Order vs. Randomness

[Brian37]

Order vs Randomness? No, scientific reality is independent of any human concocted god claim.

It is not order vs randomness in reality. IT IS BOTH order and randomness.

You have the order, for example, of a formed hurricane. We can predict what conditions lead to a hurricane and once it becomes a hurricane we know what constitutes a hurricane. This is the order part.

The random or QM part would be the exact nanosecond the storm begins and forms. The other random part would be the billions of individual raindrops, in their exact amount, and the exact locations each would land. That would be the unpredictable part.

QM is both order and chaos overlapping. Observations in science allow us to observe both.

If you can accept the god Poseidon is not required to make a hurricane, then why would your god or any be needed for that matter?

Stephen Hawkins "A God is not required".

And it is not just Muslims who make this fatal error, most believers of all religions think stupidly that a "who" has to have started all this, when they cant grasp that "all this" is merely a non thinking "what", and that we are merely taking a very brief ride in this "what".

If you can accept that a hurricane is not caused by an ocean god, then why would biological life, or the universe itself need a god either?

[Chas]

One of the very fascinating things (well, to me at least) is the apparent order, coherence, and beauty in the things we perceive around us and in the cosmos at large. Although this is not necessarily a proof of God (nor any specific deity), I think this is at least consistent with the hypothesis that, at bottom, all the weird subquantum processes were initially set off by something which itself behaves in an orderly, creative, and almost purposeful manner - in ways relatively similar to the functioning of a "mind," so to speak - as opposed to behaving randomly.

If the underlying process behind everything was truly random, then it wouldn't have been possible for the universe to exist as a self-organizing system, let alone have spawned intelligent beings - aspects of itself - which can, self-referentially, learn about themselves and ponder their own existence and their origin. The countless dust particles floating in space would have been just floating there, and would have never been able to organize themselves into eyes, ears, brains, and the myriads of living things as evolution has made them to be.

Some people like to counter this argument with the infinite monkey theorem. The way this idea goes is that a monkey (or monkeys) hitting keys on a keyboard at random for an infinite amount of time would "eventually" produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. When the same reasoning is applied to the universe, the typing monkeys would be analogous to random quantum fluctuations, which can eventually produce the amount of complexity we see around us given an infinite amount of time, out of pure randomness. However, again, even this theorem doesn't make sense at the most fundamental level of reality.

If there was pure randomness at the very beginning, then it would have always stayed that way. Purely random processes can't give rise to lesser and lesser random processes or a partially random process (such as natural selection, for example). Random processes can't produce anything but randomness unless they have an order or an organizing system lurking behind them.

That being said, what is your take on this?

Do you think that, at bottom, life and everything in this universe was generated by something that can be described as being random in the true meaning of the word, or do you think that there is a subtle order lurking behind all the randomness?

I think you are making a false dichotomy, or at least not framing the question clearly.

There is no reason to believe that matter and energy having properties that allow order to emerge from chaos is the result of any intention.

The universe isn't random, it is chaotic. They are not the same.

[Rayaan]

Sure, I can grant that. But these are just descriptions, words to distinguish between our perceptions of what appears orderly and what appears random. What if it is both... or neither (if that is even intelligible in any fathomable way)?

Well, I don't think it can be both since the word "randomness" (in the true meaning of the word) means an absence of order or pattern.

Read the following quote from a paper titled "Incompleteness, Complexity, Randomness and Beyond."

Randomness means the absence of order or pattern. In an extreme sense there is no such notion as “true randomness.” As an illustration note that any sequence (the simplest mathematical infinite object) has some kind of order, regularity. For example, van der Waerden (1927) proved that in all binary sequences at least one of the two symbols must occur in arithmetical progressions of every length. Many other patterns common to all sequences have been subsequently discovered.

Therefore, I think that true randomness is an illusory concept. What is ultimately real is that which is orderly and perfect, in and of itself.

Even if the universe is fundamentally ordered, however, this is not suggestive, in my mind, of intelligence, any more than hurricanes, mountains, gravity, or atoms would be "ordered" but are not intelligent!

Yes, those things by themselves are not intelligent. However, when you begin to study and understand their orderly interactions and their relationship with everything else at a global scale, all such interactions over the course of time seem to be governed by an even more fundamentally intelligent, self-organizing system, which is consistent with the functioning of a mind.

But let's break that down to a real-life example. Take an atom. Is an atom intelligent? Not in any way that I can imagine, unless by intelligence we are applying the term to literally everything we see! Perhaps it is orderly though. Are two atoms, chemically bonded, intelligent? Still, no. But orderly? Even more so than one, at least! I think you would agree. But what about a trillion atoms, bonded to form molecules and subsequently nerve cells. Is a nerve cell intelligent? Again, no. But definitely ordered! But how about 10 billion nerve cells that interact to form something like conscious awareness? Now we're talking intelligence! Take my example and apply it to quantum particles and waves, or even the laws of physics themselves. It might make sense to call these ordered but... does it make sense to call these things intelligent? If not, why do their preceding causes need to be?

