Thank you so much for the ping to your reply to 7MMmag! I was awaiting a reply from you, Ichneumon, on the subject of the fallacy of quantizing the continuum as you promised at post 510. Am I to take this as your reply? If so, it doesn’t really address the point I was raising.
Way back at post 310 I asserted a tongue-in-cheek obituary for evolution based on the “fallacy of quantizing the continuum”. My target for derision was not evolution but rather that “quantizing the continuum” had been raised as a “fallacy” (from the science side of the debate) to argue against abiogenesis. The point was that if it is a “fallacy” then it applies to evolution as well and would make both impossible.
betty boop and I have both rejected the notion as a “fallacy”. Quantizing the continuum is a method of observation which has good and valid purpose from physics to biology. In the case of evolution theory, each and every fossil is a quantization of the continuum of the geological record. The theory that is suggested by such quantization is a continuum of life, common descent.
If one pitches quantizing the continuum as a “fallacy” for abiogenesis then it applies equally to evolution and other disciplines. If it is not argued as a “fallacy” then we do not have an issue.
Lurkers: The point at which the fallacy was raised in our investigation of abiogenesis was in review of our “settled” definition of the difference between life and non-life/death. We had agreed that the difference was information which is not a message but an action, the reduction of uncertainty in a receiver (in this case a molecular machine) in going from a before state to an after state [Shannon definition, theory of mathematics of communications as applied to molecular biology].
If one pitches quantizing the continuum as a “fallacy” for abiogenesis then it applies equally to evolution and other disciplines. If it is not argued as a “fallacy” then we do not have an issue. It is still a fallacy, it does not matter where it is used. Abiogenesis is no different than anything else, and there is no clear distinction between complex chemical soup and living organism. Assuming that a distinction exists here is yet another example of the fallacy. Convenient and imprecise semantics are not a scientific model.
The underlying model is a continuum of chemical systems, from simple to extremely complex. The terminology and semantics surrounding "life" are imprecise communication tools that make it easier for people to understand interesting points, and that imprecise and arbitrarily quantized map should not be confused or conflated with the actual territory.
Aristotle (I think, I don't remember that far back very well), gave an example of the problem of defining sharp boundaries. He considered a new constructed ship which is then used for maritime purposes (fishing, transportaion, smuggling, piracy,....) After each voyage the ship is repaired: perhaps new sails, oars, a new keel, new planking, etc. At some point, there are no original parts left; so is it the same ship? All changes were no more than an iota's worth.
This can be expanded to consider a fleet of ships in different states of upgrading; new ships being launched and old ones scuttled. At no point again is anything but a minor change made; but there are a pair of points in time for which no two ships in the fleet are the same. We can say that a complete change has taken place, but we are unable to define a point at which a change occured.
Language evolution is another example. It wasn't until the time of Charlemagne that people realized that they weren't speaking Latin anymore; they were speaking (old) French. The change was gradual; not like leaving Kansas in a cyclone. We have a pretty good written record of English back to pre-Chaucer days, so we can trace the developments; but it's isn't easy to read Beowulf without study so Beowulf clearly isn't Modern English although Shakespeare is.
I was awaiting a reply from you, Ichneumon, on the subject of the fallacy of quantizing the continuum as you promised at post 510. Am I to take this as your reply? No, of course not, because as you noticed:
If so, it doesn’t really address the point I was raising.
It wasn't meant to.
I pinged you to it because 7MMmag challenged a point I had made to you, so in case you saw his post I wanted to ensure that you saw my rebuttal as well.
It is said that a falsehood can circle the world before the truth can put on its running shoes, but at least with pings the truth can be hand-delivered to the appropriate recipients once it gets up and running.
My target for derision was not evolution but rather that “quantizing the continuum” had been raised as a “fallacy” (from the science side of the debate) to argue against abiogenesis. The point was that if it is a “fallacy” then it applies to evolution as well and would make both impossible. Before I make my "full response", I want to make sure we're talking about the same thing, and I'm not sure we are.
Reviewing the discussion to date, I get the impression that we may be talking past each other, so let's make sure that we're both on the same page when it comes to what the erm "quantizing the continuum" actually *means*. We can discuss whether it's valid/invalid/fallacy/silly/bad-news-for-evolution/whatever after we agree on our definitions.
When Tortoise used the phrase "quantizing the continuum", I hope we already both understand what is meant by a continuum -- it is a function or entity which has values that vary smoothly from point to point. It's a "slope" of values, not a "stairstep".
"Quantizing", however, might be a source of misunderstanding. It is *not* another word for "quantifying". It is a verb form of "quantum". Think "quantum-ifying". A quantum in the general sense is a "package" of a fixed size, or which comes in discrete fixed sizes (like a product which comes only in standard 2-pound, 5-pound, or 20-pound bags). "Quantum physics" is named what it is because of how (at small scales) energy is found to be emitted only in "chunks" of specific sizes, and there are no "fractional-sized" energy emissions.
So when tortoise coined the phrase, "quantizing the continuum", he wasn't talking about "quantifying [measuring] the continuum", he was talking about "quantizing [quantum-ifying] the continuum" -- i.e. artificially breaking a continuum up into discrete "chunks", when the true nature of a continuum (by definition) is to be a *smooth* transition from one end to the other.
Again, the classic example (conceptually) is to take a smooth transition (i.e. "continuum") which goes from white through shades of gray into black, and to treat it as if the only significant portions (or the only portions to even *exist*) are the "black" part and the "white" part.
Here for example is a photo rendered with a continuum of black-to-white:
Here's the same photo rendered with the same continuum , *quantized* to "only-black-OR-white":
I think you'll agree that a lot of detail is lost in the translation...
So tortoise's term "quantizing the continuum" referred to cases where a continuum of something (consisting of many different gradations of a quality) was being shoe-horned into being treated (or being re-measured) as if it consisted of only a few "stairsteps" of fixed "buckets". And the worst sort of "shoehorning" is when a smooth gradation gets crammed into only two "black or white", or "all or nothing" catch-all categories.
Does this match your interpretation of his term "quantizing the continuum"? Or were you interpreting his term in some other way?
And again, I'm making no comment at this time about whether such a procedural "bucketizing" leads to a fallacy or not, I'm just making sure we're all on the same page when it comes to the term being discussed.
And in tortoise's specific example in that discussion, his point was that important conceptual "detail" may be lost if one attempts to sort all existing objects into only the two categories, 1. "Living" and 2. "Non-living", since this may cause one to overlook a sizeable "gray area" in between which consists of various kinds of "not fully alive but not fully non-living either". If, he says, the scale from "fully non-living" on one end and "fully alive" on the other end actually has a *scale* of "10% living", "67% living" and so on between them (for one example, things which reproduce themselves yet don't metabolize...), then looking to draw a "line" between "all alive" on the right and "all dead" on the left might be missing some key details about what we know as "life" and whether it could arise *gradually*, or had to come about *bang*.
In short: Is the "either alive or dead" paradigm missing the boat by breaking up the reality into too few too-broad categories?