AgnosticWeb.com - E. Coli vs. Linux

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

dhw — Tue, 25 May 2010 11:01:47 +0000

DAVID: Gould referred to humans as a glorious accident based on an enormous series of chance contingencies. Running the tape of life again and we would certainly not appear. I can't believe any of that.-You have misquoted me at the beginning of your post ... "...to develop without design (the history)" doesn't make sense in the quote ... but the next part of your post states explicitly that you think humans were planned for, so the salient point that you were responding to is obviously my belief that life and evolution proceed without a goal. This need not in itself be a contradiction. In my post, the bit you tacked on came from my statement: "This leaves us with something deliberately designed (the mechanism) to develop without design (the history)." If there is a designer, it might be that every so often he intervenes to conduct experiments ... he's fed up with dinosaurs, so he tries something different. Or, as you believe, he may have been planning right from the start to create the level of consciousness humans now have ... after all, other animals that we are descended from are conscious too. But even allowing for such experiments, the history of life itself as I see it has always been a series of random events. I can't believe (subjective incredulity) that the designer has/had plans for every beast, let alone every human that ever lived. The world goes its own way, dealing out good and bad luck at random. So in the context of my hypothetical entertainment scenario, one can reconcile your argument that the advance to complexity has a teleology ... to improve the quality of the entertainment through increased intelligence ... with the claim that life itself remains undirected and without a goal, since even God has no idea how it will all pan out. Pure speculation, of course, but that is the nature of our subject.

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

David Turell — Mon, 24 May 2010 15:57:56 +0000

> David's argument is that the mechanism of life and evolution is so complex that he believes it was designed. However, neither you nor I see life and evolution as having a goal to develop without design (the history).-Gould referred to humans as a glorious accident based on an enormous series of chance contingencies. Running the tape of life again and we would certainly not appear. I can't believe any of that.- > >The claim, then, that life and evolution from our perspective are undirected, are heading nowhere in particular, and have no goal has no connection with the claim that God designed the original mechanism. -I can accept the idea that God (UI)set up the genetic mechanism to advance to complexity; that gives us some teleology and some initial design, if one designates that humans are not expected. This is probably where we will differ. I think humans were planned for.--> > The more general, abstract sense in my view simply leads straight back to David's argument: the economic interactions of molecules which over time produce complex ecological (not to mention biological) systems are the result of original mechanisms so complex that it is difficult to believe they are not the result of design. And so round we go again. -Very difficult, isn't it!

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

dhw — Mon, 24 May 2010 12:00:02 +0000

MATT: What I'm attempting here...is to cast doubt on the idea that life *had* to have been designed. Our economy wasn't designed: in fact, direct design tends to destroy it.-DHW: I think any disagreement here is due to a different view of what constitutes design. Perhaps we need to distinguish more clearly between design and teleology.-MATT: I don't think this is possible. The word "design" connotes if not denotes a teleology.-You are right, but if I've understood you correctly (always a big "if"!), you're trying to use the economics analogy as an argument against design, working back from the principle that no purpose means no design. I'm trying to work forwards from design to absence of purpose, as I'll try to explain. Just for the moment I'd like to abandon the economics analogy, because it's causing more confusion than clarification, and go back to the object of the analogy. -David's argument is that the mechanism of life and evolution is so complex that he believes it was designed. However, neither you nor I see life and evolution as having a goal (your post of 11 May at 23.16). My argument is that there is no discrepancy between these two theories, because they look at life from two different angles. Let's say, for argument's sake, that God designed life for his own entertainment. God's entertainment would then be the beginning and end of the teleological aspect. The avoidance of boredom, however, necessitates a completely random development of life, borne out by what you and I see as the higgledy-piggledy comings and goings of species, and the unpredictable course of the world's history. In other words, life itself is not directed. This leaves us with something deliberately designed (the mechanism) to develop without design (the history). The claim, then, that life and evolution from our perspective are undirected, are heading nowhere in particular, and have no goal has no connection with the claim that God designed the original mechanism. That's why I tried (rather unsuccessfully) to draw a distinction between teleology and design.-The other aspect of your economics analogy was that complexity need not point to design, but you have broadened this out to a far more abstract use of the word "economic", whereas originally you were using it to denote man-made economics. The latter of course cannot function without intelligence, which was why I argued that it supported rather than undermined the case for design. The more general, abstract sense in my view simply leads straight back to David's argument: the economic interactions of molecules which over time produce complex ecological (not to mention biological) systems are the result of original mechanisms so complex that it is difficult to believe they are not the result of design. And so round we go again. As you indicate elsewhere in your reference to your eagerly awaited epistemology thread, it boils down to our subjective levels of credulity. And I can assure you I don't regard that argument as "logically obtuse"!

