Sunday, May 27, 2007

More Thoughts about an ID Proposal

Continuing the upgrade from previous posts...
While I call this an "ID Proposal" it is more like a model or prototype in that I am not offering it as a Truth (capital "T") see OMA/NOMA for details. I offer it as a workable possibility based loosely on ID arguments.

ID proponents generally argue that only intelligence can create intelligence without getting too picky about the meaning of the word “intelligence”. Being an electrical engineer, this is the basis for a feedback loop. How do you create a sine wave output? Use a sine wave input and amplify it. Where do you get the input? From the output. It is called an oscillator circuit. Nothing magical or supernatural about it (except, maybe, the AA battery).

But even an oscillator circuit needs a framework from which to operate. Cosmologists like Steven Hawking make it their calling to model just such a framework. Steven Hawking’s work is freely available via the web and, unlike some other PhD types, he explains both the math and logic in a way that it can be understood and vetted by anyone who wishes to do so. Here is a link where he explains the concept of time as just another dimension like North/South directions on a globe with the South Pole being the beginning of time and the North Pole being the end of time. Questions about events before the beginning of time are like questions about locations South of the South Pole. Both are paradoxical, but neither requires the supernatural.

The Hawking Model includes the multiverse paradigm…“The picture Jim Hartle and I developed, of the spontaneous quantum creation of the universe, would be a bit like the formation of bubbles of steam in boiling water. The idea is that the most probable histories of the universe, would be like the surfaces of the bubbles. Many small bubbles would appear, and then disappear again. These would correspond to mini universes that would expand, but would collapse again while still of microscopic size.… A few of the little bubbles, however, will grow to a certain size at which they are safe from recollapse.” An ID complaint to this is that the multiverse is metaphysical and still doesn’t solve the improbability problem. In other words, why is this universe so lucky? I suggest changing the bubbles analogy to a lightening strike.

The only universe we know of must complete a circuit from the beginning to the end of time or it wouldn't exist. Think of the improbability of a lighting striking hitting a specific, small piece of metal out of acres of other targets. However, when that piece of metal is a lighting rod that completes a circuit, the improbable becomes very probable. “Retrocausality” is a term that came up in TT. Here is the link to the newspaper article that initiated the discussion. A future state (cause) that completes the consistency circuit will influence the historical time-path (effect) much like a lightening strike steers towards a lightening rod. Please note that I am using the term “retrocausality” more loosely than it was in the article. Retrocausality could include a designing process predicting a future need and front-loading the first primitive organisms with an answer to that need.

This proposed model helps explain why this universe appears finely tuned and why historical events appear too fortuitous. With time just being another dimension, like North and South, retrocausality maps out the lightning strike to complete a circuit from the beginning to the end of time. Simply stated... The purpose of this Telic Universe is to exist and be internally consistent. But why is consciousness/intelligence needed for the Telic Universe to complete its circuit?

Some people have postulated that some kind of Ultimate Observer is needed for existence. If there is no observer, there would be nothing to observe. Such an observer wouldn't need any other attribute other the ability to observe. Some would call this attribute consciousness (or intelligence). In order for the universe to exist to the end of time, there must be a consciousness at the end of time. Therefore, the Telic Universe must include the creation of consciousness in its overall purpose.

From here, I was planning on going into the Penrose/Hamerhoff theory of the creation of consciousness. However, that is a topic in of itself. Here is a link to Hamerhoff's explaination.

Meanwhile a blogger named Island offered a link to his site that offered his thoughts on this subject. Here is that link

Please excuse the abrupt end, but I want to concentrate on Penrose/Hamerhoff for now.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Here's your feedback loop:

Our Darwinian Universe

Thought Provoker said...

Thank you for comment and the link.

Actually, I was about to scrap this "under construction" post and replace it with something more focused on Penrose's theories.

If you don't mind, I will just clean it up and include your link.

Thanks,
Thought Provoker

Unknown said...

No, I don't mind, at all.

Thought Provoker said...

Thank you. It isn't ideal, but at least it is better than leaving the post "under construction" forever.

Unknown said...

Please excuse the abrupt end, but I want to concentrate on Penrose/Hamerhoff for now.

Too much esoteric and abstract emphasis on consciousness, and not enough on the brute physics facts.

Bottom line... we're here to work.

Other scientists, like James Kay, Eric Schneider, Dorion Sagan, and Scott Sampson, have found a *local* clue to what this means, but this article is only a popularization, so beware the warped science:

The Meaning of Life

This is Sagan and Schneider's book, which is a lot more scientific:

Into The Cool