At 04:50 PM 09/28/2000, you wrote:
>Bertvan
> >>Our understanding of evolution will never progress as long as
> >>we view life as a collection of inanimate pieces of matter.
>
> >Chris
> >Actually, it *is* progressing, and very rapidly. You might even say it's
> >*evolving*.
>
>Bertvan:
>I thoroughly agree. Understanding of evolution is evolving, not randomly
>(and natural selection plays absolutely no role), but by individual
>judgements of individual people. The position I take, and the position you
>take both play a part in the outcome. We both claim intelligence is
>involved.
Chris
Actually, I don't claim intelligence is involved. I claim that logically
inevitable causal order is involved. In effect, because of the coherence of
what it is for something to exist, it has an identity which is exhibited in
its causal relationships. Thus, spherical things behave spherically,
cubical things behave cubically, etc. (for easily-grasped examples).
Because of this inevitable causal ordering of any logically possible
universe, universes will always have characteristics (at a sufficient deep
level of understanding) that will be intelligible and lawful (however, if
that level of understanding has not been reached, it may still *appear*
"lawless" or indeterminate and undeterminstic).
Since living organisms in a universe must have characteristics that are
compatible with that universe, and because they must be able to use
information/energy in sustaining themselves, and because they must have a
means of storing information for reproduction (i.e., something at least
remotely like DNA), life *must* exhibit overall orderliness because
otherwise it cannot *function* in an orderly way in order to maintain
itself. If it cannot function, it will not survive, and if it is not
largely orderly, it cannot function.
In a way, my position is like that of the piece on thermodynamics that was
discussed briefly a while back, except mine goes back not merely to
thermodynamics (which specifies *further* causal factors that must be
present for life to evolve), but to the law of identity itself, to the fact
that whatever a thing is, *that's* what it is, and it must therefore
*behave* like what it is (even if it's not a rock but something seeming to
be a rock, that something has to have the characteristics needed in order
to seem to be a rock, characteristics that would be, ultimately,
scientifically detectable and that would enable us to distinguish it from a
true rock).
<snip>
> >>Bertvan
> >> The evolution of the biosphere, cultures and economies should give us a
> >> hint of how organic evolution might have occurred. Those systems are
>designed by
> >>the "intelligence" of the individual components. They are the cumulative
> >>result of individual choices.
>
> >Chris
> >These last two sentences contradict each other. In most cases, the second
> >is true, the first is not. Very few cultures are designed. The Soviet
> >Union, Communist China, Nazi Germany were designed, but most cultures
> >mostly just grow as the accumulation of the unintended, unplanned, often
> >unknown, consequences of the actions of individuals and small groups.
> >Languages seem to arise and develop in the same general way, as do most
> >economies.
>
>Bertvan:
>This shows our different definition of the word "designed". To you it
>requires a designer. To me it merely means the result of rational,
>intelligent, choices, as opposed to chance events. Communism was an attempt
>by human designers. A system, culture or economy, designed by the individual
>choices of its components is more successful. (If there is a designer, I'll
>bet he knew that.) The cultural and economic choices people make are seldom
>random. They usually have what they consider intelligent reasons.
Chris
This is a very poor way of using "design." It is guaranteed to cause or
promote confusion, because it *contradicts* the standard meanings. The
ordinary meanings are limited to cases in which what is said to be designed
is in mind before it is produced, and it is produced *deliberately*, not as
an accidental consequence of *other* activities (designed or not).
Your usage commits a mistake similar to Dembski's broadening of the concept
of design; using a perfectly good concept in a way which degrades its
cognitive and communicative value, and for things which are well-handled by
other existing concepts (order, emergent order, self-organization, etc.).
This is also *not* what ID theorists mean when they claim intelligent
design for life or the universe.
For conceptual sanity and for communicative clarity, I suggest we all stay
quite close to ordinary uses of the term "design," which seem to be
reasonably well covered by the American Heritage Dictionary. I suggest that
all other uses be considered metaphorical and *indicated* as such by
context or by quotation marks (as when I refer to the "design flaws" of the
human body, meaning things which if they *were* the result of design, would
be *poor* design).
Here's the AHD entry for "design":
deásign (dÕ-z¼nã) v. deásigned, deásignáing, deásigns. --tr. 1.a. To
conceive or fashion in the mind; invent: design a good excuse for not
attending the conference. b. To formulate a plan for; devise: designed a
marketing strategy for the new product. 2. To plan out in systematic,
usually graphic form: design a building; design a computer program. 3. To
create or contrive for a particular purpose or effect: a game designed to
appeal to all ages. 4. To have as a goal or purpose; intend. 5. To create
or execute in an artistic or highly skilled manner. --intr. 1. To make or
execute plans. 2. To have a goal or purpose in mind. 3. To create designs.
--deásign n. 1.a. A drawing or sketch. b. A graphic representation,
especially a detailed plan for construction or manufacture. 2. The
purposeful or inventive arrangement of parts or details: the aerodynamic
design of an automobile; furniture of simple but elegant design. 3. The art
or practice of designing or making designs. 4. Something designed,
especially a decorative or an artistic work. 5. An ornamental pattern. See
Synonyms at figure. 6. A basic scheme or pattern that affects and controls
function or development: the overall design of an epic poem. 7. A plan; a
project. See Synonyms at plan. 8.a. A reasoned purpose; an intent: It was
her design to set up practice on her own as soon as she was qualified. b.
