Chance v. Design (Evolution)
David has referred us in several posts to the latest research on DNA and RNA, and the two most recent concern the mammalian retina and replication. He asks the million-dollar question (I remember the days when it was only $64,000!) which I would like to use in order to summarize some agnostic viewpoints: "Is this the result of blind luck (Chance mutation and Natural Selection) or could this be a planned design?" - Chance: somehow various bits and pieces assembled themselves accidentally into the first replicating molecule. This was so complex that not only could it reproduce itself, but it was also capable of infinite variations triggered by more chance events such as mutations, collisions and environmental changes. Thus after billions of years a mindless, limbless, heartless, sexless blob unconsciously evolved into us. - Design: a) the same as above, but the molecule was assembled by an intelligence. b) the same as a) but the intelligence carried on messing about with its design. - You need great faith to imagine unconscious chance being scientifically capable of assembling such a complex piece of machinery, but the theory has its attractions. Once you've taken that leap of faith, the ceaseless free-for-all follows quite naturally: no problem explaining the origin of selfishness and evil (part of the survival system) or diseases and other natural indiscriminate catastrophes, no need to bother about experiences of the paranormal or for any further speculation beyond research into the material world. Science will explain everything eventually, but meanwhile just get on with the here and now. (However, you are a member of society, and are just as concerned with ethics, love, art etc. as the Designer Supporters' Club.) - Design, on the other hand, raises huge problems. 1) Where did the designer come from? Don't know, can't know. Belief in an eternal spirit demands the same sort of blind faith as belief in chance. - 2) Where is it now? Don't know. The free-for-all is so obvious that either it's not there, or it's simply watching and not interfering. - 3) What is its form? If it is/was a physical being, we're still stuck with the problem of origin. If it's some other form of existence (see 1) origin is still a problem, but the extraordinary capacities of the human mind come into serious reckoning, as do the more credible tales of the paranormal. Could there be another level of being? - 4) What is its nature? The free-for-all of the survival system suggests at best indifference to cruelty, but the human capacity for love and altruism and beauty suggest the same qualities in the designer, so maybe humans are an accurate reflection of their creator's mixed nature. (See 5) This also gets rid of the argument about "terrible design if an intelligent force is in charge". Intelligence does not = perfection. How many human designs have been so perfect that they couldn't be improved? - 5) Why did it create life? It must have had a reason. Boredom, perhaps? Loneliness? "Don't anthropomorphize the designer!" you might cry ... but why not? Designs often reflect their designers, and besides, what other basis can there be for our speculations? The product (the world itself) seems to me a far more convincing piece of evidence than wishful thinking based on dubious interpretations of dubious manuscripts. And a god without qualities might just as well not be there (see 6). - 6) Not the least consideration: what's in it for me? Well, if there's no afterlife, nothing. In this life, most of what happens to me is my responsibility or the result of luck, and that's OK with me. However, many people have been infinitely less lucky than me, so if there's no afterlife in which they'll get compensation (or I can continue enjoying some form of existence), it doesn't matter two hoots whether we were designed or not. - What we would like has no bearing on the truth, of course, which is either chance or design. David says: "Take your choice". Whichever of the two you choose requires that almighty leap of faith, but there is a third option: the agnostic one of not making a choice. Here endeth the summary.
Chance v. Design
by George Jelliss 
, Crewe, Saturday, May 02, 2009, 19:05 (5482 days ago) @ dhw
DT speaks of "a planned design". Is it possible to have an unplanned design? - dhw says that the first replicating molecule "was so complex that not only could it reproduce itself, but it was also capable of infinite variations triggered by more chance events such as mutations, collisions and environmental changes". - My suspicion is that the first replicating molecule was relatively simple (as compared with modern DNA). It needn't have been just one molecule, but could be one of a set of similarly structured molecules that produce similarly structured molecules, not necessarily exactly the same every time. This of course is just speculation on my part, but seems quite plausible. - The variations then follow as a matter of course, triggered by chance events. The possibilities however are not infinite. There are only a limited number of different types of atoms and of ways they can combine. - Since I find this a satisfactory explanation I have no need for the other hypotheses that dhw lists concerning designers of various different designs.
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GPJ
Chance v. Design
I fear this discussion is turning into a self-replicating moleculture with few variations, but I can't leave everything to chance. - George: My suspicion is that the first replicating molecule was relatively simple (as compared with modern DNA). - How simple is "relatively simple"? A typewriter is relatively simple compared to a computer, but you'd laugh your head off if I told you chance could build a typewriter. And since brilliant, conscious brains are still engaged in figuring out the nature of that first molecule, I'd say it must have been relatively complex compared to a typewriter. - George: It needn't have been just one molecule, but could be one of a set of similarly structured molecules that produce similarly structured molecules, not necessarily the same every time. - Agreed, but the odds against chance producing one such molecule are colossal. I can't see why the odds should be less colossal against chance producing a whole set of them. - George: The variations then follow as a matter of course, triggered by chance events. The possibilities however are not infinite. There are only a limited number of different types of atoms and of ways they can combine. - It's a matter of course, then, that mindless, unconscious blobs of matter can be turned by chance into hitherto unheard-of faculties like hearing, vision, taste, smell etc., and can be accidentally jogged into developing sexual reproduction, digestive systems, immune systems, flight, consciousness... OK, maybe not infinite possibilities, but mind-bogglingly huge. My point, though, is that none of these variations could have happened if the original molecules had not been capable of change and development, which increases the degree of their complexity and the odds against chance. - You find chance "a satisfactory explanation". I can't argue against that. Theists find God a satisfactory explanation, and in my state of ignorance I can do no more than explain why I can't share your faith or theirs.
Chance v. Design
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Sunday, May 03, 2009, 22:24 (5481 days ago) @ dhw
George: My suspicion is that the first replicating molecule was relatively simple (as compared with modern DNA). dhw: How simple is "relatively simple"? /// - George: DNA is in effect two long chain molecules with attached amino-acids which connect in pairs. This is not that complicated, though as David Turell points out it is part of a more complex system involving RNA etc in cells. By "relatively simple" as compared with DNA I thought it was clear that I meant something with fewer atoms. - George: The variations then follow as a matter of course, triggered by chance events. /// dhw: It's a matter of course, then, that mindless, unconscious blobs of matter can be turned by chance into hitherto unheard-of faculties like hearing, vision, taste, smell etc., /// - George: I thought you had accepted evolution by natural selection? What we are talking about here are the earliest stages of emergence of life. What is required is to show how a transition from simple self-replicating molecules to the earliest known form of life, namely prokaryotes, could occur. Such bacteria do not to my knowledge have organs of hearing, vision, taste or smell. - dhw: You find chance "a satisfactory explanation". I can't argue against that. Theists find God a satisfactory explanation, and in my state of ignorance I can do no more than explain why I can't share your faith or theirs. - George: The reason chance is a satisfactory explanation is that it is economical. Most theists also accept that chance events occur (unless they think God determines the outcome of every dice throw, and ensures that they obey the laws of statistics). Then they add the unnecessary and expensive extra complication of a designing intelligence of unknown origin.
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GPJ
Chance v. Design
by David Turell , Monday, May 04, 2009, 00:46 (5481 days ago) @ George Jelliss
What both of you are looking for is an article by Robert Shapiro on simple inorganic molecules that in a circlar pattern or chemical loop of compounds produce energy, as an alternative to an RNA world whic he thinks is likely an impossible beginning. Unfortunately the article is for sale but worth it. http://www.robertshapiro.org/a_simpler_origin_for_life_78187.htm
Chance v. Design
George: I thought you had accepted evolution by natural selection? What we are talking about here are the earliest stages of emergence of life. What is required is to show how a transition from simple self-replicating molecules to the earliest known form of life, namely prokaryotes, could occur. Such bacteria do not to my knowledge have organs of hearing, vision, taste or smell. - Round and round we go! I do accept evolution by natural selection, but let me repeat that natural selection is Chapter 2 in the history of life, and only explains survival and improvement, not origins. Chapter 1 is replication and variation, without which there is nothing to select from. We agree that the process must have begun with self-replicating molecules. On that premise there has to be a line leading from those first molecules to prokaryotes and eukaryotes, trilobites and triceratops, jaguars and Jellisses. The changes may have been triggered by chance mutations, collisions or environmental influences (agreed), but they could not have happened if the first self-replicating molecules did not already have the code/information/programming/potential capability ... call it what you will ... for variation. And THIS is where you and I part company. No matter how often you use the word simple, I cannot envisage chance putting together the chemicals that enabled inanimate matter both to replicate itself and to allow for subsequent variations that would survive, let alone be so innovative and beneficial. I accept in principle the process of variations surviving and improving through natural selection, because it seems to me by far the most convincing theory we have, but the original mechanism which sparked off the process must have been so complex in itself that I am unable to believe it could have been the result of an accident. - You go on to say: "The reason chance is a satisfactory explanation is that it is economical." My post of 2 May should have made it clear that I too am unconvinced by all the complications of a theistic explanation, but I do not see any equation between 'satisfactory' and 'economical'. Ockham's razor may apply to many fields, but if a simple explanation leaves a huge gap, and that huge gap requires a leap of faith (not in the theory of evolution but in the theory of abiogenesis), I would not call it 'satisfactory'. That, as I see it, is the major difference between us.
Chance v. Design
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Tuesday, May 05, 2009, 19:58 (5479 days ago) @ dhw
We do seem to have got into a loop! - dhw wrote: "The changes may have been triggered by chance mutations, collisions or environmental influences (agreed), but they could not have happened if the first self-replicating molecules did not already have the code/information/programming/potential capability ... call it what you will ... for variation. And THIS is where you and I part company." - As I see it, the molecules have the potentiality for change, since in the process of replication the atoms may, by accident, get put together in different orders, or one group of atoms may be substituted by another. This does not require any preprogramming. Accidents happen. Gradually, little by little, the code that guides the replication, and the functions it controls, become more complicated. Or to put it in other terms, they contain and pass on more information. - dhw: "/// if a simple explanation leaves a huge gap, and that huge gap requires a leap of faith (not in the theory of evolution but in the theory of abiogenesis), I would not call it 'satisfactory'. That, as I see it, is the major difference between us." - I don't see why the idea that replicating molecules can arise by natural processes requires faith. Since living things now exist and before there were only non-replicating molecules, it is self-evident that something happened. Where faith is required is in supposing that this process was guided by some pre-existing intelligence rather than that it happened naturally.
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GPJ
Chance v. Design
George: I don't see why the idea that replicating molecules can arise by natural processes requires faith. Since living things now exist and before there were only non-replicating molecules, it is self-evident that something happened. Where faith is required is in supposing that this process was guided by some pre-existing intelligence rather than that it happened naturally. - A neat introduction to the agnostic's dilemma! You are right: living things exist, and so it is self-evident that something happened. Here are two theories. 1) A pre-existing intelligence assembled bits of inanimate matter in such a way that they were able to replicate with a potentiality for change. There is no scientific evidence for this theory. 2) By sheer luck bits of inanimate matter assembled themselves in such a way that they were able to replicate with a potentiality for change. There is no scientific evidence for this theory. - I don't see why belief in one theory without scientific evidence requires faith, but belief in another theory without scientific evidence does not require faith.
Chance v. Design
by BBella , Friday, May 08, 2009, 21:03 (5476 days ago) @ dhw
A neat introduction to the agnostic's dilemma! You are right: living things exist, and so it is self-evident that something happened. Here are two theories. 1) A pre-existing intelligence assembled bits of inanimate matter in such a way that they were able to replicate with a potentiality for change. There is no scientific evidence for this theory. 2) By sheer luck bits of inanimate matter assembled themselves in such a way that they were able to replicate with a potentiality for change. There is no scientific evidence for this theory. > - Here is a third theory in which there is evidence: - Matter, animate or inanimate, dark or light, is intelligence itself. No-thing resides outside of intelligence. There is no god out there putting matter together to create anything, or directing it. It (all that is), is itself intelligence/intelligent. How intelligent? That's what we are trying to figure out...how intelligent is intelligence? When we figure it out...we will let you know.
Chance v. Design
BBella: Here is a third theory in which there is evidence. Matter, inanimate or animate, is intelligence itself. No-thing resides outside of intelligence. There is no god out there putting matter together to create anything, or directing it. It (all that is) is itself intelligence/intelligent. How intelligent? That's what we are trying to figure out...how intelligent is intelligence? When we figure it out...we will let you know. - This seems to me to be the same as pantheism, with intelligence as the god of Nature. Defining "intelligence" is a problem in itself, though (see my last paragraph). Here is one dictionary definition: "The ability to learn facts and skills and apply them, especially when this ability is highly developed." All living things must have a degree of intelligence, since they couldn't reproduce or survive without applying certain facts and skills, many of which are even more "highly developed" than our own. - I don't see any evidence of applied facts and skills in lumps of rock or grains of sand, but you could argue that if our own lump of rock (Planet Earth) hadn't formed special physical and chemical relationships with the sun, the moon, and the rest of the inorganic materials zooming around out there, we wouldn't be alive to talk about them. So perhaps this intelligence amounts to what George calls the "natural laws". - I wonder, though, if origins and consciousness aren't the two flaws in all the various theories. I would distinguish between organic and inorganic matter. The idea that if conditions are right, the intelligence of inanimate matter will be such that it can create the complex chemical combinations needed to replicate and eventually vary itself takes a lot of believing. It just puts a more "intellectual" gloss on what basically is the same as the chance theory, and that demands as much faith as the idea of a super-intelligent being directing proceedings (where did that come from?). - None of my dictionary definitions mention "consciousness", which may fit in with your theory but not with that of ID, at least as I understand it. Perhaps, then, we really need to know what you mean by intelligence, and your final question might read: "How conscious is intelligence?" Your theory, though, suggests that the original inorganic matter not only had to be intelligent enough to make itself organic, but in due course unconscious matter had to be intelligent enough to produce consciousness. Again this stretches belief. It all happened. We are here, and we are conscious, so there has to be an explanation, but it seems to me that your theory leaves just as many open questions as the other two. Please do let us know when you figure out the answers!
