Science and Freethinking

_{Gil Dodgen

September 23, 2011

Intelligent Design}

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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

FALSE. You have grasses hybridising and varying within a functional context [and on built-in capacities!], not the origin ab initio of that island of function. Further to this, the challenge is to show, within our OBSERVATION, an instance of 500 - 1,000+ bits of functionally specific, complex info originating by chance and necessity without intelligence. Last I heard, corn is a CROP, one probably developed indeed from prior grasses, but in the key aspects, largely by a process of crop breeding for better performance. Wiki testifying against interest as a point of departure:
Several theories have been proposed about the specific origin of maize in Mesoamerica:[17][18] 1] It may be a direct domestication of a Mexican annual teosinte, Zea mays ssp. parviglumis, native to the Balsas River valley in south-eastern Mexico, with up to 12% of its genetic material obtained from Zea mays ssp. mexicana through introgression. 2] It may have been derived from hybridization between a small domesticated maize (a slightly changed form of a wild maize) and a teosinte of section Luxuriantes, either Z. luxurians or Z. diploperennis. 3] It may have undergone two or more domestications either of a wild maize or of a teosinte. 4] It may have evolved from a hybridization of Z. diploperennis by Tripsacum dactyloides. (The term "teosinte" describes all species and subspecies in the genus Zea, excluding Zea mays ssp. mays.) In the late 1930s, Paul Mangelsdorf suggested that domesticated maize was the result of a hybridization event between an unknown wild maize and a species of Tripsacum, a related genus. However, the proposed role of Tripsacum (gama grass) in the origins of maize has been refuted by modern genetic testing, refuting Mangelsdorf's model and the fourth listed above.[17]:40 Guila Naquitz Cave, site of one of the oldest known remains of maize The teosinte origin theory was proposed by the Russian botanist Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov in 1931 and the later American Nobel Prize-winner George Beadle in 1932.[17]:10 Though it had experimental support, in particular for the ability of teosinte and maize to cross-breed and produce fertile offspring, it did not explain a number of problems, among them: 1] how the immense diversity of the species of sect. Zea originated, 2] how the tiny archaeological specimens of 3500–2700 BC could have been selected from a teosinte, and 3] how domestication could have proceeded without leaving remains of teosinte or maize with teosintoid traits earlier than the earliest known until recently, dating from ca. 1100 BC. [ . . . ] The domestication of maize is of particular interest to researchers — archaeologists, geneticists, ethnobotanists, geographers, etc. The process is thought by some to have started 7,500 to 12,000 years ago. Research from the 1950s to 1970s originally focused on the hypothesis that maize domestication occurred in the highlands between Oaxaca and Jalisco, because the oldest archaeological remains of maize known at the time were found there. Genetic studies led by John Doebley identified Zea mays ssp. parviglumis, native to the Balsas River valley and also known as Balsas teosinte, as being the crop wild relative teosinte genetically most similar to modern maize.[19] However, archaeobotanical studies published in 2009 now point to the lowlands of the Balsas River valley, where stone milling tools with maize residue have been found in a 8,700-years old layer of deposits.[20][21][22] Some of the earliest pollen remains from Latin America have been found in lake sediments from tropics of southern Mexico and upper Central America, up to Laguna Martinez and have been radiocarbon dated to around 4,700 years ago.[citation needed] Archaeological remains of early maize ears, found at Guila Naquitz Cave in the Oaxaca Valley, date back roughly 6,250 years; the oldest ears from caves near Tehuacan, Puebla, date ca. 2750 BC. Little change occurred in ear form until ca. 1100 BC when great changes appeared in ears from Mexican caves: maize diversity rapidly increased and archaeological teosinte was first deposited. Field of maize in Liechtenstein Perhaps as early as 1500 BC, maize began to spread widely and rapidly. As it was introduced to new cultures, new uses were developed and new varieties selected to better serve in those preparations. Maize was the staple food, or a major staple (along with squash, Andean region potato, quinoa, beans, and amaranth), of most pre-Columbian North American, Mesoamerican, South American, and Caribbean cultures.
