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Author
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Topic: Must We Infer A Designer From the Mere Existence of a Formula?
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Doug Wedel
Member
Member # 1901
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posted 21. March 2006 18:12
I thought today of this question that I would like to put to you in here with whom I have shared many a back and forth on Complex Specified Information and the inferences which may be properly drawn from it. Several luminaries in this forum assured me in a prior thread that the formula for Pi was Complex Specified Information. And I asked several times, perhaps rather plaintively, whether equations like those of Einstein would require us to infer a designer. So who will answer this question: Must we infer a designer from the existence of formulae like e=mc^2 and from the existence of highly complex specified information like Planck's constant? If so, then your argument is settled once and for all in your favor. However, if you would agree that these formulae can be considered "part of nature," then why might we not find other formulae, also part of nature, which could generate the forms and intelligence of life?
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Micah Sparacio
Member
Member # 6
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posted 21. March 2006 18:51
Doug,
I fully agree with the following statement: these formulae can be considered "part of nature,"
Then you ask: why might we not find other formulae, also part of nature, which could generate the forms and intelligence of life?
My answer: we very well might. Science is, by its very nature, provisional, always open to revision. But right now such formulae have not been discovered. Science operates over the current body of knowledge, not the future body of knowledge.
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Bruce Fast
Member
Member # 924
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posted 21. March 2006 19:08
Hi Doug,
As you probably noticed, I started a rather active thread trying to establish exactly what CSI is. Though the exact nature of CSI has not been terribly clearly established in the thread, I think that something has been discussed which enters into this discussion. It's a matter of causation. The complex information in DNA, when run through the process, produces an intricate working result. The value of pi, or e=mc^2 are not causitive. You can't take these values, run them through some processor, and get meaningful, complex machinery out the other end. Or at least, if you could, it would be quite startling.
It is this "the complex pattern which holds the design which produces an intricate working result" quality that I have been attempting to get a clear definition for. Terms that have come out are:
CSI - well, CSI seems to have some unknown additional meaning which causes Dembski to wonder if the DNA producing bacterial flagellum qualifies.
DI - Design information, brought up by David L. Hagen, may be the relevant definition.
CBI - Complex blueprint information is my proposed name for the information which, when run through a compatible processor, generates an intrecate working result.
All three of these, however, seem to recognize that the information preceeds the "intricate result" product. The value of pi does not, pi is measured.
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Doug Wedel
Member
Member # 1901
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posted 21. March 2006 20:21
Thanks for your responses. I am trying to see in this thread if I can resolve the suspicion I have that there is some irreducible theological component to the idea both of intelligent design and CSI. If e=mc^2 requires a designer, then God exists...or am I missing something?
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Doug Wedel
Member
Member # 1901
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posted 21. March 2006 20:26
Bruce, I can't understand this
quote:
The complex information in DNA, when run through the process, produces an intricate working result. The value of pi, or e=mc^2 are not causitive. You can't take these values, run them through some processor, and get meaningful, complex machinery out the other end. Or at least, if you could, it would be quite startling.
The whole idea of Pi and e=mc^2 is that they generate boundless universes of specificity and in this sense are immensely causative. You have to run them through a processor, either a computer or the physical universe, to get something out the other end. So your remark baffles me...;-)
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Robert_js
Member
Member # 1911
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posted 21. March 2006 21:26
Why are we wasting our time arguing that a designer exists? It is plainly obvious there is an intelligent designer.
Who created all the matter?
Who created all the heat in the stars?
Who created the gravitational force that holds it all together?
I spent more than two years of my life arguing the ID case on a variety of science forums. I did not win a single convert. If people are going to see it then it does not need a complex argument. If they are not going to see it then nothing will change their minds.
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Bruce Fast
Member
Member # 924
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posted 21. March 2006 23:42
Doug,
I think the schtick is this, if I twiddle with DNA code, the resultant organism will be, well, different. If I twiddle with software code by changing some bits, the resultand program will run, well, differently. If I twiddle with a blueprint, the engineer will implement something, well, different. If I twiddle with pi, I just get the wrong answer.
I have been pondering your premise, however, that the very existance of formulas indicates a formula maker. I actually think that CSI, or at least DI or CBI, are not excellent fits for your premise, but that the antrhopic principle may fit.
I guess the first question would be, if all is by chance and if another universe existed with different rule sets, would there not be formulas which could be determined within that universe. The existance of a formula might be no different than the DI type information you could glean from a cloud, the necessary information to reproduce that particular cloud at that moment. This information would be very similar to the information gleaned from Mt. Rushmore. The diffence between the two is only that the cloud does not carry the "meaning" that Mt. Rushmore does.
