Evolution/creation: the underlying dilemma; explaining order

[Robert]

What exactly do you mean by order? Do you mean, for example, the fact that pi is universally the answer to dividing a circle's diameter into its circumference?

Yeah, why is that? No matter the diameter of the circle, the ratio is always the same. That's ordered, a form of order at least, so how do you account for this particular existence in the universe?

[Carl G]

When it comes down to it, most of you don't know,

Which posters, then, do you think do know? For starters.

You? Do you know?

What knowledge, specifically, do you believe most of us lack?

[IJesusChrist]

I know when I do know, and admit that as such.

If I am not sure, I do not try to construct logic that would somehow make my uneducated and unintellectual reasoning fact, nor do I try to take away another person's idea if I do not know.

Some of the posts are so blatantly typed as if the author has complete confidence in what s/he is stating, yet there is no possible way s/he knows. So why post this... lie?

You picked out only a part of my post, and the one I really did't intend to be the purpose of the post;

Alot of these posts answer nothing, and construct little.

[IJesusChrist]

Yeah, why is that? No matter the diameter of the circle, the ratio is always the same. That's ordered, a form of order at least, so how do you account for this particular existence in the universe?

Robert, you're missing the forest through the trees. I've heard this arguement many times - its the only way it can be. It's the very fundamental way the geometry in our universe works. It's mystical for a while, but it really isn't a "clue" to anything greater than the fundamental ratio that it is!

Geometry is geometry, it's always going to be geometry in this universe.

[Jamesh]

No matter the diameter of the circle, the ratio is always the same. That's ordered, a form of order at least, so how do you account for this particular existence in the universe?

Just as no true 1's exist in the physical universe nor do perfect circles or lines so Pi does not commonly exist in nature. As Pi would be some form of average ratio for those things closest to a circular shape, the ratio may sort of exist coincidently and fleetingly - though how one would deal with the curvature of the outermost atoms, or quarks or strings would make for a complex calculation.

I guess as there can be only 1 totality, then Pi could also exist on an overall universe basis. Pi is seemingly an infinite ratio, and not 100% definable using numbers.

Pi is certainly a clue to the relationship between how time manifests as curved space, and time's expansionary speed. This curvature of space is the penultimate underlying "form" of all things, as it provides for spatial differentiation.

[IJesusChrist]

Pi is seemingly an infinite ratio, and not 100% definable using numbers.

Just use base pi number system, then pi is exactly 1. It does have some significance - but it's really not as magical as people claim it to be. But I guess you can say that about anything.

[Jason]

Essentially, as I understand it, the anthropic principle argument is that: the universe must have the particular order/laws/characteristics that it has, or else we humans would not exist as we do, and thus we would not be able to ask the question of why the universe has the particular order/laws/characteristics it has in the first place. Amongst other things, it's an argument against assigning inherent specialness/significance to the specific manifestation of the universe(including conscious reflective beings) that exists.

I'm still not seeing much more than tautological reasoning that doesn't get beyond the superficial. Yes, since we are here, the universe must be capable of supporting us. Well... obviously. That doesn't explain why both circumstances obtain.

Sure, but part of your original argument and definition of order, was that said order led to the creation of self-reflecting beings. This(the existence of self-reflecting beings), you suggested(from memory), was one way to differentiate order from disorder(given that such differentiations may appear to be largely subjective.) You seemed to think that the existence of self-reflecting beings gave a deeper significance and objectivity to the order of the universe. Because of these arguments you made, I thought the anthropic principle(as it applies to self-reflecting beings) was a meaningful argument.

Ummmm, they're the fundamental laws of the universe, the universe was built using them, so wouldn't you expect them to have no exceptions, and wouldn't you expect them to perfectly reflect reality? I'm not sure I see your point....

From whatever experience you have programming computers, you might agree that some collections of "fundamental laws" (e.g. the primitive operations supported by the microprocessor, and/or the primitive operations supported by the operating system, if any) are more elegant than others. Sometimes it seems like some operations are "workarounds" to the poor design both of other operations and of the collection as a whole - that's kind of analogous to my "exceptions" in the rules of the universe.

I do understand you, and I do see elegance in many of these things, I'm just trying to provide some counterarguments. Again, I think elegance is quite subjective, and also imagine that there may be a huge number of algorithms and laws that appear elegant to me. Maybe there could be other amazing universes generated from just as elegant-appearing, but different, laws; and maybe ugly inelegant "work-around" laws could create amazing alternate universes too. Maybe our universe having apparently elegant laws is down to a combination of chance and subjectivity.

