seanpitnos...@naturalselection.0catch.com (Sean Pitman) wrote in message <news:80d0c26f.0403050851.2235f348@posting.google.com>... > "Frank Reichenbacher" <vesuv...@speakeasy.net> wrote in message <news:H9-dnR7YE4srh9vdRVn-vg@speakeasy.net>... > > > At some point no one can > > > explain, in even the most remote sense, our ultimate origins. No > > > theory or even the most high-level intuitive, educated guess even > > > begins to be adequate.
> > Naturally you snipped two places in my post where I note that there is > > every reason to believe that scientists of the future *will* discover > > the answers to the questions you pose.
It is easy to say this in so many words, but isn't this really nothing more than a statement of your religious faith? I mean really, I can say, based on the current evidence that we have available to us, that an honest investigation of our universe will only detail an ultimate creative Intelligence/God in a clearer and clearer way. Certainly the great weight of current evidence already speaks overwhelmingly in favor of an incredible intelligence behind what we see in this universe - especially when we look at living things.
Now this is a falsifiable statement. All you have to do to prove me wrong is to show me where material in this universe organizes itself very far beyond the lowest levels of functional/informational complexity without the existence and assistance of pre-established complexity at that level or greater. If you do this, I will become like you are. So far though, I have only been able to see matter organize itself only slightly beyond its original level of functional complexity if and only if it started out at a very low level of complexity. Going from a higher level of complexity to a brand new kind of function at that level or greater simply doesn't happen in this universe.
For example, evolution can happen between 3-letter words very easily because, although they do carry a fairly high degree of specificity, they are coded for by a relatively short sequence of letters. This creates a ratio of meaningful vs. meaningless of about 1 in 7 potential 3-letter words in the English language system. But what if the minimum sequence requirement for a particular function was 7-letters? Now the ratio of all 7-letter sequences to include 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 letter words is around 1 in 250,000. Getting from one meaningful 7-letter phrase to a different meaningful 7-letter phrase requires, on average, a fairly long random walk through 250,000 meaningless options. The evolution between 7-letter phrases slows down significantly when compared to the evolution between 3-letter phrases.
Just try a little experiment yourself. Start with a short 2 or 3-letter word and see how many words you can evolve that require greater and greater minimum sequence requirements. No doubt you will quickly find yourself coming to walls of meaningless or non-beneficial potential options that separate you from every other meaningful and beneficial option. Now, the only way to get to a new meaningful much less beneficial option is to cross the meaningless/non-beneficial gap of separation. Random walk is all that you have to cross such a gap and that is a big big problem (Genetic evolution works the very same way).
Without some sort of outside pre-established guidance, such a random walk quickly works itself into the trillions upon trillions of years of average time at fairly low levels of specified complexity. Natural selection is no help here since nature cannot tell the difference between equally non-meaningful/non-beneficial options. Nature only recognizes meaningful changes in the function or expressed information content of a change in the code that caries that information. Such a process of random evolution has even been given a name called, "Neutral Evolution". Again, the problem is that neutral evolution doesn't make new functions; it only makes new meaningless phrases.
> > > Be the reality an all-powerful eternal God or > > > an all-powerful, eternal, mindless Quantum Vacuum, both concepts are > > > completely beyond human understanding
> > No they are not. The QV is a theoretically sound physical manifestation of > > well known physical phenomena. Just because you personally do not understand > > it does not mean it is unknowable or mysterious.
No one understands how QV could have created the big bang. It isn't even a testable hypothesis much less a theory of origins. Certainly you cannot explain this concept nor can you propose any other purely natural non-intelligent process to explain what we see in this universe.
Again, there are only two options: An Eternal Pre-existing Creative Intelligence vs. All Other Non-intelligent Creative Processes.
So far, the evidence is clearly in favor of the intelligent design option for everything in this universe because the other option simply has no evidence beyond the very lowest levels of functional/informational complexity. Many people confuse chaos with complexity here, but this is not the form of complexity that I am talking about in the present sense. Informational complexity is far different from chaos or chaotic complexity. Again, informational complexity simply does not come about beyond the lowest levels of complexity without the input of pre-established informational complexity that is at or above the level of complexity found within a newly formed system of complexity.
That is how we can tell if something was intelligently designed or not. The detection of intelligent activity is dependent upon two things. In order to detect intelligence one must first be aware of the potential of intelligence at a certain level or beyond. But, this knowledge alone is not enough to clearly detect the workings of intelligence. For example, if I were to go out to the desert around where I live and find an amorphous rock on the ground, could I automatically and reasonable assume intelligent design as the origin for the form of this rock? Certainly not even though it could have been intelligently and deliberately formed. Certainly its form is not beyond the abilities of human intelligence to create - right? However, I also know that its form is not beyond the abilities of mindless non-deliberate processes to create as well. So, in order to detect the workings of high intelligence without a doubt, I must not only know the potential of such levels of intelligence, I must also have some idea of the limits of mindless non-directed non-intelligent processes.
For example, if I walk by a house in the morning and find a window broken I can rationally assume either a mindless or mindful cause for that broken window as both processes could give rise to such a phenomenon. However, if I were to walk by this same house in the evening and find that this window had been fixed, could I rationally assume anything other than a mindful cause?
The same is true of any other phenomenon. If a given phenomenon goes significantly beyond anything that any mindless processes has ever done without the input of higher pre-established information in the form of a mind or pre-established order, I can effectively rule out a mindless cause for its origin. Then, since a mindful cause can indeed explain many phenomena that mindless causes cannot explain, it is perfectly reasonable to invoke a mindful cause as involved with the production of such phenomena.
> > - "beyond searching out". And > > > yet, one of these concepts must in fact be true. Even though we > > > ultimately cannot understand how we came to be, we can in fact see > > > evidence that supports one of these two options.
> > > As I noted before, our universe is indeed so perfectly balanced
> > If it's so "perfectly balanced" how come SETI still hasn't found another > > intelligent life form? If it were "perfectly balanced" for life, we should > > be swimming in alien monsters. If it is so "perfectly balanced" how come > > only one out of tens of millions of species to have lived on the earth is > > "intelligent"? Life on earth is believed to have begun about 3.6 bya, less > > than 1 billion years after the earth formed. On the other planets, which are > > all just as old as the earth, there does not seem to be any life, nor is > > there good reason to believe that there ever was life. Earth forms, bam!, > > there's life, but nada on all the other planets after all this time.
That is because life simply does not evolve without a higher intelligence or order creating it. Life doesn't exist on the very very few other planets that we have been able to explore because it wasn't created there like it was created here. It is as simple as that. Certainly some of these other sterile planets could support life it were put there, but life isn't going to evolve there even if it would thrive there because the level of complexity found even within the most simple living thing is way beyond anything that can be assembled without the input of high intelligence. Even here on Earth life does not evolve beyond its lowest levels of complexity. The reason why there is only one intelligence on Earth at the level of humans is because humans were the only ones designed with such a high level of intelligence. A universe perfectly balanced to *support* life does not mean that this universe can *create* life or even new forms of life beyond its lowest levels of functional complexity. The Anthropic Universe is just able to support life once it is created, that is all. It is not the Creator; it is the created.
For those who are interested, I detail to a much greater degree my views on the abilities and limits of mindless vs. mindful processes at:
> > > At some point no one can > > > explain, in even the most remote sense, our ultimate origins. No > > > theory or even the most high-level intuitive, educated guess even > > > begins to be adequate.
> > Naturally you snipped two places in my post where I note that there is every > > reason to believe that scientists of the future *will* discover the answers > > to the questions you pose.
> It is easy to say this in so many words, but isn't this really nothing > more than a statement of your religious faith?
No, it is not. It is a statement based on evidence. The conclusion that science will eventually discover the answer to your questions requires no "faith" whatsoever. It simply requires consideration of the evidence, which very firmly states that science will eventually come up with answers. This has been true throughout recorded history: the nature of the Solar System, the physiology of organisms, the circulation of oceans, the radioactive nature of isotopes, the inheritance of characters. Physicists would readily admit that getting past the current known limitations of science in regard to the Planck limits, the speed of light, and the Big Bang singularity will be difficult, however, none that I know of would really believe such investigations are doomed to failure by their natures.
The opposite is true of your so-called "incredible intelligence." This entity is manifestly outside of the realm of science and cannot *ever* be subjected to empirical verification.
I mean really, I can
> say, based on the current evidence that we have available to us, that > an honest investigation of our universe will only detail an ultimate > creative Intelligence/God in a clearer and clearer way.
You have no such evidence. Please tell me where does this entity live? Is it living tissue? Does it reproduce? How does an entity with no corporeal existence interact with the physical universe? How does it transcend the known laws of physics? Where did it come from?
Answer me this: how does a supernatural being affect the physical universe in a way that caused the physical universe to become manifest? What possible mechanisms could be involved?
