Reliability of a naturally evolved brain.
> Correct. And since we're talking about causality, that is the most important piece: How did it get started?
> Yes, you have simulated this, but it didn't cause itself. You programmed it to do this and let it fly.
> It was given a genetic algorithm. All this time I'm talking about causality. An intelligent being programmed in the generation algorithms. What put the system in motion?
Yes, the system was put in place. If you look back a few comments, though, you'll see that this section of our debate was relating to the evolution of thought through natural selection, not about the initial cause that put the system in place. Your claim was that a naturally evolved brain cannot be reliable. I think I'm going to go back to labeling the sections.
Requirements for Informational Data
> OK. It sounds like you are claiming that what we have now came from causes that did not have these characteristics, from parts that didn't have these capabilities, and from processes lacking these necessary pieces—in other words, that the sum is far greater than the parts and that the resulting product has components that didn't exist in previous iterations. To me that's a less-than-sufficient explanation for the realities I see. When I see a carpenter using a hammer and nails in wood, I assume that the source of his materials was a sufficient cause for the product in hand. It is not sufficient that my total evidence includes causes and components that were not somehow in the system to begin with. Eventually, on a lack of a sufficient cause, you are left to claim, "Well, obviously it just happened out of processes and parts that didn't previously exist." My case, on the contrary, is that the sufficient cause is greater than the resulting product, which to me makes more sense. What has come is from what was, not from what wasn't.
You're still not directly addressing the question of intelligence. Why is it necessary? I really don't understand where you make that leap. I'm not even trying to use it as a "gotcha" question—I literally don't understand how that conclusion results from the premises, when we know that informational data can come from an unintelligent source.
I also don't understand how the carpenter analogy applies. What represents what?
> Eventually, on a lack of a sufficient cause, you are left to claim, "Well, obviously it just happened out of processes and parts that didn't previously exist."
When two rabbits mate and have a litter, the babies are new "processes and parts" that did not previously exist. In fact, nothing like them previously existed - they have an entirely new genetic code. So, yes, I suppose I am claiming that. Can you clarify your argument, or show me why this interpretation is wrong?
Rationality of a Deterministic Brain
> There is evidence that a human brain is dynamic, not static and determined. It is able to create new neuronic patterns, new junctions, even new blood vessels creating new paths, new potential thought patterns, new memories, new processes. It can create its way around stroke injury, for instance. It isn't determined like a broken Chinese satellite under the power of gravity, but it can learn to do things all by itself because it was designed to learn, not just to respond. That's why thinking cannot be predicted like gravity.
Dynamic isn't the opposite of deterministic. AI is also dynamic in many ways, but it is also deterministic.
> The point is causality. Is it more reasonable to infer that "Aren't we the lucky ones! All this just happened", or "This surely has too many elements of purposeful design to have just happened"? We've been coursing through this conversation for a long time now, and I'm enjoying it, but it's difficult to fathom that you can think that all the complexities and marvels of the universe and life just happened and we're the beneficiaries of it. To me, obviously, it makes far better sense to think that there was a sufficient cause.
It's not luck - in a large enough universe, it was bound to happen, and life has probably happened many times throughout the universe. The only "design" I can see is easily explainable via evolution, even if we don't understand every step. Evolution is our purpose. That's why we exist, why we think the way we do, and why we were made the way we are.