We didn’t know randomness could be “subtle”

Mapou #99

All the Darwinists, atheists and materialists who comment on UD are church missionaries who come here to proselytize for the Church of the Flying Dirt Monster. They are here to try to convert Christians to their stupid dirt worshipping religion.

Your own views, disputed by many physicists, could be characterised as strictly beliefs and not facts. Should your views be subject to similar censorship?

In my opinion, UD should prohibit all proselytizing behavior by the atheists. They should go to their own internet sites and talk among themselves. They continually treat Christians like dirt on their own websites and discussion forums but when they come here, they expect to be treated with dignity.

I am hardly ever treated with dignity on UD by the likes of you. But the site rules say I should be. And you are in blatant violation of those rules. And the site moderators tolerate your behaviour. Which means they have double standards.

I personally refuse to treat them with nothing but contempt and total disrespect. If the UD moderators decide to ban me for this reason, then so be it. My only request is this: Do not let the dirt worshippers come here and shed their crocodile tears like a bunch of hypocritical crybabies and demand to be treated fairly. Do not let them dictate anything on UD. They deserve to be vilified and worse.

If the site moderators agree with you then they should be clear and change their moderation policies. Agreed? ellazimm

By the way, does anybody on UD know of a good artist/cartoonist who can draw some kind of Flying Dirt Monster? I would love to see a few good representative renditions or interpretations of the concept. Mapou

If you don’t care, why did you respond?

And pass up a chance to disrespect a dirt worshipper? No way. Just get back to your Flying Dirt Monster church and leave us alone. Mapou

"Man, go pack sand up your asteroid and see if I care." If you don't care, why did you respond? Indiana Effigy

All the Darwinists, atheists and materialists who comment on UD are church missionaries who come here to proselytize for the Church of the Flying Dirt Monster. They are here to try to convert Christians to their stupid dirt worshipping religion. In my opinion, UD should prohibit all proselytizing behavior by the atheists. They should go to their own internet sites and talk among themselves. They continually treat Christians like dirt on their own websites and discussion forums but when they come here, they expect to be treated with dignity. I personally refuse to treat them with nothing but contempt and total disrespect. If the UD moderators decide to ban me for this reason, then so be it. My only request is this: Do not let the dirt worshippers come here and shed their crocodile tears like a bunch of hypocritical crybabies and demand to be treated fairly. Do not let them dictate anything on UD. They deserve to be vilified and worse. Just my opinion. Mapou

Indiana Effigy, Man, go pack sand up your asteroid and see if I care. Crybabies. Mapou

Mapou: " I speak what’s on my mind, .." Given your limited vocabulary and ideas, this is painfully obvious. "The combinatorial explosion just crushed your little chicken feather voodoo religion." This pet concept of yours (one of your two catchphrases) was soundly destroyed over on Dr. Hunter's blog. Your intelligent and well thought out response was your second response. As the moderators here apparently have no desire to prevent your abusive comments, this will be my last response to one of your comments until you have something informative to say. Indiana Effigy

UD moderators I would like to know why Mapou is allowed to refer to other commentators as he does in #89

You people are not just a dirt worshippers, you are a bunch of lying, door-to-door missionaries with stupid beady eyes, selling holy dirt.

If I used such language you would bounce me out lickity-split.

I’m sure you would love to shut me off but I am indeed special, compared to a bunch of small-cranium, cargo-cult primitives in need of remedial math. I speak what’s on my mind, whether or not I am banned by UD moderators. If you don’t like it, go pack sand somewhere and see if I care. LOL

Can you honestly say Mapou is following your guidelines for participation in UD? And from #91

The search space increases exponentially with every new variable. The combinatorial explosion just crushed your little chicken feather voodoo religion. Go back to school and learn some simple math, you tree-dwelling primitive.

Is this really the sort of style you wish to uphold here? ellazimm

Origenes #87

If so, then despite the cull. To state the obvious: the elimination of certain (less fit) body plans reduces the total amount of body plans.

Except the culling I'm talking about is just that that occurs in every generation which means we're not talking major differences in body plans. AND, it's still true that the generation generated by those who were 'selected' has more genetic variation than their 'parents'. Each generation has new variations.

Nope. New body plans are entirely produced by randomness. The cull is not a creative part of the evolutionary process. Organisms that continue to live can be said to escape the cull — they are “untouched” by the cull.

The cull decides which variations to keep and the new variation is on top of that. The cull helps 'direct' evolution. Each generation differs only in very, very small ways from the previous generation if at all.

If so, then despite the cull.

You're not understanding me I think. Generation1 is culled down to a subset which generate offspring. Call them Parents1. Generation2 comes from Parents1 and Generation2 has more genetic variation than Parents1. Has to. Because of mutations during breeding.

I never disputed this adaption effect of the cull. However, give it some thought and you will understand that nothing creative is going on.

'Creative' is a somewhat laden word. I say new body plans come from generation upon generation of cumulative selection acting on random variation. ellazimm

Origenes: Because resources are limited we see a general increase in size? If every organisms that could ever be born remained in the population, then we would see the distribution of traits spread out. We would see every possible organism, including a vast majority of those which would not be able to survive in the real world (such as a billions of species of large blobs without circulatory systems or lungs or even means to ingest food). In this imaginary world, there would be no limit on space or resources, so the mass of living tissue would exceed that of the Sun in a few thousand years, and the mass of the galaxy in a few thousand years more. But in the real world there are limits. What we see are examples of positive selection, such that if we were to look over a period of time, we often see traits moving with a specific tendency, such as skull size in the genus Homo. Zachriel

It seems to me that Mapou is deliberately testing the limits of how far he can go in insulting people. One of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes cartoons is when Calvin asks his dad how they know that a bridge has a 6 ton limit. His dad says, "They keep driving bigger and bigger trucks over it until it breaks. Then they know what the limit is, and then they rebuild the bridge." Mapou is possibly applying this method. He says he doesn't care if he's banned, so he has no reason to restrain himself, it seems. Aleta

Zachriel: However, because resources are limited, and depending on the environment, what we might see is an general increase in size over time.

Because resources are limited we see a general increase in size? That doesn't make much sense to me, but even so, what is your point? Origenes

Zachriel, the dirt worshipping psycho:

To take a simple example, given fecundity and unlimited resources, then we would expect an organism to grow taller and shorter and everything in between.

The search space increases exponentially with every new variable. The combinatorial explosion just crushed your little chicken feather voodoo religion. Go back to school and learn some simple math, you tree-dwelling primitive. Mapou

Origenes: To state the obvious: the elimination of certain (less fit) body plans reduces the total amount of body plans. To take a simple example, given fecundity and unlimited resources, then we would expect an organism to grow taller and shorter and everything in between. However, because resources are limited, and depending on the environment, what we might see is an general increase in size over time. In other words, the actually history showing a definite tendency. Zachriel

ellazimm, the dirt worshipper:

Except that no is saying life arouse from dirt.

You people are not just a dirt worshippers, you are a bunch of lying, door-to-door missionaries with stupid beady eyes, selling holy dirt.

I know you’ve made up your mind and arguing with you is a waste of time but I can’t understand how the moderators of this site continue to let you get away with abusive language and behaviour. I guess you’re special.

I'm sure you would love to shut me off but I am indeed special, compared to a bunch of small-cranium, cargo-cult primitives in need of remedial math. I speak what's on my mind, whether or not I am banned by UD moderators. If you don't like it, go pack sand somewhere and see if I care. LOL Mapou

KairosFocus, I don't want to derail this thread with off-topic discussions about history and the US constitution, but if you are willing to draft a short soap, I would gladly discuss it with you there. Indiana Effigy

ellazimm : The repeated process of random generated variation, cull, repeat generates new body plans.

If so, then despite the cull. To state the obvious: the elimination of certain (less fit) body plans reduces the total amount of body plans.

ellazimm : It’s the effect of cumulative selection.

Nope. New body plans are entirely produced by randomness. The cull is not a creative part of the evolutionary process. Organisms that continue to live can be said to escape the cull — they are “untouched” by the cull. Colin Patterson describes natural selection as a 'weeding out process' that leaves the stronger progeny. “The stronger progeny must be already there; it is not produced by natural selection...selection is made from already existing entities.”

ellazimm : Every new generation has more genetic diversity than its parents, those ‘selected’ from the previous generation.

If so, then despite the cull.

ellazimm : You focus on the effect of a single cull. Consider the effect of cumulative selection over generations and generations of cumulative variation. Those that ‘make it’ are better adapted to their environment.

