We evolved capacity to solve Quantum Theory? [Archive]

Dave1001

22nd December 2006, 03:27 AM

We have the capacity to solve problems in Quantum Theory yet can anyone provide an explanation with respect to our evolution? Why did we 'over-evolve'. We needed this capacity to survive? What was the differential reproduction pressure that we can plausibly assign this strange human attribute. We have it, but does anyone understand why?

I have seen so-called skeptics point out that "design" is not perfect, and so they ask, "'shouldn't an intelligent designer be more competent?"

My question here seems to be allied to the incompetent design question, in an inverted way. How do we explain evolution producing extraordinary results such as the one I mentioned? Why would/could evolution 'over-do it'?

I think this is similar to the argument "It's amazing that the universe is so finely tuned to allow humans to exist". Well, in a universe not so finely tuned, we wouldn't be existing to observe that remarkable coincidence.

Similarly here, quantum theory is something on the outer bounds of human knowledge. If we hadn't discovered it, we wouldn't have self-congratulatory amazement that we did. And as a theory, it could be about as wrong as saying that the Earth is flat, relative to possible undiscovered models describing how the universe works.

As for how our brains are capable of coming up with quantum theory, it begins with the evolved capacity to think abstractly and to analogize. quantum theory is one of the areas that application of abstract thought and analogy have extended to. We got their through social evolution. How did we biologically evolve to think abstractly? It's a good question, and I doubt we have answers that are anywhere close to perfect yet. For that we should go to the thread about how language arose in humans. There's a variety of theories, including that it provided an advantage in battle/war and general cooperative group enterprises.

MRC_Hans

22nd December 2006, 04:25 AM

Fire: could have given differential survival especially due to extreme cold climactic changes.

The wheel: this one is more difficult to propose differential survival for, but I'm sure there are some plausible ideas.

Writing: I agree that this is more to my point that humans could probably have survived without it.

And further, I agree that a long list can be made. To make my point, why not start with our capacity to theorize the knowledge base that we needed to evolve our 'computer age', such as QM theory?

Do you disagree that QM theory is more than we probably ever needed to evolve capacity for? From what we know about our past need to survive, what natural pressures existed that could plausible explain this? [that's a rhetorical question: of course there were none - therefore I try to provoke debate on "over-achiever-evolution versus under-achiever designer" - see?]

We have not evolved to invent fire, or the wheel, or discover QM. We have evolved a brain capable of extensive abstract thought and logic, which enabled us to do all those things. Some of the things had evident survival value, others not. Your question is like asking: "How did horses evolve the ability to run races?" They didn't. They evolved the abilty to run long and fast, which is of excellent survival value for a prey animal, but this also enables them to run races. Which is of no (natural) survival value.

Hans

Dancing David

22nd December 2006, 06:06 AM

We have the capacity to solve problems in Quantum Theory yet can anyone provide an explanation with respect to our evolution? Why did we 'over-evolve'. We needed this capacity to survive? What was the differential reproduction pressure that we can plausibly assign this strange human attribute. We have it, but does anyone understand why?

I have seen so-called skeptics point out that "design" is not perfect, and so they ask, "'shouldn't an intelligent designer be more competent?"

My question here seems to be allied to the incompetent design question, in an inverted way. How do we explain evolution producing extraordinary results such as the one I mentioned? Why would/could evolution 'over-do it'?

Interesting question with a less than interesting answer.

You are asking a determinist question, which is a dangerous and misleading question in evolution. So the first part of the answer is you can't take a specific trait and ask what benefit it would have to reproductive strategies, unless they have a direct bearing on reproduction. You can then ask what benefit might be associated with reproduction or survival that might be associated with the chosen trait. Evolution is allegedly blind, it will make random changes that then have benefit to basing on ceratin traits or not.

So if you ask a specific question thenabout 'why did we evolve to understand QM', well it is great philospohy but not evolution. The question would be more easily phrased "What traits might have been selected for that would allow humans to develop QM?"

Dancing David

22nd December 2006, 06:13 AM

Fire: could have given differential survival especially due to extreme cold climactic changes.

The wheel: this one is more difficult to propose differential survival for, but I'm sure there are some plausible ideas.

Writing: I agree that this is more to my point that humans could probably have survived without it.

And further, I agree that a long list can be made. To make my point, why not start with our capacity to theorize the knowledge base that we needed to evolve our 'computer age', such as QM theory?

Do you disagree that QM theory is more than we probably ever needed to evolve capacity for? From what we know about our past need to survive, what natural pressures existed that could plausible explain this? [that's a rhetorical question: of course there were none - therefore I try to provoke debate on "over-achiever-evolution versus under-achiever designer" - see?]

The traits that allowed human beings to develop QM , could be very associated with survival. But the development of QM is not a question of biology directly, evolution applies to beiological traits that have reproductive benefit. Things such as culture and societies may have benefits to reproduction but they are not directly based in biology.

Memory: the ability to retain information. That could be selected for.
Communication: that could be selected for. In that the ability to form sounds ansd communicate with other memebrs of the species could have benefit.
Rationalization: the ability to select choices based upon things other than those directly percieved, questionable , but it could be selected for.
emotions: the ability to respond quickly to situations based upon non-rational methods, that could be selected for.
Fine motor manipulation: that might have been slected for.
Carrying babies around: that might have been slected for.

But in evolution it is easier to ask, what simple, non-specific trait might have been selected for will get you easier answers.

Dancing David

22nd December 2006, 06:14 AM

Not to dodge the debate you're trying to have, but couldn't the ability to do such things be a beneficial side-effect to a capability that we DO need to survive?

That is exactly the question and the debate, if you want to discuss evolution.

Orangutan

22nd December 2006, 06:42 AM

It's a side effect. Our brains evolved larger and the ability to think more symbolically, Probably because if the need to cope in increasingly larger social groups plus as soon as you have tool making as a side effect of understanding cause and effect you gain a survival advantage. I know I read Dawkings going on about this, I think it was in the God delusion but I could be wrong. Funnily enough he also argues that religion is one of these side effects too.

22nd December 2006, 07:01 AM

It has a lot to do with evolving a larger brain, and walking upright. Once we went to being bipedal, the pelvis couldn't reasonably evolve to allow a larger head to pass through; so humans started being born prematurely. Nine months is far too short for such a large brain to develop properly. Since human infants were born earlier and more helpless, it was beneficial for human society to develop, to provide a network of support while the infant human develops. Naturally, this required the large brain to support social and cultural notions for survival, and in turn required more abstraction, logic, rationalization, etc.

Once these traits became dominant, it would only be a matter of time before we reached fire, the wheel, language, writing, astrology, religion, physics, QM, and who knows what else. It was an evolutionary threshhold, like warm-bloodedness or color vision. Once we cross that threshhold, our survival is almost completely ensured, with innumerable side-benefits occuring.

The other feature of this evolutionary advantage is that we can come up with means of survival in any environment or condition, meaning there is no biosphere in which we will not be able to survive, if we put our minds to it. Of course, this means that we may be the ancestors of a diverse group of human-based life forms in the future; even more likely, if we consider the implications of genetic engineering for exploration and colonization purposes. I could easily foresee aquatic humans, arctic humans, humans adapted to living on Mars, and so forth. Of course, at that point, humans can crow about 'intelligent design' all they want, since humans will be the designers.

Man creates God; God creates Man; God dies; Man becomes God.

Meadmaker

22nd December 2006, 07:33 AM

Roboramma

22nd December 2006, 08:42 AM

While I agree with what others have said, and that the answer is pretty straight-forward (the ability to do QM is an adaptation of other abilities that did evolve because they were selected for or because they were side effects of other things that were selected for), it's a decent question.

It's basically this same question, after all, that tripped up Wallace. I think it was something along the lines of "Humans are capable of doing complex mathematics, but there is no reproductive value to complex mathematics in the environment in which we evolved. Therefore, the human mind cannot be a product of evolution."

Mind you, Wallace had a lot less to go on than we do now, but still, the point in interesting, and so is the answer.

Beerina

22nd December 2006, 08:47 AM

We have not evolved to invent fire, or the wheel, or discover QM. We have evolved a brain capable of extensive abstract thought and logic, which enabled us to do all those things. Some of the things had evident survival value, others not. Your question is like asking: "How did horses evolve the ability to run races?" They didn't. They evolved the abilty to run long and fast, which is of excellent survival value for a prey animal, but this also enables them to run races. Which is of no (natural) survival value.

Hans

Exactly. In a computational sense, once you get to a particular level, everything opens up to you. That's a fancy of saying we're at least as powerful as a Turing machine, which in turn implies we are, along with it, synonymous with "most powerful computational device that can perform, at most, a finite number of operations in a finite period of time".

Of course, that has no bearing on how clever an algorithm needs to be to be able to understand QM, but at least we know there are no hidden "things Man was not meant to know" hanging around out there.* That bit was well hashed-out in the early part of the last century thanks to true geniuses like Turing and Goedel.

* Not technically true -- the idea that a Turing machine satisfies the concept of "most powerful finite computational device" is only a thesis, not proven yet. But nobody has yet found a more powerful finite computational device. This includes humans, though some people (e.g. Roger Penrose) think there are certain "tiling problems" humans can solve that a Turing machine cannot. This would be a fantastic development (though I believe the current thought is that he is wrong) because it would demonstrate the thesis is wrong, or that humans have some "infiniteness" in their thought processes somehow, both of which would be highly interesting developments.

Dustin Kesselberg

22nd December 2006, 08:52 AM

As others have noted and to beat the dead horse even more (Though I don't like that phrase for ethical reasons)...

Two words..Side effect.

Beerina

22nd December 2006, 08:53 AM

[Horses] evolved the abilty to run long and fast, which is of excellent survival value for a prey animal, but this also enables them to run races. Which is of no (natural) survival value.

Key on natural. Humans make sure these horses survive and breed prodigiously. That one horse that just broke its leg, they spend hundreds of thousands on doing the almost impossible and healing it up. Why? An estimated $20 million in stud fees they can collect. (Interestingly, the insurance was also for $20 million, but that's just for future earnings/fees of the horse itself. The value of the progeny to that breeder in producing future contenders could also be millions per horse, and much more if one turns out to be superb. Collect insurance = $20 million. Save horse = $20 million in stud fees + high likelihood of tens of millions more in winnings and stud fees from progeny + good public relations against 60 Minutes doing a story on you how you just threw out the horse when it was "used up", cut to teary child, then cut to pontificating politician.)

Beerina

22nd December 2006, 08:54 AM

As others have noted and to beat the dead horse even more (Though I don't like that phrase for ethical reasons)...

Is there an ethical issue with beating a dead horse of which I'm not aware? Some people have a religious issue with copulating with one, but merely beating it?

Dustin Kesselberg

22nd December 2006, 09:03 AM

Is there an ethical issue with beating a dead horse of which I'm not aware? Some people have a religious issue with copulating with one, but merely beating it?

I think the phrase came from the fact that some people beat horses to get them to do things. I could be wrong.

slingblade

22nd December 2006, 10:24 AM

I think the phrase came from the fact that some people beat horses to get them to do things. I could be wrong.

It comes from the fact that beating a dead horse to get it to do anything is futile. It's DEAD.

Dustin Kesselberg

22nd December 2006, 01:16 PM

It comes from the fact that beating a dead horse to get it to do anything is futile. It's DEAD.

That's what I said.

VonNeumann

22nd December 2006, 01:54 PM

Freddy

22nd December 2006, 02:08 PM

Fire: could have given differential survival especially due to extreme cold climactic changes.

The wheel: this one is more difficult to propose differential survival for, but I'm sure there are some plausible ideas.

Writing: I agree that this is more to my point that humans could probably have survived without it.

And further, I agree that a long list can be made. To make my point, why not start with our capacity to theorize the knowledge base that we needed to evolve our 'computer age', such as QM theory?

Do you disagree that QM theory is more than we probably ever needed to evolve capacity for? From what we know about our past need to survive, what natural pressures existed that could plausible explain this? [that's a rhetorical question: of course there were none - therefore I try to provoke debate on "over-achiever-evolution versus under-achiever designer" - see?]

In general our cognitive faculties presumably give us a very large survival advantage. General intelligence, and especially language, are required for a species with our rather unimpressive physical attributes to survive.

It could be that necessarily an organism with the capacity for reasoning and complex language (both of which are survival advantages) that human beings possess would also be capable of doing science. It just takes curiosity, logic, time and a bit of luck.

Any specific story about how we evolved the specific traits we did would have to be speculative to some degree, but it is certainly plausible to suppose that the same cognitive tools that help us to survive as a species also have uses that are not directly survival-related, such as developing technology. After all, the ability to use tools is an adaptation that has occurred independently in a few different species, and technology is all about using more and more complicated tools.

VonNeumann

22nd December 2006, 02:09 PM

Man creates God; God creates Man; God dies; Man becomes God.

Perhaps our universe was created by God1. And God1 was created by Man1. Perhaps we are Man2.

In other words, let's substitute into your quotation "Man becomes God" so that it is "Man1 becomes God1".

Now God1 creates a new universe in which exists Man2. Now consider for arguement that we are "Man2".

So if you believe the snippit above is plausible, you believe God is plausible. Is that a reasonable assumption?

Foster Zygote

22nd December 2006, 03:13 PM

Fire: could have given differential survival especially due to extreme cold climactic changes.
That seems reasonable.

The wheel: this one is more difficult to propose differential survival for, but I'm sure there are some plausible ideas.
Considering how relatively recent the wheel is, the number of civilizations that arose without it and the fact that a number of cultures survive without it to this day, it is reasonable to think that the wheel is a useful outgrowth of human intellectual capacities that evolved for other purposes than developing transportation. It has no doubt affected out evolution, but something needn't be necessary for our very survival to do so.

Writing: I agree that this is more to my point that humans could probably have survived without it.
It seems reasonable to assume that we could almost certainly have survived without it. We survived much longer without it than we have with it, so far.

And further, I agree that a long list can be made.
So you agree that a long list of examples can be made of technologies that are of benefit to our species, but which emerged from our brains evolving under more direct survival pressures?

To make my point, why not start with our capacity to theorize the knowledge base that we needed to evolve our 'computer age', such as QM theory?
Why start there? Why not start at simple arithmetic, writing, or the wheel? How is quantum mechanics different?

Do you disagree that QM theory is more than we probably ever needed to evolve capacity for? From what we know about our past need to survive, what natural pressures existed that could plausible explain this? [that's a rhetorical question: of course there were none...
But that's not how evolution works in the first place. Natural selection works on that which is available to it. Evolution has no motive or purpose. It's opportunistic. We didn't evolve thumbs because of a need for thumbs. And we didn't evolve the ability to understand some of the complexities of the physical universe because of a need to do so. But if an understanding of quantum mechanisms enables us to evolve into a space faring, or even a star faring species then it is no different from the way evolution has always worked.

- therefore I try to provoke debate on "over-achiever-evolution versus under-achiever designer" - see?]
Yes, I think I do see. I just think that both the "over-achiever evolution" and the "under-achiever designer" concepts are flawed.

Foster Zygote

22nd December 2006, 03:18 PM

Dark Jaguar

22nd December 2006, 03:36 PM

We have the capacity to solve problems in Quantum Theory yet can anyone provide an explanation with respect to our evolution? Why did we 'over-evolve'. We needed this capacity to survive? What was the differential reproduction pressure that we can plausibly assign this strange human attribute. We have it, but does anyone understand why?

I have seen so-called skeptics point out that "design" is not perfect, and so they ask, "'shouldn't an intelligent designer be more competent?"

My question here seems to be allied to the incompetent design question, in an inverted way. How do we explain evolution producing extraordinary results such as the one I mentioned? Why would/could evolution 'over-do it'?

Well the problem is you assume there was some "over evolution". As others have said, it's easily explained as a side-effect of things we evolved for other reasons. Further, we didn't just jump straight from early man to calculating the weak and strong nuclear forces. It was a slow gradual build up from one generation to the next of information. Humans aren't THAT smart, and our brains are really only just barely capable of putting together all this info even collectively. The fact we are able to do this is a happy "accident". Let me ask you this, could our species have developed high level social skills and the ability to analyze their surroundings for better survival and hunting and problem solving WITHOUT also having skills to eventually do quantum mechanics? Sometimes a trait that is evolved has no choice but to also grant some other benefit by it's very nature, and in the case of our brains, I'd say that's the case.

And while a lot of the dualists here might disagree, I'd say that also goes for human conciousness, a necessary consequence of our brain's operation that was not avoidable.

Foster Zygote

22nd December 2006, 03:46 PM

Side effect ...

That's an assumption. I agree that given what little we actually know about it, this is the simple conclusion, that: language, mathematics capability, consciousness, are all things you get for free once you have as vast a machine as the average homo sapiens possesses in her cranium.
Does being an assumption necessarily make it wrong? And I don't believe anyone has suggested anything as simple as what you've written above. You've also stated that based on what we know this is a simple conclusion. Should we try to base a conclusion on what we don't know?

It's like... you have to believe this if random-mutation-and-natural-selection is what your mind is constrained to, as far as a model you accept for our origins.
"Constrained to"? I don't think it's a matter of constraint. One can make an in-deapth annalysis of many models for our origins and still arrive at evolution by natural selection as the best model.

"Side-effect". Hmmmmm. ...doesn't really say much, does it?
Actually, it speaks volumes. What did you want it to say?

I'm not astonished that for some of you, it is 'the answer', especially if Dawkins ascends to it. Others agree it is an interesting question with an interesting answer. Perhaps those of you who have plugged your 'curiosity hole' with this simple answer should contemplate it more. Please allow me to suggest that perhaps we don't know the answer, yet.
T'ai Chi, is that you? I'm beginning to suspect that this whole thread was just an excuse for the above admonishment. Many, if not most, of those who have not provided you with the response you desired are in fact very curious individuals. That curiosity has led them to the answers they gave. Their curiosity led them to investigate the matter and they've found a very likely answer that fits the evidence well. Might I ask what alternate hypothesis you are offering? You've suggested that they need to contemplate the issue more deeply. Have you done so? What competing idea can you offer on the subject?

Tricky

22nd December 2006, 04:15 PM

Let's talk Hamsters.

Every Hamster found in every pet store and Habitrail in the world is descended from one Hamster. It was found in the wild early in this century. I think there was a female and two males, but I could be wrong. In other words, the species was darned near extinct. Evolution had failed it.
Interesting, but not exactly true. And I'm assuming you're only talking about golden hamsters. Black-bellied hamsters are pests in some parts of the world. They are poisened like rats. As for the Golden Hamster (http://www.answers.com/topic/golden-hamster):

DISTRIBUTION
Although some accounts assert that this species is extinct in the wild, it may in fact be locally common; specimens were collected in the Mount Aleppo region, in northwestern Syria in 1999; other specimens were sighted near Jarablus in Syria in 1986 and near Gaziantep in Turkey, mostly recently in 1999.
HABITAT
Historically, this hamster's native habitat has been described as dry, rocky steppe or brushy slopes. The wild population discovered in 1999 was living in agricultural fields planted with annual crops including barley, chickpeas, lentil, melons, tomatoes, and others; hamsters were most often found on plots of legumes. Burrows were also found on the embankments around irrigation wells; all of the burrows were in sandy clay soil overlaying limestone bedrock.

CONSERVATION STATUS
This species is listed as Endangered.

SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS
Among endangered species, golden hamsters are unusual in that humans may have helped to prevent the species from becoming extinct by taking animals from the wild to use in biomedical research. The story begins in 1930, when four juvenile animals were taken from a burrow in a Syrian wheat field in 1930 and brought to the Microbiological Institute of Jerusalem, with the goal of using them instead of Chinese hamsters, which had failed to breed in captivity in a study of the disease Leishmaniasis. The golden hamsters reproduced very well in captivity; their descendents, along with the descendents of another 12 animals collected in 1971, have been distributed to research institutions all over the world. Although as of 2003, eight hamster species are used in research, golden hamsters are by far the most the most common experimental subject; in addition, they are the most popular of all the hamster species kept as pets. Escaped pets have established wild populations in some locations in the British Isles.

Despite their endangered status, in Syria the remnant wild populations are still considered as pests and trapped or poisoned using rodenticides provided by the government. Farming practices are another problem. In May and June fields are harvested, then burned or ploughed under; meanwhile sheep are turned out to graze in any remaining fields. At this time it may be hard of hamsters to find cover, nutrition, or the extra food they need to store for the winter.

VonNeumann

22nd December 2006, 10:33 PM

My OP keyed on QM as an application of our intellect, in a very successful way. Some have asked, "why stop at QM?". Yes, I could have used any one of many examples. Browsing through some of the threads here, I have seen the 'incompetent designer' thrust. Why should a designer necessarily have anthropomorphic qualities? Why should it/she fit what you believe would be 'competent'? It seems to me a moot point or an emotional view. I tried to venture into a thought provoking assertion on the other side: that evolution has the appearance of, perhaps the illusion of, being teleological. That seemed to me to be sort of the 'inverse' of the incompetent-designer.

The whole joke about hamsters would be funnier if it were truer to the mark - that is, if it were more relevent. The fate of hamsters has been described here as due to human selection; the human selection part makes it teleological. Human intention is purposeful, is by design and purpose, and is intelligent. So it is a blunder to compare hamsters with this point. The hamster point is so far off, it lacks the basic ingredient for humor. Humor has to have a thread of truth and honesty.

The only answer proposed here is: "do you have a better answer?" ...or...
"just because it's an assumption does not mean it's wrong."

I already said that I don't think anyone has an answer. I can live comfortably with a "don't care bit" in my decision tree. I do not want to satisfy myself with an answer, such as "side-effect", unless I am quite sure of it. If I am to take "side-effect" as the best answer, I will do so with the simultaneous reminder that it is an assumption. To become so sure of oneself that "side-effect" is sufficient, then one becomes a fundamentalist who believes with faith. Personally, I'd rather keep it open.

VonNeumann

22nd December 2006, 11:13 PM

T'ai Chi, is that you? I'm beginning to suspect that this whole thread was just an excuse for the above admonishment. Many, if not most, of those who have not provided you with the response you desired are in fact very curious individuals. That curiosity has led them to the answers they gave. Their curiosity led them to investigate the matter and they've found a very likely answer that fits the evidence well. Might I ask what alternate hypothesis you are offering? You've suggested that they need to contemplate the issue more deeply. Have you done so? What competing idea can you offer on the subject?

I don't know what/who is Tai Chi.

"Admonishment" was not intended; call it "appeal to reconsider". The competing idea in very general terms on "origins" is teleology. If you rewind time back to fundamentals and look at the big picture, the 'competing idea' becomes clearer.

At the fundamental level (the just-so arrangement of the physical 'laws'), evolution is moot on the subject of origins, though some try to apply an abstract darwinian view there, as well. So then, what are we left with to consider at the fundamental level: chance vs teleology?

The "chance" alternative, the anthropic principle proposition, suggests all this "just happened" but it didn't happen with any intention or purpose. And, if it seems like it was unlikely, that makes no sense because otherwise we wouldn't be here to wonder - yadayada yadayada.

The other alternative is telelogical. It seems to me that if we allow any hint of 'purpose' at the fundamental level, the door is open to consider it at the highly developed level, such as in the evolution of homo sapiens. ... and vice versa.

On forums such as this one, the little that I've been able to pick up on, most seem to be very sure of themselves that teleology is false. If that is high in your belief system, in the hierarchical-order of your mental construct, then clearly you have to rationalize that "side-effect" explains it all -- you have no choice.

On the other hand, if you are as skeptical as I am, you cannot allow yourself to be so sure that teleology is false. The just-so physical laws and the extremely lucky emergence of everything that came with homo sapien's incremental neurological revision, are a couple of examples why I keep my mind open to teleology.

Cosmo

23rd December 2006, 12:35 AM

On the other hand, if you are as skeptical as I am, you cannot allow yourself to be so sure that teleology is false.

No true scotsman fallacy.

The just-so physical laws and the extremely lucky emergence of everything that came with homo sapien's incremental neurological revision, are a couple of examples why I keep my mind open to teleology.

Argument from incredulity fallacy.

23rd December 2006, 01:04 AM

Perhaps our universe was created by God1. And God1 was created by Man1. Perhaps we are Man2.

In other words, let's substitute into your quotation "Man becomes God" so that it is "Man1 becomes God1".

Now God1 creates a new universe in which exists Man2. Now consider for arguement that we are "Man2".

So if you believe the snippit above is plausible, you believe God is plausible. Is that a reasonable assumption?

Let me clarify my statement. Words are not easy for me.

Man creates "God" (literary / mythological). "God creates Man" (creationist account, written by Man). God dies (Man's society matures beyond a need for 'God' stories). Man becomes God (does everything that his mythological 'God' could do).

Now, are you suggesting that this reality could be a created virtual simulation, or the result of an experiment by races that came before? It's possible, but there's no evidence that it's true.

Corpse Cruncher

23rd December 2006, 01:24 AM

We have the capacity to solve problems in Quantum Theory yet can anyone provide an explanation with respect to our evolution? Why did we 'over-evolve'. We needed this capacity to survive? What was the differential reproduction pressure that we can plausibly assign this strange human attribute. We have it, but does anyone understand why?

I have seen so-called skeptics point out that "design" is not perfect, and so they ask, "'shouldn't an intelligent designer be more competent?"

My question here seems to be allied to the incompetent design question, in an inverted way. How do we explain evolution producing extraordinary results such as the one I mentioned? Why would/could evolution 'over-do it'?

An interesting topic.

I cannot answer, I can only provide my own thoughts on this.

Evolve- over or indeed under evolve. We adapted and mutated to fit the ever-changing world around us. That is logical, if we did not would we still be here now?

Now some educated persons have already stated, as a human species the Neanderthals died out, could that be attributed to them not evolving as per us that now walk the earth? From my perspective, again that seems logical and accurate assumption.

Your statement about QM and we over evolved to crack it, in rough gist; I won't even purport to have even a rough basic understanding of QM.

Does that mean I am not 'over-evolved'? Does that mean that as one of many human species; I will fade from existence - leaving behind only my fellow brethren who have evolved over me?

When I was a child a teachers words spoken to her class before we fled the safety of the nursery comforts, said. "Now children, out there is a big but wonderful world. Do not be afraid of it, be aware of it and as it shows its secrets grow with them in harmony. But above all share your knowledge so others may also see the wonderment around them."

How true is that, for me it is an absolute as well as being intensely beautiful. Have I evolved or simply as I have worked out things I have acquired both new skills and an ever increasing capacity to seek more.

Evolved, I don't think so. I don't think knowledge is evolving - for how can it be?

Dr Adequate

23rd December 2006, 04:49 AM

How did we evolve the capacity to ride bicycles?

Oh right, we didn't. We evolved good balance and reflexes. We learn to ride bicycles.

How did we evolve the capacity to play the violin?

Oh, right, we didn't. We evolved dextrous fingers and the ability to distinguish between different frequencies of sound. We learn to play the violin.

How did we evolve the capacity to paint watercolors?

Oh, right, we didn't. We evolved color vision and and hand-eye co-ordination. We learn to paint watercolors.

How did we evolve the capacity to do quantum mechanics?

Oh, right, we didn't. We evolved the capacity for abstract reasoning. We learn to do quantum mechanics.

How did we evolve the capacity to know the difference between nature and nurture?

Oh, right, we didn't. We learned the difference. Well, some of us did. Others learned how to spout creationist bull.

Dr Adequate

23rd December 2006, 04:55 AM

Dave1001

23rd December 2006, 08:02 AM

scepticat

23rd December 2006, 09:17 AM

Many species develop characteristics that are not needed for survival. Evolution only weeds out the ones that are detrimental.

Foster Zygote

23rd December 2006, 10:35 AM

The whole joke about hamsters would be funnier if it were truer to the mark - that is, if it were more relevent. The fate of hamsters has been described here as due to human selection; the human selection part makes it teleological. Human intention is purposeful, is by design and purpose, and is intelligent. So it is a blunder to compare hamsters with this point. The hamster point is so far off, it lacks the basic ingredient for humor. Humor has to have a thread of truth and honesty.
You seem to be deliberately ignoring Meadmaker's point, which is still valid. Hamsters didn't evolve cuteness in the eyes of humans for the purpose of survival. There is no evidence of a teleological motivation to make hamsters cute so that humans will keep them as pets. There is also no evidence of a teleological motivation for humans to evolve the ability to probe the workings of the physical universe.

The only answer proposed here is: "do you have a better answer?" ...or...
"just because it's an assumption does not mean it's wrong."
No, the answer proposed here has been that evolution is opportunistic and that there is no evidence to suggest that a designer has steered us toward certain abilities. I'm sorry if you do not like that answer but you did ask the question. The question asked of you in response to your objection to this answer was "Do you have a better answer?". And your objection about being an assumption is still of little weight. We assume that gravity will function tomorrow. We assume that the sun will rise in the east in the morning. These assumptions are based on a great deal of evidence, just as our understanding of evolution by natural selection is based on a great deal of evidence. All assumptions are not equal. There is a difference between assuming an earth slide was caused by rain and gravity and assuming it was caused by the mountain giant's anger.

I already said that I don't think anyone has an answer. I can live comfortably with a "don't care bit" in my decision tree. I do not want to satisfy myself with an answer, such as "side-effect", unless I am quite sure of it. If I am to take "side-effect" as the best answer, I will do so with the simultaneous reminder that it is an assumption. To become so sure of oneself that "side-effect" is sufficient, then one becomes a fundamentalist who believes with faith. Personally, I'd rather keep it open.
Nice straw man you've got there. Did you make it yourself? Ask most anyone here and they will tell you that all scientific knowledge is provisional. There are no sacred ideas in science and there are no final answers. There are only the best current answers based on the best current evidence. In cases where the evidence is strong we needn't constantly remind ourselves that the answers are provisional, but even gravity and the sun rising in the east are open to revision in the face of new evidence. If anyone is behaving like a fundamentalist it is you. You reject the 'side effect' argument, which has a great deal of evidence in its support, for a teleological argument that you are unwilling to offer any supporting evidence for. If you offer no evidence to support your position then why should we consider it?

Foster Zygote

23rd December 2006, 11:09 AM

I don't know what/who is Tai Chi.
Oh, you'd like him.

"Admonishment" was not intended; call it "appeal to reconsider". The competing idea in very general terms on "origins" is teleology. If you rewind time back to fundamentals and look at the big picture, the 'competing idea' becomes clearer.
Please elaborate.

