The Upside of Amazon Manipulation

_{William Dembski

December 20, 2007

Intelligent Design, The Design of Life}

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THE DESIGN OF LIFE is being shamelessly manipulated by the Darwinists at Amazon (go here). Not only are they posting negative reviews that give no indication that the reviewers have read the book but they are also voting up their negative reviews so that these are the first to be seen by potential buyers.

The following 1-star review, posted 8 hours ago, illustrates the Darwinists’ level of discourse at Amazon:

By E. Duran (San Jose, CA USA) – See all my reviews
I just finished reading this book without vomiting. I had to go back and read Darwin’s “Origin of Species” again to remove the bad taste out of my mouth.

This is the whole review, unedited and unabridged. Even more pathetic is that “44 of 50 people found the following review [i.e., Duran’s review] helpful.” (As of 4:10pm CST, 20Dec07)

While such behavior by Darwinists may seem unjust, there are two upsides:

(1) As the saying goes, there’s no negative publicity. Sales are brisk, especially through www.thedesignoflife.net.

(2) I’ve been talking with the producers of EXPELLED (www.expelledthemovie.com) about making this book a companion volume to Ben Stein’s film.* Thanks PZ Myers, Wesley Elsberry, Peter Irons, and others for strengthening my hand in these negotiations.

———————
*Recall that Carl Zimmer’s THE TRIUMPH OF EVOLUTION was the companion to the 2001 PBS Evolution Series.

Comments

Kairosfocus, in 81, pointed out a misattribution by me. He is correct, I apologize, and appreciate that he provided the correction. In 81, he mentions "we have no need to get into all sorts of endless speculations on what God is like or may do, in designing a reliable explanatory filter." Sure. I've not been questioning the explanatory filter. I've been pointing out that your arguments are too broad, and end up making claims about the intelligent designer. Claims, I've shown, that are not supportable in their breadth. When you mention "But Q, a god, or God, is by definition, an agent.", you are making the same point I've made. But, you did not address my concerns about the previous claims you've made regarding the relationship between causality and agency. When the claims are so broad as to make assertions about the intelligent designer of ID, it is necessary to drop the claim that all agency is related to causality the same. The agency of the designer must be expected to be wholly different than the agency of a person playing a game - that designer may be a God, but the game player isn't. Your comment of "we are not directly inferring to the identity of an agent" relates to my points as well. I've not said that the identify of the designer is being inferred. But, the study of ID is to infer the results of a designer. Your arguments, however, do so by making claims about agency and causality, and then because your arguments aren't sufficiently limited, they include the inference that the intelligent designer of ID is consistent with those claims. Your arguments need to be revised to avoid making inferences about the limitations under which the designer may operate. For instance you query "Let’s see, am I to interpret this as: creation is not causation?" When making claims about causation that are so broad as to include the designer, can you even safely assert that "creation" even occured? Sure, those of us that are not the intelligent designer may observe something being "created". But a designer that exists in all of space and time? Creation to the designer may be meaningless. If you want to limit your arguments of causality (or creation) to that which can be observed by us - or something like that - feel free. But please don't make statements that are so broad as to make suggestions about the designer. finQ_{December 29, 2007
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PS: I see more remarks, especially Q in 80:
If the intelligent designer is a God, and some of what we routinely observe stemmed from that designer, then it is quite possible - or at least not possible to exclude - that those observations don’t stem from causality.
But Q, a god, or God, is by definition, an agent. Thus, you remark intended to undermine analysing causal factors as being traceable to one or more of chance, necessity, agency, plainly self-destructs. And, as has been repeatedly pointed out and just as repeatedly ignored by you: we are not directly inferring to the identity of an agent, but to the act of design due sot observation of empirical traces of agency, reflected in organised complexity beyond the reasonable reach of mechanical necessity and chance on the gamut of the observed cosmos. In plain, direct terms -- maybe this will get your attention -- your remark just above is both self-refuting and based on addressing irrelevant strawmen. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{December 29, 2007
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Q: I would have hoped that you would have recognised, first, that comment no 72 is by Frost, not by the undersigned. Thus, much of what obtains in your remarks in 75 is utterly misdirected. I would also have hoped that you would have noticed that there is a prior and vital issue in this thread, relating to the claims of IDC and other commenters over at Amazon. To a significant extent your own issues have thus been a distraction for the thread from a major point of concern that is worth a serious focus, an issue that tends to get lost in the bushes of the exchanges with yourself above. (For instance what I have had to delay up to today, at 76.) I will, however, make a few observations, in the hope that this thread can now return to a more helpful focus: 1] the counter example I’ve been dancing around is that the intelligent designer of ID is [possibly] a God Now, if you had observed the chain of thought on "that which has a beginning . . ." all the way back to 42, you would have seen that there is a pr4ior, relevant question of contingent vs. necessary beings. If something has a beginning, it is contingent and does not emerge from nothing, but from a pre-existing reality, by one causal mechanism or another. Those causal mechanisms, per common observation, in turn rest on one or more of the factors: chance, necessity, agency. (The precise factors addressed by the explanatory filter.) But, a necessary being does not have a cause: it is beginningless and endless. And, a world of contingent beings points to such a necessary being as its causal root. Thence, the debates on the nature of that being, and BTW, one reason why the Big Bang implications of Hubble's work were utterly unwelcome in many scientific quarters -- it had been more or less assumed that there was a nice, handy eternal cosmos handy to serve as necessary being. But, after the collapse of the Steady-State model, a cosmos with a beginning is the only game in town -- thence the resort to the metaphysics- in- the- guise- of- science known as the multiverse. It is a reasonable metaphysical argument that a personal cosmogenetic agent makes at least as good -- and maybe better -- sense than such a multiverse. Especially, when we see the fine-tuned, organised complexity of the required physics for cosmogenesis. {Thence some interesting exercises in comparative difficulties; this is phil not sci at this point.] 2] beginning may not exist for actions of the intelligent designer, and concepts of linear time may not exist for the intelligent designer Once a space-time plenum exists and contingent objects exist in it, issues of before/after are relevant, and point to the cause of events and processes that play out according to relevant dynamics, with initial and boundary conditions. And, dynamical reasoning -- the gold standard of scientific reasoning, ever since Newton! -- is inherently causal. Thence, we see that what has a beginning has a cause, and that causal factors, per abundant and well-known, repeatable observation -- reliably trace to one or more of chance, mechanical necessity and agency. BTW, a God would be an . . . AGENT. 3] God, i.e. intelligent designer, may produce results without causation. Or, may produce reaction before action. This intelligent designer/God may even be able to produce results in our domain of experience without any causality in our domain of experience Let's see, am I to interpret this as: creation is not causation? Mind is not causation? Cause based on the decision of an agent is cause! [Cf for instance the messages you have typed and posted in this thread. They are not explained by mechanical necessity or by chance forces amounting to lucky noise, but by deliberate agent action, as discussed above -- inconvenient empirical facts that, sadly, you have repeatedly ignored. Onlookers, no prizes for guessing why.] In short, I disagree with the highlighted from you, for excellent reason linked to our own personal experience of being able to create and cause things by using our minds. As to the notion of reaction preceeding action or the like -- a rather crude, rhetorically loaded way of posing action based on foreknowledge of consequences, which even so finite and fallible creatures as we are, are able to do in part . . . based precisely on the power of mind to creatively anticipate situations and possibilities -- that is irrelevant to the material issue of the design inference. Namely: --> empirical traces of design discerned in the FSCI-rich nanotech of the cell, or --> in the increments to such FSCI to innovate body plans, or --> to set up the organised complexity of he pre-requisite life-facilitating cosmos. I think the third cited remark is decisive evidence: causality in our domain of experience. We may not directly enter into another's mind. But, we know the sort of things minds do, and may recognise characteristic traces of such agency, even where we do not directly observe it. 4] your argument at least needs to be refined to explicitely exclude certain characteristics of a God that really may be the intelligent designer I need to speak plainly: so preoccupied are you with the presumed identity and characteristics of possible designers, that you are consistently missing the obvious, plain pattern of the actual argument and end up tilting at strawmen. Namely, the chain of reasoning is from the simplest of things -- the empirical traces left by the action of agents, that are characteristic of the action of agents, as our experience testifies. To wit, manifestations of information-rich organised complexity. From such, we infer confidently -- and by empirical test, reliably [as long since noted] -- to agent action. Thus, we have no need to get into all sorts of endless speculations on what God is like or may do, in designing a reliable explanatory filter. No adjustments to premises are required. Nor are there false claims in the premises as shown in say 30 above. Excerpting and slightly adjusting for clarity the core of that design argument- in- outline:
SINCE: [p] in all cases of directly observed origin of . . . FSCI the cause is intelligent agency, AND [q1] on excellent grounds tracing to the principles of statistical thermodynamics [cf my always linked, app 1 section 6 . . . observe onlookers: never addressed by either Q or IDC, though it is but a link away], this is likely due to the impotence of random-walk searches [including those functionally filtered before moving on to the next stage] on the gamut of the cosmos to find such islands or archipelagos of functionally specified complexity, NOTING [q2] that natural regularities tracing to mechanical necessity do not produce such highly contingent outcomes [that's why we speak of natural regularities!] THEN [r] We are well-warranted, on solid empirical and logical bases, TO INFER THAT [s] such FSCI is the result of intelligent agent action, even in cases where we do not see the causal process in action directly.
