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Timothy Sandefur, if you doubt Wright is being sincere in claiming not to be an ID fan, you should read this article he wrote in slate:

The "New" Creationism

As for Wright's comparison of the history of life to the development of an embryo, it might help to consider the following speculation. The physicist Lee Smolin has hypothesized that there could be a kind of Darwinian process responsible for setting the values of many constants in physics--his idea is based on the idea from quantum gravity that tiny regions of the universe can pinch off and form a "baby universe" which then expands in a similar way that our own universe expanded after the Big Bang. Smolin suggests that each baby universe might "inherit" similar values of various physical constants as its parent universe, but with slight random variations. He also suggests that baby universes might be formed by the singularity of a black hole, which means the more black holes in a parent universe, the more "offspring" it will have. In this way there would be a sort of process of random mutation and natural selection operating on the scale of universes, with constants that allow for the most black-hole formation being selected for--this would insure, for example, that universes that expand too fast or recollapse too quickly would be selected against, because stars could not form in such universes. Dennett actually discusses this hypothesis in "Darwin's Dangerous Idea", I believe.

Suppose we extend this and speculate that any time intelligent life appears in a universe and survives long enough to travel between stars (or creates A.I. 'children' that are able to do so), it becomes very likely that they will engage in cosmic engineering projects that result in many more black holes than would have formed naturally (perhaps, for example, the intelligent beings want to maximize the number of computations they're able to do before the heat death of the universe, and so end up building a lot of black hole computers). In this case, the selection process described by Smolin would also select for values of the constants which increase the probability that intelligent life will form and spread throughout the universe. If there are various typical stumbling blocks along the path to intelligence, like the difficulty of abiogenesis, the difficulty of forming multicellular organisms, and so on, then to the extent that the likelihood of passing these stumbling blocks would be affected by slight variations in the constants of physics (which would surely affect the biochemistry of life in different universes, at least), then the selection process might be able to miminize the chances that a suitable planet will be prevented from giving rise to space-faring intelligence because it hits one of these stumbling blocks.

If all this were true, wouldn't the analogy to embryology make a fair amount of sense? There are many developmental stumbling blocks that can cause an embryo to die before reaching maturity, but natural selection acts to fine-tune the development process to make it as smooth as possible and to minimize the risk that the embryo will fail in one of these ways. Natural selection acts to insure that the dynamics of the developmental process pull the embryo towards the "attractor" of the adult form, just like the universal natural selection described above would act to insure the dynamics of the biospheres pull them towards the "attractor" of multicellular life with nervous systems of increasing complexity (but note that life in such biospheres would still be evolving in a purely Darwinian way).

The question is, does the development of intelligence in our universe resemble what you'd expect in a universe that had been fine-tuned for it by the Darwinian process described above? My own inclination would be to say no--there's the Fermi paradox for one thing, and the huge gap between abiogenesis and the development of multicellularity, and I found Robin Hanson's paper The Great Filter made a good case that the history of life we see on Earth looks just how we should expect if the development of intelligence was in fact very unlikely. On the other hand, if you at least tentatively answer yes, that the history of life on Earth might look about how one would expect if the "universal selection for laws of physics that maximize the probability of spacefaring intelligence" theory were true, then you'll have to admit that the embryology analogy makes a certain kind of sense. And once you admit that, then you have to admit the possibility that instead of this fine-tuning having been achieved by a selection process, it could have been achieved by a designer who set the laws of physics to maximize the possibility that life would arise and that RM&NS operating on this life over billions of years would lead to the development of intelligence.

Jesse M....I love this guy! (You should really read the latter half on "Nonzero" (actually the whole thing, but whatever). Wright makes a pretty strong case for directionality in biological evolution.

Anyway, Timothy: I agree that Wright is making some sort of religious statement. But it's not as strong as you make it out to be: he is posting that there is some strong evidence of Design. Not conclusive, mind you, but highly suggestive.

To take on your original argument more closely:

"to any extent," if fact X happened, it would support theory Y. A philosopher can discuss these things without any connection to the reality of the case. He has asked Dennett to assume that "you can describe the history of evolution in this planet in a way that closely parallels this description of an organism's life cycle," and then asks if that fact would lend credence to the theory of the existence of a Designer. To that, Dennett answers with the most equivocal support. This is tantamount to asking, suppose that Columbian drug lords were out for O.J. Simpson; if that were true, would it support, to any extent, the argument that they killed Nicole Brown Simpson?"

