ID Foundations, 21: MF — “as a materialist I believe intelligence to be a blend of the determined and random so for me that is not a third type of explanation” . . . a root worldview assumption based cause for rejecting the design inference emerges into plain view

_{kairosfocus

December 24, 2013

Atheism, Design inference, ID Foundations, Philosophy, specified complexity, worldview}

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In the OK thread, in comment 50, ID objector Mark Frank has finally laid out the root of ever so many of the objections to the design inference filter. Unsurprisingly, it is a worldview based controlling a priori of materialism:

[re EA] #38

[MF, in 50:] I see “chance” as usually meaning to “unpredictable” or “no known explanation”. The unknown explanations may be deterministic elements or genuinely random uncaused events which we just don’t know about.

It can also includes things that happen as the result of intelligence – but as a materialist I believe intelligence to be a blend of the determined and random so for me that is not a third type of explanation.

But, just what what is the explanatory filter that is being objected to so strenuously?

Let me present it first, in the per aspect flowchart form that I have often used here at UD, that shows it to be a more specific and detailed understanding of a lot of empirically grounded scientific methods of investigation.

Galileo's leaning tower exercise, showing mechanical necessity: F = m*g, of course less air resistance. NB: He did a thought expt of imagining the light and heavy ball tied together, so on the "heavier must fall faster" concept, the objects now should fall even faster. But, shouldn't the lighter one instead have retarded the heavier? As in, oopsie. The expt may have been done and the heavier may have hit just ahead, as air resistance is as cross section but weight is as volume. (HT: Lannyland & Wiki.) — Galileo’s leaning tower exercise, showing mechanical necessity: F = m*g, of course less air resistance. NB: He did a thought expt of imagining the light and heavy ball tied together, so on the “heavier must fall faster” concept, the objects now should fall even faster. But, shouldn’t the lighter one instead have retarded the heavier? As in, oopsie. The expt may have been done and the heavier may have hit just ahead, as air resistance is as cross section but weight is as volume. (HT: Lannyland & Wiki.)

One that explicitly invokes mechanical necessity as first default, then on high contingency rejects it — if a lawlike necessity is at work, it will produce reliably similar outcomes on similar initial circumstances, just as a dropped heavy object near earth’s surface has initial acceleration 9.8 N/kg due to the gravity field of the earth.

However, this does not cover all phenomena, e.g. if the dropped object is a fair common die that then falls to a table, it will tumble and settle to read a value from the set {1, 2, . . . 6} in a way that is close to the mathematical behaviour of an ideal flat random variable.

But also, chance and necessity cannot cover all outcomes. Not only do we routinely experience being intelligent designers — e.g. by my composing this post — but we often see a class of phenomena which is highly contingent but not plausibly accounted for on chance. For, if we see 500 – 1,000 bits or more of functionally specific complex organisation and/or information [FSCO/I], the needle in haystack challenge faced by the atomic resources of our solar system or cosmos will be overwhelmed by the space of possible configurations and the challenge of finding cases E from narrow and isolated target or hot zones T in such spaces, W.

Citing Dembski’s definition of CSI in No Free Lunch:

p. 148: “The great myth of contemporary evolutionary biology is that the information needed to explain complex biological structures can be purchased without intelligence. My aim throughout this book is to dispel that myth . . . . Eigen and his colleagues must have something else in mind besides information simpliciter when they describe the origin of information as the central problem of biology.

I submit that what they have in mind is specified complexity [[cf. here below], or what equivalently we have been calling in this Chapter Complex Specified information or CSI . . . .

Biological specification always refers to function . . . In virtue of their function [[a living organism’s subsystems] embody patterns that are objectively given and can be identified independently of the systems that embody them. Hence these systems are specified in the sense required by the complexity-specificity criterion . . . the specification can be cashed out in any number of ways [[through observing the requisites of functional organisation within the cell, or in organs and tissues or at the level of the organism as a whole] . . .”

p. 144: [[Specified complexity can be defined:] “. . . since a universal probability bound of 1 [[chance] in 10^150 corresponds to a universal complexity bound of 500 bits of information, [[the cluster] (T, E) constitutes CSI because T [[ effectively the target hot zone in the field of possibilities] subsumes E [[ effectively the observed event from that field], T is detachable from E, and and T measures at least 500 bits of information . . . ”

So, design thinkers reject the default explanation for high contingency– chance — if we see FSCO/I or the like. That is, we infer on FSCO/I and related patterns best explained on (and as known reliable signs of) design, to just that, intelligent design:

Accordingly, I replied to MF at 59 in the OK thread, as follows:

____________

>>> the pivot of the issue is now plain from MF at 50 above:

[re EA] #38

[MF:] I see “chance” as usually meaning to “unpredictable” or “no known explanation”. The unknown explanations may be deterministic elements or genuinely random uncaused events which we just don’t know about.

It can also includes things that happen as the result of intelligence – but as a materialist I believe intelligence to be a blend of the determined and random so for me that is not a third type of explanation.

Here we have the root problem, that for MF, design reduces to chance and necessity.

Also, I would not go along fully with MF’s definition of chance {“uncaused events” is a very troublesome concept for instance but my focus here is,} having identified that chance processes come about by two major known physical processes:

Chance:

Tumbling dice — a chaotic phenomenon thanks to eight corners and twelve edges interacting with uncontrollable surface roughness etc. (HT:Rosendahl, Flicker)

TYPE I: the clash of uncorrelated trains of events such as is seen when a dropped fair die hits a table etc and tumbles, settling to readings in the set {1, 2, . . . 6} in a pattern that is effectively flat random. In this sort of event, we often see manifestations of sensitive dependence on initial conditions, aka chaos, intersecting with uncontrolled or uncontrollable small variations yielding a result predictable in most cases only up to a statistical distribution which needs not be flat random.

TYPE II: processes — especially quantum ones — that are evidently random, such as quantum tunnelling as is the explanation for phenomena of alpha decay. This is used in for instance zener noise sources that drive special counter circuits to give a random number source. Such are sometimes used in lotteries or the like, or presumably in making one time message pads used in decoding.

In reply to MF’s attempt to reduce design by intelligence to the other two sources of cause, I suggest that this approach radically undermines the credibility of mind as a thinking and knowing function of being intelligent humans, in a reductio ad absurdum. (Cf my remarks here yesterday in reply to Dan Barker’s FFRF and my longstanding observations — in the end they go back to the mid 1980′s in answer to Marxist materialism as well as evolutionary materialism — here on.)

Haldane sums up one of the major problems aptly, in a turn of the 1930′s remark that has often been cited here at UD:

“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” [[“When I am dead,” in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]

Let me clip my more extended discussion:

___________

>> 15 –> In short, it is at least arguable that self-referential absurdity is the dagger pointing to the heart of evolutionary materialistic models of mind and its origin . . . . [It can be presented at a much more sophisticated way, cf. Hasker p. 64 on here as an example, also Reppert, Plantinga and others] but without losing its general force, it can also be drawn out a bit in a fairly simple way:

a: Evolutionary materialism argues that the cosmos is the product of chance interactions of matter and energy, within the constraint of the laws of nature; from hydrogen to humans by undirected chance and necessity.

b: Therefore, all phenomena in the universe, without residue, are determined by the working of purposeless laws of chance and/or mechanical necessity acting on material objects, under the direct or indirect control of happenstance initial circumstances.

(This is physicalism. This view covers both the forms where (a) the mind and the brain are seen as one and the same thing, and those where (b) somehow mind emerges from and/or “supervenes” on brain, perhaps as a result of sophisticated and complex software looping. The key point, though is as already noted: physical causal closure — the phenomena that play out across time, without residue, are in principle deducible or at least explainable up to various random statistical distributions and/or mechanical laws, from prior physical states. Such physical causal closure, clearly, implicitly discounts or even dismisses the causal effect of concept formation and reasoning then responsibly deciding, in favour of specifically physical interactions in the brain-body control loop; indeed, some mock the idea of — in their view — an “obviously” imaginary “ghost” in the meat-machine. [[There is also some evidence from simulation exercises, that accuracy of even sensory perceptions may lose out to utilitarian but inaccurate ones in an evolutionary competition. “It works” does not warrant the inference to “it is true.”] )

c: But human thought, clearly a phenomenon in the universe, must now fit into this meat-machine picture. So, we rapidly arrive at Crick’s claim in his The Astonishing Hypothesis (1994): what we subjectively experience as “thoughts,” “reasoning” and “conclusions” can only be understood materialistically as the unintended by-products of the blind natural forces which cause and control the electro-chemical events going on in neural networks in our brains that (as the Smith Model illustrates) serve as cybernetic controllers for our bodies.

d: These underlying driving forces are viewed as being ultimately physical, but are taken to be partly mediated through a complex pattern of genetic inheritance shaped by forces of selection [[“nature”] and psycho-social conditioning [[“nurture”], within the framework of human culture [[i.e. socio-cultural conditioning and resulting/associated relativism]. And, remember, the focal issue to such minds — notice, this is a conceptual analysis made and believed by the materialists! — is the physical causal chains in a control loop, not the internalised “mouth-noises” that may somehow sit on them and come along for the ride.

