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

Thank you, Eugene and Elizabeth!gpuccio_{October 8, 2011
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Elizabeth, You are also entirely missing the point of what I am saying.
I don’t think anyone (or many people) think that the fact that something can occur “naturally” (without intention) means that it cannot occur “artificially” (by intention).
I am not suggesting that. That has nothing to do with what I am saying. I am saying, in very simple words, that by demonstrating that something can occur naturally by means of a repeatable experiment you even more conclusively demonstrate that it can occur deliberately. Before I used two sentences. That's one. I can't break it down any more. If a simple sentence can't express a simple thought than an illustration is even more likely to be misunderstood. The objection is raised repeatedly that abiogenesis, even not well-defined, is supported by hypotheses and data, while no one bothers to do any such research with regard to design. My point is not to dispute the abiogenesis research. I am saying, as simply as I can, that the abiogenesis research is the design research. Let me repeat this because everyone who responds seems to seize something else and miss the central point. If I could make the font bigger I would. Abiogenesis research such as Szostak conducts is design research. While demonstrating what might occur naturally he even more convincingly demonstrates what can be done intentionally. I've said it perhaps ten times, and no one has objected while also indicating that they understand what I am saying.ScottAndrews_{October 8, 2011
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You talk about grand evolutionary changes and then produce variations within a very specific bacteria.
There's more divergence separating bacteria from each other than there is separating one animal from another.Petrushka_{October 8, 2011
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Rats, matches and people are all known to exist. Rats and matches will account for the fire. People can't account for the fire because investigation has shown there were none around at the time. Yet you insist the fire was arson.dmullenix_{October 8, 2011
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You are declaring "Design!" with no trace of a Designer and ignoring all the rats chewing matches which account perfectly well for the fire. You insist that an incredibly unlikely Designer made the life we see while completely ignoring evolution which accounts very well for the life we find around us.dmullenix_{October 8, 2011
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Eugene: Scientific method rests on believing that (a) objective reality exists, and (b) we can establish a coherent understanding of the world. This is a belief. It is not possible to prove or refuiute this. Nonsense. Every time we put our coffee cup down and it's still there to pick up 5 minutes later, we add credibility to the belief that there's an objective reality and we have established a coherent understanding of at least a part of it. If it turned into a lizard and crawled away we would have strong evidence refuting the existence of objective reality. You've fallen into the "equivocation fallacy" trap where you use different meanings for "believe" in different parts of your argument and thus reduce your argument to absurdity. Scientific beliefs, along with most everyday beliefs such as "the sun rises in the east" or "this road goes to Laredo" are the type that can be strengthened or refuted by the evidence. Either the sun rises in the east, adding confirmation to your belief or it doesn't, refuting it. The road either goes to Laredo or somewhere else. The religious beliefs you talk about are the type where you believe any darn thing you want to despite the lack of evidence for them or even against the evidence. You can see a Designer. The person standing next to you sees nothing.dmullenix_{October 8, 2011
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Sounds like vitalism revisited to me.Petrushka_{October 8, 2011
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Chewing these over and taking them in turn:
At death consciousness survives, and continues to represent things. Those things will be different things, and no more the physical computations of the brain. But it still consciousness that represents. NDE experiences are good empirical examples of that.
Well, leaving aside how good NDEs are of out-of-brain phenomena (I'm not convinced), descriptions of them suggest that the out-of-body person can see and hear (but not, oddly, touch) the world. So what do you think the brain is doing when we see and hear - if the disembodied mind can do both, surely we don't need our visual and auditory systems, yet we seem to have them. Also they often mislead us. How can this be, if the mind is in control of the brain, and has its own perceptual faculties? In fact, how, in your model, can we account for mental illness, or neurological disability? My own view, of course, is that mind is what the brain does. That they are not different things, but different aspects of the same thing. Indeed, the foundation of functional brain imaging is the correlation of mental events with neural events - what is experience by the person with what is observed in their neurons (or at
My favourite model is that consciousness interacts with matter at quantum level, probably causing specific “wave function collapses” that, while apparently respecting possible probabilities inherent in the wave function, are in reality informationally configured by consciousness. IOWs, consciousness just acts on “configurable switches”, inputting information where pure randomness would normally be present. For the probabilistic nature of quantum wave function collapse, that needs not violate any physical laws., especially if it happens at specific levels, like neuronal discharge, or intracellular critical events, including mutations.
