Darwin’s Doubt author Steve Meyer on methodological naturalism (materialism)

_{Denyse O'Leary

October 31, 2013

Intelligent Design, News, Philosophy, Science}

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… with an aside from physicist Rob Sheldon.

Further to materialism guarantees impasse, Meyer writes,

As science advanced in the late nineteenth century, it increasingly excluded appeals to divine action or divine ideas as a way of explaining phenomena in the natural world. This practice came to be codified in a principle known as methodological naturalism. According to this principle, scientsits should accept as a working assumption that all features of the natural world can be explained by material causes without recourse to purposive intelligence, mind, or conscious agency.

Proponents of methodological naturalism argue that science has been so successful precisely because it has assiduously avoided invoking creative intelligence and, instead, searched out strictly material causes for previously mysterious features of the natural world. In the 1840s, the French philosopher August Comte argued that science progresses through three [20] distinct phases. In its theological phase, it invokes the mysterious action of the gods to explain natural phenomena, whether thunderbolts or the spread of disease. In a second, more advanced, metaphysical stage, scientific explanations refer to abstract concepts like Plato’s forms or Aristotle’s final causes. Comte taught that science only reaches maturity when it casts aside such abstractions and explains natural phenomena by reference to natural laws or strictly material causes or processes. Only in this third and final stage, he argued, can science achieve “positive” knowledge. – Darwin’s Doubt, pp. 20–21.

It’s not clear to a modern observer that Comte’s first phase is science at all. If the only thing to be said about disease is that the gods send it, that doesn’t leave much of a field for research. And indeed, people who believe that do not do any research; they, wisely from their perspective, put their energies into placating the gods.

Rob Sheldon made the point here recently that

Methodological naturalism works great on superstition and animism. It evolved as a response to the inborn nature of humans to “wear the lucky blue sock”.

Yes, the instinct to try to manipulate reality instead of studying it.

Now, it’s not clear that Plato or Aristotle were doing science either. They were trying to determine the framework of reality in which science could be done—a prior project, it seems to me. Thus, Aristotle may be regarded as a founder of science, but not, strictly speaking, a scientist (whether we are fans of MN or not).

When we come to the third phase, material causes, Sheldon adds, re MN,

… it prevents the doing of good science, as you point out, because it cannot question its own presuppositions. Therefore it is a “vestige” of formerly useful organs, a “living fossil” of what is no longer viable.

The presupposition that mind, whatever it is, can be reduced to matter is a good example. Crackpot theory reigns.

Fair enough, the truly cracked pots are regularly discarded in favour of pots with only a few deepening fissures, and if that is what we mean by progress, well, researchers can go on making that sort of progress indefinitely. No reasonable person envies their position: The simple fact that information (the substance of the mind) is not material, and cannot be dealt with as if it were. That fact cannot by definition be allowed to penetrate the fog. Here’s a thought from evolutionary biologist G. C. Williams that sums up a part of the problem:

“Information doesn’t have mass or charge or length in millimeters. Likewise, matter doesn’t have bytes. You can’t measure so much gold in so many bytes. It doesn’t have redundancy, or fidelity, or any of the other descriptors we apply to information. This dearth of shared descriptors makes matter and information two separate domains of existence, which have to be discussed separately, in their own terms.” – G. C. Williams, quoted in By Design or by Chance?, p. 234.

Bound to be ignored.

A compensating factor is that it is easier to write about the resulting nonsense, which hardly repays study, than it would be to write about serious gains in understanding, which stretch the mind. Still, around here, we’d all prefer the latter anyway. – O’Leary for News

