Upright Biped has announced the launch of his site via this UD post: Writing Biosemiosis-org
All of the unique physical conditions of dimensional semiosis have already been observed and documented in the scientific literature. It is an intractable fact that a dimensional semiotic system is used to encode organic polymers inside the cell. The conclusion of intelligent action is therefore fully supported by the physical evidence, and is subject to falsification only by showing an unguided source capable of creating such a system.
http://biosemiosis.org/index.php/a-scientific-hypothesis-of-design
Discuss!
I have such evidence. And I’ll be happy to present it to you.
Just one condition. Answer me this question: I have arranged it so that a teapot orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars.
Do you believe me?
Your approach does not contradict anything and that’s what makes it worthless.
You don’t know much about computers do you? The only reason you can send that message is because of the massive difference in everyday life between those two things.
But do they include Revelation?
Glen Davidson
Are you saying that according to Darwinism that it is impossible for new species to arise from precursors. That is quite an admission. Are you sure you want to go down that road?
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
But you envisaged it as transition across a sharp God’s-Mind boundary – The First Wombat. ie, the first thing with Wombat-Essence, born to parents which were Pre-Wombat Essence, and yet indistinguishable. You accept that the boundary is not in fact sharp. And yet you insist it is.
Haha! ‘Like always yields like’ is actually in the Bible. And it’s a ‘default human assumption’. I’d suggest that something does not stack up in your overall analysis of the species issue. Your difficulties here flow from your inability to [envision] a changing continuum.
You have already accepted that in the particular case being discussed ‘Pre-Wombat’ and ‘Wombat’ were indistinguishable by humans, even if different Godly Essences. I am illustrating the difficulty with that view. There must be some flipping between ‘essences’ as first Wombats, then hybrid Wombat/Pre-Wombat, and all shades in between, are produced. ie, it’s not a boundary at all.
What purpose does it serve to say that there is Wombat Essence and Pre-Wombat Essence in the Mind Of God? Other than to rather feebly conserve your personal conviction (possibly Biblically influenced) that species are, in some way, ‘real’?
How exactly do computers rely on general relativity? Please be specific.
I know they rely on QM but that is an entirely different kettle of fish.
Peace
Allan Miller: You accept that the boundary is not in fact sharp. And yet you insist it is.
Species are not bounded sets they are centered sets. A set of circles contains all shapes that approximate the prototypical circle regardless of how they arise
peace
It’s not my assumption.
We see humans creating new and different stuff from different preexisting stuff all the time. The same goes with God in the Bible.
peace
What purpose does it serve for example to say that the universe has a beginning or that dark matter exists other than to serve your conviction that human sensory impressions are in some way real?
Please be specific
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
I doubt that last part – I suspect it is simply smarm.
I don’t argue that other minds don’t exist.
Species, on the other hand – populations exist, species don’t. There is plenty of evidence, to which one would need to be wilfully blind or ignorant to ignore. The fossil record and extant genomes and forms speak loudly of continuity of change, rendering essentialist positions untenable to anyone who actually studies this stuff, rather than pontificating on the net.
Of course, I have no evidence that species don’t exist in the mind of God. No more do you that they do.
I won’t go into it further yet again. If you were genuinely interested in the question, rather than simply trying to assert your position come Hell or high water, no matter what ridiculous notions it entails, I think I might have got through on a previous occasion. Or you might even have done your own research.
fifthmonarchyman,
Neither a beginning to the universe nor dark matter have anything to do with any convictions I have re: my sensory perceptions, Captain Rhetorical. Try again.
fifthmonarchyman,
I dare say, but in the case under discussion, Pre-Wombats and Wombats are indistinguishable.
Guano.
Can you give an example of species X giving birth to species Y?
They stay where you put them, right?
fifthmonarchyman,
Yes, you’ve said that before, and it’s bullshit. As I illustrated, the only way you can assume a ‘centred set’ is by pretending it has no boundary. Pre-Wombats are in one ‘centred set’. Wombats are in another. The Wombat child of Pre-Wombat parents is in the Wombat set. The hybrid offspring of a Wombat and a Pre-Wombat are in … er …
And this is a perfect example of why you don’t get science.
The evidence suggests that the universe had a beginning.
The evidence suggests that dark matter, or something like it, exists.
They were not “invented” to avoid having to admit that god exists. Science does not care about god. It follows the evidence where it leads.
That in your mind these things were invented to avoid involving god does not make them true. It just makes you ignorant of much of the history of science.
fifthmonarchyman,
Yeah, why not? It’s not true anyway. Instances of new species arising in one generation are known. But in obligate sexual species, because of the mating thing (necessary for the lineage, not for the definition), it is theoretically impossible (eta – to go beyond one generation, at least).
So how do ‘new species’ arise in sexual lineages, according to ‘Darwinism’? erm … ummm … gradually.
Cool
What do you call the many individuals that exist between species one and species two? Do they belong to a particular species?
Is it species one or species two?
