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Author
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Topic: The Characterization of Intelligent Causation
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aiguy
Member
Member # 3736
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posted 30. April 2007 07:35
Daniel,
quote:
My argument, if you remember, was that it would take great knowledge to design life. Obviously then I was referring to "creating" life in the first sense (the applying knowledge and programming sense). You want to argue that it takes no special knowledge to "create" life in the second (procreation) sense, but how does that apply to my argument? It's a forced argument that does not address my position. You've just skirted around it.
Come on, Daniel. If you define "creating" as the application of knowledge, how can you then turn around and argue that creating requires knowledge?!?!? You have just defined that to be true!! How tight a circle can you possible argue here? You think the causing of life requires knowledge, and I say it doesn't, and point out that reproduction is one example of the causing of life that does not involve knowledge.
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AIGUY: Perhaps instead you would like to define "design"(verb) as something else, such as "apply knowledge and consciously reflect upon building a design(noun)". Fine - if we use that definition, then human beings create living things, but we can not design them.
DANIEL: You're getting warmer. And, it's nice to see that you are finally admitting that it would take great knowledge (beyond that of humans) to design life. That, my friend, was my point.
Are you joking??? If we define design to mean "apply knowledge", then by definition design entails applying knowledge!. I didn't say that causing life required knowledge! You can't simply assert that because you've defined "design" to entail knowledge, then you assert that life was designed, you have somehow proven that that life was caused by something with knowledge!
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AIGUY: My point, once again, was that if a bunch of matter - operating according to the laws of physics and chemistry, and without conscious knowledge - can result in a baby,
DANIEL: You are pretending to be ignorant here I take it? It seems that you've made the intentional understatement of the millennium; characterizing the most complex biological structure on earth as "a bunch of matter - operating according to the laws of physics and chemistry", (as if the human beings were equivalent to a bag of rocks). If you really think that, then we are pretty much done.
First, you were the one who compared human reproduction to a copying machine!! And second, do you deny that ontology proceeds according to the laws of physics and chemistry? Do you propose that God intervenes and crafts each baby inside the womb by miraculous means??? If you think this, then we really are done.
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I hope you can see that reproduction per se has nothing to do with my argument. I am arguing that since not all processes that generate biological complexity involve knowledge, you cannot infer that the process that generated the original biological complexity involved knowledge either.
[quote]Name a "process" other than biological complexity that can "generate" biological complexity.
Why do I need another one; one is quite enough. Now your turn: Name any "process" that can "design" biological complexity. (Que crickets chirping)...
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And even this process is limited. Can your wife, for instance, generate a dog? Or a fly? No, only a dog can generate a dog and only a fly can generate a fly. So, unless you're prepared to posit that the first cell came from another cell, your argument doesn't hold water.
You don't seem to understand anything that I'm saying. For the fourth or fifth time, I am not proposing that biological reproduction caused the first living things. I am saying that we happen to know that biological complexity can arise without the application of knowledge, and therefore we cannot infer that the cause of biological complexity always involves application of knowledge
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I do not restrict the Knowledge Inference (I like that) just to the realm of biology. This discussion however was limited to that subject. If you want to discuss how much knowledge it would take to design a star, then let's go.
Yes, and what about the electrical storm? Where do you think the knowledge intervenes when a lightning bolt leaves the cloud? Does God (or Thor, or Zeus) inhabit the clouds, perform the appropriate calculations using His knowledge of electrical engineering, and generate the lightning? (I'm getting this weird feeling here that you are going to say "yes").
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I'm not merely pointing to everything I see and asserting that knowledge was required to create it. I have given you specific examples of biological systems for which there is no natural explanation.
Ah, so you think that God doesn't engineer the lightning because we've already figured that one out, but He still engineers the stars because we haven't managed to convince you that we understand star formation yet? Does the "GOD OF THE GAPS" argument ring a bell?
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I am saying that the conscious application of knowledge was required to design life as evidenced by the sheer complexity of even the simplest projected self-replicating organism. I am also saying that IF life was designed, it would require great, nearly insurmountable knowledge to do so.
Well of course if knowledge is required, then a whole lot of it would be, but you can't demonstrate that whatever caused life used any knowledge at all.
