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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: God and random number god
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
So, I don't post as often as I used to, but combinations of personal tragedy, work, and reflections on vocations inspired a late night thought of the sort that happen a good hour or two after one's disciplined bedtime.
I've been drawn to a class of computer game called a roguelike. Roguelikes are largely defined as games involving minimal graphics and highly complex gameplay, usually in a "one hero against the world" battle through a maze filled with monsters and artifacts.
A common theme in roguelikes is randomness. It's as if the game, with every new start, generates itself according to certain parameters. There are some consistent patterns (bigger monsters come later, items fit into certain fixed types) but there's also an awful lot of random. You might get boots of speed lying on the floor on level 2. You might go through an entire game without ever finding a single wand of wishing.
This leads to some players joking about the random number god, who is thanked when things go well and screamed at when your lose the game to, say, a soldier ant that appeared an awful lot earlier than you were ready for it.
Now, life is like this. I think evolutionary theory is leading to a sense that life is, well, random. If one presumes God, God is a random algorithm generator, just popping out numbers endlessly. The numbers try to play together, form clusters, and randomly something appears that makes something called "sense." But really it's just a big random number generator with no concern or compassion or appreciation or anything. It doesn't care what survives. It just keeps creating or generating ad infinitum.
I was thinking about this while holding by son, and thinking of what the odds would be that I would hold him and try to comfort him versus let him lie in his bed and yell or do something truly weird like decide to paint him purple or throw him out the window. Odds are I'll comfort him because I love him and that is my intention.
Now, we like to say that God has intention. Looking at a case of grief that crossed my path recently, I was struck by the efforts people make to deify random number god, looking for intentions and plans and purposes in cases of meaningless tragedy. For me, perhaps because of seminary, or wesleyanism, or laziness, I drop that project very quickly and say that no, God could not have planned this, for this is insane.
Which is all well and good, but now I have to figure out how to relate God to random number god. I see lots of evidence that random number god (or something like it) is real, but perhaps by choice or condition or livelihood, I cannot help but look for God that is more than this (a god if you prefer.)
So...how does God relate to the random number god?
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
So, I don't post as often as I used to, but combinations of personal tragedy, work, and reflections on vocations inspired a late night thought of the sort that happen a good hour or two after one's disciplined bedtime.
I've been drawn to a class of computer game called a roguelike. Roguelikes are largely defined as games involving minimal graphics and highly complex gameplay, usually in a "one hero against the world" battle through a maze filled with monsters and artifacts.
....
I was thinking about this while holding by son, and thinking of what the odds would be that I would hold him and try to comfort him versus let him lie in his bed and yell or do something truly weird like decide to paint him purple or throw him out the window. Odds are I'll comfort him because I love him and that is my intention.
Which is all well and good, but now I have to figure out how to relate God to random number god. I see lots of evidence that random number god (or something like it) is real, but perhaps by choice or condition or livelihood, I cannot help but look for God that is more than this (a god if you prefer.)
So...how does God relate to the random number god?
The odds are you take care of your son because you come from a long lineage of survivors who made sure their offspring survived, by either caring for them when young or making many so some would survive or by co-operating socially to let them survive.
So in that sense the dice are loaded. And in that sense, the lone hero rogue is a misconception. We are all in complex social ecologies, from your mitochondria to the flowers.
Lone mutant rogues don't usually get very far in real life.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
Rogue-like games aren't really random. They're pseudo-random, with an underlying predictable and determinative procedure handcafted to generate numbers that look random. These fake random numbers are then used within a carefully designed framework to provide a game which is neither too predictable (and thus boring) or too random (and thus unplayable). The will of the programmer underlies the seeming randomness. For Rogue-like games the intent of the programmer is to entertain you.
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
One other thought - in a sense each game is a collaboration (or maybe a conversation) between the player and the programmer.
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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The Great Gumby
Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
Rogue-like games aren't really random. They're pseudo-random, with an underlying predictable and determinative procedure handcafted to generate numbers that look random.