This is an old switcheroo, making an overconfident substitution of artificial selection for "natural." That is, of design for natural, unguided development. In the biological context, the relevant issue is not whether varieties can incrementally develop and hybridise, but where body plans come from, on observation of chance plus necessity only with no intelligent involvement. And, that is the known challenge on the table. The answer, consistently, is a strawman diversion. That is telling. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{October 9, 2011
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The people I know who actually work on industrial applications of AI would disagree. They tell me the fundamental problem is hardware. Current CPU architecture is not friendly to the kind of processing necessary to emulate a brain. That might be changing: http://www.stanford.edu/group/brainsinsilicon/Petrushka_{October 9, 2011
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These problems do not require having a target or knowing the answer in advance. All they require is a measure by which one temporary solution is better than another. They can navigate rugged landscapes and avoid local optima.Petrushka_{October 9, 2011
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People think that evolution is magic.
No, tens of thousands of biologists think it is the way the physical world works. There are at least a dozen industries that depend on genetic algorithms to deal with otherwise intractable problems. These are not toy programs like Weasel, but serious problem solving tools. They are derived from models of biological evolution. They produce novel solutions that cannot be obtained by any other methods. It is simply untrue that they only produce the solution programmed into them, and it is equally foolish to think they are no better than non evolutionary methods. https://www.cs.drexel.edu/~spiros/teaching/SE320/slides/ga.pdf
Control: gas pipeline, pole balancing, missile evasion, pursuit Design: semiconductor layout, aircraft design, keyboard configuration, communication networks manufacturing, facility scheduling, resource allocation Scheduling Robotics: trajectory planning Machine Learning Signal Processing: designing neural networks, improving classification algorithms, classifier systems filter design Game Playing: poker, checkers, prisoner's dilemma Combinatorial Optimization: set covering, travelling salesman, routing, bin packing, graph colouring and partitioning
Petrushka_{October 9, 2011
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Well, I'm not understanding you in that case. Brains are part of bodies, and there is no distinction between software and hardware in a human body - the two are completely integrated. Different parts vary in plasticity, but pretty well all are modified by use (including bones even), and use is a function of intelligence. And what is IMO, absolutely fundamental to AI is a motor system. Whether you call that software or hardware I don't know, but I don't think it's possible to think of coherenetly about AI, or for that matter, consciousness, without an integrated motor component. But it would take a long post to explain this further, and while this conversation keeps tempting me away from what I should be doing right now, I'd better get back to work! Cheers LizzieElizabeth Liddle_{October 9, 2011
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No, the fundamental tenet is that the output of a softwre is independent of the hardware by which the software is implemented. Strong AI is all about the softwrare, not the hardware.gpuccio_{October 9, 2011
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Well, it was you who said that it was a fundamental tenet of strong AI that the hardware and software were separate. If that is a fundamental tenet, then AI is irrelevant to the brain, becauses in the brain the two are not separate. If it is not a fundamental tenet, fine. More later, probably later this week.Elizabeth Liddle_{October 9, 2011
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Elizabeth: (for when you will be back): All that you describe can be realized by software (as you yourself admit). The hardware software barrier is no problem here. The result is however a software. Only computations count, not how they are imnplemented. The presumed difference of the brain because it is plastic is irrelevant. I do agree that the brain is plastic, but its plasticity is different fromwhat a computer can realize only because consciousness is involved in it. The plasticity of a software, however implemented, will never produce consciousness. The plasticity of our brain is different, because it already includes the outputs of our conscious states. Computers can already be learning systems (according to some appropriate definition of learning). They can certainly receive information, and elaborate it according to preprogrammed algorithms (or even according to new algorithms computed from preprogrammed algorithms according to preprogrammed rules). But we are not simply "learning" beings (in the sense of reciebing and automatically processing data). We are "understanding" beings: we process data creatively according to meaning and purpose that derive from our consious representations, something that a machine cannot do, and will never do.gpuccio_{October 9, 2011
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Nullasalus: consider the concept of "bootstrapping". That is a better analogy than your bicycle wheel.Elizabeth Liddle_{October 9, 2011
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PS: and of course, just as there is no hardware/software distinction in the brain, I'd argue there is no user interface either! User, hardware and software are an integrated whole. But of course, that is what we are disputing, so I'll leave that there. Gotta run.Elizabeth Liddle_{October 9, 2011
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Don't have much time right now, gpuccio, but I'll just quickly respond to this:
A brain is nothing like a PC, for many reasons. Arguing that because a PC is not conscious, therefore the brain is not capable of consciousness is fallacious I think!
