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Topic: The Characterization of Intelligent Causation
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LifeEngineer
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posted 15. May 2007 08:58
IF,
Quote: And there exist many more of them (virtually in every hamlet and village in the world! Which Agency, Club, group, etc. is authorized to choose which is the more plausible and worthy of developing verification tests?
You are correct in noting that the numbers of teleological laws or theories can be extremely large. It is not uncommon for the solution to a complex systems design problem or a complex engineering project to involve thousands and even millions of different teleological theories or laws. Some individuals and some groups are very good at defining, testing, and using large complex sets of interrelated teleological theories to solve practical problems.
Essentially all humans have some ability to formulate and apply teleological theories. Anytime someone “Finds a solution to a problem that achieves a goal” he is formulating and using informal teleological theories.
One of the problems or difficulties in addressing teleological laws, causation, and theories is the problem of translating an inherent or intuitive human behavior or ability into a formal scientific method or concept. Lots of people who are very good at solving complex problems are not very good at understanding or explaining how they solve complex problems.
A second serious problem in dealing with teleological laws and theories is the fact that there appears to be huge differences among people in their ability to understand and work with teleological theories at any level of abstraction. These massive differences are very obvious in fields like systems design where lots of people, in fact most people, have little or no ability to design complex systems despite extensive formal training. The ability to work effectively with teleological theories appears to be fully as rare as the capacity to be a professional golfer or professional athlete. It appears that the ability to deal effectively with teleological theories requires both extensive formal training and relatively rare human abilities.
In many common types of applications such as engineering and systems design, the formulation and testing of large numbers of teleological theories is performed on an informal basis. Typically, the adequacy of an entire set of teleological theories is evaluated based on whether the resulting system or design achieves the overall goal of the system or design. Formal testing of individual teleological theories may only occur if the system or design fails or if someone is attempting to develop a better system or design.
There are some interesting instances where there would be significant benefits (including significant financial benefits) to formal testing of individual teleological theories. The examples I am most familiar with involve human intelligence.
Human decision making provides a very clear example of the use of human goal directed intelligence and teleological theories. There are lots of examples where human decision making intelligence is used to “Select from the available options the option most likely to result in me achieving my goals”. This intelligent goal-directed behavior can expressed as a teleological theory of the general form “Under ideal conditions, an intelligent human will select the available option most likely to achieve the individual’s goal or goals”.
Formal testing of such teleological theories provides some interesting and surprising insights into the nature of human intelligence and intelligent causation.
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miosim
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posted 15. May 2007 09:41
Before continue inquiring about “The Intelligence causation” in biological systems I would like to reflect on the spiritual reaction triggered by overwhelming complexity of these systems.
I am also overwhelmed by its complexity, but because I am not restricted by any sort of belief, I have a freedom to inquire a knowledge in any form and shape I choose, as long I able to “build a bridge” between what I learn and commonly accepted knowledge base. Because I do not feel any obligation to follow any doctrine, I am able to move across boundary of different “knowledges”. The only belief I follow is that any type of human knowledge (religion, natural science, art, etc) is a specific reflection on the multidimensional nature the universe we are living in. Each of this knowledge views our universe at that different angle. Each of these views is partial and often distorted picture about our universe and the problem occurs when any of them (Religion or Science) claims that their knowledge is fully represent knowledge about whole universe.
Following a curiosity about nature of the Life phenomenon, I tried almost everything, starting with reductionism then looked in the spiritual teachings and then attracted by the promising Theory of the Complex System. However, soon I concluded that Emergent phenomenon, this theory heavily relied on, is a flaw and the arguments in its favor just a demonstration of uncritical thinking. I realized that we do not need metaphysically inclined Emergence phenomenon to explain the new properties of the system. The new system’s properties are due to part’s properties that could not be observed in isolation, but became observable during interaction in the system. Another words, a system acts as a “litmus paper” and a “magnifying glass” that reveals properties of the parts that otherwise are not observable.
Using this approach, we can reduced the “intelligence” of a social system to “Intelligence” of its member - biological system (organism), than reduced “Intelligence” of biological system to “Intelligence” of its cells and then using the same approach I attempted to understand “Intelligent causation” of a single cell organism.
Before continuer this analysis, I would like to pause, to make sure that reductionistic approach, I am using, is fully understood, because I plan to push it to its limit.
