Is social media killing Wikipedia?

_{Denyse O'Leary

October 24, 2017

Culture, Darwinism, Media, Naturalism, Science}

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From Hossain Derakhshan at Wired:

Wikipedia has never been as wealthy or well-organized. American liberals, worried that Trump’s rise threatened the country’s foundational Enlightenment ideals, kicked in a significant flow of funds that has stabilized the nonprofit’s balance sheet.

That happy news masks a more concerning problem—a flattening growth rate in the number of contributors to the website. It is another troubling sign of a general trend around the world: The very idea of knowledge itself is in danger.

…

Now the challenge is to save Wikipedia and its promise of a free and open collection of all human knowledge amid the conquest of new and old television—how to collect and preserve knowledge when nobody cares to know. Television has even infected Wikipedia itself—today many of the most popular entries tend to revolve around television series or their cast. More.

<em>Teapot</em> Cobalt Blue Well, like we’ve said before, when a king cobra mixes it up with a giant sidewinder, it’s hard to know which side to back…

We think naturally of Wikipedia “disappearing” paleontologist Gunter Bechly and diminishing engineering prof Walter Bradley. Social media can, of course, also zap whoever the employees anticipate that Mark Zuckerberg and cronies don’t like. But they don’t pretend to be reference sources.

Wikipedia’s lofty goals were conceived in apparent ignorance of the usual ways human beings behave. One could be getting the opinions of experts, however motivated by the politics of a discipline, as with all encyclopaedias throughout history. But, in a new development, one could just be getting the opinions of trolls —information landfill. Some of it may be salvageable but who’s going to go to the trouble of digging in deep to find out?

Also: At “Wikipedians diminish another high achiever sympathetic to ID,” a commenter writes “Larry Moran isn’t in Wikipedia” (either). News replies,

ET at 3: The fact that Larry Moran isn’t in Wikipedia is not a good defence for that source. He has been quite active in recent evolution discussions. He was in Forbes in 2015 on that very topic, just for example.

If one wants to know what is happening, Wikipedia is not the place to look. But if a kid wants to sloven through homework in a failing school system and that’s okay with the folks at home, it’s ideal.

Note: Hossein Derakhshan (@h0d3r) is an Iranian-Canadian media analyst who was imprisoned in Iran from 2008 to 2014.

See also: Wikipedians diminish another high achiever sympathetic to ID. Yes, there is sometimes useful information in Wikipedia. But one can say that of the supermarket tabloids as well. It’s a question of how likely that is, relative to stuff we can’t evaluate or should avoid, averaged against the value of one’s time sorting it out.

