Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

“Unpredictable” Does Not Equal “Contingent”

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In a previous post JT believes he has crushed the entire ID project by pointing out that: “A process determined entire[ly] by law can have EXTREMELY complex behavior and extremely difficult to predict behavior.”

 

No one disputes JT’s point, but it is beside the point as far as ID is concerned.  JT is making a common error – he is confusing “unpredictable” with “contingent.”  They are very different things.

 

When a bomb explodes the pieces of the bombshell are scattered willy nilly, and it is impossible to predict where any piece will land.  Nevertheless, where each and every piece lands is utterly determined by law.  In other words, where each piece lands is a function of nothing but the various physical forces acting upon it, which could, in principle, be modeled by a mathematical formula.  This is an example of the complex unpredictable behavior resulting from law to which JT alludes.

 

Contrast the complex unpredictable – but nevertheless determined – behavior of the bombshell with the contingent behavior of an intelligent agent.  This sentence that I am writing is an example of contingent behavior.  My choice of typing out a certain combination of letters and spaces and not another cannot be accounted for on the basis of any known law.  The only way to account for the sentence is as the contingent act of an intelligent agent.  I had a choice, and I wrote that sentence instead of another.

 

Now JT might counter that I only believe I had a choice in writing that sentence, that my consciousness is an illusion, and that my actions were governed by law as surely as the flight of the pieces of bombshell.  Well that’s the question isn’t it.  JT – and other materialists – do not know that my consciousness (and theirs) is an illusion.  They merely assert it, and until they can provide evidence (and by “evidence” I do not mean the recitation of their metaphysical tropes), that the seemingly self evident fact that I am conscious is not after all a fact, I will go on believing it.  What is more (and this is very amusing) so will they.  In other words, materialists struggle to prove that which they do not really believe.  Every one of them knows he is a conscious agent, and why they attempt to prove that which they know for a certain fact not to be the case is a mystery. 

 

Later JT wrote:  “And for the record, I generally put ‘mind’ in quotes when referring to the ID concept of it and don’t use the term much at all, because of the potential for confusion.”

 

One wonders what JT meant by “I,” in that sentence, because if, as he says, the mind does not exist, the concept of “I” has no meaning, so it seems to me that it would make more sense for him to put irony quotes around “I” and not “mind.”  This, of course, is just another example of how the materialist is forced to affirm the non-materialist case in the very act of attempting to refute it. 