Chance v. Design
by BBella , Tuesday, May 12, 2009, 04:51 (5472 days ago) @ dhw
Perhaps, then, we really need to know what you mean by intelligence, and your final question might read: "How conscious is intelligence?" - That is a great question! Thanks for fleshing that out for me! - >Your theory, though, suggests that the original inorganic matter not only had to be intelligent enough to make itself organic, but in due course unconscious matter had to be intelligent enough to produce consciousness. - Conscious intelligence, whatever that may be (good question), had to be there from the beginning; like a tree is the product of everything in it's past; everything is a product yet is also made up of that which was before. Consciousness would not necessarily have to be the product of unconsciousness but could be the framework, or clay/glue, etc., of that which is everything, which goes back to third theory. - >Again this stretches belief. It all happened. We are here, and we are conscious, so there has to be an explanation, but it seems to me that your theory leaves just as many open questions as the other two. - Of course, it's not really "my" theory, but a product of that which went before me. Yes, of course this theory would still leave questions...but, it's as good as any other. - >Please do let us know when you figure out the answers! - You would be the first I'd tell!!!
Chance v. Design
by David Turell , Monday, May 11, 2009, 22:21 (5473 days ago) @ BBella
Here is a third theory in which there is evidence: > Matter, animate or inanimate, dark or light, is intelligence itself. No-thing resides outside of intelligence. There is no god out there putting matter together to create anything, or directing it. It (all that is), is itself intelligence/intelligent. How intelligent? That's what we are trying to figure out...how intelligent is intelligence? When we figure it out...we will let you know. - No question there is a third way of looking at matter, but I would state it differently. Inanimate matter, such as a rock contains geologic information, as to how and when it was formed and from what material, ie., limestone, sandstone, granite, lava, etc. I prefer to use the word information, in this case static, rather than intelligence, although we are basically saying the same thing. In living matter there is information in the form of codes that guide living matter. The only way codes can originate is from intelligence or better yet from intellect, intelligence that thinks. Information itself is not thought and never will be. Thought comes from consciousness in conscious beings, and it is that which we have not 'figured out'.
Chance v. Design
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Sunday, May 10, 2009, 19:19 (5474 days ago) @ dhw
dhw (version): Here are two theories. 1) A pre-existing intelligence assembled bits of inanimate matter 2) By [a certain amount of] sheer luck [with the help of natural law] bits of inanimate matter assembled themselves. - My point is that 2 is included in 1. Hypothesis 1 assumes much more than hypothesis 2. - dhw claims that both hypotheses have no scientific evidence. I say 2 does have scientific evidence, namely that there was a stage without life and a stage with life, and therefore we may deduce, without making further assumptions, that a transition took place from one to the other. The exact details of the process are as yet unknown, but it is unnecessary to postulate entirely extraneous interference by fairies or other beings in the process. For that there certainly is no evidence. - Once more round the mulberry bush dear friends.
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GPJ
Chance v. Design
by Matt S. , Tuesday, June 02, 2009, 22:16 (5451 days ago) @ dhw
dhw, you would do well to investigate the link I posted in our main discussion. You really do talk an awful lot about chance and your reservations that all this complexity arose by chance, to me it seems like putting the cart before the horse... and I will agree with George that I do not find that the first self-replicating molecule needed to be complex. Furthermore, what is your definition of complex? What is your definition of chance? - Do you find something special about life, and if so, what exactly is it, and what do you think you would lose in an explanation that excluded a designer? You seem rightly amazed by the world and the universe, but I struggle with the concept of a designer, but we need to discuss preliminaries first. - You seem to be the opposite of myself, you an agnostic who leans towards design, where I am an agnostic that leans towards no design. - Realistic dialog (if you are interested in exploring this topic) means that we (meaning you and I) need to address these issues, because even though you worked very hard to be balanced in your writing (which overall, is extremely well crafted) it does betray a prejudice. And I would like to know more about why you think chance seems so implausible, keeping in mind that in probability, an unlikely event can still happen--no matter the odds against it. - Improbable events happen all the time. - A one in a million event happens 14 times a day in a city with 14 million people.
Chance v. Design
Matt S. has responded to posts by David Turell, George Jelliss and myself. The basic point in dispute seems to be the odds against chemical elements combining by chance to create self-replication plus potential for variation and adaptability. - I'm having great difficulty keeping up with the speed of these posts. I had drafted a reply to yours of 1 June, but logged on to find a string of new ones. This is all extremely stimulating, however, and you will simply have to forgive my tardiness. The little things will keep interfering with the bigger things! - You have asked me to define "chance" and "complex". By chance in the context of the origin of life I mean that the required components randomly linked up without any guiding intelligence, plan, purpose, to form the first replicating molecules. By complex I mean made of interrelated parts that are difficult to unravel, that form a combination difficult to analyse, and in this case that defy all attempts to work out how they could produce what they produced. - In your post to David, you say that "the only faith you can pin on a bona-fide atheist is in a statement that 'god does not exist'." I think this ignores the implications of atheism. One of the major reasons for my not being an atheist is that it excludes the possibility of a guiding intelligence, which in turn entails belief in the power of inanimate matter to make itself animate. I see no way round this. You ask "what do you think you would lose in an explanation that excluded a designer?" I would lose nothing. It is not a matter of gain or loss but of conviction (see below). You also ask what I find special about life. If you were told to design a machine that could reproduce itself, change itself according to different circumstances, reproduce its changes, eventually develop new faculties no-one had ever heard of ... all of this potential enclosed within a grain of matter ... would you know where to begin? All those engaged in this discussion accept to a greater or lesser extent the principles of evolution. The difference between us lies in our attitude towards the origin of the mechanism that led to it. You say it's all "incredibly simple". Other scientists say it's mind-blowingly complicated. The fact is that no-one has yet worked out how it happened. It is certainly not to be compared to ten heads in a row. We are talking, though, of conviction, and I'm simply not convinced that a billion people with no knowledge of science (perhaps it would be better to talk of monkeys rather than people, following the old typewriter analogy) could in a billion years of conscious experimentation produce such a machine. How then can I be convinced that unconscious, drifting globules of matter could produce it over no matter how many billions of years and on no matter how many planets? The fact that "improbable events happen all the time" for me simply ignores the magnitude and the uniqueness of the event we are discussing. - However, like yourself I struggle with the concept of a designer. As you will have gathered from the "brief guide", religious concepts seem to me to defy the evidence we see in the world around us. And although it is absolutely not an argument against design, I acknowledge that design only replaces one mystery with another ... namely, the origin of a designer. And so even the concept of a universal intelligence leaves me unconvinced. In a nutshell, I do not know what to believe. I can only find reasons for not believing. That is why I opened up the forum, to exchange views with people like yourself, David, George and BBella. As you rightly surmised, I am not a scientist. I depend on scientists for my scientific information, but since there is no consensus among them, and since one must always face the possibility that there may be dimensions of existence beyond the reach of science, I do not expect anything definitive from anyone. But, as we agnostics say, you never know... - In your post to George you say that "most people rail against the idea of chance from a position of naivete". I'm delighted that you've joined our forum, and hope that my naivete will not deter you from further discussion!
Chance v. Design
by Matt S. , Thursday, June 04, 2009, 03:28 (5449 days ago) @ dhw
dhw, - Just so you know I don't view naivete as a bad thing. We are all naive about something. And I meant what I said... I feel I've found a good home here. - Have you studied epistemology at all? It gave me more firm a footing on the 'mystery' of science, and a study on "how we know what we know" was one of the most productive activities of my college career. When you take formal skepticism and then study the deep philosophical underpinnings of the method... you'll understand why when it comes to physical questions, it is unmatched. - Atheism is a more complex beast which is why I want you (and everyone else) to be careful. I studied Zen Buddhism for well over six years, and I will tell you that Buddhists are atheists. They create no myth involving creation, as to them the cosmos always was, and we are simply manifestations of it. - There is anecdotal science supporting this claim. The world that we know and see had a beginning, but something existed before the singularity. There's a really good podcast at radiolab.org that talks about 'how to create your own universe' done in a very conversational style that will keep this idea at a good level. - To me, I can't call myself a 'bona-fide' atheist because we can only view such a small portion of our universe, and our scientific tools are far too young to allow us to rule out the existence of something that might simply be extra-dimensional to ourselves. I won't pretend to be a physicist, but I've studied hypercubes, which are a basic template for how another dimension would look in your hand. You wouldn't be able to detect the outer dimension from inside without extremely careful indirect measurements... and alot of information about the universe that we don't have. Come on LHC!!!! Astronomers are considering getting rid of the cosmological principle! (THE central assumption of astronomy.) - As for the rest of your answers to my questions, there other, simple chemical systems that are self-assembling, such as crystals (I think it was Shapiro who suggests some extraterrestrial life might be crystalline, spawned an awesome Star Trek TNG episode.) And even fire meets most definitions of life. - Chaos theory (that I consistently refer back to) is mistakenly invoked as 'the study of chaos.' More appropriately it is a study of how chaotic systems appear chaotic when in fact they were the result of very simple starting conditions. Chaos theory can explain the shapes of mountains, trees, and how a drop of blood disperses in water. This is why I'm certain that the origin of life has simple starting conditions. It's presently an untestable hypothesis, but when you realize that this simplicity is in all of nature. All of life--all of it--relies on only four elements. It doesn't get much simpler.
Chance v. Design
by David Turell , Thursday, June 04, 2009, 19:23 (5449 days ago) @ Matt S.
(I think it was Shapiro who suggests some extraterrestrial life might be crystalline, spawned an awesome Star Trek TNG episode.) And even fire meets most definitions of life. - Not the Shapiro I know. > Chaos theory (that I consistently refer back to) is mistakenly invoked as 'the study of chaos.' More appropriately it is a study of how chaotic systems appear chaotic when in fact they were the result of very simple starting conditions. Chaos theory can explain the shapes of mountains, trees, and how a drop of blood disperses in water. - I understand fractals do this, but it doesn't get us any closer to how to get to organic chemistry in forms of life. - > This is why I'm certain that the origin of life has simple starting conditions. It's presently an untestable hypothesis, but when you realize that this simplicity is in all of nature. All of life--all of it--relies on only four elements. It doesn't get much simpler. - You've said you have studied skepticism. Please read Shapiro. Buy on line his article in the Quarterly Review of Biology ($15) 'Small Molecule Interactions were Central to the Origin of Life', June 2006, Vol. 81, No. 2. Materialistic Reductionism to the most simple will not solve the problem of life's origin, I promise you. You need to understand that biochemical reactions are never simple.
Chance v. Design
by David Turell , Friday, June 05, 2009, 14:20 (5448 days ago) @ David Turell
For Matt S: > You've said you have studied skepticism. Please read Shapiro. Buy on line his article in the Quarterly Review of Biology ($15) 'Small Molecule Interactions were Central to the Origin of Life', June 2006, Vol. 81, No. 2. Materialistic Reductionism to the most simple will not solve the problem of life's origin, I promise you. You need to understand that biochemical reactions are never simple. - Is this the article you mean?
Chance v. Design
by David Turell , Friday, June 05, 2009, 16:38 (5448 days ago) @ David Turell
> Is this the article you mean? - Another excellent book on the failure of origin of life research over a 60 year period is "Gen-e-sis" by Robert Hazen, 2005, a noted researcher in the field. The cover PR blurb by Lynn Margulis, of mitochondrial fame, is ecstatic. I agree. it is an informative read.
Chance v. Design
Matt recommended that I study Jason Rosenhouse's article on Probability Theory. - In your study of epistemology, you will perhaps have found out that the process of interpretation is constantly under the influence of our existing knowledge and beliefs. Whatever we interpret will contain gaps, and we fill those gaps in accordance with our own repertoire of experience. Interpretation entails an often unconscious process of selection. I'm bringing this up now because I've read the article on Probability Theory which you recommended, and I have a clearer idea of your approach and of how you and Jason Rosenhouse do your selecting. - Firstly, you stress that "improbable events happen all the time", no matter what the odds may be against them, and you relate this to the theory of abiogenesis. But of course the fact that improbable events happen does not provide the slightest jot of evidence that animate matter can arise spontaneously from inanimate, and there is a huge leap required from "improbable events happen" to "I believe". Somewhere along your probability/possibility line there has to be a point at which you say that belief goes beyond the borders of common sense (e.g. a billion monkeys with a billion typewriters could, in 400 million years, write the complete works of Shakespeare), but that point will be set subjectively. Well, I draw a line at unconscious bits of matter building a self-replicating machine that has the potential to adapt, develop etc. Yes, it's theoretically possible. But I shall need a lot more evidence than theoretical possibility before I believe it. - Jason Rosenhouse points out that "we have only one example of evolution to consider. We have no background experience that will allow us to say, 'Usually in the course of four billion years of evolution, we end up with nothing like the bacterial flagellum,'" etc. He stresses the uniqueness of this process, and says "there is no way of distinguishing the design-suggesting patterns from the 'something had to happen' patterns." Quite right. The argument applies to both theories, but Rosenhouse is interested only in its anti-design application. He goes on to assert that "the patterns we find in nature are precisely those we would expect from prolonged evolution by natural selection." I don't know how he can have such expectations when, by his own argument, he has nothing to compare evolution to, but since I also accept the basic theory, I agree that nature's patterns are those of evolution. So do many ID supporters. Evolution is not the problem. The problem, totally ignored by Rosenhouse, is how evolution got started in the first place. - This huge gap in his argument is then made blindingly obvious when he goes on to talk of computer simulations, programmes and algorithms: "It is routine in such experiments to observe the evolution of complex functionalities undreamed of by the human programmers who started the ball rolling." Exactly. Something has to start the ball rolling. There would be no simulation, programmes, algorithms or computers without the intelligence that created them. It is perhaps the best analogy you could find for ID: the programmer/designer/ God devised his programme. He/she/it may have been surprised by the results, or maybe not. Since we have no "background experience", how can we know what the programmer's patterns ought to be like? However, don't get me wrong. This is not an expression of belief. I'm just trying to explain why I'm unconvinced by Jason Rosenhouse's selection of material to fill in the gaps.
