Religion III

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by hcap

One of my long term goals was to improve on what is called the "infinitely variable transmission", or continuously variable transmission. Internal combustion engines are most efficient over a relatively narrow band of rotational speeds. Transmissions, either auto or manual are used to try to keep the car engine within those bands........while allowing the vehicles speed to be varied.

The automatic transmission has an infinitely variable "gear ratio" using a hydraulic torque converter. It is smooth, easy to use, quiet, but very inefficient at particular gear ratios, not as efficient as a well driven manual.
There are mechanical varieties of continuously variable gearsets, but as of now limited in power handling.

Variomatic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variomatic
Variomatic is the continuously variable transmission (CVT) of the Dutch car manufacturer DAF, originally developed by Hub van Doorne:[1] It is a stepless, fully automatic transmission consisting of a "V" shaped drive belt and two pulleys, each of two cones, whose effective diameter can be changed so that the "V" belt runs nearer the spindle or nearer the rim, depending on the separation of the cones. These are synchronized so that the belt always remains at the same optimal tension.

I attempted all sorts of new ideas using variable hydraulic pistons, to orbital gyroscopic torque multipliers to variable metal to metal "traction" or tooth less drives. Without much success. Very tough problem.

However in the process of working on this main problem I came up with a fixed gear ratio "traction" drive using planetary type orbital pathways. And no teeth on the gears.

There was never an unembodied flash of light preceding that conception. Never an effect visualized. Other than the thought of very high gear ratios used in industrial devices which could be produced for less money than the existing high ratio gearing...... that was used. All the knowledge gained in searching, researching and working on my main goal led to something very different....Serendipitously

[ Yes the inspiration for what was the final outcome came to me before I built the trial configuration, but it was not a flash out of the blue I imagined .

And it certainly did not come first[/QUOTE]

More stupid straw men. I never mentioned "flashes" or imaginations.

Also, you just contradicted yourself again! You tell us in one breath that the the inspiration for the final outcome came to your first, but then tell us in next sentence that "it certainly did not come first"!

Are you off your meds again?

Second contradiction:

Never an effect visualized.

Followed immediately by:

Other than the thought of very high gear ratios used in industrial devices which could be produced for less money than the existing high ratio gearing...... that was used

So...you never had an effect visualized, until you actually did have one visualized, is that the deal?

[hcap]

Let's drop this and speak of the only thing perhaps in common in terms of creativity we may have.

You go first. Tell us how you develop a spot play in horse race handicapping.
Let us know the steps you use to develop it.

[dnlgfnk]

Originally Posted by hcap

I thought you were using teleology as one of your givens.

You said...Please explain

In efficient causation, e.g., the struck match causes the effect of flame, in accord with the arrow of time.

In final causation, the effect of flame is the point of reference. One "looks back" from the flame (effect) to the match (cause) to ascertain the match's final cause, but it has nothing to do with the arrow of time. The final cause (teleological end) of the match is to produce the flame.

[dnlgfnk]

Originally Posted by hcap

Let's drop this and speak of the only thing perhaps in common in terms of creativity we may have.

You go first. Tell us how you develop a spot play in horse race handicapping.
Let us know the steps you use to develop it.

Since Box is sleeping, I rarely search for spot plays. Yet when I find a low odds horse who has either drawn extremely inside for a few consecutive races with sexy figures and finishes, or vice versa, extremely outside- and is now in the opposite position- I will eagerly anticipate playing against him.

My only other application is to bet the second favorite over some interesting longshots in the exotics, since the favorite is usually roughly 65% to lose, and the second favorite of course has the best pct of the collective remainder. Very simplistic. That was my modus operandi for choosing the Raptors as NBA champs this year.

[hcap]

Originally Posted by dnlgfnk

Since Box is sleeping, I rarely search for spot plays. Yet when I find a low odds horse who has either drawn extremely inside for a few consecutive races with sexy figures and finishes, or vice versa, extremely outside- and is now in the opposite position- I will eagerly anticipate playing against him.

My only other application is to bet the second favorite over some interesting longshots in the exotics, since the favorite is usually roughly 65% to lose, and the second favorite of course has the best pct of the collective remainder. Very simplistic. That was my modus operandi for choosing the Raptors as NBA champs this year.

Thanks, but that is not what I was getting at.

I understand how to develop spot plays. At the moment specifics are not what I am asking box about. But how he does it, so maybe he can drop his theoretical proclamations on how technology or anything else creative is developed. I am curious if he can point to the "effect" of creating a new spot play in some way preceding the creation of that spot play.

