Pharyngula

Posted by: Karen | January 8, 2008 9:53 AM

Watch out! That's a perfect opportunity for a quote mine!

Fortunately, your opinion is worth less than dirt to the people who might want to make use of it.

Posted by: caynazzo | January 8, 2008 10:46 AM

I strongly agree with RPM that Collins would not make a good science advisor, however, I think he's wrong to call the man ignorant of evolutionary theory. Collins may not be fully appreciative of its implications for and prematurely discounts it as insufficient in explaining human behavior, but I see the man smitten with his god of the gaps more than plagued by simple ignorance.
Part of me wants to be wrong on this; I really hate defending Geneticists for Jesus.

Posted by: Steve LaBonne | January 8, 2008 11:19 AM

Can't someone please appoint a Science Advisor for Matt Nisbet.

Posted by: saurabh | January 8, 2008 11:33 AM

Wait, wait - you mean, it's okay for Collins to head the HGP, to be director of the NHGRI, and to direct the research of hundreds of scientists and millions of research dollars with plenty of skill and vision, but he's not up to scratch to being a science advisor to the president? He's relegated to the same pile as Mike Huckabee because he has some religious beliefs? Provide me any evidence that Collins' beliefs have ever gotten in the way of his (considerable) scientific work. Otherwise you guys are just empty-headed bigots.

Posted by: Sastra, OM | January 8, 2008 11:42 AM

Oh, I disagree with PZ and think Collins would make a fine science advisor to the president. Better than most, in fact, especially if it's Huckabee. As long Collins stays away from expressing his scientific view of "where we got morals" -- in other words, unless he'd be willing to admit he's been speculating outside his field and concede that matter to specialists in the area.

Posted by: Phoenix Woman | January 8, 2008 12:08 PM

By the way, HR 888 (the official endorsement of creationism) is apparently coming up for a vote:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/8/65957/25345/519/432725

Posted by: ERV | January 8, 2008 1:13 PM

saurabh--

Francis Collins sucks compared to Craig Venter, for the human genome and in subsequent pursuits.

Venter did it faster and with less $$, and is currently doing more and more useful research along those same lines (ie the microbiome project, artificial life, etc).

OH BUT WAIT! Venter is an atheist-- guess hes disqualified from Nisbets list.

Posted by: poke | January 8, 2008 2:53 PM

Collins would probably be a huge improvement on whoever Huckabee would actually choose.

Posted by: Richard Harris | January 8, 2008 3:13 PM

Poke @ # 16, Wouldn't Huckabilly likely pick that omniscient Jehova god thing as his science advisor?

Posted by: Skwee | January 8, 2008 4:16 PM

Mike Huckabee would probably pardon Kent Hovind so he could have the post. In that case, Collins would be an improvement.

Posted by: Kseniya | January 8, 2008 4:30 PM

You use the word "should" in a rather cavalier manner, Mr. H., in your effort to construct a straw version of what SG wrote. Show me where she wrote that life would necessarily adapt to the conditions of ANY universe.

The cracks between the tiles in my shower enclosure are not fine-tuned for the purpose of allowing mildew to thrive - and yet, there it is.

Try accepting the possibility that this all just is, and that life, where it can arise, does arise.

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | January 8, 2008 4:34 PM

The cracks between the tiles in my shower enclosure are not fine-tuned for the purpose of allowing mildew to thrive

How do you know? :-)

Posted by: Brownian, OM | January 8, 2008 4:35 PM

Oh twaddle, so silly, so stupid.

You can't even make that argument for Earth, idiot, since not all forms of life are equally adaptive in different environments.

For example, insects, one of the most ubiquitous classes of life, are scarcely found in Antarctica or the oceans.

Would you say that Tahiti is thus fine-tuned for insects and Antarctica is not?

Given that evidence, is it so hard to suppose that certain regions of the universe never exhibited the conditions to form life, nor are suitable for colonisation by life that formed elsewhere?

Dipshit. Pull your head out of your ass and smell the evidence around you before you run off to embrace every retarded idea that allows you to cling so tenaciously to your ill-founded faith.

Fuck me, but you're dumb.

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 8, 2008 4:44 PM

This includes the existence of the Moral Law (the knowledge of right and wrong) and the search for God that characterizes all human cultures throughout history. [muddy, but not pejorative - SG]
Sounds OK to me.

so, you're going to base you conclusions on wiki?

LOL

try reading the reasoning behind his "Moral Law" theory in his book, and THEN tell me it "sounds OK".

or, if you're too lazy to do that, read Gert's review of it here:

http://www.talkreason.org/articles/Theistic.cfm

scroll down to:

The Irreducibly Complex Moral Law

I'm of the same mind as Blake Stacey on this one. It's not that Collins doesn't do a good job explaining how all genetics observations support the ToE, it's that he is obviously unable to compartmentalize his religious nonsense when speaking about topics he apparently isn't well versed in (read: entirely ignorant of), like animal behavior, sociobiology,and aspects of humans physiology and psychology.

IOW, he is the kind of guy that will indeed turn directly to his religious beliefs for answers to things that he is simply ignorant of.

sorry, but that disqualifies him to be a good advisor in my mind.

In fact, I have very often used Collins as a great example of how the whole idea of compartmentalization is an inevitable failure, much like the concept of NOMA.

Posted by: Lorax | January 8, 2008 4:48 PM

I think the main problem most people are having isn't about Collins specifically, but more about Nisbet denying that others (who don't have an evangelical xian viewpoint) are less qualified. He put up Collins as a god-friendly science proponent, others have suggested Miller.

But it seems to me whereas the scientists proposed by RPM (not because they were atheists from my reading) don't have an issue with faith/science, Miller puts a firm line between his faith and science, Collins seems to use science to confirm his faith. This leads to problems: the earth can't revolve around the sun because my religion taught me we were special in god's eye, we can't have evolve from earlier forms because we are apart from other animals. Collins is ok with most current scientific knowledge, but my fear is that when new insights are gained that defy Collins' faith, will he adjust his faith or adjust the science. What if he were certain that his god wouldn't let us wreck the planet via global warming? or that his god told him embryos are as much a human being as he is? Since this person is going to be advising the president on science issues, Ild prefer to have someone who is not in the backpocket of a supernatural entity. Nisbet seems to think this is a plus.

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 8, 2008 4:53 PM

btw, can we just ignore Heddle for once?

it's not like those responding to him havent' seen the exact same "arguments" from him a hundred times before.

suffice it to say, he will project, misquote, and obfuscate.

is that really interesting?

this isn't a thread about cosmological IDiocy, after all.

Posted by: Kseniya | January 8, 2008 4:57 PM

David M.:

How do you know? :-)

Well, errr... LOL. Maybe I don't. What I mean is, no corporeal entity intentionally made the cracks appear and actively ensured that the conditions in the cracks would be conducive to the formation and sustainting of mildew...

Posted by: Brownian, OM | January 8, 2008 5:07 PM

bukkaked with stupid

Just what sort of video rental places do you have where you live, Ichythic?

Posted by: Blake Stacey | January 8, 2008 5:12 PM

Ichthyic:

btw, can we just ignore Heddle for once?

Done!

This is where Daniel Martin's killfile script is a great help.

Posted by: Blake Stacey | January 8, 2008 5:13 PM

A Molly and a book contract for Tulse!

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 8, 2008 5:16 PM

What I mean is, no corporeal entity intentionally made the cracks appear and actively ensured that the conditions in the cracks would be conducive to the formation and sustainting of mildew...

I'm going to take the liberty and suggest what you really mean is that there is no evidence than any entity intentionally made cracks appear in order to promote the growth of mildew.

nor, of course, is there any reason or need to suspect one.

Posted by: heddle | January 8, 2008 5:20 PM

Tulse,

>And out of all of the possibly million billion billion infinitesimal clumps of matter circling these stars in the void of trillions of cubic light years, we know of precisely one one on which some carbon and other stuff has been able to replicate itself. Given these facts, it is an act of profound arrogance to claim that the universe is somehow "fine-tuned" for human life.

No, you too are missing the point, It is not that the earth is fine tuned, but the universe. And the claim is not that it is fine tuned for human life, but it has the appearance of being fine tuned for the possibility of any kind of life--because it exists on a razor's edge for producing the building blocks of any kind of life. That is, quite easily none of those gazillions of clumps you mention would exist at all. That is the point of the universe having the appearance of fine tuning, and it is rather beyond dispute. You are arguing against a strawman.

Posted by: Zeno | January 8, 2008 5:24 PM

Francis Collins is being cheerfully exploited by hardcore young-earth creationists who cite him as being a fellow traveler. Southwest Radio Ministries has been flogging a book on its broadcasts this week, highlighting Panorama of Creation and author Carl Baugh. Baugh called Collins a creationist, allowing the minor qualification that Collins is "not a recent creationist," by which I assume he means that Collins is not a YEC.

Collins appears not to realize the degree to which he is aiding and abetting the anti-scientists.

Posted by: Neil B. | January 8, 2008 5:27 PM

Speaking of what happens to scientists in the Bush Misadmin, I just heard James Hanson on PBS talk about how science was suppressed by Bush political appointees in various ways. I don't like that at all and hope for better from Obama or Hillary or Edwards etc. (Believing in a outside First Cause for the laws of the universe does not endear me, anymore than I presume e.g. Paul Davies looking from across the pond, to Bush's faith/politics-based approach to science. Most of the time I'm with you guys on practical issues, politics, science policy etc.)

Look at this link:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/interviews/

Posted by: heddle | January 8, 2008 5:37 PM

Brownian, OM

She said that she thinks is happened in this universe this time around; that's all.

(2) Despite massive improbabilities, the properties of the universe appear to have been precisely tuned for life, [I disagree, and think that life has adapted to the conditions of the universe - SG]

Posted by: Kseniya | January 8, 2008 5:45 PM

Heddle: No.

Ichthyic: Yes.

Brownian: Right!

Stinky: The esteemed Dr. Collins is a JAD sockpuppet?!?

(sorry to be terse - gotta fly!)

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | January 8, 2008 5:46 PM

What I mean is, no corporeal entity intentionally made the cracks appear and actively ensured that the conditions in the cracks would be conducive to the formation and sustainting of mildew...

You still don't know that. :-)

(Cue Ockham's War Axe. Ichthyic is right in comment 42, which probably is why it's 42, but I digress.)

Posted by: Brownian, OM | January 8, 2008 6:31 PM

If she was not implying a puddle analogy, then she is not really saying anything at all. You see, I think she is much smarter than you; while you might be expected to make a manifestly obvious statement like "life happened in this universe this time around; that's all" which warrants a massive "gee, do you think so?" I don't think that is what she was saying. And if she was saying that Collins is wrong about our universe being the way it is gives the appearance of fine tuning, she didn't say it clearly--and in spite of Blake Stacey's comment she would be in a minority position. No, the only way I see to interpret what she said, given that surely it wasn't as stupid as what you claim, was that she believed that even if the universe had been different, life would have developed.

Reread her comment again, and you'll see that her 'Gee, do you think so?' comment is a direct refutation of the idea that the universe is fine-tuned for life (which has all sorts of implications, one of which being that a universe 'fine-tuned' for life would imply that life necessary would involve in it. Why write a computer program (or fine-tune a universe for life) if you're not going to type 'run' (or make life develop)?

Thus, she is saying something, and it is the 'Gee, do you think so?' interpretation that is not supported by the fine-tuning argument.

Keep trying though. You're at the point where you're so fucking wrong, any change in your thinking can only get you closer to the truth.

It's fun watching you try to work things out; like a dog studying its owner operate a doorknob, the puzzlement on your face must be positively darling.

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 8, 2008 6:44 PM

... further, I begin to see a need for a direct counterpoint to Nisbet's position, especially from the standpoint of promoting good science communication.

Is there anybody acting in that role at this point?

I didn't see anybody on the NAS panel, nor, for that matter, was anybody apparently invited to play that role.

I hate to rehash an old discussion, but this has been gnawing at me ever since it was pointed out by PZ and others a few months back.

so, the question is:

WHO is countering Nisbet's nonsense within the area of scientific communication and politics?

and, no, a blog is hardly a sufficient counter, so don't bother going there.

Posted by: heddle | January 8, 2008 6:55 PM

Brownian, OM,

You're at the point where you're so fucking wrong, any change in your thinking can only get you closer to the truth.

You are wrong, as usual, although if you are smug enough and pretend you are right then maybe you can satisfy yourself.

Indeed, I might be wrong on this, but if I am so are many other people. Because all I have stated is (and all Collins is stating is):

1) The universe appears to be fine tuned for creating the building blocks of life (heavy elements.) (From this you stated: "that a universe 'fine-tuned' for life would imply that life necessary would involve in it." which is an incorrect inference--although I would think that the majority on here would tend to agree that life in our universe was more or less inevitable.

2) The appearance of fine tuning is this: tweak the constants, and the universe will not be capable of producing the building blocks of life.

That is all I have stated here, and all that Collins is stating, and it is not even controversial. In fact the only serious physical scientist I know who disputes this is Victor Stenger, who had a plan to demonstrate that our universe doesn't even have the appearance of fine tuning--that is, it is not sensitive to the values of the constants. He has not published that, as far as I know, but it is a sensible approach, although a minority opinion. However, I have yet to see another scientist, when discussing the fine tuning problem, dismiss it with a reference to Stenger.

So you can keep saying I'm wrong, but have not demonstrated it.

By the way, I forgot to mention that David Marjanović, OM was spot-on in #23 when he wrote

Or for rocks. (Lithic Principle.)

That is exactly right--saying the universe appears to be fine-tune for rocks is the same as saying it appears to be fine tuned for life. A universe that cannot produce rocks cannot produce life, and one that can produce rocks will produce the building blocks for life.

Posted by: poke | January 8, 2008 7:54 PM

How does one "tune" a constant?

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 8, 2008 8:45 PM

I'd be surprised if he believes that; there's a paper every other week about ongoing selection in humans in some major journal or another, so it would be nigh-impossible for someone in his position to hold that point of view.

there are even more papers discussing the evolution of altruistic behavior in animals, which Collins is just as apparently ignorant of, so it's hardly impossible for him to hold such a POV, since he has already shown the capability of doing so.

this is the point: his religious beliefs are automatically what he falls back on when uninformed on something scientifically.

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 8, 2008 9:21 PM

from the first line of the article you pulled that from, the author (DAVID VAN BIEMA) writes:

Collins' devotion to genetics is, if possible, greater than Dawkins'.

sorry, but that was a showstopper for me. It simply makes no sense, whatsoever.

hard to think anything else the author has to say would be of interest after that.

*shrug*

still, I would guess the direct quotes at least would be useable material.

sorry to see yet more bad writing prevalent in such a "time" honored publication (pun intended).

Posted by: Tulse | January 8, 2008 9:34 PM

It is not that the earth is fine tuned, but the universe.

Did you miss the "trillions of cubic light years of mostly empty space" part?

And the claim is not that it is fine tuned for human life, but it has the appearance of being fine tuned for the possibility of any kind of life

Right, those trillions of cubic light years of mostly empty space are so carefully "fine tuned" to produce an almost literally infinitesimally small bit of reproducing carbon in an almost literally infinitesimal corner of it. It is like saying that that the New York sewers are "fine tuned" to produce jewelry because occasionally someone drops their wedding ring in the toilet.

If the only evidence of purposeful "fine tuning" you have is a tiny clump of matter in an almost infinite void, call me unimpressed at the efficiency of the "tuner".

Think of it another way -- whatever could "fine tune" the actual fabric of the cosmos presumably could have, for example, filled those trillions of cubic light years with warm breathable air. And quintillions of Starbucks. And fountains filled with Lagavulin. And iPod trees. And an unlimited supply of Natalie Portman. That kind of universe would convince me of "fine tuning", that its very nature was set so that it could be inhabited. The present one is a pretty frickin' thin by comparison.

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 8, 2008 10:01 PM

first, I'd like to say that Nisbet used you, very inappropriately, Scottt, and his musings have become rather more than annoying at this point.

that said, two things:

but as an evangelical Christian who makes poor arguments about evolutionary biology. Among such, he no doubt fits the description of someone how has 'written something impolitic or easily misrepresented.' Obviously, I don't agree

you don't agree he makes horribly poor arguments regarding evolution at times, or that he fits the description of having written something "impolitic"?

if the latter, we could debate that, if the former, that simply isn't debatable; it's plain fact.

I'd like to remark that the PSA's main job should be to advise the President and defend the interests of the scientific community, not explain science to the general public or to advance a particular partisan agenda

i begin to wonder at this point if the two are actually separable, or if they should be, given the poor performance of the last president in the face of contrary information from his own science adviser.

Moreover (getting back to Collins), based on Collins' book, do you really think him capable of avoiding the advancement of an agenda?

Posted by: Neil B. | January 8, 2008 10:14 PM

Tulse - you should read over The Anthropic Cosmological Principle by Barrow and Tipler. They make a very comprehensive and detailed case about the fine-tuning, and the basic point is: if physical parameters were slightly different, then we couldn't even be here on this little speck (as if relative sizes and proportions are what should matter anyway) at all. Well, what's your (or anyone else's) fabulous explanation for why the universe is the way it is? If you can't answer that question your way, I have little sympathy for your being very self-assured against other concepts.

As for "Any deity who could ______" riffs, that is based on a presumption of omnipotence. Yet there is no logical reason why some foundational uncaused being would have to be "omnipotent," given one at all. (Look - isn't it silly to disagree with religious folks about whether God exists, but think they have to be right about what It must be like if It does exist? Why couldn't it be the other way around?)

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 8, 2008 10:22 PM

TIPLER!?

Idiot. While I accuse Nelly B. of pulling CRAP out of his ass, he goes and peddles what Martin Gardner calls the Completely Ridiculous Anthropic Principle.

Posted by: Tulse | January 8, 2008 11:02 PM

what's your (or anyone else's) fabulous explanation for why the universe is the way it is? If you can't answer that question your way, I have little sympathy for your being very self-assured against other concepts.

In other words, it's an argument from ignorance -- "well, I don't know how the universe came to have life, so I guess it must have been fine tuned that way!"

And it is indeed an argument from ignorance, since it may very well be that further research will demonstrate that the constants that allegedly could have been any value are in fact determined by something more fundamental. The god of the gaps approach has never been successful -- why think that it will be in this case?

there is no logical reason why some foundational uncaused being would have to be "omnipotent"

Right, this being could only determine the physical constants of the frickin' universe, it's not like it is omnipotent or anything...

