Upright Biped,
Before fleeing the discussion in July, you spent months here at TSZ discussing your “Semiotic Theory of ID”. During that time we all struggled with your vague prose, and you were repeatedly asked to clarify your argument and explain its connection to ID. I even summarized your argument no less than three times (!) and asked you to either confirm that my summary was accurate or to amend it accordingly. You failed to do so, and you also repeatedly refused to answer relevant, straightforward questions from other commenters here.
Here is my most recent attempt at a summary of your argument, from July 22nd:
X1. All irreducibly complex systems are designed.
X2. All semiotic systems are irreducibly complex.
X3. Therefore, all semiotic systems are designed.Y1. A system involving representation(s) and protocol(s) is a semiotic system.
Y2. Protein synthesis involves a representation and a protocol.
Y3. Therefore, protein synthesis is a semiotic system.Z1. All semiotic systems are designed (by X3).
Z2. Protein synthesis is a semiotic system (by Y3).
Z3. Therefore, the protein synthesis system is designed.If you think this is an accurate summary, then tell us. If you don’t, then please make corrections while maintaining the explicit and concise format of the summary.
I reiterate the challenge, with special emphasis on the bolded part above. Note that since you claim that your argument is an argument for ID, it must lead to conclusion Z3 or something similar:
Z3. Therefore, the protein synthesis system is designed.
If it does not, then it fails as an argument for ID.
Also worth repeating are some observations I made earlier regarding your evasions:
Upright doesn’t realize how obvious his predicament is to the rest of us.
Suppose he had a strong argument (or at least thought that he did). Then he would have every reason to make his position clear and to answer questions forthrightly, secure in the knowledge that his argument would stand up to scrutiny and criticism. On the other hand, he would have no reason to evade or obfuscate, as doing so would only create the impression that his position was weak.
Now suppose that his argument is weak, and that Upright knows this. Clarifying his position in this case would be disastrous, as it would lay bare the flaws in his argument and render it vulnerable to decisive refutation. Evasion looks weak, but at least it allows him to pretend that his argument is strong and that the only problem is that people have failed to understand it properly.
So far Upright’s behavior matches the second scenario perfectly. We thus have every reason to believe that Upright’s argument is weak and that he knows it.
You can choose to evade and obfuscate, Upright, but be advised that we know exactly why you do it.
I invite you to prove me wrong. Either confirm that my summary above is correct, or amend it while maintaining its explicit and concise format so that it accurately represents your argument.
Clarify or evade. It’s your choice.
Perhaps emboldened by his great victory, UB will now respond to the following:
Upright Biped, please tell us what class of mechanisms you, or semiotic theory, assert is required to create (result in, cause) the entailments/the TRI/a semiotic state.
Also, please tell us what class of mechanisms you, or semiotic theory, claim cannot create the entailments/the TRI/a semiotic state.
Given your emphasis upon “material observations,” provide empirical justification of those assertions in light of your semiotic theory.
Lastly, if the entire output of your semiotic theory is, “it will therefore require a mechanism capable of establishing a semiotic state,” yet semiotic theory is silent on mechanism/causation – what good is it?
This question has been on the table since late July.
Upright’s flat-footedness has landed him between a rock and a hard place. If he claims that “semiotic states” are proof of design, he’ll be shot down immediately. But if he doesn’t make that claim, then his “argument” is completely useless as a defense of ID, as RB points out.
He promised a “semiotic argument” for ID and failed to deliver. He humiliated himself in front of ID critics and proponents alike — including those proponents who stood up for him.
Upright,
I’m curious. I know you are contemptuous of critics, but what do you say to the IDers who stood up for you, expecting you to deliver on your big promises? They now look ridiculous for supporting you.
I’m also curious about this: How do you think your God feels about your dishonesty? Your hypocrisy?
Well all you have to do is explain how “non-random” variation includes trying every possible mutation and why it matters that it is non-random. If you wish to claim that Lenski is lying about this, perhaps you should shoot him and email and ask why he makes this claim.
