Melencolia I Project Articles

I'm using this post to collect together the articles and papers I have produced for my Melencolia I series. I will update this post as I produce written items.  This will mean I can use a link to this post to give access to the whole series.

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About the Melencolia I Project
In 1993, after nearly twenty years since my first encounter with quantum mechanics, I started investigating it once again. The urge to do this was brought on by a feeling that at last I just might have some insight as to the meaning of the strange world of quantum theory. This insight, if such it was, came out of my Thinknet Project, a project I had started in the 1980s. What piqued my interest was that the general structure of Thinknet theory, which in turn was based on some of ideas of the psychologist Edward de Bono, was reminiscent of quantum mechanics; in particular I fancied I saw in quantum mechanics a declarative structure not unlike my Thinknet simulations: Further detail on this matter can be found in the summing up sections of these papers here and here. To me it had started to look as if the standard imperative programming model was an inadequate metaphor for the cosmic physical laws, and instead we were dealing with something which had a declarative structure, a structure isomorphic with my Thinknet simulations. Some say the cosmos is a piece of intelligent design, but to me it had started to look more like the inside of a functioning intelligent process; so, less intelligent design, more the inside workings of a process of intelligent creation. If this was true then it would mean that the human perspective on the cosmos was a bit like the point of view of a neuro-scientist investigating the brain – down at the microscopic level the brain presents us with the relatively mundane operations of neurons, neuro-transmitters, electrical fields, signalling and the like; zooming in even further we find molecular chemistry; down at this level the traits we usually attribute to mind, namely intentionality, conscious sentience, purpose and teleology, dissolve into fragments, if indeed they appear to exist at all. In fact it’s a bit like aerial archaeology; viewed from on high the coherent patterns on the ground are clear to see, but at ground level they all but disappear. And yet those aerial patterns must somehow be impressed in subtle ground-level features, features which otherwise present a liminal threshold to the ground level observer.

Cognitive specialists are still trying put all the low level bits together in order to give a coherent third person account of the first person conscious perspective associated with the macroscopic mind. All said and done it seems that “Conscious cognition” is only meaningfully present at the integrated system level rather than the deconstructed component level observed by the third person. But there’s a paradox here; the third person scientific perspective presupposes the existence of the rational observer and scientific narrative constructor, which when traced back to its source itself entails a first person conscious perspective, the very thing under investigation. Ultimately the third person perspective presupposes a first person perspective and it’s easy to overlook this fact. Without an implicit full blown first person conscious perspective the third person account of the cosmos doesn’t make sense. In short, the third person perspective only makes sense if one presupposes the existence of an up-and-running rational first person perspective. 

If it’s a challenge to imagine how the details of the low-level biochemical perspective adds up to the integrated sentience of human beings then perhaps we have an inkling of the why, if the cosmos really is intelligence in action, we don’t readily see intentionality and teleology at work in the cosmos; we are simply too close to the stuff of the cosmos to perceive it. At first sight the cosmos looks to be an utterly meaningless and purposeless imperative computation, so much so that for many in the West there is no real substantive evidence of an immersive immanent intelligence surrounding us. In contrast I am offering, by way of an alternative (although admittedly it is a very long shot conjecture), that the cosmos is our low-level third person view of an intelligent declarative computation in operation; much like the low-level perspective a neuro-scientist has of the brain.

Human life only becomes coherent if one regards the first and third person perspectives as complimentary. If the third person examines a human being closely all they see is a complex network of biochemical structures and signals. But to make complete sense of this structure and its complex signalling network the third person must make an empathetic leap of the imagination; namely to understand that this system and its processes has a point by point conformity with the sensations & feelings of a first person perspective. But if we are going to make this empathetic leap with the human mind we may then be prompted to ask ourselves this question: Is our third person understanding of the cosmos, a cosmos with hints of a possibly declarative structure, also associated with some kind of first person perspective? This is a very speculative and conjectural leap but the beauty of being a private operator like myself is that there’s nothing to lose by seeing how much mileage one can get out of off-the-wall ideas like this. 

To allay the worries of Christian theologians about pantheism, none of this is to say that the cosmos is somehow to be identified with a sentient God; better to think of it as the manifestation of God’s thoughts about the cosmos, a cosmos which perhaps runs in the divine mind in a similar way a story runs in the mind of an author. The point of view I’m probing here is very different to that of the Intelligent Design creationists of North America who have adopted a dualistic intelligence-of-the-gaps procedure which means their inquiry stops dead once they have decided that they can’t see how so called “natural forces” give account of an object in question. In contrast I’m proposing those so-called natural forces are part of an intelligent process; hence I prefer to think of myself as heralding intelligent creation rather than intelligent design. What also sets me very much apart from de facto intelligent design is that I have to confess my ideas are highly speculative and very conjectural. I’m involved in the investigation of a hunch, a hunch which provides no pretext to spiritually abuse those who are not inclined to believe it. Moreover, I’m not coy in suggesting that the intelligence behind the conjectured intelligent cosmic processes would to all human intents and purposes be divine. Therefore I’m making no pretension to doing formal science. This is an entirely informal epistemic endeavour which can only offer a tentative take-it-or-leave-it post-facto sense making narrative (See here). Unlike the IDists and the so-called "creation scientists" I'm not making any claim to being God's gift to science. I'm a science hobbyist doing the equivalent of building a light aircraft in his shed hoping that one day it may fly, but not needing to invest too much in that hope because in the final analysis it has to be about the journey, not the destination: For, in by far and away the greater number of human endeavors a project's journey's end is about failure, not success. Therefore I'm expecting my own efforts to likely end in failure. But then as George Bernard Shaw said:

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."

