Patrick,
We do get a bit of philosophy and history in our local science classrooms:
History and Nature of Science
CONTENT STANDARD G:
As a result of their activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop an understanding
of
• Science as a human endeavor
• Nature of scientific knowledge
• Historical perspectives
Nuno
These exchanges are fairly common to ID proponents. I could remove everything I said in my previous post, leaving only one item of interest: The translation of an informational medium produces effects that are not determined by the physical properties of the medium being translated. This is a universal observation within the study of physics. It was entirely predictable that this issue would not be directly addressed in your response, and indeed that is exactly what you failed to do.
Here are the things you said:
[quote=“Nuno, post:48, topic:3710, full:true”]
… it is often very difficult to have productive conversations when the arguments are “I think this is supported by what that author X says but I can’t say where”.
… it’s impossible to find holes in amorphous arguments without precise definitions and detailed descriptions
… I prefer thinking with structured arguments rather than engaging in endless discussion using amorphous arguments[/quote]
These comments are intended to denigrate and dismiss observations you don’t want to address in earnest. From the bibliography on the website, allow me to quote the words of physicist Howard Pattee, who has spent five decades researching the physics of symbols and semiotic controls. In this passage, Pattee is speaking specifically about the symbolic representations required for genetic memory to exist. Leading up to this passage, he tells us that physical laws are described in terms of energy, time, and rates of change in energy. However, he explains, symbol vehicles are entirely different – they are “rate-independent” structures. In these two sentences Pattee is describing the core requirements of a semiotic system:
Symbols do not exist in isolation but are part of a semiotic or linguistic system (Pattee, 1969a). Semiotic systems consist of (1) a discrete set of symbol structures (symbol vehicles) that exist in a quiescent, rate-independent (non-dynamic) states, as in most memory storage, (2) a set of interpreting structures (non-integrable constraints, codes), and (3) an organism or system in which the symbols have a function (Pattee, 1986).
In this first sentence, Pattee tells us that arrangements of matter (that act as symbols) do not exist alone, but require a specific type of system in order to establish them as symbols. This is a universal observation. This fact alone ends the argument over irreducible complexity. You asked for a single example of something that is irreducibly complex; here is your answer – every instance of information that has ever existed.
In the second sentence, Pattee enumerates the physical requirements of a system where symbols exist. The first requirement is an arrangement of matter to serve as a non-dynamic symbol vehicle. He describes these symbol vehicles as “quiescent” (inert) and “rate-independent” because it is not the physical properties of the arrangement that makes them a symbol. What actually establishes these arrangements as symbols is the second requirement of the system, which Pattee refers to as “interpreting structures”. These are “non-integrable” constraints that physically establish what is being represented by each of the symbols (i.e. a code). What is “non-integrable” about these structures is that their existence in the system cannot be “integrated” into a lawful description of the system. They exist in the system as a matter of contingent organization.
Pattee tells us that the organization of these constraints (forming a genetic code) accounts for the translation of “rate-independent memory so as to control rate-dependent dynamics, thereby bridging the epistemic cut between the controller and the controlled”.
If you will notice, these are the same material conditions I presented in the model of translation on Biosemiosis.org: 1) An arrangement of matter to serve as a representation, 2) An arrangement of matter to establish what is being represented, 3) The discontinuity between a representation and its effect is preserved by the organization of the system, and 4) The production of function in the living kingdom.
As I already said, every material observation I present on Biosemiosis.org is fully supported by universal experience. There are no counter-examples. It would serve no purpose whatsoever to present any material observations that weren’t supported by evidence. And thus, my comment above that “The translation of an informational medium produces effects that are not determined by the physical properties of the medium being translated” is empirically confirmed, and thus, irreducible complexity is a fact of translation. And with that, the question I posed to you earlier remains: “What do you do, when you are someone like you, and new undeniable evidence is presented?”
Thus far, you have strung together several objections that are either factually wrong, irrelevant to the evidence, or merely positioning statements to dismiss the argument. If you choose to respond to this comment, one of four things will likely happen. You will either acknowledge that the observations are correct (not so likely), or produce material evidence that refutes the observations (not going to happen), or ask a genuine question to better understand the argument (possible), or continue finding rhetorical maneuvers (often disguised as questions) that don’t directly address the content of the argument. There are many such diversions, as many as there are stars in the sky.