(Save, insofar as such “mouth noises” somehow associate with or become embedded as physically instantiated signals or maybe codes in such a loop. [[How signals, languages and codes originate and function in systems in our observation of such origin — i.e by design — tends to be pushed to the back-burner and conveniently forgotten. So does the point that a signal or code takes its significance precisely from being an intelligently focused on, observed or chosen and significant alternative from a range of possibilities that then can guide decisive action.])

e: For instance, Marxists commonly derided opponents for their “bourgeois class conditioning” — but what of the effect of their own class origins? Freudians frequently dismissed qualms about their loosening of moral restraints by alluding to the impact of strict potty training on their “up-tight” critics — but doesn’t this cut both ways? Should we not ask a Behaviourist whether s/he is little more than yet another operantly conditioned rat trapped in the cosmic maze? And — as we saw above — would the writings of a Crick be any more than the firing of neurons in networks in his own brain?

f: For further instance, we may take the favourite whipping-boy of materialists: religion. Notoriously, they often hold that belief in God is not merely cognitive, conceptual error, but delusion. Borderline lunacy, in short. But, if such a patent “delusion” is so utterly widespread, even among the highly educated, then it “must” — by the principles of evolution — somehow be adaptive to survival, whether in nature or in society. And so, this would be a major illustration of the unreliability of our conceptual reasoning ability, on the assumption of evolutionary materialism.

g: Turning the materialist dismissal of theism around, evolutionary materialism itself would be in the same leaky boat. For, the sauce for the goose is notoriously just as good a sauce for the gander, too.

h: That is, on its own premises [[and following Dawkins in A Devil’s Chaplain, 2004, p. 46], the cause of the belief system of evolutionary materialism, “must” also be reducible to forces of blind chance and mechanical necessity that are sufficiently adaptive to spread this “meme” in populations of jumped- up apes from the savannahs of East Africa scrambling for survival in a Malthusian world of struggle for existence. Reppert brings the underlying point sharply home, in commenting on the “internalised mouth-noise signals riding on the physical cause-effect chain in a cybernetic loop” view:

. . . let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [[But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [[so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions. [[Emphases added . . . ]

i: The famous geneticist and evolutionary biologist (as well as Socialist) J. B. S. Haldane made much the same point in a famous 1932 remark:

“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” [[“When I am dead,” in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]

j: Therefore, though materialists will often try to pointedly ignore or angrily brush aside the issue, we may freely argue: if such evolutionary materialism is true, then (i) our consciousness, (ii) the “thoughts” we have, (iii) the conceptualised beliefs we hold, (iv) the reasonings we attempt based on such and (v) the “conclusions” and “choices” (a.k.a. “decisions”) we reach — without residue — must be produced and controlled by blind forces of chance happenstance and mechanical necessity that are irrelevant to “mere” ill-defined abstractions such as: purpose or truth, or even logical validity.

(NB: The conclusions of such “arguments” may still happen to be true, by astonishingly lucky coincidence — but we have no rational grounds for relying on the “reasoning” that has led us to feel that we have “proved” or “warranted” them. It seems that rationality itself has thus been undermined fatally on evolutionary materialistic premises. Including that of Crick et al. Through, self-reference leading to incoherence and utter inability to provide a cogent explanation of our commonplace, first-person experience of reasoning and rational warrant for beliefs, conclusions and chosen paths of action. Reduction to absurdity and explanatory failure in short.)

k: And, if materialists then object: “But, we can always apply scientific tests, through observation, experiment and measurement,” then we must immediately note that — as the fate of Newtonian Dynamics between 1880 and 1930 shows — empirical support is not equivalent to establishing the truth of a scientific theory. For, at any time, one newly discovered countering fact can in principle overturn the hitherto most reliable of theories. (And as well, we must not lose sight of this: in science, one is relying on the legitimacy of the reasoning process to make the case that scientific evidence provides reasonable albeit provisional warrant for one’s beliefs etc. Scientific reasoning is not independent of reasoning.) >>
___________

In short, there is a major issue that materialism is inherently and inescapably self referentially incoherent, undermining its whole scheme of reasoning.

That is a big topic itself.

But, when it comes to the issue of debates over the meaning of chance and inferences to design which implicate intelligence, it is an underlying assumption that plainly leads to endless debates.

In this context, however, the case of 500 coins in a row on a table reading all H or alternating H and T or the first 72 characters of this post in ASCII code, strongly shows the difference in capacity of chance and design as sources of configurations that come from independently and simply describable clusters that are deeply isolated in a space of configs that are such that the atomic resources of our solar system cannot credibly search a big enough fraction to make it reasonable to believe one will stumble upon such configs blindly.

In short, there is a major and directly experienced phenomenon to be accounted for, self aware conscious intellect and related capacities we subsume under the term mind. And this phenomenon is manifest in capacity to design, which is as familiar as composing posts in this thread.

Such designs are well beyond the capacity of blind chance and mechanical necessity, so we have good reason to see that intelligence capable of design is as fundamental in understanding our empirical world as chance and as necessity.

Whatever the worldview consequences — and I think they are huge.>>>

____________

In short, it seems that one key root of objections to the design inference is the notion that intelligence needed for design in the end reduces to cumulative effects of blind chance and mechanical necessity.

Only, that runs into significant self referential incoherence challenges.

A safer approach would be to recognise that intelligence indisputably exists and indisputably exerts capacities not credibly observed to emerge from blind chance and mechanical necessity. Indeed, on inductive and analytic — needle in haystack — grounds, it is arguable and compelling that certain phenomena such as FSCO/I are reliable signs of design as cause.

Then, we run into the challenge that from its very roots, cell based life is chock full of such signs of design, starting with the genetic code and the size of genomes, from 100 – 1,000 kbits on up.

Then, the observed cosmos itself shows strong and multiple signs of being fine tuned in ways that enable the existence of cell based life on terrestrial planets such as our own — where fine tuning is another empirically grounded sign of being designed.

So, there are good reasons to extend the force of the design inference to the origin of cell based life and of major body plans for such life, and to the origins of the observed cosmos that hosts such life. END

__________

F/N: I must update by posting this all too aptly accurate debate summary by no less than UD’s inimitable WJM, done here on Christmas day as a gift to the blog and world. WJM, I CANNOT let this one just wash away in the stream of comments! (You ought to separately headline it under your monicker.) Here goes:

Typical debate with an anti-ID advocate:

ID advocate: There are certain things that exist that are best explained by intelligent designed.

Anti-ID advocate: Whoa! Hold up there, fella. “Explained”, in science, means “caused by”. Intelligent design doesn’t by itself “cause” anything.

ID advocate: What I meant is that teleology is required to generate certain things, like a functioning battleship. It can’t come about by chance.

Anti-ID advocate: What do you mean “by chance”? “By” means to cause. Are you claiming that chance causes things to happen?

ID advocate: Of course not. Chance, design and necessity are the three fundamental categories of causation used to characterize the outcomes of various processes and mechanisms. You’re taking objection with colloquialisms that are commonly used in mainstream science and debate. Here are some examples of peer-reviewed, published papers that use these same colloquialisms.

Anti-ID advocate: Those aren’t real scientists!

ID advocate: Those are scientists you yourself have quoted in the past – they are mainstream Darwinists.

Anti-ID advocate: Oh. Quote mining! You’re quote mining!

ID advocate: I’m using the quotes the same way the authors used them.

Anti-ID advocate: Can you prove it?

ID Advocate: It’s not my job to prove my own innocence, but whatever. Look, it has been accepted for thousands of years that there are only three categories of causation – necessity, or law, chance and artifice, or design. Each category is distinct.

Anti ID advocate: I have no reason to accept that design is a distinct category.

ID advocate: So, you’re saying that battleship or a computer can be generated by a combination of necessity (physical laws) and chance?

Anti-ID advocate: Can you prove otherwise? Are you saying it’s impossible?

ID advocate: No, I’m saying that chance and necessity are not plausible explanations.

Anti-ID advocate: “Explanation” means to “cause” a thing. Chance and necessity don’t “cause” anything.

