JLT
Posts: 740 Joined: Jan. 2008
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Did anyone read the latest Halloway post? He slowly and cruelly tortures logic and coherence to an agonising death. A few choice bits: Quote | Wealth is created by the creation of new information in the form of complex, specified inventions. [...] According to ID, individual intelligent agents are the creators of this information. Thus, an economic system that incentivizes individuals to create new inventions to fulfill useful functions is strictly better than a system that does not. In a centrally planned economy, there are only a few empowered information creators, who decide how resources are divided amongst the populace. However, in a decentralized economy, all individuals are empowered to create information.[...] But how are materialistic assumptions at play in modern economic theory? The impact of materialism primarily has to do with the notion of wealth.[...] The added concept you need to see how this applies to economics is that when an event occurs due to a final cause, then at this point information is created. So, conversely, if there is no such thing as a final cause, as materialism claims, then no information is ever created. And, if information is tied to wealth creation, then the further implication is that wealth is not created. In which case, wealth is no longer tied to inventions, but is instead tied to resources. Since there are only a limited number of resources in the world, economics becomes primarily concerned with the proper distribution of these resources amongst the population, instead of being concerned with allowing the creation of greater amounts of resources. [...] As discussed above, ID further implies that wealth is better created through a decentralized than through a centralized economy. | This is all totally obvious. Philosophical materialism precludes people from inventing complex things and you end up with centrally planned economy. ID on the other hand supports a free market. Why am I not surprised.
Nick Matzke pokes him with a long stick: Quote | But, even if ID worked, your anti-Keynesian logic wouldn’t follow. ID’s skepticalness about natural selection and other self-organization processes would, if ID people were being consistent, lead to skepticism about the invisible hand of the market. Unintelligent processes can’t produce anything but noise and damage, only intelligence can produce coherent and effective function, right? Therefore, clearly, economies would work better if intelligent designers were making command decisions about how they work, rather than just leaving it up to the auto-regulation of the market.
[heads explode across the ID movement] |
Which leads to even more tortured logic and ad hoc ramblings: Quote | Also, ID provides a coherent basis for the invisible hand of the market. Since the market is the conglomeration of intelligent design by intelligent agents, ID implies that there would be an emergent order and economy to its behavior. However, ID also provides a significant and very important caution in this regard. At the point where the agents in the market cease to behave rationally, and instead merely follow the crowd or indulge in groundless speculation we know that the market is headed for a bust.
So, one interesting application of Dembski’s CSI metric would be to measure the amount of CSI being produced in the market. As long as a market segment demonstrated CSI production, we could invest in said market with a fair amount of confidence. But, our confidence should plummet if we noticed CSI drop off.
An additional point is that our market is likewise in trouble the more that trading becomes automated. The more it is automated the less CSI is being contributed.[...] Perhaps our recent economic woes are indicative of this dilemma, since the vast majority of the current trades are accomplished by algorithms. |
Yeah, that's probably true. Trading algorithm can not produce new information, therefore no new wealth is generated -> financial crisis. THAT MAKES TOTAL SENSE!!!! StephenB: Quote | Eric,
Good work. You appear to be blazing a new trail by describing the similarities among disciplines from an ID perspective. Trailblazing requires a lot of hard thinking and a willingness to be original, both of which are inseparable from the willingess to take risks. It is one thing to speak of new information in principle, but it is quite another to provide it. The good news is that you have managed to be creative and stay on solid ground at the same time, a rare feat.
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Somehow, I don't think he really buys it.
-------------- "Random mutations, if they are truly random, will affect, and potentially damage, any aspect of the organism, [...] Thus, a realistic [computer] simulation [of evolution] would allow the program, OS, and hardware to be affected in a random fashion." GilDodgen, Frilly shirt owner
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