Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Science and Freethinking

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Everyone has a religion, a raison d’être, and mine was once Dawkins’. I had the same disdain for people of faith that he does, only I could have put him to shame with the power and passion of my argumentation.

But something happened. As a result of my equally passionate love of science, logic, and reason, I realized that I had been conned. The creation story of my atheistic, materialistic religion suddenly made no sense.

This sent a shock wave through both my mind and my soul. Could it be that I’m not just the result of random errors filtered by natural selection? Am I just the product of the mindless, materialistic processes that “only legitimate scientists” all agree produced me? Does my life have any ultimate purpose or meaning? Am I just a meat-machine with no other purpose than to propagate my “selfish genes”?

Ever since I was a child I thought about such things, but I put my blind faith in the “scientists” who taught me that all my concerns were irrelevant, that science had explained, or would eventually explain, everything in purely materialistic terms.

But I’m a freethinker, a legitimate scientist. I follow the evidence wherever it leads. And the evidence suggests that the universe and living systems are the product of an astronomically powerful creative intelligence.

Comments
Dr Liddle: Kindly see the Smith model -- as has been pointed out previously -- for a MIMO processor with a supervisory controller that provides higher order functions, many of which are not simply algorithmic. I happen to think that we will in coming decades build machines with that sort of two-tier control, and they will be in effect intelligent. But the smarts that count will be designed in not spontaneously emergent in some spooky fashion, and the key will be informational interactions between the supervisory and I/O front end processors. But, if we succeed, all we will show is that intelligences can build machines that will be intelligent or enough intelligent to be recognisable. The config space search barriers will still be there. And, you will see from extrapolation form self-tuning or adaptive and "learning' controllers, that the supervisory controller's job is to provide higher order functions that set the context in which the I/O in-the-loop processor functions. A self-navigating ship or aerial vehicle or planetary rover, has a target and it may have a supervisory module that tells it to adapt to given regimes of operation. From such primitive cases, it should not be hard to see what a supervisory processor for our own brains in the loop can provide by way of imagination, will and purposing, etc. Nor is this some sort of "spooky vitalism," it is pointing out that sensor-controller-effector loops are programmed and functional not initiatory. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
October 10, 2011
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PS: Notice, the inference on mind and matter pivots on not the case of life, which Venter et al have shown could be created by a molecular nanotech lab, but the case of the observed cosmos as a whole; and that, even through multiverse speculations.kairosfocus
October 10, 2011
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GP: New laws will be compatible, in tested ranges, with current laws. (Just as quantum and relativity, under the large slow moving limit, will reduce to Newtonian dynamics.) One of the underlying factors is that thermodynamics is connected to the statistics of large populations of configurations of objects. The second law in particular is in effect the conclusion that, if unconstrained, the high statistical weight clusters of states of the underlying objects, will prevail in spontaneous outcomes. You can arrange configs that are not like that, but if the system is like a large collection of molecules, once you release it, it will move towards maximum cluster states. That is why that 2nd law is "time's arrow." Informational configurations -- especially for functional, and in particular coded, structured algorithmically connected and/or prescriptive info -- are very special configs indeed. We may have islands of such configs (note the close link to "cluster") but almost by definition, the unspecified, much more abundant clusters will overwhelmingly dominate the set of possibilities. By overwhelmingly dominate, I am talking on how, in the adjusted estimation, just 500 bits of info-carrying capacity, has in it 3*10^150 possibilities. The 10^102 possible Planck time quantum states of the 10^57 atoms of our solar system -- states that will in significant part follow dynamically linked paths under various laws, but have room for the kind of spontaneous shuffling seen in gases, diffusion, etc -- are 1 in 10^48 of that. A one-straw sample from a hay bale, over three