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> So, it doesn't really seem we are disagreeing, it's just a matter of terminology. You seem to want to call every interacting thing 'physics', which you are fr

> So, it doesn't really seem we are disagreeing, it's just a matter of terminology. You seem to want to call every interacting thing 'physics', which you are free to do, but then I'm not sure what the value of the term is. Everything that interacts with matter is in the domain of physics. So if your concept of a "soul" (or whatever makes you a "dualist") can at least in principle be observed, we can count it in. It's then not "beyond this universe". It would also raise a lot of questions: Are souls "individuals"? If so, does every organism afford a soul? If so, where do new souls come from when the amount of organisms increases? Where do they go if they decrease? Is there really only one soul spanning all organisms? How can we test for any of these things? What are the consequences? It's perfectly fine to explore such questions, but I am personally not convinced that something like a soul - within or outside the realms of physics - is at all necessary to explain life or intelligence as the phenomena we can already observe. That's what we disagree on. > DNA sequences can be hundreds of billions of base pairs long. Perhaps, but the simplest lifeforms alive today have on the order of hundreds of thousands of base pairs. > So, if we could only depend on random mutation and natural selection, we'd need 4^10^11 attempts to hit a particular sequence, which is more trials than even a multiverse of universes can offer. Yes, but DNA didn't just form spontaneously, fully assembled. It formed from simpler precursors, which formed from simpler precursors still, all the way down to proteins which formed from the simplest of molecules. Those precursors don't survive because they can not compete with their successors. They could be forming in the oceans right now, but they won't progress because they'll just get eaten. There have been experiments done reproducing it up to the "protein formation" step. Anything more complex than that is likely going to take too much time to result in a new lifeform - especially one that could survive ex-vitro.

yters 7y ago
Even staying within materialism, it isn't clear that 'everything is physics'. For example, our computers operate according to the laws of physics, but the physical laws tell us nothing about how they operate. To understand how computers operate, we need to know a lot of extra information besides the physical laws. In other words, physical laws tell us nothing about physical conditions. This is why there are many other scientific disciplines besides physics. So, since this notion of 'everything is physics' doesn't even work within materialism, it is hard to see why it would exclude immaterial entities. And as you point out, the notion that Darwinian mechanisms can account for evolution of complexity and diversity is pure speculation. Which is why modern evolution theory does not use Darwin's theories. It uses mechanisms that we can see operating in the lab and in bioinformatics, such as bacterial horizontal gene transfer and empirically calculated substitution matrices. And the further that bioinformatic algorithms diverge from Darwin's ideas, the better they perform.
- gridlockd 7y ago
  There's a difference between the physical laws (that we know) and the "domain of physics". There's a great deal we don't yet know about physics that's nevertheless within its domain. Not everything is in the domain of physics. "What is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?" is not in the domain of physics. However, physics (or its subsets chemistry and biology) can explain how life may have emerged. Physics can't rule out that a god snapped his godfingers 5000 years ago and made it all appear the way that it does now. It can't rule out an immortal soul. It can't rule out that we're in a simulation, or that unobservable fairies are actually behind all the forces in the universe. For those cases, I like to apply Occam's Razor - not because it's true, but because it's practical. > And as you point out, the notion that Darwinian mechanisms can account for evolution of complexity and diversity is pure speculation. Random mutation and natural selection do result in complexity and diversity. This is a fact, not speculation. You can try it at home, on your computer. We do have genetic algorithms working on those exact principles. They're generally not preferable to more informed algorithms, because they're slow, but they do work. > It uses mechanisms that we can see operating in the lab and in bioinformatics, such as bacterial horizontal gene transfer and empirically calculated substitution matrices. And the further that bioinformatic algorithms diverge from Darwin's ideas, the better they perform. As we can see from computer simulation, pure selection and mutation is inefficient. If nature can find a shortcut mechanism that "Darwinian evolution" itself does not account for, it's not surprising that it would become a dominating factor. However, what makes you believe that such a mechanism itself could not possibly arise from natural selection and random mutation? Is it the improbability? It's a big universe, you know. We're not even talking about the probability of this happening on all planets, but on any planet in the universe.
  - yters 7y ago
    I think you are missing my point. Physical phenomena are not reducible to physical laws, and cannot be explained by the laws. You cannot derive a binary adder from the laws of electricity, and that is why computer engineering is not a field of physics, but is its own domain with its own set of laws. As for Darwin's mechanisms, I'm not speaking from personal incredulity, but from what I see reading bioinformatics textbooks and what leading biologists write, not what we are taught in high school. Darwin's mechanisms are only given lip service, and when the rubber meets the road in practice they are completely ignored.

yters 7y ago

Even staying within materialism, it isn't clear that 'everything is physics'. For example, our computers operate according to the laws of physics, but the physical laws tell us nothing about how they operate. To understand how computers operate, we need to know a lot of extra information besides the physical laws. In other words, physical laws tell us nothing about physical conditions. This is why there are many other scientific disciplines besides physics. So, since this notion of 'everything is physics' doesn't even work within materialism, it is hard to see why it would exclude immaterial entities. And as you point out, the notion that Darwinian mechanisms can account for evolution of complexity and diversity is pure speculation. Which is why modern evolution theory does not use Darwin's theories. It uses mechanisms that we can see operating in the lab and in bioinformatics, such as bacterial horizontal gene transfer and empirically calculated substitution matrices. And the further that bioinformatic algorithms diverge from Darwin's ideas, the better they perform.

gridlockd 7y ago
There's a difference between the physical laws (that we know) and the "domain of physics". There's a great deal we don't yet know about physics that's nevertheless within its domain. Not everything is in the domain of physics. "What is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?" is not in the domain of physics. However, physics (or its subsets chemistry and biology) can explain how life may have emerged. Physics can't rule out that a god snapped his godfingers 5000 years ago and made it all appear the way that it does now. It can't rule out an immortal soul. It can't rule out that we're in a simulation, or that unobservable fairies are actually behind all the forces in the universe. For those cases, I like to apply Occam's Razor - not because it's true, but because it's practical. > And as you point out, the notion that Darwinian mechanisms can account for evolution of complexity and diversity is pure speculation. Random mutation and natural selection do result in complexity and diversity. This is a fact, not speculation. You can try it at home, on your computer. We do have genetic algorithms working on those exact principles. They're generally not preferable to more informed algorithms, because they're slow, but they do work. > It uses mechanisms that we can see operating in the lab and in bioinformatics, such as bacterial horizontal gene transfer and empirically calculated substitution matrices. And the further that bioinformatic algorithms diverge from Darwin's ideas, the better they perform. As we can see from computer simulation, pure selection and mutation is inefficient. If nature can find a shortcut mechanism that "Darwinian evolution" itself does not account for, it's not surprising that it would become a dominating factor. However, what makes you believe that such a mechanism itself could not possibly arise from natural selection and random mutation? Is it the improbability? It's a big universe, you know. We're not even talking about the probability of this happening on all planets, but on any planet in the universe.
- yters 7y ago
  I think you are missing my point. Physical phenomena are not reducible to physical laws, and cannot be explained by the laws. You cannot derive a binary adder from the laws of electricity, and that is why computer engineering is not a field of physics, but is its own domain with its own set of laws. As for Darwin's mechanisms, I'm not speaking from personal incredulity, but from what I see reading bioinformatics textbooks and what leading biologists write, not what we are taught in high school. Darwin's mechanisms are only given lip service, and when the rubber meets the road in practice they are completely ignored.