Trashing natural selection as a special case.

So a limited model that by its nature cannot grasp the causal roots....correct?


We can assign some probabilities to the relations, like they do in marketing plans on who will buy what, but we aren't solving the Hard Problems of Consciousness and Causality?

 What does the "separate environment" refer to? Is the original environment the physical, and the separate one the mental?

The argument presented is for a methodology - where physical events and informational events can be tracked as having separate data identities.  Each operating in its own environment creating integrated, but diverging patterned relations.  The math equations spilt into two genre, each using measurements with units specified at different levels of abstraction.  Energy and mass are not like wisdom and will.

Abstractions like mass units and charge units can make the numbers come alive.  So can information channels transmitting on/off or go/stop - causing outcomes to conform to plans.  Units of measure for capability and for functional social efforts are creative and guiding and data to be collected.  Industry is actively using just this data about personnel and machines.  Organizations optimize performance using statistics form social circumstances focused on motivation and belief as factors.

It is my poor prose that clouds the issues.  This limited model and its methods do not address deep meaning at the core of things.   What is offered for consideration, is a new perspective where mindful functions, such as understanding and motivation, are quantified variables as to the outcomes they cause.  They are active factors in an informational environment.  Minds change real-world events as decisions are made.  Consciousness is tough to measure, Tononi, et all have given it a go. 

Knowledge, understanding and intelligence matter and it shows in the data.

My understanding of the subject isn't as advanced as Stephen's but I imagine that from the basic information field itself, the link between mind and matter isn't linear.  I imagine mind is a more fundamental form of information than matter but I don't imagine a linear cause between them.  I see them as an integrated part of the whole that functions as a whole and that our polarizing and general separating of things is only useful if the information we gain from it is reapplied to the whole. I hope I have understood your question correctly.

I'm not sure whether you have. Stephen used to refer to information in a rather loose sort of way until I pointed out that if you exclude the Shannon definition of information, which is quite different, information requires a mind to validate it. The example I gave was a paper full of advanced maths, and another paper full of gibberish but in a similar style. The maths paper could only be recognised by a mind that knew about such things.

That means that minds are more fundamental than information.

Brian, I am sure I have asked you this before, but how can you be a Christian without believing that life on Earth was designed - it says that in Genesis!

David

I'm not sure whether you have. Stephen used to refer to information in a rather loose sort of way until I pointed out that if you exclude the Shannon definition of information, which is quite different, information requires a mind to validate it. The example I gave was a paper full of advanced maths, and another paper full of gibberish but in a similar style. The maths paper could only be recognised by a mind that knew about such things.

That means that minds are more fundamental than information.

Brian, I am sure I have asked you this before, but how can you be a Christian without believing that life on Earth was designed - it says that in Genesis!

David

Not speaking for Brian but given the alignment on our views to some degree...I think we're talking about evidence rather than faith...

For myself I do think there are discarnate entities (spirits) but we aren't just talking about their existence. We're talking about a very specific claim relating to evolution of biological life.

Do I think that, given the existence of spirits, they had some influence on our biology? Sure, totally open to it and think it plausible. I also agree with Kastrup that we can't just assume evolution has been just due to random mutation. What's hard to evaluate is the evidence that such a thing has happened, because it's the data itself being debated.

Contrast this with the general agreement that Cosmic Fine Tuning is true or that the oddities we see at the QM level are true. What's debated here is the correct interpretation.

Another way of looking at is while proponents believe in Psi, they don't necessarily believe the fortune teller at the mall is really psychic.

Brian, I am sure I have asked you this before, but how can you be a Christian without believing that life on Earth was designed - it says that in Genesis!

David

I have had you on ignore for some time so I must have missed it.  What have I said that gives you the impression that I don't believe life on Earth was designed?  I often challenge what I consider to be bad arguments in favour of creation and whenever you debate about the need for a creator, you also have to apply the argument to God, or consciousness or whatever you believe the original cause is if there is one.  An information field that is fundamental gets far closer towards answering this question than any other model IMO.