I don’t agree. One of the basci points of strong AI (indeed, of all AI science) is that the software is independend of the hardware. Run a program on a PC or an abacus, the output is the same (well, the computing time will be different :) ).
I'm not aware that "strong AI" depends on that premise. If so, then I have misunderstood the term "strong AI". My position is simply that consciousness is a function of material interactions within a physical brain. In brains, the software is not independent of the hardware. The distinction, in brains, is meaningless. This is one of many reasons why the computer analogy fails. The fundamental principle of neural science is what is known as "Hebb's Rule": "what fires together, wires together". In other words, every time any circuit is used, the actual circuitry changes. The process is called "long term potentiation" or LTP, and the opposite process is called "long term inhibition". This means that anything the brain does, or doesn't, do, is more likely to be done, or not done, next time round. Quite unlike a computer, a brain is, par excellence, a learning system. More interestingly, it is not just a trial and error system, it is a predictive learning system, so that when faced with novel inputs, it can run possible responses through itseslf at sub-execution thresholds, and feed the predicted results back as either exitatory or inhibitory, depending on past patterns, as input back into the action-selection process. This is the basic principle behind intentional behaviour - unlike animals with less complex brains, we, and other highly intelligent animals, can form an advanced plan and pursue it flexibly, altering our plans in light of new or unexpected information so as to keep our actions in line with our intended goals (or even change goals, should something demanding higher priority come up). Some smart AI systems can do a little of this, but to do it, the hardware/software barrier has to be dissolved. I'm no AI specialist, but my impression is that this is done by running the AI software on a "virtual machine" that is itself plastic, as brains are, the hardware being relegated to an merely executory role, played, in ourselves, by the brainstem and spinal cord (although in our case, these too are somewhat plastic).Elizabeth Liddle_{October 9, 2011
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Elizabeth: Heh A point on which we agree! Good. At least we don’t need to argue about this. Fine :) I think free will is possible in both kinds of world, but I agree that randomness adds nothing! Which is why, in fact, I think your quantum model fails Ah, but we do have to argue about this! :) The only kind of world where free will is not possible is the reductionist or the compatibilist world. In the real world, it is not only possible, but true. And it is true that randomness has nothing to do with free will, no more that determinism. B ut why do you say: "Which is why, in fact, I think your quantum model fails"? That is a non sequitur. You certainly understand well my quantum model. You have descibed it yourself better than I did! Therefore, you are certainly aware that free will, in that model, expresses itself by configuring switches (such as neuronal discharges) according to functional information derived from conscious representations and choices, using quantum randomness as a "window" to change outputs without violating physiocal laws. But it should be very clear to you that the conscious choice is anything but random. As I said, it is based on an intuitive "moral field" accessible to the self: the range of good and bad responses to the existing condition. That is not random, because it is morally oriented. And it is only "implemented" through quantum probability, so that the result, while being functional, is apparently "pseudorandom". IOWs, only awareness of the function or meaning can distinguish pseudorandom events from truly random events.gpuccio_{October 9, 2011
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Elizabeth: A brain is nothing like a PC, for many reasons. Arguing that because a PC is not conscious, therefore the brain is not capable of consciousness is fallacious I think! I don't agree. One of the basci points of strong AI (indeed, of all AI science) is that the software is independend of the hardware. Run a program on a PC or an abacus, the output is the same (well, the computing time will be different :) ). Why should the brain be different? A brain, for a start, is part of a body, an information-gathering, action-executing, self-maintaining structure that needs to find resources and avoid hazards in a complex and unpredictable world. Well, let's pretend we believe strong AI for a moment. The body is a machine. The brain is a mchine in the machine. It is the computing machine. The body is a peripheral, both of input and output. It certainly gather information, but only because it is guided to do that by the software in the brain. So yes, the brain has peripherals. Why would that make it different from a PC? As for "action executing", any PC with output peripherals performs actions. Again, where is the difference? Regarding the "self-maintaining structure": well, that would only be some part of the software, wouldn't it? If we program the software for self-maintanance. it will do just that. If we don't, it will not self-maintain. Where is the point? The same is true for your other points. You have given no reason why a PC should be different from the brain, except for differences in the software. So my points remains: there is no reason why a software should become conscious, as it becomes more complex. Therefore I maintain my non fallacious statement: "The machine will remain what it is, an inanimate machine, however complex, however parallel, however