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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Evidence
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Agreed, Drake is NOT to be preferred over Mayr. But I don't see the connection. What were Mayr's numbers? You deduce fi is low - 0.1 - from his narrative. Mindless optimist me. AKA strong uniformitarian. If it rains there will be The Archers.[/QB]
Actually I posited fi as 0.1%, or 0.001 if you insist on decimal fractions.
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
What would be the number of systems that have worlds that will have had or be having an oxygen crisis?
N = Number of worlds within our galaxy with a high oxygen atmosphere
R* = Rate of formation of sunlike stars in the Milky Way
fp = fraction of sunlike stars that form planets
ne = number of Earthlike planets (bodies capable of supporting life) in star systems that form planets
fl = fraction of Earthlike planets that develop life
L = length of time in years that such a biosphere endures
Any advance on 0.675 ?
That seems underspecified. You'd need to add in at least fφ, the fraction of planets developing life that eventually develops oxygenic photosynthesis. Here you run into a similar problem as the development of human-level intelligence, since oxygenic photosynthesis seems to have arisen in only a single cyanobacterial lineage on Earth, albeit at an earlier stage in life's history than the evolution of humans. If counting Earthly lineages is any guide, anoxygenic photosynthesis seems to be a more commonly evolved adaptation than its oxygen-generating alternative.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Croesos
Can you give me an example of a signal constructed by unnatural laws and how it would be detected?
I have absolutely no idea, especially considering that I made no mention of 'unnatural laws' (whatever they are). I was, of course, making a distinction between natural laws operating without the guidance of intelligence and those which are guided in this way.
If scientists detect signals which could only have been transmitted by an intelligence (let's say, an alien intelligence), and they acknowledge this, then they are admitting that the inference of intelligent design falls within the scope and remit of the scientific method. Denying this principle would therefore mean (assuming the operation of intellectual integrity and consistency) that such signals would have to be assumed to be the result of the operation of natural laws alone, working without the guidance and input of intelligence.
Of course, I suppose scientists can always make up the rules as they go along to suit their own agenda!
[ 15. January 2013, 17:39: Message edited by: EtymologicalEvangelical ]
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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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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
But I don't accept the charge of 'bad logic', because I was simply pointing out the inconsistency of using the scientific method to infer the existence and operation of an unobserved intelligence in one respect, and then declaring that the existence and operation of an unobserved intelligence in another respect is contrary to science.
Hold on a minute there! SETI isn't about inferring the existence of an "unobserved intelligence" it's about verifying intelligence through observation. If SETI really could infer things without making observations, then all those radio telescopes really would be as huge a boondoggle as you suggest.
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W
"North American Space Administration"? What's that, now?
I might be a little more willing to credit Lennox's description of the implications of SETI if he actually knew the meaning of "NASA".
OK, so he screwed up. How does that mistake invalidate his other points?
It's kind of a central error, on the level of writing a treatise on early Christianity and referring to its founder as "Jerry Christ". If you're making a case about Christianity, you should at least get Jerry's name right, and if you're making an argument about a NASA program*, you should either know what NASA stands for, or avoid trying to disentangle the acronym.
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*NASA's SETI program was cancelled over a decade ago.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Bugger. 0.01% indeed.
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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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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Bugger. 0.01% indeed.
0.1% Those decimal points are slippery little bastards, aren't they?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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RdrEmCofE
Shipmate
# 17511
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Posted
I think all evidence in a court of law is weighed and put in the balance of probability. If two or more witnesses agree then their combined testimonies have greater weight in the balance. However if their statements are in such close agreement it causes the jury to suspect that they have colluded, then their evidence may be held to be suspect rather than corroborative.
I have served on a jury and took the responsibility seriously. Evidence is not always what it seems. Even eyewitness evidence depends on the eyesight of the witness and their ability to remember accurately without subconscious embellishment or influence, (a rare trait).
Witnesses are all subject to ‘selective cognisance’, in which it is not possible to see and recollect EVERYTHING that happened. We all have visual blind-spots which are filled in by our imagination. What we perceive as ‘reality‘ is in fact a mental reconstruction, often an inaccurate mental reconstruction. To get at the truth a composite picture from as many witnesses as possible is required. That is why juries are instructed to build up as plausible a picture of TRUTH as possible from the WHOLE of the evidence presented to them, not just some apparently convincing snippets.
The evidence for or against God could not be presented in a court of law because it would consist mostly of ‘hearsay’ evidence or uncorroborated and unverifiable personal testimony. The rest would rely on how it is interpreted by the it’s proposer or detractor, neither of which can prove beyond doubt their impartial objectivity.
Which leaves us with the uncomfortable notion that the entire weight of so called ‘scientific evidence’ cannot prove the non existence of God, (only replacing superstitious explanations of physical phenomena with emergent but not yet infallible scientific reasoning). Neither can the combined ‘faith and experience’ of all religious deists logically prove God’s existence to anyone else’s but their own satisfaction.
So atheists and deists should just get used to the fact. They don’t yet KNOW!
