Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Hello World! – An Introductory Post

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

Greetings all. Since I’m going to be contributing some posts here at Uncommon Descent, it’s been suggested I explain to everyone just where I’m coming from intellectually and in the context of the Intelligent Design discussion. Before I do that, I just want to express my thanks to the powers that be on this site for allowing me this opportunity – with luck it may lead to some interesting conversations on a topic I’ve enjoyed following over the years.

So if you’re at all curious of where I stand on the questions of ID, evolution, and so on… Well, just read on.

First, when it comes to questions of my intellectual background I’d like to be explicit: I’m very much an average person. My pseudonym doesn’t hide someone with important credentials, and I’m neither an academic nor a scientist. I’m simply someone who became very interested in Intelligent Design, along with the related questions of design, science, and so on years ago, and have taken part in many conversations both on here and at Telic Thoughts (another blog dedicated to teleological topics.)

Second, my views on ID are somewhat complicated. If you were to ask me if I think Intelligent Design can offer arguments, evidence and reasons to think that design exists in the natural world, I’d say yes. Now, if you’d ask me whether I think ID is “science”, I’d say no – but I’d also say that Darwinism as offered up by many (and Michael Ruse in particular) is not science either. The other side of that coin is that I’m pragmatic – if it’s “science” to argue, as many Darwinists do, that science CAN in fact detect the presence or absence of design in nature (and inevitably, they always insist that science has shown its lack), then my response is “Then detecting design in nature is science after all, therefore ID is science.” I strongly believe that the one thing many ID critics fear most is consistency: They want all positive inferences of design ruled out as non-scientific, but all negative inferences of design to be called not only scientific, but utterly true.

Third, you could classify me as a theistic evolutionist of sorts. I’m a Catholic who grew up with a Catholic family and schooling, and the result was that evolution never struck me as a problem for my faith – the impression I’ve always gotten is that it simply hasn’t been considered a major issue for quite some time, at least among many Catholics. That said, I have little patience for Darwinism – at least, I’ve had little patience for it after coming to realize that “Darwinism” was different from “evolution”, and this will be one of my focuses while I contribute at UD. Further, I simply don’t have the fiery indignation many TEs have when it comes to this topic. I got over my (largely ignorant, cultural) hostility to YECs years ago, I don’t find the suggestion of designer interventions in natural history as some kind of terrifying “science-stopper” much less obviously untrue, and I think both the natural world in general and evolution in particular bear signs of intention, design, purpose, mind, and teleology from top to bottom even if it’s granted for the sake of argument that no direct intervention took place. In other words, for me, design in the world is obvious – and questions of whether biological organisms evolved, were directly created, or otherwise strike me not as a question of whether or not design took place, but as an implied affirmation that it did take place with the “How?” being of central concern.

Fourth, my interest in ID is not purely or even largely religious. And by that I mean, if tomorrow it were demonstrated to me that Christianity was false, my interest in ID would remain. I think it’s to ID’s credit that its major proponents have repeatedly stressed that ID may allow one to infer, even strongly infer, a mind or teleology being responsible for what we see in the natural world – but that this mind is not necessarily the specific God of Christianity, or may not even be a ‘god’ at all (though the particularities of that question are dicey.) In fact, I think ID as a movement would benefit by stressing this point further – I feel that many otherwise agnostic people would find the broad inferences, questions, and ideas in the ID ‘big tent’ to at least be worthy of serious consideration. In some ways, I feel this is an eventuality regardless.

In the near future, I hope to post about a wide variety of ID-related topics – from giving my own take on why Thomists should support ID, why agnostics should support ID, the mistakes some prominent ID critics and/or TEs make, the ideas of some lesser-known ID-sympathetic people, and more.

I think that wraps things up for now. So a belated Merry Christmas to you all, and an early Happy New Year.

Comments
T, It all gets murky because TEs are so philosophically unclear. What do they mean by saying “God uses randomness”? Are they talking about the randomness associated with quantum phenomena? Or merely “randomness with respect to the outcome” regarding macroscopic phenomena? Sometimes the two ideas appear close together in TE prose, but since no philosophical care is taken to distinguish them, TEs’ meaning is unclear. I had a feeling you meant that, and should have just run with that idea to begin with. Yes, when someone says that God 'uses randomness', I'd personally ask them exactly what they meant. If someone were to say that randomness were merely apparent, an artifact of limited humans modeling the world and that God thus knew what the outcome of the evolutionary process would definitely be, I could understand their position. The same with the position that God intervenes directly, maybe even constantly, at the quantum level and the effects "bleed up" to achieve His desired results. Maybe the lack of clarity is purposeful. I get the impression from many TEs that what is paramount for them is being lauded as pro-science by all the right people, and as being living proof that evolution and Christianity are compatible. In fact, as I typed this up, I decided to open up Biologos to see if any articles relevant to randomness and God came up. "Stochastic Grace" was right at the top of the list. Sy writes well, but his treatment of randomness leaves me confused. "Apparent randomness" makes a mention, as is putting "random" in quotation marks - is he saying God then foreknows the results and outcomes in nature? I did find this: Belief in a supernatural creator always leaves open the possibility that human beings are a fully-intended part of creation. If the Creator chooses to interact with creation, he could very well influence the evolutionary process to ensure the arrival of his intended result. Furthermore, an omniscient creator could easily create the universe in such a way that physical and natural laws would result in human evolution. So, that's something. Of course, the million dollar question is "If an omniscient creator did that, is Darwinism true?" Ruse says no, and Biologos hosted him on their site when he said no, so...nullasalus
January 3, 2011
January
01
Jan
3
03
2011
08:24 PM
8
08
24
PM
PDT
nullasalus: Thanks for your response. I was speaking in shorthand when I spoke of TEs using quantum indeterminacy to "refute" ID, and I blurred together some positions which should be kept distinct. What I had in mind was a number of comments in Biologos columns and elsewhere, where TEs try to prove that God works "through randomness," and therefore that ID is wrong to contrast God's design with randomness. They see randomness as the tool through which God achieves the design, rather than something which would upset or counteract design. But of course this has the problem that even very high probability is not certainty, and if God used purely stochastic processes to generate new species, then he was in fact leaving the outcome of evolution to chance. Certainly neither the time nor the place of man's emergence could be guaranteed by such a means of creation, if indeed man's emergence could be guaranteed at all. It all gets murky because TEs are so philosophically unclear. What do they mean by saying "God uses randomness"? Are they talking about the randomness associated with quantum phenomena? Or merely "randomness with respect to the outcome" regarding macroscopic phenomena? Sometimes the two ideas appear close together in TE prose, but since no philosophical care is taken to distinguish them, TEs' meaning is unclear. Some TEs -- mostly not on Biologos -- have advanced the view that God tinkers quietly "under the quantum radar," so that his divine action is scientifically indetectable, and looks like a natural process of random mutation. R. J. Russell has advanced this view. It is this view which is compatible with the Dembski view that you cite. But only a very small number of TEs (I think Murphy and Davis, and possibly, in a half-hearted way, every third Thursday, Ken Miller) have advanced it. Mostly TEs just lay randomness (quantum or other) and divine design side by side, and wave their magic NOMA wands, and say that the two are compatible. TEs like to think of this as profound paradox; those of us who read a lot of philosophy call it intellectual incoherence. As for your other point, if there are Copenhagen-view physicists who are happy to eschew talk of real randomness and speak simply of an effective mathematical randomness while remaining agnostic about the underlying reality, that's fine with me. But such physicists would surely not support some of the remarks made about "real randomness" by some TEs or even by some commenters here. So their authority could not be invoked to prove that "real randomness" does anything in nature. But I think you have already made that point yourself. T.Timaeus
January 3, 2011
January
01
Jan
3
03
2011
06:39 PM
6
06
39
PM
PDT
Timaeus, Thanks for the comments. Some replies. 1. We can divide events into “naturally caused” and “supernaturally caused.” I actually wonder about this, at least in certain senses. There may be multiple levels of explanations, where a given event may at one level be determined by (say) the sufficient and necessary physical conditions, but on another level God may be permitting or ensuring that said conditions come to pass. But I think that's likely off the topic you're considering. 6. When we “see” what appears to be a “random” event at the “quantum” level, it could be that this randomness is the real randomness that is part of nature (according to quantum theory); or it could be that God is tinkering with nature at a level at which we cannot detect; since the timing of certain subatomic events is random, we can never be sure, whether an event “just happened” or was subtly steered by God. This means that if God directs evolution by subtly steering the “random” mutations, his intervention, though real, will be completely undetectable. I think the accent should be put on 'we can never be sure', really. There are a number of interpretations of quantum mechanics, even various views of what is meant by the Copenhagen interpretation, and they're generally summed up by speculation about what's "really going on", with it being noted that this can't be known at least at the moment, possibly can't be known practically, and possibly in principle. The wiki entry on Copenhagen mentions: "Many physicists have subscribed to the instrumentalist interpretation of quantum mechanics, a position often equated with eschewing all interpretation. It is summarized by the sentence "Shut up and calculate!"" As ever, I don't mind speculation beyond our capabilities, so long as said speculation is noted for what it is. 7. TEs use this last conclusion to refute ID, but this just shows their confusion of thought about what ID is. Do TEs really do this? I mean offer up the uncertainties at the quantum level, and the fact that God (Or any designer?) could well be working at such level, to "refute ID". I ask this for a number of reasons. First, I recall Dembski writing on this site that if TEs are serious about design 'working' at the quantum level, that they are in essence making an ID proposal, since they would have to at least cop to the idea that such 'intervention' could - at least potentially - be inferred scientifically. Perhaps by noting the patterns. Perhaps by some other method. Second, that move would require a TE being agnostic about the ultimate causes of mutation - are mutations actually unguided? Are they, in fact, intended (even if we can't find the pattern, or note the intention behind them individually)? But to be agnostic on the question of the causes and 'direction' of mutation is to be agnostic on the question of Darwinism itself. As ever, I'm fine with such agnosticism. Will a TE, particularly the TEs you have in mind here, be comfortable with such? Somehow I doubt it. So I don’t understand why questions of indeterminism so often come up in discussions of evolution. I've actually seen suggestions (by philosophers, rather than ID proponents) who argue that it's better to view God as 'fixing the quantum results', so to speak, rather than accepting some kind of brute indeterminism. (My understanding is that such brute indeterminism has been embraced at least partially on the grounds that whatever could possibly be responsible for what we see at the quantum level would have to be quite unlike what we normally expect in nature, and would beyond our ability to ascertain regardless. Ergo, some would like to simply conclude that there's nothing we're missing, rather than cop to the possibility that we're missing something important, and that scientifically this may stay the case.)nullasalus