ID advocate: We’ve already been over this. Those are shorthand ways of talking about processes and mechanisms that produce effects categorized as lawful or chance.

Anti-ID advocate: Shorthand isn’t good enough – we must have specific uses of terms using explicitly laid-out definitions or else debate cannot go forward.

ID advocate: (insert several pages lay out specifics and definitions with citations and historical references).

ID advocate: In summary, this demonstrates that mainstream scientists have long accepted that there are qualitative difference between CSI, or organized, complimentary complexity/functionality, and what can in principle be generated via the causal categories of chance and necessity. Only intelligent or intentional agency is known to be in principle capable of generating such phenomena.

Anti-ID advocate: OMG, you can’t really expect me to read and understand all of that! I don’t understand the way you word things. Is English your first language? It makes my head hurt.

Comments

all the chance/law explanations for something that don’t work is not sufficient grounds for concluding that the explanation is not chance/law
A more eloquent appeal to ignorance is hard to imagine; and it's particularly useful in ignoring what we do know. Tell us Mark, how do you falsify a proposition that cannot be tested?Upright BiPed_{January 24, 2014
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Mark: I see only now that you have complimented RDFish for his stupid argument! (post #429) My compliments to you!gpuccio_{January 24, 2014
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Mark: PS: Calling someone a con man does not deny his intellectual faculties, only his motivations. Doubting someone's motivations in a debate can be sometimes admissible, but I believe that doubting the minimal intellectual abilities of an interlocutor is simply gross and unkind.gpuccio_{January 24, 2014
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Mark: I take the church steeples argument for what it is: a stupid argument for a stupid view of reality and of science (methodological naturalism). I also take RDFish's statement for what they are. From his post #427: "I present the argument that should make clear one of the fundamental problems with ID (emphasis mine). Finally, you should know, of all people, that ID theory is much more than "enumerating all the chance/law explanations for something that don’t work".gpuccio_{January 24, 2014
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Gpuccio You need to take Church Steeples argument for what it proves. It shows why simply enumerating all the chance/law explanations for something that don't work is not sufficient grounds for concluding that the explanation is not chance/law. PS Calling people dimwitted does not make for a constructive debate, but then neither does calling someone a con man.Mark Frank_{January 24, 2014
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Do you get it?
Yes I do. You want to ignore our uncontroversial understanding of how information is translated from DNA inside the cell (demonstrated repeatedly in biology labs around the world) by appealing to an 18th century vision of lightning. And you're serious about it.Upright BiPed_{January 24, 2014
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My compliments to RDFish for demonstrating the underlying logic of ID so clearly. When all the hot air and jargon is removed, it comes down to: The accepted scientific explanation is wrong, therefore a mind did it.Mark Frank_{January 24, 2014
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RDFish: I see you are still at the church steeples argument. Well, there is something that I really wanted to say about it, when you proposed it to me (some time ago), but I did not say out of simple courtesy. But, as I see that you have used very clearly the word in your post #427, I will say it now. Your church steeples argument is stupid. Cheers.gpuccio_{January 24, 2014
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Hi UprightBiPed
My compliments to StephenB for demonstrating a con man at his game. Stephen makes the point that when a person comes home to find his/her home ransacked and all the jewery missing, they don’t think it was possibly (as an example of undirected chance and law) that a tornado was the culprit.
What sort of idiot would think, when his jewelry got stolen, that a tornado was the cause? What sort of idiot would think, when the roofs are ripped off all the houses on the block, that a human being was the cause? Would you? No? Then how about these: Would you think a jellyfish was responsible for stealing your car? Would you think Alpha Centauri caused Dutch Elm Disease? Would you think the Colorado River caused a solar eclipse? And so on. Now tell me: What single principle is it that you use to make all of these decisions regarding cause and effect? (hint: There is none) You know, it is lucky for me, I suppose, that you are this dimwitted, since it really helps me to work at coming up with ever-simpler and clearer ways of explaining why everything you say is completely wrongheaded. I present the argument that should make clear one of the fundamental problems with ID:
Before people understood electricity and that lightning was electrical, they were mystified by the observation that lightning hit church steeples so often. There was no law-like cause that could explain how the lightning bolts came from the clouds aimed right at these steeples, and there was no way chance could account for the preponderance of strikes on churches. The lightning had to be aimed perfectly to hit the steeple from high up in the clouds – no material process could possibly account for looking around from the clouds, finding the church steeples, and aiming the bolts so perfectly at them. And so they concluded that Intelligent Design was the explanation: God was mad at those churches, and was aiming the lightning at them.
Do you get it? Now, perhaps you'd like to say something really stupid like, "Oh, lightning isn't anything like an information-bearing medium whose individuating characteristics are thermodynamically inert.", as if that difference is relevant at all. No, the point here has nothing to do lightning specifically, or information-bearing media specfically. Rather, the point is that it is stupid to decide that just because we don't understand something (whether it is aiming lightning bolts from the clouds or OOL), that means that whatever caused it somehow had something to do with a conscious mind. Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish_{January 24, 2014
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My compliments to StephenB for demonstrating a con man at his game. Stephen makes the point that when a person comes home to find his/her home ransacked and all the jewery missing, they don't think it was possibly (as an example of undirected chance and law) that a tornado was the culprit.
SB: We have already established that no variation of law chance (such as a tornado) can run off with jewelry RDF: We have established NO SUCH THING!… SB: Yes, we have established it, most definitely. Do I really have to enumerate every example of law/chance to show you that no example of law/chance can run off with the jewelry?
RDS's response is simultaneously sad and hilarious. He wants you to pay damn close attention to what he is about to say, rather like a used car salesman.
RDF: Please pay very close attention, because if you understand this, you will come to understand something very important that you are currently missing. ... What you are missing is this: Nobody knows every example of law/chance. Again: Nobody in the world can say what every combination of law/chance can or cannot do.
This is the level of scientific thinking RDF wants ID proponents to take up in there deliberation of evidence. Just exactly how you falsify a proposition that can never be tested, he does not say.Upright BiPed_{January 23, 2014
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RDF: Inferences can be drawn from empirical data, in which case they are empirically supported (in other words, they are scientific) ... simply provide examples (or even one single example) of something we might find in the fossil record, or in living biological systems, or anywhere else, that would 1) indicate that some conscious being existed before life on Earth
Okay
1) A translation apparatus producing unambiguous function, with the following physical system: • A set of arrangements of matter to evoke specific physical effects within a system, where the arrangements of the matter are physicochemically arbitrary to the effects they evoke • A preserved discontinuity between the arrangements of the information-bearing medium and the effects they evoke within the system • A second set of arrangements of matter to establish the otherwise non-existent (i.e. local) relationships between the arrangements of the information-bearing medium and their effects. 2) A translation apparatus that also includes: • An information-bearing medium using a finite set of objects as an iterative dimensional representation, requiring systematic constraints in addition to the mapping of effects (i.e. establishment of the object set, symbol syntax, a start function, a stop function, etc). • An information-bearing medium whose individuating characteristics are thermodynamically inert. - – - – - – - – - – - Set #1 is only found within the living kingdom (i.e. a universal inference to pre-existing organization), and set #2 is only found in the translation of language and mathematics (i.e. a universal inference to higher intelligence).
Response?
RDF: No, it is the empricism claimed by ID that I am objecting to. If ID simply presented itself as a philosophical or religious treatise, I’d have no problem with it at all. It’s the specious claim to scientific status that is the problem.
Upright BiPed_{January 23, 2014
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Hi StephenB,
Again, you said that you can observe and tell the difference between one kind of cause [law + chance (tornado)] and the other kind of cause [whatever you think it is (burglar)]. I would call it teleology, and you will not. However, you did say you could tell the difference (without presupposing anything).
Just like I can tell the difference between a river and the sun. One makes things hot and illuminated; the other carves out a riverbed. So what?