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Love covers many sins. 1 Pet.4:8. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not holding their sins against them; 2 Cor.5:19
Posts: 255 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jan 2013
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RdrEmCofE:
The evidence for or against God could not be presented in a court of law because it would consist mostly of ‘hearsay’ evidence or uncorroborated and unverifiable personal testimony.
As a semi-tangent, the notion of hearsay evidence is, I gather, one of the more convoluted constructions within common law. (For example, it ceases to be hearsay evidence and becomes proper evidence if the person reported was dying. The purported justification is that nobody would lie when they are about to meet their maker.)
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Croesos
SETI isn't about inferring the existence of an "unobserved intelligence" it's about verifying intelligence through observation. If SETI really could infer things without making observations, then all those radio telescopes really would be as huge a boondoggle as you suggest.
OK, so what you are saying is that a scientist working on this project could not possibly even remotely suggest that an apparently 'intelligent' signal could have come from an extra terrestrial intelligence, unless that intelligence is directly observed?
If you are not saying that, then my point stands and "inferring the existence of an unobserved intelligence from observation" and "verifying the existence of an unobserved intelligence through observation" amount to exactly the same thing.
If you then say that we cannot verify the existence of an intelligent creator through the observation of the complexity of living systems, because we can try to cook up an entirely naturalistic (albeit insanely far-fetched) explanation for this extreme level of complexity, then I could just as easily throw the argument back at you and say: "OK, so then I'll cook up an entirely naturalistic explanation for the origin of those signals." You can't have it both ways (well, I suppose people can, if they don't care about intellectual honesty and integrity).
quote:
It's kind of a central error, on the level of writing a treatise on early Christianity and referring to its founder as "Jerry Christ". If you're making a case about Christianity, you should at least get Jerry's name right, and if you're making an argument about a NASA program*, you should either know what NASA stands for, or avoid trying to disentangle the acronym.
OK, so someone makes an argument about Jerry Christ, and we all know he meant to say Jesus Christ, but because of this silly error (and who knows, it could have been his publisher on the bottle?) we refuse to engage with his argument about said incorrectly identified person.
Again, I ask: how does this error invalidate the argument he is making?
I would agree that such a stupid mistake (which I admit I didn't notice) does display a lack of rigour on the part of Lennox (assuming it was actually his error and not his publisher's) and that could lead us to assume that he has not applied appropriate diligence to the rest of the argument. But to dismiss the argument on the basis of that suspicion alone - without actually attempting to refute the argument - is itself evidence of a lack of rigour on the part of Lennox's critic. I would have thought that if Lennox is so sloppy, then it would be easy to refute his argument. So why didn't Dave W. do this?
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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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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RdrEmCofE
The evidence for or against God could not be presented in a court of law because it would consist mostly of ‘hearsay’ evidence or uncorroborated and unverifiable personal testimony.
It depends how we define the term 'God'. We can certainly infer the existence of God - at least to a high level of probability - on the basis of a range of arguments (arguments relating to complexity, reason, consciousness, morality, for example). These arguments are not invalidated by the possibility of alternative explanations, because those explanations need to be plausible and, more importantly, need to falsify (not merely oppose) the God / intelligence explanations.
If a dead body is discovered with a gunshot wound to the head and no firearm is found anywhere near the body, then this empirical evidence would lead investigators to infer murder rather than suicide (even though no direct observational evidence of the murderer is available - i.e. we cannot obviously see the culprit directly from the evidence of the crime scene, and no one saw him in the act of committing the murder). I don't think anyone could possibly argue that the inference of non-suicidal personal agency should be relegated to the same evidential status as hearsay and personal testimony if someone could come up with an alternative possible - though highly improbable - suicide scenario (the person shot himself and then his dog came and picked up the gun with his teeth and walked off with it and deposited it somewhere!).
But this seems to be the kind of reasoning that we are constantly told is consistent with the rigorous scientific method: if a naturalistic explanation can be concocted for any phenomenon - no matter how improbable - then that rules out any rival explanation - especially one that could involve personal agency.
[ 16. January 2013, 09:30: Message edited by: EtymologicalEvangelical ]
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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 you then say that we cannot verify the existence of an intelligent creator through the observation of the complexity of living systems, because we can try to cook up an entirely naturalistic (albeit insanely far-fetched) explanation for this extreme level of complexity
Sigh. It's not far-fetched.
As for SETI, assuming natural causes for any unexplained signals they detect is exactly what they do. Only if every conceivable natural cause could be proved not to have caused the signal would they even begin to postulate alien intelligence. If they were operating under the assumption that such an intelligence existed and were merely looking for any old signal that they could claim proves it they'd have done so a hundred times by now.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
I'm also slightly confused at the conflation between 'intelligence' and 'non-natural'. Intelligence is natural according to the philosophy EE is arguing against; that's the whole point. God, on this value of 'natural', isn't.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
As for SETI, assuming natural causes for any unexplained signals they detect is exactly what they do. Only if every conceivable natural cause could be proved not to have caused the signal would they even begin to postulate alien intelligence. If they were operating under the assumption that such an intelligence existed and were merely looking for any old signal that they could claim proves it they'd have done so a hundred times by now.
