Intelligent Design Uncensored hot off the press

_{William Dembski

May 3, 2010

Intelligent Design}

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My newest book, Intelligent Design Uncensored, co-authored with Jonathan Witt, is now available. You can purchase it here at Amazon.com. It provides a nice overview of the scientific issues at stake but then also deals with the cultural spillover as it relates to both the theistic and atheistic evolutionists.

Comments

JT @ 209 "valid english words can be built up incrementally – e.g. go got goth gath gate grate grates gratis. Sentences can be built up incrementally like this as well, if the only restriction is valid english sentences." What is the prerequisite for building up valid English words and sentences?tgpeeler_{May 23, 2010
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F/N: one may communicate without a language (e.g. a scream of pain or fear) but cannot communicate verbally without symbols and rules that make them meaningful.kairosfocus_{May 23, 2010
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KF-san, Are you taking the position that the ribsome could not have evolved?Nakashima_{May 23, 2010
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Further Footnote: Merkle from Xerox PARC has an interesting observation on Ribosomes in context:
We can view a ribosome as a degenerate case of [a Drexler] assembler [i.e. a molecular scale von Neumann-style replicator]. The ribosome is present in essentially all living systems . . . It is programmable, in the sense that it reads input from a strand of messenger RNA (mRNA) which encodes the protein to be built. Its "positional device" can grasp and hold an amino acid in a fixed position (more accurately, the mRNA in the ribosome selects a specific transfer RNA, which in its turn was bound to a specific amino acid by a specific enzyme). The one operation available in the "well defined set of chemical reactions" is the ability to make a peptide bond [NB: This works by successively “nudging” the amino acid-armed tip of the codon- matched tRNA in the ribosome's A site to couple to the amino acid tip of the preceding tRNA (now in the P site) and ratcheting the mRNA forward; thus elongating the protein's amino acid chain step by step] . . . . [T]he ribosome functions correctly only in a specific kind of environment. There must be energy provided in the form of ATP; there must be information provided in the form of strands of mRNA; there must be compounds such as amino acids; etc. etc. If the ribosome is removed from this environment it ceases to function. [Self Replicating Systems and Molecular Manufacturing, Xerox PARC, 1992. (Parentheses, emphases and links added. Notice as well how the concept of functionally specific complex information naturally emerges from Merkle's discussion.)]
And, we note that he utility of proteins is still some steps downstream. GEM of TKI PS: TGP, it is indeed all about definable collections aka sets. And, invalid syllogisms tend to get in trouble over overlapping sets that are not proper sets, and about ambiguities on membership. The Mafia are Italian, Tony is Italian, Tony is a mafioso fails to recall that some Italians -- by far and away most -- are not. But often, once a pall of suspicion is cast, it poisons the atmosphere by appeal to prejudice or slander.kairosfocus_{May 23, 2010
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kf @ 234 "As I showed in 225, point 1, syllogisms are actually linked claims about sets and membership in sets. That is what derives their logic. And that is why meaning is so important in syllogistic arguments — you have to show the connexions between sets." No argument here. :-)tgpeeler_{May 22, 2010
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Warehuff, in response to this quote on mine: “Warehuff since the detector is effectively removed as the cause of the wave collapse in this experiment, your “belief” is falsified:” you state this: "The heck it is! The only way the detector can detect the position of the particle is by interacting with the particle at once place and THAT destroys the wave function. If you cancel the detection out later, you restore the wave function." Warehuff you seem to be having a extremely hard time grasping the beauty of what is going on in the quantum erasure experiment so I will try to make it a little clearer: To explain an event which defies time and space, as the quantum erasure experiment clearly does, you cannot appeal to any material entity like the detector or any other part of the physical/material experiment which is itself constrained by time and space. To give an adequate explanation for a event that defies time and space one is forced to appeal to a entity which is itself not confined by time or space. The experiment is straightforward in its implications warehuff. If you want to make up fantasies of infinite parallel universes, or whatever, to explain the "supernatural" actions witnessed in the double slit experiment as others have before you, just so to avoid the obvious Theistic implications of the experiment, go ahead I really don't care. But at the very least pleaser realize that you are not even batting in the right ballpark right now by trying to find a material solution to a "supernatural" problem.bornagain77_{May 22, 2010
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Footnotes: 1] TGP, re JT at 223 on why a syllogism works. As I showed in 225, point 1, syllogisms are actually linked claims about sets and membership in sets. That is what derives their logic. And that is why meaning is so important in syllogistic arguments -- you have to show the connexions between sets. Socrates is a man, claims that there is a set men [M], of which Socrates [s] is a member. All men [M] are mortal [D], says that the set of men is a subset of the set of mortals. So, any member of M will by transitivity be a member of D also. It therefore follows that s e M is also s e D. Going on to the implication argument, such arguments also have the form (A AND B) => Q, where Q is the consequent and (A AND B) is the compound antecedent, which specifies a sufficient condition for Q to be true. Also, Q is necessary for (A AND B) to be true. If you do the truth table or work out the Boolean Algebra, you will see that the just above statement is equivalent to: A => Q AND/OR B => Q That is, it reveals that on implication the sufficiency requires that one or both of A and B are sufficient for Q. It turns out -- I was puzzled when I first saw this 25 years ago -- that this is linked to how the propositions A and B are meaningfully related. Men are mortal because of a meaningful reason we access though our understanding of the world. So if Socrates is -- per observation -- a man, he will be at least potentially mortal. Similarly, once Socrates is a man, that has the import that he can die. Thus, the syllogistic argument depends on our understanding of our world, and in the end on the reliability of experience based knowledge and insight, i.e logic is not a substitute for wisdom and common good sense. In that context, we see the relevance of the need to have a warranted, credible truth anchor for our worldviews, and the need to be willing to abandon that which is absurd. At least if we want to have open, critically aware minds that follow the truth where it leads. [And there is indeed an allusion to Rom 2:5 - 8 there.] Which is the root problem with -- too often militantly closed minded -- evolutionary materialism. 2] WH, 227: The von Neumann replicator is not needed at the OOL, so you can stop referring to it from now on, at least with respect to the OOL. Now you’re arguing that Darwinian evolution can’t go from the original replicator to modern life. I need to underscore just how strawmannish, arrogantly dismissive and willfully misleading this assertion is. The imaginary RNA world or metabolism first clay surface world or other scenarios have never been observed. They are wholly speculative, thus constitute metaphysical speculations, not science. Further, they are based on what Orgel and Shapiro, by mutually destructive comments [as I have excerpted in the very comment 147 that WH is ostensibly replying to!], have shown is utterly implausible chemistry scenarios in the context of pre-biotic environments. First, let us note what I said in the opening words in 147, highlighting to make the point WH overlooks or suppresses very clear:
The vNR is indeed not the simplest way to self-replicate [which was never proposed]. It logically defines a mechanism and requisites, that makes a machine capable of doing something real, to also replicate itself. Autocatalytic molecules and reagents and the like, of course fall through the problem of functioning as life forms that have metabolism driven action and interaction in an environment, and the related trap of THEN innovating a de novo language based irreducibly complex self-replication system, on autiocatalysis.
In short, the hypothetical self-replicating molecules -- and the overstrained cases of RNA self replication in the lab depend on carefully constructed components with highly intelligently constructed sequences, as well as being more splicing of halves than real self replication from monomers -- FAIL to fit the bill of "functioning as life forms." Again, I must emphasise: we have observed exactly one type of biological life: cells, based on carbon chemistry. (Viruses, being dependent on the replicating machinery of the cell, simply don't count.) So, when we refer to the origin of LIFE, it refers to the sort of life that is observationally confirmed. (Let me spell it out: One cannot properly smuggle in a conveniently question-begging definition that a self-replicating molecule is "life" then propose a pigs could fly chemistry just so story to then claim that the problem of OOL has been "solved" and that the issue of accounting for the OBSERVED von Neumann replicator in life forms is now irrelevant and should be dropped. For shame!) Hypothetical pre-life replicators are not life unless it can be empirically shown that they (a) exist, (b) come about spontaneously in reasonable pre-biotic environments, and (c) exhibit sufficient family resemblance to observed life to receive the same recognised status. Citing Wiki -- as per usual a s a damaging admission against interest -- on (c), the defining characteristics of life:
Life (cf. biota) is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes (biology) from those that do not,[1][2] either because such functions have ceased (death), or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate.[3] In biology, the science of living organisms, life is the condition which distinguishes active organisms from inorganic matter.[4] Living organisms undergo metabolism, maintain homeostasis, possess a capacity to grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce and, through natural selection, adapt to their environment in successive generations.
