Paul Nelson makes a bizarre argument

he is also intelligent, meaning that an effect he caused points back to him, as an agent, uniquely as its source.

so, if i can conclusively show that many animals can detect fraud as well (not hard - there are many published articles in animal behavior journals researching the subject), does that mean those animals are not natural?

damn aliens; planting all those weird critters.

Nelson has said he believes "intelligence" is neither natural nor supernatural - it's some third metaphysical category.
Confuse and obfuscate. Angels on pinheads, intelligences on non-pinheads, etc.

Paul is at Common Descent? Damn, why is he slumming?

Maybe Paul Nelson is saying fraud is the natural thing to do.

Well, he and his cohorts should know; they just do what comes naturally.

It is high time we solicit opinions from the closest we can get to experts on "intelligence" and see what they think of the IDers use of the term. Psychiatrists maybe? Sociologists? Evolutionary psychologists? Some sort of neuroscientists? I find it interesting that none of those groups are very well represented among creationists/IDers, and I suspect they will scoff at the way creationists/IDers toss the term around as if it were some well-understood objectively measurable trait.

I find Paul's assertions hard to take seriously because I fail to see how intelligence as a cause of events is any different than a 'natural' process. One can point to intent but that is not self evident from the event, nor necessarily the chain of events without knowing more about the 'designer's' intentions, motives, means and opportunities.

Assume I am traveling down the road in my car and suddenly my brakes fail and I crash, aka the event.

Does it matter if the crash was caused by an intelligent cause cutting my brake lines or a natural process cutting my brake lines. One may even envision that the means to cut the lines could have been similar, one in the hands of a 'intelligent' designer, the other one as an accidental cause.

In both cases the chain of events are the same, so natural and intelligent are not much different. And yet we know that intelligent causes aka intent can be determined, or we would not have courts. But do courts rely on the 'design method' or arguments that the cause was (un/super)natural to reach their conclusions?
On the contrary, they go back to the source and determine if there is means, motives, opportunity as well as physical evidence, hearsay, eye witnesses etc. But these are exactly the aspects that ID wants to avoid and yet, a design inference (ala ID), as I have shown, would be unreliable (inherently) and thus useless.

If IDers want to insist that intelligence is somehow different from natural causes (chance and regularity) then it would help if they could give us some compelling reasons. Heck at this moment I am even willing to consider outlandish reasons.

ID's thesis largely relies on separating intelligent causes from natural causes and yet there is no compelling reason to do so, unless one is interested in arguing that supernatural causes can be reliably detected. By equivocating between natural intelligence and supernatural intelligence, ID can pretend that both can be equally well detected.
And yet we know that natural intelligence can be quite well detected by the same methods of science that detect 'natural causes' and that the design inference is an inherently and unpredictably unreliable approach to inferring design.

He equivocates on the term "natural" so badly that one would doubt that he even had a high school education, let alone a Ph.D (isn't it supposed to be in philosophy even, whilee any half-ways competent freshman in philosophy class would do better than that?).

I don't know if he's that dishonest or just being as stupid as it takes to be a YEC/IDist. It's certainly a warning against taking up the cudgel of pseudoscience, as if DaveTard, Dembski, and Behe weren't counter-example enough to the "intelligence" of ID.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/35s39o

Paul and his fellow DI colleagues keep trying to separate acts of intelligent agents from the natural world, even though those acts occur via natural laws using natural objects.

But not explained via such laws, without referring to agency.

The causal explanation will still wind its way back to a particular person, not a natural law or regularity.

I started reading this comment (174302) and before long I thought, WTF? This is insane!

Then I looked at the poster's name: Paul Nelson.

Paul isn't slumming at UD. He's a natural fit.

Repeat after me, Paul: There are no demons. There are no demons. OK?

But not explained via such laws, without referring to agency. The history of science fraud is a history of particular (unique) agents ---- persons ---- having their papers withdrawn or PhDs rescinded (e.g., J. Hendrik Schön at Bell Labs). Such agents are not absolved because they are natural objects. Why?

Because some effects point back, not to natural laws ---- what natural law explains the bogus diagrams in Schön's papers?

---- but to agents.

Ian Musgrave's posts here are explained causally not by any natural law, but by the existence of a biologist in Australia.

It doesn't make the least difference to the true explanation of the character strings produced by Ian that we call him "natural," "intelligent," "supernatural," or whatever. The adjectives are beside the point in the end.

The causal explanation will still wind its way back to a particular person, not a natural law or regularity.

It's funny: when I use examples like these in my public lectures, the only people who find them bothersome are those who, for philosophical reasons, are keen to deny their own agency.

True story. A little over ten years ago, in northern Michigan, I had a tavern conversation with a famous paleontologist, and asked him what we should infer about the cause of his books, if we discovered them hundreds of years from now, long after any other trace of the paleontologist was gone. An odd expression came over his face, and he said, "Well...my experiences...the things that influenced me..." What he didn't say was that he wrote the books, and that that would be the rational inference to draw.

In other words, rather than make an entirely sane and ordinary design inference, he started to dissolve himself into a Humean bundle. Nobody at home to write his books. No unique agent. Just a bundle of sensations and influences temporarily housed in a few dozen kilos of meat.

Dispensing with the reality of one's own agency is a high price to pay for metaphysical consistency, but then lots of people don't mind paying the price, I guess.

Still, the publisher's royalty checks for Richard Dawkins, or for my paleontologist acquaintance, are not made out to the laws of physics.

Dispensing with the reality of one's own agency is a high price to pay for metaphysical consistency, but then lots of people don't mind paying the price, I guess.

Or to put Paul's "argument" more succinctly, the evidence for the "natural" evolution of agents like humans must be ignored because we always already know that humans are not "naturally caused".

Don't look at the evidence. Paul doesn't, and he has his anciently-derived belief system that tells he that he need never consider "mere evidence" of evolution. Why else would his use of "evidence" consist largely in out-of-context quote-mines?

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/35s39o

While the author of a manipulated image is of course natural, in familiar senses of that word --- you can kick him, for instance --- he is also intelligent, meaning that an effect he caused points back to him, as an agent, uniquely as its source.

So what. Big whoopitty-doo. If it points back to the author of the manipulated image then I guess Mr. Nelson knows who the perpetrator is since it "points back to him, as an agent, uniquely as its source".

Wow what a self-serving definition he has there. How does he know a radio didn't fall on it or something. Creationists can be really funny sometimes. :-)

Dispensing with the reality of one's own agency is a high price to pay for metaphysical consistency, but then lots of people don't mind paying the price, I guess.

Yeah, too bad too many people are dispensing with the reality of their own agency. I feel really bad for those guys. Hey people, stop dispensing with the reality of your own agency.

I think I see where Nelson may be coming from. The hint is in the notion of "... the reality of one's own agency". I don't see it stated explicitly, but I think it must get back to the notion of the special place of the human conscience in Creation. Chimps are natural causes, because chimps (or birds, or dogs) don't have a Divinely created soul. Humans are in and of the world (ie "natural"), yet the unique "agency" that motivates their actions is "outside" or "beyond" that natural world. Still "real", but distinctly different. Not "super" natural per se... maybe "divinely" natural? So, let's see... If the human soul and intelligence are not "natural", yet have a demonstrable effect on the natural world, then surely a God could also be "in" the natural world, but not "of" the natural world? There is no internal conflict in the argument.

Now, I'm not arguing for his perspective, just trying to understand how it might seem to be self consistent in his own mind (assuming he's not being [self] deceptive). Of course, any well formulated conspiracy theory is also self consistent, so that doesn't get you very far. Also, ID can't make such claims explicitly, or it loses the legal battle. But certainly such claims wouldn't be beyond a YEC'er.

So, I think you have to get to his core beliefs first. Two may both argue "logically", but if the foundational assumptions are incompatible, the results may be radically different. Trying to point out a logical fallacy to him it pointless. In his mind, there is no logical inconsistency. You just have to deal with that little hurdle of knowing you're the center of the universe.

