Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Xris]

Steve the question is crucial. If it is random my beliefs need revisiting. The debate has become centred on this one subject. Dice falling, the odds of birthdays etc. Determination has no room for random acts.

[Gulnara]

Perhaps, randomly coinciding events are also predetermined, but in a non obvious, not easy to explain ways. If all the probabilities, their paths calculated, then determination can not help but come out in all its glory. Also, I ask, what is the day? It is different for everyone, because differences sit in spacial location of a person, and various meanings, events of that day, among which only birthday, say, coincided with other people's birthdays. The difference can be also in a year of birth and in the hour of that day. I see that each person has their own time, and randomly coinciding event, on the same day of the same month, is as different for each of them as can be. In a large skim of things the same day by calendar is not the same day in person's lives. For one person birth day is also the day they lost their mother, for another it is birth of a last genealogical branch in their family, and someone else was born among triplets. Say, I take three women, dressed absolutely differently, of different background, age, marital status and race,pregnant and virgins, but I'll claim that their clothes all made of fabric is a random coincidence - this will not make a splash. Why pick favorite vegetable out of the soup and then wonder who cooked it? Obviously, whoever cooked the soup, cooked that vegetable. I guess, monumental coincidence is that all 7 billion of us were born on planet Earth. However, when after some 240 years we, all 7 billion, disappear from the planet Earth due to our deaths ( easy come - easy go), that is hardly a coincidence then, because so far we come into life and go out of it inside the enclosure of one and the same planet.

[Steve3007]

Xris: I think we may be talking at crossed purposes. I'm talking about the bog standard scientific description of the theory of evolution by natural selection. I'm not talking about any wider issues about determinism, quantum mechanical uncertainty or any other issues that involve discussing randomness.

Bear with me here and I'll explain what I mean:

Question:

How do organisms become well adapted to their environments?

Answer given by evolution:

The key principles of evolution are:

1. Physical characteristics of organisms determine their ability to survive and thrive in their environment.

2. Ability to survive and thrive tends to determine ability to reproduce successfully.

3. Physical characteristics tend to be a reflection of genetic characteristics.

4. Genetic characteristics tend to be passed on to offspring.

5. Genetic characteristics are not passed on perfectly. There are variations.

Dawkins' animal space

(This is not my idea. Have a look at Richard Dawkins' "The Blind Watchmaker" for a more detailed explanation. If you don't like Dawkins' general attitude, as many don't, please keep reading and judge ideas like this on their merits and not on the personality of the person who proposed them):

I talked previously about the concept of "animal space" to illustrate this. What I meant was this:

Imagine plotting a multi-dimensional graph where each axis measures some particular characteristic of living organisms. Obviously there would be many many axes and it's difficult to decide how to categorize the characteristics of organisms. But we don't need to worry about this in order to realize that on this imaginary graph, if it could be drawn, each individual organism is represented by a single point. A slightly different organism, with slightly different traits, is represented by a nearby point. A completely different organism is a far-away point.

In the context of this geometrical visualisation of all possible organisms, we can now say that, as a result of statements 4 and 5, above, offspring would be represented by a spread of points very close to the point(s) that represent their parent(s). i.e. they are similar, but not exactly the same as their parents.

The set of characteristics which constitute very good adaptation to the present environment would perhaps be represented by another point which could be quite a long way away. (I say "very good" and not "perfect" because there's no such thing as perfect adaptation to an environment because different aspects of that environment require different, sometimes mutally exclusive, characteristics or traits. There are trade-offs and compromises to be made.)

Now, picture again that little cluster of points that represent the offspring. Some are further away from the "well adapted to the environment" point than the parent. Others are closer to that point than the parent. The closer ones will, on average, tend to survive better than the further away ones. When they come to have offspring of their own, they will create their own little spread of points, clustered around themselves. And the process will repeat. In this way, the better adapted organisms, over the course of many generations, move closer and closer to the "very well adapted" point.

I hope that is clear and not too abstract.

Where does the randomness come in?

The point I was making, in the context of this visualization, was that in order for evolution to work all you need is for at least some of the offspring points, at least some of the time, to be closer to the "well adapted" point than the parent. But how to know which way to go? How does nature achieve this if it is blind and cannot see the way to the "well adapted" point? It spreads them out evenly - randomly. But the only function of the randomness is to ensure that, at least some of the time, some of the points are scattered in the right direction. The ruthless cull of competition and the hardness of life ensures that these points do best, so long as the "slope" of adaptablity goes steadily upwards all the way...

