Bruce Fenton, A Better Human Origin Story |429|

A designer learns early on - streamline work content, purpose, serial risk points, function, task and overhead/follow-on activity.

Design is an act of volition, critical path and function. Intent is not these things...

Design would choose the shark, intent would not necessarily, and might 'select' the LCA-bison instead (or both, as what happened in reality).

So, we must recognize that one must establish intent before one can establish design. They are two different standards of and approaches to, proof.

TES, a lovely distinction. Intent is a more elegant notion. I am instantly reminded of the ancient idea of the 'will to be' as the driving impetus. From that I can imagine that intent (to be aware, to survive, to express certain attributes) might be the impetus for the evolution of forms to manifest that intent. At some stage design (imagining the finished product) might apply -as it does for us, who have evolved intent into design. Intelligent intent seems better - but not just intelligent - we need a moral/value dimension as well. Your thoughts?
 
Can you back this up with a link. I'm very weak on archaeology and paleontology, and I am sure some others are the same.

David

Sure thing, I really recommend this great interactive tool, it does need Flash enabled. This shows you how much fluctuation there is over time and how unwise it is to just use a map of when the sea is at its lowest as if it was like that for most of the previous million years. http://sahultime.monash.edu.au/explore.html

Also useful to see this chart for sea level going back over five million years https://media.wired.com/photos/5932629558b0d64bb35d1421/master/w_660,c_limit/SL-timeline.jpg
 
TES, a lovely distinction. Intent is a more elegant notion. I am instantly reminded of the ancient idea of the 'will to be' as the driving impetus. From that I can imagine that intent (to be aware, to survive, to express certain attributes) might be the impetus for the evolution of forms to manifest that intent. At some stage design (imagining the finished product) might apply -as it does for us, who have evolved intent into design. Intelligent intent seems better - but not just intelligent - we need a moral/value dimension as well. Your thoughts?
Brilliant Michael as usual.

I have been pondering a blog article on the role and identity of Intent, and how it is distinguished from Will, Intelligence, Design and Reality (as we observe it). I have two thought experiments on which I have been working. You comment helps.

1. The role of a robot introduced inside David Deutsch's version of the double slit paradox (the paradox of the removal of the projection screen upon which the interference patterns fall, after a single photon is still interfered with after it has left the slits). His postulate is that a series of parallel dimensions still serve to introduce the interference effect upon a single photon, even though they are not physically present in our reality.​
2. The paradigm of gravity and the strong force - and how they possibly project into our realm from the outside, rather than merely being an artifact therein. Will may not, intelligence may not, design cannot.​
However, the medium through which us Alchemists work is Intent... this much we know. Intent is strong juju ...and Intent bears several distinctions from all other fabrics of makeup.

I will hope to, rather than simply dismiss 'Design' as we understand it, weave an approach as to how Intent can serve to alter the pathway of an entropic system and achieve Outcomes, but not necessarily Means.
 
Last edited:
I'd like to get back to our discussion earlier about just how hard it might be for an intelligent entity to design life. The job certainly seems pretty daunting, however imagine you told Alan Turing what we would be doing with computers now. He might have replied that the human brain could never write code of such complexity (or maybe he already envisioned how things would develop).

Great point. But you must understand - that the daunting challenge resides not in the computational load only, but rather in the system, work content and associated risk chain. Design is not one layer - rather it deploys inside the following layers (these are Systems Engineering and Design principles defined by Roger Lewin, Mitchell Waldrop and that ilk of Systems - The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos). It also includes some of the things I have learned as the head of an IT firm and designer of rather large human, infrastructure and information systems.

A. Complexity - As a System increases one order of complexity, it increases in design-complexity by the power of the number of variables which are not constrained inside that system.

B. System to Risk - As a System increases in complexity A,

1. the risk of catastrophic failure increases by a compounding of the single element risk inside each critical series element in the design, and​
2. the risk of complication acting in lieu of complexity, increases arithmetically by the number of critical series elements in the design x the number of unconstrained variables in that System,​

C. System and Risk to Work Content - As a System to Risk increases in Complexity and by a multiple of its B.1. - Complication - the Work Content required to manage, preserve, repair, recover and direct that system increases arithmetically by the number of transactions executed therein.