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

David Turell — Mon, 24 May 2010 01:23:50 +0000

> I will be starting my epistemology thread soon, it will be structured from the book I've been reading.-Very frankly I can't wait. This is going to be fascinating.

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

David Turell — Mon, 24 May 2010 01:21:52 +0000

> Unless you're ascribing deeper intelligence or decision-making skills to to molecules. > > As for the rest, I still can't get past the point that a design has a purpose. If we have no purpose (as it is strongly suggested) I have a difficult time de-linking teleology from design. I don't get it.-I agree: design=teleology. On the other hand, miRNA's and histones are making decisions, according to some sort of chemical algorithm they must be part of.

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

xeno6696 — Sun, 23 May 2010 23:57:20 +0000

dhw, This is a really great post, and actually, you mirror me very closely here. -My only difference with you here is that in the grand scheme of things, I embrace the fence-sitting with a great passion: Because at least in my world, only *knowledge* counts. And while I intend on getting into the debate this summer about epistemology, I know that stating that "God exists" or "does not exist" are both statements that are made in pure ignorance. Statements based on inference without outside corroboration fall into Plato's category of opinion--even if the opinion happens to be true. -While you might think I'm being logically obtuse by saying that, this entire debate rotates around the question of epistemology. The differences in opinion are purely due to subjectivity; and we each accept or reject certain levels of this.-Faith plays a role too. In my case, it is fairly well expunged from my entire framework of thought. I only take things on faith that I know I can verify, or for incredibly short-term decisions where a decision must be made NOW. -And just like you, I'm perfectly satisfied knowing that there are unanswerable questions, and perfectly happy not filling in the gaps of the unanswered with anything less than knowledge. Though you might differ with me a bit on the preceding. -I will be starting my epistemology thread soon, it will be structured from the book I've been reading.

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

xeno6696 — Sun, 23 May 2010 23:23:38 +0000

MATT: What I'm attempting here...is to cast doubt on the idea that life *had* to have been designed. Our economy wasn't designed: in fact, direct design tends to destroy it. (This goes for both governments, uncouth businessmen, and cartels.) Generally: a nation prospers the more it allows individual actors free rein to use its resources. > > I think any disagreement here is due to a different view of what constitutes design. Perhaps we need to distinguish more clearly between design and teleology. > -I don't think this is possible. The word "design" connotes if not denotes a teleology. You don't design something to have no purpose. While it is true that the object may have no idea that it has a purpose, the designer still had a goal in mind: a word that is interchangeable with teleology. -> You want me to "abandon the notion of human interference and simply go back to when governments didn't exist and it was just people trading things. There was no "invention" of the economy. It is a word that is simply applied to describe what it is that people do to get what they need." But people doing something = human interference. Every single transaction is the result of a conscious decision. When a human first offered to give another human a chunk of meat in exchange for a fur coat, he did so with full knowledge of what he was doing. What follows is a process of evolution, leading eventually to the complexities of whole economic systems ... but every single stage of that evolution has been the result of conscious decisions, although the overall systems were not planned. Each decision, then, is a design, but beyond each individual goal there is no teleology leading to a system. That's why I said your analogy would only hold up if you believed that individual cells also took conscious decisions to make a leg, eye, backbone, penis, brain etc. My personal interpretation of evolution is the same as yours: no teleology ... which means that life was not "designed" in the sense of it being orientated towards a particular system or goal. But the first transaction was designed by its participants (i.e. it happened because two men deliberately chose to perform an action), and all subsequent transactions have been the result of intelligent "interference", so I would argue that while there is no "direct" design of the overall economy/evolution, your analogy strengthens the case for "direct" design of the original mechanisms that gave rise to them. > -I wasn't being abstract enough. Though I disagree that each of these transactions you discuss here are a "design," perhaps this should be better. -Economic ideas play in ecological systems anytime even molecules interact. (depending on the system of course) It's not limited to human transactions... I was trying to suggest this when I discussed ecology. -Unless you're ascribing deeper intelligence or decision-making skills to to molecules. -As for the rest, I still can't get past the point that a design has a purpose. If we have no purpose (as it is strongly suggested) I have a difficult time de-linking teleology from design. I don't get it.