January 3, 2011
January
01
Jan
3
03
2011
02:42 PM
2
02
42
PM
PDT
nullasalus, kairosfocus: I have no intention of getting embroiled in a long debate over randomness, but I'll make some simple points: 1. We can divide events into "naturally caused" and "supernaturally caused." 2. Of naturally caused events, we can say that any given natural event must be produced either deterministically or indeterministically. 3. Classical physics assumed that all was produced deterministically. 4. Quantum theory (or at least one school, the dominant school, of quantum theory) says that some natural events are produced indeterministically, i.e., there are "effects" which do not, strictly speaking, follow from "causes." Thus, while the emission of alpha particles from radioactive nuclei has a *general* natural cause (the internal instability of the nucleus), the timing of any particular emission of an alpha particle has no particular cause. (And similar things could be said of energy levels of electrons, etc.) 5. Thus, there are natural events which do not have sufficient causes. Their occurrence is, in the strictest sense of the word, random. Not merely random in the sense that we cannot handle the math of millions of deterministic motions, and so have to treat them statistically, but random in the sense of "underdetermined and therefore in principle unpredictable." 6. When we "see" what appears to be a "random" event at the "quantum" level, it could be that this randomness is the real randomness that is part of nature (according to quantum theory); or it could be that God is tinkering with nature at a level at which we cannot detect; since the timing of certain subatomic events is random, we can never be sure, whether an event "just happened" or was subtly steered by God. This means that if God directs evolution by subtly steering the "random" mutations, his intervention, though real, will be completely undetectable. 7. TEs use this last conclusion to refute ID, but this just shows their confusion of thought about what ID is. ID does not claim to infer God's existence from *particular mutations*. It claims to infer the existence of a designer from the overall pattern of mutations. Thus, if mutations were truly random (I have in mind here mainly the mutations which are said to result from radioactive emissions), we would expect a disorderly sequence of mutations which would hardly produce the astounding order we see in living things, in so short a time as the fossil record gives us, and so we infer design. We don't have to say anything at all about whether a particular mutation was caused by God or only by "randomness" in order to be sure that the overall pattern indicates design. 8. In any case, I see no reason why ID as such is committed to the indeterministic view of quantum theory. ID people challenge the scientific consensus on Darwinian evolution, and I see no reason why they are bound to accept the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory. I think a purely deterministic account of nature is still possible. Further, in a purely deterministic account of nature, God the creator of nature can still intervene whenever he wants, breaking the causal nexus at will, so he can guide evolution just as surely as he can in a Copenhagen-quantum model. In other words, God can be thought of as guiding the evolutionary process whether you are a determinist or indeterminist in your physics. So I don't understand why questions of indeterminism so often come up in discussions of evolution. They aren't relevant to the question of interventionism (God has to intervene either way; he just does so undetectably in an indeterministic universe), and they aren't relevant to the conflict between ID and TE, which is over the detectability of design, not the detectability of individual divine actions. So why does this subject keep cropping up? I see it as mainly a TE diversion from the substantive issues. T.Timaeus
January 3, 2011
January
01
Jan
3
03
2011
01:45 PM
1
01
45
PM
PDT
Null: I think at this point our diverse views have been sufficiently articulated for onlookers to see and decide for themselves. I am grateful that the tone has been civil; a positive contrast to too many cases of the trifecta fallacy as favoured by too many evolutionary materialistic commenters. (In short, your specifically Christian orientation and the inclination to civility that it inculcates, is showing. I trust onlookers will duly note that this shows one aspect of how the Christian view helps to foster communityo.) Now, on a few points. A basic common sense [cf here Thomas Reid et al, and even Locke as already cited] rule of warrant on empirical matters, is that unless there is substantial reason to reject the reality of the observed world, it is credibly real. To reject that rule at once lands one in all the absurdities of not being able to trust the deliverances of one's senses and common sense reasoning. The end of that road is radical subjectivism and relativism. Indeed, a self referential incoherence lurks in the depths of the swamp: how can you know enough about the external world to make the denials, on the assumptions that one has taken? The reality of randomness on those terms is an observable [you concede the empirical case], and we can show the sorts of things that give rise to it, starting with at molecular levels. There being no specific empirically anchored reason to infer to an underlying design and deterministic case that only looks like chance, the high-condingency, no credible intelligent direction -- aka chance -- node of the explanatory filter kicks in. Likewise, we have reason to prefer real choice and mind to yet another species of determinism. So, the reality of chance and of randomness is accepted. No grand metaphysical import of a chaos not a cosmos is at stake, as we have sen how a lawful nature, indeed a basically newtonian world, will give rise to random distributions. As to the question of projections unto me, I think -- as fair comment -- there is more than enough in the thread above to point to that, including some pretty serious questions and suggestions that forced me to be far more detailed on matters philosophical and theological than I am wont to in a primarily scientific context. Okay, all things said, I think we have passed the point of diminishing returns. That is why I have not gone on to a point by point response to the more recent posts this morning. G'day, and happy new year to you and to all. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
January 3, 2011
January
01
Jan
3
03
2011
05:28 AM
5
05
28
AM
PDT
kairosfocus, 1 –> The point of the invisible gardener parable is the indiscernibility of identicals. An undetectable gardener is most likely equivalent to an imaginary one: if it looks, walks, quacks and swims like a duck, most likely it is one, and the burden of showing — not simply asserting or assuming — otherwise lies with the objector. Actually, the point of the gardener parable is about detecting a gardener that someone says the garden provides evidence of, in spite of the undetectability of the gardener. But I'm not making the claim that the 'garden' in question itself provides evidence of a gardener - I am saying that the methods being used to detect the presence OR lack of a gardener are of no use. It's like the story of the russian cosmonaut who announced that, while he was up in space, he didn't see this 'God' everyone's been talking about. That observation works - if someone was saying that one may be able to see God if only they were able to get in the sky. I don't know how many times I have to repeat that I am not claiming God is undetectable by all means (including philosophy, reason, metaphysical argument, or in theological views, etc) before it will sink in. I am making the very limited claim that when it comes to detecting the presence or lack of intention behind particular stochastic processes, we don't have the tools. It does no good to insist "Well if we lack the scientific tools to settle this question one way or the other in this context, we should conclude no designer exists!" Laplace’s demon claiming to predict the course of he cosmos from its start points and the laws of motion — despite the appearance of certainty in the differential equations — is out of a job. I'm not interested in LaPlace's demon. I'm interested in God and/or various other designers (even ranging to Bostrom's hypothetical simulator), who are still as employable as they ever were on these questions. Randomness in the observable world is as observable as anything else we commonly encounter; it is a well-substantiated fact, and one is not going to be wise or credible if one resorts to rejecting evident facts, even if one can come up with metaphysical interpretations that make invisible gardeners seem a good thing. Then it's a good thing I'm not rejecting any of the evident facts. I'm only expressing the limitations of those facts and the metaphysical extrapolation that boldly goes beyond them, or at least the mistake of failing to realize when one is as a matter of fact moving beyond observation and science. 3 –> When we go to the quantum case, we don’t even have the luxury of deterministic models, uncertainty and distributions are built-in from the ground up. Q-th is currently the best evidenced scientific theory, to the greatest degree of precision and accuracy. And QM has a small army of competing interpretations, all of which are compatible with the data. Yes, indeterministic models for QM do exist - but models they are. What's best evidenced of QM are the results; the underlying nature of reality remains as mysterious as ever, a thing of questions. "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." 4 –> So, we are well warranted to conclude that randomness is real, in the sense as noted. It is you the objector who has a burden — not of speculation, but of evidence — to warrant the claim that randomness is not real, that all cases that appear random are in fact underneath, determined. And I'm well warranted to continue to note that not all warrant is scientific warrant, and not every reasonable conclusion is a conclusion of science as science. As I've noted repeatedly, I have evidence in piece after piece - the apparently random but demonstrably designed, ranging from cryptology to elsewise. That's not only enough to demonstrate the logical possibility of an alternate reading, but to demonstrate the necessarily subjective nature of randomness, and the reason why science has the limit it does on this question. I must protest, too, that it is a little unfair of you to be appealing to God as making systems only appear to be random, then object to my responding to the explicit and implicit characterisations you have made. Once theology and philosophy are a part of the discussion, they cannot be switched off to one’s convenience. I appealed to God and any suitable designer as being capable of doing this as far as science can tell, not mounting any argument that this is in fact the case. If I note that for all science knows, every instance of apparent 'randomness' is designed and intended - just as any particular instance of such could be designed and intended, while other instances not - I am not therefore arguing that this is actual. To highlight a limit of science is not to argue that a possibility beyond that limit is truth. As to the balance of the case, I find that you are projecting to me something I have explicitly denied, that randomness entails a chaos not a cosmos. I've done this nowhere. Show me where I've even implied it. It thus seems to me that the issue of warrant needs to be faced, especially in the face of the possibility of selective hyperskepticism: applying an inconsistent degree of demand for warrant. Science provides empirically grounded, provisional warrant on inference to best explanation. That does not mean that scientific conclusions are not well grounded and can be dismissed at will; one needs to provide a better explanation that better matches evidence. Not when what is being contended is not a 'scientific conclusion' at all, but a conclusion that is a mix of science and superfluous metaphysics. Further, not all skepticism is hyperskepticism - sometimes, the tools in question aren't sufficient to supply enough data to make a proper inference. Other times, we're dealing with a question which practically mandates the inclusion of reasoning and knowledge that is not strictly scientific (Philosophy, metaphysics, theology, etc.), and should recognize as much. In the case of the claim that randomness exists, there is more than adequate, even abundant evidence that it does. Indeed, it is quite plain that to reject this, one ends up at the sharp end of the invisible gardener challenge. Then it's a good thing I'm able to dispense with that challenge handily. Regardless, said challenge doesn't apply to the point I'm making, for reasons I've already outlined above. I'm not insisting that a stochastic pattern is obviously or evidently designed - I'm noting the limitations of our ability to investigate the claims in either direction with the tool in question. If I point out that a metal detector can't be expected to find a hundred dollar bill lost on the beach, and the reply is that then the hundred dollar bill is no different from an imaginary one if a metal detector can't find it, I'm not going to be stunned by the force of the reply. I therefore ask you to reflect on the issue: is chance a credible fact of our world? If not, why not, and how can that be justified to one who goes with the common sense import of the experience of playing with dice? How is such a one going to be given grounds to trust the invisible gardener over the patent facts of experience on tossing dice? And I ask you to reflect on something in turn: Is there always enough data present for any given question, particularly scientific data, to make one particular answer the absolutely most reasonable inference? Is there ever a question that science itself is incapable of adequately addressing? Is the data ever in short supply enough, or not of the necessary type, to make one say "Beyond this we are engaging in speculation", or "Multiple, distinct answers could be reasonable in this particular case"? Better yet, is it possible that warranted belief can come from areas other than the area of science itself? And why should someone trust a claim that a gardener is non-existent based on a method of inquiry that is utterly inadequate to properly inform on the question in either direction?nullasalus
