Intelligent Design

[kmortis]

As has been explained to you quite often but you have ignored it, if nothing exists, then time doesn't exist. Your question is at best, circular, but really it is just meaningless.

I'm guessing that you will ignore it again in your heroic quest to remain ignorant.

No, Tricky, it's YOUR mind that remains closed.

 

[Iacchus]

As has been explained to you quite often but you have ignored it, if nothing exists, then time doesn't exist. Your question is at best, circular, but really it is just meaningless.

I'm guessing that you will ignore it again in your heroic quest to remain ignorant.

So, if time doesn't exist, nothing does? No, I think you better re-assess what you're saying here.

 

[Taffer]

Yet what is another word for backdrop, but reality itself?

Once again you have not answered the question.

Oh, so you don't believe in the Big Bang then?

No one here but you said the Big Bang was "pre-planned"

No, it would have to be irreducibly complex in order to maintain itself and everything else.

Prove this statement, please.

No, the designer would be irreducibly complex, but not necessarily the design.

Prove this statement, please.

In order for "a design" to exist, it must stem from that which is irreducibly complex.

Prove this statement, please.

 

[Taffer]

So, if time doesn't exist, nothing does? No, I think you better re-assess what you're saying here.

If time doesn't exist, then time doesn't exist. There is no 'before' the big bang, simply because there was no time 'before' the big bang for there to be a 'before'. But you would have already figured this out, if you actually put some thought to it.

 

[Tricky]

So, if time doesn't exist, nothing does? No, I think you better re-assess what you're saying here.

No, I think I think I have it pretty well in hand.

What does time measure? It measures things happening. It could be clock hands moving, planets circling, atoms vibrating, or the relative movement of any existing things. So the only way that things could "happen" is if time exists. By the same token, the only way time can be a meaningful concept is if "things" exist (for time to measure).

There is no existence without time and no time without existence. They are the space-time continuum.

So it is meaningless to talk about what happened "before" existence. There was no "before" because "before" is a time-based concept.

There. I've explained it to you again. How much "time" will it take you to ignore/forget it this "time"?

 

[crocodile deathroll]

There a numerous examples of complex structures that emerge with any intervention of an intelligent designer. Snow flakes are one; it's called "emergent complexity"

 

[Tricky]

There a numerous examples of complex structures that emerge with any intervention of an intelligent designer. Snow flakes are one; it's called "emergent complexity"

Try telling that to one of the ID people. The will respond with something like "but nature was designed so that they would form that way."

Ask them if nature was designed so that countless species would go extinct leaving no lines of heritage and they will tell you we just don't understand the design.

There is no evidence or logic that will convince these folks.

 

[Taffer]

I don't think it's logic that's the problem (in this specific case), Tricky. They just have a catch all, unfalsifiable, philosphy that can never be wrong.

 

[Tricky]

I don't think it's logic that's the problem (in this specific case), Tricky. They just have a catch all, unfalsifiable, philosphy that can never be wrong.

You're right of course. Logic was the wrong word. You can have perfect logic and come to incorrect conclusions because your assumptions were faulty.

If your assumption is that there is a god, then any conlusions you arrive at based on that assumption are going to require that assumption to be correct.

 

[Taffer]

You're right of course. Logic was the wrong word. You can have perfect logic and come to incorrect conclusions because your assumptions were faulty.

If your assumption is that there is a god, then any conlusions you arrive at based on that assumption are going to require that assumption to be correct.

Exactly. I was having a discussion with a religious friend of mine. He used a few "designed my humans designed in nature" arguments, and I pointed out snowflakes as an example of a complex, seemingly designed, thing without a designer. Of course, he said "God designed it", and I had to point out that you can use that in the argument, as the argument was for the existance of God, not including it.

