From: keithd@well.sf.ca.us (Keith Doyle)
Subject: Re: Probability of Evolution
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 07:33:15 GMT

Here's my response to several Kalki snippets, culled from a variety
of his recent posts:

kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us writes:
>So what is your point? That you agree with us that life was caused by an
>intelligent being? If not, then what becomes of your computer example?

Your argument here, at best is only an argument that the "design" of
the underlying rules was done by an intelligent being, NOT that the
subsequent direction the resulting materials may have taken must have
been a specific part of that "design".  And even if they were part of
the "design", this implies only that the original design utilized a
decent with modification evolutionary technique (which as my original
article pointed out, is a powerful technique that has been applied in
computer simulations which illustrate its viability and provide an basis
for evaluating the rate at which beneficial modifications can be
accumulated) AND that the process does not need more time that
was available which was the original argument you had made.

And your comment:
>But the best computer in the universe will do nothing without being
>programmed, and it will never be programmed unless a living person comes
>along and programs it. And of course the computer will never exist in
>the first place unless someone designs and builds it.

Is a completely unsupported assertion.  Another "argument from
incredulity".  Again, at best this is only an argument that at the
moment of the Big Bang was the last time any "intelligence" was
needed to "program" the results we see today, because current processes
have been shown to be sufficient to explain the existance of what
we see today, at least back to the point of the big bang and the
initial state of the "computer".  After that, all the evidence shows
that the "programmer" kept his hands off and let it produce its
results automatically.  If "he" didn't do it that way, it
implies that the "programmer" was an inept hacker who had to keep
patching his results time and time again, making do with less than
optimal solutions over and over again along the way.

From another of your posts:
>Of course, I have run the famous "logistic function" on my computer.
>But my point is that there are so many things that must be
>deliberately prepared by intelligent beings before the program can
>be run. The computer must be designed and built, and it must be
>programmed, and the initial state of the ALU must be set, and the
>memory must be initialized, and a controlled source of electric
>power must be found.

I take it then, you admit that once the initial conditions exist,
independent of any argument of whether or not they must be set up
by "intelligence" or not, that such a program CAN mutate and evolve
over time and increase in complexity (and therefore information
content), such as has been demonstrated in the Tierra program.  Or
would you have it that a supernatural intelligence is not capable
of reproducing something that a human being has accomplished?

>But we say no, there are nonmaterial phenomena which exist
>objectively and which have been directly observed, so that their
>existence is not solely predicated on faith.

So what conspiracy is preventing you from producing this observable
evidence so that we may all share in the benefits of its realization?

And as Loren King posted:
>Kalki, no one is denying that systems of inference and knowledge
>accumulation have to rest upon some untestable epistemic and
>ontological hypotheses, however provisional.  Given this, the
>goal is to minimize the untestable charater of these premises.

Keith

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