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Author
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Topic: The Characterization of Intelligent Causation
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Daniel Smith
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Member # 3004
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posted 04. May 2007 15:08
aiguy:
quote:
We know that all sorts of things that would require knowledge if a human tried to do it happen in the world without any application of knowledge at all. This includes the creation of biological complexity, which happens every day without the application of knowledge.
Every day, my car engine turns on without the application of knowledge. All it takes is a physical input from a key; it doesn't take any knowledge of how an engine works; it takes no knowledge of how an electrical system works; in fact, as we've all seen by the stories on the news, a dog or a small child (with no knowledge whatsoever) can provide this input; all it takes is a turn of a key. By your reasoning, my car must not be intelligently designed since it takes no knowledge to start the engine.
Do you see what you're doing? You are breaking down a complex system that was designed to work without the conscious input of knowledge (reproduction, lightning, and my car engine) and saying - "Look! It requires no knowledge for it to work- therefore it took no knowledge to create it."
quote:
All sorts of things happen that if a human being were to try to do them would require vast knowledge.
We are not talking about "doing" (as in "how the system works"). We are talking about "creating" (as in "how the system originated").
I'm getting a little tired of your professed ignorance on this subject.
You asked for a definition of "Intelligence", I provided one:
Intelligence = The possession of sound knowledge.
You provided a definition for "design":
quote:
1) design (noun): a complex pattern or structure
2) design (verb): to cause a design(noun) to exist
Put these two together and you get a working definition for "Intelligent Design":
Intelligent Design = The application of sound knowledge to cause a complex pattern or structure to exist
Now what we're arguing about is the application of that definition to living or natural systems. So we've moved on from the "No one has provided a workable definition" phase to the "Now that we have a workable definition, do both biological complexity and human designs fall into the category?"
Let me rephrase your statement from above: quote:
"All sorts of things exist that if a human being were to try to create them would require vast knowledge."
This is the crux of the ID argument: It would require vast amounts of intelligence (sound knowledge) to design (cause to exist) biological complexity.
You want to argue that, since self-replication "causes biological complexity to exist", (although you refuse to posit that mechanism as an originating mechanism) we cannot say that knowledge was required for biological complexity to originate. Fine, at least you now understand the definition of "Intelligence" used by ID.
Your original post has been answered.
[ 04. May 2007, 15:09: Message edited by: Daniel Smith ]
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miosim
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posted 04. May 2007 15:57
LifeEngineer quote:
“Even most theologians recognize that while ‘god did it’ is a logically legitimate explanation for anything, it does not satisfy scientific standards. This leaves us with the position that ID science refers to the study of ‘design by intelligent processes’...”
What is your personal view about the role of IDt: to provide Theology with arguments that may satisfy scientific standards (and this way IDt is just an advocate for Theology), or like Dembski* you may accept arguments in favor to other sorts of intelligent causations even if they contradict with ‘god did it’ theological view?
*From Wikipedia
“…Dembski's position on intelligent design's relationship with Christianity has been somewhat inconsistent. He has suggested that the "intelligent designer" was not necessarily synonymous with God…”
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IF
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Member # 1904
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posted 04. May 2007 16:54
quote:
You asked for a definition of "Intelligence", I provided one:
Intelligence = The possession of sound knowledge.
You provided a definition for "design":
quote:
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1) design (noun): a complex pattern or structure
2) design (verb): to cause a design(noun) to exist
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Put these two together and you get a working definition for "Intelligent Design":
Intelligent Design = The application of sound knowledge to cause a complex pattern or structure to exist
At http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/intelligence The word intelligence presupposes some kind of "mind" of a human type! Therefore tautology rears its ugly head!
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aiguy
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Member # 3736
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posted 04. May 2007 18:25
Daniel,
quote:
Do you see what you're doing? You are breaking down a complex system that was designed to work without the conscious input of knowledge (reproduction, lightning, and my car engine) and saying - "Look! It requires no knowledge for it to work- therefore it took no knowledge to create it."
