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
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.)
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:
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>>> 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:
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>> 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.) >>
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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.>>>
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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
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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.
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
Hi StephenB,
Design detection generates real knowledge. We can discover, empirically, that some causes are simply different from other causes.
Yes, you can discover that they are different. But you can't discover if they are, in principle, reducible to material processes. Nobody knows how to go about discovering that. This is the third time I've made this point.
We can know (Indeed, I do know) beyond a reasonable doubt that the intelligent cause for conceiving or performing a piano concerto is substantially different than the physical cause that makes the piano strings vibrate.
Yes, you know they are substantially different. But you don't know if the intelligent cause is irreducible to physical cause or not. (Fourth time I've made this point).
I, and most people I know, understand that the effects a tornado leaves behind are different from the effects that a burglar leaves behind.
Yes they are different. No that doesn't mean one of them is irreducible to material cause. Same dumb tactic again, fifth time I've had to say this.
We understand that a tornado does not typically ransack the house, open dresser drawers, and run off with the jewelry. We don’t need a neuroscientist to ratify our conclusions. Indeed, if the neuroscientist doesn’t grant the point, he should not be taken seriously. It means that he knows less about the subject than we do. Or worse, it means that his pre-commitment to materialism is clouding his judgment.
This makes you sound positively loony. Neuroscientists are not stupid or delusional, even if they subscribe to a different metaphysical ontology than you do. Nobody thinks tornados run off with jewelry, and for to talk this way makes it seem like you demonize your intellectual opponents in a truly weird and scary way.
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.
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.
What anyone has to say about the mind/body problem is irrelevant, since the evidence indicates that real teleology exists.
If the mind/body problem is irrelevant, why does Dembski insist that "real teleology" is irreducible to material processes?
The answer is: Because it is far from irrelvant of course - it is the central claim of all of ID. 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.
The proper question is, “how does our empirically-derived knowledge of teleology affect our ignorance about the mind/body problem?
Of course my position is that there is no scientific evidence to suggest that the human mind is either reducible or irreducible to material processes. But rather than argue about ESP and NDEs and the varieties of religious experience, perhaps I can get you to at least concede this: The validity of ID as a scientific conclusion does in fact rest on the truth of the proposition that human intelligence is irreducible to material processes.
Cheers,
RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
January 22, 2014
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Hi Eric Anderson,
In other words, there is no evidence that purely material processes can produce intelligent agents, and there is good reason to doubt it.
In my opinion, what we understand of "material" is obviously and fundamentally incomplete. It's clear that nobody has any idea what an explanation of consciousness would even look like, whether it is a "material" explanation or not. And aside from the question of consciousness, I believe we have no theory of how we think - how we recognize objects, make plans, solve problems, understand music, use language, and so on.
We do know a good deal about neurological correlates of thought, however, and something about neurological correlates of consciousness as well. One conclusion that does seem certain is that thought requires a tremendous amount of information processing capability, and that requires a fantastically complex physical system to store and manipulate information.
Acknowledging, as you have, that there is a big difference between an intelligent agent (say, a human) and purely natural processes, the materialist is left with but two possible conclusions:
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.
(i) particles bumping into each other produced some kind of intelligent agent (in some unknown, unspecified, unidentified, undiscovered fashion), who then created life and much of what we see in biology; or
Nobody who is familiar with physics would think of the physical world as "particles bumping into each other".
I happen to believe that we do not really understand physics yet, even though what we understand so far is very weird indeed. But it needs to get weirder still to explain things like human thought and consciousness and the origin of the universe and... stuff. Maybe consciousness will play a central role in the grand scheme... or maybe not. Maybe our minds simply aren't constituted to understand how it all fits together; we're like mice trying to understand calculus.
The logical upshot of all this is the following: Whether or not concepts like consciousness, free will, agency, etc. are pinned down to everyone’s satisfaction, the materialist is still left with but two options:...
I'm not a materialist, but there is certainly a third option, and it is the correct one: We do not have any good reason to think that any of our current theories of origins (regarding how the universe came to exist, why the physical constants are what they are, how life came about, or how does conscious awareness arise) are true.
...dig in the heels ... bury our heads in the sand...
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.
Cheers,
RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
January 22, 2014
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Hi RDF:
RDF, you seem to misunderstand the arguments that are being made. I will, therefore, explain the point in a different way, hopefully with more clarity:
There is more than one way of obtaining knowledge, and yes, this is a big-time epistemology problem. You can’t simply shrug it off by saying that you have no interest in philosophy, especially since all your objections are philosophical in substance. In an inter-disciplinary sense, the philosopher can learn things that the scientist does not know and vice versa. In an intra-disciplinary sense, the archeologist, cryptologist, and engineer can know things that the neuroscientist does not know and vice versa. Just because the latter’s methods do not yield information about teleology doesn’t mean the former’s methods are equally powerless.
In fact, nature does speak to us through the evidence, and the evidence tells us about teleology. The neuroscientist may not be able to get at it by applying electrodes to human beings and studying brain responses, but other scientists can get it through design detection. Design detection generates real knowledge. We can discover, empirically, that some causes are simply different from other causes. We can know (Indeed, I do know) beyond a reasonable doubt that the intelligent cause for conceiving or performing a piano concerto is substantially different than the physical cause that makes the piano strings vibrate. We don’t need confirmation from neuroscientists to understand that difference.
You say that you (and some neuroscientists) cannot know for sure that real teleology exists. To that, I can only say--speak for yourselves! I, and most people I know, understand that the effects a tornado leaves behind are different from the effects that a burglar leaves behind. We understand that a tornado does not typically ransack the house, open dresser drawers, and run off with the jewelry. We don’t need a neuroscientist to ratify our conclusions. Indeed, if the neuroscientist doesn’t grant the point, he should not be taken seriously. It means that he knows less about the subject than we do. Or worse, it means that his pre-commitment to materialism is clouding his judgment.
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. What anyone has to say about the mind/body problem is irrelevant, since the evidence indicates that real teleology exists. In that context, you have things backwards: The proper question is not, “how does our ignorance about the mind/body problem affect our empirically-derived knowledge about teleology?” The proper question is, “how does our empirically-derived knowledge of teleology affect our ignorance about the mind/body problem?StephenB
January 22, 2014
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RDFish @381:
There are too many differences to list, obviously. The question is not if a human being’s abilties are different from the abilities of geological processes. Rather, the question is whether or not there is anything connected to the abilities of human beings that is not reducible to material processes.
Well, that is two questions. :)
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.
That said, let's analyze for a moment what the effect on ID would be if we were to assume that intelligent agents are produced by purely material processes.
Acknowledging, as you have, that there is a big difference between an intelligent agent (say, a human) and purely natural processes, the materialist is left with but two possible conclusions:
(i) particles bumping into each other produced some kind of intelligent agent (in some unknown, unspecified, unidentified, undiscovered fashion), who then created life and much of what we see in biology; or
(ii) particles bumping into each other produced everything, all the intelligent agents, as well as life and everything we see in biology.
The second option is not particularly interesting, as it is just the standard materialist dogma that matter and energy is all there is and ever was and ever will be.
The first option is a bit more interesting, because it acknowledges the possibility of intelligent agents acting as independent beings and -- therefore -- the possibility of intelligent agency being involved in producing the kinds of things in life that we see intelligent agents producing on a regular basis.
The weakness of the first option, of course as previously mentioned, is that there is no evidence purely material processes can produce an intelligent agent. But at least the first option acknowledges their existence and acknowledges that once an intelligent agent comes along (by whatever means), the intelligent agent can do things that purely natural processes cannot do (as you have acknowledged). At that point, we are still free to draw an inference to the best explanation that an intelligent agent may have been involved in the origin and development of living systems.
