or even stall it. Sometimes he might succeed in reversing the trend temporarily through false signals to the market. No matter. The ultimate outcome is inevitable. The value of the dishonored paper will eventually approach the marginal cost of its production, which is greater than zero only by a negligible amount.

It is important to realize that the quantity theory of money has nothing to do with monetary depreciation. Like the equilibrium theory of price, the quantity theory of money is just another linear model that is valid only as a first approximation. But where causality ends, teleology begins and first approximations become useless. More sophisticated models such as the disequilibrium theory of price, and the depreciation theory of dishonored promises are called for. Value is not collapsing because paper money has been "over-issued". It is collapsing in consequence of the original sin, the act of default. Monetarists and quantity theorists of all stripes, please pay attention. Regulating the rate of increase of the stock of high-powered money (e.g., by entrusting it to a "clever horse" on the tread-mill as once suggested by Milton Friedman) may postpone but will not avert the ultimate humiliation of the dollar, which is to join the assignats, mandats, Reichsmarks, and other dishonored promises in the garbage heap of history. From there, as from Hades, no currency has ever returned.

* * *

 

[pomeroo]

pomeroo, although this was addressed to RedIbis, I'd like to point out that I've responded to this before and you did not reply.

I don't remember your response, but it was obviously very feeble.

To start, Osama's believing al Qaeda was wholly responsible for 9/11 does not preclude a conspiracy. And it is possible that the real Osama claimed responsibility and only newer videos employ a double, in order to maintain a bogeyman.

Conspiracy liars always encounter logical obstacles in promoting their fantasies. If Osama is correct in maintaining that his group perpetrated the attacks on America, then all you can claim is that the Impossibly Vast Conspiracy had complete knowledge of al Qaeda's plans, through the usual magic.

For the sake of your dreaded conundrum, let's assume that a conspiracy requires that the faction that pulled off 9/11 be in complete control of the messages Osama (or his doubles) release and that they could kill off Osama (or retire his doubles) at will.

Your dreaded conundrum makes a number of dubious asumptions. To name a few:

The loss of both houses in 2006 would be disastrous.

Perhaps you could point out some of these disastrous effects. The Patriot Act was not repealed. Guantanamo is still open. Iraq has more troops than before the election. Leaving aside the sentence (quickly commuted) for the liar, could you name some disastrous outcomes? And I don't see how this affects the 2008 elections, which Obama or McCain could lose on their own demerits.

Always the same attempt at sleight of hand: WHO ARE "THEY"? Bush is retiring to his ranch with his reputation in tatters. Please explain why he gives a rat's patoot that Gitmo is still open. Seriously, how does that benefit him? Unless he sincerely believes that the Patriot Act is vitally important for America's protection from foreign terrorists, why does he care if it's still in effect or not?

Killing off the Osama legend is up to Bush and his cronies.

The 2006 elections were worth killing off the Osama legend.

Considering how little has changed, the conspirators were wise to keep the Golden Goose alive.

And transfering both houses to the Democrats at least gives the appearance of a functioning democracy. What's the approval rating of Congress? pomeroo, you need to face reality. Your rabid Democratic attack dogs on the 9/11 Commission were mythological creatures.

In the world we inhabit, Bush and his cronies could not announce Osama's death because Osama, to the best of our knowledge, isn't dead. In your dream world, Osama and all of radical Islam are imaginary constructs. Let's pay careful attention to the evolution of your fantasy. Initially, Bush and Cheney were the evil super-villains who masterminded a monstrous attack on American soil in order to create a recession and transfer control of Congress to the Democrats. But now we find that Bush and Cheney are largely irrelevant. The Democrats who claim to oppose absolutely everything the Bush administration attempts are, in fact, in cahoots, for reasons that are unfathomable. You deny that America is "a functioning democracy." It is, therefore, something else. What, exactly?

