But should we be talking about a “Big Bang” of birds?

Speaking of birds ...

The Wright brothers studied wing structures of seabirds before building their first airplane, and the first helicopter is said to have been inspired by dragonfly flight. Today, inventors continue this tradition, focusing on bio-inspired flight sensors. A series of telling admissions in a recent summary of state-of-the-art research leave no doubt about the origins of flight-ready sensors. Gusts of wind tend to blow small, man-made flying machines called Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) off course—or knock them out of the sky altogether. But insects and birds fare much better. What keeps them so stable? A team of inventors from Australia, publishing in the journal Progress in Aerospace Sciences, recently summarized their progress in the ongoing search for flight-stabilizing sensor technologies in flying animals.1 Biologists continue to uncover exquisite design in natural flight sensors—devices like mechanoreceptors that send sophisticated information to an insect's brain about the visual field, airflow, inertia, and wing-load pressure. Investigations have revealed that most or perhaps all natural sensors multitask. A single biological sensor can detect, integrate, and send multiple messages to the creature's brain. But when it comes to identifying who or what developed these hi-tech sensors, this journal report conveys contradicting messages. On one hand, the study authors credited evolution. They wrote, "Nature's fliers have evolved to fly successfully close to the ground in turbulent conditions thus it is sensible to turn to nature for design cues."1 But could unguided nature really perform the tasks necessary to develop just the right aeronautical sensors to enable creatures to steady their flight in turbulent air? Flying insects have tiny, wind-sensing hairs placed around their wing's edges—the best places to detect air turbulence the fastest. More tiny hairs project out the front of the insects' head and integrate with their eyes. The study authors wrote, "Their location on the head is practical, since the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) would be highest in that region due to the laminar flow existing here." And where should bio-inspired air sensors be placed onto new man-made mini flyers? The researchers wrote, "locating sensors thus requires a comprehensive understanding of the aerodynamics of the air foil."1 Does nature have this required level of intricate understanding? What if birds were equipped with airspeed indicators tuned to 400 miles per hour? Birds never fly that fast, so such sensors would be a complete waste. For this reason, the team wrote that the sensors human inventors install will "require calibration to those conditions" that the flying machine will meet. Since "both birds and insects are equipped with sensors that suit their physical, anatomical, and physiological properties, in addition to their operating environment," doesn't it stand to reason that Someone performed these fined-tuned calibrations, since nature alone has never been shown to calibrate equipment?1 Plus, since the precise calibrations need to be performed one step ahead of the flight needs of each creature it stands to reason that whoever programmed these sensors had uncanny foresight—something nature lacks. On one hand the study authors described how biological sensors have "optimally evolved to sense flight-related parameters."1 But on the other hand they wrote, "A delicate design balance is hence required to achieve high sensitivity while maintaining sensor bandwidth."1 How could natural processes, which have no clue what "sensor bandwidth" even means, ever have achieved the optimal balance required for stable flight? The study authors also wrote that "nature's flyers do not rely on single sensors."1 Could evolution really integrate multiple functions into single sensors like those in insects and birds? These biological devices are so advanced that intelligent and capable inventors have not been able to build one—even with a living, working prototype right in front of them! Even if a person does someday invent a multitasking sensor, it will do the aircraft no immediate good, since "it is not the sensors themselves, but the auxillary [sic] sub-components (hardware, installation, and wiring) and the algorithmic integration (CPUs and novel algorithms) of their measurements that build the gap in attitude stabilisation [sic] and control technologies for MAV."1 In other words, someone will have to write a blueprint to successfully install, wire, interpret and integrate inputs from any new sensor. Does any natural process perform all these tasks, each of which is required to construct a small and stable flyer? http://www.icr.org/article/8515

tjguy

Axel, I have not watched this following video yet, but saw it referenced in the first Alexander video at the 27:00 minute mark., so I thought you might like to take a peek: Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey Paperback – book - May 26, 2009 Review: On the morning of December 10, 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a thirty-seven-year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist, experienced a massive stroke when a blood vessel exploded in the left side of her brain. A neuroanatomist by profession, she observed her own mind completely deteriorate to the point that she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life, all within the space of four brief hours. As the damaged left side of her brain--the rational, grounded, detail- and time-oriented side--swung in and out of function, Taylor alternated between two distinct and opposite realties: the euphoric nirvana of the intuitive and kinesthetic right brain, in which she felt a sense of complete well-being and peace; and the logical, sequential left brain, which recognized Jill was having a stroke, and enabled her to seek help before she was lost completely. In My Stroke of Insight, Taylor shares her unique perspective on the brain and its capacity for recovery, and the sense of omniscient understanding she gained from this unusual and inspiring voyage out of the abyss of a wounded brain. http://www.amazon.com/My-Stroke-Insight-Scientists-Personal/dp/0452295548 bornagain77

The non locality, etc, would be woo-woo to you, M_T, wouldn't it? Axel

BA77, loved Alexander's 'little monkey mind' synonym at one point during the talk, for what A Huxley called the 'analytical intelligence'; though his 'unitive intelligence' has to be the perfect synonym. He's an interesting speaker. Thanks. Axel

Here are refutations of the atheistic article that tried to discredit Dr. Alexander: Esquire Proof of Heaven Expose Debunked, Dr. Eben Alexander Prevails – Interview with Robert Mays reveals a disturbing pattern of misrepresentation and distortion in Luke Dittrich’s Proof of Heaven expose published in Esquire Magazine. http://www.skeptiko.com/220-esquire-proof-of-heaven-expose-debunked/ audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-220-robert-mays.mp3 In supplement to the skeptiko article and audio, for a thorough rebuttal of the Esquire article see: Esquire article on Eben Alexander distorts the facts - August 2013 http://iands.org/images/stories/pdf_downloads/esquire%20article%20on%20eben%20alexander%20distorts%20the%20facts.pdf as well the observational evidence for the validity of Near Death Experiences is far stronger than the observation evidence for the validity of neo-Darwinian evolution is: Near-Death Experiences: Putting a Darwinist's Evidentiary Standards to the Test - Dr. Michael Egnor - October 15, 2012 Excerpt: Indeed, about 20 percent of NDE's are corroborated, which means that there are independent ways of checking about the veracity of the experience. The patients knew of things that they could not have known except by extraordinary perception -- such as describing details of surgery that they watched while their heart was stopped, etc. Additionally, many NDE's have a vividness and a sense of intense reality that one does not generally encounter in dreams or hallucinations.,,, The most "parsimonious" explanation -- the simplest scientific explanation -- is that the (Near Death) experience was real. Tens of millions of people have had such experiences. That is tens of millions of more times than we have observed the origin of species , (or the origin of life, or the origin of a molecular machine), which is never.,,, The materialist reaction, in short, is unscientific and close-minded. NDE's show fellows like Coyne at their sneering unscientific irrational worst. Somebody finds a crushed fragment of a fossil and it's earth-shaking evidence. Tens of million of people have life-changing spiritual experiences and it's all a big yawn. Note: Dr. Egnor is professor and vice-chairman of neurosurgery at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/near_death_expe_1065301.html "A recent analysis of several hundred cases showed that 48% of near-death experiencers reported seeing their physical bodies from a different visual perspective. Many of them also reported witnessing events going on in the vicinity of their body, such as the attempts of medical personnel to resuscitate them (Kelly et al., 2007)." Kelly, E. W., Greyson, B., & Kelly, E. F. (2007). Unusual experiences near death and related phenomena. In E. F. Kelly, E. W. Kelly, A. Crabtree, A. Gauld, M. Grosso, & B. Greyson, Irreducible mind (pp. 367-421). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. 'Afterlife' feels 'even more real than real,' researcher says - Wed April 10, 2013 Excerpt: "If you use this questionnaire ... if the memory is real, it's richer, and if the memory is recent, it's richer," he said. The coma scientists weren't expecting what the tests revealed. "To our surprise, NDEs were much richer than any imagined event or any real event of these coma survivors," Laureys reported. The memories of these experiences beat all other memories, hands down, for their vivid sense of reality. "The difference was so vast," he said with a sense of astonishment. Even if the patient had the experience a long time ago, its memory was as rich "as though it was yesterday," Laureys said. http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/09/health/belgium-near-death-experiences/ bornagain77

Axel and bornagain77, You may not enjoy this:

Alexander's account rests on repeated assertions that his visions of heaven occurred while his cerebral cortex was 'shut down,' 'inactivated,' 'completely shut down,' 'totally offline,' and 'stunned to complete inactivity.' The evidence he provides for this claim is not only inadequate – it suggests that he doesn't know anything about the relevant brain science." "Even in cases where the brain is alleged to have shut down, its activity must return if the subject is to survive and describe the experience. In such cases, there is generally no way to establish that the NDE occurred while the brain was offline

prior to the publication of Proof of Heaven, Alexander had been terminated or suspended from multiple hospital positions, and had been the subject of several malpractice lawsuits, including at least two involving the alteration of medical records to cover up a medical error. The magazine also found what it claimed were discrepancies with regard to Alexander's version of events in the book. Among the discrepancies, according to an account of the Esquire article in Forbes, was that "Alexander writes that he slipped into the coma as a result of severe bacterial meningitis and had no higher brain activity, while a doctor who cared for him says the coma was medically induced and the patient was conscious, though hallucinating.

Me_Think

Axel, you may enjoy this: Eben Alexander - Synthesis of Science and Spirituality: The Arc of Human Destiny over Milennia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpjX9aHcjAo Sep 18, 2014: Distinguished scholars and scientists at the 128th Summer Convention of the Theosophical Society in America discuss the implications of the near-death experience and more! In this program, Dr. Alexander(Proof of Heaven) continues his discussion of why he believes that his near-death experience is totally consistent with the leading edges of scientific understanding today. Eben Alexander: A Neurosurgeon's Journey through the Afterlife - video (Aug. 2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbkgj5J91hE Aug 27, 2014: In this intimate and powerful re-examination of his best-selling book "Proof of Heaven," Dr. Alexander looks at the past two and a half years of his life spent in trying to reconcile his rich spiritual experience with contemporary physics and cosmology. He is convinced that his remarkable near-death journey is totally consistent with the leading edges of scientific understanding today. 2014. bornagain77

Axel, What cutting edge research is going on in 7th dimensional Spiritual world? What is woo-woo in QM ? Me_Think

Unless it's pedestrian and mechanistic, it's all woo-woo to you, M-T. Own up. Come on. You've just admitted it once! Axel

Axel @ 147

Don’t even think about a cutting-edge or leading-edge for science.

What cutting edge research is going on in 7th dimensional Spiritual world? Me_Think

'It’s all well and good to talk about abstracts in some higher dimensional world, but it is of no use in daily life, nor does it advance science in anyway. Please keep your spiritual world confined to your dream land.' - M_T Darned right! There you are, folks, M_T's well and truly denounced QM as woo-woo! After all that argy-bargy, finally we get the bottom line: Don't even think about a cutting-edge or leading-edge for science. Let's just do our sums and not fuss about things we can't see. Axel

Not quite Serge. Apparently it was my turn, first, to be at the receiving end. No direct physical torture, just one contribution among several to a heart attack and bypass op. - by a number of near car accidents. Famous last words - I knew that if they wanted to kill me they wouldn't f*rt around and it would seem like an accident or natural causes. There are some hilarious anecdotes I could tell. So, while I got a bit of a buzz from it all, I also got a bit hooked on the adrenaline rushes, and forgot where that was supposed to lead! I actually had a small heart attack while driving in town, but didn't now what it was until I read about it some time after. My face broke out into a sudden muck sweat; weird. But the main torture, which I suppose is what it is in a long drawn out sort of way, has been psychological. I was foolish enough to tell someone in a betting shop that, though it was manageable, I could feel guilty of anything, any kind of sexual perversion. All that was necessary was for me to have heard or read about it. Let's just say they have ways of destroying your self-identity/esteem, etc. I hardly dare go out these for fear of seeing a possible trigger of a perverted thought! Joy is the best defence against such vulnerabilities, and prayer is vital. Fear is the opposite, yet fear of mental illness in others (and caused by it in the afflicted person), is a very understandable and surely wise instinct, since even the putative experts know so little about it. We instinctively know it's potentially a Pandora's Box. I've also been given a number of parasitic infections, not susceptible to medical cure, because resistance has built up to the drug. I could get rid of head lice, but fear blinding myself washing the potion from my hair. They'll go too, by the grace of God, before I 'ponk it' and meet the Boss. Fortunately, for me. I don't believe that God exists. I know He does. I also know it will all come good in the end in this life - and fairly soon, I would think. Meanwhile, God enables me to be very light-hearted almost all the time. It's not forced, it's just the way God keeps me. I don't entirely blame the service, as I believe they were/are under pressure from the CIA, and, in any case, the corporate 'deep state' that pulls both countries' strings - the world's strings, for that matter. Axel

Axel @ 138:

Torturers and Black Arts people with the clandestine services do quite well enough with drugs, I believe, and their other psychological arcana. (I was that soldier!)

Were you a Torturers and Black Arts person with the clandestine services? sergmendes

@BA77 'It’s all well and good to talk about abstracts in some higher dimensional world, but it is of no use in daily life, nor does it advance science in anyway. Please keep your spiritual world confined to your dream land.' This is what happens when a stamp-collector (or plant-collector) tries to apply his mind to areas where science and metaphysics are most closely bound up with each other, i.e. modern-day science. If M_E can't find it in Stanley Gibbons or the I-Spy Book of Railway Engines... forget it. It's why he didn't answer my question concerning the apparent omniscience of light or its agency. He'll be feeling particularly cheesed off at the moment with winter settling in. He's had to put away his butterfly net till next summer. Or maybe he's giving James Bond a good working over, with some pentathol, or whatever they call it! Oh, no. He's our side, isn't he! Axel

@BA77 #139 Re the Mind and its Now, BA, imho, Planck answered that question (the Now being perhaps THE ultimate mystery of nature) put to Einstein, when he stated: 'Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.' Axel

MT: as to: “There is no now” HMMM??? Apparently you did not even read my posts for comprehension and just knee jerked a response with no thought at all of what was actually said. In fact, your statement is the complete opposite of what my post conveyed for the existence of 'now'. ‘the now of the mind’, contrary to what Einstein thought possible for experimental physics, and according to advances in quantum mechanics, takes precedence over past events in time. i.e. per LaPlace, quantum mechanics says of time ‘I have no need of that hypothesis’. In fact, due to advances in quantum mechanics, it would now be much more appropriate to phrase Einstein’s answer to the philosopher in this way: “It is impossible for the experience of ‘the now of the mind’ to ever be divorced from physical measurement, it will always be a part of physics.” as to your comment: "Please keep your spiritual world confined to your dream land." Actually, it is the atheist/materialist who is forced to appeal to a imaginary 'dream land' in order to try support his beliefs: Although we have no evidence for the materialist's imaginary multiverse which they use to try to 'explain away' the extreme fine-tuning of this universe, and although we do not have any evidence of the 'many worlds' that materialists conjectured to try to 'explain away' the enigma of quantum wave collapse, we do have evidence of ‘higher dimensions’ above this 3-Dimensional universe as has always been postulated in Theism. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/reasonable-faith-on-the-fine-tuning-of-the-universe/#comment-519052 bornagain77

bornagain77, "There is no now " - try saying that to your Project Manager, and draw a thin line on the Gantt chart and mark it as 'there is no now'. It's all well and good to talk about abstracts in some higher dimensional world, but it is of no use in daily life, nor does it advance science in anyway. Please keep your spiritual world confined to your dream land. Me_Think

Moreover, we also have testimony for the 'eternal now' from Near Death Experience testimonies:

‘There is no way to tell whether minutes, hours or years go by. Existence is the only reality and it is inseparable from the eternal now.’ - John Star – NDE Experiencer ‘Earthly time has no meaning in the spirit realm. There is no concept of before or after. Everything – past, present, future – exists simultaneously.’ - Kimberly Clark Sharp – NDE Experiencer ‘In the ‘spirit world,,, instantly, there was no sense of time. See, everything on earth is related to time. You got up this morning, you are going to go to bed tonight. Something is new, it will get old. Something is born, it’s going to die. Everything on the physical plane is relative to time, but everything in the spiritual plane is relative to eternity. Instantly I was in total consciousness and awareness of eternity, and you and I as we live in this earth cannot even comprehend it, because everything that we have here is filled within the veil of the temporal life. In the spirit life that is more real than anything else and it is awesome. Eternity as a concept is awesome. There is no such thing as time. I knew that whatever happened was going to go on and on.’ In The Presence Of Almighty God – The NDE of Mickey Robinson – video https://vimeo.com/92172680

Verse and Music

Titus 1:2 in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, CLAY AIKEN - MARY DID YOU KNOW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07SQgt-Jmws

Of supplemental note, If temporal time has always existed, due to the infinite regress, we could never reach the present ‘now’,,,

Time Cannot Be Infinite Into The Past – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg0pdUvQdi4

Yet, consciousness, as Jaki demonstrated, does not suffer from infinite regress because it is always ‘now’ for the mind,,,

,,, "All our moments, all our nows, flow into a personal continuum, of which the supreme form is the NOW which is uncreated, because it simply IS." Stanley Jaki

bornagain77

Of related interest to Einstein being proven wrong in Quantum Mechanics with the refutation of his materialistic hidden variables model, Einstein was once asked (by a philosopher):

“Can physics demonstrate the existence of ‘the now’ in order to make the notion of ‘now’ into a scientifically valid term?”

Einstein’s answer was categorical, he said:

“The experience of ‘the now’ cannot be turned into an object of physical measurement, it can never be a part of physics.”

The ‘now’ quote from Einstein was taken from the last few minutes of this following video, and what the philosopher meant by the question can be read in full context in the article following the video:

Stanley L. Jaki: “The Mind and Its Now” https://vimeo.com/10588094 The Mind and Its Now – Stanley L. Jaki, July 2008 Excerpts: There can be no active mind without its sensing its existence in the moment called now.,,, Three quarters of a century ago Charles Sherrington, the greatest modern student of the brain, spoke memorably on the mind’s baffling independence of the brain. The mind lives in a self-continued now or rather in the now continued in the self. This life involves the entire brain, some parts of which overlap, others do not. ,,,There is no physical parallel to the mind’s ability to extend from its position in the momentary present to its past moments, or in its ability to imagine its future. The mind remains identical with itself while it lives through its momentary nows. ,,, the now is immensely richer an experience than any marvelous set of numbers, even if science could give an account of the set of numbers, in terms of energy levels. The now is not a number. It is rather a word, the most decisive of all words. It is through experiencing that word that the mind comes alive and registers all existence around and well beyond. ,,, All our moments, all our nows, flow into a personal continuum, of which the supreme form is the NOW which is uncreated, because it simply IS. http://www.saintcd.com/science-and-faith/277-the-mind-and-its-now.html?showall=1&limitstart=

Moreover, ‘the now of the mind’, contrary to what Einstein thought possible for experimental physics, and according to advances in quantum mechanics, takes precedence over past events in space-time.

“Thus one decides the photon shall have come by one route or by both routes after it has already done its travel” John A. Wheeler Wheeler’s Classic Delayed Choice Experiment: Excerpt: Now, for many billions of years the photon is in transit in region 3. Yet we can choose (many billions of years later) which experimental set up to employ – the single wide-focus, or the two narrowly focused instruments. We have chosen whether to know which side of the galaxy the photon passed by (by choosing whether to use the two-telescope set up or not, which are the instruments that would give us the information about which side of the galaxy the photon passed). We have delayed this choice until a time long after the particles “have passed by one side of the galaxy, or the other side of the galaxy, or both sides of the galaxy,” so to speak. Yet, it seems paradoxically that our later choice of whether to obtain this information determines which side of the galaxy the light passed, so to speak, billions of years ago. So it seems that time has nothing to do with effects of quantum mechanics. And, indeed, the original thought experiment was not based on any analysis of how particles evolve and behave over time – it was based on the mathematics. This is what the mathematics predicted for a result, and this is exactly the result obtained in the laboratory. http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/basic_delayed_choice.htm Genesis, Quantum Physics and Reality Excerpt: Simply put, an experiment on Earth can be made in such a way that it determines if one photon comes along either on the right or the left side or if it comes (as a wave) along both sides of the gravitational lens (of the galaxy) at the same time. However, how could the photons have known billions of years ago that someday there would be an earth with inhabitants on it, making just this experiment? ,,, This is big trouble for the multi-universe theory and for the “hidden-variables” approach. - per Greer “It begins to look as we ourselves, by our last minute decision, have an influence on what a photon will do when it has already accomplished most of its doing… we have to say that we ourselves have an undeniable part in what we have always called the past. The past is not really the past until is has been registered. Or to put it another way, the past has no meaning or existence unless it exists as a record in the present.” – John Wheeler – The Ghost In The Atom – Page 66-68 “If we attempt to attribute an objective meaning to the quantum state of a single system, curious paradoxes appear: quantum effects mimic not only instantaneous action-at-a-distance but also, as seen here, influence of future actions on past events, even after these events have been irrevocably recorded.” Asher Peres, Delayed choice for entanglement swapping. J. Mod. Opt. 47, 139-143 (2000). Quantum physics mimics spooky action into the past – April 23, 2012 Excerpt: The authors experimentally realized a “Gedankenexperiment” called “delayed-choice entanglement swapping”, formulated by Asher Peres in the year 2000.,,, “We found that whether Alice’s and Bob’s photons are entangled and show quantum correlations or are separable and show classical correlations can be decided after they have been measured”, explains Xiao-song Ma, lead author of the study. According to the famous words of Albert Einstein, the effects of quantum entanglement appear as “spooky action at a distance”. The recent experiment has gone one remarkable step further. “Within a naïve classical world view, quantum mechanics can even mimic an influence of future actions on past events”, says Anton Zeilinger. http://phys.org/news/2012-04-quantum-physics-mimics-spooky-action.html

You can see a more complete explanation of the startling results of the preceding experiment at the 9:11 minute mark of the following video:

Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser Experiment Explained – 2014 video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6HLjpj4Nt4

Perhaps the most dramatic example of 'the now of the mind’ within quantum physics is Leggett’s Inequality:

Lecture 11: Decoherence and Hidden Variables – Scott Aaronson Excerpt: “Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists who think the world sprang into existence on October 23, 4004 BC at 9AM (presumably Babylonian time), with the fossils already in the ground, light from distant stars heading toward us, etc. But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!” http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec11.html Quantum Physics – (material reality does not exist until we look at it) – Dr. Quantum video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1ezNvpFcJU Do we create the world just by looking at it? – 2008 Excerpt: In mid-2007 Fedrizzi found that the new realism model was violated by 80 orders of magnitude; the group was even more assured that quantum mechanics was correct. Leggett agrees with Zeilinger that realism is wrong in quantum mechanics, but when I asked him whether he now believes in the theory, he answered only “no” before demurring, “I’m in a small minority with that point of view and I wouldn’t stake my life on it.” For Leggett there are still enough loopholes to disbelieve. I asked him what could finally change his mind about quantum mechanics. Without hesitation, he said sending humans into space as detectors to test the theory.,,, (to which Anton Zeilinger responded) When I mentioned this to Prof. Zeilinger he said, “That will happen someday. There is no doubt in my mind. It is just a question of technology.” Alessandro Fedrizzi had already shown me a prototype of a realism experiment he is hoping to send up in a satellite. It’s a heavy, metallic slab the size of a dinner plate. http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_reality_tests/P3/

And even though Einstein has now been shown to be wrong in his presupposition of,,,

“The experience of ‘the now’ cannot be turned into an object of physical measurement, it can never be a part of physics.” Albert Einstein

,,, it interesting to note where the ‘now of the mind’ of quantum mechanics finds partial congruence with Einstein's special relativity,,,

“I’ve just developed a new theory of eternity.” Albert Einstein – The Einstein Factor – Reader’s Digest – 2005 Albert Einstein – Special Relativity – Insight Into Eternity – ‘thought experiment’ video https://vimeo.com/93101738 “The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don’t pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass.” Richard Swenson – More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 12

bornagain77

'Not really. Everyone is entitled to his views. His views are not universally held, else QM physicists would be working towards a theory of consciousness and mind control !' No, they wouldn't, M_T. Only journeyman, atheist physicists would be barmy enough to consider mind, consciousness, as a field accessible to a physics of reductionist materialism, nay to quantum physics to any great depth. As for mind control.... even more loopy! But why, anyway? Why would such a crazy dream cross a person's mind? People who see nothing holy about the human mind have been in charge for far too long. Torturers and Black Arts people with the clandestine services do quite well enough with drugs, I believe, and their other psychological arcana. (I was that soldier!) Axel

Now. To business. What is your response to this quote from Eugene Wigner, relayed to us by BA77?

