Animism and De Facto IDism

I think this clever cartoon originates from the Faraday Institute, an organisation I would support and certainly recommend to
those who are interested in the relation of   science and religion.

 I must prefix this post with one of my usual disclaimers: Like the late Sir John Polkinghorme I can confess to the label of being an intelligent design creationist. (Although Polkinghorne was a Christian evolutionist and I'm not so sure I can claim that label in terms of evolution's internal driving mechanisms). Also, along with Polkinghorne I have to distance myself from the North American de facto Intelligent Design and creationist movements whose concepts are bound up with and influenced by the political drift to the far-right. I refer to right-wing Intelligent Design creationism with terms like "IDist", "IDism" and "de facto ID".

***

This post on the de facto ID web site Uncommon Descent quotes another ID blog post entitled "Randomness is not a scientific explanation: We can never know if anything is truly random".  I'll refer to this blogger as "Eric" and I will interleave my comments with Eric's content as below. In the following I will be implicitly drawing from the understanding I gained in compiling my work Disorder and Randomness.

ERIC: It is common in the sciences to claim aspects of our universe are random:

In evolution, mutations are random.

In quantum physics, the wave collapse is random.

In biology, much of the genome is random.

In business theory, organizational ecologists state new ideas are random.

MY COMMENT: Although randomness can be defined in a mathematically ideal way and this involves configurations of infinite size, there is such a thing as effective randomness (usually called pseudo randomness) and this does not involve the mathematical ideal: The use of randomness in practical statistics need not necessarily make an assumption of the mathematical ideal; if the "random" configurations used in practical statistics are a result of some underlying obscure and perhaps complex algorithm the statistician is unlikely to discover that algorithm and as long as the configurations under study are sufficiently disordered the overwhelming majority of statistical tests will return the expected statistics. 

An example of the practical use of configurations that don't fit the mathematical ideal of randomness are random number tables that have been generated by some known algorithm of sufficient memory space and/or execution time complexity to return relatively disordered configurations. A statistician fully aware that these tables are algorithmically generated can nevertheless still use them to test his statistical methods simply because the statistician's selection methods are very unlikely to recapitulate the generating algorithm. 

However, like the good de facto IDist that he is I can safely assume that Eric is going think in dichotomies and will only see the choice being between ideal randomness and what he and other de facto IDists refer to as "necessity" (sic). For them the natural sciences are all about "chance & necessity" (sic); they see no gradation from high order to high disorder with much statistics still practical for a broad class of configurations that are not the mathematical ideal of disorder. The North American ID mind has been tempered in the fires of US political polarization & rejection by academia and that has a bearing on so much of IDist thinking as we shall see.

ERIC: There is a general idea that everything new has its origins in randomness. This is because within our current philosophy of science, the two fundamental causes in our universe boil down to randomness and necessity. Since necessity never creates anything new, then by process of elimination the source of newness must be randomness. Similar to how the ancient Greeks believed the universe originated from chaos.

MY COMMENT: I'm not quite sure who Eric is referring to in his first sentence, but it's probably true that randomness is an  overworked concept among some atheists.

In the above quote we see reference to the so-called "randomness and necessity" (sic) dichotomy, more usually expressed by IDists as "chance and necessity" (sic). I've seen IDists claim that because algorithms generate outputs with "certainty" (or with "necessity" (sic)) then the information value of this output, which is given by -log(P) where P = 1, must be zero! One fault with this reasoning is that it confuses randomness and probability, which are in fact two different things: A high order configuration may be a big unknown to an observer and therefore probabilistic up to the point it becomes known. And yet a truly random configuration, once it is recorded and known, no longer has a surprisal value and therefore its information content becomes zero. The term "information" is observer relative. Moreover, so-called "newness" is also relative to the observer: Let me repeat: A recorded random output is no longer new and surprising. In contrast an algorithm yet to operate may produce a new configuration never seen in the life time of the universe. Eric is simply parroting his cultural line about there being a dichotomy between "chance & necessity" (sic). Whether "necessity" (sic) generates anything "new" is a question whose answer depends on relative perspective. Moreover, what IDists call "necessity" isn't necessity at all, because the laws (or algorithms) governing our universe look to be very contingent.

In one sense the Greeks were right: Order emerged out of primeval chaos, but not of its own will, but did so because God created order in a series of organising separations as attested by Genesis 1.

The following statement by Eric reveals a very common & habitual way of thinking about the discoveries of science; it is a way of thinking common to both IDists and atheists: 

Within our current philosophy of science, the two fundamental causes in our universe boil down to randomness and necessity. 

Eric is trying to get past us the oft taken for granted concept that somehow "randomness and necessity" (sic) are "fundamental causes" No, they are not fundamental causes; rather they are ways of describing the patterns of behavior that God impresses on the cosmos. In fact the notion of "cause" is itself descriptive of patterns of behavior that only hold for some cases; for example in the dynamical patterns we see in Newtonian mechanics "causation" is a fairly clear cut notion, but in quantum mechanics with its widely distributed entanglements and random collapses physical causation becomes a problematic category.

Against the IDist philosophical background where it is (unconsciously) assumed algorithms and randomness (what I refer to informally as law & disorder) are somehow fundamental sources of causation rather than methods of describing the patterns of creation, it becomes an easy next step to think of these "fundamental causes" (sic) as having their own animus, an animus which competes with the divine animus: God and the "natural" animus become mutually exclusive explanations for the state of the world. With this version of crypto-animism as an implicit background we begin to see why IDists, whose philosophical motivation is theism, are so determined to show that the so-called "natural forces of chance & necessity" (sic) do not have the efficacy to create  life; for to concede this the IDists feel they are giving way to the kind of atheism which posits a world of "fundamental causes" (sic) that needs no divine input.

