In recent days, objector ES has been twisting the concept of Wickensian functionally specific information-bearing complex organisation into post-modernist deconstructionist subjectivist pretzels, in order to obfuscate the plain inductive argument at the heart of the design inference and/or explanatory filter.
For example, consider these excerpts from the merry go round thread:
ES, 41: . . . If a conscious observer connects some observed object to some possible desired result which can be obtained using the object in a context, then we say that the conscious observer conceives of a function for that object . . . . In science, properties of the material just are, without purpose, because everybody knows purpose is subjective. Functionality comes in when you get engineerial, and then it’s more up to the “objective functionality” of the engineer than of the material . . .
KF, 42: When one puts together a complex composite such as a program or an electronic amplifier ckt or a watch or an auto engine or many other things, function is not projected to it by an observer. I wuk, or i nuh wuk, mon. Was that a bad starter motor, a run down battery, out of gas, dirty injector points and more. Was that a bug in syntax or in semantics. Was that a BJT miswired and fried, did you put in the wrong size load resistor so it sits in saturation when it was meant to be in the middle of the load line, did you put in an electrolytic cap the wrong way around, etc. Is this a heart attack triggered by a blood clot etc. Function is not a matter of imagination but observation. And you full well know that or should.
Joe, 44: Earth to E. Seigner- functionality, ie a function, is an OBSERVATION. We observe something performing some function and we investigate to try to figure out how it came to be the way it is. Within living organisms we observe functioning systems and subsystems. As for “information”, well with respect to biology ID uses the same definition that Crick provided decades ago. And we say it can be measured the same way Shannon said, decades ago.
ES, 46: To an observer it looks like cars take people to work and shopping. But most of the time cars stand in garage motionless, and sometimes they fail to start. If the observer is truly impartial, then it’s not up to him to say that the failure to start or mere standing is any less of the car’s function than the ability of being driven. The car’s function is what the car does and when the car fails to start then that’s what it does and this is its function. Of course this sounds silly, but it’s true . . .
BA, 48: It is clear to me now. You have drunk deeply from the post-modernist/constructivist Koolaid. Kairosfocus and gpuccio be advised — attempting to reason with such as E.Seigner is pointless.
Let’s first remind ourselves as to what the glorified common-sense design inference process actually does as an exercise in inductive, inference to the best current explanation on empirically observed evidence:
. . . and also, of the significance of Wickensian functionally specific, complex information and Orgellian informational specified complexity for a blind, needle in haystack search; as highlighted by Dembski et al:
While we are at it, let us remind ourselves of what FSCO/I looks like in the form of functionally specific organisation in the technological world:
Fig 6: An exploded view of a classic ABU Cardinal, showing how functionality arises from a highly specific, tightly constrained complex arrangement of matched parts according to a “wiring diagram.” Such diagrams are objective (the FSCO/I on display here is certainly not “question-begging,” as some — astonishingly — are trying to suggest!), and if one is to build or fix such a reel successfully, s/he had better pay close heed.. Taking one of these apart and shaking it in a shoe-box is guaranteed not to work to get the reel back together again. (That is, even the assembly of such a complex entity is functionally specific and prescriptive information-rich.)
. . . and, in the life of the cell, as the Ribosome constructs a protein (which is a functionally specific string structure) based on the coded algorithmic information in the mRNA tape:
Step by step protein synthesis in action, in the ribosome, based on the sequence of codes in the mRNA control tape (Courtesy, Wikipedia and LadyofHats)
. . . not to mention, the parallel in the punched paper tape reader used for older computers and NC machines:
Punched paper Tape, as used in older computers and numerically controlled machine tools (Courtesy Wiki & Siemens)
(When things have been strawmannised and twisted into pretzels, it helps to straighten them back out again. Where also, a picture is worth a thousand words.)
However, Mr Arrington has a point.
While those caught up in po mo deconstructionist schemes are hardly likely to have a sudden change of heart on the strength of a mere blog comment or even a headlined post, the rest of us can draw lessons from what we see laid out before us. I therefore crave the indulgence of a promoted comment to headlined status, including a snippet of intensely personal history of my homeland. For, comments get buried and forgotten within hours, but a headlined post is for the record:
It may be entertaining to play semantics games with terms like function, but that simply reveals that your problem is not with science, it is with common sense reality tracing to some of the sillier bits of post-modernist radical subjectivism and deconstructionism.
Perhaps, it has not dawned on you that survival of the fittest or hill-climbing algorithms or natural selection or the like pivot on the objectivity of function. Have you gone to Panda’s Thumb, TSZ, ATBC or the like Darwinist agitator sites to challenge the core concepts of evolution based on differential reproductive success pivoting on functional differences of life-forms? I safely bet not, you are reserving such talking-points for those you object to, regardless of inconsistencies or outright incoherence.
[Ill-]Logic with a swivel.
Patently, revealingly, sadly, you have indulged in incoherent selective hyperskepticism.
And if you genuinely imagine that a stalled car with a dead engine, or a leaky roof, or a crashed computer, or a PA system that distorts sounds horribly are functionally distinct as a mere matter of subjective opinion, your problem is a breach of common sense.
Do you — or a significant other — have a mechanic? Are you a shade-tree mechanic? Do you have even one tool for maintenance? Do you recognise the difference between sugar, salt and arsenic in your cup of coffee? Between an effective prescription correctly filled and faithfully carried out when you get sick and a breakdown of that process? Etc?