Critique of "Intelligent Design"

In this post I discussed some ideas by one of the de-facto IDist, Robert Sheldon. In the weltanschauung of de facto ID “natural forces”, so-called, play a minimal role in the formation of life. Rather, in their view you need an external intelligent homunculus to do that. The idea that the world around us be so immersed in the mind of God that there is no humanly discernible distinction between scaffolding and building, between natural forces and intelligence, hasn’t occurred to them. The outcome is that the de-facto IDists are thoroughly committed to showing the inadequacy of “natural forces” to generate life:  The IDist epistemic is embodied in their “explanatory filter” which obliges them to preserve those enigmatic gaps in law and disorder science at all costs. In line with this negative tradition IDist Robert Sheldon pointed out that a random walk search, a search which proceeds to expand into its search space in proportion to the square root of time is too slow to be up to the task of finding viable living structures via evolution. The reason why random walk search is so slow is that as it proceeds the number of routes it has to explore goes up exponentially. But Sheldon’s obvious philosophical motive was to trash the idea that “Evolution did it” via random walk in favour of his belief that “God Intelligence did it”. But just how that intelligence did it the IDists do not say because they consider the detailed nature of intelligence to be beyond their terms of reference; it's almost as if the nature of intelligence is far too sacred ground for them to investigate.

In the Intelligent Design paradigm  intelligence and so-called “natural forces” are part of an unbridgeable dichotomy. It hasn’t occurred to IDists that just as the particulate low-end details of brain dynamics provides clues as to its high end operation, those so called “natural forces” we see at work across the cosmos may contain valuable clues about the operation of an intelligent process. In my blog post I've linked to I pointed out that Sheldon was reckoning without quantum mechanics; for not only does quantum mechanics have huge potential by way of its expanding parallelism, its wave motion has the effect of cancelling out the immense combinatorial sink of randomness. Thus quantum mechanics scores on at least two counts, namely a) Exponential resources and b) The cancellation of randomness. The second count means that its wave envelopes expand not with the square root of time but linearly in time. Although I would ultimately agree with Sheldon that non-locality is involved as per a declarative computational paradigm which ultimately selects from a huge array of search items, it is those so called “natural forces” which have an absolutely crucial searching role in the return of those outcomes.

The de facto ID community represented by the likes of websites such as Uncommon Descent and The Discovery Institute talk obliquely of a mysterious Intelligent Agent being the likely default means of explanation when our understanding of "natural forces" is (currently) unable to account for a phenomenon. Of course, everyone knows that these people are really talking about God and the IDists' studied detachment from theology comes over as an affectation, disingenuous even. Talking vaguely about "Intelligent causes", however, does give a scientific gloss to their work; after all, it is true that archaeology is in the business of separating out the "natural" from the "artificial". Moreover, if ever an obviously empirical situation should arise like that depicted in 2001 Space Odyssey, the question of intelligence and the nature of that intelligence would loom large in scientific circles. So arguably "Intelligent Design" is a little like archaeology and SETI and  therefore does have a prima facia claim to being  science. 

But of course we know that the de facto IDists are really thinking theologically and that is where lie their mistakes: They have in fact committed scientific, tactical and theological errors. Their error is scientific because their epistemic filter is misconceived; this misconception  leads into a natural forces vs God dichotomy which in turn helps foster scientific blunders such as the claim that evolution is inconsistent with the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Their error is tactical because their pretense at doing science uncontaminated by theology is just that; a pretense and everyone, especially atheists, can see it. Their error is theological because God is both immanent and eminent and therefore He is immanent in natural forces. It follows then that we can seek God in those so-called natural forces and not just as an ancillary outside intelligent agent; or perhaps I should say that those "natural forces" are in God. For God is the eminent and immanent context of all that his authorship permits reification in the story He tells. The immanence of God means that he is of an entirely different genus to any ancillary intelligence such as man or aliens; if we are theologically turned on then we don't expect ancillary intelligence or humunculus intelligence to be a good model for God. 

In order to maintain a scientific gloss we find that IDists will often try to avoid mention of God in their works. Not only has this tactic miserably failed but I believe it is impossible for the Christian to carry on like this. If we are dealing with immanent intelligence and not just ancillary intelligence this subject cannot be approached without mention of the immanent Sovereign Manager and Creator. That's not a mistake I intend to make myself. My project is explicit about seeking the Sovereign Manager and Creator of our cosmos. I therefore make explicit mention of Him. Also, unlike the IDists I am not making strong claims of doing exclusively science (although some parts will be science) since my epistemology is far more broad brush than spring extending and test tube precipitating science. This will mean that any atheist who dislikes the idea of a Sovereign God being at the heart of a study will not find grounds for accusing me of trying to pull the wool over his/her eyes. There is one thing worse than a deceiver and that is the incompetent deceiver who is oblivious to the fact that his attempt at deceiving is so obvious.

So all in all I've become increasingly displeased with the de facto ID movement and their transparent facade of studied scientific detachment. But I'm in good company: I don't think Sir John Polkinghorne is pleased with them either. 