--> Premises, p, q1 and q2 are well-established, credible facts. That you have not been able to address cogently. --> NONE of them relates to the nature or purposes or attributes of a God per se, save insofar as a God may act as an agent who leaves FSCI as a marker of such action. (Remember, the explanatory filter, due to the importance of what it does, is deliberately constructed to give false negatives in cases of less complex designs, such that it is reasonably possible that across the gamut of the observed universe, it may have happened as much as once by chance.) --> r is simply a statement that we are making an abductive inference to best explanation across the live option, well-known and easily observed causal factors, chance, necessity, agency. [Onlookers, observe that to date no credible fourth alternative factor has been put before us.] --> s is the inference to design relative to the premises and underlying empirical facts; noting that we are basing the case on the very strong general observation in p. --> All that would be required to overturn it is an observed, verified, credible exception. --> To date, after dozens of posts on all sorts of speculative issues, none has been proffered, the speculations on gods as suggested in 75 supra notwithstanding; which is why I took time to address these points even though I think them a distraction from the proper focus of this thread. That is telling, sadly telling. 5] A few remarks: Now, other circumstances may lead us to infer to identity and characteristics or even intent of the relevant agents behind an observation of FSCI. Howbeit, that would in no way undermine the force of the chain of inference from observation of FSCI to reliable recognition of design to inference that agency is responsible for such design. Also, such further issues are neither my pre-occupation nor my current focus, nor even what [for good reason] I would prefer to address in this thread - nor is it relevant to the inference to design based on its empirical traces. In short, you have needlessly and persistently distracted the thread from far more serious concerns, as I have already noted. And in so doing, you have offered, repeatedly, unwarranted and adverse statements against not only my arguments but myself, that would serve rhetorically to undermine my credibility to effectively address the more important issues in the wider context of this thread. They also serve to distract the focus of the thread from what is centrally important. Indeed, I now believe your pre-occupations -- I believe as a modern style theistic evolutionist who thinks that the design in the origin of life is indiscernible and "fits in" under NDT -- led you to see what was not there: the undersigned as the person making remarks that led to this chain of comments I now have to correct. Even as you would be annoyed to see a Young Earth Creationist distracting the thread with his or her peculiar issues, I think it is fair comment for me to say you have done the same here. Please, think again about what you have done. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{December 29, 2007
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StephenB, I think the answer to your questions is Yes, all of that could be possible if the intelligent designer of ID is a God - without getting into any politically dangerous claims about a specific God. :-) However, other options may exist as well. Until the options are excluded by learning about the properties of the designer, it is improper to develop claims that make positive assertions about the designer, or exclude that which has not been excluded. Which ultimately gets back to Kairosfocus' basic assertions linking causality, agency, etc. In post 29, specifically, he asks "whether or not what we routinely and generally observe stems from one or more of the causal factors: [a] chance, [b] natural regularity tracing to mechanical, law-like necessity, [c] agency?" If the intelligent designer is a God, and some of what we routinely observe stemmed from that designer, then it is quite possible - or at least not possible to exclude - that those observations don't stem from causality. (See the points in 75 and 79 about including the possibility that a God/designer doesn't need to exist in linear time, and need not be bound by any form of causality.) I've been suggesting that Kairosfocus' premises should be expanded to accomodate that which has not been excluded, and maybe is beyond exclusion. Or at least, the arguments need to be qualified that they are limited by the various assumptions that were made with regard to the designer. For example, in the same post, he expands his premise to assert that "Intelligence is in other words predictable". For intelligence that is bound by causality, I would not argue. But it is quite questionable to hold that claim about the intelligence of the intelligent designer - which may be a God. It would be quite a presumptuous claim to be able to predict the actions of a God - especially since it may exist in all of time, and hence be mutually exclusive to any sense of "predictability". If Kairosfocus limits his argument to specifically that which is bound by causality - and recognize that the designer may not be - then his argument could make sense. As it is, the argument is incomplete. The assertions Kairosfocus makes about causality and agency that are independent of an intelligent designer are not really what I was challenging. The assertions that are framed in a way to make claims about all agency, including the intelligent designer, are the ones that I am saying require refinement. The same is true for assertions relating causality to the intelligent designer. As an aside, and not related to the overall discussion about his premises, I still suggest that his argument in 41 regarding the toss of a die in a game has the intention of making assertions about the intelligent designer. That's why I still think his argument about the results of the die tossed in a game is overly complex, in how it links random chance with action, result, and agency.Q_{December 29, 2007
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-------Q: writes “That God may be eternal - no beginning. That God may exist in all of time and all of space - all at the same time. If so, beginning may not exist for actions of the intelligent designer, and concepts of linear time may not exist for the intelligent designer. As a result, this God, i.e. intelligent designer, may produce results without causation. Or, may produce reaction before action. This intelligent designer/God may even be able to produce results in our domain of experience without any causality in our domain of experience.” Your assumption that the designer may not be subject to time and space is a fair one. So, let’s go from there. Is it not possible that God, as you explain him, is equivalent to Aristotle’s and Aquinas’ “causeless cause,” and therefore inscrutable? Is it not possible that this same God, who created and sustained the rational universe, also created and sustained the laws of cause and effect that help define its rationality---and----created and sustained the variable of time which measures its motion----and-----created and sustained the space and matter that make it quantifiable-----and created the big bang that started the ball rolling? Wouldn’t the omnipotent author of these events be capable of transcendence (existing over and above time, law, and matter) and immanence (existing in time, law, and matter) without violating the integrity of those laws? In other words, couldn’t he be a paradox without being a contradiction? Wouldn’t this same author, for that matter, be unbound by his own laws, which exist only at his pleasure, and therefore capable of suspending them temporarily for the sake of an occasional miracle?StephenB_{December 29, 2007
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Typo in my post 75 above: instead of saying "is that the intelligent designer of ID is a God", I meant to type "is that the intelligent designer of ID is possibly a God". I don't mean to assert that to be the exclusive possibility. I meant to show that kairosfocus' premises exclude variations of that possibility. Unnecessarily exclude, I suggest, since it should be considered as a possibility for ID.Q_{December 29, 2007
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PPS: Could someone with access to Amazon review posting kindly post some corrective remarks re IDC at the Amazon page? Thanks in advance. [BTW, is linking blocked there? If so, the date and thread here and the post number can be doubtless cited.]kairosfocus_{December 29, 2007
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PS: On IDC and the Darwinistas at Amazon . . . 1] I went back to the Amazon page for Design of Life, to monitor. The Darwinista gaming the reviews campaign has now "buried" all positive reviews, so that the first "most helpful" ones that turn up are all negative and seem to come form having failed to read the book. Telling. 2] IDC makes no further substantially responsive remark, other than speaking of my allegedly "failed" logic. Onlookers can judge for themselves just how "failed" the logic in question is, on what has now developed here, not to mention by looking at my always linked. My logic fails only if one gets away with selective hyperskepticism! But that is its own refutation, as it boils down to cherry picking cases and evidence by demanding unreasonable standards of "proof" for what one does not wish to accept on adequate evidence. 3] I am particularly astonished to see his refusal to surrender the error of asserting that intelligent agents do not create information that is highly contingent [so improbable on chance alone as a specific outcome], as late as Dec 24:
What I am showing is that Dembski's reliance on probabilities fails since whether design is explained by natural processes or by an appeal to agency, both have high probabilities and thus low information.
4] This, I will respond to: As a look at my always linked, section A will show, courtesy F R Connor in his classic, Signals:
from a communication point of view it does not have its usual everyday meaning. Information is not what is actually in a message but what could constitute a message. The word could implies a statistical definition in that it involves some selection of the various possible messages. The important quantity is not the actual information content of the message but rather its possible information content. This is the quantitative definition of information and so it is measured in terms of the number of selections that could be made. Hartley was the first to suggest a logarithmic unit . . . and this is given in terms of a message probability. [p. 79]
Going further, I expanded:
To quantify the above definition of what is perhaps best descriptively termed information- carrying capacity, but has long been simply termed information (in the "Shannon sense" - never mind his disclaimers . . .), let us consider a source that emits symbols from a vocabulary: s1,s2, s3, . . . sn, with probabilities p1, p2, p3, . . . pn. That is, in a "typical" long string of symbols, of size M [say this web page], the average number that are some sj, J, will be such that the ratio J/M --> pj, and in the limit attains equality. We term pj the a priori -- before the fact -- probability of symbol sj. Then, when a receiver detects sj, the question arises as to whether this was sent. [That is, the mixing in of noise means that received messages are prone to misidentification.] If on average, sj will be detected correctly a fraction, dj of the time, the a posteriori -- after the fact -- probability of sj is by a similar calculation, dj. So, we now define the information content of symbol sj as, in effect how much it surprises us on average when it shows up in our receiver: I = log [dj/pj], in bits [if the log is to base 2, log2] . . . Eqn 1 This immediately means that the question of receiving information arises AFTER an apparent symbol sj has been detected and decoded. That is, the issue of information inherently implies an inference to having received an intentional signal in the face of the possibility that noise could be present. Second, logs are used in the definition of I, as they give an additive property: for, the amount of information in independent signals, si + sj, using the above definition, is such that: I total = Ii + Ij . . . Eqn 2 For example, assume that dj for the moment is 1, i.e. we have a noiseless channel so what is transmitted is just what is received. Then, the information in sj is: I = log [1/pj] = - log pj . . . Eqn 3 This case illustrates the additive property as well, assuming that symbols si and sj are independent. That means that the probability of receiving both messages is the product of the probability of the individual messages (pi *pj); so: Itot = log1/(pi *pj) = [-log pi] + [-log pj] = Ii + Ij . . . Eqn 4 So if there are two symbols, say 1 and 0, and each has probability 0.5, then for each, I is - log [1/2], on a base of 2, which is 1 bit. (If the symbols were not equiprobable, the less probable binary digit-state would convey more than, and the more probable, less than, one bit of information . . . )
Thus, IDC is speaking nonsense, nonsense that takes advantage of the ignorance of his readers [and possibly reflects his own ignorance, but since he has some awareness of the definition above, and could easily have followed my link, I doubt that he is acting in innocent ignorance of the facts]. The first issue is degree of contingency and information-storing capacity, then relative frequencies of symbols in the relevant vocabulary. Then we factor in the issue that symbols can be confused through one species of noise or another. Thus, so soon as we infer to signal not noise, we infer to intelligent message i.e. design, in the face of the issue of lucky noise [or just plain old fashioned corruption of the message]. 5] In short, information theory and communication science, as I noted above and highlighted in red in my always linked, inevitably rest on the validity of the logic of inference to design. 6] Going yet further, we are not just interested in information storage capacity, but in actual functionality, especially where that functionality depends on a capacity of 500 - 1,000 bits or more. In such cases:
we have now made a step beyond mere capacity to carry or convey information, to the function fulfilled by meaningful -- intelligible, difference making -- strings of symbols. In effect, we here introduce into the concept, "information," the meaningfulness, functionality (and indeed, perhaps even purposefulness) of messages -- the fact that they make a difference to the operation and/or structure of systems using such messages, thus to outcomes; thence, to relative or absolute success or failure of information-using systems in given environments. And, such outcome-affecting functionality is of course the underlying reason/explanation for the use of information in systems.
