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RVB8 and the refusal to mark the difference between description and invention

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. . . (of the concept, functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information, FSCO/I)


Sometimes, a longstanding objector here at UD — such as RVB8 — inadvertently reveals just how weak the objections to the design inference are by persistently clinging to long since cogently answered objections. This phenomenon of ideology triumphing over evident reality is worth highlighting as a headlined post illustrating darwinist rhetorical stratagems and habits.

Here is RVB8 in a comment in the current Steve Fuller thread:

RVB8, 36: >> for ID or Creationism, I can get the information direct from the creators of the terminology. Dembski for Specified Complexity, Kairos for his invention of FSCO/I, and Behe for Irreducible Complexity.>>

As it seems necessary to set a pronunciation, the acronym FSCO/I shall henceforth be pronounced “fish-koi” (where happily, koi are produced by artificial selection, a form of ID too often misused as a proxy for the alleged powers of culling out by differential reproductive success in the wild)

For a long time, he and others of like ilk have tried to suggest that as I have championed the acrostic summary FSCO/I, the concept I am pointing to is a dubious novelty that has not been tested through peer review or the like and can be safely set aside. In fact, it is simply acknowledging that specified complexity is both organisational and informational, and that in many contexts it is specified in the context of requisites of function through multiple coupled parts. Text such as in this post shows a simple form of such a structure, S-T-R-I-N-G-S.

Where of course, memorably, Crick classically pointed out to his son Michael on March 19, 1953 as follows, regarding DNA as text:

Crick’s letter

Subsequently, that code was elucidated (here in the mRNA, transcribed form):

The Genetic code uses three-letter codons to specify the sequence of AA’s in proteins and specifying start/stop, and using six bits per AA

Likewise a process flow network is an expression of FSCO/I, e.g. an oil refinery:

Petroleum refinery block diagram illustrating FSCO/I in a process-flow system

This case is much simpler than the elucidated biochemistry process flow metabolic reaction network of the living cell:

I have also often illustrated FSCO/I in the form of functional organisation through a drawing of an ABU 6500 C3 reel (which I safely presume came about through using AutoCAD or the like):

All of this is of course very directly similar to something like protein synthesis [top left in the cell’s biochem outline], which involves both text strings and functionally specific highly complex organisation:

Protein Synthesis (HT: Wiki Media)

In short, FSCO/I is real, relevant and patently descriptive, both of the technological world and the biological world. This demands an adequate causal explanation, and the only serious explanation on the table that is empirically warranted is, design.

As the text of this post illustrates, and as the text of objector comments to come will further inadvertently illustrate.

Now, I responded at no 37, as follows:

KF, 37: >>Unfortunately, your choice of speaking in terms of “invention” of FSCO/I speaks volumes on your now regrettably habitual refusal to acknowledge phenomena that are right in front of you. As in, a descriptive label acknowledges a phenomenon, it does not invent it.

Doubtless [and on long track record], you think that is a clever way to dismiss something you don’t wish to consider.

This pattern makes your rhetoric into a case in point of the sociological, ideological reaction to the design inference on tested sign. So, I now respond, by way of addressing a case of a problem of sustained unresponsiveness to evidence.

However, it only reveals that you are being selectively hyperskeptical and dismissive through the fallacy of the closed, ideologised, indoctrinated, hostile mind.

I suggest you need to think again.

As a start, look at your own comment, which is text. To wit, a s-t-r-i-n-g of 1943 ASCII characters, at 7 bits per character, indicating a config space of 2^[7 * 1943) possibilities. That is, a space with 2.037*10^4094 cells.

The atomic and temporal resources of our whole observed cosmos, running at 1 search per each of 10^80 atoms, at 10^12 – 10^14 searches per s [a fast chem reaction rate] for 10^17 s [time since big bang, approx.] could not search more than 10^111 cells, a negligibly small fraction. That is, the config space search challenge is real, there is not enough resource to search more than a negligibly small fraction of the haystack blindly. (and the notion sometimes put, of somehow having a golden search runs into the fact that searches are subsets, so search for a golden search comes from the power set of the direct config space, of order here 2^[10^4094]. That is, it is exponentially harder.)

How then did your text string come to be? By a much more powerful means: you as an intelligent and knowledgeable agent exerted intelligently directed configuration to compose a text in English.

That is why, routinely, when you see or I see text of significant size in English, we confidently and rightly infer to design.

As a simple extension, a 3-d object such as an Abu 6500 C3 fishing reel is describable, in terms of bit strings in a description language, so functional organisation is reducible to an informational equivalent. Discussion on strings is WLOG.

In terms of the living cell, we can simply point to the copious algorithmic TEXT in DNA, which directly fits with the textual search challenge issue. There is no empirically warranted blind chance and mechanical necessity mechanism that can plausibly account for it. We have every epistemic and inductive reasoning right to see that the FSCO/I in the cell is best explained as a result of design.

That twerdun, which comes before whodunit.

As for, oh it’s some readily scorned IDiot on a blog, I suggest you would do better to ponder this from Stephen Meyer:

The central argument of my book [= Signature in the Cell] is that intelligent design—the activity of a conscious and rational deliberative agent—best explains the origin of the information necessary to produce the first living cell. I argue this because of two things that we know from our uniform and repeated experience, which following Charles Darwin I take to be the basis of all scientific reasoning about the past. First, intelligent agents have demonstrated the capacity to produce large amounts of functionally specified information (especially in a digital form). Second, no undirected chemical process has demonstrated this power. Hence, intelligent design provides the best—most causally adequate—explanation for the origin of the information necessary to produce the first life from simpler non-living chemicals. In other words, intelligent design is the only explanation that cites a cause known to have the capacity to produce the key effect in question . . . . In order to [[scientifically refute this inductive conclusion] Falk would need to show that some undirected material cause has [[empirically] demonstrated the power to produce functional biological information apart from the guidance or activity a designing mind. Neither Falk, nor anyone working in origin-of-life biology, has succeeded in doing this . . . .

The central problem facing origin-of-life researchers is neither the synthesis of pre-biotic building blocks (which Sutherland’s work addresses) or even the synthesis of a self-replicating RNA molecule (the plausibility of which Joyce and Tracey’s work seeks to establish, albeit unsuccessfully . . . [[Meyer gives details in the linked page]). Instead, the fundamental problem is getting the chemical building blocks to arrange themselves into the large information-bearing molecules (whether DNA or RNA) . . . .

For nearly sixty years origin-of-life researchers have attempted to use pre-biotic simulation experiments to find a plausible pathway by which life might have arisen from simpler non-living chemicals, thereby providing support for chemical evolutionary theory. While these experiments have occasionally yielded interesting insights about the conditions under which certain reactions will or won’t produce the various small molecule constituents of larger bio-macromolecules, they have shed no light on how the information in these larger macromolecules (particularly in DNA and RNA) could have arisen. Nor should this be surprising in light of what we have long known about the chemical structure of DNA and RNA. As I show in Signature in the Cell, the chemical structures of DNA and RNA allow them to store information precisely because chemical affinities between their smaller molecular subunits do not determine the specific arrangements of the bases in the DNA and RNA molecules. Instead, the same type of chemical bond (an N-glycosidic bond) forms between the backbone and each one of the four bases, allowing any one of the bases to attach at any site along the backbone, in turn allowing an innumerable variety of different sequences. This chemical indeterminacy is precisely what permits DNA and RNA to function as information carriers. It also dooms attempts to account for the origin of the information—the precise sequencing of the bases—in these molecules as the result of deterministic chemical interactions . . . .