Yawn! There is no move to convert QM to theory of mind controlling particles -there is no QM Mind/QM consciousness, how much ever you would like that to be true. Me_Think

'May be it was due to temporary vision degeneration or advancing macular degeneration, which would give illusions similar to Charles Bonnet syndrome. Read Oliver Sacks The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales for more details. People with Charles Bonnet syndrome, apart from seeing lilliputian persons , see dead relatives near bedside ,dancing strangers without music, Silent relatives standing near bed. Fading faces of people you know etc.' You do realise that medical experts are so brilliant that they discovered that certain African slaves were wont to try to escape their slavery. At first, they were called, 'runaway slaves', but a brilliant physician discovered it was a pathological condition they were afflicted with, and designated the 'syndrome' as 'drapetomania'. So, pardon me if I'm less than impressed by the most scholarly and eclectic tomes you recommend to me, won't you? You're insane, M-T. Stark raving bonkers. Do you really think that all the scholarly tomes in the Library of Congress, written by atheists, are a superior source of knowledge of the supernatural than the general run of mankind down the millennia? You're barking mad. Now. To business. What is your response to this quote from Eugene Wigner, relayed to us by BA77? 'Wigner’s insights, according to no less than Anton Zeilinger himself, are driving the cutting edge of the ‘second revolution’ in quantum mechanics. And all this consciousness being foundational to reality stuff is just a big yawn for MT because Wigner is ‘entitled to his opinion’? ‘“It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is the ultimate universal reality” - Eugene Wigner – (Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in Wheeler and Zurek, p.169) 1961' Axel

Wigner's insights, according to no less than Anton Zeilinger himself, are driving the cutting edge of the 'second revolution' in quantum mechanics. And all this consciousness being foundational to reality stuff is just a big yawn for MT because Wigner is 'entitled to his opinion'? ‘“It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is the ultimate universal reality” - Eugene Wigner – (Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in Wheeler and Zurek, p.169) 1961 Color me less than impressed with MT's opinion about Wigner's opinion. Of related note, Wigner also had this gem of a insight that materialists/atheists have loathed: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences - Eugene Wigner - 1960 Excerpt: ,,certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin's process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,, It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here, quite comparable in its striking nature to the miracle that the human mind can string a thousand arguments together without getting itself into contradictions, or to the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind's capacity to divine them.,,, The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html as to this quote from Wigner: ,,"certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin's process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.",,, this is of interest Quote: "In evolutionary games we put truth (true perception) on the stage and it dies. And in genetic algorithms it (true perception) never gets on the stage" Donald Hoffman PhD. - Consciousness and The Interface Theory of Perception - 7:19 to 9:20 minute mark - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=dqDP34a-epI#t=439 bornagain77

bornagain77 @ 132

Thanks for the heads up about your motives MT! :)

If saying instruments don't have consciousness, hence can't influence QM is 'advancing agenda', I am happy to do so. Me_Think

Axel,

Got that, Me_Thinks? Are you going to shoot Wigner down in flames? Maybe get a Nobel prize for yourself in the process? How about that?

Not really. Everyone is entitled to his views. His views are not universally held, else QM physicists would be working towards a theory of consciousness and mind control ! Me_Think

"Don’t be confused by people trying to advance their own agenda." Such as an atheist who resorts to ad hominem and selective viewing of the evidence so as to 'advance their agenda'??? Thanks for the heads up about your motives MT! :) bornagain77

'“It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is the ultimate universal reality” - Eugene Wigner – (Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in Wheeler and Zurek, p.169) 1961 Moreover, Wigner was certainly no lightweight in quantum mechanics, but his deep insights continue to foster ‘a second revolution’ in quantum mechanics:' Got that, Me_Thinks? Are you going to shoot Wigner down in flames? Maybe get a Nobel prize for yourself in the process? How about that? Or perhaps tell us all the things that materialism has taught you, personally, such as how important it is to keep petrol in your car, and not leave your fingers in the way when closing your car door. Perhaps not paradigm-changing stuff, but important just the same. Axel

However, my brother’s appearance in the middle of the night – looking very solid, until fading away – to my sister, who has a phenomenally closed mind about most things is rock-solid testimony in my eyes, as she’s very unimaginative and prosaic; ‘plain beef and potatoes’, I believe Americans sometimes call that cast of mind. my sister’s late mother-in-law, a dear lady, who was exceptionally psychic, said that (in the UK) she saw my mother (then in Australia) standing at the end of her bed; although my mother knew nothing about it

May be it was due to temporary vision degeneration or advancing macular degeneration, which would give illusions similar to Charles Bonnet syndrome. Read Oliver Sacks The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales for more details. People with Charles Bonnet syndrome, apart from seeing lilliputian persons , see dead relatives near bedside ,dancing strangers without music, Silent relatives standing near bed. Fading faces of people you know etc.

Well what is the distinction that BA77 makes between an isolated apparatus and the other one, which you insist is not personal, as it is still measured with instrumentation of some kind

Don't be confused by people trying to advance their own agenda. Just ask yourself if photon or electron can be seen by a person, if not, how can it be detected ? So is the instrument conscious ? Me_Think

Me_Think claims: "QM has nothing to do with mind." and yet Nobelist Eugene Wigner, whose insights continue to drive breakthroughs in quantum mechanics states: “It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness.” Eugene Wigner (1902 -1995) from his collection of essays “Symmetries and Reflections – Scientific Essays”; Eugene Wigner laid the foundation for the theory of symmetries in quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963. “It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is the ultimate universal reality” - Eugene Wigner – (Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in Wheeler and Zurek, p.169) 1961 Moreover, Wigner was certainly no lightweight in quantum mechanics, but his deep insights continue to foster ‘a second revolution’ in quantum mechanics: Eugene Wigner – A Gedanken Pioneer of the Second Quantum Revolution – Anton Zeilinger – Sept. 2014 Conclusion It would be fascinating to know Eugene Wigner’s reaction to the fact that the gedanken experiments he discussed (in 1963 and 1970) have not only become reality, but building on his gedanken experiments, new ideas have developed which on the one hand probe the foundations of quantum mechanics even deeper, and which on the other hand also provide the foundations to the new field of quantum information technology. All these experiments pay homage to the great insight Wigner expressed in developing these gedanken experiments and in his analyses of the foundations of quantum mechanics, http://epjwoc.epj.org/articles/epjconf/pdf/2014/15/epjconf_wigner2014_01010.pdf Since Me-Think is basically an atheist internet troll who could care less about the truth (or others), and Wigner is a Nobelist whose insights continue to be fruitful to the progress of science, I will certainly take Wigner's word way before I take MTs word on anything! bornagain77

The supernatural realm is an immemorial fact of human experience. If you scorn the plural of anecdote as failing to constitute data, more fool you. Dualism has been proven under laboratory conditions, i.e. from NDEs of individuals hooked up to the most modern, medical, monitoring equipment, all under the supervision of qualified physicians. Such experiences have even been shared by family members around the bedside of their dying relative. At the same time as they shared the theophany and meeting with already deceased relatives and friends, they remained by the bedside at the hospice. Bilocation, as the RC church calls it. However, I read that it was believed to be a misnomer in that it was held that the person was only in the one place at the one time. My impression is that that is wrong, not only on account of the testimony given in this video, but because, one Christmas, my sister's late mother-in-law, a dear lady, who was exceptionally psychic, said that (in the UK) she saw my mother (then in Australia) standing at the end of her bed; although my mother knew nothing about it. However, compared to the body of testimonies world-wide and in all cultures, it wouldn't even register as worth mentioning, save for the question of the nature of bilocation. However, my late brother's appearance in the middle of the night - looking very solid, until fading away - to my sister, who has a phenomenally closed mind about most things is rock-solid testimony in my eyes, as she's very unimaginative and prosaic; 'plain beef and potatoes', I believe Americans sometimes call that cast of mind. The respective religious beliefs of both have always been unfathomable to me, though I think my sister claims some highly personal kind of belief in God, maybe Christ. 'If you mean a person sits near the experiment set up, you are wrong. To avoid any observational effect, the experimenters keep out until after measurement by the instrument.Check out modern ‘Method and Measures’ in the research papers of double slit and related experiments.' Well what is the distinction that BA77 makes between an isolated apparatus and the other one, which you insist is not personal, as it is still measured with instrumentation of some kind? And what about non-locality? And the agency ensuring that a light photon always hits an observer travelling in the same direction at constant speed, irrespective of the spped of the observer? These are seminal issues relating to theism, and materialism's absolute, explanatory incompetence. Axel

Axel @ 122

and whatever instrumentation as might be used by a personally attending observer, whose presence then invariably does prove to be effective in collapsing the wave function.

If you mean a person sits near the experiment set up, you are wrong. To avoid any observational effect, the experimenters keep out until after measurement by the instrument.Check out modern 'Method and Measures' in the research papers of double slit and related experiments. Me_Think

Axel @ 121

Happy now, Me_Think? Thank you for your timely intervention, BA77

Very much. I thank BA77 for showing that beyond Radin's psi papers, we don't have papers claiming that mind can affect the photons in Double slit and related experiments. All other citations are about instruments measurement, which has no consciousness and no mind control stuff, so as I said earlier, QM has nothing to do with mind. I am even more thankful that BA77 has cited more Radin psi experiments, which are good for a chuckle. Radin and his buddy Deepak Chopra are a great pair- one churning out ghosts,sidhaas,yoga and assorted oriental stuffs while the other churns out Future of God book, Women's vitality and other Chopra center gibberish.

A response from you on the topic of telepathy raised by BA77 would be interesting.

Radin is the President of the Parapsychological Association and an authority on paranormal phenomena, so his rigorous 'research' based books are a good start to understand telepathy, ghosts and other extra dimensional phenomenon :-) Me_Think

'@ Me_Think #61 ‘If your idea of Macro QM effects is a phonon movement of less than an electron width in a Quantum ground state in a isolated system,in below one-tenth of a kelvin, then I agree!’ Good. It’s a start in both senses, although I have to concede you are substantially right.' I take that back, Me_Think. Not because it's wrong prima facie, but because in principle, the researcher could identify the problems that would have to be surmounted; there seems no reason, in his view, to doubt that the principle will remain effective, the problems being of a secondary order. It isn't necessary to identify a single equation to estabsh that QM is mathematically proven; the convergence of all the QM research findings, would necessarily have been heavily reliant on mathematical calculations by the very nature of physics, and all the more so, QM. Axel

Avian Phylogenomics Project, A Flock of Genomes http://avian.genomics.cn/en/

It's as if birds have a common core, a standard that birds were intelligently designed around. Joe

Avian Phylogenomics Project, A Flock of Genomes http://avian.genomics.cn/en/ Zachriel

QM seems to, not so much correlate as correspond, with the postulation I made on another thread, and also initially at a much earlier date, that we each of us live in a little world of our own, coordinated by a divine animating Spirit; seamless at the macro level, but with the disjunctions visible at the quantum level. And why wouldn't it, since it is merely an unabashed theistic statement of what philosophers of science had extrapolated from QM many decades ago; namely, that there is no 'objective' reality, only 'inter-subjective'; under the benighted atheist zeitgeist of Academia perforce baulking at the obvious, further, implicit, ultra personal extrapolation, preferring to couch it as if reality were still somehow, self-existent. Indeed, a kabbalist once averred that, when a man dies, a whole word dies with him. All the above is consistent with the findings of QM as referred to by BA77 on here, and the various statements of the pioneers, such as Planck and Bohr. Incidentally, in trying to refute the crucial role of personal observation to BA77, you fail to draw the logical inference between the measuring instrument left 'in charge' of the recording of the double-slit experiment, and its ineffectualness in collapsing the wave function, and whatever instrumentation as might be used by a personally attending observer, whose presence then invariably does prove to be effective in collapsing the wave function. Axel

Happy now, Me_Think? Thank you for your timely intervention, BA77. Bringing out such an in-depth treatment of the science was very propitious, if I say so myself! Even a fool can have his uses. Me-Think, non locality, itself, was the death of materialism. Approaching it from a theistic perspective, how do light photons or the agency behind them, know to adjust their speed to the speed of an observer traveling in the same direction at a constant speed or indeed, stationary, always at their absolute speed? How do photons or the necessarily theistic agency behind them, know of the existence and precise whereabouts of the relevant potential observers? A response from you on the topic of telepathy raised by BA77 would be interesting. Axel

A little known fact, a fact that is very antagonistic to the genetic reductionism model of neo-Darwinism, is that, besides environmental factors, even our thoughts and feelings can 'epigenetically' control the gene expression of our bodies: Scientists Finally Show How Your Thoughts Can Cause Specific Molecular Changes To Your Genes, - December 10, 2013 Excerpt: “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that shows rapid alterations in gene expression within subjects associated with mindfulness meditation practice,” says study author Richard J. Davidson, founder of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds and the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Most interestingly, the changes were observed in genes that are the current targets of anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs,” says Perla Kaliman, first author of the article and a researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona, Spain (IIBB-CSIC-IDIBAPS), where the molecular analyses were conducted.,,, the researchers say, there was no difference in the tested genes between the two groups of people at the start of the study. The observed effects were seen only in the meditators following mindfulness practice. In addition, several other DNA-modifying genes showed no differences between groups, suggesting that the mindfulness practice specifically affected certain regulatory pathways. http://www.tunedbody.com/scientists-finally-show-thoughts-can-cause-specific-molecular-changes-genes/ Networks of Genes Respond to Social Experiences - October 13, 2013 Excerpt: It is subjective mind and perception that changes genes, not just external situations. http://jonlieffmd.com/blog/networks-of-genes-respond-to-social-experiences As well, besides effecting genes, consciousness is shown to effect 'brain plasticity' The Case for the Soul - InspiringPhilosophy - (4:03 minute mark, Brain Plasticity including Schwartz's work) - Oct. 2014 - video The Mind is able to modify the brain. Moreover, Idealism explains all anomalous evidence of personality changes due to brain injury, whereas physicalism does not explain mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBsI_ay8K70 “As I remarked earlier, this may present an “insuperable” difficulty for some scientists of materialists bent, but the fact remains, and is demonstrated by research, that non-material mind acts on material brain.” Sir John Eccles - Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1963 - (as quoted in Cousins, 1985, pp. 61-62,85-86) "We regard promissory materialism as superstition without a rational foundation. The more we discover about the brain, the more clearly do we distinguish between the brain events and the mental phenomena, and the more wonderful do both the brain events and the mental phenomena become. Promissory materialism is simply a religious belief held by dogmatic materialists... who often confuse their religion with their science." - John C. Eccles, The Wonder of Being Human: Our Brain and Our Mind, 1984 - Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1963 http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2568511 Materialism of the Gaps - Michael Egnor (Neurosurgeon) - January 29, 2009 Excerpt: The evidence that some aspects of the mind are immaterial is overwhelming. It's notable that many of the leading neuroscientists -- Sherrington, Penfield, Eccles, Libet -- were dualists. Dualism of some sort is the most reasonable scientific framework to apply to the mind-brain problem, because, unlike dogmatic materialism, it just follows the evidence. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/01/materialism_of_the_gaps015901.html Further notes: David Chalmers on Consciousness - (Descartes, Philosophical zombies and the hard problem of consciousness) - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Yo6VbRoo Autistic Savants have another surprise for us,,,telepathy!!! Dr. Diane Powell Finds Telepathy Among Autistic Savant Children - Posted on Oct 28, 2014 Excerpt: ,,,the second therapist independently had a similar experience where she made a mistake and the girl repeated her mistake. Then she saw this often enough that she said, ‘Hey, it’s like you’re reading my mind.’ Then she had the thought, ‘How do you say I love you in German?’ And the girl typed out the German for ‘I love you’ – ich liebe dich. Alex Tsakiris: Oh my gosh. Diane Powell: So this created the opportunity to go and test her with two independent therapists. And the results, if people go to my website and they want to read the abstract, you will see that the results are astounding. I mean, there is this one period where I have over four hours of experimental footage with her. And there was a period of about ten minutes of where she gave – out of 162 random numbers, and I was generating these with a random number generator, out of 162, she only made 7 errors. And each one of those she corrected on the second try.,,, http://www.skeptiko.com/257-diane-powell-telepathy-among-autistic-savant-children/ podcast interview: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-257-diane-powell.mp3 Evidence of Telepathy in a Nonverbal Autistic Child - Diane Hennacy Powell http://dianehennacypowell.com/evidence-telepathy-nonverbal-autistic-child/ bornagain77

Me_Think, Contrary to your irrational denial of the reality your own conscious mind, and your sophomoric belittlement of anything or anyone that might show mind to have causal power, I will gladly trust Radin's results over your blatant irrationality and ad hominem: A few supportive notes: Correlations of Random Binary Sequences with Pre-Stated Operator Intention: A Review of a 12-Year Program - 1997 Abstract: Strong correlations between output distribution means of a variety of random binary processes and pre-stated intentions of some 100 individual human operators have been established over a 12-year experimental program. More than 1000 experimental series, employing four different categories of random devices and several distinctive protocols, show comparable magnitudes of anomalous mean shifts from chance expectation, with similar distribution structures. Although the absolute effect sizes are quite small, of the order of 10–4 bits deviation per bit processed, over the huge databases accumulated the composite effect exceeds 7 ?( p approx.= 3.5 × 10 –13). These data display significant disparities between female and male operator performances, and consistent serial position effects in individual and collective results. Data generated by operators far removed from the machines and exerting their efforts at times other than those of machine operation show similar effect sizes and structural details to those of the local, on-time experiments. Most other secondary parameters tested are found to have little effect on the scale and character of the results, with one important exception: studies performed using fully deterministic pseudorandom sources, either hard-wired or algorithmic, yield null overall mean shifts, and display no other anomalous feature. http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/pdfs/1997-correlations-random-binary-sequences-12-year-review.pdf Dean Radin - Random Number Generators correlate to intention - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFULrlxTFsA Random Number Generator-GCP - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w4wCWx3n1I Mind Effects Matter - Perturbed Randomness Following Worldwide crisis - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE1haKXoHMo Mass Consciousness: Perturbed Randomness Before First Plane Struck on 911 - July 29 2012 Excerpt: The machine apparently sensed the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre four hours before they happened - but in the fevered mood of conspiracy theories of the time, the claims were swiftly knocked back by sceptics. But it also appeared to forewarn of the Asian tsunami just before the deep sea earthquake that precipitated the epic tragedy.,, Now, even the doubters are acknowledging that here is a small box with apparently inexplicable powers. 'It's Earth-shattering stuff,' says Dr Roger Nelson, emeritus researcher at Princeton University in the United States, who is heading the research project behind the 'black box' phenomenon. http://www.network54.com/Forum/594658/thread/1343585136/1343657830/Mass+Consciousness-+Perturbed+Randomness++Before+First+Plane+Struck+on+911 Here are some of the papers to go with the preceding video and article; Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research - Scientific Study of Consciousness-Related Physical Phenomena - publications http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/publications.html The Global Consciousness Project - Meaningful Correlations in Random Data http://teilhard.global-mind.org/ I once asked a evolutionist, after showing him the preceding experiments, "Since you ultimately believe that the 'god of random chance' produced everything we see around us, what in blue blazes is my mind doing pushing your god around?" bornagain77

bornagain77 @ 177

Me_Think, all the links and videos I posted on the double slit admit to profound difficulties with any materialistic explanation for the double slit, and also admit to the VERY probable role for mind in the experiment. Even Tegmark and Carol in the first video, both die hard atheists, admit that no one has a materialistic answer for the double slit.

