Subject: Monkey Trial

From: Chen Shapira <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 10:52:27 +0200

Hi,

FYI:

This week we are celebrating 75 years to "Monkey Trial"

When the state of tenesee sued a highschool teacher - claiming he was
violating the law when he was teaching he students the theory of Evolution.

Apparently he was in violation of the 1925 Butler Act that made it "unlawful
for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals  and all other public
schools of the state, to teach any theory that denies 
the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach

instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals."

The teacher was found guilty.

Following that, from 1925 to 1957 textbook publishers, more concerned with
sales 
than ideals, deleted evolution from school books and students simply never 
heard the "e" word in class. All was quite on the evolution-creation wars 
front until Sputnik awoke a sleeping America to the fact that it was 
behind in science education. The National Science Foundation's Biological 
Science Curriculum Study reintroduced Darwin and evolution into the
curriculum, 
and jump-started the creationists into reinventing their beliefs as 
"creation-science," to be taught side-by-side with "evolution-science."

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000 10:01:26 +0300 (IDT)

> instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals."

Well, while man's larger brain was indeed a product of the Evolution, we
must remember that such skills as language, writing or even consciousness
were not. Basically, those things (and most of the other things we know
today) are "software" of the mind, that was developed and afterwards
learned by human beings themselves.

For more information you can consult the theory of Julian Jaynes which
was presented in his book "The Origin of Consciousness during the
Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". You can find a good summary of it here: 
http://www.neo-tech.com/discovery/nt3.html

> "creation-science," to be taught side-by-side with "evolution-science."

Well, Jaynes thesis is a refinement to the Evolution theory in that it
shows that Humans did not become conscious because of the Evolution but
rather invented consciousness themselves. Naturally, it still contradicts
the "creation-science" which claims that God created humans as well as all
other animals in a flash some 6000 years ago. 

Beside that, "creation science" cannot be taken too seriously because
there is a lot of evidence that Earth existed much more than 6000 years.
(like Geological phenomena) And a theory that transcends from the Big Bang
to present day over a span of several billion years, is much more logical
than assuming that God created it in an advanced state.

Just my 20 agoroth,

	Shlomi Fish

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish        [email-masked] 
Home Page:         http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
Home E-mail:       [email-masked]

The prefix "God Said" has the extraordinary logical property of 
converting any statement that follows it into a true one.

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000 10:32:39 +0300

> learned by human beings themselves.

And how come only humans developed that software, and dogs didn't? The fact
that you can easily teach a human baby language (whether spoken or sign
language) but apes are only capable of a VERY limited language says that
there's something special about the baby's brain that is not present in an
ape. It doesn't make sense that that "something special" developed first,
and only then did language develop. It also does not make sense (at least
for me - you're free to believe whatever you want) that that "something
special" needed a god to create.

Susan Blackmore, in her book "The Meme Machine" (ISBN 019286212X), tries to
explain how the hardware (our brain) and software (what Richard Dawkins
called "Memes") developed together, in what's called co-evolution, each
fueling the other. She tries to explain how a small difference between the
"mimicking" ability of humans from other animals escalated in our big brain,
language, learning, and even conciousness (have you ever pondered what kind
of "conciousness" dogs can have, when they don't have "words" to put their
thoughts together with?). All in all, it's a very interesting book to read.

BTW, if anybody is interested in evolution, Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish
Gene" is a must-read masterpiece (I would recommend reading all his books,
but the selfish gene is the most important).

> than assuming that God created it in an advanced state.

Some creationists (though not all) get around this by saying that you can't
understand god with dry logic, and you must have some belief. Daniel Dennett
in his book "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" argues with creationists by saying
to a creationist after he dismissed logical thinking: "Ok, then your god
is a ham sandwich". The creationist asked: "What? How did you come to this
conclusion?" to which Dennett replies: "What, so now you suddenly want my
conclusions to be based on logic?" (all my quotes are paraphrased - I don't
have the book here). The idea is that once you forgo "logic" once, you can't
really make any conclusions about the world.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |      Monday, Jul 24 2000, 21 Tammuz 5760
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |Why do doctors call what they do
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |practice? Think about it.

---

From: Omer Zak <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000 11:09:02 +0300 (IDT)

> On Sun, 23 Jul 2000, Chen Shapira wrote:

[... discussions on "Monkey Trial" and on Creation Theory and on Evolution
     Theory were snipped
 ...]

