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Yet Another Example of How Materialism Blinds its Proponents

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Over at the Reasons.org post (see here), UB and JVL are having an exchange that illustrates perfectly how materialism blinds its proponents.

UB summarizes:

In 1948 did John Von Neumann take a page from Alan Turing’s 1933 Machine and give a series of lectures predicting that a quiescent symbol system and a set of independent constraints would be required for autonomous open-ended self replication? Yes. In 1953 did Francis Crick, along with Watson, discover the sequence structure of that symbol system, calling it a code? Yes. And in 1955 did he further predict that an unknown set of protein constraints would be found working in the system, establishing the necessary code relationships? Yes. In 1956-1958 did Mahlon Hoagland and Paul Zamecnik experimentally confirm Crick’s (and Von Neumann’s) predictions. Yes. In 1961, did Marshal Nirenberg have to demonstrate the first symbolic relationship in the gene system in order to know it? Yes. In 1969 did Howard Pattee set off on a five decade analysis of the gene system, confirming it as symbolic control of a dynamic process? Yes. Do the encoded descriptions of the constraints have to be physically coherent with all the other descriptions (i.e. self-referent) in order to successfully function? Yes. Is the gene system and written human language the only two systems known to science that operate in this way? Yes. Is the appearance of an encoded symbol system considered in science to be a universal correlate of intelligence? Yes.

All of UB’s claims are true beyond the slightest doubt. Is JVL convinced? Of course not.  He writes:

I’d say you made an error in how you choose to interpret the works of semiotic researchers as supporting ID when they, themselves, do not see their work in that way.

JVL’s point is that if UB is correct about the logical inferences of the researchers’ work, how could that conclusion have escaped the researchers themselves? It does not seem to have occurred to JVL that both things could be true at the same time.  In other words, UB could very well be correct about the logical conclusion compelled by the researchers’ observations, even though the researchers themselves did not come to that conclusion.  How is that possible? Simple. The researchers, like JVL, were blinded by their a priori metaphysical commitments. They literally could not see where their own work was leading.

Examples of researchers who could not see where their own work was heading abound in history. Does anyone think that Copernicus reached his heliocentric conclusions based on original research alone? Of course he didn’t. Men had been observing the planets and the stars for hundreds of years before Copernicus, and he had a library full of their work. All of these prior researchers concluded that their observations supported a geocentric cosmology. Copernicus’ genius was not in making new observations. His genius was in interpreting observations that had been made over the course of hundreds of years through a new paradigm (a paradigm inspired, by the way, by Copernicus’ conviction that God’s design had to be more elegant than the existing system described).

Now, let’s imagine if JVL were responding to Copernicus in 1543:

Copernicus: Ptolemy established the geocentric paradigm when he published the Almagest in 150 AD.  I do not dispute Ptolemy’s observations. I agree with them. Nor do I dispute the observations of all subsequent astronomers who have taken the geocentric view for granted for nearly 1,400 years. Again, I agree with those observations. But I have concluded that even though those observations were correct, the researchers did not reach the correct conclusion from those observations. The earth orbits the sun.

JVL: The researchers on whose observations you are relying did not reach the same conclusion that you do. Therefore, you must be wrong.

Sound farfetched? Not so fast. There were lots of JVLs back in the 16th century who said that very thing. Copernicus was correct. But that didn’t stop people like JVL from pushing back at him on the basis of authority. Indeed, the people who pushed back at Copernicus had an even better argument than JVL does today. After all, Copernicus was trying to upset a paradigm that had been taken for granted for well over a millennium. The authority weighing against him was overwhelming. But he was right and the prior authorities were wrong.

That is why science proceeds by challenging authority, not, as JVL would have it, by meekly submitting to it.

So yes, it is true as JVL says. The researchers UB cites did not understand the significance of their own observations, just as the researchers who preceded Copernicus (many of whom were brilliant men) did not understand the significance of their own observations.

JVL thinks he has a knockdown counter to UB: “The researchers you cite did not reach the same conclusion that you do.” He is wrong about that.

