I’d like to thank everyone who participated in the recent Max’s demon thread, it might be helpful to revisit that OP for context before continuing on to what follows here. http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/maxs-demon-a-design-detection-riddle/
As promised and for what it’s worth I’d now like to submit my proposal for a method for detecting design in situations like Max’s demon where instead of looking at a single isolated artifact or event we are evaluating a happening that is extended spatiotemporally in some way.
I believe that looking at these sorts of phenomena allows us to sidestep the usual sorts of contentious probability discussions that have plagued questions of design inference in the recent past. Usually these discussions involve a single highly unlikely object or event that is only categorized as design or coincidence in retrospect. My hope is that we can in some cases move to determinations based on the correspondence of ongoing observations to predictions and expectations.
Before we begin I’d like to once again clarify a few terms. For our purposes design will be defined as the observable effects of “personal choice” and “personal choice” is simply the the inverse of natural selection as is understood in Darwinian evolution. Such that we can say that something is the result of personal choice (ie designed) when it is ultimately prescribed by something other than it’s immediate local environment.
With that caveat in mind I will detail how my method would work with Max’s demon.
My method
The first step is build the best model(M)that we can given the information we have right now. It could be a physical copy of Max’s original container(O) or it could be a computer simulation or perhaps a just simplified mental description that includes all the known relevant details. The goal would be that the model(M)represents what we know about (O) as it pertains to the specific phenomena(P)we are looking at, namely here a persistent temperature difference between the two chambers of (O). It’s very important to specify ahead of time what P is so as to narrow our focus.
Next I would look to remove P in some way. This could be done by subjecting both my model (M) and the container(O) to temperatures cold enough to completely remove the observable differences between the two chambers in each. Absolute zero for an extended time should do the trick.
At this time I would allow(M)and(O)to thaw for a specified period of time and record any temperature difference that arises between the various chambers in (M)and(O). The difference between these two numbers{(P of O)-(P of M)} gives us a rough approximation of any relevant information present in(O)that is missing in(M)at this particular moment in time.
Now we can repeat the process again and again to look for any variation in P. If we record the results of these trials next to each other we get a number sequence showing information difference in P for each consecutive trial. Below are some examples of what such a sequence might look like.
0,0,0,0,0,0,0…
7,7,7,7,7,7,7…
7,8,9,10,11,12…
1,4,1,4,2,1,3…
In the first sequence we see no measurable difference at all between (P of O)and(P of M). Therefore there appears to be no compelling reason to infer design for P in a process that yields this sequence. Since as far as we know (M) has no ongoing personal choice involved there is no compelling reason to infer that(O)does either at least in context of the singular P we are evaluating. Of course that does not imply that there is not an observable design influence in another aspect that we are not at present evaluating or that design is not involved in the system as a whole.
Moving on to the second sequence it’s interesting to realize that we don’t have to know specifically what is causing the 7 degree difference between (P of M) and (P of O)in order to make a determination. All we have to do is add 7 to each instantiation of (M) and we see the same repeating zeros we saw in number one. And just as with number one we can discount the design inference as superfluous in regards to P.
The same goes for the third sequence we simply add one each time we repeat the trial and we are again left with the first sequence. We can make similar simple modifications to (M) to cause most sequences to morph to zero repeating and demonstrating that a design inference is not warranted.
However when we come to sequences like we see in number four this is not as easy and therefore personal choice becomes a live option for explaining the P in the particular spatio temporal dimension reflected in this sequence.
There is no reason to expect that this sequence will terminate on its own and there is no obvious way that we can modify (M) to make the sequence terminate. It is of course possible that the difference we see is nothing but random voice so we need to look for some sort of recognizable pattern in the sequence before we can say are justified in inferring design.
*A recognizable pattern is just one that allows us to predict the next digit in the sequence before running the trial.
In the case of the third sequence it turns out that the elements are precisely the decimal expansion of the square root of two, an irrational number.
