I'm not assuming that physical laws exist. They do. And everything is determined by them. Why those laws exist as they do is an interesting question. — Bradskii

Saying physical laws exist somehow out in the universe somewhere without people is just old fashioned idealism. That doesn't mean it's wrong, it means it's metaphysics, not science. Physical laws were created by humans to document and explain observed regularities in the behavior of the universe. Calling them "laws" is metaphorical, as if these laws somehow cause things to happen rather than describing how they happen.

Not that there's anything wrong with any of that. The idea of laws of physics has been a useful and productive one.

I know this may be difficult to accept, but that is also the point at issue. You're speaking from a position of naive realism (no pejorative intended, it's a textbook description) which assumes the reality of the objective world (or the sensory domain, call it what you will). But precisely that has been called into question in the history of philosophy, and certainly also by more recent cognitive science and the philosophy of physics. It doesn't mean that reality is all in your or in my mind, but that the mind - yours, mine, everyone's - provides a foundational element of what we designate as real, but which we're not aware of, because it is largely unconscious, it mainly comprises automatic (or autonomic) processes. One version of this argument is The Evolutionary Argument against Reality, by Donald Hoffman - particularly apt because it is (purportedly) based on evolutionary theory. It actually ties in with some of what Robert Lanza says (although they're very different theorists.) — Wayfarer

This is a reasonable and useful metaphysical explanation of the nature of reality. But it's not the only one. I've made the case many times that objective reality and materialism are metaphysics, not physics. They also are very useful. They provide the foundation for science. I know both you and I recognize the limitations of a scientific worldview, but the reality you offer is not somehow more real.

There's a similar principle in biology concerning the protein hyperspace. That refers to the possible ways that amino acids can be combined, only a very small number of which will actually produce a protein. The numbers there also are astronomically minute. — Wayfarer

I was interested in this so I looked on the web. The explanation I found indicated that the proteins necessary for life can be very flexible. Many amino acids are interchangeable with others in proteins while still maintaining their function in living organisms. That reduces the unlikelihood of proteins needed for life "evolving" by orders and orders of magnitude and allows life to get started. After that the more limited range of proteins we find now could evolve.

But to extrapolate that to suggest that nothing is as we see it is truly bizarre. — Bradskii

I don't think it's particularly bizarre. It's useless philosophy flopping around like a fish in the bottom of the boat. That's not even all that unusual.

And what were the chances of some specific guy being born in 17th century England and writing out a play called Hamlet? — Bradskii

For what it's worth, we know of one person who wrote a play called "Hamlet," but he was born in the 16th century.

Thank you for reminding me to read that paper, i probably would have forgotten. — punos

I have to read it again. It's been awhile.

Nevertheless as this is a philosophy forum it is appropriate from time to time to at least consider philosophy. — Wayfarer

Yes, we should consider all aspects of philosophy, including it's misuse.

i don't see how it precludes derivability. — punos

This is from a well-known and influential paper by P.W. Anderson - "More is Different," written in the 1970s. The link takes you to an essay written about the paper more recently. The paper itself is appended to the back of the essay.

…the reductionist hypothesis does not by any means imply a constructionist" one: The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe. In fact, the more the elementary particle physicists tell us about the nature of the fundamental laws, the less relevance they seem to have to the very real problems of the rest of science, much less to those of society.

The constructionist hypothesis breaks down when confronted with the twin difficulties of scale and complexity. The behavior of large and complex aggregates of elementary particles, it turns out, is not to be understood in terms of a simple extrapolation of the properties of a few particles. Instead, at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear, and the understanding of the new behaviors requires research which I think is as fundamental in its nature as any other. That is, it seems to me that one may array the sciences roughly linearly in a hierarchy, according to the idea: The elementary entities of science X obey the laws of science Y… — P.W Anderson -

the universe comes into being through the conscious experience of agents. That is why we are designated 'beings'. Time and space themselves are functions of the mind of observing agents, they have no intrinsic existence outside that. Yet we consistently and mistakenly project reality onto the so-called external world because we lack insight into the way in which the mind constructs reality. — Wayfarer

As a metaphysical position, I have no problem with this. It's one I am familiar with and sympathetic towards. Lao Tzu wrote that the multiplicity of the world is brought into existence by naming. As metaphysics it is fine and useful, but as a tool to help decide how to build a bridge or when to plant my crops, it is a romantic story.

