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Theoretical physics shows "irreducible complexity" arguments invalid.
#31
Theoretical physics shows "irreducible complexity" arguments invalid.
I'm saying quantum entanglement rules out the possibility that natural physical properties are too complex to have natural causes.

Of course, I could be wrong, if something were currently observable in nature too complex to have natural origins.
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#32
RE: Theoretical physics shows "irreducible complexity" arguments invalid.
(May 9, 2014 at 11:40 am)Heywood Wrote:
(May 9, 2014 at 11:29 am)Chas Wrote: I have a clearer understanding than you do.

It is obvious that you are disingenuous.

Negative Chas,

You think that IC is an argument for God. It is not.

IC is simply the hypothesis that certain biological systems are too complex to have evolved from simpler, or "less complete" predecessors, through natural selection acting upon a series of advantageous naturally occurring, chance mutations.

Even if God does not exist, IC still can....and in fact does exist(as was trivially easy to show). The fact that human activity was responsible for the known unambiguous examples of IC....doesn't make IC magically go away. I'm afraid you're just going to have deal with it.

IC is here to stay.

Wrong. I simply claim that IC has not been shown to naturally occur.

You keep imputing things to me that I never said. Stop it.

And stop trying to redefine it. Behe invented the term.
Michael Behe Wrote:By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly (that is, by continuously improving the initial function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional. An irreducibly complex biological system, if there is such a thing, would be a powerful challenge to Darwinian evolution.
Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.
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#33
RE: Theoretical physics shows "irreducible complexity" arguments invalid.
(May 9, 2014 at 11:44 am)rasetsu Wrote:
(May 8, 2014 at 8:19 pm)Rampant.A.I. Wrote: Quantum Entanglement implies complexity is an inherent property of the universe, measured by time. Things get more complex as time goes on (so to speak), therefore "irreducibly complex; i.e. not reducible to the result of natural systems" no longer makes sense according to physics.

Irreducible complexity has always, by definition, appealed to causes that are not currently known, ie. natural causes. To say that natural science rules out irreducible complexity is to argue that only natural causes currently known exist. You're effectively claiming that IC doesn't exist because only natural causes exist, and nothing in your article justifies that conclusion.

So no, quantum entanglement and decoherence do not show "irreducible complexity" arguments invalid.

I seems to come away with the opposite impression of "Irreducible complexity". Irreduciable complexity appear to me to assume the nonexistence of currently unknown natural causes or unanticipated sequences of natural causes. Therefore if complexity appear to be difficult to arise spontaneously thorough anticipated sequences of known natural causes within time frame allowed, it must be difficult to arise through any sequences of any natural causes within the time frame allowed.

Regardless of interpretation of irreducible complexity, it is pertains strictly to classical deterministic physics events operating in a classically individually deterministic world within a very finite time frame. I don't see how quantum mechanics can shed much light on it.
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#34
RE: Theoretical physics shows "irreducible complexity" arguments invalid.
(May 9, 2014 at 11:48 am)Rampant.A.I. Wrote: I'm saying quantum entanglement rules out the possibility that natural physical properties are to complex to have natural causes.

Of course, I could be wrong, if something were currently observable in nature too complex to have natural origins.

You're hung up on "natural". What difference would it make if God created the system of water marks in Mycoplasm_Labaritorium or if it is the creation of man? The system is still irreducibly complex.
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#35
RE: Theoretical physics shows "irreducible complexity" arguments invalid.
(May 9, 2014 at 11:48 am)Rampant.A.I. Wrote: I'm saying quantum entanglement rules out the possibility that natural physical properties are too complex to have natural causes.

Of course, I could be wrong, if something were currently observable in nature too complex to have natural origins.

Quantum mechanics does not rule out that natural properties may be too complex to have a statistically reasonable chance of arising within a finite amount of time in a system of limited scope.

The chances that you can drop the shards of a shattered glass on the floor, and have them hit and bounce in such a way that they reassemble into the configuration of the original glass is not impossible. No law of physics, classical or quantum mechanical, precludes it. But it is overwhelmingly unlikely to occur such that if it is observed to occur, especially multiple times, then some better explanation than exclaimation of "freaky!" would be demanded.

(May 9, 2014 at 11:58 am)Heywood Wrote:
(May 9, 2014 at 11:48 am)Rampant.A.I. Wrote: I'm saying quantum entanglement rules out the possibility that natural physical properties are to complex to have natural causes.