Chance v. Design
by Matt S. , Thursday, June 04, 2009, 22:24 (5449 days ago) @ dhw
dhw, - I really wasn't trying to convince you of anything... just hoping that your construction of what you view to be chance looks more than a reference to the word "chance." - As for what I believe, I've been well-trained enough in science to say I don't believe... but at the same time I know what it is I want to be correct. So if I come off a little strong on the chance thing, please write that off to my being eager more than an actual position. - The computer algorithm stuff is tricky to explain, because logically--you are correct. But math guys look at things a little differently. - To me, we have a fantastic explanation of everything that happened after life began. But before then? No, people are right to be skeptical about the actual origin of life... its just in my case I have been immersed in enough different kinds of science (having studied 2 summers in biochem labs), math, electronics... you name it--that I cannot see a way to determine the answer with a method other than science... but science has been utterly devastating to physical explanations of our world of a supernatural origin. In order to argue for a creator, you have to be able to define its limits... and how do you do that? - Part of why I lean 'atheist' has little to do with science. We're the only species that claims anything about god. We don't see other mammals engaging in activities that resemble reverence or prayer... so its something unique to us. And if the human race suddenly disappeared tomorrow... so would all thoughts about god. We're all made of stardust. We are no different in the end, than any other creature... yet we're the only one who bows to a creator-god? The idea of a creator really appears to me to be both a conscious and subconscious effort by humanity to feel significant in some way in this universe. Most things about man and our cultures are entirely self-made. Think of the variability of customs and religions for that matter... If a creator exists, than why only us who decide at some point to worship him? We're one species among millions, perhaps billions. And we're the only ones... it makes me feel--something's wrong with this idea. - I have no idea where this part of the thread belongs.
Chance v. Design
Matt (in response to David T.): I do sometimes let my mouth run ahead of my better judgment but I try to [be] as self-correcting as possible. - I think all of us appreciate both your enthusiasm and your honesty! However, some of us "plodding thinkers" (endearing quote from George with which I can also identify myself) like to mull over the implications of statements and arguments before we move on, so I hope you will not be offended if I haul you back. - You urged me to read Jason Rosenhouse's article on Probability Theory, which was designed to attack design but with which, in my view, he shot both you and himself in the foot. Your comment on my criticisms was: "The computer algorithm stuff is tricky to explain, because logically—you are correct. But maths guys look at things a little differently" What am I supposed to make of that? Maths guys are not logical? I am right, but maths guys are different so they are right? Logic is irrelevant? You agree with my argument but you prefer Rosenhouse's because it fits in with yours? It's not the computer algorithm stuff that's tricky to explain here! - You write: "I've been well trained enough in science to say I don't believe...but at the same time I know what it is I want to be correct." Are you saying that scientists don't have beliefs? How aware are you that if you know what it is you want to be correct, this is liable to affect your judgement? Should not the essence of science be objectivity? Perhaps this approach explains your readiness to go along with Rosenhouse, even if his argument defies logic. - You write: "Science has been utterly devastating to physical explanations of our world of a supernatural origin." Do you mean that science has been devastating to supernatural explanations of our physical world? If you do, perhaps this too is an example of knowing what it is you want to be correct. Science has certainly been devastating to many myths and to many aspects of religion, but science still doesn't have much idea what constitutes nature itself, since 96% of matter and energy remains a dark mystery. Science has not proved that life can come about by chance (sorry, but you now know what I mean by this), and science has not been devastating to the idea that there might be some kind of creative force beyond what we at present regard as natural. - You write: "In order to argue for a creator, you have to be able to define its limits...and how do you do that?" Why do you have to define its limits? In order to argue for infinity do you have to be able to define its limits? In order to argue for a creator you have, for one thing, to reject the theory of abiogenesis. For another you have to point out the mysteries to which science has so far failed to find a definitive solution (e.g. consciousness, certain emotions, certain psychic experiences). Theists will present you with more positive arguments (i.e. not just filling in gaps), but I am not a theist, so I won't. Perhaps, though, rather than "defining limits" you mean that in order to believe in a particular kind of god, you have to have some idea of its identity and its nature. That I would accept, though David Turell might not agree! - You write that atheism and theism "are adjectives, not nouns. (No, I'm not being semantic either.)" You are certainly not being semantic, perhaps you meant pedantic, but the fact is that both words are nouns unless you've decided to mount a one-man crusade against English grammar. What was the point of this statement? - Man's uniqueness is a subject that can be used to equal effect by both sides, but let's leave that for another time as there's already plenty to be getting on with. - The subject of ethics has been discussed in much detail under the thread: How Do Agnostics Live? The gist of the theist argument is that religion provides an objective and binding moral code, whereas atheists/agnostics have no such basis for morality and are therefore free to do as they please. The atheist/agnostic response is that we all live in society and are bound by the rules and ethics of that society as well as by the imprint those ethics leave on us as individuals (= conscience); furthermore, religious moral codes are not objective because they depend on subjective interpretation of dubious texts. I think you will find that this discussion covers your theory, plus quite a lot more. - Incidentally, when you take up an argument, it's always helpful if you could give us a quote or a precise reference. Delighted though I was to read: "dhw, I agree with you here", I hadn't a clue what you were talking about! Thanks all the same. I'm sure we shall find plenty of things to agree about, but let's move a step at a time!
Chance v. Design
by Matt S. , Saturday, June 06, 2009, 19:36 (5447 days ago) @ dhw
This will be a gigantic response, in 2 parts. - Wow, I do have a tendency to gloss over stuff. Okay, "math guys" (and therefore computer guys) think differently because we're trained to make an idea and then prove it. The process of solving a programming problem is completely different (perspective-wise) than solving a natural-science problem. - Contrast this with natural science, you observe and measure, and then come up with an explanation to describe the data. I'm lucky here because I started out in this category of science--meaning that I understand BOTH processes. In natural science you continuously alter the explanation as you better modify your experiments to test the new questions. Natural science looks at nature and tries to find an explanation using math to back up its claims. Math builds tools that (sometimes) help natural scientists. So, the general paradigms of the two types of science naturally lend themselves to confusion when ignorant about their processes. - In my new area, you already "know" the solution to the problem. Say, you want a piece of software that will simply multiply any number given as input by 2. - You know what it is that you need it to do. You just need to 'prove' it by building something to make it happen. This is simply not how the natural sciences work at all. In math, it is a similar idea, you want to 'prove' that two odd numbers always make an even when added, so you 'build' a solution, in this case the simplest being that you create two generic odd numbers, assert they won't make an even when added, and then 'prove yourself wrong.' You don't get to get away with that kind of "chicanery" in the natural sciences. Math is a much more abstract kind of game... - So when I look at the problem of abiogenesis, I see this: There is a finite number of particles in the universe. There is a finite number of particles on earth. There is a finite number of elements that creates life, and they combine in finite possible ways to perform chemical reactions, in a finite range of temperatures, in a finite range of time. Now, assigning a probability to this is specious--and it is in fact here where I "shoot myself in the foot," because we don't have enough information to gain a probability... but when you begin looking at the constraints on the problem, as a math/computer guy, my heuristic sense is telling me that a solution exists. - > You write: "I've been well trained enough in science to say I don't believe...but at the same time I know what it is I want to be correct." Are you saying that scientists don't have beliefs? How aware are you that if you know what it is you want to be correct, this is liable to affect your judgement? Should not the essence of science be objectivity? Perhaps this approach explains your readiness to go along with Rosenhouse, even if his argument defies logic. > - Scientists have beliefs (of course) but by and large they are checked at the door when addressing whatever their problem is. Though, Nietzsche makes a relevant point here when discussing Kant's drive to be "completely objective." If you are driven to study something, you have passion for it and therefore cannot be "completely objective." No one can live up to an ideal. But to get around this, we have peer-review. This weeds out the bad science. In my own case, I know what I want to be right--but the very fact that I even make that statement should tell you that I scrutinize my own views (as much as can be possible.) Peer-review takes care of the rest. - From his evolutionary arguments, Jason makes no claim about abiogenesis. Evolution can only describe life after it happened, not before it, so you have no valid opposition to his argument here. In fact, in the circle of scientists, you would be hard pressed to find a credible consensus to disagree with him, as this is the argument accepted by science at large. (I say credible because to date only the ID political movement disagrees.) - As for defies logic, evolution works by using old genes for new purposes. This has been demonstrated time and time again. The claim that this requires intelligence to work is absurd. Bacteria are not intelligent. Biomolecules are not intelligent, though they may have an intelligent origin. Evolution describes life after life got here, Jason's page was about evolution, not about abiogenesis. Evolution--in order to work--does not need to deal with 'how life got here' in order to be a valid theory. It just needs to describe how life operates, which it does with amazing predictive power. An argument for design is not scientific, because it has no predictive power. If true, it only boils down to "it was designed" but changes nothing at all about evolution.
Chance v. Design Part 2
by Matt S. , Saturday, June 06, 2009, 19:47 (5447 days ago) @ dhw
...but science still doesn't have much idea what constitutes nature itself, since 96% of matter and energy remains a dark mystery. Science has not proved that life can come about by chance (sorry, but you now know what I mean by this), and science has not been devastating to the idea that there might be some kind of creative force beyond what we at present regard as natural. > - Because... all of these things that you are talking about are NOT in the problem domain of science except one. Where do you get the claim "96% of matter and energy remains a dark mystery?" - And science can't tell us anything at all about a 'creative force' because if such a creative force is 'supernatural' it is by definition outside of the problem domain of science, which is the physical world. The best you can say about a creator is 'maybe.' This is both because of ignorance of unknown properties of our universe, and for things we think we know. - Look, god is supernatural or he's not. If he's not, he's subject to and not above the laws of the universe and therefore subject to scientific inquiry. If however he's supernatural, he is outside the physical universe and any claims that he/she/it affects the physical universe has to come up with a way that it could do that, (including defining at least some of its physical limits). - > ...Why do you have to define its limits? In order to argue for infinity do you have to be able to define its limits? < - Yes. For one thing, Infinity is simply a very, very large number. For you to say that there is a creator that can influence the physical world, you have to be able to know at least something about its limits in order to be able to measure its potential impact in relation to chance. Otherwise you cannot differentiate the creator from chance. Remember the assumptions of natural science here. Science's problem domain is the physical world. If you say God created life, then you have to come up with a mechanism that science can test. Or, you can't say it at all. (The same goes with asserting god does not exist.) - The only safety I've found here is in a deistic god. It's not enough that science can't or hasn't found an origin for life. And if science is wrong, why does it default to a creator? It doesn't. It defaults to no explanation at all. - >In order to argue for a creator you have, for one thing, to reject the theory of abiogenesis. < - Not true. The god of deism could have started the universe, and all things proceed according to natural law, of which abiogenesis would be a part. False dilemma. - >For another you have to point out the mysteries to which science has so far failed to find a definitive solution (e.g. consciousness, certain emotions, certain psychic experiences). < - Science thus far has proceeded to explain the mechanics of many these processes, but not the processes themselves. But we can verify that they are indeed physical processes, even if we can't fully explain them. What do you say to that? - >Theists will present you with more positive arguments (i.e. not just filling in gaps), but I am not a theist, so I won't. Perhaps, though, rather than "defining limits" you mean that in order to believe in a particular kind of god, you have to have some idea of its identity and its nature. That I would accept, though David Turell might not agree! > - - > You write that atheism and theism "are adjectives, not nouns. (No, I'm not being semantic either.)" You are certainly not being semantic, perhaps you meant pedantic, but the fact is that both words are nouns unless you've decided to mount a one-man crusade against English grammar. What was the point of this statement? > > Man's uniqueness is a subject that can be used to equal effect by both sides, but let's leave that for another time as there's already plenty to be getting on with. > Agreed.
Chance v. Design Part 2
With regard to the problem of abiogenesis, Matt says that "as a math/computer guy, my heuristic sense is telling me that a solution exists." - Thank you for your detailed and interesting account of the difference between scientists and "maths guys". Of course I can't argue with your heuristic sense. Nor can I argue with someone who says that his gut instinct tells him there is a deity. - You wrote: "Evolution describes life after life got here, Jason's page was about evolution, not about abiogenesis." "You have no valid opposition to his argument here." - When you first mentioned this article to David Turell, it was to dispute the claim that the beginning of life by chance was "statistically improbable". In the same context of abiogenesis you told me that I "would do well to investigate the link I posted in our main document". Both David and I had already made it clear that we accepted the basic theory of evolution, and so I wonder why you recommended the article in the first place. Perhaps at the time you yourself had not realized that evolution and abiogenesis were separate problems. However, as I said in my previous post, even in the context of evolution, Rosenhouse's claim that "the patterns we find in nature are precisely those we would expect from prolonged evolution by natural selection" does not disprove design. How does he know what patterns we would expect if (as he himself stresses ... first shot in the foot) we have nothing to compare them to? The patterns we find in nature could just as well be the patterns a creator had designed. Does Rosenhouse know how a creator thinks? But personally, like yourself, I am far more inclined to believe that if there is a creator, he/she/it would have devised the mechanism and then watched it work out its own paths (= deism), along the lines of Rosenhouse's algorithms (second shot in the foot ... a gift to evolutionist supporters of ID, since algorithms have to be designed). - You query my claim that "96% of matter and energy remains a dark mystery". My source is Wikipedia: "The most recent WMAP observations are consistent with a universe made up of 74% dark energy, 22% dark matter and 4% ordinary matter". There is also an impressive quote worth repeating: "It has been noted that the names 'dark matter' and 'dark energy' serve mainly as expressions of human ignorance, much like the marking of early maps as 'terra incognita'." - You wrote: "...if such a creative force is 'supernatural' it is by definition outside of the problem domain of science, which is the physical world. The best you can say about a creator is 'maybe'." You are preaching to the converted. - You wrote: "If science is wrong, why does it default to a creator?" You talked elsewhere of carts before horses. Since when did science decide beforehand that an unproven theory (abiogenesis) was right? Science is supposed to be objective. In any case it's not a question of defaulting. There are simply different theories that different people believe. Some of us can't believe any of them, and so we are agnostics. - I wrote that in order to argue for a creator, you had to reject the theory of abiogenesis. You respond: "Not true. The god of deism could have started the universe, and all things proceed according to natural law, of which abiogenesis would be a part. False dilemma." - I doubt if you'll find many deists who think their god started the universe but didn't start life. In any case, if he started the universe, are you saying he didn't start natural law? However, by your law of probability, there may well be the odd deist who separates creation from life, so OK if you insist! - With regard to processes like consciousness, you wrote: "we can verify that they are indeed physical processes, even if we can't explain them. What do you say to that?" Again, we have discussed this subject in great detail already. Back in February, George referred us to an excellent article by Susan Greenfield on http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/181/2/91 detailing physical processes connected with mental activities. Her conclusion has become one of my favourite and oft repeated quotes: "Just how the water is turned into wine ... how the bump and grind of the neurons and the shrinking and expanding of assemblies actually translate into subjective experience ... is, of course, another story completely." Until that story is told, I prefer to keep an open mind on the subject.
