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Intelligent design's predictions

mijopaalmc said:
Except that with chaotic system, you actually start with different sets of initial conditions. If you were able to measure each initial condition with infinite accuracy and execute your calculations with infinite accuracy, you would end up with the same final conditions if you started with identical initial conditions.
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Completely untrue. Two identical sytems of the right nature ("chaotic" in the non-linear sense, which is not the same thing as RANDOM!!!!), with completely identical initial conditions can easily generate different outcomes. In these cases no matter how many measurements of any level of precision you could take, and regardless of your ability to crunch numbers for predictive outcomes, you will fail. Newton's billiard ball world is just not the case.

Many dynamical systems - the weather is the classic example - cannot be predicted, not because of lack of data, but because they are in a class of systems which generate non-recurring (in essence, creative) behavior.

This is very basic stuff, Mijo. Lots of people take the "butterfly effect" cliche the wrong way, but many of these people are politicians or Hollywood screenwriters, so they have an excuse.
 
fishkr said:
Completely untrue. Two identical sytems of the right nature ("chaotic" in the non-linear sense, which is not the same thing as RANDOM!!!!), with completely identical initial conditions can easily generate different outcomes. In these cases no matter how many measurements of any level of precision you could take, and regardless of your ability to crunch numbers for predictive outcomes, you will fail. Newton's billiard ball world is just not the case.

Many dynamical systems - the weather is the classic example - cannot be predicted, not because of lack of data, but because they are in a class of systems which generate non-recurring (in essence, creative) behavior.

This is very basic stuff, Mijo. Lots of people take the "butterfly effect" cliche the wrong way, but many of these people are politicians or Hollywood screenwriters, so they have an excuse.
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You have it wrong. Chaotic systems are those which are incredibly sensitive to initial conditions, but still predictable if you have enough precise data.

If otherwise, I would like to see a site to your definition.

Walt
 
fishkr said:
Completely untrue. Two identical sytems of the right nature ("chaotic" in the non-linear sense, which is not the same thing as RANDOM!!!!), with completely identical initial conditions can easily generate different outcomes. In these cases no matter how many measurements of any level of precision you could take, and regardless of your ability to crunch numbers for predictive outcomes, you will fail. Newton's billiard ball world is just not the case.

Many dynamical systems - the weather is the classic example - cannot be predicted, not because of lack of data, but because they are in a class of systems which generate non-recurring (in essence, creative) behavior.

This is very basic stuff, Mijo. Lots of people take the "butterfly effect" cliche the wrong way, but many of these people are politicians or Hollywood screenwriters, so they have an excuse.
Click to expand...

You might actually read something about dynamical systems before you make a statement like that:

In particular, a chaotic dynamical system is generally characterized by


Chaos

1. Having a dense collection of points with periodic orbits,

2. Being sensitive to the initial condition of the system (so that initially nearby points can evolve quickly into very different states), a property sometimes known as the butterfly effect, and

3. Being topologically transitive.
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The argument for intelligent design is simpler than what I'm reading here. It goes something like this:

If we were to send out probes to other galaxies, assuming that we had that capability, we would no doubt want to know if we were alone in the universe. How would we go about determining if other intelligent life had evolved beyond the earth? Listening for radio signals hasn't helped us so far, so we would need another method, especially for determining if civilizations had previously colonized another planet's surface. What would our probe look for, to determine if intelligent life had evolved somewhere else? How about roads, bridges, buildings, or the simple organization of matter on a planet's surface? That would be easy.

The criteria we would use to determine intelligent life elsewhere in the universe can be applied to the universe as a whole. Einstein said, that "God does not play dice with the universe." So if the organization of matter is an acceptable fingerprint for higher intelligence, then organization generally should also be evidence of a designer. Our roads, bridges and buildings, are nothing compared to the design of living systems.

To say that there is no intelligence behind our design, is to contradict one's own argument entirely. It's the most foolish statement of self condemnation that I can imagine.
 
Raptor Witness said:
To say that there is no intelligence behind our design, is to contradict one's own argument entirely. It's the most foolish statement of self condemnation that I can imagine.
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Said like a thoroughly religiously indoctrinated person who has no understanding of natural selection whatsoever.

