Random (Agnosticism)

by romansh , Monday, December 28, 2015, 18:54 (3252 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Darwin attributes innovations to random mutations, by which I assume he means that the changes are not purposefully planned by an intelligent mind, but occur by chance.
Why assume this in theological terms and not scientific terms ... ie these mutations have no particular direction?-> dhw: I don't have a problem understanding what this means. Whether it is likely or not is a different matter, of course.
I'm not sure about this ... just remember random does not necessarily mean acausal.-> dhw: If we think it's unlikely, we will look for different explanations. David suggests a god (non-random), and I have suggested the intelligence of the organisms responding non-randomly to random environmental changes. Others may have other explanations, perhaps linked to determinism (see later).
If possible I would like to stick to random and its synonyms rather than David's musings.
dhw ... by all means you can suggest alternatives to non-random events. But the point here is to explore the nature of randomness. 
 
> dhw: Not sure about the above, especially since we don't know the causes of quantum events. I'd have thought most of us would argue that all events have a cause and effect, but even though so-called random events have a cause, that doesn't mean they have a plan or purpose, a gap which we often associate with randomness. Fred is walking on the beach and a rock falls on his head. There is a cause for his walking and for the rock falling, but I would say the simultaneity of the combined causes is random (not on purpose), and so the effect is “accidental” (chance/random) death. -While I would agree we can't see too far beyond the quantum veil (if at all) but here are couple of quotes from The Grand Design that might help us along.
>> Quantum physics might seem to undermine the idea that nature is governed by laws, but that is not the case. Instead it leads us to accept a new form of determinism: Given the state of a system at some time, the laws of nature determine the probabilities of various futures and pasts rather than determining the future and past with certainty.
and
>> the molecular basis of biology shows that biological processes are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry and therefore are as determined as the orbits of the planets...so it seems that we are no more than biological machines and that free will is just an illusion
 
> dhw: As far as evolution is concerned, we can look at two beliefs: David thinks it's not random because God planned it - a hypothesis which requires faith, because there is no evidence for it. A materialist determinist may think it‘s not random because there has to be an as yet unknown predetermined material cause - again, a hypothesis which requires faith because there is no evidence for it.
 
I don't want to drag this into a free will debate, but any purpose you may have, what are the causes behind that purpose and how "random" are they?
 
Also I object to the blanket use of the word predetermined. This is raising a late eighteenth century straw man. the word determined suffices, or better still caused.-> dhw: An excellent definition, which leaves the whole question wide open. We have no idea what discoveries science might make in a hundred/thousand/ten thousand years, and so currently we can only theorize.-I too like the definition. So when we say a mutation occurs there is a causal mesh that has caused the mutation that is unpredictable. Or there is an intelligence that has caused the mesh to cause an unpredictable mutation or there is an intelligence that causes the mutation directly (magically in this case). In the last case is the is the mutation predictable?