Bridk four in the foundation of ToC
zoe_althrop
identifying characteristics are not found TOGETHER in an alleged
humanly created object, then that object was not created by a human,
but belongs to the natural world.
Brick one: Evidence of arbitrary decision-making, indicative of
conscious mental choices over and above instinctual behavior; i.e.,
stop/start sequences, juxtaposition of parts that normally would not
be found together if left on their own.
Brick two: Evidence of a plan or blueprint, indicative of deliberate,
purposeful goals.
Brick three: Evidence of new behavior of raw materials in contrast to
their normal behavior when not found in a setting of stop/start
commands and juxtaposition of parts not normally found together.
BRICK FOUR: Evidence of a mechanism used to shape the raw materials
and bring the created object into existence. This mechanism is
THOUGHT, and finds its source in the brains of human beings and to a
much lesser extent in other life forms. Thought is reflected in the
use of tools such as writing, programming, carpentry, painting,
weaving.
For humanly created items, the standard will be validated by the
percentage of identified clear-cut cases versus ambiguous cases. If
the number of clear-cut cases that meet the standard is at the 98-99%
level, then it is a valid standard for measuring created items
wherever they may be found.
So far, the standard is functioning at the 98-99% level. Examples
offered to date have been ledges, Old Faithful, logjams, bird nests, a
native plant garden, an abstract painting, a computerized image of an
abstract object, and a natural formation balancing on small rocks that
could look manmade but could also be naturally formed.. That is eight
ambiguous cases. For each one of those examples, I can give you 100
or more that are clear-cut.
Examples: cars, houses, television sets, refrigerators, books,
computers, computer programs (and I've already passed the 800 mark
because there are replicas of each of these examples in the millions.
And the standard works for all of these clear-cut cases.)
in the seven ambiguous cases offered so far:
ledges might serve as a stopping place for rocks, but they do not
restart the rock's falls, so discard that example.
Old Faithful is a single instance and meets only the first standard.
It needs to meet the entire cluster of the standard in order to be
identified as humanly created.
Logjams are not numerous, even if considered ambiguous by some.
There are only a few birds nests that have been imitated by some human
in an effort to make the human attempt apear to be natural.
Native plant gardens are ambiguous only if lacking in the stop/start
juxtaposition of parts criteria and lack of evidence of a plan, or
absence of the creator to claim credit for the garden. But the
standard's criteria can indeed show a native plant garden to created
-- borders, weeding, hoeing, fertilizing, juxtaposition of
civilization to garden, layout of house and lot, neighborhood, etc.
paintings are not ambiguous, even though offered as such. As long as
a painting is on a canvas, it meets the standards of stop/start
commands, juxtaposition of parts, a plan, manipulation of raw
materials, and evidence of thought that put the oils on the canvas,
framed it, and applied a signature to one corner.
the computer image carries all the hallmarks of a created item, so it
does not qualify as ambiguous.
the natural formation of a large rock resting upon smaller ones is
ambiguous as to its origins, but that is only one specimen.
therefore, so far, the supposedly ambiguous cases have dwindled to
four, and the clear-cut cases are in the millions. Therefore, saying
that the standard is 98-99% accurate is an understatement.
I have one more brick to go, and then the next step would be to use
this measuring device to identify other unknown objects. And before
there is a rush to present a few more ambiguous examples, I'll make it
clear that the standard is to be used to identify only the most
clear-cut cases of creation, wherever those objects are found. If the
standard identifies even one clear-cut case of creation in the natural
world, this will be evidence of a human-LIKE Mind in operation in the
natural world.
we will deal with the less clear-cut cases later.
----
zoe
Bob Pease
"zoe_althrop" <muz...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:3d44a96b....@news-server.cfl.rr.com...
> Aha...the standard is becoming more airtight. If any of these four
> identifying characteristics are not found TOGETHER in an alleged
> humanly created object, then that object was not created by a human,
> but belongs to the natural world.
snip trip into solipsy Land.
>
> we will deal with the less clear-cut cases later.
Whaddaya mean **WE** kimosabe???
( re-plonk!!)
rj pease
Ben Potter
zoe_althrop wrote:
> Aha...the standard is becoming more airtight. If any of these four
> identifying characteristics are not found TOGETHER in an alleged
> humanly created object, then that object was not created by a human,
> but belongs to the natural world.
>
> Brick one: Evidence of arbitrary decision-making, indicative of
> conscious mental choices over and above instinctual behavior; i.e.,
> stop/start sequences, juxtaposition of parts that normally would not
> be found together if left on their own.
>
> Brick two: Evidence of a plan or blueprint, indicative of deliberate,
> purposeful goals.
>
> Brick three: Evidence of new behavior of raw materials in contrast to
> their normal behavior when not found in a setting of stop/start
> commands and juxtaposition of parts not normally found together.
>
> BRICK FOUR: Evidence of a mechanism used to shape the raw materials
> and bring the created object into existence. This mechanism is
> THOUGHT, and finds its source in the brains of human beings and to a
> much lesser extent in other life forms. Thought is reflected in the
> use of tools such as writing, programming, carpentry, painting,
> weaving.
Other animals (and, yes, humans are animals not qualitatively different
from other apes) create tools and pass on cultural behavior (see recent
studies on Bonobo chimps). Why are you arbitrarily assigning creative
value to writing, carpentry, etc., and not to tool modification and
manufacturing?
>
>
> For humanly created items, the standard will be validated by the
> percentage of identified clear-cut cases versus ambiguous cases. If
> the number of clear-cut cases that meet the standard is at the 98-99%
> level, then it is a valid standard for measuring created items
> wherever they may be found.
>
> So far, the standard is functioning at the 98-99% level. Examples
> offered to date have been ledges, Old Faithful, logjams, bird nests, a
> native plant garden, an abstract painting, a computerized image of an
> abstract object, and a natural formation balancing on small rocks that
> could look manmade but could also be naturally formed.. That is eight
> ambiguous cases. For each one of those examples, I can give you 100
> or more that are clear-cut.
>
Your standard is necessarily arbitrary. The _only_ thing in common among
human creations is that they were created by humans.
>
> Examples: cars, houses, television sets, refrigerators, books,
> computers, computer programs (and I've already passed the 800 mark
> because there are replicas of each of these examples in the millions.
> And the standard works for all of these clear-cut cases.)
>
Your Euroamerican ethnocentric bias is evident in your list.
>
> in the seven ambiguous cases offered so far:
>
> ledges might serve as a stopping place for rocks, but they do not
> restart the rock's falls, so discard that example.
>
> Old Faithful is a single instance and meets only the first standard.
> It needs to meet the entire cluster of the standard in order to be
> identified as humanly created.
>
> Logjams are not numerous, even if considered ambiguous by some.
>
> There are only a few birds nests that have been imitated by some human
> in an effort to make the human attempt apear to be natural.
>
Huh?
Let's see your clear-cut case of creation in nature. Right now.
Ben
Mark VandeWettering
> Aha...the standard is becoming more airtight. If any of these four
> identifying characteristics are not found TOGETHER in an alleged
> humanly created object, then that object was not created by a human,
> but belongs to the natural world.
>
> Brick one: Evidence of arbitrary decision-making, indicative of
> conscious mental choices over and above instinctual behavior; i.e.,
> stop/start sequences, juxtaposition of parts that normally would not
> be found together if left on their own.
>
> Brick two: Evidence of a plan or blueprint, indicative of deliberate,
> purposeful goals.
>
> Brick three: Evidence of new behavior of raw materials in contrast to
> their normal behavior when not found in a setting of stop/start
> commands and juxtaposition of parts not normally found together.
>
> BRICK FOUR: Evidence of a mechanism used to shape the raw materials
> and bring the created object into existence. This mechanism is
> THOUGHT, and finds its source in the brains of human beings and to a
> much lesser extent in other life forms. Thought is reflected in the
> use of tools such as writing, programming, carpentry, painting,
> weaving.
Let me get this straight. Your new brick to help distinguish items which
are created is evidence that if something looks like it was the product of
thought, then it is created by humans.
And you don't see this as begging the question?
Not to mention hopelessly subjective and vague?
Do you actually believe that you are converging to something meaningful?
I can't wait to see what you think the most clear cut examples of creation
might be.
> wherever those objects are found. If the
> standard identifies even one clear-cut case of creation in the natural
> world, this will be evidence of a human-LIKE Mind in operation in the
> natural world.
Or alternatively, it could just be that your 'bricks' are meaningless.
> we will deal with the less clear-cut cases later.
Mark
> ----
> zoe
>
R. Baldwin
Zoe, I see you completely overlooked the objections that your criteria
(a) are not stated with sufficient clarity so that they will be
commonly interpreted the same way, and (b) have not been sufficiently
tested to have the foggiest clue how reliable they are. People don't
accept 98-99% reliability just because you say so. That kind of claim
requires independent corroboration.
Brent Howatt
> Aha...the standard is becoming more airtight. If any of these four
> identifying characteristics are not found TOGETHER in an alleged
> humanly created object, then that object was not created by a human,
> but belongs to the natural world.
Humans belong to the natural world.
> Brick one: Evidence of arbitrary decision-making, indicative of
> conscious mental choices over and above instinctual behavior; i.e.,
> stop/start sequences, juxtaposition of parts that normally would not
> be found together if left on their own.