In any case, I will not want to continue the dialogue if you choose not to address the actual evidence. There is little point to that exercise, other than demonstrating that you are avoiding the evidence. There is also a purely human reality, such that people who have strong opinions, particularly those who go out and regularly argue their opinions (like you do here), are very unlikely to just change their mind because physical evidence proves them wrong. Perhaps the best outcome is for you to set aside your biases and assertions long enough to give yourself the time to read the data and acclimate yourself to the facts.
–and if this should be our last exchange, then thank you for the dialogue and Merry Christmas to you.
Independent Baptists probably would not like it; however, I do not believe most would find it harmful. I would not include astrology, however. I would do what is done in college classrooms: teach world religions. No matter what one believes, we all need to understand our worlds and its belief systems. As for prayer in school, that should be left up to every individual student. I would not agree with a standard school prayer. I am a conservative-evangelical, and I have absolutely no problem with that. It is knowledge; it is education. Germany has such courses, why can’t we? We have such courses in state universities. I studied in a BA program that offered pre-seminary courses; therefore, I was well prepared for seminary.
Oh, George, did you know that Sir Isaac Newton and the Rev. Joseph Priestly of the Unitarian Church were both historic premillennialist in reference to their eschatology? Such study is culture. It is learning. It was nice to hear from you, George. I must go and eat my breakfast now 
Friend Patrick,
Things can be changed, and I don’t believe our laws are written in stone. I am glad you enjoyed your Christmas dinner, Patrick. Is it still hot in New Jersey? World Religions are taught in universities in the Commonwealth of Virginia without any problems. Yale University offers degrees in religion that are not a part of their seminaries. It could be done in public schools if the students were interested. It is our culture. Why can philosophy be offered earlier? It is done in Europe. It should not be sponsored by any religious group.
I seem to agree with you, Nuno.
Nuno,
Thus your example of neuronal representation of heat not being itself heat is completely besides the point as it says nothing about the evolution of the components. No one disputes that complex systems have emergent properties - the disagreement is on whether they can be evolved (stepwise) or not.
The purpose of the example was not to show how the system came into being; it was to show how such systems function. First you need to know it is a genuine representation, then you need to know that the effect of that representation is not derived from the physical properties of the representation itself. Without some other arrangement of matter to establish what is being represented, the representation would not exist (because it doesn’t represent anything on its own).
Meaning in a material universe is the product of organization, not physical law.
First of all, don’t be too surprised if this conversation (if it continues) is soon split into a separate thread, as it has taken off on a tangent of the article that started this thread.
I see that you continue to “forget” to post a reference to a publication in a mainstream journal precisely describing your model but, since you insist, I will indulge you for the time being and attempt to address your points on your terms. I will also avoid nitpicking at statements like “You asked for a single example of something that is irreducibly complex; here is your answer – every instance of information that has ever existed” in the hopes of promoting a productive exchange.
In the interest of cutting through the jargon and making this exchange more accessible to those who didn’t invest time as I did to ponder your claims, is it fair to say that the core fundamental argument proposed at biosemiosis.org is that a) there is a fundamental discontinuity between non-life and life and b) whatever happened when life was first created (biogenesis) added non-reducible information to the system in your (1) symbol structures = genomes, (2) interpreting structures = translational/replication machinery and (3) supporting organism where functions are defined. This view also seems to be supported by statements from your website such as the one below. I’m sure you can nitpick at the details but let’s first establish whether this is or is not the core of what you’re proposing - if it is not (as it may well be the case) then please clarify how so.
Yet, despite the depth of observations, the general public’s awareness of genuine representations and rules at the origin of life is virtually zero. To a modern person in a modern society, who everyday uses any number of devices that require information processing (representations and rules) in order to function, the term “genetic code” seems to be understood only for its obvious necessity (in making things happen a certain way), but the term itself has been emptied of its nature. Its unique physical workings, to any large number of people, are simply unknown. That part of the science has been left out of the public discourse about origins. This is the challenge that Biosemiosis.org has set for itself. [from http://biosemiosis.org/index.php/the-future-of-biosemiosis-org]
However, if what you’re proposing is fundamentally as I described above and as represented on your website, then unfortunately it seems to me like just another “God of gaps” type of argument, which is indeed typical of ID proponents - we don’t know how life started from non-life so God did it in a way that we will never be able to understand. This is quite a far cry from the mathematical proofs I asked for along the lines of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems or Turing’s Halting Problem.
