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Alamo-Girl: It is inappropriate to say a phenomenon is random in nature.

OldNavyVet: I think it's correct to say that "any extremely unusual or extraordinary thing or occurence" is a random phenomenon.

OldNavyVet, by your statement here, aren't you already acknowledging what my dearest sister in Christ has already said — that since we cannot say what is random in a system when we don't know what the system is, that therefore the best we can say about the apparent randomness we "see" is that it involves something we cannot predict?

In short, the problem here is not mainly a problem of "random," it's a problem of unpredictability.

Or do you mean that simply because something is "extremely unusual or extraordinary" in our perceptual experience necessarily imbues that thing with the character of "randomness?" Does that mean the truth of reality has to be filtered through your idea of "truth" and perceptual experience in order to be validated? Is your own direct experience the reliable "measure" of things?

What does the word "random" — absent a context — mean anyway???

If we think something occurring in nature, as it appears to us as human "observers," is "an extremely unusual or extraordinary thing or occurrence," could this possibly mean that we don't understand the natural system — the context in which all phenomena occur — as well as we need to, if the truth of reality is our main concern?

And I do believe that was Alamo-Girl's main point. In short, if we don't know what the system "is," then how can we describe its parts and most importantly their behavior within the system (i.e., whether putatively "random" or "ordered" in some way)?

So can we take a stab on what "randomness" is in the first place? I mean, we're flinging that word around as if we knew what we were talking about!

Would a dictionary definition help all parties to this debate understand this at all?

I've consulted two dictionaries so far, the Oxford English, and the American Heritage. The only meaning in the Oxford dictionary relevant to our immediate concern is given as the third in a series of definitional items [the list of all potential meanings goes on over more than two columns in this work]: "...at great speed, without consideration, care, or control; hence a., with verbs of action or occurrence: As haphazard,, without aim, purpose, or fixed principle; heedlessly, carelessly, etc."

Question: Although you might prefer that the world be "purposeless," does it look "haphazard" to you, in its current state of development? Or at any prior state? Don't forget that evolution theory is logically premised on prior states that have already been formed....

Can we get any relief from this apparent quandary in the American Heritage dictionary? NO, methinks not: It says that "random" means (at item 1.): "Having no specific pattern or objective [i.e., no final cause!]; lacking causal relationships; haphazard."

Now OldNavyVet, you have to explain to me how an ordered, dynamic and persisting universe can be what it is as the mere product of haphazard and purposeless causes proceeding in a linear temporal chain over time....

So: Go for it! I'm all ears!!!

betty to OldNavy, “If we think something occurring in nature, as it appears to us as human “observers,” is “an extremely unusual or extraordinary thing or occurrence,” could this possibly mean that we don’t understand the natural system — the context in which all phenomena occur — as well as we need to, if the truth of reality is our main concern?”

Spirited: By way of osmosis, trusting contemporary Americans have-—without question-— absorbed the counterintuitive teachings of naturalism. The inability to logically answer the questions posed by betty and Alamo-Girl for example, is the direct outcome of trust misplaced in babbling fools and charlatons like Dawkins, Lewontin, Haeckel, et al.

When I say they cannot answer logically, I mean that their responses cannot and in fact never do come wholly from within the edifice of naturalism for the reason that:

“Naturalism effectively nihilizes man’s spiritual endowments by making him a part of something else in the way that grains of sand are merely parts of a beach (materialism) or drops of water are merely parts of a cosmic ocean (pantheism). Because we are parts of the system, we cannnot logically “know what the system “is” anymore than a drop of water can know about the ocean of which it is a fractional part.”

In short, if naturalism is true, then why bother heeding anything naturalists say, for by their own admission their “thoughts” (theories and all else) are the emergent product of unseen irrational forces of nature.

Insider-naturalists like Lewontin, Dawkins, etc. resolve their embarrassing problem of “mindlessness” by being worldview fence-straddlers. One leg is in naturalism while one leg is in the mind-body dualism of the Biblical worldview.

However, either man is both material (body/brain) and spirit (mind/soul/spirit) or he is not, as naturalism teaches. It cannot be both.

If he is, then his spiritual endowments from God the Father allow him to reason, imagine, remember, will, and feel guilty (conscience) and by extension, the supernatural Creator is not dead but very much alive.

However, if God is dead as naturalists wish Him to be, and by extension, man is a part of nature, ie. a grain of sand or a drop of water, he does not...further cannot... possess an individual mind/soul/spirit for the reason that he is “one-with” (a part of) nature and there is No Source within irrational, unconscious nature for mind,free will, conscience, etc.