I put it to you that you cannot and do not live consistent with your Lit class seminar-room talking points.
And, your evasive resort to clinging to such absurdities to obfuscate the issue of functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information, speaks loudest volumes for the astute onlooker.
Own-goal, E-S.
The bottom-line of the behaviour of several objectors over the past few days, speaks inadvertent volumes on the real balance on the merits of the core design theory contention that there are such things as reliable empirical markers — such as Wickensian FSCO/I — that are strong signs of design as key causal process.
But, many are so wedded to the totalising metanarrative of a priori Lewontinian evolutionary materialism that they refuse to heed the 2350 year old warning posed by Plato on where cynical radical relativism, amorality opening the door to might makes right nihilism and ruthless factions points to for a civilisation. Refusing to learn the hard-bought, paid for in blood lessons of history, they threaten to mislead our civilisation into yet another predictably futile and bloody march of folly. As the ghosts of 100 million victims of such demonically wicked deceptions over the past century warn us.
The folly on the march in our day is so arrogantly stubborn that it refuses to learn living memory history or the history passed on first hand to our grand parents.
Here is Sophia (personification of Wisdom), in the voice of Solomon echoing hard-bought, civil war triggered lessons in Israel c 1,000 BC:
Prov 1:20 Wisdom [Gk, Sophia] cries aloud in the street,
in the markets she raises her voice;
21 at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
22 “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing
and fools hate knowledge?
23 If you turn at my reproof,[a]
behold, I will pour out my spirit to you;
I will make my words known to you.
24 Because I have called and you refused to listen,
have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded,
25 because you have ignored all my counsel
and would have none of my reproof,
26 I also will laugh at your calamity;
I will mock when terror strikes you,
27 when terror strikes you like a storm
and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
when distress and anguish come upon you.
28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;
they will seek me diligently but will not find me.
29 Because they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the Lord,
30 would have none of my counsel
and despised all my reproof,
31 therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way,
and have their fill of their own devices.
32 For the simple are killed by their turning away,
and the complacency of fools destroys them;
33 but whoever listens to me will dwell secure
and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.”
A grim warning, bought at the price of a spoiled, wayward son who fomented disaffection and led rebellion triggering civil war and needless death and destruction, ending in his own death and that of many others.
Behind the Proverbs lies the anguished wailing of a father who had to fight a war with his son and in the end cried out, Oh Absalom, my son . . .
History sorts out the follies of literary excesses, if we fail to heed wisdom in good time.
Often, at the expense of a painful, bloody trail of woe and wailing that leads many mothers and fathers, widows and orphans to wail the loss of good men lost to the fight in the face of rampant folly.
But then, tragic history is written into my name, as George William Gordon’s farewell to his wife written moments before his unjust execution on sentence of a kangaroo court-martial, was carried out:
My beloved Wife, General Nelson has just been kind enough to inform me that the court-martial on Saturday last has ordered me to be hung, and that the sentence is to be executed in an hour hence; so that I shall be gone from this world of sin and sorrow.
I regret that my worldly affairs are so deranged; but now it cannot be helped. I do not deserve this sentence, for I never advised or took part in any insurrection. All I ever did was to recommend the people who complained to seek redress in a legitimate way; and if in this I erred, or have been misrepresented, I do not think I deserve the extreme sentence. It is, however, the will of my Heavenly Father that I should thus suffer in obeying his command to relieve the poor and needy, and to protect, as far as I was able, the oppressed. And glory be to his name; and I thank him that I suffer in such a cause. Glory be to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; and I can say it is a great honour thus to suffer; for the servant cannot be greater than his Lord. I can now say with Paul, the aged, “The hour of my departure is at hand, and I am ready to be offered up. I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith, and henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge shall give me.” Say to all friends, an affectionate farewell; and that they must not grieve for me, for I die innocently. Assure Mr. Airy and all others of the truth of this. Comfort your heart. I certainly little expected this. You must do the best you can, and the Lord will help you; and do not be ashamed of the death your poor husband will have suffered. The judges seemed against me, and from the rigid manner of the court I could not get in all the explanation I intended . . .
Deconstruct that, clever mocking scorners of the literary seminar room.
Deconstruct it in the presence of a weeping wife and mother and children mourning the shocking loss of a father and hero to ruthless show-trial injustice ending in judicial murder.
Murder that echoes the fate of one found innocent but sent to Golgotha because of ruthless folly-tricks in Jerusalem c. 30 AD.
(How ever so many fail to see the deep lesson about folly-tricks in the heart of the Gospel, escapes me. New Atheists and fellow travellers, when you indict the Christian Faith as the fountain-head of imagined injustice, remember the One who hung between thieves on a patently unjust sentence, having been bought at the price of a slave through a betrayer blinded by greed and folly. If you do not hear a cry for just government and common decency at the heart of the Gospel you would despise, you are not worth the name, literary scholar or educated person.)
And in so doing, learn a terrible, grim lesson of where your clever word games predictably end up in the hands of the ruthless.
For, much more than science is at stake in all of this.
