Question about intelligent design theory

[Cerpin Taxt]

That doesn't solve anything.

Design exists within a framework (that includes the design of frameworks). If God had to design instead of being able to act out arbitrarily, the question arises, who created the framework within he operates?

You can't get around either an infinite regression of designers or arbitrariness at some point. If nature's nature implies God, God's nature would imply God's God.

Theists would place the level of arbitrariness right above God. But that gives us an unneeded additional entity. By Occam's Razor we cut God and place the level of arbitrariness above Nature.

You do with less until more is needed. Gods are not needed.

This reminds me of a very old joke, which isn't even that funny, but has some relevance here.

Q: What's the easiest way to amass a small fortune?
A: Begin with a large one!

Intelligent Design doesn't actually contribute anything meaninful to our knowledge. Without an explanation of the motives and methods of their purported designer, they haven't actually explained anything, and have merely replaced a mystery with an enigma.

I wonder why we should believe that there is only one designer? Maybe the universe was designed by a team of a billion designers? And who designed those designers?

 

[JTsyo]

You know what's a fun example of random stuff working out? Play Puzzle Fighter (You'll probably have to use MAME). First play and try to get a high score while planning out chains well. Next game just randomly start dropping the blocks and see how well you do. While playing randomly won't work all the time, at times you'll do amazingly well as combos you didn't even see start breaking. Eventually you'll get a game good enough that it'll be the high score. Now someone else that comes by will only see the high score, he won't know how many games you played to get to that score and how poorly those other games turned out.

 

[MJinZ]

This reminds me of a very old joke, which isn't even that funny, but has some relevance here.

Q: What's the easiest way to amass a small fortune?
A: Begin with a large one!

Intelligent Design doesn't actually contribute anything meaninful to our knowledge. Without an explanation of the motives and methods of their purported designer, they haven't actually explained anything, and have merely replaced a mystery with an enigma.

I wonder why we should believe that there is only one designer? Maybe the universe was designed by a team of a billion designers? And who designed those designers?

I don't think anyone really needs to believe in one designer. People, like me for example, wonder about the significance of existence without ANY designer(s).

For example, assume that the Universe (in the grander scheme of things, not only our own) happened on its own. The mechanisms of it happening, like the Big Bang, are both unimportant and irrelevant.

1) Does that mean that all things in existence (matter, energy, and all counterparts) inherently is meaningful?

or

2) Does that mean that all things in existence has no inherent meaning?

Both 1) and 2) call into many further questions of determinism, morality, and nihilism. Can you extract meaning from meaninglessness? Can you derive purpose from predestination? There are way more questions out there that can make you really wring your hands.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Point source progression seems to create a conundrum - can an original design be inherently meaningful?

Nothing is inherently meaningful. Value is the result of evaluation.

If there's nobody around to assign value, nothing has value.
And if there's no framework for a design, even if you have someone around who could assign value, there's no way to logically/consistently do it. The design doesn't bump up against anything -- its parameters are meaningless.

Infinite and cyclical progression should and can not be categorically dismissed just because it is both a difficult and enormous concept to grasp. In fact, in consideration of huge expanses of time, both relative and absolute, there is no reason why one should dismiss it.

There's no way to test hypothesized frameworks above our own. You can connect things with pretty colored lines, big black gashes, or you can say it's all arbitrary, and it's all equally meaningless, scientifically.

 

[ElFenix]

It's estimated that @ 99% of all life to have ever existed on this planet no longer exists. There have been at least 5 major extinctions and other minor ones.

It doesn't seem to jibe that an entity so powerfull as to be able to create an entire universe and create it specifically for man, as many major religions claim, would have the vast majority of its creations destroyed and/or have to wipe the slate clean and start over 5 times or more. Shouldn't an omnipotent being be able to get it right the first time around?

an omnipotent being would just be doing cool shit to see what happens because he can.

 

[MJinZ]

Nothing is inherently meaningful. Value is the result of evaluation.

If there's nobody around to assign value, nothing has value.
And if there's no framework for a design, even if you have someone around who could assign value, there's no way to logically/consistently do it. The design doesn't bump up against anything -- its parameters are meaningless.

But you're equating meaning with value, and also attributing logic and reason with meaning and value.

I don't know, I think anything worthwhile in our modern day life is the opposite of logical and rational.

There's no way to test hypothesized frameworks above our own. You can connect things with pretty colored lines, big black gashes, or you can say it's all arbitrary, and it's all equally meaningless, scientifically.

Which is why Science doesn't ask, nor is equipped to answer, the deeper questions that we are all wondering in the back of our minds.

 

[Jeff7]

...
You start to build your castle: three blocks turn into chickens; six burst into flames; one tries to sexually molest you; another starts laughing maniacally and converts its mass into energy exploding with a force of several tons of TNT, killing everyone within a two block radius.
...

 

[Ninjahedge]

Skimming skimming.....


Question is this.

Why do so many religious figures balk at the idea of Evolution? Why do they balk at, until recently, the Big Bang?