D. Support - One must thereafter support the functions which accomplish A - C above.

And a CEO has to monitor work content and catastrophic failure, because both end up becoming direct labor costs - so one must devise a way to see into this projection before deciding upon whether or not a system is really viable.

So it is NOT the computation about which I am concerned. :)
 
Last edited:
So it is NOT the computation about which I am concerned
Well of course, simulating the QM of a even one protein is very computationally expensive.

However, I think my point is more general. The amount that is now known about biology, and the ways that the genome can be manipulated would seem like magic to scientists from early last century - they might easily have said that only God could manage all that. 'We'. with our limited intelligence have achieved that in 100 years - just as I have described what happened with computers - and I think it is at least plausible that finite intelligence is all you need to crack creating and evolving life. Note also that the advances in biology also depend crucially on computation.

For example we, don't know how many experiments were performed in order to home in on the current system. The Cambrian explosion looks to me like some designers had a meeting and collected a set of possible starting designs for multicellular organisms, and someone said, "I know, let's try them all!".

I think your item B is only really true if the thing can't be tinkered with to fix the bugs. I reckon 'they' probably did a lot of tinkering!

David
 
Well of course, simulating the QM of a even one protein is very computationally expensive.

However, I think my point is more general. The amount that is now known about biology, and the ways that the genome can be manipulated would seem like magic to scientists from early last century - they might easily have said that only God could manage all that. 'We'. with our limited intelligence have achieved that in 100 years - just as I have described what happened with computers - and I think it is at least plausible that finite intelligence is all you need to crack creating and evolving life. Note also that the advances in biology also depend crucially on computation.

For example we, don't know how many experiments were performed in order to home in on the current system. The Cambrian explosion looks to me like some designers had a meeting and collected a set of possible starting designs for multicellular organisms, and someone said, "I know, let's try them all!".

I think your item B is only really true if the thing can't be tinkered with to fix the bugs. I reckon 'they' probably did a lot of tinkering!

David
So, I think it is clear that DNA is a self-regulating mechanism, from what we both have said. The question is, how far does this self-regulating scope then extend?

Speciation
Ordination, or
Comprehensive Description in Evolution's Entirety.

The materialist contends the latter, and labels anyone who ponders an alternative to be 'Creationist'. The way we combat this trick of pseudoscience is to have them rigorously prove the absence of Intent, inside the set of Comprehensiveness they claim as truth (an Omega Hypothesis).

If we try and take the burden upon ourselves and 'prove Design' or 'prove Intelligence' or prove either or both - we will lose. Mankind will lose. We will wallow in our current state of ignorance for another 1,000 years. We have fallen for this little Jedi Mind Trick to date.

One must remember that 95% of an argument is rhetoric and the tactics of how to force an opponent to comply with what you want - through making them appear irrational or disturbed to the lay audience. It has very little to do with understanding.

They bear the burden of proof, not us (non-nihilists, I am an evolutionist). And Intent is the lever by which we force this. The algorithms exist now, to detect Intent inside the genome - they can no longer appeal to ignorance - the playing field has shifted.
 
Last edited:
The materialist contends the latter, and labels anyone who ponders an alternative to be 'Creationist'.
Well not quite, because I think materialists would say that if you repeated evolution with different random numbers, you would get a different outcome. So I think they would say that DNA would imply a probability landscape of possible outcomes.
One must remember that 95% of an argument is rhetoric and the tactics of how to force an opponent to comply with what you want - through making them appear irrational or disturbed to the lay audience. It has very little to do with understanding.
Spot on!

David
 
Well not quite, because I think materialists would say that if you repeated evolution with different random numbers, you would get a different outcome. So I think they would say that DNA would imply a probability landscape of possible outcomes.

Spot on!

David

Hehe! :)

But you do agree that, with Intent theory - the materialist now bears the burden of proof? There is no null hypothesis any longer. This is a game changer approach IMHO.

The critical path question in evolution right now is:

Are the Human Accelerated Regions distinguishable from Intent based sets?
If so, they must prove this by algorithm (model). They no longer can just assume it.

With design, I must identify the 'design' - and might even have to postulate a designer.
With intent, I only have to confirm the observation.

It is a wonderful day in science right now. :) Do you see what I am saying?
 
Last edited:
But you do agree that, with Intent theory - the materialist now bears the burden of proof? There is no null hypothesis any longer.