Oh well, I suppose no alien intelligence is possible then, because according to the way science seems to work, a naturalistic explanation will be concocted for any phenomenon, no matter how complex. After all, if the most complex system known to man - the human brain - is considered to be the result of the operation of natural laws alone (and that ludicrous 'miracle' is not even considered to be far-fetched), then it is certainly a doddle for nature to knock together a signal with a series of prime numbers or whatever.
Therefore only a signal much more complex than the informational content by which the brain functions, could be deemed to be the result of intelligent construction.
Unless of course, science wants to make a convenient and logically (not to mention morally) unjustifiable exception for alien intelligence...
(Which is actually the point Lennox was making).
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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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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Therefore only a signal much more complex than the informational content by which the brain functions, could be deemed to be the result of intelligent construction.
Unless of course, science wants to make a convenient and logically (not to mention morally) unjustifiable exception for alien intelligence...
No. The two cases are different because:
a. There is no positive evidence that abiogenesis can be caused as a result of intelligence. At best all you can show is that it can't be explained in terms of currently understood natural processes. It doesn't follow that the unknown causative process must be intelligence.
b. Conversely we do have evidence of radio signals being caused by intelligence, viz. the BBC.
Therefore, to hypothesise that a radio signal demonstrates alien intelligence requires fewer assumptions than to hypothesise the same of abiogenesis.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Oh well, I suppose no alien intelligence is possible then, because according to the way science seems to work, a naturalistic explanation will be concocted for any phenomenon, no matter how complex.
Say rather that it's extremely unlikely that SETI will find any conclusive evidence of alien intelligence. That in itself says nothing about whether such an intelligence is possible.
If they didn't view this signal as caused by aliens then I don't know what more they expect!
quote:
After all, if the most complex system known to man - the human brain - is considered to be the result of the operation of natural laws alone (and that ludicrous 'miracle' is not even considered to be far-fetched), then it is certainly a doddle for nature to knock together a signal with a series of prime numbers or whatever.
For sure, that could happen. It's really improbable, but even extremely improbable things are statistically likely given enough time.
quote:
Therefore only a signal much more complex than the informational content by which the brain functions, could be deemed to be the result of intelligent construction.
"Deemed" is the wrong word - "proved" would be better.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
But I don't accept the charge of 'bad logic', because I was simply pointing out the inconsistency of using the scientific method to infer the existence and operation of an unobserved intelligence in one respect, and then declaring that the existence and operation of an unobserved intelligence in another respect is contrary to science.
You need to expolain that better then, because it isn;t and nothing you have written tells me why you think it is. Forget Lennox (whoever he is) what reasons do YOU have for saying that science can't think about intelligence? On the face of it it seems an absurd idea, and I can't quite understand why someone as apparently intelligent as you would be trying to defend it.
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
But this seems to be the kind of reasoning that we are constantly told is consistent with the rigorous scientific method: if a naturalistic explanation can be concocted for any phenomenon - no matter how improbable - then that rules out any rival explanation - especially one that could involve personal agency.
What nonsense! Who is "constantly" telling us this stupidity? The only person I have heard it from is you. No-one ever mentioned anything like it in any of the many years of scientific education I went through.
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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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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
If you are not saying that, then my point stands and "inferring the existence of an unobserved intelligence from observation" and "verifying the existence of an unobserved intelligence through observation" amount to exactly the same thing.
Yes, a self-contradiction. You're tying yourself (and whatever point you think you're making) into knots about observing something unobserved.
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
If you then say that we cannot verify the existence of an intelligent creator through the observation of the complexity of living systems, because we can try to cook up an entirely naturalistic (albeit insanely far-fetched) explanation for this extreme level of complexity, then I could just as easily throw the argument back at you and say: "OK, so then I'll cook up an entirely naturalistic explanation for the origin of those signals." You can't have it both ways (well, I suppose people can, if they don't care about intellectual honesty and integrity).
You mean something like this signal? Fine, go ahead. Explain why a naturalistic explanation, like the existence of pulsars, should be rejected in favor or a supernatural explanation.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Sigh. Croesos. When I can no longer learn from humiliation it's time to walk away. Unlike some round here ... well one.
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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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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
quote:
These arguments are not invalidated by the possibility of alternative explanations, because those explanations need to be plausible
By what means are you assigning greater plausibility to there being, for instance, an eternal, divine realm hanging somewhere outside space and time which through some undefined way connects with our brains and endows us with reason, rationality and consciousness, to the explanation that they somehow occur through undefined interactions within brains and well defined interactions between them - brains that (a naturalist would argue) evolved over billions of years of evolution? So far all you've given are some, shall we say, non standard inferences and assertions (rationality cannot derive from a non rational source for example), some quotes from CS Lewis, plenty of adjectives and a fair sprinkling of your trademark bluster.
quote:
But this seems to be the kind of reasoning that we are constantly told is consistent with the rigorous scientific method: if a naturalistic explanation can be concocted for any phenomenon - no matter how improbable - then that rules out any rival explanation - especially one that could involve personal agency.
