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Author
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Topic: The Characterization of Intelligent Causation
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LifeEngineer
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Member # 3446
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posted 02. August 2007 05:57
Daniel,
Quote: I work in a manufacturing plant run by humans. We often run into problems of communication, tardiness, laziness, lack of training, etc., all of which cause our products to be late, defective or misdelivered. Cellular systems, on the other hand, communicate virtually flawlessly, with just the right "product" delivered at just the right time and to just the right place. Human societies could learn a lot from biological systems!
I agree with your observation on the relative efficiency of human and cellular systems. Human social organizations might be characterized as capable of more rapid change and more innovative than cellular systems, but human social systems are more often flawed and less efficient than cellular systems.
My theory or explanation for this is that human social organizations and the human intelligence responsible for evolving social institutions developed or evolved much more recently and the bugs still haven't been worked out.
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miosim
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posted 02. August 2007 07:04
quote:
Daniel:
This hypothesis seems to run on the assumption that a human society is more complex and efficient (sophisticated) than any other "lesser" system. The truth is: Human societies are not nearly as complex and efficient as cellular systems. If cellular systems functioned at the level of efficiency shown by human societies, most organisms would self destruct!
We do not know enough about cellular systems or organisms to judge their efficiency. At least we know that cell can destruct it self by helping infection virus to multiply. On the level of organism, especially mammals, we know that immune system attacks the body's own neuron cells or own embryo if appropriate barrier are damaged. The aging it self is a result of autoimmune process that kills all types of cell destroying its own organism.
Regarding complexity, it is a measure of how well we understand a system and not a characteristic of a system itself. Therefore cell seams to be more complex than human society.
quote:
Daniel:
In fact, I'd argue that the amount of sophistication exemplified by cellular systems vs. human societies gives us a direct comparison between the level of intelligence available to us humans and the higher level of intelligence required for the planning and implementation of life's systems.
I could also argue that human societies are more sophisticated that cellular systems or organisms. Instead, I would like to just repeat my views on evolution that may follows a helix were the next hierarchal level is a repetition of the previous one, but on the higher level of sophistication. In this regard, human societies are on the yearly stages of development, organizationally slightly more advance than multi cell colonies. In the future, human society should be changed dramatically by increasing level of specialization including specialization in reproduction (by the way, ants and bees are ahead of us). At this point human society will achieve the level of organization similar to the primitive organisms. Human societies will continue development, repeating evolution of organisms, and eventually exceed their sophistication.
[ 03. August 2007, 08:41: Message edited by: miosim ]
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LifeEngineer
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posted 02. August 2007 07:46
DEVELOPING POINT IN TIME DECISION MAKING MODELS
Point in time decision making models provide some interesting and informative insights into human intelligence. If we asked people to develop a point in time decision making model of how they selected a brand of peanut butter (or some other commonly bought product) on their last trip to the store, very few people would be able to produce such a model.
If we provided step by step instructions, with appropriate explanations, we would find that a lot more people would be to at least provide the information needed produce a point in time model of their decision making. These same people would most likely also be able to gather the same information for similar decision making behavior of other shoppers.
It does not take a very big test sample to demonstrate the rarity of ‘a general knowledge of mathematical modeling techniques’. The only somewhat surprising aspect of this knowledge rarity is the number of individuals who pretend or falsely imply they understand modeling because they can do Google searches and make references to articles that talk about mathematical modeling of decision making. We also have extensive evidence that many more people can perform complex tasks like generating point in time decision models if they are given detailed step by step instructions on the procedures to be followed.
The same general type of finding of knowledge rarity and ability to follow detailed instructions will be found if we ask people to compare different decision point models and formally analyze the differences. Given the raw modeling data, only a very tiny percentage of ‘scientists’ will be able to identify and recognize the significance of the differences in models. Given step by step instructions and explanations of the significant differences a much larger percentage of scientists will be able to test and confirm findings.