The IDists, then, have effectively swallowed a paradigm whereby they see "chance & necessity" (sic) competing with divine creativity. Accordingly, we have a situation where atheists want  those fundamental forces of physical "causation" (sic) to work as the animus explaining the universe, but where IDists are determined to prove that "natural forces" (sic), that is "chance & necessity" (sic), don't work as an explanation of organic form and function. As I have documented in this blog before (see here and here) the de facto IDists are therefore committed to the idea that "intelligent agency" is a very different genus of "causation" and this makes itself felt in their so called "explanatory filter" (Another fine mess of their's). This has a further knock on effect for their understanding of human intelligence: Viz: They are unwilling to accept that human intelligence can be described in terms of natural law & disorder and believe that it transcends any attempt at algorithmic description. All in all this commits them to the idea that intelligence is an almost mystical and sacred form of causation, a form of causation they resort to as an when they are unable to find an explanation using the profanities of "chance & necessity" (sic).

ERIC: Here’s the irony of the view that whatever is unique in our universe is random: We can never know if anything is truly random. This is because randomness is unprovable, which was proven by three different computer scientists: Ray Solomonoff, Andrey Kolmogorov, and Gregory Chaitin. The only thing we can know is that something is not random. Hence, we can never know that something originated from randomness.

MY COMMENT: Regarding Eric's first sentence: As we have seen algorithms can be used to describe uniqueness and observer relative unknowns; I can't speak for those who, according to Eric, think that only pure randomness is a source of uniqueness. Eric's next two sentences are right: Like all physical patterns purported to be covered by a universal law, where humanly speaking a mere observational sampling is only possible, no absolute proof of randomness can be forth coming, especially as mathematically ideal randomness entails infinite patterns. In short Eric is saying nothing very profound here. He is simply stating that we can never absolutely prove universal patterns but can only test these putative laws, laws which are actually tendered not as causative but rather as descriptive of those patterns of behavior. I suspect that Eric, who has guru status among de facto ID followers, is name-dropping here and to ignorant followers it will look as though he's making a clever technical point. He isn't. 

Eric's last two sentences are in the absolute sense, false. We cannot absolutely prove that something is not random: As Christians we may be feel sure that the high organisation and fine tuning we see in the cosmos is evidence of divine action, but let's recall that this is no proof for the atheistic multiverse aficionados who prefer to view cosmic order and fine tuning as just a statistically inevitable blip in a huge sea of randomness; these people are exploiting the fact that, contrary to Eric's statement, it is not possible to know with certainty that something isn't random. But I wouldn't expect theists who accept the idea of a God of providence to use multiverse notions to explain cosmic organisation and fine-tuning; for  one's perspective is entirely different if one's epistemic corner stone is that behind the world of our senses is a rational God who creates order. The sample of organisation we see in our universe then makes sense, a lot of sense in my opinion. True, a belief in God is not amenable to test tube precipitating and spring extending science, rather theism is a sense making doctrine, just as the random multiverse is a sense making doctrine for some atheists.

Eric should have said: We can never (absolutely) know that something didn't originated from randomness. and we cannot  know if something is not random . We walk by faith!

ERIC: What does this result mean for science? It means that randomness can never be a scientific explanation, since we can never know that something is random. At best, saying something is random is shorthand for “we don’t know.” So, when scientists state the origin of something in our universe is random, they do not know the origin.

MY COMMENT: Eric is wrong again: Randomness, even mathematically ideal randomness, is a scientific explanation in that it states testable conditions, statistically testable conditions. Saying something is random is NOT, repeat NOT, shorthand for "we don't know" because propositions about randomness are effectively telling us about the kind of configurations we are likely to encounter. True, we can't absolutely prove randomness any more than we can absolutely prove quantum mechanics. But we can sample and test purported patterns of behavior; that's what empirical science is about, and that's what the eyes of faith rejoice in: "All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all that I haven't seen" (Emerson). 

I can't speak for atheist scientists who may use an infinite sea of randomness in their multiverse preferences. But Eric is wrong again: such preferences aren't a simple "don't know"; they have content, content about the ultimate context of pattern in which our universe is supposed to be placed. 

***

In the UD post that quotes Eric, by way of comment the writer of the post tells us: 

Takehome: Three different computer scientists have proven that randomness is unprovable. The only thing we can know is that something is not random.

This author, who appears to be one of Eric's followers, is of course welcome to take home these false lessons! It goes to show how false ideas are perpetuated in the IDist community when followers lack the acumen to contradict their gurus and therefore have no choice but to accept their ideas on authority.  Credentialed nonsense is still nonsense. 

***

At one time I naively thought that engaging the IDist and Christian fundamentalist take on science would simply be a case applying my knowledge of science, computing and mathematics. Well, I was in for a big shock, although that shock took too much time to sink in with me: It turned out that their views majored in a strong political interest component and politics was a subject I find difficult. The (often false) views of both IDists and Christian fundamentalists are formed in the highly selective fires which serve political polarization. The gradual cultural marginalization of Christianity in recent Western history, especially from its position of relative strength in the US, has led to a reactionary response among fundagelicals with a subsequent migration of many, if not all of them, to the far right. The corrupt conspiracy theory wielding Donald Trump signaled that he would champion the cause of the fundagelical right (as he did for other far right groups) in exchange for them supporting his bid for power (See here).

This shift to the right opened up intellectual fault lines as the right trending evangelicals and fundamentalists spurned the academic establishments efforts to explain life, the universe and everything using a law & disorder description of nature. Much of this project of the academic establishment I would support, although I draw the line at multiverse cosmogonies and the nihilistic & social relativist and/or Marxist mores sometimes found in humanities departments. But many North American evangelicals and fundamentalists have set apart their rendition of "science" from the academic establishment by signing up to doctrines that put a wedge between so called "natural forces" (sic) and intelligent action. They are dualists, or at least crypto-dualists who feel that natural history and the spectre of so called "natural forces" jeopardizes their notion of divine creativity and the mystique they assign to intelligent action in general.

