Brian Miller vs. Jeremy England, Round 2

_{News
May 20, 2020

Intelligent Design, Origin Of Life

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Intelligent Design
Origin Of Life}

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Round 1 was at Inference Review: A Sizzling Exchange On The Origin Of Life

England rightly states that the fluctuation theorems allow for the possibility that some mechanism could drive matter to both lower entropy and higher energy (higher free energy), thus potentially solving the problem of the origin of life, at least in theory. In contrast, I addressed the likelihood that, given the practical constraints, realistic natural processes on the early earth could generate a minimally complex cell. In that context, England indirectly affirmed the main points of my argument and thus reinforced the conclusion that an undirected origin of life might be possible in principle, but it is completely implausible in practice.
Brian Miller, “On the Origin of Life, Here Is My Response to Jeremy England” at Evolution News and Science Today

Origin of life is more fun when it is a genuine discussion rather than a speculation based on a chance finding.

See also: The Science Fictions series at your fingertips – origin of life What we do and don’t know about the origin of life.

Comments

. Five full days have now past, JVL. I believe your benefit of the doubt has run out. In my last comment to you I predicted (based on common history here) that you would seek an “undecidable” (or something non-falsifiable) as the basis of your response, or perhaps not respond at all. It appears we have our answer.Upright BiPed_{May 31, 2020
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Upright BiPed: I read through you comments and the excerpt from a work by Howard H Pattee. He's quite an interesting fellow. I wanted to read the rest of that work so I did some searching and was able to find the entire paper. His writing is dense in that each sentence takes some processing. But I will get through it!JVL_{May 26, 2020
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Upright BiPed: Thank you for the follow-up. I think most of us tend to cling to ideas they've held for a long time; it's hard to admit you've got it wrong after years and years and some ideas are comforting to us. I don't know how I'll react but I will try and be openminded. Enjoy the holiday! Mowing for me later.JVL_{May 25, 2020
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. #89 Yes! thank you. Autocorrect also changed "non-integrable" to "non-intregral" and I did not catch it. - - - - - - - - - - - I am out for the holiday.Upright BiPed_{May 25, 2020
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. JVL at #84
I must sincerely thank you for taking the time to respond so fully. I would like to read it carefully and think about how to respond respectfully and meaningfully.
You asked me how someone might falsify my position. It is not a question I have a need to avoid. I offered a few answers to your question based on the things I argue for, and you will now seek to respond in a way that leaves your prior conclusion (i.e. emphatically no evidence of design in biology) justifiably intact, either effectively or ineffectively, or perhaps not respond at all.
So if you don’t hear from me on this matter for a while it’s because you’ve given me a lot to chew on as it were.
By all means. Given the science and history, I hope you will not see it as an afront for me to suggest that you are most likely to seek an “undecidable” (or something non-falsifiable) as the basis of your response. That is the well-established tradition in the defense of ignoring science and history. If it will help jumpstart your efforts, I will post here the abstract and opening portion of an unusual paper by HH Pattee, one that came after 30 years of research on the physics of symbol systems. It is unusual in that he spends a good amount of time on the different perspectives of various disciplines’ treatment of the symbol-matter relation. It is not a topic he particularly ignored or avoided in other papers, but he is somewhat more explicit in this instance – perhaps something like a review after 30 years of description and analysis. As an example, at the end of the text below, Pattee states that the origin of symbols “is not considered one of the central problems in any area of philosophy or science”. That’s a strong statement in my mind. It might make someone think of the various OoL researchers who must resolve the issue of getting from dynamics to symbols in order to validate the only paradigm allowed in their field of research. Some might imagine how their work must be in some way focused on that inevitable requirement. But upon thinking about it, I’d challenge anyone who believes that rosy assumption to provide examples from any paper by Szostak, Joyce, Lincoln, Sutherland, etc where they actually address the issue in earnest. It’s a sad test, but does the issue even come up? Perhaps it is there somewhere, but I’ve never seen it (and I have read quite a lot over the years). It’s actually not there, and that’s an ugly blemish on empirical reasoning. It violates the first principles of science and its defenders collectively couldn’t care less. There is another very notable thing about this situation. This issue not a matter of the words we use to describe the observations, and it does not matter if someone insists this is all just a “useful analogy” in play. It doesn’t matter if we call these things symbols and constraints or aardvarks and kumquats, the physical states of these objects are measurable, and their required relations and non-relations to one another remain as a uniquely identifiable physical organization; one with an output that is not exemplified by any other type of physical organization. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - EVOLVING SELF-REFERENCE: MATTER, SYMBOLS, AND SEMANTIC CLOSURE Howard H. Pattee Abstract: A theory of emergent or open-ended evolution that is consistent with the epistemological foundations of physical theory and the logic of self-reference requires complementary descriptions of the material and symbolic aspects of events. The matter-symbol complementarity is explained in terms of the logic of self-replication, and physical distinction of laws and initial conditions. Physical laws and natural selection are complementary models of events. Physical laws describe those invariant events over which organisms have no control. Evolution by natural selection is a theory of how organisms increase their control over events. A necessary semantic closure relation is defined relating the material and symbolic aspects of organisms capable of open-ended evolution. 1. What is self-reference? Self-reference has many meanings. In symbol systems, like logic and language, self-reference may lead to well-known ambiguities and apparent paradoxes as in, "This sentence is false." In material systems, like molecules and machines, self-reference is not clearly defined but may describe causal loops such as autocatalytic cycles, feedback controls, and oscillators. At the cognitive level, self-reference occurs in introspection and is often considered one aspect of consciousness. I define a specific form of self-reference that applies to a closure relation between both the material and the symbolic aspects of organisms. I argue that this view of self-reference is necessary to understand open-ended evolution, development, and learning at all levels of organization from the origin of life to the cognitive level. This is not an entirely new view, but is an elaboration and integration of ideas from several well-established areas of physics, logic, computation theory, molecular biology, and evolution theory. To state my position as briefly as possible, self-reference that has open-ended evolutionary potential is an autonomous closure between the dynamics (physical laws) of the material aspects and the constraints (syntactic rules) of the symbolic aspects of a physical organization. I have called this self-referent relation semantic closure (Pattee, 1982) because only by virtue of the freely selected symbolic aspects of matter do the law-determined physical aspects of matter become functional (i.e., have survival value, goals, significance, meaning, self-awareness, etc.). Semantic closure requires complementary models of the material and symbolic aspects of the organism. This brief statement requires much more elaboration. I have emphasized in many papers (e.g., Pattee, 1969, 1972, 1982) that the matter-symbol distinction is not only an objective basis for defining life but a necessary condition for open-ended evolution. My reasoning is based not only on biological facts but on the principled epistemic requirements of physical theory. In other words, I require that models of living systems must be epistemologically consistent with physical and logical principles. It is well known that replication and evolution depend crucially on how the material behavior of the organism is influenced by symbolic memory. Biologists call this matter-symbol distinction the phenotype and genotype. Computationalists call this the hardware-software distinction. Philosophers elevate this distinction to the brain-mind problem. What is not as well known is that even in the formulation of physical theories a form of matter-symbol distinction is necessary to separate laws and initial conditions. I will explain this further in Sec. 4. The logical necessity of this matter-symbol complementarity was first recognized by von Neumann (1966) in his discussion of self-replicating automata that are capable of creating more and more complicated automata. This is often called emergent evolution. Von Neumann noted that in normal usages matter and symbol are categorically distinct, i.e., neurons generate pulses, but the pulses are not in the same category as neurons; computers generate bits, but bits are not in the same category as computers, measuring devices produce numbers, but numbers are not in the same category as devices, etc. He pointed out that normally the hardware machine designed to output symbols cannot construct another machine, and that a machine designed to construct hardware cannot output a symbol. This was a simple observation about actual machines and the use of natural language, not an ontological or dualistic assertion. Von Neumann also observed that there is a "completely decisive property of complexity," a threshold below which organizations degenerate and above which open-ended complication or emergent evolution is possible. Using a loose analogy with universal computation, he proposed that to reach this threshold requires a universal construction machine that can output any particular material machine according to a symbolic description of the machine. Self-replication would then be logically possible if the universal constructor is provided with its own description as well as means of copying and transmitting this description to the newly constructed machine. As in the case of the universal computing machine, to avoid the ambiguities of self-reference, logic requires the categorical distinction between a machine and a description of a machine. This logic does not differ if the machine is a material machine or only a formal machine. To avoid the ambiguities of self-reference requires two logical types or categories. This is the logical basis of the symbol-matter distinction. It is significant that his so-called kinetic model required primitive parts with both symbolic functions (i.e., logic functions) and material functions (e.g., cutting, moving, etc.). I will discuss this argument in Sec. 9. Von Neumann made no suggestion as to how these symbolic and material functions could have originated. He felt, "That they should occur in the world at all is a miracle of the first magnitude." This is the origin of life problem. 