I would. — Wayfarer

The main idea is that it's not just chemistry but there is another aspect apart from pure genetics and chemistry that is responsible for morphology. Genetics just produces the parts and the bio-electric activity determines how the parts organize themselves. At any level there are two aspects: stuff (atoms, cells, people), and then the forces that organizes the stuff (fundamental forces, bio-electricity, and culture respectively). If that doesn't make sense to you then just disregard it (no big deal), but i find that it gives me insight. — punos

The physics/chemistry/biology... hierarchy I described is an oversimplification. The important principle is that phenomena at one level of organization and complexity are influenced by phenomena at both lower and higher levels and are not derivable from the principles of lower levels. I don't see how the information presented in the video is relevant to that.

As we're into video show-and-tell, here's a presentation by Robert Lanza on 'biocentrism'. I'm not sure how he is regarded in the mainstream - I suspect not highly - but I find his attitude philosophically superior to your common or garden varieties of materialism. — Wayfarer

I started to watch, but stopped about 4 minutes in when he started hinting at a connection between quantum mechanics and consciousness. That is a red light, perhaps you would say a prejudice, of mine.

This is just a temporary state of affairs due to our limited but growing knowledge of these processes. On the specific issue you mention about the structure and behavior of cells; Michael Levin is at the cutting edge of that research, and we will soon know how that all happens. — punos

I watched the video. It was interesting and really impressive. I don't see what it has to do with the subject we were discussing - how to predict biological phenomena from chemical principles.

Consensus is not the criteria in science, that's called democracy and it's a whole different thing. Consensus is fickle and changes with the times as ignorance and knowledge ebbs and flows. — punos

Say what you want about truth, scientific consensus is the only criteria we have to determine the best way to use scientific knowledge to decide how to act. E.g. the fact that there is a consensus about the existence and significance of climate change gives us good reasons to change our behavior.

This is just a temporary state of affairs due to our limited but growing knowledge of these processes. — punos

I'm skeptical, but I don't have the background to make the argument. I'll watch the video.

I guess the question I’m angling towards is that of whether evolution is directional in nature — Wayfarer

No direction. Unless you want to claim a divine purpose. — Bradskii

There certainly is one directional aspect of evolution - it progresses towards complexity and diversity. There's no magic to it. The earliest life was as simple as it could possibly be. There was nowhere to go but up.

But the question is how did you come to have the trait of being a good runner? How can something be selected for if it does into already exist. — Andrew4Handel

Darwin was explicit and all other evolutionary biologists understand that Darwin's theory doesn't explain the origins of life.

I do sometimes ponder why evolution didn't simply come to an end with blue-green algae. Heaven knows they proven their ability to survive for near a billion years. — Wayfarer

That's almost what happened. The first single-celled organism is thought to have developed about 3.5 billion years ago fairly soon (500 million years) after the Earth cooled enough to support organic compounds. The first multi-cellular life is thought to date from about 600 million years ago.

Ahem. — Wayfarer

Don't you "ahem" me.

Survival of the fittest was introduced by Herbert Spencer in an essay on the principle of natural selection - Darwin later approved and adopted it (I think it was even in later editions of his book). — Wayfarer

Ahem... I didn't say Darwin or Wallace came up with the term, only that they used it.

If I add heat to the water, it is heated and the water molecule increase in kinetic energy. Since it is confined by air pressure, it's pressure increases (PV=NRT) and it's entropy decreases.
— T Clark

I googled it, what I find is the opposite: — Wayfarer

You're right. It's been 35 years since I took thermodynamics. I shouldn't be giving lectures. I'm setting about reedumacating myself.

I'm not sure what that means. What would be a specific aspect of biology that is not derivable from chemistry? — punos

If you used all of your knowledge of chemistry, you could not predict the basic scientific principles of biology, e.g. the structure and behavior of a single-celled organism. This is true even though every process that takes place in the cell would proceed consistent with the principles of chemistry.

I think this is absolutely true. There is bottom-up causation, and there is top-down causation which makes things more complex than just bottom-up, but that doesn't preclude derivability. — punos

If you're saying that biological processes are predictable from chemical processes, I think the consensus is that you're wrong.

No, selection happens at all levels. All that is needed for selection to occur are things that can interact or affect and be affected by other things in an environment or space. The selection process emerges out of complex interactions, and the probability distribution of all the possible interactions determines what gets selected. That is what selection is in general at any level, biological or otherwise. — punos

Perhaps. I'll think about it.

Is your standard of truth divorced from morality or ethics?

If something is a fact it is a fact. — Andrew4Handel

There, you've answered your own question.

I do believe science has an ethical dimension. We don't randomly shoot babies to see what the results will be or as Frankie Boyle put it see how many pastilles it takes to choke a Kestrel. — Andrew4Handel

Maybe we don't, but Dr. Mengele and other scientists did. Science should have an ethical dimension, but it doesn't come with one right out of the box. It's what's known as an after-market add-on.

