"Intelligent Design": Stealth War on Science

Revolutionary Worker ^ | November 6, 2005

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your reply!

me: heart of his observation is that order cannot rise out of chaos in an unguided physical system

you: That's good. And at least we could ask, what in evolution accounts for it, and if not evolution, what does account for it?

Truly, as I understand it, that is the point Amos made and the question he raised.

My post at 205 is to arrive at a common "language" so we can explore the guides of the physical system which give rise to the order which we call biological life (as compared to non-life/death).

[Alamo-Girl]

Actually, it's self-evident nonsense. Snowflakes from water vapor? Crystals from solution?

I imagine those who are investigating autonomous biological self-organizing complexity do not consider their work "self-evident nonsense".

[Right Wing Professor]

Order cannot rise out of chaos in an unguided physical system.

Snowflakes are physical systems. Crystals are physical systems. They arise from purely disordered precursors.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply!

False conclusion. Chaos generates all types of order.

We are not talking about mathematical chaos theory here. The statement is that "order cannot arise from chaos in an unguided physical system".

[Right Wing Professor]

I imagine those who are investigating autonomous biological self-organizing complexity do not consider their work "self-evident nonsense".

No doubt. And perhaps it isn't; I can't say, not having seen it. What I can criticize is what's posted here. And to claim order can't arise from chaos is self-evident nonsense.

[Alamo-Girl]

Snowflakes are physical systems. Crystals are physical systems. They arise from purely disordered precursors.

To the contrary, both snowflakes and crystals require space/time, physical laws and physical causation. At the very least, these are guides to the system.

As I recall there are external factors as well which are included in that application of self-organizing complexity. (temperature, wind, etc.)

However, in biological self-organizing complexity (Rocha, Kauffman, et al) - the emphasis is on self, external factors are not included in the model.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your encouragements! Hugs!

[Right Wing Professor]

To the contrary, both snowflakes and crystals require space/time, physical laws and physical causation. At the very least, these are guides to the system.

That's truly vacuous. Everything is subject to physical laws. All physical laws are ordered. Therefore, if the mere existence of physical laws lead to order, how can chaos exist?

The molecules in water vapor are subject to precisely the same ordered set of laws as the snowflake. Therefore, how can you say the ordering of the physical laws is what leads to the order in the snowflake.? Why is the water vapor disordered? The same laws apply!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you oh so very much for your post!!!

Therefore, if the mere existence of physical laws lead to order, how can chaos exist?

Yeehaw! We are finally getting to the point where we can communicate. But sadly it is past midnight and I must get some sleep. I will be gone all day tomorrow but would love to resume this with you on Saturday or Sunday.

The meditation is this (I'll support it with links when I get back if you wish) ... all cosmologies which call for an infinite past have failed. At bottom, all cosmologies - whether ekpyrotic, cyclic, multi-verse, multi-world, Level IV, imaginary time, big bang - require geometry and physical causation.

The void of cosmology - in which there is a beginning - is not boundarylessness (infinity). The void has no space, no time, no energy, no matter, no physical constants, no physical laws, no mathematical structures, no geometry, no logic and especially no physical causality.

Again, there is no physical causality in the void!

occamsrapier, I'm sorry I ran out of time and didn't get a reply off to you tonight. I'll catch up on Saturday though.

Y'all have a great day!

[MHalblaub]

"Order cannot rise out of chaos in an unguided physical system.That statement I aver is unequivocal."

Depend on your definitions for "order", "chaos" and an "unguided physical system".
For me order is the opposite of complexity. The only proper definition for complex to work with you gave us in your link is from Kolmogorov.

But
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
is with the definition of Kolmogorov less complex than
"QWEIURMWFXVASWEWRMVCP=§LS=Q:XQE".

Therefore my feeling for what order is, is opposite of complexity.

[The Red Zone]

is as correct as we currently know it to be

Who's this we, white man?

[Louis Foxwell]

Order and complexity are opposites; increase in one means decrease in the other.

I used the illustration of evolutionary increases in the periodic table in an earlier post to illustrate increased complexity. If this is the antithesis of order how do you explain the system's assimilation of increased complexity?

[Louis Foxwell]

Oh, yes, and do please try to reply to my query without reference to my apparent idiocy.

[js1138]

You talking to yourself again?

[RogueIsland]

To the contrary, both snowflakes and crystals require space/time, physical laws and physical causation. At the very least, these are guides to the system.

And this applies to Evolution as well, which is the subject of the thread. I'm not sure why on every Evolution thread you want to deflect the discussion to some esoteric ruminiation on the origin of the universe, when there are occasional cosmology threads for that. I can only assume that the handful of IDers who have actually taken the time to form an intelligent and studied opinion on the matter, such as yourself, have concluded that they must retreat that far back to hold the line on ID given its utter lack of empirical or observational success in the rather more immediate sphere of speciation.

[js1138]

It's really very simple. It gives a gloss of respectability to the argument and it eliminates the need for demonstrating any empirical results. When you get to ruminate about additional spacetime dimensions without providing any actual calculations that can be tested and verified, you can say anything.

[Senator Bedfellow]

"We" presumably includes you. Or do you wish to opt out of the "we" who think students should be well-educated? Perhaps you'd like to join the "they" who think that students should be poorly educated - I'm not sure who "they" might be myself, but maybe one of them will pop in to tell you more, if any of them exist in the first place.

[Doctor Stochastic]

I don't remember so I won't guess. I've seen the same type of error made in the context of learning systems such as neural nets, too.

[Doctor Stochastic]

The statement is that "order cannot arise from chaos in an unguided physical system".

Still false, as such things as crystallization demonstrate.

What configurations do you think a chaotic system must avoid?

[VadeRetro]

It can't be all that bad. You know chaos can generate order.

Yes. Simplification is to be expected. Low-energy states are often simple. High-energy states are often complex.