I never disputed this adaption effect of the cull. However, give it some thought and you will understand that nothing creative is going on. Origenes

IE, au contraire, one of the lessons of sound history is that it teaches us alternatives and possibilities constituting lessons bought in blood and tears that we had better heed or else; those who would reduce history to victory propaganda or dismiss it as inevitably such or even deride it as meaningless bunk, have a terrible responsibility. The latin american and european experiences across C16 - 20 show us very relevant examples on what disunity on a continental scale easily leads to, as arguably happened with the American Civil War also -- just the opposite of what you tried to claim. Perhaps, you did not notice that in parallel to the 1830's the British Empire went through a slavery and slave trade debate and policy process that led to peaceful abolition 1834 - 38. It is not merely the compromise that led to civil war in the US. It is regional polarisation that refused to seriously work through the legacy of the founders on the significance of the image of God and consequent right to liberty. As a deposit of creation. Where, every mixed race child or descendant stood and stands in proof that we are of one blood -- a standing rebuke to racism. KF PS: Actually, it is clear that a material input to how Britain handled other territories was the lesson of the American Revolution. And had the British elites taken Magna Carta and the 1689 Bill of Rights to heart, there would have been no revolution. In our day, I think we have a few lessons to learn from Alfred the Great of Wessex's Book of Dooms. kairosfocus

Indiana Effigy: I think, therefore I am. Feel free to quote me on this.

Given materialism there is no "I" who thinks. Instead thoughts are being produced entirely by unthinking non-rational brain chemicals. The existence of a free responsible rational agent "I" cannot be grounded in a universe containing nothing over and beyond the physical. Origenes

KairosFocus: "Do tell us, what would have been the predictable result of failure to fix the major governance problems of the fledgling American republic in the 1780’s, at whatever price of compromises?" You can't predict what would have happened. That is a fools game. But you can definitely say what did happen. The compromise resulted in a war that killed more Anericans than all other wars combined and produced a black/ site rift that probably won't get better any time soon. But, since you insist on playing the what would have happened game, I will play along. What would have happened if there was no revolution? We can't say for certain but we can look at a few countries that opted for this approach. Canada, Australia and New Zealand. No civil war. Racial issues but nowhere near as institutionalized as in the US. Indiana Effigy

EZ, Yes, the US Const came at the early stages of the struggle and compromises were forced at a time when overall abolition was not typically seen as possible. Equiano for one (a former slave who obtained freedom here in M/rat in the 1760s it seems), participated in an attempt to ameliorate in IIRC Nicaragua. Law always addresses realities of the time including balances of power. In that context the Const set a sunset on the trade, the root of the problem and its most vulnerable point on grounds of kidnapping. Which Equiano exemplified. As noted the 3/5 provision implies personhood of slaves and crucially blocked domination of the legislature, which affected the onward balance. Do tell us, what would have been the predictable result of failure to fix the major governance problems of the fledgling American republic in the 1780's, at whatever price of compromises? Would a world of breakdowns and division open to external interference and rise of local dominant oligarchies as in Latin America have been a better outcome? Do you or others really want to argue that claim, given the history of Latin America? KF PS: For reference Wiki on the C19 history of Latin America:

The failed efforts in Spanish America to keep together most of the initial large states that emerged from independence— Gran Colombia, the Federal Republic of Central America[13] and the United Provinces of South America—resulted a number of domestic and interstate conflicts, which plagued the new countries. Brazil, in contrast to its Hispanic neighbors, remained a united monarchy and avoided the problem of civil and interstate wars. Domestic wars were often fights between federalists and centrists who ended up asserted themselves through the military repression of their opponents at the expense of civilian political life. The new nations inherited the cultural diversity of the colonial era and strived to create a new identity based around the shared European (Spanish or Portuguese) language and culture. Within each country, however, there were cultural and class divisions that created tension and hurt national unity. For the next few decades there was a long process to create a sense of nationality. Most of the new national borders were created around the often centuries-old audiencia jurisdictions or the Bourbon intendancies, which had become areas of political identity. In many areas the borders were unstable, since the new states fought wars with each other to gain access to resources, especially in the second half of the nineteenth century. The more important conflicts were the Paraguayan War (1864–70; also known as the War of the Triple Alliance) and the War of the Pacific (1879–84). The Paraguayan War pitted Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay against Paraguay, which was utterly defeated. As a result, Paraguay suffered a demographic collapse: the population went from an estimated 525,000 persons in 1864 to 221,000 in 1871 and out of this last population, only around 28,000 were men. In the War of the Pacific, Chile defeated the combined forces of Bolivia and Peru. Chile gained control of saltpeter-rich areas, previously controlled by Peru and Bolivia, and Bolivia became a land-locked nation. By mid-century the region also confronted a growing United States, seeking to expand on the North American continent and extend its influence in the hemisphere. In Mexican–American War (1846–48), Mexico lost over half of its territory to the United States. In the 1860s France attempted to indirectly control Mexico. In South America, Brazil consolidated its control of large swaths of the Amazon Basin at the expense of its neighbors. In the 1880s the United States implemented an aggressive policy to defend and expand its political and economic interests in all of Latin America, which culminated in the creation of the Pan-American Conference, the successful completion of the Panama Canal and the United States intervention in the final Cuban war of independence.

kairosfocus

EZ, so many strawmen, so little time. It is you who need to account for the first common ancestral organism on blind chance and mechanical necessity in Darwin's pond or the like, then its diversification into major body plans, duly backed by actual empirical demonstration of the capacity of sid mechanisms. No one, least me, talks of turning a cockroach or even a roach swimming in the Thames, into a beluga or a blue whale. The issue is, justify the claim of the tree of life on teh mechanism proposed. The distractions are demonstration enough that the problem has not been cogently addressed. Islands of function, as I and others such as GP have noted repeatedly, start at molecular levels. The change in organisms, the presence of singletons and small fold domains isolated structurally from even morphologically close species and the need for 10 - 100+ mn base pairs of fresh info to form a new body plan are neough challenge. Unanswered. The only empirically warranted causal factor sufficient to explain FSCO/I is design, right from the root of the tree on up. And it is not rough landscapes that are my concern, but the flooding by a sea of non-function that deeply isolates islands and archipelagos of function, such that getting across the seas to shorelines of function dominates any convenient discussion on hill climbing or its kissing cousins. Again, predictably, not adequately addressed. KF PS: On self evident, foundaitonal truths, start with A say a bright red ball on a table, and ponder the world partition imposed by the distinct identity: W = {A |~A} I suggest that A is A, that A cannot at once be not A, and that something x will be A, or else not A, and not both or neither, are self evident, unassailable truths prior to any further reasoning and communication, not subject to subjectivist or relativist whims and fashions of thought. In that context, something like, error exists, will be found to be undeniably true on pain of self refuting absurdity. And so forth, in short the symptom of relativism is pointing to deep roots of the mess we see all around. kairosfocus

Mapou #80

All Darwinists are dirt worshipping morons. LOL

Except that no is saying life arouse from dirt. I know you've made up your mind and arguing with you is a waste of time but I can't understand how the moderators of this site continue to let you get away with abusive language and behaviour. I guess you're special. ellazimm

All Darwinists are dirt worshipping morons. LOL Mapou

Mapoo: "That’s an answer that only a jackass would give. What is wrong with you?" Yes, it does sound like something that you would say. Indiana Effigy

Effigy, are backtracking on what you wrote earlier? I was talking about how the Constitution forbids the teaching of religion in our public schools and how Darwinists, atheists and materialists believe and teach our children in our taxpayer-funded schools to believe that life arose from dirt and that single cell organisms changed themselves into crocodiles, whales and humans. I maintain that this is a chicken sh!t religion and should not be taught in public schools because it violates our constitutional rights. Those who do so should be prosecuted and jailed according to the law. You replied:

Sorry Mapou, but I could care less about your constitution. It also embraces slavery. Not something to be proud of.

That's an answer that only a jackass would give. What is wrong with you? Mapou

Axel #75

Mathematics falls within the definition of a priori truth. So you do get the primacy of a priori truths?

Mathematical truths/theorems are true because they can be proved. What was true in mathematics 2000 years ago is still true.

If you think truth is a slippery notion and don’t believe in absolute truth, just ‘personal’ truths, and you want to convince others of the characteristically atheist rationality of that perspective on everything, you are really just trying to promote nihilism, and even by your own criteria, heeding your opinion or anyone else’s is senseless.

I don't believe in 'personal' truths. I believe in those things that have been established independent of any one person's say so. Nothing to do with theology, that's your bias view of my belief structure. Nothing to do with nihilism either; you consider my view dry and dusty but that's just your opinion. My personal views are as meaningful and as meaningless as anyone else's which is why I don't base my world view on them. ellazimm

specter13 #74

You talk about physical things which can be examined as truth and then denigrate logic which can be misinterpreted or false – there is no value in whatever data you assess until ‘you’ through intentionality give it some. Numbers don’t exist in any physical sense, therefore neither do your measurements. In that case the moment you have a thought you have employed reason & logic, no matter how vacant and absurd it may be.

