Can Chaos Create?

semi OT: UC Berkeley Mathematician Edward Frenkel on the Transcendent World of Math - Dec. 19, 2013 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/12/berkeley_mathem080361.html bornagain77

'Can chaos create?' What an ironic question, but on the basis of the atheists' apotheosis of nothingness and meaninglessness, the natural antithesis of the Christian precept that we are entrusted by God to bring order out of chaos. It parallels the disparagement of the term Intelligent Design, the antonym of which is not 'random chance', but Unintelligent Design, a prime oxymoron showing that they want to have their cake and eat it; they don't wish to use the lexicon of the rest of mankind, they repudiate it. There is nothing unclear or ambiguous about the complexity and subtlety of the universe's designs - in short, their reality. If a person clinically afflicted by cretinism could understand the concept of design, he could be in no less doubt on that score than any sane human being on the 'normal to genius' scale. The irony of the term, Unintelligent Design, therefore, is delicious, highlighting, as it does, their arrant lunacy. Axel

@Robert I quite agree. It would bring the materialist camp no more joy than to tout the floundering sales as a death knell for the ID camp. However, as it stands the materialists must begin the spin. They throw out classics, like suggesting it is the opium-loving American masses driving up numbers. I posit that many are seeing through the foggy caricature of God the likes of Dawkins has erected. They are realizing one can be rational, respecting the scientific method of discovery, and accept the idea of a God. TSErik

Didn't Leo Szilard say “On the Decrease in Entropy in a Thermodynamic System by the Intervention of Intelligent Beings.”? The answer: No. origin_surgeon

I would add meyers book possibly is a bigger deal then realized. If it had flopped or gained just a small audience EVOLUTIONISTS would of said AHA the movement is losing steam and a dying cause. instead the books being the talk of the town surely demands the iD (and YEC) cause is doing gangbusters. This books success with the educated public is a sign of future books acoming and doing well. its a sign of a revolution in rather obscure matters taking place finally. YEC creationists probably predicted this decades ago. finally non yEC researchers would note evolutions failings in scientific investigation and conclusions. perhaps the writers on this forum could unite for a series of articles in a book form. Make hay while the sun shines. Robert Byers

Scott Adams had a good Dilbert strip last week on the infinite monkey theorem: http://dilbert.com/fast/2013-12-12/ Just try to imagine what all is possible in a world with infinite possibilities! Little wonder that ID is gaining traction. Piltdown2

semi related: How Free Will Works (In Quantum Mechanics) - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMp30Q8OGOE bornagain77

Great comments, bornagain77. I like this one by Wolfgang Pauli:

While they (Darwinian Biologists) pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’” Wolfgang Pauli -

It has always been clear to me that Darwinists were a bunch of brain-dead, superstitious dirt worshippers. Mapou

Thus, Darwinists are found to be postulating that the ‘random’ entropic events of the universe, which are found to be consistently destroying information in the cell, are instead what are creating functional information/complexity in the cell.,,, It is the equivalent in science of someone (in this case a ‘consensus of scientists’) claiming that Gravity makes things fall up instead of down, and that is not overstating the bizarre situation we find ourselves in in the least since Gravity 'arises as an entropic force'.

Evolution is a Fact, Just Like Gravity is a Fact! UhOh! – January 2010 Excerpt: The results of this paper suggest gravity arises as an entropic force, once space and time themselves have emerged. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/evolution-is-a-fact-just-like-gravity-is-a-fact-uhoh/

In fact, the maximum source for entropy (randomness) in the universe is now known to be black holes,,,

Entropy of the Universe – Hugh Ross – May 2010 Excerpt: Egan and Lineweaver found that supermassive black holes are the largest contributor to the observable universe’s entropy. They showed that these supermassive black holes contribute about 30 times more entropy than what the previous research teams estimated. http://www.reasons.org/entropy-universe

It is also very interesting to note that Ludwig Boltzmann, an atheist, when he linked entropy and probability, did not, as Max Planck a Christian Theist points out in the following link, think to look for a constant for entropy:

The Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann first linked entropy and probability in 1877. However, the equation as shown, involving a specific constant, was first written down by Max Planck, the father of quantum mechanics in 1900. In his 1918 Nobel Prize lecture, Planck said: “This constant is often referred to as Boltzmann’s constant, although, to my knowledge, Boltzmann himself never introduced it – a peculiar state of affairs, which can be explained by the fact that Boltzmann, as appears from his occasional utterances, never gave thought to the possibility of carrying out an exact measurement of the constant.” http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/B/Boltzmann_equation.html

I hold that the primary reason why Boltzmann, an atheist, never thought to carry out, or even propose, a precise measurement for the constant on entropy is that he, as an atheist, had thought he had arrived at the ultimate ‘random’ explanation for how everything in the universe operates when he had link probability with entropy. i.e. In linking entropy with probability, Boltzmann, again an atheist, thought he had explained everything that happens in the universe to a ‘random’ chance basis. To him, as an atheist, I hold that it would simply be unfathomable for him to conceive that the ‘random chance’ (probabilistic) events of entropy in the universe should ever be constrained by a constant that would limit the effects of ‘random’ entropic events of the universe. Whereas on the contrary, to a Christian Theist such as Planck, it is expected that even these seemingly random entropic events of the universe should be bounded by a constant. In fact modern science was born out of such thinking:

‘Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator. In most modern scientists this belief has died: it will be interesting to see how long their confidence in uniformity survives it. Two significant developments have already appeared—the hypothesis of a lawless sub-nature, and the surrender of the claim that science is true.’ Lewis, C.S., Miracles: a preliminary study, Collins, London, p. 110, 1947.