At the fundamental level (the just-so arrangement of the physical 'laws'), evolution is moot on the subject of origins, though some try to apply an abstract darwinian view there, as well. So then, what are we left with to consider at the fundamental level: chance vs teleology?
Evolution is moot on gravitational theory as well. Your point? Don't underestimate chance. If you go to Las Vegas are you going to be thinking about chance or teleology?

The "chance" alternative, the anthropic principle proposition, suggests all this "just happened" but it didn't happen with any intention or purpose. And, if it seems like it was unlikely, that makes no sense because otherwise we wouldn't be here to wonder - yadayada yadayada.
Another argument from incredulity.

The other alternative is telelogical. It seems to me that if we allow any hint of 'purpose' at the fundamental level, the door is open to consider it at the highly developed level, such as in the evolution of homo sapiens.
Sure. Do you have any evidence that there is anything actually behind that door?

... and vice versa.
Could you please explain what you mean by this?

On forums such as this one, the little that I've been able to pick up on, most seem to be very sure of themselves that teleology is false. If that is high in your belief system, in the hierarchical-order of your mental construct, then clearly you have to rationalize that "side-effect" explains it all -- you have no choice.
It's not rationalization if there is evidence to support it. If, however, one were to support teleology without offering evidence...

On the other hand, if you are as skeptical as I am, you cannot allow yourself to be so sure that teleology is false. The just-so physical laws and the extremely lucky emergence of everything that came with homo sapien's incremental neurological revision, are a couple of examples why I keep my mind open to teleology.
How skeptical can one be who rejects a theory based on evidence and accepts one with no evidence? I'll ask again: What is your evidence? Can you make an argument for teleology beyond personal incredulity?

VonNeumann

23rd December 2006, 02:42 PM

Let me clarify my statement. Words are not easy for me.

Man creates "God" (literary / mythological). "God creates Man" (creationist account, written by Man). God dies (Man's society matures beyond a need for 'God' stories). Man becomes God (does everything that his mythological 'God' could do).

Now, are you suggesting that this reality could be a created virtual simulation, or the result of an experiment by races that came before? It's possible, but there's no evidence that it's true.
You didn't need to clarify. Your words were clear. I knew what you meant.

Yes, you are correct. I suggest that this reality could be created in the sense that you have already stated -- the plausibility that "Man becomes God". I am not specifying exactly a "virtual simulation", but merely as you proposed that you think man could be ancesteral to some future god-like entity. It follows that you believe it possible that this could happen in the future, that: some future universe could be created by some 'god' that descends from us.

Now, looking at it on the time-line, ask whether our 'now' is to the left or is it to the right (is it before or is it after) this 'event'. Some call this event the Omega Point. If the Omega Point is something you entertain, my point is it could have already happened.

Upon your use of the term "virtual", I'd like to suggest this: to conscious entities within a universe they relate to it as being 'real', but to the creators of that universe, they relate to it as being 'virtual'. It is a relative term.

The concept of 'real' is seemingly a subjective one, right? It is difficult to find an absolute definition of 'real'. Ironically, about the 'real-est' thing I can think of, that is, I feel sure it has existence even while all else might be questionable, is the 'realness' of mathematics. By mathematics I mean the essence of, not the language of. Like... where is mathematics besides in our own minds or the logic executing in our cyber-artifacts, and possibly within some unobservable substrate of our universe? It is the 'realest' thing I know because I believe it has to have existence, and yet it is quite 'unreal' in another sense that I cannot even express.

I hope the above didn't get too intangible and 'unreal'. Does anybody else sort of see it this way?

VonNeumann

23rd December 2006, 02:55 PM

No true scotsman fallacy.

Argument from incredulity fallacy.
Yes, I am stating what I find is 'a stretch'. These would be fallacies if I were debating them in a legal sense, perhaps. As far as evidence, either way, we humans are exceedingly ignorant in the area of neurology and so we don't know. Maybe chimps have almost enough neurons or synaptic connections such that if only they had a little bit more, all these good things would emerge: language, mathematics, abstract thinking, human-level-of-consciousness. ..or maybe it is not the quantity of hardware as much of it is architectural. ...or both. We don't even have a good model of how memory works in wetware so we have a long way to go. While our level of understanding is so paltry, I'll emphasize again that it is an assumption that an incremental change in brain 'design' (pardon the word but Dawkins aften uses the word 'design' when he means non-teleologically derived structures) can bring about all these things we've discussed.

VonNeumann

23rd December 2006, 03:14 PM

How did we evolve the capacity to ride bicycles?
/snip/
How did we evolve the capacity to do quantum mechanics?

Oh, right, we didn't. We evolved the capacity for abstract reasoning. We learn to do quantum mechanics.

/snip/

Oh, right, we didn't. We learned the difference. Well, some of us did. Others learned how to spout creationist bull.

That's a lot of words to merely say that you believe: We evolved the capacity for abstract reasoning [and with that facility of abstract reasoning] we learned to do quantum mechanics.

By 'creationist bull' I think you mean that teleology is a priori false.

To me it is not a very interesting view to be so sure of oneself. I think you might vehemently react to someone who is so sure that teleology is true. I don't believe the scientific method can decide this question one way or the other.

All in all, all you have said is you believe that some little thing that humans possess, that evolved, the so-called abstract reasoning, is responsible for all the remarkable things we have learned and created. BTW, I would say we 'invented' the model of QM - not we 'learned' it. I mean, yes, you and I either did or could have learned it in university but we aren't Bohr, Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Dirac etc etc who 'invented' it. It is an 'invention' because it is only a model. It isn't the thing itself that happens when an electron does something.

But I know what you mean about 'learn'. Isn't it an incredible capacity that we have? You can teach a chimp to ride a bike, but he won't (nor will my next door neighbor) learn QM. Our capacity to invent models of the subatomic world is apparently something that leaves you yawning and going 'so what' -- to you it's simply our ability to think abstractly.

Perhaps I'm more easily awestruck than you -- I dunno.

VonNeumann

23rd December 2006, 03:21 PM

Incidentally, if anyone wishes to attribute our ability to do QM to special design by the Magic Invisible Sky Pixie, then does not the same apply to our ability to do numerology, pyramidology, astrology, and other forms of numerical twaddle? In which case, you have to wonder what the Sky Pixie is playing at.

I'm as skeptical of your "from small neurological changes emerge vast abstract capacity via non-teleological RM/NS"* as I am of your Sky Pixie. You are a silly man.

* my paraphrase

VonNeumann

23rd December 2006, 03:24 PM

Although I'm a skeptic somewhat in your camp, but for different reasons (I think what we know primarily is how apparently limited our cognitive resources are compared with the complexity of apparent reality) I disagree with the fetishization of QT as some kind of threshold achievement that's remarkable to come out of our chimp brains. The remarkable barrier leaps in my opinion are abstract thought, communication of shared abstract thoughts, and development of the scientific method for knowledge acquisition and truth hierarchilization. Quantum theory, and a bunch of other scientific theories are n't different orders of accomplishment than those. Also what's most striking to me is the apparent species-specific uniqueness of these achievements. Abstract thought communication is of such great practical advantage that one would expect it to have arisen in multiple species independently, much like winged flight. Probably worthy of its own thread discussion on why it didn't.
You said "I disagree with the fetishization of QT as some kind of threshold achievement that's remarkable to come out of our chimp brains. " To what extent are our brains "chimp brains"? Merely a matter of quantity of hardware or is it the wiring? We don't know, do we? HOw much different is the wiring? We don't know, do we?

Dave1001

23rd December 2006, 03:26 PM

You said "I disagree with the fetishization of QT as some kind of threshold achievement that's remarkable to come out of our chimp brains. " To what extent are our brains "chimp brains"? Merely a matter of quantity of hardware or is it the wiring? We don't know, do we? HOw much different is the wiring? We don't know, do we?

Right. It's shorthand for our brains are apparently quite finite, much closer to the size, structure, and complexity of the brains of other chimps than to the size structure and complexity of the universe. Thus it's a bit hubristic for us to think we can get accurate modeling of apparent reality on these chimp brains. If anything, the opposite seems more likely.

VonNeumann

23rd December 2006, 03:30 PM

Many species develop characteristics that are not needed for survival. Evolution only weeds out the ones that are detrimental.
The part you said "develop characteristics", I presume you mean 'non-teleologically evolve new characteristics'?

We have no scientific model of how this happens. Darwinism merely says it happens by random mutation and then it is, as you say, weeded out by selection. The creative power of randomness, presumably includes ability to suddenly produce a neural network of vast capability beyond it's predecessor. Darwinism does not explain it except to axiomatically presume that it is by chance and not by design. That is why I bring this up in the first place. You just said something tantamount to: "it happens." Right?

VonNeumann

23rd December 2006, 03:39 PM

You seem to be deliberately ignoring Meadmaker's point, which is still valid. Hamsters didn't evolve cuteness in the eyes of humans for the purpose of survival. There is no evidence of a teleological motivation to make hamsters cute so that humans will keep them as pets. There is also no evidence of a teleological motivation for humans to evolve the ability to probe the workings of the physical universe.

No, the answer proposed here has been that evolution is opportunistic and that there is no evidence to suggest that a designer has steered us toward certain abilities. I'm sorry if you do not like that answer but you did ask the question. The question asked of you in response to your objection to this answer was "Do you have a better answer?". And your objection about being an assumption is still of little weight. We assume that gravity will function tomorrow. We assume that the sun will rise in the east in the morning. These assumptions are based on a great deal of evidence, just as our understanding of evolution by natural selection is based on a great deal of evidence. All assumptions are not equal. There is a difference between assuming an earth slide was caused by rain and gravity and assuming it was caused by the mountain giant's anger.

Nice straw man you've got there. Did you make it yourself? Ask most anyone here and they will tell you that all scientific knowledge is provisional. There are no sacred ideas in science and there are no final answers. There are only the best current answers based on the best current evidence. In cases where the evidence is strong we needn't constantly remind ourselves that the answers are provisional, but even gravity and the sun rising in the east are open to revision in the face of new evidence. If anyone is behaving like a fundamentalist it is you. You reject the 'side effect' argument, which has a great deal of evidence in its support, for a teleological argument that you are unwilling to offer any supporting evidence for. If you offer no evidence to support your position then why should we consider it?

I didn't ignore Meadmaker. What is 'cuteness'. It is a subjective quality that comes from human intellect. There is nothing 'natural' about cuteness. Hamsters are cute because we may think they are. There is purpose to humans selecting hamsters. Being of purpose makes it teleological, by definition. So it is out of scope to use a pro-teleological argument against teleology, is it not?

You said, "Ask most anyone here and they will tell you that all scientific knowledge is provisional." I have been to this forum enough to say that I believe I have observed many who will not admit according to provisionality of science. In fact, I think some are convinced 'science = truth' , and that's all ye need to know. They don't really know what is 'science'. Perhaps I sense that for some people who call themselves skeptics, that science is their religion. ...that's what I think I have seen.

VonNeumann

23rd December 2006, 03:50 PM

Don't underestimate chance.
What scientific evidence is there that we have had enough time in the universe for the 'just so' physical laws to get their chance at the craps table?

As far as I can tell, scientific evidence with the most peer agreement, is that the universe sprang from a singularity between 10 and 20 BYA. That was ONE crap shoot to get so many constants just right, that the chance of it is extremely unlikely 10^-X where X is huge but depends on who's saying it.

So where were all the other crap shoots that yielded universes that didn't have the right ingredients to evolve sentient beings. We don't know. Maybe none. Maybe infinite. Whatever you believe is something for which you have no evidence for. So why are you asking me for evidence. Where is the evidence that chance can produce this universe and you don't have any evidence how many trials there were to instantiate this universe?

And please, I don't need to have someone spell out the anthropic principle (AP). If AP makes your nipples hard then fine - but at the same time admit you have no evidence for it.

It's all about teleology = true or false.

VonNeumann

23rd December 2006, 04:16 PM

Right. It's shorthand for our brains are apparently quite finite, much closer to the size, structure, and complexity of the brains of other chimps than to the size structure and complexity of the universe. Thus it's a bit hubristic for us to think we can get accurate modeling of apparent reality on these chimp brains. If anything, the opposite seems more likely.
Of course, you could be right. On the other hand, hubris aside, there could be something 'special' about our wiring. I think it was Sagan's Broca's Brain where I read that Einstein's brain was not much different than average from quantity of neurons or quantity of synapses. The housewife next door cannot even balance her checkbook but she may have more hardware than Hawkings-- who knows. I'm saying, within homo sapiens, there is vast variation on capacity to perform abstractly.

Our brains obviously have finite connections and neurons, but we don't know enough about 'mind' yet to be able to say much more about it.

So you don't think we will get very far with our modeling of the apparent reality on our 'chimp brains'. I tend to agree. I think many on this forum would disagree, though. Some skeptics are very hopeful, or even expectant, on achieving knowledge of how everything works. Some believe we will evolve or will create an artifact that will approach omniscience. Whether our own 'chimp brains' can understand 'reality' on a deeper level or not, I don't know. I don't even know if anything can, within this universe, do that (as some say is implied by Goedel's theorem.).

Dr Adequate

23rd December 2006, 04:17 PM

Dr Adequate

23rd December 2006, 04:27 PM

That's a lot of words to merely say that you believe: We evolved the capacity for abstract reasoning [and with that facility of abstract reasoning] we learned to do quantum mechanics. But of course I did not expend these words merely to convey this message.

Your claim about what I mean is false.

By 'creationist bull' I think you mean that teleology is a priori false.Then you are wrong.

To me it is not a very interesting view to be so sure of oneself. I think you might vehemently react to someone who is so sure that teleology is true. Then again, your bizarre fantasies about me are incorrect.

I don't believe the scientific method can decide this question one way or the other. Finally, you make a claim about what you think rather than a claim about what I think.

All in all, all you have said is you believe that some little thing that humans possess, that evolved, the so-called abstract reasoning, is responsible for all the remarkable things we have learned and created. Now you're back to mis-stating what I've said.

BTW, I would say we 'invented' the model of QM - not we 'learned' it. I mean, yes, you and I either did or could have learned it in university but we aren't Bohr, Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Dirac etc etc who 'invented' it. It is an 'invention' because it is only a model. It isn't the thing itself that happens when an electron does something. For a second time, you speak for yourself, rather than for me. Now, what's your point?

Animals can have new ideas that they haven't been taught.

But I know what you mean about 'learn'. Isn't it an incredible capacity that we have? You can teach a chimp to ride a bike "The Lord hath delivered him into my hands"

Yes, you can teach a chimp to ride a bike. How did chimps evolve to do that?

OH, WAIT, THEY DIDN'T, DID THEY?

, but he won't (nor will my next door neighbor) learn QM. Our capacity to invent models of the subatomic world is apparently something that leaves you yawning and going 'so what' -- to you it's simply our ability to think abstractly.

Perhaps I'm more easily awestruck than you -- I dunno. Again, you attribute to me opinions, and even emotions, that are not mine.

Squishua

23rd December 2006, 05:08 PM

What scientific evidence is there that we have had enough time in the universe for the 'just so' physical laws to get their chance at the craps table?
Well, the fact that these physical laws are in place means they came about somehow. It then becomes a matter of what happenstance you choose to believe produced them.

As far as I can tell, scientific evidence with the most peer agreement, is that the universe sprang from a singularity between 10 and 20 BYA. That was ONE crap shoot to get so many constants just right
Big Bang theory could be wrong. As far as I know (and someone please point out if I am mistaken), there is no evidence that these constants could have varied at all. Perhaps it is the only way things could have transpired?

It is a matter of pure speculation to suppose which parameters could be different.

And as far as the crap shoot analogy goes, we have no way to know how many sides there are to the dice or how many "rolls" there have been. How many different outcomes there could be and how many have occured are total unknowns.
So where were all the other crap shoots that yielded universes that didn't have the right ingredients to evolve sentient beings.
Not here, obviously, but it is worth pointing out that the entirity of the observable Universe (save for vanishingly small amounts such as what we see locally on this planet) shows itself to be decidedly inhospitable to life as we know it.

Whatever conditions produced the Universe (assuming it was "produced" at all) may have produced billions (or billions of billions) of other "things" completely unlike our Universe. Things that existed, perhaps, for less than even a Planck length of time. Who can say?

Or maybe this Universe that we experience is really everything there is and no greater "macroverse" exists to contain or produce our Universe or anything else.

Or maybe many Universes exist simultaneously. Or consecutively. Or not at all.
Whatever you believe is something for which you have no evidence for.
I believe there is not enough evidence to hazard a guess at the nature of the Universe, how or if it "came to be" by some external process, how it might have been different, or if there is some greater scheme that it fits into.
It's all about teleology = true or false.
All emprical observation agrees that cause precedes effect, not vice-versa.

-Squish

UserGoogol

23rd December 2006, 06:47 PM

Dancing David

23rd December 2006, 07:13 PM

69dodge

23rd December 2006, 07:51 PM

It's all about teleology = true or false.How does it help to say "teleology is true"?

Does that really explain anything?

I mean, maybe it explains how we got here, but then you're left with the equally hard question, if not harder, of the origin of whoever or whatever put us here. Why should our existence need an explanation, but not its existence?

Inevitably, at some point, an explanation is needed for how something that can plan, can arise from stuff that can't.

cyborg

23rd December 2006, 07:52 PM

LEARNING IS NOT EVOLUTION.

Etch that into your eyes until Von Neumann until it sticks.

VonNeumann

23rd December 2006, 11:08 PM

LEARNING IS NOT EVOLUTION.

Etch that into your eyes until Von Neumann until it sticks.

I think you mean that "human learning" is not evolution. Yes. However, and I'm not speaking for myself when I say, some believe that it is valid to anthropomorphize evolution and say that life as a whole learns via evolution. But that is off the subject.

Tell me if you think there is something I don't understand, in view of the following statements. Homo Sapiens evolves; Homo Sapiens has a new facility presumably not possessed by his predecessor; The new facility is increased mental abstraction; the increased mental abstraction allows an incremental advantage in the environment in which humans evolved; subsequently, and presumably in the hundreds of thousands to millions of years following that evolution, humans have invented (I like 'invented' rather than 'learned' because what/who was the original 'teacher'? ) their languages, the language of mathematics, the procedure of scientific method, and are ultimately now seeking to invent models that are hoped to successfully, at some level, predict and describe how the universe behaves at the fundamental level.

The leap from the point of incremental advantage 10^x years ago, to possessing the capacity to seek mathematical models for particle physics is the point of differing opinion here, it seems to me. What one person seems to think is ordinary another thinks is awesome. To me it is awesome that our intellect emerged apparently to a level of being much more than enough to compete with the presumed challenges of survival at the time.

The capacity to 'learn' such as the ability to ride a bike is not at all on the level of what I'm talking about. A chimp can ride a bike, but chimps didn't invent the bike. Chimps did not even teach chimps. Humans invented the bike and taught the chimps. Big deal. But most of the human population could never be taught (could never learn) quantum mechanics much less have invented it in the first place. So what's all this big deal made on the word 'learn'?

The op says "we evolved the capacity to solve QT?" but the point made by some here is "we evolved the capacity to learn". And from that capacity or ability to learn, all else follows.

I've already pointed out the vast difference between 'learning' and 'inventing'. So besides my proposal that "learn" is not really what is meant, but rather "invent" is what is meant, I'd say that I am still awestruck that our capacity to invent language, to invent mathematical language, and so on, is attributable to mere non-teleological mechanisms as simple as random mutation / natural selection. That is not an argument from incredulity any more or less than it is from one who is incredulous that teleology exists in the fundamental laws.

More than being an argument about evolution, this point is about levels of neurological complexity. It is cliche to talk about the 1 or 2 percent difference in chimp vs human genome. That is so simplistic. Maybe of the millions of base pair differences in the genomes, it only requires a few base pairs to be changed to modify the chimp brain to be able to invent at the human level. That is, maybe a tiny difference performs some simple difference in the brain, such as, to make lots more neurons or stimulate the growth of synapses more aggressively.

If that's all it is, then the next plane of incredulity I suffer from is that mere extra hardware is sufficient from which there can emerge this human level of mental abstraction. I don't know if it could be that simple. Maybe that's where some of us diverge. I could go along with 'it's probably as simple as that.' But it seems unlikely.

If all it takes is more hardware, to rev a chimp brain to the level of human brain, then this is all trivial. It means that artificial intelligence may suddenly emerge from our computational artifacts simply when Moore's Law takes us there. That may be so but I doubt it. I think there may be something special about the increase in complexity of the human brain - not just size but something more fortuitous in the way it is connected.

cyborg

23rd December 2006, 11:15 PM

If all it takes is more hardware, to rev a chimp brain to the level of human brain, then this is all trivial. It means that artificial intelligence may suddenly emerge from our computational artifacts simply when Moore's Law takes us there. That may be so but I doubt it.

Doubt it? It is simply impossible. My dual core laptop is no more intelligent than my ZX Spectrum.

I think there may be something special about the increase in complexity of the human brain - not just size but something more fortuitous in the way it is connected.

That would generally be the way things work. Our brains are different and we are fortunate to have them. By evolution.

So you had a point?

Dancing David

23rd December 2006, 11:30 PM

But I know what you mean about 'learn'. Isn't it an incredible capacity that we have? You can teach a chimp to ride a bike, but he won't (nor will my next door neighbor) learn QM. Our capacity to invent models of the subatomic world is apparently something that leaves you yawning and going 'so what' -- to you it's simply our ability to think abstractly.

Perhaps I'm more easily awestruck than you -- I dunno.

There are plenty of things to be awestruck by, I can agree to that. Learning is definitly a good one.

And perhaps there are other magical things around us all the time. Humans learn, manipulate and develop complex social structures. Other critters and plants and fungi do other things.

As for the telo-logy. I am not sure that we can determine what effect it would have. because we would have to remove our ethnocentric bias, and perhaps dog barf is the meaning in the universe. Without the boundaries of human bias, meaning would be very hard to determine, especialy in a universe that is as large in time and space as it is.

Life is a wonder.

VonNeumann

23rd December 2006, 11:33 PM

How does it help to say "teleology is true"?

Does that really explain anything?

I mean, maybe it explains how we got here, but then you're left with the equally hard question, if not harder, of the origin of whoever or whatever put us here. Why should our existence need an explanation, but not its existence?

Inevitably, at some point, an explanation is needed for how something that can plan, can arise from stuff that can't.
I generally agree with what you said here. The scientific method is invented to model things that are non-teleological so it should start with that axiom and hold true to it. Ultimate origins are outside the purvue of the scientific method. That's philosophy, that subject of origins.

When you said "Inevitably, at some point, an explanation is needed for how something that can plan, can arise from stuff that can't." I thought that was an interesting place for you to go. I think you meant that an explanation for how a teleological source, like perhaps an "intelligent designer", would have to have arisen from stuff that can't. Yes. That's why religion has it that god has always been here, right? On the other hand, re-read your sentence again and substitute "humans" for "something that can plan", and substitute "from stuff that can't" with "predecessors that can't plan". Isn't that what evolution proposes to be able to explain? If simple random mutation, or 'chance', coupled with natural selection, can evolve a species that 'plans', and you believe that, maybe the purported teleological source of this universe could also have arisen from "stuff that can't" by some explainable mechanism.

This hearkens back to the point I made when the other poster said that a future god may evolve from man. I asked "how do you know that god did not already evolve in the past?"

Dancing David

23rd December 2006, 11:34 PM

I'm as skeptical of your "from small neurological changes emerge vast abstract capacity via non-teleological RM/NS"* as I am of your Sky Pixie. You are a silly man.

* my paraphrase

Punctuated equilibria. Changes are not going to be gradual, nor will they be progressive. Nutrition, good medical care and exposure to stimuli may have as much to do with vaunted inteligence as biological structure.

And vast abstract capacity, puhlease, that is soo enthnocentric. the associative functions are just as important as the abstracted ones. ;)

VonNeumann

23rd December 2006, 11:43 PM

There are plenty of things to be awestruck by, I can agree to that. Learning is definitly a good one.

And perhaps there are other magical things around us all the time. Humans learn, manipulate and develop complex social structures. Other critters and plants and fungi do other things.

As for the telo-logy. I am not sure that we can determine what effect it would have. because we would have to remove our ethnocentric bias, and perhaps dog barf is the meaning in the universe. Without the boundaries of human bias, meaning would be very hard to determine, especialy in a universe that is as large in time and space as it is.

Life is a wonder.
Amen, brotha' :)
I like the quote from IIan in your signature. We have to be skeptical about our own knowledge and yet not be cynical.

VonNeumann

23rd December 2006, 11:57 PM

Punctuated equilibria. Changes are not going to be gradual, nor will they be progressive. Nutrition, good medical care and exposure to stimuli may have as much to do with vaunted inteligence as biological structure.

And vast abstract capacity, puhlease, that is soo enthnocentric. the associative functions are just as important as the abstracted ones. ;)
The classical darwinian model of gradual change is not evident, I agree. Not in the fossil record. Maybe for reasons advanced: there aren't enough fossils; the record is incomplete. But then if punk-eek is really the norm, then how does simple RM/NS explain it? Yes, I'm incredulous about that model. That's what I'm saying: there are missing ingredients; there's more than mere RM and NS.

But you lose me on the "nutrition, medical care, and exposure to stimuli." Sounds like that suggests that we could take my next door neighbor who is incapable of balancing her checkbook, and put her on a nutrition program and send her back to a stimulating university, make sure she gets good medical care, and voila, she's getting her phD in physics and will join Lee Smolin in the battle to perfect Loop Quantum Gravity. .... huh?:confused:

VonNeumann

24th December 2006, 12:06 AM

I fail to understand how you can read purpose into the human mind. The really wonderful thing about intelligence is that it is so baffingly general purpose, that (in principle) it seems that it can solve whatever problem you throw at it. Teleology is something that skeptics should not reject out of hand (although the explanatory power of natural selection combined with Occam's razor does seem to say they should avoid it unless they find it absolutely neccesary) but the human mind seems like a blatantly anti-teleological entity. There is no particular state to which minds aspire, but rather we can just wander out in whatever direction catches our fancy.
hmmmm. When I wrote about teleology, I was addressing teleology in evolution. The appearance of purpose in evolution may be an illusion but my OP brought it up for discussion, not purpose in the human mind (unless I forget some point I made about that, as well).

But since you bring it up, I'm not sure if you are serious. You are saying that you don't think the human mind projects purpose. When we say "I will ..." that is not a self-aware declaration of intention? You think we do not intend or plan to do anything? We do not really possess 'will'?

VonNeumann

24th December 2006, 12:23 AM

Doubt it? It is simply impossible. My dual core laptop is no more intelligent than my ZX Spectrum.

That would generally be the way things work. Our brains are different and we are fortunate to have them. By evolution.

So you had a point?
Those were examples of my understatements. I don't know what others are thinking so if they disagree with my understatement I can see that divergence is on a very basic level. Since you agree that human brains are more than just 'big chimp brains', then we have some common ground.

All I can tell by what you just said is that you are happy with the idea that simple random mutation and natural selection can revise chimp brains, in the way they are wired, and even if that is a major revision, you are confident that evolution can blindly do it. No problem. Though, we are fortunate, you say. I suppose you are allowing that it is fortuitous because it is a hell of a fluke. I'm not sure - but that's what I think you mean.

If that makes you happy, and you have no skepticism with this simple answer, then you would not see that I have any point at all. I can see that. It is a subjective thing - this philosophy stuff.

VonNeumann

24th December 2006, 12:37 AM

I said it was interesting, and used the word might. It has nothing to do with dawkins and everything to do with the blind nature of evolution.

I suggest that you an essay called the Panda's Thumb by Gould and the just read on the theory of evolution. One can not really ask determinist questions.

But hey, I am more comfortable believing in a blind universe than one that has determinsim.
I read all of Gould's popular books.

BTW, I think you are equating teleology with determinism. They are orthogonal. You can have a deterministic universe that is not in any way telelogical.

While I've brought that up, I also think there is a better word than ethnocentricity for whatever you are trying to say. I didn't think the subject of the OP is political or social.

Cosmo

24th December 2006, 12:41 AM

cyborg

24th December 2006, 03:01 AM

Since you agree that human brains are more than just 'big chimp brains', then we have some common ground.

Moore's Law does not apply to brains - your analogy was flawed from the off because brains are not, from what can be established, big generic processing machine comprised of regular logic arrays. The rules of scale are quite different. Simply being bigger does not necessarily make a brain better - there are more than a few animals with bigger brains than ours.

All I can tell by what you just said is that you are happy with the idea that simple random mutation and natural selection can revise chimp brains, in the way they are wired, and even if that is a major revision, you are confident that evolution can blindly do it. No problem.

If I were confident evolution could do it for the chimp and the monkey and the rat and the lizard why the hell would I stop at humans? Hubris?

Though, we are fortunate, you say. I suppose you are allowing that it is fortuitous because it is a hell of a fluke. I'm not sure - but that's what I think you mean.

Everything in evolution is a hell of a fluke if you were betting on that outcome. I'm sure the other X amount of hominid species that failed to dominate the globe might think the same thing if homo sapiens hadn't lucked out.

If that makes you happy, and you have no skepticism with this simple answer, then you would not see that I have any point at all.

It's nothing to do with being happy. All you're doing is question begging that because, in your opinion, you see something particularly remarkable about human minds - in a way that is not remarkable about other creatures that are very similar such as chimps - that you are not happy to ascribe the development of to evolution.

You've created a cut off point for evolution based on your incredulity. YOU give me a reason why I should be particularly skeptical about human brain evolution and not apply this to all brains.

VonNeumann

24th December 2006, 03:09 AM

VN -

While teleology is a fairly well-known concept in philosophy and it's likely that many posters here (especially in the R&P forum) are familiar with it, it might aid the discussion were you to define it. It would allow us to familiarize with your particular take/definition - particularly with respect to this thread - and it would be a service to the less philosophically-inclined posters and lurkers.
Thanks for your suggestion, but I'm afraid it would annoy the majority who either already know, or who are one click away from google (aren't we all?) to see the wikipedia definition on it.