I really hope you can understand this argument; it just isn't that difficult. We humans are able to cause life without applying knowledge, but we can't cause life by applying it. The same could well be true of the cause of the original life. The only argument you have against this reasoning is an appeal to ultimate cause, but we can both play that game: If you ask me how the life generator was generated, I ask you how the designer was designed. We simply have no way to scientifically evaluate ultimate causes, and that goes for both of us. If we restrict ourselves to our experience (i.e. do science), then we must admit that life can be caused only by processes that do not involve conscious application of knowledge.
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You yourself have admitted that the programming of biological complexity is beyond the knowledge level and skill of human beings. Perhaps it's time for you to start listening to your own arguments a little more closely.
I didn't really expect you to consider it controversial that nobody has yet cooked up a living creature in a laboratory. Were you under the impression that I (or anybody else) thought we could?
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LifeEngineer
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Member # 3446
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posted 30. April 2007 09:35
The aiguy/Daniel debate has moved to the creation and transmission of knowledge issue. It is interesting and useful to consider the logical implications of this argument on the “define intelligent causation” issue. First, the discussion relates to the following four events:
1. The creation of the knowledge required to create live.
2. The transmission of that knowledge to aiguy’s wife.
3. The application of that knowledge to produce a new intelligent human being.
4. The resulting intelligent human being.
The first ‘interesting’ point to note is that both Daniel and aiguy appear to be agreeing that the end result is intelligent, but aiguy has not offered a definition of intelligent causation nor has he offered a scientific criteria for defining intelligent causation. As noted earlier, the only ‘definition’ of intelligent causation that aiguy is recognizing is his own personal subjective opinion. Such opinions, it will be recognized are not a valid scientific standard.
The second interesting point is that Daniel’s proposed ‘results based’ standard or criteria can be objectively and formally applied in this application. Note also that Daniel’s formal scientific standard can be applied even if ‘Daniel’s oak tree’ is substituted for aiguy’s wife. In short, the existence or occurrence of intelligent causation can be objectively and scientifically applied using the ‘results based’ criteria and the criteria is compatible with the concept that life is the product or result of intelligent causation.
As a general principle, formal scientific analysis of a phenomenon like intelligent causation requires that analysis START with a formal scientific definition of intelligent causation. A definition is not a complete god-like explanation, it is simply an objective scientific criteria for classifying events and phenomenon into groups. As analysis progresses, definitions can and usually are refined. Daniel has proposed a scientifically valid and useful criteria for defining intelligent causation in terms of results. Aiguy has not offered a scientifically valid definition or criteria for defining intelligent causation.
Before we even begin discussing the creation and transmission of knowledge, Daniel has won the original debate regarding defining intelligent causation. Aiguy is once again attempting to set himself up as judge and jury on the analysis of intelligent causation, while at the same time failing or refusing to offer an alternative to Daniel’s criteria for defining intelligent causation.
As I believe I stated in one of the earliest posts, if you are going to have a meaningful scientific discussion of intelligent causation, you must first either 1) agree on the definition of intelligent causation to be used, or 2) each party in the discussion/debate must agree to present their alternative or competing definition. If someone agrees to play the ‘I’ll present my ideas and you judge them’ then they are in effect ‘choosing to lose’.
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Melvin H. Fox
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Member # 1684
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posted 30. April 2007 09:46
aiguy,
I have no doubt that you could design and create a system that would solve Paco’s problem. Once designed and built your learning system would do a better job of saving Paco than you can do on your own. I can also dig a hole to plant my baby chestnut tree this fall better when I use a shovel than when I use only my bare hands; and better yet when I use an automatic hole digger.
The imaginative creativity is required to build the system. One might enquire as to where the imaginative creativity resides, the system or the builder [spider or God]? I am not interested in that at present. What I am insisting on is that this imaginative creativity is present. How do I know? Consider this, if we purposefully remove any and all imaginative creativity then Paco dies! And, he dies every time the program is run.
aiguy wrote:
quote:
But of course we cannot subject the cause of life to any experiments at all. We cannot say that the Designer is capable of modeling the knowledge of others, or that the Designer considers the impact of His actions on future events.
But, as I have suggested, can we remove any and all imaginative creativity from a system [virtual reality – 21-by-21 grid] and then study the behavior in that system comparing it with reality?