light-days across. Sampling theory tells us that such a sample, overwhelmingly, will be typical not atypical. And, if the kind of informational, clustered functional configs were as common as is implied by the assertions being made on OOL etc, then that should have been the overwhelming observation. Every can of soup in the supermarket should be springing up with spontaneously emergent new life. So, we can call the whole processed food industry to witness, as well as the IT industry, the book printing industry and the Internet. The impression I keep getting is that those who imagine that say clusters of molecules in warm little ponds will spontaneously cluster into self-replicating metabolising entities, just do not recognise how vast config spaces are for quite small amounts of config-carrying or info carrying capacity. There is a reason why the only empirically proved way to get to such special configs is intelligence. Going beyond, self-conscious intelligence is of course an observed and experienced fact. It is the first datum of our experience, and we experience the world through it. Such conscious intelligence is not equal to mechanical or electrochemical etc computation of machines or loops, for the reasons long since pointed out by Liebnitz. Namely, such loops are largely deterministic based on structure. The mill's wheels grind the one against the other, as specified by laws of physics and configs, they do not carry out logical analysis and conclude oops, no that does not make sense, better redo. Thus the computer saying, GIGO, garbage in, garbage out. The second law of course applies to the cluster of atoms in our PC, but that does not prevent an intelligence from so structuring it by ART, that it works as a computer, and it does not prevent the software from working. Just, it means that he PC is on its way to break down right from the beginning. Intelligence is not a contradiction to the second law, no mote than our building houses and bridges or the steam engines over which the law was discovered, were. My own thought is that we observe and experience ourselves as embodied intelligences, that are conscious, and morally governed. That intelligence, points beyond itself. But, the relevant issue for design theory, is that intelligence acting by art leaves its mark on configs of material objects. dFSCI -- and the 500 - 1,000 bit thresholds are important -- being iconic. We have a broad base to trust the reliability of that, with billions of test cases, origin of corn, Weasel and kin, canals on Mars as perceived 100 years ago, etc notwithstanding. So, apart from a controlling a priori that blocks seeing the significance of dFSCI as a "Kilroy was here" sign, reasonable people will naturally and on common good sense glorified through the so-called scientific method, infer from dFSCI to ART as material causal factor. Beyond that, the wider construct of functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information -- FSCO/I -- will also be a similar sign. On the former, we can easily see that it is well-warranted to infer on sign, that life based on coded DNA, is thus best understood as designed. It is objecto4rs who need to stop imposing materialist a prioris and/or assertions, and SHOW, empirically, that their imagined scenarios for spontaneous emergence of such entities from some sort of still warm electrified pond or volcanic vent etc, are a serious alternative. We have excellent reason to see that on the gamut of our observed cosmos -- and frankly even in something that would be much, much larger -- this is operationally impossible. The emperor has on no clothes, but is marching in a public parade as though he were in royal robes and demanding that we collectively join in the pretence. It goes beyond this. We live in a cosmos, where H, He, C, O, N are the five most abundant elements, and are also the key building blocks that physically and chemically support life. H2O and carbon chemistry, are particularly interesting and peculiar. These are locked into the way the laws and parameters of physics are structured, and how they are evidently fine tuned. No wonder, lifelong agnostic and Nobel Prize equivalent holder Sir Fred Hoyle was moved to observe:
From 1953 onward, Willy Fowler and I have always been intrigued by the remarkable relation of the 7.65 MeV energy level in the nucleus of 12 C to the 7.12 MeV level in 16 O. If you wanted to produce carbon and oxygen in roughly equal quantities by stellar nucleosynthesis, these are the two levels you would have to fix, and your fixing would have to be just where these levels are actually found to be. Another put-up job? . . . I am inclined to think so. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has "monkeyed" with the physics as well as the chemistry and biology, and there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. [F. Hoyle, Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 20 (1982): 16.]
