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Author Topic:   Is an Intelligent Designer Necessary?
Russell E. Rierson
Inactive Member


Message 1 of 89 (69322)
11-25-2003 10:20 PM


It appears to be impossible to prove or disprove the existence of an ultimate "intelligent designer".
Is it possible to demonstrate that intelligent design is not necessary?
Most arguments FOR the existence of an"intellegent designer" for the universe, try to explain that it is impossible for "something" to come from nothing.
Is it possible that total nothingness is exactly equivalent to a perfect, and infinite, symmetry? Therefore, there "must" be a definite probability, that this infinite symmetry will spontaneously start symmetry breaking .
[total nothingness]--->[spontanious symmetry breaking]--->[laws of physics]

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by Peter, posted 11-26-2003 5:09 AM Russell E. Rierson has not replied
 Message 4 by IrishRockhound, posted 11-26-2003 8:26 AM Russell E. Rierson has not replied
 Message 6 by Rrhain, posted 11-27-2003 2:30 AM Russell E. Rierson has not replied

  
Peter
Member (Idle past 1479 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 2 of 89 (69348)
11-26-2003 5:09 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Russell E. Rierson
11-25-2003 10:20 PM


...is that what the Higgs field/particle stuff is about?
As to showing that an 'intelligent designer' is not
necessary, I think that the often mentioned evolutionary
design algorithms show that.
That random changes + selection can produce useful designs,
even better designs than people can, has been shown.
That alone shows that an 'intelligent designer' is not
necessary (not that there isn't one, but that things can
look 'designed', can BE 'designed' without intelligent
designer in the equation).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Russell E. Rierson, posted 11-25-2003 10:20 PM Russell E. Rierson has not replied

  
Darwin's Terrier
Inactive Member


Message 3 of 89 (69355)
11-26-2003 7:26 AM


Can Russell give us a clue as to the identity of this 'designer' he considers necessary? Is it the same 'designer' that formed the complexities of living things? If so, I not-so-humbly submit that this 'designer' shows signs of extreme unintelligence...
TTFN, DT

Replies to this message:
 Message 52 by John Paul, posted 12-15-2003 11:38 PM Darwin's Terrier has not replied

  
IrishRockhound
Member (Idle past 4436 days)
Posts: 569
From: Ireland
Joined: 05-19-2003


Message 4 of 89 (69359)
11-26-2003 8:26 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Russell E. Rierson
11-25-2003 10:20 PM


In the terms of what we know about this universe, I think a designer is completely unnecessary. If we can come up with a naturalistic theory to describe how we and this universe came to be, postulating the existance of a designer of some sort is just baseless speculation.
Outside the universe however... I still like the 'Cosmic Programmer' scenario
The Rock Hound

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Russell E. Rierson, posted 11-25-2003 10:20 PM Russell E. Rierson has not replied

  
lpetrich
Inactive Member


Message 5 of 89 (69537)
11-27-2003 1:56 AM


Furthemore, the occurrence of multiple "inventions" suggests that there has been more than one designer. Vertebrates and most cephalopods have camera eyes, but they form in different ways and have different architectures. Birds, bats, pterosaurs, and insects all have different wing architectures, even though the three vertebrate groups have wings formed from front limbs. Etc.
There is also evidence of lack of foresight, like land vertebrates laying eggs though their pelvic girdles. In some of them, this became giving birth, something which can be awkward when the baby is relatively large, as is the case for our species.