This is clearly a false analogy that goes way too far. You are ignoring that when Wright asks Dennett to assume "that you can descrbe the history of evolution in this planet in a way that closely parallels this description of an organism's life cycle...", Dennett has already conceded that, in fact, the history of evolution on this planet does in many ways closely parallel the description of an organism's life cycle. Just because Dennett didn't come out the other end a convert doesn't mean he did not concede this important point.

Look at Wright's detailed response to Dennett here; the logic is on his side.
www.nonzero.org/replytodennett.htm

It's hard to believe the same guy wrote the good Slate article and the horrible Dennett article.

I agree that Wright is making some sort of religious statement. But it’s not as strong as you make it out to be: he is posting that there is some strong evidence of Design. Not conclusive, mind you, but highly suggestive.

Yes, this is very interesting stuff, Alexei. So, what was it that was the "bad news for Dennett’s many atheist devotees." ?

The physicist Lee Smolin has hypothesized that there could be a kind of Darwinian process responsible for setting the values of many constants in physics---his idea is based on the idea from quantum gravity that tiny regions of the universe can pinch off and form a "baby universe" which then expands in a similar way that our own universe expanded after the Big Bang. Smolin suggests that each baby universe might "inherit" similar values of various physical constants as its parent universe, but with slight random variations.

"to any extent," if fact X happened, it would support theory Y.

So, I'm using it to the extent, I mean, I think we've agreed that observing, what is it, ontogeny, I guess is the term, or---you know, development of an organism--- Dennett: Mm hmm. Wright: ---that it has its direction, its movement toward functionality by design, and that's in fact the hallmark of design--- Dennett: Mm hmm. Wright: To the extent that natural, that evolution on this planet turned out to have comparable properties, that would work, at least, to some extent, in favor of the hypothesis of design. Dennett: Mmmm. [Makes "well, I guess, sorta" facial expression; pauses] Uh--- Wright: To some extent. To any extent. Dennett: Yeah, I guess.

"Wright misinterprets his own videoclip (I am grateful that it is available uncut on his website, so that everybody can see for themselves). All I agreed to was that IF natural selection had the properties of embryogenesis (or "an organism's maturation"), it would be evidence for a higher purpose. But I have always insisted that evolution by natural selection LACKS those very properties. And I insisted on that in the earlier portions of the videoclip."

NOTE WHAT YOUR VERBATIM QUOTE SAYS: 'directional movement toward functionality by design" What are those last two words doing for you? Distinguishing it from 'directional movement toward functioanality but not by design" right? ... No. This is just the issue. Ontogeny is itself a designed process. [Natural] selection is not. And yet, natural selection does yield 'directional movement toward functionality" You've got to remember that I insist again and again that in order to understand these phenomena we have to abandon the old essentialist viewpoint that gives us a Prime Mammal. or (in this context) the Prime Designed Process. Evolution, an ultimately purposeless process, gives rise to subprocesses and other phenomena that exhibit more and more functionality, more and more design. That absolutely does NOT imply purpose in the basic process. That's the whole point. Why would I abandon that, when it's the heart of all my arguments?

Great White -

Obviously, the baby universes do not exhibit Darwinian processes. Even if they do, each universe (and its microstructures) is probably just too damn complex for these processes to ever fully explain them. Any evidence that we find which leads us to intepret that our so-called scientific "laws" govern their behavior, is simply a mirage. In fact, we are fooling ourselves by even trying to explain them emperically. Our findings will inevitably just be a "crude model" for what was obviously designed by God.

Thus, you are correct, there is intelligent design in everything, especially randomly (deterministically) pocketed regions of the phase space that grow into other universes.

(I hope the sarcasm is not lost)

To answer your question, maybe when a singularity is formed by the complex interactions between quantum field waves, it is at first just a proto-singularity, which then (according to Darwinian principles) undergoes a variety of transformations until it is a fully-formed, ripe singularity ready to be born as a universe.

Yes, infinity undergoes many changes, so that it is then infinity, and then goes through several developmental stages, all of which lead the initial infinity to become a sort of different infinity, eventually forming the fetal infinity, which we know as the infinitely dense singularity which erupts into a universe.

In order to fully understand all of this, I would stay away from the DMT-meth combination.

I find that LSD actually allows you to BECOME a proto-singularity. This provides valuable insite when gathering evidence for determining whether or not the blastula stage of a universe is governed by Darwinian processes.

Further lessons can be learned if one's meditations on the "survival of the fittest quantum fluctuation" is accompanied by the:

2/4/70 China Cat --> I Know you Rider.

Take care!