There is no clear way to modify (M) to produce this sequence in full, that does not involve input from something outside the local environment or the container. At a minimum we must assume (O) was frontloaded to react in a certain prescribed but unexpected way to a trial that was only conceived after it was constructed. That sort of input must have come from something that transcends the immediate local environment of the container. Therefore as long as the pattern persists whatever is causing P tentatively meets our criteria for being the result of design.
In short— if a sequence produced by our comparison of (O) with (M) yields a persistent recognizable pattern that can’t be duplicated convincingly by making an adjustment to(M) then it’s my contention that we can infer design for P in more than a purely subjective way. That is it in a nutshell
Few sequences are as cut and dried as the square root of two. In our everyday experience the more sure we are that there can be no satisfactory modification to our model to eliminate the recognizable pattern we see the more confident we are that the phenomena we are evaluating is the result of design.
For example a sequence like the one below
001002003….. seems to imply design in that every third trial yields an increasing difference . But it is still open to debate since we don’t know for sure if the sequence is irrational or will eventually repeat or terminate. The longer a recognizable pattern continues with out repeating the more confident we can be in our design inference but only when we know a particular sequence is irrational can we be certain .
Well there you have it
I don’t think that my method is anything new or revolutionary it’s simply an attempt to make more explicit and structured the informal common sense approach that we use all the time when inferring design in these types of situations. Also l want to point out that I don’t need to call my method scientific it’s just important to me that it be reasonable useful and repeatable.
Most of all I want to emphasize my method is not meant to be some sort of argument for the existence of God. His existence is self evident and unavoidably obvious and not to be proved by some puny little human argument. By their very nature such arguments inevitably lead only to foolish human hubris and arrogance instead of any kind of genuine knowledge or wisdom.
We can discuss places other than Max’s demon where this method might prove to be useful and can get into some possible implications in places like evolution, cosmology and artificial intelligence if you like in the comments section.
As usual I apologize ahead of time for spelling and grammar mistakes and welcome any constructive criticism as to clarity or content.
Peace
Was Jesus Jewish? Are you saying he was sweet because he was Jewish? Are you calling him a baby because he was Jewish?
Your comment sounds antisemitic.
Did you read the OP?
If designed as we are defining it here is not quantifiably different than natural then natural section as it applies to Darwinian evolution is a meaningless concept.
Is that really a road you want to go down? Do you even understand why that is the case?
peace
I’d think it’s already said too many times. Creationists are married to this fucking false dichotomy: it’s either not random or a magical being in the sky. This one goes way beyond. Artificial selection being the opposite to natural selection takes the cake. Whoever taught fmm logic, and the meaning of the word “opposite” didn’t do a very good job.
Ups! I was forgetting that fmm is thinking some all-powerful magical being’s thoughts after “Him.” So, whoever taught logic, and the meaning of the word “opposite,” to the all-powerful, supposedly all-knowing, magical being in the sky didn’t do a very good job. Almost as if this magical being in the sky actually wasn’t all-knowing, or all-powerful, or magical, or logical, or even existed.
The revelations we get from fmm’s problems with logic.
It’s not about artificial selection being the opposite of natural selection. This method only demands that artificial selection be different in some way than natural selection.
I’m very struck by this blatant inability to deal with what is actually being said and instead arguing against something radically different that was never said.
I also find it to be very amusing that ad hominem and juvenile mockery about my faith is the go to response instead of interaction with the proposed method itself.
Lets try again shall we. 😉
Do you even understand why artificial must be different than natural in a quantifiable way in order for NS as it pertains to Darwinian evolution to have any meaning as a concept?
hint: a correct responses include either acknowledgement of my point or an explanation as to why I’m mistaken.
Or baring that at least clarifying questions so that you do understand what I’m actually contending here
peace
How about I phrase it in this way
If natural selection is entirely indistinguishable from artificial selection then what exactly is the purpose of the qualifier in the phrase “natural selection”?
why not just call it selection?
peace
Weird.
