(2017-11-14, 08:58 PM)Steve001 Wrote: [ -> ]Science has.
How bacteria communicate.
http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-med...l-signals/
How human body cells do it.
http://www.biologyreference.com/Dn-Ep/En...ystem.html
"Touchstone of Life" is an excellent account of biological communication and how it works. I read it cover to cover some 17 years ago and still refer to it. There is new developments but for the fundamentals - it is a top-notch account.
Quote: "If there were something like a guidebook for living creatures, I think the first line would read like a biblical commandment: Make thy information larger. And next would come the guidelines for colonizing, in good imperialist fashion, the biggest chunk of negative entropy around."
Werner Loewenstein, a cell biologist at Woods Hole Biological Laboratories, has written a remarkably engaging book tying together information theory, thermodynamics, molecular biology, and the structure of cells. The subject is not one to which the human brain is well suited, but with Loewenstein's guidance you may get a better grasp on concepts like entropy than you've ever had before.
Loewenstein describes life as a circus: "Flowing in from the cosmos, information loops back onto itself to produce the circular information complex we call Life.... To those who are inside the Circus, it will always seem the greatest show on Earth, though I can't speak for the One who is outside it."
The Touchstone of Life covers some of the ground surveyed in Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach and Kauffman's At Home in the Universe, but with an even stronger sense of the physical realities constraining the "Circus." It should prove fascinating for anyone interested in biology, consciousness, physics, or the future of computing. --Mary Ellen Curtin --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
The biophysicist from Woods Hole Institute explains cellular communication and the role of information theory in molecular biology, tying together the most recent discoveries in an interesting and well-written account. Nothing less than the organization and circuitry of life is tackled here, and it is done successfully. (LJ 1/99)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
https://www.amazon.com/Touchstone-Life-I...0195140575
(2017-11-13, 11:32 PM)Kamarling Wrote: [ -> ]Something amiss with this post on two counts. First, you need to define design and then produce examples of things which you accept are designed but without any intelligent input (although that intelligence might conceivably be non-human). I would think that "designed" automatically requires a designer. That could be a process rather than a person but somewhere in the process, there must be creative or intelligent input.
I don't think the term
design has a definition. We can talk about human design. We can talk about natural objects that appear design-like. I might say that the genetic code is somewhat like human design, but that does not mean that I think it was designed.
Or, we could agree that some natural things are designed, but not by a willful process. Instead, the design happens by chance and selection. If you do not like to use the term design for such things, then I would readily agree not to call them designed. I have no stake in calling things designed.
Quote:Secondly, your "useful observation" makes no sense. If you mean that the only source of things designed by humans is humans then isn't that a tautology? If you mean that the source of human design - as in the design of a human being - is human, then that is surely nonsense.
I was going for the tautology, because that is all I think we can do. What we cannot do is observe that something looks like it could have been designed by humans and so therefore must have been designed by some other human-like intelligence. Such a claim ignores the possibility that natural processes can produce objects that look somewhat like they were designed by humans.
The observation "the only source of design we know of is human design" tells us nothing about objects that seem, in some sense, to be designed.
~~ Paul
(2017-11-14, 11:29 PM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: [ -> ]I don't think the term design has a definition. We can talk about human design. We can talk about natural objects that appear design-like. I might say that the genetic code is somewhat like human design, but that does not mean that I think it was designed.
Or, we could agree that some natural things are designed, but not by a willful process. Instead, the design happens by chance and selection. If you do not like to use the term design for such things, then I would readily agree not to call them designed. I have no stake in calling things designed.
~~ Paul
So when I read this I have to wonder why, considering that skeptics are so fond of Occam's Razor, that it suddenly loses its appeal when we talk about evolution. Could it be that atheist/materialist dogma takes precedent, the dogma that says, in the cautionary words of Richard Lewontin:
Quote:Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
(2017-11-15, 12:41 AM)Kamarling Wrote: [ -> ]So when I read this I have to wonder why, considering that skeptics are so fond of Occam's Razor, that it suddenly loses its appeal when we talk about evolution. Could it be that atheist/materialist dogma takes precedent, the dogma that says, in the cautionary words of Richard Lewontin:
Occam's Razor is a good rule for us humans to follow. Too many suppositions unnecessarily complicated things. Nature however is under no obligation to follow that rule.
Golly gee Kar if only immaterialism could deliver answers period.
