"The Red Corvette" problem -- a disconnect in view points

by AlmostAtheist 27 Replies latest jw friends

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  AlmostAtheist

  In another thread, a poster brought up what he called "The Red Corvette" problem. The problem, he said, is that if you are a true atheist, you MUST believe that a red Corvette could simply form out of nothing. If you believe life originated from nothing, then you must believe that a less-complicated machine such as a sports car could also have originated from nothing.

  This problem was addressed on the thread, but not to the poster's satisfaction. I believe this is because there is a disconnect between how he and those that answered him are viewing the problem. It is my hope that a reasoned, respectful discussion of that issue could bring the two camps closer to understanding each other. Not that I expect anyone to change camps over it, only that we can at least see where the other is coming from.

  I don't know that it's fair to classify this as an "atheist" discussion. An atheist wouldn't necessarily believe that life on earth sprang from nothing, nor would a theist necessarily NOT believe abiogenesis is possible. Unless I miss the poster's point, it's more about those that believe abiogenesis is possible and those that don't.

  So, I'd like to explore the thinking of those that consider "The Red Corvette" problem to be an issue.

  To get the ball rolling, no one believes a red corvette could appear out of nothing on its own. There is a chance of course, but it is so vanishingly low as to be comfortably classified as impossible. Moreover, the poster knows we don't believe it. I think the point is to show how ridiculous the idea of abiogenesis is. So let's agree that no one believes it, and try to establish why a person could accept the idea of abiogenesis without accepting that a Chevy could self-construct.

  (For anyone not familiar with what the idea of abiogenesis is, here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis)

  Abiogenesis -- if it occurred, and there's no proof that it did -- would not have produced a corvette, or any biological equivalent. It would have produced something that we wouldn't today classify as life. It would have been a rudimentary replicating system. The equivalent of producing a well-rounded stick, as opposed to a sports car. If you came upon a stick that was pretty round and rolled pretty well, you might conclude it was a manufactured dowel rod. Or you might conclude it happened by chance. It wouldn't be such a spectacular find that you'd be all that awfully impressed either way.

  Once this replicator came into being, natural selection would have allowed it to grow and evolve into higher forms. Every chance change to the "children" of the replicator would confer greater or lesser survivability on those children. The ones that "survived" (again, we're not talking life, so these are conceptual terms) would have been able to replicate more, and so pass on those traits to their children.

  That's why I don't see the "LRC" problem as a problem. Just like the car of today evolved from simple round sticks used to help move heavy objects, life today could have evolved from much, much simpler self-replicating chemicals.

  Dave
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  Terry

  Fallacy of the False Analogy.

  A Corvette is not organic.

  Understanding this is foundational to conceptual reasoning.

  The mind can link any two thoughts. This doesn't make those two thought commensurable.

  Ever heard of Google-Whacking?
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  Simon

  The 'order' that can be produced by natural processes can be quite amazing:

  That has to be man-made ... right?

  Of course the red corvette 'problem' isn't a problem at all - it is a false argument to try and support a week belief of something even more incredible ... a super powerful being that is somehow interested in messing around with dust.
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  AlmostAtheist

  >>Fallacy of the False Analogy. A Corvette is not organic.

  Unless I'm mistaken, I think the LRC poster would disagree. He's looking at the simplest form of self-replicator found in nature and saying, "Even this simple life form is incredibly complex! Even at its simplest, it still needs to consume/excrete, convert energy into motion, divide, etc, etc. This 'simple' creature is MORE complex than the LRC, and so I find it just as impossible that it could have formed by chance." So from his perspective, the analogy is sound.

  I agree with you, Terry, that it is not a good analogy, since abiogenesis doesn't suggest that even the simplest life forms known today would have spontaneously erupted from goo. I'm hoping to get the poster to understand that. (Not agree necessarily, but understand.)

  Dave
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  Terry

  Reduced to its simplest form the argument goes like this.

  Everything has to have a cause. The more complex and intelligent the effect; the more requirement there is for an intelligent and deliberate cause.