2. What is matter? For my argument here, I will mean by matter and energy those aspects of our experience that are normally associated with physical laws. These laws describe those events that are as independent of the observer as possible, i.e., independent of initial conditions. The laws themselves are moot until we provide the initial conditions by a process of measurement. Laws and measurements are necessarily distinct categories. Laws do not make measurements, individuals make measurements. Measurement is an intentional act that has local significance and hence involves symbolic aspects usually in the form of a numerical record. This is the physical basis of the matter-symbol distinction. I elaborate on this in Sec. 5. This well-established distinction between the physical and symbolic aspects matter we have no trouble recognizing in practice. Whether one is a material reductionist or a formalist, in practice we rarely have difficulty distinguishing our descriptions of matter using physical laws and our descriptions of symbols using syntactical rules and programs. Also, we all know the difference between formulating theories, constructing instruments, making measurements, and computing. The difficulty begins when we try to describe how these complementary material and symbolic aspects are related. Traditional philosophy sees this relation as the problem of reference, or how symbols come to stand for material structures (e.g., Whitehead, 1927; Cassirer, 1957; Harnad, 1990). I have always found the complementary question of how material structures ever came to be symbolic much more fundamental. From the origin of life and evolutionary perspective the most difficult problem is how material structures following physical laws with no function or significance were gradually harnessed by syntactical rules to provide function and significance as symbols (e.g., Pattee, 1969; 1992). I will not say much more about the origin problem here. For several reasons, one of which is its difficulty, the origin of symbols is not considered one of the central problems in any area of philosophy or science. Another reason is that for most scientific models it is not necessary to know the nature or origin of symbols. Natural language, logic, mathematical symbol systems, and computers are most commonly treated simply as well- developed tools, and for most models there is no need to ask how they originated. – HH Pattee 2001 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Semantic closure is the physical state of the system that enables it to begin functioning and to persist over time. It rests on the observed reality that, in order to function, the system must successfully specify itself as well as specify how to successfully interpret its specification. In short, semantic closure requires the simultaneous coordination (relation) between a) the physical state of the sequences that specify the constituents of the process, with b) the physical state of the sequences that specify the interpretive constraints, and c) inexorable law -- i.e. that whatever products result from those iterations of sequences must have the physical properties required to cause them to read the sequences, produce the products, make a copy of the descriptions, and provide it to the next generation along with a set of its interpretive constraints. If this coherence does not exist, the system cannot begin to function and cannot persist over time. The nature of issue should be evident.Upright BiPed_{May 25, 2020
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UB @83, Excellent summary! Thanks. BTW, did you mean "decent" in the below statement? A bunch of “descent and intellectually honest” people have pretty much confirmed that symbolic representations are a real, and indeed, context-dependent part of physical reality.jawa_{May 23, 2020
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As I have said, if I had the $$$ my lab would be working on the questions raised by immaterial information- as in what else is there to living organisms that physics and chemistry cannot account for? We would follow Venter's lead by synthesizing parts to see what works and what doesn't. I have a feeling we will find something in the charges and forces of the macromolecules involved as to how the interaction plays out and how it is stored.ET_{May 23, 2020
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ET: No harm, no foul. And thank you for continuing to point out several possible research questions that arise from the Design inference. Cool. I will keep trying to hold your feet to the fire of course!!JVL_{May 23, 2020
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JVL- No harm, no foul. And thank you for continuing to point out several possible research questions that arise from the Design inference.ET_{May 23, 2020
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ET: I must apologise, rereading my comments to you I feel that I traipsed into rudeness which I am trying hard to avoid. Sadly, I'm still a dopey human being that makes mistakes sometimes. We've gone over all this ground many times and we're heading down a well-worn path. So I think I'll let it drop for the time being.JVL_{May 23, 2020
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Upright BiPed: I must sincerely thank you for taking the time to respond so fully. I would like to read it carefully and think about how to respond respectfully and meaningfully. So if you don't hear from me on this matter for a while it's because you've given me a lot to chew on as it were. Again, I really appreciate your effort and I do not want to ignore it.JVL_{May 23, 2020
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.
