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

[ProdglArchitect]

Your definition for the requirements of randomness is, to out it as kindly as I can, donkey excrement.

A dice is random. I roll it, it has one of six possible outcomes, the end result of which is governed by the starting position, locations, distances to impacting object, speed of fall, velocity at impact, angle of impact, and a billion other forces.

I can understand, with precise and minute detail, how every last one of those forces influences the final roll of the die. I can see the functions, know the mathematics, and understand the laws that government the movement.

That does not change the fact that when I roll the die the outcome is random.

This is yet another in a long line of nonsense non-sequitur “arguments.” For the life of me I cannot understand why I keep responding. I think it just hurts me a little to see how grossly misinformed you are, or to see how little you seem to understand the nature of Logic. Either that, or you are one massive troll, in which case, feel proud of yourself, you’ve wasted more time of my life than you are warranted to. I think, if I can stomach it, that this is going to be the last time I ever respond to you, because it is not worth the effort.

 

[STT]

Your definition for the requirements of randomness is, to out it as kindly as I can, donkey excrement.

A dice is random. I roll it, it has one of six possible outcomes, the end result of which is governed by the starting position, locations, distances to impacting object, speed of fall, velocity at impact, angle of impact, and a billion other forces.

I can understand, with precise and minute detail, how every last one of those forces influences the final roll of the die. I can see the functions, know the mathematics, and understand the laws that government the movement.

A rolling of a dice that you exactly know the outcome is not random. What you are explaining is deterministic rather than random.

That does not change the fact that when I roll the die the outcome is random.

This is yet another in a long line of nonsense non-sequitur “arguments.” For the life of me I cannot understand why I keep responding. I think it just hurts me a little to see how grossly misinformed you are, or to see how little you seem to understand the nature of Logic. Either that, or you are one massive troll, in which case, feel proud of yourself, you’ve wasted more time of my life than you are warranted to. I think, if I can stomach it, that this is going to be the last time I ever respond to you, because it is not worth the effort.

No one forced you to replay.

 

[Wozza]

Wesrock:

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.

You are saying that if you start with something intelligible and then an infinite random process repeats it then it is not a random process.

Sorry, but that is a nonsensical proposition.

 

[Wesrock]

IWantGod:

Wesrock:

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.

You are saying that if you start with something intelligible and then an infinite random process repeats it then it is not a random process.

Sorry, but that is a nonsensical proposition.

It could be an original novel, but I don’t think one could say it’s intelligently designed. I’m having trouble assigning anything objectively goal-oriented about a work that just so happens to make sense in our language. The pointers/language have no inherent goal directedness to the concepts they represent, that’s something we impose on them. The intelligence, to my mind, comes from the observer looking at them, not the process that made them (at least the part of the process we’re considering).

 

[IWantGod]

lool that’s not my argument at all.

 

[IWantGod]

It could be an original novel, but I don’t think one could say it’s intelligently designed. I’m having trouble assigning anything objectively goal-oriented about a work that just so happens to make sense in our language. The pointers/language have no inherent goal directedness to the concepts they represent,

Stories are intelligently designed in so much as they have intelligently constructed information. The letters are simply the symbolic constructs we use to represent the meanings we put together. There is a goal directedness in putting concepts together to create meaning. Of course, words by themselves have no meaning, they are just sounds or symbols; they are like meaningless objects. but if those symbols where in fact the objective embodiment of the meaning we perceive in them as such that symbols were objectively meaningful regardless of whether we had knowledge of them or not (and i am not saying they are, it’s just an example, an analogy of how intelligent design and chance could work together without conflict), then despite those words coming together by chance, the meaning that those words have would not be by chance. The story of Alice and wonderland can still be classed as intelligently designed because of the goal directness in its meaning. It’s not the physical relationships that are intelligently designed in this case, it’s the meaning attached to those relationships. It’s designed because a coherently meaningful story would not be possible without goal direction or intelligence.

Thus i say that the idea of Alice in wonderland is like a blue print (designed) that has a physical instantiation in the material world (physical relationships that have come together by chance). And this would follow if words were objectively meaningful.

Of course, words are not objectively meaningful, but if you could identify something similar in our experiences of the world, something with intelligent information, i think this would be evidence of design in a world where physical relationships only happen by chance.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

The intelligence, to my mind, comes from the observer looking at them, not the process that made them (at least the part of the process we’re considering).