Comments
Bfast I restrained myself from responding for a day or two. Your adjusted Weasel boils down to specifying islands of reasonable functionality in a sea of non-function: 1 --> Let's give the target a reasonable length, say 1,000 bits worth, i.e about 120 words. [That puts it at the threshold of the "islands of function" version of the UPB I have set up as a rule of thumb.] 2 --> Let's specify that it needs to find target words whole, and until it finds the first 7-letter word, it may not do any hill-climbing, and hill climbing is by finding neighbouring words in increment. 3 --> Then, it must show ability to sort the found words at random to produce a meaningful sequence: subject, predicate, modifiers, words. (Sounds like co-optation to me, the proposed workaround for IC.) ______________ 4 --> then through horizontal transfer between islands of function with different sentences, it should show ability to create the whole statement of about 120 words, in correct order, or another similarly meaningful sequence of sentences. Methinks a slice of this post would work as a reasonable target. (The horizontal rule at the end of 3 is at the point where Word says I have 140 words.) Want to take this up, MK and JT? Do you think a few dozen iterations -- as Dawkins presented ever so triumphalistically in his 1980's work -- will be likely to produce good results? Why or why not? Would you be willing to argue that by the mid 1980's, the realistic complexity of DNA and proteins etc was not well understood? MK, what, then does that tell us about Mr Dawkins' "real adjenda"? [Onlookers: cf MK at 103] GEM of TKI PS: MK, "Find" in a browser would have shown that I speak to genetic algorithms here and here in my online briefing note, i.e. in successive sections, outlining why I think the GA approach misses the mark: the need to get TO islands of function before hill-climbing can be addressed. [Re my use of "paper," which you evidently strongly object to, kindly cf meanings 3b and 4 here. ] Here is my in-brief remark at one of the hits:
. . . life function is observed to be based on algorithms and codes; which constitute functional, specific, complex information. Such algorithms and codes are observed to have but one empirically observed source: intelligent agents. (And, this is apparently for the excellent reason that chance processes run into the same isolated islands of function in a sea of non-functional configurations challenge.) Genetic algorithms and the like are not counter-examples, as they are in effect rather constrained hill-climbing searches, within a wider program that is already intelligently designed and functional. Often, the target is pre-specified and closeness of approach to the desired target is rewarded; i.e. they are premised on exactly the sort of foresighted purposiveness that Darwinian evolutionary processes, on pain of transformation into intelligently designed processes, cannot have.
Care to respond?kairosfocus
December 19, 2008
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Okay . . . An interesting silence on the part of evo mat advocates (i.e. esp. JT and MK) once I responded on the merits a few days back; especially after demands to "do the honorable thing" [cf # 94, by JT] and assertions about "[dishonest] a[g]endas." [cf. 103 by MK, in light of 101 by same.] Not to mention, the pretty direct implication that I would not know or understand basic aspects of cases such as Dawkins' Weasel. [Cf MK at 101, 103, 104, 108]. It seems to me that there is a need for pretty serious substantiation on the part of JT and MK, or else -- to turn about JT's rhetoric in 94 above -- the decent thing to do would be to acknowledge and express regret for gross misjudgement and unwarranted accusation. JT and MK: over to you . . . GEM of TKI PS: Atom, nice work in 115.kairosfocus
December 19, 2008
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In regards to the "Weasel" computer program: The biggest problem with Weasel is the use of a Hamming Oracle that provides a "target" and information about how close a string is to that target. Having a target alone isn't much of a problem, as long as the oracle only answered "yes/no" when asked if the string matches the target. But instead weasel answers something like "closer" or "worse", acting similar to "hotter/colder" and allowing the program to hone in on the target quickly. This is main source of active information in the program. Whether or not the "correct" letters are fixed or free to mutate is an order of magnitude less important. Sure, fixing the correct letters will allow for quicker convergence on the target, but this difference is minor compared to using a "needle in haystack" (yes/no) oracle versus using a Hamming (hotter/colder) Oracle. BTW, EvoInfo.org has a cool javascript simulation of a flavor of Weasel in its Resources section, coded by yours truly. It fixes the correct letters (not truly Weasel ala Dawkins, but a similar algorithm using the same Hamming Oracle.) Also, someone wrote me throwing a fit over the "fixing" of letter in the EvoInfo sim. After I asked him to read the paper the sim is based on and the relevance of the oracles, I never heard back from him.Atom
December 18, 2008
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JT (98): I hoped you would answer and discuss, but you seem to only be able to state trivialities and nonsense. No problem, I am accustomed to that. You say: "I admit it now - the beauty of a rose, a laughing child playing with a puppy sillouhetted against the setting sun, how could a computer capture such beauty…Oh wait - someone probably has such images stored on their computer right now." Is that irony? Is that sarcasm? Is that just silliness? Just explain how consciousness and subjective experience are within "the expressive power of a computer program", which was my point. Show me a conscious computer program. Then we will see if it can appreciate your "jokes" about beauty and digital images. As an "answer" to one other of my points, you just quote from DaveScot (maybe having finished your "arguments" in the first point): "For another commenter here who asked how QM relates to all this is how - quantum uncertainty - effects without causes - absolute unpredictability. Personally I think quantum uncertainty is just as likely an artifact of incomplete understanding of the quantum universe, a view which is often referred to as “the missing variable” hypothesis." Well, so you are on the side of Einstein and DaveScot about the interpretation of QM according to the "missing variable" hypothesis. Good for you! It's really a very restricted company, but in a sense not a bad one (I am referring to Einstein and Davescot here). What a pity that almost everybody who deals with QM today has completely abandoned the "missing variable" hypothesis... Well, Einstein will be happy that he still has some followers.gpuccio
December 18, 2008
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Kirosfocus, "Weasel sets a target sentence then once a letter is guessed it preserves it for future iterations of trials until the full target is met." My biggest complaint with weasel is that it is way too short. However, this is an interesting statment. I shall write a sim that is just like weasel, except that it only preserves entire words that are found in the weasel sentance. That sounds like fun -- impossible.bFast
December 18, 2008
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JT Kindly read the linked Plantinga paper. NS rewards successful behaviour in an environment especially on the so-called four Fs, not truthfulness of belief. Indeed, if you had to have accurate beliefs to survive or thrive, primitive life forms that have no brains would die off. At higher level, even the path of science should tell us that reliable world models are not necessarily true ones. Even Newtonian Gravitation and Mechanics are empirically demonstrably not right! GEM of TKIkairosfocus
December 18, 2008