And:
I do not believe that any physicist who examined the evidence could fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce within stars. [["The Universe: Past and Present Reflections." Engineering and Science, November, 1981. pp. 8–12]
In short, we have reasonable grounds for inferring in light of scientific findings, that the material universe is an ART-ifact, a creation. Thar already means that if we are open-minded, we should be willing to consider seriously mind as an order of existence beyond matter capable of creating an ordered, life friendly cosmos. On that, mind interacting with or supervising matter in the form of a neurological processor, perhaps on quantum based influences, should not be beyond reasonable belief. What we are therefore plainly dealing with, is the influence of the historical legacy of the institutional dominance of materialism in C19 and C20. That dominance cannot now be warranted on evidence, and as we have seen with Lewontin, it survives on institutional dominance and imposition of a prioris, indeed we see where science itself is being question-beggingly redefined and artificially constrained on its methods. It is time for fresh thinking! GEM of TKIkairosfocus
October 10, 2011
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No, they were not. It is a citation (sorry for not putting the quotes around it). The citation goes for the entire length of my post 83. An indirect indication of this is that I put my initials in the parentheses in the second passage. I suggest you read "Darwin's blackbox".Eugene S
October 10, 2011
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Elizabeth, On positive evidence: Information theory and existing techniques for inferring design that are extensively used in practice in forensics, sociology, medicine. Intelligence does leave traces after its interference that can be discerned by analysis. Neither of these is disputed unless we talk about life, here something else intervenes that makes people willfully blind to facts. I won't go into what the something is because this has no bearing with science. As to non-existing entailments in ID, I tend to agree, but even if it is a method/technique and not a full theory, this is a credible method. Negative evidence is ruining for evolution. Statistics maintains that events with extremely small probabilities do not occur, i.e. a wise individual will not suffer any loss by not taking events like that into account in practice. This is operational impossibility.Eugene S
October 10, 2011
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Dr Liddle at 61.1.1.1.18 I am going to start framing your responses. They are a thing of beauty, given of course that they are perfected as an alternative response to logic, being willfully disconnected from what stands in front of you; the physical, observable, dynamic evidence of a semiotic state in protein synthesis. From my own perspective, there was little question you would simply re-assert that the observations were wrongheaded. If you had anything else, you would have hit it the first time. And similarly, there was little doubt that you'd go back to definitional argument (as you call it). But this definitional argument is a pointless exercise; the objects and their relationships have been coherently described, and they operate exactly as stated. In any case, here is my response:
I don’t see the problem, Upright BiPed, or rather, I think the problem is a spurious one arising from your insistence that mechanisms in which a pattern in one medium gives rise to a corresponding pattern in another is “abstract” or “symbolic”, and thus somehow mysterious.
LOL, Dr Liddle, yes of course, what is there to be interested in? It is advantageous for you to downplay this “pattern” as being just another among any other. Clouds passing by during the afternoon are patterns as well, and they even cause the effect of casting shadows on the ground by blocking the sunlight from above. Whats the big deal, right? When you are forced to eviscerate the evidence of its observed and recorded qualities, it is a dead give-away that you do not intend on addressing it in any realistic manner. Just for the record. Here are the definitions of “abstract” and “symbol” taken from Merriam-Webster: SYMBOL: something that stands for or suggests something else by reason of relationship ABSRACT: expressing a quality apart from an object The informational pattern you accuse me of mis-describing is the central figure in the dynamic relationship which exists between a) the representations contained in nucleotide sequences, b) the tRNA/synthetase protocols, and c) the resulting assembly of amino acids into proteins. So let us put these descriptions into play and see if they are sufficient to draw a clear understanding from, or not. A particular sequence of nucleotides is “something that stands for” a specific end effect within the system of protein synthesis (namely the production of a specific protein). But they themselves are not that end effect (given the fact that proteins are not assembled from nucleotides). Yet, this sequence of nucleotides accomplishes the task of assembly by expressing to the system the individual “qualities [of that protein] apart from the [protein] itself”. And as stated, anything that “stands for” something else must be interpreted (as such) within a system. This occurs for an observed reason. For something to stand for something else, it must be separate from it. (In the genome, this quality of separateness is exemplified by the fact that polypeptides are not produced from the nucleotides that enter the ribosome where polypeptides are produced. The nucleotide sequences drive the system to an end result, but they are not the end result. They are separate from it). And if one thing is actually separate from another (but stands for it by expressing its qualities apart from it) then there must be something to establish the “by reason of relationship” quality, which is characterized in the definition of the word “symbol”. That is what the iterative protocol system in the translation apparatus accomplishes. It establishes the relationship between nucleotide sequence and the result of its input, interpretation, and effect upon the system. That is a relationship - just like in any other form of recorded information – which otherwise wouldn't exist.