Recall that in the Lenski experiment the first 20,000 generations produced no somatic change. From the standpoint of adaptation, it was just drift. I notice that you have simply ignored my question about how an intelligent selectionist would know which mutations to prefer during the drift phase of this experiment.
Gpuccio, if you have the courage to discuss this on a forum where people don’t get banned for expressing ideas, come over here and discuss this.
Joe’s still whining because I don’t think that a codon is a representation of an amino acid. And in support he finds a site which uses the word ‘represent’ – not that hard to do; it is a common metaphor:
Oh, and goddamned Merriam-Webster. Because definitions are much more important than the reality one is trying conceptualise, huh?
Amusingly, M-W gives a definition 1) for ‘encode’ which relates to symbolism/info conversion, and a definition 2) which says “to specify the genetic code for”. A classic opportunity for equivocation (one of Joe’s favourite words). If people use the word strictly in sense 2), they must also be hostage to the implications of sense 1). Not. Words are our servants, not our masters.
I’m sure he could find a few dozen quotes that support the ‘encoding’, ‘symbolising’, ‘representing’ metaphor. Stupid word games. A gene for dark colouration does not represent dark colouration; a gene giving wrinkly peas does not ‘represent’ wrinkliness, and a ‘coding’ fragment of a gene does not represent the fragment of the protein that it corresponds to … there is a causal relationship between a codon and an acid in a peptide, but I simply disagree that it is a representational one. Even with the great Gods of Merriam-Webster.
No-one’s forcing you to continue to equivocate, ya big chicken!
Energy isn’t strictly ‘non-material’. Ask Einstein. Energy and matter are interconvertible, and the mass of ‘matter’ is a reflection of its total energy content. Matter is a kind of ‘frozen’ energy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass%E2%80%93energy_equivalence
Heard of it, of course. You buy telekinesis, but you don’t buy the emergence of complexity from molecular interaction operating upon known principles, within the constraints of the universe rather than just dispensing with them in favour of the ad hoc?
You go tell Upright Biped that information can be transferred or stored via a medium not consisting of an arrangement of matter/energy. ‘Information’ in the ID world seems to boil down to arrangements containing an element of surprise. Many of which aren’t really all that surprising, if you know the forces in operation. Either way, they are still material ones.
But ID is not Creationism. Oh no.
UB:
OK.
First, you claim to have presented a definition of the noun “entailment,” but instead reproduce a definition of the verb “to entail.” Statements imply or entail. That which is entailed is an “entailment.” So much for philosophy by dictionary.
Second, you once again conflate cause and result. You state, “These physical entailments are a necessary result of the existence of recorded information transfer” (my emphasis). But you elsewhere (at the moment of your great victory) also claim that “the physical entailments” are necessary and sufficient material conditions for the existence of recorded information.* But your entailments cannot arise both as a result of of the existence of recorded information and be the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of recorded information.
So the above again exemplifies your muddled understanding of entailment, which I identified in my first post.
*As an additional loop in the confusion you claim that to be “a necessary and sufficient material condition” of a phenomenon is not to be a necessary and sufficient cause of that phenomenon. The muddle deepens.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/ub-sets-it-out-step-by-step/#comment-433991
Upright BiPed misses again:
No UB, explain the phrase *necessarily arbitrary*, but not just in “any premise”, rather in “that premise”.
Mung shows his funny side!
Mung, for the love of the “Intelligent Designer”, replace the “+” sign with “x”.
We then read, “2 x 3 = 6”.
The “original” author used “+” instead of “x” to construct his statement.
It was an invalid use of “+” in place of the term he should of used, “x”.
What Bugs Bunny said! 🙂
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/ub-sets-it-out-step-by-step/#comment-434028
RB:
UB:
Already anticipated and addressed in an earlier post, above:
RB:
UB:
But in his missive to Larry Moran:
My emphasis.
