Lenny Susskind on the Evolution of Physicists

_{William Dembski

July 9, 2009

Intelligent Design}

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Mr Joseph, A definition of macro-evolution that excludes random plants and animals is pretty vague and useless. I thought we had a discussion that macro-evolution included speciation (even in plants!) and we had this kind of evidence of genetic changes, small changes, leading to large phenotype changes.Nakashima_{July 10, 2009
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Khan, You are using a definition of macroevolution that is vague and useless. The amoebas are still amoebas. IOW that scenario is OK even with YECs. Also as far are anyone knows symbiosis is a design mechanism. And your example of Arabidopsis thaliana pretty much proves you don't know what you are talking about. Hint there isn't any dandelion-oak implication. Arabidopsis thaliana has a very small genome- think the fruit fly of the plant kingdom. Therefor I would expect if one tinkers with the genome changes will occur. And if you want to use living organisms to support your position then it is up to you to demonstrate that living organiosms can arise from non-living matter without agency involvement. So have at it.Joseph_{July 10, 2009
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There is part of a series of lectures on this topic by Susskind. If you follow the links there is a large set of lectures on various topics from science to economics to culture to various other things (currently 636 videos). There are about a dozen long lectures on Darwin, some up to 2 hours long. http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=stanforduniversity&view=videosjerry_{July 10, 2009
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frost, here are two examples of macroevolution being observed: A symbiosis between a euk and prok creates complex new capabilities Jeon, K. W. 2004. Genetic and physiological interactions in the amoeba-bacteria symbiosis. J Eukaryot Microbiol 51:502-8. two mutations cause a switch from herbaceous to woody growth (think:dandelion-oak) Melzer S, Lens F, Gennen J, Vanneste S, Rohde A, Beeckman T. 2008. Flowering-time genes modulate meristem determinacy and growth form in Arabidopsis thaliana. Nature Genetics, published online: 9 November 2008 | doi:10.1038/ng.253 aircraft carriers are not living beings, hence are irrelevant to the topic.Khan_{July 10, 2009
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Robert, "I am a YEC and found this guy boring and demonstrating the simplicity and so the error of certain subjects like this that see darwin in atoms. I guess those who can’t TEACH." Yeah, I guess he was kind of boring at the start, which is why I missed pretty much all the juicy stuff everyone's talking about here. Should have taken a clue from Dr. Dembski. But that's just me - I can watch a boring movie all the way through before I say "Huh?" Anyway, I got into the lecture about bits, vectors and matrixes. That part wasn't boring for me. Did you read DATCG's post above at 20? Prettey perceptive.CannuckianYankee_{July 10, 2009
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I am a YEC and found this guy boring and demonstrating the simplicity and so the error of certain subjects like this that see darwin in atoms. I guess those who can't TEACH. There must be better people in america who can contribute to these matters from insight and intelligence and not as i presume from scoring high on tests as a kid. I was surprised at how poor this teacher reasoned about the origins of human thought. This physics stuff is in fact a very minor subject compared to the great subject of biological complexity. its why its easy to make big bombs but not cure blindness. physics has wrongly been seen as more complicated then biology stuff at any level.Robert Byers_{July 10, 2009
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Kahn you falsely state that macro evolution has been observed. It has never been observed. As far as macrodesign we see people design air craft carriers dont we? Are they big and complex enough for you to accept macrodesign?Frost122585_{July 10, 2009
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DATCG,
Now, do you deny the future of intelligent designers ability to create novel features?
I'll lay it out for you: Micro-evolution is readily observed Micro-design is readily observed Macroevolution can be observed, but is mostly inferred Macrodesign has not been observed, and at this point is way off in the future, if it happens at all. In short, there is way more evidence for macroevolution than macrodesign, and to claim that the latter will happen is based solely on faith. I don't know if macrodesign will happen, but I do know that scientists will keep trying. does that answer your question? what is the basis for your firm acceptance of macrodesign?Khan_{July 10, 2009
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DATCG accurately shows the bias of Mr. Susskind.Frost122585_{July 9, 2009
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Hmmm... Dr. Susskind says much at the intro of his "Sermon" to his faithful members. Lets review the first few minutes of the high Priest Sermon. It is quite loaded and all I have time for this late. Lion as a physicist Sermon in the day of our Lord Darwin(PBUH); 3.7billion, 8 million, 40 two thousand and 9. Sermon begins...