Yes. There are difficulties in explaining double slit because the theory of QM is far from complete but please don't elevate Radin experiments to 'rigorously acquired empirical results'. Did you know Psi effects are present above chance to a probability of 10^15 to 1 ? :-) :-) - by the way, that was Radin's rigorous results of meta study. Me_Think

Me_Think, all the links and videos I posted on the double slit admit to profound difficulties with any materialistic explanation for the double slit, and also admit to the VERY probable role for mind in the experiment. Even Tegmark and Carol in the first video, both die hard atheists, admit that no one has a materialistic answer for the double slit. That you would try to single Radin out for ad hominem, and ignore what even atheists themselves admit to, and ignore his rigorously acquired empirical results is typical of someone who is more concerned with trying to win a argument by whatever deceptive means possible than he is with discovering the truth. Good luck with all that. You have zero credibility with me! of note: The Soul Hypothesis: Investigations into the Existence of the Soul Chapter 6 is Hans Halvorson's 'The Measure of All Things: Quantum Mechanics and the Soul' Hans Halvorsen is a philosopher of quantum physics at Princeton University Description: Quantum theory's strange conclusions are founded on data obtained by measuring effects in certain experimental situations. But if quantum theory is correct there are no determinate data of the required sort, for the states of the measuring instruments will be superposed and entangled and thus indeterminate. The dualist has a way out of this problem. Superposition is when a physical system is in two apparently inconsistent states at once -- for example, an electron is passing through both the left-hand slit and the right-hand one at the same time. Because of the nature of linear dynamics, this superposition is retained in a device further down the line of this process. If this continued with an observer, he would be aware of inconsistently believing that the electron was in two places at once. But this is not what happens. Observation 'collapses the wave packet' (not a phrase Halvorson generally deploys) and only one determinate state is observed. Now it is often pointed out that measurement collapses the wave packet, but that the measuring device need not be a conscious observer. Halvorson replies to this that a non-conscious measuring device will itself be in an entangled state, but that if a conscious subject observes it, only one of its possible states will be seen, so consciousness is crucial to making reality determinate. (151) http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/24611-the-soul-hypothesis-investigations-into-the-existence-of-the-soul/ bornagain77

bornagain77, Of all the links given by you, Only Radin's experiments are about human mind influencing double slit. The rest use instruments to measure. I am sorry I had to force you to use Radin's experiments to prove your point. I hope you enjoyed his "scientific" Supernormal: Science, Yoga, and the Evidence for Extraordinary Psychic Abilities (2013) which goes indepth into this and many of his 'scientific' studies :-) Being the President of the Parapsychological Association apparently allows him to experience paranormal phenomena because he is able to unblock signals of 'latent inhibition'. :-) Anyway thanks for reminding me of Radin. Me_Think

AVS:

And the “bad design” idea isn’t a prediction made by evolution; it is more an observation that if the eye was designed by a creator, that creator seemingly did not do a perfect job

That is your uneducated opinion.

Lastly, you don’t throw a scientific theory as well proven as evolution out the window because of a simple, short-sighted prediction being incorrect anyway.

Evolution isn't a scientific theory and you cannot link to this alleged theory of evolution. You lose, again. Joe

Related notes on ‘interaction free’ measurement: Quantum Zeno effect “It has been experimentally confirmed,, that unstable particles will not decay, or will decay less rapidly, if they are observed. Somehow, observation changes the quantum system. We’re talking pure observation, not interacting with the system in any way.” Douglas Ell – Counting to God – pg. 189 – 2014 – Douglas Ell graduated early from MIT, where he double majored in math and physics. He then obtained a masters in theoretical mathematics from the University of Maryland. After graduating from law school, magna cum laude, he became a prominent attorney. The Mental Universe – Richard Conn Henry – Professor of Physics John Hopkins University Excerpt: The only reality is mind and observations, but observations are not of things. To see the Universe as it really is, we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things.,,, Physicists shy away from the truth because the truth is so alien to everyday physics. A common way to evade the mental universe is to invoke “decoherence” – the notion that “the physical environment” is sufficient to create reality, independent of the human mind. Yet the idea that any irreversible act of amplification is necessary to collapse the wave function is known to be wrong: in “Renninger-type” experiments, the wave function is collapsed simply by your human mind seeing nothing. The universe is entirely mental,,,, The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy. http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/The.mental.universe.pdf The Renninger Negative Result Experiment – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3uzSlh_CV0 Elitzur–Vaidman bomb tester Excerpt: In 1994, Anton Zeilinger, Paul Kwiat, Harald Weinfurter, and Thomas Herzog actually performed an equivalent of the above experiment, proving interaction-free measurements are indeed possible.[2] In 1996, Kwiat et al. devised a method, using a sequence of polarising devices, that efficiently increases the yield rate to a level arbitrarily close to one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elitzur%E2%80%93Vaidman_bomb-testing_problem#Experiments Experimental Realization of Interaction-Free Measurement – Paul G. Kwiat; H. Weinfurter, T. Herzog, A. Zeilinger, and M. Kasevich – 1994 Interaction-Free Measurement – 1995 Realization of an interaction-free measurement – 1996 The following video also clearly demonstrates that “decoherence” does not solve the measurement problem: The Measurement Problem in quantum mechanics – (Inspiring Philosophy) – 2014 video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB7d5V71vUE Verse and Music: Colossians 1:17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Brooke Fraser- “C S Lewis Song” http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=DL6LPLNX Supplemental Notes: The Galileo Affair and Life/Consciousness (Jesus) as the true “Center of the Universe” https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BHAcvrc913SgnPcDohwkPnN4kMJ9EDX-JJSkjc4AXmA/edit Two very different eternities revealed by physics: Special Relativity, General Relativity, Heaven and Hell https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_4cQ7MXq8bLkoFLYW0kq3Xq-Hkc3c7r-gTk0DYJQFSg/edit bornagain77

The preceding experiment, and the mathematics behind it, are discussed beginning at the 24:15 minute mark of the following video: Quantum Weirdness and God 8-9-2014 by Paul Giem – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=N7HHz14tS1c#t=1449 The following video and paper get the general, and dramatic, point across of what ‘giving up realism’ actually means: Quantum Physics – (material reality does not exist until we look at it) – Dr. Quantum video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1ezNvpFcJU Macrorealism Emerging from Quantum Physics – Brukner, Caslav; Kofler, Johannes American Physical Society, APS March Meeting, – March 5-9, 2007 Excerpt: for unrestricted measurement accuracy a violation of macrorealism (i.e., a violation of the Leggett-Garg inequalities) is possible for arbitrary large systems.,, http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007APS..MARB33005B But, as if all that was not enough to demonstrate consciousness’s centrality in quantum mechanics, I then learned about something called the ‘Quantum Zeno Effect’,, Quantum Zeno Effect The quantum Zeno effect is,, an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Zeno_effect The reason why I am very impressed with the Quantum Zeno effect as to establishing consciousness’s primacy in quantum mechanics is, for one thing, that Entropy is, by a wide margin, the most finely tuned of initial conditions of the Big Bang: The Physics of the Small and Large: What is the Bridge Between Them? Roger Penrose Excerpt: “The time-asymmetry is fundamentally connected to with the Second Law of Thermodynamics: indeed, the extraordinarily special nature (to a greater precision than about 1 in 10^10^123, in terms of phase-space volume) can be identified as the “source” of the Second Law (Entropy).” How special was the big bang? – Roger Penrose Excerpt: This now tells us how precise the Creator’s aim must have been: namely to an accuracy of one part in 10^10^123. (from the Emperor’s New Mind, Penrose, pp 339-345 – 1989) For another thing, it is interesting to note just how foundational entropy is in its explanatory power for actions within the space-time of the universe: Shining Light on Dark Energy – October 21, 2012 Excerpt: It (Entropy) explains time; it explains every possible action in the universe;,, Even gravity, Vedral argued, can be expressed as a consequence of the law of entropy. ,,, The principles of thermodynamics are at their roots all to do with information theory. Information theory is simply an embodiment of how we interact with the universe —,,, http://crev.info/2012/10/shining-light-on-dark-energy/ In fact, entropy is also the primary reason why our physical, temporal, bodies grow old and die,,, Aging Process – 85 years in 40 seconds – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A91Fwf_sMhk *3 new mutations every time a cell divides in your body * Average cell of 15 year old has up to 6000 mutations *Average cell of 60 year old has 40,000 mutations Reproductive cells are ‘designed’ so that, early on in development, they are ‘set aside’ and thus they do not accumulate mutations as the rest of the cells of our bodies do. Regardless of this protective barrier against the accumulation of slightly detrimental mutations still we find that,,, *60-175 mutations are passed on to each new generation. Per John Sanford Entropy Explains Aging, Genetic Determinism Explains Longevity, and Undefined Terminology Explains Misunderstanding Both - 2007 Excerpt: There is a huge body of knowledge supporting the belief that age changes are characterized by increasing entropy, which results in the random loss of molecular fidelity, and accumulates to slowly overwhelm maintenance systems [1–4].,,, http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi/10.1371/journal.pgen.0030220 And yet, to repeat,,, Quantum Zeno effect Excerpt: The quantum Zeno effect is,,, an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay. per wiki This is just fascinating! Why in blue blazes should conscious observation put a freeze on entropic decay, unless consciousness was/is more foundational to reality than the 1 in 10^10^120 entropy is? Putting all the lines of evidence together the argument for God from consciousness can now be framed like this: 1. Consciousness either preceded all of material reality or is a ‘epi-phenomena’ of material reality. 2. If consciousness is a ‘epi-phenomena’ of material reality then consciousness will be found to have no special position within material reality. Whereas conversely, if consciousness precedes material reality then consciousness will be found to have a special position within material reality. 3. Consciousness is found to have a special, even central, position within material reality. 4. Therefore, consciousness is found to precede material reality. Four intersecting lines of experimental evidence from quantum mechanics that shows that consciousness precedes material reality (Wigner’s Quantum Symmetries, Wheeler’s Delayed Choice, Leggett’s Inequalities, Quantum Zeno effect): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G_Fi50ljF5w_XyJHfmSIZsOcPFhgoAZ3PRc_ktY8cFo/edit bornagain77

Then after I had learned about Wigner’s Quantum Symmetries, I stumbled across Wheeler’s Delayed choice experiments in which this finding shocked me as to the central importance of the observer’s free will choice in quantum experiments: Alain Aspect speaks on John Wheeler’s Delayed Choice Experiment – video http://vimeo.com/38508798 “Thus one decides the photon shall have come by one route or by both routes after it has already done its travel” John A. Wheeler Wheeler’s Classic Delayed Choice Experiment: Excerpt: Now, for many billions of years the photon is in transit in region 3. Yet we can choose (many billions of years later) which experimental set up to employ – the single wide-focus, or the two narrowly focused instruments. We have chosen whether to know which side of the galaxy the photon passed by (by choosing whether to use the two-telescope set up or not, which are the instruments that would give us the information about which side of the galaxy the photon passed). We have delayed this choice until a time long after the particles “have passed by one side of the galaxy, or the other side of the galaxy, or both sides of the galaxy,” so to speak. Yet, it seems paradoxically that our later choice of whether to obtain this information determines which side of the galaxy the light passed, so to speak, billions of years ago. So it seems that time has nothing to do with effects of quantum mechanics. And, indeed, the original thought experiment was not based on any analysis of how particles evolve and behave over time – it was based on the mathematics. This is what the mathematics predicted for a result, and this is exactly the result obtained in the laboratory. http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/basic_delayed_choice.htm Genesis, Quantum Physics and Reality Excerpt: Simply put, an experiment on Earth can be made in such a way that it determines if one photon comes along either on the right or the left side or if it comes (as a wave) along both sides of the gravitational lens (of the galaxy) at the same time. However, how could the photons have known billions of years ago that someday there would be an earth with inhabitants on it, making just this experiment? ,,, This is big trouble for the multi-universe theory and for the “hidden-variables” approach. - per Greer “It begins to look as we ourselves, by our last minute decision, have an influence on what a photon will do when it has already accomplished most of its doing… we have to say that we ourselves have an undeniable part in what we have always called the past. The past is not really the past until is has been registered. Or to put it another way, the past has no meaning or existence unless it exists as a record in the present.” – John Wheeler – The Ghost In The Atom – Page 66-68 Then, a little bit later, I learned that the delayed choice experiment had been extended: The Experiment That Debunked Materialism – video – (delayed choice quantum eraser) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xKUass7G8w (Double Slit) A Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser – updated 2007 Excerpt: Upon accessing the information gathered by the Coincidence Circuit, we the observer are shocked to learn that the pattern shown by the positions registered at D0 (Detector Zero) at Time 2 depends entirely on the information gathered later at Time 4 and available to us at the conclusion of the experiment. http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/kim-scully/kim-scully-web.htm And then I learned the delayed choice experiment was refined yet again: “If we attempt to attribute an objective meaning to the quantum state of a single system, curious paradoxes appear: quantum effects mimic not only instantaneous action-at-a-distance but also, as seen here, influence of future actions on past events, even after these events have been irrevocably recorded.” Asher Peres, Delayed choice for entanglement swapping. J. Mod. Opt. 47, 139-143 (2000). Quantum physics mimics spooky action into the past – April 23, 2012 Excerpt: The authors experimentally realized a “Gedankenexperiment” called “delayed-choice entanglement swapping”, formulated by Asher Peres in the year 2000. Two pairs of entangled photons are produced, and one photon from each pair is sent to a party called Victor. Of the two remaining photons, one photon is sent to the party Alice and one is sent to the party Bob. Victor can now choose between two kinds of measurements. If he decides to measure his two photons in a way such that they are forced to be in an entangled state, then also Alice’s and Bob’s photon pair becomes entangled. If Victor chooses to measure his particles individually, Alice’s and Bob’s photon pair ends up in a separable state. Modern quantum optics technology allowed the team to delay Victor’s choice and measurement with respect to the measurements which Alice and Bob perform on their photons. “We found that whether Alice’s and Bob’s photons are entangled and show quantum correlations or are separable and show classical correlations can be decided after they have been measured”, explains Xiao-song Ma, lead author of the study. According to the famous words of Albert Einstein, the effects of quantum entanglement appear as “spooky action at a distance”. The recent experiment has gone one remarkable step further. “Within a naïve classical world view, quantum mechanics can even mimic an influence of future actions on past events”, says Anton Zeilinger. http://phys.org/news/2012-04-quantum-physics-mimics-spooky-action.html i.e. The preceding experiment clearly shows, and removes any doubt whatsoever, that the ‘material’ detector recording information in the double slit is secondary to the experiment and that a conscious observer being able to consciously know the ‘which path’ information of a photon with local certainty, is of primary importance in the experiment. You can see a more complete explanation of the startling results of the experiment at the 9:11 minute mark of the following video: Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser Experiment Explained – 2014 video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6HLjpj4Nt4 And then, after the delayed choice experiments, I learned about something called Leggett’s Inequality. Leggett’s Inequality was, as far as I can tell, a mathematical proof developed by Nobelist Anthony Leggett to prove ‘realism’. Realism is the belief that an objective reality exists independently of a conscious observer looking at it. And, as is usual with challenging the predictions of Quantum Mechanics, his proof was violated by a stunning 80 orders of magnitude, thus once again, in over the top fashion, highlighting the central importance of the conscious observer to Quantum Experiments: A team of physicists in Vienna has devised experiments that may answer one of the enduring riddles of science: Do we create the world just by looking at it? – 2008 Excerpt: In mid-2007 Fedrizzi found that the new realism model was violated by 80 orders of magnitude; the group was even more assured that quantum mechanics was correct. Leggett agrees with Zeilinger that realism is wrong in quantum mechanics, but when I asked him whether he now believes in the theory, he answered only “no” before demurring, “I’m in a small minority with that point of view and I wouldn’t stake my life on it.” For Leggett there are still enough loopholes to disbelieve. I asked him what could finally change his mind about quantum mechanics. Without hesitation, he said sending humans into space as detectors to test the theory.,,, (to which Anton Zeilinger responded) When I mentioned this to Prof. Zeilinger he said, “That will happen someday. There is no doubt in my mind. It is just a question of technology.” Alessandro Fedrizzi had already shown me a prototype of a realism experiment he is hoping to send up in a satellite. It’s a heavy, metallic slab the size of a dinner plate. http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_reality_tests/P3/ Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger by Richard Conn Henry – Physics Professor – John Hopkins University Excerpt: Why do people cling with such ferocity to belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality, then ultimately (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the “illusion” of material reality (which has, in fact, despite the materialists, been known to be the case, since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism (solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one’s own mind is sure to exist). (Dr. Henry’s referenced experiment and paper – “An experimental test of non-local realism” by S. Gröblacher et. al., Nature 446, 871, April 2007 – “To be or not to be local” by Alain Aspect, Nature 446, 866, April 2007 (Leggett’s Inequality: Verified to 80 orders of magnitude) http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/aspect.html As with the delayed choice experiment, the violation of Leggett’s inequalities have been extended. This following experiment verified Leggett’s inequality to a stunning 120 standard deviations level of precision: Experimental non-classicality of an indivisible quantum system – Zeilinger 2011 Excerpt: Page 491: “This represents a violation of (Leggett’s) inequality (3) by more than 120 standard deviations, demonstrating that no joint probability distribution is capable of describing our results.” The violation also excludes any non-contextual hidden-variable model.The result does, however, agree well with quantum mechanical predictions, as we will show now.,,, https://vcq.quantum.at/fileadmin/Publications/Experimental%20non-classicality%20of%20an%20indivisible.pdf bornagain77

Me_Think, as to: "Double slit experiments (even delayed choice experiment) has nothing to do with mind" That belief/claim is simply 'not even wrong': As to consciousness in quantum mechanics. That consciousness is integral to quantum mechanics is fairly obvious to the unbiased observer (no pun intended). I first, much like everybody else, was immediately shocked to learn that the observer could have any effect whatsoever in the double slit experiment: Quantum Mechanics – Double Slit and Delayed Choice Experiments – video https://vimeo.com/87175892 Dr. Quantum – Double Slit Experiment – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1YqgPAtzho Double Slit Experiment – Explained By Prof Anton Zeilinger – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/6101627/ Quantum Mechanics – Double Slit Experiment. Is anything real? (Prof. Anton Zeilinger) – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayvbKafw2g0 Prof. Zeilinger makes this rather startling statement in the preceding video: “The path taken by the photon is not an element of reality. We are not allowed to talk about the photon passing through this or this slit. Neither are we allowed to say the photon passes through both slits. All this kind of language is not applicable.” Anton Zeilinger Feynman said this in regards to the double slit experiment with electrons, “has in it the heart of quantum mechanics” and “is impos­sible, absolutely impos­sible, to explain in any clas­sical way.” http://thisquantumworld.com/wp/the-mystique-of-quantum-mechanics/two-slit-experiment/ Feynman also stated this in regards to quantum mechanics,,, "…the “paradox” is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality “ought to be.” Richard Feynman, in The Feynman Lectures on Physics, vol III, p. 18-9 (1965) Dean Radin, who spent years at Princeton testing different aspects of consciousness, recently performed experiments testing the possible role of consciousness in the double slit. His results were, not so surprisingly, very supportive of consciousness’s central role in the experiment: Consciousness and the double-slit interference pattern: six experiments – Radin – 2012 Abstract: A double-slit optical system was used to test the possible role of consciousness in the collapse of the quantum wavefunction. The ratio of the interference pattern’s double-slit spectral power to its single-slit spectral power was predicted to decrease when attention was focused toward the double slit as compared to away from it. Each test session consisted of 40 counterbalanced attention-toward and attention-away epochs, where each epoch lasted between 15 and 30 s(seconds). Data contributed by 137 people in six experiments, involving a total of 250 test sessions, indicate that on average the spectral ratio decreased as predicted (z = -4:36, p = 6·10^-6). Another 250 control sessions conducted without observers present tested hardware, software, and analytical procedures for potential artifacts; none were identified (z = 0:43, p = 0:67). Variables including temperature, vibration, and signal drift were also tested, and no spurious influences were identified. By contrast, factors associated with consciousness, such as meditation experience, electrocortical markers of focused attention, and psychological factors including openness and absorption, significantly correlated in predicted ways with perturbations in the double-slit interference pattern. The results appear to be consistent with a consciousness-related interpretation of the quantum measurement problem. http://www.deanradin.com/papers/Physics%20Essays%20Radin%20final.pdf Of course, atheists/materialists were/are in complete denial as to the obvious implications of mind in the double slit (invoking infinite parallel universes and such as that to try to get around the obvious implications of ‘Mind’). But personally, not being imprisoned in the materialist’s box, my curiosity was aroused and I’ve been sort of poking around, finding out a little more here and there about quantum mechanics, and how the observer is central to it. One of the first interesting experiments in quantum mechanics I found after the double slit, that highlighted the centrality of the observer to the experiment, was Wigner’s Quantum Symmetries. Here is Wigner commenting on the key experiment that led Wigner to his Nobel Prize winning work on quantum symmetries,,, Eugene Wigner Excerpt: When I returned to Berlin, the excellent crystallographer Weissenberg asked me to study: why is it that in a crystal the atoms like to sit in a symmetry plane or symmetry axis. After a short time of thinking I understood:,,,, To express this basic experience in a more direct way: the world does not have a privileged center, there is no absolute rest, preferred direction, unique origin of calendar time, even left and right seem to be rather symmetric. The interference of electrons, photons, neutrons has indicated that the state of a particle can be described by a vector possessing a certain number of components. As the observer is replaced by another observer (working elsewhere, looking at a different direction, using another clock, perhaps being left-handed), the state of the very same particle is described by another vector, obtained from the previous vector by multiplying it with a matrix. This matrix transfers from one observer to another. http://www.reak.bme.hu/Wigner_Course/WignerBio/wb1.htm Wigner went on to make these rather dramatic comments in regards to his work: “It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness.” Eugene Wigner (1902 -1995) from his collection of essays “Symmetries and Reflections – Scientific Essays”; Eugene Wigner laid the foundation for the theory of symmetries in quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963. “It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is the ultimate universal reality” - Eugene Wigner – (Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in Wheeler and Zurek, p.169) 1961 Moreover, Wigner was certainly no lightweight in quantum mechanics, but his deep insights continue to foster ‘a second revolution’ in quantum mechanics: Eugene Wigner – A Gedanken Pioneer of the Second Quantum Revolution – Anton Zeilinger – Sept. 2014 Conclusion It would be fascinating to know Eugene Wigner’s reaction to the fact that the gedanken experiments he discussed (in 1963 and 1970) have not only become reality, but building on his gedanken experiments, new ideas have developed which on the one hand probe the foundations of quantum mechanics even deeper, and which on the other hand also provide the foundations to the new field of quantum information technology. All these experiments pay homage to the great insight Wigner expressed in developing these gedanken experiments and in his analyses of the foundations of quantum mechanics, http://epjwoc.epj.org/articles/epjconf/pdf/2014/15/epjconf_wigner2014_01010.pdf Also of note: Von Neumann–Wigner – interpretation Excerpt: The von Neumann–Wigner interpretation, also described as “consciousness causes collapse [of the wave function]“, is an interpretation of quantum mechanics in which consciousness is postulated to be necessary for the completion of the process of quantum measurement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann%E2%80%93Wigner_interpretation#The_interpretation “I think von Neumann’s orthodox QM gives a good way to understand the nature of the universe: it is tightly tied to the practical test and uses of our basic physical theory, while also accounting for the details of the mind-brain connection in a way that is rationally concordant with both our conscious experiences, and experience of control, and the neuroscience data.” Henry Stapp bornagain77

