- If yes, in what sense?
- If no, do you think that evolutionists claim that it is?
- If yes, why do you think this?
- If no, what the heck are we arguing about?
174 thoughts on “ID proponents: is Chance a Cause?”
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You have been very effective in giving me a strong distaste for such an idea.
But feel free to start a new topic. Maybe you will persuade me to change my mind.
Why should I? I can’t even remember what the proximate cause was.
I have said this on many occasions, Gregory. I am not, as I have said, a fan of “isms” and you should not, repeat NOT, now attribute a whole ream of views that you think are part of what you view as “atheism” to me. For example, I am still very sympathetic to theism, and indeed, it is only fairly recently that I stopped using the language of a “god model” so much as I used to. I still find many theistic concepts useful (prayer; the idea of a supra-human ideal based on compassion; the incarnation even; the trinity).
Conversly, what believed when I was a theist was discounted by many theists as atheism.
So make of that what you will. But I do not think there is an “afterlife” because I think that consciousness and volition depend on a material substrate. So that rules out most conceptions of “god”.
Therefore I am an atheist by that conception of “god”. If buddhists are atheists I am an atheist. If they aren’t, perhaps I’m not.
Perhaps when you’ve posted your post on isms, you will be able to put me in the appropriate box.
I’ve been around the nether regions of the internet so long I can’t read PoS without ahem misreading it….
Actually in this context it makes sense both ways.
Ayn Rand? That’s the only Russian-American “objectivist” I can think of, maybe because I don’t voluntarily associate with gangsters, thugs, Libertarians, or “objectivists”. But in any case, Ayn or not, your repeated needles jabbed in olegt’s direction about it are not appropriate here.
It’s not olegt’s fault if you have surrounded yourself with the paranoid fifth-rate academics who can barely find a home in the detritus of post-Soviet Eastern Europe.
Then please let yourself be reminded: http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=3724&cpage=2#comment-36582
O.k. I won’t. But that also won’t erase that you said you “are an atheist,” no matter what that means to you.
Why don’t you start a thread on that, Lizzie? It sounds interesting and difficult. Perhaps it might involve orthodoxy and heterodoxy? Dawkins also says he used to be a ‘theist,’ whatever that means to him.
I don’t get it. Are you saying you’re a British-Buddhist?
There’s no Creator-God in Buddhism.
Again to remind you; about 2 weeks ago, Lizzie, you wrote: “If you mean an atheist, I’m not.” http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=3665&cpage=1#comment-35724
That’s what I mean by relativism, whether cognitive and/or spiritual. Has something happened in the meantime?
On the encouraging side, I believe there’s a better way, Lizzie. A rock (sounds quite like a ‘material substrate’) upon which you can anchor your views/percepts/paradigms. It doesn’t mean absolute or forcing or something that can be ‘discounted’, rather something more like Matthew 11: 25-28.
Greg, you’re persistently off topic, bordering on cyber-stalking.
Start your own thread, those who care will show up. If you wont do this please have a deep period of introspection to work out why.
Rickie, have some respect. Use the name listed, don’t shorten it. Thanks.
Gregory, earn some respect. Start by starting that new thread. Otherwise it just looks like you’re an attention whore. Thanks
Most people consider quote-mining to be a form of lying. That’s why most people don’t do it and lose respect for those who do.
Let me explain something, Gregory. The presence of an equality sign is not a guarantee of an interesting mathematical structure.
Take Euler’s identity:
It has been called the most beautiful result in mathematics. Why?
Because it is an unexpected relation between the five most famous numbers in math: e, i ,
, 1, and 0. It’s like a good joke. A punchline.
Importantly, all of these numbers are defined outside of this identity. This identity unifies them in a very nontrivial way.
Your “equations” are the exact opposite of that. They identify previously undefined symbols with well-known terms. So A is understood as “scientific,” B as ideological,” and so on. There is nothing unexpected in this. No punchline. You merely tell the reader the story’s background. And the reader says: go on, Gregory?