You take the example of a musical box, which is obviously a human artefact, and say that the nubs on the cylinder “represent” the notes that emerge. I think this is a misuse of the word “represent”.
Firstly, invoking that the 'music box is a human artifact' is done for a purpose. That purpose is to draw an image where the ID proponent, a human being, is falsely seeing something in the evidence that does not exist; a misplaced analogy. This raises the same question I presented to your comrade in arms, Patti the Mathgrrl, from which she could not recover. If in one case we have a thing that is a symbol, and in another case, we have a thing that just acts like a symbol, then you will be able to look at the physical evidence and point to where the distinction is. And if you tell me that “it all operates under physical law”, then I will remind you that “so does the space shuttle, but the space shuttle is hardly explicable by the physical properties of its material”. Something else is required. Secondly, you seemingly now what to attack the word “represent” as well. This is a term you yourself used without confusion in our previous conversation on this topic. Again, I will use Merriam-Webster: REPRESENT: to take the place of in some respect; to correspond to in essence; to serve as a sign or symbol of Enough of the definition derby, okay? As I already stated, you may call these things anything you wish, it is their physical entailments that matter to the science of understanding them. In case the irony isn't obvious to you, it is you who is humanizing the observations by quarreling over the definitions while their physical entailments are already understood.
Yes, a skilled musician and musical box expert could probably “read” the cylinder as “symbols” and reproduce the melody in her head (I probably could, actually) but in the context of the musical box itself, there is no abstract layer. The melody that emerges can of course be explained simply “in terms of natural forces”.
lol ... The melody that emerges can of course be explained simply “in terms of natural forces”. The melody is explicable by the natural forces at work in the material of the music box, Dr Liddle? Or is that melody only explicable by natural forces working elsewhere on the material that makes up the music box? This is the route I wish you to take. Be my guest. As for there not being an abstract layer, I remind you that the music box does not contain any vibrating air pressure. If it did not have an abstract layer (being actualized by a system of protocols into a resulting effect) then there would be no melody.
Same with DNA – there is no abstract layer, merely a sequence of molecules whose chemical interactions are predictable and well-understood.
You have already been corrected on this point, more than once. The system that decodes DNA (just like the system that plays music from a music box) has not one but two abstractions. The first is the discrete DNA sequence itself. If you isolated a DNA sequence from the system in which it operates, it would represent nothing at all. This is because the representation it contains is not inherent to the material make-up of its nucleotides; it requires more than their material make-up in order to be a symbol. Only by returning it to the system does its physical state represent something, or even have the ability to do so. (And just to be on the safe side, Merriam-Webster: INHERENT: involved in the constitution or essential character of something The second abstraction that exists is the discrete system of protocols. In the music box, that abstraction supplies the constraint that ”these tines tuned to these musical notes shall be oriented in these specific locations” in order to actualize the effect of the representations. None of this is inherent to the material properties of the music box. None of these constraints are inherent to the physical protocols in the genome either. In other words, there is nothing in the physical make-up of a nucleic acid that establishes (for instance) that each codon should have three nucleotides. Rather, these are the rules under which these individual systems operate, they are not inherent physical properties of the materials involved. Your repeatedly-stated issue is with the physicality of the system. For you it seems, as long as you can stand behind the fact that the system operates in accordance to material law, then it is the obvious product of those material laws. Or as you play it; it isn't “somehow mysterious” or perhaps requiring an explanation as to the origin of the system beyond its material make-up. The false imagery here is that one must find something that doesn't follow material law (in a physical universe governed by material law) in order to support ID. That entire defense is a scam; one of the vestigial organs of scientism. Again, if you'd like to appeal to “natural forces working elsewhere” in order to explain the systematic workings of a music box then I welcome that conversation.
The interesting question, of course, is: how did it come about that a self-replicating molecule, like DNA, acquired a sequence in which other molecules, formed chemically as a result of the DNA sequence, catalyse the production of certain proteins that themselves enhance the probability that the whole system, DNA sequence included, will self-replicate.