AVS, as usual, instead of thanking God for the miracle of the eye (and eyesight) you simply hand wave the jaw dropping sophistication of the eye off with this comment,,, "optimization is much easier to come by at the molecular level" That is simply a flat out lie. If anything, empirical evidence has consistently shown us that unguided mutations, i.e. random mutations, at the molecular level are excellent at breaking things at the molecular level, i.e. at driving things from optimization! Random mutations ARE NOT excellent for making "optimization much easier to come by" at the molecular level! Multiple Overlapping Genetic Codes Profoundly Reduce the Probability of Beneficial Mutation George Montañez 1, Robert J. Marks II 2, Jorge Fernandez 3 and John C. Sanford 4 - May 2013 Excerpt: It is almost universally acknowledged that beneficial mutations are rare compared to deleterious mutations [1–10].,, It appears that beneficial mutations may be too rare to actually allow the accurate measurement of how rare they are [11]. 1. Kibota T, Lynch M (1996) Estimate of the genomic mutation rate deleterious to overall fitness in E. coli . Nature 381:694–696. 2. Charlesworth B, Charlesworth D (1998) Some evolutionary consequences of deleterious mutations. Genetica 103: 3–19. 3. Elena S, et al (1998) Distribution of fitness effects caused by random insertion mutations in Escherichia coli. Genetica 102/103: 349–358. 4. Gerrish P, Lenski R N (1998) The fate of competing beneficial mutations in an asexual population. Genetica 102/103:127–144. 5. Crow J (2000) The origins, patterns, and implications of human spontaneous mutation. Nature Reviews 1:40–47. 6. Bataillon T (2000) Estimation of spontaneous genome-wide mutation rate parameters: whither beneficial mutations? Heredity 84:497–501. 7. Imhof M, Schlotterer C (2001) Fitness effects of advantageous mutations in evolving Escherichia coli populations. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 98:1113–1117. 8. Orr H (2003) The distribution of fitness effects among beneficial mutations. Genetics 163: 1519–1526. 9. Keightley P, Lynch M (2003) Toward a realistic model of mutations affecting fitness. Evolution 57:683–685. 10. Barrett R, et al (2006) The distribution of beneficial mutation effects under strong selection. Genetics 174:2071–2079. 11. Bataillon T (2000) Estimation of spontaneous genome-wide mutation rate parameters: whither beneficial mutations? Heredity 84:497–501. http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789814508728_0006 “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain - Michael Behe - December 2010 Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain. http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/ Study demonstrates evolutionary ‘fitness’ not the most important determinant of success – February 7, 2014 – with illustration Excerpt: An illustration of the possible mutations available to an RNA molecule. The blue lines represent mutations that will not change its function (phenotype), the grey are mutations to an alternative phenotype with slightly higher fitness and the red are the ‘fittest’ mutations. As there are so few possible mutations resulting in the fittest phenotype in red, the odds of this mutation are a mere 0.15%. The odds for the slightly fitter mutation in grey are 6.7% and so this is far more likely to fix, and thus to be found and survive, even though it is much less fit than the red phenotype.,,, By modelling populations over long timescales, the study showed that the ‘fitness’ of their traits was not the most important determinant of success. Instead, the most genetically available mutations dominated the changes in traits. The researchers found that the ‘fittest’ simply did not have time to be found, or to fix in the population over evolutionary timescales. http://phys.org/news/2014-02-evolutionary-important-success.html This following headline sums the preceding finding up very nicely: Fittest Can’t Survive If They Never Arrive – February 7, 2014 http://crev.info/2014/02/fittest-cant-survive-if-they-never-arrive/ etc.. etc.. Proverbs 20:12 The hearing ear and the seeing eye, The LORD has made both of them. Of related note as to what, or more precisely whom, is doing the 'seeing': Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper (1997) conducted a study of 31 blind people, many of who reported vision during their NDEs. 21 of these people had had an NDE while the remaining 10 had had an out-of-body experience (OBE), but no NDE. It was found that in the NDE sample, about half had been blind from birth. (of note: The deaf can also hear during NDEs) http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2320/is_1_64/ai_65076875/ Coast to Coast – Blind since Birth – Vicki’s NDE – Part 1 of 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e65KhcCS5-Y bornagain77

bornagain77 @ 107 Ok .Back on track, The issue was (all along) this :

Double slit experiments (even delayed choice experiment) has nothing to do with mind.When they say ‘observer’, it doesn’t mean the literal person. It means the instrument that makes measurement. Obviously you can’t observe a photon without instrument. If you think the instrument has a mind, or the person observing the instrument changes the instrument’s mind, then I am with you, but you have to prove instrument has a mind.

BA77: as to “‘observer’, it doesn’t mean the literal person.” Yes it does! Me_Think:Don’t be silly. A person can’t see a photon. It is the instrument that detects it.

So, please don't tell me eyes are used instead of detectors in the experiments ! and I don't think you will disagree with the statement that a instrument is not conscious . Conclusion : Double slit experiments and it's variants are not about mind controlling matter. Me_Think

Relax BA, optimization is much easier to come by at the molecular level. Many processes in the cell operate at near 100% efficiency due to the small scale at which they work. And the “bad design” idea isn’t a prediction made by evolution; it is more an observation that if the eye was designed by a creator, that creator seemingly did not do a perfect job. Apparently the reverse-orientation of the retina has benefits, but there are still many questions to be answered about the supposed design of the eye and the apparent whimsical nature of this designer. Lastly, you don’t throw a scientific theory as well proven as evolution out the window because of a simple, short-sighted prediction being incorrect anyway. AVS

As was pointed out, The study of the interaction of photons and photoreceptors has already been studied and the Darwinists/Atheists are, once again, found to be severely wanting for a 'coherent' explanation as to the 'as good as can be' optimization of the photoreceptor. To quote Princeton Physicist William Bialek again:

William Bialek: More Perfect Than We Imagined – March 23, 2013 Excerpt: photoreceptor cells that carpet the retinal tissue of the eye and respond to light, are not just good or great or phabulous at their job. They are not merely exceptionally impressive by the standards of biology, with whatever slop and wiggle room the animate category implies. Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period. Each one is designed to detect and respond to single photons of light — the smallest possible packages in which light comes wrapped. “Light is quantized, and you can’t count half a photon,” said William Bialek, a professor of physics and integrative genomics at Princeton University. “This is as far as it goes.” … In each instance, biophysicists have calculated, the system couldn’t get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2013/03/william-bialek-more-perfect-than-we.html

And need I remind you of the failed Darwinian prediction of 'bad design' for the 'backwards' retina???

Retinal Glial Cells Enhance Human Vision Acuity A. M. Labin and E. N. Ribak Physical Review Letters, 104, 158102 (April 2010) Excerpt: The retina is revealed as an optimal structure designed for improving the sharpness of images. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20482021 Phys.org: Specialized Retinal Cells Are a "Design Feature," Showing that the Argument for Suboptimal Design of the Eye "Is Folly" - Casey Luskin - August 8, 2014 Excerpt: Now a new paper in Nature Communications, "Müller cells separate between wavelengths to improve day vision with minimal effect upon night vision," has expanded upon this (2010) research, further showing the eye's optimal design. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/08/physorg_special088541.html Fiber optic light pipes in the retina do much more than simple image transfer - Jul 21, 2014 Excerpt: Having the photoreceptors at the back of the retina is not a design constraint, it is a design feature. The idea that the vertebrate eye, like a traditional front-illuminated camera, might have been improved somehow if it had only been able to orient its wiring behind the photoreceptor layer, like a cephalopod, is folly. Indeed in simply engineered systems, like CMOS or CCD image sensors, a back-illuminated design manufactured by flipping the silicon wafer and thinning it so that light hits the photocathode without having to navigate the wiring layer can improve photon capture across a wide wavelength band. But real eyes are much more crafty than that. A case in point are the Müller glia cells that span the thickness of the retina. These high refractive index cells spread an absorptive canopy across the retinal surface and then shepherd photons through a low-scattering cytoplasm to separate receivers, much like coins through a change sorting machine. A new paper in Nature Communications describes how these wavelength-dependent wave-guides can shuttle green-red light to cones while passing the blue-purples to adjacent rods. The idea that these Müller cells act as living fiber optic cables has been floated previously. It has even been convincingly demonstrated using a dual beam laser trap.,,, ,,,In the retina, and indeed the larger light organ that is the eye, there is much more going on than just photons striking rhodopsin photopigments. As far as absorbers, there are all kinds of things going on in there—various carontenoids, lipofuscins and lipochromes, even cytochrome oxidases in mitochondria that get involved at the longer wavelegnths.,,, ,,In considering not just the classical photoreceptors but the entire retina itself as a light-harvesting engine,,, that can completely refigure (its) fine structure within a few minutes to handle changing light levels, every synapse appears as an essential machine that percolates information as if at the Brownian scale, or even below.,,, http://phys.org/news/2014-07-fiber-optic-pipes-retina-simple.html

Most people, if their prediction was falsified in such dramatic fashion would drop their theory in a heartbeat, but I guess being a Darwinist means burying your head in the sand and never admitting that you were, and are, spectacularly wrong! bornagain77

We can’t see “a” photon. Yes a single receptor cell can be activated by a single photon, but for a human to actually perceive the environment, it requires many cells to be activated by many photons in order to form an image. If you want to try to study photons using solely your eyes, BA, be my guest. It actually might be a better use of your time. AVS

Me_Think you made the claim that humans cannot detect photons, "A person can’t see a photon. It is the instrument that detects it." you were shown to be wrong. "Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period. Each one is designed to detect and respond to single photons of light — the smallest possible packages in which light comes wrapped." Obviously, the human eye was designed with single photons in mind! And the measurement problem comes into full play here: “We wish to measure a temperature.,,, But in any case, no matter how far we calculate — to the mercury vessel, to the scale of the thermometer, to the retina, or into the brain, at some time we must say: and this is perceived by the observer. That is, we must always divide the world into two parts, the one being the observed system, the other the observer.” John von Neumann – 1903-1957 – The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, pp.418-21 – 1955 The Measurement Problem in quantum mechanics – (Inspiring Philosophy) – 2014 video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB7d5V71vUE The materialist is, as usual, found to be wanting! bornagain77

That Gödel is correct in his incompleteness Theorem is born out empirically,,,

He (Godel) summed it up this way: “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove.”

The entire universe itself, which we can 'draw a circle around', with the discovery of the big bang, is, of course, now known to casually incomplete. As well, any particle in the universe that you can draw a circle around is now known to not be a self sustaining entity but is dependent on something outside itself in order to explain why it acts the way it does: i.e. Quantum Mechanics has now been extended to falsify local realism (the idea that the universe is not dependent on any beyond space and time causes) without even using quantum entanglement to do it:

Quantum Magic’ Without Any ‘Spooky Action at a Distance’ – June 2011 Excerpt: A team of researchers led by Anton Zeilinger at the University of Vienna and the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences used a system which does not allow for entanglement, and still found results which cannot be interpreted classically. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110624111942.htm Falsification of Local Realism without using Quantum Entanglement - Anton Zeilinger - video http://vimeo.com/34168474 Contextuality is 'magic ingredient' for quantum computing - June 11, 2012 Excerpt: Measurement outcomes depend on all the other measurements that are performed – the full context of the experiment. Contextuality means that quantum measurements can not be thought of as simply revealing some pre-existing properties of the system under study. That's part of the weirdness of quantum mechanics. http://phys.org/news/2014-06-weird-magic-ingredient-quantum.html

Put more simply, a photon is not a self existent entity but is always dependent on a 'non-local', beyond space and time, cause to explain why it acts the way it does within space-time. i.e. God 'sustains' the universe! Of note: I will accept the empirical verification of Gödel's position and the empirical falsification of your position since,,, The Scientific Method - Richard Feynman - video Quote: 'If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is… If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL6-x0modwY bornagain77

bornagain77 @ 101 You are talking of a photon hitting your eyes, not seeing or influencing a photon. We could easily see microorganisms if you can 'see' at that level. Anyway, I am sure you know all this. Me_Think

bornagain77 @ 99 There are scientists on both sides of the fence-more against Goldel, and as I said, it is not about mind. It is about math, specifically an answer to one of Hilbert's questions. If you want steps for proof by transfinite induction check out Gleason 1991, Hajnal 1999. Me_Think

"A person can’t see a photon." actually,,, William Bialek: More Perfect Than We Imagined - March 23, 2013 Excerpt: photoreceptor cells that carpet the retinal tissue of the eye and respond to light, are not just good or great or phabulous at their job. They are not merely exceptionally impressive by the standards of biology, with whatever slop and wiggle room the animate category implies. Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period. Each one is designed to detect and respond to single photons of light — the smallest possible packages in which light comes wrapped. “Light is quantized, and you can’t count half a photon,” said William Bialek, a professor of physics and integrative genomics at Princeton University. “This is as far as it goes.” … In each instance, biophysicists have calculated, the system couldn’t get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2013/03/william-bialek-more-perfect-than-we.html bornagain77

bornagain77 @ 98

as to “‘observer’, it doesn’t mean the literal person.” Yes it does!

Don't be silly. A person can't see a photon. It is the instrument that detects it. Me_Think

As to your claim that Godel was wrong in his incompleteness theorem on mathematical equations precise enough to have the counting numbers in them, perhaps you would like to inform Chaitin of this development? The Limits Of Reason - Gregory Chaitin - 2006 Excerpt: an infinite number of true mathematical theorems exist that cannot be proved from any finite system of axioms.,,, http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/sciamer3.pdf Kurt Gödel (with Chaitin) - Incompleteness Theorem - video https://vimeo.com/92387853 THE GOD OF THE MATHEMATICIANS - DAVID P. GOLDMAN - August 2010 Excerpt: we cannot construct an ontology that makes God dispensable. Secularists can dismiss this as a mere exercise within predefined rules of the game of mathematical logic, but that is sour grapes, for it was the secular side that hoped to substitute logic for God in the first place. Gödel's critique of the continuum hypothesis has the same implication as his incompleteness theorems: Mathematics never will create the sort of closed system that sorts reality into neat boxes. http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/07/the-god-of-the-mathematicians Godel and Physics - John D. Barrow Excerpt (page 5-6): "Clearly then no scientific cosmology, which of necessity must be highly mathematical, can have its proof of consistency within itself as far as mathematics go. In absence of such consistency, all mathematical models, all theories of elementary particles, including the theory of quarks and gluons...fall inherently short of being that theory which shows in virtue of its a priori truth that the world can only be what it is and nothing else. This is true even if the theory happened to account for perfect accuracy for all phenomena of the physical world known at a particular time." Stanley Jaki - Cosmos and Creator - 1980, pg. 49 http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0612253.pdf Taking God Out of the Equation - Biblical Worldview - by Ron Tagliapietra - January 1, 2012 Excerpt: Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) proved that no logical systems (if they include the counting numbers) can have all three of the following properties. 1. Validity ... all conclusions are reached by valid reasoning. 2. Consistency ... no conclusions contradict any other conclusions. 3. Completeness ... all statements made in the system are either true or false. The details filled a book, but the basic concept was simple and elegant. He summed it up this way: “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove.” For this reason, his proof is also called the Incompleteness Theorem. Kurt Gödel had dropped a bomb on the foundations of mathematics. Math could not play the role of God as infinite and autonomous. It was shocking, though, that logic could prove that mathematics could not be its own ultimate foundation. Christians should not have been surprised. The first two conditions are true about math: it is valid and consistent. But only God fulfills the third condition. Only He is complete and therefore self-dependent (autonomous). God alone is “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28), “the beginning and the end” (Revelation 22:13). God is the ultimate authority (Hebrews 6:13), and in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v7/n1/equation# The God of the Mathematicians - Goldman Excerpt: As Gödel told Hao Wang, “Einstein’s religion [was] more abstract, like Spinoza and Indian philosophy. Spinoza’s god is less than a person; mine is more than a person; because God can play the role of a person.” - Kurt Gödel - (Gödel is considered one of the greatest logicians who ever existed) http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/07/the-god-of-the-mathematicians bornagain77

as to "‘observer’, it doesn’t mean the literal person." Yes it does! How observation (consciousness) is inextricably bound to measurement in quantum mechanics: Quote: "We wish to measure a temperature.,,, But in any case, no matter how far we calculate -- to the mercury vessel, to the scale of the thermometer, to the retina, or into the brain, at some time we must say: and this is perceived by the observer. That is, we must always divide the world into two parts, the one being the observed system, the other the observer.” John von Neumann - 1903-1957 - The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, pp.418-21 - 1955 http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/neumann/ *What does the term "measurement" mean in quantum mechanics? "Measurement" or "observation" in a quantum mechanics context are really just other ways of saying that the observer is interacting with the quantum system and measuring the result in toto. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=597846 The Measurement Problem in quantum mechanics – (Inspiring Philosophy) – 2014 video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB7d5V71vUE "It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is the ultimate universal reality" - Eugene Wigner - (Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in Wheeler and Zurek, p.169) 1961 - received Nobel Prize in 1963 for 'Quantum Symmetries' This recent experiment from Radin is helpful: Consciousness and the double-slit interference pattern: six experiments - Radin - 2012 Abstract: A double-slit optical system was used to test the possible role of consciousness in the collapse of the quantum wavefunction. The ratio of the interference pattern’s double-slit spectral power to its single-slit spectral power was predicted to decrease when attention was focused toward the double slit as compared to away from it. Each test session consisted of 40 counterbalanced attention-toward and attention-away epochs, where each epoch lasted between 15 and 30 s(seconds). Data contributed by 137 people in six experiments, involving a total of 250 test sessions, indicate that on average the spectral ratio decreased as predicted (z = -4:36, p = 6•10^-6). Another 250 control sessions conducted without observers present tested hardware, software, and analytical procedures for potential artifacts; none were identified (z = 0:43, p = 0:67). Variables including temperature, vibration, and signal drift were also tested, and no spurious influences were identified. By contrast, factors associated with consciousness, such as meditation experience, electrocortical markers of focused attention, and psychological factors including openness and absorption, significantly correlated in predicted ways with perturbations in the double-slit interference pattern. The results appear to be consistent with a consciousness-related interpretation of the quantum measurement problem. http://www.deanradin.com/papers/Physics%20Essays%20Radin%20final.pdf also of note: Quantum physics mimics spooky action into the past - April 23, 2012 Excerpt: According to the famous words of Albert Einstein, the effects of quantum entanglement appear as "spooky action at a distance". The recent experiment has gone one remarkable step further. "Within a naïve classical world view, quantum mechanics can even mimic an influence of future actions on past events", says Anton Zeilinger. http://phys.org/news/2012-04-quantum-physics-mimics-spooky-action.html "If we attempt to attribute an objective meaning to the quantum state of a single system, curious paradoxes appear: quantum effects mimic not only instantaneous action-at-a-distance but also, as seen here, influence of future actions on past events, even after these events have been irrevocably recorded." Asher Peres, Delayed choice for entanglement swapping. J. Mod. Opt. 47, 139-143 (2000). You can see a more complete explanation of the startling results of the experiment at the 9:11 minute mark of the following video Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser Experiment Explained - 2014 video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6HLjpj4Nt4 In other words, if my conscious choices really are just merely the result of whatever state the material particles in my brain happen to be in in the past (deterministic) how in blue blazes are my choices instantaneously effecting the state of material particles into the past?,,, These experiments from quantum mechanics are simply impossible on a reductive materialism (determinism) view of reality! What Does Quantum Physics Have to Do with Free Will? - By Antoine Suarez - July 22, 2013 Excerpt: What is more, recent experiments are bringing to light that the experimenter’s free will and consciousness should be considered axioms (founding principles) of standard quantum physics theory. So for instance, in experiments involving “entanglement” (the phenomenon Einstein called “spooky action at a distance”), to conclude that quantum correlations of two particles are nonlocal (i.e. cannot be explained by signals traveling at velocity less than or equal to the speed of light), it is crucial to assume that the experimenter can make free choices, and is not constrained in what orientation he/she sets the measuring devices. To understand these implications it is crucial to be aware that quantum physics is not only a description of the material and visible world around us, but also speaks about non-material influences coming from outside the space-time.,,, https://www.bigquestionsonline.com/content/what-does-quantum-physics-have-do-free-will bornagain77

Axel @ 96

Well you see, I would contend that Godel’s incompleteness theorem constitutes mathematical proof that mind precedes matter by default: the divine mind.

Goldel's theorem is about mathematical logic. It simply states that in consistent system of axioms, some statements about natural numbers can't be proved within the system.It is an answer to Hilbert's second problem. Goldel can be proved to be wrong if transfinite induction is used.

That is one example I would proffer, but a less elliptical one would be one explicated by BA77 where a particle sets out on a path on one or other side of an object – can’t remember the details – before the observer decides which one he wants it to follow.