Compare an oil painting made by an elephant with one made by an orangoutan
with one made by a modern artist who uses a similar style. If you are not
told which is which, i seriously doubt you can pick out the one by the
human. Thus your proposition fails.
[snip further drivel]
> we will deal with the less clear-cut cases later.
The idea that something could be less clear than this is frightening.
--
H. Brent Howatt | The deluded are always filled with absolutes
hey...@rootshell.be | The rest of us have to live with ambiguity
PGP keys by email or keyserver | _Aristoi_ Walter Jon Williams
Steven J.
> Aha...the standard is becoming more airtight. If any of these four
> identifying characteristics are not found TOGETHER in an alleged
> humanly created object, then that object was not created by a human,
> but belongs to the natural world.
>
> Brick one: Evidence of arbitrary decision-making, indicative of
> conscious mental choices over and above instinctual behavior; i.e.,
> stop/start sequences, juxtaposition of parts that normally would not
> be found together if left on their own.
>
not, say paintings, stone projectile points, or pottery (though you
might try to include them, a flint arrowhead, for example, is made of
materials naturally found together, and doesn't have anything the
average person would consider "an arbitrary stop/start sequence").
That is, all members of the set of things which we already know are
intelligently designed, can be shown to be intelligently designed.
>
> Brick two: Evidence of a plan or blueprint, indicative of deliberate,
> purposeful goals.
>
embodied in any physical object except the designed thing itself --
the only evidence for a "blueprint" for a stone arrowhead, or indeed
for this second-hand computer I'm using, is that it appears like the
sort of thing that was designed. This means that "evidence of a plan
or blueprint" is identical in meaning to "evidence of conscious mental
choices" listed in point one above (I know, I know, someone else
aready brought this up -- but you don't seem to have paid attention).
>
> Brick three: Evidence of new behavior of raw materials in contrast to
> their normal behavior when not found in a setting of stop/start
> commands and juxtaposition of parts not normally found together.
>
atoms arranged into an air conditioner act differently from the same
matter arranged as ore deposits. Of course, it would also behave
differently if arranged as a bicycle, or a machine gun. Again, this
does not seem in any useful way distinct from point one: things
showing signs of intelligent design are most likely intelligently
designed, and things known to be intelligently designed are even more
likely to be intelligently designed.
>
> BRICK FOUR: Evidence of a mechanism used to shape the raw materials
> and bring the created object into existence. This mechanism is
> THOUGHT, and finds its source in the brains of human beings and to a
> much lesser extent in other life forms. Thought is reflected in the
> use of tools such as writing, programming, carpentry, painting,
> weaving.
>
mental choices to accomplish some goal, brick two is evidence that
something is the result of a conscious plan to accomplish some goal,
brick three is evidence that something tends to accomplish some
consciously chosen goal, and brick four is evidence something owes its
form to conscious thought and decision-making. Ah, well, bricks are
supposed to look alike, I suppose.
Now, this last brick is a bit different; it implies that intelligence
is shown by the use of tools. That is, intelligence does not merely
use, or even merly create, raw materials, but uses tools on those raw
materials. One tool used by humans is (I'm sure you've run across
this) genetic algorithms, a deliberately Darwinistic attempt to design
by selection among randomly generating variants of an initial design.
So, if your "bricks" are intended to be part of an argument that
biological diversity and complexity are intelligently created, it
would seem to be an argument for theistic evolution (surely a more
dignified approach than using a giant screwdriver and wrench set).
>
> For humanly created items, the standard will be validated by the
> percentage of identified clear-cut cases versus ambiguous cases. If
> the number of clear-cut cases that meet the standard is at the 98-99%
> level, then it is a valid standard for measuring created items
> wherever they may be found.
>
It may be valid for identifying *humanly* created artifacts. Unless
you are proposing humans for the designers of the universe and life
(and I won't even bother to list arguments against this, since I don't
imagine for a second that you propose it), you need to set forth a
list of traits for identifying the artifacts of the proposed Designer.
It still seems to me that, since serving the known goals of known
designers is useful in identifying human artifacts, perhaps you should
devote some effort to coming up with a testable hypothesis about the
Designer's design philosophy and goals, and how the observed
biological diversity and complexity serve them.
>
> So far, the standard is functioning at the 98-99% level. Examples
> offered to date have been ledges, Old Faithful, logjams, bird nests, a
> native plant garden, an abstract painting, a computerized image of an
> abstract object, and a natural formation balancing on small rocks that
> could look manmade but could also be naturally formed.. That is eight
> ambiguous cases. For each one of those examples, I can give you 100
> or more that are clear-cut.
>
> Examples: cars, houses, television sets, refrigerators, books,
> computers, computer programs (and I've already passed the 800 mark
> because there are replicas of each of these examples in the millions.
> And the standard works for all of these clear-cut cases.)
>
I'm not sure, but I think what you want to be able to do is not
identify designed items (if one ant is intelligently designed, then
most likely all the scores of billions of ants on the planet are so
designed), but to identify particular designs, whether it exists in a
trillion exemplars or only one. That is, the entire annual production
of General Motors counts equally with the native plant garden.
>
> in the seven ambiguous cases offered so far:
>
> ledges might serve as a stopping place for rocks, but they do not
> restart the rock's falls, so discard that example.
>
> Old Faithful is a single instance and meets only the first standard.
> It needs to meet the entire cluster of the standard in order to be
> identified as humanly created.
>
Depending on which part of the first standard it meets, it might meed
all the standards.
>
> Logjams are not numerous, even if considered ambiguous by some.
>
> There are only a few birds nests that have been imitated by some human
> in an effort to make the human attempt apear to be natural.
>
> Native plant gardens are ambiguous only if lacking in the stop/start
> juxtaposition of parts criteria and lack of evidence of a plan, or
> absence of the creator to claim credit for the garden. But the
> standard's criteria can indeed show a native plant garden to created
> -- borders, weeding, hoeing, fertilizing, juxtaposition of
> civilization to garden, layout of house and lot, neighborhood, etc.
>
> paintings are not ambiguous, even though offered as such. As long as
> a painting is on a canvas, it meets the standards of stop/start
> commands, juxtaposition of parts, a plan, manipulation of raw
> materials, and evidence of thought that put the oils on the canvas,
> framed it, and applied a signature to one corner.
>
That last is arbitrary in the extreme -- it implies that no illiterate
human could ever produce a painting (perhaps cave paintings are
ambiguous?), and that even a literate painter ceased to be an
intelligent designer if he fails to sign his work. Evidence of a plan
is, for much abstract art, rather subjective. And all the others can
be met by elephants (they just repeated this segment on _60 Minutes_).
>
> the computer image carries all the hallmarks of a created item, so it
> does not qualify as ambiguous.
>
> the natural formation of a large rock resting upon smaller ones is
> ambiguous as to its origins, but that is only one specimen.
>
> therefore, so far, the supposedly ambiguous cases have dwindled to
> four, and the clear-cut cases are in the millions. Therefore, saying
> that the standard is 98-99% accurate is an understatement.
>
> I have one more brick to go, and then the next step would be to use
> this measuring device to identify other unknown objects. And before
> there is a rush to present a few more ambiguous examples, I'll make it
> clear that the standard is to be used to identify only the most
> clear-cut cases of creation, wherever those objects are found. If the
> standard identifies even one clear-cut case of creation in the natural
> world, this will be evidence of a human-LIKE Mind in operation in the
> natural world.
>
> we will deal with the less clear-cut cases later.
>
> ----
> zoe
-- Steven J.
mel turner
>
>Aha...the standard is becoming more airtight. If any of these four
>identifying characteristics are not found TOGETHER in an alleged
>humanly created object, then that object was not created by a human,
No. If some object in question is not known to possess any identified
characteristic of human-made objects, then all you can say is that
you have no evidence that it is human-made. As others have pointed
out, humans can make things to seem very natural [e.g., a native
plants rock-garden].
>but belongs to the natural world.
But humans and their creations also belong to the "natural world",
so you mean "the nonhuman natural world"
>Brick one: Evidence of arbitrary decision-making, indicative of
>conscious mental choices over and above instinctual behavior; i.e.,
>stop/start sequences,
Such as shown in spider webs and bird nests?
How do you tell if any "conscious mental choices over and above
instinctual behavior" are involved in such structures, and why is
this even important? Perhaps this hypothetical Creator thingie was
working on a purely instinctual level...?
Does a human-made hammer really show a stop-start sequence? [well, I
suppose there could be a set series of manufacturing steps...]
>juxtaposition of parts that normally would not
>be found together if left on their own.
How is this "normally... if left on their own" to be determined?
Does a bee hive qualify? We generally don't ever see wax, pollen and
nectar/honey forming any such complex structures "on their own"
anywhere else...
>Brick two: Evidence of a plan or blueprint, indicative of deliberate,
>purposeful goals.
The way the shape of a body of water fits the "plan or blueprint"
of the shape of its basin?
>Brick three: Evidence of new behavior of raw materials
What's "new behavior"? What's "raw material"?
in contrast to
>their normal behavior when not found in a setting of stop/start
>commands and juxtaposition of parts not normally found together.
