Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Hmm. If you follow from your starting premise, maybe. The problem of 
> course that (3) is in error anyway. You can *get* irreducible systems, 
> without either needing them to be designed *or* previously existing. 
> Basically, lets say that:
> 
> GTG did something specific and unique, and so did GTT, but you can have 
> mutations, like GTGG, or GTTT, GTGT, or even GTTG, which work like their 
> original versions. So, lets say 's' counts as a stop. What you do is 
> start with GTTs, make a copy GTTsGTTs, then you mutate it a few 
> different ways:
> GTTsGTGs
> GTTsGTTGs
> GGTsGTTs
> 
> The last one of those copies is defective, but you still have a working 
> copy anyway, and it allows for later getting: GTGTsGTTs But, the GTGs 
> version would be "irreducible", once other related genes become 
> dependent on that form, causing the GTGTs and GTGGs, etc. versions to 
> "break" the system.
> 
> The trick here is, if you get several of these tweaks, which are 
> inter-reliant, the *intermediary* versions may work with a larger number 
> of variations and errors than the final version. At some point though, 
> you are likely to run into dependency issues, where your GTGs, or 
> variation **must** have that combination it in, to work with the other 
> gene some place else, which underwent a similar change, and in the 
> process produced new behaviors/functions.
> 
> Of thousands of genes involving body plan, segmentation, symmetry, limb 
> formation, etc., all of them are derived from a relatives *small* number 
> of codes. In some cases the codes are nearly identical for the gene 
> that, say, makes fingers grow, but the transcription and developmental 
> code is different, producing a new pattern of growth. Other cases "both" 
> the transcription/development code *and* the control genes differ, but 
> they are still identifiably variations on existing genes, that do 
> similar things. Any irreducibility seems to come from a duplicate copy 
> changing, and linking up with other changes, to produce a unique result, 
> then undergoing subtractions, which fail to disable the new effect, but 
> which render reversal to an earlier form impossible.

So in essence you are arguing that any irreducible complexity was 
preceded by reducible complexity.

Regards,
John

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John VanSickle wrote:
> We *were* created in His moral image, that of sinless perfection.

Obviously not.

Clearly it was sinful to disobey God, to realize that God was lying, and to 
do both of these things without knowing they were sinful. If we were morally 
sinlessly perfect, we wouldn't have original sin, now would we?

If we were created morally, sinlessly perfect, why would ever single human 
being to ever live be sinful?  That's like saying "every single human being 
stands over three meters tall, except those who are shorter, which is all of 
them."

> all of us have blown it through sin.

Also, obviously not. Having eaten from the tree of knowledge, it is clear 
that sins are not heritable. Punishments from God, perhaps, but not sins.

 > Unless making man in God's image means that man was gifted with free
 > will, a very common interpretation.

That's clearly a bad interpretation as well, unless you are saying that the 
serpent was also gifted with free will and hence created in God's image, and 
hence also sinlessly morally perfect, which seems to be pushing the analogy.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Darren New wrote:
> 
> So doesn't [that]
> imply that irreducibly complex systems have always existed and didn't 
> need to be designed?
> 

Even if it did, I thought the problem was with irreducibly complex 
systems coming into existence without being designed?  I don't think 
many proponents of irreducible complexity would have a problem with 
irreducibly complex eternal things.

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Kevin Wampler wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>>
>> So doesn't [that]
>> imply that irreducibly complex systems have always existed and didn't 
>> need to be designed?
>>
> 
> Even if it did, I thought the problem was with irreducibly complex 
> systems coming into existence without being designed? 

This is what I'm saying:

Assuming that "made man in God's image" is interpreted in a straightforward 
way. If so, God didn't design the eye.  God didn't design himself - he was 
always here. And he copied his eye for use with humans. Where did the design 
of the eye come from? It has always been here. No need for a designer at 
all.  :-)

Clearly God is an irreducibly complex system that wasn't designed. Any 
irreducible thing patterned on God thus came into existence without being 
designed, just like parents don't "design" their children's eyes.

Was just a silly passing thought.

> I don't think 
> many proponents of irreducible complexity would have a problem with 
> irreducibly complex eternal things.

