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

[Jonnyclueless]

Ah yes, the lack of evidence is evidence. Brilliant Max. But let's put that on the pile of now 2 pieces of evidence:

No evidence
It looks to me like a CD!

The scientific community should be awarding you with a trophy soon.

 

[~enigma~]

Can this thread get back on the subject?

 

[gumboot]

Pop quiz for everyone in this thread, particularly those crying foul over the lack of steel samples collected by NIST...

What was the purpose of collecting steel elements from the debris pile?

 

[e^n]

...yet investigators point to one conclusion....

Indeed they do.

 

[pomeroo]

"Al Qaeda's" motives are clear, we are told.

But what are the motives of those who told us that?

+



Clearly, Bush's motive was to transfer control of both houses of Congress from the Republicans to the Democrats.

 

[pomeroo]

...yet investigators point to one conclusion....

Correct, although by accident. Yes, all investigators conclude that the Towers collapsed as a result of the impacts of the planes and the resultant fires.

 

[SDC]

If we are talking criminal cases, why are we discussing motive? (Or considering discussing motive.) Yoo hoo, anyone here who has been involved in criminal cases: did the question of motive ever come up? My one time was as a juror in a federal bank fraud trial; motive was never mentioned. (Hint: no need.) More recently I was in a pool, but thank heavens kicked off: it was a child rape case. Again, why discuss motive?

We are not in Perry Mason Land. Motive is usually pretty obvious. As it was on 9/11.

 

[funk de fino]

The description of the selection and identification process is in NCSTAR 1-3B.

I don't know why people think that NIST engineers were on site inspecting columns as they were first being moved to a secondary location. According to the report, they showed up at ground zero only for a "brief effort" (quoted from the report) the week of 10-7-01.

Who is thinking this or saying this?

It was a brief effort because, as the report mentions, the group was made up largely of volunteers that had professional commitments elsewhere.

Acording to the report, engineers (referred to as "volunteers" in the report) first began to mark pieces to be saved in October, 2001, by walking through unsorted piles of debris stored at various recovery yards around NY.

The steel had been forensically tested at the yards.

At that time steel from WTC7 was mixed up with the other rubble so completely that NIST claims it was not possible to positively identify a single piece as belonging to WTC7.

WTC7 steel had no markings on it to identify it anyway. Do you think they should have had a sperate place to store this (in hindsight of course)?

And all this before the first visit to select steel for further study.


Just phenomenal just how many "filters" the debris was subject to even before the first efforts to inspect it by the "volunteers".

See above, tested and catalogued

Where did anyone get the idea that there was any careful inspection of the columns on site by NIST engineers (volunteers with professional commitments elsewhere) as these columns were removed from ground zero?

Again, where did anyone state this?

Can you imagine freely mixing the metal from WTC7 with the other debris so thoroughly that the inspectors were unable to locate a single piece of WTC7 steel, and all before the first search for samples?

WTC7 steel had no markings. They were only looking for steel that they could identify.

NIST job was not to appease the morons from the truth movement or signers of any pathetic statement saying a new investigation was needed. Thye have subsequently released extra information to try and answer some of the critisicsms of the TM even though some people accuse them of covering up murder. How would you feel if I was accusing you of the same as you accuse them MT?

 

[Patriot4life]

I will attempt to revive this thread. Personally, I think it is of utmost importance to analyze the events of 9/11 under a teleological lens. By using a teleological thought process the critical thinker seeks out the fundamental causation(s) of events. I think one can use the teleological lens to interpret the event, 9/11, or particular events of the day, for example, the collapse of WTC1 and 2, the later collapse of WTC 7, AA77, UA93, etc. I will choose to discuss the former, that is, applying teleology to the event, 9/11.

When one asks himself or herself, Why did 9/11 happen? The answers tend to focus on terrorism and the growing threat to the West. Many, probably go on to question the nature and reason for the terrorists’ hatred for the West. ( a teleological question I posed earlier in this thread). The standard answer being “they” hate our freedoms and our way of life. I would guess many, like myself are not satisfied with that answer, we still have to ask “why?” Why do they hate our freedoms and way of life? My feeling is that the answer to this question incorporates both Islamic religious extremism and The West growing interest in Central Asia’s resources over the past 30-40 years.

There is an obvious battle for resources, for the lifeblood of Western economy, that is, for oil and natural gas. This struggle has threatened and continues to threaten many central Asian countries “way of life”, as well as many occidental countries’ way of life and economy. As resources become more scarce the stakes go up and the actions of the players become more desperate. To put this into an evolutionary context, “only the strong survive” and our industrial muscle house must exert its force in this resource rich region to maintain its survival, if, we continue to rely so heavily on fossil fuels. Likewise, elements of Islamic culture in central Asia and North Africa, generally referred to as fundamentalists feel this force, and probably find it threatening their continued “way of life” or existence. This struggle, which has been playing out for some time now, reared its head on our (N. America) side of the world on 9/11.

