4. The belief system of Creationists includes the existence of an all-powerful Creator who created the heavens and the earth and all living life. All things were created by Him, through Him and for Him.
I hope that fills in any gap in the logic previously posted.
Your 'origin' is but my intermediary stomping ground. I do not consider that an 'origin' in any sense of the word. If you want to talk about origins, then do so. If not, then please choose another word (and please inform the rest of your community including the author of TFA that origin is rather an 'endpoint' instead of an intermediary).
And about the anthropic principle that you seem to find so contemptible-- yes, the combination of factors we observe is unique and quite improbably, but the key to the anthropic principle which you seem to miss is that 'we observe it', i.e., sentience.
Why, in your view, is there a difference between plants and animals? Or is there? And, if there isn't, why is there anything such as morality of any sort governing the way we 'animals' treat each other? Why would a moral code evolve for animals, but not for plants?
Instead of taking my usual approach of replying to the extremist comments here on slashdot that inevitably rise to the top of the moderation system, I thought this time I would offer direct responses to TFA.
Evolution has been singled out for special ire by Discovery, as it provides an explanation for the origin of humanity based solely on natural processes.
There's two claims here-- 1. Evolution is singled out. 2. It is singled out because it offers an explanation for the origin of humanity based solely on natural processes.
On the first:
William Paley predated Darwin. And, certainly Creationists have not in the interim ceased 'preaching' the same message which has gone forth since before either of them.
And, the second:
Does evolution really offer an explanation for the origin of humanity based solely on natural processes? If you really believe that, then ask yourself two questions. 1 - Where did the original matter making up the primordial soup (or the infinitesimally small mass before the big bang) come from? and 2 - What about these natural laws that seem to govern the universe which make natural processes possible?
And, even if evolution did offer this explanation, it is solely a conjecture that rebuffing evolution is ID theorists' sole motive in advancing their theory.
Why should I continue any further? I typically stop reading articles after the first few errant statements, but in this case, two are enough. Why should I waste any more time on this?
Coincidently, mathematical self-replication was the thing that first got me interested in programming back in the 80's. Had Von Neuman been alive in 1970 I am sure he would have dropped his complicated replicator and tipped his hat to Conway's elegant answer to the problem.
It would be just an educated guess if I tried to answer your "big-eater" objection, but if you have a better theory than abiogenisis - I'm all ears.
The problem with Conway (and even von Neuman) though is that their artificial environments are overly simplified.
I do think there's enough specified complexity in 'life' to allow for the appropriate numbers to be crunched to determine the required amount of time for it to have evolved. Obviously, if that number is greater than even the most liberal estimates of the universe's age, then mainstream science should reconsider. I also think that design should not be excluded a priori with respect to the origin of life when it is a perfectly valid explanation in other fields (cryptography, forensics, etc).
If you bring the multiverse into play at this point, then yes mathematically speaking, it becomes much more possible (it's essentially bringing another degree of aleph [or infinity] into play). However, I still think that's quite a stretch (per Occam's razor) when there's a much more obvious answer (though personal beliefs and preconceptions can get in the way of seeing the obvious sometimes).
[although I seem to differ with Lucas here a little in that I believe that Godel's theorem may in fact limit the human mind the same way that it does machines--just on a different level. I've not made my mind up on this one yet, but even if I had, the conclusion is neither likely nor unlikely to be true and thus could not be trusted.:-)]
Name a few tangible, verifiable predictions that Intelligent Design makes besides just arguing that evolution isn't sufficient to explain X.
There is work being done to calculate specified complexities (and entropies) for systems and subsystems. Once this is done, then one could work out the math to determine the threshold between 'designed' and 'not-provably-designed' and test it on known quantities (i.e., designed and non-designed objects). One can also look at the entire field of forensics as a data point--we are pretty good at determining if deaths are accidental or 'designed' (and if designed, even 'who done it').
Your second "method of knowing" is great on its own, but what you forget is that it also has to be grounded in physical reality, otherwise you're just much adieu about nothing. One could come up with an incredibly complex, self-consistent logic set that doesn't mean anything because it's not based on anything in reality.
Incontrovertible axioms were assumed.
As for your third method of knowing, "spiritual senses, well, you just assert as much with nothing to back it up.
Yes, I agree that the existence of these senses is neither proved nor provable. That piece of knowledge I can only give from personal experience. YMMV.
Also, define "spiritual". And define "higher" as in higher truths. And how can you know there is knowledge and truth that we simply can't, no way, no how, discover if we.... can't discover it?