The critical path question in evolution right now is:

Are the Human Accelerated Regions distinguishable from Intent?
Agreed and agreed!
If so, they must prove this. Not assume it.
And agreed - but they won't!
It is a wonderful day in science right now. :)

The optimist in me says that corrupted science has left a trail of dodgy science in its wake and any one of these might blow up. Once people really understand how science that they have funded in one area can veer off course, the search will be on to find all the other areas, and hopefully these will all have their funds removed. If that brings some universities to their knees, so be it.

I love science in the abstract, but I think right now it needs some seriously tough love.

David
 
Agreed and agreed!

And agreed - but they won't!


The optimist in me says that corrupted science has left a trail of dodgy science in its wake and any one of these might blow up. Once people really understand how science that they have funded in one area can veer off course, the search will be on to find all the other areas, and hopefully these will all have their funds removed. If that brings some universities to their knees, so be it.

I love science in the abstract, but I think right now it needs some seriously tough love.

David
Dodgy science and just the course science takes in general which would be proving itself wrong and contradictory
 
Brilliant Michael as usual.

I have been pondering a blog article on the role and identity of Intent, and how it is distinguished from Will, Intelligence, Design and Reality (as we observe it). I have two thought experiments on which I have been working. You comment helps.

1. The role of a robot introduced inside David Deutsch's version of the double slit paradox (the paradox of the removal of the projection screen upon which the interference patterns fall, after a single photon is still interfered with after it has left the slits). His postulate is that a series of parallel dimensions still serve to introduce the interference effect upon a single photon, even though they are not physically present in our reality.​
2. The paradigm of gravity and the strong force - and how they possibly project into our realm from the outside, rather than merely being an artifact therein. Will may not, intelligence may not, design cannot.​
However, the medium through which us Alchemists work is Intent... this much we know. Intent is strong juju ...and Intent bears several distinctions from all other fabrics of makeup.

I will hope to, rather than simply dismiss 'Design' as we understand it, weave an approach as to how Intent can serve to alter the pathway of an entropic system and achieve Outcomes, but not necessarily Means.

I think the problem the idea of ID is that it is crafted absent the idea of evolution - as if the only notion of evolution is Darwinian. I like the Kabalistic notion that there is a number of emanations that constitute the 'foundation of being' - a bit like a chess game requiring a certain number of pieces. If the intent is to 'game' strategy, then the 'game' evolves to then point where it satisfies the need in terms of minimal functional conditions.

I don't know enough about science or mathematics to develop an analogy from those fields. However I notice that Robert Lanza [and others] asserts that the material conditions for life to manifest exist within a narrow set of tolerances. The extent to which this arises from intent as opposed to design depends on how we comprehend either idea.

I rather think that the ID proponents should be less concerned with 'design' and more 'intelligence'. There are, I understand [again from Lanza and others] arguments that 'chance' is simply not fit for purpose as an idea employed to 'explain' evolution. If we accept consciousness as the ground of all being and allow that there must be some coherent intelligence inherent in, or arising from, consciousness, we are not obliged to accept design as a component in how things come to be, nor chance.

There are suggestions in Chaos Theory that chance is merely an illusion - and there is deep implicit order in all phenomena. I am still struggling with Quantum science, so trying to sit comfortably with the idea of implicit uncertainty and order is proving difficult - there's a certain intellectual ecology we have yet to evolve to make this kind of thinking comfortable - at least for some of us.

What is apparent is that at the ground of being there are laws, and there is order - and from that 'law and order' immeasurable complexity springs. If we look through Genesis we see intent, not design. And if we allow the expressions of intent to evolve, we can accommodate attributes of evolution called Darwinian.

I think what we call design sits at a level of expression of will and intent more suited to the material. We see in Genesis the "Let there be light." assertion. And there was light. Did God 'design' light - or wil it? He intended there would be light and there was. This is a metaphysical proposition, not a record of history.

Stewart Edward White wrote a gem of a book - The Unobstructed Universe (1940) - in which he explores the material [obstructed] and the non-material [unobstructed] aspects of reality. In the unobstructed domain the relationship between intent and conception, and then manifestation, is not impeded by the clunky processes we experience in the material world. It is not impeded by time or space.

We have to design a BMW because we are assembling a thing in the obstructed realm - and things need to be made to fit. The fit cannot be commanded as an instant creative fiat. It must be expressed in time and space.