Does that help?
You are correct, I mis-spoke there – I meant something like: if “Darwinist” means “atheist” than that’s not what I mean when I say I am one.
I didn’t mean I am not an atheist. I generally call myself a “pantheist” but that is “atheist” in most people’s lexicon.
I hope I have made myself clear now.
I’m British, but not a buddhist. But my conception of the world is not unlike the buddhist conception.
I know. That’s why I’m closer to buddhism than probably most other religious positions. And by “atheist” I do not mean I belong to some ideological category that subscribes to some thing “atheism”. I just don’t believe in the sort of god that most people who call them selves “theists” believe in – one that requires faith, and holds that consciousness and volition are possible without a material substrate.
So electromagnetism = IDEOLOGICAL and believers in electromagnetism = electromagnetists.
Physicists are ideologues who believe in the ideology of physicism.
And a therapist is an ideologue who believes in therapism.
A urologist is an ideologue who believes in urologism.
A typist is an ideologue who believes in typism.
A philatelist believes in philatelism.
Ok, I think I get it.
Richard to Greg:
Amen to that.
Yes! Keiths is a Richist! Keiths, I’m sorry I did that ‘homo’ limerick about you ;-). *high fives*
QFMFT
And I don’t care that Lizzie has already done Gregory the courtesy of saying she “mis-spoke” there. Actually, no, she didn’t misspeak there; the meaning was perfectly clear in context to everyone. I assume Gregory is intelligent and literate enough to be included among that “everyone”. I am at a loss to guess why he took that perfectly-clear statement about what “Darwinist” does NOT mean and now twists that statement to make Lizzie appear wrong/contradictory/changeable.
Lizzie is a saint to take that kind of misrepresentation in stride.
In fact, the presence of an equals sign is not a guarantee of any “mathematical” structure whatsoever. Nor even a logical structure, if you’re being expansive enough to include “logical” as part of “mathematical”.
Chalked on a sidewalk somewhere:
Ole + Lena = true love 4ever
That’s “Gregory”-level structure.
Am I a Richist or an anti-Gregist? The ideological ambiguity is killing me.
I think it is a mistake to think that a philosophy uniformed by the relevant science can give a complete picture of what the world could be. For example, someone once said that no such uninformed philosopher could have thought up quantum mechanics as a way the world could be.
In the context of an answer your question, consider the multiple worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics where all possibilities occur but only one is accessible to a single consciousness in a single history. There are physicists who argue that this is the case. How would you classify such a universe using a simple yes/no criteria for determinism? What could be a meaningful answer to the question of whether people would evolve again if everything was rewound?
I vaguely recall an article about a sociologist who created a scheme representing interactions between animals “mathematically”. A jaguar eating an anteater would be J=A^-1 or something like that.
JonF,
Yes, I agree science cannot say if the universe is determined or not. As Lizzie said, the error in our models make impossible to solve the question. When I, Lizzie or all of you say that chance is not a cause are making a metaphysical claim. Off course is you want you can say I do not know, the only thing that metaphysics require is stay coherent with your answers, if you do not know you can´t say chance it is not a cause.
In order to clarifie terminology:
If I have a controlled system in condition A and always get as result A, and when I change to condition B I get as result B, I said that the result A or B is “determined” by the initial conditions and the cause of that result are the physical laws.
Instead if I have the controlled system A and I get as result sometimes B, others A and others C, what do you say is the cause of the result A, B or C? How do you call that cause?
Note: I´m supposing that all the variables are controlled, no unknow variables, so Are exact the same intial condition for each study.
No, you’re wrong. We CAN say chance is not a “cause” because that’s true by definition. If we don’t know the actual cause of some event, we say we don’t know. We don’t incoherently say it was caused by triangles. Or caused by chance. By definition, chance is NOT an entity with causal powers.