Something which can be measured can be examined over and over again by others to avoid misinterpretation. Units of measurements are agreed upon standards but a thing is what it is and does not change its size based on opinion or interpretation. The method of measurement may give different results though . . . interesting stuff.

Google Zeno’s dichotomy paradox

That's basic, undergraduate stuff. If you really want to get your teeth into something look at Cantor's work or even more recent work with surreal numbers. How about fractal dimensions in accordance with Mandelbrot's research. If you want to talk mathematics then you'd be advised to NOT use an ancient example of a paradox. ellazimm

ellazim 71 : Mathematics falls within the definition of a priori truth. So you do get the primacy of a priori truths? If you think truth is a slippery notion and don't believe in absolute truth, just 'personal' truths, and you want to convince others of the characteristically atheist rationality of that perspective on everything, you are really just trying to promote nihilism, and even by your own criteria, heeding your opinion or anyone else's is senseless. Axel

EZ "In my experience what is and what is not considered a true logical assumption has shifted over the centuries. Since it’s easy to recall logical men who have advocated genocide I think I’ll stick with physical evidence. I agree it can be distorted and mis-interpreted but it is a physical things which can be examined and looked at." You talk about physical things which can be examined as truth and then denigrate logic which can be misinterpreted or false - there is no value in whatever data you assess until 'you' through intentionality give it some. Numbers don't exist in any physical sense, therefore neither do your measurements. In that case the moment you have a thought you have employed reason & logic, no matter how vacant and absurd it may be. EZ "We all have our own truths. Except for mathematics, I find them all provisional. Only mathematics has theorems." Google Zeno's dichotomy paradox specter13

Mapou: "Effigy is still spewing his crap on this thread? Did you not claim earlier that the US constitution embraces slavery? What kind of moron are you to think that you still have a say in anything on this blog after you spew out such vomit?" Then why was there a civil war over an amendment to abolish slavery? Why did the constitution require free states to return escaped slaves to their owners? Indiana Effigy

Slavery in the US Constitution From http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_slav.html

Slavery is seen in the Constitution in a few key places. The first is in the Enumeration Clause, where representatives are apportioned. Each state is given a number of representatives based on its population - in that population, slaves, called "other persons," are counted as three-fifths of a whole person. This compromise was hard-fought, with Northerners wishing that slaves, legally property, be uncounted, much as mules and horses are uncounted. Southerners, however, well aware of the high proportion of slaves to the total population in their states, wanted them counted as whole persons despite their legal status. The three-fifths number was a ratio used by the Congress in contemporary legislation and was agreed upon with little debate. In Article 1, Section 9, Congress is limited, expressly, from prohibiting the "Importation" of slaves, before 1808. The slave trade was a bone of contention for many, with some who supported slavery abhorring the slave trade. The 1808 date, a compromise of 20 years, allowed the slave trade to continue, but placed a date-certain on its survival. Congress eventually passed a law outlawing the slave trade that became effective on January 1, 1808. The Fugitive Slave Clause is the last mention. In it, a problem that slave states had with extradition of escaped slaves was resolved. The laws of one state, the clause says, cannot excuse a person from "Service or Labour" in another state. The clause expressly requires that the state in which an escapee is found deliver the slave to the state he escaped from "on Claim of the Party."

I'm not saying the US Constitution 'embraces' slavery but it did not, initially, forbid it. That required an amendment. ellazimm

Axel #66

In very principle, it is a significant error to valorise empirical evidence over a priori truths and logical inferences. Physical evidence can become subject to atmospheric degradation, or be tampered with – as is often adduced concerning forensic evidence in trials and enquiries. A priori truths belong to another realm of unassailable integrity.

In my experience what is and what is not considered a true logical assumption has shifted over the centuries. Since it's easy to recall logical men who have advocated genocide I think I'll stick with physical evidence. I agree it can be distorted and mis-interpreted but it is a physical things which can be examined and looked at.

If there is one thing any materialist ignores it’s logic. To a materialist logic is a crutch.

Logic is a tool. Very, very useful but subject to misuse like everything else.

Logic is always unassailable, partaking of the nature of a priori truth.

Truth is a slippery notion. Are protons 'true'? If they are really combinations of smaller particles does that makes them less true? Is free will 'true'? Does it actually exist or is it just a notion that we'd like to ascribe to ourselves so that we feel that we are independent agents? I know I'd like to believe that. But what does the data say? Is it 'true' that you love your partner? How can you prove that? We all have our own truths. Except for mathematics, I find them all provisional. Only mathematics has theorems. ellazimm

Effigy is still spewing his crap on this thread? Did you not claim earlier that the US constitution embraces slavery? What kind of moron are you to think that you still have a say in anything on this blog after you spew out such vomit? Mapou

I think, therefore I am. Feel free to quote me on this. Indiana Effigy

Their best comical effort of course is when the invoke reason to deny that reason exists.... Andre

If there is one thing any materialist ignores it's logic. To a materialist logic is a crutch. Andre

ellazimm, your #64, Logic is always unassailable, partaking of the nature of a priori truth. It is the false premise that people can get so wrong, indeed, so wrong that, as Keynes remarked in a review he wrote of a book written by Hayek, they, end up 'in bedlam !' Led there of course by their impeccable logic applied to an erroneous premise. Point out any false premise in his argument in his post #62, or indeed, falsehood, i.e. illogical inference. In very principle, it is a significant error to valorise empirical evidence over a priori truths and logical inferences. Physical evidence can become subject to atmospheric degradation, or be tampered with - as is often adduced concerning forensic evidence in trials and enquiries. A priori truths belong to another realm of unassailable integrity. Axel

A lot of overloading in that statement; rationality, thinker, control, thoughts. Translation: That's asking me to think too much. Therefore it's false. Mung

Mike1962 #60

Hopefully gold bars are going to fly out of my arse someday. Wake me up when either happens.

Okey dokey. Axel #62

It totally undermines your materialism, exposing the ‘straw man’ constituting your response below. If he is clearly prejudiced, it can only be on the basis of the logic : in which case, it is a mandatory prejudice from the viewpoint of rational thought.

In the past 'logic' insisted the earth was the centre of the universe. Later 'logic' insisted the orbits of the planets had to be circles. I'll go with the data and experimental results. I'd rather not know than to draw a premature conclusion based on any human's ability to 'logic' the world. I never denied I was real as ba77 implies. I never called another human being a non-person as ba77 did. I'm open to new data and discoveries. I think we still have a lot to discover. I suspect there are lots of things we will probably never know. I don't prefer armchair proofs over observable results. ellazimm

bornagain77: (1) rationality implies a thinker in control of thoughts. A lot of overloading in that statement; rationality, thinker, control, thoughts. bornagain77: (2) under materialism a thinker is an effect caused by processes in the brain. Thinking is the effect. The thinker is the embodied person. bornagain77: (3) in order for materialism to ground rationality a thinker (an effect) must control processes in the brain (a cause). (1)&(2) Same problem as (1). bornagain77: (4) no effect can control its cause. That's false, as any feedback mechanism shows. Zachriel

ellazimm, what is your response to the simple logic of the following, with which BA77 concluded his post #17 ? '(1) rationality implies a thinker in control of thoughts. (2) under materialism a thinker is an effect caused by processes in the brain. (3) in order for materialism to ground rationality a thinker (an effect) must control processes in the brain (a cause). (1)&(2) (4) no effect can control its cause. Therefore materialism cannot ground rationality. per Box UD It totally undermines your materialism, exposing the 'straw man' constituting your response below. If he is clearly prejudiced, it can only be on the basis of the logic : in which case, it is a mandatory prejudice from the viewpoint of rational thought. 'I don’t argue with non-persons, since all rationality is lost when a person denies he is real.' - BA77 'You are allowed to be prejudiced. But it doesn’t make you right.' - Ellazimm Axel

specter13: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/10/the_dog_delusio090751.html

The result is the many genetically and anatomically inferior breeds of our domestic dogs, fully dependent on human care and interest and typically unable to survive in the wild.

The author doesn't know much about dogs apparently. Most dog breeds can quickly become feral. In any case, that an organism may become dependent on humans is just another form of adaptation, similar to how anthropoid primates are dependent on the consumption of vitamin C. Zachriel

ellazzin: There is ongoing research into that very thing. Hopefully, someday, you’ll have it. Hopefully gold bars are going to fly out of my arse someday. Wake me up when either happens. What about your side? What "side" would that be? Can I say: show me the designer or shut up? I made no claims about any designer. mike1962

KairosFocus: "PPS: Your point on 3/5 person is historically inappropriate and a classic case of anachronistic misreading. The point at the time was to limit power in Congress of slave holding states in a context where it was not possible in the founding generation to do more than set a 20 year window to close off the slave trade, the low hanging fruit. Notice, the non free persons were recognised as persons." I understand the reason for that clause. But it still assigned a lower human value to some humans. But if you still believe that slavery was not protected by the constitution, how do you explain the following clause? ""No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due." Indiana Effigy

Origenes #57

To be clear, new information is not generated by the cull. New information is produced solely by blind random non foresighted forces. All the cull does is hamper the ‘search’ of evolution. IOWs by continually removing acquired information the much touted cull (a.k.a. “natural selection”) is lowering the likelihood that blind random non foresighted forces were able to produce/find the fancy stuff that we see in life.