Comments
Kairosfocus@23, who are you responding to? Is this a cross-thread mistake?Ford Prefect
January 3, 2023
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Kairosfocus @27,
Thus, FSCO/I, the 500 – 1,000 bit threshold is used to identify where blind forces are maximally implausible as cause, scaled to sol system and cosmos. There are trillions of cases and reliably, they come by intelligently directed configuration.
I hope you're happy, because I think AF's head just exploded. ;-) Perhaps you could as penance direct the now-catatonic AF to a Wikipedia page for recovery therapy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specified_complexity Happily for AF, this is a wildly antagonistic article toward William Demski. It's also self contradictory as is obvious from these two quotes, but this should not be a problem for AF:
Specified complexity is a creationist argument introduced by William Dembski, used by advocates to promote the pseudoscience of intelligent design.
However, later in the article, we read:
The term "specified complexity" was originally coined by origin of life researcher Leslie Orgel in his 1973 book The Origins of Life: Molecules and Natural Selection, which proposed that RNA could have evolved through Darwinian natural selection. Orgel used the phrase in discussing the differences between life and non-living structures . . .
-QQuerius
January 2, 2023
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AF, why do you insist on falsity, having been repeatedly corrected? Let's start, just noting that I only contributed a descriptive phrase and abbreviation, the concept antedates the modern ID movement, it comes from Orgel and Wicken. Next, your blatant denial of a readily observed phenomenon that just to object you created an example of, raises issues of blind refusal to acknowledge manifest reality. Here, functionally specific complex organisation [do you think a stuck key would do, fffffffffff, or a random text string hjartyjtgundfgedt], which is associated with information. Thus, FSCO/I, the 500 - 1,000 bit threshold is used to identify where blind forces are maximally implausible as cause, scaled to sol system and cosmos. There are trillions of cases and reliably, they come by intelligently directed configuration. So, we can readily see that this is confession by projection that you have resorted to, you are trying to deny the manifest and commonplace that you yourself have to exemplify to object to, and to do so project fault to the obviously disdained other. That sort of resort in the end simply underscores the force of the point you wish to set aside. Worse, when it comes to the living cell, we now find attempts to dismiss the coded, algorithmic information long since noted; so there is yet another projection, it is a small circle of objectors here, confronted with the import of such a phenomenon in the cell, who try to dismiss it. Then, on the oh ID is not the consensus nor do OOL researchers draw explicit pro ID stances, we find it highly relevant that given ideological domineering, such would be a career suicide move -- which itself is telling as to what is going on. KFkairosfocus
December 31, 2022
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KF:
AF, no, I am highlighting — as you full well know — that production of FSCO/I is something we know from the inside and that as contingent creatures we know that we cannot exhaust the possibilities for designers.
Reification! You have consistently failed in explaining your personal invention convincingly to anyone here, even the most gullible ID proponents. In the spirit of New Year jollity, let me issue a James-Tour-style challenge to all UD readers and contributors. Explain FSCO/I to me!Alan Fox
December 30, 2022
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Barry writes:
Example, a person is several times more likely to be struck and killed by lightening than to be killed in a mass shooting.
Is that Worldwide or just for the USA?Alan Fox
December 30, 2022
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AF, no, I am highlighting -- as you full well know -- that production of FSCO/I is something we know from the inside and that as contingent creatures we know that we cannot exhaust the possibilities for designers. As for how we design FSCO/I from sentences up, there are several levels. We are known to be pre programmed for language complete with grammatical switches and defaults. We learn by hearing and speaking, picking up subtle patterns. As self moved intelligent agents, we create our own expressions, later learning how to write. Training in English or another language can help us develop facility in expression. We think and study so we build knowledge bases, leading to ability to make comments, where our typing uses mechanisms controlled by our thoughts in language. And more. This directly extends to learning and coding for algorithms. Similar design approaches apply to hardware, both of these being associated with formal engineering approaches. There is TRIZ, a whole science of inventive problem solving thence technological evolution by successive invention, design and innovation. We also readily recognise patterns that are reliable signs of such intelligently directed configuration Such are massively present in the cosmos and the world of life, but ideological firewalls have been put up to suppress the objectively well warranted inferences. Which is exactly what the OP highlights. And such has been on the table for many years, with abundant evidence. The issue is ideology that tries to lock out unwelcome cases of signs of design, not lack of strong signs of design. KFkairosfocus