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 6 of 89 (69544)
11-27-2003 2:30 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Russell E. Rierson
11-25-2003 10:20 PM


Russell E. Rierson writes:
quote:
It appears to be impossible to prove or disprove the existence of an ultimate "intelligent designer".
The problem is that from a strictly evidentiary aspect where the designer remains unseen, it is impossible to falsify the claim.
Every single result you get is compatible with the "god did it" claim.
For example, all life on this planet seems to be based upon DNA. Can we infer design from this? No, not really because all life could conceivably be independent with no two species having the same chemical used for transfer of genotype from generation to generation and a designer would be just as justified.
Therefore since both A and ~A are compatible with the claim of "god did it," then the fact that we have one does not actually tell us anything about the veracity of the claim.
This is the source of the phrase, "A solution that explains everything actually explains nothing."
Instead, we seek explanations that require the results that we see. The reason why the commonality of DNA in life is evidence of evolutionary processes is because evolution requires that to be the case. If life didn't share that commonality, if all life were unique, then we couldn't claim evolution.
That doesn't mean "god did it." Just because evolutionary theory as we understand it isn't true doesn't mean that creationism gets the win.
------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Russell E. Rierson, posted 11-25-2003 10:20 PM Russell E. Rierson has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by Mike Doran, posted 11-27-2003 3:45 AM Rrhain has replied

  
Mike Doran
Inactive Member


Message 7 of 89 (69554)
11-27-2003 3:45 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by Rrhain
11-27-2003 2:30 AM


answer--yes, gaia is required
Marine scientists discover nutrient pollution boosts fungi, bacteria
killing Caribbean reefs
November 26, 2003
CHAPEL HILL -- In the Caribbean Sea, coral reefs -- those gorgeous,
eye-popping, fish-nourishing, ship-scraping biological wonders that
are among the region's crown jewels -- continue to die rapidly, a
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill biologist says. Their
future looks bleak.
"The good news is that we might be able to do something about
lowering the growing nutrient levels through regulations or other
methods," Bruno said. "It's close to impossible to do anything about
rising temperatures and other effects of what humans are doing to
the environment."
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Comments:
What needs to be appreciated is there is a symbiotic relationship
between fungus, bacteria and reefs in that the reefs have a certain
conductivity meaning, attracting biological containment, and hence
electrical containment, to a specified, fixed place. Algae and fungi
populations, again, are triggered by TEMPERATURE changes, and, again,
impact cirrus above, and cloud nucleation. Stress brings on the
reaction, and it is the ocean life literally saying, my chemistry and
temperature isn't good, lets change and feedback something different.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Rrhain, posted 11-27-2003 2:30 AM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 8 by Rrhain, posted 11-27-2003 1:16 PM Mike Doran has replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 8 of 89 (69609)
11-27-2003 1:16 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by Mike Doran
11-27-2003 3:45 AM


Re: answer--yes, gaia is required
Mike Doran writes:
quote:
answer--yes, gaia is required
Um, where is the evidence that this is a conscious process?
Too, you made a bunch of unsupported and seemingly random comments.
Where is your evidence that algae and fundi populations affect cloud formation?
------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by Mike Doran, posted 11-27-2003 3:45 AM Mike Doran has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 9 by Mike Doran, posted 11-28-2003 1:23 AM Rrhain has replied

  
Mike Doran
Inactive Member


Message 9 of 89 (69661)
11-28-2003 1:23 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by Rrhain
11-27-2003 1:16 PM


Re: answer--yes, gaia is required
It is a distributed process--massively parallel. It behaves as if it were alive, and for all practical purposes, acts as if it alive.
The living earth thread gets into the details here. The key is how cirrus clouds behave. If you have a specific question after reviewing some of what is written I would be happy to respond there. Otherwise, admin will pull my plug. But your specific question is a Gaia question.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by Rrhain, posted 11-27-2003 1:16 PM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 10 by Chiroptera, posted 11-28-2003 12:40 PM Mike Doran has replied
 Message 12 by Rrhain, posted 11-29-2003 6:32 PM Mike Doran has replied

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 10 of 89 (69707)
11-28-2003 12:40 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by Mike Doran
11-28-2003 1:23 AM


Re: answer--yes, gaia is required
Huh? Gaia reproduces copies of itself? I thought reproduction is one of the most basic properties in the definition of life.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by Mike Doran, posted 11-28-2003 1:23 AM Mike Doran has replied

Replies to this message:
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Mike Doran
Inactive Member


Message 11 of 89 (69872)
11-29-2003 12:42 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by Chiroptera
11-28-2003 12:40 PM