But Daniel, you didn't respond to my point at all! The point at which you claim knowledge is necessary is simply wherever we have not yet provided a sufficient scientific explanation! It is nothing more than god-of-the-gaps, pure and simple. Please read my illustrative dialog again and tell me why you think your point is valid; I have shown clearly that you simply reach back further into causal chains until you think we can't explain something, and then simply assert - for no principled reason - that knowledge must have come in at that point.
quote:
We are not talking about "doing" (as in "how the system works"). We are talking about "creating" (as in "how the system originated").
It seems you would like to retreat into a basic "ultimate cause" stand here. You would like to say that no matter how much science can explain without reference to the application of knowledge behind natural phenomena, the existence of natural law itself might have required knowledge to create. That's just fine, and might very well be quite true, but I hope you can see there is no chance at all of ever testing whether or not that is true. Ultimate causes are outside the realm of science, as ID advocates are very quick to point out whenever we ask "Who designed the designer"?
quote:
I'm getting a little tired of your professed ignorance on this subject.You asked for a definition of "Intelligence", I provided one:Intelligence = The possession of sound knowledge.
Um, I actually think I'm fairly well-informed about the scientific investigation of intelligent behavior. I have also said there is nothing wrong with your definition of intelligence in the context of humans and other animals that we can test and observe. I have also pointed out that without the ability to test and observe some causal entity, there is no possible way of determining if knowledge was applied or not, which renders your definition of intelligence unusable in the context of ID.
Experiments have shown that crows apply knowledge. When faced with the task of fishing food out of a jar, they will take a wire and bend it with their beaks into a hook so they can reach the food. This clearly shows they could envision the shape of the wire that would work - they knew that a hook on the end would catch the food.
Now, imagine we find another wire, bent the same way, in a pile of rubble in the aftermath of a tornado. We cannot simply look at the wire and say that something used knowledge to bend the wire this way; obviously the wire was bent by a tornado, which was not using any knowledge at all. And what if we find this bent wire being used by a different sort of bird to fish worms out of the ground? We cannot assume this bird created the wire tool, since it might just have tried all sorts of things it found lying around until it hit upon something that worked.
I hope this makes clear why we need to observe an entity in the process of creating some artifact in order to verify that it is in fact an artifact, created by the application of knowledge, and not just something that was created by mindless natural processes. If a nuclear physicist causes a sustained nuclear reaction, we know this involved the application of knowledge. But when we see the Sun, we cannot assume that it was also caused by the application of knowledge, rather than the accretion of gases under the force of gravity.
quote:
Now what we're arguing about is the application of that definition to living or natural systems. So we've moved on from the "No one has provided a workable definition" phase to the "Now that we have a workable definition, do both biological complexity and human designs fall into the category?"
The reason your definition is unworkable in the context of ID is that the sorts of experiments and observations that scientists use to study the application of knowledge by humans and other animals cannot be performed on the cause of life, and just by looking at something without being able to study its cause cannot tell us whether or not knowledge was applied, no matter how complex it is.
quote:
This is the crux of the ID argument: It would require vast amounts of intelligence (sound knowledge) to design (cause to exist) biological complexity.
You want to argue that, since self-replication "causes biological complexity to exist", (although you refuse to posit that mechanism as an originating mechanism) we cannot say that knowledge was required for biological complexity to originate. Fine, at least you now understand the definition of "Intelligence" used by ID.
Your original post has been answered.
Hardly. Here is what I asked in the OP:
quote:
The question I wish to raise, then, is what unitary description of intelligent causation, at what level of abstraction, can serve to support the hypothesis that, for example, whatever enables humans to design a watch is the same thing as that which enabled some unknown entity or process to design the flagellum.