In his missive to Larry Moran UB states unequivocally that the entailments “are a necessary result” of the TRI, that that result can be observed, and that that observation “confirm the existence” of information transfer.” Note that it is the entailments that are the result, not the observation of the entailment. That follows later. This once again exhibits the form A -> B. B, therefore A.
Under withering documentation that this is a logically flawed argument, Biped pivoted to the claim that “the entailments” are “entailed” because they are the necessary and sufficient material conditions for the TRI.
To make this work, he has to morph this claim:
Into this one:
Which is an entirely different claim.
In the first he asserts that the entailments “are a necessary result” of the TRI. In the second he asserts that the observation of the entailments is the necessary result of the TRI, because the entailments are the necessary and sufficient material conditions for the TRI.
Hence he has claimed that “the entailments” are are both results of, and conditions for, the TRI. He was compelled to make these nonsensical, contradictory claims to paper over the above noted pivot – the sort of slippery equivocation that he celebrates as a moment of triumph.
All that is very interesting. But here is the question from which Biped beat a retreat:
Upright Biped, please tell us what class of mechanisms you, or semiotic theory, assert is required to create (result in, cause) the entailments/the TRI/a semiotic state.
Also, please tell us what class of mechanisms you, or semiotic theory, claim cannot create the entailments/the TRI/a semiotic state.
Given your emphasis upon “material observations,” provide empirical justification of those assertions in light of your semiotic theory.
Lastly, if the entire output of your semiotic theory is, “it will therefore require a mechanism capable of establishing a semiotic state,” yet semiotic theory is silent on mechanism/causation – what good is it?
This question has been on the table since late July.
I’m not sure what you mean here.
If “e=mc^2”, when m=0, the product “e” becomes 0 also.
Are you saying, that in this material world we occupy, we can have energy without mass?
What I don’t understand is if “m=0”, i.e., “non-material”, when you multiply “c^2” by 0, “e” goes to 0.
e = 0 * (c^2) = 0.
Our energy here would be 0 if our mass is 0 since if you multiply anything by 0, your product, in this case our resultant energy, is 0.
In what cases in our world, with a mass of 0, would we get a result other than 0?
I take it by “non-material”, you mean “without mass”.
I guess I am as guilty as anyone for wandering off the topic or this thread which was challenging Upright Biped to attempt to clarify his “semiotic theory of intelligent design” sufficiently that would allow the fair reader to gain some understanding.
I commented upthread with my assessment and suggestion as to how he might advance his project. Until there is a definitive “semiotic theory” to discuss, I don’t see much point in commenting further. The ball is firmly in UB’s court.
May I ask anyone else still reading the thread what their assessment is? Has UB’,s “semiotic theory” impressed you? Advice on his next step?
I have to say, UB has not made a good case.
I’d like to see his own side, maybe Joe, KF, and Mung, put together a short version of what UB is actually saying and any claims he’s making.
I’d like to see if the ID side can understand him any better than we can.
gpuccio,
Thanks for the info.
Are you saying in Joe’s “non-material” world, all particles are at rest?
What are the chances of one of the physicists here putting together a physics thread where we can comment on physics related issues relating to ID problems?
It seems that “reality” always come up in these debates with IDists!
LOL! I hadn’t noticed this bit of self-serving fiction:
UB quotes my remark on June 11, and explains,
But UB abandoned thread nearly six weeks after that exchange, the last four of his ~29 additional comments occurring on July 20.
He slipped out the back, Jack after I posed the following question on July 21, a question still on the table:
UB:
RB:
Biped, that’s when you ran, and you’ve been running from the question ever since.
I may be ignorant in many matters, but I’m no coward. 🙂
I’ll go out on a limb and say, since radio waves travel at near light speed, there are no particles at rest and therefore, the mass in radio waves is not 0.
Now you tell me if you believe radio waves have no mass.
Joe,
I’ll reply in the “Sandbox” to issues that don’t directly apply to this thread.
You can add physics to the list of sciences about which creationism is confused.
Till someone takes it and converts it? The relationship of matter and energy is perhaps a topic too far for your 8th-grade understanding of science, Joe.
