proximity1

from The (U.K.) Guardian newspaper's related articles: Q & A with Edward Snowden: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why Note: "without targeting" does not mean without identification of the person(s) concerned, otherwise, the import of his comment would be nil. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance Metadata implies the linking of all sorts of sensitive tranactions--everything bought with a credit card, including the hour and minute, the date, the place, the amount spent and, the items themselves. What about a person, including his identity, cannot be gleaned easily from such records? That's "only" your credit card data--which, of course, is a unique number, attached to the cardholder alone. But, there's more. There are also your medical records, your banking records, your school data, and all your travel movements. Do you have a cell-phone? Then your every movement is tracked and logged in the phone system's metadata, with of course, all your call connections and the related data. With such a file, I could tell you whatever anyone wanted to know about another person--everything about him or her. Present, past and future intentions. The idea that a program designed with the intent to find and identify potential terrorist suspects does not include the ready ability to indentify individuals wherever and whenever desires asks us to flush our common sense down the toilet. Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Epic.org (News) EPIC Seeks Legal Justification for NSA Domestic Surveillance Program:

RE: "But what, exactly, is "awful" about this?" here, let the NSA specialist and agency employee who is behind the disclosure, explain that to you(video interview link): http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-interview-video RE: "I find the reaction of many people to be interesting." What people are these? RE: "Where was the outrage more than a decade ago, when the Patriot act was passed? Or even before that, because it was legal 30 years ago to get this kind of data, as the link I provided earlier explained." My outrage, protests, and arguments, for example, were written over years of participation in various internet discussion fora, thousands of posts over dozens of topics, more or less directly related to intelligence agency policies and abuses, but also concerning other related matters--official misinformation campaigns, cover-ups, etc., without regard for the position or party membership of those involved. Much of this was at the internet blog, "MyLeftWing.com" but also at its spin-offs, and at sites such as the (now defunct) chatrooms which the NYTimes ran from 2001 through the onset of the Bush Iraq war of 2003 and for a while after. RE: "That's not the same thing as saying Congress wasn't informed or they did not approve." No, this, which, if you even read, you ignored: ' “You can count on two hands the number of people in Congress who really know,” he said in an interview on Friday. '

So much for this : > "..."Further, it might be helpful to recall that these programs have all been fully debated and approved by the Congress itself... More than once."

Interesting. When I "pointed out a fact" I got, in return, from Swansont, a comment which was more than a "reminder... that the programs started under Bush, not under Obama." If it had been only that, I would not have objected. Beyond pointing out a fact, Swansont's post says, literally, "Let's give credit where credit is due." That's several things at once: in tone, it's rebuking me for my focus on Obama, implying that having not mentioned Bush's prior roles is a fault--though nothing about my post has anything necessarily to do with any lesser degree of fault on the part of former President Bush, for whom I have no more sympathy than I have for Obama; it's also a call for something; a call on "us" to "give credit where credit is due,"--and at the same time, directly suggests that the focus of my comment is improper, needs correction, and that the proper, correct view is to refocus upon Bush, because his role preceeded that of Obama. Thus, my statement of fact, critical of Obama, to be sure, is presented as misplaced and so is a comment which impugns my view as failing to do what constitutes, in Swansont's opinion, rather than in objective fact, "giving proper credit." That is doing more than simply "reminding" readers of the history of the issue; had he wanted to do only that, he could have left things at ""It's been pointed out that the program started under our dumb-ass former redneck-in-chief," with which, the "redneck" term apart, I quite agree: Bush, as president was a disgrace and not for a moment did I ever favor his election (that is, if and when he was "elected"). Here, you take up where Swansont left off and lecture me with a hostile remark of your own--one that insinuates that I am prisoner or slave to "[my] preferred narrative" in the service of which I must take facts selectively and in a biased, unfairly partisan manner. You don't state what my "narrative" is, but your comment indicates you're confident that you know what it is, and suggests also that you don't like it. RE: ..."Further, it might be helpful to recall that these programs have all been fully debated and approved by the Congress itself... More than once. This is another fact that perhaps hurts your preferred narrative"... Indeed? I wonder what "fully debated and approved by the Congress itself" means there. As I understand it, secret, classified intelligence programs, to the extent that they are debated at all in Congress, are the exclusive purview of the various select intelligence committees (ICs) in the House and the Senate. Outside these committees, members of Congress are not aware of the matters discussed and debated there. The intelligence committees, AFAIA, report in a summary fashiod, their recommendations to parent committees or to the leadership of the House or Senate --some of whom are themeselves members on the intelligence committees or sub-committees. At that point, I believe, whatever a non-IC congress member decides in voting on a measure depends on what the IC committees and leadership permit him or her to know either via report or in reply to written interrogatories--should they be answered. If I'm correct there, I don't see how this in any way hurts that shameful thing, my "preferred narrative." Swansont writes, "But you can do the same thing (i.e. intercept communications in the course of surveillance operations) with mail: read the recipient's and sender's address off of the package. Do we know they aren't doing this already? And asking FedEx and UPS for all of their data as well?" That's not only quite correct, I wrote as much myself, in the very post to which Swansont is replying, @ 39: "The sensible conclusion to draw is that OFLM is scrutinized-- whenever and wherever the authorities are suspicious of any otherwise revealed patterns, whether valid or entirely mistaken by their prior analyses." RE : "You're fully allowed to be as myopic and ignorant as you'd like, so let's be clear on that." I think that's quite clear, yes. You're calling me or my views myopic and ignorant. Isn't that a gratutitous insult, indicating your patent hostility or have I missed something?

