Continuation…
by JoyDiscussion on the lengthy Remarkable Nucleotides thread has become unwieldy, as well as not much about remarkable nucleotides anymore. This thread serves for continuing sidelines off-topic there – OoL and ET scenarios primarily, as well as physical diversions.
My questioning post:
John, Bradford, TP & Zach have engaged the possibility of life being ubiquitous in the universe over in the Remarkable Nucleotides thread I am unable to follow or post to. So I'm putting my question to them here.
I previously mentioned in a somewhat light tone that there are a lot of humans – including astronauts from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions – who claim to have encountered sentient extraterrestrial beings. I also mentioned the fact that these ETs are described as "humanoid" in form. And that it's not impossible to think of a scenario for an alien civilization to have designed and front-loaded the first cells on this planet just to see how the evolutionary tape would replay in this environment. It resulted in the appearance (after a mere ~600 million years) of sentient, intelligent "humanoids."
Yes, I know that single-celled life has been here for around 3.8 billion years. It just didn't reach a level of cooperative complexity that enabled the appearance of specialized information processing and sensory structures until the early Cambrian. At which point life 'exploded' in a veritable orgy of creative expression of genes that had been present all along. All forms of complex life that evolved from that Golden Age of creative excess have come and/or gone between then and now.
I suspect Hameroff is correct in his theoretical extrapolation to that event in the history of life on planet earth as being triggered by the development of sufficient information processing structures to cross the threshold from simple awareness to actual functional consciousness. A quantitative measure, a scientific hypothesis that makes a lot of conceptual sense and could explain a lot that blind, accidental, agent-less evolution simply cannot explain.
Once consciousness enters the causal realm of the Prime Directive, it obviously drives an evolutionary engine that is rather amazingly swift and efficient. There's a big difference between 600 million and 3.8 billion years. A 3.2 billion year difference. Once creativity exploded, it exploded big time and things happened really, really fast. Relatively speaking.
If we were to find that humanoid ETs were involved, it would suggest that humanoid life forms are (one of) the inevitable results of biological evolution under the guidance of increasing quantitative expression of consciousness. That increasing sentience (self-awareness) and intelligence (learning, problem-solving) is inevitable to at least one line of the possible forms front-loaded into the global genome.
Q: Can it be agreed that quantitative expression of the physical mechanisms of consciousness is likely to be a telic aspect of life's evolution toward increasing complexity (organic/ecological 'loopiness' and adaptive behaviors)?
Q: Can we agree that a sufficient concentration of those mechanisms may enable a causal role (interfacing with the environment) for consciousness in shifting evolution into overdrive (after 3.2 billion years of relative quietude)?
Q: Can we agree that causal (and telic, toward expression of itself) consciousness playing a role in relatively rapid adaptive evolution qualifies as "Intelligent Design?"
________
TP's Response:
You asked…
Q: Can it be agreed that quantitative expression of the physical mechanisms of consciousness is likely to be a telic aspect of life's evolution toward increasing complexity (organic/ecological 'loopiness' and adaptive form/behaviors)?
My version is to suggest that, at the very least, our telic universe has an apparent purpose of existing and being consistent with itself.
Such a universe will literally move heaven and Earth to make happen whatever needs to in order to fulfill its purpose.
I don't find it overly difficult to imagine that life is necessary to fulfill this kind of universe's purpose.
I have intentionally used terms and concepts that are a compromise between the two standard dueling metaphysical positions. You asked "Can it be agreed that…" Highly doubtful, but I am interested to see.
Q: Can we agree that a sufficient concentration of those mechanisms may enable a causal role (interfacing with the environment) for consciousness in shifting evolution into overdrive (after 3.2 billion years of relative quietude)?
Once we get past the first part, this should be easy (famous last words).
Q: Can we agree that causal (and telic, toward expression of itself) consciousness playing a role in relatively rapid adaptive evolution qualifies as "Intelligent Design?"
I still would prefer "Conscious Design" or "Telic Design" but that is old news.
July 27th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Hi All,
Allow me to transfer the basic questions from the other two links in an attempt to move the thread's discussions here.
Here are my questions…
Q: Would an unintentional contamination of earth with extraterrestrial "living matter" be a scientific possibility? Please explain why or why not?
Q: Would space aliens intentionally seeding the Earth be a scientific possibility? Please explain why or why not?
Q: Would a deity or deities directly creating and manipulating "living matter" during Earth's formation be a scientific possibility? Please explain why or why not?
Here are Joy's questions…
Q: Can it be agreed that quantitative expression of the physical mechanisms of consciousness is likely to be a telic aspect of life's evolution toward increasing complexity (organic/ecological 'loopiness' and adaptive form/behaviors)?
Q: Can we agree that a sufficient concentration of those mechanisms may enable a causal role (interfacing with the environment) for consciousness in shifting evolution into overdrive (after 3.2 billion years of relative quietude)?
Q: Can we agree that causal (and telic, toward expression of itself) consciousness playing a role in relatively rapid adaptive evolution qualifies as "Intelligent Design?"
Briefly, here is a summary of my answers.
A: To me, it is beginning to look like extraterrestrial contamination is a given. It's just a matter of figuring out the details. I categorize it as a scientific probability approaching a given.
A: Once extraterrestrial life is accepted as a given then intelligent extraterrestrial life becomes a serious possibility. To me, ET provides the most likely possibility for obtaining tangible evidence of intelligent designers with human-like intelligence.
A: Deities that are truly deities come too close to the NOMA divide for my comfort. I give it a low scientific possibility for the simple reason that a being fallible enough to leave unintentional clues is more likely to be an extraterrestrial pretending to be a deity than being divine. Also, if the deity or deities are timeless beings then it is unfathomable to me they would have human-like intelligence. Purposeful, maybe. But even that is difficult. How does a timeless being make a decision concerning something he/she/it already did? In short, I am very skeptical we would be able to scientifically detect deities, especially timeless ones. Deities make for a great philosophical possibilities and ultimate Truths, but is probably outside the realm of science's magisterium.
A: My version of explaining life complexity is to suggest that, at the very least, our telic universe has an apparent purpose of existing and being consistent with itself.
Such a universe will literally move heaven and Earth to make happen whatever needs to in order to fulfill its purpose.
I don't find it overly difficult to imagine that complex life is necessary to fulfill this kind of universe's purpose.
A: I think Dr. Hameroff makes a convincing argument that consciousness may have very well played a part in fueling the Cambrian Explosion.
A: I still prefer "Conscious Design" or "Telic Design" to "Intelligent Design" but that is old news.
Comment by Thought Provoker — July 27, 2008 @ 7:49 pm
July 27th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
Joy wrote:
(Note, Even though this is a continuation thread had have decided to revert back to my old self. I am not pretending to side with Zachriel et al anymore. But, is was fun)
I refer to this as occasional-episodic change. It is the type of change that that a more gradualistic and undirected approaches in evolution has problems explaining. It simply cannot be denied that there was relatively rapid and diverse or “creative” kind of evolution that occurred at this time. According to Richard Southwood (The Story of Life, Oxford U Press, 2003) The Cambrian only lasted about 40 million years. (By some estimates the Cambrian lasted only 5-10 my’s.) Yet, during those 40 my’s we see the origin of the vast majority the basic phyla that are in existence today ( as well some that have since gone extinct) In other words, in the last 490-530 million years very few phyla have evolved. Why?
I found the following quote to be interesting:
BTW I’m not going to argue that any form of ID has developed an explanation here. (Maybe it will or maybe it won‘t.) I just think these are this is the kind of question that begs an explanation– a scientific explanation. To me is just seems that it doesn’t fit very well with the present neo-Darwinian derived theories. Evolution doesn’t happen slowly & gradually at one continuous speed but in apparently creative and relatively rapid bursts and spurts.