Let me get out the Pars-a-Matic® and turn the dial up. DNA is inert with regard to replication (it is the result of DNA synthesis, it is not a self-replicating molecule). DNA requires a system that can actualize the representations it contains in order for anything to be “formed” as a result of it. That system (an array of constituent molecules and helpers) must be specifically coordinated to the representations contained within DNA in order for replication to even occur. And the proximate cause of each and every one of those coordinated molecules are the representations in DNA itself. In other words, you take the system and its coordinated requirements for granted; you ignore the observed and inter-related dynamics involved, and you begin to ask your questions only after these things exist.
And we don’t know, exactly, but what we do know is that any sequence that enhances the whole thing’s chances of self-replication will become more frequently represented in the population of self-replicators (logic dictates this), and so while we do not know the exact historical pathway by which these sequences came about, we can infer that in the proto-cell’s ancestry, certain sequences produced reproductively advantageous results.
Here you are saying that we don't know the answer to a question (a question which takes the system for granted and ignores the inter-related dynamics) but you say logic dictates the answer can be found in the enhanced chances afforded to it by the (one-again) misplaced application of differential survival among organisms. (cough, cough) The issue now is the same as it was last time. Provide some evidence for a self-replicating molecular entity which provides for its inheritance without a system of representations and protocols, then point to the rise of representations and protocols in that system. It'll be case closed for the away team. Full stop.
Interestingly, gpuccio’s fascinating proposal for the mechanisms by which an Intelligent Designer could facilitate this, would be completely consistent with any OOL scenario, requiring the Designer only to work below the statistical radar, ensuring that certain sequences, on the pathway to the Intelligent Designer’s desired endpoint, otherwise equiprobable with other sequences, did, in fact, occur. But if the ID is working below the statistical radar, then we aren’t going to be able to infer his/her contribution to the process by any scientific means.
Not only are you reaching Dr Liddle, but your comment could only come after taking the evidence for granted. In any case, you know the evidence we are discussing is not supervened upon by your conversation with GP. Ask him if he sees it any differently.Upright BiPed
October 9, 2011
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Thanks. The challenge I see with attaching ID to accomplishments is that it's vague. It's vague because it's so universally true. You can list all the things done by intelligent design and it becomes repetitive. Everyone one already knows that things are designed. I understand that many refuse to accept the inference, concluding that since life apparently could not have resulted from human design, comparisons to human design are irrelevant. But these same individuals do not aim their healthy skepticism at the proposition of cellular life assembling itself from chemicals, for which there is absolutely no support, hence putting it a few points behind even the questionable design inference. The subject is science, but the behavior is religious. Scientific questions can be resolved, but disputes over dogma never are.ScottAndrews
October 9, 2011
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ScottAndrews, While I may have disagreements with some specifics, I just wanted to briefly voice my approval with the basic point you're making regarding the utility of intelligent design - particularly what's demonstrated with our lab experiments, our simulations, even our technology. Even as an ID critics of sorts, I maintain that one of the most valuable contributions ID can make to these debates is to point out the utility and accomplishments of intelligent agents. In that way, every technological advance is yet more evidence for the capability of ID in the broad sense. I've even lamented in the past what I say as a failure of ID to more thoroughly attach itself to technological advancement as positive evidence of ID - glad to see someone on here move in that direction. If anything I'd add that 'evolution' is just yet another design tool for an intelligent agent. We use selection, even bounded variation, now.nullasalus
October 9, 2011
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Elizabeth, This doubly incorrect.
The quarrel most people have with ID is not that ID can’t be the explanation, but that the argument that ID is the only viable explanation is based on an unwarranted negative – the claim that evolution couldn’t have done it.
Hardly any people who quarrel with ID understand the concept sufficiently to formulate a rational argument. It's a knee-jerk reaction against anything that isn't evolution or indicates a designer. Plain and simple. And for those who do object so, they are wrong. Evolution already couldn't do it before ID came along. ID is a positive argument from evidence.
As I’ve said, I completely disagree that abiogenesis research supports ID more than non-ID. To me that’s like saying that because I can get a seed to grow by planting it, that supports the case that seeds only grow if someone plants them.