For the reasons I've just explained (again), we cannot even determine if knowledge is applied at any stage in the causal regress that finally results in the formation of flagella. But beyond that, we haven't even discussed another failure of yours to respond to the OP.
If you define "intelligence" as "application of knowledge", is this really sufficient to establish that everything that applies knowledge is doing it the same way? Your definition of intelligence leaves out a number of things that people typically associate with the concept, including consciousness for example. There is nothing inconsistent about imagining something that applies knowledge, but has absolutely no conscious awareness that it is doing so. So even if you could demonstrate that knowledge was applied somewhere in the causal regress leading to life (and you most certainly cannot), you still would not have demonstrated that the same thing that happens inside human heads - the conscious application of knowledge - was responsible.
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Ebb_Dimskill
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posted 04. May 2007 21:48
quote:
(AIGuy)
I have shown clearly that you simply reach back further into causal chains until you think we can't explain something, and then simply assert - for no principled reason - that knowledge must have come in at that point...
It seems you would like to retreat into a basic "ultimate cause" stand here. You would like to say that no matter how much science can explain without reference to the application of knowledge behind natural phenomena, the existence of natural law itself might have required knowledge to create. That's just fine, and might very well be quite true, but I hope you can see there is no chance at all of ever testing whether or not that is true...
I have also pointed out that without the ability to test and observe some causal entity, there is no possible way of determining if knowledge was applied or not...
I hope this makes clear why we need to observe an entity in the process of creating some artifact in order to verify that it is in fact an artifact, created by the application of knowledge, and not just something that was created by mindless natural processes...
For the reasons I've just explained (again), we cannot even determine if knowledge is applied at any stage in the causal regress that finally results in the formation of flagella.
If you define "intelligence" as "application of knowledge", is this really sufficient to establish that everything that applies knowledge is doing it the same way?
Your definition of intelligence leaves out a number of things that people typically associate with the concept, including consciousness for example. There is nothing inconsistent about imagining something that applies knowledge, but has absolutely no conscious awareness that it is doing so. So even if you could demonstrate that knowledge was applied somewhere in the causal regress leading to life (and you most certainly cannot), you still would not have demonstrated that the same thing that happens inside human heads - the conscious application of knowledge - was responsible.
Hey everyone, this is my first post.
The theme of AIGuy as expressed above seems to be that there's no way of determining if whatever created us had the same subjective experience as a human going on inside his head, or indeed whether it even had a head, or whether it was just a "mindless natural process".
However, shouldn't we view the brain itself as a "mindless natural process"? What I mean is, the functioning of a brain in its totality is emergent from its lower level constituents, all of which function according to natural laws and without consciousness. Individual neurons are not conscious, The chemical reactions among them are not conscious. The term "consciousness" itself is really no more than a convenient label we use to refer to our subjective experience as a human being. So it seems pointless to speculate on whether whatever created us has a subjective experience similar to say, me personally. Who cares? The brain is just another mechanism, like anything else.
Let's talk a little more about the functioning of a brain. Say you visually inspect some scene in your immediate environment intently, over a period of time, trying to memorize as much as you can. You reach a point where you can close your eyes and see mentally the location of every object in that scene: "The blue pitcher is on the table, next to it is basket of oranges. Lying on the table behind the basket of oranges is a still life painted by Rembrandt... etc." Why are you able to do this with your eyes closed? Because stored in your brain is a direct physical isomorphism of the scene itself.
As you might have guessed, I don't actually know all that much about the structure of the brain, but I don't need to. I do know that there is something quite physical and tangible in your brain that directly and isomorphically (if I'm using that term correctly) cooresponds to the visual scene you were just inspecting, and this is what enables you to see that scene precisely "in your mind" even with your eyes closed and several minutes later. And speaking more broadly, this is the capability that any human is directly exploiting when designing - i.e. the capability to summon up direct isomorphisms stored in his brain cooresponding precisely to things in his external environment which he has seen or experienced previously.