Of course, I could be wrong, if something were currently observable in nature too complex to have natural origins.

You're hung up on "natural". What difference would it make if God created the system of water marks in Mycoplasm_Labaritorium or if it is the creation of man? The system is still irreducibly complex.

No, it't not "irreducibly" complex. Paths of natural reduction is easy to conceive. It's just a matter of calculating the odds of such natural reduction correctly, and comparing that against the odds of either evidenced, or otherwise unevidenced, intelligent design.

You god is an unevidenced presumptibe designer. The odds of such a designer existing is vastly more infinitesimal than any seeming improbably, but physically possible natural event nontheless occuring naturally.
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#36
Theoretical physics shows "irreducible complexity" arguments invalid.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something about chance, but what's the difference between a statistically extremely unlikely event happening and the possibility of such events being observed?

It's still a statistical probability, and no further reason would be required, other than for personal incredulity: Not unlike the possibility of life arising from inert matter.

No matter how remote, the possibility existed, and if life did arise in such a way, the remoteness of the probability has no bearing on the event having or have not occurred.
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#37
RE: Theoretical physics shows "irreducible complexity" arguments invalid.
Quote:but what's the difference between a statistically extremely unlikely event happening and the possibility of such events being observed?

The amount of observation time.

http://www.exitmundi.nl/eternity.htm

Quote:As the quadrillions of years pass by, something very odd should happen. In eternity, even the rarest events get a chance to occur. Weird, bizarre phenomena that only happen once in a zillion years or so, become quite normal.
.
.
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In the Universe, this should give some really surprising results. With eternity at hand, the vacuum should begin to yield all kinds of objects. Incoherent lumps of random garbage, most of the time. But on very, very rare occasions, you’ll see other objects popping into existence. The Eiffel tower. A purple camel. A golden parking garage filled with chocolate Cadillacs. Napoleon Bonaparte sitting next to Mike Tyson on top of a stack of comic books. As the googols of years pass by, it’s all there.

Not that I totally agree with what's said, but that seems to be the current consensus.
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#38
RE: Theoretical physics shows "irreducible complexity" arguments invalid.
(May 9, 2014 at 12:13 pm)Rampant.A.I. Wrote: Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something about chance, but what's the difference between a statistically extremely unlikely event happening and the possibility of such events being observed?

It's still a statistical probability, and no further reason would be required, other than for personal incredulity: Not unlike the possibility of life arising from inert matter.

No matter how remote, the possibility existed, and if life did arise in such a way, the remoteness of the probability has no bearing on the event having or have not occurred.

From the perspective of probability, the unlikeliness of an occurrence doesn't lead to a conclusion that it was impossible that it occurred. However, as a matter of science, when improbable events occur, and particularly if they repeatedly occur more frequently than chance would seem to indicate, there is reason to suspect that an unknown mechanism is altering the probabilities in unknown ways. Whatever that mechanism, finding it would provide a better explanation of events than simply that it "just happened." In one sense, natural laws are such explanations of improbable events. Before Newton's laws of gravity, it was known that the planets traveled in elliptical orbits, but not why. Not knowing the classical laws of gravity, it seems improbable that all the planets would adopt elliptical orbits "just by chance." So Newton went looking for the explanation for this improbable pattern of orbits. His law of gravity explained the improbability.
[Image: extraordinarywoo-sig.jpg]
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#39
RE: Theoretical physics shows "irreducible complexity" arguments invalid.
(May 9, 2014 at 11:58 am)Heywood Wrote:
(May 9, 2014 at 11:48 am)Rampant.A.I. Wrote: I'm saying quantum entanglement rules out the possibility that natural physical properties are to complex to have natural causes.

Of course, I could be wrong, if something were currently observable in nature too complex to have natural origins.

You're hung up on "natural". What difference would it make if God created the system of water marks in Mycoplasm_Labaritorium or if it is the creation of man? The system is still irreducibly complex.

No, I'm not hung up on natural - it's the fucking definition of IC.

No one is interested in your silly definition of it. It's not meaningful or interesting or constructive. It contributes nothing to the discussion.
Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.
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#40
RE: Theoretical physics shows "irreducible complexity" arguments invalid.
(May 4, 2014 at 4:28 pm)Heywood Wrote: Not sure how theoretical physics shows irreducible complexity can't exist. It is trivially easy to show irreducible complexity exists in some biological entities.

Go on then.



You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.

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