From: "Jed Rothwell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: OFF TOPIC: Intelligent design
<snip> > There is no such thing. If there were it could not be detected with any instrument, and therefore it, in turn, could not influence events in the real world. Anything which can affect matter can be detected with some configuration of matter. The hypothesis that an object is "nonphysical and timeless" -- invisible in short -- can never be proved or falsified, so it is not scientific. It is like the statement that all positive cold fusion results are caused by unspecified and undetected errors. > > If you discover a way to detect this invisible force of nature, that will make it a visible force of nature, and I expect you will then find that it works like all the other forces of nature we have discovered: it obeys mathematical laws to as many decimal places as you can measure -- or it is perfectly random at the quantum level, and it expresses no will, purpose, or consiousness. --------------- This debate dichotomy rages on as it has in other forms for centuries. This is a clue that something 'higher' or more 'fundamental' is missing. I suggest that it may lay in the direction of 'complexity' theory and Wolfram's "new kind of science". Wolfram's book carries forward earlier studies of cellular automata and the complexity generated by recursive application of formal rules. By voluminous examples of simulation runs, Wolfram demonsrtates that logical seeds can generate unlimited complexity with islands of order, and that these complex entities can execute basic logical and mathematical functions. The implication of this is that the manifest universe with all its complexity can be a process originating from a discrete logical seed whose recursive operation is completely deterministic, yet whose product is infinitely complex, like the Mandelbrot set. Human brains are arguably the most complex things in the universe, given the number of neurons and the completiy of their interconnections. It is plausibly argued that a human infant learns its environment by experiment and disconnection of irrelevant synapse patterns -- a process of pattern recognition uniquely able to cope with the extreme complexity of the manifest world. Thus life and intelligence will emerge wherever possible, for it is inherent in the process of the universe. And, it will be varied in its forms. The complex pattern recognition systems of organisms will perceive the islands of order within the generative complexity of the universe and conceive of intelligence in the design, missing the majesty of the inscrutible generative process. An irony in Wolfram's view is that the nature of the generative seed cannot be deduced from complexity it produces. So we may continue to study the universe without ever discovering the exact nature of ".....". Quoting Poo-Bah, in "The Mikado": "So I am right and you are right and all is right as right can be". :-) Mike Carrell
