I'm unaware of enough evidence being available to even make that question legitimate.
Posted on 02/15/2003 4:18:25 PM PST by PatrickHenry
Ouch! Take this to its logical conclusion, and you wouldn't want to live there!
Oh, it wasn't so bad. We didn't have state-financed compulsory education in the US until the 1840s. Massachusetts was the first, and they started it around the same time they dropped their state church (they were the last state to do so). If we returned to voluntary education, most bright people would see its value, and would provide it for their kids. As for those who choose not to go to school ... well, would things be any worse than what we've got today?
I'm unaware of enough evidence being available to even make that question legitimate.
Well, that's neat and profound and all, but tell me, when mathematical instruction sets are physically processed in the real world, is that abstract or concrete?
I think that things would rapidly get worse.
I'm not crazy about state supported schools (with state supported curricula), but I think society has a legitimate interest in educating the populace, and I think you do too. You wouldn't be doing what you're doing if you didn't believe that education had societal implications.
And the country before 1840 was a different world, so I don't think it's reasonable to say that what worked then would work now...
That's incorrect.
First, a lesson: "reifying" means treating an abstract construction as if it was a concrete, material entity/construction.
Now, with that understood, does "Reifying" imply that EVERY time you treat an abstract construct as material that you have created a logical error?
Of course not!
If every time one "reifies" one is logically in error, then no one could ever honestly use so much as an analogy in communication!
Your initial logical error was that you viewed ANY instance of reifying as being ipso facto evidence of a logical error.
That's simply ludicrous. Sure, reifying can be misused or abused, but that doesn't mean that EVERY instance of reifying is bad.
Your next error was that you viewed any mention of mathematical programming instructions as an instance of reifying, even though those abstract mathematical instruction sets are being physically processed in the material world. That's quite a stretch.
Moreover, you seem to have continued to compound those and other errors as you have gone forward in time (if not in logic).
Ergo, you appear to be in over your head in this discussion.
What?! Have you not even studied basic biology?
What do you think that genes are, if not genetic subroutines?! What are base pairs, if not genetic instruction sets?!
Good Lord, man, you've backed yourself into such a tiny intellectual corner that you are now denying the very proven essence of scientifically accepted DNA!
DNA isn't genetic algorithyms?! You are truly funny, even if it is in a completely inadvertant manner!
What pray tell, is the DIFFERENCE between the genetic processing of/in DNA versus that of a software program?
Please, this "explanation" of yours ought to be worth several more seconds of laughter!
Is it that you aren't paying attention, or that you aren't capable of comprehending what has already been shown to you that is at issue?
DNA is genetic programming. This is a scientific fact. DNA can be altered to change the final output. Genes inside DNA can be copied, altered, or moved from one DNA strand over to a completely different lifeform in the same manner that any programming subroutine can be moved from one piece of software to another.
In fact, Man is already doing BOTH of those things in the lab today (e.g. producing human substances inside pigs, modifying computer software with old code, etc.).
That you deny those widely accepted facts is laughable, and moreover, isn't even the issue.
The real issue is whether or not said genetic programming evolved naturally (i.e. without intelligent intervention) or whether it formed analagously to known human computer programming (i.e. with Intelligent Intervention).
Furthermore, your "tautology" error was that you first presumed that Evolution was already proven true, ergo the genetic programming in DNA MUST have been a natural process. One "proves" the other, an ipso facto tautology of the first order, yet you can't even see or admit that such a misuse of logic is even your own tautology in the first place! Sad. Very sad.
Genetic programming has been "proven" in your opinion to be from natural processes? Where is the proof?
There is your challenge. Show where Science has demonstrated that purely natural, unaided processes have ever programmed/formed a single viable strand of DNA.
It should be child's play for you, since you have already stated (above) that such natural processes have been proven!
Good luck on that challenge (you'll need it)!
So God has two hands? With 5 fingers each? Is there skin on those fingers? Muscles and tendons in those hands? A circulation to nourish the skin and muscles? A nervous system to stimulate the muscles? A brain to exert conscious will over the nervous system? And all of this "outside" of the universe?
Asimov is right. Your mind is stuck in ancient Middle Eastern mythology.
Math per se is an abstract construction, you are correct, but what we see in real life is that concrete, physical and/or electrical substances can be arranged in deliberate, mathematical ways.
Human software does this with highly organized Base 2 (i.e. Binary) instruction sets that our CPU's process. DNA does likewise with Base 4 base pairs (A, C, G, T).
Oh, that's just too rich! You are good for a few laughs!
DNA computer
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In 1994, University of Southern California computer scientist Leonard Adelman suggested that DNA could be used to solve complex mathematical problems. Adelman found a way to harness the power of DNA to solve the Hamiltonian path problem (the traveling salesman problem), whose solution required finding a path from start to end going through all the points (cities) only once. Each city was encoded as its own DNA sequence (DNA sequence consists of a series of nucleotides represented by the letters A, T, G, C). The DNA sequences were set to replicate and create trillions of new sequences based on the initial input sequences in a matter of seconds (called DNA hybridization). The theory holds that the solution to the problem was one of the new sequence strands. By process of elimination, the correct solution would be obtained. Adelman's experiment is regarded as the first example of true nanotechnology. The main benefit of using DNA computers to solve complex problems is that different possible solutions are created all at once. This is known as parallel processing. Humans and most electronic computers must attempt to solve the problem one process at a time (linear processing). DNA itself provides the added benefits of being a cheap, energy-efficient resource. In a different perspective, more than 10 trillion DNA molecules can fit into an area no larger than 1 cubic centimeter. With this, a DNA computer could hold 10 terabytes of data and perform 10 trillion calculations at a time. |
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How that program came to be is obvious to some of us, but Southack doesn't need to prove there is a programmer. A program it is."
Thanks. I'm always amazed when the Evolutionists start denying basic proven, scientifically accepted facts.
Of course DNA is a program. Why must Darwinists deny that fact?
Nice links above, by the way.
We just agreed that successive improvements to earlier designs is a sign that an object was designed by an imperfect designer (otherwise they wouldn't have to improve the design in the first place). But you're afraid to use this understanding when looking at the evolution of Man (whether by RM&NS or by successive tinkering by the Intelligent Designer)."OK, now I'm curious: Please tell me the nature of the Designer. Is this designing entity infinitely intelligent?"
I'm unaware of enough evidence being available to even make that question legitimate.
Does a design which has so obviously been tinkered with constantly throughout its history shout out "I was designed by a perfect designer!", or "I was designed by an imperfect designer!"?
Man have you got that backwards. Her writings were like bad Harlequin romances, obviously influenced by the overly dramatic Hollywood era she immersed herself in.
Her philosophy on the other hand is the clearest and most down-to-earth you will find. From first principles to derived concepts she lays out her reasons step by step with an obvious disgust for the obfuscations and fantasies given by most philosophers.
THAT's where she deserves the most credit. Deliberate clarity. A few philosophers have the same virtue, e.g. Popper, but without the same scope. She belongs to that small band of thinkers who have tried to take the SCIENCE of philosophy back from the bu!!shit artists (like Schopenhauer and Berkley) and mystics (so many new agers and theologians).
As such she lays her ideas wide open for you to identify any fallacies. You may be able do so, but not until you learn her philosophy--which you obviously haven't.
BTW, "objectivism" (with a small "o") bears only the most superficial comparison with her philosophy. "Objectivism" (capitalized) is the term she coined for herself.
I agree with you. It should neither be state-controlled nor required.
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