Double slit experiments (even delayed choice experiment) has nothing to do with mind. When they say 'observer', it doesn't mean the literal person. It means the instrument that makes measurement. Obviously you can't observe a photon without instrument.If you think the instrument has a mind, or the person observing the instrument changes the instrument's mind, then I am with you, but you have to prove instrument has a mind. Me_Think

@ Me_Think #61 'If your idea of Macro QM effects is a phonon movement of less than an electron width in a Quantum ground state in a isolated system,in below one-tenth of a kelvin, then I agree!' Good. It's a start in both senses, although I have to concede you are substantially right. 'What mathematical equation are you talking about ? There is no maths proving ‘mind’ precedes matter. Can you even define ‘mind’ in terms of a equation ?' Well you see, I would contend that Godel's incompleteness theorem constitutes mathematical proof that mind precedes matter by default: the divine mind. That is one example I would proffer, but a less elliptical one would be one explicated by BA77 where a particle sets out on a path on one or other side of an object - can't remember the details - before the observer decides which one he wants it to follow. Do you remember it? Or is my description too vague. I believe it concerned entangled photons, but I'm not sure. Axel

Silver Asiatic,

Silver Asiatic: He [Zachriel] refers to himself as “we” so it makes it harder to pinpoint what is really going on.

"He" even refers to Berlinski as "they" ...

Zachriel #87: That’s a funny article. For instance, they quote-mine Wikipedia, (...)

Box

Silver Asiatic: Yes, it seems either he can’t read or False dichotomy. We didn't read it because we weren't sure why we were being called upon to defend Matzke's statement, or its relevance to our own comment. However, as we pointed out Berlinski mischaracterized Matzke. A transitional to an evolutionary biologist is not necessarily a direct ancestor. Zachriel

Box

You have no idea? Can’t you read?

Wiki: "there do not seem to be any transitional or ancestral forms" Matzke: “These are transitional forms!” Box: The wiki quote contradicts Matzke’s claim Zachriel: Have no idea Yes, it seems either he can't read or he's just lying. But apparently he can read well enough to know if something has been quote-mined.

You are a deeply disturbed person.

He refers to himself as "we" so it makes it harder to pinpoint what is really going on. Silver Asiatic

Box: Can’t you read? David Berlinski: Matzke is persuaded that whatever is trilobite-like must be trilobite-lite, and so ancestral to the trilobites themselves. That is false, as we explained above. Can't you read? Zachriel

Zachriel,

Box: The wiki quote contradicts Matzke’s claim, about the presence of transitional forms.

Zachriel: Have no idea. You can take that up with Matzke.

You have no idea? Can't you read? Berlinski quotes Matzke! In #88 I quote Berlinski quoting Matzke! And although you have no idea what it is all about, you still have the nerve to accuse Berlinski of quote-mining; as you did in #87?? You are a deeply disturbed person. Box

Box 88

The wiki quote contradicts Matzke’s claim, about the presence of transitional forms, conclusively.

Thanks for making that clear. What does that tell us about other undocumented claims we've heard from him? (I ask myself). More literature bluffing? More quote mining? Ok, I know what that tells me.

This is not the first time I caught you red-handed bluffing and/or twisting phrases.

After a while, when you've caught him more than once (and I caught the same thing just earlier on this thread), trust and credibility come into question. Silver Asiatic

Box: Matzke is persuaded that whatever is trilobite-like must be trilobite-lite, and so ancestral to the trilobites themselves. A transitional is an organism with primitive and derived traits, not necessarily a direct ancestor. The fossils are ambiguous enough that no strong conclusions can be drawn. Box: The wiki quote contradicts Matzke’s claim, about the presence of transitional forms Have no idea. You can take that up with Matzke. This is Zachriel's comment: Anomalocaris are thought to be closely related to arthropods, a family of organisms which includes trilobites. As life is generally characterized by branching descent, and as there is evidence of more primitive metazoans including bilaterians, with ichnofossils supporting the existence of primitive arachnomorphs, it’s a reasonable fit with the theory of evolution. Zachriel

Zachriel on the Berlinski article:

Zachriel: That’s a funny article. For instance, they quote-mine Wikipedia, leaving out the part immediately after which says “Evidence suggests that significant diversification had already occurred before trilobites were preserved in the fossil record, easily allowing for the “sudden” appearance of diverse trilobite groups with complex derived characteristics (e.g. eyes).”

The only thing that is funny is that you are twisting words. The wiki quote contradicts Matzke's claim, about the presence of transitional forms, conclusively. If Berlinki would have followed your suggestion and would have also quoted the next sentence, "However, it is still reasonable to assume that the trilobites share a common ancestor with other arthropods before the Ediacaran-Cambrian boundary", he would have missed the point. That sentence is about another subject. Read again:

Berlinski: “What is often missed,” Matzke argues, “is that deposits like the Chenjiang have dozens and dozens of trilobite-like and arthropod-like organisms ....” There follows a burst of exuberant thunder: “These are transitional forms!” Matzke is persuaded that whatever is trilobite-like must be trilobite-lite, and so ancestral to the trilobites themselves. The party line is otherwise:

[Wiki] Early trilobites show all the features of the trilobite group as a whole; there do not seem to be any transitional or ancestral forms showing or combining the features of trilobites with other groups (e.g. early arthropods). Morphological similarities between trilobites and early arthropod-like creatures such as Spriggina, Parvancorina, and other “trilobitomorphs” of the Ediacaran period of the Precambrian are ambiguous enough to make detailed analysis of their ancestry far from compelling.

[my emphasis]

This is not the first time I caught you red-handed bluffing and/or twisting phrases. Box

Box: which has been torn apart by Berlinski here. That's a funny article. For instance, they quote-mine Wikipedia, leaving out the part immediately after which says "Evidence suggests that significant diversification had already occurred before trilobites were preserved in the fossil record, easily allowing for the "sudden" appearance of diverse trilobite groups with complex derived characteristics (e.g. eyes)." Zachriel

it’s a reasonable fit with the theory of evolution.

That is impossible as there isn't a theory of evolution. Whoops... Joe

In fact, the problem of the Cambrian Explosion is the rate of evolution,...

In fact, the problem of the Cambrian Explosion is mo one knows what makes an organism what it is so so one knows what mechanisms are required for the CE. Joe

Zachriel #83, This is Nicky Matzke talking - which has been torn apart by Berlinski here. Box

Box: The first trilobite is all trilobite. The first Anomalocaris is all Anomalocaris. Anomalocaris are thought to be closely related to arthropods, a family of organisms which includes trilobites. As life is generally characterized by branching descent, and as there is evidence of more primitive metazoans including bilaterians, with ichnofossils supporting the existence of primitive arachnomorphs, it's a reasonable fit with the theory of evolution. Zachriel

Evolutionnews on Lee at al.

The paper assumes that speeding up natural selection solves all the problems and brings the Cambrian diversification safely back into Darwin's fold. What they fail to acknowledge is that each phylum appears abruptly in the fossil record, with no transitional forms. The first trilobite is all trilobite. The first Anomalocaris is all Anomalocaris. The Cambrian explosion is not just a matter of brevity of time. It's a gap between microbes (or bland multicellular colonies, if one considers the Ediacaran animals) and fully integrated body plans with jointed legs, complex eyes, guts, brains, nervous systems, and a whole new ecology. Speeding up the evolutionary clock, therefore, doesn't solve the real problem Meyer emphasized in his book: where did the information come from to build all these new body plans? If you doubled or tripled the time interval, it wouldn't change that issue. The absence of transitions and the sudden appearance of complex tissues, organs, and systems cry out for explanation, however one might quibble about the duration of the explosion.

Box

Box: And BTW Zachriel’s article, on the rates of evolution, has been taken apart at evolutionnews. Evolution News: If you doubled or tripled the time interval, it wouldn't change that issue. So, according to your citation, we can dispense with the issue of the rate of evolution. It's just the standard "it's complicated" argument. Evolution News: Suppose that the mythmaker then claims that it was really 10 seconds, if you consider the lead-up and the aftermath. Then he boasts that he can even compress that interval by half to 5 seconds, and his natural model of the explosion still holds. Would the MythBusters accept that story? No; they would laugh the guy off the set. The essence of the explosion was its suddenness. The suddenness is millions of years. Evolution News: Evolution itself is the issue! So, according to your citation, we can dispense with the issue of the rate of evolution. It's just the standard "it's complicated" argument. Evolution News: In essence, Lee and team are simply saying, "They evolved because they evolved faster." That's not the challenge the fossil record poses. In fact, the problem of the Cambrian Explosion is the rate of evolution, which is limited. If the changes occurred within a year or even a millennium, then known evolutionary mechanisms would not be sufficient. However, there is some evidence of precursors, and the paper finds that the rate is within the means of known mechanisms. Zachriel

And BTW Zachriel's article, on the rates of evolution, has been taken apart at evolutionnews.org. Box

Silver Asiatic: As evidence you refer to adaptation among lizards. Evolutionary theory predicts that observed rates of evolution must be greater than or equal to inferred historical rates. That is what we find. Evolution doesn't encompass the origin of life. Zachriel

Are you referring to this statement?

Yes, that was a bluff - or a lie. You responded, by citing "rates of evolution" to this problem:

hundreds of millions of years to explain OOL, the transition to eukaryotes ...

As evidence you refer to adaptation among lizards. Bluffing, shell game, deception, crock of lies -- there are a number of terms for that kind of thing. Silver Asiatic

Silver Asiatic: Bluffing, or you’re more accurate calling it a crock of lies. Are you referring to this statement? Z: Observed rates of evolution are more than sufficient to account for inferred historical rates of evolution, including the Cambrian Explosion. If so, the claim is composed to two interlocking parts. For the observed rates, there have been many such studies. For instance, see Losos et al., Adaptive differentiation following experimental island colonization in Anolis, lizards, Nature 1997; or Weiner, The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time, Knopf 1994. For historical rates, again, there are many such studies; for instance, see Lee et al., Rates of Phenotypic and Genomic Evolution during the Cambrian Explosion, Current Biology 2013; or Gingerich, Rates of evolution: effects of time and temporal scaling, Science 1983. Zachriel

Bluffing, or you're more accurate calling it a crock of lies. Some businesses are based on that - like professional psychics and mediums. They know its a lie, but they take your money anyway. You can't ask for a money-back guarantee either. Evolutionists should have the reputation of tarot-card readers or mafioso. Maybe not quite as honorable as either of those. Silver Asiatic

Why are evolutionists such a bunch of babbling bluffers? Joe

Observed rates of evolution are more than sufficient to account for inferred historical rates of evolution, including the Cambrian Explosion.

What a crock of lies. Observed rates of evolution are proven to be insufficient to account for anything other than slight variations. They definitely are not sufficient to account for the origin of Eukaryota. Joe

gpuccio: OK, that was a hyperbole! Okay. gpuccio: Let’s say that you said that it explains the biological explosions. Yes, when there is an open niche, there is often a burst of evolution. gpuccio: My point is simply that you skepticals are never skeptical about those unsupported ideas. It's well supported. You just cited two examples, birds and mammals after the Great Extinction. Others include island colonization, such as Darwin's finches. Thought you were going to explain your understanding of the difference between facilitate and explain. gpuccio: Well, I am not sure we have hundreds of millions of years to explain OOL, the transition to eukaryotes, and especially the various “explosions”. Again, that's not what you said suggested, which was four billion years for small events like these explosions. Perhaps you meant the entirety of historical evolution. It wasn't clear. gpuccio: And I am not sure that “hundreds of millions of years” is even near to what would be needed by “your” theory. Observed rates of evolution are more than sufficient to account for inferred historical rates of evolution, including the Cambrian Explosion. That doesn't mean the actual detailing of that history isn't fraught with difficulties. Zachriel

The “explosions” take millions of years.

That is the propaganda, anyway.

Evolution is powered by the exploitation of resources, so when a niche is vacated, another organism will tend to evolve to exploit those resources.

Only if that organism was intelligently designed to evolve to exploit those resources.

The Theory of Evolution still requires hundreds of millions of years to explain the vast changes,

There isn't any theory of evolution so no one knows what it requires. BTW no one has determined the age of the earth. The best one can do is determine the age of the materials. Joe

Zachriel: "Well, you said it explained “anything”." OK, that was a hyperbole! Let's say that you said that it explains the biological explosions. post #50: "gpuccio: A vacant niche can explain everything. No, but it does explain a burst of diversification." Emphasis mine. "Evolution is powered by the exploitation of resources, so when a niche is vacated, another organism will tend to evolve to exploit those resources. It may also converge on some of the same adaptive solutions." Good catechism. My point is simply that you skepticals are never skeptical about those unsupported ideas. "No. The Theory of Evolution still requires hundreds of millions of years to explain the vast changes, enough time as to directly contradict the younger age of the Earth determined by physicists of the day such as Kelvin." Well, I am not sure we have hundreds of millions of years to explain OOL, the transition to eukaryotes, and especially the various "explosions". Even the window from habitable earth to LUCA could well be less than that. And I am not sure that "hundreds of millions of years" is even near to what would be needed by "your" theory. Maybe infinite multiverses are more like it! :) And why do you insist with the age of earth? I have no doubts that it is as old as science says. Maybe more. gpuccio

tjguy: Whatever happened to Darwinian evolution one little gradual step at a time?! The "explosions" take millions of years. gpuccio: That is what I am “denying”. Well, you said it explained "anything". Evolution is powered by the exploitation of resources, so when a niche is vacated, another organism will tend to evolve to exploit those resources. It may also converge on some of the same adaptive solutions. gpuccio: One thing is to say that a vacant niche can facilitate a burst of diversification. All another thing is to say that it can explain it. But probably a true skeptical cannot understand those subtleties… But you should certainly be able to explain it for the benefit of our readers. gpuccio: Well, let’s say life as we know it. Sure. gpuccio: It is equally true that water is probably not enough. Sure. gpuccio: Again, you certainly know that there is a definite logical difference between “necessary” and “sufficient”. Sure. No one knows what is required for life to begin at this point, however, it is known that life is very adaptive and will occupy most any niche where there is liquid water and energy. gpuccio: Well, that has been well known since Gould, but evolutionists seem not baffled by the necessity to rely on 10 million years instead of, say, 4 billion, for small events like those “explosions”. No one posited four billion years to explain the "explosions". Rates of evolution during the Cambrian were about five times the historical rate, but still much much lower than directly observed rates. See Lee et al., Rates of Phenotypic and Genomic Evolution during the Cambrian Explosion, Current Biology 2013. gpuccio: But after all, so many things can happen in one day, given a vacant niche and the right level of credulity! No. The Theory of Evolution still requires hundreds of millions of years to explain the vast changes, enough time as to directly contradict the younger age of the Earth determined by physicists of the day such as Kelvin. Zachriel

@65 gpuccio

After all, 10 million years is still a very big time.

Well, it all depends on the context. A popular song back in 1975 said: il tempo vola, un anno non è un secolo. :) P.S. you're probably too young to know that old song, which I heard first time on Polish radio in a popular musical program known as "Lato z radiem" back in that year. Since many people didn't understand the lyrics, they thought it was about a "bull fighter", because the singers repeated the word "tornerò" and many people thought they were referring to a "torero". Sometimes in the discussions here, it seems like your interlocutors have the same problem with understanding different words, even though you're writing in clear English. Or maybe they just pretend not understanding? Who knows? Oh, well. Things happen. :) Dionisio

@65 gpuccio

...so many things can happen in one day, given a vacant niche and the right level of credulity! :)

yes, for example, in one day some of your interlocutors can saturate a discussion thread with a bunch of senseless comments. :) Dionisio

@64 gpuccio

...there is a definite logical difference between “necessary” and “sufficient”

perhaps that logical difference is an inconvenient fact that some of your interlocutors prefer to ignore ? :) Dionisio

@63 gpuccio

One thing is to say that a vacant niche can facilitate a burst of diversification. All another thing is to say that it can explain it. But probably a true skeptical cannot understand those subtleties…

could it be that your interlocutors don't want to understand those subtleties? :) Dionisio

tjguy: "Whatever happened to Darwinian evolution one little gradual step at a time?!" Well, that has been well known since Gould, but evolutionists seem not baffled by the necessity to rely on 10 million years instead of, say, 4 billion, for small events like those "explosions". After all, 10 million years is still a very big time. So, how much shall we have to "shrink" the window, to make them "doubt"? I am not sure. Maybe days. But after all, so many things can happen in one day, given a vacant niche and the right level of credulity! :) gpuccio

Zachriel: "It is a well-known fact that life requires liquid water at some point in its life cycle." True. Well, let's say life as we know it. It is equally true that water is probably not enough. Again, you certainly know that there is a definite logical difference between "necessary" and "sufficient". gpuccio

Zachriel: "Are you denying the great extinction 65 million years ago?" No. "gpuccio: A vacant niche can explain everything. No, but it does explain a burst of diversification." That is what I am "denying". One thing is to say that a vacant niche can facilitate a burst of diversification. All another thing is to say that it can explain it. But probably a true skeptical cannot understand those subtleties... gpuccio

Casey Luskin: “It’s long been known that the Cambrian explosion isn’t the only explosion of organisms in the fossil record. There’s also something of a fish explosion, an angiosperm explosion, and a mammal explosion.” Add to that now a bird explosion! Whatever happened to Darwinian evolution one little gradual step at a time?! But this really doesn't matter in the long run, because evolution just morphs to engulf whatever data we find. Adding even a few more explosions won't change a thing. tjguy

Axel @ 58

On the contrary, Me_Think. The YouTube clip, linked below, shows that a larger, mechanical system consisting of one trillion atoms, and the diameter of a human hair can be influenced by quantum mechanics. The previous largest mechanical system was of only one hundred atoms

If your idea of Macro QM effects is a phonon movement of less than an electron width in a Quantum ground state in a isolated system,in below one-tenth of a kelvin, then I agree!

Much more important, is that QM has established mathematically that mind precedes matter, which latter is the derivative.

What mathematical equation are you talking about ? There is no maths proving 'mind' precedes matter. Can you even define 'mind' in terms of a equation ? Me_Think

Moose Dr. Yeah sure I think gene splicing and gene editing goes a long way in establishing that whole universe and vegetation and species were created in a week :-) I know you thought first of Big Bang ( "evidence of a single moment" comment ) and have now retracted. Me_Think

Me_Think (33), "I have no problem if you can explain to the IDist how all species were created by omnipotent being in a week via mechanism that you know." I am sure that you allow me to use modern gene splicing and gene editing technologies within the realm of "what I know". Moose Dr

'QM is a long way from explaining anything above Quantum level.' - Me_Think On the contrary, Me_Think. The YouTube clip, linked below, shows that a larger, mechanical system consisting of one trillion atoms, and the diameter of a human hair can be influenced by quantum mechanics. The previous largest mechanical system was of only one hundred atoms In order for the effects of QM, such as being in two places at the the same time, to be demonstrated at the level, say, of a tennis ball or something larger, however, all measurements/observations, such as are effected all the time by the molecules bouncing off a man sitting on a chair, would need to be eliminated, and they have not yet found a way to do that, although the physicist, Andrew Cleland, was in no doubt that, in principle, the same QM effects would otherwise be obtained. He seems https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmGIb2oxo4M However, since the quantum level is the primordial one, the deeper truth about matter, I'm a little puzzled that you should criticize QM for failing to apply to matter at a grosser level. Much more important, is that QM has established mathematically that mind precedes matter, which latter is the derivative. It would be why Planck all those years ago stated: 'Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.' We are all that crucial observer, whose inter-subjective role and its effects, though no-one seems keen to state it explicitly, predicates that he lives in a little world of his own, coordinated with those of everyone else, by an omniscient and omnipotent deity, in whose Mind, his own mind and everyone else's subsist. Cleland, understandably seems more inclined to throw in his lot with the likes of Planck and Bohr, than materialists, when his own research indicates to him that there is no such thing as matter, as such, as Planck averred. Axel

ppolish: So Chuck was overreacting to the Cambrian Explosion? It was a problem for his theory, but we now have evidence of metazoan life before the Cambrian Explosion. Genetic evidence also supports monophyly for metazoa. ppolish: Good thing he was unaware of a fish explosion, angiosperm explosion, mammal explosion, bird explosion etc We know a lot more today than Darwin did, including about the tempo and modes of evolutionary change. That's why scientists don't consider the radiation of birds or mammals to be theoretical conundrums, but just interesting historical phenomena. ETA: Did you get a chance to look at Brusatte et al? It's quite an interesting paper and answers many of your concerns. Zachriel

So Chuck was overreacting to the Cambrian Explosion? Should not have had doubts about his theory? Good thing he was unaware of a fish explosion, angiosperm explosion, mammal explosion, bird explosion etc - he might have freaked. But yes, we always will have The Beaks. And the Vestigal Organs. High School students need not worry either. ppolish

No, but it does explain a burst of diversification.

Exactly what YECs say about rapid diversification after the Flood.

Darwin observed evidence of adaptive radiation of finches on the Galápagos Islands.