-Mel
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LifeEngineer
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Member # 3446
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posted 30. April 2007 11:13
Getting back to the transmission of knowledge subject, once we agree that the occurrence of intelligent causation is defined in terms of results, we can now start to address the question of ‘where’ the intelligent causation occurred. As will be recalled, the creation and transmission of knowledge example being discussed involves the following four components:
1. The creation of the knowledge required to create live.
2. The transmission of that knowledge to aiguy’s wife.
3. The application of that knowledge to produce a new intelligent human being.
4. The resulting intelligent human being(or resulting human behavior).
In which of these components, 1) original creation, 2) transmission, 3) application, and 4) result, does intelligent causation actually occur. I don’t believe there is likely to be much disagreement that the original creation of knowledge does involve intelligent causation and that transmission and results don’t involve intelligent causation. The debate, if any, is likely to resolve around the question of whether the process or operation of applying knowledge involves intelligence.
At least at first blush, most people probably believe that intelligent causation occurs somewhere between the sperm-egg stage and a result such as ‘a book to be published’. However, most of those same people would be far less comfortable asserting that ‘knowledge transmitted to and applied in a computer or household thermostat’ involves intelligent causation.
The question of “How does science resolve the where (and when) of intelligent causation has been debated for a long time?” There is, however, one interesting feature of this debate that has direct implications for the subject of defining intelligent causation.
If you formulate a logically precise definition of intelligent causation based on results (i.e. if you define precisely what constitutes an intelligent result) then, as far as is known, you can always find a body of knowledge such that that knowledge inputted into a computer will produce the defined intelligent result using standard deterministic processing logic.
This interesting little ‘FACT’ explains in large part why aiguy and his fellow academic AI practitioners refuse to define intelligent causation. If they accept any precise results based definition of intelligent causation, then someone will go out and write a computer program that exhibits, produces or simulates the defined result of intelligent causation. As long as they refuse to accept any scientific definition of intelligent causation, the AI game players can look at any computer program and say ‘that does not satisfy my non-existent definition of a result produced by intelligent causation’.
It should be reasonably obvious that aiguy is trying here to use this ‘I don’t accept any definition of intelligent causation’ game to reject all ID theories in the same way that AI practitioners use the game to reject all efforts to simulate intelligence in computers.
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aiguy
Member
Member # 3736
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posted 30. April 2007 13:56
Melvin,
quote:
I have no doubt that you could design and create a system that would solve Paco’s problem. Once designed and built your learning system would do a better job of saving Paco than you can do on your own. I can also dig a hole to plant my baby chestnut tree this fall better when I use a shovel than when I use only my bare hands; and better yet when I use an automatic hole digger.
Consider a learning system: When it is started it for the first time, it can do very little. After it interacts with the world for a while, it begins to figure things out. Finally, it knows more than I do, and can come up with clever strategies that I could have never anticipated. This isn't really like a shovel; it is more like a person. We are born knowing very little, interact with the world, and we learn.
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The imaginative creativity is required to build the system. One might enquire as to where the imaginative creativity resides, the system or the builder [spider or God]? I am not interested in that at present. What I am insisting on is that this imaginative creativity is present.
What I had said in anticipation of this argument is this: We have no reason to think that the processes I use to write the program are qualitatively different from those the computer uses. If you think they are, you need to demonstrate this; you are back to square one.
Consider a program that learns how to write programs. When you see the output of the program A written by the program B that I wrote, you would infer that imaginative creativity was required. You can't tell if the creativity is coming from program A, or from program B, or from me, or from something that designed me, or from something that designed whatever designed me.... and so on.
Yet you still want to think that somewhere along the line, there was something that could write a program but was not itself programmed to do so. It is exactly this claim that I reject. Maybe there is an infinite chain of programmed programmers, or maybe the very first programmer popped into existence already programmed. We simply have no way of scientifically evaluating the truth of any of these views. It is certainly no more difficult to imagine a pre-programmed programmer popping into existence all by itself than it is to imagine something that popped into existence all by itself that could program but was not itself programmed.
So for all we can know, it is "turtles all the way down" as the saying goes. You believe in an ultimate unprogrammed progammer, and I don't, but science can't help us decide who is right.
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But, as I have suggested, can we remove any and all imaginative creativity from a system [virtual reality – 21-by-21 grid] and then study the behavior in that system comparing it with reality?
If I gave you the sources for a program that can learn, all by itself, to play checkers well, just by interacting with other checkers players (or even by playing itself), could you point out the portions where the imaginative creativity resides? I don't think so.