I was using spiritual, higher, and meta-physical interchangeably (though there are subtle distinctions). You need to fully understand Godel's theorem and the philosophical implications of it before you'll understand how I 'know' this truth exists. But, suffice it to say that the piece of knowledge which says that 'we can't know some things' happens to be one of the pieces of knowledge that we can 'know'.;-)
and specifically this quote is rather interesting:
"If truth can outrun provability, reality can outrun knowledge."
[although, I would modify it a bit to:
As truth outruns provability, so reality outruns knowledge].
If you want to understand the math before diving into the philosophy, I'd recommend Nagel's & Newman's _Godel's Proof_.
Calling Secular Humanism a religion is at best a bastardization of the meaning of the word religion. Despite popular claims, the Supreme Court never ruled that secular humanism is a religion. It was only stated as such in a dicta footnote, which is not a binding rule. By its very nature, the secular in secular humanism makes it pretty obvious that it isn't a religion..
Re:Exactly. HP PA-RISC vs. 21364 Alpha vs. UltraSP
on
The Supercomputer Race
·
· Score: 1
Way to clarify that for the AC out in left field!!
[His plug for Transmeta was complete OT, but you managed to use it as a legitimate 'question'.] Congrats!;-)
This needs encapsulated, or better versioned DLL's.
In the MS world, the SXS (side-by-side), MSM (merge modules) and App Manifest combo is supposed to take care of this situation for native code (and for managed, it's never really been a problem with SXS and GAC supplying local and global respectively). [As always with MS, nomenclature confuses things more than need be, and it's definitely a lot better than it used to be, but still no magic bullet].
Yea, but one of these primitive types which simply eats monomers at a very high rate will 'dominate' the primitive type that you happen on by chance because, though it can self-replicate, it is not as big as the others (let's call them binge eaters).
And, if you think that self-replication is easy to come by, you should take a look at what von Neuman came up with in the unrestricted world of mathematics (an entirely intellectual environment unrestrained by the laws of physics). The minimal machine he came up with has something like 200-300 moving parts (there are several variables though--width of instruction set being the most important I would presume).
Anyways, I'm sure the numbers could be crunched to find out just how many iterations it would take (and I'm betting the number is astronomical), but the simple fact remains that a brute-force [i.e., dumb] eater is going to dominate the intelligent self-replicator [at least until such time as the self-replicator can also be a brute-force eater].
Vesicles seem a little more organized than have arisen by chance (and I'm no chemist or microbiologist so I could be wrong about this, but lipids themselves seem to be fairly complex molecules).
Nothing about the animations of nucleotide polymers indicated any self-replication. [That's quite a gap to just gloss over like that]. Self-replication is more than just 'growing' by assimilating new monomers. Self-replication requires nearly verbatim information preservation between generations.
Yea, but I think that modern man prefers a timepiece that that is precise to a little smaller than 5 minute granules!! What about all of those minutes and seconds in between?! If we were to calculate the precision of this clock across all seconds (let alone tenths of seconds), it would be woefully low (as a percentage).
In fact, here's a quick calculation to the second:
1 / (5 * 60) = 0.333%
and to the tenth of a second:
1 / (5 * 60 * 10) = 0.0333%
I wouldn't exactly call that precise or useful for anything other than a wall clock.
That's definitely not what he's after. He's trying to reuse operating system dynamic libraries between host and guest OS instances.
Thinapp allows running applications without installing. And, these apps have side-by-side installation of important OS dynamic libraries (so as to avoid DLL hell) which means more copies of DLLs, not less.
The question is whether virtuozzo allows sharing dynamic libraries between the host and guest OS's. [And, I'd be interested in the answer too].
So, are you saying that because we are ordered creatures (i.e., composed of highly specified and complex parts), we are pre-disposed to recognizing order in the universe? What should the order of a mind have to do with what the mind 'thinks' about? Couldn't it possibly be the operation of a 'soul' beyond the material bits of the mind?
No, goose = ID, gander = secular humanism. If ID is religion and should be excluded from science classrooms, then secular humanism should be too (though I don't concede that ID is religion as it makes tangible verifiable predictions and offers fitting theories and corollaries).
One mode of knowing is to directly measure. The other is to produce a formalized system of logic starting from certain axioms and leading to certain conclusions (all of science utilizes this technique extensively). Philosophy is based on this formal logic and although this is also an essential part of science, design is excluded a priori as a possible conclusion on the query of the origin of life. That's short circuiting the process and it's not beneficial.