The repeated process of random generated variation, cull, repeat generates new body plans. It's the effect of cumulative selection. Every new generation has more genetic diversity than its parents, those 'selected' from the previous generation. That's more choices for selection to work with. You focus on the effect of a single cull. Consider the effect of cumulative selection over generations and generations of cumulative variation. Those that 'make it' are better adapted to their environment. ellazimm

ellazimm: The cull is not producing information. The new information comes from genetic variation that is generated every generation.

We are in agreement.

ellazimm: Some variants do not make it, information is lost every generation. But new information is also generated.

To be clear, new information is not generated by the cull. New information is produced solely by blind random non foresighted forces. All the cull does is hamper the 'search' of evolution. IOWs by continually removing acquired information the much touted cull (a.k.a. "natural selection") is lowering the likelihood that blind random non foresighted forces were able to produce/find the fancy stuff that we see in life. edit: One more thing. I hold that it is important to make a distinction between the filter of existence and natural selection. By "the filter of existence" I refer to the viability of an organism. If an organism is viable — doesn't fall apart and is self-organizing — it passes the filter of existence. Next there is the randomly whimsical filter of natural selection. It is my impression that there's an equivocation going on between these two. Origenes

KF & Origenes Start with generation 1, some of them are better able to exploit their environment and resources; some of them are just lucky. Some are 'selected' and some don't survive to reproduce. The breeders have a narrower range of genetic diversity than the whole generation before the 'cull'. Generation 2 is the offspring of those 'selected' in generation 1. Generation 2 has a wider range of genetic diversity than their parents (the breeders of generation 1). Some of that variation is on top of the surviving variations from generation 1. Variation is generated every time offspring are produced. The cull is not producing information. The new information comes from genetic variation that is generated every generation. Some variants do not make it, information is lost every generation. But new information is also generated. And KF, there is no need to re-iterate your argument against a smooth landscape of related life forms. I've heard it many, many times. I know you focus on what you consider 'islands of function' instead of the clear genetic data which shows that all existing life forms share lots of 'information' which pretty clearly indicates that we're all branches of one tree/bush. If you only focus on the ends of the branches (the existing life forms) then they do look like disconnected 'islands of function'. But that doesn't mean there is no path between them. The connecting path goes into the past, sometimes millions of years. A beluga whale and a cockroach have a common ancestor. No one thinks it's sensible to talk about how you would transfer one into the other because that's not how it happened. You continually argue against a strawman, a proposal that no one is making. ellazimm

ellazimm: You always present your argument as if there is no new variation after a cull.

The reason for this is probably because there is no new variation after a cull — by definition. A cull produces exactly zero new information. Instead all a cull does is removing information. IOWs a cull downsizes the 'search team':

KF: (...) the process is a culler out of varieties and so by definition is a remover of information expressed in the inferior varieties that die out. It is not a creative element, a source of bio information.

I would like to add that removing information is likely to come with a cost. Perfectly viable organisms that may possess unique information for winter time are eliminated during the summer, so to speak. Origenes

EZ, passed by, the claim of incremental new functional info after cull only works for reasonably smooth hill climbing in a loose sense of that term. The body plan origin issue starting from proteins in AA sequence space up is to FIND islands of coherent function with viable body plans. Credibly requiring 10 - 100+ mn bases of fresh gene info, and on one planet's worth of resources. I do not have a lot of time for long back-forths on tangent after tangent to a point that strikes me as ginned up, blind chance and mechanical necessity DO take in natural selection so called, and also chemical scenarios in Darwin's pond etc, which is the main issue in any case: no root no trunk, branches etc for tree of life models. Show us a solid, empirically grounded case for blind chance and mechanical necessity forming first life and main body plans or else we are looking at ideologically imposed ill founded claims propped up by Lewontin's a priori materialism by the back door of oh, we must use methodological naturalism. Design can create FSCO/I, trillions of cases in point. A von Neumann kinematic self replicator on molecular nanotech in a first cell is FSCO/I. Get us to the root of the ToL on blind chance and mechanical necessity in Darwin's pond or the like backed up by solid observational demonstration of claimed mechanisms, or there is nothing substantial in the ToL claims. KF kairosfocus

Mapou #32

But even if one assumes a starting point using the most basic replicator, it could not be much simpler than a bacterium.

Why couldn't it be simpler than a bacterium? Again, you are making assumptions and claiming a win.

So evolutionary theorists know (by some magic revelation that they the rest of us idiots are not privy to, I guess) that the initial search was not random? Where is the science in that? Where is the falsifiability? Who or what was directing the search, pray tell? And why should anybody believe evolutionary theorists? What makes them so special? I personally think they are idiots.

Why couldn't it just be chemistry? Have you read some of the (competing) current ideas of how life got started? We may never know exactly what happened but that doesn't mean a bacterium just poofed into existence.

I make it a point to always be rude, contemptuous and disrespectful to all dirt worshippers because this is the way they have treated those who have disagreed with them in the past. This is the way they always treat their critics. In their view, if you are not an atheist, a Darwinist or a materialist, you are an idiot or a stupid creationist.

If I used language on this thread as you do I'd be called for it. You are given special leeway for some reason. Also, I never behaved the way you are complaining about so why do you treat me that way?

We saw an example of that during the recent debate with that jackass/crackpot/ignoramus, Lawrence Krauss. You people need to get a taste of your own medicine. And you will get it. You are stupid as dirt.

You are biased and prejudice. And the moderators let you get away with it. KF #33

so if culling — subtraction of variation — in part driven by differential reproductive success is non random, does it not then come under not logical [If A then B must hold . . . ] but instead mechanical, blind . . . as in, non foresighted . . . necessity? (I leave off the random, stochastic aspects of such differential success.)

There is 'new' variation at every generation. You always present your argument as if there is no new variation after a cull. And selection continues on each new batch of variants. Also, why do you not call Mapou on his attitude and language? Why is he allowed to be incredibly rude and disrespectful. You wouldn't let me behave the way he does. Why the double standard? Mike1962 #34

Show me the initial replicator. Or else shut up.

There is ongoing research into that very thing. Hopefully, someday, you'll have it. What about your side? Can I say: show me the designer or shut up? ellazimm

S13, good link, thanks. KF kairosfocus

IE, ARTIFICIAL selection is a design mechanism. There is some part where that turns on often small mutations (mouth of bulldog, say) but often it is breeding out to limits of an existing genetic range. Yes, it is often used as a basis for an argument by analogy that natural circumstances can do the same but the issue in serious discussion is at body plan origin level. The challenge being, islands of function isolated in large configuration spaces. Where given scope of possible configs vs scope of available resources the intervening seas of non function are not credibly span-able. This starts with isolation of clusters of functional [truly functional in vivo] proteins in amino acid sequence space. At say 150 aa, isolation has per investigation been put at something like 1 in 10^70. Cf this for a discussion of some issues. Likewise, this addresses the but dogs show macroevo claim, as was pointed out to you above. Notice the clip from Gieffers: >>On the basis of research of many experts in the relevant fields, Loennig proves that the enormous variability of our domestic dogs essentially originated by reductions and losses of functions of genes of the wolf.>> Also, Behe: >>Dr. L?nnig shows forcefully that one of the chief examples Darwinists rely on to convince the public of macroevolution -- the enormous variation in dogs -- actually shows the opposite. Extremes in size and anatomy come at the cost of broken genes and poor health. Even several gene duplications were found to interfere strongly with normal growth and development as is also often the case in humans. So where is the evidence for Darwinian evolution now?>> There's more, gotta go. KF PS: Not a lot of time to spend on this given current local matters (and a higher priority issue going a-begging), I suggest you scroll up, click the Resources tab and read the discussions on weak arguments and the glossary. PPS: Your point on 3/5 person is historically inappropriate and a classic case of anachronistic misreading. The point at the time was to limit power in Congress of slave holding states in a context where it was not possible in the founding generation to do more than set a 20 year window to close off the slave trade, the low hanging fruit. Notice, the non free persons were recognised as persons. Try: https://americanvision.org/3918/the-original-constitution-and-the-three-fifths-myth/ as a start. kairosfocus

Effigy, you're an idiot. See ya. Mapou

Louis: "You grow up. The Constitution does not embrace slavery. Where did you get this crap?" Maybe it was the part about slaves counting as three fifths of a person. But maybe i read that wrong. The rest of your comment isn't worth commenting on. It is just a childish rant. Indiana Effigy