Chance v. Design Part 3
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Tuesday, June 09, 2009, 14:44 (5444 days ago) @ dhw
**Snipped top part of your post. My questions here are answered. And you are correct on one point, if you can't discern between natural and supernatural how can you rule out a creator? Remember however that its sufficient for materialists that they don't NEED to invoke the supernatural for an explanation. Science is therefore very very pragmatic in that regard. - My main reason for citing the article was its discussion about chance "in general" and not pertaining to biology, but I picked something awful for that and allowed you and myself to get distracted from the actual discussion. - Since I'm going to be a teacher at some point anyway I've started constructing a primer on chance that I hope you and anyone else here would be willing to read. Coupled with it will be a Java program that will demonstrate the system of chance that I will be discussing... though I'm in the middle of 2 programming projects for work (apart from my 3 summer classes) for the visual part. I'm sure you'll be patient. - > You query my claim that "96% of matter and energy remains a dark mystery". < - First off, we don't know if dark matter/energy actually exist. Astronomers are debating this as we speak. This is important to your claim because astronomers do not discuss dark matter/energy as if it is a fact, only a hypothesis. So you cannot truthfully state that we don't know 96% of the universe, because dark matter/energy are only one explanation for what Astronomers are observing. - Dark energy/matter might actually be a mathematical artifact caused by rounding errors created as astronomers perform their calculations. The most recent Scientific American has an entire article about this, astronomers are considering getting rid of the Cosmological Principle suggesting that we might actually live in a rare section of the universe. What Astronomers are thinking is that the distribution of matter through space is not actually uniform (Uniformity is the assumption of the Cosmological Principle); there might be "bubbles in the swiss cheese of matter" they call voids--places where the density of matter is far less than other places. - If you think about it intuitionally, this makes sense because we have no reason to think the Big Bang happened as a perfect sphere or ellipse, but more like when a firework explodes (and it wasn't an explosion per se)--unevenly distributed and random. If this view is correct, then your claim is completely meaningless. - In either case, I'd retract the statement for the moment, as it will only apply if Dark Matter/Energy exists, which might not happen in my lifetime. - > You wrote: "If science is wrong, why does it default to a creator?" You talked elsewhere of carts before horses. Since when did science decide beforehand that an unproven theory (abiogenesis) was right? Science is supposed to be objective. In any case it's not a question of defaulting. There are simply different theories that different people believe. Some of us can't believe any of them, and so we are agnostics. < - Not "right" but "right within the perspective." The hard part about all of this is how hard it is to escape a perspective... I can't see a way that a creator could exist based on both my own experience and the unfortunate knowledge that science destroyed virtually every myth about the world. This... definitely stacks my deck toward a materialist view. The comedian Tim Minchin non comedically states "Every mystery about the world that has ever been solved has turned out to be "NOT MAGIC." This makes it difficult for me to be receptive about supernatural things, a creator especially.
Chance v. Design Part 4
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Tuesday, June 09, 2009, 14:45 (5444 days ago) @ xeno6696
I doubt if you'll find many deists who think their god started the universe but didn't start life. In any case, if he started the universe, are you saying he didn't start natural law? However, by your law of probability, there may well be the odd deist who separates creation from life, so OK if you insist! < - The fact that you say "...find many" means that you are just ignorant enough about deism that you don't know that the view I discussed is mainstream deism. The fact remains that you have no means to determine if deism is more/less valid than any other theology. - Also note that abiogenesis literally translated means "life from nonlife" and whether you believe in Krisnha, God, or chance, this event clearly happened. The argument here then, if what I read you to be is true, is whether or not it occurred via a natural process. - There are many theological positions that would allow this scientific abiogenesis to happen, Deism, Process theology, and in fact, even judeo-christian theology allows it when it is followed non-literally. - There are forms of both pagan and hermetic beliefs where gods are treated simply as psychological states of human consciousness. - There are forms of theology that completely abandon the mechanics of the universe to science and only ascribe to theology based on consciousness. All of those views obviously allow scientific abiogenesis. - I think you haven't explored theology deeply enough to be able to say what you did... no offense! - I don't have a problem with open minds... - But here's a question for you, similar to what I had just given to Turell. What process do you use to determine what theological claims are valid and invalid? I pointed out to Turell that his dismissal (and your own) of deism requires some ability to measure or access to some objective mechanism that can determine what supernatural claims are true, and which ones are false. Your dismissal of deism has to be based on something that allows you to say it is false. If god began the universe via deism, and let things proceed with no interference whatsoever, then it still wouldn't be by chance. Life would still be the result of a creator! Just at a more abstract distance. It is this distance, that I feel, that most people cannot fathom, but this is due to human egotism and not to anything else. - This is yet another reason I cannot treat supernatural claims as equal to natural ones... because they are entirely subjective phenomenon. A supernatural being might exist, but the only vehicle man has to determine truth from non truth is the scientific method. I've studied theology and science, and science is the only one that gives you a system that verifies truth claims. - I will gladly look at theology again if they devise some similar system. But I won't hold my breath, either.
Chance v. Design Part 4
PART ONE - Matt: Astronomers do not discuss dark matter/energy as if it is a fact, only a hypothesis. - I added a quote, which you seem to have ignored: "It has been noted that the names 'dark matter' and 'dark energy' serve mainly as expressions of human ignorance, much like the markings of early maps as 'terra incognita'." Of course it's only a hypothesis. The point of my mentioning it in the first place was to respond to your claim that "science has been utterly devastating to physical explanations of our world of a supernatural origin". I agreed that it had devastated many myths and many aspects of religion, but "science still doesn't have much idea what constitutes nature itself." But I will happily withdraw Wikipedia's figure of 96% if you like, since I haven't a clue what percentage is unknown or what the unknown consists of, and nor has anyone else. That is the whole point. - Matt: I can't see a way that a creator could exist based on both my own experience and the unfortunate knowledge that science destroyed virtually every myth about the world. - I can't argue against your experience. Nor can you argue against the experience of other people who do believe in a creator. You are clearly someone who is genuinely striving for answers, and I admire your willingness to explore lots of different avenues. Whether your subsequent experiences will lead you along the Georgian path of materialism, the Davidian path of panentheism, or the dhw path of haven't-a-clueism remains to be seen! - I wrote: I doubt if you'll find many deists who think their god started the universe but didn't start life. Matt: ...you are just ignorant enough about deism that you don't know that the view I discussed is mainstream deism. - I must confess that I'm surprised to hear that there is such a thing as "mainstream deism", since it's an 'ism' that has so many forms. Right from the outset, however, deism has always laid emphasis on the God-given power of reason (and how does God give reason if he doesn't give life?). Matthew Tindal wrote: "God designed all Mankind should at all times know, what he wills them to know, believe, profess and practice, and has given them no other Means for this, but the Use of Reason." I looked up the website of the World Union of Deists, and found the sub-heading: "God Gave us Reason, Not Religion", and under reason is the following definition: "Deists look at reason as the second greatest gift from Nature's God to humanity, second only to life itself." Perhaps you should write and tell them how ignorant they are about mainstream deism. I thought I'd better check with Wikipedia too, and found: "Deism gives credit to the formation of life and the universe to a higher power that by design allows only natural processes to govern creation." For me, the essential point of deism anyway is that God doesn't interfere, but in this case does it really matter where we put the stop sign? If you prefer to say that the deist god created the 'laws of nature' in the sense of a computer programme designed to give rise to life, that's fine with me - i.e. on the assumption that he knew exactly what he was doing. However, this disagreement came about because you disputed my statement that in order to argue for a creator, you have to reject the theory of abiogenesis, so we'd better get onto that next.
Chance v. Design Part 4
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Thursday, June 11, 2009, 18:47 (5442 days ago) @ dhw
I know you're on holiday, but when you come back--I have sufficiently given examples where a creator is invoked but doesn't require the abandoning scientific abiogenesis. (Though only one example would be enough.) You present a false dilemma when you say it must be abandoned at large if you assume a creator. There is only one instance where this is true, and that's if you assert man's existence is due entirely to a supernatural being, but then we enter into the problems I've been talking about with theology. - As for the deism part--we'll just be arguing semantics. The definitions you presented do not exclude what I am talking about, and it wouldn't matter. In the world of theism, a claim from only one person has the same weight and value as any other.
Chance v. Design Part 4
Matt: I have sufficiently given examples where a creator is invoked but doesn't require the abandoning scientific abiogenesis. [...] You present a false dilemma when you say it must be abandoned at large if you assume a creator. There is only one instance where this is true, and that's if you assert man's existence is due entirely to a supernatural being, but then we enter into the problems I've been talking about with theology. As for the deism part ... we'll just be arguing semantics. - I find your line of thought very hard to follow, so please forgive me if I recap on the discussion up to the point at which I had to leave it. And please bear in mind the subject of this thread, which I consider central to the argument for agnosticism. - Initially, you challenged my use of "chance", and urged me to read Jason Rosenhouse's article. This was so foot-shootingly illogical that it presented just as much evidence for design as it did for chance. You then wrote: "In order to argue for a creator, you have to be able to define its limits...and how do you do that?" I saw and see this as a complete non sequitur, and commented that one precondition for belief in a creator was rejection of the theory that life came about by accident. In other words, if you argue for a creator, you must argue that it created something ... in this case, life. One might quibble that it created the special programme that led to life (which could be called "natural laws"), but for me that amounts to the same thing. You referred to deism, and when I suggested that you wouldn't find many deists who believed in a God that didn't start life, you told me how ignorant I was and your view represented mainstream deism. - I do not regard this part of our discussion as "arguing semantics". If a deist God created and fine-tuned the universe and set up the laws of nature, either he knew he was creating life (= design) or he didn't (= abiogenesis, by the definition I gave you last time). If he didn't know, and if he never intervenes, I wonder why deists down through the ages, right up until the present, have talked of their God-given reason. Did he make an exception? "Oops, I've gone and accidentally created life, and now there are humans, so I'll just pop down and give them reason." But you are the expert, so enlighten me: do "mainstream" deists believe that their God (a) knew or (b) did not know that he was starting life? - You continued: "There are many theological positions that would allow this scientific abiogenesis to happen, Deism, Process theology, and in fact, even judeo-christian theology allows it when it is followed non-literally." (It's not clear to me what has to be "followed non-literally".) You're certainly right when you say I "haven't explored theology deeply enough", so I'd be most grateful if you would let me know any relevant passage in the Bible that allows for a God that did NOT create life. You might try Genesis 1, 25 & 26, and John 1, 3 for what I take to be a "mainstream" Jewish and Christian view. And let me know too if you meet any practising Jews or Christians who believe that life came about by chance and not by their God's design. I don't know enough about process theology to discuss it, except that I always thought it was much the same as David Turell's panentheism, and David has already explained the scientific background which led him to the conclusion that life is the product of design. - With regard to the so-called "problems of theology", of course there are forms of religion which "completely abandon the mechanics of the universe to science". You would have done better to give examples such as ancestor-worship, cargo cults, or perhaps even the teachings of Siddhatha Gotama ... the Dhamma, with which you will be familiar ... but none of these are concerned with a creator, i.e. a supreme being that designed life. They are therefore irrelevant to a discussion centred on Chance v. Design (which requires a designer), and not on Chance/Design v. Religions That Aren't Bothered Either Way. - I don't understand your point about the one instance being if man's existence is "entirely due to a supernatural being". If a god created life, all existence is due to him. If there's no god, all existence (life) is due initially to chance and then to chance plus natural processes. Evolution, of course, is compatible with both scenarios. - It all boils down to what we as individuals can and can't believe. For me personally, the sheer complexity of life (not just human) is one of the main factors that make me unable to embrace atheism, i.e. to exclude the possibility of a conscious designer. I find it equally difficult to believe in such a designer, but I can't find even the slightest glimmer of justification for believing in a designer who doesn't design ... or a creator who doesn't create. Sounds to me like a can of beans without any beans. However, I'm sure you will be able to set me right.
