the universe and space....?

It flat-ass doesn't matter what the number comes to -- it is what you do with the number that matters -- and Ican uses his result - the number -- incorrectly.

Essentially what Ican is trying to show is that in order for humans to get from point "a" in their evolution to point "b" (where we are now) - the number of operations that had to happen is enormous. He then "reasons" that since it is so huge, it could not possibly have happened without INTELLIGENCE of some sort influencing and guiding it along its path.

His calculations may or may not be correct. People with much better mathematical ability than I have indicated that Ican's calculations are incorrect - much too inflated -- but it truly does not matter, because the "reasoning" that asserts "the number of operations is so large, it is improbable, to the point of virtually impossible, to have happened randomly -- without INTELLIGENT help" simply does not follow.

It is illogical.

Here's a test for Ican - or anyone else who would like to take it. It is a very small example of the kind of thing Ican is doing.

Here is a typical 7 member poker dealing:

Hand #1: Heart Ace; diamonds 4 & 5; spades 8 & 9

Hand #2: Clubs 3; hearts 6, 8, 9; spades 7

Hand #3; Clubs Ace, Q, 4 ; spades 3, Q

Hand #4: Diamonds 3, 7, 9; spades 4; clubs J

Hand #5: Spades 2; clubs 5 , 6; hearts 3; diamonds 10

Hand #6: Diamonds 2; hearts J; clubs 8, 9, K

Hand #7: Hearts 7; clubs 7, 2; spades K, 6

TEST:

Compute the odds against these particular cards coming up in these seven hands.

Lemme give you a hand with that: The odds against any one of these hands is 2,600,000 to 1 against. So the odds against all seven hands coming up are, at a minimum - 18, 200, 000 to 1 against.

Now a question: Based on the huge odds against this particular array of hands coming up - can anyone tell me if I arrived at the hands through a random shuffling and dealing of a standard deck of cards - or if I picked these numbers in order to arrive at this particular array?

And if you could give your reasoning, that would be great.

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Frank Apisa wrote:

Essentially what Ican is trying to show is that in order for humans to get from point "a" in their evolution to point "b" (where we are now) – the number of operations that had to happen is enormous. He then "reasons" that since it is so huge, it could not possibly have happened without INTELLIGENCE of some sort influencing and guiding it along its path.

YOU ARE WRONG AGAIN

If the odds of an event occurring randomly are one in a moogol, but the event occurs on the average once in a googol, then it is logical to infer that the occurrence of the event is not random.

If we were playing poker with four other folks, and you repeatedly got dealt a straight flush, I would first infer the deck was repeatedly stacked and not properly shuffled to provide truly random deals. Then I might suspect other kinds of cheating (i.e., intelligent influence). Even if you got straight flushes only once every ten deals, I would suspect the event wasn't a truly random event and was caused by some kind of intelligent influence (e.g., stacked deck, dealing from the bottom of the deck, dealing from a supplementary set of cards stuffed up your sleeve, et cetera).

Natural Selection does not create genome edits (i.e., mutations) and does not procreate genome edits. Natural Selection merely kills genome edits. Repeatedly, evolution after an environmental disaster, proceeded to evolve more intelligent species and not randomly intelligent species, despite the fact that the less intelligent species repeatedly survived such disasters and the more intelligent species repeatedly did not survive them. The deck is probably stacked! Mech guesses a <what non-intelligence> stacked it. I guess a <who intelligence> stacked it. But we both agree the deck was probably stacked regardless of what or who stacked it.

Additonally, prior to the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 18th century, and of course prior to the introduction of SUVs in the 20th century, about 200,000 years ago, the number of different then surviving species hit a peak. Thereafter, that number has steadily decreased. Surely this too is justifiable reason for questioning the thesis of exclusively random creation of genome edits.

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The only logical answer is that they are random, and nobody will be able to predict when they will appear in exactly that way again - if ever.

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Poor Ican. He wants so much to think we are equivalent to a royal flush.

But the fact remains that we may be nothing more than one of those hands in the test.

I notice that Ican was not able to determine if the hands were the result of a stacked deck -- or if they were the result of random activity.

And each of those hands had higher odds against being dealt than the straigh flushs he said he'd be suspicious of.

NO MATTER HOW BIG THE NUMBER -- IT DOES NOT TELL YOU ANYTHING ABOUT HOW WE GOT TO THIS POINT -- BECAUSE WE DO NOT KNOW IF THIS IS THE POINT AT WHICH WE WERE AIMING.

Ican simply cannot acknowledge that he is wrong here.

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Frank Apisa wrote:

Poor ... simply cannot acknowledge that he is wrong here.

Another one of Frank Apisa's preposterous announcements.

More probable is "Poor" Frank Apisa "simply cannot acknowledge that he is wrong here."