The really unintuitive (at least to me) thing about systems of formal logic though is that they cannot be both complete and consistent (per Godel's theorems (see Fn. 1 below)). i.e., There is knowledge and truth that is simply not possible for rational minds (or machines) to discover (--or-- reality outruns knowledge). The mere existence of these higher truths raises obvious questions about eternity and the universe (and the metaverse or the supernatural realm). Just how does this higher truth exist if there isn't a higher power?
So, that leads me to the third mode of knowing--spiritual senses. We all also have spiritual senses although we don't all recognize it.
Fn. 1 - These theorems literally shook up the entire world of mathematics--everyone was surprised by Godel's work so their unintuitive (and somewhat countercultural) nature should still surprise most (if not all) students today.
Yes, I think you're exactly right. I did not even take my first programming course until freshman year of college and it was in C++. It was a couple of programs into the course before I realized that there was a strict top-down ordering of instructions (I know, in retrospect, this seems rather obvious). But, I was looking at loops and function calls as simply transformations (and the programs were so simple that they could be re-ordered without a problem).
It seems to me that functional programming is actually more intuitive, not less (especially since we teach mathematics for many years before we start teaching programming [or at least we did before computers became so ubiquitous]).
It's also a lot like using a stack-based calculator like the HP-48G. It's so much easier!
The specified complexity of the Haskell code is much higher than that of the Java suggestion. Anyone could wrap some logic in a function and call it from any other language, but what matters is the actual logic inside (which would be completed encapsulated in the Java version).
[This is essentially the same problem as SLOC count comparisons between languages]. There's no question Java is way more verbose, and I suppose even the most complicated program could be expressed in two lines if we allow arbitrary library usage:
#import UberLib
class Main{
public static void main(){ UberLib.doSomethingFabulouslyComplex(); } }
Slashdot Mirror
Not to mention the judges. How exactly do you go about pissing a judge anyway?
Of course, I left one axiom out:
4. The belief system of Creationists includes the existence of an all-powerful Creator who created the heavens and the earth and all living life. All things were created by Him, through Him and for Him.
I hope that fills in any gap in the logic previously posted.
P.S. Since you seem to be a fan of logic, let's go through a few inferences here starting with these numbered axioms.
1. TFA said that ID theorists single out evolution because it 'explains the origin of the human species in terms of natural processes.
2. ID Theorists are by most all accounts Creationists and religious followers of Christ (and to a lesser extent other 'gods').
3. People single things out because they consider them threats to their way of life or belief systems or pride or anything else 'selfish'.
Ok, now, I hope I haven't lost you up to this point (and you, being the bright one you are, probably already see the inference I'm about to make).
Conclusion: ID Theorists are attacking evolution because it is a threat to their belief system.
Now, another axiom (thanks to your astute post):
1. Evolution doesn't actually explain the 'origin' of anything, only its change over time.
Wait!!! Hold on a second. Why would these Creationists feel so threatened by something that doesn't threaten their belief system?!? I'm confused.
Your 'origin' is but my intermediary stomping ground. I do not consider that an 'origin' in any sense of the word. If you want to talk about origins, then do so. If not, then please choose another word (and please inform the rest of your community including the author of TFA that origin is rather an 'endpoint' instead of an intermediary).
And about the anthropic principle that you seem to find so contemptible-- yes, the combination of factors we observe is unique and quite improbably, but the key to the anthropic principle which you seem to miss is that 'we observe it', i.e., sentience.
Why, in your view, is there a difference between plants and animals? Or is there? And, if there isn't, why is there anything such as morality of any sort governing the way we 'animals' treat each other? Why would a moral code evolve for animals, but not for plants?
Evolution has been singled out for special ire by Discovery, as it provides an explanation for the origin of humanity based solely on natural processes.
There's two claims here-- 1. Evolution is singled out. 2. It is singled out because it offers an explanation for the origin of humanity based solely on natural processes.
On the first:
William Paley predated Darwin. And, certainly Creationists have not in the interim ceased 'preaching' the same message which has gone forth since before either of them.
And, the second:
Does evolution really offer an explanation for the origin of humanity based solely on natural processes? If you really believe that, then ask yourself two questions. 1 - Where did the original matter making up the primordial soup (or the infinitesimally small mass before the big bang) come from? and 2 - What about these natural laws that seem to govern the universe which make natural processes possible?
And, even if evolution did offer this explanation, it is solely a conjecture that rebuffing evolution is ID theorists' sole motive in advancing their theory.
Why should I continue any further? I typically stop reading articles after the first few errant statements, but in this case, two are enough. Why should I waste any more time on this?