It doesn't rule out more parsimonious naturalistic explanations, but of course non natural explanations (and lets be clear here, that just means supernatural or religious ones) are ruled out as science. This is uncontroversial to pretty much everyone except... If I go much further we'll end up in a Tesco burger, I'm afraid.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
Posts: 373 | From: Derby, UK | Registered: Jul 2012
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
But this seems to be the kind of reasoning that we are constantly told is consistent with the rigorous scientific method: if a naturalistic explanation can be concocted for any phenomenon - no matter how improbable - then that rules out any rival explanation - especially one that could involve personal agency.
What nonsense! Who is "constantly" telling us this stupidity? The only person I have heard it from is you. No-one ever mentioned anything like it in any of the many years of scientific education I went through. [/QUOTE]
I think philosophers who are exploring the implications of naturalism are more likely to come up with something like this. Practicing scientists are just doing research that might yield conclusions.
I think, if I remember his book Intention correctly, that Daniel Dennett holds some such sort of view. Intentions and beliefs and so on are a primitive theory that early humans used to explain human behaviour. But there's no good reason to suppose that our psychology is any more valid than the idea that heavy objects fall faster or that fire is an element. Refer to neuroscience experiments, brain scanning, etc etc.
It goes back to Quine's observation that a properly scientific theory must eliminate intentional propositions. (That is, X believes that Y.) This is because values of Y that are logically equivalent can give such propositions different truth values. (For example, if X is a Nixon supporter who works for the FBI, X believes Mark Felt is a loyal American, and X believes Deep Throat is a commie pinko traitor, could both be true.)
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
"shrug"
I'm afraid in about 11 years of studying biology neither Dennet nor Quine got mentioned once... I think you are right, scientists don't actually bother with this sort of stuff. And if it comes up with such stupid notions, its that's fair enough.
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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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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus
No. The two cases are different because:
a. There is no positive evidence that abiogenesis can be caused as a result of intelligence. At best all you can show is that it can't be explained in terms of currently understood natural processes. It doesn't follow that the unknown causative process must be intelligence.
b. Conversely we do have evidence of radio signals being caused by intelligence, viz. the BBC.
Therefore, to hypothesise that a radio signal demonstrates alien intelligence requires fewer assumptions than to hypothesise the same of abiogenesis.
Well this really depends on the validity of your assumptions. I was arguing on the basis of complexity, and if you want to resort to analogy (comparing BBC signals with signals from outer space), then I could just as easily argue that we have no evidence that complex functional systems (for which we know the cause) have ever come into being without the influence and input of intelligence. (You may perhaps object that you were not resorting to analogy, because signals are signals. Fair enough. Then I could also say that information is information.)
The systems of life are driven by information, which is highly specific. If such information was generated without the sieve of intelligent discrimination, by which useful information is retained and harmful information screened out, then we are making an assumption which lacks any kind of empirical support.
So if you want to appeal to Occam's Razor (itself an arbitrary method of reasoning), then I could do the same and formulate a hypothesis based on an empirically based assumption by analogy rather than on an assumption which bears no relation to reality as we know it.
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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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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
It's really improbable, but even extremely improbable things are statistically likely given enough time.
That is not necessarily true. It depends what kind of improbability we are talking about. If the cause of something depends on an unbroken sequence of improbable events, then it becomes exponentially more improbable as time progresses.
A simple calculation relating to the throw of a die demonstrates this...
Odds of throwing the following number of sixes in an unbroken sequence:
1 x 6: 1/6
2 x 6: 1/36
3 x 6: 1/216
....
100 x 6: 1/ (6.53 x 10^77), which is a number so vast that if it expressed a distance in nanometres it would be equivalent to over 740,000 trillion trillion trillion times the diameter of the known universe. And these are the odds of throwing an unbroken sequence of 100 sixes, which must be fairly simple compared to the odds of obtaining the complex structures of even the simplest cell without intelligent intervention.
It's no good saying that this argument doesn't apply to the sequence of the building blocks of life, because clearly any detrimental reaction (e.g. the wrong amino acid, for example) takes us back to square one. If nature produces something useful, it doesn't say "oh I must store that away somewhere safe and only bring it out when another useful reaction occurs". The universe is not friendly to life, is it? It snuffs it out far more easily than it could ever create it. I understand that many biological reactions are reversible and, of course, the reactions needed for abiogenesis are highly specific, so we are clearly dealing with the need for unbroken sequences.
Therefore the argument that "given enough time improbable events become more likely" is not valid. In fact, it couldn't be more wrong.
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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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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
I'm afraid in about 11 years of studying biology neither Dennet nor Quine got mentioned once... I think you are right, scientists don't actually bother with this sort of stuff. And if it comes up with such stupid notions, its that's fair enough.
I think it's a distinction between people who are just using naturalism as a methodology and people who are trying to work it out as a metaphysical metatheory.
Basically, the ghost of Skinner still stalks philosophy of mind, despite repeated exorcism.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
It's no good saying that this argument doesn't apply to the sequence of the building blocks of life, because clearly any detrimental reaction (e.g. the wrong amino acid, for example) takes us back to square one.