I have had you on ignore for some time so I must have missed it.  What have I said that gives you the impression that I don't believe life on Earth was designed?  I often challenge what I consider to be bad arguments in favour of creation and whenever you debate about the need for a creator, you also have to apply the argument to God, or consciousness or whatever you believe the original cause is if there is one.  An information field that is fundamental gets far closer towards answering this question than any other model IMO.

Gosh what did I do to end up on your ignore list - I don't have anyone on my ignore list. If I am still on that list, you won't even get to read this reply to you!

I will avoid unraveling a chain of who said what.

The question is what is an information field? I have pointed out to Stephen that information itself only makes sense with reference to a specific mind.

Stephen is a big supporter of The Third Way (TTW) in biology. This movement, led by Professor Denis Noble, argues that you can explain the origin and evolution of life in terms of concepts that don't seem to follow the rules of logic. They use the word 'information' a lot without ever defining what exactly it means.

The supporters of TTW are keen to explore evidence that life does not evolve by Natural Selection (Darwin's way) but never completely any explain a potential alternative that doesn't involve creator(s). These people seem keen to come up with observations that refute NS without coming up with any alternative, and explicitly rejecting the idea of a creator.

David

Gosh what did I do to end up on your ignore list - I don't have anyone on my ignore list. If I am still on that list, you won't even get to read this reply to you!

I will avoid unraveling a chain of who said what.

The question is what is an information field? I have pointed out to Stephen that information itself only makes sense with reference to a specific mind.

Stephen is a big supporter of The Third Way (TTW) in biology. This movement, led by Professor Denis Noble, argues that you can explain the origin and evolution of life in terms of concepts that don't seem to follow the rules of logic. They use the word 'information' a lot without ever defining what exactly it means.

The supporters of TTW are keen to explore evidence that life does not evolve by Natural Selection (Darwin's way) but never completely any explain a potential alternative that doesn't involve creator(s). These people seem keen to come up with observations that refute NS without coming up with any alternative, and explicitly rejecting the idea of a creator.

David

Nothing about your character David, I just wanted to avoid the frustration of reading questionable stuff that is stated in dogmatic ways.  I think I might know the post you were talking about and I think I understand the mistake in the way I put it.  My actual objection wasn't to design  but to dogmatic footstomping on questionable subjects.  I have a very loose grasp of information as a preliminary.  It's just like the 1s and zeros of a computer.  It makes sense to me that such is fundamental.  I know little about TTW.

Stephen is a big supporter of The Third Way (TTW) in biology. This movement, led by Professor Denis Noble, argues that you can explain the origin and evolution of life in terms of concepts that don't seem to follow the rules of logic. They use the word 'information' a lot without ever defining what exactly it means.

David

David, 

You are guessing wrong about my influences in thinking.  I have been a reader of philosophy since my teens, some 55 years ago.  

My largest influences in philosophy are Kenneth Sayre, Luciano Floridi, Stuart Kauffman, A. N. Whitehead, Paul Davies, C. S. Peirce, William James, I. Kant and E. Swedenborg.   Understanding their arguments (at least in some small degree) lead to my conclusions about the role of mind in biology.  Full stop.

I do agree with the core change in bio-evolutionary theory supported by an interdisciplinary collection of scholars at the TTW.  The hard molecular science supports my argument for mind.  TTW presents that the idea of random natural events accounting for the changes in the genome is flat-out false.  There are evidence-based reasons such as epigenetics and gene transfer.   The pioneers of epigenetic research are members or honored by TTW.  But for me it was Richard (Ted ) Steele, et all's, book Lamarck's Signature (1999).  J. Shapiro and C. Spadafora soon presented corroborating data, so I learned of their work as it was happening.  Ted Steele is not a Third Way member, but Shapiro and Spadafore are  

New ideas about bio-evolution were happening as these scientists and scholars worked 25 years ago and it was exciting.  This is before they won the day.  In science Neo-Darwinism RM + NS is defeated, but not dead in the general publics mind.  If you had been following the defeat of Dawkins, et all - you would know the other founder of the Third Way is James Shapiro.  He collaborated McClintock (Nobel Prize Winner) and co-founded TTW with Noble.

https://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/2007.Ch...ocAmer.pdf

 “A goal for the future would be to determine the
extent of knowledge the cell has of itself, and how it
utilizes this knowledge in a “thoughtful” manner
when challenged.” (McClintock, B. 1984. The
Significance Of Responses Of The Genome To
Challenge. Science 226: 792-801.)

