"Intelligent Chemistry"?

[sbvera13]

For the Intelligent Design people: if a mere drop of oil can appear intelligent due to it's environment, what does that say for ID? Apparently, research is beginning to show that even the human brain operates according to simple laws of chemistry.

What a maze-solving oil drop tells us of intelligence - tech - 21 January 2010 - New Scientist

DYED pink and doped with acid, the small, inanimate drop of oil is deposited at the entrance to the maze - and immediately sets off towards the exit. A few minutes later, it emerges at the other end.
No one would equate this apparently astonishing problem-solving with intelligence. But new theories on human intelligence and the brain suggest the simple molecular processes governing the oil droplet's apparently smart behaviour may be fundamentally similar to those that govern how we act.

So why does the dumb droplet appear to be moving in an intelligent way? The answer is all around us, says Clark. The aqueous environment surrounding the droplet is structured to such a high degree by the pH gradient that it makes the dumb droplet appear smart. "It's a neat demonstration of just how much problem-solving punch you can get from a minimal internal structure in a nicely enabling environment."

Work on artificial neural networks has shown that the same principles apply to these networks: by minimising the difference between the predictions a network makes and what it actually senses happening, the network is also driven towards equilibrium. Friston is now showing how the equations that govern neural networks and thermodynamic systems apply to real brains.

 

[Naraoia]

Interesting.

 

[Agonaces of Susa]

For the Intelligent Design people

I am.

if a mere drop of oil can appear intelligent due to it's environment, what does that say for ID?

It says nothing.

For a mere drop of oil doesn't appear intelligent to ID but only to mainstream scientists and petroleum geologists.

As your article says, "Nakagaki is unwilling to extend the notion of intelligence to the oil droplet. 'It is nonsense for me to consider intelligence in non-living systems,' he says."

Apparently, research is beginning to show that even the human brain operates according to simple laws of chemistry.

Apparently not.

If that were true you would be able to use chemisty to ressurrect people and bring them back to life.

 

[pgp_protector]

Cool, but is sounds like it's just sliding "downhill" where the hill is the dispersion of the acid level.

I'd imagine that if you had a graph of the PH level you could also see the maze path.

 

[Washington]

As your article says, "Nakagaki is unwilling to extend the notion of intelligence to the oil droplet. 'It is nonsense for me to consider intelligence in non-living systems,' he says."

Yet this is just what IDers do. Interesting turn of the screw here.

 

[RealityCheck]

Cool, but is sounds like it's just sliding "downhill" where the hill is the dispersion of the acid level.

I'd imagine that if you had a graph of the PH level you could also see the maze path.

The point of the research is not to show that oil is "intelligent" but to give insight into how intelligence functions as a complex system of simple chemical processes.

 

[RealityCheck]

Apparently not.

If that were true you would be able to use chemisty to ressurrect people and bring them back to life.

That doesn't make any sense. How does this follow from what he said?

 

[Naraoia]

If that were true you would be able to use chemisty to ressurrect people and bring them back to life.

And if your reasoning were valid, rainbows would have formed by magic until people invented prisms.

 

[SkyWriting]

For the Intelligent Design people: if a mere drop of oil can appear intelligent due to it's environment, what does that say for ID? Apparently, research is beginning to show that even the human brain operates according to simple laws of chemistry.
What a maze-solving oil drop tells us of intelligence - tech - 21 January 2010 - New Scientist

Everything on "this" side of reality has a mechanism and an explanation.
In other words, it is designed to work, and to work amazingly well.

The only thing I can think of that I would change would be radiation poisoning. But likely there's a God/good reason for it.

 

[Agonaces of Susa]

That doesn't make any sense. How does this follow from what he said?

Intelligent life is not chemicals.

If intelligent life were simply chemicals, doctors would use chemistry to create life and and bring people back to life.

Even my ten year old sister understands this logic.

 

[Agonaces of Susa]

And if your reasoning were valid, rainbows would have formed by magic until people invented prisms.

Saying rainbows were formed by magic makes more sense than the scientific lies that are told.