[[W]e now have a wealth of experience showing that what I call specified or functional information (especially if encoded in digital form) does not arise from purely physical or chemical antecedents [[–> i.e. by blind, undirected forces of chance and necessity]. Indeed, the ribozyme engineering and pre-biotic simulation experiments that Professor Falk commends to my attention actually lend additional inductive support to this generalization. On the other hand, we do know of a cause—a type of cause—that has demonstrated the power to produce functionally-specified information. That cause is intelligence or conscious rational deliberation. As the pioneering information theorist Henry Quastler once observed, “the creation of information is habitually associated with conscious activity.” And, of course, he was right. Whenever we find information—whether embedded in a radio signal, carved in a stone monument, written in a book or etched on a magnetic disc—and we trace it back to its source, invariably we come to mind, not merely a material process. Thus, the discovery of functionally specified, digitally encoded information along the spine of DNA, provides compelling positive evidence of the activity of a prior designing intelligence. This conclusion is not based upon what we don’t know. It is based upon what we do know from our uniform experience about the cause and effect structure of the world—specifically, what we know about what does, and does not, have the power to produce large amounts of specified information . . . .

[[In conclusion,] it needs to be noted that the [[now commonly asserted and imposed limiting rule on scientific knowledge, the] principle of methodological naturalism [[ that scientific explanations may only infer to “natural[[istic] causes”] is an arbitrary philosophical assumption, not a principle that can be established or justified by scientific observation itself. Others of us, having long ago seen the pattern in pre-biotic simulation experiments, to say nothing of the clear testimony of thousands of years of human experience, have decided to move on. We see in the information-rich structure of life a clear indicator of intelligent activity and have begun to investigate living systems accordingly. If, by Professor Falk’s definition, that makes us philosophers rather than scientists, then so be it. But I suspect that the shoe is now, instead, firmly on the other foot. [[Meyer, Stephen C: Response to Darrel Falk’s Review of Signature in the Cell, SITC web site, 2009. (Emphases and parentheses added.)]

Let me focus attention on the highlighted:

First, intelligent agents have demonstrated the capacity to produce large amounts of functionally specified information (especially in a digital form). Second, no undirected chemical process has demonstrated this power. Hence, intelligent design provides the best—most causally adequate—explanation for the origin of the information necessary to produce the first life from simpler non-living chemicals.

The only difference between this and what I have highlighted through the acronym FSCO/I, is that functionally specific organisation is similarly reducible to an informational string and is in this sense equivalent to it. Where, that is hardly news, AutoCAD has reigned supreme as an engineers design tool for decades now. Going back to 1973, Orgel in his early work on specified complexity, wrote:

. . . In brief, living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals are usually taken as the prototypes of simple well-specified structures, because they consist of a very large number of identical molecules packed together in a uniform way. Lumps of granite or random mixtures of polymers are examples of structures that are complex but not specified. The crystals fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; the mixtures of polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity . . . .

[HT, Mung, fr. p. 190 & 196:] These vague idea can be made more precise by introducing the idea of information. Roughly speaking, the information content of a structure is the minimum number of instructions needed to specify the structure. [–> this is of course equivalent to the string of yes/no questions required to specify the relevant “wiring diagram” for the set of functional states, T, in the much larger space of possible clumped or scattered configurations, W, as Dembski would go on to define in NFL in 2002, also cf here, here and here (with here on self-moved agents as designing causes).] One can see intuitively that many instructions are needed to specify a complex structure. [–> so if the q’s to be answered are Y/N, the chain length is an information measure that indicates complexity in bits . . . ] On the other hand a simple repeating structure can be specified in rather few instructions. [–> do once and repeat over and over in a loop . . . ] Complex but random structures, by definition, need hardly be specified at all . . . . Paley was right to emphasize the need for special explanations of the existence of objects with high information content, for they cannot be formed in nonevolutionary, inorganic processes. [The Origins of Life (John Wiley, 1973), p. 189, p. 190, p. 196.]

So, the concept of reducing functional organisation to a description on a string of y/n structured questions — a bit string in some description language — is hardly news, nor is it something I came up with. Where obviously Orgel is speaking to FUNCTIONAL specificity, so that is not new either.

Likewise, search spaces or config spaces is a simple reflection of the phase space concept of statistical thermodynamics.

Dembski’s remarks are also significant, here from NFL:

p. 148:“The great myth of contemporary evolutionary biology is that the information needed to explain complex biological structures can be purchased without intelligence. My aim throughout this book is to dispel that myth . . . . Eigen and his colleagues must have something else in mind besides information simpliciter when they describe the origin of information as the central problem of biology.

I submit that what they have in mind is specified complexity, or what equivalently we have been calling in this Chapter Complex Specified information or CSI . . . .

Biological specification always refers to function. An organism is a functional system comprising many functional subsystems. . . . In virtue of their function [[a living organism’s subsystems] embody patterns that are objectively given and can be identified independently of the systems that embody them. Hence these systems are specified in the sense required by the complexity-specificity criterion . . . the specification can be cashed out in any number of ways [[through observing the requisites of functional organisation within the cell, or in organs and tissues or at the level of the organism as a whole. Dembski cites:

Wouters, p. 148: “globally in terms of the viability of whole organisms,”

Behe, p. 148: “minimal function of biochemical systems,”

Dawkins, pp. 148 – 9: “Complicated things have some quality, specifiable in advance, that is highly unlikely to have been acquired by ran-| dom chance alone. In the case of living things, the quality that is specified in advance is . . . the ability to propagate genes in reproduction.”

On p. 149, he roughly cites Orgel’s famous remark from 1973, which exactly cited reads:

In brief, living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals are usually taken as the prototypes of simple well-specified structures, because they consist of a very large number of identical molecules packed together in a uniform way. Lumps of granite or random mixtures of polymers are examples of structures that are complex but not specified. The crystals fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; the mixtures of polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity . . .

And, p. 149, he highlights Paul Davis in The Fifth Miracle: “Living organisms are mysterious not for their complexity per se, but for their tightly specified complexity.”] . . .”

p. 144: [[Specified complexity can be more formally defined:] “. . . since a universal probability bound of 1 [[chance] in 10^150 corresponds to a universal complexity bound of 500 bits of information, [[the cluster] (T, E) constitutes CSI because T [[ effectively the target hot zone in the field of possibilities] subsumes E [[ effectively the observed event from that field], T is detachable from E, and and T measures at least 500 bits of information . . . ”

So, the problem of refusal to attend to readily available, evidence or even evidence put in front of objectors to design theory is significant and clear.

What it in the end reflects as a case of clinging to fallacies and myths in the teeth of correction for years on end, is the weakness of the case being made against design by its persistent objectors.

