Tier 1 Level Philosophy: Can you identify Intelligent Design in a system where all physical relationships happen by chance?

[IWantGod]

Tier 1 Level Philosophy: Can you identify intelligent design in a system where all physical relationships in principle happen by chance?

In my opinion, to succeed at doing so, would represent the best intelligent design argument.

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[ProdglArchitect]

Intelligent design is essentially:

God guided the development of species over millions of years to result in their current form.

So, to answer your question, let’s examine what is required to develop a species.

1. Two animals mate in a way that results in the conception of an offspring.
2. During the creation of that new offspring, or at some point during initial development, a mutation in occurs in the genetic code.
3. That offspring eventually mates, and passes their mutation off to one or more of their children.
4. Repeat this process until that mutation now represents the norm of the species.
5. Repeat the entire process with a new mutation.
6. Repeat that entire process with a sequence of mutations such that, at some point, the newly offspring can no longer be classified as the same species as the starting iteration.

So, as to your question, the fact that the breeding pairs are random is inconsequential. All that matters is that God intervenes and generates a mutation in the offspring of some breeding pair. There’s nothing that says it has to be that one specific set of animals.

 

[IWantGod]

You are arguing for a divine intervention in natural events, specifically when involving those relationships that produce a mutation. This is the traditional approach to intelligent design. What i am asking is whether you can identify intelligent design when all physical relationships, including their effects, occur by chance in principle.

You see, i prefer an argument that seeks to prove intelligent design without interfering with natural processes. The illusion, in my opinion, is that if all physical relationships are by chance, then there is no intelligent design in the system. I wish to dispel that modern myth.

 

[Wesrock]

By chance, I assume you don’t mean absolutely random. Event A will still tend towards Result B, right?

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Then you are seeking a round triangle, or a square circle. Such a thing does not exist.

I’ve heard two primary thoughts behind Intelligent Design.

1: God set the universe in motion in such a way that the mutations would occur at the specific moments, as necessary for species to develop into what He needed them to be.

2: God intervened at specific points to instill the mutations necessary to guide development.

Either one is equally possible, and neither one is provable, nor will either convince someone who already thinks that intelligent design is false. You’re not going to be able to convince someone that these things are not chance if they do not believe that God can guide them. In order to believe in intelligent design, you must first believe in God.

In short, there is no way to prove that relationships happen by anything other than chance.

 

[IWantGod]

By chance, I assume you don’t mean absolutely random. Event A will still tend towards Result B, right?

I would accept the idea of all physical relationships being absolutely random (even if it’s not possible) as a set parameter because i don’t think even that would mean that the system does not have intelligent design in it.

 

[IWantGod]

You’re not going to be able to convince someone that these things are not chance

I think it’s possible to show that, while all physical relationships are by chance, there is still intelligent design in the system.

 

[IWantGod]

In short, there is no way to prove that relationships happen by anything other than chance.

I don’t think that you have to disprove that all physical relationships happen by chance in order to prove intelligent design. In fact, this presumed need to disprove chance is the problem with most intelligent design arguments.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

I don’t think you have to either, HOWEVER, you have to realize that intelligent design is a religious position. It’s not a scientific position that you can prove. The only people you’ll be able to “prove” it to are people who don’t have an issue with it to begin with.

 

[RandomAlias]

If it can be shown that self-replication with occasional random mutations leads to increased complexity, would that prove that the universe is intelligently designed?

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

By chance, I assume you don’t mean absolutely random. Event A will still tend towards Result B, right?

I would accept the idea of all physical relationships being absolutely random (even if it’s not possible) as a set parameter because i don’t think even that would mean that the system does not have intelligent design in it.

Well, I mean, if I knock two stones togeter am I always going to hear a “clack” and a little bit of dust falls off? Or is there a chance a 100 foot tall bouquet of flowers will pop up or I’ll self-combust?

Will hydrogen and oxygen atoms combining in H2O always result in a stable water bond or will it morph into a rabbit?

True randomness is sort of any-effect-can-follow-from-a-cause, or even without cause at all.

