A discussion of epistemology in relation to the paranormal.
c. Timothy V
Reeves
December 2020
(Edition
6)
The mind of (wo)man penetrates
behind the experiential façade to the logic that controls it. “A man may see
how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears!” (Shakespeare).
This essay is a response toJames
Knight’s blog post here to which he drew my attention. James asks if
the question of the existence of the supernatural can be answered via the kind
of crowd thinking which is behind free market economics. James’ subsequent verdict
is that stories of the supernatural are so prevalent that it makes the
existence of the supernatural likely. I suppose it’s a bit like one of those
experiments where a crowd of people give their estimates as to the number of
items in a large jar and though very few get it right the average of the
estimates often turns out to be close to the truth.
I found it difficult, however, to proceed with a judgement on James’
post in the absence of a clear vision of just what the natural vs the supernatural dichotomy really means (….at least in
the post in view, although James tells me that he has grappled with this
question elsewhere….but see the appendix). But having said that I would
certainly agree that the sheer weight of paranormal accounts is a kind of crowd
based evidence which leaves me, at least, feeling that there is much more to
those “high strangeness” experiences we hear reported from time to time than
many would credit. What makes these experiences all the more compelling is that
they are not necessarily associated with “supernatural belief”, either before
or after the experience; quite often the experiencer
isn’t a believer from the outset and after the experience they are left mystified
as to what it all means and they do not subsequently engage in an elaborate interpretation
of the meaning of their experience in terms of “the supernatural”; for them it
remains an experiential anomaly they have to live with.
But let me start with some probing of the concept of the
“supernatural”. How do we distinguish
the “supernatural” from the “natural”? I
don’t fully buy the quip that it’s simply a distinction between the known laws
of physics being obeyed and them being transgressed. After all on that basis
anomalous events leading to revisions of the laws of physics would then
classify as “supernatural”, at least until such a time that they became
incorporated into “settled science”.
If we hold to a conventional Christian theology (like myself), however, we
then do have a clear theological basis for the distinction between the natural
and the supernatural: Viz; that God himself classifies as capital “S” Supernatural
and everything thing he creates is natural.
From this it follows that angelic beings (which includes Satan), then
automatically classify as natural. There is much to be said for this definition
theologically since it is (theologically) clear-cut and avoids a spiritual
dualism which is inclined to lump God himself into a so-called “spirit world”
where, like one of the Greek gods, he is striving with entities and objects
that, although lesser than himself, nevertheless all classify as belonging to
some supernatural domain of gods, thereby almost putting such entities in the
same genus as God himself. This form of dualism may have its roots in the
traditional Earth vs the Heavens dualism which contrasts the Earthly world of
profane matter over and against the sacred & ethereal god-like spiritual
beings that inhabit the sublime reaches of the Heavens. Echoes of this spirit vs matter
(sometimes subliminally expressed as mind
vs matter) dichotomy remain with us today. I personally am repelled by this kind of
dualism, especially in the light of Colossians 1:15-17. For me the only valid theological dualism is
God vs. everything he has created.
But having said that this theological understanding isn’t in fact the
folk usage of the term “supernatural”. It is more usual to lump together all
those strange entities and events which revolve round miracles, prophecies,
angelic beings, ghosts, ghouls and goblins as supernatural (“supernatural”
without a capital S in this case). Well,
fair enough provided we keep at the back of our minds the fundamental God vs
creation dualism. But this returns us to
the original question, namely, what does the “supernatural” mean in this
secondary sense? This is where our problems
begin.
Self affirming loop: Ok, as long as no one uses an eraser!
But Alex Rosenberg seems to be in the business of erasing his mind!
At a lecture I attended by Sir John Polkinghorne I was intrigued to hear him concede that strictly speaking he is an "Intelligent Design" creationist, but then went onto imply that he would never use that term of himself because it has become blighted by its associations with the highly politicised de facto Intelligent Design movement of North America. Sir John, as far as I can tell, is a conventional evolutionist but if I'm understanding him aright he believes that what he calls a "fruitful process" such as evolution could only have been designed by God. He has also said that just as the overarching principle of gravity dominates the cosmic dynamic and yet only tells part of the cosmic story, so evolution as an overall principle is only part of the story of natural history. I don't think I'm as convinced of conventional evolution as Sir John, but whatever way you look at evolution it would itself have to be carefully choregraphed to work - this is not something that many dyed in the wool atheists or dyed in the wool Christian fundamentalists would comfortably admit; ironically both parties (albeit for very different reasons) are inclined to believe that evolution is supposed to feed on the indifference of randomness.
Even though I have considerable doubts about bog-standard evolution I've nevertheless many times criticised de facto-ID, especially as it is expressed on the website Uncommon Descent. I haveparticularly criticised their philosophical dualism which dichotomises "natural causes" against intelligent design causation, where by intelligent design they really mean "God" as an alternative causative agent; that in my opinion demotes God to a causation level. But far worse than this in my opinion is that they've proved to be highly politized toward the Christian rightwing with at least some of their pundits supporting Donald Trump's conspiracy theories about a rigged American election and charging the Democrats of crypto-communism. But if I'm supposed to believe that the American Democrats are Marxist stooges using nefarious means to barge their way to the top then why should I not correspondingly entertain the parallel notion that in a political environment claimed to be so full of corruption Trump's charges of electoral rigging are also a dishonest fraud trumped up by a crypto-fascist rightwing culture that ultimately will bring about a Trump monarchy protected by AR15 tooting militia? The de facto ID community are doing their own bit to undermine trust in the classic and mature American democratic system by helping to sow the seeds of inter-community distrust.
However, having said that I've got to acknowledge that the off-hand treatment of some ID stars such as William Dembski by the academic establishment has helped push the de facto ID community into the arms of the far right who fear & despise the left of centre academic establishment. And yet Dembski rightly perceived that evolution, if it was to work, would need to be set up from the outset with high information conditions (i.e highly improbable prerequisites). That lesson still stands as far as I'm concerned. (Except perhaps in the extravagant multiverse theories where all scenarios are played out - on this view we necessarily then find ourselves in a universe that supports our existence). What Dembski didn't succeed in doing (and Dembski effectively admits this himself - see foregoing link) is that of disproving evolution; he just made it clear that even evolution would require up front information (See my paper here on this matter). Where the ID community went wrong was to use Dembski's work as an argument against evolution in a similar way that they erroneously think the second law of thermodynamics is an argument against evolution.
But whatever the errors of the North American ID community, they have been humiliated and made to look like deep-south rubes. We've seen what happened in Germany when it was humiliated after WWI; they were then tempted to throw in their lot with a protectionist tough-guy who promised to champion their cause and preserve their culture, pride and egos. It seems that the ID community have also found a protectionist tough guy.
***
Although I disagree with much of their underlying biases I nevertheless often find myself sympathetic with some of the posts on Uncommon Descent. A case in point is this post on UD which quotes from a review of a book titled HowHistory Gets Things Wrong by atheist evolutionist Alex Rosenberg. Rosenberg has stumbled across what I refer to as unstable conceptual feedback but seems to be unaware of it. I'll explain what I mean by unstable conceptual feedback after I have quoted the review as quoted by Uncommon Descent (my emphases):
Rosenberg writes that there are
compelling reasons to question the Theory of Mind. His discussion of those
reasons is prefaced by the statement that the Theory’s “Darwinian pedigree is
no reason to accept it as true, or even mostly true. The process of natural
selection does not as a rule produce true beliefs, just ones that foster
survival” The statement that natural selection does not as a rule
produce true beliefs, cannot, of course, be confined to the Theory of Mind—it
isn’t only Theory of Mind related beliefs that cannot be held to be true due to
their Darwinian pedigree.It holds across the board, so for all beliefs. If it
is to be consistent, Rosenberg’s view must be that natural selection in general
selects not for truth but for survival.
