Absolutely. And if you watch further, notice how they shut down the case with silly statements and arguments. It appears most of the Darwinists are trying very hard to disappear up their behinds. They might just succeed!!
Darwin's Black Box - Michael J. Behe and Intelligent Design
- Thread starter Laura
- Start date
Irreducible Complexity (IC) has been theorized centuries ago. For example, Cuvier in the 1830's clearly described IC. Now, Behe proposes that if there IC therefore there is Intelligent Design (ID). That is one of the main lines of force in his writings. Notice however that even Behe is aware that IC is not proof of ID as stated in his 1996 conference:
To circumvent the limitations of IC -> ID reasoning, Behe uses the simple example of a mouse trap. Now let's put Behe's mouse trap example in relation to his own definition of IC:
The mouse trap fits the definition well: it is a single system (independent from other systems) and it performs one single basic function (killing mice). Plus each part performs one single sub-function while they interact with each other in a sequential/linear way.
Now, are living systems single systems? Are living systems only performing one single basic function? Do we know for sure the function(s) served by the system?
To answer those questions one should be able to know to what extant a system interacts with its environment, to what extant it's connected to other system and also what the intent of the designer was (if there is a designer). Indeed the observer only assumes the presumed function(s) of a system through his limited observation. For example the Egyptians ascribed, wrongly, a tombstone function to the pre-existing pyramids.
Nowadays, cars are equipped with EGR (exhaust gaz recirculation) that reduces emissions. If one observers is not equipped with emission sensors, he might consider wrongly that the EGR is a useless part, or worse it is a detrimental part because EGR do reduce car performance.
The observer's mistakes were due to his inability to measure some variables (emissions) and to the wrong assessment of the car's functions. He might think that the sole function is performance while the designers had a multitude of functions in mind, some of these functions (performance VS emissions) being quite antinomic.
There is a bone of contention between Behe and his (neodarwinian) opponents. Behe claimed that the clotting system was IC and scientists discovered that it was not since the lampreys have a functional clotting system although three agents are missing from the clotting cascade found in most mammals.
Interestingly Behe's opponents use the non-IC of the clotting system of lamprey to disprove ID. This is a logical fallacy, Behe claims that IC implies ID. the logical consequence of IC -> ID is not non IC -> non-ID but non-ID -> non-IC. For example the following statement: "if you're Congolese, therefore you're Black" doesn't lead to "if you're not Congolese, therefore you're not Black" but to the logical consequence that "if you're not Black, therefore you're not Congolese".
So basically, to disprove Behe's points "If you're Congolese, therefore you're Black", his opponents found, say, a Mexican (non-Congolese) who is non-Black, et voilà!
One important question remains: is the clotting system really non-IC? I think here Behe became the victim of his own IC concept. While it works well for a mouse trap, it is more iffy when applied to non-linear interrelated and multipurpose biological "system" where the intent of the "designer" are not exactly known.
Behe followed many scientists by arbitrarily isolating a biochemical cascade involving a dozen different molecules and labeling it "clotting system" (one single system, one basic function). By doing so, Behe made some important (and probably wrong) assumptions:
a/ this dozens of molecules are exclusively involved in the blood clotting function
b/ this biochemical cascade is dedicated to only clotting
c/ No other system/cascade plays a role in clotting
d/ the clotting cascade does not interact in any way with other cascades or systems
Maybe the clotting system of the lamprey is different (three "missing molecules") from most mammals by design. Maybe those three missing molecules would be detrimental due to the lamprey specifics, maybe those three missing molecules do not stop the clotting but modulate it, there are so many ignored possibilities here.
Removing parts while keeping the assumed function intact is not proof of non-IC. For example a mechanics might take a production car and transform it in a race car. To do so he will strip down the car (remove the AC, remove the radio, etc.) in order to reduce weight and therefore increase performance.
If one considers the function of the car solely as to drive from point A to point B, then the function is intact despite the removal of weighty parts.
The mechanics designed the sport car, like the engineers who designed the initial production cars. The difference is not in terms of designing but in terms of functions, for the production car the functions are a complex mix of performance, luxury, reliability, cost, etc. for the race car, the functions are a different set of goals that is more focus on performance. In both cases there is design, parts are removed/added. What changed is the functions, i.e. the intent of the designer.