Certainly the
> great weight of current evidence already speaks overwhelmingly in > favor of an incredible intelligence behind what we see in this > universe - especially when we look at living things.
How? How is it possible for an omnipotent being to exist? One which not only has existed forever, but which actually created the physical universe.
In fact the opposite is true. Every time we get closer to the ultimate mysteries we find that we can indeed find the correct explanations based on the ordinary phenomena of the observed universe.
> Now this is a falsifiable statement. All you have to do to prove me > wrong is to show me where material in this universe organizes itself > very far beyond the lowest levels of functional/informational > complexity without the existence and assistance of pre-established > complexity at that level or greater.
This is simply a statement from ignorance. I'm sure that you are aware that materials scientists are deeply involved in creating self-assembling systems. This research is crucial for the next phase of computing technologies. The systems that have been developed were unthinkable two decades ago. It is only a matter of time before scientists are able to create living organisms from scratch. There is no reason to expect that this process of development of increasingly complex systems will not continue. There is no reason to expect that this research will not eventually result in the discovery of the origin of life on earth.
> like you are. So far though, I have only been able to see matter > organize itself only slightly beyond its original level of functional > complexity if and only if it started out at a very low level of > complexity. Going from a higher level of complexity to a brand new > kind of function at that level or greater simply doesn't happen in > this universe.
> For example, evolution can happen between 3-letter words very easily > because, although they do carry a fairly high degree of specificity, > they are coded for by a relatively short sequence of letters. This > creates a ratio of meaningful vs. meaningless of about 1 in 7 > potential 3-letter words in the English language system. But what if > the minimum sequence requirement for a particular function was > 7-letters? Now the ratio of all 7-letter sequences to include 1, 2, > 3, 4, 5, and 6 letter words is around 1 in 250,000. Getting from one > meaningful 7-letter phrase to a different meaningful 7-letter phrase > requires, on average, a fairly long random walk through 250,000 > meaningless options. The evolution between 7-letter phrases slows > down significantly when compared to the evolution between 3-letter > phrases.
> Just try a little experiment yourself. Start with a short 2 or > 3-letter word and see how many words you can evolve that require > greater and greater minimum sequence requirements. No doubt you will > quickly find yourself coming to walls of meaningless or non-beneficial > potential options that separate you from every other meaningful and > beneficial option. Now, the only way to get to a new meaningful much > less beneficial option is to cross the meaningless/non-beneficial gap > of separation. Random walk is all that you have to cross such a gap > and that is a big big problem (Genetic evolution works the very same > way).
> Without some sort of outside pre-established guidance, such a random > walk quickly works itself into the trillions upon trillions of years > of average time at fairly low levels of specified complexity. Natural > selection is no help here since nature cannot tell the difference > between equally non-meaningful/non-beneficial options. Nature only > recognizes meaningful changes in the function or expressed information > content of a change in the code that caries that information. Such a > process of random evolution has even been given a name called, > "Neutral Evolution". Again, the problem is that neutral evolution > doesn't make new functions; it only makes new meaningless phrases.
Please Sean, with all due respect, this is blather. It is simply an admission of ignorance.
We have not only the mechanism of natural selection, but the chemical properties of elements and molecules to generate the needed compounds. On top of that, many abiogenesis researchers are focused on the morphologies of certain substrates that may have provided scaffolds for organic molecules to develop into self-replicating forms.
It is only a matter of time before scientists observe the evolution of self-replicating complex molecules in the laboratory. It is inevitable.
> > > Be the reality an all-powerful eternal God or > > > an all-powerful, eternal, mindless Quantum Vacuum, both concepts are > > > completely beyond human understanding
> > No they are not. The QV is a theoretically sound physical manifestation of > > well known physical phenomena. Just because you personally do not understand > > it does not mean it is unknowable or mysterious.
> No one understands how QV could have created the big bang. It isn't > even a testable hypothesis much less a theory of origins. Certainly > you cannot explain this concept nor can you propose any other purely > natural non-intelligent process to explain what we see in this > universe.
The QV is understood as I have pointed out before. The physical mechanisms that govern the actions of quanta are well known. There is nothing mysterious about it. If you work out the equations that describe these phenomena, there does not appear to be any reason why, in an infinite universe, whole universes could not be an outcome. As I mentioned already, this is not a theory, but merely speculation.
"As dkomo pointed out, it is a suggestion only. He really doesn't express any "faith" whatsoever in the concept, because as a physicist he knows that you really can't say positively what happened before Planck time. He would, I suspect quite agree that anyone claiming to know that the universe is explained by quantum vacuum phenomena would be taking a very big blind leap of faith."
I say science doesn't know, there is no reason to expect that it won't eventually, therefore let's just keep on investigating.
You say science doesn't know, therefore the question is unanswerable except by positing the existence of some exotic omnipotent being whose very nature is held to be beyond the realm of human knowledge.
> Again, there are only two options: An Eternal Pre-existing Creative > Intelligence vs. All Other Non-intelligent Creative Processes.
Again, you personally cannot imagine how natural processes could be responsible, therefore you introduce some supernatural being to poof it all into existence so we won't have to bother our little heads about it anymore.
> So far, the evidence is clearly in favor of the intelligent design > option
There is no such option because it requires the existence of something that cannot exist: a supernatural being which has existed for all eternity and which is responsible for the creation of the universe.
Please just give me a hint of the mechanism that God uses to create life. Did he use some kind of special raygun?
How does an omnipotent being exist? Where did it come from?
for everything in this universe because the other option simply
> has no evidence beyond the very lowest levels of > functional/informational complexity. Many people confuse chaos with > complexity here, but this is not the form of complexity that I am > talking about in the
On Sat, 06 Mar 2004 16:00:32 +0000, Sean Pitman wrote: > I mean really, I can say, based on the current evidence that we have > available to us, that an honest investigation of our universe will only > detail an ultimate creative Intelligence/God in a clearer and clearer > way.
Funny, but the entire history of science has been a consistent movement in the opposite direction. How many things once thought to have supernatural causes have had their actual mundane causes elucidated by scientists? How many things once thought to have mundane causes have had their actual causes revealed to be supernatural?
> Certainly the great weight of current evidence already speaks > overwhelmingly in favor of an incredible intelligence behind what we see > in this universe - especially when we look at living things.
How come creationists can never point us to this overwhelming evidence when we ask, and always offer pseudoscientific armchair arguments instead?
> > > > At some point no one can > > > > explain, in even the most remote sense, our ultimate origins. No > > > > theory or even the most high-level intuitive, educated guess even > > > > begins to be adequate.
> > > Naturally you snipped two places in my post where I note that there is > > > every reason to believe that scientists of the future *will* discover > > > the answers to the questions you pose.
> It is easy to say this in so many words, but isn't this really nothing > more than a statement of your religious faith? I mean really, I can > say, based on the current evidence that we have available to us, that > an honest investigation of our universe will only detail an ultimate > creative Intelligence/God in a clearer and clearer way. Certainly the > great weight of current evidence already speaks overwhelmingly in > favor of an incredible intelligence behind what we see in this > universe - especially when we look at living things.
Dr. Pitman, extrapolation is not a statement of religious faith. Since the trend of science has been to uncover gradually more information about natural phenomena as time goes on, it is reasonable to assume this will continue.
As to evidence for God, there can be none in the scientific sense of the word. You can take your observations of the natural Universe as suggestive of God, but that is not the same as scientific evidence. Science must exclude the supernatural because in principle it cannot be subject to repeatable experiment nor is it predictable. That is not saying God does not exist, simply that science cannot approach God.
> Now this is a falsifiable statement. All you have to do to prove me > wrong is to show me where material in this universe organizes itself > very far beyond the lowest levels of functional/informational > complexity without the existence and assistance of pre-established > complexity at that level or greater. If you do this, I will become > like you are. So far though, I have only been able to see matter > organize itself only slightly beyond its original level of functional > complexity if and only if it started out at a very low level of > complexity. Going from a higher level of complexity to a brand new > kind of function at that level or greater simply doesn't happen in > this universe.
To answer that question would require some way of quantifying level of functional/informational complexity. Would you care to suggest one?
Barring that, matter routinely organizes itself into complex atoms and then molecules in a completely natural way. If it didn't, we would only have quarks and leptons.
> For example, evolution can happen between 3-letter words very easily > because, although they do carry a fairly high degree of specificity, > they are coded for by a relatively short sequence of letters. This > creates a ratio of meaningful vs. meaningless of about 1 in 7 > potential 3-letter words in the English language system. But what if > the minimum sequence requirement for a particular function was > 7-letters? Now the ratio of all 7-letter sequences to include 1, 2, > 3, 4, 5, and 6 letter words is around 1 in 250,000. Getting from one > meaningful 7-letter phrase to a different meaningful 7-letter phrase > requires, on average, a fairly long random walk through 250,000 > meaningless options. The evolution between 7-letter phrases slows > down significantly when compared to the evolution between 3-letter > phrases.
