Evolution breakthrough: There are ONLY Miracles!

[oldtobor]

Evolution breakthrough: There are ONLY Miracles!

 

Just like we humans cannot perceive and distinguish events occuring at nansecond intervals without the help of machines then:

 

Consider a mind from a parallel universe that perceives our universe only in time increments of 5 billion years. While observing our earth it first sees only stones then a moment later it sees humans. For this mind the humans popped out of nowhere already completely "evolved" since it cannot perceive the cause and effects occuring at smaller time intervals. Hence for this mind a miracle occured, or maybe it would consider anything that pops out of nowhere, no matter how complex as the normal way of things of our universe.

 

Now we can imagine other similar minds having a perception and being able to distinguish only intervals of 100 years or 10,000 years or anything you want. In this case it would always see other items pop out of nowhere like cars and computers etc. These minds could not distinguish each segment of cause and effects, the chain that brought forth a new item.

 

But we ourselves are actually in this same situation. We cannot distinguish events at 10 to the minus 50 seconds, we can perceive naturally at most a few hundred microseconds 10 to the minus 5 seconds. So then if physics is performing complex processes at the 10 to the minus 50 seconds time interval, we could not distinguish them or follow the chain of cause and effects. The end results would be a change of a physical system from state A to state B in a moment without any cause, a CAUSELESS EFFECT for all we can perceive. But this in fact is the reality since any change from state A to state B must occur in some time interval, but the interval must end somewhere. Wherever it ends, even if 10 to the minus 1000 seconds, then the change from A to B is a sudden jump, a sudden change without no further cause, A CAUSELESS EFFECT! This is in fact A MIRACLE.

 

Now if the change is from any state A to any other, no matter how complex, it will always be a jump, a MIRACLE ASSIGNMENT. In fact there could not be AN INFINITE CHAIN OF CAUSES AND EFFECTS SINCE THERE WOULD NEVER BE ENOUGH TIME TO EXECUTE THEM ALL, THERE MUST BE A FINITE NUMBER OF CAUSE AND EFFECTS AND WHERE THE INTERVALS OF TIME CAN NO LONGER BE DECREASED YOU HAVE THE REIGN OF MIRACLES. It matters not what state a physical system changes from A and into B no matter how complex, it is a miraculous jump just like a complex mass-energy configuration that pops out of nowhere.

 

It is an aesthetic perception that a simple change like a small movement is more or less miraculous than a complex change like a particle becoming a butterfly. At the ultimate time interval both changes are acceptable and possible since reductionism is not even operating anymore, there are no longer any causes and chains of cause and effects, just miraculous transitions between different states of a physical system, just like the mind that perceives intervals of billions of years.

 

Hence the debate on evolution is just a debate on where to assign the miracles and at what time intervals.

[Severian]

Why is it causeless just because you don't percieve anything in between? It can still have a cause, and can still be predicted.

[Skye]

It's not necessaily miraculous because we can provide a natural explanation.

[ecoli]

unless natural explanation IS miraculous.

[Mokele]

The major error is assuming that just because we can't see the interval, we can't know what happened. In fact, we can often do this by examining the effects of the process that occured, beyond simple A->B.

 

For instance, the being that can only percieve on a 5 billion year interval would see a dead world, then the modern world. Not just humans. They would see people, apes, monkeys, prosimians, reptiles, amphibians, fish, etc. They'd see all the similarities in the genetic code, and see all the fossils left in the earth.

 

Think of it like chemistry. I mix some ingredients, and one of the resulting products is cool, but I can't actually *see* the atoms interacting. However, I can see all the *other* products, and by looking not just at the products of interest, but also at the by-products, I can hypothesize about the reaction mechanism.

 

Just because the exact process is unobservable for some reason doesn't mean it's unknowable. Inferring these processes from known outputs is actually a big part of science (of course, you then have to test this inference, but that's a different matter).

 

Mokele

[In My Memory]

Oldtobor,

Hence the debate on evolution is just a debate on where to assign the miracles and at what time intervals.

One night, you leave the house with 50 dollars and head to the bar, and soon after you get really drunk on vodka mixed with strawberry juice, like really really drunk.

 

... so you wake up the next morning, you dont have any idea what happened in the last 8 hours, and you dont know why you have 200 dollars in your pocket now, or why your mouth tastes like talcum powder, or why theres a dead man in a clown costume laying beside you.

 

Its a miracle!

