Classic Dualism

Courtesy of the Faraday Institute

I'm part of a Facebook group called Evangelicals for Evolutionary Creation. This is not to say that I've committed myself to standard Evolutionary thinking, but I feel that this group are worthy thinkers to keep an eye on. However, somebody put the following comment on their FB feed....

So I’m getting toward the end of Origins by the Haarsmas. A question arises, if abiogenesis is true, how does this not prove that life can happen without God? This kind of concerns me and it seems to be an open question in evolutionary creationism.

I believe that "Haarsmas" is a reference to Deborah Haarsma, the current president of Biologos, the Christian evolutionary creation organisation. I didn't comment on this statement as the Evolutionary Creation people are more than capable of critiquing such a breathtakingly naive perspective, a perspective with widespread appeal among both Christians and atheists. On this view it's a binary choice: "Either God did it or evolution did it"

I've no doubt said something like the following many times before: Since the enlightenment Western science has merely shown us that the cosmos is sufficiently organized for us to form succinct mathematical statements describing its dynamics. As many Christians fully understand, those descriptions in and of themselves only tell us about the "how?" of the cosmos and not the "why?" - but the "why?" is only a meaningful question if one first accepts that sentience, intelligence and purpose are a priori features of existence.

 If  anything this strange mathematical descriptive elegance only compounds the enigma of the cosmos and tells us little about absolute origins; that is, the ultimate gap, a gap that descriptive science is logically incapable of filling and if pressed simply leaves us with an elegant-descriptions-all-the-way-down regress. In fact, since we have no logically obliging reason for the continued existence of the contingencies of our cosmic reality that ultimate gap is everywhere and everywhen. 

And yet the dualistic view expressed by the above quote is the common default: That is "either God did it or cosmic processes did it"; the underlying assumption of this perspective is that somehow the enigma of cosmic organization has a logical self sufficiency which at best only leaves room for the God of deism or at worst no God at all. Such a perspective might have its origins in the early enlightenment/industrial era when it started to become much clearer that mechanisms (such as a steam regulator & automata) could be developed which meant that machines looked after their own running. The popularist conclusion was that the cosmos must be that kind of mechanism. Such mechanisms appeared not to need any prayerful ritualistic support or mystical input of any kind to continue. On this perspective sacredness seems to have been purged from what was now thought of as a self sustaining profane cosmos. 

But the realization that such mechanisms were so startingly sophisticated enough to beg the question of their design seems to have been lost on many people: One such person in our modern era is (atheist?) theologian Don Cupitt of the Sea of Faith movement. Also, blowhard atheist Richard Carrier is of this ilk. Carrier is so convinced by the sophistry of his flawed view of probability and randomness that he believes probability to be logically sufficient to fill in the God-gap.  And yet Carrier succeeded in identifying that our cosmic context lacks some logically self-sufficient kernel, although Carrier's erroneous concept of probability doesn't provide that kernel. 

***

It is surely ironic that the self same virtuoso cosmic organization which for some fills in the God-gap actually intensifies the nagging enigma of the absolute origins question; the contingent particularity of that organization is amazing. In fact as I have shown, evolution itself (if it has occurred) is effectively creationism on steroids.  And yet it is the underlying dualism of God vs evolution that much of the North America Intelligent Design movement (NAID) trades on. They will deny it of course, but whenever they open their mouths it is easy to see that they are exploiting the popularist God-of-the-gaps "Intelligence vs blind natural forces" dichotomy. To attack standard evolution on the scientific basis that the evidence is insufficient is one thing but to attack it on the basis of a half-cocked dualist philosophy is quite another - and I put it to the NAID community that although they affect to claim theirs is a scientific dispute their ulterior reasoning is in fact based on the popular appeal of their philosophical dualism, whatever they might claim. That appeal, however, is understandable I suppose because the above quote from a Facebook page is in fact the tip of a huge market iceberg of popularist thinking which the NAID's dichotomized explanations address and by which they make their money, trade and continue in mutual backslapping. For more on NAID see here, here and here.

NOTE: Luskin's God-of-the-Gaps paradigm

As I've made it clear before I don't think much of NAID theorist Casey Luskin's competence as an apologist for Intelligent Design. This post on Evolution News, which describes Luskin's views, cements his reputation as a God-or-of-the-Gaps apologist.  As I've said above I have no intellectual commitment to standard evolutionary theory, but what is clear, evolution or no evolution, one cannot get away from the question of intelligent design. That Luskin is so anti-evolution, a priori, is evidence that he still thinks subliminally in dualist and atheist categories in so far as he believes it to be  a choice between "blind natural forces vs intelligent design"..... where he interprets evolution atheistically in terms of "blind natural forces". Ergo, Luskin is a God-of-the-Gaps apologist whatever he claims. 

Casey Luskin Promotes a Flawed XOR Epistemic Filter. Part I

The eager faced "theist-in-the-Street", 
Casey Luskin, perpetuates the usual
muddled NAID ideas about
design detection, intelligence, 
creation and theism

The North American Intelligent Design (NAID) community have some very incoherent habits of mind which thoroughly muddy the waters of Intelligent Design theory. NAID pundit Casey Luskin is no exception and in an article on "Evolution News" he perpetuates NAID's conceptual incoherence.   

Like so many other pundits in the NAID community whom I have criticized over the years Casey assumes from the start that he can impose on the subject a natural forces vs intelligent design dichotomy.  Well, that dichotomy does work reasonably if one is trying to detect the activity of intelligent beings who are part of the created order such as human beings, aliens sending SETI signals, little gray men from Zeti Reticuli or even intelligent earth animals. But as I have said so often in this blog this dichotomy falls over badly when it is applied to Christian theism where omniscient divine intelligence not only transcends the world it has created but is so totalizing that it somehow also permeates every part of it (See Acts 17:28). Moreover, the Christian God is an omnipotent and omniscient sovereign which means that nothing happens in the cosmos without His permission; that is, everything is subject to His power of veto. In someways God's relationship with His creation has parallels with that of an author who sustains and maintains the content of his story inside his/her mind. 