My particular take I have stated much of it, but it is scattered in the above. I'll try to enumerate some thoughts here:
1. Teleology is the idea that there is some far-reaching effect that is something other than mere fortune due to chance, but some underlying thing.
2. The underlying thing might range in the eye of the beholder to span from something like a participatory God, to a creator who set this universe free to run but with some ingredients that would make it 'tend' toward some goal, down to something more mechanical but quite unexpected such as some sort of time-loop or some screwy cause-effect dichotomy. I can think of some weirder ideas for fun, but I'll keep them to myself for now.
3. The darwinian idea (and it's derivatives) is simple. It is nowhere near the complexity of something like electromagnetic theory (which Maxwell derived around the same timeframe as darwin exposed Origin of Species). The darwinian model is explainable to an 8 year old child. Just because it is a simple concept does not mean it is wrong, but I think it lacks meat. When I was a teen, I 'invented' the idea that evolution needed a catalyst or an accelerator. I conjured the thought that viruses could spread genetic information cross species. I thought this might help explain the parallel emergence of things like eye design between mollusca and vertebrata. My peers were not biologists and no one that I told this idea to cared much. I even called this idea 'lateral gene transfer' or 'horizontal evolution'. A decade later, I read in the newspaper that someone else had the same idea. But it was decades later (yes, I'm kinda old) that this idea gathered momentum. Why did I tell you all this? My point is that the modern synthesis is very slow to take on new notions. Even a non-biologist like I am could come up with some souped up ideas. And I think, at least within my own self-congratulatory mind, I can sense where something is greatly lacking, and I think that random mutation and natural selection is too simple a model. The "idea of" ("theory of" is too lofty if Quantum Electro Dynamics is a "theory" - RM/NS is much less than that) evolution needs some turbo charging and as a skeptic, I am expressing my skepticism of the modern synthesis (evolution). By definition, any thing within the scope of scientific inquiry is to be explored with the assumption that the only explanations allowed will be materialist and free of teleology. Therefore, if there is any kind of teleology underlying how evolution works, it will NOT be discovered by science.
4. The scientific method evolved around the time of Newton where mathematics was shown to be able to be used as a tool of powerful scientific prediction. This fact that mathematics, an unreal thing, can be used with the scientific method, to model and predict physical behavior is astonishing to me. There seems to be something very far-reaching about mathematics: what is mathematics anyway? Not the symbolic language we invented, but the thing that was there before we humans existed. Where was mathematics then? Has it always been? Does it transcend this universe? I don't know why I think I should know the answer but I believe I do know, for some reason that 1+2=3 in any possible 'physical' universe. I could invent a mathematical construction where '1' + '2' is not equal to '3' but I would just be re-defining things and underneath it all, the fact that 1+2=3 is still there. The fact that mathematical theory made up for one thing is applicable to an entirely different thing is also strange. For instance, the made up concept for the root of negative numbers (so-called imaginary numbers) works very well in modeling physical things that intrinsically need periodic functions for their modeling. How could we have already invented the language of complex numbers to model the concept of roots of negative numbers, before we ever would know we would need them to model electro-magnetism, for instance? How surrendipitous. Mathematics manifests itself in only a few places: in the human mind, in human artifacts (computers), and underlying physical existence. "In the beginning was logos" is what the ancients said and maybe this is what they meant; that, logic and mathematics has always been. But that mathematics that has always been is .... what? What the hell is it? If it doesn't run or execute on a substrate, like within a mind or within a machine, where did it manifest before 'we' came about? If I were to answer, I'd have to either say that it didn't, or that it is behind the scenes and makes all the fundamental particles and the fundamental forces work. But that's because I'm sort of different in my worldview. Most people never ask this question in the first place. So if you are following along with me, and you dig what I am saying about mathematics being 'unreal' in this universe except perhaps as underlying physical nature, then something wonderful happened with the evolution of human beings. The apes didn't have it. Suddenly, a new substrate, some new kind of mind, sprang into existence and it had the capacity to be a substrate on which could execute these logical constructions of mathematics. It blows me away. Now mathematics had a new domain in which to 'execute'. In our minds. It couldn't do that before. Then humans begin to invent tools to aid with this and to automate the execution of mathematics. So as a product of our minds, we synthesize a new domain in which mathematics can 'execute'. Except for the instantiation of this universe in the first place, the emergence of the human mind is the first place for mathematics to 'be'. That last sentence probably crystallizes what I think it is that makes the human mind so distinctly different, not from chimp brains only, but from anything else except the universe itself.
---
I think there is a line in Dicken's "Tale of Two Cities" somewhere where he says something about looking into the eyes of another human being, into the blackness of their pupils, you are looking deep into an infinite universe. I thought it was cool when I read that as a teenager. Funny that simple random mutation and natural selection, for which deriving detailed mathematical models would be futile due to the complexity of any real bio-environment (we can't flipping even model a three-body particle-physics problem, for god's sake), should be able to evolve the human mind. I think that assertion has to be taken on faith, regardless of all the shouting from hilltops that there is evidence. I am very skeptical that it could be that simple.

I'd be happy to hear viewpoints on my musings about "where mathematics is" and what it means to say that mathematics is 'real' or 'unreal' - things like that. Did it make sense to anyone when I said mathematics had no manifestation until the emergence of the human mind, except as somehow existing in the underlying fundamental physical laws of the universe?

VonNeumann

24th December 2006, 03:34 AM

Moore's Law does not apply to brains - your analogy was flawed from the off because brains are not, from what can be established, big generic processing machine comprised of regular logic arrays. The rules of scale are quite different. Simply being bigger does not necessarily make a brain better - there are more than a few animals with bigger brains than ours.
No. Not brains. Of course. I was talking about our technology. I'll have to go back to see why that was unclear.

If I were confident evolution could do it for the chimp and the monkey and the rat and the lizard why the hell would I stop at humans? Hubris?
I don't expect you would. I don't understand anyone who thinks evolution stops at humans. That's strange. You mis-read me. If I am skeptical about one piece of a theory, it brings the whole construction into doubt - not that the theory can't be fixed.

It's nothing to do with being happy. All you're doing is question begging that because, in your opinion, you see something particularly remarkable about human minds - in a way that is not remarkable about other creatures that are very similar such as chimps - that you are not happy to ascribe the development of to evolution.
I am skepical of the modern synthesis model. I think it is too simple. In my previous post I elaborate on what I think is particularly remarkable about human minds.

You've created a cut off point for evolution based on your incredulity. YOU give me a reason why I should be particularly skeptical about human brain evolution and not apply this to all brains.
Again, I'm not creating a cutoff point - just saying that the inadequacy of the modern synthesis model seems to me more evident at that point. I do not expect to give you a reason to be more skeptical, but in the previous post I mused about mathematics and the human mind. I'd be interested if my attempt to express something about this resonates with you at all, in any way, if you wouldn't mind reading it (it's sort of long).

cyborg

24th December 2006, 05:32 AM

I don't expect you would. I don't understand anyone who thinks evolution stops at humans. That's strange. You mis-read me. If I am skeptical about one piece of a theory, it brings the whole construction into doubt - not that the theory can't be fixed.

You are skeptical that evolution could produce beings capable of reasoning about quantum mechanics (based entirely on personal feelings about this) and if you can't be satisfied about this then evolution just isn't enough and one must employ A Great Being Of Abstract Knowledge to confer it to us via some mechanism? Is this what you are saying or not?

I am skepical of the modern synthesis model. I think it is too simple.

You can be skeptical that you can build any mathematical function from a NAND gate and enough silicon but there you go.

Simple != impotent.

In my previous post I elaborate on what I think is particularly remarkable about human minds.

That's it? People go about doing math and continually improving and refining it - evolving it one might even dare to suggest - and that's what makes the human mind particularly amazing?

Again, I'm not creating a cutoff point - just saying that the inadequacy of the modern synthesis model seems to me more evident at that point. I do not expect to give you a reason to be more skeptical, but in the previous post I mused about mathematics and the human mind. I'd be interested if my attempt to express something about this resonates with you at all, in any way, if you wouldn't mind reading it (it's sort of long).

It's far too touchy feely. I don't get all skeptical about things like evolution because somebody starts getting emotional about mathematics.

Either evolution is adequate or it is not. If it is adequate then you can pontificate all you want about how remarkable mathematics is but it's still a by-product of organic agents of gene propagation.

I am used to dealing with abstractions and making complex systems from simple units. I don't feel amazed when simple things acting in a network lead to complex outcomes because I see it all the time.

24th December 2006, 07:18 AM

... It follows that you believe it possible that this could happen in the future, that: some future universe could be created by some 'god' that descends from us.

I would also fully expect it to have obvious signs of being created. Like being more amenable to life.

Now, looking at it on the time-line, ask whether our 'now' is to the left or is it to the right (is it before or is it after) this 'event'. Some call this event the Omega Point. If the Omega Point is something you entertain, my point is it could have already happened...

...Yet left absolutely no evidence that it did happen this way.

That's my point entirely: that any created reality is going to bear obvious signs of having been created. Ours does not, in fact, bear such signs; ours is completely hostile to life, minus one tiny speck of rock; ours suffers constant catastrophic activity, and is geared toward reaching maximum entropy.

I would expect a created universe to be better-made.

The concept of 'real' is seemingly a subjective one, right? It is difficult to find an absolute definition of 'real'.

I agree; however, I think any definition of 'real' that does not include an shared, objective experience is worthless.

Ironically, about the 'real-est' thing I can think of, that is, I feel sure it has existence even while all else might be questionable, is the 'realness' of mathematics. By mathematics I mean the essence of, not the language of...

Mathematics is language. It's descriptive language that demonstrates certain logical principles of our universe, put in terms of quantities and numbers which we have defined to describe observed phenomena.

It's no more 'real' than apple trees or mesons.

24th December 2006, 07:21 AM

Yes, I am stating what I find is 'a stretch'. These would be fallacies if I were debating them in a legal sense, perhaps. As far as evidence, either way, we humans are exceedingly ignorant in the area of neurology and so we don't know. Maybe chimps have almost enough neurons or synaptic connections such that if only they had a little bit more, all these good things would emerge: language, mathematics, abstract thinking, human-level-of-consciousness. ..or maybe it is not the quantity of hardware as much of it is architectural. ...or both. We don't even have a good model of how memory works in wetware so we have a long way to go. While our level of understanding is so paltry, I'll emphasize again that it is an assumption that an incremental change in brain 'design' (pardon the word but Dawkins aften uses the word 'design' when he means non-teleologically derived structures) can bring about all these things we've discussed.

All knowledge is assumptions; in this case, that incremental alterations in brain structure can lead to all these things is the best possible assumption.

24th December 2006, 07:31 AM

You said "I disagree with the fetishization of QT as some kind of threshold achievement that's remarkable to come out of our chimp brains. " To what extent are our brains "chimp brains"? Merely a matter of quantity of hardware or is it the wiring? We don't know, do we? HOw much different is the wiring? We don't know, do we?

Argument from ignorance. Just because we don't know to what extent, doesn't mean that we don't know that it is a difference of hardware.

And replacing 'we don't know' with 'we don't know, but it must have been intelligently designed' is just plain stupid.

24th December 2006, 07:34 AM

What scientific evidence is there that we have had enough time in the universe for the 'just so' physical laws to get their chance at the craps table?

As far as I can tell, scientific evidence with the most peer agreement, is that the universe sprang from a singularity between 10 and 20 BYA. That was ONE crap shoot to get so many constants just right, that the chance of it is extremely unlikely 10^-X where X is huge but depends on who's saying it.

So where were all the other crap shoots that yielded universes that didn't have the right ingredients to evolve sentient beings. We don't know. Maybe none. Maybe infinite. Whatever you believe is something for which you have no evidence for. So why are you asking me for evidence. Where is the evidence that chance can produce this universe and you don't have any evidence how many trials there were to instantiate this universe?

And please, I don't need to have someone spell out the anthropic principle (AP). If AP makes your nipples hard then fine - but at the same time admit you have no evidence for it.

It's all about teleology = true or false.

But the evidence strongly suggests no teleology at all.

As others have pointed out, the crap shoot's already been tossed; the variables came up this way because they came up this way. Maybe those 27 dimensions mentioned in some QM writings have millions of failed universes in some static model. Maybe this was the first. Maybe not.

But given the horrible condition the universe is in with regards to life, the terrible layout that separates stars by vast voids of nearly empty space, and such dangers as black holes and pulsars and galactic wolves, how could anyone suggest that the universe was intelligently designed, and more, how could anyone suggest it was designed for our benefit?

24th December 2006, 07:37 AM

If all it takes is more hardware, to rev a chimp brain to the level of human brain, then this is all trivial. It means that artificial intelligence may suddenly emerge from our computational artifacts simply when Moore's Law takes us there.

Bingo.

But not 'more hardware'; more complex hardware.

I know, I know - to faithful types, the idea that our machines may suddenly become self-aware and conscious is just too scary to contemplate.

Oh well, let's face facts: no race dominates forever, and the human race will face extinction one day, too. The next dominant race may well be mineral-based rather than carbon-based. In fact, it's likely.

24th December 2006, 07:42 AM

But you lose me on the "nutrition, medical care, and exposure to stimuli." Sounds like that suggests that we could take my next door neighbor who is incapable of balancing her checkbook, and put her on a nutrition program and send her back to a stimulating university, make sure she gets good medical care, and voila, she's getting her phD in physics and will join Lee Smolin in the battle to perfect Loop Quantum Gravity. .... huh?:confused:

Actually, yes. A considerable change in diet followed by an educational program that stimulates her to work hard and accept learning could very well lead to her earning a Ph.D. in Physics... if her brain is wired appropriately to be amenable to such knowledge. That's always a factor, too: some brains are better structured to work math and physics, others to manage arts and languages, and so forth.

But when it comes to raw intellectual achievement, NEVER underestimate the power of diet, environment, and medical care. Diet, especially. It's no wonder that Americans seem to be growing more stupid by the day, considering most Americans live primarily on fast-food processed meat and petrolium-based food dyes.

But that's another rant.

24th December 2006, 07:44 AM

Perhaps I'm more easily awestruck than you -- I dunno.

That seems vastly apparent. Interestingly, this propensity for awe seems to be inversely proportional to the amount of logical reasoning ability available. I've noticed this many, many times here. The more someone lacks the ability to come to sound conclusions based on evidence, the more they find themselves awestruck at things which are really quite mundane.

It's no wonder that we use phrases like 'childlike wonder' - in reference to those stricken by awe, we compare them to the uneducated ignorance of children.

cyborg

24th December 2006, 07:51 AM

Diet, especially. It's no wonder that Americans seem to be growing more stupid by the day, considering most Americans live primarily on fast-food processed meat and petrolium-based food dyes.

But that's another rant.

Care to start a thread? I for one would be interested in a 'diet for skeptics' thread.

Dave1001

24th December 2006, 07:58 AM

Actually, yes. A considerable change in diet followed by an educational program that stimulates her to work hard and accept learning could very well lead to her earning a Ph.D. in Physics... if her brain is wired appropriately to be amenable to such knowledge. That's always a factor, too: some brains are better structured to work math and physics, others to manage arts and languages, and so forth.

Well written paragraph that sums up my opinion on this too.:)

Dave1001

24th December 2006, 08:03 AM

Well, the fact that these physical laws are in place means they came about somehow. It then becomes a matter of what happenstance you choose to believe produced them.

Big Bang theory could be wrong. As far as I know (and someone please point out if I am mistaken), there is no evidence that these constants could have varied at all. Perhaps it is the only way things could have transpired?

It is a matter of pure speculation to suppose which parameters could be different.

And as far as the crap shoot analogy goes, we have no way to know how many sides there are to the dice or how many "rolls" there have been. How many different outcomes there could be and how many have occured are total unknowns.

Not here, obviously, but it is worth pointing out that the entirity of the observable Universe (save for vanishingly small amounts such as what we see locally on this planet) shows itself to be decidedly inhospitable to life as we know it.

Whatever conditions produced the Universe (assuming it was "produced" at all) may have produced billions (or billions of billions) of other "things" completely unlike our Universe. Things that existed, perhaps, for less than even a Planck length of time. Who can say?

Or maybe this Universe that we experience is really everything there is and no greater "macroverse" exists to contain or produce our Universe or anything else.

Or maybe many Universes exist simultaneously. Or consecutively. Or not at all.

I believe there is not enough evidence to hazard a guess at the nature of the Universe, how or if it "came to be" by some external process, how it might have been different, or if there is some greater scheme that it fits into.

All emprical observation agrees that cause precedes effect, not vice-versa.

-Squish

Great post. I'm in more or less complete agreement, except for the last line, on which I'm not as firm. I'd probably throw the word "apparently" or "to my knowledge" in there.:p

24th December 2006, 10:20 AM

Care to start a thread? I for one would be interested in a 'diet for skeptics' thread.

I just might - after all this holiday nonsense is over with.

I have to go to Granma's house today to celebrate X-mas, since the girls are working tomorrow. Ugh.

At least the kids get twice the number of presents... :D

Achán hiNidráne

24th December 2006, 10:30 AM

VonNeumann

24th December 2006, 11:06 AM

Care to start a thread? I for one would be interested in a 'diet for skeptics' thread.

So you don't care to say anything in response to my long post where I talk about the domain of mathematics?

VonNeumann

24th December 2006, 11:19 AM

Great post. I'm in more or less complete agreement, except for the last line, on which I'm not as firm. I'd probably throw the word "apparently" or "to my knowledge" in there.:p
I generally agree with what Squish says here also. He was responding to my post:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2200851#post2200851

... in response to FosterZygote saying 'don't underestimate chance'. My point is that we don't have evidence, we don't really know what happened, so we can't assign cause of 'origins' to mere 'chance' alone. Looks to me that Squish agrees and so do you (??), too. ... as best as I can tell.

cyborg

24th December 2006, 11:24 AM

So you don't care to say anything in response to my long post where I talk about the domain of mathematics?

I already did.

VonNeumann

24th December 2006, 11:29 AM

But the evidence strongly suggests no teleology at all.
...
But given the horrible condition the universe is in with regards to life, the terrible layout that separates stars by vast voids of nearly empty space, and such dangers as black holes and pulsars and galactic wolves, how could anyone suggest that the universe was intelligently designed, and more, how could anyone suggest it was designed for our benefit?

I wouldn't say evidence strongly suggests no teleology, I would say that science has been extremely successful by always denying teleology. It is a discipline to keep teleology out of one's thoughts when performing science. That's what science is. And it means if there is teleology, it won't be discovered by the scientific method. That's the way I'd put it, personally.

With regard to your cynical view of the universe, I think it is a subjective view. Why are vast voids in space a bad thing? That paragraph was supposed to be funny, right? Galactic wolves???:confused: That mean ol mean ol designer. Bad designer!

VonNeumann

24th December 2006, 11:33 AM

I already did.
I mean in post:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2201605#post2201605
...the part about the human mind being the first place that the universe had for 'executing' mathematics, besides tentatively executing somehow in some way underlying the physical laws of the universe. Where is mathematics - not the language but the essence of mathematics? You know... I'm just curious what your view is when you think outside the box on this one. This is a question you maybe never thought about, I don't know.

cyborg

24th December 2006, 11:39 AM

Where is mathematics - not the language but the essence of mathematics?

Countability.

- ETA: which would not make the human mind the first place where this occurred since it has been shown, for instance, that parrots can count up to 7.

You dearly want to see mathematics as a thing of substance but it is not. No ideas are. No abstract concept can endure without data and interpreter.

Dave1001

24th December 2006, 11:58 AM

I generally agree with what Squish says here also. He was responding to my post:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2200851#post2200851

... in response to FosterZygote saying 'don't underestimate chance'. My point is that we don't have evidence, we don't really know what happened, so we can't assign cause of 'origins' to mere 'chance' alone. Looks to me that Squish agrees and so do you (??), too. ... as best as I can tell.

hmm, this is tangential, but something about your post made me think about the difficulty of reconciling a universe with cause-and-effect with a universe with randomness.

How do scientists & theorists reconcile the two? It's an open question to the thread participants, but I think it should probably have its own thread, which I may start.

Is there some sort of Occam's rule or something which gives us guidance on why we consider things effects of causes rather than randomness? Predictable, repeatable effects, or randomly repeating occurances? How does this discernment process work? I may be hampered by having not had a rigorous probabilities and statistics class yet.

Foster Zygote

24th December 2006, 12:11 PM

I didn't ignore Meadmaker. What is 'cuteness'. It is a subjective quality that comes from human intellect. There is nothing 'natural' about cuteness. Hamsters are cute because we may think they are. There is purpose to humans selecting hamsters. Being of purpose makes it teleological, by definition. So it is out of scope to use a pro-teleological argument against teleology, is it not?
He was suggesting a simple model. Humans selecting hamsters for 'cuteness' is little different, from an evolutionary point of view, than a predatory species selecting them as a convenient prey item. Hamsters just happened to look cute to many humans. For your point about teleology to be valid, humans would have had to have bred the ancestors of modern domestic hamsters for a quality of cuteness. Another forum member, T'ai Chi, once tried to make a similar argument, claiming that Dawkins' simple, illustrative biomorph model was evidence for intelligent design because the selective force in the model was the human mind.

You said, "Ask most anyone here and they will tell you that all scientific knowledge is provisional." I have been to this forum enough to say that I believe I have observed many who will not admit according to provisionality of science. In fact, I think some are convinced 'science = truth' , and that's all ye need to know. They don't really know what is 'science'. Perhaps I sense that for some people who call themselves skeptics, that science is their religion. ...that's what I think I have seen.
What I've seen is actually quite different. Just because scientific knowledge is held provisionally does not mean that all scientific knowledge is easily discarded. Evolutionary theory is supported by massive amounts of evidence. None of that evidence requires us to incorporate a teleological element in the theory. If you want to propose a competing theory you must address the massive evidence for the naturalistic theory with some substantial evidence of your own. So far, you have offered none. You've started this thread with the intent of persuading others to doubt a theory with enormous supporting evidence in favor of a teleological idea for which you have yet to offer any solid evidence beyond your personal incredulity. You can imply that our reluctance to give up an explanatory idea with mountains (literally) of evidence for a vague explanatory idea with no evidence is due to our lack of skepticism if you like, but I'm sure that most here see through this transparent tactic. The responses you've recieved have far less to do with scientific dogmatism than with your extreamly weak argument. In other words, it's not that people are ignoring your case, it's that you haven't got a case.

VonNeumann

24th December 2006, 01:47 PM

Countability.

- ETA: which would not make the human mind the first place where this occurred since it has been shown, for instance, that parrots can count up to 7.

You dearly want to see mathematics as a thing of substance but it is not. No ideas are. No abstract concept can endure without data and interpreter.
I will grant that some animals may be able to count beyond 3. There may be some more abstract things that some animals can do with manipulating symbols, and so on. Some babies have been taught to be able to get a glimpse of a sheet of dots (lots of dots) and be able to equate the count of dots to something else. They apparently use some sort of parallelism in their brains that 'counts' at some unconscious level, since they don't go "let's see, there's one, two, three, etc".

You say I "dearly want to see mathematics as a thing of substance..." but I don't want to see it as anything other than 'what it is'. You equate mathematics as an 'idea'. I think you are right. It is an idea. And humans made up the language of mathematics so that we can communicate those ideas to others and to ourselves. If I dearly want anything, I want you or any other volunteers to help with answering whether mathematics has an existence besides 'in our minds' or even in the minds of other entities such as parrots. We know mathematical structures in our own artifacts exist - we created them.

Was there no 'logic' before there were mechanisms (brains for instance) to play with it, to execute it, to 'think' about it? ...if not: then how does the 'language of mathematics' describe both the 'ideas' in hour heads of mathematics, and also, to some extent successfully model real physical things? If so: where IS it?

VonNeumann

24th December 2006, 02:12 PM

He was suggesting a simple model. Humans selecting hamsters for 'cuteness' is little different, from an evolutionary point of view, than a predatory species selecting them as a convenient prey item. Hamsters just happened to look cute to many humans. For your point about teleology to be valid, humans would have had to have bred the ancestors of modern domestic hamsters for a quality of cuteness. Another forum member, T'ai Chi, once tried to make a similar argument, claiming that Dawkins' simple, illustrative biomorph model was evidence for intelligent design because the selective force in the model was the human mind.

I will have to go back and see why you say this about hamster 'cuteness'. I admittedly skimmed it before I responded. I thought survival of the hamster was linked to humans desiriing them. Like milk cows are bred for their milk. Maybe I missed the point.

As for whatever TaiCHi (who I'll have to look up if I have time) said about Dawkins -- I made a point about that myself last Spring on this forum. Maybe this Taichi guy got it from me or maybe it is so obvious, people with sufficiently critical eyes catch it right away.

In the biomorphs and in the "methinks it like a weasel' that Dawkins did, I believe in "Blind Watchmaker" it sticks out like a sore thumb. Let's take "Methinks..." as an example. The way the program works is that the roulette wheel is spun for each letter in the sentence. If the letter matches, in its proper place, with the given pattern stored in the program "Methinks it is like a weasel", then that character is never allowed to be changed in any future generation. Also, it is notable that the template is in the program from the beginning. The latter point is important because that puts a goal into the program - a goal that is literal and 100% specific. There is no way this program cannot produce "Methinks it is like a weasel" in a few generations -- it is not at all surprising that it does this. If it didn't do it, it would be a programming bug. Dawkins is no dummy and he knows a large part of his reading audience is astute enough to call foul. So after the great presentation to illustrate how "random mutation and natural selection" can converge to some 'surprising' results , Dawkins registers a disclaimer. He states it in is book that the preceding examples are teleological. This is just in case you don't realize it and he doesn't want people to think he is a liar.

That is fine. He was honest. But then he never illustrated what he set out to illustrate at all. It is like I say I'm going to pull a rabbit out of a hat and it is going to illustrate 'spontaneous generation'. Then I pull the rabbit out of the hat. Then I show you that there is a hole in the hat and the rabbit was in the podium and I reached through a trap door to pull it out. So then you say, so where is the 'spontaneous generation'? And I say, "the spontaneous generation would look just like the rabbit out of the hat, this was just for illustration."

What would you say to me if I said I was going to do something, then I pretended to do it and then tell you I cheated. Wouldn't you throw tomatos?

So I think you are relating it accurately, that Dawkins did not illustrate how RM/NS works, he illustrated how design works. I guess you can either see that or you can't. If your belief gets in the way of your skepticism, then you may not see it.

VonNeumann

24th December 2006, 02:24 PM

Is there some sort of Occam's rule or something which gives us guidance on why we consider things effects of causes rather than randomness? Predictable, repeatable effects, or randomly repeating occurances? How does this discernment process work? I may be hampered by having not had a rigorous probabilities and statistics class yet.
Your statistics class will probably define randomness in a mathematical sense but I don't think that will address the more philosophical question of what randomness is in reality. In mathematics, we cannot generate true random numbers with any sort of mechanism (say within a digital computer. We would have to go via an input port to a real particle detector or something like that.). Randomness generated within a program is called 'pseudo-random' because the algorithm is exposed. A question no one can answer is whether there is any algorithmic basis of the randomness of beta decay, for instance. Neo-Darwinism proposes two parts to the mechanism of evolution: random mutation and natural selection (RM/NS). The RM part generates new stuff, and the NS part culls it down. So if we hold a lot of stock in RM/NS, we hold a lot of stock in the generation power of Randomness and yet we don't even know where it comes from or how it instantiates.

Foster Zygote

24th December 2006, 03:46 PM

I will have to go back and see why you say this about hamster 'cuteness'. I admittedly skimmed it before I responded. I thought survival of the hamster was linked to humans desiriing them. Like milk cows are bred for their milk. Maybe I missed the point.

As for whatever TaiCHi (who I'll have to look up if I have time) said about Dawkins -- I made a point about that myself last Spring on this forum. Maybe this Taichi guy got it from me or maybe it is so obvious, people with sufficiently critical eyes catch it right away.

In the biomorphs and in the "methinks it like a weasel' that Dawkins did, I believe in "Blind Watchmaker" it sticks out like a sore thumb. Let's take "Methinks..." as an example. The way the program works is that the roulette wheel is spun for each letter in the sentence. If the letter matches, in its proper place, with the given pattern stored in the program "Methinks it is like a weasel", then that character is never allowed to be changed in any future generation. Also, it is notable that the template is in the program from the beginning. The latter point is important because that puts a goal into the program - a goal that is literal and 100% specific. There is no way this program cannot produce "Methinks it is like a weasel" in a few generations -- it is not at all surprising that it does this. If it didn't do it, it would be a programming bug. Dawkins is no dummy and he knows a large part of his reading audience is astute enough to call foul. So after the great presentation to illustrate how "random mutation and natural selection" can converge to some 'surprising' results , Dawkins registers a disclaimer. He states it in is book that the preceding examples are teleological. This is just in case you don't realize it and he doesn't want people to think he is a liar.

That is fine. He was honest. But then he never illustrated what he set out to illustrate at all. It is like I say I'm going to pull a rabbit out of a hat and it is going to illustrate 'spontaneous generation'. Then I pull the rabbit out of the hat. Then I show you that there is a hole in the hat and the rabbit was in the podium and I reached through a trap door to pull it out. So then you say, so where is the 'spontaneous generation'? And I say, "the spontaneous generation would look just like the rabbit out of the hat, this was just for illustration."

What would you say to me if I said I was going to do something, then I pretended to do it and then tell you I cheated. Wouldn't you throw tomatos?

So I think you are relating it accurately, that Dawkins did not illustrate how RM/NS works, he illustrated how design works. I guess you can either see that or you can't. If your belief gets in the way of your skepticism, then you may not see it.

Actually, what Dawkins' biomorph model is meant to show is how a selective force can lead to complex structure from random mutations. It is a simple model meant to illustrate but one aspect of evolutionary theory. The fact that the model relies on conscious selection is inevitable do to the constraints of computer modeling, especially in the mid 1980s. It is also irrelevant. It is not a comprehensive model of the whole of biology nor was it ever claimed to be. True, the model does not illustrate how RM/NS works. It only illustrates how one small aspect of RM/NS works on a very simple level. I can see that quite plainly. I can also see quite plainly that the whole of RM/NS as it relates to evolutionary theory does not lead to an inescapable conclusion of design.

Assumption: Intelligence is of benefit to the human species long term survival. I certainly hope it is, but the very knowledge of matter and energy you mention in your OP has given our species the capacity to utterly destroy itself in little more than an afternoon. To paraphrase you: Perhaps you have the capacity to understand that or perhaps you don't.

And you still haven't offered an alternative theory. Once more, please tell those of us who's skepticism is inferior to yours why we should abandon evidence for unsupported speculation.