That's a weak analogy. Seeds laying on the ground are easy.
if it is achieved simply by simulating conditions likely to have pertained on early earth, then why postulate anything more than those conditions?
This changes nothing. By "simulating conditions" you mean carefully adding specific ingredients and adjusting every variable. And then you don't know whether the conditions you simulated were even accurate. The thinking on which conditions were prevalent has been adjusted to allow for what some assume must have happened, which is biased and circular. But even if that were not the case, the bottom line is that you know what environment exists in your test, and you're guessing what was there billions of years ago. The result: 1) You do know what you can produce in a lab under specific conditions 2) You think that maybe those conditions may have existed in the past 3) If 2 is true then maybe the steps from the first experiment could have happened under those conditions. I'm not arguing against the speculation. But how can you place greater weight on the speculated possibilities than on the observed realities? Something's off. And as I said earlier, intelligence is required just determine which tests to even perform and which results to look for. It would certainly be required to envision all of these fractured parts as part of a whole. I'm borrowing the illustration, but it's like postulating that a golf ball can start at the first tee, move to the hole, then to the second tee and second hole, and all the way through the eighteenth, all by itself. And then to test your hypothesis you play a round of golf. First you're reasoning that just because a player did it doesn't mean it can't happen by itself. That's absurd. Then you're somehow minimizing what the player accomplished, stating that the unassisted golf game is even more plausible than the one you played. I read loud and clear that you disagree. But you haven't come close to offering a logical objection. You are saying, plain and clear, that what we infer or extrapolate from evidence is as probable than the evidence itself, or more probable. It's a dead end. Find another objection. I'm giving it a name. (Unless someone else has reasoned this out already.) I shall call it "ScottAndrews' Evil Plan." I am co-opting your research. All your bases are belong to us.ScottAndrews
October 9, 2011
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Well, I think the the problem lies here:
But the insistence that such pathways must exist is used in attempt to render ID unnecessary.
Who uses such an insistence? The quarrel most people have with ID is not that ID can't be the explanation, but that the argument that ID is the only viable explanation is based on an unwarranted negative - the claim that evolution couldn't have done it. As I've said, I completely disagree that abiogenesis research supports ID more than non-ID. To me that's like saying that because I can get a seed to grow by planting it, that supports the case that seeds only grow if someone plants them. If abiogenesis could only be achieved by careful molecular tinkering, maybe, but if it is achieved simply by simulating conditions likely to have pertained on early earth, then why postulate anything more than those conditions? We know (from many sources) that Darwinian mechanisms result in the evolution of complex systems. What we don't know, yet, is how an initial starting population could have emerged, but, as we agree, progress is being made. Sure, that doesn't rule out an Intelligent Designer, but it certainly doesn't make ID the only viable inference, and it does make it the less parsimonious one.Elizabeth Liddle
October 9, 2011
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Elizabeth, Knowing your perception of ID, you're asking for positive evidence of some creative act. You know as well as I do that there isn't any positive observable evidence for any possible cause that might have put us here. Not from a strict scientific perspective, anyway. The closest we have is abiogenesis research which, as I demonstrated, supports design even more. But I don't see what someone thinks may have been a part of what may have been a part of what may have happened as positive evidence of anything. That's just me. Back to your original question. There is abundant evidence supporting the inference of design. The statement goes something like, "The only observed cause of X is Y with no exceptions ever, so Y is inferred as the best available explanation for unexplained instances of X." It's not carved in stone. Plenty of folks think they can offer other explanations, which would refute the "only observed" part. No one has. It stands. It is, as you often point out, provisional. It's the best available answer supported by data unless something else comes along. That's how science works. :) It's not unusual that some would want to seek alternative explanations. The bizarre, irrational part is the determination to ignore this one.ScottAndrews
October 9, 2011
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I'm asking you what you mean by "the whole system can crash". They were your words.Elizabeth Liddle
October 9, 2011
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You say that in humans there is no distinction between hardware and software. that is not correct. There is always a clear distinction between hardware and software. The software is always abstract. It is an algorithm, never a physical support. Even if the algorithm rewrites itself changing the physical support, there is always a clear dostinction between the physical hardwrae and the computing that is being executed by it. So, I think you are a little confused about the bascis of the same theory you embrace.