Comments

@gpuccio #27
Anything that is empirically observable must be taken into account by science. Science is about reality.
In due time, yes. Magnetism was known as a phenomenon for thousands of years, and only in 18-19th its laws became a part of natural science. Similarly, consciousness has been recognized for thousands of years, but so far no one knows how to make something out of it in natural science. As far as present science is concerned, it has no causal effects on anything. While you may feel it does cause you to draw a picture, a robot can be programmed to draw identical picture, and with robot all that it does can be explained via matter-matter interactions. There is nothing in the present science that suggests that anything beyond such matter-matter interaction is needed for you to draw your version of the picture either. You are welcome to show any science demonstrating that "consciousness" does or cause anything at all. Your or mine inner experience is not a natural science, even though it may feel it is real. You can write poetry or philosophize about it, but that doesn't make it a scientific result or fact. After all, different people feel inside all kinds of things. If present science doesn't have any causal role for consciousness, then it is absurd to hinge a scientific hypothesis such as ID onto consciousness. If according to present natural science the 'consciousness' has no causal power to do anything at all, then it surely cannot design and build a molecule either, as DI's version ID asserts. Hence, DI's version of ID is not a scientific hypothesis but a philosophical position. If you do believe that 'consciousness' has causal power in the present natural science, bring the science in -- which natural science and how does 'consciousness' do it? Does it override physical laws? What exactly can it do to a molecule? How does it interact with it? Does it change what molecule would have done without the intervention by this conjectured C quantity?... Bring in a scientific paper that demonstrates how it does any of that. All am saying is that there is no such scientific finding. You seem to believe there is such finding. Well, then where is it? Don't keep it secret.
A simple experiment? You just visualize a form, and then design it on a sheet of paper. Can you deny that your visualization is at the origin of the sequence of "interactions of matter with matter" which gives, as a final result, your drawing? Why shouldn't science be interested in that simple empirical fact?
Since a robot can be programmed to draw similar drawings, and that activity can be explained purely as matter-matter interaction, without invocation of "inner experience" as causal factor, how can science establish that this is not how your drawing came about too, but that something extra, beyond matter-matter interaction was needed to cause particular motions of your muscles. Just because you say how you felt before drawing means scientifically nothing since a robot can be programmed to say the same thing. You can't seem to grasp that just because you feel something, that doesn't make it into an element of natural science. The natural sciences have three basic functional components: 1) Model space M -- formal, algorithmic elements which generate scientific statements (formulas, rules, logic,...) in a reproducible manner (a scientist skilled in that discipline should be able to follow algorithmic steps and reproduce the conclusions or predictions). 2) Empirical space E -- set of empirical facts with algorithms (procedures and instruments) providing for reproducible extraction of the empirical facts from the interactions with the objects of that discipline. 3) Operational procedures OP -- rules providing mapping between elements of M (such as predictions) and elements of E (facts). These rules allow comparison between scientific statements (e.g. predictions, retro-dictions, etc) produced by the statement generating algorithms of M with empirical facts obtained via procedures of E. As noted, all this has to be reproducible i.e. any skilled practitioner of the discipline should be able to follow all steps you claim and verify the match or mismatch between elements of M and E claimed. Informally, one can describe the above partition as natural science being system for creating algorithmic models in M of reality in E, then using mapping OP to compare the behavior of the 'toy' model as it runs in the model space M with real world E. With consciousness, there is no science that has some C element (consciousness) in its model space M that figures in any algorithm or formula within M. Yes, some disciplines use the C-word (e.g. anesthesiology, psychiatry, psychology), but only as convenient shorthand for certain kinds of behaviors or responses to stimuli. It is not an entity or quantity that algorithmically does anything in M, other than serve as a short label for more detailed descriptions in terms of matter-matter interactions. If one were to replace C-word with any other word via some new labeling convention, no prediction or scientific statement of that science would change beyond the labeling convention. Similarly, there is no empirical procedure in E that can measure this hypothetical C quantity (consciousness), no instrument that yields a pointer value as C=25 or some such. Again, in some disciplines C-word is used in E as a shorthand for certain kind of brain waves or their absence, but again it's only a shorthand label standing in for more detailed descriptions in terms of matter-matter interactions (e.g. measurements of electric activity of brain, or fMRI images). Without an algorithmically effective C element in M and without empirically reproducible or measurable C element in E, there is nothing for OP component to map between. All that can be stated concisely as: there is no 'consciousness' as element of present natural science. The C-word is used in some disciplines merely as a shorthand or label for more detailed descriptions in terms of matter-energy elements of M and E. My argument here is not that consciousness doesn't exist or that is meaningless, but merely that the present, imperfect as it may be, natural science doesn't know what it does or how it does it, or even whether it does anything at all,or why is it there if it is at all. Consequently, it is ridiculous to introduce a scientific hypothesis of "intelligent design' in which entity causing design is something that present science has no counterpart for that does or can causes anything at all. With that kind of needlessly overburdened ID hypothesis, one is going against multiple problems all at once: 1) provide suitable algorithmically effective C element of M (a variable or quantity or formula that algorithmically does something i.e. affects some other variables in M), 2) provide suitable procedures and instruments for E so that quantity C can be empirically quantified, 3) provide mapping in OP so that statements or figures generated by M from its C element can be compared to C-related figures measured in E. 4) Only after you establish that there exists a scientifically based C element (via solution to problems 1-3) that can causally affect other elements of M & E at all, then you can proceed to formulate special case of such action of C, the design and construction of proteins, which again needs to have all of it own 3 phases covered. The point I am trying to make is that reformulating ID hypothesis so that actions of C element are expressed in terms of 'computational process' (which is always possible since any finite number of steps can be computed), then you don't have a needless burden of solving problems 1-3. Namely, the natural science already has algorithmically effective, empirically verifiable elements for 'computational processes' in M and E spaces, which can design and build something (such as molecules). Hence one doesn't need to fight those battles (1)-(3) before formulating the ID hypothesis (4) as --- the origin and evolution of life are results of a 'computational process' which is far more sophisticated than the primitive neo-Darwinian random trial and error algorithm. With that kind of ID hypothesis, science can move right on to finding and then reverse engineering that more sophisticated computational process.
I don't think that I, or most ID supporters, or even most reasonable people, can really desire to "gain a status" in "natural science" as you define it.
Well, if you want to teach ID in science classes, than it's got fit into natural science the way it is now (lacking the causally effective consciousness element). If you don't mind waiting another hundred or thousand years until the problem of consciousness is finally solved and it becomes part of natural science, then you can stick with DI's formulation of ID hypothesis. In the meantime James Shapiro and researchers at Santa Fe Institute for Complexity Science will have 'computational process' variant of ID well established, and neo-Darwinians will start morphing their phrasing gradually, finally embrace it claiming that's what they really meant all along (e.g. as they did with 'punctured equilibria' or directed mutations), and Darwin rules again.
You completely misunderstand the issue. Consciousness is directly observable, and therefore is a fact. There is no need to know "the nature" of a fact to take it into consideration. There was never any need to understand "the nature" of matter, or energy, or charge, or spin, or space, or time, to understand that those things must be included in our scientific map of reality.
Scientists of course understand the need to scientifically explain consciousness (which presumably others besides me can experience as well). They just don't know how to do that yet. But there are vast quantities of speculations on that subject. The same need for explanation existed with respect to other natural phenomena you mention. But before they became part of natural sciences (with algorithmically effective element in all 3 functional components) one couldn't just make up claims about them causing this or that as DI's ID makes claims about consciousness designing and building molecules. Present natural science has no clue whether consciousness can cause anything in the realm of matter-energy, let alone that it can do something as specific as come up with and make proteins. You may feel personally that it can do and it did exactly that, but all kinds of people feel all kinds of things, and so what. Someone's feel doesn't amount to a scientific theory that you can teach in the class.
It is an empirical fact for all human beings.
That's an expression of your personal faith not a scientific fact. There is presently no way for you or anyone to demonstrate such claim. The most you can demonstrate are sounds of words spoken or images of words written in response to some question about it. But computers or robots can be programmed to produce the same sounds and the same images, too. Mere registration of such sounds and images doesn't tell you anything about "what it is like" to produce them i.e. about the existence of the presumed inner experience accompanying those responses. So how exactly do you do demonstrate it as a scientific fact, not as statement of your personal faith?
Science is about reality. But it seems that you are not interested in reality, but only in social consensus.
Science is about reality that can be demonstrated, not what you or some random person on the street feels to be reality. As explained above, there is presently no way to empirically demonstrate 'consciousness' (the inner experience). Until someone figures out how to do that, it remains at the level of personal feels or faith, not as a part of natural science.
Let's take a protein which has a biological function (an enzyme that accelerates a biochemical reaction). Let's say that such a protein appears for the first time at some point in natural history, which is certainly true for a lot of basic protein domains, and that it has no homologies with any other basic protein domain that existed before. And the biochemical function of the protein is completely new... Now, that is a clear case of appearance of new dFSCI. And that is certainly true for hundreds, probably thousands of basic protein domains.
How exactly do you know that computational capacity of the underlying matter-energy hardware (of which present science knows perhaps only a few low hanging fruits) is insufficient for generating all that universe does, fine tuning, life, evolution....? How do you know that the underlying algorithms of the universe need help and occasional intervention of some conjectured "consciousness" to generate what universe is actually doing? No one knows answers to any of that. You are making groundless claims about imagined need for some 'conscious agency' to explain origin of life and design of functional proteins, since allegedly the algorithms running the universe (of which we perhaps have only few vague clues in our present natural science) are insufficient for the job. But there is nothing anyone has shown or knows that can back such claims of insufficiency. Someone else may as well imagine that 'consciousness' isn't enough either, but that you also need tower of gigantic turtles to really cover all bases.