  Of course, all this just falls completely apart when you ask what is the "cause" of God.

  Believers simply accept a ready-made super-intelligent being without blinking an eye and turn around and balk at primordial ooze becoming life-active.

  The presupposition that God needs no cause, no beginning and no explanation is the largest demonstration of a mental disconnect I've witnessed.

  It effectually disables their argument about Corvettes or any other such example.
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  M.J.

  natural selection would have allowed it to grow and evolve into higher forms.

  There's the heart of the matter. Can natural selection track intelligent selection?

  In the case of the Corvette, it DID evolve. It evolved from the first tool created by man, probably a digging stick.

  Which eventually led to metallurgy, etc. The red Corvette is a culmination of thousands of years of evolution.

  But it was an evolution directed by intelligence.

  Can natural selection do the same?

  There is some debate even in the scientific community on this question.

  I, for one thing, would like to see a computer program iteratively upgrade itself to self-acquire additional functionality and complexity. So far this has not been accomplished. A programmer is needed to provide additional functionality.
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  Confession

  Great thread, AA. And, Terry, I especially appreciated this...

  Believers simply accept a ready-made super-intelligent being without blinking an eye and turn around and balk at primordial ooze becoming life-active.

  I don't disparage those who have strong belief in God, nor those who have difficulty accepting abiogenesis. But (to me) those who disdainfully advance the above lack credibility.
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  AlmostAtheist

  >>I, for one thing, would like to see a computer program iteratively upgrade itself to self-acquire additional functionality and complexity. So far this has not been accomplished.

  That's not completely true, M.J. The idea of a program rewriting itself as it finds better ways to do things has been around for awhile. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_programming

  What's required for "intelligent" selection is essentially a set of rules for survival. The rule for candy-survival, for instance, is to taste bad. So if you see a picked-over bowl of candy, you'll find that the candies people don't like wind up being the only "survivors". No intelligence was applied to their selection, they just happened to fit the rules.

  In biology, the rule is "be able to live long enough to reproduce".

  Dave
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  AlmostAtheist

  >>The presupposition that God needs no cause, no beginning and no explanation is the largest demonstration of a mental disconnect I've witnessed.
  >>It effectually disables their argument about Corvettes or any other such example.

  If I might play Jesus Advocate for a moment... ;-)

  From what I've seen from hooberus, and seen implied by others, the idea is that the First Cause would not require a creator, since the premise is that only that which had a beginning needs a creator. IOW, if it isn't an "effect", then it didn't need a "cause".

  Could I agree that something that wasn't caused by something else didn't require a cause? Yeah, that's self-evident from the definition.

  There's no proof that I'm aware of that the stuff of the universe had a beginning. The observable structure of the universe pretty clearly did, but the quantum-level gunk that it's all built from? I find the idea that all that stuff has always existed more palatable than the idea of a super-being that's always existed.

  Dave
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  M.J.

  The idea of a program rewriting itself as it finds better ways to do things has been around for awhile.

  Thanks for that link, AA. I'll spend some time checking that out.

  But on first glance, it appears that the programs talked about here improve themselves by optimizing parameters of functions which already exist. I fully agree that both computer programs AND natural selection are quite good at optimizing existing parameters based on external conditions.

  But can new functions self-generate? Can the programming itself, not just its parameter values, evolve?

  From that Wikepedia article you supplied, it looks like "Meta Genetic Programming" is an attempt at addressing this question:

  Meta-Genetic Programming is the technique of evolving a genetic programming system using genetic programming itself. [7] It proposes that chromosomes, crossover, and mutation were themselves evolved, therefore like their real life counterparts should be allowed to change on their own rather than being determined by a human programmer. It is a very new area of research, and documentation on the subject is sparse.

  Critics of this idea often say this is a problem of infinite recursion, as well as being overly broad in scope, and so could not produce any meaningful results. They also cite the halting problem in the context of knowing if it can ever produce results.