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LifeEngineer
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posted 15. May 2007 10:15
Most people might be willing to agree that intelligent causation involves operations of the following general type:
IMPORT KNOWLEDGE >(LEADS TO) PROCESSING > GENERATE GOAL COMPATIBLE BEHAVIOR OR SOLUTION
There are at least four potentially controversial aspects of this model or paradigm as follows:
1. WHERE DOES THE IMPORTED KNOWLEDGE COME FROM? – A lot of people want to believe that the source of knowledge involved in intelligent causation must be some type of intelligent being and a lot of people want to believe the intelligent being is either a human or some type of divine being. From a formal scientific perspective the resolution to this issue appears to be A) there is no known instance of intelligent causation that does not involve the importation of knowledge, B) there is no known method of tracking the ultimate source of knowledge and C) predictive theories can be formulated without any need to address the ultimate source of knowledge.
2. IS THERE NEW INFORMATION CREATED IN THE PROCESSING STAGE?- Again lots of people want to believe that intelligent processing in human minds creates information. One of the basic arguments against computers being intelligent is observation that Turing machines and computers are incapable of the internal creation of information. The formal scientific resolution of this issue appears to be A) there is no evidence that internal processing in any system creates information, B) there is no evidence that any type of man made logic machine would ever be able to simulate the creation of information, and C) there is no evidence that it is scientifically necessary to explain the creation of information in order to scientifically explain intelligent causation.
3. DOES INTELLIGENT CAUSATION INVOLVE CONSCIOUSNESS OF A GOAL?- Again lots of people want to believe that intelligent causation must ultimately be associated in some manner with consciousness awareness of a goal. From a formal scientific perspective, the only consciousness required is that scientists can define and communicate goal variables.
4. DOES INTELLIGENT CAUSATION ONLY INVOLVE VERY COMPLEX OPERATIONS? Lots of people would like to believe that intelligent causation is limited to extremely complex operations and that if a complex ‘intelligent’ process is reduced to simple components then none of the components involve real intelligent causation. From a formal scientific perspective, there is no evidence of complex processes that can not be reduced to sets of simpler logical operations. Therefore, from a formal scientific perspective, there is no reason to believe that simple operations do not or can not involve intelligent causation.
There are a lot of people on all sides of the ID issue who would like to insist on turning intelligent causation into some complex mystical phenomenon that is not subject to standard forms of scientific analysis. Despite the fact that so many ‘experts’ desire to make intelligent causation something beyond the scope of standard scientific analysis, there is no actual evidence supporting such a belief or desire. Once you recognize and accept the scientific validity of teleological theories, the analysis of intelligent causation becomes subject to standard methods of scientific analysis.
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miosim
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posted 15. May 2007 21:10
As I mentioned in my last posting, after being disillusioned with the Theory of the Complex System I returned to the Reductionistic views that can be summarized as follow:
• The nature of complex things is reducible to the nature of sums of simpler or more fundamental things.
• The system emergence phenomenon is caused by accumulative effect of its parts that revealed their hidden properties during interaction in the system.
• A system acts as a “magnifying glass”, “litmus paper” that reveals properties of the parts not observable otherwise.
• If the system reveals the properties, which cannot be reduced to the known element's properties, it could mean that some of its part properties are hidden and additional efforts to discover them are necessary.
I have always been intrigued by the fact that such a mysteriously complex system, as a living cell, consists of components – organelles and macromolecules - which behavior have been routinely explained in term of chemistry and physics. Apparently, we have a huge gape between enormous complexity of the living cell, as whole, and relative simplicity of its parts.
Even the simplest unicellular organisms Humble Paramecium for example, demonstrates its sophistication. “…For she swims about her pond with her numerous tiny hairline legs – the cilia – darting in the direction of bacterial food which she senses using a variety of mechanisms, or retreating at prospect of danger, ready to swim off in another direction. She can also negotiate obstructions by swimming around them and demonstrates other aspects of an intelligent behavior, which is the most mysterious property of a single cell organism…”
In general, the most basic properties of single cell organisms can be reduced to the properties of its components. For instance, cell's ability to self-reproduction is based on autoreplicative property of DNA molecules. The ability to perceive the external information is based on the property of messenger membrane proteins, sensitive to the external factors. The ability to respond is based on the properties of the cytoskeleton molecular structures. Yet, the cell ability to process information and act accordingly does not belong to any known intracellular structures or macromolecules. The attempts to reduce this property to some intracellular mechanisms have been continued for a long time, but without a noticeable progress.