Hat tip: Pos-Darwinista

Comments

PPS: Useful discussion: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/is-the-multiverse-deadkairosfocus_{November 8, 2017
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MS, side-track. The BB issue as is discussed in recent times was developed on the issue of a quasi-infinite multiverse comprising sub-cosmi arising through fluctuations of what we could consider an underlying sub-verse. (As in, a quantum foam or the like popping up fluctuations is not non-being, a real nothing.) Fluctuations of quantum character [which already moves us well beyond Boltzmann, who died was it 1906, unfortunately at his own hand]. The issue, as you should have noted above but chose to sidetrack from, is that on such a model of reality -- and it is put forth on a case where there are no actual observations beyond the cosmos that surrounds us -- a sol-like system only world should be far more common than what we see. And, indeed, a sub-cosmos constituting a BB that pops up by quantum fluctuation from the underlying sub-cosmos is yet far more likely. So, we see that the subset of observer containing worlds has in it two patches of Leslie's wall that are carpeted with flies. The second is even far more big than the first. On this, it is utterly implausible that we should see instead a case of a cosmos that is at a deeply isolated operating point, as we credibly see. So, a superior explanation is that we see a fine tuned cosmos, the lone fly swatted by a bullet from a marksman and a tack-driver of a rifle. Which last raises the further point you have ignored, that projecting to a cosmos bakery simply pushes up the fine tuning to the next level, as the issue of producing well-tempered sub cosmi vs the equivalent of doughy half baked messes or burned hockey pucks arises also. the red herring chase to a strawman rhetorical game fails. KF PS; Trying to suggest that a world with a BB is far more informational than one with a cosmos like ours ignores the information content of the physics of such a well-tempered cosmos. Which is precisely the issue at stake on this tangent to a discussion that should be on Wikipedia, but has run on tangents since you put several up above. That has been pointed out already but has been studiously ignored. The suggestion that this type of cosmos is less informational than a BB world and so reverses the odds, drastically fails.kairosfocus_{November 8, 2017
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Origenes @ 120, I'll try to explain Boltzmann and Boltzmann Brains one last time. In the nineteenth century, Boltzmann basically invented the modern version of entropy. Something bothered him, though: how come the universe we observe has such low entropy? We see order everywhere; vast expanses of empty space studded with incandescent balls of gas, planets, moons, and incredibly complex living creatures. Statistically, we should see burnt out stars, frozen planets and the dust of long gone organisms. He proposed (and I don't know how serious he was) that perhaps the universe had been thermodynamically dead - just a thin gas swirling around, with no stars, planets or organisms of any kind. Then, all the atoms swirling around at random just happened to crash into each other and form the stars, planets, living organisms and everything else we see in one glorious statistical burp. Needless to say, such an occurrence would be rather rare. Roger Penrose recently calculated the odds against such a thing happening at 1 in 10^ (10^123). That number is so big that there aren't enough atoms in the universe to write it on, even if you wrote one digit on every atom in the universe. But people in the 19th century spotted an even worse problem. The universe included lots of people and every one of those people had a brain. Even then, people knew that brains were incredibly complicated, but they also knew that each brain was only a tiny part of the universe and therefore, complex as it was, it had to be much, much, much simpler than the universe. That means that spontaneously forming a brain would be much more likely than spontaneously forming a universe and that therefore you should see a lot more brains floating all alone in the chaos than a universe that also contained brains. People in the 19th century also knew that brains were observers, although KF kindly requests you ignore that today because a good non-materialist doesn't believe that a purely material brain can observe anything. Nevertheless, the 19th century people believed that if Boltzmann's hypothesis was true, then the average observer should be a naked brain floating in the chaos instead of one of us walking around on a planet and therefore Boltzmann's hypothesis for the formation of the universe as we see it today in one fell swoop was wrong. I agree with this reasoning (and so does everybody else), but it doesn't apply to the universe as we know it today. We know now that the universe didn't pop into existence exactly as it is today. Evidence nobody had in the 19th century shows that this universe popped into existence as a bit of undifferentiated energy crammed into an incredibly small space with none of the detail we see today. No stars, planets, galaxies, humans or even hydrogen atoms. Those all formed after the Big Bang. In message 30, I did a very back of the envelope calculation of the information / complexity of the infant universe and its measured in megabytes at the most. A few constants, a few laws, a few types of sub-atomic particles with a few ways they can form atoms - there wasn't much. A brain that can be an observer, on the other hand, has to contain a huge amount of information. The lowest estimate I can find is one terabyte, which is 1,000 megabytes. Most estimates are between 10 and 100 terabytes. Now the odds are completely reversed. You'll get thousands of Big Bang infant universes popping into existence, each containing a few megabytes of information, before you'll get a single brain popping into existence containing terabytes of information. And the one infant universe we know of has grown up and produced billions of brains, with more being produced as we speak. Now none of that probably convinces anybody here, but I'm tired of the subject and the postman delivered about a hundred bucks worth of Banggood goodies today and yesterday, so I'm done for now. See you all later.MatSpirit_{November 8, 2017
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Origenes at 118: " Koonin: Origin of life is a chicken and egg problem: for biological evolution that is governed, primarily, by natural selection, to take off, efficient systems for replication and translation are required, but even barebones cores of these systems appear to be products of extensive selection. The currently favored (partial) solution is an RNA world without proteins in which replication is catalyzed by ribozymes and which serves as the cradle for the translation system. However, the RNA world faces its own hard problems as ribozyme-catalyzed RNA replication remains a hypothesis and the selective pressures behind the origin of translation remain mysterious." Thanks for the quote. (Upright, that's how it's done.) I had heard that some prominent physicist had declared that a multiverse was necessary for first life, but I didn't realize it was Koonin. He seems to think that the DNA-RNA translation system had to form randomly - except that he also says, "... even barebones cores of these systems appear to be products of extensive selection" which implies that they evolved. He thinks the RNA world has problems, but then he says, "the selective pressures behind the origin of translation remain mysterious", which again makes it seem like he thinks translation evolved. If he thinks the DNA-RNA-translation system formed randomly in one fell swoop, then he's right, it would probably take a multi-verse to give enough tries for that to happen, but you'll notice that nobody is lining up behind him. Most OOL people just don't think first life was that hard and evolution took it from there.MatSpirit_{November 8, 2017