Consciousness brings up a whole other host of problems with it. For example, it is very difficult to reduce consciousness to raw physics. Ask a physicist to explain consciousness by his knowledge of physics and he’ll doubtlessly just shrug his shoulders.
For example, in his 1992 book, Dreams of a Final Theory, Steven Weinberg writes:
I think I have said before, the emergence consciousness is more difficult to explain by recourse to reductive materialism or naturalism than the origin of life.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — July 27, 2008 @ 10:54 pm
July 27th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Hi John,
You wrote…
I think your attempts at looking at things from all sides was admirable. Bravo.
You wrote…
I suspect there might be a good answer for that and while I have some guesses, I would be interested to see what positive answers others have for this thought-provoking question.
Comment by Thought Provoker — July 27, 2008 @ 11:29 pm
July 28th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Joy asks:
I believe consciousness will never be explained by brain biochemistry alone. Biochemical events do affect our thoughts and the reverse is also true. I suspect a resolution of the consciousness issue is beyond the boundaries of science. That puts consciousness in a different perspective than, for example, data related to the formation of an initial cell or what occurs after the cell exists. A causal chain of events is marked by purpose from the begining to the present in my view. This telic aspect does not yield to reductionism. You can take the position that mindless forces of nature explain everything but that's philosophy, not science. If it were true then a mindless process would give rise to a quintessentially telic human organism. A mindless process generating a mind and intelligent design.
Comment by Bradford — July 28, 2008 @ 9:02 am
July 28th, 2008 at 9:03 am
The 'Why' question is indeed intriguing, and must likely await a much better understanding of genomes and other structures/means of inheritance and development. But just from a long view at this end of time, I'd suspect an "Unpacking Event."
If Penrose-Hameroff are right on their numerical threshold for operative consciousness (rudimentary but effective for 'unpacking' the toolkit) then we could expect to find physical mechanisms of interaction eventually. Unless our theoretical framework forbids such heretical ideas, in which case we'd ignore those mechanisms even if we did find them.
Reductive materialism has no use for consciousness. Just an 'emergent epiphenomenon', a ghost of illusions in the machine. Thus if it COULD be reduced to raw physics it would at least then be 'real' enough to count. So reductive materialists claim that the idea of physical correlates of consciousness amounts to "woo." A state of stubborn denial that impresses no one but themselves.
Comment by Joy — July 28, 2008 @ 9:03 am
July 28th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Except that's somewhat misleading. Ediacara biota preexisted the Cambrian Explosion. They didn't survive, but extinction is not particularly unusual in evolutionary history. Also, there's evidence of bilateria 40 million years before the Cambrian. And then there are flowering plants, another huge advance, but one that occurred long after the Cambrian Explosion.
As Joy points out, many (not all) of the genes essential for multicellular evolution were already well-developed by the Cambrian. So what you point to as an "explosion", is just a continuation of a long process of evolutionary adaptation.
Not a problem. Evolutionary changes follow a rough scale free structure. We see lots of small changes, a few big changes, and very rare revolutions. And we know that scale free structures are a natural consequent of preferential attachment (i.e. attachment to nearby, popular nodes under global pressure), in other words, no teleology required.
Another model is adaptive radiation, such as when a species of bird first colonizes an island, then diversifies into a variety of forms to take advantage of the available niches. (There is ample evidence of this from Darwin to the Grants, from morphology to genetics.) There is evidence that increased oxygen level led to the radiation of larger organisms, with the attendant increase in morphological complexity. Once the basic mechanisms of morphological change were developed, that niche was filled. The survivors then had to specialize to compete.
Another point is that the Theory of Evolution predicts that the observed rate of morphological evolution must be at least as great as the fastest rate observed in historical record. The Cambrian Explosion, though relatively rapid, does not exceed observed rates due to natural mechanisms. Indeed, it turns out that observed rates can be much, much higher than necessary to explain the historical record.
After all, humans are 'just' elaborated Deuterostomes. A tube with appendages to stuff food into one end. Microevolution.Comment by Zachriel — July 28, 2008 @ 10:24 am
July 28th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Hello all,
I just wanted to jump on here and and pass a quick "thank you" to Zachriel, for just being himself. I've been mostly a lurker on this blog since april and time and time again Zach has mostly remained true to a more scientific discussion instead of name calling and ridicule.
I don't agree with Zach on the ends that the universe may lack purpose of the "designed" type but it is through adversaries like him that a real vision of what a scientific search for universal purpose should look like.
I've learned alot from the quoted material he has provided for his arguments and the points he attempts to make. More importantly however I have learned to be as specific as possible when formulating arguments of my own, simply by the type of very specific questions he asks here.
So thanks Zach for apparently being yourself.
Personally I believe that every event that happens within the whole of the universe carries purpose of some sort. And my only problem with a purposless accident scenario is the fact that we have such a limited vantage point to do scientific research. It's like a gear is a transmission suddenly becoming aware and asking, "Why am I here? all I do is turn over and over again and get some greasy substance thrown in my face, my existence is crap… I have no purpose…." But in truth that very gear is in fact, an integral part of a Ferrari F-1 car that when seen on the track is an absolute beautiful and powerful design achievment.
I don't think the watchmaker is as blind as some would have us believe. The trial and error intelligence displayed throughout biological evolution is something that I can relate to, it's what we all do to solve problems based in a universe that has a singular flow of perceptable time and an incomplete knowledge of the future. This could be evidence of a mind of some sort that is like mine but on a much larger scale. Something greater that the whole of its parts.
Which is why I must side with TP on the argument of the Quantum universe being so important coupled to an observer of some sort.
Consciousness is the key to the whole shebang.
Comment by Kuma — July 28, 2008 @ 1:04 pm
July 28th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Hi Zachriel,
You wrote…
My favorite fossil, the Vernanimalcula guizhouena!
Thank you, Zachriel for giving me an excuse to brag about the Vernanimalcula guizhouena. Not only was it bilateral it had the beginning of four of the five senses (Front Loaded?).
Here is the link my comment on one of Mike Gene's Front Loading threads over a year ago.
Vernanimalcula means "small spring animal" (wikipedia link)
Let me see if I can simplify what I think I am hearing.
Prior to the Cambrian Explosion the Earth was cold (as in an Ice Age). Life had been evolving for over 3 billion years but wasn't as diverse as modern times. At least we don't have fossil evidence if there was significant diversity. Then a thaw happened ("spring") allowing plants and animals to flourish.
Vernanimalcula guizhouena were very small. Less than a quarter of a millimeter. However, it appears they might have been the intellectual giants of their time. They had complex, interconnected senses that allowed them to hunt their food (again, not overly challenging prey).
I am typically overstating what is directly supportable, but how does one explain the existence of these senses? The alternative is to accept, without reservation, that life didn't naturally evolve but was preloaded to be complex and the Vernanimalcula guizhouena.
After the thaw, the plant life on Earth started growing like… well… WEEDS. All these plants making a lot of oxygen with comparatively little animal life converting it to CO2. This made for an O2 rich atmosphere which is conducive to mutations. This caused our little Vernanimalcula guizhouena (along with other Precambrian species) to mutate into bigger and more diverse species. Eventually the O2 levels reduced enough to slow down the mutation rate, thus bringing an end to what we call the Cambrian Explosion
I am typically overstating what is directly supportable but I tend to like to have working model. Of course this model is subject to modification as more data comes to light.
So, is this a reasonable baseline? What modifications would you offer?