What is frustrating is that
Rosenberg’s book nowhere discusses the implications of this view for Darwinism
itself, nor for science more generally. For the implications are monumental and
disastrous. For if the mental faculties or mechanisms that produce belief in us
are selected for not because they yield mostly true beliefs but because they
foster survival, then this also regards science: whatever we wind up believing
through science, whatever scientific theory we accept through scientific
investigation, the fact that we believe it has to do with survival, not truth.
But this means thatgiven Rosenberg’s view on natural selection, we have no
reason to think that our scientific theories are true, in fact we have a
standing defeater for each and every scientific theory, evolutionary theory and
the theory of natural selection included.
In the wake of Alvin Plantinga’s
evolutionary argument against naturalism, this problem has received quite a bit
of attention. But Rosenberg doesn’t engage with the literature, and has
nothing of any interest to say on a problem that should exercise him greatly,
given his over allegiance to scientism, roughly the claim that only science can
give us knowledge.
Basically the problem talked about here is this: If evolution only guarantees survival then our "knowledge" serves survival first & foremost and not necessarily truth. There is, consequently, a self referencing problem here which leads to a potential internal contention within our thinking and loss of an axiomatic starting point providing us with the foundation on which to base the edifice of our knowledge; for if the truth of our knowledge isn't assured because "knowledge", so-called, primarily serves a survival dynamic then how do we know we've come to the correct knowledge about that dynamic in the first place? Stated more generally the problem goes like this: If we believe that we have been generated by disinterested processes that bestow upon us pragmatic knowledge and not necessarily true knowledge then how can we be sure that our belief about the disinterest of those processes is itself true? This seems to be the general implication behind Rosenberg's conclusions, conclusions drawn from his concept of evolution. But then if we have correctly perceived those humanly indifferent processes as Rosenberg assumes then perhaps we have also correctly perceived the theory of mind? For if there is a chance that we've got it right that evolution is purely a survival dynamic then perhaps we've got our theory of mind right as well. There appears, therefore, to be a selective scepticism on Rosenberg's part perhaps in order to support his own theories of mind, or rather his theory that there is no such thing as mind! (According to UD). This is a kind of cognitive self mutilation, in fact a form of nihilism. As I often say atheism teeters on the brink of the nihilist abyss.
I discussed this kind of potential self-referencing contention in an essay way back in 1993. Even Darwin himself appeared to be aware of it and as the quote above suggests, so is Alvin Plantinga. Like Richard Dawkins as I tell in my essay, we find that Rosenberg has at least put his truth anchors down in evolutionary theory even if he is missing the potential internal contradiction which so often has lead to the anti-foundationalism of nihilistic and postmodern responses and in turn the self-destruction of even secular humanism. But in any case it is wrong to classify evolution as just a survival dynamic. Evolution is about an exploration of the possibilities in platonic space and who knows what kind of exotic configurations can come to light: Yes, living configurations must always be constrained by the requirement of viability; that is survivability, but within that constraint there may be a whole lot of other things those configurations can do apart from just survive.
There are, nevertheless mitigating circumstances which in my opinion lend plausibility (if nothing else) to Rosenberg's thesis that an utterly impersonal & dispassionate world constrained only by the most ruthless survival ethic will only supply what one needs to know, or think one knows, for survival. The fact is that since the demise of the Ptolemaic human centred temple-cosmos in favour of a vision of humanity's physical insignificance** on the huge cosmic stage, coupled to a failure to find the ghost-in-the-machine,an atheist case that "the universe doesn't care about us" has some traction. At this point walk carefully, very carefully; for if you trip you've got a long way to fall down that nihilist abyss. But for me the irony is that our very smallness may be evidence of how important we actually are.
Addendum 20/12/20
Psychological Nihilism
Here's another subject raised by Uncommon Descent where I would likely agree with them: See here:
Yes, it's the old "I'm going into denial about the existence of conscious cognition" attitude that UD are highlighting here. UD quote the offending psychologist as follows:
“I’ve lost friends over this
because a denial of consciousness undermines a final refuge of the arrogance of
selfhood: universal consciousness. But even most normal people are strongly
insistent that consciousness is a real thing, a special thing, and that they
possess it. The problem I have is that there’s not only no evidence for it, but
what people seem to be referring to as consciousness is explainable as an
effect no more unusual, no less materialistically explainable, than water
flowing downhill… – Duncan Riach, “Why I Don’t Believe in Consciousness and
What Ai Seems to Be Revealing About It” At Medium
Yes, consciousness may well be "materialistically explainable", and although I wouldn't use those words, Irather think it is "explainable" as a feature of God given matter provided it is appropriately configured. But I would no more deny the macroscopic fact that water flows down hill as a liquid simply because it is explainable in terms of gravity's effect on water molecules than I would deny that conscious cognition is a feature of the thermodynamic macroscopic brain. As for "no evidence"; my dear man "evidence" is comprised of conscious cognition's perceptions of the world; that is, the very concept of evidence is an item in conscious cognition's repertoire of experiences of the world; "Evidence" is conscious cognition! Deny conscious cognition and you deny there is any such thing as evidence!
Riach may as well deny that evidence for liquid water exists simply because "it's all molecules". One of UD's commenters described Riach as an idiot. That could be true!
Footnotes
* Sections of the American right-wing were into the collective paranoia of conspiracy theorism before Donald Trump appeared on the scene. Trump simply exploited what was already there. See the links below:
In a TV debate that's part of the US presidential campaign we find once again Donald Trump refusing to disown the QAnon conspiracy theorists. QAnon believers have a bizarre take on reality; for them Donald Trump is the centre-piece hero in their convoluted conspiracy theory. As the Wiki entry for "QAnon" has it:
QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory. It alleges that a
cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles is running a global child sex-trafficking
ring and plotting against US President Donald Trump, who is battling against
the cabal. The theory also commonly asserts that Trump is planning a day of
reckoning known as "The Storm", when thousands of members of the
cabal will be arrested.
When
moderator Savannah Guthrie asked Mr Trump whether he would reject them [QAnon], he
replied: "I know nothing about QAnon." Ms
Guthrie said she had just told him about the group, which has been labelled a
potential terrorist threat by the FBI. The president said:
"I know nothing about it, I do know they are very much against
paedophilia, they fight it very hard
.....Mr Trump spent much of the broadcast arguing with the moderator
Looking at Trump's behaviour my conclusions are as follows: For Trump the presidency is less about serving one's country than it is about serving his ego and getting him back into the top seat where he can continue to throw his weight around among his personally selected sycophantic officials and yes-men. His preferred method of administration is that of by passing the country's democratic institutions as far as possible (which he encourages his followers to believe are compromised) via his tweetings, his rallies and above all his lying, his distortions of the truth and his encouragement of conspiracy theorists such as Alex Jones and the QAnon group. It's unlikely he believes this drivel himself (any more than he believes Christianity) but he is content to make friendly noises toward these people in order get their support and votes. Trump seeks total dominance and this is why he has difficulty accepting the role of the broadcast moderator who's job in a democracy is to ask difficult questions. In any case Trump puts about the story that the media (except his own of course) is the source of "fake news"; Trump dislikes anything beyond his immediate control. In short Trump is made of the stuff of dictators.
Trump is poisoning America with his lies, lies which exploit and exaggerate underlying suspicions, animosity, hatred, conspiracy theories and inflame divisions; and he doesn't care; all that matters is getting enough votes to ensure he gets back into power where he will then do his damnedest to dismantle the democratic institutions of America and set up a Trump dynasty. He's actually the favoured candidate of China and Putin because they know he will weaken the Western alliances. This web article tries to get at the heart of Trump's appeal and in it we can read:
Trump
appeals to an ancient fear of contagion, which analogizes out-groups to
parasites and poisons and other impurities.