To falsify Behe's proposition according to which IC -> ID, his opponents brought up the lamprey controversy, an example according to them of non-IC and concluded that therefore there is no ID. As shown above it is a logical fallacy. To falsify Behe's proposition on should find an example of non-ID that is IC. Does such examples exist?
Now, let's imagine a conglomerate of various rocks partly fused together and then rolled in a river for years. It becomes a nicely cylindrical rock conglomerate. Humans use it as a rolling pin to spread and thin bread doe (here, humans have arbitrarily ascribed a function to the conglomerate).
Now, if you remove one part (one rock) from the system (the cylindrical rock conglomerate) it stops performing its basic function (rolling pin). So is it really IC?
The problem here is the function assessment and its intrinsic arbitrariness. It is humans who assigned a rolling pin function to the mineral cylinder, but what was the intent, if any, of the forces behind its creation?
According to official science this cylinder was the result of "random" fusing and erosion, therefore is it really non-ID, right?
The problem here comes from random chance, a concept actually foreign to science though abundantly used by darwinians and others. Random chance is usually a convenient term for things we don't understand. The fusing of the rock, the water erosion followed some physical laws (thermodynamics, phase transitions, fluids mechanics, etc.), so its final shape is the result of physical laws acting on it, where is then the randomness?
If it is physical laws that shaped this item, were these laws created? Is the shape therefore the (undirect) result of ID?
In the end, I think that IC while being an interesting didactic tool will never prove or disprove ID for the simple reason that at the core of the IC there is the notion of function, which is closely related to the intent of the designer. If the designer is 4D or 6D, it will be very difficult for 3D humans to decipher the exact intent behind this or that creation because it involves a level of complexity and intelligence that is simply behind our reach. If one can't for sure assess the intent behind a creation, IC becomes of the little demonstrative value.
For the above mentioned reasons proving ID might be trickier than expected. Disproving Darwinism seems more possible. In my opinion, Bryan Schiller in his book titled "the 5th option" did a briliant work proving the inanity of Darwinism by using their very own argument: random mutations.
Behe said:
To circumvent the limitations of IC -> ID reasoning, Behe uses the simple example of a mouse trap. Now let's put Behe's mouse trap example in relation to his own definition of IC:
Behe said:
The mouse trap fits the definition well: it is a single system (independent from other systems) and it performs one single basic function (killing mice). Plus each part performs one single sub-function while they interact with each other in a sequential/linear way.
Now, are living systems single systems? Are living systems only performing one single basic function? Do we know for sure the function(s) served by the system?
To answer those questions one should be able to know to what extant a system interacts with its environment, to what extant it's connected to other system and also what the intent of the designer was (if there is a designer). Indeed the observer only assumes the presumed function(s) of a system through his limited observation. For example the Egyptians ascribed, wrongly, a tombstone function to the pre-existing pyramids.
Nowadays, cars are equipped with EGR (exhaust gaz recirculation) that reduces emissions. If one observers is not equipped with emission sensors, he might consider wrongly that the EGR is a useless part, or worse it is a detrimental part because EGR do reduce car performance.
The observer's mistakes were due to his inability to measure some variables (emissions) and to the wrong assessment of the car's functions. He might think that the sole function is performance while the designers had a multitude of functions in mind, some of these functions (performance VS emissions) being quite antinomic.
There is a bone of contention between Behe and his (neodarwinian) opponents. Behe claimed that the clotting system was IC and scientists discovered that it was not since the lampreys have a functional clotting system although three agents are missing from the clotting cascade found in most mammals.
Interestingly Behe's opponents use the non-IC of the clotting system of lamprey to disprove ID. This is a logical fallacy, Behe claims that IC implies ID. the logical consequence of IC -> ID is not non IC -> non-ID but non-ID -> non-IC. For example the following statement: "if you're Congolese, therefore you're Black" doesn't lead to "if you're not Congolese, therefore you're not Black" but to the logical consequence that "if you're not Black, therefore you're not Congolese".
So basically, to disprove Behe's points "If you're Congolese, therefore you're Black", his opponents found, say, a Mexican (non-Congolese) who is non-Black, et voilà!
One important question remains: is the clotting system really non-IC? I think here Behe became the victim of his own IC concept. While it works well for a mouse trap, it is more iffy when applied to non-linear interrelated and multipurpose biological "system" where the intent of the "designer" are not exactly known.