Well, of course, that is possible, gpuccio, but I don't think so. Can you tell me on what basis you are arguing that in humans there is a distinction between "software" and "hardware"? And could you be specific about what you mean by that distinction? I'm not trying to argue from authority here, but I should mention that I am coming at this from the point of view of a neuroscientist. So feel free to be as technical as you like in your response :)Elizabeth Liddle
October 9, 2011
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I know. And I'm not seeing any positive evidence there. Tell me what you think the positive evidence is.Elizabeth Liddle
October 9, 2011
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Scott, I totally agree with you. Elizabeth, as regards positive evidence please go to the FAQ page here at UD. It is one mouse click away.Eugene S
October 9, 2011
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Elizabeth, I suggest you read Dr Behe. He is a professional biochemist and I suspect he knows very well what he is talking about.Eugene S
October 9, 2011
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I don’t understand why anyone would bring up GAs to support evolution.
We noticed.Petrushka
October 9, 2011
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Guess what? Calling vicious circularity "bootstrapping" does not eliminate the problems. This isn't an issue you can solve with a smile and a cute name.nullasalus
October 9, 2011
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Elizabeth: Maybe you don't understand, but the concept is simple. Strong AI is not about a softwrae being more or less "intelligent". Strong AI is about software being the cause of conciousness. Hardware has nothing to do with that. Some think that living matter may have some properties that allow the emergence of consciousness, while say electronic circuits may have not those properties. That possition, in itself rather strange, is not however strong AI. In strong AI, it is the structure of software supposedly determines consciousness. Now, you can include in that structure any ability of the softwre to rewrite itself. You may include the necessity of peripherals, even of motion, as a way to acquire data. But in the end, it's not the data that create consciousness, but (according to strong AI) theor elaboration. Consciousness is supposed to emerge our of the computing process, not out of the hardware that computes it. You say that in humans there is no distinction between hardware and software. that is not correct. There is always a clear distinction between hardware and software. The software is always abstract. It is an algorithm, never a physical support. Even if the algorithm rewrites itself changing the physical support, there is always a clear dostinction between the physical hardwrae and the computing that is being executed by it. So, I think you are a little confused about the bascis of the same theory you embrace. In my position, instead, hardwrae is more important. As I believe that the brain is an interface and not only a machine to compute, for me it is absolutely relevant that the beain must be a brain, and not a computer. Indeed, in my model, the brain must not only be able to receive information and process it in various, complex and dynamic ways (all things that a computer in principle can do), but must also be able to pass those physical states to a specific non physical consciousness, to be represented by it, and to receive free, non algorithmic inputs from that specific non physical consciousness to be integrated (possibly at quantum level) in the algorithmic procedures. A brain, with its cellular structure, can do that. A PC cannot.gpuccio
October 9, 2011
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What is the positive evidence for ID Scott? Sorry to ask you this again, but I do not see any evidence that I would call "positive".Elizabeth Liddle
October 9, 2011
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When I think about it, if society had always been atheistic and was composed entirely of atheists, I doubt that abiogenesis or evolution would ever have caught on. Someone might suggest it, but they would compare it to the evidence, reject it, and move on. Most people who argue on behalf of such ideas are not anti-God or anti-anyone-designing-anything. (Some explicitly are anti-God.) But without some degree of such sentiment, even if it was in years past, none of this nonsense would ever have caught on.ScottAndrews
October 9, 2011
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Elizabeth, ID is not a negative claim against evolutionary pathways. But the insistence that such pathways must exist is used in attempt to render ID unnecessary. That's fine, but now the onus is on the claimant to demonstrate that there is one. ID is supported by positive evidence. It's convenient that the only proposed alternative is weak, unsupported, and usually irrational, but that's not what makes the case.ScottAndrews
October 9, 2011
