UB Schools Bob O’H

_{Barry Arrington
February 7, 2020

Intelligent Design

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Intelligent Design}

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As is his wont, national treasure Upright Biped took materialist Bob O’H to school:

Bob @ 63,

we can replicate the process without having to resort to adding anything immaterial”

Is that right Bob?

Okay, let us make you the Director of a research team with unlimited personnel, unlimited time, and unlimited funding. And let us say that with this extraordinary intellectual and research power, it is not long before you can control, manipulate, and bind together whatever molecules you wish, and not only can you do that, but you can also successfully predict the results of that manipulation. So, if you need a replacement for the extant ribosome, you got it. If you need a de novo tRNA, you got it. If you need an aaRS to fulfill the box on a diagram of chemical pathways, you got it. Now comes the time to “replicate the process”, so you set your team out to organize a dissipative system where your de novo DNA/RNA is manipulated by your de novo ribosome and whatever array of other helper molecules you need, to the extent that the sequence of your de novo DNA/RNA is used to successfully establish the functional re-construction of the system.

Let me ask you Bob: Will you have to coordinate the descriptions of each the de novo aaRS, with the descriptions of the other molecules in the system? That is to say – will the individual sequences within the portion of your de novo DNA/RNA that describe your de novo aaRS’s have to be simultaneously coordinated so that the remainder of the descriptions result in a successful replication? And would you also say, and agree, that without that simultaneous coordination, your system will not result in a successful replication?

If this is so, Bob, can you then stand before your intricate diagram of the system’s pathways and properties (with the great formulas of physical law at hand, and with your team’s documented intimate knowledge of every facet and dynamic interaction within the system) and point out where exactly you find the source of that coordination?

