by jimwalton » Mon Aug 17, 2020 3:40 pm
Ryan,
Thanks for continuing the conversation.
> Could you please expound on the following quote and concept:
dynamic systems create new possibilities that were not part of the original system. He used an illustration of ant colonies to show that such colonies have causal properties that are not entirely attributable to the capacities and behaviors of individual ants, i.e., emergence. What causes ants' work is not the ants themselves, but the emergent patterns of activity.
Warren's point was that the components (causal factors) of the original system can't fully explain the effects we see in the emergent system. An analogy might be: if we put eggs, flour, milk, and sugar together and get cake, we can make that work in our minds. But if we put eggs, flour, milk, and sugar together and get green beans almandine, we're left without a cause-and-effect string to follow. Now, that analogy is a bit extreme and not exactly accurate to the case at hand, but it gives the idea. If we have mental synaptic firings and chemical reactions, none of that can fully explain in any scientific sense things like consciousness, intuition, reasoning, reliable truth assessments, and free will. In any given system, we should be able to follow the line back to its causal components: cake can be the result of eggs, flour, milk, and sugar. But if we compare matter and energy (the alleged source of all things) to consciousness, reasoning, and free will, we have a disconnect. To argue that consciousness came from non-consciousness, informational data from organized data, truth claims from the "random" processes of natural selection and genetic mutation, personality from chemicals, we are bridging too many chasms without evidence except "well, I guess it happened that way because here we are!"
Swinburne, again, has a great quote about that:
An objector may claim that it’s serendipitous, since if the universe had not been this way we would not be around to comment on it. Thus we could not possibly find anything else. This conclusion is clearly a little too strong, for there is a great deal more order in the world than is necessary for the existence of humans. So we could still be around to comment on it if the world were a much less orderly place than it is.
But it’s more than that: the argument fails totally. Consider this analogy:
Suppose a madman kidnaps a victim and shut him in a room with a card-shuffling machine. The machine shuffles 10 packs of cards simultaneously and the draws a card from each pack and exhibits simultaneously the 10 cards. The kidnapper tells the victim that he will shortly set the machine to work and it will exhibit its first draw, but unless the draw consists of an ace of hearts from each of the 10 packs, the machine will simultaneously set off an explosion that will kill the victim, in consequence of which he will never see which cards the machine drew. The machine is then set to work, and to the amazement and relief of the victim the machine exhibits an ace of hearts drawn from each pack. The victim thinks this extraordinary fact needs an explanation in terms of the machine having been rigged in some way. But the kidnapper, who now reappears, casts doubt on the suggestion. “It is hardly surprising,” he says, “that the machine draws only aces of hearts. You could not possibly see anything else. For you would not be here to see anything at all if any other cards had been drawn.”
But, of course, the victim is right and not the kidnapper. There is indeed something extraordinary in need of explanation in 10 aces of hearts being drawn. The fact that this peculiar order is a necessary condition of the draw being perceived at all makes what is perceived no less extraordinary and in need of explanation. The teleologist’s starting point is not that we perceive order rather than disorder, but that order rather than disorder is there. Maybe only if order were there could we know what is there, but that makes what is there no less ordinary and in need of explanation.
The universe is characterized by vast, all-pervasive temporal order, the conformity of nature to formula, recorded in the scientific laws formulated by men. These phenomena, like the very existence of the world, is clearly something “too big” for science to explain. If there is an explanation of the order of the universe, it can’t be a scientific one.
As far as Brown's explanation, which is actually what you asked for, he uses emergent systems sort of in the same sense Mike Behe speaks of irreducible complexity in biological organisms. Brown says that complex systems can adapt to the point where they become irreducible causal systems in their own right. What emerges is not reducible to the characteristics of the input components. Here are some bullet points from my notes:
The Dynamics of Complex Systems:
- A complex system self-organizes when pushed far from equilibrium. The human brain is a complex system as well.
- Elements entrain (bind) each other into larger patterns of interactivity that interface with the environment. Ants can do any task, but they specialize. What causes ants’ work is not the ants themselves, but the pattern of activity. In the human brain, any particular neuron is entirely dependent on its place in the network of interactivity.
- Large perturbations of the system cause reorganization (adaptability). Destroy an ant nest, and they will reorganize themselves and adapt. Humans adapt to new situations, incorporation some elements of previous adaptations, but sometimes new systems emerge.
- A continued reorganization creates higher and higher levels of organization and adaptability. There are more parts of my universe that I occupy and can deal with to meet the new challenge. “Catastrophes” cause systems to reorganize.
- Self-organization based on environmental feedback means that system organization embodies meaning.
Thinking, deciding, consciousness, memory, language, representation, belief, etc. are large dynamic patterns of brain activity that constrain the ongoing lower-level physiological phenomena whose activity constitute the brain patterns themselves. Therefore the causal properties of patterns are not reducible to the elements. They are emergent.
Self-Determination in Dynamical Systems:
- Constraining variation of consistent parts paradoxically increases possibilities for the system (i.e., greater freedom).
