kairosfocus

Origenes, has put up an interesting argument that we need to ponder as food for thought. It’s Friday, so this should be a good thing to start our weekend on: >>>>>>>>>>>>>> ORIGENES: Here I will argue that self-prediction cannot be accommodated by materialism. In daily life we all routinely engage in acts of self-prediction — ‘tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock I will do 2 push-ups’, ‘I will do some Christmas shopping next Friday’ … and so forth. The question is: how does materialism explain that familiar phenomenon? Given that specific behavior (e.g. doing 2 push-ups) results from specific neural states, how is it that we can predict its occurrence? The fact that one can predict her/his own behavior suggests that Read More ›

Sometimes, exchanges at UD come down to truly basic (and hard) issues. This is one such time, where Origenes has challenged prolific objector Critical Rationalist in the Personal Incredulity thread: >>100 Origenes November 25, 2017 at 7:01 pm  CR What is your definition of valid knowledge?>> I have thought this worthy of responding to and of headlining: KF, 106: >> Origines, Generally, I would argue that “knowledge” is used in a weak form sense: warranted, credibly true (and reliable) belief. Drawing out, slightly: Warranted — there is an available account (as opposed to internal to the given knower, who may simply accept a message from reliable sources . . . ) that, properly understood, would justify accepting or treating belief Read More ›

This needs to go in the Sci-tech watch department for UD: Not directly relevant to ID debates, but a glimpse at the wonders of our world that are well worth pondering. END

As Breitbart (as a handy source) reports: >>“Historically, no god has survived science. Gods evolved,” the best-selling American novelist said at the Frankfurt Book Fair, where he unveiled his newest book, “Origin”. The fifth instalment in the wildly popular series that started with “The Da Vinci Code” tracks Harvard professor Robert Langdon’s latest code-cracking adventure to uncover the mysteries of the universe, this time exploring the battle between religion and science. “I happen to believe in looking at advances through technology,” Brown told reporters. “Over the next decade our species will become enormously interconnected at a level we are not used to, and we will start to find our spiritual experiences through our interconnections with each other. “Our need for Read More ›

In our time there is a tendency to treat Mathematics as though it is a natural science. This reflects in part the shift in meaning of the term Science in recent centuries, from knowledge and systematic bodies of more or less established knowledge, to the natural sciences based on inductive reasoning on observation and experiment. Where, inductive here denotes arguments whereby evidence — typically empirical — supports but does not logically demonstrate a conclusion, as a rule provisionally. Such has been multiplied by Scientism, the view, assumption or implication that Science ring fences and monopolises reliable, serious knowledge. (Of course, such Scientism is self-referentially incoherent as this is an epistemological and thus philosophical claim; it fails its own test.) In Read More ›

These clips are taken from a video that was recently pointed to by CY and which I (with help of UD) embedded here. We need to ponder what is happening with our civilisation under the impact of evolutionary materialism and its fellow travellers up to and including cultural marxist agendas (also cf. here), so pardon some painful reading: How have we come to a pass such as this? Schaeffer (suitably modified) has a suggestion or two: Where also the seven mopuntains of influence perspective championed by Wallnau et al (again as adapted) may also help us see how the community is shaped by influences such as this branch of cultural marxism, aka “critical studies”: What should we then do? This Read More ›

Someone gave the link, I think we need to watch a comparison of real vs fake papers on gender: I ask us to ponder: Where have we now reached, why? END

The Antikythera mechanism is a fascinating object (thanks, EA . . . ), one that is often called the “first” [Analogue] Computer. It was recovered from a Roman shipwreck (likely c. 50 – 80 BC) near the island of that name, and the origin of the mechanism has been a challenge ever since a key observation described thusly by Wiki inadvertently speaking against interest: The Antikythera mechanism was discovered in 45 metres (148 ft) of water in the Antikythera shipwreck off Point Glyphadia on the Greek island of Antikythera. The wreck was found in April 1900 by a group of Greek sponge divers, who retrieved numerous large artefacts, including bronze and marble statues, pottery, unique glassware, jewellery, coins, and the mechanism. All Read More ›