--> The bottom-line is, that we know on good reasons tied to the principles of statistical thermodynamics, that such islands of functionality are excessively improbable for random-walk based strategies to reach, even on the gamut of the observed cosmos across its lifetime. --> And, we know that as a matter of routine observation and experience, intelligent agents commonly generate such FSCI -- e.g the posts on this page and those over at Amazon. --> So, relative to what we KNOW, on empirical observation on the source of FSCI, reliably know, we freely and justifiably infer that similar cases that we just have not happened to see directly, are similarly designed. 7] This leads to the cases of interest, which are so challenging to the Darwinistas and other evo mat advocates: origin of life, body-plan level biodiversity, the organised, fine-tuned complexity of the physics of the cosmos. On inference to best, empirically anchored explanation -- the method of science -- these cases are designed by intelligent agents. So, no claimed "scientific" theory that tries to suggest otherwise should now have any credibility, absent decisive evidence that FSCI is a known possible product of chance. (Natural regularities reflecting mechanical necessity do not produce high contingencies and indeed are low in information storage capacity.) So also, it is no surprise to see IDC in his insistent preference on evo mat, trying to dismiss the relevant facts and distorting the relevant body of knowledge and associated theory. 8] What is sad and ever so revealing about the intellectual state of our civilisation, is that "201 of 222 people" found his "review" to be "helpful." GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{December 29, 2007
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Kairosfocus, says when " that which has a beginning has a cause, and the challenge to find a counter-example. Sadly, it is little more than a confession that you have none." OK, since you've introduced religion, back in post 72, the counter example I've been dancing around is that the intelligent designer of ID is a God (I'll not claim a God of a specific religion due to the political issues ID faces with regards to religion.) That God may be eternal - no beginning. That God may exist in all of time and all of space - all at the same time. If so, beginning may not exist for actions of the intelligent designer, and concepts of linear time may not exist for the intelligent designer. As a result, this God, i.e. intelligent designer, may produce results without causation. Or, may produce reaction before action. This intelligent designer/God may even be able to produce results in our domain of experience without any causality in our domain of experience. Your arguments that require causality for agency explicitely makes claims about a God that may be the intelligent designer. That is clearly overstating your argument. As such, your argument at least needs to be refined to explicitely exclude certain characteristics of a God that really may be the intelligent designer. If you want to debunk my claims because I don't have evidence, well, I don't have evidence about the properties of a God. Do you? If not, please adjust your premises to include questions about the intelligent designer / God which have not yet been excluded - and simply may be beyond any ability to exclude. BTW - none of what I have said impacts the design inference or the premises of ID. The purpose of my claims are to help your argument avoid false claims in the premise about the relationship of causality and agency, since the premise is not broad enough to accomodate a God which we do not yet comprehend as being the intelligent designer.Q_{December 29, 2007
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Q: I see your onward response, to which I will make a few comments; probably more for the record than in the hope that it will advance the discussion any more. For, sadly, some of your recent comments come across as a bit more of straining to find objections than anything else. Perhaps, a pause to review the thread above will be helpful? Anyway: 1] Q, at 73: Beginning is a temporal claim. Something from nothing is a claim about matter. Those two claims are mixed up. This is put up as a response to the self-evident statement: that which has a beginning has a cause, and the challenge to find a counter-example. Sadly, it is little more than a confession that you have none. Now, on the substance of the objection. First, material objects are space-time, matter-energy entities, as for instance the Theory of Relativity reminds us, or even the simple Galilean kinematics of an object falling under gravitational attraction, with velocity proportionate to time of fall since it BEGAN to fall. (I cite this last because, oddly, Galileo first suspected that the rate of falling would be proportional to the distance already fallen.) Indeed, in much of science especially physics [and engineering], we refer to dynamical theories and models: tracing the onward path of a system to the joint action of initial conditions, forcing factors, inertial/resistive and dissipative properties, as well as feedback/memory/lag effects. Such models deeply embed the above self-evident principle, and underscore that causal factors are at least concurrent with (and can be prior to) their effects in the space-time domain. That is, in the actual world, matter and time cannot be so easily separated as you may imagine. There is no mix-up. 2] Are you insisting that the intelligent designer of ID experiences time? Kindly, stop putting speculative words into my mouth. The design inference, as you should know, works FROM empirical traces to known possible causal factors [one or more of chance, lawlike regularities and agency], then filters through considering the empirically known source of organised complexity beyond the credible reach of chance-based processes on the gamut of the observed cosmos. That is the empirical facts and characteristics of the situation or entity come first, and the issue is not to foreclose causal factors ahead of evidence, which is question-begging. The credible existence of agency is an inference on best explanation, not an un-evidenced a priori assertion. The identity, purpose, technique and/or nature of the agent[s] in question are all onward issues, and are strictly irrelevant to the decisive question vis a vis current paradigms in science: can we identify reliaale traces of design? As the very existence of whole fields of study on this -- starting with the statistics of hypothesis-testing -- shows, the answer is: yes. So, once we do identify such traces in a situation of interest, then the existence of design implies the existence of designing agents at the point of origin of the entity bearing traces of design. This is science, not speculative philosophy. So, kindly stop trying to convert the discussion of the one into debates on the other that reek of the noxious, clarity-clouding smoke of burning strawmen. The string of immediately following questions is more of the same irrelevancies put in my mouth, and will be ignored until the core issue -- as just again stated -- is addressed. A few questions, though, are worth a remark or two: 3] Why are you excluding the possibility that the “actions” of the designer are fully outside of the realm of being detected as causal events, so that only the results occur? We are looking at the specific, scientifically interesting and significant cases where design does leave empirically detectable (i.e. observable) traces [on the nanotech of life, on its elaboration to give us novel body plans, and on the fine-tuned factors underlying a life-facilitating cosmos such as we inhabit; cfr. the always linked which you have consistently refused to address on the merits] -- and science is an empirically anchored field of study. FYI [or at least that of onlookers], here is Dembski on defining design theory [from my always linked, cf the online table of contents: "Defining "Intelligent Design" "], yet again:
intelligent design begins with a seemingly innocuous question: Can objects, even if nothing is known about how they arose, exhibit features that reliably signal the action of an intelligent cause? . . . Proponents of intelligent design, known as design theorists, purport to study such signs formally, rigorously, and scientifically. Intelligent design may therefore be defined as the science that studies signs of intelligence.
In short, since situations where "the “actions” of the designer are fully outside of the realm of being detected as causal events" are obviously outside of the remit of science, your comment here also reeks of an attempt to change the subject to gain a rhetorical advantage. Onward speculation on such ill-founded assertions (e.g. the next question) simply compounds the problem. Kindly get back to the issue at stake; otherwise the red herrings and strawmen primed for burning are now strong clues that there is no credible objection on the merits, so distractions are being reverted to. 4] Shouldn’t you explicitely include in your argument the limitation that the intelligent designer of ID cannot exist in all of space and time, or is bound by the same material limitations are we are? This, sadly, is more of the same distraction. The task of ID as a scientific investigation, is to examine empirical traces that may signal design, and then assess them on empirically anchored comparative difficulties to see if they do so reliably. Once design has been credibly established on certain key cases, then that credibly established FACT of design becomes an explanatory challenge to the theories and models that seek to explain such credible empirical facts. This has been done for certain key cases, and the real problem is that the result exposes the factual inadequacies of the popular and institutionally powerful evolutionary materialist paradigm and its handmaiden, so-called methodological naturalism. [At phil levels, evo mat has long been plainly shown to be incoherent, especially on accounting for the mind we need to think even materialist thoughts. Onlookers, observe how the quantum indeterminacy issues of a few days ago have now vanished without trace of response to the evidence presented above. Think about the implications of the rhetorical pattern of rushing on to the next objection.] 5] Your arguments of causality and agency can be supported only with that requirement. Empty, selectively hyperskeptical assertion. All that is required, as already has been outlined just above and before, is to have a recognition of the need for a cause when we see that something had a beginning. [This rather reminds me of an incident at a vacation summer school, where in a Montserrat where we have an active volcano, a balloon went BANG! Every head instantly turned to see why. No prizes for guessing what that instinct tells us.] ID seeks reliable empirical traces of design. On criteria of reliability that are organically related to those commonly used in statistical and related inferences, we have identified several cases of interest. Design in turn implies designer, i.e. an act of mind. Mind, we know exists, from our own case. We know that mind creates purposeful, organised, complex entities that are information rich. In particular, FSCI is a known reliable sign of design, from ALL the cases of our direct observation. We also have good reasons, on the statistics of accessing islands of functionality in sufficiently large configuration spaces, to infer that chance cannot credibly access such islands on the gamut of the cosmos. For, once we have 500 - 1,000 bits of information storage or more, the config space so explodes beyond the merely astronomical that the observed universe does not have enough probabilistic resources. That is, it is maximally improbable for a random walk search starting at an arbitrary location to access the functional sub-spaces, even if augmented by functional selection at each stage. For, the decisive problem is to get to the FIRST functional state. Then, as Denton famously pointed out long ago now, island-hopping from one state to the next can be a further major challenge once each intermediate is sufficiently complex that a similar probabilistic resource challenge emerges. Thus, neither origin of life nor body-plan level bio-diversity can be explained on RV + NS etc. Similarly, given the organised, fine-tuned complexity of the physics of the observed, life facilitating cosmos -- its operating system, if you will -- we see that such a complex entity is again well beyond the credible reach of chance, absent resort to speculations about quasi-infinite arrays of sub-cosmi in an effectively infinite cosmos as a whole. That in turn raises the conundrum of the sub-cosmos making machine, not to mention the issue that this is empirically unanchored, ad hoc speculation. In short, the design inference meets the test of ADEQUATE evidence, and that is all that can be fairly required of it. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{December 28, 2007
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Kairosfocus, in 71, reiterates about his "begining" claim (68) of "Kindly supply a counter-example. (More or less, this would require something that comes out of nothing.)" Only kind of correct. Beginning is a temporal claim. Something from nothing is a claim about matter. Those two claims are mixed up. Are you insisting that the intelligent designer of ID experiences time? Why must "beginning" even be meaningful to the designer? Are you insisting that that the intelligent designer of ID experiences matter? Why must "something" even be meaningful to the designer? Why are you excluding the possibility that the "actions" of the designer are fully outside of the realm of being detected as causal events, so that only the results occur? Wouldn't that simply make the intelligent designer of ID part of the material world - reasonably bound by the material laws, devolving the intelligent agency of the designer to being no more that materialism? Shouldn't you explicitely include in your argument the limitation that the intelligent designer of ID cannot exist in all of space and time, or is bound by the same material limitations are we are? Your arguments of causality and agency can be supported only with that requirement.Q_{December 28, 2007
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Q you said,
by equivocating the two types of agent - those that are bound by causality, and that which is not necessarily bound by causality - claims must be introduced for convenience to fill logical holes. My objection is that some of those claims aren’t needed, because the logical holes don’t exist, once the equivocation is dropped.
and you also said some more,
There is no reason why causality from the designer need ever be manifest as a causal event in the real world. In fact, I argue, that if the actions of the intelligent designer of ID were observable as fully causal events in the real world, the real world would then, by definition, have both the action and the reaction of the origin of life, or of the tinkering of life. That would result in a purely mechanistic model of life, and effectively, invalidate the premises of ID. If ID is sufficiently supported, then it must not be necessary for all of the causal event of ID’s intelligent designer to be manifest in the real world. As a result, I’m suggesting that the assertions which apply to the understanding of the agency of an intelligent designer need not apply to the same understanding of agency in the real world. There is no reason that they would operate by the same set of rules. As a result, I’m saying that building arguments which assume that the agency of intelligent design would operate by the same constraints as agency in the real world is an equivocation. Or, to phrase it similar to the quote you provided: To be consistent with ID, that which has a result in the real world might not have a cause in the real world.