> 41: "It's been pointed out that the program started under our dumb-ass former redneck-in-chief. Let's give credit where it's due." Let's not miss the point. "Credit where credit is due"? I'm criticizing there Obama's failure on its demerits*. Is that allowed? Or are we required here to take your view of things? * --none of which diminishes Bush's responsibility for what he did or failed to do. All the same, Bush doesn't get or deserve (dis)"credit" for Obama's persistence in Bush's malfeasance.

Further to the comments on expectations of privacy-- 1) it's been objected, above, that no one has any right to expect privacy concerning publicly posted opinions in internet discussion fora, for example. This overlooks the fact that Google and, we have to assume, other internet search-engines, turn over, en bloc, vast swaths of unfiltered data indicating millions of people's every movement on-line, without any regard for openly expressed opinions on any given topic. That, of course, is what "data-mining" is; and, I think that people should, indeed, have every valid expectation of privacy when it comes to their uses of the internet, the sites they "visit", the "clicks of the computer", etc. To say otherwise is to say that, in the days of predominantly print news, the government should have been legally able to coerce any publisher to turn over its subscriber-lists, using them as a raw-data source on which to base suppositions about which individuals find which kinds of press interesting. Today, of course, such an analogy is crude beyond all measure when one considers the degree and scope of intrusion possible in a digitally-networked world. Today, the surveillance makes susceptible to scrutiny not just all the general sites visited but every singe page-view, time, duration and other related movement. 2) an encroachment on privacy--- and, thus, tantamount to an admission of a valid expectation of privacy, since, "no expectation, no invasion" --- has already been admitted by our dumb-ass "Constitutional-Lawyer-in-Chief" : from the NYT article, "Administration Says Mining of Data is Crucial to Fight Terror" 3) Why wouldn't any actual "terrorist" operatives turn primarily to means of communications least likely traced and watched? And, if that happens to be old-fashioned letter-mail (OFLM), then why wouldn't the government consider this vector as too important to leave out of its surveillance activities? The sensible conclusion to draw is that OFLM is scrutinized-- whenever and wherever the authorities are suspicious of any otherwise revealed patterns, whether valid or entirely mistaken by their prior analyses.