The enormous complexity and sophistication of intracellular processes is managed by a large variety of protein molecules. Their functions and mechanisms have been studied in grate details, but my impression is that we not fully appreciate their complexity. In the most cases our understanding of intracellular processes are explained just by presence of a specific enzyme, which like a magician manage the complicated biochemical processes. For example, some DNA polymerases catalyses a newly-synthesized DNA in a first step and then checks if the product is correct in a second step. If an incorrect base pair is recognized, DNA polymerase reverses its direction, eliminates the incorrect base pair, and than continue replication provess. The fact that a SINGLE PROTEIN MOLECULE can perform such an “intelligent” function makes me think that these macromolecules “have a mind of their own.” Searching an Internet, I wasn’t able to find any thing indicating that anybody shares this wonder. Probably this is just me.
It is interesting that description of these mechanisms in term of physics and chemistry could be summarized in term of teleological language as follow: macromolecules react by changing their conformation in respond to changing surrounding conditions to achieve the state of minimum free energy.
One of the most studied and still not fully understood is the mechanisms by which the newly forming macromolecular chains of proteins undergo folding into their native three-dimensional shape. In general, they follows the minimum free energy state. If a protein were to fold by sequentially sampling of all possible conformations, it would take about 10*E10 years to finish folding. Because proteins fold typically on time scales of milliseconds, it was proposed that a random conformational search does not occur in folding, and the protein must, therefore, fold by a directed process. There is no explanation how the protein molecule chooses a proper conformation, but it is clear that polypeptide chain do not try all possible 10*E60 conformations, but some how “figures out” the appropriate one.
Stephen Wolfram in his book “A New Kind of Science” proposes the Principle of Computational Equivalence - that all processes occurring spontaneously in Nature can be viewed as computations following the basic laws of nature.”
Let us for a moment consider that any protein molecule indeed possess some sort of "Molecular computation ability.” Thanks to this property, protein molecules could “figure out” folding into their native three-dimensional shape and control all biosynthesis processes in a cell. In general, it could mean that the mystery of the “CELL-SAPIENCE” could be hidden in an unknown property of these macromolecules and in order to understand this property, we have to take a good look at...
If we continue to follow the proposed approach, we have to admit that atoms or even elementary particles, such as electron, may also have "Elementary Intelligence.” It is look like I get into a huge conflict with the fundamental natural Sciences, and the most appropriate action in this case is to go back and reevaluate the correctness of used methodology or consider its limitation. Or at least to have a pause.
[ 16. May 2007, 05:09: Message edited by: miosim ]
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LifeEngineer
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posted 16. May 2007 09:23
Miosim,
I personally have only directly studied two types of intelligent biological information processing so my suggestion that the same concepts and principles apply at other levels of intelligent biological information processing is admittedly speculative. The two areas I studied were information processing in neurons and human decision making.
Quote: In general, the most basic properties of single cell organisms can be reduced to the properties of its components. For instance, cell's ability to self-reproduction is based on autoreplicative property of DNA molecules.
You have to be extremely careful when viewing and evaluating the reductionist analysis in terms of physical and chemical properties. This analysis tends to be descriptive rather than causal. Providing detailed physical/chemical descriptions and descriptions of sequences of chemicals and physical forms is often very different than explaining in terms of predictive theories how something assembles or how it operates.
Quote: Stephen Wolfram in his book “A New Kind of Science” proposes the Principle of Computational Equivalence - that all processes occurring spontaneously in Nature can be viewed as computations following the basic laws of nature.”
Let us for a moment consider that any protein molecule indeed possess some sort of "Molecular computation ability.”
Coming up with a new name for intelligent causation is not really a very helpful contribution to the discussion. From the available evidence it appears obvious, or would appear obvious if it weren’t for all the silly political interference, that there is a phenomena that can be labeled intelligence or goal-directed intelligence operating in all sorts of very small systems including at all sorts of levels in living matter.
Once you accept or recognize that intelligent causation occurs at all levels inside and outside biological systems, the next steps are to
1. Identify all the key observable measurable properties of intelligent causation and
2. Develop appropriate procedures for performing formal scientific analysis of intelligent causation.
If and when you successfully perform this type of analysis you make two interesting discoveries. First, you discover that the solutions you discovered are not really new and in fact there are a lot of people actually using rigorous scientific methods to analyze and simulate and refine intelligent causation. Second, you discover that there is massive resistance to the formal scientific solution to the problem of intelligent causation. In order to understand these two seemingly incompatible findings, I believe you need to a fairly detailed realistic understanding of human behavior and human intelligence.