And, just to move this whole approach back to the real issue, it is not the "Great Abstract Non-omnipotent Universal Constant Tweaker" that the religious go to church to worship on Sunday. This argument is just another example of the "everyday religious beliefs are indefensible, so we'll argue some airy-fairy abstract property that no actual religious people care about and smuggle Jaysus in the back door" maneuver.

Posted by: Stinky Wizzleteats | January 9, 2008 2:41 AM

I was being somewhat flippant, Neil, since I don't think much of fine-tuning arguments -- they're parochial and narcissistic, not to mention completely circular. I actually think even less of Tipler, and my view of his grasp of physics hasn't declined much since learning of his bad arguments for the Truth of Cristianity, since I had already suffered through his abysmal Modern Physics textbook.

As for modal realism, poke said it well. I'm guessing I'm somewhat more sympathetic to counterfactual theories of causation than poke is, but it's certainly not "formally impeccable" and makes a lot of often-unstated assumptions. (And my counterfactual sympathies are themselves materialistic anyway, coming from an Everett interpretation of QM rather than any kind of a priori argumentation.)

Regarding your claim that no mathematical structure can describe fundamental randomness, try telling that to anyone who works in any field of physics (or chemistry or biology, for that matter) that uses quantum mechanics. I'm certainly nonplussed by the assertion, since I seem to have memories of using math to describe it, but maybe I'm just a Boltzmann brain and that's all an illusion. And if you're referring to Lumo's argument that it can't be described mathematically because no math can determine the observed outcome, I'll give you a cookie for spotting the contradiction.

Re: 2... Why is a bunch of dead stuff dumb? Here you're not only assuming the existence of a diety with agency, you're assuming its value judgments.

Re: 3... I think Richard Feynman had the all-time best response to this silliness:

You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and I came in through the parking lot. And you won't believe what happened. I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!

Between Ken, poke, and Tulse's comments, there's really not much more for me to say, other than that Heddle has outdone himself, successfully trolling me despite being in my killfile. Congrats on the assist, Neil.

Posted by: negentropyeater | January 9, 2008 6:53 AM

Let's face it, we just don't know enough to be able to make a scientific statement about wether the universe is fine tuned or not for life.

What is so difficult about saying "we don't know enough, yet" ?

One day, I hope, we'll be able to tell, if this universe was created by a superior intelligence that evolved in a past universe, or if this universe came into being by purely natural means.
One thing is for sure, it's not theology that will tell us the truth, but science.

Posted by: heddle | January 9, 2008 7:44 AM

Ichthyic

why is it than whenever Heddley sticks his head in a thread, it always devolves into a non-debate about nonsensical fine tuning?

As with many of your assertions, this one is demonstrably false. I don't think I've discussed fine tuning on any site for quite some time, and not on Pharyngula for perhaps years. (That is, except for your private meta-discussions where you have gone off topic in a religious thread to assert that I peddle fine tuning everywhere and have frequently had my hat handed to me--but you have failed, when challenged, to provide any link to any of these common fiskings.) Almost all my participation on this blog is in threads dealing with religion.

My comment in this thread was as on-topic response to SG's comment #19. If it was derailed, it was because on this blog (that contains the most intelligent commentary of all blogs), several other people could not grasp a simple concept and a simple truth--namely that it is virtually beyond dispute that our universe has a fine tuning problem. That is the essence of what I pointed out. That if science goddess was in effect denying the fine tuning problem of the universe (not of the planet) that she then is, in effect, predicting that life should exist in the numerous places of our universe that resemble what the entire universe could easily have been.

This can dismiss this as a religious argument, but that displays an ignorance of science. I didn't bring up religion at all. I didn't conflate the scientific fact that our universe has an appearance of fine tuning (or a "fine tuning problem") with the religious conclusion that it was indeed fine tuned, or philosophical meanderings such as the SAP, but several commenters on this blog-with-the-most-intelligent-commentary-of -all-blogs, of which you are presumably a case in point, did.

Posted by: negentropyeater | January 9, 2008 8:16 AM

Tulse,
"such an infinitely powerful being, who can tweak the very fabric of the cosmos"

who says so ? Christians ? Well, as I said, theology has nothing to say about the properties of a would be creator. But you cannot logically negate its existence by discussing its hypothetical properties. It just doesn't work that way.

Imagine that one day we know enough and create a universe in which intelligent life will emerge and where they'll ask, did we get created ? How will they tell ?

Again, what is so difficult about saying we don't know enough ? This universe is 13.7 bill yold, still quite some time to go... We don't even know it's topology, so we need to keep an open mind.

Posted by: heddle | January 9, 2008 8:35 AM

SG,

What I actually meant, was that this statement implies that the universe intended to come together so that life could exist. Kind of, "let's see, if we clump hydrogen and carbon together in just the right conditions, TA-DAH! we have life".

Thank you for clarifying.

But that statement as you just clarified, does not address the blurb you quoted from Collins on at least two levels. One is that in what you attributed to Collins used apparent fine tuning. His religious views might extend to actual fine tuning but the blurb as quoted--that the universe appears to be fine tuned for life, has also flowed from the lips of many atheistic scientists. Secondly--it (Collins's statement) has nothing to do with "if we clump hydrogen and carbon together in just the right conditions.." it has to do with the fact that without the apparent fine tunings, there would be no carbon anywhere in the universe, period.

Posted by: Science Goddess | January 9, 2008 8:55 AM

Allow me to re-clarify: It's the implied intent in the statement "the properties of the universe appear to have been precisely tuned for life" Don't pick apart my (simplistic) examples, its the implied intent on the part of the universe that I oject to.

SG

Posted by: heddle | January 9, 2008 9:11 AM

SG,

its the implied intent on the part of the universe that I oject to.

But again, Collins's blurb that you quoted does not imply intent. I could present ten or twenty very similar statements, non quote-mined and in context, and without looking them up you could not tell me if they were made by an atheist or a believer--so how can that statement imply intent?

The statement "the universe appears to be fine tuned for life" is, in and of itself, both scientifically supportable and religiously agnostic. It is where a person takes that statement and leaves the confines of science where the contention arises. If you said: "I disagree with Collins because he uses the fine tuning problem as a de facto proof of God," that would be one thing. But what you quoted from Collins is, at least at the moment, scientifically unassailable.

Posted by: negentropyeater | January 9, 2008 9:24 AM

Heddle,

I've read "The language of God" by Collins.

My main problem with it is not in the argument :
"Despite massive improbabilities, the properties of the universe appear to have been precisely tuned for life"

but the following :
"But humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanation and point to our spiritual nature. This includes the existence of the Moral Law (the knowledge of right and wrong) and the search for God that characterizes all human cultures throughout history."

I don't buy it.

Posted by: heddle | January 9, 2008 10:05 AM

negentropyeater,

My main problem with it is not in the argument :
"Despite massive improbabilities, the properties of the universe appear to have been precisely tuned for life"

but the following :

"But humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanation and point to our spiritual nature. This includes the existence of the Moral Law (the knowledge of right and wrong) and the search for God that characterizes all human cultures throughout history."

That's fine, and if the latter was the quote that SG used and took issue with, then I would have remained in lurker mode.

Tulse,

Nonsense -- it is merely a failure of imagination. How do you know that the only form of "life" is carbon sticking together? That if the universe had come out differently, beings millions of light-years across composed of dark matter wouldn't be having a conversation about how amazing it is that the universe is fine tuned to produce them?

You should write up your slam-dunk explanation and submit it to Physical Review Letters. There is a lot of grant money and time being wasted on addressing of the fine tuning problem, and the country would sure benefit from your insight that it is all an unnecessary waste of time.

Posted by: Science Goddess | January 9, 2008 10:29 AM

Heddle, you and I will have to disagree with the "intent" part. I maintain my interpretation.

Please, do not accuse me of quote mining. My original quote was directly from Wikipedia, and I didn't feel that I needed to repeat the entire thing here, since only one sentence was under dispute.

And, no, Ichthyic, I don't base my opinions on Wiki.
I have actually heard Francis Collins speak on several occasions and have heard nothing about any deity or morality. *But* he was talking to scientists.

As many have said here, maybe we won't convince anyone by calling them nasty names. Maybe we need a Science Advisor who can try to bridge this gap and bring the "unbelievers" into the fold. We need more credibility for science, not more animosity. We need someone who can discuss both sides of the argument without alienating anyone.

SG

Posted by: Tulse | January 9, 2008 11:06 AM

You should write up your slam-dunk explanation and submit it to Physical Review Letters.

And you should perhaps actually provide counter-arguments rather than relying on appeals to authority. See, those who aren't religious aren't convinced by handwaving and statements that some people think otherwise. Instead, we rely on reasoning and evidence -- that's just how we roll.

So do you have specific responses to the arguments against fine tuning that have been presented here? Or are you just going to retreat behind the coattails of Collins, Tipler, et al.?

Posted by: heddle | January 9, 2008 11:59 AM

Tully,

No, my post #35 stated:

The number of atheistic physicists/cosmologists who acknowledge the fine tuning problem (for the universe, not the earth) is too lengthy..

I am glad we are in agreement. The number of atheists (those who do not believe that a supernatural entity designed the universe) who believe that the universe is "finely-tuned" (designed by a supernatural entity) is precisely zero. And since zero cannot be enumerated, your original post was right on.

It is clear that I never, ever stated anything even remotely close to "some atheists believe the universe is finely tuned (designed by a supernatural entity)" which would be absurd--but it is fun to argue against an absurd statement, even if the person didn't actually make it, isn't it?

So you are worse that a quote-miner, you are just a garden variety jack-ass of a misquoter.

Tulse,

Instead, we rely on reasoning and evidence -- that's just how we roll.

What you call an appeal to authority, is all the publications (most from atheists, since most scientists are not theists) that, based on the cosmological and nuclear physics evidence, acknowledge the fine tuning problem, and somehow fail to recognize your clever scientific evidence-based explanation #93 that it it simply due to a failure of imagination. I would rather make this kind of appeal to authority (appealing to published literature, both popular and peer-reviewed, by atheistic scientists) that to simply assert, as you do, that I see the obvious explanation when so many others do not.

As for your question,

So do you have specific responses to the arguments against fine tuning that have been presented here?

the answer is no, because no such arguments against the position that the constants appear to be fine tuned has been provided. There have been some arguments against interpreting the fine tuning problem as evidence for a deity, but those I have ignored since that is not a scientific debate. And arguments like yours, that the acknowledgement of a fine tuning problem is due to a failure of imagination, are just too ignorant to address in a serious manner.

Posted by: mothra | January 9, 2008 12:24 PM

The idea of a 'fine tuning problem', i.e. fine tuning the universe for life is delusional at best. How, using the 'fine tuning' argument, would one recognize a universe (or any subdivision thereof) as not fine tuned if we accept that our universe is.

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 9, 2008 12:46 PM

Tulse,

You're right.

Any flavor of the Anthropic principle is teleology. Teleology is theology. Theology is storytelling. People tell stories. Some people should not.

PZ has repeatedly asked us not to engage the heddle.

Posted by: Aaron | January 9, 2008 1:18 PM

Matt Nisbet thinks that Francis Collins should be the next presidential science advisor. He does this after rejecting excellent popularizes of science, such as Neil deGrasse Tyson and E.O. Wilson, on the following grounds:

Most science popularizers such as Wilson or Tyson don't have the years of government experience to understand the machinations of Federal science policy.

Does Nisbet complete ignore the fact that Neil deGrasse Tyson WAS a science advisor to President Bush?????

Moreover, they have a paper trail of strong opinions on issues that might make appointment politically tough.

Ah there it is. Fear of atheism. Bottom line.

Posted by: Tully Bascomb | January 9, 2008 2:04 PM

...It is clear that I never, ever stated anything even remotely close to "some atheists believe the universe is finely tuned (designed by a supernatural entity)" which would be absurd--but it is fun to argue against an absurd statement, even if the person didn't actually make it, isn't it?

So you are worse that a quote-miner, you are just a garden variety jack-ass of a misquoter...

Well of course. That is my point. You cleverly add the word "problem", which of course makes your reference philosophical, not scientific, but pretend otherwise. Do not pretend to be discussing science if discussing human perceptions of science. That is real misquoting.

Posted by: Blake Stacey | January 9, 2008 2:50 PM

Tulse (#68):

Think of it another way -- whatever could "fine tune" the actual fabric of the cosmos presumably could have, for example, filled those trillions of cubic light years with warm breathable air. And quintillions of Starbucks. And fountains filled with Lagavulin. And iPod trees. And an unlimited supply of Natalie Portman.

Wow. It's like Starbucks set up shop in each hexagon of the Library of Babel!

Posted by: Tully Bascomb | January 9, 2008 3:15 PM

...I really am amazed that you have no shame in quoting what you think I meant instead of what I actually wrote, and justifying it by saying I am the one guilty of misquoting because--I am writing one thing but I really mean another...

Well, lets get down to brass tacks then and clarify. When you claimed that scientists have a "fine tuning problem", did you mean they have a scientific problem with fine tuning? If so, which finely tuned constant runs contrary to scientific theory? Does our universe run counter to modern physics? What is the scientific problem exactly?

Or did you mean the scientists have a philosophical problem? That the constants seem improbable by human standards? Or whatever.

Posted by: heddle | January 9, 2008 3:51 PM

Tully Bascomb,

Fair enough. What I mean by fine tuning problem is this:

It appears that if the physical constants were not within certain surprisingly tight constraints, that the universe would not support any kind of life. This is a big problem in the sense that it is uncomfortable for science to be in a position where we appear to be "lucky"--it is sort of anti-Copernican. In the case of the cosmological constant, the constraint is so amazing as to be described as an embarrassment. This is a bad situation--it is a fine tuning problem. We would expect the habitability of the universe to be somewhat indifferent to the values of the constants. As such, it demands a solution. Such a solution may ultimately be found--or some even think the multiverse theories effectively solve it already--although even multiverse proponents admit they do not provide a totally satisfactory explanation, in that in general the multiverse aspects of these theories cannot be tested.

You asked which constants run contrary to theory. Well most of the constants are not calculable at this time--they just are what they are. The doesn't remove the problem that if you change them by (whatever) amount it appears the universe would be sterile. The cosmological constant is one that can be estimated, and when it is, the calculations suggest a value that is ~100 orders of magnitude too big. Right now it is simply unknown how the contributions to the calculation could cancel to give such a small value. Maybe it will be understood someday--but at the moment it is a fine tuning problem, but there is little debate that a cosmological constant much bigger than the one we have (let alone 100 OOM bigger) would produce an uninhabitable universe, one that was expanding too rapidly.

To reiterate, science rightly doesn't like to accept "luck" as an answer, and so science views the "lucky" values of the constants as a fine tuning problem.

To get philosophical, I would say that at the moment the situation favors multiverse theories over ID, because multiverse theories are consistent with the constants appearing to come from a random draw. And the problem in general has nothing to do with improbability--the problem would still exist if the constants had unit probability--that is they were calculable from first principles. The problem is that the habitability of the universe is overly sensitive to their values.

Brownian, OM,

That one should call this 'fine-tuned' as opposed to 'the way it happened to happen' is most definitely disputable

But of course, I don't call it "fine tuned", I consistently used the accepted phraseology, "the appearance of fine tuning," the same phrase almost everyone uses--along with "fine tuning problem." You say you disagree with both of my points from #109, but then you wrote:

All of the arguments you have made thus far only point to the fact that if this universe were any other way (ie, different physical constants), this universe likely wouldn't have rocks, planets, or life. That I do not dispute. That this is more or less accepted by scientists, I do not dispute.

So by your own words you first claim to dispute my two points and then turn around and say you don't dispute them. Those two points, which you wrote you do not dispute, are in fact my two points from #109, which you do dispute. I don't get it.

Posted by: Brownian, OM | January 9, 2008 5:20 PM

So by your own words you first claim to dispute my two points and then turn around and say you don't dispute them. Those two points, which you wrote you do not dispute, are in fact my two points from #109, which you do dispute. I don't get it.

If you'd read what I wrote, you'd notice that I broke down your claims into components, some of which I dispute, and other which I do not.

Forget stars and galaxies, I want to know what physical constants we can tweak so you won't be so fucking dense.

Anyway, feel free to believe that the fine-tuning 'problem' is more or less universally accepted physical scientists if you wish. None of it explains why you need to hijack nearly every thread here to beat that horse.

Posted by: Blake Stacey | January 9, 2008 5:26 PM

Dungeon?

Posted by: Blake Stacey | January 9, 2008 5:30 PM

Brownian, OM:

All of the arguments you have made thus far only point to the fact that if this universe were any other way (ie, different physical constants), this universe likely wouldn't have rocks, planets, or life. That I do not dispute.

Actually, you can dispute that, too.

Posted by: Brownian, OM | January 9, 2008 6:09 PM

Same advice I gave to someone else--please publish your sophisticated "so what?" explanation so that scientists will know that they don't have to worry about the problem.

Hey Twaddle, kindly explain why it is a 'problem' or shut the fuck up.

A quick perusal of literature (links provided by Blake Stacey above, and a quick search of 'fine-tuning argument') shows that it's only a 'problem' in the minds of theists.

Anyways, we've wasted enough time and pixels on this troll. He's made appeals to authority without providing one (just one) paper or citation of his lengthy list of atheistic cosmologists who are all in a knot about this. Besides, when has Twaddle ever demonstrated he's got a clue about what scientific consensus is?

Posted by: heddle | January 9, 2008 6:24 PM

Brownian, OM,

You really are dumb as a pile of bricks. I explained what the problem was several times, You even admitted that it was more or less accepted by scientists. You "perused" (while I read) Caroll's paper, and he didn't say it was "no problem" as I already pointed out. But that's OK, since Blake provided a link that constitutes proof around here. And you did a google search, and found (duh) that theists use the reality of the fine tuning problem as a launching point for ID arguments, from which you conclude, as incorrectly as person could possibly conclude something incorrectly, that the fine tuning problem is only a problem for theists. Well neither Susskind, nor Weinberg, or Krauss are theists (just to name a few) but all have stated in various ways that there is a fine tuning problem that needs looking into.

Why don't you start with something simple, (atheist) Susskind's Cosmic Landscape bestseller? (I mean read it, if you can handle it, don't "peruse" it.) He states emphatically that there is a deadly serious fine tuning problem.

Oh wait, now I am appealing to authority! Blake is not appealing to authority when he links to Carroll, even though Caroll doesn't state what Blake implies. But I'm sure that I'll be accused of appealing to authority, even though Susskind states exactly what I claim he does: that the fine tuning problem is a serious problem that demands a scientific explanation.