Comments

UB @ 109 - I've no idea what this has to to with whether there's an immaterial component to the system.Bob O'H_{February 10, 2020
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PPS: If you want a look at a context in which we can think at the next level, consider here the Smith cybernetic loop with a two tier controller.kairosfocus_{February 10, 2020
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PK, nice try at creating a non-existent quote-mine as a distractor and attempted rhetorical gotcha, we can dismiss you. FYI, it has long been known that a shot too much of Uncle Wray's 63% by volume . . . it's been watered down in recent decades . . . (or the ancient equivalent) will befuddle thinking; notice, impairment. That has utterly nil to do with getting to reason that transcends the capabilities of dynamic-stochastic systems such as responsible rational freedom required for reasoned inference and warrant of conclusions. Haldane is very specific: how do we avoid sawing off the branch on which we sit, on materialistic premises? For this, you provide no answer. For impairment, you seem to omit the obvious issue of two-way causal influence leading to system degradation, temporary or permanent. Recall, it is a general point in systems theory that every component affects all components, directly or indirectly. I add, kindly observe Haldane's very careful terms: . . . not WHOLLY conditioned by matter." He has room for multi-directional internal systems influences and interaction with the outside world. The pivotal issue is what transcends what a shot too much of 63% by volume can account for, rational, responsible, clear thinking, prudent intellectual freedom, the foundation of all bodies of sound reasoning and genuine warrant including that for the existence and action of atoms . . . as Haldane also alludes to. KF PS: Reppert builds on C S Lewis, who starts with Haldane's observation, consider this, stage 2:
. . . let us suppose that brain state A [--> notice, state of a wetware, electrochemically operated computational substrate], which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief [--> concious, perceptual state or disposition] that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions.
Notice, the categorical difference between the ground-consequent, insightful inference by a self-moved mind acting as a first cause and a dynamic-stochastic blind causal chain on a GIGO-limited computational substrate. I add, if you want to say, you trust your programming, you need to account for it on actually observed, demonstrated causally efficacious process. This has never been done, the blind ideological assertions of evolutionary materialistic scientism stand exposed.kairosfocus_{February 10, 2020
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. Would you need to add simultaneous coordination to the sequences, Bob, independent of the actual dynamic properties of the system? In other words, if your team concludes that the system will begin to function properly only when all the sequences in the genes are simultaneously coordinated with those that specifically describe the aaRS, and you decide to deploy a solution based on that reasoning, will that solution be independent of the dynamics of the system?Upright BiPed_{February 10, 2020
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. Bob at #106,
As long as the system works without any immaterial input
The system won't work without the simultaneous coordination of sequences within a rate-independent medium. Without the addition of that coordination, a successful replication of the system will not occur. And when looking at the dynamics of your failed system, and being asked why it doesn't work, you'd be left to the astounding and incoherent conclusion that "being able to identify a cause from the dynamics is irrelevant". Where else exactly would you look, if not at the dynamics of the system?Upright BiPed_{February 10, 2020
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@96 Bob O'H:
And, quite simply, we don’t yet have the knowledge to know if the mind is material or not.
Meaning: materialism accepts the possibility of im-materiality. Meaning: materialism is not an unshakable truth. Meaning: the materialist worldview is not a settled one, no matter how much the materialist priests claim: "dogma"! Mark this date: February 10, 2020 at 10:28 am Truthfreedom_{February 10, 2020
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Bob O'H:
As long as the system works without any immaterial input,...
It doesn't work without immaterial input.ET_{February 10, 2020
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UB @ 101 -
You had stated that you could replicate the translation process without having to add anything “non-material” (as you referred to it) to the system. I gave you a scenario where you could produce whatever material products you need to accomplish the replication, and then asked where you get the simultaneous coordination of sequences that must occur in order for the system to function. ...You, of course, are unable to point to a cause from the dynamics of the system, because there is no cause there to point to.
As long as the system works without any immaterial input, being able to identify a cause from the dynamics is irrelevant. The issue is whether the dynamics are purely material or not. You aren't pointing to anything non-material, and until you do the relevance is minimal.Bob O'H_{February 10, 2020
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Bob O'H:
no,., humans are lots of controlling agencies.
And? Humans are responsible for a fresh papaya getting delivered to the middle of Norway in the Nordic winter. The human factor is the controlling agencyET_{February 10, 2020
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Pater Kimbridge @ 100- How does that added line change what KF said?ET_{February 10, 2020
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ET @ 99 - no,., humans are lots of controlling agencies. There is no one single person or body controlling the economy. That's why it's called a free market, not a command economy.Bob O'H_{February 10, 2020