This is based on the false presumption that evolution cares about meaning.
> Just try a little experiment yourself. Start with a short 2 or > 3-letter word and see how many words you can evolve that require > greater and greater minimum sequence requirements. No doubt you will > quickly find yourself coming to walls of meaningless or non-beneficial > potential options that separate you from every other meaningful and > beneficial option. Now, the only way to get to a new meaningful much > less beneficial option is to cross the meaningless/non-beneficial gap > of separation. Random walk is all that you have to cross such a gap > and that is a big big problem (Genetic evolution works the very same > way).
Why would you presume that "xrp" is not beneficial? You are looking at it from a teleological aspect. From the evolutionary aspect, once "xrp" arises, you would watch to see whether it continues to stick around through generations.
> Without some sort of outside pre-established guidance, such a random > walk quickly works itself into the trillions upon trillions of years > of average time at fairly low levels of specified complexity. Natural > selection is no help here since nature cannot tell the difference > between equally non-meaningful/non-beneficial options. Nature only > recognizes meaningful changes in the function or expressed information > content of a change in the code that caries that information. Such a > process of random evolution has even been given a name called, > "Neutral Evolution". Again, the problem is that neutral evolution > doesn't make new functions; it only makes new meaningless phrases.
The outside pre-established guidance is natural selection.
> > > > Be the reality an all-powerful eternal God or > > > > an all-powerful, eternal, mindless Quantum Vacuum, both concepts are > > > > completely beyond human understanding
> > > No they are not. The QV is a theoretically sound physical manifestation of > > > well known physical phenomena. Just because you personally do not understand > > > it does not mean it is unknowable or mysterious.
> No one understands how QV could have created the big bang. It isn't > even a testable hypothesis much less a theory of origins. Certainly > you cannot explain this concept nor can you propose any other purely > natural non-intelligent process to explain what we see in this > universe.
> Again, there are only two options: An Eternal Pre-existing Creative > Intelligence vs. All Other Non-intelligent Creative Processes.
That is a rather silly statement. Just looking at it rhetorically, you could have a temporary pre-existing intelligence, or you could have an intelligence for which temporal constraints don't apply. Further, it is a bit rediculous to assert that all other processes are only one option.
> So far, the evidence is clearly in favor of the intelligent design > option for everything in this universe because the other option simply > has no evidence beyond the very lowest levels of > functional/informational complexity. Many people confuse chaos with > complexity here, but this is not the form of complexity that I am > talking about in the present sense. Informational complexity is far > different from chaos or chaotic complexity. Again, informational > complexity simply does not come about beyond the lowest levels of > complexity without the input of pre-established informational > complexity that is at or above the level of complexity found within a > newly formed system of complexity.
If you can't clearly define what you mean by levels of functional/informational complexity, then this is a meaningless argument.
> That is how we can tell if something was intelligently designed or > not. The detection of intelligent activity is dependent upon two > things. In order to detect intelligence one must first be aware of > the potential of intelligence at a certain level or beyond. But, this > knowledge alone is not enough to clearly detect the workings of > intelligence. For example, if I were to go out to the desert around > where I live and find an amorphous rock on the ground, could I > automatically and reasonable assume intelligent design as the origin > for the form of this rock? Certainly not even though it could have > been intelligently and deliberately formed. Certainly its form is not > beyond the abilities of human intelligence to create - right? > However, I also know that its form is not beyond the abilities of > mindless non-deliberate processes to create as well. So, in order to > detect the workings of high intelligence without a doubt, I must not > only know the potential of such levels of intelligence, I must also > have some idea of the limits of mindless non-directed non-intelligent > processes.
No, you must have some idea of the behavioral patterns of the supposed intelligence.
The limits of non-intelligent processes are not known. Science continually pushes out the known limits of natural processes.
> For example, if I walk by a house in the morning and find a window > broken I can rationally assume either a mindless or mindful cause for > that broken window as both processes could give rise to such a > phenomenon. However, if I were to walk by this same house in the > evening and find that this window had been fixed, could I rationally > assume anything other than a mindful cause?
Yes, your memory of the broken window may have been flawed. But in any case, you have pre-existing knowledge of human behavior with respect to making and mending windows.
> The same is true of any other phenomenon. If a given phenomenon goes > significantly beyond anything that any mindless processes has ever > done without the input of higher pre-established information in the > form of a mind or pre-established order, I can effectively rule out a > mindless cause for its origin. Then, since a mindful cause can indeed > explain many phenomena that mindless causes cannot explain, it is > perfectly reasonable to invoke a mindful cause as involved with the > production of such phenomena.
> For example, evolution can happen between 3-letter words very easily > because, although they do carry a fairly high degree of specificity, > they are coded for by a relatively short sequence of letters. This > creates a ratio of meaningful vs. meaningless of about 1 in 7 > potential 3-letter words in the English language system. But what if > the minimum sequence requirement for a particular function was > 7-letters? Now the ratio of all 7-letter sequences to include 1, 2, > 3, 4, 5, and 6 letter words is around 1 in 250,000. Getting from one > meaningful 7-letter phrase to a different meaningful 7-letter phrase > requires, on average, a fairly long random walk through 250,000 > meaningless options. The evolution between 7-letter phrases slows > down significantly when compared to the evolution between 3-letter > phrases.
Could it be that you could see the light But choose instead to close your eyes and block The sight? The origin of the life we know Just like this poem rose from simple forms, In meaning, and in kind, step-by-step. http://tinyurl.com/2qnzd
> Just try a little experiment yourself. Start with a short 2 or > 3-letter word and see how many words you can evolve that require > greater and greater minimum sequence requirements. No doubt you will > quickly find yourself coming to walls of meaningless or non-beneficial > potential options that separate you from every other meaningful and > beneficial option. Now, the only way to get to a new meaningful much > less beneficial option is to cross the meaningless/non-beneficial gap > of separation. Random walk is all that you have to cross such a gap > and that is a big big problem (Genetic evolution works the very same > way).
>> > > At some point no one can >> > > explain, in even the most remote sense, our ultimate origins. No >> > > theory or even the most high-level intuitive, educated guess even >> > > begins to be adequate.
>> > Naturally you snipped two places in my post where I note that there is >> > every reason to believe that scientists of the future *will* discover >> > the answers to the questions you pose.
>It is easy to say this in so many words, but isn't this really nothing >more than a statement of your religious faith? I mean really, I can >say, based on the current evidence that we have available to us, that >an honest investigation of our universe will only detail an ultimate >creative Intelligence/God in a clearer and clearer way. Certainly the >great weight of current evidence already speaks overwhelmingly in >favor of an incredible intelligence behind what we see in this >universe - especially when we look at living things.
This is nothing more than one of the enduring fallacies - an argument from incedulity. Just what is this "great weight of current evidence" (Hint: Your wonder at the natural world doesn't qualify as "evidence"). ANd while you are considering that question., you may want to consider another question: Can you articulate a falsifiable theory of Intelligent Design?
> > > At some point no one can > > > explain, in even the most remote sense, our ultimate origins. No > > > theory or even the most high-level intuitive, educated guess even > > > begins to be adequate.
> > Naturally you snipped two places in my post where I note that there is every > > reason to believe that scientists of the future *will* discover the answers > > to the questions you pose.
> It is easy to say this in so many words, but isn't this really nothing > more than a statement of your religious faith?
No, it is not. It is a statement based on evidence. The conclusion that science will eventually discover the answer to your questions requires no "faith" whatsoever. It simply requires consideration of the evidence, which very firmly states that science will eventually come up with answers. This has been true throughout recorded history: the nature of the Solar System, the physiology of organisms, the circulation of oceans, the radioactive nature of isotopes, the inheritance of characters. Physicists would readily admit that getting past the current known limitations of science in regard to the Planck limits, the speed of light, and the Big Bang singularity will be difficult, however, none that I know of would really believe such investigations are doomed to failure by their natures.
The opposite is true of your so-called "incredible intelligence." This entity is manifestly outside of the realm of science and cannot *ever* be subjected to empirical verification.
I mean really, I can
> say, based on the current evidence that we have available to us, that > an honest investigation of our universe will only detail an ultimate > creative Intelligence/God in a clearer and clearer way.
You have no such evidence. Please tell me where does this entity live? Is it living tissue? Does it reproduce? How does an entity with no corporeal existence interact with the physical universe? How does it transcend the known laws of physics? Where did it come from?
Answer me this: how does a supernatural being affect the physical universe in a way that caused the physical universe to become manifest? What possible mechanisms could be involved?