Re: answer--yes, gaia is required
> Marine Scientists Discover Nutrient Pollution Boosts Fungi, Bacteria
> Killing Caribbean Reefs
> CHAPEL HILL -- In the Caribbean Sea, coral reefs -- those gorgeous,
> eye-popping, fish-nourishing, ship-scraping biological wonders that
> are among the region's crown jewels -- continue to die rapidly, a
> University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill biologist says. Their
> future looks bleak.
>
> Dr. John Bruno, assistant professor of marine sciences at UNC, and
> colleagues at other U.S. universities, believe they have identified
> one reason why. Results of field experiments they conducted off
> Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula suggested that chemical nutrients washed
> and dumped into the sea can increase the severity of coral diseases.
>
> A report on the findings appears in the December issue of the
> journal Ecology Letters, which is expected to be posted online Nov.
> 26. Besides Bruno, authors are Drs. Laura E. Petes of Oregon State
> University, C. Drew Harvell of Cornell University and Annaliese
> Hettinger of California State University in Northridge.
>
> "Caribbean coral reefs have declined dramatically over the past 20
> years or so as disease epidemics have swept through them," Bruno
> said. "In less than a year, the two most common species that covered
> 60 to 70 percent of the bottom were just wiped out, becoming
> functionally extinct and changing possibly forever the structure of
> those marine communities. It was analogous to losing all the pine
> trees in the Carolinas down into Georgia."
>
> Since no one had gone into the field to test the nutrient hypothesis
> about what was happening, the UNC scientist and his colleagues did
> just that. They looked specifically at the fungi Aspergillus, which
> kills elegant gorgonian sea fans through a disease known as
> aspergillosis and two species of the reef-building corals
> Montastraea, which yellow band disease can kill.
>
> The researchers placed various concentrations of time-release
> fertilizer rich in nitrogen and phosphorus in porous bags made from
> pantyhose and suspended them at sites on reefs some four to six
> inches from living colonies of the tiny animals. That enabled them
> to manipulate and boost nutrient levels in the water.
>
> "We found that even modest rises in nutrient pollution could
> increase mortality of the three important Caribbean corals by
> facilitating the spread of disease," Bruno said. "Our results
> suggest that further steps should be taken to reduce nutrient
> pollution from agricultural runoff, sewage pollution and
> deforestation."
>
> By increasing nutrient concentrations between two- and five-fold,
> the marine biologists recorded almost a doubling of tissue loss
> among the Monastraea from yellow band disease, he said. A separate
> experiment showed nutrient enrichment significantly increased two
> measures of the severity of sea fan aspergillosis.
>
> "What we did was relatively minor enrichment so we were not doing it
> to the extent you might find in the Chesapeake Bay or the coastal
> Carolinas near a pig farm or something," Bruno said. "We did what we
> thought would be comparable to what is happening in the Caribbean."
>
> Sea fans are the colorful, fragile-looking, plant-like animals that
> divers and snorkelers see waving gracefully back and forth in 10 to
> 20 feet of water, he said. The aspergillosis that kills them is
> common in plants, birds and humans with weakened immune defenses
> such as patients with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
>
> What causes yellow band disease of the reef-building corals is
> unproven, but Dr. Garret W. Smith of the University of South
> Carolina believes that it is a bacterial infection that spreads over
> the surface of coral colonies like a yellow doughnut, Bruno said.
> Sometimes it kills the entire colony, and other times it stops and
> disappears.
>
> Reefs rarely if ever recover and in death often become covered with
> algae and other microorganisms. "We don't think nutrients played the
> primary role in causing this Caribbean-wide shift from coral to
> algae-dominated communities, but we do think their role could be
> important," the UNC scientist said. "There are much more insidious
> things going on that likely are more important such as rising global
> temperatures and over-fishing.
>
> "The good news is that we might be able to do something about
> lowering the growing nutrient levels through regulations or other
> methods," Bruno said. "It's close to impossible to do anything about
> rising temperatures and other effects of what humans are doing to
> the environment."
>
>
Comment:
What is occurring here is actually a living earth feedback. What on one level may appear to be a preditor prey relationship between algae dominated communities, viruses, fungi and so forth, and the corals, is actually perfectly symbiotic and balanced. The release into the atmosphere of particles of virus, algae, fungis--basically small creatures that become nucleotide based parasols, allows cirrus formations that can be stratified between the ionosphere and convective cloud masses and feedback more heat trapping and convection. Since the feedbacks are also enhanced by cumullations of live below, as life together has a electrical pattern or signature compared to lifeless, diffused chemistries, what then washes down the rivers, where there is life, is chemistries that support life.
Human activity messes with 4 billion or more years of evolved modulations of chaotic climate input and chemistry conditions. Fossil fuels role is not as a GHG but largely as a marine surface electrical baseline, where gas exchanges from ambiant winds impact surface conductivies. I urge anyone interested in the SCIENCE of this to re read Harris et als Nature paper on the 1970 La Nina compared to the 1997 El Nino and focus on the cirrus cloud behavior analysis of the paper, in light of John Christy's view that clouds form a GHG about 100 times more powerful than CO2. The bad assumption being that CO2 as a heat trapping forming directly influeces cirrus cloud formation, when the forcing on the clouds is ELECTRICAL (large scale, low frequancy) and having to do with cirrus cloud patterns as modulated by the chemestry and biosphere of the oceans.
Gaia is a fundimentally ELECTO MECHANICAL forcing which depends on cirrus clouds and their ability to trap heat. Cirrus can trap heat or let it escape out into space that results in a couple of hundred watts per meter difference in energies that would reach a convective cloud below--and cirrus reside between ionosphere and cloud top where charge separations occur. Fair weather is about 250 volts per meter to ground, whereas in convective regions strong negative gradiants move to ground. The patterns form the global electrical circuit, and maintain a relatively positive charge cummulation in the ionsphere by the separation of charges from convection, and that process is ultimately powered by radiation from the sun. It is this pattern that the biosphere evolved to modulate, first by nucleotides sorted in the cirrus, by charge, shape and mass, and then with more complex pre cellular self relicating nucleotide based chemical areas, and then finally with cells.
++++++++++++++++++++
Taste buds are single cells that are able to sense 5 different chemical realities. This appears to be a basic very old evolutionary Gaia reaction. My view is that early climate feedbacks in the marine layer would have reacted to sulfur from volcanic activity washed or rained into the oceans, high sugar levels from healthy conditions, salinity levels, pH levels, and protein levels. These form the basic tastes, and it is no surprise more complex creatures would contain taste buds with a like chemical set of sensitivies.
As it turns out, these kinds of basic chemistries directly, and indirectly through levels of cellular activity, would have huge impacts on the conductivities of a large scale area based on cummulations of cells in that area. This then becomes the foundation of gaia modulations of climate.
Hold out your hands. Now look at the cracks between your fingers. Those cracks develop in the fetus by a process called programmed cell death. It's not really death, but more that the cell gets a message to stop growing and dividing, whereas the cells that are the fingers get a different message.
Basic taste comes from the same cell--with five different sets of chemicals they sense and send messages about. What I am saying about the biosphere is that varying conditions in the environment caused the cells to give different chemical messages off, and varied the way that they would grow and divide, or do things like that. Early life communicated with each other, by chemicals, DNA and so forth. Sweetness, for instance, would probably be a message to grow and divide. I have and advantage in that I know the answer, it is just the question I seek pertaining to early life.
Bear in mind, for instance, that a volcanic eruption with large amounts of SOx emissions would phase change depress cirrus, and yet the SOx washes out of the air after a few years. A body of water could evaporate and become saline. All of these changes to the chemistry of a microbes surroundings--that they could "taste", would mean different things respecting the basic climate and environment inputs felt by these microbes. By feeding back cummulations of their activity on the ecology, they would vary conductivities and hence large scale electrical patterns--and therefore modulate climate, modulate their surrounding chemistry and temperature toward living conditions.
How is this important? I am on other bbs where we are discussing widescale death of the coral reefs within the next decade. We are already in the midst of an extinction event, and the key forcing involved here is CO2 impacting the CONDUTIVITY of the oceans, via gas exchange. The corals are one of the largest sinks of CO2, converting CO2 gas to calcium carbinate.