You grow up. The Constitution does not embrace slavery. Where did you get this crap? I know a chicken sh!t religion when I see one and Darwinism is the worst chicken feather voodoo religion of them all. They deserve nothing but contempt. They deserve to be insulted daily. Anybody who believes that life sprung out of dirt is a religious moron. He or she should not be indoctrinating our kids with their nonsense. It is against the law. Mapou

Sorry Mapou, but I could care less about your constitution. It also embraces slavery. Not something to be proud of. And the idea of evolution being a religion is just absurd. I may not agree with it but they seem to be able to defend their position without resorting to calling us dirt worshippers. Please grow up. Indiana Effigy

Effigy, I don't care what you're glad about. The constitution says religion should not be taught in the schools because that would violate the separation of Church and State. And yet the Darwinist dirt worshippers are doing just that with impunity. They should all be locked up for violating the people's constitutional rights. There should be no dirt worshipping religion in our schools. If you believe that dirt is the mother of life, you are a religionist moron and you should be kicked out of our schools, prosecuted for fraud and jailed. Live with it. Mapou

Louis: "And yes they deserve to be thrown in jail until they recant their false religion that they have imposed on the public." Praise the Lord that you never gain power in any meaningful way. Hitler comes to mind. Indiana Effigy

Effigy:

I hope that you are not being serious. The idea of throwing people in jail for their ideas is communist and anti-Christian. If you are serious about this then you are in some pretty evil company.

Man, pack it where the sun does not shine. I am nobody's dog and I mean exactly what I say. I resent people using the threat of government force to indoctrinate my children without my consent. Especially in a supposed democracy. And yes they deserve to be thrown in jail until they recant their false religion that they have imposed on the public. Mapou

Mapou: "All Darwinists (the so-called evolutionary biologists) should be thrown in jail for perpetrating such a monumental hoax on the world and for indoctrinating our children with their blatant lies." I hope that you are not being serious. The idea of throwing people in jail for their ideas is communist and anti-Christian. If you are serious about this then you are in some pretty evil company. Indiana Effigy

Mung:

Mapou:

The only problem with this is that the combinatorial explosion kills any stochastic search mechanism dead. This includes RM+NS. Why? Because the search space increases exponentially with the number of variables.

Every time you say this I see fingers going into ears and tongues wagging LALALALALALALA.

Yeah. It completely refutes the theory at its source. Any other theory would have never seen the light of day in the face of such outrageous stupidity. And yet, Darwinism persists. Why? Because it is a religion, that's why. All Darwinists (the so-called evolutionary biologists) should be thrown in jail for perpetrating such a monumental hoax on the world and for indoctrinating our children with their blatant lies. Mapou

IE - See the below article, you might find it of interest: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/10/the_dog_delusio090751.html specter13

Kairosfocus, I understand that selection is an elimination process; one of culling, as you call it. But haven't humans produced chihuahuas and bull mastiffs using the same process in a relatively short period of time? If our only record of these two breeds was a fossil record, we would certainly identify them as being related, but do you really think that we would classify them as the same species? And chihuahuas breeding with each other will continue to produce variations. But they are unlikely to give birth to a mastiff Indiana Effigy

Mapou:

The only problem with this is that the combinatorial explosion kills any stochastic search mechanism dead. This includes RM+NS. Why? Because the search space increases exponentially with the number of variables.

Every time you say this I see fingers going into ears and tongues wagging LALALALALALALA. Mung

IE, I am focussed on where NS is held to be a factor of necessity, i.e. if not fit enough, a variety dies out in the competition. There is of course always a stochastic element in something like that, discussed in Darwin but practically the result is culling out. Further to that, the process is a culler out of varieties and so by definition is a remover of information expressed in the inferior varieties that die out. It is not a creative element, a source of bio information. That is still left to the engines of variation, up to 47 by one count. KF kairosfocus

I'm sorry, but I am still confused. Are you suggesting that natural selection is random? It would seem to me that any selection process (other than random selection) would be non random. I understand that random processes, on their own, cannot produce complexity. But it seems to me that any non random process has the possibility of creating complexity. Indiana Effigy

IE, forgive, EZ is trying to suggest that my use of blind watchmaker chance and/or necessity as summarising the driving forces evolutionary materialism has to appeal to to explain OOL and origin of body plans across the tree of life somehow leaves out "natural selection" which is often said to be non random and it is held to transform the power of chance variation. It does not and it highlights that the forces are blind, unintelligent and confronted by a massive blind search for islands of function in vast configuration spaces. What explains say finch beak variations and circumpolar gulls or the like faces a very different order of challenge accounting for origin of birds. Where of course natural selection means that in competitive environments varieties that are sufficiently inferior get culled out, die off as they do not reproduce successfully enough to keep around. KF kairosfocus

KairosFocus: "EZ, so if culling — subtraction of variation — in part driven by differential reproductive success is non random, does it not then come under not logical..." I am embarrassed to admit that I don't understand your point. Could you please make it more clear? Indiana Effigy

You assume to know what the initial replicator was like.

Show me the initial replicator. Or else shut up. mike1962

EZ, so if culling -- subtraction of variation -- in part driven by differential reproductive success is non random, does it not then come under not logical [If A then B must hold . . . ] but instead mechanical, blind . . . as in, non foresighted . . . necessity? (I leave off the random, stochastic aspects of such differential success.) KF kairosfocus

ellazimm:

You make a lot of assumptions which may or may not be true. You assume to know what the initial replicator was like. AND, more importantly, you assume that there had to be a random search algorithm to progress from the simplest replicator to the more complex ones. And if you’re wrong . . . I think you cannot be sure of those assumptions.

I don't have to be sure of any assumption since I'm not making any that I'm aware of. The truth is that a random searcher does not make any assumption either. It does not know how big the search space should be for anything. This makes it even worse because the search space might as well be infinite. New genes have to come from somewhere and if you don't know how many base pairs you need or even why you need them, the problem is much worse. But even if one assumes a starting point using the most basic replicator, it could not be much simpler than a bacterium. Decreasing the number of initial base pairs to 10,000 would not make a difference.

You seem to be arguing against a concept that no evolutionary theorist holds. That forms arose through a random search process.

So evolutionary theorists know (by some magic revelation that they the rest of us idiots are not privy to, I guess) that the initial search was not random? Where is the science in that? Where is the falsifiability? Who or what was directing the search, pray tell? And why should anybody believe evolutionary theorists? What makes them so special? I personally think they are idiots.

Conclusion: Darwinism is a cretinous religious cult for people who don’t understand simple math.

I understand the simple math and I disagree with you. And I don’t have to be rude and disrespectful of your view while I do that.

I make it a point to always be rude, contemptuous and disrespectful to all dirt worshippers because this is the way they have treated those who have disagreed with them in the past. This is the way they always treat their critics. In their view, if you are not an atheist, a Darwinist or a materialist, you are an idiot or a stupid creationist. We saw an example of that during the recent debate with that jackass/crackpot/ignoramus, Lawrence Krauss. You people need to get a taste of your own medicine. And you will get it. You are stupid as dirt. Mapou

ellazimm: I had experiences immediately before and after the period when I was sedated. But not during. How would you express that?

"I don't remember my experiences, if any, during the interval."

ellazimm: How is is that a physical stimulation (being administered a sedative) induces a period of amnesia? More than once. And it’s not just me. Most people under general anaesthesia have no memories of the time their are ‘under’.

And many do; see #28. About "no memories": future science will figure it out — does that sound familiar? :). Anyway, the main point is that we have to consider several alternative explanations to the one you offer. Origenes

ba77 #24

I don’t argue with non-persons, since all rationality is lost when a person denies he is real.

You are allowed to be prejudiced. But it doesn't make you right. KF #25

Ez, and which part of chance variation plus natural selection escapes blind chance and mechanical (material, non logical, blind force) necessity? KF

That would be selection which un-randomly singles out forms which are better able to cope with the natural environment. Origenes #27

“I have no experience” constitutes a contradiction. To be able to observe that one has no experience presupposes experience.

I had experiences immediately before and after the period when I was sedated. But not during. How would you express that?

From “no memories” one can hypothesize that a period without experience has passed. However there are other explanations; amnesia being one of them. There are other (better) explanations which I won’t address at this point.

How is is that a physical stimulation (being administered a sedative) induces a period of amnesia? More than once. And it's not just me. Most people under general anaesthesia have no memories of the time their are 'under'. Mapoo #29

The only problem with this is that the combinatorial explosion kills any stochastic search mechanism dead.

That's assuming an initial, highly complex start to life. What if the initial replicator was very simple?

This includes RM+NS. Why? Because the search space increases exponentially with the number of variables. The simplest bacterium has at least 100,000 base pairs.

Who said the initial replicator was a bacterium?