This is true of all "random" things, though, once you ignore the "handcrafted" bit. If you roll a die, the result is random to all intents and purposes, but it's still determinative - there are just too many parameters, and too much precision required, to measure the starting conditions and calculate its final position at rest.
It's a good point, but you have to engage in some pretty nifty footwork to claim that computer game (pseudo-)randomness is meaningfully different from real world (pseudo-)randomness.
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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
A letter to my son about death
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog
I see lots of evidence that random number god (or something like it) is real...
I see plenty of evidence that human understanding is extremely limited and therefore we cannot presume that the theory is true that states that many, or most, events are simply the result of randomness. There may be an ultimate purpose for events which appear random. Now, I agree that that idea in itself is an argument from silence, but then so is the randomness theory. In fact, ironically, if our minds are simply the product of random events, then it follows that there is no reason why we should even trust our own comprehension of reality, including the theory that everything is random!
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest
The odds are you take care of your son because you come from a long lineage of survivors who made sure their offspring survived, by either caring for them when young or making many so some would survive or by co-operating socially to let them survive.
Or alternatively, there actually exists something called 'love' that has nothing to do with highly speculative and unfalsifiable naturalistic theories.
I must confess that I love my children, because of who they are, not because they are simply mechanisms to help the survival of my species.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I must confess that I love my children, because of who they are, not because they are simply mechanisms to help the survival of my species.
I don't think even Richard Dawkins would suggest we love children because they are "mechanisms to help the survival of my species". Not least because he'd probably substitute 'genes' for 'species'.
The point would be you don't love all children equally, yours are special to you. Why do we 'bond' especially with our children? There is presumably a biological mechanism at work similar to that seen in most higher mammals that bond with their young (there may be other mechanisms) as well. If we lacked this mechanism our children would often die through lack of care and the species might die out.
It's not thinking about the survival of the species which motivates you - just the feeling you have when you are with your children. I think biology has some pretty good ideas where that motivation comes from.
What's so bad about naturalistic anyway? Do you watch a bitch caring for her puppies and think "Oh! how appallingly naturalistic"?
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
So...how does God relate to the random number god?
I assume the universe is random, though not completely so: the quantum void produces particles spontaneously - but it doesn't produce bowls of petunias. Or maybe it does and nobody has ever noticed (the universe is such a big place).
But I'd say our understanding of people isn't much affected by this. Innumerable random events pushing in different directions tend to cancel out. Obviously not every time, people can do crazy things, but it is pretty rare.
What does seem significant is how people react to an awareness of the random chaos that can occur. I feel it, but it has never much worried me, I look at history or the behaviour of people I know and, totally unjustifiably from a philosophical point of view, assume things will probably turn out OK. I agree there were Jews who felt that in 1930s Germany and were wrong but I am still biased towards optimism.
Other people feel the appearance of randomness to be a real threat. There should be an order and reason for things. Then you have to explain why bad stuff happens.
I think it has probably more to do with psychological orientation than any rational analysis of the facts. Odds are you'll comfort your son because you love him - as most people do. It may be random but life (for us in the West at least) is rarely as bad as a Hardy novel.
As for God I have no opinion. Have you read Susan Neiman's Evil in Modern Thought? She sees philosophers search for a "God that is more than this" as a more major concern than is usually imagined, taking in nearly every big name since the enlightenment. At least you are in good company - philosophically speaking.
Good Luck in your search.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
I am certain that there is nothing "random" about God. If it were so, the universe could never have come into existence at all.
However, there are many things we cannot understand, we are not supposed to understand them.
Holy scripture makes it quite clear that God is incomprehensible, so why are we surprised when we try to work Him out and find that we cannot?
[ 16. October 2012, 19:33: Message edited by: Mark Betts ]
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
I am certain that there is nothing "random" about God. If it were so, the universe could never have come into existence at all.
I can't see how that follows. Maybe the Universe wasn't randomly made but subsequent randomness was allowed. Like a potter making a pot with great care and then adding a random splodge to the glaze. Often very beautiful.
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
However, there are many things we cannot understand, we are not supposed to understand them.
But you regularly argue for all sorts of things - how do you know which we might come to understand and which we don't and aren't supposed to?