Tom Curtis wrote:
This brings me to Jesse M.  First let me say that if he could show his Smolinesque speculation to be true, he would have established the premise of Wright's argument.  If universes evolved towards the possession intelligent life as a functionally necessary feature for generating a maximum number of daughter universes, then evolution of intelligent life in such a universe would be a designed (small d) feature of the universe; and this would, by Wright's argument suport the case that life was Designed on Earth.  Of course, our "higher purpose" would merely be to make more black holes.  I doubt this would satisfy any religious sensibility.

However, Smolin's original speculation does not have this feature.  According to Smolin, the presence of carbon encourages the collapse of nebula into stars, and hence increases the number of black holes.  Thus universes do evolve to produce carbon, which makes them life friendly - but that life friendliness is a Spandrel.  It has no functional role in the propogation of universes.  In that case, biological evolution is not a designed feature of the universe, and Wright's argument is unsuported.

I think you're missing the point. Smolin has not claimed there is any actual evidence for his hypothesis, and there is certainly none for the alternate version I suggested (nor do I think it is at all plausible), but all this is irrelevant to my argument. I was just putting this forward as a thought-experiment--the mere fact that we can all agree it's a coherent idea shows that the analogy between the development of the biosphere and the development of an embryo is not an obviously flawed one, even if we all agree that evolution has proceeded in a completely Darwinian way. So, any discussion of whether the analogy works or not can be framed in terms of the differences between how the development of the biosphere would look in a possible world where the laws of physics had been tailored for intelligence in this way vs. a possible world where they hadn't, and which possible world more closely resembles what we see in the actual world. For example, Wright's arguments about trees functioning as a planetary respiration system can be understood in this way--perhaps with slightly different laws photosynthesis wouldn't be possible and the only multicellular life would be clustered around hydrothermal vents, which would presumably make the development of intelligence a lot more unlikely.

My point is not that I find Wright's arguments convincing or that I think Smolin's hypothesis or my own variation on it are at all likely to be true, my point is just that very general arguments against the ontogeny/evolution analogy, such as Dennett's "Ontogeny is a designed process. Selection is not." are insufficient to discount it. Since the whole question is whether or not the development of the biosphere shows signs of having been designed, it would be begging the question to simply assume at the outset that because life evolved in a Darwinian manner, that proves that everything about the development of the biosphere is "undesigned"--my thought-experiment was intended to show that there is a possible world where life still evolves in a purely Darwinian way but certain aspects of the development of the biosphere were designed (by natural selection at the level of universes).

To those who have asked (in effect) "why would Wright write such a stupid, sensationalist article?", see my analysis here. If you watch the entire interview, there's a discussion starting around 30:00 in where Wright advances a truly incoherent version of epiphenomenalism. Dennett rejects it politely, but when Wright persists, and persists, and persists, Dennett simply destroys him - very professionally, very completely. If I were Wright, I'd be pretty pissed off at how bad Dennett made him look....

I think you're missing the point. Smolin has not claimed there is any actual evidence for his hypothesis, and there is certainly none for the alternate version I suggested (nor do I think it is at all plausible), but all this is irrelevant to my argument. I was just putting this forward as a thought-experiment---the mere fact that we can all agree it's a coherent idea shows that the analogy between the development of the biosphere and the development of an embryo is not an obviously flawed one, even if we all agree that evolution has proceeded in a completely Darwinian way.

Since the whole question is whether or not the development of the biosphere shows signs of having been designed, it would be begging the question to simply assume at the outset that because life evolved in a Darwinian manner, that proves that everything about the development of the biosphere is "undesigned"---my thought-experiment was intended to show that there is a possible world where life still evolves in a purely Darwinian way but certain aspects of the development of the biosphere were designed (by natural selection at the level of universes).

For what it is worth, Smolin does think there is evidence for his theory.

However, if your point was simply that we can construct an analogy between embryogenesis and the history of life, I do not see how your scenario helps the argument.  Dennet agrees with Wright that if you "step back and view the history of life in time lapse" there is an analogy between embryogenesis and the history of life.  I would also agree, but I would agree also with Dennet that the analogy is only approximate. Perhaps the problem is that you are unfamiliar with how argument from analogy works.  To establish an argument from analogy, you first establish an analogy between the properties of two things.  You establish that for the first object, it has properties A, B, C, etc, and that the second object has analogous properties a, b, c, etc.  You then argue that because the first object has property Z, the second must also have the analogous property z.

