Irreducible Complexity (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, January 07, 2010, 19:34 (5433 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt: What is "Too complex to happen by chance" when the very nature of the universe IS chance itself?-Also (under 'Programming the Universe') you say hundreds of thousands of experiments have confirmed that chance "underlines the very fabric of our universe".-Matt: It is true that mysticism was the first explanation for life; but it isn't the case that if science hasn't provided an answer then we must accept the previous explanation. We accept NO explanation, one because it doesn't actually explain anything, and the other because it is presently insufficient.-Once again, I hesitate to join in this discussion because I don't know enough about the universe or about quantum theory. (Chad Orzel's book is not due out over here till the end of the month.) However, I will ask my questions because it may be that I'm not alone in my ignorance, and our object as always is clarification. -Even as I applaud the third statement, I'm struggling to reconcile it with the first two. Are you saying that the laws of physics and chemistry are governed by chance? That Earth's relationship to the sun is governed by chance? Or that these things came about by chance? Without a degree of order in the universe we obviously could not exist or continue to exist, and I can't associate such order with the idea that the nature of the universe actually IS chance itself. So what exactly do you mean here by 'fabric' and 'nature'?-In order to avoid any misunderstandings, I don't have a problem with the idea that chance governs many events within the universe and within our own world. It's only the comprehensiveness of your first statement that puzzles me. And this leads me to the last puzzle for today. Again under 'Programming the Universe', you say Lloyd answers the question "How does complexity arise?" by modifying the paradigm from a "mechanical machine" to "a machine that processes information". Doesn't this answer increase the likelihood of an intelligence within the universe, as opposed to its operating at random?