rainbow walking

rw: And the processor, regardless of how simple or complex it was/is, has been CREATED by someone intentionally to serve a purpose.

rainbow walking

rw: Hit Dat, I'm a tad late in responding to this thread but isn't the OP based on FIRST CAUSE? Are you saying that nature's propensity to produce simple algorithms is the first cause or a result of it? Wasn't AI produced by someone intelligent?

rainbow walking

Syn: The development of DNA requires no more than differential selection and random mutation. The reason you postulate “specified complexity”(and I suspect you don’t know what it even means) is based soely upon your personal conviction. Please, don’t make me have to explain that conviction itself does not constitute evidence.

Rw: I thought the OP was about FIRST CAUSE? What you describe above is not abiogenesis but evolution. And you have omitted ecological pressures that affect selection. An existing DNA is required to mutate, survive, and replicate. Specified complexity goes towards demonstrating that polymerization of the necessary chemicals to produce the first aligned components of DNA is just too complex to have been produced “naturally” which, of course, means ACCIDENTALLY. Furthermore, if a mutation occurs enabling replication and survival in a specific environment why must it be assumed that this mutation or specific environment came about “naturally”? It’s still an assumption that mutation is a NATURAL occurrence. In as much as the mutative process is itself still undefined, I would think any claims of accidental or random to be premature.

SYN: You have obviously missed both the point and nature of artificial life on computers. Of course they were developed to produce digital life forms, that does not mean that intentionality is required for life, in fact it demonstrates the opposite.

Rw: I don’t see how you come to this conclusion. AI itself is the product of INTENTIONAL, INTELLIGENT DESIGN. Therefore, anything that comes from this design will be contaminated with the mark of IID. Now you may try the classic “walking the hand up the bat” maneuver by claiming that the INTELLIGENCE that produced AI was itself a product of NATURE but this is question begging at its finest.

Even if some scientist actually manages to produce a working DNA or even RNA strand in a laboratory by a precise arrangement of all the ingredients this still doesn’t support the underlying philosophy of abiogenesis simply because it required an intelligence to duplicate. Someone will quickly point out that SINCE it took an intelligent scientist to compile and assemble the necessary components for duplication why must we assume this proves it did not require an intelligent input to originate it? In fact, I would suggest this would weigh more heavily against RANDOM CHANCE as the fulcrum.

SYN: It shows that there is no magical ingredient required. As Daniel Dennett points out, the truly brilliant thing about computers is that there is nothing up thier sleves. No hidden tricks, no magic, no soul, just plain old fashioned push-pull causation.

Rw: Invoking magic is a straw man. No one is claiming magic here, just intelligence, unless you equate intelligence with magic? Computers are operated and CREATED by people with sleeves. The interpretations of the data produced by these computers is what we must consider thoughtfully. Metaphysical naturalists have sleeves also.

SYN: Artificial life shows conclusively that simple agorithmic processes such as differential selection can produce and optimize organized complexity. Certainly the programmers provide an environment in which differential reproductive success can occur but that condition exists in nature. You know, I have difficulty wrapping my mind around why people still try to defend vitalism even when it comes to computer simulations of life.

Rw: Then AI has replicated itself?

theauditors

I'm not sure if this point has been brought up before, as there have been several previous references to the Uncertainty Principle, but as far as I could tell this point has not been made in its entirety.

I simply wish to point out that classical causality is defunct, according to the Uncertainty Principle, where sub-atomic particles frequently "pop" into existance, and are almost simultaneously reabsorbed into the ether, with no cause whatsoever. Also, the decay of radioactive isotopes is a proponent of non-causality; radioactive atoms are wont to decay, and emit alpha and beta particles, again without cause.

It is, in fact, a popular current theory that, in according with quantum physics and the Uncertainty Principle, the entire universe is merely a large quantum fluctuation. As has been widely accepted, quantum fluctuations obey the laws of quantum physics, as long as they eventually cancel themselves out. The cause? There is none necessary; modern quantum physics, the basis for our understanding of why most of our world works the way it does, simply does not require one.

I would welcome anyone who has links to back up what I've said here, as my lack of supporting evidence may well be my downfall.

May I refer anyone wishing to read more on this matter to read In Search Of Schrodinger's Cat, by John Gribbin, as it is a very interesting read, and explains many of the points here in much more detail, although not in the context of religion.