This means that the mutation search space is 2^100,000. You could have a computer the size of trillions of universes running for trillions of years at trillions of cycles per second and it would not make a dent in that search space. Now imagine the size of the search space for a complex creature like a frog or a human being.

You make a lot of assumptions which may or may not be true. You assume to know what the initial replicator was like. AND, more importantly, you assume that there had to be a random search algorithm to progress from the simplest replicator to the more complex ones. And if you're wrong . . . I think you cannot be sure of those assumptions. You seem to be arguing against a concept that no evolutionary theorist holds. That forms arose through a random search process.

Conclusion: Darwinism is a cretinous religious cult for people who don’t understand simple math.

I understand the simple math and I disagree with you. And I don't have to be rude and disrespectful of your view while I do that. ellazimm

ellazimm:

You forgot to mention millions of years of non-random selection which favoured ‘systems’ which were better able to exploit their surroundings and conditions.

The only problem with this is that the combinatorial explosion kills any stochastic search mechanism dead. This includes RM+NS. Why? Because the search space increases exponentially with the number of variables. The simplest bacterium has at least 100,000 base pairs. This means that the mutation search space is 2^100,000. You could have a computer the size of trillions of universes running for trillions of years at trillions of cycles per second and it would not make a dent in that search space. Now imagine the size of the search space for a complex creature like a frog or a human being. Conclusion: Darwinism is a cretinous religious cult for people who don't understand simple math. Mapou

F/N: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dreaming-anesthesia-idUSCOL06020420070220 kairosfocus

ellazimm: When I’m under anaesthetic I have no experiences, no memories.

"I have no experience" constitutes a contradiction. To be able to observe that one has no experience presupposes experience. From "no memories" one can hypothesize that a period without experience has passed. However there are other explanations; amnesia being one of them. There are other (better) explanations which I won't address at this point. Origenes

BA77, Welcome back. "I don’t argue with non-persons, since all rationality is lost when a person denies he is real." I don't think that you can conclude that if the mind is purely material that means that you are a non-person. Indiana Effigy

Ez, and which part of chance variation plus natural selection escapes blind chance and mechanical (material, non logical, blind force) necessity? KF kairosfocus

I don't argue with non-persons, since all rationality is lost when a person denies he is real. bornagain77

KF #20

am I speaking to an OS cobbled together by blind chance and mechanical necessity? If so, on what grounds do I have any right to expect response to reason or decision and ability to freely follow a reasoned argument and conclude per ground consequent rather than mechanically necessary cause effect with maybe some chance randomness tossed in?

You forgot to mention millions of years of non-random selection which favoured 'systems' which were better able to exploit their surroundings and conditions. In that context being analytic and able to evaluate complicated situations would be a real advantage and likely to be selected for.

I am challenging you to show us grounds for responsible rational freedom on blind chance and mechanical necessity. Absent that freedom there is no “i” there to address a reasoned argument to and all argument is futile.)

Well, since I don't see any decent evidence for consciousness existing outside of our skulls or continuing on after our deaths I'd say I've done that. KF #22

I imagine we all sleep on a regular basis. Being unconscious is not a serious problem for anyone who has dropped a cell phone and seen it then unable to process signals that are indubitably present

When I sleep I dream. When I'm under anaesthetic I have no experiences, no memories. The cell phone analogy is a good one; like it, when I'm 'turned off' I don't process information. ellazimm

EZ, BTW, I imagine we all sleep on a regular basis. Being unconscious is not a serious problem for anyone who has dropped a cell phone and seen it then unable to process signals that are indubitably present. KF kairosfocus

PS: Here is Nancy Pearcey:

A major way to test a philosophy or worldview is to ask: Is it logically consistent? Internal contradictions are fatal to any worldview because contradictory statements are necessarily false. “This circle is square” is contradictory, so it has to be false. An especially damaging form of contradiction is self-referential absurdity — which means a theory sets up a definition of truth that it itself fails to meet. Therefore it refutes itself . . . . An example of self-referential absurdity is a theory called evolutionary epistemology, a naturalistic approach that applies evolution to the process of knowing. The theory proposes that the human mind is a product of natural selection. The implication is that the ideas in our minds were selected for their survival value, not for their truth-value. But what if we apply that theory to itself? Then it, too, was selected for survival, not truth — which discredits its own claim to truth. Evolutionary epistemology commits suicide. Astonishingly, many prominent thinkers have embraced the theory without detecting the logical contradiction. Philosopher John Gray writes, “If Darwin’s theory of natural selection is true,… the human mind serves evolutionary success, not truth.” What is the contradiction in that statement? Gray has essentially said, if Darwin’s theory is true, then it “serves evolutionary success, not truth.” In other words, if Darwin’s theory is true, then it is not true. Self-referential absurdity is akin to the well-known liar’s paradox: “This statement is a lie.” If the statement is true, then (as it says) it is not true, but a lie. Another example comes from Francis Crick. In The Astonishing Hypothesis, he writes, “Our highly developed brains, after all, were not evolved under the pressure of discovering scientific truths but only to enable us to be clever enough to survive.” But that means Crick’s own theory is not a “scientific truth.” Applied to itself, the theory commits suicide. Of course, the sheer pressure to survive is likely to produce some correct ideas. A zebra that thinks lions are friendly will not live long. But false ideas may be useful for survival. Evolutionists admit as much: Eric Baum says, “Sometimes you are more likely to survive and propagate if you believe a falsehood than if you believe the truth.” Steven Pinker writes, “Our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes the truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not.” The upshot is that survival is no guarantee of truth. If survival is the only standard, we can never know which ideas are true and which are adaptive but false. To make the dilemma even more puzzling, evolutionists tell us that natural selection has produced all sorts of false concepts in the human mind. Many evolutionary materialists maintain that free will is an illusion, consciousness is an illusion, even our sense of self is an illusion — and that all these false ideas were selected for their survival value.

[--> that is, responsible, rational freedom is undermined. Cf here William Provine in his 1998 U Tenn Darwin Day keynote:

Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent . . . . The first 4 implications are so obvious to modern naturalistic evolutionists that I will spend little time defending them. Human free will, however, is another matter. Even evolutionists have trouble swallowing that implication. I will argue that humans are locally determined systems that make choices. They have, however, no free will [--> without responsible freedom, mind, reason and morality alike disintegrate into grand delusion, hence self-referential incoherence and self-refutation. But that does not make such fallacies any less effective in the hands of clever manipulators] . . . [1998 Darwin Day Keynote Address, U of Tenn -- and yes, that is significant i/l/o the Scopes Trial, 1925]

So how can we know whether the theory of evolution itself is one of those false ideas? The theory undercuts itself. A few thinkers, to their credit, recognize the problem. Literary critic Leon Wieseltier writes, “If reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? … Evolutionary biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it.” On a similar note, philosopher Thomas Nagel asks, “Is the [evolutionary] hypothesis really compatible with the continued confidence in reason as a source of knowledge?” His answer is no: “I have to be able to believe … that I follow the rules of logic because they are correct — not merely because I am biologically programmed to do so.” Hence, “insofar as the evolutionary hypothesis itself depends on reason, it would be self-undermining.” [ENV excerpt, Finding Truth (David C. Cook, 2015) by Nancy Pearcey.]

kairosfocus

Ez, and, pray tell, am I speaking to an OS cobbled together by blind chance and mechanical necessity? If so, on what grounds do I have any right to expect response to reason or decision and ability to freely follow a reasoned argument and conclude per ground consequent rather than mechanically necessary cause effect with maybe some chance randomness tossed in? (And I do not need to address out of body or out of skull experiences to ask this. Nor am I speaking of what you -- reading between patent lines -- label and dismiss as "religious" texts. I am challenging you to show us grounds for responsible rational freedom on blind chance and mechanical necessity. Absent that freedom there is no "i" there to address a reasoned argument to and all argument is futile.) KF kairosfocus

KF #16

If we, by contrast, are merely programmed machines we would inevitably be unable to rise above programming, mechanical necessity and/or blind chance.

I respectfully disagree. I find there to be no credible evidence of consciousness existing outside of our skulls. When I see persuasive evidence I'll change my mind. (When I was younger I DID believe in life after death, ESP, etc but when I examined the data I found it lacking.) We don't need to argue about it as I doubt either of us will change our minds. ba77 #17

And just whom might this fictitious “I” be to whom you refer to in your sentence? “that “You”, 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. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.”

