How does the actor act?
| October 23, 2007 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
Although ID continues to gather supporters, it happens now and again that erstwhile ID supporters lose their enthusiasm and jump ship. One such former supporter is a very prominent European scientist. I met him first in 2004, when he was still attracted to ID. Now he is no longer. I asked him about this recently:
Question: If not ID, what then? The Darwinists are bankrupt. And the self-organizational theorists are hopelessly fuzzy. James Shapiro — he presupposes the very thing that needs to be explained, namely, the origin of systems that perform their own “natural genetic engineering.” Kirschner and Gerhardt are no better with their “facilitated variation” — whence the facilitation?
He responded:
Excellent question of course. So the search continues… [sic] As for ID, more fundamental work on the practicality of design detection is crucial — and your strength. But in the end, ID will only fly if a more concrete story can be told about the mechanism of design implementation, how the actor acts.
This objection has always seemed to me, at least in part, to miss the point, seeking to reduce an act of creative intelligence to a mechanism (on the order of reducing consciousness to computation). And yet, the question of how design gets implemented in natural history does seem to be critical to understanding ID.
Thoughts?
93 Responses to How does the actor act?
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
It seems to me that the search for the mechanism of ID–the methods by which design is implemented–depends on one’s own characterization of the designer(s). There are those, for example, who take a strictly mechanistic tack, such as some form of panspermia, and for those folks a mechanism might be ultimately discernible on a purely local level. I say “local level” because it’s inevitable that with such an hypothesis, the problem of infinite regression looms large.
On the other hand, for a Christian such as me, there is recognition of the fact that comprehension of miraculous events (mechanisms) is both beyond our grasp and antithetical to even consider.
The best we can do to keep ID on a purely scientific level is use the process of elimination–that is to say, methodically eliminate possible naturalistic causes through active engagement in research. Such a strategy may or may not be fruitful, but due to our own human limitations it’s all we have to work with, and we shouldn’t be put off by challenges from Darwinists to suddenly evince a mechanism.
I think we also need to be careful about confusing design and the mechanisms invoked to implement it; it’s not particularly helpful to claim that design is the mechanism, as it’s trivially simple to demonstrate the difference.
Based on what I see in the responses above, I think my suspicions are correct. ID needs more work on the internal links of it’s argumentation. Specifically, a bridge between Dr. Behe’s argumentation and the informatics approach supplied by Dr. Dembski is critical.
In dealing with mechanisms: Mechanisms are nice, but are a faulty concept to look for when considering ID. Think about it, if one is considering a non-natural (if only as a possible option even) being to be an effector in the universe-at the quantum level or otherwise-the mechanism through which this occurs necessarily lies, if only in part, outside the observable universe. ID looks to the final product to say that it is necessarily designed, while admitting that the perturbations that brought this about may never be reproducible. Design is a characteristic, not a process. The value of mechanisms then lie in the ability to show that something might have been derived by a natural process. So, in fact, NOT having a mechanism is quite possibly a better proof of ID in some cases!
Scientists still remain skeptical however I think in part because they do look to mechanism, but also because they fail to see the connection between the explanitory filter and the biology. Stephen Meyer’s work regarding DNA and the information therein is a start to the work that needs to be done. In essence, the relationship between information as a concept and information as found in biology needs to be more rigorously explored, along with its exposure to the explanitory filter.
Behe’s arguments are founded in the biology he investigates day to day. The arguments he presents are mired in mechanisms, or the lack thereof. What Behe’s arguments fail to do are make the connection between the information embedded in the protein complexes and biochemical pathways and the irreducible complexity argument. ID’s strength is in Information Theory (and in fact is based upon it). Until the battle begins to be fought in the arena of information theory-in accordance to the biology-then requests for mechanisms will still remain, and ID will still be pushed away.
“The mechanism is irrelevant.”
HI TRoutMac
I would suggest that in both of your productions (computer based and Neolithic), you are using what I call “Teleological Targeted Newtonian Vector Clusters” to get the job done. In the computer-based model, a lot of helpful pre-targeting has been done by others, but the TTNVC fundamentals are still the same. Significant physical (energetic) typing and mouse-ing was required.
Dave Scott,
“Newton discovered (gravity) through its effects but we still don’t know the mechanism behind it.”
Hi Dave, and thanks for inviting me.
While it is true that Newton did important work in science without any knowledge as to mechanism (and so can ID), this doesn’t stop us from trying to figure out what these mechanisms might be. WRT gravity, I am seeing a destructive interference mechanism between two cosmological targeted vector groups. These two vector groups fall short of perfect orthogonality (mathematical X/Y axis “independence”) and subsequently produce gravity. The Targeted Newtonian Vector Cluster for localization (mass) and the Targeted N-Vector Cluster for a de-localized background (spacetime) attain less-than-perfect orthogonality due to the pull of the singular proto-fabric from which they are both derived/projected. Co-interference therefore is distorting the spacetime-mass complex resulting in gravitational force and its characteristics. — Also, by using Newtonian linear, vectors as primary (instead of Einstein curvature as primary) the topological conflict at the core of the Quantum Gravity problem is removed. (The quantum wavefunction can be described as a unitary state *vector*). Moreover, as horrible as this sounds to the non-teleologically, this model also solves (by teleological constraint) the problem of Dirac’s runaway (unconstrained) solutions in classical physics.
Ultimately the universe, as I see it, is the product of a fundamental, experience-seeking proto-vector or “God.” Through the production and projection of more and more complex, subtle patterns/structures “All That Is” or “God” accrues more and more complex, subtle and vivid experiences. Production/projection work in “physical” systems at our level requires the use of targeted vector clusters.
When devout materialists ask for mechanisms they are of course asking for, nay demanding, material-only mechanisms and not psycho-physical (unified mind/matter mind/body) mechanisms, such as TTNVCs. Materialist “explanations” that ignore teleology and targeting (fine tuning) in a finely tuned universe, will ultimately satisfy no-one and I am convinced we must press on.