That's where you're wrong. A single duff amino acid may well bugger up the individual organism, but the rest of the population will still be there. If one goat is born with a hideous, viability-erasing mutation that doesn't mean every single goat ceases to exist!
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
EE - firstly, we can already do maths and probability here, but how exactly does one calculate the probability of an unknown series of events?
No one is stupid enough to propose that a protein assembled itself in one go. Was it you who earlier totally misunderstood RNA world and thought it needed proteins to work? Might it be worth spending more time reading papers on research into abiogenesis and less reading ID proponents telling you it's all bullshit? Just a thought.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider
EE - firstly, we can already do maths and probability here
Obviously some people can't, otherwise the "given enough time anything can happen" fallacy would not have been argued for.
quote:
...how exactly does one calculate the probability of an unknown series of events?
It depends how 'unknown' that series is. Materialistic reductionism ought, at least, to have some idea concerning abiogenesis, otherwise it rather fails to live up to its 'reductionist' credentials.
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No one is stupid enough to propose that a protein assembled itself in one go.
Quite right. Since I never suggested such a thing, I can't quite see the point of the comment. Did you miss the phrase "unbroken sequence" in what I wrote? The word 'sequence' hardly suggests "in one go", does it?
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Was it you who earlier totally misunderstood RNA world and thought it needed proteins to work?
I wouldn't feel so smug and confident about the RNA World hypothesis, if I were you. There is a great deal of scepticism about it, and no, not from the ID camp either.
quote:
Might it be worth spending more time reading papers on research into abiogenesis and less reading ID proponents telling you it's all bullshit? Just a thought.
I bet writing that comment made you feel better! The fact that it is devoid of truth doesn't matter, I suppose, in the world of internet one-upmanship. Well done.
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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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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
I started to answer, EE, but you're far too clever for me and know everything and therefore I must be wrong so I'm giving up.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider
Was it you who earlier totally misunderstood RNA world and thought it needed proteins to work?
Perhaps you would be so kind as to explain to me the function(s) of ribosomal proteins, and why (I assume) you think that such functions were, at one time, unnecessary.
I look forward to your answer, which I will compare with peer reviewed scholarship.
(I realise this is a DH subject, so I expect this thread will be moved. Otherwise we will have to open a new thread down there, as admin may advise).
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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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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
I refer the hon. gent to my previous post. Life's too short to get into an arse kicking competition with a porcupine.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
Life's long enough to run up 12,404 posts on the Ship, but too short to back up a previous assertion with something called 'evidence'.
Oh well. I suppose capitulation takes many forms...
![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
[ 18. January 2013, 11:17: Message edited by: EtymologicalEvangelical ]
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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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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
You may perhaps object that you were not resorting to analogy, because signals are signals. Fair enough. Then I could also say that information is information.
Not necessarily. Wikipedia would suggest there are multiple definitions of information. It seems to me that DNA is not 'information' in the same way that The Archers is information. There isn't a little man sitting inside a cell nucleus reading the DNA like a technical manual and thinking, 'Ah, now it's time to create a hand.'
To be rigorous, I think you'd have to come up with a non-arbitrary definition of 'information' that could comprise both cell DNA and the BBC World Service, but which demonstrably only included things that are known to have arisen as a result of intelligence (or else of unknown origin).
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
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EtymologicalEvangelical
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# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus
There isn't a little man sitting inside a cell nucleus reading the DNA like a technical manual and thinking, 'Ah, now it's time to create a hand.'
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Whoever said there was?
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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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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Life's long enough to run up 12,404 posts on the Ship, but too short to back up a previous assertion with something called 'evidence'.
Oh well. I suppose capitulation takes many forms...
Whatever makes you happy, EE
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus
There isn't a little man sitting inside a cell nucleus reading the DNA like a technical manual and thinking, 'Ah, now it's time to create a hand.'
Whoever said there was?
I was being facetious. The point is that there's no conscious agency involved in interpreting DNA, which under some definitions of 'information' means that DNA is not information.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
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EtymologicalEvangelical
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# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus
The point is that there's no conscious agency involved in interpreting DNA, which under some definitions of 'information' means that DNA is not information.
So under those definitions, when the chess computers Hydra or Deep Junior calculate millions of positions, the vast majority of which cannot come to the attention of any conscious agency, they are not processing information (or at least the discarded positions are not considered to be 'information')? No conscious agency is involved in directly enabling these computers to 'think' of any particular position; they simply run on their original programming. Furthermore, the interpretation of each position in the context of each game cannot obviously have been programmed in specifically, because such programming would encompass a level of input that would require trillions of (or maybe even infinity) years of programming time.
If you then perhaps feel like arguing that each chess position could in principle be interpreted by a conscious being, then the same could be said of DNA.
So those definitions of 'information' are rather strange, to say the least.
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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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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
I don't think an unproblematic, intuitive definition of information exists.
