Comments on: The Illusion of Design

By: PaV

PaV — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 13:56:14 +0000

Arnhart:

Einstein expressed the desire to know the “mind of God.” Implicit in such a statement is the notion that “human” intelligence is on a continuum, at the very least, with “Divine” intelligence. Einstein wanted to know how God “designed” the universe. Hence, the radical empiricism of Hume apart, it is not self-evident to assume that the intelligence that “created” the world would use “design” methods that fall completely outside anything the human mind could grasp. Rather, if a bacterial flagellum looks like a motor attached to a long rotor, it would appear that human intelligence indeed CAN grasp the “mind of God.” Your argument begins to look a bit like a “straw man” argument.

By: DaveScot

DaveScot — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 03:12:37 +0000

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” -Arthur C. Clarke

You may substitute “divine” for “magic” without changing the meaning.

By: DaveScot

DaveScot — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 03:06:26 +0000

Actually we don’t know enough about the nature of the universe to guage what kind of technology is required to create one. For gawd’s sake we don’t know the nature of 95% of the “stuff” that makes up the universe. The vast unknown is termed “dark matter” and “dark energy”. The whole observed universe may be just a juvenile science project for a sufficiently advanced techology utilized by an intelligence that exists in the 95% of the universe we don’t have a clue about.

By: DaveScot

DaveScot — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 03:01:55 +0000

Arnhart:

Can you prove humans with advanced technologies did not exist billions of years ago?

Or is the best you can do an argument from ignorance (nobody has seen a trace of ancient humans ergo none existed)?

HAHAAHAHAHAAHA!!!!!

Care to accept a draw?

By: DaveScot

DaveScot — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 02:53:15 +0000

Arnhart says

One of IsaakÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s criticisms of the Dembski EF is that Ã¢â‚¬Å“the filter is useless in practice because the probabilities it asks for can never be known.Ã¢â‚¬Â

This is an admission that the probability may be zero. In the case of zero probability, design is the only option.

Be careful what you admit for if you admit this then the only logical thing to teach is that biological evolution could be design or could be accident or some combination thereof. It can never be known for sure.

LOL!

The best that arguments for unguided evolution can ever achieve is a stalemate. The worst case is that design will be proven. In my more magnanimous moments I offer a draw, but not very often, as the quality of mercy is not strained.

By: MGD

MGD — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 02:29:31 +0000

Hume’s objection to Divine causality has no force outside his extreme empiricism and denial of the intellect as a distinct power of the mind. If you follow him consistently, and Hume was not always consistent, then you must also deny causality in general, substance, both material and spiritual, space, time etc. Science would be rendered impossible and we would end in scepticism as he did. But we do possess an intellect capable of abstracting from experience and so we can understand those elements of design that belong to that concept and apply them to situations beyond our experience.

By: jimbo

jimbo — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 23:58:36 +0000

“required for creating the universe and all irreducibly complex forms of life”

Whoa, there – I’m with you on the universe, but why does it a take a “disembodied, omniscient, omnipotent intelligence” to create a irreducibly complex form of life? We humans create irreducibly complex things all the time.

By: Arnhart

Arnhart — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 20:15:03 +0000

Charlie,

Are SETI researchers looking for divine intelligence–i.e., disembodied, omniscient, omnipotent intelligence–which would be required for creating the universe and all irreducibly complex forms of life?

By: Arnhart

Arnhart — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 20:09:43 +0000

taciturnus,

Yes.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 20:09:17 +0000

Arnhart, the design need not be divine. We don’t know that.
We need not know if the designer is human, divine, or alien.
SETI is spending many man-hours in the search for alien intelligence, confident that they will be able to infer design with no prior knowledge of what form that alien has, or what might be its motivations.