JVL at #79: You have not even acknowledged that I asked how someone could falsify your position.
Which position of mine are you referring to? Is it the position I hold about there being no semantic qualities (a capacity to specify something among alternatives) listed among the physical properties of matter? I suppose someone could just get a Periodic Table and point them out. Or, is it my position on Charles Sanders Pierce, who reasoned 160 years ago that anything serving as a medium to signify something among alternatives must necessarily be part of a larger triadic relationship (including a symbol vehicle, a referent, and an independent “interpretant” to establish what is being signified)? Well, I suppose they could just look it up and see if there was ever a scientist / philosopher / logician named C.S. Peirce, son of Benjamin Peirce (a founding father of the Department of Mathematics at Harvard) who began writing a general theory of signs back in the 1860s. Or, is it my position that Alan Turing exemplified the physical and logical necessity of Peircean interpretants in his programmable computing machine; in that he included a “table of transitions” to systematically establish the rules that would be necessary to translate the symbols on the machine’s tape? I suppose they could look it up in Wikiworld and find out whether or not it says Turing’s machine “manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a table of rules”. Or, is it my position that John Von Neumann used the structure of Alan Turing’s symbol processing machine to predict the fundamental physical and organizational requirements of an autonomous open-ended self-replicator? I suppose on this one they could look up the history of Von Neumann’s association with Turing and his work, or they could just cut to the chase and listen to Nobel Laureate Sydney Brenner’s words on the subject (the man who was advised of Crick and Watson’s discovery in DNA and travelled to Cambridge to meet them even before the first announcement of their discovery was published; the same Sydney Brenner who along with Crick experimentally established the triplet coding structure of the gene code). Brenner was unambiguously in Von Neumann’s court until he passed last year, even using von Neumann’s successful prediction to formulate what he called “Schrödinger‘s Fundamental Error” in his classic paper “What is Life?”. He clearly recognized that Turing’s machine preceded Von Neumann’s logic about open-ended automata. So, I defer to Brenner on the matter and stand ready to have my account falsified. Or is it my position that Francis Crick himself further exemplified and confirmed the reasoning of Peirce, Turing, and Von Neumann, i.e. his successful prediction of a separate set of adapter molecules to establish the gene code? A prediction which, by the way, was confirmed by Zamecnik and Hoagland in 1958, along with the fact that the association of anticodon-to-amino acid (establishing the genetic code) is indeed separate and dynamically independent of the codon-to-anticodon association. This organization, of course, allows the system to function as it does, enabling it with the physical freedom and capacity to specify itself, or any variation of itself, in a universe governed by unchanging and inexorable law. It is in fact Polanyi’s “harnessing of inanimate nature” and Von Neumann’s evolving “automata that are more complex and of higher potentialities” than the previous generation. Here again, I guess they could just go to the history and observations, and show that the systems in question don’t necessarily include one arrangement of matter to serve as a medium of specification and a second arrangement of matter to independently establish what is being specified. Frankly, on this count, I don’t really need to supply a method of falsification, I can assure you from personal experience that design critics have come up with their own attempts in the hundreds. Or, is it my position that physicist/biologist Howard Hunt Pattee, inspired by the physical capacities of the gene system, spent five decades carefully identifying and documenting the “Physics of Symbol Systems”, noting such things as the linear, one dimensional, rate-independent nature of the medium, the requirement of non-integral constraints to establish what is being specified in the system, the measurement problem, the epistemic cut, the complementarity required in physical descriptions of such systems, the fundamental requirement of semantic closure in biology, and so on. This of course includes the observation that the gene system and human language/mathematics are the only two physical systems to ever be described by science that exemplify these observations, to the exclusion of all other physical systems. Here again, they can simply go to the history and observations and do the work of showing Pattee incorrect in his dozens upon dozens of papers on the subject - which by the way, have become bedrock research to a great number of people with inter-related interests in symbol systems, ultimately conferring a great deal of respect for both he and his life’s work. I only add this last part because of the propensity of some folks on your side to denigrate and marginalize anyone who gets in the way, and I am hoping to perhaps counter that tendency upfront with the facts of the matter. Or, in fact!!! Is it my contention that when you touch something hot it is not heat that travels through your nerves to your brain, but is a biosemiotic representation of heat (a sensory signal), which upon reaching your brain, will