Please be precise in your answer.
peace
How is the evidence that dark matter exists different than the evidence that species exist? Please be specific. This is important.
peace
You have a jacked up idea of what I believe.
peace
When the first wombat is born, it could associate with pre wombats, but the relationship would be platonic.
possibly
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21677188-it-rare-new-animal-species-emerge-front-scientists-eyes
peace
Nope it would be inter-species breeding IOW hybridization,
Stuff like that happens all the time in the animal kingdom.
It has next to nothing to do with the existence of separate species.
peace
While at this point I would normally say that you seem to be arguing for naturalistic evolution, you’ll simply reply that nothing happens randomly and god willed it anyway. So you win, heads or tails.
So why don’t you simply stop arguing safe in the knowledge that your god controls all?
Oh? It was you that said
The purpose dark matter services is to explain some factual observations.
Why do you believe dark matter was proposed then?
What stuff like god creating the first animal of it’s kind? Yeah, happens all the time…
Each of those individuals would exist as a separate platonic species in the mind of your god, right?
That species exist is a “factual observation”. If you disagree please provide empirical evidence to support your claim.
peace
What is your definition of species?
Nope individuals are not species.
Species are groups of individuals that approximate one immaterial form. There are an infinite number of individual polygons but a smaller number of geometric forms that are approximated.
Earlier we have talked about the problem of induction and the problem of other minds this is the problem of the one and the many it’s related to the problem of species.
There are so many “problems” that exist in your worldview it’s hard to keep track.
peace
peace
Do you think lions and tigers are the same species? If they are different species what makes them different species since they are still interfertile?
fifthmonarchyman,
I think species are illusory. That is my precise answer. The ‘problem of intermediates’ is yours, based upon your insistence that they are real – that shading imperceptibly from one type to another is in some sense, at some point, crossing a ‘hard boundary’ in Gods’s mind.
fifthmonarchyman,
From the article:
You are invoking a hybrid to support your notion of ‘Platonic Essence’?
So if the First Wombat is identical to its parents, which are Pre-Wombats, in what ‘real’ sense is it different?
Yet your “worldview” offers nothing of any practical use to any of those “problems”.
If it did you could solve many long standing problems in science. But it does not and you can’t.
No, they are not. Humans decide what a species is defined as.
It might please you to imagine such, but “immaterial forms” are irrelevant. Occam’s razor I’m afraid. It’s an unneeded entity and as such should be discarded until it serves an actual purpose.
I think that one can be a realist about species without being an essentialist, let alone a Platonist.
Here’s one view: species are real in the same sense that sports teams are real. Manchester United is real, not fictional. It’s not a single individual, and it’s not always composed of the same individuals, but it’s a real entity. Species are real in the same sense, except that they weren’t invented. Teams don’t need to have precise, crystal-clear boundaries in order to count as real, and neither do species.
By contrast, higher taxa (genera, families, etc.) are probably not (in my view) real — they are convenient labels we attach to indicate degrees of similarity and difference between species.
Species are real in the sense that green and yellow are real colors.
But if you think of a gradual sweep of lightwave frequency, there is no point where green becomes yellow.
http://www.colorsontheweb.com/images/spectrum.jpg
The more interesting biological fact is that despite the appearance of periods of stasis in phenotypes, genotypes continue to evolve at a rather constant rate.
All speech is convenient labels. The pertinent question is whether the similarities and differences themselves are real on your view.
Do colours move from one to another the same way as species supposedly do? And what to make of the fact that no new colours are ever born, the full spectrum remains the same?
Sounds are not symbolic representations with rules for deciphering the meaning?
Have you ever been to a paint store, new colors appear all the time.
There are similarities and differences between any two living things.
The problem with taxa is that there are no discontinuities between generations.
Hybrids accentuate the problem. Even individuals that look quite different can occasionally mate and produce fertile offspring. But that is because their genetic differences are not as great as their appearance would indicate.
There’s an untended hybridization experiment going on right now, in which Wolves, dogs and coyotes have interbred to form a stable hybrid.
But the species boundaries were never very firm.
Sure. I mean, cladistics does describe real patterns! There are objective facts about which phenotypic traits and genetic sequences are more similar to others.
To be fair, the spectrum remains the spectrum.
How many different spectral colors are there, anyway? I keep forgetting.
no they are separate species
They are different species because the approximate different forms. Fertility or lack thereof is pretty much irrelevant.
Women are still humans before puberty and after menopause.
peace
So what about poodles and bulldogs?
That species are real is the universal default consensus of humanity. Any four year old can tell you that a lion is not the same as a tiger.
Yet another case of abandoning commonsense it’s getting to be quite a list.
again species are not bounded sets they are centered sets. There is no shading there are those organisms that approximate a particular form and those that don’t.
It’s a little like looking at a pile of rocks and picking out all the spheres. There is no impercepible shading and no intermediates there are only spheres and non-spheres.
No, there is a new niche and a new species is arising to fill it. The three way genetic ancestry of the coywolf are pretty much beside the point.
peace
You are not far from the kingdom 😉
Manchester United is real but it is not a materiel thing it exists in a mind(s).
The same goes for species.
Problems arise when we try to treat teams or species like they had materiel existence separate from minds.
Of course species were not invented they have always existed in the mind of a timeless God.
peace