Posted by: Brownian, OM | January 9, 2008 6:53 PM

You really are dumb as a pile of bricks. I explained what the problem was several times

Sorry, but I'm dumb as a pile of bricks. Please restate for the record here how the 'appearance' of fine tuning constitutes a 'problem' that demands scientific explanation. In your own words, please. Feel free to cut and paste from any of the plethora of comments here where you've made it so painfully clear for all of us dummies.

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 9, 2008 7:07 PM

Please restate for the record here how the 'appearance' of fine tuning constitutes a 'problem' that demands scientific explanation. In your own words, please.

First of all, you're encouraging him, but ignore that; for our efforts, all anybody ever gets from heddle is post after ludicrous post featuring at least one of the following modes of dungeon-worthiness:

Insipidity

A great crime. Being tedious, repetitive, and completely boring; putting the blogger to sleep by going on and on about the same thing all the time.

Wanking

Making self-congratulary comments intended only to give an impression of your importance or intelligence.

Godbotting

Making an argument based only on the premise that your holy book is sufficient authority; citing lots of bible verses as if they were persuasive.

Posted by: JimC | January 9, 2008 7:19 PM

Same advice I gave to someone else--please publish your sophisticated "so what?"

Your such a goof. You think yourself sophisticated when really your mind is rot. There is no sophisticated argument necessary for 'fine tuning'. It is simply an appearance. It's no more than saying 'Hey I'm here therefore the world mustbe designed to let me be here'.

How much sophistication is needed to see that the idea is bullocks? You have to really,really want it to be true on an emotional level to think otherwise. It appears the 'problem' is nothing more than an illusion and wishful thinking.

but all have stated in various ways that there is a fine tuning problem that needs looking into.

an illusion of a problem.

But not in the manner you use it goofus.

Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM | January 9, 2008 7:44 PM

Google returns 693 hits for [heddle "fine-tuning"].Google returns 101 hits for [heddle pharyngula "fine-tuning"].Google returns 818 hits for [heddle pharyngula].

Can there be any doubt that Pharyngula was designed to host the likes of heddle? Since Pharyngula was so designed, there must be a Great Pharyngula Maker! All hail PZ!

Posted by: Neil B. | January 9, 2008 8:35 PM

First, my regards to heddle for carrying on a good fight. I've got more to dish in like vein.

Ken Cope takes aim and misses the truly worthy targets, and I'm not surprised:

shorter Neil B.

I prefer not to be bound by observation and evidence, so any premise I feel like pulling out of my ass is not only not forbidden, but compulsory.

Yep, that line *is* the kind of trash both in logic and cheesy tweenage tone one would expect from a lower-grade freeper or ironically, right-wing blogger (well the grodiest lefties do it too; I guess my political bias is showing. And yeah, I put out my own snark but no one's perfect, ;-O ) If "bound by observation and evidence" is supposed to mean falsifiability, then all speculation is wrong - that means about multiple universes as well, not just "God" or foundational levels that produce other realities, etc. as the argument may be. Then start by picking on all those hypocrites like Stenger who play with ideas of "multiple universes" in large part to avoid having to deal with why ours "appears" to be fine tuned for life. I don't accept falsifiability anyway as a defining principle, only as a heuristic rule of thumb for profitable lines of investigation. (Really, is a good theoretical argument for what happens if protons collide at 10^20 eV "meaningless" in the literal semantic sense, just because we can't find a way to make it happen, etc? And what should matter in testability, being verifiable/falsifiable "in principle" or in practice, and why?) At least that statement could be based on known physics, but the variation of constants doesn't even have a clear theoretical background (or please provide the calculation of the "chance" that alpha will turn out between 1/136 and 1/138, etc.) I know how it works: the principles are employed until the hypocrite needs to evade them for his own purposes, then they can be shirked (like the sort of "conservatives" who talk up the Constitution but then run around it when they want to wage war, etc. - try "neoskepticons" on for size.)

One thing I really don't get is running off into comparison to conventional religion. Sure, that matters if it's about politics etc, but *we* really don't have to talk about such subjects that way just because "that's what "most people mean by 'God'" or whatever. We don't need to give a damn what they think or mean for philosophical purposes. It looks too much like an easy "tainting" trick than a legitimate conceptual issue. Also, about modal realism - OK, I hear you, and I don't believe in it either (but clever physicists like Max Tegmark do, go and argue with him.) I figured most would get that and know I was just toying with MR, but carelessness reigns around here. But then, you lose the whole "benefit" it gives of *not* having to explain why the universe is the way it is, since with MR there's just every damn imaginable universe and we're just in a lucky one. You should have hung on, it's the only decent rebuttal there was.

Many of you of course are not hypocrites, and the honest ones will firmly denounce speculations of multiple universes, and affirm the emptiness of e.g. trying to make a case or critique by saying "maybe science will someday explain why things are the way the are, in a way that requires no teleology" etc. - well, maybe it will, but guess what - that is a statement of faith. Many here don't care because it's your purpose that really matters, not how one does the job. Hey, when you provide such a self-starting physical explanation I will be impressed, but there's not much supporting the idea that physics can be derived from pure math or logic and not have to follow the other way around. Just consider what Woit has been doing to poo-poo string theory, which still has to back-engineer the universe greatly and not start from pure logic.

Arguments about why the universe is the way it is, whether empty like most of what is posited here, or teleological, do of course have to use the observations we already have, that is granted. The point about how amazing to see that particular license plate completely misses that point - the whole idea is that certain things are more worthy than others, not just that "this" is here regardless of which possible one it happens to be. And of course the idea that "life" is something especially worthy and "should be here" is a value judgment, that's why it counts as a philosophical argument and not just doing "physics." It's one of those fundamental unprovable starting points (and gauges of mindset) that are all we have if we're going to speculate about such things at all

Also, if you're going to indulge the pretense that we shouldn't even consider the universe "fine tuned," but only "appears" to be, please make a better case since the case "for" has been well made by Barrow and Tipler etc. Most skeptics grant that, and either look at multiple universes, pace Karl Popper, or just say who knows/who cares. I guess those who think this is all about expressing "mathematical beauty" (whatever that is) think the universe is here for the sake of being admired by geeks who hate the sentimentality of thinking it might be about everyone, not just them? Most physicists don't believe in the teleological explanation of the "appearance" of fine tuning because it just isn't their job to look for that, not because they really have any good alternative scoop on why things are like that - there isn't one. And until there is, of course that doesn't justify throwing up a straw-man pretense of claims made that therefore the alternative "must be" for a life-supporting purpose. I didn't say that, it's just a possibility to prefer or not if you permit speculation at all. I fully respect those who honestly just don't want to dabble in it or think the whole business, with no answer applicable one way or the other, is "meaningless." I can't say as much for mud and metaphysics-slinging antimetaphysicians.

Finally, some of you folks may think better of me once you see that I am a blasphemer! Yes, look at this curiously apocalyptic jeremiad from one of your own jihadists:

Calling us freepers, and accusing PZ and commenters of practicing scientism, along with your latest exercise in fatuous solipsism, entitles you to mockery and derision.

So, I insulted your holy prophet and his true believers and must be consigned to damnation for all eternity. Note well, to mockery and derision because I dared *criticize* commenters, not just for what I believe in. (Actually, not all of them - only the ones for whom by definition the accusation was true, but you know how little regard religious zealots have for logic. As for the OBO, I grant he is snarky but not really "beyond the pale" like Mike Savage so far as I've seen.) And of course I wasn't exercising solipsism myself, just pointing out the silly problems you get from radical positivism (What is the operational definition of "Things continue to exist even while not being observed." etc.) Well, that's not my fault or problem - if you don't want to be ridiculed, don't come up with hopelessly tight-assed logical strictures.
Blasphemy is fun! Now I know how the naughty kiddies feel.

Posted by: Glen Davidson | January 9, 2008 8:51 PM

Many of you of course are not hypocrites, and the honest ones will firmly denounce speculations of multiple universes, and affirm the emptiness of e.g. trying to make a case or critique by saying "maybe science will someday explain why things are the way the are, in a way that requires no teleology" etc. - well, maybe it will, but guess what - that is a statement of faith.

No it is not, at least as most here use these comments. Multiverses are not brought up by myself as a "solution," but only to point out that we simply don't know the denominator in any equation which is supposed to make life "unlikely." It's stupid to claim that we do know the denominator, when multiverses are as well attested as claims that this is the "only universe" are.

And the point about science maybe explaining things someday is not properly used as the religious claim that "God will someday explain," but merely to point out that science is the only thing that is ever likely to explain anything new about the universe and/or multiverse, and about any probabilities surrounding these. Indeed, maybe someday science will explain "fine-tuning," but if it doesn't, we will almost certainly will not have an explanation. The only thing that is important in the religion debate is that clearly religion has no means whatsoever to explain "fine-tuning," while science at least gives us a method which could potentially give us some answers in the future (though it may not do so in every case).

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | January 9, 2008 8:56 PM

That is exactly right--saying the universe appears to be fine-tune for rocks is the same as saying it appears to be fine tuned for life. A universe that cannot produce rocks cannot produce life, and one that can produce rocks will produce the building blocks for life.

You seem not to have noticed my intent. What if life is a marginal unimportant byproduct of the universe reaching its true goal, the production of rocks?

For black holes instead of rocks, this argument has indeed been made, as you yourself have mentioned.

Also, you write that "science rightly doesn't like to accept 'luck' as an answer". That's wrong. Science of course accepts testable hypotheses of luck all the time. Why did this radioactive decay happen right now? Luck.

But since there's really no logical theory of likely existence, you really then can't say why there isn't a 23-dimensional field of moving specks instead, etc.

You have fallen among the scientists. We know full well that it's impossible to disprove solipsism. Please stay within methodological naturalism -- unless you actually want to stay boring.

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 9, 2008 9:01 PM

And, yes, based on my dealings with Dr.Collins (we've corresponded briefly) I think he is entirely capable of keeping his private religious views off the radar of public servant.

uh, you HAVE read his book, right?

just because someone is capable, at times (and not consistently), of being able to compartmentalize is not actually noteworthy in my book.

I appreciate why you might think differently, though.

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 9, 2008 9:11 PM

Does Nisbet complete ignore the fact that Neil deGrasse Tyson WAS a science advisor to President Bush?????

among the many other things he conveniently ignores in the furious process of trying to create a niche for himself as a "leader in science communication".

phhht.

maybe i missed it somewhere amongst all the fine-tuning diatribe, but did anybody figure out who is directly countering the advice Nisbet offers to science organizations and politicians?

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 9, 2008 9:23 PM

Maybe we need a Science Advisor who can try to bridge this gap and bring the "unbelievers" into the fold. We need more credibility for science, not more animosity. We need someone who can discuss both sides of the argument without alienating anyone.

-you cannot bring "unbelievers" "into the fold". by definition, most of them think that they will go to hell in capitulating to science. if you don't understand this yet, I highly suggest you spend some time trying to debate a hard-core YEC yourself sometime. the best you can do is get them to keep their idiocy to themselves. Frankly, from my POV, that simply isn't good enough any more.

-we do indeed need someone within government to clearly elucidate the credibility SCIENCE ALREADY HAS. there is no need to build credibility for science, it has a fucking fantastic record built up over hundreds of years.

-finally, there is no "both sides of the argument", and you know it. shall we regrind the arguments for the Flying Spaghetti Monster to demonstrate?

it's the height of hubris to think that there can be reconciliation between the entirely irrational and science.

now, if you want to talk about courting "undecided votes", then the answer is damn simple:

we need a president who publicly utilizes their science adviser to clearly demonstrate the already existing credibility and indispensable usefulness of science in general, and evolution in specific.

sorry, but in placating the religious right, all presidents in my lifetime have essentially eroded the "credibility" of science all by themselves. it wouldn't be hard to reverse that logistically, the difficulty lies in the will to do so.

Posted by: Glen Davidson | January 9, 2008 9:26 PM

I'd just like to point to what Collins is reported to have indicated at a more recent event:

The audience's questions tended to focus on Collins. For example, one questioner (who had read Collins' book) correctly identified Collins' alleged "evidence for belief" as fundamentally a God of the gaps argument. According to Collins, naturalistic science can't account for human Moral Law (Collins' capitalization) or the origin of the universe and its (alleged) fine-tuning, and therefore belief in a God is at least partly justified. To his credit, Collins answered that he wasn't claiming "proofs" (his word) but rather only indications or pointers.

pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/11/noma-is-alive-a.html

I suppose one could give Collins a tiny bit of credit for not saying that his "indications or pointers" aren't "proofs," but they are far from being indications or pointers as well.

I mostly thought it would be useful to point to what Collins is reported to have said, and that even when he's trying to defend his statements, it still consists of offal.

The best use we can make of Collins is to point out that he uses a host of bad "arguments" and piss-poor reasoning in his attempts to make religion sound reasonable, and yet where he has true scientific expertise he adheres to the multiple lines of evidences and predictions which make evolution the only reasonable idea for life's large number of variations on a few themes. That is, we have to mention that he thinks poorly outside of his specialty in order to note that nonetheless he cannot dispense with evolution within his specialty.

So he can still be of use, but only as someone whose inconsistencies break in favor of science when the actual work has to be done, not as someone whose thinking should be emulated. He does good work with the nuts and bolts of evolution, but he's not a consistent or reasonable thinker beyond that.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

Posted by: Brownian, OM | January 9, 2008 9:47 PM

But Tulse, if you change any one of those Powerball results, you won't win with your 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 ticket.

Clearly, your example demonstrates that the Powerball lottery has the appearance of being fine-tuned to make you win.

Looks like all those statisticians have a huge problem on their hands.

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 9, 2008 10:58 PM

Hm. Neil B. stayed out of this thread for the better part of 24 hours before unloading his angry little wank. Go, me. We also have learned that heddle now has a fan club of two.

If "bound by observation and evidence" is supposed to mean falsifiability, then all speculation is wrong

False dichotomy. I generate and consume vast amounts of speculation, not just in driving defensively, acting as if that meaning I want to constellate upon the appearance of a pattern was real, in order to live long enough to consider it later, but also in working out with my neighbors the best way to avoid fooling myself into believing in things that just ain't so. Among the ways I do this is to extend to my neighbors the courtesy of assuming they are real and not hallucinations. I work as hard as I can to discern the borders of science, science fiction, fantasy, and religion, which really isn't a continuum. I try to avoid granting hypotheses the status of theories, and treat theories as (provisionally) more than hypotheses. The true measure of mere speculation is not just how elegant, or well-informed it is, but what can be done with it.

Take Tipler. What can be done with Tipler? Martin Gardner can get a good article out of him in the New York Review of Books. Spielberg, in the movie A.I., portrays Tiplerian Sparkle Crest alien robot archivists from the future who enable the fulfillment of the ultimate teleological pinnacle of humanity: a little robot is turned into a real boy by the Blue Fairy so he can have one perfect day believing a simulation of mommy and daddy that never loved him really did love him, so that he can shut down happy.

Speculation can either be useful or otiose. Heddle wants to use the speculations of physicists to rationalize the object of his faith. Neil B. uses them to show us all how impressed he is with himself. When two such insipid wankers spew boring, spittle-flecked, unimaginative bullshit we've all heard before, the question I raised was what can be done with the speculation. In matters of taste, there can be no dispute, and with such tired speculation, it comes down entirely to matters of taste. Neil B.'s taste embraces heddle, Tipler, espistemological nihilism, sneering with contempt at the science of biology and at the host of this blog and its regulars, and nattering on about how impressed he is with himself.

Neil B. clearly has no taste.

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 9, 2008 11:34 PM

the Universe really doesn't give a shit

I don't even want to try to understand people who need to anthropomorphize the universe into a vast conspiracy on their behalf.

Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM | January 10, 2008 3:56 AM

PZ writes:

Your analogy has some interesting implications -- the Maker may be a malign entity with intents beyond your ken, and he may actually greatly dislike some of the inhabitants of his domain.

Well, to tell the truth, my ken has never gotten over that Barbie girl. And I'm not that fond of everyone here, either. But I am fond of your domain, O Maker, and so I've decided not to fire you for failing to win the World Series. After all, you did finish 93-63 in the regular season.

Posted by: Blake Stacey | January 10, 2008 1:43 PM

Ichthyic:

so, the question is:

WHO is countering Nisbet's nonsense within the area of scientific communication and politics?

and, no, a blog is hardly a sufficient counter, so don't bother going there.

I wasn't going to go there, so don't worry. :-/

I think the problem is that Nisbet is a communications specialist, and therefore interested in building a reputation as a communications expert, while the people who disagree with him are biologists and physicists, and therefore interested in doing biology or physics. (I name those fields because I have my own sampling bias; I read blogs in those areas more than others, so the names which spring to mind naturally cluster in those areas. Fill in your own candidates: let's make a list.) So, assuming that no academics tenured in Lakoffology are going to come forth to arrange counter-panels, what can we do ourselves?

Posted by: Neil B. | January 10, 2008 2:08 PM

Glen D, David M, Tulse, et al: I think you still don't understand where I (and likely Dr. Heddle) are coming from. What we are doing is indeed "philosophy" as I have directly professed many times (and I presume Heddle has too.) Sure it isn't physics, although it uses physical data (philosophy can be defined as starting with what we know and using thought process to find what is convincing to various degrees to believe - quite accepted to often not be proof or provable. I know what science is, the argument is rather over whether it is "OK" in some sense to use philosophical ("armchair") methods to get more insight than we have given by science and math. I think it is acceptable, others think a more strict approach like positivism is appropriate. Note that even positivists have to use arguments, not scientific experiments, to make the case about what science should be. (Wags often point out that LP's founding statement looks to fail its own test.)

Since science doesn't have an answer yet to the foundational why question, "philosophy" may be acceptable to probe that question. That has nothing to do with believing what any traditional or revelatory text says, and I never use them (I didn't join the Unitarian Universalists to follow a holy book, to slip Jesus through the back door, etc.) I don't think Heddle ever referenced religious texts as authority either (if so, contradicting Ken Cope's claim of "Godbotting" above. As for "insipidity", don't so many of you here make the same arguments over and over also? I keep making mine because I see the same starting or rebuttal arguments over and over. Give *me* something new to look at, and I will try the return favor.

But Ken is absolutely and directly a liar or at least utterly careless in this "spittle-flecked" sentence right here: "sneering with contempt at the science of biology and at the host of this blog and its regulars, and nattering on about how impressed he is with himself." I never sneered with contempt at "biology", I don't argue for divine intervention in an existing universe. I don't want any need for intervention, because the better the universe can make even rotary flagella naturally, then the more "clever" the fine-tuning is. If you can't even keep the different arguments straight, your fitful entertainment value no longer compensates for the worthlessness of the rants.

