Intelligent Design

[PartSkeptic]

(snip)


Skeptic is pulling out of his ass the idea of a cosmic intelligence or that the Universe requires a prime cause. To start with, he has NEVER experienced intelligence of any kind outside of living organism with a brain. Second, the prime cause argument is silly because if the universe requires a cause doesn't this cosmic intelligence requires a cause? If he makes the typical argument that this cosmic intelligence is eternal, he then is engaged in special pleading. Third, all the evidence shows that more complex organisms evolved from simpler organisms and that heavier more complex atoms are the result of interactions between lighter less complex atoms. So it is less likely that a complex intelligence can precede simple matter.

Out of where? How did you arrive at that conclusion. Ideas come from minds. Excrement comes out the rear end. At least in my case it does.

Normally it is atheists who argue that the there is no need for a cause for the universe - that is simply "IS". I submit that my claim is that your mental processes are part of the dream of a Cosmic Intelligence that simply "IS". They are equivalent as to un-caused origin.

Now you claim that intelligence somehow formed from dumb particles after the Big Bang. I submit that it is simpler to assume that the Intelligence was always there.

As for experiencing the Cosmic Intelligence, I have, and I retained the memory.

It also explains the supernatural and God and Satan because nothing is impossible, despite the rules being fairly consistent. My explanation is the equivalent of the law of large numbers where nothing is impossible except I don't make the axiomatic assumption that the laws of physics just "ARE" and always "WERE".

 

[PartSkeptic]

Fast Eddie is right.

We exist, therefore the probability that the universal constants are compatible with our existence is 1.

This is the point of Douglas Adams' famous puddle analogy. Marvelling that the universal constants are right for us to exist is like the puddle marvelling that the hole it finds itself in is exactly the right shape for it.

The universe is not as it is in order that we can be as we are. We are as we are because the universe is as it is.

The hole-puddle analogy is a bad one irrespective of its infamy. It is simple everyday physics that determine the shape of the puddle in the hole. I see no relevance to a proper philosophical debate. Puddles and flying teapots and spaghetti monsters are to impress the masses - they are in the same category as the question "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Wow!

The probability of something happening BEFORE an event is calculated by the number of possibilities existing before the event.

If a universal constant has to be correct to 10 decimal places for our current universe to exist as we find it, then the odds are calculated by asking a person BEFORE the event what the odds are that it is exactly that number and not that number plus 0.00000000001 or some other number.

Can you tell me WHY the constant is "just right"? Other than to say it "JUST IS."

When I do experiments, I repeat them under varying conditions until I get the constants in my control software to the point that the controls work. Why could a cosmic intelligence not do the same? That is a better analogy than a puddle.

 

[acbytesla]

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Out of where? How did you arrive at that conclusion. Ideas come from minds. Excrement comes out the rear end. At least in my case it does.

Normally it is atheists who argue that the there is no need for a cause for the universe - that is simply "IS". I submit that my claim is that your mental processes are part of the dream of a Cosmic Intelligence that simply "IS". They are equivalent as to un-caused origin.

Now you claim that intelligence somehow formed from dumb particles after the Big Bang. I submit that it is simpler to assume that the Intelligence was always there.

As for experiencing the Cosmic Intelligence, I have, and I retained the memory.

It also explains the supernatural and God and Satan because nothing is impossible, despite the rules being fairly consistent. My explanation is the equivalent of the law of large numbers where nothing is impossible except I don't make the axiomatic assumption that the laws of physics just "ARE" and always "WERE".

No, I DON'T KNOW if the Universe has a cause and NEITHER DO YOU. NEITHER DOES ANYONE.

But we can see the development of intelligence in the evolution of biological organisms. We can see through both the DNA and embryology the the trail of our ancestral organisms. We can see babies in the womb growing hair all over their bodies like other primates. And then shedding that hair. We can see a yolk sack in the human embryo like a chicken. We can see the beginning of a tail that does not grow. We can see that humans have the DNA code to make Vitamin C even though it is switched off. We can see the fused chromosome number 2.

If I had to guess about the beginnings of the universe I would posit that all the matter and energy is eternal and the universe as we know it is the result of interactions between matter and energy. That said, I don't know and that is ok. I'd love to know. But an answer pulled from someone's ass whether that be yours, mine, Moses' or St Paul's is simply smelly excrement.

Not knowing and searching is more interesting to me then insisting I know an answer that I have no reason to claim and being satisfied.

What the religious person does is simply plug the holes of human understanding with a magical invisible being. Usually some deity posited by bronze or stone age humans who understood almost nothing about the natural world. The moronic part of this is modern human beings following the morals and lessons of their dumbass deity and ignorant ancestors.

When do modern intelligent human beings wake up to the fact there is no difference between all the gods throughout history in that they are ALL simply the creation of man.

 

[Pixel42]

The hole-puddle analogy is a bad one irrespective of its infamy. It is simple everyday physics that determine the shape of the puddle in the hole. I see no relevance to a proper philosophical debate.

The point of the puddle analogy is simply that it is not an amazing coincidence that the hole is exactly the right shape for the puddle. Likewise it is not an amazing coincidence that the universal constants are right for our existence. It's a simple point, but one which a surprising number of people seem to have trouble grasping.

The probability of something happening BEFORE an event is calculated by the number of possibilities existing before the event.

