How dare you appeal to . . . conscious agents in science!

_{kairosfocus

January 27, 2012

ID Foundations, Intelligent Design, Mind, Philosophy, worldview}

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Sometimes, comments at UD can be quite revealing. Jan 25, AIG objected in the Shermer/Flannery Wallace debate thread in an inadvertently revealing way, which I have picked up:

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>>AIG:

Re: questions of how, why, and “who” (the names of people involved [at Stonehenge etc]?) are secondary. We know that human beings were present at the time these were built, so everybody agrees that human beings were responsible . . . . “Agency” is a term from philosophy (mainly moral philosophy and philosophy of mind). It is also used in sociology, where it refers to people (human beings) in social systems. It is not a term used in biology, physics, or the cognitive sciences . . .

This is utterly, and inadvertently revealing:

1 –> Right off, if the cognitive sciences do not reckon with the reality of agency, they are showing such an abundant closed-mindedness that they are refusing to recognise one of the most salient characteristics of cognition, i.e that even they themselves as cognitive agents, are conscious subjects and agents.

2 –> Similarly, last I checked, we are biological beings, and are conscious agents, which needs to be addressed if biology is to deal with highly material facts of reality. Or, has science now become materialist ideology dressed up in the holy lab coat?

3 –> As for physics, last I checked, thought experiments are an important part of the development of modern physics, which relies through and through on cognitive and conscious agents. There is even a whole set of issues linked to the evident fine tuning of the observed — oops, agents in action again, no, no tut tut . . . — cosmos.

4 –> More directly, when we turn from addressing the patterns that show mechanical necessity and/or chance in action, we find that here are also empirically observable, tested and found reliable signs that point to ART-ificial cause, i.e. to design. As Stonehenge etc so strongly highlight.

5 –> That is, if we are to scientifically study the world with the objects and events and processes in it in accordance with the truth, we have to reckon with the reality and acts of agency, indeed without that we cannot do either science or mathematics, engineering and computing, its handmaidens. I stress this because without these, we have no effective science.

6 –> Next, we turn to the question of origins of the cosmos, our solar system, life in it, body plans, and mind [which BTW also includes morals]. To claim to study such scientifically, is to claim to study the past on observable facts, processes and signs in the present that can credibly account for the origin in question as best empirically anchored, truth-oriented explanation.

7 –> Now, we happen to know that functionally specific, complex organisation and related — sometimes, digitally coded — information is a feature of our world, as common as the posts in this thread and the computers on which we are reading them.

8 –> In our experience, and observation, reliably, such FSCO/I reliably comes from ART-ifice, i.e design. The whole internet, for just one instance, stands in testimony to that.

9 –> We have every right of reasonable induction, to infer that such FSCO/I is a strong sign of design as cause. At any rate, as candidate cause.

10 –> In addition, we observe that FSCO/I implies high contingency of arrangement of components, beyond the search capacity of the solar system or even the observable cosmos, on blind chance and mechanical necessity, the other two well warranted causal patterns.

11 –> So, we have only one empirically adequate causal explanation for FSCO/I. So, when we see it in the living cell, we have every reason to infer that this is a sign that points to design as best explanation, or at any rate as a serious candidate explanation.

12 –> Unless, we have reason to know on separate warrant in advance that designing agency is IMPOSSIBLE in the causal context. Which, pace a priori Lewontinian materialism, is precisely what we do not know about the context of origin of life or body plans including our own.

13 –> That is, we can only rule out the possibility of agency in that context by refusing to entertain the otherwise most obvious candidate causal explanation. >>

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I hold that AIG, here, has begged big questions in an inadvertently revealing manner.

