A new Guardian article on near-death experiences

There are no Theological arguments in Descent of Man, except if someone is looking for a metaphysical fight.  I like the old quote, "if a pickpocket met a Master, he would only see his pockets."

Back to science.   https://scitechdaily.com/beyond-biology-...evolution/


Quoted in the article are several famous thinkers of our time.

  bolding mine

This thinking seems to be attempting to resurrect the "natural selection of naturally occuring variations" or in other words "survival of the fittest' mechanism as being capable of all of evolution, in particular the development of complex major innovations, such as the more than 20 totally new animal body plans that suddenly appeared at the time of the Cambrian Explosion over 500 million years ago. The Intelligent Design movement has conclusively debunked Darwinism in all its forms including the current one, identifying confounding factors like irreducible complexity, inevitable genetic devolvement, and the overwhelmingly large waiting time problem for the necessary mutations/genetic variations.

This thinking seems to be attempting to resurrect the "natural selection of naturally occurring variations" or in other words "survival of the fittest' mechanism as being capable of all of evolution, in particular the development of complex major innovations, such as the more than 20 totally new animal body plans that suddenly appeared at the time of the Cambrian Explosion over 500 million years ago. The Intelligent Design movement has conclusively debunked Darwinism in all its forms including the current one, identifying confounding factors like irreducible complexity, inevitable genetic devolvement, and the overwhelmingly large waiting time problem for the necessary mutations/genetic variations.

Survival of the fittest is a narrative.  Selection is the term of science.  Let me ask you - is "selection" a part of physics or materials science?  NO.

Selection is an outcome that can be measured and is an action describale in Information Science terms.  The above article expands this and takes turf away from blind Materialism and claims it for Information Science.

The academic leader of the Intelligent Design movement was/is William Dembski.  I have posted before that for 10 years or more, he is a declared Informational Realist .  You have never responded.  Here is his latest book.

 
Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 25 of Minding the Brain (Discovery Institute Press, 2023), “How Informational Realism Dissolves the Mind-Body Problem ” by design theorist William A. Dembski. Informational realism is also the topic of Dembski’s book, Being as Communion (Routledge, 2014) (Routledge 2014).
✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼
To see how informational realism dissolves the mind-body problem, we need first to be clear on what informational realism is and why it is credible. Informational realism is not simply the view that information is real. We live in an information age, so who doesn’t think that information is real? Rather, informational realism asserts that the ability to exchange information is the defining feature of reality, of what it means, at the most fundamental level, for any entity to be real.

Maybe you would find it to your liking.  Love to talk about it, if you would indulge me.
  https://mindmatters.ai/2024/03/can-infor...y-problem/

Survival of the fittest is a narrative.  Selection is the term of science.  Let me ask you - is "selection" a part of physics or materials science?  NO.

Selection is an outcome that can be measured and is an action describale in Information Science terms.  The above article expands this and takes turf away from blind Materialism and claims it for Information Science.

The academic leader of the Intelligent Design movement was/is William Dembski.  I have posted before that for 10 years or more, he is a declared Informational Realist .  You have never responded.  Here is his latest book.

Maybe you would find it to your liking.  Love to talk about it, if you would indulge me.
  https://mindmatters.ai/2024/03/can-infor...y-problem/

I don't really think so. Rather than Dembski, I have long considered Stephen Meyer as the leading scientific and philosophical thinker in the ID movement, with his monumental volumes, The Signature of the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design, and Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe. These volumes lay out the essential scientific and philosophical foundations of ID. Return of the God Hypothesis of course lays out the case for a deistic universe, but this is at least one viable candidate for the source(s) of intelligence behind evolution. ID normally deliberately leaves out the question of the nature and source of the intelligent agent(s) as unknowable and incapable of scientific investigation.

Also among the leading thinkers of ID there is Michael Behe with his seminal books Darwin Devolves (which lays out the inherent and inevitable genetic devolution resulting from undirected Darwinistic random mutation plus natural selection processes), and Darwin's Black Box (which lays out probably the greatest flaw and barrier presented to RM+NS Darwinism, the inevitable presence of irreducible complexity in living organisms), and A Mousetrap for Darwin: Michael J. Behe Answers His Critics.

Yes I understand all this is disturbing for the gospel of the NDE followers, hence this baseless denial of even the possibility of strong emergence (divine insight again and again). The point of the discussion was to show Brian and others that reality (that is the observable reality and not the imaginative spritual realm) may be a lot more complex than presented in these forums. 

Do you really need to sneer at people who find NDE's relevant? I mean nobody on this forum invented them, and because of modern resuscitation methods there are too many examples of this phenomenon to casually dismiss them.