Dancing David

24th December 2006, 07:33 PM

The classical darwinian model of gradual change is not evident, I agree. Not in the fossil record. Maybe for reasons advanced: there aren't enough fossils; the record is incomplete. But then if punk-eek is really the norm, then how does simple RM/NS explain it? Yes, I'm incredulous about that model. That's what I'm saying: there are missing ingredients; there's more than mere RM and NS.

RM/NS fits with punk eek just fine, it is our minds that want reality to fit our patterns. In the development of the brain a small RM could lead to a drastic change in the neural structure. And darwin's idea of gradual change is not realistic. there is small changes in the genome, that can lead to large changes in morphology.

Punk eek says that systems will remain stable, untilk something upsets them, like a drought.

But you lose me on the "nutrition, medical care, and exposure to stimuli." Sounds like that suggests that we could take my next door neighbor who is incapable of balancing her checkbook, and put her on a nutrition program and send her back to a stimulating university, make sure she gets good medical care, and voila, she's getting her phD in physics and will join Lee Smolin in the battle to perfect Loop Quantum Gravity. .... huh?:confused:

I meant in developing children, once the mold is set, the mold is set, the neural network can learn new things but there are most likely limits.

I suggest that your neighbor's kid has the potential for development.

Dancing David

24th December 2006, 07:38 PM

posted by Squisha

there is no evidence that these constants could have varied at all

I has similar thoughts, but the speed of light is invariant, it would produce changes in sepctral lines if c had varied. Or something like that. Someopne on this board told me that, it has to do with an atomic factor called 'alpha'.

Dancing David

24th December 2006, 07:41 PM

Mathematics is language. It's descriptive language that demonstrates certain logical principles of our universe, put in terms of quantities and numbers which we have defined to describe observed phenomena.

It's no more 'real' than apple trees or mesons.

Hear here!

And it could be just a byproduct of our associative networks.

cyborg

24th December 2006, 09:32 PM

You say I "dearly want to see mathematics as a thing of substance..." but I don't want to see it as anything other than 'what it is'.

And yet you speak of teleology which seems to imply these things are coming from some far off place.

If I dearly want anything, I want you or any other volunteers to help with answering whether mathematics has an existence besides 'in our minds' or even in the minds of other entities such as parrots.

No more than English existed in 2000 BC.

Was there no 'logic' before there were mechanisms (brains for instance) to play with it, to execute it, to 'think' about it?

Tautologically not.

...if not: then how does the 'language of mathematics' describe both the 'ideas' in hour heads of mathematics, and also, to some extent successfully model real physical things?

You seem to forget that mathematics can model a whole slew of unreal things that couldn't exist too - entirely successfully.

Why wouldn't mathematics successfully model real things if an effort was used to describe real things in a model that is mathematically described?

If so: where IS it?

There are consequences to the universe operating the way it does that cannot be avoided no matter what you do. If there is any encoding it is merely an implicit potential that the universe allows for such configurations to arise. You should investigate 2D automata to see what I mean.

VonNeumann

25th December 2006, 06:28 AM

Actually, what Dawkins' biomorph model is meant to show is how a selective force can lead to complex structure from random mutations. ........ It only illustrates how one small aspect of RM/NS works on a very simple level. I can see that quite plainly. I can also see quite plainly that the whole of RM/NS as it relates to evolutionary theory does not lead to an inescapable conclusion of design..
Yes, it was meant to show one thing, and succeeded in only showing another. Meant to show even, as you say, how one small aspect of RM/NS works, and instead had to rely entirely upon deux a machina. The god in the machine was two things: first, the machine was designed by a human and of course that is unavoidable (I don't have a problem with that if that was the only sin); secondly, the selection pattern was a literal 'match-up template' and given such that it is impossible that the program NOT produce the exact desired results. "Meant to show.."? He did it with trap doors and smoke and then told us he used trap doors and smoke just in case someone might point out he cheated. Ironically, he had to desperately resort to the enemy: intelligent design - in order to make an illustration of anything.

Zygote, why defend that? I can't believe Dawkins even put that in a book.

Assumption: Intelligence is of benefit to the human species long term survival. I certainly hope it is, but the very knowledge of matter and energy you mention in your OP has given our species the capacity to utterly destroy itself in little more than an afternoon. To paraphrase you: Perhaps you have the capacity to understand that or perhaps you don't.

Well my friend, I don't know how you expect I might respond to this. It's like you want commiseration. Okay, I commisserate, "Ain't it awful? .... Dang!" Or I'm not sure what you are saying, that it is my assumption about what intelligence "is for"? Yes, and it is like the "over evolved" aspect of our ability to destroy ourselves -- I don't come up with any opinion on that except that politics (if you are going to go into why governments do what they do) are out of scope here, I hope.

And you still haven't offered an alternative theory. Once more, please tell those of us who's skepticism is inferior to yours why we should abandon evidence for unsupported speculation.
Alternative theory? You (et al) seem to have this reaction often, as if we CAN expect all theories to fit within the rules of scientific inquiry. Please go back and see what I said about teleology never being something to be discovered by scientific inquiry. To allow teleology in scientific inquiry is as illegal as having twenty in-fielders on the field in a baseball game.

The topic of "origins" in most cases falls beyond the horizon of scientific inquiry. So I posted this under "philosophy and religion" for a reason. If you want to be a skeptic, in my opinion, you have to be careful you don't become fundamentalist with it. I think the only way is to decide that some things you will not make up your mind on, and wait and see. You might even post on JREF to see what other people think. That's all we are doing right? I'm not trying to convert you to my way of thinking. Hehehh, I don't expect someone to ever say, "Cripe, this VN dude is right and we have been wrong!"

VonNeumann

25th December 2006, 07:28 AM

And yet you speak of teleology which seems to imply these things are coming from some far off place.

No more than English existed in 2000 BC

Tautologically not.

You seem to forget that mathematics can model a whole slew of unreal things that couldn't exist too - entirely successfully.

Why wouldn't mathematics successfully model real things if an effort was used to describe real things in a model that is mathematically described?

There are consequences to the universe operating the way it does that cannot be avoided no matter what you do. If there is any encoding it is merely an implicit potential that the universe allows for such configurations to arise. You should investigate 2D automata to see what I mean.

First, let me say this in response to your "you should investigate 2D automata." I'm glad you brought up 'toy universes". Why do you assume I am as you are and just discovered or never heard of cellular automata. If any of you have never investigated this, you should. A little history: Stan Ulam first suggested the idea to John von Neumann in the 40s and von Neumann synthesized the first 2D automata around 1948. The idea was to synthesize self-replicatiing machines. This was at the dawn of the cyber age and there weren't even machines yet (maybe 2 in the world) that could barely even run a much abbreviated model of this, at the time. It wasn't until the 60s that Conway wrote the program "Life". It was a passtime played by many of the early programmers in the 60s and early 70s during "downtime" (in other words the only time the nerds ever got any time to play on computers).

Okay, now I'd like you to think about this, please. What if this universe is not based on some sort of string theory, but instead, it fundamentally is some kind of cellular automata. Within this realm evolves sentient beings -- that would be we humans. Let's say that's where we are right now -- in a big machine. Now this is what I have been asking here as a person inside this machine "Could it be that there is an underlying substrate to our 'reality' that is executing logic?" (we are finally getting closer to the attractor I had in mind when posting the OP.)

Okay, having asked the question about an underlying substrate to our universe, executing logic (mathematical constructions), do you see how I am asking if mathematics has an existence in any place besides in our minds?

Your response indicates you believe mathematics to only be a human language. And why would you think I haven't thought of the fact that mathematics can model things that are unreal? I never gave a hint of suffering from such a deficiency - maybe you are showing me that you are just now thinking about these things for the first time?

You ask, "Why wouldn't mathematics successfully model real things if an effort was used to describe real things in a model that is mathematically described?" (huh?) You were responding to a tough question of mine that had a double negative. Let's try it again. I'll ask it this way:

"If there is underlying mechanistic logic (call it 'the machine') to produce this universe, we probably will not be able to detect it or observe it. But it is difficult to explain why/how we evolved a machine in our craniums that knows at least a little bit about how this underlying mechanism works. How do I know that we know how this underlying mechanism works? I'm talking about how science, since around the time of Newton, started using these ideas we call 'mathematics' to explain observations, and IT WORKS! Isn't it like evolution built the neural network in human brains that has the ability to see 'the machine'?

You may still be nonplussed or maybe just unmoved. If so, then please just consider the premise: is there an underlying mechanism to this universe that obeys mathematical laws?

25th December 2006, 07:49 AM

VonNeumann

25th December 2006, 08:08 AM

You're getting the relationship backwards, VN: it's our observationso f the universe that lead to us defining mathematical 'laws' to describe those observations, and further, to put into our terms what is, in fact, the fundamental arrangement of the universe - it is us, in other words, who define the 'underlying mechanism' based on our observations.

I understand your point. I'm not 'getting it backwards', I'm asking you to turn it around backwards from how you are looking at it.

Yes, we are defining the underlying mechanism based on indirect observations. When you think about this mechanism that leads us to defining mathematical laws, doesn't the mechanism have to 'use' mathematics? Like a computer program uses mathematics, doesn't the underlying mechanism 'use' mathematics? If so, then mathematics exists not just inside our minds and inside computers. Right? Does mathematics have an 'existence' at that underlying level, or just in our minds?

VonNeumann

25th December 2006, 08:14 AM

There are consequences to the universe operating the way it does that cannot be avoided no matter what you do. If there is any encoding it is merely an implicit potential that the universe allows for such configurations to arise.

What consequences? How is encoding an implicit potential? Please elaborate.

25th December 2006, 12:10 PM

I understand your point. I'm not 'getting it backwards', I'm asking you to turn it around backwards from how you are looking at it.

Yes, we are defining the underlying mechanism based on indirect observations. When you think about this mechanism that leads us to defining mathematical laws, doesn't the mechanism have to 'use' mathematics? Like a computer program uses mathematics, doesn't the underlying mechanism 'use' mathematics? If so, then mathematics exists not just inside our minds and inside computers. Right? Does mathematics have an 'existence' at that underlying level, or just in our minds?

Just in our minds.

That's the whole point, VN. You're turning it upside down and coming out with an incorrect conclusion. The fact is, it's descriptive, not proscriptive.

That's like saying, 'does a Bootlegger Reverse exist outside of the mind of a stunt driver?' No, it doesn't. The Bootlegger Reverse is a descriptive of an observed event; it didn't create the observed event.

Mathematics is a system of description related to observed events; they don't underly/control observed events.

VonNeumann

25th December 2006, 03:30 PM

Just in our minds.

That's the whole point, VN. You're turning it upside down and coming out with an incorrect conclusion. The fact is, it's descriptive, not proscriptive.

That's like saying, 'does a Bootlegger Reverse exist outside of the mind of a stunt driver?' No, it doesn't. The Bootlegger Reverse is a descriptive of an observed event; it didn't create the observed event.

Mathematics is a system of description related to observed events; they don't underly/control observed events.
Do you believe what you say is true (about mathematics only being in our minds), or do you assume it? You stated this so absolutely.

25th December 2006, 11:36 PM

Do you believe what you say is true (about mathematics only being in our minds), or do you assume it? You stated this so absolutely.

"Do you believe it, or do you assume it?"

What happen to know it, or other options? Belief and assumption are much the same thing. As it is, all forms of knowledge, except perhaps awareness of the first person singular experience itself, are based on assumptions and beliefs. Therefore, I both believe it and assume it. However, the underlying causes of those beliefs and assumptions are complex, and sufficient to my mind to constitute strong evidence that the above is true.

However, there are no absolutes - including this statement. Which also means there's no fundamentals - no underlying strata of ideal mathematics on which real mathematics are based.

Plato's shadows are all in the mind.

cyborg

26th December 2006, 02:49 AM

Why do you assume I am as you are and just discovered or never heard of cellular automata.

Well f-me Doris if that's not a little insulting. Where do you get off assuming where I AM?

Okay, now I'd like you to think about this, please. What if this universe is not based on some sort of string theory, but instead, it fundamentally is some kind of cellular automata.

I fail to see the difference. Either string theory describes the universe or it doesn't. Even a cellular automata describes the universe or it doesn't. It's a mistake to infer anything beyond that based on some other facets of the model that will apply to the universe if it cannot be shown to be the case.

Could it be that there is an underlying substrate to our 'reality' that is executing logic?

Yes - but it is indeterminable.

Universe, executing logic (mathematical constructions), do you see how I am asking if mathematics has an existence in any place besides in our minds?

If the universe were a giant automata that wouldn't actually mean mathematics exists as a fundamental substance. Automata cells don't need to know anything about mathematics - they simply respond to the stimuli of their neighbours.

Your response indicates you believe mathematics to only be a human language.

I don't believe that. It is simply a fact.

And why would you think I haven't thought of the fact that mathematics can model things that are unreal? I never gave a hint of suffering from such a deficiency - maybe you are showing me that you are just now thinking about these things for the first time?

Well f-you again.

You ask, "Why wouldn't mathematics successfully model real things if an effort was used to describe real things in a model that is mathematically described?" (huh?)

I fail to see where you get off being amazed mathematics can model the universe if one constructs mathematics to do that. I can use English to model the universe in a much more abstract and imprecise way - isn't that amazing too? That English can be used to describe the universe? Maybe there's an underlying layer of reality that runs off Shakespeare? No?

But it is difficult to explain why/how we evolved a machine in our craniums that knows at least a little bit about how this underlying mechanism works.

The brain knows nothing about the underlying mechanism of the universe.

I'm talking about how science, since around the time of Newton, started using these ideas we call 'mathematics' to explain observations, and IT WORKS!

IT WORKS! YES! FIRST TIME! Uhh, no... not the first time actually, took a bit of time to get it right actually... ****, it's almost like you don't get this stuff for free but it actually takes some effort to get mathematics to model the universe.

Isn't it like evolution built the neural network in human brains that has the ability to see 'the machine'?

Evolution evolved a creature with the ability to perceive its surroundings and not perceive fake surroundings.

Well f-me sideways if that does sound unlikely in evolutionary theory that creatures might evolve to perceive things as-is rather than to make it up.

Well since you seem to be quite happy to tacitly call me a moron I'm just going to come right out and say it: you're being a dumb-ass.

You may still be nonplussed or maybe just unmoved. If so, then please just consider the premise: is there an underlying mechanism to this universe that obeys mathematical laws?

Indeterminable.

Now just getting off on the idea that we evolved to solve QT - it's bollocks. I'm sure in your mind you're making some great insight that we're all too stupid to see but from our perspective you're high on your own stink.

tsig

26th December 2006, 04:38 AM

Do you believe what you say is true (about mathematics only being in our minds), or do you assume it? You stated this so absolutely.

Shawdows of Plato!

Where else could math be but in our heads?

There is no hidden level of reality where math lurks, waiting to be discovered.

It's a "What you see is what you get" kind of world.

President Bush

26th December 2006, 06:34 AM

There is no hidden level of reality where math lurks, waiting to be discovered.

The Fibonacci sequence (http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/F/Fibonacci_sequence.html) isn't hidden.
many types of flower have a Fibonacci number of petals: daisies tend to have 34 or 55 petals, while sunflowers have 89 or, in some cases, 144. The seeds of sunflowers spiral outward both to the left and the right in a Fibonacci number of spirals. Similarly, the whorls on a pine cone, the numbers of rings on the trunks of palm trees, the patterns of snail shells, and the genealogy of the male bee all follow a sequence of Fibonacci numbers. The arrangement of plant leaves, or phyllotaxis, unfolds to the same pattern because this results in an optimal solution in terms of the spacing of the leaves or the amount of light that can reach them. A familiar spiral form, known as the logarithmic spiral, emerges when seeds on a plant grow and space themselves according the Fibonacci sequence. The logarithmic spiral is approximated by the rule: start at the origin of the Cartesian coordinate system, move F(1) units to the right, move F(2) units up, move F(3) units to the left, move F(4) units down, move F(5) units to the right, and so on. By growing in this way, on structures as such sunflowers, pine cones, and pineapples, seeds are able to pack themselves together most efficiently.

Dancing David

26th December 2006, 07:21 AM

I understand your point. I'm not 'getting it backwards', I'm asking you to turn it around backwards from how you are looking at it.

Yes, we are defining the underlying mechanism based on indirect observations. When you think about this mechanism that leads us to defining mathematical laws, doesn't the mechanism have to 'use' mathematics? Like a computer program uses mathematics, doesn't the underlying mechanism 'use' mathematics? If so, then mathematics exists not just inside our minds and inside computers. Right? Does mathematics have an 'existence' at that underlying level, or just in our minds?

Mathematics is a map, like language. It is useful for describing things. I would argue that it has an existance as a map. (But I can't prove that.) So I would say that while a map might describe features that exist, it is still a human product.

VonNeumann

26th December 2006, 04:58 PM

Well f-me Doris if that's not a little insulting. Where do you get off assuming where I AM?

I fail to see the difference. Either string theory describes the universe or it doesn't. Even a cellular automata describes the universe or it doesn't. It's a mistake to infer anything beyond that based on some other facets of the model that will apply to the universe if it cannot be shown to be the case.

Yes - but it is indeterminable.

If the universe were a giant automata that wouldn't actually mean mathematics exists as a fundamental substance. Automata cells don't need to know anything about mathematics - they simply respond to the stimuli of their neighbours.

I don't believe that. It is simply a fact.

Well f-you again.

I fail to see where you get off being amazed mathematics can model the universe if one constructs mathematics to do that. I can use English to model the universe in a much more abstract and imprecise way - isn't that amazing too? That English can be used to describe the universe? Maybe there's an underlying layer of reality that runs off Shakespeare? No?

The brain knows nothing about the underlying mechanism of the universe.

IT WORKS! YES! FIRST TIME! Uhh, no... not the first time actually, took a bit of time to get it right actually... ****, it's almost like you don't get this stuff for free but it actually takes some effort to get mathematics to model the universe.

Evolution evolved a creature with the ability to perceive its surroundings and not perceive fake surroundings.

Well f-me sideways if that does sound unlikely in evolutionary theory that creatures might evolve to perceive things as-is rather than to make it up.

Well since you seem to be quite happy to tacitly call me a moron I'm just going to come right out and say it: you're being a dumb-ass.

Indeterminable.

Now just getting off on the idea that we evolved to solve QT - it's bollocks. I'm sure in your mind you're making some great insight that we're all too stupid to see but from our perspective you're high on your own stink.
:) You appear to be an emotional fellow. You suggest I don't know anything about CA and when I suggest maybe you learned it much more recently than I did, you get your panties all in a wad.

I never called you a moron - not even tacitly. Why can you not talk about this stuff without getting all emotional?

Not being 'high on my own stink', I have politely (notice I said 'please' in my post above?) asked your opinion. I assume you are not stupid or I wouldn't ask you. But I'm a patient man, I'll try again...

I'm curious that you allow that the universe may very well run on something like CA and at the same time deny that there need exist mathematics to support the mechanism thereof. Is all that we are differing on is that you consider the mathematical mechanism outside this universe and existence outside of this universe is tantamount to non-existence? That's an OK definition with me, but I just want to understand if you agree with that.

VonNeumann

26th December 2006, 05:13 PM

Shawdows of Plato!

Where else could math be but in our heads?

There is no hidden level of reality where math lurks, waiting to be discovered.

It's a "What you see is what you get" kind of world.

Yes, I understand. I'm being contrarian and hearkening back to a view that might be called "pythagorean". ...an ancient concept. And you and others are more in the vogue to deny that mathematics has an existence other than in the mind. There is another thread going on here where someone asks whether and denies that ideas exist. So if mathematics is a collection of ideas, then it seems that they deny the existence of mathematics, even in the mind!

To me, the idea that ideas exist, is a non-paradoxical tautology, and the idea that ideas do not exist is a meaningless or paradoxical statement - very classic. But I'm still stuck on this notion that mathematics has a transcendent existence. Maybe that's the rub: transcendent existence is tantamount to non-existence to many of you posting here, hmm?

VonNeumann

26th December 2006, 05:24 PM

Mathematics is a map, like language. It is useful for describing things. I would argue that it has an existance as a map. (But I can't prove that.) So I would say that while a map might describe features that exist, it is still a human product.

Maps are a subset of mathematics. Aren't they? Languages are the same being in the mathematical branch of 'logic'. So I think it is just as you say. THe whole thing is a big circular dizzying product of human thinking. But if our universe runs in a cellular automaton, doesn't it run on a mechanism that obeys mathematical laws? Is it meaningless to deduce that a supporting mechanism must exist even though we can't directly observe it?

Try this, you can write a program to discover everything about the computer like how many registers it has, what all the instructions do, how many bits wide are the registers, etc etc, but you will never be able to see the flip-flops and nand gate and how the circuits are wired. You can't see the transistors from inside the software. That is the metaphor: in our universe, you can't see the "math" I'm talking about but I propose 'it exists' and we know it does, because without it, the physical laws have no substrate on which to 'run'. Pardon my repitition - maybe I'm the dumb-ass cyborg says I am that I can't let go of this.

VonNeumann

26th December 2006, 05:41 PM

The Fibonacci sequence (http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/F/Fibonacci_sequence.html) isn't hidden.
You're right. The effects of mathematics isn't hidden. It's manifest everywhere. DNA is like a computer. So are atoms. Crap, what about quantum computers?

cyborg

26th December 2006, 07:47 PM

I never called you a moron - not even tacitly. Tacit means silent. :rolleyes:

I'm curious that you allow that the universe may very well run on something like CA and at the same time deny that there need exist mathematics to support the mechanism thereof.

Mathematics is not required to exist in an abstract way. Entities simply obey the nature of their construction. The mathematics is emergent.

Is all that we are differing on is that you consider the mathematical mechanism outside this universe and existence outside of this universe is tantamount to non-existence? That's an OK definition with me, but I just want to understand if you agree with that.

No. I'm merely stating that whilst a TM could be operating the universe in a CA type way a CA would not require a TM to operate.

cyborg

26th December 2006, 07:52 PM

but you will never be able to see the flip-flops and nand gate and how the circuits are wired. You can't see the transistors from inside the software. That is the metaphor: in our universe, you can't see the "math" I'm talking about but I propose 'it exists' and we know it does, because without it, the physical laws have no substrate on which to 'run'.

Um, the substrate is not the math. The substrate knows nothing of math. The substrate understands electron flow.

Oh, and the only reason you can discover that sort of information is because processors generally provide instructions to allow its discovery. It is not a fundamental feature of a processor.

Foster Zygote

26th December 2006, 08:25 PM

Yes, it was meant to show one thing, and succeeded in only showing another. Meant to show even, as you say, how one small aspect of RM/NS works, and instead had to rely entirely upon deux a machina. The god in the machine was two things: first, the machine was designed by a human and of course that is unavoidable (I don't have a problem with that if that was the only sin); secondly, the selection pattern was a literal 'match-up template' and given such that it is impossible that the program NOT produce the exact desired results. "Meant to show.."? He did it with trap doors and smoke and then told us he used trap doors and smoke just in case someone might point out he cheated. Ironically, he had to desperately resort to the enemy: intelligent design - in order to make an illustration of anything.

Zygote, why defend that? I can't believe Dawkins even put that in a book.
Your absolutely right. Dawkins should have used his mid 1980s Mac to write a program modeling all of the complexities of an evolving ecosystem. I can't imagine why he didn't do it. In fact, I can't imagine why no one has done it to this day. Obviously, models are exact replicas of the things they represent, so the fact that Dawkins' simple model used an artificial selection agent is evidence that the real ecosystem has had an intelligence behind its progress.

Well my friend, I don't know how you expect I might respond to this. It's like you want commiseration. Okay, I commisserate, "Ain't it awful? .... Dang!" Or I'm not sure what you are saying, that it is my assumption about what intelligence "is for"? Yes, and it is like the "over evolved" aspect of our ability to destroy ourselves -- I don't come up with any opinion on that except that politics (if you are going to go into why governments do what they do) are out of scope here, I hope.
Sorry, but you claimed that the evolution of human abilities to comprehend the workings of matter and energy should be considered as evidence that a higher power has been consciously directing evolution to produce said abilities because it has obvious survival benefits and you don't agree with the idea that cognitive abilities that evolved to aid the survival of stone age humans could lead to 'side effect' benefits like the ability to probe the mysterious workings of the universe with mathematical models. The fact that those same abilities have given our species the ability to make ourselves extinct has to weigh against your position. If you had said something like "yes, I admit that is a problem" I could respect that, but what you've written above seems like an attempt to avoid admitting that flaw in your argument.

Alternative theory? You (et al) seem to have this reaction often, as if we CAN expect all theories to fit within the rules of scientific inquiry. Please go back and see what I said about teleology never being something to be discovered by scientific inquiry. To allow teleology in scientific inquiry is as illegal as having twenty in-fielders on the field in a baseball game.
First of all, if something doesn't fit within the rules of scientific inquiry we can't call it a theory. Theories have to be testable. If something is testable it falls within the realm of scientific inquiry. Claims about the universe that are not testable are most often referred to as "religion". I'll take this as an admission that you have no evidence to support your argument.

The topic of "origins" in most cases falls beyond the horizon of scientific inquiry.
Some things may lie beyond scientific inquiry. But if they are beyond scientific inquiry it seems likely that they are beyond knowledge by any means. A great many things lie beyond the current limits of science, In the future we will likely call many of these things "discoveries".

So I posted this under "philosophy and religion" for a reason. If you want to be a skeptic, in my opinion, you have to be careful you don't become fundamentalist with it.
If you want to be a skeptic you must be careful not to accept things without evidence simply because you find them appealing. That's the road to fundamentalism.

I think the only way is to decide that some things you will not make up your mind on, and wait and see. You might even post on JREF to see what other people think. That's all we are doing right? I'm not trying to convert you to my way of thinking. Hehehh, I don't expect someone to ever say, "Cripe, this VN dude is right and we have been wrong!"
Sure, there might be a supernatural, teleological force driving the evolution of the universe. There might be a Flying Spaghetti Monster looking over us too. We can't say with 100% certainty that there are not such things because that would require complete knowledge of the universe. But so far there is a massive amount of evidence that natural forces direct the universe. There is, to date, zero evidence that supernatural forces direct the universe(Acknowledgments to Tricky). Not all arguments are equal. Some are weak and we are justified in provisionally dismissing them until more evidence is presented in their favor. So far, no further evidence has ever been presented in favor of supernatural forces or phenomena. We can write "Here be dragons" in the margins if we want to, but we are almost certainly deluding ourselves.

VonNeumann

26th December 2006, 09:45 PM

Tacit means silent. :rolleyes:

:rolleyes: 'Borg, you are the one who said "tacit".

cyborg

26th December 2006, 09:58 PM

:rolleyes: 'Borg, you are the one who said "tacit".

Um, yes?

VonNeumann

26th December 2006, 10:02 PM

Mathematics is not required to exist in an abstract way. Entities simply obey the nature of their construction. The mathematics is emergent.
No. I'm merely stating that whilst a TM could be operating the universe in a CA type way a CA would not require a TM to operate.

Okay, now maybe we are getting somewhere. Rather than say Turing machine, can we be more general and say finite state machine (FSM)? Why do you say that a cellular automata (CA) would not require a mechanism to operate? You know an FSM is required to run a CA, if it is a human artifact, but you let nothing (whatever is 'nothing') be the mechanism, when you think about fundamental physics? Perhaps this succinctly models your worldview. I'm not being judgemental, just trying to get it clarified. I don't know how that belief that physical laws don't need 'something' beneath them is so popular. There's a difference between not concerning ourselves with it, and believing that it does not exist. When I concern myself with it, I believe it has got to exist.

The old Aristoteliean model of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water was a theory of 'elements' along with were a finite number of forces. That old idea has a lot of momentum because we are still looking for the underlying finite number of elements (something below quarks?) and a finite number of forces. I'm no philosopher but it seems that we still use that basic idea today: particles+forces. I don't know but maybe that's vaguely the assumption that you adhere to that we don't have to have a substrate below that to support how the forces behave.

You are on the side of the majority on this and I am contrarian. But that doesn't mean I'm wrong (nor alone with this idea). Every revolution in science has come from when somebody steps outside the mainstream and suggests something totally crazy. That's why I think it is worthwhile to rethink the idea of what I'm calling "substrate" here. ...any plausibility in it for you?

VonNeumann

26th December 2006, 10:42 PM

Um, the substrate is not the math. The substrate knows nothing of math. The substrate understands electron flow.

Oh, and the only reason you can discover that sort of information is because processors generally provide instructions to allow its discovery. It is not a fundamental feature of a processor.

I sort of made up the word 'substrate' to talk about this. I mean it to be down below the planck level of existence. So electrons would be macro objects from the standpoint of 'substrate'. I think our debate suffers from lack of definition. It is all metaphorical because we lack physics at this level, and that's why I use the CA example. In the CA example, the substrate is the digital computer that is executing a software program, updating each generation of CA from the previous generation. THAT substrate knows nothing except for the 'neighborhood rules' for each cell. It is a simple algorithm. The algorithm is a set of instructions, ie the logical construction -- the math. I think the only way we have a fighting chance to talk about this is via a metaphor.

What you said about having instructions to allow discovery is true but that's not getting to the issue. No matter what instructions a digital computer might have, you'll never see the transistors even with special instructions. Unless you go ouside the system, let's say via an I/O port that allows probing the hardware, say for instance with a video camera. But the instructions provided in a machine for the purpose of performing digital computation do not allow very much investigation into the construction of the machine. See what I mean? You can detect memory size and what the ALU can do, but your universe is bound to only what the software can 'see'. That's the memory. We may be able to see many things in this universe, but what underlies it all ( the substrate ) will be invisible.

Furthering my metaphor, let's imagine sentient beings that evolve inside a digital computer, and they learn from what they think is their physical world. They may discover/invent logic and math and think it only exists in their minds, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and is in fact required to run, the very digital computer that is the 'substrate' of their universe.
(you tired of this yet?)

VonNeumann

26th December 2006, 11:00 PM

Your absolutely right. Dawkins should have used his mid 1980s Mac to write a program modeling all of the complexities of an evolving ecosystem. I can't imagine why he didn't do it. In fact, I can't imagine why no one has done it to this day. Obviously, models are exact replicas of the things they represent, so the fact that Dawkins' simple model used an artificial selection agent is evidence that the real ecosystem has had an intelligence behind its progress.

:) You are hilarious.

I can make a model of F=ma and make a rationalization for ignoring friction, gravity, weak-nuclear force, etc. I can lump all the atoms into one thing and parameterize it as "mass", etc. All this simplification and I do get a darn good model and didn't have to lie about anything.

