F=MA expresses a simultaneously changing relationship between different variables. There is a kind of causal relationship between them. An increase in mass causes a decrease in acceleration (where force is constant). But it is not the sort of cause and effect described by Hume. Rather, it is an interrelation between two aspects of the same whole... more like per se causality as described by Aristotle rather than Humean characterization of causality as essentially a relation between antecedent and consequent events. In this way it is ironic that Hume sought to emulate Newton by identifying a psychological analog to universal gravitation.
Integral to Dembski's idea of specified complexity (SC) is the notion that something extrinsic to evolution is the source of the specification in how it develops. He compares SC to the message sent by space aliens in the movie "Contact." In that movie, earthbound scientists determine that radio waves originating in from somewhere in our galaxy are actually a signal being sent by space aliens. The scientists determine that these waves are a signal is the fact that they indicate prime numbers in a way that a random occurrence would not. What is interesting to me is the fact that Dembski relies upon an analogy with a sign rather than a machine. Like a machine, signs are produced by an intelligent being for the sake of something beyond themselves. Machines, if you will, have a meaning. Signs, if you will, produce knowledge. But the meaning/knowledge is in both cases something other than the machine/sign itself. Both signs and machines are purposeful or teleological...
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