We find a helpful and erudite analysis of the US grass roots right-wing in a book I've been reading recently (and still reading) called "Strangers in their own land" by Arlie Russel Hochschild. Although a liberal Californian academic Hochschild shows great patience and understanding in getting behind what she calls the empathy wall and into the minds of the right-wing voters of the American south. She reveals them as practical and work-a-day human beings facing pressures and vulnerabilities that have helped skew their thinking toward the right and then supporting Trump in the 2016 election, a man who like Hitler knows how to exploit discontent by seeding the conversation with the poison of lies and hints of conspiracy for the purposes of his own power agenda.
***
Unfortunately a large slab of the American evangelical church supports the Trump phenomenon. Blinkered Christian fundagelicals fail to see Trump's pride, corruption, lies, distortions and egocentricity as the worst of sins in the Christian canon. Instead they've focused on the pulse racing issues of abortion, evolution and above all their obsession with gender & sexuality. Trump has cynically sidled up to and courted the American church on these issues just as he has courted and sidled up to the conspiracy theorists. Hitler did same with the German church (although as one of the "ubermensch" and a social Darwinist he actually held with contempt what he perceived to be Christianity's concern for the weak). But in Germany, as in America today, the Church wasn't and isn't an entirely an innocent dupe: An authoritarian, right wing church already has various aspects of its culture in place which have helped ease through Trump's deceptions. Viz: A tendency to see politics through the lens of a hard socialist vs libertarian dichotomy (anyone left of the Republican party looks like a "socialist"), a simplistic in-groups vs out-groups fundamentalist outlook which favours law & order solutions to sin, marginalisation from the intellectual mainstream, an anti-academia ethos, prosperity teaching with little concern for the weak, quasi-gnosticism and a paranoid apocalyptic imagination which acts as a fine seed bed for conspiracy theories.
But crackpot conspiracy theorism, even in American, tends not to be mainstream: Instead it is mostly confined to a lunatic fringe. So it's not surprising that Hochschild doesn't cover it in her book, although one can see how the anti-federal, anti-elite feelings of the people she meets could well find expression in conspiracy theorist fantasies. But the book was written prior to the rise of the QAnon conspiracy theory which recently has almost broken into the mainstream. This now brings me to the main subject of this blog entry; my unexpected meeting with a UK conspiracy theorist who seems to have been infected with the big viral conspiracy theories which have the jumped across the Atlantic pond; I shall call him "Steve Pastry".
***
1. Conspiracy Theorism
Before I introduce Pastry properly I will do a quick resume of some of the aspects of conspiracy theorism. (More discussion of this can be found under my "conspiracy theory" label).
In my time (prior to Pastry) I have met several people who have been susceptible to conspiracy theorism. They have had chequered careers and faced difficulties fitting in to the status quo & established order of things. They have made heavy weather of life and one can understand why they would like to make sense of their failure to fit in and of the chaos around them. For them conspiracy theory brings a background order & explanation to the chaotic big picture and provides a rationale for their alienation from the established order over which they carry a big chip on their shoulders. Of course, the established order is far from perfect but like their Marxist opposite numbers they want to see that order overthrown in favour of their idealist (and unreal) notions. Also, like their Marxist doppelgangers they are drawn toward ideas of apocalypse and eschatological doctrines.
Conspiracy theorists see the world through a kind of convoluted Agatha Christie plot, a plot which runs solely in their heads. This plot, with its highly contrived twists and turns, is most unnatural of the real world dynamic: For them nothing is what it seems and reality is systematically skewed by malign hidden intelligences to deceive. But each conspiracy theorist finds consolation and a certain amount of self-esteem in the idea that they are one of a rare breed who can see through the deceiving façade. They find difficulty accepting that life events can be random. For them randomness is often read as a pseudo randomness with a hidden code and agenda behind it. For example, one of the conspiracy theorists of my acquaintance did not accept that the millennium bug was simply down to the limited perspective of many independent programmer coding monkeys (of whom I myself was one!) but instead followed the teachings of Christian fundamentalist Barry Smith who taught that it was a deliberate contrivance of covert controllers and part of their plot to bring down the system and take full control at the turn of the millennium. My acquaintance preached this view as part of their Christian eschatological beliefs during 1990s but had forgotten all about it by 2005 when I challenged this person, a person who went onto champion other conspiracy theories. This person was not equipped to conceive an army of programmers (including myself!) working independently and in quite haphazard ways. Instead, as is the wont of conspiracy theorism, this person preferred to believe that there was an involved conspiracy narrative of systematic control working away behind the scenes that accounted for the complexities of an otherwise haphazard activity.
Two of the conspiracy theorists of my acquaintance favoured the notion, if not believed, that the Earth is flat. Flat Earth theory, of course, would require that mainstream science from the Greeks & Ptolemy, through the scholastics of the middle ages to modern navigational techniques are not merely mistaken about the shape of the Earth but that this is in fact a deliberate deception maintained (for inscrutable reasons) by a huge highly organised conspiracy.
Conspiracy theorists will sometimes claim that "conspiracy theory" is a term invented by the unseen rulers of this world in order to label the musings of conspiracy theorists with a pejorative term. As will shall see Pastry is of this opinion. But conspiracy theorists are unable to conceive that their views actually fall under the general idea of "conspiracy theorism" which is in fact a world view, a view which is fallacious. One of the major fallacies of conspiracy theorism is that, contrary to Occam's razor, it multiplies actors, agents and chunks of narrative willy-nilly in order to join a haphazard collection of data dots into a single coherent but highly contrived big picture. As a theory gets more ramifying the possible routes through the decision network multiply exponentially thus reducing considerably the probability that a right route has been taken. Therefore, arbitrarily multiplying entities in order to fit the data dots of complex social objects to a theory are almost bound to be in error. Human intellectual resources are most effectively employed when constructing simple theories about simple objects (e.g. as in physics) because there are fewer opportunities to take a wrong route in the theoretical decision tree and therefore a greater chance of getting it right. In contrast those complex and chaotic social objects are best approached by us, not with unlikely ramifying theories, but instead with adaptive opportunism that befits what we truly are: Viz Complex adaptive systems.
For a Christian such as myself a world of senseless chaos actually makes some ironic sense of the human predicament: Sin, both Satanic and human, has difficulty planning because Sin looks after itself first and foremost - that is the definition of sin; it is the antithesis of Philippians 2:1-11. This aggressive independence promotes chaotic uncoordinated behavior. Moreover, in the Bible it's no coincidence that Satan is associated with the Dragon, the Serpent and the chaos beast who rises from the deep. (See Rev 13:2ff and also here)
The main reason why conspiracy theorism has gained so much ground today is no doubt down to the internet providing channels of infection for a large minority who, for a variety of reasons, are highly susceptible to persuasion by conspiracy narratives. Some of the web operators who promote these byzantine narratives may be cynical (& clever) trolls who get a control freak kick out of seeing how easily they can dupe gullible people like Steve Pastry.
2. Steve Pastry
My brief acquaintance with Steve Pastry started on a Church private members Facebook page where I published this link to an article on the web sight of Premier Christianity and merely suggested that people read the article and then sign a petition. The article is by a Dr Adrian Warnock and titled American evangelicals must stop spreading conspiracy theories about Covid-19, so it is fairly clear what the article is all about. Given that the church on whose FB page I published this link is a mainstream & moderate UK evangelical church I just wasn’t bargaining on attracting the attention of the otherwise unknown extremist Steve Pastry, who was hiding in plain sight on the FB page members list; how he got there I don't know; he's not a member of the church I'm glad to say. Pastry crept out of the woodwork to post his initial cranky outburst in response to my post. This outburst and most of the online conversation that ensued can be found in this PDF document.