How would you define information? Bearing in mind the constraints I suggested earlier.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Discussion of information also comes right up against the problematic nature of phenomena. I mean that one can take a kind of subjectivist view of this, so that a phenomenon must be an observed phenomenon, (Niels Bohr), or one can take a more objectivist view, that would state that unobserved things must exist. This seems to have many implications for religion, and for example, in Eastern religions, has led to the famous zero-ing found in disciplines such as Zen. 'Neither I nor the world exist', is an example of a zero type statement, where the normal aspects of reality are dismissed as unexperienced, and one is left with very little!
Perhaps these distinctions have been marginal in Christianity, although some of the mystics have explored them, for example in negative theology.
Thus, information similarly can be taken both ways - that is as observed, or not observed. As the pebbles on a beach are sorted into layers of different size by the waves, is this information? One problem here is that I have now mentioned this, so it has become something we are conscious of.
[ 18. January 2013, 14:07: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I suppose capitulation takes many forms...
Funny, because that's exactly what I'm thinking about your continuing failure to respond when I point out the flaws in your reasoning. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Hail Gallaxhar
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
Funny, because that's exactly what I'm thinking about your continuing failure to respond when I point out the flaws in your reasoning.
Such as?
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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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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
Funny, because that's exactly what I'm thinking about your continuing failure to respond when I point out the flaws in your reasoning.
Such as?
Bam
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Hail Gallaxhar
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
Going back a bit, this post was never properly answered either, AFAICS.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
It's really improbable, but even extremely improbable things are statistically likely given enough time.
That is not necessarily true. It depends what kind of improbability we are talking about. If the cause of something depends on an unbroken sequence of improbable events, then it becomes exponentially more improbable as time progresses.
A simple calculation relating to the throw of a die demonstrates this...
Odds of throwing the following number of sixes in an unbroken sequence:
1 x 6: 1/6
2 x 6: 1/36
3 x 6: 1/216
....
100 x 6: 1/ (6.53 x 10^77), which is a number so vast that if it expressed a distance in nanometres it would be equivalent to over 740,000 trillion trillion trillion times the diameter of the known universe.
I was wondering how long it'd be before someone broke out the "Argument from Very Big Numbers". Thanks for going the extra mile and throwing in the standard "Conflation of Probabilities and Physical Objects", which is always humorous.
For instance, shuffling a standard deck of cards produces an arrangement with a probability of 1/(8×10^67), in the general ballpark of your die-rolling example. By your logic it must be impossible to shuffle cards, given the incredible unlikeliness of the outcome.
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
It's no good saying that this argument doesn't apply to the sequence of the building blocks of life, because clearly any detrimental reaction (e.g. the wrong amino acid, for example) takes us back to square one.
I'm not sure why this is necessarily "clear". There are very few proteins that must be assembled in exact correct sequence, without addition, deletion, substitution, or transposition. Some changes don't affect functionality at all, some reduce functionality but still work to some degree, but very few will make a protein completely non-functional.
You also seem to be proceeding from the premise that there is exactly and only one way to perform any biological function. This is something which seems exactly contrary to reality.
BTW, I'm still waiting for your "pulsars are magic" explanation.
[ 18. January 2013, 15:34: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus
To be rigorous, I think you'd have to come up with a non-arbitrary definition of 'information' that could comprise both cell DNA and the BBC World Service, but which demonstrably only included things that are known to have arisen as a result of intelligence (or else of unknown origin).
I don't think that a definition of 'information' per se would have to be limited to those things known to have arisen as a result of intelligence (or of unknown origin), but rather a common category of information would have to encompass those phenomena. I would say that the structure of, say, ice crystals, constitutes 'information'. Likewise the algorithms of fractals in the Mandelbrot Set. But this is a fundamentally different kind of information from that of the programmes of the BBC World Service or of the genetic code. The former is algorithmically compressible information, whereas the latter is algorithmically incompressible.
To create fractals one only needs an algorithm and then a means to generate iterations of it (although actually it does involve a bit more programmer interaction than that, but I am simplifying the procedure for the sake of argument). So it is basically the same information repeated over and over. If the basic laws of physics and chemistry can come up with an algorithm and then, through the influence of the environment, apply it in an iterative way, then no intelligence is required (and, for the sake of argument, I will ignore the cosmological debate about 'first cause' to explain the origin of these laws.) That is why I don't accept the argument that "nature can create complex systems, because, hey, look at snowflakes!"
But the information of the genome and of the BBC World Service (unless the latter is broadcasting a very repetitive piece of music) is algorithmically incompressible. We cannot find some simple set of instructions which we can just repeat to build the entire 'corpus' of the (say, human) genome or the output of the World Service.
But "algorithmically incompressible" does not, of itself, necessarily mean "intelligently designed", because a random signal falls into that category. In fact, strictly speaking the information of the World Service has to be, in a sense, 'random', otherwise very little meaning could be communicated. By 'random', I mean that the symbols by which meaning is communicated (in the case of audio, these symbols are individual phonemes) are not determined by any physical law. This is probably better explained if I convert this information into its written form (but the same principle applies): if the BBC communicated this sentence in paper form: "There will be snow on Friday", the specific letters - or symbols - in this phrase are not determined by the chemical laws governing the structure of paper and ink. The molecular structure of ink does not determine that the first symbol should be a capital 'T', for example. There is no affinity between the information governing the molecular structure of ink and that particular symbol.