then and there be interpreted as “hot”. I am probably way out over my skis on this, but I don’t know. Perhaps they could try sticking a temperature probe next to a nerve and see if it gets hot. If it gets hot I will immediately retract my position, but I really don’t think that will be necessary. A bunch of “descent and intellectually honest” people have pretty much confirmed that symbolic representations are a real, and indeed, context-dependent part of physical reality. It appears from the literature that they are required for life on earth to be specified among the many alternatives (as that Dawkins fella might say). Judging by what is clearly recorded in that literature, anyone wanting to falsify that conclusion will likely need to demonstrate semantic closure in an autonomous dissipative process; one that includes a set of objects serving as a specifying medium, and a second set of objects establishing what is being specified; as well as the capacity to read the medium, successfully produce its effects, and provide a copy of the description and a set of its interpretive constraints to the next generation. True falsification, of course, turns on semantic closure because it is the specific material condition that enables the system to persist over time, and is the only reason we are here to observe and measure it. That may sound like a steep hill for falsification, but you have to be realistic and view it in context, Firstly, forget semantic closure for a moment, no one on your side has even come close to establishing a rate-independent medium via a set of independent constraints, so no one is actually holding you to any high standards when it comes to producing physically-relevant evidence. The only reason to bring up semantic closure is in exchanges with folks like yourself who come here to argue against recorded science and history in order to prop up the respectability of their worldview, and would rather not be bothered with the science and history while doing so. For someone like yourself, you in particular, someone who glibly announces there is clearly and emphatically no evidence whatsoever of design in biology (while openly refusing to address that evidence), you’re likely to hear about semantic closure more than most.Upright BiPed_{May 22, 2020
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JVL:
Idle supposition on your part.
It's a fact.
You don’t understand it at all!
I understand cause-and-effect relationships quite well.
You cannot say anything about it.
Like what? Everything archaeologists say comes after many years, even centuries, of research. The SCIENCE of ID is in the detection and study of design in nature.
And you duck and dodge behind the excuse that your idea is not deterministic.
Wrong again. Just because we don't answer your irrelevant questions doesn't mean we are ducking and dodging.
When you can come up with something better that passes through the court system let me know.
We have something better. We have something that makes testable claims. And only a moron thinks that science needs to go through the court system. You don't have anything that passes the scientific system.
And if you haven’t got the courage to test the court system then why not?
Because only a moron thinks the courts can determine what is and isn't science. In Dover the judge was fooled by the lies and bluffs of the evos. That trial proved that the courts aren't the proper venue to determine scientific matters.ET_{May 22, 2020
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JVL, falsification is obvious as has been on the table for decades: provide credible observation of spontaneous origin of FSCO/I beyond 500 - 1,000 bits . On the statistics issue and formerly having seen many attempts, I am not holding my breath just as I do not expect to see a perpetuum mobile. KFkairosfocus_{May 22, 2020
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Folks, have you seriously considered the statistical foundations of the second law of thermodynamics? That which is logically and physically strictly possible can be so utterly implausible as to be appeal to repeated statistical miracle. Indeed, many things are not credibly observable on the gamut of the observed cosmos. That such huge fluctuations could be suggested as serious possibilities to explain ool etc speaks telling volumes. KFkairosfocus_{May 22, 2020
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Upright Biped: aaRS – Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetase alright. I will have a look at that. But . . . You have not even acknowledged that I asked how someone could falsify your position. I think it's fair for you to address that issue before I continue trying to answer your queries.JVL_{May 22, 2020
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. aaRS - Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetase From the RCSB Protein Database, funded by the National Science Foundation PDB 101:
Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases ensure that the proper amino acids are used to build proteins When a ribosome pairs a "CGC" tRNA with "GCG" codon, it expects to find an alanine carried by the tRNA. It has no way of checking; each tRNA is matched with its amino acid long before it reaches the ribosome. The match is made by a collection of remarkable enzymes, the aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases. These enzymes charge each tRNA with the proper amino acid, thus allowing each tRNA to make the proper translation from the genetic code of DNA into the amino acid code of proteins.
