UD Guest Posts

UB writes: UB, only way thread, 164: >>My apologies to Origenes, he had asked for my comment, but I was away . . . . I am no expert of course, but thank you for asking me to comment. Frankly you didn’t need my opinion anyway. When you ask “What is the error in supposing something?” you likely already know there is no there there. And someone seriously asking you (like some odd prosecution of your logic) to enumerate what exactly is the biological error or the chemical error in the proposition of something that has never before been seen or recorded in either biology or chemistry — well whatever. Deacon begins by asking the question, what is necessary and Read More ›

The stage is in darkness, with sombre mood music, then light rises . . . Origenes, 226 in the Pregnancy thread: <<Two desperate naturalists in a room. A: “I feel completely desperate. There is no way we will ever be able to explain life and consciousness.”B: “I feel the exact same way. The main issue is that we have nothing to work with. All we have is mindless particles in the void obeying mindless regularities. Starting from that, how can we possibly explain life, not to mention personhood, freedom, and rationality? There is simply no way forward.”A: “Exactly right. Sometimes I feel like such a loser. The other day I heard that current science cannot even explain liquidity.”B: “What did Read More ›

UD sometimes hosts guest posts, some by request, some by promotion of comments. This is one of the latter. A key point is his note that the toll of our living posterity in the womb is now two billions (I can readily show 800+ millions and can plausibly support the 1.4 billion statistics I have seen). Similarly, the mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic shows sobering disregard for life and duties of care. We need to ask how we have come to this, within living memory of the Nuremberg trials. Without endorsing beyond “this is food for thought” we need to consider Harry’s concerns and considerations: >>The outrageous corruption of the godless elite is finally coming into the light of day. Read More ›

Here at UD, we often find food for thought in the comment box. The following by ScuzzaMan, is worth pondering as a particular, from the horse’s mouth philosophical-theological perspective within the Christian frame (and yes, it is Creationist-Biblical in focus rather than empirical-inferential on reliable signs of design). Here is a Christian voice, in his own words: ___________   Design Law Theory. Design Law Theory is the notion that the book of nature, being written by the same author who inspired scripture, and being properly understood, is an unerring guide to the nature and character of that author. As such it is necessarily an equally unerring guide to the nature of his moral or spiritual laws, as demonstrated to physical Read More ›

Sometimes a comment is too good to leave there in the combox. So: LM, 2 in the AI intelligent agency thread: >>It brought to mind the evolution of AI. It all began with lightning (electrons) striking rocks (silicon) for billions of years (might a nearby warm pond be helpful?) until now we have the delicate motions of electrons thru silicon that we know of as computers. The software is the result of random noise in the bits and bytes of the operating system (we’re still working out how that originated. Any day now!) that were duplicated as a separate file and eventually, driven by natural selection, resulting in the wonderful programs we enjoy today. At the furious rate of evolution Read More ›

Our Physicist and Computer Scientist from Russia — and each element of that balance is very relevant — is back, with more.  MOAR, in fact. This time, he tackles the “terror-fitted depths” of thermodynamics and biosemiotics. (NB: Those needing a backgrounder may find an old UD post here and a more recent one here, helpful.) More rich food for thought for the science-hungry masses, red hot off the press: _________________ >>On the Second Law of Thermodynamics in the context of the origin of life Rudolf Clausius (1822-1888) This note was motivated by my discussions with Russian interlocutors. One of UD readers here has asked me to produce a summary of those discussions, which I am happy to do now. I Read More ›

UD has a broad and deep pool of readers and occasional contributors from across the world that have a lot to say, things that are well worth pondering. In this case, I am more than happy to host a guest post in which physicist and computer scientist ES (who hails from Russia) argues the thesis: No linguistic processing occurs in the case of memory of a material that is exclusively explainable in terms of physical interactions between particles of that material, whereas the basic architecture of life is inherently linguistic. Let us now ponder: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Biological memory vs. memory of materials [Eugen S, UD November 7, 2016] Contemporary technology allows us to make self-deploying structures that can revert to their Read More ›

The following is a guest post by Aurelio Smith. I have invited him to present a critique of Active Information in a more prominent place at UD so we can have a good discussion of Active Information’s strengths and weaknesses. The rest of this post is his.
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UD commenter, ayearningforpublius [AYP], has his own blog where he has many interesting posts informed by a lifetime of varied experiences. He is also an advocate for the idea that nature shows compelling observable signs of design, and in “dialog with folks at and surrounding the National Center for Science Education (NCSE)” has encountered a typical challenge, which he noted on in a March 27, 2014 comment in a current OOL thread, i.e.: “Mac: Wrong question, since as a YECist IDiot you cannot conceive of undesigned systems like all life forms have proven to be to the point where evolution is a scientifically acknowledged fact. Show me just one life form that was designed top down, with the evidence, process Read More ›