IOWs, any algorithmic attempt at engineering a wholly new functional enzyme is certainly much more complex than the enzyme itself. Even if intelligently designed.
You are confusing humanly constructed algorithms with those that run universe. The latter can be unimaginably more powerful, since available hardware has cogs at least down to Planck scale to work with. As explained in earlier post, working with Planck scale cogs (organized as neural network as some pregeometric models of assume it to be), the computational capacity of the available hardware is 10^80 times greater than any computer we could ever build in the same volume of space with our elementary particles (electrons, quarks) as its working cogs (and our current computing elements are billions of times larger and slower than even that scale of elementary-particle technology). Even the algorithms computed by the cellular biochemical networks (which are distributed self-programming computers, like networks of neurons making up a brain) are computationally far more powerful in the domain of molecular scale bio-engineering than all of our science and technology put together. For example, cellular networks can design and build new live cells from scratch (from simple molecules). Our present science can't even design and build one live organelle, let alone whole live cell, from simple molecules and without any help from the cellular biochemical networks, the real masters of that domain.
Durston, as already said, has computed the functional complexity for more than 30 protein families.
He could have only computed some arbitrary upper bound on the algorithmic complexity of those proteins, as measured by the generating algorithms he was able to think up. That doesn't mean those algorithms are the simplest (shortest) ones possible i.e. he didn't find what is the real algorithmic complexity of those molecules. He also didn't demonstrate that underlying hardware running the universe (such as that computing the unfolding of physical laws) falls short of the complexity of the shortest/simplest generating algorithm (which no one knows either). So the whole exercise amounts at best to showing that neo-Darwinian random trial and error algorithm is inadequate. But it has no implication for the vastly more powerful algorithms and computing hardware that run the universe (those that compute and execute all that is happening at our physical level, at all times and all places). No one knows what those are and no one knows what the real simplest algorithms for the origin of life and design of new functional proteins may be. Hence, no one knows how the two, the available underlying computing capacity of the universe and the difficulty of those tasks, compare to each other. Therefore, it is groundless to claim on the basis of such calculations the impossibility of such computation by the underlying hardware of the universe. It is even more far fetched speculation to then invoke some deus ex machina (conscious or any other kind), to help the universe along at the imagined impossibly difficult stretches along the path. To make any impossibility claims, you need to know both ends here: a) the true algorithmic complexity of the life or proteins that make it go (which means the shortest possible algorithm that can generate them, not just some algorithm that someone has thought up), and b) the real computing and algorithmic capacity of the hardware running the universe. Once you can quantify both, (a) and (b), you need to compare the two numbers obtained to see whether (a) exceeds (b). If it does, you have the impossibility case, and need to look beyond. But since no one knows even remotely how to quantify either (a) or (b), any impossibility claims are statements of personal faith, not facts of natural science.
And my science, natural or not, is very interested in how a new complex basic protein domain appears on a planet where nothing can compute it.
How do you know that "nothing can compute it"? If the Planck scale physics is organized as adaptable network, as some pregeometry models in physics hypothesize, then there is unimaginably powerful computational process computing among others what we presently call laws of physics, at all places and in every moment. From that perspective, what we call our elementary particles, may be like those gliders in Conway's Game of Life, i.e. some aspects of the computational patterns running in the underlying computing substratum. Other aspects of those computed patterns may be what we now call phenomena of life. In that kind of models, the laws of biology are not reducible to laws of physics (they are merely consistent with laws of physics), since the two are merely different kinds of approximate properties of the more subtle computed patterns. In other words, "nothing can compute it" is also a statement of personal faith (or of what you could and could not conceive), not a scientific fact.nightlight_{November 1, 2013
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gpuccio, I think it's real enough and it's 'natural' science if it's in a computer (iow, in an artificial environment). As soon as you bring "programmer" into it, it's no longer natural science and "minds" that perform computation, well, we'll hear no more of that nonsense. That may be organic computation but it's not artificial computation, so it's not 'natural' science.Mung_{November 1, 2013
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nightlight: All that is accessible to the methods of present natural science are interactions of matter with matter, whether it is collisions between particles, or sound waves of a voice saying ‘I am conscious now’ interacting with ear drums of the listener and triggering neuronal electric spikes. The ‘consciousness’ quantity or field or whatever it may be, doesn’t show up anywhere in the scientific description, it doesn’t do anything as far as science knows. Everything that happens is all done by the matter-matter interactions>, according to the present natural science. That’s just the way it presently is, but if you know some experiment or theory that demonstrates otherwise, you are welcome to bring it in. You need to acquaint yourself with reality. Anything that is empirically observable must be taken into account by science. Science is about reality. Your definition of science, natural or not, is your definition, or somebody else's, and cannot in any way decide what science is or is not. A simple experiment? You just visualize a form, and then design it on a sheet of paper. Can you deny that your visualization is at the origin of the sequence of "interactions of matter with matter" which gives, as a final result, your drawing? Why shoudln't science be interested in that simple empirical fact? The failure to account for consciousness is its current state and behaving as if that were not so, as Discovery Institute and its fellow routinely do, does not help ID gain a status of a scientific hypothesis. I don't think that I, or most ID supporters, or even most reasonable people, can really desire to "gain a status" in "natural science" as you define it. I happily leave that status to you or to anyone who likes it. Personally, I prefer to remain interested in science that tries to understand reality. Whenever you inject ‘consciousness’ into a conjecture, you are automatically disqualifying the conjecture as a scientific hypothesis and shifting it into the realms of philosophy, theology, poetry, personal experience,… none of which, however “true” and “real” it may feel, is a natural science. For me, it's enough that it's good science. And it is. Explaining ID hypothesis in terms of ‘consciousness’ merely entangles the problem of interest (the conjectured design process) with another even harder problem, that of the nature of consciousness. Absolutely not! You completely misunderstand the issue. Consciousness is directly observable, and therefore is a fact. There is no need to know "the nature" of a fact to take it into consideration. There was never any need to understand "the nature" of matter, or energy, or charge, or spin, or space, or time, to understand that those things must be included in our scientific map of reality. Hence, before you can go further with ID expressed via consciousness, you first need to produce supplementary scientific theory and conjectures about this entity ‘consciousness’ so you can then introduce the ID based on it. As said, this is simply not true. That may well be empirical fact of your personal experience, but it is not an empirical fact of any natural science. The only elements of present natural science that have any causal effects (that do something empirically detectable) are mater-energy elements. Yep, it’s gap in natural science, but that’s the way it presently is. You can’t wish it away by pretending it is not. It is an empirical fact for all human beings. And you want to ignore it only because you have decided that "that’s the way it presently is". What is your opinion of science? Do you think it is a political agreement among those who have some special power? Science is about reality. But it seems that you are not interested in reality, but only in social consensus. The chess programmer never inputted into the program all the beautiful attacking combinations and opening or endgame insights and novelties that program plays. No, but he inputted all the rules of the game, what is the functional result to be obtained, and how to make computations to obtain that result. IOWs, everything necessary. In the same way, a programmer does not input into a pi computing software all the desired outcome (the digits of pi), but he inputs the algorithms to compute them. It's the same. One can now say, yes, but the entire ‘algorithmic information’ contained in those combinations is already implicitly encoded in the original program, so there is no “new” complex specified information being generated here. Yes. Of course, that is tautologically and trivially true (by definition of ‘algorithmic information’). But then how do you know what is the quantity of the specified complex information in phenomena of life? No one knows the amount of ‘algorithmic information’ behind phenomena of life, since no one knows the algorithms that may be behind it. It is true, but it is neither tautological nor trivial. It's you who do not understand the point. Let's take a protein which has a biological function (an enzyme that accelerates a biochemical reaction). Let's say that such a protein appears for the first time at some point in natural history, which is certainly true for a lot of basic protein domains, and that it has no homologies with any other basic protein domain that existed before. And the biochemical function of the protein is completely new. Now, that is a clear case of appearance of new dFSCI. And that is certainly true for hundreds, probably thousands of basic protein domains. And we do know how that result could be obtained algorithmically. we are desperately trying to obtain such a result in protein engineering, and failing, because our understanding of the laws of biochemistry, and especially our computing resources, are not enough to obtain such a result. IOWs, any algorithmic attempt at engineering a wholly new functional enzyme is certainly much more complex than the enzyme itself. Even if intelligently designed. Therefore, the Kolmogorov complexity of the enzyme itself, however big, is certainly lower than the complexity of a computing algorithm designed to find the right sequence starting from all our knowledge of biochemistry. We so have ways to compute dFSCI in proteins. Durston has done exactly that, as I have discussed many times here. Moreover, as the new desired function does not exist before, even a computing algorithm should contain as input the function itself because, as I have already said, algorithms have no idea of what function is, unless it is codified in their initial input. While Dembski and others throw around astronomical numbers for odds of this or that protein and amounts of CSI required, that’s a pure speculation, no different than a computer naive person watching the game played by a chess program and marveling at the torrents of creative novelties pouring out of it, imagining some mind of a godlike genius inside. No. Durston, as already said, has computed the functional complexity for more than 30 protein families. But we don’t know whether universe itself is running like program, containing equivalent of three lines of C code as its ‘algorithmic information’. Some scientists, such as Stephen Wolfram are playing with such models and discovering quite surprising richness of interesting phenomena. With all respect, they still need to explain how a new basic protein domain appears on this small planet at a certain time. Hence, anything someone claims about alleged vastness of CSI involved in the origin of life and its evolution, or fine tuning of universe, is a pure speculation which carries no scientific weight. As I have shown, this is completely wrong, and simply demonstrates that you have not understood the points of ID. Whether it is “out of possibilities of computation” depends on what the underlying algorithm of the universe may be and nobody knows that. All pieces of action which to us seem independent and complex, may well be choreographed by the internal algorithm of the universe to perform some complex dance and fit together just so, like pre-established harmony of Leibniz monads. Who is doing philosophy now? This is, at best, wishful thinking, at worst, mythological bias. But no one can demonstrate that there is a lot of “dFSCI” anywhere in the universe in the first place. Any functional protein enzyme of, say, 150 aminoacids. Or do you deny that they are part of the universe? This post is another good example. To us it may appear that there is, but no one knows whether it is so. We might be like some chess playing native living away from civilization, who has never seen modern technology, playing against computer chess program and marveling at the incredible mind hiding inside, producing all that complex specified information. Well, you keep your philosophical and non pertinent metaphors. I am interested in science. And my science, natural or not, is very interested in how a new complex basic protein domain appears on a planet where nothing can compute it. IOWs, we are interested in facts.gpuccio_{November 1, 2013
