Re: Mindless Creativity?

Mark VandeWettering <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
 
> It is far from clear that there is any difference between the kind of
> process which generates a chicken from a chicken egg and the kind of
> process which allows William Shakespeare to write "Hamlet".  

Oh really?  Hmmmmm . . .  Do you really think that the chicken egg was
as creative it its forming of the chicken as Shakespeare was in his
forming of Hamlet?  For example, a computer can be programmed to do
fantastic things, but it is not creative.  Now granted, the terms
"intelligence" and "creative" have not yet been absolutely defined and
maybe they never will be.  However, they are defined enough for us to
know that human intelligence can do things that computers and eggs
cannot do.  Humans can create new things at high levels of functional
complexity that we never created before and were not preprogrammed to
create automatically.  An egg or a computer program cannot create new
things that they were not already programmed to create.  A chicken egg
cannot make anything except for a chicken.  Shakespeare, on the other
hand, was not preprogrammed to make Hamlet or Macbeth or the Taming of
the Shrew.  Though these creations are admittedly not as functionally
complex as a chicken, the process involved in their creation was much
more creative.  If Shakespeare had figured out how to make a chicken
without some sort of internal preprogramming, then that would have
been very creative indeed.  The fact of the matter is, just because a
computer can do something better or even at a higher level of
complexity than you can do does not make the computer more creative
than you are.  Wouldn't you agree that this is a significant
difference between Shakespeare and the chicken egg?

>You are
> merely presuming your conclusion when you say that "no such mindless
> process can give rise to a greater level of complexity... that goes
> very far beyond what its original programming allowed it to do". 

This conclusion happens to be my hypothesis.  That is what the
scientific method is all about.  You observe a given phenomenon and
then make a conclusion/hypothesis to explain this phenomenon.  This is
a valid scientific process as long as the hypothesis makes a testable
prediction that can in fact be disproved or "falsified".  This is what
I have done.  I have predicted that no mindless process will ever be
able to create anything new within a given level of complexity or
beyond in real time.  I have drawn this line at several thousand amino
acids working at the same time.  So far, the highest level of
functional complexity that has been observed to evolve in real time
requires less than a few hundred amino acids at minimum for that type
of function (i.e., the lactase or nylonase functions).  Nothing beyond
such levels of complexity have ever been shown to evolve in real time
and even many life forms seem to be incapable of evolving much of
anything requiring only a few hundred amino acids working at the same
time.  For example, many types of bacteria, to include Hall's double
mutant E. coli bacteria, cannot evolve the relatively simple lactase
function in over a million generations of positive selection pressure.
 Hall himself referred to these bacteria as having, "limited
evolutionary potential."  Now I find that most interesting . . .

> The
> statement itself attempts to confuse the issues by using a term which
> we normally associate with human effort (namefly 'programming') with
> something that seldom does (namely biological development).

Biological development certainly involves pre-established information
systems of extraordinary informational complexity.  Without this
information being there fully formed, random organic matter doesn't
turn into much of anything besides amorphous ooze, much less a
chicken.  The pre-established information system is vital to the
functional organizational ability of the chicken egg . . .  and all
other biological activities.  For example, the parts of a flagellum,
if added to solution suddenly or randomly, will not self-assemble.  A
very specific order and concentration of part additions is required in
order for the flagellum to form in such a way that its motility
function will be realized.  This specific order requires a
pre-established information system and physical apparatus to decode
this information before a motile flagellum can be built.  Information
systems at such levels of complexity simply do not self-assemble
without outside input from some higher information system or
intelligence.

<snip> 
> This may be what you think the problem is in a nutshell, but it
> unfortunately has no evidence to back it up at all.

What would you call the fact that there is a ladder of complexity
where evolution works very well on the lowest rungs, but less and less
well as it tries to move up the ladder to higher levels of functional
complexity (involving more and more amino acids at minimum)?