GEM of TKI >>
_________________
I trust that the astute onlooker will be inclined to indulge so personal a response, and will duly draw on the hard-bought lessons of history (and of my family story . . . ) as just outlined. END
PS, Sept 30: ES has been making heavy weather over the idea of a primitive tribe encountering a can opener for the first time and not understanding its function (which he then wishes to project as subjective):
A rotating cutter can opener in action
And, a modern development showing meshing serrated gears:
modern rotary action can opener with meshing gears (Both images HT Wiki)
However, this is both incorrect and irrelevant to recognising from aspects of the can opener that exhibit FSCO/I, that it is designed:
1 –> Whether or not the primitive seeing an opener for the first time can recognise its purpose and contrivance that integrates materials, forces of nature and components into a functioning whole, that functionally specific, complex organisation for a purpose exists and is embedded in how the opener is designed.
2 –> Just by looking at the evident contrivance manifested in FSCO/I that is maximally unlikely to obtain by blind chance and mechanical necessity — as with the fishing reel above, the primitive is likely to perceive design.
3 –> The rotating gears with matched teeth set to couple together alone implies highly precise artifice to build centred disks, cut matching gearing, mount them on precisely separated and aligned centred axes, with other connected parts already demonstrates design to a reasonable onlooker.
4 –> The precisely uniformly thick handles joined in a pivot, and reflecting rectangle-based shapes would be equally demonstrative.
5 –> Where, actual intended function has not been brought to bear. (And note, we see here again the implicit demand that the design inference be a universal decoder/ algorithm identifier. That is a case of setting up and knocking over a strawman, where . . . just on theory of computation, such a universal decoder/detector is utterly implausible. The point of the design inference is that on inductively confirmed reliable signs such as FSCO/I we may confidently identify design — purposefully directed contingency or contrivance — as key causal factor. It seems that any number of red herrings are led away from this point to convenient strawman caricatures that are then knocked over as though the actual point has been effectively answered on the merits. It has not.)
6 –> But of course, that functionality dependent on specific components and an arrangement otherwise vanishingly improbable, reeks of design and the function can be readily demonstrated, as the patents diagram shows.
7 –> Where, again, it must be underscored that, per my comment 49 to ES:
[the] ultra-modernist, ugly- gulch- between- the- inner- world- and- the outer- one [of] sophomorised Kantianism fails and needs to be replaced with a sounder view. As F H Bradley pointd out over a century ago, to pretend to know that the external world is un-knowable due to the nature of subjectivitiy . . . the denial of objective knowledge . . . is itself a claim to objective knowledge of the external world and a very strong one too. Which therefore is self-referentially incoherent. Instead, it is wiser to follow Josiah Royce’s point that we know that error exists, undeniably and self evidently. Thus, there are certain points of objective knowledge that are firm, that ground that objective truth, warrant and knowledge exist, and that schemes of thought that deny or denigrate such fail. Including post modernism, so called. Of course, that we know that error exists means we need to be careful and conservative in knowledge claims, but the design inference is already that, it is explicitly inductive on inference to best explanation on observed patterns and acknowledges the limitations of inductive knowledge including scientific knowledge. [A Po-Mo] selectively hyperskeptical focus on the design inference while apparently ignoring the effect of that same logic on science as a whole, on history, on common sense reality and on reason itself, simply multiplies the above by highlighting the double standard on warrant.
8 –> In short, we have here a case of clinging to an ideological absurdity in the teeth of accessible, well-warranted correction.
Comments
Box,
Interesting. A machine that was designed to serve no practical purpose. It does, however, do something, namely open and close. It is not totally without function. There is a process.
I gather that you disagree. No problem. Still, the bigger and more important question remains: Would you at least agree that the design (not function) can be detected even in the absence of context.StephenB
October 2, 2014
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>>Can you name a thing that has no design or function?
>>the pattern my coffee makes on the floor after I spill it
>>Let’s forget about floor and spilling
>>Let’s not forget about it. It was an answer to your challenge.
>>you have refuted GPuccio’s view that function implies design
:|
It would be funny if he wasn't actually serious.Upright BiPed
October 2, 2014
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StephenB #133: Further, I hold that the observer can, regardless of (or in the absence of) context, immediately apprehend the existence of some kind of function, in a can opener that is, the fact of its objective functionality. The uninitiated tribe member will know that it was designed to do something.
As to the importance of context, I have seen only plain assertions against it, no demonstration. Only some attempted examples that prove the opposite. Your #133 is a list of plain unevidenced faith claims.
It is not a statement of faith to say that a paint pattern caused by an explosion in a paint factory can easily be distinguished from the paint pattern caused by an artists rendition of the Mona Lisa. It is a fact of experience that these kinds of design inferences are made every day. No other living human being that I have ever heard of would question the point.
Any rational person would laugh his head off at your thesis, namely the idea that one group of people may "project" design on the explosion and another group may project non design on the Mona Lisa on the grounds that their cultural biases prompted them to do so. The burden of proof is on you to defend such a bizarre philosophy. It is not on me to prove what everyone except yourself already knows.
SB: I didn’t say that coffee has no function. I said, in response to your naive challenge that literally everything is designed, that the “pattern” of spilled coffee on the floor was a good example of something that was not designed.
But if coffee still has function, then surely it has design too.
Please reread the my comment above your comment since it is obvious you didn't comprehend the point.
The “naive challenge” charge is weird. Do you feel ready to argue with Aquinas about it? According to Aquinas, yes, literally everything is designed, in at least two senses: 1. All things are created. 2. All things have a structure.