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The logical upshot of all this is the following: Whether or not concepts like consciousness, free will, agency, etc. are pinned down to everyone's satisfaction, the materialist is still left with but two options: (i) acknowledge that some kind of agency exists, that no-one knows how it came about, and that it is capable of producing the kinds of artifacts similar to what we see in living systems, or (ii) dig in the heels and continue to claim that agency is, in effect, an illusion and that everything is the result of purely natural processes.
Whatever weaknesses may exist in a definitional sense, Dembski appears to be reaching out to the first group of individuals -- to those who at least are willing to admit what we see in life appears to be designed, that what we see in biology is a difference in kind from what we regularly see purely material processes produce.
At that level, the real question -- contra your focus -- is not whether we can explain consciousness (or more absurdly, whether we can definitively prove a negative that material processes can't produce consciousness).
No, the real question is whether we are going to bury our heads in the sand and stick to option #2 above, or whether we are willing to objectively see the evidence of design in life that is staring us in the face and acknowledge that some kind of agency -- consciousness, designer, teleology, whatever we want to call it -- may have been involved in the origin and development of life on the Earth. That is the key question.Eric Anderson
January 22, 2014
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Hi StephenB,
No, I am saying that the scientists who do design detection (or almost anyone else who studies it) acknowledge that the existence of real teleology (by Dembski’s definition) can be verified via detection.
Ok, I'll call your bluff here: Please provide a few quotes from famous archeologists and a few more from famous forensic scientists that document this claim of yours. Make sure they hold credentials in their respective fields, and that they explicitly state that the human activity they detect is irreducible to material processes.
Or I'll save you some time: There are no such quotes, because archeology and forensic science has precisely nothing to do with the mind/body problem.
There is little doubt that they hold to the proposition that painters, artists, musicians, represent a different kind of cause than a tornado or a volcano.
Stop building straw men and argue in good faith, Stephen. If you can't win fair and square, that doesn't mean it is OK to start cheating. Here is what I just told you:
RDF: You keep changing the subject. Please try and understand this: Things that constitute “different kinds of cuases” or “causes that can be empirically detected” is simply not the point! The point is whether or not Dembski’s definition of “real teleology”, that is something that is irreducible to material processes, refers to something that exists or not. Please don’t make me repeat this endlessly!
So immediately after I say this, you come back and try the exact same tactic! This is why these debates stretch out over days.
You seem to labor under the misconception that the only kind of knowledge that can be attained is the kind that can be empirically verified by a neuroscientist.
This is your second ridiculous straw man of this last post. Stop it, please.
RDF: Stephen, I have been eminently clear that I am only interested in discussing ID as science, and not as philosophy or religion. Here is what I said to you previously
SB: The mind/body problem is a philosophical problem. If you don’t want to talk about philosophy, you should not labor over a philosophical problem or use it as you main objection to ID science.
This is the crux of the issue, so please pay attention. It is ID (Dembski, Meyer, et al) who describes the mind/body problem as the central claim of ID. It is beyond hilarious that you then complain that I talk about it. Here is the quote from Dembski:
DEMBSKI: In this definition, real teleology is not reducible to purely material processes.
That is a metaphysical claim about the mind/body problem. That is also Dembski's description of the central claim of ID. Stop running away - either defend ID or give it up, but please stop running in circles!
All of ID collapses if this particular claim about the mind/body problem is dropped. This is not the case for any scientific theory, but it is true about ID. That is my complaint, and you have no rebuttal.
You are correct to say that Dembski does not think we can extrapolate consciousness from human activity to the designer of life.
Agreed.
You are not correct to say that Dembski presupposes libertarian dualism.
As I've endlessly explained, Dembski mistakenly presupposes that any CSI-rich system that can't be currently explained is best explained by something irreducible to material processes.
Can we agree, then, that Dembski does not “presuppose” real teleology (or libertarian dualism) but that, in your judgment (which, of course, I do not agree with) he “concludes” real teleology (or libertarian dualism) without sufficient warrant?
It's not that simple. 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.
Let’s assume, though, the he means “or” conscious, which would be more eliminative.
Yes, that's what he means. Anyway, we agree that Dembski does not think we can extrapolate consciousness from human activity to the designer of life, so let's leave it at that for now.
Cheers,
RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
January 22, 2014
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RDF:
You are saying that there is a general consensus, and in particular a scientific consensus, that human intelligence cannot in principle be reduced to material processes?
No, I am saying that the scientists who do design detection (or almost anyone else who studies it) acknowledge that the existence of real teleology (by Dembski’s definition) can be verified via detection. I wouldn’t expect an atheist materialist neuroscientist to accept that proposition.
GREAT, we agree, that is what the issue is. I’m sure you realize that this question is called “The Mind/Body Problem”, and it has been debated by philosophers for thousands of years.
No one disputes that.
Most people who address this issue head on would say that it is unreasonable to think that the burglar and the tornado are both causes that can be reduced to materialistic processes, which is another way of saying that it is unreasonable to say that they are the same kind of cause. I agree. It seems that you do not.
SB: I am saying that most scientists who are in the business of design detection (and almost everyone else), would agree that real teleology has been empirically detected in the two examples cited and would not take seriously the possibility, though logically conceivable, that real teleology had not been detected. No forensic scientist would seriously consider your objection that the burglar, like the tornado, might be reducible to materialistic processes and few if any archeologists would entertain the proposition that human artifacts might be explained by the same kind of cause as the volcano that buried them.
The scientists you are referring to are exclusively involved in detecting human activity, and most have likely never considered the mind/body problem at all. Archeology and forensic science have nothing to do with neuroscience, cognitive psychology, philosophy of mind, or any other discipline related to what we are discussing here.
Sorry, I can’t buy that one. Most reasonably educated people who are not materialist ideologues are familiar with the mind/body problem. There is little doubt that they hold to the proposition that painters, artists, musicians, represent a different kind of cause than a tornado or a volcano. If they represent a different kind of cause, and if their activity can be detected, then that indicates that they have detected another kind of cause empirically. If it is a different kind of cause than chance/necessity, then it is a reasonably sound empirical verification of teleology
You seem to labor under the misconception that the only kind of knowledge that can be attained is the kind that can be empirically verified by a neuroscientist. That is not the case. The knowledge that effects need causes cannot be empirically verified, but is legitimate knowledge, nevertheless. Indeed, the idea that all knowledge must be empirically verifiable refutes itself since it cannot pass its own standard. It can’t be empirically verified.
Stephen, I have been eminently clear that I am only interested in discussing ID as science, and not as philosophy or religion. Here is what I said to you previously
The mind/body problem is a philosophical problem. If you don’t want to talk about philosophy, you should not labor over a philosophical problem or use it as you main objection to ID science.
Now, back to the point. We can know things that cannot be verified through empirical testing. Thus, the scientist who detects teleology (as well as you and me) can know things that cannot be verified through science. The scientists you refer to, most (if not all) of whom are materialists, do not accept this fact about human epistemology either because they have made a prior commitment to materialism or possibly because they are bad philosophers. We could also say the same thing about some philosophers.
Are you ready to admit that ID is a philosophical argument rather than an empirically supported scientific result? Or are you going to continue playing this game where you pretend it’s science until I back you into a corner, and then you complain that I am ignoring the legitimacy of philosophy?
It is clearly science if the act of detecting human activity from other causes is empirically-based, which it clearly is. It begins with observations, not assumptions. That is the hallmark of the scientific method.
SB: I think that Dembski wants to make sure that he is making the minimalist claim so that others will not say he is presupposing design as opposed to inferring design. In order to allow for an immanent, non-personal, non-conscious design principle, ID cannot presuppose an external, personal, conscious agent.
No, you are still spinning Dembski’s comments. It has nothing to do with “presupposing” – it has to do with what Dembski believes the evidence can and cannot support. And it could not be more clear that Dembski believes the evidence cannot support the conclusion of a conscious designer. That conclusion is outside of the scope of ID as science.