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Frank,
I don't think that Ican is necessarily goal oriented with you or I as the goal. Smile

He seems to think that without some mechanism to improve upon (speed up) natural selection that an organism as complex as I could not have evolved in the time frames allowed by geologists.

This is not quite the same as saying that without a Supreme Intelligence we could not exist. But he does say that we could not exist as intelligent beings without something that favored intelligence as an element of survival.

I suspect that he is correct, the odds are against it, as a result of pure random chance. Not impossible, and it certainly is possible that pure chance is all that there is.

But I found a mechanism that tends to stack the deck mindlessly in such a way to favor intelligence. Not with humans as a goal, nor is any goal implied. Thats the way it acts on Earth today, and for the last few billion years. Quite possibly throughout the Cosmos.

Certain chemical compounds just naturally replicate themselves. These compounds are made up of common enough elements here on Earth, throughout the Galaxy, and there has been no indication of any others as far as we can see or imagine.

A synopsis of the arithmetic.
I imagined a worst case scenario and sought to see how long it would take for every possible combination of elements to be exposed to every possible variety of elements in any compound of 1,000 atoms or less.
In the worst case every possible combination would be tried every 90 hours or so. Ican figured a best case scenario (IMO) and found that life ( my definition of) would appear within less than a fraction of a second.

I regard "life" as synonomous with "intelligence". Personally I need to imagine nothing supreme. It's just as natural as silicon combining with oxygen. And it skews the odds of any given combination forming randomly something awful. Probably hopelessly Sad

.
But it also seems to make intelligence inevitable. Perhaps it will occur on Earth someday Confused

Yes there are still questions with this hypothesis. I hope and suspect that they are not insurmountable.

Did you get any bites on your proposed A2K gathering? Perhaps a thread discussing the idea would be warranted. Best, Mech

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Ican,
I think that you understood fairly exactly what my concept of "life-intelligence" required. Three dimensions and time are probably minimum requirements.
For a practical matter the simplest that I can imagine would need a combination of only eight atoms. The simplest that we have observed has something less than a thousand atoms.
This has been done fairly recently with an electron microscope.

Books on the subject of Kuru, Mad Cow, Alzheimers, and Chronic Wasting diseases in man and animals outline as a practical matter the difficulties of observing these "animacules" that exist on the borders of life-nonlife.

It's no wonder to me that we haven't "seen" the simplest self replicating molecule yet. In Alzheimers disease these molecules take perhaps twenty to sixty years to redouble themselves sufficiently to make their wherebouts obnoxious.

I suspect that we have already formed the basic "life forming" operations in the lab, but its too slow in metabolizing for us to notice. Also we don't have too good an idea of what or how it metabolizes.

It took some thirty years for us to find the animacule that is associated with Kuru and we knew within a 1/2 a cu. in. where to look!

(Another limitation of using "light"to see with also noted in OOU) :wink:

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cicerone imposter wrote:

The only logical answer is that they are random, and nobody will be able to predict when they will appear in exactly that way again - if ever.

"Purely Random"? Or possibly the deck is stacked or the dice are loaded a bit in favor of intelligence; naturally? :wink:

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Keep in mind, Mech, that I am not arguing about whether or not there is INTELLIGENCE influencing or guiding our evolution.

I have no idea if there is or not -- and I do not see enough unambiguous evidence for me to make a meaningful guess in either direction.

My argument with Ican deals with whether or not he can look at a complex event -- and say anything meaningful about how that event came to pass.

Ican essentially is saying that since the number of events which had to happen to get from "some earlier point in our evolution" to "where we are now" is so great -- it could only have happened if something were influencing it in this direction.

I say that cannot be done.

As a test of something similar -- I contructed a test.

I presented seven poker hands.

I helped with the computation and came up with a minimum number for the odds against these particular hands happening.

Now I have asked Ican -- and everyone else -- to tell me if I selected those cards to make that particular array (which looks random) or if the array actually was random.

Since Ican says he can do that bit of deduction from a test much, much, much more complicated than this -- he should be able to do it for this relatively simple test -- AND TELL US HOW HE DID IT.

I'm still waiting.

I suspect I will continue to wait -- BECAUSE IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL IF THAT ARRAY IS RANDOM OR INFLUENCED BY THE FACT THAT THE ODDS AGAINST THE ARRAY IS VERY, VERY HIGH.

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Frank Apisa wrote:

I have no idea if there is or not -- and I do not see enough unambiguous evidence for me to make a meaningful guess in either direction.

Really, Frank, that's not lke you! Shocked

I really have to give you credit Frank; your little card "sleight of hand" is quite an effective metaphore! Laughing

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BoGoWo wrote:

Frank Apisa wrote:
I have no idea if there is or not -- and I do not see enough unambiguous evidence for me to make a meaningful guess in either direction.

Really, Frank, that's not lke you!

Uh huh!