Behe followed many scientists by arbitrarily isolating a biochemical cascade involving a dozen different molecules and labeling it "clotting system" (one single system, one basic function). By doing so, Behe made some important (and probably wrong) assumptions:
a/ this dozens of molecules are exclusively involved in the blood clotting function
b/ this biochemical cascade is dedicated to only clotting
c/ No other system/cascade plays a role in clotting
d/ the clotting cascade does not interact in any way with other cascades or systems
Maybe the clotting system of the lamprey is different (three "missing molecules") from most mammals by design. Maybe those three missing molecules would be detrimental due to the lamprey specifics, maybe those three missing molecules do not stop the clotting but modulate it, there are so many ignored possibilities here.
Removing parts while keeping the assumed function intact is not proof of non-IC. For example a mechanics might take a production car and transform it in a race car. To do so he will strip down the car (remove the AC, remove the radio, etc.) in order to reduce weight and therefore increase performance.
If one considers the function of the car solely as to drive from point A to point B, then the function is intact despite the removal of weighty parts.
The mechanics designed the sport car, like the engineers who designed the initial production cars. The difference is not in terms of designing but in terms of functions, for the production car the functions are a complex mix of performance, luxury, reliability, cost, etc. for the race car, the functions are a different set of goals that is more focus on performance. In both cases there is design, parts are removed/added. What changed is the functions, i.e. the intent of the designer.
To falsify Behe's proposition according to which IC -> ID, his opponents brought up the lamprey controversy, an example according to them of non-IC and concluded that therefore there is no ID. As shown above it is a logical fallacy. To falsify Behe's proposition on should find an example of non-ID that is IC. Does such examples exist?
Now, let's imagine a conglomerate of various rocks partly fused together and then rolled in a river for years. It becomes a nicely cylindrical rock conglomerate. Humans use it as a rolling pin to spread and thin bread doe (here, humans have arbitrarily ascribed a function to the conglomerate).
Now, if you remove one part (one rock) from the system (the cylindrical rock conglomerate) it stops performing its basic function (rolling pin). So is it really IC?
The problem here is the function assessment and its intrinsic arbitrariness. It is humans who assigned a rolling pin function to the mineral cylinder, but what was the intent, if any, of the forces behind its creation?
According to official science this cylinder was the result of "random" fusing and erosion, therefore is it really non-ID, right?
The problem here comes from random chance, a concept actually foreign to science though abundantly used by darwinians and others. Random chance is usually a convenient term for things we don't understand. The fusing of the rock, the water erosion followed some physical laws (thermodynamics, phase transitions, fluids mechanics, etc.), so its final shape is the result of physical laws acting on it, where is then the randomness?
If it is physical laws that shaped this item, were these laws created? Is the shape therefore the (undirect) result of ID?
In the end, I think that IC while being an interesting didactic tool will never prove or disprove ID for the simple reason that at the core of the IC there is the notion of function, which is closely related to the intent of the designer. If the designer is 4D or 6D, it will be very difficult for 3D humans to decipher the exact intent behind this or that creation because it involves a level of complexity and intelligence that is simply behind our reach. If one can't for sure assess the intent behind a creation, IC becomes of the little demonstrative value.
For the above mentioned reasons proving ID might be trickier than expected. Disproving Darwinism seems more possible. In my opinion, Bryan Schiller in his book titled "the 5th option" did a briliant work proving the inanity of Darwinism by using their very own argument: random mutations.
BlackCartouche
Jedi Master
Thats a very good point of course. As a research forum we are obliged to quote and reference reputable sources when making a case, and in doing so we give those sources a recognition of authority.
It can be a fine line, though, between giving reputable sources the recognition of "authority", and of giving ourselves over to that "authority" in doing so... Because doing so can end up succeeding oneself to that "authority" which would come to endanger our own authority - and snow-ball into a process eroding independent thinking, which is sacrosanct. I think that's what Joe is getting at.
I think you're exactly right here. Trying to prove ID is opening a can of worms. The best conclusion under current conditions as far as I can tell would be 'God' did it. A completed UFT might "make the picture crystal clear" as far as a hyperdimensional reality that supersedes this one is concerned, but we aren't there yet. At least not in the public domain.
So I agree. Disproving Darwinism is the way to go.
[This is a bit off topic, although maybe some of you can find parallels with DNA, don't know:
Yes, MI, but that depends on how you analyze words and letters. I'm not just taking about spelling (I should have specified that, sorry).
