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Intelligent Design

Thor 2 said:
Getting back to the subject of intelligent design, as an atheist I do not entirely rule out the idea that some form of intelligence exists, that may be some kind of creator.
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Heh. Humans fit that description, so... it's good that you aren't ruling out humans?:p

Thor 2 said:
I do entirely reject the Abrahamic God idea as being too absurd for consideration,
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Given that the most popular forms of it tend to be attributed with qualities that pretty much make it impossible, that's hardly a surprise.

Thor 2 said:
and even doubt that we are the object of a creation. We may be some kind of by product of experimentation, but are beset with so many flaws, that it's hard to imagine us as the product of design by a superior intelligence.
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One that was intent on designing us as something akin to perfect, at least. On the other hand, if the designer wanted imperfection so it could do something like entertain itself with the show, that would make it hard to rule out.

Thor 2 said:
Motivation is something I struggle with. What motive would some other intelligence have in creating another? Perhaps it is to put it to work. We after all are on the verge of creating what we call artificial intelligence for that purpose.
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Well... if we go by the little that the Bible actually says about heaven, those who go to heaven are effectively eternal slaves. Unending worship of God, for example, is one of the things that we would get to "look forward to doing." Eternal bliss is sometimes mentioned, but putting it all together, it rather seems that, if true, it would be an equivalent to drug-induced "bliss" that probably involves the loss of pretty much everything that we tend to value about being human in the first place.

More generally, the potential motivations are far too diverse to draw any meaningful conclusions, in large part because there's too many different potential scenarios that would allow for such included in ID. We could have been created as part of an equivalent to a tentacles-on elementary school science lesson by some highly advanced alien race, for example, or by the last survivors of a race that was created "perfect" and pacifistic that learned that competition and overcoming nasty hardships that their race never really faced would be needed to overcome the challenges that effectively destroyed their race and get some form of quiet revenge.

In other words, speculating on motive is pretty pointless without first figuring out the scenario to be working from, and even then is pretty iffy. When it comes to AI, that's certainly somewhat relevant to the overall question, but it's still a very different scenario from creating biological life on Earth, seemingly without a direct and immediate use, so there's limited applicability between the two.
 
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Oh you are silly :p I am talking about an intelligence that precedes humans of course.

The reasons why I reject the Abrahamic God as being to absurd are many, and the need to have followers who will grovel to him for eternity is one of them. Others include the clumsy way he does his work. He makes everything good (as he says himself) and yet it turns out not so. Then he wipes it out to start again but that doesn't work either. And so on.

What I am speculating about is some form of intelligence that is logical perhaps and not some bumbling idiot. What would the motives for making other intelligences be?

Perhaps we are a little hung up on the idea of intelligence residing in life as we know it also. We look for sites in the so called Goldilocks zone where life as we know it might happen. What about something completely different? What about another kind of life developing and intelligence resulting from it?
 
Bikewer said:
When I was reading a lot about art, I read an article by a fellow who wanted to show how the "golden ratio" could be applied to your painting.
He divided a canvas up into grids and subdivided the grids according to mathematical principals to determine where one's "points of interest" should fall.
Unfortunately, by the time he was finished there were so many intersecting grid lines that it would have been almost impossible to avoid them when plotting points of interest.....
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Clutching at Random Straws, a lecture by Matt Parker on the topic of finding patterns in an overabundance of data:



A bit long, but mostly worth it, even if you do have to put up whatever mathematicians use instead of a sense of humor.
 
Thor 2 said:
Oh you are silly :p
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You're welcome!

Thor 2 said:
What I am speculating about is some form of intelligence that is logical perhaps and not some bumbling idiot. What would the motives for making other intelligences be?
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I actually did address that later in that post a bit. To requote the most relevant part of what I said to this question...

Aridas said:
More generally, the potential motivations are far too diverse to draw any meaningful conclusions, in large part because there's too many different potential scenarios that would allow for such included in ID. We could have been created as part of an equivalent to a tentacles-on elementary school science lesson by some highly advanced alien race, for example, or by the last survivors of a race that was created "perfect" and pacifistic that learned that competition and overcoming nasty hardships that their race never really faced would be needed to overcome the challenges that effectively destroyed their race and get some form of quiet revenge.