Comment by Thought Provoker — July 28, 2008 @ 1:48 pm
July 28th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Been lurking much longer (couple years now) and I'd whole-heartily agree. So, for what it's worth coming from a lay pseudo-creationist, such as myself, Zachriel has been an exceptional critic and source of information. So thanks, Z! But, then again, I miss stunney and keiths. . . so I'm just weird.
Guess it'd be rude to not post on the topic now. So:
Could you dumb this down? I'm reading that as, 'consciousness drives evolution; evolution trends towards increasing complexity, therefore, evolution [since the ~Cambrian?] is telic'. Reckon I'm missing the point.
Dumb question: How do we determine what was or was not conscious in the past (via fossils)? Was there consciousness (wrt to life on Earth) prior to the Cambrian? Or is consciousness also evolving/increasing in complexity along with the physical mechanisms/body plans. Some sort of symbiotic relationship where one is dependant on the other.
Wikipedia:
But then-
If that's true, that rules out the Cambrian wrt to consciousness. No?
Then again there's the hypotheses of consciousness and spacetime:
So, when it comes to consciousness, time (therefore, time lines/causality/etc.) is moot.
Where the designer is its self? Where's the science end and philosophy begin here?
My head hurts.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I lurk. Just wanted to 2nd the Zbuttkissery.
:spit:
As you were.
Comment by Rob R. — July 28, 2008 @ 2:31 pm
July 28th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
TP:
Actually, lots has already come to light. For instance, consensus no longer holds that Earth ever had a reducing atmosphere, and life began – per somewhat vague evidence – before the end of the Great Pummeling, as extremophiles in deep sub-surface rocks and at high temperatures.
Given the amount of organic molecules (including hydrocarbons) found all over the place in this solar system's corner of the galaxy, it's not too great a stretch to suspect that earth didn't really need all the extraterrestrial input to have plenty of raw ingredients to work with. Though we can presume extraterrestrial inputs too. The 'seeds' of life may be ubiquitous to this phase of stellar evolution.
Life that doesn't do much more than meet-and-greet for more than 3 billion years isn't evolving enough to count. Life that 'explodes' to the entirety of biodiversity – and the entire visible fossil record – in a mere 5-600 million years is in overdrive. Overdrive even paced evenly over that blink of a cosmic eye, but we know it's NOT still exploding like that and hasn't in a good while. Back to FAPP stasis. That makes the few million years of the Cambrian Creativity the fulcrum on which the mere existence of bare life and the spectacular biodiversity we see right now is leveraged.
Something energetic happened. At any rate, I believe the Cambrian fireworks show requires a better explanation than "…but it lasted longer than you think." Relatively speaking, that's still a hand-wave.
Comment by Joy — July 28, 2008 @ 2:49 pm
July 28th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Zachriel wrote:
“Except that's somewhat misleading. Ediacara biota preexisted the Cambrian Explosion. They didn't survive, but extinction is not particularly unusual in evolutionary history.”
I was aware that the Ediacara biota preexisted the Cambrian Explosion. (In fact I’ve read an article some time ago about the so called Ediacaran explosion.) The only point that I was trying to make was that during the Cambrian “we see the origin of the vast majority the basic phyla that are in existence today.” For example we we along with other vertebrates belong to the phyla chordata.
Are you claiming that there are “Ediacara phyla” in existence today? I won’t deny that if that is true, but I don’t see that fact would have any bearing on what I was trying to say. BTW most everything that I have read about the Cambrian deals with fauna not flora. As a non expert I’ll stick with what I know something about.
I’m actually interested in discussing the topic that Joy suggested: the role of consciousness in evolution. Even a minimal amount of animal consciousness should improve what we call natural selection. Under this scenario, consciousness would increasingly become a more & more dominant factor so one could begin to think of conscious selection rather than just simple natural selection. Is the emergence of rudimentary consciousness during the Cambrian era account for its rather accelerated rate change adaptation and diversity?
But that brings up some other questions? Where did consciousness come from in the first place? How did or does non conscious matter-energy create it? How does non-conscious life select from consciousness? Of course you can argue that consciousness is not really anything; but isn’t that saying that consciousness is nothing, that doesn’t really exist? Then how is this sentence getting typed at this moment. (There are materialist’s, like Daniel Dennett, who will argue that way.)
If life in the universe is in some sense ubiquitous can we say the same can be said of consciousness and mind?
And if life, mind and consciousness in the universe in fact are ubiquitous can we really say that there is no meaning, purpose or reason for there existence? How about our existence?
Why are human beings so obsessed with these kinds of questions? Is it all absurd? Some sort of cruel cosmic joke?
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — July 28, 2008 @ 11:16 pm
July 29th, 2008 at 7:45 am
In the spirit of Zachriel just being himself, my argument is not that the universe lacks design, but that there is no *scientific* evidence to support a claim of teleology in biology.
Even single-celled Euglena have light sensing capabilities. (Photons can easily dislodge electrons from many organic compounds.)
Says the tortoise. A half billion years is hardly an insignificant span of time.
The evolution of eukaryota that preceded the divergence of metazoa took hundreds of millions of years. And as ID Advocates like to remind us, eukaryotes are highly complex and integrated organisms.
The definition of a phyla is somewhat arbitrary. We certainly expect the larger limbs on a tree to be the oldest and closest to the trunk. As chordata is predated by bilateria, that would indicate that the evolutionary process is ongoing, not 'instantaneous'. Certainly, there was a rapid divergence of morphological forms, but there are a number of reasonable explanations given above, and nothing that is not reasonably explained by the Theory of Evolution. That doesn't mean there aren't mysteries. We're talking about a history of rapid divergence half a billion years ago that left very scant evidence, and even less evidence of its predecessors.
Comment by Zachriel — July 29, 2008 @ 7:45 am
July 29th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Hey Zach,
Ok, so the Cambrian Explosion didn't just "happen". How long did it take? Granted, I'm not big on the time frame past 10K. To me, that seems more like a direct intervention, again "Front Loading" is pre-planning for things to happen, from an outside source to make the changes. the biggest reason I can think of is how did evolution know what forms to make?
From the sounds of it, the diversity of life was a telelogical event that was started by someone. To me of course, that someone is God. To stay in the good graces of this board, I'll just call Him, "The Designer".
Ed
Comment by lcd — July 29, 2008 @ 8:31 am
July 29th, 2008 at 9:34 am
A few billion years of preparation, then a few tens of millions of years for the Cambrian Explosion, followed by hundreds of millions of years to evolve humans and humming birds. There's been many short bursts of evolutionary activity, such as the rapid radiation of flowering plants, or on a smaller scale, the divergence of finches on the Galápagos Islands.
Unraveling the details of these events can be very difficult, but that doesn't necessarily present a problem to the Theory of Evoluiton generally. It may require a better understanding of the relationship between genetics and morphological evolution. Just because we may be unsure of Pompey's ancestry doesn't imply he doesn't have one.
The huge numbers of extinct forms indicates that nature didn't 'know' and couldn't 'foresee', but was experimenting with many different forms keeping those that worked best in the then current environment.
Comment by Zachriel — July 29, 2008 @ 9:34 am
July 29th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Zach:
It wasn't an explosion (relatively speaking) because it took maybe 30 million years? That sort of demands we sacrifice basic understanding of relative comparisons and factors of 10. 30 million years compared to 3.8 billion years deals with exponentials. It took just over one ten-thousandth [10^-5] of total evolutionary time for the animal kingdom to diversity as far as it was going to diversify clade-wise, everything else was just fun with evo-devo and expression in ecological interplay. Tinkering. That seems fairly 'explosive' to me, relatively speaking.