What say ye? END

Comments

Aiguy:
But of course you aren’t talking about biologists explaining agency – you are talking about using “agency” as an explanation of biology! But that is the whole problem of ID! We have no unified scientific theory or understanding of intelligence or consciousness.
While it is true that there is no "unified scientific theory" of intelligence, it is false to say that there is no "understanding" of it, any more than it is false to say that we have no understanding of language because there is no unified scientific theory of how we produce it. We have understanding of intelligence and language because we are intelligent and we speak. Your contention that we cannot attribute the existence of something to the action of intelligence is no more valid than to contend that an anthropologist who observes the members of a heretofore unknown Amazonian tribe making noises through their mouths while looking at each other is not justified in concluding that they are speaking in their language because we don't have a "unified scientific theory" of how language is produced. This stance of yours that we must have a complete understanding of something before we can attribute it as a cause of something else is simply not viable, and does not reflect the actual practice of scientists. It is your own idea, and a false restriction on the practice of science.
So, when ID offers “intelligence” as the explanation for the universe and life, it is referring to something that is really a label for our ignorance about how human beings manage to think, and not the “known cause” that Dembski, Meyer, et al want us think.
This statement is incorrect. The term "known cause" does not mean "here is a cause that we understand completely". Rather, the phrase means, "here is a cause that is known to produce the effect in question---complex, functionally specified information (CFSI)". We know that intelligence exists because we are intelligent. And we know through vast experience that 1) intelligence is capable of producing CSFI and 2) there is no other cause that is known to be capable of producing it.
“Agency” has precisely NO explanatory power. Not one thing follows from the assertion that something has agency.
Well, the assertion of ID is not that "something has agency", but that "something was produced by an intelligent agent or agents", and there is a HUGE conclusion that follows from that assertion, namely that there was an intelligent agent existing and acting at the time that the "something" came into being. This answers your objection,
So what is ID hypothesizing? It must either be an extra-terrestrial life form, or something that is not a life form at all, but still somehow has the mental and physical abilities of human beings (and then some). These two mutually exclusive and exhaustive options are the actual hypotheses that ID proposes, and are subsumed under the rubric of “design”. So, what is the evidence that either of these two types of things exist? We have no evidence that extra-terrestrial life forms exist (and if they did, we would more likely be their descendents rather than the products of their bio-engineering efforts). And we also have no good evidence that anything which is not itself a highly complex physical mechanism could possibly have the mental and physical abilities required to design and build highly complex mechanisms.
The evidence that one or the other of these exists, or at least existed when the CFSI that is present in living organisms was created, is the fact that the existence of one or both is the best and only viable explanation for that same CFSI.Bruce David_{January 28, 2012
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@aiguy_again, Sorry, I posted too quick without checking the tag formatting. The first paragraph there you will recognize as yours, and the rest it mine. Was just using that good paragraph of yours as a jumping off point.eigenstate_{January 28, 2012
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@aiguy_again,
Again, just saying that “agency” was involved wouldn’t explain anything, since (by the very definition you provided) this could be anything from a gorilla to an amoeba to a daffodil to a power line to a robot to a space alien… and so on. The only thing eliminated by the definition of “a person or thing through which power is exerted or an end is achieved” is something inert, like a rock. All of the rest of these are persons or things through which power is exerted. This is all abductive acrobatics on the part of the IDer, to launch a guess, an intuition, from the base of some local observation. If I find a deer mauled to a bloody mess in the woods behind my home (as I have on occasion), I start with a more generic hypothesis: a predator did this. The evidence isn't consistent with the deer starving to death, or succumbing to disease and then being set upon by scavengers. "Predator" does narrow it down a good bit, more than "agency" does, analogously to and ID hypothesis, but it's still very broad. But here's the thing, in the "predator hypothesis", we are invoking a label for a known class, animals that kill and eat others. While there are still lots of options (actually in my back yard, there aren't very many, but...), "predators" doesn't connote aliens or spirit-hunters, and the like. That's the problem with "agency". It is grounded in real, natural agents -- humans, and any other organisms we find sufficiently cerebral so as to effect behavior we would label "choice". But the intended target of that "agency" explanation is something/someone that is not in that set. When I say "a predator did this", I am thinking of a set of species that hunt and kill deer, and if I were to find out