See also: 
http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/why-i-repudiate-de-facto-intelligent.html

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Main Papers and Articles of the Melencolia I Project

Part 1: http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/melencolia-i-and-great-plan.html

Part 2: http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/the-melencolia-i-manifesto-part-2.html

Part 3: http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/melencolia-i-part-3-sharpening-focus.html

Part 4: http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/melencolia-i-part-4-generating.html

Part 5: http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/melencolia-i-part-5-creating-information.html

Part 6: http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/melencolia-i-part-6-quantum-leaps.html

Part 7: http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/melencolia-i-part-7-creating.html

Supporting and Relevant Articles

Configuration space Series

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/configuration-space-via-mathematical.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/config-space-via-mathematical.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/config-space-via-mathematical.html

William Dembski’s views:

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/dembski-im-not-denying-evolutionary.html
Stephen C Meyers views

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/theology-and-north-american-id-part-1.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/theology-and-north-american-id-part-2.html

General article on procedural vs declarative computation

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/declarative-cognition-vs-procedural.html

Felsenstein vs. Dembski

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/dembski-and-felsenstein.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/dembski-and-felsenstein-part-ii.html

Felsenstein and English vs. Dembski, Ewart and Marks

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/algorithms-searches-dualism-and.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/algorithms-searches-dualism-and_12.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/algorithms-searches-dualism-and.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/algorithms-searches-dualism-and_13.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/intelligent-designs-2001-space-odyssey.html

The Cosmic Perspective and Intelligent Creation

I wrote this essay entitled The Cosmic Perspective in 2000. Looking back I can see that it reflects my developing concept of intelligent creation, a concept I had started to develop during the early 1990s and have continued to work on in articles and papers I've posted on this blog. Intelligent Creation must be distinguished from the North American idea of Intelligent Design. The latter is a dualist philosophy which sees God as a kind of humunculus, much like an alien intelligence*, whose activity is thought to be very distinct from so-called "natural processes" and whose ad-hoc work is needed to bring about configurations of matter that "natural forces" are believed to be inadequate to generate; the evidence for the existence of this kind of God-cum-alien who makes good the assumed gaps in the physical paradigm depends very much on the demonstrating the inadequacy of the cosmic physical regime to explain life. Intelligent Creation on the other hand has an immanent vision of a God whose intelligent working is manifested in the processes of the so-called "natural world". 

I got the term "Cosmic Perspective" from Jonathan Benison's commentary notes in the Cideb Editrice edition of H. G. Wells' book The Time Machine, a book that is very much about the intellectual and emotional challenge humanity faces in coming to terms with a Cosmos that apparently is absent of any personal immanent intelligence and purpose. In  his commentary Benison writes:

"Wells' time traveler .... has to learn to accept his limitations as a human being and to become perceptive to the cosmic perspective, the view of human reality that an impartial external judge might have. 

H. G. Wells ultimately bleak purposeless vision of the Cosmos is echoed in the views of Brian Cox.


Footnote:
* I also would like to draw attention to the work of biologist Denis Alexander, an evangelical Christian, who has also argued against Intelligent Design's inherent dualism. See here

Evolutionary Theory vs. The Theory of Evolution

Who or what is driving evolution?

Evangelical atheist Professor Larry Moran writes a very useful blog post here. The title of the post is "Don't call it the theory of evolution". His justification for this title, and I probably agree with him, is that evolution is, in fact, a cluster of ideas and theories about the mechanism of evolution which are better termed "Evolutionary Theory" since there really isn't such a thing as The Theory of Evolution. This is what he says (my emphases):

What do scientists really mean when they refer to "The Theory of Evolution"? There is no single theory of evolution that covers all the mechanisms of evolution. There's the Theory of Natural Selection, and Neutral Theory, and the Theory of Random Genetic Drift, and a lot of theoretical population genetics. Sometimes you can lump them all together by referring to the Modern Synthesis or Neo-Darwinism

Instead of using the phrase "The Theory of Evolution," I think we should be referring to "evolutionary theory," which may come in different flavors. The term "evolutionary theory" encompasses a bunch of different ideas about the mechanisms of evolution and conveys a much more accurate description of the theoretical basis behind evolution. Douglas Futuyma prefers "evolutionary theory" in his textbook 'Evolution' and I think he's right. It allows him to devote individual chapters to "The Theory of Random Genetic Drift" and "The Theory Natural Selection."

Larry goes on to quote Douglas Futuyama (I have the same book, Evolution) who actually gives a very general definition of evolution that Larry himself has touted. I emphasize the aspects of this general definition in the bold emphases below: 

So is evolution a fact or a theory? In light of these definitions, evolution is a scientific fact. That is, descent of all species, with modification, from common ancestors is a hypothesis that in the past 150 years or so has been supported by so much evidence, and so successfully resisted all challenges, that it has become a fact. But this history of evolutionary change is explained by evolutionary theory, the body of statements (about mutation, selection, genetic drift, developmental constraints, and so forth) that together account for the various changes that organisms have undergone.

We now know that Darwin's hypothesis of natural selection on hereditary variation was correct, but we also know that there are more causes of evolution than Darwin realized, and that natural selection and hereditary variation themselves are more complex than he imagined. A body of ideas about the causes of evolution, including mutation, recombination, gene flow, isolation, random genetic drift, the many forms of natural selection, and other factors, constitute our current theory of evolution, or "evolutionary theory." Like all theories in science, it is a work in progress, for we do not yet know the causes of all of evolution, or all the biological phenomena that evolutionary biology will have to explain. Indeed, some details may turn out to be wrong. But the main tenets of the theory, as far as it goes, are so well supported that most biologists confidently accept evolutionary theory as the foundation of the science of life.

What we have here is a concept of evolution that can be roughly characterized as mere continuity of change with the full range of proposed mechanisms of change up for grabs. This form of evolution which is accepted as "fact", is so general that it could include all sorts of hidden mechanisms that entail "modification" perhaps even the tinkerings of an intelligent designer! - not that I'm necessarily suggesting that, but just to illustrate the generality of the fact of evolution! This kind of evolution as "fact" is a very broad tent indeed! Larry has posted on this very general definition of evolution before and I did a post on his post here. 