But that also can be argued. For example, "svx" = impossible, right? Well, not quite: In Russian, схватать ("sxvatat; ", to grab/have grabbed), or "vstr": встречать "vstrechat;" to meet), etc. Hebrew is a consonantal system, meaning that you don't write vowels a-e-i-o-u, etc. The latter are marked with special signs, but AFAIK, someone with good knowledge of Hebrew can guess them without those signs. So you get all finds of functional combinations like the ones you posted above. The same can happen with some vowel combinations. eg. iao = impossible? Not in Chinese. Just try miao, tiao, etc. and you have a lot of words! miao = 秒, 苗, 庙, 妙, 喵, etc.
There is another way to compare languages, and that is based on the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). It's pretty cool, because you can notice some similarities or differences which aren't apparent only with spelling. (E.f. Off [of] vs of [ov]); read [ri:d] vs. read [red] and so on. That can often give you "crazy" combinations as well.
Taking it even further, if you leave out vowels which are more "fragile" (for lack of a better word), when you compare languages you would compare only the consonant sounds. For example: milk (MLK) and молоко (MLK), milk in Russian. There are obvious similarities even if the vowels are different.). And if you include the API (physiological) rules, then like "v" and "f" can be said to be equal, or "r" and "l", "p" and "b", etc. So the possible functional combinations are VERY numerous.
It gets super complicated (and fascinating) when you stop being so focused on spelling. There can be recombinations, permutations, etc. And most important of all, universal looking patterns that one would have missed otherwise.
The alphabets themselves, well, I don't know enough about their separate "evolution" in history, so I can only guess that it may depend in some cases on human agency, an in others in ID. Just like, say, hybrids made in a lab today, as opposed to species made by "Nature". I both cases there is some agency.
Well, thanks for pointing out anyway, as it may not have been clear!
Hmm, but the problem may be that even it we think of something being "arbitrary" in that sense, there may be rules governing them. Like, say, our subconscious decisions. Strangers to Ourselves gives tons of examples of decisions made for a reason, even if WE don't know what. Thinking Fast and Slow is another one for "rules" that aren't visible to the eye (subconscious vs. conscious)
By 'alive', I mean that the system is not set in stone. There can be some more intelligence injected (human or not), there is some flexibility, etc. But I'm not so sure that if we knew a lot more, we'd call them "arbitrary".
True, in which case, explaining is important when something isn't clear. Your explanations above, for example, helps. As they say, if you cannot explain it to a 7 y.o, then you don't know the subject you are talking about.
So, I don't think it's so much about who studied what details, but about discussing things in the context of our forum, to help each other understand. Some may know more details than others, but we have to strive towards common understandings too.That's totally fine. The point is that while it's great to quote others who said it better, you also have to remain critical and if you are sounding like you are "parroting", you are not conveying that sense of openness even if you may feel it. We can all get caught up in that depending on our predilections/current research, etc. That's when other people and feedback are essential, OSIT.
Mandatory Intellectomy
Jedi Master
Hey, I did pretty well because you didn't use any of my examples! :)
Three-letter vowel groups are pretty common even in French, I think (eau). The Hebrew thing is kind of different because you have to pronounce the vowels even if you don't write them, and it's a different alphabet too. But yeah, you're right that there are definitely a lot more possibilities than one might think just by knowing English. Even just my native language has things English speakers can't pronounce. Anyway, this was really kind of off topic.
That all depends on how exactly we define "arbitrary" and how exactly we apply it and to what. As you agreed, explanations are important.
In the public domain (as you say), yes, hyper-d is beyond expression for many still caught up arguing over the Big-Bang as writ large, let alone IC and accepting ID; although MI hits on some great points for those who want to dig deeper (they want to know). In tackling Darwinism (head on as he did), Stove's Darwinian Fairytales hits on a great deal of simple examples that give Darwin and Co. a big zero, osit. I mean, Stove is clever with his arguments while pulling in those who pushed the Darwin narrative to its inevitable end - even in tandem with Darwin (yet many may not have ventured along the road of Stove's many arguments).
I think part of the issue is that we shouldn't read only with our brains, but also with our hearts. It's not that clear-cut of course, but we need to find our "center", something in ourselves to stand on and to fall back on, and that center has a strong emotional component. If we combine mind and heart in this way (and body too), I think when absorbing information, we are much better equipped to take a step back when necessary, and even detect "truth trends" and "lie trends". Because truth is much more than definitions and technical arguments, although these play a role of course. Truth is more like a line of force, a natural movement, a soul-deep vibration... or something like that. I know this doesn't sound very "scientific", but then again, the "scientific mindset" can go off the rails very quickly!