You are correct to say that Dembski does not think we can extrapolate consciousness from human activity to the designer of life. You are not correct to say that Dembski presupposes libertarian dualism. The two problems are connected.
Thank you for responding to these points.
My pleasure
I will thank you in advance for what I hope will be your acknowledgement that Dembski cannot both presuppose libertarian dualism and also be open to non-libertarian design, which would, of course, be logically impossible.
I was never arguing that the problem was “presupposition”, but I’m sure I failed to make that clear. 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.
Obviously, Dembski cannot in the same process both presuppose real teleology, in which case the conclusion has been established even before the evidence speaks, and also conclude real teleology, in which case the conclusion has been suspended until the evidence speaks. Can we agree, then, that Dembski does not “presuppose” real teleology (or libertarian dualism) but that, in your judgment (which, of course, I do not agree with) he “concludes” real teleology (or libertarian dualism) without sufficient warrant?
.
Dembski explicitly states that ID cannot say one way or the other about whether the designer is conscious. Meyer says the opposite.
Well, not exactly, he seems to saying (at least in this latest correspondence) ,in effect, that ID cannot say one way or the other about whether the designer is external, personal, and conscious, as opposed to external, personal, or conscious. Let’s assume, though, the he means “or” conscious, which would be more eliminative.
If Dembski is ruling out historical methods as a legitimate methodology, then, yes, that would seem to be a legitimate conflict. I am not sure he is doing that. He may simply be making a minimalist claim (here is what ID can be held accountable for doing and nothing more) as opposed to (here is what any ID methodology is capable of doing—period—and nothing more). I don’t think he means it to be that exclusionary, so I am interpreting it the first way. Accordingly, it would surprise me if Dembski means to rule out Meyer’s methodology. More clarification may be needed on that point. I do know that Meyer alludes to “mind” where Dembski does not. However, I think that pertains to the individual methodologies being used.StephenB
January 22, 2014
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RDF: If a lot of folks choose to accept a claim that is self referentially incoherent, then it suddenly is not? NOT. KFkairosfocus
January 22, 2014
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Hi StephenB,
SB: It is possible that human intelligence is irreducible to material processes, but it is also possible that it is not, and there is no empirical method we can use to settle the matter.
SB: Again, I suggest that scientists (and almost everyone else) would disagree with you.
You are saying that there is a general consensus, and in particular a scientific consensus, that human intelligence cannot in principle be reduced to material processes? Here are a few names, just off the top of my head, of very prominent contemporary cognitive scientists and philosophers who believe mind is reducible to brain activity:
Michael Arbib
John Searle
Patricia Churchland
Paul Churchland
Steven Pinker
Antonio Damasio
V. Ramachandran
Daniel Dennet
Gerald Edelman
Michael Gazzaniga
Christof Koch
Noam Chomsky
Jerry Fodor
George Lakoff
(there are many, many more, and these are just the famous ones of course...)
My point is not to claim that there is some consensus for materialism, but only to point out that anyone who thinks the issue is settled in favor of mind/brain dualism and against materialism is simply ignorant of the current state of science and philosophy on the matter.
SB: If they were the same kind of cause (say, law and chance) then the archeologist would have no way of knowing that wind, water, and erosion didn’t produce the “artifacts” that the volcano buried?
RDF: You seem to be saying that if two things are both law+chance, then they produce indistinguishable results.
SB: No, I am saying that opposite: If one thing is caused by law/chance (the volcano or the tornado) and another thing is caused by human intelligence (burglar or artifact) scientists would agree that those two kinds of phenomena constitute different kinds of causes and are also causes that can be empirically detected.
You keep changing the subject. Please try and understand this: Things that constitute "different kinds of cuases" or "causes that can be empirically detected" is simply not the point! The point is whether or not Dembski's definition of "real teleology", that is something that is irreducible to material processes, refers to something that exists or not. Please don't make me repeat this endlessly!
RDF: We are talking about whether or not human intelligence can be reduced to material processes.
SB: Yes–...
GREAT, we agree, that is what the issue is. I'm sure you realize that this question is called "The Mind/Body Problem", and it has been debated by philosophers for thousands of years.
I am saying that most people who study or think about these kinds of things would agree that it is empirically justifiable to say that real teleology has been detected in these cases.
Not according to Dembski's definition of "real teleology". Just look up all those famous people active right now in cognitive science and philosophy of mind (I will list many more if you'd like) to get an idea of what the current thinking is in the study of minds and brains.
Put another way, they would say it is unreasonable to think that the burglar and the tornado are both causes that can be reduced to materialistic processes.
No, all of the people I just listed would say that is the case. There are certainly disagreements among them (Searle and Dennett, for example, are famously at odds over what accounts for our ability to think), but all of them believe that underlying our intelligence are nothing but material processes of one sort or another.
I am saying that most scientists who are in the business of design detection (and almost everyone else), would agree that real teleology has been empirically detected in the two examples cited and would not take seriously the possibility, though logically conceivable, that real teleology had not been detected. No forensic scientist would seriously consider your objection that the burglar, like the tornado, might be reducible to materialistic processes or that human artifacts might be explained by the same kind of cause as the volcano that buried them.
The scientists you are referring to are exclusively involved in detecting human activity, and most have likely never considered the mind/body problem at all. Archeology and forensic science have nothing to do with neuroscience, cognitive psychology, philosophy of mind, or any other discipline related to what we are discussing here.
Once again (and please don't make me repeat this endlessly): Nobody is denying that archeologists and forensic scientists can distinguish human artifacts from everything else. But this is completely unrelated to the question: When a human produces an artifact, does anything happen inside that human being that cannot be reduced to material processes? All of the famous researchers I listed believe the answer is "NO" - in other words, these people believe that there is no such thing as "real teleology" as Dembski defines it.
You seem to labor under the misconception that the only kind of knowledge that can be attained is the kind that can be empirically verified. That is not the case. The knowledge that effects need causes cannot be empirically verified, but is legitimate knowledge, nevertheless. Indeed, the idea that all knowledge must be empirically verifiable refutes itself since it cannot pass its own standard. It can’t be empirically verified.
Stephen, I have been eminently clear that I am only interested in discussing ID as science, and not as philosophy or religion. Here is what I said to you previously:
RDF @254: I’m not interested in discussing philosophy here; I’m only interested in talking about ID and why it is or is not scientific.
Then we continued to debate for nine more days, and when you again get backed into a corner, your response is that I am somehow claiming that all knowledge must be empirically justified!
In fact, here is what I said to UB:
RDF @194: 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.
Are you ready to admit that ID is a philosophical argument rather than an empirically supported scientific result? Or are you going to continue playing this game where you pretend it's science until I back you into a corner, and then you complain that I am ignoring the legitimacy of philosophy?
RDF: And the relevant science that has been conducted (such as Libet’s studies) do absolutely nothing to confirm ID’s notion of “real teology” exists, and is widely interpreted to suggest the opposite.
SB: In retrospect, I would have to say that Libet is a bad example for anyone trying to prove free will via scientific processes.
Good call. And if you'd care to research the area more fully, you'll see that Libet is the most sympathetic of all of these researchers to the idea that free will exists in any form at all. Most of the other scientists believe the data shows our conscious volition does not initiate or control our actions, period.
I think that Dembski wants to make sure that he is making the minimalist claim so that others will not say he is presupposing design as opposed to inferring design. In order to allow for an immanent, non-personal, non-conscious design principle, ID cannot presuppose an external, personal, conscious agent.
No, you are still spinning Dembski's comments. It has nothing to do with "presupposing" - it has to do with what Dembski believes the evidence can and cannot support. And it could not be more clear that Dembski believes the evidence cannot support the conclusion of a conscious designer. That conclusion is outside of the scope of ID as science.
Thank you for responding to these points.
In that context, Dembski stops short of saying, like Meyer, that mind (or consciousness) can be extrapolated to the next level of analysis (the designer of life).