looped, ar any other formal property, according to the bizarre trends of the last strong AI illusionist." Well, to some extent some robots do. But it is very crude, and pretty well confined to orientation in space. No. No robot has subjective experiences. Have you any evidence in that sense? Some do, to some extent. Some can interpret “visual” signals and parse the scene as objects, which may, or may not, require action. That’s the beginning, IMO, of meaning. But I wouldn’t call it conscious. I agree with the last bit. The rest is nonsense. If a machine has no subjective experience, how can you say that it "feels"? Or that it recognizes meaning? A machine can certainly compute data that will have meaning for you. Nothing else. Some robots have minimal purpose – to plan a journey across a room, for instance, with moving obstacles. To do this, it has to constantly update a forward model in comparison with some goal, just as we do. No. that is not purpose at all. Purpose is a feeling about a meaning. It means feeling well if some result is cognitively recognized as achieved, and bad in the other case. A purpose is a conscious representation. A machine can have algorithms that were designed with a purpose, and compute outputs according to them. That's all. The last point in next post.gpuccio_{October 9, 2011
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Elizabeth: I don't want to convince you, but let me unpack too! :) In my case, because I don’t find them stupid. That's exactly my problem. I know you are intelligent. I do believe the ideas are stupid. That's why I am amazed :) These are mere assertions. They are not self-evidently true. They are assetions derived from my inner experience. Everyone is free to agree or not. Anyway, the parts in: "An apparatus... is a sum of parts." and "There is no single observer in an apparatus, especially if complex." seem rather self evident to me. You may not agree that an apparatus in not conscious. Your choice. You may not agree that: "Consciousness refers a variety of modification to one single observer. " But for me it's the only correct way to describe our subjective experience. And it is very, very self evident, given that subjective experience (more on that later in this post). Anyway, again, it's your choice. I think you are your thoughts, and your actions, and your history, and your memories and your goals and intentions. I could just asy these are assertions (they are!), but I will only ask: why? There is no doubt that my ego includes my thoughts (or at least the memory of them) and my personal histoy, but why do you thing that the perceiving subject that is my consciousness is what it perceives? You know, in the very common phrase: "I think that" There is a subject, a verb, and an object. That's how we intuit thought. Why do you suddenly think that "I" and "that" are the same thing? Why would we need different words, and different synthax entities, to refer to them? If I think of a flower, does that make me a flower at that moment? And then a cat the moment after? Simple questions. Simple answers would be appreciated. Specifically, you are the object that you identify as the agent responsible for those things. Yes that is circular, but brains are deeply re-entrant so this is perfectly possible. Ah, that's piceless. It is not only circular (certainly a bad thing), but also senseless. So, one moment I am a flower, one other a cat, and the next moment I am "the object that you identify as the agent responsible for those things". And what would that object be? An apparatus? Again, too many objects here, and only one subject. Again, that is a simple assertion. I suggest that your experience of being you is indeed the result of a looping circuit, which is why, when you think about yourself today, it is not the same thought as the thought you had last year – much has happened in your past since then, you have done things, experienced things, intended things, and your future plans now are different from your future plans then. That doesn’t mean you are not the same person, but I presume you agree you are a changed person? You are mixing up different concepts her. I will give explicit definitions, just to be clear: a) My identity: the subjective self that perceives. It remains the same (that's why we call it "identity") b) My personality: the sum of my past thoughts, memory, history, what I perceive of my body and mind at the present moment My personality is not my identity. When I (my identity) think of myself (my personality) today, my personality has certyainly changed if compared to my personality of one year ago (indeed, even of one instant ago). I perceive a changed personality. But my identity remains the same. Well, I see that the next point is rather complex, so for the moment I post this.gpuccio_{October 9, 2011
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Yes that is circular, but brains are deeply re-entrant so this is perfectly possible. There we have it, as always. "Sure, my explanation is circular. But what's wrong with circularity?" Liddle seems to think that circularity is alright, because after all, bicycle wheels are circular and you can still ride a bike so everything works out! *smile* Also, "to some extent" robots feel and experience. "Some extent" here meaning "in a way so utterly detached from the idea that you can say the same of rocks, so long as you do some metaphysical smuggling". Also, robots have purpose - mind you, gpuccio pointed out that the purpose they have is purpose we project on to them. And Liddle rejects intrinsic purposes, meanings, etc. So her disputation is complete freaking air. As gpuccio said - stupid ideas. But they do have hold over some people who are willing to wiggle their fingers in air and ignore or define any problems away. And man, some people are willing to do that in a heartbeat.nullasalus_{October 8, 2011