Q, im sorry but I have to call you out on this one. What you are basically saying underneath all of the rambling, is that there is no way philosophically to necessirly distinguish between the (so called) 2 types od designers. the one that obeys all laws of causality and the one that transcends it. Yet the humorous problem with your assertion is that when I say "well the big bang requires a transcendent casue" you say "well in physical reality I agree with you but in philosophical reality i think there need not be causality." You are creating a philosophical demarcation that holds no water. You claim that you are "arguing" that no causal manifestation from the ID need exist but you back it up with no evidence! This is rediculous. I admitted to you that everyone is entitled to their own intuitions- their own opinions, beliefs or just blind faith-- but if you want to engage in a philosopical "debate" through "argument"- you need to do more than just assert a circular world view. Now, i gave you the big bang as the prime ontological argument for ultimate ID causality. There is alos an epsitemic argument for ID causality- it is equally "pragmatic(take note)" If all things were to obey the universes cause and effect structure and say an infinte regress and progress- no ultimate physical cause - then how would we know if somthing is designed? All you are doing in essence whether you realize it or not, is taking the word "design" out of the vocabulary. But by arguing for a universe that is totally natural you have rejected the dychotomy between purposeness (matching ends to means) and purposlessness (unguided natural processes)- or orderliness and randomness. Dont you want to know at a casino if a card game is rigged before you play the game of cards? And, dont you want to know if DNA was planted by aliens or time travelers? Dont you want to know if the consciencounes and intellgence we expierece as human beings is reflective in the order of the universe? There is a clear differnce between teleology and natrual probability as is clearly lad out in TDI and Dembski's Explanitory Filter. To reject probabilities is to reject logic. There is even a clearer difference between teleology and weak teleology- just go buy a cheap computer and see how long it holds up. Your implicit point is ultimatly that nature is what it is by itself and we are merely poiting ourselves into the body of the designer without good reason. You are wrong- the universe orders things and WE CAN. The unniverse makes laws and WE CAN. The universe produces order and chaos and we can. Can the universe know what it is doing? This is one of the ultimate questions that is inherent in the nature of ID. The question is of consciousness. Is the universe conscious? How does it unfold improbable arrangments of CSI if it cant match ends to means? Or what is it that did match ends to means? ID is about questions of origins. We have lots of good reasons to aks these questions. if you have no interest inthe questions then ID means nothing to you- in which case you ought not be be criticizing it if you cant take it and understand it on the meaning it has for those who do take it seriously. To put this a little more clearly- why would you want to eat a filet minoun over a mcdonalds cheeseburger? Because one tastes better to you. There are real scinetific reasons why one tastes better too. but to argue that philosophically there could be no reason to distinguish one from the other is to loose touch with reality and miss the point. And you have not eve nsuccessfully argued your point- you have merely asserted a claim. You have done the typical methodolical materialist trick and said "lets not look at scinece but just in the mind" - Yes you CAN have your philosophical view but it is merely a belief unless you can back it up with real world data- without data it is merely a belief and in the secular sense a religion(atheists think god is just a beelif or a made up idea and so should be equal to all made up beleifs and ideas) that you espouse but i submit that first you read your Einstein "scinece without religion is lame but RELIGION WITHOUT SCIENCE IS BLIND." We cant know the answers to these questions for sure- or if we are even asking the right questions- for sure- but they are nonetheless real questions that carry as much significance, depth and weight as anyhting thought you can come up with- by simply holding another "belief" you are just ignoring the evidence and failing to grasp the whole picture or the question itself-- which is "is this designed?" And I submit that "No more beautiful a question has ever been uttered." It is obvious that you argument hold no water becasue you disagree with it on a scinetific basis but think it somehow holds water metaphysically. All you are doing ignoring what we know about the cause and effect structure of the world even excluding ultimate causeation.Frost122585_{December 28, 2007
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All: Following up on "equivocation" etc. 1] Q, 69: Let’s not dispute that . . . namely: “that which has a BEGINNING has a cause.” Kindly supply a counter-example. (More or less, this would require something that comes out of nothing.) 2] Q, 70: Since the topic I’m addressing is the relationship of causality, agency, chance, and regularity, I’m intending “the real world” to be the domain in which causality can be observed. That is, cutting to the chase, you ARE in fact intending to confine "real world" to "material world." It so happens that the observed cosmos evidently [on Hubble's work and subsequent investigations] had a beginning, at the singularity commonly known as the big bang, typically estimated as 13.7 BYA. Further tot his, the implication of such a beginning was strongly resisted by many scientists at the time, precisely because "that which has a beginning has a cause." Thus, the issue over inter alia the so-called Steady-State universe model, which then ended in empirical collapse after the observation of background radiation. Going further, to use "real world" in such a way that in effect agency -- the most commonly, directly experienced phenomenon of all for human beings [as I described above in details in 53], is disregarded in favour of in effect trying to dismiss agency as an unwarranted and dubious assertion, is obvious, though probably unintentional selective hyperskepticism. 3] Q, 69: An intelligent designer, capable of originating and tinkering with life, would by definition, be able to affect change in the real world. Note the use of "real world" to denote what evo mat advocates would call the actual cosmos: the world from hydrogen to humans and associated physically-based forces so that change within the "real world" can only trace to chance + necessity. This sets up . . . 4] However, that change, being the result of actions caused by the designer, need not be manifest as the result of actions which occured in the real world. Again, observe the use of the term "real world," which is plainly serving to exclude MIND from being recognised as active into the "real" world. (The second shift in quotes is intended to spotlight the rhetorical effect: what is not "real" is just that -- i.e held to be fictional.) 5] That is, there may be a real-world reaction but without a real-world action. For all intents and purposes, the event of causality could be broken in the real world. Here the equivocation in Q's argument emerges. For, "real" world chains of events are in effect redefined to be PHYSICAL chains of events. So, readers dominated by evo mat thinking, are in effect invited to -- by equivocating "real" between "physical" and "actual" -- infer that causality is "broken." That is, one may see things begin without a "real" -- physical -- world cause. Of course, word magic like "emergence" may then substitute for a serious discussion of the capabilities and limitations of causes tracing to chance and necessity. But in the ACTUAL world of our common experience, mind has acted and has produced observable consequences that go beyond the credible reach of chance + necessity. For instance:
The PC screen, while I am typing, shows text because the software and hardware have processed information deriving from keystrokes. Those keystrokes are not matters of chance or necessity only . The key moves because my finger hits it. My finger in turn moves because I -- a MAN with a MIND -- have decided to type a message and the words and letters that make it up.
Now, I the man have acted into the real world. The message has not come out of nowhere or the indeterminacies of quantum uncertainty, it has come from my deliberate, intentional actions. just as Q's message did earlier. 6] There is no reason why causality from the designer need ever be manifest as a causal event in the real world. We just had a case study that shows how agent action based in intentional mental activity, has caused events in the ACTUAL world that exhibit FSCI, and which I know from real-world, real-time experience of my own mentality are the products of intelligent design. Now, such mental causation does not reduce to chance + necessity acting on material objects in space-time indeed. That was what was noted right from the beginning. That is, we see again that empirically -- experientially -- known causal factors can embrace chance, necessity and intelligent agency. But, if one is sufficiently determined to reject the self-evident, one can do so. Only, one cannot escape the resulting implications and their import: reductio ad absurdum via incoherence. As was just seen. 7] I’m suggesting that the assertions which apply to the understanding of the agency of an intelligent designer need not apply to the same understanding of agency in the real world. There is no reason that they would operate by the same set of rules. We know that agents produce organised complexity manifesting itself inter alia in fine-tuned, functionally specified complex information. We observe that for instance cosmogenesis manifests this pattern. Should we therefore infer that we may not infer that such FSCI is a pointer to agency in that case? That is a question-begging inference tantamount to inadvertent surrender of a case if I ever saw one! 8] As a result, I’m saying that building arguments which assume that the agency of intelligent design would operate by the same constraints as agency in the real world is an equivocation. But, Q, NO-ONE in this discussion has assumed that: the agency of intelligent design would operate by the same constraints as agency in the real world. This is a strawman. First because of the equivocation of "real world." Second, because the ACTUAL argument is that it is a common fact of observation that agents often leave FSCI etc as markers of their action into/upon the physical world. Third, that on statistical principles on the capacity of random walk searches beginning at arbitrary points in configuration spaces of sufficient scale, chance driven processes are maximally unlikely to access islands of functionality. [Cf my always linked App 1, point 6.] Fourth, that in every case where we see FSCI and directly know the origin, it traces to agent action. So, plainly we are well-warranted to infer on a best explanation basis that the FSCI in life at cellular level, its elaboration through more FSCI to create body plans and the underlying fine-tuned complex organisation of the physics of the life-facilitating cosmos all credibly trace to intelligent agency. 9] Bottomlines; Finally, your last statement in 69 simply reflects the morass you got in to by the equivocation on the meaning of "real":
To be consistent with ID, that which has a result in the real world might not have a cause in the real world.