Same thing. It's the same answer as in my previous comment.

Your litany that "order is an aspect of intelligence" is so weasely and vague. Intelligence as we know it needs a certain amount of order as prerequisite, but not the other way around! Intelligence is what a neural network does. You simply don't have a good reason to think that intelligence is a more fundamental aspect of nature than that.

Like you just said, "Intelligence as we know it needs a certain amount of order as prerequisite," which again implies that intelligence cannot possibly exist unless it is an aspect of order itself. In that sense we can say that order at the most fundamental level already contains intelligence embedded inside of itself. Otherwise, order wouldn't be order since order requires intelligence to be an aspect of itself in the first place.

It's kind of like asking, which came first: Order or intelligence? My answer is that they both become one and the same thing as we go further down.

You can think all you want. Can you give me any reason why I should think so, too? I would like to know it! Start with a sensible definition of what you mean by complexity.

Complexity is just another word that conveys order, pattern, or a dependent relationship between the different parts of a system.

However, the complexity of any particular object (such as a snowflake or a fractal, for example), can be compressed into a simpler description. We can do that by finding an algorithm or a simple set of rules behind that object. In fact, I believe that everything that exists in this world can be described by mathematics. But the complexity is preserved in the sense that the algorithm behind it would have to be just as complex as the thing which it is describing.

It's just that the complexity exists as two different forms at the same time, i.e. a mathematical form and a physical form. That doesn't mean that there is a change in the amount of complexity itself; it was all there already.

The reason why we have structure and intelligence in the universe is that it started in a low entropy state.

See, even you just made a connection between structure and intelligence in the universe and the existence of order (or "low entropy state," as you put it). But, earlier, you denied my contention that there is a correspondence between order and intelligence (you clearly wrote "No they aren't in correspondence"), thereby contradicting yourself.

And, as I explained before:

The more you discover new explanations (or theories, concepts, algorithms, relationships, etc) that simplify something else, the more coherence and order you will find between those things and in reality in general. And the fact that there is order and coherence in reality, is what allowed you to discover all those simpler explanations. What does that tell us? It tells us that there is a logically dependent correlation between order and intelligence.

That is how order and intelligence are linked together, which you haven't refuted yet, except give more support to with your own comments above.

There is no reason to believe that matter and energy having properties that allow order to emerge from chaos is the result of any intention.

I disagree, because if matter and energy are able to behave in an orderly enough manner as to cause parts of the universe to be able to perceive itself (via intelligent beings), and then those same parts start claiming that this whole process was something totally mindless/purposeless/non-intelligent/non-aware, then they are technically saying that the universe is not aware of its own awareness (the "awareness" part being themselves). However, that's a self-referential paradox and thus cannot be true.

The universe isn't random, it is chaotic. They are not the same.

The universe is not even chaotic. Everything in it are obeying the laws of physics. And laws are lawful, and orderly, which is clearly the opposite of chaotic.

That being said, maybe you should clarify what you mean by "chaotic."

[Mudhammam]

Yes, those things by themselves are not intelligent. However, when you begin to study and understand their orderly interactions and their relationship with everything else at a global scale, all such interactions over the course of time seem to be governed by an even more fundamentally intelligent, self-organizing system, which is consistent with the functioning of a mind.

No... their orderly interactions and relationship with everything else is perfectly explained by physics... and the physics of our universe just happen to be exactly as they are (possibly) because that's the nature of a flat universe with zero energy, produced by chance in a quantum vacuum, where there is no time and no space, no energy and no matter, or "nothing" as some call it... your claim is merely tautologous: It must be intelligent because it is intelligent.

If you think the cause of the Universe is intelligent, don't you think you've opened a far bigger can of worms? Doesn't that require far more explanation than the origin of the Universe, or even a quantum soup, or even nothing if THAT IS the ultimate "first cause"? And if you can't articulate what that is and see no way to do so in the future (whereas physics makes progress without appealing to intelligent causes), what good is it to postulate?

I'm content to just the say the origin of everything is this:

?

And that's where science comes in!

[Alex K]

Rayaan,

No!
I've claimed a one directional connection (no order => no intelligence), not, I repeat, not a correspondence or equivalence (order <=> intelligence). You need gravity to play golf. That don't mean that both are the same, or that fundamentally, gravity is a game of golf.

