Of faith, Engineering and the Human Visual System

yawn. !!... And the eyes fixed in the sockets with limited range of vision- that`s apalling for a God so benevolent over its human creation. Yawn!!....

So yet another newbie has discovered irrefutable proof of the Existence of ‘God’ via the hackneyed old Argument from Design as applied to the `perfect design` of the vertebrate eye. Yawn.

There are many different kinds of eyes in the animal kingdom, from the faceted compound eyes of many arthropods to the familiar ‘camera-type’ vertebrate eye. What is intriguing is that the vertebrate retina has the visual receptor cells – rods and cones – as its innermost layer, behind nerves and even blood vessels. Light has to pass through other cells in front of the rods and cones, which apparently do some sort of processing or computation. The need for an orifice through which the neural cabling on the surface of the retina can exit the eye and make its way into the brain necessitates a blind spot. There is no obvious good reason why this aspect of the design should be preferred; and were the rods and cones to be on the surface of the retina, one could do away with that pesky blind spot.

There is another eye design in the animal kingdom – the eye of cephalopods such as the octopus – which very closely parallels the design of the vertebrate eye – complete with lens, retina, aperture(pupil), cornea, aqueous and vitreous humours, ciliary muscles, etc. - but differs developmentally as well as in significant structural aspects.

First, the cephalopod eye develops as an invagination of the skin, not as an extension of the brain, as the vertebrate eye does.

Second, the vertebrate eye is flexible and the ciliary muscles are used to change the shape of the lens and thus the focus of the eye; whereas the cephalopod eye is rigid and the ciliary muscles adjust focus by moving the lens back and forth in relation to the retina.

Third, and most significantly, the receptor cells of the cephalopod eye are on the surface of the retina and point forward – towards the lens – rather than an innermost layer pointing backwards, as in vertebrates. Consequently the octopus eye has no blind spot. So nature came up with another eye design that converged towards that of the vertebrate eye, but perhaps it got the design of the retina `right` this time.

nasah #27,

``that subtle intelligence may be nothing more than the Sieve of Selection -- the Universal
`lock and key` mechanism -- by which some of the fleeting spontenously generated changes (mutations) are caught and are given a fleeting moment of Permance in the Universe`s time and space --``

nasah sahab, you are too much for me :)

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One most basic, most essential, quality that defines any intelligence is self-awareness.

This self-awareness seems capable of immense scaling.

For example, the smallest bacterium is aware of its existance, its body...aware of itself. This prompts it to seek nourishment to sustain itself and avoid anything that is harmful. This is off course a simplistic picture and being a medical person you must be aware of how capable even a bacterium can be.

Several cells make up a organ...say a liver...which seems to perform as ONE entity. We can say the liver has its own intelligence, is aware of itself...what it needs to survive and what is harmful, who its neighbors are, etc.

Again, several organs make up the human...who is aware of himself as one unit (not a billion individual cells).

So this intelligent self-awareness seems to scale easily...producing self-awareness at increasing levels of size and complexity.

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A lower scale of intelligence seems aware of all its upper levels...but not the other way round.

eg. A human is not aware of his organs as independent units from himself. But the organs individually recognise each other as different entities.

Furthermore...one organ does not recognise its cells as having their separate identities...but at a cell level, each cell in the organ has its individual identity. Its differentiates itself from its neighbor.

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Extending this outward...we can say that a nation (of humans) is self-aware. Its seeks nourishment and defends itself. It recognises other nations. In other words...it exhibits intelligence.

Weird...No?

cheers,

Ironman -- great definition of subtle intelligence --``subtle intelligence is NOT a function of time (never born, never changes and never dies) and also that it is a unitary thing (not a compound).``......

then the subtle intelligence has to be a process without an iota of any manly attributes... and here is that `subtle intelligence` ... that will be found in any corner of the Universe...unborn and undying....

that subtle intelligence may be nothing more than the Sieve of Selection -- the Universal
`lock and key` mechanism -- by which some of the fleeting spontenously generated changes (mutations) are caught and are given a fleeting moment of Permance in the Universe`s time and space --

this is the process through which the subtle intelligence tembarks upon the manifest journey to building a complex Universe within Universe -- from micro to the macro world --

with the quark to electron protons, neutrons, to atoms, to hydrogen oxygen, nitrogen, iron, sulphur to radicals, to water, sugar, proteins, fats formaldehyde, cyanide etc -- to stars planets and galaxies...

all are products of these mindless keys floating around looking for their locks and then finding them and locking into them -- in order to manifest themselves mindfully --

that means -- that two hydrogen meeting one oxygen -- will always `make water` given the conditions -- where ever they are -- not only on our earth -- but in every corner of our own galaxy Milky Way -- in every corner of galaxies that are 5 billion light years away from us --

two hydrogen meeting one oxygen will ALWAY make water that has made life possible for us -- and the same two hydrogens meeting with TWO oxygens will always make Hyrogen Peroxide in every corner of the universe....

and this ``subtle intelligence`` is NOT a function of time (never born, never changes and never dies)......

