If you’re looking for a scientific world-view that’s rigidly empirical, and yet strongly indicates purpose within the universe, then do check out Robert Wright’s work.
Thing is, just like religion, science is not a monolith. Yes, most scientists are physicalists, but there is a growing number of people like Robert Wright who question claims such as “consciousness is the brain itself.”
In this video, Wright challenges Dennet until he gets him to admit that there is indeed to a certain degree directionality and purpose within evolution.
Score.
My friends, the atheist God of “Sheer Chance” is dead. He’s bye bye. Yours truly is against the notion that the universe and life on earth emerged by accident.
Increasingly, a ton of empirical evidence is showing us that there is directionality within the cosmos. There is purpose, and that’s a big deal, because such a belief need no longer be merely faith-based.
But hey, don’t take my word for it. Just watch this quick debate.
Here’s the video:
SudaneseThinker
SudaneseThinker
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
In the last part of the video regarding ‘avoiders’, I found his spiel about “enhancer, probabilifier…” humorous. I think he’s looking for a ‘verb’ where he’s supposed to be looking for a noun: God.
Also, I agree with Dennett that the hypothesis evolution happening with an underlying purpose or intentional direction is just as likely as evolution happening because it can. I think Robert Wright wanted to corner Dennett and get him to admit that purpose and directionality is a possibility whereas really admitting that won’t do much, and shouldn’t have been the focus of the argument. I see one flaw in this argument, which is that Wright is assuming that intelligence, is somewhat of a ‘proof’ or an end goal when it comes to purpose vs. ‘because it can.’ Framed that way, Dennett is right, both hypothesis are just as probable, considering so many species became extinct and only a tiny percentage achieved intelligence which seems a lot less intentional. I do not believe intelligence is the end goal, especially when we’re talking about purpose. There is mounting evidence that humans will cease to exist as well, but does that take away from their purpose? I think every species has a varied purpose that is not necessarily measured by intelligence. We as humans connect to God in a different way that other species do, but just because we can’t decipher their ‘communication’ doesn’t mean that they do not have a purpose. Framed that way, it becomes harder to say that evolution having a purpose is just as likely as it is happening just because ‘it can.’
Directionality is not the same thing as purpose.
Consider computers. Like organisms, they get more complex as time passes. But did the designers plan to make computers too complicated for any user to understand?
Evolution doesn’t need a purpose to work. G-d obviously knew this when He created the world.
We don’t have to look for purpose in a mechanism. Purpose is something we have, not something G-d’s creation has. Looking for purpose in G-d’s creation is tantamount to questioning G-d. Do we really need to do this?
Consider computers. Like organisms, they get more complex as time passes. But did the designers plan to make computers too complicated for any user to understand?
Don, I’m not really seeing your point. A computer is just a mechanical device that doesn’t do anything except waste energy, unless it’s got some software to run. So what you are really talking about is computer programs, not computers. And there is no “user” for many types of software. The programmers write the software to accomplish a task, without any human intervention. Artificial Intelligence is one example of such a program. And with AI the intent is to replace a human, not to be “understood” by one.
So, anyway… all that aside, I’m not clear on what point you are trying to make. Or what argument you are trying to advance. Can you clarify?
PY,
“In the last part of the video regarding ‘avoiders’, I found his spiel about “enhancer, probabilifier…” humorous. I think he’s looking for a ‘verb’ where he’s supposed to be looking for a noun: God.”
Precisely. But Dennet wouldn’t use the word God because his understanding of God is one that seems anthropomorphic and pretty simplistic. Lots of people who believe in God don’t prescribe to such an understanding.
Hence, Probabilifier VS Creator, or whatever you want to call it, at its core, I think it’s largely semantics.
Don,
Let’s just put it this way. Scientists like Fred Hoyle have shown us that twelve billion years isn’t enough to produce a mere single enzyme by chance. The universe and life on earth didn’t emerge by accident after the big bang. Something other than chance is pushing the universe. You could say there’s creativity involved in the process, or even a guiding force.
“Directionality is not the same thing as purpose.”
Maybe not. But in the example I explain above, the directionality in which the universe unfolded after the big bang led to life emerging on earth. Again, if we can trust the work of scientists like Hoyle, then we know this didn’t occur by accident. There was a reason behind it, and the unfolding’s directionality had an in-built purpose that led to where we are today.
It’s not a product of chance as too many atheists like to claim.
“It’s not a product of chance as too many atheists like to claim.”
The most violently atheistic scientist I know is Richard Dawkins and he always goes on and on about how “chance” has nothing to do with evolution.
Who are the many atheists you refer to?