Chance v. Design Part 4
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, June 27, 2009, 18:45 (5426 days ago) @ dhw
Whew... - Coming back to this thread after a couple weeks is tough. - First off, I apologize. In reading your words here, I can tell I made you take offense and I most certainly didn't want that to happen. - Okay... as for my argument being hard to follow, let me try and reformulate it. You seem to suggest that scientific abiogenesis somehow excludes theism. Perhaps its just a restatement you are making characterizing the exclusivity that atheists and fundamentalists try to place on science. - I'm sorry, but I can't see any other distinction that allows you to say abiogenesis and god are mutually exclusive. I've spent a very long time studying not just science, but its philosophical underpinnings and there is absolutely no way to make that claim. Part of why I bring up (we'll call it my strawman deism) is that its view of the creator is absolutely no less valid than that of any other theological claim. - Chance and design are only mutually exclusive if you take a position in advance. If you call yourself an agnostic, than you also have to consider the possibility of chance AND design. And then be able to weed out which is which, if you do so attempt to claim a creator in a physical sense. - This discussion leads me even deeper that I sense you have a fundamental misperception in regards to the reasoning behind chance, and this was why I chose to tackle this before getting to the more "fun" issues. (Such as art and ethics.) For 10 days I didn't have my computer and my work on the "chance primer" is only about half done. There is a series of assumptions that people on both an atheistic and theistic side that simply do not play out in discussing chance, and why in reality, even attempting to place a probability is vacuous, simply due to our ignorance on the problem of life's genesis. My own claim that probability allows it stems only from the fact that the event happened. At some point non-life became life, therefore its plottable, and you can assign a probability to it. Everything else after that is however, best-guesses. (This goes for Shapiro, too.) This is also why I do not consider the complexity of life as a valid argument for a creator. You have claimed that computer models can't count because something had to create the model. This may be true, but the point computer models make is that complex results happen from simple rules, and the complex results are unintended consequences of those simple rules, thus subject to stochastic (random) study. - For the mainstream deism part, I'll just man up and retract the comment. I have 3 separate colleagues that call themselves deists, and it is that kind of formulation as I had stated. I still hold however, that one could argue that the universe's existence even if only from the big bang, then you can still attribute your ability to reason to God. Just not in the personal sense that most people ascribe to it. - Finally, I'll remind you that I'm ultimately on your side, but I am determined to continuously challenge assumptions, beliefs, opinions, anytime I find a conflict might exist. So please... don't think I'm being hostile!
Chance v. Design Part 4
Matt: I am determined to continuously challenge assumptions, beliefs, opinions, anytime I find a conflict might exist. So please...don't think I'm being hostile! - Good for you, and no, I don't think you're being hostile, and you needn't apologize. I do exactly the same as you, and if I find an argument unconvincing, I try to explain why. Sometimes this also comes out as a sort of unwitting aggression, but it's not meant personally. Ultimately, all of us are looking for some kind of tenable truth, and the purpose of this website is to see if we can join forces and learn from each other. Unfortunately, my own approach tends to be negative: I can only say why I don't believe. I also tend to think in very concrete terms, which is why I sometimes find your thinking hard to follow. But let me say straight out that I admire the breadth of your interests, your enthusiasm and your honesty. Only don't expect your pronouncements to go unchallenged! - For instance: you do not find abiogenesis and god to be "mutually exclusive". You say "I've spent a very long time studying not just science, but its philosophical underpinnings and there is absolutely no way to make that claim. Part of why I bring up (we'll call it my strawman deism) is that its view of the creator is absolutely no less valid than that of any other theological claim." I'm afraid the length of time that you have spent studying adds no weight to the argument. Nor does your use of the word "absolutely". If your strawman deist view is no less valid than that of any other theological claim, then the theological claim that abiogenesis and god are mutually exclusive is no less valid than the claim that they are not mutually exclusive, in which case you cannot say "there is absolutely no way to make that claim". I think you and Jason R. should invest in a pair of bullet-proof socks. However, the fact is that none of us have absolute knowledge, and so we can only exchange views on why some claims seem to us more convincing than others. - You wrote: "If you call yourself an agnostic, then you also have to consider the possibility of chance AND design. And then be able to weed out which is which, if you do so attempt to claim a creator in a physical sense." First of all, I don't claim a creator in any sense. I can only speculate on possibilities. But secondly, and far more importantly, we need to pin down what we're talking about here. I see chance and design (in a personal, not a theological sense) permeating everyday life, and I could argue that chance and design permeate evolution, with design possibly relating to a conscious external designer, and/or to the logical processes of natural selection. But where I cannot see "chance AND design" is in the origin of life ... those first self-replicating molecules that started it all off, with their vast potential for reproducible adaptations and unheard-of innovations, leading eventually to us. This, in our experience so far, is ... as Jason Rosenhouse pointed out ... unique. We have no point of comparison. You quite rightly say that "even attempting to place a probability is vacuous." So why bother? I agree with you again that all the answers are "best-guesses", but I see no way of guessing that those molecules were produced simultaneously by unconscious chance AND by a conscious creator. You say: "This is why I do not consider the complexity of life as a valid argument for a creator." Nor do I. I consider it as a valid argument for not believing in abiogenesis. And I consider it as a valid argument for saying: "I am not prepared to dismiss the idea of a creator." My agnosticism is negative: it consists of non-beliefs ... not beliefs or disbeliefs. - You wrote: "I still hold however, that one could argue that the universe's existence even if only from the big bang, then you can still attribute your ability to reason to God. Just not in the personal sense that most people ascribe to it." - The syntax of this argument is rather difficult to work out, but if I've understood you correctly, it's an argument against a personal God, such as the main monotheistic religions believe in. You and I have not yet discussed the personal qualities of a possible creator, though this has been talked about at great length earlier. We have been confined to the question of whether life came about by chance or by design, and I say if it wasn't by chance, there must have been a designer. Alternatively, if it came about by design, it couldn't have come about by chance. And conversely if it wasn't designed, it must have come about by chance. You disagree, and I cannot follow your logic, but that is as far as we have got. - In an earlier post, you said that you had finished my "treatise" (far too grand a word!). Thank you for doing so. I suspect that most people give up long before the end. As for revisions, I have been astonished and delighted at the response and at the high standard not only of argument but also of learning. Contributors like George and David especially (the best possible combination of atheist and theist scientists), BBella, Mark, John Clinch and yourself have far outstripped my own boundaries of knowledge, and I'm inclined to think that your/their contributions are best left to speak for themselves. But let's just see how the forum evolves!
Chance v. Design Part 4
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Tuesday, June 30, 2009, 04:39 (5423 days ago) @ dhw
dhw, - Let me try in small chunks... I have a personality profile that works with ideas in ways that boggle other types and I *always* forget that people can't read my mind. (INTJ if you're familiar with meyers-briggs personality types.) When I say boggle, my mind finds connections fast and tends to leap without looking. Which can both be a great... and a detrimental asset, and you can see it anytime I seem to get excited. - The most heated debates I've had with atheists was over this idea we're wrestling with, in one instance I had a physicist (Michael Gray) get immediately hostile in alt.atheism a couple summers ago, what followed ended up being a flame war that I just left. (Whether or not he was who he claimed he was is not determinable.) - What I suggested was that the law of excluded middle may not hold on the creator question. Like I said before, it is possible that every idea man ever had about God was wrong except that he exists. So lets explore an extreme case. - "And God said, "Let there be light..."" - The beginning of our observable universe. The creator smiles and steps back. - And then that's it. He might watch, he might not care at all. He built the computer algorithm, if you will, and from a set of ultra-simple rules complexity arose, just like in the "Game of life." - In this case, it is both by design, and by random chance. The universe was designed, but everything else simply forms according to natural and random processes. - Is this better? - This is an example of how I would say that a deist could still thank a creator for reason... just not in the very personal way that he/she may mean it. And why I also say that the distinction between abiogenesis/design would also be false--in this example too, we cannot tell the difference between the supernatural and natural. - --Matt S.
Chance v. Design Part 4
Matt: He might watch, he might not care at all. He built the computer algorithm, if you will, and from a set of ultra-simple rules complexity arose, just like in "the Game of life". In this case, it is both by design, and by random chance. The universe was designed, but everything else simply forms according to natural and random processes. Is this better? - It's a lot better! It's so much better that we are now almost in sync. But not quite. Let's concentrate simply on why we think "he" might exist or have existed. - For an atheist, there is no "he". The universe and life formed themselves. From all the events we know of throughout the Earth's history ... and particularly the history of life ... there seems to have been an almighty free-for-all. Cataclysms on a global scale, the coming and going of vast numbers of species, humans arriving late on the scene and following a pattern of apparently random good and bad, survival and destruction, comedy and tragedy. I share that vision of history, and that's why I can't believe in a personal God. - So why am I not an atheist? I can at a stretch believe that sooner or later, in the vast expanse of the universe, conditions might arise by chance that would allow (not produce) life. I can and do believe that organisms adapt to changing conditions. I can and do believe that beneficial changes survive through natural selection, though I have problems believing that chance mutations can invent even the most primitive of new faculties. But what I cannot believe is that chance could put together a mechanism that leads from the self-replication of mindless blobs of matter (complex enough in its own right) to the truly astonishing complexity of us. That is my sticking point. And it seems to me that if you can believe in abiogenesis, you might just as well believe that everything else came about by chance, so there are no hooks left to hang God's existence on. That is why for me it's either a computer programme for life or no programme at all ... i.e. design versus abiogenesis. (But not supernatural versus natural, because I haven't a clue where one begins and the other ends.) It would be interesting for me to know what evidence you see for any type of creator if the evidence isn't life. - Thank you for your fascinating character study of yourself, which helps me to understand why sometimes I don't understand!
Chance v. Design Part 4
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Wednesday, July 01, 2009, 14:54 (5422 days ago) @ dhw
dhw, - Well, I'll tackle the more "natural" idea first. Firstly, the random part of mutation happens often enough that population geneticists can actually calculate the background mutation rate for a given species. Drugs actually abuse this mutation rate, some drugs mess with the mutation rates of virii so that mutations start happening faster than the information can be transferred from capsid to capsid, thus propagating rapid errors. - My chance primer should help with part of what you're talking about. I'll give part of it away. You're probably familiar with how dice work. Chance has built-in perspectivism, and is an incredibly tricky area to work in. (This is why you should always treat commercials with statistics as specious.) - Take one dice, it is red. The odds of rolling it and getting any number is 1/6. Take a second dice. Color it blue. What are the odds of rolling the pair, and red delivering a 5, and blue delivering a 2? (This is a "trick question," actually.) - Technically, with 2 dice, the answer is 1/36, even though you would be well aware that 7 is the most likely result when rolling two dice (6/36 die rolls will be a 7, Craps abuses this to no end.) But the question is, the red dice being 5 and the blue dice being 2. The odds of this are 1/36 because each dice has a 1/6 chance of rolling any specific number. The first law in probability that people learn, is that you multiply each successive event together. In this case, there is only two events. 1/6 * 1/6 = 1/36 - So briefly, it seems improbable that you'd roll a 7 given this information, yet it isn't. 7 pops up much more frequently than any other die roll. It should be rare, but its not. Part of the rarity is in the type of question you're asking about the system. To me, when someone says that life is too complex to have come about by chance, I think about this system and pull on the brakes. What this shows to me that they're spending too much time looking at one specific example and not studying the system at large. They're asking about a red dice being 5 and a blue dice being 2, and not looking at the larger picture which dictates that you'll roll a 7 more often than any other sum. This is a crude introduction to why emergence is necessary when studying life. (Reductionism vs. emergence.) - As to arguments for a creator, I'm afraid I'm as much at a loss as yourself. The only plausibility to me lies in "something" does not come from "nothing." And to me... that's not enough.
Chance v. Design Part 4
I tried to explain to Matt why for me the question whether life was the product of chance or design was crucial to belief/non-belief/disbelief in the existence of a creator. Since this is not the case for him, I wrote: "It would be interesting for me to know what evidence you see for any type of creator if the evidence isn't life." - In relation to chance, Matt has explained "the system". He goes on: "To me, when someone says that life is too complex to have come about by chance, I think about this system and pull on the brakes. What this shows to me that they're spending too much time looking at one specific example and not studying the system at large. They're asking about a red dice being 5 and a blue dice being 2, and not looking at the larger picture which dictates that you'll roll a 7 more often than any other sum." - I'm sorry, Matt, but what this shows to me is that you're spending too much time studying dice, and are not studying the unique and therefore incomparable (see J. Rosenhouse) phenomenon of life and its evolution.
Chance v. Design Part 4
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Friday, July 03, 2009, 19:26 (5420 days ago) @ dhw
edited by unknown, Friday, July 03, 2009, 19:41
> I'm sorry, Matt, but what this shows to me is that you're spending too much time studying dice, and are not studying the unique and therefore incomparable (see J. Rosenhouse) phenomenon of life and its evolution. - There's 2 issues with what you suggest here. - The problem here is, that to discuss biological systems and probabilities, you and I would have to be on the same page mathematically. That means you'd have to know some dynamics and chaos, and some calculus-based probability. I have to use the concept of dice because you've expressed a personal ignorance in the areas of math, and dice is the simplest way to begin a discussion that would built towards a discussion of stochastic processes such as life. - The second issue is that the *basic* rules of probability for dice also hold for more complex systems, and the types of reasoning and bad assumptions people make ALSO happen all the time when describing events under either discrete (dice) or continuous (biological) formulas. (Monte Carlo fallacy.) - The mistake I see you (and Dr. Turell) making, is an incredibly common one. Because some people have attached low probabilities for life arising by chance (such as Shapiro), you (and Shapiro) make one of the most basic errors involved with probabilistic reasoning--outside of the fact that our ignorance doesn't allow us to attach a probability on it with any accuracy whatsoever. To drill this point home, when given a probability, you *need* to ask what the assumptions were behind the model. With life, we don't know if life had an earlier, intermediate form, or in other words, life as we know it now may have been completely different--the PNA article *suggests* a different transmission mechanism could exist before DNA/RNA. We don't have an *accurate* idea of what our planet was like during the period when life somehow appeared--if it wasn't seeded here by some other event. We also can't define the beneficence of failed attempts--some failures might create chemical components that help the next event along. And--an important question to ask--what is the threshold that declares we have life from nonlife? This is just the tip of the skeptic's iceberg. - The mistake you folks appear to be making in probability is this: - Its one dealing with selection. Its what I was trying to tell you about when dealing with the dice example. Remember when I said that the probability of picking a specific event in the dice example gives you a probability of 1/36? The key to remember here, is this: Say we consider "success" as a Blue 3 and a red 4. There is only one such sequence in existence. The counter intuitive part about this is that we have an equal chance of getting a success and a failure, as any other state in the system (Blue 4, red 3) also has a probability of 1/36. Every time you roll the dice, you have the same chance. In other words, to say that we have a 35/36 chance of NOT picking that sequence--is false. Every time you roll the dice, you have a 1/36 chance. A roll of the dice is a causative agent of the various sums, which have a distribution that contains its own set of probabilities. But the causative agent is what we're studying here. (There's alot going on in even a simple dice model.) - You and Dr. Turell *appear* to say that since life has been assigned such a low probability (under specious assumptions) than there exists a converse selection against it happening. If life has a .00000000000150 chance of occurring randomly, it is not the case that there is a .99999999999850 chance of it not happening by chance. This simply recreates the Monte Carlo Fallacy. Every event has an equal chance of being selected.
