Conclusive evidence for Design!

[zro_x]

The problem is one must take the position we can know all there is to know. We can observe all there is to observe. We can sense all there is to sense.

We already know we cannot.

No we don’t. it is still possible that a scientific explanation will eventually be found for everything. We only know that we don’t know all the answers right now. As I’ve been saying this whole time, scientific explanations may still prove or disprove free will and naturalism. We just haven’t reached that point yet.

 

[buffalo]

ahhh… I believe I see what you mean now. When you can’t reach an absolute conclusion you have to figure out which of the two explanations are most probable and base the way you live your life off of that. your stance is that since science can’t provide an adequate explanation for conscious experience, design is the most probable explanation. I would disagree. here’s why:

nope, it still wouldn’t make a difference. Consider your snowflake. Hundreds of years ago, when snowflakes were first discovered, a proponent of intelligent design would have said something along the lines of: “Look! though each snowflake varries slightly, each one has a basic hexagonal structure. What are the odds of that? Its like rolling a dice and each time coming up with a six. Someone must have designed it that way!” Later we discovered that the reason has to do with the molecular geometry of water. I really don’t care how many times you throw the cards. If they keep landing the same way, I’m going to look for a natural reason first before I start looking for a supernatural one.

And that’s why, Tony, that you can’t say that intelligent design is more probable than naturalism because naturalism doesn’t yet know how consciousness comes from matter.

I have no issue with looking for a natural explanation.

 

[buffalo]

false dichotomy. the meter might point away from radomness toward natural explanations, rather than design

That might be in the middle range.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The first life on Earth had “written into it,” via whatever form the DNA code took in that primordial form, the potential to bring about all the forms of life that exist today, given the idea of common descent. That fact could not have been a “foreseeable” one to the initial coding event if intent in the design was not a factor.

Yet, in addition to the open potential of the code, was the necessity that, in order for all the future forms to develop from this initial code, it also had to be “replicatable.” In order to replicate, however, part of the assembled code had to include the means by which replication could take place - some sort of transcribing mechanism to duplicate the important genetic material. So the code had to be written with the distinct purpose of being transcribed. How could that happen, though, without foresight? Yet foresight is not part of merely natural event sequences. Foresight entails purpose and, therefore, design with intent.

 

[tonyrey]

The first life on Earth had “written into it,” via whatever form the DNA code took in that primordial form, the potential to bring about all the forms of life that exist today, given the idea of common descent. That fact could not have been a “foreseeable” one to the initial coding event if intent in the design was not a factor.

Yet, in addition to the open potential of the code, was the necessity that, in order for all the future forms to develop from this initial code, it also had to be “replicatable.” In order to replicate, however, part of the assembled code had to include the means by which replication could take place - some sort of transcribing mechanism to duplicate the important genetic material. So the code had to be written with the distinct purpose of being transcribed. How could that happen, though, without foresight? Yet foresight is not part of merely natural event sequences. Foresight entails purpose and, therefore, design with intent.

The only alternative is **an entirely fortuitous assembly **not only of the code but also of the mechanism in the first place!

 

[buffalo]

No we don’t. it is still possible that a scientific explanation will eventually be found for everything. We only know that we don’t know all the answers right now. As I’ve been saying this whole time, scientific explanations may still prove or disprove free will and naturalism. We just haven’t reached that point yet.

You have ultimate faith in the god of BUC. If science reached that point then it would be all knowing and thus God Himself.

 

[buffalo]

Yes, they are designed by humans. This is well established by evidence. DNA was not designed by humans and thus far you have not identified any evidence that it was designed at all. Again do you know of any evidence?

Sure, so what evidence is there of plans to communicate an idea other than by humans? Again, how do we detect ideas from patterns?*

The meter goes from random to non-random (the opposite of random). Remember the sand ripples on a beach are very far from the random end of the scale and yet they are not designed (as you said) so you have already acknowledged that the other end of the scale cannot be “designed”.

Why is a pattern in the sand very far from the random end?

Non-random is having a plan or purpose.

So should the UPB be set a 50%?

 

[Candide_West]

The first life on Earth had “written into it,” via whatever form the DNA code took in that primordial form, the potential to bring about all the forms of life that exist today, given the idea of common descent. That fact could not have been a “foreseeable” one to the initial coding event if intent in the design was not a factor.*

Yet, in addition to the open potential of the code, was the necessity that, in order for all the future forms to develop from this initial code, it also had to be “replicatable.” In order to replicate, however, part of the assembled code had to include the means by which replication could take place - some sort of transcribing mechanism to duplicate the important genetic material. *So the code had to be written with the distinct purpose of being transcribed. How could that happen, though, without foresight? Yet foresight is not part of merely natural event sequences. Foresight entails purpose and, therefore, design with intent.