I think we know where this is headed. As Bush and Cheney are leaving the scene, and the Democrats are poised to win the White House and enlarge their majorities in both houses, the conspiracy is looking a tad incoherent. The Patriot Act will soon be repealed and Gitmo's days are numbered (of the 485 prisoners released to date, 50 have either been recaptured or killed in battle--a real-world fact that means nothing to you). So, what's left?

Why, "THEY" remain. And who are "they"? Somehow, Osama is "their" Golden Goose. Here is your chance to accomplish something no conspiracy liar has yet done: tell us how the putative existence of al Qaeda benefits the shadow government without employing the words "Jews," "Zionists," or "New World Order."

 

[pomeroo]

Gentle readers,

The word "teleology" seems to have also generated a lot of noise, so I thought it might be helpful to look at how the word is used elsewhere. Below I present some examples.


One of the primary arguments against 9/11 being an inside job is that such a deception or hoax would be "mathematically impossible" or "infinitely vast".

I have long suggested that for those who buy the "it's impossible" idea - you know, "How could thousands of experts miss it?" - it might be expedient to study other grand real-world deceptions. And, being the generous type, I have even suggested what deception to look at: the USDollar and the gold demonetization hoax.

Below I abstracted two passages from two articles by the monetary scientist Antal Fekete. The word teleology is used in the passages.


From: THE GOLDBUG, VARIATIONS III: The Dismal Monetary Science (Antal Fekete)


Paul [Volcker] of course knew that I was a professional mathematician. He asked me if I would be interested in setting up a differential equation to describe the relationship between the foreign exchange rate and the spread between the rates of interest prevailing in the two countries. I guess if I had said “yes”, then I could have made a career as a contributor of dismal monetary science, with a fat research grant from the FR bank of New York. But I said “no” adding that, in my opinion, there was no such a thing. Differential equations describe the relationship of causality. They are quite useless if what you want to grasp is the relationship of teleology. And the relationship between foreign exchange rates and interest-rate spreads was a problem of teleology, not one of causality. You can’t treat individuals who have free will as if they were inanimate particles in a physical experiment. That’s the trouble with macroeconomics as opposed to microeconomics. It assumes that economic aggregates have their own lives, and in their hands individuals are lifeless, inert matter that, like playdough, could be given any desired shape.

* * *

From: The Gold Demonetization Hoax: (Antal Fekete)

Causality versus Teleology

The economists couldn't be more wrong on gold. No sooner had governments embargoed it than the price of gold soared. The economists never answered the question how they could ever make such a colossal blunder. We must do it for them. Doctrinaire belief in the supply/demand equilibrium theory of price has led them astray. Economists reasoned that if the demand for gold is cut abruptly then the value of gold is duty-bound to fall. However, the equilibrium theory of price is a linear model having a limited range of applicability. The world is non-linear. As long as causality prevails, monetary circulation can be approximated with linear models. But when teleology becomes dominant, as it sometimes does, the world no longer behaves linearly. As teleology replaces causality linear models, including the equilibrium theory of price, fail to be applicable. It is incumbent upon the scientist to examine the range of applicability of his model before applying it. This the economists have forgotten to do in studying the probable effects of gold-demonetization.

If we really wanted to understand the gold-demonetization episode of 1971, then we would have to look for the teleological context. We would find it in the fact that gold-demonetization was just a hoax, designed to cover up the fact of default on gold obligations and so to save the face of the United States. It has never ever happened in history that the paper of a defaulting banker would go to a premium. Yet that is exactly what the economists predicted. They forgot that the dishonored paper would always, without exception, go to a discount. This would happen even if further issues of the paper were drastically curtailed. The circulation of the dishonored paper is definitely not governed by the laws of causality, the quantity theory of money, or the equilibrium theory of price. Rather, it is governed by the laws of teleology. Frightened holders of the paper would try to get rid of it at whatever price they could, as they expected the discount to widen and, ultimately, to go to 100 percent. Time has nothing to do with it. Depreciation can take days, but it can also take decades to run its full course. It is not possible to forecast how long. The only thing certain is that time will not cure whatever ails the dishonored paper. Once in default, always in default. True, the banker may not be at the end of his rope. He may still have tricks up in his sleeves. He could use bribery, blackmail, and other forms of coercion to keep his dishonored promises in circulation. He may even be able to expand circulation. By hook or crook he might slow the rate of depreciation, or even stall it. Sometimes he might succeed in reversing the trend temporarily through false signals to the market. No matter. The ultimate outcome is inevitable. The value of the dishonored paper will eventually approach the marginal cost of its production, which is greater than zero only by a negligible amount.