How do you determine if things are "normally found together"
or not?
Aren't you really just repeating the same invalid assumption over
and over? Living organisms and their genomes and their developmental
physiologies are very unlike any human-designed and human-manufactured
objects or processes. Trying to make them sound alike is just
over-stretching a loose analogy. It's not any kind of evidence for a
Designer/Manufacturer of living things. On the contrary...
>BRICK FOUR: Evidence of a mechanism used to shape the raw materials
>and bring the created object into existence. This mechanism is
>THOUGHT,
Nope. "Thought" is obviously a part of the human design and
manufacture process, but you really should also go into the stepwise
details of the design and manufacture processes. Something
creationists seem never to do.
Anyway, why not hard-wired, instinctive "thought", as perhaps seen in
birds, bees and spiders?
and finds its source in the brains of human beings and to a
>much lesser extent in other life forms. Thought is reflected in the
>use of tools such as writing, programming, carpentry, painting,
>weaving.
Thought, and the physical manipulations of tools and other objects
and materials...
>For humanly created items, the standard will be validated by the
>percentage of identified clear-cut cases versus ambiguous cases. If
>the number of clear-cut cases that meet the standard is at the 98-99%
>level, then it is a valid standard for measuring created items
>wherever they may be found.
The question isn't whether you may miss some cases like that
native-plants garden, but whether you'll get lots of "false positives".
If you'd tend to erroneously decide that a perfectly cubical salt
crystal or a complex, powerful tornado must have been designed and
created to be the way they are, it would seem to make your set of
created-things-identification criteria unreliable.
Which reminds: so far all I see is an attempt to generalize about
created objects and their identification. Is this going to lead
to a scientific _theory_ about creation? Actual usable, testable
explanations about how it all works, a set of explanations that
fits the data already on hand and suggests further tests?
>So far, the standard is functioning at the 98-99% level.
With the errors falling which way? Failing to identify some
manufactured objects, or falsely identifying some natural objects as
being man-made? It's the latter class of errors that will call your
whole TOC effort into question. It doesn't much matter if you can
correctly identify a drill-press or sofa as human-made if you
may incorrectly decide that all living organisms or the universe
itself are similarly "Designed and Manufactured objects".
Examples
>offered to date have been ledges, Old Faithful, logjams, bird nests, a
>native plant garden, an abstract painting, a computerized image of an
>abstract object, and a natural formation balancing on small rocks that
>could look manmade but could also be naturally formed.. That is eight
>ambiguous cases. For each one of those examples, I can give you 100
>or more that are clear-cut.
Again, it doesn't matter if you can correctly identify a great many
clear-cut examples of human-manufactured objects if you occasionally
misidentify purely natural objects as being human-manufactured.
If you didn't know about the existence of bees, what would you decide
if presented with a honeycomb as a possible object to test for
"created-ness"? Wouldn't it look very manmade?
If you didn't know about the existence of spiders, what decision
would you make about an elegantly complex orb web if one were
presented to you? If you never heard of birds making complex
nests, what decision would you make about weaverbird nests?
If you didn't know about early man, would you really be able to
identify simple early stone tools as manufactured objects, as opposed
to merely naturally broken pieces of rock? Okay, nevermind, this last
often-very-difficult case would go more on the false-negatives side...
[snip]
>the natural formation of a large rock resting upon smaller ones is
>ambiguous as to its origins, but that is only one specimen.
>
>therefore, so far, the supposedly ambiguous cases have dwindled to
>four, and the clear-cut cases are in the millions. Therefore, saying
>that the standard is 98-99% accurate is an understatement.
Any false positives at all are too many, when it comes to possibly
misidentifying Life and the Universe as "created things". Not that
either at all resemble any human-manufactured things...
>I have one more brick to go,
Or the same one relabeled again?
and then the next step would be to use
>this measuring device to identify other unknown objects. And before
>there is a rush to present a few more ambiguous examples, I'll make it
>clear that the standard is to be used to identify only the most
>clear-cut cases of creation, wherever those objects are found. If the
>standard identifies even one clear-cut case of creation in the natural
>world, this will be evidence of a human-LIKE Mind in operation in the
>natural world.
No, it might just be evidence that some results of natural processes
can sometimes resemble some results of human design and manufacture.
Mike Dunford
news:3d44a96b....@news-server.cfl.rr.com:
> Aha...the standard is becoming more airtight.
More airtight than...?
> If any of these
> four identifying characteristics are not found TOGETHER in an
> alleged humanly created object, then that object was not created
> by a human, but belongs to the natural world.
[snip previous material]
> BRICK FOUR: Evidence of a mechanism used to shape the raw
> materials and bring the created object into existence. This
> mechanism is THOUGHT, and finds its source in the brains of
> human beings and to a much lesser extent in other life forms.
Zoe, you have already stated that things which are created by other
life forms are definitely not created through a process of conscious
thought. Are you now conceding that your standard is incapable of
distinguishing a human created artifact from one created by a beaver
or sparrow?
It should be noted that, as with ALL THREE of the previous criteria,
birds' nests, logjams, and beaver dams are all identified as created
by this criterion -- the materials are (or in the case of the
logjam appear to be) shaped and formed to bring the object into
being.
> Thought is reflected in the use of tools such as writing,
> programming, carpentry, painting, weaving.
All of these are redundant with one or more earlier criteria -- there
is nothing new here.
> For humanly created items, the standard will be validated by the
> percentage of identified clear-cut cases versus ambiguous cases.
> If the number of clear-cut cases that meet the standard is at
> the 98-99% level, then it is a valid standard for measuring
> created items wherever they may be found.
I'm sorry, Zoe, but that is simply wrong.
We can disregard the question of how you created that percentage for
the moment, since the percentage of so-called clear-cut cases does
not make even the slightest difference. I have been trying to explain
to you from the start that you cannot assert that something of
unknown origin is created simply because it resembles created items.
No matter how or how many times I try to illustrate this to you, you
seem to either miss the importance of this point or ignore it.
Nevertheless, I will try again.
In order to be able to demonstrate creation, it is entirely
insufficient for you to claim that creation is demonstrated _solely_
through similarity with other created items. You must also
demonstrate that _only_ created items posess those qualities. If you
cannot, you cannot prove, no matter how closely the object resembles
human artifacts, that is is not the result of another process.
Right now, and including this criteria, beaver dams, birds' nests,
and hordes of other non-created items are identified by your criteria
as created. If you use those criteria on unknowns, you will not be
able to show that an unknown identified as created is really created,
and not just another nest-type object. This would be true even if
100% of human creations fit your criteria -- in order to _prove_ that
something is a creation, you must _exclude_ the other potential
processes.
> So far, the standard is functioning at the 98-99% level.
Or so you baldly assert. Even granting you that unsupported assertion
for the sake of argument, that's just a nicer way of saying that we
know that the "standard" is screwing up at least 1-2% of the knowns.
> Examples offered to date have been ledges, Old Faithful,
> logjams, bird nests, a native plant garden, an abstract
> painting, a computerized image of an abstract object, and a
> natural formation balancing on small rocks that could look
> manmade but could also be naturally formed.. That is eight
> ambiguous cases. For each one of those examples, I can give you
> 100 or more that are clear-cut.
Most of us find it significant that your standard has most of its
problems correctly identifying the man-made objects that bear the
closest resemblance to "natural" items. It certainly does not bode
well for your hope to reclassify "natural" items.
> Examples: cars, houses, television sets, refrigerators, books,
> computers, computer programs (and I've already passed the 800
> mark because there are replicas of each of these examples in the
> millions. And the standard works for all of these clear-cut
> cases.)
How many birds' nest and beaver dams do you think there are in the
world at any point in time, Zoe? There are other animal-created
objects that could be thrown in here, if you want more examples, too.
> in the seven ambiguous cases offered so far:
I know that a foolish consistency is sometimes referred to as the
hobgoblin of little minds, but would you at least try to show us that
you are capable of some? You just listed eight examples.
> ledges might serve as a stopping place for rocks, but they do
> not restart the rock's falls, so discard that example.
>
> Old Faithful is a single instance and meets only the first
> standard. It needs to meet the entire cluster of the standard in
> order to be identified as humanly created.
>
> Logjams are not numerous, even if considered ambiguous by some.
(1) If you spend much time in wooded areas, especially hilly wooded
areas, you will find that they are certainly not uncommon.
(2) I do not consider logjams to be ambiguous. They are not. They are
clearly the result of natural processes, and this can typically be
easily determined by some investigation and some common-sense
intuition. However, any logjam that creates a natural dam is
identified by your criteria as created.
> There are only a few birds nests that have been imitated by some
> human in an effort to make the human attempt apear to be
> natural.
(1) The number here is unimportant. This reveals that there is an
entire class of human created objects -- careful imitations of things
constructed by other animals -- which your standard cannot
distinguish from the real, non-created item. That is a serious
problem for what you are trying to do, and one which cannot be
dismissed through handwaving and claims of ambiguity.
(2) The real serious problem here for your standard is that it
identifies _all_ birds' nests as created, whether human-built or not.
Unless you can fix that flaw somehow, your "standard" is shot, for
the reason listed earlier in the post -- the inability to eliminate
causes other than creation.