Certainly the
> great weight of current evidence already speaks overwhelmingly in > favor of an incredible intelligence behind what we see in this > universe - especially when we look at living things.
How? How is it possible for an omnipotent being to exist? One which not only has existed forever, but which actually created the physical universe.
In fact the opposite is true. Every time we get closer to the ultimate mysteries we find that we can indeed find the correct explanations based on the ordinary phenomena of the observed universe.
> Now this is a falsifiable statement. All you have to do to prove me > wrong is to show me where material in this universe organizes itself > very far beyond the lowest levels of functional/informational > complexity without the existence and assistance of pre-established > complexity at that level or greater.
This is simply a statement from ignorance. I'm sure that you are aware that materials scientists are deeply involved in creating self-assembling systems. This research is crucial for the next phase of computing technologies. The systems that have been developed were unthinkable two decades ago. It is only a matter of time before scientists are able to create living organisms from scratch. There is no reason to expect that this process of development of increasingly complex systems will not continue. There is no reason to expect that this research will not eventually result in the discovery of the origin of life on earth.
> like you are. So far though, I have only been able to see matter > organize itself only slightly beyond its original level of functional > complexity if and only if it started out at a very low level of > complexity. Going from a higher level of complexity to a brand new > kind of function at that level or greater simply doesn't happen in > this universe.
> For example, evolution can happen between 3-letter words very easily > because, although they do carry a fairly high degree of specificity, > they are coded for by a relatively short sequence of letters. This > creates a ratio of meaningful vs. meaningless of about 1 in 7 > potential 3-letter words in the English language system. But what if > the minimum sequence requirement for a particular function was > 7-letters? Now the ratio of all 7-letter sequences to include 1, 2, > 3, 4, 5, and 6 letter words is around 1 in 250,000. Getting from one > meaningful 7-letter phrase to a different meaningful 7-letter phrase > requires, on average, a fairly long random walk through 250,000 > meaningless options. The evolution between 7-letter phrases slows > down significantly when compared to the evolution between 3-letter > phrases.
> Just try a little experiment yourself. Start with a short 2 or > 3-letter word and see how many words you can evolve that require > greater and greater minimum sequence requirements. No doubt you will > quickly find yourself coming to walls of meaningless or non-beneficial > potential options that separate you from every other meaningful and > beneficial option. Now, the only way to get to a new meaningful much > less beneficial option is to cross the meaningless/non-beneficial gap > of separation. Random walk is all that you have to cross such a gap > and that is a big big problem (Genetic evolution works the very same > way).
> Without some sort of outside pre-established guidance, such a random > walk quickly works itself into the trillions upon trillions of years > of average time at fairly low levels of specified complexity. Natural > selection is no help here since nature cannot tell the difference > between equally non-meaningful/non-beneficial options. Nature only > recognizes meaningful changes in the function or expressed information > content of a change in the code that caries that information. Such a > process of random evolution has even been given a name called, > "Neutral Evolution". Again, the problem is that neutral evolution > doesn't make new functions; it only makes new meaningless phrases.
Please Sean, with all due respect, this is blather. It is simply an admission of ignorance.
We have not only the mechanism of natural selection, but the chemical properties of elements and molecules to generate the needed compounds. On top of that, many abiogenesis researchers are focused on the morphologies of certain substrates that may have provided scaffolds for organic molecules to develop into self-replicating forms.
It is only a matter of time before scientists observe the evolution of self-replicating complex molecules in the laboratory. It is inevitable.
> > > Be the reality an all-powerful eternal God or > > > an all-powerful, eternal, mindless Quantum Vacuum, both concepts are > > > completely beyond human understanding
> > No they are not. The QV is a theoretically sound physical manifestation of > > well known physical phenomena. Just because you personally do not understand > > it does not mean it is unknowable or mysterious.
> No one understands how QV could have created the big bang. It isn't > even a testable hypothesis much less a theory of origins. Certainly > you cannot explain this concept nor can you propose any other purely > natural non-intelligent process to explain what we see in this > universe.
The QV is understood as I have pointed out before. The physical mechanisms that govern the actions of quanta are well known. There is nothing mysterious about it. If you work out the equations that describe these phenomena, there does not appear to be any reason why, in an infinite universe, whole universes could not be an outcome. As I mentioned already, this is not a theory, but merely speculation.
"As dkomo pointed out, it is a suggestion only. He really doesn't express any "faith" whatsoever in the concept, because as a physicist he knows that you really can't say positively what happened before Planck time. He would, I suspect quite agree that anyone claiming to know that the universe is explained by quantum vacuum phenomena would be taking a very big blind leap of faith."
I say science doesn't know, there is no reason to expect that it won't eventually, therefore let's just keep on investigating.
You say science doesn't know, therefore the question is unanswerable except by positing the existence of some exotic omnipotent being whose very nature is held to be beyond the realm of human knowledge.
> Again, there are only two options: An Eternal Pre-existing Creative > Intelligence vs. All Other Non-intelligent Creative Processes.
Again, you personally cannot imagine how natural processes could be responsible, therefore you introduce some supernatural being to poof it all into existence so we won't have to bother our little heads about it anymore.
> So far, the evidence is clearly in favor of the intelligent design > option
There is no such option because it requires the existence of something that cannot exist: a supernatural being which has existed for all eternity and which is responsible for the creation of the universe.
Please just give me a hint of the mechanism that God uses to create life. Did he use some kind of special raygun?
How does an omnipotent being exist? Where did it come from?
for everything in this universe because the other option simply
> has no evidence beyond the very lowest levels of > functional/informational complexity. Many people confuse chaos with > complexity here, but this is not the form of complexity that I am > talking about in the
> Could it be that you could see the light > But choose instead to close your eyes and block > The sight? The origin of the life we know > Just like this poem rose from simple forms, > In meaning, and in kind, step-by-step.
Actually your poems didn't arise from simple forms, step-by-step, in the same way that random mutation and natural selection work in the real world. Evidently you didn't read and certainly didn't respond to my reply to your "O Sean Pitman" poem. See:
> > O Sean Pitman, beware a war of words ere you err.
> > Could it be that you could see the light > > But choose instead to close your eyes and block > > The sight? The origin of the life we know > > Just like this poem rose from simple forms, > > In meaning, and in kind, step-by-step.
> Actually your poems didn't arise from simple forms, step-by-step, in > the same way that random mutation and natural selection work in the > real world.
It's an analogy, one of your own choosing.
> Evidently you didn't read and certainly didn't respond to > my reply to your "O Sean Pitman" poem. See:
> > > > At some point no one can > > > > explain, in even the most remote sense, our ultimate origins. No > > > > theory or even the most high-level intuitive, educated guess even > > > > begins to be adequate.
> > > Naturally you snipped two places in my post where I note that there is > > > every reason to believe that scientists of the future *will* discover > > > the answers to the questions you pose.
> It is easy to say this in so many words, but isn't this really nothing > more than a statement of your religious faith? I mean really, I can > say, based on the current evidence that we have available to us, that > an honest investigation of our universe will only detail an ultimate > creative Intelligence/God in a clearer and clearer way. Certainly the > great weight of current evidence already speaks overwhelmingly in > favor of an incredible intelligence behind what we see in this > universe - especially when we look at living things.
> Now this is a falsifiable statement. All you have to do to prove me > wrong is to show me where material in this universe organizes itself > very far beyond the lowest levels of functional/informational > complexity without the existence and assistance of pre-established > complexity at that level or greater. If you do this, I will become > like you are. So far though, I have only been able to see matter > organize itself only slightly beyond its original level of functional > complexity if and only if it started out at a very low level of > complexity. Going from a higher level of complexity to a brand new > kind of function at that level or greater simply doesn't happen in > this universe.
> For example, evolution can happen between 3-letter words very easily > because, although they do carry a fairly high degree of specificity, > they are coded for by a relatively short sequence of letters. This > creates a ratio of meaningful vs. meaningless of about 1 in 7 > potential 3-letter words in the English language system. But what if > the minimum sequence requirement for a particular function was > 7-letters? Now the ratio of all 7-letter sequences to include 1, 2, > 3, 4, 5, and 6 letter words is around 1 in 250,000. Getting from one > meaningful 7-letter phrase to a different meaningful 7-letter phrase > requires, on average, a fairly long random walk through 250,000 > meaningless options. The evolution between 7-letter phrases slows > down significantly when compared to the evolution between 3-letter > phrases.
I do not understand your calculations in the least. How did you determine "the ratio of all 7-letter sequences to include 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 letter words is around 1 in 250,000." Show your math, please.