It is totally ludicrous to say you are going to model RM/NS because you are absolutely correct that it would take a near infinite amount of computer power and programming - so much so that it takes the whole flipping universe to 'compute' evolution.

That's why it is a lie, not just a simplified illustration. It is disingenous at best. But if one is a 'true believer' she will pardon her saint of any sin.

VonNeumann

27th December 2006, 12:27 AM

Sorry, but you claimed that the evolution of human abilities to comprehend the workings of matter and energy should be considered as evidence that a higher power has been consciously directing evolution to produce said abilities because it has obvious survival benefits and you don't agree with the idea that cognitive abilities that evolved to aid the survival of stone age humans could lead to 'side effect' benefits like the ability to probe the mysterious workings of the universe with mathematical models. The fact that those same abilities have given our species the ability to make ourselves extinct has to weigh against your position. If you had said something like "yes, I admit that is a problem" I could respect that, but what you've written above seems like an attempt to avoid admitting that flaw in your argument.

Thanks for taking the time to explain that. I'm still too stuck in my thinking to see that you have a point. Seems to me that man had a self-anihilation nature to him long before he could make atomic bombs. Maybe it's another side-effect of the human brain that is linked to the things I'm in awe about.

Here, I'll argue on your side for a moment:

Another side effect is this. How can our retinas be so senstive as to be able to see a single photon? Must be a God-given thing so as we could see the firmament without telescopes and glorify God. Is that how you think I view things? No. I think there is a reasonable rationalization, and it is quite fortuitous though, that our eyes are sensitive enough such that primitive man could hunt by starlight, and so the 'side effect' of supersensitive rods and cones comes along for the ride. So I can rationalize side effect for eyes, no prob. But for this OP question - I am not ready to make up my mind yet.

Here's another thing. The super-smart people who have advanced science throughout the ages are fairly rare. If we chopped off the top 1% of intelligent people at all times through history, maybe we would never have even invented language! Maybe the first person or two to think up speaking words were as smart relative to the rest of mankind as Gauss was in his time. Maybe it's only the top 0.1%, that without them, we'd still be in the stone age. If this is true, and admittedly I think I am partial to this idea, then most humans had only a mere differential margin over the competition when humans evolved. It is that genetic variation that gives us supersmart people that make us look 'over-evolved'. Maybe that's what someone should have said to me (maybe they did and I missed it). Some of the mantra early on in this thread was about 'learning'. But ordinary people with IQ of 160 and down to 100 all learn easily, in varying degrees, I would venture to guess. It's not so much about 'learning' it is the awesome power of 'creating' of 'inventing' and 'discovering'. Now if we could only find out what it is that makes a genius of world scale different from the rest of us...

VonNeumann

27th December 2006, 12:59 AM

Sure, there might be a supernatural, teleological force driving the evolution of the universe. There might be a Flying Spaghetti Monster looking over us too. We can't say with 100% certainty that there are not such things because that would require complete knowledge of the universe. But so far there is a massive amount of evidence that natural forces direct the universe. There is, to date, zero evidence that supernatural forces direct the universe(Acknowledgments to Tricky). Not all arguments are equal. Some are weak and we are justified in provisionally dismissing them until more evidence is presented in their favor. So far, no further evidence has ever been presented in favor of supernatural forces or phenomena. We can write "Here be dragons" in the margins if we want to, but we are almost certainly deluding ourselves.

For Christmas, I received the book "Not Even Wrong" on String Theory. I also got Smolin's "Trouble With Physics". I can't give you abstracts from those books yet, because I haven't read them. But this is the trouble with science these days. There isn't much left in the realm of theoretical physics that is falsifiable. So get used to things getting more philosophical if you have any interest in these subjects. BTW, I wasn't waxing religious in this thread. The term 'supernatural' just means outside current scientific inquiry. It doesn't have to mean woo.

Relativity and Quantum physics would have appeared supernatural to James Clerk Maxwell.

These statements are not falsifiable:
1. That origins are due to natural processes.
2. That origins are due to teleological processes.
So either way, it's 'supernatural'. 'Taint "science".

I think it was Karl Popper who said evolution is not science because it is not falsifiable.

Indolent Wretch

27th December 2006, 04:36 AM

This would be a fantastic development (though I believe the current thought is that he is wrong) because it would demonstrate the thesis is wrong

One of the things I most dearly love about 'science' is the desire to be 'wrong'.

A more healthy frame of mind for advancement is hard to imagine.

Indolent Wretch

27th December 2006, 05:01 AM

Side effect ...

That's an assumption. I agree that given what little we actually know about it, this is the simple conclusion, that: language, mathematics capability, consciousness, are all things you get for free once you have as vast a machine as the average homo sapiens possesses in her cranium.

It's like... you have to believe this if random-mutation-and-natural-selection is what your mind is constrained to, as far as a model you accept for our origins.

"Side-effect". Hmmmmm. ...doesn't really say much, does it?

I'm not astonished that for some of you, it is 'the answer', especially if Dawkins ascends to it. Others agree it is an interesting question with an interesting answer. Perhaps those of you who have plugged your 'curiosity hole' with this simple answer should contemplate it more. Please allow me to suggest that perhaps we don't know the answer, yet.

Well I dunno that sounds a bit overly vague, I don't know what you believe in this regard but...

It's certainly widely held that human beings evolved brains due to their circumstances and environment that allowed them to develop language, social skills and a capacity for problem solving beyond that of other known animals on the Earth.

Would you agree with this statement? I'm not talking here about intelligent proto-man being able to do QM, but just that we may have reached a place in our evolution were brains was at least nearly as important as brawn.

Once you reach the point were reasoning and problem solving become a large part of your ability to survive and breed, is not the course set. Barring disaster were we not destined to arrive at a place where I'm discussing mans ability to do QM over the Internet.

We evolve (with some struggle) the ability to bear young with big complicated brains, and develop a social grouping where language and problem solving are big parts of our life. We enter into a phase where the more intelligent may not yet be as hot a mating partner as the stronger and bigger, but they are certainly a better partner than the equivalently strong and more stupid.

Intelligence and reasoning are now being selected on. As each generation is born it's capacity for abstract thought increases (possibly with the exception of the youth of today). QM isn't really that difficult is it *cough*.

Parts of your post seem to suggest a preference for a 'designed' human intelligence, that our minds are 'constrained' to see a picture of mutation and selection. That *side-effect* doesn't really say a great deal...

Well I don't wish to put words in your mouth but a picture that evolves huge timespans, alien environments, prototypic selves, slow progress and struggle seems to be a less 'constrained' view than any other on the table.

Dancing David

27th December 2006, 06:37 AM

Yes, I understand. I'm being contrarian and hearkening back to a view that might be called "pythagorean". ...an ancient concept. And you and others are more in the vogue to deny that mathematics has an existence other than in the mind. There is another thread going on here where someone asks whether and denies that ideas exist. So if mathematics is a collection of ideas, then it seems that they deny the existence of mathematics, even in the mind!

To me, the idea that ideas exist, is a non-paradoxical tautology, and the idea that ideas do not exist is a meaningless or paradoxical statement - very classic. But I'm still stuck on this notion that mathematics has a transcendent existence. Maybe that's the rub: transcendent existence is tantamount to non-existence to many of you posting here, hmm?

NeoPlatonism... So when all creatures who look at the statue and say it is beautiful are dead, then beauty is dead. And beauty never exists for the blind, and culture never matters.

There are mountains protrayed on the map, the mountains are real. I am willing to accept that there might be transcendant things, no evidence presented to me so far.

The numbers e and pi are cool, but they are the mountain peaks. Maps have meaning and existance. Ideas exist in people's heads.

Dancing David

27th December 2006, 06:47 AM

Maps are a subset of mathematics. Aren't they? Languages are the same being in the mathematical branch of 'logic'. So I think it is just as you say. THe whole thing is a big circular dizzying product of human thinking. But if our universe runs in a cellular automaton, doesn't it run on a mechanism that obeys mathematical laws? Is it meaningless to deduce that a supporting mechanism must exist even though we can't directly observe it?

It is meaningful, yes, but also limited by knowledge. Does saying that electrons are little monkeys on fast motor scooters add anything to the theory? No, but it has a chance of being true.
Much of the apparent 'order' beloved of some people is based upon chaos and randomness, there are effects that we can observe, and we can make models to predict the behavior of the effects.
So you prefer an orderly(perhaps) created model, I prefer a chaotic non-created model. We can speculate but never know. The law of gravitation does not exist, the effect we describe as gravity does.
(I am a nihilist materialsit with pagan leanings, my preference)
/quote]

Try this, you can write a program to discover everything about the computer like how many registers it has, what all the instructions do, how many bits wide are the registers, etc etc, but you will never be able to see the flip-flops and nand gate and how the circuits are wired. You can't see the transistors from inside the software. That is the metaphor: in our universe, you can't see the "math" I'm talking about but I propose 'it exists' and we know it does, because without it, the physical laws have no substrate on which to 'run'. Pardon my repitition - maybe I'm the dumb-ass cyborg says I am that I can't let go of this.[/QUOTE]

Well I have a friend who used to slice apart chips for Micron, so i disagree with that premise. We can take apart computers. But we lable something a transitor. It is a label.

There is reality , yes, and there are human thoughts about reality. What one chooses to believe is a matter of preference. Reality exists, human thoughts exist. Or i should say 'appears to exist' for the imaterialists out there.

VonNeumann

27th December 2006, 01:21 PM

Parts of your post seem to suggest a preference for a 'designed' human intelligence, that our minds are 'constrained' to see a picture of mutation and selection. That *side-effect* doesn't really say a great deal...

Well I don't wish to put words in your mouth but a picture that evolves huge timespans, alien environments, prototypic selves, slow progress and struggle seems to be a less 'constrained' view than any other on the table.
1. Do I suggest preference for designed intelligence? I don't know if it is a preference, just trying to give it a chance of preponderance.
2. Our minds are constrained to see RM/NS? I meant that if we purposefully make the choice to constrain everything we see having to do with origin of species as being due to RM/NS we may not be open to new discoveries. Personally, I think RM/NS is a partial picture and something big is missing - but that is my own bias.
3. "Side-effect" is a simple answer, but it may be valid. When I say it doesn't say much, I mean that I wish we knew more about the neurological differences that allows someone to have full language capability but never be able to be taught QT, much less have the capability of conjuring any of the theory on their own. If we knew that, it would 'say a lot'.
4. The 'less constrained view than any other on the table' that you said: I'll whack the dead horse and say one more time that the scientific constraint of not allowing teleology to creep into any thinking, constrains us from ever seeing it if teleology exists. Perhaps that belongs in the 'so what' department. That's what philosophy is for; it allows discussions be more unconstrained.

VonNeumann

27th December 2006, 01:24 PM

NeoPlatonism... So when all creatures who look at the statue and say it is beautiful are dead, then beauty is dead. And beauty never exists for the blind, and culture never matters.

There are mountains protrayed on the map, the mountains are real. I am willing to accept that there might be transcendant things, no evidence presented to me so far.

The numbers e and pi are cool, but they are the mountain peaks. Maps have meaning and existance. Ideas exist in people's heads.
Man, you like wax poetic...

I always liked the poem: e^i*pi - 1 = 0 :)

VonNeumann

27th December 2006, 01:42 PM

It is meaningful, yes, but also limited by knowledge. Does saying that electrons are little monkeys on fast motor scooters add anything to the theory? No, but it has a chance of being true.
Much of the apparent 'order' beloved of some people is based upon chaos and randomness, there are effects that we can observe, and we can make models to predict the behavior of the effects.
So you prefer an orderly(perhaps) created model, I prefer a chaotic non-created model. We can speculate but never know. The law of gravitation does not exist, the effect we describe as gravity does.
(I am a nihilist materialsit with pagan leanings, my preference)

Well I have a friend who used to slice apart chips for Micron, so i disagree with that premise. We can take apart computers. But we lable something a transitor. It is a label.

There is reality , yes, and there are human thoughts about reality. What one chooses to believe is a matter of preference. Reality exists, human thoughts exist. Or i should say 'appears to exist' for the imaterialists out there.

You've got your /quote scripts messed up. You might want to go back and edit.

Where you said "Well I have a friend who used to slice apart chips for Micron, so i disagree with that premise. We can take apart computers. But we lable something a transitor. It is a label." you indicate to me you totally miss the point, entirely. I've been designing computers from the logic level and writing programs since before you were born. The transistors are the hardware 'switches' from which is built the logic - we've been using transistors since the late 50s and still use them (Field Effect Transistors). Ask your technician friend at Micron. Maybe he's not an engineer and doesn't even understand much about it.

Call them 'switches' - let's use that label and then it will be still true for photonic computers or for magnetic cores or hydraulic computers, or whatever. The point you miss is that computers are not constructed with the ability for a program to 'look within' the workings of the computer past some level - there is no need to and it would be unnecessarily complex and at the extreme level - impossible. My metaphor is that we probably likewise will never be able to see down to the level of whatever realm supports this 'reality'. It would be like expecting a program to see the switches.

If you don't know enough about computer hardware to feel comfortable with this metaphor, there's another one. If you think real hard, can you observe your own neurons? Can you 'see' your own snyapses, using thought alone? You cannot access the hardware from the software, without going 'outside' (try surgery on yourself?). I am making the metaphor that we can't observe our neurons with our thoughts. But we know they are there because thank zeus we have I/O (senses?) ! Just because we cannot see "the substrate", does not mean it is not "there". Okay this time?

Dancing David

27th December 2006, 06:07 PM

I understood your point VN, I was being pedantic about taking computers apart. Knowledge, theories and direct perception are overlapping sets that do not equate to each other.

Could you save your glory preaching for the choir?

The existance of the neural network is observed from the effects of the disruption of the network. Again it is a matter of personal prefernece, I see mystery everywhere as well. If you chose to believe in a created universe and i choose to be believe in a possibly created but non-deterministic universe, it is a matter of preference. I have yet to see compelling evidence to the existance of determinism. But again we can not presuppose that we know what the determinant would be. It could be hydrogen sulfide, and that is all, it could be dog barf, or goodness forbid, it could be reruns of I Love Lucy. All speculation aside we have evidence to determine if the universe is determined and what the goal would be.

Life appears to exist and the universe is a wonder.

Dr Adequate

27th December 2006, 07:16 PM

I think it was Karl Popper who said evolution is not science because it is not falsifiable. And when it was pointed out to him that he was wrong, he readily admitted it.

Clever man, Karl Popper.

Foster Zygote

27th December 2006, 07:34 PM

And when it was pointed out to him that he was wrong, he readily admitted it.

Clever man, Karl Popper.

Thank you Dr. A, you beat me to it. It is plainly obvious that there are many things that could falsify evolutionary theory. But so far, the more knowledge that has been gained about the subject the more evolutionary theory has been reinforced.

cyborg

27th December 2006, 08:38 PM

Okay, now maybe we are getting somewhere. Rather than say Turing machine, can we be more general and say finite state machine (FSM)?

I fail to see how it is more general - a TM simply represents a machine that can compute anything that is computable.

Why do you say that a cellular automata (CA) would not require a mechanism to operate?

It would require a mechanism, I fail to understand why the mechanism would have to understand mathematics any more than silicon has to understand logic.

I don't know but maybe that's vaguely the assumption that you adhere to that we don't have to have a substrate below that to support how the forces behave.

Unnecessary entities. Things behave according to their nature. The consequences of that allow us to mathematically model that behaviour. It is a mistake to assume that the mathematical model then becomes what makes the behaviour 'go'.

Every revolution in science has come from when somebody steps outside the mainstream and suggests something totally crazy.

That's nice but your idea being true can provide no revolution whatsoever.

That's why I think it is worthwhile to rethink the idea of what I'm calling "substrate" here. ...any plausibility in it for you?

No.

I sort of made up the word 'substrate' to talk about this. I mean it to be down below the planck level of existence. So electrons would be macro objects from the standpoint of 'substrate'.

Yes, but in the analogy you talk about the silicon enacting the logic of a computer as if it knows anything of logic. It doesn't.

In the CA example, the substrate is the digital computer that is executing a software program, updating each generation of CA from the previous generation. THAT substrate knows nothing except for the 'neighborhood rules' for each cell. It is a simple algorithm. The algorithm is a set of instructions, ie the logical construction -- the math.

No, the algorithm is an emergent property of the system that is noted by observation. The operation of the machine itself is dumb to such an abstraction.

What you said about having instructions to allow discovery is true but that's not getting to the issue.

Well it entirely is if you ever want your ideas to be science.

(you tired of this yet?)

Matrix style philosophy? Oh yes. Come back when you've got a little more than some mere preponderance and sense of awe at your own ideas.

VonNeumann

28th December 2006, 10:17 AM

VonNeumann

28th December 2006, 10:39 AM

I fail to see how it is more general - a TM simply represents a machine that can compute anything that is computable.

It would require a mechanism, I fail to understand why the mechanism would have to understand mathematics any more than silicon has to understand logic.

Unnecessary entities. Things behave according to their nature. The consequences of that allow us to mathematically model that behaviour. It is a mistake to assume that the mathematical model then becomes what makes the behaviour 'go'.

That's nice but your idea being true can provide no revolution whatsoever.
No.

Yes, but in the analogy you talk about the silicon enacting the logic of a computer as if it knows anything of logic. It doesn't.

No, the algorithm is an emergent property of the system that is noted by observation. The operation of the machine itself is dumb to such an abstraction.

Well it entirely is if you ever want your ideas to be science.

Matrix style philosophy? Oh yes. Come back when you've got a little more than some mere preponderance and sense of awe at your own ideas.

You are arguing against your own staw man. You are not listening.

You said, "I fail to understand why the mechanism would have to understand mathematics ...".

I did not say a mechanism would 'understand'.

Forget all that. Let's start over real quick here. Go back to the CA universe. Assume we are conscious thinking entities who evolved therein. Just suspend belief long enough to say "yeah, okay." The CA requires an underlying mechanism. You agreed to that. YES! We are halfway there! This is only a metaphor but you agree there is a mechanism - that the CA can't just float on top of 'nothingness'. (of course it can't! but that's the way it appears to me that so many people look at the universe - it has no underlying mechanism is what they would say).

Now, with this mechanism that supports CA, does it or does it not emerge from the execution of "logic". I'm not asking if it understands the logic - of course it doesn't - that's ludicrous. Give me a little credit, here 'borg. I think it is implied from "mechanism" that the CA is a product of logic.

In this metaphorical world, there is the logic/math rules that the mechanism 'obeys'. THAT is the existential mathematics I'm asking you to nod your head and go 'yeah, okay, THAT math.' But the CA-supporting mechanism lies outside the CA universe, does it not? Now switching context from this metaphorical world to our own, my point is that there exists a substrate on which our physical laws emerge. Not being able to observe it, our attempts at modeling it should come up with an infinite number of solutions of which none is preferred and all are possible. Isn't such the case for string theory after twenty years of hard work?

BTW, let's not talk about the story Matrix. I don't see that it helps any except for people who have never ever thought about existentialism - it gives them a place to reference.

VonNeumann

28th December 2006, 10:46 AM

And when it was pointed out to him that he was wrong, he readily admitted it.

Clever man, Karl Popper.

You're right. My neuron that knew that, must have died. I've assigned that knowledge to a new one. Thanks, for the reminder.

VonNeumann

28th December 2006, 11:04 AM

I fail to see how it is more general - a TM simply represents a machine that can compute anything that is computable.

Yes, and a universal turing machine uses a specific finite state machine. All I needed for illustration is a FSM. In other words, the automaton could be supported with a specifically encoded FSM that iteratively refreshes the 2D cellular world. The actual code of the FSM could never be observed from within the CA, but the minimum rules that are necessary and sufficient would be inferred if it is possible for entities within the CA world to observe cellular states from clock tick to clock tick.

cyborg

28th December 2006, 11:10 AM

Now, with this mechanism that supports CA, does it or does it not emerge from the execution of "logic". I'm not asking if it understands the logic - of course it doesn't - that's ludicrous. Give me a little credit, here 'borg. I think it is implied from "mechanism" that the CA is a product of logic.

And this is where you go back to front.

Any universe which acts in a rational and consistent manner, whatever mechanism it is that will cause it to run, can be described by logic.

The logic is a property of the CA, the CA is not a product of logic.

fuelair

28th December 2006, 11:26 AM

We evolved to use our brains efficiently to survive - part of that survival required building and planning which eventually required the ability to manipulate rather than just remember numbers. People able to use that ability better made better plans and built better things because they could calculate in the abstract. The ability to calculate in the abstract led to more questions on the nature of math and the need for more intensive math skills , ad. inf. I suspect the "ability" was present very early ( just like I suspect cavepeople (past Neanderthal at least)could have been taught current technology if snapped up very early in life.

VonNeumann

28th December 2006, 11:42 AM

And this is where you go back to front.

Any universe which acts in a rational and consistent manner, whatever mechanism it is that will cause it to run, can be described by logic.

The logic is a property of the CA, the CA is not a product of logic.
We are talking past each other, man.

Jack programs his digital computer to make a toy universe. He uses his ideas and translates them into instructions that the computer executes. Call this JACK'S LOGIC.

Inside the toy universe, emerge automata that evolve to the extent that sentient entities operate within this universe that JACK created. A sentient entity named BETTY observes her world, from inside her world since JACK has given her no access to I/O ports. But BETTY figures out how to make a mechanism that runs inside her universe and does something similar to what JACK did. BETTY used ideas that she formalized to make this new universe that runs inside the universe JACK created. Call this logic that Betty used, BETTY'S LOGIC. Within the universe BETTY created, emerges new sentient beings. They observe their world.... etc etc.

Ad infinitum, but two levels suffice:

Would you suspect JACK'S LOGIC to overlap BETTY'S LOGIC? I would suspect so. I bet they both have AND and NOT, to say the least.

Does BETTY'S LOGIC emerge from JACK'S LOGIC?
You said, "The logic is a property of the CA, the CA is not a product of logic." But the universe Betty lives in is a product of Jack's logic.
Do we need subscripts on LOGIC? JACKS_LOGIC= LOGIC(n); BETTYS_LOGIC=LOGIC(n+1)?

VonNeumann

28th December 2006, 11:47 AM

One of the things I most dearly love about 'science' is the desire to be 'wrong'.

A more healthy frame of mind for advancement is hard to imagine.

Thanks, that's what I'm trying here. I desire that 'teleology be wrong', be wrong, for the sake of this argument.

VonNeumann

28th December 2006, 11:51 AM

We evolved to use our brains efficiently to survive.

We evolved with that purpose? So you agree with teleology?

cyborg

28th December 2006, 12:12 PM

But the universe Betty lives in is a product of Jack's logic.

Yes, because that is how you made it.

Do we need subscripts on LOGIC? JACKS_LOGIC= LOGIC(n); BETTYS_LOGIC=LOGIC(n+1)?

No. That is just plain stupid. A logic is a logic.

Why are you still arguing Matrix universes? There is nothing interesting to be had there.

cyborg

28th December 2006, 12:14 PM

We evolved with that purpose? So you agree with teleology?

Ugh. The primary point about evolution is that it will evolve creatures to survive.
This does not require magic far off information - information immediately available is entirely sufficient.

VonNeumann

28th December 2006, 12:36 PM

Yes, because that is how you made it.

No. That is just plain stupid. A logic is a logic.

Why are you still arguing Matrix universes? There is nothing interesting to be had there.
Good "a logic is a logic" you say. So you believe "logic" has a transcendent existence.

What I'm talking about has nothing to do with some movie you've seen. If that is all I've induced into your thinking I have failed. It is the elephant in the room - few can see it.

VonNeumann

28th December 2006, 12:39 PM

Ugh. The primary point about evolution is that it will evolve creatures to survive.
This does not require magic far off information - information immediately available is entirely sufficient.

Thank you 'borg, but Fuelair made the teleological statement, so I was interested in whether he meant what he said.

cyborg

28th December 2006, 12:42 PM

Good "a logic is a logic" you say. So you believe "logic" has a transcendent existence.

No. A logic is a logic or a logic is not a logic. English is English. French is not English. English and French are languages. If the logics are the same they are the same logics - universes or not in-between them.

What I'm talking about has nothing to do with some movie you've seen.

Your scenario is one person in a physical universe with a computer running a simulation of endless universes. That is entirely Matrix like. You simply want to extend it backwards so that there are no physical universes at all.

If that is all I've induced into your thinking I have failed.

It is perfectly obvious what you want me to think. I happen to disagree with your basic premises because I fail to see any justification for far-off knowledge.

It is the elephant in the room - few can see it.

There is no elephant. Those who can see it are delusional.

cyborg

28th December 2006, 12:43 PM

Thank you 'borg, but Fuelair made the teleological statement, so I was interested in whether he meant what he said.

You see teleology where others do not.

I still wonder if you get the point that from an evolutionary perspective QT and Dumb and Dumber are at the same level of relevance.

VonNeumann

28th December 2006, 03:18 PM

You see teleology where others do not.

I still wonder if you get the point that from an evolutionary perspective QT and Dumb and Dumber are at the same level of relevance.
You watch a lot of TV, don't you.

VonNeumann

28th December 2006, 03:35 PM

It is perfectly obvious what you want me to think. I happen to disagree with your basic premises because I fail to see any justification for far-off knowledge.

There is no elephant. Those who can see it are delusional.
You've resorted to calling me 'delusional'?
The only reason that I can figure for your emotion is you feel insecure. Okay: noted.

It is understandable that fundies get emotional when someone suggests something to think about outside their faith.

You say "I fail to see any justification for far-off knowledge". If you think "teleology=far-off knowledge" is a meaningful definition then I'm thinking you don't know what this really means but you're sure you don't want to agree with it. If you are sure you don't want to agree with it you want to make sure you don't agree with anything I might say because you are afraid I am trying to trap you. Don't be so up tight; it's just a discussion.

I was merely trying to define what it means to say that logic has a transcendent existence, by using an illustration.

fuelair

28th December 2006, 05:04 PM

We evolved with that purpose? So you agree with teleology?
I do not believe I referred to it as a purpose. But language has many quirks. Try "in the course of evolution, for no specific/known reason but done anyway, our brains evolved/developed to a point where we could functionally engage in active thought about non-concrete things."

cyborg

29th December 2006, 12:40 AM

You watch a lot of TV, don't you.

It's the only kind of far off knowledge I'm familiar with.

And you didn't answer the question.

And it's a goddamn film, not a TV program.

cyborg

29th December 2006, 12:48 AM

You've resorted to calling me 'delusional'?

Not the intent, but hey, whatever.

The only reason that I can figure for your emotion is you feel insecure. Okay: noted.

Oh yes, I am so insecure and therefore won't entertain your ideas.

Such a logical progression. Makes so much sense too. Amateur psychology is your thing as well is it?

It is understandable that fundies get emotional when someone suggests something to think about outside their faith.

Oh yes, my mighty faith is being challenged. Oh noes! Whatever shall I do in the face of this?

You say "I fail to see any justification for far-off knowledge". If you think "teleology=far-off knowledge" is a meaningful definition then I'm thinking you don't know what this really means but you're sure you don't want to agree with it.

This is what you stated. You want to state a different understanding?

I was merely trying to define what it means to say that logic has a transcendent existence, by using an illustration.

And I am merely trying to point out that it doesn't. Logic is a formalism. There are no formalisms just sitting about existing waiting for their transcendent existence to be solidified.

You are making a mistake. You have taken logic that can be applied to the universe and then have decided the the universe brings forth that same logic. You have then further made an unreasonable implication that we are some how evolved to solve QT because of this underlying logic sitting beneath the universe. You refuse to listen to any of the good people here who want to explain the evolution of human cognition. You have found something that makes you go, "OOOOOH, AHHHHHHH" like a firework and that is good enough for you.

Dancing David

29th December 2006, 08:03 AM

I don't believe in a 'deterministic universe'. You think I do?

posted by Dancing david

If you choose

I don't know what you believe, the thrust of the thread seemed to be that there might be determinism to the path of evolution to possibly have led to the understanding (limited as it is) of quantum mechanics. It seemed to be based upon the possibility of determinism. And you have taken a neutral stand back from the premise and even stated that you might just be arguing on contrarian principles.

Most people in the US beleive in a deterministic universe. I don't know what you believe.

Dancing David

29th December 2006, 08:12 AM

Good "a logic is a logic" you say. So you believe "logic" has a transcendent existence.

What I'm talking about has nothing to do with some movie you've seen. If that is all I've induced into your thinking I have failed. It is the elephant in the room - few can see it.

Thats interesting, logic is a self referencing set of rules regarding self referencing communication. So if it is 'good' logic it is self consistant and references 'objective' events. A mediocre logic can be self consistant but not reference 'objectice' events and a poor logic has a lack of self consistancy but lacks 'objective' reference.

So in math we have 'good' logic in that it is self consistant and can be used to reference 'objective' events.

Logic however is still self referencing, as is any communication, and therefore limited to the events of the objects engaged in the communication. So it may approxiamate external 'objectives' but is still limited by it's self reference. And is therefore dependant upon the self reference to have meaning and is therefore dependant upon the communicating objects.

I think I am in agreement with you.

hammegk

29th December 2006, 03:11 PM

Most people in the US beleive in a deterministic universe.
I'd say most people in the US would not have a clue as to the referents of that statement.

I don't know what you believe.
Need one "believe" an argument to pursue it? VN's stance in the discussion seems apparent.

articulett

29th December 2006, 05:03 PM

There is no elephant. Those who can see it are delusional.

Bingo. (But among the delusional, you have to hand it to Von Neumann for being the brightest. )

If I remember correctly, Von is an "intelligent design" proponent involving entities from other planets--if you try to pin him down on what he believes, he'll just dismiss you as someone beneath him who can't possibly get it (like his "you've been watching too much t.v." argument.)

hammegk

29th December 2006, 06:11 PM

My my, what an ill-tempered bunch of Brights.

The argument in this and many other threads was what drew me here years ago and remains one of ontology.

Under discussion is the role, if any, words like teleology, design, will, intent, god, etc. are accepted into one's worldview taking into account one's information base, not least of which is the result of scientific epistemology to date as one understands it, logic, and all one's other 'knowledge base', tacit as well as explicit.

On one side we have the materialists, who if they are logical, defend the proposition that those words cannot have effect or affect on reality. Dancing David in this thread "(I am a nihilist materialist ... my preference)" takes that view to a logical conclusion. Jeff Corey elsewhere has stated he defends the logical materialist choice; iirc "god does not exist".