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Nightlight, your position is ludicrous to the point of verging on insanity. Nor is your 'living in a computer simulation' position science, no matter how much you try to delude yourself to the contrary. If anyone is trying to be a lawyer, or philosopher, to sell their position in this thread it is you. I have tried to get you to cite hard evidence and you merely play senseless word games as if that could ever make you simulation worldview coherent! And good luck living in your computer simulation by the way. I hope the programmer doesn't decide to have Pac Man eat you! :) Moreover Mr. Pixel, just where is this computer that runs your simulation of the universe to be located since,,,
Looking Beyond Space and Time to Cope With Quantum Theory – (Oct. 28, 2012) Excerpt“Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” says Nicolas Gisin, Professor at the University of Geneva, Switzerland,,, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121028142217.htm
Last time I checked that whole timeless, spaceless area was almighty God's exclusive domain. And if you insist on inserting a purely imaginary timeless, spaceless, computer into God's place, instead of giving glory to God that is due Him, does that not make you, in reality, an idol worshiper? Myself, I just as soon give credit where credit is due! Verse and Music:
Exodus 20 “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, Carrie Underwood with Vince Gill How Great thou Art - Music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLLMzr3PFgk
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@ba77 #23
NL, since you hold you don't really have a conscious mind, nor any free will,
I never said anything of the sort.
(for it has no place in science in your view)
Never said that either. It is not part of the present natural science, but it ought to be in some future more advanced natural science. In fact, several times in this thread I labeled this absence a "major gap" in the present science, which is exactly opposite from your misquote that "it has no place in science." Of course it has, just not in what goes as natural science today, which is incomplete and going the wrong way in some areas. My objection is to Discovery Institute's (DI) insistence on needlessly entangling the scientific hypothesis of ID (which shows the inadequacy of neo-Darwinian algorithm) with matters which don't exist in the present natural science, such as 'conscious agency'. This DI "strategy" automatically disqualifies their formulation of ID from being considered a scientific hypothesis, until the scientific problem of nature and function of consciousness is scientifically resolved, since DI's ID gratuitously sets itself on top of some imagined 'conscious agency' which present natural science doesn't have and can't do anything with. Since nothing follows (as a scientific statement) from 'conscious agency', then such causally sterile, scientifically meaningless verbiage can't be the cause of design of life or its evolution. If it can't do anything at all as far as present science knows, then it can't do any particular thing either. DI could surely use folks from hard sciences, such as various branches of physics, to help them decouple their theology from an otherwise worthy scientific hypothesis. Unfortunately their present frontline crew dominated by philosophers, theologians and lawyers is simply clueless as to what is the problem with their story, when it is so convincing to themselves and to their choir (well represented in this thread).nightlight_{November 1, 2013
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@ba77 #18
Since you refuse to provide falsification for that claim
There is nothing there to falsify. It's just some adjunct professor of geology philosophizing about mathematical tautologies. As explained, by definition of 'algorithmic information' of a bit pattern generated by program, is a fixed number defined as the number of bits needed to encode the minimum generating program. Whether the generated pattern is digits of Pi or chess moves or design of molecule, or whatever else, the size of the particular minimum generating program remains constant. The aspect you don't get somehow is that no one knows what the 'algorithmic information' of a molecule is since no one knows what the minimum generating algorithm might be. When some ID evangelist calculates some such number X for some protein, all it means is that he could think up of a protein generating algorithm A which can be encoded in X bits. But that doesn't amount to showing what the length of the minimum generating algorithm may be i.e. what the real algorithmic information of the protein is. Hence, number X means only that 'algorithmic information' of that protein is not bigger than X, but it could be a lot smaller as far as anyone knows.
I can provide an example of conscious intelligence designing a protein as such, but I can't seem to find any evidence to back up your claim!
Any finite sequence of steps can be trivially computed by a finite program (which need not be the minimum program for the job). For example, this whole thread on your screen has been put up by a (non-minimal) program and its database on the server. Regarding molecules, pharmaceutical and biotech industry use powerful supercomputers to search shape design space of proteins (solving among others, protein folding problems) that fit certain cellular receptors of interest so they can design a drug that binds to those receptors. As a matter of principle, that's no different than a chess program searching for clever moves in a given chess position. The fact that all such programs have some length L which is greater or equal than the minimum program that could perform the same search task, is irrelevant regarding the algorithms behind the origin and evolution of life or fine tuning of the universe. Since the set of facts we know, or can know in finite amount of time, about universe is finite, a program of suitable length (no one knows what the minimum length might be) can generate it. Those are all trivial, dull aspects of the problem and frankly, a waste of time. One can't help but feel pity for the poor deities condemned to cling on that kind of shaky arguments. The <a href="http://www.wolframscience.com/thebook.html"interesting and non-trivial stuff is discovering specific, short, elegant algorithms that might be able to generate, first the physical laws as we know them, then the rest of the phenomena in the universe.nightlight_{November 1, 2013
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NL, since you hold you don't really have a conscious mind, nor any free will, (for it has no place in science in your view), doesn't that mean that none of us are free to consent to the truthfulness of any particular argument? 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.htmlbornagain77_{November 1, 2013
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NL wants to 'educate me', bless his little deluded naturalistic heart which his 'naturalistic' computer program programmed him to say: Here’s a recent variation of Wheeler’s Delayed Choice experiment, which highlights the ability of the conscious observer to effect 'spooky action into the past', thus further solidifying consciousness's centrality in reality. Furthermore in the following experiment, the claim that past material states determine future conscious choices (determinism) is falsified by the fact that present conscious choices effect past material states: Quantum physics mimics spooky action into the past - April 23, 2012 Excerpt: The authors experimentally realized a "Gedankenexperiment" called "delayed-choice entanglement swapping", formulated by Asher Peres in the year 2000. Two pairs of entangled photons are produced, and one photon from each pair is sent to a party called Victor. Of the two remaining photons, one photon is sent to the party Alice and one is sent to the party Bob. Victor can now choose between two kinds of measurements. If he decides to measure his two photons in a way such that they are forced to be in an entangled state, then also Alice's and Bob's photon pair becomes entangled. If Victor chooses to measure his particles individually, Alice's and Bob's photon pair ends up in a separable state. Modern quantum optics technology allowed the team to delay Victor's choice and measurement with respect to the measurements which Alice and Bob perform on their photons. "We found that whether Alice's and Bob's photons are entangled and show quantum correlations or are separable and show classical correlations can be decided after they have been measured", explains Xiao-song Ma, lead author of the study. According to the famous words of Albert Einstein, the effects of quantum entanglement appear as "spooky action at a distance". The recent experiment has gone one remarkable step further. "Within a naïve classical world view, quantum mechanics can even mimic an influence of future actions on past events", says Anton Zeilinger. http://phys.org/news/2012-04-quantum-physics-mimics-spooky-action.html What Does Quantum Physics Have to Do with Free Will? - By Antoine Suarez - July 22, 2013 Excerpt: What is more, recent experiments are bringing to light that the experimenter’s free will and consciousness should be considered axioms (founding principles) of standard quantum physics theory. So for instance, in experiments involving “entanglement” (the phenomenon Einstein called “spooky action at a distance”), to conclude that quantum correlations of two particles are nonlocal (i.e. cannot be explained by signals traveling at velocity less than or equal to the speed of light), it is crucial to assume that the experimenter can make free choices, and is not constrained in what orientation he/she sets the measuring devices. To understand these implications it is crucial to be aware that quantum physics is not only a description of the material and visible world around us, but also speaks about non-material influences coming from outside the space-time.,,, https://www.bigquestionsonline.com/content/what-does-quantum-physics-have-do-free-will In other words, if my conscious choices really are just merely the result of whatever state the material particles in my brain happen to be in in the past (deterministic) how in blue blazes are my choices instantaneously effecting the state of material particles into the past?,,, I consider the preceding experimental evidence to be an improvement over the traditional 'uncertainty' argument for free will, from quantum mechanics, that had been used to undermine the deterministic belief of materialists: Why Quantum Physics (Uncertainty) Ends the Free Will Debate - Michio Kaku - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFLR5vNKiSwbornagain77_{November 1, 2013
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@ba77 #18
NL, despite you absurd notion that consciousness has no place in science (despite consciousness being `axiomatic' to quantum theory)