But what has it got to do with our future decisions? As I say you can't get an ought from an is.... but you may induce depression in someone by belittling their status and belief values to prove our evolutionary status. I had this experience when I spent years battling anxiety and depression and arguing on atheist forums looking for a more hopeful prognosis on existence. — Andrew4Handel

Are you saying that Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is wrong because it makes us feel bad? That doesn't work for me.

Is that a fact? If I boil a pot of water, is its entropy decreased? — Wayfarer

If I add heat to the water, it is heated and the water molecule increase in kinetic energy. Since it is confined by air pressure, it's pressure increases (PV=NRT) and it's entropy decreases. When I add enough, the kinetic energy of water molecules overcomes air pressure, it boils, its volume increases, it's temperature goes down, and the entropy increases. Water at room temperature and ambient pressure won't do anything. Except a little evaporation.

That is not the argument. The argument is concerning the the harm of rejecting evolution versus the harm of accepting evolution and it being interpreted in a destructive way or as an ideology. — Andrew4Handel

Is your standard of truth what gives the results you want?

And then go back a thousand generations when all those odds are extrapolated to a virtually infinite number. — Bradskii

Agreed.

When you shine sunlight on a broken cup it does not rebuild itself. Plants have mechanisms to utilise the sunlight, the sunlight itself is not reducing the entropy but the preexisting plant mechanisms. — Andrew4Handel

When you shine light on a plant, it grows and is eaten by a cow. The cow is then milked. Humans drink the milk. The humans then repair the cup.

As I have said life/abiogenesis has to start from scratch from non life simplicity. — Andrew4Handel

It may start from scratch, as did everything on Earth. We started out as particles of dust swirling around the proto-solar system. But it didn't develop at random.

Other planets have the sun shining on them and no life. — Andrew4Handel

How many planets have we looked at - one closely and a few at a distance of millions of kilometers or millions of light years. How many are there? Hundreds of billions.

We somehow have an array of very precise parameters that allow life on this planet and unknown properties that allow consciousness. — Andrew4Handel

If I had a well-shuffled deck of cards with 10^100 cards in it and I picked one, what are the odds I would pick an ace of spades? 1 in 10^100. What would the odds be if I picked a 5.71395609812 x 10^27? 1 in 10^100.

This is an elegantly presented video of the influence of racism on Science and thought. — Andrew4Handel

Here is an academic article on The Nazi beliefs on Evolution. — Andrew4Handel

This is not a winning argument. There are plenty of examples of the evil performed in the name of religion, ethnicity, nationality, and just about any other organized differences between people.

Survival of the fittest and animal hierarchies are perversions of evolution, not tenets. — Banno

Darwin and Wallace both used the term "survival of the fittest" to describe natural selection.

But the second law explains why when I drop and break a cup it doesn't immediately leap back up and reconfigure itself because that is a statistically implausible array of matter. — Andrew4Handel

When you add energy to a system, you decrease it's entropy. It happens all the time. The sun and the heat inside the planet adds energy to the Earth's surface allowing the continued operation of physical and biological processes.

So those two species of dog will head off in different evolutionary directions. — Bradskii

All domestic dogs are considered the same species.

you are just an accidental and random result of a disinterested process. — Bradskii

I'm am overstepping the boundary of my knowledge, but it is my understanding that saying "accidental and random" is an overstatement. Much of what happens is influenced by self-organization. Scientists think that living cells develop out of chemical/catalyst cycles that develop naturally. Don't bother to ask for details, because I'm already on thin ice. I refer you to "Life's Ratchet" by Hoffman.

I agree with the rest of what you've written.

My point was that a soul is irreducibly complex. — Gregory

Sez you, with no evidence that I can see. Maybe evidence is one of those things one doesn't need once one rejects science. If so, what is the basis of your knowledge. Perhaps I missed it in one of your posts.

If you don't believe philosophy has insights that transcend the physical and make it null, you're still at the beginning. — Gregory

Philosophy is a process more than it is a body of thought. Somewhere in some branch of philosophic thought, there are "insights" claiming just about anything. Everything. Buy all of your nones at once and explode into space.

While it is true that If the odds of winning the lottery are 1 in 1 million, it doesn't matter how many others play, my odds remain fixed, but the more I play, the higher my odds of winning.
— Hanover
Gambler's fallacy. :roll: — 180 Proof

@Hanover's right, as much as it hurts me to say that. If I one ticket, my odds of winning are 1 in a million. If I buy two tickets, my odds are 2 in a million. That assumes each ticket has a different number.