"I almost always begin with the same sermon about, especially when teaching about quantum mechanics or relativity. The sermon is always the same. Its the fact that we as animals have inherited through the process of evolution(unguided), certain intuitive ways of thinking about the physical world." "And if you don't believe it. You think that ordinary animals are not physicist, you watch a lion chasing an antelope and you notice that that lion the minute that the antelope, that the relative velocity between the antelope and the lion changes sign, the lion just stops dead. Somehow he did some calculation, or she, its usually a she, the lion, did some calculation, some physics calculation involving some very complicated concepts of velocity, direction, all kinds of complicated complications like that."
Ahem, Mr. Darwinian Priest? Yeah, I have a question. Didn't we came from chimps? So our inheritance of "intuitive ways of thinking" are more about swinging from tree to tree, aren't they? I mean, didn't we climb the tree to get away from the lion? Why did we ever come down from that tree if the lion was still there? What came first, the lion, the tree or chimps? I guess the tree had to come first or the chimp couldn't climb it, but without the lion, the desire to climb up the tree is not there. But, did we lose our "intuitive ways of thinking" eventually that the lion was a threat? Or did we suddenly wake up one day and think alien thoughts? Sorry if I've moved ahead of your Sermon, but you do mention "alien" thoughts. Is it possible our chimp ancestors had alien thoughts? Like maybe if we walk upright and carry a big stick with sharp metal on the end we can kill the lion? Hmmmmm.... I never knew physics was so interesting these days. Great Sermon so far. Lol, cool, so we inherited mathematical concepts, forces, velocities and other "complicated complications." I could've skipped trig, physics and calculus and become king of the jungle. But I fooled around in the treehouse to long and had to learn long division. He continues...
"A primitive.... Neanderthal... did he know about Sines and Cosines? Yes, somehow he did...these are things which were inherited, biological in origin..."
This is fun acting like Kahn. Why is it the lion knows this and I had to go to school to learn it? Hey, show me where Neanderthal knew about Sines and Cosines without a teacher. Show me where he predicted the necessary velocity of a rock thrown at a 22deg angle against his nasty enemies, those "Darwinian" savages, enabling his semi-automatic rock thrower so that it would crack their skulls better than their outdated single headed, arm-launched spears. Thank you oh ancient brother Neander! To bad he wasn't around to teach us about the concepts of CO2 and global warming. But wait, gee, I forgot, we inherited our understanding of weather systems - doh! Global warming solved. Who needs Harvard when you can inherit complicated complications about El Ninio' and ocean currents? He continues past that old inherited neanderthal physics onto modern theory...
"Everything in Modern physics has to do with those things which are beyond what we are able to get from the ordinary world."
Wait, did we inherit modern physics too? If not, why not? If so, from who? The lion? The bird? Richard Dawkins aliens? Hmmmm... what do humans do in order to practice the complicated abstractions of Modern Physics? According to Susskind, they must "rewire" their brain. But why would one do such an unintuitive "thing" unless they were wired to already think unintuitively? Interesting... doesn't it take "will" of the "mind" to change the framework(rewire our brains) from the Lion-Physics of ancient Newtonian-neanderthal to the modern physics of the Einsteinian-Alien-Mind? To leave the intutive-jungle mind behind for the Cosmos of Dawkins aliens? Susskind cont.
"They(modern physicist) had to invent new mathematics. The new math was abstract..., couldn't visualize it... so physicist learn to rewire themselves"
Outside of our normal intuitions. We thought outside the plains of the leaping antelope and onto the abstract planes of the 4th Dimension. Evolution is so cool.
"They're Foreign, they're alien, peculiar..."