...No I'm going to stop there for now! I was going to start making comparisons with the geometrical view of gravity in General Relativity and the fact that Einstein emphasized the "local" nature of gravity - massive objects responding to the curvature of their local space and not having to "see" the direction to the object to which they're being attracted. But that might be the physicist in me getting carried away with that seductive concept - symmetry - different situations, same underlying mathematics. I suspect many people think that it is just these kinds of over-imaginative analogies that confirm their view that all modern science (particularly physics) is drug-induced fairy tales.

---

Anyway, ignoring that last flight-of-fancy paragraph, can you see the role of randomness that I was referring to? And the reason why any kind of sloppy pseudo-randomness will do, so long as it sometimes throws some results in the right direction?

Basically, the main critereon is that any pattern or underlying mechanism that might exist in, or be the cause of, the apparent randomness is unconnected, or only very very very indirectly connected, to the characteristics of organisms and environments. So there are no long lived correlations which might consistently push the points in the wrong direction. In practice, many genetic mutations are caused by things like low level background radiation and cosmic rays. They, at least, should fit the bill.

[Gulnara]

Yes, it's like a blind person, trying to find a path, would throw stones in all directions, until one hits the pavement. He then ignores the rest, and goes along the path. However, the world was created, I believe, without anyone looking for it or desiring to find. Then how come it was there for itself and fallowed direction created by itself? What was an attraction force, or rather it was force that accidentally, blindly-predetermanintly became self-produsing?

[Xris]

Steve I can understand how nature exploits this apparent chance success but I can not see it as random. Let me try to explain it like this. Ten travellers encounter a road junction where ten roads merge but only one leads to safety. If we don't split up we may all die. If we do not take a path each then failure is almost certain, so we split into ten and take each path separately. One of us survives and nine die. Is this a random act or a cruel intelligent decision? Nature experiments by creating variations and then by natural selection waits for the most suitable result to occur. Without this simple ability life would stagnate it is not a foolish blundering random act in my opinion.

Steve, I found Dawkins as one of most interesting and intelligent men of our times, even if I do not entirely agree with everything he has to say. Thanks xris

Gulnara I have just read your post. Something similar to mine,thanks xris

[Misty]

The act of the ten people splitting up to each take a different road would be a random selection.

[Steve3007]

Gulnara:

I like the analogy, but I don't entirely follow what you're saying. The blind person has a goal. He/she is looking for the path by doing a deliberate experiment. The random mutation of genes is not done as an experiment with a goal. It happens (among other similar causes) as a result of the collision of fast moving sub-atomic particles with the atoms that make up those genes. There is no more intentionality in this than there is in a rock falling off a cliff.

Given that it happens, and given the fact that genetic characteristics tend to be passed on to offspring, adaptation by natural selection is an inevitable consequence. No intentionality or goal required. Nature is not "trying", by trial and error, to create better adapted offspring. It's just a logical inevitability. It is true by definition that better adapted offspring will emerge because that is what it means to be better adapted.

But I do take you final point. i.e. How did this self-replicating entity come into existence in the first place? The theory of evolution by natural selection has nothing, in itself, to say about that.


Xris:

I can understand how nature exploits this apparent chance success but I can not see it as random

Neither can I. That's why I said it was not random.

Nature experiments by creating variations and then by natural selection waits for the most suitable result to occur.

You use language which suggests a conscious being - "waits", "experiments". The variations are random mutations caused by such things as radiation. In what sense is this an experiment? To me the word experiment suggests a set of consciously designed activities designed to achieve a specified future goal. I see no evidence of this. As I said to Gulnara, there is no goal to make the better adapted offspring survive. It is simply that survival is, by definition, what better adapted organisms do. And, in a random selection of organisms, it is inevitable, without any need for conscious intervention or intentionality, that some will be better adapted and some will be worse adapted to the environment they find themselves in.

You say that this Nature person then waits for a suitable result. Suitable for what purpose? I can't see anybody waiting for anything. I can see organisms that are capable of reproducing more effectively surviving because they are capable of reproducing more effectively.

From the 5 points I listed in my previous post, can you find any evidence of conscious intentionality? If not, can you explain why those 5 points give an inadequate description of the development of life?

...it is not a foolish blundering random act in my opinion.

I agree. It is directed by environmental pressure.