The alternate position that I (and I suspect VN) choose can be termed objective idealism, and we can remain agnostic as to possible effect or affect the above listed words may have on the world we all perceive as matter, yet remain with a logical worldview.

The epistemology of science is equally valid in either worldview so cannot differentiate between the options, leaving each of us to choose based on scientific results as we have available to us, logic, and of course the rest of our individual, differing, tacit and explicit 'knowledge'.

Choose neither -- what I'd term the default -- and one has a worldview that is illogical, with the listed words "possibly" effecting or affecting the world of we all perceive as matter by magic, god's intervention, etc..

President Bush

29th December 2006, 07:37 PM

... from an evolutionary perspective QT and Dumb and Dumber are at the same level of relevance.
Forgotten about cybernetics? Be careful what trait you choose for. ;)

cyborg

30th December 2006, 01:05 AM

Forgotten about cybernetics? Be careful what trait you choose for. ;)

Cybernetics is beyond genetics fool!

cyborg

30th December 2006, 01:08 AM

If I remember correctly, Von is an "intelligent design" proponent involving entities from other planets--

Well I have to say I wouldn't see that coming. What is it - the Venusians or Martians? Or is it people from Saturn?

if you try to pin him down on what he believes, he'll just dismiss you as someone beneath him who can't possibly get it (like his "you've been watching too much t.v." argument.)

That is all too predictable.

Dancing David

30th December 2006, 06:44 AM

I'd say most people in the US would not have a clue as to the referents of that statement.

Quite true, but then you have to phrase it in the vernacular. I would state without any evidence that most USers beleive in providence and purpose to the world. that some sort of agency, other than the human, organises and organises events. But then a lot of them believe in other things that seem strange to me as well.

Need one "believe" an argument to pursue it? VN's stance in the discussion seems apparent.

I was responding to his quote.

Dancing David

30th December 2006, 06:51 AM

My my, what an ill-tempered bunch of Brights.

The argument in this and many other threads was what drew me here years ago and remains one of ontology.

Under discussion is the role, if any, words like teleology, design, will, intent, god, etc. are accepted into one's worldview taking into account one's information base, not least of which is the result of scientific epistemology to date as one understands it, logic, and all one's other 'knowledge base', tacit as well as explicit.

On one side we have the materialists, who if they are logical, defend the proposition that those words cannot have effect or affect on reality. Dancing David in this thread "(I am a nihilist materialist ... my preference)" takes that view to a logical conclusion. Jeff Corey elsewhere has stated he defends the logical materialist choice; iirc "god does not exist".

I am willing to accept that god may exist, I have a preference that the current conception of god does not have evidence to support it. It might or might not be cool if god, or determinism existed.
My preference will continue to be chosen by me, when new evidence appears then i am very likely to change my preference.

Words do have an effect on reality, they shape the communicative, social and cultural norms that humans interact in and therefore they have an effect on the part of reality which is the human domain.

The alternate position that I (and I suspect VN) choose can be termed objective idealism, and we can remain agnostic as to possible effect or affect the above listed words may have on the world we all perceive as matter, yet remain with a logical worldview.

The epistemology of science is equally valid in either worldview so cannot differentiate between the options, leaving each of us to choose based on scientific results as we have available to us, logic, and of course the rest of our individual, differing, tacit and explicit 'knowledge'.

Yay! Doubt is a wonderful thing.

Choose neither -- what I'd term the default -- and one has a worldview that is illogical, with the listed words "possibly" effecting or affecting the world of we all perceive as matter by magic, god's intervention, etc..

VonNeumann

30th December 2006, 03:15 PM

posted by Dancing david

I don't know what you believe, the thrust of the thread seemed to be that there might be determinism to the path of evolution to possibly have led to the understanding (limited as it is) of quantum mechanics. It seemed to be based upon the possibility of determinism. And you have taken a neutral stand back from the premise and even stated that you might just be arguing on contrarian principles.

Most people in the US beleive in a deterministic universe. I don't know what you believe.

I'll go with Heir Heissenberg on this - I don't believe the universe to be deterministic as it loses information as time goes forward. It seemed to me you were confusing the term 'determinism' with 'purpose', perhaps.

VonNeumann

30th December 2006, 03:23 PM

Thats interesting, logic is a self referencing set of rules regarding self referencing communication. So if it is 'good' logic it is self consistant and references 'objective' events. A mediocre logic can be self consistant but not reference 'objectice' events and a poor logic has a lack of self consistancy but lacks 'objective' reference.

So in math we have 'good' logic in that it is self consistant and can be used to reference 'objective' events.

Logic however is still self referencing, as is any communication, and therefore limited to the events of the objects engaged in the communication. So it may approxiamate external 'objectives' but is still limited by it's self reference. And is therefore dependant upon the self reference to have meaning and is therefore dependant upon the communicating objects.

I think I am in agreement with you.

Good. I am very happy to have some agreement from you, and I know you must think you understand what you thought I said, I'm just not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. :)

Seriously though, yes it's self-referencing: the kind of stuff Alfonso Church and Kurt Goedel worked out for us 75 years ago. That's why the other 'logic' I am suggesting has transcendent existence is 'outside the system'. I've been lectured here of JREF before that Goedel was only talking about formal mathematical systems and I'm applying it to this universe as if that is what it is - but I don't know if the application is fair or not.

VonNeumann

30th December 2006, 03:36 PM

Bingo. (But among the delusional, you have to hand it to Von Neumann for being the brightest. )

If I remember correctly, Von is an "intelligent design" proponent involving entities from other planets--if you try to pin him down on what he believes, he'll just dismiss you as someone beneath him who can't possibly get it (like his "you've been watching too much t.v." argument.)
Hi Art'. Long time no see. That is very sweet of you to say that I'm bright. But thank you, no, for explaining to everyone in my absence what I am and who I am and what I think. I can obfuscate that very well all on my own.

Everyone: Articulet is incorrect. Let me set it straight here about what she means to be saying relating me to "panspermia".

1. I am not a 'proponent involving entities from other planets'. If you read all my infinite overtalkative blather on this forum, you will see that I've merely made reference to the great Dr. Crick (of DNA fame) who was such a proponent. In fact, I lean toward "we are alone in the universe" which seems to be a good piece of gossip for Art' if she wanted to tell you all about vonNeumann.
2. I have directed readers here to www.panspermia.org where there is a clan of meme infested adherants to what I said were interesting ideas. One need not be a proponent to go read - in fact that is healthy to see what others think about something IMHO.

On being 'delusional' I cannot claim for certain that I am not. Nor can anyone else claim same for themselves.

On the 'watching too much TV' - that was not an argument but it is my reaction to one who cannot address the subject as I presented it. He brings in a straw-man from TV. If someone wants to be sarcastic, I reserve the right to react in kind.

VonNeumann

30th December 2006, 04:19 PM

Unfortunately, I lack the education in philosophy that Hammegk possesses. Even if I learn a few things about it, I soon forget and resort to my brute force metaphors. But thanks Ham' for framing the discussion and providing some keywords and perspective.

I think that using computer metaphors are very useful in discussions on ontology. The reason is that it allows us to back away one level of reality from the object of discussion, and it also is a subject well known to people these days - it is not esoteric.

In a computer program, 'existence' is clear, especially if you use a lower level computer language, such as Assembler or C. The reason I say that is that everything in the 'world' must be explicitly defined (declared) and each of those objects has existence by definition, in the world of that program. We cannot do that with our 'real' world as some will immediately argue that an electron does not possess 'existence'.

Another reason that I like using computer metaphors is that I believe it is interesting from a 'symmetry' viewpoint. Symmetry has often been the intellectual idealization that has facilitated science to jump to new levels.

Further, I like the metaphor because at the fundamental level of physics, we are learning that the universe behaves more like a digital computer than anything else we can fathom. (Who said that?)

That last statement more typifies what makes me unique around here more than anything else (in spite of the fact that I've gotten Articulett stuck on panspermia).

cyborg

30th December 2006, 05:10 PM

I think that using computer metaphors are very useful in discussions on ontology.

I like 'em because I like computers and I can poke holes in your analogies.

In a computer program, 'existence' is clear, especially if you use a lower level computer language, such as Assembler or C.

'Fraid it isn't that simple - for reasons I will expand on.

The reason I say that is that everything in the 'world' must be explicitly defined (declared) and each of those objects has existence by definition, in the world of that program.

In C you are presented a structured model. It is somewhat close to the architecture of the underlying machine because - by and large - the machines C has a compiler for operate in basically the same way. Even there, however, there are 'lies' and you cannot specify full operation of the machine in C alone (since there is no higher level abstraction for the particulars of the operation of the hardware).

Now assembler would seem to reflect the 'real world' of the computer precisely. However, there are complications. For one thing assembler is still designed for humans and there are examples of assembler conventions which still hide some of the detail - in general that would usually be branches and a more specific example would be the silent handling of memory alignment, done by ARM assemblers for example. (Such examples are clearly visible when one disassembles the output).

Now things get REALLY screwed up when you start to consider some of the features of modern processors. For example, x86 is now generally turned into another set of macro codes before the instruction would actually be dispatched for execution. The reason that is done is that the x86 architecture is somewhat of a mess - the code is turned into something more amenable to a RISC style for efficient implementations, making the x86 a pseudo ISA.

Another reason that I like using computer metaphors is that I believe it is interesting from a 'symmetry' viewpoint. Symmetry has often been the intellectual idealization that has facilitated science to jump to new levels.

Looking in the mirror and presuming you are seeing the world as it is and not a reflection is a mistake.

Further, I like the metaphor because at the fundamental level of physics, we are learning that the universe behaves more like a digital computer than anything else we can fathom.

'Behaving like' and 'being like' are not the same thing though.

VonNeumann

30th December 2006, 06:30 PM

I like 'em because I like computers and I can poke holes in your analogies.

'Fraid it isn't that simple - for reasons I will expand on.

In C you are presented a structured model. It is somewhat close to the architecture of the underlying machine because - by and large - the machines C has a compiler for operate in basically the same way. Even there, however, there are 'lies' and you cannot specify full operation of the machine in C alone (since there is no higher level abstraction for the particulars of the operation of the hardware).

Now assembler would seem to reflect the 'real world' of the computer precisely. However, there are complications. For one thing assembler is still designed for humans and there are examples of assembler conventions which still hide some of the detail - in general that would usually be branches and a more specific example would be the silent handling of memory alignment, done by ARM assemblers for example. (Such examples are clearly visible when one disassembles the output).

Now things get REALLY screwed up when you start to consider some of the features of modern processors. For example, x86 is now generally turned into another set of macro codes before the instruction would actually be dispatched for execution. The reason that is done is that the x86 architecture is somewhat of a mess - the code is turned into something more amenable to a RISC style for efficient implementations, making the x86 a pseudo ISA.

Looking in the mirror and presuming you are seeing the world as it is and not a reflection is a mistake.

'Behaving like' and 'being like' are not the same thing though.

The only thing I can figure out that you are trying to do is to take a contrarian position without trying to understand what I am saying. You conjured strawmen galore in this post.

Let's start with your last statement first: " 'Behaving like' and 'being like' are not the same thing though." What hot-line do you have into the realm of existence? Do you know how to determine "being like" without determining "behaving like"? We can NEVER determine what something really IS. "Behaving like" is as good as it gets - especially for a so-called-skeptic. I have to say that statement was a blunder of yours.

Your previous statement, "Looking in the mirror and presuming you are seeing the world as it is and not a reflection is a mistake." This is a strawman. I never say that I presume I see the world as it is. All we can do is ping the world with questions, and receive its answers. From the answers we can idealize models. How is it 'a mistake' to compare the models to human artifacts?

Your gibberish about computers and computer language is incomprehensible in relationship to my statement. You are not even trying to understand what I am saying. By your response I can only assume you have never started with an empty computer and started declaring a world inside it - you've always been in an environment on top of a BillGatesWorld system. Imagine being in the environment of a tiny Harvard machine like a Microchip PIC where every bit of program instruction you put in yourself (let's say in machine code since you are hung up on language translators) and every bit of RAM is well defined as how it integrates with the instructions. That's the world I'm talking about. If this is too alien to you then you haven't the knowledge base to "poke holes in [my] arguments".

cyborg

30th December 2006, 06:49 PM

The only thing I can figure out that you are trying to do is to take a contrarian position without trying to understand what I am saying.

Yeah, that must be it.

You conjured strawmen galore in this post.

If you say so.

Do you know how to determine "being like" without determining "behaving like"?

Hmm, I don't believe I stated that I had the determination anywhere.

Blunder: negative.

This is a strawman. I never say that I presume I see the world as it is.

Not the implication.

The implication is that you can't assume that because you're looking at the world through a mirror what you see in the mirror is the real world - it's just a virtual image of it.

Your gibberish about computers and computer language is incomprehensible in relationship to my statement.

Well I'll let the other computer knowledgeable people analyse that.

You are not even trying to understand what I am saying.

Be real simple then: what exactly is it you are saying? Sum it up in a sentence.

By your response I can only assume you have never started with an empty computer and started declaring a world inside it - you've always been in an environment on top of a BillGatesWorld system.

Nice assumption. Wrong of course. I had a ZX Spectrum from age 7 and was writing Z80 at 12.

Imagine being in the environment of a tiny Harvard machine like a Microchip PIC where every bit of program instruction you put in yourself (let's say in machine code since you are hung up on language translators) and every bit of RAM is well defined as how it integrates with the instructions. That's the world I'm talking about.

Ah. A common target for the majority of C programs. I should have not assumed that C and assembler in the same breath might relate to the more standard PC world.

If this is too alien to you then you haven't the knowledge base to "poke holes in [my] arguments".

Hardly. But of course in your little show-off about the most low-level system you've worked on you fail to grasp the basic point - that you painted the world of the CPU as a necessarily knowable realm from reflection. Existence is not clear because the 'real world' of the hardware gets in the way. You were trying to equate our 'software' universe to the 'hardware' mechanism that makes it run were you not?

Now of course if you were talking about software simulations of universes then they lives in a bubble of existence completely divorced with how it actually runs. Software can lie so easily to its occupants as to make a realistic hope for the poor simulants at grasping at the truth non-existent. In which case talking about C or assembler is irrelevant. Such a simulation would not care what language it was created in - it could be a LISP machine and it still wouldn't be able to grasp at the source it came from.

VonNeumann

30th December 2006, 07:44 PM

The implication is that you can't assume that because you're looking at the world through a mirror what you see in the mirror is the real world - it's just a virtual image of it.

Be real simple then: what exactly is it you are saying? Sum it up in a sentence.

Nice assumption. Wrong of course. I had a ZX Spectrum from age 7 and was writing Z80 at 12.

Ah. A common target for the majority of C programs. I should have not assumed that C and assembler in the same breath might relate to the more standard PC world.

Hardly. But of course in your little show-off about the most low-level system you've worked on you fail to grasp the basic point - that you painted the world of the CPU as a necessarily knowable realm from reflection. Existence is not clear because the 'real world' of the hardware gets in the way. You were trying to equate our 'software' universe to the 'hardware' mechanism that makes it run were you not?

Now of course if you were talking about software simulations of universes then they lives in a bubble of existence completely divorced with how it actually runs. Software can lie so easily to its occupants as to make a realistic hope for the poor simulants at grasping at the truth non-existent. In which case talking about C or assembler is irrelevant. Such a simulation would not care what language it was created in - it could be a LISP machine and it still wouldn't be able to grasp at the source it came from.
Was that zx spectrum that little funny computer by Sinclair? Man, that came out before you were even born I think. Pretty good you programmed that when you were 7. But the Sinclair is a bit tainted (for illustration here) because it had memory-mapped I/O, which let's some other dimension into it's address-space. In the pure sense of my analogy, the I/O is like 'inter-dimensional tunneling'. It can let undefined stuff into the 'world' (like quantum fluctuations into our 'real' world). See, there's an analogy right there!

I think you got off on this 'mirror' thing because I said "symmetry", is that it? So I don't know how your response about mirrors applies, but let's try an example of what I mean by symmetry. I'm going to use that example that happened in the previous paragraph. In quantum physics, at the fundamental level of 'space-time' there exists a theoretical model of something called a 'vacuum fluctuation'. There are some parallels between how they behave, insofaras bringing something into existence that wasn't there, vaguely similarly to an input port. A couple of other things are the likes of finite computing speed and finite precision of calculation - both of these have analogues in 'reality': finite light speed, and planck limits on precision. The universe is neither continuous in space-time nor infinite in precision in anything that we know of.

You said, "Existence is not clear because the 'real world' of the hardware gets in the way. You were trying to equate our 'software' universe to the 'hardware' mechanism that makes it run were you not?" I don't think I was trying to do that (but I don't even understand what you mean, honestly).

In my analogy to a very simple CPU I didn't understand what you meant by 'show-off' nor about the knowability of the physical hardware. Certainly the workings of a man-made machine is knowable and predictable. Any program running on it (as long as it doesn't use unpredictable input port data) is deterministic. Except for a failure or a chance that is vanishingly small in our lifetime, the machine will not have any random fluctuations and remains predictable. So what are you saying?

Dancing David

31st December 2006, 07:43 AM

I'll go with Heir Heissenberg on this - I don't believe the universe to be deterministic as it loses information as time goes forward. It seemed to me you were confusing the term 'determinism' with 'purpose', perhaps.

Oh definitly, I am not using it of the philosophical sense of can all events be determined from the initial conditions.

I am using it in the sense of Gould's criticism about trying to reverse engineer in evolution, so determinism in that loose sense would be about trying to assert purpose and meaning to the contingent events of evolution, and in my use, which is looser it applies to many things where people look for purpose and meaning in life. It exists to be certain, but not in the generic sense where people only remeber and emphasise the events that fit with the cognitive model they prefer. (but that is part of my preference.)

Dancing David

31st December 2006, 07:52 AM

Good. I am very happy to have some agreement from you, and I know you must think you understand what you thought I said, I'm just not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. :)

Seriously though, yes it's self-referencing: the kind of stuff Alfonso Church and Kurt Goedel worked out for us 75 years ago. That's why the other 'logic' I am suggesting has transcendent existence is 'outside the system'. I've been lectured here of JREF before that Goedel was only talking about formal mathematical systems and I'm applying it to this universe as if that is what it is - but I don't know if the application is fair or not.

I would agree that there are other types of logic and that they can have self consistancy, but my preference is fopr the ones that have the 'objective' charateristics as defined by the methods of observation and science. I am someone who is very familiar with the other kinds of logic, esp. the logic of spiritual experiences, I however have a personal preference to consider them to be non-objective in my materialist perspective.

There are a number of reasons for that, but I agree that they can be consistant and self validating logics. But as a nihilist materialist and a pagan buddhist, I have a preference for how I chose my belief system depending on the context of my setting.

I have seen , felt, lived and experienced the transcendant. But for personal reasons I feel that it is a subset of the human experience, I have not found that the experiences in that category have external validity from the 'objective' viewpoint. they have a very high validity from the internal, social and cultural perspective.

But that is again my personal preference, another would take them to have very high 'objective' validity. And when i have what i view as being 'objective' evidence of the transcendant, and in some ways the material world has enough for me, then I shall fully welcome the spritual world into the wider category. I do feel that the spiritual exists, in the reality of my brain. More preference.

hammegk

31st December 2006, 08:58 AM

...as a nihilist materialist and a pagan buddhist, I have a preference for how I chose my belief system depending on the context of my setting.
I'm amazed you choose to juxtapose two belief systems I find completely anti-thethical. To me you now appear firmly ensconced on the horns of dualism.

cyborg

31st December 2006, 10:26 AM

But the Sinclair is a bit tainted (for illustration here) because it had memory-mapped I/O, which let's some other dimension into it's address-space. In the pure sense of my analogy, the I/O is like 'inter-dimensional tunneling'. It can let undefined stuff into the 'world' (like quantum fluctuations into our 'real' world). See, there's an analogy right there!

Erm, the closest thing to memory mapped I/O is the video memory. There's precious few systems that don't have such a mechanism in place for video I/O because otherwise writing out graphics becomes quite a chore.

A couple of other things are the likes of finite computing speed and finite precision of calculation - both of these have analogues in 'reality': finite light speed, and planck limits on precision. The universe is neither continuous in space-time nor infinite in precision in anything that we know of.

Jesus, it's worse than I thought.

You said, "Existence is not clear because the 'real world' of the hardware gets in the way. You were trying to equate our 'software' universe to the 'hardware' mechanism that makes it run were you not?" I don't think I was trying to do that (but I don't even understand what you mean, honestly).

Your whole thrust of implication is that the CPU world is knowable from the software world. It is not.

Certainly the workings of a man-made machine is knowable and predictable.

Except when it isn't - and frankly the high complexity of modern processors makes it much harder.

Any program running on it (as long as it doesn't use unpredictable input port data) is deterministic. Except for a failure or a chance that is vanishingly small in our lifetime, the machine will not have any random fluctuations and remains predictable. So what are you saying?

You've never been arguing about determinism. You were arguing about the knowability of the functioning of the universe.

Squishua

31st December 2006, 11:25 AM

FosterZygote saying 'don't underestimate chance'. My point is that we don't have evidence, we don't really know what happened, so we can't assign cause of 'origins' to mere 'chance' alone. Looks to me that Squish agrees and so do you (??), too. ... as best as I can tell.
Actually, I'm not quite in agreement with the above.

"Chance" cannot be established as the known cause of the origin of our Universe, simply because anything about what may have produced our Universe and "how" or, assuming the question is even valid, "why," is unknowable. We can hypothesize and theorize, but we can't know.

That being said, non-teleological randomness, occuring through time within the confines of available possiblities and according to statistical probabilities, has proven to be completely adequate (if perhaps emotionally unsatisfying) as the underlying "decision-maker" for any seemingly design-inspired natural process.

Randomness also has the advantage of being a real, observable and verifiable occurance. The same cannot be said of a supernatural designer.

Extraordinary "designer intervention," let alone the Designer itself, have forever failed theoretical validity, detection or even necessity. Were it real, it would be superfluous.

Occam's razor: no designer. :)

hammegk

31st December 2006, 12:41 PM

That being said, non-teleological randomness, occuring through time within the confines of available possiblities and according to statistical probabilities, has proven to be completely adequate (if perhaps emotionally unsatisfying) as the underlying "decision-maker" for any seemingly design-inspired natural process.
Where does one find that "proven to be completely adaquate" amidst the arm-waving and just-so-stories, prior to invocation of the mighty Occam?

Foster Zygote

31st December 2006, 06:45 PM

VonNeumann

31st December 2006, 10:30 PM

Erm, the closest thing to memory mapped I/O is the video memory. There's precious few systems that don't have such a mechanism in place for video I/O because otherwise writing out graphics becomes quite a chore.

Jesus, it's worse than I thought.

Your whole thrust of implication is that the CPU world is knowable from the software world. It is not.

Except when it isn't - and frankly the high complexity of modern processors makes it much harder.

You've never been arguing about determinism. You were arguing about the knowability of the functioning of the universe.
You wear me out. You think I'm saying the exact opposite of what I mean. Is my expression that poor?

You said, "Your whole thrust of implication is that the CPU world is knowable from the software world. It is not." Cripe! My whole thrust is that the hardware is indetectable from the software. Remember I said the transistors are unknowable from the software? I also used the analogy that neurons are undetectable from your thoughts? I said that existence of objects declared in the program are all known inside the program (NOT the hardware). You want to fog it up by going to larger processors and by going to interposing software - even your Sinclair had a a kernel (the monitor that took keyboard inputs and refreshed a raster on the video from your memory mapped I/O). I told you to think of an EMPTY CPU with NO I/O - not even video. None. Zero. Since you refuse to do that and want to argue about something else, I've lost patience. I thought you were interested, but apparently you're not.

VonNeumann

31st December 2006, 10:35 PM

Exactly, thank you. Even the highly improbable is virtually inevitable given enough time.

This is true, given an ideal statistically 'normal' distribution of randomness.

You know what this makes me wonder? I wonder how we can be sure that randomness, from so-called random natural sources, is truly gaussian in distribution. If they aren't, even in an infinitely long sample, some data sequences will never appear.

quixotecoyote

31st December 2006, 10:46 PM

You said, "Your whole thrust of implication is that the CPU world is knowable from the software world. It is not." Cripe! My whole thrust is that the hardware is indetectable from the software.

Now where the heck is that laughing dog?

VonNeumann

31st December 2006, 11:11 PM

Actually, I'm not quite in agreement with the above.

"Chance" cannot be established as the known cause of the origin of our Universe, simply because anything about what may have produced our Universe and "how" or, assuming the question is even valid, "why," is unknowable. We can hypothesize and theorize, but we can't know.

That being said, non-teleological randomness, occuring through time within the confines of available possiblities and according to statistical probabilities, has proven to be completely adequate (if perhaps emotionally unsatisfying) as the underlying "decision-maker" for any seemingly design-inspired natural process.

Randomness also has the advantage of being a real, observable and verifiable occurance. The same cannot be said of a supernatural designer.

Extraordinary "designer intervention," let alone the Designer itself, have forever failed theoretical validity, detection or even necessity. Were it real, it would be superfluous.

Occam's razor: no designer. :)

I have no beef with the edicts of scientific inquiry: no teleology. Hey, who can argue with success? Of course, in recent times we are banging up into a problem with science - we aren't getting any new results in fundamental physics. My mind is a bit saturated with Peter Woit's book right now "Not Even Wrong", on the subject of String Theory.

It seems to me you have a supernatural faith in randomness.

'Randomness'. What a nice and simple term. So exceedingly simple. I love it if it can do so much good stuff. But when it comes down to it, we have no idea what mechanism it is that makes radioactive decay. If there is a mechanism, it is (at least so far) behind a shroud of what's knowable and measurable (isn't that outside 'nature'?). If you say "it just happens", then that's supernatural. Also, isn't it a leap to say that the 'randomness' that conceives baby universes is the same randomness that triggers a subatomic particle emission, or a leap to say it's the same as the randomness that emerges from complexity. Go back before Lorenz (1961?) and you don't find anyone even noticing (except for a few guys decades before who didn't get anyone to listen) chaos. What did they call this 'stuff'? They called it 'randomness'.

So pat yourself on the back and feel secure that you are not a fundamentalist (but indeed you are a fundie!), since you are not being objective and you give so much power to something you cannot even define, not in the physical sense. But what is this randomness that 'creates'? What is it, really? (without merely speaking of a mathematical idea).

VonNeumann

31st December 2006, 11:16 PM

Now where the heck is that laughing dog? hunh?

Dancing David

1st January 2007, 05:49 AM

I'm amazed you choose to juxtapose two belief systems I find completely anti-thethical. To me you now appear firmly ensconced on the horns of dualism.

Dualism is limited to two choices I prefer pluralism.

At my core I find that the hard rational part drives the materialist nihilist part, I would like to believe in the other stuuf, but that core predominates. As a pagan and a buddhist I find that buddhism agrees with the materialist and the nihilist.

Then there is the irrational emotion side, I have always been that way, always felt that there were spirits and connection to the mystery of life. I was pagan before I knew what the word was. But when I apply the model at the core, I find that all the emotional stuff is explained by being a part of the human experience of being me. Especialy since I started taking antidepressants, the obsessive and irration part of me has quieted down considerably. For me it is a relief and a blessing to no longer find meaning in every random act of the world.

I may emotionaly relate to the ideas of spirits and the extraodinary connectedness of the world, but when I examine it, it turns to a product of associative memory and the nature of an organic brain. So I indulge the emotionaol side of myself but I try to not let it make major life decisions for me.

Squishua

1st January 2007, 01:29 PM

It seems to me you have a supernatural faith in randomness.
My friend, my position on this matter is that events like those that cause genetic mutations could happen randomly and the world could still be as it is. In other words, it (evolution) is adequately explained by random events.

Could this explanation be wrong? Sure!

But it requires a whole slew less assumptions than any 'designer hypothesis' does. After all, what the hell is a designer - and how many fantastic assumptions beyond the physical must we make to explain it?

Enter Occam's razor.

I fail to see what is so outrageous about this.

Tumbleweed

1st January 2007, 09:43 PM

I don't know what/who is Tai Chi.

"Admonishment" was not intended; call it "appeal to reconsider". The competing idea in very general terms on "origins" is teleology. If you rewind time back to fundamentals and look at the big picture, the 'competing idea' becomes clearer.

At the fundamental level (the just-so arrangement of the physical 'laws'), evolution is moot on the subject of origins, though some try to apply an abstract darwinian view there, as well. So then, what are we left with to consider at the fundamental level: chance vs teleology?

The "chance" alternative, the anthropic principle proposition, suggests all this "just happened" but it didn't happen with any intention or purpose. And, if it seems like it was unlikely, that makes no sense because otherwise we wouldn't be here to wonder - yadayada yadayada.

The other alternative is telelogical. It seems to me that if we allow any hint of 'purpose' at the fundamental level, the door is open to consider it at the highly developed level, such as in the evolution of homo sapiens. ... and vice versa.

On forums such as this one, the little that I've been able to pick up on, most seem to be very sure of themselves that teleology is false. If that is high in your belief system, in the hierarchical-order of your mental construct, then clearly you have to rationalize that "side-effect" explains it all -- you have no choice.

On the other hand, if you are as skeptical as I am, you cannot allow yourself to be so sure that teleology is false. The just-so physical laws and the extremely lucky emergence of everything that came with homo sapien's incremental neurological revision, are a couple of examples why I keep my mind open to teleology.

Thanks much for the above. Now I don't fell so all alone. My line of reasoning follows yours quite closely

President Bush

1st January 2007, 09:59 PM

In other words, it (evolution) is adequately explained by random events.
For what it's worth... natural selection is defined as non-random.

Tumbleweed

1st January 2007, 10:29 PM

It just bugs me when either side of the evolution argument cop out when you pin them down with logic by either saying "God did it" or "Chance did it"
It feels so condescending for some one to tell me as an adult that the answer to my question is "just because"
It just seems so unscientific
And the phrase, "anything can happen if given enough time" is irksome as well. Why, then, bother looking for an explanation? You have your answer. They don't see it this way, but they look an awful lot like two peas in different ends of the same pod to me
Sometimes I think "Chance" is the Scientific God, the Ultimate Answer to " where did it all come from", and "why are we here"? Chance did it. Case closed

Tumbleweed

1st January 2007, 10:51 PM

After all, neither one can can afford to be wrong, now can they:
No God, no after life, no sin, should have been a Hedonist.
If God, it's oops for the atheists.
I'd want to get it right too!