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
But you regularly argue for all sorts of things - how do you know which we might come to understand and which we don't and aren't supposed to?
My last paragraph goes some way, for christians at least. But you need to want to know about God, before you can learn how far we can go. In fact, some of theology's understanding of the Trinity is very deep - so we can always understand more, it is just that our understanding can never be complete.
One more thing - when something is called a "Holy Mystery," that is a sure indicator that our knowledge can never be complete - certainly not in this world.
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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Crśsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
I am certain that there is nothing "random" about God. If it were so, the universe could never have come into existence at all.
As pointed out by Slacktivist, the authors of both the Old and New Testaments considered supposedly random things (i.e. the drawing of lots) a valid method to determine the will of God.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
Rogue-like games aren't really random. They're pseudo-random, with an underlying predictable and determinative procedure handcafted to generate numbers that look random.
This is true of all "random" things, though, once you ignore the "handcrafted" bit. If you roll a die, the result is random to all intents and purposes, but it's still determinative - there are just too many parameters, and too much precision required, to measure the starting conditions and calculate its final position at rest.
I don't think this is really true on our current understanding of the way the universe works. Events appear to proceed deterministically (though not necessarily predictably - even theoretically) at a macro level but at smaller scales we can only reason statistically - probabilities are deterministic but not individual events.
Einstein may have suspected that God does not play dice - ie that underneath the apparent randomness is actually pseudo-randomness - and we may wish to theologically assert a meaningful and determined world, but we can't assert that as a known fact.
On current understanding, even with perfect knowledge we cannot predict if Schrödinger's cat is alive or dead before we open the box.
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
So could an omniscent God create and permit randomness? Something like free will for particles? ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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The Great Gumby
Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
Rogue-like games aren't really random. They're pseudo-random, with an underlying predictable and determinative procedure handcafted to generate numbers that look random.
This is true of all "random" things, though, once you ignore the "handcrafted" bit. If you roll a die, the result is random to all intents and purposes, but it's still determinative - there are just too many parameters, and too much precision required, to measure the starting conditions and calculate its final position at rest.
I don't think this is really true on our current understanding of the way the universe works. Events appear to proceed deterministically (though not necessarily predictably - even theoretically) at a macro level but at smaller scales we can only reason statistically - probabilities are deterministic but not individual events.
Einstein may have suspected that God does not play dice - ie that underneath the apparent randomness is actually pseudo-randomness - and we may wish to theologically assert a meaningful and determined world, but we can't assert that as a known fact.
On current understanding, even with perfect knowledge we cannot predict if Schrödinger's cat is alive or dead before we open the box.
But the whole point of Schrödinger's cat was as a thought experiment to illustrate why the Copenhagen Interpretation was flawed.
I'll agree that determinism doesn't equate to predictability, thanks to Chaos Theory, but that doesn't mean it's random. And we can't assert pure determinism as a known fact, just as we can't assert the non-existence of miracles or invisible pink unicorns as a known fact, but to paraphrase Tim Minchin, "Throughout history, every mystery ever solved has turned out to be NOT RANDOM."
My knowledge of QM isn't robust enough at the moment to get into a discussion of behaviour at the quantum level, and in any case, I was just observing that the line between random and pseudo-random really isn't as clear as you might think, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if activity at the quantum level was just as determinative as anything else, but it appears random for the same reason as anything appears random - we can't detect the underlying causes.
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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
A letter to my son about death
Posts: 5382 | From: Home for shot clergy spouses | Registered: Feb 2006
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
Now, we like to say that God has intention. Looking at a case of grief that crossed my path recently, I was struck by the efforts people make to deify random number god, looking for intentions and plans and purposes in cases of meaningless tragedy. For me, perhaps because of seminary, or wesleyanism, or laziness, I drop that project very quickly and say that no, God could not have planned this, for this is insane.
For me the answer lies in the fact that we only see and know this world. And most of God's promises for good are not for this world.
This is a problem for many because ultimately we have to take it on trust. God has not promised that all will be well in this world - in fact Jesus and the apostle James make the opposite promise.
