Stephen Meyer on ID’s Scientific Bona Fides

_{William Dembski

July 13, 2010

Intelligent Design}

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Petrushka RE 630 Petrushka the last thing we need from you is a lecture on the history of science. Vividvividbleau_{July 26, 2010
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KF "I hope you can find it in yourself to acknowledge that you overlooked or ignored the specific stipulation — crucial to establishing the credibility of an induction — and managed to contradict yourself in the space of a few words in your reply" Aint going to happen KF. Petrushka has been puking all over him or herself throughout this thread. If you or upright were damned by your own words the both of you would be embarrassed . Petrushka on the other hand is either to dumb or just to dishonest to know or care. Dont forget this is a person that embraces "magic" and is basing his positions on blind faith. For religious people like Petrushka evidence doesnt matter, its all about "blind faith" As I said in 581 "What lessons have we learned so far? 1)That both Gaz and Petrushka embrace irrationality" 2) The second lesson is that, either by comission or omission, neither one of them are truly interested in the truth. Their worldview supercedes evidence. They indeed are blind and as I said to KF incapable of entertaining any evidence that conflicts with their worldview. When people are capable of embracing magic in order to defend their worldview no amount of rational discourse or evidential profferings can offset “beleif in magic” Once one embraces irrationality the game is over as is the enterprise of science. I mean if something can come from nothing ( magic) digitally encoded information just happening is easily doable. 3) Finally the third lesson we can take from all this is that they are intellectually dishonest. Observe th smoke screens, the back tracking , the dodging, the obfuscations as evidenced by their refusal to answer direct questions. Questions that they know will damn themselves if they do. This is not the sign of an intellectually honest person. All this has been on full display today and everyday. Vividvividbleau_{July 26, 2010
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This is a censorship remover issue, not a science stopper one
I've been asked a lot of questions. Perhaps you'll answer one for me. As an administrator responsible for funding research, would you consider money better spent calculating the probabilities of an event happening by chance, or better spent looking for a natural cause? Suppose the event is the crossing over of a virus from one host species to another?Petrushka_{July 26, 2010
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Really? And just how is it you would falsify the hypothesis that purely undirected processes are all that is at work in the cosmos?
That would seem to be a theological question. For most of known human history people have assumed that invisible agencies were jiggering with the world. Science seems to have begun with the metaphor of a clockwork, something that could be understood through investigation. It was thought through most of the 18th centuries that interventions in the natural order would be easy to detect. The global flood was an obvious target of investigation. Since then, the quest for evidence of intervention has all but disappeared in most branches of science. To answer your question I would say that Behe has the only satisfactory proposal for finding evidence of intervention. Find a gap that can't be bridged by successive small modifications. Of course that's a re-wording of a statement found in Origin of Species.Petrushka_{July 26, 2010
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Petrushka: Let us observe carefully:
KF: Now, can you kindly show us a case where in our observation, such a case [of dFSCI and implementing machinery] came about by undirected chance and mechanical necessity? P: Only one case so far, and that would be life on earth. I will stipulate that I don’t know the actual origin of life. Perhaps if we find other examples we can answer with something better than hypotheses.
I hope you can find it in yourself to acknowledge that you overlooked or ignored the specific stipulation -- crucial to establishing the credibility of an induction -- and managed to contradict yourself in the space of a few words in your reply. The inference form dFSCI to intelligent design, as you know or should know, is based on the routinely observed source of such, and on the related configuration space challenge. It is readily empirically tested, by providing an observed case whereby FSCI and/or its associated organised set of processing machines came about in our observation, by undirected chance and necessity. The implicaitons of the principle and inference are -- as you must know -- potentially revolutionary and trsnsformational for origins science and other fields being stoppered up by the debate on origins science. Not to mention, laying a basis for correcting a longstanding pattern of injustice, abuse and distortions in institutional science and correcting the current indoctrination being conducted in the name of science education and wider science policy. This is a censorship remover issue, not a science stopper one. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 26, 2010
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You don’t find it illuminating that enormous strings of meaningful information have bipassed all known causal models of matter and poofed themselves into being inside the living genome?
That would seem to be a thinly disguised assertion that all the biologists who have lived and worked on the mechanisms of evolution are liars.
