Comment of the week

_{Denyse O'Leary

June 6, 2015

Intelligent Design}

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Science is a method, not a result, nor a being. “Science” doesn’t say anything. With highly politicised topics like this, it is not the data that tells the tale, but rather those flawed humans who may or may not appropriately report the data that tells the tale. There has been enough fraud discovered in academia alone, without systemic bias toward a given result, that to fail to question these results is a major failing on the part of anyone who takes them at face value. – tmosley

Comments

daveS:
I would suggest that’s an unfair constraint to put on God. Lots of important numbers are irrational, and there’s just no way around it, for us or for God.
The numbers are only irrational because we have came up with a math that forces us to use them. As far as constraining God, I don't see a problem with God coming up with a math that's better suited for many things than ours is.Carpathian_{June 10, 2015
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Carpathian: Whatever determines my mental processes has no determination on whether I believe them.
Is—under materialism—your "I" something distinct from the material processes that constitute it? I would say not: under materialism there are no mental processes—and no "I"—which are anything other than matter. So, whether you believe something or not is entirely determined by material processes.Box_{June 10, 2015
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Carpathian,
Anything with a divine origin cannot be allowed to mislead anyone. A divine relationship expressing what we call PI could not be allowed to be inaccurate otherwise what divine constructions could anyone trust? That is the reasoning behind my assertion that math is not divine and is instead the work of fallible beings like ourselves.
I would suggest that's an unfair constraint to put on God. Lots of important numbers are irrational, and there's just no way around it, for us or for God.daveS_{June 10, 2015
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BA77,
for the record, I completely disagree with DS.
Regarding what, specifically?daveS_{June 10, 2015
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kairosfocus:
Haldane: “It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true."
Why would this conclusion be reached? Whatever determines my mental processes has no determination on whether I believe them. This sort of argument is terribly flawed and I see it often on ID. The fact that something is not understood does not mean it is not true.Carpathian_{June 10, 2015
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for the record, I completely disagree with DS. And since he did not even begin to address the points I outlined on their own merit, but, basically, just stated his opinion as if it carried weight, I hold my personal disagreement with his opinion to be more than enough to refute his opinion. (pretending, of course, he has the free will necessary to form his own opinion) Do We Have Free Will? – Prager University – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDkLUBdvOkwbornagain77_{June 10, 2015
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Seversky
Was the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs and much other life on Earth intelligently designed? Was someone playing billiards with celestial bodies?
First of all if you say that God exists then He controls everything, even the asteroid impacts, we can say that God purposely created this event because it was the only way to have humans. Is the impact theory correct?
Scientists Challenge the “Chicxulub Crater” Theory - 2014 Until recently, most scientists agreed that the dinosaurs were wiped off the face of the Earth by a 10km-wide meteorite that smashed into the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, causing worldwide forest fires, tsunamis several kilometres high, and an ‘impact winter’ – in which dust blocked out the sun for months or years. It was thought that the dinosaurs were blasted, roasted and frozen to death, in that order. A group of scientists led by Prof Gerta Keller of Princeton and Prof Wolfgang Stinnesbeck of the University of Karlsruhe begged to differ. They uncovered a series of geological clues which suggests the truth may be far more complicated. In short, that the crater in the Yucatan is too old to have killed off the dinosaurs. http://www.theyucatantimes.com/2014/06/scientists-challenge-the-chicxulub-crater-theory/
Yoi also said
Were the bubonic plague or influenza epidemics that have killed millions intelligently designed? Are all the other the diseases and disorders that afflict humanity intelligently designed?
But diseases are not causeless, you seem to think that its not our fault when we have examples of plagues that were due to our stupidity such us the killing of the cats in the middle ages that ate the rats that carried diseases.
Science proceeds as if there is order and regularity in the Universe because that is what we observe and we wouldn’t be here, doing our observing (and designing) if it wasn’t.
That's the anthropic principle, it doesn't give an answer. Why there is order? Is it due to chance, physical necessity or design?
How and why all that order came about is still an unanswered question. It’s a gap where you can plug in whatever designer you like if that’s you fancy. But we need rather more than just faith to be persuaded that your personal designer exists and is The One.