VonNeumann

2nd January 2007, 01:19 AM

My friend, my position on this matter is that events like those that cause genetic mutations could happen randomly and the world could still be as it is. In other words, it (evolution) is adequately explained by random events.

Could this explanation be wrong? Sure!

But it requires a whole slew less assumptions than any 'designer hypothesis' does. After all, what the hell is a designer - and how many fantastic assumptions beyond the physical must we make to explain it?

Enter Occam's razor.

I fail to see what is so outrageous about this.
In this forum, the positions I take are sometimes taken to be something like "outrageous". The positions you seem to take puts you in the majority. I'm not saying it's "outrageous", but yes you all could be wrong - sure. That is fine - you could be wrong, I could be wrong. That all aside, why argue something we can't resolve? Only to help us understand what we believe and why we prefer one thing over another - that's all.

You appeal to Occam's simplicity. There is no law about this simplicity thing, BTW. It is merely an attitude. ...a guideline. But let's explore your assertion that the designer hypothesis requires a larger quantity of assumptions that what you assert. I believe you are wrong about that - I think the level of simplicity is the same.

You say that ev is adequately explained by random events. Adequately? Then please define this mysterious panacea, this deux a machina from behind the curtain, this "randomness". It is ON THE SAME LEVEL of lacking explanation as is the deux a machina of "designer".

There are some mathematical propositions about "randomness" but there is NO WAY to make anything but pseudo-randomness by utilization of pure mathematics. Think about that. The REAL randomness you are speaking of that "adequately explains" is UNDEFINED! It is the pillar of ev yet it is MAGIC.

Like I posted earlier, there is:
1. The mathematical concept of so-called random distributions.
2. The physical randomness that is observable at the sub-atomic level.
3. The 'randomness' (much of which is now considered to be not truly random but something in the arena of what we've been calling "chaos", of late) that 'emerges' from 'complexity'.

Which one is the "randomness" that is your "designer" in ev (please allow I'm anthropomorphizing the creative effect of this randomness by using the label "designer" - the non-telelogical designer ev-enthusiasts believe in).

Which one?

Is it the purely mathematical (statistical) concept of randomness? If so, that says nothing about where it comes from or whether it even is a valid accurate representation of physical randomness. Surely it is an acceptable approximation to say the least, for many scientifically observable things. But we can't observe and verify this for ev in a scientific sense.

Is it the randomness that we see at subatomic scales? That randomness is as HIDDEN from us as is the concept of "designer". Again, where is randomness of a higher intellectual value than "designer"?

Or, is it randomness that emerges from complexity? I need to respond in a separate post on your statement that Natural Selection is not random. But on whether the god of ev, the "randomness", is of this third kind, I have to say that again it is not something that we can get to the bottom of. We merely have faith that order emerges from complexity. Sometimes this is merely, as in the case of a snowflake or crystal, the apparent order is just a reappearance of order that is already manifest at a smaller scale (the characteristics of the molecule give only so many ways of macro assembly in the lowest energy states).

Please read this: I don't have any more idea what a "designer" is than you do of what "randomness" is. But you believe randomness "creates" and I suggest that "designer" creates is just as good an axiom. Neither of us can give mechanism to this powerful generating source, whichever flavor it is. I think that this assumption that "randomness" is responsible for order requires as much faith as the assumption that there is some teleological source of order.

The mote in the eye of the skeptic who claims that "designer" is worse an assumption than "randomness". I say, "not much difference".

But let me add this: We know that there exists this thing called "design" that creates NEW STUFF in this universe because WE DO IT! This gives "design" the perponderance of superiority over "randomness" because "randomness" has NEVER been observed to create NEW STUFF without a teleological selector. By NEW STUFF, of course I mean the kind of thing that we would need to evolve artificial intelligence in a computer or the kind of thing that would explain evolution of life. A snowflake is not NEW STUFF because the order was already there in the order of the H2O molecule.

If you think genetic algorithms discount my previous statement, remember that the selector in genetic algorithms has already been put in the program (teleology) by an intelligent agent.

VonNeumann

2nd January 2007, 01:47 AM

For what it's worth... natural selection is defined as non-random.
I'm glad you said it. But what do you mean?

If natural selection is "non-random", what is it? Isn't it the so-called order that purportedly emerges from complexity? Is there a theory that explains that to your satisfaction?

cyborg

2nd January 2007, 02:59 AM

I said that existence of objects declared in the program are all known inside the program (NOT the hardware).

You are still wrong then.

You want to fog it up by going to larger processors and by going to interposing software - even your Sinclair had a a kernel (the monitor that took keyboard inputs and refreshed a raster on the video from your memory mapped I/O).

There is no sense in which you can conflate those two separate processes into a kernel.

I told you to think of an EMPTY CPU with NO I/O - not even video. None. Zero. Since you refuse to do that and want to argue about something else, I've lost patience. I thought you were interested, but apparently you're not.

The CPU is irrelevant to your analogy. Entirely irrelevant. That is your fault.

Dancing David

2nd January 2007, 06:27 AM

I'm glad you said it. But what do you mean?

If natural selection is "non-random", what is it? Isn't it the so-called order that purportedly emerges from complexity? Is there a theory that explains that to your satisfaction?

The alleged order arose from simple units, it is a belief not a proven fact. So while some parts fit with the observable evidence, such as adaptation to enviromental changes. The abiogenesis is a belief, one that has a rational assumption, but still based upon assumtion.

Even if abiogenesis was recreated in a laboratory, it would demonstrate that the event was plausible, proving that it is likely or what actualy happened in another matter.

I choose to believe in abiogenesis and panspermia. But both are beliefs based on assumptions.

President Bush

2nd January 2007, 08:52 AM

If natural selection is "non-random", what is it? Isn't it the so-called order that purportedly emerges from complexity? Is there a theory that explains that to your satisfaction?
Just quoting definition:

Natural selection comes from differences in survival and reproduction. Differential mortality is the survival rate of individuals to their reproductive age. Differential fertility is the total genetic contribution to the next generation. Note that, whereas mutations and genetic drift are random, natural selection is not, as it preferentially selects for different mutations based on differential fitnesses. For example, rolling dice is random, but always picking the higher number on two rolled dice is not random.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution
Further thought of as the more complex developing from the less, not order emerging from complexity.

For me the better mystery in all of this is the dynamic between existence being revealed and existence being a project. Which seems 90 degrees to the question of whether God is doing it or not.

Squishua

2nd January 2007, 11:53 AM

1. The mathematical concept of so-called random distributions.
2. The physical randomness that is observable at the sub-atomic level.
3. The 'randomness' (much of which is now considered to be not truly random but something in the arena of what we've been calling "chaos", of late) that 'emerges' from 'complexity'.

Which one is the "randomness" that is your "designer" in ev (please allow I'm anthropomorphizing the creative effect of this randomness by using the label "designer" - the non-telelogical designer ev-enthusiasts believe in).

Which one?
Hm, I didn't realize this was some kind of Inquisition (cue Monty Python bit).

I am speaking of 2 and 3. The physical randomness at the atomic level (which has to be acknowledged because it is completely real) and the chaotic, pseudorandom environmental pressures that, according to theory of evolution by natural selection, shape how evolution goes.

My point is simply that amid chaos and randomness, evolution by natural selection can (not necessarily did) produce all this. The big claim of intelligent design is only a designer can produce order. The inhernet (and apparent) disorder would seem to suggest a process without creative guidance (i.e., without design).

It's not like I'm praying to an altar of randomness. :rolleyes: Sheesh!

Is it the randomness that we see at subatomic scales? That randomness is as HIDDEN from us as is the concept of "designer". Again, where is randomness of a higher intellectual value than "designer"?
I'm not sure I understand your issue here. These events occur randomly, so we say they are random events. Subsituting the word "designer" would be nonsensical.
Please read this: I don't have any more idea what a "designer" is than you do of what "randomness" is. But you believe randomness "creates" and I suggest that "designer" creates is just as good an axiom. Neither of us can give mechanism to this powerful generating source, whichever flavor it is.
You seem to be taking this to a very strange level.

Are you saying that, if no mechanism exists to give random numbers, then the random events that happen must be controlled by some kind of transdimensional intelligence or hyperreal computer simulation that can?

Are there any medications you may have forgotten to take?

VonNeumann

2nd January 2007, 12:50 PM

The alleged order arose from simple units, it is a belief not a proven fact. So while some parts fit with the observable evidence, such as adaptation to enviromental changes. The abiogenesis is a belief, one that has a rational assumption, but still based upon assumtion.

Even if abiogenesis was recreated in a laboratory, it would demonstrate that the event was plausible, proving that it is likely or what actualy happened in another matter.

I choose to believe in abiogenesis and panspermia. But both are beliefs based on assumptions.

A frank and honest answer... But I would think that if abiogenesis could be re-created in the laboratory, even though it would only demonstrate 'plausibility', that would be some hell of a demonstration.

VonNeumann

2nd January 2007, 01:03 PM

Hm, I didn't realize this was some kind of Inquisition (cue Monty Python bit).

I am speaking of 2 and 3. The physical randomness at the atomic level (which has to be acknowledged because it is completely real) and the chaotic, pseudorandom environmental pressures that, according to theory of evolution by natural selection, shape how evolution goes.

My point is simply that amid chaos and randomness, evolution by natural selection can (not necessarily did) produce all this. The big claim of intelligent design is only a designer can produce order. The inhernet (and apparent) disorder would seem to suggest a process without creative guidance (i.e., without design).

It's not like I'm praying to an altar of randomness. :rolleyes: Sheesh!

I'm not sure I understand your issue here. These events occur randomly, so we say they are random events. Subsituting the word "designer" would be nonsensical.

You seem to be taking this to a very strange level.

Are you saying that, if no mechanism exists to give random numbers, then the random events that happen must be controlled by some kind of transdimensional intelligence or hyperreal computer simulation that can?

Are there any medications you may have forgotten to take?

:) Yeah, it seems strange if you never asked the questions seriously. Not trying to claim I'm Einstein or anything, but lots of crazy ideas end up in the mainstream, given enough time. I think that with the prevalence of digital culture these days, more people will think the way that I do.

I'm not saying it exactly the way you did when you asked me "Are you saying that, if no mechanism exists to give random numbers, then the random events that happen must be controlled by some kind of transdimensional intelligence or hyperreal computer simulation that can?" I'm saying that I believe we have a big hole in our thinking if we do not ask ourselves exactly what is this stuff called "randomness". I'm saying we are ignoring it if we say "radioactive decay" just happens the way it happens and don't even ask "how" it happens. And yet "randomness" is the "genesis", the "generator" the "creative algorithm", the.... should I say it :( , the "god" of the materialist. I'm saying it is the "god" of materialism because people attribute such omnipotent power to it and can't even tell "what it is", "where it is", "how it works". Walks like a duck...

I'm not any more of a nut than Laplace, or Galileo, or Newton, or anyone else who thinks there is a "clockwork" beneath it all. What are the string theorists looking for? Little billiard balls? Little violin strings? They must be crazy. I'm not any more of a nut than anyone else to went through university mathematics and physics so I could learn more (actually so I could get a job, but...) about how the 'clockwork' works.

Einstein said the Old One must be a mathematician. What a kook!:)

Squishua

2nd January 2007, 11:12 PM

Yeah, it seems strange if you never asked the questions seriously.
The idea of hidden variables is nothing new.
Not trying to claim I'm Einstein or anything, but lots of crazy ideas end up in the mainstream, given enough time. I think that with the prevalence of digital culture these days, more people will think the way that I do.
Appeal to (future) consensus? Just a moment while I send that one off to the Internet Infidels to add to their list.

And yes, a lot of crazy ideas do make their way into the mainstream. ESP, guardian angels, UFO's... why, just look at the attendance at psychic fairs.

Acceptance by the mainstream is not a very good indicator of merit.
I believe we have a big hole in our thinking if we do not ask ourselves exactly what is this stuff called "randomness".
Randomness is not "stuff," it is a term denoting the quality of being random. Random means having no pattern, purpose or objective. It means all outcomes (within a probability distribution, if applicable) are equally likely.
I'm saying we are ignoring it if we say "radioactive decay" just happens the way it happens and don't even ask "how" it happens.
Again, hidden variables are nothing new. Unless a hidden variable is proposed that an experiment could either verify or falsify, the idea is untestable and, therefore, unscientific. As a postulate or axiom it can be added to avoid cognitive dissonance, but not out of predictive necessity.

Beyond that, I'm not sure why you think "how" randomness occurs is intelligible, since there is no classical deterministic process that will produce it.

(BTW, hidden variable theories exist that make far fewer assumptions than postulating a supernatural designer and/or a Matrix-like metaphysical reality)
And yet "randomness" is the "genesis", the "generator" the "creative algorithm", the.... should I say it , the "god" of the materialist.
Randomness is an observed quality, not a "creator" or "generator."

As it happens, it is an observed quality that is quite antithetical to the idea of any sort of teleological objective being in play.
I'm not any more of a nut than Laplace, or Galileo, or Newton, or anyone else who thinks there is a "clockwork" beneath it all.
Or even your namesake, John von Neumann. ;)

You may believe that the Universe can be explained in a 100% classical-deterministic way (or maybe you think that I believe it, since you blaspheme my "materialist god," Randomness :p ). Unfortunately, this idea is not empirically supported.

If you have information that suggests otherwise, I'm open to listen.

articulett

3rd January 2007, 01:03 AM

After all, neither one can can afford to be wrong, now can they:
No God, no after life, no sin, should have been a Hedonist.
If God, it's oops for the atheists.
I'd want to get it right too!

And if Allah, oopsy for Christians and atheists--

And if Heavens Gate, we already missed the spaceship...

Why, you'd think that with all that godlessness, people would be sinning in droves, eh? Nah...it turns out that Christians only THINK they are more moral than everyone else.

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

Every religious person believes that the people of his "faith" are more moral than those of all other faiths. But, we secularists have the data on our side.

VonNeumann

3rd January 2007, 03:11 PM

And if Allah, oopsy for Christians and atheists--

And if Heavens Gate, we already missed the spaceship...

Why, you'd think that with all that godlessness, people would be sinning in droves, eh? Nah...it turns out that Christians only THINK they are more moral than everyone else.

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

Every religious person believes that the people of his "faith" are more moral than those of all other faiths. But, we secularists have the data on our side.
Art'. Church lady is not your enemy. Reason is your enemy.

VonNeumann

3rd January 2007, 03:52 PM

The idea of hidden variables is nothing new.

Appeal to (future) consensus? Just a moment while I send that one off to the Internet Infidels to add to their list.

And yes, a lot of crazy ideas do make their way into the mainstream. ESP, guardian angels, UFO's... why, just look at the attendance at psychic fairs.

Acceptance by the mainstream is not a very good indicator of merit.

Randomness is not "stuff," it is a term denoting the quality of being random. Random means having no pattern, purpose or objective. It means all outcomes (within a probability distribution, if applicable) are equally likely.

Again, hidden variables are nothing new. Unless a hidden variable is proposed that an experiment could either verify or falsify, the idea is untestable and, therefore, unscientific. As a postulate or axiom it can be added to avoid cognitive dissonance, but not out of predictive necessity.

Beyond that, I'm not sure why you think "how" randomness occurs is intelligible, since there is no classical deterministic process that will produce it.

(BTW, hidden variable theories exist that make far fewer assumptions than postulating a supernatural designer and/or a Matrix-like metaphysical reality)

Randomness is an observed quality, not a "creator" or "generator."

As it happens, it is an observed quality that is quite antithetical to the idea of any sort of teleological objective being in play.

Or even your namesake, John von Neumann. ;)

You may believe that the Universe can be explained in a 100% classical-deterministic way (or maybe you think that I believe it, since you blaspheme my "materialist god," Randomness :p ). Unfortunately, this idea is not empirically supported.

If you have information that suggests otherwise, I'm open to listen.

Squish, good post. I see it, however, that randomness is the god of the materialist, still. You are correct that "stuff" was so vague that I agree that randomenss is not "stuff". I was trying to say that the RM/NS model, whether applied to biology or applied to genetic algorithms, trusts that randomness is the generating factor, ultimately. Whether it is the randomness that emerges from complex systems or quantum randomness, it has to be at the core of a belief system that believes in spontaneous generation but denies teleology. ...and I've pointed out that "design" is basically also a spontaneous generation idea, but presumes some hidden complexity. To summarize, whether you believe complexity arises from nothingness, but randomness is at the core, or you believe the same but "design" is at the core, in either case, the mechanism is behind the curtain. Very similar, it seems to me (so what's all the flipping fuss?).

I do not believe in determinism. I've alreay tried to indicate that there is a diff between teleology and determinism - even in my thinking.

I started another post on "Does Mathematics Exist?" and I propose that there need exist a mechanism to perform the functions of, say, an atom. This is like "hidden variables", though I think it is even more than that. Variables without operators still don't do anything.

I am not a determinist. But I admit that what I suggest as plausible ( the existence of an underlying substrate) may be deterministic within the substrate itself, but results in a universe, our universe, which is not.

So, don't wait around to be open to listen to me explain why the universe is deterministic - it isn't. The universe loses information and from that fact alone, I fail to see how anyone could think it is a deterministic universe.

Did you ever read the story about the meteorologist Lorenz? His model truncated data - the universe does the same thing. I believe it does because it has to.

Dancing David

4th January 2007, 07:38 AM

Squish, good post. I see it, however, that randomness is the god of the materialist, still. You are correct that "stuff" was so vague that I agree that randomenss is not "stuff". I was trying to say that the RM/NS model, whether applied to biology or applied to genetic algorithms, trusts that randomness is the generating factor, ultimately.

But in the case of the biological meachanism it is more constrained variability that true randomness. Thje variation arises within the existing setting. And so it is not random in the sense that all outcomes have an equal propability . Sio while random mutation applies to an extent, given that there are four base choices to ne in the RNA/DNA then there is a constraint to the 'randomness'. And even at the stage of possible abiogenesis, where chemicals begin to create self catalyzing aggregates and somehow *insert miracle here* become associated with each other and a containing film, the 'randomnes' is constrained. I think that the reproductive selection is more likely the key to evolution than the RM, because RM is constrained by the existing substrate at any given moment.

Whether it is the randomness that emerges from complex systems or quantum randomness, it has to be at the core of a belief system that believes in spontaneous generation but denies teleology. ...and I've pointed out that "design" is basically also a spontaneous generation idea, but presumes some hidden complexity.

That I am not sure I can agree to, prior to abiogenesis i imagine that it is tuely the random buming of atoms and then molecules that leads to things like the amino acids. So I think I would call that actualy random. The key as I said is when you begin to have interactions that influence other interactions, and I don't quite se how that would be dependant totaly on randomess. because the interactions could begin to cascade when they become supportive of each other. Which is more constrained or agmented randomness.

To summarize, whether you believe complexity arises from nothingness, but randomness is at the core, or you believe the same but "design" is at the core, in either case, the mechanism is behind the curtain. Very similar, it seems to me (so what's all the flipping fuss?).

I agree that the interactions of atoms are in my POV contrained randomness, but I am not sure that implies a design. I would say it is an unknowable factor at this point, and thereforer a matter of choice. the periodic table, it could be designed or it could be the product of constrained random interactions. I am not sure how it could be tested for.

I do not believe in determinism. I've alreay tried to indicate that there is a diff between teleology and determinism - even in my thinking.

I started another post on "Does Mathematics Exist?" and I propose that there need exist a mechanism to perform the functions of, say, an atom. This is like "hidden variables", though I think it is even more than that. Variables without operators still don't do anything.

Mechanism yes, but how to decide if a mechanism is random or designed?

I am not a determinist. But I admit that what I suggest as plausible ( the existence of an underlying substrate) may be deterministic within the substrate itself, but results in a universe, our universe, which is not.

Since it seems unknowable it falls into what i call nihilism, all choices are equally false and equally true.

So, don't wait around to be open to listen to me explain why the universe is deterministic - it isn't. The universe loses information and from that fact alone, I fail to see how anyone could think it is a deterministic universe.

Did you ever read the story about the meteorologist Lorenz? His model truncated data - the universe does the same thing. I believe it does because it has to.
I am not sure the universe looses data, too many wierd things happen at the quantum level, maybe after we determine the approximate model for field effects and entanglement we will have a better idea of the possible reality.

VonNeumann

5th January 2007, 11:23 PM

...constrained variability than true randomness.
...
...given that there are four base choices .. in the RNA/DNA then there is a constraint to the 'randomness'.
...
And even at the stage of possible abiogenesis, where chemicals begin to create self catalyzing aggregates and somehow *insert miracle here* become associated with each other and a containing film, the 'randomnes' is constrained.

I think that the reproductive selection is more likely the key to evolution than the RM, because RM is constrained by the existing substrate at any given moment.

... prior to abiogenesis ... I think I would call that actually random.

The key as I said is when you begin to have interactions that influence other interactions, and I don't quite see how that would be dependent totally on randomess. because the interactions could begin to cascade when they become supportive of each other. Which is more constrained or augmented randomness.

I agree that the interactions of atoms are in my POV contrained randomness, but I am not sure that implies a design. I would say it is an unknowable factor at this point, and thereforer a matter of choice. the periodic table, it could be designed or it could be the product of constrained random interactions.
Mechanism yes, but how to decide if a mechanism is random or designed?

Since it seems unknowable it falls into what i call nihilism, all choices are equally false and equally true.

I am not sure the universe loses data, too many wierd things happen at the quantum level, maybe after we determine the approximate model for field effects and entanglement we will have a better idea of the possible reality.
The last thing you said is that you aren't sure about the universe losing data. Well, then you don't believe in the second law of thermodynamics? THat's what it teaches.

You are way ahead of me on nihilism. I don't know much about that - it seems to me like a philosophy for people with low serotonin levels.:)

You talk about constrained randomness a bit. Yes, that is an important point. It is interesting that we should be so lucky that there are these constraints.

Like, I can constrain a 'random' series of bits to groups of 7bit words and limit it to the ASCII set {A, B, C, ... Y, Z, space}. Then I can make my roulette wheel only spit out letters. I can further limit it to letter combinations that are common in English - in pairs, in triplets, etc. I can further throw out combinations that are not words in English. I can then throw out sequences of words that are not grammatically correct. I can constrain it using all kinds of telelogical (it's telelogical because of the goal of trying to make it do something that I intend) rules before it comes out of my generator.

BTW, all this was done in the 50s and 60s, already, on early computers. It was rude to those hopeful of evolving something more than some drunken computer poetry and such. But still, you are correct that the constraints are what gives randomness a fighting chance in a time-duration that is less than a google-plex number of years. Please consider though that in the example of the computer algorithm, all those syntactical rules are put in with intent. Does our universe then show 'intent' because the syntactical rules of chemistry rule out senseless chemicals? Impossible chemicals? So I think the point to ponder in what you said is not that there exists "constraints" on randomness, but rather how can those constraints not be considered anything but the most flipping luckiest thing in the universe that they just happen to be the way the are.

RandFan

5th January 2007, 11:42 PM

The last thing you said is that you aren't sure about the universe losing data. Well, then you don't believe in the second law of thermodynamics? THat's what it teaches.No. Not even close.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics (http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/secondlaw.html)

Note the second law is not applicable to an open system; where energy exchange between the system and the surroundings occurs. An obvious example is the cooling of a room by an air-conditioner. By itself, the room will not begin to get cooler than the surroundings. The air-conditioner pumps heat out from the room allowing it to cool. If we take just the entropy of the room, we will find that the amount of heat in the room will decrease resulting in an entropy decrease. But the room is an open system since there is an exchange of energy with the outside, namely the energy that is fed into the air-conditioner. To form a closed system we must take the air-conditioner, the power supply to it and the room together. The increase in entropy caused by the conversion of energy to feed the air-conditioner will outweigh the decrease of entropy within the room. Thus when all the appropriate components of a closed system are taken into account, there will always be an entropy increase.

VonNeumann

5th January 2007, 11:47 PM

No. Not even close.

I don't want to argue facts, RandFan. I suggest you read a book called "Symbols, Signals, and Noise" by J Pierce. It discusses Maxwell's demon in terms of information.

RandFan

6th January 2007, 01:04 AM

I don't want to argue facts, RandFan. I suggest you read a book called "Symbols, Signals, and Noise" by J Pierce. It discusses Maxwell's demon in terms of information.Dear Ed, argument via book suggestion.

If you don't want to "argue facts" that's fine but I would suggest that you avoid making claims that are contradicted by facts and don't tell me to go read a book. That's as boring of an argument as they come.

Further, there is not one review of that book. I've got a stack of about 8 books to get through and a list of at least another 10 on my wish list. Why would I spend $1.25 (http://www.amazon.com/Symbols-Signals-Noise-Process-Communication/dp/0061392324) to purchase an out of print book that no one cares enough to review and has a single citation, that being from a catalog?

VonNeumann

6th January 2007, 01:46 AM

VonNeumann

6th January 2007, 01:53 AM

Dear Ed, argument via book suggestion.

If you don't want to "argue facts" that's fine but I would suggest that you avoid making claims that are contradicted by facts and don't tell me to go read a book. That's as boring of an argument as they come.

Further, there is not one review of that book. I've got a stack of about 8 books to get through and a list of at least another 10 on my wish list. Why would I spend $1.25 (http://www.amazon.com/Symbols-Signals-Noise-Process-Communication/dp/0061392324) to purchase an out of print book that no one cares enough to review and has a single citation, that being from a catalog?

Look here: http://www.ccel.us/gange.ch12.html
The Meaning of the New Second Law

What does the New Generalized Second Law teach regarding the natural flow of information? It teaches that nature is a sieve whose structures undergo deterioration and, therefore, information loss with the passage of time. Since physical processes are not able to retrieve this information, and since intelligence is the only known "pump" that can reverse the process, intellect could hardly have resulted from processes that lose what it produces.

VonNeumann

6th January 2007, 02:17 AM

No. Not even close.

The universe loses information. So says the second law of thermo.

http://arxiv.org/ftp/cond-mat/papers/0501/0501014.pdf

Admittedly, when I took thermo, my prof probably never thought about it in those terms either. There was a resistance to melding thermo with information theory. John von Neumann coined the term "entropy" that Shannon used in his paper on Information Theory in 1948. I don't know if von Neumann was sort of punning about it or thought it was too similar to not have the same name, or what. But it has been controversial to combine the two. I never understood that. I've had this "universe is a computer" paradigm for too long.

Dancing David

6th January 2007, 07:06 AM

The last thing you said is that you aren't sure about the universe losing data. Well, then you don't believe in the second law of thermodynamics? THat's what it teaches.

perhaps my view is different, the SLTTD concerns the flow of energy in a system and the arrangement of that energy with the energy becoming dispersed over an element defined as time.
At least from my layman's perspective.

You are way ahead of me on nihilism. I don't know much about that - it seems to me like a philosophy for people with low serotonin levels.:)

Nihilism is very differently defined by many people. i see nihilism as a general hypothesis that all human thought is equaly false and equaly true, that all human thought can never absolutely equate to reality. I use the term validity to denote the level of approxiamation to predicting observable outcomes in the apparent reality. I am not a philospohical nihilist, i do believe that life has things loosely denied as purpose and meaning.

You talk about constrained randomness a bit. Yes, that is an important point. It is interesting that we should be so lucky that there are these constraints.

Current thought models would suggest that some level of constraint, or limits to expression of observable traits would be needed for us to sit here and type to each other. Energy manifesting all over the universe equaly would not be a model that would likely lead to organic sets of creatuires interacting. Some prefer the designed model , some prefer the more random, self constraining models. But constraint comes with loaded implication. Contingent history would work as well.

I favor the inflationary model with the possible idea that there could be many universes arising and falling, with those with the tendencies to self sustain and with the potential for generation having a longer 'life' than the less sutaining ones. Totaly unknowable speculation and philospohy outside of the observations that lead to the inflationary cosmological model.

Like, I can constrain a 'random' series of bits to groups of 7bit words and limit it to the ASCII set {A, B, C, ... Y, Z, space}. Then I can make my roulette wheel only spit out letters. I can further limit it to letter combinations that are common in English - in pairs, in triplets, etc. I can further throw out combinations that are not words in English. I can then throw out sequences of words that are not grammatically correct. I can constrain it using all kinds of telelogical (it's telelogical because of the goal of trying to make it do something that I intend) rules before it comes out of my generator.

BTW, all this was done in the 50s and 60s, already, on early computers. It was rude to those hopeful of evolving something more than some drunken computer poetry and such. But still, you are correct that the constraints are what gives randomness a fighting chance in a time-duration that is less than a google-plex number of years. Please consider though that in the example of the computer algorithm, all those syntactical rules are put in with intent.

yes, but that is because it is in the nature of the model. Models can approximate but not be directly derivative of reality. We can predict the outcome of observable events but we can not directly view the substrate of reality. Our models just like our thoughts are a product of human existance.(In my POV)

Does our universe then show 'intent' because the syntactical rules of chemistry rule out senseless chemicals? Impossible chemicals? So I think the point to ponder in what you said is not that there exists "constraints" on randomness, but rather how can those constraints not be considered anything but the most flipping luckiest thing in the universe that they just happen to be the way the are.

That is again unknowable and a matter of choice. I see what I believe the universe to be as it is. It appears to have a lot, and I mean like a whole lot of wavicles in it, and it appears to be very old. So what are the chances that the seeming order would arise from the apparent chaotic swirl of particles, given the numbers involved, it seems to not be impossible.

But given the fact that this is a universe where apparently we can exist, it is hard to discern the why. It is a matter of choice in my POV, you see it as unlikely. I see it as existing. It could be created, it could be partly created and chaotic and random or it could be totaly chaotic and random.

I see that the 'order' percieved by us is a product of the level of interaction we choose to look at and the nature of the associative framework that we use to percieve. Others see the same events and they see differently.

At the level of observationa prediction and validity we can not currently determine if the universe is created with design or not. All equaly true, all equaly false, and a matter of choice.

Dancing David

6th January 2007, 07:18 AM

Look here: http://www.ccel.us/gange.ch12.html
The Meaning of the New Second Law

What does the New Generalized Second Law teach regarding the natural flow of information? It teaches that nature is a sieve whose structures undergo deterioration and, therefore, information loss with the passage of time. Since physical processes are not able to retrieve this information, and since intelligence is the only known "pump" that can reverse the process, intellect could hardly have resulted from processes that lose what it produces.