More IDist fails:

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2020/03/breaking-through-information-barrier-in_5.html

The Sea of Faith

An extract from Matthew Arnold's poem "Dover Beach" published in 1867

A friend of mine sent me this link to an article entitled "Christianity is Collapsing" by an atheist who is triumphant about the decline of Christianity in America as measured by statistics. These statistics are no surprise to me, of course, and any case we have a long term decline in the UK although it would be wrong to call it a "collapse" - that's hopeful rhetoric among some entrenched anti-Christians. Of particular interest to me is just how much some of the recent eccentric expressions of Christianity  are bound up with this decline (Viz: extreme right-wing fundamentalism, young earthism, geocentrism, flat earthism, Christian conspiracy theorism,  fideism, gnosticism, Covid denial, anti vaxxers, anti-climate change lobby, the Trump followers etc). Anyway here was my reply.

Thanks for the link to the article! V. V. interesting to read!

The overall stats are likely correct as it concurs with other stats I've heard about. Of course a vested interested atheist is going to use emotive terms like "collapse" to describe this trend, terms which really describe his hopes rather than what actually may come to pass in due course. These social trends tend to be chaotically cyclic as the relevant variables are coupled into non-linear feedback loops.

What is referred to as "Christianity" actually resolves into at least three groups; fundamentalist, non-fundamentalist evangelicals and liberal (Further sub divisions are possible, no doubt!*). Along with atheists we then have population flows between these groups plus kids growing up and identifying with one or the other group and people dying from all groups. What the net result and the true story is behind it all that would require a lot of stats studies to find out. 

If there is some kind of polarising trend going on with a net loss from a broad church of Christian persuasions then as often happens in a period of crisis of confidence fundamentalism tends to consolidate itself and become more extreme & self assertive by way of reaction. Fundamentalists gain from anti-establishment & counter-cultural feelings and the disaffection which goes together with a puzzling social milieu. For example there has been a recent growth in flat earth Christian fundamentalism; they might well portray that small increase as a recovery and restoration of the true faith, congratulate themselves and see it as the start of a success story! They will also likely blame Christians who don't follow their particular brand of fundamentalism for the decline in Christianity (as does Ken Ham for example). 

But just how can we measure the number of people these fundamentalist clowns, who see themselves as the epitome of true faith, are alienating, putting off and becoming hostile toward Christianity? They certainly put me off and I'm a Christian, so I guess they must also alienate a lot of people who might otherwise give at least a little space to the faith. There are some fundamentalist to atheist conversion testimonies out there telling us that young earthism and its scientific failure was their reason for converting to atheism. 

America (on which the article in based) seems to be a very passionately polarising sort of country, especially at the moment; the extreme right, including the Christian right, are thoroughly disaffected from the establishment, culturally & politically. The consolidation of a cranky fundamentalism which is a disparate mix of young earthism, flat earthism, conspiracy theorism and all sorts of eccentricities is to my mind likely to be one of the factors behind the general cultural run-down of the faith and its alienation from the wider populace. But coupled feedback relationships abound in society and fundies of all brands will be reacting to the extremes of the opposite side; extreme and unreasonable anti-theists, Marxists & postmodernists also have a culpability here. The only good news is that such cybernetic couplings usually involve cycles. So wait for a swing back! Let's remember, for example, that atheism welcomes one to a potentially empty, nihilist, meaningless, purposeless, postmodern and random world! There will be a reaction to that!

Footnote

* I suppose you'd have to include Catholics in this mix among many others (e.g. Mormons)

Epistemology, Ontology, Creation and Salvation

A fundamentalist and young earth creationist goes over the top in more than one sense.

But I was ready for him.

I recently finished compiling a reply to a Christian fundamentalist who sent me a 13 page document criticising my stand against young earthism. Let me say straight away that it was nice of him to spend so much time trying put me back on the straight and narrow. He meant well although it is true that he is probably a bit of a curmudgeon and being a fundamentalist was, from the outset, suspicious of my motives for believing what I do. But I couldn't let it go. So I took my spiritual life into my hands and over the course of no less than two years I slowly dissembled his arguments and added another 80 odd pages to those 13 pages. On sending him the first draft the outcome however was inevitable; he was after all a fundamentalist: My name was mud! Below are a couple of extracts from the preface to my book length reply:

***

The format of this book has been styled as a reply to the contents of a 13 page document compiled and sent to me by a Christian fundamentalist & Young Earth Creationist. I shall call him Joe Smith. That 13 page document was in turn a response to a short PDF I sent him. It was very nice of Joe to reply at length to my initial PDF. But having lured him to go over the top only to have me use his arguments, like WWI troops, as target practice for my machine gun, it all smacked of dirty tricks to Joe’s suspicious fundamentalist mind and he accused me of sucker punching him. 

***

I will leave the real name & identity of Joe Smith as an enigma; although the original Smith arose out of a real correspondence that now may or may not be the case: I may or may not have concocted him from bits of Christian fundamentalist reality for the sake of illustration and for the purpose of bringing to the foreground the salient points I wish to make. Just how real or unreal this person is, need not come into it. Joe Smith is an abstraction, perhaps even another Simplico after all. But as an abstraction he has given me the opportunity to showcase in this book important technical matters whose implications go far beyond a singular debate with this or that fundamentalist: Namely:

1.      Epistemic distance & epistemic amenability.

2.    That the fundamentalist sound-bite that there is a difference between historical science and observational science is an incoherent & scientifically harmful notion.

