20130130

Thomas Nagel and the Failures of Neo-Darwinism

Indeterministic philosopher Thomas Nagel has taken quite a shot at neo-Darwinism with his latest book, “Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False.” Reviews by neo-Darwinists show predictable disgust with the whole project:


Of course, this is nothing particularly new. Immaterialists have been fighting Darwin and evolutionary ideas for nearly two centuries. Nagel has been at it for a half century. Sales among the creationist crowd are sure to boom (it is #1,617 on Amazon). Nagel is, nonetheless, an atheist, which only proves that the philosophical struggle is not merely between atheism and theism, but between determinism and indeterminism. Taking advantage of the mainstream’s belief in finity, Nagel once again drags out the old complaints against reductionism. As I have mentioned many times, classical mechanism assumed there were a finite number of causes for every effect. When a particular set of finite causes inevitably failed to predict perfectly, indeterminists could invoke “causes” that did not involve matter in motion. Nagel has gotten famous for doing exactly that.

Like mainstream physics, neo-Darwinism is vulnerable to Nagel’s anti-reductionistic critique. Not having a clear “cause” for evolution, it has allowed Nagel to propose “teleology” as the cause. From Wikipedia: “A teleology is any philosophical account that holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature.” We don’t use teleology in the physical sciences. As my major professor admonished, it would be silly to say “the rock wanted to fall off the cliff” or that “water wanted to run downhill.” Nagel gets away with teleology, not because neo-Darwinism is materialistic, but because it is not materialistic enough. It runs out of matter in motion right where it needs an infinite amount of it.

I try to refrain from quoting myself, but I am particularly proud of this passage from "The Scientific Worldview" (p. 170-171):

“Requiem for Neo-Darwinism

Like all expedients, neo-Darwinism, the mechanism of evolution conceived as the combination of occasional natural selection and the gene as the organism personified, will meet a timely, evolutionary death. In a way, it will be sad to see this theory go. It was, after all, a deterministic improvement upon its predecessors. It guided biology, though errantly, through more than a century of progress. Its displacement will not be easy, for at bottom, the struggle between Univironmental Determinism and neo-Darwinism must become a significant historical phase in the eternal clash between the two great philosophies, determinism and indeterminism.

Today the scientific world cries out for a universal theory of evolution, but it cannot have one without overtly embracing determinism. In so doing it must discard the microcosmic bias of systems philosophy and adopt the univironmental view instead. The evolution of any microcosm is never a “self organizing” process, but the result of the reciprocal interaction of microcosm and macrocosm. The special relationship between evolution and biology must be destroyed. The midwives of the idea of evolution must yield their charge to a broader perspective. Evolution is not merely the property of every living thing; it is the property of every single thing.”

The fact that neo-Darwinism is subject to the flimsy arguments of an indeterministic atheist shows how much it is married to regressive physics. Neo-Darwinists really are not clear on what their mechanism is. They invariably believe in the “creation” of the universe, while denying creation in biology. The “cause” of evolution has been staring them in the face ever since Newton discovered the First Law of Motion. Evolution cannot involve any “purpose” as we know it, but simple motion of bodies already in motion. Those bodies cannot speed up or change direction of their own accord. The universal mechanism of evolution, univironmental determinism, predicts that whatever happens to an xyz portion of the universe is determined by the infinite matter in motion within and without. The “purpose” sometimes attributed to evolution is merely the result of Newton’s object colliding with another object in an infinite universe. Whether we call it "Least Motion" or "Least Effort" makes no difference. No microcosms will ever be able to speed up or change direction independent of the macrocosm.

20130123

Templeton and Quantum Confusion


Bill Westmiller writes:

I found this quiz of mainstream physicists interesting. Contrary to the impression of universal agreement on the fundamentals of Quantum Mechanics, there is enormous *disagreement* on a host of questions:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1301.1069v1.pdf


Thanks so much Bill for the heads up. I am not sure how representative this quiz could be, since it was taken at a conference sponsored by the Templeton Foundation. As readers may know, the foundation also awards the annual $1.5 million Templeton Prize to a ‘living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension.’ It is essentially a reactionary religious organization seeking to thwart deterministic interpretations of scientific results by supporting accomodationists. One of their most notable failures included the “prayer test” performed on heart patients (Stein, 2006). Legitimate scientists generally avoid having anything to do with Templeton, although regressive physicists seem especially prone to bite the apple. One prizewinner is even a priest and a professor of astrophysics. So, we don’t expect much out of the attendees of this conference, which was entitled “
Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality," held July 3-7, 2011 in Austria.