Christian theism throws a huge spanner into works of the simplistic "natural forces vs Intelligent design" dichotomy taken for granted by many IDists. After criticizing NAID dualism for so many years on this blog it is amusing to see them still perpetuating their old, hackneyed thought forms. The source of much of their grief, if not all of it, traces back to their so-called "explanatory filter" (See here where I criticised this simplistic epistemic).  The result is that Casey's arguments, along with that of his colleagues are incoherent. This doesn't mean to say that standard evolutionary theory holds good, but I don't have confidence in the NAID's critique of it. 

Anyway, let's go through Casey's article....

***

CASEY: In his book The Compatibility of Evolution and Design, [Theologian Rope Kojonen, at the University of Helsinki] offers a model in which evolution succeeds because it is intelligently designed......Kojonen argues that evolutionary mechanisms produced the complexity of life. But there’s an intriguing assumption implicit in this: on its own, blind evolution is very unlikely to produce the complex features we see in living organisms. Thus, Kojonen envisions that the evolutionary process receives help from above in the form of the fine-tuning of the initial conditions and natural laws that allow evolution to get the job done.

MY COMMENT: We can see that Casey is starting to go off in the wrong direction already: Exactly what Casey means by "blind evolution on its own" is unclear: Perhaps he's thinking of a process that is unconditionally random? (which of course has no chance of generating the high organization of organic forms even in the lifetime of our immense universe) Or is he thinking of those philosophers who do not believe there is a Christian God but are able to live with the idea that the cosmos with all it's wonderful complex order can be accepted on the basis that "it just is" (See for example Galen Strawson whom I quote here). But at this juncture I am assuming the validity of a Christian theological context and therefore the question of how atheists come to terms with the enigmatic givenness of "natural" organized complexity is not part of my brief. That leaves us with the conundrum of just what Casey means by an independent blind evolution; that seems an impossible conception in a Christian theological context where God is the totalising Sovereign minder of His own creation. Given that the Christian God is the omniscient omnipotent immanent creator Casey's last statement above, which seems to demote God to the level of an assistant, in fact almost a helpful side kick of evolution, would be better written without the phrase "the evolutionary process receives help from above". For example:

Thus, Kojonen envisions that the evolutionary process has been created with sufficient fine-tuning of the initial conditions and natural law to ensure that evolution would get the job done.

In the context of Christian theism it is difficult to coherently imagine a created process working by itself with the occasional nudge from God who is otherwise an absentee landlord; that kind of thinking is the road to deism..... and ultimately even atheism. 

Casey goes onto quote just what Kojonen is trying to tell us (I've retained Casey's emphases):

***

KOJONEN: According to this view, then, the possibility of evolution depends on the features of the space of possible forms, where all the forms must be arranged in a way that makes an evolutionary search through it possible. This argument shows how the preconditions for the working of the “blind watchmaker” of natural selection can indeed be satisfied by nature in the case of protein evolution, despite an extreme rarity of functional forms. According to this view, then, the possibility of evolution depends on the features of the space of possible forms, where all the forms must be arranged in a way that makes an evolutionary search through it possible. This argument shows how the preconditions for the working of the “blind watchmaker” of natural selection can indeed be satisfied by nature in the case of protein evolution, despite an extreme rarity of functional forms. Behe (2019, 112) argues that Wagner does not yet solve the puzzle of evolving irreducible complexity, arguing that “it doesn’t even try to account for the cellular machinery that is catalysing the chemical reactions to make the needed components. ” However, suppose that, in the case of the bacterial flagellum, though the vast majority of possible arrangements of biological proteins are non-functional, there nevertheless exists a series of possible functional forms, little “machines” that happen to contain increasing numbers of the flagellum’s vital parts while still serving some other function. This then would allow for the seamless transition from no flagellum to a flagellum over time, through small successive steps. In this manner, by moving through such a suitable library of forms, the blind process of evolution would have the ability to produce even the most complex structures without the intervention of a designer. This is the kind of fine-tuning of the landscape of forms that seems to be required to evolve the kind of biological order described by Behe.

 It seems, then, that defending the power of the evolutionary mechanism requires assuming that the landscape of possible biological forms has some fairly serendipitous properties.

MY COMMENT: Now, unlike Casey what Kojonen is trying to say here is at least intelligible and makes sense.  He is simply telling us that a condition of a working evolutionary system is what I referred to several years ago as the "spongeam". That is, that functional forms (i.e. self-maintaining, self-perpetuating organic structures) must constitute a connected-set in configuration space to allow the evolutionary diffusion process to diffuse throughout that space. The post below contains links to other posts where I introduced this idea mathematically:

Quantum Non-Linearity: Evolution by (Naked) Chance? (quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com)

Kojonen, whether right or wrong, is at least making coherent sense here; so much so that even Casey has understood what Kojonen is trying to say. However, Kojonen does make one bad move in my opinion: He talks about configuration space requiring serendipitous properties; that's a rather inappropriate way of putting it in a Christian theistic context: If the spongeam is a mathematical property and an implication of the initial conditions and laws of physics of our cosmos then given God's relationship with that cosmos it would not be serendipitous, but deliberately chosen and created. But in noting this point does not mean I'm accepting that the spongeam even has a mathematical existence let alone asserting its reification in our cosmos. 

***

CASEY: There’s a great irony here in the structure of Kojonen’s argument: He implicitly concedes that evolution is very unlikely to work in your average universe that isn’t finely tuned. He says if evolution is going to work, that’s only because natural laws and initial conditions are specially “fine-tuned.”

MY COMMENT: That's right Casey I think I can agree. It seems fairly intuitively compelling that any old randomly chosen physical regime is unlikely to set up the right conditions (i.e. the spongeam) facilitating the kind of evolution as currently understood; it looks as though a physical regime capable of generating lifeforms in a paltry few billion years has to be carefully chosen!  