Which was most likely due to built-in responses to environmental cues. Dr Spetner discusses this in "The Evolution Revolution". Joe

Mung: It is a well-known fact of evolutionary biology that if a niche exists life will fill it. It is a well-known fact that life requires liquid water at some point in its life cycle. Zachriel

gpuccio, It is a well-known fact of evolutionary biology that if a niche exists life will fill it. That's why life is ubiquitous throughout the universe. Of course, if there is no life present, it must not be a niche. And unguided evolution predicts that as well. Mung

ppolish: NeoDarwinism predicts bursts? Darwin wrote in Origin of Species, "the periods during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured in years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form." Darwin observed evidence of adaptive radiation of finches on the Galápagos Islands. In modern times, rates of evolution of over 20k darwin have been observed. Zachriel

Zachriel, Guided & Purposeful can explain bursts and explosions of innovation and diversity. That is ID. NeoDarwinism predicts bursts? Predicts explosions? That is quite a stretch. ppolish

gpuccio: Let’s see… Who said, recently: “But, obviously, our “skeptical” friends are never skeptical about those issues.”? Are you denying the great extinction 65 million years ago? Do we need to start with geological dating? gpuccio: A vacant niche can explain everything. No, but it does explain a burst of diversification. Zachriel

Dionisio: You are certainly exaggerating. Of course, anything can happen in a vacant niche. Why bother looking for explanations? A vacant niche can explain everything. :) gpuccio

Zachriel: "Sure. A great extinction event left many niches vacant." Let's see... Who said, recently: "But, obviously, our “skeptical” friends are never skeptical about those issues."? Ah, that was me, at post #27! :) gpuccio

Me_Think you ask: "Let’s take the example of a keyboard. Can you explain by what you mean by it is not material?" I mean the atoms of the keyboard are not solid material objects as was held by the ancient Greeks, but are, instead of material, information theoretic in their composition. i.e. "Atoms are not things" Werner Heisenberg "it from bit” Every “it”— every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely—even if in some contexts indirectly—from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits. “It from bit” symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has a bottom—a very deep bottom, in most instances, an immaterial source and explanation, that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment—evoked responses, in short all matter and all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe." – Princeton University physicist John Wheeler (1911–2008) (Wheeler, John A. (1990), “Information, physics, quantum: The search for links”, in W. Zurek, Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information (Redwood City, California: Addison-Wesley)) Why the Quantum? It from Bit? A Participatory Universe? Excerpt: In conclusion, it may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows. Thence the question why nature appears quantized is simply a consequence of the fact that information itself is quantized by necessity. It might even be fair to observe that the concept that information is fundamental is very old knowledge of humanity, witness for example the beginning of gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the Word." Anton Zeilinger - a leading expert in quantum teleportation: http://www.metanexus.net/archive/ultimate_reality/zeilinger.pdf Little do most people realize there is actually no solid indestructible particle, at all, at the basis of our reality in the atom somewhere. Each and every sub-atomic particle in the atom, (proton, neutron, electron etc..) is subject to the laws of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is about as far away from the solid material particle/atom, that materialism had predicted as the basis of reality, as can be had. These following videos and articles make this point clear: Science vs God: Bryan Enderle at TEDxUCDavis - video (how much empty space is in the atom is at the beginning of the video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn7YQOzNuSc As to the empty space in an atom which Enderle talked about in the preceding video, the following video goes a bit further: Just how small is an atom? – Jonathan Bergmann – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQP4UJhNn0I And although, despite the atom being shown to be somewhere around 99.99999999999999% empty space, it was still presumed, in both the Bryan Enderle video and the Jonathan Bergmann video, that the nucleus and electron of the atom are ‘solid’ material particles. That presumption simply is not so. For anyone who still believes that atoms are composed of little billiard ball type particles (i.e. Reductive Materialism as it was conceived of by ancient Greeks and was only recently overturned last century), the following timeline and images will cure you of that false materialistic notion: History of the Atom - timeline image http://wsc11sci.wikispaces.com/file/view/atom_history.png/297878088/640x480/atom_history.png Photographs of atoms, produced by the scanning tunnel microscope http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/files/us-flinte/cover7.tif http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/files/us-flinte/stm15.jpg Of related interest: the atom is far, far, more complex than the materialists/atheists, since the Greeks, had originally envisioned or anticipated! Does the atom have a designer? When science and spirituality meet - LAKHI GOENKA an Engineer - May 2012 Excerpt: Atoms are machines that enable the physical, electromagnetic (including light), nuclear, chemical, and biological (including life) functioning of the universe. Atoms are a complex assembly of interacting particles that enable the entire functioning of the universe. They are the machine that enables all other machines. It is virtually impossible to explain the structure, complexity, internal dynamics, and resulting functionality of the atom from chance events or through evolutionary mechanisms. The atom is a machine that provides multiple functions, and every machine is the product of intelligence. The atom must have a designer. http://www.annarbor.com/news/opinion/does-the-atom-have-a-designer/ Why Science Does Not Disprove God - April 27, 2014 Excerpt: "To explain the quantum-mechanical behavior of even one tiny particle requires pages and pages of extremely advanced mathematics. Why are even the tiniest particles of matter so unbelievably complicated? It appears that there is a vast, hidden "wisdom," or structure, or a knotty blueprint for even the most simple-looking element of nature." Amir D. Aczel - mathematician http://time.com/77676/why-science-does-not-disprove-god/ the complexity of computing the actions of even a simple atom, in detail, quickly exceeds the capacity of our most advanced supercomputers of today: Delayed time zero in photoemission: New record in time measurement accuracy - June 2010 Excerpt: Although they could confirm the effect qualitatively using complicated computations, they came up with a time offset of only five attoseconds. The cause of this discrepancy may lie in the complexity of the neon atom, which consists, in addition to the nucleus, of ten electrons. "The computational effort required to model such a many-electron system exceeds the computational capacity of today's supercomputers," explains Yakovlev. http://www.physorg.com/news196606514.html ==== Entanglement is primary, particles are secondary. i.e. as shown in quantum computation, Information is its own physical resource that is independent of and primary to what we perceive to be the 'material' particles bornagain77

Axel @ 41

that any explanation relating to our universe which cannot be established by empirical science – apart from QM ..

QM is a long way from explaining anything above Quantum level. Me_Think

bornagain77 @ 39

To say something is immaterial is not to say that it is not ‘real’, it is to say that it is not material.

Let's take the example of a keyboard. Can you explain by what you mean by it is not material? bornagain77 @ 40

quantum entanglement (A. Aspect, A. Zeilinger, etc..) is an independent physical resourse, separate from matter and energy, that can be used as a ‘quantum information channel’,,, physicists have reduced material to quantum information...

Entanglement can't be separated from the particles which is entangled, as the entanglement is specific to the entangled particles. If A and B are entangled, you can't use that entanglement to entangle C and D, so it is tied to the 'materialistic' particles. The Wave functions are representation of momentum and position space, so naturally they are 'separate' information - since it is 'information' about the particle and not a particle per se so they can be 'teleported'.

In fact an entire human can, theoretically, be reduced to quantum information and teleported to another location in the universe:

Keeping track of single particle is difficult enough (uncertainty principle - you can't know both position and momentum accurately at the same time), you want to teleport trillions of particles ?! Can you imagine the decoherence in the system and the Qubit bias in measurement and the Quantum information that would require to correct the error bias?!, not to mention the staggering system separation and minikelvin temperature required to achieve anything close to such a feat! Me_Think

bornagain77 Thank you for the information you post, specially the scriptures references along with musical links. I've noticed some interlocutors whine about your posts, but you may just ignore them all. :) Dionisio

of supplemental note to this comment:

"If you believe all the things you own are not real, that there resale value is zero, that the dollars you earn are spiritual, I really don’t know what to say!"

It is interesting to point out that the materialistic/atheistic philosophy has an extremely difficult time assigning any proper value to humans in the first place, i.e. Just how do you derive value for a person from a philosophy that maintains transcendent values are illusory?

How much is my body worth? Excerpt: The U.S. Bureau of Chemistry and Soils invested many a hard-earned tax dollar in calculating the chemical and mineral composition of the human body,,,,Together, all of the above (chemicals and minerals) amounts to less than one dollar! http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/explain/docs/worth.asp

I would like to think that people intuitively know that they are worth far more value than a dollar?!? Yet, as pointed out, on materialism you have the 'resale value' of less than one dollar! Of course, in the marketplace some arrangements of matter carry more value than others because of the craftsmanship inherent within how the matter is arranged. But materialists deny that there is any true craftsmanship within humans. We are merely the happenstance product of a lucky series of accidents! Thus, why should any person’s particular arrangement of material carry any more value than any other particular arrangement of matter since any person’s arrangement of matter is just a happenstance accident and was not the work of a craftsman (i.e. fearfully and wonderfully made)?

The Heretic - Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him? - March 25, 2013 Excerpt: Nobody thinks his daughter is just molecules in motion and nothing but; nobody thinks the Holocaust was evil, but only in a relative, provisional sense. A materialist who lived his life according to his professed convictions—understanding himself to have no moral agency at all, seeing his friends and enemies and family as genetically determined robots—wouldn’t just be a materialist: He’d be a psychopath. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html?page=3

Whereas in Theism, particularly in Christianity, there is no trouble whatsoever figuring out how much humans are really worth, since infinite Almighty God has shown us how much we mean to him, since he was willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice so as to redeem us:

1 Corinthians 6:20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Matthew 16:26 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? MercyMe – Beautiful - music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vh7-RSPuAA

There is simply no way to derive any true meaning and/or value for life without God. Dr. Craig expands on that fact in the following video:

The absurdity of life without God (1 of 3) by William Lane Craig – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJqkpI1W75c

bornagain77

The evidence supports that birds descended from theropods through a process of branching descent.

Except that evidence doesn't exist except in the minds of the extremely gullible. No one knows what makes a bird a bird and until we know that your version of common descent is not science. Joe

Me_Think, do you not realise what an impoverished, aesthetically repugnant, epistemological paradigm you cherish and take to be unassailable fact, namely, that any explanation relating to our universe which cannot be established by empirical science - apart from QM, which though proven, would be woo-woo to you, in any case, as it is to all materialists - is at best risible, but in any case, bewilderingly foolish? You're just an old-fashioned partisan of scientism, 'promissory note' in the post. By the way UD folks, when referring to 'random chance' in the atheist scientism context, perhaps we should simply call it 'BB', in honour of the protagonist in the children's ditty on an old UK TV show, to whom I believe I have made reference before: one, William (Desmond) Bean: 'Billy Bean built a machine to see what it would do; He built it up with sticks and stones and nuts and bolts and glue.' The true genesis of empirical science, not Christianity! When Mr Bean, himself, was at his most creative, I wouldn't care to be too dogmatic about, but the programme appeared 1950-7. Axel

as to:

You just transport the information about the state (say spin) of a non-entangled particle to already entangled particles. You don’t have to reduce material to information.

it is important to learn that ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, quantum entanglement (A. Aspect, A. Zeilinger, etc..) is an independent physical resourse, separate from matter and energy, that can be used as a ‘quantum information channel’,,,

Quantum Entanglement and Information Quantum entanglement is a physical resource, like energy, associated with the peculiar nonclassical correlations that are possible between separated quantum systems. Entanglement can be measured, transformed, and purified. A pair of quantum systems in an entangled state can be used as a quantum information channel to perform computational and cryptographic tasks that are impossible for classical systems. The general study of the information-processing capabilities of quantum systems is the subject of quantum information theory. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-entangle/

And by using this ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, ‘quantum information channel’ of entanglement, such as they use in quantum computation, physicists have reduced material to quantum information. (of note: energy is completely reduced to quantum information, whereas matter is semi-completely reduced, with the caveat being that matter can be reduced to energy via e=mc2).

First Teleportation Of Multiple Quantum Properties Of A Single Photon - Oct 7, 2014 To truly teleport an object, you have to include all its quantum properties. Excerpt: ,,,It is these properties— the spin angular momentum and the orbital angular momentum?(of a photon)—?that Xi-Lin and co have teleported together for the first time.,,, https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/first-teleportation-of-multiple-quantum-properties-of-a-single-photon-7c1e61598565 How Teleportation Will Work - Excerpt: In 1993, the idea of teleportation moved out of the realm of science fiction and into the world of theoretical possibility. It was then that physicist Charles Bennett and a team of researchers at IBM confirmed that quantum teleportation was possible, but only if the original object being teleported was destroyed. — As predicted, the original photon no longer existed once the replica was made. http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/teleportation1.htm Quantum Teleportation – IBM Research Page Excerpt: “it would destroy the original (photon) in the process,,” http://researcher.ibm.com/view_project.php?id=2862

In fact an entire human can, theoretically, be reduced to quantum information and teleported to another location in the universe:

Quantum Teleportation Of A Human? – video https://vimeo.com/75163272 Will Human Teleportation Ever Be Possible? As experiments in relocating particles advance, will we be able to say, "Beam me up, Scotty" one day soon? By Corey S. Powell|Monday, June 16, 2014 Excerpt: Note a fascinating common thread through all these possibilities. Whether you regard yourself as a pile of atoms, a DNA sequence, a series of sensory inputs or an elaborate computer file, in all of these interpretations you are nothing but a stack of data. According to the principle of unitarity, quantum information is never lost. Put them together, and those two statements lead to a staggering corollary: At the most fundamental level, the laws of physics say you are immortal. http://discovermagazine.com/2014/julyaug/20-the-ups-and-downs-of-teleportation

Thus not only is information not reducible to a energy-matter basis, as is presupposed in Darwinism, but in actuality both energy and matter ultimately reduce to a information basis as is presupposed in Christian Theism (John1:1).

John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

bornagain77

as to:

The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy. If you believe all the things you own are not real, that there resale value is zero, that the dollars you earn are spiritual, I really don’t know what to say!

To say something is immaterial is not to say that it is not 'real', it is to say that it is not material. You are the one insisting, in spite of the evidence, that reality is material.

"Atoms are not things" Werner Heisenberg "Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it." Niels Bohr "I think of my lifetime in physics as divided into three periods. In the first period, extending from the beginning of my career until the early 1950?s, I was in the grip of the idea that Everything Is Particles. I was looking for ways to build all basic entities – neutrons, protons, mesons, and so on – out of the lightest, most fundamental particles, electrons, and photons. I call my second period Everything Is Fields. From the time I fell in love with general relativity and gravitation in 1952 until late in my career, I pursued the vision of a world made of fields, one in which the apparent particles are really manifestations of electric and magnetic fields, gravitational fields, and space-time itself. Now I am in the grip of a new vision, that Everything Is Information. The more I have pondered the mystery of the quantum and our strange ability to comprehend this world in which we live, the more I see possible fundamental roles for logic and information as the bedrock of physical theory." – J. A. Wheeler, K. Ford, Geons, Black Hole, & Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics New York W.W. Norton & Co, 1998, pp 63-64. Quantum state may be a real thing - July 2, 2014 Excerpt: At the very heart of quantum mechanics lies a monster waiting to consume unwary minds. This monster goes by the name The Nature of Reality™. The greatest of physicists have taken one look into its mouth, saw the size of its teeth, and were consumed. Niels Bohr denied the existence of the monster after he nonchalantly (and very quietly) exited the monster's lair muttering "shut up and calculate." Einstein caught a glimpse of the teeth and fainted. He was reportedly rescued by Erwin Schrödinger at great personal risk, but neither really recovered from their encounter with the beast.,,, (some) scientists believed that,, quantum mechanics would eventually be explained by,, some deterministic property that we simply couldn't directly observe (otherwise known as a hidden variable). Another group ended up believing that quantum mechanics did represent reality, and that, yes, reality was non-local, and possibly not very real either. To one extent or another, these two groups are still around and still generate a fair amount of heat when they are in proximity to each other. Over the years, you would have to say that the scales have been slowly tipping in favor of the latter group. Experiments and theory have largely eliminated hidden variables. Bohm's pilot wave, a type of hidden variable, has to be pretty extraordinary to be real. http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/07/quantum-state-may-be-a-real-thing/ Why Quantum Theory Does Not Support Materialism - By Bruce L Gordon: Excerpt: Because quantum theory is thought to provide the bedrock for our scientific understanding of physical reality, it is to this theory that the materialist inevitably appeals in support of his worldview. But having fled to science in search of a safe haven for his doctrines, the materialist instead finds that quantum theory in fact dissolves and defeats his materialist understanding of the world.,, The underlying problem is this: there are correlations in nature that require a causal explanation but for which no physical explanation is in principle possible. Furthermore, the nonlocalizability of field quanta entails that these entities, whatever they are, fail the criterion of material individuality. So, paradoxically and ironically, the most fundamental constituents and relations of the material world cannot, in principle, be understood in terms of material substances. Since there must be some explanation for these things, the correct explanation will have to be one which is non-physical - and this is plainly incompatible with any and all varieties of materialism. http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbscience.aspx?pageid=8589952939 "[while a number of philosophical ideas] may be logically consistent with present quantum mechanics, ...materialism is not." Eugene Wigner Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism - video playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL1mr9ZTZb3TViAqtowpvZy5PZpn-MoSK_&v=4C5pq7W5yRM

bornagain77

gpuccio @ 27 [#37 follow-up] Here's another case where the term 'amazing' would seem like an understatement: https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/evolution/a-third-way-of-evolution/#comment-536666 But there are gazillion examples like that. :) Dionisio

gpuccio @ 27

Really amazing how complex regulatory networks can not only arise, not only be conserved, but also independently evolve!

"amazing" seems like an understatement in this case. :) Dionisio

Mapou: Therefore what? Therefore Darwinian evolution did it? It is evidence against that claim that birds "were created in an instant, boom." The phylogeny strongly supports branching descent, in particular, that birds descended from non-avian theropods. Mapou: This is like saying, automobiles didn’t appear out of nowhere, but were preceded by horse drawn carriages. Therefore Darwinian evolution did it. The evidence supports that automobiles were designed by a peculiar species of ape. The evidence supports that birds descended from theropods through a process of branching descent. See Jarvis et al., Whole-genome analyses resolve early branches in the tree of life of modern birds, Science 2014. ppolish: Birds were not preceded by theropods Zachriel. Did you bother to read the paper? See Brusatte et al., Gradual Assembly of Avian Body Plan Culminated in Rapid Rates of Evolution across the Dinosaur-Bird Transition, Current Biology 2014. gpuccio: Independent evolution again! Really amazing how complex regulatory networks can not only arise, not only be conserved, but also independently evolve! Sure. See Darwin 1859. gpuccio: And let’s not forget that, more or less at the same time, mammals diversity emerged too Sure. A great extinction event left many niches vacant. Zachriel

bornagain77 @ 34

The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy.

If you believe all the things you own are not real, that there resale value is zero, that the dollars you earn are spiritual, I really don't know what to say!

Moreover, I take the reduction of material to information in teleportation to be a direct violation of the reductive materialistic claim that information ‘emerges’ from a material basis.

You just transport the information about the state (say spin) of a non-entangled particle to already entangled particles. You don't have to reduce material to information.

Nothing about classical channels being used to send information about how to set the detector

Quantum teleportation is defined as transferring Qubit by classical channel. Me_Think

A common way to evade the mental universe is to invoke “decoherence” – the notion that “the physical environment” is sufficient to create reality, independent of the human mind. Yet the idea that any irreversible act of amplification is necessary to collapse the wave function is known to be wrong: in “Renninger-type” experiments, the wave function is collapsed simply by your human mind seeing nothing. The universe is entirely mental,,,, The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy. Henry 4-D Space-Time is a mathematical description and certainly is nor the cause of its own existence. Many people, because of QM, refer to space-time as an illusion Photons are not 'isolated from the environment' in the double slit. Consciousness being integral to wave function collapse is what is completely antithetical to materialistic thought. (Also see Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser) Einstein was shown to be completely wrong with his postulation of hidden variables, thus why did you quote him on Quantum Mechanics. Perhaps you would do better to listen to Wigner, whose insights into quantum mechanics continue to drive breakthroughs in QM? "It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness." Eugene Wigner (1902 -1995) from his collection of essays "Symmetries and Reflections – Scientific Essays"; Eugene Wigner laid the foundation for the theory of symmetries in quantum mechanics "It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is the ultimate universal reality" - Eugene Wigner - (Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in Wheeler and Zurek, p.169) 1961 - received Nobel Prize in 1963 for 'Quantum Symmetries' Of supplemental note to the preceding Wigner 'consciousness' quote, it is interesting to note that many of Wigner's insights have now been experimentally verified and are also now fostering a 'second' revolution in quantum mechanics,,, Eugene Wigner – A Gedanken Pioneer of the Second Quantum Revolution - Anton Zeilinger - Sept. 2014 Conclusion It would be fascinating to know Eugene Wigner’s reaction to the fact that the gedanken experiments he discussed (in 1963 and 1970) have not only become reality, but building on his gedanken experiments, new ideas have developed which on the one hand probe the foundations of quantum mechanics even deeper, and which on the other hand also provide the foundations to the new field of quantum information technology. All these experiments pay homage to the great insight Wigner expressed in developing these gedanken experiments and in his analyses of the foundations of quantum mechanics, http://epjwoc.epj.org/articles/epjconf/pdf/2014/15/epjconf_wigner2014_01010.pdf Moreover, I take the reduction of material to information in teleportation to be a direct violation of the reductive materialistic claim that information 'emerges' from a material basis. Nothing about classical channels being used to send information about how to set the detector. Moreover, see: Doing The Impossible - Verifying Macroscopic Objects Are 'Quantum' Objects - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pktWhH6m_DM etc... bornagain77

Moose Dr @ 26,

Me_think, we have evidence of a single moment that spawned a perfectly balanced and tweaked out universe. Where is the problem?

I have no problem if you can explain to the IDist how all species were created by omnipotent being in a week via mechanism that you know. I fervently hope you don't mean Big Bang created universe, vegetation and all species in one single 'bang'! Me_Think

gpuccio @ 29, 30

So, you have decided that all QM is superfluous and useless, and that the concept of wave function and wave function collapse have no practical utility in understanding reality. Amazing.

That's an amazing statement. I wonder what lead you to that conclusion. I am just correcting misconception about QM as much as I can. Me_Think

bornagain77 @ 23

Decoherence does not explain wave function collapse... you have no ‘mechanism’ (also see post 15)

Decoherence is loss of coherent phase angle, which is what everyone perceives as wave function collapse.

About @ 15 “But there is gravity,” you say. No, “gravity” is merely the name of the phenomenon, not its explanation

What do you think space time is about?

Moreover, photons in the double slit are not in isolation and the photons only collapse to their particle state when consciousness interacts with the experiment (see Radin)

Of course they are in isolation.Radin was talking about observer being part of the QM experiment - not isolation of photons from environment. When you observe or measure it collapses - that's what I have been saying.

As well, realism, the belief that a 3-D material reality exists apart from conscious observation is falsified by Leggett’s Inequality. And, as referenced earlier, is also shown to hold for the macro-scale

Paraphrasing Einstein, it means the moon is not there when one doesn't look! If you look at your computer as you type, it is there but it is not there if you don't look. Your SUV is there when you look, but is not there when you don't. Metaphysical interpretation of QM equations is hilarious.