(2017-11-15, 01:52 AM)Steve001 Wrote: [ -> ]Occam's Razor is a good rule for us humans to follow. Too many suppositions unnecessarily complicated things. Nature however is under no obligation to follow that rule.
Golly gee Kar if only immaterialism could deliver answers period.
Occams Razor is only really used in studying nature though, so I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I’m not really sure your post above is saying what you think you’re saying.
(2017-11-15, 12:41 AM)Kamarling Wrote: [ -> ]So when I read this I have to wonder why, considering that skeptics are so fond of Occam's Razor, that it suddenly loses its appeal when we talk about evolution. Could it be that atheist/materialist dogma takes precedent, the dogma that says, in the cautionary words of Richard Lewontin:
Occam's razor is about what makes the least scientific assumptions.
To accept ID, we have to assume an entity, force, or process, we don't know.
And, to make matters worse, we don't even need.
So if you want to talk parsimony, ID is out of the window right from the start.
It seems like the sun goes round the earth, doesn't it?
Intuitively it feels impossible to explain otherwise.
Is that then the most parsimonious explanation? No, because science does not need to comply with our intuition, it must comply with the evidence.
We can make it work though if we assume epicycles.
But just as with ID, we do not need them, we need to follow the data, and not go with our intuition.
(2017-11-15, 09:52 AM)Sparky Wrote: [ -> ]Occam's razor is about what makes the least scientific assumptions.
To accept ID, we have to assume an entity, force, or process, we don't know.
And, to make matters worse, we don't even need.
Do you really believe there are no assumptions made in your universe-by-accident faith? All the incredibly precise laws and physical constants that make life possible in the first place. Then, when conditions are eventually conducive to life, something as complex as DNA just appears against even more incredible odds. And then, to top it all, something else that can't be explained no matter how you try to force-fit your theories into your rigid ideology: consciousness arises out of these molecules that somehow managed to self-organise into a living, animate being.
The assumption is materialism and the reason for the assumption is spelled out in that quote by Lewontin. And what is the materialist idea of parsimony?
We have to assume that countless universes must exist in order for just one like ours to exist.
(2017-11-15, 10:25 AM)Kamarling Wrote: [ -> ]Do you really believe there are no assumptions made in your universe-by-accident faith? All the incredibly precise laws and physical constants that make life possible in the first place. Then, when conditions are eventually conducive to life, something as complex as DNA just appears against even more incredible odds. And then, to top it all, something else that can't be explained no matter how you try to force-fit your theories into your rigid ideology: consciousness arises out of these molecules that somehow managed to self-organise into a living, animate being.
The assumption is materialism and the reason for the assumption is spelled out in that quote by Lewontin. And what is the materialist idea of parsimony? We have to assume that countless universes must exist in order for just one like ours to exist.
Scientists make just one assumption which is, Nature is comprehensible. DNA didn't just pop whole cloth into existence. This perspective which you despise so much has been awfully productive. What has immaterialism done?
(2017-11-14, 11:29 PM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: [ -> ]I don't think the term design has a definition.
Or, we could agree that some natural things are designed, but not by a willful process. Instead, the design happens by chance and selection.
I cannot disagree more strongly. Design has a definition in terms of enforcing purpose and intent, whether done by a genius in engineering, or by a single celled organism. I can quote C. Darwin as to writings where he appears to express exactly the idea that mentality goes to root of living things and evolution. The key to design is feedback on previous versions!!!!!
This is the basis of cybernetics and information processing. (see Norbert Weiner)
Trial and error is defined as a random search with natural selection feedback being intentionally sorted with a target state in mind (or focus).
Trial and error is an intelligent search process. It is not "human" - it is a natural activity of living things.
Chance is not random - it is natural activity patterned by the laws of physics and chemistry and by focused attention. Using the mutual information from living things and detecting outcomes decisions can be made. These decisions STRUCTURE target states of living things. DECIDING which outcomes are more or less meaningful and useful creates information objects that can persist and be encoded in the natural language of living things.
Paul, my disagreement is respectful. However, this point is crucial because it is where the Lamarckian leak into instinctual behavior begins. Natural selection when using feedback by living things about what is useful and meaningful - is not chance - it is directed by intent to survive and thrive.
(2017-11-15, 12:44 PM)Steve001 Wrote: [ -> ]Scientists make just one assumption which is, Nature is comprehensible. DNA didn't just pop whole cloth into existence. This perspective which you despise so much has been awfully productive. What has immaterialism done?
Why is that assumption made? Why would evolution provide humanity with the ability to comprehend nature?