As is common with natural language words, “natural” has a range of meanings. In one such meaning, “natural” is opposed to “artificial”. In another such meaning, “artificial” is a special case of “natural”. And the latter meaning of “natural” is the one implicitly used in the term “natural selection.”
I’m not sure why you are having problems with this.
OK
I have no problem with that understanding,
What exactly separates the special case of artificial from the more general term natural? Be specific please
It is precisely that distinguishing thing that I am calling “personal choice” and it’s observable effects that I’m calling design. So that selection that involves personal choice is called artificial rather than natural
If there is nothing whatsoever that distinguishes the special case from the more general term then the special case is not a special case at all.
it’s really not difficult
peace
As I recall, Bill Dembski wrote whole books attempting to derive a model or procedure to distinguish intentional design from any natural process. He came up with a variety of proposals, such as CSI, along with statistical boundaries beyond which something (an item or a process) could be reliably rejected as natural.
Not surprisingly, quite a few people requested that he pick some actual examples, apply his model, show his work and justify his results. Some requested he address specific items, others asked him to select the “unnatural” item of his choice, but show how someone else could apply the model and get the correct results in real world cases.
Even less surprisingly, Dembski never provided so much as a single example application of his model, and still hasn’t.
Michael Behe took up this challenge, and HIS test was irreducible complexity. He provided multiple examples, each of which was shown by others to be evolvable. Models such as Avida routinely evolve irreducibly complex structures by applying simple rules. Behe was ultimately reduced to demanding documented historical proof of every mutation at the molecular level for the last 4 billion years.
As far as I can tell, the current criterion for determining divine design is “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it” — although this standard is generally obfuscated by lots of ambiguous terms and hand-waving. The main problem with this approach is lack of agreement among those who see the same thing but interpret it differently.
Maybe divine design exists, then, but so far nobody can identify any of it unambiguously.
I think I agree. The distinction between artificial and natural selection is entirely a matter of your frame of reference. If you are the breeder, it’s artificial. If you are the goldfish, it’s natural — the goldfish can’t know that some higher power is biasing breeding selection in some purposeful way. The goldfish simply breeds if it is able to do so. It selects an available mate, entirely naturally.
I’m not Dembski or Behe so this comment is irrelevant to my proposal as far as I can tell.
Instead my definition of design plays off of the concept of natural selection. Since Dembski and Behe are not here why not interact with my proposed definition?? That would make more sense wouldn’t it?
Who said anything about divine design??? I even made it a point to stipulate that my method is not to be seen as an argument for the existence of God??
Why do you continue to insist on ignoring what is actually being said and instead substitute some argument that bears no relationship to the proposal at hand??
Peace
What if you are the one who observes the actions of the breeder??
If “artificial selection” only makes sense to the one doing the breeding how could Darwin use it to explain natural selection to those who never bred anything?
There are lots of things that a goldfish can’t know. simply because they are fish.
Darwin did not write to Goldfish. So their ability to understand is irrelevant to the difference between natural and artificial that he played upon to explain his idea.
peace
I would say that the goldfish does what it does by instinct and it’s instinct is ultimately the product of it’s environment as expressed in it’s genes .
This sort of “selection” is what I’m contrasting to the personal choice involved with artificial selection.
peace
The distinction is that humans call it “artificial”. However, if some other intelligent species, say aliens from Andromeda, were to examine the situation they would just call it “natural” (or the equivalent in their language).
Well, I would suggest that all of us learn largely vicariously – by reading books, by watching others, etc. You don’t have to do most things, to understand what those things are.
Darwin wasn’t wrong in assuming that his audience could grasp the power of selection, regardless of what environmental aspects guided it.
So only humans are capable of understanding the concept of NS as it pertains to Darwinian evolution? That is mighty anthropomorphic.
What makes humans so special?
Why would aliens from Andromeda not be able to distinguish their own choices from things that were ultimately proscribed by the environment if humans can do this?
If they could recognize their own choices why couldn’t they recognize the choices of other intelligent species?