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My position isn't the least bit extreme. Things vary. Certain variations catch on more than others. That explains some changes but not very much. Beyond that I'm just expressing myself personally. People think that evolution is magic. It's like the 90s when nothing with a .com in it could fail. The reason why anything and everything can be attributed to evolution is something everyone learned in school but can't remember, it's in a research paper but no one says which one, it's something everyone already knows so why should anyone repeat it, something about finches and bacterial resistance, etc. It's not there. And the only response it to tell me how extreme my position is.ScottAndrews_{October 8, 2011
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Then I think this conversation has hit a brick wall. Your position is beyond even that of Behe. Even beyond that of Ken Ham.Petrushka_{October 8, 2011
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“to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty”. Wider circles of compassion do not compel people to do anything in particular for anyone or anything. Nor is Einstein or "wider circles of compassion" any basis to give a crap. Einstein is making a subjective claim based on nothing but particle physics and what he considers beautiful. I could easily say: "to enslave ourselves in this prison by tightening our circle of compassion to exclude all living creatures and the whole of nature in its ugliness...therefore ensuring my own survival" How then do you decipher which is more valid? When a person is stuck on the side the highway with a flat tire, I would wager that the majority of people feel compassion for the stranded motorist, whizzing by thinking, "poor bastard" "damn that sucks" "i feel bad for that guy," etc. But how many people of the hundreds whizzing by, crossing the border into the "circle of compassion" actually stop based on their feelings? Maybe 1. Probably 0. Einstein's circles of compassion provide no basis to stop. Christ provides a flawless template to model humanity from-a basis to stop, grounded in the singular resurrection event.junkdnaforlife_{October 8, 2011
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Petrushka, I personally don't think the research is going anywhere at all. I don't think it amounts to anything. It's just that to whatever extent it does support abiogenesis, whether that's a lot or not at all, it supports design slightly more. To me this whole concept of 'only evolution can do it' is just the culmination of years of over-hype, and it doesn't live up to it. The concept of improvement through variation and selection has been harped on until people start believing it. To me it's nothing more than religious fanaticism within the context of science. By that I mean, not that anybody wants to blow something up, but that the scientific community is so full of this idea that they are willing to trample on and trash every principle that makes science worthwhile in its name. I've followed this forum for a few years. Some people repeat in practically every post that there is no basis for attributing such magical powers to evolution and they demand an explanation. No one ever answers. No one seems to even hear. This is not one of those things that you support with evidence or question with logic. You just have to believe it. It has everything in common with religion and nothing with science, except in name. Evolution is bacterial resistance and different shapes in beaks and teeth. Maybe a little more. Beyond that maybe the common ancestry is there, maybe it isn't. But the theory's power to explain hits a brick wall after the resistance and the beaks and the teeth.ScottAndrews_{October 8, 2011
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junkdnaforlife: go back and read where this conversation started - a quotation from Einstein! You said it had been "ripped off" from Galatians. I agree that there is a superficial resemblance between that verse from Galatians and the first line of Einstein's passage. There the resemblance completely stops. Paul is talking about something quite different - about salvation from death, by Christ, for those who are baptized, and the unity of those so saved. Einstein is talking about what we must do to understand our unity with the universe - "to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty". These two things are not the same. I prefer Einstein :) But if you don't like Einstein's pantheism, here is Donne:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.
Elizabeth Liddle_{October 8, 2011
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Dennett again! With all due respect for you, I often wonder how such stupid ideas, although smartly expressed, can convince so many apparently intelligent persons…
In my case, because I don't find them stupid.
Hpwever, let’s go to the point. Who defines what? An apparatus is not conscious. It is a sum of parts. Consciousness refers a variety of modification to one single observer. There is no single observer in an apparatus, especially if complex.
These are mere assertions. They are not self-evidently true.
Complexity is the opposite of a conscious subject. A conscious subject is a simple entity. I am I, and not another person. I am not my hand. I am not my thoughts. I am I.
I disagree. I think you are your thoughts, and your actions, and your history, and your memories and your goals and intentions. Specifically, you are the object that you identify as the agent responsible for those things. Yes that is circular, but brains are deeply re-entrant so this is perfectly possible.