??? You have ready pre-cambrian examples of 'half-eukaryotes'? Quarter? Semi? Some microbial fossils displaying half a nucleus? Partial cytoskeleton? Semi-flagella? single-strand centrioles?
The origin of eukaryote cells is more mysterious than the Cambrian explosion. Some say symbiosis, some say viral insertions, some say 'evolved' from prokaryotes, some say prokaryotes 'devolved'… you're claiming knowledge here you don't have. It might sound good to you to extend the 'explosion' a few hundred million years one way or the other, but you've no real evidence to justify it.
Per the Cambrian…
Physics Today says discovery of pre-cambrian bacteria and single-celled fungi means the 'sudden' appearance of animal fossils with developed body plans in all the phyla during the Cambrian isn't a challenge to Darwin – as Darwin himself claimed.
National Geographic says that fossilized crustaceans from 511my old rocks now 'proves' that there was evolution in tiny crustaceans BEFORE the Cambrian at 545my ago. Now my math skills aren't what they once were, but how exactly is 511 million years ago farther away from 2008 than 545 million years?
S'okay, though. NG says it's still clear that "something very important happened at the Cambrian…". It's still called an 'explosion' of life forms.
Knoll and Carroll think there was a mass extinction event at the Proterozoic-Cambrian border. From the Conclusions…
Comment by Joy — July 29, 2008 @ 11:05 am
July 29th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I prefer percentages. Thirty million is
one percentof three billion.I think you mean phyla-wise. E.g., aves is a clade that originated well after the Cambrian Explosion, while larger phylogenetic categories have their roots in the Precambrian.
After all, humans are 'just' elaborated Deuterostomes. A tube with appendages to stuff food into one end. Microevolution.
Darwin's prediction was that primitive life existed well before the Cambrian. He was proven right. Science is not completely ignorant of evolutionary events of the Precambrian, but there is still a lot to learn.
Comment by Zachriel — July 29, 2008 @ 1:14 pm
July 29th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Zach wrote:
Ah. I see you've met my brother in law and his family.
Comment by lcd — July 29, 2008 @ 2:41 pm
July 29th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Okay, for exactly 1% of the time life has existed on earth, it evolved into all the current clades and a lot of no longer existing clades, and that 1% of time all fell in one continuous period. Whatever evolved previously or after the great 1% explosion hardly amounts to the kind of serious creativity of kinds that ruled during that 1% of time. I don't see how you can even pretend to claim that.
The question is what possible significance could the development of functional consciousness have in this great explosion of life (and I don't care where, exactly, you want to draw arbitrary lines in the sand between one 'age' and another). Life prior to that time didn't have the equipment to cross the threshold to OR. Life since that time has continued to be well on this side of the threshold, if it's got enough physical complexity per PCCs to boast ~3×10^9 neural tubulin.
Did Consciousness Cause the Cambrian Evolutionary Explosion?
If all you want to do is argue that consciousness has nothing to do with it because there never was an 'explosion', your opinion is noted. You can now move on to arguing about what Jesus said about himself.
Comment by Joy — July 29, 2008 @ 3:58 pm
July 29th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
That's right, Joy. Once you have deuterostomes, everything after is just minor variations. Hardly even worth mentioning. Microevolution.
Comment by Zachriel — July 29, 2008 @ 8:13 pm
July 29th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Yeah, and amazingly enough, those lazy (for 3.2 billion years) microbes were front-loaded for just that single long ingest-excrete tunnel, too. If current theory that eukaryotes preceded prokaryotes, that is. If not, then it must have been Margulis' damned spirochetes!
Everything else is just fun with nodes and nodules, right? Looks like they were front-loaded too.
Comment by Joy — July 29, 2008 @ 8:57 pm
July 29th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Hi Zachriel,
Not to come to Joy's aid (she doesn't need it). But how quick and pronounced would a change have to be to cause you to look for something significant.
I'm not quite sure if I got a positive response whether or not you agreed with my summary that you were suggesting that it was primarily high oxygen levels in the atmosphere that caused the Cambrian Explosion.
To me the Vernanimalcula guizhouena is a significant animal. It isn't that it just has a light sensitive area. It has two light sensitive pits exactly where you would expect eyes to be in a standard body plan.
It had organs. A mouth, a digestive system and an anus. It could smell, taste and feel. It had a "hormone-secreting brain centres" (see Modern brains have an ancient core)
It foreshadowed the explosion that followed.
Is this evidence of foresight?
Is this evidence of some unknown self organizing process?
I'm not ready to start looking for a being with human-like intelligence, but it does peak the curiosity a bit that maybe quantum effects are making temporal interconnections. We have significant experimental data supporting the idea that quantum interactions travel backwards in time.
We are finding surprising examples of life using Quantum Mechanics.
In my travels, I have found that even some of Dr. Hameroff's critics agree that quantum processing is very likely involved with consciousness. They just doubt Dr. Hameroff has the details correct.
Quantum physicists now accept as a given that observation play a role in experimental results. Just think of the ramifications. How many woo-like things have we dismissed because we couldn't get consistent observable results?
It would be like a physicist denying the dual slit controversy because he always has detectors monitoring the slits (never sees the diffraction pattern).
Comment by Thought Provoker — July 29, 2008 @ 9:05 pm
July 29th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Jeepers! Minor variations in deuterostomes range from sea urchins to sea merchants.
Comment by Zachriel — July 29, 2008 @ 9:23 pm
July 29th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
It's all woo to the non-conscious and entirely unaware, TP. It has always been thus. There's no sense fighting it. Zach's just a glorified ingest-excrete tunnel. He has no mind, no intelligence, no consciousness, no reason to be. And wants us to be just like him.
No, thanks. But he can be the nothing he'd be proud to be if he had a mind. I don't mind.
Comment by Joy — July 29, 2008 @ 9:42 pm
July 29th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
The Cambrian Explosion is certainly significant. So is the evolution of land vertebrates. Or the radiation of Darwin's Finches. Or the invasion of America by earthworms.
It's a reasonable hypothesis, but probably not a complete explanation.
I didn't say they were. You asked how we can explain the existence of these senses. Even single-celled Euglena have light sensing capabilities. Once there is a well-defined alimentary canal, then we would expect the sense organs to specialize near the mouth.
No. The evidence indicates that Vernanimalcula was adapted to its niche, and was preceded by more primitive organisms that were adapted to their niche. There is no evidence of foresight.
We have a well-supported Theory of Evolution that explains the vast majority of the data, and though there is only a limited amount of evidence of these early events, what evidence we do have is consistent with the Theory of Evolution.
Comment by Zachriel — July 29, 2008 @ 10:04 pm
July 29th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Last night I asked:
Paul Davies in his book, The 5th Miracle: the Search for the Origin and Meaning of Life, Davies takes up this question.
He argues that there two basic points of view. The first is that evolution is some kind of “drunken walk” or “cosmic lottery.” The second is that evolution is a “ladder of progress.” The first is a dysteleological view; the second is very obviously teleological.
For example, in a debate with SETI advocate Carl Sagan biologist Ernst Mayr argued: “On earth, among millions of lineages or organisms and perhaps 50 billion speciation events only one has led to high intelligence; this makes me believe its utter improbability.”
Mayrs point is that if intelligent life exists anywhere else in the universe it is indeed very, very rare. How long have we (humans) been around as self conscious intelligent beings? How long has the earth been in existence? The universe? Try your hand at those percentages.
On the other hand, Davies points out that, “SETI researchers generally subscribe to the ladder-of-progress concept, accepting that not only life but also mind is in some sense predestined to arise in the universe.”
“The viewpoint” continues Davies, “conceals a huge assumption about the nature of the universe. It means accepting, in effect that the laws of nature are rigged not only in favor of complexity, or just in favor of life, but also in favor of mind.”