***

CASEY: Thus, the universe has some pretty lucky properties.  The question then becomes: Are we in Kojonen’s universe? His argument for the feasibility of evolution requires a great degree of “fine-tuning” of nature where functional forms are “arranged in a way” such that it is easy to move from one functional state to another functional state via blind evolutionary mechanisms. Are we in a “universe designed to allow for evolution” in this manner? Or are we in a universe where evolutionary mechanisms don’t seem capable of producing the complexity of life — meaning that they didn’t?

MY COMMENT: Yes, I largely agree Casey, but I would have thought that "a great deal of fine tuning" is exactly the job description of the Great Omniscient, Omnipotent Creator and therefore I wouldn't talk of "pretty lucky properties"! If we are in a universe designed for evolution then in the context of Christian theism it wouldn't be a lucky property, would it? I didn't think that Christians believed in luck when it comes to the creation. Nevertheless, good question Casey:  Are we in a “universe designed to allow for evolution” in this manner? Or are we in a universe where evolutionary mechanisms don’t seem capable of producing the complexity of life?

All we can be sure of is that over millions, if not billions of years, life forms have emerged, changed and adapted. In that trivial sense of mere natural history, evolution has occurred whatever the precise nature of the engine/mechanism driving it that the Good Lord has provisioned it with.  

***

CASEY: As my colleagues and I have shown both in a review of Kojonen’s book and in an occasional series of posts here, from protein evolution to the origin of irreducibly complex molecular machines like the flagellum (here and here), the universe we live in does not seem to allow evolutionary mechanisms to produce the complexity of life. We live in the wrong universe for Kojonen’s proposal. But there’s a problem with the structure of Kojonen’s argument that goes even deeper.

MY COMMENT: The NAIDs' believe that functional forms don't constitute a connected-set in configuration space; that is, they believe that most functional forms are irreducibly complex. They may be right on this count. I personally feel that this claim is at least plausible but proving it is notoriously difficult and sometimes ingenious evolutionists will fill in the gaps between the "islands" of functionality with proposed functional "missing links" that start to give a possible gradualist path through configuration space. Really, the NAID case should stop here and focus on assembling the necessary logic and evidence for the case that organic forms are truly irreducibly complex structures. Irreducible complexity, if it can be demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt, would certainly falsify bog-standard evolution. But no! sensing they're on a very debatable wicket here Casey and colleagues, in their search for a clincher, stick their necks out too far into that "deeper problem" Casey mentions, the land of NAID smoke and mirrors.

For more on the question of irreducible complexity see here:

Quantum Non-Linearity: Evolution and Islands of functionality (quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com)

(*See also my footnote below on computational irreducibility)

***

CASEY: Kojonen differs with me. He seeks to preserve and defend the theist on the street’s intuition that life was designed. But in his mind this is not because natural processes are incapable of producing life. In fact, he thinks they are capable of that. That is, while evolutionary processes are inadequate on their own, natural processes in general are capable of producing life. Kojonen thinks this reflects the fact that the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe themselves are fine-tuned and designed to make the origin and evolution of life possible — by natural processes.

MY COMMENT: How paradoxical and confusing: On the one hand Casey talks of evolutionary processes [which are presumably viewed as "natural"] that are inadequate on their own and then juxtaposes that with Kojonen's view that "natural processes in general are capable of producing life." 

But for Christians there really is no such thing as fundamentally natural processes, unless we trivially define them as simply the workings of the physical regime; but fundamentally all such processes are highly unnatural in the sense that they have no necessary existence that we can comprehend (i.e they have no Aseity. See here for more). But thinking in terms of fundamentals rather than superficial definitions we find that: 

a) The cosmic physical regime is highly contingent and unless we have the kind of mentality which allows us to be intellectually satiated with Bertrand Russell's "it just is", the organized complexity of the cosmos remains profoundly puzzling and prompts curiosity to push for deeper meanings. Moreover, as I've said here science, being ultimately a descriptive discipline can never attain to explanatory completeness in sense of Asiety. Hence there will always remain a deeply intuitive unnaturalness about the cosmos. 

b) But even on its own terms our current physics is clearly descriptively incomplete: We still don't have a complete descriptive understanding of our physical regime in terms of succinct laws. So, who knows just how The Good Lord has provisioned this regime to work. Perhaps it has inherited its creator's ability to work miracles? And above all who knows if it has a subtle declarative teleology that's difficult to detect?

In the context of Christian theism Casey's statement that evolutionary processes are inadequate on their own, is unintelligible: If the spongeam has a mathematical existence and has been reified by the Good Lord (and I'm not claiming it has) then evolution, by definition, would be adequate to produce life, and depending on one's definitions it would have done it "naturally". 

And who is this so-called "theist on the street" that we are hearing about? Well, as it turns out it's Casey's alter ego.....

***

CASEY: But if natural processes are capable of producing the complexity of life, then isn’t the “theist on the street” wrong to conclude that life was designed in the first place? On what basis can this theist know that the natural laws are “fine-tuned” to allow life to evolve? The theist must have some background knowledge that natural laws can’t produce living systems. But if Kojonen’s thesis is correct, then in our universe the theist ought not to have such background knowledge. After all, natural laws are capable of producing such complex systems!

MY COMMENT: If so-called "natural processes" via the contrivance of the spongeam are capable of producing complex life, then such a contrivance would clearly have to be built into the physical regime. Given the huge space of random possibilities such a specific arrangement is astonishing, perhaps even more so than the existence of life itself.  Therefore, any adequately educated Christian theist would be able to conclude that, assuming standard evolution, divine providence has worked yet another miracle of organization and the intelligent Christian would have no trouble understanding that a process can be both "natural" and designed......this is the basis on which an educated theist can know that the physical regime is fine tuned for life....but I can't speak for Casey's "theist on the street".

The so-called "theist on the street" (which I conclude can only be Casey's alter ego) is portrayed as only being able to view the situation through a pair of polarizing glasses which present a "natural processes vs intelligent agency" choice.  Given this epistemic straight-jacket Casey's street theist is only allowed to jump one way or the other; that is to choose either natural process or intelligent agency; you can't have both! This is a legacy of the simplistic explanatory filter which imposes on the evolutionary question an exclusive OR between "blind natural processes" and intelligent agency.  Casey insists that we all follow him and be channeled into choosing one or the other! NAID culture just seems to be unable to transcend this entrenched habit of mind.  

