Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site cvl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!umcp-cs!cvl!rlh
From: rlh@cvl.UUCP (Ralph L. Hartley)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Response to flames
Message-ID: <418@cvl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-May-85 09:57:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: cvl.418
Posted: Fri May 10 09:57:55 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 12-May-85 02:11:53 EDT
Organization: Computer Vision Lab, U. of Maryland, College Park
Lines: 29


>   In light of this, there are certain conditions which must be satisfied
>   to cause any finite system to advance to a higher degree of order.
>
>   No system shows an increasing order unless it also possesses a specific
>   program to direct its growth and a complex mechanism to convert the
>   suns energy into specific work. Examples of such directive programs
>   are  DNA in living systems  and plans and specifications for
>   construction of artificial systems. Mechanisms for storing and
>   converting energy would be photosynthesis in plants, metabolism in
>   animals, and machinery in artificial construction.

Your examples do not really support your conclusion.  You have shown
that SOME systems in which order increases have a "program".  No number
of examples can show that ALL systems in which order increases have a
"program".

However it only takes ONE example to prove your statement wrong.

A laser is such an example.  (There are others, but only one is
required.) Here you have a disordered gas and a disordered source of
energy.  The result, however, is the emision of VERY orderd light.

You may try to argue that a laser is an artificial object and therefore
has a hidden plan, but not all lasers are artificial. Natural lasers
have been discovered in which interstelar gas produces coherent light.

				Ralph Hartley
				rlh@cvl