Either it is due to chance, physical necessity or design, physical necessity and chance cannot give an answer therefor it is due to design. There is no fourth option. Physical Necessity Consider the first alternative, physical necessity. This alternative seems extraordinarily implausible because the constants and quantities are independent of the laws of nature. The laws of nature are consistent with a wide range of values for these constants and quantities. For example, the most promising candidate for a Theory of Everything (T.O.E.) to date, super-string theory or M-Theory, allows a “cosmic landscape” of around 10500 different universes governed by the present laws of nature, so that it does nothing to render the observed values of the constants and quantities physically necessary. Chance So what about the second alternative, that the fine-tuning is due to chance? The problem with this alternative is that the odds against the universe’s being life-permitting are so incomprehensibly great that they cannot be reasonably faced. In order to rescue the alternative of chance, its proponents have therefore been forced to adopt the hypothesis that there exists a sort of World Ensemble or multiverse of randomly ordered universes of which our universe is but a part. Now comes the key move: since observers can exist only in finely tuned worlds, of course we observe our universe to be fine-tuned! So this explanation of fine-tuning relies on (i) the existence of a specific type of World Ensemble and (ii) an observer self-selection effect. Now this explanation, wholly apart from objections to (i), faces a very formidable objection to (ii), namely, the Boltzmann Brain problem. In order to be observable the entire universe need not be fine-tuned for our existence. Indeed, it is vastly more probable that a random fluctuation of mass-energy would yield a universe dominated by Boltzmann Brain observers than one dominated by ordinary observers like ourselves. In other words, the observer self-selection effect is explanatorily vacuous. As Robin Collins has noted, what needs to be explained is not just intelligent life, but embodied, interactive, intelligent agents like ourselves.[21] Appeal to an observer self-selection effect accomplishes nothing because there’s no reason whatever to think that most observable worlds or the most probable observable worlds are worlds in which that kind of observer exists. Indeed, the opposite appears to be true: most observable worlds will be Boltzmann Brain worlds. Since we presumably are not Boltzmann Brains, that fact strongly disconfirms a naturalistic World Ensemble or multiverse hypothesis.
And however much WJM and others try to dismiss it, all the benefits of modern science and technology that we all enjoy to some degree are based on materialistic assumptions. They were not prayed into existence, they are the product of a lot of dogged, often plodding, research.An aircraft doesn’t fly because the designers and engineers that built it had faith that a god, like some celestial Captain Jean-Luc Picard, would “make it so”. It flies because a lot of intelligent people took a lot of time and trouble to discover the physical properties of gravity, air, metals, plastics, glass, electricity and magnetism that allow it to fly.
No, they are based in the fact that we have consciousness and consciousness precedes materialism and for that reason we can understand the laws, we look at the Universe from another perspective. If Consciousness didn't precede material reality we wouldn't be able to make all these discoveries. You don't know that you are inside a circle until you stand outside of the circle. The material reality the laws and everything are inside the circle, our consciousness lays outside the circle.JimFit_{June 10, 2015
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Carpathian: Strawman, likely driven by hostility to theism. First, What I have done is to identify Mathematics as a discipline that studies the logic of structure and quantity. Where, structure and quantity are key features of this world and in key cases, any world. I doubt you will dispute that. For, then you will be in deep trouble with the physical sciences and their mathematical nature. In that context, I point out that the features of that logic are often discovered rather than invented. And I laid out exhibit A: 0 = 1 + e^i*pi as an exhibit that shows the surprising unity and power of Mathematics in the face of the diversity of the observed cosmos. In turn, that points to the real domain of challenge, one of the foundational hard questions of a discipline that can be defined as that field that studies hard, deep questions, philosophy. Namely, the literally starting question in phil as a discipline: the problem of the one and the many. How do we find unity and diversity that is at least in key part intelligible, in a world of such diversity, which is a cosmos not a chaos? One serious answer is, that the world reflects a root mind, a powerfully logical root mind. You are free to reject that, but then you need to put up an answer that addresses the comparative difficulties challenge: factual adequacy, coherence and balanced elegant explanatory power that is neither simplistic nor an ad hoc patch-work. One thing that is easily shown to be a non starter -- never mind the lab coats or the claim to be the epitome of reason -- is evolutionary materialist scientism. It is self referential, and incoherent so self-falsifying. If you disagree, simply answer solidly to the point long since put up by Haldane:
"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” [["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209. ]
One last point, it is not about proof and it is not a question in Mathematics that you in the end face. For, take P1, P2, . . . Pn => Q If you don't like Q you can always find some story as to why you object to Pi etc, and so you dispute the argument. But then, you are sitting at the table of comparative difficulties now. The hard question is on the table. What is your alternative, and how does it fare in the face of comparative difficulties, why? That tends to put a very different colour on the matter. So, the ball is now in your court. Your answer is: _________ ? Why that answer? KFkairosfocus_{June 10, 2015
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daveS:
I would dispute that, depending on what you mean by “finite”. I don’t see any reason why a divine mathematics would have to satisfy this condition.