For someone like myself whose epistemic method proceeds under the assumption that the anomalous, the erratics, the oddities, various phenomenal novelties, the paranormal and in fact anything bizarre (and that includes the Christian cults, the Christian lunatic fringe and spiritual weirdness in general) are the best test of one's world view, Pastry's response was actually a welcome windfall.
But set against this is the fact that getting information out of a fundamentalist conspiracy theorist is hard work and I don't have the skills of an Arlie Hochschild. They are of course set up to be suspicious of anyone who challenges their views and this was true of Pastry; after all he probably regarded me as an evil stooge of the illuminati. It was all very much a replay of my contact with other Christian cultists who have always assumed that, because I'm not one of them, I must be at best compromised and at worst an emissary of Satan. Although Pastry showed the usual sectarian reticence and kept his beliefs and sources close to his chest it is likely, however, that Pastry is into the QAnon conspiracy, now semi-mainstream among Trump followers. Nevertheless, when he was in outburst mode Pastry conveniently spilt of some of the beans; he's not only a UK Trump supporter but also believes the Earth is flat among other absurdities.
The
worst thing about the kind of nonsense Christians like Pastry promote is that it brings Christianity into
disrepute. Also, some of these theories can be damaging and harmful; I knew
someone who refused cancer treatment because of a belief in cancer conspiracy
theorism and died sooner rather than later as a result. And we have here the spectre of Christians who are making these insane claims being utterly convinced they are in the Spirit of Truth and even going as far
as Pastry in accusing those who disagree with him as promoting the devil’s
schemes. So we have the prospect that either moderate mainstream evangelicals (such as
Dr Adrian Warnock above) are wrong about Covid 19 and the shape of the Earth or the ostentatiously devout sounding Christians conspiracy theorists are wrong. They both can’t
be right, of course; one side or other is in error, almost certainly in my opinion people like Pastry who are into hard core conspiracy theorism. So not
only does paranoid Christian conspiracy theorism compromise the authenticity of
Christianity and its claim to being in Spirit and in Truth but it also has the
effect of burying real threats to the church under a welter of junk theology.
It's no coincidence that Christian fundamentalism, conspiracy theorism, Trumpism, libertarianism and the extreme right-wing have gelled into an ugly congealed stinking mass of intellectual debauchery. The fact is (and I just have to face it) many parts of the evangelical church are not only in the intellectual doldrums but will actually defend those doldrums from a base that is a varying mix of fideism, Trumpism, conspiracy theorism and right-wing sentiments in general. Trump's toxic lies are seeping into and poisoning some parts of the Church. He's doing far worse covert damage to the Church than left-wing atheism ever could; at least with the latter they spare us the corrupting flattery and insidious delusional innuendos. Trump is fundamentalism's voice of Saruman. See the video below where we find two (sensible) American Christians who are critical of the drift American fundamentalist evangelicalism is taking. They tell us that in some evangelical minds Trump has been raised to a figure with an almost eschatological significance. If the election goes against Trump this entrenched eschatological idealism will make it difficult for these believers to accept. What do they do then? Get out their guns?
Relevant Link
From the same Premier Christianity stable there is another article of interest found on their website and relevant to this post. The title of the article speaks for itself:
Recently a Christian friend of mine sent me an email raising issues connected with probability, Covid 19 testing and the apparently unrelated philosophical question about what was the true nature of reality. As he is working in Africa these subjects are all linked together under the title of intercultural mission and contextualisation of the Christian message. Where social conditions may be very different and where perceptions & world view also seem so different social relativism is always a temptation. Social relativism is certainly not a position I would subscribe to myself although I do understand how it arises. For example, something as far removed from us as a bat experiences a world of very different quality to ourselves and its perceptions have very different connotations. But although the bat will see a vastly dissimilar world qualitatively and in terms of its meanings & goals, the formal structure of that world would be the same for ourselves; e..g the bat agrees with us about where objects are although the quality of their experience of those objects and what they signify will likely be vastly different. This identity of formal structure exists because the same transcendent laws organising the patterns that link a bat's experiences also link our experiences and, moreover, there is almost faultless registration* between the laws which govern our experiences and those that govern the experiences of the bat.
For me reality only exists in so far as interrogation of the formal logic controlling the patterns of our experience passes the equivalent of a kind of Turing's test for reality: that is, the underlying logic is sufficiently replete to return the same coherent and organised world when tested by any experiential sampling. But my contention is that without the potential for serving up an experience of a rational world the transcendent logic of the laws of physics is meaningless (See the introduction to my book Gravity and Quantum Non-Linearity where I express similar views).
As I said in my response to my friend I've always had a tendency toward an idealist philosophy of reality: In my case I see reality as a replete formal structure linking together our experiential qualia into patterns; both the formal structure and the cognitive qualia are needed before a reality can be said to meaningfully exist. The vast logical structure of the universe is there to provide a coherent and rational experience of the world to conscious agents and above all to provide the universal contextual medium whereby centres of conscious cognition can communicate. If that world is not experienced and cognitively apprehended by some rational mind - primarily the divine mind - it makes little sense; a world independent of its service to perception is meaningless. True, the "thing-in-itself-ness" of the cosmos may be very different to the window on it that divine providence has provided us with (a bat has different kind of window). But for us that providence assures that its formal structure is rational, regular and coherent enough to reveal its patterns under interrogation - well, let's say most of the time, paranormal circumstances excepted, circumstances where at times it is almost as if reality has slipped into a chaotic dream state, sometimes referred to as the "Oz factor".
* I've adopted the term "registration" from the four-colour printing world where the four printing colours cyan, magenta, yellow, and black are said to have good registration if their printing positions align sufficiently to produce sharp correctly coloured pictures.
Implausible monsters emerged from Lovecraft's id; the worst of them was racism.
As I've said before; the move from atheism to postmodern nihilism is one short step for man but one giant cultural leap for humankind. Take this post by my favourite atheist PZ Myers where he remarks on generalised Copernicanism and contemporary authors who are bringing us a postmodern cosmic dread such as we see in an HBO production called Lovercraft Country....
Science has been spending a few
centuries working to move the center of the universe away from us, so it fits
with an ongoing trend. Now we just have to dislodge that center from white
people, which is proving to be the hardest step of them all. Lovecraft Country,
though, does its part in the decentering. Don’t read Lovecraft, read the more
recent authors that have been bringing us cosmic dread without the petty
racism. (Another author I’d recommend: the work of Ruthanna Emrys, who takes on
the perspective of the fish men of Innsmouth.)
Hey, can we pretend Skepticon is
taking place in Lovecraft country?
There is no need to pretend if you are as good as in Lovecraft country already. Myers calls Lovecraft a horrible racist (which no doubt he was!) but the monster of racism feels very Lovecraftian to me and of a piece with Lovecraft's id inspired cosmic dread. Like the monster from the id racism inhabits our subconscious and we inadvertently reify it into our social surroundings. In any case Lovecraft had such a jaundiced view of what he believed to be an utterly indifferent cosmos that race supremacism wouldn't be out of place in it and in fact in his mind would likely be a natural outcome of inter-species competition. Lovecraft's vision of the cosmos was so misanthropic that who knows what horrible things it could throw up.
I have a little knowledge of Lovecraft because one of my sons studied Lovecraft for his MA: I think he wanted a grindstone to sharpen up his faith! The LA Times, as quoted by Myers, tells us a bit more about H P Lovecraft:
Lovecraft helped create a genre
now known as “cosmic horror,” stories filled with dread and terror at the
knowledge that humans are not the most important things in the universe.