Jason: Here I could refer back to the anthropic principle. Is it inherently special when you roll a 6 on a die? From a probabilistic point of view 1,2,3,4 and 5 are just as likely to occur. Just as probabilistically, "an entity capable of reflecting upon the universe" may be just one of a billion possibilities, and only appears special when it occurs because you are such an entity yourself.

I'm not quite sure how to respond to this. I sense a lack of personal consistency. From what I know of you as a human being, you have a high degree of awe for the possibilities granted by and to conscious human life, and yet with this argument you seem to dismiss and deny that awe, and diminish and relegate our consciousness to "just one of a billion possibilities".

Again, I'm putting forth challenges and arguments and questions here for you. I'm not all that invested in this line of inquiry, and I haven't been trying to explain my own personal take on these things.

Now, as far as your above response - perhaps rather than seeing what I am saying as a relegation of our consciousness, it may be that I have imagined these other billion possible alternate universes as sustaining just as wonderful phenomena as this universe does. If that were the case, then I think it would be quite justified to ask why we should consider our particular one in a billion universe(as amazing as it may be), to be any more special than the other amazing possible universes. In that light, I'm suggesting that you could see your championing of self-reflective beings and this particular universe, as a sort of narcissism and chauvinism.

I could respond in other more analytical ways, but they don't seem to be as appropriate or effective.

Like I said, I'm just exploring these issues, trying to challenge you. If you just want to settle on my actual current stance, then "god of the gaps" and "unwarranted overreaching speculation" is a pretty accurate generalization of how I see your intelligent design arguments. I don't absolutely dogmatically hold that there is no intelligent designer, but my knowledge of modern science suggests that there is no current evidence or reason to assume the existence of one. Further, trying to explain the complexity and order of the the universe by invoking an intelligent designer which is itself complex and ordered seems nonsensical to me - it doesn't solve the problem at all, it just moves the problem back to the designer.

Well, all those judging what is noise/music and elegant/inelegant are likely going to be human with relatively very similar experiences(compared to the silicon beings of Rigel 8.) Perhaps any chance of arbitrariness has already been largely eliminated simply by the non-arbitrary choice/availability of judges.

Will your judgment of the quality of consciousness of the silicon beings of Rigel 8 be arbitrary?

Yep.

Maybe you wouldn't perceive those other outcomes as "ordered"(due to your carbon-specific water-centric gravity-well-oriented temporally-limited existence) and so not make your puny "demands" for explanation. :)

Maybe not, but if not, then it would simply be due to my ignorance.

Hmmmm, that seems to imply the existence of some absolute measure and existence of "order." Perhaps instead of it being down to your ignorance, it could be said to be down to your configuration?

Do you think an intelligent designer could be successfully incorporated into scientific cosmology?

That's the million dollar question. I think that certainly the God of deism could easily be incorporated into (what I know of) scientific cosmology: as the first cause that initiates the Big Bang. As for an interventionist God - that's a more difficult question: I think that an equally difficult (and interesting) question is whether mainstream scientific consensus successfully accounts for the synchronicity of life.

What do you mean by synchronicity of life?

[1456200423]

Fig 1
Fig 2
Fig 3
http://www.panspermia.org/intro.htm

[guest_of_logic]

guest_of_logic: What exactly do you mean by order? Do you mean, for example, the fact that pi is universally the answer to dividing a circle's diameter into its circumference?

Robert: Yeah, why is that? No matter the diameter of the circle, the ratio is always the same. That's ordered, a form of order at least, so how do you account for this particular existence in the universe?

I really don't know why it is. If I did know, I would probably be well on my way to answering the other questions at issue in this thread. It's tempting on the one hand to say, as IJesusChrist does, that it simply could be no other way: that this is just the way that reality has to work. It's tempting on the other hand to say, in a manner similar to those who advocate the Transcendental Argument for God, that mathematical and logical features of reality could have been otherwise and that they are the way that they are due to the authorship of a transcendent mind.

What do you reckon?

[guest_of_logic]

guest_of_logic: I'm still not seeing much more than tautological reasoning that doesn't get beyond the superficial. Yes, since we are here, the universe must be capable of supporting us. Well... obviously. That doesn't explain why both circumstances obtain.

Jason: Sure, but part of your original argument and definition of order, was that said order led to the creation of self-reflecting beings. This(the existence of self-reflecting beings), you suggested(from memory), was one way to differentiate order from disorder(given that such differentiations may appear to be largely subjective.) You seemed to think that the existence of self-reflecting beings gave a deeper significance and objectivity to the order of the universe. Because of these arguments you made, I thought the anthropic principle(as it applies to self-reflecting beings) was a meaningful argument.