You find that opinion astonishing, I don't. Have you ever been under a general anaesthetic? I have, twice. While I was 'out' I experienced nothing, felt nothing, no memories whatsoever. I was there then a very brief bit of black and then I was back again but it was several hours later. It was like the intervening time was just snipped out of my experience. I can't imagine how that could happen if there was a part of me that existed outside of my head. Why would I have no record of anything during the time I was 'out' if part of my being was independent of my body? I have heard no credible examples of past life regressions. I have heard no credible examples of out of body experiences. I don't find religious texts to be dependable sources of historical facts. In short I don't believe there is a good reason to believe any part of 'us' lives outside of our brains. As I said to KF, there's no good reason we should discuss it further as we are highly unlikely to change our minds. ellazimm

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” — Carl Sagan “Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.” — Carl Sagan

Zachriel

as to: "If that’s what it meant then "I" disagree." And just whom might this fictitious "I" be to whom you refer to in your sentence? "that “You”, 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. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.” Francis Crick - "The Astonishing Hypothesis" 1994 Atheistic Materialism – Does Richard Dawkins Exist? – video Quote: "It turns out that if every part of you, down to sub-atomic parts, are still what they were when they weren't in you, in other words every ion,,, every single atom that was in the universe,, that has now become part of your living body, is still what is was originally. It hasn't undergone what metaphysicians call a 'substantial change'. So you aren't Richard Dawkins. You are just carbon and neon and sulfur and oxygen and all these individual atoms still. You can spout a philosophy that says scientific materialism, but there aren't any scientific materialists to pronounce it.,,, That's why I think they find it kind of embarrassing to talk that way. Nobody wants to stand up there and say, "You know, I'm not really here". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVCnzq2yTCg&t=37m51s “We have so much confidence in our materialist assumptions (which are assumptions, not facts) that something like free will is denied in principle. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but I don’t really know that. Either way, it doesn’t matter because if free will and consciousness are just an illusion, they are the most seamless illusions ever created. Film maker James Cameron wishes he had special effects that good.” Matthew D. Lieberman – neuroscientist – materialist – UCLA professor And in the following article Dawkins admits that it is impossible to live as if his atheistic worldview were true Who wrote Richard Dawkins's new book? - October 28, 2006 Excerpt: Dawkins: What I do know is that what it feels like to me, and I think to all of us, we don't feel determined. We feel like blaming people for what they do or giving people the credit for what they do. We feel like admiring people for what they do.,,, Manzari: But do you personally see that as an inconsistency in your views? Dawkins: I sort of do. Yes. But it is an inconsistency that we sort of have to live with otherwise life would be intolerable.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/10/who_wrote_richard_dawkinss_new002783.html Faith and Science - Dr. Raymond Bohlin - video - (2015) (48:46 minute mark) https://youtu.be/vTIp1kgSqzU?t=2552 At the 23:33 minute mark of the following video, Richard Dawkins agrees with materialistic philosophers who say that: "consciousness is an illusion" A few minutes later Rowan Williams asks Dawkins ”If consciousness is an illusion…what isn’t?”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWN4cfh1Fac&t=22m57s The Dawkins Delusion - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QERyh9YYEis Sam Harris's Free Will: The Medial Pre-Frontal Cortex Did It - Martin Cothran - November 9, 2012 Excerpt: There is something ironic about the position of thinkers like Harris on issues like this: they claim that their position is the result of the irresistible necessity of logic (in fact, they pride themselves on their logic). Their belief is the consequent, in a ground/consequent relation between their evidence and their conclusion. But their very stated position is that any mental state -- including their position on this issue -- is the effect of a physical, not logical cause. By their own logic, it isn't logic that demands their assent to the claim that free will is an illusion, but the prior chemical state of their brains. The only condition under which we could possibly find their argument convincing is if they are not true. The claim that free will is an illusion requires the possibility that minds have the freedom to assent to a logical argument, a freedom denied by the claim itself. It is an assent that must, in order to remain logical and not physiological, presume a perspective outside the physical order. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/sam_harriss_fre066221.html (1) rationality implies a thinker in control of thoughts. (2) under materialism a thinker is an effect caused by processes in the brain. (3) in order for materialism to ground rationality a thinker (an effect) must control processes in the brain (a cause). (1)&(2) (4) no effect can control its cause. Therefore materialism cannot ground rationality. per Box UD bornagain77

EZ, I pause while monitoring a minister's presentation on edu and health etc. Wow, she is pleading with passion just now, DFID is getting an implied lash or two! I think she lost it under provocation and spoke very frankly for a few minutes of truth. Because there is a fundamental issue lurking, I wish to raise a thought or two. It is generally accepted that matter [atoms and the like also energy, distributed in space-time] is governed by laws of chance and/or mechanical necessity. Such are inevitably non-rational matters of cause and effect. Step by step digital algorithm effecting machines and analogue computers alike are not exceptions. Cause-effect bonds of force and mechanical necessity or chance or mixes are inherently non-rational, blind matters of configuration and energy flows. For instance, a ball and disk integrator, an op amp integrator, a NAND logic gate using switches in series, a NOR logic gate using switches in a parallel connexion, the addition of digital feedback through cross-coupled gates to yield an RS latch (the core of storage registers) and so forth. Likewise, feedback loops used for control systems or oscillators. Neural networks, in this context, are coupled amplifier chains with variable links . . . in biosystems, basically pulse repetition rate entities with a fractional change, log response characteristic more or less as the Weber Fechner law speaks of. These machines act by blind forces not by responsible, rational freedom. If we, by contrast, are merely programmed machines we would inevitably be unable to rise above programming, mechanical necessity and/or blind chance. I only point to the issue of imagined materialistic evolutionary origin by cumulative chance and necessity and its inevitable end in self falsification by self referential incoherence: http://iose-gen.blogspot.com/2010/06/origin-of-mind-man-morals-etc.html#slf_ref I emphasise that by contrast, that to reason, understand and know we must be responsibly, rationally free. I point to the Smith Model for an approach to bio cybernetic systems that by way of a two tier controller are open: http://iose-gen.blogspot.com/2010/06/origin-of-mind-man-morals-etc.html#smth_mod Which means that just to be able to discuss like this points beyond evolutionary materialism and its cramped account of mind. KF kairosfocus

ba77 #7

It is Godel was pointing out that if the human mind were merely material then mathematical intuition would be impossible for humans.

If that's what it meant then I disagree. ellazimm

I note that in base 101 there infinite primes ending in any of the 101 digits except zero, of which there is exactly one prime that so ends. Roy

EZ, It being budget season here I am busy, but I note past 2 [= 10] the primes in binary all end in 1 [start at 11 then 101]. That is, our digit issues are in part tied to the accidents of our use of decimal numbers. I suppose sexagesimals are truly dead, a pity as the number of things that evenly go into 60 is extraordinary. The randomness of primes is in part linked to that. But the runs of 6 are of course interesting as opposed to the runs of 2. 5 + 6 --> 11 + 6 --> 17 + 6 --> 23 +6 --> 29 [then 35 breaks the string] for instance. KF PS: First 1,000 primes: https://primes.utm.edu/lists/small/1000.txt kairosfocus

BA77, thanks, but WP strikes again and it will not embed -- nope going text fails. I give the link to your page in my long running thread on infinite past etc. KF kairosfocus

kf: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q8uAEdSy9V2tL9JTHuGzBvbQT0tXRuNdaVI1JPjIcZ4/edit?usp=sharing bornagain77

BA77, can you toss the embed code for that Cantor vid my way? KF kairosfocus

It is hard to imagine a more convincing proof that we are made 'in the image of God', than finding that both the universe and life itself are 'information theoretic' in their foundational basis, and that we, of all the creatures on earth, uniquely possess an ability to understand and create information. I guess a more convincing evidence could be if God Himself became a man, defeated death on a cross, and then rose from the dead to prove that He was God. But who has ever heard of such overwhelming evidence as that? Turin Shroud Quantum Hologram Reveals The Words 'The Lamb' on a Solid Oval Object Under The Beard - video http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=J21MECNU Verses and Music: Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and that life was the Light of men. Casting Crowns - The Word Is Alive https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9itgOBAxSc bornagain77