Oh come now Petrushka, just because you were asked to consider the actual observations related to your position, doesn't mean you should start making crap up.Upright BiPed_{July 26, 2010
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Petrushka, "Only one case so far, and that would be life on earth." So assuming your conclusion is your idea of scientific investigation? How brave. "I will stipulate that I don’t know the actual origin of life." More non-stop bravado. "Perhaps if we find other examples we can answer with something better than hypotheses." How many do we not have to find before we wonder what causes the ones we do find? In other words, when does our universal experience with a subject matter become important in investigating it? "My position is that a hypothesis or conjecture that has entailments and suggest lines of research is better than a conjecture that has no entailments and generates no research." Really? And just how is it you would falsify the hypothesis that purely undirected processes are all that is at work in the cosmos?Upright BiPed_{July 26, 2010
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You don’t find it illuminating that enormous strings of meaningful information have bipassed all known causal models of matter and poofed themselves into being inside the living genome?
That would seem to be a thinly disguised assertion that all the biologists who have lived and worked on the mechanisms of evolution are liars.Petrushka_{July 26, 2010
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Petrushka: You might find here, in light of this context relevant. Observe in particular Fig A.1, the remarks on the illustrated general communication system [notice how its proper function requires organised synchronisation between the transmission subsystem and the reception subsystem, including an agreed set of codes, modulation techniques . . . For D/RNA, the specific lengths of bases from the backbone allows key-lock fitting of three-letter [G/C/A/T - 4 - state], 64 state resulting codons and anticodons . . . and protocols], and the extended description by Connor, leading up to the quantitative discussion. We are speaking here of digitally coded [i.e discrete state, with specific symbols from a code table], algorithmically functional string data structures. As has been well known of since the 1950's. Indeed, here is Crick in his March 19, 1953 letter to his son, Michael:
"Now we believe that the DNA is a code. That is, the order of bases (the letters) makes one gene different from another gene (just as one page of print is different from another)"
This is all plain enough, and has been in essential details for up to 50 - 60 years GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 26, 2010
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"I have no idea what this means." Disenginuous. "I guess I am a physical realist, in that I believe the universe exists in the absense of perceivers, falling trees make sounds in the absense of anyone to hear them." Trivial and self-serving, but first self-serving. "I don’t find this particulary illuminating." You don't find it illuminating that enormous strings of meaningful information have bipassed all known causal models of matter and poofed themselves into being inside the living genome? "Seems like dorm room bull session material." I deserved that, after all, you already said you had no intention of venturing into topics that were not safe, particularly those evidence-infested plateaus having to do with the truth of our existence on this planet.Upright BiPed_{July 26, 2010
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Now, can you kindly show us a case where in our observation, such a case came about by undirected chance and mechanical necessity?
Only one case so far, and that would be life on earth. I will stipulate that I don't know the actual origin of life. Perhaps if we find other examples we can answer with something better than hypotheses. My position is that a hypothesis or conjecture that has entailments and suggest lines of research is better than a conjecture that has no entailments and generates no research.Petrushka_{July 26, 2010
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You drew all those conclusions from that little sentence.
No. I drew all thos conclusions from seeing similiar discussions many times. I see nothing wrong with Allen_MacNeill's posts. There are several definitionsof "information." Some are purely formal and deal with the compressibility of strings. What MacNeill seems to be addressing is coded "messages." A string cannot be a coded message unless there is a reader that "understands" or acts based on reading the code.
Can you tell me of any information about the universe which was not first the product of perception?