What does it mean if you define the word “chance” to be some kind of force which could cause some effect? How do you imagine chance is doing its work in that case? What is the force which chance exerts on the material and how does it exert it, exactly? F = MA. What’s your math for chance as a causal force?
Think, Blas. Even you cannot imagine a way that chance could physically cause anything, so you should stop this incoherent questioning and admit that chance simply cannot be a “cause”.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/01/06/evolution-hidden-in-plain-sight/
Interesting stuff regarding mutations and enabling mutations , re: Lenski.
It looks like the action on this topic has moved to the discussion of on drift.
I think the answer to your concerns with evolution involves ideas in philosophy, science, and mathematics that were unknown to ancient Greek philosophers. I’m thinking of: levels of explanation in involving different sciences, using chance as a as proxy for causes at lower levels, and using stochastic models incorporating chance as scientific explanations. I don’t find it useful to try to force fit these ideas into Greek metaphysics.
At the lowest level, physics, if the MW interpretation is true, then the whole universe is deterministic whereas a particular history is subject to quantum chance. This too does not seem to be an either-or situation for chance/determinism.
There are very few metaphysics, may be less than the fingers in one hand, that are on the same level that ancient greeks metaphysics.
In science you can say whatever you want if fits the data, in metaphysics as is a matter of logic your options are very few deterministic or not. Because if you say both then it is not deterministic as chance is in the equation.
Off course, is what I´m saying. It is a metaphysical definition. Now if chance it is not a cause then the universe is deterministic and if we rewind the movie we will see exactlu the same events.
“What does it mean if you define the word “chance” to be some kind of force which could cause some effect?How do you imagine chance is doing its work in that case?What is the force which chance exerts on the material and how does it exert it, exactly?F = MA.What’s your math for chance as a causal force?”
Think, Blas.Even you cannot imagine a way that chance could physically cause anything, so you should stop this incoherent questioning and admit that chance simply cannot be a “cause”.
In order to clarifie terminology:
If I have a controlled system in condition A and always get as result A, and when I change to condition B I get as result B, I said that the result A or B is “determined” by the initial conditions and the cause of that result are the physical laws.
Instead if I have the controlled system A and I get as result sometimes B, others A and others C, what do you say is the cause of the result A, B or C? How do you call that cause?
Note: I´m supposing that all the variables are controlled, no unknow variables, so Are exact the same intial condition for each study.
So you type hundreds of words, and still not a single word which answers the question, Blas:
Still waiting, Blas.
So you type hundreds of words, and still not a single word which answers the question, Blas:
Still waiting, Blas.
I understand logic is to much for people blinded by darwinism. Try to understand hotshoe: If my methaphysics were not deterministic when I have a controlled system A and I get as result sometimes B, others A and others C, what do you say is the cause of the result A, B or C I would call chance the cause of that. I would not know how “chance” as you do not know how unknow variables produces stochastic process in your “deterministic” view of reality.
Now tell me if you have a the controlled system A and I get as result sometimes B, others A and others C, what do you say is the cause of the result A, B or C?
Still waiting.
GUANO
There’s no problem with just saying “I-don’t-know”.
Well, you can call it whatever you like, but that doesn’t mean you’re correct. You can call a “tail”a “leg” if you like, but that doesn’t mean a dog has 5 legs.
So you have no idea how “chance” could possibly be a causal force, but you’re happy to call it one anyways. Fine, your choice, but a dog still only has 4 legs no matter how happy you are to call its tail a “leg”.
What on gods’ green Earth leads you to assume that I have a deterministic view of reality ?!? Wrong, bizarre!y wrong.
I don’t know, Blas, what the cause(s) are, and it’s crazy for me to speculate about your unspecified thought experiment. The one thing we know for sure about “cause” is that it;s NOT your metaphysical tail, err, “chance”, because by definition chance cannot be a causal agent in the material word, since it’s not a material thing or a material force.
Unless you believe in the supernatural, spirits, Bona Fortuna, Stregheria, ghosts that go bump in the night …
Too bad you have to live with the dissatisfaction of not pinning down the “darwinists” to determinism.