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MS: I suggest you examine the just above, esp the PS, the PPS and the linked. KFkairosfocus_{November 8, 2017
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Origines, well said. Sadly, MS seems to specialise in a form of the ever so common fallacy trifecta: red herrings led to strawman caricatures soaked in to the man contempt in his case. Set alight through dismissive rhetoric and the issue is lost in the fog of confusion and subtle form polarisation rooted in contempt. Such then self-reinforces, as the means of correction is being pushed aside and distracted from. KF PS: One of the attempts to dismiss the point is to suggest that slight changes in the cosmology would drastically shift the result of finding observers who are BB's. Actually, this is a half-story, it implies but does not address the Robin Collins point. Namely, exporting fine tuning to the next level. That is, you face the issue of a fine-tuned "cosmos bakery" that spits out observer-permitting worlds as a well set up bakery spits out well formed loaves. Set it off a tad and burned hockey pucks or doughy half baked messes result. So, what fine tunes the sub-verse, the source of claimed -- notice, not one whit of actual observation! (That is, strictly philosophy not science . . . ) -- sub cosmi that bubble up with at least one being like ours. Where, instead of the far more statistically weighted case among observer worlds of a BB with say a delusion of a cosmos, we have good reason to believe we live together in a common world. One with deeply isolated physics that sets us to a lone fly on the wall operating point swatted by the bullet of actual empirical observation. Why this instead of the fly carpeted patches of, first, non-observer permitting worlds? [In short, THAT observers are present, on what we know of the physics that would apply to a blind chance and mechanical necessity blind domain of reality is in itself highly remarkable.] Then, secondly, we have reason to see that BB type worlds -- as a generic type of single observers with delusions of worlds or even just "brain in a vat" self-awareness -- would be vastly more common on such a metaphysical model than even the single sol system world. In turn, that is of far higher statistical weight than the sort of cosmos we observe. So, on the same logic of relative statistical weight that undergirds things like the second law of thermodynamics, we ought not to observe what we do on a metaphysics of blind chance and mechanical necessity. So, we must take seriously the alternative metaphysics of a world that is designed and exhibits fine tuning because it was tuned for life. Look, just yesterday I was forcibly reminded of just how hard it is to set up a smoothly and correctly functioning door closer. Already, on grand inference to best cosmological explanation, fine tuning is far more plausible than the sort of multiverse schemes that in the end must appeal to a cosmos bakery that happens to be set just right to spit out observer permitting worlds. Then, as we are in comparative worldviews analysis -- we got there when unobserved multiverses were slipped in as explanatory constructs -- we must address all the evidence. Including that we are evidently responsibly and rationally significantly free, just to be able to have a real discussion where actors self-move to new views on the abstract mental force of argument. So, a world with morally governed, rational observers is a constraint. What best explains observers who are morally governed, responsibly and rationally significantly free? (Where to deny this is to instantly plunge into self-referential absurdities like implying that the discussion is part of a delusion spewed up by grand blind chance and/or mechanical necessity all the way back to the sub-verse.) We face the IS-OUGHT gap in a context where this is germane as the multi-verse idea is inherently a phil speculation until there is adequate observation to ground it as empirical fact. After decades, there is no such observation. So, we are dealing with comparative difficulties. And with the phenomenon where arguments against cosmological fine tuning commonly simply export the fine tuning to the next level. Here the sub-verse cosmos bakery. So too we face the Hume guillotine, only world root level can bridge the is-ought gap. Where, there is just one serious candidate: the inherently good creator God, a necessary and maximally great being worthy of loyalty and the responsible, reasonable service of doing good in accord with our evident nature. To challenge this, simply put up a serious alternative that is coherent, as well as factually and explanatorily adequate: ______ . Prediction: on years of challenge, no successful alternative will be forthcoming. And yes, I am compressing a library shelf into a comment PS. Going on, generic ethical theism, in effect the God of Philosophy, is on the table as the best worldview level explanation. Which lends great plausibility to the Judaeo-Christian tradition which is now so despised and mocked in our civilisation that -- as last weekend demonstrates -- the unhinged now distill permission from the toxic brew of post-Christian defiantly apostate amoral culture and linked dominant messages to massacre people at worship in churches. All of this points to a need for those resorting to multiverse speculations to avoid the force of fine tuning to face the implications of exporting fine tuning to the cosmos bakery level. Not that most who take up populist skepticism are likely to be inclined to seriously think through worldview alternatives and the verdict of comparative difficulties. But, a finger pointing the way is always needed. Or is that, calling out to the invisible remnant on the verge of a day of wrath against a willfully apostate culture that has turned its back on what it knows or should know? PPS: Ever since Paul went to Mars Hill AD 50 and summarised the core C1 creed five years later in a letter to the Corinthians, cf Ac 17 and 1 Cor 15, the actual core warranting case of the Christian gospel is the coming of Messiah as prophesied who suffers as lamb of God and rises from the dead with 500+ witnesses, cf: http://nicenesystheol.blogspot.com/2010/11/unit-1-biblical-foundations-of-and-core.html#u1_witnsskairosfocus_{November 7, 2017
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MS: I think you would be well advised to heed the corrective just above. KFkairosfocus_{November 7, 2017