So if the design present in the random typing of monkeys is only there by virtue of the intelligence of the observer, and not by virtue of the monkeys, then it would seem that the intelligent designer is me. I’m the one who gives it meaning. It’s not the monkeys, and it’s not God, it’s me.

There’s still teleology in the system, I just think the angle taken in that illustration, so far as I understood it, isn’t necessarily it.

 

[Aloysium]

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.

How about:

1. It being no more problematic than creating a seed, as Jesus resurrected after His death, as we will be resurrected at the end of time and as we here andf now are maintained in existence where there would otherwise be no-thing, God initiated the process, in time, with the creation of fully-formed organisms.
2. From eternity, God created the world perfect in terms of genetic and epigenetic processes - the Garden of Eden. Congenital disorders arose as death entered the world with original sin. Time was thereby created as a journey of creation to redemption and salvation in and through Jesus Christ, His life being at the Centre of time, our link to eternity.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

How about:

1. It being no more problematic than creating a seed, as Jesus resurrected after His death, as we will be resurrected at the end of time and as we here andf now are maintained in existence where there would otherwise be no-thing, God initiated the process, in time, with the creation of fully-formed organisms.

I’m sorry, but this doesn’t make sense to me. Is this the creationist stance? As in, God popped everything into existence as-is? If so, then I think the science refutes that. It also doesn’t address the question, which pertains to intelligent design.

1. From eternity, God created the world perfect in terms of genetic and epigenetic processes - the Garden of Eden. Congenital disorders arose as death entered the world with original sin. Time was thereby created as a journey of creation to redemption and salvation in and through Jesus Christ, His life being at the Centre of time, our link to eternity.

My problem with this is that you assert that there was no “time” prior to the fall. This would be wrong because time is an aspect of physical creation. From the moment of creation this reality has had “time” as a dimension. I have no issue with the thought that disease in humans arose as a result of the fall. However, once again, this doesn’t address the actual question of intelligent design.

 

[Aloysium]

I’m sorry, but this doesn’t make sense to me. Is this the creationist stance? As in, God popped everything into existence as-is? If so, then I think the science refutes that. It also doesn’t address the question, which pertains to intelligent design.

My problem with this is that you assert that there was no “time” prior to the fall. This would be wrong because time is an aspect of physical creation. From the moment of creation this reality has had “time” as a dimension. I have no issue with the thought that disease in humans arose as a result of the fall. However, once again, this doesn’t address the actual question of intelligent design.

Science does not refute this any more than it refutes Christ’s resurrection, or that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Jesus. What I am proposing does go against the current mythos that speaks to our creation, but that is a belief system, a set of assumptions based on how we think the world operates today. In creating each individual living being, whose physical manifestation can be reduced to cellular function, a template is utilized, the soul of its kind. I am suggesting that this soul, the existential reality of each creature, having a physical, psychological and spiritual dimension to its unity of being is what is created in each moment as in the beginnning. The first placental creature need not have hatched from an egg and Adam did not necessarily develop within the womb of an animal. None of this is refutable, but is rather all based on assumptions, what we believe.

There are different types of time. The past-present-future reality of our personal existence as human beings is a function of our spirit, the intersect of time and eternity. As the crown of creation, its final cause, we brought the whole thing down with us. A pure eternal state was corrupted and the totality of time began ontologically, from its beginning to its end, as we broke our connection with God, and now journey, bringing creation with us, back into communion within the Holy Trinity in Jesus Christ.

This speaks to what it is that God designed, whether or not it reflects the sociological movement that is Intelligent Design.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Sorry, but I’m still not following what you’re saying in that first paragraph. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

I was speaking to the fact that science seems to refute the literalistic “creationism” that is prevalent in certain religious circles.

I do, however, reiterate that science would refute your assertion that, prior to the fall, we existed in a “pure, eternal state”.

 

[Aloysium]

Sorry, but I’m still not following what you’re saying in that first paragraph. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

I was speaking to the fact that science seems to refute the literalistic “creationism” that is prevalent in certain religious circles.

I do, however, reiterate that science would refute your assertion that, prior to the fall, we existed in a “pure, eternal state”.

As modern science would refute most of Christian dogma.

And there aren’t only two opinions on the matter. There’s more to reality than is dreamed of by evolutionary and “literalistic” creationist philosophies.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

… Except for that you’re making statements about things which fall into the realm of the natural forces, which science is perfectly suited to discuss. You’re not making a faith statement or theological argument, you are talking about the function on the physical world.