Now what's the relevance of all this? It is as follows: It is a provable fact (trivially so) that no matter how far you go back in a causal chain in the universe leading to the biological world, you are guranteed to find direct physical isomorphisms to the biological world that are logically equivalent to memories in a human brain. Of course, we won't find brain tissue floating around in space, that's not what I'm talking about. But there is nothing sacrosanct about brain tissue - its just another storage medium. A causal precursor to the biological world would take a different form, but would still be algorithmically equivalent to the biological world, in precisely the same sense as a memory is algorithmically equivalent to person's actual experience.
Say you have some program (or function) f and input x such that f(x) outputs y. Then by definition, f(x) is algorithmically equivalent to y. In algorithmic information theory, the information content of y is the number of bits in f and x collectively, assuming f(x) is the smallest program-input that outputs y. Really, all program-input combinations that output y are in the same equivalence class, and y by itself is in that same class, in that it has a program of zero length. So in algorithmic information theory, there is really no distinction between an program-input that outputs y, and y itself. (f(x) would correspond to the physical isomorphism in the brain that cooresponds to a visible scene.)
Suppose that y is a binary number representing the universe at the current instant in time. I think most people say that the universe is of finite size, so presumably this isn't a problem for anyone. y, the state of the universe at the current instant, is determined by the state it was in the previous instance (y1), and the application of the natural laws, (f). If we go back in time to some arbitrary starting point we would have yn ->yn-1->....y1->y. For any arbitary yk in that causal chain, f(yk) = yk-1 (where yk is a stand in for 'x'). (Sorry about the fast and loose notation, but certainly no one could be confused at this point.)
But the point is, for any arbitrary yk in that causal chain, f(yk) is a direct isomorphism for the state y of the universe at this instant. If the causal chain regresses infinitely back in time without ever ending, Any arbitrary yk in that chain will (in conjunction with f) be a direct isomorphism to the current state of the universe, no different than a memory is an isomorphism for something in a person's external environment. Say that b is that portion of y cooresponding to the biological world at this instant, then no matter how far you go back in a causal chain in the universe, there is a bk that is algorithmically equivalent to b.
You may think you already understood this concept, and that my presentation of it was rather quaint and overly detailed, but I think its an important concept, nontheless.
[ 04. May 2007, 22:40: Message edited by: Ebb_Dimskill ]
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aiguy
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posted 05. May 2007 04:05
Hi there, Ebb -
quote:
The theme of AIGuy as expressed above seems to be that there's no way of determining if whatever created us had the same subjective experience as a human going on inside his head, or indeed whether it even had a head, or whether it was just a "mindless natural process".
Pretty much, yes. I did want to clarify one point though:
It isn't strictly true that we must observe something directly in order to infer the application of knowledge in a particular instance. We can also, of course, rely on our knowledge of particular entities - human beings, beavers, crows, and other animals from this planet - and the sorts of things they make. What we can't do is to look at something that we've never seen anything using knowledge to make, and infer that knowledge must have been necessary.
Now, to your point...
quote:
So it seems pointless to speculate on whether whatever created us has a subjective experience similar to say, me personally. Who cares? The brain is just another mechanism, like anything else.
This is only one view of the mind (physicalism). There are other philosphical positions too, but I'd like to keep the discussion about what we might be able to demonstrate scientifically, rather than argue for philosophically.
quote:
Because stored in your brain is a direct physical isomorphism of the scene itself. As you might have guessed, I don't actually know all that much about the structure of the brain, but I don't need to. I do know that there is something quite physical and tangible in your brain that directly and isomorphically (if I'm using that term correctly) cooresponds to the visual scene you were just inspecting, and this is what enables you to see that scene precisely "in your mind" even with your eyes closed and several minutes later.
Activation patterns in the visual cortex are isomorphic to retinal data, yes, but other sense data is not.
quote:
And speaking more broadly, this is the capability that any human is directly exploiting when designing - i.e. the capability to summon up direct isomorphisms stored in his brain cooresponding precisely to things in his external environment which he has seen or experienced previously.
