There's some monkey business in the news. A blogger, hoping to prove the old adage that an infinite number of monkeys banging away at typewriters would eventually reproduce the works off Shakespeare, is using an array of servers processing millions of bits of information to "randomly" accomplish the same end. The experiment has already yielded "A Lover's Complaint."

http://tinyurl.com/3ze38st

So why did I put the word "randomly" in quotes? Because, as even the (above-linked) news story points out, the program works by identifying the desired words and checking them off the list. So while each single word is indeed produced randomly, the accumulation of words into coherent strings of text is actually guided by the design of the program.

It is not surprising that a random process can yield individual words, but that's a far cry from establishing that randomness can generate really complex systems. This point is neatly made in a comment by "Alina.Bolero" appended to the linked article:

"I know infinite probability is awfully hard to grasp, but when you start multiplying infinite improbabilities, things really do become that [much] more improbable.

"While I get the feeling that the intent of this experiment was to show that complex order can come from chaos, if you wait long enough, it has actually done a much better job of showing that the best way to create order from randomness is to apply intelligence to the system in order to create the desired outcome."

Comments

[XXII]

Topher, your site is down. I would like to discuss some other things with you but don't know where do contact you. If there is no other place: Have you looked into D.D. Home's physical mediumship?

[Dave]

And a view of spirituality that insists that morality is something essentially external to the world and in some sense imposed from without rather than inextricably a part of ot, an addenda to life rather than being something that grew, you will pardon the expression, organically as a part of it, might seem to be a "rather arid and unfulfilling version of 'spirituality'" to others.

Again, you are presenting a primarily Christian and post-Christian view of spirituality as if it were universal except for a few of us impoverished souls.

Many NDEers report feeling an extraordinary sense of peace and joy. Life takes on a new joy and the individual feels a stronger sense of meaning and purpose, and a greater sense of existential grounding. Some who recover from an NDE report they experienced a life review, which gave them a bird's eye view of their lives to this point, and the impact they have had on other people, and led them to make qualitative changes in their lives. Often NDEers will change their lives in conscious ways, so as to lead a more productive and morally sound life. They feel a keen sense of gratitude, think more positive thoughts and see the world in more optimistic terms. Affirming the dire importance of love, they give more to the people around them and display greater empathy toward others. Their appreciation for life's opportunities is magnified.

I am sure these people will be gratified to learn that these aftereffects of their NDEs are to be explained as neurologically based emotions that grew slowly by a brutal process of survival of the fittest applied to groups, complexified by culture. They can dismiss any notion that these experiences have anything but personal psychological significance.

[Topher Cooper]

Synchronicity strikes again. Today a new interview was posted to the Skeptiko website (a website where a series of interviews -- audio and transcript on topics like parapsychology, intelligent design, with a bias somewhat on the non-mainstream side). The description of the new item: "Professor Michael Flannery explains how the theory of evolution was hijacked, and why Alfred Russel Wallace had it right all along." Haven't read it yet but the item's page is http://www.skeptiko.com/how-many-dinosaurs-fit-on-noah-ark/.

[Dave]

The bringing up of Alfred Russell Wallace is interesting. He came very long before the development of evolutionary psychology. However, since he apparently accepted the precepts of Spiritualism he would probably have had a lot of problems encompassing evolutionary psychology into his theory of directed evolution. Spiritualism is clearly the sort of "post-Christian" view of spirituality referred to in
Again, you are presenting a primarily Christian and post-Christian view of spirituality as if it were universal except for a few of us impoverished souls.

If Wallace was a Spiritualist he was a monotheist believing in survival and communication. This movement has features in common with Christianity including an essentially Christian moral system. If he believed in the non-material origin of the higher mental faculties (including morality) he could not have accepted the claims of evo-psych.

[Zerdini]

Alfred Russel Wallace wrote "Miracles and Modern Spiritualism" published in 1878 and his autobiography "My Life" in 1908. In the latter he devotes a chapter to "From Mesmerism to Spiritualism".