3.      Time irreversibility and messaging.

4.      The signalling cosmos and creative integrity.

5.      The difference between historical (H) vs. algorithmic (A) descriptions and their respective epistemic distances.

6.      The interdependence of H and A.

7.      The nature of standard evolution.

8.      Interpreting the Bible.

9.      The right way to read Genesis 1.

The primary focus of this book is actually epistemological and about just how far short many fundamentalists (and secondarily some atheists) fall in their understanding of epistemology.

Timothy V Reeves, June 2021

ADDENDUM 14/07/21

Sympathy with Ken Ham!

That the fundamentalist tendency to use a polarised puritanical polemic to depict social reality is too simplistic becomes apparent when even someone like myself can sympathetically align with fundamentalists on certain issues (as ought to be clear from my book). Take this example from Ken Ham's blog: Viz: 

https://answersingenesis.org/racism/scientific-american-publishes-error-filled-hit-piece/

It's titled Scientific American Publishes Error-Filled Hit Piece, Claiming Genesis Is Racist. The piece Ken is talking about was written by Alison Hopper who according to Ken is a film maker. Ken's post includes part of the following quote from the offending Scientific American article, an article sensationally titled Denial of Evolution is a Form of White Supremacy Viz: 

At the heart of white evangelical creationism is the mythology of an unbroken white lineage that stretches back to a light-skinned Adam and Eve. In literal interpretations of the Christian Bible, white skin was created in God's image. Dark skin has a different, more problematic origin. As the biblical story goes, the curse or mark of Cain for killing his brother was a darkening of his descendants' skin. Historically, many congregations in the U.S. pointed to this story of Cain as evidence that Black skin was created as a punishment.

The fantasy of a continuous line of white descendants segregates white heritage from Black bodies. In the real world, this mythology translates into lethal effects on people who are Black. Fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible are part of the “fake news” epidemic that feeds the racial divide in our country.

It's likely true that East and West versions of Christianity have disproportionately portrayed Adam and Eve as white Europeans thus effectively promulgating an almost unconscious systemic racism.  Moreover, I can't speak for the whole history of fundamentalist brands who from time to time may (or may not) have identified the mark of Cain with Black skin; but I've never heard of any Christian groups who have have made this identification. Also, it is clear from Ken's article that it has never occurred to AiG to promote such a harmful notion and AiG certainly don't teach what Hopper is slanderously claiming. This is Hopper interpolating the contemporary concept of a heinous sin and putting these "modern blasphemies" into the mouths of innocents, inquisitional style. It certainly doesn't follow that denial of evolution necessarily entails racism any more than belief in evolution necessarily entails racism (as some anti-evolution Christians might try to maintain).

In any case I wonder if Hopper really understands evolution. In my book Epistemology, Ontology, Creation and Salvation I talk of the difference between evolution as natural history (H) and evolution as algorithm or mechanism (A), two very distinct meanings; one can be in a position where one believes one but not the other. Does one automatically classify as racist in Hopper's eyes if one challenges the status quo on evolution? Sounds as though Hopper believes one does, and who knows, if her ideas catch on the virtuous thought police may be knocking at your door! Authors like Hopper who are claiming to fight for the black cause are actually doing harm to that cause by caricaturing it so badly.

All in all it seems that some of the new watchers of our morals can be just as inquisitional & threatening as fundamentalists:  If they are anything like Hopper they too see the world through polarised spectacles; we are all labelled as racists if we don't believe what Hopper believes. But really there is no surprise here: The fact is these new moral guardians are flawed humanity like the rest of us and therefore tempted by the same draw to polarising extremism as are fundamentalists. The resultant effect of Hopper's false accusations will only entrench fundamentalists further into their embattled stance and confirm to them that the world of outsiders is out to get them. 

Finally it's important to note that at the end of this sensationally twisted article Scientific American adds a disclaimer.....

This is an opinion and analysis article; the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

They've made sure they've washed their hands then!

NOTE: The de facto Intelligent Design web site, Uncommon Descent, also comment on this article:

https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-pj-media-a-response-to-religious-claims-made-in-scientific-americans-denial-of-evolution-is-white-supremacy-piece/

ADDENDUM 20/08/21

Lack of sympathy with Ken Ham!

In a post dated 19 August and entitled Do Conservatives have a “Difficult Relationship with Science”?  We find Ken peddling his usual anti-science notions about the difference between observational science and historical science (sic), a matter I address in the book linked to in this post. In Ken's post we find the usual cliché surfing that Ken is inclined to do on this subject:

But what the author is failing to recognize is the difference between observational and historical science. In other words, this author has a “difficult relationship with science” because the author doesn’t understand the word science. You see, very few people have a so-called “difficult relationship with science” when it comes to observational science. Observational science is studying what is directly testable, observable, and repeatable. It’s the kind of science that uses the scientific method and builds our technology and medical innovations. Both creationists and evolutionists agree on observational science......But this is very different from historical science. This kind of science deals with the past—which cannot be directly tested, observed, or repeated

As I show in my book this is both false & incoherent anti-science nonsense. He simply doesn't understand epistemology any more than does Joe Smith. Instead he claims others don't understand the word science because they don't take onboard his intellectual gimcrack. He can get this nonsense past his naïve supporters and that's all that matters to Answers in Genesis

Watson, Crick, Franklin, Wilkins & Scientific Wisdom.

DNA Pioneers: James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin. 