Let's look at the parts or things you mentioned: minds, DNA, ecosystems, society. How do these relate to each other? They have an order of dependence; society depends on minds, minds depend on DNA, and DNA depends on ecosystems. Each is made of the other. Is there a pattern? — punos

We've had quite a few discussions here about the hierarchical nature of science, e.g physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology. @apokrisis has a lot to say. Higher levels in the hierarchy have to be consistent with lower levels, e.g. biological phenomena have to be consistent with chemical principles. But biological principles are not derivable from chemical principles, e.g. if you know chemistry, you can't derive biology. One point that Apokrisis stresses is that higher levels affect, constrain, lower levels as much as lower levels constrain higher levels.

Evolution happens everywhere not just in biology. Nature has elevated man above the animals on this planet, above biology. If you were an animal maybe you'd be in trouble, but lucky you that you're part of the human enterprise. — punos

Perhaps, but evolution by natural selection, which is what Darwin and Wallace studied, is primarily biological.

Is this supposed to support or disprove my claim? — Outlander

I don't disagree with what you wrote about the internet in general, but that doesn't mean it's not reasonable to hope for more here on the forum

A man logs onto the Internet.. Suddenly. Freedom is found. — Outlander

For me, the forum is not just the internet. There is a community here.

The forum is a good place, one that means a lot to me. The conversations are often high quality, freewheeling, and mostly more or less civil. A lot of that comes from the high quality and dedication of the moderators. In the past I have not been shy about speaking up, some might say mouthing off, about a particular banning decision. That doesn't mean I don't remember who gets the credit for this place.

That being said, what bothers me most is that posters, often including moderators, use the Bannings thread to shit on those who have been kicked out. It is unnecessary, unbecoming, and un-philosophical. People just don't seem to be able to resist the opportunity to be petty and vindictive.

No one particular universe ought have better odds (as you note), but a system with more universes would have better odds for life to exist. — Hanover

But the odds of any particular universe, e.g. ours, having life would not change. Therefore, this argument can't be used as an explanation for so-called fine tuning. Perhaps I've misunderstood what you are trying to show.

This is why many argue there is probably life outside earth. They reasonably argue that due to the vastness of the universe it is unlikely there is life somewhere else. — Hanover

Do you mean "likely" rather than "unlikely?" If so, I agree.

There is no evidence of life on Mars. — Hanover

Agreed, but that is not the same as "no organisms developed on Mars."

I'm not arguing either. Buti if I've misunderstood probability theory, then correct me. — Hanover

It doesn't matter how many universes there are, one or 10^100, it doesn't change the probability that life will develop in any one particular universe.

Evolution, creationism, intelligent design, Big Bang, whatever can't offer an explanation for the first cause. — Hanover

Of the theories you listed, only one, the big bang, is a cosmological theory. It is my understanding that, as you say, we don't know what happened before the big bang or what caused it.

For evolution to work, you must have billions of years of trial and error. — Hanover

We know that evolution has been working here for about 3.5 billion years.

No organisms developed on Mars, — Hanover

This is not known to be true. There is no evidence of biological organisms currently living on Mars, but there is evidence that organic compounds and water are present and have been present for billions of years. It is still possible that life exists on Mars in an area not open to examination or may once have been present in the past when conditions there were different.

The next question though, is whether it was possible that the primordial mass that constituted the Big Bang could have lacked the components to ever yield life. If the answer is it could, then the only way to assure it was statistically likely it would, would be through the existence of many Big Bangs. — Hanover

This is the fine tuning argument for either 1) the multiverse or 2) intelligent design/creationism. It is based on a misunderstanding of how probabilities work.

You are trying to make it continuous, when individuals and organs, all that, are all discrete. If there is a cat then there was a first cat. Your theory is just a blur — Gregory

As I noted, you have no understanding of the theory you are arguing against. Nuff said.

a cat was to evolve into a dog through a long line of other individuals descended from the cat, each mutation would happen randomly to one or more of the group. And what are the odds that this mutation would happen across the group? — Gregory

This shows a misunderstanding of how speciation is understood to take place. Most changes take place in small, isolated populations separated geographically or genetically. Darwin was struck by the diversity of species in the Galapagos Islands apparently similar to, but distinct from, species on the mainland. The Galapagos are very isolated from the nearest mainland in South America. South America itself was very isolated from the northern hemisphere for millions of years so that species there were significantly different from North America, including a large proportion of marsupials. When a land bridge formed between the continents, many species in the south were unable to compete with placental mammals and went extinct.

Single cell organisms are believed to have first developed about 3.5 billion years ago, but multicellular life didn't evolve till about 500 or 600 million years ago. As soon as multicellular life evolved, the rate of evolution became much more rapid.