That's another illustration of your low res view of science (which I keep trying to educate you out of), unable to distinguish between official or formal statements of science and informal philosophical chatter and speculations by scientists (which they love to do). Consciousness is not in any axiom of quantum physics or any other branch of physics, it doesn't occur in any formula and it never needs to be measured or accounted for in any physics computation or experiment. As far as Quantum Physics is concerned, it doesn't exist and it makes no difference in anything quantum physics or physicists do. As to how consciousness got entangled into some side chatter about quantum mechanics, there are two ways wave function evolves, one via the continuous unitary evolution and the other via discontinuous projection operator, the so called "collapse" of the wave function. Nothing in quantum theory states or explains what causes one or the other way, since those are fundamental postulates, which means they taken as given without explanation. Some physicists in their free time speculate as to why are there two different ways of evolution of wave function instead of just one. And some among those believe it may have to do with consciousness of observer. But that belief is not itself a part of Quantum Theory or natural science, but a free style hop outside science, into philosophy. Physicists have no more clue about mind-stuff than anyone else, if anything, by being overly absorbed into physics problems, they are denser on the subject of emotions and sympathy than most other folks. All that consciousness-talk by (some) physicists is an informal personal speculation. Some physicists have also a habit of naming mathematical formulas with picturesque and suggestive technical names, such as "free will hypothesis" or some such, even though all it is, is a mere formal constraint on the joint probabilities with no actual relation to "free" or any other "will" as commonly perceived and understood. If one were to apply your way of understanding science, a quantum physicist tweating favorably about Obamacare is a scientific proof that Obamacare is scientifically sound and a part of quantum physics.nightlight_{November 1, 2013
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NL, since you refuse to provide a rigid falsification for this claim as I requested (claiming ignorance, which I will second you on that claim),
Algorithmic Information Theory, Free Will and the Turing Test – Douglas S. Robertson Excerpt: Chaitin’s Algorithmic Information Theory shows that information is conserved under formal mathematical operations and, equivalently, under computer operations. This conservation law puts a new perspective on many familiar problems related to artificial intelligence. For example, the famous “Turing test” for artificial intelligence could be defeated by simply asking for a new axiom in mathematics. Human mathematicians are able to create axioms, but a computer program cannot do this without violating information conservation. Creating new axioms and free will are shown to be different aspects of the same phenomena: the creation of new information.,,, The basic problem concerning the relation between AIT (Algorithmic Information Theory) and free will can be stated succinctly: Since the theorems of mathematics cannot contain more information than is contained in the axioms used to derive those theorems, it follows that no formal operation in mathematics (and equivalently, no operation performed by a computer) can create new information. http://cires.colorado.edu/~doug/philosophy/info8.pdf
Since you refuse to provide falsification for that claim, perhaps you can provide just one example, of what you absurdly believe to be the computer program running this universe, generating a single functional protein or molecular machine (D. Axe, M. Behe)? I can provide an example of conscious intelligence designing a protein as such, but I can't seem to find any evidence to back up your claim! And without such an empirical demonstration for your claim you are definitely not doing science! Moreover, I remind you of this little argument against your 'naturalistic' computer program:
Digital Physics Argument for God's Existence - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Xsp4FRgas Digital Physics Argument Premise 1: Simulations can only exist is a computer or a mind. Premise 2: The universe is a simulation. Premise 3: A simulation on a computer still must be simulated in a mind. Premise 4: Therefore, the universe is a simulation in a mind (2,3). Premise 5: This mind is what we call God. Conclusion: Therefore, God exists. Is God No Better Than A Special Computer? - William Lane Craig - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xinwkb_b4k4 Quantum Computing Promises New Insights, Not Just Supermachines - Scott Aaronson - December 2011 Excerpt: And yet, even though useful quantum computers might still be decades away, many of their payoffs are already arriving. For example, the mere possibility of quantum computers has all but overthrown a conception of the universe that scientists like Stephen Wolfram have championed. That conception holds that, as in the “Matrix” movies, the universe itself is basically a giant computer, twiddling an array of 1’s and 0’s in essentially the same way any desktop PC does. Quantum computing has challenged that vision by showing that if “the universe is a computer,” then even at a hard-nosed theoretical level, it’s a vastly more powerful kind of computer than any yet constructed by humankind. Indeed, the only ways to evade that conclusion seem even crazier than quantum computing itself: One would have to overturn quantum mechanics, or else find a fast way to simulate quantum mechanics using today’s computers. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/science/scott-aaronson-quantum-computing-promises-new-insights.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=science
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@ba77 #14
NL, you are cordially requested to, instead of constantly making unsupported assertions, to present any hard evidence that computational processes can generate algorithmic information above that which was originally encoded into the computer to begin with as you claim!
That's the most ridiculous request I have seen yet here and it has nothing to do with what I wrote. 'Algorithmic information' is a technical term, and by its definition any output/pattern generated by a program contains precisely the amount of 'algorithmic information' which is equal to the minimum number of bits needed for the generating program itself (including all of its internal data & code). No matter how long the output pattern goes or how complex it may appear, the amount of algorithmic information stays the same. So the 'algorithmic information' is like a dollar cost of a bottle of perfume -- no matter how far and wide the perfume smells end up spreading, how many nostrils they get into, what effect it had on those nostrils and heads to which they are attached,... the cost stays the same, whatever is printed on the sticker. 'Algorithmic information' based argument for ID is irrelevant since no one knows what the algorithmic information of life or universe is, since no one knows the algorithms that run the universe. For all we know it may amount to an equivalent of tree lines of C code. Throwing those astronomical numbers allegedly representing odds for this that protein, as some ID supporters are so fond of doing, is a pure speculation resting entirely on the conjectured/imagined impossibility of a much simpler algorithm. The amount of 'algorithmic information' has no relation to the apparent informational richness of some pattern as computed by those who don't know what the underlying minimum generating algorithm is. Since no one actually knows, whatever they may claim, what the minimum underlying algorithms of the universe may be (or even whether there is any such), no one knows what the 'algorithmic information' of the universe or any of its phenomena may be. Building ID on such concept is waste of an otherwise interesting and worthy idea. What ID clearly shows is that the neo-Darwinian search algorithm (random trial and error) is incapable of generating the observed phenomena of life. But some ID folks got too greedy and leapt via their consciousness-talk into the philosophical and theological realms, inseparably intertwining them with the valid scientific hypothesis, squandering it in the process as a scientific hypothesis.nightlight_{November 1, 2013
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Moreover NL, despite you absurd notion that consciousness has no place in science (despite consciousness being 'axiomatic' to quantum theory) for you to deny 'conscious mind' any place in science is to result in the epistemological failure of science itself. see Boltzmann's brain and Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism i.e. Moreover,
Why No One (Can) Believe Atheism/Naturalism to be True - video Excerpt: "Since we are creatures of natural selection, we cannot totally trust our senses. Evolution only passes on traits that help a species survive, and not concerned with preserving traits that tell a species what is actually true about life." Richard Dawkins - quoted from "The God Delusion" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4QFsKevTXs Alvin Plantinga - Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r34AIo-xBh8 Content and Natural Selection - Alvin Plantinga - 2011 http://www.andrewmbailey.com/ap/Content_Natural_Selection.pdf Philosopher Sticks Up for God Excerpt: Theism, with its vision of an orderly universe superintended by a God who created rational-minded creatures in his own image, “is vastly more hospitable to science than naturalism,” with its random process of natural selection, he (Plantinga) writes. “Indeed, it is theism, not naturalism, that deserves to be called ‘the scientific worldview.’” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/books/alvin-plantingas-new-book-on-god-and-science.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
As well,
Epistemology – Why Should The Human Mind Even Be Able To Comprehend Reality? – Stephen Meyer - video – (Notes in description) http://vimeo.com/32145998
You are simply incoherent in your worldview NL!bornagain77_{November 1, 2013
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NL states: "but if you know some experiment or theory that demonstrates otherwise, you are welcome to bring it in." Besides the fact the NL himself, using his own conscious mind, just posted far more functional information than can be generated by material (or computer) processes, there is this experiment;
Scientific Evidence That Mind Effects Matter - Random Number Generators - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4198007 Correlations of Random Binary Sequences with Pre-Stated Operator Intention: A Review of a 12-Year Program - 1997 http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/pdfs/1997-correlations-random-binary-sequences-12-year-review.pdf
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@gpuccio #12
Wrong. Consciousness is an empirical reality, and its interactions with matter can be empirically verified.
You need to acquaint yourself with the "hard problem of consciousness" to understand why consciousness is not a causal or empirically accessible element of the present natural science. What you are expressing is also known as folk psychology, which is distinct from natural science. All that is accessible to the methods of present natural science are interactions of matter with matter, whether it is collisions between particles, or sound waves of a voice saying 'I am conscious now' interacting with ear drums of the listener and triggering neuronal electric spikes. The 'consciousness' quantity or field or whatever it may be, doesn't show up anywhere in the scientific description, it doesn't do anything as far as science knows. Everything that happens is all done by the matter-matter interactions>, according to the present natural science. That's just the way it presently is, but if you know some experiment or theory that demonstrates otherwise, you are welcome to bring it in. Natural science cannot scientifically even express the mere question "what is it like to be" such and such chunk of matter-energy while those things go on in your neurons. It has no clue that there is "something that it is like to be" let alone model or explain the mysterious "what it is like"-ness. Natural science is not equivalent or synonymous with a personal experience as you seem to believe. Of course, that is major gap in the present natural science. But science is never complete and there are always phenomena which it cannot account for, which are outside of its domain. The failure to account for consciousness is its current state and behaving as if that were not so, as Discovery Institute and its fellow routinely do, does not help ID gain a status of a scientific hypothesis. Whenever you inject 'consciousness' into a conjecture, you are automatically disqualifying the conjecture as a scientific hypothesis and shifting it into the realms of philosophy, theology, poetry, personal experience,... none of which, however "true" and "real" it may feel, is a natural science. Explaining ID hypothesis in terms of 'consciousness' merely entangles the problem of interest (the conjectured design process) with another even harder problem, that of the nature of consciousness. Hence, before you can go further with ID expressed via consciousness, you first need to produce supplementary scientific theory and conjectures about this entity 'consciousness' so you can then introduce the ID based on it. This is completely gratuitous muddying of the waters and destruction of the valuable piece of insight that ID has captured. Unfortunately, with philosophers, theologians and lawyers elbowing themselves into the ID frontline, that's all one could expect to get.