Anything with a divine origin cannot be allowed to mislead anyone. A divine relationship expressing what we call PI could not be allowed to be inaccurate otherwise what divine constructions could anyone trust? That is the reasoning behind my assertion that math is not divine and is instead the work of fallible beings like ourselves.Carpathian_{June 10, 2015
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daveS:
I’m not sure what you mean by “finite” here. Are you referring to the fact that it is irrational?
Yes.
Note that I don’t believe that mathematics is a divine creation, however.
Agreed.Carpathian_{June 10, 2015
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Folks, a WP bug, my login expired without notice and a comment vanished. KFkairosfocus_{June 10, 2015
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Gentlemen, A very good thread indeed. I like such discussions a lot, it makes us look out of the ordinary.EugeneS_{June 10, 2015
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KF,
DS, transferring -1 from one side to the next is not an artificial trick, it is drawing out and making explicit a direct implication that is particularly striking. KF
Well, you can then do the same thing with any quantity that equals -1, thus introducing 1 and 0 into the equation.daveS_{June 10, 2015
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Carpathian,
Why would an advanced civilization use math in the same way we do? Would they use base 10?
Probably not.
If our number system was base 13, or 17, or 19, etc., would we see different relationships?
I wouldn't make any difference to Euler's formula. It wouldn't change any of the relationships between real or complex numbers, certainly.
We use numbers to express magnitudes and then we try and apply that concept of magnitudes to mathematical relationships that would be better implemented with a different tool. For instance, if I show you a circle, there is no one on the planet that can give me an exact relationship between the circumference and the diameter. Clearly, the circle is not infinite and neither is the diameter. Why don’t we have a finite number to express that relationship? My answer is that our math lacks that capability.
I'm not sure what you mean by "finite" here. Are you referring to the fact that it is irrational?
If math was divine in origin, we should have “discovered” that by now.
I would dispute that, depending on what you mean by "finite". I don't see any reason why a divine mathematics would have to satisfy this condition. Note that I don't believe that mathematics is a divine creation, however.daveS_{June 10, 2015
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Silver Asiatic, According to kairosfocus and bornagain77, math is elegant and points to a divine mind.
Silver Asiatic: Where did you learn about the nature and creative expressions of God? Just curious. I’m not sure what you’re referencing when you expect that things with a divine origin should have certain characteristics.
If God doesn't make mistakes, why would a divine math have them? If math is divine, why would it have errors? Here is the background to your question:
Carpathian: Clearly, the circle is not infinite and neither is the diameter. Why don’t we have a finite number to express that relationship?
If math was of divine origin, the answer to this would exist in "discovered" math. It doesn't and that is strong evidence that math is not "divine" in origin, but instead comes from the minds of fallible humans.Carpathian_{June 10, 2015
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SA: The past came into existence with the first humans? You asked when the concept of the past was invented.velikovskys_{June 10, 2015
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Carpathian
If math was divine in origin, we should have “discovered” that by now.
Where did you learn about the nature and creative expressions of God? Just curious. I'm not sure what you're referencing when you expect that things with a divine origin should have certain characteristics.Silver Asiatic_{June 10, 2015
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Silver Asiatic: Which human beings invented the concept of the past? velikovskys: The first humans with a memory
The past came into existence with the first humans?Silver Asiatic_{June 10, 2015
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DS, transferring -1 from one side to the next is not an artificial trick, it is drawing out and making explicit a direct implication that is particularly striking. KFkairosfocus_{June 10, 2015
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daveS:
I don’t believe it’s trivial and arbitrary, in fact. I disagree with Carpathian here. I wouldn’t be surprised if every sufficiently advanced civilization was aware of Euler’s formula.