Because some effects point back, not to natural laws ---- what natural law explains the bogus diagrams in Schön's papers?

Who cares? Even if somebody found a natural law that explains the "bogus" diagrams, in your world even the natural law itself would point back to an "agency". Everything everywhere points back to an "agency". Don't you remember that you're a creationist?

But not explained via such laws, without referring to agency. The history of science fraud is a history of particular (unique) agents -persons - having their papers withdrawn or PhDs rescinded (e.g., J. Hendrik Schön at Bell Labs). Such agents are not absolved because they are natural objects. Why?

— Paul Nelson

The causal explanation will still wind its way back to a particular person, not a natural law or regularity.

— Paul Nelson

So Paul, you and the ID movement have been working on ID for 15+ years. Isn't it about time to give us your "specific causal model" about now? In real sciences involving human agency, this is easily done (archaeology, criminal forensics, etc.). We have concepts like motive, means, and opportunity, which provide detail and specific hypotheses that can be tested. But with ID, it's "Oh no, we're not going to provide any specifics because [insert half-baked excuse that boils down to "we think it's God and we'd rather protect our theology from critical scrutiny and judicial review, and pretend we're not doing theology so as to build a big happy creationist tent"]." Pitiful.

But it's all pointless anyway, since it's pretty clear you guys are going to drop the ID schtick and just go for an attempt to ram your "critical analysis of evolution" junk into the public schools instead. So much for your claims last year that you thought this issue shouldn't be fought in the political and legal arena...

Such agents are not absolved because they are natural objects. Why?

The causal explanation will still wind its way back to a particular person, not a natural law or regularity.

What does it matter, Paul. If they were cleared of fraud you people would just wave your hands around and claim that their published results "smuggled information in the back door" because the experiment and the paper were intelligently designed.

Speaking of fraud, have you reconsidered your decision to sit on the editorial advisory board of a magazine promoting AIDS denial aimed at children?

what natural law explains the bogus diagrams in Schön's papers?

Two may both argue "logically", but if the foundational assumptions are incompatible, the results may be radically different. Trying to point out a logical fallacy to him it pointless. In his mind, there is no logical inconsistency.

Dispensing with the reality of one's own agency is a high price to pay for metaphysical consistency, but then lots of people don't mind paying the price, I guess.

True story. A little over ten years ago, in northern Michigan, I had a tavern conversation with a famous paleontologist, and asked him what we should infer about the cause of his books, if we discovered them hundreds of years from now, long after any other trace of the paleontologist was gone. An odd expression came over his face, and he said, "Well...my experiences...the things that influenced me..." What he didn't say was that he wrote the books, and that that would be the rational inference to draw.

Still, the publisher's royalty checks for Richard Dawkins, or for my paleontologist acquaintance, are not made out to the laws of physics.

Still, the publisher's royalty checks for Richard Dawkins, or for my paleontologist acquaintance, are not made out to the laws of physics.

I do think there are important unanswered questions about the nature and origin of consciousness, and also about the existence of free will and personal responsibility if consciousness is no more than the outworking of physical forces.

However, this is irrelevant to the question of distinguishing between the actions of intelligent beings and of unintelligent causes. Courts of law are quite able to address such questions without establishing the ultimate nature of consciousness and free will. So why should science not be able to do so?

ID critics don't argue that intelligent/conscious beings don't exist or that they cannot be detected. We do argue that they cannot be detected by the god-of-the-gaps reasoning of ID advocates.

True story. A little over ten years ago, in northern Michigan, I had a tavern conversation with a famous paleontologist, and asked him what we should infer about the cause of his books, if we discovered them hundreds of years from now, long after any other trace of the paleontologist was gone. An odd expression came over his face, and he said, "Well...my experiences...the things that influenced me..." What he didn't say was that he wrote the books, and that that would be the rational inference to draw.

Uups. "the scientific mind set" - the mind set of scientists. One can have a scientific mind set (or even a scientist) and be a fierce individualist, of course.

It is just that results are supposed to be reproducible, peer reviewed, belong to the collective, et cetera.

"A few misplaced words"

Another ups. Considering the author and his in-group, of course I meant "a silly little opinion piece". My bad! :-)

"These are all natural events. Don't fuss. Whatever happens, happens."
Maybe he has been popping some 'shrooms. That would explain this perfectly.

The simple fact is that human mental processes, and the actions they generate, are governed by (and explained by) natural laws. I am typing this string of symbols because the laws of physics allows sodium and calcium ions to enter my nerve cells in a coordinated way, which allows "me" to comprehend the screen in front of "me", to make decisions on what to write (by the same laws allowing electrical signals to be shuffled around different centres in the brain), to send those decisions to other appropriate centres in the brain (again via the laws of chemistry and physics) that will allow my fingers to move in a coordinated way and strike the keyboard to form a symbol string. This sequence of events governed by and dependent on natural law, is more complicated but no different in principle from a chimpanzee pushing keys on a keyboard to obtain food, or a raven pecking a coloured bead to get food (the difference being I gain no calories from my symbol manipulation).

A statement that an event was natural, due to natural laws does not get that event ignored if the event was not the one claimed in the paper.

The natural laws that govern the behavior of the humans (among other objects) you git.

You mean he actually made an argument? I skimmed his ridiculous post, but I saw that it was so nonsensical it wasn't worth my effort to try to pull out any shreds of logic, so I didn't try. Kudos to you for making the effort.

All right, I'm game. Give this git the physical algorithm that explains Schön's diagrams. The one where the unique agent "J. Hendrik Schön" disappears on analysis into non-Schön (physical regularities).

OK, seriously: the same laws and physiological processes are operating in my brain as in yours. But you're attacking my little UD story, and I'm defending it, and the prose we generate here is strikingly different in terms of its content (meaning). Thus, whatever explanatory force the laws of physics + chemistry + biology + human brain physiology may have (considerable, to be sure), in the end those natural laws and regularities make little (actually, no) difference to what most matters here, namely, the content of differing arguments.

— Paul Nelson

The point being, without the physical laws that provide for the conformational differences between the two, the content of either argument probably wouldn't exist at all.

Paul writes: "What is most relevant and interesting is least explained."

Aren't complicated phenomena almost aways the most interesting and least precisely explained? Isn't claiming that there is a "special sauce" of 'unnatural' mechanisms entwined with the natural thin gruel in the end? i.e. Here there be dragons?

Yes, one can assert that there are dragons behind imperfectly characterized phenomena but it is always going to be based on a negative argument. What positive, scientific program can you create out of the 'special sauce' hypothesis? For example, what does 'special sauce' tell us about anaesthesia? Do bumblebees have special sauce and how do we detect whether objects possess it?

And what about intelligence by proxy?

This is absurd. You're asking for a reverse engineering of Schon's brain, or else we have to accept that there is something more than natural causes at work. It's the old god-of-the-gaps argument yet again.

That applies to the natural causes too. It applies to everything. If you reverse engineer the the brain, then the argument would be to either reverse engineer the natural causes... or the bunny gets it. This whole "agency" thing is just a "wedge" to sucker people.

Interesting as these arguments are too some (and about as useful as a bicycle for a fish), finite knowledge means that we'll never know the end of explanatory regression. Ultimately it comes to the following:

EITHER

It's turtles all the way down...

-OR-

It's not turtles all the way down.

Headlines:
Paul Nelson Makes Bizarre Statement

It's Cold in Minnesota in Winter

More breaking news as it happens...

Indeed, but you're mistaking necessary and sufficient conditions. Does your existence violate any physical laws? No. Are physical laws necessary to understand your existence? Yes. Are physical laws sufficient to explain what you do? E.g., to explain why you find my posts unpersuasive?

— Paul Nelson

differing arguments

It's a philosophical doctrine.

OK, seriously: the same laws and physiological processes are operating in my brain as in yours. But you're attacking my little UD story, and I'm defending it, and the prose we generate here is strikingly different in terms of its content (meaning). Thus, whatever explanatory force the laws of physics + chemistry + biology + human brain physiology may have (considerable, to be sure), in the end those natural laws and regularities make little (actually, no) difference to what most matters here, namely, the content of differing arguments.