It just so happens that there is a new publication to consider:https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262546409/e...n-purpose/

 Evolution “On Purpose” puts forward a more inclusive theoretical synthesis that goes far beyond the underlying principles and assumptions of the modern synthesis to accommodate work since the 1950s in molecular genetics, developmental biology, epigenetic inheritance, genomics, multilevel selection, niche construction, physiology, behavior, biosemiotics, chemical reaction theory, and other fields. In the view of the authors, active biological processes are responsible for the direction and the rate of evolution. Essays in this collection grapple with topics from the two-way “read-write” genome to cognition and decision-making in plants to the niche-construction activities of many organisms to the self-making evolution of humankind. As this collection compellingly shows, and as bacterial geneticist James Shapiro emphasizes, “The capacity of living organisms to alter their own heredity is undeniable.”

David, 

You are guessing wrong about my influences in thinking.  I have been a reader of philosophy since my teens, some 55 years ago.  

My largest influences in philosophy are Kenneth Sayre, Luciano Floridi, Stuart Kauffman, A. N. Whitehead, Paul Davies, C. S. Peirce, William James, I. Kant and E. Swedenborg.   Understanding their arguments (at least in some small degree) lead to my conclusions about the role of mind in biology.  Full stop.

I do agree with the core change in bio-evolutionary theory supported by an interdisciplinary collection of scholars at the TTW.  The hard molecular science supports my argument for mind.  TTW presents that the idea of random natural events accounting for the changes in the genome is flat-out false.  There are evidence-based reasons such as epigenetics and gene transfer.   The pioneers of epigenetic research are members or honored by TTW.  But for me it was Richard (Ted ) Steele, et all's, book Lamarck's Signature (1999).  J. Shapiro and C. Spadafora soon presented corroborating data, so I learned of their work as it was happening.  Ted Steele is not a Third Way member, but Shapiro and Spadafore are  

New ideas about bio-evolution were happening as these scientists and scholars worked 25 years ago and it was exciting.  This is before they won the day.  In science Neo-Darwinism RM + NS is defeated, but not dead in the general publics mind.  If you had been following the defeat of Dawkins, et all - you would know the other founder of the Third Way is James Shapiro.  He collaborated McClintock (Nobel Prize Winner) and co-founded TTW with Noble.

https://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/2007.Ch...ocAmer.pdf
It just so happens that there is a new publication to consider:https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262546409/e...n-purpose/

I guess this gets down to the nitty gritty of the fundamental differences between ID and the Third Way theorists who are apparently led in part by James Shapiro and Noble. It seems to me there is an unbridgeable gulf between these approaches to the problem, because from the ID standpoint based on fundamental definitions of essential biological structural information such as functional specified complex information, only conscious highly intelligent focused minds can generate complex irreducibly complex biological designs. Whereas the TTW folks apparently somehow can believe that primitive living organisms such as single celled life forms through mechanisms such as epigenetics and gene transfer can accomplish such feats of biological design as the famous example of the bacterial flagellum, which clearly required highly intelligent reasoning and foresight to develop in some sort of process of engineering invention. The same principle applies to the history of the evolution of animals starting with the Cambrian Explosion.

I think the deciding factor boils down to, which scheme of thought is most plausible based on the data on the known autonomic capabilities of cells versus the known design capabilities of conscious minds.

I think the deciding factor boils down to, which scheme of thought is most plausible based on the data on the known autonomic capabilities of cells versus the known design capabilities of conscious minds.

I agree to decide based on which is the more evidence-based model for bio-evolution.  The "Evolution on Purpose" model (see prior link) maintains that living things exhibit purpose in their behavior.  And that purpose driven systems of perception and action affect future generations.  Purpose is linked to function and can be simulated as life in computer sims.

The facts are already there - and increasing annually - that active information processing at subconscious levels leads to adaptive changes.  Lamarck had is kinda right a long time ago.   Mindful organisms seek food and avoid danger creatively.  They process information about their environments and their own needs and wants.  Their mental efforts change who they are.