Just how big is this bar you have to piss? Is it kind like a kidney stone?
Isn't it also safe to say that today is the first day of the year of the linux desktop?
Coincidently, mathematical self-replication was the thing that first got me interested in programming back in the 80's. Had Von Neuman been alive in 1970 I am sure he would have dropped his complicated replicator and tipped his hat to Conway's elegant answer to the problem.
It would be just an educated guess if I tried to answer your "big-eater" objection, but if you have a better theory than abiogenisis - I'm all ears.
The problem with Conway (and even von Neuman) though is that their artificial environments are overly simplified.
I do think there's enough specified complexity in 'life' to allow for the appropriate numbers to be crunched to determine the required amount of time for it to have evolved. Obviously, if that number is greater than even the most liberal estimates of the universe's age, then mainstream science should reconsider. I also think that design should not be excluded a priori with respect to the origin of life when it is a perfectly valid explanation in other fields (cryptography, forensics, etc).
If you bring the multiverse into play at this point, then yes mathematically speaking, it becomes much more possible (it's essentially bringing another degree of aleph [or infinity] into play). However, I still think that's quite a stretch (per Occam's razor) when there's a much more obvious answer (though personal beliefs and preconceptions can get in the way of seeing the obvious sometimes).
P.S. Since you seem to be a big fan of Kurzweil, you may also appreciate this:
:-)]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minds,_Machines_and_GÃdel http://users.ox.ac.uk/~jrlucas/mmg.html
[although I seem to differ with Lucas here a little in that I believe that Godel's theorem may in fact limit the human mind the same way that it does machines--just on a different level. I've not made my mind up on this one yet, but even if I had, the conclusion is neither likely nor unlikely to be true and thus could not be trusted.
Name a few tangible, verifiable predictions that Intelligent Design makes besides just arguing that evolution isn't sufficient to explain X.
There is work being done to calculate specified complexities (and entropies) for systems and subsystems. Once this is done, then one could work out the math to determine the threshold between 'designed' and 'not-provably-designed' and test it on known quantities (i.e., designed and non-designed objects). One can also look at the entire field of forensics as a data point--we are pretty good at determining if deaths are accidental or 'designed' (and if designed, even 'who done it').
Your second "method of knowing" is great on its own, but what you forget is that it also has to be grounded in physical reality, otherwise you're just much adieu about nothing. One could come up with an incredibly complex, self-consistent logic set that doesn't mean anything because it's not based on anything in reality.
Incontrovertible axioms were assumed.
As for your third method of knowing, "spiritual senses, well, you just assert as much with nothing to back it up.
Yes, I agree that the existence of these senses is neither proved nor provable. That piece of knowledge I can only give from personal experience. YMMV.
Also, define "spiritual". And define "higher" as in higher truths. And how can you know there is knowledge and truth that we simply can't, no way, no how, discover if we.... can't discover it?
I was using spiritual, higher, and meta-physical interchangeably (though there are subtle distinctions). You need to fully understand Godel's theorem and the philosophical implications of it before you'll understand how I 'know' this truth exists. But, suffice it to say that the piece of knowledge which says that 'we can't know some things' happens to be one of the pieces of knowledge that we can 'know'. ;-)
See:
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~jrlucas/Godel/implic.html
and specifically this quote is rather interesting:
"If truth can outrun provability, reality can outrun knowledge."
[although, I would modify it a bit to: As truth outruns provability, so reality outruns knowledge].
If you want to understand the math before diving into the philosophy, I'd recommend Nagel's & Newman's _Godel's Proof_.
Calling Secular Humanism a religion is at best a bastardization of the meaning of the word religion. Despite popular claims, the Supreme Court never ruled that secular humanism is a religion. It was only stated as such in a dicta footnote, which is not a binding rule. By its very nature, the secular in secular humanism makes it pretty obvious that it isn't a religion..
Well, it certainly fits the 4th definition given here (if not any of the first 3): http://www.answers.com/religion
and has very well-defined 'tenets' (i.e., doctrine).
I second that!
Way to clarify that for the AC out in left field!! [His plug for Transmeta was complete OT, but you managed to use it as a legitimate 'question'.] Congrats! ;-)
This needs encapsulated, or better versioned DLL's.
In the MS world, the SXS (side-by-side), MSM (merge modules) and App Manifest combo is supposed to take care of this situation for native code (and for managed, it's never really been a problem with SXS and GAC supplying local and global respectively). [As always with MS, nomenclature confuses things more than need be, and it's definitely a lot better than it used to be, but still no magic bullet].
