MOM: Sorry it has taken me a while to respond; I just saw this late last night.
Sorry for this long post but its important. I think that there is a fundamental error on both sides of the debate.
- Science doesn’t have to disprove irreducible complexity. Science is not suppose to be about disproving intelligent design, and as soon as it claims to be able to, it becomes a tautological preference or philosophy, rather then an empirical based science. Science presupposes “natural processes”. But that a thing arises by a natural process does not in itself disprove intelligent design. A thing can be irreducibly complex and yet still arise by a natural process and at the same time point to a designer. A natural explanation does not rule out other explanations. A thing can have several explanations for its existence. I suggest you goggle John haught; he’s better at explaining this then me.
You are saying that a mechanism may either be irreducibly complex, or, merely “complex”, yet neither rule out the possibility of “other” causality (if I read this correctly). And, this is true, at least to some extent. The scientistic-materialist would counter that there is no need to even “look” for other-causality as the universe has, somehow, even in the short timespan it has had to be able to produce life-forms (which, according to some scientists, has not been long enough), done just that and, most likely, chance is a sufficient (enough) explanation for it. The key proposition, in the above, is the sentence, “A thing can have several explanations for its existence.”
- For example, if you think of nature, not just as a cause and effect relationship, but as a network of patterns that, by virtue of its being, gives rise to specific states and actualities which were determined or put in place by the first cause, then an irreducibly complex flagellum only requires the information that is inherent in a chemical pattern in order to be constructed. It does not have to go though an “evolutionary process” of graduation. It can still arise naturally by virtue of a particular combination of atoms and be at the same time irreducibly complex according to evolutionary processes.
The problem with this is that science has not “found” any specific combination of atoms that would
produce the complexity of the flagellum, yet. (Actually, I’m really not so sure how hard we’ve looked.) From
observations, scientists have
inferred that all evolution is a matter of slow, gradual, and sometimes subtle, graduations up to more appropriate forms in order to allow creatures to better cope with their environment and the rest of nature.
The thing about the irreducibly complex flagellum is that it consists of a
huge number of parts, in terms of perhaps any of its precursor(s), that evolved into something instantly and incredibly useful to such a tiny creature. I’m not sure what sort of mutation might have taken place to get to that form, but, certainly, some other cause might just as well have instantiated it.
It seems evident to me that there is no evolutionary explanation for irreducible complexity, but that doesn’t mean however that an intelligence needs to interfere with natural processes in order to explain the event in question. It only means that the explanation for its existence cannot be found in the sum of its parts or the immediate and intermediate process of natural selection.
Well, you are presuming that we have actually found a form that IS irreducibly complex. That’s the issue, as far as the scientist and the creationist is concerned.
3.However, although science has its “natural explanation”, the problem does not end there for the philosopher, for the simple reason that the process involved appears objectively meaningful and is far too complex to be the chance result of meaninglessness.
Quite true. And, quite important, IMHO.
When we speak of objective reality, we are not talking about the chance illusions of meaning that can be generated by a computer, because the illusion itself is not an actual quality such as self. We are talking about real objective qualities and thus real meaning inherent in the Big Bang. In fact, chance, in respect of irreducible complexity, is a meaningless concept. There has to be irreducible complex information at the fundamental levels of physical reality in order for us to make sense of the potential states that we see at the macro level.
For instance, it can happen that my ability to “see” can arise by chance, but it would be ridiculous to say that the particular quality that is “sight” and the particular creative path that leads to sight, can be explained by chance processes, because the potential for sight has to have always been true of the universe in order so that its actualization could be made a possibility at some point even by chance process. Thus chance is limited and superficial in its power to explain reality. Also the particular path that leads necessarily to the reality of sight has to be pre-determined by that which is outside the reality of physical processes and chance. (The chance of chance. Very interesting!) In this respect we ought to realize that “sight” is an irreducibly complex nature. That there is any such thing as “sight” can only be explained by that which produces “physical nature” as a metaphysical whole. Thus the metaphysician can still ask, what is the nature of the first cause that a potential pattern or combination of atoms should give rise to particular complex and purposeful states of being, quality and behavior? Any immediate natural explanation is ruled out from the outset because it is not a question of “process” or “causality” but rather “information”. What is the nature of the first cause that there ought to be any meaningful information at all; that any particular pattern should equal the emergence of self. What is the nature of the first cause that a particular pattern is decided as being that which gives rise to a particular state? In other words, why is there such a thing as the deterministic laws of chemistry? What created the map of physics?
VERY interesting.
In contemplating this, we find out that we exist in a reality that is fundamentally “particular” in its distribution of qualities and states and how (and where) those states ought to be actualized, and by realizing this we also become aware that physical reality is ordered to particular ends outside of the natural processes of chance. Thus reality is fundamentally ordered. When we approach intelligent design from the “Aquinian” direction, we find ourselves on much stronger ground, since evolution, as an absolute explanation, not only becomes void as an explanation of irreducibly complex information, but is allowed to be co-existent with an overall explanation of reality that produces a much more potent and logical description of the meaning and the order that we find nature. And in so far as we are trying to explain the meaning that is inherent in the potential patterns of the natural order, we can say that a mind, intellect and will is the best explanation for the existence of physical reality and design that we see in living organism.
Especially a complex “mind, intellect and will”. It would certainly have been a waste of valuable chance construction to have all of this incredible beauty, symmetry, complexity, and usefulness if no greater mind than a dog’s was the highest sentience here to observe it, no? Or, if no eye had ever been constructed by “chance”.
Of course, the scientistic-materialist can counter that the creation of sight is not important. The (brute) fact that there exists eyes and intellectual beings is nice, but, irrelevant.
***
(Bolds were added by me.)
Tell me what you think. Peace.
Done.
jd