To make the point of "metabolism" clear, let us further excerpt from the Wiki article on Life, as it defines:
Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
Of course, the required key components in observed life forms are based on complex, information-rich molecules, and are assembled step by step in highly controlled digitally driven processes and nanomachines such as the ribosome. All of this simply underscores the force of the irreducibly complex von Neumann replicator as the means by which life forms replicate cells:
(i) an underlying code to record/store the required information and to guide procedures for using it, (ii) a coded blueprint/tape record of such specifications and (explicit or implicit) instructions, together with (iii) a tape reader that reads and interprets the coded specifications and associated instructions, and (iv) implementing machines (and associated organisation and procedures) to carry out the specified replication (including that of the constructor itself); backed up by (v) either: (1) a pre-existing reservoir of required parts and energy sources, or (2) associated “metabolic” machines carrying out activities that provide required specific materials and forms of energy by using the generic resources in the surrounding environment.
This vNR is plainly irreducibly complex and based on creation of a coding language, algorithms, programs to effect same, and machines to physically instantiate, all of which have to be functionally integrated in a viable whole, all at once. THAT IS WHAT HAS TO BE EXPLAINED, and that is what has been evaded by resort to distractive strawmen, pigs could fly chemistry and just so stories about a hypothetical replicator world. Just so stories whose principal virtue is that once implicit evolutionary materialism is accepted as the criterion of doing "science," they make for plausible reading and persuasion. WH needs to know that setting up and knocking over question-begging and distractive strawmen both shows the fundamental weakness of he evolutionary materialist case, and exemplifies the rhetorical tactics that are so often used to make what is fundamentally weak seem plausible to the naive. If you have a serious case on the merits, you do not need distractive strawmen. So, WH, please tell us how your pre-life world came to be in credible pre-biotic environments, with what observational support that warrants so strong a claim. Then tell us how these replicators converted themselves into the metabolising, von Neumann replicator using cells that use the genetic code and organised nanomachines that we see. Again, with empirical support that warrants the claim that undirected chance and mechanical forces acting in credible pre-biotic environments that one gets to through a reasonable cosmology, spontaneously threw them up. [And if that cosmology exhibits fine tuning, it would be helpful if that could also be explained.] I note that this very week, Craig Venter and associates have announced that they synthesized a functioning genome, albeit by copying existing ones. So we have direct empirical support for the idea that design can make functional components of life and integrate them into a functional framework. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{May 22, 2010
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JT @ 223 "But why does it follow from “all men are mortal” and “socrates is a man” then socrates is mortal. Someone try to explain that. You won’t be able to. Your explanation will be circular and self-referential and you will end up saying “its just self-evident”" Hi JT, on the contrary, I will be able to explain that. But first, the problems are: 1. We live in a finite universe. 2. We are not God. (Thus we suffer from the problem of induction. There is always one more fact.) Since we live in a finite universe, a universe of beginnings, let me suggest a good place to start as we look for explanations. At the beginning. This means First Principles. You seem to have some antipathy to things that are "self-evident." It also looks like you confuse "self-evident" with self-referential or circular. Aristotle discovered (he wasn't the first, he was predated by Moses and Isaiah, who were predated by God, but Aristotle generally gets the credit - go figure) first principles as he considered how we explain things. If we want to explain z, for example, we do so by reference to y. But now y requires explanation. And so on. Aristotle recognized that since an actual infinite regress is impossible in a finite universe, there must be a First reason or premise or principle in the explanatory chain. He rightly saw that these are self-evident, axiomatic, one might say. They do not admit of proof because nothing precedes them in any explanatory chain. They are first, after all. So by definition nothing can precede them or prove them. Anyone with a normally functioning intellect knows these principles self evidently. This is not being circular or self-referential. This is just being First. Being and Identity are the first. You exist and you are you. Nothing more need be said. Nothing more can be said. It follows that if you are you then you are not someone else, or "not you." This is called the law or principle of non-contradiction. Opposing truth claims (not different, opposing) cannot both be true. It also immediately is evident that a truth claim (I exist) is either true or it is not (is false). All truth claims, without exception, are either true or false. So how can something be "self-evident?" Here's how. Let's say "I exist." If I deny my existence, I demonstrate my existence because in order to deny my existence I must first exist. Here's another one. Reason is the sovereign authority in matters of truth. Think not? Then argue with me about it and you will be using the authority of reason to argue against the authority of reason. Or how about Truth? In our pluralistic, relativistic, post-Christian society it's popular to claim that absolute truth doesn't exist. But that's an absolute truth claim. So the original claim is necessarily false. It refutes itself. As I said, everyone with a normally functioning intellect knows these things. Some people obviously don't mind abusing them to promote an agenda other than seeking the truth. I like to refer to that as intellectual degeneracy. To the extent that one abandons or abuses reason one is intellectually degenerate. But I digress. Now to the categorical syllogism. I will tell you exactly how we KNOW it's true that Socrates is mortal. Major Premise: All men are mortal. (This is true by virtue of the fact that part of being a man is to be mortal.) Minor Premise: Socrates is a man. (This is an empirical truth. I just observed Socrates and he is, indeed, a man.) Conclusion: Socrates is mortal. (This is necessarily true. Not even God can make it not true. Here's why. In an argument like this, the major premise contains a general truth. The minor premise contains a particular truth THAT IS ALREADY ASSERTED IN THE MAJOR PREMISE. So the function of the conclusion is to make perfectly clear the implications of the two premises. By the way, a deductive argument in which the premises necessarily lead to the conclusion is said to be VALID. When the premises are also true, it is said to be SOUND. Or consider this: Major Premise: All numbers less than 50 are less than 100. (This is true by definition. To be less than 50 is to be less than 100 given a set of integers from 0 to 100, say.) Minor Premise: 25 is less than 50. (Also true by definition.) Conclusion: 25 is less than 100. So this is exactly HOW we know that it follows that "Socrates is mortal." I hope this helps. Any beginning logic book will tell you the rules of valid syllogisms if you want to confirm what I said or take it further.tgpeeler_{May 21, 2010
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correction: this sentence should read as such: The only way to “geometrically” maintain continuous 3D symmetry of the “3D universe”, within the sphere of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation,bornagain77_{May 21, 2010
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warehuff let's try this with a little more brute force: The materialization of all 3-D material particles centers on each point of conscious observation in this universe! We can show this fact by building off what Wigner has done,,,, "It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness." Eugene Wigner (1902 -1995) laid the foundation for the theory of symmetries in quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Wigner The super weird thing in this following video is that the entire universe seems to center on the earth: The Known Universe - Dec. 2009 - (please note the centrality of the earth in the universe) http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4240304/ i.e. Warehuff why is the earth at the center of the universe? Wasn't that overturned by Galileo? Warehuff the strongest counter argument to the "quantum universe" centering on, collapsing to, each point of conscious observation in the universe has been the fact that 4-D space-time expands equally well at every 3-D point of the universe. Warehuff why does the expansion of the entire universe care that I exist? Though that question is certainly very interesting, what we are really after is this, "does the 4-D expansion of space-time of the 3-D material universe have adequate sufficiency to explain the centrality we witness for the earth in the known universe?" No it does not, and here is the reason why: The only way to "geometrically" maintain continuous 3D spherical symmetry of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, within the "3D universe", from radically different points of observation in the universe, is for all the "higher dimensional quantum information waves" of the universe to collapse to their "uncertain" 3D particle state, universally and instantaneously, for/to each individual point of conscious observation in the universe. The 4-D expanding hypersphere of the space-time of relativity is grossly insufficient to maintain 3-D integrity/symmetry from radically different points of observation in the universe. This is because the universe is shown to only have 10^79 atoms. i.e. It is impossible to maintain such consistent 3-D symmetry of centrality, from radically different points of observation, with finite 3-D material resources to work with, unless quantum waves actually do collapse universally to each point of conscious observation in the universe. Universal quantum collapse to each point of observation is the only explanation that has adequate sufficiency. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry_in_physics The fact that photons are known to travel as uncollapsed quantum waves in this universe , and not as particles, gives even more weight to the sufficiency of the explanation. Now Warehuff we get the the interesting part, what is the "sufficient cause" of the collapse of the quantum waves to the "effect" of 3-D particles? Sorry, just so stories need not apply warehuff.bornagain77_{May 21, 2010