He was beginning to write at a
time when science was making vast and profound discoveries,” says Klinger.
“What he came to believe, I think deeply and honestly, was that human beings
were insignificant little dust motes in this enormous universe and that
eventually we would discover that we were not particularly significant.
No question that science in stages, starting with Copernicus through particulate theory, deep time, evolution, and deep space etc has left the old Christian order with a mighty lot to ponder; not that that's a bad thing, although as counter-reactions Christian young earthism and flat earthism are the rearguard actions of an incompetent, run-down and bankrupt religious culture. But let's not give up hope and faith yet, else, as the irony of satirical Christian artist Steve Taylor would put it:
Life unwinds like a cheap sweater
But since I gave up hope I feel a
lot better
And the truth gets blurred like a
wet letter
But since I gave up hope I feel a
lot better
And let's not forget that even on evolutionary logic we find that science is telling us that we never left the centre. Or a better way of putting it: The die was heavily loaded in favour of life from the outset and therefore by implication loaded in our favour as well.
Mathematics is at once both discovered and invented
The right-wing "Intelligent Design" web site Uncommon Descenthave posted more intriguing material. They quote from another right-wing web article where we hear that:
Brooklyn
College Professor of Math Education Laurie Rubel argued this week on Twitter
that the mathematical equation 2+2=4 “reeks of white supremacist patriarchy.”
Rubel’s tweet was retweeted and promoted by several academics at universities
and colleges around the nation…
Several
academics from institutions around the nation chimed in. Harvard Ph.D.
candidate Kareem Carr suggested that math should be reevaluated because it was
primarily developed by white men.
If this is factual and to be taken seriously then I would probably find myself aligned with UD on this one: I'm at a loss as to why 2+2 = 4 "reeks of white supremacist patriarchy" - I'm not even sure what that means: Is it a property intrinsic to or extrinsic to 2+2=4? It's probably the latter; that is, it's in the eye of beholder in so far as the beholder has come to associate mathematics with "white supremacism", for whatever complex histrico-socio-political reason. But these very human attributions are not intrinsic to mathematics unless nature herself is somehow party to a "white supremacist" conspiracy. The synergy and rapport between mathematics and nature is nothing short of amazing; this is, as they say the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in modelling nature. Moreover, that nature facilitates the building of complex mathematical artefacts (i.e. technology) is further evidence that mathematics is beyond human likes, dislikes and fanciful political connotations.
The UD article also tells us that:
Carr apparently
believes that the people who discovered theorems in math actually invented them
the way a novelist writes a novel.
Well, that actually may be not be so very far from the mark: Humanly speaking discovery and creation have a very close relation: When human beings are creating they are discovering at the same time: The novelist, like the artist, is discovering and selecting (semantic) configurations from the platonic world of possibility: There are only so many stories that can be written given the size of the average book and an author/artist is conceiving and selecting one possible configuration. The connectedness of discovery and creation is very clear in technological innovation: If one has technological goals one quickly realises that one can't cobble together any old thing. So in order to find something that works we embark on a seek. reject and select process with teleological goals in mind. Seek, reject and select is a very general process which means that human creation is also about discovery. Mathematics, like any other so-called human "invention", is also discovered and recovered from the huge space of the platonic world of configurational possibility and reified as symbolic operations. Because platonic space is so large then the reification of any of its huge range of possibilities is likely to be a one-off and at once both an invention and discovery.
But although I would likely align with UD on the question of whether or not mathematical constructions are intrinsically racist the right-wing have their own extremists in their midst: In this instance I speak once again of their libertarian commentator "Polistra" who we've met twice before on my blog (See here and here). Any thing that smacks of establishment activity he's against. This time he comes up with this gem:
Polistra August 10, 2020 at 11:48
pm: Nonsense. Tempest in an
irrelevant teapot. Look. The math ESTABLISHMENT has
been trying to tell us that math isn’t real, ever since Godel. This current
attempt to fictionalize math is superficial compared to Godel. People who actually USE math know
that it works consistently. Carpenters and cooks and drivers know how
measurement works. A cook knows that doubling the ingredients will produce two
cakes. A driver knows that he has to drive twice as fast to get to the same
destination in half the time. Students who learn math by USING
it can’t be fooled by Godel or by the wokers.
Once again we find Polistra railing against the evil plotting establishment. If Polistra is thinking of Godel's incompleteness theorem then he's talking nonsense and people on UD should challenge him but they never do; after all, he's on their side against the evil "Darwinists" in the establishment. Godel was a theist and a Christian if a little eccentric. It is unlikely, therefore, he would have gone down the road of social relativism or seen his mathematics as intrinsically racist or arbitrary. Polistra is about as crackpot as the cranks who rail against quantum theory and relativity.
But there is a link between the extreme libertarian right and the communist left; they all hate the current democratic governmental establishment and its institutions and wish to sweep them away.
UPDATE 14/08/2020
We find atheist PZ Myers talking about this subject at this link:
Now PZ Myers is the sort of guy the right-wing pundits at Uncommon Descent are likely to accuse of helping along the notion that 2 + 2 = 4 is a piece of arbitrary white supremacism. But looking at the tenor of what he has written there is no attack there on the intrinsic properties of mathematics. Instead it's all to do with the socio-political setting of mathematical teaching, that is the extrinsic properties of maths: e.g. who is controlling mathematical material, who dispenses it, who gets credit, how they use it etc. That, of course, is another story altogether. There are no doubt polarised extremists on both left and right, but PZ Myers isn't one of them as far as I can tell,
I was intrigued by this post on Uncommon Descent which seems to be veering toward. an idealist philosophy. My own take on the nature of reality tends toward Berkeleyian idealism in so far as reality is a meaningless concept without an up and running mind (chiefly God's mind). But it is announced on UD as if this is a startling revelation when in fact its old hat! Is it a coincidence that my post here has recently had 8 hits?
The UD supremo, Barry Arrington whose performance hasn't impressed me (see here and here) comments that he thinks a solipsistic philosophy is entailed when in fact it certainly isn't: As a man of the cloth Berkleley could hardly have been a solipsist!
This post on UD may actually be a step in the right direction because as a rule, encouraged by the likes of Arrington, the de facto IDists tend toward a naive mind vs matter materialism and this is all part of their spurious a natural forces vs God intelligent agency dichotomy.
For more of my views on idealism see this specific post:
On the left, Marx
and on the right, Smith: They are facing in opposite directions and yet
there is an ironic connection. Marx despised government as the protector
of the property of the owning classes, to be done away with in a
communist classless society of common interests. Likewise some of Smith's
libertarian followers see Government as the problem rather than the
solution and seek to minimise it. But neither the pure communist nor pure
libertarian visions have ever been realised and tested in
practice. The ideal role of Government may in fact be that of a democratic
argumentative forum protecting us from the totalising &
hegemonic visions of radicals and idealists whose efforts
ultimately favour anarchy in the first instance followed by anarchy's
drastic antidote in the second instance - dictatorship.
Recently Blogger seemed to be corrupting posts when they were edited. Hence to be sure of fidelity the rest of this article can be found in the PDF here
No models, no science. More facts better models. Why can't Matt Ridley take on board the scientific epistemic?
