Natural Order and Science

[I_am_not_mafia]

“A cause is the origin of an effect. No cause no effect.”

Define cause and effect.

You are relying on equivocation.

[I_am_not_mafia]

See, Alex said something very reasonable and factually true. I and other scientists who have worked with artificial evolution and self organisation can attest to the fact that it is relatively easy to evolve something using very simple components that can take many months to figure out how it works, if at all. Whether it's a circuit design using FPGAs, neural networks or whatever. I myself spent three months trying to figure out how my neural networks actually functioned during my PhD. In fact I actually spent two weeks trying to stop them working by removing components that I assumed were required only to find that they kept on working albeit at a lesser performance. I envisage spending just as long if not longer with my artificially evolved dynamical systems. All I know is, they work. You on the other hand Harris, have responded with word salad that is not relevant to anything that Alex has said. It is also factually incorrect and relies on equivocation.

Are you trying to persuade the idea that scientific processes and natural processes can grow in progressive manner without having certain relevant laws which set rules for their orderly and harmonized activities? If you mean all that then you are closing your eyes on brute facts of science. If science is incapable of understanding certain processes does that means those processes are self-subsistent and they do not need any governing laws?

You still haven't explained what a proper code of conduct actually is. Or for that matter a coding system. I can say though that "specify the expected behaviour in accordance with those determinant set of rules" is factually wrong because it ignores the concept of emergent phenomena which has been studied in-depth in the scientific literature (e.g flocking behaviour, ant colonies, bee hives etc). You can for example emulate flocking behaviour with just three rules without specifying an expected behaviour.

A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the pattern for the productive actions. Productive actions may manipulate within the framework of the laws which control those actions. The efficacy of the actions is totally dependent on how the actions are controlled within the framework of code of conduct.
The emergent meaning can be grasped only through a constructive interpretation, an imaginative restructuring of semantic fields, which makes sense of the emergent phenomena as a whole. However, the order is embedded and concrete for an achieved harmony which is always particular and specific.

Define what you mean by a law. Again you are relying on equivocation.

equivocation
ɪˌkwɪvəˈkeɪʃ(ə)n/
noun
noun: equivocation; plural noun: equivocations

   the use of ambiguous language to conceal the truth or to avoid committing oneself; prevarication.



All that's required for the formation of life as we know it are the laws of thermodynamics and the expansion of the universe.

If you want to argue that your god is responsible for that then that's up to you. I'd argue that we can explain pretty much everything since soon after the Big Bang using natural processes and that this makes your god irrelevant.

No god was needed for the formation of galaxies, solar systems, geology, chemistry, life, intelligence or societies. At most your god formed a big ball of energy and spacetime to expand outwards, created a few 'laws' regarding entropy and energy and let the rest take care of itself.

In reality though what you are describing as a law is actually just description of a natural phenomena that we use and happen to find is universal. The universe isn't programmed. There is no code that can be hacked.

[I_am_not_mafia]

For the sake of argument if I agree with you that things “never really created so much as the constituent matter reshaped into different configuration” then why there are laws which are driving that shaping and reshaping in precise orderly manner according to specific code of instructions. That is the actual idea behind my original post.

There are no laws which 'drive and shape and reshape in precise and orderly manner according to specific code of instructions'.

What you have are thermo-dynamical gradients and formations of matter that find the most stable states in order to minimise free energy. That is, energy that can perform work. This leads to islands of order and complexity while increasing entropy of its environment. The single definition of life that can be applied consistently is that it has a metabolism.

Do you think that each individual snowflake is shaped in a precise and orderly manner according to a specific code of instructions? What about crystals? Where are these instructions? What are they? How are they read and executed?

[I_am_not_mafia]

No matter what you say but the Idea of God is innate.

What does that even mean??

[ignoramus]

I don't think he even knows...
Do apologists have prepared answers or do they just make stuff up as they go?

[bennyboy]

It bothers me a little that Harris has posted a thread in the "Philosophy" section about natural order and science, and then proceeded not do deal with either of those things in any meaningful way.

[I_am_not_mafia]

It bothers me a little that Harris has posted a thread in the "Philosophy" section about natural order and science, and then proceeded not do deal with either of those things in any meaningful way.

That's because he doesn't know what he's talking about. He vaguely recognises that he doesn't know much about science, but he's trying to think things through in order to justify his superstitions therefore he thinks that he must be doing philosophy.

[robvalue]

Still waiting for an actual answer about why infinite regress is impossible.

Evolution never claims to have an infinite regress; it has a starting point, which is after abiogenesis has occured. It's only theist strawmen versions which have self-created apparent paradoxes.

The continual conflating of these two by theists who have been in this site for years is an indication of the lack of time they've spent reading credible scientific sources. Or listening to people who know stuff on here.

[Harris]

Chemistry making basic biology isn't nothing.
Unless we're now going to question where the chemistry came from.

This question is becoming an infinite regress.

I agree with you on that partially because any regress in the universe would ends up in nothingness so infinite regress in matter is not possible.

[Harris]

Chemistry making basic biology isn't nothing.
Unless we're now going to question where the chemistry came from.

This question is becoming an infinite regress.

I agree with you on that partially because any regress in the universe would ends up in nothingness so infinite regress in matter is not possible.