I'm not sure what you mean by "external" there, especially w.r.t. God. Plus, 
"we know it was designed" doesn't imply "it must have been God" either.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> nemesis wrote:
> > you guys would enjoy God of War. :)
>
> http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1595-God-of-War-III

haha, very fun.  Even though I couldn't manage to get more than 50% of it.  man,
that dude should be rapping...

Yes, it's pretty much like that, except the parody review doesn't account for
the mindblowing audio-visual artwork backing up the frantic pure arcade action
with puzzles in between.  It's impact is huge in setting the mood and I'd say
this is the best take on greek mythology in mainstream entertainment in ages.
Hollywood's recent Clash of the Titans pales by comparison, not just to the
artistry, but even the lame-o script.

The theme of revenge may be quite tiresome, but they've put quite an imaginative
spin to dozens of elements of the myths, binding them together in rather amusing
ways.  I've replayed the first 2 games just now, eager to get my hands on a
PS3...

I've seen people saying they play the game in very easy mode just to
effortlessly enjoy the ride. :)

> --
> Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
>    Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
>    open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

except to PS3... :))

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nemesis wrote:
 > Yes, it's pretty much like that,

I find of the games he and I have both played, I liked what he liked and 
disliked what he disliked for the same reasons. They're serious reviews, but 
he tries to tell you the bad stuff without telling you the good stuff for 
the most part.

Check out his review of Batman, or SaintsRow or Prince of Persia. There are 
a few he likes. :-)

> I've seen people saying they play the game in very easy mode just to
> effortlessly enjoy the ride. :)

I usually wind up going thru most games on easy, and even switching into 
godmode at some point, just because I find it pointless to bash my head 
against the same boss more than five or six times.  The nice thing about the 
XBox is when they don't have god mode, they do seem to tone the game down to 
where easy is beatable without being tedious.

(Most recent, trying 4 or 5 times to get thru the endgame of Batman, 
actually killing the bad guy, only to get wiped out by his giant corpse 
sliding across the floor and smashing me against the wall. :-)

I'd love to go thru Serious Sam on god mode, just to look at the levels.

The first couple of Thief games were cool because on the easy mode you 
couldn't even get to the whole level. There were walls where there would be 
doors on the harder levels, which was kind of cool when I realized that.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Darren New wrote:
> This is what I'm saying:
> 
> Assuming that "made man in God's image" is interpreted in a 
> straightforward way. If so, God didn't design the eye.  God didn't 
> design himself - he was always here. And he copied his eye for use with 
> humans. Where did the design of the eye come from? It has always been 
> here. No need for a designer at all.  :-)
> 
> Clearly God is an irreducibly complex system that wasn't designed. Any 
> irreducible thing patterned on God thus came into existence without 
> being designed, just like parents don't "design" their children's eyes.
> 
> Was just a silly passing thought.

Ahh, I did not understand that was the point you were making.  Of course 
even so then there's still cephalopod eyes and such that would need 
actual design.  Unless of course you hold that God would just "know" how 
such eyes were made and wouldn't need to actually "design" them, which 
lease you right into the rather odd (and sort of useless imho) question 
as to what degree an all-knowing entity could perform something we would 
call "design".

On a related issue, I wonder just how common that particular 
interpretation of "made in God's image" is.  It seems pretty difficult 
to defend against even simple counter-arguments.  Not that that means 
it's necessarily unpopular though.


>> I don't think many proponents of irreducible complexity would have a 
>> problem with irreducibly complex eternal things.
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean by "external" there, especially w.r.t. God. 
> Plus, "we know it was designed" doesn't imply "it must have been God" 
> either.

By "eternal things" I meant God, or an eternal universe or multiverse 
etc.  Mostly I was pointing out that I had thought the irreducible 
complexity argument only applied to the development of complexity and 
didn't relate to complexity that has "always been there".  At the time I 
thought you were making a different point than it appears you were.

I was never making the argument the "designed" implies "designed by 
God".  As far as I'm aware this implications isn't generally (well, 
generally publicly) endorsed by irreducible complexity proponents.  This 
was made quite explicit as part of the whole (largely unsuccessful) 
attempt to avoid the separation of church and state issues that would 
otherwise keep intelligent design out of public textbooks as I 
understand it.

