Board index ‹ Creation and Evolution

[Random Word]

Well no, of course "why not" is not the only legitimate form of inquiry there is -- that's not what I was saying. I also wasn't saying that the universe being the way it is doesn't warrant an explanation -- it does. What I was saying was that I'm not convinced that the specific nature of the universe, with all its constants and the speed of light and what-have-you--implies a conscious designer.
Part of the way I got to that conclusion was asking "why not" instead of asking "why." It's not that one question is more legitimate, it's that the two perspectives yield different insights. Asking "why not" in this case I think helps avoid some common errors in conceptualizing probability that make the fine-tuning argument seem more plausible.

[jimwalton]

Thanks for good conversation. What I seem to be missing in your argument is where intelligence, personality, reason, and design make more sense coming from a impersonal random, non-intelligent, without-reason process than it does coming from an intelligent, personal, reason-filled designer. The only sense I can make of your position is if you are presupposing (not by logical reasoning but just a priori) that the existence of God (or a designer) is impossible. Then, of course, I can understand you not being convinced.

But to me it makes sense that whatever begins to exist has a cause, and we know (our best knowledge points to this option) the universe had a beginning. It also makes sense that personal effects come from personal causes, and impersonal effects come from impersonal causes. So also reason. There is no known (proven, logical, evidential) source of reason other than reason. It also makes sense to me that we have no example of informational data (such as DNA) that does not come from an intelligent (informational) source. Why does it make more sense to you (I'm actually really curious to know) that what we see has come from a random, non-intelligent, unreasoned, non-informational process? Theism fits the picture we see better than naturalism, in my reasoning. So I'm really curious to find out, in your reasoning, why random chance impersonality is a better explanation for what we have.

[Random Word]

First, try thinking in terms of emergent complexity rather than mere “randomness.”

We know that complexity can arise from simple component parts in some cases. Google "elementary cellular automata rule 110" for a really basic example of this.

Another example is, think about the difference in organizational structure between Chicago and Boston. Chicago was planned before people really settled it, and Boston was settled before anybody did any real planning. That's why Chicago is on a grid, and Boston is a huge mess of winding streets. But Boston is also a really nice example of emergent complexity: in the last 400 years, Boston’s residents haven’t been thinking to themselves, “Oh, let’s have this kind of neighborhood here.” And yet the city has developed rich organization that is more complex than Chicago's simple grid and would have been hard to plan out if you started from scratch. So I think the universe (as well as biological systems, some kinds of computer simulations, etc.) is an example of emergent complexity in kind of a similar way.

(Incidentally, I imagine that you would think Chicago and Boston are BOTH designed: one planned out by man, both designed by God. To go back to the now-cliche watchmaker example, if you find a watch on the beach, the sand around the watch should be every bit as designed as the watch is. So how can the watchmaker argument work, the property of being designed doesn’t differentiate it from sand in any way? To me, the watchmaker story is if anything an argument AGAINST a designed universe, if there’s such a clear difference between the designed watch and the undesigned sand...but that’s beside the point I guess.)

As for the first cause argument, please excuse me for my frankness but this argument is just not a good one. One would be right to point out that the idea of emergent complexity is more of a description than an explanation—and the origin of the universe does require an explanation. But if you explain the universe by saying that God Did It, then you’re just left to explain where God came from—you haven’t solved the first cause problem. And if you say, “well God is eternal,” then you’re just doing special pleading. Of course that’s your prerogative, but I think it’s a terrible way to reason. (e.g., as long as we’re making stuff up, why can’t we just say the universe is eternal? Or why not say God was created by an eternal Flying Spaghetti Monster? etc.)

So anyway, I think the proper answer to the question of where the universe came from is, we don’t know. One possibility could be that the kind of emergent complexity I’m talking about either arises from or constitutes something that we might describe as consciousness (and then, we’d want to know where this consciousness comes from). Another (not mutually exclusive) possibility is something like multi-verses (and then, we’d want to know where the multi-verses come from).