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

David Turell — Fri, 21 May 2010 13:41:41 +0000

> DAVID: The afterlife expectation or conviction is based on the same kind of reasoning as the UI. How do all those NDEers find out the info they receive when there is no direct reality-based communication available? > > I have used the same argument myself against those who have closed their minds. (Please remember that mine remains open.) However, if human consciousness is independent of the physical brain and survives its death, why is it that 82% of the 344 patients studied by Pim van Lommel had no NDE at all? Variations on a theme of Calvin?- Humans vary, as certainly do our brains. Using the disputed IQ as an example, it has a huge range. Some folks are psychic, as my wife. Some are privilaged to be able to have NDe's. Nothing else makes sense.

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

dhw — Fri, 21 May 2010 11:24:49 +0000

David is gallantly trying to push me off my picket fence.-DAVID: The afterlife expectation or conviction is based on the same kind of reasoning as the UI. How do all those NDEers find out the info they receive when there is no direct reality-based communication available?-I have used the same argument myself against those who have closed their minds. (Please remember that mine remains open.) However, if human consciousness is independent of the physical brain and survives its death, why is it that 82% of the 344 patients studied by Pim van Lommel had no NDE at all? Variations on a theme of Calvin?-DAVID: I don't know the designer 'cares' for us. That is religions' point of view.-My apologies. You have indeed made that clear before. I do, however, find it difficult to dissociate the concept of a guardian angel from that of a caring God, and I would find it even more difficult to care about a God who didn't care for me. -You have referred us to a website commentary that emphasizes the "software writing intelligence" required for the genetic code. This is an argument I already accept, but the article is well worth studying. Thank you. I was struck by the comment: "Data is passive, while the program is active. What is passive cannot create what is active." It occurred to me that one could rewrite that, substituting "natural selection" for "data", and "evolution" for "program". It's a constant source of irritation that experts like Dawkins so often use the two terms as if they were synonymous. However, in fairness to Darwin I do wish the author had not insisted that "Darwinian theory is incapable in principle of explaining the mystery of the origin of life and of species, as it claims to do." To a degree he's right about species, since the title does specify "by means of natural selection", but that doesn't invalidate the general principle of evolution through adaptation and mutation followed by natural selection. Furthermore, although Darwin speculated elsewhere on the origin of life, he went out of his way to emphasize that his theory did NOT claim to explain it.

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

David Turell — Thu, 20 May 2010 23:36:02 +0000

>You have told us that you abandoned agnosticism because your scientific studies convinced you that life had been designed, and so there had to be a designer. However, your scientific studies and your powers of reason could not have taught you that the designer was still there, cared for us, and had provided us with an afterlife and guardian angels.-The afterlife expectation or conviction is based on the same kind of reasoning as the UI. How do all those NDEer's find out the info they reciece when there was no direct reality-based communication avaiable. And, remember, I don't know the designer 'cares' for us. That is religions' point of view. Guardian angel is intuition. -> > As far as "the only logical next step" is concerned, the argument is just as applicable in reverse: namely, that the concept of your unknowable, unimaginable, hidden intelligence is impossible to accept. The only logical next step is to embrace the concept of life originating by accident. But I can't embrace that either. The pickets, however, are not so irritating to my rump that I need to jump off. -This compllicated genetic code with all its layers and the difffering codes, even the molecules that make judgments, the almost instantaneous (in Darwin terms)epigenetic modifications, seemingly Lamarkian, literally require software writing intelligence. Try this commentary on for size:-http://www.uncommondescent.com/biology/darwinism-from-an-informatics-point-of-view/#more-13409