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Daniel Smith
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Member # 3004
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posted 30. April 2007 15:01
aiguy:
quote:
I am not proposing that biological reproduction caused the first living things. I am saying that we happen to know that biological complexity can arise [via reproduction] without the application of knowledge, and therefore we cannot infer that the cause of biological complexity always involves application of knowledge. [my comments in brackets]
You can repeat this ad nauseum, it still won't change the fact that you are relying on an unsupportable premise. It's like saying that since anyone can "cause" a Picasso by going to Kinkos, we cannot infer that an original Picasso required any skill beyond that involved in going to Kinkos.
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Name any "process" that can "design" biological complexity
Anyone who possesses sufficient knowledge could design biological complexity.
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I didn't really expect you to consider it controversial that nobody has yet cooked up a living creature in a laboratory. Were you under the impression that I (or anybody else) thought we could?
Why not? If all it takes to "generate" life is a mixture of matter and the laws of chemistry and physics (all of which are in abundant mixtures throughout the universe), then creating life in the lab should be a piece of cake. Unless of course, it takes more than that.
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Melvin H. Fox
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Member # 1684
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posted 30. April 2007 15:29
Hi aiguy,
I am not interested in frustrating you with what I would like to think in regards to something that could write programs but was never programmed. What I would like to think is of no consequence.
aiguy wrote:
quote:
What I had said in anticipation of this argument is this: We have no reason to think that the processes I use to write the program are qualitatively different from those the computer uses. If you think they are, you need to demonstrate this; you are back to square one.
You are trying to force me into a corner here. Instead of the kind of demonstration you request I have proposed a different approach. Instead of creating an artificial intelligence, why not create an artificial lack of imaginative creativity?
aiguy wrote:
quote:
Consider a program that learns how to write programs. When you see the output of the program A written by the program B that I wrote, you would infer that imaginative creativity was required. You can't tell if the creativity is coming from program A, or from program B, or from me, or from something that designed me, or from something that designed whatever designed me.... and so on.
If I gave you the sources for a program that can learn, all by itself, to play checkers well, just by interacting with other checkers players (or even by playing itself), could you point out the portions where the imaginative creativity resides? I don't think so.
I admit again now that I can’t think of a way to demonstrate imaginative creativity directly. I can’t point to it exactly. My question to you is this: can it be removed? You seem to agree that it exists, at least in humans. You are the computer expert. Can we build a system artificially devoid of imaginative creativity? Is my crude example of Paco’s grid such a system?
You are asking that I demonstrate the difference between a system that operates with imaginative creativity and one that operates apart from it. You want to focus on the systems that might have it. I want to change the focus to a system alien to imaginative creativity. Do you see any merit what so ever in this temporary change of focus? I do. If you do not, then I will not trouble you any longer with Paco’s plight.
-Mel
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aiguy
Member
Member # 3736
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posted 30. April 2007 16:25
Daniel,
quote:
You can repeat this ad nauseum, it still won't change the fact that you are relying on an unsupportable premise. It's like saying that since anyone can "cause" a Picasso by going to Kinkos, we cannot infer that an original Picasso required any skill beyond that involved in going to Kinkos.
The point you fail to see is that there is no way to tell if there ever was an "original", in the sense you are using it. Was the first self-replicator designed by conscious application of knowledge, or was it caused without conscious application of knowledge? The only way we know of that new living things arise is without knowledge. The fact that humans create paintings simply has no bearing on the discussion. And so I ask you yet again, how can we demonstrate that the cause of the original life forms consciously applied knowledge?
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Anyone who possesses sufficient knowledge could design biological complexity.
I think we agree that we have no instance of anything applying knowledge and creating a life form. If someday we figure out how life forms can arise, that knowledge will likely form the basis of a convincing theory of abiogenesis.
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Why not? If all it takes to "generate" life is a mixture of matter and the laws of chemistry and physics (all of which are in abundant mixtures throughout the universe), then creating life in the lab should be a piece of cake. Unless of course, it takes more than that.
I have no idea what you are talking about. Why would you think it should be easy? Until a few hundred years ago, we didn't even know that lightning was electricity (we thought they were God's way of punishing bad churches).
[ 30. April 2007, 22:24: Message edited by: aiguy ]
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aiguy
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posted 30. April 2007 16:44
Hi Mel,
quote:
You are trying to force me into a corner here. Instead of the kind of demonstration you request I have proposed a different approach. Instead of creating an artificial intelligence, why not create an artificial lack of imaginative creativity?