 

[STT]

There is not such a thing like randomness in your system of belief where God sustains everything because God is aware of everything.

 

[IWantGod]

Well, I mean, if I knock two stones togeter am I always going to hear a “clack” and a little bit of dust falls off? Or is there a chance a 100 foot tall bouquet of flowers will pop up or I’ll self-combust?

Well lets suppose that a cause could have any number of effects, and the outcome was entirely random. Could you still argue for intelligent design?

 

[IWantGod]

self-replication

I think self-replication is a sign of intelligent design because it implies goal direction, a plan, a blue-print. but i think a little something more needs to be added to make a solid argument.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Incorrect.

Awareness does not equal caused.

I can be aware of something random happening without being the cause of it, and so can God. But this is a conversation we’ve had numerous times, and you just don’t seem open to that fact, so whatever.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Well, I mean, if I knock two stones togeter am I always going to hear a “clack” and a little bit of dust falls off? Or is there a chance a 100 foot tall bouquet of flowers will pop up or I’ll self-combust?

Well lets suppose that a cause could have any number of effects, and the outcome was entirely random. Could you still argue for intelligent design?

Just to state it plainly, and not really for your sake, this would be a very different reality than what we know.

However, even in such a world, a cause is still required for an effect, and causes still tend to produce effects. I think one could still make a teleological argument, similar to Aquinas, on. this basis, and the need for an Intelligent ordering principle, which we call God, in order for such a thing to be possible.

In a chance but not absolutely random universe, a teleological argument would be stronger. And such an argument would not be like Paley’s ID argument, based around arbitrary levels of complexity or improbability.

I may try to develop it more later.

 

[IWantGod]

Will hydrogen and oxygen atoms combining in H2O always result in a stable water bond or will it morph into a rabbit?

Let me try to give you an idea of how one might go about presenting an argument for intelligent design using a system that is entirely comprised of chance based relationships or random (name removed by moderator)uts.

Lets go for the much loved monkeys and a type-writer analogy.

Lets say we have a group of immortal monkeys. They’re are randomly bashing the type-writer keys in no discernible order. In fact their behavior is chaotic. But after billions of years, and lots of wasted paper, they manage to type up the book Alice in wonderland purely by chance.

Now we as human beings discern it to be the book Alice in Wonderland, because we can identify intelligent information in the words. We can see it because there is a goal directed relationship between the meaning of the words. If this were not the case then the letters would just be gobbledigoob just like the rest of all the letters that the monkeys have writen.

Now, words alone have no objective meaning. But if the letters really did have objective meaning, then the book would objectively be Alice in Wonderland. Thus not only could we say that Alice in wonderland as a concept is not by chance, but we can also say that it is intelligently designed by an intelligent being despite the fact that it was actualised physically by chance by a bunch of monkeys.

In other-words, one can reasonably argue that Alice in wonderland is an intelligently designed blue-print that has been actualized physically by chance as a result of physical events.

Thus if we can identify something similar in our own universe, then this two would be evidence of intelligent design, not in a scientific sense, but in a teleological/philosophical sense.

 

[STT]

Incorrect.

Awareness does not equal caused.

I can be aware of something random happening without being the cause of it, and so can God. But this is a conversation we’ve had numerous times, and you just don’t seem open to that fact, so whatever.

God cannot create something which He is unaware of its functioning/outcome, in another word random. God knows and sustain everything.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Incorrect.

Once again, this is only valid if God causes the outcome. He does not. You are, as always, conflating knowledge with cause.

God knows what happens because it happens. Just as I know what number a D6 will roll after I roll it (i.e., because that is what happens), God knows what it will roll because of what it rolls. The difference is that there is no time component to His knowledge like their is with mine. If a different, random number, was rolled, His knowledge would reflect that.

Whatever, I’ve explained this to you numerous time. Nothing I say is going to change your mind, so I’m not going to waste any more of my time.

 

[STT]

A random thing cannot be created since it functions in a way that the two consecutive outcomes have no correlation with each other. God cannot create a device which he cannot know how it functions. It is about functioning rather than outcomes. God knows outcome but not functioning.