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

dhw — Thu, 20 May 2010 14:00:25 +0000

DAVID: I don't think you have to give up reason. Adler and Flew, as two examples did not do that. Neither did I. The first issue is recognizing that whatever is God is unknowable, and unimaginable. Religions try to fill in the blanks but they are guessing just as much as the rest of us. God is not going to be revealed to you, or anyone, in any way. You and I agree that the accidental origin of life is an impossible concept to accept. The only logical next step is that it was caused by something. Now you are stuck; you don't want to accept the unimaginable, but what else can you do? The pickets on the fence, irritating your rump should make you want to do something. Perhaps you don't like answers, unless they are satisfying. I don't like the pickets, and I do feel satisfied. I have no real idea of what I am accepting, but it makes me feel good, like the love of my wife does, or when I think about my guardian angel, my first wife's Mother. I 'know' she is watching over me; the tingle inside tells me. I have gone to faith, because it feels good, not because I have forced myself to faith. I don't think it's possible to believe something BECAUSE it makes you feel good. If it were, I could believe I was a reincarnation of Shakespeare, had scored a hundred centuries for England, and was heading for BBella's "ideal ultimate truth". One believes something because one has an inner conviction that it's true. You have told us that you abandoned agnosticism because your scientific studies convinced you that life had been designed, and so there had to be a designer. However, your scientific studies and your powers of reason could not have taught you that the designer was still there, cared for us, and had provided us with an afterlife and guardian angels. These convictions come from some kind of intuition, mingled with personal experience: i.e. what you have graphically described as "the tingle inside". My own "spiritual" experiences (such as are engendered by emotion, music and literature, and those occasional, indescribable moments of one-ness with Nature) are integral to my life, and I remain open-minded about other people's experiences, but I simply don't have that tingle.-As far as "the only logical next step" is concerned, the argument is just as applicable in reverse: namely, that the concept of your unknowable, unimaginable, hidden intelligence is impossible to accept. The only logical next step is to embrace the concept of life originating by accident. But I can't embrace that either. The pickets, however, are not so irritating to my rump that I need to jump off. I am cushioned by the realization that in due course I shall either find out some of the answers ... and these might present me with lots of Turelly tingles ... or I shall go to sleep forever, grateful for the unique experience of having lived a life. Either way, I'm in no hurry!

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

David Turell — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:39:04 +0000

> Non-belief in the one is no reason for believing in the other, because to believe in either you have to exclude reason and give yourself over to faith. Very few atheists accept that, whereas most theists do. And so the answer to your question why I can't take the next step (in either of these two directions) is simply that I lack faith.-I don't think you have to give up reason. Adler and Flew, as two examples did not do that. Neither did I. The first issue is recognizing that whatever is God is unknowable, and unimanginable. Religions try to fill in the blanks but they are guessing just as much as the rest of us. God is not going to be revealed to you, or anyone, in any way. You and I agree that the accidental origin of life is an impossible concept to accept. The only logical next step that it was caused by something. Now you are stuck; you don't want to accept the unimaginable, but what else can you do? The pickets on the fence, irritating your rump should make you want to do something. Perhaps you don't like answers, unless they are satisfying. I don't like the pickets, and I do feel satisfied. I have no real idea of what I am accepting, but it makes me feel good, like the love of my wife does, or when I think aobut my guardian angel, my first wife's Mother. I 'know' she is watching over me; the tingle inside tells me. I have gone to faith, because it feels good, not because I have forced myself to faith. And it feels good, because it does give me an answer. There has GOT to be an intelligent cause for all the computer-like layers in the genetic reproductive mechanism. Nothing else fits, despite Matt's and George's wishful faith in chance.