SB: We have already established that no variation of law chance (such as a tornado) can run off with jewelry RDF: We have established NO SUCH THING!... SB: Yes, we have established it, most definitely. Do I really have to enumerate every example of law/chance to show you that no example of law/chance can run off with the jewelry?
Please pay very close attention, because if you understand this, you will come to understand something very important that you are currently missing. You are asking me if you really need to enumerate every example of law/chance in order to prove that no combination of law/chance could ever run off with jewelry. What you are missing is this: Nobody knows every example of law/chance. Again: Nobody in the world can say what every combination of law/chance can or cannot do. Again: We do not understand everything there is to understand, and so we cannot possibly list every possible cause and every possible effect. Again: We have no way of knowing the limits of material processes, because we do not understand everything there is to know about physics. Is this sinking in? For all we know, some aspect of material processes fully accounts for our intellect and our conscious experience. For all we know, some aspect of material processes fully accounts for the fine-tuning of the physical constants. For all we know, some aspect of material processes fully accounts for the production of complex form and function. Here is where you say (if, as I hope, you can at least follow the argument thus far) that this is no more than promissory materialism. Of course that is true! Nothing but pure speculation that someday we will discover these material processes that explain all these mysteries. What you fail to realize is that ID offers nothing more than promissory immaterialism! Nothing but pure speculation that someday we will discover these mental processes that explain all these mysteries and that aren't reducible to material processes of any sort.
Well, we can clear this up in a hurry. Do you doubt that the effects of the sun and the effects of a river are the effects of law/chance? ...Electrical, gravitational, thermodynamic, geological, and neurological, and tectonic causes are all law/chance, which means that each is a different variation of one kind of cause (law/chance). Do you deny that each is law/chance?...
Don't you see what you are doing? You are just decreeing that some causes are reducible to material processes, and then you decree that others aren't... but you have no criterion for deciding which is which! Is your criterion "able to run off with jewelry?" In that case, poor Stephen Hawking seems to be reducible to material cause, since he is unable to run at all. Seriously: This is another one of those persistent misconceptions that cause endless confusion here. The first was the idea that by eliminating certain materialist explanations, you can somehow eliminate all of them, even the ones that we don't understand yet.
The design inference is related to many issues, the mind/body problem being one of them. That doesn’t mean that Dembski had that in mind when he built his paradigm.
I couldn't care less what he had in mind when he built the EF. The fact remains that by assigning something to the third category, one is declaring that it is the effect of something that is irreducible to law/chance, except there is no known method for ever deciding if anything is irreducible to law/chance. If there was, the mind/body problem would have been solved long ago.
Your first clue that he is not addressing the mind/body problem is that he never mentions it.
Again, it doesn't make any difference to me - or to science - what Dr. Dembski happens to be interested in or what his intentions are. Science is not affected by such things - it stands or falls on its merits, and not on the personal attributes of its authors. Dembski brings the mind/body problem to the heart of ID by defining "real teleology" to be irreducible to material processes.
RDF: That is Dembski’s intent for the filter, but of course my point is that there is no possible method for ruling out “law+chance”. SB: OK, but can you identify law + chance?
I don't understand this question. We certainly have some scientific explanations for things - the sun warming the earth, the river carving the canyon. Is that what you mean? Here is what you cannot do: You cannot determine that something can NOT be explained by law+chance, so you can NOT determine that anything is irreducible to material processes. If you could do this, you could solve the mind/body problem. But you can't, because there is no method for deciding that something cannot be reduced to material processes. All you can do is say "Tornados OBVIOUSLY can be reduced to material processes! Humans OBVIOUSLY cannot be reduced to material processes!". The former is obvious, the latter is an ancient philosophical conundrum that neither Dembski nor you can solve.
In other words, just because we know of no law/chance cause that can carry off the jewelry, that doesn’t mean that some other explanation other than teleology can explain it? Is that your claim?
The explanation for the stolen jewelry is "human being"! The explanation most certainly is NOT "real teleology", because nobody can say that human beings are irreducible to material processes.
RDF: I’m sure I just got through telling you that I do not know about Behe’s definitions of these terms. SB: You are evading the question.
HAHAHAhahahaha. Good grief, Stephen - I am telling you honestly that I do not know the answer to your question!! I've never read much from Behe - just some of his quotes from the Dover trial and stuff about irreducible complexity. If you'd like to talk about Behe's opinion, why don't you simply tell me what it is? Does he agree with Meyer that that designer is necessarily a conscious agent? Or does he agree with Dembski instead and say ID is unable to address that question? Finally, I knew you would dodge my argument about lightning. Everyone does, because it really makes clear how incredibly wrong-headed the entire ID argument is. So I guess I have to double-dog dare you: What is your response to this: Before people understood electricity and that lightning was electrical, they were mystified by the observation that lightning hit church steeples so often. There was no law-like cause that could explain how the lightning bolts came from the clouds aimed right at these steeples, and there was no way chance could account for the preponderance of strikes on churches. The lightning had to be aimed perfectly to hit the steeple from high up in the clouds - no known material process could account for it. And so they concluded that Intelligent Design was the explanation: God was mad at those churches, and was aiming the lightning at them. Ooops. This is a perfect illustration of why ID and the idea of the EF is ridiculous. You are making the exact same error as the folks who sang hymns to God to stop getting their churches burned down, when what they really needed to do was to say, "We have no idea what's going on with this lightning, so we better do a lot of actual research and figure it out!". Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish_{January 23, 2014
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RDF
That is the question before us, so no, you can’t simply presuppose that this is the case.
There are no presuppositions here. You said that you could discern the two different kinds of causes, that is, you could detect the difference between a tornado as one kind of cause and a burglar as another kind of cause. To detect is not to presuppose. SB:… then that kind of cause which must be different from law/chance cannot be law/chance. If it cannot be law/chance, then it cannot be reduced to law/chance. That should be obvious.
What is obvious is that after screaming that ID would never PRESUPPOSE that there is some sort of cause that is not law/chance, you proceed to simply PRESUPPOSE that there is just such a cause. Good grief!
No. There are no presuppositions here. Again, you said that you can observe and tell the difference between one kind of cause [law + chance (tornado)] and the other kind of cause [whatever you think it is (burglar)]. I would call it teleology, and you will not. However, you did say you could tell the difference (without presupposing anything). SB: We have already established that no variation of law chance (such as a tornado) can run off with jewelry
We have established NO SUCH THING! We have established that TORNADOS do not run off with jewelry. However, you have now changed that into “NO VARIATION OF LAW AND CHANCE”, which is a completely different statement altogether. You are terribly confused about this.
Yes, we have established it, most definitely. Do I really have to enumerate every example of law/chance to show you that no example of law/chance can run off with the jewelry? Can a volcano run off with jewelry? Can a flood run off with jewelry? Can a river run off with jewelry? Are you now stating that there might be some variation of law/chance that can run off with the jewelry? Are you that desperate to avoid refutation? SB: The sun and the river are distinguishable variations of the same kind of cause, namely law/chance. We can not only recognize variations of the same kind, we can also distinguish one kind from another, as you have already agreed.
They are two different kinds of causes, and they have different sorts of effects. You are simply assuming that both are law/chance – how do you know? Come on, you are obviously just making all of this up as you go along.
Well, we can clear this up in a hurry. Do you doubt that the effects of the sun and the effects of a river are the effects of law/chance? If you do doubt it, tell me what kinds of causes they could be.
There are inummerable different “kinds” or “classes” of causes of course. There are electrical causes and gravitational causes and nutritional causes and thermodynamic causes and geological causes and neurological causes and tectonic causes and sociological causes and…. so on. You have provided no method by which we can decide which of these causes can be reduced to material processes and which cannot.