Which is itself highly significant.>>

Now, let us discuss, duly noting the highlighted and emphasised. END

Comments
CR: First, it’s unclear how something as vague as “intelligent action” ....
Vague? Post #231 is the result of your “intelligent action”. How “vague” is that?
CR: ... can be detected in the very thing that is in question (the origin of life). Especially since we use the unseen to explain the sceen.
Have you never seen “intelligent action”?
CR: ... correlation does not imply causation.
Which is an important message to those who try to bolster their naturalism with neuroscience — not so for ID.
CR: Specifically, how does intelligent action result in symbols? What would that even mean?
Look at post #231 ....
CR: ... it’s unclear how something as vague as “intelligent action” can be detected in ... the origin of life.
THE ONLY KNOWN CAUSE Both philosophers of science and leading historical scientists have emphasized causal adequacy as the key criterion by which competing hypotheses are judged. But philosophers of science have insisted that assessments of explanatory power lead to conclusive inferences only when there is just one known cause for the effect or evidence24 (see Fig. 17.3) in question. If there are many causes that can produce the same effect, then the presence of the effect does not definitively establish the cause. When scientists know of only one cause for a given effect, however, they can infer that cause and yet avoid the fallacy of affirming the consequent—the error of ignoring other possible causes with the power to produce the same effect.25 In that case, they can infer or detect a uniquely plausible past cause from the clues that are left behind. This can happen in one of two ways. First, historical scientists might focus their investigation on a single fact (in isolation) for which only one cause happens to be known. In such a case, they can quickly and decisively infer the cause from the effect alone—without risk of affirming the consequent, because no other known cause produces the same effect. For example, because a volcanic eruption is the only known cause of a volcanic ash layer, the presence of such a layer at an archeological site strongly indicates the prior eruption of a volcano. In other cases where historical scientists encounter evidence for which there are many known causes, they will often broaden their investigation beyond an initial fact or set of facts. In such cases, they will use the strategy described above (as part of the method of multiple competing hypotheses), by looking for additional evidence until they find a piece for which there is only one known cause. They can then compare the explanatory power of the competing hypotheses. Using this strategy, historical scientists will choose the proposed cause with the demonstrated power to produce all the relevant evidence, including the new fact or piece of evidence for which there is only one known cause. For example, the discovery of the symmetrical pattern of ocean-floor magnetism on opposite sides of a mid-oceanic ridge allowed for a comparison of the explanatory power of the three hypotheses under consideration, leaving only seafloor spreading as a causally adequate explanation of all the relevant facts. Such an approach often allows historical scientists to pick out a piece of evidence (from some combination of effects) for which there is only one known (or theoretically plausible) cause, thus making it possible to establish a past cause decisively. Though this strategy involves looking at a wider class of facts than the first strategy, the logical status of the inferences involved is the same. In each case, the presence of a fact (either standing on its own or in combination with other facts) for which only one cause is known allows historical scientists to make a definitive inference about the causal history in question without committing the fallacy of affirming the consequent. Logically, if a postulated cause is known to be a necessary condition or cause of a given event or effect, then historical scientists can validly infer that condition or cause from the presence of the effect. If it’s true that where there is smoke there is always first fire, then the presence of smoke wafting up over a distant mountain range decisively indicates the prior presence of a fire on the other side of the ridge. [Stephen C. Meyer, 'Darwin's Doubt', Ch.17]
However, evolution requires a very special type of physical system in order to exist in nature (meaning that it requires a known threshold of organization in order to function). Physicists have thoroughly studied this necessary system, and have related it directly to the material laws that govern nature. And they have determined that the only other place that such a system can be found (anywhere else in the cosmos) is in written language and mathematics – two universal correlates of intelligence. [Upright Biped]
Origenes
April 15, 2017
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First, it's unclear how something as vague as "intelligent action" can be detected in the very thing that is in question (the origin of life). Especially since we use the unseen to explain the sceen. Specifically, how does intelligent action result in symbols? What would that even mean? Furthermore, the last time I checked, it's a fallacy of logic to assume that correlation equals causation or a specific direction. From the Wikipedia article on correlation and dependence.
In statistics, dependence or association is any statistical relationship, whether causal or not, between two random variables or bivariate data. Correlation is any of a broad class of statistical relationships involving dependence, though in common usage it most often refers to the extent to which two variables have a linear relationship with each other. Familiar examples of dependent phenomena include the correlation between the physical statures of parents and their offspring, and the correlation between the demand for a product and its price. Correlations are useful because they can indicate a predictive relationship that can be exploited in practice. For example, an electrical utility may produce less power on a mild day based on the correlation between electricity demand and weather. In this example, there is a causal relationship, because extreme weather causes people to use more electricity for heating or cooling. However, in general, the presence of a correlation is not sufficient to infer the presence of a causal relationship (i.e., correlation does not imply causation).
IOW, it's unclear how human beings discovering that symbols can be useful implies that organisms were designed. So, if corrections do not imply causation, then the goal of ID is making useful predictions that can be exploited in practice? What might those be? And how would that differ from or be incompatible with the theory that knowledge in organisms grows via variation and selection? Specially, knowledge plays a casual role in being retained when emended in a storage medium. it solves a problem. That's not random.
So what we have here, is that you first deny ID evidence by strategically moving the goalposts –then– you turn around attribute the origin of life to a cause that requires the very system that ID advocates present as necessary for life. In other words, you attribute life to a cause that requires the very thing it is intended to explain, which is obviously a non-starter. If A requires B to exist, then A cannot be the source of B.
You wouldn't happen to be referring to the idea that accurate reproduction is not part of the default tool kit of physics and that is a problem for evolution? That was addressed in an entire paper, which you supposedly read and indicated was irrelevant for reasons which you have yet to elaborate on.critical rationalist
April 15, 2017
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CR, I am just now seeing that you returned with a response. I'll be brief. #1 ID claims that a universal correlate of intelligent action can be detected in the origin of life on earth. It's the only life we know of, and the only life we can even hope to explain. (In other words, we cannot explain life that we've never experienced, possibly existing somewhere, in a place that we know nothing about). Yet, when ID presents concrete universal evidence of an intelligent act in the origin of life on earth (i.e. evidence of the type that neither you nor anyone else can reasonably argue against), you then move the goalposts and demand that ID must explain ultimate causes instead. Hello? This is a defensive maneuver, which you refuse to give up, and you will continue to do so (regardless of the fact it’s hopelessly illogical). Hello? #2 You want to attribute the "knowledge" in the cell to evolution (i.e. a physical process of variation and selection; continually compiling and polishing the arrangement of a medium of information). However, evolution requires a very special type of physical system in order to exist in nature (meaning that it requires a known threshold of organization in order to function). Physicists have thoroughly studied this necessary system, and have related it directly to the material laws that govern nature. And they have determined that the only other place that such a system can be found (anywhere else in the cosmos) is in written language and mathematics – two universal correlates of intelligence. Hello? So what we have here, is that you first deny ID evidence by strategically moving the goalposts –then– you turn around attribute the origin of life to a cause that requires the very system that ID advocates present as necessary for life. In other words, you attribute life to a cause that requires the very thing it is intended to explain, which is obviously a non-starter. If A requires B to exist, then A cannot be the source of B. In response, of course, you will refuse all of this. And the beat goes on...Upright BiPed
April 13, 2017
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It is interesting to watch someone who simply cannot put the words together.
What is the origin of the knowledge in biological organisms? I keep trying to bring you back around to it, because nothing you’ve presented inidcates it's even on your radar as a genuine problem to be solved or that it's relevant to the issue at hand.critical rationalist
April 11, 2017
