Posted on 02/15/2003 4:18:25 PM PST by PatrickHenry
I'd thought I'd make it crystal clear that these are two distinctly different forms of meditation. Apparently not.
What an amazing essay, LogicWings. You argue like a Left Progressive.
I'll assume you are able to reflect, infer, maybe even intuit.
This breakdown in reasoning you termed, the exclusivist error of objectivism because to remain objective means that you have to admit there is no such evidence.>/i>
Even overwhelming evidence can be explained away.
One thing that I have had pounded into my head here is that logic and reason take a back seat whenever it is a choice between them and belief and faith.
Isn't it interesting that at the apparent heights of 'evolution' there exist beings whose very being demands this? I empathize with you. But here again, it is a matter of which subjective premises one wants to build his objective house upon.
Religion has fought every scientific advance, every step along the way.
Certainly Sir Isaac Newton and a host of many witnesses testify against this. But the religion of objectivism does deny advances, indeed, including the advance of knowing the limits of self.
Then you go off about altruism, complain about Marx, then swerve into seeming to say that the Christians are against reasonablly restrained capitalism, when it was the People of the Word who have upheld capitalism from before the time of Abraham.
Then you create a straw man regarding evolution vs. creation and skewer it.
Then you say something interesting to me:
And to go back to Boop's Dream. Even if true, it would have no practical effect. Couldn't build a house with it, couldn't build a fire.
The stuff of betty boop's dream is the only rock upon which a lasting house may be built. As for the fire, it has always existed.
Then you set up another straw man, but show your intent in trying to prop up reason against God. "Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; 20 but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured....
Have you read anything by an apologist?
Think I should spend time reading this, for any reason? (Have supper to eat and fantasy baseball to attend to.)
Hey, believe it or not, I just read that article (well, read to a degree, through the jargon). Interesting. It would seem to purport quite a process, hardly a random process, but one at work with a bias toward development -- at least with a bias for maintenance of life through many generations.
Did you ever see the movie "Screamers?" I think you would appreciate it.
I'd like to see that creature assumed to be the original vertabrate. Interesting that such a thing would happen. Were those animals reproducing less, or getting less nourishment, were they more susceptible to danger, because they didn't have one? (Kind of like the central nervoue system trading in for an SUV.)
I have one question concerning the rules that perhaps you can clarify:
...the claim has been advanced that design can be inferred strictly from the inherent qualities of a thing, without reference to historical or other external information, and I do expect you to hold to that in defending the inferences
My question concerns the use of side information. For example, as in post #1176, a knowlege of cryptoanalysis would be crucial to being able to infer design. I don't have any idea what sorts of pictures you have in mind, but I think that general knowledge of probablity theory and mathematics, etc will be necessary to apply the criterion. If it is acceptable to you, and just for fun, I may, depending on the nature of the problem, ask some our friends who have responded to me here such as Right Wing Professor, or Doctor Stochastic, or Physicist, and perhaps a VadeRetro or a Lev, et al for help with calculations or other scientific evaluations. Not only am I terrible as such tasks, but if they are willing, it would tend to remove any suspicion that calculations were biased in my favor:^)
I propose that success of the criterion be defined as being able to detect design where it is present, assuming that you know the causal stories behind the pictures and can verify whether design is actually present or not. Dembski does not claim that the criterion is useful for determining that something is NOT designed, for the reason that intelligent causes can mimic necessity and chance, and so I don't believe that I will be able to entirely avoid the problem of false negatives. If I'm good enough, though, the criterion should enable me to avoid false positives.
If the above is acceptable to you, I'm ready to go!
Cordially,
No apologies necessary - I spent my weekend up to my elbows in wallpaper, finishing the bathroom renovation that I was requested to perform ;)
My question concerns the use of side information. For example, as in post #1176, a knowlege of cryptoanalysis would be crucial to being able to infer design. I don't have any idea what sorts of pictures you have in mind, but I think that general knowledge of probablity theory and mathematics, etc will be necessary to apply the criterion. If it is acceptable to you, and just for fun, I may, depending on the nature of the problem, ask some our friends who have responded to me here such as Right Wing Professor, or Doctor Stochastic, or Physicist, and perhaps a VadeRetro or a Lev, et al for help with calculations or other scientific evaluations.
