Would this Origin of life model work?

Ahhhā€¦ I think there is a misunderstanding of what I said before here. When I suggested that my method of testing was unfalsifiable for present events, I meant this in regards to verifying my hypothesis. For instance, as you already know, there are certain predictions that are set up to falsify a hypothesis. Then, there are predictions that are meant to verify the hypothesis BUT these predictions also have to be falsifiable within themselves. This latter case is what I meant before in regards to how present events render the hypothesis unfalsifiable.

However, when it comes to falsifying my hypothesis altogether, it does not matter whether the experiment simulates past/present/future events or whether other finite minds exist. In fact, the method of testing does not even require natural conditions that actually took place. All it takes for falsification is a possible natural condition that can be tested to show that unguided material processes can produce the same effect.

Again, I encourage you to watch that video where atheist physicist Sean Carroll explains how God is falsifiable if you are still not convinced by my reasoning . He reiterates my point.

I expect Hominidae (great apes) to be an exception because of personal preference disguised as some completely ad hoc justification that is inconsistently not applied to Octopodidae and Delphinidae.

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No, and you have already agreed to this point: you cannot falsify design by demonstrating evolution. More generally, you cannot falsify one hypothesis by demonstrating another unless the two are directly linked. To meet this condition your hypothesis would need to state that evolution is not possible, ever.

Not at all convinced. I seriously question the claim that Sean Carroll would say that God can be falsified by demonstrating evolution (he is a physicist, not a biologist, after all). Further, I question the premise that any concept of God as we understand can be defined, much less falsified, by material evidence.

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I believe heā€™s already decided that Curculionidae has too many species to be a single basic type.

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I have never presented my argument in the same fashion as ID theorists, which is what you are referring to here. Whether a feature in nature is irreducibly complex (top-down) or reducible simple (bottom-up) has no bearing on whether an intelligent designer was part of the process or not let alone a divine one. We are dealing with a contingent being here, which is something that only ID theorists argue as well. More importantly, my method of testing would not apply to there hypothesis and vice-versa.

Instead, the question is whether chemical or biological evolution was a guided or unguided process by a DIVINE designer. I am not trying to disprove evolution or poke holes nor have I ever tried on here with some exception. I made this very clear beforehand.

Well, I explained this to everyone already here why this is the case but I have not seen you respond to it yet:

Can God be a useful ā€œscientificā€ hypothesis? Yes - Peaceful Science

I explain here in more detail why God can be tested.

@Meerkat_SK5 I feel I should take a moment to make clear that I am criticizing your hypothesis and not your belief. Those things are independent in my mind. It is NOT my intent to mock you. :slight_smile:

Unchanged. A divine designer should not be definable or falsifiable in a material sense. If it is, then I do not understand how you are defining ā€œdivineā€.

But I did respond, and you replied. My emphasis ā€¦

I can still say it is unfalsifiable because the essential problem remains. If we demonstrate a particular random evolutionary pathway, how are we to know the designer did not use this same pathway as the means of design? This is what I mean by ā€¦

ā€¦ you cannot falsify design by demonstrating evolution.

You have changed a few words in your hypothesis, but not addressed how it can ever be falsified, even theoretically.

Now, I changed the statement to this: ā€œAn intelligent designer must exist to guide all life on earthā€.

AND if the designer is guiding evolution, then design will be forever untestable. If I didnā€™t reply to this is May, itā€™s because I didnā€™t see any reason to reiterate a point I had just finished making in an earlier discussion.

Now if you changed your hypothesis to ā€œa (divine) designer would not create by means of evolution,ā€ then it might be falsified as you describe. It may also open whole new can of worms about discerning the motives of a divine creator, but thatā€™s another topic. :wink:

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Not to mention, of course, the core difficulty referenced in the quote of my post there: showing that some particular set of laboratory conditions does not, in a small sample during a limited period of time, result in the generation of new life just doesnā€™t help. What Meerkat is seeking is to show the impossibility of any such occurrence happening on any scale or timeframe in any known or unknown set of conditions on the ancient earth. Two problems, one general and one specific: (1) impossibility of a loosely-understood kind of occurrence is just the kind of thing which can never be demonstrated empirically, and (2) any experiment, even if it could show impossibility of life arising under its own conditions (which it really canā€™t), would not tell us anything about the possibility of life arising under all other possible sets of conditions, both imagined and not-imagined.

While there is no aspect of this argument which has ever worked worth a damn, this seems to me to be the central non sequitur around which the other ill-formed definitions, non sequiturs and basic errors of reason revolve. The experimental proposal is not so much a proposal to do any useful work as it is a proposal to try to make an exercise in bad philosophy sound like itā€™s some sort of empirical inquiry.

