Requirements
underestimation is what occurs when somebody underestimates what is
required for something to happen, failing to understand the necessary
prerequisites. Teenagers dreaming of their future may sometimes make
such an error. A male teenager may think: all I need to be the
next rock star is a guitar. But that ignores many other things
you typically need: a good singing voice, good looks, guitar playing
ability, connections, some catchy songs, and so forth. Similarly, a
female teenager may think: all I need to be the next big starlet
is a ticket to Hollywood. But that ignores lots of other typical
requirements such as good looks, connections or a successful
audition, and acting ability or comedic ability.
It's not just teenagers
who are guilty of requirements underestimation. Even the leader of a
country may underestimate requirements. One example is this
statement by Adolf Hitler while planning the conquest of the Soviet
Union: You only have to kick in the door and the whole rotten
structure will come crashing down. Judging
from that statement, Hitler
thought that all that was needed to conquer Russia was a swift,
strong initial attack. This proved to be a huge mistake. The next
winter countless German soldiers froze to death because they
didn't have winter coats, one of the requirements that had been
overlooked.
One
very different set of people that has underestimated requirements repeatedly over
the centuries is theoretical scientists. Whether estimating the
requirements for life or the requirements for an orderly universe or
the requirements for the human mind or the requirements for a body
such as the sun or the requirements for stable matter, our scientists
have again and again underestimated the requirements, failing to
understand how high the requirements are.
Many
decades ago scientists thought that there were no particularly
special requirements for the origin of life. It was believed that
life could just spontaneously arise from sterile matter, and that
this routinely happened. Even after this spontaneous generation idea
died away, scientists continued to believe that the appearance of the
first life didn't require anything too special. Darwin's description
of the origin of life merely mentions some chemicals in a warm pond,
nothing too special. But now we understand that the origin of life
has vastly greater requirements, including the fantastically
improbable appearance of self replicating molecules, the appearance
of a genetic code, and so forth. Clearly the origin of life has
vastly higher requirements than scientists imagined in the nineteenth
century.
In
considering the idea of atoms, scientists long underestimated the
requirements that must be met for atoms to exist, assuming that there
basically were no such requirements. The idea was that atoms were
just solid tiny balls, the type of things that would have no
requirements. But the more scientists learned about atoms, the more
they learned about how many requirements must be met for our atoms to
exist. Among the many requirements now known are: an existence of a
strong nuclear force that binds the nucleus together; an existence of
electromagnetic attraction between protons and electrons, which tends
to keep electrons near the nucleus; the existence of quantum
mechanics laws that prevent such an attraction from causing electrons
to fall into the nucleus.
In
considering the sun, scientists long thought of it as something with
no special requirements. They thought of the sun as just some hot
ball of fire, and probably thought of it as having no more
requirements than having a large mass to slowly burn. But now we
understand that many requirement must be met for stars like the sun
to exist. Besides Einstein's most famous equation, there are
physical constants that must be very precisely fine-tuned, or stars
like the sun won't be able to exist.
When
considering the origin of cosmic structure, scientists long thought
that only one thing was needed: gravitation of the type described by
Newton. But then eventually they concluded that there are more
requirements: things such as dark matter and dark energy.
For
centuries astronomers thought that the universe had nothing along the
lines of origin requirements. Their assumption was simply that the
universe had existed forever. But then the Big Bang was discovered,
and within 15 years scientists found out that it wasn't just any old
Big Bang but an exquisitely fine-tuned Big Bang in which the initial
expansion rate matched the critical density to 50 decimal places. So
scientists got busy trying to create a theory trying to explain this
new very precise requirement for our existence.
Do you
see the general trend here? The historical trend is that again and
again theoretical scientists have vastly underestimated the
requirements for the existence of beings such as ourselves and a
universe such as ours. One reason this may happen is that a
theoretical scientist has a very strong temptation to do such a
thing. The fewer requirements that are recognized as things that
must be explained to explain some aspect of nature, the easier it is for a
scientist to claim that he has some theory that explains that aspect
of nature. If a scientist candidly acknowledges that the requirements
for phenomenon X are mountainous requirements, he won't be able to
claim he has a good theory explaining that phenomenon; but if he
speaks as if those requirements are mere molehill requirements, he
might be able to persuade you that he has a good theory explaining the
phenomenon.