I don’t see any reason to assume that I’m necessarily incapable of recognizing whether the livestock or crops of the aliens from Andromeda had any traits that were not ultimately proscribed by the local environment.
Just as I would expect I might be able to tell the difference between a plant or animal domesticated by Neanderthals and it’s wild ancestor.
Why exactly would aliens necessarily be less capable than I am?
check it out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication
peace
right at least we agree that we are more capable than goldfish,
So what were they grasping exactly??
What specifically is the difference between natural and artificial selection that Darwin played on to explain his concept of natural selection?
peace
From the article I linked
quote:
Charles Darwin recognized the small number of traits that made domestic species different from their wild ancestors. He was also the first to recognize the difference between conscious selective breeding in which humans directly select for desirable traits, and unconscious selection where traits evolve as a by-product of natural selection or from selection on other traits.There is a genetic difference between domestic and wild populations. There is also such a difference between the domestication traits that researchers believe to have been essential at the early stages of domestication, and the improvement traits that have appeared since the split between wild and domestic populations.Domestication traits are generally fixed within all domesticates, and were selected during the initial episode of domestication of that animal or plant, whereas improvement traits are present only in a proportion of domesticates, though they may be fixed in individual breeds or regional populations
end quote:
Get it now??
peace
One might say only some humans are capable of understanding the concept.
Anthropocentric might be the word you are looking for.
That’s an absurd misreading of what I wrote.
Humans consider the actions of humans to be special, so they use terms such as “artificial” for such actions. One might presume that the Andromedan aliens would consider Andromedans to be special, and use “artificial” for some of their actions. But they would not consider humans to be special, so human actions would be considered (by Andromedans) to be natural.
And, of course, these Andromedans are hypothetical. I’m not claiming that there are any (nor that there aren’t any).
Say humans went to Andromeda and found a planet there a vast range of living types comparable to species on earth. They discovered that only one of those types were cooperating in an apparently conscious way to construct devices in order to explore the universe beyond the bounds of their home planet. Would humans consider that particular type to be special?
What is your reasoning for saying that Andromedans would not consider humans to be special?
I would disagree here. We consider many actions of other humans to be “natural” and only a subset to be “artificial”.
When I see a human eating breakfast I don’t consider that action to be artificial.
However I would quickly identify the sodium
hexametaphosphate in his maple syrup as an artificial ingredient. I hope you can see the difference??
If you can’t then NS as it pertains to Darwinian Evolution becomes a meaningless tautology.
I would say that one of the things that makes humans and Andromedan aliens special is that some of their actions can be considered special.
Are you honestly claiming that humans would not call any alien technology artificial?
peace
I’m very interested in this one. Humans have spent a lot of time thinking about and looking for other intelligent life in the universe and now we are being told that we could not even recognize it if we did find it.
That claim certainly requires some support.
peace
What if they found a radioactive world , obliterated by war and pollution, the toxic remains of that species? Would they consider that species which destroyed its world as special?
Just saying it is a little early for the judgement of the human experiment to be rendered. We might be closer to Milli Vanilli than Beatles. If longevity counts as being a good thing.
Who is telling us that?
Do you honestly think we can’t recognize the “creative” actions of Milli Vanilli as different from nature?
Of course they would consider the species that destroyed it’s world special. Intelligence does not remotely equal wisdom or benevolence.
It’s impossible for nature to “destroy” nature.
peace
You are claiming that we would not recognize alien technology as artificial and conversely that aliens would not recognize our technology as anything other than nature.
If that is not your claim please explain what it is that distinguishes artificial selection from natural selection when the selector is an alien.
peace
I can help you out.
How about we distinguish natural from artificial by saying that something is natural if it is ultimately proscribed by the local environment and artificial if it is ultimately proscribed by something else.
What is wrong with that? It works equally well for humans and aliens from Andromeda.
peace
You are confusing being special with being good. They would probably think that the species responsible specialised in self-destruction.