[Mokele]

Tried it, didn't work. But because it was just a dead mime, the judge let me off anyway.

[the tree]

Evolution breakthrough: There are ONLY Miracles!

I (and quite a few other scientists) have known this for quite a while, how is it a breakthrough? And why is it about evolution?

Consider a mind from a parallel universe that perceives our universe only in time increments of 5 billion years. While observing our earth it first sees only stones then a moment later it sees humans. For this mind the humans popped out of nowhere already completely "evolved" since it cannot perceive the cause and effects occuring at smaller time intervals.

How the hell would you get anything like evolution from those two images?

Hence for this mind a miracle occured, or maybe it would consider anything that pops out of nowhere, no matter how complex as the normal way of things of our universe.

I'm sure he'd get fairly used to it. In fact, why would someone notice something that only lasts for a single point in thier perception of time?

Now we can imagine other similar minds having a perception and being able to distinguish only intervals of 100 years or 10,000 years or anything you want. In this case it would always see other items pop out of nowhere like cars and computers etc. These minds could not distinguish each segment of cause and effects, the chain that brought forth a new item.

Perhaps not the cause and effect involved in little things like computers but I don't think the little details would concern them. They'd be a lot more concerned with watching costal erosion happen in the coolest way possible.

But we ourselves are actually in this same situation. We cannot distinguish events at 10 to the minus 50 seconds, we can perceive naturally at most a few hundred microseconds 10 to the minus 5 seconds.

Source?

So then if physics is performing complex processes at the 10 to the minus 50 seconds time interval, we could not distinguish them or follow the chain of cause and effects.

No, but we do have big machines to help us along the way, besides, science doesn't worry about following reality to the letter so much as creating models of reality that make as accurate predictions as possible.

The end results would be a change of a physical system from state A to state B in a moment without any cause, a CAUSELESS EFFECT for all we can perceive.

Just because we can't see the billion and a half events between A and B, doesn't mean that A isn't a cause of B, if it worries us to much then we just build bigger mesuring equiptment.

But this in fact is the reality since any change from state A to state B must occur in some time interval, but the interval must end somewhere. Wherever it ends, even if 10 to the minus 1000 seconds, then the change from A to B is a sudden jump, a sudden change without no further cause, A CAUSELESS EFFECT!

If an impulse is exerted on a particle and the particle begins to accelerate, then we have cause and effect, it's quite a simple one and no matter how detailed you get, they stay about that simple. They may well be some randomness but many scientists are cynical about this. The common misquote is "God doesn't play dice".

This is in fact A MIRACLE.

Why can't cause-and-effect be a miracle? Why do you see a need for there to be events without cause just so that there can be miracles? I fear that you are failing to see the forest for the trees.

In fact there could not be AN INFINITE CHAIN OF CAUSES AND EFFECTS SINCE THERE WOULD NEVER BE ENOUGH TIME TO EXECUTE THEM ALL .THERE MUST BE A FINITE NUMBER OF CAUSE AND EFFECTS AND WHERE THE INTERVALS OF TIME CAN NO LONGER BE DECREASED YOU HAVE THE REIGN OF MIRACLES.

That's just silly, there is an infinite amount of points between one second and the next. time is not discrete: the intervals may get as small as you like.

Hence the debate on evolution is just a debate on where to assign the miracles and at what time intervals.

There's a debate on evolution?

[oldtobor]

Quantum Electrodynamics states that particles pop into and out of existence all the time at a small enough time and space scale. As long as it is for a short enough time or small enough energy. I think it is h=dtde.

 

Anyways inside the Electron, mass-energy configurations pop up and disappear all the time so these configurations can be very complex and quirky like a full blown microbutterfly. So there you got a MIRACLE.

 

The point is that the miracle does not consist of the contents of the quirk energy configuration but in the fact that any physical system simply changes state. If the particle becomes a photon or a butterfly or a Ford Truck does not matter at all. THESE CONFIGURATIONS ARE ALL EQUIVALENT, THEY ARE ONLY A QUIRK COMBINATION OF MASS-ENERGY so any combination whether complex or simple is the same. The fact that a state CHANGES IS AN ABSOLUTE MIRACLE.

 

There cannot be an infinite chain of cause and effects, this would be impossible, so the chain ends where miracles begin.

[bascule]

Its a miracle!