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PS: Again, Plato's warning:
Ath [in The Laws, Bk X 2,350+ ya]. . . .[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art . . . [such that] all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only [ --> that is, evolutionary materialism is ancient and would trace all things to blind chance and mechanical necessity] . . . . [Thus, they hold] that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.-
[ --> Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT, leading to an effectively arbitrary foundation only for morality, ethics and law: accident of personal preference, the ebbs and flows of power politics, accidents of history and and the shifting sands of manipulated community opinion driven by "winds and waves of doctrine and the cunning craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming . . . " cf a video on Plato's parable of the cave; from the perspective of pondering who set up the manipulative shadow-shows, why.]
These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might,
[ --> Evolutionary materialism -- having no IS that can properly ground OUGHT -- leads to the promotion of amorality on which the only basis for "OUGHT" is seen to be might (and manipulation: might in "spin") . . . ]
and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [ --> Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles influenced by that amorality at the hands of ruthless power hungry nihilistic agendas], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is,to live in real dominion over others [ --> such amoral and/or nihilistic factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless abuse and arbitrariness . . . they have not learned the habits nor accepted the principles of mutual respect, justice, fairness and keeping the civil peace of justice, so they will want to deceive, manipulate and crush -- as the consistent history of radical revolutions over the past 250 years so plainly shows again and again], and not in legal subjection to them [--> nihilistic will to power not the spirit of justice and lawfulness].
kairosfocus_{November 7, 2017
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ET, one of the most revealing things about MS arguing in bad faith is that he insists on falsely terming ID a form of creationism despite correction. At this stage, he has made himself a poster child of what is wrong with evolutionary materialism and fellow travellers, by showing utter contempt for truth. Of course, when we point out the amorality involved in evo mat and implications (as were pointed out by Plato 2350+ ya), adherents and fellow travellers tend to resort to the how dare you tactic. But, as MS again demonstrates, they keep on demonstrating how inherently amoral ideologies corrupt conscience and thus reason which needs to be guided by conscience towards truth, right etc. Sad, really. KFkairosfocus_{November 7, 2017
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MatSpirit: And it turns out that Carroll was talking about the cosmology that Boltzmann proposed over a century ago, which is totally chaotic, with atoms zipping around at random until they v e r r y occasionally slam into each other and stick together to make the universe we see around us. As others pointed out a century ago, a human brain is much simpler than the huge universe we see around us and consequently should be much more likely to pop into existence than the entire universe.
Not quite, the idea is that an observed universe is much more likely to be a ‘Boltzmann Brain World’ — a chaotic universe with a single brain — then the universe we find us in. It’s simply about probabilities.
MatSpirit: Thus for every universe we see, there should be an enormous number of Boltzmann’s brains floating around …
No, that’s not the argument at all. For an observed universe one brain suffices. Mat, you are offering very confused thoughts …
MatSpirit: … and we don’t see that , so Boltzmann’s cosmology was refuted over 100 years ago and Carroll’s quotation has nothing to do with the multi-verse proposed today.
?? Excuse me, Boltzmann’s cosmology is refuted 100 years ago, because we don’t see other universes with brains? What?
MatSpirit: Why do you throw Boltzmann Brains into the argument? It’s because none of you seems to understand what they’re all about.
Stop with your nonsense interpretation of the argument. It’s about the ’observer self-selection effect’ — see #94.Origenes_{November 7, 2017
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MatSpirit:
ID, YEC and all the other forms of creationism positively thrive on giant numbers that reflect only their fanciful view of reality.
Clueless. The ONLY reason for those numbers is because you and yours don't have a methodology to test your claims. If you had such a methodology then those numbers would be moot. You want a replicating molecule then demonstrate one can arise without our intervention. Then there is Spiegelman's monster to contend with once you get a replicating molecule- well first you need the resources to replicate that molecule.
How did you know that first molecule was lysine?
You said it was. BTW there isn't any evidence that proteins replicate. So you are living in some fantasy world, as usual.ET_{November 7, 2017
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MatSpirit: ... quotes that would indicate the first self copier needed external information would do. Special bonus points if they say DNA is necessary.
Maybe you can start here:
Koonin: Origin of life is a chicken and egg problem: for biological evolution that is governed, primarily, by natural selection, to take off, efficient systems for replication and translation are required, but even barebones cores of these systems appear to be products of extensive selection. The currently favored (partial) solution is an RNA world without proteins in which replication is catalyzed by ribozymes and which serves as the cradle for the translation system. However, the RNA world faces its own hard problems as ribozyme-catalyzed RNA replication remains a hypothesis and the selective pressures behind the origin of translation remain mysterious. ... Despite considerable experimental and theoretical effort, no compelling scenarios currently exist for the origin of replication and translation, the key processes that together comprise the core of biological systems and the apparent pre-requisite of biological evolution. ... Under this model, a full-fledged RNA world, with a diverse population of replicating RNA molecules but without translation, was not a stage in the origin of life on earth. ... ... even in this toy model that assumes a deliberately inflated rate of RNA production, the probability that a coupled translation-replication emerges by chance in a single O-region is P < 10^(-1018). — link
Origenes_{November 7, 2017
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PPS: Walker and Davies throw out a significant side-light:
In physics, particularly in statistical mechanics, we base many of our calculations on the assumption of metric transitivity, which asserts that a system’s trajectory will eventually [--> given "enough time and search resources"] explore the entirety of its state space – thus everything that is phys-ically possible will eventually happen. It should then be trivially true that one could choose an arbitrary “final state” (e.g., a living organism) and “explain” it by evolving the system backwards in time choosing an appropriate state at some ’start’ time t_0 (fine-tuning the initial state). In the case of a chaotic system the initial state must be specified to arbitrarily high precision. But this account amounts to no more than saying that the world is as it is because it was as it was, and our current narrative therefore scarcely constitutes an explanation in the true scientific sense. We are left in a bit of a conundrum with respect to the problem of specifying the initial conditions necessary to explain our world. A key point is that if we require specialness in our initial state (such that we observe the current state of the world and not any other state) metric transitivity cannot hold true, as it blurs any dependency on initial conditions – that is, it makes little sense for us to single out any particular state as special by calling it the ’initial’ state. If we instead relax the assumption of metric transitivity (which seems more realistic for many real world physical systems – including life), then our phase space will consist of isolated pocket regions and it is not necessarily possible to get to any other physically possible state (see e.g. Fig. 1 for a cellular automata example).
[--> or, there may not be "enough" time and/or resources for the relevant exploration, i.e. we see the 500 - 1,000 bit complexity threshold at work vs 10^57 - 10^80 atoms with fast rxn rates at about 10^-13 to 10^-15 s leading to inability to explore more than a vanishingly small fraction on the gamut of Sol system or observed cosmos . . . the only actually, credibly observed cosmos]
Thus the initial state must be tuned to be in the region of phase space in which we find ourselves [--> notice, fine tuning], and there are regions of the configuration space our physical universe would be excluded from accessing, even if those states may be equally consistent and permissible under the microscopic laws of physics (starting from a different initial state). Thus according to the standard picture, we require special initial conditions to explain the complexity of the world, but also have a sense that we should not be on a particularly special trajectory to get here (or anywhere else) as it would be a sign of fine–tuning of the initial conditions. [ --> notice, the "loading"] Stated most simply, a potential problem with the way we currently formulate physics is that you can’t necessarily get everywhere from anywhere (see Walker [31] for discussion). ["The “Hard Problem” of Life," June 23, 2016, a discussion by Sara Imari Walker and Paul C.W. Davies at Arxiv.]
kairosfocus_{November 7, 2017
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MS, as just a note, the replication process of a living cell is a novel system architecture and requires a sound explanation as to origin. You cannot simply say oh under certain conditions -- which BTW in observation have to be very carefully set up -- molecules will replicate, no problem there. In particular, you need to address coded information, translation and execution machinery that effects the architecture. None of these is a trivial problem. KF PS: Maybe you need to simply go back upthread and actually read what was already pointed out:
13: your reconstruction of the BB is rather simplistic, and fails to understand what a deeply isolated operating point in a field of possible configs would do to hoped for occasional popping up of a fine tuned cosmos. The usual way to put it is to ask why we do not instead experience the vastly more likely Boltzmann Brain pops up world. Besides, BB theory and fine tuning have v little or nothing to do with what was discussed. Haldane was and is right, advances in brain etc studies only deepen the mystery, and do utterly nothing to break out of the inherent gap between blind mechanical necessity and/or equally blind chance and responsible, rational freedom. 26: More on topic, do you begin to understand how much precise, coherent organisation — aka fine tuning — has to be in place to get to a BB that gives rise to a world fitted for C-chem, aqueous medium, terrestrial planet and galactic habitable zone based, cell architecture life? Do you really imagine that the physics of a cosmos is a low functional information/ organisation entity? I suggest, start with what it takes to get to water. 33: empirical evidence for a quasi-infinite multiverse? NIL. Then, even were such the case, there is a big challenge to account for Leslie’s lone fly on a patch of wall swatted by a bullet, instead of a fly-carpet zone elsewhere. In other words, you are posting up imaginary quasi-infinite resources to get to a probabilistic miracle in order to protect a prior commitment to evolutionary materialist scientism and/or fellow travellers; a serious worldviews telltale. Besides, the evo mat stance cannot credibly account for mindedness governed by conscience — responsible, rational freedom and logical consequence vs blind mechanical and/or chance driven causal chains; it ends in self-referential incoherence. Going beyond, you are categorically confusing location in a space etc with the organisation and coherence that frames the physics for a cosmos amenable to life such as we enjoy. That’s another telltale. There’s more, but this is enough for starters. 48a: First, you seem obsessed with theologians. The existence of God is a worldviews issue and thus a matter of philosophy antecedent to any religious tradition. It would be appreciated if you will address the worldviews issue under the correct department. Second, you are simply assuming that mindedness is essentially computational. This runs into the basic problem that, inherently, no computational entity spontaneously rises above blind mechanical processing and/or blind chance events, to actually responsibly and rationally free inference, decision, thought, belief, warrant and knowledge etc. GIGO, on steroids. Computation is inherently a mechanical process and thus is dependent on input organisation, programming etc. It does not explain itself nor is it autonomous. Leibniz put this on the table nigh on 400 years ago in Monadology, through his analogy of the mill. Third, you have an existing population of the evidently responsibly and rationally free. Us. This is so on pain of the disintegration of responsible rational discourse towards truth, prudence and the right. Next, we have evidence of finely tuned, carefully organised physics and initial circumstances that set up a world fitted to our kind of life, c-chem, cell based, aqueous medium on terrestrial planets. Where, said life is morally governed (= responsible) and rational. Thus, governed by ought. Which requires that ought be bridged to from IS. Which, no blind material world-root can do. And, world-roots is the only level where the IS-OUGHT gap can be bridged, after that level it invariably pops back up. There is just one serious candidate: the inherently good creator-God, a necessary and maximally great being; worthy of loyalty and the responsible, reasonable service of doing the good in accord with our evident nature. If you doubt, simply put up another candidate at world-root level which will meet the triple test of factual adequacy, coherence (the truths of a world must all be so together) and balanced explanatory power: neither simplistic nor ad hoc. Lastly, you have no basis for binding information to arrangements of matter. Arrangements of abstracta are a perfectly valid cluster of possibilities. Start with the von Neumann construction of numbers and extend to the continuum and complex numbers to see this. Where, no world is possible absent distinct identity thus two-ness bound up in A vs ~A, etc. which gives rise to the inevitability of the first three core principles of right reason as binding on any world. Also, such two-ness is a necessary being; thus eternal — without beginning or possibility of end. Uncaused. And more. Which already suggests mind as prior to matter in the ontological sense. 