Sure we all can imagine cashing tons of money as an effect. But so what?

Originally I started by hand....years ago like everyone else. But learned to develop programs and refine and test them in conjunction with databases.

[dnlgfnk]

Originally Posted by hcap

Thanks, but that is not what I was getting at.

I understand how to develop spot plays. At the moment specifics are not what I am asking box about. But how he does it, so maybe he can drop his theoretical proclamations on how technology or anything else creative is developed. I am curious if he can point to the "effect" of creating a new spot play in some way preceding the creation of that spot play.

Sure we all can imagine cashing tons of money as an effect. But so what?

Originally I started by hand....years ago like everyone else. But learned to develop programs and refine and test them in conjunction with databases.

Yes, sorry 'cap, I read too fast and assumed an olive branch. Carry on.

[hcap]

Originally Posted by dnlgfnk

In efficient causation, e.g., the struck match causes the effect of flame, in accord with the arrow of time.

In final causation, the effect of flame is the point of reference. One "looks back" from the flame (effect) to the match (cause) to ascertain the match's final cause, but it has nothing to do with the arrow of time. The final cause (teleological end) of the match is to produce the flame.

But what did you mean

Originally Posted by you

I don't need to do anything especially in an argument where the crux lies in accepting final causes because intentionality in nature (again, non-rational things A that regularly produce B but not C or D...require external explanation (besides efficient) for their causal power, i.e., become secondary causes). T

"Require an external cause?" I assumed the final cause you meant was a deity directing events with a purpose, i.e teleology

[hcap]

Originally Posted by dnlgfnk

Yes, sorry 'cap, I read too fast and assumed an olive branch. Carry on.

It was sort of one to box. Common ground perhaps?

[HalvOnHorseracing]

Originally Posted by boxcar

Blah,blah,blah,blah,blah. Man,are you boring and verbose -- all the name of trying to prove how smart you are.

But you are right about Edison: He didn't have any pipe dreams or fantasies or visions from on high about a floating light. What he coherently conceived in mind was a kernel of an idea for an device that would radiate light by electricity.And that was all he needed to get started. This kernel of an idea was the end he had in mind. And that end (result, outcome, effect) provided him with the specific enough target for him to aim for to have a rational goal in the first place. No inventor or author or designer or artist ever has every single, intricate piece or detail of a thing initially in mind when conceiving an idea. Only God can do that!. Edison's goal, then, was to subsequently pursue ways to implement his idea. His physical work, activity, effort was initiated by his antecedent mental activity.

One cannot have a goal apart from having a specific end (effect or outcome) in mind. (A goal without a specific end in MIND would be as useless as a compass without a needle!) It is in the pursuit of achieving the end wherein all the many details are hammered out and nuts and bolts are discovered. As you yourself have often said, the Goal is not the Effect! Nor is the Effect the Goal. The pursuit of or the effort put in toward achieving the Effect, first coherently conceived in mind, is the process by which all the many details are discovered, researched, tested and worked out. This is what all Edison's experiments were all about -- the pursuit of the end product of his goal.

But you're trying to conflate an idea initially conceived in intellect that grasped a specific effect (end) with the physical process that necessarily involves, among many other things, testing subsequent ideas that would serve as sufficient causes to actualize the desired effect in the physical realm.

You are desperately attempting to conflate the mental activity, wherein the idea was coherently conceived for an electrical device with a specific end (effect) in mind, with the physical process necessary to work toward that specific end which was first conceived in intellect. What you refuse to acknowledge is that the latter activity would never take place at all, apart from the necessary former activity.

Just as it only takes only but a small spark to ignite a raging firestorm, likewise it takes but a kernel of a rational, coherently conceived idea to launch as many experiments as it takes to achieve the desired effect originally contained in the idea.

What I just laid out above in these last few paragraphs is how Effects in intellect must logically precede effects in the physical world. All the subsequent ideas and physical effort involved in the pursuit of a particular end (effect), which would also necessarily entail discovering sufficient causes to realize the end in the physical world, presuppose that the end was held in intellect first. Without an antecedent end (effect) grasped in intellect, there can be no physically, rationally directed effort to accomplish that end in the physical realm. The Effect initially held in intellect is the dominating and controlling impetus that directs any subsequent physical effort to achieve the desired end.