Objects get heavier as they accelerate. Why? How do you move an object without accelerating it? What do you move it with? It’s the same thing as makes it heavier – the form of ‘material’ known as energy.
One could ignore relativity or ‘hard’ quantum physics and declare ‘matter’ to be just the things made of quarks and leptons – mostly, atoms and molecules – allowing ‘energy’ to be declared ‘non-material’. But since a significant contribution to the mass of such matter is binding energy – not energy converted from matter, but energy that is inseparably part of the matter – this isn’t satisfactory.
The notion of energy as something independent of physical systems that can simply be imported from some ‘non-material’ realm to operate on another category of ‘stuff’ – matter – is just a naive view of physics. One would expect no less from someone who offers ‘telekinesis’ as an example of an energetic process by which a ‘non-material’ designer could move matter.
keiths, At this point is that I simply stand by the summary of UB’s argument I submitted. At some point the case must rest. I rest mine on the challenge that to refute P1, chance an necessity must demonstrate that it can generate a semiotic system. This challenge Liz accepted in August of 2011, and (based on Mung’s findings) was retracted in November of 2011. The UD post is linked to from this site, and Mung linked to the retraction over at UD. Keiths, all your objections
are all understood and noted, but at this point I’m fine leaving it to the minds of the fair observers.
// UB was here for months, and R.Bill is clearly a brilliant guy, his argumentation in the consciousness thread months back was insane (ahem) in the membrane. And as the saying goes, iron sharpens iron. I argue that Upright’s argumentation has gotten stronger after he and R.Bill engaged. However, as has already been advanced by myself and
Pet, the chemists will have the final word.
Enter Allan.
He stepped into the arena at the top of his game and directly engaged P1 and offered potential solutions. However, UB myself
and the rest of us (as Flint would argue “liars for Jesus”) would generally consider that the current theories/ideas for the emergence of a semiotic system by means of physics acting on chemistry are provisionally lacking.
This site stopped its foreword progress right after Mike E finished his last creationist hunt and the asians stopped tinkering with the Integrals. I hope GP shows up and continues the dialogue with Pet from the days at UD, as those were some great threads.
Ease up on the sarcasm, big fella!
What, precisely, is lacking? What is needed for a non-protein system of peptide synthesis, and its subsequent amendment to subdivide the triplet matrix among a library of amino acids, that physics and chemistry cannot supply?
RNA carrier molecule – check.
Energetic linkage of amino acid to carrier – check.
RNA docking system to enable carrier alignment to peptide chain – check
RNA-catalysed peptidyl transferase – check.
Lability of linkage between codon and carrier, and carrier and acid – check.
non-protein mechanism of charging tRNA … OH NO! FAIL!!!
So the latter is the fundamental missing piece. The modern system charges tRNA by means of a protein aaRS. And you hang your semiotic theory on that? Note that aaRSs are much more ‘modern’ than many proteins of their type – ie protein synthesis is ‘older’ than aaRS. And they are essentially copies of each other, in two broad families. They contain the hallmarks of possessing an evolutionary history. Note also that the full complexities of carriers, charging and docking are not essential for the chemical task of catalysing peptide synthesis. The core requirement is peptidyl transferase, and the minimal carrier is simply aminoacyl adenine. You don’t even need tRNA, or any of the ‘coding’ that goes along with its ‘other end’.
This is what is so bizarre about these shenanigans. The argument is presented as a broadly ‘logical’ one – it is impossible to evolve protein synthesis because of some logical necessity for intelligent input to generate ‘semiotic’ systems. So one demonstrates that it is not logically impossible to do such by indicating that protein cannot be considered essential for its own synthesis throughout history, simply because it is essential now … and that argument is dismissed, because that logical argument cannot be accepted until someone creates the physical system. And of course, we all know that if we intelligently devise such a system, ID will claim victory!
We must simply mix chemicals in a test-tube and watch – that is the only way ‘chance and necessity’ can operate!
Alan, there is nothing sarcastic about what I said. You gentlemen are sharp. But dang, this debate has jumped the shark.