 

ROTFL

[Mokele]

Has it occured to you that stuff that occurs at the quantum level has nothing to do with evolution? The 'lowest level' that evolution is concerned with is mutation, which is basically random. Even if there's some sort of quantum reason, it's still 'random' because it affects bases without regards to their role in the genome. Hell, we know the chemical mechanisms behind many mutations, but they're still classed as 'random' from an evolutionary standpoint, because the mechanisms do not specifically improve or damage, but rather have essentially random effects.

 

So basically, by appealing to QM, you've made the entire arguement irrelevant to evolution.

 

Mokele

[the tree]

Quantum Electrodynamics states that particles pop into and out of existence all the time at a small enough time and space scale. As long as it is for a short enough time or small enough energy.

QED, like any theory, is a model.

Anyways inside the Electron, mass-energy configurations pop up and disappear all the time.

Appear to, until you start considering the actions of the quarks that make up the electron.

so these configurations can be very complex and quirky like a full blown microbutterfly.

Yeh, pretty complex, but we've been overwhelmed by complexity before, and gotten over it.

There cannot be an infinite chain of cause and effects, this would be impossible, so the chain ends where miracles begin.

Oh of course! Now you've explained that it is impossible I completely understand! I mean, it's not like I'd expect you to think up some kind of justification for that. Oh wait, I would.

So basically, by appealing to QM, you've made the entire arguement irrelevant to evolution.

I don't think it was ever relevant, do you?

[Mokele]

Not really, no. But it's at least amusing.

[bascule]

So basically, by appealing to QM, you've made the entire arguement irrelevant to evolution.

 

I love people who make ridiculous arguments about certain phenomena being in some way miraculous, then stick "quantum" on their argument in a vain attempt to make it pseudoscientific rather than purely supernatural/metaphysical crap

[Severian]

Oldtobor' date='

 

One night, you leave the house with 50 dollars and head to the bar, and soon after you get really drunk on vodka mixed with strawberry juice, like really really drunk.

 

... so you wake up the next morning, you dont have any idea what happened in the last 8 hours, and you dont know why you have 200 dollars in your pocket now, or why your mouth tastes like talcum powder, or why theres a dead man in a clown costume laying beside you.

 

Its a miracle![/quote']

 

I get the feeling you are talking from personal experience.

[oldtobor]

Everything is really subjective. If you look at the surface of mars and say MATTER can SELF ORGANIZE itself into a human, it would seem impossible. It really doesn't matter if this process of self organization occurs in one shot as a magical assignment or after a billion years of interacting with other pieces of MATTER. The path from stones to man, from A to B is not at all important, it is just a design choice, like a painting, how many different intermediate pictures would you like ? The bible says there is only one picture, evolution says there are trillions, but it is only a numerical difference.

 

They both agree on at least ONE CAUSE AND EFFECT, but cause and effect itself can be perceived as miraculous or normal everyday events. That events follow some ODD, QUIRKY, AND VERY ARBITRARY LAWS OF PHYSICS means nothing at all, even a magical assignment that does not follow any laws of physics at a METAPHYSICAL LEVEL is just as valid. We constrain reality within our cause and effect descriptions discovered through interacting with physics and think that this regular scheme of things is general and always valid within all ranges, but this is FALSE, there are no general schemes only some that LOOK LIKE they work for us humans in our interaction with physics.

 

The law of conservation of mass energy is only valid at our macroscopic space-time range. At 10 to the minus 40 seconds and millimeters, particles pop up from nowhere, last some time and then disappear according to Quantum Electrodynamics. If you are within a much shorter time range of the lifetime of the particles, you would be seeing miracles all the time. Even because the particles that pop up could be a very complex and unique combination of mass-energy somewhat like if you where to see a computer or car pop up in front of you from nowhere.

 

So even the concept of miracles is only a relative concept compared to what we are used to seeing. Those that live at the quantum level would think our macroscopic level is a miracle since things at our level have a slow linear "cause and effect" type flow which would be really absurd for them.

 

Really even evolution is quite incredible and just about as magical as a god creating people from dirt. Think of evolution as MATTER that is capable of SELF ORGANIZING ITSELF through various processes and interactions and in the end you got a human. Now that is just as incredible as the bible!

 

Even more interesting is the basic problem of "what is an explanation ? ". Why is a sequence of "cause and effects" as evolution describes more reasonable or true than a one shot miracle assignment by a god or an alien computer ?

 

At a deeper level there is really no difference between the two "explanations" or "descriptions" of what happened. It is just an aesthetical, I would say artistic preference between the two.