Now let's look at strong emergence. I thought I would consult an authority on the subject, ChatGPT:
[quote]

Strong emergence is a concept in philosophy and systems theory that suggests that certain properties of complex systems cannot be explained or predicted solely by analyzing their individual components. Instead, these properties emerge from the interactions and relationships between these components in such a way that they cannot be reduced to or derived from the properties of those components alone. In other words, the whole system exhibits properties or behaviors that are qualitatively different from those of its individual parts, and these properties cannot be understood by simply studying the parts in isolation.

This concept challenges reductionist approaches, which seek to explain complex phenomena by breaking them down into simpler components. Proponents of strong emergence argue that there are emergent phenomena in nature that cannot be fully understood through reductionist methods and that require a holistic approach to study.

An example often cited is consciousness in neuroscience. While the brain is composed of neurons and their connections, consciousness itself may be considered an emergent property of the complex interactions between these neurons, but it's not reducible to the activity of any individual neuron.

Critics of strong emergence argue that it may imply a kind of irreducibility that undermines the scientific principle of causality and may pose challenges for scientific inquiry. The debate surrounding strong emergence remains active within philosophy of science and related fields.

[end quote]

Do you agree with ChatGPT, because focussing on the bolded part, it is hard to see what possible phenomena are excluded. For example:

1)        The sudden emergence of Mickey Mouse on the moon.

2)        The sudden emergence of a hyper-intelligent cat that can do calculus.

3)        Some of the creatures that many people 'meet' on DMT trips emerging into our consensus reality.


Etc.


Before you dismiss any of the above, can you explain in detail how they would fail to qualify as strongly emergent phenomena? Alternatively, can you supply a better definition of strong emergence?

David

I don't really think so. Rather than Dembski, I have long considered Stephen Meyer as the leading scientific and philosophical thinker in the ID movement, with his monumental volumes, The Signature of the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design, and Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe. These volumes lay out the essential scientific and philosophical foundations of ID. Return of the God Hypothesis of course lays out the case for a deistic universe, but this is at least one viable candidate for the source(s) of intelligence behind evolution. ID normally deliberately leaves out the question of the nature and source of the intelligent agent(s) as unknowable and incapable of scientific investigation.

Also among the leading thinkers of ID there is Michael Behe with his seminal books Darwin Devolves (which lays out the inherent and inevitable genetic devolution resulting from undirected Darwinistic random mutation plus natural selection processes), and Darwin's Black Box (which lays out probably the greatest flaw and barrier presented to RM+NS Darwinism, the inevitable presence of irreducible complexity in living organisms), and A Mousetrap for Darwin: Michael J. Behe Answers His Critics.

Fair enough about Meyer.  I do like Mike.  It was the lawyer guy (Phillip E. Johnson), Mike and Bill who were at the start.  Meyer's work you have cited does start and end with a God conclusion.  Dembski's has moved forward with his faith out front, yet has made arguments that are reviewable in objective terms.  Meyer is unlikely to connect with the broader market's objective thinkers.  (Especially something like the Templeton folks.)

Mike is just an unabashed Christian, but is sincere in his science.  I equate him with the Notre Dame Philosopher Kenneth Sayer who first proposed Informational Realism.  Both are rooted in strong personal Catholic cultural beliefs'.

From my point of view, while disagreeing with Dembski on many concepts, his recent publications are thought provoking.  Maybe you will find them engaging if you try.

Meyer's work you have cited does start and end with a God conclusion.

Not really. It merely concludes - I would say convincingly - that life was designed (maybe even by discarnate humans). rather than being the result of random mutations and natural selection.

David

Not really. It merely concludes - I would say convincingly - that life was designed (maybe even by discarnate humans). rather than being the result of random mutations and natural selection.

David

David, 

You full well know that it is not that binary.  I am going to post as a thread a take on the article I posted above.  The whole point - is that there is ordering from selection that is evident, not only in biology, but from minerals to the planets and stars.  The Anthropic Principal has been around for a long time now.  I strongly agree that design is an inference from function.  Darwin and others made the inference about life.  Now that inference is mapped to physical reality.  Some in the Third Way speak elegantly for living things capable of "design" themselves.

Logic ladders in information science expose tautologies.  Natural selection is just that.  In the Supernatural vs Natural dichotomy you get supernatural selection.  I welcome all theological exploration, but it is separate from science. 

Then in the remaining fields of study --- ALL selection processes are natural - if not from divine sources.  The term natural selection is a deceptive tautology - the focus should be on clear delineation of what selection is!!!!