See : https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/dna_checklist

I recently re-watched a video I had recorded way back in the March of 2003. It was recorded from the UK's Channel 4 and was entitled DNA: The secret of life. It told the story of the discovery of the structure of DNA. James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins appeared on the programme. Also appearing was Raymond Gosling who at the time was a PhD student and lab assistant to Rosalind Franklin. According to the program Franklin and Wilkins of King's College were the experimentalists who generated the X-Ray diffraction patterns which so helped Crick and Watson to successfully theorise about the structure of DNA. It's not that the King's College team weren't theorists themselves, but they also did the hard work of getting the necessary experimental data about DNA. It is very easy to put Crick and Watson into the role of the "lazy lads" who just theorised together down at the pub and let others do the hands-on science. That they appeared to be riding on the backs of others was the cause of tension. But whatever, they were clearly very bright guys who can rightly claim credit for making the right inferences from the data. It didn't help the King's College team that Franklin and Wilkins had a poor relationship; in contrast it seems that Watson and Crick worked well together (and drank well together!). Also, that Franklin was a pretty woman in a largely man's world may have introduced frustrating pressures and detrimentally affected her attitudes. Or perhaps she was just a awkward personality.

The programme tells us of Watson and Crick's first attempt at a model. The King's College team came to have a look at this model. But when Rosalind Franklin saw it she laughed out loud; in the light of the experimental data the King's team had accumulated the model was clearly wrong. Watson & Crick were suffering from their working in a too rarified experimental semi-vacuum. Then one day Wilkins, who seems to have been an obliging sort of character, showed Watson an X shaped diffraction pattern that the King's team had obtained. Watson and Crick knew immediately that this implied DNA was a double helix and they went on to develop the correct model we are all familiar with.  Lab assistant Ray Gosling takes up the story:

Wilkins undoubtedly (and I think if you ask him he will say he did), if there are any cats to be let out of any bags, he had done it.

To which Wilkins responded:

Well I suppose it's perfectly true, but science isn't supposed to be kept in bags, no more than cats. I mean, I don't know what he means but I don't like as a scientist working away and sort of "Oh no! I mustn't tell the other scientists". I don't think it's the way to be working. Science ought to be an open activity, so you can work as a community. 

Well yes, in theory, that's the ideal world: that's wisdom we should aspire to, take home and act on: But no, we aren't in that kind of world; we're in a human world. Human beings can't be so detached and dispassionate. Competition, reputations, making a name for yourself, not to mention wealth & fame are at stake and have a strong tendency to trump the cooperation and community effort thing. The consequent mutual distrust means that people keep their cards close to their chests. Competition vs community effort! It's all very reminiscent of the capitalist conundrum of free market vs community.  And yet again I'm reminded of Philippians 2:1-11 which seems to be the key to community living. 

During the program, Maurice Wilkins also came out with another pearl of Wisdom. As we've seen Crick and Watson's first model was laughed off stage by Rosalind Franklin. But of this failed attempt Wilkins comments wisely as follows:

One might say but why not? It's an exploration to make a model. You make a model and if you make a bit of a fool of yourself in the process why worry? ....you might get lucky!

A big lesson there for all blue sky theorists: Its any exploration and there's no telling whether you are going to  make a fool of yourself or win the jackpot - most likely the former,. So enjoy he ride while it lasts; you may not be the chosen one after all!

Useful Link:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/23/sexism-in-science-did-watson-and-crick-really-steal-rosalind-franklins-data

Make it IDist proof and along comes a better IDist

                                 

In a Panda's Thumb post dated 5th May Evolutionary Mathematician Joe Felsenstein criticises Intelligent Design aficionado Granville Sewell for making the claim that the following problem is unsolvable: According to Sewell that problem is, how do we...

#3 Explain how life could have originated and evolved into intelligent humans, through entirely natural (unintelligent) processes.

Felsenstein quotes Sewell where Sewell explains why he thinks the foregoing problem is unsolvable (Emphases are mine):

Well, I have a very simple proof  [*GASP!*] that the biological problem #3 posed above is also impossible to solve, that does fit in the margin of this document. All one needs to do is realize that if a solution were found, we would have proved something obviously false, that a few (four, apparently) fundamental, unintelligent forces of physics alone could have rearranged the fundamental particles of physics into libraries full of science texts and encyclopedias, computers connected to monitors, keyboards, laser printers and the Internet, cars, trucks, airplanes, nuclear power plants and Apple iPhones.

Is this really a valid proof? It seems perfectly valid to me, as I cannot think of anything in all of science that can be stated with more confidence than that a few unintelligent forces of physics alone could not have rearranged the basic particles of physics into Apple iPhones.

The irony is that the chief weakness of Sewell's argument is due to potential internal inconsistency in his world view; for presumably Sewell's a Christian theist who like myself believes in a created cosmos; all of it & not just some bits that God did! That means as far as we know those so-called "unintelligent natural forces" and their constants might have been intelligently selected to ensure that the evolution of life somewhere in the universe has a high probability given the size of the cosmos. If you are a Christian you are not supposed to be a dualist who sees the "natural world" as somehow, well.... natural and therefore inferior in some way; it is after all the creation of an omniscient omnipotence. 

Now, although many respected evangelical Christians are not at all adverse to evolution in terms of the proposed mechanisms of change (e.g. Tom Wright, Francis Collins, Denis Alexander, Simon Conway-Morris, John Polkinghorne)  I myself do entertain considerable doubts about those mechanisms (But I accept the story of natural history - an important distinction there). My issue with evolution revolves around whether a structure I call the spongeam exists in configuration space (See links at end). But having said that I probably have more in common with these evangelicals than I do the de facto Intelligent Designers like Sewell who see the world through polarising filters, in this case  a natural forces vs God did it intelligent agency dichotomy. The logical outcome of this subliminally dualist world view is the kind of crass argumentation we get from Sewell which he then presents as a perfectly valid "proof". 