@Biosemiosis
Meaning in a material universe is the product of organization, but organization is the product of physical law. Therefore, meaning (intelligence) is the product of physical law—a straightforward syllogism. Without physical law there is no organization, and without organization there is no meaning.
The logic may be expressed as such; through physical law (nuclear forces) our solar system was organized, and through this organization meaning of the solar system was established. Therefore, meaning of the solar system was established through physical law.
In regards to origins of life, I see a similar path—physical law > organization > meaning.
Tony
Thank you for the clarifications; I agree with almost everything you wrote.
My utilization of “understanding” was indeed meant as “mechanistic description” of the process or event under consideration. This was intentionally so not because I disregard other forms of reason or understanding but because I acknowledge the limitations of the scientific method in disciplines such as chemistry, biology and even math when it comes to addressing questions about the beginning of life. To the best of my knowledge, these disciplines have no way to formally model intelligent agency so yes, they do “give up completeness of explanation and go with Descartes, Kant, etc.”.
I also agree with you that it’s borderline disgraceful that one can be awarded a degree of Doctor of Philosophy in a scientific discipline without ever being required to take courses in philosophy and history of science. It is thus not at all surprising that the Dover Trial testimonies were so shallow on these points; sad, but not surprising. In addition to this, I would also agree that most scientific disciplines today have become highly technical and this has unfortunately resulted in a reduced proportion of focus on high-level abstract reasoning even at a Ph.D. level - definitely not anywhere near what you’d expect from someone with an actual degree in philosophy or philosophy of science.
Altogether, given the different methods of reasoning used in these disciplines and the de facto highly reductionist state of science as practiced and understood in today’s society, it does seem more appropriate to use the term “science” in the mechanistic sense. But again this does not in any way imply that other forms or reasoning are less useful in their explanatory power. They are useful and they are necessary but calling them “science” will likely only make the conversation confusing to most people.
I am skeptical that such material is “half-thought-out”. I would expect that considerable thought has been invested into the material developed in the state education department.
So I would also expect that it does some good.
George
George is right. Here on Connecticut’s “gold coast” we have excellent schools and even an award-winning library. I will do some research and find out about required education for teachers, instead of making assumptions.
This objection of yours took the general form of ‘those amorphous arguments without precise descriptions or peer-reviewed support’. On the other hand, I gave you a link to my bibliography, and told you peruse the papers by Pattee. I then gave you a quote from the first paper listed in the bibliography: Howard Pattee, The physics of symbols: bridging the epistemic cut, which unambiguously supports the model presented. It seems just a little tedious at this point to continue trying to sell this objection as anything substantive.
You would describe it in those terms only if you wanted to gray it all out, and move as far away from the details as possible. Biosemiosis.org presents the material conditions required to translate information into physical effects. The discontinuity described in the system is between a) the arrangement of a representation, and b) the determination of its effect. This is one of the necessary physical conditions that allows translation to occur. It is part of the precise descriptions you were concerned with earlier. I don’t see any reason to re-describe it in looser terms. It’s specifically what allows nucleic acid representations (DNA) to specify amino acid effects (proteins) inside the cell. Without it there would be no life on this planet.
I believe materialists and atheists have done a very effective job of convincing theists that intelligent design theory is a ‘God of the Gaps’ argument. It rarely occurs to them that this line of reasoning makes naturalistic abiogenesis an unfalsifiable claim. The argument goes like this:
ID Proponent: The origin of X is best explained by an act of intelligence, as opposed to unguided material processes.
ID Opponent: You are merely injecting a god in the gaps of our knowledge, where we don’t yet know the details of how X originated by natural forces alone.