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Is that what GAs are for, to show that things can inherit from parents? It doesn't matter either way. No one actually claims that GAs model actual proposed biological evolution. (I hope not.) They demonstrate a concept instead, a search method. And to the extent that they succeed, they mirror the results of observed biological variation. They vary within limits and optimize without inventing. That's all. I don't understand why anyone would bring up GAs to support evolution. To the extent that they are relevant they demonstrate the limitations of evolution, just as do real-life experiments involving bacteria. The data and the pattern indicate the limitations of evolution, not its wildly speculated capability. They are on my side.ScottAndrews
October 9, 2011
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No, it isn't "a bit funny". They are called "genetic algorithms" because they are systems in which generations of virtual organisms inherit traits from their parents, and those traits are subject to random mutation. Unlike the deodorant, it does what it says on the tin.Elizabeth Liddle
October 9, 2011
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What "whole system can crash"? We have a mechanism, which we know can work. We do not know how, or even whether, it works in every instance. The claim that the system cannot work in some specific instance, and that we must therefore infer ID as the only alternative is the claim with the problem. If you base your claim on a negative - that there is no evolutionary pathway, the onus is on the claimant to demonstrate that there is none. And AVIDA demonstrates that merely showing that there is no pathway that does not involve necessary neutral or disadvantageous steps is not enough - these IC "islands" can, it turns out, be reached by drift. In other words the "roadblocks" are not necessarily blocks, given a large enough population.Elizabeth Liddle
October 9, 2011
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Finally, isn't a bit funny they even call them genetic algorithms? I don't mean this at you, but it seems to be intended to influence weak-minded people who see the word "genetic" and get all excited. It's like marketing deodorant as 'sex appeal enhancer.' Sure, there is a connection between wearing a deodorant and getting a date, but deodorant doesn't get you a date. I get it, the variations between models are the 'genes.' So I can call my typing 'genetic communication.' I'm stringing together letters and words just like a designer strings together genes. If they can use the word, so can I.ScottAndrews
October 9, 2011
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M. Behe, Darwin's Blackbox. An indirect route, Freepress, 2006.p.65-66. Some evolutionary biologists - like Richard Dawkins - have fertile imaginations. Given a starting point, they almost always can spin a story to get to any biological structure you wish. The talent can be valuable, but it is a two-edged sword. Although they might think of possible evolutionary routes other people overlook, they also tend to ignore details and roadblocks that would trip up their scenarios. Science, however, cannot ultimately ignore relevant details, and at molecular level all the "details" become critical. If a molecular nut or bolt is missing, then the whole system can crash... The question we must ask of this indirect scenario (i.e. alleged evolutionary sideways developments - ES) is one for which many evolutionary biologists have little patience: but how exactly?Eugene S
October 9, 2011
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61.1.3.1.11 Petrushka, What do you mean by a target and a temporary solution?Eugene S
October 9, 2011
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And having eliminated GAs from relevancy, how else do you support your assertion that 'that's how the world works?' How is that different from magic? If you take this as an opportunity to change the subject from how we know that evolution is how the world works, I must interpret it as declining to defend your own position. Maybe you weren't going to. I'm just saying.ScottAndrews
October 9, 2011
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Petrushka, Yes, tens of thousands of biologists think that the world works by a process which is no better explained than magic. Variation and selection can perform this and that, but when you ask how you get a re-explanation of variation and selection followed by, "Isn't it obvious?" We've been over the GAs so many times. They are automated problem-solving methods with little or no comparison the proposed reality of biological evolution. Looking at your list, what GA has ever determined that gas needs to be piped between locations or found a use for such gas, determined the need for an aircraft and invented one from the ground up, or come up with a product that needed to be sold and determined that a traveling salesman is a good approach? You see, intelligence does all the heavy lifting while GAs demonstrate their power and their limitations. With a great deal of design and intelligent input they optimize. And in each case the GA insulates each abstraction from the details of its implementation. See how far a traveling salesman GA gets if it has to determine a sales strategy, obtain transportation, and effectively communicate with a potential buyer. GAs are great as long as there is an intelligent person to determine which aspects of a problem are suited to such a search method and then design, execute and implement the search and integrate the results with the intelligently designed plan. Seriously, why do you even mention GAs in this context? Really, why?ScottAndrews
October 9, 2011
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