Maybe ,just as special as neighbors who set up a meth lab next door. Most would judge less special as better.
Then again who knows about Aliens. They might view humans as special as in delicious.
The difference is that artificial selection is defined as selection performed by humans, perhaps for some “purpose” or “goal.”.
Well if you write something like “natural selection must stand in opposition to artificial selection” whose fault is that?
Well, if you have embraced the most dehumanizing, yet also the most ridiculous, rhetoric in Christianity, whose fault is that?
So you think you can fix it? OK, let’s see.
I’d rather understand that the concept of natural selection was coined as a metaphor with “artificial” selection, and that the difference is more about the evidence than about some numbers.
You were mistaken in taking “natural” to mean “random” (as per your example with those 001002003004… series), then you were mistaken in thinking that natural selection would stand “in opposition to” artificial selection, like things in opposite sides of a spectrum.
Darwin’s concept of natural selection is about noticing, or acknowledging, that “selection” can happen with or without people intervening. It doesn’t need to be a quantifiable difference, what this requires is both experience with, and evidence of, human intervention.
Sure. Do you understand the difference between opposite, and “similar-but-not-exactly-the-same”? Do you understand that natural phenomena have random and deterministic processes? For example, do you understand that gravitation has a direction, pulsars specific rhythms, electromagnetic waves have specific wavelengths, electrons specific masses, etc? That, thus, representing nature as mere randomness just wouldn’t work for detecting “design”? Do you understand that design depends on nature having such non-random behaviours, that design itself would not be possible without those natural phenomena being somewhat predictable? Do you understand that there’s phenomena in nature that can result in, at least apparent, series?
If you do understand all of that, then you understand why your modest method is founded on mistaken notions.
I hope that helps. I have to say, though, that I don’t expect much from you.
it takes intelligence……….. and foolishness to open a meth lab.
I expect that no one would including aliens would consider methamphetamine to be a natural phenomena if they encountered it in a trailer park on earth.
That is because no one expects the local environment to proscribe it.
In the context of the method I’m describing
If I was an alien trying to verify that hunch I would model the environment of appalachia and compare it to reality with reference to methamphetamine and the more times that I could see a recognizable pattern in the difference between the model and reality that I could not duplicate with my model the more confident I would be that methamphetamine is not natural.
I only could be certain that my design inference was correct if it was demonstratively impossible for a model to ever duplicate the pattern I see.
peace
You must have me confused with someone else, I am not claiming anything. However be glad to examine the claim, work is pretty slow.
“we would not recognize alien technology as artificial
Possible, early human technology consisted of fire and rocks. Both occur naturally.
If observing long range, more efficient technologies might not leave the same fingerprints as human technologies, do. There may be advantages in masking one’s technological signal.
It has been less than one hundred years since we discovered galaxies. We are still slowly exploring our own solar system for life. First exoplanet discovered 25 years ago. As we used to say in New Orleans ,” we don’t know shit from shinola”
If aliens knew that our belief about free will and choice is an illusion from observation of a multitude of sentient beings , then yes like the spider and the web, nature prescribes our actions which is your definition of natural.
If an alien caused the asteroid to hit the Yucatán without knowing exactly the outcome, would the resulting selection be natural or artificial?
So intelligent aliens or Neanderthals or AI is somehow ontologically incapable of artificial selection. Interesting
How would you possibly support such a claim.
Obviously the person who reads “opposition” to mean “opposite”.
OK I’ll bite what evidence specifically would distinguish artificial from natural?
I have not done anything remotely like this.
If you disagree with me you need to explain how you can know that the faith I embrace is dehumanizing and ridiculous.
and what any of this has to do with this thread.
Good luck
Did even you read the OP???
I specifically said that the sequence must have a recognizable pattern that is the opposite of random
In the case of the numbers you quote the pattern is that every third element increases by one from the integer that is 3 behind it in rank. It’s not random at all. It is a recognizable ie predictable pattern
According to my method “natural” does not mean “random” it means model-able
Again I said nothing about artificial being in the opposite side of the spectrum from natural that is entirely your mistake.