The Ptolemaic model of the heavens was actually not bad at making
predictions, but philosophical presuppositions which permitted only the
use of circular motions with all measurements being made relative to the earth
gave the model a limited sell-by-date. The use of epicycles was a crude kind of
Fourier analysis that would require more and more harmonics to be
added in order to converge on the observed motions
With motions
measured relative to the Sun the Copernican system, although initially based on
Sun centred circular motions, opened up new theoretical potential leading
in turn to Digges, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Einstein and finally Poincare's
chaos calculations, each ushering in a conceptual departure which embraced new
anomalies in the incoming data. Atomic theory went through similar phases from
Rutherford, the Bohr atom, Wilson & Sommerfeld's quantisation rules,
Schrodinger & Heisenberg, Dirac & Feynman; but where was gravity in all
this? The overall lesson is that even the best models never quite capture
everything about the creation.
Recently Blogger seemed to be corrupting posts when they were edited. Hence to be sure of fidelity the rest of this article can be found in the PDF here.
In this series of posts I have been critiquing de facto IDists Nametti and Holloway's (N&H) concept of "Algorithmic Specified Information" (ASC) a quantity which they claim is conserved. The other parts of this series can be found here, here, here and here.
For me, as a Christian, de facto ID's outlook is contrary to many of my own views that readily flow out of my understanding that those so-called "natural forces" are the result of the creative action of an immanent Deity and will therefore reveal something of God's nature in their power to generate difference and pattern; after all human beings are themselves natural objects with the ability to create pattern and configuration via artistic and mathematical endeavour.
Although I would likely see eye-to-eye with de facto IDists that there is no such thing as something coming from nothing (a notion that is the proposal of some atheists), for me the very glory of creation is that it generates otherwise unknown & unforeseen patterns and configurations; as Sir John Polkinghorne puts it our cosmos is a "fruitful creation": Whilst for the Divine mind there may be nothing new under the sun, for those under the sun the unfolding of creation is a revelation: So whilst it's true that the realisation that something has to come from something prompts us to probe for a formal expression of the conservation of something, on the other hand that creation creates pattern and that humans learn from the revelation of this creation suggests we also probe for a formal expression of our intuition that information is created. De facto IDists behave like crypto-gnostics unable to acknowledge the sacredness of creation (albeit corrupted by Satan and Sin).
All in all I find the IDists obsession with that of trying to prove an all embracing theorem of information conservation as misguided and futile as the atheist project to show how something can come from nothing.
***
1. Evolution and teleology
In this part 5 I want to look at atheist Joe Feslenstein's reaction to N&H's efforts. In fact in this post Joe Felsenstein criticizes the concept of ASC on the basis that it simply doesn't connect with the essential idea of evolution: that is, the selection of organic configurations based on fitness:
FELSENSTEIN: In natural selection, a population of individuals of different genotypes survives and reproduces, and those individuals with higher fitness are proportionately more likely to survive and reproduce. It is not a matter of applying some arbitrary function to a single genotype, but of using the fitnesses of more than one genotype to choose among the results of changes of genotype. Thus modeling biological evolution by functions applied to individual genotypes is a totally inadequate way of describing evolution. And it is fitness, not simplicity of description or complexity of description, that is critical. Natural selection cannot work in a population that always contains only one individual. To model the effect of natural selection, one must have genetic variation in a population of more than one individual.
Yes, the resultant configurations of evolution are about population fitness (or at least its softer variant of viability). The sum of a configuration's Shannon improbability minus the relative algorithmic complexity is an insufficient condition for this all important product of evolution.
Fitness (and its softer variant of viability) is a concept which humanly speaking is readily conceived and articulated in teleological terms as the "goal", or at least as the end product of evolution; that is, we often hear about evolution "seeking" efficient survival solutions. But of course atheists, for whom teleological explanations are assumed to be alien to the natural world, will likely claim that this teleological sounding talk is really only a conceptual convenience and not a natural teleology. For them this teleology is no more significant than cause-and-effect-Newtonianism being thought of in terms of those mathematically equivalent "final cause" action principles. As is known among theoretical physicists there is no logical need to think of Newtonian mechanics in terms of final causation: Algorithmically speaking "final cause" action principles are just a nice way of thinking about what are in fact algorithmically procedural Newtonian processes, processes driven from behind. Pre-causation rather than post-causation rules here.
However, although Felsenstein the atheist will likely acknowledge there is no actual teleology in evolution he nonetheless accepts that thinking about evolution in terms of its end result of fitness makes the whole process (pseudo) meaningful: Felsenstein points out that the earlier ID concept of Complex Specified information (CSI) is intrinsically more meaningful than ASC and notes that CSI was explicitly stated by William Dembski in terms of end results: Viz:
In the case where we do not use ASC, but use Complex Specified Information, the Specified Information (SI) quantity is intrinsically meaningful. Whether or not it is conserved, at least the relevance of the quantity is easy to establish. In William Dembski's original argument that the presence of CSI indicates Design (2002) the specification is defined on a scale that is basically fitness. Dembski (2002, p. 148) notes that:
"The specification of organisms can be cashed out in any number of ways. Arno Wouters cashes it out globally in terms of the viability of whole organisms. Michael Behe cashes it out in terms of the minimal function of biochemical systems. Darwinist Richard Dawkins cashes out biological specification in terms of the reproduction of genes. Thus in The Blind Watchmaker Dawkins writes "Complicated things have some quality, specifiable in advance, that is highly unlikely to have been acquired by random chance alone. In the case of living things, the quality that is specified in advance is ... the ability to propagate genes in reproduction."
The scale on which SI is defined is basically either a scale of fitnesses of genotypes, or a closely-related one that is a component of fitness such as viability. It is a quantity that may or may not be difficult to increase, but there is little doubt that increasing it is desirable, and that genotypes that have higher values on those specification scales will make a larger contribution to the gene pool of the next generation.
Herein we find the irony: Both Felsenstein and Dembski note that Specified Complex Information is only meaningful in terms of a conceived end result: e..g fitness, viability, minimal function, gene propagation or whatever. But of course what appears to be teleology here would simply be regarded by a true-blue atheist as an elegant intellectual trick of no more teleological significance than the action principles of physics.
2. Evolution and the spongeam
It is relatively easy to determine whether a given organism has viability; that is, whether it is capable of self-maintenance and self replication; just watch it work! But the reverse is much more difficult: From the general requirements of self maintenance and self-replication it is far from easy to arrive at detailed structures that fulfill these requirements: This is where evolution is supposed to the "solve" the computational problem: It is a process of "seek and find"; a "find" registers as successful if a generated configuration is capable of self-maintenance and self replication given its environment. In evolution the self-maintaining and self-replicating configurations are, of course, self-selecting. That's the theory anyway.
Strictly speaking, of course, talk about evolution "solving" a computational problem is not going to go down well with the anti-teleologists because the activity of "solving" connotes an anthropomorphic activity where a problem has been framed in advance and a "solution" sought for; computation in most cases is a goal motivated process where the goals of problem solving are its raison d'etre. But to a fully fledged atheist evolution has no goals - evolution just happens because of the cosmos's inbuilt imperative logic, a logic implicit from the start, a logic where evolutionary outcomes are just incidental to that logic. If we believe evolution to be driven by causation from behind, then evolutionary outcomes will be implicit in the initial conditions (at least probabilistically). It has to be assumed that these outcomes will at least have a realistic probability of coming about given the size & age of the universe and the causation laws that constrain the universe. To this end I have in various papers and posts caricatured evolutionary processes as the exponential diffusion of a population of structures across configuration space. Each reproductive step is constrained by the conditions of self-maintenance and self-replication: But this process will only work if a structure I call the spongeam pervades configuration space. I'm not here going to air my doubts about the presence of this structure but simply note that conventional evolution requires the spongeam to be implicit in the laws of physics. The spongeam is in effect the depository of the up-front-information which is a prerequisite of evolution and also OOL. More about the spongeam can be found in these references......