The relevancy as I see it is this: though now effectively "dead-letters" in the law, our former civil liberties--in this case, the rights we used to have to privacy--concerned what the government(s) could or could not legally do in searches and seizures; here, I've mentioned two (though there are others, too) private corporate entities which are using the technology they have to data-mine this site (among others). Just as was stated in the reply, Cap'n Refsmmat "certainly could [i.e. prevent these from practicing data-mining here ], if I so desired, by using robots.txt." Thus, my legal rights to privacy aren't the issue--though general collection of data without the knowledge or permission* of those from whom that data is being collected is the topic of the thread--having any third party collect and store, for whatever purpose, the, yes, public posts here, is what I'm concerned about. If, say, some individual wants to make a personal project of going around and laboriously collecting one or more individual's chat forum posts, that, to me, is something qualitatively different from the mass all-inclusive vacuum-cleaner sweeps that Google and Bing conduct. If you don't or can't see the difference in the two, then I don't know to explain that to you. The up-shot is, as the above reply indicates, the means to prevent general everyday collection of the information--with poster's names included (and many people post a many varied sites under a single user-login name)--by Google, Bing and others exists, but it isn't being applied and this is by the choice of Cap'n Refsmmat. * ETA: I guess your questions have helped me put in better perspective what I didn't first see was entailed in my query. It concerns the aspect of "without the users' knowledge or permission". Indeed, I can't claim that Bing and Google secretly collect "data" here; and one could (and probably would,) argue that by participating, I'm tacitly giving my consent. So, we're faced with the all-purpose Techno-evangelists' reply, on the world-wide webs, "Don't like _____ ? You can always leave" (participating at that site). That is the "freedom" which remains to us in the wonderland New Digital Age, as hyped by Eric Schmidt, Jared Cohen and their likes. "Lovely." And, remember, this is 'The House that Science Built'.

Note: I pleased you're concerned about privacy. So, then, I ask, since "Google" and "Bing" are routinely found among the list shown above, can you prevent these from practicing data-mining here ?--which is very much part of what you are concerned about here. If not, why is that?

RE: 234-- I agree, those comments make your meaning clear(er) and, though I hadn't read them (well enough) or understood their point clearly earlier, even before this post of yours, I'd come to see from your N° 233 (after further reflection) that this (in 234) is what you mean and I take your word for it that it's what you meant all along. Still, for me, my understanding of your position is now much changed from what it was prior to your post N° 233. I'm somewhat to blame for not having gained the full and proper ideas from the citations you make (again) in N° 234, but, in part, I think what I'd understood was, though partly faulty, at least a plausible interpretation of what you meant. Now, I restate the gist of the discussion's differing views this way-- For you, yes, philosophy does and always has informed science and the work of scientists. That philosophy is what we should refer to (today, at any rate) as "the philosophy of science" and distinguishable sub-set of a larger field of philosophy. As I understand Yodaps 's views, this is too strained a circumscription of the part of philosophy in science--even if we accept, and I do--that in the main science is mostly concerned with the philosophies of science as they concern epsitemology and other branches concerning reason and logic. But, unless I'm again mistaken, I think that your N° 233 reveals more--and more interesting and pertinent aspects about your views of the relationship of science and philosophy. So, to discover these and whether I'm correct, I invite you to correct the following re-summary of what I think you are actually saying, still only incompletely expressed as I see it: In science, there is a certain amount of philosophy to learn and to keep in mind in both practice and theory. That science, properly, is and should be learned in the science classroom, where students learn it from qualified scientists, whatever other credentials they may happen to have in philosophy. If they take on other philosophy, and, especially, if they get it from non-science philosophers, they're running the risk of taking on a load of belief which is either irrelevant to science or even perhaps outright harmful to a good and proper practice of that. I can put that more briefly this way--in the main, outside of the strict limits of the philosophy of science, philosophers have nothing (or nothing much) to teach (or to say to) scientists. Similarly, philosophy as a whole, is mainly irrelevant to science except for the branches directly related to the philososphy of science. Again, a scientist should teach epistemology, not a "general philosopher" or even an epistemologist who isn't also himself or herself a scientist. If, for example, science and if scientists need to study ethics, they should study it from other scientists, not from from non-scientist philosophers who teach ethics. If that isn't in fact your own view of things, I believe that it's a fair approximation of what many, many professionals in science actually think and practice in their work everyday. I suspect and I fear that there are some--and any is too many--scientists who've never bothered to take up ethics in any but a very casual and off-hand way, who've never made a point to delve into ethics beyond what they may have been taught in a science classroom course called something like 'Ethics for science and scientists", taught by scientists. As I read Yodaps, his view of philosophy is such that one can't (or at least shouldn't) try to make and apply such distinctions when it comes to how philosophy and science are related. A philosopher of ethics or of general philosophy could properly teach a class on ethics in science, as I read Yodaps, but, not as I read your views of it; or, in a world where everything was confined to its proper place, that wouldn't happen. I think many scientists are weak in their philosophy, don't know that they are, and certainly aren't much concerned with the matter anyway. I think that this is no less, if, indeed, not more, the case in ethics, for example where more and more I'm impressed by what scientists show themselves capable of thinking, believing, saying and doing. No small part of this comes from the time I've spent reading this site's blogs.