> Native plant gardens are ambiguous only if lacking in the
> stop/start juxtaposition of parts criteria and lack of evidence
> of a plan, or absence of the creator to claim credit for the
> garden.
The presence of a creator to claim credit cannot be part of your
standard, for reasons which I would hope are clear to you already.
> But the standard's criteria can indeed show a native
> plant garden to created -- borders,
But can you tell if the border is for actually related to the garden,
or if it just marks a created area adjoining a non-created area.
> weeding, hoeing, fertilizing,
These indicate a degree of artificiality.
> juxtaposition of civilization to garden,
No. That is not a valid criteria.
> layout of house and lot, neighborhood, etc.
Redundant with juxtaposition.
> paintings are not ambiguous, even though offered as such. As
> long as a painting is on a canvas, it meets the standards of
> stop/start commands, juxtaposition of parts, a plan,
> manipulation of raw materials, and evidence of thought that put
> the oils on the canvas, framed it, and applied a signature to
> one corner.
Zoe, if that is the case, you are not actually detecting design (or
creation) in the painting. You are simply asserting that anything
which appears on a canvas is created because the canvas is created.
That means, essentially, that your standard cannot distinguish a
multi-million dollar masterpiece from the natural effects of an
explosion in a paint factory on a canvas leaning against a nearby
wall.
> the computer image carries all the hallmarks of a created item,
> so it does not qualify as ambiguous.
>
> the natural formation of a large rock resting upon smaller ones
> is ambiguous as to its origins, but that is only one specimen.
>
> therefore, so far, the supposedly ambiguous cases have dwindled
> to four, and the clear-cut cases are in the millions.
> Therefore, saying that the standard is 98-99% accurate is an
> understatement.
How many birds nests are there, Zoe?
> I have one more brick to go, and then the next step would be to
> use this measuring device to identify other unknown objects.
Of course. It would be too reasonable to actually address any of the
objections to your standard, after all.
> And before there is a rush to present a few more ambiguous
> examples, I'll make it clear that the standard is to be used to
> identify only the most clear-cut cases of creation, wherever
> those objects are found.
Yes, Zoe, you have made it abundantly clear that you think that all
you need to do to claim that something is created is to show that it
resembles other created objects. You have also made it clear that you
really don't care if you can show that it resembles _all_ created
objects, or if you can show that it resembles _only_ objects known to
be created.
The rest of us have been trying to explain to you exactly why this
line of thought is somewhere between "wrong" and "deluded". It would
appear that this is a futile effort, but for some reason, I feel
compelled to try anyway.
> If the standard identifies even one
> clear-cut case of creation in the natural world, this will be
> evidence of a human-LIKE Mind in operation in the natural world.
Not unless that fifth criteria is able to eliminate nests, dams, and
all other non-created objects. If you can't find a criteria that
eliminate those, you won't be able to say for sure whether you have
uncovered evidence of a human-LIKE Mind, or just a previously unknown
bird-brain.
> we will deal with the less clear-cut cases later.
That's not a solution to your problem.
--Mike Dunford
--
If the Eiffel Tower were now representing the world's age, the skin
of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man's
share of that age; and anybody would perceive that that skin was
what the tower was built for. I reckon they would, I dunno.
--Mark Twain
cats...@yahoo.com
wrote:
[snip]
>
>I have one more brick to go, and then the next step would be to use
>this measuring device to identify other unknown objects. And before
>there is a rush to present a few more ambiguous examples, I'll make it
>clear that the standard is to be used to identify only the most
>clear-cut cases of creation, wherever those objects are found. If the
>standard identifies even one clear-cut case of creation in the natural
>world, this will be evidence of a human-LIKE Mind in operation in the
>natural world.
Well, it is obvious that people are having fun picking apart your
little ediface here but, since this is supposed ot be the long-awaited
ToC, I'd like to jump ahead here a bit.
To what end would "evidence of a human-LIKE Mind in operation in the
natural world" serve in the ToC? Surely you are not arguing that the
design and execution of the universe and everything in it is within
the capabilities of humans. Therefore, such evidence, even if you
manage to achieve it, would constitute no more evidence of such a
transcendent designer than the evidence of non-human-like intelligence
in operation would be (such as exists in bird nests and beehives). Of
necessity, then, any results of your exercise must be *ambiguous* when
it comes to establishing that the whole of the cosmos was designed and
executed by a conscious agent.
Put another way, Zoe, are you promoting humans to god-like status or
demoting god to our level?
>
>we will deal with the less clear-cut cases later.
<Boggle>
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
The day of rest comes but once a week,
and sorry am I that it does not come oftener . . .
The omnipotent Creator could have made the world
in three days just as easily as he made it in six,
and this would have doubled the Sundays.
Still it is not our place to criticize
the wisdom of the Creator.
-- Mark Twain --
Cyde Weys
> identifying characteristics are not found TOGETHER in an alleged
> humanly created object, then that object was not created by a human,
> but belongs to the natural world.
>
> Brick one: Evidence of arbitrary decision-making, indicative of
> conscious mental choices over and above instinctual behavior; i.e.,
> stop/start sequences, juxtaposition of parts that normally would not
> be found together if left on their own.
>
> Brick two: Evidence of a plan or blueprint, indicative of deliberate,
> purposeful goals.
>
> Brick three: Evidence of new behavior of raw materials in contrast to
> their normal behavior when not found in a setting of stop/start
> commands and juxtaposition of parts not normally found together.
>
> BRICK FOUR: Evidence of a mechanism used to shape the raw materials
> and bring the created object into existence. This mechanism is
> THOUGHT, and finds its source in the brains of human beings and to a
> much lesser extent in other life forms. Thought is reflected in the
> use of tools such as writing, programming, carpentry, painting,
> weaving.
BRICK FIVE: Shall be thrown at the pyramid of the other four bricks,
decimating them.
Patrick James
(in message <oka19.16982$9U4....@nwrddc01.gnilink.net>):
<Pedant point> You'll have to wait for Brick 11 so that you can zap one of
the other bricks. 'Decimate' = 'kill one in ten'. </pedant point>
--
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes
Wayne Bagguley
> Aha...the standard is becoming more airtight.
Ah, that's your first error - passing judgement on your own work.
> If any of these four
> identifying characteristics are not found TOGETHER in an alleged
> humanly created object, then that object was not created by a human,
> but belongs to the natural world.
I shall hold you to this. It should be easy to prove you wrong.
> Brick one: Evidence of arbitrary decision-making, indicative of
> conscious mental choices over and above instinctual behavior; i.e.,
> stop/start sequences,
The only manmade things that contain start/stop sequences are
computer programs as far as I am aware. There is great possibility
for ambiguity regarding the definition of a start/stop sequence.
A sequence of what? Starting/stopping what?
> juxtaposition of parts that normally would not
> be found together if left on their own.
How do you define 'normally' or how it is known what is normal and what
isn't? How are you determining is a juxtaposition 'normally' occurs
if certain parts are left on their own, and how are you defining,
'on their own'. EG are the normal forces of nature allowed to shape
those parts?
> Brick two: Evidence of a plan or blueprint, indicative of deliberate,
> purposeful goals.
Like what? How are you identifying a blueprint? How do you determine if
a blue print is the result of natural processes or if it's the result of
human design? There is a major problem with your ideas here because it
requires the recursive application of your 'bricks'.
> Brick three: Evidence of new behavior of raw materials in contrast to
> their normal behavior when not found in a setting of stop/start
> commands and juxtaposition of parts not normally found together.
This brick faces the same serious problems as bricks one and two.
How do you determine 'normal behaviour'? What are 'start/stop' commands?
How do you know if the juxtaposition is normal or not?
> BRICK FOUR: Evidence of a mechanism used to shape the raw materials
> and bring the created object into existence. This mechanism is
> THOUGHT,
You can dispense with the first sentence and just say 'evidence of
thought'. In fact, brick 4 makes bricks 1, 2 and 3 redundant for if
you have evidence of thought you automatically know that the object
is the result of thought. QED. Circular reasoning and all. The huge
problem here is defining 'thought' and what constitutes evidence of
thought and why.
> and finds its source in the brains of human beings and to a
> much lesser extent in other life forms. Thought is reflected in the
> use of tools such as writing,
There are computer programs which write without thought.
> programming,
There are computer programs which write programs without thought.
> carpentry,
There are computer programs that perform carpentry without thought.
> painting,
There are computer programs that paint without thought.
> weaving.
There are computer programs that weave without thought.
> For humanly created items, the standard will be validated by the
> percentage of identified clear-cut cases versus ambiguous cases. If
> the number of clear-cut cases
Define 'clear-cut cases' and how you identify them as such.
> that meet the standard is at the 98-99%
> level, then it is a valid standard for measuring created items
> wherever they may be found.
Wrong. Even if you standard was 99% effective at identifying manmade
items then it does not make it a standard for identifying ANY created
items, 'wherever they may be found'.
> So far, the standard is functioning at the 98-99% level.
Another mistake. You are providing the metrics without proper
documentation. For example, what is your sample size? What is your
false negative and false positive rate? Show the calculations that
leads you to state 98-99% accuracy. What is the error margin?