Unfortunately the standing forum ban on evolution means I’m not allowed to explain how this works. But DNA doesn’t need to have written into it any information whatsoever about future forms of life.*

If it did then it would be possible to look at the DNA of an animal and work out the genetic future of its species. It isn’t.*

 

[Trurl]

Here is a sequence of coin tosses, where 1 is “head” and 0 is tails:

11001001000011111101101010100010001000010110100011

Is this sequence designed, or random? All you “design advocates” can sink your teeth into it… after all you “claim” that you can differentiate between “random” and designed". Here is your opportunity to prove your point. And, of course tell us, how did you reach your conclusion?

 

[buffalo]

Here is a sequence of coin tosses, where 1 is “head” and 0 is tails:

11001001000011111101101010100010001000010110100011

Is this sequence designed, or random? All you “design advocates” can sink your teeth into it… after all you “claim” that you can differentiate between “random” and designed". Here is your opportunity to prove your point. And, of course tell us, how did you reach your conclusion?

This sequence is limited to 1’s and 0’s only.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Unfortunately the standing forum ban on evolution means I’m not allowed to explain how this works. But DNA doesn’t need to have written into it any information whatsoever about future forms of life.*

If it did then it would be possible to look at the DNA of an animal and work out the genetic future of its species. It isn’t.*

Never claimed it actually did. I was making a point about the “expansive” potential of the coding process itself.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Here is a sequence of coin tosses, where 1 is “head” and 0 is tails:

11001001000011111101101010100010001000010110100011

Is this sequence designed, or random? All you “design advocates” can sink your teeth into it… after all you “claim” that you can differentiate between “random” and designed". Here is your opportunity to prove your point. And, of course tell us, how did you reach your conclusion?

It’s designed to be a sequence of coin tosses with a specified set of chance outcomes for each instant. Designed for sure.

 

[Candide_West]

Why is a pattern in the sand very far from the random end?

Because there’s a consistent pattern of organisation across millions or billions of components.

Non-random is having a plan or purpose.

Nope. Non-random means not random. Of course if a pattern is non-random that means there MIGHT be some deliberate intelligence behind the pattern, or there might NOT be (there could for example be some other cause of the pattern, ie waves on a beach).*

The question which you keep ignoring is how we can tell the difference between complicated patterns which were designed and complicated patterns which were not? Once we can do that then maybe we can go looking for evidence for design using that method.*

So should the UPB be set a 50%?

No. We’ve been over this, you yourself established that there cannot be such a thing as a UPB with a single eloquent sentence. If there were a UPB then the result of ANY complex interaction would have to be classified as “designed” (including those which are entirely random).

 

[Candide_West]

Never claimed it actually did. I was making a point about the “expansive” potential of the coding process itself.

Ok, so you may already know this but all the coding needs to start out as is a chemical which says “copy me” but doesn’t always produce perfect copies.

And that is all I’ll say on the topic. As with most subjects though there’s loads of information freely available on the Internet if you’re interested in finding out more.

Best wishes

 

[buffalo]

Because there’s a consistent pattern of organisation across millions or billions of components.

Nope. Non-random means not random. Of course if a pattern is non-random that means there MIGHT be some deliberate intelligence behind the pattern, or there might NOT be (there could for example be some other cause of the pattern, ie waves on a beach).*

The question which you keep ignoring is how we can tell the difference between complicated patterns which were designed and complicated patterns which were not? Once we can do that then maybe we can go looking for evidence for design using that method.*

No. We’ve been over this, you yourself established that there cannot be such a thing as a UPB with a single eloquent sentence. If there were a UPB then the result of ANY complex interaction would have to be classified as “designed” (including those which are entirely random).

No, the UPB is quite high. It exceeds all the events and atoms in the entire universe since the beginning. So sand pattern formation is well under the UPB.

You need to call the dictionary folks on this one. I am sure they will be open to being corrected.

SETI was a waste of money, don’t you think? However, if we see a map or symbol we know it is designed. In the sand pattern formed by the waves we see the three letters SOS.

No - let’s examine the so called eloquent sentence. Care to quote it?

 

[tonyrey]

If we didn’t know we can reason we wouldn’t make any effort to reason! We would allow our impulses and instincts to dominate our behaviour. Like animals we wouldn’t have any logical principles or rules of thought by which to decide what is true or false.

More progress!

1. We may not have reasoning powers at all, in which case everything we know is worthless.

which means that if naturalism is true, it must be through possibility two.

1. It is possible that we are able to reach correct conclusions about the universe without resorting to spiritual rationality. We would essentially be biological computers, and we wouldn’t have responsibility for our own thoughts, but it is a possibility.

“spiritual rationality” doesn’t come into the discussion. We are concerned with rationality pure and simple. The issue is whether any type of computer, biological or not, can be rational in any valid sense of the term. Rationality presupposes insight and understanding. There is not one jot of evidence that computers know what they are doing or understand anything.