I quoted you verbatim-- here: post N° 141: ..."I think there's a divide between science and philosophy." and here: N° 126, "And yet a scientist may know nothing about philosophy but is still somehow able to do science." Now you tell us--for what looks to me like the first time--that you mean and meant, "The question is abut additional philosophy. My view is that it is possible to learn all of the philosophy you need in your science classes, as being part of science. IOW, it's not required that you take a philosophy class in order to do science. It is possible to do science without having to consult a philosopher at various steps along the way." (empasis in the original !) As a clarification of your previously posted argument and statements, I find that quite an amazing statement and I leave to other readers and Yodaps to read and judge for themselves whether this "additional philosophy" was your clear intent and meaning from the first. For me, the OP's import was clear--it asked whether or not readers considered that scientists themselves, as practitioners, needed to resort in their science work to philosophy or whether, on the other hand, they could dispense with it. Perhaps you could explain that to me in a PrivateMessage, rather than appending it here in the thread? I'd be interested to read how it's a "fair point", in your opinion. Thank you.

I'd summarize the current sticking point this way: Q: (originally) Is "philosophy" necessary for (or in order to "do science") science ? A's: (Swansont & Co.): No. / Later qualified to : It depends of course on what "philosophy" is deemed to be (or to mean) See post N° 164, e.g.. : "if one is considering science as a subset of philosophy, then yes, this is true. We do it all the time. By definition." and, post N° 141: ..."I think there's a divide between science and philosophy." in part, because, it is alleged, in N° 126, "And yet a scientist may know nothing about philosophy but is still somehow able to do science." A's (cont.) (Yodaps & Co.) Yes. Arguing that philosophy is inherent in science as that is understood today. Many (perhaps all) of early scientists were philosophers---that is, they practiced philosophy in or in addition to their "scientific" work and should not have understood the distinction between one and the other. I.E., there is no way to "get to science" (my quotation marks for imagery) without at the same time, using philosophy, wittingly or not. That's important, (IMO) because it replies to Swansont's view that one can practice science "know[ing] nothing about philosophy." The point, however, is that the person who allegedly "knows nothing about philosophy" is none the less obliged to resort to it, whether he or she "knows it" or not. And, thus, there is philosophy going on despite claims to the contrary, it seems to me. As Wright Mills might say, "It takes some very tall and narrow reasoning" to conclude that there needn't be any philosophy in the work of science--that is, that science isn't "concerned with philosophy." So, the current key sticking point seems to be that between the view that we may finesse the definition of "philosophy" so that it does (or doesn't) come into the picture of science. For Swansont, this means that science being philosohical in part is merely word-play and semantics, a result of a choice of definition. I'd argue that there isn't any practically useful and interesting way to define either science or philosophy which leaves us free to say about philosophy that, in science, we may "take it or leave it". Only by a scientist's being ignorant of its actual role (clearly there are such) --that is, only by a lack of awareness--can a scientist "leave it".