For sure – but it continues to be rehearsed at great length over on UD. Yet nothing appears to be taken on board. The position is the same as it was a few posts into the first debates last year. I sometimes wonder if anyone over there is interested in science at all (as opposed to finding means to bolster their faith, that is) … So … I guess UB should publish. Debate over; all conflicting views taken on board (or not).
JunkDNA:
This thread (or threads) stopped forward progress when UB ran away. That happened as he was being asked to provide his argument in succinct form by keiths, to speak to causation as requested in my question above, and to finally tell us what any of this has to do with ID by Liz. The next steps were unpalatable to him, because he cannot express his theory with economy, he has nothing to say about causation, and he won’t (or can’t) disclose what any of this has to do with ID. Rather than take those steps (down the plank), he abandoned thread.
I do agree that his argument as presented at UD has changed a bit in response to this discussion, although strictly by subtraction. Specifically, he has been careful to omit his formerly key “birds do it, bees do it, even educated flees do it” (therefore observation of the entailments successfully confirms a semiotic state) line of argument.
I take this as reflecting his recognition that a heretofore prominent phase of his argument does have the form A -> B. B, therefore A, and that large tracts of his argument were indeed logically invalid. His inability say “I take your point” as he morphs his argument is not very attractive.
junkdnaforlife,
No question, Upright Biped has jumped the shark. This was supposed to be his triumphant presentation of the New and Important Semiotic Argument for ID, and look where it has ended up.
Upright has been following this algorithm consistently:
It’s a strategy that might actually work with a stupid audience. Unfortunately for Upright, a portion of his audience is intelligent.
RB,
Indeed, Upright at one point was obviously arguing that:
That is the only interpretation of his argument that, if it hadn’t been logically flawed, would have justified the title “Semiotic Argument for ID”.
Most of the other interpretations (including junkdnaforlife’s) are rehashes of the argument from incredulity, God of the gaps, or irreducible complexity arguments. Upright’s remaining two versions (“Semiotic states require a mechanism capable of creating a semiotic state” and “the transfer of recorded information in the genome is an arbitrary relationship instantiated in matter”) are toothless and say nothing about ID.
At this point, Upright appears to be trying to run out the clock. If he can stall long enough, everyone will get bored and go home before he finally admits that the “Semiotic Theory of ID” is a bust.
Then Upright needs to read the AFDave thread. There will always be someone who will not get bored.
http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?act=SP&f=14&t=3131&p=43141
Upright, no wonder you never got round to revealing more about your “complexity cafe” website something you alluded to in the same comment you said this:
Is that right now? It’s an interesting comment, this one from oct 2011:
Ah, so chemically non-complex? Why? Earth = big. Reaction potential = large. Simple? If it was simple then it would not have taken so long, no?
Do tell me more about the “great time-line of life” from ID’s POV Upright?
Ah, is that the great link between ID and Upright’s thesis?
As to
The fact is you are Upright, because you and anybody else who actually makes a claim regarding ID is speaking for ID because so few people are. http://www.uncommondescent.com/junk-dna/biochemist-larry-moran-responds-to-jonathan-m%e2%80%99s-junk-dna-post/#comment-403927
Unpublished essay? Given that was almost a year ago what’s the hold up Upright? Argument not as watertight as you originally assumed back then?
Upright Biped
Indeed, UB, that’s the general conclusion of those who have taken a stab at understanding your “argument”. I think you have to question your apparent presumption that we are all too stupid or perverse to follow your logic. Until you decide to frame your argument in such a way that it coherent and, ideally, begins to be an argument for design, I don’t see the need for onlooker or anyone else to waste more time in fruitless attempts at clarification.
It took me a while to get that! 🙂
Heh heh.
Indeed. Could someone wake me up when Upright does decide to go somewhere with his “argument”?
UB earlier:
Especially the part where Pattee says,
http://binghamton.academia.edu/HowardPattee/Papers/894698/Irreducible_and_complementary_semiotic_forms (Page 335)
Good find! That’s hilarious.