Upright BiPed_{May 22, 2020
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. oOO . . . (gee whiz, when Upright BiPed uses that acronym "aaRS", I wonder if he means the Administrative Action Records System, or the American Acne and Rosacea Society, or that cute little town in Denmark, or any of those funky gene-related references? I just don't understand!!!!)Upright BiPed_{May 22, 2020
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ET: You don’t have any idea whose living quarters were found. No one has found the quarrying and transportation tools. And to pull off such a feat they would have had to have a system of writing. Idle supposition on your part. Based on . . . What an ignorant thing to say. The design inference is based on our knowledge of cause-and-effect relationships. Nothing automatic about it. And you don’t know how any transition occurred. You don't understand it at all! You cannot say anything about it. And you duck and dodge behind the excuse that your idea is not deterministic. Which means you don't have to be able to explain things. I guess. That alone proves we shouldn’t be teaching it as science. It isn’t a testable premise. When you can come up with something better that passes through the court system let me know. And if you haven't got the courage to test the court system then why not?JVL_{May 22, 2020
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Upright Biped: I did not ask you about semiosis, JVL. You full-well know that DNA is the heritable memory in the cell, and you know full-well that aaRS are synthesized from that memory. I just searched for 'aaRS' . . . . I got lots of disparate hits. What are you saying it is? I am asking you a question of simple rudimentary logic: In order to synthesize an aaRS from memory, does it not require the presence of the memory. After searching for 'aaRS' I'm not even sure what it means. So I'm not prepared to answer the query. You refuse to answer this simple question because – like dominoes falling – it leads to necessary entailments of your position, and those entailments fundamentally damage the defense of your position . So your play is to keep pretending the question is about semiosis, and now, to see if you can change the landscape where I ignore your question about my potential to be wrong. It’s all strategic dissembling on your part, to avoid the physical and logical entailments of your position. As I said, its just as obvious as the nose on your face. I'm still trying to understand what you are asking! Especiall since searching for 'aaRS' was not clear. At this point (as can been seen in your last post) the answer to my question has become so transparently obvious that you cannot even afford to acknowledge that to make a ham sandwich requires you to have access to ham. This is the level of denial you are forced to play out. You are making assumptions that your view of how the biological systems behave and interact is clear and I'm wondering if that is true. AND you haven't answered my questions about whether or not your position is falsifiable. Perhaps I should start insisting.JVL_{May 22, 2020
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JVL:
We’ve found living quarters. We’ve found tools. They didn’t have a system of writing so that cannot be recovered (and would have limited their work to what could be observed and passed on through oral traditions).
You don't have any idea whose living quarters were found. No one has found the quarrying and transportation tools. And to pull off such a feat they would have had to have a system of writing.
Maybe, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen; you don’t automatically get a designer just because we don’t know how every transition occurred without intelligent intervention.
What an ignorant thing to say. The design inference is based on our knowledge of cause-and-effect relationships. Nothing automatic about it. And you don't know how any transition occurred.
I’m saying NOT knowing how unguided processes did it doesn’t mean they didn’t.
That alone proves we shouldn't be teaching it as science. It isn't a testable premise.ET_{May 22, 2020
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. More dissembling.
UB: To synthesize an aaRS from heritable memory requires the heritable memory, does it not JVL? JVL: I do not know UB: JVL, to synthesize an aaRS from heritable memory requires the heritable memory, does it not? JVL: I told you I didn’t know the answer to that. UB: Are you equally perplexed by common experience? To have fixed yourself a ham sandwich for lunch, would it entail that you had access to ham? How about changing a flat tire on your car. Would that entail that you had a car with a tire on it? JVL: I think I have already addressed your concerns: I have admitted that I do not understand the workings or implications of a semiotic system in the real world so that means I cannot answer your queries about that.