Wait... wait... how can an animal brain step outside itself and think about "foreign" concepts that are not "inherited" through evolution? Unless, maybe Richard Dawkins is onto something? Maybe we inherited "complicated complications" from our "aliens" fathers and mothers from advanced civilizations off-earth? Might this explain our intuitive thoughts about SETI and Space Aliens from Mars? If this is true, Richard Dawkins will become more famous than Al Gore. He'll deserve the Nobel prize! This evolutionary hypothesis would keep the evolution scenario of inheriting cosine, sine and well.... tangents of other worldly, "foreign" concepts alive in the standard Darwinian paradigm. But it would mean that we didn't need to rewire our brains at all. We simply inherited it from aliens. Like evolutionist say, one day, we'll know the answer, surely SETI is good science. Thanks Richard, thanks SETI. We better start understanding how we inherited our ability to think about black holes and distant life forms in distant galaxies fast! Maybe we inherited the ability to communicate with our ancient ancestors of the Cosmos too. Dr. Dembski, thank you for such an informative physics sermon by Dr. Susskind. This may not have been your intention, but I sure learned much today.DATCG_{July 9, 2009
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^ the "yes" always refers to an object of physics in physics of course. Now if you were trying to logically formalize metaphysics and wanted to somehow give truth values to concepts and ideas and sets and things you might be able to argue we are only dealing with a question of sorts- though the yes as a state of being might still qualify as objectively singular and hence an object of mind. But in physics we are dealing with "yes" 1 objects and "no" 0 objects- 0 merely symbolizes negation or absence.Frost122585_{July 9, 2009
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Cannukian I am speaking about the actual conceptual objects in the mind that the bits refer to not simply numerical symbols.Frost122585_{July 9, 2009
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At 56 minutes he says because of quantum mechanics you don't need an infinite number of bits- but this is again wrong. Even Einstein who kicked off the quantum relativist revolution believed in the singularity and said as much to Heisenberg personally. Without faith in the singularity the entire substance from which QM is built upon- and even the very notion of singular truth- disappears rendering the theory useless as far as truth is concerned. The bottom line is that without intelligence you do need an infinite number of possibility in order for QM to function. Also at 55 minutes the second law is not about the person "loosing" anyhting - it is about the system loosing it's order which in turn results in the mind loosing the ability to see the same state as before. Good lord he is writing a fiction book. The mind can still fallow the details - like looking at the pieces of a broken cup on the ground we can see all the pieces and how they once fit together- but the details themselves have just changed from order to disorder. I would love to see Berlinski and Susskind debate! I think Berlinski would decimate him with his critical, cynical, truth based style.Frost122585_{July 9, 2009
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"....are simply used as symbols representing some other values - not necessarily numerical values." Woops, let me clarify this a "bit." :) [enough! I know] "not necessarily the numerical values normally associated with 0 and 1."CannuckianYankee_{July 9, 2009
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Frost, that's not how I understood it, but I could be wrong. He used 1s and 0s, but he stated it could be any other numbers as well. His explanation was that it is a question that could only have one of two possible answers. "yes" or "no" could be one of the two possible answers, but there could be other possible answers, but only two choices. For example, bits could be used to determine whether a particle exists or does not exist in a defined space. In this case the "0" or the "1" can be used. But he also suggested that a bit could be used to define a choice of temperature, or other properties within a space. I think (and I emphasize "think")you're confused by the "0" and the "1." As I understand what Susskind is saying, those numbers are simply used as symbols representing some other values - not necessarily numerical values. Am I understanding him wrong? Some of you physicists could help me out a "bit" here. :)CannuckianYankee_{July 9, 2009
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Excuse me the sentence above was reversed "So it is always a self defeating point to claim reality is contingent on the mind’s understanding of it." What was meant was So it is always a self defeating point to claim that mind is contingent on reality.Frost122585_{July 9, 2009
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Mapou you wrote, "And I disagree with Susskind that reality does not have to obey human intuition," I agree- because the intuition allows us to know if reality does or does not obey human intuition, his knowing of the relationship between reality and intuition demands that reality live up to his proclamation. So it is always a self defeating point to claim reality is contingent on the mind's understanding of it. By ruling out the mind's ability to understand reality we undermine our own description of reality- which calls into question the original claim of the limits of intuition.Frost122585_{July 9, 2009