What is most relevant and interesting is least explained.

"But that's because the sciences of human brain function and psychology are immature. We don't have enough details yet to explain, via natural laws, why Ian writes as he does, and Paul as he does. Nevertheless, it will still be a natural [agent-dissolved] story in the end." Maybe. Or maybe the promised 'natural-laws-only-and-no-agents' explanation is a will-o-the-wisp.

What sort of law, expressed as an algorithm, would explain the generation of bogus physics diagrams (Schön) or even Ian's pithy contributions here?

A 'law' indistinguishable from an agent.

And thus we will have journeyed a very long way to find we have come back to our starting point: the reality of agency.

Ian also wrote: A statement that an event was natural, due to natural laws does not get that event ignored if the event was not the one claimed in the paper. Of course, but that's a side issue. An experimental artefact, represented by authors unknowingly as a real result, is grounds for withdrawing a publication. It's not grounds for the ending of one's scientific career, as usually happens in cases of fraud. One of the reasons that naturalistic reductionism fails to persuade many beyond the philosophy seminar rooms of Tufts University (Dennett) or UC-San Diego (the Churchlands) lies precisely here: what humans experience most intimately --- the reality of their own agency --- is implausibly, at best, rendered in terms of what-humans-are-not, namely, basic physics, even basic physics souped up with all kinds of explanatory promises. "There's nobody at home. You're just particles in motion. Like Schön." Oh really? Well, Schön's heap of particles, governed by the same laws acting in my heap of particles, lost their PhD from the Univ. of Konstanz, whereas mine like watching David Lean movies with generous helping of popcorn --- and lookee here, the agents have come back into the causal story. Because they never actually went away, and it would be madness to try to do so.

Popper's Ghost replied, re my question about what natural law explains Schön's diagrams: The natural laws that govern the behavior of the humans (among other objects) you git. All right, I'm game. Give this git the physical algorithm that explains Schön's diagrams.

The one where the unique agent "J. Hendrik Schön" disappears on analysis into non-Schön (physical regularities).

Am I missing something here?

Any interpretation of Nelson's comments is too absurd to deserve serious discussion.

I'm going to make that treacherous journey into paraphrase, but he seems to be arguing that human intelligence is not "natural". But you have to go a long way back to find philosophers of any religious stripe who claim that ordinary human cognition is supernatural.

What difference does it make to screw around with the word "natural" this way? We can detect human or bumblebee design (or the designs of similar species by extension) because we know about the natural designers, and we lack any reasonable alternate explanation - much like 747's, beehives aren't formed when a tornado blows through a junkyard.

You can scream that human intelligence is supernatural, and therefore the Empire State Building is supernatural because human intelligence created it, but all you've done is use the word "supernatural" in an eccentric and probably incorrect way. Evolution is still the best explanation for the bacterial flagellum, design by humans is still the best explanation for the Empire State Building.

Mr. Glen Davidson sums it all up very nicely:

Because you're opposed to intelligent discovery, you wish to simply declare what is "least explained" as "unexplainable"..

Meh.
In a venue where Dave Scot Springer can proudly declare that "me typing this sentence" violates 2LoT, this is old-hat. Leftovers night, kids! Who's up for some warmed-over dualism?

Nelson still conveniently avoids explaining why he believes that intelligent agency cannot be capture as chance and regularity when science successfully applies these concepts to detect agency and ID remains fully vacuous, scientifically speaking.

Does your existence violate any physical laws? No. Are physical laws necessary to understand your existence? Yes. Are physical laws sufficient to explain what you do? E.g., to explain why you find my posts unpersuasive? That's a far stronger claim, and unsupported.

Over at Uncommon Descent Paul Nelson tries to argue that because we can detect fraud, humans (or at least their actions) aren't natural.

DO ANIMALS LIE? Ask, Oct 2006 by Batten, Mary A plover may pretend to have a broken wing in order to distract a predator that has come too close to its nest. When the predator chases after it, the plover flies away-saving itself and its young. It's no secret. Insects, birds, apes-all kinds of animals-cheat, bluff, and trick each other. Why? Because being deceptive can give animals the edge on survival. It can help them escape their enemies, catch their prey, and even attract a mate. Phony Fish An anglerfish is like a living lie. Dangling from a spine on the tip of its snout is a built-in fishing lure. Depending on the type of anglerfish, the fake bait may look like a worm, bunches of algae, or tiny shrimp-all tasty tidbits to a passing fish. When an angler is hungry, it simply casts its "rod" straight ahead and jiggles the false bait in front of its mouth. Pity the fish that is fooled and swims near. Snap! Rather than finding a meal, it ends up in the angler's stomach. Although it's rather small, a comet fish doesn't need to flee when it is threatened by its enemies in the coral reef. Instead, it fools them by transforming its six-inch-long body into a copy of the six-inch-long head of a moray eel-a large, sharp-toothed predator that causes other reef animals to swim for their lives. Advertisement Insect Imposters Animals can usually tell males from females, but sometimes an individual isn't what he or she seems. During courtship, a male scorpionfly must hunt and catch a tasty insect to present as a gift to a female. The insect gift must be just the right size, or a female will reject the male and fly away. When a courting male has caught an insect, he hangs from a leaf or twig and releases a special chemical perfume that signals females to come over and have a look. If a female likes the gift, she hangs in front of the male and lowers her wings to accept it. Then the male gives her the gift and mates with her while she eats it. But sometimes a male scorpionfly is fooled. What looks like a female is really a male trickster that steals the gift and uses it to attract a female of his own. It might not seem fair, but it's a strategy that works. Deceitful male scorpionflies succeed in mating-and fathering babies-more often than those that do their own hunting. The more babies an animal has, the more successful it is in passing its genes on to future generations-the only kind of success that counts in evolution. You've probably seen fireflies, or lightning bugs, flashing on a warm summer evening. Each species of firefly has its own special flashing signal that males and females of that species use to tell each other when they are ready to mate. But the flashes of some female Photuris fireflies are deadly. These females can mimic, or imitate, the flashing signal that females of another group, named Photinus, use to attract mates. When a Photinus male responds to the Photuris's false signal, he finds out too late that there is no mate waiting for him. The tricky Photuris female eats him instead. But two can play the false flashing game, and sometimes the Photuris female is tricked. When she flashes her false signal, a sneaky Photuris male might approach her, mimicking the answering flashes of a Photinus male. The hungry Photuris female, expecting a Photinus male she can devour, instead finds herself greeting a male of her own species who is seeking a mate. Bluffing Birds Brood parasites, a group of birds that includes cowbirds, cuckoos, and widow birds, have found a way to avoid much of the work of parenthood. They don't bother building nests. Instead, they sneak their eggs into other birds' nests and let them hatch the eggs. Some parasites are able to pull off this trick because their eggs mimic the size and color of the host birds' eggs. What happens when the sneaky parasite's egg hatches? The host birds usually feed the chick, mistaking it for one of their own. Among birds called scrub jays, some are thieves. Scrub jays typically cache some of their food; that is, they bury bits of it to eat later. When food is scarce, they can always find a meal by returning to eat a stored snack. But sometimes when a scrub jay caches its food, it is watched by a thief. The thieving scrub jay waits until the coast is clear, then digs up the food and steals it! That's pretty tricky. But scrub jays who do the work of caching have a trick of their own. Scientists have observed that they seem to know about the thieves and to be aware of when they're being watched by a bird that might be one. To outsmart the thieves, cautious scrub jays will come back in secret and rebury their food in a different spot. Cheating Chimps Scientists who study monkeys and apes have reported a wide range of deceptive behaviors, particularly among chimpanzees. Chimps bluff, give warning calls when there is no predator in sight, do all sorts of sneaky things behind the troop leader's back, and try to outsmart each other. In one example, a chimp named Yeroen, who had been the alpha, or top, male of a group of chimps at the Arnhem Zoo in the Netherlands, began limping badly after he was hurt in a fight with Nikkie, the new alpha male. But Yeroen only bothered to limp when he was within sight of Nikkie. As soon as he turned a corner or circled behind Nikkie, the limp mysteriously disappeared. Article continues,

Will Paul give agent status to spear-making, cooperative hunting, fraud perpetrating chimpanzees as well as humans?