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WH We know through direct observation what cell based life looks like. That is what is to be explained, not red herrings and strawmen over speculative hypothetical replicator molecules and the like. And that is a case of systems that definitely implement irreducibly complex von Neumann replicators. And, as Meyer recently pointed out the setups that are being overdrawn to make an RNA world seem plausible prove only that the replicators would require huge quantities of functionally specific information, and that the reaction chains are implausible for any reasonable pre-biotic environment. That is, they show highly intelligent setting up of highly organised and sequences circumstances. Engineering, not spontaneity in short. Besides, the kind of "replications" shown to date [e.g. catalysed splicing of already set up halves] are nothing like anything near to what we see in life. That you are plainly forced to such distractions, distortions and obfuscations tells us a lot about he true state of the evolutionary materialist account of he origin of FSCI in cell based life as we observe it, and body plan level biodiversity as we observe it around us and in the fossil record. When I need to observe gravity in action, I drop a rock. To see chance in action, I drop a fair die. To see intelligence in action, I look at a whole internet full of FSCI-rich messages. I have excellent empirically based inductive reason to confidently differentiate the three causal factors, and to see that the FSCI in cell based life screams: deesign. Onlookers: See how the serious issues are being dodged and every effort is made to drag red herrings out to strawmen soaked in conveniently denigratory rhetoric, all set to be ignited; clouding, confusing, choking and poisoning the atmosphere. Sad, but utterly revealing. No wonder the clear pattern being used by the magisterium in lab coats is to smuggle in a priori materialism as the criterion for origins science by the back door. Time for change! GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{May 21, 2010
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warehuff, Language, mathematrics, and algorithms are not abstract "principles"...they are abstract realities.Upright BiPed_{May 21, 2010
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I'm about a hundred messages behind and gone for the weekend.warehuff_{May 21, 2010
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kairosfocus @ 105: "The presence of language, algorithms, programs and executing coordinated machines at the first appearance of life — that is what the requisites of self-replication, as highlighted by von Neumann entail [cf. 77 - 78 above] — strongly points to the presence of intelligence at that point, whether it was 3.8 – 4.2 BYA, or 6 – 10 TYA." Are you implying that you know what the first living thing was like? Please tell us, it will help both sides of this argument. But of course, you know no such thing, that's just another assertion. bornagain77 @ 144: "Since it is conclusively shown there is NOT a solid material particle at the basis of reality then materialism is falsified in no uncertain terms of its primary postulation." The only thing falsified is the idea that matter is composed of solid particles and that was a surprise to everybody, materialist and theist. ba77 @ 145: "Warehuff since the detector is effectively removed as the cause of the wave collapse in this experiment, your “belief” is falsified:" The heck it is! The only way the detector can detect the position of the particle is by interacting with the particle at once place and THAT destroys the wave function. If you cancel the detection out later, you restore the wave function. If you really think consciousness affects QM, try this variation on the Schrodinger's Cat experiment: Put a radioactive source and a detector in a wooden box. Adjust them so there's about a 99% chance that the detector will go off in a ten minute period. Instead of a cat, hook the detector up to a block of high explosive so it goes off if the detector detects a particle. Now hold the box in your arms for ten minutes. Since you can't see the radioactive source or the detector and since they operate silently, you won't know if the detector was tripped and the explosive detonated until you open the box. So you should be safe as long as you don't open the box, right? KF @ 147: Progress! The von Neumann replicator is not needed at the OOL, so you can stop referring to it from now on, at least with respect to the OOL. Now you're arguing that Darwinian evolution can't go from the original replicator to modern life. Let's see. What does ID say the first steps in life were? "Aside from such, the basic scientific problem is that the RNA world or the like are all in the air speculation:" Yep, neither side has actual knowledge of what exactly happened at the OOL, so science has to make hypothesis and test them any way they can. But have you noticed that the religion side of the argument says absolutely nothing about what actually happened? But they demand that science says exactly what happened, every step from the OOL to modern life and they declare science is disproven if they can't do it. It's a lot more fun to just carp at the other side than to put up any ideas of your own. tgpeeler @ 220 and bornagain77 in various posts and probably every ID advocate that has ever lived: Abstract principles are part of materialism.warehuff_{May 21, 2010
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PS: Wiki on the causality issues on the Delayed eraser effect: >> Scully and Drühl found that the interference pattern disappears when which-path information is obtained, even if this information was obtained without directly observing the original photon, but that if you somehow "erase" the which-path information, the interference pattern reappears. In the delayed choice quantum eraser discussed here, the pattern reappears even if the which-path information is erased shortly after, in time, the signal photons hit the primary detector. However, the interference pattern can only be seen retroactively once the idler photons have already been detected and the experimenter has obtained information about them, with the interference pattern being seen when the experimenter looks at particular subsets of signal photons that were matched with idlers that went to particular detectors. The total pattern of signal photons at the primary detector never shows interference, so it is not possible to deduce what will happen to the idler photons by observing the signal photons alone, which would open up the possibility of gaining information faster-than-light (since one might deduce this information before there had been time for a message moving at the speed of light to travel from the idler detector to the signal photon detector) or even gaining information about the future (since as noted above, the signal photons may be detected at an earlier time than the idlers), both of which would qualify as violations of causality in physics. In fact, a theorem proved by Phillippe Eberhard shows that if the accepted equations of quantum theory are correct, it should never be possible to experimentally violate causality using quantum effects,[4] although some physicists have speculated about the possibility that these equations might be changed in a way that would be consistent with previous experiments but which could allow for experimental causality violations. >>kairosfocus_{May 21, 2010
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JT (and others): Pardon, while I appreciate the effort to read, and communicate that the above has been read, I must also insist on an accurate readingas a basis for reasonable and accurately informed discussion. At no point, for instance, have I referred to the c. 50 BC Cicero, but instead to an extensive and foundational discussion by Plato, in the voice of the Athenian Stranger in his c. 360 BC The Laws Bk X. Similarly, at no point have I referred to C18 philosophers as such, save for a reference or two in various threads to Locke who is turn of C18, and that in reference to his citation of Hooker on the import of the Biblical understanding of our being equally made in God's image for constructing of just and free government. Also, I have cited Leibniz [more C17 than 18] on the OBSERVATION of what one sees in a mill, i.e that physical cause-effect chains of mechanical necessity and/or chance do not explain the organisation of the mill for a purpose; which is patently obvious. If you do not attend to what was actually said, you are likely to end up on distractive red herrings, led away to strawman distortions soaked in ad hominems, potentially setting up incendiary rhetoric that only ends in confusion, polarisation, demonisation and breakdown of civility. And, at minimum, profoundly misunde3rstanding what is being said. Having said that, I will note on some select points: 1] JT, 218: Logical deduction is a form of computation. In essence it is arithmetic. To be able to string together a series of logical propositions and reason to a conclusion on the basis of IF-THEN, AND, and OR, operators, is to me such an obviously mechanical operation. Tangential, trending to be red herring, but I will humour you for a moment. Deductive logic is in essence about our ability to judge entailment, i.e given A, B, C as premises, what MUST follow as conclusions. In that context, once the premises are true and he inferences valid, the conclusions will be true, i.e the argument is not just valid but sound. And, Boolean algebra is an algebra on relationships of propositions that at points intersects with classical syllogistic logic, but it is significantly diverse. For instance the classic syllogism about Socrates you cite works because -- as the Venn Diagram approach to Syllogisms shows -- it is an assertion about SET MEMBERSHIPS, where set theory is isomorphic with BA. Expanding, we will see that the deductive inference is not at all mysterious, given the human ability to recognise truths and judge relationships between truths -- something that yet again evolutionary materialism blinds us to. Substituting for the more standard symbols --E for existential quantifier, A for universal, e means element. And showing as well that maths is actually a series of linked sentences that can be read in light of the meanings of the specific symbols, it is not just arbitrary rules of manipulation that work magic:
1: Socrates [s] is a man [M]: E:s, such that: s is an element of set M --> The existential quantifier has existential import. 2: All Men [M] are mortals [D] A:x e M, x e D --> The universal quantifier in modern work does not entail existence, it defines set relationships without reference to whether or not they are empty --> In classical thinking, sets are only defined and accepted if they are known to be non-empty. --> That is, they required that sets refer to real things on credible bases for knowing such reality. --> Similarly, there is no need to go for grand universal models of all reasoning to know that the specific parts of reasoning in question are sound --> And in fact we know that logico-mathematical reasoning is irreducibly complex in the Godel sense. That is, no axiomatic system for a sufficiently rich domain will both be exhaustive and coherent. --> So, we must reckon with finitude, fallibility and even fallenness. We walk by faith and not by sight, in Mathematics and reasoning just as much as in science and daily life. THEREFORE: 3: Socrates is Mortal E; s, such that s e D. E:s, such that s e M, where M is a subset of D, so s e D --> By force of what being a subset means
2] 224, But what about believing Socrates is Mortal and understanding you beleive it because of two premises, but not understanding WHY you believe it because of the two premises. That’s the position wer’e in – we don’t know why it follows from the two premises we just label it ’self-evident’. I have of course shown just above why it is that deductive syllogistic arguments work; i.e by the import of the relations of sets and membership in same. (That is why my standard advice to my students on deductive logic was to use Venn diagrams and not bother on the apparatus of all the different syllogistic statements.) However, you here raise a different issue, self evidence. Now, a self evident claim is one that on understanding it in light of our experience of the world as rational, knowing, enconscienced, moralising creatures, we see that it is not only true but MUST be true, on pain of patent absurdity. (Things that are in fact self referentially incoherent but are not overtly so, requiring subtle reasoning to draw it out, are not self-evident.) In short, it is not just a matter of arbitrary labelling, as your remarks suggest. For instance, take Josiah Royce's error exists. This is self evident by being undeniably true not merely true by inspection of cases. That is, if one tries to say NOT-"Error exists," one immediately instantiates a case in point of error; thus reducing to patent absurdity. You cannot coherently deny that error exists because of that self referentiality and the meaning of the claim "error exists." And since this is thus known to be true on good warrant, truth and knowable truth exist. Our problem is to cut through the thicket of errors to catch a clear glimpse of the truth. For that I suggest the WCT's approach to building a healthy worldview. 3] 218: And the idea that if some sensory or cognitive organ were to evolve by chance that gave an organism a clearer and truer understanding of its environment (perhaps like maybe increasing a computer’s memory to enable it to perform more complex calculation accurately?) would it really make any difference how this improvement came into being? What I mean is, if it conferred on the organism a greater ability to discern accurately its environment, then presumably that capability would have a greater chance of being preserved. You are mistaking empirical reliability for truthfulness. As Plantinga -- who is a contemporary philosopher --showed, the problem of evolutionary materialistic reductionism is that the key filter component it appeals to, natural selection, rewards fitness to environment, not truthfulness or accuracy to reality. So, the dynamic in question is impotent to establish the credibility of logical, ground-consequent relationships as opposed to tracing physical cause-effect bonds. To try to ad hoc, assert it away is to beg the question, not to answer it. 4] And speaking of computers, that’s all they are is logical calculations. THey don’t have a spirit. Is it relevant that humans created them. We can’t just assume humans have a spirit and then say that’s the reason computer are so smart. As someone who has designed and built such processors, I assure you computers carry out no reasoned logical processes. They are organised by designers to effect symbolic logic operations physically, though cause-effect bonds. The logic comes from the attached meaning of the signals and from the complex, purposeful arrangement of logic elements and storage elements etc. A simple NOR gate, for instance, is a transistor circuit that when the input leg of one of several input resistors goes high, it forward biases a base-emitter PN junction, and causes the transistor amplifier to move to saturation. Thus a current runs through a load resistor and the output goes to a low voltage. That low voltage is interpreted as logical 0. But, once we can physically instantiate NOR [or NAND], we know form the structure of Boolean Algebra that we can implement any logical relationship. That is, the abstract mathematics of BA is reflective of reality, and so extends "magically" into the physical world. Again, on looking at the physical details we see the equivalent of Leibniz's gears of a mill grinding away at one another, not the source of the intelligent and purposeful organisation that achieves the purposeful design. In short, computers are not smart, their designers and programmers are. And, we do not "assume" -- notice how you have projected an unwarranted assertion of question-begging -- that humans have a spirit, but we take note of our common experience that we are reasoning, knowing, intelligent, purposeful , designing creatures. And, we look at the characteristic sign of such intelligence at work, functionally organised complexity and related information. This then extends to looking at the processor embedded in our CNS and brain, as we observe that neural networks are a novel processor architecture, but are just that: networks of triggered nodes interconnected in ways that take meaning at a level beyond the physical connexions and signals of millivolt pulses. So the roots of rationality are not to be sought in he architecture of the brain as a processor. We can see it as an i/o controller, but cannot explain from within itself or on an evolutionary materialist narrative, how it is able to be part of a reasoning, moralising and deciding creature whose acts of intelligence are beyond what chance and mechanical linkages can cover. That is why I pointed to Eng Smith's two-tier controller model as a way to help us see another view; towards inference to best explanation -- a species of inductive, not deductive logic. And induction is so sophisticated and embedded with epistemological considerations that it leaves the accounts of deductive logic far behind. But in this aspect of reasoning lies the power of knowledge that contacts the world of experience, whether in science or in common sense or in forensics or in history etc. We here are asking on warrant and comparison of competing live option explanations on factual adequacy, coherence and explanatory elegance, not whether certain premises entail conclusions. And indeed, it is a matter of experience based knowledge that we can see that certain premises are credibly and warrantedly true. 6] 221, they’re the same ones you’ve copied and pasted literally thousand upon thousands of times. (That’s just accurate isn’t it.) JT, you here slide over into ad hominems. As a matter of fact, much of the above is precisely what I leave in my briefing notes; it is only pulled on rarely. And, even if I routinely use such cites, that has nothing to do with whether or not they are cogent. Kindly, deal with the matters on the merits. 7] a manufacturing defect could cause the die to always land on the same side. Also throwing the dice on a soft piece of earth could cause it to always fall on the same side. Strawman, on a red herring. I spoke of how in contrast to the familiar reliable, repeatable falling of a heavy object at 9.8 N/kg as a manifestation of mechanical necessity on given initial conditions, a fair die tumbles to its reading by chance, i.e. exhibits credibly undirected, stochastic contingency. [Suitable conditions being implicit: do I need to cite Vegas rules on transparent dice and gridded walls that dice must be thrown against to tumble them out of control onto the table? Ridiculous!] We can therefore take it as plain that we can mark the distinction between events of mechanical necessity and those of chance, but the implications onward are plainly unpalatable, hence your diversion. 8] a dice always landing on the same side, or a dice not conforming to statistically to random results would not indicate the actions of “intelligence” Onlookers, observe again what I cited above at 215 point 4 c; from Wikipedia, as a damaging admission against obvious interest for that notoriously secular humanist, evolutionary materialist generic reference site:
There are also “loaded” or “crooked” dice (especially otherwise traditional ones), meant to produce skewed or even predictable results, for purposes of deception or amusement . . . . A loaded (or gaffed or cogged or weighted or crooked or gag) die is one that has been tampered with [intelligent action] to [purpose, achieved by skill] land with a selected [target zone from the space of contingencies] side facing upwards more often than it otherwise would simply by chance [contrasts directed with undirected contingency].