Rational numbers stand in opposition to irrational numbers. That does not mean that they are opposites it only means that they are different and the difference is definitional to each.
why not take some time and park your priors and interact with what is actually being said here .
peace
To a dog probably not, but it was a metaphor, human value judgements are not always dependable, especially in the short term.
If intelligence combined with destruction tendencies leads to extinction, Aliens may consider us “special”, as the Spanish Flu was special.
But then again, this Aliens may have observed beaucoups of such bad combinations on their travels, the conclusion they reach may be is “why are there so many dumbasses in this Galaxy.”
But if it makes you feel better what an hypothetical alien thinks about the human race, yes special.
It is certainly possible nature to rearrange the parts of nature you live on into vapor.
peace
All of this is interesting but irrelevant. No one is claiming to be able to accurately identify all technology.
We are only asking if there is a difference between technology and the products of nature.
I say there is and that the difference is that one is proscribed by the local environment and the other is not.
What is wrong with that?
peace
newton,
Neil are you interested in having a discussion about this method or not?
If you only want to bloviate about irrelevant things like the human tendency to spoil our nests I will let you have at it and not respond to your posts. I just don’t have the time to get bogged down in such discussions
If instead you are interested in having a discussion why not give your aprasial of my contention that artificial things are things not ultimately proscribed by the immediate environment??
peace
There’s no method there. There’s nothing to discuss as far as I can see.
Vapor is still nature is it not? Nature is not destroyed by nature
Of course you know that but felt the need to post this whimsy anyway for some reason.
peace
How many times do I need to ask the question?
I contend that artificial things are things not proscribed by the local environment. You either agree or disagree or don’t understand ……………Which is it?
peace
You do mean “proscribed” do you? It really make no sense in the context of your sentence. Trying a dictionary definition: …artificial things are things not forbidden (especially in law) by the local environment.
I am unable to make sense of that.
Yep, maybe that would be a good epitaph, “ They may have destroyed the world but they sure knew how to set up a meth lab. Adios mofo.”
Hard to say, aliens might not think teeth are naturally occurring either.
If cops are part of the local environment,they probably would proscribe it, but if it was a naturally occurring amphetamine then nature would prescribe it.
“Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres.”
Right, almost forgot how we got here.
Kind of old school, speed is good if you have a mindless repetive job. Being out of work, opiates. Some which are prescribed by nature, some by the doctor. Some you steal from a Grandma, which would make you special if it was not so common.
So you model what?
How about the selection that occurs among the users, are overdoses artificial selection or natural selection?
Unless it is a logically impossible, not sure of that standard. Finite knowledge will result in false results from models. If you do not know CO2 causes a greenhouse effect, your demonstratively impossible standard may predict design. Unless you want the default to be everything is designed.
peace
Prescribed
Not sure that makes any more sense.
So you said, and I agreed. It does have the abilty to rearrange the parts until the pattern nature no longer exists. The world, the patterns we refer to as the world, would no longer exist.
Sure first law of thermodynamics, neither can artificial means.
I am inclined to whimsy, I find it ,in a certain way , a more efficient way of expressing truth, or at least more fun less boring.
Think this is correct, “nature through the laws of motions prescribe the movements of the planets.” Definition 2 .
I believe natural is deterministic in Fifth’ s definition whereas artificial is governed by whimsy of personal choice, though still governed by the laws of nature.
I could be wrong.
Hmm? Well, if that’s what he’s saying I fundamentally disagree. The laws of motion are human attempts to describe (and predict) the movement of the planets. The laws are (some more and some less accurate) models of reality.
So, I wonder is the distinction man-made vs natural. Is it only man-made artefacts that can be called artificial?
Nature is not necessarily deterministic in my view but natural things are either not determined at all or ultimately determined by the local environment.
Artificial things on the other hand are determined by something other than the local environment
peace