And of course, once again, there's the hilariously ironic air of blasphemy that I dare criticize the BO or the commenters. Yes I have said some are jerks, some not, and appreciate the better sort I have been dialoguing with in the thread "Paulos summarizes Beyond Belief." And what shows whether someone is "so impressed" with himself? Really, you can tell me that isn't what you see from the many confidently down-putting and snark-oozing antitheists here? More hypocrisy.

Since it is philosophy, the idea that what's behind the universe may "value" life is fair game. That's what the structure of the laws looks like, and those who think it isn't about that don't have a clear scientific explanation for it. Of course it's a value judgment and not "physics", I never said it wasn't - I am defending the use of it, not trying to redefine what it is.

People keep making the same silly argument over and over about why I shouldn't be surprised that a certain number sequence came up rather than any other single sequence - that's a fallacy of understanding probability anyway, since it is less likely for certain *categories* to come up than others, (like, less likely for sequences than unrelated numbers etc.) The category of life-friendly traits is very much smaller than the category of non-friendly traits, and that's what matters in the debate. Anything about "sometimes you get a royal flush" references of course presumed repeated dealings of cards - so, who or what is composing and dealing the "cards" here anyway, once or many times as the case may be? That's the question.

Re 153:

Protest too much? In #71, you listed 3 possibilities: modal realism (more or less), God or other "necessary being", or banal non-explainability.


If you now say that the first option was a kind of joke, you are saying that the universe is either explained by God or non-explainable. How's that for careless argumentation?

Well, I actually do suspect that, for exactly the reasons given in that #3. You can't call it "careless" just because you think I just plum ought to say "maybe science can explain that instead." Think about what science does to explain things: it looks for "laws" in the universe, available for experimentation, and then uses them to explain particular phenomena. Once you have Maxwell's equations, then you explain other things - but what do those equations come from? Why aren't they different, etc? Sure, there are ways to relate them (consistency with conservation laws etc.) but there are many ways to make model universes "with math" that aren't like ours.

Well, maybe there is a way to get a scientific handle on it, I can't assume there isn't - but if you think so, I expect you to at least get a handle on starting it and impressing me with *something* in that direction.

Finally, there is too much a false dichotomy that either there's just the universe here etc, or something resembling the God of religious faith is responsible. I think there's instead a range of ways to look at it, from just starting principles of a mathematical sort, to them having "values" and purposes etc, and classical, omnipotent deities as the other end of the spectrum (very unlikely since I accept the power of the con-argument from the existence of evil, ironically a value-based argument itself!) In any case, unless you accept the universe and its properties as a "brute fact", you have to seek foundational principles one way or another.

Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM | January 10, 2008 4:05 PM

any case, unless you accept the universe and its properties as a "brute fact", you have to seek foundational principles one way or another.

Only if you're interested in describing the universe in terms that can't be vetted by the scientific community, sir. Science tends to take a dim view of claims that can't be tested and most scientific research is operationally defined within a particular discipline with respect to the models that are out there. Foundational claims are unlikely to draw much interest from the likes of us unless they are testable ones that do a better job of predicting and explaining more phenomena than claims that are operationally defined within the discipline. Metaphysics (because that's what you seem to be pushing) has been eclipsed by real physics over the last three centuries, and you're not going to be able to turn back that clock.

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 10, 2008 5:00 PM

I don't think Heddle ever referenced religious texts as authority either (if so, contradicting Ken Cope's claim of "Godbotting" above.

Heddle defines godbotting on this blog.

I never sneered with contempt at "biology",

Why the scare quotes around the word? This sophomoric scientism dittohead freeper would like to know what I'm to make of your sentence:

If you were right, then PZ certainly would be totally worthless, true? (As a high-level thinker, he in fact is, but isn't bad as a biologist per se.)

Praise be unto Wilkins, but if Neil B. were the only exposure to philosophy around these parts, I'd have to conclude that it's perfect for those who aspire to writing science fiction, but who can't hope to attain Elrond Hubbub's talent, imagination, basic grasp of science, and wit.

Posted by: windy | January 10, 2008 5:20 PM

Anything about "sometimes you get a royal flush" references of course presumed repeated dealings of cards

Just that it's possible to get repeats. But saying "it's unlikely to get this particular combination" presumes the very same thing.

Well, I actually do suspect that, for exactly the reasons given in that #3. You can't call it "careless" just because you think I just plum ought to say "maybe science can explain that instead."

No, I'm saying that you plum ought to realize that "just add God" explains nothing.

Finally, there is too much a false dichotomy that either there's just the universe here etc, or something resembling the God of religious faith is responsible.

That's exactly the same false dichotomy you try to foist upon us.

...classical, omnipotent deities as the other end of the spectrum (very unlikely since I accept the power of the con-argument from the existence of evil, ironically a value-based argument itself!)

Evil is not a counterargument for omnipotence.

In any case, unless you accept the universe and its properties as a "brute fact", you have to seek foundational principles one way or another.

No, first we accept the universe as a brute fact, and then we seek possible foundational principles.

Posted by: negentropyeater | January 10, 2008 5:48 PM

Ichthyic,

I respectfully disagree, but I find Collins' book less "dogmatic" than you seem to express.
He is quite careful to explain the reasons why he believes in theistic evolution, and provides a description of what it entails, for him.
I agree with the statement that his main evidence, ie , the existence of what he calls a moral law in humans, is far from being "air-tight". But another hand, let's face it, the more scientific explanations for evolutionary morality are for the time being, quite metaphysical themselves.

Maybe at least getting the majority of human beings to believe in theistic evolution, rather than YEC or other literal biblical accounts, will be a necessary first step before giving it all up one day.

Wgo knows ?

Posted by: negentropyeater | January 10, 2008 9:08 PM

Sorry, Ichtyic, I didn't base my assertion on Collins' book (he actually doesn't touch the subject of a hypothetical theory of evolutionary morality). His reading left me actually very sceptical on his idea of a "God given" Moral Law.

Don't misunderstand me, I personally believe that one day, we will have a thorough scientific explanation of how human morality has evolved, without the need for any supernatural agent. I know that there is much progress made in various subjects such as Altruism (eg the existence of Mirror neurons and their evolutionary underpinnings). I was particularly impressed with what I learned for example during the two Beyond Belief conferences on this subject.

All I am saying is, as much as evolutionary biology has had something like a century of research and underpinnings behind it, and as such, is as close as one will ever get to the truth, a theory of the mind is still in the making and I am not aware of a defintive consensus from the experts in the field. Progress is being made every year on the subject, but if we can't convince the world of the basics, on which there is an evident consensus, it doesn't surprise me if people like Collins can write such a book, and get away with it.
I fully agree that this has very much the flavour of a god of the gaps argument, but as long as science has not explained all key aspects of the Universe, life, and the mind, it's quite clear that religion will be hiding in the gaps.

Posted by: Neil B. | January 11, 2008 2:46 PM

A few things to wrap up:

159 again:
Me: Anything about "sometimes you get a royal flush" references of course presumed repeated dealings of card...

Nonsense. Take a deck of cards and deal out a single five-card hand. What is the likelihood of dealing a diamond royal flush? The probability is 2,598,960 to one -- even if you never deal another hand. The probability is solely based on the number of elements and the process used to deal them, and not any presumed repetition (which is why multiverse "explanations" completely miss the point).

OK, I know that and was careless. I thought you meant repetitions since you said "some times" (split for effect), so I thought you meant the MV stuff. Well, of course the whole point is making a "value judgment" that life is "worthy" etc, I would never deny that - see above. As I once said, so far it's a matter of taste whether you want to accept that or not (and sorry, I consider it a test for cynicism.)

Note about multiverses I forgot last time: they aren't AFAWK observable/testable, so they fail falsifiability and become meaningless/unscientific etc. (do you believe in that? Sadly, it in turn must be argued for or against with "philosophy.") Well, if you accept that philosophical premise, the MV is not science, so can't partake of explanation as you suggested in part.

164:
"Evil is not a counterargument for omnipotence."

Maybe not, but Dawkins, Sagan, and Stenger have all used it as grounds for doubt. If you meant simply as written, v. "omnipotence" not "omnipotent and good" that is true. But I suggest you keep that complaint, since it's the only good counterargument (v. counter-pro argument, which is different) you have, other than maybe modal realism (also shrugged off around here.)

Posted by: windy | January 11, 2008 3:42 PM

Maybe not, but Dawkins, Sagan, and Stenger have all used it as grounds for doubt. If you meant simply as written, v. "omnipotence" not "omnipotent and good" that is true.

Of course I fucking meant it as written! Possibly an unfamiliar concept to you.

But I suggest you keep that complaint, since it's the only good counterargument (v. counter-pro argument, which is different) you have, other than maybe modal realism (also shrugged off around here.)

Make up your mind - is modal realism to be considered seriously or not? Of course, if atheists would only listen to you and start arguing for silly things like modal realism or saying "omnipotent" when they mean "benevolent", it would be easier fot you to dismiss them.

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 11, 2008 4:11 PM

All I am saying is, as much as evolutionary biology has had something like a century of research and underpinnings behind it, and as such, is as close as one will ever get to the truth,

what you just said is equivalent to saying we will never learn anything new in physics, since the field has been around for so long.

Moreover, the study of the evolution of behavior is not actually nearly as ancient as you seem to think, and most field-tested hypotheses, especially regarding altruism, didn't occur until after WD Hamilton published his work on kin selection.

that wasn't that long ago (70s).

even still, there most certainly has been much more research elucidating critical aspects of behavior than appears known by yourself.

again, a basic evolutionary text would help, and wr specifically to behavior, I might also suggest Alcock's "Animal Behavior", and the more advanced reader by Krebs and Davies: "Behavioral Ecology: an evolutionary approach", which will serve as a start to introduce you to both the history and current literature pertinent to the issue of the study of behavior, including altruism and cooperation.

I would highly suggest you learn a bit more about the field, and both your and Collins' ignorance of it, before you espouse further.

I am not aware of a defintive consensus from the experts in the field

I'm not buying this argument at all.

just how many interesting topics within evolutionary biology ARE you aware that there is or is not "consensus"?

sexual selection?

mate choice?

parental investment theory?

the relative importance of drift vs. selection as mechanisms?

is "consesus" important to you to understand the difference between doing actual science and proposing completely ignorant nonsense as Collins does?

like I said, if this is the kind of impact Collins will end up having on the rest of the science community, or those interested in it, I find that more than a bit troubling.

and you should too.

I hope you actually DO take the time to learn what IS so troubling about the presentation Collins makes wrt behavior, and spend some time looking at the actual research that has been done in the field.

at least, if for no other reason, so that you yourself can see the difference between how science studies behavior vs. how someone like Collins, apparently ignorant of the entire field of endeavor, makes proclamations about the limits of said science in favor of his religious delusions.

you're on a very slippery slope.

Posted by: Neil B. | January 12, 2008 4:41 PM

INHMB means "I'm not holding my breath" - as in, not likely to happen soon. It is likely not accepted abbr usage.

"Philosophy will not tell you how specific physical constants arose -- if anything can, it will be physics. (It may very well be that because of epistemic issues, our human understanding and practice of physics can't get us to that kind of explanation. But if that is the case, nothing else can either.)"

Sorry, you can't just put that out with confidence. You are again using philosophy to make the very claim about what philosophy and physics can show us, an irony you folks never seem to appreciate. I already explained in actual detail what sorts of things physics does explain and why they are explainable in that way, etc, and what it likely can't and why not, and what philosophy has to offer. You just offer basic (and ironically, philosophy-based) insistence or declaration about it.

When I say "values", I mean the idea that the values are expressed in the universe (per a philosophical argument of course) not the expression of values of the person doing it. Sure, the latter affects how you look at it, but are you going to rag on even the physicists who think "mathematical beauty" is somehow expressed or in-effect "valued" by the universe? Why should it be? We can't even get science off the ground without some presumptive equivalent of values about it's being regular, lawful etc, as Hume noted.

As for my use of "taste" it may have been a poor choice - I mean, it is a matter of taste whether one decides to "accept" the very act of using philosophy (since he or she *must* or course accept actual ways things work, versus "why they are here to begin with" etc.) That is not to be confused with thinking that there is no truth about which arguments are good or not, it just isn't really clear cut. (I am not a post-modernist, and look at the fuzziness problem: You probably want to say, torturing children is wrong, maybe democracy is better than tyranny, and Plan 9 From Outer Space is not as good a movie as On the Waterfront without either pretending it's mathematically certain and "science", or just giving up as if we couldn't decide at all.)

Modal realism: It is not "silly", it is in fact the most strictly rational way to look at the problem of defining existence. There *is no* strictly logical way to define "material existence" versus logical existence as of roots and the nth digit of pi etc. (Or, please do so and impress lots of very serious logicians, physicists, and other thinkers. But MR founders on issues of generating true random results (see my latest post on the thread "Is the Universe a Computer?" in Cosmic Variance, also supported by comment #23), consciousness (if you care) etc. I said several times that I didn't believe in MR for such reasons, but no need to get uptight since none of us has time to pour over everybody's comments to get it all straight - we can all lighten up about that, right?

PS: I used quotes around biology above since it was an actual quote, not to imply anything wrong with it, but any intelligent person would figure that - just for the record.

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 12, 2008 4:51 PM

... look again at the examples i gave you.

show me where there is consensus. (rhetorical, since there isn't)

since there isn't, does that really mean that evolutionary biology isn't a science that has excellent explanatory power and makes consistent and testable predictions?

not hardly.

try taking your approach to any other field of scientific endeavor, and ask yourself if a lack of consensus means that religious types attack such with the same arguments.

there are lots of "gaps" even in metereology, but strangely enough, we don't find many people still claiming lighting comes from Thor.

Posted by: truth machine | January 12, 2008 8:14 PM

uh, for future reference, you hardly need to put quotes around a single word ripped from another, especially if it is a word in common usage.

but, as an "intelligent" person, surely you know that, right?

LOL

This really isn't fair. Ken Cope is a blithering idiot who first groundlessly accused Neil B. of "smearing biology" and then stupidly accused him of putting "biology" in "scare quotes". Note that none of my uses of quotes there were scare quotes.

Not having read or comprehended all of what he wrote, I don't know what I do or do not agree with Neil B. on, other than that people fail to appreciate the arguments of modal realists (disclaimer: I was personally acquainted with and influenced by David Lewis).

Posted by: truth machine | January 12, 2008 9:10 PM

It is like saying that that the New York sewers are "fine tuned" to produce jewelry because occasionally someone drops their wedding ring in the toilet.

It's also like saying that the universe is fine tuned to produce the "Mr. Hanky" that appeared in my toilet a few minutes ago.

This "fine tuning" idea is, at bottom, based on the mistaken notion that we human beings are special somehow, so a universe that produced us is "fine tuned". As Heddle notes, a universe that produces rocks has the potential to produce life, but he gets the import of this wrong. We're just a particular sort of rock, and no more an indication of any intent behind the values of physical constants than any other rock. Some values result in rocks, some don't. That worlds with rocks have those values for the physical constants (or parameters) that can produce rocks is a tautology -- a sort of statement from which nothing further can be inferred.

Posted by: truth machine | January 12, 2008 9:41 PM

The number of atheistic physicists/cosmologists who acknowledge the fine tuning problem (for the universe, not the earth) is too lengthy to enumerate.

As is the number who claim that it simply isn't a "problem" (quotes, not scare quotes, folks; I quote it to draw attention to the fact that it's question begging). For instance,

http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/110/440/1027
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CI/CI301.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle#Origin_of_the_anthropic_principle

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 12, 2008 9:44 PM

Tu quoque arguments are for morons.

Thanks, TM, I appreciate the irony.

Posted by: truth machine | January 12, 2008 10:15 PM

Thanks, TM, I appreciate the irony.

Even if my saying that were ironic (but in fact I offered no tu quoque argument), pointing it out would also be tu quoque.

Posted by: truth machine | January 12, 2008 11:21 PM

Well, what's your (or anyone else's) fabulous explanation for why the universe is the way it is?

We don't have one (yet).

If you can't answer that question your way, I have little sympathy for your being very self-assured against other concepts.

We aren't self-assured against other concepts, only against bad arguments -- like that we should consider whatever isn't logically impossible, regardless of its other flaws. What you seem to lack sympathy for is your own strawman.

As for "Any deity who could ______" riffs, that is based on a presumption of omnipotence.

That ridiculous claim is quite ironic when we have Heddle pointing out that universes in which rocks are possible have the potential for life. Reasonable inferences can be made from a set of characteristics, even if it's logically possible that they don't hold. The "riffs" are simply based on the notion that hypotheses should have something to recommend them other than being logically possible.

Yet there is no logical reason why some foundational uncaused being would have to be "omnipotent," given one at all. (Look - isn't it silly to disagree with religious folks about whether God exists, but think they have to be right about what It must be like if It does exist? Why couldn't it be the other way around?)

Yeesh but that is stupid. The disagreement is about the existence of the God they conceive of, not some other logically possible "God" that they don't conceive of. The only thing they "have to be right about" is their own beliefs. "Why couldn't it be" is something most people grow out of by around 10 years old. It could be that, for instance, the universe was created 6,000 years ago, or last Thursday, as atheists the world over have acknowledged repeatedly, but those logical possibilities have nothing to recommend them.

Posted by: truth machine | January 12, 2008 11:47 PM

But again, Collins's blurb that you quoted does not imply intent.

Ahem. "Despite massive improbabilities, the properties of the universe appear to have been precisely tuned for life"

1. with the object or purpose of: to run for exercise.

2. intended to belong to, or be used in connection with: equipment for the army; a closet for dishes.

3. suiting the purposes or needs of: medicine for the aged.
4. in order to obtain, gain, or acquire: a suit for alimony; to work for wages.
...

Posted by: truth machine | January 13, 2008 12:18 AM

All of the arguments you have made thus far only point to the fact that if this universe were any other way (ie, different physical constants), this universe likely wouldn't have rocks, planets, or life. That I do not dispute.

Actually, you can dispute that, too.

Did you actually read Caroll's paper? I somehow doubt it. He does not dispute that there is a fine tuning problem.

Does Heddle understand the meanings of the words "can", "dispute", or "that"? From Carroll's paper:

In fact, the argument has been made that the particles and interactions we observe are not chosen at all randomly; instead, they are precisely tuned so as to allow for the existence of human life (or at least, complex structures of the kind we consider to be necessary for intelligent life).