The article leads to the idea that selection for function is active in biology and in mineralization, solar systems, galaxies and in social behavior.

If correct and I am sure it is - then the "magic" of natural selection in biology is mute and an anachronism of the NeoDarwinist myth.

Do you really need to sneer at people who find NDE's relevant? I mean nobody on this forum invented them, and because of modern resuscitation methods there are too many examples of this phenomenon to casually dismiss them.

Now let's look at strong emergence. I thought I would consult an authority on the subject, ChatGPT:

Strong emergence is a concept in philosophy and systems theory that suggests that certain properties of complex systems cannot be explained or predicted solely by analyzing their individual components. Instead, these properties emerge from the interactions and relationships between these components in such a way that they cannot be reduced to or derived from the properties of those components alone. In other words, the whole system exhibits properties or behaviors that are qualitatively different from those of its individual parts, and these properties cannot be understood by simply studying the parts in isolation.

This concept challenges reductionist approaches, which seek to explain complex phenomena by breaking them down into simpler components. Proponents of strong emergence argue that there are emergent phenomena in nature that cannot be fully understood through reductionist methods and that require a holistic approach to study.

An example often cited is consciousness in neuroscience. While the brain is composed of neurons and their connections, consciousness itself may be considered an emergent property of the complex interactions between these neurons, but it's not reducible to the activity of any individual neuron.

Critics of strong emergence argue that it may imply a kind of irreducibility that undermines the scientific principle of causality and may pose challenges for scientific inquiry. The debate surrounding strong emergence remains active within philosophy of science and related fields.

[end quote]

Do you agree with ChatGPT, because focussing on the bolded part, it is hard to see what possible phenomena are excluded. For example:

1)        The sudden emergence of Mickey Mouse on the moon.

2)        The sudden emergence of a hyper-intelligent cat that can do calculus.

3)        Some of the creatures that many people 'meet' on DMT trips emerging into our consensus reality.


Etc.


Before you dismiss any of the above, can you explain in detail how they would fail to qualify as strongly emergent phenomena? Alternatively, can you supply a better definition of strong emergence?

David

I don't think that the notion of a special form of "strong emergence", of consciousness somehow naturally arising from the physical activities of brain neurons really works, because of the Hard Problem of consciousness. This "strong emergence" still assumes that the newly emergent properties though different are physically observable and measureable as are the neuronal activities, whereas per the Hard Problem the properties and characteristics of consciousness are fundamentally immaterial and unmeasureable, such as subjective conscious awareness, perception, thought, agency, emotion, etc. They are in an entirely separate and higher existential realm. So this suggested "strong emergence" looks very much like claiming something magically arising from nothing.

This merely amplifies your argument presented by the 3 examples of magical events (such as the sudden emergence of a hyper-intelligent cat that can do calculus), which would seem to be fully within the capability of such strong emergence if it really exists.

I don't think that the notion of a special form of "strong emergence", of consciousness somehow naturally arising from the physical activities of brain neurons really works, because of the Hard Problem of consciousness. This "strong emergence" still assumes that the newly emergent properties though different are physically observable and measureable as are the neuronal activities, whereas per the Hard Problem the properties and characteristics of consciousness are fundamentally immaterial and unmeasureable, such as subjective conscious awareness, perception, thought, agency, emotion, etc. They are in an entirely separate and higher existential realm. So this suggested "strong emergence" looks very much like claiming something magically arising from nothing.

This merely amplifies your argument presented by the 3 examples of magical events (such as the sudden emergence of a hyper-intelligent cat that can do calculus), which would seem to be fully within the capability of such strong emergence if it really exists.

My point was, that everyone seems to have a different definition of Strong Emergence(SE), but ChatGPT extracted some sort of common denominator of those ideas (I suppose) and the resulting definition does not seem to exclude any of things I proposed!

David

Some in the Third Way speak elegantly for living things capable of "design" themselves.

I think they (we) possibly did. The way I envisage that is that originally (probably on a timeline which isn't quite our current one) we were non-physical beings with much greater mental powers, commonly reported by people who have had an NDE.

Crudely speaking, we were on the lookout for new challenges - a bit like VR designers. The reality we know was designed by us so that people would become incarnated at birth and during our life, we try to do the best we can, and then score ourselves.

Obviously part of the design would be to shut off most of our memories so that people really take their life seriously.

Because most people take the trip (life) many times, we simply accept that sometimes we get a better hand, and other times it can be bad or even absolutely awful.

Maybe another analogy would be with a pilot repeatedly flying his simulator in different circumstances, including some where the pilot's only option is to land in the Hudson!

David