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MK Pardon a frank word or two: kindly stop wasting our time by refusing to address cogent responses and reiterating already adequately rebutted claims. I have already given you a link to Royal Trueman's more than adequate discussion of Weasel and its errors of irrelevance and of misdirection, from 1998. That is after I have already stated in summary why Weasel -- and for that matter Avida -- fails. Weasel sets a target sentence then once a letter is guessed it preserves it for future iterations of trials until the full target is met. That means it rewards partial but non-functional success, and is foresighted. Targetted search, not a proper RV + NS model. A more relevant exercise than Weasel (or Avida etc; cf the Dembski-Marks papers also linked above), would be to first generate an 8 bit PC and its OS and its associated execution machinery by chance plus functionality based survival -- say by a version of Hoyle's tornado in a junkyard, this time in Round Rock Texas. That mimics the OOL challenge. Next,see if further storms can get you to go from 8 to 16 to 32 and onward to 64 bit PCs. Or to a cell phone or some other novel technology. What are the odds of getting to the first PC within the lifetime of he universe? Then, of transforming it into the new forms? Once you get a functioning PC you can make the OS software evolve by zener noise on a hard drive plus tests for initial functionality all you want. Then make the zener noise evolve new software for a genetic algorithm, testing for functionality but not rewarding non-functional approaches to success. And so on. If tha sort of test has notbeen done, al you are doing is showing that intelligent design usingconstrained random search algors is capable of hill climbing. Useful but not relevant to the issues on OOL and macroevolution. I think DS might be able to get you access to Dell's junkyard, and Iam sure there is a great deal on tornadoes in tornado alley. Have fun. Back to my client. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
December 18, 2008
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Mike, You seem to be harboring an inordinate desire for chance to write a conventional code - which happens to be brimming with specificity. Chance cannot coordinate option at the nucleic (information) level. This is essential for functionality in otherwise disassociated systems (without mechanical ties) such as transciption and translation. Can you provide any data that suggest it can?Upright BiPed
December 18, 2008
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KF [Plantinga]:
. . evolution is interested (so to speak) only in adaptive behavior, not in true belief. Natural selection doesn’t care what you believe; it is interested only in how you behave. It selects for certain kinds of behavior, those that enhance fitness, which is a measure of the chances that one’s genes are widely represented in the next and subsequent generations . . . But then the fact that we have evolved guarantees at most that we behave in certain ways–ways that contribute to our (or our ancestors’) surviving and reproducing in the environment in which we have developed . . . . there are many belief-desire combinations that will lead to the adaptive action; in many of these combinations, the beliefs are false. (Link. Emphases added. Cf. blog exchange contributions here, here, here, and here.)
Natural Selection does care what you believe. What you believe determines what you do. What you believe is determined by the accuracy of the information you're getting about the world. I stand by all my original comments. You use the Wales example for a launching point for a much broader discussion, but I addressed the central point of the Wales example. It isn't just the "tone" I object to in your paper. I didn't successfully articulate the nature of my objection. Assuming what you're trying to prove, simplistic unproven assumptions about the nature of laws, invocation of 18th century patrician armchair philosophers as relevant authoritive sources, devoting excessive verbiage to refuting each and every objection to your position even when some of those objections are self-evidently meritless. I could go on and on and on. And yet, the sheer volumne is certainly impressive, you've done a lot of work there, you've also read a lot I don't think any actual work that anyone has done should be maligned. I would hope your work has proven to be a blessing to some people. The fact is, I suspect that ultimately we do believe the same things. The tone of this is overly personal maybe, but I have devoted the last 6-7 hours of my life to your writing. Anyway, take care.JT
December 18, 2008
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kairosfocus, I would like to test your understanding of “Weasel” if I may. Once a correct letter has been achieved, does that letter become “fixated” or is it still free to mutate away from the “correct” letter in the next round? Think carefully before you answer.MikeKratch
December 18, 2008
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MK (and JK): I have to go just now, so will be far more brief; but I first observe that there is a reason why there is a discussion on the "hard problem" of consciousness, for just one instance. Second if you will actually look at what I have done in the always linked, you will see that I start from information and noise and inference to design, then address origin of life [with amn appendix on the thermodynamics involved], then body-plan level innovation. In each of the three cases, the search space hurdle has yet to be cogently and soundly addressed by the evo mat advocates. Putting that simply, the problem with the fitness landscape is that it is flooded by a vast sea of non-function, and the islands of function are far separated one from the other. So far in fact -- as I discuss in the linked in enough details to show why I say that -- that searches on the order of the quantum state capacity of our observed universe are hopelessly inadequate. Once you get to the shores of an island, you can climb away all you want using RV + NS as a hill climber or whatever model suits your fancy. But you have to get TO the shores first. THAT is the real, and too often utterly unaddressed or brushed aside, challenge. And, I repeat, that starts with both the metabolism first and the D/RNA first schools of thought on OOL. As indeed Shapiro and Orgel recently showed, as I cite. So your assertion that I am evading unwelcome facts is simply unworthy and unwarranted by the facts, MK. As for Weasel, you will note that I hardly bothered to take note of it once it was raised by JK, as it is so trivially irrelevant as a plainly DIRECTED, foresighted tartgetted search. It instantiates intelligent design, not the power of RV + NS. Even going up to Avida and the like, similar issues come up, as is highlighted under the issue of active information by Dembski and Marks. So, there is no issue of my response to Weasel above needing to be validated though peer reviewed publications. (And note this is in a post-Sternberg world. Do you think that pares that fails to toe the PC evo mat line are likely to ever see the light of day in MOST current journals? If you do so, I got some prime real estate in Plymouth, Montserrat that I can sell you.) This is a simple issue. So simple that I send you to the much despised creationists to take a 101 level look at it. Nor did I ever claim that Weasel was the state of the art; that is putting words in my mouth to make up a convenient strawman. What I did say was that "Weasel is an apt example of a search algorithm that undertakes DIRECTED search, in an environment that is designed; and based on active, foresighted information fed in at the beginning." That last is a reference to much more current analyses, which you should be aware of, e.g. this and this. In short, I was not at all putting up toy examples, but responding to a claim that was based on just such an example put up by another; pointing out its blatant flaws in brief before passing on to other points and things. Okay, enough as follow up for now. G'day again GEM of TKIkairosfocus
December 18, 2008
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Once a correct letter has been achieved, does that letter become “fixated” or is it still free to mutate away from the “correct” letter in the next round? In Dawkins' exercise, the letter if fixed. For grins visit: The Richard Dawkins Mutation Challenge tribune7
December 18, 2008