Does the fact that theological discussions found their way into the
Hackers-IL mailing list mean that we are preparing to hack Worlds,
creating New Worlds and getting the people there to write Bibles according
to our wild ideas? 
                                            --- Omer
                 Was God a World Hacker with a sick mind?

WARNING:
By sending me unsolicited commercial/political/religious E-mail message/s
(known also as "spam"), you irrevocably agree to pay me US$500.- (plus any
legal expenses incurred by my trying to collect the amount due) per
unsolicited commercial/political/religious E-mail message - for the service
of receiving it.

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 15:46:36 +0300 (IDT)

On Mon, 24 Jul 2000, Nadav Har'El wrote:

> and only then did language develop. 

Why not? A larger brain has its functions beside language. Early,
non-talking individuals of the homo species needed it for hunting, for
crafting tools, and for general survival. They managed to survive better
because of their higher intelligence. Nevertheless, only after they
aquired their larger brain could they invent language.

> It also does not make sense (at least

I don't believe that whatever hardware in the human brain which takes to
have a language, requires some divine intervention either. But I still
don't see why we can't assume that the brain came before the human
language did. Homo Sapiens Sapiens evolved around 500,000 years ago and
reamind much the same since then. Languages on the other hand are only
60,000 years old, at least according to the article which I referenced.

> language, learning, and even conciousness 

While co-evolution should not be denounced I don't see why assuming that
the human languages developed after man acquired a better brain is
illogical.

> (have you ever pondered what kind
> thoughts together with?). 

Well, according to Jaynes' Theory, neither dogs nor any other kind of
non-human animal have consciousness. According to that theory,
consciousness evolved only around the year 1000 BC. If anybody is
interested in finding more, he can consult the link I gave.

> All in all, it's a very interesting book to read.
> 

> understand god with dry logic, and you must have some belief. 

It reminds me that I had an argument with a couple of my neighbours in
Haifa about whether or not God exists. As one of my arguments, I said that
if God created the world, then what created God? So, one of my neighbours
said that God is too divine to be fully understood, and that a question is
irrelevant for him. 

I eventually continued by saying that either God was created by a
super-God, or that God simply existed forever. In the former case, we'll
also have to assume the existence of a super-super-God and a super^3-God,
etc. to inifinity, while in the latter case we can say that reality simply
existed forever, without the need to have been created by a divine force.

This is the approach that takes that nothing is out of the reach of human
logic.

> Daniel Dennett

Correct. If you ask me, logic and the basic facts of our existence (i.e:
humans are alive, they need to eat, to drink, etc.) are all we need in
order to deduce anything else, including Ethics and morality. But that is
a different topic altogether.

	Shlomi Fish

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---

From: Omer Musaev <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 15:09:21 +0300

> This is the approach that takes that nothing is out of the reach of human

there is a theorem by Kurt Goedl, which contradicts your last statement.

-- 
--   
Omer Mussaev    051-308-214   mailto:[email-masked]
systems programmer, Mercury Interactive/RND/Conduct/core

---

From: Moshe Zadka <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 16:40:58 +0300 (IDT)

> there is a theorem by Kurt Goedl, which contradicts your last statement.

Why? Every true thing can be proven, and every false thing can be
disproved.
(The fact that no axiom system containing the natural numbers is complete
is orthogonal)
--
Moshe Zadka <[email-masked]>
There is no IGLU cabal.
http://advogato.org/person/moshez

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 16:41:21 +0300

On Tue, Jul 25, 2000, Shlomi Fish wrote about "Re: [hackers-il] Monkey Trial":
>...
>...

Let's continue our computer analogy (so that people don't say this discussion
is off-topic): Imagine someone offered you today to buy a 10 GHz Pentium
machine for $10,000. Would you buy it? Probably not: until you have software
that actually needs this kind of speed (and I'm assuming you're not in the
business of playing chess or developing nuclear weapons) you will not want
to spend more money for such an ability.

Evolution is also similar: Homo Sapiens paid some large fines for its brain
and language: The bigger head of newborns makes child delivery painful (I
don't remember seeing a bitch screaming when giving birth to puppies!). The
special larynx in humans and the design of our throat make it impossible
for us to eat and breath at the same time (yes, dogs can eat and breath through
their noses concurrently without any risk of choking to death). Our big and
complicated brain also take up a lot of energy. So I believe that the
evolution of our brain was gradual and at each stage Homo got some benefit:
initially it meant making simple tools (like Bonobos, a kind of Chimp which
is closest living genetic relative, can make), then it meant the ability to
*copy* tools you saw your neighbor use, then it meant the devlopment of a
simple language which allowed teaching how to make tools, coordinating hunts,
and so on. I'm don't know when this evolution ended - 500,000 or 60,000 years
ago, but I guess the latter is closer.