So what? That doesn't change anything. Matter was designed to have an atomic structure. However, matter can be redesigned into new forms. Thus, the created matter called sand can be redesigned into a sand castle. That process leaves design clues. Also, God could have first designed matter and then redesigned it into a DNA molecule. That, too, leaves clues.
Your objection only works if you use “design” in some idiosyncratic meaning. I use it in the dictionary sense, synonymous to structure and pattern.
Design
["Design a plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of a building, garment, or other object before it is built or made."]
or again,
["purpose, planning, or intention that exists or is thought to exist behind an action, fact, or material object.
This dictionary definition fits in perfectly with both my examples. Spilled coffee or scattered paint produces no designed patterns. The issue is, are the parts arranged or not arranged.
The one thing you will not find in the dictionary is design conceived as a projection of a personal cultural bias. That wierd conception of design belongs to you exclusively.
I may easily concede that you have refuted GPuccio’s view that function implies design. I found his claims incoherent anyway. As I do yours…
No, you may not concede that I have refuted GPuccio's view, because you understand neither argument. Function does, indeed, imply design. Anywhere you find a function, you can safely conclude that it was designed. However, you could not conclude design from function if they were, as you want to argue, one and the same thing.
What are you saying? Are you saying yes or no? And yes or no to what? What is the supposed relationship between function and design? And how can you confidently without any evidence say context has no impact in determining function and design (as you do in #133), when the thread evinces specific examples to the contrary? And why such vehement disregard for the uncontested facts in other sciences and even in common-sense experience?
I didn't say that context has no impact in determining function.
I quote myself:
"Finally, I hold that the observer will not, immediately (without context) apprehend the essence of the function in a can opener. The uninitiated tribe member will not, in the absence of context, know exactly what the can opener does. In all likelihood, he will only know that it was designed to do something."
What is it about the word "not" that you don't understand?
Your problem is exactly as I described it early on. You don't read meaning "out" of the passages as the author intended. You read "into" them anything that you please. You did it three times on this one post. This fatal trait is, no doubt, related to your goofy thesis that observers read design into the artifact from the perspective of their cultural biases.StephenB
October 2, 2014
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StephenB
If that is all there was to it, I would not have been nearly so critical. Your original claim was that context is necessary to detect the presence of DESIGN. That is demonstrably false.
As we have learned in the exchange with GPuccio, function is one of the hallmarks of design. No function, no design, according to him.
As to the importance of context, I have seen only plain assertions against it, no demonstration. Only some attempted examples that prove the opposite. Your #133 is a list of plain unevidenced faith claims.
StephenB
I didn’t say that coffee has no function. I said, in response to your naive challenge that literally everything is designed, that the “pattern” of spilled coffee on the floor was a good example of something that was not designed.
But if coffee still has function, then surely it has design too.
The "naive challenge" charge is weird. Do you feel ready to argue with Aquinas about it? According to Aquinas, yes, literally everything is designed, in at least two senses: 1. All things are created. 2. All things have a structure.
Your objection only works if you use "design" in some idiosyncratic meaning. I use it in the dictionary sense, synonymous to structure and pattern.
StephenB
Let’s not forget about it. It was an answer to your challenge. Acknowledge the refutation so that we can move on.
I may easily concede that you have refuted GPuccio's view that function implies design. I found his claims incoherent anyway. As I do yours...
StephenB
Context is irrelevant to design detection. It is not necessarily irrelevant to function, though it can be. You haven’t been paying attention or else you do not bother to read what I write.
...such as here. What are you saying? Are you saying yes or no? And yes or no to what? What is the supposed relationship between function and design? And how can you confidently without any evidence say context has no impact in determining function and design (as you do in #133), when the thread evinces specific examples to the contrary? And why such vehement disregard for the uncontested facts in other sciences and even in common-sense experience?E.Seigner
October 2, 2014
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E. Seigner
You thought I said it was false? Then you have not been paying attention. I say: It’s false to say context is unnecessary to determine function.
You are the one who has not been paying attention. If that is all there was to it, I would not have been nearly so critical. Your original claim was that context is necessary to detect the presence of DESIGN. That is demonstrably false.
SB: I can think of millions of things that have no design. How about the pattern my coffee makes on the floor after I spill it?
So, coffee has no function?
Are you cuckoo? I didn't say that coffee has no function. I said, in response to your naive challenge that literally everything is designed, that the "pattern" of spilled coffee on the floor was a good example of something that was not designed. The pattern was caused by natural laws and epistemological chance--not design.
Let’s forget about floor and spilling.
Let's not forget about it. It was an answer to your challenge. Acknowledge the refutation so that we can move on.
They are context and context is irrelevant according to OP and all followup comments by you and KF. For once try to be consistent and follow your own rules.
Context is irrelevant to design detection. It is not necessarily irrelevant to function, though it can be. You haven't been paying attention or else you do not bother to read what I write.
Still, a fortune teller sees quite a meaningful pattern even there. It’s just you with totally ad hoc approch here which changes as your mood changes.
This is more of the same "projection" nonsense. For you, the mind is about manufacturing reality. For everyone else, the mind is about understanding reality.StephenB
October 2, 2014
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The existence of design and context
I hold that any observer can immediately apprehend a can opener's design in the absence of context. Thus, the subjectivist's argument against ID can be safely discounted. One does not need context to detect design. An uninitiated member from an ancient tribe will detect design even in the absence of context.