In order for this argument to have force, we must believe both that the physical laws are finely tuned to allow for life (i.e., that the complexity required for life to form is not a robust feature, and would generally be absent for different choices of particles and coupling constants), and that there is no simpler alternative explanation for this fine-tuning. I will argue that neither statement is warranted by our current understanding, although both are open questions; in either case, there is not a strong reason for invoking the existence of God.

Posted by: truth machine | January 13, 2008 1:26 AM

People keep making the same silly argument over and over about why I shouldn't be surprised that a certain number sequence came up rather than any other single sequence - that's a fallacy of understanding probability anyway, since it is less likely for certain *categories* to come up than others, (like, less likely for sequences than unrelated numbers etc.)

I don't usually like to argue from personal authority, but I've taught statistics at the graduate level, so I think I know a bit about probability. The whole point of the statistical argument is that what you see as "unrelated numbers" is completely subjective (since it is possible to construct a relationship among any sequence of numbers). You "value" some arrangements of numbers and cards more than others, but that valuing doesn't change their likelihood, or the likelihood of other arrangements (just as if a fair coin comes up heads 1000 times, the probability of heads on the next throw is still 50/50).

Um, why do you think a straight is worth more than an un-sequenced series of cards? It's not just because we have a subjective affinity for sequences, it's because there are fewer sequences than non-sequences, so they're less likely to occur. Of course you could define other sets of cards with the same number of instances, but that misses the point of Neil's comment, which is correct. (His claim that this applies to "friendly to life" is not, however, because he has ignored that vast number of logically possible universes that are far more "friendly to life" than this one.)

Posted by: truth machine | January 13, 2008 2:12 AM

Does that hand look particularly improbable? To our eyes, which attach significance to that sequence, it does. But someone who has never played poker, or even seen a deck of cards, could calculate exactly the same probabilities and yet wouldn't be impressed if that sequence arose, since it is exactly as probable as any other specific draw of five cards.

Someone who has never played poker will still lose if you get a royal flush and she doesn't; she had better be impressed by the dealer taking her money away from her. What matters isn't "our eyes", but a priori specification. The a priori probability of getting a royal flush is 4/52!; the a priori probability of getting some unspecified hand is the same as the a posteriori probability of getting the specific hand you got: 1.

People like Neil cheat; they declare the hand they got a posteriori, life as we know it, to have been the a priori winner -- "a bunch of dead stuff is just dumb". But if that's dumb, why is so much of the matter in the universe not alive? And how do we know that "uncaused beings" prefer life, or have preferences at all? Neil can suppose that this "uncaused being" can only (so much for being "uncaused") choose the values of the physical parameters for a particular physical model, rather than being able to choose among all logical possibilities, and for some reason (so much for "uncaused") chooses those parameters that produce stars, black holes, and life, but why suppose that other than simply wanting to? It certainly doesn't flow in any logical way from the observed facts of our universe, and thus his suppositions are irrelevant; he simply believes what he wants to because he wants to, and so his explanations are not anything that anyone else has any reason to care about.

Posted by: truth machine | January 13, 2008 2:31 AM

assuming that the process was random

Note that making this assumption begs the question -- it's the very thing being disputed. I can assure you that, if we play poker and I get even two royal flushes in a row, you will find yourself challenging this assumption, and it's not just because of your "eyes".

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | January 13, 2008 8:32 AM

We can't even get science off the ground without some presumptive equivalent of values about it's being regular, lawful etc, as Hume noted.

Well, that's true, but this is not a "presumption". It is itself a scientific hypothesis. If it were wrong -- if the universe were unpredictable --, we would notice. This hypothesis is being tested in every single observation (whether of an experiment or of anything else), and it has still not been disproved.

Philosophy is pretty much helpless in this situation. Philosophy can only tell if an idea leads to logical contradictions. If an idea is merely wrong instead, philosophy can't tell.

Take your "why" question for example. Does that question even make sense in the first place? What if there simply is no "why"? I don't see how philosophy can tell us that. Maybe -- maybe! -- physics (in other words, science) will one day be able to do that, but philosophy?

Incidentally, not all multiverse hypotheses are untestable. Smolin's cosmological natural selection would for example be disproved if we found a single neutron star that's twice as heavy as the Sun. Furthermore, the principle of parsimony is applicable: from what little I've read, eternal inflation explains the same data as cosmological natural selection with fewer assumptions.

Posted by: Tulse | January 13, 2008 10:22 AM

What matters isn't "our eyes", but a priori specification. The a priori probability of getting a royal flush is 4/52! [...] It does no good to point out that any hand is just as likely as a diamond royal flush when royal flushes a priori have been designated as special. [...] The examples don't do the work you want from them. What you need to do is attack the notion that "life" is a priori special

truth machine, the only point of the discussion of probability was to make clear that the a priori designations of "special" in cards (or in Powerball sequences) are purely a matter of convention, and are not some inherent quality of the probabilistic system. There is nothing about royal flushes inherent in the cards that are particular special -- one of any set of four specific hands will have the same probability as one of any of the four possible royal flushes [and the probability there is actually calculated by 4 * (52!) / (47!) * (5!)].

So when you say that royal flushes have been designated a priori as special, that has nothing to do with the actual probability of those particular cards appearing as a hand -- if the conventions of poker were different, we might not care about royal flushes and full houses, but instead about hands composed of all primes ("I've got 2,3,5,7, and jack, boys -- read 'em and weep!"), and square-free integers ("I already had the 3, 5, 7, and 10, but on the last card I drew the inside 6."). Yes, we would calculate the likelihood of these sequences and arrange the hierarchy of hands accordingly, but the only reason these hands would now be "special" is because we had designated them so, and not because of their probability of appearance.

The only point in this particular argument that is being made, therefore, is that the specific outcomes we see as "special", as potential candidates for "fine tuning", are "special" only because we designate them so -- this specialness is not inherent in those outcomes, but just a matter of our interest.

And that is hardly a scientific argument, since we could value other outcomes, and make exactly the same argument ("wow, I've been dealt three square-free integer hands in a row -- the cards must be rigged!"). The Anthropic Principle advocates are essentially arguing about the likelihood of poker hands, when all the universe did is deal out five cards, and didn't (and can't) specify the actual "winning" conditions, or even the game.

Posted by: truth machine | January 13, 2008 7:31 PM

Tulse, I can't see where you've indicated any error in what I wrote; at the same time you seem to have failed to grasp some of my points (while repeating some as if you were disagreeing). We agree that Neil is in error; I'm going to leave it at that.

Posted by: Tulse | January 13, 2008 10:40 PM

truth machine, I do think we are talking past each other somewhat. Let me try this last response:

If square-free integer hands were as rare as royal flushes, then yes, it would be reasonable -- scientific, even -- to infer that the cards were rigged.

My point was not that they were identically rare, but that you don't notice when you get square-free integer hands in regular poker. The only reason we care about flushes, or full houses, or the other canonical hands in poker is because they are subjectively valued, but not because they are rare in themselves. If you got three hands in a row that were all sequences of primes (e.g, 2, 3, 5, 7, Jack; 3, 5, 7, Jack, King), you might think nothing of it, or not even notice, even though to get those cards is far less likely than to get three straights.

What we value, and therefore what seems rare, is largely subjective. That is the only point I was making, along with the addendum that, if it is subjective, it is not a scientific issue.

Let me put it this way (as I did earlier): It is far more improbable that the universe produced me than it produced life in general, but only someone who is psychotic would think that this makes them the reason that the universe exists. So improbability alone is no reason to think that this universe is somehow "special".

Posted by: truth machine | January 14, 2008 12:33 AM

What the heck, one more stab at it:

To follow your argument to its logical conclusion, any mention of probabilities would not be scientific, because any organization of events into categories is "subjective". But that's absurd; events are collected into categories based on a model. Of course modeling the world is "subjective", in that it's how we humans make sense of the world, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't yield valid results.

If Feynman had walked through the parking lot and noticed that the license plates on all the cars formed a contiguous sequence, it would have been foolhardy for him to ignore it as a mere subjective sensitivity to sequences, because an accurate model of how car license plates are produced and distributed makes it an unlikely occurrence. It would be purely subjective if car license plates were generated randomly but as an objective matter, they aren't. This is the same point I made about finding a card deck that is in order; it would be just another sequence, of only subjective interest, if card decks were produced in random order -- but they aren't. Thus, we must take into account our knowledge -- captured in models -- of how events are correlated, in making probability estimates; this is fundamental Bayesian reasoning.

When it comes to evaluating the probability of this universe existing, we need to take into account models that group universes into categories. And this is where many people fall down -- the only model they imagine is one in which there's a possible universe for each possible value of the physical constants, universes with constants that result in the existence of stars, planets, and life are a tiny fraction of the total, and the probability of encountering any of these universes is equally likely. But in addition to the fact that we have no evidence that this model of the probability distribution of possible universes is accurate, as a matter of logic the probability of a cognitive entity encountering a universe that doesn't support the existence of that sort of cognitive entity is 0. It's a tautology that this universe is of the sort that makes us possible and its a matter of logic that nothing can be inferred from a tautology (much as everything can be inferred from a fallacy). Since nothing can be inferred from the fact that we live in a universe that makes us possible, there's no "problem" to solve.

Posted by: truth machine | January 14, 2008 4:00 PM

tm, I think we're still talking past each other.

That's a funny way to put only being able to hear yourself.

Posted by: truth machine | January 14, 2008 5:08 PM

The objection is that, under a random model, any specified outcome is "rare" -- it is only our identification of some subjectively preferred outcomes that makes life seem "special".

What you're unable to grasp is that "subjective" can't do all the heavy lifting you want it to do. Of course it's subjective -- it's selected the target of inquiry. If someone notes that neutrino detections are rare, it's silly to complain that it's "subjective" just because any set of events (with the same frequency as neutrino detections) is rare. That's what I pointed out when I wrote To follow your argument to its logical conclusion, any mention of probabilities would not be scientific, because any organization of events into categories is "subjective". Rather than address that, you foolishly say that we're talking past each other. Yes, that's what happens when you don't take into account what the other person is saying, and just repeat your own point over and over.

It isn't "subjectivity" that's the problem -- you've got the wrong concept. It's the a posteriori selection of the target that's the problem. It's sad that someone who has taught statistics is so unfamiliar with a fundamental concept, but it's not uncommon.

The a priori situation is like having a bag of a billion cubes of metal, all inert except one, which is a robot that is switched off. Someone asks, before reaching into the bag, "What would you bet I can find the robot?", reaches in and grabs the robot. This would be a phenomenally unlikely event, and we should suspect that the person cheated somehow, that the selection of the robot was somehow the result of their intent. Chalking it up to our subjective interest in robots would be incredibly stupid.

The a posteriori situation is like having a bag of a billion cubes of metal, all inert except one, which is a robot that is switched off. Someone reaches into the bag, happens to grab the robot, turns it on, the robot looks around and says "Damn, what are the chances that I would have been turned on?"

The mistake of those who think there's a "fine tuning problem" is to view it as the former situation rather than the latter.

Posted by: truth machine | January 15, 2008 8:20 AM

If I were unkind, I'd suggest that it is odd that someone who provides the wrong formula for the basic probability of poker hands should lecture about statistics...but I won't be unkind.

I would say that anyone who uses such a tu quoque argument is a moron; my haste in writing 4/52! doesn't change the fact that you are a stupid wanker and thick as a brick. Good bye.

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 15, 2008 4:37 PM

While Truth Machine's online persona may only model a finite state machine, it is oddly comforting to have not been the only one asked to leave The Future immediately for having violated Robot's Rules of Order. Thank you, TM, and, may I say (at the risk of plagiarizing TFST even more), "fuck you, too!"

Sometimes, no matter how erudite the bullshit, bullshit it remains. I freely admit I'm often full of it myself, and share. Some people prefer to conduct themselves as if these comments threads existed for the exclusive purpose of the most elevated discourse. Occasionally, even I can make positive contributions in that vein. Other times, some people just need mocking. Sometimes that person is me! I'm entertained that TM, master of the ad hom ("but it isn't ad hom if it's true!") blanches at that subset of ad hom of which I was guilty, and further compounded. I really don't mind. It's always informative to watch Truth Machine make those fashionably late entrances and extend the thread by a few dozen flaming but salutary posts telling us why we're all idiots for not having taken our opponents apart the way he does. (I mean really, Tulse, you should know by now that once TM is on the scene, he's going to proceed in his own particular ... idiom) There's a reason, though, that Indiana Jones got the big laugh in the first movie when he responded to masterful and intimidating multiple scimitar slashing with a single pistol shot, and moved on. Some bullshit, so frequently and eloquently refuted everywhere, deserves nothing better. There is a place in the world for those of us struggling to shed some, but not all, of our blithering idiocy; foolishness, and fools, also have a time-honored tradition to uphold--you can see from my website, linked from my name below, that I've made a living pursuing many follies. It's my role in life. Comedy, for me, is watching philosophy get trumped by science. More FST: "Man, Woman, Child! All are up against the Wall of Science!" I try to use what little I've learned about philosophy, reason, logic and science to keep from fooling myself. Compared to that task, it's easy to spot people using philosophy, reason, logic and science to try to fool themselves and others.

Despite the anthropic principle having been shredded so many ways, I was wrong about NB, having predicted he'd have to come up with better material if he was hoping for a pile-on. He got one, and look, here he is, because of my indiscretions, claiming victory, as if nobody had laid a glove on him. OK, Neil, I was wrong about that too. Professor Heddle is a demented fuckwit. What I can't understand is why anybody would want to follow his URL.

At the risk of opening another can of worms, here's a question for NB, based on this snippet of his:

genuine quantum indeterminacy, consciousness

Penrose/Hameroff fan? (Look at me! I'm being Socratic!)

Posted by: Neil B. | January 16, 2008 11:06 AM

Ken:

Other times, some people just need mocking. Sometimes that person is me!

Ken, sure, you have a sense of humor and admirable self-deprecation. A lot of your stuff is fun to read, like the offbeat responses to my query about theoretical predictions of a worm-hole environment (a perfectly valid test of commitments to strong verifiability.) I confess it's a little boorish, maybe more, to treat everyone like they should present as prim Edwardian intellectuals. It's OK not to, it's part of the blogging fracas, and there isn't much point in complaining about it. And really, I did get a kick out of truth machine pissing on Tulse up there. Maybe I come across like TM to people around here sometimes, or annoying for different reasons, so be it.

Just remember, prissy or Victorian sounding philosophical nerds are part of the food fight too, to just accept and get over (including saying things just like this, see?) Guess what - I get a kick out of what I do too, it's another way to be eccentric or imposing, and I enjoy mulling and scrapping over high metaphysical issues for the sake of fussing over it, not just to make a case that really no one can make well one way or another.

As for your assurance that commenters here "shredded" anthropic design, I don't see the grounds for thinking they did such a great job. They made many fallacies, especially improper inference of what the point even was (just look at all that bulling and confusion over statistics - you think that sounds like people who know what they're doing?) ATEOTD, it seems to boil down to, are we going to chose to entertain "value judgments" when thinking about why the universe is the way it is, etc. It can't be demonstrated one way or the other, that's why I called it a "matter of taste", and there's little excuse for not getting better appreciation for that rather humble approach.

Finally, yes I am a fan (always selective and ready to turn my own way of course) of Penrose/Hameroff - I'm not sure that's being Socratic to just ask.

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 16, 2008 3:41 PM

I did get a kick out of truth machine pissing on Tulse up there

That phrasing leads me to think that the virtues I saw in the exchange do not overlap at all with NB's schadenfreude. If I understand what winds up TM, you don't want to hold a position he has rejected and/or has reasoned to be untenable; it's almost just as bad, if not worse, to agree with him for the wrong reasons or argue for his position poorly or lazily. TM and Tulse got into a heated exchange here, perhaps because the extent of their disagreement, and the investment in energy required to communicate it, exceeds the bandwidth of this medium and the patience of its participants. Unresolved disagreement in such an exchange is a feature, not a fault, of those who value science and its tools. Every positive claim is up for grabs. By knocking down bad and badly made claims, and examining the reasons that what still stands resists being knocked down (so far!), we learn, even if we're doomed to be perpetually as far away from The Truth as Zeno is from that Antelope Freeway exit.

Maybe I come across like TM to people around here sometimes

I think maybe ... no.

just look at all that bulling and confusion over statistics - you think that sounds like people who know what they're doing?

There's a lot to learn from TM and Tulse's argument here. That statistics are counter-intuitive and easily misunderstood is obvious. It sounds to me like you want to use that fact to impugn TM and Tulse for running out of patience before they reached agreement. If anything, it impugns the reliability of exclusively statistical arguments for either side. Perhaps, since you and the Professor are so intimate with WAP, SAP, FAP and, well, what Martin Gardner calls it, you could tell us misanthropists if there are any tools you anthropomorphizers use to establish just what questions need to be answered before you can ask better questions, in the mold of Frank Drake's famous equation? You know, the one for increasing the precision of what is currently a WAG about the probability of the existence of any ETI, which is only now putting values in only a few of its many variables? We know there is at least one star in one galaxy with a planet teeming with life, one type of which can wonder if we are alone in the universe; we're only just now getting a good look at the likelihood of how many stars there are with planets of any sort. There is much of practical value we can learn as we replace those open variables with solid numbers. If not a Drake Equation, perhaps a Panglossian Paradigm? Whaddya got at the end of the day?

It can't be demonstrated one way or the other, that's why I called it a "matter of taste", and there's little excuse for not getting better appreciation for that rather humble approach.

I don't yet see what the worthy question is, for which AP is such a great answer.

Posted by: Tulse | January 16, 2008 10:30 PM

I should add, that the argument that we shouldn't really consider ourselves "important" etc. smacks of nihilism. If it is in any sense the case that ethics and human value (and of other creatures) are real - as any good Humanist would affirm - then they shouldn't be dismissed as mere arbitrary sentiments.

Wow, that's just confused. To say that humans are somehow "important" to the trillions of cubic light years that makes up the universe smacks of profound hubris to me. But of course, our preferences don't impact on the facts of the world established approximately 15 or so billion years ago. And it is ludicrous to think that if the very fabric of creation is somehow not fine tuned for the existence of some bits of carbon in an infinitesimally small portion of that creation, then there is no such thing as ethics (beyond mere sentiment). Furthermore, fine tuning itself doesn't get you a foundational ethics -- it sure sounds to me like you're fishing for the Christian god here.