the facts, I should expect the killer to be a member of that set. But "agency did this" does not work that way in ID. The "agent" is NOT supposed to be a member of the set of known agents. It's a kind of guesswork leap -- an ID advocate might claim this to be... "abductive reasoning" rather than just calling it a guess -- that has to suppose a whole new kind of entity as part of its explanation, an entity not part of any known set, not part of our empirical knowledge base. Recalling back to philosophy classes in university (now quite a while ago), abductive reasoning is guesswork, but guesswork that goes beyond just imaging that if A is sufficient for B, B, therefore A, rather insisting that A is the most economical of the sufficient guesses. That's where ID gets wrapped around the axle of its own argument. It fails the parsimony test, and badly. It doesn't just invoke "agency" as "one of the class of known agents" when it supposes that "agency has done this". It goes farther than supposing that "one of the class of agents, unknown but like known agents, did this", as would be the case for appealing to alien intervention from other worlds, etc. No, ID invokes the biggest economy-break ever imagined, introducing a new entity in the explanation that is as unparsimonious as it gets -- a deity, a supernatural or cosmic designer. Once this divine foot is in the door, forget parsimony, the basic epistemology we had going for us is nullified. Abductive reasoning is the weakest form one can appeal to. And this is the worst case for abductive reasoning, or maybe it's better described as a non-case, given the abductive appeal to parsimony.
eigenstate_{January 28, 2012
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Hi Joe,
Then Joe the forensics expert would start to look for the starting point- as in where did this fire start? When you do that you may come across tell-tale signs of the ignition source. That said once forensics has determined “agency” they turn it over to the non-scientist detectives who are free to use non-scientific methods to locate the criminal.
Again, just saying that "agency" was involved wouldn't explain anything, since (by the very definition you provided) this could be anything from a gorilla to an amoeba to a daffodil to a power line to a robot to a space alien... and so on. The only thing eliminated by the definition of "a person or thing through which power is exerted or an end is achieved" is something inert, like a rock. All of the rest of these are persons or things through which power is exerted.
IOW aiguy YOU are the one in need of a pyschiatrist.
Hahaha, good one, Joe!
So what happens when an archaeologist finds an artifact in strata that pre-dates humans?
It would depend on the "artifact" of course! If what they found looked like something biological, they would call a biologist to study it. If it looked like something human beings would build (some pottery perhaps, or a tool or instrument of some sort) then they would try and figure out how it got there! And yes, I suppose if they found a buried spaceship that appeared older than humankind, they would have evidence of space aliens. None of this has anything to do with our discussion of "agency" however.
And what happens when the humans of today, with today’s technology would have a very difficult time in reproducing what ancient humans allegedly did?
A bit of a sci-fi story you are writing here? Again, if we found advanced technology buried in prehistoric strata, we would probably conclude that space aliens had vistited Earth. I think that would be fun... but don't hold your breath.
And again we don’t need to investigate the designer, just the design. ID is about the design. In the absence of direct observation or designer input the only way to know about the designer is through the design.
You are missing the point. Saying something was "designed" doesn't tell us anything - not one single thing - unless you say what caused the design to exist. Maybe it was designed by random mutation and natural selection. Maybe it was designed by a space alien. Maybe an unknown sort of conscious being. Maybe an unknown sort of unconscious process. Maybe... see what I mean? The word "design" doesn't tell us what the cause was, which is what an explanation must do in order to add to our understanding. All the word "design" does is tell us that what we're trying to explain seems like a complex functional pattern.
What have I refuted by posting standard and accepted definitions of “agent” and “agency”- your allegations that we don’t know what those are.
Again I will refer you to the literature. If the dictionary definition of "agency" was sufficient, then a number of things would follow: 1) Philosophers would not continue to write books about what the term refers to and debate the matter. But they do. 2) Dembski and other ID proponents would not argue for particular theories of agency (i.e. dualistic ones) and against other theories (i.e. materialist ones), nor would they admit that ID is only compatible with non-materialist theories of agency. But they do. 3) The guy with the burned-up car would not have been confused about whether his car was set on fire by a broken power line or an arsonist (both "agents" according to your dictionary definition). But he was. Hi KF,
AKA, trying to claim that FSCI has no empirically adequate causal explanation, by authoring some FSCI.
In context, I pointed out that there was no empirically adequate causal explanation for the origin of CSI. Again, I claim this because our uniform and repeated experience confirms both of these things: 1) Complex form and function is invariably the result of the activity conscious beings 2) The activity of conscious beings invariably rely on complex form and function This makes it clear that ID is no more consistent with empiricism than the idea that complex form and function could just pop into existence by random chance.aiguy_again_{January 28, 2012