Or, he continues, “To put it more dramatically, it implies that mind is written into the laws of nature in a fundamental way.” (p271)
He concludes the chapter that he entitled: “A Bio-Friendly Universe?” with this observation:
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — July 29, 2008 @ 10:42 pm
July 30th, 2008 at 9:26 am
John has a great point when he brought up the fact that if one were to believe in the nihilistic philosophy of no God in natural science then there is nothing to the Universe and no reason to exist.
I don't accept that.
Only through faith and a belief in God and through His Son Jesus can we find purpose and harmony. Otherwise as Zach said, we'd be nothing more than whatever those things are.
Where's the purpose in that?
Comment by lcd — July 30, 2008 @ 9:26 am
July 30th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Icd,
Thanks for your comment.
Actually my purpose in quoting Davies was to point out that questions about teleology transcends religion. The people doing SETI research for the most part are secularist’s and naturalist’s yet as Davies points out their thinking is basically teleological. Sometimes this leads to some thinking that is blatantly contradictory. For, example when he was discussing the origin of life and evolution in general, Carl Sagan, was quite reductionistic and materialistic. In other words, he was dysteleological in his thinking. But when he, as a committed SETI supporter, was waxing eloquent about intelligent life elsewhere in the universe his thinking shifted to a distinctly teleological point of view. However, I doubt that he even glimpsed this inconsistency in himself. Once again to quote Davies: “SETI researchers generally subscribe to the ladder-of-progress concept, accepting that not only life but also mind is in some sense predestined to arise in the universe.”
While religion is almost always teleological. Teleology is not necessarily religious.
The broader point I have been trying to make is, that if life in the universe is in some sense ubiquitous, then there is reason to think that there is some kind of “top down” universal process is at work. Logically we can extend this thinking to the emergence of consciousness and mind. At the very least we cannot assert that this is a logical impossibility. If this is indeed the real case then there is something else going on in the universe apart from blind and unguided natural forces. This something has intrinsic meaning and purpose and gives that meaning and purpose to the universe as a whole.
I am religious but I want to pursue a discussion that is broader than religion. Thanks, again for your comment.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — July 30, 2008 @ 9:48 pm
July 30th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
John A.D.:
Have you looked at all into the Penrose-Hameroff Orch-OR model? It postulates consciousness as an actual parameter of spacetime. Yea or nay, you might find this exposition interesting -
Time, Consciousness and Quantum Events in Fundamental Spacetime Geometry
This ToE (Theory of Everything) has been in active development and testing and refinement for more than 20 years. I have some issues with gravitons in general (doubt their existence), but there sure as heck might be a conceivable fundamental extemal that would do the [specified] job. That's an interpretational complaint, not a conceptual one.
It's certainly NOT an "ID Theory." But it is consistent with an ID approach to the phenomena of life and evolution in a sort of EAMish sense. And consistent with front-loading too, as I'm able to parse. If biology ever has to accept a likely role for consciousness (by some quantitative definition) in the process of adaptive radiation and evolution, then life will qualify as "designed" and not primarily or predominantly accidental. Though disease might be primarily accidental…
Comment by Joy — July 30, 2008 @ 11:14 pm
July 31st, 2008 at 7:47 am
I'm not sure I undestand this point. That hydrogen or rocks or consciousness naturally forms due to the intrinsic properties of the universe doesn't necessarily support a *scientific* claim that these properties are designed, that there is a uber-consciousness that made it so.
Yet, it used to be the uniqueness of human life that led to a claim of God's beneficence. If I remember, they burned Giordano Bruno for suggesting otherwise—to save his soul apparently.
Comment by Zachriel — July 31, 2008 @ 7:47 am
July 31st, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Joy wrote:
Yes, I looked into that last summer. I spent most of July in a long back and forth discussion about Orch-OR with guess who? Mr.Orch-OR himself, TP. I did read through a couple books by Roger Penrose and several articles by Hameroff, including the one you linked to. I was really open to the idea that quantum mechanics might explain some things about consciousness. I came away with the impression that while Penrose and Hameroff are brilliant men, they haven’t grappled with the real problem of consciousness. For example, while both men. I think, allude to the “hard problem” of consciousness I believe Orch-OR goes anywhere towards resolving this issue. My impression is that they alluded to it, and then conveniently forgot about it.
Of course, I’m just a layperson who hasn’t studied these things to great depth, but “serious” scholars of consciousness like John Searle and David Chalmers concur that QM models of consciousness don‘t shed much light in understanding consciousness. Searle has said quite flippantly , it is just using “one mystery to explain another.”
However, I think that is just a little bit too harsh. I do think that there is merit in what Hameroff tries to do by trying to find correlation between consciousness with time. I also think the concept “Planck time” (PT) might be conceptually fruitful. However, that is a starting point not an end point. For example, I am only conscious of my “personal now” (PN) but how does that PN relate to time flowing in the world out there? Is my PN located in an instant of time such as PT or is it some how spread out over time? Or does it transcend time completely? I’m not talking here simply about brain physiology. We can actually do experiments with human perception and it’s been determined that there are thresh holds of perception, etc. I’m really interested the last stop on this logical train of concepts. Pure consciousness itself.
I also think the Penrose and Hameroff are reductionistic in their thinking. Personally, I begin with the concept that consciousness is ontologically basic, or, unmediated first order experience. If we try to reduce it to something else we’ll probably miss it completely. Is it something that we can understand more deeply? Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t.
Zach:
It would help if you read Paul Davies book, The 5th Miracle. First of all, Davies is not making a scientific claim he is describing two basic world views. That is philosophy or natural philosophy not empirical science. Davies argument is that SETI researchers thinking is basically teleological because they assume that there is an active process in the universe that leads first to life, then to consciousness, then to intelligence… to advanced intelligence and technologically advanced civilization, who may be out listening for our radio signals or sending out some of their own. How possibility could a blind, undirected “natural” process lead to advanced intelligence over and over again?
That’s a very limited view on a theological tradition that is very rich. Indeed there have been many theologians since the renaissance who have embraced the idea of the plurality of the worlds without being declared heretics. Among them Timothy Dwight(1752-1817), the grandson of Jonathon Edwards and the 8th president of Yale University (1795-1817). Michael Crowe writes in his book, The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, 1750-1900, that Dwight’s sermons reveal “an author open to the sciences, attracted to natural theology, and convinced of pluralism.” (Pluralism was that the belief that the universe was inhabited by other and numerous intelligent beings.) p175
Dwight himself preached in one of his sermons “the countless multitude of Worlds, with all their various furniture. With his own hand he lighted up at innumerable suns, rolled around them innumerable worlds… Throughout his vast empire, he surrounded his throne with intelligent creatures, to fill the immense and perfect scheme of being.”
Crowes 559 page book deals mainly with how theologians of the 18th, and 19th centuries dealt with the new scientific knowledge that the stars were doubtless countless other suns surrounded by countless other systems of planets. Many theologians like Dwight concluded that they must be inhabited. Why else would God have created so many of them?
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — July 31, 2008 @ 11:32 pm
August 1st, 2008 at 8:23 am
Davies is more than welcome to his preferred metaphysics.
There's nothing inherently teleological about believing that the universe *naturally* organizes itself into stars and galaxies, elements and macromolecules. It may be no more the purpose of the universe to form galaxies than it is for a rock to tumble down a hill or for a planet to follow its orbit.
Though Davies is welcome to his metaphysics, he's not welcome to improperly ascribing it to others. I'm sure some SETI researchers may be teleological in their thinking, but most claim to base their hypothesis on a far-reaching extrapolation of current scientific knowledge.