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JT, here is something to ponder: You set up a video camera to tape a rocky desert & leave. It records an earthquake after which the rocks spell out the phrase "ID is true. Repent now!" Do you: A. take it to mean ID has been disproved? B. Repent?tribune7
December 18, 2008
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kairosfocus, I would like to test your understanding of "Weasel" if I may. Once a correct letter has been achieved, does that letter become "fixated" or is it still free to mutate away from the "correct" letter in the next round? Think carefully before you answer.MikeKratch
December 18, 2008
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KF
Weasel is an apt example of a search algorithm that undertakes DIRECTED search, in an environment that is designed; and based on active, foresighted information fed in at the beginning. (I do refer to this sort of thing in the paper, but only briefly.)
Weasel is a trivial toy exampled used to illustrate a teaching point. The fact that you claim to have "defeated" it in a "paper" no less speaks volumes as to your real adjenda. Why don't you publish this "paper" in a peer reviewed journal then if you are confident you have refuted this trival example?
Until you can show me in error, the appendix therefore stands. As does the rest of the note.
You are in error if you think that "Weasel" is representiative of the state of the art in this area. You need to read more in this field to become familiar with more then then toy examples used to explain to the general public the concepts Dawkins was trying to comminucate. It's like claming that a "Learn to read ABC" book aimed at 5 year olds has little literary merit. Quite right, it does not, but it fulfills the purpose admirably.MikeKratch
December 18, 2008
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KF: If I honestly missed your point it wasn't intentional (although that statement was a tautology). I'll go back and read that appendix, and your previous posts. CJYMan wrote: Then, once chance is ruled out by detecting highly improbable specificity, we may arrive at CSI. But, that is not where the reasoning stops. We also observe that intelligence routinely produces CSI through use of foresight, as I have explained earlier. In fact, that is basically how we label something as intelligent Just a quick acknowledgement. You mentioned foresight repeatedly in your previous post, and I agree on the general concept of foresight. A human being can store a detailed model of the world in his mind and perform what if scenarios much more readily than if he had to try everything out literally. But also, foresight can refer to a previous state of affairs that correlates to a subsequent state, without benefit certainly of any abstract transcendent capabilities. That's to me where the foresight concept is relevant (i.e. the last statement I made). The only way some state of affairs y can materialize is if there is foresight inherent in the mere fact of some previous state of affairs that directly correlates to it. i.e. f(x)=y. But anyway foresight - I'm with you on that.JT
December 18, 2008
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KariosFocus
to bridge from blind forces to cogent reason per mere material forces of chance + necessity is a task that has brought the materialist scientists to despair.
Really? Care to cite an example of such a "despairing materialist scientist"? I think you are just making that up to pat yourself on the back. You constant references to "lucky noise" appear to ignore the fact that the search spaces you mention as being impossible to traverse are not being traversed from the start. Living organisms alreay occupy a postion in those search spaces to begin with. And yes, there are very large search spaces that "lucky noise" would not be able to search in under the lifetime of the universe, but you have to realise that the entire search space is irrelevent, the only relevant parts of the landscape are the parts immediatly adjacent to where you start from. The rest of the landscape might as well not exist because it's irrelevant to the task at hand, i.e. incrementally searching the adjacent areas, which is a mathmatical tried and tested safe conjecture. Yes, the chances of a given protein coming into existence fully formed via "lucky noise" are outside of the realm of "probable in this universe" but you disregard the incremental when you do that. You are using the "tornado in a junkyard" example to claim that 747's do not exist. They do, and they were not built in a tornado. I believe you know this but refuse to consider the consequences for the rest of your "theories" as they would not be good for your belief.MikeKratch
December 18, 2008
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PS: On randomness and quantum effects. JT, subject to that provisionality that attaches to all matters of fact and scientific explanation as a member of that class, quantum and quantum based effects stand as the paradigmatic example of randomness. Indeed, such is now routinely used as a source of truly random numbers. One way to do it is to use a Zener noise circuit to feed A/D conversion, thence seed a a pseudorandom number digital circuit, generation of scaled random numbers,which can be tabulated. The linked page observes:
The ADC of the MAX765x can be set to read all sorts of things: scales AC power line voltage, some sensor position or even amplified Johnson noise from a Zener diode (a common practice in cryptography).
Here is a patent, and here is a case in point. Even so humble and materalism-leaning a source as Wiki has a useful discussion here. It begins:
In computing, a hardware random number generator is an apparatus that generates random numbers from a physical process. Such devices are often based on microscopic phenomena such as thermal noise or the photoelectric effect or other quantum phenomena. These processes are, in theory, completely unpredictable, and the theory's assertions of unpredictability are subject to experimental test. A quantum-based hardware random number generator typically contains an amplifier to bring the output of the physical process into the macroscopic realm, and a transducer to convert the output into a digital signal . . .
As the Orion RNG ad says, "The Random Number Generator port dongle (Mac/Win, for a male serial 25 pins com port) is the first true RNG to pass Marsaglia's famous DIEHARD randomness test. It produces completely independent series of numbers and can be used for randomization of numbers, encryption purposes, virtual casinos or for scientific research." In short, GP is completely vindicated. (One is tempted to add, on long track record, "as usual . . . ")kairosfocus
December 18, 2008
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That answer appears in the immediately following point 4, app 7 my always linked:
4 --> The answer is obvious: no. For, the adjusted example [Taylor's original form is a bit different] aptly illustrates how cause-effect chains tracing to mechanical necessity and chance circumstances acting on matter and energy are utterly unconnected to the issue of making logically and empirically well-warranted assertions about states of affairs in the world. For a crude but illuminating further instance, neuronal impulses are in volts and are in specific locations in the body; but meaningfulness, codes, algorithms, truth and falsehood, propositions and their entailments simply are not like that. That is, mental concepts and constructs are radically different from physical entities, interactions and signals. So, it is highly questionable (thus needs to be shown not merely assumed or asserted) that such radical differences could or do credibly arise from mere interaction of physical components under only the forces of chance and blind mechanical necessity. For this demonstration, however, we seek in vain: the matter is routinely assumed or asserted away, often by claiming (contrary to the relevant history and philosophical considerations) that science can only properly explain by reference in the end to such ultimately physical-material forces. Anything less is "science-stopping." But in fact, in say a typical real-world cybernetic system, the physical cause-effect chains around a control loop are set up by intelligent, highly skilled designers who take advantage of and manipulate a wide range of natural regularities. As a result, the sensors, feedback, comparator, and feedforward signals, codes and linkages between elements in the system are intelligently organised to cause the desired interactions and outcomes of moving observed plant behaviour closer to the targetted path in the teeth of disturbances, drift in component parameters, and noise. And, that intelligent input is not simply reducible to physical forces and materials.