H’mm, pretty devastating — if true. But, is it true? I doubt it. Let us start with this response to a certain objector who keeps providing lists of typical objector talking points (and who evidently wishes to be able to do so on UD’s nickel, without effective response). Not on our watch, gentilhombre: >>13 kairosfocus May 30, 2017 at 1:17 am F/N: DI’s opening remarks on the annotated list of ID professional literature updated to March 2017: BIBLIOGRAPHIC AND ANNOTATED LIST OF PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS SUPPORTING INTELLIGENT DESIGN UPDATED MARCH, 2017 PART I: INTRODUCTION While intelligent design (ID) research is a new scientific field, recent years have been a period of encouraging growth, producing a strong record of peer-reviewed scientific publications. In 2011, Read More ›

. . . with yet another list of talking points.  Namely: >>The irony of a scientific idea, ‘Intelligent Design’, with no experimentation? The irony of a scientific idea, ‘Intelligent Design’, with no predictive qualities? The irony of a scientific idea, Intelligent Design’, that refuses to identify, or even look for, the Designer? My scientific idea has no irony, it does what it sets out to do; prove origins, prove life is one system linked by evolution, and prove life can be understood without holding God’s hand.>> Accordingly, I have replied: >>More failed talking points: >>The irony of a scientific idea, ‘Intelligent Design’, with no experimentation?>> 1 –> False. Cf Axe et al, cf Scott Minnich et al, cf Durston et Read More ›

In the ongoing AJ vs ID discussion thread, major tangential debates have developed. One of these is on the IS-OUGHT gap, and it is worth headlining due to its pivotal worldviews importance (and yes, this is a philosophy issue). Let us start with Seversky, highlighting his key contention — which is commonly asserted: Sev, 261: >>Origenes @ 258 The matter seems very simple to me: because fermions and bosons are completely indifferent about morality, it is not possible to ground morality for atheists/materialists. You cannot logically derive “ought” from “is”. No one can, not even God. So, if our morality is God-given, how did He – or, indeed, any other being – derive it? Did He toss a coin?>> Origines, Read More ›

It is almost — almost — amusing but then quite sad to see how objectors to design theory play with logic and worldviews issues, then run away when the substantial issues are taken up. Let me clip from the FFT, AJ vs Charles thread to pick up these matters, but to avoid making this utterly too long, let me point here on for the underlying questions of worldviews, first plausibles and self-evident plumb-line truths such as the first principles of right reason. While we are at it, let us observe from the diagram on the right, how worldviews issues influence everything we do as a civilisation, and how the issue arises, on whether business as usual is a march of Read More ›

It’s always a pleasure to host Dr Selensky’s thoughtful contributions. Here, he tackles the subject of artificial life simulations and the implications of modelling environments, assumptions, algorithms etc: ____________________________ On Modelling Spontaneous Emergence of Programs and Their Evolutionary Self-Improvement Evgeny Selensky Some time ago, I left a comment on Jeffrey Shallit’s blog. We exchanged a couple of phrases. In particular, I referred Jeffrey to the requirement for computational halting in models of artificial life. I praised David Abel’s work, which put him off. In response, Jeffrey recommended that I should “read and understand” the following article. I have done my homework now. However I’d like to post here at UD rather than visit Jeffrey’s blog again. Jeffrey of course is Read More ›

. . . through a case in point: >>tjguyApril 12, 2017 at 2:28 am rvb8 @2 Thank god (heh:), the obvious has been consigned to the rubbish bin of understanding, and we now prefer evidence, experimentation, and the unobvious, to the vacuous, empty, ‘obvious’. What is the problem with this way of thinking? He just assumes this “obvious” thing too will be relegated to the dustbin of understanding. That is what he believes – which is great, but it is nothing more than opinion/belief/worldview deduction, etc. right now. It is just as possible that the Materialist view of OoL will be relegated to the dustbin of understanding. And get this! He thinks that since we were able to learn how Read More ›

In a current thread on SJW invasions in engineering education,  in which yet another anti-ID commenter crosses over into troll territory, Charles does a very important worldviews and cultural agendas dissection. One, that is well worth headlining as *food for thought (as opposed to a point by point across-the-board endorsement): Charles, 51>>The point of the original post was that Engineering was being contaminated with Social Justice Warrior values & viewpoints. As any engineer knows, what makes engineering “Engineering” is the rigorous adherence to physical reality, analysis, and testing to design something that is reliably fit for purpose. As the author’s article at American Conservative elaborates, Prof. Riley’s SJW viewpoint is the antithesis of sound Engineering. kairosfocus summarized this point with Read More ›