Guy Hoelzer  wrote 

> In my lexicon, processes have physical existence, but are not entities.

What objective (measureable) criteria, if any, are you 
employing to come to the conclusion that a process is 
not or cannot be an entity?  (I'm not concerned with your
lexicon.  I'm concerned with what you can demonstrate 
rationally.)

  As
> I see it, processes and entities are the only things that are manifested in
> the universe, but they are different kinds of phenomena.  As I use the
> terms, entity refers to structures composed of matter;

Do processes not have structure?  Are they not comprised of matter?  I
think it's obvious that the answer to both of the questions is, no. 
Therefore I don't see why you would object to my supposition that
processes are or can be considered entities.

 processes are
> constituted by dynamical interactions among structural entities.
> 
> I understand that this distinction can be somewhat artificial

Uh huh.

 in regarding
> the physics of natural systems, because entities are established through
> self-organizing processes, and processes self-organize through constraints
> on the nature of interactions among entities.  Nevertheless, I find it
> useful to distinguish structure from process with these terms.

Useful?  If it's not accurate then it's usefulness can only be to
mislead.

> 
> [snip]
> 
> >> To summarize it here, my argument is that
> >> what we call chance is an umbrella category that includes the all the
> >> causative processes outside of our perception.  Therefore,
chance is not an
> >> entity nor a particular process; yet it does attribute causation that
> >> underlies observed randomness (the absence of pattern in data).
> > 
> > Where does the causation come from.  Does it not come from the
> > entities that are, "outside your perception?" 
Obviously you cannot
> > disagree with this.  Why then do you want to attribute the source of
> > the causation to "chance" when you yourself have stated that it,
> > actually, comes from entities?
> 
> Because the evolutionary response of the target population to this category
> of causation cannot result in design that is adaptive to the specific nature
> of the causative agents.  This category of causation is experienced by the
> target population as environmental stochasticity.

I can't make any sense of this.  It doesn't seem like you answered my
question.

> 
> [snip]
> 
> > If that that causes "genetic drift" and that that causes natural
> > selection are one and the same (entities interacting with their
> > environment) and they are otherwise indistinguishable then why do we
> > distinguish between them?
> 
> I have answered this directly before.  IMHO the validity of this distinction
> is based on the perceptive scope of the target population.

Perceptive scope?  (I think you are just digging yourself in deeper.)

  If the nature of
> the perturbation (causation) cannot be perceived by the population, then the
> population cannot adapt to that kind of environmental factor.

Why would you say this?  Why can't they adapt?

  One way this
> can happen, for example, is that the period between perturbations from
> particular source might be so great that the responding system retains no
> memory of the previous event 

Does the Biota not maintain the memory?  (It does.)

(possibly, for example, causes of mass
> extinctions).  Therefore, the target population responds to all such
> causative factors as member of a single category that we call chance.
> Because populations respond to this set of imperceptible causations as a
> single category, it is appropriate for us to model this set as a single
> category.

I can't make any sense of this?  Single category?  

> 
> [snip]
> 
> > So?  Where was it ever established that natural selection does not
> > also involve chance?
> 
> I am not sure who might have said this first.  I think it was at least
> implicit in the original descriptions of Darwin and Wallace that the notion
> of natural selection is inherently about directed bias, and not about or
> dependent upon chance.

It's BS to speak of chance as an entity that exists independent of a
particular observer.

> 
> [snip]
> 
> > You stated that processes have no physical existence.
> 
> I hope that I successfully corrected this misimpression above.  It is my
> opinion that real processes do have physical existence, but I would not call
> them entities.  Let's not get bogged down in differences in word usage.  We
> agree that processes have physical manifestation.

Aha!  I was wondering when you were finally going to come clean on
this point.  So you no longer maintain that the causation associated
with GD is the result of a non-physical process.  You now realize that
the causation is the result of the interaction of lifeforms with their
environment, like a said previously.

