Intelligent Evolution?

[ImaginalDisc]

WE ARE NOT COMPARING ORIGINS!

FFS.

If you use the word "design" you are implying a designer. Living thing have no designer.

 

[cyborg]

If you use the word "design" you are implying a designer.

That's your strawman, not mine.

Living thing have no designer.

No, really?

 

[ImaginalDisc]

That's your strawman, not mine.

No, it is an inescapable part of the word. If you disagree, please find a definition of "design" that does not imply a designer.

de·sign /dɪˈzaɪn/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[di-zahyn] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–verb (used with object) 1. to prepare the preliminary sketch or the plans for (a work to be executed), esp. to plan the form and structure of: to design a new bridge.
2. to plan and fashion artistically or skillfully.
3. to intend for a definite purpose: a scholarship designed for foreign students.
4. to form or conceive in the mind; contrive; plan: The prisoner designed an intricate escape.
5. to assign in thought or intention; purpose: He designed to be a doctor.
6. Obsolete. to mark out, as by a sign; indicate.
–verb (used without object) 7. to make drawings, preliminary sketches, or plans.
8. to plan and fashion the form and structure of an object, work of art, decorative scheme, etc.
–noun 9. an outline, sketch, or plan, as of the form and structure of a work of art, an edifice, or a machine to be executed or constructed.
10. organization or structure of formal elements in a work of art; composition.
11. the combination of details or features of a picture, building, etc.; the pattern or motif of artistic work: the design on a bracelet.
12. the art of designing: a school of design.
13. a plan or project: a design for a new process.
14. a plot or intrigue, esp. an underhand, deceitful, or treacherous one: His political rivals formulated a design to unseat him.
15. designs, a hostile or aggressive project or scheme having evil or selfish motives: He had designs on his partner's stock.
16. intention; purpose; end.
17. adaptation of means to a preconceived end.

Before you use #9, I remind you that DNA is not a plan.

 

[cyborg]

Before you use #9, I remind you that DNA is not a plan.

Not withstanding the fact that 'or' in English means I get to choose, a 'plan' as an object - like a drawing plan - is a schema for the thing it represents - just like DNA.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Not withstanding the fact that 'or' in English means I get to choose, a 'plan' as an object - like a drawing plan - is a schema for the thing it represents - just like DNA.

Wrong. DNA does not describe an organsim. DNA codes for molecules which interact with other molecules according to the laws of chemistry and physics. Some genes regulate other genes. DNA is an active machine which produces molecules on the fly, regulates itself, and is regulated by other molecules. In no way is DNA a plan for an organism. It's much more like a recipie than a blueprint, and that's still a miserible analogy.

Just try to find the "plan" for an arm in your DNA.

 

[cyborg]

Wrong. DNA does not describe an organsim. DNA codes for molecules which interact with other molecules according to the laws of chemistry and physics.

Sure sounds like a description to me: I wonder what magic mechanism you have in mind that allows you to get from a description to a representation with no mechanism in the middle?

DNA is an active machine which produces molecules on the fly, regulates itself, and is regulated by other molecules. In no way is DNA a plan for an organism. It's much more like a recipie than a blueprint, and that's still a miserible analogy.

Those all rather sound like classes of plans to me.

Just try to find the "plan" for an arm in your DNA.

Try to find the "plan" for a BSOD in Windows.

Reverse Engineering is hard.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Sure sounds like a description to me: I wonder what magic mechanism you have in mind that allows you to get from a description to a representation with no mechanism in the middle?



Those all rather sound like classes of plans to me.



Try to find the "plan" for a BSOD in Windows.

Reverse Engineering is hard.

I don't think you understand DNA. It functions as a self-propogating machine, a self-regulating library, and factory for protiens. It in no way resembles a plan.

 

[cyborg]

I don't think you understand DNA. It functions as a self-propogating machine, a self-regulating library, and factory for protiens. It in no way resembles a plan.

In LISP data is code and code is data.

Yet again I ask: how exactly does one 'get' data without performing some sort of processing? How exactly can you 'process' anything without some data about how you should do it?

That there is no clear separation of what is 'code' and 'data' in DNA is not without prescident at all.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

In LISP data is code and code is data.

Yet again I ask: how exactly does one 'get' data without performing some sort of processing? How exactly can you 'process' anything without some data about how you should do it?

That there is no clear separation of what is 'code' and 'data' in DNA is not without prescident at all.

What does your question have to do with this conversation? Are you seriously claiming that there's a similarity between the design process of machines and the inheritance of DNA by living things?

Are you remotely aware of the profound differences involved?

 

[cyborg]

What does your question have to do with this conversation?

If your objection is that DNA is not 'a plan' my contention is that a plan is both 'code' and 'data' and 'excution' is execution of the plan.

See below about abstractions: 'plan', 'code', 'data' and 'execution' are all abstractions about observed physical behaviour. They are not real things.

Are you seriously claiming that there's a similarity between the design process of machines and the inheritance of DNA by living things?

Yes. See below.

Are you remotely aware of the profound differences involved?

I am aware that dogs are not bicycles yes.

Now, are you aware of the concept of 'abstraction' that allows me to group similarities between instances of things? Yes? Good.

Now stop telling me the abstraction is invalid because of some difference between instances of it - that's allowed.