Electrical, gravitational, thermodynamic, geological, and neurological, and tectonic causes are all law/chance, which means that each is a different variation of one kind of cause (law/chance). Do you deny that each is law/chance? By the way, just so you will know, none of them can run off with the jewelry (in case you are still looking for a non-teleological candidate).
Do you not also concede that the mind/body problem asks what is the relation between the mental and physical,
Of course, but it is hardly a concession. That statement is true by definition
and that one solution to the mind/body problem is that mental causes cannot be reduced to physical causes, while another solution to the mind/body problem is that mental causes CAN be reduced to physical causes?
Of course. SB: Dembski avoids using words like “mind” or “body” or “dualism” or “free will,” or “libertarianism” because he doesn’t want any extraneous elements introduced or injected in his paradigm, and because he doesn’t want people attacking arguments that he is not making.
We both have seen Dembski’s quote, and that is the only thing I need to refer to: Dembski claims that “real teleology” is irreducible to material processes, and that is the metaphysical claim that is at issue here – it is in fact the issue of the mind/body problem, and if you were honest about it you would simply admit this.
The design inference is related to many issues, the mind/body problem being one of them. That doesn’t mean that Dembski had that in mind when he built his paradigm. I wish you could understand that the whole point of the design inference is to mark the contrast between design vs. regularity and chance. Dembski is interested in patterns, specifications, probabilities or anything else that will justify the move from “if not law or chance, then design.” In that context, he is not interested in the mind/body problem. It may be a fascinating subject, and it is clearly one that parallels the design/law/chance discussion, but to introduce that topic as part of the EF process is to clutter it up with all kinds of new problems that really don’t add anything to the argument. Your first clue that he is not addressing the mind/body problem is that he never mentions it.
(As a side note, the reason Dembski doesn’t use those particular terms is actually because he doesn’t want to draw attention to the metaphysical commitments one needs to make in order to support ID).
His objective is the very opposite of what you say. He wants to show that the science can lead us to teleology. It is not a stealth operation. If we infer the existence of something that is irreducible to matter from natural patterns, we have provided evidence for teleology. Does evidence for teleology speak to the mind/body problem? I think it does, yes—but only because the process by which teleology is established has the integrity to leave out mind/body issues. SB:Correct me if I am wrong. You are saying that ID does not presuppose design when it goes through the process of performing the design inference, but it does presuppose design apart from the process when it says that such a thing as a third category of design exists in the first place. I hope I am giving a fair account of your argument.
Correct! Hallelujah. It only took two weeks and ninety-four repetitions to successfully communicate that one point.
Outstanding!
That is Dembski’s intent for the filter, but of course my point is that there is no possible method for ruling out “law+chance”.
OK, but can you identify law + chance?
All you can do is establish that you have no adequate explanation for something, not that no explanation can ever be found.
That depends on the answer to my previous question. If we cannot identify law and chance, and I am beginning to think that this is your position, then there is nowhere to go from there. That’s for sure.
This is all a silly charade, based on the ridiculous idea that just because nobody can come up with an explanation for something, then nobody will EVER come up with an explanation for it!
In other words, just because we know of no law/chance cause that can carry off the jewelry, that doesn’t mean that some other explanation other than teleology can explain it? Is that your claim? SB: Does Behe presuppose the existence of libertarian dualism (by your definition) or does he presuppose any other metaphysical principle in any way? If so, how?
I’m sure I just got through telling you that I do not know about Behe’s definitions of these terms.
You are evading the question. I didn’t ask you about his terms, I asked you to answer in accordance with your own definitions. I mean, really, my question appears immediately above your non-answer. Since you don’t want to respond outright, I will let you choose (oh, excuse me, I will let law and chance operate) so that you can simply write [a], [b], or [c]. There are three possible answers: [a] No, Behe does not presuppose libertarian dualism or any other metaphysical assumption. I now realize my initial claim to the effect the “ID presupposes libertarian dualism” was premature because that characterization could not possibly apply to his paradigm. [b] I am not familiar with Behe’s paradigms, so I cannot really provide an intelligent answer to the question. [c] Yes, Behe does presuppose libertarian dualism and here’s why.StephenB_{January 23, 2014
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Hi Eric Anderson,
If you still don’t understand what an intelligent agent is, take it up with Webster’s or Oxford’s.
You seem to be under the impression that dictionary definitions are sufficient for use in philosophical and scientific endeavors. How quaint! Let me illustrate: I declare that a river is an agent, using your dictionary definition, since rivers are things that have the power to act, and do act all day long. Their actions involve moving earth and stones, carving out canyons, and emptying water into the sea. Do you agree with me that rivers are agents? If not, what part of the dictionary definition does a river not satisfy?
Who said anything about empirical support for something like the origin of life or design in the universe or biology? The design inference is that, an inference.
What you just said is a non-sequitor. Inferences can be drawn from empirical data, in which case they are empirically supported (in other words, they are scientific). Or they can be drawn from assumptions that seem reasonable to people, but cannot be tested empirically, in which case they are not empirically supported. I am only interested in ID to the extent that it is claimed to be the former, a scientific theory.
Have you even been paying attention all this time?
Yes, except I do seem to have missed your naivete. My apologies. Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish_{January 23, 2014
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intelligent, in·tel·li·gent, adjective: - having the faculty of reasoning and understanding. From the Latin intelligent- (stem of intellig?ns, present participle of intelligere, variant of intellegere to understand, literally, choose between). [Note that key last phrase of the etymology.] agent, a·gent, noun: - a person or thing that acts or has the power to act. From the Latin agent- (stem of ag?ns (present participle) doing), equivalent to ag- (root of agere to do) + -ent- -ent Thus, an intelligent agent is a person or thing that acts or has the power to act with reasoning and understanding, specifically by choosing between contingent possibilities. Pretty simple. Straight out of the dictionary. No games, no special pleading, no hidden agenda, no rhetorical tricks. So let's cut it with the endless definitional red herrings. If you still don't understand what an intelligent agent is, take it up with Webster's or Oxford's.
I’m just not willing to pretend that we have some empirically supported conclusion when it is glaringly obvious that we do not.
Who said anything about empirical support for something like the origin of life or design in the universe or biology? The design inference is that, an inference. Have you even been paying attention all this time?Eric Anderson_{January 23, 2014
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Hi Eric Anderson,
I said you were playing with definitions. As in, you know exactly what an intelligent agent is and yet you insist on playing games by asserting that everything is natural.
Please give me your definition of "intelligent agent" as used in the context of ID.
The difference appears that some are willing to consider the possibility of design in life — based on what we do see, based on the evidence we do have, based on the kinds of systems we see being built.
I'm willing to consider absolutely everything. I'm just not willing to pretend that we have some empirically supported conclusion when it is glaringly obvious that we do not. Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish_{January 23, 2014
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Hi StephenB,
If law/chance is one kind of cause, and a cause of another kind also exists,...
That is the question before us, so no, you can't simply presuppose that this is the case.
...and you concede that it does,
But we do not simply presuppose that this is the case. You've been very adamant for two weeks regarding that ID does NOT presuppose this!
... then that kind of cause which must be different from law/chance cannot be law/chance. If it cannot be law/chance, then it cannot be reduced to law/chance. That should be obvious.
What is obvious is that after screaming that ID would never PRESUPPOSE that there is some sort of cause that is not law/chance, you proceed to simply PRESUPPOSE that there is just such a cause. Good grief!
You agreed that the tornado (law/chance) cannot run off with the jewelry.
Tornados do not run off with jewelry, right.
It follows, therefore, than only another kind of cause, such as the burglar, can do that. What kind of cause could that be? Well, we have already established that no variation of law chance (such as a tornado) can run off with jewelry.
We have established NO SUCH THING! We have established that TORNADOS do not run off with jewelry. However, you have now changed that into "NO VARIATION OF LAW AND CHANCE", which is a completely different statement altogether. You are terribly confused about this.
The sun and the river are distinguishable variations of the same kind of cause, namely law/chance. We can not only recognize variations of the same kind, we can also distinguish one kind from another, as you have already agreed.