Yes. I actually think Dembski is familiar with philosophy of mind, and Meyer is not, and so Dembski realizes that the concepts of "mind" and "intelligence" and "consciousness" and "teleology" are not all simply equivalent.
In other words, Dembski would NOT say this: Since conscious humans leave evidence of dFSCI, and since we find dFSCI in biology, it follows that the the being that produced the dFSCI in biology is conscious. Dembski would NOT make that argument.
Yes, I agree Dembski would NOT make that argument, because that argument is logically fallacious.
If he did, he would be contradicting his claim that ID must allow for Aristotle’s non-personal design principle.
If Dembski made that argument, he would be violating basic logic:
1) Humans produce dFSCI
2) Humans are conscious
3) dFSCI is observed in biological systems
4) Therefore the cause of biological systems was conscious
I'm sure you can spot the fallacy, but if not, substitute "hairy" for "conscious". In other words, since we have no empirical evidence that consciousness is a necessary component for humans' producing dFSCI (cf Libet), there is no justification for assuming all producers of dFSCI must be conscious.
This is the point that you first missed and then failed to respond to. It is impossible to presuppose design and also draw an inference to design in the same process. I would appreciate it if you would acknowledge that fact.
I was never arguing that the problem was "presupposition", but I'm sure I failed to make that clear. 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.
Dembski and Meyer are making different arguments and using different methods. Based on Dembski’s methods, which include arguments for specification etc., the subject of consciousness or free will does not even come into play.
Dembski explicitly states that ID cannot say one way or the other about whether the designer is conscious. Meyer says the opposite.
That, by the way, is why it was (and is) so unfair for you to say that Dembski presupposes libertarian dualism. If that were the case, then he could not, at the same time, allow for non-libertarian design.
Stephen, libertarianism is not related to consciousness!! They are completely different topics!
The question of consciousness asks "Does entity X experience conscious awareness?" The question of free will asks "Is the behavior of X determined by physical cause?" These questions are completely different!
On the other hand, their respective definitions for intelligence, though they contain mild variations, are compatible and do not conflict.
What conflicts are their opinions about what the science of ID can say about the nature of the designer. Dembski rejects that ID provides any evidence to support the claim that the designer was conscious. Meyer disagrees, pure and simple.
Cheers,
RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
January 22, 2014
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RDF:
We are not talking about whether or not human activity is detectable – of course it is.
We are also talking about the process by which that detection is made and whether or not it can be empirically justified.
What we are talking about is ID’s assertion that “real teleology”, which is irreducible to material processes, exists. We agree that humans can produce complex form and function, and that nothing else we know of can, but that doesn’t mean that humans cannot themselves be reduced to material processes.
I am saying that most scientists who are in the business of design detection (and almost everyone else), would agree that real teleology has been empirically detected in the two examples cited and would not take seriously the possibility, though logically conceivable, that real teleology had not been detected. No forensic scientist would seriously consider your objection that the burglar, like the tornado, might be reducible to materialistic processes or that human artifacts might be explained by the same kind of cause as the volcano that buried them.
Let me check – you do know what “reduced to material processes” means, right? After all, it was Dembski who used the term.
Yes.
And now, here are all the points you dodged from the last post:
Nobody knows if human intelligence can be reduced to material processes. Nobody knows if a “real choice” can ever occur without antecedent physical cause. ID pretends that all these ancient metaphysical speculations are known to be what “intelligence” is, but that is completely misleading – there is no science behind these claims whatsoever.
You seem to labor under the misconception that the only kind of knowledge that can be attained is the kind that can be empirically verified. That is not the case. The knowledge that effects need causes cannot be empirically verified, but is legitimate knowledge, nevertheless. Indeed, the idea that all knowledge must be empirically verifiable refutes itself since it cannot pass its own standard. It can't be empirically verified.
And the relevant science that has been conducted (such as Libet’s studies) do absolutely nothing to confirm ID’s notion of “real teology” exists, and is widely interpreted to suggest the opposite.
I agree that Libet is a bad example for anyone trying to prove free will via scientific processes.
SB: ID critics should not assume that intelligence necessarily refers to an external, conscious personal agent. It could also represent an internal, non-conscious, impersonal, design principle built into nature.
But here is what you said:
SB @310: Dembski is saying that we cannot rule out a non-conscious design principle without first evaluating the evidence. Meyer also agrees that we cannot rule out a non-conscious design principle before the evidence speaks. On the other hand, he does say that when the evidence speaks, it speaks for the existence of a conscious agent.
Really? You think that although he doesn’t rule it out in advance, Dembski has looked at the evidence and concluded that the evidence speaks for a conscious agency?
I think that Dembski wants to make sure that he is making the minimalist claim so that others will not say he is presupposing design as opposed to inferring design. In order to allow for an immanent, non-personal, non-conscious design principle, ID cannot presuppose an external, personal, conscious agent.
In that context, Dembski stops short of saying, like Meyer, that mind (or consciousness) can be extrapolated to the next level of analysis (the designer of life). In other words, Dembski would NOT say this: Since conscious humans leave evidence of dFSCI, and since we find dFSCI in biology, it follows that the being that produced the dFSCI in biology is conscious. Dembski would NOT make that argument. If he did, he would be contradicting his claim that ID must allow for Aristotle's non-personal design principle. This is the point that you first missed and then failed to respond to. It is impossible to presuppose design and also draw an inference to design in the same process. I would appreciate it if you would acknowledge that fact.
Meyer says that ID does provide scientific support for the claim that the designer was a conscious agent. This directly contradicts Dembski. SB has been completely wrong about this too.
Here is why you are wrong about that. Dembski and Meyer are making different arguments and using different methods. Based on Dembski's methods, which include arguments for specification etc., the subject of consciousness or free will does not even come into play. That, by the way, is why it was (and is) so unfair for you to say that Dembski presupposes libertarian dualism. If that were the case, then he could not, at the same time, allow for non-libertarian design.
Meyer, on the other hand, relies primarily on the historical methods, which include the observation that humans with minds design things. In other words, the human attributes that are present in the designer are taken into consideration using that method. Dembski doesn't take that same approach.
On the other hand, their respective definitions for intelligence, though they contain mild variations, are compatible and do not conflict. In both cases, the element of choosing among alternatives comes into play. It's just that Dembski's definition does not include the element of minds or consciousness because his methods do not pertain to it. Particular definitions are associated with particular methods.StephenB
January 22, 2014
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RDF
Stephen, we are not talking about detecting the activity of human beings, or even any other particular kind of being.
Right now we (or at least me) are (is) talking about real teleology (the alleged cause of human intelligent design) vs. naturalistic causes.
We are talking about whether or not “real teleology” exists.
Right--And also, if it exists, can it be detected?
“Real teleology” is defined as something that is irreducible to material processes.
Correct.
It is possible that human intelligence is irreducible to material processes, but it is also possible that it is not, and there is no empirical method we can use to settle the matter.
Again, I suggest that scientists (and almost everyone else) would disagree with you.
SB: If they were the same kind of cause (say, law and chance) then the archeologist would have no way of knowing that wind, water, and erosion didn’t produce the “artifacts” that the volcano buried?
You seem to be saying that if two things are both law+chance, then they produce indistinguishable results.
No, I am saying that opposite: If one thing is caused by law/chance (the volcano or the tornado) and another thing is caused by human intelligence (burglar or artifact) scientists would agree that those two kinds of phenomena constitute different kinds of causes and are also causes that can be empirically detected.
We are talking about whether or not human intelligence can be reduced to material processes.
Yes--and if scientists and almost everyone else think it empirically justifiable to say that the cause that is claimed not to be reducible to material processes (the burglar) can be distinguished from the cause that is reducible to material processes (tornado) or again, if it empirically justifiable to say that the cause that is claimed not to be reducible to materialistic processes (the ancient humans that built the artifacts) can be distinguished from the cause that is reducible to materialistic processes (the volcano that buried them).