December 30, 2022
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SG, distraction. The key problem with mass shooting statistics (and yes, up yo FBI) is in definitions and thus in what the headlined numbers mean. Sadly, there is a drugs and street gangs subculture, and a lot of shootings and other attacks occur that way. Mass shootings of relevance have to do with going postal type attacks, which are far rarer. The worst of these are coordinated mass attacks such as happened in Paris or Bombay, and many of them go on to bombs such as the Columbine shooters attempted. The 9-11 attacks involved turning airliners into cruise missiles by way of utility knives . . . how did they ever get those aboard airliners? There are vehicular attacks as in France and recently in the US. There are mass knifings too. Vehicle bombings have happened, drive in and parked in front. (Where ammonium nitrate and fuels are not about to go away or be easily controlled.) Then, notice the 9-11 attacks were associated with attempted anthrax attacks, and it is possible to use home brewery equipment to culture and spread this by aerosol from a car driving down the road. And much more. The problem is primarily one of cultural disintegration and alienated groups, leading to need for target hardening, border control, and sound ethical reform; there are active ideologies that are deliberately undermining morality and its natural gateways to shape people in healthy ways while promoting sound reform informed by recognition of the fundamental fragility of civilisations. Where, it is institutions, cultural patterns and social capital built up over generations that allows sustainable large populations with adequate support systems. The misanthropes are playing with population collapse catastrophes and seem to be blind to it. KF PS, meanwhile ever so many confident manner dismissive assertions on your part have collapsed. You still have not substantiated your dismissive theses, most recently I took time to show that examples such as insecticide resistance etc most plausibly come from small loss of information mutations and have little relevance to origin of information for functioning body plans. PPS, meanwhile, BA;s point from the OP -- in the context of functional information in cells -- stands, as do UB's underlying observations:
JVL’s point is that if UB is correct about the logical inferences of the researchers’ work, how could that conclusion have escaped the researchers themselves? It does not seem to have occurred to JVL that both things could be true at the same time. In other words, UB could very well be correct about the logical conclusion compelled by the researchers’ observations, even though the researchers themselves did not come to that conclusion. How is that possible? Simple. The researchers, like JVL, were blinded by their a priori metaphysical commitments. They literally could not see where their own work was leading. Examples of researchers who could not see where their own work was heading abound in history. Does anyone think that Copernicus reached his heliocentric conclusions based on original research alone? Of course he didn’t. Men had been observing the planets and the stars for hundreds of years before Copernicus, and he had a library full of their work. All of these prior researchers concluded that their observations supported a geocentric cosmology. Copernicus’ genius was not in making new observations. His genius was in interpreting observations that had been made over the course of hundreds of years through a new paradigm (a paradigm inspired, by the way, by Copernicus’ conviction that God’s design had to be more elegant than the existing system described). Now, let’s imagine if JVL were responding to Copernicus in 1543 . . .
kairosfocus
December 30, 2022
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I see I messed up HTML tags in comment 20. I quoted KF:
AF, how did the intelligently directed configuration of the text in your self-referential, objecting comments work?
But didn't close quote. My reply: Asking questions you cannot answer again, I see. I don’t know either and as I have said before we cannot understand ourselves. No sentient being can comprehend an entity as complex as itself. That’s no excuse to default to the “therefore design” cop-out.Alan Fox
December 30, 2022
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CD at 14, Read some history. In the United States, there are enough guns to arm every man, woman and child, so talking about taking away anybody's rights is stupid. When Obama was President and announced he wanted to ban certain weapons and specific rounds, they flew off the shelves. And those survivalists with thousands of rounds of everything? Well, I guess the government hasn't come for them. Gun store owners thanked President Obama. And what about "the sun never sets on the British Empire"? Or European countries just marching into Africa to set up "colonies"? Belgian Congo anyone? Talk about walking into someone's sovereign country and taking control. Yeah, the NSA contacted me about WMDs in Iraq. Did I think they had any? Of course I said no. But they reported the opposite. Same thing during the so-called Gulf of Tonkin Incident. "The Vietnamese Navy is shooting at our Navy!" I replied, "No, they aren't!" But they reported the opposite. And quit with the word "gratuitous." They're all gratuitous. Somebody wants what somebody else has - land, resources, a treasury that needs looting - the usual.relatd
December 30, 2022