OK, let's take a neuron, firing stochastically. Every time it fires, it slightly changes the polarisation of the post-synaptic neuron. For that post-synaptic neuron to fire, many depolarising signals need to be received from a whole population of other neurons within a certain time-window. And let's say, that at quantum level, the disembodied brain nudges certain electrons so that an ion travels in direction x instead of direction y, thus tipping the balance of one of the presynaptic neurons into firing a fraction earlier than it would otherwise have done, thus just making the critical time-window of the post-synaptic neuron and causing it to fire when it would not other wise have done. In this way, a tiny quantum nudge by the disembodied mind is amplified, just like the butterfly in Peking, into a cascade of neural events and behaviours that would not otherwise have happened, but which is the intended output of the disembodied mind. Is that the kind of thing you have in mind?
The only “anomaly” we could observe would be the emergence of functional information without any reasonable probabilistic explanation.
But not in the case I have outlined above. We know that Hebbian learning occurs, and we know that it results in coordinated behaviour. You are saying that our disembodied minds can nudge that behaviour one way or the other (or at least I think you are saying that), which is a reasonable view (indeed I held it once myself :)). However, firstly, the unnudged brain is not going to produce detectably different behaviour to the nudged brain (or I don't see how, unless you are arguing that brains unnudged would be completely chaotic, and I see no reason for that, given what we know about how neural networks work), and so observing the output isn't going to tell us whether they were nudged or not. Did you put the money into the charity shop because you were nudged, or would you have done it anyway? Did you fail to put the money into the charity shop because your disembodied mind "chose" not to do the right thing (why? Why would it?) when, left to its own devices, the brain would have caused you to put the money in? And on what basis would the disembodied mind make the decision? What data does it use, and, when the data collection system is offline (as in an NDE or OBE), where do the data come from? The thing is, that I can see the attraction of the idea, but on inspection it seems to collapse - every attribute we want to give the disembodied mind seems either duplicative or powerless, and, where powerless, the missing power is possessed by the brain. However, if we posit (as I do) that mind is what the brain does, there is no such difficulty. We make our decisions based on the data we collect from our sensory organs, parsed by the brain into objects, and people, and goals, and abstractions, and act on the basis of that information, simulating the likely results of our action, and feeding back those results into the decision-making process. Without a brain, I don't see how moral and creative decisions can be made, or, if they can be, what is all that moral and creative decision-making machinery in the brain for, and why, when it goes wrong (as it often, sadly, does), does our disembodied mind not simply over-ride it?
The possibility that consciousness could design without exerting a specific force, however, has already been discussed, I believe by Dembski, in one of his books.
Can you summarise? It seems to me to be a pretty important point!Elizabeth Liddle_{October 8, 2011
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Agreed :)Elizabeth Liddle_{October 8, 2011
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GPuccio, Yours are very good posts with much food for thought. I always enjoy reading them even though something appears questionable to me (such as things on consciousness, but as yet I am very far from putting my questions not even objections into words, I am just in the stage of accumulating info on this for myself). A big thank-you for your time here at UD.Eugene S_{October 8, 2011
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Thanks! Here is my first question:
Elizabeth: I’m curious as to what you think the “computing structures” are used for, if all the other things are done independently of it. It is used exactly to do what it can do: to compute. Exactly as we humans use a computer to compute. But it is perfectly true that “every meaning, purpose, sense of good and evil, pleasure and pain, are properties of consciousness, not of the physical computing apparatus.” IOWs, no subjective representation exists in the computing apparatus (the brain). All subkective representations of the brain content and computations take place in consciousness, and not in the physical machine of the brain.