I have no idea what this means. I guess I am a physical realist, in that I believe the universe exists in the absense of perceivers, falling trees make sounds in the absense of anyone to hear them. I don't find this particulary illuminating. Seems like dorm room bull session material.Petrushka_{July 26, 2010
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Not to worry Petrushka, I'm sure you'll engage the issue as least as well as MacNeil: - - - - - - #19 Upright BiPed 04/21/2010 2:52 pm Allen, I appreciate that you see information as a causal force that is not reducible to material/energy. I also appreciate the fact that you see meaningful information as a distinct entity from noise. In previous threads you have made the point that meaningful information must be first perceived in order to exist. It is, in fact, a product of perception. What I do not understand is why you say that a) meaningful information is recorded in DNA (that which is transcribed into function) and b) that meaningful information is necessarily the product of perception, but then you equivocate on the conclusion that the meaningful information recorded within DNA was first the product of perception. - - - - - - Upright BiPed 04/22/2010 8:52 pm Allen McNeil, if you don’t mind, I am still awaiting your clarification at #19 - - - - - - Upright BiPed 04/23/2010 9:12 am Allen MacNeil, if you don’t mind, I am still awaiting your clarification at #19 - - - - - - Upright BiPed 04/24/2010 6:35 am …again Professor MacNeil, it would be great to have your clarification at #19. Thanks. - - - - - - Upright BiPed 04/25/2010 12:09 pm Prof MacNeil, would you be so kind as to clarify your position at post #19 Thanks - - - - - - Upright BiPed 04/26/2010 7:47 am Allen MacNeil, Could you please give a clarification at post #19. It seems to be an important point, and I would like to better understand your position. Thanks - - - - - - - Upright BiPed 04/27/2010 10:59 am Professor MacNeil, Would you please be so kind as to give a clarification at post #19. Thank You. - - - - - - - Upright BiPed 05/01/2010 3:06 pm Allen MacNeil, Would you clarify your position above at #19 please. I have asked several times for this clarification on this thread (as well as others). The need for a clarification emerges from you own statements, and it would seem to be a rather important point within the debate. Consequently, it appears odd that you would avoid making your position clear – or, are you uncertain about your position yourself? Your response would be appreciated.Upright BiPed_{July 26, 2010
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Petrushka: It seems that for the moment, you are backing off on the causality issue. Okay. But, unfortunately, only to go out on yet another red herring distractor. To get beyond it, observe that we are speaking of functional string complexity [cf. the 2005 peer-reviewed paper and esp Fig 4 on OSC, RSC and FSC], not the Shannon Metric, which will be a peak for a random or nearly random text string; which your hashing up of a Shakespeare text by XOR with a random string would effectively create, absent preservation and transmission of the blended in string so that the original could be recovered. Notice, how the information in your test case is recoverable, but requires a functional decoding system with the capability to invert the encrypting function. That case, however, is irrelevant, as the real test case is one where we are dealing with known encoded algorithmically functional strings in the cell. That system has: codes [thus symbols and rules for meaningfulness in a context], algorithms, step by step execution through co-ordinated molecular nanomachines. We can show that similar technologies can be created by intelligent designers. We can show that the configuration spaces would swamp out the search capacity of he observed cosmos. So, we have a clear best explanation, absent a priori materialistic censorship: intelligent design. Now, can you kindly show us a case where in our observation, such a case came about by undirected chance and mechanical necessity? In that case, apart from a priori Lewontinian materialism, why then do so many insist that first life and body plan level biodiversity "must have" and did come about by undirected chance plus necessity? Some, even saying that this is as firm a "fact" as gravity -- not the law of gravitation, but gravity -- which we can easily directly observe by dropping a mango. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 26, 2010
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Petrushka, "Encrypt it by XORing each character with a character generated from the output of a geiger counter (the most nearly random source we know of). The resulting string is indistinguishable from a random string. No test can tell it is not random. No known method exists for decrypting it" Or take a number and write it down on a piece of paper, then burn the paper until it is nothing but ashes....do the ashes contain information?? So... You have to sink into absurdities to stay on the field huh? Great.Upright BiPed_{July 26, 2010
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information is an abstraction that requires perception in order to exist
I’ll take a stab at unravelling what this might mean. An encoded string has no meaning absent a reader. The genetic code is arbitrary. The letters and words have no inherent meaning aside from what the cell machinery does with them.
You drew all those conclusions from that little sentence. Golly. If I hadn't seen your style of argumenttation a couple thousand times, I might think you wanted to dismiss the evidence and get right to the verdict. Just for grins, lets go ahead and look consider the observations. Can you tell me of any information about the universe which was not first the product of perception? Here are the pertinent links: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-medium-is-not-the-message/#comment-350342 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-medium-is-not-the-message/#comment-350401Upright BiPed_{July 26, 2010
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I'll try to clarify my previous post with an example. Take any text, Shakespeare for example. Encrypt it by XORing each character with a character generated from the output of a geiger counter (the most nearly random source we know of). The resulting string is indistinguishable from a random string. No test can tell it is not random. No known method exists for decrypting it. Does it contain information?Petrushka_{July 26, 2010
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information is an abstraction that requires perception in order to exist
I'll take a stab at unravelling what this might mean. An encoded string has no meaning absent a reader. The genetic code is arbitrary. The letters and words have no inherent meaning aside from what the cell machinery does with them.Petrushka_{July 26, 2010
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Now, want to have some real fun? Address my post at 589.