48b: Science is converging on no empirically grounded, observationally rooted view that we are part of a multiverse. What we have is ideological imposition of evolutionary materialistic scientism in the teeth of what the evidence does point to: cosmological fine tuning. But if one posits a quasi-infinite multiverse one can at least imagine there is enough resource to get rid of probabilities, or rather utter improbabilities. Which is a cure far worse than the disease. E.g. why do we not observe a Boltzmann brain world instead of what we see? 50: On Boltzmann brain worlds: https://winteryknight.com/2017/03/11/what-are-boltzmann-brains-and-what-challenge-do-they-pose-to-the-multiverse-hypothesis/ . . . lone fly on a wall-patch swatted by a bullet vs bullets hitting a section carpeted with flies. Local fine tuning is sufficiently challenging 79: the implication that on a multiverse and chance bubbling up hyp we are far more likely to have a Boltzmann brain sub cosmos than one like ours, or even just an isolated sol-like system is the substantial issue you have ducked; I am too busy just now to chase down your strawman claims, which are inherently unlikely to be relevant as the direct issue of the lone fly on a section of wall swatted by a bullet vs the fly carpet is decisive. I suggest that this is the well warranted challenge of any attempt to eliminate fine tuning by suggesting an imaginary, quasi-infinite expansion of physical resources. For, our observed cosmos sits in a DEEPLY isolated operating point in the config space of the associated physics. In short, the imaginary expansion of resources is a vastly inferior explanation to the one that simply notes the fine tuning phenomena then points out that there is no guarantee that all possibilities will be found on an empirical sampling of a space of possibilities so if we are in a very special zone that is deeply isolated as an operating point, that is a credible mark of design. KF PS: John Leslie on the fly on the wall, long before recent exchanges popped up: “One striking thing about the fine tuning is that a force strength or a particle mass often appears to require accurate tuning for several reasons at once. Look at electromagnetism. Electromagnetism seems to require tuning for there to be any clear-cut distinction between matter and radiation; for stars to burn neither too fast nor too slowly for life’s requirements; for protons to be stable; for complex chemistry to be possible; for chemical changes not to be extremely sluggish; and for carbon synthesis inside stars (carbon being quite probably crucial to life). Universes all obeying the same fundamental laws could still differ in the strengths of their physical forces, as was explained earlier, and random variations in electromagnetism from universe to universe might then ensure that it took on any particular strength sooner or later. Yet how could they possibly account for the fact that the same one strength satisfied many potentially conflicting requirements, each of them a requirement for impressively accurate tuning?” [Our Place in the Cosmos, The Royal Institute of Philosophy, 1998 (courtesy Wayback Machine) Emphases added.] AND: “. . . the need for such explanations does not depend on any estimate of how many universes would be observer-permitting, out of the entire field of possible universes. Claiming that our universe is ‘fine tuned for observers’, we base our claim on how life’s evolution would apparently have been rendered utterly impossible by comparatively minor alterations in physical force strengths, elementary particle masses and so forth. There is no need for us to ask whether very great alterations in these affairs would have rendered it fully possible once more, let alone whether physical worlds conforming to very different laws could have been observer-permitting without being in any way fine tuned. Here it can be useful to think of a fly on a wall, surrounded by an empty region. A bullet hits the fly Two explanations suggest themselves. Perhaps many bullets are hitting the wall or perhaps a marksman fired the bullet. There is no need to ask whether distant areas of the wall, or other quite different walls, are covered with flies so that more or less any bullet striking there would have hit one. The important point is that the local area contains just the one fly.” [Emphasis his.] 80: another way of seeing this is to take apart an ill-advised way to put the million monkeys typing out Romeo and Juliet-type claim. So long as the monkeys freely type whatever they do, there is by definition no constraint forcing them to ever get to a particular text or class of text. So, we are forced instead — this is now statistical thermodynamics — to look at comparative statistical weights of clusters of microstates. In this case, the gibberish cluster is utterly overwhelming and that is what we expect. A good way to see is to go to bits, thus the binomial distribution: overwhelmingly dominated by gibberish near the 50-50 H-T or 1-0 peak. Next, we inject the anthropic constraint that we are in fact present as observers, so the issue is now how so. On a multiverse type hyp, the point of the extension of the Boltzmann brain type case is that that is a far less special and complicated world so it should carry much higher statistical weight than a sol system alone type world which in turn is vastly more abundant than the sort of full orbed cosmos we see. So, a statistical fluctuation type hyp would overwhelmingly expect that observers would be isolated brains, then isolated sol like systems. Thus, we do not have a PLAUSIBLE explanation for what we do see. Thence, we should be looking at explanations that do routinely produce functionally coherent, organised, information rich entities of high complexity; where high is 500 – 1,000 bits plus. Namely, intelligently directed configuration. The constant resort to the utterly implausible to the point of being appeal to statistical miracle in order to avoid what is empirically very well warranted, that FSCO/I is a well warranted and analytically highly plausible sign of design, speaks volumes. 