Spontaneous change (mutation) drives the `subtle` intelligence to `manifest` itself through Selection by the lock and key interactions --

ithese interactions lead to a stepwise building process by which a more intelligent micro world turns into a most intelligent most complex macro world --

and by which also the macro world when it becomes too cumbersome must begin to disintegrate into the micro world by Buddha`s entropy....

in other words -- the intelligenc survives and the dumbness perishes.....and when there is too mch intelligence of too musch complexity it has to disintegrate to elemental dumbness...as Buddha`s entropy demands....:-)

nasah #21,

You say something interesting...something contrary to general philosophy logic. You say that the subtle intelligence that is responsible for evolution (which we won`t call as god)...is also evolving!! Bravo! That is certainly novel :)

The general philosophical thought is that anything that can change...(IOW, is a function of time) is subject to the effects of time...birth, growth, decay and death.

All compound things are bound to be dissolved one day into its elements (the buddha said that).

So...the general `belief` is that that subtle intelligence is NOT a function of time (never born, never changes and never dies) and also that it is a unitary thing (not a compound).

This was posted by Skept as an i-log. Thanks Skept.
Very appropriate for this board.

for all to savour. esp. Yourstruly, please enjoy

I have taken the liberty to underline the more relevant lines.

P.S: Philip Larkin is poet-laureate of Britain.

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Aubade` by Philip Larkin


I work all day, and get half drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain edges will grow light.
Till then I see what`s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not used, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never:
But at the total emptiness forever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says no rational being
Can fear a thing it cannot feel, not seeing
that this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no-one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can`t escape
Yet can`t accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

human eye? Just a structure as crude as that of a metal brings me down to my knees.

A real pleasure to read this, Hamid sahib. I`m finding my arrivel at chowk a great experience.

irfan #19 on reply to sameer: The question was whether most scientists do not believe in God, as sameerjb suggests.

The correct answer clearly is that whether or not physicists believe in God is irrelevant. This is because physicists (in their capacity of being scientists) are interested in rigorous, testable theories NOT in beliefs (which by definition call for a leap of faith, NOT for rigorous, testable theories).

This preoccupation with whether or not physicists believe in God, and how to reconcile science and religion, indicates a profound lack of understanding of what science and scientists are all about on the one hand, and what religion is about on the other.

``Now, here`s an interesting point. Evolution itself is not a denial of a higher power.....Evolution does negate ``the `sudden` creation theory of god...god the super engineer.`` (iron man)

well said Ironman -- indeed it is not a denial of a higher power -- and ``Evolution does negate ``the `sudden` creation theory of god...god the super engineer.`` --

by that premise Evolution ALSO says -- that the `higher power` did not become a `higher power` -- suddenly, instantly.... and for all times to come....

the higher powered God also had to evolve through the eons of the same Evolution...

that means -- our God of 5 thousand years, 2000 years and 1400 years ago -- may not have known most of the things that HE knows today --

in fact -- in those days HE really DID NOT KNOW much -- about microscope, telescopes, railways, wireless, electricity jet planes and computers -- that HE knows now....

HE had no idea what a CELL is -- a bacterial cell, a yeast cell or a human celll --

if HE knew -- HE the Supreme Intelligence would certainly have imparted all that knowledge 5 thousand years ago to His most cherished and intelligent creation -- the `Ashraful Makhlooqaat` -- the `Man`kind....

in fact in year 250 BC our God was not so informed about the intricacies of life and the structure and compostion of His Universe -- otherwise thru his most intelligent creation of the time -- Aristotle -- He wouldn`t have copnveyed to us the absurd -- idea that we all are made of -- 4 `elements` -- earth, water, air, and fire........:-)

good article. While accepting the evolutionary theory, one wonders if chance changes could - even over a span of a billion years - lead to such sophisticated things like the human eye. Surely this is as improbable as having a ten story building come up through random changes.

I understand that the evolutionary theory, while retaining intact what Darwin proposed, has been further extended (e.g. to include role of gene in making these ``random`` changes less random and more goal directed - e.g. if the ancestor of the owl decided for some reason it only knows that it was better to hunt at night, its genes would somehow by signaled to crank up production of the rod-producing cells. I understand that this extension to Darwin is exhaustivly coverd in the late Stephen Gould`s ``The Structure of Evolutionary Theory``. I wonder if you or anyone else has read that book and so can explain exactly how Darwin`s theory has been extended to account for this.

Very interesting replies everyone. They made me think hard about what I had written. And in answer to a few points raised, I`d like to add my two bits as well.

Ironman:
Well I don`t think the evolution theory is a hoax. In the presence of so much overwhelming scientific evidence I don`t think anyone except the mullah at a village mosque would refute it. What is needed now, in my opinion, is to find some way to reconcile that with the concept of God. According to archaeological evidence, man (in one form or another) has been present on Earth for millions of years. Homo-erectus, discovered in Africa is, I think, one of the oldest predecessors of homo-sapien found yet (correct me if I`m wrong, I`m no archaeologist) and he lived from 2 million to 400,000 years ago. Human civilization as we know it hardly dates back 12,000 years (the Babylonians if I`m not mistaken). Let`s say we make a worst case estimate and say human civilization started 100,000 years ago. What is to say that Adam and Eve were not the first beings in the evolutionary ladder that could be classified as homo-sapiens?