As well, reductive materialism, which undergirds neo-Darwinian thought, is falsified by quantum teleportation see Zeilinger

Apparently You took Qubit (information) transportation over classical channel to mean teleportation of physical form. Me_Think

Me_Think: Check this too: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-microphone/ "What's the sound of one molecule clapping? Researchers have demonstrated a device that can pick up single quanta of mechanical vibration similar to those that shake molecules during chemical reactions, and have shown that the device itself, which is the width of a hair, acts as if it exists in two places at once—a "quantum weirdness" feat that so far had only been observed at the scale of molecules." gpuccio

Me_Think: So, you have decided that all QM is superfluous and useless, and that the concept of wave function and wave function collapse have no practical utility in understanding reality. Amazing. You seem also very sure of what makes the wave function collapse, which remains one of the most controversial aspects of QM. Have you ever heard of macroscopic quantum phenomena? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroscopic_quantum_phenomena gpuccio

And let's not forget that, more or less at the same time, mammals diversity emerged too: "At the end of the Cretaceous period 65 MYBP [Million Years Before Present], only two lineages of Eutherian mammals were present: insectivorous Protoeutheria and hoofed Condylarthra. [Noneutherian Marsupialia, Monotremata, and Multituberculata, a now extinct group resembling rodents, were also present]. Following the disappearance of dinosaurs at the K/T [Cretaceous / Tertiary boundary], there was a rapid evolution of new mammalian types. By the middle of the Eocene epoch (45 MYBP), most of the twenty or so present-day mammalian orders are identifiable, including forms as diverse as Chiroptera [bats] descended from Protoeutheria and Cetacea [whales] descended from Condylarthra. This rapid evolution of morphological and taxonomic diversity is an example of an adaptive radiation." Well, those must have been very busy days! (ehm, million years, you are right, Zachriel :) ) gpuccio

To all: This is really interesting (from the same issue of "Science"): http://www.sciencemag.org/content/346/6215/1256846.full

Song-learning birds and humans share independently evolved similarities in brain pathways for vocal learning that are essential for song and speech and are not found in most other species. Comparisons of brain transcriptomes of song-learning birds and humans relative to vocal nonlearners identified convergent gene expression specializations in specific song and speech brain regions of avian vocal learners and humans. The strongest shared profiles relate bird motor and striatal song-learning nuclei, respectively, with human laryngeal motor cortex and parts of the striatum that control speech production and learning. Most of the associated genes function in motor control and brain connectivity. Thus, convergent behavior and neural connectivity for a complex trait are associated with convergent specialized expression of multiple genes.

Independent evolution again! Really amazing how complex regulatory networks can not only arise, not only be conserved, but also independently evolve! But, obviously, our "skeptical" friends are never skeptical about those issues. :) gpuccio

Wow this is an interesting thread! I wish I had more time to digest the great comments. Me_think (3): "Sorry, but there is no known mechanism which helps a single being plan and build trillions of structures and processes in a week." Me_think, we have evidence of a single moment that spawned a perfectly balanced and tweaked out universe. Where is the problem? Moose Dr

When Dinosaurs Flew – February 4, 2014 Excerpt: A study published online by PeerJ on Jan. 2 detailed the examination of a startlingly complete and pristine specimen of an ancient, dinosaur-era bird: Hongshanornis longicresta, which flapped throughout what is now China roughly 125 million years ago during the early Cretaceous Period.,,, “This isn’t a mode of flight we expected from Cretaceous birds,” Habib said, adding that its small size and overall shape are comparable to that of modern birds. “It was pretty much a Cretaceous starling with a larger tail like a mockingbird.” Transported to the modern world, it wouldn’t look like anything special to the casual observer, until a closer examination revealed claws at the end of the bird’s wings and tiny teeth in its beak.,,, http://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/1622/when-dinosaurs-flew/ also see post 13 https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/evolution/but-should-we-be-talking-about-a-big-bang-of-birds/#comment-536561 bornagain77

A lot of the new fossil evidence is coming from NE China in Liaoning province which was a warm wet shallow sea. The evidence of theropod-bird transition in many of the fossils is so ambiguous that real scientists have difficulty categorising them. rvb8

Decoherence does not explain wave function collapse. i.e. you have no 'mechanism' (also see post 15) Moreover, photons in the double slit are not in isolation and the photons only collapse to their particle state when consciousness interacts with the experiment (see Radin). As well, realism, the belief that a 3-D material reality exists apart from conscious observation is falsified by Leggett's Inequality. And, as referenced earlier, is also shown to hold for the macro-scale, i.e. "for unrestricted measurement accuracy a violation of macrorealism (i.e., a violation of the Leggett-Garg inequalities) is possible for arbitrary large systems",, As well, reductive materialism, which undergirds neo-Darwinian thought, is falsified by quantum teleportation (see Zeilinger). bornagain77

bornagain77 @ 21,

Related notes on ‘interaction free’ measurement:

It relates to measuring a Quantum state in isolation. Without isolation, whether you measure or not, the wave function collapses. Again,you could ,of course ,claim an omnipotent God has a mechanism for isolating QM Wavefunction in universe and avoid interaction, but we have no knowledge of such a mechanism. Me_Think

Related notes on ‘interaction free’ measurement: Quantum Zeno effect “It has been experimentally confirmed,, that unstable particles will not decay, or will decay less rapidly, if they are observed. Somehow, observation changes the quantum system. We’re talking pure observation, not interacting with the system in any way.” Douglas Ell – Counting to God – pg. 189 – 2014 – Douglas Ell graduated early from MIT, where he double majored in math and physics. He then obtained a masters in theoretical mathematics from the University of Maryland. After graduating from law school, magna cum laude, he became a prominent attorney. The Mental Universe – Richard Conn Henry – Professor of Physics John Hopkins University Excerpt: The only reality is mind and observations, but observations are not of things. To see the Universe as it really is, we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things.,,, Physicists shy away from the truth because the truth is so alien to everyday physics. A common way to evade the mental universe is to invoke “decoherence” – the notion that “the physical environment” is sufficient to create reality, independent of the human mind. Yet the idea that any irreversible act of amplification is necessary to collapse the wave function is known to be wrong: in “Renninger-type” experiments, the wave function is collapsed simply by your human mind seeing nothing. The universe is entirely mental,,,, The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy. http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/The.mental.universe.pdf The Renninger Negative Result Experiment – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3uzSlh_CV0 Elitzur–Vaidman bomb tester Excerpt: In 1994, Anton Zeilinger, Paul Kwiat, Harald Weinfurter, and Thomas Herzog actually performed an equivalent of the above experiment, proving interaction-free measurements are indeed possible.[2] In 1996, Kwiat et al. devised a method, using a sequence of polarising devices, that efficiently increases the yield rate to a level arbitrarily close to one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elitzur%E2%80%93Vaidman_bomb-testing_problem#Experiments Experimental Realization of Interaction-Free Measurement – Paul G. Kwiat; H. Weinfurter, T. Herzog, A. Zeilinger, and M. Kasevich – 1994 http://www.univie.ac.at/qfp/publications3/pdffiles/1994-08.pdf Interaction-Free Measurement – 1995 http://archive.is/AjexE Realization of an interaction-free measurement – 1996 http://bg.bilkent.edu.tr/jc/topics/Interaction%20free%20measurements/papers/realization%20of%20an%20interaction%20free%20measurement.pdf The following video also clearly demonstrates that “decoherence” does not solve the measurement problem: The Measurement Problem in quantum mechanics – (Inspiring Philosophy) – 2014 video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB7d5V71vUE Macrorealism Emerging from Quantum Physics – Brukner, Caslav; Kofler, Johannes American Physical Society, APS March Meeting, – March 5-9, 2007 Excerpt: for unrestricted measurement accuracy a violation of macrorealism (i.e., a violation of the Leggett-Garg inequalities) is possible for arbitrary large systems.,, http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007APS..MARB33005B bornagain77

bornagain77 @ 18

Of related interest to the doubt that MT has about God having sufficient knowledge to create life in a week (or however long), although I could point out the fact that God brought the entire universe instantaneously into being, a bit better example is found by examining a single photon.

Quantum states work only in isolation. If they interact, the wave function collapses.Particles in universe are not in isolation.In nature all macro quantum states (even if isolated by structures (like in case of plant cells) lasts femtosecond, giving no opportunity to exchange quitbit information. Thus a Quibit will always reduce to a classical bit without isolation. Even if you observe a quantum superposition, once observed, a quantum function assumes one of the possible states, so I don't know how you can build a structure out of QM- you reduce it to classical bit every time you measure it. QM becomes useless. System decoherance will be huge. You could ,of course ,claim an omnipotent God has a mechanism for isolating QM Wavefunction in universe and avoid interaction but we have no knowledge of such a mechanism. Me_Think

A Professor's Journey out of Nihilism: Why I am not an Atheist - 2012 talk University of Wyoming J. Budziszewski http://veritas.org/talks/professors-journey-out-nihilism-why-i-am-not-atheist/?view=presenters&speaker_id=2231 – J. Budziszewski's homepage http://www.undergroundthomist.org/ bornagain77

Of related interest to the doubt that MT has about God having sufficient knowlege to create life in a week (or however long), although I could point out the fact that God brought the entire universe instantaneously into being, a bit better example is found by examining a single photon. ,,, The wave function of a single photon,,

Quantum Theory's 'Wavefunction' Found to Be Real Physical Entity: Scientific American - November 2011 Excerpt: "This strips away obscurity and shows you can't have an interpretation of a quantum state as probabilistic," he says. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=quantum-theorys-wavefunction

,,,The wave function of a single photon is described as a infinite dimensional Hilbert space:

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences - Eugene Wigner - 1960 Excerpt: We now have, in physics, two theories of great power and interest: the theory of quantum phenomena and the theory of relativity.,,, The two theories operate with different mathematical concepts: the four dimensional Riemann space and the infinite dimensional Hilbert space, http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html Wave function Excerpt "wave functions form an abstract vector space",,, This vector space is infinite-dimensional, because there is no finite set of functions which can be added together in various combinations to create every possible function. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function#Wave_functions_as_an_abstract_vector_space

Moreover, this 'real' infinite dimensional hilbert space (i.e. wave function) can be encoded with information while it is in its wave state:

Ultra-Dense Optical Storage - on One Photon Excerpt: Researchers at the University of Rochester have made an optics breakthrough that allows them to encode an entire image's worth of data into a photon, slow the image down for storage, and then retrieve the image intact.,,, As a wave, it passed through all parts of the stencil at once,,, http://www.physorg.com/news88439430.html

Moreover, the amount of information that a single photon can be encoded with is, theoretically, infinite:

“By its conventional definition, a photon is one unit of excitation of a mode of the electromagnetic field. The modes of the electromagnetic field constitute a countably infinite set of basis functions, and in this sense the amount of information that can be impressed onto an individual photon is unlimited.” Robert W. Boyd – The Enabling Technology for Quantum Information Science 2013 - University of Rochester, Rochester, NY - lead researcher of the experiment which encoded information in a photon in 2010 Single photons to soak up data: Excerpt: the orbital angular momentum of a photon can take on an infinite number of values. Since a photon can also exist in a superposition of these states, it could – in principle – be encoded with an infinite amount of information. http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/7201 Quantum Computing – Stanford Encyclopedia Excerpt: Theoretically, a single qubit can store an infinite amount of information, yet when measured (and thus collapsing the Quantum Wave state) it yields only the classical result (0 or 1),,, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-quantcomp/#2.1

Thus every time we see (observe) a single photon of ‘material’ reality we are actually seeing just a single bit of information that was originally created from a very specific set of infinite information that was known by the consciousness that preceded material reality. i.e. information known only by the infinite Mind of omniscient God!

Job 38:19-20 “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings?”

Thus since God by his infinite knowlege can bring a single photon into existence every time we look at a photon, then God, of course, has sufficient knowledge to bring whatever else he wants into being instantaneously. Quote and Music:

"Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists who think the world sprang into existence on October 23, 4004 BC at 9AM (presumably Babylonian time), with the fossils already in the ground, light from distant stars heading toward us, etc. But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!" Scott Aaronson - MIT Professor - Quantum Computing Instant Karma - John lennon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqP3wT5lpa4

bornagain77

Birds were not preceded by theropods Zachriel. Independent and "dotted line" relationship: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Evolution_of_dinosaurs_EN.svg ppolish

God Is the Best Explanation For Why Anything At All Exists – William Lane Craig – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjuqBxg_5mA Aquinas’ Third way (argument from existence) – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V030hvnX5a4 Aquinas’ First Way – (The First Mover – Unmoved Mover argument) – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qmpw0_w27As “The ‘First Mover’ is necessary for change occurring at each moment.” Michael Egnor – Aquinas’ First Way http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/09/jerry_coyne_and_aquinas_first.html

As to the ancient first mover argument of Aquinas in particular, the double slit experiment is excellent for illustrating that the ‘unmoved mover’ argument is empirically valid. In the following video Anton Zeilinger, whose group is arguably the best group of experimentalists in quantum physics today, ‘tries’ to explain the double slit experiment to Morgan Freeman:

Quantum Mechanics – Double Slit Experiment. Is anything real? (Prof. Anton Zeilinger) – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayvbKafw2g0

Prof. Zeilinger makes this rather startling statement in the preceding video that meshes perfectly with the ‘first mover argument’::

“The path taken by the photon is not an element of reality. We are not allowed to talk about the photon passing through this or this slit. Neither are we allowed to say the photon passes through both slits. All this kind of language is not applicable.” Anton Zeilinger

If that was not enough to get Dr. Zeilinger’s point across, at the 4:12 minute mark in this following video,,,

Double Slit Experiment – Explained By Prof Anton Zeilinger – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/6101627/

Professor Zeilinger states,,,

“We know what the particle is doing at the source when it is created. We know what it is doing at the detector when it is registered. But we do not know what it is doing in-between.” Anton Zeilinger

or as Dr. Egnor succintly put the argument,

“The ‘First Mover’ is necessary for change occurring at each moment.” - Michael Egnor

Supplemental quote:

“Joel Primack, a cosmologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, once posed an interesting question to the physicist Neil Turok: “What is it that makes the electrons continue to follow the laws.” Turok was surprised by the question; he recognized its force. Something seems to compel physical objects to obey the laws of nature, and what makes this observation odd is just that neither compulsion nor obedience are physical ideas.,,, Physicists since Einstein have tried to see in the laws of nature a formal structure that would allow them to say to themselves, “Ah, that is why they are true,” and they have failed.” Berlinski, The Devil’s Delusion pg. 132-133

Verse and Music:

Acts 17:28 For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ Britt Nicole - Gold https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9PjrtcHJPo

Of related interest:,,, as Stephen Talbott has clearly pointed out, a major problem with Darwinian explanations is how to describe the complexities of life without illegitimately using terminology that invokes agency,,,

The 'Mental Cell': Let’s Loosen Up Biological Thinking! - Stephen L. Talbott - September 9, 2014 Excerpt: Many biologists are content to dismiss the problem with hand-waving: “When we wield the language of agency, we are speaking metaphorically, and we could just as well, if less conveniently, abandon the metaphors”. Yet no scientist or philosopher has shown how this shift of language could be effected. And the fact of the matter is just obvious: the biologist who is not investigating how the organism achieves something in a well-directed way is not yet doing biology, as opposed to physics or chemistry. Is this in turn just hand-waving? Let the reader inclined to think so take up a challenge: pose a single topic for biological research, doing so in language that avoids all implication of agency, cognition, and purposiveness1. One reason this cannot be done is clear enough: molecular biology — the discipline that was finally going to reduce life unreservedly to mindless mechanism — is now posing its own severe challenges. In this era of Big Data, the message from every side concerns previously unimagined complexity, incessant cross-talk and intertwining pathways, wildly unexpected genomic performances, dynamic conformational changes involving proteins and their cooperative or antagonistic binding partners, pervasive multifunctionality, intricately directed behavior somehow arising from the interaction of countless players in interpenetrating networks, and opposite effects by the same molecules in slightly different contexts. The picture at the molecular level begins to look as lively and organic — and thoughtful — as life itself. http://natureinstitute.org/txt/st/org/comm/ar/2014/mental_cell_23.htm

This working biologist agrees completely with Talbott:

Life, Purpose, Mind: Where the Machine Metaphor Fails - Ann Gauger - June 2011 Excerpt: I'm a working biologist, on bacterial regulation (transcription and translation and protein stability) through signalling molecules, ,,, I can confirm the following points as realities: we lack adequate conceptual categories for what we are seeing in the biological world; with many additional genomes sequenced annually, we have much more data than we know what to do with (and making sense of it has become the current challenge); cells are staggeringly chock full of sophisticated technologies, which are exquisitely integrated; life is not dominated by a single technology, but rather a composite of many; and yet life is more than the sum of its parts; in our work, we biologists use words that imply intentionality, functionality, strategy, and design in biology--we simply cannot avoid them. Furthermore, I suggest that to maintain that all of biology is solely a product of selection and genetic decay and time requires a metaphysical conviction that isn't troubled by the evidence. Alternatively, it could be the view of someone who is unfamiliar with the evidence, for one reason or another. But for those who will consider the evidence that is so obvious throughout biology, I suggest it's high time we moved on. - Matthew http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/life_purpose_mind_where_the_ma046991.html#comment-8858161

bornagain77

as to this claim by an MT

"there is no known mechanism which helps a single being plan and build trillions of structures and processes in a week."

Actually, the atheist MT is the one fooling himself that he has a 'known mechanism'. Laws and Random Chance Have Never Caused Anything.

A Professor's Journey out of Nihilism: Why I am not an Atheist - University of Wyoming - J. Budziszewski Excerpt page12: "There were two great holes in the argument about the irrelevance of God. The first is that in order to attack free will, I supposed that I understood cause and effect; I supposed causation to be less mysterious than volition. If anything, it is the other way around. I can perceive a logical connection between premises and valid conclusions. I can perceive at least a rational connection between my willing to do something and my doing it. But between the apple and the earth, I can perceive no connection at all. Why does the apple fall? We don't know. "But there is gravity," you say. No, "gravity" is merely the name of the phenomenon, not its explanation. "But there are laws of gravity," you say. No, the "laws" are not its explanation either; they are merely a more precise description of the thing to be explained, which remains as mysterious as before. For just this reason, philosophers of science are shy of the term "laws"; they prefer "lawlike regularities." To call the equations of gravity "laws" and speak of the apple as "obeying" them is to speak as though, like the traffic laws, the "laws" of gravity are addressed to rational agents capable of conforming their wills to the command. This is cheating, because it makes mechanical causality (the more opaque of the two phenomena) seem like volition (the less). In my own way of thinking the cheating was even graver, because I attacked the less opaque in the name of the more. The other hole in my reasoning was cruder. If my imprisonment in a blind causality made my reasoning so unreliable that I couldn't trust my beliefs, then by the same token I shouldn't have trusted my beliefs about imprisonment in a blind causality. But in that case I had no business denying free will in the first place." http://www.undergroundthomist.org/sites/default/files/WhyIAmNotAnAtheist.pdf

C.S. Lewis humorously stated the point like this:

"to say that a stone falls to earth because it's obeying a law, makes it a man and even a citizen" - CS Lewis

The following ‘doodle video' is also excellent for getting this point across:

“In the whole history of the universe the laws of nature have never produced, (i.e. caused), a single event.” C.S. Lewis - doodle video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_20yiBQAIlk Can Law Make Worlds? - Joshua Youngkin July 2, 2012 Excerpt: Filippenko apparently wants a first cause of some sort, but not a personal first cause, not a mind, not an agent. So he subtly turns physical law into a mind-independent reality, something that is self-sufficiently "there" at the beginning, something that can thus be filled with world-creating agency and power. But what would you call "law" that lives nowhere in particular yet could of its own accord decide when, where and how to apply itself? In seeking to identify such a strange power, the one name we cannot give it is "law." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/can_law_make_wo061551.html

In other words, law or necessity does not have causal adequacy within itself. i.e. Law is not a ‘mechanism’ that has ever ’caused’ anything to happen in the universe but is merely a description of a law-like regularity within the universe. The early Christian founders of modern science understood this sharp distinction between law and lawgiver quite well,,,

Not the God of the Gaps, But the Whole Show – John Lennox – 2012 Excerpt: God is not a “God of the gaps”, he is God of the whole show.,,, C. S. Lewis put it this way: “Men became scientific because they expected law in nature and they expected law in nature because they believed in a lawgiver.” http://www.christianpost.com/news/the-god-particle-not-the-god-of-the-gaps-but-the-whole-show-80307/

Perhaps the most famous confusion of a mathematical description of a law and the causal agency behind the law is Stephen Hawking’s following statement:

“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.The universe didn’t need a God to begin; it was quite capable of launching its existence on its own,” Stephen Hawking http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/09/the-universe-exists-because-of-spontaneous-creation-stephen-hawking.html

Here is an excerpt of an article, (that is well worth reading in full), in which Dr. Gordon exposes Stephen Hawking’s delusion for thinking that mathematical description and agent causality are the same thing.

BRUCE GORDON: Hawking’s irrational arguments – October 2010 Excerpt: ,,,The physical universe is causally incomplete and therefore neither self-originating nor self-sustaining. The world of space, time, matter and energy is dependent on a reality that transcends space, time, matter and energy. This transcendent reality cannot merely be a Platonic realm of mathematical descriptions, for such things are causally inert abstract entities that do not affect the material world,,, Rather, the transcendent reality on which our universe depends must be something that can exhibit agency – a mind that can choose among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bring into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them. This is what “breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe.” Anything else invokes random miracles as an explanatory principle and spells the end of scientific rationality.,,, Universes do not “spontaneously create” on the basis of abstract mathematical descriptions, nor does the fantasy of a limitless multiverse trump the explanatory power of transcendent intelligent design. What Mr. Hawking’s contrary assertions show is that mathematical savants can sometimes be metaphysical simpletons. Caveat emptor. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/1/hawking-irrational-arguments/

Moreover, the same type of confusion arises when atheists' appeal to ‘random chance’ as a causal agent instead of merely a description. When people say that something ‘happened by chance’ they are not actually appealing to a known causal mechanism but are instead using chance as a ‘placeholder for ignorance’ as to an actual causal mechanism. Stephen Talbott puts the situation like this,,

Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness – Stephen L. Talbott – Fall 2011 Excerpt: In the case of evolution, I picture Dennett and Dawkins filling the blackboard with their vivid descriptions of living, highly regulated, coordinated, integrated, and intensely meaningful biological processes, and then inserting a small, mysterious gap in the middle, along with the words, “Here something random occurs.” This “something random” looks every bit as wishful as the appeal to a miracle. It is the central miracle in a gospel of meaninglessness, a “Randomness of the gaps,” demanding an extraordinarily blind faith. At the very least, we have a right to ask, “Can you be a little more explicit here?” http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/evolution-and-the-illusion-of-randomness

In other words, when people say that something “happened randomly by chance”, usually a mishap, they are in fact assuming an impersonal purposeless determiner of unaccountable happenings which is, in fact, impossible to separate from causal agency. i.e. 'every bit as wishful as the appeal to a miracle' Although the term “chance” can be defined as a mathematical probability, such as the chance involved in flipping a coin, when Darwinists use the term ‘random chance’, generally it’s substituting for a more precise word such as “cause”, especially when the cause, i.e. ‘mechanism’, is not known. Several people have noted this ‘shell game’ that is played with the word ‘chance’..