However, it is quite obvious that Larry and Futuyama wouldn't actually have the mechanism of intelligent modifications in mind; rather they are likely to opt for mechanisms implicit in  the mathematical "law and disorder"* objects of the physical canon. In fact as we read above both Futuyama and Larry seem confident that the main causes of evolution have been nailed. Nevertheless, there is just enough maneuver room here for the homunculus Intelligent Designers!

Here is one of the statements by Larry which I quoted in my original post on this general definition of evolution (My emphases): 

Neil deGrasse Tyson said that the theory of evolution is a fact. This is not correct. Evolution is a fact. Evolutionary theory attempts to explain how evolution occurs. Some of the explanations, like natural selection, are facts but many aspects of modern evolutionary theory are still hotly debated in the scientific community.

And by "evolution" Larry doesn't mean a great deal more than continuity of change. However, I doubt if they will be debating if a homunculus is involved!

Finally in his post Larry concludes with:

When you're talking about the mechanisms of evolution, please use "evolutionary theory" instead of "the theory of evolution."

Will do!

Footnote
* Or "law and randomness". By this I mean that the calculations of the physical canon use both short time, small space algorithms and the statistics of disorder. See here for more technical details on the meaning of short time, small space algorithms and randomness. The deep question is why should these relatively simple mathematical objects predominate when other possibilities exist?

Mind the Gaps

In a post on the ID Website Uncommon Descent entitled Casey Luskin on Theistic Evolutionist’s evidence-phobia contributor Denise O’Leary quotes de facto ID guru Casey Luskin as follows:

Picture originally found on "Sandwalk" The speech bubble is mine.

Of course, when BioLogos claims “it is all intelligently designed,” they mean that strictly as a faith-based theological doctrine for which they can provide no supporting scientific evidence. Indeed, it’s ironic that BioLogos accuses ID of “removing God from the process of creation” when Collins writes that “science’s domain is to explore nature. God’s domain is in the spiritual world, a realm not possible to explore with the tools and language of science.” Under Collins’s view, God’s “domain” is seemingly fenced off from “nature,” which belongs to “science.”

My Comment: Here we go once more unto the breach dear friends: Western Dualism’s nature vs. theology dichotomy! What’s the point of theology if it isn’t responding to the empirical conditions of the human predicament by attempting to provide, however inadequately, a world-view level account of it? Under any circumstances theology is not fenced off from “nature”. If nature = creation and humanity is part of creation then any experience/observation/thought we have, based as it is in the created psyche of our humanity will by definition also be part of creation and therefore classify as “nature”. Ergo, theology, which presumably attempts to make sense of the broad sweep of human experience, is inextricably bound up with so called “nature”.  But admittedly, theology, like string theory has more the role of providing postdictive sense making narratives rather than that of predictive testability.

Since CIDs [Christian intelligent design supporters] treat design as a scientific hypothesis, not a theological doctrine, they would reply that a failure scientifically to detect design doesn’t mean God was somehow theologically absent, and would say that natural explanations don’t “remov[e] God.” BTEs [BioLogos theistic evolutionists] thus fail to recognize that CIDs have no objection to God using natural, secondary causes. They also fail to appreciate that in some cases, CIDs argue that natural explanations can even provide evidence for design (e.g., cosmic fine-tuning). But CIDs disagree with BTEs that God must always use natural causes, and argue we should allow the possibility that God might act in a scientifically detectable manner Thus, one important dividing line is:

• BTEs accept materialistic evolutionary explanations (such as neo-Darwinism) where the history of life appears unguided, and deny we scientifically detect design.

• CIDs hold we may scientifically detect design as the best scientific explanation for many aspects of biology

My Comment: I think you will find that in principle de facto IDists like Luskin understand “natural causes” to be those explanations which fall within the present canon of physics or, presumably, any future development of that canon (Although as we will see below in practice the IDist’s so called “natural causes” actually refer to the much dreaded evolution). The IDist’s explanatory filter defaults to intelligent agency when the physical canon fails as an explanation. But the explanations of physics inevitably face an ultimate logical hiatus or explanatory gap; this is because physics is in effect descriptive and therefore its final and complete word can only be a kernel of logically compressed brute fact; physical explanations can do no more and no less. Hence, the explanatory filter will eventually default to intelligent agency when the ultimate logical hiatus is arrived at. The pertinent question is at what point is the gap going to be found? Is that gap going to be found at the level of biological configurations; that is, are biological structures fundamental givens? Or is the gap going to be found at the fine tuning level where once the physical canon has been set up and correctly tuned the cosmos will then generate life? If, repeat if, Luskin is just talking about this general logical hiatus then I would question his claim that his kind of ID has a formal scientific status. After all, a grand logical gap is mathematically destined to be part the physical cannon under any circumstance and will exist where ever it is found. And if humans have anything to do with it the information inherent in this logical gap will inevitably prompt debate about its origin (This is why my version of the “explanatory filter” is recursive). The ensuing debate is likely to have a strong philosophical and theological slant. Thus arguing for God on the basis of an inevitable logical hiatus will probably veer towards theology and/or philosophy rather than formal science.

But we know that as a rule de facto IDists actually have a deep raison d’etre for insisting that a logical hiatus exists inside biology itself, not just generally in the canon of physics. For rather than trace the gap all the way back to the physics of fine tuning and the abstruse and contentious philosophico-theological posturing about the origins of physics, they much prefer to bring the gap closer to home; namely, at the level of biological configurations. And we know what that means: De facto IDists like Luskin hate evolution and will claim evolution didn’t happen (because intelligence did it!).  Whether conventional evolutionary theory works or not is something that is subject to testing. So, in this sense, biologically based intelligence–of-the-gaps sidesteps the highfalutin philosophical questions about ultimate origins and actually becomes scientific, although it is very negative science of (evolution) denial.