As you mentioned, Bill, the 33 out of 35 attendees who answered the quiz were all over the place with regard to the philosophical meaning of QM. In answer to the most critical question (No. 12) “What is your favorite interpretation of quantum mechanics?”, the largest group (42%) favoured Copenhagen, while none of them favored Bohm’s deterministic view, which comes closest to univironmental determinism. The rest advanced various flavors of indeterministic compromise.

Of course, all this was discussed in some detail in my explanation of the Third Assumption of Science, uncertainty (It is impossible to know everything about anything, but it is possible to know more about anything). The troubles with QM stem from the mainstream’s inability to accept what really happened when Heisenberg proposed the Uncertainty Principle. Classical mechanics and classical determinism lay dead on the auditorium floor. Finite causality had taken a body blow, but few besides Bohm had any inkling of the next step: the need for a new form of causality (All effects have an infinite number of material causes). In one fell swoop, classical mechanics became neomechanics, classical determinism became univironmental determinism, and finite universal causality became infinite universal causality. Nothing characterizes today’s regressive physicists better than their reluctance to assume infinity (The universe is infinite, both in the microcosmic and macrocosmic directions). That is why we still have Copenhageners. That is why we are still messing around with the BBT and the Higgs boson. As the conference showed, the jump from finity to infinity is impossible for indeterminists. It will not happen soon, no matter how many conferences Templeton supports.

No wonder that the authors stated that “Yet, nearly 90 years after the theory's development, there is still no consensus in the scientific community regarding the interpretation of the theory's foundational building blocks” (Schlosshauer and others, 2013, p. 14). Attendees were asked if there should be another conference soon. Well, why not, nothing like a free ride to Europe. They also could debate free will vs. determinism directly until they were blue in the face.

References

Schlosshauer, M., Kofler, J., and Zeilinger, A., 2013, A Snapshot of Foundational Attitudes Toward Quantum Mechanics: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1301.1069v1.pdf, 17 p.

Stein, R., 2006, Prayer doesn't aid recovery, study finds: Effect on healing of strangers at distance after heart-bypass surgery examined, Washington Post: Washington, DC, March 31.



20130116

Infinities and Other Worlds


Anon asks:

Could an actual infinity exist in other logically possible worlds, or different dimensions? Or if we say an actual infinity cannot exist, does that mean anywhere, including different dimensions, and worlds? 

With a trillion observable galaxies, each with about 100 billion stars, there are certainly a lot of “worlds.” They are not just “possible” or “logical,” but real—great evidence that the universe is infinite. Dimensions? We don’t need no stinking 4 dimensions. The universe is 3-dimensional: x, y, and z. Period. At PSI, we assume that an “actual infinity” exists, both microcosmically and macrocosmically. Indeterminists who assume finity, its opposite, invariably must believe in perfectly empty space. That they enshroud this belief with more than three dimensions is their problem, not ours.

Galaxies were first thought to be “island universes,” an oxymoron similar to today’s “parallel universes” and “multiverses.” Since the discovery of galaxies, we have discovered galaxy clusters and clusters of clusters. In UCT, we proposed a “local mega vortex” as the next step up in the universal hierarchy. Nevertheless, we would never consider this yet another oxymoronic universe.  

Infinity is the recipe for the universe. Without infinity, there is no place from which the constituents of the universe can come from. Hawking and Krauss must remain forever flummoxed. The fact is that the question-begging never ends. Matter always contains other matter. The religionists who claim that god created it all are eternally faced with the logical question: Then who created god? Even they can have no answer without infinity. The correct answer is that the material world goes on and on, without end. To posit finity is to join the flat-earthers in their imagined jump into the abyss.