The existence of function and context
Further, I hold that the observer can, regardless of (or in the absence of) context, immediately apprehend the existence of some kind of function, in a can opener that is, the fact of its objective functionality. The uninitiated tribe member will know that it was designed to do something.
The essence of function and context
Finally, I hold that the observer will not, immediately (without context) apprehend the essence of the function in a can opener. The uninitiated tribe member will not, in the absence of context, know exactly what the can opener does. In all likelihood, he will only know that it was designed to do something.StephenB
October 2, 2014
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KF:
Thank you for the clarifications. Now, please explain why you told me (post #129) "again, you shift context". Also, I never used the 'unreached tribes in New Guinea argument', so why do you bring it up?
Lastly, I have told you ad nauseam that I'm a huge fan of the design inference, so why do you keep pounding me with arguments for design as if I state otherwise?
In post #126, I'm presenting my view on functionality with regard to an organism as a living context. Obviously, you don't have to agree or even be intersted, but a derogatory remark like "again, you shift context" is uncalled for.Box
October 2, 2014
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PS: Testimonial
Comments about Swing-A-Way® Can Opener (407WH):
I was turned on to the Swing-Away as a young adult by my older sister. Knowing her demand of quality I went out and bought one. I still own it, 22 years later and it is as dependable as ever. You will never need to own another. Form follows function, and this utensil is a work of art!
Bottom Line Yes, I would recommend this to a friendkairosfocus
October 2, 2014
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Box, pardon
Swing Away is a common "name" brand of Can Openers, and the name is inscribed on the units.
Cf Ace Hardware advert here. Notice the meshing, carefully aligned gears.
Primitive people such as unreached tribes in New Guinea, are the audience used to try to suggest that can openers do not have objective functionality but such is projected unto them.
A hypothetical, is a thought exercise situation, not one that credibly has happened and demands a response.
KFkairosfocus
October 2, 2014
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KF:
Unfortunately, as so often, I'm barely able to grasp small parts of what you mean. "Hypotheticals about primitives coming across one and whatnot" and "meshing gears in the Swing Away type" do not ring a bell nor does it seem possible to look it up in a dictionary.
May I suggest, considering your concern with the "deeply indoctrinated, confused onlooker", that you modify your writing accordingly?Box
October 2, 2014
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PS: Again, you shift context. For the can opener, we do not need to pose hypotheticals about primitives coming agcross one and whatnot. All we need to do is to focus on the meshing gears in the Swing Away type. That alone is sufficient, and the very meshing of gears in action is an easily demonstrated functionality that is replete with FSCO/I and is a strong sign of design. So BTW would be the textual info on the opener. Do not allow yourself to be pulled away from what is direct and sure to ground of a determined objector's choosing -- chosen, because he imagines he can throw up such a fog of obfuscation that he can get away with his talking points in the resulting cloud of confusion and maybe polarisation.kairosfocus
October 2, 2014
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Box, you have to remember the deeply indoctrinated, confused onlooker. One has to creep before one walks, much less runs or flies or swims. KFkairosfocus
October 2, 2014
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KF #118: Box, the effectiveness of FSCO/I as an empirically reliable sign of design does not pivot on resolving purpose and function of any one thing or all things without limits. If the modest part is good enough it is good enough.
Modesty may very well be misplaced with regard to the function of parts of an organism. I would like to argue that we can indeed identify function of the integrated parts of an organism.
The organism is an encompassing context par excellence. My eyes, arms, legs, organs are all subordinate to the whole that I am. The function of my eyes is to extend external vision to me. IOW the function is relative only to “me”. I am the exterior circle in the ripple effect of functionality. I am the complete and final context of the function of my eyes. I am a real living context.
Surely such a encompassing context is absent for a can opener. The can opener is out there – isolated. That’s why the possibility of identifying function for a can opener is doubtful.Box
October 2, 2014
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The fact is that when nobody enters the elevator and pushes the buttons the elevator will not move and the observer will remain clueless of its function.
True, if I don't take any time to understand what you're saying, then your words are meaningless. If your words are meaningless, then you have nothing to say. If you have nothing to say, you have no knowledge to communicate.
People with no knowledge are what we call "ignorant".
So, if I don't attempt to understand you, that means you are ignorant.
Again, if everything is designed, then the word design is meaningless since it cannot be distinguished from its opposite. If everything has function, then the word function is meaningless since it also cannot be distinguished from its opposite.Silver Asiatic
October 2, 2014
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StephenB
Trivial? First you say that it is false, now you say it is trivially true. Please affirm one position and negate the other.
You thought I said it was false? Then you have not been paying attention. I say: It's false to say context is unnecessary to determine function.
StephenB
I can think of millions of things that have no design. How about the pattern my coffee makes on the floor after I spill it?
So, coffee has no function?
Let's forget about floor and spilling. They are context and context is irrelevant according to OP and all followup comments by you and KF. For once try to be consistent and follow your own rules.
Still, a fortune teller sees quite a meaningful pattern even there. It's just you with totally ad hoc approch here which changes as your mood changes.E.Seigner
October 2, 2014
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SB: It doesn’t matter whether or not the observer can immediately identify the elevator’s function. What matters is that any observer at all–even in the absence of context–will immediately know that the elevator was designed and that it has a function of some kind.
