Why is irreducible complexity undetectable? It's not, it can be detectable.
In case of evolution, it proposes evolution happens by small changes over time through mutations and natural selection. However a ghost to non-ghost is too fundamentally different. A mind requires components, not just a simple mutation to give a ghost. All those components would not arise from a naturalistic point of view.
This reflection does show consciousness cannot arise from non-consciousness. It's irreducibly complex. It doesn't matter how much or little we understand of it, what we know of it is that it's fundamentally way different then non-consciousness. And we do know a mutation will not simply ever turn something from non-ghost to ghost in the machine.
I suppose I should've directly responded to your earlier post, so that's what I'm going to do; let's go over that, first & if you still want to cover this we can circle back to it:
I think evolution just by it's nature can never be proven, it can only be disproven.
Maybe that's because this is a sound conclusion from the following premises:
Scientific theories cannot be proven, only falsified (or "disproven").
Biological evolution is a scientific theory.
(Therefore, evolution can only be disproven.)
This kinda maybe begs a question, though: has biological evolution been disproven? Not from what I've seen.
For example, if irreducible complexity exists in some type of structure in nature, then it's disproven.
I suppose in the context of this thread topic and section, when you say "nature", you're referring to biological systems? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I don't remember ever coming across the expression "irreducible complexity" before you brought it up here; I had to read up on it in order to find out what it's about; as a concept in itself it doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny, but let's ignore this for a moment and pretend otherwise.
(What I'm going to do from here is break things down for our audience/readers, in case they're not familiar with the components involved in these arguments.)
What you have provided here is what's known as a hypothetical proposition ("if P then Q", P is the antecedent "irreducible complexity exists in some type of structure in nature" and Q is the consequent "it's disproven"). This is a statement that is false if and only if the consequent Q is false and the antecedent P is true & in all other cases it's true.
A hypothetical proposition can be true, but that doesn't necessarily mean the consequent is true; it can be true with a false consequent if and only if the antecedent is also false.
Now, let's go back to your first statement about how evolution can only be disproven, and do some comparison to the first part your antecedent, here (the part that's underlined): "
irreducible complexity exists in some type of structure in nature". If evolution cannot be proven, only proven, then why does the same principle not apply to something like "irreducible complexity" existing? Should the same rule apply, as in irreducible complexity cannot be proven, only disproven?
This involves cherry picking (the rules) - there's one problem.
It seems like this concept of irreducible complexity violates the principle that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; in other words, it seems to be about asserting that absence of evidence is evidence of absence - there's another problem.
Let's consider something that seems analogous, to me: does randomness exist, or is it an illusion, or something to that effect? To me randomness falls in the "illusion, or something to that effect" category, rather than being a phenomenon that exists like force, mass, energy, etc. It's something that exists only because of human limitations; I don't think the universe as a whole (system) cares about randomness. Randomness is about there being more information or input involved in a process or system than we can handle in order to make a prediction or find a pattern; predicting things and finding patterns is something that only humans care about, not the universe, but we conjured up a name for this concept. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like this idea of "irreducible complexity" is something that only humans would care about, and since it doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny, it's not something the scientifically minded individual would tend to care about.
Although I haven't heard of this concept of "irreducible complexity" before, I am familiar with the false or flawed "argument from interdependence", and it seems like "irreducible complexity" is a case of it, or closely related. Part of evolution is co-evolution, which explains them, along with gradual adaption; they explain how certain species of organisms developed their specialist dependencies or co-dependencies. The fossil record also covers it.
I think consciousness as in the ghost in the machine is an example of an irreducible construct.
The ghost in the machine isn't a scientific concept or anything like that; it's just a metaphor for exploring the mind-body relationship.
I don't see that there's any sort of actual physical or biological separation or distinction between the (human) mind and body, just as I don't see that there's a threshold where it starts, as was basically explored here:
Is there any reason to reject the science of evolution, other than religious beliefs?
Now, that doesn't mean that there is or isn't; I take the concept explored in the Matrix movies as a thought experiment of what reality might actually be like, but instead of machines humans originally created tricking them into thinking that when they look in the mirror that they're really seeing themselves when in reality their real bodies are in pods and their brains are hooked up to a simulation, it's something involving levels of reality or existence unrelated to machines we created. It's something interesting to ponder, but not useful or practical to living human beings - it doesn't help solve any of humanity's problems.