(P.S. I know you don't like to anthropomorphize Nature, and you don't mean to portray it as a conscious God-like being. But you do still seem to imbue it with something that is, at least, analogous to intentionality, forward-planning and goal-seeking, for which I see no evidence.)

---

It seems to me that as soon as you've got any entity that can make inexact sloppy copies of itself but which, in the vast majority of cases, fails to make those copies because it gets destroyed first, you're already in "animal space" so you're going to start moving through it and accumulating complexity as surely as a rock rolls down a hill.

Now, as to the question of how such a self-replicating entity could come into existence in the first place - that is more interesting and, given that it seems to have happened about 4 billion years ago and left no direct evidence, I suspect the answer will only ever be an educated guess based on what is possible, rather than on what evidence suggests is probable.

At this point, many people would spot the gap and step in to re-insert the conscious creator. Maybe the first self-replicating molecule was put on Earth by a conscious creator. I don't know. I see no evidence for it though. I don't think lack of knowledge constitutes evidence.

[Xris]

Steve, I must repeat myself I find no evidence, none at all to indicate a conscious creator that you write of behind nature. Till we arrived on the scene human conscious ability was not even a consideration and it will disappear with us. That does not exclude an intelligence that we are not privy to. We have structured a philosophy, morality and civilisations on our ability and we are incapable of even recognising the type of intelligence that might be nature. If we look at animals do they recognise our intelligence do we truly understand them? Nature is nature, simply accepting that it is determined and appears to be operating to a predetermined set of laws does not indicate the great human invention GOD has his hand on the steering wheel.

[Schaps]

Ultimately, this discussion leads to the "first cause" argument -which is NOT resolve-able! My suggestion is that the individual simply goes with whatever precept seems more "comfortable" because - in the end, that is all that matters.

[Steve3007]

Xris: OK. Just a misunderstanding I guess. You sounded like you were talking about something with intention.

Schaps: I'm sure you're right. Being happy is probably more important than being right. At least it's possible to tell when you're happy.

[Xris]

Xris: OK. Just a misunderstanding I guess. You sounded like you were talking about something with intention.

Schaps: I'm sure you're right. Being happy is probably more important than being right. At least it's possible to tell when you're happy.

I did no think it was about being right or wrong but exchanging thoughts. Happy is a state of mind not an escape route.

[Gulnara]

With people, mostly, there is goal or desire involved prior to the action or choice. With Universe, who knows. I can imagine, though, that something of similar principle, like human being ( be it even an entire specific Universe), closed, semi-self-containing system worked in a way to produce goals and thus make choices-actions aligned with them. What if consciousness is not only human domain, but it can be present in other forms of Universal material, thus making creation of a new world, in this case our world, our particular Universe, quite plausible.

[UniversalAlien]

Ultimately, this discussion leads to the "first cause" argument -which is NOT resolve-able! My suggestion is that the individual simply goes with whatever precept seems more "comfortable" because - in the end, that is all that matters.

This is what I can not understand: Why must there be a first cause? Why must there be a beginning? What magic do the words Intelligent Design posses so as to render otherwise intelligent beings {humans} not so intelligent? Is the human mind so limited in some people that they can not see an eternal universe which never began and will never end - no beginning - no end.? Maybe it is because human life has a beginning and an end that some feel the universe must be the same. That is a very myopic view. I guess some must have 'the creator" - tell them to look at the heavens and dream on.

[Gulnara]

To accept that Universe always was and always will be, and it has no border line, perhaps, is an overwhelming realization for the people to the point of saying "no". How can it be, such immense riches scattered all over, without anyone ever being able to gather them. Here on Earth we have to work hard to grow crops, to make money, to build shelter. The resources are limited, so they have to be divided, distributed, bought, saved, maintained. Yet, person dies after all of his efforts to stay alive, while Universe has no care in a world to just be forever. It seems unfair.

I imagine that Universe's infinite size produces effect of never ending in time, because no matter how strong or fast is its distraction force, it can never catch up with all of Universe in one swoosh, and meanwhile the distracted material is turned into something again like galaxies, humans, etc. so by the time distraction thinks it approaches the far regions of Universe, it already lost the game, because creation is what is happening right behind its back. In a way both forces are the creation forces. Distraction lays path for rejuvenation. Like two cats in a box, they can only move to give place to each other. May be even more magical, they multiply and stretch the box infinitely.