> Just try a little experiment yourself. Start with a short 2 or > 3-letter word and see how many words you can evolve that require > greater and greater minimum sequence requirements. No doubt you will > quickly find yourself coming to walls of meaningless or non-beneficial > potential options that separate you from every other meaningful and > beneficial option. Now, the only way to get to a new meaningful much > less beneficial option is to cross the meaningless/non-beneficial gap > of separation. Random walk is all that you have to cross such a gap > and that is a big big problem (Genetic evolution works the very same > way).
By the way, your rules defining this word-game are very vague. That's why I made my own which were more than sufficient to expose the fact that either your analogy was faulty, or your original premise about "non-beneficial" gaps was faulty.
You choose.
> Without some sort of outside pre-established guidance, such a random > walk quickly works itself into the trillions upon trillions of years > of average time at fairly low levels of specified complexity. Natural > selection is no help here since nature cannot tell the difference > between equally non-meaningful/non-beneficial options. Nature only > recognizes meaningful changes in the function or expressed information > content of a change in the code that caries that information. Such a > process of random evolution has even been given a name called, > "Neutral Evolution". Again, the problem is that neutral evolution > doesn't make new functions; it only makes new meaningless phrases.
<snip>
Give me a sea and a boat to sail it and I will cross it, step-by-step, er, wave-by-wave.
I kinda thought something was wrong with my news server. My server showed my posts, as if they had been posted, but no one ever responded. My server shows ~75 posts from 1/1/04 to 2/28/04, but Google shows only the thread I initiated. Looking back, there are other large gaps indicating major problems back to 7/03. (Others had complained about that time, so I just plowed on ahead.) I'm on a different temporary news server now, and will be changing once again in the near future. http://tinyurl.com/2rwwl
Too bad they lost my new Theory of Everything I had just completed at Stephen Hawking's request. ;-)
> > > O Sean Pitman, beware a war of words ere you err.
> > > Could it be that you could see the light > > > But choose instead to close your eyes and block > > > The sight? The origin of the life we know > > > Just like this poem rose from simple forms, > > > In meaning, and in kind, step-by-step.
> > Actually your poems didn't arise from simple forms, step-by-step, in > > the same way that random mutation and natural selection work in the > > real world.
> It's an analogy, one of your own choosing.
> > Evidently you didn't read and certainly didn't respond to > > my reply to your "O Sean Pitman" poem. See:
> Certainly the > great weight of current evidence already speaks overwhelmingly in > favor of an incredible intelligence behind what we see in this > universe - especially when we look at living things.
> Now this is a falsifiable statement. All you have to do to prove me > wrong is to show me where material in this universe organizes itself > very far beyond the lowest levels of functional/informational > complexity without the existence and assistance of pre-established > complexity at that level or greater. If you do this, I will become > like you are.
"Become like you are?" What is that supposed to mean, Sean? Why not "I will accept your statement as correct?" As stated, this sounds like you think that people who disagree with you on this issue belong to some sort of type.
At any rate, I see no need to falsify a statement that has no positive support to start with. The only "evidence" you have for an "incredible intelligence" is the same evidence that people had for weather gods, disease-causing demons, and spirits or angels controlling celestial motions: ignorance and/or incredulity about how nature actually works and what it can do. Based on past experience, one ought to be suspicious of any claim to discern an intelligence in something whose workings are incompletely understood.
You certainly do not have any evidence that an intelligence of the sort you describe could even exist. You insist on proof that nature can self-organize before you will acknowledge such a possibility, but for some reason you do not insist on a similar burden of proof for the proposition that intelligence can exist without a material substrate, or that an intelligent being can produce complicated artifacts without relevant experience, training, and the support of a society of other such beings with an advanced physical culture.
Why the double standard? Does such an intelligence not strain credulity and flout known limitations at least as much as you claim self-organization does? And you nonetheless consider this more likely than the prospect that nature might once again prove richer and more resourceful than you give it credit for?
> So far though, I have only been able to see matter > organize itself only slightly beyond its original level of functional > complexity if and only if it started out at a very low level of > complexity. Going from a higher level of complexity to a brand new > kind of function at that level or greater simply doesn't happen in > this universe.
Let's see:
We know that life has happened in this universe.
We know that natural processes can produce increases in complexity and changes in function, even if you choose to dismiss directly observed instances of this as merely "slight".
We know that life didn't just suddenly appear as it is today. It has a history, and has changed considerably over the course of that history. Any explanation of life owes us an account of that history.
We have no independent evidence whatsoever for the existence of some anthropomorphized intelligence working miracles, or even evidence that such a construct is possible.
> > > > Be the reality an all-powerful eternal God or > > > > an all-powerful, eternal, mindless Quantum Vacuum, both concepts are > > > > completely beyond human understanding
> > > No they are not. The QV is a theoretically sound physical manifestation of > > > well known physical phenomena. Just because you personally do not understand > > > it does not mean it is unknowable or mysterious.
> No one understands how QV could have created the big bang. It isn't > even a testable hypothesis much less a theory of origins. Certainly > you cannot explain this concept nor can you propose any other purely > natural non-intelligent process to explain what we see in this > universe.
> Again, there are only two options: An Eternal Pre-existing Creative > Intelligence vs. All Other Non-intelligent Creative Processes.
You forgot: A pre-existing creative intelligence that isn't eternal and may since have died or disappeared (which might explain why there aren't more planets around with life on them), or a creative intelligence that is immanent in the matter of the universe itself.
And what justifies lumping together "all other non-intelligent creative processes" into a single category. Shouldn't any possibility within that set be considered separately?
> So far, the evidence is clearly in favor of the intelligent design > option for everything in this universe because the other option simply > has no evidence beyond the very lowest levels of > functional/informational complexity. Many people confuse chaos with > complexity here, but this is not the form of complexity that I am > talking about in the present sense. Informational complexity is far > different from chaos or chaotic complexity. Again, informational > complexity simply does not come about beyond the lowest levels of > complexity without the input of pre-established informational > complexity that is at or above the level of complexity found within a > newly formed system of complexity.
I recal suggesting in a post last summer that ecosystems can be said to meet the complexity criteria: an ecosystem may involve many different species connected in an intricate web of interdependencies that can be seriously disrupted if you start removing species from it. It also interacts with non-biological compoments such as terrain and weather. But we know that such ecosystems happen naturally; they weren't always there, and they didn't have to be poofed into existence by a higher power.
> That is how we can tell if something was intelligently designed or > not. The detection of intelligent activity is dependent upon two > things. In order to detect intelligence one must first be aware of > the potential of intelligence at a certain level or beyond. But, this > knowledge alone is not enough to clearly detect the workings of > intelligence.
I doubt you have any knowledge that an intelligence is capable of what you propose, regardless of what you might believe. Your proposed intelligence is eternal: do you have any *knowledge* of how an intelligent being can be eternal? All the ones I know typically last about 70 years.
Your proposed intelligence can apparently operate without a material substrate; do you have any *knowledge* of a mind that can operate without a material brain? Every mind I know of cannot.
Your proposed intelligence has knowledge of things with which it has no apparent experience, has language in spite of living alone in a void with nothing to talk to or teach it language, has no fellow intelligences to teach it its knowledge or train it its skills, is capable of performing great works without any sort of technology or physical culture. That doesn't sound like any intelligence of whose potential I have knowledge. What is it, exactly that you *know* about intelligence that suggests that your proposal is possible, and how do you know it?
> For example, if I were to go out to the desert around > where I live and find an amorphous rock on the ground, could I > automatically and reasonable assume intelligent design as the origin > for the form of this rock? Certainly not even though it could have > been intelligently and deliberately formed. Certainly its form is not > beyond the abilities of human intelligence to create - right? > However, I also know that its form is not beyond the abilities of > mindless non-deliberate processes to create as well. So, in order to > detect the workings of high intelligence without a doubt, I must not > only know the potential of such levels of intelligence, I must also > have some idea of the limits of mindless non-directed non-intelligent > processes.
> For example, if I walk by a house in the morning and find a window > broken I can rationally assume either a mindless or mindful cause for > that broken window as both processes could give rise to such a > phenomenon. However, if I were to walk by this same house in the > evening and find that this window had been fixed, could I rationally > assume anything other than a mindful cause?
I don't know. If I cut myself and it heals, could I rationally assume anything other than a mindful cause? If I shake up oil and vineager, and then come back later to find it re-separated, could I rationally assume anything other than a mindful cause? We know from a variety of sources that *windows* do not heal themselves or reform on their own. There are other things that do, however.
So any generalization we make about a phenomenon must proceed from *specific* knowledge and experience of the item in question. Any conclusions about what quantum vacuums can do must be based on a detailed understanding of that theory, and any conclusions about what life can do must be based on available knowledge of how living systems actually behave.
The same goes for intelligence, too. One cannot simply assume that intelligence is some sort of causal wild card that can be played to explain anything we cannot explain otherwise. All known intelligent agencies are constrained in what they can and do produce just like anything process in our universe. Any estimate of the likelihood of intelligent agencies' being responsible for a phenomenon we *don't* properly understand must take what we know about them into account- *everything* we know, not just the bits we find impressive and want to read into our world.