In short, I actually did provide a cybernetic case in point, one that in context links to Eng Derek Smith's very interesting work. And, we may note that we still have yet to see a cogent answer. 4] You also did not address my follow-up illustration [68]: “What if an intelligent agent says ‘Welcome to Wales’. How likely is it for an intelligent agent to lie?” Again, a distractive strawman. Yes agents lie or simply make errors, i.e. willfully or inadvertently say what is not so. We test that -- cf my discussion of Greenleaf on assessing evidence here -- by looking at correspondence with many known facts, logical coherence and explanatory power relative to other competing stories. ALL OF WHICH ARE MENTAL ACTIONS THAT ENGAGE THE LINK BETWEEN THE WORLD OF FACT AND THAT OF REASONING. In short, JT has again improperly leaped the divide between the world of cause-effect forces and mechanical chains of events, and chains of reasoning. 5] the fact that “intelligent agent” in the ID conception transcends law or specification itself means that we could never examine it in this way. And in my judgment, “intelligent agency” defined this way actually eqautes to randomness anyway. First and foremost, we must note that we personally exemplify and routinely interact with intelligent agents. We know per experience and observation, that intelligence does not equate to random search, and that it's performance is utterly different from such chance + necessity driven causal chains. For instance, a workteam could put up our welcome to wales sign in a day; the search resources of the observable cosmos, providing the sign is sufficiently intricate, per vast improbability, would be severely challenged to do so by repeated avalanches, across its lifespan -- much less, doing so on the actual border of Wales. So, JT is blatantly -- and insistently -- wrong to infer that on such a view as we are taking, intelligent agency "actually eqautes to randomness anyway." 6] the idea that natural selection (not to advocate it unconditionally here) has nothing to do with truth is also wrong. If an eye has some limited ability and through some fortuitious circumstances its accuracy increases, that is going to increase the fitness of the organism. That’s obvious right? So the organism has a more accurate and thus a more truthful understanding of his environment, and thus the random change that bestowed this to him is preserved. First, observe the improper conflation of sensation and perception, with cognition and reasoning. Again, once one has an eye -- and BTW, the search resources of the observed cosmos are inadequate to credibly make that body plan innovation per chance variation culled through differential reproductive success in environments -- then the cause-effect chains in the nerves will trigger images of the environment, and even possibly instinctual threat-avoidance responses. But, that has nothing to do with thinking through an argument, using reasoning. I therefore think Plantinga has aptly responded to this -- actually, he anticipated it -- over a decade ago:
. . . evolution is interested (so to speak) only in adaptive behavior, not in true belief. Natural selection doesn’t care what you believe; it is interested only in how you behave. It selects for certain kinds of behavior, those that enhance fitness, which is a measure of the chances that one’s genes are widely represented in the next and subsequent generations . . . But then the fact that we have evolved guarantees at most that we behave in certain ways–ways that contribute to our (or our ancestors’) surviving and reproducing in the environment in which we have developed . . . . there are many belief-desire combinations that will lead to the adaptive action; in many of these combinations, the beliefs are false.
In short, appeal to naturtal selection does not perform the required magic of transforming mater into reasoning and sometimes truthful mind. I have looked at a few attempted rebuttals, but I find that as a rule, just as JT did, they knock over strawman substitutes, not the real argument. 7] Dawkins “methinks it looks like a weasel” illustration, which has been around for decades and decades is the stereotypical response to “evolution equates to randomness”. Weasel is an apt example of a search algorithm that undertakes DIRECTED search, in an environment that is designed; and based on active, foresighted information fed in at the beginning. (I do refer to this sort of thing in the paper, but only briefly.) In short, Dawkins' example is specious, and blatantly obviously so. Why did you raise it? I must repeat: natural selection is a probabilistically based culler of those sufficiently unfit to be wiped out across time. IT IS NOT AN INNOVATOR OF INFORMATION. To get the information in the quantities required for body-plan innovation, you have to cross the threshold of the UPB, many times over. And, the only mechanisms proposed for that ORIGIN of information, boils down to one form or more of chance variation. ___________ In short, the case still stands. As to the complaint on tone [note, not an effective response on substance], I could simply point to the level of the Darwinists and their fellow travellers, not just on words but deeds, across decades. But in fact, given the "do the honorable thing" above [but not backed up by cogent arguments], it is plain that the real objection on "tone" is that I have showed, with grounds and evidence, why I think evolutionary materialists are self-referentially incoherent and irrational, not to mention, across time, historically dangerous and too often destructive. Sir, I have been plain-spoken, but have given reasons and evidence for that, reasons and ecvidence that a hundred million ghosts will join with me in moaning out. The ball, I am afraid, is still in your court. Thank you for your time and attention. but, you will see why I am afraid that on the substantial case in hand to date, I cannot agree with your plain implication that I have been dishonourable; nor that I have even been fundamentally unsound on the material points. Until you can show me in error, the appendix therefore stands. As does the rest of the note. On the grounds of the right of fair and responsible comment on a matter of great moment in our time. G'day, GEM of TKIkairosfocus
December 18, 2008
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gpuccio[76]:
“As far as systematic description, nothing we know of exceeds the expressive power of a computer program.” That’s complete nonsense! There are a lot of things which we can very well describe, and which are beyond the power of a computer program. Consciousness is the best example. Meaning too. Free will. Perception. Pleasure. Pain. Purpose. Intuition. Human language. Beauty. Harmony. And so on.
I admit it now - the beauty of a rose, a laughing child playing with a puppy sillouhetted against the setting sun, how could a computer capture such beauty...Oh wait - someone probably has such images stored on their computer right now.
2) True randomness: I mean the randomness at the quantum level, which is expressed in the collapse of the wave function. As far as we know, that randomness seems to be intrinsic to reality itself, and not superimposed to necessary events.[emphasis added]
Unless one accepts the irrational theory of strong AI, most serious theories of consiousness do use quntum randomness, but only as an interface where consciousness can interact with matter without violating known laws of necessity
DaveScot wrote [82]:
For another commenter here who asked how QM relates to all this is how - quantum uncertainty - effects without causes - absolute unpredictability. Personally I think quantum uncertainty is just as likely an artifact of incomplete understanding of the quantum universe, a view which is often referred to as “the missing variable” hypothesis.