Posted by: truth machine | January 17, 2008 12:42 AM

I'm entertained that TM, master of the ad hom ("but it isn't ad hom if it's true!")

You continue to blither idiotically. Truth has nothing to do with ad hominem arguments being fallacious, irrelevance does. The only way I've "mastered" ad hom fallacies is in detecting them. As far as insults (which, despite frequent practice, I haven't mastered) go, they aren't "ad hom" in regard to logic -- they are just noise words in that regard.

I have to admit though that some of what you have written above is not entirely idiotic. :-)

Posted by: truth machine | January 17, 2008 1:49 AM

If anything, it impugns the reliability of exclusively statistical arguments for either side.

I'm making a logical argument, not a "statistical" argument. If you look at my robot example, Tulse and I have no disagreement that the robot is wrong to think that it's having been turned on is "a problem" or something that needs to be explained. But I'm not sure Tulse grasps that it isn't a problem because "I've been turned on" or "We exist in a universe that makes us possible" are tautologies -- if the statements were false, they couldn't be uttered or even conceived. This is true regardless of how likely or unlikely this or that universe is (which isn't even coherent because we have no basis for selecting a probability model), or how likely it was to pull a robot out of a bag (from the POV of the robot, whose cognitive processes don't come into existence until it is turned on, the probability is 1). In a way, our disagreement wasn't so much about what's right, but rather about how to characterize what's wrong with the thinking of those who think there's "a problem".

My annoyance came primarily from Tulse repeatedly ignoring what I had written and instead repeatedly belaboring the obvious -- points I myself had already made -- and then talking about us "talking past each other"; no, I was talking past him, but that wasn't my fault. I had two more instances of this today, where people kept going "But my point is ...". Usually, when people keep repeating that, they aren't paying attention to the arguments of their correspondent, and mistake lack of agreement with lack of comprehension.

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 17, 2008 2:12 AM

(re: double dating...I can't say anything that cool in a public forum! They're sure realistic. I've been chasing them around the dial since Radio Free Oz, and have even seen them from inside the radio!)

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 17, 2008 3:34 PM

Dennett (echoing the best in neuroscientific thinking) answered that

Aw, now everybody's gonna know the right answer. For me, it wasn't open book, and I had to extemporize. I'm a multiple drafts kind of guy, and described the process of 2D hand animation--while the line I put on paper is well, linear, how it gets there is not. Projecting onto paper a 2D shadow of multiple slices of time to describe not just 3D shape and movement, but personality and any number of other attributes, requires that many simultaneous drafts, multiple agencies, processes, must cooperate, especially if you're following something on the radio or some music. At least that's what the part of me with the outside voice at the time had to say.

Oh, Minsky is a FST fan from way back too. In 1987 he was poo-pooing Wm. Gibson's originality, citing his pal Vinge's True Names as contributing more to the notion of thyberthpaithe. I reminded him of Bozos having precedence by a number of years, and he had to agree.

Millions of months passed, and then, twenty eight days later, the Moon appeared...

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 18, 2008 3:01 PM

computers won't even keep us as pets

And Stanley Kubrick with hotels in space by 2001! What was he smoking? Sure made me suspicious of his skills as a director.

Wildly optimistic boosterism that anything was possible was very 1967, especially for projects that were hoovering down massive government contracts. By the late 80s, AI's free government ride was over. Penrose, in his Emperor's New Mind, was shaking the litter off his hind paws after scratching in the catbox that reeked of AI's fresh, stinky demise. Man. You should have seen the blazing speed of the Symbolics 3600 at that time, or the screaming 40Mhz CPU on my Maciifx.

the question of whether the experience of consciousness itself is "linear or parallel" seems a rather odd question to me

You seem to be saying that's a rather odd question, Tulse.[/Liza]

I don't understand why. If you agree that consciousness is a product of parallel neural processes, what else is there but parallel neural processes to do the experiencing? I've got so many simultaneous processes running in my brain I have one of them dedicated to finding the process id numbers on the most unproductive ones so I can hit em with kill -9.

Have you never driven while yakking on a cell phone and wondered how you got home safely? Don't you have to collect your thoughts? In a dream, is the part of you that generates the dream the same part of you that experiences it, or do you never quite actually experience it, but reshuffle it as a memory of having dreamed it? I can't go all Ken Nordine and invite you into my split level mind or tell you how my analyst told me I was right out of my head, but I can tell you that "attention" is only one process among many going on in my brain, and the decider of what holds it is frequently rationalizing its behavior by trying to act as if it meant to do that. Language and cognition allows "me" to be a useful, fluid symbolic representation that need only stand for any number of other abstractions, without needing to actually be anything by itself.

Consciousness feels to me more like an ocean than a stream.

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 18, 2008 5:44 PM

Kubrick had Clarke for a consultant, and I don't think less of Clarke either. But yes, the prediction biz is intensely dicey, which is why I pay less attention to Kurzweil than I might have another time.

I hope I'm wrong, but we are more likely to have something close to Bradbury's Nursery, or a Holodeck with no need for safety protocols, long before we have a colony on the Moon, although Japan's space agency wants to put the Qrio and Asimo robots of a decade from now on the Moon to build those hotels on the Moon for us. Or for China.

I think it is a confusion to say that the processes themselves are doing the experiencing, just as it is a confusion to say that bits on a DVD of Hamlet are doing Shakespeare. The neural processes produce consciousness, but those processes themselves qua neural processes aren't consciousness.

What extra undefined thing that isn't neural processes is the experiencer, the experiencing or that being experienced? It sounds like you're offering Searle's Chinese Room as an objection, where the person with the rule book, the room of symbol manipulators, and the exchange of symbols on bits of paper are simulations of understanding that cannot themselves possess understanding. Douglas Hofstadter dismisses it pretty well:

...it is a mistake to try to impute the understanding to the (incidentally) animate simulator; rather it belongs to the system as a whole, which includes what Searle casually refers to as 'bits of paper.'

I'm not at all denying that a lot of stuff is going on outside of the realm of conscious experience.

Why reserve special status for one part of what the brain is doing, to call that consciousness, while calling other aspects of the process unconsciousness?

Every event in my brain is a change in its structure. The so-called bits of information that can fit into a buffer and be juxtaposed as symbols for manipulation feel linear, partly due to the passage of time, partly due to how many moments one sound or image or word can filter the shape of something else, including the symbols I use to stand in symbolically for "me" (at least that's the latest feedback from the highly recursive autocerebroscope, which my mind uses to watch my mind watch my mind...)

If you've read Michael Pollan's book, Botany of Desire, you've seen his chapter on what is suspected makes cannabis work the way it does, being a close analog to the neurotransmitter they're calling anandamide, which has to do with regulating the sense of the duration of the present moment. In a sense, the capacity to discriminate among multiple streams of external and internal sensory data is challenged when anandamides enlarge the buffer, making a larger slice of time feel like "now."

[segue]

I know I have at least two Ken Nordine CDs (Colors and Word Jazz) but can't locate either of them at the moment (URG). However, the title, I Live in a Split Level Head is likely to be from Napoleon XIV. Surfing around for little mp3 snippets of Ken Nordine is its own reward. From his Transparent Mask CD, I caught the phrase, "...inside my mind, where fantasies play hide and seek..." which is the sort of thing Ken Nordine can say better than anybody else. I'd rather have Ken Nordine do my mental interior decorating than Nappy the XIV, or Lambert, Hendricks and Ross.

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 18, 2008 10:00 PM

I can't be all that bad if I hung out with old Bob.

I'm sure there's a famous quote to counter that notion, but instead I'll relate one of my own associations:

I was in zoology as a grad student at the same time as Jonathan Wells was across the hall in the molecular and cell bio dept. at Berkeley.

by your logic, I must be a Mooney and a creationist, since I had lunch with him on occasion.

Posted by: windy | January 19, 2008 8:00 AM

That's like saying that highway engineers must want accidents to happen.

More like saying that the programmers of Halo might not have been entirely averse to violence.

(to TM:)

If you'd rather not be here because the problems ruin the rest of your existence, you can make that happen.

Classy, Neil.

Posted by: windy | January 19, 2008 6:00 PM

Windy, if you really care about "class", then no point in hanging around cynical goth tweens (in spirit at least) prating about flukes of the universe and such rot. I was only giving back to them in like measure - after all who cares if a "speck of carbon" in a vast impersonal blah blah extinguishes himself, it's arrogant to think we're important etc. ad nauseum in the nearly literal sense.

Oh, posh. 'Giving in like measure' when someone calls you a moron is to call him one, not to suggest they might as well kill themselves if they don't agree with you. It's a complete non sequitur anyway - if someone says that evolution seems better primed to produce insects than humans, do you assume that this person would rather be an insect? WTF?

Posted by: windy | January 19, 2008 6:26 PM

surely you know by now I would have waded in with both feet?

Feet?? What kind of actinopterygian are you? ;)

Posted by: windy | January 19, 2008 7:20 PM

Touché :)

Posted by: windy | January 19, 2008 9:02 PM

Would you have any clue how to make a circuit to feel nauseated, really, the way you could imagine how to program it to play chess?

A robot could be programmed to *exhibit* nausea just as we can program a circuit to virtually exhibit the behaviours we classify as chess. We don't know whether an AI can develop to the point where it "really" is nauseated, but the same goes for "really playing" chess. Do you believe that animals can feel nausea, and why?

Dennet is a denialist - run really hot water over your hand and tell me what you get is just a bunch of signals or logical processing. Chalmers is right.

If thermostats can be said to be conscious (Chalmers), why can't circuits feel nauseated?

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 19, 2008 10:25 PM

Nor are Dennett's arguments elimitivist.

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 19, 2008 10:32 PM

there's flukes running around the cosmos?

They have no right to be here.

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 19, 2008 10:43 PM

...sorry, I'll refrain from the peanut gallery until there is more to say wrt the original subject of the thread.

Posted by: thalarctos | January 19, 2008 11:33 PM

I thought I had tapeworms once, but it was just a fluke.

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 19, 2008 11:54 PM

Just to keep Icthyic from going away:

Moderator Joe Quirk asks great questions that don't faze his panelists (Michael Lerner, George Smoot, Joan Roughgarden, Robert Russell) at a recent event held at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club (it's real audio but any other free player than real audio is advisable if you need one), broadcast last week on NPR.

Science and Religion: can't they just get along? or are they fighting over the same turf, turf being what's true, and what's false. A rabbi, an astrophysicist, a biologist, and a theologian, walk into a bar. Tonight we're going to learn the punchline of that joke.

We learn that the dominant religion of the western world is scientism. The only participant in the debate who wasn't there was Richard Dawkins, who we learn appeared not to notice the truly sophisticated garments worn by today's theologians.

She's no Francis Collins, but I think the biologist who, if not born to be Mike Huckabee's science advisor, is really a much better choice than Collins for many reasons, is Joan Roughgarden, who certainly does not like scientism any more than she likes Richard Dawkins.

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 20, 2008 12:21 AM

I figured i was interrupting the "debate" over fine tuning

Debate? It switched.

I wonder what her views are on the evolution of sexual identity?

She's opposed to the homogeneity of the ideology of the people doing science.

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 20, 2008 2:11 AM

Youtube is our friend. ISTR Roughgarden and Dawkins exchanging words, or at least glares at Beyond Belief, but I haven't tracked down just where among all the clips up at the moment.
A recently deceased San Francisco talk show host, Pete Wilson, only slightly smarter than Bill O'Reilly, gushed all over Francis Collins as a guest and not long after, Joan Roughgarden. If a recent disc crash didn't eat it, I have copies of both interviews. I didn't know scientism was such a popular enemy until I heard these guys droning on about how evil it is.

Posted by: windy | January 20, 2008 8:22 AM

yes indeed, that would be a most, uh, "interesting" choice for a Huckleberry science adviser.

This is a different clip, but revealing - she's not saying that a secular morality isn't possible, she's just very skeptical about it. Lovely. Maybe she'd fit as Mitt Romney's science advisor?

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 20, 2008 12:29 PM

If it's the Beyond Belief site that's browser crashing, here at least is Dawkins' response to Roughgarden, part of the clip I linked to. He doesn't really care for her proposal, which is from her more recent book, Evolution and Christian Faith: Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist, not from Evolution's Rainbow. I can't imagine why she'd be promoting a cooperation model rather than emphasizing the conflict between science and religion, can you?

Posted by: Neil B. | January 20, 2008 2:42 PM

>> I tend to suspect, it's a substitute for having
>> something really worthwhile to say

> no, it's an attack on what appeared to be an argument
> from authority based on mere association.
> ... that's fine and dandy; it caught my eye, is all.

It should "catch your eye" right away that a casual informal saying like "I can't be all bad if I've ..." is fluff and not something you should treat like a thesis in a dissertation. It isn't even applicable, nor need to "weaken" something like that to point it out either. The occasion was RAW's 76th, that should tip you I felt like shooting some bull about having met him, not offering up a goddam syllogism.

Oh, posh. 'Giving in like measure' when someone calls you a moron is to call him one, not to suggest they might as well kill themselves if they don't agree with you. It's a complete non sequitur anyway - if someone says that evolution seems better primed to produce insects than humans, do you assume that this person would rather be an insect? WTF?

You guys have to keep BSing about what people meant because you don't have much to offer in honest terms IMHO. I didn't say/imply anyone might as well kill themselves if they disagree with me. I said: "If you'd rather not be here because the problems ruin the rest of your existence, you can make that happen." That means, if you don't like how shitty it is you can get away as a matter of principle not advocacy, and it has nothing to do with "agreeing" with me. The point is, you ask yourself why you'd rather be alive than not and that indicates there's something "worthwhile" to us that this is here (for most of us, now, most of the time at least.) It has nothing to do with rather being something else entirely. The point isn't about evolution being primed very directly anyway, but the laws and constants which have a very general effect on what's possible.

You guys wouldn't have so much of a problem if you didn't get so mixed up all the time - but getting mixed up pays, because you can pretend to have a better case against the put-up straw men than you really have.

I must secretly believe I'm the center of the universe that gob made just for me, or else I'd already have become a murderous misanthrope with nothing to care about or live for. That surely does thoroughly exhaust the range of options.

No, it surely doesn't. For example, AD has nothing to do with sarcastic little too-cute-by-half *you* being the center of the universe, which is more of the now obligatory straw-man bullshitting from about all of you here now. But not believing that there's at least some point in the laws and constants being the way they are (and you guys have never come close, to even offering some answers to that have you?) for the sake of life in general is strongly correlated to being a cynical little boy, as well evidenced around here by quotes like "Whether you can hear it or not, the universe is laughing behind your back." I grew *out* of thinking that was funny long ago.

As for RAW: like almost all his fans, I know there's high entertainment value and lots of wishful speculation and fabulism even in his "non-fiction" writing. That's a lot of his appeal. But I can't imagine you don't think he made quite a few good points for real from time to time.

Nothing you do or say in this artificial synthetic simulation really matters, love or hate, life or death, because you are backed up in the great offsite archive in the sky. That's some mighty fine nihilism.

A mighty un-fine non-sequitur. Why would it not be worthwhile because it was backed up? You think all that work you do on animation etc. is worthless because it is on record? It seems to me, it matters more because more people can see it, you can get back to it, you can make sequels etc. It seems to me, it would have less value if it's just utterly gone someday and not a basis for more work somehow.

A robot could be programmed to *exhibit* nausea just as we can program a circuit to virtually exhibit the behaviours we classify as chess. We don't know whether an AI can develop to the point where it "really" is nauseated, but the same goes for "really playing" chess. Do you believe that animals can feel nausea, and why?

Hmmm, so why are *you* making a distinction between "exhibiting" nausea (as if it had a clear outward manifestation anyway) and "really" being nauseated? Perhaps you appreciate that "really" being nauseated is not a behavior, but a phenomenal subjective quale that has no logical need to accompany behavior (hence David Chalmers' core argument, which I don't think you got) and can only be presented "from the inside." There is no need to put about really playing chess in "scare quotes" as you once wrongly dissed on me over, because it's something the machine can do or not and we can see it being done directly as defined. I believe animals feel nausea and maybe circuits because *reality* is set up that way, since I doubt very seriously that any mere mathematical model or information flow can "run" something like subjectively given qualities. IOW, it can be like that in the world, but it can't be modeled as a mathematical process. (There's precedent already - quantum randomness can't be modeled directly either since math is a logical system with required output. All simulating of randomness in math either uses generalities like proportions, or putting in actual run results by hand.)

Dennettt denies qualia and therefore is an eliminativist however much he or his fans bullshit about it. I read the deceptive Consciousness Explained. Dennett often dissimulates: he claimed early on that he wouldn't "feign anesthesia' like a psychotic, conscious-experience denying behaviorist (stick your hand in the hot water again and wake up Amurica!) But he is indeed an anesthesia-feigning denier of our having literal subjectively given qualia. He just substitutes information processing in inner darkness for the outward behaviorism of a crank like Skinner. They get away with it through a sly manipulation of "seeming" talk, which is supposed to be about how things appear to us through our feelings, but Denyittians double-task it by talking of "seeming to have feelings" and other run-arounds to confuse people so they can believe in their feelings and deny them too.

Now, what you or Dawkins means by reductionism in a sense worth being against I'm not sure. If you mean just trying to explain something in terms of simpler processes, instead of literally denying the reality of the result (like subjectively given qualia) then I can't blame people for trying, but even then there's no guarantee it will work. Why doesn't someone explain then why particles decay exactly when they do? Oh, there isn't a reason they say. Well, maybe the same can be said for other things to, and maybe some of the reasons aren't the kind that reductionists would like.

Finally, I see more talk about "science versus religion." That's a misnomer since everyone arguing about subjects like fine tuning who isn't referencing a revelatory text is best said to be "doing philosophy," like it or not. It's the subject that makes it that way, not the position you take. Like I said and few appreciate, none of us *knows* anything about this mess (the speculative part) so why get uptight about it?

Posted by: Owlmirror | January 20, 2008 3:51 PM

But not believing that there's at least some point in the laws and constants being the way they are for the sake of life in general

But you have no possible way of demonstrating or knowing that the laws and constants can in fact be different from what they are.

All you have is the untestable idea that they might have been different.

I doubt very seriously that any mere mathematical model or information flow can "run" something like subjectively given qualities. IOW, it can be like that in the world, but it can't be modeled as a mathematical process.

Bah. The only reason it cannot be done at this point in time is because the neurobiology of sensation and emotion is not fully understood. Once we know more about what exactly is happening, we should be able to simulate it.