A more accurate statement would be: To be consistent with ID, that which has a result in the physical, observable world might not be a cause tracing to chance plus necessity only; but instead to intelligent agency. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{December 28, 2007
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Addendum: Kairosfocus, you suggested that I am using "the real world" as a substitute for "the material world". Not exactly, in this case. Since the topic I'm addressing is the relationship of causality, agency, chance, and regularity, I'm intending "the real world" to be the domain in which causality can be observed.Q_{December 28, 2007
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Kairosfocus, in 68, pointed out "have you read the outline at 42? If so, you will know that “that which has a BEGINNING has a cause.”" Let's not dispute that, because it serves as the illustration about my claim of equivocation. An intelligent designer, capable of originating and tinkering with life, would by definition, be able to affect change in the real world. However, that change, being the result of actions caused by the designer, need not be manifest as the result of actions which occured in the real world. That is, there may be a real-world reaction but without a real-world action. For all intents and purposes, the event of causality could be broken in the real world. There is no reason why causality from the designer need ever be manifest as a causal event in the real world. In fact, I argue, that if the actions of the intelligent designer of ID were observable as fully causal events in the real world, the real world would then, by definition, have both the action and the reaction of the origin of life, or of the tinkering of life. That would result in a purely mechanistic model of life, and effectively, invalidate the premises of ID. If ID is sufficiently supported, then it must not be necessary for all of the causal event of ID's intelligent designer to be manifest in the real world. As a result, I'm suggesting that the assertions which apply to the understanding of the agency of an intelligent designer need not apply to the same understanding of agency in the real world. There is no reason that they would operate by the same set of rules. As a result, I'm saying that building arguments which assume that the agency of intelligent design would operate by the same constraints as agency in the real world is an equivocation. Or, to phrase it similar to the quote you provided: To be consistent with ID, that which has a result in the real world might not have a cause in the real world.Q_{December 28, 2007
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5] Q, cont'd, 64: Addressing the premises can be discussed separately from the implications, unless the implications are actually the premises. Consider, "IF 'Tom is a cat' THEN 'Tom is an animal.' " It is sufficient for Tom to be an animal, that he is a cat; and it is necessary for Tom to be an animal if he is to be a cat. But, it would be sufficient for Tom to be an animal if he were a pig; and being an animal would be necessary for Tom to be a pig. In short, P => Q means that IF P is so, it is sufficient for Q to be so, and also that unless Q is so, P cannot be so. P is sufficient for Q and Q is necessary for P. We must never confuse implication with equivalence. Nor should we confuse self-evident truth or equivalence with tautology, this last in the sense of the predicate simply being an uninformative restatement of the premises. Consider the difference between: "For a finite whole, the whole is greater than the component part," vs: "The Gostak distims the doshes" [fr a classic Sci Fi tale] where the only "explanation" of Gostak, distims and doshes is to ring the changes around the empty circle. Self evident truths are informative, and ones understanding of the interacting terms opens up spirally and experientially and reflectively as one explores the core truth and its ramifications. And, to reject the concepts and their relationships, leads one into the morasses of self-referential incoherence and similar absurdities. The almost creedal self-evident truths of the US Declaration of Independence and its working out over 200 and more years, are a classic example in point. So is the Christian understanding of God, whom we encounter in the face of Christ. And much more, correcting Kant and Hume etc on their little error at the beginning. Further to all this, where P => Q and Q is falsified, perhaps through reductio ad absurdum, then P is falsified. As 41 shows, that is the precise fate of evo mat, and its attempt to capture and hold hostage agency within the orbit of chance + necessity acting in a material only view of the world. 6] free-will is the result of causal events - unless there are non-causal events. Which, as we have both asserted, is an absurd assertion when analysing the real world. H'mm, have you read the outline at 42? If so, you will know that "that which has a BEGINNING has a cause." [Another self-evident truth . . . explore it and reflect on it, then see what it is saying as your understanding deepens through experience and reflection on it, leading to a coherent and factually adequate view that is elegantly simple and powerful. See, it is no mere tautology asserted blindly and closed-mindedly!] But, equally, the observed contingent cosmos [cf the Big Bang and the fine tuned parameters for making the observed cosmos life facilitating] points to a necessary being behind it. And, on further evidence, that necessary being on inference to best explanation is an Agent, not simply an extended form of the matter-energy, space-time cosmos that current multiverse proposals are so fond of. For many excellent reasons tied to the empirically routinely observed, reliably known source of organised, fine tuned, information rich complexity: agency. OUR free wills in our experience as beings with a beginning is indeed evidently caused -- but by the free creative action of agents external to ourselves. In turn such beings point onward to the necessary being who is responsible for our life-facilitating, complexly organised and fine-tuned cosmos. And, plainly, such a chain of reasoning is NOT absurd in the real world. 7] if the assumption that agency is beget by agency in the real world is dropped, then a logical argument can be made that real-world agencyis the result of chance and regularity (using your three categories.) This simply confuses two things: agents who have a beginning and the agent who does not: contingent agents and the necessary necessary agent. An argument that tries to reduce agency to the product of chance and necessity only, e.g. evo mat, ends in self-referential absurdity,a s already shown e.g. at 41. 8] since that agency need not be considered as fully contained in the real world The last phrase exposes the fatal gap in the argument. In short, what is happening here is that the phrase "the real world" is standing in for "the material world." But, THE (note the definite article) really "real world" -- as our massive experience of agency tells us -- is not the physical-material, chance + necessity world only! Thus, there is no impasse, as the little error at the beginning can be corrected as just noted. 9] Q, 66: My observation about this discussion is that assertions are insisted about agency, in order to arrive at conclusions that relate to the agent of ID. But, one is not merely discussing assertions, but our experiential, interior world. A world in which we EXPERIENCE ourselves directly as agents, plan and think at least sometimes logically, then decide and act into the physical world to effect our plans -- designs if you will -- towards our intents. This, for instance I discussed in details in 53, in 12 points. To these, it seems now, you by and large reacted by accusing me of turning the discussion into a personal one, instead of examining what I was saying about our common experience of agency. Kindly revisit that exchange, and reconsider your reaction. 10] My counter argument is that the agent of ID need not be bound by the same constraints as are agents in the “real world”. By “real world”, I loosely mean those agents that are fully bound by causality. Now, again, cf the previous discussion at 42. In short, you in the end agree with me. 11] I’m suggesting that some of the claims about agency in general are misapplied, in that they would be better if applied exclusively to the agent of ID. Doubtless some claims about agency are unique to the cosmogenetic agent who is a necessary being. Such as, such a being is beginningless and uncaused. But that has nothing to do with the empirical traces of agent action: organised, information-rich -- often fine-tuned or even irreducible -- complexity. As this very thread abundantly and eloquently testifies, even we caused agents routinely create artifacts that exhibit that! And, as 42 discussed, this is amply manifested threough our experience of agency. Thus, the inference to "equivocation" is irrelevant. Furthermore, IMHCO, nothing in the above discussion properly leads to or otherwise warrants the conclusion that the identified cluster of causal forces, chance, necessity and agency, is a dubious, empirically unwarranted assertion or assumption. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{December 28, 2007
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Q (and GP, et al): Let's follow up on a few points further, which I believe will advance the discussion towards a conclusion in light of issues brought out by some of the most recent remarks above: 1] Q-mech: First, GP, you have indeed given a reasonable outline of the state of affairs with Q-mech. Wave functions form part of wave equations [often in an energetic context, e.g the Hamiltonian] and when suitably mathematically massaged, give rise to a statistical pattern of possible outcomes that reflect a probabilistic pattern. That is, they describe probabilistic distributions and are in effect reducible under "chance." The "collapse" in question is often a matter of observational circumstances, and the outcomes are indeterminate. Position-momentum indeterminacy and energy-time indeterminacy are particularly important. In effect if you arrange things so that position is tightly pinned, say by bouncing off a photon, the impact will sharply shift momentum. You know where it was, but not where it is going, and not how fast. Similarly, if we tighten energy level [e.g. spectral] observations, we cannot specify the time of the observations precisely. All of this fits into the chance + necessity view. And, when it come3s to the issue of trying to use indeterminacy as a wedge to move in free will, here is a typical materialistic response, courtesy Martín López?Corredoira at Arxiv:
Since quantum mechanics (QM) was formulated, many voices have claimed this to be the basis of free will in the human beings. Basically, they argue that free will is possible because there is an ontological indeterminism in the natural laws, and that the mind is responsible for the wave function collapse of matter, which leads to a choice among the different possibilities for the body. However, I defend the opposite thesis, that free will cannot be defended in terms of QM. First, because indeterminism does not imply free will, it is merely a necessary condition but not enough to defend it. Second, because all considerations about an autonomous mind sending orders to the body is against our scientific knowledge about human beings; in particular, neither neurological nor evolutionary theory can admit dualism. The quantum theory of measurement can be interpreted without the intervention of human minds, but other fields of science cannot contemplate the mentalist scenario, so it is concluded that QM has nothing to say about the mind or free will, and its scientific explanation is more related to biology than to physics. A fatalistic or materialist view, which denies the possibility of a free will, makes much more sense in scientific terms.
2] Theses, conclusions and counter-theses: Just above, we see that the quantum indeterminacy view can be held -- by informed materialists who in this case just happen to be physicists -- to be reducible to the original evo mat view. [The irony of appealing to logic and reason and objectivity of observations leading to reliable conclusions in a world driven by chance + necessity only and not free to follow fact and logic by conscious choice, is lost on such.] Let's repeat the core counter- theses and the inference derived thereform, in the usual structured format:
[p]First, because indeterminism does not imply free will, it is merely a necessary condition but not enough to defend it. [q] Second, because all considerations about an autonomous mind sending orders to the body is against our scientific knowledge about human beings; in particular, neither neurological nor evolutionary theory can admit dualism. _____________________ [r] QM has nothing to say about the mind or free will, and its scientific explanation is more related to biology than to physics. [s] A fatalistic or materialist view, which denies the possibility of a free will, makes much more sense in scientific terms.
The blogger, Greg, over at Presence, has made an interesting further note (and provides an helpful onward link):
Even if we could show some kind of connection between physical brain states and cognitive decisions, we must examine what kind of "free will" we would be left with if based on quantum indeterminacy. An indeterminate free will would be random, erratic and unpredictable. The individual exercising such a free will would not appear to us to be acting in any rational fashion. What we are looking for in free will is not the potential for any random occurrence to present itself at any time, but a reasoned, rational intellect exercising a will that can make a decision independent of antecedent conditions. Quantum indeterminism does not provide the basis for this kind of free will.
In short, while quantum indeterminacy may make an opening for freedom of action, it is not constitutive of that freedom, and is open to the inference that the Swiss physicist cited above has made in defence of evo mat [which he muisunderstands to be "science"]. Indeed, the onward link is helpful here:
A popular view of the mind is that it is an epiphenomenon of the brain—something like the wake of a boat going through the water . . . . Another view is the "identity" theory which claims that the neuronal activity of our brain tissue is itself mind. The brain and mind are two aspects of one and the same biological organ. The cerebral tissue is the self structure while the cerebral activity is the mental process . . . . Frank J. Tipler, a mathematical physicist at Tulane University, tries to develop free will from quantum gravity uncertainties that, he claims, provide him with a true ontological randomizer . . . . [But] When the position of the particle becomes more certain, which is equivalent to saying that the ?x becomes smaller, then the uncertainty of the particle's momentum, ?p, becomes larger. Hence, some would argue that, because of the determinate mathematical nature of Heisenberg's Principle of Uncertainty, it would fail to provide the indeterminate freedom necessary for human free will.
3] back to fixing the little error at the beginning: Far better is the start-point I have made: we directly EXPERIENCE, and CRUCIALLY DEPEND ON the FACT of freedom of mind and action deriving therefrom. That is, by daily and moment to moment experience, regardless of the implications of today's evo mat dominated academy and popular secularised Western[ised] cultures, we empirically are agents. Thus, the just linked concludes, in part:
Human free will decisions are self-determined decisions, and self-determined decisions are not indeterminate decisions. Hence, it is a misguided adventure to search for an indeterminate randomizer to account for free-willed decisions. The reason for this is that free-willed decisions are not indeterminate decisions; they are self-determined decisions
Or, putting it in Stephen M. Barr's words:
Why not simply start with the evident fact of free will? Since free will requires a breakdown of physical determinism, and quantum theory gives us just such a breakdown, one would seem to have grounds enough for suspecting a role for quantum theory in explaining the human mind. . . . .