I guess I should have mentioned that before. :wink: :wink: :wink: :wink:

Quote:

I really have to give you credit Frank; your little card "sleight of hand" is quite an effective metaphore!

Thanks.

I sure am intested in how Ican is going to reason his way to an answer.

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meatwho!

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I think we may have a long wait, Bo.

You got cards?

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Frank Apisa wrote:

Ican essentially is saying that since the number of events which had to happen to get from "some earlier point in our evolution" to "where we are now" is so great -- it could only have happened if something were influencing it in this direction.

I am not saying any such thing. I have repeatedly tried to explain to you that I am not saying any such thing. This shall be my last attempt to communicate to you what I think is a common sense idea. If you don't get it this time, I'll leave it to someone else to explain it.

You are playing poker with 6 strangers.
You play for 24 hours.
A new hand is dealt on the average every 10 minutes.
The deck is reshuffled before every new hand is dealt.
You play for 144 deals.
None of the 144 hands you are dealt is a duplicate of any other.
None of the 144 hands 5 of the strangers are dealt is a duplicate of any other.
The sixth stranger, 12 times during the 24 hour period, is dealt a hand containing 4 aces.

I'm observing all 144 deals.

I declare to all who will listen: something is influencing what is dealt besides random chance.

You respond ......................... ?

Frank Apisa wrote:

As a test of something similar -- I contructed a test.

I presented seven poker hands.

I helped with the computation and came up with a minimum number for the odds against these particular hands happening.

Now I have asked Ican -- and everyone else -- to tell me if I selected those cards to make that particular array (which looks random) or if the array actually was random.

Since Ican says he can do that bit of deduction from a test much, much, much more complicated than this -- he should be able to do it for this relatively simple test -- AND TELL US HOW HE DID IT.

This test of yours has zero to do with what I have been asserting. I of course cannot draw any conclusions from your test. Your test has nothing to do with the alleged sequence of events in the evolution of life on this planet. I have said that also many times.

But if you played a gross of hands and one of those hands you listed came up 12 times, then I would conclude: something is influencing what is dealt besides random chance. That in deed would have something to do with the alleged sequence of events in the evolution of life on this planet.

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ican711nm wrote:

Frank Apisa wrote:
Ican essentially is saying that since the number of events which had to happen to get from "some earlier point in our evolution" to "where we are now" is so great -- it could only have happened if something were influencing it in this direction.

I am not saying any such thing. I have repeatedly tried to explain to you that I am not saying any such thing. This shall be my last attempt to communicate to you what I think is a common sense idea. If you don't get it this time, I'll leave it to someone else to explain it.

You are playing poker with 6 strangers.
You play for 24 hours.
A new hand is dealt on the average every 10 minutes.
The deck is reshuffled before every new hand is dealt.
You play for 144 deals.
None of the 144 hands you are dealt is a duplicate of any other.
None of the 144 hands 5 of the strangers are dealt is a duplicate of any other.
The sixth stranger, 12 times during the 24 hour period, is dealt a hand containing 4 aces.

I'm observing all 144 deals.

I declare to all who will listen: something is influencing what is dealt besides random chance.

You respond ......................... ?

I respond that it is your analogy that has nothing to do with what you are trying to sell.

I also respond that my characterization of what you are attempting to do is one hell of a lot closer to what you are attempting to do than your characterization of what you are attempting to do.

Quote:

Frank Apisa wrote:

As a test of something similar -- I contructed a test.

I presented seven poker hands.

I helped with the computation and came up with a minimum number for the odds against these particular hands happening.

Now I have asked Ican -- and everyone else -- to tell me if I selected those cards to make that particular array (which looks random) or if the array actually was random.

Since Ican says he can do that bit of deduction from a test much, much, much more complicated than this -- he should be able to do it for this relatively simple test -- AND TELL US HOW HE DID IT.

This test of yours has zero to do with what I have been asserting. I of course cannot draw any conclusions from your test. Your test has nothing to do with the alleged sequence of events in the evolution of life on this planet. I have said that also many times.

But if you played a gross of hands and one of those hands you listed came up 12 times, then I would conclude: something is influencing what is dealt besides random chance. That in deed would have something to do with the alleged sequence of events in the evolution of life on this planet.

Thank you.

You are correct...at least about the part where you acknowlege that you cannot draw any conclusions from the computations about whether the deal was random -- or if something (I) influenced the it.

Likewise, you cannot logically draw any conclusions about whether or not INTELLIGENCE influenced human evolution based on just the numbers that get us here.

Nor can you do it based on the fact that many seemingly unusual repeats of events happened.

YOU SIMPLY CANNOT LOGICALLY DO THAT!

But, in another thread you are supposing that you can better interpret the Constitution of the United States than can the Justices of the Supreme Court -- so I can understand why you suppose that you can better interpret science than can the scientists who actually do the science.