Blas,
Pontius Pilate had free will, for God did not force him to betray Jesus, it was his choice. Yet Jesus was predestined to be betrayed and crucified for the good of mankind. Now rerun the universe a million times. Does Pontius Pilate ever remain faithful in all those trials? If No, then how was his will free? If Yes, then how was God’s plan followed?
Free will in the same existence as omniscience comes pretty close to A = not A.
Careful, petrushka, you’ll get yourself banned at UD for even thinking that A = not A. Don’t say it out loud, for gods’ sakes!
Too late. I was banned for life for mentioning quantum indeterminacy.
🙂
I have a question. What is the cause of the casino’s small but persistent edge in “games of chance”?
Free will in the same existence as omniscience comes pretty close to A = not A.
What you say is true for Luther, Calvin, and some modern Protestant sects who hold to a rigid view of predestination. Catholic theology disagrees.
hotshoe if you would read my comments you should reaize that I do not believe in chance. My point is that darwinists uses chance as cause.
That you “by definition” discard chance as a cause, then the unique metaphysical choice is determinism.
My unspecified thought experiment is the experiment proposed by Gould and repetead by darwinist many times also here at TSZ. If we rewind the movie we could not be here. If chance is not a cause how do you call what makes starting from the same initial point obtain diferents results?
As I explained before, I’m just trying that the opposite is true.
My amateur answer is, given the fall if not Pontius Pilate the decisions of any other would led to the dead of Jesus.
So is it fair to say that in your view (at least in regards to free will) God’s plan has fixed points which must be met but the path to get there is free to meander? God determined that Jesus be crucified, but his betrayers? Rerun the universe a million times and eventually each apostle has their turn in Judas’s shoes, and on Paul’s road to Damascus. And so the books of the Bible may be fixed in the lessons they teach, but not in their names, places, and events which are subject to change (chance).
Then your point is flat out wrong and you should stop repeating something that you’ve already been told is wrong, more times than I want to count. Just stop mis-representing what “darwinists” say!
Nope, you’re wrong; “chance” is not the unique alternative to “determinism”. You don’t get to make it so just by repeating it over and over. I’m not interested in giving you four years worth of university-level education, so you’ll have to use your own intelligence to escape from the straitjacket of black-and-white, either-or thinking that you’re stuck in right now.
Yes, we have no reason to think that humanity as we know it was inevitable on planet Earth, even assuming that life in general arose and evolved more or less along the same pathways due to the physical constraints of the Earthly environment. We have reason to think it’s possible that we could have been absent from the picture.
I already answered that; I only have to change a few words to make clear how my answer pertains to your Gould-tape-rewind:
You don’t seem willing to comprehend that the laws of physics — at least according to our best understanding now – state that we are prohibited from determining if you are starting from the exact “same initial point” — so your repeated question about “what if we start from the same initial point then why is the result different” is an incoherent question. It literally is senseless in the reality in which we actually live. It seems somehow to make sense to you in your imaginary experiment, but Gould, like us, lived in this reality which is contingent and non-repeatable except in broad outlines. Not “determinism”, not “chance”, just reality. It’s oh so simple. Just accept that it is what it is.
That’s an interesting idea!
Lizzie,
As clear as agnostic, skeptical mud.
Thanks for acknowledging that you wrote two different things. What you seem to mean is that you are both a ‘Darwinist’ (*if* that is a non-ideological term – which it isn’t) and an ‘atheist’ (though you don’t care if that is called ideological or not – but you don’t want any typical meanings of ‘atheist’ attached to what you *believe*). Either way you are flip-flopping and showing lack of coherence in your position, Lizzie, so it is really difficult to ‘know where you’re coming from’ (except for your fellow atheists here, who will claim it is quite obviously transparent and simple – you don’t believe in God and you believe there is no God).