In short, and here Q is making a valid contribution,we have some evidence of -- frankly in the end quite mysterious -- physical indeterminacy [not to be simply equated to chance; as evo mat thinkers are wont to do] AND we have the experience of free will. BOTH are required if we are to move to another, more factually adequate view of mind and agency. Of the two, the more important is the latter. (and evo mat views work in part by en-darkening the mind from seeing what would otherwise be obvious, only to end in multiple absurdities). 4] Q, 64: my discussion was not challenging the explanatory filter. It was about your premises of agency, regularity, and chance. First, the EF is premised on the separation of causal factors by their empirical traces. Those factors, by massive observation of cases, trace to chance, necessity and agency. The real issue is the materialist assertion that agency is an artifact of the first two. I contend that first, we directly experience such agency, and it is radically divergent from the materialist model of its origin and what that would imply of its behaviour. Sufficiently so that the evo mat view of mind becomes self-stultifying. [ . . . ]kairosfocus_{December 27, 2007
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gpuccio, in 65, says "All the cited properties of consciousness, indeed, cannot arouse from statistical random laws, any more than they can arouse from deterministic laws." That is a bold statement, and not quite as simple as an "indeed" claim. But, that is not the fundamental point I am trying to make in the discussion with Kairosfocus. Claims have been made linking causality, chance, agency, and regularity. My observation about this discussion is that assertions are insisted about agency, in order to arrive at conclusions that relate to the agent of ID. My counter argument is that the agent of ID need not be bound by the same constraints as are agents in the "real world". By "real world", I loosely mean those agents that are fully bound by causality. In other words, I'm suggesting that some of the claims about agency in general are misapplied, in that they would be better if applied exclusively to the agent of ID. Otherwise, by equivocating the two types of agent - those that are bound by causality, and that which is not necessarily bound by causality - claims must be introduced for convenience to fill logical holes. My objection is that some of those claims aren't needed, because the logical holes don't exist, once the equivocation is dropped.Q_{December 27, 2007
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Q: I understand better now what you think, but still I have to respectfully disagree. I'll try to explain why, because the differences in our views are in themselves very interesting. First of all, I don't share your formal division between what is natural and what is supernatural. I have discussed that before, in other threads. The only meaning of "natural" in our days seems to be "all that I can already explain, at least in the general lines". That is another strange byproduct of materialism. I don't accept it. Indeed, we have no idea of what "nature" is, and what are nature's ultomate laws or consituents. We are only drunk of our scientific arrogance, which believes that we have all the important things set, and that matter and its laws are all that exists, at least in "nature". That is nonsense. Even in physics, we are still on the far brim of understanding. Dark matter is a mystery, dark energy a mystery of a mustery. Quantum mechanics, although very well managed, is much less understood. And who knows home many new principles will be discovered and understood in, say, 100 years... Consciousness and, if you allow me a semi-religious language, the soul of man, are all but "natural", in the sense above discussed. They are transcendent, non material. And yet theu exist in "nature". Do you want to call the soul "supernatural"? No problem for me. Shall we call the Designer, however we conceive Him/Her/It, innatural? It is not certainly our use of words which changes reality. The fact is that our "I" constantly interacts with matter, through the brain and the body. It receives inputs and generates outputs, and those outputs "do" change matter and the chain of causality. Well only two scenarios are possible: 1) Consciousness is only a passive "transition" from the inputs to the outputs, completely determined by cause and effect laws. No free will exists, and everything is totally determined. the chain of cause and effect is never broken. The univers is a huge machine, and nothing else. 2) The relationship between inputs and outputs of consciousness is not completely described in deterministic ways. The inputs do certainly influence the outòputs in a recognizable way, but there is space for unaccountable variations, which do not respond to any law of cause and effect. The chain of cause and effect is therefore constantly broken, although in a low-level way, and at least in human beings. From what you write, you seem to prefer option 2. So do I. But you seem to be content in assigning the explanation of how option 2 is explained to quantum mechanincs in itselg, that is to a "natural" process (in the more restricted sense). I would like to remark that such an attitue, although leaving some room for a certain degree of unforeseeability (quantum mechanics allows that), leaves at the same time no room for free will, purpose and choice. Quantum mechanics in itself, indeed, does not allow any of these phenomena, which are the real markers of consciousness and humanity. Let's see why. Quantum mechanics has two different levels of description. The first, and most important, is the wave function, which usually fully describes quantum systems. (Please, excuse me if I am not completely precise in language. I am not a phisicist. But I hope that the concepts are right). The important thing is that the wave function evolves completely deterministically. In that, quantum mechanics is not so much different from traditional mechanics. But then there is the aspect of real measures, which seem to change the "status" of quantum "objects", and freeze some property in a specific value (position, spin, etc.). The passage from level A to level B is sometimes called "Wavefunction collapse". That is the mysterious part of quantum mechanichs, and the one which mainly differentiates its various interpretations. And the important point is: the relationship between wave function (deterministic) and the results of the wave funtion collapse is indeed statistical, and not deterministic. Wave function values represent only the "probability" that a certain property will have a certain value "after" the wave function collapse (the measurement), but can in no way exactly predict the value. Now, if it were true, as you seem to say, that quantum mechanics in itself, as a natural process, can allow us not to bee strictly deterministic, we would not have concluded much: we would have, indeed, a "natural world" which is not strictly deterministic, but the parts which are not deterministic would be governed by mere statistical laws, not allowing any "intention", free will, choice, teleology, and so on. All the cited properties of consciousness, indeed, cannot arouse from statistical random laws, any more than they can arouse from deterministic laws. In this sense, quantum mechanics in itself is no better that determinism in explaining the propertis of consciousness and of human behaviour. But then, why is quantum mechanics so important in our discussions? the fact is: quantum mechanics cannot "explain" the origin of free will, or of other properties of consciousness. But it can be a very powerful "interface" to allow thw connection between consciousness and matter. The wave function collapse, for instance, is a perfect "point" in reality which could, in principle, be manipulated by consciousness to effect a critical change in reality without apparently violating deterministic laws. Eccles and Penrose, among others, have elaborated models of neuronal activity on that concept. I am not saying that this kind of reasoning explains all, or that it is necessarily right. But, at present, it is the most promising way of reasoning, at the level of physics, to reconciliate the existence of conscious principles with the existence of an objective world. I am sure that, as our understanding of physical laws deepens, we will find better and more satisfying answers. But, for now, this line of reasoning is the most promising, if not the only one. And, potentially, it offers exactly the same advantages to explain the free will of humans and the design implementation in nature.gpuccio_{December 27, 2007
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Karisosfocus, in 62, said "On the issue at stake on the explanatory filter, ..." Please note, my discussion was not challenging the explanatory filter. It was about your premises of agency, regularity, and chance. Also, I don't think that the conclusions of the explanatory filter that you bring up are specifically dependent upon the premises you are using. Also, you say "Others are free to differ, but they are not free to then avert the implications of the alternatives they assert or imply." Addressing the premises can be discussed separately from the implications, unless the implications are actually the premises. You also point out, i.e. claim, "that indeterminacy on position-momentum or energy-time is NOT freedom of the will, which is a condition of successful moral and intellectual thought." I'll pursue this as I read the claim. If you are asserting that free-will is real (which I am not at all disputing, and which I also hold to be real), then free-will is the result of causal events - unless there are non-causal events. Which, as we have both asserted, is an absurd assertion when analysing the real world. Since you are saying (if I understand correctly) that free will is the source of agency, and free will is a representation of agency, then you would be forced to argue that agency is beget by agency. When logically extrapolated, that can lead to odd conclusions about the real world. Or, if the assumption that agency is beget by agency in the real world is dropped, then a logical argument can be made that real-world agencyis the result of chance and regularity (using your three categories.) This contrasts to discussions about the agency that is the core of ID, since that agency need not be considered as fully contained in the real world, so the above claims about agency need not apply. But, it seems that an impasse may have been reached in this discussion.Q_{December 27, 2007
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Q: I did a cross-thread game again. Sorry. Trying to fix: a} Quick follow up: first, I point out that indeterminacy on position-momentum or energy-time is NOT freedom of the will, which is a condition of successful moral and intellectual thought. b} Second, one is far more directly aware of one's cognition and conscience than one is of any scientific finding, which one accesses through these and on the grounds of their general reliability. c} Thus, if a claimed "scientific" view of the world asserts that chance + necessity of material forces [NB: which BTW INCLUDES quantum states and associated indeterminacies] drive neural network activity thence the epiphenomenon of the mind, a la Crick, then it is self-refuting. d} And then one looks and lo, the claimed scientific theories are in fact plainly and objectively riddled with a priori philosophical, wordview commitments that filter and indeed cherry-pick which facts to attend to and which to dismiss. [Cf the parallel thread on Darwin for some side-lights.] e} Under such circumstance, one is perfectly in order to look at the reductio ad absurdum, and reject the a priori commitments that led up to it, namely evolutionary materialism. (In short, observe the contrast between my actual premises and the ones that you seemed to think I had.) f} On the issue at stake on the explanatory filter, I have simply noted that we do observe chance, necessity and agency and their diverse and distinguishable empirical traces:
1 --> I then noted how the filter is reliable where we can check it. 2 --> I see that it has good roots in the statistical principles of systems with large configuration spaces. 3 --> I see no good reason to brush the filter aside simply because it yields results objectionable to a theory that is already rooted in dubious a priori commitments. 4 --> I know agents exist today far more certainly than I can claim to know that they emerged spontaneously through chance and necessity in the primordial past -- a claimed process which I know is dubious on independent grounds as already described. 5 --> Above all, I have no good reason to assume or assert that agents were not possibly present at the origin of life, or of body-plan level biodiversity. 6 --> I then see the organised complexity manifest in the FSCI required, which I know empirically to be a good sign of agency. 7 --> I therefore infer that OOL and body plan level biodiversity trace to agency, on inference to best, empirically anchored explanation -- the way science infers. 8 --> Extending to cosmogenesis, where I see a fine-tuned organised complexity in the physics of a life-facilitating observed cosmos, I see good empirically anchored reason to infer that the cosmos is also designed. 9 --> Designs imply designers, and the overall cluster of design inferences is consistent with the concept of a cosmogentic desingner who intended to implement a cosmos for life and put life in it, however s/he may have done so. 10 --> but observe, the direction of inference is from known properties of chance, necessity and agency, to distinguishing signs and a filter that reliably separates. Thence, on cases of interest individually we see well-warranted inferences to design. Thus, we start from design and build to designer, only refusing to a priori rule out the possibility of agency before inspecting evidence. 11 --> On the principle of simplicity, when we see the cluster of relevant designs, it is reasonable to infer that the designs fit into a common, coherently purposeful framework. 12 --> Going beyond the domain of Science proper, but still in the spirit of seeking empirically anchored truth on worldviews, it seems reasonable to see that this inference is compatible in broad terms with the traditional view that science thinks God's thoughts after him. And since that is precisely how some of the greatest of all scientists thought and worked, I have no problem thinking and working like that as a scientist.