Anyone actually interested in studying ‘develop point in time decision models’ will be able to confirm three key conclusions. First, techniques for developing point in time decision making models are well established with quite a number of important commercial applications. Second, there are huge differences in 1) the percentages of ‘scientists’ and analysts who can develop point in time models from abstract concepts and principles (a very rare ability) and 2) the percentage of analysts who can develop point in time models given detailed instructions( a much more common but far from universal ability). Third, there are a very substantial number of academics who will falsely claim to be able to develop and analyze point in time decision models.
Human knowledge, human intelligence, and human social behaviors are fascinating subjects to study. The assumptions made by both scientists and the man on the street regarding the basic nature of human intelligence are generally not compatible with the actual evidence. Point in time decision modeling provides an interesting and relatively simple opportunity to demonstrate the differences between the evidence and widely accepted beliefs.
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IF
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Member # 1904
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posted 02. August 2007 12:29
Daniel,
quote:
I work in a manufacturing plant run by humans. We often run into problems of communication, tardiness, laziness, lack of training, etc., all of which cause our products to be late, defective or misdelivered. Cellular systems, on the other hand, communicate virtually flawlessly, with just the right "product" delivered at just the right time and to just the right place. Human societies could learn a lot from biological systems!
What is the analogy in your thoughts for cellular cancer?
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LifeEngineer
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posted 03. August 2007 07:59
I apologize that this bit of the ‘Select the Best Theories’ material is being presented out of chronological order. Comment?
INTRODUCTION TO ‘SELECTING THE BEST THEORY DECISION MAKING’
Arguably the greatest unsolved challenges in science involve unraveling the mysteries of living systems including the mysteries of human behavior. If, it can be argued, scientists could make appropriate breakthroughs in the scientific analysis of theses issues, then mankind might have the knowledge needed to solve problems like disease, crime, war, poverty, inhumanity and intolerance.
Any scientific or business breakthrough involves at least two stages- 1) discovery and 2) acceptance. Although the scientific literature often focuses on the discovery component of breakthroughs, anyone with experience with entrepreneurship will know that acceptance is generally a far more difficult hurdle to pass than discovery. Although most scientists and the general public will find it difficult to accept, the evidence strongly suggests that scientific solutions to the mysteries of living systems and human behavior have been discovered (and discovered multiple times), but no one has yet to find a way to overcome resistance and gain acceptance for the discovered solutions. The purpose of this paper is to formally test for the existence of solutions to the mysteries of living systems AND to test for the acceptance of or resistance to valid scientific solutions to these problems.
In order to test for and demonstrate the existence of resistance to and non-acceptance of legitimate scientific discoveries, we will use a variation or extension of a commercially validated method evaluating human decision making. As will be discussed, human subjective or judgmental or authoritarian decision making involves numerous simplifying short cuts and reliance of often non-validated information. The decision making inefficiencies created by these short-cuts and these uses of possibly biased data can be identified and eliminated by the use of near optimal decision making algorithms and validated input data. There are a number of validated commercial applications of this general methodology. Many organizations including the US government have demonstrated the validity and value of this approach is making purchase decisions.
In order to test for academic non-acceptance of discovered solutions to the mysteries of life, we will evaluate ‘Select the best scientific theory’ decision making. The subjective or judgmental or authoritarian decision making of academic science will be compared to the decisions produced by ‘near optimal select the best theory’ decision processes using validated input data. The results will clearly show that the subjective judgmental decision making of academic science is routinely rejecting valid solutions to the mysteries of living systems.
Most people recognize that scientific progress is not a steady gradual process, but rather periods of very rapid progress interspersed with periods of stagnation. The analysis presented here suggests that the long period of relative stagnation in the life sciences is not due to the ‘failure to make key discoveries’, but rather to a very powerful resistance to accepting relevant discoveries. The hope is that the analysis presented here can contribute to the breaking of the long standing resistance to useful discoveries in the life science.
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Daniel Smith
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posted 04. August 2007 00:25
miosim:
quote:
Human societies will continue development, repeating evolution of organisms, and eventually exceed their sophistication.
We'll see. Personally, I expect human societies to degenerate rather than gain in sophistication.
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Daniel Smith
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posted 04. August 2007 00:30
IF:
quote:
What is the analogy in your thoughts for cellular cancer?
Cancer is a lot like human societies - turning on one another and eventually destroying themselves.