Human intelligence, or at least certain types of intelligence associated with solving certain types of problems, is highly specialized. This means that for certain complex types of problem solving, there is only a tiny percentage of the population that has both required ability and the required training. In situations where 1) there are significant benefits associated with being a problem solver, and 2) there is not a high degree of accountability for problem solving success and failure, then 3) it is quite common for problem solving process to become politically controlled by individuals lacking the required problem solving abilities and 4) the result is a fairly rapid deterioration or corruption of the overall human problem solving abilities in the affected area. It appears that in the world today, most academic sciences have been seriously impacted by this type of political corruption resulting in very strong resistance to real scientific solutions to the intelligent causation issue.
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miosim
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posted 16. May 2007 17:00
LifeEngineer,
The analysis in my previous posting is indeed very speculative, but I hope it is within a brainstorm format. I do not pretend that this analysis is qualified to be conclusive, I just described the direction I followed.
Regarding "Molecular computation ability” of a protein molecule, this is not a new name for intelligent causation, but figurative speech only. In the framework of this thread I probably should call it differently.
quote:
…First, you discover that the solutions you discovered are not really new and in fact there are a lot of people actually using rigorous scientific methods to analyze and simulate and refine intelligent causation…
I tried to find them, but wasn’t very successful. Do you have any references or links to this studies and people?
quote:
… It appears that in the world today, most academic sciences … resulting in very strong resistance to real scientific solutions to the intelligent causation issue…
I aware about this issue, but before worrying about overcoming a strong resistance of academic sciences, I have to convince my self that the idea I am brainstorming here is not just my delusion, because it probobly sound like it is.
[ 16. May 2007, 17:09: Message edited by: miosim ]
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IF
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posted 16. May 2007 20:13
LE: quote:
You are correct in noting that the numbers of teleological laws or theories can be extremely large. It is not uncommon for the solution to a complex systems design problem or a complex engineering project to involve thousands and even millions of different teleological theories or laws. Some individuals and some groups are very good at defining, testing, and using large complex sets of interrelated teleological theories to solve practical problems.
What is the best way to find out which are wrong?
quote:
Lots of people who are very good at solving complex problems are not very good at understanding or explaining how they solve complex problems.
The same way a bird builds a nest for the first time, maybe?
To me, you are using the word teleology in an apparently new way! Where can I find your definition?
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miosim
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posted 16. May 2007 20:34
If we continue to follow the proposed approach, we have to admit that atoms or even elementary particles, such as electron, may also have "Elementary Intelligence.” Electron, for example, may have a “free will” and moves anywhere it chooses, but because of “internal needs” for interaction it chooses to move toward the positively charged particle. It would mean, that electron’s motion may caused not by an external forces, that push or pull electron, but because a source of the motion is in electron itself.
Looks like we start to contradict with everything we know about physics and physical forces.
Historically, the concept of force, taken originally in analogy to human will power, spiritual influence, or muscular effort, became projected into inanimate objects. In elementary or introductory courses in physics a force is still interpreted in the traditional animistic manner as a “tendency” or “striving” or “attraction”. In quantum chromodinamics however, the Standard Model of “force” is replaced by ontologically less demanding concept of “interaction” between particles, which manifest itself by the exchange of additional particles that mediate this interaction. Clearly, what one calls the “fundamental forces of nature” are no longer “forces” in the traditional sense. Modern particle physics seems to support the thesis that the concept of forces has reached the end of its life cycle even though the term “force” continues to be part of our scientific vocabulary.
If the external force, as a physical reality, does not exist, the only source of the motion may lay in the particle itself and must be determined by the particle’s internal properties. At this point, I can only speculate about its nature. For example, a particle may need interacting with another particle in order to exchange by small-mediated elements and this “trade” decrease the “free energy” of both interacting particles. Because of this internal need, particles should be actively searching for interactions. Electron for example, may "look around" for positively charged particles and move toward its direction if senses it. The shorter a distance between the particles, more virtual photon they can “trade,” and the stronger attraction is and faster they move toward each other.