January 3, 2011
January
01
Jan
3
03
2011
04:20 AM
4
04
20
AM
PDT
Null: A few quick notes. I already provided a point by point response, and have gone over most of the substantial claims made just above, so a roundup is the best onward response: 1 --> The point of the invisible gardener parable is the indiscernibility of identicals. An undetectable gardener is most likely equivalent to an imaginary one: if it looks, walks, quacks and swims like a duck, most likely it is one, and the burden of showing -- not simply asserting or assuming -- otherwise lies with the objector. 2 --> The point of the Lorenz case is exactly that it lieth not in our gift to have the exact degree of knowledge and precision that would be required to transform the weather equations or the marble boxes or the six sided fair die into a deterministic system. Laplace's demon claiming to predict the course of he cosmos from its start points and the laws of motion -- despite the appearance of certainty in the differential equations -- is out of a job. 3 --> Under those realities, we face the fact that there are systems that are characterisable only up to the limit of a distribution, not a deterministic conclusive result; as close at hand as a die, or a coin [equivalent to a two-faced die], or the sort of box of marbles above that points to the behaviour of gases, liquids and solids and to phenomena vital to life that use that randomness advantageously. Indeed, even the experiements that we use to confirm scientific laws will have a residual that we characterise as random scatter and smooth off. Randomness in the observable world is as observable as anything else we commonly encounter; it is a well-substantiated fact, and one is not going to be wise or credible if one resorts to rejecting evident facts, even if one can come up with metaphysical interpretations that make invisible gardeners seem a good thing. [Invisible entities in the sciences are evident through their effects, e.g. the electron.] 3 --> When we go to the quantum case, we don't even have the luxury of deterministic models, uncertainty and distributions are built-in from the ground up. Q-th is currently the best evidenced scientific theory, to the greatest degree of precision and accuracy. 4 --> So, we are well warranted to conclude that randomness is real, in the sense as noted. It is you the objector who has a burden -- not of speculation, but of evidence -- to warrant the claim that randomness is not real, that all cases that appear random are in fact underneath, determined. So far, that burden has not been met, apart from claims that science is provisional. Yes, science provides no absolute certainty beyond revision. What in life does? [Science is fully capable of warrant to moral certainty, such that we would be irresponsible not to act on the relevant well-supported and reliable conclusions. I submit, that he existence of randomness as characterised in probability and statistics, is one of these cases. So would the people responsible for the quality control of critical assembly lines in industry, who have to struggle to statistically control their processes within safe and effective limits in the face of the stubborn stochastic variability of real-world systems.) 5 --> To go beyond that and to deny the reality of intelligent design or evidence for that, on grounds that we could conceivably have a chance occurrence that could give rise to all apparent cases of design -- including the posts in this thread -- would equally fly in the face of strong evidence that design is also real. the astonishingly lucky noise hypothesis is not empirically or analytically credible, as say Abel's plausibility bound paper points out. 6 --> I must protest, too, that it is a little unfair of you to be appealing to God as making systems only appear to be random, then object to my responding to the explicit and implicit characterisations you have made. Once theology and philosophy are a part of the discussion, they cannot be switched off to one's convenience. 7 --> As to the balance of the case, I find that you are projecting to me something I have explicitly denied, that randomness entails a chaos not a cosmos. Similarly, that I am claiming that science provides certainty in warrant, kindly cf the cite from Locke above on that: I speak of warrant to sufficient reliability that we are responsible to act on our findings, not to the mythical beast: certainty beyond correction or doubt. Even proofs are subject to the objection that P => Q entails an assumption somewhere, and if one is sufficiently motivated s/he can always assert that I object to Q so much that I reverse the proof: NOT-Q so NOT-P. The only effective response to that is that one may be indulging selective or radical skepticism that reduces one to absurdity, or else that the implicit assumptions to make the denial of Q are equally absurd or at any rate dubious. 8 --> It thus seems to me that the issue of warrant needs to be faced, especially in the face of the possibility of selective hyperskepticism: applying an inconsistent degree of demand for warrant. Science provides empirically grounded, provisional warrant on inference to best explanation. That does not mean that scientific conclusions are not well grounded and can be dismissed at will; one needs to provide a better explanation that better matches evidence. 10 --> In the case of say, claiming that blind chance and mechanical necessity offer a well-warranted explanation for he origin of life from some variety of prebiotic soup, or of the origin of novel body plans, the specifically functional information origination challenge leads to the conclusion that design is a far better warranted case. 11 --> In the case of the claim that randomness exists, there is more than adequate, even abundant evidence that it does. Indeed, it is quite plain that to reject this, one ends up at the sharp end of the invisible gardener challenge. 12 --> That credible factual reality of chance does not equate to causeless events or effects, nor does it translate our world into a chaos. Nor, does it undermine the possibility or probability or even warrant that the world shows forth the design of its Creator. _________________ I therefore ask you to reflect on the issue: is chance a credible fact of our world? If not, why not, and how can that be justified to one who goes with the common sense import of the experience of playing with dice? How is such a one going to be given grounds to trust the invisible gardener over the patent facts of experience on tossing dice? G'day GEM of TKIkairosfocus
January 3, 2011
January
01
Jan
3
03
2011
03:29 AM
3
03
29
AM
PDT
kairosfocus, You are free to take that hidden God view, but you are not then free to avoid its consequences, and to avert the force of the responses that your invisible gardener is a grown up version of a childhood imaginary friend. You keep bringing this back to theology, as if I'm making claims about how God actually acts, and that God is 'hidden'. I've never said this - not even implied it. I've limited myself to saying that the best that science can establish is various patterns, stochastic and not. It cannot say word one about the presence or lack of purpose behind even 'random' distributions, and stochastic processes as they are actualized in the world. The best it can do is establish the presence or lack of correlations with this or that particularity. It is unable to start detecting a lack-of-guidance, lack-of-intention, a lack-of-purpose, etc. In many cases, it will fail to detect even the presence of these things when they are there as a matter of fact. As for the gardener parable itself... You may view this as materialist nonsense, but in fact, it is a fair response; especially when posed as a challenging difficulty; comparative difficulties and choice being what we face at serious worldviews level. And what I'm saying undermines this response and renders it void and worthless. The 'Invisible gardener' presupposes, among other things, a detection of a lack of purpose, a lack of guidance, a lack of intention, etc to do any work. I'm pointing out that this measurement of lack is not available. It is assumed, imagined, brought in illicitly. There's all the difference in the world between using a tool to search for a design and detecting its lack, and realizing the tool in hand cannot detect the presence or lack of intention in the given situation. The moment the latter is realized - like it or not - the materialist case on this front crumbles. It is gone. Beyond this, the gardener parable requires the believer insisting that the gardener's presence is demonstrable based on the observation of the garden itself. But I have nowhere said this, and I've denied making this move at least once. More apt is another parable, where a skeptic denies my claim that the hundred dollar bill I lost on the beach is still present there, on the grounds that he just swept the entire place with a metal detector and turned up nothing. I'm pointing out that the metal detector cannot even hope to detect the presence or lack of a hundred dollar bill out on the beach. The tool has limits, and this problem is simply beyond said limits. Further, I've said repeatedly that design can be reasonably inferred (or stronger, if one accepts the five ways, etc), even outside of scientific consideration. Even if science is incapable of determining the presence or lack of intent in stochastic outcomes, there do remain other avenues available to reason, to philosophy, and to metaphysics. So, when we see evidence that points to such a limit on us as observers who have to exert energy to observe, instead of being immediately aware of all that happens everywhere and everywhen, then we are well warranted to respect the evidence. Randomness is such a case. We are warranted to respect what the evidence shows - lacking warrant from other areas (revelation, theology, philosophy, metaphysics), we are warranted no further. I am the one pointing out the limits of the evidence, the line that science itself is incapable of crossing because the sort of evidence needed at the point is simply not available. If someone wants to cross that line, they're welcome to it. They are not welcome to claiming the position they take in the breach of science's limits as being a scientific position itself. I've said previously that I am not saying that if someone goes on to determine that this or that is random in the sense of lacking guidance, intention, purpose, foresight, etc, I will deride them as unreasonable. I think there are some subjects where reasonable people can come to different views, certainly given certain priors and/or information. But their view would not be one that is wholly scientific - it would be an extra-scientific judgment, it would be going beyond science upon the instant. That really does happen. Before going on, I again protest, you are misusing the term pseudo-randomness. That would be very hard, since I've already stated explicitly what I meant by that term. In the case of Lorenz’s computer model, wha thappened is thast he needed to stop a run, then went back some days later to re-run it, from what he thought was a known point. To his astonishment, the new run did not replicate the older one, probably due to small differences in rounding or the like. In short sensitive dependence on initial conditions can cause even digital simulations to diverge as they face the fact of rounding off. But knowledge of those initial conditions in Lorenz's case would have resulted in his being able to produce the exact same simulation each and every time he ran it. Humans are subject to limited knowledge, to fallibility, to error - and even then, they're still able to pull off some impressive tasks. Consider the relevance of Lorenz's simulations to a greater mind - not even God's, necessarily. On the subject of nudging, you ate missing