Oh, well, I still can't see the relevance. I was simply describing a degree of order with reference to reflectively conscious beings - the anthropic principle merely explains that for reflectively conscious beings to exist in the first place, that degree of order must exist, but it doesn't explain that order in and of itself: it's a relative and insufficient explanation, not an absolute and/or sufficient one.

I do understand you, and I do see elegance in many of these things, I'm just trying to provide some counterarguments.

Fair enough - everybody needs a devil's advocate.

Again, I think elegance is quite subjective, and also imagine that there may be a huge number of algorithms and laws that appear elegant to me. Maybe there could be other amazing universes generated from just as elegant-appearing, but different, laws; and maybe ugly inelegant "work-around" laws could create amazing alternate universes too. Maybe our universe having apparently elegant laws is down to a combination of chance and subjectivity.

Up until the last sentence I was with you - in response to those preceding sentences: yes, and again, the elegance and order of those other universes would, just like ours, demand explanation. As for the last sentence, I suppose it's possible, but really ... elegance by chance? Fat chance, I reckon.

Now, as far as your above response - perhaps rather than seeing what I am saying as a relegation of our consciousness, it may be that I have imagined these other billion possible alternate universes as sustaining just as wonderful phenomena as this universe does. If that were the case, then I think it would be quite justified to ask why we should consider our particular one in a billion universe(as amazing as it may be), to be any more special than the other amazing possible universes. In that light, I'm suggesting that you could see your championing of self-reflective beings and this particular universe, as a sort of narcissism and chauvinism.

Oh, but I don't deny the possibility of even more amazing universes than this one, I'm just saying that yes, whilst order is to some extent a subjective judgement, and whilst even greater order might be possible, order that supports reflective consciousness is order of an extent that can't be simply ignored or dismissed without explanation.

trying to explain the complexity and order of the the universe by invoking an intelligent designer which is itself complex and ordered seems nonsensical to me - it doesn't solve the problem at all, it just moves the problem back to the designer.

Yes, as you know I'm already aware of that problem, but the alternative is just as problematic: all of this order unexplained.

Jason: Well, all those judging what is noise/music and elegant/inelegant are likely going to be human with relatively very similar experiences(compared to the silicon beings of Rigel 8.) Perhaps any chance of arbitrariness has already been largely eliminated simply by the non-arbitrary choice/availability of judges.

guest_of_logic: Will your judgment of the quality of consciousness of the silicon beings of Rigel 8 be arbitrary?

Jason: Yep.

So where's the boundary between an arbitrary and a non-arbitrary judgement? Is it non-arbitrary to judge whether one of the silicon beings of Rigel 8 is asleep or awake (assuming scientific knowledge of their minds)?

Jason: Maybe you wouldn't perceive those other outcomes as "ordered"(due to your carbon-specific water-centric gravity-well-oriented temporally-limited existence) and so not make your puny "demands" for explanation. :)

guest_of_logic: Maybe not, but if not, then it would simply be due to my ignorance.

Jason: Hmmmm, that seems to imply the existence of some absolute measure and existence of "order." Perhaps instead of it being down to your ignorance, it could be said to be down to your configuration?

Oh, but your original quote was (italics mine): "Other laws might lead to other equally interesting outcomes". Laws are a form of order, and my ignorance of those laws wouldn't alter the fact that they existed, and that order "equal" to that of this universe existed, which would demand an explanation despite that in my ignorance I personally wouldn't see the need for one.

What do you mean by synchronicity of life?

I mean the way life has a habit of "working out" in certain inter-related ways. Those little (and big) "coincidences" that speak to us; that lead us in certain directions; or that simply delight, amuse and puzzle us. And to preempt the typical response, I'll add this: those who want to believe that the sample space of life is large enough that blind chance explains all "coincidences" are free to believe that, and I won't harass them over it; hopefully they'll extend me the same courtesy.

[Robert]

guest_of_logic: What exactly do you mean by order? Do you mean, for example, the fact that pi is universally the answer to dividing a circle's diameter into its circumference?

Robert: Yeah, why is that? No matter the diameter of the circle, the ratio is always the same. That's ordered, a form of order at least, so how do you account for this particular existence in the universe?