JT
December 18, 2008
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All: I see I have been rather directly addressed by JT in 94, with a call to "do the honorable thing" and surrender what I have put up previously and in the appendix 7, my always linked. Of course, I would immediately do so if I were convinced that the argument is an error. So, what is the case on the merits that shows I indeed am in error? Let's see what JT argues: 1] The odds of them [a randomly avalanching pile of rocks on a hillside] spelling out “Welcome to Wales” by pure chance would also be tantamount to 0. Now of course I have asserted just that, but stipulated that we are looking at the bare fact and possibility here, as chance + necessity can make such a rock fall end up in any arbitrary shape. But the odds of that in reality are very small. [JT, why do you think that in my linked, I spoke about packing for Vegas and having a little conversation on the subject, before the hot streak runs out?] More to the point, let's scroll up to 79, where I commented:
2 –> JT then resorts to an attempted counter- example where a rockfall — which is of course a paradigm for chance + necessity in action — piling up in the shape of a series of alphanumerical glyphs that lo and behold just happens to state in mathematical language a proof that per his judgement is valid. 3 –> You will note the key difference between [a] rocks falling into arbitrary shapes (and in principle such rocks can take up any shape under the laws of physics prevailing . . . just that the odds of the suggested case happening are very long indeed, tantamount to zero, but we are talking Gedankenexperiment here . . .) that are then [b] read by an onlooker as a valid mathematical proof. 4 –> This underscores the key difference between physical events and forces, and mental actions carried out by the sort of conscious, intelligent creature that we are. 5 –> For, the rocks — remember Ari’s point that “nothing is what rocks dream of” — don’t care what shape they take up, nor do the forces of chance plus necessity. they make no distinction between rocks falling into one pattern or another. Similarly, noise in the Internet and your PC could in principle produce a pattern of bits that physically causes the dots of light, dark and colour on your screen that seem to be a comment post, just by chance.) 6 –> But, the onlooking eye — backed up by the intelligent mind — sees SYMBOLS, and interprets MEANINGS, then makes LOGICAL judgements. In short, acts of mind are radically different from acts of chance plus necessity, and take up a radically different scope of significance. 7 –> And, when evo mat speculations on origins try to deduce the latter from the former; on long observation, they invariably founder on the crucial gap, and the implicit self reference involved.
In short, JT has a gain set up and knocke3d over a distractive strawman. The real challenge lies yet unaddressed. 2] The example I gave (and someone else originated I think) amptly demonstrates that this [referenced excerpt from my remarks at the end of 79 follows] an invalid notion. The honorable thing for you to do would be to admit your mistake and take the whole “Welcome to Wales” thing out of your paper. This is regarding my conclusive summary of the impact of chance + necessity on the origin of mind, under evo mat assumptions: Therefore, if materialism is true, the “thoughts” we have and the “conclusions” we reach, without residue, are produced and controlled by forces that are irrelevant to purpose, truth, or validity. Now, what was that "there" for? ANS:
. . . [evolutionary] materialism [a worldview that often likes to wear the mantle of "science"] . . . argues that the cosmos is the product of chance interactions of matter and energy, within the constraint of the laws of nature. Therefore, all phenomena in the universe, without residue, are determined by the working of purposeless laws acting on material objects, under the direct or indirect control of chance. But human thought, clearly a phenomenon in the universe, must now fit into this picture. Thus, what we subjectively experience as “thoughts” and “conclusions” can only be understood materialistically as unintended by-products of the natural forces which cause and control the electro-chemical events going on in neural networks in our brains. (These forces are viewed as ultimately physical, but are taken to be partly mediated through a complex pattern of genetic inheritance ["nature"] and psycho-social conditioning ["nurture"], within the framework of human culture [i.e. socio-cultural conditioning and resulting/associated relativism].)
Given that I also gave actual cases in point of how this absurdity plays out, could JT kindly show me why the above summary is irrelevant and/or specious? Namely:
For instance, Marxists commonly deride opponents for their “bourgeois class conditioning” — but what of the effect of their own class origins? Freudians frequently dismiss qualms about their loosening of moral restraints by alluding to the impact of strict potty training on their “up-tight” critics — but doesn’t this cut both ways? And, should we not simply ask a Behaviourist whether s/he is simply another operantly conditioned rat trapped in the cosmic maze?
Since that was first written on the order of 20 years ago, it does not include the even more telling case of Sir Francis Crick's 1994 idea that ""You," your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules . . ." but, Sir Francis, does that not include you? And, would it not include our attempts to test the LOGIC of your case? Or, as Reppert sums up:
. . . let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts. . . . In rational inference, as Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions.
In short, the case is not just abstractly so, but is exemplified by some very prominent materialists and their views across the past century and more, multiplied by the unbridged gap between physical cause-effect bonds and logical ground-consequent ones, or worse yet comparative inference to best explanation. JT's counter-example, in short, is little more than a strawman distractor. 3] just imagine a program that has some knowledge base and can pose a series of questions and then on that basis make a diagnosis with some degree of accuracy . . . Now if that program had fallen into place “purely by chance” that would not have any impact on its ability to determine the truth in the area where it had this capability. Of course, the program would be the "Welcome to Wales" rockfall on the grand scale (as I mentioned above under the term "lucky noise"). That it by chance puts out glyphs on the screen that WE read as telling us something truthful of or false is simply illustrative that it is WE who are working with meaningfulness and truth and reason, not the machine which per lucky noise has simply taken an input and produced an output by blind causal chains. In short, wee again see just how radically different the mental and the material are, and that to bridge from blind forces to cogent reason per mere material forces of chance + necessity is a task that has brought the materialist scientists to despair. That is the precise point I made in my appendix, when I noted:
1 --> We know, immediately, that chance + necessity, acting on a pile of rocks on a hillside, can make them roll down the hillside and take up an arbitrary conformation. There thus is no in-principle reason to reject them taking up the shape: "WELCOME TO WALES" any more than any other configuration. Especially if, say, by extremely good luck we have seen the rocks fall and take up this shape for ourselves. [If that ever happens to you, though, change your travel plans and head straight for Las Vegas before your "hot streak" runs out!] 2 --> Now, while you are packing for Vegas, let's think a bit: [a] the result of the for- the- sake- of- argument stroke of good luck is an apparent message, which was [b] formed by chance + necessity only acting on matter and energy across space and time. That is, [c] it would be lucky noise at work. Let us observe, also: [d] the shape taken on by the cluster of rocks as they fall and settle is arbitrary, but [e] the meaning assigned to the apparent message is as a result of the imposition of symbolic meaning on certain glyphs that take up particular alphanumerical shapes under certain conventions. That is, it is a mental (and even social) act. One pregnant with the points that [f] language at its best refers accurately to reality, so that [g] we often trust its deliverances once we hold the source credible. [Indeed, in the original form of the example, if one believes that s/he is entering Wales on the strength of seeing such a rock arrangement, s/he would be inconsistent to also believe the arrangement of rocks to have been accidental.] 3 --> But, this brings up the key issue of credibility: should we believe the substantial contents of such an apparent message sourced in lucky noise rather than a purposeful arrangement? That is, would it be well-warranted to accept it as -- here, echoing Aristotle in Metaphysics, 1011b -- "saying of what is, that it is, and of what is not, that it is not"? (That is, is such an apparent message credibly a true message?)