I think you're really just talking about memory.
quote:
Now what's the relevance of all this? It is as follows: It is a provable fact (trivially so) that no matter how far you go back in a causal chain in the universe leading to the biological world, you are guranteed to find direct physical isomorphisms to the biological world that are logically equivalent to memories in a human brain. Of course, we won't find brain tissue floating around in space, that's not what I'm talking about. But there is nothing sacrosanct about brain tissue - its just another storage medium. A causal precursor to the biological world would take a different form, but would still be algorithmically equivalent to the biological world, in precisely the same sense as a memory is algorithmically equivalent to person's actual experience.
I really don't think our memories are "algorithmically equivalent" to our experiences, no. Our memories are conditioned by all sorts of things at every level of our sensory processing. The physical stimuli that impinge on our sense organs is not simply recorded by brains; it is analyzed and processed at many levels, and only the results of these processes end up as memories. Our perceptions can be distorted, we can suffer from illusions or other misperceptions, and we only selectively attend to certain aspects of all there is to sense.
Moreover, it is simply not a scientific fact that physicalism, or functionalism, are true philosophies of mind. For all we know, there is something very different going on in our minds that transcends physical mechanism (as we understand it) altogether. ID essentially entails this position - dualism - but IDists are sometimes bashful about admitting it. Why? Because it can't be scientifically demonstrated to be true either way.
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LifeEngineer
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posted 05. May 2007 07:00
Miosim,
I think I have made it quite clear that I believe IDTs are teleological predictive theories of the general form "Under ideal conditions (or within defined constraints), behavior or result R is GC, is predicted by an algorithm F(G)=R or F(G,S)=R" I believe that IDTs are standard hard science predictive theories that include goal variables as causal or predictive variables.
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LifeEngineer
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posted 05. May 2007 07:21
It is rather nervy of aiguy to raise the infinite regress issue as a criticism of ID. In reality, infinite regress if what falsifies all the pseudo-science beliefs of Darwin and AI. ID, by contrast, has a valid scientific solution to the issue.
If you look at even the simplest forms of problem solving and intelligent causation, you will find the solutions can not and will not be generated without importation of knowledge. Disrupt the relevant importation or transmission of knowledge/information and even the simplest and most reliable problem solving will fail.
Anyone can show that under trivial conditions where information transmission is not disrupted that problem solving can and is performed and is predicted by non-teleological variables. But test these trivial non-teleological solutions under the conditions required by scientific standards and they will fail. Non-teleological theories can always be falsified by the discovery that there are additional variables ‘causing’ the problem solving being analyzed. Thus non-teleological theories, when dealing with complex intelligent causation, are always trivial.
Teleological theories, by contrast, have a process or mechanism for anticipating or predicting progressive or creative changes produced by intelligent causation. Teleological theories or IDTs provide scientific theories and explanations without requiring infinite knowledge of the causal chain associated with intelligent causation.
Again, any scientist can easily falsify any non-teleological theory by demonstrating thee is some factor in the causal change that produces results or behaviors other than those predicted by the trivial non-teleological theory.
One wonders why people like aiguy continually misinterpret the implications of the infinite regress concept. Is it that they lack the technical skills and knowledge to understand the implications of the issue? Or is that they think they can get by with what is obviously a fatally flawed argument?
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IF
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posted 05. May 2007 11:07
quote:
Again, any scientist can easily falsify any non-teleological theory by demonstrating thee is some factor in the causal change that produces results or behaviors other than those predicted by the trivial non-teleological theory.
Please give an example.
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miosim
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posted 05. May 2007 12:28
quote:
miosim: (question)
“What is your personal view about the role of IDt: to provide Theology with arguments that may satisfy scientific standards (and this way IDt is just an advocate for Theology), or like Dembski* you may accept arguments in favor to other sorts of intelligent causations even if they contradict with ‘god did it’ theological view?”