I am nearly certain that there will be machine intelligence, and that being could know nausea, if we wanted it too. I can think of arguments for and against doing so, as well: On the one hand - why inflict such a sensation on it, if it is unnecessary? On the other hand - I think I would our interaction with such a thing would be easier if it could sympathize with us; that is, know how we feel.

stick your hand in the hot water

Yet such an event correlates with detectable physical changes and neural events: The skin and layers below are damaged; nerves in the hand, detecting the sort of damage that correlates with heat, fire, sending signals to the spinal cord, and to the pain center of the brain.

You seem to be suggesting that sensation can never be understood and modeled. Why? We know a great deal already; why will further analysis fail?

none of us *knows* anything about this mess (the speculative part) so why get uptight about it?

Because there's a fundamental contradiction or paradox inherent in the fine-tuning argument, as with all arguments from design: If this universe, with all of its size and complexity and intelligent life (us) required fine tuning (before it existed) by an actual intelligence in order for it to exist as it does, how did an intelligence complex and powerful enough to know how to fine-tune universes ever come into existence without it being fine-tuned itself? And why would this intelligence do so, and yet not communicate with the intelligences that arose inside of the universe that it presumably went to the trouble to fine tune?

Posted by: windy | January 20, 2008 4:07 PM

I said: "If you'd rather not be here because the problems ruin the rest of your existence, you can make that happen." That means, if you don't like how shitty it is you can get away as a matter of principle not advocacy, and it has nothing to do with "agreeing" with me.

Nice try to worm away from what you said. Some people said that the universe appears not to be especially friendly to "human values", which is the negation of your world view, and you suggest that they might want to off themselves then.

You guys wouldn't have so much of a problem if you didn't get so mixed up all the time - but getting mixed up pays, because you can pretend to have a better case against the put-up straw men than you really have.

Projection is fun.

(hence David Chalmers' core argument, which I don't think you got)

Surprise, surprise. How about less telling us how we don't get stuff, and more demonstrating that you do get stuff.

There is no need to put about really playing chess in "scare quotes" as you once wrongly dissed on me over

No, I didn't.

because it's something the machine can do or not and we can see it being done directly as defined.

No, it's a false comparison that invites humans to feel superior about their feelings. The right comparison would be between *wanting* to win a game of chess and *feeling* nauseated (feelings that motivate subsequent behaviour).

I believe animals feel nausea and maybe circuits because *reality* is set up that way, since I doubt very seriously that any mere mathematical model or information flow can "run" something like subjectively given qualities.

So the talk about circuits not feeling nauseated was just a red herring to throw us off track, and in principle you have nothing against circuits feeling nauseated? Good grief.

Finally, I see more talk about "science versus religion." That's a misnomer since everyone arguing about subjects like fine tuning who isn't referencing a revelatory text is best said to be "doing philosophy," like it or not.

It's not a "misnomer", we went back to talking about the original subject of the thread, which was not fine tuning. For a philosopher, you seem strangely unable to follow shifts in topic.

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 20, 2008 4:26 PM

you are backed up in the great offsite archive in the sky. That's some mighty fine nihilism.

A mighty un-fine non-sequitur. Why would it not be worthwhile because it was backed up? You think all that work you do on animation etc. is worthless because it is on record? It seems to me, it matters more because more people can see it, you can get back to it, you can make sequels etc. It seems to me, it would have less value if it's just utterly gone someday and not a basis for more work somehow.

Until I download that work from the platonist overmind and manifest it in the real world, nobody will pay me for it. I act on the assumption that this is it, and you don't. I won't teach my children what you believe, as it's dangerous rubbish. I'm operating on the assumption that the universe is a bottom up affair. Top downism is religion.

When you argue, as a Tiplerian, platonist dualist, that you believe that "reality" is a magic platonist computer that will "save" you when you die, and you tell me your imaginary, unevidenced faith is philosophy, but not religion, or even just narcissistic, hallucinatory wish-fulfillment, then you hemorrhage credibility you never had here to begin with.

He just substitutes information processing in inner darkness for the outward behaviorism of a crank like Skinner

That is a misrepresentation of Dennett. What people try to describe by using the word "qualia" is something that the concept is inadequate to explain. If anybody can think of anything that the concept "qualia" properly maps that is less otiose than "irreducibly complex ineffability" I'd like to hear it.

re: reductionism

If you mean just trying to explain something in terms of simpler processes, instead of literally denying the reality of the result (like subjectively given qualia) then I can't blame people for trying, but even then there's no guarantee it will work.

Who expects guarantees? Nobody who is sane.

Scientists persist in trying things that have been successful in the past--trying to understand something in terms of component parts is not a guarantee of success, but it's better than declaring a problem to be off limits by giving it a special name and declaring it irreducibly complex.

Finally, I see more talk about "science versus religion."

It was a long time ago, but you may want to review the original post and the top of the comments thread, before we hijacked it.

Posted by: Neil B. | January 20, 2008 4:29 PM

We're in science here, not in philosophy.

No, wrong. What we're "in" is what we are actually doing here, which is philosophy regardless of the intentions of the OP or anyone else.

Why should we ever bother trying to define existence?

You bother if you want to. Why bother arguing with someone who does want to, if you don't care?

Me: Well, AD enthusiasts have pointed out so long that life-friendliness is not fixated on humans but the ability of the universe to produce life in general

DM: But, as we keep telling you, this is just as wrong. It's not just life, it's rocks in general, and black holes!
---

I said before, it can be about more than one thing.

Me: Dennet is a denialist - run really hot water over your hand and tell me what you get is just a bunch of signals or logical processing.

DM: You could be right, but your pathetic argument from personal incredulity isn't going to help us find out if you're right.

And that is supposed to be a philosopher? Where's the logic!?!
---

Philosophy, science, etc. have to "get off the ground." It isn't personal incredulity, it's the nature of what's given. Since feelings are the subject, that's what I refer to, from the subjective viewpoint that's by definition what it means.

We actually do have value to each other. That's it. To assert we have value to "the universe" presumes that the universe contains, or has, or is, a consciousness; in other words, you assume the answer a priori.

First, it isn't necessarily conscious the way we are to express value, but the answer was not assumed a priori, it came from the values of things like the fine structure constant having values narrowly in the range needed to support life, and with no clear physical argument (again, none of you provide any) for why laws and constants should have to be what they are. It is then a supposition derived from observation and logical reflection, not an "assumption" out of thin air or emotion, similar in type to a sense that the universe expresses mathematical beauty for some deep reason (you guys really wouldn't pick on that, would you, because most of you don't cynically despise that concept?)

As for talking about "think" versus "believe": if we don't "know" then is there such a big difference? And finally for you, you once said that philosophy only tells us what arguments are logical etc. Sorry, wrong: how much of the philosophical journals are taken up with assessing the logical fitness of arguments, and how much with making points about reality, mind, language, etc? Very little of the former, otherwise it would be just symbolic logic applied to the writings of non-philosophers. You can't have philosophy of language for example using pure logic, since the former is about "natural languages." Finally, even the very saying that "philosophy only tells us what arguments are logical" breaks its own rule (in the same hilarious way as the theses of logical positivism, etc.)
But you final statement is cute and humble, except for that.

Posted by: Neil B. | January 20, 2008 4:58 PM

uh huh.

I can has more theory of Bull, plz?

It was a well-known and understood catch phrase, who the hell would need a theory about that? You folks have already made fools of yourselves hyping and griping about it.

But if you foolishly insist on more, your buddies are dishing it up all around you, fishy!

Posted by: Tony Jeremiah | January 20, 2008 5:34 PM

@275

I'm familiar with this paradox as well, but in the form of the question, that if God exists, how did such an entity come to be?

I imagine there are two basic conclusions to this paradox that would rely on one of two critical premises: (1) time is linear; or (2) time is nonlinear (i.e., it is circular).

If we go with the apparent linearity of time, we could go with a Dawkin view that human morality is a continuously evolving set of memes. Perhaps these memes started out as behavioral rules which were necessary to maintain the survival of prehistoric clans. For example, as I understand the basics of human prehistory, humans wondered about in clans. It was very important that clan members not kill each other for the overall survival of the clan. Thus creating a set of rules (probably behavioral) were needed to ensure survival. With the advancement of language, these rules became morality and those that followed them more easily survived and reproduced. This hypothesis is weakened to the extent that conflict seems to be a prominent feature of humanity. (Of course there is some other theory that homo sapiens wiped out or interbred with other human ancestors such as the Neanderthals).

(2) The more sci-fi version is that time is circular and we are in fact in the middle of some evolutionary circular loop (like the minute hand of a clock being at the 30 second mark). We may be at a point where "God" doesn't exist, but will exist at some point in the future. But because time is circular, we'd technically describing an entity that both exists and does not exist.

This sci-fi idea is close to Nietzsche's concept of eternal return, the Bible's description of God as the alpha and Omega, the concept of deja vu, Plato's recollection theory, some spiritual beliefs (especially Native Americans) in the circularity of life, maybe supported by Einstein's relativity theory, and portrayed somewhat well in the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray as the main character--only instead of a day, it's more like a few billion years circular loop.

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | January 20, 2008 6:23 PM

Why doesn't someone explain then why particles decay exactly when they do? Oh, there isn't a reason they say. Well, maybe the same can be said for other things to[o]

Indeed. Why should there be a reason for why all those constants have the values they have? I'm not saying research on this shouldn't continue. I'm saying you shouldn't simply assume there is a reason and proceed from this -- you could end up trying to explain why Napoleon crossed the Mississippi.

No, wrong. What we're "in" is what we are actually doing here, which is philosophy regardless of the intentions of the OP or anyone else.

OK... you are trying to drag us into philosophy, we try to stay in science, and we end up talking past each other. Is that more like it?

(Hmmm. An "inclusive/exclusive we" distinction would be very practical sometimes.)

You bother if you want to. Why bother arguing with someone who does want to, if you don't care?

Because you act as if we must define existence before being able to talk (meaningfully) about fine-tuning. If I have misunderstood you, please explain.

I said before, it can be about more than one thing.

Then why of all possible choices single out life and not mention the others?

Philosophy, science, etc. have to "get off the ground."

What ground exactly?

It isn't personal incredulity, it's the nature of what's given. Since feelings are the subject, that's what I refer to, from the subjective viewpoint that's by definition what it means.

Er... then please explain why your talking about qualia isn't an argument from personal incredulity.

We actually do have value to each other. That's it. To assert we have value to "the universe" presumes that the universe contains, or has, or is, a consciousness; in other words, you assume the answer a priori.

First, it isn't necessarily conscious the way we are to express value, but the answer was not assumed a priori, it came from the values of things like the fine structure constant having values narrowly in the range needed to support life, and with no clear physical argument (again, none of you provide any) for why laws and constants should have to be what they are.

Here you are assuming that just because science hasn't found an answer yet it is incapable of finding one.

You are also again assuming that it's life, and not rocks or black holes, that is of importance.

It is then a supposition derived from observation and logical reflection, not an "assumption" out of thin air or emotion, similar in type to a sense that the universe expresses mathematical beauty for some deep reason (you guys really wouldn't pick on that, would you, because most of you don't cynically despise that concept?)

I do pick on it.

Firstly, mathematical beauty is nothing but mathematical simplicity -- and the assumption that the universe is mathematically simple is nothing else than the application of the principle of parsimony, in other words, science. There is no physical or metaphysical reason for why the universe should be mathematically simple; we just start from the simplest possible assumptions and only complicate them when we are forced to. What else than maximum parsimony should we start from, maximum munificence?

Secondly, my concept of mathematical beauty really does not include tensors and endless heaps of differential equations! ARGH!

(Tensors occur in the theory of relativity. They are thus fundamental. A tensor is... I forgot... a vector where each coordinate is a matrix, right? Differential equations are all over the place in physics.)

As for talking about "think" versus "believe": if we don't "know" then is there such a big difference?

I'm using these words for rational vs irrational. If I'm wrong, I prefer being wrong for the right reasons.

And finally for you, you once said that philosophy only tells us what arguments are logical etc.

Not quite. I said, or at least tried to say, that philosophy can tell us when there's a logical error in an idea, which is fine and important. What it cannot tell us is whether an idea that is logically consistent with itself and others is wrong. For that, you need to observe reality -- and that's what science does.

I'm reminded of Goethe's theory of colors. He simply refused to accept that white was a composite; to him, pure white was pure white. On this, he built a nice, contradiction-free theory... which is still wrong. We can observe, again and again, that white is a composite. Merely thinking about it doesn't help.

Also, what is the point of philosophy of language? Now that the science of language -- linguistics -- exists, philosophizing about language is just meddling in the affairs of science. Good riddance. Or are there still philosophers of nature running around now that biology has grown up?

The question is whether further "analysis" would even in principle apply to something qualitative in nature.

Wait and see. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. If we never try (which is what you suggest), we'll never find out... It was once thought the composition of the stars would forever remain unknown to us. Then it was discovered that simply looking at them (admittedly in a sophisticated way -- spectroscopy) was sufficient and much more informative than anyone would have dared to hope.

Also, that assertion of yours that anything is "qualitative in nature": it may well be correct, but how is it not an argument from personal incredulity? Please explain.

Are you saying, the study would explain why sensation actually is qualitative, or just pretending like Dennett et al that it really isn't?

Maybe this, maybe that, maybe something nobody has ever thought of (philosophers have a tendency to overlook the fact that their imagination is limited). Or maybe it won't explain anything. We'll see. Just wait for it.

No, whatever is behind this does not have to be complex, to have parts, etc. to express values. Why doesn't space itself have to have parts to transmit radiation, how can "structureless" particles decay after random times, etc?

Here's what you wanted to write:

No, we don't know whether whatever is behind this has to be complex, to have parts, etc. to express values.

This I can agree with. Pretending to know that it doesn't have to is not defensible. After all, you (like everyone else) don't even know if your analogy is defensible.

(Oh, and radiation consists of particles that move through space... and at the same time, they are a "deformation" of space... no parts required.)

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | January 20, 2008 6:40 PM

The rest of you didn't have to follow up, why gripe and then do it yourself and vice versa?

Because if two ideas contradict, at least one of them is wrong, and we're interested in finding out which one(s) is/are wrong, and why. That's a habit scientists have...

Perhaps these memes started out as behavioral rules which were necessary to maintain the survival of prehistoric clans. For example, as I understand the basics of human prehistory, humans wondered about in clans. It was very important that clan members not kill each other for the overall survival of the clan. Thus creating a set of rules (probably behavioral) were needed to ensure survival.

This is common to all social animals, not particular to humans. In other words, those who killed each other just for the fun of it have already died out.

This hypothesis is weakened to the extent that conflict seems to be a prominent feature of humanity.

Game theory.

(That's a branch of mathematics.)

maybe supported by Einstein's relativity theory

How?

Also, I can't see how an eternally expanding universe can have circular time...

I consider the question, what just "ought to exist" of itself, what in effect is the default condition of existence?

Do you know if this question makes sense?

Wouldn't a value of one be more "logical" if the universe was just "about" mathematics?

No, why? (Apart from the question what it might mean to be about mathematics.)

(Well, do you really entertain doubts over whether it is really wrong to torture children, etc?)

No. But I also don't doubt that this is not a law of physics. I hold that tenet because I have empathy, and it seems I have empathy because it's innate, and it seems innate empathy exists because it has evolved. If I want to, I can also add utilitarian arguments (if children can be tortured, then my hypothetical children can be tortured, and probably I can be tortured, too... I don't want that).

Why would anyone conflate ethics and physics? I don't get it.

Posted by: windy | January 20, 2008 7:31 PM

That's what you said, really, but I got you confused with Ken about the reference to me earlier. My point stands in any case - why put that way?

Asked and answered.

It's [science versus religion] not a "misnomer", we went back to talking about the original subject of the thread, which was not fine tuning.

Little excuse for not appreciating that I consider that trope to be badly framed, and was criticizing it for that - that has nothing to do with whether it was original subject or changed or whatever, it's a critique of its essential correctness as a way to describe the different possible ways to think about it.

Sorry, we forgot that this is all about you. I'm sure Ken will refrain from linking to offendingly-named events in the future.

You don't have to think e.g. it values evil as much as good, for if there's something objectively the case about moral truths, this would be incorporated as well. (Well, do you really entertain doubts over whether it is really wrong to torture children, etc?)

Why should the universe incorporate my values on this matter, and not the values of Dr Mengele, Genghis Khan or commenter Jamie?

It's amazingly naive to assume that the universe shares the values of a single species of ape, when those values are contingent on the evolutionary history and culture of the species. You probably don't entertain doubts over whether it's wrong to fuck children? But if you were a bonobo, you might consider it wrong not to.

Posted by: Neil B. | January 20, 2008 7:45 PM

Re qualia etc:

>> He just substitutes information processing in
>> inner darkness for the outward behaviorism
>> of a crank like Skinner

That is a misrepresentation of Dennett. What people try to describe by using the word "qualia" is something that the concept is inadequate to explain. If anybody can think of anything that the concept "qualia" properly maps that is less otiose than "irreducibly complex ineffability" I'd like to hear it.

The concept of qualia does not map to any logical or mathematical representation because it is about qualitative differences. You either can get that or not. If you want to tell me you look at colored surfaces and don't realize that the nature of the sensations of color (please don't tell me you're a naive realist idiot who thinks that what you experience is just the stuff sitting in front of you) differ in an irreducibly qualitative way, I can't do anything with your understanding.

Qualitative is about irreducibly simple nature, not irreducibly complex. It's ineffable because there aren't parts within it to distinguish one from another. You can't talk about anything without something fundamental that we need to just appreciate, to get off the ground. Hence, talking about a concept like that being "inadequate to explain" what it refers to is the play-dumb trick which Dennett indulges in. Fundamental appreciations to get things off the ground, as I explained to David above, work on an honor system and you hope the other thinkers around won't be coy and manipulative to jerk the process off. Anyway, "explaining" why or expectations about how to correlate it to neural activity etc. isn't the core issue, it's candor in admitting that it's how our experience is.

Posted by: Neil B. | January 20, 2008 8:03 PM

ch1: Shooting Bull is well known and understood catch phrase.

I get.

No you don't. I was clearly referring to the phrase "I can't be all bad if I ______ with soandso." By now you're just playing along for fun, OK, so what then.