One can continue down the path of teleology and search for deeper causation. Well, I think the question of WHY we are dependent on energy (fossil fuels) is pretty easy to answer. We use TOO much, and the infrastructure in place would be difficult and expensive (short term) to change. We are living on energy credit so to say. The infrastructure in place supports a fossil fuel based energy system, when fossil fuel supplies diminish, as I said earlier, the energy players will become more desperate and resort to any means to maintain “business as usual” and gov’t will support these actions to also maintain status quo. Until we, as a society, only use as much energy in one day, as can be harnessed by the sun, wind and water in one day, we will be living on energy credit. The way I see it, just as with personal finances, if you lived almost entirely off of money that was given to you (the fossil fuel supply) with out generating much income (or energy) on a daily basis, you will most definitely be in a world of hurt when that chunk of money (or fossil fuel energy) is spent (or exhausted) and you want to maintain your lifestyle.

So, next question; Why is this juggernaut so difficult to slow down, Why is this disaster so difficult to avert? This is where I sympathize with M. Photon. The monetary system promotes basically unfettered growth, I understand this is generally regarded as a good thing, but in the context of the current energy situation, this is a recipe for long drawn out energy wars( which I happen to think are masked by the duplicitous “war on terrorism” rhetoric.) Banks create money by creating debt, that has to be paid back by the debtor, who has to increase productivity to pay that capital plus interest. Growth and the monetary system are inextricably linked. Moreover, growth and energy addiction are inextricably linked. As soon as growth halts the system implodes, people get worried and mob mentality kicks in. Let’s just put it nicely, this isn’t a good thing for a fractional reserve debt-based banking system.

So it seems to me that there is a lot of wasted energy discussing the local events of 9/11, rather than trying to understand the bigger picture, which teleology nicely promotes.
.

 

[Clippy]

There is an obvious battle for resources, for the lifeblood of Western economy, that is, for oil and natural gas.

Let's not forget drugs. After having curbed opium production, the Taliban was overthrown in time for poppy planting season.

 

[Major_Tom]

Patriot, from the perspective of the official 9-11 story, MIHOP or LIHOP, what you say is so true.

There is a climate of extreme energy desperation and financial desperation. The financial bubbles are signs of desperation.

An addiction to a system which has always been fundamentally unsustainable. A greed.
How much can one milk carbon-based fuels for?

How much more can one milk the national debt for? As if those numbers can keep increasing without end. Liquidation or payment, which is the more likely scenario that will play out? Or a third possibility: Desperate aggressive acts to delay the collapse and distract those soon to be robbed: To focus the hatred outwards, to have an external source of blame and justify a perpetual state of aggression.

To delay financial implosion.

The North Pole melts before our eyes. Our very atmosphere changes at a rapid rate. It what way can this possibly be justified to future generations?

"They hate our freedoms". A cheap, superficial justification to such a profoundly complicated situation.

 

[Pardalis]

No evidence, no case.

The rest is masturbation.

 

[metamars]

A new game for Max

I'm sorry if this has already been mentioned (I haven't read all of the thread), but maybe what you need is some kind of a reverse Turing test. A normal Turing test uses humans to figure out if a machine is intelligent.

Maybe - and I do mean maybe, since I know next to nothing about the field - you could apply computers in a different way.

A July 18 article at physorg.com :How a simple mathematic formula is starting to explain the bizarre prevalence of altruism in society has the following:

Evolutionary game theory is a mathematical approach used to study (and predict) the evolution of social interactions, in which the study of conflict and decision-making is treated – like its name indicates – as a game. One such example are public good games (or PGG), which are frequently used to study cooperation as they look into social behaviour towards public goods - such as education, free health or even street lightning – those that every one can benefit from, regardless of how much they contribute (or not) to create it.

The question naturally arises* "Is there such a thing as a public harm game, with or without "enemies" embedded in the game/system under study?" Let's say that both types of game exist. Then (at least within the abstract domain of the game) it may be possible to compute distinguishing behaviors between CYA scenarios (sans embedded enemies) and MIHOP/LIHOP scenarios (with embedded enemies).

Of course, when you locate your friendly, neighborhood, evolutionary game theorists, you can ask them not only about theoretical achievements of their field, but how successfully such games predict the behavior of flesh and blood human beings.

IMHO, any reasonably sophisticated game of this type will readily show the absurdity of one particular 'argument' that is obvious to most "conspiracists", but so inscrutable to the monotonous and typically insulting sub-species of "debunker". And that is, the "everybody in on it" argument. This uber strawman is so patently absurd, it's amazing that it would be trotted out again, and again, and again.

So, Max, if you want to amuse us, when you find a friendly, neighborhood evolutionary game theorist, why not ask them questions such as "Does the enemy increase their chances of escaping detection if they break through the de facto firewalls that arise in organizations due to division of labor, and freely share whatever information they come across - even if it implicates the enemy players, themselves?" And "Does the enemy increase their chances of escaping detection if they inform others of facts even when these others do not have a 'need to know' - and even if these facts implicate the enemy players, themselves?"

I suggest you put such questions to the experts at the end of your session, otherwise they may wonder why anybody would ask questions with such obvious answers. Of course, if you get asked, you can refer them to the writings of some "debunkers", who cannot wrap their minds around things obvious to a 10 year old, even when it's repeatedly pointed out to them.

* I am assuming that, despite the word "evolutionary", such game theories are not constrained to sociobiological problems. I.e., the "evolution" of certain kinds of behavior can be reinforced (positively or negatively) by some type of goal achievement or reward in the span of a single human generation, to the degree necessary to win the game.