But, but I still believe in an benevolent purposeful God. Why? Partly because in my personal tragedies I've seen something of what he can do, but also having come to trust Jesus with my soul, the only sane thing to do is to trust him for everything else too. However difficult that often is.
AFZ
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
I wouldn't be at all surprised if activity at the quantum level was just as determinative as anything else, but it appears random for the same reason as anything appears random - we can't detect the underlying causes.
This was Einstein's opinion, so you would be in good company! But he couldn't prove it.
In the end I don't think that whether our models of the universe are statistically or discretely determinative affects what a suitably defined God could do, and neither really throws much light on our lived experience of "free will"/"choice making".
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que-sais je?
What's so bad about naturalistic anyway?
You've already answered that question with...
quote:
It's not thinking about the survival of the species which motivates you - just the feeling you have when you are with your children. I think biology has some pretty good ideas where that motivation comes from.
In other words, 'naturalistic' appears to be used in the sense of explaining everything in terms of biology. Of course, there are certain biological mechanisms involved with the feelings associated with familial relationships, but it doesn't follow that this can be reduced to mere biology.
In fact, this survival thinking is illogical anyway, because if I care about my own personal survival, then why should I be concerned about my children, rather than simply myself, and if I am instinctively concerned for the future of my species, then why should I care about my children over and above anyone else's? The gene explanation is nonsense, because genes don't think or feel. Genes are simply information, and information itself couldn't care less whether it survived or not. This is just a vain example of philosophical naturalists reading the desire for life back into mindless and lifeless functions, in order to avoid an explanation which is anathema to them.
There is clearly far more going on than mere biology.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
if I care about my own personal survival, then why should I be concerned about my children, rather than simply myself, and if I am instinctively concerned for the future of my species, then why should I care about my children over and above anyone else's?
Biologically, the purpose of life is to reproduce itself. To "go forth and multiply", if you will. Hence the concern for one's own children over and above anyone else's. In a way, they are an extension of you - and more than one human society has acknowledged the form of immortality one can gain through one's children.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
So could an omniscent God create and permit randomness? Something like free will for particles?
Would that be necessary for free will for anything else?
It is one way to think that people are free, but a certain amount of random seems to end up constraining people. Concepts of water in the OT and Revelation come to mind.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
if I care about my own personal survival, then why should I be concerned about my children, rather than simply myself, and if I am instinctively concerned for the future of my species, then why should I care about my children over and above anyone else's?
Biologically, the purpose of life is to reproduce itself. To "go forth and multiply", if you will. Hence the concern for one's own children over and above anyone else's. In a way, they are an extension of you - and more than one human society has acknowledged the form of immortality one can gain through one's children.
How does my ego relate to my DNA?
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
@Crśsos
I loved the Slactivist link.
From what I know of Quantum Physics nature at the quantum level seems to be truly random as far as we can tell. But this relates to free will at the macro level is a very different can of worms and far from obvious.
The idea of emergent properties has been mentioned in other threads and I found this series of essays useful.
Massimo Pigliucci at Rationally Speaking
My take on the essays is that there are people that take seriously objections like EtymologicalEvangelical's above:
quote:
There is clearly far more going on than mere biology.
They agree with EE in that they don't go for the most simplistic version of reductionism. But they don't need to appeal to the supernatural in search for an explanation.
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by que-sais je?
What's so bad about naturalistic anyway?
You've already answered that question with...
quote:
It's not thinking about the survival of the species which motivates you - just the feeling you have when you are with your children. I think biology has some pretty good ideas where that motivation comes from.
In other words, 'naturalistic' appears to be used in the sense of explaining everything in terms of biology. Of course, there are certain biological mechanisms involved with the feelings associated with familial relationships, but it doesn't follow that this can be reduced to mere biology.