In other words, speculating on motive is pretty pointless without first figuring out the scenario to be working from, and even then is pretty iffy.
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Perhaps I should have made that "pretty iffy or already included in the scenario" at the end, though.



Thor 2 said:
Perhaps we are a little hung up on the idea of intelligence residing in life as we know it also. We look for sites in the so called Goldilocks zone where life as we know it might happen. What about something completely different? What about another kind of life developing and intelligence resulting from it?
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I don't think that that's actually particularly relevant to your question about motivation, honestly. The question's already open-ended enough that numerous and very diverse kinds of answers could potentially work. There are a few broad categories that are easy to use, though. Whimsy, boredom, or a cultural thing are easy suggestions to make. Future slaves, political tool, cannon fodder, or even just an inefficient way to develop infrastructure so that the aliens don't have to do it themselves and can just appropriate it are also easy suggestions. There's a bunch of possible motivations related in some way to education and science as more easy suggestions. There may well be other general categories that aren't immediately popping to mind, too. And all that's before touching ideas like Navigator's (and others') suggestions that involve forms of idealism, which can sorta turn things upside-down and sideways on the question.
 
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Fast Eddie B said:
Interestingly, I was thinking about posting an example this morning, albeit of digits and not limbs: polydactyl cats.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polydactyl_cat

It's not hard to imagine that if some sort of catastrophe (no pun intended!) caused a severe bottleneck in the cat lineage, or if polydactyl cats were somehow isolated as a group, some day all cats might have extra toes.
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Manx Cats?
 
SusanB-M1 said:
I thought it was that if a mutation happened to turn out to be a useful adaptation when conditions changed then that was a lucky chance?
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You placental mammals exist because of viral DNA incorporated in to your genome. At some point in primitive mammals perhaps when we laid eggs a viral infection (possibly vertically transmitted from mother to baby in utero) incorporated a DNA sequence into the genome that enabled cell fusion and allowed the complex structure of the placenta.

Placental mammals are literally GMOs. A viral animal hybrid! Your very existence depended on your ancestor getting an STD!

So there are other mechanisms for gene transfer than simple mutation.
 
Aridas said:
Your scenario reminds me a fair bit of 6-fingered hands in humans. That gene's dominant, too. Of incidental value to this thread, a creationist relative once tried to argue against the trustworthiness of science by referencing a case where the child of a 6-fingered person was born with only five fingers, even though the gene's supposedly dominant, as part of a litany of things that really just showed how ignorant he was on the various topics. With that said, though, it's worth remembering again that evolution is not quite "survival of the fittest." It's more about what ends up makes the most fertile offspring, which is just usually related to which is the fittest.
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Insects have complex 'key and lock' genitalia that define species. If you have the wrong key you cannot impregnate. The genitalia quite rapidly mutate, this allows speciation due to mutual non breeding populations. (Of course some males get around this by directly injecting sperm into the female and avoiding the need for a key.) Competitive pressures often reduce diversity, remove evolutionary pressures, a new environment, and diversity occurs with subsequent speciation. Massive die offs, empty niches and remaining species can diversify speciate and fill niches.
 
GodMark2 said:
Clutching at Random Straws, a lecture by Matt Parker on the topic of finding patterns in an overabundance of data:



A bit long, but mostly worth it, even if you do have to put up whatever mathematicians use instead of a sense of humor.
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Thanks GodMark2, I watched a good part of it although the guys presentation style wasn't as funny as he obviously thought it was. Good illustration however, of how you can find patterns if you have enough data to choose between, and the person doing the choosing gets to select the points. We have an illustration of this with the guys finding Phi in nature and humans and other animals bodies.

The illustration of the odds of two people having the same birthday being 50% if you have 23 people, is an illustration of how our instincts can be so far out, when assessing chance of an occurrence.
 
Aridas said:
You're welcome!



I actually did address that later in that post a bit. To requote the most relevant part of what I said to this question...