But what does the brain compute? As humans we use computers to give us answers to questions we present it with. But the content of those questions is based on our observations and perceptions of the external world. And we know that the brain itself (or do you dispute this?) is responsible for taking in data from the external world and parsing it into predictions about what will happen next. In the absence of such a mechanism, how would your disembodied mind even know what to ask its "computer" to do? Your analogy just isn't working for me! Without a brain, surely the disembodied mind is blind, deaf, and anaesthetised. Or, if not, what are these brain networks doing?Elizabeth Liddle_{October 8, 2011
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Elizabeth: I’m curious as to what you think the “computing structures” are used for, if all the other things are done independently of it. It is used exactly to do what it can do: to compute. Exactly as we humans use a computer to compute. But it is perfectly true that "every meaning, purpose, sense of good and evil, pleasure and pain, are properties of consciousness, not of the physical computing apparatus." IOWs, no subjective representation exists in the computing apparatus (the brain). All subkective representations of the brain content and computations take place in consciousness, and not in the physical machine of the brain. What, in your view, could this independent entity do, without the physical interface? What would be missing from its capability if the brain ceased to exist (as brains do), or the interface went black? At death consciousness survives, and continues to represent things. Those things will be different things, and no more the physical computations of the brain. But it still consciousness that represents. NDE experiences are good empirical examples of that. So it seems that you posit these disembodied minds as physical forces, capable of moving ions through ion channels and, by the same token, molecules into interaction with other molecules. It is a possibility, as I have said. But if you read carefully my posts, you will see that that is not my favourite option. My favourite model is that consciousness interacts with matter at quantum level, probably causing specific "wave function collapses" that, while apparently respecting possible probabilities inherent in the wave function, are in reality informationally configured by consciousness. IOWs, consciousness just acts on "configurable switches", inputting information where pure randomness would normally be present. For the probabilistic nature of quantum wave function collapse, that needs not violate any physical laws., especially if it happens at specific levels, like neuronal discharge, or intracellular critical events, including mutations. The only "anomaly" we could observe would be the emergence of functional information without any reasonable probabilistic explanation. The possibility that consciousness could design without exerting a specific force, however, has already been discussed, I believe by Dembski, in one of his books. Presumably you are aware that there are well-described physical forces that also do this? The electromotive force, for instance. See above. Consciousness acts at quantum level, not in a deterministic way. It is not a force, but the output of a transcendental "I" endowed with free will. Quantum predictions may be statistical, but that doesn’t mean you can slip a bias under the wire and hope that no-one notices. Yes, it means exactly that. Quantum experiments are not usually accomplished taking into account the contribution of cosnciousness. And anyway, if one looks correctly, one can detect something. Some data exist in that direction. You can find some of them in the book "The spiritual brain", for instance. It is a new field of investigation, but it will progress rapidly, especially if the reductionist prejudice of strong AI will not be any more the religion of academic science. Moreover, to detect the "anomaly" one certainly needs the concepts of ID theory, and especially the concept of dFSCI. Given enough data, even tiny effects give rise to detectable signal in the statistical noise. It depends. First of all the signal noise ratio must be in the range of the research methodology. And you must know what to look for. The real anomaly would be the functional arrangements of the pseudorandom events, and only the tools of ID can really show that anomaly. The general probabilistic distribution could well not be violated, unless evaluated in terms of functional information. Do I have this approximately right? Yes, if you take into account my further clarifications in this post. But if you have other questions, I will be happy to answer themgpuccio_{October 8, 2011
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There's nothing to refute, UBP. Physical systems can transmit information, as you point out. The origin of the information might be an intelligent agent, such as a musical box manufacturer, or it might be information accumulated over many generations of self-replicators replicating within a hazardous environment with limited resources. There is no "abstract" level, except in our own descriptions of the process, which is not surprising as we are creatures capable of abstract descriptions. Molecules are not.Elizabeth Liddle_{October 8, 2011
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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. 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". 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". Same with DNA - there is no abstract layer, merely a sequence of molecules whose chemical interactions are predictable and well-understood. 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. 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. 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.Elizabeth Liddle_{October 8, 2011
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Are there observable things that we can generalize to other forms of information, for instance?
Probably not. Information is an abstraction, and you can't reason backwards from an abstraction to the properties of a physical instance, because abstractions shed detail.Petrushka_{October 8, 2011
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The input of information is therefore driving the output production, but as in all other forms of information, the input and the output never physically interact.
This seems to be a paraphrase of the "central dogma of molecular biology." What kind of response are you waiting for?Petrushka_{October 8, 2011
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We are merely pointing out that biology can be explained, as most other phenomena can be explained, in terms of natural forces.