E. Seigner
Which is totally trivial.
Trivial? First you say that it is false, now you say it is trivially true. Please affirm one position and negate the other.
When inclined this way, we find function and design everywhere. Can you name a thing that has no design or function? Thought so.
I can think of millions of things that have no design. How about the pattern my coffee makes on the floor after I spill it?StephenB
October 2, 2014
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SB: It doesn’t matter whether or not the observer can immediately identify the elevator’s function. What matters is that any observer at all–even in the absence of context–will immediately know that the elevator was designed and that it has a function of some kind.
Which is totally trivial.
Trivial? First you say that it is false, now you say it is trivially true. Please affirm one position and negate the other.
When inclined this way, we find function and design everywhere. Can you name a thing that has no design or function? Thought so.
I can think of millions of things that have no design. How about the pattern my coffee makes on the floor after I spill it?
Which is totally trivial. When inclined this way, we find function and design everywhere. Can you name a thing that has no design or function? Thought so.
If you want to call it *specified* information, then the specific function matters. And the specific function depends on context. Otherwise you are conjuring up a fuzzy smokescreen of pomo antics.StephenB
October 2, 2014
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StephenB
It doesn’t matter whether or not the observer can immediately identify the elevator’s function. What matters is that any observer at all–even in the absence of context–will immediately know that the elevator was designed and that it has a function of some kind.
Which is totally trivial. When inclined this way, we find function and design everywhere. Can you name a thing that has no design or function? Thought so.
If you want to call it *specified* information, then the specific function matters. And the specific function depends on context. Otherwise you are conjuring up a fuzzy smokescreen of pomo antics.E.Seigner
October 1, 2014
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E. Seigner
The fact is that when nobody enters the elevator and pushes the buttons the elevator will not move and the observer will remain clueless of its function.
It doesn't matter whether or not the observer can immediately identify the elevator's function. What matters is that any observer at all--even in the absence of context--will immediately know that the elevator was designed and that it has a function of some kind.StephenB
October 1, 2014
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Silver Asiatic
Now, however, we compare that with the elevator — what if there were “no people and things”? How could you have a working elevator if there were no people? Who would be around to observe it and determine its function?
The fact is that when nobody enters the elevator and pushes the buttons the elevator will not move and the observer will remain clueless of its function. This again emphasizes how indispensable context is to observation. The function can be identified when the approach is systemic so that the context is acknowledged, but the systemic approach is completely up to the observer, not to the object.E.Seigner
October 1, 2014
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Box, the effectiveness of FSCO/I as an empirically reliable sign of design does not pivot on resolving purpose and function of any one thing or all things without limits. If the modest part is good enough it is good enough. KFkairosfocus
October 1, 2014
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KF #113: I am saying that we do not need to focus on overall function of a whole system, if we can find in it subsystems, parts or components that we can readily spot and isolate function and specified complex organisation to achieve function of the part.
Where, motors are a blatant case.
Indeed, in many cases we can limit our focus to parts of a subsystem and postulate that the latter is the complete context. So, forget about the function for the can opener in a larger context, let’s focus instead on the function of the discs with centered holes with respect to the can opener, which is declared to be the complete context.
I’m ok with this modest approach, which is in accord with the basic point I was making – we need context in order to be able to identify function.
Stating the obvious: the function of the can opener remains unresolved by focusing on components.
Silver Asiatic #115, my basic point is that we need context (people, things, a building) in order to be able to identify the function of the elevator. Similarly, letters need words to receive their meaning/functionality. IOW functionality is a top-down thing.Box
October 1, 2014
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SA (& Box):
KINDLY, NOTICE . . .
One of the big debate tactics we have to deal with is reframing.
Moving to can openers and elevators feeds an attempt to obfuscate the meaning of function, and to allow room to wedge in talking points along the lines of it's subjective and hopelessly vague. Translated, we have loaded up on metaphysical issues so we can play the merry go round.
But, something that is specific, easily seen and outright obvious blows up that game.
A strategically pivotal example that brings out what a wider concept means, is hard to deal with if you want to duck, dodge, slip-slide and go in circles.
And, to get away from its point, you have to use a givaway tactic: the red herring distractor led away from the original topic, to a conveniently set up strawman.
If you doubt me simply scroll up to the OP and see what is actually being discussed now by contrast. How did we get here, from there? Red herrings side tracked us.
Gears and motors are very familiar objects. Computer storage media slightly less so, especially tapes, paper or magnetic. But a picture or two work wonders, being worth a thousand words.
Where also, it is hard to deny the observable functionality of a motor and how its rotor and stator interact to give function, coupled to a load by a shaft. It is no accident that a synonym for physical work in engineering contexts is, shaft work.
It is very hard to play oh, that's only an analogy so I can ignore it games when you are confronted by a motor. Especially motors that, on the usual geochronology, were around a long time before we came along to observe and think about such.
As in, the flagellum and ATP synthase. (Please, watch the videos.)
FSCO/I in action, and as something that it is very hard to play context hop scotch rhetorical games with.
In particular, try to say to a person of reasonable common sense that the functionality of such a motor is a mere subjective projection unto the external world across an unbridgeable gulch between the inner and outer worlds.
No, that's a motor. Period.
Next, a gear and gear train are like that. A tad of reflection will show that gears need to be precisely centred and have meshing teeth, with just the right spatial separation and orientation, implying tight controls on the axles and shafts they sit on.