Verse and Music

Romans 8:20-21 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. Phillips, Craig & Dean – When The Stars Burn Down – Worship Video with lyrics http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPuxnQ_vZqY

Supplemental Note:

Quantum Zeno effect Excerpt: The quantum Zeno effect is,,, an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/tonights-feature-presentation-epigenetics-the-next-evolutionary-cliff/#comment-445840

But why should the random entropic events of the universe care if and when I decide to consciously observe an unstable particle if, as Darwinists hold, I'm suppose to be the result of the random entropic events of the universe in the first place? Perhaps instead of being accidents, as Darwinists hold, we truly are, each of us, created by God? bornagain77

as to the question "Can Chaos Create?" Or does the observed biochemical complexity imply design?.

Scientific American: Evolution "To some extent, it just happens" - July 2013 "Complexity, they say, is not purely the result of millions of years of fine-tuning through natural selection—the process that Richard Dawkins famously dubbed “the blind watchmaker.” To some extent, it just happens. Biologists and philosophers have pondered the evolution of complexity for decades, but according to Daniel W. McShea, a paleobiologist at Duke University, they have been hobbled by vague definitions. “It’s not just that they don’t know how to put a number on it. They don’t know what they mean by the word,” McShea says." https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/scientific-american-studying-how-organisms-evolve-elaborate-structures-without-darwinian-selection/

To clarify what they mean by 'they have been hobbled by vague definitions'.

“It is our contention that if ‘random’ is given a serious and crucial interpretation from a probabilistic point of view, the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws—physical, physico-chemical, and biological.” Murray Eden, “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory,” Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, editors Paul S. Moorhead and Martin M. Kaplan, June 1967, p. 109. Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Wolfgang Pauli on the Empirical Problems with Neo-Darwinism – Casey Luskin – February 27, 2012 Excerpt: While they (Darwinian Biologists) pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’” Wolfgang Pauli - http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/02/nobel_prize-win056771.html

Talbott humorously reflects on the awkward situation for Darwinists here:

Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness – 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 our effort to help alleviate Darwinists of this vague “Randomness of the gaps” definition they are stuck with, I think it will be helpful to point out that when computer programmers/engineers want to build a better random number generator, for any particular computer program they are building, then a better source of entropy is required to be found by them in order for them to achieve the increased randomness they desire for their program:

Cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator Excerpt: From an information theoretic point of view, the amount of randomness, the entropy that can be generated is equal to the entropy provided by the system. But sometimes, in practical situations, more random numbers are needed than there is entropy available. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographically_secure_pseudorandom_number_generator By the way, if you need some really good random numbers, go here: http://www.random.org/bytes/ These are truly random (not pseudo-random) and are generated from atmospheric noise. per Gil Dodgen

Also of note to defining terms more precisely:

Entropy Excerpt: It is often said that entropy is an expression of the disorder, or randomness of a system, or of our lack of information about it (which on some views of probability, amounts to the same thing as randomness). per wikipedia

It is also of interest to point how pervasive entropy is in its explanatory power for physical events that occur in this 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/

But what is devastating for the atheist (or even for the Theistic Evolutionist) who wants ‘randomness of the gaps’ to be the source for all creativity in the universe, is that randomness, (i.e. the entropic processes of the universe), are now shown, scientifically, to be vastly more likely to destroy functional information within the cell rather than ever building it up’. Here are my notes along that line:

“Is there a real connection between entropy in physics and the entropy of information? …. The equations of information theory and the second law are the same, suggesting that the idea of entropy is something fundamental…” Tom Siegfried, Dallas Morning News, 5/14/90 – Quotes attributed to Robert W. Lucky, Ex. Director of Research, AT&T, Bell Laboratories & John A. Wheeler, of Princeton & Univ. of TX, Austin in the article Demonic device converts information to energy – 2010 Excerpt: “This is a beautiful experimental demonstration that information has a thermodynamic content,” says Christopher Jarzynski, a statistical chemist at the University of Maryland in College Park. In 1997, Jarzynski formulated an equation to define the amount of energy that could theoretically be converted from a unit of information2; the work by Sano and his team has now confirmed this equation. “This tells us something new about how the laws of thermodynamics work on the microscopic scale,” says Jarzynski. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=demonic-device-converts-inform

,,having a empirically demonstrated direct connection between entropy of the universe and the information inherent within a cell is extremely problematic for Darwinists because of the following principle,,,

“Gain in entropy always means loss of information, and nothing more.” Gilbert Newton Lewis – preeminent Chemist of the first half of last century “Bertalanffy (1968) called the relation between irreversible thermodynamics and information theory one of the most fundamental unsolved problems in biology.” Charles J. Smith – Biosystems, Vol.1, p259.

and this 'unsolved problems in biology' is strongly supported empirically:

“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/

bornagain77

Would the concepts of ergonomics and logistics be products of unintelligent forces, I wonder? Matter at its most wily? ------------------------- Alex On logistics, can "unintelligent forces" (stochastic 4 laws) do better on the traveling salesman's problem than random chance? For quantitative details, See Dembski's & Mark's papers at the Evolutionary Information Lab. Axel