I am still looking forward to you applying that standard to the observable physical entailments as described in post #49.Upright BiPed_{October 7, 2011
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Scott, there is an important misunderstanding here that needs clearing up. I don't think anyone (or many people) think that the fact that something can occur "naturally" (without intention) means that it cannot occur "artificially" (by intention). We could have a completely compelling account of OOL and all life forms and it would not rule out the possibility that it was all nudged along by an Intelligent Designer. Indeed, as Christopher Hitchens points out, the chances that people would evolve is vanishingly small, and the chances even that a species as intelligent as us would have evolved by now is probably also quite small. So even if it all happened as Darwin says, in no way does that rule out a gentle nudge in some Intelligent Designer's intended direction. Just because something can happen naturally doesn't mean it did. So please don't level at Darwinists the charge that they are trying to demonstrate that their was no Designer. We are not. We are merely pointing out that biology can be explained, as most other phenomena can be explained, in terms of natural forces. Whether an Intelligent Designer conceived those natural forces, forseeing that we might come to exist, is a matter of faith, and nothing in science rule it out. But neither does anything in science, IMO, rule it in. In fact, my own theological position is that a supernatural agent that was ruled in by science would be an oxymoron.Elizabeth Liddle_{October 7, 2011
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Results seem to fall right in line with the fairly flat distribution rate of rm+ns evidenced by lenski e-coli. Lenski e-coli: 15 +-5 fixed mutations -> 5*10^4 generations corn: 15 fixed mutations -> 10^4 generations Where predicted (based on lenski) would have fixed mutations <=5 within the first 10^4 generations. With the corn's fixed mutation variance (2) attributed to intelligent selection. Same observed wall over and overjunkdnaforlife_{October 7, 2011
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You've made your point over and over and over and over and over and over, and I've agreed with it each time. What you haven't done is relate it to the discussion of evolution vs ID.Petrushka_{October 7, 2011
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Perhaps someone else can chime in - not necessarily agree or disagree with what I'm saying, but to indicate that you understand it. Because it's so simple that I can state it in two sentences. Then, Petrushka, I will understand whether you are evading the point or whether I'm not making it as clearly as I think I am. None of your illustrations even address the logic of it. I repeat, You can do something deliberately to demonstrate that it can happen accidentally. But in doing so, you demonstrate even more convincingly that you can do it deliberately. I apply this principle directly to OOL research in which they, for example, create some fatty vesicles and state that such fatty vesicles, possibly a step toward early life, could occur naturally under these conditions. Without disputing that, I add, quite simply, that the same results can also be produced intentionally by repeating the experiment, and with even greater certainty than that it might happen "in the wild." If this is not the case then the experiment is not repeatable and loses significance. I'll be back later tonight prepared to break it down sentence by sentence if what I'm saying is the least bit unclear. You don't need to come up with "what if" scenarios because I've already given you one. That is the scenario. If I'm wrong, tell me why.ScottAndrews_{October 7, 2011
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OK.
First of all, I would like to clarify that I do believe that consciousness in its essence is transcendental, independent of physical interface, and that it has a fundamental property that can be described as both cognition and feeling. In pure form, those aspects of consciousness are not tied to specific representations. In our experience of human consciousness, however, we usually represent what arrives to us through the interfece (for instance, the brain), but the cognitive and sentimental value of those representations are essentially a product of consciousness itself. So yes, intelligence can be completely separated from specific representations and form the interface. In us humans, intelligence works mainly through the brain interface, and uses its computing structures, but every meaning, purpose, sense of good and evil, pleasure and pain, are properties of consciousness, not of the physical computing apparatus.
I'm curious as to what you think the "computing structures" are used for, if all the other things are done independently of it. What, in your view, could this independent entity do, without the physical interface? What would be missing from its capability if the brain ceased to exist (as brains do), or the interface went black?
Not exactly. I believe that my “disembodied mind” (the designer’s) does exactly what my own “disembodied mind connected to a physical brain” (my personal mind) does all the time: it interacts continuously in both directions with a physical structure (the brain, and in particular the neurons). In the case of the designer, the physical structure would not be a personal brain, but possibly the cells of biological beings to be designed for further evolution.