P.S.
Now, tell me, Mr. Halv, that I'm not the King of Analogies --providing two great ones in one post. ;

I don't know that they make you king, but I'd agree they fit the definition of analogy. Which reminds me, somewhere not too far back, I said, The little snowball at the top of the hill does no damage, but by the time it gets to the bottom of the hill it obliterates everything in its path. That may be more metaphorical than analogistic.

Even assuming we all understand that an idea in your head precedes a physical outcome, I still wouldn't agree that an idea is a mental effect. It doesn't cause you to build a table. It's an imaginary tool that sets you on a course to build a specific type of table. I mean, if you are tired of eating on a TV tray and you've thought about a table, that's imaginative. Imagine the table in your head. That's not an effect. It's an idea, something imaginative.

[dnlgfnk]

Originally Posted by hcap

But what did you mean"Require an external cause?" I assumed the final cause you meant was a deity directing events with a purpose, i.e teleology

Ultimately, yes. But philosopher Bill Vallicella advises sticking with materialistic explanations as far as is possible, which I try to heed regarding the natural world. And Aristotle took directedness in nature as a brute fact, I believe. No need to cite the Unmoved Mover.

The match is a human artifact with a teleological end (the flame), but as non-rational material, ergo no inherent causal power, it must receive its causal power externally, ultimately from an idea by its maker to combine different materials for flammability.

Obviously one who accepts final causes in the natural world may extend that out proportionately to a macro-level of their choosing, e.g., a deity.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by HalvOnHorseracing

I don't know that they make you king, but I'd agree they fit the definition of analogy. Which reminds me, somewhere not too far back, I said, The little snowball at the top of the hill does no damage, but by the time it gets to the bottom of the hill it obliterates everything in its path. That may be more metaphorical than analogistic.

Even assuming we all understand that an idea in your head precedes a physical outcome, I still wouldn't agree that an idea is a mental effect. It doesn't cause you to build a table. It's an imaginary tool that sets you on a course to build a specific type of table. I mean, if you are tired of eating on a TV tray and you've thought about a table, that's imaginative. Imagine the table in your head. That's not an effect. It's an idea, something imaginative.

When you say "imaginary" tool, you understand that you just said that this "idea" existed only in an imagination, lacking factual reality? In other words, one can only imagine a dining room table or a coffee table or whatever-- that these things are never born out of rational, coherent ideas because they don't serve any particular practical end -- they're just fictitious things purely the product of imagination?

Do you think there's any difference between imagination and an idea coherently conceived in intellect? Or are they one and the same in your mind? And if different, can you give us an example of both? And if different, what is the distinction between the two?

Also,why can't a table be an effect if an intellect coherently conceived a specific end or purpose for that table?

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by hcap

Let's drop this and speak of the only thing perhaps in common in terms of creativity we may have.

You go first. Tell us how you develop a spot play in horse race handicapping.
Let us know the steps you use to develop it.

I have a better idea. Let's discuss my kitchen makeover. Lots of creativity there.

Brief background: My wife and I live in a ranch style house built in '75. The kitchen and the "weird" step-down room with two large pass-through openings behind the kitchen was probably designed to be a breakfast hutch (BH from now on), since the kitchen counter top extends into the BH and there is certainly room for 2 or 3 stools to sit at the counter. However, we never use this small room for a BH. In fact, we call that room our "cat room" because shortly after we moved in, my wife built a sizeable box-shaped house and set it upon a base of tree limbs, which are in turn are affixed to a rectangular wood base. (A few of our cats have loved it over the years.) The only reason I mention this cat room is because it is part of our kitchen plans and presents some challenging obstacles.

A few weeks ago we decided that this is the year to get our original, vintage, outdated, outmoded kitchen remodeled. Now pay attention carefully to what follows.

In a matter of several minutes, we decided that we would:

1. Keep the same basic footprint to our galley-style kitchen.

2. Expand the footprint on the south side of the kitchen.

3. Put wall cabinets on both sides of the pass-thru openings for increased store.

4. Put floor cabinets on the BH side of the pass-thrus for even more storage.

5. Extend the counter top about 22" for increased work area.

6. Install a 20 amp outlet on a column that will meet the extended top.

7. Remove the dishwasher which we never use and install in its place a 24"floor cabinet for additional storage space.

8. Get light, natural all wood cabinets to brighten up the kitchen.

9. Get darkish counter tops to contrast with the cabinetry.

10. Opt for a practical, low maintenance counter top that would be able to withstand heat, cutting, etc. (We decided granite because that suits our purpose best.)