(By the way, it’s page 355, not 335.)
As Reciprocating Bill has already pointed out; this had absolutely nothing to do with it. The trauma of having to address the physics and chemistry is simply being used as an excuse to salvage an argument that others had already demolished for its amateurish bungling of the concept of implication and the fallacy of assuming the consequent.
And believing that one can escape one’s intellectual roots by simply denying them, while carrying all of the intellectual baggage and repeating the same conceptual errors inherited from the “scientific’ creationists, is not going to work. There are many people currently living who know those intellectual roots better than this current generation of ID advocates do; and there is a well-documented history of all that which the current generation of ID/creationists would like to have go away. It’s not going away; it’s now part of the public record.
Get the science right first; then start “theorizing” from there. And don’t use the institutions of secular government to saddle and confuse school children with your amateurish speculations. Submit them to the crucible of peer review in scientific journals where they can be examined. If you are too thin-skinned to do that, then you can’t claim to be doing science. Your speculations won’t survive the light of day; especially those that misrepresent science and can’t demonstrate an understanding of basic logic.
Living in your censorship-protected bubble over at UD has given you a weak mind that bathes itself in the soothing accolades of your equally uninformed peers. As has been dramatically demonstrated by others here (not by me), not one of you can survive in the crucible of scientific peer review. So stop blaming us for your own refusal to learn the science while at the same time attempting to replace it with your made-up pseudo science.
Complementary descriptions in physics are common. UB never understood the example of “The Semiotic Theory of Intelligent Scattering.” As with all these examples from physics and chemistry, it just blew right over his head. Shifts in perspective, along with recasting physical laws into other forms, is one of the most important processes in making discoveries.
But ID/creationists – not having a clue about what is going on – contort this process into a free-for-all that allows any kind of pseudo-science speculation in the door. They don’t understand what they are reading. They use big words and think they are smart. It’s all pseudo-intellectual pretentiousness. Yet they get flustered by high school physics and chemistry. Sombody needs to tell them that standing in the middle of the room with their eyes closed doesn’t make them invisible.
😀
It’s become a cliche, but Marshall McLuhan in Annie Hall springs to mind once more!
So if there is no known mechanism capable of establishing this semiotic state, where does this leave your theory?
How did your designer transfer the original information into the cell?
Show us a plausible mechanism.
Is all the matter there with simply values getting set after the cell is given life?
If before life, how do you start the life process going?
Are the codes set serially or in some parallel fashion?
How long does the process take?
UB addressing me from behind UD skirts:
Actually, what is peculiar is you throwing bouquets to TSZ from the safety of UD, while avoiding the following:
Upright Biped, please tell us what class of mechanisms you, or semiotic theory, assert is required to create (result in, cause) the entailments/the TRI/a semiotic state.
Also, please tell us what class of mechanisms you, or semiotic theory, claim cannot create the entailments/the TRI/a semiotic state.
Given your emphasis upon “material observations,” provide empirical justification of those assertions in light of your semiotic theory.
Lastly, if the entire output of your semiotic theory is, “it will therefore require a mechanism capable of establishing a semiotic state,” yet semiotic theory is silent on mechanism/causation – what good is it?
This question has been on the table since late July. One can only conclude that you’ve no answers.
I guess I might be considered one of that band of ‘ideological brothers’ – shorthand for people who are presumed incapable of thinking rationally due to their invisible-to-them-but-obvious-to-those-struggling-to-make-inroads-via-other-means prior commitments. I would note that the appellation probably also encompasses many non-TSZ people, including:
1) People who can read technical data
2) Are educated and can follow logical argumentation
3) Actually publish in, and/or peer-review, technical journals.