Indeed, but you're mistaking necessary and sufficient conditions. Does your existence violate any physical laws? No. Are physical laws necessary to understand your existence? Yes. Are physical laws sufficient to explain what you do? E.g., to explain why you find my posts unpersuasive? That's a far stronger claim, and unsupported.

Dissolving agency into non-agency is plausible only on the sufficiency claim, but that's entirely a promise for a science yet to be delivered. It's a philosophical doctrine.

Richard, if someone like P's Ghost tells me they know something, it's not unreasonable for me to ask for that knowledge. P's Ghost says he knows that natural laws explain Schon's diagrams. I'm game to learn, if he does in fact know.

You're evading the point entirely. Your original argument was that physical laws have no effect on the content of the argument. You've now changed it to why someone would find the content of the argument unconvincing. The latter point is addressed not by physical laws, of course, but by logical ones. The second case, however, is still predicated on the first; as I've already pointed out, what one sees as logical to begin with is certainly affected by, for example, brain chemistry.

I agree. Listening to a science lecture having had no wine, versus one glass, versus the entire bottle, will certainly make a difference.

But saying that physical laws or regularities, at any level, explain why Ian or you disagree with me about the reducibility of agents --- the content of the argument, right? --- is to promise an explanation that, right now, simply cannot be delivered. I'd buy that as a philosophical doctrine (which it is), but not as empirical knowledge. The knowledge yield of the claim is nil, handwaving about brain chemistry notwithstanding.

And we assign causal responsibility to agents, not natural laws, if the evidence warrants it.

I agree. Listening to a science lecture having had no wine, versus one glass, versus the entire bottle, will certainly make a difference. But saying that physical laws or regularities, at any level, explain why Ian or you disagree with me about the reducibility of agents --- the content of the argument, right? --- is to promise an explanation that, right now, simply cannot be delivered.

I'd buy that as a philosophical doctrine (which it is),

but not as empirical knowledge.

The knowledge yield of the claim is nil, handwaving about brain chemistry notwithstanding.

Truth, falsehood, cogency, validity, moral responsibility (the reason Schön lost his doctoral degree and his scientific career): we debate these without needing a physical story about brain chemistry or physiology.

You don't know which neurons are firing right now in your brain as you read these words, and moreover you don't need to know; not knowing just doesn't matter to your ability to evaluate the argument.

That's what I meant when I wrote "whatever explanatory force the laws of physics + chemistry + biology + human brain physiology may have (considerable, to be sure), in the end those natural laws and regularities make little (actually, no) difference to what most matters here, namely, the content of differing arguments."

We know that some propositions are false, others true, that Schön faked his figures, and so forth, independently --- as matter of knowledge --- from what we may or may not know about brain function.

And we assign causal responsibility to agents,

And we assign causal responsibility to agents not natural laws,

if the evidence warrants it.

Glen's response may sound a bit harsh and yet I understand his frustration with the rhetorical nature of Nelson's arguments. When it comes to something more than an interesting philosophical position, we quickly notice how Nelson's position remains free from content.

perhaps we should focus on more fruitful concepts such as ontogenetic depth instead :-)

The knowledge yield of the claim is nil, handwaving about brain chemistry notwithstanding.

Translation: The "knowledge yield of the claim" is nil, after you've waved our knowledge of brain chemistry away and called it "handwaving."

Truth, falsehood, cogency, validity, moral responsibility (the reason Schön lost his doctoral degree and his scientific career): we debate these without needing a physical story about brain chemistry or physiology. You don't know which neurons are firing right now in your brain as you read these words, and moreover you don't need to know; not knowing just doesn't matter to your ability to evaluate the argument.

None of this means that brain chemistry and physiology have no bearing on how our brains handle the arguments. If a drug, disease or injury affects your brain chemistry, that will have an effect on your brain's ability to understand the concepts and participate in the debate. (That's why we have all those laws about druge use, remember?)

We know that some propositions are false, others true...independently --- as matter of knowledge --- from what we may or may not know about brain function.

Again, this does not mean that our brain functions have no bearing on our ability to process these concepts. I can read your posts, Mr. Nelson, and know you're full of it, without having to understand how my eyes work. Does this mean that how my eyes work has nothing to do with my ability to read? Of course not.

What sort of law, expressed as an algorithm, would explain the generation of bogus physics diagrams (Schön) or even Ian's pithy contributions here?

OK, seriously: the same laws and physiological processes are operating in my brain as in yours. But you're attacking my little UD story, and I'm defending it, and the prose we generate here is strikingly different in terms of its content (meaning). Thus, whatever explanatory force the laws of physics + chemistry + biology + human brain physiology may have (considerable, to be sure), in the end those natural laws and regularities make little (actually, no) difference to what most matters here, namely, the content of differing arguments. What is most relevant and interesting is least explained.

Glen D, re: Comment #174456

Wow! That's a great summary. I'll have to keep that one. Thanks.

Over at Uncommon Descent Paul Nelson tries to argue that because we can detect fraud, humans (or at least their actions) aren't natural.

Chemical Mimicry in Pollination Elisa J. Bernklau Entomology Dept. Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523 Introduction The use of chemical signals may be the dominant form of communication in the insect world. Many insects have evolved highly complex and specific chemical signals with which to communicate within their own species. It is not surprising that other organisms have evolved the ability to exploit these communication systems in order to fulfill their own needs. Paragraphs deleted for length Plant Mimicry of Insect Pheromones Some form of mimicry is used by approximately 50% of orchid species to attract insects of specific taxa for pollination. Visual mimicry of female insects by the flowers was believed to be the main factor in these relationships until 1961 when Kullenberg first suggested that chemical mimicry may also play a role (Kullenberg 1961). Researchers have since demonstrated this to be the case and the chemistry of many pollination mimicry systems is now known. According to Borg-Karlson (1990), the most important studies on the Ophrys orchid/insect pollination systems are those compiled by Kullenberg (1973), Kullenberg et al. (1984), Warncke and Kullenberg (1984) and Paulus and Gack (1986). In these systems, male insects are attracted by odors produced by the flowers (specifically by the labellum). These odors excite the insects sexually and cause them to approach and investigate the flowers more closely. In some instances, the males will go so far as to attempt to copulate with the flower. This behavior, termed 'pseudocopulation', was first observed by Correvon and Pauyanne (Pouyanne 1917; Correvon and Pouyanne 1923). During the insect/flower interaction, pollinaria are inadvertently attached to the head or abdomen of the male insect who then pollinates the next flower that he visits (Borg-Karlson 1990). The odors produced by these orchids are blends of several compounds that closely resemble different types of insect pheromones. These include: odors produced by eclosing females, sex attractants produced by virgin females, scents produced by mated females, male courtship pheromones, and male scent markers (Stowe 1988). A flower species or variety may produce one specific type of odor or a combination of the different pheromones.

So if we can find evidence of deception all the way back to plants, what does this say about the reducibility of let's say deception to simple processes? So why insist on defining design and intelligence to something irreducible to natural processes?

What sort of law, expressed as an algorithm, would explain the generation of bogus physics diagrams (Schön) or even Ian's pithy contributions here?

— Paul Nelson

Compared to Nelson's maximum verbosity, minimal content style, the likes of Joe G, C Bass, and even Realpc, seem pleasant by comparison.

I used to think that Paul Nelson was a cut above the likes of Ken Ham and Sal Cordova. No longer.

Your entire question is malforned as you are expecting biological systems to collapes to one (or a few) laws, whereas they are the result of the interaction a a very large number of laws. many of which are probabalistic. They very sort of thing that generates unique behavior.

What you're demanding, Paul, is an idiotic philosophical "proof" that only physics is operating in "mind", which is contrary to the way that science works.