In generall, all known physical phenomena could be explained in term of particle's “freedom of choice” “ability to make decision”, "goal" etc. In addition, it is necessary to introduce a "memory" as fundamental property of an elementary particle. Inertia, for instance, could represent this property: a particle "remember" the direction where an attraction came from and even after attraction disappear the particle continue moving in the same direction. Due to the “memory”, every elementary particle could have a unique experience and may act differently from other particle under identical circumstances. In this description, the elementary particle revives from the ashes and a new the “elementary living creature” is born.
I am not only one, who considers the intelligence as a fundamental property of the Nature. Several biologists, including Bernan Rensch, who ascribe some rudimentary forms of life, sensation, and even volition to entities such as molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles. “The appearance of recognizable mind in the soma would not be creation de novo but a development of mind from [the] unrecognizable into [the] recognizable. In short, mind is present in all matter, only it is not recognizable as such until it reaches a certain level of complexity“.
Nick Herbert in his book “Elemental Mind” expressed his views on this subject as follow:
“…I propose here a kind of "quantum animism" in which mind permeates the world at every level. I propose that conciseness is a fundamental force that enters into necessary cooperation with matter to bring about the fine details of our every day world. I propose, in fact, that mind is elemental...
An idea that mind is fundamental property of the mater isn’t new, but it is hard to imagine that matter around us may hide some “intelligence”. For intelligence, we rather look into a telescope than into a microscope.
Let put our-self in the shoes of those whose intelligence is ignored. Let imaging that some Aliens discovered our planet. They were huge in size and compare to them we are just the small particles. The Aliens were impressed by sophistication of infrastructures found on our planet, and they were surprised when found that these well-organized infrastructures are resulted from seemingly chaotic activity of the human-particle colony. The Aliens Scientists started an investigation of this phenomenon and soon they found some correlation between money ($) and human behavior. To learn more about this observation, Alien Scientist conducted an experiment by placing a dollar bill on a quiet street and begins to observe a human who stumbles on the placed dollar bill. The experimenter found that practically all Human are attracted to money. The Experimenter also found that higher the value of the dollar bill is, the more obstacles the human is ready to overcome to get money. For instance, if money were placed behind a fence, the human overcomes this obstacle if the value of the bill was significant and a fence was not too high. This is very similar to how all physical nature acts: movement of any physical body is proportional to attracted force and inversely proportional to an obstacle altitude. Therefore Alien Scientist come to conclusion that the human is indeed a pretty simple particle whose behavior can be described in term of attraction to money, with the force proportionally of the dollar-bill value. The theory of Money Force Field was concluded - the Money Force Field drives practically all processes at the primitive human-particle colony.
However, a small percentage of human was outstanding of this rule and acted sometimes unpredictable. Yet the Alien Scientist was not discouraged by this inconsistency, because the quantum elementary particles behave the same way - Quantum Mechanics predicts only the probability of the micro event. In this regard, the Alien Experimenter argues that only the probability of human action can be predicted, and rule is created through statistical processing. Using this theory Aliens, indeed, were able to explain, with a high accuracy, the majority of phenomenon they observed in the human colony. It was also concluded that that the sophistication of the Infrastructures, developed by humans, belong to the System phenomena and no further detailed study of an individual “human particle” is necessary.
For the great majority of Applied Science the atom is a ground zero, land all other knowledge. For them physical structures, are seen as springing from them. They believe that if the particle physicists one-day find a complete, profound, and satisfying explanation for the existence and properties of neutron, protons, and electrons, our knowledge of chemistry and biology will not benefit at all.
Today most physicists accept quantum mechanics as the basis of their discipline. However, controversy that started sixty years ago is no mere historical footnote. It still argued that certain vital area of quantum mechanics covered not by convincing computations, but by a transparent tissue of ideology. Einstein insisted until his death that quantum mechanics gave a useful but fundamentally incomplete account of the physical word.
I would like to pause again before turning another page of this story.
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LifeEngineer
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posted 17. May 2007 09:16
IF,
Quote: What is the best way to find out which are wrong?
If you are asking what is the best way to find out which teleological theories are wrong, the obvious answer is formal hypothesis testing or more accurately formal falsify and replace analysis using the one failure falsifies criteria. One of the interesting features of teleological theories is that they come in sets or families. Formal testing results in reducing or limiting the size of the subset of possibly true teleological theories. Formal falsify and replace testing, using non-trivial tests, results in improving or refining a teleological theory whether the original theory is confirmed or falsified.