It is important to realize that the quantity theory of money has nothing to do with monetary depreciation. Like the equilibrium theory of price, the quantity theory of money is just another linear model that is valid only as a first approximation. But where causality ends, teleology begins and first approximations become useless. More sophisticated models such as the disequilibrium theory of price, and the depreciation theory of dishonored promises are called for. Value is not collapsing because paper money has been "over-issued". It is collapsing in consequence of the original sin, the act of default. Monetarists and quantity theorists of all stripes, please pay attention. Regulating the rate of increase of the stock of high-powered money (e.g., by entrusting it to a "clever horse" on the tread-mill as once suggested by Milton Friedman) may postpone but will not avert the ultimate humiliation of the dollar, which is to join the assignats, mandats, Reichsmarks, and other dishonored promises in the garbage heap of history. From there, as from Hades, no currency has ever returned.

* * *

Your rambling irrelevancies suggest that you understand how devastating to your fantasies the mathematical argument is. Seven thousand FBI agents, a thousand NIST researchers, over a thousand police and firefighters, air traffic controllers, metallurgists, seismologists, thousands of civil engineers, forensic examiners, demolition experts, and on and on--NOT ONE PERSON HAS SPILLED THE BEANS.

ALL of these people know "da twoof" and NOBODY has leaked ANYTHING.

 

[pomeroo]

And yet you're still going to have to reconcile the fact that there is no hard evidence against OBL. That doesn't bother you in the slightest?

Besides you never saw me claim that the criminals, whoevert they may be, were flawless, perfect or had superpowers.

What sort of "hard" evidence would you expect to find? The FBI accepts his explanation of his role in the planning. There can be no "hard" evidence of his participation in the attacks as he didn't actually participate in the attacks. As one FBI agent with whom I spoke over the phone put it: "Who do these people think they're kidding? Do they think we regard him as innocent?"

 

[pomeroo]

I thought the Osama conundrum was that the FBI had no hard evidence to charge him.

No, you've been caught lying again: you thought nothing of the sort. This canard is particularly stupid, but that won't deter you. As has been pointed out many, many times, the FBI accepts Osama's explanation of his role in the planning. There is no "hard," i.e., physical, evidence connecting him to the attacks--why should there be?

 

[pomeroo]

T.A.M.,

I see my deconstruction of the dreaded conundrum has reduced you to babbling.

We kind of noticed that you crashed and burned on the dreaded conundrum.

 

[Myriad]

Gentle readers,

The word "teleology" seems to have also generated a lot of noise, so I thought it might be helpful to look at how the word is used elsewhere. Below I present some examples.

One of the primary arguments against 9/11 being an inside job is that such a deception or hoax would be "mathematically impossible" or "infinitely vast".

I have long suggested that for those who buy the "it's impossible" idea - you know, "How could thousands of experts miss it?" - it might be expedient to study other grand real-world deceptions. And, being the generous type, I have even suggested what deception to look at: the USDollar and the gold demonetization hoax.

These examples do nothing to make your suggested vast conspiracy more plausible. The only way to make the vast conspiracy more plausible is to show evidence that it exists. That economists decades ago made a prediction about how a free market would behave that turned out to be wrong doesn't help.

Also, these examples are behind the times in the false dichotomy they make between "causality" (predictable with differential equations) and "teleology" (unpredictable). Teleology is a type of causality, and its unpredictability is not unique. It is now known and mathematically proven that there are many completely deterministic causal systems that are not predictable using differential equations. Indeed, the systems that are predictable using "plug the number into the equations and the answer pops out" mathematics appear to be the rare exceptions.