Casey asks: 

 

On what basis can this theist know that the natural laws are “fine-tuned” to allow life to evolve?  

...... as I've said above: "It seems fairly intuitively compelling that any old randomly chosen laws of physics and initial conditions are unlikely to set up the right conditions (i.e. the spongeam) facilitating evolution as currently understood; it looks as though a physical regime capable of generating life forms in a paltry few billion years has to be carefully chosen!". Therefore, if our educated theist accepts evolution, he therefore knows that this entails that the "natural" physical regime is fined tuned with a vengeance! It is not going to be lost on the average theist as to the deeper explanation as to why this fine tuning might be, although I can't speak for Casey's "theist on the street" whoever that is!

Casey and his ID friends really go off the rails in the next paragraph....

***

CASEY & Co: This analogy invites us to consider the epistemological effects of living in a universe described by Kojonen’s model (in which evolution is true, design is confined to the advent of the laws of nature, and biological data are in view). In this universe, it is not clear that humans (including theists on the street) would have the basic epistemological dispositions or beliefs that Kojonen believes undergird our ability to detect design in biology. For example, people who grew up in this universe would not likely believe that nature (i.e., non-agent processes) have only limited ability to build biological complexity. After all, in this universe, the continuity of non-agent processes across the advent of everything from bacteria to blue whales seems to suggest that non-agent causes are quite creative. Similarly, people who grew up in this universe would not likely believe that our own experience of creating complex things is at all relevant to the claim that ‘minds have greater creative power than nature does’. Instead, they would likely believe that our minds are simply a manifestation of nature’s creativity (or the creativity of non-agent causes). 

MY COMMENT: What Casey&Co are trying to get past us here is that in a universe with a spongeam sufficient to support evolution humans would not have the epistemological instincts to detect design because they would grow up to assume that evolution (i.e. a "natural process") shows that intelligent agency isn't needed to create those organic marvels. That view, as a generalisation, is clearly false, although it looks to be true for those like Casey&Co whose culture has imposed a strict "natural processes XOR intelligent design" epistemic filter on the debate. Using this filter means that once it's decided that a structure is a product of "natural forces" the possibility of intelligent activity is thrown out of the window! Casey&co are then stuck.... although I suspect they know in their hearts that such wonderfully creative natural forces must trace back to some kind of Intelligent Aseity.

I propose that the NAID XOR epistemic filter is a cultural construction that depends on the community one is in. The NAID XOR is not as Casey is trying to imply a deeply held instinct somehow bound up with the particulars of the created physical regime. In fact, Romans 1:19-20 tells us that regardless of the details of the creation the general form of that creation alerts an instinct which prompts us that we should at least give some attention to the possibility that a great mind of totalising power and presence may be behind it all; OK, many reject the idea, but at least they can't help such an idea popping up in their heads. So, with regard to a universe where evolution actually works, I would invert one of Casey's statements above thus: 

In an evolutionary universe, it is not clear that humans would not have the basic epistemological dispositions or beliefs giving them the ability to detect design in standard evolutionary biology. 

Now consider this statement by Casey&Co...

After all, in this [evolutionary] universe, the continuity of non-agent processes across the advent of everything from bacteria to blue whales seems to suggest that non-agent causes are quite creative.

...yes, in an evolutionary universe so-called "natural processes" would be very creative. But notice that Casey&Co have slipped in the phrase "non-agent processes"! This is where the NAID's simplistic and non-recursive epistemic explanatory filter lets them down; it prevents them from submitting those very creative natural processes to the explanatory filter itself: Therefore, in NAID culture "natural processes" stay as "non-agent processes" and they are unable to move on from that. 

Evolution, (if it indeed evolution as commonly understood has actually occurred) necessarily entails a highly contrived and contingent process at work. But evolution presents no necessary problem to the educated Christian theist who isn't influenced by the epistemic straight jacket of NAID culture. Beyond that culture and in a Christian theistic context which posits a transcendent creator of omnipotent intelligence and power, the highly sophisticated contingency demanded by a working standard evolutionary model wouldn't be a problem. But for those who like Casey have been affected by a particular branch of secularism which grew out of the enlightenment, the discovery of the mechanical universe at best entailed deistic notions and at worst atheism. Ergo, Casey&Co have imbibed crypto-atheist categories shared by the likes of Richard Dawkins, a man who really does believe that evolution allows him to be an intellectually satisfied atheist; that is, if one deems "it just is" to be intellectually satisfying! As IDist William Dembski has pointed out, in the final analysis evolution is just a way to push the origins question back a stage to just another seemingly improbable and very surprising (= high information) state of affairs; that is, another astonishing status quo where one is still left wondering why "it just is"!

***

CASEY & Co: A similar line of thinking applies to the other elements of design detection discussed above. The bottom line is that human cognition would likely be significantly different in Kojonen’s universe than we actually experience it to be. Conversely, the fact that we have the particular cognitive dispositions and beliefs that we currently possess — instead of the ones we’d have in Kojonen’s universe — suggests that we live in a world notably different than captured in Kojonen’s model. Thus, in a particular sense, Kojonen’s model is inconsistent with the lived experience of some humans, including some theists on the street. This seriously harms the plausibility of his proposal, including its defense of everyday theists.

MY COMMENT: Human cognition would likely be significantly different in Kojonen’s universe? Speak for yourself Casey because I don't know what you are talking about! Romans 1:19-20 makes no mention of your natural forces vs intelligent design XOR; it just tells us we can't escape the wonder of the creation regardless of its specifics. Evolution or no evolution the instinct of wonder is there whether one is an atheist or not. See for example atheist Galen Strawson in this post; he is clearly as confounded as anyone else by the astonishingly rich organized contingency of what he believes to be the evolutionary universe. But in spite of his amazement in the end Strawson plumps for a "it just is" philosophy (a very unsatisfactory response for the Christian believer of course). So, I conclude that the instincts which inform Casey&Co that evolution entails the absence of intelligent agency is purely a construction to be found only in the cultural universe of NAID's and Dawkinites. 