If it was designed, it was done so with great waste and suffering and many cobbled together pieces indistinguishable from blind natural selection over time. We have a non functional vitamin C gene in our DNA that we share with our primate kin. It works in other mammals, but somewhere along the ways, ours got mutated. But we eat fruit, as do our ape kin, so there was enough vitamin C in our ancestor's diets that we managed to exist anyhow... but we carry the mutated non working gene. What sort of intelligence would design that? What sort of intelligence would make a guy produce 2000 billion sperm in a life time when only 2 on average make anyone? And the testosterone needed to keep up that activity shortens the life of the bearer of that sperm production factory. That's major wastage. And the suffering inflicted by the ruthlessness of much of the design components is also unfathomable for any intelligence.

Read more. Preach less. You are way out of your league here. What you are proposing is called the argument from incredulity. If you want to be taken seriously you may wish to brush up on basic logic. Just because you can't fathom it happening any other way than by supernatural means... doesn't mean that scientists can't and don't understand a much more plausible means. Even buildings and bridges are built upon years of iterative design trial error and honing. But you have to have a bit of scientific understanding to understand this and you can't be afraid that your immortal soul is in danger if you find out.
 
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fishkr said:
Many dynamical systems - the weather is the classic example - cannot be predicted, not because of lack of data, but because they are in a class of systems which generate non-recurring (in essence, creative) behavior.
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Holy cow, this is fascinating. I wonder how many people think that chaotic systems are nondeterministic?

~~ Paul
 
mijopaalmc said:
You might actually read something about dynamical systems before you make a statement like that:
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Someone correct me, if I am wrong, but I suspect mijo has learned something recently, from the stuff we were saying, and now he is laying down the facts on someone else?

If so, then excellent!

(If not, forgive my delusions.)
 
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Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
Holy cow, this is fascinating. I wonder how many people think that chaotic systems are nondeterministic?

~~ Paul
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Chaotic systems are a plausible mechanism to amplify quantum effects, so although deterministic over the short term, they could be random over the longer-term; if random quantum events alter conditions sufficiently to perturb the system.

The maths is deterministic, but some of the conditions would be random.

If one states that deterministic systems always have identical responses for identical starting conditions, then this would not be deterministic.

ETA:

That would mean that it would be impossible in principle to predict the weather on an precise day far enough in the future, but not impossible to predict the climate at that time.

If I understand mijo's points this is analogous to his use of the word "random". I prefer "probabilistic" (a poisson distribution)* where different traits alter the lambda. Or "load the dice" differently.

I like the image of selection as being a game of chance, but where all players have their dice loaded differently.

This is not remotely like any definition of "random" used by IDers, and I don't like the word because of its everyday usage.



*One of the predicitons that one can make is that, if a population is stable, then the average number of breeding offfspring per parent must be one. If you know that the population is stable, and know the brood-size, one can begin using simple statistics to see how relative selective advantages/disadvantages would play out.

Articulett's statement:
those current scientists and the tops in the field who most decidedly say-- Natural Selection is nonrandom.
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Is only true of these scientists when they are countering a particular cretinist parody of evolution which is that mutation is random and ignoring natural selection. When actually discussing the maths of "selective advantage" they use a probabilistic treatment. This does not alter the story, except to add the caveat "tends to". Without a probabilistic treatment, how do you quantifiy a selective advantage?
 
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mijopaalmc said:
You might actually read something about dynamical systems before you make a statement like that:

In particular, a chaotic dynamical system is generally characterized by


Chaos
Click to expand...

You have an uncanny ability to miss the forest for the trees, extracting a few elements from Chaos Theory and coming to a half baked conclusion.

See Strange Attractor. The E. Lorenz weather model is perfect, one of the earliest examples of these types of non-linear systems which were identified. It's been many years since I referenced this work, but as I recall the "owl mask" which people are familiar with in association with Chaos may be the plotted output of the Lorenz Attractor. Maybe not.

The point is that your quote is incomplete. Chaotic systems (by "Chaotic" I mean systems that are categorized by periodic non-deterministic behavior, hence "stange attractors") are capable of behavior which repeats itself within limits, but never quite exactly. The "owl mask' is a graphic plot of a system which repeats it'self closely, but never the same. You can run this program forever and the mask will fill in till it's almost solid, but if you look with enough resolution you will see the lines don't match.