They are two different kinds of causes, and they have different sorts of effects. You are simply assuming that both are law/chance - how do you know? Come on, you are obviously just making all of this up as you go along. All you are saying is that human beings OBVIOUSLY are not law/chance and tornados and rivers are OBVIOUSLY law/chance... but you are not giving any sort of reason! You are not saying what method you use to figure out which things are law/chance and which things are not!
You have agreed that there are two different “kinds” or classes of causes in play, not just different causes of the same kind or class.
There are inummerable different "kinds" or "classes" of causes of course. There are electrical causes and gravitational causes and nutritional causes and thermodynamic causes and geological causes and neurological causes and tectonic causes and sociological causes and.... so on. You have provided no method by which we can decide which of these causes can be reduced to material processes and which cannot.
As I recall, you used the pronoun “this” without clarifying exactly what that entailed, so I understood you to mean that the mind/body problem is, indeed, a problem for many people and that it has not been settled to everyone’s satisfaction. I happily granted that point, but I don’t think the mind/body problem has anything to do with what Dembski had in mind. He is simply beginning the process of clarifying what he means by “real teleology.”
Do you not also concede that the mind/body problem asks what is the relation between the mental and physical, and that one solution to the mind/body problem is that mental causes cannot be reduced to physical causes, while another solution to the mind/body problem is that mental causes CAN be reduced to physical causes?
Dembski avoids using words like “mind” or “body” or “dualism” or “free will,” or “libertarianism” because he doesn’t want any extraneous elements introduced or injected in his paradigm, and because he doesn’t want people attacking arguments that he is not making.
We both have seen Dembski's quote, and that is the only thing I need to refer to: Dembski claims that "real teleology" is irreducible to material processes, and that is the metaphysical claim that is at issue here - it is in fact the issue of the mind/body problem, and if you were honest about it you would simply admit this. (As a side note, the reason Dembski doesn't use those particular terms is actually because he doesn't want to draw attention to the metaphysical commitments one needs to make in order to support ID).
He is making only one argument: (we can infer the existence of teleology from natural patterns).
And substituting Dembski's own definition for "real teleology" into that sentence, we get this: "We can infer the existence of something that is irreducible to material processes from natural patterns". But we cannot do that - if we could, then we could scientifically solve the mind/body problem. But as you've admitted, nobody can do that.
Correct me if I am wrong. You are saying that ID does not presuppose design when it goes through the process of performing the design inference, but it does presuppose design apart from the process when it says that such a thing as a third category of design exists in the first place. I hope I am giving a fair account of your argument.
Correct! Hallelujah. It only took two weeks and ninety-four repetitions to successfully communicate that one point.
Are you, then, saying something like this?—“In putting Artifact A through the design filter, we have ruled out law/chance, which means that a different kind of cause other than law/chance must be play?
That is Dembski's intent for the filter, but of course my point is that there is no possible method for ruling out "law+chance". All you can do is establish that you have no adequate explanation for something, not that no explanation can ever be found.
Nevertheless, whatever different kind of cause that might be, we have no good reason to think it would be teleological since we don’t even know if such a thing as teleology exists?” Is this your argument?
Again, "different kind of cause" does not imply "not law+chance". We cannot establish that "law+chance" has been excluded, because we very obviously do not understand everything about the laws of the universe, and it is utterly certain that there are aspects of physical laws that we have no understanding of whatsoever. (cf Roger Penrose, who argues that currently-not-understood aspects quantum gravity are involved in human thought and consciousness).
Are you also saying this?— “Even though Artifact A was not caused by law/chance, we cannot say that it is irreducible to law/chance?” Are you saying that as well?
ABSOLUTELY NOT of course! Please re-read my last two paragraphs until you understand why that statement is pure nonsense. Now read this carefully: Here is what you are doing with the EF: 1) Pretend to rule out law+chance as an explanation for X, even though that is impossible 2) Conclude that the explanation of X must be therefore irreducible to law+chance 3) Pretend that you have thus scientifically solved the mind/body problem This is all a silly charade, based on the ridiculous idea that just because nobody can come up with an explanation for something, then nobody will EVER come up with an explanation for it! Think of how people used to use this same methodology to prove that God was aiming lightning bolts at church steeples, just because nobody could figure out any way all these steeples could get hit by lightning. Finally it was discovered that the observation was perfectly explained BY LAWLIKE CAUSES - it was just that nobody knew about these particular LAWLIKE CAUSES before!
Does Behe presuppose the existence of libertarian dualism (by your definition) or does he presuppose any other metaphysical principle in any way? If so, how?
I'm sure I just got through telling you that I do not know about Behe's definitions of these terms. Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish_{January 23, 2014
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That’s pretty hysterical. Nobody can begin to do either science or philosophy without rigorous definitions.
Don't be silly. I didn't say you were using definitions. I said you were playing with definitions. As in, you know exactly what an intelligent agent is and yet you insist on playing games by asserting that everything is natural. I've shown you a way out of the definitional game, but you aren't willing to take it. Look, I respect the idea of not jumping to conclusions until there is good evidence. I take the same approach. The difference appears that some are willing to consider the possibility of design in life -- based on what we do see, based on the evidence we do have, based on the kinds of systems we see being built. Meanwhile, others refuse to consider the possibility until they have pinned down to their own personal satisfaction some largely irrelevant nuances about teleology, or consciousness, or intelligence. That, yes, is playing with definitions for a rhetorical purpose, rather than looking at the evidence on its face and using terms in their very straight-forward, dictionary definition.Eric Anderson_{January 23, 2014
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Hi RDF: SB: Yes, it does mean that–exactly that. If the intelligent hunter is a different kind of cause (intelligent) than the volcano that buried him (law/chance), then it does mean that the hunter cannot be reduced to material processes, which have been defined as law/chance. That follows as surely as the night follows the day. RDF:
If your reasoning is correct, then whenever we have two causes that can be distinguished as different kinds of causes, one of them must be irreducible to law/chance. But this is not the case, so your reasoning is incorrect.
No, your reasoning is faulty. If law/chance is one kind of cause, and a cause of another kind also exists, and you concede that it does, then that kind of cause which must be different from law/chance cannot be law/chance. If it cannot be law/chance, then it cannot be reduced to law/chance. That should be obvious. You agreed that the tornado (law/chance) cannot run off with the jewelry. It follows, therefore, than only another kind of cause, such as the burglar, can do that. What kind of cause could that be? Well, we have already established that no variation of law chance (such as a tornado) can run off with jewelry. Thus, whatever performed that act (burglar) cannot be law/chance. If it cannot be law/chance, then it cannot be reduced to law/chance.
Again: Consider two different kinds of causes: (1) The Sun, and (2) A river. Clearly we can distinguish the effects of the Sun from the effects of a river. According to your reasoning, one of these causes must then be irreducible to law/chance.
The sun and the river are distinguishable variations of the same kind of cause, namely law/chance. We can not only recognize variations of the same kind, we can also distinguish one kind from another, as you have already agreed. A river, tornado, or flood (or the sun) are all variations of the same kind of cause [law/chance]that can create disorder in a room. None of these natural causes can run off with the jewelry. Only a cause of a different kind, a burglar (who can also create disorder) can do that. Thus, a burglar, which must be a different kind of cause than law/chance cannot be law/chance and cannot, therefore, be reduced to law/chance.
Therefore your reasoning is wrong. Just because we can distinguish two causes does NOT mean that one of them must be irreducible to material processes. Do you concede this point, or will you try and ignore it and hope it will go away?
I certainly don’t want the issue to go away. You have agreed that there are two different “kinds” or classes of causes in play, not just different causes of the same kind or class. If you grasp this point, the bigger picture will become clear to you. Law/chance (tornado, volcano) is a substantially different kind of cause than a teleological cause (burglar, hunter). RDF: If the mind/body problem is irrelevant, why does Dembski insist that “real teleology” is irreducible to material processes? SB: Because —drum roll! — dramatic pause! —he is defining a term. It has nothing to do with the mind/body problem.
But now you are contradicting yourself again. Here is what you said @400:

RDF: This question [whether human intelligence can be reduced to law/chance] is called “The Mind/Body Problem”, and it has been debated by philosophers for thousands of years. SB: No one disputes that.
As I recall, you used the pronoun “this” without clarifying exactly what that entailed, so I understood you to mean that the mind/body problem is, indeed, a problem for many people and that it has not been settled to everyone’s satisfaction. I happily granted that point, but I don’t think the mind/body problem has anything to do with what Dembski had in mind. He is simply beginning the process of clarifying what he means by “real teleology.”
Answer this question please: If ID doesn’t care about the mind/body problem, why does Dembski insist on one particular solution to the mind/body problem (viz the solution that says mind is not reducible to material processes)?
Dembski avoids using words like “mind” or “body” or “dualism” or “free will,” or “libertarianism” because he doesn’t want any extraneous elements introduced or injected in his paradigm, and because he doesn’t want people attacking arguments that he is not making. He is making only one argument: (we can infer the existence of teleology from natural patterns). The tighter things are--the better. There is no need, then, to speak of minds and bodies and other such things. The fewer variables you use, the easier it is to make your point and defend it.
And I have said this: The difference is between analyzing the structure of the EF per se on one hand, and using the EF to analyze some particular observation on the other hand. With respect to the latter, you are correct: One does not presuppose “real teleology”, but rather concludes it after eliminating other causes. But with respect to the structure of the EF itself, there is a presupposition that “real teleology” is a valid conclusion that should be adopted whenever some observation can’t be otherwise explained.
OK, that is a very clear answer and I apologize for missing it. Correct me if I am wrong. You are saying that ID does not presuppose design when it goes through the process of performing the design inference, but it does presuppose design apart from the process when it says that such a thing as a third category of design exists in the first place. I hope I am giving a fair account of your argument. Are you, then, saying something like this?---“In putting Artifact A through the design filter, we have ruled out law/chance, which means that a different kind of cause other than law/chance must be play? Nevertheless, whatever different kind of cause that might be, we have no good reason to think it would be teleological since we don’t even know if such a thing as teleology exists?” Is this your argument? Are you also saying this?--- “Even though Artifact A was not caused by law/chance, we cannot say that it is irreducible to law/chance?” Are you saying that as well? If so, how can something possibly be reduced to law and chance if law and chance have been ruled out?
Since you said we are using the term “dualism” differently, let’s stick to the term that Dembski uses, which is “irreducible to material processes”. Does Behe define “real teleology” that way? I do know what definitions he uses – maybe he fails to define his terms entirely, which is pretty common among ID proponents. At least Meyer and Dembski do define their terms, although what they mean by “design” is completely different (Meyer means “conscious, rational, deliberative agent” and Dembski means “teleology that is irreducible to material processes”).
I am using your definition of libertarian dualism. Does Behe presuppose the existence of libertarian dualism (by your definition) or does he presuppose any other metaphysical principle in any way? If so, how?StephenB_{January 23, 2014
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StephenB, Sorry, typo @414: Does Behe define “real teleology” that way? I do know what definitions he uses => Does Behe define “real teleology” that way? I don't know what definitions he uses RDFRDFish_{January 23, 2014
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Hi Eric Anderson,
Now you’re playing with definitions.
That's pretty hysterical. Nobody can begin to do either science or philosophy without rigorous definitions. 99.99% of these debates revolve around equivocations and ambiguities of the meaning of words like "material", "natural", "intelligence", "choice", and so on.
Of course they wouldn’t [refer to "particles bumping into each other"]. Because they want it to be so much more and the way I stated it sounds so, well, simplistic. I purposely stated it that way, however, in order to underscore the point, because at the end of the day, that is the entire sum and substance of the materialistic theory.
You've missed the point entirely. Are you aquainted at all with modern physics (quantum theory and relativity theory)? If so, you should understand that at the end of the day, the entire sum and substance of materialistic theory is nothing at all like "particles bumping into each other". Your view would have been an accuate summary of physics about 110 years ago, but 110 years is a long time.
Being unwilling to do that — sitting forever on the fence because the theory that we quietly in our hearts would like to be true doesn’t yet have enough support and saying “well, let’s wait until there is more evidence” — doesn’t demonstrate any particular intellectual integrity or willingness to examine the evidence.
On the contrary, it is the only intellectually honest position. It is amazing and depressing to me that people are so driven by these ideas that are "quietly in their hearts" that they insist their own particular views are the only correct ones, and everyone who doesn't agree with them is insane or delusional or stupid or lying. And yes this goes for both Darwinists and IDists.
There are other areas, however, including the origin of life for example, that are pretty clear, at least based on the evidence we do have.
This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Nobody has the slightest idea of how life arose. The abiogenesis folks allude to unknown and undemonstrable self-organization principles or biochemical affinities; the ID folks allude to unknown and undemonstrable conscious minds that somehow preceded the first brains... it's all just made-up fantasy until we have some actual evidence in hand, which we don't. Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish_{January 23, 2014
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Hi StephenB,
RDF: Yes there is a difference, no that doesn’t mean the hunter was irreducible to material processes. SB: Yes, it does mean that–exactly that. If the intelligent hunter is a different kind of cause (intelligent) than the volcano that buried him (law/chance), then it does mean that the hunter cannot be reduced to material processes, which have been defined as law/chance. That follows as surely as the night follows the day.
If your reasoning is correct, then whenever we have two causes that can be distinguished as different kinds of causes, one of them must be irreducible to law/chance. But this is not the case, so your reasoning is incorrect. Again: Consider two different kinds of causes: (1) The Sun, and (2) A river. Clearly we can distinguish the effects of the Sun from the effects of a river. According to your reasoning, one of these causes must then be irreducible to law/chance. But that isn't the case, now, is it? Therefore your reasoning is wrong. Just because we can distinguish two causes does NOT mean that one of them must be irreducible to material processes. Do you concede this point, or will you try and ignore it and hope it will go away?
RDF: If the mind/body problem is irrelevant, why does Dembski insist that “real teleology” is irreducible to material processes? SB: Because —drum roll! — dramatic pause! —he is defining a term. It has nothing to do with the mind/body problem.
But now you are contradicting yourself again. Here is what you said @400:
RDF: This question [whether human intelligence can be reduced to law/chance] is called “The Mind/Body Problem”, and it has been debated by philosophers for thousands of years. SB: No one disputes that.
And now you dispute it? Answer this question please: If ID doesn't care about the mind/body problem, why does Dembski insist on one particular solution to the mind/body problem (viz the solution that says mind is not reducible to material processes)?
By the way, are you ready to concede that ID does not presuppose libertarian dualism?
Regarding dualism, you've already said that we were using the term "dualism" in different ways, and so I stopped using the term, and use Dembski's term instead ("irreducible to material processes"). Let's not go backwards, OK? Regarding pressupositions, I have answered this a dozen times, but you don't listen: I have said this: Yes, I acknowledge that this problem with ID is NOT that it simply presupposes that “real teleology” is the cause of what we observe. Rather, this problem is that ID states that the conclusion of “real teleology” is justified when we fail to explain some complex, specified thing. It is not justified because nobody can show that “real teleology” exists, even in the heads of human beings. And I have said this: The difference is between analyzing the structure of the EF per se on one hand, and using the EF to analyze some particular observation on the other hand. With respect to the latter, you are correct: One does not presuppose “real teleology”, but rather concludes it after eliminating other causes. But with respect to the structure of the EF itself, there is a presupposition that “real teleology” is a valid conclusion that should be adopted whenever some observation can’t be otherwise explained. So please stop asking the same question, because I have already answered it over and over again.
I have given you two reasons why that claim cannot apply to William DEmbski. You have not addressed either problem [[a] He doesn’t use that term and (b) it isn’t logically possible to presuppose and infer the same thing in the same process]
I have answered these over and over again. [a] We are using the exact same words that Dembski uses in order to avoid confusion: irreducible to material processes. And [b] please read my answers above where I explain this over and over again.
Also, do you believe that Michael Behe, who is also a major ID proponent, presupposes libertarian dualism?
Since you said we are using the term "dualism" differently, let's stick to the term that Dembski uses, which is "irreducible to material processes". Does Behe define "real teleology" that way? I do know what definitions he uses - maybe he fails to define his terms entirely, which is pretty common among ID proponents. At least Meyer and Dembski do define their terms, although what they mean by "design" is completely different (Meyer means "conscious, rational, deliberative agent" and Dembski means "teleology that is irreducible to material processes"). Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish_{January 23, 2014
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RDFish @404:
I said there was a big difference between a human being and a geological process. I believe that an “intelligent agent” is a purely natural thing, so I don’t really agree with that statement.
Now you're playing with definitions. Since you insist on putting everything in the universe in a "natural thing" category, fine. Then just give yourself a footnote: there are "natural things 1" and "natural things 2". Natural things 1 are intelligent beings like humans (which you've already acknowledged exist). Natural things 2 is everything else. Now, whenever anyone refers to an 'intelligent agent' just substitute in "Natural agent 1" and you'll be good to go. :) We know -- and you have acknowledged -- that there is a big difference between a human being and something like a geological process. So there is a difference in kind between an intelligent agent (oops, a natural thing 1) and a natural thing 2. The first we know, for a fact, based on our repeated and uniform experience, can produce the kinds of artifacts similar to what we see in life. The second has never been known to do so and there are good reasons to think it cannot. So it is perfectly reasonable to draw an inference that, say, life came about due to natural thing 1 (i.e., an intelligent agent), rather than natural thing 2.
Nobody who is familiar with physics would think of the physical world as “particles bumping into each other”.
Of course they wouldn't. Because they want it to be so much more and the way I stated it sounds so, well, simplistic. I purposely stated it that way, however, in order to underscore the point, because at the end of the day, that is the entire sum and substance of the materialistic theory. (BTW, thanks for clarifying that you don't view yourself as a materialist, though if you keep asserting everything is a "natural thing" then I'm not sure how you would distinguish yourself from a materialist?) At the end of the day, if everything we have and everything we see is the result of, let's use more fancy wording for a moment, physical and chemical reactions, then sorry to say it, but that is precisely an accurate description of the materialist creation story: particles bumping into each other. I'd love to hear an example of something in the materialist paradigm that isn't accurately described thusly.
My view is that nobody should dig in their heels or bury their head in the sand. I say keep looking with your eyes and mind open, because nobody is even close to showing that we have any answers in hand. It is a very weird thing about people, in my view, that they need to believe one thing or another with all their might, even though we really don’t have any good reason to believe any one particular theory about origins. I guess it takes a bit of strength and confidence to admit when you don’t know something.
I agree with much of what you say here and it is good advice. My only caveat would be that when we do have evidence that one theory fits the facts better than another theory we can draw an inference, tentative of course as all things are in science, but a relatively confident inference nonetheless about the likely cause for this or that artifact. Being unwilling to do that -- sitting forever on the fence because the theory that we quietly in our hearts would like to be true doesn't yet have enough support and saying "well, let's wait until there is more evidence" -- doesn't demonstrate any particular intellectual integrity or willingness to examine the evidence. There is much in biology that, in my humble view, probably belongs in the category you describe, meaning, we don't yet have enough information to draw any reasonable conclusion. There are other areas, however, including the origin of life for example, that are pretty clear, at least based on the evidence we do have. It sounds like, however, that we may have some common ground in terms of approach, which is nice to hear. As long as neither of us digs in our heels too much or sits on the fence too long. :)Eric Anderson_{January 23, 2014
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@RDFish & StephenB
Now the sixth time I’ve said this: Yes there is a difference, no that doesn’t mean the hunter was irreducible to material processes.
Yes, it does mean that–exactly that.