out on one of the key points of a miracle: to stand out as a sign, such REQUIRES that there be an orderly world that has an ordinary course. That is, miracles — precisely to function as signs — need to be rare and evident. And, the biblical cases of guidance by lots are in fact striking for evidently picking out the right person or alternative. But in order for miracles to stand out, the 'orderly world' they need, need not be 'truly random' in the sense of containing events utterly unforeseen, unplanned, etc. They need to have a regular pattern of this or that type. What's more, you yourself mentioned the ability for a 'nudge' to take place within an otherwise 'random' situation - but to admit that control is to admit that what we are unable to attribute intention, purpose, guidance, etc to, may as a matter of fact contain it, and in some situations will in fact contain it. Which is enough to put the question of 'randomness', as I'm talking about, well beyond science. The moment you open the door to 'nudging' in the stochastic case, even in principle, you've opened the door to noting that nudging - or pre-determining, so that a mid-stream 'nudge' is not needed - can be rife in the world. This is in addition to the examples of that which seems random, actually not being random at all. This highlights the problem of going beyond science, of understanding the limits of even a scientific inference, and at the same time skunks the invisible gardener question. And again - not every 'nudge' needs to be known. God or any designer is not limited to only intervening in the world when we can directly detect that intervention. And again, allow a nudge in one case, and the door opens to spoil the rest of the cases in theory. Which is why there are certain limits to what science can comment meaningfully on. Namely: that a random process is open to Divine intervention does not mean that such a process will normally be disturbed to the point where scientific investigation and warrant of the usual course of the world can be airily dismissed. I'm not dismissing the scientific investigation - I'm marking the difference between the scientific investigation and the non-scientific determination. That's an important difference. Knowledgeof the world is possible, and it is perverse to defy the balance of the evidence. Which, in this case, isthat randomness, correctly understood, is real. If it's perverse to note the limits of science, then get me the riding crop and the cowboy outfit I suppose. I have a correct understanding of 'randomness' insofar as what can be determined by the limits of science. I accept the patterns, the distributions - I have no reason to accept claims of 'no foresight, no purpose, no intention, no guidance', and in fact multiple good reasons to reject those claims. Kairosfocus, I really have to ask at this point - are we going to be going at this for weeks? Clearly we disagree about what is a reasonable inference here, what is a limit of scientific observation and theory, etc. Honestly, you've given this one hell of a shot - but frankly, I remain entirely unconvinced that I'm mistaken in my altogether tame, limited, and (I say, I'm sure you'll disagree) well-supported claim. I respect you, I welcome the exchange, but sometimes people do reach an impasse. Honestly, I'd rather just note we see things very differently here, put things aside, and move on for now. I'm sure I'll revisit this topic again in the future - why not save our respective energy for then, eh?nullasalus
January 3, 2011
January
01
Jan
3
03
2011
01:55 AM
1
01
55
AM
PDT
F/N: Sigh, the typist's devil was at work overtime this morning. I guess I am sleepy. Nullasalus, you accept that there are circumstances that obey the patterns of probability distributions and are not predictable in detail on initial circumstances and forces. Thus, you imply randomness, in the sense that is material. The gaussian type distribution, is the result of many tiny factors that may take +/- values, and fluctuate RANDOMLY around a centre. With some bias to one side or the other, we get skewed distributions [basically by raising one tail or the other], e.g. the M-B family -- strictly it is a family of distributions -- will often be skewed. To give an idea, a demonstration I used to do with my students was to take one of those ice trays for minicubes, so there is a large number of compartments. Then take a few beads (I used to use the small hair braiding beads) and scatter at random: a plastic bag or a cover for the tray will help this happen. You will see no-bead, one bead, two bead , three bead etc compartments. A count of numbers with zero, one , two etc will show the M-B pattern pretty well. And as numbers of beads go up, the distribution will pull away from the dominance of zero-bead compartments, until we can see a more or less symmetrical result. [The beads stand in for quanta of energy or whatever. I suspect they could be extended to give a picture of the gaussian, with say red beads + and black ones -, then see how they scatter in trays, to give a pattern of fluctuations. use a very large number of beads so several of each type will on average be in each compartment.]kairosfocus
January 3, 2011
January
01
Jan
3
03
2011
12:52 AM
12
12
52
AM
PDT
Now, when you look at this then revert to the invisible gardener model, instead of the obvious: God has set up an order that includes randomness (for many good reasons as already outlined), you actually undermine your intent. For, an invisible, untraceable gardener is all too reminiscent of an imaginary gardener. This is utterly diverse form the point made in say Rom 1:19 ff, where the signs of God in the world are sufficiently clear to the eye of rational creatures that we have to resist the cumulative force of evidence to reject what it tells us, that there is a divine architect behind the world. You are free to take that hidden God view, but you are not then free to avoid its consequences, and to avert the force of the responses that your invisible gardener is a grown up version of a childhood imaginary friend. You may view this as materialist nonsense, but in fact, it is a fair response; especially when posed as a challenging difficulty; comparative difficulties and choice being what we face at serious worldviews level. And,the responses of skeptics or evolutionists to YEC views is not the invisible gardener, but to claim that science shows that the earth is much older and species are variable not fixed; nope this is a response to the view that God acted invisibly and indiscernibly but may be somehow apprehended by faith -- a position that is pretty clearly a Christian Darwinist type view. One of the champions of that response was no less than Antony Flew, whose subsequent -- fifty years later -- turn to Deism, was predicated on his seeing that there is indeed a strong cumulative case that there is a designer of the cosmos and of life in it. Science provides provisional warrant, but that is an extension of our general epistemic challenge, as was aptly put by Locke, in section 5 of the introduction to his essay on human understanding: _______________ >> Men have reason to be well satisfied with what God hath thought fit for them, since he hath given them (as St. Peter says [NB: i.e. 2 Pet 1:2 - 4]) pana pros zoen kaieusebeian, whatsoever is necessary for the conveniences of life and information of virtue; and has put within the reach of their discovery, the comfortable provision for this life, and the way that leads to a better. How short soever their knowledge may come of an universal or perfect comprehension of whatsoever is, it yet secures their great concernments [Prov 1: 1 - 7], that they have light enough to lead them to the knowledge of their Maker, and the sight of their own duties [cf Rom 1 - 2 & 13, Ac 17, Jn 3:19 - 21, Eph 4:17 - 24, Isaiah 5:18 & 20 - 21, Jer. 2:13, Titus 2:11 - 14 etc, etc]. Men may find matter sufficient to busy their heads, and employ their hands with variety, delight, and satisfaction, if they will not boldly quarrel with their own constitution, and throw away the blessings their hands are filled with, because they are not big enough to grasp everything . . . It will be no excuse to an idle and untoward servant [Matt 24:42 - 51], who would not attend his business by candle light, to plead that he had not broad sunshine. The Candle that is set up in us [Prov 20:27] shines bright enough for all our purposes . . . If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do muchwhat as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly. [Text references added to document the sources of Locke's allusions and citations.] >> _______________ The direct import is that we should trust but verify and be open to further development of our understanding; we have no excuse to complain that our knowledge is not utterly certain and perfect, as it is far more than good enough to proceed by the candle-light we have. Provisional and imperfect do not translate into delusional and arbitrary. The degree of support for real randomness -- and, notice [as I have said already] randomness, properly defined, does NOT imply that say Divine knowledge of what is is impossible -- it does imply that for those of us who have to exert energy to investigate and observe the states of the world, there are aspects of the world that we may not know or predict beyond a certain degree of uncertainty. In this case, up to some sort of probabilistic distribution. So, when we see evidence that points to such a limit on us as observers who have to exert energy to observe, instead of being immediately aware of all that happens everywhere and everywhen, then we are well warranted to respect the evidence. Randomness is such a case. The M-B marble box thought exercose shows tha there are good reasons to accept tha there are circumstances where we will not be able to analysie and predict in detail the behaviour of the world, especially at micro level, and must settle for a distribution. Such situaitons are important on many scales, far moreso than the classix macro-example, a six-sided fair die, would suggest Before going on, I again protest, you are misusing the term pseudo-randomness. Similarly, that the whole focus of the discussion of randomness as real, has been the finite observer, such as we are. In the case of Lorenz's computer model, wha thappened is thast he needed to stop a run, then went back some days later to re-run it, from what he thought was a known point. To his astonishment, the new run did not replicate the older one, probably due to small differences in rounding or the like. In short sensitive dependence on initial conditions can cause even digital simulations to diverge as they face the fact of rounding off. On the subject of nudging, you ate missing out on one of the key points of a miracle: to stand out as a sign, such REQUIRES that there be an orderly world that has an ordinary course. That is, miracles -- precisely to function as signs -- need to be rare and evident. And, the biblical cases of guidance by lots are in fact striking for evidently picking out the right person or alternative. Now, to your more specific questions: Q1: God does not strictly foreknow, he immediately knows, as he is everywhere and everywhen: inhim we live and move and have our being. "Foreknowledge" is a temporal view of that, i.e. our perspective. To foreknow in that sense is not to force. Q2: God is notr capricious or chaotic, and on evidence he normally works by the secondary means of having created and sustaining an orderly world. One in which actions have predictable consequences, and we have resposnilility to act with prudence. E.g. given the predictable results of unsupported bodies near the earth's surface, we have no reason to assume that we can tempt God by leaping off the pinnacle of the temple and praying for/expecting angels o come to our rescue. Such, even for one far more august than you or I, would be presumption and a disrespectful putting of God tothe test. Q3: You are twisting the definition of randomness as already given, and I have already corrected the error. Namely: that a random process is open to Divine intervention does not mean that such a process will normally be disturbed to the point where scientific investigation and warrant of the usual course of the world can be airily dismissed. In fact, given that the sign and wonder function of a miracle turns on there being a normal and predictable course, such rarity is a necessary feature of the miraculous. Nor will our senses and common good sense generaly mislead us. That too is a condition of being creatures subject to moral government and responsibility to think and act aright. Q4: We hardly lack good warrant for the existence of God, or for our living under his moral government. In that context, we have every reason to be confident that our genral view of the course of the world will be sufficiently accurate to guide us in life. Yes, science theories on he world beyond our usual observation will be perhaps quite strange and counter-intuitive [and will have in them many goodies that we can then use], but the world in which we live on human scale will besufficiently plain that we will find ourselves responsible to act on what we see and can foresee. In this conext, scentific investigations may turn up surprises on the undelrying structure of the world, but these things will, on extension to ordinary human scale, come back into conformity with our ordianry experience. Otherwise, they will run counter to fact and will stand refuted. Knowledgeof the world is possible, and it is perverse to defy the balance of the evidence. Which, in this case, isthat randomness, correctly understood, is real. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