I see design, but at a higher level.  Why does each an every organic molecule need tending, when a system can be designed to have ecology provide just what living things need to learn and evolve mostly on their own.  The designer can instill the will to live and learn from experience - into an environment with target states that match.  The model results in creative manifestations of life as we know it, while standing on mountains of actual data.  Don't you think an an ultimate designer would use complex systems and purpose in life masterfully?

From two of the authors of Evolution on Purpose published by MIT Press.  Both are Biologists and Peter Corning is also an Information Scientist and Director of the Institute for the Study of Complex Systems

 The evolved purposiveness of living systems has been both a major outcome and an important causal factor in the history of life on Earth. Many theorists have appreciated this over the years, going back to Lamarck and even Darwin in the 19th century.  In the mid-20th century, however, our understanding of this complex, dynamic process was overshadowed by the one-way, bottom-up, gene-centred paradigm widely known as the ‘Modern Synthesis’, which is now a source of dissatisfaction and much debate, if not yet for the majority of evolutionary biologists, for a significant minority 
RICHARD I. VANE-WRIGHT1,2,*, AND PETER A. CORNING3
1 Insects Division, Department of Science, Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK
2 Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE), University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 7NR, UK
3 Institute for the Study of Complex Systems, 1390 158th Pl. NE #616, Bellevue WA, 98008, USA

Received 3 March 2023; revised 27 March 2023; accepted for publication 27 March 2023

I agree to decide based on which is the more evidence-based model for bio-evolution.  The "Evolution on Purpose" model (see prior link) maintains that living things exhibit purpose in their behavior.  And that purpose driven systems of perception and action affect future generations.  Purpose is linked to function and can be simulated as life in computer sims.

The facts are already there - and increasing annually - that active information processing at subconscious levels leads to adaptive changes.  Lamarck had is kinda right a long time ago.   Mindful organisms seek food and avoid danger creatively.  They process information about their environments and their own needs and wants.  Their mental efforts change who they are.

I see design, but at a higher level.  Why does each an every organic molecule need tending, when a system can be designed to have ecology provide just what living things need to learn and evolve mostly on their own.  The designer can instill the will to live and learn from experience - into an environment with target states that match.  The model results in creative manifestations of life as we know it, while standing on mountains of actual data.  Don't you think an an ultimate designer would use complex systems and purpose in life masterfully?

From two of the authors of Evolution on Purpose published by MIT Press.  Both are Biologists and Peter Corning is also an Information Scientist and Director of the Institute for the Study of Complex Systems

Just one of many problems with this is that there is no evidence whatsoever that cells can intelligently plan out irreducibly complex biological molecular machine designs such as the bacterial flagellum so that the design is irreducibly complex, meaning it is an assemblage of separate parts so designed that only if they are all present and correctly assembled and fitted so as to work together perfectly, they can achieve the goals of the design or for that matter keep the cell alive. The only thing that seems to be able to accomplish this sort of intelligent planning is focused conscious intelligence. Simple cellular "will to live" and learning from experience won't do.

If you disagree with this, then let's look at that example in detail. Please explain how the simple cells can foresee that a rotating flexible propeller-like flagellum will have great utility as a means of going toward food and away from toxicities, and that further, such a rotating propeller requires a precisely fitting hub and bushing assembly, an ATP-powered rotary "motor", along with sensory feedback mechanisms and manufacturing equipment, where lack of any of these or many other parts (or their not fitting perfectly together) will cause the assemblage to break down and perhaps kill the cell. 

If these simple cells can in reality do this as part of their fundamental functions, an "evolved (sophisticated) purposiveness", then it seems that you are claiming that the simple cells are actually intelligent, which doesn't seem at all possible. 

By the way, the well-known Lensky long-term evolution experiment was an attempt to demonstrate microbial neo-Darwinian evolution over thousands of generations, and had very little in results, mainly a lot of broken genes. You would think that cellular intelligence if it were there would have resulted in some new innovatations of some sort, rather than what they did come up with, citrate metabolism of a sort mainly using already available genetic pathways.