could you provide a link to the statement paraphrased at 589?Petrushka_{July 26, 2010
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Petrushka, You are arguing against a ghost. In fact, you are torturing it. Lets make a stipulation: all of the humans on the surface of the planet agree that quantum events are surprising and counterintuitive. Can we now get past this point? However, that does not mean - as has been asserted repeatedly on this thread - that by virtue of being surprising to our intuitions, those events are therefore uncaused. It's a non sequitur. One does not follow the other. Now, want to have some real fun? Address my post at 589.Upright BiPed_{July 26, 2010
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Yes, and one of those claims is that there are necessary causal factors that influence the course of events.
Simple question: Were the findings of quantum theory, the experimental results, anticipated by philosophy? Can you find anything in the writings of philosophers -- scientific or otherwise -- that anticipated the two-slit experiment or entanglement or virtual particles or tunneling or indeterminancy or wave/particle duality? If not, then common sense notions about the properties of matter are subject to revision based on evidence.Petrushka_{July 26, 2010
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Petrushka: After hundreds of posts and a significant discussion today, can you tell me whether or no a necessary causal factor is or is not a cause? Now, let us look at your last remark: __________________ The usual way of discussing causation in phenomena like radioactive decay is to say there are no local causes and no hidden variables. --> But this loose manner of speaking is manifestly wrong as you are using it, as we know that simply the location of a neutron in or out of the nucleus of a stability-belt atom deeply affects its decay process --> Further we know, even trivially, that a neutron has to be there for it to decay. This is an internal, local and necessary causal factor --> Yet further, on locality, the point is that the presence of a free neutron in a lab on earth and its decay by beta process is not necessarily entangled with events on say the far side of the Andromeda Galaxy. --> That a neutron may come about in a process that entangles it with a complementary particle,and the two may be separated and the beta process in the neutron may resolve something on the other particle, has nothing to do with the facts (1) that the neutron has decayed and (2) that for the neutron decay to happen, you first need a neutron. --> Thus, even trivially, we see a necessary causal factor at work, one that fits with Aristotle's material cause. Another way of looking at it is to ask if some future technology will enable us to predict exactly when a specific atom will decay, and the answer appears to be no. --> This conflates and confuses cause with sufficiency of relevant causal factors. --> Knowing or not knowing and predicting or not predicting the sufficient causal factors that specify that such a decay will happen at a given instant to a given neutron, has nothing to do with whether or not there are necessary causal factors --> This is a red herring distraction and a strawman distortion of what has been pointed out time after time, day after day --> A TRULY ACAUSAL EVENT WOULD COME OUT OF NOWHERE, AND NOTHING, WITHOUT ANY PATTERN WHATSOEVER I am not asserting that quantum theory contradicts philosophical causality, whater that is, --> BY NOW IF YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT CAUSALITY, A COMMON-SENSE NOTION THAT HAS BEEN ELABORATED AND REFINED THROUGH PHILOSOPHY AND ITS DAUGHTER DISCIPLINE SCIENCE, SOMETHING IS DEEPLY WRONG but that quantum theory contradicts some intuitive assumptions about causality. --> This is an unacknowledged major shift, obviously influenced by the excerpt I presented this morning --> No-one has argued that causality is simple or easy to work out, especially in quantum contexts --> The plain point is that events even at quantum levels are not acausal and thus utterly chaotic If you make claims about what can happen in the physical universe, those claims are subject to verification. --> Yes, and one of those claims is that there are necessary causal factors that influence the course of events. --> I notice how you and Gaz have repeatedly studiously avoided addressing the issue of necessary and sufficient causal factors --> Which distinction has been at the heart of my remarks. _________________kairosfocus_{July 26, 2010
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In other cases, we do not know the specific cause, and/or infer that there is an inherent randomness, e.g the wave function of quantum theory and related phenomena like tunnelling and uncertainty that give rise to say radioactive decay.