Paul Nelson said:

"In public lectures, when the reducibility of agents to physics (non-agency) comes up in the Q & A, I encourage my interlocutor to tell me what I am going to say next. We know what will happen next to my laser pointer, I continue, if I let it go here a few feet above the floor of the auditorium.

So what am I going to say next?"

Making Ian's point nicely.

So, Paul, what's the weather going to be in Chicago on June 22, 2065? Hi, lo, precipitation, etc..., if you would. And be precise - no hand-waving about trends, averages, and the like.

Does your answer (if you do answer the question) mean that weather is not a matter of "non-agency", but actually is a consequence of immediate agency?

We know what will happen next to my laser pointer, I continue, if I let it go here a few feet above the floor of the auditorium.

So what am I going to say next?

Predicting the next ten words from the mouth of someone you are arguing with could be done far more accurately---especially if that person is unaware that you are making a prediction.

Simply unbelievable.

The whole "if you don't know everything with absolute certainty then you don't know anything with any certainty" trick was boring when we were all six years old, Paul.

How long before you give up and start posting "Evolution? That's just, like, your 'opinion', man" every time someone asks you about ontogenetic depth?

Paul Nelson blithered:

Nonsense. That's journeying a very long way, into absurdity, with essentially no yield in genuine knowledge...

Psychology, physiology, and neurosciences have yielded HUGE amounts of genuine knowledge that help us explain, and to an extent, predict, human behavior. Your refusal to admit that this knowledge even exists, proves that you have no clue what you're talking about, and are being dishonest about your (probably deliberate) ignorance.

But notice that his prediction is rendered, not in terms of neuroscience entities (neurons firing), but the relevant mental categories: Paul's goals, his past history as a writer and lecturer, the intellectual context in the auditorium that evening, the content of evolutionary theory and criticisms thereof, and so on. These categories do a much better job of genuine explanation and prediction for my future behavior than anything promised to derived from physics.

So now you're admitting that your behavior can indeed be predicted using one set of deterministic rules, rather than another. And this proves your point...how?

In other words --- as I replied to my own question --- "a 'law' indistinguishable from an agent." One can imagine the apocryphally complete neurosciences of the complex systems 'Ian Musgrave,' or 'Richard Wein,' or 'Glen Davidson,' where at the zenith of our knowledge of these systems, we say, "Given the historical contingencies and unrepeatable circumstances underlying the origin of (for instance) 'Ian Musgrave,' we cannot in fact know or predict what he will do, beyond what we already knew, because the 'folk psychology' categories of belief, intent, desire, will, agency, and so forth, did more explanatory work for us anyway."

In public lectures, when the reducibility of agents to physics (non-agency) comes up in the Q & A, I encourage my interlocutor to tell me what I am going to say next.

We know what will happen next to my laser pointer, I continue, if I let it go here a few feet above the floor of the auditorium.

So what am I going to say next?

My interlocutor usually replies indignantly that my question is anti-scientific and wildly unfair:

he doesn't have my brain under close observation, neuroscience is immature, we're learning more all the time about how the brain works, human behavior is incredibly complex, et cetera.

But agency is still reducible to physics (non-agency), dammit!

That may be --- or not. In any case, at that moment, what he is asking me to accept as knowledge is no such thing.

Are human beings physical objects? Of course. Is their behavior governed by physics? Yes, in the trivial sense that, sans special mechanical help, no one in the auditorium is going to float out of his chair.

Are human actions completely explained by physics (meaning non-mental physical regularities of any degree of complexity or elaboration)?

Not in any fashion where there is empirical knowledge to be conveyed.

So, when Glen writes, What you're demanding, Paul, is an idiotic philosophical "proof" that only physics is operating in "mind", which is contrary to the way that science works.

that one receive something back through the teller window doing the same explanatory work.

Who wrote Richard Dawkins's books? Well, it wasn't 'Richard Dawkins,' really, you see, but this vast interacting system of particles that, for convenvience' sake, we designate as 'Richard Dawkins,' blah blah blah.

Nonsense. That's journeying a very long way, into absurdity, with essentially no yield in genuine knowledge, to avoid philosophically uncomfortable categories like irreducible personhood.

"But 'irreducible personhood' is nothing but magic, Paul!"

Whatever. Our practical reason tells us, quite reliably, that Schön faked his diagrams, and Dawkins wrote The Blind Watchmaker. Say it was something else if you want --- no agents involved, just particles here, folks --- but no one but Dan Dennett and the Churchlands will believe it, or pay the least attention.

But notice that his prediction is rendered, not in terms of neuroscience entities (neurons firing), but the relevant mental categories: Paul's goals, his past history as a writer and lecturer, the intellectual context in the auditorium that evening, the content of evolutionary theory and criticisms thereof, and so on. These categories do a much better job of genuine explanation and prediction for my future behavior than anything promised to derived from physics.

Paul is still unable to make the argument why given our ignorance we should accept ID's claim that intelligent agency is a separate category.

He of course cannot make this argument beyond claiming that this is a philosophical position and thus ends the short scientific career of ID.

In other words --- as I replied to my own question --- "a 'law' indistinguishable from an agent."

No, I'm simply asking that when perfectly adequate causal categories such as 'agency' are cashed in, that one receive something back through the teller window doing the same explanatory work. Who wrote Richard Dawkins's books? Well, it wasn't 'Richard Dawkins,' really, you see, but this vast interacting system of particles that, for convenvience' sake, we designate as 'Richard Dawkins,' blah blah blah.

But notice that his prediction is rendered, not in terms of neuroscience entities (neurons firing), but the relevant mental categories:

You don't know which neurons are firing right now in your brain as you read these words, and moreover you don't need to know; not knowing just doesn't matter to your ability to evaluate the argument.

And neither computers nor programmers need to know about electrons to set up the conditions for effecting calculations I couldn't hope to do. So what?

— Davidson

Paul's goals, his past history as a writer and lecturer, the intellectual context in the auditorium that evening, the content of evolutionary theory and criticisms thereof, and so on.

These categories do a much better job of genuine explanation and prediction for my future behavior than anything promised to [be] derived from physics.

Predict the weather using what has been shown to work for predicting weather, out to the limits of current theory and technology.

Predict and understand human actions, likewise, with what is relevant to humans.

I'm going to have a few stiff drinks and get in better touch with my agent.

But because we actually have a rich and varied capacity for understanding, we recognize the self-ordering of molecules and the emergence of properties which make life into something that is so much more than mere atoms and molecules. Indeed, anybody who looks at a computer as if it were nothing other than atoms, molecules, and crystalline arrangements, would be seriously inadequate as a scientist. And humans are so much more than just computers. Indeed, we are so unique that we cannot be designed, for only evolutionary contingency could produce something so complex, so precious, and so irreplaceable (either as a species or as individuals). We are not Frankenstein's creations, nor replaceable machines of some ethereal designer, we are the wonder and beauty of present complexity [and] unreproducible events which tie us inextricably with our fellows and with the ancestors who produced and cared for us, just because we belonged to them (and not to some God who can snap his fingers to replace us with the equal or better).

All right, I'm game. Give this git the physical algorithm that explains Schön's diagrams.

. P's Ghost says he knows that natural laws explain Schon's diagrams.

Ian, spear-making chimps are agents, sure. I just saw an article about a chimp in criminal proceedings for murdering and eating a bushbaby.

. Or maybe the promised 'natural-laws-only-and-no-agents' explanation is a will-o-the-wisp.

Many brain processes don't occur according to algorithms. You may or may not be honest enough or intelligent enough to know this, but much of the brain is analog

Are physical laws sufficient to explain what you do? E.g., to explain why you find my posts unpersuasive? That's a far stronger claim, and unsupported.

Many brain processes don't occur according to algorithms. You may or may not be honest enough or intelligent enough to know this, but much of the brain is analog

— Davidson

There's no reason to think that the brain's processes can't be expressed algorithmically --- or has Church's Thesis been overturned while I wasn't looking?