 

[Iacchus]

Exactly. I was having a discussion with a religious friend of mine. He used a few "designed my humans designed in nature" arguments, and I pointed out snowflakes as an example of a complex, seemingly designed, thing without a designer. Of course, he said "God designed it", and I had to point out that you can use that in the argument, as the argument was for the existance of God, not including it.

I think what you mean here is without an "apparent" designer. Of course I think you must also understand that it was a commonly held belief that the earth was flat, simply because it appeared that way. Now, just because the notion of a designer may not be so readily apparent, does that mean it is not so? While the same holds true for evolution, at least in my opinion which, only appears to occur at random.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

While the same holds true for evolution, at least in my opinion which, only appears to occur at random.

Do you mean at random relative to the environment?

~~ Paul

 

[Mojo]

I think what you mean here is without an "apparent" designer. Of course I think you must also understand that it was a commonly held belief that the earth was flat, simply because it appeared that way. Now, just because the notion of a designer may not be so readily apparent, does that mean it is not so?

This turns the whole thing on its head. It's actually proponents of ID who are claiming that there is a designer because it looks that way, for example Michael Behe in a recent interview:

Everybody - even Richard Dawkins - sees design in biology. You see this design when you see co-ordinated parts coming together to perform a function - like in a hand. And so it's the appearance of design that everybody's trying to explain. So that if Darwin's theory doesn't explain it we're left with no other explanation than maybe it really was designed. That's essentially the design argument.

(emphasis mine)

It's the proponents of ID who are the flat-earthers here. Evolution is the theory that actually has more evidence behind it than just "it looks that way."

While the same holds true for evolution, at least in my opinion which, only appears to occur at random.

And there you go with that old strawman again.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

That's essentially the design argument.

That's essentially a false dichotomy, too.

~~ Paul

 

[Mojo]

Well, yes, it's that and all. I was just using it to point out to Iacchus that it's the IDers who are using the "well that's how it looks to me" argument.

 

[Robin]

Yet what is another word for backdrop, but reality itself?

Fine, so when you originally asked if anybody believed the universe could exist without a backdrop, you were asking if we believed the universe could exist without reality?

You should have said so in the first place. No, nothing can simultaneously exist and not exist.

Oh, so you don't believe in the Big Bang then?

I am not sure why you inserted this random unrelated question here, but could you please answer and tell me how you think something that "always existed" could have been "pre-planned"? Just exactly when is pre-always?

No, it would have to be irreducibly complex in order to maintain itself and everything else.

So now the designer is designing himself?

No, the designer would be irreducibly complex, but not necessarily the design.

Exactly - and the ID crowd say that anything irreducibly complex must have been designed. So logically if the designer is irreducibly complex then the designer must have been designed.

In order for "a design" to exist, it must stem from that which is irreducibly complex.

And in order for that which is irreducibly complex to exist (according the the ID crowd) there must have been a design. So it's turtles all the way down, or else the ID lot have made a miscalculation somewhere along the line!

 

[Iacchus]

Fine, so when you originally asked if anybody believed the universe could exist without a backdrop, you were asking if we believed the universe could exist without reality?

You should have said so in the first place. No, nothing can simultaneously exist and not exist.

So, what existed before the Big Bang then? Are you saying there was no reality there to support it? Or, how could such a "complex" universe as this arise out of nowhere?

 

[Iacchus]

Do you mean at random relative to the environment?

~~ Paul

Yes, relative to the environment, I don't believe anything occurs at random. Look at the Big Bang for instance (i.e., the notion that all things come from the same place), would we even be speaking of this if it hadn't occurred?

 

[Iacchus]

Well, yes, it's that and all. I was just using it to point out to Iacchus that it's the IDers who are using the "well that's how it looks to me" argument.

Indeed, look at the notion of God, who seems to be "conspicuously" missing.

 

[Taffer]

So, what existed before the Big Bang then? Are you saying there was no reality there to support it? Or, how could such a "complex" universe as this arise out of nowhere?

Repeat after me, Iacchus. We. Can't. Know.