For example, I'm currently reading David Stove's "On Enlightenment", and I can kind of feel this "line of forth", this taste of truth in the book. Do I agree with everything? No, and I could certainly nitpick. But nitpicking is what people usually do if they cannot perceive a "movement towards truth". I feel that Stove doesn't take me on a trip away from infinitely complex reality, but is adding to my understanding. And as long as I can keep myself grounded in that "center", at least there is a chance of detecting such a trip into lala-land, should it pop up in the flow of information. Another good example is Jordan Peterson: is he right about everything? Of course not. Could you nitpick away his arguments? Yes! But it's hard to deny that in most of what he says/writes, he has the Force of Truth behind him.
On the other hand, there are those passages, authors, books etc. where something feels "off", where the force doesn't seem to go in the right direction. But it's often difficult to discern those things using abstract arguments, arguments about definitions, technicalities and so forth. It's more about taking a step back and processing the information with your whole being, including subtle feelings. In the case of the discussion about irreducible complexity, for example, at one point there's this feeling that talking about definitions becomes meaningless. The concept is something someone came up with to make a certain point. Taken as a whole and in the specific context, there is the force of truth behind the IC argument. But: Darwinists can and will nitpick about abstract definitions forever. Their hearts are blind. But we know better than that and should get back on track, namely recognize the "movement towards truth" and re-syncronize with it, lest we get lost in a world of abstractions where it seems as if we can 100% define things and come to 100% true conclusions, and prove something with 100% certainty. But we can't.
I guess this has to do with the fact that in our realm, we are separated from absolute truth. We can approach it, move towards it, dance with it, use it as a guiding star. But we cannot define it, we can't come to definite conclusions, not with our limited language and logic anyway. Perhaps we can "taste" it, feel it with our hearts, through a glass darkly, an informed reaching out towards another realm. But it's not clear-cut, it moves and changes, we cannot pin it down intellectually, which we often don't like - and so there's always the danger that we are tempted by rigid definitions, by the urge to build a nice box around reality and seal it, or by arguments that seem attractive and logical to us, but ultimately are not "in sync" with the movement towards Truth, and so we are lost in an unreal realm of abstractions. Only our ability to sense with our whole being can save the day, and since this process is so difficult and prone to errors, the best we can do is take feedback from others to heart, as kind of a "surrogate being" until we develop to a point where we can trust our own judgements - if indeed that's possible here on earth.
FWIW
BlackCartouche
Jedi Master
When I first joined the Forum, the Jordan Peterson thread was in full swing. I remember not wanting to like him because of what he was saying about sons needing their fathers to raise boys into men properly. I was raised not by my father, but my mother - a single female parent raising her only son the best she could. Those times my father did interact with me was, more often than not, negatively. As you can imagine 'fathers and sons' are very touchy subjects for me. When Jordan Peterson said this n' that about sons needing fathers etc, it really stuck in my craw!
I came to view him through an anger, even though deep down I knew he was a front-line force for good. So, when stuff was coming out about his seemingly naively 'favorable' views toward Zionism and through his denial/ignorance seemingly unable to see the full force of global pathocracy running the show, a part of me wanted to use that to take him down a peg... To take away his rightly earned "authority". I came to realize I was thinking with negative emotions, and knew it was an error; A wrong! Jordan Peterson is on the front lines shoveling some serious guano. I am not.
Upon realizing my errors of thinking and realizing no independent thinking could come of it, the perceived independence of my own authority was now corrupt. I knew this. I then knew I had to make, in my mind, a conscious effort to give a little of myself, my "authority" (for whatever its worth), over to Jordan Peterson to "make peace" with him, and in doing so peace with myself - thus ensuring my mind and heart is unified again... "Centered".
I guess my point is, it can go the other way too; I came to understand in that moment - that battle within myself between knowingly having to accept Jordan Peterson as genuinely a good soul (albeit with 'blind spots' to be observed and picked up on) and of my own unresolved resentments toward my father - that those are times we must give a little of our own authority to another's authority that we may had previously taken away from, and "make right the wrong" within ourselves to re-balance and thereby ensuring independent thinking is again "centered" of both mind and the heart.