11. Increase lighting.

We envisioned our new kitchen to have appreciably more storage and counter space, since the additional storage space would also provide us with additional counter space on the north side of the kitchen, since all the small appliances on the north side counter top will be stored in the new cabinets. And since we also plan on new lighting, the kitchen will be a brighter and more cheery room, since it is in the middle of the house with no window light.

So, this was our goal --a goal with a definite end (EFFECT) in mind towards which we could direct our subsequent efforts.

After we agreed and settled on this general overall plan, my wife sat down and put the whole kitchen in a graphics program -- both elevation and plan views. And the sole purpose behind the computerized renderings was to more technically and accurately express our desired end (effect) for our new kitchen that we had grasped in our minds first.

Since the initial drawings, we have had four meetings with our kitchen designer at Home Depot. Were there problems with our desired end? YES! YES! There were indeed a few obstacles that would need to be overcome, mostly due to two posts in the kitchen that are supported by a "mysterious" half wall that separates the step-down BH room from the kitchen . These were obstacles that did not occur to us since neither my wife or I are builders, contractors or architects. These obstacles never entered our minds initially -- however, this is what we are paying the professionals for! The designer assured us that we will get our dream kitchen because there are viable solutions and/or workarounds. We will realize our goal's end product!

This is how human thought life works in the real world. Our thoughts are generally aim-oriented. We see ends in intellect before we see them actualized in the physical world. And when things like this come to past, then we can be certain that our ideas, our goals, the ends we initially desired were coherently and intelligently conceived, and not a product of just mere imagination.

[hcap]

Originally Posted by dnlgfnk

Ultimately, yes. But philosopher Bill Vallicella advises sticking with materialistic explanations as far as is possible, which I try to heed regarding the natural world. And Aristotle took directedness in nature as a brute fact, I believe. No need to cite the Unmoved Mover.

The match is a human artifact with a teleological end (the flame), but as non-rational material, ergo no inherent causal power, it must receive its causal power externally, ultimately from an idea by its maker to combine different materials for flammability.

Obviously one who accepts final causes in the natural world may extend that out proportionately to a macro-level of their choosing, e.g., a deity.

Perhaps. That is the conundrum. The extension.

Whether the deity created us in it's image, or the other way round....it in ours, is not easily answered. No matter the point of view if we do apply teleology in human affairs, we must also consider our own randomness. Often we direct events, but accident is almost as frequent. Awareness, the application of consciousness is not always present. Even teleology on the human scale fails due to humans sleepwalking thru life.

I look at thew universe as a "pantheistic being." Not all of it is ordered. Rocks are not organized to the same extent we are. I have used this metaphor or analogy before......

We may be a blood or brain cell of a larger being.
Or maybe a leaf on a remote twig.....on a remote branch, far from the main tree trunk.

The further out we are, the more chaos prevails and the mix of causes and effects are more difficult for us to discern and correlate. Kind of tough understanding the randomness of the ebbs and flows, whirlpools and turbulence of a raging river.
My pantheism is not the typical version. I include degrees of consciousness to the whole. And we are much the same.

Ultimately the answer to the question of who created who, I think is not the main question.

Both may be integrated into it just is. Suchness in the Buddhist sense...... Tathātā

[hcap]

I have a better idea. Let's discuss my kitchen makeover. Lots of creativity there.

I wanted to discuss something we and others on a horse racing board all had in common.

And something where we can elaborate on specific causes and their specific effects. Kitchen design is a valid creative endeavor, but the outcome or final design is as much personal taste as specific appliance, cabinet and island dimensions and locations.

I would prefer how you develop spot plays. Outcomes there are not a matter of opinion.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by hcap

I wanted to discuss something we and others on a horse racing board all had in common.

And something where we can elaborate on specific causes and their specific effects. Kitchen design is a valid creative endeavor, but the outcome or final design is as much personal taste as specific appliance, cabinet and island dimensions and locations.

I would prefer how you develop spot plays. Outcomes there are not a matter of opinion.

I would prefer something less esoteric and more practical such as how my wife and I imagined AND coherently conceived the outcome (effect) of our new kitchen in our minds before she even expressed our ideas in computerized drawings, let alone before visiting a professional kitchen designer or having the kitchen project finished, manifesting the end product (effect) in all its glory.

Also, now everyone (but you and perhaps Halv) understand why blueprints in one form or another are necessary (as you have already admitted), since such drawings reflect the desired effect which originated in our mind. People cannot read our mind to see the end we desire, but they can read and interpret drawings.