- Systems increasingly respond (act) from their own point of view. It’s not totally driven by stimuli in the environment, but it’s related to its adaptive history and (in humans) its social history.
- System organization embodies meaning.
- Ongoing adaptations means higher and higher levels of meaning can be expressed in behavior. (think of childhood development)
“The higher level of organization, whether thermodynamic, psychological or social, possesses a qualitatively different repertoire of states and behavior than the earlier level, as well as greater degrees of freedom.”
Hopefully that helps.
> What is a mental event v. a brain event?
As I remember, a brain event was chemical activity in the brain and the firing of synapses as the brain worked. It's the physiological activity of the brain. A mental event, by contrast, is a memory, an intuition, etc.
> What is emergence and emergent patterns of activities?
"Emergence" is used to describe characteristics that are more than the sum of their parts. Maybe think of it this way (even though this analogy is flawed and inadequate, to some extent): human beings build a computer, made of wires and magnetic surfaces that can store sequences of information and particular collections of 1s and 0s. But then somewhere along the way the computer's capability to process information emerges into a capability to truly think (hyper-charged AI) beyond the capacity of its programming. It begins to create information, something it was never designed to do, which its programming can't explain, and which wires and magnetic surfaces aren't capable of. And now, based on its ability to think, it (on its own) joins with other computers who are doing the same thing and they begin to specialize. The subsequent technology that emerges is capable of things each computer on its own was incapable of.
Hopefully you can see what I'm getting at. If we play this analogy game long enough, we will end up with systems that can't be explained by wires and magnetic surfaces.
Now, this is exactly what scientific naturalists claim occurred. The problem is that there is no evidence for such a chain of events. As a matter of fact, the evidence takes us in a different direction—that the systems in place now could not have come from the components, no matter how long the chains are an no matter what happened, like green beans almandine from eggs, milk, and flour.
> Why do either of those two refute/make less plausible the idea of hard determinism?
As per Niel Nielson's quote from last post, hard determinism, when played through logically, is both self-contradictory and absurd. And, secondly, the systems that are now extant betray that no process could have brought them about (e.g., reliable truth assessment that came from components and systems unconcerned with truth and unable to process truth).
> are there any books that you could recommend on the topic of refuting hard determinism, or free will in general?
I've gotten these things I keep telling your from a raft of sources, as I've been crediting along the way. I'm not aware of a single source. I'll bet such a book exists, since just about everything does exist; I just don't know what they are. Sorry.
Ryan,
Thanks for continuing the conversation.
> Could you please expound on the following quote and concept:
[quote]dynamic systems create new possibilities that were not part of the original system. He used an illustration of ant colonies to show that such colonies have causal properties that are not entirely attributable to the capacities and behaviors of individual ants, i.e., emergence. What causes ants' work is not the ants themselves, but the emergent patterns of activity.[/quote]
Warren's point was that the components (causal factors) of the original system can't fully explain the effects we see in the emergent system. An analogy might be: if we put eggs, flour, milk, and sugar together and get cake, we can make that work in our minds. But if we put eggs, flour, milk, and sugar together and get green beans almandine, we're left without a cause-and-effect string to follow. Now, that analogy is a bit extreme and not exactly accurate to the case at hand, but it gives the idea. If we have mental synaptic firings and chemical reactions, none of that can fully explain in any scientific sense things like consciousness, intuition, reasoning, reliable truth assessments, and free will. In any given system, we should be able to follow the line back to its causal components: cake can be the result of eggs, flour, milk, and sugar. But if we compare matter and energy (the alleged source of all things) to consciousness, reasoning, and free will, we have a disconnect. To argue that consciousness came from non-consciousness, informational data from organized data, truth claims from the "random" processes of natural selection and genetic mutation, personality from chemicals, we are bridging too many chasms without evidence except "well, I guess it happened that way because here we are!"
Swinburne, again, has a great quote about that:
[quote]An objector may claim that it’s serendipitous, since if the universe had not been this way we would not be around to comment on it. Thus we could not possibly find anything else. This conclusion is clearly a little too strong, for there is a great deal more order in the world than is necessary for the existence of humans. So we could still be around to comment on it if the world were a much less orderly place than it is.
But it’s more than that: the argument fails totally. Consider this analogy:
Suppose a madman kidnaps a victim and shut him in a room with a card-shuffling machine. The machine shuffles 10 packs of cards simultaneously and the draws a card from each pack and exhibits simultaneously the 10 cards. The kidnapper tells the victim that he will shortly set the machine to work and it will exhibit its first draw, but unless the draw consists of an ace of hearts from each of the 10 packs, the machine will simultaneously set off an explosion that will kill the victim, in consequence of which he will never see which cards the machine drew. The machine is then set to work, and to the amazement and relief of the victim the machine exhibits an ace of hearts drawn from each pack. The victim thinks this extraordinary fact needs an explanation in terms of the machine having been rigged in some way. But the kidnapper, who now reappears, casts doubt on the suggestion. “It is hardly surprising,” he says, “that the machine draws only aces of hearts. You could not possibly see anything else. For you would not be here to see anything at all if any other cards had been drawn.”