I'm not claiming it necessarily can be so reduced. On the other hand biology does offer a plausible explanation of a great deal of it. And a great deal more seems explicable now than did 100 years ago. Non-naturalistic explanations don't seem to move forward much, not because they already have the final answer but because they seem to have no obvious place to go. You may be right but I'd put my money on biology being able to put ever more meat on the bone, as it were, and provide - given time and good enough brains ever more complete explanations. And non-naturalistic interpreters will just go on saying 'but that proves nothing'.
quote:
The gene explanation is nonsense, because genes don't think or feel. Genes are simply information, and information itself couldn't care less whether it survived or not.
This isn't up to your usual standard of argument. It is entirely true but irrelevant. A colleague of mine developed a program simulating evolution of fighter planes. At the end of each 'generation' the surviving planes were 'mated', some randomness thrown in (gene mutation) and the process started again, After a number of generations they were following each other around in circles (WWI flying strategy - but none of it 'programmed in'). After more generations a plane evolved (i.e. randomly, by mating/mutation without human intervention) which started circling then did back flips to get its opponent (WWII fighter ace stuff).
Clearly simulated planes have no idea of survival and don't care whether that survive or not. None the less some do survive. A consciousness wanting to survive is not a prerequisite for having the instincts which lead to survival.
quote:
This is just a vain example of philosophical naturalists reading the desire for life back into mindless and lifeless functions, in order to avoid an explanation which is anathema to them.
Or they have an explanation which is anathema to you and you are projecting onto them a 'desire' which I doubt they have.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
How does my ego relate to my DNA?
Rather indirectly. Genetic rules seem rather crude. There is a small S American lizard which does a mating dance when it sees a female. However it will do the same dance for an appropriately marked model or a picture (with lizard markings). Even a picture the size of a car elicits the dance. The point being that there was never a need for any rule beyond 'dance when you see these markings' to evolve because model lizards, giant lizard photos etc didn't exist.
The crudeness of genetic rules is a strength: culture seems to allow us to displace/project simple instructions. Code generating "bond your mate & offspring" can become "love your neighbour as yourself" under the influence of suitable stimuli.
We partially make ourselves but our parents, peers, teachers and communities also contribute.
Up to 25 you can blame the second lot, after that your ego's down to you.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
Events appear to proceed deterministically (though not necessarily predictably - even theoretically) at a macro level but at smaller scales we can only reason statistically - probabilities are deterministic but not individual events.
Genetics works at a molecular level, where quantum- and statistical effects can be felt. So genuinely random processes are amplified. Just like in Schrodinger's Cat.
That's true about ordinary proceses such as crossing-over during chromosome recombination, but its probably more obvious in mutation. Some point mutations can be caused by single molecular events - maybe a cosmic ray zaps an individual atom out of a molecule, or something excites an electron at the wrong moment so an incorrect bond forms, and some DNA pairs up wrongly and a protein comes out wrong. And that might change your life.
The haemophilia in the royal families of Europe might be argued to have changed the course of the Great War and the Russian Revolution. It seems to have been caused by an adenosine to guanosine mutation just upstream of part of the gene for blood clotting factor 9 (which causes a piece of RNA to bind on the the gene in the wrong place, which causes a frameshift when its being read, which produces a protein with a piece missing) The original mutation event was very likely in either Queen Victoria herself or one of her eggs. It would have started as a single molecular-level event, possibly caused by soomething like an unusually energetic photon.
So we have genetics as a quantum amplifier, taking events occuring at the scale of quantum indeterminacy, and making them the causes of events at a much larger scale. Possibly even the entire course of history. Maybe millions of people (and even cats) would have lived who otherwise died, or vice versa, if one single hydrogen bond between two molecules had formed differently.
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
Code generating "bond your mate & offspring" can become "love your neighbour as yourself" under the influence of suitable stimuli.
Genes don't code for things ike that at all. They are emergent properties during the development of an animal. As are practically all the other characteristics of any complex organism, anatomical as well as behavioural. Genes do not contain any blueprint or map or set of rules that describe the organism they are reproducing, Development is a complex series of interactions between all sorts of different things, and effectively all phenotypic features emerge in a complicated way.
Which is one reason EE's criticism of biology is vacuous - real biologists don't make the kind of mistakes he's blaming on them because they know better. And they are used to dealing with multiple levels of explanation.