January 3, 2011
January
01
Jan
3
03
2011
12:26 AM
12
12
26
AM
PDT
On your q's: First, the intention of God could just as easily be that he sets up a world in which random processes fulfill a role, as I have already described. We cannot know the will of God beyond dispute [without his telling us specifically], but we can use teh minds and senses he has given us to understand our world. And, one principle we can take for granted, is that oursenses and reasoning on such according to first principles of right reason will not be perverse and deceptive to the point where they undermine confidence in observation, experience and reasoning. If we take such a view, explicitly or implicitly, the world disintegrates into a chaos. And, we have reason to be confident that God is a God of order, not chaos. Above, we saw that even on Newtonian terms, a body of gas [as modelled by marbles in a box] will if disturbed from a perfect rest, rapidly move to a M-B probabilistic distribution. The circumstances of such boxes guarantee that if we have an ensemble of such boxes, in initially highly similar configs, and with effectively the same start-stimulus, their behaviour will rapidly diverge. They will all go to the M-B distribution, but will not follow the same path, due to sensitivity to fine details. Indeed, if we were patient enough to set up the same box over and over again, a similar result would happen. So, we have reason to believe we can only characterise the behaviour of the box up to the limit of the statistics, and cannot predict its path in details. It is not in our gift to predetermine its exact path in state space. Now, when you look at this then revert to the invisible gardener model, instead of the obvious: God has set up an order that includes randomness (for many good reasons as already outlined), you actually undermine your intent. For, an invisible, untraceable gardener is all too reminiscent of an imaginary gardener. This is utterly diverse form the point made in say Rom 1:19 ff, where the signs of God in the world are sufficiently clear to the eye of rational creatures that we have to resist the cumulative force of evidence to reject what it tells us, that there is a divine architect behind the world. You are free to take that hidden God view, but you are not then free to avoid its consequences, and to avert the force of the responses that your invisible gardener is a grown up version of a childhood imaginary friend. You may view this as materialist nonsense, but in fact, it is a fair response; especially when posed as a challenging difficulty; comparative difficulties and choice being what we face at serious worldviews level. And,the responses of skeptics or evolutionists to YEC views is not the invisible gardener, but to claim that science shows that the earth is much older and species are variable not fixed; nope this is a response to the view that God acted invisibly and indiscernibly but may be somehow apprehended by faith -- a position that is pretty clearly a Christian Darwinist type view. One of the champions of that response was no less than Antony Flew, whose subsequent -- fifty years later -- turn to Deism, was predicated on his seeing that there is indeed a strong cumulative case that there is a designer of the cosmos and of life in it. Science provides provisional warrant, but that is an extension of our general epistemic challenge, as was aptly put by Locke, in section 5 of the introduction to his essay on human understanding: _______________ >> Men have reason to be well satisfied with what God hath thought fit for them, since he hath given them (as St. Peter says [NB: i.e. 2 Pet 1:2 - 4]) pana pros zoen kaieusebeian, whatsoever is necessary for the conveniences of life and information of virtue; and has put within the reach of their discovery, the comfortable provision for this life, and the way that leads to a better. How short soever their knowledge may come of an universal or perfect comprehension of whatsoever is, it yet secures their great concernments [Prov 1: 1 - 7], that they have light enough to lead them to the knowledge of their Maker, and the sight of their own duties [cf Rom 1 - 2 & 13, Ac 17, Jn 3:19 - 21, Eph 4:17 - 24, Isaiah 5:18 & 20 - 21, Jer. 2:13, Titus 2:11 - 14 etc, etc]. Men may find matter sufficient to busy their heads, and employ their hands with variety, delight, and satisfaction, if they will not boldly quarrel with their own constitution, and throw away the blessings their hands are filled with, because they are not big enough to grasp everything . . . It will be no excuse to an idle and untoward servant [Matt 24:42 - 51], who would not attend his business by candle light, to plead that he had not broad sunshine. The Candle that is set up in us [Prov 20:27] shines bright enough for all our purposes . . . If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do muchwhat as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly. [Text references added to document the sources of Locke's allusions and citations.] >> _______________ The direct import is that we should trust but verify and be open to further development of our understanding; we have no excuse to complain that our knowledge is not utterly certain and perfect, as it is far more than good enough to proceed by the candle-light we have. Provisional and imperfect do not translate into delusional and arbitrary. The degree of support for real randomness -- and, notice randomness does NOT imply that say Divine knowledge of what is is impossible -- God does not strictly foreknow,he immediately knows, as he is everywhere and everywhen. "Foreknowledge" is a temporal view of that, i.e. our perspective. To foreknow in that sense is not to force. First, the intention of God could just as easily be that he sets up a world in which random processes fulfill a role, as I have already described. We cannot know the will of God beyond dispute [without his telling us specifically], but we can use the minds and senses he has given us to understand our world. And, one principle we can take for granted, is that our senses and reasoning on such according to first principles of right reason will not be perverse and deceptive to the point where they undermine confidence in observation, experience and reasoning. If we take such a view, explicitly or implicitly, the world disintegrates into a chaos. And, we have reason to be confident that God is a God of order, not chaos. Above, we saw that even on Newtonian terms, a body of gas [as modelled by marbles in a box] will if disturbed from a perfect rest, rapidly move to a M-B probabilistic distribution. The circumstances of such boxes guarantee that if we have an ensemble of such boxes, in initially highly similar configs, and with effectively the same start-stimulus, their behaviour will rapidly diverge. They will all go to the M-B distribution, but will not follow the same path, due to sensitivity to fine details. Indeed, if we were patient enough to set up the same box over and over again, a similar result would happen. So, we have reason to believe we can only characterise the behaviour of the box up to the limit of the statistics, and cannot predict its path in details. It is not in our gift to predetermine its exact path in state space. [ . . . ]kairosfocus
January 3, 2011
January
01
Jan
3
03
2011
12:25 AM
12
12
25
AM
PDT
kairosfocus, Pseudorandom has a standard physical meaning, and a standard context of usage. That is how I have used it. Then the clarification I've made should help out here. I've made clear from the start that my concern with terms like 'random' and 'truly random' comes down to claims made about purpose, intention, guidance, etc. I haven't denied the existence of, say, gaussian distributions or associated model/measurement claims, nor lacks of measurable correlation with a static outcome. In fact I've copped to them freely, because models don't impact what I've been saying.nullasalus
January 2, 2011
January
01
Jan
2
02
2011
11:58 PM
11
11
58
PM
PDT
Null: Pardon. Pseudorandom has a standard physical meaning, and a standard context of usage. That is how I have used it. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
January 2, 2011
January
01
Jan
2
02
2011
11:11 PM
11
11
11
PM
PDT
kairosfocus, Null, you are relabelling random as pseudorandom. Pseudorandom specifically relates to deterministic processes designed to give number patterns that look like random numbers, but run basically in a deterministic cycle that will eventually repeat. When I mean pseudorandom, I'm talking about a variety of 'randomness' that is opposed to the definition you gave earlier: Having no definite aim or purpose; not sent or guided in a particular direction; made, done, occurring, etc., without method or conscious choice; haphazard. As well as what you outlined in 57 and 27d, which further suggests 'unforeseen', etc. In such cases the guidance can be unknown or inscrutable, as can various other factors (conscious choices, purposes, etc.) In fact, going by 26d,b it seems the question of 'chance', given God (or the right kind of designer), is problematic. At least if I took you correctly earlier in my previous questions about 'foreseen', much less controlled in the potential manner of speaking. Years ago, I think I recall a discussion that a perfect billiard table would be sensitive to in effect the position of any given star in the next galaxy over, after a surprisingly short time. Of course. But as I keep noting, those sorts of effects, whether in terms of sensitivity or apparent patterns, just isn't something I'm denying science models, etc. Maybe we will hash this out better after I see your responses to my questions 1-4. It helps illustrate the position I'm taking, since I at least get the impression you take me to be saying something I don't intend to. As I said in 1, at least it's my impression that you agree God foreknows all, and thus clearly you'd agree to the existence and possibility of a designer who knows all or some outcomes, even at the minute level.nullasalus
January 2, 2011
January
01
Jan
2
02
2011
04:03 PM
4
04
03
PM
PDT
Quick note: Null, you are relabelling random as pseudorandom. Pseudorandom specifically relates to deterministic processes designed to give number patterns that look like random numbers, but run basically in a deterministic cycle that will eventually repeat. For instance, you can use counters with x-OR feedback loops and specially set up pick up and feed back points. As I pointed out above, unlike such a process, if you were to set up an ensemble of the boxes, they would diverge rapidly, i.e the process is NOT deterministic. That is one way we know it is as random as anything else we will see, guaranteed by the sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Years ago, I think I recall a discussion that a perfect billiard table would be sensitive to in effect the position of any given star in the next galaxy over, after a surprisingly short time. Gkairosfocus
January 2, 2011
January
01
Jan
2
02
2011
03:28 PM
3
03
28
PM
PDT