ID is about design and its detection, and design is the result of conscious processes, where a conscious representation outputs a specific form to material reality. That is a very simple empirical fact, and can perfectly be part of science, be it present or future, natural or not natural.
That may well be empirical fact of your personal experience, but it is not an empirical fact of any natural science. The only elements of present natural science that have any causal effects (that do something empirically detectable) are mater-energy elements. Yep, it's gap in natural science, but that's the way it presently is. You can't wish it away by pretending it is not.
No computer program can generate new, original dFSCI. On the other hand, any good computer program can increase the complexity of a computation result, whose functional specification has been already defined and inputted in the program, together with the computation procedures to do that. In no way that means generating new, original dFSCI.
The chess programmer never inputted into the program all the beautiful attacking combinations and opening or endgame insights and novelties that program plays. Most of the time chess programmer doesn't even understand them, until some grandmaster explains what the program has achieved. One can now say, yes, but the entire 'algorithmic information' contained in those combinations is already implicitly encoded in the original program, so there is no "new" complex specified information being generated here. Of course, that is tautologically and trivially true (by definition of 'algorithmic information'). But then how do you know what is the quantity of the specified complex information in phenomena of life? No one knows the amount of 'algorithmic information' behind phenomena of life, since no one knows the algorithms that may be behind it. While Dembski and others throw around astronomical numbers for odds of this or that protein and amounts of CSI required, that's a pure speculation, no different than a computer naive person watching the game played by a chess program and marveling at the torrents of creative novelties pouring out of it, imagining some mind of a godlike genius inside. For all anyone knows, we are in no better position with respect to the fundamental algorithms of the universe than a person who has never heard of computer and has no concept of programming watching a chess program play a game. But there is a problem that must be addressed. The decimal digits of pi can be computed by some algorithm. Therefore, the true Kolmogorov complexity of any output about pi is the minimal complexity of the algorithm that can compute that result. But we don't know whether universe itself is running like program, containing equivalent of three lines of C code as its 'algorithmic information'. Some scientists, such as Stephen Wolfram are playing with such models and discovering quite surprising richness of interesting phenomena. Hence, anything someone claims about alleged vastness of CSI involved in the origin of life and its evolution, or fine tuning of universe, is a pure speculation which carries no scientific weight.
But there is more: new, original dFSCI means new complex information linked to a new, original specification. That is completely out of the possibilities of computation. Computation has no idea of what a functional specification is.
Whether it is "out of possibilities of computation" depends on what the underlying algorithm of the universe may be and nobody knows that. All pieces of action which to us seem independent and complex, may well be choreographed by the internal algorithm of the universe to perform some complex dance and fit together just so, like pre-established harmony of Leibniz monads.
That's why computation can never generate new dFSCI.
But no one can demonstrate that there is a lot of "dFSCI" anywhere in the universe in the first place. To us it may appear that there is, but no one knows whether it is so. We might be like some chess playing native living away from civilization, who has never seen modern technology, playing against computer chess program and marveling at the incredible mind hiding inside, producing all that complex specified information.nightlight_{November 1, 2013
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To further deflate your false overestimation in the power of 'neural networks" NL;
Dennett on Competence without Comprehension – William A. Dembski – June 2012 Excerpt: In 1936 Turing proposed a universal mechanism for performing any and all computations, since dubbed a Turing machine. In the last seventy-plus years, many other formal systems have been proposed for performing any and all computations (cellular automata, neural nets, unlimited register machines, etc.), and they've all been shown to perform the same -- no less and no more -- computations as Turing's originally proposed machine.,,, Something is a Turing machine if it has a "tape" that extends infinitely in both directions, with the tape subdivided into identical adjacent squares, each of which can have written on it one of a finite alphabet of symbols (usually just zero and one). In addition, a Turing machine has a "tape head," that can move to the left or right on the tape and erase and rewrite the symbol that's on a current square. Finally, what guides the tape head is a finite set of "states" that, given one state, looks at the current symbol, keeps or changes it, moves the tape head right or left, and then, on the basis of the symbol that was there, makes active another state. In modern terms, the states constitute the program and the symbols on the tape constitute data. From this it's obvious that a Turing machine can do nothing unless it is properly programmed to do so. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/06/dennett_on_comp061451.html#sthash.pIAPWiRP.dpuf
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Gpuccio thanks for clarifying NL's error. You are an artist at getting a basic idea across to people and a stickler for making sure that it is correct in its detail! :) ... But, as you alluded to, NL's error in thinking goes deeper than even what you have so clearly, and beautifully, laid out.,,, NL clearly has no clue what he is talking about. He gripes about being corrected by me with links and then goes on to continues to make his same errors over and over that he was corrected on in the first place. So once again I will ask him this simple question. NL, you are cordially requested to, instead of constantly making unsupported assertions, to present any hard evidence that computational processes can generate algorithmic information above that which was originally encoded into the computer to begin with as you claim! You listed computer Chess programs as an example of that happening, but as our own Gil Dodgen on UD, who designed World Championship Checkers,,,
World Championship Checkers http://worldchampionshipcheckers.com/
,which is the best computer program for checkers in the world,,,, Gil Dodgen would say, after he stopped laughing at you,,
Epicycling Through The Materialist Meta-Paradigm Of Consciousness - May 2010 GilDodgen: One of my AI (artificial intelligence) specialties is games of perfect knowledge. See here: worldchampionshipcheckers.com In both checkers and chess humans are no longer competitive against computer programs, because tree-searching techniques have been developed to the point where a human cannot overlook even a single tactical mistake when playing against a state-of-the-art computer program in these games. On the other hand, in the game of Go, played on a 19×19 board with a nominal search space of 19×19 factorial (1.4e+768), the best computer programs are utterly incompetent when playing against even an amateur Go player.,,, https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/epicycling-through-the-materialist-meta-paradigm-of-consciousness/#comment-353454
Along that line:
Applied Darwinism: A New Paper from Bob Marks and His Team, in BIO-Complexity - Doug Axe - 2012 Excerpt: Furthermore, if you dig a bit beyond these papers and look at what kinds of problems this technique (Steiner Tree) is being used for in the engineering world, you quickly find that it is of extremely limited applicability. It works for tasks that are easily accomplished in a huge number of specific ways, but where someone would have to do a lot of mindless fiddling to decide which of these ways is best.,, That's helpful in the sense that we commonly find computers helpful -- they do what we tell them to do very efficiently, without complaining. But in biology we see something altogether different. We see elegant solutions to millions of engineering problems that human ingenuity cannot even begin to solve. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/04/applied_darwini058591.html
and as was pointed out to you earlier:
Algorithmic Information Theory, Free Will and the Turing Test – Douglas S. Robertson Excerpt: Chaitin’s Algorithmic Information Theory shows that information is conserved under formal mathematical operations and, equivalently, under computer operations. This conservation law puts a new perspective on many familiar problems related to artificial intelligence. For example, the famous “Turing test” for artificial intelligence could be defeated by simply asking for a new axiom in mathematics. Human mathematicians are able to create axioms, but a computer program cannot do this without violating information conservation. Creating new axioms and free will are shown to be different aspects of the same phenomena: the creation of new information.,,, The basic problem concerning the relation between AIT (Algorithmic Information Theory) and free will can be stated succinctly: Since the theorems of mathematics cannot contain more information than is contained in the axioms used to derive those theorems, it follows that no formal operation in mathematics (and equivalently, no operation performed by a computer) can create new information. http://cires.colorado.edu/~doug/philosophy/info8.pdf
You are simply imagining something that is not there in these computer programs NL. Seeing faces in the clouds as it were. Some would say 'making a false idol'....,,, And to reiterate some links that you apparently ignored earlier:
Alan Turing & Kurt Godel – Incompleteness Theorem and Human Intuition – video (notes in video description) http://www.metacafe.com/watch/8516356/ The Limits Of Reason – Gregory Chaitin – 2006 Excerpt: an infinite number of true mathematical theorems exist that cannot be proved from any finite system of axioms.,,, http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/sciamer3.pdf Dennett on Competence without Comprehension - William A. Dembski - June 2012 Excerpt: As it turns out, there are problems in mathematics that can be proved to be beyond resolution by any algorithm (e.g., the halting problem). http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/06/dennett_on_comp061451.html
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GP, I simply endorse your answer as aptly capturing the substantial matter. KFkairosfocus_{November 1, 2013
