Complexity Theory, I.D. and cellular intelligence

[LARA]

I've always had a fondness for butterflies that goes beyond the aesthetic.  I must've been about eight or so the first time my Dad explained the butterfly effect to me and I was hooked on chaos theory early on, even if I didn't really know what it was.  I think now it's more appropriately termed Complexity theory.  My fascination with complexity theory is one reason why I so bitterly hate the I.D. camp.  They've taken an interesting and difficult to define and test idea, cellular intelligence, and taken it over to mean the guiding hand of a creator.  (Intelligence of course is very relative here and not equated necessarily to conciousness, memory or human intelligence.  Everyone knows, after all, that cells subjected to I.Q. tests just sit there wetly doing nothing much at all.)  

Complexity has everything to to with self-organizing systems, not created systems.  They are hard to define, hard to prove and so much depends on a person's perspective of what the limits of the specific system being studied are.

What I want to know is do you think that complexity theory and the study self-organization is a threat to evolutionary theory?

Do you think that it is a form of theism?  

What about the examination of cellular intelligence, intelligence being extremely relative here, in the light of the truth of evolutionary theory?

[joeactor]

Hey Lara,

Interesting points.  I've studied chaos theory and self-organizing systems as well.  Even coded my own Lorenz attractor simulation - fascinating stuff.

I don't see it as a threat to evoludion, but it may be an adjunct or contributing factor.

They say "The Devil's in the details", but what if god is there too?  Maybe as we delve deeper into the realm of science a little sign will pop out that says "ah!  about time you guys found me!".  If I were to play "theist's advocate", perhaps religion is looking in the wrong place.  Perhaps god is not a being, but the very nature of god is woven into the matter and rules of the universe.

Don't get me wrong - I am definitely NOT a fan of ID, just playing with my Mental Blocks.  And I've just replaced the concept of "god" with the concept of the "universe".  "I Am That I Am" and all that happy crap.

Perhaps self-organization will end up being another force like gravity.  Then it can be tested and predictions made, and eventually a quantum particle found...

I hereby name this new particle the "Org-On"!

(or not),
JoeActor

[SteveS]

I really don't perceive anything to be a threat to evolutionary theory.  What I mean is that if there is something out there than can conclusively show how some of evolutionary theory is incorrect, I wouldn't think of this as a threat so much as a break-through.  New knowledge is good --- if evolution is somehow wrong, or incomplete, this would be good to know.  If, however, nothing does pan out then we just stick with the theory we've got so far.  If its wrong, how can it be a threat?

So, I guess this is simple to me: if its a real threat, its good.  If its bad, then its not a threat.  Whatever is true is true: how can truth be threatened?  And, how can we discover it without questioning what we think is true?

I'm not endorsing garbage science --- I'm just saying that I'm far more interested in what is actually true then whether or not I'm currently right about it.

Take joeactor's above comments: if science can find a god, that's great!  I would want to know this.  I'm not too worried that I'd be embarrassed by the theists as I highly doubt any so-discovered "god" would bear much in common with what the faithful currently worship.  Sure, they could say "we told you there was a god", but this would be a hollow victory indeed if none of the attributes they've been prattling on about have any bearing on reality....

[myleviathan]

They say "The Devil's in the details", but what if god is there too?  JoeActor

If the Devil's in the Details, then God's in the Integers.

I think cellular intelligence is an extremely interesting concept. And I don't think it threatens evolutionary theory, either. ID proponents think they have cornered the market on intelligence in nature, like it can only relate to some creative designer. But it makes sense that cells are able to sense their environments somehow. If you think about cells evolving to form larger and larger creatures, they would have maintained a lot of what allowed them to survive before the evolution process began. When they were surviving as lonely cells in harsh evironments. I'm really excited about the advent of nanotechnology to reveal more about the possibility of cellular intelligence.

[joeactor]

If the Devil's in the Details, then God's in the Integers.