Why would an advanced civilization use math in the same way we do? Would they use base 10? If our number system was base 13, or 17, or 19, etc., would we see different relationships? It makes no sense to project our numbering system onto another society assuming it is the best one. The same goes for the use of numbers. We use numbers to express magnitudes and then we try and apply that concept of magnitudes to mathematical relationships that would be better implemented with a different tool. For instance, if I show you a circle, there is no one on the planet that can give me an exact relationship between the circumference and the diameter. Clearly, the circle is not infinite and neither is the diameter. Why don't we have a finite number to express that relationship? My answer is that our math lacks that capability. If math was divine in origin, we should have "discovered" that by now. If however math was our invention, then the fact that it fails in some regard, would be expected.Carpathian_{June 10, 2015
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velikovskys:
Silver Asiatic: Which human beings invented the concept of the past? velikovskys: The first humans with a memory
Yes!Carpathian_{June 10, 2015
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Silver Asiatic:
Who invented time? Measurements of time are the concepts of past, present and future.
Time is not an "invention" but rather a result of the Big Bang. "Measuring" time is something that humans and other creatures do.
Which human beings invented the concept of the past?
I don't know what you're asking here. Are you asking for a religious, social or tribal origin of the first recorded use of the term "past"? I have no answer to that.Carpathian_{June 10, 2015
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Sa: Who invented time? When did time not exist? Measurements of time are the concepts of past, present and future. Which human beings invented the concept of the past? The first humans with a memoryvelikovskys_{June 10, 2015
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bornagain77:
Since math is evidence that man has a mind, then it is also evidence of a divine Mind being behind math:
There is no logical connection there. Man has a mind because man has a brain. There is no need for divinity. You are using your conclusion of divinity as evidence of divinity. That is circular reasoning.Carpathian_{June 10, 2015
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Mung:
Carpathian, I don’t see a debate. What I see is you making claims you’re unwilling to actually defend.
The debate is about ID and I don't see you being serious about it. Read the following:
Like your claim that there is non-physical “stuff” going on in the cell or in computer communication. Like your claim that mathematics is a subjective invention, like unicorns and the tooth fairy.
Your statements are meant to ridicule the messenger instead of contesting a statement. That means you've run out of serious responses.Carpathian_{June 10, 2015
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BA77,
Since math is evidence that man has a mind, then it is also evidence of a divine Mind being behind math:
Consider:
Since X is evidence that man has a mind, then it is also evidence of a divine Mind being behind X.
Is this statement true for all X? I hope not.daveS_{June 10, 2015
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A few more notes on Godel's incompleteness: 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 A Biblical View of Mathematics - Vern Poythress - doctorate in theology, PhD in Mathematics (Harvard) Excerpt: only on a thoroughgoing Biblical basis can one genuinely understand and affirm the real agreement about mathematical truths. http://www.theologynetwork.org/theology-of-everything/going-on/a-biblical-view-of-mathematics.htm 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 (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.” 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-mathematiciansbornagain77_{June 10, 2015
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Since math is evidence that man has a mind, then it is also evidence of a divine Mind being behind math: Kurt Gödel - Incompleteness Theorem – video https://vimeo.com/92387853 Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing - Incompleteness Theorem and Human Intuition - video https://vimeo.com/92387854 "Either mathematics is too big for the human mind or the human mind is more than a machine" Kurt Gödel Kurt Gödel published On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems (1931), showing that in any sufficiently strong axiomatic system there are true statements which cannot be proved in the system. This topic was further developed in the 1930s by Alonzo Church and Alan Turing, who on the one hand gave two independent but equivalent definitions of computability, and on the other gave concrete examples for undecidable questions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_theorem_proving The Limits Of Reason – Gregory Chaitin – 2006 Excerpt: Unlike Gödel’s approach, mine is based on measuring information and showing that some mathematical facts cannot be compressed into a theory because they are too complicated. This new approach suggests that what Gödel discovered was just the tip of the iceberg: 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 The mathematical world - James Franklin - 7 April 2014 