But if we want to think that a conscious being or system is the first cause of the universe, then if this is going to be anything more than an unfounded a-priori assumption, we have to get into what it means for a system to be conscious and how we could recognize consciousness as opposed to non-consciousness (and then my brain starts to hurt). And if we refuse to do that—if we just assume a consciousness exists that could never be detected, then we’re left with a mess of unfalsifiable nonsense. So it’s not that I think the existence of a god is impossible, it’s just that in my journey to make sense of the universe, I’ve realized it’s best to reject a-priori assumptions that gods can exist. Maybe they can, and maybe they can’t (same goes for multi-verses!). But that’s not the same as declaring gods to be impossible—it's just holding the idea of God to the same standard that I'd hold any other claim.

[jimwalton]

Thanks for a great reply.

> Emergent Complexity

Great term and concept. Let's go there first, and I'll try to be brief (at the trade-off of NOT saying some pretty important things). Physicalism says physical existence is all there is (your a-priori position). We are an agglomeration of mindless molecules. The problem is, if mental events are intrinsically related to neural events (physicalism), how can it *not* be the case that the contents of mental events are ultimately governed by the laws of neurobiology? Warren Brown, neuroscientist, says, "f neurobiological determinism is true, then it would appear that there is no freedom of the will, that moral responsibility is in jeopardy, and that our talk about the role of reasons in any intellectual disciplines is misguided." Brown continues that the rational answer is non-reductive (emergent) physicalism; human behavior cannot be *exhaustively* explained by analysis at lower levels, but higher-level *causal* properties emerge. Therefore, thinking and deciding are indeed efficacious. Non-reductive neuroscience accepts the emergence of causal mental properties, such as thinking, deciding, interpersonal relations, morality, virtue, and spirituality. What is the case is that the theory of dynamical systems gives a plausible account of the emergence of high-level causal properties in complex systems. As you are saying, complex, nonlinear, highly interactive aggregates become system through adaptive self-organization, and these patterns of system organization are causal in their own right (Chicago and Boston).

A problem lies in that these effects have causal properties not entirely attributable to the capacities and behaviors of their structural elements. Whether urban planning, ant colonies, or human development, the causal properties of patterns are not reducible to the component elements. They are emergent, adaptive, and they *embody meaning.* Neuroscience supports the important theological requirement of human moral agency and free will, hence it is necessary to postulate rationalism from a rational cause rather than a determine one.

To me the logic of first cause is found in many places. Gottfried Leibnitz postulated the "Principle for Sufficient Reason" in his cosmological argument: everything has to have a reason for existence. That makes sense to me. Kalam's argument that "whatever begins to exist has a cause" makes sense to me. So what was the sufficient reason and cause for the existence of the universe? Something must have always existed, but the theory of the Big Bang says that the universe and material are not that, having come from an infinitesimally small point devoid of dimension. But some kind of causative mechanism tripped the "bang". That causative mechanism is outside of time, outside of matter, and must be personal, because both neuroscience and physics teach us that only personal causes are capable of being first causes. What put the system in motion? It can't be the system itself, because the big bang theory hypothesizes that the laws of physics are not operative before the bang. The emergent system was caused by something outside of itself, and it displays personality, information, reason, and purpose. From whence did such things come? Even without presupposing the pre-existence of God, which makes a whole lot of more sense than reductive materialism, we are left concluding that the most reasonable source reflects the characteristics of the resultant reality.

[Random Word]

> how can it not be the case that the contents of mental events are ultimately governed by the laws of neurobiology

Wait...why would I want to argue that this is not the case? I in fact think it is the case.

> causal properties of patterns are not reducible to the component elements. They are emergent, adaptive, and they embody meaning.

OK, I think I see what the problem is. I think emergent properties of consciousness might be hard to detect and talk about at a very low level of analysis, but that doesn't mean they only EXIST at a higher level of analysis. Any level of analysis is just an artifact of our thinking anyway—the universe doesn't care about how we analyze these things. And anyway, you most definitely can get at high-level structure from low-level units of data. That's why we invented statistics, was to do exactly that.

> Neuroscience supports the important theological requirement of human moral agency and free will

OK, so free will is another can of worms...but it sounds like it's key to your argument, so let me tell you what I think about free will. I think we have free will in the sense that our minds play a causal role in things happening. But I don't think we have free will in the sense of, our reactions to things in fact probably are reducible to deterministic interactions among neurons. Another way of putting it is, I don't think human minds are first causes.

setting that aside for a second, it sounds like you're saying that entities with free will can be first causes and entities without free will cannot be first causes. I guess I have to agree with you because you've essentially just made an argument by definition. If all God is in your scheme is an entity that's capable of being a first cause (i.e., a free-will-having entity), then I suppose in your scheme I might be a theist.