I experience billions of different thoughts, and still I am I. I am worried about what will happen to me, because it will happen to me, and not to some person thac I don’t know. In one year, it will always be me here, suffering or enjoying. It’s not a loop in a circuit that suffers or enjoys.
Again, that is a simple assertion. I suggest that your experience of being you is indeed the result of a looping circuit, which is why, when you think about yourself today, it is not the same thought as the thought you had last year - much has happened in your past since then, you have done things, experienced things, intended things, and your future plans now are different from your future plans then. That doesn't mean you are not the same person, but I presume you agree you are a changed person?
You can target some loop in a PC software as a loop of joy, and amother as a loop of suffering. You can assing a symbolic value of good to some variables or objects, and a symbolic value of bad to other variables or objects. But that will never make those loops suffer or enjoy, or those variables be good or bad. The machine will remain what it is, an inanimate machine, however complex, however parallel, however looped, ar any other formal property, according to the bizarre trends of the last strong AI illusionist.
A brain is nothing like a PC, for many reasons. Arguing that because a PC is not conscious, therefore the brain is not capable of consciousness is fallacious I think! A brain, for a start, is part of a body, an information-gathering, action-executing, self-maintaining structure that needs to find resources and avoid hazards in a complex and unpredictable world. It also, in our case, needs to relate to and predict other things-with-brains. When a PC can do that, I will ask you whether you still think it is "an inanimate machine". Unfortunately by then I think we will both be long dead :)
I am I. I am I when I sleep or dream, and when I live or write, or when I die. That point of experience, that subject, recognizes intuitively itself as always the same entity. No machine does anything like that.
Well, to some extent some robots do. But it is very crude, and pretty well confined to orientation in space.
No machine feels. No machine has the slightest idea of what a meaning is.
Some do, to some extent. Some can interpret "visual" signals and parse the scene as objects, which may, or may not, require action. That's the beginning, IMO, of meaning. But I wouldn't call it conscious.
No machine has the slightest experience of purpose. Those are all ideas that we conscious intelligent beings stupidly project on the machines we have created. We could as well project them on out paper notebooks, or on our abacus. There is, in principle, no difference.
Again, I would dispute this. Some robots have minimal purpose - to plan a journey across a room, for instance, with moving obstacles. To do this, it has to constantly update a forward model in comparison with some goal, just as we do.

I don’t think we do live in a deterministic universe (or, at least, current evidence seems to suggest, as you do, that quantum uncertainty is real) but I don’t even think it’s a crucial point.
Maybe not, but I would like to rmind here that a world with only determinism and pure randomness is not more free than a world with only determinism. Pure randomness does not add anything.
Heh :) A point on which we agree! Good. At least we don't need to argue about this. I think free will is possible in both kinds of world, but I agree that randomness adds nothing! Which is why, in fact, I think your quantum model fails :) More later! We will probably never agree about these things, but it is good to unpack them with you. Cheers LizzieElizabeth Liddle_{October 8, 2011
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Elizabeth: I have not much time now. I will try to start some answrs, and then go on tomorrow. About NDEs. It seems to me that youare reducind NDEs to OBEs. It's in OBEs that the subject experiences some external objects as though through a disembodied mind, which is the only part of NDEs you refer to in your discussion. Now, while OBEs are an important part of the NDE literature, especially because they allow some objective verification of the experience, they are in no way the most important part, or even the most consistently experienced. Much more important in NDEs are the experiences that come "after" the OBE, such as the life review, the tunnel of light, the meeting with beings of light, and, in deep NDEs, long and detailed experiences of formal realities which have nothing to do with the physical plane. You ask about the conflict between perceiving outer physical reality through the physical senses, or the disembodied mind. Well, I would say that in the normal state of consiousness outer reality is perceived thorugh the physical senses. That's why they exist. Thr human life is, among other things, about interacting with the physical reality thorugh our bodies. There is a purpose for that, and a moral sense. But that does not mean that we cannot experience other realties, like in deep NDEs, or even the physical reality without our nrains (like in OBEs). The modality of perception, however, is completely different. But the inner world, and the spiritual realities, cannot be perceived by the physical senses, or by the physical brain. I understand that, until a connection, even if rteversible, with the brain and the physical life remains, like in NDEs, one can always argue that it is in principle possible that those experiences arise from the activity of the physical brain. As you probably know, there are strong arguments against that view, but