The import of our world of experience on this case of intelligence as a causal factor and how it s results differ form both chance and necessity, is plain. So plain that you, JT, find yourself trying ever so hard to evade them by blatant denial. All I would say is that if you were to try to run a Vegas gaming establishment on that principle, you would rapidly go broke. In short I have in fact adequately warranted the three-way contrast of causal factors, chance, necessity and agency, but you are resorting to selective hyperskepticism to the point of patent absurdity. Wake up man! 9] “intelligence” Your scare quotes are even more revealing. Are you not intelligent? Do you not live in a world of intelligent fellow creatures who for instance exhibit these characteristics as Wiki again admits against its interests:
“capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn.” [UD Glossary of key terms, citing Wiki]
10] Its just an anology of thinking to a mill, followed by an assertion: “never would he find anything to explain perception” What am I missing here? Why is this supposed to be compelling? As already pointed out, Leibniz was showing how the mere physical interactions of material bodies can only illustrate cause-effect bonds in action, it will never adequately explain the purposeful, functional, complex, information-rich organisation that harnesses "the materials and forces of nature, economically, for the good of humanity." In short, the lesson is that you are again caught out in sadly selectively hyperskeptical denial, triggering rhetorical defense mechanisms that expose the Achilles' heel of being inconsistent in standards of warrant. 11] we should never ever take the advice of a computer. If you imagine that computers give "advice," instead of mechanically grinding out the programmed responses to the inputs, assumptions and models that drive their programs, then you are in big trouble. A computer is not an infallible authority, but only a reflection of the wisdom and mistakes of its designers and programmers. Do not let the shiny, slick high-tech interface fool you, a computer is the canned voice of its programmers, not an authority in its own right. And, when one for instance looks behind the wrapping of the Climate modelling software at the heart of the Climategate scandal -- to name just one case -- we see plenty of "put that in writing" compliance by the programmers. GIGO!* [*Garbage, in, garbage out.] 12] What you believe determines how you behave. Indeed, and belief is not equivalent to reality, Even if the belief is for the moment empirically reliable. That is why I augmented Plantinga by citing the case of Newtonian dynamics, which for 200 years seemed to be the gospel truth about the physical world. Then came the world of the extra small and that of the extra fast or extra large. Adaptive mechanisms, sensors, perceptions, behaviours and beliefs are not necessarily accurate to reality. As a matter of established fact. 13] Emotions certainly at least are of a highly chemical nature, being easily manipulated chemically. And what about memory? Do you and Johnson believe memory is non-material? Again, distractive. Crick committed a fallacy of materialist reductionism, and Johnson pointed out that reducing all mentality to neurons in action ends up in self-referential incoherence. Mechanical cause-effect cannot warrant ground-consequent. 14] Even your most brilliant ideas when they appear on the computer screen are nothing but a bunch of electrons. Precisely the opposite of the case. The pixels and the underlying electrical wiring, circuits, components and transducers are organised to present meaningful symbols, which are rationally understood and manipulated, not least based on the designs of intelligent programmers and computer engineers. (I recall here how Cray used to use Apple Macs to design Cray machines, and Apple used a Cray to design Macs!) Beneath the engineering, of course lies the power of mathematics, which is wholly about abstract reality; which is what gives it its great power. Think here of the analysis of the Turing Machine. 15] here’s the crux of it: You would say I imagine that certain messages signify intelligence, and that I presume computer programs are also a signature of intelligence to you. Can you kindly provide a case where we directly know -- i.e OBSERVE -- the causal process and a message where the storage capacity of the symbols used exceeds 1,000 binary digits, and the cause is credibly chance + necessity, not intelligence? [The whole Internet is Exhibit A on how intelligent agents routinely produce such messages.] On empirically well-supported induction, I infer that functionally specific complex organisation and in particular associated information, are reliable signs of intelligence. I then find myself free to use such FSCI as a reliable sign of intelligence, even where I do not observe the causal process directly, as on empirically anchored analysis, I see that chance + necessity cannot -- per want of resources to scan enough of the config space to be appreciably different from a next to no search that could only hit on FSCI by luck beyond canons of reasonable plausibility [similar to those of the statistical form of the 2nd law of thermodynamics] -- credibly produce FSCI on the gamut of our observed cosmos. But routinely, intelligences produce FSCI. Nor, do I have any good reason to infer that we humans exhaust the set of actual or possible intelligences. Therefore observation of FSCI in a non-human context on the face of it constitutes evidence of non-human intelligence. (Beavers have limited intelligence for instance, as a beaver dam shows. The are not just mechanically grinding out an in-built program.) And when I see FSCI in the cell [both data structures and executing instructions that initiate and halt step by step processes -- i.e. programs, which are a species of linguistic expression], it screams: intelligence. 16] I don’t know how Leibniz’s argument or anything else you’ve presented shows that cognition is not physical. In short you have distracted yourself from seeing the patent difference between mechanical cause- effect bonds and logical ground- consequent ones. 17] [regarding the Derek Smith 2-tier controller cybernetic model] What is this all about. It seems like some sort of perfunctory attempt to throw dualism into sort of a psuedo-systematic technological framework. I will only note on the loaded, question-beggingly dismissive language, and point out that this is improper. On the more serious points, if you have refused to see the difference between cause- effect bonds and the complex organisation that makes them physically instantiate a designer's logic, you will not recognise first that the control loop does not explain itself or cause its underlying logic. [I assume you have examined my diagram and the onward more elaborate Derek Smith diagram. Note this is in the context of a serious discussion on how to design a new level of robots. I assume you have enough background to follow a closed loop control system diagram: a plant has controlling inputs and observable outputs. Sampling and processing outputs and comaring actual to desired performance allows a controller to actuate the plant to move towards the desired trajectory in its phase space.] The key issue is, where does the directing input come from, the set-point target of the control loop, which in a servo type system, is a sequence of points along a path. Smith's model envisions a higher order controller that decides, imagines, projects and so injects a directive signal that the actual state can be comapred to and adjustments made. In a simple case, this can be a pre-programmed computer. Or, even the way points of a navigation system. But this technological case is suggestive of how we can look at the brain-body system as a multiple input, multiple output cybernetic system. And in that context, mind is readily understood as a supervisory controller using the brain and its sensory processing, storage and motor areas as a supervised I/O controller. In that context, the interaction is seen as informational, self-aware perceptual and imaginative. And a possible quantum bridge is put forth, in the context that we already have lines of evidence from the quantum world that point to a higher order reality, e.g the situation of entangled particles and their ability to act instantly [and evidently, even with with reversed temporality!] at a distance. (Cf. the extended Young's Double Slit experiment discussed here.) In short, I have put up a scenario that allows us to look at live options in a way that we can assess on factual adequacy, coherence and explanatory power. Dismissively labelling "dualism," simply locks out such discussion. Notice for instance a point that I actually highlighted in my notes: the Smith model allows for designs that are two level controllers that are wholly pre-programmed computers, e.g the supervisor is another computer with a higher level of programming. But, it also allows for the possibility that having a brain working as a controller, processor and store is not decisive on physicalism [which I have shown on other grounds is self-referentially incoherent]. And that implication is what you are patently objecting to. 18] Reppert's summary: >> . . . let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. --> physical states that [on assigned codes and interpretations] symbolise the propositions, are causally bonded to another physical state that is symbolic of the conclusion --> "readily" effected in a digital circuit It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . --> Without reference to meaning, grounds and consequents, all we really have is circuits grinding away at one another electrically [But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [so] we do not have a case of rational inference. --> Under phsyicalism, cause effect is primary, mental states are at best emanations and epiphenomena void of causal force In rational inference, as Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. --> Cf the discussion above on the way that the Socrates syllogism works as a combinations of meaningful claims about sets that provides grounds and consequences in logic. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions. --> Reductio. Cause-effect bonds are irrelevant to and of a different order of reality from ground consequent relations, so unless you can address the latter, you are stuck. >> 19] According to the argument, to be rational it is not enough to be hard-wired to believe that Socrates is Mortal as a result of also believing the stated premises. In essence, you also have to understand WHY the conclusion follows from the premise Not quite. If the symbolistic signals that we interpret per some language or other as "Socratre is a man" and "all men are mortal" physically cause the output "Socrates is mortal," which can be arranged electronically; that is not enough to ground the inference from the former propositions to the latter. All that is in brains, on physicalist understanding, is neurons wired together, and interacting electrically etc. Such physical cause- effect bonds just manifest wiring, they do not have anything to do with whether the wiring makes sense or not on a certain logical and meaningful interpretation. That is we see how radically different cause-effect bonds of mechanical force and chance circumstances are from the ground consequent logical relations. But if one has been thinking in a materialistic circle, it is exceedingly hard to see the gap being pointed out. That is why multiple examples, comparisons and cases are used to try to break through the fog induced by an unwarranted and self-referentially incoherent a prior of materialism. Start from the incoherence of that a priori, and its censoring, confusing effect. Then, when you have satisfied yourself that it is self referentially absurd and should be abandoned, look at the Derek Smith model and begin to unravel the tangled web. _________________ GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{May 21, 2010
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But actually the argument was something different - that to be rational is to state I believe Socrates was Mortal BECAUSE of these two premises". If you only believed Socrates is mortal, but didn't understand you believe it because you also believe the other two premises then that wouldn't be rational. But what about believing Socrates is Mortal and understanding you beleive it because of two premises, but not understanding WHY you believe it because of the two premises. That's the position wer'e in - we don't know why it follows from the two premises we just label it 'self-evident'. Just wanted to indicate to KF I read this, not bore everyone.JT_{May 20, 2010
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[222]: According to the argument, to be rational it is not enough to be hard-wired to believe that Socrates is Mortal as a result of also believing the stated premises. In essence, you also have to understand WHY the conclusion follows from the premise. But why does it follow from "all men are mortal" and "socrates is a man" then socrates is mortal. Someone try to explain that. You won't be able to. Your explanation will be circular and self-referential and you will end up saying "its just self-evident": "Well, The first premise is All men are mortal. And since it says 'all' that would include any man, and socrates is a man and so socrates is mortal [etc.]" So even though supposedly rational, we are NOT able to explain why it follows that Socrates is mortal - its just 'self-evident' to us somehow. So in essence we believe it without knowing why. And why would we believe it without knowing why - possibly because we're hard-wired that way. We believe it to be true (and presumably it is true) but we don't know why we believe it. And we label it 'self-evident'. So upon reflection the example is not a challenge to naturalism, imo.JT_{May 20, 2010
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KairosFocus I have seen the following before, and it seems there is something substantive that perhaps I'm not fully getting. If you want to elaborate on this specific quote only, or provide any links to discussion or analysis on it as I'm not finding anything: . . . let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of [physical] state that is relevant to physical causal transactionsJT_{May 20, 2010
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KairosFocus: I guess I should make an effort to respond to some of your points in 215-217. Of course they're the same ones you've copied and pasted literally thousand upon thousands of times. (That's just accurate isn't it.) I guess I unnecessarily burden myself, as I always feel compelled to never say something the exact same way twice.