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I think the 'begging the question' concept continues to escape you, kf. If, per a materialist (or maybe just non-theist/non-ID) model, a person rights a post that we determine is "designed", then human designs themselves are the result of necessity + chance (+ resources + time). If I'm generous in allowing that broadly speaking, the theist intuition of a designer -- unknown, unobserved, unreal by any objective measure -- is "an explanation" for the writing you read, ultimately, then a fortiori the scientific hypothesis for human writing is "another". Never mind that science is the only one of the two that relies on empirically known, existing natural processes as the explanatory capital for its model, the only way for you to suppose what you've concluded here is to conclude what you've just supposed (the pervasive pattern emergent in your posts, that your thoughts are correct and monopolistically so, simply because *you* are thinking them). What's more, the scientific hypothesis for the emergence of langue is the one of the two (that, is, between a naturalist hypothesis and theistic/Designer hypothesis) that does NOT suffer from reductio tests. There's no regress in the non-life->life->intelligent life->writing chain that science hypothesizes; you just can't see beyond your "obvious" design intuitions. But a design hypothesis DOES suffer from a reductio, a regress: if what you say is true about FSCI/O (again not withstanding its vacuousness under examination, just going with it), then you've painted yourself into a corner. Saying "the designer is supernatural" doesn't help. The reductio is still a trap for you. If design is metaphysically unable to arise from non-design, intelligence from non-intelligence, then you are trapped in your own reductio, your hypothesis cannot escape from the criticism you mistaken lay at the materialist's (or just the scientist's) feet. I understand the reflex is "God breaks all the rules", but let it be noted that is the signal that one is trapped and simply looking to play a 'get out of regress' card by virtue of your own caprice. Just so we're clear on the question-begging (again): if "cosmic designer" is one lemma to pursue as an explanation, "no cosmic designer, intelligence and writing are emergent properties of life, which itself is emergent from non-life", is another. The only way to offer a comment like you do here is to assume up front the very issue that is being contested.eigenstate_{January 28, 2012
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H'mm: AIG, are you sure you want to say this?
[KF, OP, cited AIG, no 2 :] 11 –> So, we have only one empirically adequate causal explanation for FSCO/I. [In context, intelligent agents] [AIG, response, No 2:] No, you have none.
This, of course is in a post using ASCII text in English. Reductio ad absurdum, via self-referential incoherence. AKA, trying to claim that FSCI has no empirically adequate causal explanation, by authoring some FSCI. Oops. KFkairosfocus_{January 28, 2012
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I walk outside and find my car has been burned up, I want to know how it happened, and I talk to Joe the Forensics Expert.
Then Joe the forensics expert would start to look for the starting point- as in where did this fire start? When you do that you may come across tell-tale signs of the ignition source. That said once forensics has determined "agency" they turn it over to the non-scientist detectives who are free to use non-scientific methods to locate the criminal. IOW aiguy YOU are the one in need of a pyschiatrist.
However archaeologists and forensics experts really do assume, and correctly of course, that the artifacts they find are from human beings. The reason is simple: There are no other types of “agency” that could be responsible for the things these folks investigate.
So what happens when an archaeologist finds an artifact in strata that pre-dates humans? And what happens when the humans of today, with today's technology would have a very difficult time in reproducing what ancient humans allegedly did? And again we don't need to investigate the designer, just the design. ID is about the design. In the absence of direct observation or designer input the only way to know about the designer is through the design. What have I refuted by posting standard and accepted definitions of "agent" and "agency"- your allegations that we don't know what those are.Joe_{January 28, 2012
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Hi Joe,
AIG: Archaeology and forensics deal exclusively with investigating human actions, and SETI refers to the search for extra-terrestrial life forms. JOE: They do not know it was human actions until they investigate. So first they determine if an agency was required. THEN they determine what agency.
In the case of SETI you would be correct... but of course SETI hasn't found any extra-terrestrial life forms (yet). However archaeologists and forensics experts really do assume, and correctly of course, that the artifacts they find are from human beings. The reason is simple: There are no other types of "agency" that could be responsible for the things these folks investigate. Anyway, you can read all of the archeology and forensics journals (and even papers on SETI) all day long, and you will find no discussions of "agency" (unless they are talking about a "government agency" like the IRS, which is comprised of... you guessed it... human beings!)