Likewise there is no affinity between symbols. There is no law that requires an 'h' always to follow a 't'. So from a mathematical point of view the sequence of symbols which facilitates an expansive linguistic lexicon is 'random' - i.e. not materially specified (which is not the same as semantically specified). Without the freedom to specify the order of letters independently of matter, language could not function as language.
Now this is also true of DNA. The order of the base pairs is not determined by the chemistry of the macromolecule. Of course, there are affinities between adenine and thymine, on the one hand, and cytosine and guanine, on the other. But the order of the pairs is materially undetermined. The "paper and the ink" do not determine the order of the "letters". If this were not so, then the language of DNA would be so restricted to the point where it would not be able to function as an effective code.
So clearly something else determines the order of the letters of the BBC World Service programmes and also the 'letters' of DNA. It cannot be simply the laws of chemistry, as I have explained.
Thus the type of information of both the World Service and DNA is essentially the same.
Now, of course, you could argue that DNA could be completely random, in the popular sense of the word. The order of the base pairs has not been determined by either an algorithm or by physical laws, but just by some "law of randomness" operating in nature. Firstly, it is difficult to see how this "law of randomness" could defy the laws of chemistry, but suppose the laws of chemistry could not create affinities with base pairs anyway? And so the order of the pairs is just arbitrary and by some incredible luck this 'information' just happens to be biologically useful.
Now we are in the area of what constitutes "semantic information", and whether the information of living systems does not need to be of this kind.
Consider the following scenario:
I decide to visit a supermarket in which all information is randomly generated. I wish to buy a jar of coffee, for example. What do I find when I get there?
The word 'coffee' is printed on what look like packets of peanuts. It also appears - misspelt as 'caffeee' - smeared in red paint on the floor. What look like jars of coffee have 'tea' printed on them, as well as the words 'cornflakes' and 'toilet rolls'. I find the phrase "this product is disgusting" printed on packets of bacon. And it goes on...
In other words, this is an environment in which there is complete informational chaos. Most of the information is complete gibberish, and, of course, the store has been 'designed' (if I can use that word) in a way that is not exactly conducive to a sane shopping experience (for example, products are just piled up haphazardly all over the place and so on...)
Now suppose I decide to tackle this chaos and by sheer fluke I manage to find what looks to me like a jar of coffee, and it happens to have the word 'coffee' printed on it, and so I have successfully obtained what I was looking for. Could I say that this word 'coffee' on this jar - this information - is semantically genuine?
Not at all. The symbols just happen to have fallen in the right place, and it just so happens that I know what coffee looks and smells like (as I really did have to check the smell of it in a chaotic place like that!), but given that other jars of coffee have wrong information and the whole environment is not conducive to any kind of shopping confidence, then the information cannot really serve the purpose for which, in an properly functioning world, it was intended. My reckless confidence may be the exception, because few people would be sure that the information corresponded to the product in the jar. Furthermore, the information was actually redundant, because the only reason I bought the product was because I looked at it and smelt it, not because of the word 'coffee' on the jar (because that information did not inspire confidence, due to the high incidence of different - and erroneous - information on the other jars, that looked like coffee).
The point I am making is that information can only be usefully functional in an environment which has been set up to facilitate that functionality. In my example, the word 'coffee' was technically correct - by sheer fluke - but in reality it was potentially misleading and actually redundant.
So if functionally useful information is generated without intelligence then the entire information of the total environment in which it functions must also have been generated without intelligence. But randomly generated information would consist of an overwhelming redundancy. In my supermarket example, 99.999999999...% of the information randomly generated would be redundant gibberish, and it would therefore serve to undermine and destroy the functionality of the tiny bits of 'correct' information that emerged by sheer fluke. (In fact, such information could not even be ascertained to be 'correct', because that definition relies on a convention - or informational environment or context - which 'reads' or interprets it).
(Of course, such a context - if informationally correct like a proper supermarket - could manage a few small errors (or mutations), because these would represent a minute percentage of the total information content of the environment. And thus these would be discerned and corrected, to bring them in line with convention.)
So the idea that functionally useful information can just be generated by means of a system that cannot screen out false or redundant information (such as the laws of nature operating without intelligent input) is nonsensical. Functionally useful information has to be specified, taking the informational content of the total environment into account. Obviously when we are dealing with the question of first life, the mechanism of natural selection does not apply. So don't bother bringing up that one to claim that it has the capacity to screen out useless information.
(By the way, so called 'junk DNA' doesn't count as a possible refutation of my argument, because its status as 'junk' is rapidly decreasing as science advances!)
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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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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
A single duff amino acid may well bugger up the individual organism, but the rest of the population will still be there. If one goat is born with a hideous, viability-erasing mutation that doesn't mean every single goat ceases to exist!
Context, dear boy, context.
Abiogenesis is a rather different subject to the example you have brought up.
So back to the drawing board for you.
Good try though...
Any more juicy comments I failed to respond to?