Their, and your, argument comes across as quite quaint today. "Science is about predictable things that obey simple equations." Catastrophe Theory -- the idea that cusps occur where outcomes can diverge, but that somehow the appearance of the cusps themselves was predictable and controllable -- was the last gasp of that long-standing but now antiquated world view. Chaos mathematics, which shows that for most real nonlinear dynamical systems every point is a point of divergence, has subsumed Catastrophe Theory. Wolfram's Principle of Computational Irreducibility, whether it's a fundamental physical law as Wolfram believes or just an idea that so far has happened to work in every example it's been tested on, shows that there are no shortcuts in predicting outcomes, teleological or not. The last nails in Hari Seldon's coffin are in place. There are no magic cusp points that you can push on to control the future. Your conspirators, if they exist, are blundering around in a world of unintended consequences and unpredictable outcomes with the rest of us.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[Max Photon]

Is there a better term than teleology?

Welcome back, Max. I apologize for my part in derailing the thread. A couple of well-placed splits could probably get it back on track.

I agree that pitting the two processes against each other is a bit of a false dilemma. Science is the process of understanding "why" things happen in the sense of the underlying mechanism, i.e. causal relationships and physical laws; this is perhaps better phrased as "how" things happen. But it usually cannot answer "why" as in the motivation or ultimate goal of directed processes. It is not generally possible to predict free will unless those motivations are known, and even then randomness will occur. Where science begins to tread on these frontiers, we have "soft sciences" such as psychology that are very much unsettled and open for debate, unlike the "hard sciences" of mathematics and physics.

Your original question, however, was well-founded -- which process is the best for September 11^th. And my answer remains that science is superior. This is because, almost without exception, inquiries of the Truth Movement focus on the "how" rather than the "why." Nearly every exponent argues from perceived physical anomalies, and these indeed must be treated through science.

Were this not the case, and instead we focused on the "why," i.e. "why exactly did bin Laden organize this attack," or "why did intelligence services fail to cooperate," my answer would be different. I don't think these questions lend themselves to science and we must instead lean on more rote investigation, ultimately coming down to interviews.

As before, if there is an open question that cannot be treated scientifically, that would be a good place to start. I expect they will all land in the latter category, but I could be wrong.

Ryan,

Thanks for your responses, and for being sensitive to the OP.

Perhaps we can spend a little more time teasing out the word "teleology." You're probably the perfect person for the task.

It seems to me that when scientists study something, they try to minimize their influence on that being studied. They try to minimize noise. They try to minimize feedback. Hard for electrons, easier for gravel, a bit harder for animals. But what happens when scientists study something where humans are involved? Psychologists will typically conduct experiments using subjects who aren't privy to the experiment. Why? To minimize feedback - to minimize nonlinear effects - to preserved the linearized world of causality.

But what happens when the subject of the psychology experiment knows what the experiment is about, and starts gaming the system? Surely this is no longer "science," and causality is lost to curvature.

My question is, what word should we use for such situation? Science? I used "teleology." Can you or anyone else suggest a better term, or a different way to view the problem? I'm certainly open.

 

[John Blonn]

Ryan,

Thanks for your responses, and for being sensitive to the OP.

Perhaps we can spend a little more time teasing out the word "teleology." You're probably the perfect person for the task.

It seems to me that when scientists study something, they try to minimize their influence on that being studied. They try to minimize noise. They try to minimize feedback. Hard for electrons, easier for gravel, a bit harder for animals. But what happens when scientists study something where humans are involved? Psychologists will typically conduct experiments using subjects who aren't privy to the experiment. Why? To minimize feedback - to minimize nonlinear effects - to preserved the linearized world of causality.

But what happens when the subject of the psychology experiment knows what the experiment is about, and starts gaming the system? Surely this is no longer "science," and causality is lost to curvature.

My question is, what word should we use for such situation? Science? I used "teleology." Can you or anyone else suggest a better term, or a different way to view the problem? I'm certainly open.

Indeed, let's drop teleology and go with 'confirmation bias.'