This isn’t a purely-supernatural claim you’re making. Your position has very real implications on how the physical world should appear and function. Reality does not match your position. There is significant evidence of life prior to the emergence of man, which contradicts your “pure, eternal state” argument.

 

[Aloysium]

… Except for that you’re making statements about things which fall into the realm of the natural forces which science is perfectly suited to discuss.

This isn’t a purely-supernatural claim you’re making. Your position has very real implications on how the physical world should appear and function.

Reality does not match your position. There is significant evidence of life prior to the emergence of man, which contradicts your “pure, eternal state” argument.

I would claim that what passes as science is not science. To me science is in the data and what people are taught and exposed to in the media goes beyond it and into interpretations. We human beings are story tellers, and we have created a story about our origins using ideas that are meant for the manipulation of matter, thereby providing us with a distorted view of existence. I would also claim that matter has a spiritual nature in that each event exists as itself, carrying out its given relational properties, and/or as a component in an encompassing system of being. A most immediate example of this is we ourselves where these very thoughts, these words, perceptions and feelings are organized matter, the organizing priniciple rooted in eternity as a causal agent who can know and love, reflecting the triune reality of God.

Of course one would not expect to find material evidence of a primordial pure eternal state any more than there would be evidence that people long ago lived many hundreds of years, unlike ourselves.

Reality does not match your position.

I guess my indoctination failed. I should get on board, but the truth will win out, so I’m not worried, at least not about that.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

I love how people who want to argue against science always claim that people who believe in it are “indoctrinated”, just as those who try to argue against religion always fall back on their “indoctrination” accusations.

I would claim that science is science. It is the collection and interpretation of data in an effort to square what our senses tell us with what we see in the world around us. Nowadays, many people overstep the boundaries of science and attempt to use to refute things which science cannot speak on, but that doesn’t make the actual data bad, which is what you’re arguing against with your suppositions.

The point I’m trying to make is that all the accumulated data refutes your argument about a previous eternal state.

Per your argument:

• When humanity was created existence was in a pure eternal state.
• When humanity fell, this state was violated and death entered into the world.

There is a ton of evidence which doesn’t require any interpretation at all which points to this being false. Namely, the known existence of thousands upon thousands of species which lived and died prior to the emergence of humanity. (Probably millions of species, if current ecosystem diversity is any indication). If we existed in a pure, eternal state prior to the fall, there would be no change, and therefore no way this progression of species could have occurred.

Why do you feel the need to place the observed evidence at odds with your understanding of reality? Nothing that we’ve uncovered refutes the principle that God created reality.

Either way, we are far off topic, so I’m going to drop this discussion.

 

[Aloysium]

I love how people who want to argue against science always claim that people who believe in it are “indoctrinated”

I am actually advocating for science.

We obviously can only grasp what another person is trying to communicate through our own understanding of the world and our issues.

Let me try to be clearer. There is a difference between:

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and the mythos of evolution. It is a belief system about how our world operates based on science, but unfortunately, because of its serious limitations, can provide only a distortion of who we are and how we got here.

 

[Wozza]

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.

This thread has me scratching my head.

Design (adding ‘intelligent’ is superfluous) is the antithesis of random. Random MEANS no design has been involved. This surely isn’t a riff on Paley’s watch? But you only get this:

This was a random event but it looks designed therefore…it can’t have been random.

 

[Aloysium]

Why do you feel the need to place the observed evidence at odds with your understanding of reality? Nothing that we’ve uncovered refutes the principle that God created reality.

That’s sort of disrespectful of personal boundaries, making an assumption about my needs and motivations. Why not simply address what I am saying? It doesn’t make sense to you and I can understand that. I am relating what I see, which is totally in line with observed evidence although its context, the story of our creation is different. God as the ultimate Truth brings all reality into existence, and I believe that reality to be different than the one described by evolution…

 

[Aloysium]

Just fleeting, precious, life.

I think you’re on to something here. And, isn’t it something?! Really, wow!! Even the pain, it is so real!! How to ever comprehend the hidden one who comprehends, or that to which our mind reaches out to know, let alone the comprehension which knows, but itself is mystery? Just be, loving every moment of this miracle.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

I have to be honest, I think you and I have failed to understand each other. We’re talking past each other.

You say your support science, and yet what you write, when I read it, seems to demean the entire concept.

I believe that I have just grossly misunderstood you, and apologize for the confusion. I agree that science has been greatly abused by people with agendas, and that it has been elevated to the level or religion in many people’s eyes.