If you are asking how do you determine which individuals or groups are or are not capable of performing efficient analysis, it appears that basic tests of abilities to define and quantify variables and basic tests of abilities to formulate and evaluate theories can readily distinguish competent from incompetent researchers. The differences appear to be huge and readily documented. The only serious problem is that in the academic setting, lots of people are unwilling to accept or recognize that they lack scientific competence.
Quote: The same way a bird builds a nest for the first time, maybe?
The difference is that the ability to perform formal scientific analysis depends on both training and inherent ability. The differences among 1) the ability to perform complex scientific analysis, 2) the ability to describe the analytical process used and 3) the ability to understand and recognize scientific analytical processes are what are being discussed.
Quote: To me, you are using the word teleology in an apparently new way! Where can I find your definition?
Variations of this question keep coming up. The questions themselves and why people ask them are probably more interesting than the answers.
First, anyone with even a limited exposure to the academic literature on teleology must be familiar with the difference between what might be labeled scientific teleology- explanations of behavior in terms of observable and quantifiable goal or goal expectation variables and metaphysical teleology which is behavior explained in terms of the meta-physical goals and often involving some supernatural being. It is therefore reasonable to assume that most of those asking this type of question have never actually studied the academic material on subject.
I personally got interested in the subject way back when because I was interested in learning theories and reinforcement theories (learning associated with attaining rewards or goals). My recollection is that the literature available on the subject was not particularly efficient. By the inefficiency of the literature, I mean that you probably had to read through several hundred pages of talk to find one or two ideas or concepts that were relevant and useful. The second point is that it is going to take a fair amount of time and effort to learn much about teleology form the literature.
Third, I am guessing that most of the people asking for references on teleology are used to getting a large part of their information in nice condensed form from the Internet. It is about time people began realizing what a terrible source the Internet is for data more technical than the birthday of your favorite pop-star.
Fourth, I am guessing that most people asking for references on teleology don’t understand that in order to understand how teleology and teleological theories and goal variables are used in scientific analysis, you also need a reasonably strong working knowledge of mathematical modeling techniques and concepts.
There are two fundamental problems with the ‘show me a reference’ requests relating to new and/or complex concepts. First, it is likely that no simple readers digest condensed version of the complex concept exists. Second, it is doubtful that the average reader lacking the appropriate technical background would understand a condensed published article any better than they understand the posted expression of the concept.
The key point is that if you don’t understand a concept being presented ask questions to see if the concept being presented can be reconciled to your knowledge base. Asking for references, particularly asking for references for subjects that have been covered in the academic literature for decades, is really little more than a silly game.
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LifeEngineer
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posted 17. May 2007 10:22
Miosim,
Quote: LE: …First, you discover that the solutions you discovered are not really new and in fact there are a lot of people actually using rigorous scientific methods to analyze and simulate and refine intelligent causation…
M: I tried to find them, but wasn’t very successful. Do you have any references or links to this studies and people?
It is probably fair to start by recognizing that it is not immediately obvious that there are both established techniques for analyzing intelligent causation and it is not immediately obvious that there are quite a number of ‘scientists’ who routinely use the techniques.
In order to be able to recognize and understand that the techniques used by successful systems designers to design complex systems can be used in analyzing any form of intelligent causation, you need to be able to express or model the techniques used by systems designers and you need to be able to understand that the same techniques can be used in the analysis of behaviors that clearly involve intelligent causation.
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miosim
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posted 17. May 2007 22:07
In search of intelligent causation we arrive down to the subatomic level of matter and I am coming up to conclusion that an “Elementary intelligence” is a fundamental property of elementary particles that determines all its physical properties. These views open the new opportunities in explanation of quantum phenomena by freeing the particles from determinism of the force field and replacing it with what anticipated for a long time "free will". Let check just few of these opportunities.
WAVE/ PARTICLE DUALITY
The idea of duality is rooted in a debate over the nature of light and matter. Current scientific theory holds that all objects have both wave and particle nature and that a suitable interpretation of quantum mechanics provides the resolution for this paradox. This resolution is boiled down to the notion that all objects are exist in many places at once (non-locality).
Niels Bohr once suggested that the quantum wave function of matter represents its mental aspect, that the wave of the electron is the equivalent of the mind of matter. David Bohm noted that “quantum force” in his model was in many cases so irregular that the particle’s path would resemble those of Brownian motion. It was suggested that quantum mechanics could be derived from the principle that elementary particles are subjected to a “universal jiggling of unspecified cause”.