Chance v. Design Part 4
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Saturday, July 04, 2009, 17:13 (5419 days ago) @ xeno6696
Matt/xeno claims: "The problem here is, that to discuss biological systems and probabilities, you and I would have to be on the same page mathematically. That means you'd have to know some dynamics and chaos, and some calculus-based probability." - Sorry Matt, but I'm sure DT and DHW have a sufficient understanding of the gambler's fallacy, and don't need to see it expressed in higher mathematical mandarin. This is just argumentum ad obfuscation. - I looked up "Monte Carlo fallacy" in wikipedia: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler's_fallacy#Non-examples_of_the_fallacy - "There are many scenarios where the gambler's fallacy might superficially seem to apply but does not. When the probability of different events is not independent, the probability of future events can change based on the outcome of past events (see statistical permutation). Formally, the system is said to have memory." - This is certainly the case with evolution of life it is a cumulative matter. - "When the probability of repeated events are not known outcomes may not be equally probable. In the case of coin tossing, as a run of heads gets longer and longer, the likelihood that the coin is biased towards heads increases. If one flips a coin 21 times in a row and obtains 21 heads, one might rationally conclude a high probability of bias towards heads, and hence conclude that future flips of this coin are also highly likely to be heads." - If the elements of life newly evolved on Earth today they would probably not get anywhere because they would be eaten by the existing life forms.
--
GPJ
Chance v. Design Part 4
by David Turell , Saturday, July 04, 2009, 18:25 (5419 days ago) @ George Jelliss
Matt/xeno claims: "The problem here is, that to discuss biological systems and probabilities, you and I would have to be on the same page mathematically. That means you'd have to know some dynamics and chaos, and some calculus-based probability." > > Sorry Matt, but I'm sure DT and DHW have a sufficient understanding of the gambler's fallacy, and don't need to see it expressed in higher mathematical mandarin. This is just argumentum ad obfuscation. - Thank you George for dhw and myself. I've read a great deal about chaos, fractal theory, and in med school we had to understand probability theory. In fact I just read an article (already knew all the statistical concepts and fully understood them) I loved on the "Triumph of Random" in the WSJ (because I was 11 years old when Joe DiMaggio had his 56 game string: - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204556804574261942466979118.html
Chance v. Design Part 4
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, July 04, 2009, 19:35 (5419 days ago) @ George Jelliss
Matt/xeno claims: "The problem here is, that to discuss biological systems and probabilities, you and I would have to be on the same page mathematically. That means you'd have to know some dynamics and chaos, and some calculus-based probability." > > Sorry Matt, but I'm sure DT and DHW have a sufficient understanding of the gambler's fallacy, and don't need to see it expressed in higher mathematical mandarin. This is just argumentum ad obfuscation. > - Matt is fine. - When I say "same page" I mean "same conceptual level." They don't have to be able to prove theorems, but any discussion of this nature necessarily requires all participants to be able to agree to some kind of agreed-upon language. To be able to discuss stochastic models, you need to discuss simple discrete models first. KISS in action. - > I looked up "Monte Carlo fallacy" in wikipedia: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler's_fallacy#Non-examples_of_the_fallacy&... > "There are many scenarios where the gambler's fallacy might superficially seem to apply but does not. When the probability of different events is not independent, the probability of future events can change based on the outcome of past events (see statistical permutation). Formally, the system is said to have memory." > > This is certainly the case with evolution of life it is a cumulative matter. > - And I admitted as much. That should be apparent in my discussion of assumptions to consider. Your argument doesn't change the fact that basic rules of probability still apply whether they are discrete or continuous, and I want everyone to at least know what language I'm speaking. I'm not asking them to prove Chebyshev's theorem or some BS like that, only that they have enough conceptual ammo so that they can understand my argument why chance isn't simply another "god," that is an abstract and unknowable machine that spat out life. - Life is a stochastic process, meaning that the future state of a system is predictable by both its current state and one or more random element(s). I brought up the Monte Carlo fallacy because the typical reasoning for "life can't appear by chance" states that the string of events that would lead to life are so improbable that they had to be 'helped' by some outside force. This is a restatement of the Monte Carlo, in a converse form. The Monte Carlo states "I just hit 4 heads, that means the next one must be tails." The "can't be chance" fallacy states "I just hit 4 heads. That is practically impossible!" In both cases they make the same mistake, namely that each coin toss is somehow influenced by the previous coin tosses. In both cases there is an ignorance, and a die-roll or coin toss model can show exactly where the logical error exists, namely that each coin toss or die throw has equal probabilities of occurring on all given instances. - Life has memory, but this memory is best viewed as the "current state" part of a stochastic model. The random elements can thereafter still be modeled as die throws or coin tosses. - If a generation flips a coin and gains a mutation, there is five cases to study. - 1. Immediately lethal. 2. Lethal under certain environmental conditions 3. Does Nothing 4. Beneficial under certain environmental conditions 5. Immediately beneficial - At this point you have all sorts of "coin tosses and die throws" that can model how the organism will eke out its existence. Complexity is exponential at this point and further discussion without hard math (and a computer simulation) is moot--a plain-english discussion will be a book, for just this one mutation. - This is why I said a full discussion of stochastic life models requires a level of math that at least dhw indicated he lacked.
Chance v. Design Part 4
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, July 05, 2009, 00:18 (5419 days ago) @ xeno6696
George, To pick up where I left off, the point you were making about life's "memory" breaking the Monte Carlo--that is the next logical step in explaining the reason why "chance" is enormously compelling: - Either life came about by a discrete (die roll or coin flip) 'accident' to which all outcomes have an equal chance of being selected, or it is the result of accretion, in which processes of evolution guided these primitive stochastic systems to their ultimate forms via selection, a process that has been well documented and studied. - This is the foundation upon which my support of 'chance' rests, and the form I believe most atheists mean to describe when they use the word 'chance.' Ultimately this concludes what I had started to discuss when talking about chance in the first place... my "chance primer" is finished.
Chance v. Design Part 4
by David Turell , Sunday, July 05, 2009, 03:09 (5418 days ago) @ xeno6696
Either life came about by a discrete (die roll or coin flip) 'accident' to which all outcomes have an equal chance of being selected, or it is the result of accretion, in which processes of evolution guided these primitive stochastic systems to their ultimate forms via selection, a process that has been well documented and studied. - I must disagree. Life occurred either by design OR by chance. The probabilities that have to be considered in order are: 1)what are the chances for this universe to appear. Penrose calculated an estimate of 10 to the minus 300 prior to the initial conditions, and 10 to the minus 123 if the initial conditions known to cosmologists were present.2) the probabilities of the Earth to be as it is allowing an attempt at life. 3) Going from non-living organic molecules to an organized group of them allowing life. (These have been calculated by legitimate scientists and I'll get the particulars for you.) - What allows natural selection to drive evolution in any direction is competition. Nothing would drive a group of organic molecules, lying around, to do anything. It would take accidental grouping of the molecules, enzymes and the right amount of heat. And then if one could get to an RNAzyme that replicated itself 100% of the time, the show is on. - This is why Shapiro has suggested inorganic cyclical formations. He has worked in this all his life and has nothing to show for it but theories that haven't been tried. You should also read Robert Hazen, working in the field for many years, "Genesis, THe Scientific Quest for Life's Origin", 2005, a history of the failure so far, the absolute failure, since the mid 1950's when the Urey-Miller lightning in a bottle produced 18 amino acids and gunky tar, actually a rather toxic mix. - More later when I look up some material that is not at the tip of my brain or fingers.
Chance v. Design Part 4
by David Turell , Tuesday, July 07, 2009, 01:39 (5416 days ago) @ David Turell
3) Going from non-living organic molecules to an organized group of them allowing life. (These have been calculated by legitimate scientists and I'll get the particulars for you.) - > What allows natural selection to drive evolution in any direction is competition. Nothing would drive a group of organic molecules, lying around, to do anything. It would take accidental grouping of the molecules, enzymes and the right amount of heat. And then if one could get to an RNAzyme that replicated itself 100% of the time, the show is on. > More later when I look up some material that is not at the tip of my brain or fingers. - There is too much material for me to copy as I did today. I'm a self-taught terrible typist. Both authors have a good command of statistics. In "A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization" Dean Overman (1997) quotes odds of a single enzymes needed for life appearing by accident (pg. 60). In "Not by Chance", Lee Spetner, M.D. (1997)gives odds for mutation rates and appearance rates of species, and does not directly discuss the issue of origin of life. - Remember the time for life to appear after the earth cooled enough is about a 400-200 million year period, unless we want to propose that extremophiles started life even earlier.
Also natural selection doesn't help. It works in a red of tooth an claw world, or as a plant life tries to crowd out another plant life. Inert inorganic or organic molecules don't compete. Further, all amino acids must be LEFT-HANDED, and all Ribose and Desoxyribose in DNA/RNA is RIGHT-HANDED. Enzymes must be present or the process of combination will take an enormous amount of time and heat. Amino acids in water do not combine, because the combination produces water, so an enzyme is required. (See Shapiro's book.) After all that, I agree with you. If life came by chance it must be tiny fortuitous steps, each step by chance until a functioning RNAzyme is present. Then many differing RNAzymes must appear by the same slow method and somehow begin to work together. A single functional cell has hundreds of protein moledcules, hundreds of amino acids long, and folded to be functional. How did the first folding occur and knew how to adjust itself for function, by chance?
Chance v. Design Part 4
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Wednesday, July 08, 2009, 17:42 (5415 days ago) @ David Turell
Dr. Turell, - > > Either life came about by a discrete (die roll or coin flip) 'accident' to which all outcomes have an equal chance of being selected, or it is the result of accretion, in which processes of evolution guided these primitive stochastic systems to their ultimate forms via selection, a process that has been well documented and studied. > > I must disagree. Life occurred either by design OR by chance. - False Dilemma. As you accept the scientific method, you accept the assumption that we cannot delineate from natural and supernatural. Therefore you constrain yourself necessarily to explanations that do not invoke the supernatural. As this is the case, God either exists in the universe as simply another force (albeit one that is completely undetected) or outside of the universe in a position where he cannot interfere on more than a macroscopic scale. - In both of these possibilities, only the latter is acceptable, because as of now we have not detected any forces that have no explanation whatsoever. You might say consciousness... but we know enough about the physical processes that nothing abnormal goes on there (electricity and chemistry.) - > The probabilities that have to be considered in order are: 1)what are the chances for this universe to appear. Penrose calculated an estimate of 10 to the minus 300 prior to the initial conditions, and 10 to the minus 123 if the initial conditions known to cosmologists were present.2) the probabilities of the Earth to be as it is allowing an attempt at life. 3) Going from non-living organic molecules to an organized group of them allowing life. (These have been calculated by legitimate scientists and I'll get the particulars for you.) > - The legitimacy of the scientists isn't at stake when what they're talking about is literally undefinable. Being able to attach a probability of the universe arising by chance means that you have to have some idea of the distribution of universes at large and actually *know* how they get started in the first place. We don't. We have no scientifically valid theory for explaining anything about the universe before the universe existed: so attaching a probability at that point is the definition of preposterous. (We have untestable inferences.) Furthermore, you don't need to explain the origin of the universe in order to explain the origin of life. That would be like saying we need to explain the origin of the UK by explaining why men fight. They are problems with different scopes, though related to a degree. - We have a better knowledge about chemistry, but your argument here seems to be "science hasn't given us a good enough theory so it must be design." But by accepting the scientific method, you also exclude a supernatural designer, as above. Even aside from that, the habitable zone in terms of our sun is from Venus to mars, and a Jupiter-like planet is also beneficial. And Jupiter-like planets are incredibly common. Furthermore, if Io ends up having a warm-water ocean under the surface the concept of a habitable zone itself is rather... "holey." - As for me, the biggest difference between my view and your view is that for some reason you seem to claim there's evidence of a designer, but the only evidence I can see you bringing is a lack of an explanation. And... that's not evidence.