As I have remarked before in this blog this commitment to anti-evolutionism is potentially toxic to theology if some version of evolution is ultimately found to work. Luskin’s ID, although he may not bring himself to be very explicit about it, is very dependent on the failure of evolutionary theory. Luskin’s so called “scientific hypothesis” is not about the philosophico-theological issues which surround the question of the grand logical hiatus but rather the strong North American Christian right “No! No! No!” to evolution.  When Luskin accuses Biologos of requiring God to always use “natural causes” he can’t be accusing them of trying to do away with the grand logical hiatus because that is logically impossible. What he really means is that Biologos’ loathed publicly funded establishment academics are evolutionists!

Notice that Luskin wrongly refers to evolution as unguided. As I have repeatedly attempted to make clear on this blog even standard evolution is far from unguided – it very much depends on the up-front-information needed to “guide” it in the form of the channels of the spongeam, which if they exist (although they probably don’t at my guess) would have to be implicit in the canon of physics and/or future developments of that canon.

[A]ccording to textbooks and leading evolutionary biologists, neo-Darwinian evolution is defined as an unguided or undirected process of natural selection acting upon random mutation. Thus, when theistic evolutionists say that “God guided evolution,” what they mean is that somehow God guided an evolutionary process which for all scientific intents and purposes appears unguided. As Francis Collins put it in The Language of God, God created life such that “from our perspective, limited as it is by the tyranny of linear time, this would appear a random and undirected process.” Whether it is theologically or philosophically coherent to claim that “God guided an apparently unguided process” I will leave to the theologians and the philosophers. ID avoids these problems by maintaining that life’s history doesn’t appear unguided, and that we can scientifically detect that intelligent action was involved.

My Comment: The premise that pervades this paragraph falls over because as I’ve already said conventional evolution, on its own logic, is guided – that is, it effectively posits the implicit information of the spongeam, a requirement that is related to Dembski’s conservation of information. Because testing evolution amounts to testing for the existence of the spongeam then the question of its existence is subject to formal scientific investigation. On the other hand the question of the origin of the information in the spongeam, which would have to be implicit in the physical canon, concerns that final logical hiatus I’ve already referred to and is therefore potentially philosophical and/or theological.

Theistic evolutionists sometimes try to obscure these differences, such as when BioLogos says “it is all intelligently designed.” But when pressed, they’ll admit this is a strictly theological view, since they believe none of that design is scientifically detectable. CIDs wonder how one can speak of “intelligent design” if it’s always hidden and undetectable. “We’re promoting a scientific theory, not a theological doctrine,” replies ID, “and our theory detects design in nature through scientific observations and evidence.”

Some theistic evolutionists will then further reply by saying, “Since we both believe in some form of ‘intelligent design,’ the differences between our views are small.” ID proponents retort: “Whether small or not, these differences make all the difference in the world.”

And there’s the rub. By denying that we scientifically detect design in nature, BTEs cede to materialists some of the most important territory in the debate over atheism and religion. Biologically speaking, theistic evolution gives no reasons to believe in God.

My Comment: Since the logical hiatus in physics is mathematically inevitable and must ultimately be acknowledged by both Biologos and Luskin, at first site it might seem that if they both use the explanatory filter, both are justified in claiming to be IDists. Therefore Luskin’s claim that theistic evolution gives no reasons to believe in God is false. So what’s the real basis of Luskin’s beef? Well Luskin can’t bring himself to admit it but what he really means by his claim to having a scientific theory is that he is anti-evolution and Biologos isn’t.  But bland anti-evolutionism is not a great way to claim to having a “scientific theory”.  Hence de facto IDists will attempt to make claim to a positive science of “intelligence did it!”.  But this doesn’t hold much water because some de facto IDists will actually tell us that explicating  the nature of the intelligence that "did it " is not part of ID!.  This makes it very difficult to use this “science” in a positive way to make predictions. For example, de facto ID’s belief that there is no junk DNA is problematical given the inscrutability that some IDists build into their intelligent agent. This makes it all but impossible to anticipate the methods, motives and personality of that intelligence; may be that intelligence has some obscure reason for storing redundant and repetitive DNA in the genome.  (See here for a blog post of mine that tries to take a sympathetic view to ID “predictions”)

To be clear, I’m not saying that if one accepts Darwinian evolution then one cannot be a Christian. Accepting or rejecting the grand Darwinian story is a “disputable” or “secondary” matter, and Christians have freedom to hold different views on this issue. But while it may be possible to claim God used apparently unguided evolutionary processes to create life, that doesn’t mean Darwinian evolution is theologically neutral.

According to orthodox Darwinian thinking, undirected processes created not just our bodies, but also our brains, our behaviors, our deepest desires, and even our religious impulses. Under theistic Darwinism, God guided all these processes such that the whole show appears unguided. Thus, theistic evolution stands in direct contrast to Romans 1:20 where the Paul taught that God is “clearly seen” in nature. In contrast, theistic evolution implies God’s involvement in creating humans is completely unseeable,

Theistic evolution may not be absolutely incompatible with believing in God, but it offers no scientific reasons to do so. Perhaps this is why William Provine writes: “One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism.”

My Comment: The first two paragraphs of this passage are incoherent given that conventional evolution is far from unguided; presumably this fact is not “clearly seen” by the likes of Luskin; he can only see biological gaps. But on account of de facto ID’s explanatory filter conventional evolution, with its ultimate inevitable logical hiatus, does offer at least a prima facia case to believe in God contrary to what Luskin says, as I have already stated. Thus, from the point of view of the explanatory filter conventional evolution is theologically neutral. However, that’s not say that it is theologically neutral on the deeper question of whether a Christian God would actually reify such a process.