— Popper's Ghost

Presumably (ther's no reason to think otherwise) a digital computer could be built that performed the same actions resulted in Schön's diagrams, and the sequence by which it did so would be a response to Nelson's absurd demand.

Being "analog" has nothing to do with anything --- my mouse is a thoroughly analog device, as are disk drive heads and numerous other components of computer systems; algorithms operate at a different level, by referring to what their states are analogs to.

But saying that physical laws or regularities, at any level, explain why Ian or you disagree with me about the reducibility of agents --- the content of the argument, right? --- is to promise an explanation that, right now, simply cannot be delivered. I'd buy that as a philosophical doctrine (which it is), but not as empirical knowledge. The knowledge yield of the claim is nil, handwaving about brain chemistry notwithstanding.

And we assign causal responsibility to agents, not natural laws, if the evidence warrants it.

What sort of law, expressed as an algorithm, would explain the generation of bogus physics diagrams (Schön) or even Ian's pithy contributions here? i\hbar*\dot{\Psi} = H\Psi

That may be --- or not.

Are human actions completely explained by physics (meaning non-mental physical regularities of any degree of complexity or elaboration)? Not in any fashion where there is empirical knowledge to be conveyed.

I predict that Paul Nelson will next say something stupid.

I doubt that getting a digital computer to perform algorithms which produced the results would necessarily tell us how Schoen arrived at them (though we can't really know if that's the case), even if I expect it would satisfy Nelson's absurd demand well enough as stated.

I'm going to have a few stiff drinks and get in better touch with my agent.

In Paul Nelson's defense, it seems to me that the link between "matter" as we generally understand it and "agents" as we generally understand them remains fascinatingly incomplete.

While it's possible to say that "the conscious mind is nothing more than matter doing what matter does", I don't think this is really a scientifically meaningful statement, because we don't (yet) understand how consciousness comes about from the action of matter and energy.

Prediction: There will be conditions under which subjects will be completely oblivious to the fact that large portions of "the background" are being abruptly changed in color. Why? Because the parafoveal visual system is primarily an alarm system, composed of sentries designed to call for saccades when change is noticed; such systems would not bother keeping track of insignificant colors between fixations, and hence would have nothing left over with which to compare the new color.

Here's a good change blindness demonstration: http://www.usd.edu/psyc301/Rensink.htm
right click on the picture to change images or timing.

Another fascinating computer-reachable demonstration that we are what are brains do is:

http://www.media.uio.no/personer/arntm/McGurk_english.html

Watch with your eyes open, with your eyes closed, and with your eyes open but the sound off (you can "watch" it with your eyes closed and the sound off, too, if you're so inclined. :-)

Unlike change blindness, the effect will persist even once you're aware of the difference -- you hear "dada" even though you know he isn't "really" saying that.

Just to clarify for the record: Alonzo Church's thesis is that all methods of attempting to define the notion of discrete algorithm are intra-translatable: lambda calculus, combinatory logic, Post systems, semi-Thue systems, Turing machines, etc. Subsequent authors noticed that Alan Turing had much the same statement in his PhD dissertation and changed the name to the Church-Turing thesis in light of this. This is the same thesis, which has yet to be falsified, but can never be proved.

Using the formulation studied in the theory of recursive functions, a diagonal argument easily shows that all algorithms (those that definitely always halt with an answer) cannot be enumerated.

Of greater interest here perhaps, are the discrete processes, AKA semi-algorithms, which may never terminate, but which may provide (partial) results as time progresses.

All of the above applies equally well to using quantum processes as the physical substrate for obtaining discrete answers...

Generally an algorithm refers to well-defined instructions, which doesn't reflect very well the probabilistic workings of much of the brain.

. This is the same thesis, which has yet to be falsified, but can never be proved.

All of the above applies equally well to using quantum processes as the physical substrate for obtaining discrete answers...

Popper's Ghost
good links,
I've seen before the phaenomenon in a documentary on tv
(if I recall correctly it was a bbc series documentary)
but nice to experience it again.
makes you wonder in a very practical-live way
about a vast quantity of things
ranging from everyday life to philosophy.

Of greater interest here perhaps, are the discrete processes, AKA semi-algorithms, which may never terminate, but which may provide (partial) results as time progresses.

probabilistic workings of much of the brain

we are what are brains do

come to think of it,
is it a phaenomenon or nooumenon? :-)

I doubt that getting a digital computer to perform algorithms which produced the results would necessarily tell us how Schoen arrived at them (though we can't really know if that's the case), even if I expect it would satisfy Nelson's absurd demand well enough as stated.

Unless Church's Thesis doesn't pertain to quantum processes (there's a lot of confusion in this area), there is such a "physical algorithm". Talk about whether "processes" are "algorithms" isn't really relevant, and strikes me as a category mistake;

taking such talk seriously would lead one to conclude that digital computers aren't algorithmic, being physical devices carrying out physical processes, just as brains do.

As for the former, according to the Church-Turing Thesis, there is some algorithm that expresses the steps taken by Schön (or rather, the physical world of which "Schön" is one component); that algorithm would indeed "tell" us how he arrived at them,

although comprehending it at that level would almost certainly be well beyond us --- this is why we deal with high level descriptions in terms of intentional agents.

Although we have concluded that the brain is algorithmic (in the sense of being Turing-simulatable), this isn't very interesting since by this standard virtually everything is algorithmic. On the other hand, one of the principal claims of connectionism (against traditional AI and cognitive science) is that the brain is nonalgorithmic. Is there no content to this claim? The denition of 'algorithmic' that is relevant to these claims is 'a physical system operating by the formal manipulation of discrete symbol structures'(cf. Newell & Simon 1976). An interesting characteristic of this denition4 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 5 is that it is a matter of degree { some systems are very algorithmic, others are quite nonalgorithmic, and yet others are in between. Connectionist researchers and others have made a good case that the brain is \quite non-algorithmic," but this will not provide an escape hatch for attributing any special powers to the brain (we have seen that there is no need for them anyway). Rather, by asserting that the brain is nonalgorithmic we make the signicant empirical claim that the brain operates on very dierent principles from a digital computer; whether one can simulate the other is irrelevant tothis claim. No doubt the fuzziness of this sense of 'algorithmic' will excludeit from the Platonic realm, but that is often the price we must pay for having a useful category.

Did I deny that was the point?

Ian, on the other side of the world and (at this moment) probably brushing his teeth before sleep,

— Paul Nelson

I encourage my interlocutor to tell me what I am going to say next. We know what will happen next to my laser pointer, I continue, if I let it go here a few feet above the floor of the auditorium. So what am I going to say next?

— Paul Nelson

probabilistic workings of much of the brain

2. Linking data to models: data regression Khuloud Jaqaman, Gaudenz Danuser SUMMARY: Regression is a method to estimate parameters in mathematical models of biological systems from experimental data. To ensure the validity of a model for a given data set, pre-regression and post- CONTEXT: ...0.14). Both models fitted to data set 2, on the other hand, do not have insignificant values. Modelling of probabilistic processes Many biological processes are probabilistic, such as gene expression, synaptic transmission, chemical... Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology 7, 813 - 819 (27 Sep 2006) Review Abstract | Full Text | PDF | Rights and permissions | Save this link [Emphasis added]

expressed by terminating algorithms

— Popper's Ghost

Did I deny that was the point?

Generally an algorithm refers to well-defined instructions, which doesn't reflect very well the probabilistic workings of much of the brain.

— PG

Um, Monte Carlo? We use computers all the time to model statistical processes --- they reflect them rather well.

We even have completely deterministic algorithms that detect how well other completely deterministic algorithms display no apparent determinism --- this is critical to security and cryptographic work.

Glen D --- You have previously shown quite a penchant for insults. So I'll not try to have another discussion with you.

I certainly agree that probabilistic reasoning methods aid in scientific understanding of synaptic transmission and the underlying (bio)chemistry.

But is that brain function? A better reference might help others...