I understand that a skeptic can always remain a skeptic. Skepticism is more a moral position (a wrong one, IMO), than a true cognitive approach. We have free will, so I respect wrong moral decisions. You are right, IMO, in one sense: if we define ourselves as entirely the resultant of material forces outside our control for which we have no responsibility, we define ourselves out of existence. But if we define ourselves as the nexus of decision-making that, intuitively, we think of ourselves as being, then we define ourselves into existence. That self-defining act is no more an illusion than any parsing of the world into objects, whether autonomous or inanimate. i.e. not. Dennett again! With all due respect for you, I often wonder how such stupid ideas, although smartly expressed, can convince so many apparently intelligent persons... Hpwever, let's go to the point. Who defines what? An apparatus is not conscious. It is a sum of parts. Consciousness refers a variety of modification to one single observer. There is no single observer in an apparatus, especially if complex. Complexity is the opposite of a conscious subject. A conscious subject is a simple entity. I am I, and not another person. I am not my hand. I am not my thoughts. I am I. I experience billions of different thoughts, and still I am I. I am worried about what will happen to me, because it will happen to me, and not to some person thac I don't know. In one year, it will always be me here, suffering or enjoying. It's not a loop in a circuit that suffers or enjoys. You can target some loop in a PC software as a loop of joy, and amother as a loop of suffering. You can assing a symbolic value of good to some variables or objects, and a symbolic value of bad to other variables or objects. But that will never make those loops suffer or enjoy, or those variables be good or bad. The machine will remain what it is, an inanimate machine, however complex, however parallel, however looped, ar any other formal property, according to the bizarre trends of the last strong AI illusionist. I am I. I am I when I sleep or dream, and when I live or write, or when I die. That point of experience, that subject, recognizes intuitively itself as always the same entity. No machine does anything like that. No machine feels. No machine has the slightest idea of what a meaning is. No machine has the slightest experience of purpose. Those are all ideas that we conscious intelligent beings stupidly project on the machines we have created. We could as well project them on out paper notebooks, or on our abacus. There is, in principle, no difference. I don’t think we do live in a deterministic universe (or, at least, current evidence seems to suggest, as you do, that quantum uncertainty is real) but I don’t even think it’s a crucial point. Maybe not, but I would like to rmind here that a world with only determinism and pure randomness is not more free than a world with only determinism. Pure randomness does not add anything. “We” control our decisions because “we” are, in my view, the decision making-apparatus, or, at least, we are if we take ownership of it, which I do. Just try to really read what you say here. Who are "we"? If we are the "decision making apparatus", we are nothing, because an apparatus does not make decisions. An apparatus just computes an output. You can call that output a decision (after all the Dennett you have probably read), but that in no way makes that output a decision. The apparatus will not be more conscious of that than it is of outputting that 2+2 = 4. Do you call 2+2 = 4 a "decision"? (Well maybe Dennett would :) ) And what in the world does the following phrase: "or, at least, we are if we take ownership of it, which I do" mean? Who are "we"? If we "are" the "decision making apparatus" (or rather, the non decision making, output computing apparatus), then how can "we" take ownership of it??? I believe there is a subject tioo much here. And the subject too much is exactly "we". "I" can take ownership of an apparatus exactly because I am not the apparatus. How can an apparatus "take ownership" of itself? By some strange Hofstadter loop? You like the Dennett concept because Dennett, smartly (but incorrectly) awakes the inner sense of identity in your consciousness. And surreptitiously he tries to attach it to an inert apparatus. And you, and all the others, believe him! Yes, my conscious identity can "choose" (with a morally bad move) to just believe that it is only an inert apparatus. Or it can "choose" (with a morally good move) to accept its independent identity, and "take ownership" of the apparatus, and responsibility for its personal destiny. But it can do that because it is not the apparatus, and because it has free choice. A final point. You seem to believe, for some strange reason, that an "executive decision" that "may require the postponement of a response until further information becomes available, or the consideration of other actors" is evidence for something in this discussion. I am not sure I understand. I have read the abstarct of your paper. It is certainly interesting, but what is its relevance here? I will try to make more clear my position, for the future of this discussion: I do believe that during our human life we are strongly conditioned by our brains, by their activitis, and by all sorts of mechanical or random circumstances, either outer or inner. That conditioning is very strong, much stronger than we usually believe or accept. Most actions that we consider "free" are not free at all. Drugs, the influence of others, the influence of our past experiences, and mere chance are very important factors in determining our