-- Updated Sat May 26, 2012 7:49 pm to add the following --

On another hand, Universe or a collection of Multiuniverses can have some size, but then this mass is submerged into empty space infinitely in all directions, because no matter how big Multi-universe's conglomerate is, it might not be what is infinite, but an empty space (or whatever we do call empty outer space these days). I think such scenario is possible because then, ultimately, this mass of particles can be considered a point in space, with space being a distance from this point to that same point (to itself), which is double linear infinity multiplied by 3d sphere of the same. Infinity is always larger than itself, in an ongoing manner. In a way it is infinity and is not an infinity at the same time. Then again, if we count only what matters, and not how many times a thread can be divided to get smaller and smaller, then there is no real infinity. Things become achievable and making some sense.

[Groktruth]

Ultimately, this discussion leads to the "first cause" argument -which is NOT resolve-able! My suggestion is that the individual simply goes with whatever precept seems more "comfortable" because - in the end, that is all that matters.

This is what I can not understand: Why must there be a first cause? Why must there be a beginning? What magic do the words Intelligent Design posses so as to render otherwise intelligent beings {humans} not so intelligent? Is the human mind so limited in some people that they can not see an eternal universe which never began and will never end - no beginning - no end.? Maybe it is because human life has a beginning and an end that some feel the universe must be the same. That is a very myopic view. I guess some must have 'the creator" - tell them to look at the heavens and dream on.

This, UA, is an almost perfect example of psychological projection. Your questions are astute, but they are all logically and plausibly answered by the theory of Intelligent Design, which of course wonders what on earth could be making evolutionists so unintelligent.

Yes, you cannot understand, as you admit. Intelligent Design explains that this is because your mind is haunted by Intelligent disinformation agents that block your ability to think clearly. This theory predicts that if you prayed effectively, went to persons known for their effective prayer, for the ability to understand, you would get rid of or neutralize these haunting agents, and would come to your senses. Like giving a rabid dog a shot that hindered the infecting virus from making the dog mad. Yes, it does appear that "magic" is involved, meaning influences from some alternate reality, some parallel universe, are at work in the material universe in which we do most of our sensing and thinking. And, clearly, this magic is stultifying someone's mind, either yours or mine. But my mind is sufficiently clear to entertain the possibility that I am the one not living up to my human potential for intelligence. And, I respond to that possibility by taking up the wisdom and experience of the ages, all the methods that have been discovered to make sure that I, in spite of these putative magical influences, still can make an intelligent choice. Alas, you appear unable to either suspect yourself as being the unintelligent one. Rather than lean on the wisdom of your betters, you assume your thinking is sound, and on your own, really, conclude that your thinking, that appears intelligent to you (duh), is a priori correct. But, this decision is so obviously unintelligent, that it confirms the predictions of the ID folks, who simply look at one another and say, "See, just as the theory predicted! Only a haunted human mind could be so foolish. So, since there are "alien" intelligent haunts destroying intelligence, it is more likely that their are alien intelligent designers building living beings. (Compare a normally affectionate dog biting the hand that feeds it, as evidence that it is inhabited by an alien virus that controls its behavior to accomplish its, the viruses, objectives.)

Now, this is a philosophy forum, with Diogenes honored and remembered. The favorite philosopher of the host. I wonder that you cannot get it, that Diogenes is remembered for over 2000 years for his reported difficulty in finding an honest man. With Socrates, he reported that self-examination, usually by others asking Socratic questions, was a lantern that could detect the self and other deception that was everywhere he looked. Those who came after these philosophers, including Bayes and Pascal, have come up with a probabilistic approach to overcoming self and other deception, to find out which ideas were most plausibly true. Following these insights, proven by the success of science, at least, we protect ourselves from ourselves and others intent on deceiving us. This I have studied, practiced, proven, tested. Applied to Intelligent Design, it is clearly true beyond reasonable doubt. Evolutionary idea of adaptation and modification by descent are also very probably true. Natural selection is possible, but unlikely in most situations. Artificial Selection by an Intelligent Designer is the mechanism most likely behind most biological diversity, as is clearly the case with dogs and cattle, corn, and crops. This is the report of any and all who bother to play by philosophical rules, especially the philosophy of science. Starting with the rule that most men are dishonest, so that most who call themselves scientists are liars, usually self-deceived. Check their knowledge and application of the rules.

Are you really willing to bet your putative eternal life, in a putative heaven or hell, on incompetent science applied to poorly understood or studied theology? And the life of those who you might influence? And then call this intelligent, and those who use proven methods unintelligent? Are you even unable to understand how foolish this looks?

Oh, well.