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AF, how did the intelligently directed configuration of the text in your self-referential, objecting comments work?Asking questions you cannot answer again, I see. I don't know either and as I have said before we cannot understand ourselves. No sentient being can comprehend an entity as complex as itself. That's no excuse to default to the "therefore design" cop-out.
Alan Fox
December 30, 2022
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UD Editors: The "gun" debate hijacking of this thread is gaveled.Alan Fox
December 30, 2022
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There are many more experiments in quantum mechanics like the preceding, (i.e. quantum entanglement in time, contextually, etc..), that could be referenced, but the basic point of all these experiments remains the same. As Anton Zeilinger stated in his recent Nobel Prize lecture, "These predictions (of quantum mechanics) are completely independent of the relative arrangements of measurements in space and time. That tells you something about the role of space and time. There's no role at all.",,,"
"There's one important message I want to say here. When you look at the predictions of quantum mechanics for multi-particle entanglement,, so you could have one measurement here, one (measurement) there, an earlier (measurement), a later (measurement), and so on. These predictions (of quantum mechanics) are completely independent of the relative arrangements of measurements in space and time. That tells you something about the role of space and time. There's no role at all.",,, - Anton Zeilinger - 2022 Nobel Prize lectures in physics - video (1:50:07 mark) https://youtu.be/a9FsKqvrJNY?t=6607 Alain Aspect: From Einstein’s doubts to quantum technologies: non-locality a fruitful image John F. Clauser: Experimental proof that nonlocal quantum entanglement is real Anton Zeilinger: A Voyage through Quantum Wonderland - Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2022 “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”.
And as the following study found, “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,”
Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory – 28 October 2012 Excerpt: “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121028142217.htm
So in summary, the answer to AF's question, "If there is a non-physical something that can impinge on the physical universe in some way, where is the interface?", is that the 'interface' of that 'non-physical something' with the universe is everywhere.. Besides the entire universe, via relativity, being shown to have a beginning, in quantum mechanics we find that there is not a single atom, or photon, in the entire universe that is not dependent on that 'non-physical something', i.e. God, for its continual existence. i.e. In short, and as is held in Christian Theology, it is now experimentally shown that a 'non-physical something, i.e.God, created and continually sustains the universe! All of which, or course, comes full circle and experimentally confirms the necessary philosophical presupposition of 'contingency' that lay at the founding of modern science in Medieval Christian Europe. As Sir Isaac Newton stated, ‘Without all doubt this world...could arise from nothing but the perfectly free will of God."
‘Without all doubt this world...could arise from nothing but the perfectly free will of God... From this fountain (what) we call the laws of nature have flowed, in which there appear many traces indeed of the most wise contrivance, but not the least shadow of necessity. These therefore we must not seek from uncertain conjectures, but learn them from observations and experiments.",,, - Sir Isaac Newton - (Cited from Religion and the Rise of Modern Science by Hooykaas page 49). https://thirdspace.org.au/comment/237
Might I also be so bold as to suggest that, given the preceding statement from Newton about the free will of God, Sir Isaac Newton would have been very pleased to see the fairly recent closing of the 'freedom of choice' loophole in quantum mechanics?
Cosmic Bell Test Using Random Measurement Settings from High-Redshift Quasars – Anton Zeilinger – 14 June 2018 Excerpt: This experiment pushes back to at least approx. 7.8 Gyr ago the most recent time by which any local-realist influences could have exploited the “freedom-of-choice” loophole to engineer the observed Bell violation, excluding any such mechanism from 96% of the space-time volume of the past light cone of our experiment, extending from the big bang to today. https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.080403
Moreover, when we rightly allow the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics, (as the Christian founders of modern science originally held with the presupposition of ‘contingency’), and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands with the closing of the “freedom-of-choice” loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company), then rightly allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead bridges the infinite mathematical divide that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics and provides us with an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”,
Oct. 2022 - although there will never be, (via Godel), a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’ that bridges the infinite mathematical divide that exists between quantum mechanics and general relativity, all hope is not lost in finding the correct ‘theory of everything’. https://uncommondescent.com/cosmology/from-iai-news-how-infinity-threatens-cosmology/#comment-766384
Verse:
Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
bornagain77
December 30, 2022
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At 2 AF asks, "How does “Intelligent Design” work? If there is a non-physical something that can impinge on the physical universe in some way, where is the interface?" First, the belief that the universe is contingent on a 'non-physical something that can impinge on the physical universe in some way', i.e. God, was an essential philosophical presupposition that was required to break free from the "necessitarian theology' of the ancient Greeks, and in order to found modern science in Medieval Christian Europe. As Stephen Meyer put that necessary philosophical presupposition of 'contingency' in his book "Return of the God Hypothesis", “The order in nature could have been otherwise (therefore) the job of the natural philosopher, (i.e. scientist), was not to ask what God must have done but (to ask) what God actually did.”
Presupposition 1: The contingency of nature “In 1277, the Etienne Tempier, the bishop of Paris, writing with support of Pope John XXI, condemned “necessarian theology” and 219 separate theses influenced by Greek philosophy about what God could and couldn’t do.”,, “The order in nature could have been otherwise (therefore) the job of the natural philosopher, (i.e. scientist), was not to ask what God must have done but (to ask) what God actually did.”,,, – Stephen Meyer on Intelligent Design and The Return of the God Hypothesis – Hoover Institution https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_8PPO-cAlA
As the father of physics, Sir Isaac Newton himself stated, “The world might have been otherwise,,”
Newton — Rationalizing Christianity, or Not? – Rosalind W. Picard – 1998 Excerpt: The belief that it was by divine will and not by some shadow of necessity that matter existed and possessed its properties, had a direct impact on Newton’s science. It was necessary to discover laws and properties by experimental means, and not by rational deduction. As Newton wrote in another unpublished manuscript, “The world might have been otherwise,,” (see Davis, 1991) https://web.media.mit.edu/~picard/personal/Newton.php
Moreover, this essential belief of 'contingency' that was necessary for the founding of modern science in Medieval Christian Europe, i.e. that the universe is contingent on a 'non-physical something that can impinge on the physical universe in some way', i.e. God", has now been experimentally born out by advances in modern science. In fact, both general relativity and quantum mechanics, our two most powerful theories in science, now give us evidence that the universe is contingent on a 'non-physical something that can impinge on the physical universe in some way', i.e. God". In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, and George Ellis extended General Relativity and revealed that not only did mass-energy have a beginning, but that space-time also itself had a beginning that corresponded to the origin of matter and energy.:
Big Bang Theory - An Overview of the main evidence Excerpt: Steven Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose turned their attention to the Theory of Relativity and its implications regarding our notions of time. In 1968 and 1970, they published papers in which they extended Einstein's Theory of General Relativity to include measurements of time and space.1, 2 According to their calculations, time and space had a finite beginning that corresponded to the origin of matter and energy."3 Steven W. Hawking, George F.R. Ellis, "The Cosmic Black-Body Radiation and the Existence of Singularities in our Universe," Astrophysical Journal, 152, (1968) pp. 25-36. Steven W. Hawking, Roger Penrose, "The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, series A, 314 (1970) pp. 529-548. http://www.big-bang-theory.com/
And in the early 2000s, Borde, Guth, Vilenkin, via applying Special Relativity to cosmic inflation models, made the proof for a beginning to the universe even more robust,
“There is another development in theoretical physics called the Borde, Guth, Vilenkin theorem. And its not based on General Relativity but its based on Special Relativity. And for that reason it is not effected by postulations about what gravity might or might not have been like in the first tiny smidgen of time after the beginning of the universe. And it is those speculations that prevented the Hawking, Penrose, Ellis, singularity theorem from absolutely proving a beginning point. Instead the Borde, Guth, Vilenkin, theorem proves a beginning to the universe on the basis of considerations from special relativity that have nothing to do with whether or not there were quantum fluctuations within the first tiny smidgen of time after the beginning of the universe, and whether gravity might have worked differently or not. Instead it is independent of all those kind of considerations and caveats that prevent us from saying that the Hawking, Penrose, Ellis, results are absolute proofs (for a beginning of the universe). Instead you have a very strong proof of a beginning from theoretical physics that is not dependent on these conditions.”,,, - Stephen Meyer Discusses the Big Bang, Einstein, Hawking, and More – video – 36:42 minute mark https://youtu.be/m_AeA4fMHhI?t=2202
As Vilenkin stated at Hawking's 70th birthday party, “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.”
“All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.” - - Cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University in Boston – as stated in a presentation he delivered at Stephen Hawking’s 70th birthday party (Characterized in the media as the 'Worst Birthday Present Ever') – January 2012