Chance v. Design Part 4
by David Turell , Thursday, July 09, 2009, 22:08 (5414 days ago) @ xeno6696
> > I must disagree. Life occurred either by design OR by chance. > > False Dilemma. As you accept the scientific method, you accept the assumption that we cannot delineate from natural and supernatural. > > > The probabilities that have to be considered in order are: 1)what are the chances for this universe to appear. Penrose calculated an estimate of 10 to the minus 300 prior to the initial conditions, and 10 to the minus 123 if the initial conditions known to cosmologists were present.2) the probabilities of the Earth to be as it is allowing an attempt at life. 3) Going from non-living organic molecules to an organized group of them allowing life. (These have been calculated by legitimate scientists and I'll get the particulars for you.) > The legitimacy of the scientists isn't at stake when what they're talking about is literally undefinable. Being able to attach a probability of the universe arising by chance means that you have to have some idea of the distribution of universes at large and actually *know* how they get started in the first place. - > Furthermore, you don't need to explain the origin of the universe in order to explain the origin of life. > But by accepting the scientific method, you also exclude a supernatural designer, as above. - You have no right to confine my thought patterns to the agreed-to constraints of the scientific method. When I was in your position as a research fellow in cardiology and wrote papers with my boss we followed that agreement. We did not invoke supernatural interference to explain our results. But I'm not doing that now. I know the method and I can read the articles and understand from my previous knowledge, and I can reach my own conclusions to satisy me. - Thare must a universe friendly to have life in order for life to evolve. We do not know that there any other universes around. We only can know this one, so we should stick to those considerations. John Leslie said God or multiple universes. Only two choices and that is right. The Big Bang is either a creation or came from something else, which we both agree we cannot study. Again two choices. - The probability of a friendly-for-life earth planet is a second issue. Either we are on the only one, or there are others, two choices. And finally the origin of life is extremely complex. I think we will find that a single-celled organism is so complex, that by the passive method of natural selection, 400 million years is not enough time for its development. Natural chance or design, two choices. Antony Flew is on my side. - Have I made my point clear enough?
Chance v. Design Part 4
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Thursday, July 09, 2009, 23:26 (5414 days ago) @ David Turell
You have no right to confine my thought patterns to the agreed-to constraints of the scientific method. When I was in your position as a research fellow in cardiology and wrote papers with my boss we followed that agreement. We did not invoke supernatural interference to explain our results. But I'm not doing that now. I know the method and I can read the articles and understand from my previous knowledge, and I can reach my own conclusions to satisy me. > - The confinement isn't placed by me its placed by your hypothesis. If you say life either came about by chance or design, that's fine. However if you choose to define life's origin by THAT hypothesis, you need to be able to construct some kind of method to detect design, and to be able to differentiate it's effects from the effects of chance. However, the assumptions of the scientific method do not allow you to do this if you invoke a non-physical entity. (Defined by me as "supernatural.") You can "feel" there is a creator, but empirically you have constructed the question in such a way that it forces all supernatural entities out of the picture by virtue of the method involved to investigate it. You cannot use physical evidence to justify the existence of something that is not physical, therefore the constraint is placed by you--not me. - If god is supernatural, those are the only two options available that fit within those constraints. As a panentheist, you actually are close to one of them. - > Thare must a universe friendly to have life in order for life to evolve. We do not know that there any other universes around. We only can know this one, so we should stick to those considerations. John Leslie said God or multiple universes. Only two choices and that is right. The Big Bang is either a creation or came from something else, which we both agree we cannot study. Again two choices. > - But only one is actually "studyable" (if that's a word!). Again... we need to be pragmatic. To me, even though I'm not a complete materialist--I only care about questions that are knowable. Supernatural design is not one of those. - > The probability of a friendly-for-life earth planet is a second issue. Either we are on the only one, or there are others, two choices. And finally the origin of life is extremely complex. I think we will find that a single-celled organism is so complex, that by the passive method of natural selection, 400 million years is not enough time for its development. Natural chance or design, two choices. Antony Flew is on my side. > > Have I made my point clear enough? - What is clear to me is that I'll be a pretty awful probability teacher. - What I synthesize from your view is this: We only have two options, Design or Chance. Because you feel the odds are so low, you err towards design--though for scientific reasons remain non-committal. (The exact--and i mean EXACT opposite of my position. I err towards chance and remain non-committal for philosophical reasons.) - My issue is that I just can't seem to get across what I'm talking about in terms of chance. - In the *worst-case* scenario, you have dice-style probability. (Because the alternative helps life become more probable as time moves forward. Perhaps this is where your designer lays--but it is indiscernible from chance.) - The problem is that there is no reason to assume that 400 million years is even needed; by chance you only need one success. The odds could be 1/2^1000 but if life came about by a die-roll, every toss of the dice produces an equal opportunity for that success to be rolled as any one of the failures. - You are right that we only have one knowable universe, but that actually underlies my point in that we can't attach probabilities on systems that we don't know anything about. (That's why I pretty much ignore numbers anytime someone throws one out there.)
Chance v. Design Part 4
Matt writes: You and Dr Turell appear to say that since life has been assigned such a low probability (under specious assumptions) then there exists a converse selection against it happening. If life has a .00000000000150 chance of occurring randomly, it is not the case that there is a .99999999999850 chance of it not happening by chance. This simply recreates the Monte Carlo Fallacy. Every event has an equal chance of being selected. - So whenever my pet chimpanzee sits at the typewriter, I should be prepared to believe that he has an equal chance of hitting the right keys to produce a Shakespeare sonnet.
Chance v. Design Part 4
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Wednesday, July 08, 2009, 15:04 (5415 days ago) @ dhw
edited by unknown, Wednesday, July 08, 2009, 15:26
dhw, > Matt writes: You and Dr Turell appear to say that since life has been assigned such a low probability (under specious assumptions) then there exists a converse selection against it happening. If life has a .00000000000150 chance of occurring randomly, it is not the case that there is a .99999999999850 chance of it not happening by chance. This simply recreates the Monte Carlo Fallacy. Every event has an equal chance of being selected. > > So whenever my pet chimpanzee sits at the typewriter, I should be prepared to believe that he has an equal chance of hitting the right keys to produce a Shakespeare sonnet. - Yes. That's how raw probability works. Although you're not taking the preferences of the chimp into account. 
- I could even write a computer program that could do the same result, though the size of the sonnet would limit how many years it would take. - Though ultimately life is a stochastic process (as I responded to George) and is based on past states. I think the same goes for the processes that would have given us the transition from non-life to life. This changes the system somewhat, but in such a way that it is beneficial for life. - EDITED - I should tie this in to the previous example. You're letting yourself be tricked by the low odds of this happening. If the sonnet is... 10 letters (simplified) you have 26^10 possible chances of hitting that sonnet. But each individual failure has as much chance of being selected as the single success.
Chance v. Design Part 4
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Wednesday, July 08, 2009, 20:43 (5415 days ago) @ dhw
dhw & Dr. Turell, - Let me try a visual demonstration. - http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/Math/immath/dice.gif - What we have here is a probability distribution of two dice (in keeping with my original tactic.) - Your question of the chances of a chimp pounding out a Shakespearean sonnet is identical to asking what are the chances that we'll select two ones. (In this case, it is 1/36, but say in the case of the sonnet it would be - 1/(27^(the number of letters and spaces in the sonnet)) - The one thing that is the same in both instances, is that the odds of picking any single string of words (or numbers) is absolutely identical to picking the one we're looking for. The odds of picking a sonnet that is different by only 1 letter is also - 1/(27^(the number of letters and spaces in the sonnet) - Mark the dice pairs into "right" and "left." - If you ask the question "What are the odds that the right dice is 5 and the right dice is 2," The answer is also 1/36. - Invent a random string of characters the same length as your sonnet. The odds of pulling this string out of the total number of possibilities is identical to pulling out your sonnet. (Thankfully, letters are just 27-sided dice, so the analogy here is simply one of scale.) If you would like to know my background here, I'm trained in some cryptanalysis, and the statistical techniques such as these are used all the time. But again... as you get closer and closer to perfectly matching the sonnet, you'll have something that more closely matches the string you're looking for, and in this case the question is "how perfectly do you need it to emulate the sonnet?" Is fairly close good enough? When you take this analogy across to one of life, how close do you need the system to be life before you call it life? Chemistry is rarely so perfect. In biochemistry, the structure of many reactions could have been made better had we designed them ourselves. And if we can do... ANYTHING better than a supposed creator, that should seem suspicious as to the power of this entity. - ----------------- In order to be able to TRULY answer the question of the probability of abiogenesis we would have to have the same information available to us as we do for the dice, namely--knowledge of the entire system under investigation. We would have to be able to run an experiment and see how the different combinatorial distributions of molecules would map out. We--don't have that--so Shapiro (and anyone else for that matter) cannot be taken beyond the raw realm of speculation when they offer odds. (Sorry Dr. Turell, you are mistaken here.) - We're in a situation where we know even less than we'd like to. However, chance offers us a *better* explanation than anything else we've got. (At least we know something about chance!) - If it turns out that life couldn't have arisen here on our planet, then the next thing I would do is start looking for a planet where it could.
Chance v. Design Part 4
Matt is still gallantly trying to teach David and myself all about probability. - Let me reassure you ... you have made the theory perfectly clear. What is not clear to me is its importance in relation to the unique and therefore incomparable problem of the origin of life. There are two things that come to my simple but sceptical mind. The first is this: if I told you that my pet chimp had sat down and spontaneously typed out a Shakespeare sonnet, would you believe me? To spell it out: everyone has limits to their credulity, regardless of all the mathematical formulae, and that is what our discussion is all about. If you tell me that once upon a time inanimate, inert, unthinking, unfeeling globules of matter spontaneously put themselves together to start off a programme for life and evolution, I shan't believe you. - Secondly, you wrote: "In order to be able to TRULY answer the question of the probability of abiogenesis we would have to have the same information available to us as we do for the dice, namely ... knowledge of the entire system under investigation....Shapiro (and anyone else for that matter) cannot be taken beyond the raw realm of speculation when they offer odds." - Frankly, I couldn't care less about the odds, and the only truth I'm interested in is not the accuracy of odds for or against, but whether abiogenesis happened. You are absolutely right when you say we cannot know the entire system. All the more reason why in our current state of ignorance we should refrain from drawing conclusions (or rather, more importantly, theists and atheists should refrain from bashing one another). You say "chance offers us a "better" explanation than anything else we've got". David says God offers us a "better" explanation. I find both explanations unsatisfactory. That's why I'm an agnostic. But arguing about odds is certainly not going to convince me that a chimp can spontaneously type out a sonnet, or non-life can spontaneously turn into life. - Where David and I do agree is in our admiration for your planning and your enthusiasm. As for your determination not to sacrifice your family, it shows that despite what I've written above, you've got your priorities right when it comes to life on Earth!
Chance v. Design Part 4
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, July 11, 2009, 04:16 (5412 days ago) @ dhw
The importance of chance is underlined by people such as yourself that don't think that all of this can come about by chance. - What is *most certainly* my view is that the best that chance can give us is either the processes that initiated life were *completely* random (fair die roll) or they weren't. To me, that's precious more than can be said by invoking any supernatural beings. The supernatural explains everything and thus nothing. - Earlier I talked about studying epistemology... part of this is analyzing what kinds of knowledge are knowable or not... well any designer that is 'supernatural' in nature is by definition not knowable. We cannot know if we were designed, thus meaning for all practical purposes, we have no other choice than to trust the origin of life question to science. - > ...I find both explanations unsatisfactory. That's why I'm an agnostic. But arguing about odds is certainly not going to convince me that a chimp can spontaneously type out a sonnet, or non-life can spontaneously turn into life. > Both explanations are unsatisfactory, but one is less so. - The joke in my chimp statement was probably taken purely as a joke. - It's bad to use a chimp in that scenario because you're installing intelligence into the situation which completely messes with the randomness. (The chimp has a will and will not pound out random information.) Purely random chance is always sans intelligence, I would say--it's part of the definition. And purely random chance says... what I have been saying. I won't repeat it. - I can tell you this, when writing an algorithm to crack a cipher, one of the ways to do it by brute force is to randomly pick the keys. The random part is key however--the hardware itself must be built with a true random circuit. - If its a 56-bit key, (2^56) that's a max of 2284931317 years. Assuming one instruction per second (and modern processors can do say, millions) breaking this key takes far less. And that is what lies in my argument involving the chemistry. In a solution we have a cipher, and series of reactions that created life is like the encryption key. - I bring this up here because that's the core background I have in dealing with probability. Maybe you'll understand why I don't discount chance as surely as you (and Dr. Turell do). Biomolecules are organic molecules, and organic molecules are made of inorganic components. We do not know how the chemistry happened, we only know that it DID happen. It could have been designed, but we all agree we can't know! So in that broader sense, why try? - > Where David and I do agree is in our admiration for your planning and your enthusiasm. As for your determination not to sacrifice your family, it shows that despite what I've written above, you've got your priorities right when it comes to life on Earth! - A thank you is all I can say here. =-)
Chance v. Design Part 4
Matt: The best that chance can give us is either the processes that initiated life were completely random (fair die roll) or they weren't...We cannot know if we were designed, thus meaning for all practical purposes, we have no other choice than to trust the origin of life question to science. The argument cuts both ways. If we cannot know whether we were designed, we cannot know whether we came into existence by chance. So epistemologically speaking, science can't help us any more than metaphysics can. - Matt: Both explanations are unsatisfactory, but one is less so. Why is chance less unsatisfactory than design? Do you have any objective criteria for measuring their unsatisfactoriness? Besides, why should one believe in an explanation one finds unsatisfactory? (This is the reason for many of us being agnostic.) - Matt: We do not know how the chemistry happened, we only know that it DID happen. It could have been designed, but we all agree we can't know." So in that broader sense, why try? As you will have learned from your study of epistemology, the borders between belief and knowledge are not clear. In the context of the origin of life, we can never get beyond belief. Eventually scientists may crack the code and discover how inanimate matter became animate, and eventually we may find that the universe is teeming with life. I find these possibilities immensely exciting ... and I would say the quest for knowledge is an end in itself. But I would also surmise that if these two discoveries were made, a lot of people would tend to believe in abiogenesis, which would be a hard knock for theism. - Matt [referring to my refusal to believe that my pet chimp could spontaneously type a Shakespeare sonnet]: It's bad to use a chimp in that scenario because you're installing intelligence into the situation which completely messes with the randomness. (The chimp has a will and will not pound out random information.) Sorry, I forgot to mention that my pet chimp is illiterate, doesn't speak English, never had any typing lessons and, despite many years of one-to-one tuition, still can't say let alone spell the word 'banana'.