Although I think reasonable atheists would accept that evolution requires a burden of up-front-information there may still be resistance to this idea because it then raises the question of "Where from?". Like IDists who are determined to peddle the notion of information conservation some atheists are constantly drawn toward the "something from nothing" paradigm. See for example the discussion I published in the comments section of the post here where an atheist just couldn't accept that the natural physical regime must be so constrained that evolution effectively has direction. He may have been of the "naked chance" persuasion.
3. Generating complexity
As we have seen in this series, random configurations are identified by the length of the algorithm needed to define them: Viz: If the defining algorithm needs to be of a length equal to the length of the configuration then that configuration is identified as random. However, that a random configuration can only be defined by an algorithm of the same length doesn't mean to say that the random configuration cannot be generated by algorithms shorter than the length of the random configuration: After all, a simple algorithm that systematically generates configurations, like say counting algorithms, will, if given enough time, generate any finite random sequence. But as I show in my book on Disorder and Randomness small space parallel processing algorithms will only generate randomness by consuming huge amounts of time. So basically generating randomness from simple beginnings takes a very long time (actually, by definition!). In this sense randomness has a high computational complexity.
Although complex organised entities like biological structures obviously do not classify as random configurations they do have properties in common with randomness in that they show a great variety of sub-configurational patterns and are potentially a huge class of possible configuration (but obviously a lot smaller than the class of random configurations). Therefore it is very likely that such complex configurations as living structures, being somewhere between high order and high disorder in complexity, are themselves going to take a long time to generate from algorithmic simplicity, much longer time, I'll wager, than the age of the universe even given the constraining effect of the laws of physics. This would mean that to generate life in a cause and effect cosmos and in a timely way sufficient up front information (such as the spongeam) must be built into the cause and effect algorithms from the outset. The cause an effect paradigm, even if used probabilistically, requires that the outcomes of a process are implicit (if only probabilistically) in the current state of the procedure. But if there is insufficient up-front-information built into a cause and effect system to drive the generation of life in a short enough time how could it be done otherwise? If we imagine that there was no spongeam could life still be arrived at? I believe there are other possibilities and ideas to explore here.
4. Declarative languages and computation
In conventional evolution (and OOL) the potential for life is thought to be built into a physical regime, a regime driven from behind in a cause and effect way. But if those cause and effect laws are simpleparallel imperative algorithms and provide insufficient constraint (i.e. insufficient up front information) life can then only be developed by consuming considerable time and space resources, more time and space, in fact, than the known cosmos provides. So, as I have proposed in my Thinknet and Meloncolia I projects one way of solving the generation time problem is to use expanding parallelism. But for this technique to work there is, however, another important ingredient needed here. This is the declarative ingredient which means that what is generated is subject to selection and therefore in a declarative context the algorithms are explicitly teleological and driven by a goal seeking intentionality.
Most procedural programs are actually implicitly teleological in that they are written in an imperativelanguage with the aim of producing some useful output; that is, an end product. But in a true declarative program the procedures aren't written down but rather the declarativelanguage itself is used to state the desired end product in a logical and mathematical way and the compiler translates this formal statement into procedures. A practical example of a simple declarative language would be as follows:
5. Example of a declarative language
Our problem might be this: Is there a number that has the following set of properties: Its digits add up to a specified number N1, it is exactly divisible by another specified number N2 and it is also a palindrome. This is a declaration of intention to find if such a number or numbers exist. One way to conceive the solution of this problem is to imagine all the natural numbers actually exist, at least platonically as locations in some huge imaginary "memory" that can be flagged by a signalling processes; in this sense the availability of memory space is assumed not to be an issue. In fact we imagine we have three processes at work; Viz: Process A which systematically flags numbers whose digits add up to N1, process B which systematically flags numbers which are multiples of N2 and finally process C which systematically flags palindromes. If all these three processes flag the same number then we will have a solution to the stated problem (there may be more than one solution of course). Hence a solution, or a range of solutions, can then be selected as the goal of the cluster of processes.
A method of this sort could be employed for other mathematical properties of numbers. Hence we could extend the tool box of flagging processes indefinitely, A, B, C, D, E....etc. Each of these labels represents a process which generates a particular kind of number. So we could then make declarations of intent Thinknet style such as:
[A B C D]
1.0
This expression represents a simple declarative program for finding numbers with all the properties flagged by A, B , C and D. This search is a two stage operation: Firstly the configuration A B C D represents the operation of forming halos of numbers flagged with their respective properties. The square brackets [ ] represents the operation of making a selection of those numbers which simultaneously have all the properties that the processes A, B, C and D flag.
In analogy to Thinknet we could further sophisticate this simple language by allowing nesting; that is:
[[A B] C D]
2.0
...where the nest [A B] is solved first by selecting a set of solutions which have properties flagged by both A and B. Processes C and D then run, flagging their respective properties. The outer brackets are eventually applied to make a selection of numbers which simultaneously have all the properties flagged by A, B, C and D. It is likely that different bracketing scenarios will come up with different results. Hence in general:
[[A B] C D] != [A B [C D]]
3.0
No doubt there is a lot of scope for sophisticating this simple declarative language further - for example we could have processes which seek numbers which do not have certain declared properties; these are what you might call negation processes: Hence we might have:
[A !B]
4.0
...where !B means numbers that don't have the property flagged by the process B. Other logical operators could no doubt be added to this language.
Clearly the details of the processes A B C etc. are procedural; that is, they must be programmed in advance using a procedural cause & effect language. Nevertheless, the foregoing provides a simple example of a declarative language similar to Thinknet where once the procedural work has been done setting up A, B, C... etc, the language can then be used to construct declarative programs. However, simple though this language is, practically implementing it is beyond current computing technology: Firstly it is assumed that working memory space isn't limited. Secondly, the processes A, B, C,.... and [ ] would be required to operate with huge halos of possible candidate numbers; this latter requirement really demands that the seek, flag and selection processes have available to them an expanding parallelism rather than the limited parallel computation of our current computing technology.
In and of themselves the flagging procedures designated A.B, C etc. do not appear to obviously manifest any goal driven behaviour: it is only when A, B, C etc are brought together with [ ] that the teleology of the system emerges. But having said that we must realise that if it were possible to implement the above declarative language on a computer it would in fact be only a simulation of declarative mechanics. For in a practical computer not only would the procedural algorithms defining the A, B and C reside as information in the computer memory from the start, but so also would the code needed to implement the selection process [ ]. Thus a human implementation of declarative computing has to be simulated with cause and effect software. The usual computational complexity theorems would therefore still apply to these strings of code. But although in human designed computers the seek and select program strings are found in computer memory from the outset, this doesn't apply in nature. After all, we don't actually observe the laws of physics themselves; all we observe is their apparent controlling and organizing affects on our observations. Thus physical laws are more in the character of a transcendent reality controlling the flow of events. Likewise if there is such as thing as teleological selection criteria in our cosmos then they too would, I guess, be a transcendent reality and only observed in their effects on the material world. Nature as far as we can tell doesn't have a place where we can go to see its stored generating programs doing the seeking and selecting. But when we do conventional computing we can only simulate transcendent generation and selection laws with explicit program strings residing observably in memory.
6. Creating/generating Information?
I've schematically represented a declarative computation as:
[A B C] => Output
5.0
...where A, B, C, are cause and effect processes which (perhaps using expanding parallelism) flag configurational objects with particular properties. The square brackets represent the operation of making a selection of configurations which simultaneously possess the sought for properties flagged by A, B and C. This selection is designated by "Output".
The computational complexity of the computation represented by 5.0 is measured by two resources:
a) If the above operation were to be rendered in conventional computation there would be programs strings for A, B, C and [ ] which when executed would simulate the generation and selection of configurations. The length of that string would be one aspect of the complexity of the computation.
b) The second measure is the count of operations required to reach the output. If we are simulating the declarative computation using parallel processing then linear time would be one way to measure the complexity, but if we are using expanding parallelism it is better to measure the complexity in terms of the total count of the number of parallel operations.