Besides both theories of relativity, General and Special, joining together to indicate that the universe must have had a beginning, quantum mechanics goes even further and gives us evidence that the universe is 'continually contingent' upon on a 'non-physical something that can impinge on the physical universe in some way', i.e. God. In other words, besides the universe being created by a 'non-physical something', quantum mechanics indicates that the universe is also 'constantly sustained' in its existence by a 'non-physical something that can impinge on the physical universe in some way', i.e. God. As the following delayed choice experiment that was done with helium atoms indicated, "Reality Doesn't Exist Until We Measure It," and ""It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,"
Reality Doesn't Exist Until We Measure It, Quantum Experiment Confirms 01 June 2015 By Fiona Macdonald Excerpt: Our general logic would assume that the object is either wave-like or particle-like by its very nature, and our measurements will have nothing to do with the answer. But quantum theory predicts that the result all depends on how the object is measured at the end of its journey. And that's exactly what a team from the Australian National University has now found. "It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it," lead researcher and physicist Andrew Truscott said in a press release. Known as John Wheeler's delayed-choice thought experiment, the experiment was first proposed back in 1978 using light beams bounced by mirrors, but back then, the technology needed was pretty much impossible. Now, almost 40 years later, the Australian team has managed to recreate the experiment using helium atoms scattered by laser light. "Quantum physics predictions about interference seem odd enough when applied to light, which seems more like a wave, but to have done the experiment with atoms, which are complicated things that have mass and interact with electric fields and so on, adds to the weirdness," said Roman Khakimov, a PhD student who worked on the experiment.,,, https://www.sciencealert.com/reality-doesn-t-exist-until-we-measure-it-quantum-experiment-confirms
Likewise, the following falsification of 'realism' via Leggett’s inequality stressed the quantum-mechanical assertion “that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it.”
Quantum physics says goodbye to reality – Apr 20, 2007 Excerpt: They found that, just as in the realizations of Bell’s thought experiment, Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it. “Our study shows that ‘just’ giving up the concept of locality would not be enough to obtain a more complete description of quantum mechanics,” Aspelmeyer told Physics Web. “You would also have to give up certain intuitive features of realism.” http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/27640
The Mind First and/or Theistic implications of quantum experiments such as the preceding are fairly obvious. As Professor Scott Aaronson of MIT once quipped, “Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists,,, But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!”
“Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists who think the world sprang into existence on October 23, 4004 BC at 9AM (presumably Babylonian time), with the fossils already in the ground, light from distant stars heading toward us, etc. But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!” – Scott Aaronson – MIT associate Professor quantum computation – Lecture 11: Decoherence and Hidden Variables
bornagain77
December 30, 2022
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Eric:
This is a question to which I would love to know the answer as well.
Eric, that is very refreshing to hear that.
However, not knowing the answer does not negate the conclusion of Intelligent Design. Coupling scientific evidence for design in the physical universe and living systems with the vast amount of evidence supporting the claims of the Bible, I believe that the Designer is God. It is no argument against God that I don’t know how he supernaturally, through the action of his Spirit on the material world, brings about the outcomes of design we now perceive
That's fine, if it works for you. Live and let live.Alan Fox
December 29, 2022
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If your comment is directed to me,
It’s directed at everyone. ID is logic on top of science. That’s why it’s science+ Dembski started this site. He was trying to find a mathematical approach that would prove design. Hence, theory was in vogue as a term associated with ID. But people do a disservice to ID by continuing the use of the term, theory. It is definitely truth just as is “Professor Plum did it in the study with the lead pipe” is in certain episodes of Clue. But to predict what was and what will be an act of ID is pointless. Just as it would be picking the person, room and weapon in the next game of Clue. So people asking for such are disingenuous at best. ID can make some predictions about the laws of physics that are outside it’s capabilities. For example, ID predicts that Evolution will fail as an ongoing process because it is beyond the capabilities of the four laws of physics. It doesn’t say Evolution didn’t happen by the four laws of physics but if it did, it would be by initial and boundary condition set up by an intelligence. Interesting, there are research projects that would solve this forever. But they are not pursued by the people with the money and resources. I wonder why?jerry