I then proceeded to answer . . . [ . . . ]kairosfocus
December 18, 2008
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DaveScot [82]: Just 2/3 of the way through it, but great post. You'll probably end up saying something I disagree with, but great post nonetheless.JT
December 18, 2008
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JDH 80 wrote:
3. Well, if JT and others are busy coming to this sight trying to convince me of their opinions, it appears that they also believe that I can make independent decision. They are presenting arguments in words that want to convince me to do what — to make a decision to agree with them. So my experience is that they believe I have an independent will.
JDH, if I really was all that busy trying to convince people, I would keep repeating the same obvious answer to your argument over and over again (which I'm not doing), because despite how obvious the answer is, the argument keeps being made. Also the fact is if I really felt such a close affinity with the Darwinist crowd maybe I would be hanging out in their forums. But anyway, the argument is "Free will exists - otherwise why bother trying to persuade?" The last time I responded to this was roughly a year and a half ago. I would suggest in that time your question has been posed probably 100 times in this forum. So it should be obvious I'm not wasting my time trying to browbeat people into comprehending the obvious truth. I will answer your question though with a question: If a computer doesn't have free will, why bother entering the correct password? And in case that's too terse, then let me elaborate: A program goes through a quite detailed and systematic deliberative process, applying the complex rules of which it is comprised to whatever novel circumstances are imposed upon it. This characterization would be applicable from the simplest application to the most complex robot currently in existence (which I couldn't claim to know what that is). But you could imagine having some understanding of such a robot or program, through first hand-knowledge from having examined or written the code, what the nature of its deliberative process was, or you could have information about it gleaned thorugh repeated interaction with it. But you can imagine some sort of domestic robot that understands simple commands, and trying to get it do what you want it to do, and trying to come up with the correct sequence of commands. As far as humans, there are emotional appeals sometimes involving "freedom" or "patriotisim" or honor or shame etc. and although admittedly tricky to contrive a relevant scenario in robotic terms, the fact is that such emotional appeals are really made in an attempt to trigger well-known hot-points in human psychology, where the hope is that a knee-jerk and predictable and unconsidered response will be elicited. The most serious types of persusasion, e.g. scientific persuasion, is really the most mechanical, e.g. if A-->B and B-->C then A-->C although much more involved than this in terms of quantiity admittedly. But it is this type of programmatic reasoning involving strict logical necessity that is directly akin to what computer programs do. I don't know how else to get you to understand that your argument is without merit. Nor do I have a mission in life to correct this elementary flaw of reasoinng you've just exhibited and will no doubt be repeated over and over and over again and will quite literally never quit being made by someone at sometime in this forum. But that's OK.JT
December 18, 2008
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kairosfocus wrote [79]:
–> JT then resorts to an attempted counter- example where a rockfall — which is of course a paradigm for chance + necessity in action — piling up in the shape of a series of alphanumerical glyphs that lo and behold just happens to state in mathematical language a proof that per his judgement is valid.
3 –> You will note the key difference between [a] rocks falling into arbitrary shapes (and in principle such rocks can take up any shape under the laws of physics prevailing . . . just that the odds of the suggested case happening are very long indeed, tantamount to zero
The odds of them spelling out "Welcome to Wales" by pure chance would also be tantamount to 0.
Therefore, if materialism is true, the “thoughts” we have and the “conclusions” we reach, without residue, are produced and controlled by forces that are irrelevant to purpose, truth, or validity.
This is just not a valid argument at all. You need to dispense with it, seriously. The example I gave (and someone else originated I think) amptly demonstrates that this an invalid notion. The honorable thing for you to do would be to admit your mistake and take the whole "Welcome to Wales" thing out of your paper. (But actually, I didn't realize till recently that that it was intended to illustrate the above argument. You bring up this illustration repeatedly in your paper, but your discourse on it seems to address other aspects of it.) But let me continue: AI hasn't made the sort of progress yet that everyone thought it would (at least as far as the general public knows). But certainly programs can be written to reliably determine the truth or falsity of propositions in some limited domain. Its not as if an "intelligent agent" of the human variety has some unlimited ability to determine the truth of things either. But just imagine a program that has some knowledge base and can pose a series of questions and then on that basis make a diagnosis with some degree of accuracy (Is that less than what any human can do?) So the computer can say, "That's a square and not a circle". Or "the patient probably has cirhossis of the liver", etc. Now if that program had fallen into place "purely by chance" that would not have any impact on its ability to determine the truth in the area where it had this capability. And furthermore, your argument evidently doesn't concern probabilities because "Welcome to Wales" couldn't happen by chance either, and yet in your scenario you told us to suppose that it did. You also did not address my follow-up illustration [68]: "What if an intelligent agent says 'Welcome to Wales'. How likely is it for an intelligent agent to lie?" There is no way to answer this question. Does "intelligent agent" = "omniscience" or "truthfulness"? What if its a five year old running up and down the aisles and every time the train stops he yells out, "Welcome to Wales!". Here's an example of an intelligent agent but his information in this regard is as good as randomness. Will you say, "In my general experience intelligent agents generally tell the truth." That's fallacious reasoning as any statistician will tell you. But its the way "intelligent agency" is concieved that is this real source of the problem. With a program or a proof or something that can actually be specified you can actual examine it and say, "Ahh, here is faulty premise" or "Here is a faulty rule its employing in its analysis." But the fact that "intelligent agent" in the ID conception transcends law or specification itself means that we could never examine it in this way. And in my judgment, "intelligent agency" defined this way actually eqautes to randomness anyway. But also the idea that natural selection (not to advocate