AIG: None of these have anything to do with the mind/body problem and free will, which are central to the definition of agency. JOE: What?
In philosophy, where the concept of "agency" is used, the main questions that are debated concern what we mean by "agent" in the abstract. The issues include volition and free will, intentionality, and the nature of mind (the mind/body problem). Here is a book that is very popular with ID enthusiasts on the subject (it is cited in the preface to Dembski's "No Free Lunch" for example): Agents Under Fire by the philosopher Angus Menuge. The book argues that agency entails libertarian free will and a dualistic ontology, and ID proponents like the book because their arguments require that these assumptions be accepted as true (Dembski has admitted as much). Unfortunately for ID, many other philosophers disagree with these assumptions, and of course they can not be scientifically tested (yet anyway).
agency: 3: a person or thing through which power is exerted or an end is achieved agent: 1: one that acts or exerts power 2 a: something that produces or is capable of producing an effect : an active or efficient cause Strange that you would say such things when it is so easy to refute.
Sorry, what is it you think you've refuted here?
So to recap agency has explanatory power except when aiguy wants to deny it.
I think you're confused about this. Let's take an example. I walk outside and find my car has been burned up, I want to know how it happened, and I talk to Joe the Forensics Expert. Joe: I believe "agency" was responsible. AIG: "What do you mean, 'agency'?". Joe: I mean "a person or thing through which power is exerted or an end is achieved". AIG: Huh? How did my car get burned up? Joe: I told you - it was agency. We don't know which agency... we're working on that. AIG: That doesn't tell me anything at all! Is it a person or a thing? If it was a thing I need to know what sort of thing it was. If it was a broken power line (which would be a "thing through which power is exerted") then I want to call the electric company. If it was a person then I want to call the cops. JOE: It wasn't a power line sort of thing - it was more like a personal agent. You know, something with volition and intelligence. AIG: OK - finally you've explained it! You mean somebody burned up my car! I'm calling the cops! JOE: Well we're not sure it was a human being. All we know is that it was intelligent agency. Perhaps it was an extra-terrestrial alien for example. AIG: OK - I'm going to call the cops to find the arsonist, and I'm calling a psychiatrist for you. :-)aiguy_again_{January 28, 2012
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aiguy:
Of course not, Joe. Archaeology and forensics deal exclusively with investigating human actions, and SETI refers to the search for extra-terrestrial life forms.
They do not know it was human actions until they investigate. So first they determine if an agency was required. THEN they determine what agency.
None of these have anything to do with the mind/body problem and free will, which are central to the definition of agency.
What? agency: 3: a person or thing through which power is exerted or an end is achieved agent: 1: one that acts or exerts power 2 a: something that produces or is capable of producing an effect : an active or efficient cause Strange that you would say such things when it is so easy to refute. So to recap agency has explanatory power except when aiguy wants to deny it. Looks like aiguy drank the kool-aid...Joe_{January 28, 2012
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Hi Joe,
So archaeology, forensics and SETI are all wastes of time?
Of course not, Joe. Archaeology and forensics deal exclusively with investigating human actions, and SETI refers to the search for extra-terrestrial life forms. None of these have anything to do with the mind/body problem and free will, which are central to the definition of agency.
I can’t wait for someone to try to use aiguy’s explanation to try to get out of a crime he/ she committed.
Huh?
Whe that happens I will listen to what you have to say aiguy. Until then what you say has a ring of insipidity.
Insipidity? I've been called worse :-) Hi Bruce
AIG: “Agency” is a term from philosophy (mainly moral philosophy and philosophy of mind). It is also used in sociology, where it refers to people (human beings) in social systems. It is not a term used in biology, physics, or the cognitive sciences BRUCE: It hasn’t been lately, but it is starting to be so used by scientists who are proponents of ID. And yes, there are actual scientists who do science and who are proponents of ID.
Yes of course ID proponents use the term. It actually comprises the entire explanation offered by ID for the origin of life, and the universe. Just those words "intelligent agency" - that's it. My beef with ID is that they pretend that this term "intelligent agency" refers to something we all understand on account of our uniform and repeated experience with "intelligent agents". The fact is, agency has been a topic of intense debate among scholars for many centuries, with no sign that consensus is any closer today than it ever was. Any five philosophers of mind will hold nine different theories regarding the relationship between mind and matter, the nature of free will, and the very meaning of the word "agency". Do our mental abilities require exotic or unknown properties of quantum mechanics, or are they algorithmic, or do they transcend chance and necessity - and even causality - entirely? Is consciousness causal or perceptual? Do we have libertarian free will? None of these questions can be answered at the present time. So when ID claims that "intelligent agency" is a known cause that should be accepted as the best explanation for life and the universe, a great rhetorical confusion is being perpetrated. Intelligence is not a thing; it is a property of various complex systems (uncontroversially human beings, and perhaps other animals and computers). These are the causes we know of - not some abstract class of things called "intelligent agents". And these things we know about are obviously not candidates for ID's intelligent designer. So what is ID hypothesizing? It must either be an extra-terrestrial life form, or something that is not a life form at all, but still somehow has the mental and physical abilities of human beings (and then some). These two mutually exclusive and exhaustive options are the actual hypotheses that ID proposes, and are subsumed under the rubric of "design". So, what is the evidence that either of these two types of things exist? We have no evidence that extra-terrestrial life forms exist (and if they did, we would more likely be their descendents rather than the products of their bio-engineering efforts). And we also have no good evidence that anything which is not itself a highly complex physical mechanism could possibly have the mental and physical abilities required to design and build highly complex mechanisms.
What qualifies as science is not cast in stone. Rather, it is continually evolving, based on how scientists actually work, and it is always a little ambiguous.
Right.
The notion of agency has not been used in biology heretofore because biologists saw no need for it. Now there is a need, simply by virtue of the fact that agency is the best explanation for the origin of biological forms and organismic systems.
Biologists would love to write about agency - the basis for our mental abilities, our choices, our conscious will and awareness - except we understand precious little about it. We really don't have much theoretical understanding at all about how we manage to think; pretty much all we know is that we use our brains to do so. But of course you aren't talking about biologists explaining agency - you are talking about using "agency" as an explanation of biology! But that is the whole problem of ID! We have no unified scientific theory or understanding of intelligence or consciousness. We have learned a great deal about the neural correlates of various mental abilities and experiences, about memory and learning and sense processing and even abstract reasoning and planning. But the fact is nobody knows how brains work, what role consciousness plays in thought, and so on. So, when ID offers "intelligence" as the explanation for the universe and life, it is referring to something that is really a label for our ignorance about how human beings manage to think, and not the "known cause" that Dembski, Meyer, et al want us think.
The fact that agency is still poorly understood is an insufficient argument for rejecting it as an explanation, providing it is understood well enough that one can be confident of its explanatory power, which is the case when positing it as the cause of complex, functionally specified information.
"Agency" has precisely NO explanatory power. Not one thing follows from the assertion that something has agency. Think of this: When DNA is thought to be full of junk, Dembski writes (in the Design Revolution) why junk DNA is perfectly compatible with intelligent design, because intelligent design doesn't mean optimal design, and human software designers often leave junk code in too. When DNA is thought not to be junk, Casey Luskin crows about how this is vindicating ID, because we all know intelligent agents wouldn't be leaving junk in their code. Intelligent agents are supposed to "infuse large amounts of information rapidly into systems", but when the fossil record shows it takes millions of years for various structures to arise, well, that's considered rapid.... because intelligent agents might live for millions of years, or maybe forever... Mainly, ID assumes (and relies on the notion) that agency is distinct from chance and necessity, when nobody knows if that is true or not. No, Bruce, nobody knows what this abstract term is supposed to mean in ID, which is why ID doesn't really say anything that can be construed as an explanation.
To reject it out of hand as an explanation on the basis of its not having been so used until now is an artificial restriction based entirely on a need to eliminate an explanation one does not wish to see entertained, not on any valid grounds.
Sorry but I think you drank the kool aid here. I have no objection to the thought of cosmic consciousness being involved in the construction of reality... I like all kinds of outlandish metaphysical speculation. It isn't an artificial restriction to insist that when a theory claims to offer a known cause to explain some phenomenon, the cause must actually be characterized so that we can indeed decide if we know it or not.aiguy_again_{January 28, 2012
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So archaeology, forensics and SETI are all wastes of time? I can't wait for someone to try to use aiguy's explanation to try to get out of a crime he/ she committed. Whe that happens I will listen to what you have to say aiguy. Until then what you say has a ring of insipidity.Joe_{January 27, 2012
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“Agency” is a term from philosophy (mainly moral philosophy and philosophy of mind). It is also used in sociology, where it refers to people (human beings) in social systems. It is not a term used in biology, physics, or the cognitive sciences