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. #97 BingoUpright BiPed_{February 10, 2020
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.
it’s not clear to me how this relates to the original question.
You had stated that you could replicate the translation process without having to add anything “non-material” (as you referred to it) to the system. I gave you a scenario where you could produce whatever material products you need to accomplish the replication, and then asked where you get the simultaneous coordination of sequences that must occur in order for the system to function. That coordination is not established by the dynamics of the system (the medium is, after all, rate-independent), so the question is "how is that simultaneous coordination caused to occur"? You, of course, are unable to point to a cause from the dynamics of the system, because there is no cause there to point to. Given the nature of the issue, I can only assume you'll step over the physics and use irrelevant analogies and copious rhetoric as a means to not acknowledge that non-dynamic coordination must indeed be added.Upright BiPed_{February 10, 2020
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@KairosFocus #93 Nice quote mine from Haldane. It is worth noting the very next sentence in that essay: " But as regards my own very finite and imperfect mind, I can see, by studying the effects on it of drugs, alcohol, disease, and so on, that its limitations are largely at least due to my body."Pater Kimbridge_{February 10, 2020
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Bob O'H:
There is no controlling agency that ensures that fresh papaya gets delivered to the middle of Norway in the Nordic winter.
Of course there is. Humans are that controlling agency, duh.ET_{February 10, 2020
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Bob O'H:
So it has been claimed, but nobody has been able to demonstrate that there is some non-material “information” that makes a difference.
Cars wouldn't exist without immaterial information.
. If (and, yes, it’s a big if) the mind is material, then your argument fails.
Ok. Too bad there isn't any evidence that purely material processes can produce a living organism let alone a mind.
And, quite simply, we don’t yet have the knowledge to know if the mind is material or not.
Of course we do. Your denial is meaningless.
So if you want to show that there is some immaterial information that makes a different, you have to show that there are two objects that are materially the same, but where one has some immaterial property that makes a difference.
You can have material without immaterial information.ET_{February 10, 2020
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UB - but we know that distributed systems work. It's how the free market operates. There is no controlling agency that ensures that fresh papaya gets delivered to the middle of Norway in the Nordic winter. Not, it is the coordinated actions of individuals in the supply network.Bob O'H_{February 10, 2020
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ET -
Real cars come from immaterial thoughts and concepts, Bob. And real cars require real immaterial information.
So it has been claimed, but nobody has been able to demonstrate that there is some non-material "information" that makes a difference. If (and, yes, it's a big if) the mind is material, then your argument fails. And, quite simply, we don't yet have the knowledge to know if the mind is material or not. So if you want to show that there is some immaterial information that makes a different, you have to show that there are two objects that are materially the same, but where one has some immaterial property that makes a difference. SA has suggested that being driven to the bottom of a lake could be one such thing, having the effect of making a car not work, but I suspect that some very material effects of the lake might also have an effect. Indeed, I'd go so far as to suggest that if a car were to roll into the lake without the aid of any intelligence, then it would also not work.Bob O'H_{February 10, 2020
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.
the coordination is in the structure of the system
So Bob’s answer is a punt; he does provide a source for the sequence coordination that must occur in the system in order for it work. I'm sorry Bob, but Mung already beat you to that answer, the only difference is that he was joking.Upright BiPed_{February 10, 2020
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Bob O'H:
No, we’re discussing real cars, …
Real cars come from immaterial thoughts and concepts, Bob. And real cars require real immaterial information. That you are either ignorant of that or refuse to grasp it, says quite a bot about your agenda.ET_{February 10, 2020
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Folks, J B S Haldane has some food for thought, however those trapped in scientism and linked empiricism will close their minds to ANY argument that goes beyond their circle in which Big-S Science is the only begetter of truth. Mind you, truth is a relation between what actually is and our thoughts and beliefs: saying that what is, is and that which is not, is not. The questions of logic, identity and being implicit in that go far beyond the evolutionary materialistic circle. They beg big questions. Anyway, Haldane:
"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” ["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209. Cf. here on (and esp here) on the self-refutation by self-falsifying self referential incoherence and on linked amorality.]
KFkairosfocus_{February 10, 2020
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Bob O'H: It is all about teleology. No car appears without teleology or, put simply, a plan of actions as well as pertinent decision making to make this plan reality. In your car manufacture analogy, teleology is materially represented as the documentation of the technological process.EugeneS_{February 10, 2020
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@89 Bob O'H:
No, we’re discussing real cars, not figments of your imagination(*)