Given my doubts about standard evolutionary mechanisms and my I belief that Divine intelligence has acted and continues to proactively act in creation, particularly the creation of life, one might think I would find common cause with people like Sewell in spite of their dualism. But no, there is no chance of that; Politics has seen off that possibility. The de facto ID culture along along with its ugly fundamentalist sisters (Like Answers in Genesis) has gravitated toward the extreme right-wing even in some cases voicing the conspiracy theories of a "stolen" 2020 US election. Rejected by the academic establishment the de facto ID movement have fallen into the arms of right-wing "drain-the-swamp" fantasists whose liar-in-chief is Donald Trump, a man who seeks to overthrow the necessarily  argumentative, factionalism  & fractiousness of democracy with the illusion of a bucolic volk-libertarianism.*. To this far-right community the middle ground politics of Joe Biden looks like the far left! 

 

On the Spongeam

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2019/09/evolution-naked-chance.html

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-mathematics-of-spongeam.html

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2016/02/on-structuralism-and-spongeam.html

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2015/11/intelligent-designs-2001-space-odyssey.html

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

Footnote

* The wealth making and innovating energy of the market is without doubt, but unfortunately that energy sometimes thrashes uncontrollably: The non-linear instabilities of the market and its power law wealth spectrum, often perceived as unjust, are liable to fuel alienation and far left socialism.  Community identification & the highly localised "serve yourself" operation of the market often find themselves at odds. Somehow the best of the free market and the best of community values have to be reconciled - the alternative is volk-libertarianism which will  generate a counter culture of alienation and extreme socialism. See here: https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2020/07/marx-vs-smith_30.html

Freewill and Determinism (Again)

Correspondence of formal structure isn't the same as correspondence of quality.

The first person perspective of conscious cognition is barely recognised as a reality in some cognitive science circles, perhaps even denied a real existence altogether in some cases. The reason for this, I propose, is because science is necessarily almost exclusively framed in third person narratives. The third person, by definition, takes the perspective of an observer external to the person who is the subject of observation and study. That external perspective is only ever going to return the subject person’s experience in terms of what the external perspective can only ever hope to observe (baring a "mind meld"); namely, ostensible patterns of the human presence; in the first instance human behaviour of which a closer look only yields the dynamical patterns of cells, neurons, fields, charges, currents, molecular chemistry etc. 

This latter fact seems to confound some people: It’s as if they expect consciousness, if it exists, should be discovered lurking like some mysterious but observable quintessence inside the brain. Since this hasn’t been found (and at my guess will never be found) then a naïve conclusion is that consciousness doesn’t exist. But in the highly focused third person account of human and neuron dynamics the equivalent of a magicians redirection trick readily comes into play and the obvious location of conscious cognition has been missed; that location is found not by looking at brain behaviours, no matter how close or detailed that look, but by looking back down the line of sight of the third person observer who in the final analysis is of course also the centre of another first person conscious perspective; the very act of observing, theorising, knowing and creating a third person narrative is an implicit acknowledgment of the existence of another first person perspective doing the observing and theorising. Third person narratives are meaningless apart from the implicit assumption that the first person observer and theoriser exists in the first place, for whom the narrative is meaningful.

Since the enlightenment formal third person narratives, as descriptions of the world, have undoubtedly proved to be overwhelmingly successful: They have identified the deeply organised wonder of creation and given us science, technology, and industry. Those narratives can be expressed in communicable formal terms of quantifiable “weights & measures” and dynamic geometry. The third person’s perspective on another person can be encapsulated in information that is transmissible & translatable between agents.  That information tells of a common underlying ontology that is the medium by which first persons perspectives can communicate and understand one another. 

The ontology of this common medium, an ontology which has a level of organisation which makes it amenable to being rendered in formal theoretical terms, reminds me of those industry standard page description languages (PDLs) like Postscript and PDF which make the world of document description portable and shareable between printing machines. A page description language isn’t an end in itself: Such “third person” narratives as PDLs are there to provide printing machines with the basis for supplying the rich colourful experience of printed output. The formal terms of PDLs are very different in quality to the printed page itself but they nevertheless have a very close functional relationship with one another.  PDLs are to the printed page as third person narratives are to human experience.

The formal third person narratives describing the ontology of the physical patterns of brain dynamics need make no reference to how this formal account of human beings breaks down into the qualia of conscious cognition; the human system appears to take care of that translation, thus betraying a close functional relationship between formal third person theories and the first person experience of conscious cognition. In the context of a potentially successful formal language description of human cognition (and the cosmos as a whole), it is very easy to lose sight of the fact that these formal third person narratives are a kind of page description language for human consciousness. The consequence is that in science and technology there is frequently a loss of connection between formality and feeling and when this has happened it has caused alienation. As I theorize in this blog post the misdirection which has lead to a loss of cognizance of the importance of consciousness as a central cosmic reality has led to the romantic reaction against what is perceived as the dehumanisation & deconsecration of the cosmos.

***

It is against the foregoing background that the “Free will vs Predestination/Determinism” contention must be discussed. I have already discussed this question in these posts:

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-unintelligible-notions-of-free-will.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-incoherent-notions-of-free-will-and.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-incoherent-notions-of-free-will-and.html

I have to say that I’ve lost a certain amount of patience with those who bandy about the term “free will” without first giving us any notion as to what they mean by it. In the above posts I strongly criticise Christian Justin Brierley who launches into the topic determined to defend the notion of "free will" and attempts to smuggle past us his undisclosed understanding of “free will” (whatever that is) without ever examining whether he is dealing in an intelligible concept.

Actually, from the point of view from someone like Brierley it may well look as though I've come down on the side of determinism. In fact I came to the opinion that in a crude sense even a computer flowing through a deterministic program has “free will”, depending on how you define it. But of course human beings are just a little more complex and a little more mysterious that even the most complex computer algorithm. For a start it is quite likely that the human brain is capable of mathematically chaotic behaviour (It has non-linear feedback) which in turn would mean it is sensitive to the apparent indeterminism of quantum fluctuation: This may give humanity its unpredictable creative edge as it seeks to satisfy declarative goals with novel solutions. So, even from the third person narrative point of view, humanity is a very different kettle of fish to Turin computers. Much of my own view on the subject depends very much on my take on the nature of Disorder and Randomness; without the understandings embodied in my "book" on Disorder and Randomness I don’t think I could make much progress.