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No, this was not what I was referring to. Again, I am NOT implying that a disembodied mind/souls exists or the human mind exists outside of space and time in the context of substance dualism, which is a hallmark of the natural vs supernatural dichotomy, but that one substance and one reality exists.

Instead of the mind/information existing as or in the brain/matter via materialism, it is the brain/matter that exists within the mind/information as an information construct. In other words, brain/matter is still real but not ā€œObjectivelyā€ real where matter/brain and its effects are only real because the mind/information makes it real. Here, let me show you an example of what I meanā€¦

According to John chapter 1:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ā€œā€¦The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.ā€

The Greek meaning for ā€œthe Wordā€ mentioned in John 1:1-3 is ā€œsomething said; by implication, a topic, also reasoning or motive; by extension, a COMPUTATION; specially, the Divine Expression.ā€ [emphasis added]

In other words, God is Digital information in the form of logical absolutes and mathematical language. This is where the quantum aspect of the human mind is relevant here since it is also digital information in the form of computation according the Orch-OR theory. So if you guys try to suggests that digital information is supernatural or divine and quantum physics does not involve this, then you would be wrong.

Now, you have suggested in previous postsā€¦

Digital information is not just a useful fiction but an actual fundamental part of objective reality, such as wave-functions. BTW, both the genetic code and wave-functions involve Shannon information as well. You can watch this video from 0:00 to 11:30 for all the evidence:

The Emergent Universe - YouTube

Ahhhhā€¦ I think I found the actual disconnect here in our discourse. My answer is simpleā€¦God does not use matter and energy to affect matter and energy. Instead, he uses digital information in the form of wave-functions to create and design matter and energy. For instanceā€¦

According to quantum physics experiments, only the conscious observer has the ability to choose which aspect of nature his knowledge will probe, which is what the results of quantum physics experiments like ā€œquantum erasure with casually DISCONNECTED choiceā€ demonstrate (if I am not mistaken, of course). But, I am not suggesting that the conscious observerā€™s ability to collapse a waveform means they can control or affect reality using their mind alone like some sort of ESP psychic power.

Instead, since the mind is supposed to be non-local under Orch-OR theory, the observer effect results automatically becomes relevant and supportive to my overall case for God because the immaterial mind is the only true measurement apparatus that performs measurements first on the brain to simultaneous cause a collapse to the wave function.

For example, the observer must first specify or think of which particular wave-function he intends to measure and then, put in place a measuring device that will probe that aspect. Then, only the observer can recognize the answer and understand the results after he chooses between the many possible outcomes.

This is fundamentally why I believe the experimental methods I proposed to test my hypothesis are valid.

For instance, another quantum experiment done on a mathematical theorem showed that ā€œthe values that you obtain when you measure its properties depend on the context. So the value of property A, say, depends on whether you chose to measure it with property B, or with property C. In other words, there is no reality independent of the choice of measurement.ā€

Quantum magic trick shows reality is what you make it | New Scientist

This means that we are not purely passive observers whenever we perform an experiment but are actively affecting what the outcome will be. I highly recommend that you watch this video where I got my information from. It illustrates both my points in a clear and concise manner for laypeople on the subject of quantum physics:

The Measurement Problem - YouTube

Then, it looks like I officially won you over and I can move on to create the next topic. :wink:

No @Puck_Mendelssohn, Its not about nor is it necessary to rule out every possible natural condition in order to confirm or disconfirm my hypothesis. Instead, itā€™s about ruling out God as being part of the natural process and showing that God is not necessary, which is no different than disproving my hypothesis because the very definition of God is ā€œnecessaryā€.

Now, you did respond with thisā€¦

First off, in regards to your second point, you should know that ā€¦ā€œā€¦metaphysical necessity entails physical necessity, but not vice versaā€¦ā€

In regards to point 3,ā€¦ā€œA proposition is said to be necessary if it could not have failed to be the case.ā€

Metaphysical necessity - Wikipedia

My proposition: ā€œAn intelligent designer must guide all life on earthā€.

This is essentially no different than saying ā€œGod guides all life on earthā€ because (again) God is defined as being personal and necessary. Moreover, ā€œlifeā€ is by definition ā€œdigital informationā€, which is the immaterial means to guide natural processes, as I suggested to Dan.

This means that if a possible natural condition could produce digital information without the input of an intelligent designer, it would disprove my hypothesis.