I am suggesting that elementary particles are indeed continuously “jiggling”, because they are searching for interaction. In case of electron, it is searching for the positively charged particle by scanning and probing the surrounding space. Electron’s “jiggling” motion sould not be observed, because electron do not dissipate energy unless it interact with another particle. Therefore according to proposed views THE OBSERVABLE MOTION OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLE DETERMINES ITS CORPUSCULAR PROPERTIES AND NON-OBSERVABLE OSCILLATING MOTION DETERMINES ITS WAVE PROPERTIES. This explanation of particle/wave duality doesn’t required metaphysical head twisting explanation of “existing in many places at once” given by quantum mechanics.
Electromagnetic wave propagates with a speed of light, so we should conclude that ELECTRON wave-like jiggling motion MUST also HAS A CONSTANT SPEED OF LIGHT (this should not contradict with fundamental physics laws limiting particle speed below of speed of light, because these laws are applied to observable motion only). So in a sense, particle indeed is "existing in many places, but not at once. Instead it is “jiggling” from one place to another, with a speed of light and this way fully complied with the quantum mechanics wave function. This mechanism also explain the COLLAPSE OF WAVE FUNCTION paradox, since, quantum particle occupies (continuously scanning) the space described by the wave function and reveal itself in the location where interaction with anither particle occurs.
Because photons also subjected to WAVE/ PARTICLE DUALITY I am expecting that photons also should move in the wave-like fashion. Since their observable velocity is equal to C, the non-observable VELOCITY OF PHOTON MUST BE HIGHER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Mainstream science predicts but still uncertain about possibility of superlunary speed.
The proposed views may help to explain a number of major quantum phenomena. One of the oldest of them is a quantum puzzle about “TWO SLITS PARADOX” where a single particle incident on a screen containing two closely spaced parallel slits. The paradox is that a particle passing through one slit somehow “knows” whether another slit is open or closed. The explanation of how particle “knows” condition of second slit is that particle by jiggling samples both slits (if the distance between the slits is in the range of oscillating amplitude) before moving through one of them.
The “Elementary Intelligence” of elemental particles, should be much more advanced that just an ability to find each other. They are sophisticated enough to collectively build a large and complex atomic and molecular structures. They are definitely more “Intelligent” than us performing these tasks, because we are still not able to accurately model even hydrogen atom (n-body problem)and an approximation is used instead.
In the next posting I will attempt comparing an “Intelligence” of these particles with ” Intelligence” of the system they construct.
[ 18. May 2007, 09:04: Message edited by: miosim ]
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LifeEngineer
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posted 18. May 2007 10:39
Miosim,
Quote: In search of intelligent causation we arrive down to the subatomic level of matter and I am coming up to conclusion that an “Elementary intelligence” is a fundamental property of elementary particles that determines all its physical properties.
This is, of course, one of the popular concepts or beliefs or myths of intelligent causation that persists despite the fact that it has been extensively studied and been shown not to be compatible with the evidence. The sub-atomic or quantum concepts of intelligent causation are, however, useful in illustrating one of the more important and interesting features of intelligent causation.
The sub-atomic or quantum concepts of intelligence, imply that in an intelligent system, there is some internal element or component containing intelligence. Such theories would therefore predict that there is some form of intelligent causation that can not be controlled by external input. But in direct contradiction to atomic or quantum theories or beliefs, there is no known form or instance of intelligent causation that can not be produced, prevented and influenced by external inputs.
The alternative to atomic or quantum models or theories of intelligence are models or theories that assert that the only ‘internal’ component of intelligence in any intelligent system is the capacity of logical or deterministic transformation. Despite the fact that this ‘no internal component’ model or theory is not terribly popular, it is the only type of model or theory compatible with the evidence.
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LifeEngineer
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posted 18. May 2007 11:03
Based on some earlier comments by miosim, I got thinking about what different people mean by the term brainstorming. As anybody who has actually done any serious work on the scientific analysis of any complex subject should know, the reasons that complex problems are difficult to solve is that they involve many different components and a successful solution only arises when you can find a logically consistent set of solutions to all the pieces of the complex problem. As anyone who has ever worked on complex problems is aware, you can take any single component of the complex problem and come up with a hundred or thousand solutions that will work for that component of the problem.