For example, very simple functions, such as many forms of antibiotic
resistance, which work by blocking or interfering with other
pre-established functions or interactions, evolve commonly and
rapidly.  This is because there are many different ways, involving
only one or two point mutations, to interfere with the
antibiotic-target interaction.  So, there are a lot of beneficial
sequences surrounding the starting sequence.  Like stepping-stones,
the mindless evolutionary processes of random mutation and natural
selection can quickly cross over toward the move beneficial levels of
more and more efficient antibiotic resistance.  However, functions
that require independent action, as is the case with enzymatic
functions, are much more difficult to evolve since there are far fewer
ways for a series of amino acids to achieve a particular enzymatic
function.  Still, those enzymatic functions that require fewer amino
acids at minimum in the least specified order are the easiest ones to
evolve.  In fact, although there are far fewer examples of novel
enzymatic functions evolving, they are still fairly common - and more
common for shorter enzymes.  However, for those functions that require
more and more amino acids, at minimum, working together at the same
time in a fairly constrained manner, evolution becomes exponentially
less and less common.  In fact, many life forms, such as many types of
bacteria, simply cannot evolve something like a relatively simple
lactase function, which requires, at minimum, only 400 or 500 amino
acids in a fairly flexible order.

Some in this forum, such as Von Smith and a few others, have suggested
that the ratio of lactase to non-lactase sequences at this level of
complexity is as high as 1 in 1,000 sequences.  The problem here is
that Von clearly doesn't understand the power of random walk.  If the
ratio were truly this high, only 1,000 mutations would be needed, on
average, to find a lactase sequence in sequence space.  An average
bacterial colony would realize such a sequence many its members in
just one or two generations.  Evolution at such a high ratio for
success would not only be guaranteed, it would be rapid.  The fact is
that E. coli, without the lacZ and ebg genes, do not evolve the
lactase function despite tens of thousands of generations under high
selection pressures, high mutation rates, and very large population
numbers.  Other bacteria haven't evolved this function either in over
a million generations of time - and Von thinks that the ratio is 1 in
1000?  Please!  You've got to be kiddin me!

The problem is that at increasing levels of minimum amino acid
requirements, the ratio of beneficial vs. non-beneficial goes down
dramatically so that not only can no new types of functions be evolved
at higher levels of complexity, they cannot be evolved even within the
same level of complexity.  It is like the diagram figured below where
simple beneficial islands are clustered close together, but get
farther and farther apart as one moves up the ladder of complexity
(each dot represents a beneficial sequence in sequence space).

_______________________________________
…………………………………………………..
.  .  .  .   .  .   . .  .  .  .  .  .   .   .   .   .   .   .    .   
.  . .
 .     .     .         .          .             .             .    . .
   .
.                 .                    .                 .            
.
         .                          .                        .
                                              .

               .



                                                   .

>  Your conclusion of
> an intelligent designer is based upon the improbability of long chains
> of amino acids forming randomly, but that's rather silly and bears no 
> resemblance to any modern theory of evolution/abiogenesis/genetics.

Actually that is exactly what the theory of evolution suggests. 
Random mutations are supposed to find new beneficial functions, which
can be selected in a positive way by Mother Nature.

> The truth is that long chains of amino acids in very specific sequences
> DO form, form with great frequency.  

Actually they do not form with great frequency outside of the
pre-established information system in the DNA of that creature which
codes for their formation.

> If you are to claim that they are
> somehow designed, it is up to you to present evidence that they are 
> designed.   Merely asserting that some particular model of random formation
> makes them exceptionally unlikely is not sufficient.

Actually it is sufficient.  The detection of intelligent activity at
the level of humans or beyond is based on two things:  1)  That such
levels of intelligence are capable of producing a given phenomenon,
and 2) that no lesser intelligence or other mindless process is
capable of producing anything even close.  Once these two things are
known, intelligent design can be reasonably inferred with a very high
degree of predictive value.

Also, I've done a lot more than just assert than the success of a
random walk will be unsuccessful at a certain level of functional
complexity (involving a few thousands amino acids at minimum), I have
demonstrated a real-life exponential decline in the ability of
mindless evolutionary processes to produce new types of functions at
higher and higher levels of complexity.  I have also proposed a very
reasonable explanation for this decline in ability found in the form
of a neutral gap problem.  Each additional minimum amino acid
requirement expands the sequence space 20 fold.  However, the number
of beneficial sequences only expands a fraction of this amount.  This
creates an exponential decrease in the ratio of beneficial vs.
non-beneficial sequences in sequence space.  The stepping-stones
become more and more widely separated on average.  Very soon the
average gap between beneficial stepping-stones is truly enormous.  The
only way for the mindless processes of evolution to bridge this gap is
via random walk alone since nature cannot select between equally
non-beneficial sequences even though they may be different in amino
acid "spelling".

Sean 

www.naturalselection.0catch.com