I think more accurate would be to recognize that there is no effective "border" between science and philosophy, fuzzy or fine. Science is impossible without a few a priori assumptions--the "a priori" there means that they cannot be empirically proven or demonstrated, but must be taken for granted at the start. This really isn't news in the 21st century. Whether people here (apart from Yodaps, that is,) are aware of it or not, in the history of science, it has long been acknowledged that science in its theorization and in its practical experimentation, must resort to some a priori assumptions--those are fundamental philosophical matters--causality is among them, but that doesn't exhaust the list. For me, a corrollary question of interest is "Why does the admission that there is inevitably an essential philosophic element in all science cause such apparent angst among some here? Let me mention a few names of scientists (or mathematicians, or both) whove acknowledged in their own popular writings, that science and philosophy (by any meaningful definition of that latter term) are inseparable: Bertrand Russell, Max Planck, Neils Bohr, Albert Einstein, and, uhm, virtually every scientist practicing prior to the 19th century ---oh, wait, that's one of those "appeals to authority", isn't it?!? Sheesh! Yes, I appeal to authority--esp. one called, "reason" (as I understand it, of course--I cannot use it any other way than that).

N° 196 : All arguments and the facts on which they rely rest, ultimately and in one manner or another, on some kind of an "appeal to authority" since there is no such thing as pure, pristine, "objective reason" or pure, pristine "objective fact"-- there are only " Epiphanese's or Soren's or Bob's" or some other person's claims about what is or is not a fact. When we "appeal" to "facts" we are appealing to someone's claims as to what constitutes these--including the underlying claims which concern one or another measuring instrument's data as objective facts about nature. If nothing else, the general and persistent failure at this site to recognize the import of this is, in and of itself, one of the most telling examples of the importance of philosophy and of the silly nonsense that ensues when that importance is forgotten or denied. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Arthur_Burtt and The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science. A Historical and Critical Essay (1924) London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner. (linked from Wikipédia).

RE N° 3 : "How is mathematics philosophy?" Reading Russell's "Sceptical Essays" and, from "The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell" the relevant chapters-- you'll find an explanation of how it is--and a good deal of other insights into how and why philosophy is not only not "crap" but is essential to any science.

He then asked me...after he flipped a quarter and it came up heads...."What is the probability that it came up heads?" I was about to say immediately....50/50...but knowing him now...I stopped my mouth from flapping and thought. I then said...100% He smiled a very big smile and said..."NOW you got it! Now you can move on to greater understanding!" He went on and said..."It is like asking...what are the chances that THIS PERSON....and he pointed to an article he had folded to the front of the local Newspaper that showed a Man and a Woman...Husband and Wife who won $117 Million before taxes playing the lottery. I said again...100%! He said..."YES!" He then went on to say...if the probability is calculated upon an individual prior to the Lottery Number being drawn...then such a person would have a better chance getting hit by a bolt of Lightning on a clear day 500 feet underwater in a Sub while wearing Rubber insulating boots and touching nothing! But STILL...this person WON! He went on and we talked about how no matter how many times a person might flip a quarter...before it is flipped...no matter how many flips are performed...say....1 Billion...the probability that after a Half Billion flips where all came up tails...the probability it will be heads next still remained 50/50 for all following flips and this is the same even after 999,999,999 flips turn up tails. His point was...there is no such thing as IMPOSSIBILITY. There is no such thing as Statistical IMPOSSIBILITY. The fact that the couple in the paper had won shows us that THINGS AND EVENTS WILL HAPPEN IF THEY CAN...AND EVEN IF WE CALCULATE THEY CAN'T...THEY STILL FIND A WAY TO OCCUR. ---------------- I don't think this adds up, either. Probabilities relate to prospects--what may occur in an as-yet unknown outcome where there exists more than one possibility--not to determinations of what actually happened by simply observing a result. Saying that a lottery player, once he or she "wins," had, therefore, a "100% chance of winning" is an observation which is empty of import as far as calculating probabilities are concerned. The player in question had a probability of winning which was--assuming a fair, uncorrupted game--exactly a factor of the number of tickets bought (entiries made) in the drawing. Thus, if he or she had bought one ticket, the chances of winning would be the same at that for any other holder of one ticket in the same drawing. Thus, mathematical probabilities which concern a known and fixed number of possible outcomes, (in a lottery, this is determined by the number of correct digits the players are required to guess-- 5, 6,7,8 or more, for example). In the case of life's random occurrances, there is no such comparable circumstance. There is simply no way to calculate the probability of a so-called given person's "being born". But, once born, environmental circumstances enter into the greater or lesser liklihood of any subsequent event occurring-- whether we're able to quantify that probability or not. Just because the improbable may occur, it doesn't follow that, therefore, virtually anything could occur as a practical possibility or with a probability which is significantly greater than zero. In most cases, prospectively (which is the only sense in which it matters or "counts" ) life's events, which cannot be reduced to the fixed probabilities of a lottery drawing, cannot be reasonably known or calculated. If they could, there'd be no such thing as a stock market--since its daily outcomes would be calculable and, therefore, the market would collapse as a consequence of the outcome's being predictable. The whole point of my earlier post can be summed up in two observations: 1) We don't and can't know the probability of a human life's occurrance or the events within it--the universe and all in it comprise a single and unique (as far as we are concerned, at any rate) series of events. 2) That notwithstanding, the probability of an existing person becoming a writer, writing a novel, and that novel becoming a celebrated success--as with the case of Tolstoy and War and Peace --these are all squarely within the realm of normal life's occurrances and there is nothing about them that rates their being classified as being astronomically numerically impossibly unlikely.