Dennet's conclusion in the interview is not that there is no Design (ie, higher purpose) in the universe.  Rather he concludes that Wright has a valid argument, and that all Wright needs do is show that the history of life "moves toward functionality by design" to have a sound one.  But Wright cannot do that.  I would not want to argue that those (such as Howard van Till and Simon Conway Morris) who think life moves towards functionality be design for religious reasons are irrational.  (Quite the contrary.)  But I respect them for recognising that the basis for their belief is religious, not scientific - and for not confusing the two.

In the article you link to, Smolin says he believes it is testable ..., and he also says "So far, I haven't found a way to change the properties of the particles and forces to make a universe that makes more black holes, and I have found several changes that decrease their number." I don't know if he would call this real rigorous scientific evidence for his hypothesis though ...

Instead, I think Wright is making an argument for a common causal explanation from analogy. Since we know that properties of A, B, and C of the embryo all have a common causal explanation Z (they have been 'designed' by natural selection to grow in such a way that they will become functional adults), then if we also see similar properties A', B', and C' in the biosphere, Wright takes that to increase the likelihood that something similar to Z will also explain why we see all these features in the biosphere.

I don't think Wright ever claimed that his argument from analogy constituted "scientific" evidence for design, I thought it was more of a philosophical argument. If you remember any quotes suggesting otherwise, please provide them.

Alternatively, we could treat Wright's argument as not being an analogy at all, but rather being an inference to best explanation.  That would be an unusual, but not impossible interpretation.  IF his argument is an inference to best explanation, then the discussion to embryogenesis is illustrative only, and not an essential part of the argument.

However, as an inference to best explanation, Wright's argument would not be inovative at all.  Rather it would be an obscure way of presenting the "fine tuning" argument.  This is because it is only the parameters of physical constants that a designer (or designing process) can adjust to make natural selection work.  You cannot have a universe with exactly our physical laws (at the level of physics) and not have natural selection work.

I'm trying to understand your classification of arguments here---what about an "inference to best explanation" that depends entirely on an analogy?

I do not think there can be such a thing.  Taking your example, if we thought that human diseases resulted from the activity of evil spirits, we would apply the analogy and conclude the aliens were also afflicted by evil spirits.  The point is that your example is an argument from analogy, and not an inference to best explanation.  Now, it is true that our belief in the existance of communicable diseases is a result of inference to best explanation (according to many philosophers of science).  But that is not relevant to the argument as presented.  It could equally have been formed by acceptance of authority (as it is for most people).  That would not effect the inductive validity of the analogy, although as the "evil spirits" illustrates, it may effect its soundness.

It seems to me that you are artificially breaking the argument in two, and saying that because neither half alone is enough to draw any conclusions about the cause of the alien disease, this somehow proves that combining them won't be enough either.

It seems to me that you are artificially breaking the argument in two, and saying that because neither half alone is enough to draw any conclusions about the cause of the alien disease, this somehow proves that combining them won't be enough either.

I do not think it is an artificial break.  You have an argument from analogy, ie, that case 1 has properties a, b, c, and z; that case 2 has properties a', b', c'; and you conclude that case 2 has property z'.  That is fine, and probably a good argument.  As it happens, you have established that z by an inference to best explanation.  That does not make the analogy a variant of inference to best explanation, for the analogy would have been equally valid had you established that z by authority, or enumerative induction, or Popperian confirmation.  I had hoped I had illustrated this point by modifying the example so that the analogy was unsound because it falsely attributed property y in case 1, and inferred property y' in case 2 as a result.  The analogy would have had equal validity in this case, for as an analogical argument, it is distinct from the arguments used to establish the premises.

Even if so, I'm still inclined to say your abstract definition of the argument from analogy is too general to capture why the argument for alien microorganisms is a plausible one. ... Now this is just as valid an argument from analogy as the alien microorganism one, and all the premises are perfectly sound, but somehow the argument as a whole seems a lot less plausible.

It could be that the only reason for this is because we already know too much about apples and corvettes---maybe to an intelligent baby who knows nothing about plant grown or car manufacture it might not seem so implausible. But I think it may also have to do with the fact that in one case we are simply picking random traits of the corvette and the apple, while in the other case we are looking at a cluster of features (respiratory difficulties, loss of appetite, contagiousness) that "naturally" seem to go together, and using our knowledge of the common cause of these features to infer something about the common cause of a similar constellation of features in the aliens, as opposed to just taking some other random feature associated with human disease and inferring it is likely to be present in the aliens as well (for example, it is also a feature of many human diseases that they cause us to spend more time in bed, but without knowing whether the alien race even sleeps it would not be so reasonable to conclude this was also true of the aliens who were exhibiting all the other symptoms).