> 
> [snip]
> 
> >>>> To be even more precise above, I am refining this
answer to say that it is
> >>>> an emergent process composed of the set of
sub-processes undetectable by
> >>>> the evolving system.  I think that most processes we
know of are in fact
> >>>> emergent, including natural selection; so I don't
think this description
> >>>> makes drift different in kind from other processes. 
I guess the most
> >>>> tenuous element of my claim is that it involves the
conjecture that there
> >>>> is a non-linear effect at the evolving population
level of the accumulation
> >>>> of sub-process outcomes through which this class of
sub-processes attain
> >>>> coherence from the evolving population's point of
view.  On the other hand,
> >>>> this claim seems awfully close to the Central Limit Theorem.
> >> 
> >> Does your silence here indicate that you did not follow my
argument, or that
> >> you agree?
> > 
> > Both.  You haven't established that emergence is somehow different
> > than NS.  So I don't see what the point of this paragraph is to the
> > discussion.
> 
> Natural selection is another kind of emergent process.  It differs from
> drift in that target populations can adapt to the nature of the causative
> factors.

You haven't establishe that GD does not also produce adaptation.  

  Whether a causative factor feeds the process of natural selection
> or the process of drift depends upon the nature of (the perceptive potential
> of) the target population.
> 
> [snip]
> 
> >> You are being vague in the same way
> >> you are asking me to avoid.  "This" is actually a
set of unrelated causes to
> >> which a biological population cannot respond in a coherent
way (i.e. adapt),
> >> which constitutes the set of causes of genetic drift.
> > 
> > Same is true for natural selection.  So why distinguish?
> 
> Yes.  Natural selection is also an umbrella category of causation.  I make
> the distinction between drift and selection because populations can adapt to
> one set of causative factors and not the other.  Natural selection was
> originally described by Darwin and Wallace specifically to explain how
> populations can adapt to predictable environmental conditions.  They did not
> attempt to explain how populations might evolve in non-adaptive ways because
> this did not seem like an interesting question at the time.

As I've explained, it's plainly a nonsense question that involves a
spiritualistic approach to evolutionary biology.

> 
> [snip]
> 
> >> Personally, I am not comfortable with the assertion that
stochasticity is a
> >> QUALITY of an entity.
> > 
> > Aha!  I knew it.  All neoDarwinists--as well as many physicists--make
> > the conceptual error of considering stochasticity a source of
> > causation.  It isn't, and can't be.  It is not an entity.  it is a
> > quality.
> 
> I agree that it is not an entity, but I do not agree that it is a quality.
> Perhaps you use the word "quality" differently from me.

So you think it's not inappropriate to attribute causation to a
nonentity.  I disagree for the reasons I've explained.

> 
> [snip]
> 
> >> Can you do better than trying repeatedly to discredit me with
> >> claims that I am a spiritualist?  Where, exactly, is my leap of faith?
> > 
> > God is a human conceptual construct.
> 
> So is the devil, but what does any of this have to do with anything I wrote?
> I never invoked God or any spirit of any kind.

If you attribute causation to a nonentity you are including
spiritualism in your arguement.

> 
> [snip]
> 
> >> We have been through this, but I will put my view briefly
back on the record
> >> here.  I agree that all natural boundaries become fuzzy as you zoom in.
> >> They are never absolutely discrete.
> > 
> > Yes, and therefore what is or is not an entity is also not absolute.
> 
> We established some time ago that we disagree on this conclusion, although
> we agree on the premise.
> 
> > (NeoDarwinism has been constructed under the assumption that what is
> > or is not an entity is absolute.  This is, actually, the source of
> > most of the conceptual errors and limitations of the current
> > paradigm.)
> > 
> > 
> >> That does not mean that they are any
> >> less real, however.
> > 
> > Not at issue.
> 
> By "real" I mean that they do actually have absolute existence.

?

Best,

Jim
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