***

Finally the post on Uncommon Descent had some snarky concluding comments from Denise of O’ Leary:

So many people marketing theistic evolution these days dislike evidence…… If the evolution scene were what they claim it is, you’d think we’d be the ones not to want evidence. But we totally rely on it and are comfortable with it.

As a science de facto ID is primarily negative. If de facto IDists are loathe to comment on the nature of the intelligence at work the power of ID to provide predictive evidence is compromised. O’Leary’s boast about ID being very evidence based rings hollow; ditto Luskin's claim to de facto ID being strongly scientific. The fact is de facto ID is not a hard science. 

My own attempts at explaining evolution in terms of an immanent intelligence at work require the nature of intelligence to be at least partly unpacked – see here and here. However, let me make it clear that this work is highly exploratory, speculative, tentative and very unfinished. So, I am in no position to bully either atheists or de facto IDists round to my point of view.

The Nature of Intelligence

The question of the nature of Intelligence/sentience presents intellectual traps that are difficult to avoid; not least the problem of a nested regress!

This post on Uncommon Descent is a fine example of how, on the  Intelligent Design question, I'm probing an entirely different line of inquiry to the de facto IDists. The post is by Denyse O'leary who quotes one of the ID community's gurus, Robert Marks.

Firstly, setting the scene:

Anything algorithmic can be done by a computer. Give me a recipe for doing something, and I can whip it up in the kitchen. There are things which are not algorithmic the most celebrated of which is Turing’s halting problem: there exists no algorithm able tell whether or not a computer program runs forever or halts. (The halting algorithm must work for any and all computer programs.)

But a computer program will halt or won’t halt. But since there is no algorithm to figure this out, the halting problem is undecidable. We don’t know before running the program whether or not it will halt. It could run trillions of years and then halt long after we’re dead. If it doesn’t halt, we may never know (unless we know the so-called busy beaver numbers which is the same as knowing Chaitin’s number which is unknowable. But I digress.)

Clearly there are some elementary algorithms where we can prove they halt. However, the tenor of the halting theorem is that there is no general algorithmic procedure which takes any algorithm as a parameter and is then able to determine whether it stops. That is, we may be able to determine halting conditions in special cases, but not in the general case.  The halting theorem can be proved by showing  that when an attempt is made to submit a hypothetical general halting detection algorithm to itself as a parameter this results in a contradiction. Hence, some questions we submit to algorithms are incomputable. Incomputablilty has the potential to arise whenever an algorithm attempts to flag conditions about itself: Like the well known contradictions arising from Russell's paradox it is not possible for an algorithm in general to talk about itself without raising contradictions. 

But I digress. I'm actually more interested in the following quotes from Marks, quotes which bring to light something I've long suspected would be a position favoured by a de facto IDist like Marks. Basically it's another Intelligence-of-the-Gaps sentiment:

Lastly, Roger Penrose in Shadows of the Mind and The Emperor’s New Mind makes the case the human mind, through creativity and the creation of information, does nonalgorithmic things (and is therefore not merely a computer).

I am starting to believe creation of information requires a nonalgorithmic process, hence intelligent design.

This is not unexpected: As I have made clear many times on this blog, IDists like Marks are dualists who see a sharp distinction between "intelligent agency" and "natural forces". This dualism is embodied in the IDist's  explanatory filter; This filter ensures that when "natural processes" fail as an explanatory device a default is forced to "intelligent agent".  So it is no surprise to find Marks casting around for reasons why intelligence should be classed as an entirely different genus to "natural processes" and fundamentally different.  Marks thinks information cannot be created by "natural processes". This is an error in itself which I will be publishing on shortly. However, if you believe "natural forces" can't create information it is a very easy next step to posit that some kind of mystical unknowable process must be creating information and of course that process can only be the apparent inscrutability of intelligence! Wouldn't it be right then if intelligence fits in the category of the non-algorithmic?

I had anticipated long ago that IDists like Marks would settle on Penrose's proposal that intelligence is non-algorithmic. My own opinion is that this proposal is unlikely and I give my reasons for this here and here. All evidence suggests to me that the human mind is finite and therefore the ontology of human intelligence has the same reflexive limitations that give rise to the halting theorem and incomputability in general: Viz: human intelligence is based in a system that can not make certain general statements about itself without those statements invalidating the very conditions these statements are attempting to comment on; there are certain things we cannot know about ourselves. Ergo, human intelligence doesn't step outside the limitations of incomputability.

From my perspective I feel that the de facto IDists are more than welcome to explore this dualist line of inquiry whereby intelligence is categorized as a different genus of process capable of exploring the realm of incomputability; I'm not trying to stop them and I'm happy that they follow this very different line of inquiry; although if they are committed to this view of intelligence they will find progress difficult.

But the polarized dualist backdrop against which de facto ID plays out doesn't favour the intellectual nuancing needed to explain why some people follow one route and some another. Much more in line with de facto IDism's embattled community is the hunting out of fifth columnists and traitors and then hanging them out to dry; as we will see in my next post!

Why I disown the de facto Intelligent Design Movement

Be careful who you yolk with

I thought it might be a good idea to bring together the major reasons why I’m not enthusiastic about the de-facto intelligent design movement.

Firstly, let me say that as far as I can tell the gurus of de facto ID are generally nice enough people. (And their followers? That’s another story!). They are mainly, I think, moderate evangelical Christians with a scattering of other traditions. It would be wholly wrong to compare them to the temperamentally dour fundamentalists who speak censoriously about all those who don’t follow their views (including other fundies with whom they disagree).  As I always say: Fundamentalism is 1 part doctrine and 2 parts attitude, mostly bad attitude; ID leaders don’t usually share the latter I’m glad to say. And yet it is the fundies who often parrot the conclusions of the ID gurus.