> Examples
> offered to date have been ledges, Old Faithful, logjams, bird nests, a
> native plant garden, an abstract painting, a computerized image of an
> abstract object, and a natural formation balancing on small rocks that
> could look manmade but could also be naturally formed.. That is eight
> ambiguous cases.
You are yet to define how you are identifying ambiguous and clear-cut
cases.
> For each one of those examples, I can give you 100
> or more that are clear-cut.
Define 'clear-cut cases' and how you are determining them as such first.
> Examples: cars, houses, television sets, refrigerators, books,
> computers, computer programs (and I've already passed the 800 mark
> because there are replicas of each of these examples in the millions.
Please provide a full dataset of your tests and results.
> And the standard works for all of these clear-cut cases.)
Define 'clear-cut' cases' and how you are determining them as such.
> in the seven ambiguous cases offered so far:
Define 'ambiguous cases'; and how you are determining them as such.
> ledges might serve as a stopping place for rocks, but they do not
> restart the rock's falls, so discard that example.
What happens if a ledge stops a rock from falling and subsequently gives
way? You cannot discard that example.
> Old Faithful is a single instance and meets only the first standard.
> It needs to meet the entire cluster of the standard in order to be
> identified as humanly created.
Ok, so explain the following:
1) How have you determined that there is no evidence of a plan or blueprint,
indicative of deliberate, purposeful goals for Old Faithful.
2) How have you determined that there is no evidence of new behavior of raw
materials in contrast to their normal behavior when not found in a setting of
stop/start commands and juxtaposition of parts not normally found together.
3) How have you determined that 'thought' was not used to create Old Faithful.
Since you claim that Old Faithful only meets brick one you should have no
trouble providing me with convincing answers to those questions.
> Logjams are not numerous, even if considered ambiguous by some.
None of your bricks mention the number of occasions something has to occur.
> There are only a few birds nests that have been imitated by some human
> in an effort to make the human attempt apear to be natural.
That explains nothing.
> Native plant gardens are ambiguous only if lacking in the stop/start
> juxtaposition of parts criteria
How have you determined this?
> and lack of evidence of a plan,
How have you determined this?
> or
> absence of the creator to claim credit for the garden.
How have you determined this?
> But the
> standard's criteria can indeed show a native plant garden to created
> -- borders,
How have you identified 'borders' as manmade?
> weeding,
How have you identified 'weeding' as manmade?
> hoeing,
How have you identified 'hoeing' as manmade?
> fertilizing,
How have you identified 'fertilizing' as manmade?
> juxtaposition of
> civilization to garden,
And that means what exactly?
> layout of house and lot, neighborhood, etc.
How have you identified those as manmade?
> paintings are not ambiguous, even though offered as such.
How have you determined paintings as not ambiguous? Why won't you
tell us what criteria you are using to separate 'ambiguous' cases from
'clear-cut' cases?
> As long as
> a painting is on a canvas, it meets the standards of stop/start
> commands,
And what, pray tell, are the start/stop commands on a canvas?
> juxtaposition of parts,
Like what?
> a plan,
Where?
> manipulation of raw
> materials,
A volcano manipulates raw materials too.
> and evidence of thought that put the oils on the canvas,
How have you determined this?
> framed it, and applied a signature to one corner.
Those do not appear in your 'bricks'.
Or are you saying that brick 5 and 6 are 'is framed' and 'has a signature
in the corner' respectively?
> the computer image carries all the hallmarks of a created item, so it
> does not qualify as ambiguous.
I disagree. It contains no start/stop sequences. It does not need a blueprint
or goal. It contains nothing against brick 3 (juxtaposition of parts). It does
not requre thought.
> the natural formation of a large rock resting upon smaller ones is
> ambiguous as to its origins, but that is only one specimen.
How do you determine if something is ambiguous or not?
> therefore, so far, the supposedly ambiguous cases have dwindled to
> four, and the clear-cut cases are in the millions.
Given you have not determined how you are identifying 'clear-cut' and
'ambiguous' cases, you cannot make that conclusion.
> Therefore, saying
> that the standard is 98-99% accurate is an understatement.
Given that you have not provided a complete dataset with results and
calcuations, you cannot make that statement.
> I have one more brick to go,
You have yet to clarify many issues regarding bricks 1 to 4.
> and then the next step would be to use
> this measuring device to identify other unknown objects.
What are the 'unknown objects'? Since we know that life on earth is the
result of evolution, it cannot be included in your list of 'unknowns'.
> And before
> there is a rush to present a few more ambiguous examples, I'll make it
> clear that the standard is to be used to identify only the most
> clear-cut cases of creation, wherever those objects are found.
But without a definition of 'clear-cut' and 'ambiguous' the standard
is useless.
> If the
> standard identifies even one clear-cut case of creation in the natural
> world, this will be evidence of a human-LIKE Mind in operation in the
> natural world.
How are you defining 'clear-cut case' and how are you identifying them?
You cannot reach any conclusions before you clear up the myriad
ambiguities that riddle your 'bricks'.
> we will deal with the less clear-cut cases later.
Please define 'clear-cut cases' and how they are determined as such.
-
Wayne
The Ghost In The Machine
<muz...@aol.com>
wrote
on Mon, 29 Jul 2002 02:37:27 +0000 (UTC)
<3d44a96b....@news-server.cfl.rr.com>:
> Aha...the standard is becoming more airtight. If any of these four
> identifying characteristics are not found TOGETHER in an alleged
> humanly created object, then that object was not created by a human,
> but belongs to the natural world.
>
> Brick one: Evidence of arbitrary decision-making, indicative of
> conscious mental choices over and above instinctual behavior; i.e.,
> stop/start sequences, juxtaposition of parts that normally would not
> be found together if left on their own.
Hmm...a computer can make arbitrary decisions if connected to a
random number generator. :-)
>
> Brick two: Evidence of a plan or blueprint, indicative of deliberate,
> purposeful goals.
And these are precisely where in the Universe? We have some, of
course; houses couldn't be built without them. But I've yet
to see a "map of the Universe" that wasn't human-created.
>
> Brick three: Evidence of new behavior of raw materials in contrast to
> their normal behavior when not found in a setting of stop/start
> commands and juxtaposition of parts not normally found together.
Define "normal", who's issuing the commands, and what is a "part"?
A star is normally thought of that big bright thing glowing by fusion
power; however, it turns out that a star has considerable influence
over its planetary system over and beyond its photons (we know this
because of the aurora borealis and its gravitational "pull" in
keeping planets such as Jupiter into orbit -- and Schumacher-Levi 9(?)
is evidence of mighty Jupiter's warping of space, but the Sun also
participated -- in fact all of the planets did, though many to a
minute degree).
And I would think that a hypothetical alien might be able to see the
Sun from the other side of the Milky Way, if he had a sufficiently
powerful telescope. (Our Sun isn't exactly the brightest of stars
in the Universe, but that's OK; it's plenty warm enough for us. :-) )
>
> BRICK FOUR: Evidence of a mechanism used to shape the raw materials
> and bring the created object into existence.
Stars have a mechanism to shape raw materials (mostly hydrogen)
and bring the created object into existence.
It's called gravity and hydrogen fusion. :-)
One might object that this isn't a true mechanism, to be sure, but
there's no particular reason to limit mechanism to those
constructed of what we call "solid" objects, but which are in
reality mostly empty space; the density of a neutron's "star-stuff"
is far far higher than any wooden plank or steel I-beam.
> This mechanism is
> THOUGHT, and finds its source in the brains of human beings and to a
> much lesser extent in other life forms. Thought is reflected in the
> use of tools such as writing, programming, carpentry, painting,
> weaving.
>
> For humanly created items, the standard will be validated by the
> percentage of identified clear-cut cases versus ambiguous cases. If
> the number of clear-cut cases that meet the standard is at the 98-99%
> level, then it is a valid standard for measuring created items
> wherever they may be found.
And this arbitrary-looking number is valid precisely why?
>
> So far, the standard is functioning at the 98-99% level. Examples
> offered to date have been ledges, Old Faithful, logjams, bird nests, a
> native plant garden, an abstract painting, a computerized image of an
> abstract object, and a natural formation balancing on small rocks that
> could look manmade but could also be naturally formed.. That is eight
> ambiguous cases. For each one of those examples, I can give you 100
> or more that are clear-cut.
>
> Examples: cars, houses, television sets, refrigerators, books,
> computers, computer programs (and I've already passed the 800 mark
> because there are replicas of each of these examples in the millions.
> And the standard works for all of these clear-cut cases.)
>
> in the seven ambiguous cases offered so far:
Uh...I think you dropped one. :-)
>
> ledges might serve as a stopping place for rocks, but they do not
> restart the rock's falls, so discard that example.
>
> Old Faithful is a single instance and meets only the first standard.
> It needs to meet the entire cluster of the standard in order to be
> identified as humanly created.
>
> Logjams are not numerous, even if considered ambiguous by some.
Neither is the Mona Lisa. :-) Of course duplicates of the Mona Lisa
are many, and generic examples of the genre are plentiful.
>
> There are only a few birds nests that have been imitated by some human
> in an effort to make the human attempt apear to be natural.
>
> Native plant gardens are ambiguous only if lacking in the stop/start
> juxtaposition of parts criteria and lack of evidence of a plan, or
> absence of the creator to claim credit for the garden. But the
> standard's criteria can indeed show a native plant garden to created
> -- borders, weeding, hoeing, fertilizing, juxtaposition of
> civilization to garden, layout of house and lot, neighborhood, etc.