Big Bang to stars to heavy metals to a watery world to evolution to technology. Most scientists have no problem with this. We have at least one example, an apparently natural process, and important evidence that terrestrial conditions are not unique.
Since the Renaissance.
The point wasn't to cast aspersions. Rather, it's to reiterate that the claim of universal teleology is metaphysical, not empirical.
Comment by Zachriel — August 1, 2008 @ 8:23 am
August 1st, 2008 at 9:24 am
Another way to consider it is that "purpose" is a human construct. We misapply the concept to a rock rolling down a hill when we say the rock's purpose is to reach the lowest point.
Comment by Zachriel — August 1, 2008 @ 9:24 am
August 1st, 2008 at 11:27 am
John A.D.:
The 'Hard Problem' is something that awaits a philosophical framework that doesn't yet exist. What Penrose and Hameroff have done is attempt to quantify the physical mechanisms of consciousness.
Not everyone believes that there is such a thing as consciousness. The philosophical battle rages on, unabated and fraught with the most ridiculous postulations imaginable. But the scientific quest for quantification is important to those funding it – those filthy rich AI-Guys who have so long dreamed of conscious machines and artificial immortality (uploaded minds). It's just another existential angst-inspired search for a way outta here alive.
A raging against the materialist machine, by materialist machinists, that's all. Science investigates the natural world of matter and energy in space and time. Our bodies are made of matter and energy interacting in space and time. Thus I presume there are physical mechanisms for the operations and expressions of consciousness. So do Penrose and Hameroff. Quantifying those mechanisms doesn't tell us anything about the actual nature of consciousness, it just tells us it's got some cool mechanisms of expression that make use of biophysics and biochemistry in a most impressive manner.
FWIW, Penrose is a Platonist philosophically, Hameroff some sort of Buddhist-New Ager. Everyone has metaphysical beliefs, including scientists. At least they're not metaphysical materialists.
Comment by Joy — August 1, 2008 @ 11:27 am
August 1st, 2008 at 11:57 am
John A.D.:
I have studied these things to great depth (for me, anyway). I could happily have spent my whole life not concerned about the nature of consciousness, but then I encountered a miracle of consciousness rather spectacular even if short in duration (his funeral was 16 years ago today). A dozen 'scientific experts' – an entirely meaningless term in a court of law, I assure you – testified under oath that what occurred was indeed a genuine miracle, and that "finding of fact" was duly entered into the record.
Yet because I lived in immediate close proximity to that miracle for two and a half months every day and night, I recognized it depended on the physical in order to express the miraculous. So I went looking for what science knew about such things. I found the never-ending argumentation and a little bit of creative thinking. They basically don't know enough about it to even agree it exists.
Some of what was physically manifesting through the dramatically altered-by-injury consciousness mechanisms in my son's head was indeed completely without precedent (in anyone's experience I'm aware of), and didn't come from around here. Here being the materialistic universe of matter, energy and spacetime. Manifestations of spiritual beings. The ability to see and interact with the people who were fervently praying for him in distant parts of the country and world. The channeling of loved ones long dead to deliver messages to we who loved him so completely…
"Everything will be all right."
But he died. For awhile there he was an open window into some great "More" out there beyond physical manifestation. And yes, for all the pain and sorrow, I do believe everything is all right.
I just wanted to get some idea of the physical mechanisms, perhaps to account for how such things might conceivably turn into an open window on a whole different reality under extreme circumstances. I found a couple of semi-acceptable starts on that theme in the scientific quest. One of those was Penrose-Hameroff.
I don't buy the graviton thing, and it is for all intents and purposes an unfalsifiable extrapolation based on a priori commitment to a standard model I rejected decades ago because it's not just 'incomplete', it's flat-out wrong. But at current and projected scientific abilities I cannot expect much more than what's offered – a collapsing extremal of baseline fundamental nature, even if there's no such thing as actually collapsed extremals. A graviton wouldn't do the job even if I accepted RQFT, but a monopole of some variety would.
Have you ever heard of a "Dirac string?" It's a wholly conceptual open connection to some other place/reality that must be present whenever a 'hedgehog vector' interacts here in our spacetime. This is a possible answer to my question about the open window. Either way, there is more to this thing we call consciousness than physics or biology can ever explain in materialistic terms. I know this by direct empirical experience. Thus it doesn't bother me if others who don't have that experience don't believe in the "More."
We do not have a good handle on time. I have long suspected the true nature of our reality is inextricably bound to the phenomenon – which I also believe to be 'real' and not psychological. I think that if we had an understanding of the true nature of time we would have answers to a good many questions that currently get filed under the heading of Mystery/Miracle.
But that's just me. §;o)
Comment by Joy — August 1, 2008 @ 11:57 am
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:31 am
Joy wrote:
Several years ago I got a chance to talk to a real “rocket scientist“, (actually an engineer) from NASA, who had something to do with designing navigation systems for some of NASA’s deep space probes. I asked him if NASA ever used Einstein’s theory of gravity for interplanetary navigation. He told me that NASA still used Newtonian physics for spacecraft navigation. “It’s more than accurate enough,” he explained, “to get us anywhere we need to go in the solar system.”
My point is, that even though as everyone knows that Einstein’s conception of gravity has displaced Newton’s; Newton is still practical. An analogy can be made here with QM based theories of consciousness, which at present are not well established at all.
I guess it might be because I work in the engineering field and we engineers and designers are, by necessity very pragmatic. Our job is to find real solutions that really work in the real world. I like to find practical steps to solve a problem. So, I approach the problem of consciousness the same way.
However, find something from QM that might suggest some practical solution to a problem and sure it is worth considering.
First, question we need to ask ourselves is: How do we begin to objectively study something (consciousness) that is basically subjective?
The second question is: Are we really trying to understand consciousness, or is it something that we already understand? In which case maybe what we are really trying to understand is how conscious agents (humans or animals) interact with an objective, out there world.
I also think that there are three basic concepts that we need to consider that might at least give us some kind of quasi-objective framework. The three concepts can be summarized with three words: (1)field, (2)flow and (3)focus.
(1) Field is no doubt a concept that is a very familiar one in physics, but I also think that it is very useful in trying to conceptualize consciousness. We are after all conscious of a multi-faceted perceptual field. This field is not only of things out side us, but also of internal, thoughts, feeling and imaginings.
(2)However, this field exists in a flow of time. Remember William James talked about a stream of consciousness. Combine field with flow and that is where (or maybe more accurately when) we have the experience of our “personal now” (or PN). I think that Planck time may be a useful concept here for establishing some kind of limit. After all, Planck time (PT) is the shortest theoretical duration in which anything could happen. However, I think that it would be a stretch to say that our conscious experience happens within PT. I think it is too brief for anything like conscious thought to occur. The more I think about it the more I believe that my experience of my PN is actually spread over some period of time. How long is this time? Obviously long enough to give me that fleeting experience of my PN. Is my PN like a discrete frame in a movie? Possibly. But it could also be something of moving field, which is momentarily unified but continuously changing.
(3)Finally focus is exactly what the word suggests. I am able to focus on particular things within my personal field of consciousness. This brings in other important concepts like volition and intentionality. While we might intuitively think that consciousness is something passive I don’t think that consciousness would be possible without an active, and interactive component. For example, when we think, we make deliberate choices about what to think about.