I am saying that most people who study or think about these kinds of things would agree that it is empirically justifiable to say that real teleology has been detected in these cases. Put another way, they would say it is unreasonable to think that the burglar and the tornado are both causes that can be reduced to materialistic processes. The would say the same thing about human artifacts and the volcano that buried them.
We are not talking about whether or not human activity is detectable – of course it is.
We are also talking about the process by which that detection is made and whether or not it can be empirically justified.
What we are talking about is ID’s assertion that “real teleology”, which is irreducible to material processes, exists. We agree that humans can produce complex form and function, and that nothing else we know of can, but that doesn’t mean that humans cannot themselves be reduced to material processes.
I am saying that most scientists who are in the business of design detection (and almost everyone else), would agree that real teleology has been empirically detected in the two examples cited and would not take seriously the possibility, though logically conceivable, that real teleology had not been detected. No forensic scientist would seriously consider your objection that the burglar, like the tornado, might be reducible to materialistic processes or that human artifacts might be explained by the same kind of cause as the volcano that buried them.
Let me check – you do know what “reduced to material processes” means, right? After all, it was Dembski who used the term.
Yes.
And now, here are all the points you dodged from the last post:
Nobody knows if human intelligence can be reduced to material processes. Nobody knows if a “real choice” can ever occur without antecedent physical cause. ID pretends that all these ancient metaphysical speculations are known to be what “intelligence” is, but that is completely misleading – there is no science behind these claims whatsoever.
You seem to labor under the misconception that the only kind of knowledge that can be attained is the kind that can be empirically verified. That is not the case. The knowledge that effects need causes cannot be empirically verified, but is legitimate knowledge, nevertheless. Indeed, the idea that all knowledge must be empirically verifiable refutes itself since it cannot pass its own standard. It can't be empirically verified.
And the relevant science that has been conducted (such as Libet’s studies) do absolutely nothing to confirm ID’s notion of “real teology” exists, and is widely interpreted to suggest the opposite.
In retrospect, I would have to say that Libet is a bad example for anyone trying to prove free will via scientific processes.
SB: ID critics should not assume that intelligence necessarily refers to an external, conscious personal agent. It could also represent an internal, non-conscious, impersonal, design principle built into nature.
But here is what you said:
SB @310: Dembski is saying that we cannot rule out a non-conscious design principle without first evaluating the evidence. Meyer also agrees that we cannot rule out a non-conscious design principle before the evidence speaks. On the other hand, he does say that when the evidence speaks, it speaks for the existence of a conscious agent.
Really? You think that although he doesn’t rule it out in advance, Dembski has looked at the evidence and concluded that the evidence speaks for a conscious agency?
I think that Dembski wants to make sure that he is making the minimalist claim so that others will not say he is presupposing design as opposed to inferring design. In order to allow for an immanent, non-personal, non-conscious design principle, ID cannot presuppose an external, personal, conscious agent.
In that context, Dembski stops short of saying, like Meyer, that mind (or consciousness) can be extrapolated to the next level of analysis (the designer of life). In other words, Dembski would NOT say this: Since conscious humans leave evidence of dFSCI, and since we find dFSCI in biology, it follows that the the being that produced the dFSCI in biology is conscious. Dembski would NOT make that argument. If he did, he would be contradicting his claim that ID must allow for Aristotle's non-personal design principle. This is the point that you first missed and then failed to respond to. It is impossible to presuppose design and also draw an inference to design in the same process. I would appreciate it if you would acknowledge that fact.
Meyer says that ID does provide scientific support for the claim that the designer was a conscious agent. This directly contradicts Dembski. SB has been completely wrong about this too.
Dembski and Meyer are making different arguments and using different methods. Based on Dembski's methods, which include arguments for specification etc., the subject of consciousness or free will does not even come into play. That, by the way, is why it was (and is) so unfair for you to say that Dembski presupposes libertarian dualism. If that were the case, then he could not, at the same time, allow for non-libertarian design.
Meyer, on the other hand, relies primarily on the historical methods, which include the observation that humans with minds design things. In other words, the human attributes that are present in the designer are taken into consideration using that method. Dembski doesn't take that same approach.
On the other hand, their respective definitions for intelligence, though they contain mild variations, are compatible and do not conflict. In both cases, the element of choosing among alternatives comes into play. It's just that Dembski's definition does not include the element of minds or consciousness because his methods do not pertain to it. Particular definitions are associated with particular methods.
StephenB
January 22, 2014
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Earth to RDFish-
Unlike you, Wm Dembski understands that telic processes only come from consciousness.Joe
January 22, 2014
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RDFish:
Human beings produce complex mechanisms, but we have no way of knowing if human beings are irreducible to material processes, as Dembski says they must be.
Again with the ignorance of science- amazing.
1- There isn't any supporting evidence that human beings are reducible to materialistic processes
2- The design inference, as with all scientific inferences, is tentative.
3- Even Dembski wrote that as with all inferences future knowledge may refute it ("No Free Lunch"). It may also confirm it.
4- The science of today cannot wait for what the science of tomorrow may or may not uncover.
And if in doubt, ask your parents.Joe
January 22, 2014
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PPS: MF, I have not forgotten your remark on alleged uncaused events [cf OP], but have been busy. Part of the ring fencing material on order. KFkairosfocus
January 21, 2014
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PS: Let us reproduce 266 below, for convenience, again:
____________
>>266
kairosfocus January 14, 2014 at 5:09 pm (Edit)
F/N: It is pretty clear by now that the root problem is the one headlined at top of this thread.
So we need to reckon with the evidence of a controlling materialist a priori that leads straight to self referential incoherence.
The easiest way to duck that is to play at confusing and distractive turnabout accusations that it is design theory that is begging metaphysics questions. Then just find rhetorical hooks, twists and turns to make talking points to squirt a rhetorical ink cloud to evade the pivotal issue behind.
In fact, it is obvious that designers exist and often leave characteristic traces.
So, when we can easily show on atomic needle in haystack calcs that the gamut of the solar system or the observed cosmos cannot credibly account for FSCO/I beyond 500 – 1,000 bits and we see no examples of FSCO/I produced in our observation by such means but billions of OBSERVED cases by design, we have an empirically reliable sign of design.
Where we see the sign, we have a perfect right to infer to design as best warranted causal explanation, and then let the metaphysical issues sort themselves out.
But, for a priori materialists, that is just what they cannot allow to happen, it seems.
Thus, the rhetorical ink clouds.
And, the above simply underscores that.
KF
PS: Prediction, RDF et al will studiously ignore and try to proceed with squid ink rhetorical clouds as usual. Ironically, they are in so producing comments, adding to the billions of cases of seeing FSCO/I come about by design.>>
____________
The prediction is, that RDF et al will continue to pretend that this challenge does not exist and does not need to be answered by them.
And notice in a couple of days it will be a full month since the OP was put up and since then the evo mat advocates have given us no good reason to think that they are not begging worldview questions at the outset, or that they take seriously the self-referential incoherence of their view. (Or its patent amorality for that matter.)
All of this is part of the ring fence material on order.
KFkairosfocus
January 21, 2014
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F/N, re RDF @ 300:
you [SB as an example of a design advocate] presuppose that “design” in general in fact exists as a distinct category of cause that does not in principle reduce to law (or law+chance). That presupposition is libertarianism; the whole idea of the EF – before you ever try to apply it to any particular instance – is based on libertarianism . . .
This is of course a turnabout accusation attempt, given for instance the a priori evolutionary materialism imposed by MF (and going on to Lewontin's materialism) noted in the OP RDF still continues to willfully and studiously ignore.
It also ignores, conveniently, another fact.