g} So, going back to the scientific inferences proper, I conclude that on well-known principles of scientific inference, and on evidence that is otherwise inexplicable, but which I know agent action routinely generates, that agents are the well-warranted explanation for these phenomena. Here I stand, and in a nutshell, why. Others are free to differ, but they are not free to then avert the implications of the alternatives they assert or imply. And, as the above thread abundantly shows, the alternatives are vastly inferior once their difficulties are brought out on a level playing field. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{December 27, 2007
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Kairosfocus, in 60, said "Not even AD can live with the consequence of the doctrine, here, that reasoned discourse constrained by facts and logic is impossibly ungrounded as all is lucky noise acting on the blind natural regulartities of our neural networks in our CNS." I'm sorry kairosfocus, but I am unwilling to accept what I see as faulty premises simply because I would be uncomfortable with the conclusions, or consequences of the premises. Hence, when I saw what to me are flaws in your premises, I wanted to discuss them. -------------- In 61, gpuccio observes " if that is really your line of thought, it does put you the strict group of absolute determinists" Please note that my argument was that agency is inseparable from chance or regularity. That does not mean that I am a strict determinists. It might have before Heisenberg and quantum theory, as you mentioned, but those days are long gone. I would argue that the amount of indeterminability in the brain from the quantum effects is enough to regain the claim of free will, and any extra-natural arguments about mind are unnecessary. It is also enough to eliminate any possibility of being a strict determinist. Related to this, I am really uncomfortable in what I see as equivoacation of agency that is observable in the real world and the agency that is the backbone of ID. Because, it seems obvious, at least to me, that if the agency that would be the originator and tinkerer of life is fully physical, then ID becomes simply another abstraction of causality - explainable with Newtonian and Quantum arguments. I argue that the agency of ID, as ID is described, must be extra-natural. At the same time, it would be ludicrous, I suggest, that real-world agency, like actions of humans and horses and smart dogs, is anything other than an abstraction of mechanical and quantum processes.Q_{December 27, 2007
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Q: You say: "This puts my position in direct opposition to your point 11. I am arguing that in the real world, agency is an emperical result of chance and regularity (keeping the discussion to your three options), and need not be considered as separable." I respect your position, but have to rematk that, if that is really your line of thought, it does put you the strict group of absolute determinists, who are also, usually, absolute materialists. I have nothing against determinists/materialists. I do believe they are completely wrong, and that their view is in no way supported by either philosophy or science, least of all by common sense. But, at least, their view is rather consostent and simple: only matter exists, and everything that exists (at least, after the big bang) is a great machine, where everything is completely determined by necessary laws. Please, take notice that, in a deterministic scenario, everything in the ultimate sense is determined by necessity, and chance is a way to evaluate phenomena where we have no possibility to reach a detailed description at the level of necessity, because we cannot know, with sufficient precision, all the variables involved. In such a view, the existence of living beings and of consciousness remains, in my opinion, utterly unexplainable. That is demonstrated by the ID arguments. I want to remark, here, that ID arguments have a double aspect: a) They falsify, on logical and empirical grounds, the current materialistic explanation for living beings (darwinist evolution) b) They suggest a very good explanation of the same realities by postulating design. Now, even those who, for philosophical reasons, don't want to accept point b), the design inference (for instance, because they don't believe in agency as a causal category), point a) stays true: ID arguments falsify any known materialistic explanation, based on chance and necessity, for the appearance of biological infornation. So, a sincere and honest determinist/materialist should recognize (I know, I'm being optimistic) that the existence of living beings is, from his point of view, a complete mystery. The same can be argued for the existence of consciousness, the other fundamental reality of the empirical world which can in no way be explained by deterministic/materialistic arguments. So, I respect strict determinists/materialists: they are consistent, even if they are a little bit weird. But, thanks God, I do believe that most people are "not" strict determinists/materialists. In particular, even most materialists, if carefully questioned, are not strict determinists. Strict determinism is really weird, and it creates real cognitive embarassment to anyone who sincerely tries to embrace it. So, again I would like to remark that, when you write: " am arguing that in the real world, agency is an emperical result of chance and regularity", you are indeed expressing faith in strict determinism. I cannot agree with that, and I think that most people in the world would not agree, and with good reason. Because strict determinism implies complete denial of any kind of free will. It implies complete denial of any kind of purpose, of responsibility, of merit or demerit, of choice. That is a heavy burden for a human being to believe. And, fortunately, not a necessary one. Because there is really no reason in the world to believe such absurdities. In particular, there is no scientific reason to believe them. Indeed, the generalized faith of modern culture in deterministic laws is utterly derived by the many successes of phisical sciences, including biology and medicine, in applying deterministic reasoning to explain observable events. That is true, and nobody can deny it. But I want to state here two fundamental objections to a "generalized" application of determinism to everything that exists, even from a materialistic point of view: 1) Quantum mechanics remains a problem. Quantum mechanics is deterministic, at one important level, but not at another level. The reconciliation of these two aspects remains, at present, an unsolved problem of the interpretation and general conception of what quantum mechanics really means for our general understandin of reality. And let's remember that nobody can doubt that quantum mechanics is really at the basic core of everything material which exists. 2) Conscious beings are a problem. Consciousness cannoy be reasonably reduced to matter. Human beings are usually supposed to experience two specular processes which seem to be peculiar to consciousness: perception and free will. Let's concentrate a moment on the free will - action aspect. If we believe in some kind of free will (any kind will do), then strict determinism is no more the general law of the material world. You have to consider agency as something contributing to material events, but not entirely explanable in terms of strict cause and effect. Otherwise, there is no free will, and we are in the unhappy situation described before: consitent, but really, really weird, and with a lot of mysteries unexplained, and probably unexplainable. So, I am just saying that, as most human beings do believe in some sort of free will, and behave accordingly, for them chance and necessity cannot be any explanation for agency. I proudly count myself in such a huge group. That does not mean, obviously, that chance and necessity have no role in the interpretation of the actions of agents: they have, and a very important one. Even the greatest fan of free will knows very well how much human behaviour is influenced by chance and necessity. But the secret is in that small word: "influenced". It is not "determined". I leave to everybody to debate how much "influenced" is neard to "determined", but, if we have to leave some form of free will, the two things can never be the same. By the way, ID is indirectly a very good evidence of the real, empirical existence of free will. Indeed, as CSI is present only in the products of agency, and never in the products of chance and necessity alone (that is, when no conscious intelligent being is concerned), that means that conscious intelligent beings have indeed a way to influence events in a way which is completely out of reach for all other natural objects: that implies, with full necessity, free will.gpuccio_{December 27, 2007
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Q: Further remarks. 1] In re: I’m unsure why you have turned this into a discussion about person instead of the positions. I have not. I am addressing the general self-referential incoherence of evolutionary materialism, as it impinges on the issue of inference to agency as a causal force. It so happens that on the record of what you have now said in the blog thread, it apparently reflects on your own position. But then, maybe you are acting as advocatus diabolicus, AD. So, henceforth, please understand all the above as referring to the implications of such views, not your own views, save as directly implied or stated to be such. Kindly, therefore, pardon any inaccurate personal referent and address the issue, as an issue on the merits. 2] Q, as AD: I could just as well hold that your analyses are the result of lucky noise. Is it not a useless form of argument for both of us? Not at all, it simply further reflects just how damaging to rational discourse is evo mat. Not even AD can live with the consequence of the doctrine, here, that reasoned discourse constrained by facts and logic is impossibly ungrounded as all is lucky noise acting on the blind natural regulartities of our neural networks in our CNS. [Nor, will appeals to the word magic of emergence help AD as onlookers can see from the earlier discussion already linked for the morning.) And in case AD will argue that this is just ad hominem-tinged rhetoric on my part, here is Nobel Prize winner Sir Friancis Crick, in his The Astonishing Hypothesis:
“ ‘You,’ [generic] your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.”
In short, I am speaking of a general and generally unanswered issue on evo mat views. Consider, onlookers, the impact if the late Sir Francis had prefaced his works in science and popular discourse thusly, as Philip Johnson acidly pointed out:
“I, Francis Crick, my opinions and my science, and even the thoughts expressed in this book, consist of nothing more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.”
Onlookers, do you see why Mr Johnson immediately remarked: “[t]he plausibility of materialistic determinism requires that an implicit exception be made for the theorist.”? 3] I look at the mechanical evidence and see mind as inseparable from brain. If we disagree on that, then no further pursuance of your issues are necessary. Again, question-begging, dear AD. For mind to work through human bodies, surely the brain is a necessary connexion into the body as currently constituted. But, kindly show me the empirical evidence -- not evo mat worldview level assertions and assumptions -- that shows that mind is INSEPARABLE from brain and/or other forms of MATTER. (Thence, SAD, one needs to revisit and cogently address the discussion above at 42, and onward also Denyse's new book on the Spiritual Brain. The parallel discussion in the thread on Atheists, here, will also throw some light on underlying possible Kantian influences and the underlying little errors at the beginning.) 4] I don’t think that your premises of agent, regularity, and chance are the only premises that would lead to the conclusions [of ID etc]. I just don’t think that they are logically and evidentially correct - regardless as to the sources you used to arrive at them through logical means. H'mm: I suppose the above on the empirical grounding of the relevant causal factors is not evidence, on your view [as AD?], then? If so, why not, kindly tell me? More seriously, it is my understanding that for instance in statistical hypothesis testing, one often observes phenomena and on seeing that contingency dominates, one asks whether it is chance or agency. That is also commonly encountered in many scientifically relevant fields, too numerous to specifically identify, save from pointing to forensics, pharmacology and archaeology. [Just think of the import of the term from this last discipline: art-i-fact.] Thus, it seems to me that the identification and use of these three factors is not an idiosyncracy of mine or of Dr Dembski or other asociated design thinkers. It -- as has been long since linked on and discussed above -- is, however, tied directly to the functioning of the EF. Also, onward to the underlying issue that a random walk -- you can add on functional filtering after the random part as you wish, my dear AD; but it must not then reward closeness to a known locale of functionality if it is non-functional itself, a la so-called genetic algorithms -- search in a config space starting from an arbitrary [as opposed to intelligently chosen] initial position that is beyond 500 - 1,00 bits worth of cells is such that it is maximally improbable to attain to the cells that exhibiot FSCI. But, intelligent agents go directy to suchy cells all the time. Thus there is a radical difference in the dynamics of natural regularity [low or no contingencies], and chance [high contingency but low specificity] and agency [able to routinely generate FSCI]. That is empirical anchorage enough. Especially when we also note that in every case where we do directly see the causal story in action, intelligent agency is dynamically responsible for the origin of FSCI. But, all of this is just reiteration at this time. [Kindly, provide a counter-example to this observation.] Thereafter, too, the implications of detection of agency on certain cases may or may not have worldview level issues attached. I find further that evo mat advocates exert selective hyperskepticism through the backdoor route of asserting that methodological naturalism is an inevitable and invariable rule of science, when their worldview level assertions would otherwise be challenged. So it seems to me that this, my dear AD, is a turnabout argument. One that seeks to improperly escape a burden of warrant -- we are not dealing with proofs per se here. 5] the mud we could sling at each other Excuse me. My dear AD, I have NOT indulged in mud-slinging. This is an ad hominem and a turnabout accusation; utterly unworthy of the discussion above and rthe3 role of a true AD, who after all is classically the critic in the audit of the life of one being considered for recognition as a saint. A true AD is polite, and never personal. So, let us turn back from this rhetorical dead-end, and instead address the matter on the merits. First, as a scientific matter of seeking to discover the truth of how trhe observed, empirical world works. Second, though engaging the incidental -- meta level if you will -- questions that come up on the methods used, i.e that penetrate from Lakatos' belt of theories to the core of worldview level ideas and often commitments that are at the heart of the the architecture of scientific research programmes. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{December 27, 2007
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Kariosfocus, I'm unsure why you have turned this into a discussion about person instead of the positions. I'm following your argument, in which you set the conditions to exclude that which are counter-experiential assertions. As a direct result of following the bounds of your argument, some amount of materialism will enter the discussion. That should not lead you to get stuck on making claims about evo-mat advocacy. Specifically, you assert, in what appears to be an effort to cast an aspersion on my cognitive abilities, "Until you do so cogently, I can freely hold that your remarks are not the product of reason but of lucky noise in the neural networks of your brain, reducing in turn to genetic accident and associated psycho-social conditioning acting on and/or deriving from carbon chemistry." Does that not hold for both of us? That is, I could just as well hold that your analyses are the result of lucky noise. Is it not a useless form of argument for both of us? Besides, although many logical arguments have been provided, I look at the mechanical evidence and see mind as inseparable from brain. If we disagree on that, then no further pursuance of your issues are necessary. I would hope that your position could be backed up with evidence, and not simply Platonic, or other, logical arguments. Do you have more than logical arguments that mind must be understood as somehow separate from a causality of chance and regularity? Nonetheless, please review the posts. Simply challenging the premises of the argument you are making does not equate to being an evolutionary materialist. Note also that I haven't challenged your conclusions. That is because I don't think that your premises of agent, regularity, and chance are the only premises that would lead to the conclusions. I just don't think that they are logically and evidentially correct - regardless as to the sources you used to arrive at them through logical means. But, then, this shouldn't be about you or I, or the mud we could sling at each other. It should be about making and discussing various claims, hopefully about the real world.Q_{December 27, 2007
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Hi Q: I se your response. My quick note on:
until you delve into the philosophical, or drop to the Heisenberg level of physics, agents are the causal results of the regularity and chance that brought them about. For instance, two adults mate, regularity and chance ensues, and eventually Kairosfocus or Q can toss a die . . . . In the real world agency, I state, is either the result of chance and regularity, or to be different, your use of agency must transcend the real world, and enter a non-experiential domain.