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nightlight: Just a few points from your posts here where I do think that your really wrong. 1) Once you introduce ‘conscious mind’ as the explanation in ID, you have left natural science (since the present natural science does not have a model of ‘consciousness’), and have entered the realm of philosophy i.e. you are proposing new philosophy of nature. Wrong. Consciousness is an empirical reality, and its interactions with matter can be empirically verified. So, there is nothing "non natural" (whatever that strange word may mean) in studying consciousness and including it in scientific models. It is not necessary to have a "model" of an empirical component of reality to acknowledge its existence and include it in our larger models of reality. This statement of yours is strange indeed. 2) If you want to have an ID theory that can be taught as a branch of natural science, then you need to reformulate the “intelligence” of ID as a computational process, not as the act of some ‘conscious agency’ (which is a meaningless statement in the present natural science). Nonsense. ID is about design and its detection, and design is the result of conscious processes, where a conscious representation outputs a specific form to material reality. That is a very simple empirical fact, and can perfectly be part of science, be it present or future, natural or not natural. 3) As an illustration, consider current generation of chess programs — on regular PC-s they play stronger than not only their authors (many of whom are weak chess players anyway), but much stronger than the best chess players in the world. They create thousands of beautiful combinations (in human aesthetic judgment), opening novelties, end game novelties etc, none of which was put into the program and none of which anyone had clue to exist before the programs computed them using their clever algorithms. Wrong. No computer program can generate new, original dFSCI. On the other hand, any good computer program can increase the complexity of a computation result, whose functional specification has been already defined and inputted in the program, together with the computation procedures to do that. In no way that means generating new, original dFSCI. I will make an example. to clarify better this point. Let's say that I define pi, and give its first 100 decimal digits in a string written on a sheet of paper. In a sense, that could be considered an example of object exhibiting dFSCI. The complexity of the string is 10^100, great enough for any taste, I suppose. And there is a definite functional specification of pi as a mathemathical concept. But there is a problem that must be addressed. The decimal digits of pi can be computed by some algorithm. Therefore, the true Kolmogorov complexity of any output about pi is the minimal complexity of the algorithm that can compute that result. Now, let's say that we have such an algorithm, and that its complexity is, say, 10^50. So, if that algorithm outputs 100 digits of pi, it is not really increasing the complexity. The same is true if it outputs 200 digits, or 300, and so on. IOWs, simple computation does not increase the specified complexity of the output. It can certainly increase the total complexity (a string of 200 digits is certainly more complex than a string of 100). But there is more: new, original dFSCI means new complex information linked to a new, original specification. That is completely out of the possibilities of computation. Computation has no idea of what a functional specification is. Only conscious agents can recognize function, because they have the experience of meaning and purpose. Computation has no idea of what meaning and purpose are. That's why an algorithm can manage meaning and purpose only in the measure that they have already been inputted and codified in it. For an algorithm, only what has already defined, by a cosncious agent, as meaningful or desirable can be treated as meaningful or desirable. That's why computation can never generate new dFSCI. It can sometimes generate some simple information that can be recognized by a conscious agent as a new function, but that result can only be random (because the system has by definition no concept of the new function), and therefore its complexity will be minimal. And this is just to begin.gpuccio_{November 1, 2013
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@BA77 #10
NL per 8, you are cordially requested to, instead of constantly making unsupported assertions, present any hard evidence that computational processes can generate algorithmic information above that which was originally encoded into the computer as you claim!
As an illustration, consider current generation of chess programs -- on regular PC-s they play stronger than not only their authors (many of whom are weak chess players anyway), but much stronger than the best chess players in the world. They create thousands of beautiful combinations (in human aesthetic judgment), opening novelties, end game novelties etc, none of which was put into the program and none of which anyone had clue to exist before the programs computed tem using their clever algorithms. Yes, of coarse there was some front loading of intelligence into those clever algorithms, but then the program itself created practically unlimited stream of complex specified information. Or take even simpler case, a little program which produces huge books of logarithms and trig tables. This is a job that took decades of focused mental work by extremely skilled individuals before computers. Yet a simple three line program that a kid can write, does the whole job. So, what to uninitiated appears as a vast amount of sophisticated, complex, specified information that only conscious genius could generate, contains under the surface trivial amount of algorithmic information (i.e. generating program is encoded by a very short string). As to what can front load a program, it could be another program, which in turn is front loaded by its program precursor, etc. If the computing system is a distributed self-programming network with additive intelligence such as neural network with unsupervised learning, the initial front loading (some such is always necessary) requires minimal explicit intelligence or cleverness i.e. it need not be any more complex than the equations for regular natural laws (it is likely much simpler than even that as 'digital physics' researchers believe). Note that "algorithmic information" that Chaitin and other write about, sheds no light on the problems of origin and evolution of life or fine tuning of the universe, since no one knows what the algorithm behind universe is. It may be as simple as few lines of C code, i.e. it could be very low in algorithmic information content. The universe would then only appear to contain huge amount of information to those who have no clue about its simple generating algorithm. What such algorithm may be, or whether it exists at all is a pure speculation at present, a long series of personal opinions, not a natural science proper. The problem in your posts is the utter lack of even the slightest degree of discrimination between the wild speculations by scientists and science done by the same men (sorry Ms. feminists). You seem to just blindly latch onto words, phrases and names without any understanding of the underlying math or science, then inundate threads, such as this one, with truckloads of irrelevant copy-paste materials. It would save you and everyone else great deal of time if you would just stick to writing the thoughts produced by your own mind, then express them in your own words (as I and most other posters here do). #9
Differentiating between what conscious activity is capable of, and what natural processes, including NL's beloved `computational' processes, are capable of is essential for understanding when information was infused into life during the history of earth.
Nobody knows how much (algorithmic) information is "infused into life" since no one knows what the algorithm operating the universe may be. Present science knows only isolated bits and pieces. We may be in the same position as uncivilized human looking at the massive logarithmic tables and marvelling at what kind of genius must have taken to calculate all that. The present natural science also has no clue what 'consciousness' is, hence any consciousness-talk is philosophical-theological speculation, not statements or part of natural science (even though natural scientists may be the people speculating about it; you could do yourself and everyone else here great service if you would learn to discriminate between these two hats scientists like to wear).nightlight_{November 1, 2013
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NL per 8, you are cordially requested to, instead of constantly making unsupported assertions, present any hard evidence that computational processes can generate algorithmic information above that which was originally encoded into the computer as you claim!
Algorithmic Information Theory, Free Will and the Turing Test - Douglas S. Robertson Excerpt: Chaitin’s Algorithmic Information Theory shows that information is conserved under formal mathematical operations and, equivalently, under computer operations. This conservation law puts a new perspective on many familiar problems related to artificial intelligence. For example, the famous “Turing test” for artificial intelligence could be defeated by simply asking for a new axiom in mathematics. Human mathematicians are able to create axioms, but a computer program cannot do this without violating information conservation. Creating new axioms and free will are shown to be different aspects of the same phenomena: the creation of new information.,,, The basic problem concerning the relation between AIT (Algorithmic Information Theory) and free will can be stated succinctly: Since the theorems of mathematics cannot contain more information than is contained in the axioms used to derive those theorems, it follows that no formal operation in mathematics (and equivalently, no operation performed by a computer) can create new information. http://cires.colorado.edu/~doug/philosophy/info8.pdf
bornagain77_{November 1, 2013
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NL erroneously claims:
Unfortunately, present natural science can’t do anything useful or constructive with term ‘consciousness’
That is simply 'not even wrong'. Differentiating between what conscious activity is capable of, and what natural processes, including NL's beloved 'computational' processes, are capable of is essential for understanding when information was infused into life during the history of earth. Indeed, in conjunction with what Dr. Meyer has outlined in Darwin's Doubt for the Cambrian explosion, the resolution of fossil/genetic data allows us, however roughly, to now infer when conscious Intelligence was active in the history of life on earth subsequent to the Cambrian explosion:
Scientific study turns understanding about evolution on its head - July 30, 2013 Excerpt: evolutionary biologists,,, looked at nearly one hundred fossil groups to test the notion that it takes groups of animals many millions of years to reach their maximum diversity of form. Contrary to popular belief, not all animal groups continued to evolve fundamentally new morphologies through time. The majority actually achieved their greatest diversity of form (disparity) relatively early in their histories. ,,,Dr Matthew Wills said: "This pattern, known as 'early high disparity', turns the traditional V-shaped cone model of evolution on its head. What is equally surprising in our findings is that groups of animals are likely to show early-high disparity regardless of when they originated over the last half a billion years. This isn't a phenomenon particularly associated with the first radiation of animals (in the Cambrian Explosion), or periods in the immediate wake of mass extinctions.",,, Author Martin Hughes, continued: "Our work implies that there must be constraints on the range of forms within animal groups, and that these limits are often hit relatively early on. Co-author Dr Sylvain Gerber, added: "A key question now is what prevents groups from generating fundamentally new forms later on in their evolution.,,, http://phys.org/news/2013-07-scientific-evolution.html A. L. Hughes's New Non-Darwinian Mechanism of Adaption Was Discovered and Published in Detail by an ID Geneticist 25 Years Ago - Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig - December 2011 Excerpt: The original species had a greater genetic potential to adapt to all possible environments. In the course of time this broad capacity for adaptation has been steadily reduced in the respective habitats by the accumulation of slightly deleterious alleles (as well as total losses of genetic functions redundant for a habitat), with the exception, of course, of that part which was necessary for coping with a species' particular environment....By mutative reduction of the genetic potential, modifications became "heritable". -- As strange as it may at first sound, however, this has nothing to do with the inheritance of acquired characteristics. For the characteristics were not acquired evolutionarily, but existed from the very beginning due to the greater adaptability. In many species only the genetic functions necessary for coping with the corresponding environment have been preserved from this adaptability potential. The "remainder" has been lost by mutations (accumulation of slightly disadvantageous alleles) -- in the formation of secondary species. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/12/a_l_hughess_new053881.html
Of footnote: Now if NL wants to prove that 'computational processes' can fully mimic what we know to be true for conscious Intelligence, then all he has to do is prove Godel's incompleteness theorem wrong, as well as prove Dembski and Marks's conservation of information wrong. Until then he is postulating something for which there is no empirical or mathematical warrant.bornagain77_{November 1, 2013
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@BA77 #6
And yet, contrary to what NL falsely believes, Dembki, Marks, and company's, work has shown precisely that `deterministic' computational processes, once `active information' is taken account of, are just as inadequate to explain the origination of functional information as Darwinian processes are
