Abiogenesis

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Natural selection is a method for design. It works on all materials, living or non-living. It is merely the reaction of matter to energy through time. And it has no intent.

I never said it had intent.

Would "everything" in your statement of "Everything that occurs is natural" include the keyboard or other digital interface you are typing on? If so, then you have just made your point moot by definition.

If you are claiming that the naturalistic method is sufficient, then this would need to be demonstrated. Even if it were sufficient though, it would still only be a possibility. As a possibility, it is not a necessity that it was employed.

Incorrect. That simulation is based on a simplified model. In reality, organisms can change their environments and even have symbiotic relationships with each other that can be beneficial while that model didn't take that into account when evolving the fitness function. That's why the people involved with that project are planning to put in the added complexity. Sometimes with theoretical models, you have to start with simplified versions to tell you something about the process before developing more realistic ones.

That website was last updated in 2001, and one of the links is broken, so presumably this work would have already had been done? Let's assume that something useful can be produced out of components by using evolutionary algorithms. Perhaps "evolutionary Al-Gore-rhythms" is a better name. Does this even meet the criterion of sufficiency? If so, see above posts for rest of argument.

Also, even if the evolutionary algorithms worked, do they work better than performing the proper differential equations and other mathematics normally used for optimization in engineering?

No, it is quite correct.

Aren't you the one that said that proto-life was simpler? So on the one hand you object to a "simplified model" and on the other hand you complain that we expect to much complexity? What is it? Make up your mind: Did life began simple or complex?

Not that it matters, the point is just that its one of many experiments which shows that it's not as simple and trivial as you think.

You haven't got a clue how complex it gets. Read the Santa Fe Institute Bulletin from winter 2003, the center article. Fitness can be like a game of rock-paper-scissiors (or rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock)... which is the most fit? Does it matter?

Sure, but whatever they come up with it will not be a simple mutation-selecton process. They may even come to the conclusion that it's just not plausible. Imagine that.

What's the point of this question?

Does an experiment prove something? It depends on what your question is, I guess?

Well. thats just it, isn't it? I did not say that it was useless. I did not say that it could not generate anything. But what it does generate is not modular, contains no functional abstractions of any kind. If we can call it a design then it's designed by an alien mind unlike our minds in every possible way.

Perhaps not such an alien mind, if you consider the morphological similarities between the arrow robot of the Golom project link and the Gerber Folding Spade (link) which is most useful for digging latrines for the purpose of....

Last edited by iamnotaparakeet on 15 Dec 2009, 2:01 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Could you elaborate on that argument?

Why can't everything we can observe be artificial? Let say that we are part of a very elaborate simulation?

:D well, low-resolution similarities often occur?

Perhaps that is a way to separate the appearance of design from real design?
Only when the appearance of design persists in higher resolutions is it real design.

The pyramids and the face on mars had the appearance of design on the first low resolution pictures? But when we look at them with a higher resolution this appearance disappears. This does not happen with stuff that is really designed; the more details you reveal the more it becomes clear that this was designed.

edit: corrected

Last edited by Meta on 15 Dec 2009, 2:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Perhaps so. Sort of like clouds that look like things we are familiar with, as compared to the actual items?

There's also the issue, then, of statues. Statues that are realistic at least, they have actually been crafted, but they are far from the level of design of the person or things they represent.

That is far from how actual chemistry is done. Though you can play with the stoichiometry and add as many moles of reactants as you like, if the reaction itself will not qualitatively proceed, you still go nowhere. By adding in the Drake equation, it does not add extra chance for a nonworking reaction mechanism to proceed.

I'm sorry you do not understand the function of a question mark. Why did you cite the experiment? (Which you have elided from your reply, above.) You were attempting, I thought, to answer my request for evidence. It was you, trying to supply proof, to me. Not the converse.


Ah. So the evolutionary technique involved in this case (your second piece of evidence, which I maintain contradicts your premise) came from "an alien mind unlike our minds in every possible way".

I'm afraid not. Humans designed the chip, the algoritms, the target, and so on.

I didn't actually follow your link, before, as I recognised the experiment immediately. The "genes" used were just the PAL code itself. The circuit took a remarkable small number of generations (20?) before reaching a partial solution. A few more generations came up with the rather strange solution that worked, even though it shouldn't have, as it no longer corresponded to the PAL's design specs (and probably would not have worked on another instance of the same chip).

As to your insistence on modularity and "functional abstractions" - I just don't see what relevance they might have. in the context of the evolved circuit, above, I would not expect ONE other chip to latch onto the same solution. However, if the experiment were repeated on millions of similar chips, I'd not be at all surprised to see a large percentage of them coming up with similar, and often identical, solutions. Would that not satisfy your requirement for "modularity"?

Gosh, did I now define a method to testing for actual design where life falls in the Is designed category?

Who didn't see that one coming?

Perhaps that could be a criterion of design.

Let's see, to put it in "if-then" format,

"If the appearance of design persists in higher resolutions, then it is really designed."

The contrapositive, which should also be true, would be,

"If it is not really designed, then there will not be appearance of design in higher resolutions."

Would that be close, or did I reword it incorrectly?

Lau, though I have doubts of your reading comprehension in controversial subjects, I must admit that you are not using your ability as site admin to silence.

Congrats on being cool in that respect and thank you also.