This counter-argument merely assumes that there is a natural explanation of X to begin with. If that assumption is not true, it freezes science into a position of forever searching for an explanation that doesn’t exist, while systematically ignoring the explanation clearly inferred by the evidence. It also leaves science with no way to correct itself, ultimately doing damage to the institution. Moreover, any theory that is defended by the assumption that we just haven’t yet discovered its truth is a theory that cannot be falsified. It can never be forced into test of its validity, and is therefore unscientific. This entire line of reasoning is a dumpster fire of logic, but it gets used a lot against ID anyway.
In contrast to this, the ID claim that ‘X is best explained by an act of intelligence’ can be immediately falsified by a demonstration that intelligence is not necessary.
– It is also important to recognize that the rhetoric of the “gaps argument” changes in the presence of semiotic observations. Semiosis provides an objective standard for inferring an act of intelligence. We have empirical warrant to infer an act of intelligence based on our universal observation of a very specific arrangement of matter, i.e. a semiotic system using a finite set of spatially-oriented representations, requiring the additional constraints of a reading frame code to enable to the system. That mouthful of a sentence describes a physical system that can be unambiguously identified by scientific investigation – and it is identified only among recorded language and mathematics (circa: the rise of human intelligence) and in the genetic code (circa: the origin of life on earth).
ID proponents don’t speak this way, or make this claim.
Yes, I am familiar with this reasoning. It is the same reasoning used by materialists and the atheists; unless you can provide “mathematical proofs” of God’s action then I have no reason to believe what you say. It’s a ridiculous standard for understanding a one-time event hidden in the deep unobservable past. It’s not even a standard; it’s a strategy for the denial of knowledge. In this instance, the knowledge being denied is that a specific type of semiotic system is a universal and unambiguous correlate of intelligence. This system is logically required at the origin of life, and has been found inside of every living cell on earth.
The second half of this sentence is not merely an assumption, it’s an assumption that runs directly contrary to the physical evidence. The relational architecture of a semiotic system specifically releases the system from the local limits of physical law. It produces effects that do not have to be derived from (and are therefore not limited by) physical law. On what grounds do we assume this independence from limits was established by the very limits it is required to be independent of?
I understand that the purpose of a bibliography is to provide support for the argument being made - what I was asking for is a publication proposing exactly what you’re describing on the website and, even more importantly, a formal mathematical definition of irreducible complexity. But I agree that this is a tired and unproductive point as it has become very clear that that reference does not seem to exist.
The main reason why I find it valuable to describe the proposed model in simple terms is because it helps everyone understand the core proposition under consideration. Adding details and precise definitions is a requirement of formalizing the proposed statements but it requires much more time to process and can be confusing without at least a generic sense of what the model aims to propose.
So before addressing your claims here and on your website, allow me to first mention several points where I agree with your model: a) it is clear that there is information and organization in living cells and b) it is clear how living systems can be modeled using your biosemiosis definitions. As I mentioned in my previous post, I agree that you can have (1) symbol structures = genomes, (2) interpreting structures = translational/replication machinery and (3) supporting organism where functions are defined. Furthermore, I also agree that many systems, including biology as we know it, are irreducible in the sense that the whole cannot work if there is a loss of any of its critical parts - obviously life as we know it will not function if you remove the genome (symbol structures), proteins (replication/effective agents) or the cellular environment (system/organism).
That said, this is not sufficient to establish the claims being made. More specifically, the existence of biology as we know it (or of semiotic systems in general) is not in itself proof of intelligent agency (as you claim on your website). The example on your website starts with SETI’s definition of intelligence as “the capacity to send a narrow-band radio signal detectable from earth” and analogously claims to define detectable intelligence in biology as “the capacity to encode memory using dimensional representations”. However, as you well note, “there would likely be skeptics who would question the conclusions of the SETI scientists” and the conclusion for extraterrestrial intelligence would be labeled as an “ET of the gaps” for as long as alternative explanations remained possible and required further exploration. When it comes to biology, the existence of humans also used to be “irreducibly complex” evidence of design but that hypothesis was very badly damaged by the discovery of evolutionary models and our knowledge of the genome. What you’re doing now is just moving the bar earlier in the process to another stage where we still don’t have plausible scientific explanations - the origin of life from non-life. Again, all your model says is “we don’t know how it happened” - there is nothing in it that “proves” intelligent agency.