Mmm... who are you referring to with "your imagination"? Silver Asiatic is a *figment* of your imagination (a neural pattern in your brain). Are you a lunatic speaking with yourself?
"...Thus, in knowing, ultimately, only changes inside himself, the materialist is logically forced into an epistemological idealism that contradicts his assumed starting point, the observation of external things". Dr. Dennis Bonnette
https://strangenotions.com/naturalisms-epistemological-nightmare/Truthfreedom_{February 10, 2020
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It appears to me that Bob like most of our naturalist/materialist interlocutors seem to think that their world view (WV) somehow wins by default. But does it really? When have any of them ever been able to prove their WV to be true? (If any of them have, I apparently missed it.) It appears to me that the only argument that they have is a fallacious argument from ignorance: No has proven naturalism to be false, therefore, it must be true. However, the argument from ignorance is a two edged sword which cuts both ways. Here is a textbook example:
Ad ignorantium arguments (appeals to ignorance) have one of the following two forms: It has not been proved that P. [therefore] ~P. It has not been proved that ~P. [therefore] P. Here are two classic examples: SOLVED PROBLEM 8.20 What is wrong with these arguments? No one has ever proved that God exists [Therefore] God does not exist. No one has ever proved that God does not exist. [Therefore] God exists. Solution Both are fallacious appeals to ignorance. Nothing about the existence of God follows from our inability to prove God’s existence or nonexistence (i.e., from our ignorance about the matter).
(Schaum’s Outlines of Logic, 2nd Ed., p. 203) https://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-Logic-Second-Outlines/dp/0071755462 Ironically, some atheistic naturalists try to discredit theism by fallaciously accusing theist’s of the so-called God-of-the-gaps argument. Yes, some theist’s and ID’ist do make fallacious arguments but not every appeal to God or a designer is fallacious or God of the gaps. Indeed, nat/mats are, more often than not, guilty of making a Nature or a Darwin of the gaps argument which is just as fallacious. This raises some pertinent questions: (1) Is there any way to prove that your world view is true? Or, (2) when it comes to competing world views A and B (such as theism and naturalism) how do we decide between them?john_a_designer_{February 10, 2020
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ET answered this already, but the design of those cars came from thoughts which are immaterial.
No, we're discussing real cars, not figments of your imagination(*)
Additionally, you require that I make them as close as possible — and that requires me using the immaterial concept of “as close as possible” and comparing it to the cars.
Oh, come on, is that the best you can do? Are you seriously arguing that my argument is invalid because it requires thought?
Beyond that, one car cannot be driven because it has been flipped upside down.
OK, wow. Nobody said anything about flipping cars. But if you want to go there, I'd hope it's obvious that in this case it's unable to be driven because of the very material fact that it's the wrong way up, so its tires aren't touching the ground. (*) yes, yes, OK, this is a thought experiment. :-)Bob O'H_{February 10, 2020
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Bob O'H
if the cars are not identical, you can make them as close to it as possible.
ET answered this already, but the design of those cars came from thoughts which are immaterial. Additionally, you require that I make them as close as possible -- and that requires me using the immaterial concept of "as close as possible" and comparing it to the cars. Beyond that, one car cannot be driven because it has been flipped upside down. The material components are the same, but one has an additional immaterial component which is its deliberate, conscious placement in space - added by thoughts from an immaterial human mind. (if we don't like that particular placement, an immaterial intelligence can put the replica car at the bottom of a lake - and it won't drive).Silver Asiatic_{February 10, 2020
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@ Bob O'H Why Materialism is a Dead End
"Materialism —the view that nature is fundamentally constituted by matter outside and independent of mind— is a metaphysics, in that it makes statements about what nature essentially is. As such, it is also a theoretical inference: we cannot empirically observe matter outside and independent of mind, for we are forever locked in mind. All we can observe are the contents of perception, which are inherently mental. Even the output of measurement instruments is only accessible to us insofar as it is mentally perceived."
https://iai.tv/articles/why-materialism-is-a-dead-end-bernardo-kastrup-auid-1271Truthfreedom_{February 10, 2020
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Only if purely material processes produced cars can Bob's "argument" have any merit. And we already know that purely material processes did not produce any cars, ever.ET_{February 10, 2020
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Bob O'H:
And then goes on to describe a situation where a research group replicates the process using purely material means,
Actually, Bob, they didn't. YOU need to complete the process by answering the questions, which you can't. As for cars, the immaterial stuff that makes them work are the thoughts and ideas that went into making them. The immaterial information that Bob keeps ignoring and if his ignorance is an argument.ET_{February 10, 2020
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@79 Bob O'H:
I tend to spend weekends in the real world
What "real" world, Bob O'H? Please tell us how do you gain "knowledge" about it. https://strangenotions.com/naturalisms-epistemological-nightmare/
Shopping for parrot food...
Parrots, those animals that repeat without thinking? They are very interesting creatures.Truthfreedom_{February 10, 2020
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