kairosfocus, The results of the model process I have shown will be truly random, once we recognise the force of the M-B attractor. Regardless of how the motion of balls is initiated, they will fairly rapidly turn into the M-B pattern, a random behaviour pattern. Sure they will. Exactly as could well be intended - which, in turn, means that no demonstration of 'truly random' has been made. I've said repeatedly that I don't deny the existence of certain distributions and patterns that regularly obtain in nature. But there is no demonstration that these patterns are not in any and/or every detail, purposeful, foresighted, and guided - and science is incapable of making this determination. The vulnerability of that appeal is seen in the fact that it is used by materialists to imply that the appeal to creation or action by an invisible untraceable God, is like the forest that one says is tended by an invisible, trace-less gardener. Materialists say a lot of nonsense, on a regular basis. I want to stress here that I have not been mounting a positive claim that such randomness, either in whole or in part, is in fact directed in a "hard determinist" fashion, nor are my observations merely limited to pointing out the possible truth (or better yet, the inability for science to demonstrate the lack *or* presence of) such determinism. It applies equally to the case of a 'nudge'. I've been pointing out the limits of what science can show or explore. The atheist admits to it whenever they insist that the existence or action of an omnipotent, omniscient God is unfalsifiable. But they forget that the inability of science to falsify such a being's existence or action - or any relevant being - entails that the claims of negation are also unfalsifiable, beyond the limits. To put it more bluntly - I've been making no 'appeal' here the way your example atheist suggests. At no point have I tried to argue from the apparently stochastic to God's existence or will. The acid reply of the materialist is telling: what different is that from, there is no gardener save in your imagination? (That is this is not like appealing to the childhood invisible friend? Grow up! [And, just a few days ago, I had an exchange with an atheist whose response to his education in a religious school was plainly premised on that.]) Again, materialists say a lot of nonsense on a regular basis. Beyond that, taking an actual unpopular position doesn't concern me too much either. First, I'm willing to bet the atheist who sprung the 'invisible gardener' line wasn't reacting to anything remotely like the claim I'm making here. You can point out all the teleology in the world to a person. You could conceivably exist in an alternate world which was in fact 6000 years old, with all species seemingly showing up fully formed. But that gardener will still be derided as invisible, and an alternative can always be thought up - from 'brute facts, it just is' to 'something happened, we don't understand yet' to otherwise. How many times have you seen a materialist or atheist dump causality when it became inconvenient? Or refuse to say that coming across the equivalent of Mount Rushmore on another uninhabited planet would lead one to accept a design inference? If they were gunning for the modest claim I'm making here, I'd be amused. Second, insofar as the claim I'm making references a real limit of science, I can turn the claim back on them: "Chance" and "Randomness" - in the sense of "Events without foresight and/or purpose and/or knowledge" is also an invisible friend, an invisible gardener. It certainly is not demonstrated by science, nor can it be in principle. Oh, it can be *imagined* - that's easy. "Everything happens just because of chance and even lawlike order is a result of chance and things I don't understand or have knowledge of are also the result of chance and the only thing that ever has intention is a human mind - maybe." 'Chance' in that context, for all possible purposes, has Godlike 'power'. Then again, if an atheist is going to go any such imaginary route, they may as well claim a giant turtle did it. If you're going to imagine, why limit yourself? But I'm not the one making the claim here. The atheist who claims that various processes take place - in whole or in part - without the knowledge, direction, guidance, or purpose of any being, and the fact that they happen to result in numerous identifiable and reliable ends is just a big coincidence, is playing that game. And my reply simply points out the limits of science, the existence of known pseudorandomness (really, the only kind of randomness we CAN 'know'), the variety of designer resources involved in the claim, and that the atheist claims aren't demonstrable in the way they need to be to have any force. (I'll also note that this is one reason why so many atheists insist they are agnostic, rather than claiming no God exists. Because making that positive claim puts them in a position that is ridiculously easy to do severe damage to. And skeptics generally hate being on defense.) As I showed above this morning, randomness is a direct implication of classical physics — it is embedded, without further ado in the foundations of quantum physics — once we recognise sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Right, chaos theory. But that only works in the case where we're dealing with a being who cannot A) Know the initial conditions, B) Determine a 'new instance' of initial conditions, or C) Know the outcomes of initial conditions. All three of those are in question here. And the moment knowledge, guidance, intention or purpose are introduced as a possible factor, you've made the random into the possibly-random/possibly-pseudorandom upon the instance. And really, that's all I need here to advance my claim on the limits. In fact, Lorenz's example helps me out here given the fact that it was a computer model. It's very easy for even humans to get some particular events for certain in Lorenz's model - just use the right seed. After all, part of the problem with the simulation was that the 'initial conditions' were being slightly changed at a decimal point each time. Not a necessary problem for a designer. (And, of course, there's also the prospect of a direct intervention by the man at the keyboard!) I have previously discussed repeatedly how, on the casting lots cases, the hebraic, scriptural mindset is that such situations are open to intervention form God, so that what would otherwise be random will in that case show a specific purpose and indeed a message of guidance. Earlier you said... The die tossed against the wall then tumbling to the table model shows how a process can be random in the large, but open to the miraculous: since a tiny shift makes all the difference, a tiny nudge below our ability to discern would be effective in controlling the particular outcome without committing to so controlling all stochastically distributed processes directly. ..But as I replied: Agree that a single nudge is possible in principle, and you've opened the door to an infinite number of nudges in principle. You mention above that the purpose of 'nudges' in an otherwise 'random' setting was to show a 'specific message of purpose or guidance' to particular people - but there's no need for such a purpose to be in mind for a nudge to take place. It could be to bring about an event the nudger wants, and the nudger doesn't require its own identification as part of that event. In fact, let's walk through this. 1) Please, forgive me if I am wrong - but earlier I was under the impression that you believe God foreknows all, such that even the particular patterns that will be resulted from a 'stochastic' source are foreseen by God. I recall you stressed the difference between 'foreseen' and 'purposefully caused', of course. And my focus here is philosophical, and one aimed at the limits of science, so your particular belief isn't what I'm asking about. Instead it's this: Do you agree that it is possible in principle for a being to foreknow the results of 'stochastic' processes, either particularly ('The outcome of this one process') or generally ('The outcome of all actually occurring stochastic processes')? 2) Assuming you agree 1 is possible, do you further agree that it is possible in principle for a being to exist who could manipulate - nudge - the results of any stochastic process to particular desired end(s)? Again, this seems obvious giving what you've said about nudging already, but I want to be clear. 3) Assuming you agree with 1 and 2 - that a being can foreknow the exact results of a particular (or any) stochastic process, and that the same being can nudge and force a result of a particular (or any) stochastic process to a desired end - then any results so nudged will not be random given your earlier definition. After all, the results will be purposeful, intentional, for a particular end, etc. 4) But if we lack the knowledge of that being's existence or non-existence, intervention or lack, intention or lack, purpose or lack, etc *in any particular situation*, we therefore lack the knowledge, insofar as science is concerned, of whether or not any particular stochastic pattern we are looking at is, in fact, 'random' by the measure just mentioned. Now, we can make judgments about this based on philosophy, or theology, or metaphysics, etc. But those things aren't science - the scientific toolset is dramatically limited in comparison.nullasalus
January 2, 2011
January
01
Jan
2
02
2011
02:27 PM
2
02
27
PM
PDT
F.N: In the scriptural cases, God's nudging was not exactly invisible in its impacts, i.e. miracles are SIGNS that point beyond the ordinary, not mysteries only apprehended by the eye of faith. Gkairosfocus
January 2, 2011
January
01
Jan
2
02
2011
06:00 AM
6
06
00
AM
PDT
Null: The results of the model process I have shown will be truly random, once we recognise the force of the M-B attractor. Regardless of how the motion of balls is initiated, they will fairly rapidly turn into the M-B pattern, a random behaviour pattern. A pseudorandom process will be deterministic, not stochastic. Similarly, quantum processes are random. Sky noise -- now used to construct random number tables -- is also random. All of this within the limits of our ability to warrant a knowledge claim, but as well warranted as any claims in science are, especially the related second law of thermodynamics. In looking at your response above, you are making the appeal to the invisible gardener. The vulnerability of that appeal is seen in the fact that it is used by materialists to imply that the appeal to creation or action by an invisible untraceable God, is like the forest that one says is tended by an invisible, trace-less gardener. The acid reply of the materialist is telling: what different is that from, there is no gardener save in your imagination? (That is this is not like appealing to the childhood invisible friend? Grow up! [And, just a few days ago, I had an exchange with an atheist whose response to his education in a religious school was plainly premised on that.]) the approach of the biblical teaching -- since this sort of issue is plainly on the table -- is very different:
Rom 1:19 [NIV '84] . . . what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. [I safely add: in the old days, in temples, nowadays often in museums and textbooks] 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised . . .
In short, the apostolic writer puts a risky, empirically testable proposition in the heart of NT theology. If the cosmos, the world around us and out own hearts and minds within do not provide adequate warrant to point to a Creator beyond the cosmos, sufficient to make men without excuse for turning their backs on what they know or should know -- a key difference -- then this key plank of NT theology is falsified. I believe the apostle's claim is more than adequately warranted, and have laid out my reasons here, with specific details on the existence of God by the light of nature, mind and conscience here and with a response on the problem of evils and good here, then also on the specific minimal facts warrant for the gospel as outlined in AD 55 1 Cor 15:1 - 11 here as well. But, back on the focus of this thread, there is good reason to see that randomness is real, on he same grounds that we accept that laws of science in general are well warranted. As I showed above this morning, randomness is a direct implication of classical physics -- it is embedded, without further ado in the foundations of quantum physics -- once we recognise sensitive dependence on initial conditions. What that means is that even if you were to perfectly set up a large collection of boxes as discussed in 79 above, given the fact that the walls themselves have vibrations and the marbles too, if we were to set them off at the same instant with the same impulse on the LH pistons, then watch for a time, the boxes would all have the same general pattern but the paths undertaken would be diverse in every case, and would be more and more diverse as time goes on. Indeed, one of the ways chaos was discovered was that Lorenz tried to re-run a weather simulation on his three-equation set, and found out that the rerun diverged sharply form the specific path of the original run. Though of course, he saw that the butterfly two loop phase space pattern was the same. The M-B statistical pattern is an attractor, but it does not identify a determinstic set path. Random, not pseudo-random. I have previously discussed repeatedly how, on the casting lots cases, the hebraic, scriptural mindset is that such situations are open to intervention form God, so that what would otherwise be random will in that case show a specific purpose and indeed a message of guidance. (That seemed to be a common view in the ancient near east, with gods substituted for God; as the case of Jonah and that of Haman casting lots to pick the day of slaughter of the Jews in the Persian Empire, show. For that matter, many forms of divination today follow a similar assumption that spirit forces will intervene in an otherwise chance process, e.g. casting Tarot cards.) So, I point out that randomness is credibly real -- so much so that the burden of disproof rests on the objector, to provide evidence that randomness per the sort of scenarios described is not real. In addition, I have shown that such randomness is embedded in the design of living things -- even, when we breathe we are implying that we expect O2 to be diffused through the atmosphere. It is manifest in gas laws, and is deeply embedded in quantum theory. It does not imply the existence of a chaos with uncaused effects, once we recongise that for instance a necessary cause is a cause. And, so it does not challenge the supremacy of God as Creator and Lord. G'day GEM of TKIkairosfocus
January 2, 2011
January
01
Jan
2
02
2011
05:15 AM
5
05
15
AM
PDT
F/N; To see the sort of utter unresponsiveness mentioned above in further (even more obvious) action, let us observe the line of discussion in response to my excerpting and commenting on the following remark MF made in the Giraffe thread, at no 53 (itself a capital example of word games and misrepresentation of the design view):
Later you jump to the “information” in DNA. This is something completely different. There are no intentions or beliefs associated with it.