You are also assuming we could be rational in a mindless universe without having explained the precise physical mechanisms by which that incredible feat could be accomplished.

Okay, perhaps I should have said,“you can’t conclude that thoughts are designed just because science can’t provide an explanation for them.”

No rational conclusion can be based solely on a negation! That is why the absence of a scientific explanation is a red herring which leads nowhere. The fact that science has explained some things doesn’t imply that it can explain everything. I don’t conclude that thoughts are designed **solely **because there is no scientific explanation but because there is **a cogent explanation that corresponds to our personal experience and, ironically, to the success of science.
**

A possibility is not a valid basis for a rational conclusion.

I’m not coming to any rational conclusion, whether for design or against it. I’m saying that we can’t conclude anything from what we know.

If you adopted that view about life you would never do anything!

Robots are designed! “imagine” is indeed all that argument amounts to…

The point that I’m trying to make here is that robots, though their thought processes are purely physical electrical impulses, they may eventually become indistinguishable from human beings.

“may” has no scientific value. It is merely a supposition which confuses the issue.

Only a fool thinks we could ever understand the ultimate nature of reality! It is enough to know from personal experience that the power of the mind is superior to the power of purposeless molecules. We don’t rely on things to make our decisions for us…

Exactly how do we know this? you are basically saying that we know from experience that the mind gives rise to physical causes, rather than physical things giving rise to the mental cause.
But the truth is that we can’t know this from experience.

If you believed things cause your choices and decisions you would never make any! Don’t you rely on yourself rather than inanimate objects?

In an entirely material universe there would be no “selves”. “Ours” and “ourselves” wouldn’t refer to anything except bodies and bodies without selves don’t belong to anything. They are just things that exist.

no, selves would refer to our conscious experience, which we have even if naturalism is true.

“our” again presupposes** an indivisible entity**, i.e. a person, whereas natural objects consist of parts. How can you regard the brain which consists of countless events as** one **being? In addition to all its other flaws materialism infringes the principle of economy.

 

[tonyrey]

I really don’t care how many times you throw the cards. If they keep landing the same way, I’m going to look for a natural reason first before I start looking for a supernatural one.

And that’s why, Tony, that you can’t say that intelligent design is more probable than naturalism because naturalism doesn’t yet know how consciousness comes from matter.

A case of mistaken identity! In any case an argument from scientific ignorance cuts no ice whatsoever. It is merely a desperate attempt to avoid admitting there is no valid reason for rejecting the superiority of the most **rational **explanation.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Ok, so you may already know this but all the coding needs to start out as is a chemical which says “copy me” but doesn’t always produce perfect copies.

And that is all I’ll say on the topic. As with most subjects though there’s loads of information freely available on the Internet if you’re interested in finding out more.

Best wishes

Keep in mind that the order of coding has no biochemical explanation. The order of the nucleotide bases along the spine of the DNA molecule has no physical or chemical reason for being so ordered. There are no bonding properties that cause the ordering. It is completely random, yet the order is crucial for passing on the information required for replication. How could the random and yet critical ordering of the bases be accomplished completely free from physical or chemical constrictions if designed encoding was not responsible?

Why do the bases line up in the order they do? Provide an alternative plausible explanation, please.

 

[Trurl]

This sequence is limited to 1’s and 0’s only.

So what? Every computer program is just a sequence of 1’s and 0’s. If you look at something that may or may not be a computer program how do you find out if it is just a bunch of random 1’s and 0’s, or something that represents “actual information” in an encoded format? The question was: "is that sequence the result of a random event, or is it the result of a designed activity?

It’s designed to be a sequence of coin tosses with a specified set of chance outcomes for each instant. Designed for sure.

Really? And how would you know that? Are the results of coin-tosses NOT random? Of course I did not actually say that the numbers represent a bunch of coin tosses. They may, or they may not. That is what you are supposed to figure out.

Where is your design-o-meter? Point at that sequence and see what does it say. You guys are not dumb, so stop acting it.

 

[Doxus]

Keep in mind that the order of coding has no biochemical explanation. The order of the nucleotide bases along the spine of the DNA molecule has no physical or chemical reason for being so ordered. There are no bonding properties that cause the ordering. It is completely random, yet the order is crucial for passing on the information required for replication. How could the random and yet critical ordering of the bases be accomplished completely free from physical or chemical constrictions if designed encoding was not responsible?

Why do the bases line up in the order they do? Provide an alternative plausible explanation, please.

Nonsense.

“In the order they do”, you could ask the same of any order of bases.

AAAA
AAAT
AAAC
AAAG
AATA
AACA
AAGA
AATT
AATC
AATG

Etc, they all fall in an order of some sort. Any assortment of objects in an ordered set must fall into an order, it’s tautological.