December 29, 2022
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Arrington says:
Democrats use the availability bias associated with mass shootings to try to stampede the nation into giving up their Second Amendment rights.
Would that be similar to Republicans using the availability bias associated with doctored intelligence re (non-existent) WMDs to start a gratuitous war in Iraq? 4,491 US military deaths, 31,994 US military WIA, 100,000+ civilian deaths, 1.8 million displaced civilian refugees. The list goes on. And by way of full disclosure, I am a registered Independant..........chuckdarwin
December 29, 2022
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Jerry/13 If your comment is directed to me, take it up with Martin_r @ 1; I assume you saw my quotation marks......chuckdarwin
December 29, 2022
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ID “theory
ID is not a theory. At least not one usually referred to in analyzing the four basic forces of physics. So you should try something else. It is an explanation how an intelligent cause can affect the expected outcomes of these four basic forces. So sorry, no theory. Just conclusions to why certain findings of science don’t follow expected end results. Of course you know all this. On cue, the anti ID mind brings up irrelevancies. Thank you for endorsing ID.jerry
December 29, 2022
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Martin_r/1 Setting aside the historical trip through biosemiotics for a second, how does the UB summary comprise a textbook example of how ID "theory" can make predictions? Even under the most generous timeline, ID "theory" did not exist prior to ~ 1987 and the Wedge Document, outlining the goal of ID "theory" didn't appear until 1998.chuckdarwin
December 29, 2022
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Several times lower than the 1323 deaths by mass shootings in the same time period.
Perfect example of how the small anti ID mind works. Ignore everything relevant and focus on the possibility of a small error in something irrelevant. Thus, giving the game away by admitting that all the rest is true. Thank you!! Aside: in the period cited, about 35 million died so mass shootings represent 0.0000401 of deaths. What is a mass shooting?jerry
December 29, 2022
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To AF@2: You ask, "How does “Intelligent Design” work? If there is a non-physical something that can impinge on the physical universe in some way, where is the interface?" This is a question to which I would love to know the answer as well. However, not knowing the answer does not negate the conclusion of Intelligent Design. Coupling scientific evidence for design in the physical universe and living systems with the vast amount of evidence supporting the claims of the Bible, I believe that the Designer is God. It is no argument against God that I don't know how he supernaturally, through the action of his Spirit on the material world, brings about the outcomes of design we now perceive.Caspian
December 29, 2022
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Jerry, Interesting comment. "Availability bias" is a closely related concept. This is when there is a widespread perception that a rare event is in fact common. Example, a person is several times more likely to be struck and killed by lightening than to be killed in a mass shooting. Yet, Democrats use the availability bias associated with mass shootings to try to stampede the nation into giving up their Second Amendment rights.Barry Arrington
December 29, 2022
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Everyone should understand the Availability Cascade. It explains why the masses of the educated maintain the wrong view on many things. Originally pronounced by a liberal lawyer, Cass Sunstein, to promote liberal ideas. It explains the group think that occurs in all societies since the beginning of time.
Availability Cascades and Risk Regulation An availability cascade is a self-reinforcing process of collective belief formation by which an expressed perception triggers a chain reaction that gives the perception of increasing plausibility through its rising availability in public discourse. The driving mechanism involves a combination of informational and reputational motives: Individuals endorse the perception partly by learning from the apparent beliefs of others and partly by distorting their public responses in the interest of maintaining social acceptance. Availability entrepreneurs - activists who manipulate the content of public discourse - strive to trigger availability cascades likely to advance their agendas. Their availability campaigns may yield social benefits, but sometimes they bring harm, which suggests a need for safeguards. Focusing on the role of mass pressures in the regulation of risks associated with production, consumption, and the environment, Professor Timur Kuran and Cass R. Sunstein analyze availability cascades and suggest reforms to alleviate their potential hazards. Their proposals include new governmental structures designed to give civil servants better insulation against mass demands for regulatory change and an easily accessible scientific database to reduce people's dependence on popular (mis)perceptions.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=138144 A great example is Darwinian Evolution. There is zero downside to believing in it in our society even if it is false. Consequently, most will accept it and promote it. Are the purveyors here of the nonsense associated with Darwinian Evolution victims or advocates of this cascade. My guess, most are victims. But by their stupidity, very willing victims. (They can not defend a single thing they advocate and just turn to assertions of nonsense, but yet come back again and again with their inane irrelevant comments). However, a large part of their motivation seems to be anti Christianity in nature. Look at how frequently they turn to anti Christian sarcasm. Aside: the referenced paper is quite long. Skip to the conclusions if you look at it. These are themselves long enough.jerry