I'm trying to figure out what you mean here, but I honestly don't see how we can do that. You have written a program, and the program fails to achieve the goals you've set out for it. Then you change the program, and it does meet the goals. Why was the first version "uncreative", while the second version was "creative"?
Alternatively, your program fails to achieve the goals on its own, but when you allow user interaction, then the program succeeds. But of course this "human-interation" part of the program could be replaced by another piece of code, or even a module that learns how to achieve the goals all on its own. In that case, where would the "creativity" have come from?
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Melvin H. Fox
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Member # 1684
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posted 30. April 2007 19:29
Hi aiguy,
You wrote:
quote:
I'm trying to figure out what you mean here,
And I thank you for your effort while I apologize for my own short comings with respect to communicating what I mean. My father was the English teacher.
My original program is what I would like to focus on. In it I carefully contrived forces and constraints to act on an object [Paco]. Each of the forces are mock deterministic forces. [Forces: Paco is pulled one unit to the side he is closest to; pulled one unit to the top or bottom he is closest too; pulled toward the next goal – one unit in both directions] The forces are applied once every cycle. The goals also move deterministically. They move one unit right and one unit down every cycle [they wrap around]. Also, Paco can move from zero to three spaces in any direction each cycle. In the original program Paco’s movement was randomly generated. Now, in all the action that is taking place I see no influence on the object Paco by any imaginative creative force. The only reason the goals are called goals is because Paco is drawn to them by a force in the system in the correct order. Paco does not know they will do him any good, nor does he know the boundaries of the grid are dangerous.
When the program described above is run, Paco dies [moves off the grid before the four goals are achieved] every time. I hope this clears up what I have done and what I am asking. I think that I have devised a system that is free from any and all imaginative creativity in its workings. Do you agree? If you would like the source code I can provide it. It is very short.
The only reason I modified the program was to make sure it was possible for Paco to live [achieve all four goals before moving off the grid].
-Mel
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Zarathustra
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Member # 3407
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posted 30. April 2007 20:39
quote:
Fox: Also, Paco can move from zero to three spaces in any direction each cycle. In the original program Paco’s movement was randomly generated. Now, in all the action that is taking place I see no influence on the object Paco by any imaginative creative force. The only reason the goals are called goals is because Paco is drawn to them by a force in the system in the correct order. Paco does not know they will do him any good, nor does he know the boundaries of the grid are dangerous.
Write a system in which variants of Paco are tested, each of which interacts with its environment in a slightly different manner, chosen randomly. How many viable Paco-variants will you end up with after you have run that simulation for a million years?
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aiguy
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posted 30. April 2007 22:18
Hi Mel,
quote:
When the program described above is run, Paco dies [moves off the grid before the four goals are achieved] every time. I hope this clears up what I have done and what I am asking.
Yes, I understand what you've done, but no, I still don't think either one of us really has a clear idea what you're asking...
quote:
I think that I have devised a system that is free from any and all imaginative creativity in its workings. Do you agree?
I think this is the critical point, Mel. What I've been trying to show in this thread is that scientific claims are different from other sorts of claims. I might look at your program and say it is "very clever", or "nicely implemented", or "fun to watch". But I hope you can see that these sorts of statements can't be scientifically tested, unless we have very precise descriptions of what is and what is not clever, or nicely implemented, or fun. If we don't decide on some clear definitions for these terms, then I'm just expressing a casual opinion, and we could never have a prinicpled argument about if I was right or wrong.
The same goes for "imaginative creativity". I know what it is like to have an imagination, but I have only a rough idea what "creativity" means. Unless we devise some very objective, clear way to decide what does and what doesn't represent "imaginative creativity", then your question is just like asking me if I thought it was "clever" or "fun" or "nice". It's just an informal, casual, subjective opinion, and those don't count for anything at in science.
quote:
If you would like the source code I can provide it. It is very short. The only reason I modified the program was to make sure it was possible for Paco to live [achieve all four goals before moving off the grid].
Zarathustra was making a point about another way you could enable Paco (or Paco's descendents) to live without interacting with the program at all. All you would have to do is:
1) Have Paco's moves determined by some set of rules. Each rule determines what Paco does in any situation, where "situation" is just some characterization of the virtual environment at a given cycle (perhaps how many cycles have passed, or if the total cycle number was odd or even, or how close Paco is the edge, or even how close Paco was to the nearest goal). These rules represent Paco's ability to be affected by things in his environment and how he responds to them.