***

CASEY: Thus, even if Kojonen’s argument were correct and the laws of nature were capable of producing living systems, then his “theist on the street” should not be able to detect design in living systems in the manner he suggests. If the laws of our universe are rigged to produce life, then such an event would be fully natural and should not trigger a design inference. We would see no reason to invoke anything other than normal natural processes to explain life’s complexity. The very fact that life does trigger a design inference for Kojonen’s theist suggests that our experience teaches us such events don’t happen due to natural laws. That means Kojonen’s thesis is self-defeating and cannot be true.

MY COMMENT: Once gain we can see that Casey is projecting his dichotomized XOR thinking onto the abstract so-called theist-on-the-street, a character who assumes this XOR to be valid and is therefore unable to detect design in living things if evolution, as conventionally understood, has taken place.

Notice in particular that Casey uses that emotive term "rigged" as if contriving a physical regime capable of manufacturing life is somehow an underhand and dishonest activity like election rigging or rigging the machines in a casino; it betrays the cultural value system embedded NAID's naive non-recursive explanatory filter.  It's a bit like saying that a robotic automotive factory is "rigged" to manufacture cars and concluding that these cars are a product of "natural forces" and therefore have nothing to do with intelligent design.  

The logic of the NAID explanatory filter is such that if one is a cultural NAID then it follows that if the physical regime of our universe is "rigged" (gasp!) to produce life, then such an event would be fully natural and should not trigger a design inference. As we have seen, on this question the NAIDs are really only speaking for themselves (and some atheists). The culture of which Casey is representative is blind to the fact that in the evolutionary scenario those so-called "natural processes" evoke enough wonder to trigger the need for a deeper explanation than "it just is", at least among those willing to accept Christian theism. But because NAID culture is so enamored with a non-recursive XOR epistemic filter then they are impelled by their logic to conclude that...

The very fact that life does trigger a design inference for Kojonen’s theist suggests that our experience teaches us such events don’t happen due to natural laws.

That is, imposing the logic of the NAID XOR epistemic filter on evolution one is forced to conclude that evolution did it XOR God did it. NAID Nonsense! But it's right up the street of the Dawkinites who believe that creation and evolution are necessarily at odds. 

***

None of the foregoing is to say that I am necessarily committed to believing that the spongeam is even a mathematical reality let alone a cosmically reified reality. All I'm saying is that Casey&Co's concepts are deeply flawed and don't work as the basis for competent arguments against evolution.  NAID culture has dug itself into an a priori anti-evilution position and is committed to disproving evilution at all costs. Part of the cost of this is a bias toward unwoke politics; probably an effect of their off-hand rejection by the academic establishment. 

Quantum Non-Linearity: Anti-Science or Anti Academic Establishment? (quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com)

Quantum Non-Linearity: Christian World Views. Part 2: The Christian Academic Establishment (quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com)

Footnote:

* Computational irreducibility is a concept introduced by Wolfram. A computationally irreducible task is one where it is not possible to find a faster analytical solution to a problem than that of actually carrying out a computational simulation, a computation which could potentially be very long winded. It may well be that the evolutionary question is a computationally irreducible problem and therefore it is not possible to analytically determine whether a given physical regime is capable of generating living structures unless one sets up the regime in a very literal sense and performs the simulation in real time.  Thus, the NAID desire to disprove the possibility of evolution via some shortcut analytical method may be a vain quest. If so, then the only way to verify or falsify whether or not organic forms are irreducibly complex isn't to be found through some shortcut analytical calculation but via sufficient observation on what has actually happened or not happened; that is, on natural history istelf. Natural history acts as the computationally irreducible "simulation" which reveals the answer to the question of whether organic forms are irreducibly complex or not.

***

I'll be commenting on this in my next post: 

Can Evolution and Design Work in Harmony? | Evolution News

In my next post on "Matters Arising" I will also be commenting on the ability of "natural processes" to create information and the relation of the spongeam to the second law of thermodynamics. 

North American Intelligent Design's response to my 27 June & 2 July posts. Part 2

The default thinking of the North American ID community leaves us feeling that it's a choice between Intelligent design and Evolution. But that science's accounts are effectively succinct descriptions which exploit cosmic organization means that the question is not a choice of opposites as the NAID community and some atheists make out. In one sense there is no such thing as "natural forces".

 

In this post I'm going to comment on the following post on "Evolution News" by Eric Hedin:

Physics, Information Loss, and Intelligent Design

This is a continuation of my last post. which followed up the posts here & here. It addresses in particular Eric Hedin's claim to what he believes to be a generalized version of the second law of thermodynamics based on quantum decoherence. 

ERIC HEDIN In an earlier article, I showed that information ratchets do not exist in nature. The most that any mechanistic system can do is to reproduce the information already available within the system. Printing presses reproduce the typeset information placed in the mechanism by human operators. ChatGPT simply accesses and rearranges information originated by humans and uploaded on the Internet. No new information is produced in either case.

In a recent article, I introduced the physical concept of the generalized second law of thermodynamics, as a governing principle consistent with the Law of Conservation of Information, which William Dembski formulated with the claim that natural causes cannot increase complex specified information in a closed system over time. Here, I’ll seek to provide an explanation of the physics behind the generalized second law — a rationale for why natural processes destroy information.

MY COMMENT: As we saw in my last post Hedin did not succeed in showing that information ratchets do not exist in the created order; part of his problem was that he didn't tell us what he meant by "information". However, in the above it looks as though he's thinking of the so-called principle of the "conservation of information". Accordingly, he's of the opinion that unless the mysteries of intelligent agency are invoked God's creation can't create information (although Hedin believes information can be destroyed). Heuristically speaking this rule of thumb often works, but it is not always true; that is, as a catch-all fundamental principle the conservation of information is false as we shall see.

The mechanistic systems we are familiar with do in fact create information in the compelling common sense meaning of the term. A variety of natural systems create complex chaotic patterns whose elements are new to the cosmos and what would by any common sense meaning of the term be new information to human beings. Systems that generate random sequences are by the Shannon definition of the term creating information all the time (See part 1).