> As to evidence for God, there can be none in the scientific sense of the > word.
I find this line of thought <Capt. Jack Sparrow Voice>interesting...very interesting.</CJSV> Yes there *can* be scientific evidence for God. A quick tour of late night talk shows would do. Gods use to do all sorts of things that would be subject to scientific study. Though mind you, those stories are always like Sasquatch sightings. There were always by someone who knew someone who saw the thing.
Lately, God has been doing His invisible trick (which looks very much like His non-existent trick). But that does not mean that at any given moment, he cannot provide us with something scientifically testable.
I wonder why He doesn't.
-- Ferrous Patella
"Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war." --John Adams, letter to Abigail, 1797
drear...@hotmail.com (Von Smith) wrote in message <news:8d74ec45.0403071648.3273a8d5@posting.google.com>... > > For example, if I walk by a house in the morning and find a window > > broken I can rationally assume either a mindless or mindful cause for > > that broken window as both processes could give rise to such a > > phenomenon. However, if I were to walk by this same house in the > > evening and find that this window had been fixed, could I rationally > > assume anything other than a mindful cause?
> I don't know. If I cut myself and it heals, could I rationally assume > anything other than a mindful cause?
The reason why your skin heals when you cut yourself is not because the molecules in your skin have some inherent individual capacity to organize themselves in such a way. They are only able to work to heal your skin because of the existence of the pre-established order of the incredibly complex information system that directs the processes of the skin to include its self-healing properties. If you don't believe me, try cutting a dead body and see what happens. The cut doesn't heal itself.
Consider the window example again for illustration. What if I set up a very complex mechanical system that would sense when a window in a house was broken and set about making a new window and would put it into place when it finished making this window. Now, is the fixing of the window in this case a "mindless" process? You may argue that it is, but ultimately you know that without higher informational input, the window, by itself, does not have enough informational complexity to fix itself. It must rely on a much higher order of pre-established informational complexity, in whatever form, to be fixed.
So, in seeing a window or a cut on your arm become "fixed" it is no problem to know that a higher system of informational complexity was driving such a phenomenon.
> If I shake up oil and vineager, > and then come back later to find it re-separated, could I rationally > assume anything other than a mindful cause?
The separation of oil and vinegar does not require the input of outside information because the required information needed to give rise to this phenomenon is contained within each of the individual oil and vinegar molecules themselves. However, if you were to find drops of oil and vinegar arranged in a very symmetrical pattern around your plate, you could adequately assume design because you know that such a pattern is not inherent to either oil or vinegar, but would require some sort of outside informational input.
>We know from a variety of > sources that *windows* do not heal themselves or reform on their own. > There are other things that do, however.
Again, you must know two things in order to adequately propose the activity of intelligent design. You must know the inherent limitations of a give system and its individual components AND you must know the potential of higher outside informational systems (such as an intelligent mind at the level of the human mind or beyond).
For example, if you knew nothing about the normal crystallizable forms of carbon you could not propose an intelligent origin behind a perfectly cut diamond with 256 symmetrical facets. However, if after studying carbon in greater detail you find that there is no inherent properties within the carbon atoms themselves or other mindless natural properties in the vicinity that give rise to such a cut-diamond form, you can then adequately propose the involvement of an intelligent mind or at least a much higher system of informational complexity that is contained within the cut diamond.
Another useful example is the "crop circles" that people made in wheat fields in England and elsewhere. Although there were a few who proposed mindless causes when these symmetrical and ornate patterns of circles first started appearing, the great majority of people correctly saw evidence of a much higher intelligence behind these patterns than can be achieved by any known mindless process - even without having ever seen such a phenomenon created before by anyone or anything. How where these people able to correctly determine an intelligent origin without ever having met the origin of intelligence behind this particular phenomenon? Obviously they were able to do this because of their knowledge about two things: They knew that crops, by themselves nor in conjunction with any other known mindless process, did not and could not make anything even close to these observed designs. The only rational option left was the assumption of a much higher intelligence behind the formation of these circles. Now, many people wrongly proposed an alien intelligence, but at least they knew correctly a higher intelligence was involved. Obviously the most likely intelligence in this case was a human intelligence. But still, the fact that high intelligence or a system with much higher informational complexity was involved could be clearly recognized without having ever seen any intelligence create such a phenomenon before.
rjka...@yahoo.com (Rodjk) wrote in message <news:dbe402.0403102339.757291ae@posting.google.com>... > So your skin heals itself due to a higher system of informational > complexity driving such a phenomenon, but oil and vinegar seperate due > to information contained in the molecules themselves? > But the healing of the skin is contained within the cells of the skin, > and all the reactions that occur are consistant with know chemical > activity.
> So it is a bit more complicated, but not something that needs an > outside force to drive it.
> Try again.
If you look into a system and see that it cannot, by itself, go beyond a certain point, then when it does go beyond this point, you must assume the involvement of an outside system of greater informational complexity.
Again, when you see a window in a house, you know through your experience with glass windows that they simply cannot fix themselves once they are broken. Their level of informational complexity simply is not great enough to give rise to this level of functional complexity. So, when you see that a glass window has been fixed, you do not assume that the window fixed itself or that any other low agency with a low level of functional complexity fixed the window either. You know that fixing glass windows requires a fairly high level of pre-established functional complexity.
The same is true for skin healing itself. The reason why skin can heal itself is because of the pre-existence of a very high level of functional complexity, which includes the rest of the body. For example, the skin cells cannot work to heal the skin if the person's heart stops pumping or the blood stops flowing to that area of skin. All the subparts of the skin and many other aspects of the body must be placed in a very highly specified arrangement at a very high level of emergent functional complexity before they can work together to fix a cut in the skin. Brought together randomly, the subparts simply will not self-assemble at this level of complexity.
This is a bit different than a salad dressing made of vinegar and oil. Taking the subparts of the salad dressing and mixing them together randomly will not destroy their ability to separate themselves. This "function" is contained entirely by the subparts themselves regardless of their specified orientation. Of course you can even go smaller than this. Both vinegar and oil have smaller subparts, which cannot be rearranged without a loss of vinegar and oil properties or functions. However, even you must admit that the level of specified functional complexity found here is extremely low level when compared to the level of specified functional complexity found in living skin and the process of skin healing itself. And yet, neither process can go very far beyond its pre-established level of complexity without the input of higher-level systems of function.
For example living skin can heal itself because its pre-established information and structural system supports such a process. However, skin cannot do much of anything beyond its preprogramming. It cannot spell out the letters "MOM" on a biker's dude's arm. It cannot filter blood of waist products like the kidney. It cannot think like the brain. It cannot make insulin like the pancreas . . . etc. If it did start doing any of these things, it would be because of the influence of an outside information system of greater complexity than the skin.
The same thing is true of vinegar and oil salad dressing. Such a salad dressing has a very low level ability to separate itself into vinegar and oil, but it can't do many other things very far beyond this low level of informational complexity. Such a salad dressing cannot grow legs and walk out of the salad bowl. It cannot arrange itself on a flat plate into a circle of perfectly spaced droplets . . . etc. If salad dressing were ever found in such forms, the involvement of a pre-established outside information system is the only logical solution. Depending on the level of complexity of the particular phenomenon, the level of required complexity of the outside information system can be determined with a fair degree of accuracy.
Consider the crop circle phenomenon again. No process with low-level complexity could have made many of these circles or patterns. Many of the patterns required a high level of functional complexity and deliberate planning to create. No known level of functional complexity less than that of a human mind could have produced these crop circles. Of course something more complex than the human mind could have been behind these formations, but it seems very clear that nothing less than a human mind could have made these formations. Certainly the crops themselves do not have this level of information available to themselves. And, nothing around them in their environment less complex than humans seems to have this level of complexity either.
Knowing the limits of the system itself, when this system goes significantly beyond these limits, it becomes clear that something greater was definitely involved.
>> So your skin heals itself due to a higher system of informational >> complexity driving such a phenomenon, but oil and vinegar seperate due >> to information contained in the molecules themselves? >> But the healing of the skin is contained within the cells of the skin, >> and all the reactions that occur are consistant with know chemical >> activity.
>> So it is a bit more complicated, but not something that needs an >> outside force to drive it.
>> Try again.
> If you look into a system and see that it cannot, by itself, go beyond > a certain point, then when it does go beyond this point, you must > assume the involvement of an outside system of greater informational > complexity.
Perhaps you should look with better eyes.
> Again, when you see a window in a house, you know through your > experience with glass windows that they simply cannot fix themselves > once they are broken. Their level of informational complexity simply > is not great enough to give rise to this level of functional > complexity. So, when you see that a glass window has been fixed, you > do not assume that the window fixed itself or that any other low > agency with a low level of functional complexity fixed the window > either. You know that fixing glass windows requires a fairly high > level of pre-established functional complexity.