“To personify ‘chance’ as if we were talking about a causal agent,” notes biophysicist Donald M. MacKay, “is to make an illegitimate switch from a scientific to a quasi-religious mythological concept.” Similarly, Robert C. Sproul points out: “By calling the unknown cause ‘chance’ for so long, people begin to forget that a substitution was made. . . . The assumption that ‘chance equals an unknown cause’ has come to mean for many that ‘chance equals cause.’”

Thus, when an atheist states that something happened by chance, we have every right to ask, as Talbott pointed out, “Can you be a little more explicit here?” In conclusion, contrary to how atheists imagine reality to be structured, they, in their appeal to random chance and law as to being causally adequate within themselves, have, in reality, appealed to vacuous explanations for a ‘causal mechanism’ that are far more properly grounded in agent causality. ,,, ,,,”vacuous explanations for a causal mechanism” reminds me of Lawrence Krauss’s argument against God from a few years ago in his book ‘A Universe from Nothing’,,

Not Understanding Nothing – A review of A Universe from Nothing – Edward Feser – June 2012 Excerpt: A critic might reasonably question the arguments for a divine first cause of the cosmos. But to ask “What caused God?” misses the whole reason classical philosophers thought his existence necessary in the first place. So when physicist Lawrence Krauss begins his new book by suggesting that to ask “Who created the creator?” suffices to dispatch traditional philosophical theology, we know it isn’t going to end well. ,,, ,,, But Krauss simply can’t see the “difference between arguing in favor of an eternally existing creator versus an eternally existing universe without one.” The difference, as the reader of Aristotle or Aquinas knows, is that the universe changes while the unmoved mover does not, or, as the Neoplatonist can tell you, that the universe is made up of parts while its source is absolutely one; or, as Leibniz could tell you, that the universe is contingent and God absolutely necessary. There is thus a principled reason for regarding God rather than the universe as the terminus of explanation. http://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/05/not-understanding-nothing

To put what I consider the main philosophical arguments for God more simply, (at the risk of irritating more than a few philosophers), atheistic materialists do not have a causal mechanism to appeal to to explain how the universe originated, nor do they have a causal mechanism to explain why the universe continues to exists, nor why anything in the universe continues to exist in the universe, nor do they even have a causal mechanism for explaining how anything, any particle in the universe, moves within the universe! Here are a few notes along that line:

The Kalam Cosmological Argument (argument from the beginning of the universe) – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CulBuMCLg0

bornagain77

Zacky:

Birds didn’t appear out of nowhere, but were preceded by theropods.

Therefore what? Therefore Darwinian evolution did it? This is like saying, automobiles didn’t appear out of nowhere, but were preceded by horse drawn carriages. Therefore Darwinian evolution did it. You need to smoke some weed, Zacky. It might do you some good. Mapou

a few notes: Donald Prothero: In evolution, stasis was general, gradualism rare, and that’s the consensus 40 years on - February 2012 Excerpt: In four of the biggest climatic-vegetational events of the last 50 million years, the mammals and birds show no noticeable change in response to changing climates. No matter how many presentations I give where I show these data, no one (including myself) has a good explanation yet for such widespread stasis despite the obvious selective pressures of changing climate. Rather than answers, we have more questions— Donald Prothero - American paleontologist, geologist, and author who specializes in mammalian paleontology. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/darwinism/donald-prothero-in-evolution-stasis-was-the-general-pattern-gradualism-was-rare-and-that-is-still-the-consensus-40-years-later/ When Dinosaurs Flew - February 4, 2014 Excerpt: A study published online by PeerJ on Jan. 2 detailed the examination of a startlingly complete and pristine specimen of an ancient, dinosaur-era bird: Hongshanornis longicresta, which flapped throughout what is now China roughly 125 million years ago during the early Cretaceous Period.,,, “This isn’t a mode of flight we expected from Cretaceous birds,” Habib said, adding that its small size and overall shape are comparable to that of modern birds. “It was pretty much a Cretaceous starling with a larger tail like a mockingbird.” Transported to the modern world, it wouldn’t look like anything special to the casual observer, until a closer examination revealed claws at the end of the bird’s wings and tiny teeth in its beak.,,, http://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/1622/when-dinosaurs-flew/ Darwin 'Wrong': Species Living Together Does Not Encourage Evolution - December 20, 2013 Excerpt: Charles Darwin's theory of evolution set out in the Origin of Species has been proven wrong by scientists studying ovenbirds. Researchers at Oxford University found that species living together do not evolve differently to avoid competing with one another for food and habitats – a theory put forward by Darwin 150 years ago. The ovenbird is one of the most diverse bird families in the world and researchers were looking to establish the processes causing them to evolve. Published in Nature, the research compared the beaks, legs and songs of 90% of ovenbird species. Findings showed that while the birds living together were consistently more different than those living apart, this was the result of age differences. Once the variation of age was accounted for, birds that live together were more similar than those living separately – directly contradicting Darwin's view. The species that lived together had beaks and legs no more different than those living apart,,, ,,,there is no shortage of evidence for competition driving divergent evolution in some very young lineages. But we found no evidence that this process explains differences across a much larger sample of species.,,, He said that the reasons why birds living together appear to evolve less are "difficult to explain",, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/darwin-wrong-species-living-together-does-not-encourage-evolution-1429927 “The whole notion of feathered dinosaurs is a myth that has been created by ideologues bent on perpetuating the birds-are-dinosaurs theory in the face of all contrary evidence” Storrs Olson - curator of birds at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History The hype about feathered dinosaurs in the exhibit currently on display at the National Geographic Society is even worse, and makes the spurious claim that there is strong evidence that a wide variety of carnivorous dinosaurs had feathers. A model of the undisputed dinosaur Deinonychus and illustrations of baby tyrannosaurs are shown clad in feathers, all of which is simply imaginary and has no place outside of science fiction. - Storrs Olson The Archaeoraptor Fraud of National Geographic Magazine (In 1999) Excerpt: "The idea of feathered dinosaurs and the theropod origin of birds is being actively promulgated by a cadre of zealous scientists acting in concert with certain editors at Nature and National Geographic who themselves have become outspoken and highly biased proselytizers of the faith. Truth and careful scientific weighing of evidence have been among the first casualties in their program, which is now fast becoming one of the grander scientific hoaxes of our age---the paleontological equivalent of cold fusion." - Storrs Olson curator of birds at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History Alan Feduccia, considered an expert on bird evolution, has written, “The major and most worrying problem of the feathered dinosaur hypothesis is that the integumental structures have been homologized with avian feathers on the basis of anatomically and paleontologically unsound and misleading information.” FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds - Feathers - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2yeNoDCcBg FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds - Flight muscles - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFdvkopOmw0 FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds - Skeletal system - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11fZS_B6UW4 Jim Al-Khalili and the Quantum Robin - video According to Quantum Physicist Jim Al-Khalili, the phenomenon Quantum Entanglement in Robins is "nothing short of miraculous." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jepgOQEvWT0 FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds – Starling murmurations – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GR9zFgOzyw bornagain77

No. Birds are theropods. See Brusatte et al., Gradual Assembly of Avian Body Plan Culminated in Rapid Rates of Evolution across the Dinosaur-Bird Transition, Current Biology 2014.

Umm, no one knows what makes a bird a bird let alone how genetic changes can produce one from theropods. Joe

Moreover, disparity preceding diversity is not only found in the Cambrian Explosion but is a defining characteriastic in the fossil record after the Cambrian as well:

Scientific study turns understanding about evolution on its head - July 30, 2013 Excerpt: evolutionary biologists,,, looked at nearly one hundred fossil groups to test the notion that it takes groups of animals many millions of years to reach their maximum diversity of form. Contrary to popular belief, not all animal groups continued to evolve fundamentally new morphologies through time. The majority actually achieved their greatest diversity of form (disparity) relatively early in their histories. ,,,Dr Matthew Wills said: "This pattern, known as 'early high disparity', turns the traditional V-shaped cone model of evolution on its head. What is equally surprising in our findings is that groups of animals are likely to show early-high disparity regardless of when they originated over the last half a billion years. This isn't a phenomenon particularly associated with the first radiation of animals (in the Cambrian Explosion), or periods in the immediate wake of mass extinctions.",,, Author Martin Hughes, continued: "Our work implies that there must be constraints on the range of forms within animal groups, and that these limits are often hit relatively early on. Co-author Dr Sylvain Gerber, added: "A key question now is what prevents groups from generating fundamentally new forms later on in their evolution.,,, http://phys.org/news/2013-07-scientific-evolution.html The unscientific hegemony of uniformitarianism - David Tyler - May 2011 Excerpt: The pervasive pattern of natural history: disparity precedes diversity,,,, The summary of results for phyla is as follows. The pattern reinforces earlier research that concluded the Explosion is not an artefact of sampling. Much the same finding applies to the appearance of classes. These data are presented in Figures 1 and 2 in the paper. http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2011/05/16/the_unscientific_hegemony_of_uniformitar “The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find’ over and over again’ not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another.” Paleontologist, Derek V. Ager (Department of Geology & Oceanography, University College, Swansea, UK) “It is a feature of the known fossil record that most taxa appear abruptly. They are not, as a rule, led up to by a sequence of almost imperceptibly changing forerunners such as Darwin believed should be usual in evolution…This phenomenon becomes more universal and more intense as the hierarchy of categories is ascended. Gaps among known species are sporadic and often small. Gaps among known orders, classes and phyla are systematic and almost always large.” G.G.Simpson – one of the most influential American Paleontologist of the 20th century “Given the fact of evolution, one would expect the fossils to document a gradual steady change from ancestral forms to the descendants. But this is not what the paleontologist finds. Instead, he or she finds gaps in just about every phyletic series.” – Ernst Mayr-Professor Emeritus, Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University “What is missing are the many intermediate forms hypothesized by Darwin, and the continual divergence of major lineages into the morphospace between distinct adaptive types.” Robert L Carroll (born 1938) – vertebrate paleontologist who specialises in Paleozoic and Mesozoic amphibians “In virtually all cases a new taxon appears for the first time in the fossil record with most definitive features already present, and practically no known stem-group forms.” Fossils and Evolution, TS Kemp – Curator of Zoological Collections, Oxford University, Oxford Uni Press, p246, 1999

bornagain77

as to:

"It’s long been known that the Cambrian explosion isn’t the only explosion of organisms in the fossil record. There’s also something of a fish explosion, an angiosperm explosion, and a mammal explosion. Paleontologists have even cited a “bird explosion,” with major bird groups appearing in a short time period."

Another fact that argues for the sudden appearance of organisms in the fossil record is the fact that major types of organisms appear in a 'top down' fashion in the fossil record rather than in a gradual 'bottom up' fashion as is predicted by Darwinism. This anomaly in the fossil record, which is at odds with Darwinism, is called 'disparity preceding diversity'. The 'top down' pattern is most noticeable in the Cambrian explosion,,,

Cambrian Explosion Ruins Darwin's Tree of Life (2 minutes in 24 hour day) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQKxkUb_AAg

, as Dr. Wells points out in the preceding video, Darwin predicted that minor differences (diversity) between species would gradually appear first and then the differences would grow larger (disparity) between species as time went on. i.e. universal common descent as depicted in Darwin's tree of life. What Darwin predicted should be familiar to everyone and is easily represented in the following graph.,,,

The Theory - Diversity precedes Disparity - graph http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/JOURNEY/IMAGES/F.gif

But that 'tree pattern' that Darwin predicted is not what is found in the fossil record. The fossil record reveals that disparity (the greatest differences) precedes diversity (the smaller differences), which is the exact opposite pattern for what Darwin's theory predicted.

The Actual Fossil Evidence- Disparity precedes Diversity - graph http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/JOURNEY/IMAGES/G.gif Timeline graphic on Cambrian Explosion from 'Darwin's Doubt' (Disparity preceding Diversity) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/07/its_darwins_dou074341.html Chinese microscopic fossil find challenges Darwin's theory - 11 November, 2014 Excerpt: One of the world's leading researchers on the Cambria explosion is Chen Junyuan from the Nanjing Institute of Palaeontology and he said that his fossil discoveries in China show that "Darwin's tree is a reverse cone shape". A senior research fellow at Chengjiang Fauna [fossil site], said, "I do not believe the animals developed gradually from the bottom up, I think they suddenly appeared". As a medical professional and former atheist, I ignorantly believed that Darwin's evolutionary theory was a scientific fact. The fact is, Darwinism has never been more than an unproven theory,,, http://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/1636922/chinese-microscopic-fossil-find-challenges-darwins-theory Challenging Fossil of a Little Fish Excerpt: "In Chen’s view, his evidence supports a history of life that runs opposite to the standard evolutionary tree diagrams, a progression he calls top-down evolution." Jun-Yuan Chen is professor at the Nanjing Institute of Paleontology and Geology http://www.fredheeren.com/boston.htm Investigating Evolution: The Cambrian Explosion Part 1 – (4:45 minute mark - upside-down fossil record) video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DkbmuRhXRY Part 2 – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZFM48XIXnk "The record of the first appearance of living phyla, classes, and orders can best be described in Wright's (1) term as 'from the top down'." (James W. Valentine, "Late Precambrian bilaterians: Grades and clades," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 91: 6751-6757 (July 1994).) “Darwin had a lot of trouble with the fossil record because if you look at the record of phyla in the rocks as fossils why when they first appear we already see them all. The phyla are fully formed. It’s as if the phyla were created first and they were modified into classes and we see that the number of classes peak later than the number of phyla and the number of orders peak later than that. So it’s kind of a top down succession, you start with this basic body plans, the phyla, and you diversify them into classes, the major sub-divisions of the phyla, and these into orders and so on. So the fossil record is kind of backwards from what you would expect from in that sense from what you would expect from Darwin’s ideas." James W. Valentine - as quoted from "On the Origin of Phyla: Interviews with James W. Valentine In Explaining the Cambrian Explosion, Has the TalkOrigins Archive Resolved Darwin's Dilemma? - JonathanM - May 2012 Excerpt: it is the pattern of morphological disparity preceding diversity that is fundamentally at odds with the neo-Darwinian scenario of gradualism. All of the major differences (i.e. the higher taxonomic categories such as phyla) appear first in the fossil record and then the lesser taxonomic categories such as classes, orders, families, genera and species appear later. On the Darwinian view, one would expect to see all of the major differences in body plan appear only after numerous small-scale speciation events. But this is not what we observe. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/05/has_the_talk-or059171.html

bornagain77

ppolish: I think you meant birds appeared out of nowhere independent of theropods. No. Birds are theropods. See Brusatte et al., Gradual Assembly of Avian Body Plan Culminated in Rapid Rates of Evolution across the Dinosaur-Bird Transition, Current Biology 2014. ppolish: And how about that bird explosion boom. If by boom, you mean an event that occurred over millions of years, then boom. Zachriel

Birds didn’t appear out of nowhere, but were preceded by theropods? I think you meant birds appeared out of nowhere independent of theropods. And how about that bird explosion boom. That had ID written all over it. NeoDarwin can't explain. ppolish

ppolish: But they were created in an instant, boom. Birds didn't appear out of nowhere, but were preceded by theropods. Zachriel

MeThink, never mind the trillions - try to explain the first few birds appearing. Yes, they went forth and multiplied. But they were created in an instant, boom. Bird Explosion Boom. ppolish

MT #3

Sorry, but there is no known mechanism which helps a single being plan and build trillions of structures and processes in a week.

There is a single being who is known to raise the dead and heal the lame and give sight to the blind instantaneously by His Word. There is a single being who is known who said let their be light and now light is. If that being is the author of time, and He declares the week to which you refer as "creation" week, then I think there is evidence of a known mechanism that can build trillions of structures and processes in a week. At least a more reasonable explanation of the evidence than suggesting billions of years with no known mechanism for getting life, or even information, out of matter and energy. awstar

Me_think, I suppose He could have built the plans long ago and implemented them in a day. And He didn't have to create every individual at once. But most of us here are old earthers anyway. Collin

But alas, even when science gets around to proving things evolved very very rapidly in just one day followed by stasis of six thousand years, most people will still thumb their nose at the One who brought it about

Sorry, but there is no known mechanism which helps a single being plan and build trillions of structures and processes in a week. Me_Think

A literal reading of the fossil record indicates that the early Cambrian (c. 545 million years ago) and early Tertiary (c. 65 million years ago) were characterized by enormously accelerated periods of morphological evolution marking the appearance of the animal phyla, and modern bird and placental mammal orders, respectively.

That "enormously accelerated period of morphological evolution" would be day 5 and day 6 in the literal reading of the Genesis historical account. But alas, even when science gets around to proving things evolved very very rapidly in just one day followed by stasis of six thousand years, most people will still thumb their nose at the One who brought it about. awstar

This is a revealing quote from the paper:

"The absence of a single gene tree identical to the avian species tree is consistent with studies in yeast, indicating that phylogenetic studies based on one or several genes, especially for rapid radiations, will probably be insufficient." Further down Luskin comments: "The fundamental problem is this: They are finding data that doesn't fit a treelike pattern. But they aren't going to reject common ancestry. They're just going to appeal to ad hoc explanations whenever necessary to explain why the data doesn't fit a tree." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/massive_genetic092001.html

as to this genetic study of birds being 'consistent with studies in yeast', well, it turns out that studies in yeast, as Dr. Hunter has pointed out, have revealed glaring weaknesses in the assumption of common descent:

Here Are Those Incongruent Trees From the Yeast Genome - Case Study - Cornelius Hunter - June 2013 Excerpt: We recently reported on a study of 1,070 genes and how they contradicted each other in a couple dozen yeast species. Specifically, evolutionists computed the evolutionary tree, using all 1,070 genes, showing how the different yeast species are related. This tree that uses all 1,070 genes is called the concatenation tree. They then repeated the computation 1,070 times, for each gene taken individually. Not only did none of the 1,070 trees match the concatenation tree, they also failed to show even a single match between themselves. In other words, out of the 1,071 trees, there were zero matches. Yet one of the fundamental predictions of evolution is that different features should generally agree. It was “a bit shocking” for evolutionists, as one explained: “We are trying to figure out the phylogenetic relationships of 1.8 million species and can’t even sort out 20 yeast.” In fact, as the figure above shows, the individual gene trees did not converge toward the concatenation tree. Evolutionary theory does not expect all the trees to be identical, but it does expect them to be consistently similar. They should mostly be identical or close to the concatenation tree, with a few at farther distances from the concatenation tree. Evolutionists have clearly and consistently claimed this consilience as an essential prediction. But instead, on a normalized scale from zero to one (where zero means the trees are identical), the gene trees were mostly around 0.4 from the concatenation tree with a huge gap in between. There were no trees anywhere close to the concatenation tree. This figure is a statistically significant, stark falsification of a highly acclaimed evolutionary prediction. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2013/06/here-are-those-incongruent-trees-from.html That Yeast Study is a Good Example of How Evolutionary Theory Works - Cornelius Hunter - June 2013 Excerpt:,,, The evolutionists tried to fix the problem with all kinds of strategies. They removed parts of genes from the analysis, they removed a few genes that might have been outliers, they removed a few of the yeast species, they restricted the analysis to certain genes that agreed on parts of the evolutionary tree, they restricted the analysis to only those genes thought to be slowly evolving, and they tried restricting the gene comparisons to only certain parts of the gene. These various strategies each have their own rationale. That rationale may be dubious, but at least there is some underlying reasoning. Yet none of these strategies worked. In fact they sometimes exacerbated the incongruence problem. What the evolutionists finally had to do, simply put, was to select the subset of the genes or of the problem that gave the right evolutionary answer. They described those genes as having “strong phylogenetic signal.” And how do we know that these genes have strong phylogenetic signal. Because they give the right answer. This is an example of a classic tendency in science known as confirmation bias.,,, http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2013/06/that-yeast-study-is-good-example-of-how.html You Won’t Believe This New Epicycle: Both Congruence & Incongruence are Powerful Phylogenetic Signals - October - 7, 2013 Excerpt: Similar evolution trees are derived from completely different genes. Such congruence of independent data was predicted by evolution and evolutionists have consistently proclaimed it as a powerful confirmation of the fact of evolution. It is, as evolutionists like to say, a powerful phylogenetic signal. There’s only one problem: all of this is false. It is yet another example of evolution’s theory-laden science where the findings are dictated not by the data but by the doctrine. There is no powerful phylogenetic signal. That is a myth. For when evolutionists construct their phylogenies, they first filter out the anatomical comparisons that don’t cooperate. But that is not enough so after their first try they filter some more. As one evolutionist admitted, “We are trying to figure out the phylogenetic relationships of 1.8 million species and can’t even sort out 20 [types of] yeast.” And so it is good to see a new paper that admits that data are routinely filtered in order to satisfy stringent criteria so as to eliminate the possibility of incongruence. And what is the solution to this dilemma? As usual, a theoretical failure is converted into a success by adding yet more epicycles. Or as Lakatos might have put it, the core idea is protected by the addition of yet more auxiliary hypotheses. In this case, the incredible emerging view is that incongruence is now to be interpreted as a powerful phylogenetic signal that is desirable, as it often illuminates previously poorly understood evolutionary phenomena. Once again a prediction that was hailed as a powerful proof of evolution turns out to be false, and the story is simply flipped on its head, thus preserving the success of the theory. Where congruence was once claimed as a powerful phylogenetic signal, now incongruence takes its place as the powerful phylogenetic signal. You cannot make this stuff up. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2013/10/you-wont-believe-this-new-epicycle.html

of related interest:

More Fossil-Molecule Contradictions: Now Even the Errors Have Errors - Cornelius Hunter - June 2014 Excerpt: a new massive (phylogenetic) study shows that not only is the problem (for Darwinist) worse than previously thought, but the errors increase with those species that are supposed to have evolved more recently.,,, "Our results suggest that, for Aves (Birds), discord between molecular divergence estimates and the fossil record is pervasive across clades and of consistently higher magnitude for younger clades." http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2014/06/more-fossil-molecule-contradictions-now.html Bird Evolution vs. The Actual Fossil Evidence - video and notes http://vimeo.com/30926629

bornagain77