Many physical systems which may seem random are not. The real essence of Chaos Theory is that within certain seemingly random systems structure does exist. Which means they are not really random at all.

Thus the "butterfly effect" is often misconstrued to mean tiny fluttering wings will effect the weather across the world, or "everthing effects everything else". It CAN mean this, but NOT NECCESSARILY. In fact it can mean the complete opposite.

Strange attractors like our weather, or the national economy, or animal populations, can be remarkably robust, and tend to require huge perterbations to effect large scale change. (Things like gigantic increases in CO2)

Or they can be very vulnerable to small inputs. Criticality is often hard to predict.

Some significant aspects of Chaos theory:

1. Beneath and within seemingly random phenomenon can exist remarkably fine order.

2. Relatively simple sytems can generate highly out-sized complexity

3. Dynamical systems can settle into stable behaviors even when they are highly perturbed

4. In other cases seemingly stable, complex systems can be effected by small inputs.


We seem to be derrailing into another thread, passing from one "basin of attraction" into another, as it were.
 
fishkr, mijo did miss anything.

He stated that chaotic systems produce the same output for identical input conditions. You stated "Two identical sytems of the right nature ("chaotic" in the non-linear sense, which is not the same thing as RANDOM!!!!), with completely identical initial conditions can easily generate different outcomes" which is wrong. A chaotic system will only produce different outputs for two completely identical sets of initial conditions if there is a random element in it.

He seems to understand chaos theory better than you do.

fishkr said:
Many physical systems which may seem random are not. The real essence of Chaos Theory is that within certain seemingly random systems structure does exist. Which means they are not really random at all.
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Bad logic.

Just because a deterministic process can create seemingly random phenomenon, does not mean that seemingly random phenomenon have an underlying deterministic process.

Jimbob's post points out one of the interestic ramifications of chaos theory, though it should be emphasized that chaotic systems is only one way that seemingly insignificant random variation can be "amplified" to the large scale. A system which "unstable" about certain points but not specifically chaotic can amplify random behaviour

Walt
 
Walter Wayne said:
fishkr, mijo did miss anything.

He stated that chaotic systems produce the same output for identical input conditions. You stated "Two identical sytems of the right nature ("chaotic" in the non-linear sense, which is not the same thing as RANDOM!!!!), with completely identical initial conditions can easily generate different outcomes" which is wrong.


We are getting lost in terms. Staying with the Lorenz attractor - if you run this simulation with the same starting values any number of times the output will be slightly different each time. It is non-repeating. This is the point I was trying to make.


A chaotic system will only produce different outputs for two completely identical sets of initial conditions if there is a random element in it.


Walt
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I'm not clear what you mean by "random element in it".

I wish now I hadn't used the term "non-deterministic", because I can see that it is too ambiguous. The Lorenz attractor can be considered deterministic in the sense that the output is constrained and falls within limits, but at the same time the output is non-repeating, which implies . . . well this is exactly why non-linear systems are so interesting. This implies non-determinism. If the input doesn't predict the output, isn't that the case?
 
Walter Wayne said:
fishkr, mijo did miss anything.

He stated that chaotic systems produce the same output for identical input conditions. You stated "Two identical sytems of the right nature ("chaotic" in the non-linear sense, which is not the same thing as RANDOM!!!!), with completely identical initial conditions can easily generate different outcomes" which is wrong. A chaotic system will only produce different outputs for two completely identical sets of initial conditions if there is a random element in it.
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That's fine using "identical input conditions" as an ideal; the problem arises as to whether two sets of input conditions can be identical. It's a feature of chaotic systems that they constantly amplify any initial variations in starting conditions, which means "identical" must be to infinite precision in your ideal case. Given Heisenberg I don't see that that's possible in practice, and perhaps not even in principle.
 
Walter Wayne said:
Just because a deterministic process can create seemingly random phenomenon, does not mean that seemingly random phenomenon have an underlying deterministic process.

Walt
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I agree (I think) but a deterministic process like a strange attractor isn't generating random phenomenon at all - it is generating structured behavior, or information, or whater you want to call it. But if the output can be infinitely variable and non-random, what is it?
 
Raptor Witness said:
The argument for intelligent design is simpler than what I'm reading here. It goes something like this:

If we were to send out probes to other galaxies, assuming that we had that capability, we would no doubt want to know if we were alone in the universe.
Click to expand...