 

[articulett]

I've used the fact that technology evolves based on what works before all the time... In some ways the qwerty keyboard is an artifact...it's there because people got used to it. The internet evolves too. When someone first connected two computers together, they could not forsee this. Airplane designs also evolve-- based on what works, what works better, and what fails (we learn from our mistakes.) It really isn't that different from nature. DNA is tried out in various vectors and the vectors that live and replicate the best in whatever environment they find themselves in, stick around. That's how most systems evolve-- cities, languages, landscapes, galaxies... and vectors that carry DNA into the future. No airplane evolves in it's lifetime, but no animal does either. But the information about that airplane can be modified in the future just as the information in passed on genomes can do.

The theory of evolution is an alternative to top down design (preplanned)--but it very clearly illustrates how complexity often rises from the bottom up with no forethought.

 

[articulett]

I don't think you understand DNA. It functions as a self-propogating machine, a self-regulating library, and factory for protiens. It in no way resembles a plan.

He does. He's talking about the information evolving... just like software evolves and genomes evolve-- the vectors themselves are static... but the information is modified through time. Information for building humans is refined through time based on what gets passed on (what works) and information for building machines is honed the same way... but the machines themselves nor individual humans do not evolve--but so long as the information making them sticks around, future models can be built on present information.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

He does. He's talking about the information evolving... just like software evolves and genomes evolve-- the vectors themselves are static... but the information is modified through time. Information for building humans is refined through time based on what gets passed on (what works) and information for building machines is honed the same way... but the machines themselves nor individual humans do not evolve--but so long as the information making them sticks around, future models can be built on present information.

He's talking about top-down design, not "climbing mount improbable." Machines are completely unlike living things in this regard. If you go about explaining evolution to someone using machines an alaogy, you're setting that person up to ask about a designer. It's wrong headed from the word "go."

 

[articulett]

He's talking about top-down design, not "climbing mount improbable." Machines are completely unlike living things in this regard. If you go about explaining evolution to someone using machines an alaogy, you're setting that person up to ask about a designer. It's wrong headed from the word "go."

I do teach this to people and you are incorrect. How did your computer evolve. Did someone just imagine a computer like a god would and poof it into existence? Or was it built on the computers of yester year... technology evolves, medicine evolces, cities evolve, languages evolve, the internet evolves, -- systems evolve in complexity or they die out... trees do... lots of stuff does... it's the natural way. Everything big and complex starts small. You were once a single cell.

If you are a physics person you can get confused (or an intelligent design proponent)... those are the only people I know of who seem to have a problem with this. The rest of the world seems to get this just fine. The INFORMATION evolves through time--not the vessels that carry the info. into the future. The information that's best and getting copied (either because it's useful or has a good trick or goes for the ride along with the useful) sticks around for future possible additions and modifications.

 

[cyborg]

He's talking about top-down design, not "climbing mount improbable."

Since I didn't get to design the universe I cannot, as a matter of course, be designing things in a purely top-down manner. For that I would require total a priori knowledge would I not?

Machines are completely unlike living things in this regard. If you go about explaining evolution to someone using machines an alaogy, you're setting that person up to ask about a designer. It's wrong headed from the word "go."

Unless that person is eludicated sufficiently about what really is and isn't different and, as I argue, why it's a continuum not an 'either-or' thing and it's all based on how you use a priori and a posterori knowledge.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

He does. He's talking about the information evolving... just like software evolves and genomes evolve-- the vectors themselves are static... but the information is modified through time. Information for building humans is refined through time based on what gets passed on (what works) and information for building machines is honed the same way... but the machines themselves nor individual humans do not evolve--but so long as the information making them sticks around, future models can be built on present information.

Computers, typewritters, and airplanes don't pass on hertiable traits which are acted on by mindless selection forces, so I don't see where the comparison has any value.

 

[cyborg]

Computers, typewritters, and airplanes don't pass on hertiable traits which are acted on by mindless selection forces, so I don't see where the comparison has any value.

Yet again ID - and please do answer this - why do you think SELF-REPLICATION is necessary rather than just REPLICATION for an evolutionary process to be identified?

I cannot explain why I think the comparison has value if you do not answer this.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Yet again ID - and please do answer this - why do you think SELF-REPLICATION is necessary rather than just REPLICATION for an evolutionary process to be identified?

I cannot explain why I think the comparison has value if you do not answer this.

Because natural selection opperates on the heritable traits of organisms. There is no natural selection of televisions. Televisions are made by intelligent actors, and natural selection doesn't exist in the TV market.

 

[cyborg]

Because natural selection opperates on the heritable traits of organisms.

Yes, yes I know this ID but that is not answering the question. Please just answer the question. I already know everything you are telling me so it's not going to bring me round to your view.

So again: why is it contingent that for an evolutionary process to be identified an entity must SELF-REPRODUCE?

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Yes, yes I know this ID but that is not answering the question. Please just answer the question. I already know everything you are telling me so it's not going to bring me round to your view.

So again: why is it contingent that for an evolutionary process to be identified an entity must SELF-REPRODUCE?

Because natural selection can only operate on reproducing organisms with heritable traits, or there is no incremental change over generations, possibly, though not necessarily, giving rise to increased complexity and new forms and function, without the intervention of intelligent actors.

Increased complexity can only arise in the absence of intelligent actors (which must themselves be complex and beg explanation) when heritable traits are passed on through units operated on by selective forces.