It is misleading to claim that computer systems merely rearrange information: They can in a very compelling sense do far more than that: Starting with the relatively simple pattern of an algorithm and given enough time and space very complex patterns can be generated. As far as the cosmos is concerned these patterns may well be entirely new forms: that is, new information. Trivially it could be claimed that for deterministic algorithms the information eventually generated is implicit in the starting conditions: But because any given pattern has at least one simple algorithm which will generate it given enough time and space, then on that basis it would trivially follow that no finite pattern (including finite stretches of disordered patterns) would classify as new information! What we have then is a situation where, whilst it is true that something isn't coming from nothing, nevertheless a lot of something is coming out of relatively little. Ergo, mechanical and so-called "natural forces" create information. 

My conclusion is that it is a misrepresentation to claim that neither nature nor computers are simply "printing" information they already have and at best are tweaking its arrangement a little. But if we allow nature and computers to tweak information, then we can ask ourselves what would be the result of billions of tweaks? The result would in fact be completely new configurations reified from the platonic realm: That is new information, especially so if we are starting from bland and simple initial conditions and relatively small algorithms.

In deterministic generating systems, natural and computational, the information generated can be regarded as implicit from the beginning in the sense that it exists in unreified form in the platonic realm. Hence this implicit information needs to be reified before it can be claimed to be part the real world, and in that sense the information is being created. Natural systems and computer systems are a means doing this. But nothing comes from nothing and these information creating sources have their origins and continued sustenance in God and/or human intelligence. 

As I said in this post and proved here, in parallel computation information is created according to:

Ic = Smin + log (Tmin)

Where Ic is the configurational information content, Smin is the minimum length of the algorithm needed to generate the configuration with a minimum number of execution steps of Tmin. As I have said before it is the slow generation of information with time (The "log" term above) which has given rise to the opinion that information cannot be generated by natural and mechanical means. But the above relation only applies to parallel processing; if the generating system employs a system of expanding parallelism (e.g. a quantum computer) such exponential systems make short work of the log term, a term which then becomes a term linear in time. 

I will be examining Hedin's so-called generalised second law of thermodynamics below. This proves to be nothing but hand-waving. 

ERIC HEDIN: What about the less physical concept of information? How can we physically explain the relentless loss of information by natural processes? Information seems to be a nonphysical concept, but in our universe, it is stored in specific arrangements of physical states of matter. An intelligent mind can recognize specific arrangements of matter (such as molecules of ink that form letters on a page) that convey a meaningful message. In a different context, biochemists can recognize particular sequences of nucleotide bases in a genome that code for a functional protein.

MY COMMENT:  Firstly, as we saw in part 1, we need not talk vaguely about arrangements of matter which an intelligent mind can recognize as meaningful; Hedin is hand-waving here. The configurations of matter we are thinking of have a very practical meaning: Viz: they are ordered systems which are capable of self-maintenance and self-multiplication; in that sense the functionality we are thinking of is a clear concept. However, one thing we can agree on is this: Such configurations are at once both complex and highly organised;  which means that as a class those self-perpetuating organic structures have a very low statistical weight and therefore a very low unconditional probability. If our cosmos is only a parallel processor, then such configurations would never come about in the life-time of the cosmos if naked chance ruled. To enhance the probability of such configurations to a practical level would require the contingency of the right kind of physical regime to raise the conditional probability of life to a practical level. Where parallel processing is the norm the conservation of information does approximately hold. 

My affirmation that the conservation of probability is a good approximation in a parallel processing context doesn't necessarily come to the rescue of the NAIDs. The irony here is that the possibility of an omniscient omnipotent Creator/Designer leaves them with an unknown. For we couldn't put it past an all-powerful all-knowing Deity to not have provisioned the cosmos with enough information to generate life with a high probability. As NAID William Dembski himself has shown, the conservation of information doesn't of itself rule out standard evolutionary gradualism. We would be very presumptuous to be absolutely certain that the cosmos hasn't been divinely provisioned with the prerequisite information to generate life. But because the NAID community affect to keep up the gloss of being a scientific society and not a theological society their crypto-theism makes them uneasy in admitting the implications of Christian theism which posits at the outset, a priori, the existence of an all-powerful all-knowing Deity: The implications are that some kind of evolution may well have been reified from the platonic world into our cosmos.

*** 

 In my first post of this two-part series, I wrote:

Consider this writer [Eric Hedin] on the NAID website "Evolution News"; he dreams of a principle (in fact he thinks it's been found!) which he refers to as the generalized version of the second law......

In Hedin's first post he doesn't explain this generalized version of the second law but in the post we are considering here he does attempt to explain it as follows:

ERIC HEDIN: According to the traditional second law, under the influence of natural processes, the surrounding environment brings about a transfer of heat from hot to cold, or a mixing of constituents, such as the mixing of molecules of perfume throughout the air of the room. Natural processes will also cause a mixing of information-bearing physical objects with the environment. In quantum computing research, this loss of information to the surrounding environment results in what is known as decoherence, meaning that “information has leaked into the environment in an uncontrollable fashion.”

Linking Information and Observer: All the information that can be known by an observer about a system of any kind is contained within the quantum mechanical wavefunction of the system. My apologies for bringing up quantum mechanics, but its relevance here is that it serves as the link between the information of a system (anything from a single atom to a complex biomolecule to a macroscopic object) and an observer. Unless the wave function of the system is completely isolated from any environmental influence, it will suffer decoherence (loss of information) with the passage of time. In one sense, the wavefunction spreads out into the environment, meaning that the observer will have greater and greater uncertainty as to the state of the system as time goes on. The physical interaction of atoms or photons uncompromisingly causes this effect, with its resulting loss of information.