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Kevin Wampler wrote:
> Ahh, I did not understand that was the point you were making.  Of course 
> even so then there's still cephalopod eyes and such that would need 
> actual design.

Nah. They're obviously inferior to the eyes God made in His own image. 
Otherwise, God's eyes wouldn't be the best, and God would thus be imperfect, 
right? Hence, they're merely God's eyes with imperfections added in. ;-)

> Unless of course you hold that God would just "know" how 
> such eyes were made and wouldn't need to actually "design" them, which 
> lease you right into the rather odd (and sort of useless imho) question 
> as to what degree an all-knowing entity could perform something we would 
> call "design".

Yeah. Pretty much any absolute in this field leads to logical contradictions.

> On a related issue, I wonder just how common that particular 
> interpretation of "made in God's image" is. 

I would think it's actually pretty common. Depictions of God, Jesus, Angels, 
etc all wind up being human-like. Certainly in the religions where the gods 
have dog-heads or something it gets mentioned often enough you'd think you'd 
notice.

> I was never making the argument the "designed" implies "designed by 
> God".  As far as I'm aware this implications isn't generally (well, 
> generally publicly) endorsed by irreducible complexity proponents.

Actually, yeah, it is, but they tried to cover it with a snow-job. :-)

I've been amused several times by pointing out that naturally-evolved aliens 
could have designed irreducibly-complex humans just as easily as God could, 
and been answered with "But there's no evidence of aliens!!"

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Darren New wrote:
> 
> Yeah. Pretty much any absolute in this field leads to logical 
> contradictions.

I'm not sure it's so much contradictions in this particular case as it 
is the generally difficulty linguistically describing (or even 
comprehending) something that's supposed to be infinite in the sense 
that God is.  Overall though, yeah, I agree that it's generally pretty 
difficult to precisely define something like that without causing some 
logical problem or another.

I think the same principal is actually true of physics as well (for 
instance as it applies to the origin of the universe), although in that 
case there's the advantage of having a more or less well-defined way of 
definitively detecting such contradictions, which probably makes them 
easier to remove.


>> On a related issue, I wonder just how common that particular 
>> interpretation of "made in God's image" is. 
> 
> I would think it's actually pretty common. Depictions of God, Jesus, 
> Angels, etc all wind up being human-like. Certainly in the religions 
> where the gods have dog-heads or something it gets mentioned often 
> enough you'd think you'd notice.
> 

It's mostly that I've never the description be so, well, anatomical.  I 
mean, how many people would really argue that God has a functioning 
digestive tract?  It's possible people would I suppose, but I've rarely 
even heard the view the human similarity to God was physical at all, let 
alone that it extended to the function and structure of individual organs.

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On Mon, 19 Apr 2010 04:43:45 +0200, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:

> Let's consider that JHVH is the first mover, the effect with no cause,  
> because He has been around forever and was never created.
>
> Now let's consider that JHVH created Man in His own image.
>
> Doesn't that discredit the Watchmaker's argument?
>
> I mean, if God modeled humans after God, then God has eyes, right? And  
> if God has eyes (and all those other irreducibly complex systems) the  
> God didn't create those systems.
>
> So doesn't
> 1) God has always existed
> 2) God made Man in his Image
> 3) Man has Irreducibly Complex Systems
> imply that irreducibly complex systems have always existed and didn't  
> need to be designed?
>
>

"Image" does not mean "clone". An image is not a copy, but rather  
something that _looks_like_ something else. For example photographs, and  
statues. Neither a photograph nor a statue can see with their eyes.  
Effectively an image uses less dimensions than the original. So we are 3  
or 4 dimensional images of the multidimensional Creator. We don't even  
know what other dimensions are like, scientists are still speculating  
about nth dimensions. So our DNA is not necessarily clone of God's DNA,  
but a method of reproducing and image representing only 3 dimensions of  
features of God.

BTW, a multidimensional being would need only one multidimensional eye to  
be able to see all around, even if it is on the front of the head :)

Since we do not know everything about all dimensions that exist, we cannot  
know how the universe started because we do not have enough information.

Heh. Maybe someday someone will write an AI program that comes to the  
conclusion that humans don't exist!

-Nekar Xenos-

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