The usual way of discussing causation in phenomena like radioactive decay is to say there are no local causes and no hidden variables. Another way of looking at it is to ask if some future technology will enable us to predict exactly when a specific atom will decay, and the answer appears to be no. I am not asserting that quantum theory contradicts philosophical causality, whater that is, but that quantum theory contradicts some intuitive assumptions about causality. If you make claims about what can happen in the physical universe, those claims are subject to verification.Petrushka_{July 26, 2010
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P4S: Cause and stochastic phenomena. Often we deal with highly contingent outcomes that display a probabilistic distribution. For instance, the uppermost face of a fair die is a flat distribution, and the sum of a pair of dice shows a sharply peaked distribution. Q: Do such chance-distributed effects occur acausally? A: No. 1 --> As a rule, there must be something there for something to happen, e.g. we saw a die or two dice in action above. 2 --> Further above, unless there was a neutron, there would be no neutron decay, and unless the neutron is in a proper context, it also would not decay, and energy-mass conservation was a key part of that. 3--> This is the first level of necessary causal constraint. 4 --> More broadly, that which begins or can come to an end has something that is at least contemporaneous that is required for it to happen or occur. 5 --> Thus, the contingent necessitates a necessary cause. 6 --> BTW, this is the precise argument that leads to the observation that our credibly contingent observed cosmos necessitates a cause, ultimately in a necessary being. 7 --> Such a necessary being is non-contingent, and has no cause.
(From this and other considerations, we arrive at the inference that the most credible candidate for the cause of our universe is an Intelligent and powerful designer who is a necessary being. That is, we here have a serious -- and arguably cogent [~ inductively compelling] -- argument that points to what looks a lot like: God.)
8 --> Probabilistic situations, plainly, do not evade the necessary causal factors. [And, equally plainly, necessary causal factors are causes.] 9 --> But, this is not sufficient for the event or entity to happen. Correct. 10 --> And, the sufficient factors have to reckon with the stochastic, probabilistic pattern. 11 --> This can come about by inner factors of spontaneity, much like how the Gaussian distribution happens because there is a population of small and fluctuating variants that sum one way now, another the next time around. So, heights of people, lengths of bolts, scores on certain tests etc may follow a bell shaped distribution. 12 --> In other cases,we have accidental intersections of deterministic but uncorrelated processes.
For instance, in the old days my Dad (to do statistical work) used telephone directories as poor man's random number tables: alphabetically sequenced initials of names listed on a page for a wide enough region like a city are uncorrelated with the line codes for telephones . . . e.g. the last four digits in the US style system.
13 --> In other cases, we do not know the specific cause, and/or infer that there is an inherent randomness, e.g the wave function of quantum theory and related phenomena like tunnelling and uncertainty that give rise to say radioactive decay. 14 --> But, we observe that such phenomena are not chaotic and without pattern, but follow patterns and distributions, i.e. they are at minimum influenced by necessary causes. 15 --> We may not be able to predict the individual case, but the population of events is quite orderly. So, it is not acausal, as something is constraining it and giving it that order. 16 --> So, it is fair to speak of probabilistic sufficiency in causation: if something is sufficient for a stochastically distributed outcome, it is a sufficient cause, whether or not we currently know or can identify it. 17 --> That is, order or organisation are hallmarks of cause. And, randomness that follows a definite pattern is therefore not acausal.kairosfocus_{July 26, 2010
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PPPS: Wiki, on proof by contradiction:
In logic, proof by contradiction is a form of proof that establishes the truth or validity of a proposition by showing that the proposition being false would imply a contradiction. Since by the law of bivalence a proposition must be either true or false, and its falsity has been shown impossible, the proposition must be true. In other words, to prove by contradiction that P, show that [NOT-P => Contradiction] or its equivalent [NOT-P => (Q AND NOT-Q)] . Then, since [NOT-P] implies a contradiction, conclude P. Proof by contradiction is also known as indirect proof, apagogical argument, reductio ad impossibile. It is a particular kind of the more general form of argument known as reductio ad absurdum.