A few related notes: Geometric Principles Appear Universal in Our Minds - May 2011 Excerpt: Villagers belonging to an Amazonian group called the Mundurucú intuitively grasp abstract geometric principles despite having no formal math education,,, Mundurucú adults and 7- to 13-year-olds demonstrate as firm an understanding of the properties of points, lines and surfaces as adults and school-age children in the United States and France,,, http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/05/universal-geometry/ “Geometry is unique and eternal, a reflection from the mind of God. That mankind shares in it is because man is an image of God.” – Johannes Kepler "Nothing in evolution can account for the soul of man. The difference between man and the other animals is unbridgeable. Mathematics is alone sufficient to prove in man the possession of a faculty unexistent in other creatures. Then you have music and the artistic faculty. No, the soul was a separate creation." Alfred Russel Wallace - An interview by Harold Begbie printed on page four of The Daily Chronicle (London) issues of 3 November and 4 November 1910. Leading Evolutionary Scientists Admit We Have No Evolutionary Explanation of Human Language - December 19, 2014 Excerpt: Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,, (Marc Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin, "The mystery of language evolution," Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 5:401 (May 7, 2014).) Luskin comments: “It's difficult to imagine much stronger words from a more prestigious collection of experts.” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/leading_evoluti092141.html An Interview with David Berlinski - Jonathan Witt Berlinski: There is no argument against religion that is not also an argument against mathematics. Mathematicians are capable of grasping a world of objects that lies beyond space and time …. Interviewer:… Come again(?) … Berlinski: No need to come again: I got to where I was going the first time. The number four, after all, did not come into existence at a particular time, and it is not going to go out of existence at another time. It is neither here nor there. Nonetheless we are in some sense able to grasp the number by a faculty of our minds. Mathematical intuition is utterly mysterious. So for that matter is the fact that mathematical objects such as a Lie Group or a differentiable manifold have the power to interact with elementary particles or accelerating forces. But these are precisely the claims that theologians have always made as well – that human beings are capable by an exercise of their devotional abilities to come to some understanding of the deity; and the deity, although beyond space and time, is capable of interacting with material objects. http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/found-upon-web-and-reprinted-here.html Recognising Top-Down Causation George Ellis, University of Cape Town Excerpt: page 5: A: Causal Efficacy of Non Physical entities: Both the program and the data are non-physical entities, indeed so is all software. A program is not a physical thing you can point to, but by Definition 2 it certainly exists. You can point to a CD or flashdrive where it is stored, but that is not the thing in itself: it is a medium in which it is stored. The program itself is an abstract entity, shaped by abstract logic. Is the software “nothing but” its realisation through a specific set of stored electronic states in the computer memory banks? No it is not because it is the precise pattern in those states that matters: a higher level relation that is not apparent at the scale of the electrons themselves. It’s a relational thing (and if you get the relations between the symbols wrong, so you have a syntax error, it will all come to a grinding halt). This abstract nature of software is realised in the concept of virtual machines, which occur at every level in the computer hierarchy except the bottom one [17]. But this tower of virtual machines causes physical effects in the real world, for example when a computer controls a robot in an assembly line to create physical artefacts. Excerpt page 7: The assumption that causation is bottom up only is wrong in biology, in computers, and even in many cases in physics, for example state vector preparation, where top-down constraints allow non-unitary behaviour at the lower levels. It may well play a key role in the quantum measurement problem (the dual of state vector preparation) [5]. One can bear in mind here that wherever equivalence classes of entities play a key role, such as in Crutchfield’s computational mechanics [29], this is an indication that top-down causation is at play. http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Ellis_FQXI_Essay_Ellis_2012.pdf Moreover, 'Brain Plasticity', the ability to alter the structure of the brain from a person's focused intention, has now been established by Jeffrey Schwartz, as well as among other researchers. The Case for the Soul - InspiringPhilosophy video - (4:03 minute mark, Brain Plasticity including Schwartz's work) - Oct. 2014 - video The Mind is able to modify the brain (brain plasticity). Moreover, Idealism explains all anomalous evidence of personality changes due to brain injury, whereas physicalism cannot explain mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBsI_ay8K70 Moreover, completely contrary to materialistic thought, mind has been now also been shown to be able to reach all the way down and have pronounced effects on the gene expression of our bodies: Scientists Finally Show How Your Thoughts Can Cause Specific Molecular Changes To Your Genes, - December 10, 2013 Excerpt: “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that shows rapid alterations in gene expression within subjects associated with mindfulness meditation practice,” says study author Richard J. Davidson, founder of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds and the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Most interestingly, the changes were observed in genes that are the current targets of anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs,” says Perla Kaliman, first author of the article and a researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona, Spain (IIBB-CSIC-IDIBAPS), where the molecular analyses were conducted.,,, the researchers say, there was no difference in the tested genes between the two groups of people at the start of the study. The observed effects were seen only in the meditators following mindfulness practice. In addition, several other DNA-modifying genes showed no differences between groups, suggesting that the mindfulness practice specifically affected certain regulatory pathways. http://www.tunedbody.com/scientists-finally-show-thoughts-can-cause-specific-molecular-changes-genes/ More interesting still, the three Rs, reading, writing, and arithmetic, i.e. the unique ability to process information inherent to man, is the very first things to be taught to children when they enter elementary school. And yet it is this information processing, i.e. reading, writing, and arithmetic that is found to be foundational to life: Information Enigma (Where did the information come from?) - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA-FcnLsF1g Complex grammar of the genomic language – November 9, 2015 Excerpt: The ‘grammar’ of the human genetic code is more complex than that of even the most intricately constructed spoken languages in the world. The findings explain why the human genome is so difficult to decipher –,,, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151109140252.htm As well, as if that was not 'spooky enough', information, not material, is found to be foundational to physical reality: "it from bit” Every “it”— every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely—even if in some contexts indirectly—from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits. “It from bit” symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has a bottom—a very deep bottom, in most instances, an immaterial source and explanation, that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment—evoked responses, in short all matter and all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe." – Princeton University physicist John Wheeler (1911–2008) (Wheeler, John A. (1990), “Information, physics, quantum: The search for links”, in W. Zurek, Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information (Redwood City, California: Addison-Wesley)) bornagain77

You misunderstand the quote. It is not that Godel expected humans to understand all of the many and varied nuances of mathematics. It is Godel was pointing out that if the human mind were merely material then mathematical intuition would be impossible for humans. Yet mathematical intuition is innate to humans. Thus the human mind must be immaterial. You can see a more in depth look at Godel's thinking towards the end of this video: Cantor, Gödel, & Turing: Incompleteness of Mathematics - video (excerpted from BBC's 'Dangerous Knowledge' documentary) https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/vb.100000088262100/1119397401406525/?type=2&theater bornagain77

ba77 Re: Godel quote I vote for mathematics being too big for the human mind. Many people feel that Poincare was the last mathematician who could work in all the sub-fields. Mapou The distribution of the prime numbers has nothing to do with evolutionary theory. ellazimm

Darwinists are in luck. They have been looking for a "subtle randomness" to explain how random mutations can give rise to the amazing complexity of living organisms without getting bogged down by the combinatorial explosion. Mapou

of related note: Is Integer Arithmetic Fundamental to Mental Processing?: The mind's secret arithmetic Excerpt: Because normal children struggle to learn multiplication and division, it is surprising that some savants perform integer arithmetic calculations mentally at "lightning" speeds (Treffert 1989, Myers 1903, Hill 1978, Smith 1983, Sacks 1985, Hermelin and O'Connor 1990, Welling 1994, Sullivan 1992). They do so unconsciously, without any apparent training, typically without being able to report on their methods, and often at an age when the normal child is struggling with elementary arithmetic concepts (O'Connor 1989). Examples include multiplying, factoring, dividing and identifying primes of six (and more) digits in a matter of seconds as well as specifying the number of objects (more than one hundred) at a glance. For example, one savant (Hill 1978) could give the cube root of a six figure number in 5 seconds and he could double 8,388,628 twenty four times to obtain 140,737,488,355,328 in several seconds. Joseph (Sullivan 1992), the inspiration for the film "Rain Man" about an autistic savant, could spontaneously answer "what number times what number gives 1234567890" by stating "9 times 137,174,210". Sacks (1985) observed autistic twins who could exchange prime numbers in excess of eight figures, possibly even 20 figures, and who could "see" the number of many objects at a glance. When a box of 111 matches fell to the floor the twins cried out 111 and 37, 37, 37. http://www.centreforthemind.com/publications/integerarithmetic.cfm "Either mathematics is too big for the human mind, or the human mind is more than a machine." Kurt Gödel As quoted in Topoi : The Categorial Analysis of Logic (1979) by Robert Goldblatt, p. 13 bornagain77

I'm not sure I would have described the distribution of the final digits of prime numbers as being 'random'. After the first and third prime (2 and 5) there are only four possible final digits: 1, 3, 7 and 9. And there are a lot of 'prime pairs' (prime numbers who only differ by 2) which, I would think, would make it harder for a prime ending in '1' to be followed by a prime ending in '9'. Still, an interesting result. Number theory is fascinating. Lots of cool results. ellazimm

The randomness of the LORD is subtle. Mung

Terence Tao discusses the paper here. In the comments, John Baez asks the obvious question: Why wasn't this discovered earlier, to which Tao replies:

There were at least two papers in experimental number theory that noticed some manifestation of the Lemke Oliver-Soundararajan bias on a qualitative level: a 2011 paper of Ash, Beltis, Gross, and Sinott, and a 2002 paper of Ko. But I think the difficult task was to separate this bias from previously known biases in the distribution of the primes, such as the Chebyshev bias discussed in the blog post, or biases arising from the prime tuples conjecture (which, for instance, predicts that a prime gap of 6 is twice as likely to occur as a prime gap of 2). To realise that this particular bias is significantly stronger than what can be easily explained from these previously identified biases seems to require a certain amount of theoretical mathematical training.

daveS