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Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology of Self Interest

To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "'[ontolog-forum] '" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "doug foxvog" <doug@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 07:09:08 -0400 (EDT)
Message-id: <54389.70.110.17.10.1313060948.squirrel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Wed, August 10, 2011 14:58, Rich Cooper said:
> Dear Doug and John, et al,
>
> It appears that Roy Spencer is not the only one
> who concluded that global warming isn't real.    (01)

Of course not.  The companies which benefit from the production of
CO2 disbelieve in global warming, just as cigarette manufacturers
disbelieve that smoking causes cancer.  They both hire studies to
prove their points and lobbyists to argue it.  The companies do not
wish to be regulated, since it is cheaper to have someone else clean
up ones messes than to do it oneself.  As big businesses have a political
party to push their viewpoints, they encourage such a party to oppose
regulation and to oppose the concept of anthropogenic climate disruption.
Of course, the arguments against business regulation and the science
studying climate disruption are not presented to the party's followers
pay for destruction being caused by big businesses.  They are presented
as the regulators being evil, trying to prevent the common man from making
money and trying to take money from the common man in order to give it to
someone else.  Scientists are portrayed as evilly misusing science in
order to convince people of things that aren't true, evidently in order
to be paid for conducting what really isn't research.    (02)

> This is a cut and paste from NewsMax at
>
> http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/NASA-Global-Warmi
> ng-Alarmists/2011/07/28/id/405200
>
>               In an Op-Ed in Forbes, senior
> fellow for environment policy at The Heartland
> Institute    (03)

The Heartland Institute is a libertarian political organization.  Their
website states, "Heartland's mission is to discover, develop, and promote
free-market solutions to social and economic problems."    (04)

Libertarians want as little government and government regulation as
possible.  They have a political interest in arguing against any
proposition that problems exist that need governmental regulations
to control them.  It is not a scientific organization and one must
take any scientific claims they make with a few teaspoons full of
salt.    (05)

The Heartland Institute seems to find it more in their self-interest
to promote a libertarian society than to protect a world from a gradually
increasing threat that will become worse over a span of decades and
generations.    (06)

The discussion below refers to the same article in Remote Sensing we that
was mentioned before.  As we recall, the article argued that various
feedback mechanisms were not fully enough modeled by standard climate
models.  The article did not state, even though the author argued
elsewhere, that anthropogenic global warming does not exist.    (07)

> James M. Taylor, said, "In short, the
> central premise of alarmist global warming theory
> is that carbon dioxide emissions should be
> directly and indirectly trapping a certain amount
> of heat in the earth's atmosphere and preventing
> it from escaping into space.
>
>               "Real-world measurements, however,
> show far less heat is being trapped in the earth's
> atmosphere than the alarmist computer models
> predict, and far more heat is escaping into space
> that the alarmist computer models predict."
>
>               The new research further shows
> that not only is more energy released to space
> than had been theorized, but also that the energy
> is released at an earlier point in a cycle of
> warming than previously documented.
>
>               In fact, the new data reveal,
> energy is discharged beginning at a point about
> three months before a cycle peaks. "At the peak,"
> Spencer said, "satellites show energy being lost
> while climate models show energy still being
> gained."
>
>               The research was published in the
> journal Remote Sensing.    (08)

This is a reference to the same article we looked at before.    (09)

> Does anyone have prejudicial info on the Heartland
> Institute, or on James Taylor, or on the Remote
> Sensing journal, which they would like to
> contribute?
>
> I don't really want to get too into this GWA
> debate; we all seem to have our preconceptions.
> Its those preconceptions I would like to see
> modeled in a self interest ontology.
>
> Why do we accept facts we want to believe in more
> readily than facts we don't want to believe in (me
> included, you too)?  Can that be modeled?  There
> is some psychology work on how we preserve our own
> value consistency by tending to believe what
> supports our preconceptions - I remember John's
> post on the "confirmation bias" in Behavioral
> Sciences, or some such source.  I also remember
> some of us believed it as written and others
> denied it as baseless speculation.  Can that be
> organized into said self interest ontology?    (010)

Certainly.    (011)

> I have always enjoyed James Taylor's music -    (012)

Me, too.    (013)


-- doug foxvog    (014)