... or maybe God is an Irrational Number ;-)

[SteveS]

... or maybe God is an Irrational Number ;-)

.... or maybe an imaginary number?  

[LARA]

Well.... God is a character in the Bible and Bible people say his number is 777, so I'm sticking with that one on this topic.  

As far as really cool numbers go, my favorite is 0.  But I prefer it written with a slash because I'm so massively stupid I sometimes get it confused with O.  i of course is also a very kickass number, but sadly it can't exist in a logical reality.  I like i a lot, so I'd be sad if someone attributed this with God.

And irrational numbers?  What are those?  I totally forgot about them.  I'll have to see what Google thinks.

[SteveS]

Basically, an irrational number is just one that can't be written as a fraction of integers.  So, 1/3 is rational, pi is not.  22/7 is a rational number that is almost pi, but not quite.  Other "famous" (or "infamous"?) irrational numbers are e and square-root-of-2.  But, there's a whole lot of them.  In fact, one could probably prove that the set of irrational numbers is infinite.  While I might be really weird, I don't really fancy doing mathematical proofs just for fun.  

I don't consider myself much of a mathematician, and I might be going down the wrong path, but, there is a famous reductio ad absurdum proof that the set of prime numbers is infinite, and I think one can prove that the square root of a prime number is irrational, so the set of irrational numbers would seem to be infinite as it would at least include the infinite set of square roots of prime numbers.

If any math geeks are interested, I think I could dig up some proofs.  Man, haven't contemplated this sort of thing for a long time now!

[LARA]

I really don't perceive anything to be a threat to evolutionary theory. What I mean is that if there is something out there than can conclusively show how some of evolutionary theory is incorrect, I wouldn't think of this as a threat so much as a break-through. New knowledge is good --- if evolution is somehow wrong, or incomplete, this would be good to know. If, however, nothing does pan out then we just stick with the theory we've got so far. If its wrong, how can it be a threat?

So, I guess this is simple to me: if its a real threat, its good. If its bad, then its not a threat. Whatever is true is true: how can truth be threatened? And, how can we discover it without questioning what we think is true?

That's a great answer, Steve.  I am more confident in the truth of evolutionary theory than I am of a lot of things, so I can't percieve how any kind of cellular intelligence could do anything more than be a part of the whole picture.  Just like in the area of sexual selection the active 'choices' of organisms, though unconcious they might be, effect the final outcome of what we see today in living systems, but they don't negate the reality of evolutionary processes and natural selection.  What I think is cool is that, in my opinion, the study of how unicellular organisms interact with the environment is the first step in understanding how conciousness arises.  We study consciousness in humans with psychology and it's analogous to starting out in Calculus before you've even learned to count.  I think the real jumping off point for the understanding of consciousness is at the unicellular level,  how cells sense a chemical gradient, how they react, etc.   A lot of those same unicellular sensory systems have been conserved and modified through evolution to become the sensory systems of higher organisms.

By the by, Google disagrees with you, pi is actually irrational.    It's still awfully handy, though.  Thanks for the explanation of irrational numbers.

[myleviathan]

I am more confident in the truth of evolutionary theory than I am of a lot of things

I know! I can't believe people fight so hard against the idea of evolutionary theory. It's clear that we're related, from a cellular level all the way up, to other creatures on the planet. We're our own little self-contained system. Obviously you can't reproduce macroevolution in a lab - it's taken millions of years to get to this point. What do people (theists) expect?? And then they mock science for its apparent downfall to reproduce what we're able to determine from so many other abundant sources! I'm ranting now... So INFURIATING!  

[SteveS]

Hey Lara - thanks for the kind words.  I do agree that pi is irrational (I thought I said that, but it may have been confusing).  I also agree that pi is rather useful --- the little bugger shows up all over the place!

And myleviathan, man do I hear this one:

I know! I can't believe people fight so hard against the idea of evolutionary theory.  ...  So INFURIATING!

Bugs the hell out of me too.  I think its an emotional response --- they don't call it the argument from "personal incredulity" for nothin!