However, there are buckets of exhautic formulas that "must be" for life to exist. Some of these formulas "must be" for us to exist. Others, though "must be" for anything that we recognize as significant to exist. This precision information, these precision balances that allow a cohesive universe to exist have been presented by many as proof of a designed universe. I must admit, the astro-physics case for design is extremely compelling. It has been said that if you want to find an athiest, don't go to the astrphysics department, you are likely to be disappointed.
Robert_js, basically I agree with you that you are right. I also find that discussion boards such as the ARN site are frustrating excercises in running around in circles.
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Micah Sparacio
Member
Member # 6
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posted 22. March 2006 22:20
Who's saying that e=mc^2 requires a designer? Not me.
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Robert_js
Member
Member # 1911
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posted 23. March 2006 02:39
quote:
Who's saying that e=mc^2 requires a designer? Not me.
What about matter?
How do you get matter without a creator?
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Micah Sparacio
Member
Member # 6
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posted 23. March 2006 06:03
Robert_js,
There are a number of plausible explanations for the exitence of matter. Matter could have existed eternally as some ancient Greeks supposed. Matter could have emerged from more primitive constituents of the universe that existed pre- Big Bang.
I see no reason, given our current set of knowledge, to infer the existence of a creator from the existence of matter.
To do such, you'd have to establish the following two points in conjunction, which I do not think possible.
1. Matter is fundamental and dependent on no other thing in the universe
2. Matter came into existence
If you could establish the conjunction of 1 and 2, then we might have stronger reason to infer the existence of a creator from the existence of matter.
Here's an interesting point: for the platonic tradition, the primary role of the Demiurge wasn't as the creator of matter but as the "shaper" of matter. In this tradition, matter preexisted with the creator and was shaped to conform to the Models (which scholars typically assume were the Platonic Forms).
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Robert_js
Member
Member # 1911
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posted 23. March 2006 18:47
quote:
There are a number of plausible explanations for the exi(s)tence of matter. Matter could have existed eternally as some ancient Greeks supposed. Matter could have emerged from more primitive constituents of the universe that existed pre- Big Bang.
Thanks; I did not realise that.
What about all the heat in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars.
Where did all that come from?
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Christopher D. Beling
Member
Member # 723
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posted 23. March 2006 19:36
Micah,
Are you suggesting that an infinite regression of universes can exist and therefore that matter and energy have existed from eternity past - i.e. like many of the Greeks believed?
Robert,
I am not suggesting that it is true, but many recent calculations in cosmology strongly suggest that the total energy content of the univese is zero [see the book God Time and Stephen Hawking by astrophysicist and theologian David Wilkinson p83]. This can be so because the gravitational energy between any two bodies is negative. Sum the total gravitional energy in the visible universe (not an easy thing to do and not apparently with out controversy in how it should be done) and add to the total estimated e=mc2 energy and you can get numbers that are close to zero. If this were the case then what the universe is - its structure and forms of particles and matter could be totally informational - total CSI? Of course were this the case we are still just touching the "tip of the iceberg" in our understanding. For example how did the mass that makes our stars and makes them burn condense out of the gravitational field - some answer to this is found in Grand Unified Theories (GUTs) and is postulated to have happened in a period of rapid universe inflation some 10 E-30 after the Big Bang.
A more important question, though for us here, (assuming it true that the total energy of the universe is zero) is that CS-information presumably requires some sort of medium to carry it - just like bio-information requires the medium of DNA. Perhaps this medium is a kind of aether - but not in the classical sense -perhaps in the sense of some space-time medium. I don't know, but whatever it is your primary argument holds good - some other Being must have brought this fundamental medium into being (and since this fundamental medium is the carrier of CSI the Source would have the quality of intelligence - and supreme intelligence at that!).
Chris
[ 24. March 2006, 10:03: Message edited by: Christopher D. Beling ]
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Micah Sparacio
Member
Member # 6
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posted 24. March 2006 08:27
"Are you suggesting that an infinite regression of universes can exist and therefore that matter and energy have existed from eternity past - i.e. like many of the Greeks believed?"
Chris, I'm suggesting that that is a perfectly plausible explanation. But I'm also suggesting that the universe could consist of something more fundamental than matter upon which matter is dependent.
I'm just responding to the suggestion that somehow the existence of matter entails a creator.
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Bruce Fast
Member
Member # 924
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posted 24. March 2006 11:57
Micah, it is clear that some non-God conjecture is possible, but given the current state of science it is only wild faith-based conjecture.
Such a conjecture could only be placed above the conjecture that an "outside of time" God did it could only result from one carrying the firmly held belief (religious committement) that there is no God.
If all scientific understanding ceases prior to the plank constant, then certainly the view that God did it is every bit as supported by science as any other view.
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