82: Do objectors understand that constant appeal to statistical miracle undermines responsible, rational freedom? As in your and my comment posts are far more plausibly explained on statistical fluctuations accompanied by the delusion of having reasoned them out, than on reasoned thought leading to rational dialogue. That’s part of J B S Haldane’s insightful point that was cited way up. 84: you clearly are unfamiliar with the cumulative nature of the fine-tuning evidence. I suggest that you take time to read Barnes: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1112.4647.pdf As for attempts to side-track into tangential debates over biblical exegesis etc, I have already repeatedly pointed out that that is not the proper focus for this forum and have suggested where you could go for serious answers. Trying to project the typical new atheist problems with reading in context with a modicum of respect for the integrity of the text is not going to help either. I wonder whether you have ever built or analysed the construction of a precision item that needed to be exact to one part in a thousand, much less a million or a thousand million. A single gear embeds enough FSCO/I to be decisive. The cumulative precision of the op point of our observed cosmos is well beyond 1 in 10^100. Indeed there are numbers on order1 in 10^ (10^123) that have come up. KF PS: Your attempted rewriting of Leslie’s famous analogy speaks inadvertent volumes. A lone fly on a patch of wall hit by a bullet speaks of marksmanship and of a tack-driver of a rifle. Hitting another section carpeted with flies implies that odds of hitting some fly or other were much higher. LOCAL fine tuning is all that is needed, and we have it. 85: Barnes, pp. 60 – 61 (and kindly read the preceding para — symbols likely won’t reproduce): The discovery of another life-permitting island in parameter space potentially creates a problem for the multiverse. If the other island is significantly larger than ours (for a given multiverse measure), then observers should expect to be on the other island. An example is the cold big bang, as described by Aguirre (2001). Aguirre’s aim in the paper is to provide a counterexample to what he calls the anthropic program : “the computation of P [the prob- ability that a randomly chosen observer measures a given set of cosmological parameters]; if this probability distribution has a single peak at a set [of parameters] and if these are near the measured values, then it could be claimed that the anthropic program has ‘explained’ the values of the parameters of our cosmology”. Aguirre’s concern is a lack of uniqueness. A bit of a different problem, but it highlights the issue of relative statistical weight. We should be seeing a sol system only sub-cosmos, or even far more “likely” a Boltzmann brain cosmos (including the case of a hallucination of a larger sub cosmos). We should not be where we credibly are, were this a part of a quasi-infinite multiverse. 91: empirical evidence actually observed for a quasi-infinite multiverse? Nil. You are exerting ideological faith and simply refuse to attend to the implausibilities implied by relative statistical weight. Which was the point of the Boltzmann brain issue. 95: It has already been pointed out that the physics of the observed (don’t forget: fine tuned at a deeply isolated operating point) universe is patently hugely informational — there is a reason why physics is the hardest of the sciences.Then, the attempt to dismiss fine tuning by asserting a quasi-infinite (unobserved) multiverse and a selection effect runs into the utter implausibility of seeing this sort of cosmos rather than — yes — a Boltzmann brain world that popped up out of the underlying sub-world. Where, BTW, explaining a cosmos “bakery” that throws up coherent worlds is itself a deeper level of fine tuning problem, as Robin Collins long since pointed out. KF PS: The Boltzmann brain world is within the circle of “for sake of argument” we take it that a brain somehow tosses up a mind if sufficiently complex.
kairosfocus_{November 7, 2017
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Sorry, I'm not your research assistant. If you want quotes, read some books and papers. That's what the rest of us have to do.Upright BiPed_{November 7, 2017
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No, quotes that would indicate the first self copier needed external information would do. Special bonus points if they say DNA is necessary. Multiplier points if they mention decoding or epistimic cut. Since you say these gentlemen disagree with me, you should be able to scare up some quotes to back that statement up. A link would to be fine too. Tell you what, it's 2:55 am here and I have to get up at the crack of noon. Post the quotes tomorrow evening.MatSpirit_{November 7, 2017
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You want quotes for the rebuttal of something so incoherent that almost no one who is familiar with the issues even considers it? And you want this so that you can be convinced you are mistaken? Perhaps it would be more instructive for you to find a quote from a successful research program that actually supports your logic. And if you just have a general problem with situational awareness, Matt, perhaps it would help you to realize there are likely far more ID researchers than atheists who think pre-biotic proteins formed and then measured themselves. That should be more than embarrassing for a snappy cat like you.Upright BiPed_{November 7, 2017
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And I just used a protein as an example. Could've been any molecule. No fossils, so we don't know. Looking for those quotes.MatSpirit_{November 7, 2017
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You aren't particularly familiar with OoL scenarios are you? All the researchers I mentioned are information-first guys. I actually don't know of anyone who thinks existing proteins were copied to create the gene system. Except you.Upright BiPed_{November 7, 2017
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Thats it, forget information, that gambit isn't working too well. Concentrate on the copying mechanisms, which I freely admit nobody, including you, knows about. And escalate! Claim that three prominent scientists, Szostak, Koonin and Venter also disagree with me (and thus agree with you - quite an ego boost there). Are you saying that Szostak, Koonin and Venter don't believe that the information needed to copy a molecule is in the original molecule? I think you're wrong. Give me some quotes confirming that claim please.MatSpirit_{November 6, 2017
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Matt, you do atheism proud. I asked you upthread why you reckon those silly OoL atheists (like Szostak, Koonin, Venter et al) didn’t follow on your supreme logic. Not a single one of them!! I bet it’s because they figured a physical organization that could know to “stretch out” a protein and start at one end sensing and recognizing each amino acid in the sequence (then go out and find the same amino acids to bind in the same order) was just way too complex of an organization to come about by chance. I bet they even figured something organized like that would require its own explanation. But that’s just because they are the stupid atheists. You’re the smart one. Brilliant.Upright BiPed_{November 6, 2017