behavious, both outer and inner. Is that clear? And yet, at each single moment, we are never completely determined, not by physical forces, not by qunatum randomness, not by the wortking of our neuronal apparatus, or by anything else in the universe. At each signle moment, we have a range of possibilities about how to react to all those outer and inner conditionings. That range can be small or big. That range is our range of "freedom", and it is another of our non controlled conditionings. I I have a smnall range of freedom, let's say I am a drug addict, my range of freedom may well not be big enough to include that I will not take my drug today. But I certainly can take my drug today with different inner scenarios. Let's say that one scenario (for instance self-pity) is bad, and will keep me a drug addict for years. While another scenario (let's say a realistic feeling that I am doing bad, and a vague desire to change, without any self pity) will allow me to stop, maybe in one year. The possibility to take my drug with slightly different inner dispositions is my full free choice today. An outer observer may not see any difference. But the second option, if maintained in time, will make me more free in ome year. In the same way, I can be a perosn with great inner freedom, and my ramge of options can make the difference between action of great positive or negative influence to the whole world. I still have free choice. And believe me, in this case an outer observer will realize the difference, for good of bad. But free choice is the same. we all have free choice. We all can change our personal destiny, for good or bad. Whatever the outer or inner conditions. Wahtever the working of our neuronal apparatus. Whatever the drugs we take, or the philosophies, good or bad, that we have chosen to accept and believe in our past.gpuccio_{October 8, 2011
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Belonging to Christ, being baptized etc, as Peter says is not about water on the head. It is about, "the pledge of a clear conscience toward God." Peter 3:21. And absolutely some will be excluded. Do you really think Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol, rapist priests, African warlords etc should not be excluded? And others of the similar and less impacting ilk. You may wish to consider yourself fundamentally "one" with these people, Christians do not.junkdnaforlife_{October 8, 2011
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You have spent several days haranguing me about what would be demonstrated by humans designing life. I agreed that it would demonstrate that design is feasible. Having agreed to that, I have to point out that humans haven't succeeded in this. So I'm asking you not to demonstrate that it is possible, but just to provide a proof of concept. I won't hide my position in layers of leading questions. It is my position that it can't be done unless evolution is feasible. It can't be done unless Michael Denton is right that the physical universe has the right "tuning" to make it possible. I don't personally care how the universe got the way it is. That's above my pay grade. I just suspect it is that way, and that ongoing intervention is unnecessary. In a nutshell, my bet is that if design is possibel it will be done by invoking evolution, and that is because evolution and evolutionary algorithms are the only way of dealing with the big numbers. A necessary condition is that the functional landscape is not as sparse as ID advocates believe, and that incremental steps are possible, considering the kinds of steps outlined by Koonin and Shapiro. My position is also conditioned on the observation of Koonin and Shapiro that most coding sequences were invented by microbes billions of years before any multi-celled organisms.Petrushka_{October 8, 2011
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Yes, I know that Einstein was Jewish. But my point is that he excluded no-one. Paul does:
So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
My bold.Elizabeth Liddle_{October 8, 2011
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As you know Einstein was Jewish. Further, baptism is not about the formal pouring water on someone's head. Rather, as Peter 3:21 says...not the removal of dirt from the body but, (symbolic) of the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. i.e. saved by the resurrection of Christ.junkdnaforlife_{October 8, 2011
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I already am, since his research is almost certainly tax supported. But you seem to be evading my question. Can Szostak or any finite designer produce life without using selection and evolution? In Szostak's case, chemical evolution. How does a designer solve the problem of big numbers?Petrushka_{October 8, 2011
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No problem. I get catty myself from time to time, for which I also apologize :) See you later. LizzieElizabeth Liddle_{October 8, 2011
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Well, I don't suppose he "ripped it off". I always liked that verse from Galatians. Unfortunately the Galatians context is quite different. Paul only included those who were "baptized into Christ". That wouldn't have included Einstein. Einstein, on the other hand, excluded nothing from unity with the universe.Elizabeth Liddle_{October 8, 2011
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I'm enjoying this too but I have to drop off for now. I apologize if I let a little snarkiness into my comments from time to time. It never adds, it only detracts.ScottAndrews_{October 8, 2011
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