I didn't mean to give IC any undue weight, and just want to add that I agree with your overall point: in the grand scheme of things IC isn't THAT important, and certainly not the be-all, end-all of intelligent design. I just thought you weren't using the term correctly - not that irreducible complexity was the only clue to design or anything like that. That's my inner nitpicker getting the best of me! I just think we can accept Behe's definition for what it's worth - limited as it is - and place it into a much wider framework at the same time, without being limited by it.
Intelligent design is much more than molecular machines and systems - it's DNA sequence and regulation, cell structure, systems that are functionally integrated with other systems, and all kinds of things we're probably not even close to understanding yet. And there's a much deeper design, I think, on the level of physics and chemistry, and who knows where else. Hope that makes my position a bit clearer!
I don't think there's much if anything at all that you can prove ISN'T intelligently designed, for sure. As you guys have pointed out here and elsewhere, even certain "accidents" in the form of damaging mutations and diseases and such could be intelligently directed in some way, from some other level of reality - like from the unconscious, for example.
As for things that aren't IC, some possible examples that come to mind: a hand, because you can cut off a finger and it can still function, like Chu pointed out. But the hand is still a product of design. It's "functionally whole", because each part contributes to the design function, even if all the parts aren't strictly necessary. There's some redundancy built into the system. Same with trees: cut off any individual branch or root, and the whole system will still function just fine.
But as you and Chu have said, all this isn't THAT important. It's just an arbitrary classification. It may be useful to make a point, for example, to point out that the bacterial flagellum is a really good candidate for intelligent design. And it may be useful to get a greater understanding of systems in general, which can then be applied to things like technology. But there are all kinds of designs over and above IC, and things that we don't know enough about to say one way or the other. And when you look at a complete organism, it too is designed. Like Chu wrote, it's a designed whole - a system of systems, all working in harmony, whose level of complexity is practically unfathomable for us mere humans.
In the grand scheme of things, it isn't that important to stress about what systems are IC and which aren't, IMO. For the intelligent design guys' purposes, it's enough to find several really good examples to use as evidence. And then the Darwinists can try argue their way out of the hole they're in. But intelligent design goes way beyond IC, even if the Darwinists aren't willing to even accept that the flagellum is designed. So yeah, we don't need to place any great focus on IC to the exclusion of the bigger picture. And we shouldn't, either.
I agree with that example, but I'll try to clarify what I meant. When I said DNA was arbitrary, I meant to refer to the nucleotides themselves and the way that they "code for" specific amino acids. There's nothing intrinsic about the chemical properties of GCT, for example, that means that it has to code for a particular amino acid. That's one reason why DNA is considered a code. And based on what little I know about codes in general, it seems to be a common feature of codes.
Take ASCII computer code, for instance. ASCII codes are the sequences of 0s and 1s that code for the characters that we see on our screens, like letters and numbers. For example, a lower case 'i' in binary is 1101001. But it could just as easily have been any other combination. In that sense, the specific sequences of 0s and 1s that code for all the different characters are arbitrary - they were the choice of the original coder, but he could have chosen other sequences.
The same is true of DNA nucleotides. The reason certain sequences of three nucleotides code for particular amino acids seems to have been that it was the choice of whatever intelligence wrote the code (whatever reasons that intelligence may have hadare of course a mystery to us, unfortunately). And there's pretty direct evidence for this arbitrariness, too: there are at numerous different genetic codes that have been discovered in various different organisms. (See here for the details about the ones discovered so far: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Utils/wprintgc.cgi#SG4) In these variant codes, codons that ordinarily code for a particular amino acid end up coding for a different amino acid.
Maybe there are important reasons for this that we don't understand yet. And maybe there's something special about the codons in our own 'standard' DNA that we haven't discovered yet. But the code is still 'arbitrary' in the sense that there's no hard and fast rule that says AGG has to code for serine and no other amino acid. It can code for other amino acids in certain organisms - it just has to be consistent within the organism in question. In contrast, something like water NEEDS to be formed from hydrogen and oxygen. There's no arbitrariness there, otherwise you could potentially form water using some other elements, like hydrogen and nitrogen.
I'll try to clarify how I used the word with another example. Imagine you discover a new species. What are you going to name it? Maybe after yourself, your child, the location you found it in, or something ridiculous (like Cyclocephala nodanotherwon - that one's real!). You can name it anything. But whatever reason you have for your final choice, it is ultimately an arbitrary decision in the sense that it could have been anything and didn't HAVE to be what you finally ended up choosing. There wasn't only one option, as in the case of water.