if the die is not fair, it will come to rest in a fashion that reflects the intent of a designer, i.e. by directed contingency. As Wiki notes on such dice:
There are also “loaded” or “crooked” dice (especially otherwise traditional ones), meant to produce skewed or even predictable results, for purposes of deception or amusement . . . . A loaded (or gaffed or cogged or weighted or crooked or gag) die
No that is not the case. a manufacturing defect could cause the die to always land on the same side. Also throwing the dice on a soft piece of earth could cause it to always fall on the same side. Later on you indicate intelligence to mean something like people. And a dice always landing on the same side, or a dice not conforming to statistically to random results would not indicate the actions of "intelligence", but that's exactly what you confidently assert in the very first paragraph following this dice example:
5 –> So, we can easily notice and distinguish outcomes traceable to mechanical necessity, chance and intelligence, noting that we experience ourselves as purposeful, art-ful intelligences [however we may set out to explain the origin or locus of such].
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[JT] it is incoherent to treat cognition as something not governed by mechanical necessity.” [KF]10 –> As I note in App 8 my always linked, the key conceptual error in that was identified 300+years ago by Leibniz, in his famous parable of the mill, in his Monadology:
It must be confessed, however, that perception, and that which depends upon it, are inexplicable by mechanical causes, that is to say, by figures and motions. Supposing that there were a machine whose structure produced thought, sensation, and perception, we could conceive of it as increased in size with the same proportions until one was able to enter into its interior, as he would into a mill. Now, on going into it he would find only pieces working upon one another [i.e. the mechanical grinding away of the gears etc does not explain the intelligent functional organisation that laid out a mill to do its task], but never would he find anything to explain perception. It is accordingly in the simple substance, and not in the compound nor in a machine that the perception is to be sought. Furthermore, there is nothing besides perceptions and their changes to be found in the simple substance. And it is in these alone that all the internal activities of the simple substance can consist.
I don't see the serious argument here. Its just an anology of thinking to a mill, followed by an assertion: "never would he find anything to explain perception" What am I missing here? Why is this supposed to be compelling?
However, the real issue evolutionary materialists face is how to get to mental properties that accurately and intelligibly address and bridge the external world and the inner world of ideas. This, relative to a worldview that accepts only physical components and must therefore arrive at other things by composition of elementary material components and their interactions per the natural regularities and chance processes of our observed cosmos. Now, obviously, if the view is true, it will be possible; but if it is false, then it may overlook other possible elementary constituents of reality and their inner properties. Which is precisely what Leibniz was getting at.
I don't even know how to respond. What's the argument
. let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [so] we do not have a case of rational inference.
Thus I guess we should never ever take the advice of a computer.
evolution is interested (so to speak) only in adaptive behavior, not in true belief. Natural selection doesn’t care what you believe; it is interested only in how you behave.
What you believe determines how you behave.
CRICK: . . . that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing. {The Astonishing Hypothesis, 1994] JOHNSON: Sir Francis should have been therefore willing to preface his works thusly: “I, Francis Crick, my opinions and my science, and even the thoughts expressed in this book, consist of nothing more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.” Johnson then acidly commented: “[t]he plausibility of materialistic determinism requires that an implicit exception be made for the theorist.” [Reason in the Balance, 1995.]
He mentions joys and sorrows being a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. Emotions certainly at least are of a highly chemical nature, being easily manipulated chemically. And what about memory? Do you and Johnson believe memory is non-material? Even your most brilliant ideas when they appear on the computer screen are nothing but a bunch of electrons. And here's the crux of it: You would say I imagine that certain messages signify intelligence, and that I presume computer programs are also a signature of intelligence to you. Even if human cognition is material, you're still free to consider it as representing in essence a physical message from God. I do not know what the imperative is that cognition has to be non-material. I don't know how Leibniz's argument or anything else you've presented shows that cognition is not physical.
19 –> Engineer Derek Smith of Wales [!] gives us a more sensible approach : if we view ourselves as cybernetic systems with the brain acting as input-output controller and processor with relevant memory etc, we can see that a cybernetic loop can have a two tier controller. 20 –> One level is the i/o controller in the loop that can indeed be simply following its hardware and programming in light of inputs; grinding away in he modern equivalent of Leibniz’s mill. But, at the second level, there is a supervisory, decision-making, creative controller that projects the desired path to the purposed goal, and imagines the circumstances and perceptions that should happen along the way. 21 –> This controller then interacts with the loop informationally and perceptually [e.g. proprioception allows the orientation of the body and the head as a sensor turret to be internally sensed at all times and integrated into the external world; cf diagram in the linked, and more complex diagram at Smith's site]
I cannot make heads or tails of this. Honestly. What is this all about. It seems like some sort of perfunctory attempt to throw dualism into sort of a psuedo-systematic technological framework. I've seen you post this many times. I do not know what the significance of it is. Is there something here I really need to understand.JT_{May 20, 2010
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warehuff @ 183 "n. Philosophy. The theory that physical matter is the only reality and that everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena." Can anyone seriously believe this? Mathematics cannot be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena. Mathematics is completely abstract. Do you deny the reality of mathematics? The laws of physics, which are written in the language of mathematics, are abstract. They do not reduce to sub-atomic particles in energy fields. Do you deny the existence of the laws of physics? Just wondering...tgpeeler_{May 20, 2010
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Logical deduction is a form of computation. In essence it is arithmetic.