[Neo-Scholastic]

One further thought came to mind. When I think of intelligence I think it includes something along the lines of intentions, goals. Perhaps this is somewhat how we get from intelligence to non-intelligence, roughly traversing our lineage.
Raayan's goal to be a Noble prize winner - a genuine goal, in the upmost sense of the word
A chimp's attempt to get the banana off the tree - a genuine goal, but only "as-if" in comparison to Raayan's goal
A shark's pursuit of a scuba diver - not quite a goal, in the sense of the first two, maybe more like pseudo-goal
An ant colony building a hill, or a plant attracting an insect - an "as-if" pseudo-goal?
A microbe reproducing - an "as-if it is as-if" a pseudo-goal?
Eventually, we get far down enough, we reach NO GOAL. No guidance. No intention. No intelligence.

Even a very small amount of intentionality is something. There is no scale at which something magically disappears. Either it goes all the way down or it never comes up. There are no as-ifs.

[Mudhammam]

One further thought came to mind. When I think of intelligence I think it includes something along the lines of intentions, goals. Perhaps this is somewhat how we get from intelligence to non-intelligence, roughly traversing our lineage.
Raayan's goal to be a Noble prize winner - a genuine goal, in the upmost sense of the word
A chimp's attempt to get the banana off the tree - a genuine goal, but only "as-if" in comparison to Raayan's goal
A shark's pursuit of a scuba diver - not quite a goal, in the sense of the first two, maybe more like pseudo-goal
An ant colony building a hill, or a plant attracting an insect - an "as-if" pseudo-goal?
A microbe reproducing - an "as-if it is as-if" a pseudo-goal?
Eventually, we get far down enough, we reach NO GOAL. No guidance. No intention. No intelligence.

Even a very small amount of intentionality is something. There is no scale at which something magically disappears. Either it goes all the way down or it never comes up. There are no as-ifs.

Of course it doesn't magically disappear. It's called evolution by natural selection! A function can evolve into a new function. An UNINTENDED consequence of that new function may come into existence for the first time. This is, I believe, the case with purpose and intentionality. Unless you can produce evidence otherwise. Do you think euglena are conscious? That's retarded.

[Neo-Scholastic]

... "all this" is merely a non thinking "what",...

Including yourself?

[Rayaan]

No... their orderly interactions and relationship with everything else is perfectly explained by physics... and the physics of our universe just happen to be exactly as they are (possibly) because that's the nature of a flat universe with zero energy, produced by chance in a quantum vacuum, where there is no time and no space, no energy and no matter, or "nothing" as some call it

And that brings us back to order again, because the fact that everything is "perfectly explained by physics" is what indicates the orderliness in nature.

Greater explainability = Greater relational properties in nature = Greater order

And science is all about explaining reality by looking for patterns and relationships between the things that we see around us. If there was no order in nature, then there won't even be any such thing as "science" or "explainability" because everything would be just random. We can never explain interactions which are random, and by that, I mean truly random.

... your claim is merely tautologous: It must be intelligent because it is intelligent.

No, my claim is that order and intelligence correlate so perfectly that they are both fundamental aspects of reality and that neither can exist without the other.

Let me break it down like this:

1. If there was no fundamental intelligence or a mind behind reality, then it is simply not logical to think that the initial physical interactions changed from a seemingly orderless behavior to an orderly behavior all by themselves (especially to the degree of order we see in intelligent beings such as ourselves), unless you believe that:
A) all those interactions which created us had some kind of "a mind of their own" or
B) that the interactions going from an orderless behavior to an orderly behavior and then working in tandem to create us was purely a random/accidental process (of which the probability of happening is vanishingly small), or
C) that the laws of physics were finely tuned for intelligence to emerge, i.e. known as the anthropic principle.

2. If there is no fundamental order behind reality, then there would be nothing but randomness, since "randomness" means the absence of order.

Therefore, it is illogical to eliminate order and intelligence (either one or both) as being fundamental aspects of reality.

If you think the cause of the Universe is intelligent, don't you think you've opened a far bigger can of worms? Doesn't that require far more explanation than the origin of the Universe, or even a quantum soup, or even nothing if THAT IS the ultimate "first cause"?

Your argument that an intelligent cause would require "far more explanation" indicates that you believe that there has to be greater explainability as we go deeper.

And once again: Greater explainability = Greater relational properties in nature = Greater order

And, as I explained above, there can't be order without a fundamental intelligence.

And if you can't articulate what that is and see no way to do so in the future (whereas physics makes progress without appealing to intelligent causes), what good is it to postulate?

Because it is more reasonable and consistent; we don't need rocket science for things which we have established already by using our intellect.

I've claimed a one directional connection (no order => no intelligence), not, I repeat, not a correspondence or equivalence (order <=> intelligence). You need gravity to play golf. That don't mean that both are the same, or that fundamentally, gravity is a game of golf.

Sorry, then. That was my mistake.

[Mudhammam]

Yes, order and intelligence correlate because ORDER CAUSES INTELLIGENCE, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND! I don't know what it means to talk about THE UNINTELLIBLE INTELLIGENCE, which sounds like a fitting name for whatever it is you are describing. I think we will just have to agree to disagree about the nature of intelligence and how it correlates with order!