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UB, You've just repeated what I already quoted in #215. It's unclear how this is helpful. Nor does it address any of the questions or criticisms I presented there. For example, its unclear how the specific role empirical evidence plays in science is not relevant to the claim that something can and has been “empirically detected” in the origin of life. Nor is it clear what in organisms you are referring to and how it is explained by "an act of intelligence" "they are irrelevant to those observations" is not an argument, It's an assertion. It’s irrelevant because? As for being supposedly having been "validated by physics — about half a century ago", I assume you're referring to this?
To that end, science has documented the necessary physical conditions of semiotic systems – that is, systems that use information bound in physical memory to create functional effects. Science has documented that these systems are unique (and exclusively identifiable) among all other physical systems found in the cosmos.
Again, this seem to be a reference to information theory, which is why I keep asking for the specific theory your claims are based on. Again, why is this not reinvent? Apparently you think it is not necessary because it's somehow obvious to everyone else. After all, you seemed to think it would become obvious to me if I just typed ID’s premise into a blog comment.
Science has shown that these systems are only related to living things.
You’ll have to unpack what you mean by “related to” as well. It’s unclear how this gets you to “an act of intelligence" in organisms. There are symbols in organisms therefore they were designed by an intelligent agent? There is information inside organisms therefore they were designed by an intelligent agent? But, again, without an explanation for how intelligence results in knowledge, it’s unclear how you know that only intelligent agents are the only source of it. I.E. present an explanation for knowledge, which is X, Y and Z. Then point out that evolution doesn’t fit that explanation. Otherwise, you’re just appealing to induction in that Information is always experienced with intelligent agents and the future (or the distant past) resembles the recent past. But the future is unlike the past in a vast number of ways, many of which you ascribe to. For example, we’ve always experienced intelligence with complex material nervous systems. So, if you’re just “following the evidence”, you should conclude that all designers would have them as well. Yet, when I point this out, you claim it’s just bias on my part. However, I’m not just appealing to induction. The very explanations about information you’ve indirectly appealed to, such as how it is stored, etc, indicates that our explanation for designed things is that the knowledge required was present there. They possess the knowledge of what transformations of matter are necessary. They are well adapted for the purpose of designing things. It’s unclear how being well adapted to serve a purpose can be the explanation for being well adapted to serve a purpose. Furthermore, a designer just copying that knowledge from one place to anther doesn’t explain how the designer possessed that knowledge in the first place. If that is the key factor in an organism's features, including it’s self replicating ability, then the origin of those features is that knowledge. Right? If a designer didn’t posses that knowledge, yet it ended up in organisms it created, that would be the spontaneous creation of knowledge. And saying a designer just was, complete with that knowledge, doesn’t actually improve the problem. You’ve just pushed it up a level into an inexplicable mind that exists in an inexplicable realm that operates in via inexplicable means and methods. Neither of these two explain the origin of that knowledge. At best, you have a authoritative source of knowledge which is bad philosophy. This is in contrast to neo-Darwinism, which says that the knowledge in organisms was actually created over time through variation and selection. It genuinely grows in that it did not exist before, becoming more and more accurate over time.critical rationalist
April 11, 2017
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CR, Biological ID claims that an act of intelligence can be empirically detected in the origin of life on earth. I keep trying to bring you back around to it, because nothing you’ve presented even makes a dent in that claim (i.e. your criticisms have no impact on the observations that support the claim, they are irrelevant to those observations). And as far as the claim itself, it has already been validated by physics -- about half a century ago.Upright BiPed
April 9, 2017
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Can't put the words together? I'm just being consistent, UB. Again, we start out with a problem to solve, conjecture solutions and criticize them. This includes the problem of what your argument actually is. IOW, it's always possible to misunderstand someone because we always have to interpret them. That always comes first. So, I've quoted you, then presented relevant criticisms of what I think your argument is. I expect it to contain errors to some degree because we start out with a guess. There is no way to extrapolate or derive directly from experience. Your response? Claim that I “refuse to address the central claim that ID is based on.” It’s unclear how that helps me correct errors in my interpretation. Apparently, it’s obvious and I just refuse to acknowledge it. (Which sounds oddly like the idea that we all know God exists, and are without excuse) How do we make progress? I guess then, based on feedback, I vary my guess, etc. It’s a process. Look though my comments. I’ve made several attempts to clarify what I think your argument is (#150, #158, #207) Merely claiming I’ve got it wrong and suggesting it’s somewhere in #212 doesn’t help. I'll ask again: did I quote the wrong part? If so, what is the right part? How is the lack of a theory of information not relevant if the central claim of ID is based on information? Effectively saying “You got it wrong” doesn’t address that, either. Again, apparently, that’s just not necessary because it’s all obvious and I’m just avoiding the issue. (That’s yet another conjecture, in case you didn’t recognize it)critical rationalist
April 9, 2017
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It is interesting to watch someone who simply cannot put the words together. What does it say about your counter-arguments that you can't even state the thing they are intended to criticize?Upright BiPed
April 9, 2017
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@UB The answer to your question makes my criticism irrelevant if I type it in into a comment on a blog? But that makes no sense. A good argument is independent of its source or who makes it. So, you don't need me. Right?critical rationalist
April 9, 2017
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You did it again CR. You refuse to address a very simple question -- even with the answer right in front of you (#212) -- because answering the question makes your argument irrelevant. For the reasons already noted, you will continue to do so.Upright BiPed
April 9, 2017
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@UB
Chilly.
Unfortunately, you’re serious.
This is the impetus for your bafflegab and the strength behind it.
Do you have any actual criticism of what I wrote?
This is why you need to answer the question I posed to you.
Is the the answer not what I quoted and responded to? If not, then how am I supposed to know? Furthermore, I don't have justifications. What I'm doing is attempting to take ID seriously for the purpose of criticism. Specifically, when I attempt to take ID's claim seriously, in that a designer designed organisms, this would include the knowledge of what transformations of matter to perform when making a copy of those organisms. A designer that just copied that knowledge into organisms would itself had possessed that knowledge, which would make it well adapted as a storage medium from which the copy originated. It would be well adapted to serve the purpose of designing organisms. Also, ID fails to explain how the knowledge wound up in the designer in the first place. A designer that "just was", complete with this knowledge, already present, doesn't serve an explanatory purpose. This is because one could more efficiently state that organisms "just appeared" with that knowledge, already present. Without an explanation for how intelligence results in knowledge, it's unclear why you think knowledge only comes from intelligent agents unless you're appealing to induction. We've only experienced knowledge in conjunction with intelligent agents. However, taking ID seriously for the purpose of criticism doesn't necessarily mean I think knowledge only comes from designers. In fact, unlike ID, I've already presented explanations for knowledge that ID does not. Again, I'm suggesting that knowledge is information that plays a causal role in being retained when embed in a storage medium. Nor is there just one kind of knowledge. Explanatory knowledge, which is only created by people, has significant reach. On the other hand, non-explanatory knowledge has limited reach. See #127. In fact, since this explanation suggests only people can conceive of problems, conjecture explanatory theories of how the world works to solve them, and criticize them, an indicator of design would be the discovery of explanatory knowledge in organisms. Yet, the knowledge we find it organisms is non-explanatory in that it has limited reach. Take Dawkins' example of the laryngeal nerve in a Giraffe. If the knowledge of nerve routing in a Giraffe’s genome was explanatory, it could be employed to re-route the nerve so it didn’t go down its neck, around it’s heart and back up to its larynx. It would have reach beyond the rule of thumb that was merely useful for short necked ancestors before it. IOW, the claim that the laryngeal nerve in a Giraffe is “bad design” refers to the limited reach of non-explanatory knowledge reflected in it. So it’s not merely subjective. Our current, best explanation for the rapid growth of knowledge is the search for hard to vary, independently formed chains of explanatory theories. This is in contrast to useful rules of thumb. Yet, non-explanatory knowledge is what we find in organisms. So, it’s only through some kind of explanation for knowledge that ID could suggest that a specific kind of knowledge in organisms indicates design, in that our only explanation for it is people. Otherwise, we’re back to mere induction or the bad philosophical view that knowledge comes from authoritative sources.critical rationalist
April 9, 2017