Windows do not reproduce, inherit, or compete for resources.
> The same is true for skin healing itself. The reason why skin can > heal itself is because of the pre-existence of a very high level of > functional complexity, which includes the rest of the body.
It's just chemistry. Ordinary compounds reacting to the presence of other ordinary compounds.
> For > example, the skin cells cannot work to heal the skin if the person's > heart stops pumping or the blood stops flowing to that area of skin. > All the subparts of the skin and many other aspects of the body must > be placed in a very highly specified arrangement at a very high level > of emergent functional complexity before they can work together to fix > a cut in the skin. Brought together randomly, the subparts simply > will not self-assemble at this level of complexity.
You can't make a vinagrette without oil and vinegar either.
> This is a bit different than a salad dressing made of vinegar and oil.
A bit different, but not in any meaningful way.
> Taking the subparts of the salad dressing and mixing them together > randomly will not destroy their ability to separate themselves. This > "function" is contained entirely by the subparts themselves regardless > of their specified orientation. Of course you can even go smaller > than this. Both vinegar and oil have smaller subparts, which cannot > be rearranged without a loss of vinegar and oil properties or > functions. However, even you must admit that the level of specified > functional complexity found here is extremely low level when compared > to the level of specified functional complexity found in living skin > and the process of skin healing itself. And yet, neither process can > go very far beyond its pre-established level of complexity without the > input of higher-level systems of function.
> For example living skin can heal itself because its pre-established > information and structural system supports such a process. However, > skin cannot do much of anything beyond its preprogramming. It cannot > spell out the letters "MOM" on a biker's dude's arm. It cannot filter > blood of waist products like the kidney. It cannot think like the > brain. It cannot make insulin like the pancreas . . . etc. If it did > start doing any of these things, it would be because of the influence > of an outside information system of greater complexity than the skin.
> The same thing is true of vinegar and oil salad dressing. Such a > salad dressing has a very low level ability to separate itself into > vinegar and oil, but it can't do many other things very far beyond > this low level of informational complexity. Such a salad dressing > cannot grow legs and walk out of the salad bowl. It cannot arrange > itself on a flat plate into a circle of perfectly spaced droplets . . > . etc. If salad dressing were ever found in such forms, the > involvement of a pre-established outside information system is the > only logical solution. Depending on the level of complexity of the > particular phenomenon, the level of required complexity of the outside > information system can be determined with a fair degree of accuracy.
> Consider the crop circle phenomenon again. No process with low-level > complexity could have made many of these circles or patterns. Many of > the patterns required a high level of functional complexity and > deliberate planning to create. No known level of functional > complexity less than that of a human mind could have produced these > crop circles. Of course something more complex than the human mind > could have been behind these formations, but it seems very clear that > nothing less than a human mind could have made these formations. > Certainly the crops themselves do not have this level of information > available to themselves. And, nothing around them in their > environment less complex than humans seems to have this level of > complexity either.
> Knowing the limits of the system itself, when this system goes > significantly beyond these limits, it becomes clear that something > greater was definitely involved.
If you could objectively determine just what these "predefined limits" you keep talking about were, your diatribe might be minimally convincing. You can't. Nobody can. The clear suggestion is that such limits simply do not exist.
>> So your skin heals itself due to a higher system of informational >> complexity driving such a phenomenon, but oil and vinegar seperate due >> to information contained in the molecules themselves? >> But the healing of the skin is contained within the cells of the skin, >> and all the reactions that occur are consistant with know chemical >> activity.
>> So it is a bit more complicated, but not something that needs an >> outside force to drive it.
>> Try again.
>If you look into a system and see that it cannot, by itself, go beyond >a certain point, then when it does go beyond this point, you must >assume the involvement of an outside system of greater informational >complexity.
Indeed. An excellent example of this is the situation with organisms. The system of common descent through natural selection can convert a forelimb into a wing, but it cannot arbitrarily add wings. For example, we know that a horse with wings---Pegasus---is a creation of human imagination because it goes beyond what evolution can do.
>Sean
John Stockwell | j...@dix.Mines.EDU Center for Wave Phenomena (The Home of Seismic Un*x) Colorado School of Mines Golden, CO 80401 | http://www.cwp.mines.edu/cwpcodes voice: (303) 273-3049
Our book: Norman Bleistein, Jack K. Cohen, John W. Stockwell Jr., [2001], Mathematics of multidimensional seismic imaging, migration, and inversion, (Interdisciplinary Applied Mathematics, V. 13.), Springer-Verlag, New York.
> > > For example, if I walk by a house in the morning and find a window > > > broken I can rationally assume either a mindless or mindful cause for > > > that broken window as both processes could give rise to such a > > > phenomenon. However, if I were to walk by this same house in the > > > evening and find that this window had been fixed, could I rationally > > > assume anything other than a mindful cause?
> > I don't know. If I cut myself and it heals, could I rationally assume > > anything other than a mindful cause?
> The reason why your skin heals when you cut yourself is not because > the molecules in your skin have some inherent individual capacity to > organize themselves in such a way. They are only able to work to heal > your skin because of the existence of the pre-established order of the > incredibly complex information system that directs the processes of > the skin to include its self-healing properties. If you don't believe > me, try cutting a dead body and see what happens. The cut doesn't > heal itself.
Having read your earlier accounts of how DNA "guides" biological processes, I would have thought your position to be that at least some molecules in our bodies do indeed contain such an inherent capacity.
> Consider the window example again for illustration. What if I set up > a very complex mechanical system that would sense when a window in a > house was broken and set about making a new window and would put it > into place when it finished making this window. Now, is the fixing of > the window in this case a "mindless" process? You may argue that it > is, but ultimately you know that without higher informational input, > the window, by itself, does not have enough informational complexity > to fix itself. It must rely on a much higher order of pre-established > informational complexity, in whatever form, to be fixed.
> So, in seeing a window or a cut on your arm become "fixed" it is no > problem to know that a higher system of informational complexity was > driving such a phenomenon.
> > If I shake up oil and vineager, > > and then come back later to find it re-separated, could I rationally > > assume anything other than a mindful cause?
> The separation of oil and vinegar does not require the input of > outside information because the required information needed to give > rise to this phenomenon is contained within each of the individual oil > and vinegar molecules themselves. However, if you were to find drops > of oil and vinegar arranged in a very symmetrical pattern around your > plate, you could adequately assume design because you know that such a > pattern is not inherent to either oil or vinegar, but would require > some sort of outside informational input.
You appear to be suggesting that nature cannot contain information above the molecular level. If that is not what you are suggesting, than I don't understand what the point of any of this is. The individual molecules of my skin do not contain an inherent capacity to heal skin; nor, for that matter, do the individual cells. I don't know if live tissue samples of skin can heal themselves or not, but for argument's sake I will assume that they cannot, at least not optimally. In that case, the relevant system that would "contain the information" for healing skin would then be the organism and its environment (since envirnomental factors can aid, hinder, or even prevent proper healing). The only questions that matter, then, are whether or not *this* system can contain the requisite information without "outside informational input", and if so, whether there is anything else in the world that might provide such input.
There are plenty of examples of natural things behaving in ways that are not dicated by their molecules. Certainly the orbits of planets are not encoded in their molecules. Nor are the structure and dynamics of their atmospheres. Nor are their surface geologies (for those that have solid crusts). These things are largely determined by environment and history. Come to think of it, so is the formation of molecules in the first place.
To propose rigid limits on what sort of effects natural processes can produce is essentially a claim about how much information the natural world can contain. More specifically, to say that life cannot have evolved naturally to its present diversity is to make a claim about how much information its natural history can have contained. I don't see that you are qualified to make such an assessment based on what is known.
> >We know from a variety of > > sources that *windows* do not heal themselves or reform on their own. > > There are other things that do, however.
> Again, you must know two things in order to adequately propose the > activity of intelligent design. You must know the inherent > limitations of a give system and its individual components AND you > must know the potential of higher outside informational systems (such > as an intelligent mind at the level of the human mind or beyond).
This actually only boils down to one thing, really: the constraints of the system as a whole. Examining sub-components can be useful, but one must also consider the system's *emergent* properties before one draws conclusions about "higher outside informational systems". None of the individual components of a hurricane (the atmosphere, the ocean, the earth's rotation and tilt, and the energy input from the sun) contains the information needed to produce one; in fact, most of the interactions among those parts do not produce one, either. Nonetheless, hurricanes do happen when the system reaches a certain state, and the process does not require any appeal to a "higher outside informational system" at all. The relevant system and environment contain the requisite information.