This is perfectly acceptable to me. By way of clarifying what I meant earlier, it's been said that design can be inferred from the qualities of the object itself. By this, I mean that only knowledge of the object's properties and qualities is necessary to infer design. By way of an example, we know as a matter of historical fact that Mount Rushmore was designed and built by an intelligent agent - most of us, in the back of our minds, remember grainy silent films of Gutzon Borglum swinging around the face of a cliff, dynamite in hand. But that does nothing to advance the design inference - if the design inference holds true, we should be able to infer the design of Mount Rushmore, even if we don't know of its design as a matter of historical fact. IOW, aliens who land here tomorrow and know absolutely nothing about humans or their history should be able to use the design inference to discover that Mount Rushmore was designed by an intelligent agent.
But, as I said, the design inference explicitly says that we don't need that sort of knowledge, so I want to put that to the test by ruling it out of bounds. Any of the properties or qualities, mathematical or otherwise, that you are able to discover about the objects in question are, of course, fair game, so long as we're not relying on historical knowledge about them. So if I show you a picture of a car, for example, turning around and saying "I know this is designed because I've been to auto factories and I know designers of autos" and so forth won't work - that may be true, and that's certainly one way to know that a car was designed, but it doesn't satisfy the design inference, because you're relying on historical knowledge of cars and car designing. If, on the other hand, you have some method of determining design - mathematical or otherwise - that can tell you that a car was designed, then that's fair and fits with the design hypothesis. As long as we don't rely on that historical knowledge of how cars are designed and built, it fits the design inference, and is therefore acceptable to me.
I propose that success of the criterion be defined as being able to detect design where it is present, assuming that you know the causal stories behind the pictures and can verify whether design is actually present or not.
Some of the ones I have in mind should be readily apparent whether they are designed or not - it will be interesting to see whether the design inference can tell us what we already know. Some of them may be a bit more subtle, in which case I'm truly interested in what we can learn. ;)
...and so I don't believe that I will be able to entirely avoid the problem of false negatives. If I'm good enough, though, the criterion should enable me to avoid false positives.
Okay. Obviously, we would all like to see something that could reliably determine design one way or the other, but at least knowing that something was definitely designed is an advance in knowledge.
So, to make a long story short, your conditions are acceptable. Play ball! :^)
Oh please! Amino acids are definitely not infinitely complex. They are rather simple compounds that can form more complex molecules which again are not infinitely complex.
Also you have to keep in mind is that atoms and especially those that from organic compounds have certain bonding properties so they don't stick together like candy. Therefore these molecules are not that unlikely and no intelligent agent is required that assembles them atom by atom.
And finally, what has all this to do with the Second Law of Thermodynamics? A molecule, however complex, doesn't violate the 2ndLoT if it's chemically possible.
I just think that randomness begetting more randomness...
I guess you never heard of "self-organization".
Also, have you ever seen a vortex or Bénard convections? Those are both structures (of particles that don't interact chemically with each other) that are more ordered than the patch of gas or fluid they originated from. All you have to do is to add energy.
ah, those epic endeavors. "conditions for the possibility of" The architectural principle of the modern age might oblige to tip the hat to Aristotle. But to a Nietzsche or a Foucault grinning at us with sardonic smiles?
I don't know exactly what it you are going after. In any case, the conditions is what they are: particular. The result of discovery will be the same, particular.
A certain presumption--perhaps still tame and legitimate in Aristotle but certainly not after Kant--imagined that particular conditions could be generalized beyond themselves and raised to a universal status.
Of course they is what they are. A unified field theory is likewise limited. One of the joys of the press was the political hay they made with Einstein's theory of relativity. Perhaps they did not "universalize" the theory, but they certainly took great pleasure in extending and generalizing it into fields from which it did not originate. Hayek called this the abuse of reason.
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