Formal logic is always computational by its very nature. Presently no formal logic is generally accepted as a full and faithful representation of either human reason or whatever objectively right reasoning is. (See for example the paradoxes of implication.) It is not clear that any formal logic exists which fits either criterion.anonym_{May 20, 2010
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KairosFocus [215-217]: Logical deduction is a form of computation. In essence it is arithmetic. To be able to string together a series of logical propositions and reason to a conclusion on the basis of IF-THEN, AND, and OR, operators, is to me such an obviously mechanical operation. I am just mystified that you or 18-century philosophers (with their ruminations significantly occurring centuries prior to the computer age) could see in that computational process the spark of Godhood or what not. I'm just speaking from the gut, all the various quotes of yours from Cicero or whomever notwithstanding. I just do not get it. And furthermore our ability here is limited - we have limited bandwidth like any other finite creature and we make mistakes. We are far far far from infallible. And then when even our logic is correct, we sometimes hold faulty premises (because we've been told things we believe by people we trust, but are false.) and thus despite our correct logic we reach incorrect conclusions. But just looking at the logical computation, just like we cannot add or multiply numbers in our head of unlimited length, many times our logical deduction process is faulty. And animals too reason to a conclusion - all the time. They compute spatial reasoning at least, reasoning about what they have to do get from here to there or whatever. So, I'm just saying all your quotes from 18th century armchair philosophers aren't helping me. And the idea that if some sensory or cognitive organ were to evolve by chance that gave an organism a clearer and truer understanding of its environment (perhaps like maybe increasing a computer's memory to enable it to perform more complex calculation accurately?) would it really make any difference how this improvement came into being? What I mean is, if it conferred on the organism a greater ability to discern accurately its environment, then presumably that capability would have a greater chance of being preserved. And speaking of computers, that's all they are is logical calculations. THey don't have a spirit. Is it relevant that humans created them. We can't just assume humans have a spirit and then say that's the reason computer are so smart. If its possible for you to respond directly to my thoughts above without copying and pasting the things you've already pasted, or help me to understand what I'm missing. If we could just limit it to the subject of the materiality/nonmateriality of reason/logical thought, etc. (However long you want to continue this though - I don't care.)JT_{May 20, 2010
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18 --> In short, it is at least arguable that self-referential absurdity is the dagger pointing to the heart of any such reductionistic evolutionary materialistic determinism as seeks to explain "all" -- including mind -- by "nothing more than" natural forces acting on matter and energy, in light of chance initial and intervening circumstances:
. . . [evolutionary] materialism [a worldview that often likes to wear the mantle of "science"] . . . argues that the cosmos is the product of chance interactions of matter and energy, within the constraint of the laws of nature. Therefore, all phenomena in the universe, without residue, are determined by the working of purposeless laws acting on material objects, under the direct or indirect control of chance. But human thought, clearly a phenomenon in the universe, must now fit into this picture. Thus, what we subjectively experience as "thoughts" and "conclusions" can only be understood materialistically as unintended by-products of the natural forces which cause and control the electro-chemical events going on in neural networks in our brains. (These forces are viewed as ultimately physical, but are taken to be partly mediated through a complex pattern of genetic inheritance ["nature"] and psycho-social conditioning ["nurture"], within the framework of human culture [i.e. socio-cultural conditioning and resulting/associated relativism].) Therefore, if materialism is true, the "thoughts" we have and the "conclusions" we reach, without residue, are produced and controlled by forces that are irrelevant to purpose, truth, or validity. Of course, the conclusions of such arguments may still happen to be true, by lucky coincidence — but we have no rational grounds for relying on the “reasoning” that has led us to feel that we have “proved” them. And, if our materialist friends then say: “But, we can always apply scientific tests, through observation, experiment and measurement,” then we must note that to demonstrate that such tests provide empirical support to their theories requires the use of the very process of reasoning which they have discredited! Thus, evolutionary materialism reduces reason itself to the status of illusion. But, immediately, that includes “Materialism.” For instance, Marxists commonly deride opponents for their “bourgeois class conditioning” — but what of the effect of their own class origins? Freudians frequently dismiss qualms about their loosening of moral restraints by alluding to the impact of strict potty training on their “up-tight” critics — but doesn’t this cut both ways? And, should we not simply ask a Behaviourist whether s/he is simply another operantly conditioned rat trapped in the cosmic maze? In the end, materialism is based on self-defeating logic . . .
19 --> Engineer Derek Smith of Wales [!] gives us a more sensible approach: if we view ourselves as cybernetic systems with the brain acting as input-output controller and processor with relevant memory etc, we can see that a cybernetic loop can have a two tier controller. 20 --> One level is the i/o controller in the loop that can indeed be simply following its hardware and programming in light of inputs; grinding away in he modern equivalent of Leibniz's mill. But, at the second level, there is a supervisory, decision-making, creative controller that projects the desired path to the purposed goal, and imagines the circumstances and perceptions that should happen along the way. 21 --> This controller then interacts with the loop informationally and perceptually [e.g. proprioception allows the orientation of the body and the head as a sensor turret to be internally sensed at all times and integrated into the external world; cf diagram in the linked, and more complex diagram at Smith's site]. 22 --> Penrose and Hameroff suggest that quantum supervenience perhaps localised though the microtubules in neurons, are a possible way for an immaterial mind to act as such a supervisory controller. (If you have been following BA's recent exchanges, you will realise that he Quantum world has some very interesting and "suspicious" properties, e.g. look at how entangled photons act in a sophisticated version of the Young's double slit experiment.) 23 --> So, actually, it is the idea that mind is governed by chance plus necessity only that leads to incoherence. And, we cannot credibly account for mind and its observed and experienced capabilities on evolutionary materialistic premises. But, conscious mind is actually prior to all other experiences, as it is though the self-aware mind that we experience, observe, reflect on and act into the world. 24 --> Thus, conscious mindedness is more certain than those observations, and theories that refer to and undermine the credibility of mind to think and act on reason instead of just chance and mechanical necessity, are self-referentially absurd. They can be rejected out of hand. 25 --> Bye bye, evolutionary materialism. 26 --> Taking tested, reliable signs of intelligence seriously, we then see that cell based life has in it codes, data stored in data structures, algorithms, implementing machines, and other similar credible artifacts of mind. C Chemistry cell based life is credibly a product of mind, mind that preceded and caused biological life on our planet. 27 --> Lifting our gaze, we see that the observed cosmos, on dozens of parameters, is fine tuned to facilitate the existence of such c-chemistry cell based life. Thus, the cosmos is credibly the product of mind, intent on creating cell based life, mind that not only can interact with matter, but created it. Mind that is thus also immaterial and awesomely powerful. 28 --> Mind that sounds a lot like the God of Judaeo-Christian theism. 29 --> So now we come to the bottomline: will we insist on a radical a priori materialism that ends up in self referential absurdity, or will we be open to the scientific credibility of design as a causal factor, though it may just point to a mind that looks a lot like God? ___________________ In short, which will govern: materialist presuppositions, or empirically anchored evidence that points in a direction that materialists will find distinctly uncomfortable? To such, My best reply is that science at its best is the unfettered (but ethically and intellectually responsible) open minded, progressive pursuit of the truth about our cosmos, based on observation, experiment, theorising, analysis, empirical testing and discussion among the informed. I therefore find the ongoing attempted imposition of a priori materialism by the backdoor under the name of "centuries long established rules and methods" or the like [a patent lie] backed up by crude indoctrination and heavy handed suppression of informed principled dissent utterly repugnant. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{May 20, 2010
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11 --> For more modern instance, once we understand that ions may form and can pack themselves into a crystal, we can see how salts with their distinct physical and chemical properties emerge from atoms like Na and Cl, etc. per natural regularities (and, of course, how the compounds so formed may be destroyed by breaking apart their constituents!). 12 --> However, the real issue evolutionary materialists face is how to get to mental properties that accurately and intelligibly address and bridge the external world and the inner world of ideas. This, relative to a worldview that accepts only physical components and must therefore arrive at other things by composition of elementary material components and their interactions per the natural regularities and chance processes of our observed cosmos. Now, obviously, if the view is true, it will be possible; but if it is false, then it may overlook other possible elementary constituents of reality and their inner properties. Which is precisely what Leibniz was getting at. 13 --> But in fact, as Richard Taylor points out:
Just as it is [logically and physically] possible for a collection of stones to [by chance and a lucky avalanche driven by the law of gravity] present a novel and interesting arrangement on the side of a hill [a sign saying "Welcome to Wales"] . . . so it is possible for our such things as our own organs of sense [and faculties of cognition etc.] to be the accidental and unintended results, over ages of time, of perfectly impersonal, non-purposeful forces. In fact, ever so many biologists believe that this is precisely what has happened . . . . [But] [w]e suppose, without even thinking about it, that they [our sense organs etc] reveal to us things that have nothing to do with themselves, their structures or their origins . . . . [However] [i]t would be irrational for one to say both that his sensory and cognitive faculties had a natural, non-purposeful origin and also that they reveal some truth with respect to something other than themselves . . . [For, if] we do assume that they are guides to some truths having nothing to do with themselves, then it is difficult to see how we can, consistently with that supposition [and, e.g. by comparison with the case of the stones on a hillside], believe them to have arisen by accident, or by the ordinary workings of purposeless forces, even over ages of time. [Metaphysics, 2nd Edn, (Prentice-Hall, 1974), pp 115 - 119.]