Blackmore's theory is even more far-reaching: she claims that once the ability
to copy tools and behaviors started in humans, females started to prefer better
copiers (because they were the most succesful, using tricks they learned from
other people) and a peacock-tail-like "arms-race" started, prefering better
and better copying ability (and language is a perfect method of learning/
copying), even if it was no longer strictly necessary for our survival.

Chomsky's theories (which nobody really knows if are true or not, as far as
I know) also suggest that the capability of language, with a very specific
rules for grammar (which he suggests are similar all over the world) is
innate and built into our brain.

Anyway, either one of the theories we both mentioned make more sense than
saying "God this and that - look - it's written in this book so it must be
true!".

>...

Next time ask him if God could make a stone heavy enough that He cannot
lift it :)

> etc. to inifinity, while in the latter case we can say that reality simply

Hmm.. Maybe you can just call the class of all such super-gods by the name
"GOD" :)
(it's a class, not a set, because then who created that set? Is that god
already in that set? it's the same as the fact that "the set of all sets" is
not really a set)

A nice treatment of such issues of trans-finite numbers be found in
cyberpunk author Rudy Rucker's book "Infinity and the Mind".

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |     Tuesday, Jul 25 2000, 22 Tammuz 5760
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |Cement mixer collided with a prison van.
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |Look out for sixteen hardened criminals.

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 16:50:36 +0300

> (The fact that no axiom system containing the natural numbers is complete

Last time I checked, Goedel's theorem said that given a finite set of axioms,
there always exists a statement A such that neither A nor "NOT A" can be
proved with our axioms. This "A" could have profound theological implications :)
"A" (or "NOT A") would have to be a new axiom - and what religions want us
to believe is that "God Exists" is such an axiom.

But seriously, because our mind is finite (and quite slow), you don't even
need Goedel to come up with such an "A" for you: you can fill 1000 pages with
random mathematical jibberish (call it, for example, a proof to Fermat's
last theorem ;) ), and with all your logic you'll never be able to understand
and/or check this proof.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |     Tuesday, Jul 25 2000, 22 Tammuz 5760
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |What's the greatest world-wide use of
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |cowhide? To hold cows together.

---

From: Moshe Zadka <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 17:00:41 +0300 (IDT)

On Tue, 25 Jul 2000, Nadav Har'El wrote:

> proved with our axioms.

Yes, but he talked about logic, not axioms. No axiom system which is
strong enough to represent the naturals is complete. So? How does that say
there are things beyond human logic's reach?

> last theorem ;) ), and with all your logic you'll never be able to understand

Of course I can: if it is really random, I'll see it is false after the
first few sentences.
--
Moshe Zadka <[email-masked]>
There is no IGLU cabal.
http://advogato.org/person/moshez

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 17:11:21 +0300

> Of course I can: if it is really random, I'll see it is false after the

Yes, but what if I take a correct 1000 page proof, and change it in page 736?
I doubt you'll notice :)

Once I had a program (written in Awk...) that takes a Yacc grammar
specification and generates random sentences (or statements, or whatever
you call them) in that language. I bet it's possible to do the same for
mathematic statements, a la Whitehead & Russell's "Principia Mathematica".

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |     Tuesday, Jul 25 2000, 22 Tammuz 5760
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |I had a lovely evening. Unfortunately,
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |this wasn't it. - Groucho Marx

---

From: Moshe Zadka <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 17:15:20 +0300 (IDT)

> Yes, but what if I take a correct 1000 page proof, and change it in page 736?

There are ways to overcome this. See zero-knowledge proofs area, to show 
you can "hash" a proof, so it will be near impossible to cheat, and will 
be checkable very easily.

And in any case, you'd need the original 1000page proof first (which is
correct). How will you verify the first 736 pages are correct? (otherwise,
I'll spot the mistake sooner)

---

From: Ira Abramov <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 17:29:10 +0300 (IDT)

> mathematic statements, a la Whitehead & Russell's "Principia Mathematica".

[change topic to: Monkey business)

so in fact you had a program for an AWK-based monkey to punch random yet
syntacticly correct program lines at the keyboard, which is a cardinal
improvement towards the goal of an infinite number of monkeys succeding
to write a useful program given enough time. all that is left to do is
harness the powers of the RFC...

ftp://linux.org.il/pub/docs/RFC/rfc2795.txt

-- 
Ira Abramov   (@-  Gnu/Linux, Free Speech, RFC 1855
whois: IA58   //\  Peace,  Love,  Music,  Slow Food
web: scso.com v_/_ Citroens, Camels, Penguins, Cats

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 16:30:56 +0300 (IDT)

> to spend more money for such an ability.

