Intelligent Design Now Comes to Australia ( Issue is Going International)

Sydney Morning Heralkd ^ | Aug 11,2005 | AAP

[betty boop]

My eyes simply glaze over on reading any text which is overly abstract. That probably makes me a concrete-head!

Nah. May it's just some people are born to be scientists, and some people are born to be philosophers.... Two different ways of looking/seeing, I guess. But both are ultimately looking at the same thing.... I think it's fairly rare to find a person who can easily go it "both ways".... On the other hand, I see no reason why the two sides should be at war with each other....

Thanks so much for writing, VR!

[betty boop]

I think I heard that about replacing molecules, not cells. Some of our cells are relatively irreplaceable once we are grown.

I stand corrected, VR! Thanks!

[VadeRetro]

But what becomes of our life – the seeming form of our material being – when we die? It seems life is somehow opposed to the operation of the second law, at least during our existence. But what happens to life when we “die?” We know that the second law inexorably claims material bodies; but it seems to me that if a “life principle” dominates the second law in material existence, it appears doubtful to me that “life” and “matter” can be equated; or more particularly, that the former cannot be entirely reduced to the latter.

On the second look, this jumps out. To my own knowledge and belief, nothing about life defies any law of physics in any way. The mutations of the Second Law waved about to forbid life from doing what it does would also forbid you from growing from a zygote. We know this happens.

They would forbid hurricanes from forming. Hurricanes have energy and structure. Supposedly, nothing ever concentrates energy or creates new structure without design. This is just wrong.

Physics does not recognize these flavors of its Second Law. They had been falsified before the YECs thought them up.

Prigogene in the late 1970s described the mathematics of how systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium (existing in the outflow of energy from a source like the Sun to colder regions of space) will undergo chaotic, hard-to-model interactions and generate complexity. Now, we already knew that happened and didn't think it was a miracle, but this work wrapped many related cases into a nice theoretical model.

No law of physics says anything about what guided as opposed to unguided processes are allowed to do, either. About the closest thing I can think of is Maxwell's Demon, a thought experiment in which entropy can be decreased if only a little guy would know when to open and close a little door. A later researcher showed that the trick only works if the little guy runs by pure magic rather than any sort of physical principles. If the demon has to use energy to probe the molecules and do the work of opening and closing the little door, the entropy increase happens in the demon.

The laws of physics are the same if your process is guided or unguided, and they work pretty well to describe the world we have.

[betty boop]

To my own knowledge and belief, nothing about life defies any law of physics in any way. The mutations of the Second Law waved about to forbid life from doing what it does would also forbid you from growing from a zygote. We know this happens.

I think "defy" is way too strong a word, VR. "Co-opt" might be better. Living systems are not closed systems. And they seem to manage to keep as great a distance from thermal equilibrium as possible. They also do other things that inorganic systems are not observed to do, such as modify their paths from the paths predicted on the basis of initial conditions and the laws of physics. They also seem capable of storing energy, not just dissipating it into the environmental sink. They are sensitively responsive, extraordinarily complex (think: extraordinarily information-intensive), and appear to be organized from a "global" level (global level of the organism, that is). Thus they are irreducible to the parts of which they are composed. Which is just another way of saying they are not completely reducible to matter.

If all it would take for life to spontaneously rise from matter on the basis of the physical laws alone is a suitably powerful energy source, then Frankenstein's experiment would have worked, and abiogenesis would work, too. I mean, the Sun is just such a source; and life in our world requires solar energy. But still experiments seeking to demonstrate abiogenesis have been conducted in this same world, with this same Sun, and the results have been negative so far.

Alamo-Girl has referenced some very interesting seeming exceptions to some of these observations; i.e., the creation of a polio virus, chopped up flatworms, et al. But these exceptions do not falsify the observation that life -- though materially based and thus subject to the laws of physics at that level -- is not wholly reducible to the physical laws; if it were, then it would be impossible for living organisms to alter their prescribed paths as dictated by the laws of physics, given the initial conditions.

The second law of thermodynamics is the "creative" law; the world would be totally static, totally unchanging without it. The first law is the "conservation" law -- the law of persistence, of that which does not change. If there were no first law, the universe would be only a chaos -- a non-existent nothing. It seems to take both to make a Universe. Life introduces another factor, however; or so it seems to me. And that is intelligence (e.g., Grandpierre's "creative agents"). I think that's what gives a "push" to things that come into existence.

Well, FWIW. Some of these insights are quite ancient -- the flux-and-permanence speculation goes back to Heraclitus, c. 500 B.C.... To me, it's a fabulous insight into the fundamental nature of the Universe.

It occurs to me the above might be described as a "top-down" approach to the problem of living systems. It seems current biological theory involves a "bottom-up" approach, extrapolating from simple matter to more complex systems in a time process....

Maxwell's demon hypothesis was probably just an interesting pipe dream -- it seems to be a case of a "deus ex machina" supposition that doesn't explain anything real....

Anyhoot, it's always fun to wonder (ruminate? speculate?) about such things, IMO. And so, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts, VR!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for yet another excellent essay-post!

But these exceptions do not falsify the observation that life -- though materially based and thus subject to the laws of physics at that level -- is not wholly reducible to the physical laws; if it were, then it would be impossible for living organisms to alter their prescribed paths as dictated by the laws of physics, given the initial conditions.

So very true. There must be another factor in living organisms v. dead organisms and non-life such that when we start breaking down rocks and rabbits, at some point the rabbit is no longer alive and yet at bottom they are both made up of the same fields and particles.

[Ready2go]

Memory blockers are pretty standard. I had ether straight up, the kind they drip on a mask over your face. They have to limit the amount, or you stop breathing. The effect from my point of view was far more interesting than any descriptions of drug experiences I've heard.

I had the distinct impression of being above and outside of everything. I have never had the urge to repeat the experience.

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Howdy there js1138;

I'd love to hear about everything you saw & heard if you wouldn't mind sharing it with us.

And also why don't you want to repeat the experince?

Thanks so much :)

[js1138]

I did not hear any recognizable sounds. The closest I can come to the visual experience is the Windows Mystify screen saver. That and animations of seeing many galaxies at once, above and outside the universe.

But the visual details are closer to the screen saver.

Why wouldn't I want to repeat it? I didn't find it very pleasant. That plus the simple fact that ether can stop your breathing.

I generally remember my last dream of the morning. Sometimes they are visually abstract. Often they involve hovering or flying.

[Ready2go]

I generally remember my last dream of the morning. Sometimes they are visually abstract. Often they involve hovering or flying.

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Thank you js1138;

You brought childhood memories back to me.

When I was a child I use to have that floating sensation with what seemed like a black universe with millions of twinkling stars in it.

Anyone else ever experience the floating/hovering dreams?