It would seem to me that that is a definitional overlay of the thought model of the Second law, where can humans actualy reverse the entropic flow of energy? In creating asscociative netwroks in our brains the flow of entropy continues, i don't see the structuring of a very small set, the human brain, as involving more than the continuation of entropy. the set of the brain becaomes more ordered through the creation of disorder in the surrounding set and therefore while we might say that the human brain is more ordered, it involves the creation of more overall disorder. Therefore the second law is not violated. While the information is created and stored in the human brain, the human body of which the brain is part and parcel creates vastly more entropy.

At least from my POV, the order of the brain is less than the level of entropy created by the human body.

RandFan

6th January 2007, 07:29 AM

Look here: http://www.ccel.us/gange.ch12.html
The Meaning of the New Second Law So, you've gone from arguing via book recomendation to arguing via link?

Sorry but the above link is full of non-sequiturs and other fallacies.

What does the New Generalized Second Law teach regarding the natural flow of information? It teaches that nature is a sieve whose structures undergo deterioration and, therefore, information loss with the passage of time. Since physical processes are not able to retrieve this information, and since intelligence is the only known "pump" that can reverse the process, intellect could hardly have resulted from processes that lose what it produces.Two words. Natural Selection. It's simple, elegant and it is understood beyond the point of reasonable doubt. Natural selection is a sieve that selects for traits that are benificial to the gene.

RandFan

6th January 2007, 08:12 AM

The universe loses information. So says the second law of thermo.

http://arxiv.org/ftp/cond-mat/papers/0501/0501014.pdf

Admittedly, when I took thermo, my prof probably never thought about it in those terms either. There was a resistance to melding thermo with information theory. John von Neumann coined the term "entropy" that Shannon used in his paper on Information Theory in 1948. I don't know if von Neumann was sort of punning about it or thought it was too similar to not have the same name, or what. But it has been controversial to combine the two. I never understood that. I've had this "universe is a computer" paradigm for too long.I'm not going to argue the link. For one thing the author starts by making a number of questionable assumptions without justification. BTW, what is "deep physics"? The author seems to think there is some "deep" meaning behind it. I did a google search and came up with 979 hits. Typos usually get more hits. The first link is for an artist's site. The second is an ad for a hip hop CD. Some of the links are dead. To contrast, "classical physics" yields 1,050,000 hits. That's a ratio of more than 1,000 and all of the links on the first page are clearly relevant to physics.

Do me a favor. Read the text yourself and decide what information is most relevant and post that information. Make an argument. If you can't do that then it is likely you don't even understand what you are reading.

VonNeumann

6th January 2007, 09:05 AM

whoops

VonNeumann

6th January 2007, 09:08 AM

At the level of observation a prediction and validity we can not currently determine if the universe is created with design or not. All equally true, all equally false, and a matter of choice.Hmmm. Seems like I've been making some nihilistic statements, then.

VonNeumann

6th January 2007, 09:33 AM

I'm not going to argue the link. For one thing the author starts by making a number of questionable assumptions without justification. BTW, what is "deep physics"? The author seems to think there is some "deep" meaning behind it. I did a google search and came up with 979 hits. Typos usually get more hits. The first link is for an artist's site. The second is an ad for a hip hop CD. Some of the links are dead. To contrast, "classical physics" yields 1,050,000 hits. That's a ratio of more than 1,000 and all of the links on the first page are clearly relevant to physics.

Do me a favor. Read the text yourself and decide what information is most relevant and post that information. Make an argument. If you can't do that then it is likely you don't even understand what you are reading.
:) You are reluctant to consider this. I don't consider it my job to educate you, expecially on something that I consider to be pretty obvious. It seems obvious to me because I have a worldview in which this idea is at the core. I won't irritate with you by telling you what I think is your worldview, only that you are in the mainstream. I say that because it seems that way and it is a good bet statistically.

I already did you a few favors. I don't care if you are interested - maybe a few silent readers here just considered what I said is interesting enough to investigate on their own. Your thinking is stuck in another plane and you have the security of knowing that you have chosen a "safe" place if you like collective thought (Ayn would be disappointed. Smile, it's just a playful dig, man). Do yourself a favor - and if you think this "digital physics" idea is BS then don't waste your time.

You leave me with the impression that you are sometimes behaving in a way similar to some of the materialist fundies here - they want church lady to appear on the forum so they can practice their feeling of superiority; but when the opportunity presents itself for them to think about something new and consider it more than casually, they don't know what to do but attack.

Either go learn or don't. If an idea can't get through your filter yet, don't ask me to tweak your coefficients of acceptance - only you can do that. But are you willing?:)

hammegk

6th January 2007, 09:42 AM

A number of posters here would rather examine a tree with a microscope than discuss a forest.

VonNeumann

6th January 2007, 09:46 AM

So, you've gone from arguing via book recomendation to arguing via link?

:) If I am to attempt to try to write something to re-program decades of wrong thinking, it would take much more than anything I could put here. I've probably written 10,000 words in the last couple weeks on this forum. I've planted some seeds. Now, go do something else and let it germinate. A year from now you will see things a little differently.

VonNeumann

6th January 2007, 10:05 AM

A number of posters here would rather examine a tree with a microscope than discuss a forest.

Yeah. This fundie likes to accuse on "fallacy". He just blundered with sin worse than I've ever committed here. He is all hung up on some cute word-pair "deep physics" ??? I never used that term. Let's see, is he using the famous "strawman" fallacy? Why doesn't he just dig into the meat of the paper and comment on something material to the point?

I think I'm done here, Ham'. How do you manage to frequent this place for so long? Is there a "free-thinker's" forum on the web? This "skeptic's" forum is not very skeptical. Some are downright fundamentalist materialists.

PixyMisa

6th January 2007, 10:08 AM

A number of posters here would rather examine a tree with a microscope than discuss a forest.

Certainly.

RandFan

6th January 2007, 10:24 AM

You are reluctant to consider this.There is a plethora of nutty ideas out there. I'm only interested in ideas that can be argued coherently. That's not an unfair standard.

I don't consider it my job to educate you...I don't really care what you consider as your job. It has nothing whatsoever with my response or the discussion at hand. This is just rhetoric. It doesn't advance an idea, establish a proposition or contribute anything of worth to the issue at hand.

...expecially on something that I consider to be pretty obvious.You consideration isn't at issue. You are posting claims on a skeptics forum. I don't know what your motivations are but if you want to be taken seriously then it would be in your best interest to not simply assert what you think is "pretty obvious". Aside from the fact that it is both pompous and presumptuous it doesn't contribute anything.

It seems obvious to me because I have a worldview in which this idea is at the core.Based on your contributions so far I would have to say that your world view is at best arbitrary, emotional and self serving.

I won't irritate with you by telling you what I think is your worldview...That's probably best.

...only that you are in the mainstream. I say that because it seems that way and it is a good bet statistically. "Mainstream" of what? Pop culture? Definitely not. Religious philosophy? I don't think so. New Age? No. Objective and rational inquiry into our natural world via the scientific method based on empiricism? Absolutely and unapologetically.

I already did you a few favors.No. But if it helps you feel good about yourself then you go on believing this.

I don't care if you are interested - maybe a few silent readers here just considered what I said is interesting enough to investigate on their own.I don't doubt that there are a few silent readers who will consider that what you have said is interesting. Hey, there were the folks who were interested enough in the ideas of Applewhite to follow him to the space ship behind hidden behind Hale-Bopp (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven's_Gate_(cult)). There are the Raelians. Scientologists. Folks who believe Sylvia Browne talks to dead people. Folks who believe that they are abducted by aliens, etc..

Interesting seems to be the de rigueur of pop science.

Your thinking is stuck in another plane and you have the security of knowing that you have chosen a "safe" place if you like collective thought... Sorry Von but no. I'm willing to discuss damn near anything. I'm not dogmatic. If you give me BS though then my contribution to the discussion is going to consist of me tearing it apart and not entertaining the it.

That said, for me to entertain an idea I have some criteria.

The idea must be logically possible. I'm not interested in entertaining square circles or honey that smells like the color blue.
The idea should be logically plausible (it's possible that Napoleon has been reincarnated and lives down the street from me but it is not plausible).
You need to present the idea using logically valid argument. I don't mind rhetoric so long as the rhetoric is the exception and not the rule. I will point out your rhetoric so that you will know what isn't likely to persuade me. In deference to the gander, please feel free to point out my rhetoric.Ayn would be disappointed. Smile, it's just a playful dig, man.I can confidently say that she would not be disappointed. Objectivism comes from the objective analysis and inquiry of ideas.

Do yourself a favor - and if you think this "digital physics" idea is BS then don't waste your time.Rhetorical.

You leave me with the impression that you are sometimes behaving in a way similar to some of the materialist fundies here - they want church lady to appear on the forum so they can practice their feeling of superiority; but when the opportunity presents itself for them to think about something new and consider it more than casually, they don't know what to do but attack. Again, rhetorical. More importantly it misses the point of philosophy and science. Truth is best surmised by subjecting ideas to scrutiny and debate. The best ideas survive and the crappy ones languish in objective debate. If you really cared about your ideas you wouldn't mind defending them. I start threads here and I'm often taken to task. The group doesn't simply smile and nod their collective heads. On the contrary. Many take every opportunity to challenge me and I thim. Even though I don't like it sometimes it is a good thing.

Cars, airplanes, rockets, lasers, the discovery of Red Shift, Solar Wind, the splitting of the atom, the unlocking of the mysteries of DNA, etc., etc. didn't happen because people sat around a room getting high and slapping themselves on the back. They happened because there were people who wanted to challenge paradigms.

Either go learn or don't.Spare me the condescension.

If an idea can't get through your filter yet, don't ask me to tweak your coefficients of acceptance - only you can do that. But are you willing?You are getting boring. This is rhetorical. It's meaningless. If you have an idea worth considering I will consider it (see criteria above).

PixyMisa

6th January 2007, 10:26 AM

On the subject of information loss: The relationship between physical entropy and information is subtle, but nonetheless it is an accepted tenet of modern physics (arising from Quantum Mechanics) that information cannot be destroyed.

This is one area where Relativity collides with QM. Stephen Hawking showed that matter that falls into a black hole could eventually escape through what is now known as Hawking radiation, but his theory said that the information carried in the original matter would be lost. Many physicists disagreed, and Hawking has since changed his mind, presenting a refined version of the theory which allows for the information to be preserved. Wikipedia summary. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox)

Until we get a single theory unifying Relativity and QM, that probably won't be settled for certain, but in the general case, no, the universe does not leak data; no truly closed system can.

RandFan

6th January 2007, 10:40 AM

If I am to attempt to try to write something to re-program decades of wrong thinking, it would take much more than anything I could put here. I've probably written 10,000 words in the last couple weeks on this forum. I've planted some seeds. Now, go do something else and let it germinate. A year from now you will see things a little differently. :rolleyes: Dear Ed you are as arrogant as you are presumptuous.

I'm sorry that you see 2,000+ years of intellectual progress as "wrong thinking". It's ironic that you use a computer to denounce the fruits of enlightenment. I love it when folks who live largely free from disease thanks to the contributions of folks like Pasteur and free from drudgery thanks to labor saving devices made possible by science have the luxury to denounce the process of discovery that gave them that luxury.

Nice.

Foster Zygote

6th January 2007, 10:46 AM

:rolleyes: Dear Ed you are as arrogant as you are presumptuous.

I'm sorry that you see 2,000+ years of intellectual progress as "wrong thinking". It's ironic that you use a computer to denounce the fruits of enlightenment. I love it when folks who live largely free from disease thanks to the contributions of folks like Pasteur and free from drudgery thanks to labor saving devices made possible by science have the luxury to denounce the process of discovery that gave them that luxury.

Nice.

Well put.

Does his statement...
If I am to attempt to try to write something to re-program decades of wrong thinking, it would take much more than anything I could put here.
...remind you of anyone?

hammegk

6th January 2007, 10:48 AM

Yeah. Most posters here.

joobz

6th January 2007, 11:01 AM

I don't want to argue facts, RandFan. I suggest you read a book called "Symbols, Signals, and Noise" by J Pierce. It discusses Maxwell's demon in terms of information.
What does maxwell's demon mean to you in this context?
You also state that the universe loses information. are you claiming that information is the sole source of energy or that it accounts for all forms of energy? If so, than you are right, but it is a "so what?" type of correctness.

We know that the universe is losing it's energy potentials. that it is gaining disorder. That doesn't prevent pockets of order from forming. From pockets of information from becoming available.

I fear your application of the 2nd law is wholly missguided and simply not valid.

RandFan

6th January 2007, 11:15 AM

Well put.

Does his statement...

...remind you of anyone?:) Yep.

hammegk

6th January 2007, 04:20 PM

I think I'm done here, Ham'.
I hope not.

How do you manage to frequent this place for so long?
The latin-patois in my sig says it all.

Is there a "free-thinker's" forum on the web?
I prefer this one so far; once in a great while something worth thinking through gets posted here. IIDB is a crock. Have you looked at Dawkin's website & forums? And Shermer has his devotees see skepticforum .. although to me it's all heat, no light. Picture a roomful of articuletts.

This "skeptic's" forum is not very skeptical. Some are downright fundamentalist materialists.
And one here actually admitted it; 100% materialist/atheist. The rest seem to be wannabe materialists who remain dualists (ala Dawkins -- see Edge) even though they don't understand that fact.

RandFan

6th January 2007, 05:02 PM

He is all hung up on some cute word-pair "deep physics" ??? I never used that term.I never said that you did use it. I'm telling you why it is typical of so much BS out there.

Why doesn't he just dig into the meat of the paper and comment on something material to the point? Here's an idea, why don't you? {for crying out loud}

I think I'm done here, Ham'.

VonNeumann: Hey everyone, look at my psudo science.
Everyone: It's BS because of A, B, C, D, E, etc.
VonNeumann: Not fair. I don't like it when people don't accept my happy horse$#!t. I'm leaving.
RandFan: Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

Squishua

6th January 2007, 06:07 PM

To summarize, whether you believe complexity arises from nothingness, but randomness is at the core, or you believe the same but "design" is at the core, in either case, the mechanism is behind the curtain. Very similar, it seems to me (so what's all the flipping fuss?).
They are not at all the same, and I don't particularly agree with "complexity arises from nothingness" since I don't know or have reason to believe there is or was such a thing as "nothingness."

"Randomness" describes what we observe if we look deep enough. A "designer" is philosophical spackle used since time immemorial to fill in the gaps of what people can't figure out.

Postulating a designer requires the de facto acceptance of many other premises, none of which can be shown to be true or even likely. For example, a designer would have a state of existence completely different than what we all know or could logically infer exists through observation. It requires phenomena that's never been observed or theorized to occur. Basically, it requires a complete foray into supernatural conjecture.

A designer also begs several questions that I can think of right off the top of my head: What is a designer? What produced it? What are its properties? Where did it come from? Where is it now? What does it do? How does it do it?

A virtual grab-bag of unknowns with no hope of resolving beyond ad hoc hypotheses. It is random, and we don't (and possibly can't) know what makes it random.
I started another post on "Does Mathematics Exist?"
Yes... I just read the whole thread.

So you reject the notions that what we perceive and experience through our senses are stimuli from real events occuring locally, or that the reason we are able to predict and describe things mathematically is due to properties of a real environment?

Mathematics is real and the world is not. Nature is as it is because the Universe uses these same math rules to constantly calculate what every quark, proton, atom, photon within it will do from moment to moment. An interesting belief. Well, interesting in the Chinese sense.
Did you ever read the story about the meteorologist Lorenz? His model truncated data - the universe does the same thing. I believe it does because it has to.
You believe this because you have to. This is because you start with the premise of teleology being true and that premise causes you to reject the idea that something that is by all measures random, could really be random (radioactive decay is a fine example). After all, random events - by definition - have no pattern or objective and coincide with nothing, therefore control or design is not manifested in them.

Solution? Replace "random" with "chaotic." Hypothesize that what we think is random is really happening according to chaotic interactions or relays in a completely invisible and undetectable mechanism. Then go a step further and postulate that the hidden mechanism in fact creates everything we experience and is, itself, under the control of some completely invisible and undetectable (yet infinite and all-encompassing) intelligence or logic program. This intelligence or logic program makes decisions consistent with a goal, not randomly, and this allows you to restate the premise (teleology is true) as your conclusion.

Do I have this right?

hammegk

6th January 2007, 06:12 PM

Not in any way I'd agree with.

"Supernatural"! ROFL.

articulett

6th January 2007, 10:20 PM

Art'. Church lady is not your enemy. Reason is your enemy.

And irony is my friend.

(pssst....I know you think you are the "king of reason"--but you really ought to have people other than the voices in your head agreeing --to me, you are just a more intelligent version of Hammy--certain of your superiority without an iota of corroborating evidence.)

Oh, and communication with your fellow humans via dialogue seems to be your enemy, but maybe that has to do with the hubris obstructing the synaptic connections. I suggest a good brisk bath in humility to facilitate this aim.

Dancing David

7th January 2007, 06:35 AM

:) You are reluctant to consider this. I don't consider it my job to educate you, expecially on something that I consider to be pretty obvious. It seems obvious to me because I have a worldview in which this idea is at the core. I won't irritate with you by telling you what I think is your worldview, only that you are in the mainstream. I say that because it seems that way and it is a good bet statistically.

I already did you a few favors. I don't care if you are interested - maybe a few silent readers here just considered what I said is interesting enough to investigate on their own. Your thinking is stuck in another plane and you have the security of knowing that you have chosen a "safe" place if you like collective thought (Ayn would be disappointed. Smile, it's just a playful dig, man). Do yourself a favor - and if you think this "digital physics" idea is BS then don't waste your time.

You leave me with the impression that you are sometimes behaving in a way similar to some of the materialist fundies here - they want church lady to appear on the forum so they can practice their feeling of superiority; but when the opportunity presents itself for them to think about something new and consider it more than casually, they don't know what to do but attack.

Either go learn or don't. If an idea can't get through your filter yet, don't ask me to tweak your coefficients of acceptance - only you can do that. But are you willing?:)

This is a rhetorical argument, there is no substance, there are no points, just a sort of vauge statement about how RF is not open to your ideas.

If you have points then make them, just stating that you believe it to be valid and stating you don't care to express your arguments, basis of argument and evidence is not a sceptic role. you seem to be engaging in some form of rhetoric rather than stating your case.

If you can't state your case in term that others can understand than do you really undetsand your position?

(I don't mean to be rude about that, it is something my mother as a writing instructor was very strong about. If you can't express it in writing then you don't understand it was her claim.)

RandFan

7th January 2007, 06:38 AM

This is a rhetorical argument, there is no substance, there are no point, just a sort of school yard taunting.

If you have points then make them, just stating that you believe it to be valid and stating you don't care to express your arguments, basis of argument and evidence is not a sceptic role. you seem to be engaging in some form of rhetoric rather than stating your case.Bingo.

Dancing David

7th January 2007, 06:42 AM

Yeah. Most posters here.

Truer words were never writ.

Dancing David

7th January 2007, 06:55 AM

And one here actually admitted it; 100% materialist/atheist. The rest seem to be wannabe materialists who remain dualists (ala Dawkins -- see Edge) even though they don't understand that fact.

I don't believe in spirit or soul or any of that, I am not sure what the universe actualy does, and I don't think that I can know what the universe does.

You stated that i seemed to be a dualist earlier, I could be since i don't have definitive answers to certain questions. However the pagan and buddhists parts of myself are to address certain emotional intuitional and associative features of my nature. The pagan side of me just is, I don't believe that it has any validity outside of the confines of my brain.

Buddhism on the other hand, in my interpretation is strictly materialist and has no room for a soul. Despite the teaching of annatta many buddhists persist in belief in re-incarnation. They are free to do so, I am free to believe otherwise.

I believe that the materialist POV has the most 'objective evidence' to supoort it, but due to what I call nihilism i can't dierctly know the answer. So while I firmly believe that the material world is all that there is , i accept that there are a lot of possibilities out there and that the constraints of 'objective reality' are inherent in the thought constructs used to express them and the nature of organic existance(which could be illusion). So I am not sure if I am a dualist as you stated earlier, i don't believe that souls or spirits exist or that the gods and other critters I may think I can communicate with in prayer actualy exist. Soul and spirits seem to fit nicely into the category of 'by-products of the associative network of brains' and so I believe that that is the most likely case.

I could be wrong, so perhaps that makes me an agnostic dualist? I think that all human concepts are equaly true, there are different standards of validity, some concepts seem to have greater 'objective validity' than others, some seem to have more emotional and social validity than others.

Can you be a dualist if you believe that only the material world exists, pending further evidence?

I accept that idealism as you have proposed it is an equaly valid model to materialism since the observable events would be exactly the same in both scenarios, so it again comes down to a matter of preference.

chriswl

7th January 2007, 12:55 PM

This "skeptic's" forum is not very skeptical. Some are downright fundamentalist materialists.
What the hell is one of those? Are there fundamentalist idealists and dualists too?

Besides, I don't recall you ever arguing for anything non-material. You're not obviously an idealist or dualist yourself so why throw yourself into that particular battle?

You have some interesting, speculative ideas and I'm happy to discuss them. The problem is you present them as self-evidently true and suggest that those who disagree with you are closed-minded or just plain stupid. Not surprisingly this gets a bad reception.

BTW, you might try the Science and Technology section if you want to discuss the ideas of Wolfram, Fredkin et al.

articulett

7th January 2007, 07:50 PM

Yeah, what is a fundamentalist materialist? Does that mean you really really truly believe that consciousness cannot exist outside of a brain. That you really, really, truly believe there are no immeasurable, invisible entities or forces that "care" about us? That such things are the product of human imagination unless or until the evidence shows otherwise?

Doesn't fundamentalist materialist just mean "reality based" person. A naturalist? I do think it's dishonest when creationists use religious type terminology to try and put faith held notions on par with scientific evidence.

And, Dancing David, everyone is a secret "closet dualist" to Hammy--he believes that materialism contradicts itself...and lots of creationists believe this, but materialists don't seem to notice any contradictions. In fact there is a lot of material in genetics, neurology, embryology, and child development as to how and why we perceive ourselves as being "other than" our brain.

Here are creationist terms that are supposed to put science and religion on the same level. They'll say "scientists have "faith" the sun will come up"...
they'll use words like Darwinist, evolutionarian, scientism, fundamentalist materialist, rabid atheist, QM proves (insert new age woo) or dark matter proves (insert religious woo), etc.

To me it just seems like philosophical semantics used to justify a belief in the unbelievable. But what else can one use to argue a point when there are no facts on one's side?

cyborg

8th January 2007, 06:03 AM

Yeah, what is a fundamentalist materialist?

Somebody who will not agree with an amazing insight into the nature of reality because they are too stupid to see its brilliance.

hammegk

8th January 2007, 06:52 AM

I don't believe in spirit or soul or any of that, I am not sure what the universe actualy does, and I don't think that I can know what the universe does.
Er, ok, but those subjects are not things you've heard me posit the existence of.

Buddhism on the other hand, in my interpretation is strictly materialist and has no room for a soul.
I see no posit of 'soul' in Buddhism, nor do I see it debating materialism; ymmv. Yet: What moves? Flag? Wind? or Mind? :)

I believe that the materialist POV has the most 'objective evidence' to support it,
And I claim equal support of any and all "objective evidence" for objective idealism.

Can you be a dualist if you believe that only the material world exists, pending further evidence?
I'd say a person who has not carefully and logically considered his worldview under the antithetical choices of materialism and idealism-- that is, assume either position True, and see where it leads -- is a dualist.

I accept that idealism as you have proposed it is an equaly valid model to materialism since the observable events would be exactly the same in both scenarios, so it again comes down to a matter of preference.
Agreed. For me, idealism leaves open possibilities absolutely closed by materialism; that includes things implied by words like free-will, intent, and design. The first problems a materialist encounters are the separation of bio-life from not-life, and at the other end of the scale Hard Problem of Consciousness.

Evolution from not-life to life, and Modern Evolutionary Theory spanning first life to HPC is a significant part of the data we have to examine.

cyborg

8th January 2007, 08:03 AM

The first problems a materialist encounters are the separation of bio-life from not-life,

That's only a problem if you're going to insist on placing carbon-based machines on a pedestal. Otherwise it's no different a problem than it is to define anything in a clear way when the boundary cases get in the way.

and at the other end of the scale Hard Problem of Consciousness.

Which is only hard for a materialistic view from your idealistic assumptions.

And that of course ignores all the inconvenient problems for your idealistic assumptions when one starts to note all the rather mechanistic ways consciousness can be affected. Where was it I was going last time? Oh yes, I was asking you about the units of thought and how they built up but you went silent after that.

hammegk

8th January 2007, 09:47 AM

That's only a problem if you're going to insist on placing carbon-based machines on a pedestal. Otherwise it's no different a problem than it is to define anything in a clear way when the boundary cases get in the way.
I see. Outside of a possible separation of bio-life from non-life, what other continuum do you suggest represents a similar problem? Note also that idealism accepts that the "continuum" is a more universal trait than you seem to suppose. I'd name that continuum "what-is".

Which is only hard for a materialistic view from your idealistic assumptions.
Note my position is "objective idealism". The objective recognizes the world of shared perception that science addresses, and you are wrong.

And that of course ignores all the inconvenient problems for your idealistic assumptions when one starts to note all the rather mechanistic ways consciousness can be affected.
Objective idealism has no problem whatsoever with those facts.

Oh yes, I was asking you about the units of thought and how they built up but you went silent after that.
I don't recall it. Sorry. I'm not sure what you're suggesting, either. What is a unit of thought? A quale? Or??

cyborg

8th January 2007, 10:10 AM

I see. Outside of a possible separation of bio-life from non-life, what other continuum do you suggest represents a similar problem?

They are countless. Colours for one. Where does green end and blue begin for example? One can clearly construct a continuum of colours, where are the boundaries? They do tend to mess up neat little labels don't they?

In any case where one tries to tie down an abstraction there will be boundary cases where the abstraction is insufficient. To call something life is an abstraction for things that we recognise as having the qualities of life, but then all sorts of problems start to arise from that, problems you seem to see as philosophically significant on the nature of the universe, ones that I see as just fundamental limitations of abstractions: they inherently discard information about the nature of the thing being examined.

As such your non-life and bio-life issue to me is just a huge strawman. There is no fundamental difference to the stuff of non-life, bio-life or non-bio-life (ugh). These are all just abstractions, the actual stuff is going to keep on doing what it does regardless of the way we choose to label it. This seems to be a fundamental sticking point of your ilk. You keep mistaking the map for the territory.

Note also that idealism accepts that the "continuum" is a more universal trait than you seem to suppose.

You'll have to expand on that.

Note my position is "objective idealism". The objective recognizes the world of shared perception that science addresses, and you are wrong.

I disagree. You keep on saying there's a problem because you have a mystical sense of yourself (p-zombies and all that jazz). I maintain that people such as yourself lack imagination.

Objective idealism has no problem whatsoever with those facts.

Why do you seem to have problems with them then? You've spent an awful lot of time in the "Annoying Creationists" thread having problems with evolution.

I don't recall it. Sorry. I'm not sure what you're suggesting, either. What is a unit of thought? A quale? Or??

Hell, it's your chosen philosophy. I was just trying to get to the bottom of what the consequences of your viewpoint are. You're the one always stating it's more consistent and logically sound.

hammegk

8th January 2007, 10:33 AM

They are countless. Colours for one.
And if your other examples are as meaningless as a discussion of where red becomes green, who would care?

As such your non-life and bio-life issue to me is just a huge strawman. There is no fundamental difference to the stuff of non-life, bio-life or non-bio-life (ugh).
One fundamental difference is rna/dna vs none. Another is that bio-active sunstances always choose all the correct bond chirality as they form.

You'll have to expand on that.
Idealism accepts that words like will, intent, design may be in play since, in this universe, t=0; logical materialism must deny any such possibility.

I disagree. You keep on saying there's a problem because you have a mystical sense of yourself (p-zombies and all that jazz). I maintain that people such as yourself lack imagination.
I state categorically you mistake someone else's views for my own. Thought Exists is my view.

Why do you seem to have problems with them then? You've spent an awful lot of time in the "Annoying Creationists" thread having problems with evolution.

As I said earlier in this thread "Evolution from not-life to life, and Modern Evolutionary Theory spanning first life to HPC is a significant part of the data we have to examine.".

Hell, it's your chosen philosophy. I was just trying to get to the bottom of what the consequences of your viewpoint are.
In the final analysis, that will-intent-design-etc cannot be ruled out by or during the examination of our shared world of perception via science.

You're the one always stating it's more consistent and logically sound.
No. I state it is as logically sound and consistent as is a worldview based on 100% materialism. Dualism is illogical.

cyborg

8th January 2007, 10:52 AM

And if your other examples are as meaningless as a discussion of where red becomes green, who would care?

Meaningless? Who made you the arbiter of what is meaningful? There is no way I can provide you with a more meaningful example if you've already decided that you hold the ultimate one.

It is your problem that you don't understand how you are abusing abstractions.

One fundamental difference is rna/dna vs none.

RNA and DNA are structures comprised of the same elements I can find in my laptop.

Let's try the reverse:

One fundamental difference is doped silicon substrates vs none.

You've just told me different structures are structured differently! Do pat yourself on the back for that one.

Another is that bio-active sunstances always choose all the correct bond chirality as they form.

The earth always chooses to pull me towards its centre of mass!

Jesus, you are slow on the uptake here.

Idealism accepts that words like will, intent, design may be in play since, in this universe, t=0; logical materialism must deny any such possibility.

No, t=2.5.

I state categorically you mistake someone else's views for my own. Thought Exists is my view.

Yes, we had that last time and got not very far at all. You say a great deal of nothing.

As I said earlier in this thread "Evolution from not-life to life, and Modern Evolutionary Theory spanning first life to HPC is a significant part of the data we have to examine.".

A great deal of nothing yet again. You say a lot about examining the data but I see precious little evidence that you really understand it.

In the final analysis, that will-intent-design-etc cannot be ruled out by or during the examination of our shared world of perception via science.

First show will-intent-design then complain. It is no more valid to complain to me that I do not allow god to make the sun rise if you do not first show me god.

No. I state it is as logically sound and consistent as is a worldview based on 100% materialism. Dualism is illogical.

Then it goes back to the above.

First show will-intent-design then complain.

Will-intent-design. Show first. Complain later.

That is your task for today. I am not interested in possibilities. Give me facts or go away.