It hasn't been lately, but it is starting to be so used by scientists who are proponents of ID. And yes, there are actual scientists who do science and who are proponents of ID. What qualifies as science is not cast in stone. Rather, it is continually evolving, based on how scientists actually work, and it is always a little ambiguous. The notion of agency has not been used in biology heretofore because biologists saw no need for it. Now there is a need, simply by virtue of the fact that agency is the best explanation for the origin of biological forms and organismic systems. Many biologists disagree with this, of course, as is always the case when a paradigm shift is occurring in a scientific field. The fact that agency is still poorly understood is an insufficient argument for rejecting it as an explanation, providing it is understood well enough that one can be confident of its explanatory power, which is the case when positing it as the cause of complex, functionally specified information. To reject it out of hand as an explanation on the basis of its not having been so used until now is an artificial restriction based entirely on a need to eliminate an explanation one does not wish to see entertained, not on any valid grounds.Bruce David_{January 27, 2012
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For those who are interested in science and agency, a good summary of the current state of affairs can be found on Wiki here. As you can see, there is plenty of interest in the nature of agency, and people have begun to try and answer some relevant questions scientifically for the first time in history. But we're still a long way from understanding what it all means. And that is why ID is disingenuous to slip "agency" into scientific discussions as though it is a concept that we all understand and believe in based on our uniform and repeated experience.aiguy_again_{January 27, 2012
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Felipe, I don't think Schrodinger's speculations were trivial; only that they didn't rest on scientific work. Of course the questions involved are profound. And biology does not disregard the questions surrounding agency for lack of interest. Rather, science does not have the tools quite yet to answer questions about free will and the nature of consciousness. But stay tuned! Neuroscientists are beginning to be able to investigate some of these questions now.aiguy_again_{January 27, 2012
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Hi, AIG, I do not see any reason to disagree with Schrödinger on the most characteristic feature of Life. I would not call that a trivial speculation. The whole book is about how to explain this special feature of living organisms, provided that just physics and chemistry are not sufficient explanation. If the word AGENCY is not in the technical lexicon of biology, then biology is disregarding the most characteristic features of living organisms.felipe_{January 27, 2012
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Hi KF,
1 –> Right off, if the cognitive sciences do not reckon with the reality of agency, they are showing such an abundant closed-mindedness that they are refusing to recognise one of the most salient characteristics of cognition, i.e that even they themselves as cognitive agents, are conscious subjects and agents.
Philosophers of mind discuss the notion of agency of course. Cognitive scientists do research with empirical data. The only closed-mindedness that belongs in consciousness research (or any scientific endeavor) is that one's results need to be grounded in uniform and repeated experience. ID has adopted the term from philosophy and pretends it is a term of art with scientific grounding. It is not, since the questions that this concept of "agency" deals with (the mind/body problem and the problem of free will) have not been resolved scientifically and remain in philosophical debate, just as they have been for many centuries.
2 –> Similarly, last I checked, we are biological beings, and are conscious agents, which needs to be addressed if biology is to deal with highly material facts of reality. Or, has science now become materialist ideology dressed up in the holy lab coat?
I don't understand your point.
3 –> As for physics, last I checked, thought experiments are an important part of the development of modern physics, which relies through and through on cognitive and conscious agents. There is even a whole set of issues linked to the evident fine tuning of the observed — oops, agents in action again, no, no tut tut . . . — cosmos.
I think you are making no sense at all - please try and put your arguments more concisely and without the sarcasm. Yes we think about physics. No I don't think fine tuning arguments point to conscious gods.
4 –> More directly, when we turn from addressing the patterns that show mechanical necessity and/or chance in action, we find that here are also empirically observable, tested and found reliable signs that point to ART-ificial cause, i.e. to design. As Stonehenge etc so strongly highlight.
This has nothing to do with my comments; if it does you haven't made the connection clear.
5 –> That is, if we are to scientifically study the world with the objects and events and processes in it in accordance with the truth, we have to reckon with the reality and acts of agency, indeed without that we cannot do either science or mathematics, engineering and computing, its handmaidens. I stress this because without these, we have no effective science.
The nature of "agency" is a matter which has stirred debate among philosophers and still does. We can debate philosophy of mind if you'd like, but it is beside the point here. The point here is that "agency" smuggles in numerous philosophical assumptions that ID fails to make explicit and support empirically.