In the limited scope of so-called Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), which maybe have something to say about actual brains, there is nothing probabilistic about the parameter adjustments, except of course for those which explicitly include pseudo-random numbers in the adjustment stages. What often occurs is some statistical reasoning regarding the quality of the results. But that has nothing, with the stated exception, to do with the algorithms employed.

In Paul Nelson's defense, it seems to me that the link between "matter" as we generally understand it and "agents" as we generally understand them remains fascinatingly incomplete.

While it's possible to say that "the conscious mind is nothing more than matter doing what matter does", I don't think this is really a scientifically meaningful statement, because we don't (yet) understand how consciousness comes about from the action of matter and energy.

As for consciousness, we understand a lot more than you are probably aware of. Much of what Dan Dennett wrote in Consciousness Explained, which reflected the best scientific hypotheses of the time, has been borne out by further research. Consider the prediction at the very end of his book:

Prediction: There will be conditions under which subjects will be completely oblivious to the fact that large portions of "the background" are being abruptly changed in color. Why? Because the parafoveal visual system is primarily an alarm system, composed of sentries designed to call for saccades when change is noticed; such systems would not bother keeping track of insignificant colors between fixations, and hence would have nothing left over with which to compare the new color.

— Dennett

This prediction has been borne out, and then some; you can see this effect (of your own brain) yourself by googling "change blindness".

Glen D --- You have previously shown quite a penchant for insults. So I'll not try to have another discussion with you.

I certainly agree that probabilistic reasoning methods aid in scientific understanding of synaptic transmission and the underlying (bio)chemistry. But is that brain function? A better reference might help others...

In the limited scope of so-called Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), which maybe have something to say about actual brains, there is nothing probabilistic about the parameter adjustments, except of course for those which explicitly include pseudo-random numbers in the adjustment stages. What often occurs is some statistical reasoning regarding the quality of the results. But that has nothing, with the stated exception, to do with the algorithms employed.

(whereas neural net computation would fit the definition of "algorithmic computation" rather better)

Glen D -- Ok, "probabilistic workings of the brain". What about, by way of analogy, probabilistic workings of the computer? Well, I suspect the computer engineer would say that these are largely eliminated, there being only the low-level probabilistic workings of the semiconductors in the transistors, and by design, these can largely be ignored.

Now a brain is not just a mass of synaptic junctions. (And while created by gene expression, etc., your re-mentioning of such just shows you want to win an argument, no matter how dishonestly.)

But then I don't know much about the workings of the brain. I only took a one-quarter course in psychobiology from Roger Sperry and another on the details of synaptic transmission and nerves generally, all this in the 1960s. I haven't tried to keep up, except in the most general way.

But you still haven't posted an authoritative reference to the probabilistic workings of the brain, only to analysis of synaptic transmission. That is certainly not the same, from everything I learned from Roger Sperry and his TA, Mike Gazzinga...

Glen D --- Ok, "probabilistic workings of the brain". What about, by way of analogy, probabilistic workings of the computer? Well, I suspect the computer engineer would say that these are largely eliminated, there being only the low-level probabilistic workings of the semiconductors in the transistors, and by design, these can largely be ignored.

Now a brain is not just a mass of synaptic junctions.

(And while created by gene expression, etc., your re-mentioning of such just shows you want to win an argument, no matter how dishonestly.)

But then I don't know much about the workings of the brain. I only took a one-quarter course in psychobiology from Roger Sperry and another on the details of synaptic transmission and nerves generally, all this in the 1960s. I haven't tried to keep up, except in the most general way.

But you still haven't posted an authoritative reference to the probabilistic workings of the brain, only to analysis of synaptic transmission.

Review Nature Reviews Neuroscience 7, 358-366 (May 2006) | doi:10.1038/nrn1888 Neural correlations, population coding and computation Bruno B. Averbeck1, Peter E. Latham2 and Alexandre Pouget1 About the authors Top of pageAbstractHow the brain encodes information in population activity, and how it combines and manipulates that activity as it carries out computations, are questions that lie at the heart of systems neuroscience. During the past decade, with the advent of multi-electrode recording and improved theoretical models, these questions have begun to yield answers. However, a complete understanding of neuronal variability, and, in particular, how it affects population codes, is missing. This is because variability in the brain is typically correlated, and although the exact effects of these correlations are not known, it is known that they can be large. Here, we review studies that address the interaction between neuronal noise and population codes, and discuss their implications for population coding in general.

That is certainly not the same, from everything I learned from Roger Sperry and his TA, Mike Gazzinga...

Abstract (Document Summary) Some ideas about the structural and functional nature of organization and self-organization processes and their evolutionary dynamics are considered from the standpoint of organization, control and information activity in brain cellular and system structures. Full Text (3088 words) Copyright MCB UP Limited (MCB) 2000 O.G. Chorayan: Research Institute of Neurocybernetics, Department of Physiology, State University, Rostov on Don, Russia G.O. Chorayan: Research Institute of Neurocybernetics, Department of Physiology, State University, Rostov on Don, Russia ... Redundancy of neural elements and connections between nerve cells in cell ensembles as characteristics of the structural and functional organization of the central neuron associations leads to multifunctionality underlined flexibility of neural mechanisms and their high compensating properties. The probabilistic rather than definitely compulsory nature of individual nerve cells participation leading to relative interchangeability of elements ensures greater reliability of neuron mechanisms. The ensemble organization of nerve cells in the central neural structures makes the realization of the ensemble functions largely independent of the state of any given cells. Therefore, malfunction of any single cell (or even of a number of cells) does not influence significantly the function of the ensemble as a whole. The mobile structure of nerve cells ensembles is made possible by probabilistic participation of nerve cells ensembles in providing the great flexibility of interneuronal connections and plasticity of the higher brain functions. The essence of optimal self-regulation in the nervous system under various functioning conditions and under stochastic conditions of the environment is operative organization, creation of redundancy by various means (duplicating, multifunctionality, high speed and potentially unlimited communication conditions in cerebral nerve networks, etc.) and in realizing any activity program and any informational function. The advantage of the statistical organization compared with the rigid type consists of that final realization of a certain act of neural activity based on the dynamic mosaic of excited and inhibited nerve cell ensembles only marginally depends on the state of separate elements and is tolerant of flexiblity, and the nature of the function realization greatly contributes to their high reliability by the probabilistic nature of integration of single nerve cells into a certain nerve cell ensemble at each particular instance (Burns, 1968; Moore et al., 1966; Chorayan, 1982a,b). ...

Glen D --- Now those are excellent references! Thank you.

I will point out, however, that some of these refer to probabilistic model, which I suspect has not been well confirmed. That's ok, it is clear that neuroscience has still a long way to go.

I'm perfectly willing to consider probabilistic models of various workings of the brain, provided there is some form of confirmatory evidence. It seems to be building.

Thanks again for going to the work of finding those references...

That's ok, it is clear that neuroscience has still a long way to go.

Glen D --- Now those are excellent references! Thank you.

I will point out, however, that some of these refer to probabilistic model, which I suspect has not been well confirmed. That's ok, it is clear that neuroscience has still a long way to go.

I'm perfectly willing to consider probabilistic models of various workings of the brain, provided there is some form of confirmatory evidence. It seems to be building.

Sir TJ --- The exchange between Glen D and me occurred because I asked for references for probabilistic workings of the brain. Since there seems there was some misunderstanding regarding what constitutes the brain, in the usual way of merely posted comment exchanges, it took several messages to straighten out.

I have a grandson who suffers very badly from gran mal epilepsy. If neuroscience was well advanced, there might be a decent remedy. His father, a practicing young M.D., keeps up on proposed treatments and tries several. The latest seems to be helping, somewhat.

Lets just leave it at that.

Okay, Okay Every one calm down. Lets not throw accusations of liar and other intremerate remarks around here, thank you.

I have a grandson who suffers very badly from gran mal epilepsy. If neuroscience was well advanced, there might be a decent remedy.

— David B. Benson

Ian, spear-making chimps are agents, sure.