Chance v. Design Part 4
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, July 12, 2009, 18:37 (5411 days ago) @ dhw
dhw, - I about jumped out of my chair with your chimp statement... I haven't had a good laugh in awhile! However the odds are better getting at cracking a cipher using random methods than with just incrementing one letter at a time. - In the grand scope of things, when we figure out the "how" behind abiogenesis (even if it didn't begin here on earth) the next step will be in determining the probability distribution. Once that is accomplished however, I don't think it'll be a stunning a blow to theism as you might think. As I discussed earlier, Process theology via Alfred North Whitehead, Heraclitus et al, offers a very comprehensive view that allows one to have a supernatural god without violating the scientific method. - http://www.amazon.com/Process-Metaphysics-Introduction-Philosophy-Suny/dp/0791428184/re... - I read the book 4 years ago but will be undertaking it again in light of this forum. I encourage you--or anyone else to hop in. It might make for some interesting dialogue. - Overall--really I'm done with the whole chance thing. The only--ONLY reason I brought it up was to make sure that the position on chance was thoroughly understood. From your initial treatise, I really felt that you were arguing against chance from a position of ignorance. It's clear you're not, and I do hope I wasn't seen as insulting your intelligence. My goal was to attempt to show why chance appears compelling. When you couple probability with the fact that people are trying to solve the problem, it is very easy to settle back with some popcorn, and consider it "solved in the future." - I challenge my "pale atheist" friends all the time on such assumptions, though the strongest challenge to the statement "God does not exist" is purely from the epistemological challenge that we can't know that answer, to which I preach to the choir here. - I will be starting a new thread today, abandoning the chance thread as it wasn't even the most interesting to me, though I did create one hell of a good lesson plan for the introduction to probability. (Sans "origins" overtones.)
Chance v. Design Part 4
PART TWO - You wrote that abiogenesis literally translated means "life from nonlife"...This event clearly happened. - Yes indeed. We have a problem of definition here, though, because this discussion has been going on almost since the forum opened, and I have taken certain things for granted. So let me spell out what I mean: in order to believe in a creator, you must reject the theory that life can spring spontaneously from nonlife without the intervention of any outside intelligence. And the fact is that if scientists do eventually succeed in producing life from nonlife, it still won't tell us whether life was designed or not, since they are intelligent people working in laboratories conducting conscious experiments. I think my definition of the theory is a fair one, but it has caused confusion in the past. The context here was my response to your claim that "in order to argue for a creator, you have to be able to define its limits." I queried this, and listed what I regarded as prerequisites for belief in a creator. My argument was in fact self-evident: to believe in a designer, you have to believe in design. This means you have to reject a theory that rejects design. As for gods "that are treated simply as psychological states of human consciousness", they are not creators or designers. And I would challenge you to find a single practising Jew or Christian who worships a God that he thinks was NOT responsible for the creation of life. - Matt: I pointed out to Turell that his dismissal (and your own) of deism... Matt: Your dismissal of deism has to be based on something that allows you to say it is false. - In my previous post, I wrote: "But personally, like yourself, I am far more inclined to believe that if there is a creator, he/she/it would have devised the mechanism and then watched it work out its own paths (= deism) along the lines of Rosenhouse's algorithms." I don't see how I could have expressed myself more clearly, and am at a loss as to why you think I have dismissed deism. On the contrary, given the world around us, I find it one of the most plausible forms of religious faith. - This will be my last post for a couple of weeks, as my wife and I are off to France on holiday. I shall look forward to doing battle with you when I return, though it would be nice to explore the common ground as well!
Chance v. Design Part 4
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Thursday, June 11, 2009, 10:51 (5442 days ago) @ dhw
DHW: "And the fact is that if scientists do eventually succeed in producing life from nonlife, it still won't tell us whether life was designed or not, since they are intelligent people working in laboratories conducting conscious experiments." - This is an argument DHW has expressed before, but it makes no sense. If scientists are able eventually to demonstrate abiogenesis, this will mean that they have identified the conditions under which it will occur. They can then look around the universe, or back in its history, to find places where all those conditions are or were met as a result of natural processes. It would then be inevitable that life, in the most primitive form of a replicating system of molecules, would be likely to occur there. - Of course there is nothing then to stop the god-befuddled saying that it was still all arranged by some deity for these natural processes to produce the necessary conditions. But then they would say that wouldn't they!
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GPJ
Chance v. Design Part 4
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Saturday, August 18, 2012, 04:41 (4278 days ago) @ xeno6696
If you stick with the strict definition of life from non-life, you have to come up with a working definition of what life actually is...
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Chance v. Design Part 4
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, August 18, 2012, 14:36 (4278 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
If you stick with the strict definition of life from non-life, you have to come up with a working definition of what life actually is...-Not really. You don't have to have a definition of the natural numbers in order to perform integer arithmetic. I would argue that only by attempting to create life, can the definition be created. We're in a black box here.
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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Chance v. Design Part 3
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 10, 2009, 02:12 (5443 days ago) @ xeno6696
Dark energy/matter might actually be a mathematical artifact caused by rounding errors created as astronomers perform their calculations. The most recent Scientific American has an entire article about this, astronomers are considering getting rid of the Cosmological Principle suggesting that we might actually live in a rare section of the universe. What Astronomers are thinking is that the distribution of matter through space is not actually uniform (Uniformity is the assumption of the Cosmological Principle); there might be "bubbles in the swiss cheese of matter" they call voids--places where the density of matter is far less than other places. - As I gave a warning about Wikis I must give one about Scientific American. The editor has just been fired, thank goodness. I have read it for years and watched it go from a middle of the road great scientific review journal for the lay folks to a far left agenda for global warming, string theory with multiverses, and a definite anti-religious tone. The most recent article on dark matter is no surprise, and I don't know how reliable it is as a viewpoint for middle of the road cosmologists. If one hadn't recognized it there is alot of political overtone in science these days, as well as the usual grantsmanship.
Chance v. Design Part 3
by David Turell , Monday, August 06, 2012, 15:32 (4290 days ago) @ David Turell
A marvelous comparison of the thinking behind global warming and intelligent design, and how the thinking is the same!-http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/craigsteiner/2012/08/06/global_warming_debunked_by_intelligent_design/page/full/
Chance v. Design Part 3
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Saturday, August 18, 2012, 04:38 (4278 days ago) @ xeno6696
Wait a second... after all this time when you have argued with me over the existence of dark matter/dark energy, and over the nebulous effects of gravity and how they are using imaginary data to make their numbers work, you are reversing your opinion because a magazine wrote an article on it?
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Chance v. Design Part 3
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, August 18, 2012, 14:33 (4278 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
Wait a second... after all this time when you have argued with me over the existence of dark matter/dark energy, and over the nebulous effects of gravity and how they are using imaginary data to make their numbers work, you are reversing your opinion because a magazine wrote an article on it?-?????- I read the thread you responded to... (it has in fact, been 3 years) and have no idea what you're asking. Could you post the segment you responded to?
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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Chance v. Design Part 2
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Saturday, August 18, 2012, 04:01 (4278 days ago) @ Matt S.
And science can't tell us anything at all about a 'creative force' because if such a creative force is 'supernatural' it is by definition outside of the problem domain of science, which is the physical world. The best you can say about a creator is 'maybe.' This is both because of ignorance of unknown properties of our universe, and for things we think we know. > > Look, god is supernatural or he's not. If he's not, he's subject to and not above the laws of the universe and therefore subject to scientific inquiry. If however he's supernatural, he is outside the physical universe and any claims that he/she/it affects the physical universe has to come up with a way that it could do that, (including defining at least some of its physical limits). > -Just out of curiosity, why does God have to be supernatural? Hell, for that matter, why do ghosts, spirits, ESP, OBE's or NDE's need to be any more supernatural than dark matter or dark energy, neither of which can be observed any more than God?-In fact, I would argue that there can not be anything at all that is unnatural if you are a proponent for intelligent design, because in order for a designer to implement the natural world then the designer itself must in fact be natural. -People misuse that word. Science says that dark matter and dark energy exist even though we have no direct evidence for their existence on the simple assertion that we observe something that doesn't make sense unless we ASSUME that they do exist. We mere mortals of the non-scientific realm, though less than dust beneath their academic heals, are expected to take that as the gospel truth. Yet, when someone says aliens, esp, NDE, OBE, God, or any other thing that can not be observed DIRECTLY we label it as supernatural and label the person a quack. -As to your assumption that the designer must in fact be subject to the laws, I do not necessarily agree. I can design rules for a game, as a game designer, and create a world in which entities come into existence, wink out of existence, and all within that world are subject to the rules which I created. However, I, as the designer, am not. I have my own rules, my own limitations, my own restrictions, and my own abilities that are far beyond the ken of the normal entities existing within that world. If I have that ability as a humble game designer, how much more so would the grand designer of life, the universe, and everything?
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Chance v. Design Part 2
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, August 18, 2012, 14:26 (4278 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
Tony,-God is either above the laws of nature or he's not. If he's not above the laws of nature, then logically he's a part of the universe and is fully bound to its physical laws. God is "natural."-If God however IS above the laws of the universe, then--and only then--does he become abjectly unstudyable. He becomes "supernatural." -In terms of your game designer analogy, you, the designer, are limited by hundreds of factors.-1. Memory 2. Processor speed 3. BUS throughput 4. Inter-Device compatability 5. Computer language 6. System heat 7. Power consumption 8. GDDR memory-The level of contol you ultimately exert is created by a literally dumb, simple, and unintellgent automaton that has all the above (and many more) physical constraints--entirely beyond your capacity to [surpass]. You, the creator, are bound by--and cannot surpass--the physical laws governing the automaton your simulation is running on.-The only thing you can do is to run it on another machine, but all of those very real constraints move with you.-[EDITED]
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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Chance v. Design Part 2
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Sunday, August 19, 2012, 04:28 (4277 days ago) @ xeno6696
Tony, > > God is either above the laws of nature or he's not. If he's not above the laws of nature, then logically he's a part of the universe and is fully bound to its physical laws. God is "natural." > > If God however IS above the laws of the universe, then--and only then--does he become abjectly unstudyable. He becomes "supernatural." > > In terms of your game designer analogy, you, the designer, are limited by hundreds of factors. > > 1. Memory > 2. Processor speed > 3. BUS throughput > 4. Inter-Device compatability > 5. Computer language > 6. System heat > 7. Power consumption > 8. GDDR memory > > The level of contol you ultimately exert is created by a literally dumb, simple, and unintellgent automaton that has all the above (and many more) physical constraints--entirely beyond your capacity to [surpass]. You, the creator, are bound by--and cannot surpass--the physical laws governing the automaton your simulation is running on. > > The only thing you can do is to run it on another machine, but all of those very real constraints move with you. > > [EDITED]- But I could design the game to run in flash, use almost no memory at all, and very little bandwidth. The point being, that while God might be limited by a set of laws it is not necessarily limited by the same laws that we are. I can design a game on paper that is not limited to any of the constraints that you mentioned, and yet create artificial constraints within the confines of the games design that are absolutely necessary for the game to work as intended.
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Chance v. Design Part 2
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Monday, August 20, 2012, 01:08 (4277 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
Ack.-No, I somehow pointed you down the wrong rabbit hole.-You'll never get Modern Warfare 4 to run on an NES. It doesn't matter how clever or tricky you think you are, as a designer you are a slave to your hardware. -Even with recent tools, you WILL find things that you simply cannot do. Your vision will always need to be curtailed to what the hardware allows. Comparing yourself to God in this way is utterly fallacious.-Dhw just replied that he doesn't like the word "supernatural." Maybe you should both consider the definition I raised in this thread. Dhw, might I offer a mathematician's guidance? Let's just define the terms.-Supernatural-- adj. A phenomenon that is unexplainable according to known laws and observation.-Natural-- adj. A phenomenon that can be explained according to known known laws and observation.
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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Chance v. Design Part 2
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Monday, August 20, 2012, 04:46 (4276 days ago) @ xeno6696
Ack. > > No, I somehow pointed you down the wrong rabbit hole. > > You'll never get Modern Warfare 4 to run on an NES. It doesn't matter how clever or tricky you think you are, as a designer you are a slave to your hardware. > > Even with recent tools, you WILL find things that you simply cannot do. Your vision will always need to be curtailed to what the hardware allows. Comparing yourself to God in this way is utterly fallacious. > > Dhw just replied that he doesn't like the word "supernatural." Maybe you should both consider the definition I raised in this thread. Dhw, might I offer a mathematician's guidance? Let's just define the terms. > > Supernatural-- adj. A phenomenon that is unexplainable according to known laws and observation. > > Natural-- adj. A phenomenon that can be explained according to known known laws and observation.--Ok, we are slightly missing each other here. I don't disagree really, I am simply saying their is an underlying misconception. -Modernwarfare will never run on the NES, but saying that a God or UI is bound by the same rules that we are is akin to saying that the mind of the designer is bound by the same limitations as the platform which he must design his program to run in. IN other words, what you are saying is akin to saying that YOU are only capable of writing a program in C++ for a 32-Bit Celeron with 256mb of Ram simply because that is the platform that you have chosen to design your program for, despite the fact that your development machine was a I7 with 96GB of RAM and YOUR brain processes at far greater speeds. That is saying that you are incapable of writing in Java, Basic, Fortran, or Assembler just because you chose to write your design in C++. -Neither system is without its governing rules, but the rules governing the limitations of the designer are not inherently the same rule governing the design. One of the constant issues we run into in design is that our minds are capable of coming up with concepts that work in our head and on paper that are beyond the capabilities of the current level of technology. I am saying that the grand designer may be in the same situation. His reality, his limitations, are not necessarily the limitations of our reality.
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.