In light of this paradigm is it right to make claims about either information being conserved and/or information being created? As we will see below the answer to that question is 'yes' and 'no' depending on what perspective one takes.
Firstly let us note that 'information' is, connotatively speaking, a bad term because it suggests something static like a filling cabinet full of documents. In contrast we can see that expression 5.0 is in actual fact a representation of both static information and computational activity. If we are going to perceive 'information' in purely static configurational terms then 5.0 clearly creates information in the sense that it creates configurations and then flags and selects them; the teleological rationale being that of finding, flagging and selecting otherwise unknown configurations which are solutions to the stated problem. So, secondly we note that the creation of the configurations which are solutions to the stated problem cannot take place without computational activity.
Spurious ideas about information somehow being conserved may well originate in the practical problem of the storage of configurational information where storage space is limited: Algorithmic information theory is often concerned with how to map a large string to a shorter string, that is, how to compress the string for the purpose of convenient storage without loosing any information. Here algorithmic information theory reveals some kind of conservation law in that clearly the information in a string has a limit beyond which it can not be compressed further without loosing information. In fact as is well known a truly random configuration can not be compressed at all without losing information. In this "finite filing cabinet" view of information, a view which deals with configuration, (as opposed to activity) we find that the minimum length a string can be compressed without loss of information is fixed; in that sense we have a conservation law.
But when we are talking about the generation and selection of configurations, configurational information isn't conserved; in fact the intention is to create and flag otherwise unknown configurations. Moreover, we are not talking here about an informational mapping relationship because this activity need not be one that halts but just continues generating more and more complex configurations that fulfill the criteria A, B, C, ...etc. Nevertheless, it may still be possible that some kind of conservation law could be formally constructed if we mathematically bundle together the program strings needed for A, B, C and [ ] along with the quantity of activity needed to arrive at a selection. Hence we might be able to formalise a conservation of information along the lines of something like:
Program strings + activity = output.
6.0
...that is the computation of the required output is the "sum" of the initial static information and the amount of activity needed to arrive at a result; here initial information and computational activity have a complementary relation. Of course, at this stage expression 6.0 is not a rigorously formal relationship but really represents the kind of relationship we might look for if the matter was pursued.
As I noted toward the end of this paper in my Thinknet project the declarative paradigm symbolised by 5.0 provides a very natural way of thinking about "specified complexity". As we have seen the word 'specified' connotes some kind of demand or requirement conceived in advance; hence the word 'specified' has a teleological content, a goal aimed for. 'Complexity' on the other hand will be a measure of both the initial static information and computational activity required to meet the stated goal. These two aspects are more formally expressed in relationship 5.0 where the specifications are represented by properties flagged by processes A, B and C and the complexity of the computation is measured by 6.0.
I would like to moot the idea that expression 5.0, where its form is understood to apply in an abstract and general way, is an important aspect of intelligent activity. This is of course by no means a sufficient condition of the dynamics of intelligence and in fact only represents one aspect, albeit a necessary condition, of intelligence; namely that of goal seeking.
7. The poverty of de facto ID.
The de facto ID movement comes with strong vested interests. Firstly there are political interests: North American de facto ID finds itself leaning into the arms the right-wing, although to be fair this may in part be a reaction against some of the left slanting atheism of the academic establishment. Secondly there are intellectual interests. As we have seen de facto ID is all but irreversibly committed to a paradigm of intelligence that is beyond human investigation in so far as they have mooted the concept that intelligence is some kind of oracular magic that cannot be simulated in algorithmic terms. This has naturally fitted in with their dualistic outlook which sets intelligent agency over and against the "natural forces" of nature, forces which are thought of by them to be too profane, inferior and "material" to be at the root of a putatively "immaterial" mind with power to create information in a mysterious magical way. This almost gnostic outlook neglects all the potentiality implied by that fact that nature (which includes ourselves) is an immanent God's creation.
What may not have helped the de facto IDists is that current scientific attitudes are slanted almost exclusively in favour of a cause and effect view of the physical regime, a regime where there is no room for "final causes" i.e teleology. In the cause and effect paradigm the future is seen to be exclusively written into past events (at least probabilistically) and little or no credence is given to the possibility that there may be transcendent selection effects waiting invisibly in the wings.
As we have seen, without explicitly referring to the dynamics of end results and/or intentionality it is very difficult to define "specified complexity". This has in fact hamstrung the de facto IDists attempts to define it themselves. This has lead N&H to define "specified complexity" in terms of static configurations alone thus neglecting the important dynamic aspect of information generation. According to N&H a configuration is judged to have Algorithmic Specified Complexity (ASC) if it has a high improbability but with a low relative algorithmic complexity. Once again they've non-noncommittally hedged on the concept of intelligence by placing it beyond analysis into the hidden libraries of relative algorithmic complexity. The result is a definition of specified complexity that is full of loopholes as we have seen: At best it can identify complex organisation. But as we have also seen this doesn't always work and moreover ASC isn't as strongly conserved as they claim it is; it is poor definition that is far from robust and gets nowhere near identifying the presence of intentionality. Their problem traces back to the fact that they are trying to identify the operation of intelligence without cognisance of the dynamics of intentionality and goal seeking.
The intrinsic configurational properties of an object such as an unexpected degree of ordered complexity are not reliable predictors as to the operation of intentionality; they may be just incidental to the cause and effect processes. When we look at objects of archaeological interest, whether they be complex or simple, we look for evidence of intentionality. But we can only do that because we are human and have some inkling of the kind of things humans do and the goals that motivate them. In archaeological work, as in police work, attempting to identify the presence of purpose, (that is identifying an underlying teleology) is a feature of that work. It is ironic that the atheist Joe Felsenstein should spot the inadequacy of N&H's definition to cope with even the pseudo-declarative nature of standard evolution.
The fact is N&H haven't really grasped the concept of specified in information in terms of a dynamic declarative paradigm and therefore have failed to come up with a useful understanding of the intelligent activity. Given that their vision goes no further than procedural algorithmics and configurational compressibility (connections where the information is in one sense present from the start) it is no surprise that they think that information, which they perceive as a very static object, is conserved. In contrast the whole rationale of intelligent action is that it is a non halting process forever seeking new configurations & forms and thereby creating them. Intelligent output is nothing if creative. This is what I call intelligent creation.
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Summing up
As we have seen even an atheist like Joe Felsenstein is tempted to accept that "specified information" makes little sense outside of a teleological context and that is why evolution is conveniently conceived in pseudo-teleological terms - that is, in terms of its end result - when in fact with evolution, as currently understood, all the cause and effect information must be built in from the outset. Of course, for a true-blue atheist any teleological rendition of evolution is at best a mental convenience and at worst a crass anthropomorphism. For myself, however, I have doubts that even given the (procedural) laws of physics there is sufficient built-in information to get to where we are now biologically with a realistic probability after a mere few billion years of the visible universe. Hence, I'm drawn toward the heretical idea that both expanding parallelism and that transcendent seek and selection criteria are somehow built into nature.
Do these these notions of the teleology of declarative problem solving help to fill out the details of the mechanisms behind natural history? If we understand "evolution" in the weaker sense of simply being a history of macro-changes in phenotypes and genotypes, then what goals are being pursued and what selection criteria are being used apart from viability of form? How are the selection criteria being applied? What role, if any, does quantum mechanics have given that it looks suspiciously like a declarative process which uses expanding parallelism and selection? l'll just have to wait on further insight; if it comes.