LifeEngineer: (answer)
“I think I have made it quite clear that I believe IDTs are teleological predictive theories of the general form "Under ideal conditions (or within defined constraints), behavior or result R is GC, is predicted by an algorithm F(G)=R or F(G,S)=R" I believe that IDTs are standard hard science predictive theories that include goal variables as causal or predictive variables.”
I rest my case
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Ebb_Dimskill
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posted 05. May 2007 13:56
quote:
quote:
Ebb: Because stored in your brain is a direct physical isomorphism of the scene itself...
AIGuy: Activation patterns in the visual cortex are isomorphic to retinal data, yes, but other sense data is not.
What about auditory data? Its much easier to a play a song precisely over and over again in your head than it is a visual scene. How could you do this unless something directly correlating to it was physically stored in your brain (or somewhere in the sensory organs).
quote:
quote:
Now what's the relevance of all this? It is as follows: It is a provable fact (trivially so) that no matter how far you go back in a causal chain in the universe leading to the biological world, you are guranteed to find direct physical isomorphisms to the biological world that are logically equivalent to memories in a human brain. Of course, we won't find brain tissue floating around in space, that's not what I'm talking about. But there is nothing sacrosanct about brain tissue - its just another storage medium. A causal precursor to the biological world would take a different form, but would still be algorithmically equivalent to the biological world, in precisely the same sense as a memory is algorithmically equivalent to person's actual experience.
I really don't think our memories are "algorithmically equivalent" to our experiences, no. Our memories are conditioned by all sorts of things at every level of our sensory processing. The physical stimuli that impinge on our sense organs is not simply recorded by brains; it is analyzed and processed at many levels, and only the results of these processes end up as memories. Our perceptions can be distorted, we can suffer from illusions or other misperceptions, and we only selectively attend to certain aspects of all there is to sense.
Undoubtedly. I didn't mean that we all have 100% accurate photographic memory. But if I've heard a song say, 20 times, I can probably play it in my head with at least 95% accuracy for the rest of my life.
I realize that what is being stored is our sensory experience of an event, not the event itself, and we tend to equate the sensory experience with the reality of an event. To a dog, what he sees is the reality.
But that's what is all the more amazing about the past. if fk(yk) is the natural laws and configuration of the universe at some arbitrary point in the past, then it is a direct physical isomorphism of the entire universe itself as it exists at this very instant.
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Just wanted to correct something from the OP for the sake of accuracy:
quote:
y, the state of the universe at the current instant, is determined by the state it was in the previous instance (y1), and the application of the natural laws, (f). If we go back in time to some arbitrary starting point we would have yn ->yn-1->....y1->y. For any arbitary yk in that causal chain, f(yk) = yk-1 (where yk is a stand in for 'x'). (Sorry about the fast and loose notation, but certainly no one could be confused at this point.)
But the point is, for any arbitrary yk in that causal chain, f(yk) is a direct isomorphism for the state y of the universe at this instant.
The above should read as follows:
quote:
y, the state of the universe at the current instant, is determined by the state it was in the previous instance (y1), and the application of the natural laws, (f). If we go back in time to some arbitrary starting point we would have yn ->yn-1->....y1->y. For any arbitrary yk in that causal chain, f1(yk) = yk-1. Furthermore, fk(yk) is a direct isomorphism for the state y of the universe at this instant, where the function fn is defined as follows:
fn(x) = "apply the natural laws f to x for n time steps".
Note that a time step can be any arbitrary length of time deemed appropriate, e.g. 1/100 of a second, a million years, etc.
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to LE: I'm thinking that some of what you're saying about goal variables and the like could possibly be equivalent to what I'm saying.