2) Once these rules have been established, figure out a way to alter them using random input. Depending on how you construct the rules, they may be altered simply by changing some parameters, for example, let's say you had this sort of rule that says Paco will back away from the top edge if he's been moving toward it and gets too close:
IF distance_to_top_edge < 3 AND last_move_delta_Y > 1 THEN next_move_delta_Y = -2
Now, you could alter this rule randomly by setting the numeric parameters 3, 1, and -2 at random. If you felt more ambitious, you could also alter the logic of each rule randomly.
3) Finally, you need to make Paco able to reproduce, and have Paco's offspring have a copy of Paco's rules, with some random alterations. Let each Paco run around the board according to his rules, and for every N cycles that Paco survives, make a copy-with-variation of that Paco. Eventually (and possibly very quickly) you would have a whole bunch of Pacos running around the board that are very good at acheiving all the goals, and not dying.
Notice, you won't know what sorts of rules will actually allow Paco to survive; the program will figure that out all by itself. So if there was any "imaginative creativity" involved (whatever that really means) I would have to say that the computer is the one that supplies it.
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Daniel Smith
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posted 01. May 2007 05:50
aiguy:
quote:
The point you fail to see is that there is no way to tell if there ever was an "original", in the sense you are using it. Was the first self-replicator...
You've contradicted yourself in the space of just two sentences. What's the difference between the "original" lifeform and the "first self-replicator"?
All organic life on this planet is self-replicating. All of these organisms can perform the act of self-replication without having to think about it as well. The cells of which we are made are self-replicating. That little feature is built into every living creature that has ever walked the earth and is one of the greatest engineering feats ever performed by any type of complex machinery. It's along the lines of your copy machine that can produce another copy machine that can produce another copy machine... analogy.
What we are discussing here is the origin of self-replicating life. There had to be a first, and you can't appeal to "replication" as an explanation - it had to be something else. Now, what would it take to build a self-replicating biological machine? I say it would take immense knowledge. You say it would not, but have no alternative explanation for how it could have happened. Either way, answer that question and you've solved the mystery.
quote:
The only way we know of that new living things arise is without knowledge.
There are two edges to that sword: The only way we know of that new living things arise is from other living things, therefore we must presume that whatever first caused life on this planet was itself alive. But, as we've already discussed it could not be organic life - since then it would be replication. Whatever first caused life on this planet had to be non-organic.
So, it is perfectly reasonable to say that whatever caused the first self-replicating life on this planet could have very easily been a non-organic being of immense intelligence.
quote:
And so I ask you yet again, how can we demonstrate that the cause of the original life forms consciously applied knowledge?
Well, we can only speak hypothetically - since any first lifeform is now long gone. I would say though that; even the simplest self-replicating organism that could ever be envisioned would require far more in the way of "coincidences" than any natural scenario could ever account for. To me, this is the ultimate test of design. It's like winning the lottery: You win it once, that's good luck; you win it fifteen times in a row, and we're talking someone, somewhere consciously applying knowledge!
The amount of coincidences that had to happen for a first projected simple self-replicator are more along the lines of winning the lottery thousands of times in a row. It's beyond impossible. That's why no one will ever figure it out - unless they allow for the possibility of intelligent design.
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aiguy
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posted 01. May 2007 06:28
Daniel,
quote:
AIGUY: The point you fail to see is that there is no way to tell if there ever was an "original", in the sense you are using it. Was the first self-replicator designed by conscious application of knowledge, or was it caused without conscious application of knowledge? (emphasis added)
DANIEL: You've contradicted yourself in the space of just two sentences. What's the difference between the "original" lifeform and the "first self-replicator"?
I said in the sense that you are using it.. In your sense, an "original" is something that is created by conscious application of knowledge, the way a human artist creates an original painting. If you simply assume there was an "original" life form in the sense that you are using it, then you have already assumed that first life was consciously designed. All of these arguments are perfectly circular.
quote:
All organic life on this planet is self-replicating. All of these organisms can perform the act of self-replication without having to think about it as well. The cells of which we are made are self-replicating. That little feature is built into every living creature that has ever walked the earth and is one of the greatest engineering feats ever performed by any type of complex machinery. It's along the lines of your copy machine that can produce another copy machine that can produce another copy machine... analogy.
