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Computing

Computing, AI, Cybernetics and Mechatronics

Kirk Durston on “God and Science – Is there a Conflict?” . . . food for thought

I think we need to watch a video by Friend of UD, Kirk Durston. But first, a loop-back note: I have been rather busy elsewhere with issues like AS-AD, Kondratiev waves, Hayek’s investment triangle, SD and Schumpeterian creative destruction.(Pardon the resulting absence.) BTW, this line of thought leads me to hold that the oh- so- dominant . . . and too often, domineering . . . evolutionary materialism of the past few generations has run its course and is about to be overtaken by ideational creative destruction in an information age.  A patently superior idea — we live in an obviously designed world, and we and other living creatures show further compelling signs of design — is going to prevail, Read More ›

Panda’s Thumb Richard Hoppe forgot about Humpty Zombie

The fallacious results of the Avida computer simulation were used in the infamous Kitmiller vs. Dover trial to argue in favor of Darwinian evolution. Using the evidence from the Avida simulation and other testimony, Judge Jones ruled that it is illegal to contest Darwinism for all time. Prosecution witness Robert Pennock claimed in sworn testimony that Avida solved the problem of Irreducible Complexity (IC). Unfortunately the incompetent defense team wasn’t privy to later discoveries by me and Richard Hoppe, namely, that Avida offers solutions to the OOL problem and predicts the possibility of a Zombie Apocalypse through cosmic radiation. It would have been read more

The cybernetic contradiction of Darwinism

In automatic control theory “homeostasis” is defined as the property of a system in which variables are regulated so that internal conditions remain stable and relatively constant. Homeostasis is a fundamental concept in biology because is what allows the life of organisms. In fact, it maintains the stability of the organisms in response to changes in external conditions. The concept of homeostasis is tied to the strictly correlation and interdependence of all systems in a body, i.e. its functional unity. Organisms can live and survive only because are giant cybernetic hierarchical hologramatic macro-systems. Donald Johnson defines cybernetics as: … the interdisciplinary study of control systems with feedback. (Programming of Life, Big Mac Publishers 2010) While Norbert Wiener, about homeostasis, writes: Read More ›

REFERENCE: The Smith Model, an architecture for cybernetics and mind-body/ free will/ determinism/ compatibilism analysis . . .

Since the issue of agent freedom and cause has again come up, it is worth the while to post the following summary on the Smith Model for agent cause and cybernetics, from the IOSE unit on minds etc: __________ >>(c) Of neurons, brains and minds   The neuron (in its various types) is the key building brick of brain and nervous tissues:   Neurons are interconnected in neural networks {added, Jun 4: cf. visualisation here}, and onward to form the brain and wider nervous system. As Christos Stergiou and Dimitrios Siganos summarise:   In the human brain, a typical neuron collects signals from others through a host of fine structures called dendrites. The neuron sends out spikes of electrical activity through Read More ›

Artificial Intelligence or intelligent artifices?

The so called “strong Artificial Intelligence” (AI) has some relations with evolutionism because both imply a “more” coming from a “less” and both are products of a materialist reductionist worldview. In evolutionism they believe that life arises from non life, and, similarly, in AI they believe that the intelligent comes from the non intelligent, that “machines can think”. To try to experimentally prove this last claim it was even developed a test, called “Turing test”. “The Turing test [TT] is a test of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of an actual human. In the original illustrative example, a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with a human and a machine Read More ›

A process sequence chart view of the ribosome in action — a guest post by EP

For some months now, I have been having a behind the scenes correspondence with a regular viewer of UD, whom we shall call EP. He works with industrial robots, and has been fascinated by the way the ribosome works as a nano-scale automated machine cell. Accordingly, a process sequence diagram (‘map”) has been developed, based on accessible descriptions of the ribosome in action. The result is a fascinating look at the ribosome as industrial robot work-cell. (The tRNA’s are molecular scale position-arm devices with a universal CCA coupler — yup, the AA bond is universal, it is the loading enzyme that sets up which tRNA gets what AA — to load and click AAs to a protein chain.) So, enough Read More ›

Popcorn: watching kinesin in action, as we digest that Christmas turkey and pudding . . .

Sometimes, seeing is believing. Here is a nice, short summary of the kinesin microtubule highway “walking truck” protein in action: [youtube lLxlBB9ZBj4] This vid gives a bit of context: [youtube 8RULvE9rw6Y] Especially notice the role played by Brownian motion, and that played by ATP. So, post turkey and pudding vid no 3: ATP Synthase in action: [youtube KU-B7G6anqw] Walking trucks in the cell, fuelled by batteries made in a molecular factory that uses a nanotech motor  . . . And, a highway network that has to go where it is needed, with need for directions — that delivery truck has to know where to go, when! And the best explanation for all of this functionally specific, complex organisation and required Read More ›

ID Foundations, 13: Of bird necks and beaks, robots, micro-level black swan events, inductive turkeys & the design inference, the vNSR and OOL (with hints on economic transformation)

Over the past few days, I have been reflecting a bit on carrying design theory-relevant thought onwards to issues tied to education and economic transformation.

In so doing, I found myself looking at a micro-level, personal black swan event, as I watched student robots picking and placing little plastic widgets much like . . . like . . . a chicken, or a duck.

Or, a swan.

Wait a minute: a swan’s long neck, beak and head form . . . a robot arm manipulator (with built-in sensor turret) on a turtle robot body capable of walking, swimming and flying: Read More ›