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

dhw — Wed, 19 May 2010 11:06:14 +0000

DAVID: Why so negative? If life appeared, not by accident, then, believing as I do, why can't you take the next step? The intelligence is a 'force' of some sort. How do you view it?-The short answer is that I can't view it. This is the perennial problem of the agnostic. Our neutrality is incomprehensible to both theist and atheist, as each of you expects us to believe in something that is basically unbelievable. The explanation HAS to be negative. I can't believe in a mind-bogglingly improbable accident capable of producing mind-bogglingly complex organisms and systems, including life out of non-life and consciousness out of unconsciousness. Nor can I believe in a mind-bogglingly improbable, inconceivable, immaterial, unknowable, birthless, deathless universal intelligence. I acknowledge the possibility of a world beyond the one I know, as suggested by all forms of "spiritual" experiences, and some of these experiences are integral to my own way of life, but I also acknowledge the possibility that they may derive from the physical world we know, in ways which we do not yet understand. Non-belief in the one is no reason for believing in the other, because to believe in either you have to exclude reason and give yourself over to faith. Very few atheists accept that, whereas most theists do. And so the answer to your question why I can't take the next step (in either of these two directions) is simply that I lack faith.-*** I have just read BBella's response. The question, as always, is whether the force/fabric/soup/resource is conscious of itself or not. If you think it is, you're on the side of the theists, and if you think it isn't, you're with the atheists. If you can't make up your mind, you're on the fence with me!

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

xeno6696 — Wed, 19 May 2010 03:09:41 +0000

What I'm attempting here... is to cast doubt on the idea that life *had* to have been designed. Our economy wasn't designed: in fact, direct design tends to destroy it. (This goes for both governments, uncouth businessmen, and cartels.) Generally: a nation prospers the more it allows individual actors free reign to use its resources. > > This last sentence above ties in and reminds me of the duality within the one fabric of what is. All parts of the One fabric freely using all aspects of the fabric as a resource while working independently toward one goal - to be. And I can see what Matt is saying above and below - "direct design tends to destroy it" when one aspect of the fabric wants to rule other parts of the fabric it goes down hill from there. In a sense this is a good argument against design. > -What if, the best design is no design at all?-> > > > Think of why Communism failed as a government: You can't dictate supply and demand. This too means that since life so readily responds to economic principles, that we should consider the consequences if there's direct interference, and what patterns those would reflect on life itself.

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

BBella — Tue, 18 May 2010 20:48:48 +0000

> >[dhw] David's argument has always been that the complexity of the mechanisms that have given rise to life and evolution is so great that he can't believe they came about by accident. Nor can I. David goes a lot further than that, because he actively believes in a designer, whereas I am stuck with my negative non-belief. > > Why so negative? If life appeared, not be accident, then, believing as I do, why can't you take the next step. The intelligence is a 'force' of some sort. How do you view it?-I stand (a long moment) at this same precifice (dhw's intersection) as well, David, viewing all possibilities (witin my radar) of just what IS the fabric? Whether it be one eternal designer with intelligent personality or one eternal resource? My faith can take me from this intersection at any moment, when needs be, but in-between, I fall right back to this intersection (fence) of unknowing. -I'm sure you have studied and searched to know what you know, and all of it together with experience helped in bringing you to your conclusion of a designer, with faith allowing you that infintesimal quantum leap you are asking dhw to take. But with all that said, what would you say is the one thing that brought you assurance that this "force" (fabric/resource) is more than just quantum ingredients of an eternal soup used by it's own ingredients to create what IS? Why can't the nature of the soup/fabric itself (seen and unseen) be all that it IS? To your mind, why is 'it' a "He?"-bb

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

David Turell — Tue, 18 May 2010 17:19:13 +0000

> David's argument has always been that the complexity of the mechanisms that have given rise to life and evolution is so great that he can't believe they came about by accident. Nor can I. David goes a lot further than that, because he actively believes in a designer, whereas I am stuck with my negative non-belief. -Why so negative? If life appeared, not be accident, then, believing as I do, why can't you take the next step. The intelligence is a 'force' of some sort. How do you view it?