Something as simple as a Deital assumption is all that is needed in order for Science and Religion to fit. It is also VERY COMMON for many astronomers, biologists and other in the sciences to have STRONG RELIGIOUS BACKGROUNDS.

Who says God has to make everything work like some Human contraption or edifice? Who says there is a Heaven, Hell and Purgatory? Who makes all these funky rules based on who you are and who you were born to (caste systems)?

Humans make them.

Who is to say God did NOT make things BY evolution? If "he" made all the rules, maybe "HE" was the one to make the laws of electricity and magnetism. Maybe it was HIM that made the solar system form by the rules that HE MADE.

Why is it there are so many incredibly stupid people that they all believe that a book comprised mainly of PARABLES and life lessons is somehow a literal recounting of exactly how everything started ~6000 years ago?

Does it take a genius to realize that it is awfully hard to measure the first few "days" of existence when there was no "light and dark" to count them by? Or to see that Genesis pretty much follows most scientific theory in its general order of progression (heaven and earth, day and night, oceans, plants and fish, mammals, humans).

Amazing he was so tired, being omnipotent and all, that he decided to rest on the 7th day, thereby making a year something that cannot be evenly divided up into weeks.

The sooner people stop trying to oversimplify things to the point where a grade schooler can understand them then maybe we will have a better appreciation of the universe we live in.

Or we will keep shooting each other over ads of pregnant nuns or "prophets" with unibrows.

 

[hans030390]

What observations are there of the big bang? What observations are there for matter magically arrnaging itself into conscious life????

What observations are there that a creator did this as well? Seeing "design" and "beauty" in everything does not count as a scientific observation. You can argue all you want with what I just said, but it is the truth. You might not understand that now, but perhaps later you will.

Really, though, have you taken a college level astronomy course? Multiple courses? Studied astronomy, cosmology, physics, etc. on your own? From what you've been saying, I highly doubt it...because I used to be just like you! I knew a little bit, sure, but I bought into the creationist, apologetic, ID stuff as well.

I can personally assure you that there is an overwhelming amount of evidence for the big bang. Just the fact that you mentioned that lets me know how very little you actually know about the scientific studies that have been done throughout the ages. Again, I used to be like that, so don't try to fool me!

As for matter assembling itself into life, perhaps it is just a natural law of the universe that we do not yet understand. There is much to figure out still, but putting these unknown answers behind a creator solves nothing. In fact, you can ask the same questions about a creator! How did it come to be? Why did it come to be? Someone might answer that it's beyond our scope of knowledge, that the creator is timeless, or so on. But how are any of these answers more or less satisfying than what possible answers or theories we have for a natural universe? Why would someone scoff at the fact that we're not sure HOW life came to be, yet they're satisfied having NO CLUE why or how their creator came to be? You may think a creator is the end-all, be-all, and that these questions do not apply. Why not, though? No one can give a good reason for that. They tend to just brush it off, even if they do give some sort of answer.

Actually, though, there has been quite a bit of progress in the studies of how matter assembled itself into life. And unlike someone seeing "beauty" in things and using half-baked philosophy, these studies involve hard, scientific evidence and studies.

Simply put, you seem to know very little about the side you're arguing against. Nothing you have said has convinced me otherwise. And remember, I know your side very, very well. I was there for a few years! I also know the side you're arguing against fairly well. So, I can only suggest that you spend your time researching the side your arguing against very, very well. Open your mind, and treat all sides equally without any sort of bias. I promise you that it is a much better way to spend your time than arguing on here about something you obviously know very little about. The ID proponents generally don't have their scientific facts straight, so it's very easy to be mislead by them and THINK you know the other side well.

 

[Ninjahedge]

hans,

I think it is simple. There are those in life that will look at a car and wonder how it works. They will look at it, study it, even take it apart to find out what makes it work. They will even look at the parts to see how THEY work and how they were made.

They want to know not just what that thing can do and what it is, but WHY it is and HOW it works.

Others will just see that you need to change the oil every 3000 miles, fill the tank when the gods say "E", and rotate the tires every 5000 miles..... They do not care why it works, and feel uncomfortable when someone starts to explain it and they do not understand. They prefer to get into their holy people mover and get from point A to B without having to carry their Ikea Haffenkluuger bookcase home on their backs.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

an omnipotent being would just be doing cool shit to see what happens because he can.

An omnipotent being might do that. However, the gods described in human religious texts don't indicate that he is either frivolous or cavalier.

 

[sandorski]

An omnipotent being might do that. However, the gods described in human religious texts don't indicate that he is either frivolous or cavalier.

I'm not sure about that. In the Bible God is at the very least Inconsistent and afraid of Iron Chariots.

 

[totalnoob]

For the OP, all you need to do to expose the evolution-denying ID morons on this issue is to ask them what they think an undesigned animal would look like. They have no answer.

 

[zinfamous]

Sorry I'm late folks. Here to save this thread, too.