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UB: "What a complete idiot." There's your ego, kicking in. 'You MUST be right. You CAN'T be wrong. There's GOT to be an answer... AHA! You CREATE the information to specify the protein! What an idiot for not seeing that.' Sorry, the information is in the original protein. I just copied it over to the new one. Keep trying. Oh, another reminder. I'm not talking about the machinery that does the copying, just the necessary information and where it comes from.MatSpirit_{November 6, 2017
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Matt, the "information" you say a protein contains (because it exist) doesn't cause it to replicate itself. So you jump in yourself to create the information to specify the protein ("do the job manually" #87), then stand back and yell "See!" What a complete idiot.Upright BiPed_{November 6, 2017
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UB "...that was your whole point. You say that no symbolic information is necessary (along with its translation machinery) because the protein contains all the information it needs, just because it exists." Yes, the molecule contains all the INFORMATION needed to duplicate it. It doesn't need an external store of symbolic information and the machinery to translate that non-existant store of symbolic information into anything. I've told you, nobody knows what the first self reproducer looked like or how it managed to copy itself. But we do know where the INFORMATION necessary to make the copy came from - from itself. And your ego is going to take a big hit if you ever let yourself admit that, or even understand it.MatSpirit_{November 6, 2017
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KF: "For instance your manufactured objection to the issue of relative statistical weight speaks volumes on lack of understanding due to refusal to engage issues." I've been giving the wildly inappropriate "facts" and statistics coming my way all the respect they deserve, namely very little. Why do you throw Boltzmann Brains into the argument? It's because none of you seems to understand what they're all about. They are only meaningful if you think the universe as we see it spontaneously appeared from thermodynamic equilibrium - if all the particles in the universe just suddenly slammed into each other in such a way that they produced the stars, planets, galaxies, living creatures, etc that we see around us. Penrose calculated the odds against that happening at 10^(10^132), BUT THAT'S NOT HOW THE UNIVERSE STARTED, so that figure is meaningless to this discussion. ID, YEC and all the other forms of creationism positively thrive on giant numbers that reflect only their fanciful view of reality. Only God can make life and you have the numbers to "prove" it. KF: "...you simply refuse to engage the structure of information systems, which are in fact antecedent to the existence and function of cell based life forms, which require them for key metabolic and reproductive processes." That's what Upright says. Every creationist I've ever heard of insists that the first living thing was as complex as a modern cell. The scientific world disagrees. They think the first living thing was so simple it couldn't do anything but copy itself with the materials and energy at hand. I'm trying to show Upright that information necessary to copy a molecule is in the molecule being copied and we don't need information stored externally in DNA. He's been telling us we do for at least a year, loudly and at length, and if he now agrees that we don't, he's going to be mighty embarassed.MatSpirit_{November 6, 2017
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UB: I then reminded you that your anthropocentric projection of “information” in the structure of a protein does not cause that protein to replicate itself. Does that fact even slow you down? MS: Of course mot. Why should it.
Well, that's a real problem for you Matt, after all, that was your whole point. You say that no symbolic information is necessary (along with its translation machinery) because the protein contains all the information it needs, just because it exists.Upright BiPed_{November 6, 2017
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MS, With all due respect, it is clear WHY conversation is breaking down, and onlookers can see it: you are being unresponsive to facts, evidence and cogent argument. For instance your manufactured objection to the issue of relative statistical weight speaks volumes on lack of understanding due to refusal to engage issues. Likewise, you simply refuse to engage the structure of information systems, which are in fact antecedent to the existence and function of cell based life forms, which require them for key metabolic and reproductive processes. The resulting deadlock speaks volumes on what happens when you make a crooked yardstick the standard of reference for straightness and length. Namely, that what is genuinely straight and accurately to length cannot ever pass the test of conformity to the crooked. Then, that leaves the plumbline test on the table: the naturally straight and plumb. Your reaction above shows that you are insisting on a crooked yardstick in the teeth of the testimony of plumbline tests such as the exposed utter incoherence and thus self-refuting nature of evolutionary materialistic scientism. Perhaps, one day you will realise how you have made yourself into a poster-child of what is going wrong far and wide in our civilisation and which must be fixed if we are to turn back before the cliff collapses underfoot. If we don't, we are headed into civilisational collapse as Plato witnessed with Athens and took time and effort to make a record that should have warned the ages. Sadly, by and large, ours is utterly disinclined to listen. If we continue like this, we doom ourselves to repeat some of the saddest passages of history ever. KFkairosfocus_{November 6, 2017
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I think I may have spotted your misunderstanding: "I then reminded you that your anthropocentric projection of “information” in the structure of a protein does not cause that protein to replicate itself. Does that fact even slow you down?" Of course mot. Why should it. I'm not talking about translation machinery. I don't know what the first self-reproducer looked like and neither do you or anybody else. It happened billions of years ago at the sub-microscopic molecular level and it left no fossils. What I'm asking is where does the INFORMATION needed to duplicate the protein come from? I answered that in # 38 and I know you've seen it because you quoted me in # 100.MatSpirit_{November 6, 2017
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I'll go with what you've quoted in 100.MatSpirit_{November 6, 2017
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You say ... Where do we get the information to specify the sequence of amino acids in our new protein molecule? Well, we’ve got the original protein molecule! It has the amino acids joined together in exactly the right order! WE HAVE THE INFORMATION THAT IS BUILT INTO THE PHYSICAL POSITIONS OF THE AMINO ACIDS THAT MAKE UP THE PROTEIN AND WE CAN USE THIS INTRINSIC INFORMATION TO DUPLICATE THE ORIGINAL PROTEIN! AND SO COULD EARLY LIFE! NO DNA! NO RNA! NO SYMBOLIC INFORMATION!
Just in case you forgot.Upright BiPed_{November 6, 2017
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