 MY COMMENT: Undisturbed quantum systems settle to an eigenstate. An eigenstate is a kind of equilibrium or quasi-static wavefunction with a precise energy; it's analogous to a volume containing a gas which eventually settles to a uniform & precise density and pressure. But when a quantum system in an eigenstate is disturbed (or "perturbed" as it is usually expressed) by interaction with a thermodynamic environment the "coherent" eigenstate becomes mixed with other possible eigenstates: The wavefunction then loses it stasis and becomes a mix of wavefunctions and is no longer stable; to use the standard terminology the original static wavefunction "decoheres".  This decoherence is a particular problem in quantum computing which depends on the stasis of "qubit" eigenstates. 

There is an analogy here with a classical system of two ideal non-thermodynamic bodies orbiting one another in a perfect vacuum under the influence of classical gravity: For an ideal classical system with no thermodynamic randomness such a system will continue in the same state forever. But in the real world any ideal classical system is likely to be coupled to the "imperfect" world of thermodynamics and this linkage would mean the "ideal" system would then undergo perturbations and would randomly walk into another state, if only slowly; from a human point of view the error bars of the unknown then start to widen. These error bars of human knowledge will continue to expand in the absence of information updates that pull us back into the know and keep the Gaussian error envelopes in the vicinity of the actual state of the system. 

The thing to note here is that we have assumed thermodynamics from the outset: Likewise the behaviour of  quantum systems when in contact with a thermodynamic reality tells us no more than we already know; namely, that the world is thermodynamic and that if you want to preserve the integrity and of an array of  binary eigenstates (= qubits) and stop the array  becoming a mix of other eigenstates  by keeping it isolated, you've got your work cut out: Like all real systems a qubit system loses  its ideal state when in contact with the thermodynamic reality around it. 

But decoherence doesn't stop crystals forming or stop the reproductive systems of life working or stop the self-perpetuating systems of life from doing their job. The reason why is because these systems have the physical analogue of information updates that keep these systems within the requisite orbits of self-sustenance: The physical analogue of those information updates are the potential wells or interactional hooks/forces which have a strong tendency to keep ordered systems in place. 

In the above quote Hedin has talked about how a quantum system's interaction with a thermodynamic environment will entail a slow degradation of an observer's knowledge of that system. This is a misrepresentation. In fact, if the observer knows the form of the interactional perturbation, he can then infer how the new mixed wavefunction develops. So, as a consequence of a known perturbation the wavefunction has passed from one known form that is a single eigenstate to another known form that is a mix of a large number of eigenstates. 

All waves states, whether mixed or eigenstates, obey the uncertainty relation:

The square of a momentum value returns an energy value; if this energy value has the precise value pertaining to a single eigenstate then it implies that the magnitude of the corresponding momentum also has a precise value; that is the uncertainty in momentum magnitude is minimized. Therefore, from the uncertainty relation above it follows that under conditions of precise energy the uncertainty in position is maximized. So, when an isolated quantum system interacts with a thermodynamic system its momentum becomes more uncertain, but its position is more localized: In short, increasing certainty in position is traded for greater momentum/energy uncertainty. The lesson is that as a result of an interaction with a thermodynamic system loss of information about the exact energy of the quantum system is compensated by a gain in the information about position. In Hedin's quote above we see that to suite his polemic he has only talked about "loss of information" in energy/momentum but not balanced it with the corresponding and complementary gain in information about position. 

Pure quantum systems are reversible and don't provide Hedin with a fundamental generalized version of the second law: That is, they cannot provide us with that well-know thermodynamic arrow of time where total entropy always increases. It is only the giveness of thermodynamic laws which provide the arrow of time. Moreover, as I've already remarked, in his reference to the loss of information from quantum systems Hedin has neglected to tell us that this is accompanied by a corresponding increase in information. Hedin is simply telling us something we already know about; namely, the effect of thermodynamic systems on quantum systems, systems that are constrained by the complementary uncertainty relation which trades information about one variable for information about another. 

So, there is really nothing at all startling with what Hedin has to tell us. It changes nothing and certainly doesn't provide us with a more fundamental second law than the one we already have. A clue as to the real polemical motive behind Hedin's argument is here:  "My apologies for bringing up quantum mechanics": In bringing up quantum mechanics Hedin has muddied the waters. In that sense it's reminiscent of fundamentalist Jason Lisle's ASC model of cosmology by which he side-steps the age of the universe and like Hedin's reference to quantum mechanics it will confound their benighted followers in their respective communities, especially those who depend on the community's gurus for instruction; it's technical bafflegab which will wow the uninitiated NAID rank and file.

ERIC HEDIN: Some might argue that “luck” could result in an opposite outcome, with interactions causing an increase in information (in biochemistry, this would correlate with increased functional complexity). Why couldn’t this happen? Simply because there are always more ways to go wrong than to go right, when considering whether interactions will result in chaos or increased complex specified information.

MY COMMENT: Yes I think we can go along with that; But let's remember again: The cosmos is no ordinary  "natural" object: It's unwarranted and seemingly out of place contingency is the creation of an a priori transcendent intelligence of unimaginable power and Asiety; who can guess what those so-called "natural forces", created, managed & sustained by such an intelligence might achieve in terms of their ability bring forth organisation?

ERIC HEDIN: An increase in information requires not just one right choice (or lucky draw), but a long sequence of correct choices. Luck might happen once, but any gambler knows that if “lucky outcomes” keep happening against the odds, then the game is rigged. A “rigged game” in nature corresponds to a law of physics — in this case, a law causing information to increase over time by natural causes. Such a law cannot really exist, however, since we already have a law of nature that says the opposite. As I mentioned in a recent article, “Theistic Cosmology and Theistic Evolution — Understanding the Difference”:In our study of science, we have found that the laws of nature do not contradict one another. We don’t have laws of nature that only apply piecemeal.