But, of course, the victim is right and not the kidnapper. There is indeed something extraordinary in need of explanation in 10 aces of hearts being drawn. The fact that this peculiar order is a necessary condition of the draw being perceived at all makes what is perceived no less extraordinary and in need of explanation. The teleologist’s starting point is not that we perceive order rather than disorder, but that order rather than disorder is there. Maybe only if order were there could we know what is there, but that makes what is there no less ordinary and in need of explanation.
The universe is characterized by vast, all-pervasive temporal order, the conformity of nature to formula, recorded in the scientific laws formulated by men. These phenomena, like the very existence of the world, is clearly something “too big” for science to explain. If there is an explanation of the order of the universe, it can’t be a scientific one.[/quote]
As far as Brown's explanation, which is actually what you asked for, he uses emergent systems sort of in the same sense Mike Behe speaks of irreducible complexity in biological organisms. Brown says that complex systems can adapt to the point where they become irreducible causal systems in their own right. What emerges is not reducible to the characteristics of the input components. Here are some bullet points from my notes:
The Dynamics of Complex Systems:
[list][*]A complex system self-organizes when pushed far from equilibrium. The human brain is a complex system as well.
[*] Elements entrain (bind) each other into larger patterns of interactivity that interface with the environment. Ants can do any task, but they specialize. What causes ants’ work is not the ants themselves, but the pattern of activity. In the human brain, any particular neuron is entirely dependent on its place in the network of interactivity.
[*] Large perturbations of the system cause reorganization (adaptability). Destroy an ant nest, and they will reorganize themselves and adapt. Humans adapt to new situations, incorporation some elements of previous adaptations, but sometimes new systems emerge.
[*] A continued reorganization creates higher and higher levels of organization and adaptability. There are more parts of my universe that I occupy and can deal with to meet the new challenge. “Catastrophes” cause systems to reorganize.
[*] Self-organization based on environmental feedback means that system organization embodies meaning.[/list]
Thinking, deciding, consciousness, memory, language, representation, belief, etc. are large dynamic patterns of brain activity that constrain the ongoing lower-level physiological phenomena whose activity constitute the brain patterns themselves. Therefore the causal properties of patterns are not reducible to the elements. They are emergent.
Self-Determination in Dynamical Systems:
[list][*] Constraining variation of consistent parts paradoxically increases possibilities for the system (i.e., greater freedom).
[*] Systems increasingly respond (act) from their own point of view. It’s not totally driven by stimuli in the environment, but it’s related to its adaptive history and (in humans) its social history.
[*] System organization embodies meaning.
[*] Ongoing adaptations means higher and higher levels of meaning can be expressed in behavior. (think of childhood development)[/list]
“The higher level of organization, whether thermodynamic, psychological or social, possesses a qualitatively different repertoire of states and behavior than the earlier level, as well as greater degrees of freedom.”
Hopefully that helps.
> What is a mental event v. a brain event?
As I remember, a brain event was chemical activity in the brain and the firing of synapses as the brain worked. It's the physiological activity of the brain. A mental event, by contrast, is a memory, an intuition, etc.
> What is emergence and emergent patterns of activities?
"Emergence" is used to describe characteristics that are more than the sum of their parts. Maybe think of it this way (even though this analogy is flawed and inadequate, to some extent): human beings build a computer, made of wires and magnetic surfaces that can store sequences of information and particular collections of 1s and 0s. But then somewhere along the way the computer's capability to process information emerges into a capability to truly think (hyper-charged AI) beyond the capacity of its programming. It begins to create information, something it was never designed to do, which its programming can't explain, and which wires and magnetic surfaces aren't capable of. And now, based on its ability to think, it (on its own) joins with other computers who are doing the same thing and they begin to specialize. The subsequent technology that emerges is capable of things each computer on its own was incapable of.
Hopefully you can see what I'm getting at. If we play this analogy game long enough, we will end up with systems that can't be explained by wires and magnetic surfaces.
Now, this is exactly what scientific naturalists claim occurred. The problem is that there is no evidence for such a chain of events. As a matter of fact, the evidence takes us in a different direction—that the systems in place now could not have come from the components, no matter how long the chains are an no matter what happened, like green beans almandine from eggs, milk, and flour.
> Why do either of those two refute/make less plausible the idea of hard determinism?
As per Niel Nielson's quote from last post, hard determinism, when played through logically, is both self-contradictory and absurd. And, secondly, the systems that are now extant betray that no process could have brought them about (e.g., reliable truth assessment that came from components and systems unconcerned with truth and unable to process truth).
> are there any books that you could recommend on the topic of refuting hard determinism, or free will in general?
:roll: I've gotten these things I keep telling your from a raft of sources, as I've been crediting along the way. I'm not aware of a single source. I'll bet such a book exists, since just about everything does exist; I just don't know what they are. Sorry. :(