6 –> Next, we turn to the question of origins of the cosmos, our solar system, life in it, body plans, and mind [which BTW also includes morals]. To claim to study such scientifically, is to claim to study the past on observable facts, processes and signs in the present that can credibly account for the origin in question as best empirically anchored, truth-oriented explanation.
Huh? I'm all for "truth-oriented" explanations!
7 –> Now, we happen to know that functionally specific, complex organisation and related — sometimes, digitally coded — information is a feature of our world, as common as the posts in this thread and the computers on which we are reading them. 8 –> In our experience, and observation, reliably, such FSCO/I reliably comes from ART-ifice, i.e design. The whole internet, for just one instance, stands in testimony to that.
Complex machinery is designed by human beings who use their brain to do so. Got it. How did the very first complex machine, or mind, come to exist, if all complex machines need minds and all minds need complex machines? Nobody knows.
9 –> We have every right of reasonable induction, to infer that such FSCO/I is a strong sign of design as cause. At any rate, as candidate cause.
If by "design" you mean "conscious thought", then it's a very weak induction beset by the problem I've described. But yes, you are free to posit it as a candidate, along with multiverses and mutations and other forms of magic.
10 –> In addition, we observe that FSCO/I implies high contingency of arrangement of components, beyond the search capacity of the solar system or even the observable cosmos, on blind chance and mechanical necessity, the other two well warranted causal patterns.
Since nobody knows how the universe or life began, nobody can begin to estimate the probability space of these occurences.
11 –> So, we have only one empirically adequate causal explanation for FSCO/I.
No, you have none.
So, when we see it in the living cell, we have every reason to infer that this is a sign that points to design as best explanation, or at any rate as a serious candidate explanation.
No, that is not the case. Since all empirically accessible intelligent beings contain cells (lots of them) and require them in order to design things, it makes no sense to suggest that an "emprically adequate" solution to the origin of cells is an intelligent being.
12 –> Unless, we have reason to know on separate warrant in advance that designing agency is IMPOSSIBLE in the causal context. Which, pace a priori Lewontinian materialism, is precisely what we do not know about the context of origin of life or body plans including our own.
I don't think saying these things are IMPOSSIBLE helps. I prefer to talk about what we have good reason to believe. It is POSSIBLE that a china teapot orbits Neptune, after all.
13 –> That is, we can only rule out the possibility of agency in that context by refusing to entertain the otherwise most obvious candidate causal explanation. >>
I disagree. It is by no means obvious to me that anything without a complex, physical mechanism to store and retrieve information, process sensory data, generate plans, and so forth could possibly design anything. So it is not obvious to me how we can suggest conscious design was responsible for the origin of complex physical mechanism. Hi felipe,
AIG: “Agency” is a term from philosophy (mainly moral philosophy and philosophy of mind). It is also used in sociology, where it refers to people (human beings) in social systems. It is not a term used in biology, physics, or the cognitive sciences . . . FELIPE: Already in 1944 Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger published his famous book “What is Life?” I quote from chapter 6: “What is the characteristic feature of life? When is a piece of mater said to be alive? When it goes on “DOING SOMETHING”, moving, exchanging material with its environment, and so forth, and that for a much longer period than we would expect an inanimate piece of matter to keep going under similar circumstances.” (my emphasis) Agency is certainly the central problem to explain about life.
I read Schrondinger's little philosophy book when I was about 16 (that is, more than fifty years ago). Great scientists who get the Nobel earn the right to indulge their speculations in the popular press, and many of them do just that. My point to Joe in the other thread stands quite correct, however: "agency" is not in the technical lexicon of biology, physics, or the cognitive sciences. FYI, I have been fascinated by the mind/body problem and the problem of free will (in other words, with the concept of "agency" since I was a teenager. I wish there were scientific solutions to these problems, but no such luck... yet.aiguy_again_{January 27, 2012
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AIG: “Agency” is a term from philosophy (mainly moral philosophy and philosophy of mind). It is also used in sociology, where it refers to people (human beings) in social systems. It is not a term used in biology, physics, or the cognitive sciences . . . Already in 1944 Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger published his famous book “What is Life?” I quote from chapter 6: "What is the characteristic feature of life? When is a piece of mater said to be alive? When it goes on “DOING SOMETHING”, moving, exchanging material with its environment, and so forth, and that for a much longer period than we would expect an inanimate piece of matter to keep going under similar circumstances." (my emphasis) Agency is certainly the central problem to explain about life.felipe_{January 27, 2012
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