Your ego obviously has gone apeshit.

Stop supposing that humanity is equivalent to a Royal Straight Flush, Ican. Stop supposing that there are events in our evolution that correspond to a stranger in a poker game being dealt 4 Aces 12 times in a given sitting.

Then do the math -- apply the logic you acknowledged when you said you cannot tell if my test was random or influenced -- and you will finally see that everything that you are concluding is forced.

And perhaps you might want to gain some insights into your motivation.

You might consider the fact that you have tried a half dozen other approaches to this problem -- all attempting to force what you want to result -- and all have been failures.

There is nothing wrong with thinking that you can better interpret the Constitution than the Justices of the Supreme Court. There is nothing wrong with thinking you can show that the probability that there is a God is so great than the probability that there are no gods is virtually zero.

Many, many people "believe" stuff like that -- and my guess is that damn near all of them live outside of mental hospitals.

But if you are going to argue that delusion in an Internet forum, you are going to be told you are all wet.

Somebody get Ican a towel.

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That "something" you speak of has to be "cheating."

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Frank Apisa wrote:

I also respond that my characterization of what you are attempting to do is one hell of a lot closer to what you are attempting to do than your characterization of what you are attempting to do.

Do you have a rational reason for believing that? Post it if you do! You have posted countless announcements about what you think is true. Your defense of almost all of those announcements is non-existent. Those few defenses that you have provided are either factually wrong or illogical.

It's time you examine yourself and your motives with an honest eye.

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ican711nm wrote:

Frank Apisa wrote:

I also respond that my characterization of what you are attempting to do is one hell of a lot closer to what you are attempting to do than your characterization of what you are attempting to do.

Do you have a rational reason for believing that? Post it if you do! You have posted countless announcements about what you think is true. Your defense of almost all of those announcements is non-existent. Those few defenses that you have provided are either factually wrong or illogical.

It's time you examine yourself and your motives with an honest eye.

All I can do is to suggest you go back to your threads over at Abuzz - and read them over.

Your first few attempts to do what your are attempting here were not even disguised. You didn't call the influencer INTELLIGENCE - you originally called it GOD (Governor of Development). You then started to use god (governor of development); then you went to goe (governor of evolution).

I realize that you are in serious denial, Ican, but you are attempting to show that there is a God. And to be even more precise (since this obviously is an ego thing with you) you are attempting to show that YOU CAN ESTABLISH that there is a God.

You soften that a bit by claiming you are working towards probability of these things - but what you are doing is massaging your ego by supposing you can establish that the probability that there is no God is so small as to make that possibility virtually zero.

I admire the work you have put into your effort - although I am so turned off by your denial (which rightly or wrongly I perceive as underhandedness at this point) that any admiration I have for your work is erased by my antagonism toward your lack of objectivity.

And I am more than just a bit turned off by the way you veer in your presentations without ever acknowledging that others have shown you that you've been on the wrong road - without ever acknowledging that you were wrong in the first place.

Do what you have to do. I'll do what I have to do.

So far, I think you are batting close to zero.

If there is an honest eye that needs to be focused in our discussions, I suggest you can get in touch with it by standing in front of a mirror.

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Frank and Ican,

I think I have shown that we are plodding towards intelligence, mindlessly. Given the laws of physics as we are aware of them intelligence is a given result.

Yes, the deck is stacked, or the dice are loaded. But it needs no thing to stack it. It's just an unremarkable result of chance with life as a selector.
The selection factor forms the same function as Hoyle. One could also play poker with the rule that A-2-3-4-5 beats 10-J-Q-K-A, but in our game we have declared that human intelligence has the longest odds so we win. As far as we KNOW Exclamation

Frankly, I was surprised that it (intelligence) came so quickly when we did the arithmetic. I had thought that it probably would show up eventually but in less than four days after suitable preconditions were met. Even God took six. Smile

and there are more people imagining one of those than are doing arithmetic!

In conclusion, Ican is correct IMO. Random interactions probably would not result in humans in eight billion years. They probably would not even result in intelligence. But he is not correct in assuming that we are any sort of a goal. We do not KNOW if we are a goal. We do not have enough information to determine this. Any discussion of a goal is a guess, plain and simple. And a rather conceited guess at that.

I think that I have speeded up the formation of intelligence, considerably. At least I've explained the mechanism behind it's formation. With a little help from Chas. Darwin, and a friend with Alzheimers. But in no way do I think that intelligence is any sort of a goal either. It's just the way it IS, with no further implications that can be made from it, at least from our vantage point.

Best wishes to all here, lets wrap this one up tomorrow night, unless something different happens Rolling Eyes

Mech

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For all it's worth.....heh hm....I agree with it being a wrap. And every consideration has been interesting, one way or the other. ...really.
Thanks!
adele

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the universe and space....?

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