I did not ask you about semiosis, JVL. You full-well know that DNA is the heritable memory in the cell, and you know full-well that aaRS are synthesized from that memory. I am asking you a question of simple rudimentary logic: In order to synthesize an aaRS from memory, does it not require the presence of the memory. You refuse to answer this simple question because - like dominoes falling - it leads to necessary entailments of your position, and those entailments fundamentally damage the defense of your position . So your play is to keep pretending the question is about semiosis, and now, to see if you can change the landscape where I ignore your question about my potential to be wrong. It's all strategic dissembling on your part, to avoid the physical and logical entailments of your position. As I said, its just as obvious as the nose on your face. At this point (as can been seen in your last post) the answer to my question has become so transparently obvious that you cannot even afford to acknowledge that to make a ham sandwich requires you to have access to ham. This is the level of denial you are forced to play out.Upright BiPed_{May 22, 2020
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Martin_r: geologist-has-probably-figured-out-how-homing-pigeons-find-their-way-home PROBABLY…. GEOLOGISTS…. Fair enough, but my point was that homing pigeons are not always GPS perfect. They make mistakes sometimes. And I did suggest you provide a criterium for your characterisation of GPS quality navigation so that we could examine the evidence in lieu of your criterium. Are you interested? You don't have to be. Just asking. It would be interesting.JVL_{May 22, 2020
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JVL @66 geologist-has-probably-figured-out-how-homing-pigeons-find-their-way-home PROBABLY.... GEOLOGISTS....martin_r_{May 22, 2020
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Upright BiPed: Are you equally perplexed by common experience? To have fixed yourself a ham sandwich for snack, would it entail that you had access to ham? How about changing a flat tire on your car. Would that entail that you had a car with a tire on it? I think I have already addressed your concerns: I have admitted that I do not understand the workings or implications of a semiotic system in the real world so that means I cannot answer your queries about that. For some reason you continue to cast me as denying the facts. I think I've been very clear. And I have also been clear that I am influenced by the fact that a lot of other people who have studied semiotic systems disagree with your interpretation. In the meantime I have asked you if there is anyway you could be incorrect in your interpretation of how to apply the precepts of a semiotic system to biology and you have chosen not to reply. Does that mean you cannot see a way you are incorrect or that the answer to my query is obvious? I will keep answering the same question over and over again if you wish. But I might not do so quickly as I do have other demands on my time.JVL_{May 22, 2020
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. More dissembling. I asked this question:
UB: To synthesize an aaRS from heritable memory requires the heritable memory, does it not JVL? JVL: I do not know UB: JVL, to synthesize an aaRS from heritable memory requires the heritable memory, does it not? JVL: I told you I didn’t know the answer to that.
Are you equally perplexed by common experience? To have fixed yourself a ham sandwich for lunch, would it entail that you had access to ham? How about changing a flat tire on your car. Would that entail that you had a car with a tire on it?Upright BiPed_{May 22, 2020
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Upright BiPed: You are dissembling. The question I asked requires only a commitment to rationality. You already know this to be true. You also already know that to synthesize an aaRS from memory requires the presence of the memory. The reason you must pretend otherwise is to avoid the physical and logical entailments of your beliefs. It is a mind-numbing scene to see. I DON'T know that because I haven't studied semiotics as I have clearly stated. I could have just disagreed with you because I was trying to win but I'm being honest. You are trying to cast me as some kind of agent provocateur which I am not. I also know that a lot of other people who have studied semiotics and biology and logic disagree with you that it's not possible that DNA arose through strictly unguided processes. I have admitted I don't know and that I'd like to see what future research turns up. I am trying to be respectful of your position by not casting aspersions on your motives or beliefs. I have not said you are wrong. I have said I don't know. But that makes me some kind of denialist I guess. So, let me ask you a question (which I hope you'll answer): is there any way you might be wrong in your assessment of the genetic code in the way you interpret semiotics or the way you are applying the principles of semiotics? Any way at all? Remembering Karl Popper who said any scientific theory must be falsifiable.JVL_{May 22, 2020
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. #60
Let’s say I spent hours . . . days . . . maybe weeks trying to wrap my head around how semiotic systems work in theory and in application...
You are dissembling. The question I asked requires only a commitment to rationality. You already know this to be true. You also already know that to synthesize an aaRS from memory requires the presence of the memory. The reason you must pretend otherwise is to avoid the physical and logical entailments of your beliefs. It is a mind-numbing scene to see.Upright BiPed_{May 22, 2020
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A new theory explains why homing pigeons are so good at navigating back to their nests--and why sometimes they are not.
https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-01/geologist-has-probably-figured-out-how-homing-pigeons-find-their-way-home/ (actually, that article is seven years old. But it seems pigeons are not GPS-perfect) I have read other ideas of how bird navigation works and I know sometimes it does go wonky.JVL_{May 22, 2020
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Martin_r: are you saying, that pigeons don’t use GPS-level navigation ? Perhaps you'd like to define specifically what GPS-level navigation means then we can check to evidence to see if pigeons meet that standard.JVL_{May 22, 2020
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