Engineers might maybe... ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Or, more often, right-wing propagandists loudmouthing about "evolutionary psychology" and genetic determinism on the Net, basing what they say on a few half-remembered snippets of information form TV documentataries and Wikipedia. If they learned more about genetics and evolution they'd be less certain in their assertions.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
Code generating "bond your mate & offspring" can become "love your neighbour as yourself" under the influence of suitable stimuli.
Genes don't code for things like that at all. They are emergent properties during the development of an animal.
I'm very happy to be corrected. And relieved that someone here knows some relevant facts!
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
So the norm seems to be interrupted patterns.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
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IntellectByProxy
Larger than you think
# 3185
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Posted
Bloody good opening post.
Randomness is a Very Odd Thing. If it looks random, the chances are it isn't: it's more likely pseudo-random.
Take iTunes: if you were to play tracks truly randomly, then more often than you might imagine you play tracks from the same album sequentially. To combat the (false) charge that the algorithm was not really random, Apple put logic in to stop it playing sequential tracks, thereby making "random play" anything but random.
Not sure this adds anything to your O/P but it's a nice point
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www.zambiadiaries.blogspot.com
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
I'm more into Physics than Biology so I see more examples of "naive reductionism". Which I would describe as non-experts extrapolating what they know in their field to another field ignoring its complexities. Reading some of those statements might have led EE into believing a straw man version of what modern Biology is saying.
But I'm glad Ken is here so
he can give examples from fields that deal with " multiple levels of explanation".
That is a very nice example of randomness at the quantum level actually having a measurable effect at the macro level.
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IntellectByProxy:
Bloody good opening post.
Randomness is a Very Odd Thing. If it looks random, the chances are it isn't: it's more likely pseudo-random.
I don't often get a chance to bore people with this very strange piece of information. Pi as we all know is a very odd number, viz 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862 ...
Any test of randomness yet devised reports that the digits are wholly random. If you want to work out the 1000000th digit you have to work out the 999999 preceding one (if you could predict the 1000000th digit it wouldn't be random).
But if we did our arithmetic in base 16 (as some computer nerds and poeple with 16 fingers do) we would see a completely different sequence of digits for Pi. And there is a simple formula for what the 1000000th one, or any other, will be.
Something as simple as a different number of fingers makes randomness vanish. Now that seems spooky to me. Since reading the original paper (just showing off) my sense of randomness has been seriously dented. My pattern is someone else's random sequence and vice versa. Theological consequences will surely follow.
Mathematicians may wish to consult here. Could our own shipmate George Spigot be the eponymous creator of the 'spigot algorithm' mentioned in the text?
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
God relates to random number god by creating. If you are in the creation business and your are inexorably loving inexorable love the only 'choice' you have is creating a random number god. And you are united in suffering with your creation, by suffering its suffering, which is how you redeem everything.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
But if we did our arithmetic in base 16 (as some computer nerds and poeple with 16 fingers do) we would see a completely different sequence of digits for Pi. And there is a simple formula for what the 1000000th one, or any other, will be.
Really? Do you have documentation for that? I thought pi was irrational and therefore not repeating in any number base.
Also if it repeats in hex I think it has to repeat in decimal. Not that I am a good enough mathematician to prove that... actually if I think a little... yes I'm pretty sure that a number that can be written as a recurring decimal will also either come to an end or recur in any other number base...
On the other hand there can exist algorithms to find the nth digit of an irrational number in various number systems, that is not the same as saying the representation of the number is never recurring. But if one can exist in hex then one can surely exist in decimal as well.
Also the digits of an irrational number aren't really random - they never repeat but that's not the same thing. Never-repeating, unpredictable, and random aren't the same thing.