Well, these are some of my thoughts about how we can perhaps begin study consciousness in at least a semi-objective manner.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — August 2, 2008 @ 12:31 am
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:16 am
John A.D.:
Yeah. I can get from here to the grocery store – or even all the way to Florida – without GPS too. My understanding of north, south, east and west, as well as my knowledge of geography and ability to read maps, is more than accurate enough to get me anywhere I need to go in this country. GPS was invented by men for men (who never ask directions). §;o)
I've never diminished the usefulness of examining or understanding any of the particular attributes and aspects of consciousness-in-action, and for most people that's all they need to know (some don't even care to know that much). I am interested in the actual physical mechanisms on the physical, molecular level because it was on this level that the seriously anomalous manifestations I witnessed 'came through'. There's a receiver in our heads as well as a generator and a transmitter (insert techno-analogy here), and it boils down to the actual biophysical mechanisms.
On that level of physicality, quantum forces play significant roles. Particularly in the very specialized cells of our CPU organ. These mechanisms are more than mere logic gates, gap junctions and 'neural nets'. To examine and try to quantify their operations doesn't require descent into universal parameters (how many dimensions are there – really?), the nature of gravity (unknown), or subdividing time into units so small they're as hard to grasp as eternity is. Dealing with quantum events in the brain on the time-level requires mere nano and mili divisions. FAPP.
Individual researchers, specialists and/or interested laymen can choose the levels at which they care to understand the processes. You can think in terms of fields and information exchange and come out knowing a lot. Others can think in terms of logic gates, gap junctions, biophoton firing and neural net excitations and come out knowing a lot. I went looking deeper because I wanted to know on a different level. But that level wasn't all the way to the first femtosecond of the Big Bang, it was right there in my son's head.
Hameroff's theory of PCC/NCCs via Orch-OR is "good enough for gub'ment work" per MY problem – the attempt to understand a miracle. That's starting with the amazingly anomalous and working backwards into 'what does science know?'. Most scientists (and engineers) are simply trying to quantify and control the normal. The anomalous – though demonstrably existent – doesn't factor in their approach and isn't present in their conclusions. But I've always figured that any ToE [Theory of Everything] that cannot explain the anomalous as well as the norm isn't worth its title.
All empirical experience is basically subjective. It's only objective when we agree to label it such because two or more people agree about the descriptions of what was experienced. That's semantics, not empirical experience itself. Our beginnings are predicated upon which level we care to approach, that's all.
You said it yourself:
1. Field. The quantum forces involved in PCC/NCC-level operations are field phenomena.
2. Flow. The directionality of time at this level of examination is discrete – determined by "irreversible events" that translate to "collapse of wavefunction" in standard QM, even if you don't believe in Copenhagen. To work with the phenomena in the lab or try to understand them in broader context, acceptance of the notion of collapse is required. FAPP. Once collapse has occurred, the system can't go back to being what it was before it collapsed – the event is "irreversible," and this gives time a definite direction in physical reality, not just in subjective experience.
3. Focus. You place this aspect at the level of awareness, which works for the level of examination you've chosen. That's fine. I've chosen to examine the level of awareness that might lend understanding to the anomalous ability to see and interact with people in a distant location focused on this person. He couldn't control it, but in his state of mind it seemed perfectly normal – just happens. "Grandpa was here, you just missed him. There were a bunch of people with him, they were singing and clapping, it was nice."
There are plenty of theorists and researchers across a dozen or so scientific and philosophical fields from all over the world involved in the well-funded quest for consciousness. Most are working from semi-objective (agreed-upon) data. They don't need me (beyond my participation in synesthesia research, as a subject). Even that low level of participation begins with the anomalous, so I think there is value to the project from that approach. Just like I think there is value to the project of understanding general biology and evolution from the teleological approach.
Those who react emotionally to the very idea are displaying their fear of the anomalous. I'm not afraid of it – I ARE anomalous! There is no sound scientific reason to ignore the odd manifestations, though if you're just going for a 'norm' you can safely exclude them to get your working definitions.
There are a number of working definitions out there, particular to the levels of examination, the fields of study, and the personal abilities of the researchers. Johnjoe McFadden has an interesting field theory you'd probably enjoy. If you ignore unwarranted conclusions.
Here is his 'Machines Like Us' interview.
Comment by Joy — August 2, 2008 @ 11:16 am
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Zachriel writes:
Davies is simply following the arguments of George Simpson, Ernst Mayr, and Stephen J Gould their logical conslusion. For example, Gould writes: “We are glorious accidents of an unpredictable process with no drive to complexity; not the expected results of evolutionary principles that yearn to produce a creature capable of understanding the mode of its own necessary construction.” (p270)
Gould of course is famous for arguing that if you wiped all life off the face of the earth and started again with just microbes it is very improbable evolution would retrace its steps and end up with some kind of intelligence. Furthermore, if there is no intrinsic drive towards complexity we can reasonably expect it would get no further than microbes.
Davies writes: “I agree with Gould. A trend of increasing complexity would provide evidence or purpose in the universe.”
I think there is very little we can conclude scientifically from just one data set and some thin circumstantial evidence from deep space. That is why questions about extra terrestrial life are, at the present, primarily philosophical and theological ones.
Can you scientifically prove that life, the universe and mankind have no kind of ultimate purpose?
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — August 2, 2008 @ 12:57 pm
August 2nd, 2008 at 1:41 pm
No, it's not obviously teleological. As Davies founds his argument on a faulty assumption, the rest of his argument is not supported.
Evolving organisms, by the principle of fecundity, tend to fill niches as they become available. That includes nearby niches that require incremental increases in complexity (such as by increasing cooperation among kin). Think of it as water poured against a wall (of zero complexity). The water will tend to spread away from the wall (into increasing complexity). This would be a tendency, but not purposeful.
You asked "how possibly", which I answered. We have one instance of life evolving by natural causes. That leads to the hypothesis that Earth is not unique. This hypothesis has been fruitful, leading to the discovery of extrasolar macromolecules, extrasolar planets and advances in abiogenetics. It is certainly not conclusive, the biggest question for most scientists being the frequency of life.
Zachriel: my argument is not that the universe lacks design, but that there is no *scientific* evidence to support a claim of teleology in biology.
Zachriel: Another way to consider it is that "purpose" is a human construct. We misapply the concept to a rock rolling down a hill when we say the rock's purpose is to reach the lowest point.
Comment by Zachriel — August 2, 2008 @ 1:41 pm
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Zachriel:
After quoting me you immediately took me out of context.
I said: How possibility could a blind, undirected “natural” process lead to advanced intelligence over and over again?”
Notice that I said “over and over again.” I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the idea that it could have happened at least once. (Though personally I remain skeptical of even that.)
Obviously, someone like Gould was also willing to assume that advanced intelligence evolved at least one time–here. What I was questioning was whether it could happen over and over again in the universe. (Gould, Simpson and Mayr basically asked the same question which they answered in the negative.)
For SETI to be viable project, intelligent life needs to have evolved, not just someplace else in the universe, but someplace close by within our own galaxy. Gould’s argument suggest that that would be highly unlikely. If we describe Gould’s position as dysteleological how do we describe a process that leads to intelligence over and over again in the universe? At the very least it is less dysteleological, isn’t it?
Davies fully appreciated there would be resistance to his arguments. He writes: “Although biological determinists strongly deny that there is any actual design, or preordained goal, involved in their proposals, the idea that the laws of nature may be slanted towards life, even if not contradicting the letter of Darwinism, certainly offends its spirit. It slips an element of teleology back into nature a century and a half after Darwin banished it.” (p263)
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — August 2, 2008 @ 10:14 pm
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Yes, I read that. I also read the word "could". The answer remains; it happened once, there is evidence that it happened due to natural causes, and there is evidence these conditions are not unique. That's how it "could" happen. That doesn't mean it does happen, or that it's a necessary event, or at what frequency it might occur.
You don't have to have a teleological view to think that intelligence is not unique in the universe.