What we first want to know is if there's any life out there. Bacteria will do.

How would we go about determining if other intelligent life had evolved beyond the earth?
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Why do you focus in on intelligence? ID is supposed to apply to all life, is it not? Why, then, argue a very specific case instead of the generality?

Listening for radio signals hasn't helped us so far, so we would need another method, especially for determining if civilizations had previously colonized another planet's surface. What would our probe look for, to determine if intelligent life had evolved somewhere else? How about roads, bridges, buildings, or the simple organization of matter on a planet's surface? That would be easy.

The criteria we would use to determine intelligent life elsewhere in the universe can be applied to the universe as a whole.
Click to expand...

The "simple organization of matter on a planet's surface" is otherwise known as landscape, which would not be regarded as evidence of intelligent life, just of geological processes. The more complicated organisation known as life would similarly not be regarded as evidence of intelligent life - it was present on Earth long before there was any intelligence, after all.

Einstein said, that "God does not play dice with the universe."
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And almost immediately regretted it. It's a reference to quantum physics anyway, and entirely irrelevant here.

So if the organization of matter is an acceptable fingerprint for higher intelligence, then organization generally should also be evidence of a designer. Our roads, bridges and buildings, are nothing compared to the design of living systems.
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Which were here long before we were a twinkle in evolution's eye (so to speak).

To say that there is no intelligence behind our design, is to contradict one's own argument entirely. It's the most foolish statement of self condemnation that I can imagine.
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You've presented a very foolish argument. I can't help thinking Einstein would have agreed with me on that.
 
articulett said:
If you want to be taken seriously you may wish to brush up on basic logic.
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I fear the condition is far worse than that. Raptor Witness's argument is so bad it's not even wrong. Even as an argument it doesn't pass muster. I've seen (and heard) some stuff in my time, but that sad effort stands out.

I wonder who originated it? Or did it perhaps emerge from a warm soup of creationist memes? Whatever; there's certainly no hint of intelligent design in it.
 
articulett said:
Said like a thoroughly religiously indoctrinated person who has no understanding of natural selection whatsoever.

If it was designed, it was done so with great waste and suffering and many cobbled together pieces indistinguishable from blind natural selection over time. We have a non functional vitamin C gene in our DNA that we share with our primate kin. It works in other mammals, but somewhere along the ways, ours got mutated. But we eat fruit, as do our ape kin, so there was enough vitamin C in our ancestor's diets that we managed to exist anyhow... but we carry the mutated non working gene. What sort of intelligence would design that? What sort of intelligence would make a guy produce 2000 billion sperm in a life time when only 2 on average make anyone? And the testosterone needed to keep up that activity shortens the life of the bearer of that sperm production factory. That's major wastage. And the suffering inflicted by the ruthlessness of much of the design components is also unfathomable for any intelligence.

Read more. Preach less. You are way out of your league here. What you are proposing is called the argument from incredulity. If you want to be taken seriously you may wish to brush up on basic logic. Just because you can't fathom it happening any other way than by supernatural means... doesn't mean that scientists can't and don't understand a much more plausible means. Even buildings and bridges are built upon years of iterative design trial error and honing. But you have to have a bit of scientific understanding to understand this and you can't be afraid that your immortal soul is in danger if you find out.
Click to expand...

There's been a lot of hype about nanotechnology and it is a science that has a long way to go -- but we can play with the ideas as if we were further along: I can imagine a nanotechnologist looking to biology for some examples on how to do some extraordinary things -- maybe some design ideas to emulate. Or what if some brilliant nanotechnologists somewhere had successfully invented some great technology. ..and some others try to understand it so they can copy it. And they can't! It's too complex for them. And yet, would they deprecate it with comments about how flawed is the design by the brilliant nanotechnologists? Designs that they can't even copy? Designs that are too sophisticated for them to understand?

I think it is proud of you Art' to think you could have designed biological systems better than **** designed it (plug in "designer" or "darwinistic mechanistic process" or "god" for ****). You would have to believe you can, since you apparently believe you know enough to criticize the design of biological systems.

You believe a mechanistic process, an exceedingly simple non-teleological process, is sufficient to design biological systems. And yet it is a stupid process that you claim to know could have been done better somehow. That's your proof it wasn't designed intelligently?
 
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