Yea, but one of these primitive types which simply eats monomers at a very high rate will 'dominate' the primitive type that you happen on by chance because, though it can self-replicate, it is not as big as the others (let's call them binge eaters).
And, if you think that self-replication is easy to come by, you should take a look at what von Neuman came up with in the unrestricted world of mathematics (an entirely intellectual environment unrestrained by the laws of physics). The minimal machine he came up with has something like 200-300 moving parts (there are several variables though--width of instruction set being the most important I would presume).
Anyways, I'm sure the numbers could be crunched to find out just how many iterations it would take (and I'm betting the number is astronomical), but the simple fact remains that a brute-force [i.e., dumb] eater is going to dominate the intelligent self-replicator [at least until such time as the self-replicator can also be a brute-force eater].
Yea, but I think that modern man prefers a timepiece that that is precise to a little smaller than 5 minute granules!! What about all of those minutes and seconds in between?! If we were to calculate the precision of this clock across all seconds (let alone tenths of seconds), it would be woefully low (as a percentage).
In fact, here's a quick calculation to the second: 1 / (5 * 60) = 0.333%
and to the tenth of a second: 1 / (5 * 60 * 10) = 0.0333%
I wouldn't exactly call that precise or useful for anything other than a wall clock.
That's definitely not what he's after. He's trying to reuse operating system dynamic libraries between host and guest OS instances.
Thinapp allows running applications without installing. And, these apps have side-by-side installation of important OS dynamic libraries (so as to avoid DLL hell) which means more copies of DLLs, not less.
The question is whether virtuozzo allows sharing dynamic libraries between the host and guest OS's. [And, I'd be interested in the answer too].
IT can't be that accurate. TFA says that it only tells time right every 5 minutes!!
So, are you saying that because we are ordered creatures (i.e., composed of highly specified and complex parts), we are pre-disposed to recognizing order in the universe? What should the order of a mind have to do with what the mind 'thinks' about? Couldn't it possibly be the operation of a 'soul' beyond the material bits of the mind?
No, goose = ID, gander = secular humanism. If ID is religion and should be excluded from science classrooms, then secular humanism should be too (though I don't concede that ID is religion as it makes tangible verifiable predictions and offers fitting theories and corollaries).
One mode of knowing is to directly measure. The other is to produce a formalized system of logic starting from certain axioms and leading to certain conclusions (all of science utilizes this technique extensively). Philosophy is based on this formal logic and although this is also an essential part of science, design is excluded a priori as a possible conclusion on the query of the origin of life. That's short circuiting the process and it's not beneficial.
The really unintuitive (at least to me) thing about systems of formal logic though is that they cannot be both complete and consistent (per Godel's theorems (see Fn. 1 below)). i.e., There is knowledge and truth that is simply not possible for rational minds (or machines) to discover (--or-- reality outruns knowledge). The mere existence of these higher truths raises obvious questions about eternity and the universe (and the metaverse or the supernatural realm). Just how does this higher truth exist if there isn't a higher power?
So, that leads me to the third mode of knowing--spiritual senses. We all also have spiritual senses although we don't all recognize it.
Fn. 1 - These theorems literally shook up the entire world of mathematics--everyone was surprised by Godel's work so their unintuitive (and somewhat countercultural) nature should still surprise most (if not all) students today.
Exactly. And, everyone does come from a background in math. After all, it is a required course for many years before students start a CS degree.
Yes, I think you're exactly right. I did not even take my first programming course until freshman year of college and it was in C++. It was a couple of programs into the course before I realized that there was a strict top-down ordering of instructions (I know, in retrospect, this seems rather obvious). But, I was looking at loops and function calls as simply transformations (and the programs were so simple that they could be re-ordered without a problem).
It seems to me that functional programming is actually more intuitive, not less (especially since we teach mathematics for many years before we start teaching programming [or at least we did before computers became so ubiquitous]).
It's also a lot like using a stack-based calculator like the HP-48G. It's so much easier!
Well said (on all points)!!
Mod parent up!
The specified complexity of the Haskell code is much higher than that of the Java suggestion. Anyone could wrap some logic in a function and call it from any other language, but what matters is the actual logic inside (which would be completed encapsulated in the Java version).
[This is essentially the same problem as SLOC count comparisons between languages]. There's no question Java is way more verbose, and I suppose even the most complicated program could be expressed in two lines if we allow arbitrary library usage:
#import UberLib
class Main{
public static void main(){ UberLib.doSomethingFabulouslyComplex(); } }