More rubbish up there about my making a certain distinction meaning it's all about me, etc. But one point is a bit interesting: why should the universe be based on our ethics etc. if at all. OK, then maybe it isn't, so you don't have as much point in complaining about some kind of mismatch. Some thinkers toy (that's all any of us can do here) with the idea that the way it is, is indeed the value that is expressed. Sounds circular, but would at least be self-consistent. Remember though I am looking at AD from the very sloppy idea of conscious existence being more worthwhile on average than not at all, which I think is just saying that the universe is about something more than nihilism. Not very hominid-ocentric I hope. BTW the Bonobo are very gentle and don't force themselves AFAIK, FWIW and however ambiguous in the context.

As for Mengele, etc: If you believe people and (in some sense, hard to figure as you go down the scale) have some "inherent worth" then respecting that is supposed to be the basis even for humanistic ethics (my UU colleagues for example.) It is sloppy of course and not a "science" but few consider that an excuse for conceptual dismissal. If it can be real, I say the universe can incorporate it. If you don't believe it is real, then you aren't even an ethical humanist but a nihilist. Do you think Carl Sagan, or PZ or other humanist heroes of yours are nihilists? Are you?

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 20, 2008 8:11 PM

No you don't.

damn.

I was clearly referring to the phrase "I can't be all bad if I ______ with soandso."

example of Shooting Bull theory in practice.

now i gets?

By now you're just playing along for fun, OK, so what then.

*hook*

*sound of line being drawn in*

More rubbish up there about my making a certain distinction meaning it's all about me, etc.

ch2: Theory of Shooting Bull has application to self-interest.

I can haz more, plz?

Posted by: Neil B. | January 20, 2008 8:40 PM

Ken ululated forth this ironic and shocking confession:

Until I download that work from the platonist overmind and manifest it in the real world, nobody will pay me for it.

Ah, so you're a little capitalist piggie are you! I thought you militant scientism juveniles were liberals, so I am shocked, just shocked, that you think it's all about money! Well, maybe then you should throw in your lot with the Baptist Republicans, who think GOD is all about ensuring that the righteous can "make" money, and not just petty concerns like whether the fine structure constant is right around 1/137 and other geeky twiddlings.

(Hope you could nibble on some spillover crumbs, fishy poo - remember, it's not all about you either, so be satisfied for now.)

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 20, 2008 8:48 PM

Hope you could nibble on some spillover crumbs, fishy poo - remember, it's not all about you either, so be satisfied for now

so, it's not about self-interest?

I confused again.

plz to correct ch2?

kthxbye.

*psst* you don't seem to be getting it yet, even with hints, so perhaps this will explain what I am doing to you more plainly:

troll, in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, with the intention of baiting other users into an emotional response.

I think the net is in the boat at this point, though i think I probably could have kept getting responses from you for quite a while longer.

it's been fun, though.

thanks for playing.

kthxbye.

Posted by: Neil B. | January 20, 2008 8:54 PM

I actually do understand Ichthyic's game, but the trouble was: so many here actually do get so very mixed up all the time about the points I'm making, that it's very hard for me to be sure anyone is just kidding. I believe you personally, "just sayin'"

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 20, 2008 8:59 PM

it's very hard for me to be sure anyone is just kidding

it's suggestive when one is so easily baited.

just sayin'

Posted by: windy | January 20, 2008 9:03 PM

cake too?

Finish your pony first, and we'll see.

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 20, 2008 9:07 PM

Finish your pony first, and we'll see.

"How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat!?"

2 pts. for the source (easy).

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 20, 2008 9:12 PM

many posts ago, Ken pointed out:

The moderator calls the panelists on miscaracterizing Dawkins, who has explained that selfish genes can give rise to selfless organisms, but Roughgarden will have none of it.

Dawkins on Roughgarden (from the vid clip you linked to):

Bad poetry

perfect.

Posted by: windy | January 20, 2008 9:14 PM

I don't get the coy part about fine tuning, but instead of answering a question with a question, would you even make a stab at an answer to my question about default reality?

You answered my question with a question first, but perhaps because it wasn't explicitly framed as a question:

What is the likelihood of a first cause capable of universe-picking?

Posted by: windy | January 20, 2008 9:31 PM

Of course Mengele wasn't a nihilist, I meant those who see no way to judge him relative to other people. You guys keep getting mixed up all the damn time.

Of course we can judge Mengele, but Mengele can judge us too. I thought you'd be able to make this obvious next step in the reasoning without laying on the smarm about "nihilism". We don't have to ultimately settle for cultural relativism between us and Mengele, but it's stupid to expect the universe to settle in our favour.

Posted by: Neil B's alter ego | January 20, 2008 9:51 PM

but it's stupid to expect the universe to settle in our favour.

Why?

Well, I likely should just give up on you freaks, but to get you all started again, here's the coolest post from UseNet:

news:af3acbd4-dc6d-4e46-8810-05d2213888ce@f47g2000hsd.googlegroups.com

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 20, 2008 10:00 PM

Well, I likely should just give up on you freaks

oh please, please?

pretty please with fucking sugar and a pony on top, with cake on the side?

Posted by: Tony Jeremiah | January 20, 2008 10:12 PM

@284 (David)

Re: This is common to all social animals, not particular to humans. In other words, those who killed each other just for the fun of it have already died out.

** I think that assumes natural selection is an all-or-none phenomenon though. Stabilizing selection (if I'm recalling the construct correctly) results in a normal distribution of a particular phenotype. And the normal distribution is the basis of most statistical analyses, so it's likely the most common form of selection. This should predict that most people are normal, while there'll still be a few serial killers like Manson, Dalmer, and a few other Hannibal Lecter-like types left in the gene pool.

Re: Game theory

**I'm familiar; though my introduction to it was from the movie A Beautiful Mind. Going by intuition (and a quick outline on wikipedia), I have to ask, is the difference between noncooperative and cooperative games such that one predicts less conflict? I'm familiar with cooperative game strategy in psychology (my primary background), particularly concerning the Robbers Cave experiment, prisoner's dilemma, and the jigsaw puzzle classroom. Also, does game theory explain why humans may have opted for rules that appear to conform to noncooperative game strategies as evidenced by nonequivalent distribution of resources (e.g., something like 1% of the world's individuals own 90% of the money)?

Re: Einstein's Theory

**Well, I have taken some liberty with understanding relativity theory in a construct I call the clock model, because I simply cannot comprehend the time-is-relative concept if I think about it purely from a linear perspective--it's more intuitive to me from a circular perspective. Namely, if one imagines moving linearly along the minute hand of a clock, one can literally understand how time can be relative; the velocity of time (i.e., the speed of the minute hand) should move slower closer to its axis of rotation and faster further away from it as a consequence of tangential velocity. I'm guessing that time slows down as one approaches light velocity is a consequence of linear movement along a space-time plane that is actually rotating (probably towards the centre of some hypothetical point).

The explanation for circular time could be explained by this clock model concept, and, the idea that even though space is expanding, objects (or more accurately, events) maintain their same relative distance. This would be akin to having two cars (one in front of the other) maintaining their same distance because they don't change their relative speed, and, yet are moving toward (or away) from a common event point.

Posted by: windy | January 21, 2008 5:34 AM

on the other matter, I'd be curious to know, since we all evidently share a fondness for the poetry of cuttlefish, for example; what people think about the value of the kinds of poetic constructions Roughgarden is fond of using? I am of two minds about it myself; one part of me sees the value of framing using poetry as metaphor - trying to reach people using language they might be familiar with. the other part (much louder) is in complete agreement with Dawkins that overreaching and inaccurate metaphors do little more in the long run than help sell books, and actually tend to muddy up communication instead of helping to clarify.

Perhaps Roughgarden has used better metaphors somewhere I haven't seen, but the "mustard seed of DNA" is one of the most nonsensical I've seen. Isn't the original meaning "something tiny that grows into something big", so the connection to "a mutation increases in frequency" is tenuous at best.

I think we can find better metaphor-users out there to use as examples. Like Sagan's (OK, more of an analogy than a metaphor) of how Kung tribesmen studying antelope tracks use the same logic as scientists studying moon craters.

Posted by: Owlmirror | January 21, 2008 2:41 PM

What is the likelihood of a first cause capable of universe-picking?

I'd say 100%. It's what has to exist. Something needs to be self-existent, and that's It.

And the universe itself can't be self-existent because...?

Posted by: truth machine | January 21, 2008 3:23 PM

Minsky certainly did a lot of impressive work, but I would take him far more seriously as a cognitive scientist if he hadn't said "Within 10 years computers won't even keep us as pets"...in 1967. (Wasn't AI all cute and wildly exuberant back then?)

I would take you more seriously (though not much) if you didn't choose how seriously to take Minsky based on a comment 40 years ago that is very uncharacteristic of Minsky since then.

The neural processes that produce consciousness definitely run in parallel, but the question of whether the experience of consciousness itself is "linear or parallel" seems a rather odd question to me. My problem with Dennett is that he seems to confuse the two.

Sigh. What Dennett has spent a lot of effort to show is that there is no such thing as "the experience of consciousness itself" separate from or in addition to the the brain processes that constitute consciousness. Those processes construct a model of an unified self-contained homuncular self "having experience", but there is no such homunculus.

Posted by: truth machine | January 21, 2008 3:41 PM

"If the universe is "primed to express" the things you name, then it is "primed to express" everything that happens, including suffering, death, ugliness, stupidity, malaria (Behe's pet), ebola, and my noting what a moron you are."

That's like saying that highway engineers must want accidents to happen.

No, moron, it's like saying what it says -- something you can't answer, so you invent a strawman that at the same time begs the question (which is whether there are highway engineers).

In fact, you get it exactly backwards -- it is you who are insisting that, say, traffic accidents out on the Oceano dunes proves that the dunes were designed by traffic engineers.

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 21, 2008 4:00 PM

robots running the programs of our zombie counterparts are zombie robots

I'm going to have to dig deeper to understand what Chalmers wants to prove with pzombies; ostensibly he wouldn't be a Mysterian if silicon robots properly built would be as conscious as we are, but those who need qualia to exist point their fingers and shriek at Dennett like pod people discovering somebody who has avoided being replaced by their pod.

Posted by: truth machine | January 21, 2008 4:08 PM

Oh, posh. 'Giving in like measure' when someone calls you a moron is to call him one, not to suggest they might as well kill themselves if they don't agree with you. It's a complete non sequitur anyway - if someone says that evolution seems better primed to produce insects than humans, do you assume that this person would rather be an insect? WTF?

WTF, Windy, is that I call Neil a moron precisely because of this sort of illogic.

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 21, 2008 4:17 PM

When you play your DVD on your home theater system, the whole system is "doing Shakespeare".

That would be the systems answer provided by Hofstadter in The Mind's Eye, which, if I understand it correctly, would map here to include the home theater system (the Chinese Room that follows the rules uncomprehendingly to send pixels to one device and 7.1 channels of audio to others) the DVD provides the raw bits that the home theater system unwittingly "translates" into something the viewer contends with, all parts of one system performing and (at least attempting to be) appreciating Shakespeare.

Posted by: truth machine | January 21, 2008 4:37 PM

I doubt very seriously that any mere mathematical model or information flow can "run" something like subjectively given qualities. IOW, it can be like that in the world, but it can't be modeled as a mathematical process.

Very dense people doubt all sorts of things very seriously.

Clearly the physical human organism can be modeled. In addition, we already have models that do a good job of explaining why an organism such as we are has the behaviors and behavioral dispositions we have, including such behaviors as our folk psychology and our claims about consciousness and what it is like. Minsky made the point in Society of Mind that a system organized in certain ways would create the sort of self-models that we do. This explains why things seem to us the way they do. Not only is an adequate explanation, it's the only sort of explanation that is logically possible. No "third person" or "objective" explanation will contain "first person" or "subjective" elements; a description of why we say the things we do about, say, colors, won't itself have color experience, or induce color experience by virtue of reading it -- to insist upon the impossible before accepting an explanation is stupid and intellectually dishonest.

Posted by: truth machine | January 21, 2008 4:46 PM

Tony, you're at least providing some fresh air here.

For methane breathers.

Posted by: truth machine | January 21, 2008 5:09 PM

I'm going to have to dig deeper to understand what Chalmers wants to prove with pzombies

Frankly, if you don't know that, you don't know anything about Chalmers or pzombies. He wants to prove that physicalism is false; that's the whole purpose of the invention (by Robert Kirk) of pzombies. But some people have moved on:

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/philosophy/staff/robert-kirk.php:

Robert Kirk is Emeritus Professor in the Department. His main interests are consciousness, physicalism, and intentionality. He is also known for his work on Quine's doctrine of the indeterminacy of translation. His publications include Translation Determined (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), Raw Feeling (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994, paperback 1996), Relativism and Reality (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), Mind and Body (Chesham: Acumen, 2003), and Zombies and Consciousness (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005) which to some extent atones for his error in having defended the possibility of zombies in articles in 1974. (For more about zombies, see his entry in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies/.) He is currently working on a book on physicalism and the necessity of the physical-mental connection.

ostensibly he wouldn't be a Mysterian if silicon robots properly built would be as conscious as we are

Wrong. Chalmers' explanation as to why they would be as conscious as we are is that they necessarily obey the "psycho-physical laws" of this universe. Among other possibilities, Chalmers entertains the notion of "panprotopsychism", which is that all matter has some "proto-psychic" attribute which, when joined together in certain configurations (like human brains or functionally equivalent robot brains) produces consciousness.

but those who need qualia to exist point their fingers and shriek at Dennett like pod people discovering somebody who has avoided being replaced by their pod

Chalmers is a banner carrier of the qualiaphiles. Chalmers doesn't just point his finger, he also points his hair dryer:

This morning Dave Chalmers displayed his prototype "consciousness meter" for the first time during a debate with Paul Churchland. (OK -- the thing looked like a hair-dryer but it can't have been, as the qualia-detection light, functioning when the machine was directed towards ordinary mortals, only flickered when pointed at Pat and was resolutely off when aimed at Dan Dennett . . .)

Posted by: truth machine | January 21, 2008 5:19 PM

Chalmers has discussed it too

Ah, you're right, sorry.

but he must have got it from McCarthy, then.

Definitely.

to spell out for Neil the dishonesty

I think you missed a major case of it. You asked him "Why should the universe incorporate my values on this matter, and not the values of Dr Mengele, Genghis Khan or commenter Jamie?" Rather than answering, he wrote about the inherent worth of humans being real and "If it can be real, I say the universe can incorporate it. If you don't believe it is real, then you aren't even an ethical humanist but a nihilist." and you took the bait (not that your response wasn't valid in its own right).

Posted by: truth machine | January 21, 2008 5:44 PM

Neil's example ... Neil said ... mysterians like Neil (or Tulse)

Oops, it was Tulse's example. Well, they are indistinguishable on this issue.

Posted by: Ken Cope | January 21, 2008 5:50 PM

Your Chalmers profile is pretty scary. I knew he was an anti-physicalist, opposed to a computational model of consciousness, but I was thrown for a loop considering he might think machines could be conscious. But then you reassure me that he explains that robot consciousness would be due to dualist magic pixie dust or whatever it is he's promoting, and then I'm even sadder (not just because it tends to vitiate my little retort). When I read trendoids like Jaron Lanier sputtering in revulsion about Dennett, citing Chalmers and raising pzombies, I recoil from wanting to descend sufficiently into madness to follow the inanity of the argument, and am happy to have more deeply explored Minsky, Hofstadter, and Dennett. At least in trying to follow Penrose, I can learn something about physics and math, while playing spot the bad argument. When the Mysterians wonder what it's like to be a bat in a Chinese Room full of philosophical zombies, about the only thing I learn is that I'm glad I stopped smoking pot almost 3 decades ago.

Posted by: Tulse | January 21, 2008 9:59 PM

Oh, dear -- with much trepidation I will jump back into it with tm, (although I will try to confine my remarks to a single, albeit long, post):

I would take you more seriously (though not much) if you didn't choose how seriously to take Minsky based on a comment 40 years ago that is very uncharacteristic of Minsky since then.

Perhaps it is uncharacteristic because his prediction didn't come to pass thirty years ago. But you're right, we all make comments in our youth that we regret.

What Dennett has spent a lot of effort to show is that there is no such thing as "the experience of consciousness itself" separate from or in addition to the the brain processes that constitute consciousness. Those processes construct a model of an unified self-contained homuncular self "having experience", but there is no such homunculus.

Yeah, that's what he says, and he's simply confused, since a model requires someone to interpret it. Representations aren't just representations of something, but they are also representations to someone. You can't have an "illusion" of consciousness without someone who is being fooled by that illusion. A symbol without a symbol interpreter is not just meaningless, but an incoherent concept. And a system can no more recursively generate such meaning than a tube with mirrors sealed at either end generates reflections.

I can produce a mathematical model that models perfectly the behaviour of a physical systems of springs. That identical mathematical model can also model perfectly a system of electrical circuits. Which system is it really modeling? The one that I choose, of course -- it is modeling nothing independent of how I use it. Without such an interpretation, models aren't models.

And all of this is just how you get semantics out of Dennett's approach -- the problem of subjective experience is the issue I'm most interested in, and in that domain Dennett is nowhere.

I think it is a confusion to say that the processes themselves are doing the experiencing, just as it is a confusion to say that bits on a DVD of Hamlet are doing Shakespeare. The neural processes produce consciousness, but those processes themselves qua neural processes aren't consciousness.

Right, and if you did whatever physical reduction you want, you wouldn't find a need for the notion of "consciousness" qua subjectivity in those processes. In other words, you could describe them fully in physical terms, implement an atom-by-atom duplication of them, and at no point would you need to import the notion of subjective experience. See, the problem is that we seem to be able to give a complete physical description of the universe without the notion of subjective experience. Which make it really problematic to say that anything that falls under such a description could be an explanation for consciousness.

When you play your DVD on your home theater system, the whole system is "doing Shakespeare".

For that to be true, the "whole system" has to include me as the one who is understanding that the system is doing that. Without that interpretation, the "system" is doing a whole bunch of things: producing heat, spinning a mass, emitting photons (from the screen, but also from the various component displays, and the DVD laser), causing the physical movement of air molecules (through the speakers, but also through the heat, and through whatever fans the system may have). The only way that the system is "doing Shakespeare" is if I, or someone else, interprets it to be doing Shakespeare. The meaning, the "modeling", is imported into the system, it is not an inherent part of it. And such modeling isn't an option if you want explain how meaning gets there in the first place.

Actually, Chalmers's view in this world, with its particular "psycho-physical laws", silicon robots are just as capable of being conscious as humans -- this follows from his notion of "organizational invariance"

...aka "functionalism", with all its attendant problems, only an even more limited notion of functionalism since is seems to have this odd modal restriction to our universe (and presumably some universes like ours), rather than to all possible worlds. In other words