Onlookers, any person with significant exposure to modern aspects of Mathematics should have been exposed to this proof strategy many times. The point of the strategy is that on denying P, we end in a contradiction. Such must be abandoned as the result is that (Q AND NOT-Q) is necessarily false, and becomes unsafe for the field of reason, as (Q AND NOT-Q) => Anything. That is, a false premise entails true and false conclusions indiscriminately; we lose the reliability of mathematical reasoning. Which is of course foundational to scientific reasoning. This key approach to mathematical reasoning deeply embeds the premise that the Law of Non-Contradiction is undeniably true, on pain of absurdity.kairosfocus_{July 26, 2010
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Gaz, I already answered you in 592, and I am not sure how I could be more clear or use less words. I even used your own, and that apparently didn't help. So be it.Upright BiPed_{July 26, 2010
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PS: Pardon a bit of a tutorial! PPS: The above issues connect to the complex debates over inference to design in another way, as I discuss here on in my always linked research notes, and here in the beta form IOSE course: the roots of mind, and how mind could credibly be seen as neither determined by mechanical necessity and/or chance, nor isolated in the Kantian [noumenal, phenomenal and things in themselves issues . . . ] and related senses, from external reality. (One of the debates we have had at UD is over the claim that a mind that is non-material must necessarily be isolated from physical material reality. To which the best answers seem to lie in pointing to the implications of possible influence on the course of events that Q-th hints at, and the inference to the design of the cosmos as pointing to the cause of the observed universe lying in an intelligence that is both powerful and prior to matter.)kairosfocus_{July 26, 2010
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Gaz Pardon, but you are stalling, as this has been put to you already (and is also found here), complete with onward link to a major discussion of the problems with the current attempts to dismiss it. I extract from the second of these, a brief discussion used by the unhdersigned in an introductory Philosophy course:
. . . logic often has a bad reputation, not only in popular discourse but in serious discussions. As Copi summarises in his Logic [a classic Prentice Hall standard textbook that has been going since something like the 1960's], this often takes the form of complaints about “linear” or “black and white thinking” caused by Aristotelian Logic, especially his three laws of logic: 1. Identity: If a claim, P is true, then it is true: Symbolically, [P => P] = 1. 2. Non-Contradiction: P cannot be both True and False, in the same sense at the same time. [P AND NOT-P] = 0. 3. Excluded Middle: A statement [i.e. "proposition"] is either true or false. [P OR NOT-P] = 1. The root of this problem is a series of misunderstandings. Identity may endure through change; and where change is material, specifying the point of time can resolve ambiguity. Contradictions are distinct from conflicts: “not-white” (as opposed to “black”) is the true contradiction of “white.” Thirdly, white/ not-white is not at all the same as “white”/ “black” – any shade of grey, green or red will do: so, the excluded middle does not force us into “two-value thinking.”
The law of non-contradiction is presented in any number of ways and places, and the standard form as shown is that it forbids the affirmation and denial of the same thing in the same sense and context (place and time); which error is of course usually done implicitly. Exposure of a contradiction to deny the proposition that led to it, is the foundation of the classic form of proof that is at the heart of the major Mathematical advances of the past 200+ years: Proof by contradiction, i.e. reduction of a claim to be falsified to absurdity; the classic one being the demonstration of the incommensurateness of the side of a square and its diagonal. Going right back to Aristotle in Metaphysics, 1011B, we can see how he stitches together the relevant cluster of concepts:
That the most certain of all beliefs is that opposite statements are not both true at the same time, and what follows for those who maintain that they are true, and why these thinkers maintain this, may be regarded as adequately stated. And since the contradiction of a statement cannot be true at the same time of the same thing, it is obvious that contraries cannot apply at the same time to the same thing . . . . Nor indeed can there be any intermediate between contrary statements, but of one thing we must either assert or deny one thing, whatever it may be. This will be plain if we first define truth and falsehood. To say that what is is not, or that what is not is, is false; but to say that what is is, and what is not is not, is true; and therefore also he who says that a thing is or is not will say either what is true or what is false. But neither what is nor what is not is said not to be or to be. Further, an intermediate between contraries will be intermediate either as grey is between black and white, or as "neither man nor horse" is between man and horse.