As anyone who has actually worked on complex problems knows, it is a complete waste of time to argue about the best solution to one component and it is even a waste of time to argue about what is an acceptable solution to one component of the problem. If you are going to find a solution to a complex problem like intelligent causation, then you need to find a logically consistent set of solutions to the full set of associated issues. These problems include 1) a workable definition of intelligence, 2) workable models and simulations of intelligent causation, 3) the ability to fit or reconcile models to an extensive body of data and 4) the ability for produce testable predictive scientific theories.
I suspect that a fair amount of the confusion and conflict arising from brainstorming would disappear if we could separate those discussing potential sets of solutions from those discussing potential solutions to individual components of broader scientific problems.
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IF
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Member # 1904
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posted 18. May 2007 11:09
LE:
quote:
If you are asking what is the best way to find out which teleological theories are wrong, the obvious answer is formal hypothesis testing or more accurately formal falsify and replace analysis using the one failure falsifies criteria. One of the interesting features of teleological theories is that they come in sets or families. Formal testing results in reducing or limiting the size of the subset of possibly true teleological theories. Formal falsify and replace testing, using non-trivial tests, results in improving or refining a teleological theory whether the original theory is confirmed or falsified.
Isn't that what science is supposed to do? quote:
If you are asking how do you determine which individuals or groups are or are not capable of performing efficient analysis, it appears that basic tests of abilities to define and quantify variables and basic tests of abilities to formulate and evaluate theories can readily distinguish competent from incompetent researchers.
Isn't that what the formal education followed by the employment process is supposed to do? quote:
The differences appear to be huge and readily documented.
How does an individual in the business know when he is incompetent? quote:
The only serious problem is that in the academic setting, lots of people are unwilling to accept or recognize that they lack scientific competence.
What do you think is wrong with our higher education industry?
My comment "The same way a bird builds a nest for the first time, maybe?" Was in response to: quote:
Lots of people who are very good at solving complex problems are not very good at understanding or explaining how they solve complex problems.
Implying that goal oriented behavior appears to be a naturally occurring heritable feature of multi-cellular organisms. So when someone solves a complex problem and can't explain how they did it then maybe the mechanics of the two processes are similar. quote:
First, anyone with even a limited exposure to the academic literature on teleology must be familiar with the difference between what might be labeled scientific teleology- explanations of behavior in terms of observable and quantifiable goal or goal expectation variables and metaphysical teleology which is behavior explained in terms of the meta-physical goals and often involving some supernatural being. It is therefore reasonable to assume that most of those asking this type of question have never actually studied the academic material on subject.
Where do you think I should start looking for that material? quote:
I personally got interested in the subject way back when because I was interested in learning theories and reinforcement theories (learning associated with attaining rewards or goals).
That sounds like behaviorism? quote:
My recollection is that the literature available on the subject was not particularly efficient. By the inefficiency of the literature, I mean that you probably had to read through several hundred pages of talk to find one or two ideas or concepts that were relevant and useful. The second point is that it is going to take a fair amount of time and effort to learn much about teleology form the literature.
I like to start with the formal definition if possible but I realize that new concepts require new words and definitions. So, how do you define teology? quote:
Third, I am guessing that most of the people asking for references on teleology are used to getting a large part of their information in nice condensed form from the Internet. It is about time people began realizing what a terrible source the Internet is for data more technical than the birthday of your favorite pop-star.
Again, what do you suggest is the best source of the information? Which academic library for example?
quote:
There are two fundamental problems with the ‘show me a reference’ requests relating to new and/or complex concepts. First, it is likely that no simple readers digest condensed version of the complex concept exists. Second, it is doubtful that the average reader lacking the appropriate technical background would understand a condensed published article any better than they understand the posted expression of the concept.
Nevertheless, the references would be good!
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The key point is that if you don’t understand a concept being presented ask questions to see if the concept being presented can be reconciled to your knowledge base. Asking for references, particularly asking for references for subjects that have been covered in the academic literature for decades, is really little more than a silly game.
But, isn't that exactly how the game is now and always has been played?
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miosim
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posted 18. May 2007 12:27
LifeEngineer quote:
The alternative to atomic or quantum models or theories of intelligence are models or theories that assert that the only ‘internal’ component of intelligence in any intelligent system is the capacity of logical or deterministic transformation.
To be sure that I understood you correctly, can you please illustrate the “internal component of intelligence” concept with an example that is reconciled to my knowledge base.
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