This does not change the fact that the inner workings of a cell are far more sophisticated and efficient than any human society or invention (if that's what you're getting at).
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IF
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Member # 1904
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posted 04. August 2007 13:57
Daniel,
quote:
Cancer is a lot like human societies ...
How about genetic diseases like Huntington's Corea, Williams Syndrome, Alzheimers, etc.?
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Daniel Smith
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posted 04. August 2007 14:00
IF:
quote:
How about genetic diseases like Huntington's Corea, Williams Syndrome, Alzheimers, etc.?
What are you getting at?
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Daniel Smith
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posted 04. August 2007 14:40
For a visual example of the sophistication of cellular systems see this video.
Watch the cells divide, pay special attention to the activity in the nucleus, then realize that each of these cells is at least as complex as a Boeing 747!
You'll never find a man made system of equal complexity that can re-create itself with such speed, accuracy and efficiency.
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IF
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Member # 1904
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posted 04. August 2007 19:33
Daniel,
quote:
What are you getting at?
When the biochemistry goes wrong, we need to find out why so that the resultant sadness and suffering is reduced. There is no magic involved only complex chemical reactions that are not perfect and that need to be studied so that when things go wrong they can be corrected.
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miosim
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Member # 4541
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posted 05. August 2007 08:13
Daniel,
To appreciate a complexity of Human society you should recall number and complexity of scientific disciplines (Sociology, Political sciences, Anthropology, Economics, Philosophy, etc.) that study Human society. Now, add a complexity of human activities within fundamental sciences and technologies, add a complexity of human interactions during development and fabrication of enormous number of industrial and consumer products, add all arts and related creative activities within Human Society. If all those processes could be displayed on a screen, the picture will be much more impressive than one you referred to.
quote:
Daniel:
Watch the cells divide, pay special attention to the activity in the nucleus, then realize that each of these cells is at least as complex as a Boeing 747!
You'll never find a man made system of equal complexity that can re-create itself with such speed, accuracy and efficiency.
You started comparing complexity of a Living Cell with complexity of Human Society, but in this example you are comparing complexity of Living Cell with complexity of one of the product (Boeing 747) of Human Society. To compare apple to apple, choose the most sophisticated product of a Living Cell and then compare it with Boeing 747.
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nosivad
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Member # 767
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posted 05. August 2007 09:57
Daniel Smith
We are already witnessing the degeneration of human society as we see "prescribed," "born that way," "dyed-in-the-wool" atheists like P.Z. Myers, Dawkins and Hitchens denigrating, for absolutely no good reason, anyone who believes in a purposeful universe, even those like Pope Benedict after he has openly endorsed organic evolution. Myers recently even found it necessary to address the Holy Father as "Benny," indicating that no one cares what he thinks anyway. Myers' mindless stance is typical of the posture so widely found on blogs like Pharyngula, Panda's Thumb, RichardDawkins.net and EvC. Dawkins squabbles with Ken Miller, not because of their shared Darwinism, only because Miller claims to be a Christian! It is so revealing isn't it?
We should remember that it was the Roman Church that kept Greek science alive all through the middle ages and has always contributed much to the intellectual world throughout its long history. I strongly recomemend the recent book "How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization," especially for the likes of Myers, Hitchens and Dawkins.
I now ask the question - what have Hitchens, Dawkins, Elsberry and Myers ever contributed to the only issue that has ever been in question, the MECHANISM of a long past evolution? I am happy to answer that question - ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Just as natural selection, now as in the past, has only prevented evolution, so have these genetically hamstrung intellectual disasters done nothing but prevent our understanding of it.
It is easy to believe isn't it?
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
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LifeEngineer
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posted 06. August 2007 07:52
If we ignore for the moment the influences of academic science, the issue of human scientific knowledge and understanding of intelligent causation is pretty unambiguous. Anyone with the ability to actually perform scientific analysis (apparently a relatively rare human ability) will have no particular problem identifying all sorts of real world examples of intelligent causation. As has been discussed, there are lots of well established methods of identifying and defining intelligent causation in terms of problem solving, goal-directed problem solving, and purposeful or goal-directed dynamic progressive change.