"All the terms used in the science books, 'law,' 'necessity,' 'order,' 'tendency,' and so on, are really unintellectual .... The only words that ever satisfied meas describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, 'charm,' 'spell,' 'enchantment.' They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a MAGIC tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched." -- G.K. Chesterton, philosopher, Orthodoxy, Chapter IV: The Ethics of Elfland, 1909

 

[Washington]

Intelligent life is not chemicals.

If intelligent life were simply chemicals, doctors would use chemistry to create life and and bring people back to life.

Because knowing how nature works is the same thing as being able to duplicate nature. Ah, ye of abundant faith.

Saying rainbows were formed by magic makes more sense the scientific lies that are told.

Yeah, light defraction has to be a lie. Anyone with a sixth grade education knows that white isn't a color, so how could white light have colors in it.

​

"All the terms used in the science books, 'law,' 'necessity,' 'order,' 'tendency,' and so on, are really unintellectual .... The only words that ever satisfied meas describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, 'charm,' 'spell,' 'enchantment.' They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a MAGIC tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched." -- G.K. Chesterton, philosopher, Orthodoxy, Chapter IV: The Ethics of Elfland, 1909

Of course it's no surprise that you're stuck back in the early 20th century where science is concerned.

 

[SkyWriting]

Apparently, research is beginning to show that even the human brain operates according to simple laws of chemistry.

I think we knew that 20 some years ago.
The chemical brain the neurochemistry of addictive disorders

by Sidney Cohen
Published in 1988, CareInstitute (Irvine, Calif)

No,
I guess it was 70 years ago..
"But then, beginning with nor-adrenaline in 1946, a class of chemical messengers were discovered that served as transmission devices ['neurotransmitters'], carrying impulses from cell to cell...The existence of the chemical brain raised some interesting questions."

 

[RealityCheck]

Intelligent life is not chemicals.

If intelligent life were simply chemicals, doctors would use chemistry to create life and and bring people back to life.

Even my ten year old sister understands this logic.

That's not logic - that's a failure to understand science.

Are you claiming that there are no chemicals in your body?

 

[RealityCheck]

Saying rainbows were formed by magic makes more sense the scientific lies that are told.

"All the terms used in the science books, 'law,' 'necessity,' 'order,' 'tendency,' and so on, are really unintellectual .... The only words that ever satisfied meas describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, 'charm,' 'spell,' 'enchantment.' They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a MAGIC tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched." -- G.K. Chesterton, philosopher, Orthodoxy, Chapter IV: The Ethics of Elfland, 1909

Your choice of quotes reveals just how little you care about science. Really, if science is that meaningless to you, quit making use of the things that science has made possible... like your computer.

 

[Naraoia]

Intelligent life is not chemicals.

If intelligent life were simply chemicals, doctors would use chemistry to create life and and bring people back to life.

Even my ten year old sister understands this logic.

That's precisely what it is, ten-year-old's logic.

No, ten's too much. Five, maybe.

 

[Naraoia]

Saying rainbows were formed by magic makes more sense the scientific lies that are told.

I should have guessed it makes more sense to you... now did you get the actual point of my analogy (which Washington also spelled out for you since)?

"All the terms used in the science books, 'law,' 'necessity,' 'order,' 'tendency,' and so on, are really unintellectual .... The only words that ever satisfied meas describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, 'charm,' 'spell,' 'enchantment.' They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a MAGIC tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched." -- G.K. Chesterton, philosopher, Orthodoxy, Chapter IV: The Ethics of Elfland, 1909

Is there any reason why I should care how a long-dead philosopher liked to describe nature?

 

[Smidlee]

The intelligence is not in the drops of oil but from those who set up the experiment. It's the same as someone programing a computer to play chess.
I got the complete set of Farscape series (DVD) for Christmas. This set is made by chemical processes and obey the laws of physics. Yet these laws by themself doesn't explain the actual data which produces images and sound on my HDTV.

 

[Agonaces of Susa]

Yeah, light defraction has to be a lie.

Why is there light defraction in the universe?

The only logical answer is magic.

 

[Agonaces of Susa]

The intelligence is not in the drops of oil but from those who set up the experiment.

The lack of intelligence is not in the drops of oil but from those who set up the experiment.