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Some designer that “just was”, complete with the knowledge of just the right transformations of matter to perform, already present (already well adapted), doesn’t serve an explanatory purpose. This is because one could more efficiently state that organisms “just appeared” complete with the knowledge of what transformations to preform, already present (spontaneously well adapted).
This is why you need to answer the question I posed to you. The problem for you is that the moment you answer the question, all your justifications become irrelevant, and you are left in the position of agreeing with the argument you are trying so hard to defeat. This is the impetus for your bafflegab and the strength behind it.Upright BiPed
April 8, 2017
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...the mechanism you refer to is constructed anew when the cell makes a copy of itself. Those transformations occur when the requisite knowledge is present there, as opposed to phoning home to some designer. So, that’s what needs to be explained.
Unfortunately, you're serious.Upright BiPed
April 8, 2017
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UB: Good grief, cr, you are reduced to bafflegab. 1520 words and you still refuse to address the central claim that ID is based on. Just speak the words, cr, if you can. Can you do it? Can you answer the question straight up? What is the central claim that biological ID seeks to support?
Hell will freeze over.
CR: I quoted from #212, then make relevant criticisms … Again, what theory of information … Furthermore, the mechanism … Again, in the absence … Human designers … Some designer … And, of course …
Chilly.Upright BiPed
April 8, 2017
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@UB
What is the central claim that biological ID seeks to support?
I quoted from #212, then make relevant criticisms based on that claim, such as your appeal to the scientific method, etc. Your response? A word count and vague claim that I was supposedly reduced to "bafflegab". Neither of which is a response to my points. And you're not impressed? Again, what theory of information are you implicitly referring to? it's unclear why you think something so critical to ID doesn't need a theory. Apparently, it's just "obvious" and everyone knows. But things only seem obvious, after the fact. And, when better explanations are presented, they suddenly don't anymore. One way explanations are better is that they explain more phenomena and unify what was once considered separate. Furthermore, the mechanism you refer to is constructed anew when the cell makes a copy of itself. Those transformations occur when the requisite knowledge is present there, as opposed to phoning home to some designer. So, that's what needs to be explained. Again, in the absence of an explanation, what you have is induction. Namely, information has been experienced in conjunction with intelligent agents. But despite being intelligent, I cannot design a drug that cures cancer, regardless of how much I want too. Cancer cells would only be destroyed (a transformation of matter) when the requisite knowledge is present in the drug. What's key is knowledge. Human designers are well adapted in that they posses knowledge in physical form. When human beings become less adapted, due to some kind of accident, for example, they perform that purpose less well, if event at all. A human designer that designed organisms would do so because they are we adapted to serve the purpose of designing organisms. Some designer that "just was", complete with the knowledge of just the right transformations of matter to perform, already present (already well adapted), doesn't serve an explanatory purpose. This is because one could more efficiently state that organisms "just appeared" complete with the knowledge of what transformations to preform, already present (spontaneously well adapted). And, of course, ID doesn't want to actually explain anything. Its designer must remain abstract and without limitations because, otherwise, your preferred designer couldn't have done it. So, it must remain merely an authoritative source of knowledge, which is bad philosophy.critical rationalist
April 8, 2017
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Prediction: Hell will freeze overUpright BiPed
April 3, 2017
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Science doesn’t document !!! Put a pickle in a microscope !!!
Good grief, cr, you are reduced to bafflegab. 1520 words and you still refuse to address the central claim that ID is based on. Just speak the words, cr, if you can. Can you do it? Can you answer the question straight up? What is the central claim that biological ID seeks to support? You are never going to detangle yourself until you get it right. (hint: the answer is in #212)Upright BiPed
April 3, 2017
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@KF & UB KF wrote…
CR, Locke and Newton both highlighted the known nature of one branch of reasoning, induction. If we neglect it, it will severely damage ability to operate in the world.
Neglect it? Not only is induction not possible, but it’s undesirable. Many of the contents of our best, current theories didn’t come from empirical observations and simply do not take that form. For example, the evidence that space-time is curved wasn’t a picture of space-time, but a dot in one place, instead of another, on a screen. They are explanations about reality that no one has experienced. Nor did the contents of those theories did not come from observations. They came from conjectured arrangements and variations of the contents of our existing, best theories - which did not come from observations either, etc. So, none of the contents of our theories come from observations. Astrophysics is not primarily about us, in respect to what we will experience when we look into the sky, but about what stars are, in reality: their composition, what makes them shine, how they formed, etc., along with universal laws of physics under which all of that happened. The vast majority of which has never been seen or experienced by anyone. No one has experienced a light year, let alone a billion years or the Big Bang, which happened over 13 billion of years ago. Nor will anyone experience a law physics except in their mind, as a theory. Our predictions of what we will experience (how stars will look to us) are deduced from a long chain of independently formed unseen explanations about how the world works. Inductivism completely fails to account for how we can know about these things as separate from distinct lights in the sky. IOW, if anything will severely damage our ability to operate in the world, it would denying we can make progress in this way. And that’s exactly what you’re doing here. Another misconception of inductivism is that scientific theories predict the future (or the distant past) resembles the past, that the unseen resembles the seen (or probably will), etc. But, when we attempt to take this idea seriously for the purpose of criticism, we find the future is unlike the past and the unseen reality we conclude is responsible for it is very different than the seen. Science often predicts - and even causes the appearance of - phenomena that is drastically different than anything we’ve experienced before. For example, people dreamed of flying for thousands of years. But they experienced nothing but falling. What made the momentous change in what we experienced? People discovered good theories about flying. Then they flew. In precisely in that order. A nuclear-fission explosion had never been observed by a human being before 1945. In fact, there may have never been any such explosion in the entire universe. Despite this fact, the first explosion, along with the conditions under which it would occur, had been accurately predicted. Not based on the future would resemble the past, or even probably so, but on explanations about how the world works. UB wrote…
CR, this is an ID blog. ID suggests that an act of intelligence can be empirically detected in the origin of life on earth. This is the claim that ID theorists attempt to answer. In order to validate the claim, there must be some measurable aspect of known intelligent processes found in the physical embodiment of living things.
What do you mean by “intelligent processes” and what is your explanation as to how they bring about the physical attributes you are referring to? In the absence of an explanation, it’s unclear how you know only they can produce them. At best, you have an abstract authoritative source of knowledge. But that’s bad philosophy. UB wrote…
To that end, science has documented the necessary physical conditions of semiotic systems – that is, systems that use information bound in physical memory to create functional effects. Science has documented that these systems are unique (and exclusively identifiable) among all other physical systems found in the cosmos. Science has shown that these systems are only related to living things.
Science doesn’t “document” or “show” anything. That assumes there is some way to mechanically derive theories from observations. Again, that’s a mistaken idea about how science works. For example, if you look into a microscope, your not looking at the sample directly. What you’ve done is introduce equipment that will relay information about the sample according to a theory about how the equipment works. Specially, a good explanation is hard to vary. It constrains what parts you need and how they must be arranged to give you accurate information about the sample. You can’t replace a lens with, say, a cucumber and expect to see bacteria, right? IOW, one’s ability to setup equipment correctly to obtain evidence depends on having a good explanation for how that equipment works. So, an observation is always an explanation, even if it’s setting on a bench right in front of you. Without an explanation about how “intelligent processes” bring about symbols, it’s unclear how they can be the only source of them. What you’re left with is just induction: every “symbol” we’ve observed was correlated to “intelligent processes”. Thats simply bad philosophy. In addition, I’ve referenced a deeper, universal explanation for knowledge, including the knowledge in biological organisms, that does not require a knowing subject and references to a theory of information that resolves the circularity in Shannon’s theory in regards to distinguishability, which you seem to be eluding to in regards to symbols that mediate gene expression, etc. From the constructor theory of information…
