Apparently, I have to restart the discussion again.
The Evolution theory says that new designs can be created by the evolution process (EP) by random
mutations and natural selection. (or perhaps 'found' is a better word than 'create').
Stephen Meyer objects: "Whenever we see information and we trace it back to a source it always comes to a mind, not an undirected material process"
I have given an example, the labyrinth program, that I claim is an example of an undirected material process that creates or finds information, thus rebutting Meyer's claim.
The arguments that have come up here in this thread are all variants of the statement: Yes, but the material process (the program) is created by an intelligence, the programmer. Variants are that
- "the
ability of the computer to create new information is a function of and thus
dependent on the intelligence of the designer." DB #35
- "the programmer who created the computer program that
allows the computer to create new information." DB #47
- "the programmer did design a computer program with the
ability to process various types of input." DB #47
- the
'source' of the computer program is an intelligent programmer DB #49
- "The algorithms that make up the program executable are a
representation of the intelligence of the programmer. " DB #56
- Even though the programmer didn't know which specific path the program would find, the programmer's program
allowed for any of the millions of different paths. RickD #62
All these comments claim not only that when tracing backwards, as Meyer says, to a source we shall not stop at the direct source, the program in the example, but to the indirect source or the source of the source, the programmer. I will call the two methods
direct tracing and
indirect tracing below.
As I said before, the indirect tracing, will show to much and that indicates that Meyer is not thinking of the indirect tracing because if he uses indirect tracing his will argument fail. To show this I first states Meyer's argument in detail using direct tracing and then shows that the argument fails if he uses indirect tracing. From that follows the he certainly thinks of the direct method. This is also clear when I read other of Meyers articles. I have also referred to
https://www.trueorigin.org/dawkinfo.php where an ID theorist discusses creation of information extensively without mentioning the indirect method.
The conclusion is that if Meyer is talking about direct tracing then I also should talk about direct tracing in my counter example
Meyer says:
1) "Whenever we see information and we trace it back to a source it always comes to a mind, not an undirected material process".
To make it more explicit:
2) According to what we know, if we trace the information back from a process to a source the trace always comes to a mind, not an undirected material process.
Meyer seems to conclude, from 2) :
3) For all processes, if we trace the information back from a process to a source the trace always comes to a mind, not an undirected material process.
From 3) :
4) Evolutionary processes have to be traced back to a mind.
From 4) :
5) Evolution without minds is impossible.
This seems evident:
6) According to the theory evolution, all evolutional processes are undirected material process.
From 5) and 6) :
7) The theory of evolution is false.
(It can be noted that the conclusion 3) doesn't follow from 2) logically. However, my intention is to give a counter-example to 1) so this isn't important to me now. One may wonder if Meyer really didn't understand that he made a logical mistake).
In the evaluation above it is presumed that the tracing is from a process to a process not from a process to the creator of the process. This I called direct tracing.
If we define tracing not only from a process to a process but even to the creator of a process, what I called indirect tracing, we will get another conclusion. The tracing may go back to the creator of the evolution, which may be materialistic or a mind. However, the start of the evolution process isn't itself part of the evolution process, it's only the creator of it. This would mean that the backtracing in 4) may go back to a mind that created the evolution process, even if the evolution theory is true. Then it is not shown that 5) is true because the process that created the evolution is not a part of the evolution. And if 5) is false then 6) and 7) don't follow.
Evidently, the aim of Meyers proposition is to show that evolution isn't possible. Therefore he doesn't include the creator of a process in the back-tracing. So when discussing my counter example the creator of the program shouldn't be included in the back-tracking and my example shows that there is one case where an undirected material process creates information.
Nils
). The PPC states that what is in the effect must preexist in some way in the cause. In more common jargon, something cannot give what it does not have. One can then define in what way the effect might preexist in the cause. There are basically 3 ways, formally, virtually, or eminently. I'm not going to go into too much detail as to each but suffice to say that the issue you are having is that you think unless an effect (the ability of the algorithm to derive new information) is in the cause (the algorithm designer) formally (i.e. a direct link) then there is no link at all. That is simply false. In this case the cause is in the effect virtually. Without the programmer having designed the algorithm in the first place, there is no effect of producing new information. 