Design and results of design demonstrably exist (this PC is a case in poin6t and this post is another as are RDF's computer and posts) and do show characteristic signs NOT found in products of chance and necessity. So much so that things like FSCO/I and dFSCI are highly reliable empirically tested signs of a design process as a major cause involved.
Let us cite Wikipedia, that notoriously materialist ideologue dominated online encyclopedia, as it is compelled to acknowledge against known interest in its article on design as follows:
. . . design has been defined as follows.
(noun) a specification of an object, manifested by an agent, intended to accomplish goals, in a particular environment, using a set of primitive components, satisfying a set of requirements, subject to constraints;
(verb, transitive) to create a design, in an environment (where the designer operates)[2 --> Ralph, P. and Wand, Y. (2009). A proposal for a formal definition of the design concept. In Lyytinen, K., Loucopoulos, P., Mylopoulos, J., and (Robinson, W.,) editors, Design Requirements Workshop (LNBIP 14), pp. 103–136. Springer-Verlag, p. 109 doi:10.1007/978-3-540-92966-6_6.]
Another definition for design is a roadmap or a strategic approach for someone to achieve a unique expectation. It defines the specifications, plans, parameters, costs, activities, processes and how and what to do within legal, political, social, environmental, safety and economic constraints in achieving that objective.[3]
Here, a "specification" can be manifested as either a plan or a finished product, and "primitives" are the elements from which the design object is composed.
Of course,
if
p: a "specification" can be manifested as either [i] a plan or [ii] a finished product, then
q: we can reverse engineer the evident artifact and seek characteristic signs of design, in cases where we did not or could not observe the actual design process and/or designer in action.
Where,
r: case p[ii] obtains once we can have recognisable signs that point to design as causal process for an object,
Hence:
s: We may properly infer from case p [ii] through q to the conclusion,
_________________________
t: The object of interest is best explained as designed and not a product of undirected, blind chance and/or mechanical necessity only.
The chain of reasoning from p to t of course is well known as the pattern routinely used by detectives and courts of law to determine to moral certainty that a certain outcome was a crime, not an accident and/or nature acting freely -- that twerdun. Further signs and arguments are used to infer that there is a case of arson, say, that was the act of a certain identifiable guilty party who had motive, means and opportunity -- whodunit.
Where, we can debate whether such designers are going to be conscious personalities or could be abstract intelligences of one form or another or even some immanent power att he root of the cosmos. That's philosophy, and Meyer has the advantage that he has an empirically grounded point that purposes and the like are habitually on massive exeperience, assigned to self aware intelligences, where it is manifest that rocks have no dreams and cannot be persuaded otherwise, and that therefore if one is self aware, however one's worldview may embed error, the self awareness is certain. Int hat context purpose and plan are characteristic behaviours of persons. On Dembski's side of the debate, it is abstractly possible at phil level that something other than a self aware person could be intelligent in the sense required.
Design thinkers are not constrained to sing off the same talking point hymn sheet!
That's phil and it is on who/what dunit, it is not on the empirically founded reality of design and design -- process with characteristic features Wiki is forced to admit against interest -- being detectable on identifiable sign. Red herring side track therefore ignored.
As a direct extension,
u: the act of identifying per reliable tested sign from the past of origins that design occurred, then allows the further conclusion on signs:
___________________________
v: At the relevant point, there existed a causal factor capable of design, where also design implies ability to specify an objective and configure or even create components and organise them to achieve functional goals dependent on specific complex, integrated organisation of the parts or aspects.
That is, signs of design allow us to infer the existence of a designing entity at the point in question, on an empirical basis, starting with the reality of design and certain common features of design that per empirical investigation are characteristic signs of such design.
All of this is of course very unacceptable to evo mat advocates who are a priori committed to there NOT being a credible designer at origin of cell based life, origin of major body plans and most of all origin of the observed cosmos that is so patently fine tuned for the existence of C-chemistry, aqueous medium cell based life. Fine tuned from the physics that allows water to exist and have its astonishing properties, on up.
Worse for such evo mat advocates, we are using the very same vera causa principle identified by Newton in his four rules of reasoning and extended to apply to inference on origins by Lyell and Darwin et al. That is, if we see traces of an unobserved past of origins, T, and we can directly compare these to an observed here and now characteristic causal factor F uniquely able to generate particular consequences C = {c1, c2, c3, . . . cn} materially similar to such traces (by contrast with candidates G, H, I . . . ] we may infer on abductive inference across competing candidate explanations [here, chance, necessity, design as process] that relevant aspects of the traces T, have per best current explanation most likely been caused by F.
Where the only metaphysical commitment being made is that factors F, G , H, I are POSSIBLE at the relevant point. Beyond this, it is the voice of evidence that is speaking, via inductive reasoning on comparing T with C in light of investigating the capabilities of F, G, H. I . . .
That is the line of reasoning that RDF has spent hundreds of posts ducking, dodging and twisting about on. Such a tactic does however erect the sort of handy distractive rhetorical squid ink cloud to escape behind that has been specifically highlighted since 266.
I again predict that RDF will studiously ignore the correct6ion to his fallacious ideologically loaded demonstrably factually inadequate reasoning. Let us see if at length he will prove us wrong. But, I won't be holding my breath.
Red coloured ring fence material has in fact been ordered.
KFkairosfocus
January 21, 2014
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Hi StephenB,
Also, I am going to make things more concrete so that there will be no word games.
Hallelujah!
A presupposition of design cannot be reconciled with a design inference.
The problem is not that ID ever presupposes that some particular observation is the result of "real teleology". The problem is that ID presupposes that "real teleology" is a category that corresponds to reality in the first place. Human beings produce complex mechanisms, but we have no way of knowing if human beings are irreducible to material processes, as Dembski says they must be.
RDF: nobody has any empirical evidence that anything – even human intellect – is irreducible to material processes.
SB: I don’t think that most archeologists would agree with you.
Stephen, we are not talking about detecting the activity of human beings, or even any other particular kind of being. We are talking about whether or not "real teleology" exists. "Real teleology" is defined as something that is irreducible to material processes. It is possible that human intelligence is irreducible to material processes, but it is also possible that it is not, and there is no empirical method we can use to settle the matter.
If they were the same kind of cause (say, law and chance) then the archeologist would have no way of knowing that wind, water, and erosion didn’t produce the “artifacts” that the volcano buried?
You seem to be saying that if two things are both law+chance, then they produce indistinguishable results. But of course that is not the case at all. Let's take two different causes that we both agree are strictly material processes (law + chance). One is the Sun, which produces light and heat, and the other is a river, which carves out a riverbed. Now imagine the archeologist comes over a mountaintop and sees below him a dry riverbed. Would you say she could detect that this was produced by a river, and not, say, the Sun? I would say she could. Does that mean that a river does not operate according to material processes (law + chance)? Of course not.
Or, again, I don’t think the meteorologists and forensic scientists would agree with you.
We are talking about whether or not human intelligence can be reduced to material processes. Neither meterologists nor forensic scientists have particular expertise in this area.
You seem to have lost the thread of the discussion. We are not talking about whether or not human activity is detectable - of course it is. What we are talking about is ID's assertion that "real teleology", which is irreducible to material processes, exists. We agree that humans can produce complex form and function, and that nothing else we know of can, but that doesn't mean that humans cannot themselves be reduced to material processes.
Let me check - you do know what "reduced to material processes" means, right? After all, it was Dembski who used the term.
And now, here are all the points you dodged from the last post:
Nobody knows if human intelligence can be reduced to material processes. Nobody knows if a “real choice” can ever occur without antecedent physical cause. ID pretends that all these ancient metaphysical speculations are known to be what “intelligence” is, but that is completely misleading – there is no science behind these claims whatsoever.
And the relevant science that has been conducted (such as Libet’s studies) do absolutely nothing to confirm ID’s notion of “real teology” exists, and is widely interpreted to suggest the opposite.