Although it includes conjectured laws of physics that are directly about information, independently of the details of particular physical instantiations, it does not regard information as an a priori mathematical or logical concept, but as something whose nature and properties are determined by the laws of physics alone. It does not suffer from the circularity at the foundations of existing information theory (namely that information and distinguishability are each defined in terms of the other).
What theory of information are you referring to, Shannons? And, if not any particular theory then, again, it’s just induction, which is based on what we experience. See above. UB wrote..
So to answer your question, ID theorists claim that the origin of the genetic translation apparatus — underlying all of biology – is best explained as the product of intelligent action. Moreover, the ID claim about detecting a universal correlate of intelligent action in biology has been validated by physics, using the scientific method. Indeed, the observations that fundamentally support the claim are not even controversial.
The genetic translation apparatus is constructed anew during each copy, when requisite knowledge is present in the cell. It does not phone home to some remote source to determine what transformations to perform. Nor do they just spontaneously appear when the cell is copied. The origin of that knowledge is the origin of the translation apparatus and the rest of the organism’s features. That knowledge is what needs to be explained. Merely saying a designer just copied that knowledge there when creating a cell merely pushes the problem up a level without solving it. Again, I wrote…
For example, I’d like to design a drug to cure cancer. However, regardless of what intention or purpose I had in formulating any such drug, it would only actually cure cancer if the necessary knowledge of what transformations of matter required to do so were actually present in it when administered. My mere desire, enthusiasm or benevolent intent are insufficient to actually cure cancer. Right? So, it’s unclear why knowledge is “not necessary with regards to a designer” and biological organism.
UB wrote…
You place a paradox in front of you that is of your own making. It is not a necessary conclusion drawn from interpreting the physical evidence; it is a paradox under your prior assumptions and biases.
This is what I mean when I say induction is impossible. Specifically, when you claim ID is a necessary scientific conclusion, you’re supposedly just practicing induction. Yet, when I try to take that seriously, for the purpose of criticism, I’m just making a unnecessary, biased interoperation of evidence. Every designer we’ve observed has been a complex, knowledge laden entity that is well designed to serve the purpose of designing things. That’s what information is. Matter that is well adapted. Portraying designers as mere authoritative sources of knowledge ignores what we know about designers. It ignores your own arguments about information, except when it suites your purpose. It ignores the role that knowledge plays in design and in biology. Any designer would have the appearance of design, which is the very thing that needs to be explained. If you don’t have a hard to vary role as to how “Intelligent processes” result in knowledge, then it’s unclear how you know it couldn’t be genuinely created though variation and selection If you assume knowledge only comes from authoritative sources then, of course, Neo-Darwinism cannot be the source of that knowledge because it’s not an authoritative source. But that’s bad philosophy.critical rationalist
April 1, 2017
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cr, It appears that you have made a decision to not pursue our conversation further (#205, #207, #212). Perhaps you've realized that under your own observations, and specifically your contemplation of those observations, you are committed to concur with the design inference as it is actually presented -- i.e. with your prior assumptions and biases set aside.Upright BiPed
March 28, 2017
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CR: .... the knowledge physical embedded in organisms.
And then there is also this problem: Given materialism there is no organism. There is just a conglomerate of fermions and bosons, which presents itself to us as one thing: an organism. But materialism informs us that this unity is but an illusion. There is, in fact, not one thing, there is no organism. You may think so, but it is an illusion. Materialism attempts to unmask the world we are familiar with. It informs us that things are not what they seem to be, that is, there is no intrinsic unity — and as such no reality — to the macro-level of things we know from daily life. Similarly a human being, made from fermions and bosons, may present itself to us as one indivisible thing with its own intentions, but in fact there is nothing over and beyond fermions and bosons which care about neither human beings nor their intentions. The illusion of an intentional personal human being is produced by unintentional impersonal fermions and bosons. To be clear, there is no person and there are no intentions. Moreover, according to materialism, for similar reasons, there is no such a thing as "knowledge" and/or "information". It simply cannot exist. Atheist philosopher Alexander Rosenberg puts it like this:
What we need is a clump of matter .... that by the very arrangement of its synapses points at, indicates, singles out, picks out, identifies (and here we just start piling up more and more synonyms for “being about”) another clump of matter outside the brain. But there is no such physical stuff. Physics has ruled out the existence of clumps of matter of the required sort. There are just fermions and bosons and combinations of them. None of that stuff is just, all by itself, about any other stuff. There is nothing in the whole universe—including, of course, all the neurons in your brain—that just by its nature or composition can do this job of being about some other clump of matter. [Alexander Rosenberg, 'The Atheist's Guide To Reality',Chapter 8]
Origenes
March 26, 2017
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#207
CR why do you refuse to address the elephant in the room?
That’s the thing I’m most confused about. The elephant in the room is the knowledge physical embedded in organisms. They do not “phone home” when making a copy of themselves, Rather, that knowledge to transform raw materials in a construction task. So, the origin of that knowledge is the origin of that organism’s features. How do you explain it?
CR, this is an ID blog. ID suggests that an act of intelligence can be empirically detected in the origin of life on earth. This is the claim that ID theorists attempt to answer. In order to validate the claim, there must be some measurable aspect of known intelligent processes found in the physical embodiment of living things. To that end, science has documented the necessary physical conditions of semiotic systems – that is, systems that use information bound in physical memory to create functional effects. Science has documented that these systems are unique (and exclusively identifiable) among all other physical systems found in the cosmos. Science has shown that these systems are only related to living things. Inside this very small set of physical systems, science has found an even smaller subset of systems. These are systems that use spatially-oriented representations (tokens) to encode their physical memory (i.e. they use a reading-frame code). Science has documented the additional physical requirements of this smaller subset of systems, and found that they are identifiable only in written language and mathematics – two unambiguous products of intelligence. It is now known that this same physical system is also found in the translation of the genetic information inside the cell (i.e. the genetic code), thus forming an inference to intelligent action 4 billion years before the appearance of human intelligence on earth. So to answer your question, ID theorists claim that the origin of the genetic translation apparatus -- underlying all of biology – is best explained as the product of intelligent action. Moreover, the ID claim about detecting a universal correlate of intelligent action in biology has been validated by physics, using the scientific method. Indeed, the observations that fundamentally support the claim are not even controversial.
An entire cell is constructed from prior knowledge from raw materials. It exists as information embedded in a storage medium prior to being put in the organism’s copy, Including the storage medium, etc. That is a non trivial amount of organization that any such designer must have possessed prior in some physical form, were it actually responsible for it. So, it would have been well adapted to design organisms. It’s unclear how being well designed to serve a purpose (design organisms) can be the explanation for being well designed to serve a purpose
You place a paradox in front of you that is of your own making. It is not a necessary conclusion drawn from interpreting the physical evidence; it is a paradox under your prior assumptions and biases. You place this paradox in front of you in order to (not only) avoid the physical evidence as we find it, but also to avoid the actual claim that ID proposes to answer. I don’t know why you think the people on this board should be impressed by this maneuver.Upright BiPed
March 26, 2017
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CR, Locke and Newton both highlighted the known nature of one branch of reasoning, induction. If we neglect it, it will severely damage ability to operate in the world. And in fact, what is really done by hyperskeptics is to selectively doubt and dismiss what they don't like through double-standards on warrant. As to constructing bodies of knowledge and world views, including the role of self evident plumbline truths, I have already linked, but for convenience point here again: http://nicenesystheol.blogspot.com/2010/11/unit-2-gospel-on-mars-hill-foundations.html#u2_bld_wvu . KFkairosfocus
March 26, 2017
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@KF, First, a correction...
Doesn't Locke infer those assumptions due to the Bibilcal clames you listed in the quote
