Re: NPR Publishes Pro-ID Editorial


John Wilkins wrote:
rev.goetz <jimgoetz316@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

John Wilkins wrote:
rev.goetz <jimgoetz316@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

John Wilkins wrote:
...
Do you claim that there are no stochastic processes in the universe
apart from computerized simulations of stochastic processes?

James Goetz

Quite the opposite - I believe that there are no stochastic processes in
the simulations, due to the digital nature of the computers. At best
they are pseudostochastic. Programmers know of the problems with
pseudorandomness.

The universe is analogue at the relevant level of description (and
probably analogue at the quantum level too, although I don't know enough
to argue for that). If there were no determination of macrolevel events,
then there would not be reliable stochastic distributions. That, for
example, things fall into nice bell curves from time to time indicates
determination.

My "determinism" is not so abrupt as Matt's. I know that given a very
slight and insensible difference in intial conditions, chaotic outcomes
will be different, sometimes wildly. But chaotic equations are strictly
deterministic. What makes the difference is not the process but the
initial conditions. So in the end it, for all practical purposes,
resolves down to a lack of knowledge, just as Laplace suggested,
although Laplace's strict determinism is not, I think, realistic.

Back to chemical processes - while an individual particle, whether an
atom of a molecule or a lepton, may have only a distributed likelihood
of forming a bond with another, nevertheless hydrogen bonds and van der
Waals forces act quite deterministically. If you mix the right reagents,
you will only ever get the same chemical reaction occur, not something
else. But you will get a distribution of isomers (some appreciable
fraction of hydrogen and oxygen will form OH- ions, say). So if life is
the result of a series of chemical reactions, and the right conditions
occur (temperature, rate of flow, composition of the monomers, etc.)
then life will *deterministically* result. The question is therefore not
Can life evolve (we know that it can), or even *Will* it (laws of
chemistry, etc.) but Are the conditions for life found in such and such
a case? In short, if the conditions are found, there will be life after
the right amount of reaction time.

Now it may be that the conditions are themselves unlikely - for
isntance, we may have all the right chemicals and general conditions,
but you might need, fo rinstance, a clay substrate at stage N, and a
volcanic influx of materials at stage O, to get our form of life. In
this case it becomes less likely. But it is still possible that *some*
kind of life - perhaps one that lacks DNA byt uses some protein-nucleic
acid substrate, or one that lacks compartmentalisation, and so on for
every physically possible SF scenario - will evolve in a lot of less
stringent contingencies. So while we might not find anything much like
our life when we finally get to the planets with the right conditions,
we may very well, and should expect to, find something worthy of the
name (dissipative structures that reproduce).

For some reason, I am not sure if I can pull together that different
things that you wrote in this thread. To help me understand your view,
allow me to ask a narrow question. And in this case, "nucleotide"
refers to RNA or DNA.

Do you believe that any given universe with the *exact* initial
conditions of the observed universe would inevitably generate
nucleotide-based life?

Yes.

I wish to ask you a narrower question about your perspective of
determinism.

Do you believe that any given universe with the *exact* initial
conditions of the observed universe would inevitably generate wise
humans with 46 chromosomes?

We have to be very careful here.

Do I think that if the universe were set up *exactly* as it was in this
one, that humans would evolve 46 chromosomes, that we would have the
populations structure and adaptations (and maldaptations) that we do
now, and that John Wilkins would be sitting at his computer typing what
I now am? The answer is yes, because we did, and I am.

But the exactness would need to be very exact indeed. If you allow for
*any* slop at all, even so much as one in particle difference by one
Planck interval the Big Bang, all bets are off. I do not think that we
are determined purely by physical constants or laws of physics, but
rather than we are also determined by the initial state of the universe.

Move down the tree of causal chains a bit. Ask, if the earth was as it
was 4 billion years ago, and all astronomical phenomena were the same,
would we have evolved? The answer is "yes", because we are the outcome
of causal processes subject to physical laws, and they *did* cause us to
evolve. But if there is some slop in what the influences might have been
- say the K-T bolide was smaller, or missed entirely - then there is no
necessity for us to evolve in that *different* world.

That *some* life would evolve on that Double Earth is certain, I think,
so long as you don't vary the conditions too far (like a sudden second
Hadean era in the Permian, and possibly even then). That humans would
evolve is unlikely under a range of plausible biological and external
conditions, though. As you get more specific, the range of conditions
under which that outcome can evolve is smaller, until there is one one
set of conditions that would allow a particular outcome. Actually,
that's not quite true - there are a number of conditions that would
allow us to evolve as we are, allowing for multiple realisability, but
even so that set if very small indeed.

I clarify that when I use the phrase "exact initial conditions," I
mean nothing short of exact. And if I am correctly interpreting your
reply, you claim that the replies of John Wilkins in this thread were
inevitable according the initial conditions. But then you seem to shy
away from saying that any given universe with exact the initial
conditions of the observed universe would inevitably generate the
replies of John Wilkins in this thread. In other words, exact initial
conditions do not determine an exact history but a "ballpark"
history. Do I understand you correctly?

James Goetz

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: NPR Publishes Pro-ID Editorial
    ... The universe is analogue at the relevant level of description (and ... My "determinism" is not so abrupt as Matt's. ... then life will *deterministically* result. ... every physically possible SF scenario - will evolve in a lot of less ...
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  • Re: NPR Publishes Pro-ID Editorial
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