Does 'conception' equal 'design' in essence? Intelligence is implicit in the idea of 'will to be' as the agent that does the willing, and the intending - and the formulation of that which is manifested. In the ancient way, the will and intent are considered male, and the formulation of that which is to be manifest is female -what is clumsily rendered as the 3 aspects of the divine in the Catholic tradition.
 
The optimist in me says that corrupted science has left a trail of dodgy science in its wake and any one of these might blow up. Once people really understand how science that they have funded in one area can veer off course, the search will be on to find all the other areas, and hopefully these will all have their funds removed. If that brings some universities to their knees, so be it.

I love science in the abstract, but I think right now it needs some seriously tough love.

David, I think you hit the nail on the head with the "they have funded" observation. Science, as a discipline for acquiring knowledge, has always been governed by culture and the imperatives it throws up. As our 'science' becomes more and more dependent on very expensive devices and processes there is a limit as to who can/will fund - and hence an opportunity for those who will fund for profit.

But if we step back from the tight notion of 'science' and consider knowledge acquisition in general - management, administration, politics and so on - all the informal methods - and let's all the 'non scientific' knowledge - e.g. that arts - the same applies.

One thing materialism and atheism did was remove any sense of inherent spiritual or moral context to inquiry, or then application of the fruits of that inquiry. This is why we have the idiocy of 'guns don't kill people, people do.' That makes sense on a superficial level. We may as well say that toxic nerve agents don't kill people, people do, in defence of the proposition that you should be able to buy a Russian drug over the counter. But as we saw, with DTT, that logic does not wash.

I don't know what is happening in the UK, but here in Oz, universities are on their knees begging funding from business for research. Then last thing a uni wants to be known for is fearless truth telling. That's not what business wants. Its bad enough that students have become customers. It is worse that research funding comes from customers of a different stripe, but customers no less.

Put together the two customer groups and any lingering ideal of intellectual integrity falls into the gutter. The esteem that universities once merited lingers as an afterglow in the memories of a diminishing few. Back in 1974 my then Philosophy Professor admitted he'd fail 90% of students based on merit, but he was told he was not permitted to do that. That was my exit interview and he was the only professor I bothered talking to as I quit.

Back in 2000 I read [tried to read] copies of PhD thesis in Social Ecology. They were rubbish - poorly argued and badly written. I graduated with my Masters Honours in Social Ecology in 2010 and I was profoundly grateful to never have to deal with the university again.

I know there are high quality universities that continue to deliver sterling intellectual fruit. But there's now a proliferation of low rent institutions who will compromise the old standards for the sake of survival.

I don't how long ago you got your quals. I graduated in 2001 and 2010 as a mature age student with substantial life experience under my belt. I'd had a go at completing courses in 1974 and 2005 and quit out of boredom and the insistence on PC dogma.

I think that without independently funded research bodies we are screwed in terms of integrity of research. Quality unis still have role to play. First case scenario is that research gets funnelled into fields that are profit generating, and the wider dimension of possibility is ignored. I suppose we might become grateful for US defence research as potentially the only real inquiry into our existential reality on a macro level. Obviously there is a lot of independent inquiry happening as well - Dean Radin among others.

I think we may have to drop seeing universities as sources of much that is useful - not that they necessity are in any case.
 
We were talking about hominins travelling from mainland Southeast Asia to the Indonesian Islands and onwards to Australia, we are not talking about hominins emerging on Papua and then travelling to Australia. The powerful southwesterly currents moving through Wallacea have prevented virtually all flora and fauna from Asia reaching Australia since the landmass diverged (the barrier known as Wallace's Line). I am not sure where the idea emerged that this was a journey from Papua to Australia, but I certainly never suggested such a thing, this would infer hominins evolved directly from primates living in-situ on Sahul for which no evidence currently exists.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...es-rhino-south-east-asia-flores-a8335241.html
"As for how humans crossed the vast expanses of ocean between the two islands, Dr van den Bergh and his team think it is unlikely they constructed rafts of any sort. Instead, he suggests an altogether more extreme mode of transport.

“They may have been caught in a tsunami and carried out to sea – those kinds of freak, random events are probably responsible for these movements of humans and animals,” he said, citing the case of people who were dragged out to sea by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.


“This region is tectonically active so tsunamis are common and there are big ones every hundred years or so.”"
Ok... well Bruce bailed out Malf anyway.