Secondly, I must also make it clear that I think it likely that intelligence is fundamental to the workings of the cosmos. But I differ radically from the de facto IDists in that my investigation into the subject proceeds on the basis that the intelligence concerned is both eminent and immanent to the cosmos. I am developing and exploring this theme in my Thinknet and Melencolia series.  I must emphasise, however, that this is a highly speculative blue skies project and it is no basis on which I can badger people into “belief”.

As I have said before the de facto IDists have been a big disappointment to me: They have managed to botch a variety of important theoretical themes, themes which I collect together below:

The explanatory filter epistemic

Many of de facto-ID’s problems trace back to the epistemic method of their explanatory filter, an epistemic which assumes a sharp distinction between intelligent agency and so-called “natural forces”.  This may work in archaeology and SETI  (although I qualify that statement below) but it is bad for theology. It has helped polarise further an already polarised debate and the effect has been to widen the divide between so-called "naturalists" and "supernaturalists", although of course the "surpernaturalists" prefer to identify as "IDists".  See here for more:

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/idists-heres-another-fine-mess-theyve.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/soft-core-science.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/misplaced-concreteness-theology-of.html

The God of the gaps trap

The explanatory filter epistemic favours god-of-the-gaps thinking. When de facto IDists attempt to explain their position it seems that they just can’t help but fall into the god-of-the-gaps-trap: Here are some examples:

Vincent Torley:

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/more-god-of-gaps-from-north-american-id.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/western-dualism-in-north-america.html

Kirk Durston:

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/deistical-god-of-gaps-thinking.html

William  Lane-Craig and Paul Nelson

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/paul-nelson-computer-simulations-and.html

Barry Arrington:

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/north-american-ids-god-of-gaps-theology.html
Stephen Meyer

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/theology-and-north-american-id-part-1.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/theology-and-north-american-id-part-2.html

ID = design detection only?

Some of the IDists I have read will tell you that ID is all about “design detection” and that the nature of the designer is secondary, if not beyond their brief.  And yet IDists in practice make interpolations about the nature of the intelligent agent concerned. The latter is inevitable because one must have some inkling about the intrinsic nature of intelligence if one seeks to not only identify the works of intelligence but also to make predictions. Here are some examples of IDists making implicit assumptions about the intelligent agent they posit:

Here we find Vincent Torley claiming to be reluctant to say much about the designing intelligence:

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/soft-core-science.html

And yet here Vincent Torley interpolates a “minimum effort” principle:

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/more-god-of-gaps-from-north-american-id.html

Homunculus ID: ID is inevitably saturated with implicit assumptions about the designer:

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/does-intelligent-design-make-testable.html

A very negative science

Taken together, the IDists explanatory filter, their belief that the nature of intelligence is secondary to ID detection and their God-of-the-gaps theology all adds up to a very negative kind of science. Its epistemic method largely involves trying to shoot down current evolutionary explanations. And when they think they have achieved this IDists will conclude, using the explanatory filter, that “intelligence did it”.  It is almost as if these IDists are endeavoring to operate with an apophatic definition of intelligence – that is, intelligence is defined in terms of what it is not. The ambivalent behavior of IDists where on the one hand they claim to withdraw from identifying the nature of the intelligence concerned and yet on the other hand must grasp something about intelligence in order to identify its works, seems to be an outcome of the defensive position that is the unenviable lot of the de facto IDists.

In view of this, I may actually be doing archaeology an injustice when I sometimes compare it with ID: More often than not archaeology doesn’t have much trouble identifying the works of human intelligence; the lion’s share of the problem in archaeology is identifying the human meaning of what it digs up – and to do that requires knowledge of human beings; that is, knowledge of the intelligence behind the artifacts. So it is no surprise to find IDist Vincent Torley admitting that ID is a negative science. In a post on the ID website Uncommon Descent entitled Larry Moran commits the genetic fallacy, dated October 20th we read:

As for Professor Moran’s claim that Intelligent Design proponents’ focus is primarily aimed at discrediting unguided evolution rather than building a positive case for design, I can only reply that a design inference in ID can only be made after other explanations have been ruled out, so as a matter of necessity, much of what ID researchers do will be negative, and aimed at eliminating conventional explanations, before any positive conclusion can be reached that a given object was designed.

If from science’s third person perspective we manage to trace all human activity back to the operation of the “natural causes” of neural communities we cannot then conclude that intelligence isn’t involved; human intelligence is a high level system feature which is not easily observed down at the low neural level. Neurons are "things" and not sentient personalities; it takes a very large organised group of them to possess the property of conscious cognition.  From this example we can see how artificial it is to drive a wedge between "natural causes" and intelligence to the extent that they are thought of as all but mutually exclusive. Moreover, I would expect any genuine science to be interested in the workings of the intelligent agent and how it relates to the ontology of our world. It is almost as if IDists are trying to create a space of spiritual quietus where they can worship in peace and where the role of ID science is protective rather than proactive. The quasi-apophatic approach of de facto ID looks suspiciously like a rear-guard defence of theism rather than a presentation of positive evidence

Irreducible Complexity

This is actually not a bad idea if formulated properly: Potentially the idea of irreducible complexity is a killer concept as far as evolution is concerned. But the de facto ID community continues to use Michael Behe’s inadequate low resolution rendering of IC which talks only about interdependent functional parts. The loop hole in Behe’s concept of IC is found in the fact that the functional parts he talks of are themselves made of smaller parts, all with the potential to morph  molecule by molecule, atom by atom into other sets of interdependent parts. This allows the imaginative devil’s advocate to conceive of ways in which each interdependent function morphs in unison with all the other functions in such way that the whole conglomerate remains functional. Anti-IDists have attempted to do just this (see the first link below). The remedy is to use a concept of IC formulated at the particulate level; such a formulation would amount to a denial of the existence of the “sponge” structure in configuration space (The spongeam), a concept I describe in the second two links below. Having said that let me express my suspicion that the spongeam doesn’t exist, so the IDists may actually have the last laugh here!