Obvious example of that is predicting whether a given number is prime of not. No-one has ever found a way to do that for any arbitrary numbers that doesn't involve working it out. But prime numbers (and also the gaps between successive prime numbers) are clearly not at all random, they can be found by simple arithmetic. Its just that when the numbers get at all big the arithmetic takes longer than the likely life of the universe.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Er, no mathematician me, but pi pertains to circles. Not randomness. The correct calculation of any digit, independent of the one before, therefore comes as no surprise to me. Am I missing something?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
Ken, the documentation is at the link for the Wiki article on the Bailey-Borwein-Pluffe formula in QSJ's post. The point isn't that the digits of pi repeat in base 16 - they don't - it's that, in that representation, there's a formula for computing the nth digit without computing all the preceding n-1 digits.
This is interesting, but I don't find it as spooky as QSJ seems to. I agree with Ken (and, I now see, Martin) that it's wrong to say the digits of pi are "random", because the value of pi itself isn't random, any more than the value of the square root of two is random. There are lots of formulas for computing pi from infinite series; a BPP formula just has the interesting property that each member of the series happens to correspond to a single digit in a particular numerical representation.
[ 21. October 2012, 14:59: Message edited by: Dave W. ]
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Ay up Dave W. Is it your fault, from oooh, nearly ten years back, that I now know with utter certainty that God can't magically know whether it's going to rain tomorrow or not?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
I don't think so, Martin - I recall reading such a thread, but I'm pretty sure I didn't post on it.
I don't believe the word has been mentioned on the thread yet, but would it be fair characterize the OP as a kind of search for a theodicy?
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Hmmm. It were an atheist physicist. And it weren't about God not knowin' whether it would rain or not tomorrow per se, at the time, but about the impossibility of God passively knowing anything more about indeterminate entities that He's thinking than we can: that can be known.
That's fundamental to me now and for a few years, but ten year ago, it weren't.
Can't see how I lived without it. There again it took seven years for the penny to drop about A Brief History of Time. That the beginning, like any horizon, goes all fuzzy the closer you look at it. As for its direction ...
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
I don't think so, Martin - I recall reading such a thread, but I'm pretty sure I didn't post on it.
I don't believe the word has been mentioned on the thread yet, but would it be fair characterize the OP as a kind of search for a theodicy?
To an extent, though I'm not sure it reduces to that. I think it's partly a search for God's intention, which is related to theodicy but I think that theodicy as a meaningful discourse requires that God have active intentions. Thinking of myself and hoping not to get too personal, I think that vocation and direction are more relevant than theodicy.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
Ken, the documentation is at the link for the Wiki article on the Bailey-Borwein-Pluffe formula in QSJ's post. The point isn't that the digits of pi repeat in base 16 - they don't - it's that, in that representation, there's a formula for computing the nth digit without computing all the preceding n-1 digits.
This is interesting, but I don't find it as spooky as QSJ seems to. I agree with Ken (and, I now see, Martin) that it's wrong to say the digits of pi are "random", because the value of pi itself isn't random, any more than the value of the square root of two is random. There are lots of formulas for computing pi from infinite series; a BPP formula just has the interesting property that each member of the series happens to correspond to a single digit in a particular numerical representation.
Thanks Dave W. I don't want to turn this into a mathematical discussion but I wasn't clear on my earlier post. Two concepts of randomness are being used here. As you and Martin point out, there is nothing random about the digits of pi once you know it can defined as as the ratio of a circles circumference to its diameter. There is an entirely deterministic process which will generate the digits one by one.
One the other hand, suppose you presented the unexplained (base 10) digits as data to a statistician. Any statistical test will tell you that they are random. There is no procedure which would show the digits were produced deterministically rather than by some truly random natural process (say, a leaky electronic valve - to use an example from my youth).
In the first case we know the cause of the events and from knowing the cause to be law based we argue that any randomness is apparent rather than real. In the second we see only the events as coming from a black box and so have no guarantee they aren't random. On the other hand, to someone who puts different parameters into the box (telling it to work in base 16 say) it may not appear random.
Which bring us, tortuously, back to the Random God. You cannot deduce from apparently random acts that they are in fact random. A non-random, law following process or being could equally have produced them. You might be lucky and see them as obviously evidence of laws (you happen to have the right number of fingers) - but if you don't, you can deduce nothing.
I'd claim that implies neither our assessment of pattern, nor absence of it, is evidence of, or against, the existence of God.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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