They keep thinking "molehills" when they should be thinking "mountains"
This
perennial sin of requirements underestimation continues to this day. A
current example of requirements underestimation is Darwinism, the
idea that evolution can be explained merely by natural selection and random mutations. This idea
drastically underestimates the requirements for the origin of complex
biological functionality, by ignoring the high degree of coordination
that is needed for such a thing.
Every
engineer knows that tremendous coordination is required for the
origin of complex functionality. Every software manager knows that
you cannot do a complicated software release without a high degree of
coordination in introducing the diverse parts that make up a new
substantial unit of functionality. But Darwinism has no mechanism for
any such coordination. It requires that we believe that required
bits of functionality arrive at random times over vast time spans,
and that this somehow works to create marvelously intricate and
complex functionality.
A
correct estimation of the requirements for the origin of complex
biological functionality would include the following, in addition to
many other things:
- The appearance of all of the necessary parts for the complex functionality;
- A high degree of chronological coordination, so that related parts of a larger functional whole are introduced within a relatively short time span, rather than at random times in an eon;
- A high degree of structural coordination, so that parts fit together well;
- A high degree of sequential coordination, so that parts are appropriately preceded by other parts on which they are dependent.
Darwinism
has basically zero provision for the last three requirements.
According to Darwinism, the requirements for the origin of
fantastically complicated biological functionality we observe are
simply the following: random genetic variation (helped by mutations)
and survival of the fittest. This is a gigantic case of requirements
underestimation, the same intellectual sin that our theoretical
scientists have committed so often throughout scientific history.
Our
neurologists also underestimate requirements drastically in trying to
explain human consciousness. They assume a simplistic “light from
the light bulb” model of consciousness, in which our minds are
merely the product of brain activity. But how can a few pounds of
neurons produce all the wonders of human mentality? Why would merely
arranging some cells in some particular way magically cause the
wonder of human consciousness? Thinking more realistically, we will
assume that a requirement of the human mind is some unknown X factor
that we do not understand, something that comes from beyond our
brains. Only by such an assumption can we account for the wealth of
solid evidence for human paranormal abilities and unusual psychic
experiences. Such evidence is overlooked and ignored by most
neurologists, who underestimate the requirements for our minds by
assuming that they are purely material.
Have
we pretty much figured out the physical requirements for a universe
such as ours? There is every reason to suspect that we have barely
begun such a task. One reason is that we have in no way accounted for
the apparently vast information processing requirements for an
orderly universe. For example, under current theory there is a force
of gravitational attraction between your body and every other piece
of matter in the universe, in addition to forces of electromagnetic
repulsion and attraction between your body and every body in the
universe. But how is such a thing calculated? It would seem all too
reasonable to assume that the universe has behind it some vast
information processing infrastructure which allows such things to be
calculated. But the whole issue of the information processing
requirements of nature has been almost completely ignored by
scientists, who just kind of think that “nature somehow magically
does it.” When we actually get into determining the information
processing requirements of nature, we may well discover countless
additional requirements for our existence. We may also discover that a universe such as ours absolutely requires not merely a few physical laws, but a complicated regulatory system resembling a very complex computer program, with an extensive amount of conditional logic embedded within it.
What
is astonishing is the failure of scientists to imagine that there may
be a wealth of requirements for our existence that they know nothing
about, even though the history of requirements underestimation by
scientists strongly suggests exactly such a thing. It is as if after
discovering the seventh requirement for beings such as us and a
universe such as ours, scientists then decided that there were no
more than seven such requirements; and that after discovering the
twenty-first requirement for beings such as us and a universe such as
ours, scientists then decided that there were no more than twenty-one
such requirements; and that after discovering the sixty-fifth
requirement for beings such as us and a universe such as ours,
scientists then decided that there were no more than sixty-five such
requirements. Why is it that scientists cannot see the trend line
here? Why is that they cannot imagine that the total requirements we
have thus far discovered for beings such as us and a universe such
as ours may be only a tenth or a hundredth of the actual
requirements? Perhaps it is because that theoretical scientists would then be
forced to stop swaggering about and thinking of themselves as grand
lords of explanation, and to realize that their understanding of
nature is merely paltry and fragmentary.
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