I agree that $10,000 is a lot of money for a computer, but I may wish to
purchase it just so I'll be set for the next couple of years. Who knows, I
may wish to make this into a real-video streaming server which will serve
more than one stream, and this may require a lot of hoursepower. Or a 3d
workstation etc. If I can afford to pay for such a computer, why not?

In any case, from what I see we are debating between two different
approaches:

1. Man acquired a bigger brain, and afterwards, because of that, he was
able to develop language.

2. Man thought that language could be useful and as a result there was
some kind of controlled evolution that gave him a better brain.

I can't denounce either claim. But here are the facts: there isn't any
paleonthological evidence that suggests that our brains evolved in the
past 500,000 years. All Homo Sapiens Sapiens skulls that were found are
very much identical to our own. On the other hand, languages came into
being 60,000 years ago. While controlled evolution should not be dounced
it wasn't the case in the development of the human language.

> ago, but I guess the latter is closer.

What evidence can you supply for the fact that our brain evolved in the
past 500,000 years? From what I know, there isn't any.

> copying), even if it was no longer strictly necessary for our survival.

I'm not sure this entire "copying" theory is accurate. If you took a look
at someone doing something will you be able to copy what he does and do it
just as well? Probably not. That's because the core of human learning is
_integrating_ information, not just _copying_ it. Integrating involves
processing, thinking about and practicing the data after it was acquired.
And usually it has to be methodically taught.

> innate and built into our brain.

Well, I think language is an acquired skill, which operates on the
hardware that is our brain. Just as you can run the perl interpreter on an
i386 computer, and it doesn't mean that perl is innate and built into the
computer hardware. You supplied a computer with a program that taught it
how to execute perl code, and a similiar way you taught a human brain how
to speak Hebrew.

Writing is a product of the last 10,000 years. Does Chomsky also suggests
that writing is innate to our brain. (which is impossible because all the
people which are alive today do not have a common ancestor who is 10,000
years old, yet people of every genome can write).
 
> Next time ask him if God could make a stone heavy enough that He cannot

A. B is True.
B. A is False.

Or alternativley Russel's paradox: does the set of all sets that do not
contain themselves contain itself?

Does this mean that logic is invalid, or cannot exist? Paradoxes always
exist, but they cannot be used as arguments.
 
> already in that set? it's the same as the fact that "the set of all sets" is

Then who created this GOD class? 

> cyberpunk author Rudy Rucker's book "Infinity and the Mind".

I'll look it up, thank you.

	Shlomi Fish

> Old school buds here:
> http://click.egroups.com/1/7081/12/_/_/_/964532492/

---

From: Omer Musaev <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 16:02:18 +0300

> it wasn't the case in the development of the human language.
I think that computer analogy can not hold, at least in that form. More 
appropriate
form of analogy would be someting like:

"Imagine that someone offers you a contract: you pay 1K$ a month, and 
you are
provided any hardware worth it."

As long as I remember paleontology, there were 2 brands of humanoids, 
Cromagnons and
Neoandertals (or whatever they were called).

Cromagnons were bigger, stronger and faster, and thus were able to hold 
more brains.
Being rather predators, they had to hunt prey, and that kind of activity 
required
good RT abilities, along with low latency.

However, Neoanderthals could not hunt on their own, and thus had to live 
in colonies.
they had to develop some kind of clustering, just like lions (for 
example)have. Or maybe
even more advanced clusters, something like hives.

Sharing some genes, they were able to share software (like in SEX).

Starting from some point, Neoanderthals were many enough to genocide 
Cromagnons out of
existance. However, when they were done, they mutated enough to become 
something
different from both kinds.

Think of subzero PCs vs. 30K$ "RISC Workstations".

Thus, Neoanderthals got bigger brains + community. They were already 
using some kind of 
communications, and benefited from bigger brains to improve communications.

> exist, but they cannot be used as arguments.
One of math professors at BGU loved to note that "Everything can be 
said" :))
Paraphrasing him, "Everyting can be used as arguments". The question is not
whether one can use those arguments, but whether one can derive 
colollaries from
those...

> Then who created this GOD class? 
Well, there may be a fixed point in progression of god creators...