DEMBSKI: …the product of a conscious personal intelligent agent. Both assumptions are false.
SB: ID critics should not assume that intelligence necessarily refers to an external, conscious personal agent. It could also represent an internal, non-conscious, impersonal, design principle built into nature.
But here is what you said:
SB @310: Dembski is saying that we cannot rule out a non-conscious design principle without first evaluating the evidence. Meyer also agrees that we cannot rule out a non-conscious design principle before the evidence speaks. On the other hand, he does say that when the evidence speaks, it speaks for the existence of a conscious agent.
Really? You think that although he doesn’t rule it out in advance, Dembski has looked at the evidence and concluded that the evidence speaks for a conscious agency? Why don’t you read what Dembski actually says:
DEMBSKI: But the intentions of a designer and even the nature of a designer (whether, for instance, the designer is a conscious personal agent or an impersonal telic process) lie outside the scope of intelligent design. As a scientific research program, intelligent design investigates the effects of intelligence and not intelligence as such.
It’s not about presupposing consciousness – quite clearly, Dembski says that ID does not even investigate evidence that has to do with whether or not the designer is conscious. Why don’t you admit you are wrong about this? Don’t you think it’s important to be honest? Wow, and this after you claimed that dualists were so much more moral than other folks.
In summary:
1) ID defines intelligence to be irreducible to material processes, but nobody knows if there is anything at all that cannot be reduced to material processes. SB can’t understand this.
2) Dembski says that ID cannot say one way or the other whether the designer is a conscious agent, and this means before, after, or during the “evaluation of the evidence” takes place. According to Dembski, that question is completely outside of the scope of ID. SB has been completely wrong about this.
3) Meyer says that ID does provide scientific support for the claim that the designer was a conscious agent. This directly contradicts Dembski. SB has been completely wrong about this too.
Cheers,
RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
January 21, 2014
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Hi RDF
You wrote,
You are obsessed with this red herring because you are unwilling to argue the actual issue. I’ve said dozens of times it makes no difference at what stage design is inferred – before, during, or after whatever stage is looked at… assumed, supposed, presupposed, concluded… all completely irrelevant for exactly the reason I have explained.
Forget about the stages, then. We will simply discuss inferences, presuppositions, and conclusions. Also, I am going to make things more concrete so that there will be no word games.
To infer the design of what seems to be an ancient hunter’s spear is to withhold judgment on the question of whether the artifact is a designed spear or a naturally formed rock—at least until the evidence speaks. To presuppose (as opposed hypothesizing) that the artifact is a spear is to rule out the possibility that it is a rock and to presuppose that it is a rock is to rule out the possibility that it is a spear.
Thus, any presupposition about the design status of the artifact renders a true inference impossible; the evidence never gets a chance to speak and the conclusion is foregone anyway. The take home message is that you can’t infer that an intelligent agent is responsible for design if you have prematurely concluded design in the form of a presupposition. A presupposition of design cannot be reconciled with a design inference.
Whenever ID decides that some source of “real teleology” is the best explanation, rather than some other unknown source that is reducible to material processes, that decision is unsupported by empirical evidence because nobody has any empirical evidence that anything – even human intellect – is irreducible to material processes.
I don’t think that most archeologists would agree with you. How do we distinguish the humanly-produced cause of all the artifacts found in ancient Pompei from the cause of the volcano that buried them? Either the two kinds of causes are either substantially different or they are not. Either those differences can be detected or they cannot. Archeologists say that they can make that distinction based on empirical evidence. I agree.
Inasmuch as those causes are different and can be identified as different, the archeologist can declare that humans (one kind of cause) built the artifacts and a volcano (another kind of cause) buried them. If they were the same kind of cause (say, law and chance) then the archeologist would have no way of knowing that wind, water, and erosion didn’t produce the “artifacts” that the volcano buried?
Or, again, I don't think the meteorologists and forensic scientists would agree with you. We know that at least two different kinds of causes can create disorder in a home–a tornado and a burglar. We can easily distinguish the chaotic activity of the former as one kind of cause with the intelligent activity of the latter as another kind of cause. Among other things, tornadoes do not typically ransack the house, leave dresser drawers open, and run off with the jewelry.StephenB
January 21, 2014
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RDF,
I don’t know what “necessary material conditions” you are referring to ...
I don’t know what “unique physical requirements” you mean...
This is rather hard to believe. They've been provided several times upthread.
Perhaps this is not uncommon where you are concerned.
...but perhaps we can skip that.
It does appear to suit you, after all.Upright BiPed
January 21, 2014
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Call it laziness but I look to the materialists to support their position and their claims. The absence of support for their claims in peer-reviewed literature is enough for me to say "Materialistic processes just aren't up to the task. If they were we would be reading about it."
I have better things to do than to run around trying to "prove a negative". And if the materialists aren't up to the task then that is their problem.Joe
January 21, 2014
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RDFish:
The problem is that since ID fails to empirically demonstrate that intelligence (even human intelligence) is irreducible to material processes (chance+necessity), it obviously can’t demonstrate that the cause of biological systems is irreducible to material processes.
You want us to prove a negative? It is up to the people making the claim- that intelligence even human intelligence is reducible to material processes- to demonstrate such a thing. That is how science works.
Perhaps your parents can help you out wrt science.Joe
January 21, 2014
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RDFish:
I’m right about everything I’ve said,...
Except for all the points we have proved you to be wrong, of course. Perhaps your parents can help you out- or do you not listen to them either?Joe
January 21, 2014
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Hi Upright BiPed,
Did you presume that by “alter”, I was suggesting that the observations themselves might physically change? How unfortunate for you.
How unfortunate for both of us that you are unable to clearly pose your points and questions. Perhaps one of your parents could help?
The question is about recognizing that our inability to identify an agent at the OoL does nothing whatsoever to diminish or mitigate the necessary material conditions associated with the information and information systems being discussed?
You seem to be unfamiliar with the interrogative form of a sentence. Here you punctuate the sentence with a question mark, but your sentence is in fact declarative. In any event, I agree completely: Our inability to "identify an agent" at OOL does nothing to "diminish or mitigate" your observations. I don't know what "necessary material conditions" you are referring to, however.
Not being able to identify an agent at the origin of life does not mean that the unique physical requirements of those systems can suddenly be found without pre-existing organization, nor does it mean that they are found anywhere else in the physical world except during the use of language and mathematics.
I don't know what "unique physical requirements" you mean, but perhaps we can skip that. I really do agree with you that biological systems are chock-full of fantastic form and function that cry out for explanation, and not only that, but the sorts of mechanisms we in biology see have the same sorts of features that the most complex human artifacts have (actually to an even much greater degreee).
Your objection that ID has no empirical basis is therefore not sustainable.
You haven't even mentioned any of my objections yet, and you have done precisely nothing to show that ID's central claim is true.
Your objection that the design inference requires a prior commitment to such concepts as free will or dualism is demonstrably false.
The problem is that since ID fails to empirically demonstrate that intelligence (even human intelligence) is irreducible to material processes (chance+necessity), it obviously can't demonstrate that the cause of biological systems is irreducible to material processes.
Your objection that ID is invalid without a full explication of consciousness and intelligence is simply wrong.
I don't understand your point here. I've never asked for a "full explication" of consciousness or intelligence. Where'd you get that idea?
With so many shortcomings in your arguments, perhaps it’s no wonder why you spend so much time peddling trivialities among ID proponents.
I'm right about everything I've said, and you aren't apparently capable of understanding much of anything. In any event, I'm still waiting for your very first argument.
Cheers,
RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
January 21, 2014
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UB: How does not being able to identify a physical designer at the origin of life alter these observations?
RDF: you can’t “alter observations” by making another observation. So the answer is that nothing alters your observations.
You think you have somehow made a point by establishing that our failure to observe a designer does not somehow “alter” our observations. Of course it doesn’t – all of these observations remain just as we make them.