> But consider another possibility: What put the system in motion? It can't be the system itself, because the big bang theory hypothesizes that the laws of physics are not operative before the bang.

Then why do we need to posit a first cause at all, if the laws of physics are not operative before the big bang?

[jimwalton]

What I'm saying is that it is more reasonable to correlate the universe as we see it with theism than with atheism. While I am not declaring atheism as impossible (there can be no evidence, scientific or otherwise, of such a proposition; it is a metaphysical presupposition), I am asserting that given what we see, theism is a more reasonable deduction.

I read an interesting piece of logic in Plantinga recently, which I think pertains to our discussion at hand (not of fine-tuning in particular, but regarding whether the contents of mental events (our cognitive faculties) can have arisen by natural (materialist) means. To me it's another piece of the fine-tuning debate, and I'm curious about your reaction to it. (It's not a direct quote, though some of it is quoted; I've summarized parts of it, and that's why I haven't put the whole thing in quotation marks.)

There is an inherent and necessary conflict between naturalism and truth. Natural materialists make truth statements (There is no god, there is no spiritual world, there is no life after death—religious statements to be sure), but on what basis? Our cognitive faculties of memory, perception, intuition, sympathy, etc., work together in complex ways to produce what we call belief (there is no god, I think it's hot in here) and knowledge (2+2=4). On what grounds can I consider these (or any observations) to be true? My memory or intuitions, for example, (but even my observational skills) are reliable only if they produce mostly true beliefs. A theist such as myself naturally believes that our cognitive faculties are reliable because God made us this way. But as an atheist, there is no such person, and no such source of truth. Your cognitive faculties have been cobbled together by natural selection. Can you then sensibly (reasonably) consider your thoughts to be reliable? First, if naturalism and evolution are both true, our cognitive faculties would very likely not be reliable—the probability is low. And if the probability that your cognitions are reliable is low, then any belief you hold is suspect. Therefore, there is reason to doubt your belief in materialism. You cannot rationally accept a position when reason is suspect.

Nietzsche said, “Only if we assume a God who is morally our like can “truth” and the search for truth be at all something meaningful and promising of success. This God left aside, the question is permitted whether being deceived is not one of the conditions of life.”

Thomas Nagel said: “If we came to believe that our capacity for objective theory (e.g., true beliefs) were the product of natural selection, that would warrant serious skepticism about its results.”

Barry Stroud: “There is an embarrassing absurdity in [naturalism] that is revealed as soon as the naturalist reflects and acknowledges that he believes his naturalistic theory of the world. … I mean he cannot it and consistently regard it as true.”

Patricia Churchland: “Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four Fs: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems it to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. … Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism’s way of life and enhances the organism’s chances of survival. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost.”

Plantinga writes: From an materialist atheist standpoint, what evolution guarantees is at most that we behave in certain ways so as to promote survival, viz., reproductive success. The principal function or purpose, then, of our cognitive faculties is not that of producing true or near true beliefs, but instead that of contributing to survival by getting the body parts in the right place. What evolution underwrites is only (at most) that our behavior is reasonably adaptive to the circumstances in which our ancestors found themselves; hence it doesn’t guarantee true or mostly true beliefs. Our beliefs might be mostly true, but there is no particular reason to think they would be: natural selection is not interested in truth, but in appropriate behavior. What Churchland therefore suggests is that naturalistic evolution—that is, the conjunction of metaphysical naturalism with the view that we and our cognitive faculties have arisen by way of the mechanisms and processes proposed by contemporary evolutionary theory—gives us reason to doubt two things: (a) that a purpose of our cognitive systems is that of serving us with true beliefs, and (b) that they do, in fact, furnish us with mostly true beliefs. Darwin himself said, "With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"

As it turns out, the scientific method is only a reasonable epistemic source given theism, and is self-contradictory given atheism. Materialism is self-defeating.

[Random Word]

OK, so I'm happy to switch subjects and talk about this -- but first, I would love to sort of wrap up what we were discussing previously. You had said some stuff about free will implying first-causer-capability and that implying that God (defined as a free-will-having and therefore conscious agent) caused the universe. I tried to summarize your idea and then said I thought it was basically an argument by definition and didn't really avoid the special pleading problem.