I respond at 55, with definitions of information at 56 and a technical foot note on computer code at 57. Tribune7 responds at 58, exposing a strawman mischaracterisation by MF. Dr Torley responds to MF's 54 at 59, referring MF to some corrective reading. Here is MF's response at 60 - 61:
MF, 60: >> #58 Tribune Please excuse me but I really don’t want to go over all those arguments yet again.>> MF, 61: >> #59 vj Thanks for the reference but I don’t have time or money to read every ID book that is recommended to me and the video didn’t work (went into a loop). However, I don’t dispute that the nature of information in a snowflake is in some respects different from the information in DNA which is yet gain different from the information in a computer programme or an English sentence. In fact that is the main point I have been trying to make – information is a word with many shades of meaning. No doubt you are aware of Peter Godfrey Smith’s survey of some of the many uses of the word in the context of biology. >>
In short, MF is plainly unresponsive to correction. He knows or should know that the information in DNA is a digitally coded string data structure used in a step by step process of assembly of proteins on the start, add A X, Y, Z . . . STOP sequence being coded for. He knows that there is no coded information in a snowflake, only complexity tracing to the circumstances of the atmosphere in which it formed. But, he insisted on using the snowflake still though it had been long since pointed out to him that if you break a snowflake all that happens is you have two smaller, less pretty snowflakes. If you break an mRNA chain, or if you break the AA chain of a protein, there is functional loss because the function of the resulting protein depends on there being a complete sequence of the correct AA's. Similarly, if you break up a sentence, its meaning is lost. The bottomline is that MF refuses to accept the reality of digitally coded functionally specific, complex information and what it signifies. That is the only way he can try to hang on to the snowflake as a comparable though different -- he concedes but will not accept the implications of that concession -- informational entity form a coded string structure such as in DNA, object code in a PC or the ASCII text for sentences in this post. Sad, but revealing. And, as for videos of the protein synthesis process and related topics, he has consistently refused to examine and respond to those here or here or here. Or, for that matter the one that commonly appears as a featured video for UD. Let us invite him to join us on the same page by watching the narrated protein synthesis video here. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
January 2, 2011
January
01
Jan
2
02
2011
04:31 AM
4
04
31
AM
PDT
kairosfocus, So, from the orderly arrangement of laws and patterns of initial motion, we see how randomness emerges through the sensitive dependence of the behaviour on initial and intervening conditions. Or pseudorandomness. Really, you can swap in either idea and it still does the same job. In fact when you say... There would be no specific, traceable pattern that one could follow or predict for the behaviour of the marbles, through we could work out an overall statistical distribution, and could identify overall parameters such as volume, pressure and temperature. ..The problem is that a statistical distribution is itself a kind of pattern. Really, I'm very aware of gaussian distributions, idealized calculations, and so on and so forth. I'm certainly not making the move of denying that (say) what we call a gaussian distribution shows up in observation. Nor am I arguing for the case that it's demonstrable (even in principle) that there is intention, purpose, mind, etc behind each component or event in a gaussian distribution. As ever, I'm at the limits of what science, as science, shows us. Randomness is thus credibly real, and naturally results even in a classical Newtonian world. The sort of randomness that is 'real' - subjective randomness, For All Practical Purposes randomness - is exactly the sort of randomness I'm happily willing to cop to. But I'm saying that no method of science is able to suss out the intention (or lack thereof), the purpose (or lack thereof), etc, of even these events. There is no justification for airily brushing it away as if it did not exist. There's plenty of warrant, because what's been demonstrated over the centuries is exactly what I'm admitting to: Certain patterns, certain distributions, that reliably obtain. There has never been a scientific inquiry into whether these results occur absent the intention of a mind, because science expressly lacks the tools for such an investigation. I can fire back with countless examples of pseudorandomness passed off as subjective randomness if needed, but really, is it? When you said that what science gives us is useful, reliable models, you'd find me agreeing. The problem is that the models don't fail to be useful just because someone asserts 'Pseudorandomness is all that exists' - or even 'Sometimes a random distribution in nature is actually pseudorandom'. The models stay the same, the use stays the same. Indeed, insofar as they are models, the ability to match them with a pseudo- pattern becomes prominent. I think we may be at an impasse on this one, sadly. But then again, I never walk into a discussion hoping anyone will agree with me. Hopefully I've been respectful to your satisfaction throughout this conversation though - you certainly have been. One last thing. Noticing the role of sensitive dependence on initial and intervening conditions, there is room for subtle nudging that would change specific outcomes in the short term; i.e. there is room for the pattern and the exception for good reason. ..But this just highlights my own point. Nudging can occur without our notice, at any given point. And if there has been 'nudging' in the randomness, it spoils the 'randomness' claim. The 'random' is not random then, it's quite guided. And if nudges can't be detected, we're stuck. They can't be due to limits of science, not only practical but in principle. Which is enough to sink the Darwinist claim on this front, and the positive 'truly random' claim generally.nullasalus
January 2, 2011
January
01
Jan
2
02
2011
04:27 AM
4
04
27
AM
PDT
Vivid The use of "[good] will" as an expression of God's character also addresses the other horn of the Euthyphro dilemma, so called: God's character defines good, and that good is not arbitrary or capricious. Gkairosfocus
January 2, 2011
January
01
Jan
2
02
2011
03:45 AM
3
03
45
AM
PDT
F/N: Onlookers, and I stand by my own comment at 58: _________________ >> F/N: As usual, MF [cf 56 supra and Null at 53] is refusing to acknowledge the force of the argument that causes trace to chance, and/or necessity and/or art, that each has empirically discernible, reliable signs, and that for the signs relevant to design theory, there are obvious empirical tests. For example if a typical 20 or so word sentence or two in English could credibly have come to be in our observation on chance variations, then the whole concept of functionally specific complex information as a sign of intelligent design, and the wider concept of complex specified information would collapse. Thus, the possibility of empirical test and refutation is there. So far, on billions of cases on the internet, the sign is holding up very well thank you. (His studied [un]responsiveness would be amusing, if it were not so sad.)>> _________________ I also stand by my remarks at 55 and in the onward linked, on the attempt by MF in 49 to suggest that the now outdated problem of evil is a cogent objection to the reality of a good God:
Onlookers: MF of course hints at the problem of evils — how neatly atheistical debaters omit the problem they face: implications of the reality of good and the related reality of evil — without admitting he actual state of play post Plantinga’s Free Will Defense. Cf, here.
I think, on balance, MF's pattern in this and many other threads (for a long time now) has unfortunately earned the rebuke that Null gave at 69 above:
[MF:] I can only tell you what I believe to be true which happens not to be a straightforward answer. If you add some assumptions about motives (but nothing else) then you can refute it scientifically but cannot establish its truth scientifically. [Null:] Thank you – we’re done here. The fact that you won’t give a straightforward answer to a very simple question speaks volumes. Further, no one said anything about ‘establishing truth’, but about reasonable inferences – even Jerry Coyne will say that ‘all truth in science is provisional’. It’s bad enough to deal with shifting goalposts, but when someone refuses to even put the goal in the ground in the first place, my interest disappears. But hey, at least we’ve had a great demonstration of how some people desire deeply to maintain a clearly hypocritical position about science re: design.
In short, we are plainly dealing with unresponsive, selective hyperskepticism; here to make talking points on an agenda. It is finally very clear that those who object to the design inference on best explanation for the occurrence of empirically reliable observed and tested signs, do not do so on actual evidence that such signs are unreliable. They are doing so on a priori metaphysical a prioris. That is why they make objections like questioning what intelligence is, or what information is, or whether DNA code is information [as MF did recently by using scare quotes to discuss DNA], or pretend that reliable signs cannot be used as evidence pointing to design in the deep past of origins (implicitly assuming that no designer was possible then so the most astonishingly implausible alternatives "must" be accepted), and the like. And, if there is someone who is going to point these things out specifically, why, if you can get away with it, simply pretend that such correctives do not exist, on whatever excuse is handy. But the fact of utter unresponsiveness to correction as we saw yet again above reveals the underlying problem: sadly, the fallacy of the closed, ideologised mind. Let us hope that one day men such as MF will do better. In the meanwhile, let the record of unresponsiveness to correction speak for itself. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
January 2, 2011
January
01
Jan
2
02
2011
03:42 AM
3
03
42
AM
PDT
KF RE 81 KF just like Stephen I am so gratefull that you participate on this forum. This site is so blessed to have contributors such as your self that have the depth of knowledge in science,philosophy and logic to address the issues discussed on this board. Thanks so much for all you do. I used "can" rather than "will" because "can" speaks to ability. You know the saying "Yes you "can" but you "may" not. But you are right, to many atheists to say God can't do this or that they immediately attack God's omnipotence or claim He is externally necessitated. You and I know that this is an unsophisticate understanding of omnipotence. Omnipotence means that God can do anything that is possible to do, it does not mean that God can do the impossible such as deny His being or create another God. Thanks for the suggestion. Vividvividbleau
January 2, 2011
January
01
Jan
2
02
2011
03:28 AM
3
03
28
AM
PDT
#76 null I stick with my comment #56 as a description of my position: If that is the total description then it cannot be detected (or refuted) by science. If you add some assumptions about motives (but nothing else) then you can refute it scientifically but cannot establish its truth scientifically. If you say something also about how it implemented its design then it can be both refuted and potentially detected scientifically. At 58 words that is concise by ID standards. If you think that it is a modification rather than a clarification of previous comments then please disregard all previous comments and stick with this one. I am sorry I didn't recognise your paragraph about "establishing the truth of design" as an answer to my question "Now which bit do you disagree with?". I am intrigued to find that you think it is not possible to establish whether life was designed and furthermore you think that is the opinion of most ID proponents. This appears to rest on a subtle distinction between "detecting the presence of design in life" and "establishing that life was designed" which I must say is beyond me. May I suggest you make that the subject of your next post.markf
January 2, 2011
January
01
Jan
2
02
2011
12:49 AM
12
12
49
AM
PDT
oops, I am sleepy this morning, Heb 11: 1 - 6kairosfocus
January 2, 2011
January
01
Jan
2
02
2011
12:06 AM
12
12
06
AM
PDT
F/N: Vivid, your viewpoint is always stimulating. To see where Stephen and I are coming from let me scoop out your remark and make an adjustment or three or so:
God’s immutable nature is good so God by necessity can WILL not do evil and [WILL] only do good. God by necessity [of his inherently good, loving, just character] can WILL only choose good and cannotWILL NOT choose evil.