 MY COMMENT: By any common sense standard and by the Shannon definition of the term both "natural" processes and human designed computation machines increase information  as we have seen. I agree with the above paragraph up until and including A “rigged game” in nature corresponds to a law of physics — in this case, a law causing information to increase over time ........   But because of the poverty of his community's conception of nature Hedin starts going astray as soon as he talks about so-called natural causes. As we have seen he hasn't discovered any "natural law" that contradicts evolution least of all a generalized second law of thermodynamics based on decoherence. His efforts here amount some hand-waving around the idea of an observer becoming less and less certain of a system that as a result of its contact with its thermodynamic surroundings is subject to random walk. He then conflates an observer's information with the objective uncertainties of quantum mechanics, when in fact there is a distinction between the state of an observer's knowledge of a system and the objective state of a physical system itself which according to quantum theory has its own uncertainties; but these uncertainties are not to be confused with observer uncertainties. 

Hedin's argument is no advance on the standard second law of thermodynamics, a law which only bars overall entropy decreases in isolated systems without putting a fundamental bar on local increases in the order of subsystems within the overall system.  This doesn't mean to imply that evolution as conventionally understood has actually happened, but it's clear that Hedin and his colleagues continue to fail to find a fundamental law prohibiting evolution. The spongeam may yet exist and Hedin and his community have failed to see the difficultly of the problem that faces them if they wish to bar evolution on the basis of fundamental physics.

Nature is not natural: Its highly contingent laws, patterns and statistics have and are and will continue to be reified out of the platonic realm by the Divine Will. Yes, it is just possible that God is patching organic configurations  directly into nature ad-hoc style but the nested cladistics of life look to me as if some sort of divinely provisioned process is at work that at least looks vaguely like conventional evolution; perhaps via the conditional information of the spongeam or perhaps something more exotic in the realm of expanding parallelism and teleological laws - the latter would essentially entail  that the cosmos is a declarative system of computation. But Hedin and colleagues have in no way proved their case about those divinely provisioned "natural forces" being blind & ineffectual. Hedin has waved hands around and then simply asserts without proof the old NAID canard:

Such a law cannot really exist, however, since we already have a law of nature that says the opposite.

Hedin must try harder. 

ERIC HEDIN: Imagination and Freedom: Only by the action of non-physical intelligence can the natural process of decoherence and information loss be overcome. Information is meaningless apart from a rational mind, meaning the creation of new information requires more than knowledge. Increased information requires imagination and the freedom to creatively design complex outcomes that convey meaning or exhibit function. (See, “Intelligence Is Unnatural, and Why That Matters.”)

The non-physical aspect of our intelligent minds can succeed in producing information because an intelligent mind can imagine a meaningful outcome and act to separate the components of a complex system from their natural mixed state into specific arrangements that actualize that outcome.  This takes work, meaning it requires energy, but not energy alone, since without the guidance of a non-physical mind, energy cannot succeed in increasing information in a closed system.

MY COMMENT: Philosophically speaking I disagree with the typical dualist dichotomy of the physical vs the non-physical. Firstly God created one world (Colossians 1:15ff) and the only substantive dualism I would propose is God vs. everything else. But in any case what gives the so called physial world meaning is that its laws so perfectly organise experience and thinking that a rational solid world presents itself to perception: That is, the physical world is an unintelligible and incoherent idea without the a priori assumption of the presence of a conscious intelligence somewhere. So, yes, information is meaningless without positing a rational perceiving conscious mind. This idealistic philosophy sees the physical world is an aspect of mind and a world created by the Mind of God at that. So, we should not be surprised if that world displays "unnatural" and miraculous properties; science is less a way of "explaining" those properties than it is a way of describing those properties. It is mathematically inevitable that those properties will be highly particular and contingent. 

Clearly the so-called physical world is manifestly & intrinsically miraculous: Decoherence doesn't stop crystal formation and it doesn't stop organisms self-perpetuating and multiplying. These systems work because nature is carefully crafted by God everywhere and everywhen. Whether God has patched living configurations directly into nature over billions of years or has provisioned it with enough information in its laws and fine-tuning to evolve life, or has used an exotic declarative system with expanding parallelism and teleological constraints is the question that has yet to be unequivocally answered; it certainly has not been properly addressed by the NAID community. In fact, if they persist with their "intelligence vs blind natural forces" dualism they will continue to think there is nothing to address. 

Hedin's notion of natural and mechanical systems as printer-like-devices which simply passively pass on information is rubbish.  Mechanical systems and natural systems (which includes human beings) are constantly creating new forms; that is, new information. In spite of the constancy of reproductive templates each human individual is a unique creation where new information has entered the cosmos. That the mechanisms of the cosmos constantly bring forth new information out of the platonic realm should be no surprise to anyone who believes in a sovereign Christian God. But this is something those who affect to present themselves as a purely scientific community with a degenerate view of "natural forces" are loathe to admit. 

ERIC HEDIN: Intelligent design remains the only explanation consistent with the laws of physics for the increasing information content of living systems throughout life’s history on Earth.

 MY COMMENT: Notice here that Hedin makes a distinction between Intelligent Design and the laws of physics:Yes, I agree that an a priori  Intelligent Creator (complex enough to have Aseity) is the only way of making sense of the mathematically necessary contingent bias of the cosmos. In the light of this perception I'm not going to rush to conclude that the physical world is some kind of ineffectual demiurge creator only capable of creating chaos: In assuming their position the NAIDs have taken on board the mindset of our times which frames the question of origins as a God vs. impersonal physical forces dichotomy, an exclusive or between God and physics: In this polarised context atheists are anxious to prove the creative efficacy of those "natural forces" and conversely the NAIDs are committed to proving that those natural forces are "blind" agents.

The NAIDs have also committed themselves to the gnostic notion that human intelligence is a ghost in the machine and cannot be simulated by algorithmic means or be a particular application of the God provisioned material package. I think the reason for this aversion to the idea that humans are an application of the material package is this: If human intelligence is an aspect of the clever use of matter (matter which embraces those enigmatic quantum properties) and we accept that human intelligence is able to create information then it would clear the way for us to propose that other applications of matter, whether some kind of evolution or computation can also create information.

But I know of nothing that the NAIDs have said which means one should commit oneself at all costs to their dualist and quasi-gnostic views.  In so publicly opposing evolution on the basis of the gut-feeling that it elevates natural forces to a god-like demiurge status they have effectively swallowed atheistic categories and have dug themselves into a hole from which they seem incapable of escaping.