The big question, Lizzie, is whether or not you see or acknowledge any connection at all between your acceptance of Darwinism and your atheism?
Well, you did recently in plain English say that you are not an atheist. Right? Any native English speaker and likely also most non-native English speakers who read what you wrote would conclude that. It does you credit now saying that you ‘mis-spoke’ and that you actually *ARE* (i.e. consider yourself to be) an atheist. Thanks.
What I don’t understand is why you seem to care so much what ‘most people’ say in their ‘lexicon,’ Lizzie. A ‘pantheist’ is *NOT* an ‘atheist’ by definition. Yes, by definition. Why do you confuse matters by so often saying maybe/maybe not? Why do you pretend to be a Buddhist when you are not? Is that what being ‘skeptical’ means to you?
Note the ‘theist’ in the term ‘pantheist.’ A pantheist is not an atheist. It just seems, Lizzie, like you don’t really know what you believe, but that you are content to revel in the past and declare yourself an ex-Catholic. And that’s o.k. too, because all of us are on journeys. KN has mentioned his worldview mess here at TSZ already, as did Nick Matzske when he visited recently.
But you actually do sound a lot like Dawkins, that ridiculous man, who wrote: “Pantheism is sexed-up Atheism.” Or Schopenhauer: “Pantheism is only a euphemism for atheism.” This is the company you seem to want to keep, Lizzie.
Please excuse, Lizzie, if I do give some credit to people who actually know what they believe and can express it clearly; it does make an important difference in the science, philosophy, theology/worldview conversation more broadly.
keiths, richardthughes, olegt, Mike Elzinga, JonF, BruceS, Patrick, Neil Rickert, petrushka, Alan Fox, flint, llanitedave, Rumracket, OMagain, Reciprocating Bill 2, robert van bakel, velikovskys, cubist, thorton, hotshoe, damitall2, Robin, Allan Miller, Joe Felsenstein, SeverskyP35, and you are all atheists. Is this in doubt? Indeed, the vast majority of people in your ‘club’ here at TSZ are either atheists or agnostics or simply irreverent. Please let us not kid ourselves what kinds of people ‘the skeptical zone’ attracts in terms of worldviews. You’re not deluding yourself about the unrepresentative high concentration of atheists participating here, are you Lizzie?
The theists can be counted on one or at most two hands (and the IDists here are certainly irregular ‘theists’ if they can even be called that). This is not unexpected given the blog’s founding mission as opposition to IDism. Atheists and IDists are quite often dancing partners after all!
That is simply false. Many theists are completely fine acknowledging the ‘material substrate.’ The main point, Lizzie, is we don’t limit ourselves only to that material substrate, like you and most Marxists do. We invest meaning in more than just materiality – that includes Abrahamic believers, Indigenous religions and other worldviews. If you want to get mad about reject dualistic theism as a cognitive ‘scientist,’ that’s your prerogative. But there are quite a large number of monistic theists, who do not ‘hold’ the position you generally ascribe to us. Maybe you just need to get out more, Lizzie, and explore the richness of faith and theology, taking an occasional break from your ‘cognition-consciousness’ studies? At least you can probably recognise vertical music when you hear it in your (more than just material substrate) ‘soul.’
If I understand you properly, you are saying that all of the philosophers who worked on metaphysics in the last 2500 years add very little to what the Greeks already did.
Also that, even though metaphysics could be defined as the study of what the world is actually like, metaphysics can ignore science and rely solely on contemplation and logic.
If that is your belief, then it is understandable that you and many of the posters here cannot seem to have a fruitful discussion.
Yes, I realise that it didn’t come out the way I meant. I’m glad you are clear now.
No, it’s not difficult at all, and I’m not “flip-flopping”. I flipped, once, about five years ago. No flop.
My lack of belief in what you would call a god has nothing to do with my position that Darwin’s theory has great explanatory power.
I am not, in other words a “Darwinist” in your ideological sense. But I’m a “Darwinist” in the sense that I am not, for instance, an IDer – I think Darwin’s theory is sound, not crap.