> different guy though!
>
> Interestedly,
> -Rich
>
> Sincerely,
> Rich Cooper
> EnglishLogicKernel.com
> Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
> 9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
> Behalf Of Rich Cooper
> Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 10:27 AM
> To: '[ontolog-forum] '
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology of Self
> Interest was: intangibles
>
> Dear John,
>
> So is it your suggestion that people (like
> bacteria) like to congregate together, and that is
> one way in which we pursue self interest?
>
> How does that fit into the ontology of self
> interest?  We (and bonobos) seek out each other's
> company, but why do we take aggressive action
> against each other?
>
> And how does this consideration fit into an
> ontology?
>
> Curiously,
> -Rich
>
> Sincerely,
> Rich Cooper
> EnglishLogicKernel.com
> Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
> 9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
> Behalf Of John F. Sowa
> Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 8:32 AM
> To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology of Self
> Interest was: intangibles
>
> On 8/10/2011 9:41 AM, Rich Cooper wrote:
>> I personally think the ontology of self interest
> is more important,
>> more scientifically relevant to the issue of
> ontology in general...
>
> That's a good topic. It gets into the broader
> field of biosemiotics,
> which includes zoosemiotics and phytosemiotics.
>
> If you recall, there was a novelist named Ayn Rand
> who blathered
> a lot about "self interest", but she was
> hopelessly out of her
> depth when it came to biology.  She was a "one
> factor" theorist
> who claimed self-interest was the single most
> important driving
> force in evolution.  But that hypothesis fails at
> every level
> from bacteria on up.
>
> You can start with just an individual bacterium.
> It has sensors
> and activators that enable it to swim upstream in
> response to
> a greater concentration of sugar on one side or an
> irritating
> chemical the other.  But survival for lone
> bacteria is not easy.
>
> Bacteria can also generate signals that enable
> them to cooperate
> with other bacteria.  The simplest method is to
> form a film-like
> colony, such as plaque on the teeth.  That is
> their most important
> defense.  The easiest way to kill bacteria is to
> prevent them
> from forming colonies.
>
> The bacteria on the outside of the film benefit
> from direct
> access to food, but they succumb to attack from
> chemicals,
> other organisms, and extremes of heat and cold.
> But they have
> chemical signals that enable the colony to survive
> and thrive:
>
>   1. When the outer bacteria detect danger, they
> signal the
>      inner bacteria to transform themselves to
> almost inert
>      spores.  The outer bacteria die, but inner
> ones survive.
>
>   2. For attacking large food sources (e.g., the
> human body),
>      they need to wait until they have a
> sufficiently large
>      "army" to survive counterattacks by the
> immune system.
>
>   3. Many bacteria have a "voting" system:  they
> send out chemical
>      signals and use the strength of the responses
> to estimate the
>      number of "soldiers".  When the response is
> strong, they switch
>      to attack mode.  (Some drugs interfere with
> those signals.)
>
>   4. Many species cooperate with other species in
> "symbiosis".
>      Examples are lichens, which consist of algae
> and fungi
>      cooperating to benefit both.  Symbiosis
> occurs between plants
>      and animals at all levels.  Dogs and cats,
> for example, became
>      human companions because they found mutually
> beneficial ways
>      of cooperating with people.
>
>   5. The eukaryotic cells are an extreme example,
> where early
>      bacteria (prokaryotic cells) were swallowed
> by other bacteria
>      and found a comfortable, well protected niche
> inside.
>
>   6. The metazoa (multi-celled animals) evolved
> from colonies of
>      eukaryotic cells that formed "a more perfect
> union" than just
>      a colony of independent units.  But that
> union required a
>      strong central "government" (called a brain),
> which eventually
>      dominated the other cells completely -- to
> their mutual benefit.
>
> Most species of plants and animals are unable to
> survive without
> a large colony of the same species and symbiotic
> species.  Just
> look at what happened to the Yellowstone ecology
> when they brought
> back wolves.  The overall health increased
> enormously:
>
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/03102
> 9064909.htm
>
> The Primates, our closest relatives, all live in
> colonies, and
> individuals outside a colony die off quickly.  Our
> two closest
> cousins, the chimpanzees and bonobos illustrate
> two extremes:
>
>   1. Chimps and bonobos interbreed easily, but
> they have been
>      separated by the Congo River for a few
> million years.
>
>   2. Chimps have a highly aggressive patriarchal
> society, with
>      fierce fighting among the males for the top
> spot.  The birth
>      rate of males to females is approximately
> 50-50, but the
>      percentage of adult males to females is about
> 30-70, and
>      most males don't die of natural causes.
>
>   3. Bonobos have a matriarchal society, with a
> laid-back,
>      make-love-not-war attitude.  The birth rate
> of males to
>      females is 50-50, and so is the adult rate.
>
> Biologists have studied the chemical and
> physiological differences
> between chimps and bonobos.  And significantly,
> the bonobos differ
> from the chimps in the same way that dogs and
> pussycats differ from
> wolves and wildcats.  In effect, the bonobos
> "tamed" themselves.
>
> Interesting point:  Human physiology is more
> closely related to
> the bonobos than the chimpanzees.  Humans also
> tamed themselves.
>
> John
>
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=============================================================
doug foxvog    doug@xxxxxxxxxx   http://ProgressiveAustin.org    (016)

"I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great
initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."
    - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
=============================================================    (017)


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