So it seems that you posit these disembodied minds as physical forces, capable of moving ions through ion channels and, by the same token, molecules into interaction with other molecules. Presumably you are aware that there are well-described physical forces that also do this? The electromotive force, for instance. Do you envisage that your "disembodied minds" counteract these forces if they see them pushing things in an unwanted direction? If so, wouldn't this be detectable? Would you not observe a bias in the probability distributions of such events? How could they control "key aspects of the neuronal work without violating any known physical laws. "? How could it be that "the special nature of of quantum reality allows that"? Quantum predictions may be statistical, but that doesn't mean you can slip a bias under the wire and hope that no-one notices. To take a very different example: Harold Shipman thought that a few extra old ladies dying a bit earlier than they otherwise would would escape detection as being a mere statistical fluctuation, but it didn't. Given enough data, even tiny effects give rise to detectable signal in the statistical noise. As I understand your position, it is that there is enough random jitter in the physical world that a major additional set of entities, namely disembodied intelligent minds, can exert substantial forces on it and yet produce no statistically detectable effects at the physical level, except, presumably, the otherwise unaccountable phenomena of biological beings and moral behaviour. Do I have this approximately right? If so, I'd still like to know what you think our disembodied minds use our brains for :) If not, perhaps you could clarify further. Cheers LizzieElizabeth Liddle_{October 7, 2011
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Are you suggesting that biochemistry was set up to favour the evolution of complex replicators?
That's the belief of a lot of ID proponents, including Michael Denton. Personally I don't know if it was "set up," but it does work that way. As for predators, it has long been noted that predators and prey evolve complex relationships. Same with parasites and hosts. Do you deny that predators actively select the weaker of their prey?Petrushka_{October 7, 2011
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Petrushka: The environment is not blind. Every living thing competes against predators, parasites and other organisms, for food and resources. In addition, biochemistry places constraints on what variations can maintain metabolism and reproduction. Are you suggesting that biochemistry was set up to favour the evolution of complex replicators? Or that predators are intentionally trying to evolve compexity in their victims? There is nothing blind about the environment or about selection. Maybe the only blind entity here is your reasoning.gpuccio_{October 7, 2011
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I'm curious if you disagree with Newton:
The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intensification nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.
Petrushka_{October 7, 2011
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But in doing so, you demonstrate even more convincingly that you can do it deliberately.
So all you have to do to demonstrate that design is possible is to design a protein coding sequence from scratch, without using a randomly generate library that has been selected for sequences that fold. If you use selection, you are using evolution.Petrushka_{October 7, 2011
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The environment is blind. Nobody sets the environment to achieve evolution.
No sir. The environment is not blind. Every living thing competes against predators, parasites and other organisms, for food and resources. In addition, biochemistry places constraints on what variations can maintain metabolism and reproduction. There is nothing blind about the environment or about selection.Petrushka_{October 7, 2011
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Petrushka,
if Newton studies the behavior of cannonballs and concludes that it is possible to fire one at a velocity that would lead to it orbiting the earth rather than falling to the ground, he has demonstrated that the moon was placed in orbit intentionally, or at least that is the preferred inference?
If you fire a cannonball into orbit, you demonstrate that you can fire a cannonball into orbit. Perhaps that wasn't your intention. Perhaps you're speculating that a cannonball can fire itself into orbit, and this experiment supports your hypothesis by demonstrating that under the right circumstances a cannonball might enter orbit. And that's fine. You now have data to support your hypothesis. But it also demonstrates that you can fire a cannonball into orbit. And it supports the hypothesis that you can fire a cannonball into orbit even better than the one that a cannonball can fire itself into orbit. Allow me to repeat. You can do something deliberately to demonstrate that it can happen accidentally. But in doing so, you demonstrate even more convincingly that you can do it deliberately. It's all in those two sentences. It's simple logic. Talking about the moon won't change it.ScottAndrews_{October 7, 2011
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Petrushka: So, darwinists will go on "simulating" NS by intelligent selection, so that they can lie and affirm that NS can do what it cannot do. A nice trick. And I am tired to repeat it. The environment is blind. Nobody sets the environment to achieve evolution. A genetic algorithm is not blind. It is a system set up exactly to prove what it will prove. Compliments! From that point of view, no genetic algorithm is better than the infamous Weasel. NS cannot do anything. Just implement it in a true informational system, if you have the courage to do that. A replicating advantage, a true, natural replicating advantage, is the most difficult thing to obtain by random variation, in any true natural blind environment, except than in the fantasy of darwinists.gpuccio_{October 7, 2011
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61.1.1.1.9 Elizabeth, I see no principal distinction between the two as they are different manifestations of the same basic principle. Neither did the founding fathers of contemporary science (here I am in good company :) It is important to understand that an act of faith is not blind but is also based on evidence and potential opportunity to validate it, albeit by different means. So I cannot agree with your "merely". BTW, it is good that you know the Nicene creed.Eugene S_{October 7, 2011
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