14 --> What are Taylor and Leibniz getting at? This, as Reppert (echoing and amplifying C S Lewis) points out:
. . . let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of [physical] state that is relevant to physical causal transactions.
15 --> Or, as Plantinga traces from the assumption of evolutionary materialism forward:
. . . evolution is interested (so to speak) only in adaptive behavior, not in true belief. Natural selection doesn’t care what you believe; it is interested only in how you behave. It selects for certain kinds of behavior, those that enhance fitness, which is a measure of the chances that one’s genes are widely represented in the next and subsequent generations . . . But then the fact that we have evolved guarantees at most that we behave in certain ways–ways that contribute to our (or our ancestors’) surviving and reproducing in the environment in which we have developed . . . . there are many belief-desire combinations that will lead to the adaptive action; in many of these combinations, the beliefs are false. [Note: even major and well-supported scientific beliefs/models -- such as Newton's laws of motion, circa 1680 - 1880 -- were/are not necessarily true to actual reality but rather were/are empirically reliable under the tested circumstances.]
16 --> Or, citing Crick's materialist blunder and Philip Johnson's corrective:
CRICK: . . . that "You", your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased: "You're nothing but a pack of neurons." This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing. {The Astonishing Hypothesis, 1994] JOHNSON: Sir Francis should have been therefore willing to preface his works thusly: "I, Francis Crick, my opinions and my science, and even the thoughts expressed in this book, consist of nothing more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules." Johnson then acidly commented: “[t]he plausibility of materialistic determinism requires that an implicit exception be made for the theorist.” [Reason in the Balance, 1995.]
17 --> That is, Johnson is arguing that IF self-evident "fact no 1" -- that we are conscious, mental creatures who at least some of the time have freedom to think, intend, decide, speak, act and even write based on the logic and evidence of the situation -- is false, THEN the sciences and rationality are dead. [ . . . ]kairosfocus_{May 20, 2010
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JT: I will focus on one key issue, as it is the proverbial slice of the cake that has in it all the ingredients:
[KF:] Intelligence is of course of a different order of causal capacity from chance, trial and error and mechanical necessity. [JT:] This is just nothing but continual adamant assertion by you. To me it is incoherent to treat cognition as something not governed by mechanical necessity.
1 --> As a matter of fact, in Western intellectual history, the understanding that causal factors can be traced to chance, necessity ["[t]he elements are severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among them . . . "] and art or intelligence was immemorial in 360 BC, when Plato wrote The Laws, Bk X. 2 --> In more recent times, Monod's famous 1971 book, Chance and Necessity, asserted that through materialist evolution, all of life (and of course minded, enconscienced deciding man) traced to just those two factors. Others have pointed out that reductionism of mind to matter and energy in motion under immediate and long term forces of chance plus necessity ends in self referential incoherence. 3 --> But that is a matter of history of ideas. The matter is far more directly evident and easily empirically observable. 4 --> So, laying aside -- for the moment! -- issues over debatable attempts to reduce mind to a result of blind chance and necessity, it is a simple and easily confirmed observation that:
a: a dropped heavy object such as a rock reliably falls at 9.8 N/kg near the earth's surface; i.e. we see a consistent natural regularity that imposes a mechanical necessity once certain initial conditions exist. b: if the object is a fair die, it tumbles and comes to rest reading from 1 to 6 according to a random, statistical, probabilistic distribution, i.e. in effect by undirected contingency or chance. c: if the die is not fair, it will come to rest in a fashion that reflects the intent of a designer, i.e. by directed contingency. As Wiki notes on such dice:
There are also "loaded" or "crooked" dice (especially otherwise traditional ones), meant to produce skewed or even predictable results, for purposes of deception or amusement . . . . A loaded (or gaffed or cogged or weighted or crooked or gag) die is one that has been tampered with [intelligent action] to [purpose, achieved by skill] land with a selected [target zone from the space of contingencies] side facing upwards more often than it otherwise would simply by chance [contrasts directed with undirected contingency].

5 --> So, we can easily notice and distinguish outcomes traceable to mechanical necessity, chance and intelligence, noting that we experience ourselves as purposeful, art-ful intelligences [however we may set out to explain the origin or locus of such]. And, as is explained here in my always linked in more detail [i.e. I have not been making empty question-begging assertions] and here in the UD Weak Argument Correctives linked top right this and every UD page [which, please read], (i) we explain reliable regular patterns on given initial conditions by Natural Law of Necessity; (ii) we explain credibly undirected, stochastic contingency by chance; (iii) we explain credibly directed contingency by intelligence. 6 --> This last has as a characteristic sign, functionally specific [thus evidently purposeful] complex organisation and associated information. 7 --> For instance, the text strings in posts in this thread are complex, functionally organised and utterly unlikely to have happened by the equivalent of monkeys banging away at random on typewriters, even if the matter and energy of the whole observed universe were to be converted into monkeys, typewriters and paper, banging away at even a fantastically rapid rate, over its entire lifespan. 8 --> So, in the here and now world, we see that as we scientifically investigate aspects of an object, process or phenomenon, we may confidently identify causal factors tracing to chance, necessity and intelligence. Indeed, this is a routine part of scientific work: when we say measure a torsional pendulum and plot a graph of results, we distinguish the lawlike regularity of its oscillations from the random scatter of experimental errors from biases injected by instruments or processes of measurement etc. And in telecommunications work and the associated information theory, we measure and analyse signal to noise ratio, which distinguishes the intelligent signal from the stochastic, chance driven noise. 9 --> But, JT, you would reduce mind to necessity (and one presumes, per evolutionary materialism, chance forces too]: "it is incoherent to treat cognition as something not governed by mechanical necessity." 10 --> As I note in App 8 my always linked, the key conceptual error in that was identified 300+years ago by Leibniz, in his famous parable of the mill, in his Monadology:
17. It must be confessed, however, that perception, and that which depends upon it, are inexplicable by mechanical causes, that is to say, by figures and motions. Supposing that there were a machine whose structure produced thought, sensation, and perception, we could conceive of it as increased in size with the same proportions until one was able to enter into its interior, as he would into a mill. Now, on going into it he would find only pieces working upon one another [i.e. the mechanical grinding away of the gears etc does not explain the intelligent functional organisation that laid out a mill to do its task], but never would he find anything to explain perception. It is accordingly in the simple substance, and not in the compound nor in a machine that the perception is to be sought. Furthermore, there is nothing besides perceptions and their changes to be found in the simple substance. And it is in these alone that all the internal activities of the simple substance can consist.
[ . . . ]kairosfocus_{May 20, 2010
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particular way***Phaedros_{May 19, 2010
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JT- Yes many things can follow "well" as long as they are structured in a particular according to the rules of grammar, etc. It can't be,"Well sdjhlkd sflk lsdknf hsldfm kjsdg."Phaedros_{May 19, 2010
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Phaedros what I am referring to is that in arguments regarding irreducible complexity, people will look at some existing biological function F and say, "There is a core to this particular functionality that you cannot remove anything and have that functionality present. Once all that comes into existence, it can be incrementally improved through Natural Selection, but the base functionality has to arise in one fell swoop, so natural selection or evolution cannot produce that." Well this point of view does not consider the possibility of other completely unrelated but equally functional subsequences in F that can be preserved solely on the basis of their own unrelated functionality. So for example the previous sentence I wrote, (starting with "Well.") There are innumerable subsequences of that sentence that are functional even though they don't express the complete specific thought of the entire sentence. Getting extremely far afield here regarding the ostesnsible topic of this thread, so I won't continue this further.JT_{May 19, 2010
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JT- "If one and only one goal is possible then issues of irreducible complexity exist, otherwise not." This is incorrect. Of course many goals exist. The problem is that for a given goal, or purpose/function, there may be only one, or a variation of one, way to accomplish that purpose.Phaedros_{May 19, 2010
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