We danced around this very circle before, let me just summarize the main point: the 'No Free Lunch' results of Dembski and others aim at random guessing algorithm + natural selection, i.e. random trial and error search, which is the most primitive and most inefficient kind of search algorithm conceivable. It's a kind of algorithm that beginner programmer does right after learning how to write "Hello world" program. So, OK then, that kind of dumb algorithms can't do much. Well, is that supposed to be a surprise? Those 'no free lunch' theorems have absolutely no relevance in the general algorithmic space, which is what an 'intelligence' behind fine tuning of universe and origin/evolution of life has available. Algorithms, such as those used by neural networks which can simultaneously shape the fitness (or search) landscape and harmonize the search with such reshaping, can achieve exponential efficiency gains vs random trial and error. The difference between these and 'random trial and error' algorithms is the same as that between searching in a sorted array (that is an example of conveniently reshaped search landscape) vs searching in randomly scrambled array (that is a andscape for random trial and error search). 'No free lunch' theorems merely prove that the search in randomly scrambled array will take time linear in size of array N. But the search in the sorted array is exponentially faster, requiring only ~ log(N) steps to find any record (such as 'optimal' one). In short, Dembski's result aim at and successfully exclude only the neo-Darwinian algorithm (random mutation + natural selection), but not the general algorithms, such as those which can search and shape the search space.nightlight_{November 1, 2013
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@KF #5
If science is about seeking the truth about our world in light of observed experience and linked analysis, it should not be found in opposition to truth.
Unfortunately, present natural science can't do anything useful or constructive with term 'consciousness' -- there is no scientific equation or algorithm where some quantity C affects or is affected by anything else in matter-energy realm. As far as present natural science is concerned, when you say 'conscious agency did it' you could as well say 'spirits of air and earth did it' - they are equally empty statements to natural science. While this is a limitation and defect of present natural science, it is the way the science is now and you can't operate as if it were something else, as if there is no this gigantic hole, then complain when you find you have fallen into that hole. One has to work with the things as they are, not as one wishes or imagines they ought to be. While term 'consciousness' or (sound) 'mind' are used in some applied disciplines (e.g. anesthesiology, psychiatry, law), in those context it is merely a verbal shorthand for certain kinds of human behaviors and responses to stimuli, not a quantity of its own interacting with matter-energy. That kind of non-causal, non-interacting human behavior specific verbal shorthand is irrelevant as a causal agency behind the fine tuning of the universe or origin and evolution of life. Hence, until natural science develops a theory of causally effective 'consciousness' quantity (which is conceivable), introducing 'consciousness' as a causal agency in the ID hypothesis, automatically disqualifies the ID as a scientific hypothesis, turning it into philosophical position. That's what irks me about Discovery Institute (DI), which on one hand deliberately frames ID in the above manner as a philosophical position, and then whines about ID not being accepted as scientific hypothesis. Unless and until DI reformulates/rephrases its 'conscious intelligent agency' as a 'computational process' (which is perfectly doable), since that is something natural science can look for and then use constructively and causally, they will remain by their own choice outcasts from the natural science.nightlight_{November 1, 2013
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NL erroneously asserts:
you need to reformulate the “intelligence” of ID as a computational process, not as the act of some ‘conscious agency’
And yet, contrary to what NL falsely believes, Dembki, Marks, and company's, work has shown precisely that 'deterministic' computational processes, once 'active information' is taken account of, are just as inadequate to explain the origination of functional information as Darwinian processes are:
LIFE’S CONSERVATION LAW - William Dembski - Robert Marks - Pg. 13 Excerpt: Simulations such as Dawkins’s WEASEL, Adami’s AVIDA, Ray’s Tierra, and Schneider’s ev appear to support Darwinian evolution, but only for lack of clear accounting practices that track the information smuggled into them.,,, Information does not magically materialize. It can be created by intelligence or it can be shunted around by natural forces. But natural forces, and Darwinian processes in particular, do not create information. Active information enables us to see why this is the case. http://evoinfo.org/publications/lifes-conservation-law/ Before They've Even Seen Stephen Meyer's New Book, Darwinists Waste No Time in Criticizing Darwin's Doubt - William A. Dembski - April 4, 2013 Excerpt: In the newer approach to conservation of information, the focus is not on drawing design inferences but on understanding search in general and how information facilitates successful search. The focus is therefore not so much on individual probabilities as on probability distributions and how they change as searches incorporate information. My universal probability bound of 1 in 10^150 (a perennial sticking point for Shallit and Felsenstein) therefore becomes irrelevant in the new form of conservation of information whereas in the earlier it was essential because there a certain probability threshold had to be attained before conservation of information could be said to apply. The new form is more powerful and conceptually elegant. Rather than lead to a design inference, it shows that accounting for the information required for successful search leads to a regress that only intensifies as one backtracks. It therefore suggests an ultimate source of information, which it can reasonably be argued is a designer. I explain all this in a nontechnical way in an article I posted at ENV a few months back titled "Conservation of Information Made Simple" (go here). ,,, ,,, Here are the two seminal papers on conservation of information that I've written with Robert Marks: "The Search for a Search: Measuring the Information Cost of Higher-Level Search," Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics 14(5) (2010): 475-486 "Conservation of Information in Search: Measuring the Cost of Success," IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics A, Systems & Humans, 5(5) (September 2009): 1051-1061 For other papers that Marks, his students, and I have done to extend the results in these papers, visit the publications page at EvoInfo http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/04/before_theyve_e070821.html
Moreover,
The Limits Of Reason - Gregory Chaitin - 2006 Excerpt: an infinite number of true mathematical theorems exist that cannot be proved from any finite system of axioms.,,, http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/sciamer3.pdf i.e. Godel's incompleteness theorem!
It is simply impossible, per Godel's incompleteness, for any computer program to be devised which can 'find' the distinctive algorithms that necessary for new body plans of new species. Here is what Gregory Chaitin himself, a world-famous mathematician, said about the limits of the computer program he was trying to develop to prove that Darwinian evolution was mathematically feasible:
At last, a Darwinist mathematician tells the truth about evolution - VJT - November 2011 Excerpt: In Chaitin’s own words, “You’re allowed to ask God or someone to give you the answer to some question where you can’t compute the answer, and the oracle will immediately give you the answer, and you go on ahead.” https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-last-a-darwinist-mathematician-tells-the-truth-about-evolution/
Here is the video where, at the 30:00 minute mark, you can hear the preceding quote from Chaitin's own mouth in full context:
Life as Evolving Software, Greg Chaitin at PPGC UFRGS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlYS_GiAnK8
Moreover, at the 40:00 minute mark of the video Chaitin readily admits that Intelligent Design is the best possible way to get evolution to take place, and at the 43:30 minute mark Chaitin even tells of a friend pointing out that the idea Evolutionary computer model that Chaitin has devised does not have enough time to work. And Chaitin even agreed that his friend had a point, although Chaitin still ends up just 'wanting', and not ever proving, his ideal Darwinian mathematical model to be feasible! Related notes:
Alan Turing & Kurt Godel - Incompleteness Theorem and Human Intuition - video (notes in video description) http://www.metacafe.com/watch/8516356/ “It always bothers me that in spite of all this local business, what goes on in a tiny, no matter how tiny, region of space, and no matter how tiny a region of time, according to laws as we understand them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of logical operations to figure out. Now how can all that be going on in that tiny space? Why should it take an infinite amount of logic to figure out what one stinky tiny bit of space-time is going to do?" - Richard Feynman – one of the founding fathers of QED (Quantum Electrodynamics) Quote taken from the 6:45 minute mark of the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obCjODeoLVw
I don’t know about Feynman, but as for myself, being a Christian Theist, I find it rather comforting to know that it takes an ‘infinite amount of logic to figure out what one stinky tiny bit of space-time is going to do’:
John1:1 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
of note: ‘the Word’ in John1:1 is translated from ‘Logos’ in Greek. Logos is the root word from which we derive our modern word logic http://etymonline.com/?term=logic Music:
Your Love Is Amazing ~ Phillips, Craig & Dean http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrymzdmMrVE
bornagain77_{November 1, 2013
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NL: Pardon, but what did you use to produce the above? Blind chance selected for function as English text that by luck hit the happy result, from the implied config space? Or, did you act as a self-aware knowing intelligence pondering a problem and addressing it through creative purposeful action? If science is about seeking the truth about our world in light of observed experience and linked analysis, it should not be found in opposition to truth. KFkairosfocus_{November 1, 2013
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Once you introduce 'conscious mind' as the explanation in ID, you have left natural science (since the present natural science does not have a model of 'consciousness'), and have entered the realm of philosophy i.e. you are proposing new philosophy of nature. While philosophy of nature is fine, too, but you can't then complain "they" won't let you teach this kind of philosophical ID in the science class. If you want to have an ID theory that can be taught as a branch of natural science, then you need to reformulate the "intelligence" of ID as a computational process, not as the act of some 'conscious agency' (which is a meaningless statement in the present natural science). Such reformulation can be done (e.g. like James Shapiro or like the research in the Santa Fe Institute for Complexity Science). Natural science knows how to work with computational processes, but can't do anything with 'consciousness'.nightlight_{October 31, 2013
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Amen. Its been a untested presumption to say mans thinking is coming from the brain. There is the option, the right one, mans thinking comes from his essence as a soul. In fact methodological naturalism is actually aggressively presuming their is no soul as opposed to determining this on the evidence. So they are cheating. The brain as the source for the mind is just a presumption and not a proved conclusion. Got'im! This is why there is so much failure in healing mental problems. There is no such thing as a mental problem. Our thinking is perfect. its just a material aspect of our mind that is the problem. That is exclusively the memory or rather the triggering mechanism for the memory.Robert Byers_{October 31, 2013
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OT: Darwin's Doubt - Photo Gallery http://www.darwinsdoubt.com/photo-gallery/bornagain77_{October 31, 2013
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Does Epistemological Naturalism Imply Metaphysical Naturalism? - William Lane Craig - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yNddAh0Txg Is Metaphysical Naturalism Viable? - William Lane Craig - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzS_CQnmoLQ There are two definitions of Science in our Culture - Phillip E. Johnson - audio (26:36 minute mark) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zK5sqd1SKXo#t=1596sbornagain77_{October 31, 2013
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