Gregory, if getting out more means meeting whiny self-congratulatory theists who spit onus without exposing their own beliefs to discussion or scrutiny, I think I’ll pass.
The day you tell us what it is you have that transcends mere materialism, I’ll listen, but I’ll not buy a pig in a poke.
I do think tha some theists, probably including you, have closed your eyes to the last 99 years of science and have no idea how rich and mysterious physics has become.
Off course darwinist deny beleive chance as a cause it makes them look poor sientist. The problem is thay do.
Please explain wich is the alternative. Or cite a phylosopher that give an alternative. KN for example choosed pantheism.
Ok that is your postion. Tell me wich is the cause that produces in the same situation one thing or other.
Yes I understand that, and I said many times here at TSZ. Science cannot say if the different results are due to “chance” , or whatever you want to call it, or different initial conditions. So the statement “chance” is not a fault by definition is a metaphysical one. In a metaphysical analysis we can immagine the same initial conditions but seems you are not interested.
Now if we never know if we are in the “same initial conditions” why you darwinist repeat with Gould that if we rewind the movie we could not be here? What tha frase means if we will never be sure to be in “the same initial conditions”?
We really from the scientific perspective we cannot know if we will be or not be here.
You know Bruce if you want to read something original, read the greeks.
This is interesant in this discussion. You cannot ignore science, but you have to be aware which are the limits of science. When Gould said the famous frase I quoted he moved from science to metaphysics. Because there is no scientific reason to say what he said, he said that asuming a metaphysical position.
The second consideration is that science is daughter of metaphysics, when everybody claimed chance it is not a cause made a metaphysical claim that will drive his science and his explanation of what they found using their science.
I definitely agree that the Greeks were amazingly original. But I also think there were many amazing, original people after them who added ideas that have to be used.
Here is my understanding of your argument.
1, Some biologists say that if we rewound the tape of history, humans might not evolve again.
2. Rewinding the tape of history means setting all the initial conditions to be the same.
3. If the initial conditions are the same, but the result is different, then you cannot use determinism as a cause.
4. The only other choice is chance.
5. Therefore biologists think chance caused humans.
I would describe things differently by appealing to levels of explanation in science and by saying that the word “chance” might be used differently at those different levels.
In this case, when the biologists say reset the initial conditions, I would take them as saying reset the initial conditions for the biological model: the environment, the species, the gene pool of the species, etc. And when biologists say rerun history, they mean rerun the stochastic model of evolution which includes chance effects (example, in this run, a predator by chance catches and eats an individual who had a mutation that was necessary for humanity).
The important thing for me is that, at this level of explanation, chance is meant epistemologically. It is not meant as a cause, only as a short form for causes which are outside the scope of the model. Furthermore, the ability of biological explanations to use chance that way makes them much more useful and better explanations for biology.
To look at causes ontologically, I think you need to use physics.
Now I can imagine someone saying: forget biology, instead reset the initial conditions of the universe according to physics and replay history of the universe using the explanations of physics. Note that to rely on physics, we have to look at the whole universe according to what it could be according to physics.
Then I think we just don’t know what will happen.
The first issue is that initial conditions must be specified in terms of quantum state. I don’t know enough about physics and the uncertainty principle to understand what that would mean in terms or your question. But suppose we can do it somehow.
As I understand it, if you accept the Copenhagen interpretation then the outcome is governed by chance and humans may not arise. I think that, in this case, the usual saying in physics (not biology) is that there is no cause, not that chance is a cause.
On the other hand, if you accept the multiple worlds interpretation, then the quantum state evolves deterministically and humans would arise in some histories and not others, which is exactly what happened in the first run through. Any questions about humans arising in “our history” would be meaningless.
So we are stuck because of the limits of our knowledge of physics. Further, I don’t think metaphysics can answer solely from logic and contemplation what physics cannot when it comes to questions about our universe.