Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 14:03:04 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: "Neal E. Westfall" <nwestfal@directvinternet.com> Cc: Lawrence Sica <lomifeh@earthlink.net>, Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? Message-ID: <3D7E5E08.2DB903C6@mindspring.com> References: <20020909170759.M59679-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan>
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"Neal E. Westfall" wrote: > > > 1) Something came from nothing. > > > > We haven't gotten into the cosmological issues, so far, but if > > you insist, we can. > > It does seem to be relevent, doesn't it? Depends; not really, if you are talking about evolution. > > > 2) Order came from disorder. > > > > Mathematically, we can prove this from the same axiomatic basis > > that lets other mathematical operations work. Order *does* come > > from disorder. > > And square circles *do too* exist. As in "squaring a circle via construction", then they don't; if you are talking about the theory of limits, then they do. > > At a fundamental level, the universe is quantized, > > and this causes certain emergenet behaviours in matter. > > Really? What do you mean, when you say, "the universe is quantized"? E.g. it takes exactly 13.6 electron volts to take an electron from an s orbital to infinity. Not 13.4, not 13.8. > And what do you mean by "certain emergent behaviours in matter"? > You seem to think that quantum physics can do all things, like > reconcile the irrational. To say that order comes from disorder, > no matter how much you try to dress it up is still irrational. If, > on the other hand, you mean there never was disorder in the first > place, I can buy that. Your _opinion_ on what's rational or not has been noted, but is not really germane. > > We call > > the properties that cause this "universal constants", like the > > value of PI, the value of "e", the Planck length, etc.. We don't > > have to define an origin for these numbers for them to make > > themselves evident to us. > > Maybe you don't think so, but if you believe that then you can't > count on them continuing to be constants in the future. We're right > back to David Hume and the problem of induction. No, you are actually right that we can't count on them in the future. There's evidence that the speed of light was much higher, much earlier in the life of the universe, for example. > > > 3) Life came from non-life. > > > > This is actually a reasonable assumption, given empirical > > observations. We have a number of stories to describe the math > > of how this could be so. > > "Stories" seems to be an apt description. It is. It's why I used it. Don't confuse stories with reality; it's impossible for you to directly observe reality. > > It also begs the definition of "life"; > > if you mean self-assembly of complex chemical compounds, we can > > do this in a laboratory, under controlled conditions, creating > > amino acids from conditions which simulate our best guesses at > > those present early in the life of the Earth. > > The key phrase here is "under controlled conditions". Self-assembly > is a contradiction. Moreover, no, I do not consider amino acids to > be "life". We have to control the conditions, because it's not possible to simulate the appropriate conditions. High partial pressures of CO2 and SO2 don't occur naturally on Earth any more. Whether you consider amino acids "life" or not is also pretty irrelevant, since you are going to keep moving the finish line, the deeper we get, so as to continue to be "right". 8-). > > > 4) Intelligence came from non-intelligence. > > > > Our best theory is that intelligence is an emergent property of > > complex self-regulating systems over a certain threshold density. > > This just sounds like so much baloney. Basically what you just > said is that our best theory is merely the assertion that "intelligence > emerged from non-intelligence." Yeah, I already know you believe that, > but believing it and showing it to be the case are two different things. We can demonstrate that complex behaviour emerges from simple rule sets. Conway's game of Life and other cellular automata demonstrate that (e.g. "Sugarscape"). > > > Again, it begs the definition of "intelligence"; there are many > > things you could mean here, and it's really hard to draw a boundary > > line, and say, for example, "Chimps are intelligent, but mice are > > not". > > Lets start with your own reasoning ability. To review, if you are a > naturalist, all of your brain functions are due merely to physical > laws acting on antecedent brain states. On your view, reason is an > illusion, and you have no way of knowing whether or not your reasoning > is sound, since all of it is due merely to the electro-chemical > reactions taking place in your grey matter. How does it follow that "reason is an illusion"? You've made a leap there which you haven't really justified making... > You could never know that > your views were right and that somebody else's views are wrong, unless > you give yourself the priviledged position of being the only person for > whom evolution granted perfect reasoning. Yeah, "right" and "wrong" are subjective; that one of the problems consensus solves for us: it gives us an external ruler. > Moreover, you cannot save > reason by introducing randomness, as all this does is try to save > rationality by introducing irrationality. Morever, whether or not you > think reason is determined by physical laws or by chance, it is still > determined, and has nothing to do with "sound reasoning" or "truth". If "randomness" was equal to "irrationality", son't you think that we wouldn't have invented a second word, or that at least one would be defined in terms of the other in your dictionary? > > > 5) Morality came from the non-moral. > > > > Morality is a consensus definition based on collectivist ethics; > > it's always externally imposed, which is how it differs from > > ethics. We've had this discussion already. > > Yeah, I know, you don't believe in moral absolutes. I'll just point > out one more problem with your view, and then drop it. You could > never come to a meaningful consensus without reasoning, and since > your reasoning is suspect due to the above, you could never actually > come to any meaningful consensus. Sure I can. I have schelling points, which I can use to establish communication. Even if you seperate people so that they can not otherwise communicate, and you make them play "interative prisoner's dilemma", you provide them feedback, and they can therefore use their gameplay to establish a communications channel. Read "The Evolution of Cooperation". > > Believing in a creator is not the same thing as falsifying > > evolutionary theory. > > No, it is not, but at this point I think you would do well to > read Phillip Johnsons book, "Darwin on Trial". The philosophical > and scientific problems with evolution are quite numerous. I've read the book; I disagree with some of the premises on which his arguments are built. They are, not coincidently, some of your premises, as well. The counterargument basically comes down to "your inability to conceive of something doesn't make it any less true". This is, in the limit, the same argument that is normally put forth in defense of a creator, but it's stated as "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". 8-). -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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