Do you see how this corrects the tendency to see God as externally necessitated, as one horn of the Euthyphro dilemma posits? God is internally motivated by goodness, and WILL do good, so we can trust him with absolute confidence, needing fear nothing that somehow he will choose evil (as ever since Eden the serpent tempts us to slander upon God). Citing a classic text in a well loved NIV 84 rendering:
1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. 4 By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead. 5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
In short, faith here rests on confidence in God's character; not on some imagined external necessity.kairosfocus
January 2, 2011
January
01
Jan
2
02
2011
12:04 AM
12
12
04
AM
PDT
PS: Ouch my little diagram messed itself up. Let's try not to be so clever this time, and leave off the rod on the piston: =================== ||:::::::::::::::|| ||:::::::::::::::|| ||:::::::::::::::|| =================== Preview says this should work . . .kairosfocus
January 1, 2011
January
01
Jan
1
01
2011
11:52 PM
11
11
52
PM
PDT
Null Let me discuss an example to help clarify what I am saying, a simplified, non-mathematical, intuitive version of kinetic theory. Consider a box, filled with tiny perfectly hard marbles, scattered similar to a raisin-filled Christmas pudding (pardon how the textual elements give the impression of a regular grid, think of them as scattered more or less hap-hazardly as would happen in a cake): =================== ||:::::::::::::::|| ||:::::::::::::::||=== ||:::::::::::::::|| =================== Now, let them all be at rest. Then, imagine that a layer of them against the leftmost wall were given a sudden, hard push to the right [the left and right ends are pistons]. The moving balls would begin to collide with the marbles to their right, and in this model perfectly elastically. So, as they hit, the other marbles would be set in motion. As the glancing angles vary, the marbles hit and the original marbles would bounce in all sorts of directions. Then, they would also deflect off the walls, bouncing back into the body of the box and other marbles. Soon, the marbles will be moving in all sorts of directions, with varying speeds, forming what is called the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, a bell-shaped curve. And, this would emerge independent of the specific initial arrantgement or how we impart motion to it, i.e this is an attractor pattern: once the marbles are set in motion somehow, and move around and interact, they will soon enough settle into the M-B pattern. E.g. the same would happen if a small charge of explosive were set off in the middle of the box, pushing our the balls there into the rest, and so on. And once the M-B pattern sets in, it will strongly tend to continue. A pressure would be exerted on the walls of the box by the collisions of marbles bouncing off the walls, and this would be increased by pushing in the left or right walls (which would do work to push in against the pressure, naturally increasing the speed of the marbles just like a ball has its speed increased when it is hit by a bat going the other way, whether cricket or baseball). Temperature emerges as a measure of the average random kinetic energy of the marbles in any given direction, left, right, to us or away from us. We could actually deduce the classical -- empirical -- gas laws [and variants] from this. Thus, from the implications of classical, Newtonian physics, we soon see the hard little marbles moving at random, and how randomness gives rise to gas-like behaviour. It also shows how there is a natural tendency for systems to move from more orderly to more disorderly states, i.e. we see the outlines of the second law of thermodynamics. To see diffusion in action, imagine that at the beginning,the balls in the right half were red, and those in the left half were black. After a little while, as they bounce and move, the balls would naturally mix up, and it would be very unlikely indeed -- through logically possible -- for them to spontaneously un-mix, as the number of possible combinations of position, speed and direction where the balls are mixed up is vastly more than those where they are all red to the right, all alack to the left or something similar. (This can be calculated, by breaking he box up into tiny little cells such that they would have at most one ball in them, and we can analyse each cell on occupancy, colour, location, speed and direction of motion. thus, we have defined a phase or state space, going beyond a mere configuration space that just looks at locations.) So, from the orderly arrangement of laws and patterns of initial motion, we see how randomness emerges through the sensitive dependence of the behaviour on initial and intervening conditions. There would be no specific, traceable pattern that one could follow or predict for the behaviour of the marbles, through we could work out an overall statistical distribution, and could identify overall parameters such as volume, pressure and temperature. For Osmosis, let us imagine that he balls are of different size, and that we have two neighbouring boxes with a porous wall between them; but only the smaller marbles can pass through the holes. If the smaller marbles were initially on say the left side, soon, they would begin to pass through to the right, until they were evenly distributed, so that on average as many small balls would pass left as were passing right, i.e., we see dynamic equilibrium. [this extends to evaporation and the vapour pressure of a liquid, once we add in that the balls have a short-range attraction that at even shorter ranges turns into a sharp repulsion, i.e they are hard.] Randomness is thus credibly real, and naturally results even in a classical Newtonian world. Quantum theory adds to the picture, but the above is enough to model a lot of what we see as we look at bulk and transport properties of collections of micro-particles. indeed, even viscosity comes out naturally, as if the are are boxes stacked top and bottom that are sliding left or right relative to one another, and suddenly the intervening walls are removed, the balls would tend to diffuse up and down from one stream tube to another, so their drift verlocities will tend to even out, The slower moving stream tubes exert a dragging effect on the faster moving ones. And many other phenomena can be similarly explained and applied, based on laws and processes that we can test and validate, and their consequences in simplified but relevant models of the real world. When we see such a close match, especially when quantum principles are added in, it gives us high confidence that we are looking at a map of reality. Not the reality itself, but a useful map. And, that map tells us that thanks to sensitive dependence on initial conditions, randomness will be a natural part of the micro-world. That is, we see a steady pattern of a statistical distribution, one that will come back rapidly if there is a disturbance, and this also implies that there is no predictability in the long term (save for an omniscient entity). the sense of no-purpsoese tha tis relevant -- language is inherently ambiguous so we need to be sensitive to context -- is that the specific long term pattern is not credibly directed to a particular end, there is a dominant distribution, not a detailed plan a la Laplace's (finite) Demon who could predict the long term path of the world on its initial conditions and sufficient calculating power and time. And, though God may indeed be immediately aware of that long term pattern of specific outcomes, that does not mean that he is locked into not using secondary causal patterns such as natural laws to effect the pattern. We have a cosmos not a chaos, in short. But equally, since short term interventions that are subtle can have significant effects, there is room for the intelligent and sophisticated intervention; e.g. through a Maxwell's demon who can spot faster moving and slower moving molecules and open/shut a shutter to set one side hotter and the other colder in a partitioned box. Providing he has to take active steps to learn which molecules are moving faster/slower in the desired direction, Brillouin showed that he will be within the second law of thermodynamics. But one who knows beyond such would be exempt from that law. [As in: "in him we live and move and have our being."] Putting on philosophical- theological hats for a moment, we can see that such natural randomness is a logical part of a wider orderly design for the world and how it works, and is useful for many things. (So, we should understand lacking purpose or direction in a narrow sense, not the broader metaphysical one you are suggesting. There is no reason to infer from the above sort of consideration to a chaotic world as a whole, indeed the very analysis that gives rise to the M-B pattern is based on ordering laws. So, we can correct the error of the chaos thinkers without resorting to a sort of nuclear option denial of the reality of randomness. Randomness can be real without being chaotic. And, at quantum level, there is no reason for us to reject that there are similar random patterns or even the classic uncertainty results, in the context of a world of finite observers. Since such results from ordering laws, again, it is not chaotic. That is why random decay processes follow definite laws of radioactive decay. And more, e.g we can see how a cavity radiator with a photon gas in it, gives rise to the blackbody radiation pattern, as the emitters at higher frequency pay a penalty of having to put out radiation in bigger lumps. That cavity radiation picture then extends to the cosmos as it is the basis of the cosmic microwave 2.7 K radiation that confirmed the Big Bang theory back in the 1960's. [Black body radiation on the cavity model was the context in which quantum theory was first discovered by Planck in 1900. He was trying to use a mathematical trick of introducing then smoothing out finite lumps, but the lumps would not go away by playing the usual calculus trick of going to a limit. Bingo, the light went off in his head, and we have quantum theory. In 1905 Einstein then showed that absorption of radiation in the photoelectric effect was also lumpy so the light was always lumpy, i.e in quanta we now call photons. This was another key contribution to his Nobel Prize, from that astonishing Patents Office in Switzerland.]) Moreover, what we have seen here is a warrant by inference to best reasonable explanation. Once that is on the table, those who would overturn it now have the burden of proof to show a better explanation. In short, the burden of proof issue does not exist in a vacuum, but something is already on the table with a considerable body of warrant developed across centuries since the 1600's. That is why scientific progress is by inference to best current empirically warranted explanation, as improved by additional investigations. Such can result in theory refinement, or theory replacement. In this sort of context, where we have a well-warranted body of theory sitting on an empirical body of observations and applications, to see someone saying that anyone who makes a positive assertion has the burden of proof in dismissal becomes a manifestation of selective hyperskepticism. The burden of WARRANT has been met, across centuries. Those who would move the game forward, have to account for that body of evidence and warrant, then improve on it. There is no justification for airily brushing it away as if it did not exist. Of course, many evolutionary materialists would be tempted to assert much the same about their theories. But the case is not at all comparable. For, as this survey outlines and as is detailed in following units linked therefrom, the mechanisms proposed for origin of life and for body plan level evolution are utterly inadequate for task, as soon as the issue of origin of highly structured informational configurations that then work in organised entities is to be accounted for. Indeed, the above analysis provides the context in which a lot of what is wrong with the evolutionary materialistic claim becomes evident. (It is no surprise that Maxwell's Demon works by intelligent application of information, and that Brillouin has formulated the negentropy view of information. Cf my longstanding note on the thermodynamics issues connected to the debates on evolutionary materialism, here.) In short, there is good reason to accept that randomness as discussed and defined is a natural part of our world. It does not overthrow order, it emerges from it naturally and spontaneously. It gives rise to several key phenomena used in life systems. And, it is certainly not a-causal or able to transform an orderly world, a cosmos, into a disorderly chaos that has a-causal events in it. Noticing the role of sensitive dependence on initial and intervening conditions, there is room for subtle nudging that would change specific outcomes in the short term; i.e. there is room for the pattern and the exception for good reason. (I.e this is a world model in which there is no reason to forbid miracles! Indeed, as C S Lewis was fond of saying, to stand out as signs pointing beyond the ordinary course of the world, miracles need for there to be an ordinary course, not a confusing chaos.) I trust these help us see the other side of the picture. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
January 1, 2011
January
01
Jan
1
01
2011
11:49 PM
11
11
49
PM
PDT
Vivid, I always appreciate and respect your comments. Thank you.StephenB
January 1, 2011
January
01
Jan
1
01
2011
09:04 PM
9
09
04
PM
PDT
Hi Stephen, Thanks for your comments and thanks for all that you contribute to this forum. “Vivid, it is God’s nature to be good. Indeed, God is goodness itself and cannot do evil.” I am a classical theist. God is a necessary being, He cannot not exist. He is a spirit, eternal, immutable, all knowing, all powerful, etc, etc. He cannot deny His being, and all that He is, He cannot not be what He is. God’s immutable nature is good so God by necessity can not do evil and only do good. God by necessity can only choose good and cannot choose evil. I think we agree. To say God acts, chooses, etc by necessity does not mean that God is being forced to do these things by some external power. The necessity flows from His being therefore even though He acts and chooses by necessity His choices and acts are free acts. God is by necessity virtuous and loving. My point being that love, virtue and free choice are not incompatible with necessity. My further point is that we would be more virtuous if we by necessity could only choose that which is good. “What can be a greater sign of an imperfect and immature state of the will than that,with good and evil before it, it should be in suspense which to do?” It is a defect to have to struggle and ponder whether we should do good. Vividvividbleau
January 1, 2011
January
01
Jan
1
01
2011
07:10 PM
7
07
10
PM
PDT
1 2 3 4

Leave a Reply