Perhaps I should have made that "pretty iffy or already included in the scenario" at the end, though.
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Well as you said:

In other words, speculating on motive is pretty pointless without first figuring out the scenario to be working from, and even then is pretty iffy.
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Iffy it may be but I am suggesting you assume a scenario and go from their.





I don't think that that's actually particularly relevant to your question about motivation, honestly. The question's already open-ended enough that numerous and very diverse kinds of answers could potentially work. There are a few broad categories that are easy to use, though. Whimsy, boredom, or a cultural thing are easy suggestions to make. Future slaves, political tool, cannon fodder, or even just an inefficient way to develop infrastructure so that the aliens don't have to do it themselves and can just appropriate it are also easy suggestions. There's a bunch of possible motivations related in some way to education and science as more easy suggestions. There may well be other general categories that aren't immediately popping to mind, too. And all that's before touching ideas like Navigator's (and others') suggestions that involve forms of idealism, which can sorta turn things upside-down and sideways on the question.
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No, not really relevant to the other part of my question. I was digressing I admit, although if another life form is completely different to ours, they may find interest in dabbling and trying to create something else, as an academic interest only.
 
Thor 2 said:
Iffy it may be but I am suggesting you assume a scenario and go from their.
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Which isn't all that helpful without the scenario being stated?




Thor 2 said:
No, not really relevant to the other part of my question. I was digressing I admit, although if another life form is completely different to ours, they may find interest in dabbling and trying to create something else, as an academic interest only.
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They may, but the other two broad categories that I pointed at would be nearly just as likely. "Can it be done?" is certainly part of the most likely first time reasons, but would very likely be done locally, which we seem to have no evidence of actually being the case for Earth and humans. After the proof of concept has been obtained, any of the broad categories that I suggested would be quite potentially feasible options for motivations, whether the form of life is similar to ours or not. After all, what we recognize as intelligence such that it can qualify to be included in Intelligent Design in the first place inherently limits the potential options.
 
Lukraak_Sisser said:
Cool, Muslim creationism, a change from the usual christian one (though the arguments are the same)

In addition to Thor2's question, can you also explain why your god created life in such a way that on a genetic basis there is no evidence of creation at all and everything seems to be evolved from a single microbial ancestor?
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I'll field that one ....... Allah works in mysterious ways.
 
Thor 2 said:
Can you point us to any bits of your sacred scripture that deals with some of the flaws in the way we are "designed"?


https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2016/04/t...he-human-body/
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Yes. Because this world is not Paradise It has a mixture of Paradise and hell.

In this world, the punishment and the reward are intertwined. And since this life was finite, we were created as mortal.

I have described in the following Turkish writings and gave the relevant verses.

http://emre1974tr.blogspot.com.tr/2011/07/evrendeki-kusursuzluk-kendi-sart-ve.html

http://emre1974tr.blogspot.com.tr/2013/11/kotuluk-problemine-cevap.html

Peace
 
Emre_1974tr said:
Yes. Because this world is not Paradise It has a mixture of Paradise and hell.

In this world, the punishment and the reward are intertwined. And since this life was finite, we were created as mortal.

I have described in the following Turkish writings and gave the relevant verses.

http://emre1974tr.blogspot.com.tr/2011/07/evrendeki-kusursuzluk-kendi-sart-ve.html

http://emre1974tr.blogspot.com.tr/2013/11/kotuluk-problemine-cevap.html

Peace
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Sorry, that does not answer my question at all.

If you look at the problems with the way our bodies are made it is quite obvious they were not made at all but happened as a result of evolution as Lukraak_Sisser has suggested.

How can you think that talking about our World as a mixture of Paradise and Hell in any way addresses this question?
 
Lukraak_Sisser said:
In addition to Thor2's question, can you also explain why your god created life in such a way that on a genetic basis there is no evidence of creation at all and everything seems to be evolved from a single microbial ancestor?
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They do not seem so, they tell you so.

Besides, God could create it by evolution. Evolution is not contrary to design.

But in reality there is no evolution.
 
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