No, thatā€™s inaccurate. Nothing in your formulation provides any possibility of ruling out natural causes or ruling out any of the gods. What you have is a badly-reworded framing of traditional creationist arguments, muddled up a bit by such things as your odd notions about ā€œdigital informationā€ which clearly come from the ID Creationist mountebanks.

If youā€™re actually interested in the origins of living things, there is interesting research for you to read. But it really doesnā€™t sound like you are. Instead, you think that scientific experiments can be deployed as a kind of handmaiden to bad philosophy. But such methods will persuade neither scientists nor philosophers.

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Define ā€œnaturalā€ cause because I am not sure how you are using that term and when you said other gods, are you referring to Gods from a particular religion?

A very long block of text here, none of which address falsifiability.

This also does not address falsifiability.

Not quite! :slight_smile:
First, itā€™s a much weaker proposition than your hypothesis.
Second, itā€™s wrong. I shouldnā€™t be able to falsify divine action with material evidence. (That wasnā€™t a trap, I just realized my error last night.)
Third, even if true, you still have no positive evidence in favor of design.

If this is your way of thinking, then that is also wrong. :wink:

Note: I didnā€™t mean for you to respond again to Puck, I just wanted to quote your entire response. However ā€¦

This happens all the time, so I guess we are done?

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Oh, seriously? You first. Itā€™s your hypothesis and I would be shocked to find that I am the one who introduced that word into this conversation.

I donā€™t think I said anything about ā€œotherā€ gods. Indeed, I donā€™t think anyone has mentioned any particular gods here, have they? I take you to be referring to any and all of the gods, not to any one of them in particular.

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Yes, these threads have been full of those kinds of stoppers, and yet it doesnā€™t stop. Every time two squirrels mate, most ID hypotheses are falsified, and the world thus becomes a better place both due to the increased likelihood of future squirrels and due to the negation of more religious fundamentalist claptrap. And yet, with squirrels in the very trees around them, the cdesign proponentsists just keep on being nutty.

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No no no, what I mean is that God did not use matter and energy as a means to affect chemical evolution. He used digital information in the form of wave-functions.

I hope I donā€™t sound condescending to you when I say this but I think that you probably have a lack of understanding for quantum physics, which is creating a disconnect within our discourse. Again, I really encourage you to watch the two videos I provided before, especially if you donā€™t want to read the huge block of text posted. Those videos sum up everything I argued before in a clear and concise manner. After you watch it, you should be able to see why my argument and method of testing is valid.

I am not sure what you meant here. Miller-Urey and the Lenski experiment did not produce new digital information so I donā€™t get where you are going with this.

Well, I told you already that it is not require to rule out every possible condition in order to confirm my hypothesis.

Second, I showed you already how my formulation statement is falsifiable.

Wrong, and wrong. But if youā€™re not able to understand objections, then you will not be able to respond to them, and I suppose that perhaps I need to say that this is no skin off my nose while you construct your elaborate pseudo-philosophical notion.

While I have seen it said that ā€œif you think you understand quantum physics, you donā€™t understand quantum physics,ā€ I think I have never seen it so convincingly demonstrated.

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How are wave functions not natural? Are the results of Youngā€™s double slit experiment caused by divine interactions?

Emitting a photon produces new wave functions which you describe as digital information, so it would appear that nearly all matter above absolute zero is naturally producing new digital information all of the time.

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No, they are natural. Just not made out of matter and energy.

No

No, matter and energy is being created and manifested from digital information. You really should watch the two videos I gave Dan on this subject.

Sorry, but you canā€™t sidestep falsifiability by throwing QM in as a ruse, or any other shenanigans for that matter. Divine action is beyond the scope of science, and you claim it can be falsified? No.

I claim no particular knowledge of QM, but Iā€™d wager my knowledge of statistics and probability gives me a better base understanding than your video tutorial. I do have considerable knowledge of framing hypotheses for hypothesis testing, and also information theory (a close cousin of statistical theory), which has been the basis of my criticisms from the start.

This is very strange statement. If there was no information then how was the experiment analyzed? ** You keep using ā€œdigitalā€ as if itā€™s some sort of magic word - It isnā€™t. My educated guess is you are using a lay persons informal definition of information, not a mathematical definition.

** In fact the Miller-Urey experiment formed organic compounds abiologically as hypothesized. This isnā€™t directly relevant to the current discussion except to note that, if the experiment had not formed organic compounds, the hypothesis would have been falsified.

You really havenā€™t. Ever.

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I believe that this is known in the trade as ā€œgoing full Deepakā€.

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