Yes.
quote:
What we are discussing here is the origin of self-replicating life. There had to be a first, and you can't appeal to "replication" as an explanation - it had to be something else.
This will now be the SIXTH time I am trying to tell you this, and you have ignored it FIVE times: I am not offering "replication" as an explanation of anything. Biological reproduction is proof that it is possible to generate self-replicating complex biological organisms without the conscious application of knowledge. Please, please - read this a few times, and please don't make me say it again.
quote:
Now, what would it take to build a self-replicating biological machine? I say it would take immense knowledge. You say it would not, but have no alternative explanation for how it could have happened. Either way, answer that question and you've solved the mystery.
It would take a great deal of knowledge about electrical engineering in order to send a huge lightning bolt from the clouds to the Earth. So, do you or do you not claim that each time a lightning bolt strikes, a conscious intelligence is using knowledge in order to make this happen?
You answered before that no, you needn't assume this because we already know how lightning strikes, and we know that there is nothing conscious about it. But you didn't respond to the problem this raises: If you say that all of these phenomena are caused by knowledge unless we have some other explanation of it, then you have offered an explanation that by definition explains everything we don't understand. Such explanations are useless, and impossible to support.
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There are two edges to that sword: The only way we know of that new living things arise is from other living things, therefore we must presume that whatever first caused life on this planet was itself alive. But, as we've already discussed it could not be organic life - since then it would be replication. Whatever first caused life on this planet had to be non-organic. So, it is perfectly reasonable to say that whatever caused the first self-replicating life on this planet could have very easily been a non-organic being of immense intelligence.
What is the difference between "organic" and "living"? Do you mean by "organic" carbon-based?
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Well, we can only speak hypothetically - since any first lifeform is now long gone. I would say though that; even the simplest self-replicating organism that could ever be envisioned would require far more in the way of "coincidences" than any natural scenario could ever account for.
Your mistake here is seeing "coincidence" as the only alternative to "conscious application of knowledge". It is not the only alternative. When lightning strikes, it is due to neither coincidence nor consciousness.
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To me, this is the ultimate test of design. It's like winning the lottery: You win it once, that's good luck; you win it fifteen times in a row, and we're talking someone, somewhere consciously applying knowledge! The amount of coincidences that had to happen for a first projected simple self-replicator are more along the lines of winning the lottery thousands of times in a row. It's beyond impossible. That's why no one will ever figure it out - unless they allow for the possibility of intelligent design.
Intelligent design explains nothing, so if we never figure it out, then we simply will never have an explanation. But if you already decide it must be "coincidence", then of course you have already ruled out any explanation at all!
Just take a minute and ask yourself this: You wish to posit something as a cause of life that is beyond our experience, our understanding, and even beyond our imagination; you want to call this thing God. My point is that there may be features of the universe that have no resemblance to your ideas about God, which are just as far outside our experience, our understanding, and our imagination, and which are somehow capable of generating life. Your description of this unimaginable thing is anthropomorphic, but you will never have a way to demonstrate that this anthropomorphic characterization is true.
[ 01. May 2007, 06:28: Message edited by: aiguy ]
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LifeEngineer
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posted 01. May 2007 07:28
Quote: Intelligent design explains nothing, so if we never figure it out, then we simply will never have an explanation.
It is useful to once again note that real scientific explanations involve real testable predictive scientific theories. Intelligent design science, as opposed to intelligent design metaphysics, starts with the types of objective 'results based' definitions of intelligent causation. Given such definitions, we can then formulate testable predictive teleological theories. These predictive theories constitute scientific explanations.
The reader will also note that while intelligent design science produces scientific explanations essentially from the start of analysis, aiguys academic science never produces or recognizes a definition of intelligent causation and never produces real scientific theories.
The issue of this thread, definitions of intelligent causation, will never be resolved based on speculation about the origins of life. The issue of the scientific definition of intelligent causation is only resolvable based on the production of useful reliable predictive theories.
Not only is the issue of definitions of intelligent causation resolvable, but it has been resolved in favor of results based definitions and teleolgocial theories. Real ID science, probably under some less objectionable title, will eventually replace modern academic science once a few ID supporters are willing and able to actually learn mathematical modeling techniques associated with theory construction.
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