GunnerJ

Theauditors- it's good to hear a fresh voice, especially one making intellegent noises. Your post was interesting, but my original intent wasn't to discuss the nessesity for causality. I personally don't think that the Universe needs a cause anymore than these particle-antiparticle pairs. My intent was to show that the First Cause argument is worthless to theism, even if it was true that the Universe needs a cause. I assume that the Universe needs a cause for the sake of arguing that this cause need not be any type of God. Thanks for the input, though.

GunnerJ

Better than that, they display many of the characteristics of intellegnece, even very advanced technology. Consider how termites living in large mounds build them so the sun doesn't heat them up to much, and with complex tunnels to the underground. They essentially invented air conditioning. Maybe those ants that herd aphids to collect their honeydue should tell us how they invented ranching. Or how about the leafcutter ant's invention of agriculture? If growing fungus isn't a good enough example of farming, then consider the "magic gardens" that South American rainforest natives never pick fruit from because of enchantment? Small sections of forest floor will only grow a few types of plants, and the natives believed that it was under a black magic spell. Explorers looked at the area and discovered that certain ant species cut down any other type of plant at the sapling stage that they dont need to live. those little guys must have a green mandible to keep such great gardens.

Theli

"rw: And the processor, regardless of how simple or complex it was/is, has been CREATED by someone intentionally to serve a purpose."

Have I said something else?
What I was trying to get through here was that complexity has nothing to do with the subject.

And that something can reach complexity out of simplicity. Only that the processor has been engineered by humans into filling a certain function. But lifeforms haven't. The only purpose they have is to survive and to reproduce. And the lifeform wich fits it's enviroment best has the biggest chance to survive and reproduce. I never said they were "created" for some purpose.

Datheron

RW,

Well...once upon a time it was based on first cause. Then my war w/ Ed in the middle kinda shifted that, and now we're at wherever we currently are.

I'm saying that nature's propensity is indeed to be produce simple algorithms. You are correct in stating that intelligence has produced AI - however, by what degree of intelligence is required for such a thing? Is it possible, instead of having a period of tens of thousands of years to produce intelligence (humans making AI), that over billions of years nature has produced intelligence?

Furthermore, it begs the question of exactly why we are, in fact, so flawed and stupid. If our flawed existence managed to produce a simulation of intelligence within a matter of thousands of years (actually, if we talk about the age of computing, it would be around 40 years, but let's give the benefit of the doubt and take the entirety of human history into account), exactly how or why would an omniscent being take 15 billion years to create us?

Ed

There is almost always a strong vested interest in ancient documents by somebody, so this objection is meaningless.

Quote:

ip: As has been pointed out, historical-fiction writers like to get their background details straight, and Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate had been background details of the Gospels. Ed:Historical fiction was not invented until the 18th century, so your analogy fails. jtb: ALL fiction borrows from the real world, including mythic fantasy. The Lord of the Rings includes references to mountains, trees, horses, people, swords. rings... all of these exist in the real world.

Yes, but there are huge differences stylistically speaking between the gospels and mythologies. See my earlier post to lp above describing the differences.

Quote:

Ed: Thats right by carefully controlled all he did was prevent living organisms from corrupting his experiment which proved the Law of Biogenesis, ie life comes only from life. jtb: There is no "Law of Biogenesis" in science, there is a principle of abiogenesis: that bacteria come from other bacteria rather than thin air. There is no scientific law or principle which prohibits the formation of self-replicating systems (life).

There is a Law of Biogenesis, read "Aristotle to Zoos: A Philosophical Dictionary of Biology" by P. Medawar and J. Medawar. Actually YOU ARE claiming that bacteria came from thin air, with maybe a little soup mixed in.

Quote:

Ed: By substance, I mean substantial. There are significant characteristics that differentiate between life and non-life and personal and impersonal. jtb: What are the significant differences between a chimpanzee and a human? Both are capable of abstract thought and language (sign language, in the case of chimps). Apart from vocal ability, an adult chimp is comparable to a six-year-old human. Are children not human?

Actually the chimps that use sign language have a very limited vocabulary and do not use syntax, which is required for abstract thought and true language. Also chimps show no signs of a true will or a moral conscience.

[b] The evidence is the existence of the universe with personal beings within.

Ed

By quantum behavior I was referring to molecules that pop into and out of existence. I don't think there is any evidence of molecules behaving that way.