>
> paintings are not ambiguous, even though offered as such. As long as
> a painting is on a canvas, it meets the standards of stop/start
> commands, juxtaposition of parts, a plan, manipulation of raw
> materials, and evidence of thought that put the oils on the canvas,
> framed it, and applied a signature to one corner.
I would think more along the lines of primitive cave
paintings, myself. :-)
>
> the computer image carries all the hallmarks of a created item, so it
> does not qualify as ambiguous.
>
> the natural formation of a large rock resting upon smaller ones is
> ambiguous as to its origins, but that is only one specimen.
>
> therefore, so far, the supposedly ambiguous cases have dwindled to
> four, and the clear-cut cases are in the millions. Therefore, saying
> that the standard is 98-99% accurate is an understatement.
>
> I have one more brick to go, and then the next step would be to use
> this measuring device to identify other unknown objects. And before
> there is a rush to present a few more ambiguous examples, I'll make it
> clear that the standard is to be used to identify only the most
> clear-cut cases of creation, wherever those objects are found. If the
> standard identifies even one clear-cut case of creation in the natural
> world, this will be evidence of a human-LIKE Mind in operation in the
> natural world.
Regardless of how many bricks you can stack up, there is a fundamental
problem in a God ruling over the Universe -- and that is information
transmission. Briefly put, no information can travel faster than the
speed of light in a vacuum, in a vacuum. At least, that's the current
hypothesis. (There have been a number of rather interesting experiments
that suggest that under certain conditions parts of a wavefront can
travel faster than light, and that light itself can be slowed down to
a near-stop -- however, both require quite a bit of extra matter.)
You can of course hypothesize a God ruling over the Earth (or *being*
the Earth); that only requires a delay of 2*6837/300,000 = 45.6
milliseconds. Whether this particular deity has intelligence is
not clear, of course.
>
> we will deal with the less clear-cut cases later.
>
> ----
> zoe
>
--
#191, ewi...@earthlink.net
It's still legal to go .sigless.
Mike Dunford
news:129d3f9f.02072...@posting.google.com:
> muz...@aol.com (zoe_althrop) wrote in message
> news:<3d44a96b....@news-server.cfl.rr.com>...
[snip]
>> For humanly created items, the standard will be validated by
>> the percentage of identified clear-cut cases versus ambiguous
>> cases. If the number of clear-cut cases
>
> Define 'clear-cut cases' and how you identify them as such.
She actually provided this definition in another thread. "Clear-cut"
cases were defined, essentially, as those instances where the
standard gets it right:
"those cases that are unambiguous as to origin and
that are clearly identified by the standard to be
of human origin, such as computers, computer
programs, televisions, cars, houses, stoves...."
(Message-ID: <3d42b7d2...@news-server.cfl.rr.com>)
If the standard works, according to Zoe, then that is a "clear-cut"
case, and if the standard doesn't work, that's "ambiguous". And since
the standard works so well on the "clear-cut" cases, she claims, we
shouldn't be so hard on her just because there are some "ambiguous"
cases.
>> that meet the standard is at the 98-99% level,
I tried to point out to her that given her definition of "clear-cut",
it is impossible for the anything less than 100% of the "clear-cut"
cases to meet her standard, but I got a bit worked-up over the
complete stupidity of that particular mistake, and Zoe used that as
an excuse to ignore what I was saying, along with the rest of my
post.
[snip]
--Mike Dunford
--
Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of
Congress. But I repeat myself.
--Mark Twain
Dana Tweedy
snippage
> the natural formation of a large rock resting upon smaller ones is
> ambiguous as to its origins, but that is only one specimen.
Wrong Zoe. I only gave one example, but such "dolmens", or glacial erratics
are not uncommon in glaciated areas of the world. If natural forces can
create objects that humans also are known to create, how can you tell the
difference?
Other similiar examples would be: the "Bimini Road", a rock formation off
the coast of Bimini, that some people claim is evidence of an ancient
civilization.
Rock Cities, where rocks are found in different arrangements.:
Natural arches, and formations like those in Arches National Park in Utah.
Boulder fields. Areas where boulders are found together in a flat even
plain.
None of these formations are particulary rare, and all carry the "hallmarks"
of intelligent design, yet all are arguably the result of undirected natural
forces.
Congratulations Zoe, you have created a standard for identifying objects as
being the result of human design, as long as you already KNOW they were
designed by humans. Moreover you admit this standard is less than 100%
effective. Is this supposed to be "progress"?
DJT
Chris Thompson
news:01HW.B96AB1400...@enews.newsguy.com...
</meta-pedant point>
From Merriam-Webster online:
Decimate: 1 : to select by lot and kill every tenth man of
2 : to exact a tax of 10 percent from <poor as a decimated Cavalier -- John
Dryden>
3 a : to reduce drastically especially in number <cholera decimated the
population> b : to destroy a large part of <firebombs decimated large
sections of the city>
</meta-pedant point>
When a legion was dishonored (cowardice was the main reason) it would
sometimes be decimated. With technological advances (or inflation, not sure
which) we have gone far beyond one in ten.
Chris
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring
Von Smith
> identifying characteristics are not found TOGETHER in an alleged
> humanly created object, then that object was not created by a human,
> but belongs to the natural world.
>
> Brick one: Evidence of arbitrary decision-making, indicative of
> conscious mental choices over and above instinctual behavior; i.e.,
> stop/start sequences, juxtaposition of parts that normally would not
> be found together if left on their own.
>
any intelligent agency; otherwise there can be no meaningful contrast.
> Brick two: Evidence of a plan or blueprint, indicative of deliberate,
> purposeful goals.
>
I'm not sure what a "plan or blueprint" means, but to take Zoe at her
word, we shouldn't infer deliberate, purposeful goals unless we find
such things. So it must be that written-out cadenzas in piano
concertos are intelligently created, whereas improvised ones, which
have no "plan or blueprint", are not.
> Brick three: Evidence of new behavior of raw materials in contrast to
> their normal behavior when not found in a setting of stop/start
> commands and juxtaposition of parts not normally found together.
>
I finally get it! I understand now why Zoe thinks everything is
created! Because she sees everything behaving differently from its
normal behavior in nature!
For example: She observes an ozone layer that contains no nitrogen,
and whose equilibrium concentrations are unaffected by things such as
the Chapman formula. This is completely different from how
atmospheric ozone normally behaves in nature, so the ozone layer must
be intelligently created.
She observes that the gravitational field of massive bodies is
substantially affected by their spin; since this is not how gravity
normally behaves in nature, gravity must be intelligently created.
She observes that the relevant values we measure and calculate for
isochron dating are crucially affected by differing amounts of "old"
D/Di; since this is not how these values normally behave in nature, it
follows that they, too, must be intelligently created.
So the universe that Zoe sees when she looks around her IS the
creation of the mind of an intelligent being: Zoe Althrop!
> BRICK FOUR: Evidence of a mechanism used to shape the raw materials
> and bring the created object into existence. This mechanism is
> THOUGHT, and finds its source in the brains of human beings and to a
> much lesser extent in other life forms. Thought is reflected in the
> use of tools such as writing, programming, carpentry, painting,
> weaving.
>
So it is not enough to observe the inherent traits of the object
itself. We must actually detect the "thought" that created it. So we
use that psychic activity gizmo from "Ghostbusters" on any suspected
artifact; if it doesn't whirr and light up, the thing in question
wasn't intelligently created.
Either that, or we must observe evidence of one of the activities she
mentions.
> For humanly created items, the standard will be validated by the
> percentage of identified clear-cut cases versus ambiguous cases. If
> the number of clear-cut cases that meet the standard is at the 98-99%
> level, then it is a valid standard for measuring created items
> wherever they may be found.
>
Why exclude the "ambiguous cases"? I thought the whole point of your
theory was to be able to detect design in cases where we weren't sure.
A theory that only predicts what we already know isn't very useful.
Besides, it is clear that you use "ambiguous cases" to mean "cases my
theory gets wrong". Hmmmm, so if we exclude all the cases your theory
gets wrong, your theory is 98-99% accurate. Hmmmm....
> So far, the standard is functioning at the 98-99% level. Examples
> offered to date have been ledges, Old Faithful, logjams, bird nests, a
> native plant garden, an abstract painting, a computerized image of an
> abstract object, and a natural formation balancing on small rocks that
> could look manmade but could also be naturally formed.. That is eight
> ambiguous cases.
Nine. You forgot fairy rings. And those recorded silences by John
Cage. OK, ten. No, wait! Eoliths. That's eleven. Err, integrated
circuits designed by genetic algorithms? Oh, well...
For each one of those examples, I can give you 100
> or more that are clear-cut.
>
So what? If only you get to pick all the examples, and do so
non-randomly, that isn't much of a test, is it?
> Examples: cars, houses, television sets, refrigerators, books,
> computers, computer programs (and I've already passed the 800 mark
> because there are replicas of each of these examples in the millions.
> And the standard works for all of these clear-cut cases.)
>
> in the seven ambiguous cases offered so far:
>
> ledges might serve as a stopping place for rocks, but they do not
> restart the rock's falls, so discard that example.