Falsifying claims that “X is best explained by an act of intelligence” is exactly what science and reason have been doing for thousands of years. However, the fact that scientific explanations are not yet available to falsify certain claims is not in any way a proof that those statements of “X is best explained by an act of intelligence” are true. In other words, the lack of an explanation is not proof that an explanation cannot exist.
Impossibilities can (and are) scientifically shown in many instances. For example, a very rough statement of Turing’s Halting Problem is that it proves that no Turing machine can ever be constructed to determine whether a Turing machine will stop. A lesser, but more common way, to impose scientific limitations on formal statements is to compute their probability and argue for “practical impossibility” when the probability is too small for events to occur in the allotted number of draws from the probability distribution. Michael Behe understands this and that is why he has tried (but not succeeded in) proposing statistical models “showing” that evolutionary mechanisms do not suffice to generate all observed genomic diversity. But even then, these models would at best be able to show that there are “missing links”, not that the “missing link” must be proof of intelligent agency - that would be one possible explanation, but not the only possible explanation.
Mathematical proofs of impossibility can be constructed and that’s exactly why I gave the examples of Gödel and Turing. You cannot “have the cake and eat it too” - either a) you demonstrate that you can scientifically (i.e., mathematically) formulate and prove intelligent agency (and thus “prove” to many people that God exists, as that’s the only intelligent agent they’ll consider) or b) you admit that such a mathematical proof cannot exist and thus must cease labeling intelligent design as a scientific approach. Which is it?
All in all, I share your frustration for the lack of a mathematical definition of intelligent agency and would also love to see one if it exists. But since no such definition has yet held up to scrutiny, we need to humbly accept the limitations of our scientific modeling abilities and avoid imputing our desired interpretations onto models that cannot support those claims.
As I said earlier, there as many ways as the stars. Your comments here are intentionally deceptive. No one has ever suggested that ID is true because there are no falsifications of it.
It is not the fact that there are no falsifications of ID that leads to the inference of intelligent design. It is the fact that we can positively identify the physics of language among all other physical systems, and that singular system is used to organize the living cell. This is an objective empirical finding, and it is the source of the inference.
To suggest this material fact be ignored and dismissed is not something I am personally willing to do. I wonder why anyone would join others in insisting on such a deformity in logic.
I just would like to ask you a question: The cell translates information to create physical effects. Does the translation of information require one arrangement of matter to serve as a medium of information, and a second arrangement of matter to establish what is being represented, or not?
You have accused Nuno of lying. I didn’t think that was allowed here. Note that he has been very polite to you.
Correct. What makes intelligent design a non-science is the fact that there is no mathematical formulation (let alone proofs) of its claims of irreducible complexity and consequent intelligent agency.
As I mentioned above, no one disputes that there is organization in the cell and in living systems. We can also probably agree that the biosemiotics model generalizes some parts of that organization into concepts that can be used to represent other information transfer systems. But what we cannot agree on is that the existence of living cells (and thus “the capacity to encode memory using dimensional representations”) just by itself is “proof” of intelligent agency. Now this is not to say that such irreducible complexity cannot ever be expressed as a mathematical statement in terms of combinatorial chemistry (a la Halting Problem) to argue that a self-replicating precursor to life as we know it cannot have existed. It’s just that, to the best of my knowledge, no one has produced such a theorem to date.
I already agreed above that your model can be used to represent the basic arrangement of information in cells insofar as it captures their genome/proteome/organism structure. I would not necessarily go as far as asserting it’s “required” in the sense that “there can be no other way to transfer information” but that is probably not relevant to the point you’re trying to make.
Hi Nuno,
I do not wish to participate in your interesting exchange with @Biosemiosis.org, but I could not help but smile when I read the above quote - I have stated for many years this quote is just as relevant to neo-Darwinian thinking, and have pointed out that natural selection is simply not mathematically treatable.
So we are left with a somewhat entertaining notion that the criteria is valid for ID (which I am critical of) and yet for some mysterious reason becomes invalid for ND (!). 
Difficult state of affairs, don’t you think.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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