Really, whether or not human beings are mathematically deterministic, it actually has no effect on my understanding of “free will”: As I've already said even the execution of a deterministic algorithm can have “free will” after a fashion. But there is one aspect true of humans (and probably also true of parts of the animal kingdom such as chimps, dogs, cats, dolphins, octopus etc) that is not true of computers, even those computers running AI simulations: Viz: that is, it is probably meaningless to ask “What does it feel like to be a computer?”. Computers are not using the created physical regime in a way that “prints out” conscious thought and feeling. In contrast the complexities of biological architecture, as we know from our own first person perspective, generates conscious cognition. As such, human beings know what it feels like to be who they are and what it means to make “free choices”; that's true even if those free choices are mathematically determined in the abstract sense of having some complex deterministic algorithm capable of describing the events of consciousness in formal terms. Those who launch into this debate arguing in favour of, or against, some incoherent notion of freewill often do so with philosophical vested interests; either in order to maintain a Christian gnosto-dualism which contrasts "spirit" against matter, or because a thoroughgoing secularist philosophy prefers Christian dualism and believes the work of refuting a gnostic notion of "spirit" to be like shooting fish in a barrel (which actually may be true). But in subliminal fear of the mysteries of the numinous some secularists have fought shy of the idea that our physical regime is the medium which supports the first person perspective of conscious cognition * 

Footnote: 

* It would be very wrong to claim that all those who believe in a purely secular worldview deny the existence of the conscious perspective. Philosopher John Searle has made a strong case for the conscious first person perspective being an irreducible feature of our "material" world. However, unfortunately Searle has queered his pitch by being involved in sexual misconduct. 

ADDENDUM 18/05/21 & 3/06/21

18/05/21 The following addendum appeared on my post of  12/02/19: It concerns the rear view mirror perspective of history:

All our decisions, whether labelled as "determined" by determinists or "free-will" by "free-willists", eventually take their place in the fixed and "determined" resin block of history. In one sense we can look back on our decisions with a kind "God's eye view" on them with the potential of knowing those decisions and their results in full. The question then is this; does this perfect hindsight render what at the time were thought of as "free-will" decisions as no longer a case of "free-will" but somehow determined?  Or if we go back in time before the decisions were made does the fact that those decisions are, from a divine omniscient perspective, seen in a kind of hindsight, make them "determined"?  That is, does the mere existence of the omniscient render what would otherwise be "free-will" no longer "free will"?  I think that questions like this are an reductio ad absurdum for the whole "free-will vs determinism" contrived dichotomy. 

3/06/21 Here's another addition that came out of an email discussion. These notes concern the nature of the ontology on which our cosmos runs. 

As you know I've attempted to express the idealist philosophy several times. I think I can trace my idealism back to my dabbling in positivism at university. But strong positivism can go too far and almost become solipsist. Somewhere a balance needs to kept. Strong materialism has trouble defining what "materialism" means in the absence of experiencing and thinking observers and strong idealism has a problem with the reality of all that ontology that goes unobserved and unthought about. As Berkley realised however the idealist problems are well addressed once one brings in a sentient God whose mind can underwrite all that ontology beyond the human sphere. 

 I attempted to express my idealism in the introduction to my "book" Gravity and Quantum Non-Linearity -. Another recent foray was in my blog entry on Freewill and determinism where I use the metaphor of a page description language. 

 But I think we are struggling here to express the true essence of the noumena; it's probably bound up with the stuff of God's mind on which the cosmic "simulation" is running and what chance do we have of understanding the essence of God?.  All we can do is describe the regular patterns of our experience and assume they are rooted in some kind of God given ontology. 

I tend to opt for circular logic: Viz The regular "material" world explains mind and mind gives meaning to materialism. That's why in my book "Gravity &* Quantum Non-linearity" I used the metaphor of a computer language compiler that is written in the very language it compile

***

Mathematics provides what I refer to as the formal structure of reality. But a formal structure without its translation into experience is meaningless:  Take for example the simulation of car in computer memory: if it's a good simulation it will have a one-to-one relationship with the parts of an actual car and also the dynamic relations between moving parts. This example is not so far fetched as I believe Babbage's analytical engine has been simulated in a computer before now in order to illustrate its workings. Now, a good simulation may mathematically, that is formally, be completely correct. But it lacks one thing: A simulated car isn't a car; you can't get in it and get the car experience; In order to get the experience of a car you have to translate all that formal structure via transduces, servo motors, converters and what not, all of which provide the on screen and inertial experience of driving. Ergo, formal structure only has meaning if it is translated into experience. 

 This is why I used the "page description language" metaphor in this post. Postscript is a formal mathematical language but it makes little sense unless it is there to provided the richness of the printed output experience. 

Science Ignoramus

The following letter sent to Norfolk & Norwich's Eastern Evening News is a priceless gem of science illiteracy. I don't have the date of the paper: I just happened to stumble across the letter  recently already in clipped form. 

As is the way with this kind of thing I did at first wonder if the letter originated from some mischievous journalist wanting to stir up a big mail bag for the letters page, but that we appear to have a name and address counts against that.

I'm sure 1930s schooling couldn't have been that bad, so it's likely that Fred has forgotten some very basic lessons and is also failing to put 2 and 2 together: "CO2 is most definitely not emitted from vehicle or aircraft exhausts et alia....." *GASP*!

The above letter isn't worth critiquing. In any case I'm sure the Evening News got their big post bag (& email box) of intelligent critics teaching Fred a thing or two about elementary science - at least I hope they did; it would restore my faith in Norwich people's grasp of reality! 