>
> Old Faithful is a single instance and meets only the first standard.
> It needs to meet the entire cluster of the standard in order to be
> identified as humanly created.
>
> Logjams are not numerous, even if considered ambiguous by some.
>
So what? How does their being numerous or not bear upon the question
of whether or not your theory works on them?
> There are only a few birds nests that have been imitated by some human
> in an effort to make the human attempt apear to be natural.
>
Same question. How is this relevant?
> Native plant gardens are ambiguous only if lacking in the stop/start
> juxtaposition of parts criteria and lack of evidence of a plan, or
> absence of the creator to claim credit for the garden.
No: according to your theory, such gardens are not "ambiguous"; they
are clearly and incorrectly identified as *not* intelligently
designed. As you just wrote above:
> It needs to meet the entire cluster of the standard in order to be
> identified as humanly created.
So by your own criteria, a garden that "only fails" one or two of your
criteria is not intelligently created.
I believe Mike Dunford has discussed this at length.
But the
> standard's criteria can indeed show a native plant garden to created
> -- borders, weeding, hoeing, fertilizing, juxtaposition of
> civilization to garden, layout of house and lot, neighborhood, etc.
>
How can you infer a native garden because it is tended? People tend
natural wilderness, too. Think of national parks and -forests.
> paintings are not ambiguous, even though offered as such. As long as
> a painting is on a canvas, it meets the standards of stop/start
> commands, juxtaposition of parts, a plan, manipulation of raw
> materials, and evidence of thought that put the oils on the canvas,
> framed it, and applied a signature to one corner.
>
Haven't been to many modern art exhibits lately, have you? I've seen
a rock placed in a random spot and called art. Is it? How can you
tell?
> the computer image carries all the hallmarks of a created item, so it
> does not qualify as ambiguous.
>
> the natural formation of a large rock resting upon smaller ones is
> ambiguous as to its origins, but that is only one specimen.
>
> therefore, so far, the supposedly ambiguous cases have dwindled to
> four, and the clear-cut cases are in the millions. Therefore, saying
> that the standard is 98-99% accurate is an understatement.
>
> I have one more brick to go, and then the next step would be to use
> this measuring device to identify other unknown objects. And before
> there is a rush to present a few more ambiguous examples, I'll make it
> clear that the standard is to be used to identify only the most
> clear-cut cases of creation, wherever those objects are found. If the
> standard identifies even one clear-cut case of creation in the natural
> world, this will be evidence of a human-LIKE Mind in operation in the
> natural world.
>
We already know that there are human-like minds in operation in the
natural world. All of our artifacts are in the natural world.
> we will deal with the less clear-cut cases later.
>
Why wait? It is precisely those less clear-cut cases we are
interested in.
Von Smith
Fortuna nimis dat multis, satis nulli.
> ----
> zoe
Ronald Okimoto
zoe_althrop wrote:
> Aha...the standard is becoming more airtight. If any of these four
> identifying characteristics are not found TOGETHER in an alleged
> humanly created object, then that object was not created by a human,
> but belongs to the natural world.
>
> Brick one: Evidence of arbitrary decision-making, indicative of
> conscious mental choices over and above instinctual behavior; i.e.,
> stop/start sequences, juxtaposition of parts that normally would not
> be found together if left on their own.
Since you can't keep adding brick indefinitely (at least I hope so) at
the end of all of this nonsense you will have just demonstrated that you
are a few brick short of a full load. Do you have any evidence to the
contrary?
Ron Okimoto
Martin Crisp
(in message <3d44a96b....@news-server.cfl.rr.com>):
> Aha...the standard is becoming more airtight. If any of these four
> identifying characteristics are not found TOGETHER in an alleged
> humanly created object, then that object was not created by a human,
> but belongs to the natural world.
>
> Brick one: Evidence of arbitrary decision-making, indicative of
> conscious mental choices over and above instinctual behavior; i.e.,
> stop/start sequences, juxtaposition of parts that normally would not
> be found together if left on their own.
>
> Brick two: Evidence of a plan or blueprint, indicative of deliberate,
> purposeful goals.
>
> Brick three: Evidence of new behavior of raw materials in contrast to
> their normal behavior when not found in a setting of stop/start
> commands and juxtaposition of parts not normally found together.
>
> BRICK FOUR: Evidence of a mechanism used to shape the raw materials
> and bring the created object into existence. This mechanism is
> THOUGHT, and finds its source in the brains of human beings and to a
> much lesser extent in other life forms. Thought is reflected in the
> use of tools such as writing, programming, carpentry, painting,
> weaving.
>
> For humanly created items, the standard will be validated by the
> percentage of identified clear-cut cases versus ambiguous cases. If
> the number of clear-cut cases that meet the standard is at the 98-99%
> level, then it is a valid standard for measuring created items
> wherever they may be found.
But if thery're 'clear cut' then there is no use for your 'tool';
it's only of use if it can resolve ambiguous cases.
> So far, the standard is functioning at the 98-99% level. Examples
You assert, and then handwave at the examples. How about spending
some time talking about how particular features of each do or don't
meet the criteria?
> offered to date have been ledges, Old Faithful, logjams, bird nests, a
> native plant garden, an abstract painting, a computerized image of an
> abstract object, and a natural formation balancing on small rocks that
> could look manmade but could also be naturally formed.. That is eight
> ambiguous cases. For each one of those examples, I can give you 100
> or more that are clear-cut.
And for each of those hundred I can produce an ambiguous image.
> Examples: cars, houses, television sets, refrigerators, books,
> computers, computer programs (and I've already passed the 800 mark
> because there are replicas of each of these examples in the millions.
> And the standard works for all of these clear-cut cases.)
>
> in the seven ambiguous cases offered so far:
>
> ledges might serve as a stopping place for rocks, but they do not
> restart the rock's falls, so discard that example.
>
> Old Faithful is a single instance and meets only the first standard.
> It needs to meet the entire cluster of the standard in order to be
> identified as humanly created.
>
> Logjams are not numerous, even if considered ambiguous by some.
Humans are not numerous either, so we should ignore them too. [only
a few billion of us, better to concentrate on a truly numerous
species.]
> There are only a few birds nests that have been imitated by some human
> in an effort to make the human attempt apear to be natural.
So?
> Native plant gardens are ambiguous only if lacking in the stop/start
> juxtaposition of parts criteria and lack of evidence of a plan, or
> absence of the creator to claim credit for the garden. But the
> standard's criteria can indeed show a native plant garden to created
> -- borders, weeding, hoeing, fertilizing, juxtaposition of
> civilization to garden, layout of house and lot, neighborhood, etc.
>
> paintings are not ambiguous, even though offered as such. As long as
> a painting is on a canvas, it meets the standards of stop/start
> commands, juxtaposition of parts, a plan, manipulation of raw
> materials, and evidence of thought that put the oils on the canvas,
> framed it, and applied a signature to one corner.
Does the artist normally do all these things? How could you tell
whether the signature (if present) was by the artist, and not the
artist's mentor? How would you determine a Jackson Pollock was
'created'?
> the computer image carries all the hallmarks of a created item, so it
> does not qualify as ambiguous.
Does it? How so? What elements of it speak of 'creation'? If it
were the object depicted and not the depiction itself you were
assessing, how would you determine 'creation'? Would the same work
for these two variants:
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~martincrisp/lumpostuff.jpg
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~martincrisp/lumporbump.jpg
Also I gave a second example, one which you might call 'second
order creation': computer code generated through evolutionary
processes. How, looking at the end result, would you resolve
whether the end result was 'created' or not? The 'source' for the
end result is just a sequence of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts.
Please, distinguish between 'created' and 'designed'. As noted
previously the above are 'created' (though how you determine this
without being told it is another matter), would you say they are
'designed'?
> the natural formation of a large rock resting upon smaller ones is
> ambiguous as to its origins, but that is only one specimen.
>
> therefore, so far, the supposedly ambiguous cases have dwindled to
> four, and the clear-cut cases are in the millions. Therefore, saying
> that the standard is 98-99% accurate is an understatement.
>
> I have one more brick to go, and then the next step would be to use
> this measuring device to identify other unknown objects. And before
> there is a rush to present a few more ambiguous examples, I'll make it
> clear that the standard is to be used to identify only the most
> clear-cut cases of creation, wherever those objects are found. If the
Then it is of little or no use. We're already pretty good at
determining whether things are 'created' or not for 'clear-cut'
cases.
> standard identifies even one clear-cut case of creation in the natural
> world, this will be evidence of a human-LIKE Mind in operation in the
> natural world.
Why would you assume that, if created, the world would be created
by a human-like mind?
> we will deal with the less clear-cut cases later.
We?
have Fun
Martin
--
aa #(2^8)*(2^3-2^0)
[...]Et sepultus resurrexit; certum est, quia impossibile.
-- Tertullian
Almost always SMASHed
PGP Key (ID 0xED55A6D0) Fingerprint:
A7C7 F865 B317 ABBB B10E D8AC F4AD 347D ED55 A6D0
John Wilkins
You can't decimate something that cannot be divided into ten parts...