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Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 12 of 89 (69924)
11-29-2003 6:32 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by Mike Doran
11-28-2003 1:23 AM


Re: answer--yes, gaia is required
Mike Doran responds to me:
quote:
It is a distributed process
Non sequitur.
I didn't ask if it was alive.
I asked if it were conscious. Fire often behaves like it were conscious and alive, but it isn't.
------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by Mike Doran, posted 11-28-2003 1:23 AM Mike Doran has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by Mike Doran, posted 11-30-2003 2:19 AM Rrhain has replied
 Message 15 by Mike Doran, posted 11-30-2003 2:33 AM Rrhain has replied

  
Mike Doran
Inactive Member


Message 13 of 89 (70011)
11-30-2003 2:19 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by Rrhain
11-29-2003 6:32 PM


Re: answer--yes, gaia is required
Actually, fire on earth may be part of living processes.
What it means is there is too much O2 and too little water to support the existing biosphere in a region. Sometimes fire is a chaotic input, but I would say generally it is a modulated aspect. Fire brings about soot particles that tend to disburse diffusely--and then become attracted to better living conditions, electrically, because fair weather areas tend to be fair weather positive voltages to ground, and the particles assume that charge, to be drawn, then, to convective regions, which are places of very negative voltages to ground. Part of the issue then has to do with water and air's comparitive dielectrical constant, because what is occurring here is a capactive coupling between ionosphere and ocean.
The short answer is, however, that there is no chemical process on earth that isn't modulated by the living earth, to include burnings.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by Rrhain, posted 11-29-2003 6:32 PM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 14 by Rrhain, posted 11-30-2003 2:25 AM Mike Doran has replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 14 of 89 (70014)
11-30-2003 2:25 AM
Reply to: Message 13 by Mike Doran
11-30-2003 2:19 AM


Re: answer--yes, gaia is required
Mike Doran responds to me:
quote:
Actually, fire on earth may be part of living processes.
What it means is there is too much O2 and too little water to support the existing biosphere in a region.
No, what it means is that a certain exothermic reaction is taking place. Unless you are saying that all chemistry is actually biochemistry, then fire is not conscious.
quote:
The short answer is, however, that there is no chemical process on earth that isn't modulated by the living earth, to include burnings.
You have confused the fact that the system of the earth exists and that the reactions that take place within that system are then used as reagents for some other chemical reaction with some sort of consciousness.
Again, direct question: Are you saying that all chemistry is actually biochemistry?
------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by Mike Doran, posted 11-30-2003 2:19 AM Mike Doran has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 17 by Mike Doran, posted 12-01-2003 3:55 AM Rrhain has replied

  
Mike Doran
Inactive Member


Message 15 of 89 (70015)
11-30-2003 2:33 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by Rrhain
11-29-2003 6:32 PM


Re: answer--yes, gaia is required
Self awareness is probably limited to humans . . . and arguably a few primates. But the foundations of our ability to displace time and events and have awareness first requires consciousness. I submit that you must go back to a distributed model to get to how our brains work, and that there are those like Joejohn McFadden who thinks that the connections to the subsystems is electromagnetic in nature. And because of Gaia's early cirrus cloud nucleotide sorting, it follows that the basic structure of our ability to be aware comes from the same types of distributed nucleotide problem solving that occurred with early gaia. The complexity simply was fit in a smaller container, but our intelligence is the result of four billion years of evolution, which includes countless transactions of indivicual cells and creatures attempting essentially to solve a climate and chemistry problem and survive as a whole.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by Rrhain, posted 11-29-2003 6:32 PM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 16 by Rrhain, posted 11-30-2003 3:21 AM Mike Doran has not replied

  
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