Reductionist, worldview-level question-begging. You need to address, instead, the issue of the origin of a credible mind on evo mat premises, as I raised above in 41, point 3. [Onlookers, notice how consistently Q and other Evo Mat advocates duck this issue, or end up in resorts to the word magic and just-so stories on "emergence" or the like. No prizes for guessing why.] Until you do so cogently, I can freely hold that your remarks are not the product of reason but of lucky noise in the neural networks of your brain, reducing in turn to genetic accident and associated psycho-social conditioning acting on and/or deriving from carbon chemistry. So, following Taylor, why should I take such lucky noise claiming to be intelligence in deliberate, designed action any more seriously than I should take a set of rocks by a train track that I believe were formed by chance and necessity only that just happen to take up the shape: "Welcome to Wales"? In short, it is evolutionary materialism which is imposing highly questionable phil agendas and is self-referentially incoherent -- all the while trying to get a way with a free ride on our intuitions that we have useful minds that can reason effectively [and morally soundly] too. I am simply pointing out that I take the common sense and everyday empirical experience of a real mind seriously; unless you can show me I live in the contemporary equivalent of Plato's Cave. Methinks it is you who has the -- consistently unmet -- burden of proof here! GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{December 27, 2007
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PPPS: Sorry to add yet another link, but the five lead-up articles to the Mike Gene Article just linked are also worth the read, starting here, and so is the AIP analysis of the flagellum, here. But as DW over at Amazon should know, there is more than one side to a story.kairosfocus_{December 27, 2007
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Kairosfocus, just above you stated "But, if the die is cast as part of a game, the results are as much a product of agency as of natural regularity and chance." Now, I must suggest that you are mixing up agency with regularity and chance, if you limit the discussion to natural phenomomenon, as was done in the prior post by excluding counter-experiential assertions. Because, until you delve into the philosophical, or drop to the Heisenberg level of physics, agents are the causal results of the regularity and chance that brought them about. For instance, two adults mate, regularity and chance ensues, and eventually Kairosfocus or Q can toss a die. If that is not satisfactory, just work it backwards until an obstacle is found, like the beginning of the universe. In the real world agency, I state, is either the result of chance and regularity, or to be different, your use of agency must transcend the real world, and enter a non-experiential domain. That could be the philosophical domain. Or, as is used in ID, agency can be in the extra-natural domain of the designer. To put it back into the analogy of the die, although it may be argued that "results" on the die are originated from the actions of agency, the actions of that agent are the results of chance and regularity. Likewise, the results on the die are wholly the results of chance and regularity - "randomness" unless the die or toss are biased. By experience, the results of the unbiased die and toss are inseparable from pure chance, which leads to the conclusion that actions of the agent are the result of chance and regularity. This puts my position in direct opposition to your point 11. I am arguing that in the real world, agency is an emperical result of chance and regularity (keeping the discussion to your three options), and need not be considered as separable. I'm not sure if the claims in your point 12 are aimed at my posts, or are general in nature. Also, I am not at all suggesting that the toss of the die is an "exception".Q_{December 26, 2007
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PPS: Mike Gene's analysis of the same Pallen-Matzke argument here is worth a look too. One key excerpt:
A common criticism of design inferences is that they tend to boil down to the assertion of “it looks designed.” Yet it should be apparent that the major thrust of Matzke’s hypothesis is to present the bacterial flagellum in a manner where it looks like it could have evolved. To do this, Matzke offers the F0F1 ATP synthetase as something that looks like a precursor/homolog of the type III secretory machinery. However, given that the sequence data does not support this inference, Matzke turns to other data. CDART analysis succeeds in linking only one proposed example of homology (FliH/F0b), but even here, the link is extremely tenuous (as explained in the section on FliH). Thus, Matzke relies on other criteria: 1) Protein size; 2) Stoichiometry 3) Presence of TMHs; and 4) orientation of the C- and N-terminus of proteins. Yet it is not clear than these criteria, even taken together, reliably signal homology. Consider protein size. Matzke’s candidates range from 72 to 495 amino acids. And if we omit the FliI/alpha/beta group, the range is narrowed significantly, from 72 to 279 amino acids. Yet how meaningful is this range? . . . . the range used by Matzke draws from the most commonly sized proteins. Size might be a significant factor if we were talking about six proteins that were each over 500 amino acids in length, but not is we’re talking 70-270 amino acids. And what’s more, Matzke tolerates rather significant ranges in size where, for example, F0b is only 65% the size of FliH. Stoichiometry might be a suggestive clue, but the only solid connection Matzke has are the six-member rings of FliI and beta/alpha (and even there, the F1 ring is composed to two distinct members). The FliH/FliI stoichiometry remains to be established, as two monomers of FliH have been empirically detected to interact with a single monomer of FliI and not the FliI homohexamer (as explained above). Furthermore, as noted above, there is experimental evidence that indicates there are five copies of FliP (compared to one for gamma) and suggestive evidence that there are two copies of FliR (compared to one for F0a). The presence or absence of TMHs is not a very powerful signal for homology. It has been estimated that 20-30% of ORFs encode membrane proteins with two of more TMHs [65].
And more, much, much more, lovingly detailed by that practising scientist who uses the nom de guerre Mike Gene as he might otherwise be Sternberged or Gonzalezed. . . . Clearly, Matzke and Pallen, their reviewing peers and the editorial board of the ever rreliably evo mat advocating nature, have some serious answering to do. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{December 26, 2007
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PS: Passed by ID Critic's comment thread at Amazon, for a follow-up look. It is up to "185 of 205 people found the . . . review helpful." A sadly typical example was Dave Wisker's remark:
Excellent review, and followup comments. What truly grated on me was how, in the chapter on Irreducible Complexity, they basically admit they have no empirical evidence for the design of the flagellum specifically, then chide the Darwinists for having no empirical support for plausible Darwinian pathways to the flagellum. Yet, all the while Pallen and Matzke's paper in Nature Reviews Microbiology last year--which provides plausible Darwinian pathways and mechanisms for the evolution of the flagellum--sits in libraries, silent testament to the scholarship of Dembsk and Wells.
Here is the relevant abstract:
The bacterial flagellum is a complex molecular system with multiple components required for functional motility. Such systems are sometimes proposed as puzzles for evolutionary theory on the assumption that selection would have no function to act on until all components are in place. Previous work (Thornhill and Ussery, 2000, A classification of possible routes of Darwinian evolution. J Theor Biol. 203 (2), 111-116) has outlined the general pathways by which Darwinian mechanisms can produce multi-component systems. However, published attempts to explain flagellar origins suffer from vagueness and are inconsistent with recent discoveries and the constraints imposed by Brownian motion. A new model is proposed based on two major arguments. First, analysis of dispersal at low Reynolds numbers indicates that even very crude motility can be beneficial for large bacteria. Second, homologies between flagellar and nonflagellar proteins suggest ancestral systems with functions other than motility. The model consists of six major stages: export apparatus, secretion system, adhesion system, pilus, undirected motility, and taxis-enabled motility. The selectability of each stage is documented using analogies with present-day systems. Conclusions include: (1) There is a strong possibility, previously unrecognized, of further homologies between the type III export apparatus and F1F0-ATP synthetase. (2) Much of the flagellum’s complexity evolved after crude motility was in place, via internal gene duplications and subfunctionalization. (3) Only one major system-level change of function, and four minor shifts of function, need be invoked to explain the origin of the flagellum; this involves five subsystem-level cooption events. (4) The transition between each stage is bridgeable by the evolution of a single new binding site, coupling two pre-existing subsystems, followed by coevolutionary optimization of components. Therefore, like the eye contemplated by Darwin, careful analysis shows that there are no major obstacles to gradual evolution of the flagellum.
Of course, that "only" immediately puts one well beyond the UPB. So, this is a matter of brazening it out on just-so stories while ignoring/brushing aside the real issues at stake: --> Where do functional proteins and associated DNA information to cover an average of 300 20-state elements/ 900 4-state elements -- i.e a config space in the relevant information string instance of ~ 7.15*10^541 cells corresponding to the fine-tuned [sensitive to random perturbation] system -- come from [i.e the FIRST relevant proteins]? --> How can these co-adapt spontaneously to form novel functional architectures that rely on key-lock fitting mechanisms? [Ever had to assemble even a bicycle for Christmas? Would shaking up the box containing ALL the parts do it on the gamut of the observed cosmos?] --> more to the point, the cellular processes are of algorithmic character. Is it credible that random changes will spontaneously generate the required isolated- in- config- space adjustments to the information-processing structures and programs? [Or would they not be astronomically more likely to destroy functionality?] --> By contrast, we routinely see agents making up such organised, complex, fine-tuned functional entities. On inference to what we know [rather than what we can brush away and count on sympathetic peers to approve and biased post-Sternberg [or even pre Sternberg] boards of editors to rush into print in "authoritative" journals], the flagellum is designed. In short, this is more of the all too familiar same. [If you want more details, why not look at the relvant UD Sept 7, 2006 Flagellar Evolution thread here, and the onward linked peer-reviewed Minnich-Meyer paper on the flagellum here to see what is being papered over and a survey of the lab-based work on which Behe's case rests. As to IDC's nearby attempt to define complexity as a metric of ignorance, instead of a measure of the size of the available configuration space for a contingent, information-bearing entity so that the odds of getting to a given configuration that is functional by chance become negligibly different from zero on the gamut of the observed cosmos, one now has to call this willful misrepresentation in the teeth of easily accessible evidence to the contrary. And so on. Unfortunately, this reveals that in too many cases, we are not really up against an intellectual issue but a worldview-based agenda that is being rationalised on whatever rhetorical stratagems are convenient. Thus, culture warfare -- with the hearts, minds and souls of men as the "prizes" in contention -- is not just a metaphor, sadly. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{December 26, 2007
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