I think you're overlooking contingent circumstances and, reasoning without accounting for pre-existing circumstances produces a false impression of improbability. You can approach the issue via many examples. What are the chances of dying in an aircraft accident? Before there were any aircraft, the chances were slim to none. But, once aircraft were invented, the chances greatly improved. Once aircraft became a practical means of transporting people, the probability of dying in an aircraft accident (i.e. a crash) rose still further. Again, when commercial air transport became common, the chances grew much larger compared with the previous circumstances. About Tolstoy and War and Peace --again, in a similar way, you're reckoning or trying to reckon on both Tolstoy's existence and his producing War and Peace arising ab nihilo. But, in and before Tolstoy's time, there were societies in which people wrote fiction. Thus, writing fiction, while not as common as having breakfast, lunch or dinner, was a common or ordinary activity. The probability of Tolstoy writing fiction increased enormously as soon as Tolstoy was born. Later, when he learned to read and write, the chances of War and Peace coming from his pen increased again. Meanwhile, many intervening factors came about, with varying consequences for the probability of War and Peace being written. Once given a set of circumstances, probabilities increase or decrease depending on the circumstances and there is simply no reason to suppose that one has to calculate from some origin in primeaval slime to War and Peace or to the NASA Apollo program, for example. Try reasoning fowards rather than backwards from War and Peace. Tolstoy is born in 1828. Births are common then. Tolstoy's life presents a number of features, all mixtures of chance and circumstantial probabilities which track other writers of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. He didn't take to schooing, lived in quite varied social circumstances, and saw life from an outsider's point of view. These, combined, made it more rather than less likely that he might become a writer, just as they also made it less rather than more likely that he'd become an insurance salesman. Then, (from Wikipedia) ... "His European trip in 1860–61 shaped both his political and literary transformation when he met Victor Hugo, whose literary talents Tolstoy praised after reading Hugo's newly finished Les Miserables." People travelled at that time. They also met others by chance. Some chance meetings occurred with, for example, Victor Hugo. But, while each event taken separately, isn't fantastically improbable, taken together, the chances of Tolstoy taking up writing improve very greatly. He meets Victor Hugo. He reads the recently published Les Misérables. Then, more from Wikipedia, "Tolstoy's political philosophy was also influenced by a March 1861 visit to French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, then living in exile under an assumed name in Brussels. Apart from reviewing Proudhon's forthcoming publication, La Guerre et la Paix (War and Peace in French), whose title Tolstoy would borrow for his masterpiece, the two men discussed education, as Tolstoy wrote in his educational notebooks: "If I recount this conversation with Proudhon, it is to show that, in my personal experience, he was the only man who understood the significance of education and of the printing press in our time." and, from the pages relating to War and Peace : "He began writing War and Peace in the year that he finally married and settled down at his country estate. The first half of the book was written under the name "1805". During the writing of the second half, he read widely and acknowledged Schopenhauer as one of his main inspirations. However, Tolstoy developed his own views of history and the role of the individual within it.[9] The first draft of War and Peace was completed in 1863." "Writers" ---> "Novelists" ---> "Russian writers/ novelists" ---> "Leo Tolstoy" ----> grows up ---> becomes literate ---> writes ---> writes a novel ---> writes a novel called War and Peace. Impossible? No. Almost impossible? Not in the universe as it was then. RE : "The odds against Tolstoy's existence are astronomically higher than this." No, really, in fact, they weren't even higher. The odds were actually more for than against Tolstoy's becoming a writer as soon as he was born. Then, with time, they got better and better.