--
John Wilkins
Sweet Analytics, 'tis thou hast ravished me [Marlowe's Faust]
Dunno
When the fifth brick is thrown, each of the five bricks will be broken
in two pieces each.
.
John Wilkins
But that is no longer decimating the four brick pyramid... You need it
to break it into 4/10ths of a brick...
Dunno
Brick five shall be thrown at the four brick pyramid, breaking
each of them in half, octimating them.
.
Bill Felton
> identifying characteristics are not found TOGETHER in an alleged
> humanly created object, then that object was not created by a human,
> but belongs to the natural world.
Um., Zoe, what the heck is all this?
I thought you were taking a 'time out' to deal with all the issues
raised against your so-called bricks 1 thru 3?
Yet here you are, having completely ignored the substantive criticisms
raised against "bricks" 1 thru 3 *and* the issues raised in the 'time
out' thread, presenting yet another unbaked heap of sand.
What's up with this?
Are you seriously engaged in dialog, or is this just a long extended
monolog, with commentary from the galleries tolerated as an
inevitable side-effect of posting to usenet?
So far, you are 4 bricks short of a load...
Bill
Jon Fleming
<bfe...@twmi.rr.com> wrote:
<snip>
> is this just a long extended
>monolog, with commentary from the galleries tolerated as an
>inevitable side-effect of posting to usenet?
You got it. Zoe has an adamantine mind.
Andrew Arensburger
> The question isn't whether you may miss some cases like that
> native-plants garden, but whether you'll get lots of "false positives".
> If you'd tend to erroneously decide that a perfectly cubical salt
> crystal or a complex, powerful tornado must have been designed and
> created to be the way they are, it would seem to make your set of
> created-things-identification criteria unreliable.
I hadn't thought of this, but you have a good point.
One of the standard "paradoxes" in statistics is: one person
in a thousand suffers from Degenerosis. You have a test that gives the
correct result 99% of the time, and the wrong result 1% of the time.
Your doctor administers this test, and the results come out positive.
Should you be worried?
If my arithmetic is correct, the odds are 99.9% that you were
misdiagnosed.
The same thing applies here: depending on the proportion of
created things in the universe, the fact that Zoe's standard is 99%
effective could be pretty meaningless, since the fact that an object
passes her test doesn't mean that it was created.
--
Andrew Arensburger, Systems guy University of Maryland
arensb.no-...@glue.umd.edu Office of Information Technology
I hate it when people speak for God. And you know what? So does he.
Andrew Arensburger
> When the fifth brick is thrown, each of the five bricks will be broken
> in two pieces each.
Surely the fifth brick would be divided into zero pieces?
--
Andrew Arensburger, Systems guy University of Maryland
arensb.no-...@glue.umd.edu Office of Information Technology
May your SO always know when you need a hug.
Wayne Bagguley
> snow...@snowbird.freeserve.co.uk (Wayne Bagguley) wrote in
> news:129d3f9f.02072...@posting.google.com:
>
> > muz...@aol.com (zoe_althrop) wrote in message
> > news:<3d44a96b....@news-server.cfl.rr.com>...
> [snip]
> >> For humanly created items, the standard will be validated by
> >> the percentage of identified clear-cut cases versus ambiguous
> >> cases. If the number of clear-cut cases
> >
> > Define 'clear-cut cases' and how you identify them as such.
>
> She actually provided this definition in another thread.
Ah, I missed that. I will have to root it out and reply! :)
> "Clear-cut"
> cases were defined, essentially, as those instances where the
> standard gets it right:
> "those cases that are unambiguous as to origin and
> that are clearly identified by the standard to be
> of human origin, such as computers, computer
> programs, televisions, cars, houses, stoves...."
> (Message-ID: <3d42b7d2...@news-server.cfl.rr.com>)
>
> If the standard works, according to Zoe, then that is a "clear-cut"
> case, and if the standard doesn't work, that's "ambiguous". And since
> the standard works so well on the "clear-cut" cases, she claims, we
> shouldn't be so hard on her just because there are some "ambiguous"
> cases.
>
> >> that meet the standard is at the 98-99% level,
>
> I tried to point out to her that given her definition of "clear-cut",
> it is impossible for the anything less than 100% of the "clear-cut"
> cases to meet her standard, but I got a bit worked-up over the
> complete stupidity of that particular mistake, and Zoe used that as
> an excuse to ignore what I was saying, along with the rest of my
> post.
Funnily enough, I was trying to force Zoe to use that particular
definition. Somehow, I just *knew* she would define 'clear-cut' in
that circular way. We all know, of course, that Zoe (or is her
real name 'Rose'? - http://www.dubose-design.com/chris/chris_win1.html
go to page 6 of the guestbook) is a troll who is not interested in
listening to reason or logic.
-
Wayne
Bjoern Feuerbacher
>
[snip]
> Funnily enough, I was trying to force Zoe to use that particular
> definition. Somehow, I just *knew* she would define 'clear-cut' in
> that circular way. We all know, of course, that Zoe (or is her
> real name 'Rose'? - http://www.dubose-design.com/chris/chris_win1.html
> go to page 6 of the guestbook)
Yes, that's her. I had an mail exchange with her in march, and she did
sign her mails with "Rose", too.
> is a troll who is not interested in
> listening to reason or logic.
I wouldn't classify her as a troll...
Greetings,
Bjoern
Ian H Spedding
muz...@aol.com says...
> Aha...the standard is becoming more airtight. If any of these four
> identifying characteristics are not found TOGETHER in an alleged
> humanly created object, then that object was not created by a human,
> but belongs to the natural world.
So that we are all quite clear about this, you are claiming that,
at this stage, the 'four bricks' criteria will enable us to
identify human artefacts - that is, objects designed and created
by human beings - with a high degree of probability, although not
with certainty. Anything not so identified will be assigned to a
category of natural objects, by which you mean anything not
created by humans.
However, since the standard will not be one hundred per cent
reliable, the boundary between the two sets of objects isn't
clearly-defined. Rather, it is marked by a swathe of objects
whose status is ambiguous, a sort of no-man's-land where objects
of unknown 'parentage' are found. This means that, in fact, your
standard leads to the division of objects into three categories:
created by humans, undetermined and not created by humans.
The next question is: how do you propose that we test your
standard to see if it can achieve the degree of accuracy that you
hope it will?
> Brick one: Evidence of arbitrary decision-making, indicative of
> conscious mental choices over and above instinctual behavior; i.e.,
> stop/start sequences, juxtaposition of parts that normally would not
> be found together if left on their own.
So far, so good, with the caveat that "Evidence of arbitrary
decision-making ... " is open to interpretation as it stands.
> Brick two: Evidence of a plan or blueprint, indicative of deliberate,
> purposeful goals.
I would say that this is redundant. If, by brick one,
"[e]vidence of arbitrary decision- making" is found then that
implies the presence of a plan or blueprint, at least, in the
mind of the creator if not on paper.
> Brick three: Evidence of new behavior of raw materials in contrast to
> their normal behavior when not found in a setting of stop/start
> commands and juxtaposition of parts not normally found together.
I'm not clear about what you mean by "new behavior of raw
materials". If we take the example of the watch found on the
heath in William Paley's famous allegory, although the materials
of which it is made do not normally occur in those _forms_ in
Nature, their behaviour is not inconsistent with their chemical
and physical properties.
For example, if sand is heated to a sufficiently high temperature
it will melt and then solidify as glass when it cools. That is
its normal "behaviour". What it doesn't do naturally is form
thin transparent discs which fit accurately over the dials of
watches.
> BRICK FOUR: Evidence of a mechanism used to shape the raw materials
> and bring the created object into existence. This mechanism is
> THOUGHT, and finds its source in the brains of human beings and to a
> much lesser extent in other life forms. Thought is reflected in the
> use of tools such as writing, programming, carpentry, painting,
> weaving.
Again, I question the need for this brick. "Evidence of
arbitrary decision-making ... ", as mentioned in brick one,
implies a creator who has thought out the design and creation of
the object in question.
[...]
> If the
> standard identifies even one clear-cut case of creation in the natural
> world, this will be evidence of a human-LIKE Mind in operation in the
> natural world.
We need to be cautious here. Previously, you have been referring
to "humanly created objects" but now you are talking about
evidence of a "human-LIKE Mind", which is not necessarily the
same thing.
Strictly speaking, your standard will only identify objects which
are probably the product of human intelligence, since they are
the only objects we have from which to derive the criteria used
in your standard. It may be that these attributes are common to
the products of all intelligence, whether human or not, but we
have no way of knowing that nor does it follow logically. Any
claim along those lines would be a statement of belief.
Ian
--
Ian H Spedding
Von Smith
If she adds too many "bricks" to her edifice, God will confuse her
language and she'll start talking nonsense. At which point she will
no doubt proceed to add more "bricks". :-)
Derek Stevenson
news:8d74ec45.02080...@posting.google.com...
> > Since you can't keep adding brick indefinitely (at least I hope so) at
> > the end of all of this nonsense you will have just demonstrated that
you
> > are a few brick short of a full load. Do you have any evidence to the
> > contrary?
>
> If she adds too many "bricks" to her edifice, God will confuse her
> language and she'll start talking nonsense. At which point she will
> no doubt proceed to add more "bricks". :-)
"There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
-- Douglas Adams