In spite of picking up at least some (if not enough!) lessons from the educational establishment in the 1930s Fred now effectively dismisses that establishment and writes them off as "learned" pundits telling us "squit". Paranoid delusions about a government plot to make money have filled in the spaces of his ignorance. If he's still alive today and a web user then he would be fertile ground for covid 19 conspiracy theorism!

Certainly, the establishment isn't exactly angelic (one need only think of Boris Johnson); that establishment is, after all, populated with sinners like the rest of us. But those who perceive the machinations of Machiavellian motives driving a baroque Agatha Christie style plot behind every government move are a nutritious seed bed for conspiracy stories. When the intuitions and feelings tell one that something is wrong and that one is otherwise unable to discover or articulate what is wrong, the "left brain", or what Steven Pinker has called the "baloney generator", gets to work to rationalise one's fears and invents an explanatory story; perhaps a story of conspiracy. Failure to see that one could be part of the problem need not enter into this story, for one may well be suffering from what Kenneth Clark calls that most fatal of delusions - one sees oneself as virtuous! This is what far-right popularism looks like at grass roots level. If exploited by a would-be-dictator self-righteous popularism is a ready tool for an opportunist to attempt to overthrow the argumentative, messy & factious democratic status quo. It's ironic that establishment overthrow is exactly what the far left also seeks. Marx, however, did correctly perceive that alienation is an aspect of even democratic societies and in fact are part and parcel with a democratic society; that's because democracy must (by definition) give space to dissention. 

Aumann’s Agreement Theorem, Epistemology & Evolution

The Time Traveler was confronted by a sphinx with a faint shadow of a smile on its face.

 

These notes are my side of a discussion I had with James Knight on Aumann’s Agreement theorem. I believe he is incorporating his views on the subject in one of his books (something to look forward to!). I don’t have time to write books myself but prefer to zip around from one subject to the next logging my thoughts as fast as I can in order to cover as much ground as possible in what time is left to me; there are just too many riddles to touch on! But you never know, anyone of them might throw further inspiring light on the meaning of life, the universe and everything!

In these notes I talk about evolution. I have a rather qualified and reserved view on evolution as it is currently understood. This current understanding implies that a mathematical object I refer to as  the spongeam ( my name; see links below for more details) must exist in configuration space. I personally have doubts about that. But evolution in the weaker sense of a natural history of change, whatever the mechanism(s) that have driven this change, has occurred over long ages. Observations based on the messages sent to us via fossil laden rock sediment is strong evidence of this history of change. So, when I refer to evolution below I am in most cases thinking “natural history” rather than “spongeam”.

On the Spongeam

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2019/09/evolution-naked-chance.html

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-mathematics-of-spongeam.html

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2016/02/on-structuralism-and-spongeam.html

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2015/11/intelligent-designs-2001-space-odyssey.html

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

 

Introduction

Most Western people, as a matter of common sense, assume there’s an invariant ontology out there that is the depository of a common truth to be targeted and if possible converged upon. For most people this is an axiomatic trivialism. A minority of relativists, postmodernists, nihilists and cynics (“What is Truth?”) might question this axiom but most common sense people take the existence of a universal target ontology as given. Also, by and large Christians have no problem with an ontology of “truth” because they believe God is a rational creator (although rationality seems break down in the paranormal). But how to get to that truth is a much more vexed question; this is the epistemological question. 

What Aumann’s theorem doesn’t do is set out to prove that there is such a thing as a Truth to agree on. That’s not what the proof shows; that’s axiomatic as far as Aumman’s theorem is concerned, a theorem which  goes on to set a lower limit on the computational time needed for agreement assuming there is something to agree on. I see Aumann’s theorem as a department of epistemology because epistemology is about developing a concept of the world on the basis of the messages received from one’s context and that context includes messages from other people as well as the objects around us. Aumann simplifies this process using a relatively elementary model.

Actually it is possible to imagine circumstances where a successful epistemology is simply not possible; e,g, where sensory data is muddled,  chaotic or only erratically available and therefore there are then  no regular patterns to agree on (cf the paranormal). However, in these notes I’ve followed the axiomatic assumption that there is some solid common “truth” out there to be discovered and agreed upon.

If one accepts the common truth axiom then in one sense Aumann’s theorem isn’t so startling or surprising: If dispassionate observers share the same logic, share unobstructed communications and (eventually) the same “facts” then convergence toward agreement is an intuitively obvious conclusion; it all boils down to dispassionate observers ultimately sharing the same set of “facts” (for presumably the logic needed to massage those facts into a theoretical narrative is universal).

But of course human beings are far more advanced and complex affairs than simple dispassionate machines trying to share a limited set of facts in order to arrive at the same conclusions, as per Aumann’s theorem. Moreover, the world human beings find themselves in doesn’t present simple collections of facts on a plate that can then be shared willy-nilly. Fact gathering itself can be a hard graft; the cosmos doesn’t give up its facts that easily let alone hand them to us embedded in readymade theories.

Further; human beings are complex adaptive systems evolved to have a very complex suite of motivations and cognitive processes that fit them for a community life. That community life mediates both facts and theories; this immediately puts an entirely different complexion on the matter, way in advance of Aumann’s simple computer simulation, a  simulation not programmed with the trade-offs forced on us by social interactions and community belonging.

The world of Aumann’s theorem is a kind of toy-town cosmos not unlike the Ptolemaic cosmos – it’s a start, but its only start. I have in the past likened Aumann’s theorem to Olber’s paradox, a conclusion about starlight which proved to be wrong, but because it was wrong it pointed to the need to question the fundamental cosmological assumptions from which the paradox was derived. Olber’s paradox was therefore a profound result. Aumann’s theorem is also a profound result if it is seen in the right light.

The full copy of these notes can be found here