There is a curious implication that it’s only the TSZ regulars who suffer this malaise … yet the wider court of scientific opinion is utterly silent on the matter of ‘semiosis’. The people who elucidated the ‘code’ and gave its steps the various appellations – ‘transcription’, ‘translation’, etc – were not persuaded by their own metaphors to go the whole hog and declare that they had uncovered God’s Language. Nor do the educators passing that info on to their students, nor the researchers trying to probe this mysterious, ubiquitous system. Essentially, everyone except ID enthusiasts ‘adamantly denies’ that which is obvious to ID. Not, perhaps, my profoundest insight of the month!
One mechanism for transferring data from a laptop uses a wireless link.
Another mechanism for data transfer is via the Ethernet port.
What I was requesting, and gave examples for, is the actual process required to set semiotic codes in biology.
e.g. We have a cell *without* any semiotic codes from the designer.
How do we “set” the codes?
Is the cell alive or dead before we do this?
How do we change a code in a living functioning cell?
Is it possible?
That’s what I mean by mechanisms.
Show me if it is physically possible to what ID suggests happened as far as downloading “information” to a cell.
Actually it’s shocking that ENV and BioComplexity aren’t beating down the door for the insights of gpuccio and UPB.
Upright seems to think that if he answers part of Bill’s question, he’ll be off the hook:
Actually, here’s what Bill wants to know, Upright:
Why not give a complete answer — you know, the way you would if you actually had confidence in your ‘argument’ — rather than evading yet again?
UB:
This regarding a question posed on July 21 (the day following his last post here), August 1, August 17, September 4, September 10, September 13, September 21, September 22 and September 26.
Yet he gets the question wrong.
My question is not what class of “thing” you think can establish a semiotic state.
My question is:
Given that you say that “the conclusion is only that some mechanism is required that can create a semiotic state,” what class of mechanism (your word) does semiotic theory assert is required to create (result in, cause) the entailments/the TRI/a semiotic state, and what class of mechanism does semiotic theory assert cannot create (result in, cause) the entailments/the TRI/a semiotic state?
That is, tell us how semiotic theory itself constrains the answer to this question. If, for example, you assert that agency is required to cause, result in, or give rise to the entailments/the TRI/a semiotic state, tell us why that flows from semiotic theory as you articulate it.
But it does delineate the scope and usefulness of semiotic theory.
If “the conclusion [of semiotic theory] is only that some mechanism is required that can create a semiotic state,” yet semiotic theory is silent on causal mechanisms, neither providing or constraining hypotheses regarding causal mechanism, what good is it?
After all, we already know that the cause of a a given phenomenon must be capable of causing that phenomenon.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/ub-sets-it-out-step-by-step/#comment-434643
You seem to think you’ve given me the answer to the question I asked but you haven’t.
Look at this analogy.
//——————————————————————–
Toronto: What is a mechanism we can use to calculate the length of an object.
Joe: The mechanism is “intelligent agency”.
Toronto: No, I need to know the length in some sort of units.
Joe: Oh, now I understand. Use a ruler. Put one end of the ruler flush with the object then read the number of units that correspond to where the object ends on the ruler.
//—————————
That’s what I want, not a high level “conceptual” answer but a workable one that shows exactly what steps to take to accomplish the task.
I’ve shown how one mechanism of measurement works by comparing the length of a device under test against a known length calibrated in units of some type.
I want you to do the same for the setting of semiotic codes in a cell.
If you answer, “A designer”, you’ve answered a “who” question, not a “how”question.
So, show me a mechanism for setting “semiotic codes” in a cell.
Poof. The Designer can fill any gap on demand.
The who and the how are difficult to distinguish, so I think your question has already been answered.
And the Lord said, “Let the cell contain semiotic codes”, and it was so.
So this UB character linked to his ‘argument’ on Uncommon Descent over on Huffington Post and I always like a good logical challenge. I first mentioned how the argument was stated confusingly and asked him to clarify. Then he and a “Mung” replied.
Holy Mother of Zeus am I regretting this. And thank goodness I found your blog.
Welcome, BioTurboNick.
Yeah, we’ve been asking Upright Biped to clarify his argument since at least March of this year. Even given his limited communication skills, he certainly could have conveyed his argument by now — had he really wanted to.
He’s obviously afraid to do so.