And all this time I thought the universe was slanted towards making rocks.
Comment by Zachriel — August 2, 2008 @ 10:47 pm
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Joy wrote:
In the late 19th century physicists thought they were close to closing the book on physics. There was optimism that just about every significant discovery that needed to be made had been made. All that needed to be worked out were some of the details. Lord Kelvin said that there remained two troublesome anomalies that needed to be resolved. One had to do the velocity of light; the other dealt with black body radiation. Did it even cross Kelvin’s mind that these two little anomalies might lead to two new theories? Two new experimentally supported theories did arise in the early 20th century. Two new theories that still haven’t been reconciled. Of course, I’m talking about Einsteins theories of special and general relativity (which grew out of the speed of light anomaly) and quantum physics (the black body anomaly.)
This should be a cautionary tale to any scientist that that doesn’t take anomalies seriously.
Anomalies may be hiding new scientific discoveries and theories. I think there are a number anomalies surrounding the so called modern evolutionary theory that should be given a closer look.
Thank you for the Joejohn Mcfadded and MLU link. I was actually more interested in what he had to say about AI. As a real life designer I’m intrigued by the whole idea of AI. In fact, designing something using some new theoretical insight is the best way to prove your theory is correct. What better proof was there of nuclear fission than the A-bomb? Nuclear fusion…the H-bomb?
What better way to prove that you understand mind and consciousness is there than build a true electronic brain? A computer (or computer type machine) that is aware of it’s own existence? I have yet to read anything about anyone who knows how to do this. (I know there are a lot of people who believe it can be done.) If you know of anybody like that have them send me the plans. I’d love to learn at last what it is that makes us conscious,
The same goes for the origin of life. Of course, the creation of artificial life would only prove that an intelligence (us) could bring about the origin of life. To prove, on the other hand, that life could have in principle come about by an unplanned, unguided natural process you would have to somehow get intelligence out of the loop. I know that a lot of people believe that the origin of life is natural, but how exactly did nature actually do it?
I’m not so much have an advocate of ID as I am a believer that there are limits to science. Of course, those limits could change with new discoveries but for the moment the origin of life, and the origin of consciousness and mind lie beyond those limits.
You also wrote earlier:
I remember you talking about this before. If I remember accurately it was a son you lost, am I correct?
I’ve known people who have lost children and I know it is one of the tougher things, if not toughest things, for people go through. For example, I know of several people who have lost very young children (3-6 years of age) two to cancer, and one in the crash of a small plane. The plane victim was particularly tragic because he died in the plane his father was piloting. Badly injured himself this man pulled his 3 year son from the wreckage of the burning plane, but it was already too late. Peter had died instantly on impact.
Another person I met, lost his 20 year old daughter to a cerebral hemorrhage. It was especially cruel the way it happened. Shephenie, his beautiful and musically talented daughter, had been away from home on a year long mission trip. The night she arrived home there was an impromptu party, a gathering of family and friends to welcome her. Of course, she was overjoyed to see everyone, but then she got a head ache. A few hours later she died in a hospital emergency hospital room.
Personally, I lost both parents after long periods of illness. That was hard, but it is something that I have come to accept as part of life. We weren’t meant to live forever. (At least not here.) But, children are not supposed to die before their parents.
I’m sure our resident critics will have something to say about this. We have heard it before: how can a loving and omniscient God allow bad things to happen to such good people? But, ironically, those questions didn’t destroy the faith of these people. They used their faith to confront their suffering. That is what faith is for.
You know if someone could prove to me that all the argument for design were truly nonsense, I don’t think it would destroy my faith. It wouldn’t destroy it because I know too many people like these.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — August 3, 2008 @ 8:19 pm
August 4th, 2008 at 10:48 am
John A. D.:
Well, that's the general gist of what they're going for. Though I haven't heard about anybody actually building a conscious machine yet. Hopes appear to be pinned at this point on development of quantum computation, which will open up the massive parallel power mere zeroes and ones can't approach. But that's probably another decade or two away unless something anomalous happens… §;o)
I personally suspect they might get a glimmer of self-awareness from a qubit machine, and it will certainly qualify as 'intelligent' as our zero/one machines do right now (that's why we use them to do the grunt computations for us). But I suspect the computational capabilities of neurons are much, much more sophisticated than just three-state qubits. There may be four or more states of tubulin. Once they understand the dynamics of state-switching, it won't be that difficult to design artificial proteins for the purpose. They're already working on using DNA to encode the programs, so in the future our conscious computing machines might look a bit like brains in aquariums (Ugh!!!).
Obviously, there are quite a few who aren't shy of putting real money into testing Penrose-Hameroff's theoretical ideas, despite general "huh?" from the laity. If it works – even on a rudimentary level – Hameroff will be vindicated, and it won't matter at all that nobody knows what the extremal is. Penrose's theory will advance too, and that will be strong indication that consciousness is a fundamental parameter of our spacetime that seeks to express itself through matter/energy.
If it turns out that we can tap into a fundamental to create organic-like machines that express consciousness, I suspect the very definition of 'natural' will have to undergo some retrofitting. It won't tell us how the pieces-parts managed to assemble themselves into the first cellular life, but it will tell us that life is 'intelligently designed'.
Sometimes I get frustrated enough to wish I could box 'science' on its ears for being so danged dumb. But most of its most stringent limitations are those it collectively imposes on itself because it's so scared of what it might find out. That's a problem of boxed-in metaphysics, not necessarily a limitation on nature at all. A matter of asking the wrong questions, complicated by a priori walls around what questions CAN be asked.
Quite apart from the religion vs. atheism public face of these debates, there is a different kind of fear that fuels the doctrinal engine of academic 'orthodoxy'. If you're a scientist working in the proprietary labs of industry I've heard that the very first thing you have to learn is to UN-learn what you've been taught about the brick wall around causation. I keep noting the number of cutting-edge researchers (on things like prions, MTs, etc. pertinent to the semi-public consciousness quest) who disappear behind the privatized funding without so much as a by-your-leave, often leaving the public end of things bereft of those who know the most about details. So once-fascinating lists become just more cranky philosophical slap-fests. Oh, well… it's a good training ground.
The problem with the quest's largely private funding situation is that the hands-on science goes 'underground' – unavailable to the public until and unless they come up with a designed product (or accidental discovery that can be turned into a product) that can be peddled to the masses at great cost. What it is and how it works is something not even FDA cares to know these days, when Big Pharma can go ahead and invent diseases and conditions out of whole cloth just so they can sell you their 'cures'. Restless Leg Syndrome, anyone? [sheesh!]
You know, I've heard that a lot. And having experienced it, I can tell you it most certainly FEELS horribly wrong. But it also seems to be one of those quirks of human consciousness that appeal to demonstrably non-existent ideals that even more demonstrably don't apply to life and death on planet earth. Look around – children die every minute of every day, all over the world parents lose their children and feel that they've been wronged by the universe.
And if they manage to live past puberty, we start wars and send our young out to die on forgotten battlefields (so we can still live and be rich). Molech isn't the only bloodthirsty god humans ever came up with! Like 'True Justice', the idea that children shouldn't die before their parents is something that humans feel very strongly *should be*, but *is not*.
After awhile, if you live long enough to experience enough of what we call "injustice," you begin to wonder how in the world natural, accidental critters like us could ever have ideated and internalized such silly notions in the first place. Under a strict materialist view such as NDS 'orthodoxy' imposes, there's simply no excuse for it. By rights, complaining about injustice would be considered a serious mental illness, since there's no such thing as justice to appeal to!
Very strange… §;o)
Comment by Joy — August 4, 2008 @ 10:48 am