Excerpt: the intellect (is) immaterial and immortal. If today’s naturalists do not wish to agree with that, there is a challenge for them. ‘Don’t tell me, show me’: build an artificial intelligence system that imitates genuine mathematical insight. There seem to be no promising plans on the drawing board.,,, James Franklin is professor of mathematics at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. http://aeon.co/magazine/world-views/what-is-left-for-mathematics-to-be-about/ The danger of artificial stupidity - Saturday, 28 February 2015 "Computers lack mathematical insight: in his book The Emperor’s New Mind, the Oxford mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose deployed Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem to argue that, in general, the way mathematicians provide their “unassailable demonstrations” of the truth of certain mathematical assertions is fundamentally non-algorithmic and non-computational" http://machineslikeus.com/news/danger-artificial-stupidity Mathematical Model Of Consciousness Proves Human Experience Cannot Be Modelled On A Computer - May 2014 Excerpt: The central part of their new work is to describe the mathematical properties of a system that can store integrated information in this way but without it leaking away. And this leads them to their central proof. “The implications of this proof are that we have to abandon either the idea that people enjoy genuinely [integrated] consciousness or that brain processes can be modelled computationally,” say Maguire and co. Since Tononi’s main assumption is that consciousness is the experience of integrated information, it is the second idea that must be abandoned: brain processes cannot be modelled computationally. https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/mathematical-model-of-consciousness-proves-human-experience-cannot-be-modelled-on-a-computer-898b104158d Consciousness Does Not Compute (and Never Will), Says Korean Scientist - May 05, 2015 Excerpt: "Non-computability of Consciousness" documents Song's quantum computer research into TS (technological singularity (TS) or strong artificial intelligence). Song was able to show that in certain situations, a conscious state can be precisely and fully represented in mathematical terms, in much the same manner as an atom or electron can be fully described mathematically. That's important, because the neurobiological and computational approaches to brain research have only ever been able to provide approximations at best. In representing consciousness mathematically, Song shows that consciousness is not compatible with a machine. Song's work also shows consciousness is not like other physical systems like neurons, atoms or galaxies. "If consciousness cannot be represented in the same way all other physical systems are represented, it may not be something that arises out of a physical system like the brain," said Song. "The brain and consciousness are linked together, but the brain does not produce consciousness. Consciousness is something altogether different and separate. The math doesn't lie." Of note: Daegene Song obtained his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Oxford http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/consciousness-does-not-compute-and-never-will-says-korean-scientist-300077306.html of related note: Conservation of information, evolution, etc - Sept. 30, 2014 Excerpt: Kurt Gödel’s logical objection to Darwinian evolution: "The formation in geological time of the human body by the laws of physics (or any other laws of similar nature), starting from a random distribution of elementary particles and the field is as unlikely as the separation of the atmosphere into its components. The complexity of the living things has to be present within the material [from which they are derived] or in the laws [governing their formation]." As quoted in H. Wang. “On `computabilism’ and physicalism: Some Problems.” in Nature’s Imagination, J. Cornwall, Ed, pp.161-189, Oxford University Press (1995). Gödel’s argument is that if evolution is unfolding from an initial state by mathematical laws of physics, it cannot generate any information not inherent from the start – and in his view, neither the primaeval environment nor the laws are information-rich enough.,, More recently this led him (Dembski) to postulate a Law of Conservation of Information, or actually to consolidate the idea, first put forward by Nobel-prizewinner Peter Medawar in the 1980s. Medawar had shown, as others before him, that in mathematical and computational operations, no new information can be created, but new findings are always implicit in the original starting points – laws and axioms. http://potiphar.jongarvey.co.uk/2014/09/30/conservation-of-information-evolution-etc/bornagain77_{June 10, 2015
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Carpathian
I can use a man-made invention to measure time, but that doesn’t mean I invented time, it means that I invented a clock.
Who invented time? Measurements of time are the concepts of past, present and future. Which human beings invented the concept of the past?Silver Asiatic_{June 10, 2015
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Carpathian
We have invented every single mathematical concept that exists.
Evidence please. I gave you one example. The concept >1. Please explain.Silver Asiatic_{June 10, 2015
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