The Psychology of Everyday Things

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Blog post:
http://www.godless.biz/2010/08/26/the-psychology-of-everyday-things/

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Category:

Education

Tags:

• design
• creationism
• creationists
• intelligent design
• ID
• science
• phycology
• Donald Norman

[Satarack]

Contrasted with this video, scientists from the SETI institute advocate that we could deduce extraterrestrial intelligence from artificiality. Scientist Seth Shostak from SETI writes in one blog post,

"If SETI were to announce that we're not alone because it had detected a signal, it would be on the basis of artificiality. An endless, sinusoidal signal - a dead simple tone - is not complex; it's artificial. Such a tone just doesn't seem to be generated by natural astrophysical processes."

[askegg]

@Satarack How does that contrast this video?  It completely agrees with my hypothesis; Even simple signals or tones do not occur naturally, they are *designed*.

Of course, you could be proposing that all things are designed, which would mean you have no point of contrast to identify designed things. Equally, simply asserting “everything is designed” does not make it so; you must demonstrate that this is actually the case, and why the “god” is immune to the logic.

[Satarack]

@askegg You call such an approach an argument from ignorance. Saying that, "I can't think of a natural explanation," calling that "argument from ignorance."

But that's what the scientist here is saying. He's saying that there seems to be no way such a signal could be generated naturally, he even contrasts it with some natural phenomena to make his point. Since he can't think of any way it would be natural, he concludes it's artificial.

[askegg]

@Satarack Right. Not natural, undesigned, artificial. Tones and signals contrast against the random noise of the (undesigned) natural world.

[Satarack]

@askegg Technically speaking though, argument from ignorance is saying, "it's right because it hasn't been proven wrong." I realize why you call what you do an argument from ignorance, but it isn't the same thing as the actual Argument from Ignorance fallacy.

What you called an argument from ignorance is really more of an argument from lack of knowledge. Like saying, "we don't know how it could be done naturally, therefore it wasn't."

[askegg]

@Satarack "Technically speaking though, argument from ignorance is saying, "it's right because it hasn't been proven wrong.””

No - that’s science, which holds things provisionally true until they’re proved wrong. An argument from ignorance is “I cannot think of an explanation, therefore X” (or inventing an answer where none exists).

“We don't know how it could be done naturally, therefore it wasn’t” is certainly a fallacy. The best you can say is “we do not know”.

[Satarack]

@Ramatganski The only difference would in the degree of confidence we might have with the evidence.

A good example is the Turing Test. This is a test of artificial intelligence where they have human judges have a text conversion with a computer AI, and another human. The judges then make a decision of which one was the human being, and which one was the computer AI. It isn't always clear which one was which, and the judges do get it wrong sometimes.

[Ramatganski]

@Satarack Isn't there a crucial difference between the situation of natural, direct, unmitigated experience of familiarity with artificiality as we do and know it, rather then one of not being sure and having to recognize it? (the very rarity of artificiality being that which makes it stand out to be discerned from that which is unintentional - which IS a norm). Isn't the notion of 'intention' derived from specific, relevant circumstances without which it looses any appropriate sense? Hmm...

[Satarack]

@askegg No, I'm referring to the informal logical fallacy which is commonly known as Argument from ignorance.

Science is provisional as you say, so Scientists don't (or at least shouldn't) argue that simply because their theories haven't been proven wrong, that they are therefore true (because then they would be committing the falacy). Science does not hold it's theories as absolutely true, only provisionally, so there is no fallacy.

[Satarack]

@askegg As to what would be criteria for deducing artificiallity, the scientist I quoted goes on to talk about the importance of context. He explains that exactly what features they look for for artificiality changes depending on the context of where the signal comes from. So there might not be an absolute set of guidelines for deducing intelligence.

[Satarack]

@askegg Yes, in other words we have evidence that they are artificial. Cave drawings and arrow heads just don't form naturally from geological processes. While we can't say that it's impossible, it's highly improbable that metamorphosis and sedimentation could produce a clay pot.