I really don't know why it is. If I did know, I would probably be well on my way to answering the other questions at issue in this thread. It's tempting on the one hand to say, as IJesusChrist does, that it simply could be no other way: that this is just the way that reality has to work. It's tempting on the other hand to say, in a manner similar to those who advocate the Transcendental Argument for God, that mathematical and logical features of reality could have been otherwise and that they are the way that they are due to the authorship of a transcendent mind.

What do you reckon?

Well, I was asking this sort of question because it seemed to be the kind of thing you were hinting at when you evoked a category of causal phenomena that you dubbed relationships for things like abstract mathematical constructs. To my mind, explaining the apparent order inherent in mathematical constructs isn't any different from explaining the apparent order of any other thing - the relationships are really just causes too in the end, they are what they are by whatever caused them to be that way, just like anything else. The fact that we can quantify and codify these mathematical relationships enables us to continue doing what we've always done; create technologies. It's really no different from picking up a stone and a wooden branch and seeing that combined they could make a weapon.

[IJesusChrist]

Fig 1
Fig 2
Fig 3
http://www.panspermia.org/intro.htm

mmm... I don't think bacteria use magnetic forces as we do... But they are very similar in their structure, but the action is substantially more complicated in the bacteria, I'm sure.

I've just recently been re-acquinted with my sheer awe of biology. Its too far from my studies however for me to start reading about it.

[1456200423]

mmm...
I don't think!

I believe, that bacteria does not, use magnetism to drive the flagellum motor.

What if it does... use magnetism? Why is that important to you?

One of the most efficient propellers in existance.

http://www.linux-host.org/energy/schagen1.gif

[Jamesh]

I fail to see why Panspermia is of any interest as a philosophical topic. Sure biologists and dreamers can cream their pants over shit like that, but it is quite irrelevant to the evolutionary concepts. I couldn't care less if RNA/DNA originated here or elsewhere - the same elvoutionary path would have occurred for the RNA/DNA development in the first place.

The rational viewpoint is discount Panspermia totally. Unless the conditions for survival and further evolution were already in existence on this earth in the first place then the DNA would not survive anyway. If some alien fucker terraformed the earth so that it would be suitable, then where the hell are they! Hopefully deceased or disinterented.

As regards magnetism. Our own brains use this in any case. Magnetism is intrinsically related to electrical currents, which is precisely what thoughts are. Electricity and magnetism are not different entities, magnetism is simply a form of the gravity/expansion duality that everything has.

[1456200423]

I couldn't care less.

[quote=""Jimmy"]alien fucker[/quote]

[IJesusChrist]

1456200423, look at my signature.

Secondly,

you're showing two things that look similar, but really have nothing in common. That's why I said they don't operate with magentism... Because they don't, and if they don't they have no similarities in purpose, operation, or existance, besides they look similar with a cross section.

[1456200423]

1456200423, look at my signature.

To think or not to think.

Why? Do you want my advice?

mmm...

I don't think!

The engine is powered by the flow of protons (hydrogen ions)across the bacterial cell membrane due to a concentration gradient set up by the cell's metabolism, i.e., by proton motive force.
Motor 1

The necessary free energy is derived from the proton gradient that exists across the plasma membrane. The flagellar motor is quite complex, containing as many as 40 distinct proteins (Figure 34.30). Five components particularly crucial to motor function have been identified through genetic studies.
Motor 2

The rotor transports protons across the membrane, and is turned in the process. The rotor alone can operate at 6,000 to 17,000 rpm, but with the flagellar filament attached usually only reaches 200 to 1000 rpm.
In one second, a motile bacterium can move approximately 25 μm, or about 10 body lengths.

Let's put the efficiency of the motor in perspective via comparison. If we take victoria sub as example of an object which is moved by motor drive through liquid.
The length of the submarine is 70.3 m
Victoria class
or
Nuclear class
The bacteria of equivalent size would cover 10x70.3 = 700m *ps*
~2500 kph moving through liquid.

Top speed of nuclear sub is 50-100 km/h,
Top speed of torpedo is 400-500 km/h

The MiG-29 is equipped with two RD-33 turbofan engines.
The engines provide a maximum speed of 2,400km/h at altitude and 1,500km/h near the ground

Secondly,

you're showing two things that look similar, but really have nothing in common.
That's why I said they don't operate with magentism...

and if they don't <operate with magentism...>

<then> they have no similarities in purpose, operation, or existance,

besides <they> looking similar with a cross section.

Yes they do. Calm down.

[IJesusChrist]

Sorry I was so flustered...

Really, you are showing more and more ignorance for the biochemical mechanism and the electromagnetic motor with every post...

...

But if you think it's true, have fun with that little world you've created.