I dont't get it. If I have two causes -- A and B -- and I assume, that both of them are reducible to "law and chance", then it would be impossible for me to diffifentiate between the two unless one of them is not reducible to "law and chance"??JWTruthInLove_{January 23, 2014
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@EA (402):
The question of whether intelligence, consciousness, intent, awareness, free will, intelligent agents, etc. can be produced by purely material processes is an interesting one.
Can you name anything (except for god) which has free will?JWTruthInLove_{January 23, 2014
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In comment 405 RDFish admits that ID is both testable and falsifiable:
Unless teleology was irreducible to law + chance, the EF wouldn’t work, and all of ID would come crashing down. Dembski understands this, hence his definition.
Well the EF would still work it would just show that inteligence is due to necessity and/ or chance.Joe_{January 23, 2014
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JWT: A flood or a volcanic eruption are classic examples of natural phenomena that are explainable on blind chance and mechanical necessity, even as rains, rising rivers and the like are so explained. Volcanoes of relevant kind are giant scale aperiodic relaxation oscillators charged up by tectonic processes and then as there is a breaking through to the surface, they erupt explosively, discharging their materials until something blocks again or there is a need for rebuilding the "charge." Our friend six miles south of here has been doing that for the past 120 or so years, coming to failed eruptions in 1897, 1933 - 7, and 1967. In 1992 - 5 it broke through and the rest is sad history. Right now a dome sits outside the old crater walls and is at about 200 m cu m, which seems to be capping, as it is active at depth. Hopefully things will cool down enough and the cap will be stable enough that the eruption will die off and we can have a few hundred years of quiet. Unfortunately that means people will promptly proceed to go back and rebuild in the mouth of danger. Indeed, 300 miles south of here in St Vincent, the villages on the flanks of their big one have been massively rebuilt since 1979, never mind that what saved them from massive casualties that year was that -- unlike in 1902 -- the major pyroclastic flow went out to sea than to the east across the land. Even St Pierre in Martinique has been rebuilt in significant part. Anyone who comes here and stands on St George's Hill or wangles a tour of Plymouth -- at your own risk -- who professes not to be able to tell the difference between a buried town and the volcano that dunit, is worthy of enclosure in a red ring fenced institution, with padded rooms and no sharp instruments permitted inside. The difference between design and chance and necessity is that blatant. And if a space ship were to come down there and aliens were to walk out and inspect they too would be able to see the significant parallels between their advanced technologies and Mr Arthurton's house complete with the vinyl LPs he had to leave behind in his living room [I suspect he took a few moments to pick the best of the best before he ran . . . itself a sign of the difference between man and machine or blind mechanism] in a forced evacuation. Our LGMs would then be able to infer yes this planet has intelligent creatures on it capable of design just like us, though they are not as advanced. Why then do we see silly arguments that pretend that intelligence and design are restricted to human beings -- nope Beavers do it with their dams -- and why do we see a refusal to recognise code, algorithms and sophisticated organised nanotech machines at work int eh living cell? Or for that matter, when we look at the observed cosmos being fine tuned for C-chemistry cell based life using aqueous media. Right from the physics required for water to exist and have its astonishing properties. And, we also see a blindness in response to the logic of cause/effect in light of the principle of sufficient reason in the weak form [we may seek an explanation of anything A that exists, and hope for a reasonable answer, and the implications on contingency and necessity of being. We live in a cosmos that is contingent and matter is contingent. Entropy adds to that at cosmic scale, and so we see a need for a necessary being at the root of existence, which cannot be material, and on fine tuning pointing to design, one that is minded. This is philosophy but the phil is based on key logical issues and categories that lie at the foundation of scientific thought. Indeed, in large part it rests on first principles of right reason that are self evident. KFkairosfocus_{January 23, 2014
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EA: Well said at 402:
The question of whether intelligence, consciousness, intent, awareness, free will, intelligent agents, etc. can be produced by purely material processes is an interesting one. Perhaps all we know for sure is that (i) it has never been observed, (ii) no-one has even a remotely plausible idea how such a thing could come about, (iii) there is a difference in kind between an intelligent agent and the other kinds of artifacts that we regularly see produced by purely material processes. In other words, there is no evidence that purely material processes can produce intelligent agents, and there is good reason to doubt it.
What RDF has been doing is smuggling in a materialist a priori by the back door, and hand waving away the challenge that the emergence of mind from a material basis, even a computational substrate, has to be shown per the vera causa principle that we should invoke causes known from experience to have capacity to cause an effect we wish to assign an explanation with some meawsure of credibility. In that smuggle-in materialism process, he and others try to bulldoze over the basic problem that blind chance and/or mechanic al necessity faces the barrier that it has never been shown -- even under favourable circumstances -- to be able to generate FSCO/I beyond 500 - 1,000 bits. The only empirically observed cause capable of such is design by intelligence. So, on observing FSCO/I, we have a right to infer intelligence on reliable sign. Where there are billions of cases in point. All the grand arguments and talking points, in absence of an answer tot he vera causa challenge, boil down to so many red herrings. In short, if RDF wants to avoid the conclusion that he is assuming poof-magic "emergence" of mind by unknown material effects from the mere chaining of causes in a computational fabric, he will have to show cause. Worse, he and others have yet to show us a complex computational fabric emerging and being programmed with language based codes and algorithms, by blind chance and mechanical necessity. Starting from the origin of cell based C-Chemistry, aqueous medium, D/RNA, enzyme and ribosome using life. With over 100 enzymes and other proteins used in just the protein synthesis process. That is, the root of the tree of life used by darwinists, is the first and decisive roadblock already. Similarly, Darwinists are unable to demonstrate the emergence of the FSCO/I required for body plans, including to form a brain, much less a brain and body capable of language. Language and its integral inescapable symbolism being a requirement of propositional logical reasoning. The notion that somehow sufficiently complex looping software can acquire self awareness etc, is without empirical demonstration, it is the result of imposing a priori materialism and then inferring that since we resulted from such a blind material process, it MUST be possible. Then the pretence is that they have a "simpler" explanation. Until you meet vera causa on key characteristics -- the identification of such pivotal clues explicable by only one of the candidate explanations is a key part of inference to best explanation [as any detective fan knows!] -- you have not met the first step to having a reasonable explanation of the remote unobserved past of origins. And FSCO/I is, as Meyer has been pointing out so strongly in Signature in the Cell and in Darwin's Doubt, such a case. That may be part of why Darwinist advocates seem to want to discuss anything else and to pretend that FSCO/I is misconceived. Looks like it is time to apply a red ring fence -- with suitable warnings about the inherent self refutation, irrationality and amorality of evolutionary materialism at intervals, and the principle about who should manage an asylum. Not, the inmates. KFkairosfocus_{January 23, 2014
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@StephenB & RDFish: Is it possible that you all speak different languages??? Let's say I can differentiate between the effects of a burglar, a tornado, and a flood. Which of these causes is reducible to "law and chance" and why?JWTruthInLove_{January 23, 2014
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SB: Similarly, we know that the design in an ancient hunter’s spear is a different kind of cause than the volcano that buried both the hunter and the spear. RDF
Now the sixth time I’ve said this: Yes there is a difference, no that doesn’t mean the hunter was irreducible to material processes.
Yes, it does mean that--exactly that. If the intelligent hunter is a different kind of cause (intelligent) than the volcano that buried him (law/chance), then it does mean that the hunter cannot be reduced to material processes, which have been defined as law/chance. That follows as surely as the night follows the day.
Neuroscientists are not stupid or delusional, even if they subscribe to a different metaphysical ontology than you do.
Do you mean to say that there are no stupid or delusional neuroscientists or that only some neuroscientists could be stupid and delusional?
Nobody thinks tornados run off with jewelry
There is nothing like a concrete example to wake up the old brain function.
If the mind/body problem is irrelevant, why does Dembski insist that “real teleology” is irreducible to material processes?
Because ---drum roll! --- dramatic pause! ---he is defining a term. It has nothing to do with the mind/body problem. By the way, are you ready to concede that ID does not presuppose libertarian dualism? I have given you two reasons why that claim cannot apply to William DEmbski. You have not addressed either problem [[a] He doesn't use that term and (b) it isn't logically possible to presuppose and infer the same thing in the same process] Also, do you believe that Michael Behe, who is also a major ID proponent, presupposes libertarian dualism? If so, how would you justify that claim. If not, how can you justify the claim that ID presupposes libertarian dualism.StephenB_{January 22, 2014
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