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

dhw — Tue, 18 May 2010 07:18:43 +0000

MATT: What I'm attempting here...is to cast doubt on the idea that life *had* to have been designed. Our economy wasn't designed: in fact, direct design tends to destroy it. (This goes for both governments, uncouth businessmen, and cartels.) Generally: a nation prospers the more it allows individual actors free rein to use its resources.-I think any disagreement here is due to a different view of what constitutes design. Perhaps we need to distinguish more clearly between design and teleology.-You want me to "abandon the notion of human interference and simply go back to when governments didn't exist and it was just people trading things. There was no "invention" of the economy. It is a word that is simply applied to describe what it is that people do to get what they need." But people doing something = human interference. Every single transaction is the result of a conscious decision. When a human first offered to give another human a chunk of meat in exchange for a fur coat, he did so with full knowledge of what he was doing. What follows is a process of evolution, leading eventually to the complexities of whole economic systems ... but every single stage of that evolution has been the result of conscious decisions, although the overall systems were not planned. Each decision, then, is a design, but beyond each individual goal there is no teleology leading to a system. That's why I said your analogy would only hold up if you believed that individual cells also took conscious decisions to make a leg, eye, backbone, penis, brain etc. My personal interpretation of evolution is the same as yours: no teleology ... which means that life was not "designed" in the sense of it being orientated towards a particular system or goal. But the first transaction was designed by its participants (i.e. it happened because two men deliberately chose to perform an action), and all subsequent transactions have been the result of intelligent "interference", so I would argue that while there is no "direct" design of the overall economy/evolution, your analogy strengthens the case for "direct" design of the original mechanisms that gave rise to them. Perhaps BBella's post makes the distinction clearer. She agrees with your argument that direct design tends to destroy society, and so do I. Given the choice between totalitarianism and democracy, I'll go for democracy every time! I also agree that "in a sense this is a good argument against design", but in what sense? If we are the product of a deity's inventiveness (= design), he may well have given us free rein to follow our own paths (= non-design). He may have created the mechanisms for evolution in general (= design), and then sat back to watch what they came up with (= non-design). "Design" depends on your starting-point. David's argument has always been that the complexity of the mechanisms that have given rise to life and evolution is so great that he can't believe they came about by accident. Nor can I. David goes a lot further than that, because he actively believes in a designer, whereas I am stuck with my negative non-belief. However, the argument ... with which I agree ... that the course of life (and of economics) is not designed has nothing to do with the argument that the original, astoundingly complex mechanisms that gave rise to it all are the product of some kind of intelligence. In other words, let me repeat, your analogy in my view works on the level of teleology, but not on that of design.

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

BBella — Mon, 17 May 2010 03:46:08 +0000

What I'm attempting here... is to cast doubt on the idea that life *had* to have been designed. Our economy wasn't designed: in fact, direct design tends to destroy it. (This goes for both governments, uncouth businessmen, and cartels.) Generally: a nation prospers the more it allows individual actors free reign to use its resources. -This last sentence above ties in and reminds me of the duality within the one fabric of what is. All parts of the One fabric freely using all aspects of the fabric as a resource while working independently toward one goal - to be. And I can see what Matt is saying above and below - "direct design tends to destroy it" when one aspect of the fabric wants to rule other parts of the fabric it goes down hill from there. In a sense this is a good argument against design. > > Think of why Communism failed as a government: You can't dictate supply and demand. This too means that since life so readily responds to economic principles, that we should consider the consequences if there's direct interference, and what patterns those would reflect on life itself.