it unconditionally here) has nothing to do with truth is also wrong. If an eye has some limited ability and through some fortuitious circumstances its accuracy increases, that is going to increase the fitness of the organism. That's obvious right? So the organism has a more accurate and thus a more truthful understanding of his environment, and thus the random change that bestowed this to him is preserved. As far as the rest of your paper, you cite lots and lots of material which it seems apparent you've read yourself. So at the very least as a reference source, your paper is far from worthless. Its just that the emphatic polemic nature of a lot of the accompanying commentary by you makes it irritating to read sometimes. Maybe you didn't ask for my opinion but there it is. Also there is at least one other glaring oversight in your paper. A quick search on the term "weasel" that returned nothing immediately reveals what this oversight is. Darwinists (Darwinians? Evolutionists?) emphatically and repeatedly deny that evolution equates to randomness, a clear indication that they understand perfectly well along with everyone else that randomness is not a tenable explanation at all. Dawkins "methinks it looks like a weasel" illustration, which has been around for decades and decades is the stereotypical response to "evolution equates to randomness". And yet you do not address it at all. So, all that detailed discourse of yours on the futility of randomness is somewhat futile itself. There is a sleight-of-hand in the simplest RMNS formulations that deftly eludes the moniker of randomness. So that's where the challenge is it seems - showing to what extent the mechanism they've proposed really does equate to randomness.JT
December 18, 2008
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PS: TMLO of course was originally published in 1984. It is the technical level book that launched modern design theory.kairosfocus
December 18, 2008
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Footnote: Since the issues connected thereto are central to the original focus of this thread, I take time to remark in re sparc @ 55:
. . . I am not aware that either Dr. Dembski or Prof. Behe ever used the term FCSI. IIRC it was KF who braught up the term at UD. Despite his enthusiams in spreading it I wonder what professional ID theorists would have to say about FCSI.
As has been pointed out in previous threads, and as I discuss in more details here, the abbreviation FSCI is a summary, descriptive term for observations and concepts that arose in OOL studies from the 1970's to 80's. (Dr Dembski's main involvement with ID dates to the 1990's and 2000's.) Indeed, these ideas thus actually predate the ID movement, and helped trigger it:
Living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; mixtures of random polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity. [Source: L.E. Orgel, 1973. The Origins of Life. New York: John Wiley, p. 189. Cited, Thaxton et al TMLO, ch 8.] [ . . . . ] Yockey [7] and Wickens [5] develop the same distinction [as Orgel], explaining that "order" is a statistical concept referring to regularity such as might characterize a series of digits in a number, or the ions of an inorganic crystal. On the other hand, "organization" refers to physical systems and the specific set of spatio-temporal and functional relationships among their parts. Yockey and Wickens note that informational macromolecules have a low degree of order but a high degree of specified complexity. In short, the redundant order of crystals cannot give rise to specified complexity of the kind or magnitude found in biological organization; attempts to relate the two have little future. [Thaxton et al, TMLO, (Dallas, TX: Lewis and Stanley reprint), 1992, erratum insert, p. 130. Emphases added.]
FSCI emerges as a descriptive summary of an existing and important concept; not a novelty. Furthermore, FSCI is familiar far beyond OOL studies and molecular biological/ pre-biological issues. For, in general, engineering designs seek to stipulate functionally specific, complex information that leads to successful and efficient performance. Indeed, FSCI is a hallmark of such engineering. So, when we see function-specifying complex information in DNA molecules and how that serves as a digitally coded blueprint for proteins that have to fold and function as parts in a complex, autonomous, self-directing, self-replicating nanotech based system, we have good reason to infer that such a system's origin is best explained as the product of intentional design. That that system so happens to be in the biological entity we call the cell makes no difference on these issues. Further to this, we must observe that simply by routinely accepting that apparent messages in this and other threads are real messages, objectors tot he design inference reveal that they themselves routinely make precisely the same sort of inference on seeing complex, specifically functional digital information. So, we have reason to comment that the objections seem to be self-referentially inconsistent and are by and large in the end based on objecting to empirically based inferences that cut across a worldview preference. Similarly, when we see that those who would reduce mind to chance plus necessity acting on matter act as though minds are based on reasoning not physical forces, that too seems very self referentially incoherent. (Cf 79 above.) GEM of TKIkairosfocus
December 18, 2008
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Typo. That should read, 'If you really think that the only people who suggest materialism/physicalism can't deliver a complete and satisfying account of the universe are christians or believe in an immortal soul, then you've got some reading to do.'nullasalus
December 18, 2008
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Davescot, Where did 'immortal' come into play here? I doubt David Chalmers believes in an 'immortal soul' despite him being one of the most well-known proponents of the idea that materialism/physicalism can't completely account for the mind. I'm pretty sure Bertrand Russell, being a neutral monist, didn't have much fondness for immortal souls either. Meanwhile Anthony Flew, despite becoming a deist, has expressed hope that there's no life after death - he's not the only person for whom the possibility is distasteful. Even Aquinas, who did believe in an immortal soul, did not believe that what survived after death (and sans resurrection of the body) could do all that much sans body. If you really think that the only people who suggest materialism/physicalism can't deliver a complete and satisfying account of the universe, then you've got some reading to do.nullasalus
December 18, 2008
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vjtorley, I understand that Searle rejects property dualism, as well; this is why I brought it up. Maybe I'm mistaken. I suppose we could expand the definition of 'physical' to include entities of both third-person and first-person ontologies, but then it seems we're just taking liberties with the definition of 'physical.' Furthermore, both a person (as an ontologically unified conscious experiencer) and her experiences are fundamentally different things from her body, as I think zombies show very nicely. If she and her body were one and the same thing, then they would share all the same properties, which they clearly don't. Or if they do, I'm at pains greater than any other philosophical problem I've ever considered to see how they do. kairosfocus, Point duely noted. I see how that might be misleading. All I'm saying is that brain states are causally efficacious on mental states such that if, say, a certain part of my brain is damaged then a certain and predictable aspect of my conscious experience will be altered or deleted. I don't mean that mental states are full causal determinants of brain states.crandaddy
December 17, 2008
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Lutepisc Excuse me but a narrative about an immortal soul seems to be aimed at something extremely emotional - the fear of death. It's certainly not more intellectually satisfying because near as I can tell it's pure fantasy.DaveScot
December 17, 2008
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