[ 05. May 2007, 14:15: Message edited by: Ebb_Dimskill ]
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aiguy
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posted 05. May 2007 14:22
Hi Ebb,
quote:
What about auditory data? Its much easier to a play a song precisely over and over gain in your head than it is a visual scene. How could you do this unless something directly correlating to it was physically stored in your brain (or somewhere in the sensory organs).
The issue here is what you mean by "directly correlating to" and "isomorphic". Obviously some brain changes accompany sensory data in all modalities; the question is what is the mapping from physical stimuli to these initial neural responses, and then encoding into memories. These changes correlate, somehow, but not isomorphically at all; the changes are complex and indirect, and we understand little about them.
quote:
Undoubtedly. I didn't mean that we all have 100% accurate photographic memory. But if I've heard a song say, 20 times, I can probably play it in my head with at least 95% accuracy for the rest of my life.
We have memory and recall, yes.
quote:
I realize that what is being stored is our sensory experience of an event, not the event itself, and we tend to equate the sensory experience with the reality of an event. To a dog, what he sees is the reality.
A dog sees reality? Yesterday my dog ran after a plastic bag blowing across the yard - I'm sure he mistook it for a squirrel.
Anyway, Ebb, I'm having a hard time mapping what you're talking about to the topic of the thread. What we're looking for here is a way to characterize "intelligence" that would enable ID to support its claim that the same thing that enables human beings to design watches is what caused life to exist.
The most serious effort so far was to characterize intelligence as "the application of knowledge". We can empirically determine when things have knowledge (if we take knowledge to mean "stored information", say) by testing their ability to recall things and how their behavior changes based on their experiences.
But as I've pointed out, we cannot infer that something unseen is applying knowledge simply by looking at some system (a flagellum, or a star), because we happen to know that all sorts of things - including biological complexity - can arise without the application of knowledge. Moreover, I've pointed out that even if we could somehow ascertain that knowledge was involved, that still would not enable ID to demonstrate that it had any connection to what humans do when they think, and design things. When we design things, for example, we are conscious of our design decisions, but it would appear impossible to demonstrate that the cause of life also had consciousness.
You are talking about memories, which I would roughly equate with "knowledge" as that term has been used here. So, given this, can you relate your ideas here to this issue?
[ 05. May 2007, 14:24: Message edited by: aiguy ]
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IF
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posted 05. May 2007 16:10
quote:
The above should read as follows:
quote:
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y, the state of the universe at the current instant, is determined by the state it was in the previous instance (y1), and the application of the natural laws, (f). If we go back in time to some arbitrary starting point we would have yn ->yn-1->....y1->y. For any arbitrary yk in that causal chain, f1(yk) = yk-1. Furthermore, fk(yk) is a direct isomorphism for the state y of the universe at this instant, where the function fn is defined as follows:
fn(x) = "apply the natural laws f to x for n time steps".
Note that a time step can be any arbitrary length of time deemed appropriate, e.g. 1/100 of a second, a million years, etc.
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Isn't that the non-quantum view (i.e. relativistic) of reality in that the clearly demonstrated (proven?) uncertainty principle is not even considered?
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Daniel Smith
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posted 05. May 2007 16:31
aiguy: quote:
It isn't strictly true that we must observe something directly in order to infer the application of knowledge in a particular instance. We can also, of course, rely on our knowledge of particular entities - human beings, beavers, crows, and other animals from this planet - and the sorts of things they make. What we can't do is to look at something that we've never seen anything using knowledge to make, and infer that knowledge must have been necessary.
So, by your reasoning we could not determine if a complex mechanical widget found on Mars was designed - since we have never observed any Martians. In fact, by your reasoning we could not determine if any ancient artifact found on earth was designed unless we have directly observed humans making that exact type of object.
Your reasoning is flawed.
quote:
Experiments have shown that crows apply knowledge. When faced with the task of fishing food out of a jar, they will take a wire and bend it with their beaks into a hook so they can reach the food. This clearly shows they could envision the shape of the wire that would work - they knew that a hook on the end would catch the food.