RE: knownothing @ 5:24 p.m. I agree, "our ancestors" should refer to all our predecessors and that is how I intend it, too. As I understand it, In evolutionary processes, there are any number of variations extant in any living population. They arise independently of any pre-existing "need". If they aren't harmful, they can persist. If, later, the variations prove advantageous under certain circumstances--present or future, and they are present, then they prove at this point "useful" from that perspective. So, "need" is a term which is wholly circumstance-dependent. RE: "Is it merely an unintended consequence of the other parts of the brain coming together in such a way that helped the animal to survive?" I think that everything in evolutionary natural selection is an unintended consequence. There is no "intention" in nature's processes. So, the short answer, I think, is "yes." --- P.S. I wanted to add that, since humans are supposed to have evolved from other species, those species being, also, conscious, then this issue of why human kind might "need to be conscious" is very much getting things backwards, it seems to me. If, as all the known evidence suggests is the case, our nearest ancestors were also conscious, it would be quite remarkable if we evolved from this or these conscious species but <i>didn't</i>, in the same process, possess a similar brain with similar consciousness, wouldn't it? I don't intend to assert that such a course couldn't ever happen. Evolution via natural selection can produce losses of formerly existing characteristics. Since we started out as an off-shoot of a previous conscious ancestor or ancestors, the matter of whether we needed consciousness or not simply doesn't come into the picture. ---- See the Wikipedia page on Dr. Eric Kandel and the entry re : Medical school and early research . He studied molluscs--(Aplysia californica) for their rudimentary nervous systems and memory capacities.

for "advantages" (I put that between parentheses to emphasize that the term is meaningful only from some presupposed perspective and, in this case, that perspective is Darwin's Evolution by natural selection and its attendant features, whether biochemical or social or a mixture of the two) I suggest these : in assuring the procurement of food, and all the other necessities of life, including reproduction, consciousness affords advantages in the appreciation of the organism's environment and in acting to meet challenges to survival which spring from changes in that environment. It helps to bear in mind that, 1) we have never stopped evolving and 2) traits, charactersistics which are heritable, will be passed along as long as they are not <i>so harmful as to present actual disadvantages to survival and reproduction</i>. Thus, a trait which is neither (any longer) "useful" nor "harmful" to survival can persist indefinitely, and, 3) the evolutionary process is easily and fully explained as being "blind", without any "larger" point or purpose. So, again, "beneficial" or "not beneficial" have no discernable meaning outside a particular interested point of view--and, as a process, evolution has no interested point of view. From our own perspective, our species is quite important. From the perspective of some other species, we can be readily seen as nothing other or better that a pest species, a nuisance to the life and prosperity of the other species. In either case, nature, as a grand stage of action, isn't aware or interested in such conceptions. Consciousness was proven out as evolutionarily advantageous long, long before primates came on the scene. Thus, humans have had the advantage of a characteristic which long predates human kind; we needn't, then, view consciousness as having had anything originally to do with "benefiting us" --it simply benefited some life -- and as it happened, that included our ancestors--and our kind appeared later. I subscribe as well and generally to the comments above, by CharonY.