Very soon, we are deep into FSCO/I.
And we understand gears and their function enough to see that sophomoric kantian ugly gulch rhetorical games are a non-starter.
As for data tapes, transcription, transfer, threading into read heads, and running NC machines off them, that we can follow.
Presto, protein synthesis. (Please watch the video, and yes that's simplified.)
Now, we come back.
The subjectivist po mo obfuscation of what the objective functionality of a motor, a gear a control tape or a NC machine controlled by the tape have all gone, poof.
We see relevant cell based life cases.
Where FSCO/I is present and points strongly to design.
On well grounded induction, not projected imaginary question-begging.
Despite rhetoric games.
And now we see key parts showing strong signs of design.
That shifts the context of evaluating other aspects and the whole, decisively.
which is why it is stoutly resisted to the point of reductio ad absurdum.
Let us pity those left clinging to absurdities.
They think they have no other choice.
But they are wrong.
Just, are they willing to take the hits that come with going with evidence pointing where many have no wish to go?
KFkairosfocus
October 1, 2014
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Box
Their functions are also easily identifiable without context?
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but what context is there required to understand the function of an elevator? You said:
One could compare the elevator with the can opener and “people and things” with the can.
For the can opener, you wondered what function it would have if there were no cans, and that seems ok because with no cans, there's nothing to open.
Now, however, we compare that with the elevator -- what if there were "no people and things"? How could you have a working elevator if there were no people? Who would be around to observe it and determine its function?Silver Asiatic
October 1, 2014
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Mung, we are seeing undermining of the law of identity, A is A, with its immediate corollaries, LNC and LEM. Those who do so do not understand that if you undermine first principles of right reason, you undermine rationality. Actually you show that whatever led you to try that is profoundly irrational and should be abandoned. KFkairosfocus
October 1, 2014
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Box
I think we are having a framing issue.
I am saying that we do not need to focus on overall function of a whole system, if we can find in it subsystems, parts or components that we can readily spot and isolate function and specified complex organisation to achieve function of the part.
Where, motors are a blatant case.
(And I have in mind the undeniable motors in the cell, in the flagellum obviously but also in ATP synthase which is central to life function and pervasive across the world of cell based life as ATP is the energy battery molecule.)
If a part of a whole is credibly designed, then that creates a drastic shift to the way we should look at evidence of design elsewhere in the system as a whole.
So also, with seeing a tape data storage system, transcription and editing, code and algorithm use, and a NC machine that uses same to synthesise the major workhor4se class of molecules, the proteins.
The rhetorical tactics to distract from this, speak volumes.
KFkairosfocus
October 1, 2014
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KF:
Box, an elevator has a motor-cable assembly that moves it.
Why are you telling me this?
It is easy to see the function and FSCO/I content.
By studying a motor-cable assembly - in isolation - it is easy to see the function of an elevator? Or do you mean by studying a motor-cable assembly - in isolation - we can infer the function of the motor-cable assembly? Both statements are obviously wrong.
Same, with the gear assembly on can openers and the code in DNA as well as the associated nanotech execution machines.
Their functions are also easily identifiable without context?
Focussing on such components is sufficient to ground a design inference without worrying over grand contexts.
For the fourth time: I do not deny the design inference. I'm talking about identifying function and its ontological status. Don't tell me not to worry over "grand contexts", because without them it is impossible to identify function.Box
October 1, 2014
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Mung
There must be something there, for there to be something for atoms to “enter” and “leave.”
And how can you tell something's there? By your own perception, by your own mind. So, in order for something to be there, you have to see and feel and study and make sense of it. Otherwise you would be talking about a tree falling in the forest that nobody saw.
Mung
The fact that we cannot see the atoms “entering” and “leaving” that body is hardly an argument for us imagining a body that is not really there but is rather a consequence of our “projection.”
The scientific argument I brought has been actually observed. So much for your respect for scientific observation. I count this as a serious point against you.
But the more serious point against you is this. It's common sense that aggregate things, by virtue of their being aggregates, are a sum of their parts and, if one has reductive tendencies, one would say that the parts are what are really there and the aggregate is but a sum of the parts. You are reductive another way. You take it uncritically what you see, and you assume (i.e. project) that everybody should automatically perceive the same way, no mind allowed. Now, this denunciation of the activity of the mind in perception is a hallmark of materialist philosophy which I firmly reject. It's pretty amusing to see how scriptural literalists and atheist materialists have the exact same ontology.
Mung
In fact, out failure to sense those atoms entering and leaving mitigates against your argument for he non-existence of real (mind-independent) shape, form, pattern or structure.
And again you are uncritical of your own sense-perception when you should be scientifically investigative and carefully non-reductive. As to the non-existence of real shapes etc. I never gave such an argument. You are overinterpreting even when I already warned you of this.E.Seigner
October 1, 2014
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Mung:
But it is your claim that the pattern or structure or shape of whatever it is that is out there that is being perceived is not really present in the thing being sensed?