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

xeno6696 — Sun, 16 May 2010 23:47:55 +0000

dhw, > Out, then, with teleology (unless you want to take God's entertainment as an ultimate goal). But for me the analogy doesn't stand up in the context of design. I agree that "there's no conclusive evidence that the brain was designed...complexity doesn't automatically guarantee that something was designed", but I don't think anyone on this forum would dream of using terms like "conclusive" or "guarantee". The most anyone can hope for is a greater or lesser degree of likelihood, and that is where I think your analogy becomes problematical. Every single individual action in the history of economics, every addition to the complexity of the mechanism, has come about as the result of a conscious decision. The only way your analogy could therefore stand up to scrutiny would be if you believed that individual cells also took conscious decisions, so that at some stage you had them saying to one another: "Right, guys, let's make a leg, an eye, a backbone, a penis, a conscious brain...." Now crudely speaking, this is precisely what happened ... but the great question is where did the inventive intelligence come from to MAKE it happen? In the case of the economy, we know: it came from humans. In the case of evolution, you seem to be arguing that no intelligence was required. You would laugh to scorn anyone who claimed that the complex mechanisms of money, banks, debits and credits, stocks and shares came into being without intelligent guidance, but if it's suggested that the even more complex mechanisms of reproduction, heredity and adaptability (the essential bases of evolution), not to mention consciousness and all its ramifications, came into being without intelligent guidance, you don't laugh. Could this be a case of familiarity breeding blinkers? > > But of course there's nothing conclusive, and there's no guarantee. And your analogy is fun.-I need to stretch the analogy a bit further: The last class I took while still an environmental studies major was Ecology. Probably the most important aspect of this is the discussion of trophic levels. (Hierarchy of energy.) You can easily take the human economy and use its laws to describe how energy travels up the chain, and how individual cells up to fully-fledged organism use it as essentially--a currency. We can abandon the human-generated concept of money for ATP. (Base molecule for energy.) A study of the interactions of organisms and their environment resembles that of macroeconomics. -Forget financial instruments and derivatives: Think only of the abstract nature of a human transaction and apply it to cells. The modern economy as we know it today is quite complex. I want you to abandon the notion of human interference and simply go back to when governments didn't exist and it was just people trading things. There was no "invention" of the economy. It is a word that is simply applied to describe what it is that people do to get what they need; It seems that you let some more modern thinking creep in and it destroyed the notion I was trying to convey. -What I'm attempting here... is to cast doubt on the idea that life *had* to have been designed. Our economy wasn't designed: in fact, direct design tends to destroy it. (This goes for both governments, uncouth businessmen, and cartels.) Generally: a nation prospers the more it allows individual actors free reign to use its resources. -Think of why Communism failed as a government: You can't dictate supply and demand. This too means that since life so readily responds to economic principles, that we should consider the consequences if there's direct interference, and what patterns those would reflect on life itself.

E. Coli vs. Linux (reply)

dhw — Thu, 13 May 2010 08:13:34 +0000

Matt ("let's have some fun") has drawn an interesting parallel between evolution and the economy. He sees both as "an amorphous series of actions that individual cells carry out to maintain their existence." The complexity of both systems "arose from the actions of many individuals", with each transaction being "a means to its own end". He therefore sees "no teleology to life, no empirical claim to a creator..."-Let me join in the fun. I think your analogy stands up very well in the context of teleology. If there's no God, then clearly there's no goal, but even if there is a creator, the coming and going of species, the apparent randomness of Life on Earth, the delayed arrival of human consciousness ... all of these suggest to me, as they do to you, that there's no overriding purpose. I would go even further. It seems to me that if there is a creator, there would be no fun at all in the game if he already knew the outcome. It makes far more sense to me that he should chuck the ingredients in the pot and see what emerges.-Out, then, with teleology (unless you want to take God's entertainment as an ultimate goal). But for me the analogy doesn't stand up in the context of design. I agree that "there's no conclusive evidence that the brain was designed...complexity doesn't automatically guarantee that something was designed", but I don't think anyone on this forum would dream of using terms like "conclusive" or "guarantee". The most anyone can hope for is a greater or lesser degree of likelihood, and that is where I think your analogy becomes problematical. Every single individual action in the history of economics, every addition to the complexity of the mechanism, has come about as the result of a conscious decision. The only way your analogy could therefore stand up to scrutiny would be if you believed that individual cells also took conscious decisions, so that at some stage you had them saying to one another: "Right, guys, let's make a leg, an eye, a backbone, a penis, a conscious brain...." Now crudely speaking, this is precisely what happened ... but the great question is where did the inventive intelligence come from to MAKE it happen? In the case of the economy, we know: it came from humans. In the case of evolution, you seem to be arguing that no intelligence was required. You would laugh to scorn anyone who claimed that the complex mechanisms of money, banks, debits and credits, stocks and shares came into being without intelligent guidance, but if it's suggested that the even more complex mechanisms of reproduction, heredity and adaptability (the essential bases of evolution), not to mention consciousness and all its ramifications, came into being without intelligent guidance, you don't laugh. Could this be a case of familiarity breeding blinkers?-But of course there's nothing conclusive, and there's no guarantee. And your analogy is fun.