Hi Andrew,
Chance, accident, randomness… I think this will clarify what I’m talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem#Evolution
Mutations may be random but natural selection is not. Given the early conditions of the earth is seems very plausible to me that life could have come about by purely natural means within the time that has passed.
I was not very impressed with Wright’s argument. While over time most of the life on earth has become more complex I would not consider this some sort of goal. Life only trends toward complexity so far as it is beneficial to survival.
Zoxus,
You haven’t addressed this part:
“twelve billion years isn’t enough to produce a mere single enzyme by chance. The universe and life on earth didn’t emerge by accident after the big bang. Something other than chance is pushing the universe. You could say there’s creativity involved in the process, or even a guiding force.”
What are your thoughts on that?
Natural selection can’t account for it.
“Chance, accident, randomness… I think this will clarify what I’m talking about.”
You misunderstood Dawkins’ point. In fact I have seen the program he wrote. (I believe the Pascal source code is in the book.)
The point is that evolution doesn’t need the “monkey” mechanism. The program shows how fast a million (or so) monkies produce the desired text (aka how the text is oproduced by random chance if given enough tries) and how fast it is produced by evolution (which is much faster and doesn’t ultimately depend on random chance).
The Wikipedia article on the problem focuses on the wrong issue. It’s not about previous knowledge the monkies would need to have. The only reason the monkey thing is used by Dawkins is to show an example of randomness and to demonstrate how evolution does not make use of it.
“What are your thoughts on that?”
My thoughts are that indeed something other than chance is pushing the universe. But that something is, for life forms, evolution. We don’t know (yet?) how the first anzyme was formed, but we cannot currently say that a mechanism like evolution would not work on a lower level as well.
There is creativity involved, yes. But the creativity is random. The process is not.
If you have randomly sized pebbles and run them through a sieve, the size of the pebbles would be random, but the mechanism that decides which pebble will fall through the sieve is not random at all. The result (a bucket of pebbles small enough to fall through the sieve) would not be random at all.
“Scientists like Fred Hoyle have shown us that twelve billion years isn’t enough to produce a mere single enzyme by chance. ”
Hoyle was an atrophysicist, not a biochemist. His ideas are not taken seriously by biologists. (And his famous steady-state theory of the universe has been completely disproved.)
One major discovery since his death has been how common simple organic chemicals are in the solar system. The “black stuff” that is found in comets etc is good raw material for more complex reactions to develop in suitable conditions on a planet.
People get confused about “chance”. The movement of a molecule in a solution may appear to be random, but when you look at a large number of molecules, trends emerge. For example, water molecules in a glass move around randomly; but when you look a month later, they have all evaporated. Put some acid and some base molecules in the water, and after a while they have almost all reacted, although the movements of each individual molecule are random (”chance”).
Given billions of drops of water (in rock crevices, or between grains of sand), each containing billions of simple organic molecules, reactions giving larger molecules are bound to occur.
Obviously the most interesting molecules are the self-reproducing ones. Nobody knows how these formed, or how many types appeared and disappeared before one got established, but there is nothing contrary to physical laws in the process.
Just wait a while, and more complicated stuff appears. What would be hard to imagine is that the complicated things would come first, and the simple ones later, or that the full complexity of life on a planet would all appear in a week.
“or that the full complexity of life on a planet would all appear in a week”
Six days.
He took one day off, too.
But it was an impressive sight as contemporary witnesses describe:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/sumerians_look_on_in_confusion_as
Don, that’s the second time you’ve introduced what seems to me an irrelevant argument to put forward your opinion! What do chemical reactions have to with creating life? Can you mix some chemicals in your basement (or in a lab) and create a living organism, Don? Ignore that question… since you didn’t clarify the first time I asked, I guess I won’t ask in anything but a rhetorical manner from now on
Just wait a while, and more complicated stuff appears.
That’s like me as a software developer saying “I installed Visual Studio, so if we just wait a while it will write an operating system”. Or something. Maybe to do the monkey-thing people seem to be enjoying, I could suggest that if we got enough monkeys together on enough networked computers they’d eventually come up with a better OS than Windows 7 or Linux, eh? What are the odds?
And I guess on the note where Andrew decided to introduce scriptural literalism is a good time for me to leave this discussion, anyway
What do chemical reactions have to with creating life?
Quite a bit if abiogenesis is correct.
Can you mix some chemicals in your basement (or in a lab) and create a living organism
If I had 12 billion years and the proper knowledge then maybe.
Drima,
You haven’t addressed this part:
I think Don addressed it better than I could have. I don’t know enough about Hoyle’s work to understand the reasons behind his claim.
“And I guess on the note where Andrew decided to introduce scriptural literalism”
??? When did I decide to introduce scriptural literalism?
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