Re: Small probabilities

Iain,
I find a problem with your example. Everybody knows that a chess board
and the pieces are designed by intelligent individuals. No chessboard
places itself on a table. No pawns or pieces jump out of the box and
arrange themselves on the board. Even if they are lying helter-skelter,
somebody dumped them out. So the only question is whether what we see by
way of arrangement fits a specific category. Something with simple
symmetry would likely not be a puzzle. It's more likely to involve an
esthetic pattern. But it could be a highly sophisticated puzzle. Since I
haven't played chess in decades, I'd be in no shape to determine it to be
a puzzle. You might catch it, but there is no warrant that you would. You
might not spot the strategic wrinkle involved. However, if the pieces
were placed on the corners of the squares, we can be sure it is not
something involving chess rules.

On the other hand, although not common, there is no reason why a
thoughtless placement may not produce a puzzle pattern. Unlikely is not
impossible. Whatever the interpretation, we know that somebody did
something with the chess set. This is radically different from
determining whether there was a rational entity behind a pattern when the
source is not already known. I have no trouble ascribing the patterns
found in the universe to the Creator, but this is a matter of faith, not
proof.
Dave

On Sat, 14 Jan 2006 17:42:39 +0000 Iain Strachan <igd.strachan@gmail.com>
writes:

Let's take a step back from Vernon's claim that this is a supernatural
message that is being conveyed & just try to establish whether the
patterns are intentional, or just a "surprising coincidence". I maintain
that you CAN use small probabilities under certain circumstances to
determine if some pattern was intentional, and this is the essence, as I
understand it of "specified complexity" - the pattern has to be
sufficiently pre-specified (ie you can't just say it's any old deal of
bridge cards, but you have to predict what the next deal happens - though
both events have the same probability, the predicted one is surprising
because it was pre-specified). Similarly a pattern that is sufficiently
simple doesn't merit a "designed" designation because there is in all
probability a simple explanation.

I'll use arrangements of pieces on a chess board as an example.

If you walked into a room and found an empty chess board, then clearly
this is a specified pattern of chess pieces on the board and one of low
probability given all possible arrangements. But it is too simple to
warrant any design inference. The simple explanation is the board is
left there and no-one bothered to put any pieces out.

Now consider the board arranged with a random layout of pieces, as if a
child had been using the chessmen as toy soldiers (my son does this
occasionally). The position isn't legal, both kings are in check, there
are pawns on the first rank, or whatever. This position is complex, but
not specified - it's effectively random.

Now consider a class of chess position I'm very fond of trying to solve,
called "retrograde analysis". A whole lot of these positions can be
found at http://www.janko.at/Retros/. Typically you see a preposterous
looking position on the board, but are told it is legal. The purpose of
the problem is that you have to work out how the players got to this
legal position by a sequence of moves from the beginning of the game. It
is often amazing how much you can deduce about what went on previously in
the game, which pieces must have been captured by which pawns, which
pieces are promoted pieces, what the last move played must have been, and
so forth.

Such chess positions are so bizarrely contrived (they can be arrived at
by a legal sequence of moves, but not a sensible sequence), that often
they look very little different initially to the random layout of pieces
I described that might have been set up by a child, or a monkey hitting a
keyboard.

Suppose you went into a room and the chess pieces were set up in a
bizarre position that looked impossible. Your immediate impression would
be that someone who didn't know the rules of chess had set the pieces up
in a pretty pattern. But if you then analysed the position, and found
that the position was indeed legal, and that you could make all these
deductions about the contrived series of moves that would have been
played to arrive at the situation.

Would you not then be justified in deducing that the position had indeed
been designed by a very clever person who knew the rules of chess? And
if you were, what would be the basis of that deduction? I'd suggest it
would be low probability. The number of possible arrangements of chess
pieces on a chess board must vastly outweigh the number of arrangements
of legal positions, and that in turn must vastly outweigh the number of
positions that are suitable for retrograde analysis, where you can deduce
e.g. what the last several moves must have been.

Hence it is a small probability that determines design in this case. I'd
be interested to know if you agree, or if maybe this is a good
illustration of what Dembski means by "specified AND complex". Or would
you perhaps say that even if you found such a position set up on a chess
board, that there was no justification for concluding that the position
was intentionally designed that way?

Vernon's patterns, I would also say I believe to be both specified and
complex, and that it was justifiable to conclude intentionality (let's
leave open the question of whether it's a "message" for the moment).
Received on Sat Jan 14 15:42:28 2006