The candle designed (setup) in us by God is faillable, but is good enough to know that he designed us via induction? Again, how does that work, in practice? Assuming it works because it's worked in the past is, well, induction. Assuming it works because God set it up that way appeals to a supernaturally revealed source and preserved knowege. I'm not discounting empirical evidence. I'm suggesting it doesn't play the role you think it plays. You seem to think either it's all or nothing, which is a false dichotomy. Theories are tested by observations, not derived from them. That's not a claim that emeprical evidence doesn't play a critical role in science. It's just not the role you claim it plays. No one has developed a principle of induction that works in practice. No one. So how can you or anyone else use it? If you did, it would seem that you'd also assume that all designers are well adapted to design things, since we've never obsereved a design that was not. As you said, there are trillions of known examples of designers that are well adapted for the purpose of designing things and none that are not. Furthermore, designers that were well adapted but experienced an accident that disrupted that well adaptedness can no longer design things nearly as well or not at all. FSCO/I is an specific example of being well adapted to serve a purpose. Being specified is being well adpated. Being functional is to serve a purpose. When copied information is a transformation of matter, which again is an example of a storage medium being well adapted when embedded there. If modified, it woud not serve that purpose nearly as well if not at all. It checks all the boxes. So, why hasn't induction lead you to conclude that all designed things which exhibit FSCO/I are a clear indication of a designer that is well adapted for the purposes of designing things? Something just doesn't add up. Being well adapted to serve a purpose (designing organisms) cannot be the explanation for being well adapted for a purpose. That rules itself out.critical rationalist
March 26, 2017
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CR I am making no such assumptions as you project. I have responded to your statements and arguments, pointing out some of the challenges they face. I suggested earlier today, for example, that you need to be careful of how you respond to inductive reasoning, based on your remarks in-thread. KF PS: I have also pointed out that evolutionary materialism inherently lets loose grand delusion in our reasoning, warrant, knowledge and morality, utterly undermining itself. Fellow traveller schemes fall under the same fault.kairosfocus
March 26, 2017
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@KF, Why do you keep assuming I must think we can know nothing unless there is some infallible source of knowledge? I've specific indicated this is not the case. Yet, the first quote is aimed squarely at someone who held that assumption. Furthermore, it suggests you think we do not need an explanation for how induction works because induction is what we use, we use what God wanted us to use and he wouldn't want us to use it unless he made it work via some inexplicable means. After all, God is an inexplicable mind that exists in an inexplicable ream that works in inexplicable means and methods. So, don't bother worrying abut induction works, because no progress can be made there. It's inexplicable. In addition, Isn't that curricular because it assumes God deigned us as one of its premises? Doesn't Newton infer those assumptions due to the Biblical claims you listed in the quote? Nor have we ever seen a designer that wasn't well adapted to serve the purpose of designing things. So, apparently, it's not just induction, but induction plus a supernatural source of revealed and preserved knowledge?critical rationalist
March 26, 2017
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CR why do you refuse to address the elephant in the room?
That’s the thing I’m most confused about. The elephant in the room is the knowledge physical embedded in organisms. They do not “phone home” when making a copy of themselves, Rather, that knowledge to transform raw materials in a construction task. So, the origin of that knowledge is the origin of that organism’s features. How do you explain it?
The capacity to acquire “knowledge” requires organization prior to function. This is not a trivial amount of organization, and it is virtually defined by its independence from physico-dynamics.
An entire cell is constructed from prior knowledge from raw materials. It exists as information embedded in a storage medium prior to being put in the organism’s copy, Including the storage medium, etc. That is a non trivial amount of organization that any such designer must have possessed prior in some physical form, were it actually responsible for it. So, it would have been well adapted to design organisms. It’s unclear how being well designed to serve a purpose (design organisms) can be the explanation for being well designed to serve a purpose. And If the “designer” didn’t have prior possession of that knowledge, by nature of not being well adapted, then how did it end up in an organism it supposedly designed? Merely saying the knowledge appeared as part of the “design” process doesn’t explain the origin of that knowledge. This would be like an industrial robot coming off an assembly line somehow pre-programed with the knowledge of how to build a car, already present. That’s the spontaneous creation of knowledge, which is strangely what people here seem to claim evolution equates to.
You have no source for that organization, or the coordination required for semantic closure. Why go on pretending that you’ve offered something that impacts these fundamental physical issues?
I’m still not exactly sure what you’re referring to here. Are you referring to the universality of DNA? Or are you suggesting that the knowledge of how to build organisms was somehow already present in the laws of physics? As the paper states, some have proposed that the level of accuracy in which genes are copied in biological template replicators may not be compatible with no-design laws. That is, that level of accuracy would require the design of template replicators, including their copying mechanisms, to be already present somehow in the laws of physics themselves. Therefore, evolution doesn’t actually play the role it is thought to play. In constructor theory, that is a claims that the copy process that occurs would be prohibited by no-design laws of physics. Is that what you’re suggesting? From the Aeon article..
Given that life isn’t the output of an intentional design process, but evolved, how could living things have evolved given these design-free laws of physics? Darwin’s theory addresses this problem, explaining that variation and natural selection bring about the appearance of design. But this in itself doesn’t close the explanatory gap, as we can see especially clearly in the modern version of Darwin’s theory – neo-Darwinism. At its heart are the replicators, or genes – bits of DNA that are transmitted, by replication, to the next generation. Moreover, for replication to be as accurate as it is in living things, accurate self-reproduction of the cell is also required. In short, the theory presupposes the possibility of certain accurate physical transformations, and these are just what no-design laws of physics fail to provide in their starter kit.
The laws of physics do not provide what’s necessary to make those copies. The article then goes on to point out that even if we could somehow predict that specific forms of life would appear from initial contains in the prevailing conception of physics, objectors could always claim the design of those organisms was somehow already present in the laws of physics.
Now, it turns out that an explanation of this sort is peculiarly difficult to formulate using the prevailing methods of physics. The latter can predict only what a physical system will do (or will probably do) at a later time, given certain initial conditions and laws of motion. But applying laws of motion to particles is an intractably laborious way to express the appearance of design, replication, self?reproduction and natural selection. Those processes are highly emergent, involving the collective motion of countless interacting particles. There is more. Even if one could predict that – given certain dynamical laws and initial conditions – particles would aggregate so as to form a goat at a certain time, this would not at all explain whether a goat could have come about without design. The design of the goat, for all we know, could be encoded in the initial conditions or in the laws of motion. In general, one must explain whether and how a goat is possible (ie, permitted) under no?design laws of physics; not just predict that it will (or will probably) happen, given some version of the actual laws and initial conditions. Thinking within the prevailing conception has led some physicists – including the 1963 Nobel Prize-winner Eugene Wigner and the late US-born quantum physicist David Bohm – to conclude that the laws of physics must be tailored to produce biological adaptations in general. This is amazingly erroneous. If it were true, physical theories would have to be patched up with ‘design-bearing’ additions, in the initial conditions or the laws of motion, or both, and the whole explanatory content of Darwinian evolution would be lost.
So, what is addressed here is (1) how the accurate transformations in life are possible when the organization your are referring to is not present in the “toolbox” of the current laws of physics and (2) how their recipe for organisms need not be in the initial conditions or the laws of physics. Note, that (1) necessarily includes information, its storage and the transformations that occur during copying. Details on information in constructor theory are the first paper I referenced. If this isn’t relevant to your objection, then please elaborate on how it is different from what is presented here as a starting point. Or some other starting point. I’ll be out of town on a cruise until Wednesday, so I won’t be able to respond until then.critical rationalist
March 26, 2017
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CR, Inductive reasoning is never a "just." Your first quarrel is obviously with the province of logic that allows us to access empirical, credibly reliable knowledge of the external world. No wonder you seem to treat empirical evidence so cavalierly. I suggest that it would be wiser for you to heed Locke in his Intro to his Essay on Human Understanding, sec 5 (where ATBC, AE, TSZ et al . . . trying to tell true/false by the clock is a fallacy):