Anticipating a similar objection on cause-effect, I excerpt:
cause: 1. a. The producer of an effect, result, or consequence. b. The one, such as a person, event, or condition, that is responsible for an action or result. {AmH Dict]
Wiki gives a useful 101 on the problem, and points to the solution inadvertently (we all know where the sympathies of Wiki lie . . . ):
Causality is the relationship between an event (the cause) and a second event (the effect), where the second event is a consequence of the first . . . . Though cause and effect are typically related to events, candidates include objects, processes, properties, variables, facts, and states of affairs; characterizing the causal relationship can be the subject of much debate. According to Sowa (2000),[5] up until the twentieth century, three assumptions described by Max Born in 1949 were dominant in the definition of causality: 1. "Causality postulates that there are laws by which the occurrence of an entity B of a certain class depends on the occurrence of an entity A of another class, where the word entity means any physical object, phenomenon, situation, or event. A is called the cause, B the effect. 2. "Antecedence postulates that the cause must be prior to, or at least simultaneous with, the effect. 3. "Contiguity postulates that cause and effect must be in spatial contact or connected by a chain of intermediate things in contact." (Born, 1949, as cited in Sowa, 2000) However, according to Sowa (2000), "relativity and quantum mechanics have forced physicists to abandon these assumptions as exact statements of what happens at the most fundamental levels, but they remain valid at the level of [charitable reading: ordinary, day to day?] human experience."[5] . . . . Causes are often distinguished into two types: Necessary and sufficient.[10] A third type of causation, which requires neither necessity nor sufficiency in and of itself, but which contributes to the effect, is called a "contributory cause."[11] Necessary causes: If x is a necessary cause of y, then the presence of y necessarily implies the presence of x. The presence of x, however, does not imply that y will occur. [Translating: absence of x blocks emergence or occurence of y.] Sufficient causes: If x is a sufficient cause of y, then the presence of x necessarily implies the presence of y. However, another cause z may alternatively cause y. Thus the presence of y does not imply the presence of x. [Translating: once x is there, y will occur, but z may also cause y to occur. Anyone who has had to troubleshoot a complex system will immediately understand.] Contributory causes: A cause may be classified as a "contributory cause," if the presumed cause precedes the effect, and altering the cause alters the effect. It does not require that all those subjects which possess the contributory cause experience the effect. It does not require that all those subjects which are free of the contributory cause be free of the effect. In other words, a contributory cause may be neither necessary nor sufficient but it must be contributory.[12][13] J. L. Mackie argues that usual talk of "cause," in fact refers to INUS conditions (insufficient and non-redundant parts of unnecessary but sufficient causes). For example, a short circuit as a cause for a house burning down. Consider the collection of events: the short circuit, the proximity of flammable material, and the absence of firefighters. Together these are unnecessary but sufficient to the house's destruction (since many other collections of events certainly could have destroyed the house). Within this collection, the short circuit is an insufficient but non-redundant part (since the short circuit by itself would not have caused the fire, but the fire would not have happened without it, everything else being equal). So, the short circuit is an INUS cause of the house burning down . . . . Interpreting causation as a deterministic relation means that if A causes B, then A must always be followed by B. In this sense, war does not cause deaths, nor does smoking cause cancer. As a result, many turn to a notion of probabilistic causation. Informally, A probabilistically causes B if A's occurrence increases the probability of B. This is sometimes interpreted to reflect imperfect knowledge of a deterministic system but other times interpreted to mean that the causal system under study has an inherently chancy nature . . . . Physicists conclude that certain elemental forces: gravity, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and electromagnetism are the four fundamental forces that cause all other events in the universe. The notion of causality that appears in many different physical theories is hard to interpret in ordinary language. One problem is typified by earth's interaction with the moon. It is inaccurate [comment -- better: loose or imprecise] to say, "the moon exerts a gravitic pull and then the tides rise." In Newtonian mechanics gravity, rather, is a constant observable relationship among masses, and the movement of the tides is an example of that relationship. There are no discrete [better, isolated] events or "pulls" that can be said to precede the rising of tides. [see the problem of strawmansation? an incomplete account with elements driven by the perspective of the observer, can be roughly correct though incomplete . . . ] Interpreting gravity causally is even more complicated in general relativity. Similarly, quantum mechanics is another branch of physics in which the nature of causality is particularly unclear [better: hard to interpret]. For statistical generalization, causality has further implications due to its intimate connection with the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
In Wiki's discussion of causality in Physics, this is elaborated and somewhat ameliorated:
In modern physics, the notion of causality had to be clarified. [note: not, abandoned] The insights of the theory of special relativity confirmed the assumption of causality, but they made the meaning of the word "simultaneous" observer-dependent[6]. Consequently, the relativistic principle of causality says that the cause must precede its effect according to all inertial observers. This is equivalent to the statement that the cause and its effect are separated by a timelike interval, and the effect belongs to the future of its cause. Special relativity has shown that it is not only impossible to influence the past, it is also impossible to influence distant objects with signals that travel faster than the speed of light. In the theory of general relativity, the concept of causality is generalized in the most straightforward way: the effect must belong to the future light cone of its cause, even if the spacetime is curved. New subtleties must be taken into account when we investigate causality in quantum mechanics and relativistic quantum field theory in particular. [accounting for and elucidating subtleties is not equivalent to abandoning a key concept] In quantum field theory, causality is closely related to the principle of locality. A careful analysis of the phenomena [sic] is needed, and the exact outcome depends on the interpretation of quantum mechanics chosen [i.e. Q-Th is a work in progress . . . . ]: this is especially the case of the experiments involving quantum entanglement that require Bell's Theorem [denial of hidden variables, i.e what is measured here will affect an entangled particle elsewhere "instantly" . . . and given relativity, what does "instantly" mean esp where we are in the relativistic or FTL regimes? Does measuring a photon on earth "instantly" affect its entangled partner at Sirius? How? Is there a hint of a different domain in which the particles are still in close contact, i.e. a sub-space? Dragging in concepts from traditional Theism, could this be connected to the concept of God as being everywhere and everywhen, i.e there is a domain of Eternity that sits at the north pole of space-time, so that all times and locations are immediate to it? Would such a zone provide a short cut from one point to another, i.e a super wormhole nexus??? Just to provoke, even as Columbus' evidence of bodies washed up in Ireland was it, pointed to something out there reasonably close in, never mind the debates over his far too small estimate for the circumference of the world relative to the findings from Eratosthenes on [cf. here in the IOSE course] i.e. are there hints that the many puzzles of our current view of the cosmos suggest that we are looking at the discovery of a new world here? At least, we should not allow a dominant paradigm to blind us to conceptual possibilities . . . ] for their implications to be fully understood. Despite these subtleties, causality remains an important and valid concept in physical theories. For example, the notion that events can be ordered into causes and effects is necessary to prevent causality paradoxes such as the grandfather paradox, which asks what happens if a time-traveler kills his own grandfather before he ever meets the time-traveler's grandmother.
The Second Law of course establishes "time's arrow," as it is fundamentally about the irreversible increase across time of the non-availability of energy to do work. So, we have a fundamental principle of ever increasing disorder at molecular level. Relativity of course raises the issue of what simultaneous means, and we see that he answer has to be drawn up by moving from the neighbourhood of an event: a local inertial frame will see the causal succession -- at most simultaneity, and other more remote IFRs will concur. When the quantum issue is injected, issues of entanglement [such that measurements of related objects at remote points seem to "instantaneously" mutually affect one another] and the issues over uncertainty and wave-particle duality impose subtleties and conflicting views across differing interpretations. So, there are subtleties and debates, but what shines through is precisely what I have emphasised. Namely, that events and entities in physics are not a-causal: things do not happen out of nothing, nowhere, with no pattern. And, necessary constraints are causal factors. Cause may be subtle in Physics, and issues are connected to the most troubling contemporary theory [and recall, we must never conflate or naively equate theory at any time and the actual truth about reality: empirical reliability so far is inevitably provisional], but fundamentally if we dismiss causality willy-nilly, physics collapses. Causality is fundamental to physical reasoning, just as it is to other serious ways to reason about the course of our world. Similarly, basic principles of right reasoning are foundational to Physics and other ways to look at and think accurately and carefully about our world. And, yet again, after another day has passed, the objectors to the design inference are still unable to provide an observationally based counter to the inference to design from the dFSCI in the cell. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 26, 2010
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UprightBiped, Thanks for your 589 but I wasn't aware of the earlier exchange with McNeil and we've enough going on here to occupy me in the short time available to me. If you want to reacst it in terms of the discussion here then fine. Before going any further with discussions on the "law of non-contradiction", can one of you (StephenB, kairosfocus, etc.) give me a formal statement of what the law says. Not your interpretation, please - a formal statement preferably with a reference to an accepted philosophical work that provides some background. I want to make sure I know precisely what you guys are saying.Gaz_{July 26, 2010
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"Again, I am taking bets and giving odds that neither Petrushka or Gas will provide examples of the very demands they are insisting on" I predict two things. 1) You wont get any takers :) 2) They will not directly answer your questions. Vividvividbleau_{July 25, 2010
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