December 29, 2022
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"The researchers, like JVL, were blinded by their a priori metaphysical commitments. They literally could not see where their own work was leading." Not only that, but even if they did see where their own work was leading, that doesn't mean they would give up their worldview. Some people are so committed to their worldview that no matter what the evidence is, they will not give up their beliefs. So when it comes to evolution, it doesn't matter one bit how complex something might be, or how ridiculously low the chances are of it evolving, or how efficient or beautiful something might be, or how well engineered it might be. The data/evidence does not matter at all. Whatever is MUST have evolved so they just ramp up the faith and chalk it up to future discoveries because they KNOW it must have happened. It does no good whatsoever to discuss the point with them because it doesn't matter what you say! It doesn't even matter if you are right. They are just going to keep on believing and hope somehow "science" so called will bail them out in the end. Needless to say, this is not how real science works. Evolutionary "science" might work like that, but not real science. ie Q: How did life originate? A: We don't know but we know it happened by chance and someday we hope science can figure it out. But even if it doesn't, we know it evolved by chance.tjguy
December 29, 2022
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MR, precisely, and attention has been repeatedly drawn to this. KFkairosfocus
December 29, 2022
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AF, how did the intelligently directed configuration of the text in your self-referential, objecting comments work? (Or, do you hold -- equally self-referentially -- that they emerged from a blind process of chance and/or mechanical necessity, on which they have zero credibility.) KFkairosfocus
December 29, 2022
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Is the gene system and written human language the only two systems known to science that operate in this way? Yes. Is the appearance of an encoded symbol system considered in science to be a universal correlate of intelligence? Yes.
What ??? Only these two ??? I can think of many other systems known to science that operate that way (all intelligently designed) but let me mention the following one, because the similarity with DNA/DNA translation/transcription is almost unbelievable. Punched tape https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNtt66KUWoQ Punched tape - Wikipedia
Punched tape or perforated paper tape is a form of data storage that consists of a long strip of paper in which holes are punched. It developed from and was subsequently used alongside punched cards, differing in that the tape is continuous. Punched cards, and chains of punched cards, were used for control of looms in the 18th century. Use for telegraphy systems started in 1842. Punched tape was used throughout the 19th and for much of the 20th centuries for programmable looms, teleprinter communication, for input to computers of the 1950s and 1960s, and later as a storage medium for minicomputers and CNC machine tools. During the Second World War, high-speed punched tape systems using optical readout methods were used in code breaking systems. Punched tape was used to transmit data for manufacture of read-only memory chips.
(I can think of many others, basically any storage system works that way .... a magnetic tape, or a floppy disk, or a CD, or a hard drive ... etc.)martin_r
December 29, 2022
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How does "Intelligent Design" work? If there is a non-physical something that can impinge on the physical universe in some way, where is the interface?Alan Fox
December 28, 2022
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In 1948 did John Von Neumann take a page from Alan Turing’s 1933 Machine and give a series of lectures predicting that a quiescent symbol system and a set of independent constraints would be required for autonomous open-ended self replication? Yes. In 1953 did Francis Crick, along with Watson, discover the sequence structure of that symbol system, calling it a code? Yes. And in 1955 did he further predict that an unknown set of protein constraints would be found working in the system, establishing the necessary code relationships? Yes. In 1956-1958 did Mahlon Hoagland and Paul Zamecnik experimentally confirm Crick’s (and Von Neumann’s) predictions. Yes. In 1961, did Marshal Nirenberg have to demonstrate the first symbolic relationship in the gene system in order to know it? Yes. In 1969 did Howard Pattee set off on a five decade analysis of the gene system, confirming it as symbolic control of a dynamic process? Yes.
a textbook example of how ID theory can make predictions ... (because some smart evolutionists repeatedly claim, that ID theory can't make any predictions )martin_r
December 28, 2022
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