Men have reason to be well satisfied with what God hath thought fit for them, since he hath given them (as St. Peter says [NB: i.e. 2 Pet 1:2 - 4]) pana pros zoen kaieusebeian, whatsoever is necessary for the conveniences of life and information of virtue; and has put within the reach of their discovery, the comfortable provision for this life, and the way that leads to a better. How short soever their knowledge may come of an universal or perfect comprehension of whatsoever is, it yet secures their great concernments [Prov 1: 1 - 7], that they have light enough to lead them to the knowledge of their Maker, and the sight of their own duties [cf Rom 1 - 2 & 13, Ac 17, Jn 3:19 - 21, Eph 4:17 - 24, Isaiah 5:18 & 20 - 21, Jer. 2:13, Titus 2:11 - 14 etc, etc]. Men may find matter sufficient to busy their heads, and employ their hands with variety, delight, and satisfaction, if they will not boldly quarrel with their own constitution, and throw away the blessings their hands are filled with, because they are not big enough to grasp everything . . . It will be no excuse to an idle and untoward servant [Matt 24:42 - 51], who would not attend his business by candle light, to plead that he had not broad sunshine. The Candle that is set up in us [Prov 20:27] shines bright enough for all our purposes . . . If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do muchwhat as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly. [Text references added to document the sources of Locke's allusions and citations.]
Also, Newton, in Opticks, Query 31, has somewhat to instruct you:
As in Mathematicks, so in Natural Philosophy, the Investigation of difficult Things by the Method of Analysis, ought ever to precede the Method of Composition. This Analysis consists in making Experiments and Observations, and in drawing general Conclusions from them by Induction, and admitting of no Objections against the Conclusions, but such as are taken from Experiments, or other certain Truths. For [speculative, metaphysical] Hypotheses are not to be regarded in experimental Philosophy. And although the arguing from Experiments and Observations by Induction be no Demonstration of general Conclusions; yet it is the best way of arguing which the Nature of Things admits of, and may be looked upon as so much the stronger, by how much the Induction is more general. And if no Exception occur from Phaenomena, the Conclusion may be pronounced generally. But if at any time afterwards any Exception shall occur from Experiments, it may then begin to be pronounced with such Exceptions as occur. By this way of Analysis we may proceed from Compounds to Ingredients, and from Motions to the Forces producing them; and in general, from Effects to their Causes, and from particular Causes to more general ones, till the Argument end in the most general. This is the Method of Analysis: And the Synthesis consists in assuming the Causes discover'd, and establish'd as Principles, and by them explaining the Phaenomena proceeding from them, and proving the Explanations.
I suggest that you need to address the absurdity of scanting inductive reasoning before further venturing out to criticise the design inference on FSCO/I as an inductively grounded, analytically backed strong sign of design as credible cause. Where, case no 1 is the algorithmic TEXT in DNA and the associated molecular nanotech macines that give it functional effect. As in, what is the empirically grounded, inductively known source of text (as in a manifestation of alphabetic language that per the usual timeline dates to what, 3.5 - 3.8 BYA?): ______________ As also in, what is the similarly grounded source of algorithms, codes and linked data structures: _____________ As further, what is the similarly grounded source of execution machinery that coherently accesses, reads and executes algorithms: _______________ As yet further, what is the similarly grounded source of coherent, unified, structured organisation that establishes automata that carries out such processes: ______________________ And finally, what would be the reasonable source of a von Neumann, kinematic self replication facility [vNKSR] that integrates all such into a self-replicating automaton: _______ , and why do you conclude such: ___________ , with what empirical warrant: ____________ ? (Do you see why the issue of absurdity arises, starting with OOL? Also, with burning down the house of inductive reasoning?) KF PS: For those inclined to play at dismissive attack the man on seeing the abbreviation of a descriptive phrase, FSCO/I, I suggest a look at the OP above. CR, this particularly includes you. Unresponsiveness to facts and evidence right in front of you on what a simple phrase means and addresses -- an OBVIOUS phenomenon you created a further example of by posting a comment -- does not lend you credibility in dealing with more difficult, more distant matters. And yes, it counts that the text of comments in this thread are further examples of FSCO/I and of its credible, reliable cause, intelligently directed configuration. Note the OP:
FSCO/I is real, relevant and patently descriptive, both of the technological world and the biological world. This demands an adequate causal explanation, and the only serious explanation on the table that is empirically warranted is, design. As the text of this post illustrates, and as the text of objector comments to come will further inadvertently illustrate
THAT is what is being so stoutly resisted. And if something so simple is being so ferociously opposed [remember, I have been subjected to stalking] there is no point, really, in trying to discuss more complex matters. Such evidence demonstrates that we are dealing with ideologically induced closed-mindedness and its handmaiden, selectively hyperskeptical dismissiveness . . . to the point of some objectors plainly being willing to burn down inductive reasoning, the core logic of the methods of science.kairosfocus
March 26, 2017
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CR why do you refuse to address the elephant in the room? The capacity to acquire "knowledge" requires organization prior to function. This is not a trivial amount of organization, and it is virtually defined by its independence from physico-dynamics. You have no source for that organization, or the coordination required for semantic closure. Why go on pretending that you've offered something that impacts these fundamental physical issues? Repeatedly assuming the capabilities of the system is a non-starter.Upright BiPed
March 25, 2017
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@KF,
There are trillions of cases of separately known origin and utterly reliably it is by design. There are zero credible counter examples by which blind chance and/or mechanical necessity create de novo FSCO/I.
First, so it's just induction? The distant past resembles the recent past we have and have not observed? Really? If not, then what is the explanation for the knowledge in organisms, which is uses to make a copy of itself? Our explanation for what you call FSCO/I in the case of human designers is due to having been well adapted to serve a purpose. What do I mean by being "well adapted"? If you change it slightly, then it doesn't serve that purpose as well, if even at all. Everything from the knowledge in our genes, biological features and and knowledge in our brains represents being well adapted. For example, DNA is a substrate that is transformed as part of a construction task (well adapted) from raw materials, etc. The original instructions are well adapted matter. We either utilize instincts that come from our genes via variation and selection, or ideas that come from conjecturing ideas and criticizing them. That knowledge is our explanation for designed things, including computers, binary data, compilers, languages, etc. In their current state, they are often copied as is. And, before that, were were genuinely created via conjecture and criticism. In either case, they represent adaptations of storage mediums. Transformations that result in human designed things occur when the requisite knowledge is present in them, in some kind of adoption of matter. To quote an earlier comment..
For example, I’d like to design a drug to cure cancer. However, regardless of what intention or purpose I had in formulating any such drug, it would only actually cure cancer if the necessary knowledge of what transformations of matter required to do so were actually present in it when administered. My mere desire, enthusiasm or benevolent intent are insufficient to actually cure cancer. Right? So, it’s unclear why knowledge is “not necessary with regards to a designer” and biological organisms.
How did the knowledge get into the drug? If I was responsible, I would have had to posses it in the first place before I could put it there. Otherwise, it would be like manufacturing a pill and having that knowledge spontaneously appear there when the filler was pressed. If you're just using induction, it's unclear why you wouldn't also assume that the distant past would be like the recent past, in that any such designer would also be well adapted as we are. Nor have we ever observed a designer that is not well adapted to serve the purpose of designing things. So, following your "inference", designers of the distant past would also be well adapted for the purpose of designing organisms. That rules itself out.critical rationalist
March 25, 2017
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CR:
The appearance of design is being well adapted to serve a purpose.
Over two hundred comments after the OP and it still has not registered that the design inference is not about the appearance of design, it seems. I suggest you revisit inductive logic 101. Functionally specific, complex organisation and/or associated information describes a readily observed phenomenon. Indeed, in Crick's March 19, 1953 letter, he speaks to DNA as a case in point -- readily recognising it as text. There are trillions of cases of separately known origin and utterly reliably it is by design. There are zero credible counter examples by which blind chance and/or mechanical necessity create de novo FSCO/I. The search challenge on sol system or observed cosmos scale to find needle in haystack islands of function in config spaces for 500 - 1,000 bits and beyond give a very good explanation for that. Where by the very need for well matched, correctly arranged and coupled parts to achieve relevant functionality, islands of function are a natural consequence. Random document generation exercises are a factor of 10^100 short, no surprise there. None of this would be controversial if there were not an established school of thought on origins that demands that such FSCO/I must somehow come about by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity. But that puts the cart before the horse: we have a major theory of origins that is failing key, empirically based tests. Mind you, too often nowadays that seems to have but little impact. Such are the days we live in. KFkairosfocus
March 25, 2017
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