So yes I do believe in evolution, but I believe we need to find a way to reconcile that with religion. What I have written are just my thoughts, I don`t claim to be a religious scholar, or even know much about religion, nor am I in a position to understand evolution correctly since I`m not a life scientist. So someone who does fit the bill should do it.

sameerJB:
Yes it`s true, most physicists do not believe in the existence of God. There might be a number of reasons. First and foremost, these are western physicists, and in the west, faith and religion does not have the same importance as generally it does in the east. So basically what they do is try to NOT find God in the complexities of nature, rather than trying to FIND God. Alot depends on how you are looking at something.

Secondly, try as they might, physicists have not been able to find the underpinnings of reality. Infact the more we go forward, the more we seem to be on shaky ground. Until the discovery of electromagnetism and quantum physics, it was thought that physics was completed with Newtonian mechanics. Now we are trying everything from quantum physics to super-string theory to chaos theory and still the very definition of reality and time eludes us. This vexes physicists, and to think that there is some uber-entity that has set this all up and they can`t understand it is too much of a blow to their scientific egos.

Regards,
Irfan.

Irfan,

Good article and very interesting replies.

Since you don`t mention this explcitly in your article...you must now come forth and answer this question: Do you believe that the evolution theory is a hoax?

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``Finally, and this is the most amazing from a technical point of view...``

``Therefore, the visual cortex is a supercomputer with about 500 million processing elements (neurons) that does alot more infinitely better than the current “state-of-the-art” technology could ever hope to do.``


Paradox has said this already, I`ll rephrase it.

First life forms apparently appeared a few 100 million years after the earth formed. That means evolution has been ongoing for about 4000 million years.

That `eye` and that `visual cortex` are 4000 million years old.

How can you compare 400,000,000 years of evolutionary tinkering with 200-year evolution of modern technology and 30-year evolution of computer technology???

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Now, here`s an interesting point. Evolution itself is not a denial of a higher power.

Evolution simply negates the `sudden` creation theory of god...god the super engineer.

Evolution demands an `intelligent` under layer...that senses the environment and takes `intelligent`decisions. That subtle background `intelligence` must be present in the smallest bacterium and in me and you.

So in a sense, the bacterium and me and you are manifestations (simple and complex respectively) of that subtle intelligence.

The premise of understanding the complexity of vision mechanism, life, nature and universe fortifying belief in one god is absurdly illogical in the presence of overwhelmingly contrasting data. The understanding of the complex nature is a relative term with time. The understanding levels and therefore complexity 2000 years ago was considered simple 1000 years ago and complex understanding at the level of 1000 years ago is considered easy and basics today. In few hundreds or less years, the current level of complex understanding will be considered common knowledge and basics. Therefore according to this illogic, god must not remain important in due time when current level of understanding is no longer considered highly complex.

The belief in one god has gone down as the understanding of the complexity has gone up, particularly in the cultures at the forefront of advances in knowledge. The enlightenment period and 93 percent of the members of National Academy of Sciences some two years ago not believing in god in any form and shape are clear proofs of inverse relationship between belief in one god and understanding of the complexities of life, nature,....

The belief in god around the world is strongest among the people with lower or little understanding of the complexity of life, nature and universe. The knowledge, particularly scientific, is killing god more than kafirs could ever imagine harming the belief in god. The level of disbelief is strongest among life scienctists and physicists because of their better and in-depth understanding of the complexity of life and universe respectively.

I know there are couple of people here who love to bring Einstein and one of his famous political remark regarding god. They might bring it out again as the last resort. The well-entrenched beliefs die hard. As the understanding of complexity improved over period, the concept of god came under pressure and believers started yielding god`s power slowly, albeit resistantly, in the cover of big words like reformation and re-interpretations. Ultimately god will be found one day, like Saddam Hussein, hiding in some small underground cellar, fearful, distorted and resigned to the human mind who created him in the first place. Until then takbeer....allahu akbar

``how could they NOT believe in a higher being`` <

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sth i have thot several times too, not just of doctors but all those who study any aspect of life in some detail atleast.
the visual system. vision? to see? ...
a single cell alone contains a whole universe in itself. its mind boggling-ly amazing, the complexity and coordination...and yet we dont even know how much/what we dont even know yet.
yes indeed strenghtens your faith and makes u realize ur smallness/insignificance quite forcefully.

14:nasah
``they say it -- but in their hearts of hearts they know.``

Sirjee: You Yourself is Him. You read other hearts.

It is apparent that aap FOSSya gae-ay hain. Two-doctorate syndrome, I guess.

``Underwear import karaingay, rubbrain nikaalain gai-y , ghulalain bunaa-ain gai-y, aur chirrian marain gai-ay``