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I do not agree with his definition of a bit though. He says it is defined as "a question about a system that can be one of only two answers (yes or no)." This is not correct. The question is the system in which the bit belongs to but the bit itself is an object of mind and not a question of mind. The zeros symbolize "no bit ob bits"- hence only the ones (1) represent actual bits. I think this reveals a fundamentally poor grasp of the subject here that MR. Susskind is claiming to profess.Frost122585_{July 9, 2009
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Frost, "I just think Dembski might find his work with “bits” to be valuable in light of information theory and how it applies to ID." Yes, but I think what he was teaching in that class was perhaps a "bit" elementary for Dembski. :)CannuckianYankee_{July 9, 2009
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Susskind is so 20th century, and so wrong about almost everything, it hurts just to watch him talk. His ideas on physics and evolution are so cookie cutter and so rehashed, they come out sounding like a scripted play. For one, the brains of humans and animals do not solve problems in trigonometry or geometry or physics internally. That's absurd. The brain is a temporal signal processing machine. Humans, especially, must learn the right motor behavior through countless trials, errors and corrections. It's all about timing adjustments and reinforcement. The math and physics stuff that Susskind is so enamored with is just an abstraction used by humans to describe observed behavior. And I disagree with Susskind that reality does not have to obey human intuition, i.e., common sense logic. If our hypotheses are weird, it is because they are either wrong, or incomplete or both. For example, the quantum computing notion of a property having two states simultaneously is so much BS. Superposition is not an empricial fact. It is just an interpretation (Copenhagen) and a hopelessly flawed one at that. Schrodinger's silly cat comes to mind. As Paul Feyerabend wrote, "the most stupid procedures and the most laughable results in their domain are surrounded with an aura of excellence. It is time to cut them down in size, and to give them a more modest position in society."Mapou_{July 9, 2009
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DATCG: That was a purely tongue-in-cheek, rhetorical question. I didn't actually want an answer.dbthomas_{July 9, 2009
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Here he is right here denouncing ID. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDgzRIiQ4b8 I just think Dembski might find his work with "bits" to be valuable in light of information theory and how it applies to ID.Frost122585_{July 9, 2009
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dbthomas, Each side is an inference. The Darwnian side is falling apart now and has been for sometime. I guess you could say the theory is slowly changing over time into an extinct branch of fictional history.DATCG_{July 9, 2009
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Khan, Why not answer my question that you ignored earlier. Design is happening. This you ccannot deny. Now, do you deny the future of intelligent designers ability to create novel features? thanksDATCG_{July 9, 2009
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Besides his intro, Dr. Susskind does not really talk much about his philosophy. The whole video is centered around bits and their applicable representation of physical states; vectors and matrixes and how to multiply row vectors by column vectors, and so forth. I don't find anywhere in the video where he makes a design inference. He simply states that if we want to view his info from an ID POV, that's fine, but he prefers to view it from a Darwinian POV. But really, nothing he teaches here is directly related to either POV necessarily. Perhaps he gets into more distinctions on the next video. I hope it exists. It's interesting that the class he was teaching was a graduate level elective. I found the concepts quite easy to grasp. Perhaps that's because he's such a good teacher, and funny too. I thought his explanation of how we come to understand physics evolved from basic understandings, such as a lion's instinctive perception of motion, a bit convoluted. I noticed Dr. Susskind went to Starbucks prior to class. Do lion's have a basic Starbucks instinct as well? :) So if all the similarities between animal instincts in relation to physics and our own, point to evolution, what about all the dissimilarities?CannuckianYankee_{July 9, 2009
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Nakashima @ 2:
However, I think he posted it because Susskind mentions “the Intelligent Designer” several minutes into it.
Would that qualify as a design inference?dbthomas_{July 9, 2009
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jerry, speaking of videos, how about those MIT videos you were watching? Any evidence of biological macro-design you want to share?Khan_{July 9, 2009
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Mr Jerry, Well, in 90 minutes of classical and quantum physics, I'm sure Dr. Dembski found something to agree with. However, I think he posted it because Susskind mentions "the Intelligent Designer" several minutes into it.Nakashima_{July 9, 2009
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This is for Nakashima, Do you think because Dembski posted this that he agrees with or endorses Susskind's ideas.jerry_{July 9, 2009
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