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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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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Croesos
I was wondering how long it'd be before someone broke out the "Argument from Very Big Numbers". Thanks for going the extra mile and throwing in the standard "Conflation of Probabilities and Physical Objects", which is always humorous.
For instance, shuffling a standard deck of cards produces an arrangement with a probability of 1/(8×10^67), in the general ballpark of your die-rolling example. By your logic it must be impossible to shuffle cards, given the incredible unlikeliness of the outcome.
Should I bother responding to this post?
Trouble is... I can't decide whether an intelligent being wrote it, or it was just randomly generated. After all, hugely improbable things CAN HAPPEN!!! And woe betide me for suggesting that they do not. If I suggested such a thing, I would be accused of resorting to the "argument from very very very BIG numbers", and I do so fear that terrible charge being laid against me.
So I will leave it there...
Pity though (it would have been so nice to point out the obvious fallacy in the comment. But who can argue with mindless randomness...?)
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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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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Croesos
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
If you then say that we cannot verify the existence of an intelligent creator through the observation of the complexity of living systems, because we can try to cook up an entirely naturalistic (albeit insanely far-fetched) explanation for this extreme level of complexity, then I could just as easily throw the argument back at you and say: "OK, so then I'll cook up an entirely naturalistic explanation for the origin of those signals." You can't have it both ways (well, I suppose people can, if they don't care about intellectual honesty and integrity).
You mean something like this signal? Fine, go ahead. Explain why a naturalistic explanation, like the existence of pulsars, should be rejected in favor or a supernatural explanation.
Oh for goodness sake, Croesos. Get a grip.
I was talking about a project like SETI detecting a signal which they then infer has been sent by an intelligent source. After all, isn't that what SETI is set up to do?
I then argued, that if "intelligent design" is not permitted within the scientific method, then they would have to find a naturalistic (i.e. non-intelligent) explanation for this signal come what may. Which, of course, is absurd.
What the hell has that got to do with me insisting that pulsars should be explained supernaturalistically?
Talk about twisting someone's words!
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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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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I was talking about a project like SETI detecting a signal which they then infer has been sent by an intelligent source. After all, isn't that what SETI is set up to do?
I then argued, that if "intelligent design" is not permitted within the scientific method, then they would have to find a naturalistic (i.e. non-intelligent) explanation for this signal come what may. Which, of course, is absurd.
What the hell has that got to do with me insisting that pulsars should be explained supernaturalistically?
Not pulsars. The question is why a naturalistic explanation for a regular, repeating radio signal (it's the signature of a rapidly rotating neutron star, a.k.a. "pulsar") is more acceptable than the kind of supernatural explanation you prefer (radio angels, or whatever). Especially given that no one had ever observed a pulsar before LGM-1. I can easily picture a 1967 version of EE arguing that making up a natural explanation for the signal after the fact was just the naturalistic prejudice of science at work. Why is "naturalism" okay in this case?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Croesos
The question is why a naturalistic explanation for a regular, repeating radio signal (it's the signature of a rapidly rotating neutron star, a.k.a. "pulsar") is more acceptable than the kind of supernatural explanation you prefer (radio angels, or whatever).
"The kind of supernatural explanation you prefer (radio angels, or whatever)." ???
Radio angels??
It certainly is a bizarre experience trying to discuss anything with you, Croesos.
I don't know whether you are just trying to wind me up, or whether you actually really believe that that is what I think. I suspect the former. It's got a name in Internetese beginning with the letter 't'.
As for a regular, repeating radio signal, why would I not think that was an entirely naturally originated phenomenon? A few posts back I explained my view of iterations, which are completely in accord with natural laws.
However, suppose a distant star seemed to emit information that was a series of ascending prime numbers, with no errors? Perhaps the scientists of the SETI project might consider that that was a signal transmitted by an intelligence? Would you think that would be a reasonable inference?
But no. They are not allowed to infer that. It involves intelligent causation. And that is not allowed in science!! So therefore they have to construct the "Clever Mathematician Star Theory" - a star with real brains! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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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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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
As for a regular, repeating radio signal, why would I not think that was an entirely naturally originated phenomenon?
Your general hostility to naturalistic explanations. I still can't figure out why you seem to think naturalism is okay sometimes but not other times. LGM-1 seems a perfect example of conspiratorial scientists inventing a post facto explanation for an anomaly rather than accept the possibility of a supernatural explanation, for those who tend to think in those terms.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
So the idea that functionally useful information can just be generated by means of a system that cannot screen out false or redundant information (such as the laws of nature operating without intelligent input) is nonsensical.
I think it is the concept of 'functional' I would query here.
Function to me implies purpose, i.e. something that has desires and will. So the function of the labels in the supermarket is to enable me to fulfil my desire for coffee. But when we're talking about non-sentient protoplasmic globules - or whatever the first life was - what purpose does it have?
Of course, one can also use function more loosely to describe something that has a place in a system, whether or not that system was purposefully designed. The River Mersey has a function within the water cycle. But would one say the Mersey is evidence of intelligence? After all, the shape of its banks cannot be derived from an algorithm.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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