But there's a larger point here... bruce is not responsible for swatting flies. if someone does a little bit of work and comes up with some real/legitimate counterpoints/ criticisms they be doing everyone a great service by sharing them... we all welcome that. but I don't have a lot of patience for the" you haven't proven it to ME yet" vibe
 
I don't how long ago you got your quals. I graduated in 2001 and 2010 as a mature age student with substantial life experience under my belt. I'd had a go at completing courses in 1974 and 2005 and quit out of boredom and the insistence on PC dogma.
1971 and 1974, and since they were science qualifications PC wasn't an issue (it might be now).

I completely agree however, we are seeing the universities being undermined, and I am not sure any of them will escape.

David
 
What I say in the podcast is entirely accurate and based on the current academic models, it requires several ocean journeys of over 100 miles at sea to reach Australia from Southeast Asia. Are you saying you think people can easily swim these hundreds of miles through powerful ocean currents and sharks etc despite the fact Wallace's Line was long considered an impenetrable barrier for Asiatic flora and fauna?

I think you are looking at a map and seeing a few cm gaps but forgetting we are being suggested that people were maybe swimming hundreds of miles in the open ocean against the prevailing currents. The article provided is about the scientific argument that humans were washed along through Island Southeast Asia by tsunami, exactly as I stated in the podcast.

Where is the confusion? Where is there anything misleading?

Please find any scholar who agrees with you that this was not an astonishingly difficult journey.


It’s confusing because in the podacast you were talking about Australia and the article does not mention Australia at all. It’s misleading as the reference to a tsunami appears to be little more than personal speculation by a scientist (that is not the same a scientific argument or position).
 
I think the problem the idea of ID is that it is crafted absent the idea of evolution - as if the only notion of evolution is Darwinian. I like the Kabalistic notion that there is a number of emanations that constitute the 'foundation of being' - a bit like a chess game requiring a certain number of pieces. If the intent is to 'game' strategy, then the 'game' evolves to then point where it satisfies the need in terms of minimal functional conditions.

I don't know enough about science or mathematics to develop an analogy from those fields. However I notice that Robert Lanza [and others] asserts that the material conditions for life to manifest exist within a narrow set of tolerances. The extent to which this arises from intent as opposed to design depends on how we comprehend either idea.

I rather think that the ID proponents should be less concerned with 'design' and more 'intelligence'. There are, I understand [again from Lanza and others] arguments that 'chance' is simply not fit for purpose as an idea employed to 'explain' evolution. If we accept consciousness as the ground of all being and allow that there must be some coherent intelligence inherent in, or arising from, consciousness, we are not obliged to accept design as a component in how things come to be, nor chance.

There are suggestions in Chaos Theory that chance is merely an illusion - and there is deep implicit order in all phenomena. I am still struggling with Quantum science, so trying to sit comfortably with the idea of implicit uncertainty and order is proving difficult - there's a certain intellectual ecology we have yet to evolve to make this kind of thinking comfortable - at least for some of us.

What is apparent is that at the ground of being there are laws, and there is order - and from that 'law and order' immeasurable complexity springs. If we look through Genesis we see intent, not design. And if we allow the expressions of intent to evolve, we can accommodate attributes of evolution called Darwinian.

I think what we call design sits at a level of expression of will and intent more suited to the material. We see in Genesis the "Let there be light." assertion. And there was light. Did God 'design' light - or wil it? He intended there would be light and there was. This is a metaphysical proposition, not a record of history.

Stewart Edward White wrote a gem of a book - The Unobstructed Universe (1940) - in which he explores the material [obstructed] and the non-material [unobstructed] aspects of reality. In the unobstructed domain the relationship between intent and conception, and then manifestation, is not impeded by the clunky processes we experience in the material world. It is not impeded by time or space.

We have to design a BMW because we are assembling a thing in the obstructed realm - and things need to be made to fit. The fit cannot be commanded as an instant creative fiat. It must be expressed in time and space.

Does 'conception' equal 'design' in essence? Intelligence is implicit in the idea of 'will to be' as the agent that does the willing, and the intending - and the formulation of that which is manifested. In the ancient way, the will and intent are considered male, and the formulation of that which is to be manifest is female -what is clumsily rendered as the 3 aspects of the divine in the Catholic tradition.
Don't even want to comment, this is so well constructed.
 
Back
Top