New Book of Rules
in [Design]
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From: John Larkin on 21 Aug 2006 17:56 On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 16:33:27 -0000, david(a)slack.com (David DiGiacomo) wrote: >In article <emrge25e73kjbecv1al8jj28h2rfvo0amk(a)4ax.com>, >John Larkin <jjSNIPlarkin(a)highTHISlandtechnology.com> wrote: >>Seems sorta improbable to me. As in *very* improbably. The Neo >>Darwinians sort of wave their hands and declare that this is the >>result of random spot mutations. Hell, you can't design simple >>electronic circuits through random mutation, much less butterflies. > >Umm... you can't? > >http://www.google.com/search?q=electronic+circuits+genetic+algorithms&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official > >"Results 1 - 20 of about 808,000 for electronic circuits genetic >algorithms" > >Or just see: > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolvable_hardware The poor quality and huge computational requirements sort of make my case. And random mutation and selection are really only useful for making incremental changes - microevolution - not for designing radically new architectures - macroevolution. Evolution in nature is also a bit different, in that there's no fixed "target" that a design evolves towards and can be tested against; only survival matters. John
From: bill.sloman on 21 Aug 2006 19:47 Don Bowey wrote: > On 8/21/06 6:26 AM, in article > 1156166772.487083.135740(a)i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com, "bill.sloman(a)ieee.org" > <bill.sloman(a)ieee.org> wrote: > > > > > John Woodgate wrote: > >> In message <1156123089.816396.92340(a)75g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>, dated > >> Sun, 20 Aug 2006, bill.sloman(a)ieee.org writes > >> > >>> You can't have two omnipotent supreme beings - and there is your first > >>> logical fallacy. > >> > >> I don't want one at all. If a being is omnipotent, it can copy itself. > >> Ergo, more than one can exist. Any paradox so created it ITS problem, > >> not mine. But of course, being omnipotent, it can solve any such > >> paradox. It's turtles all the way down!(;-) > > > > Which is another way of showing that an omipotent god can't exist by > > reductio ad absurdum > > > > I know that you know exactly what this means, but for any lurkers > > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum > > > > There is no such logical problem with any number of gods who are less > > than omniscient and omnipotent. > > > > They would merely be superior beings who would relate to us are we > > relate to ants - but they'd be subject to the same laws of physics that > > we are, and correspondingly useless to the sorts of confidence > > tricksters who set up religious cults. > > You make the same error that all religious leaders make; you presume that > you can actually know God. On the contrary, I'm arguing that the omnipotent and omniscient God regularly paraded by the theists is a self-contradicting logical paradox, and consequently not availalbe to be known. > I doubt that you are any more or less inspired than all the others. The > most we can do is hope that God is how we would wish. The rest is fluff. No. Hoping that God is "how we would wsh" is pure fluff. I'm inspired enough to know that going around indulging in wishful thinking is no way to get into contact with any super-human being. I've not been inspired with any better plan, and I'm inclined to the view that whole exercise is a waste of time. SETI - which only aspires to get into cntact with non-human intelligences - is the closest thing I've seen to a rational plan in that general area, but it isn't specifically directed to contacting super-human intelligences. You should note that we've only just got to the point where we could look for extra-terrestrial intelligences, so we are presumably only just smart enough for that job. If we did find anybody, there'd be a fair chance that they'd have got a bit further, and could well qualify as super-human. -- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
From: Rich Grise, Plainclothes Hippie on 21 Aug 2006 20:46 On Sun, 20 Aug 2006 08:35:35 +0100, John Woodgate wrote: > Aug 2006, Rich Grise <rich(a)example.net> writes .... >>Well, would all of the sea critters have got wiped out too? > > By Chicxulub? Many, not all. Ammonites and belemnites went. The related > nautilus didn't. Maybe someone in your pantheon has an explanation; > scientists don't - yet. Yes, as a matter of fact, they do, but it's entirely unscientific, of course. :-) The Atlanteans wanted to save the Lemurians from the dinosaurs, so they used the Great Crystal. But they overamped it, it blew up, and not only wiped out the dinosaurs, but most of life on Earth. I think back in those days it was called Pangaea. Anyway, when the crystal blew up, that's what sunk Atlantis, so they all kind of had to try to start all over again. The Atlanteans evolved into right-wing white people, and the Lemurians evolved into everybody else. Cheers! Rich
From: Rich Grise, Plainclothes Hippie on 21 Aug 2006 20:52 On Sun, 20 Aug 2006 10:33:36 -0700, bill.sloman wrote: > John Fields wrote: >> Time, and its restrictions as we know them, don't exist for a >> supreme being. > > You've got that the wrong way around. Nobody has any time for > discussions involving a supreme being, because his, her or its' > existence involves too many logical fallacies to allow useful > discussion. You're doing yourself a disservice here, assuming that since "logic" is all you know, that "logic" is all that can be. Good Luck! Rich
From: Rich the Philosophizer on 21 Aug 2006 20:56
On Sun, 20 Aug 2006 10:33:36 -0700, bill.sloman wrote: > Worship as many supreme being as you like - I know that they can only > be one, by definition, but deists haven't yet got together to work > which of their conceptions of this logicall fallacy is the right one - > but don't go around parroting what his/her/its' self-appointed local > representative claims to be "the truth" because none of the "truths" > are even self-consistent, let alone consistent with the real world. He explains himself right here: http://www.godchannel.com And, of course, there are those who will proclaim "BULLSHIT" as if they could actually know what the limits of The Creator Of Time and Space itself might be. Cheers! Rich |