Now, imagine we find another wire, bent the same way, in a pile of rubble in the aftermath of a tornado. We cannot simply look at the wire and say that something used knowledge to bend the wire this way; obviously the wire was bent by a tornado, which was not using any knowledge at all. And what if we find this bent wire being used by a different sort of bird to fish worms out of the ground? We cannot assume this bird created the wire tool, since it might just have tried all sorts of things it found lying around until it hit upon something that worked.
I hope this makes clear why we need to observe an entity in the process of creating some artifact in order to verify that it is in fact an artifact, created by the application of knowledge, and not just something that was created by mindless natural processes.
Sure, if you're talking about things as simple as a bent wire, we can only really know that it was caused by the application of knowledge if we observe it's creation. This is because natural forces are also observed to bend wires. But what about Stonehenge? Natural forces are observed to stack huge rocks on top of each other, what exactly is it about Stonehenge that leads us to believe it is designed? Are there other similar rock formations we have observed humans making? Did they utilize the tools available at the time Stonehenge was built? I submit to you that, no, it is not that we have observed humans making "Stonehenges", it's the fact that the pattern of the stones rules out the natural forces as an originator of the structure. Once we have crossed the barrier of "explanation of origination" by natural causes, we have entered into the realm of possible design. quote:
I have also said there is nothing wrong with your definition of intelligence in the context of humans and other animals that we can test and observe.
But, (as I've shown with the example of my car engine) we can use your reasoning to disprove the application of knowledge in human designs (where we know knowledge was used). This shows the basic flaw in your reasoning. You seem to believe that if science can explain how something works, it has also explained how it originated. Such is not the case. These two concepts are not functionally equivalent, yet you continue to use them interchangeably - as if they were.
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The point at which you claim knowledge is necessary is simply wherever we have not yet provided a sufficient scientific explanation! It is nothing more than god-of-the-gaps, pure and simple.
No, that's not it at all. The point at which I claim knowledge is necessary is in the design of the system. We could completely understand and explain every detail of how a system works (like my car), and still determine that knowledge was required for it's design. It has nothing to do with "gaps". You seem to be intentionally missing the point. I've explained it several times, in a number of different ways and you still want to frame the argument into a "god-of-the-gaps" argument, I assume because that's where you feel most comfortable. You have not even addressed most of my points. You have never even attempted to explain how any natural mechanism could have created something as complex as the protein synthesis process. In fact you have not offered an explanation for the origin of even one biological system. You act as if science has explained so much and we have to keep "reaching back" to find something science has not explained. But science has not explained the origin of any organ or organism. NOT ONE! There are no "gaps" - it's one big GAP! So far, as refutation of teleological explanations for the origin of complex biological systems, you have offered "lightning" (which has nothing to do with biological complexity), "Crows bending wires" (again, nothing to do with the subject), and "reproduction" (which is part of the very system we are seeking to explain). You say "we know how it works, we see it self-replicate, therefore no knowledge is required.". Yet, that explains nothing whatsoever about the origin of the system!
The more I learn about biological systems, the more convinced of design I become. When I see how coded messages are decoded, copied, edited, corrected, translated and transformed into working, self-replicating structures, I am amazed. I say to myself "there's no way that's not designed. No one can ever come up with a "natural" explanation for that!". And I'm right. No one has. And I predict, no one ever will.
[ 05. May 2007, 16:31: Message edited by: Daniel Smith ]
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posted 05. May 2007 16:36
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The more I learn about biological systems, the more convinced of design I become. When I see how coded messages are decoded, copied, edited, corrected, translated and transformed into working, self-replicating structures, I am amazed. I say to myself "there's no way that's not designed. No one can ever come up with a "natural" explanation for that!". And I'm right. No one has. And I predict, no one ever will.
But what if they're given 3 billion years, more or less, to work on it?
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