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How Predictable January 24, 2007

Posted by ocmpoma in : supernaturalism , trackback

I mentioned earlier that, in addition to order, predictability was brought up at one point* as support of a creator’s existence. As promised, here’s my take on that.

Of course, the predictability-as-evidence argument has the same shortcoming as the order-based argument has, namely, predictability compared to what? But it suffers from additional flaws, as well.

The problem is one of perception, and of mind. In order to have predictability, one must have a predictor. This introduces a whole raft of issues, conundrums, and problems. First off, the nature of the predictor determines what kinds of predictability will be experienced. Indeed, the whole concept of predictability is intimately connected to the ways our minds work — a differently wired brain might have an entirely different notion (if it had one at all) of predictability.

Predictability, just as order, is a function of pattern — that is, we humans perceive order in, and can make predictions about, the world around us based on patterns, on the repition of events. To put it loosely — perhaps too loosely — the notion of cause and effect, of ‘if A then B’, which underlies both order and predictability, arises from our perception of patterns.

But, I think that this reliance on patterns in order to make such extrapolations glosses over a very fundamental issue: we don’t so much as perceive patterns as we construct them. Our brains are wired to parse the vast amount of input they receive into patterns. Humans aren’t pattern recognizers, we are pattern creators. And from those patterns we create ‘if-then’ conditions, which we can interweave into complex scenarios allowing us to make predictions.

Now, don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying that cause and effect, repetition, and event chains don’t exist. What I am saying is that one must be very careful if one is going to extrapolate on those things in order to draw a deeper conclusion. A common occurrence of carelessness in this relation is usually phrased as, “correlation does not equal causation” — that is, a pattern is not necessarily indicative of a cause-and-effect relation. One must use caution when encountering such concepts, as humans have a distinct tendency to create a pattern whole cloth — and from there move straight to cause and effect.

The scientific method is perhaps the best check against this kind of error that we have. Furthermore, this kind of caution becomes much more necessary when one wants to move to more abstract ideas. Positing that order and predictability are evidence in favor of a creator to the universe, for example. Because, instead, what is really being posited is that our human pattern-creation and prediction talents are evidence. The main issue is that, because reality functions as it does, our brains have developed so that we create patterns so easily, so fluidly, and so vividly, that we create them both when there is a basis for them and when there is not. We see causation when there is none. We make connections when there aren’t any. We compare when there is no basis to do so.

That is why the watchmaker argument holds so much water — our brains immediately draw up a pattern, not only for the watch itself, but for anything that resembles the watch, no matter how vaguely. In fact, it seems to me that we are more likely to create patterns than we are not to — we create patterns without even thinking about it, our entire interaction with the world is based upon it. Metaphor and allegory are such effective ways for us to communicate, and at many times, especially concerning subjective areas, the only ways, because our minds so easily create them, and so easily construct patterns and connections.

Using order or predictability as arguments in favor of a creator is a deeply flawed approach, not only because of the somewhat circular nature of requiring a perceiver to perceive order and predictability, and not only because of the relative nature of those concepts, but more importantly because of the fact that order, predictabilty, and patterns are created in our minds, rather than extant in the world around us. Rather than revealing much about the underlying nature of the reality that’s “out there”, patterns reveal the underlying nature of the internal reality that’s in our heads. Saying that order, or predictability, are evidence for a creator is equivalent to saying that disorder, or unpredictability are — and, more tellingly, equivalent to saying that colors are, since, after all, colors are constructed by our minds.

*I’ll ignore the fact that the person who brought it up did so in order to try to backpedal, saying that predictability was what was meant when order was named as evidence.

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