— Paul Nelson

I just saw an article about a chimp in criminal proceedings for murdering and eating a bushbaby.

— Paul Nelson

I just saw an article about a chimp in criminal proceedings for murdering and eating a bushbaby.

I think you will find that an error (or spoof).

I wonder what bushbaby tastes like.

— Paul Nelson

Ian: Does chickenhawk taste like chicken?

Nothing of any metaphysical import follows from the fact that we have a concept of agency and assign, at times, responsibility to agents for their actions. That we sometimes recognize certain objects, such as wakeful human beings, as agents, does not mean that there's a separate category of entities --- we clearly also recognize these agents as physical objects subject to the same physical laws as any other object --- why not?

I wrote: I just saw an article about a chimp in criminal proceedings for murdering and eating a bushbaby.

I think you will find that an error (or spoof).

One final comment, and then I must leave what has been a stimulating discussion.

From criticisms above, I gather that many readers see me as opposed to, or indifferent about, the growth (deepening knowledge) of neuroscience, psychology, etc. -- i.e., those sciences that illuminate how human beings work. Nothing could be further from the truth.

My wife occasionally treats patients who suffer from Angelman's syndrome, or what it sometimes colloquially referred to as "happy puppet syndrome":

http://www.angelman.org/angel/index.php?id=65

One day on coming home from her office, she remarked to me (after seeing an Angelman's syndrome patient), "It's amazing, Paul, but these kids really are more cheerful."

Grist to my mill! -- says P's Ghost. Human being are strictly physical systems, subject to the same laws as rocks, and different from them in no way ontologically. A higher-level property such as "cheerfulness" is explained via lower-level causes (a genetic lesion).

Think about the "if, then" relations implied by Angelman's syndrome.

Then ask yourself why we would prosecute a parent who allowed his Angelman's syndrome child to starve to death.

When nearly the whole of human experience --- of moral categories, for instance --- turns out to be a convenient fiction ("well, yes, sometimes we say people are 'responsible' for their actions, but that's just a manner of speaking, an attitude we happen to adopt towards what are, in fact, strictly physical systems"), I want to take a close look at the philosophical doctrine driving the analysis.

Paul Nelson writes: Linsky found himself arguing with two acquaintances about the concept of "miracle." A miracle, they said, is any event for which we cannot, in principle, provide a causal story in terms of known physical entities or processes. After hearing this, Linsky got up from his chair, walked around the room, and sat back down again. Was that a miracle? Linsky asked them. No, they replied. We can explain what you just did via known physical processes. We have an adequate physical explanation. All right, said Linsky vehemently, let's have it! Give me the physical explanation. No, they replied, we meant in principle. Well, "in principle," they didn't know jack.

This reminds me strikingly of an exchange I once had with Jeff Shallit about related matters. In that exchange, I related an episode involving one of my graduate mentors, the philosopher of science Leonard Linsky, that may be of interest here. I apologize for the length.

Linsky found himself arguing with two acquaintances about the concept of "miracle." A miracle, they said, is any event for which we cannot, in principle, provide a causal story in terms of known physical entities or processes.

After hearing this, Linsky got up from his chair, walked around the room, and sat back down again. Was that a miracle? Linsky asked them. No, they replied. We can explain what you just did via known physical processes. We have an adequate physical explanation. All right, said Linsky vehemently, let's have it! Give me the physical explanation.

No, they replied, we meant in principle.

Well, "in principle," they didn't know jack. Now, Linsky wasn't saying miracles occurred; rather, he was challenging their definition of "miracle" as analytically unsound.

The point he conveyed to me on retelling this story, however, was the widespread abuse of "in principle" claims as surrogates for genuine knowledge. It was clear to me in my exchange with Shallit that he didn't have dollar one, so to speak, to support his knowledge claims about the reducibility of agents to physics.

Nor does Popper's Ghost. Popper's Ghost writes his posts here: that's the true explanation.

The physical (non-Popper's Ghost story, where he disappears on analysis) is nowhere to be found, because it doesn't actually exist as knowledge that can be conveyed to others. To say that the physical story exists "in principle" is to hide behind a phrase.

Whereas the proposition "There is a person [an unique agent] who uses the pseudonym 'Popper's Ghost' to contribute prose to the blog Panda's Thumb" is true and causally sufficient for all the ordinary tasks of explanation and understanding.

We could even call it science --- knowledge --- except Popper's Ghost would go postal again.

Paul's argument is nothing much different from Behe's argument against Darwinian pathways that explain the flagella. Unless we know the full details, perhaps down to atomic interactions that led to the flagella, we cannot exclude the need for agency. However, agency also requires explanations as to how the flagella arose. Just because we have defined a concept called 'agency' to reflect our ignorance, does not mean that ID's position should be privileged. In fact, given the success of science to infer agency using its scientific methods, and given ID's inability to do anything in this area, we should come to the simple conclusion that ID's approach is flawed.

Is agency reducible to laws of nature and chance? Advertising thinks so, as does Amazon. Of course regularities here mean preferences, past behavior etc and there is a sense of 'chaos' present which will make it harder to predict future behavior (just like weather and climate).

In fact, despite all the physics involved in weather we can only predict it reliably for a few days in the future, for anything further out we use statistical models. And the same really applies to agency.

If Paul believes that agency is somehow a different concept then it is his task to show this to be the case. Ignorance never has been a good explanation however.

This is an interesting discussion which of course would never have been allowed on UcD. What a farce, a bastion of pseudo-science.

What Paul Nelson is opposed to is generalization in science, or actually, in select areas of science.

Of course science wouldn't work without generalization, and of course our generalizations may turn out to be wrong in part, or even in whole (for most established theories and models, like evolution or the most basic mental models, I'd have to say that "in principle" they could be wrong in whole. In fact it is difficult to see what evidence could counter the massive weight of evidence in favor of these ideas, but we have to keep the window open "in principle").

Paul just has to wring as much as he can out of the familiar problems of induction, even as he relies on the scientific method with its generalizations when he drives a car, flies in a plane, uses a computer, etc., etc.

ID would have one accomplishment to its credit if it ever came up with even a new problem in science. That they endlessly re-hash the old ones, which are satisfactorily answered by results (you know Paul, what your side is conspicuously devoid of having) in most of science, indicates what a sorry little scam they're actually running.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/35s39o

One final comment, and then I must leave what has been a stimulating discussion. From criticisms above, I gather that many readers see me as opposed to, or indifferent about, the growth (deepening knowledge) of neuroscience, psychology, etc. --- i.e., those sciences that illuminate how human beings work. Nothing could be further from the truth.

My wife occasionally treats patients who suffer from Angelman's syndrome, or what it sometimes colloquially referred to as "happy puppet syndrome": --Snip address-- One day on coming home from her office, she remarked to me (after seeing an Angelman's syndrome patient), "It's amazing, Paul, but these kids really are more cheerful." Grist to my mill! --- says P's Ghost. Human being are strictly physical systems, subject to the same laws as rocks, and different from them in no way ontologically. A higher-level property such as "cheerfulness" is explained via lower-level causes (a genetic lesion).

"There is a person [an unique agent] who uses the pseudonym 'Popper's Ghost' to contribute prose to the blog Panda's Thumb" is true and causally sufficient for all the ordinary tasks of explanation and understanding.

Think about the "if, then" relations implied by Angelman's syndrome.

Then ask yourself why we would prosecute a parent who allowed his Angelman's syndrome child to starve to death.

Maybe Paul Nelson is saying fraud is the natural thing to do. Well, he and his cohorts should know; they just do what comes naturally.

And so, faced with arguments he can't refute, Paul Nelson vanishes in a cloud of pompous non-sequiturs...

As usual.

140 comments and nothing but Nelson fluff at the end.

Sad, really. I can't imagine what the guy does for a job. Nelson claimed that he had evidence for design, but he's never provided it.

Hey, I saw lights in the sky, once. It was ET. Really. You'd know it if you saw it.

A higher-level property such as "cheerfulness" is explained via lower-level causes (a genetic lesion).