RE: Does anybody know of an scientific backing or any other evidence from other places (like the arts) that supports this claim? Many areas of study lend evidence to this view--to which I subscribe whole-heartedly. You can read studies on the origin, character and effects of language in psychology, in anthropolgy, in neuroscience--neurobiology--in linguistics, and in comparative history and, of course, in philosophy. The sources are so wide-ranging that no matter where you begin, your reading will branch out and stretch into multiple areas of enquiry. And all of that only means that your interest is in something vast and important and fascinating. In looking into texts, you can mine the bibliographies and the sources which the author you're reading cites. Here are some reading suggestions (by author name): Daniel Everett ; Ernest Lepore and Barry C. Smith Neil Postman (because he had the insight to recognize that language is a form of technology) ; and Wikipedia's page for "The Philosohy of Language" From a psychological prespective, does my experince as an English speaker (the only language I speak) differ from somebodys who speaks another language? To some degree, it seems to me, yes. Do I "see" the world differently and treat it differently based on my language? Yes. Since almost everything you see, hear and say is mediated by your language, which is an inescapable frame of experience. Would I be a different person and interact with the world differently if I spoke a different language? This follows from the above.

My recommendations for you come from my own very recent reading. First and foremost, I recommend you read Lee Smolin's book, The Trouble With Physics. I've nearly finished it and I think it will give you not only a good overview of the current pciture of issues which are generally agreed and which are controversial, it will do this in as fair and balanced a way as I've seen anywhere so far. I think that Smolin's views are very insightful and his explanations are as clear as I think they can be made--the book is addressed to the general reader. Using his bibliographical references, you'll also have many places to go next in your reading and, in going there, you'll have the basis for a general idea of what you're going to find discussed. Second, I'm about to go next to this book, which I also recommend as I've already dipped into it: What is Time? What is Space? by Carlo Rovelli (also addressed to the general reader). see the link for the english edition's details: http://www.direnzo.it/dett_libri.php?recordID=8883231465 Both Rovelli's homepage and Smolin's pages at the Perimeter Institute should offer you lots of interesting information and prompt a great many things to think about. At the Perimeter Institute's website, there are many lectures presented in video format. __________________________ P.S. : Lee Smolin has a new, about-to-be-published book, (projected date of publication, 23 April, 2013) from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Time Reborn. And, while looking up that link, I came upon this, directly on the topics of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, aslo from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, The 4 Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality, by Richard Panek.

RE: "Why are scientists seemingly reluctant to accept new ideas?" for the best, most comprehensive, answer I have so far seen, see The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next (below, by order of relevance), e.g. : Chapter 19: How Science Really Works (p. 332) Chapter 17: What Is Science? (p. 289) and Chapter 20: What We Can Do For Science (p. 349)

This is to correct a mistake in the opening post concerning Dr. Casanova's correct first-name-- it is Manuel F. Casanova, not, Michael, as I mistakenly wrote it in the opening post. I apologize to Dr. Casanova and Emily Williams and other readers for my error.

Prof. Christopher Martin's "Space Astrophysics Laboratory", associated with Cal Tech. wtih, among its interesting links, this one: "GALEX", the Galaxy Evolution Explorer.

sean, I'm not entering the "debate". Instread, I'm posting to say that, if you're confused, I don't blame you. Above, it's explained that "There's no point of origin. The BB wasn't an explosion propelling matter out into space from some central point. The BB was (and is) the expansion of space between points." (March 7, 2013) meanwhile, there's this, over at the NASA page, which agrees in part and seems to disagree in part--namely the part about "There's no point of origin." Here, I suggest something for your reading list; I'm currently reading it and I find it interesting. It's too early to say whether or how much of it I agree or disagree with. I only say that I think it's interesting and can be read by a non-specialist and I think you could find it interesting, too. Author: SMOLIN, Lee Title: The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next 2006, New York, Houghton Mifflin Co. www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com http://www.thetroublewithphysics.com/

Research Article: "Parallel Evolutionary Dynamics of Adaptive Diversification in Escherichia coli" by Matthew D. Herron and Michael Doebeli link : http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001490 Citation: Herron MD, Doebeli M (2013) Parallel Evolutionary Dynamics of Adaptive Diversification in Escherichia coli. PLoS Biol 11(2): e1001490. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001490 Copyright: © 2013 Herron, Doebeli. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.