E.Seigner:
Are you completely unfamiliar with, for example, the claim of physics that in the nanolevel we are just atoms that constantly enter and leave the “body”, atoms who have lots of space between them so that on that level we are basically transparent and the “body” is just a higher-level construct that *seems* solid due to chemical and magnetic cohesion, but “fundamentally at the basic level” is not solid? It’s not postmodernism that came up with these things. If you are unfamiliar with this, then I must doubt if people here have seriously thought through a single scientific claim. And no, this physicalist claim is not my ultimate thesis, but it’s definitely something you should be familiar with, if *you* don’t want to seem outlandish. This physicalist claim emphasizes how profoundly mind is involved in perception, and this mental involvement is a real fact to be reckoned with, not imaginary. It’s a basic fact of cognitive sciences.
I am familiar with the claim but find it a tad incoherent. Your use of scare quotes for "body" are instructive.
There must be something there, for there to be something for atoms to "enter" and "leave."
The fact that we cannot see the atoms "entering" and "leaving" that body is hardly an argument for us imagining a body that is not really there but is rather a consequence of our "projection." In fact, out failure to sense those atoms entering and leaving mitigates against your argument for he non-existence of real (mind-independent) shape, form, pattern or structure.
Projecting some structure or pattern is a necessary precondition to make any sense of anything.
On the contrary, the necessary precondition is that structure or pattern exists independently of what humans think about those structures or patterns
Do bacteria "project" some structure or pattern in order to "make sense" of things, or is "making sense" of things a purely human (mental/intellectual) activity?Mung
It may be entertaining to play semantics games with terms like function, but that simply reveals that your problem is not with science, it is with common sense reality tracing to some of the sillier bits of post-modernist radical subjectivism and deconstructionism.
Perhaps, it has not dawned on you that survival of the fittest or hill-climbing algorithms or natural selection or the like pivot on the objectivity of function. Have you gone to Panda’s Thumb, TSZ, ATBC or the like Darwinist agitator sites to challenge the core concepts of evolution based on differential reproductive success pivoting on functional differences of life-forms? I safely bet not, you are reserving such talking-points for those you object to, regardless of inconsistencies or outright incoherence.
[Ill-]Logic with a swivel.
Patently, revealingly, sadly, you have indulged in incoherent selective hyperskepticism.
And if you genuinely imagine that a stalled car with a dead engine, or a leaky roof, or a crashed computer, or a PA system that distorts sounds horribly are functionally distinct as a mere matter of subjective opinion, your problem is a breach of common sense.
Do you — or a significant other — have a mechanic? Are you a shade-tree mechanic? Do you have even one tool for maintenance? Do you recognise the difference between sugar, salt and arsenic in your cup of coffee? Between an effective prescription correctly filled and faithfully carried out when you get sick and a breakdown of that process? Etc?
I put it to you that you cannot and do not live consistent with your Lit class seminar-room talking points.
And, your evasive resort to clinging to such absurdities to obfuscate the issue of functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information, speaks loudest volumes for the astute onlooker.
Own-goal, E-S.
The bottom-line of the behaviour of several objectors over the past few days, speaks inadvertent volumes on the real balance on the merits of the core design theory contention that there are such things as reliable empirical markers — such as Wickensian FSCO/I — that are strong signs of design as key causal process.
But, many are so wedded to the totalising metanarrative of a priori Lewontinian evolutionary materialism that they refuse to heed the 2350 year old warning posed by Plato on where cynical radical relativism, amorality opening the door to might makes right nihilism and ruthless factions points to for a civilisation. Refusing to learn the hard-bought, paid for in blood lessons of history, they threaten to mislead our civilisation into yet another predictably futile and bloody march of folly. As the ghosts of 100 million victims of such demonically wicked deceptions over the past century warn us.
The folly on the march in our day is so arrogantly stubborn that it refuses to learn living memory history or the history passed on first hand to our grand parents.
Here is Sophia (personification of Wisdom), in the voice of Solomon echoing hard-bought, civil war triggered lessons in Israel c 1,000 BC:
A grim warning, bought at the price of a spoiled, wayward son who fomented disaffection and led rebellion triggering civil war and needless death and destruction, ending in his own death and that of many others.
Behind the Proverbs lies the anguished wailing of a father who had to fight a war with his son and in the end cried out, Oh Absalom, my son . . .
History sorts out the follies of literary excesses, if we fail to heed wisdom in good time.
Often, at the expense of a painful, bloody trail of woe and wailing that leads many mothers and fathers, widows and orphans to wail the loss of good men lost to the fight in the face of rampant folly.
But then, tragic history is written into my name, as George William Gordon’s farewell to his wife written moments before his unjust execution on sentence of a kangaroo court-martial, was carried out:
Deconstruct that, clever mocking scorners of the literary seminar room.
Deconstruct it in the presence of a weeping wife and mother and children mourning the shocking loss of a father and hero to ruthless show-trial injustice ending in judicial murder.
Murder that echoes the fate of one found innocent but sent to Golgotha because of ruthless folly-tricks in Jerusalem c. 30 AD.
(How ever so many fail to see the deep lesson about folly-tricks in the heart of the Gospel, escapes me. New Atheists and fellow travellers, when you indict the Christian Faith as the fountain-head of imagined injustice, remember the One who hung between thieves on a patently unjust sentence, having been bought at the price of a slave through a betrayer blinded by greed and folly. If you do not hear a cry for just government and common decency at the heart of the Gospel you would despise, you are not worth the name, literary scholar or educated person.)
And in so doing, learn a terrible, grim lesson of where your clever word games predictably end up in the hands of the ruthless.
For, much more than science is at stake in all of this.
GEM of TKI >>