20130109

Changing Philosophy, One Student at a Time


It's always great to get compliments from readers, particularly from especially intelligent, open-minded students who actually “get” what univironmental determinism is all about:

Anon writes:

I'm almost finished reading through your magnificent book, and wow! What an amazing work you have done. I'm an aspiring philosopher that is about halfway through undergrad, and I found your book just as I was becoming interested by the indeterminist ideas such as Whitehead's process philosophy which objectified motion, but your book turned me completely away from these notions. Learning about scientific assumptions has caused me to reconsider much of my notions of science due to the realization that my own basic assumptions were simply incoherent and not consupponible.  I'm quite grateful for your work on this book, and hope to apply the method of univironmental determinism and use the Ten Assumptions in my future college works and beyond. I have recommended TSW to friends and am looking forward to reading Universal Cycle Theory in the coming months.

Regards,

Anon (name withheld by request)

This is one of the main reasons I wrote TSW. Throughout the writing process, I read at least parts of over 500 books and papers, looking for the book that I ended up writing myself. Coincidentally like Anon, I also had been assigned Whitehead (“Science and the Modern World”) as extra reading (in a soils course, no less). It was to be my only brush with formal philosophy in my 9 years of college. Good thing we never discussed it or were tested on it, because it did not make any sense to me. Good thing philosophy was not required for the “Doctor of Philosophy" degree. With the mishmashed philosophy being taught at university one was likely to end up either hopelessly confused or nicely prepared to accept all the paradoxes and contradictions that indeterminism wishes to throw at you.

That is why it is so wonderful to see the progress made by Anon in such a short time. Anon’s story embodies what books are all about. It took me 7 years to write TSW, and Anon got the whole point in a few months. The excitement of discovering univironmental determinism and using it to solve problems that had been vexing me for decades was paramount. To see others getting a jump-start on applying it is icing on the cake.

  

20130102

Incompatibility between Science and Religion

Astute readers know that "The Ten Assumptions of Science" are the most reliable guides for distinguishing between determinism and indeterminism; between progressive physics and regressive physics; between logic and illogic; between sense and nonsense; and ultimately between science and religion. It is most deplorable that mainstream scientific organizations, such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, are rife with accomodationists. Those are the indeterminists, such as CEO Alan I. Leshner, who stubbornly maintain that there really is no conflict between science and religion (see my letter to the Wichita Eagle on the subject). And so there isn’t—unless you study the foundational assumptions in detail, as we have.


I suppose one could excuse Leshner a bit since he is the head of a science organization whose members depend on an extremely religious Congress for sustenance. After all, it’s not wise to bite feeding hands. That would be like the NRA attacking Smith & Wesson. Aint gonna happen.

This situation has been made quite clear by Jerry Coyne, a biologist who is a professor charged with teaching evolution at the University of Chicago. Turns out that students arrive in his course with a mess of indeterministic assumptions, the most destructive being creation, the opposite of conservation (Matter and the motion of matter can be neither created nor destroyed). The roadblock here is akin to the belief in free will, which prevents progress in philosophy. Removing the roadblock takes up much valuable class time. Finally, he just wrote a book about it (Why Evolution is True).

Jerry’s plight parallels the one we face in confronting regressive physics. Many of the folks who oppose relativity and the Big Bang Theory believe that all we need to do is tweak the math a bit, and the whole façade will come crashing down. Others like to point out the paradoxes and contradictions without exposing the underlying fallacious assumptions. Both approaches have been tried hundreds of times—to no avail. The main problem is the widespread acceptance of indeterminism and the ignorance that nurtures it. For instance, only 15% of those in the US believe in evolution, while up to 78 percent believe in miracles. My point is: If you can reject daily reminders of evolution and still believe in miracles, then believing in 4-D and the explosion of the universe from nothing is no big deal. Without a gross failure of religion, both relativity and the BBT are here to stay until the global depression completes its historical mission.
  
Here is an informative 1-hour lecture by Coyne entitled "The Odd Couple: Why Science and Religion Shouldn't Cohabit." We need a similar one spotlighting regressive physics.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ekc2Nn03IVM?rel=0&w=570&h=321