Did you presume that by “alter”, I was suggesting that the observations themselves might physically change? How unfortunate for you.
The question is about recognizing that our inability to identify an agent at the OoL does nothing whatsoever to diminish or mitigate the necessary material conditions associated with the information and information systems being discussed?
Not being able to identify an agent at the origin of life does not mean that the unique physical requirements of those systems can suddenly be found without pre-existing organization, nor does it mean that they are found anywhere else in the physical world except during the use of language and mathematics.
Your objection that ID has no empirical basis is therefore not sustainable. Your objection that ID has only a religious grounding is incoherent by your own words. Your objection that the design inference requires a prior commitment to such concepts as free will or dualism is demonstrably false. Your objection that ID is invalid without a full explication of consciousness and intelligence is simply wrong.
With so many shortcomings in your arguments, perhaps it's no wonder why you spend so much time peddling trivialities among ID proponents.Upright BiPed
January 21, 2014
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Earth to RDFish- it is NOT a philosophical problem. It matters a great deal to us whether or not we are here by design or via accumulations of accidents.Joe
January 21, 2014
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Hi Eric Anderson,
Do human beings have the ability to design something in a way that is different from how something would be made by, say, a geologic process such as wind and soil erosion?
There are too many differences to list, obviously. The question is not if a human being's abilties are different from the abilities of geological processes. Rather, the question is whether or not there is anything connected to the abilities of human beings that is not reducible to material processes. That question is a very ancient philsophical problem, and neither Dembski nor anyone else has done anything to resolve the problem empirically.
Cheers,
RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
January 21, 2014
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Is anyone else sick of RDFish misrepresenting ID, Dembski and Meyer?Joe
January 21, 2014
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RDFish:
Do human beings have the ability to design something in a way that is different from how something would be made by, say, a geologic process such as wind and soil erosion?Eric Anderson
January 21, 2014
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Hi Eric Anderson,
I use the word ‘agent’ in a very simple way. Straight-up out of the dictionary, no hidden meaning or context or navel-gazing. My dictionary says, for example, that an agent is “a person or thing that acts or has the power to act.” That is plenty good for purposes of any discussion on intelligent design.
Sorry, but ambiguous definitions are at the heart of the controversy. The Sun is a thing that "acts or has the power to act", but I think you'd reject the notion that it is an "agent". A river chooses a path to the sea, but you don't consider it an agent.
In the end, what most people mean by "agent" is closely tied to what we mean by "living thing". If you disagree, can you name one living thing in our shared experience that is not an "agent"? Or can you name one agent in our shared experience that is not a living thing?
Generally, I tend to talk about “intelligent agents;” the only reason I referred to a “conscious agent” is because you had used that term and I was responding to your post. But ‘conscious agent’ is probably fine too.
The fact that you are so loose with these definitions mean you don't really care about doing science. What if Newton had defined gravity as some sort of thing that made apples fall and planets circle around, or maybe not circles but elipses, and it usually acts with a kind of force or something that seems to get weaker the farther away you are...
Either the "designer" that ID is talking about is supposed to be consciously aware or not. Which is it?
“Intelligent agent” is pretty simple and I use both words according to their etymology: intelligent meaning to choose between contingent possibilities, and agent meaning to do or to act.
Is a river an intelligent agent, since it chooses one particular path to the sea? Why not? (Don't use any concepts you haven't already introduced in your definition please).
Do you agree with Meyer, who claims that the evidence shows the Designer to be a conscious agent? Or do you agree with Dembski, who claims that ID provides no evidence that the Designer was a conscious agent? You can't agree with both of them, because they don't agree with each other.
Cheers,
RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
January 21, 2014
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Hi Upright BiPed,
You are asking the question that RD refuses to engage.
Not true - there are no questions I refuse to engage.
How does not being able to identify a physical designer at the origin of life alter these observations?
And I answered - you can't "alter observations" by making another observation. So the answer is that nothing alters your observations.
You think you have somehow made a point by establishing that our failure to observe a designer does not somehow "alter" our observations. Of course it doesn't - all of these observations remain just as we make them.
Would you like to make some point about these observations now, or are you satsified that you and I both agree that these observations remain despite whatever else may be true?
Cheers,
RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
January 21, 2014
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Hi StephenB,
DEBMSKI: In this definition, real 37 teleology is not reducible to purely material processes. At the same time, in this definition, real teleology is not simply presupposed as a consequence of prior metaphysical commitments. Intelligent design asks teleology to prove itself scientifically.
SB: The teleology that is not reducible to chance and necessity is not, AS RDF CLAIMS, presupposed.
You are obsessed with this red herring because you are unwilling to argue the actual issue. I've said dozens of times it makes no difference at what stage design is inferred - before, during, or after whatever stage is looked at... assumed, supposed, presupposed, concluded... all completely irrelevant for exactly the reason I have explained.
Whenever ID decides that some source of "real teleology" is the best explanation, rather than some other unknown source that is reducible to material processes, that decision is unsupported by empirical evidence because nobody has any empirical evidence that anything - even human intellect - is irreducible to material processes.
I can define a unicorn with presupposing its existence. Then I can conduct an empirical test to find out if unicorns, as defined, really exist.
Yes but if you decide that "unicorns" is the best explanation for something because you can't think of any "non-unicorns" explanation, you are making a conclusion that is unsupported by empirical evidence. This is the case with ID.
Equally important, there is nothing here about an assumption or presupposition about libertarian dualism or free will. RDF is just making that up.
Since we used different definitions for these terms, I've dropped them, but you don't care: You want to hide behind your equivocations so you don't have to admit that Dembski's definitions entail claims that have no empirical support. Nobody knows if human intelligence can be reduced to material processes. Nobody knows if a "real choice" can ever occur without antecedent physical cause. ID pretends that all these ancient metaphysical speculations are known to be what "intelligence" is, but that is completely misleading - there is no science behind these claims whatsoever.
And the relevant science that has been conducted (such as Libet's studies) do absolutely nothing to confirm ID's notion of "real teology" exists, and is widely interpreted to suggest the opposite.
DEMBSKI: ...the product of a conscious personal intelligent agent. Both assumptions are false.
SB: ID critics should not assume that intelligence necessarily refers to an external, conscious personal agent. It could also represent an internal, non-conscious, impersonal, design principle built into nature.
But here is what you said:
SB @310: Dembski is saying that we cannot rule out a non-conscious design principle without first evaluating the evidence. Meyer also agrees that we cannot rule out a non-conscious design principle before the evidence speaks. On the other hand, he does say that when the evidence speaks, it speaks for the existence of a conscious agent.
Really? You think that although he doesn't rule it out in advance, Dembski has looked at the evidence and concluded that the evidence speaks for a conscious agency? Why don't you read what Dembski actually says:
DEMBSKI: But the intentions of a designer and even the nature of a designer (whether, for instance, the designer is a conscious personal agent or an impersonal telic process) lie outside the scope of intelligent design. As a scientific research program, intelligent design investigates the effects of intelligence and not intelligence as such.
It's not about presupposing consciousness - quite clearly, Dembski says that ID does not even investigate evidence that has to do with whether or not the designer is conscious. Why don't you admit you are wrong about this? Don't you think it's important to be honest? Wow, and this after you claimed that dualists were so much more moral than other folks.
In summary:
1) ID defines intelligence to be irreducible to material processes, but nobody knows if there is anything at all that cannot be reduced to material processes. SB can't understand this.
2) Dembski says that ID cannot say one way or the other whether the designer is a conscious agent, and this means before, after, or during the "evaluation of the evidence" takes place. According to Dembski, that question is completely outside of the scope of ID. SB has been completely wrong about this.
3) Meyer says that ID does provide scientific support for the claim that the designer was a conscious agent. This directly contradicts Dembski. SB has been completely wrong about this too.
Cheers,
RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