When Aristotle famously quipped: “What do rocks dream?... nothing” he was commenting on the conundrum posed by naturalism, which can be phrased thus: “How and why do we know, will, and dream? (but rocks cannot?)”

Ideas have consequences, and what is desperately needed in our time are people willing to take on the difficult work of “unpacking” and critically analyzing the underlying presuppositions, assumptions, etc. of naturalism. During the discovery process, the analyst will always find the tiny grains of truth that leaven the whole lump. Truth must be separated out before the deceptions can be exposed.

I confess I'm bothered by this thread, which seems (sorry to say) somewhat flaccid, intellectually.

Just to begin with, let's address the term "random," as it really ought to be used. A "random" event need be neither "extremely unusual," nor "extraordinary." For an event to be "random," requires only a couple of conditions:

1) There must be more than one possible outcome
2) The outcome of any particular instance of the event is not deterministic; i.e., the result cannot be completely predicted beforehand.

We're quite familiar with the idea of randomness as it's manifested in coin tosses or rolls of the dice -- the results of which can hardly be classified as extraordinary or unusual.

But we also note that these are really only "quasi-random" phenomena -- physical analogs to a mathematical ideal. For example, the results of a dice roll are affected by the velocity of the dice at the time they were tossed; the characteristics of the table (e.g., friction of the surface, length of table, etc.), the shape and composition of the dice, and so on.

We can say that results are "effectively random," but really that's only because we do not have the means to properly measure the initial conditions, nor account for all of the physical variables that affect the roll.

And this takes us to the original point about "randomness" vs. "knowing the system" in which the event takes place. If we talk about physical random events, we're really talking about events that are "effectively random" from our perpective. We often have no way of gathering information sufficient to describe the physical processes that led to the outcome we observe. Lacking that knowledge (which may be, per Heisenberg, intrinsically unavailable to us), we can still deal with effective randomness through mathematics, via statistics -- we can grapple with probabilities, even if deterministic answers elude us. And it works very well. (As an aside, many important theories of modern statistics are due to one William S. Gosset, who was employed as a statistician by the Guinness brewing company. Further proof that beer is good.)

Now on to a broader topic. The essence of the argument here boils down to the efficacy of the "materialist" worldview as an explanation for what we can observe -- in this context as an explanation for biological processes, but really it's a more general question.

According to Wikipedia (yes, I know...), "the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions." The source of matter and the means by which interactions first began are carefully avoided.... and there is a great deal of controversy over the exact scope and definition of "matter."

It's easy to get bogged down in those sorts of discussions (as seems to be the case on this thread). But there's another piece of the puzzle, which has been touched on several times on this thread, but it hasn't really been addressed in any depth.

To begin with, one thing that appears to be the case, is that "meaning" is not part of a truly materialist universe. Material interactions cannot "mean" anything -- they just happen. For a phenomenon to have "meaning," implies "purpose," or at least awareness, that at some level necessarily exists outside the materialist universe.

Thus, if there is "meaning" in any phenomenon, materialism pretty much has to collapse.

So let's look at that.

When we observe a supposedly materialist universe, we realize that it operates according to "rules." (And here, already, materialism begins to totter -- what is realization, if not evidence of awareness?)

When we describe those rules, modern science generally does so by means of logic and mathematics, and deductions and conclusions drawn from them. We can create tools that measure -- assign quantitative values -- to phenomena, based on our understanding of the rules governing the phenomenon we're trying to measure.

But note: we live in a universe that can be described, including predictively, through mathematics, logic, "rules," quantitative systems ... and "universals" such as pi, e, and so on. These have all the appearance of being based on ideals, as opposed to physical phenomena.

And we make deductions -- if this happens, it implies something else. This is not just an exercise of mind -- though it is that, as well. We are also an inventive lot, so that we use our deductions to create tools by which we control the material interactions of the universe in order to achieve some desired end; and "desired end" implies meaning. Materialism looks pretty shaky by now, but it's still possible (one supposes) to assert that these are all just byproducts of the physical, material process called consciousness.

The key to the problem of materialism, really depends on the nature of these apparently non-material concepts. The principles of mathematics, for example, appear to be discovered, as opposed to invented. And mathematics is at root a descriptive discipline -- might it not embody a form of meaning?

Beyond that, let us suppose that our consciousness is nothing but a material process, and even our own understanding of a problem might be described that way. But we also pass on our understanding to others -- we have the ability to communicate, through purposeful action, the understanding in our own mind, to other minds. We have language, and the means of describing concept.

It becomes extremely difficult, at that point, to exclude "meaning" from the universe. And the materialist worldview seems as a consequence to be fatally flawed.