If you're still mulling it over, that's fine too - but I was curious whether I at least got your position more or less "right" in my summary.

Anyway as far as this new idea goes, I've heard the sort of argument you're describing and again if you'll permit me to be frank, I don't think it's a good one. Our cognitive faculties evolved in the context of an unforgiving natural selection scheme (whether you're theist or not, this is true -- I assume you're not a young-earth creationist but maybe I'm wrong), which means they need to yield accurate predictions about what's going to happen in the world and offer ways of responding that will promote survival.

But I think the human mind -- just like any information processing system -- is limited (a) as to how much information it can process, and (b) by its own specific architecture in terms of what kinds of representations it can form of that information.

Still, I think it's incredibly reductionist to conclude from this that we can't "know" anything. Of course I can't even be sure my laptop exists, is this all a dream?, etc. If by "sure" you mean 100.00000000000 etc. percent certainty, then you're right that we can never be certain about anything, and we don't need to be. I need to be able to make a prediction that when I type, words will appear on the screen. If they don't, my computer is broken. That's the level of certainty I need.

But even if our senses and conceptual systems were just severely flawed and somehow this didn't cause us to be unable to predict when a lion was going to eat us and get selected out, even in that case, they would still be all we have. And if a monkey was reasoning about where somebody just hid a bunch of grapes, then yes, I sure would trust that monkey's assessment of where the grapes are! (monkeys are quite good at that sort of thing)

And anyway, even if I granted this whole (incredibly reductionist to the point of being absurd, in my opinion) argument... if you're not 100% certain in the existence of God--if you believe that it's possible that there is no God--aren't you just in the same boat that I am? As long as there's any possibility that your reasoning processes don't have God's seal of approval, that should also undermine your ability to know anything with certainty too.

[jimwalton]

Thanks for the reply. I seem to have missed the mark with my writing, miscommunicated, or you misunderstood somehow. Let me try again. The point is not that we can't know anything, but that there is no such thing as "truth" in natural materialism, and here is where the rubber meets the road, including the fine-tuning argument.

Naturalistic evolutionary theory would claim (by necessity) that the universe and all that is in it occurred by unguided (necessarily) random sequences of pure chance. It does not exhibit (and cannot possibly contain, by definition) any teleology. It is completely blind, unforeseen, and unpredictable. There is not and cannot be any purpose, aim, or goal. It evolves, period. This claim, by the way, is not a scientific claim, but a metaphysical one. It's a (theological a-priori) claim that cannot be verified by the scientific method, even though ironically it's a pillar of science. But now we have to play this out.

Logically, it is impossible that both naturalism and evolution are both true. From a pure naturalism stance, there are blind forces at work creating random and emergent sequences. Those sequences are not subject to the categories of "true" or "false," because they are entirely biological and physical: amino acids link up, lightning bolts strike, meteors hit, wind blows. Nothing is true or false, it merely is. Given the progress of millions or billions of years of sequences, it still, by definition, merely is. It's always chemicals, physical forces, heat, cold, electricity, gravity. When a lightning bolt strikes a pond and causes some chemical and/or structural changes, true and false still don't enter the equation. It can't; it's just a sequence—a blind, non-teleological cause and effect. Somewhere along the way cognition evolves: consciousness, memory, perception, what have you. But in a system characterized (by necessity) by natural selection, abstract truth (logic, math, etc.) is never part of the equation. The creatures certainly have knowledge (necessary for survival) and even perception and thought (necessary for survival), but how can natural selection in a blind, non-teleological progression (I'm reticent to even call it a system, because that speaks of purpose). But given the necessarily environment of totally undirected sequences, all knowledge and belief is also totally undirected, and therefore the probability that any of it can be counted on to be reliable is low. Even if the odds are 50-50, my memories, logic, and intuition cannot be counted on. If we've been put together by a totally non-directed sequence, it would make sense that anything I think might also be totally non-directed, and therefore unreliable. That's what I'm saying. If there is no directive mechanism, I have no reason to believe my intuitive assumption that my thoughts are reliable, for truth is no part of pure naturalistic evolution. The quotes that I referenced bore out the concurrence of atheists in agreement with what I'm saying. We have every reason to doubt that human cognitive faculties have the capacity to produce reliable beliefs about anything. They are merely neuro-psychological properties. If I am merely a biological, neuro-psychological entity, how can I evaluate truth in the content of my cognitive faculties? Darwin, Nietzsche, Nagel, Stroud, and Churchland agree that it cannot. Certainly rising in the evolutionary scale eventuates in cognition and mental content, but what would ever make one believe that the content is, in fact, true, when truth is not part of biology sequence? Without a directive entity to create teleology and impute truth, there is no such thing, and therefore the naturalist who accepts evolution is rationally obliged to give up assumptions that their thought processes are reliable.