[oldtobor]

What makes any configuration of matter-energy either complex or simple, either functional (to us humans) or not, like for example a Ford Truck or a stone or a butterfly DIFFERENT ??? NOTHING.

 

These are just QUIRKS OF NATURE AND THE LAWS OF PHYSICS and have nothing requiring any explanation of how they became, if they became or not, if they followed a chain of cause and effect or just popped into existence from nothing.

 

It is our human subjective view of things that assign things important or not, requiring explanations or not, meaningful or not. In fact they are all equivalent and the very concept of complexity is a purely ARTISTIC concept invented by humans.

 

The laws of physics are just RANDOM QUIRKS WITHOUT NO FURTHER EXPLANATION OR MEANING THAN THE FACT THAT THEY JUST ARE, THEY JUST POPPED OUT OF NOWHERE FOR NO REASON! Any other universe with any other laws of physics or gods or chains of causes and effects or any other ODDBALL QUIRKY COMBINATION OF ELEMENTS ARE REALLY ALL THE SAME AT A METAPHYSICAL LEVEL.

 

THEREFORE THE ORIGINS OF LIFE DON'T EVEN NEED ANY EXPLANATION WHETHER RELIGIOUS OR SCIENTIFIC!

[GutZ]

Right on man, I totally agree with you.

 

Seriously though. I think your definition of "Miracle" differs from others.

[oldtobor]

A MIRACLE is something totally outside any possibility of happening. Something that cannot happen from what we know and see as humans. Like walking on water gives the impression of being a miracle or rising from the dead. A physical system that simply changes state from A to B is INCREDIBLE, CANNOT POSSIBLY HAPPEN, IS AN ABSOLUTE MIRACLE, IS MIND BOGGLING!

 

A miracle is really our subjective reaction to something completely new that we see. The Internet was a REAL MIRACLE for those sensitive enough to perceive it, but we always wash down everything into everyday events.

 

THERE ARE NO EVERYDAY EVENTS, EVERYTHING IS A MIRACLE AND IMPOSSIBLE TO BE, EXISTENCE IS AN ABSOLUTE MIRACLE!.

[the tree]

A physical system that simply changes state from A to B is INCREDIBLE, CANNOT POSSIBLY HAPPEN.

There are two problems with this.

1. You are so far, the only one claiming that anything does simply change from A to B.
2. Who the hell says it's impossible?

[bascule]

THERE ARE NO EVERYDAY EVENTS, EVERYTHING IS A MIRACLE AND IMPOSSIBLE TO BE, EXISTENCE IS AN ABSOLUTE MIRACLE!.

 

I ripped my shirt.

 

IT'S A MIRACLE!

 

I spilled my beer.

 

IT'S A MIRACLE!

 

My cat puked under my bed.

 

IT'S A MIRACLE!

[insane_alien]

i caught his beer in my mouth.

 

IT'S A MIRACLE!

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

That's enough.

[Mokele]

Hey, look, the moronic thread has ended!

 

It's a MIRACLE!!

[oldtobor]

Cause and effect is when a physical system that is present in a mass-energy configuration A jumps to a new configuration B within the minimum time interval that physical events occur.

 

So if the minimum time interval is 10 to the minus 50 seconds, after this amount of time the system that was in A will jump to configuration B. Now B could be any other configuration, it could be probabilistic like sometimes A jumps to B and sometimes to C, it could be totally unpredictable like A jumps to C which is completely unrelated, for example a butterfly becomes a star then becomes a computer after 3 time intervals, maybe with a quantum probability of being very low, but still possible. Also the minimum time interval could be variable so sometimes the jump occurs after 10 to the minus 1000 seconds, sometimes after 10 to the 30 seconds etc.

 

So what is so sacred about cause and effect ? It is a sequence of pictures each picture could be anything, the jump has no cause, it is a causeless effect. Something that pops up from A to B without no cause or reason is a MIRACLE, CAUSE AND EFFECT IS SIMPLY ANOTHER WAY OF STATING A MIRACLE. We are simply used to seeing a group of constant regular transitions between mass-energy configurations which then become the laws of physics, but these laws are only models, the reality is that there are no laws of physics, only a sequence of pictures that could also become completely different from anything we could expect. So then any physical universe exists and is just as real as ours. Any sequence of pictures could pop up just like the ones we always see and this sequence is just as real and fundamental as the ones that we see regularly. Laws of physics are pure quirks.