The only type of Intelligent Design that we need discuss:

NSFW image removed. -Admin DrPizza

 

[Meghan54]

It's like ICP said......it's all magic!

In another area, if the design is so intelligent, why is the design so poorly done? You'd think there would have been a better way to make DNA instead of the way it's done with its ability to mutate randomly, causing birth defects and such.

Or why our oxygen carrying capability is so poorly done? Basing oxygen carrying within our bodies on a molecule of iron within the hemaglobin is seemingly ignorant, given that in the presence of CO (carbon monoxide), the hemaglobin/iron eschews oxygen in favor of the CO and never lets go.

There are hosts of terrible design ideas throughout our bodies and in nature, so was this the best that could have been done with an intelligent design? If so, that's truly sad.

 

[DominionSeraph]

But you're equating meaning with value,

They are the same.

and also attributing logic and reason with meaning and value.

I don't know, I think anything worthwhile in our modern day life is the opposite of logical and rational.

You're not judging their design, though.

I like boobies.
What I like is good.
Boobies; therefore good.

This is logical. It comes from a base emotion, but that changes nothing.
But it has nothing to do with judging the design of the base emotion or the design of boobies. There is no judgement about whether it serves a purpose or if it fits into a plan. It simply recognizes the link between boobies and the emotion.

For a design to be judged you have to know its purpose, and for it to be compared to its peers you have to know something about the conditions under which it must operate. But a "design" that exists in a framework of arbitrariness HAS NO PURPOSE, and its parameters are meaningless. There is no reason for the thing to be.

You cannot perform a valid operation on the thing and come out with it being meaningful. You can break it down and judge how parts affect you, but that has no logical connection to the thing as a whole.
"Any plan that results in boobies is a good plan."
But the plan actually has no point. We can break out war, famine, disease; but none of these are points of a plan that exists in no framework. They cannot be goals, for without a framework there are no conditions there to give rise to them as a necessity. With no framework against which to judge them, all outcomes are equal.

A path made under no standards cannot be judged ON ITS TERMS as anything more. You can bring yourself into the picture and judge it based on how it affects you, but that's not truly judging the design of the path -- you're just judging how the result happens to correspond to you.

Which is why Science doesn't ask, nor is equipped to answer, the deeper questions that we are all wondering in the back of our minds.

There's no reason to ask. The region beyond science's theoretical limits will FOREVER be dark. Illumination is IMPOSSIBLE. Why run scenarios there when differentiation between scenarios is impossible because you can't see, hear, feel, smell, or taste to differentiate?
It doesn't matter what's there because it can have zero additional impact.

 

[StrangerGuy]

If complex life is designed by something, then by logic alone the designer is also complex and therefore requires another complex designer aka turtles all the way down. Is there anything useful we actually predict with this "theory"? Absolutely nothing.

 

[Ninjahedge]

Who says that the design is instant?

Who says that maybe we are only a step somewhere in the process of an Intelligent Design?

Also, no matter how intelligent the design of anything is there are two things that ruin its deital magic-wand type affiliation:

1. For every intelligent design, there needs to be a construction.
2. Every thing that was ever designed was based on a previous knowledge of something. Therefore, that knowledge must have come frome something at some time. You may design a skyscraper that has never been done before, but you still had to have had Steel, Concrete or other material knowledge, manufacturing ability AND constructability.

A proper name for this would still be "intelligent creationism" because it is still making something from nothing. Chicken and egg in the same stroke.

 

[zinfamous]

Ummm, guys?

Removed another one.-Admin DrPizza

 

[JTsyo]

an omnipotent being would just be doing cool shit to see what happens because he can.

Not if he's omniscient.

 

[sourceninja]

Not if he's omniscient.

We can't have free will and have a omniscient god.

 

[Tweak155]

That doesn't solve anything.

Design exists within a framework (that includes the design of frameworks). If God had to design instead of being able to act out arbitrarily, the question arises, who created the framework within he operates?

You can't get around either an infinite regression of designers or arbitrariness at some point. If nature's nature implies God, God's nature would imply God's God.

Theists would place the level of arbitrariness right above God. But that gives us an unneeded additional entity. By Occam's Razor we cut God and place the level of arbitrariness above Nature.

You do with less until more is needed. Gods are not needed.

What does that matter? If a designer is assumed, you can't arbitrarily pick what the designer designed. The only fair assumption is everything.

Your example is bad but your reasoning makes sense (without the example). I'll just put it that way.

 

[Tweak155]

We can't have free will and have a omniscient god.

Sure you could. Just because I know something doesn't mean I think of it. I could also choose not to. Doesn't mean I don't know, though.

 

[PottedMeat]

Ummm, guys?

moar

And a third infraction for causing an embedded NSFW image to appear in the thread for the 3rd time. -Admin DrPizza

 

[DominionSeraph]

What does that matter? If a designer is assumed, you can't arbitrarily pick what the designer designed. The only fair assumption is everything.

How does the designer design himself and the framework under which he designs?