Screwing up IC: http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/north-american-idists-screw-up.html

Defining IC: http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/algorithms-searches-dualism-and_13.html

Defining IC: http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/configuration-space-via-mathematical.html

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

IDists continue to be seduced by the erroneous argument that the second law of thermodynamics contradicts evolution. The basis of this argument clearly fails in the case of the growth of living organisms which organise matter in huge quantities without violating the second law by using the information in their genes and associated mechanisms. Likewise, if evolution does in fact work, it would be using the implicit information present in the spongeam of configuration space and which presumably is in turn implicit in the laws of physics. Although I doubt the existence of the spongeam, nevertheless if it is present it would effectively guide evolution just as molecular configurational information guides the annexation and organisation of matter in the growth of life. In this latter context local decreases in entropy are more than compensated for by an overall increase in entropy.

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/the-first-law-of-holes-and-second-law.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/idiot-proofing-thermodynamics.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/thermodynamics-and-evolution-again.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/algorithms-searches-dualism-and_13.html

Creating Information

Many clients in the fundamentalist and ID communities will offer up the cliché like “natural processes cannot create information”.  This belief is supported in part by William Dembski’s “conservation of Information” but without regard to the terms reference and limitations of Dembski’s otherwise interesting and thought provoking work. And yet natural processes can quite obviously create information: Viz: Consider for example the human brain; it creates information in any practical sense of the word and yet, as far as we can tell from the third person perspective of science, human activity is a “natural process”. However, the issues surrounding the creation of information are somewhat technical and so I will be dealing with them in more detail in a separate post. I have partially dealt with the matter here, but further clarification is needed in the light of the work I have done in  the Thinknet project.

In the meantime here is a quote from fundamentalist Ken Ham as he makes dogmatic assertions about a subject he doesn’t understand:

For example, evolution requires the addition of huge amounts of brand-new information into the DNA of a creature in order for new features to arise. But there is no known process that adds brand-new information into the genome of a creature.)  But without new information you absolutely cannot turn an amoeba into an astronaut no matter how much time you have! Evolution just cannot happen.

As I’ve already said we do know of a natural process capable of adding brand-new information into a genome - namely, human activity.  As for "Evolution just cannot happen" Ham has no notion of the spongeam and the crucial question of whether or not it exists; he is never likely to come anywhere near addressing this question.

The Christian Right and Fundamentalism

The ID community are too close to the right wing and the anti-science Christian fundamentalists. I see this in part as due to the common conceptual ground afforded by the epistemic filter which favours a form of dualism: Viz: A broad spectrum of evangelicals, fundamentalists and cultists think in terms of a God vs. natural forces dichotomy. And yet within this spectrum there is in fact a huge spread of ideas all the way from Flat Earth to the quasi-theistic evolution of William Dembski.  This creates tensions within the movement. See for example this post by Vincent Torley on Uncommon Descent where in the comments section Torley is accused of supporting “Darwinism” (Sic; See comment 86).

So, what other factors might bring together this disparate diversity of opposing opinions?  Probably even more pertinent than the philosophical dualism implicit in the explanatory filter is the common political cause of communities who otherwise find it difficult to get on. That common politics, I propose, is that they all reside to the right of the political fault line which runs between government and the private sector; especially in the USA.  In particular, both fundies and the de facto IDists find themselves alienated from the public sector academics who one fundie talks disparagingly of under the rubric  "the main stream science community".

See also here: http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/public-vs-private-polarisation.html

As a further illustration of the academic alienation and marginalisation of IDists we find evangelical atheist Larry Moran and public servant scientist trying (probably vainly) to hand an olive branch to the less extreme IDists. In a post entitled  Intelligent design needs to clean up its act if it expects to be taken seriously he says:

I hope that the knowledgeable, informed, members of the ID community will abandon the ridiculous path they've taken where they try to make a scientific case for ID knowing full well that the majority of their supporters disagree strongly with their premises (e.g. common descent). That's an untenable position.

We've seen recently that some ID proponents are attempting to do this. I'm thinking of Jonathan McLatchie and Vincent Torley right now but there are others. How is it working out? Look at the Torley post on Uncommon Descent where he's trying to explain evolution to IDiots: Human and chimp DNA: They really are about 98% similar. It's an uphill battle. The kooks are accusing him of becoming a Darwinist.

But that's exactly what the ID community needs to do in order to gain credibility. They need to shed the kooks and the IDiots who make them look silly. When they do that, they may find that more of us are willing to have a serious discussion about science

And there’s also this:

We also judge [ID] by the people who post comments on blogs and Facebook and by those politicians who support it in the public sphere….

Wouldn't it be nice to see a scientific debate between Michael Behe and David Klinghoffer on the meaning of evolution? Not going to happen as long as ID is primarily a religious movement.

Along the lines of the latter comment, I’ve never seen the ID community engage Dembki’s statement which I showcase here. But would an evangelical atheist like Moran ever entertain anyone who entertains the notion that intelligence is fundamental to the cosmos without being tempted to make recourse to appellations like “superstition” and “IDiot”? The converse is not going to happen either: The ID gurus will not be prised apart from their followers; they owe those followers a huge debt: It is those followers who have given them their platform, their accolades and the market for their books and conferences.

Forget it!