Deliberate intention: He became a photographer more by accident than by
design. 9. Often designs. A secretive plot or scheme: He has designs on my
job. [Middle English designen, from Latin d¦signÒre, to designate. See
DESIGNATE.] --deásignãaáble adj.
> >Chris:
> >And the biosphere, even more obviously than cultures and economies, shows
> >all the signs of *unintelligent* evolution.
>
>Bertvan:
>I seen nothing unintelligent about the evolution of the biosphere. Acts of
>symbiosis are usually performed to the benefit of at least one, and often
>both, of the organisms involved.
How is that intelligent rather than merely fortuitous?
>Bertvan
> >>The pieces of the system routinely function
> >>according to rules, habit or instinct, with no "intelligence" required.
> >>Stability of the system requires it. Yet each piece has the ability to
> >>occasionally act spontaneously and creatively. (free will)
> >
> >>If the cell was created by symbiosis, symbiosis is a collection of
>individual
> >>acts. All life gives evidence of some ability to make choices. (Some
> >>admittedly more limited than others. However, bacteria can be observed
> >>pursuing, devouring and escaping from each other.) Evidence is emerging
> that
> >>DNA makes choices.
>
>Chris
> >In a metaphorical sense only. Bacteria respond to chemical differentials,
> >light, temperature, and physical contact, so a bacterium will "pursue"
> >another even if the other isn't even there, as long as the chemical or
> >other signals are there. It is essentially mechanically responding to
> >stimuli. The "choices" of DNA show no signs of being any more "intelligent"
> >than the "choices" of a computer program.
>
>Bertvan:
>Even people can be fooled by a paper tiger, but you have no idea how bacteria
>"know" to pursue or flee from certain signals.
Chris
They don't know. But the ones that happen to have traits that yield these
results will be the ones that survive (in some environments). The others
aren't here to tell their story.
>As to DNA being no more
>"intelligent" a computer program, I'll agree when you build a computer
>actually capable of creating complex organic systems. (With or without
>computer programs designed by humans.)
We already build functionally complex *non-*organic systems. Why does it
matter whether it is "organic" or not? I you saying our expertise in
manipulating molecules is a relevant aspect of being intelligent? If so,
then human beings, up until a few decades ago, were *unintelligent.*
>Chris:
> >Does a rock tend to continue to move in whatever direction it's already
> >moving in because it *chooses* to, does a knife choose to cut?
>
>Bertvan:
>These are not live organisms. For an understanding of how multicelled
>organisms came into existence, we might study the slime mold. It can be
>individual organisms pursuing their own interests or it can combine to pursue
>the interest of the whole. Can you declare with certainty no intelligence is
>required to know when to do each? If the parts are "forced" into such
>cooperative behavior, what forces them? I don't think we know enough about
>the process to say anything -- unless we already have a philosophical
>prejudice against the existence of intelligence.
Chris
If we don't know enough, why are you saying that it's intelligent? I'm
saying that we have no *evidence* that it's intelligent. And, I'd bet that,
if we *did* understand it in detail, we'd see that, indeed, it is no more
intelligent (i.e., mindful) than a computer program. Computer programs are
intelligent, but in a different (and irrelevant) sense.
It's not a "philosophical prejudice" to assume simpler explanations until
*specific* evidence shows that more-complex ones are needed. Assuming
intelligence then requires an explanation of the presence of the
intelligence, thus complicating things, often needlessly. We don't need to
impute intelligence to oxidation, for example, so why do so? Similarly, we
don't need to impute intelligence to the behavior of bacteria until they
show some specific signs of intelligence rather than mere physiological
reactions to physical conditions.
> >Bertvan
> >Science can not, at the moment, deal with free will and creativity. Some
> >people would even regard them as supernatural.
><snip>
>Bertvan:
> >>Whatever mind is, evidence
> >>exists that mind can affect physical matter. (Biofeedback and the placebo
> >>effect, for instance.)
>
>Chris
> >Mind seems to affect matter in essentially the same way as do the processes
> >in a computer, because, mind, like the computer processes, is itself a
> >process carried out by matter, like the sounds coming from a speaker or the
> >light coming from a computer monitor, etc. There is no more reason to think
> >that mind is supernatural than that a candle-flame is supernatural.
>
>Bertvan:
>This is the materialist view of mind. A computer can store and sort and
>compare information. Some of us suspect mind can do more.
The question is, is the *basic* nature of the relationship of the process
to the brain any different from the relationship of a computer program's
execution to that of a computer? Obviously, they are quite different
processes, but I'm suggesting that they are both processes carried out by
dumb matter that is able to do so because of the way it is organized, etc.,
not because of any *metaphysical* oddness of mind that goes beyond the
capabilities of suitably organized (but not individually intelligent)
components.
Also, your list of computer capabilities left out one critical thing:
Computing. A computer can store and sort and compare information, and it
can *compute*. That's why they are called computers. The other functions
of computers are important but only marginally useful without the ability
to do a lot more than sorting and storing and comparing.
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