Speaking of systems, this is the second time you have ignored my question about ecosystems. Are they complex? How do they happen? Where does the information come from to produce and maintain them?
> For example, if you knew nothing about the normal crystallizable forms > of carbon you could not propose an intelligent origin behind a > perfectly cut diamond with 256 symmetrical facets. However, if after > studying carbon in greater detail you find that there is no inherent > properties within the carbon atoms themselves or other mindless > natural properties in the vicinity that give rise to such a > cut-diamond form, you can then adequately propose the involvement of > an intelligent mind or at least a much higher system of informational > complexity that is contained within the cut diamond.
Exactly. Once you know enough about a system's characteristics, environment, and history, you can make meaningful predictions about how it is likely to behave. If the system behaves in a way that is unexpected, you can assume that: a) your model of how the system works is incomplete, or b) something outside of the system has intervened to modify it. Your "design inference" involves starting with the pretence that life's complexity and diversity is somehow unexpected or inexplicable given what we know about it, ignoring possibility a) to account for this, and not only insisting on possibility b), but also claiming to know exactly what causal agent intervened thus.
> Another useful example is the "crop circles" that people made in wheat > fields in England and elsewhere. Although there were a few who > proposed mindless causes when these symmetrical and ornate patterns of > circles first started appearing, the great majority of people > correctly saw evidence of a much higher intelligence behind these > patterns than can be achieved by any known mindless process - even > without having ever seen such a phenomenon created before by anyone or > anything.
People had seen hoaxes before and knew that there were plenty of human beings around to produce them. They also knew that there was no other independent positive evidence for any other plausible explanation. I think most educated people pretty much knew from the start that crop circles were produced not just by "a much higher intelligence", but by human beings, in spite of all the media sensationalism about UFOs. Those who did entertain extraterrestrials as a serious option did so largely for two reasons: an unfounded and irrational incredulity towards mainstream explanations, and prior cultural conditioning to expect certain things from little green men. I see those same two factors at work in almost all of your arguments against evolution and for creationism.
Notice that these were the leading possibilities considered: human hoax and little green men. This was based on *prior* models of how these *specific* proposed agents were known or believed to behave, and on prior assessments of their availability. AFAIK, few people speculated about "intelligent agencies" in the abstract. Very few people considered the possibility that God, or Satan, or Vishnu, or fairies, or rogue Pentagon androids had made the circles, or that the crops themselves had developed a collective intelligence and were pleading with us to stop murdering them.
And notice that the crop circle case is actually a good *counter-example* to the sort of design inference you propose. Once again, as with demonic possession to explain illness, as with angels to explain the orbits of the planets, and as with fairies to explain fairy rings, the inference from an unexplained phenomenon to the existence of an exotic and otherwise unevidenced intelligence failed. The correct explanation turned out to be one previously known to be "in the system".
> > So your skin heals itself due to a higher system of informational > > complexity driving such a phenomenon, but oil and vinegar seperate due > > to information contained in the molecules themselves? > > But the healing of the skin is contained within the cells of the skin, > > and all the reactions that occur are consistant with know chemical > > activity.
> > So it is a bit more complicated, but not something that needs an > > outside force to drive it.
> > Try again.
> If you look into a system and see that it cannot, by itself, go beyond > a certain point, then when it does go beyond this point, you must > assume the involvement of an outside system of greater informational > complexity.
> Again, when you see a window in a house, you know through your > experience with glass windows that they simply cannot fix themselves > once they are broken. > Their level of informational complexity simply > is not great enough to give rise to this level of functional > complexity. So, when you see that a glass window has been fixed, you > do not assume that the window fixed itself or that any other low > agency with a low level of functional complexity fixed the window > either. You know that fixing glass windows requires a fairly high > level of pre-established functional complexity.
> The same is true for skin healing itself. The reason why skin can > heal itself is because of the pre-existence of a very high level of > functional complexity, which includes the rest of the body. For > example, the skin cells cannot work to heal the skin if the person's > heart stops pumping or the blood stops flowing to that area of skin. > All the subparts of the skin and many other aspects of the body must > be placed in a very highly specified arrangement at a very high level > of emergent functional complexity before they can work together to fix > a cut in the skin. Brought together randomly, the subparts simply > will not self-assemble at this level of complexity.
> This is a bit different than a salad dressing made of vinegar and oil. > Taking the subparts of the salad dressing and mixing them together > randomly will not destroy their ability to separate themselves. This > "function" is contained entirely by the subparts themselves regardless > of their specified orientation. Of course you can even go smaller > than this. Both vinegar and oil have smaller subparts, which cannot > be rearranged without a loss of vinegar and oil properties or > functions. However, even you must admit that the level of specified > functional complexity found here is extremely low level when compared > to the level of specified functional complexity found in living skin > and the process of skin healing itself. And yet, neither process can > go very far beyond its pre-established level of complexity without the > input of higher-level systems of function.
> For example living skin can heal itself because its pre-established > information and structural system supports such a process. However, > skin cannot do much of anything beyond its preprogramming. It cannot > spell out the letters "MOM" on a biker's dude's arm. It cannot filter > blood of waist products like the kidney. It cannot think like the > brain. It cannot make insulin like the pancreas . . . etc. If it did > start doing any of these things, it would be because of the influence > of an outside information system of greater complexity than the skin.
> The same thing is true of vinegar and oil salad dressing. Such a > salad dressing has a very low level ability to separate itself into > vinegar and oil, but it can't do many other things very far beyond > this low level of informational complexity. Such a salad dressing > cannot grow legs and walk out of the salad bowl. It cannot arrange > itself on a flat plate into a circle of perfectly spaced droplets . . > . etc. If salad dressing were ever found in such forms, the > involvement of a pre-established outside information system is the > only logical solution. Depending on the level of complexity of the > particular phenomenon, the level of required complexity of the outside > information system can be determined with a fair degree of accuracy.
> Consider the crop circle phenomenon again. No process with low-level > complexity could have made many of these circles or patterns. Many of > the patterns required a high level of functional complexity and > deliberate planning to create. No known level of functional > complexity less than that of a human mind could have produced these > crop circles. Of course something more complex than the human mind > could have been behind these formations, but it seems very clear that > nothing less than a human mind could have made these formations. > Certainly the crops themselves do not have this level of information > available to themselves. And, nothing around them in their > environment less complex than humans seems to have this level of > complexity either.
> Knowing the limits of the system itself, when this system goes > significantly beyond these limits, it becomes clear that something > greater was definitely involved.
The key word is "knowing". One implication of your line of argument here is that you already *know* that natural processes are incapable of producing many of the phenomena observed in biology. Oddly, while the evolutionary biologists who actually study them do not have such knowledge, there seem to be many engineers, mathematicians, physicians, and lawyers who do.
Another implication is that you have extensive and accurate knowledge of the natural history of the earth (else you could not describe the system under which evolution or abiogenesis might have operated, and hence could not *know* whether the system was capable of them). You have basically admitted above that there are no valid prior intuitions about what natural systems can do; rather, one must actually *know* a great deal about the system, its history, its environment, and its constraints before one can draw meaningful conclusions about its capabilities and likely effects.
Another implication is that life as we know it was most definitely not designed by anything remotely like what we normally call intelligence. We know this because of what we *know* about intelligence: it requires a physical substrate (i.e., a "brain"); it acquires knowledge of the world through experience and learning; in addition to this knowledge, it must secure for itself considerable physical and technical wherewithal in order to manipulate its world to any substantial degree; it cannot create ex nihilo, nor warp the fabric of reality with magic, but can only manipulate initial conditions needed for otherwise natural processes to produce the effects it wants.
There is no evidence that any intelligence operating under such *known* constraints did create or even could have created life as it now exists. There is no evidence of a brain for such a thing, no evidence of a physical culture or technology that could have produced life, no evidence of tools, of waste-products, or of failed efforts while the intelligent designer was still on its learning curve, no evidence of external manipulation of initial conditions. There is no evidence that any of these things are even possible.
If you nonetheless choose to special-plead that your proposed intelligence somehow magically overcomes these known constraints on intelligent designers, then you forfeit any theoretical advantage. One could just as parsimoniously special-plead a mindless process with the requisite magical attributes.
> I kinda thought something was wrong with my news server. My server showed my > posts, as if they had been posted, but no one ever responded. My server > shows ~75 posts from 1/1/04 to 2/28/04, but Google shows only the thread I > initiated. Looking back, there are other large gaps indicating major > problems back to 7/03. (Others had complained about that time, so I just > plowed on ahead.) I'm on a different temporary news server now, and will be > changing once again in the near future. > http://tinyurl.com/2rwwl
> Too bad they lost my new Theory of Everything I had just completed at > Stephen Hawking's request. ;-)
Similar thing happened to me. "After the winter holiday I got a new hotmail account and started posting successfully.