Anyone with the ability to perform real scientific analysis knows how to go about performing formal scientific analysis of an identified form of intelligent causation. For those who lack the ability to do scientific analysis, intelligent causation is scientifically analyzed using iterative processes that answer questions like –1) What precisely is the purpose, goal or function of this form of intelligent causation?, 2) How does it work?, 3) How do I model and simulate the performance of this purpose, goal, or function? And 4)How do I improve this functionality under defined sets of conditions?
Again, if you ignore the noise created by academic science, it becomes very obvious that there are lots of real scientists in the world who can readily recognize and scientifically analysis all sorts of instances of intelligent causation. If we study how these real scientists perform this real scientific analysis we find that they all follow pretty much the same set of scientific procedures, concepts and standards. Although computers have massively increased our ability to model, simulate, explain, and redesign instances of complex intelligent causation, real scientists have understood and applied the concepts and principles for 100’s and probably 1000’s of years.
But if real science understands and knows how to perform successful formal analysis of intelligent causation, how do we explain the vehement opposition to such analysis expressed by academic ‘scientists’ (and many other authoritarian organizations and individuals)? It seems likely that the answer to this puzzle involves the nature of human social structures.
If individual humans have specialized skills and perform specialized functions in much the same manner that the cells in a complex organism have specialized forms and perform specialized functions, then the key to any successful social organization will be having the individuals with the appropriate skills in the appropriate positions in the organization. Somewhat more specifically, the key to any successful organization will involve preventing people lacking required skills from getting into key or essential positions.
It is certainly well documented that it requires many years of specialized training to prepare individuals to perform certain specialized tasks. With appropriate screening and selection processes, such as those in sports, you can start training large numbers of individuals, then gradually eliminate people until the final pool consists of individuals with the appropriate combination of training and talent.
In order to fill positions requiring both specialized skills and long periods of training, you need to 1) start with a large pool of candidates, 2) have an effective training program, 3) have a reliable method of eliminating individuals not achieving required performance levels and 4) have some method of dealing with those who start training but do not achieve the performance levels required of the position. As everyone should be aware, not all methods of preparing and selecting individuals for specialized positions are equally effective.
Academia, it appears, has long served as a solution to the problem of what to do with those who despite years of training fail to acquire the skills essential to perform real scientific analysis. As suggested by the old adage, “Those that can do, those who can’t teach”. This largely explains why the concept and methods of science acceptable in academia vary so dramatically from hard science methods and concepts.
The concept of using academia as a dumping ground for scientific failures worked reasonably well as long as the primary focus in science was on the physical sciences and engineering and as long as academia could control and manipulate only a relatively trivial portion of scientific research resources. But academia as dumping ground solution becomes problematic as the focus switches from physical science issues to life science issues and when academia is found to control relevant research resources. As real science progresses and as real science begins to focus of issues of intelligent causation, conflicts with academia are inevitable.
In order to resolve this conflict, we need to redefine the boundaries between real science and academic science, and we need to develop objective tests to identify and eliminate those lacking the ability to perform real scientific analysis within the new hard science areas. The new areas of interest in hard science are all those areas involving intelligent causation. This would include all types of adaptive and evolutionary changes in biological systems and all types of intelligent behaviors and especially all forms of human behavior.
One potentially effective method of testing for hard science competence that might serve as a basis for rejecting scientific incompetence would be the ‘select the best theory’ decision processes. It appears likely that only those who are capable of performing real scientific analysis would have the ability to understand and perform such analysis.
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nosivad
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posted 06. August 2007 09:24
I take it that Life Engineer thinks that there is a difference between "academic science" and "real science." This investigator was an "academic scientist" for a half century and resents the suggestion that he does not qualify according to Life Engineers' criterion. I also have no sympathy with the notion that one can "train" scientists. Training is for animals. Anyone who thinks he can train me is in for a bitter disillusionment.
I recommend that Life Engineers' chronic, repetitious, judgmentally arrogant analyses be relegated to the scrap heap. They contribute absolutely nothing of value to our understanding of the real world.
It is hard to believe isn't it?
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
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