And in the case of a coder coming up with sequences of 0s and 1s for letters of the alphabet, he may have some really well thought out set of rules for deciding which letter will get which sequence, but it's still arbitrary in the same sense that he could have used another set of rules - or no set of rules aside from just making sure each sequence was unique.
In that sense, you can have a good reason for doing something - like coders and namers of all sorts do - and still have your decision be arbitrary in a sense.
Maybe there are better words to use than 'arbitrary', but I've seen it used several times in the these contexts, so didn't think it would be controversial. :P
You did!
But if we use the third method I described, then I'm afraid that we could use many of your examples. pkt = poquito (a little bit in Spanish, /pokito/ ; ppd = papada (double chin in Spanish), etc. And I swear they must exist just like that in obscure languages!
I shut up now....I had understood how you meant the term, indeed, but thanks for the extra examples. That was way clearer! I keep coming back to the fact that just because we don't see a rule, it doesn't mean there isn't one. You may say: "I decided to call that new species Cyclocephala nodanotherwon", just because." Or because I like it. Yet, subconsciously you may have picked on something that MADE you call it that way. A lot isn't known about DNA, and the way it acts like and antenna. As much as it looks "arbitrary" as per your definition, it may be picking up on something specific that says to code for serine. See my point? It's arbitrary from one angle, and designed/instructed from another. That another is what remains a mystery, so I'm just saying that we shouldn't assume that it's only arbitrary just because we don't understand the possible mechanism or motivation behind it. FWIW.
I think this points to something I stumbled across when thinking about DNA as a code and how to draw the line between a code and "just" some kind of causal factor. Is it as AI said (if I understood correctly) that the difference is that in the case of a code, the "letters", or the physical properties of them, could be different (i.e. they are "arbitrary")? And/or is it that in the case of a code, there is some kind of separation between the code and what it "codes for", as opposed to regular phyiscal causality à la billiard balls?
But the problem is that such definitions exclude unknown mitigating factors, as you said Chu. We simply don't know if DNA could have been different from what it is. I mean, it's difficult to imagine a scenario where the whole DNA system would be radically different, both chemically and in terms of the "language". Could be, yes... but then, the natural laws could be different as well, or the way crystals form, or... is it really possible to draw a line? There's just so much we don't know.
Regarding the ASCII example, in fact, the reason why it's "arbitrary" is that it's pretty dumb. In more advanced code systems (or even Morse code for that matter), as well as compression formats, the actual language is taken into account, so for example the letter "e" is coded using less bits than the letter "z", because it's more frequent in English (and many other languages). (e could be 1 and z could be 10101010, for example.) This means that the thing that the code codes for determines the code. So it's not really arbitrary, or maybe semi-arbitrary. And in the case of language, this "connects" the code format to the infinite complexity of language, the culture that produced it, orthography and so on. One seemingly well-defined technical thing like a code suddenly connects to the infinite world of facts and cannot be separated from it. And given the vast gulf between, let's say, Morse code and DNA, who could say how much of the genetic code is determined by properties we don't understand? Maybe it needs to be that way to speak the "language" of the information field? If there are "antennae", maybe the chemical properties of each "letter" matter - and maybe the spacial arrangement of different molecules/letters matter, as in Reiki symbols?
So again, it's difficult to draw the line between what is a code and what isn't. And the Darwinians actually use that to their advantage - I heard one argue that the whole DNA coding business is just a straight-forward, materialistic causal chain. And in a sense, it is! It's difficult IMO to argue against such a position without opening a whole new can of worms. Therefore I think these definition games have natural limits; they can be useful in specific contexts, but they usually slice a piece of reality and pretend to capture the whole thing.
Perhaps that's the reason why philosophy, which makes heavy use of rigid definitions and logical operations, can be great to unmask errors in thinking and to destroy abstract theoretical constructs that only lead to misery, but it's not so well-suited for a positive formulation of reality. There's a reason why the grand "system builders" in philosophy all failed. Hence Pierre's point that you cannot really "prove" ID, but you can certainly destroy Darwinism!
Again, FWIW. It's easy to talk past each other when discussing such abstract things, so I hope this makes sense and I didn't misunderstand what this whole discussion is about