[Random Word]

Pretty much everything you've said above here seems reasonable from my point of view, with the exception that I dislike the language of "random chance" because it oversimplifies the processes that go on in the universe. I don't know who some of those other guys are, and I don't care too much what they think either unless their arguments are persuasive on their own merits.

But I think the real key question you're asking is this: "What would ever make one believe that the content is, in fact, true, when truth is not part of biology sequence."

I would say that an idea is true if it consistently yields useful predictions that are born out in reality. I see no conflict with that and our brains being generated through naturalistic processes.

[jimwalton]

Thanks for the reply. On the one hand, you are making a lot of sense. It sounds like what you're saying is that through the eons our brains have somehow learned to separate between what is random and what is truth, in the sense that the adaptive features of our brains have allowed for sorting and evaluating, and in the process have decided on standards for accuracy and truth, and so, through naturalistic processes, have come to recognize truth and falsehood.

On the other hand, it seems to me that you are using a retrogressive idea to plant an element in the system that cannot, by definition, be there. As an analogy, I play iTunes on “shuffle.” It brings the songs up in a totally random order. There is no rhyme or reason to it (and there can't be, given the "system"), but just pops them in. It’s unreasonable for me to expect it will play all rock songs, or all country, even less all my favorites— in a row; it’s random. “Shuffle” is the only possibility. It’s nonsense for me to wonder, when the next song comes up, “Does that make sense?” “Sense” has nothing to do with it; it’s on shuffle. Should I ask, “Is that reliable?” In a system where there is only pure randomization, I can’t predict what will come up next, or consider it to have any purpose, theme, or meaning. “Reliable” is a nonsense word.

Back to naturalism. The theory is that everything that has happened to give us life the way it is is a system on “shuffle.” The changes that happen are totally random, and in a totally random order. There is no rhyme or reason to it, but what pops in. When creatures, under the theory, develop consciousness, or beyond that even knowledge, it’s nonsense for me to wonder, when a thought pops up, “Does that make sense?” “Sense” has nothing to do with it. The only choice is “shuffle.” Can I consider my thoughts to be reliable? I can’t. Reliable is a nonsense word. In a system where there is only pure randomization, I can’t predict what will come up next, nor can I regard any sequence of thoughts to be trustworthy, because all life, including the content of my thoughts, is on “shuffle.” I cannot consider it to have any purpose, theme, or meaning.

You are saying that our consciousness has emerged, and we have learned sequence, derived meaning, and defined truth. But how is that possible in a system where randomization is the ONLY possibility? It is illegitimate to regressively import purpose into a system where purpose is an impossibility.

What I mean is, one can NEVER trust the system. When I have thoughts, perceptions, and intuitions, is it at all possible that I have learned to ascribe purpose meaning, and "truth," or should I assume they’re random? Since “random” is the only player in the system, I will always have to wonder, since I can never really know if they are on “shuffle.” Therefore I have to always consider that my thoughts are possibly irrational. There is a profound conflict here. While you are ascribing emergent capability to the intellect of life, you are possibly ignoring that you (may) believe in mechanistic naturalism. It's no different than a machine. A machine filled with 3 billion balls (seven of which are the colors of the spectrum) drops one through a hole every 100 years as it stirs continually. What we are looking for is a sequence of the 7 in spectral order. If a machine could learn, it might learn to do that. But the machine cannot learn to do that; it is mechanistic. It can only learn to do that if some designer programs in a way for the machine to discern colors and drop the balls with purpose. If life is mechanistic (no teleology, no rational source, no logic anywhere in the system [since the source is unreasoned]), the possibility for the brain to learn is illogical. There is no learning in a mechanistic system. There is only learning in a rational one, but a rational environment cannot stem from an irrational, mechanistic, "shuffle."