If a universal constant has to be correct to 10 decimal places for our current universe to exist as we find it, then the odds are calculated by asking a person BEFORE the event what the odds are that it is exactly that number and not that number plus 0.00000000001 or some other number.

People only exist because the universal constants are right for their existence. So the very fact that people exist tells you what the values are, you don't need to ask one about the odds.

This is what makes this probability calculation different to analogies like your winning horse example. Is the better's existence contingent on the horse he bet on winning the race? No? Then it's not a suitable analogy for the probability calculation we're discussing.

Can you tell me WHY the constant is "just right"? Other than to say it "JUST IS."

Because if it wasn't neither of us would be here having this discussion. Maybe some other life forms whose existence is contingent on a different set of values for the constants would be here having the same discussion, but we wouldn't be.

 

[Donn]

The hole-puddle analogy is a bad one irrespective of its infamy.

It's purpose is to get one to look at the impression of design from both sides; from the positive space and the negative space. It's like those images of a duck/rabbit. You seem to only see one and not the other.

Can you tell me WHY the constant is "just right"? Other than to say it "JUST IS."

Quite apart from the other good replies, there's also: "I don't know."

It's likely that we—science and human ken—do not know. So what?

This is another two-sided situation. The extreme thinking you display is like those paddles with a ball on an elastic cord. It whips back and forth without lingering in the middle.

Spend some time in the middle; in doubt.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

I spent some time mentally composing a post involving analogies and thought experiments and touching on fallacious thinking.

But I have come to the conclusion it would fall on deaf ears, so to speak, and as such would be a waste of time.

So, you’ll have to carry on without me for a while, at least until something more interesting pops up.

Have fun!

 

[Thor 2]

The hole-puddle analogy is a bad one irrespective of its infamy. It is simple everyday physics that determine the shape of the puddle in the hole. I see no relevance to a proper philosophical debate. Puddles and flying teapots and spaghetti monsters are to impress the masses - they are in the same category as the question "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Wow!

The probability of something happening BEFORE an event is calculated by the number of possibilities existing before the event.

If a universal constant has to be correct to 10 decimal places for our current universe to exist as we find it, then the odds are calculated by asking a person BEFORE the event what the odds are that it is exactly that number and not that number plus 0.00000000001 or some other number.

Can you tell me WHY the constant is "just right"? Other than to say it "JUST IS."

When I do experiments, I repeat them under varying conditions until I get the constants in my control software to the point that the controls work. Why could a cosmic intelligence not do the same? That is a better analogy than a puddle.

Perhaps I can explain this so you can understand PartSkeptic.

If you were contemplating a state of nothingness, and predicted that a universe would form, wherein one galaxy a planet like ours would develop life of our kind, and an intelligent humanoid would develop, then the chances of that happening as predicted would be huge.

However looking back from the perspective of we are in now, and saying the chances of this happening just like this is nonsense. It could be the chances of some life form not developing somewhere may be huge. The puddle analogy given by Pixel42 is a good one.

 

[nota]

if we teach the jewish version in schools +darwin
don't we also have to teach every other made up creation myth ?
why only the christian/jewish version and not all the others ?
if one fairytale deserves equal time with science then they all do

btw how many creation myths do we have ?
and how many were lost as the religion died or was wiped out
was there ever a religion without one ?

 

[acbytesla]

Perhaps I can explain this so you can understand PartSkeptic.

If you were contemplating a state of nothingness, and predicted that a universe would form, wherein one galaxy a planet like ours would develop life of our kind, and an intelligent humanoid would develop, then the chances of that happening as predicted would be huge.

However looking back from the perspective of we are in now, and saying the chances of this happening just like this is nonsense. It could be the chances of some life form not developing somewhere may be huge. The puddle analogy given by Pixel42 is a good one.

I'm on board big time with the puddle analogy as well. Although I think it is insane to start calculating probabilities of life in the universe or even our own galaxy when we have such a minuscule amount of information about the planets outside our solar system.

Much of this has to do with what factors you use in your math. Out of the one solar system we know about there is 1 species of intelligent literate beings. That is 1/1. Following that math there is around another 100 billion intelligent literate species in the Milky Way galaxy alone.

Now granted that would be a misapplication of math. But that is the crux of the problem. There is no way to do the math.

 

[acbytesla]

if we teach the jewish version in schools +darwin
don't we also have to teach every other made up creation myth ?
why only the christian/jewish version and not all the others ?
if one fairytale deserves equal time with science then they all do

btw how many creation myths do we have ?
and how many were lost as the religion died or was wiped out
was there ever a religion without one ?

I think we should have to teach alchemy alongside chemistry and astrology alongside astronomy.

 

[Delvo]

The probability of something happening BEFORE an event is calculated by the number of possibilities existing before the event.

And how likely each one of them is. That's where the "fine tuning" argument goes wrong in at least two different ways: there's no clue at all how many choices there were (you just hope others will mistake an assertion of precision for the same thing), and there's no clue at all how likely any of them are (you just hope others will mistake a number of options, even if we did actually have such a number, for a denominator in a statement of odds as a fraction, as if all possibilities were equally likely).

the odds are calculated by asking a person BEFORE the event

No, you don't just ask somebody. You either find out for real from real-world observation, or admit the fact that you don't know.

Can you tell me WHY the constant is "just right"?

They actually aren't. Some of them would have had deleterious effects if adjusted on their own, but not if two or more were adjusted together in counterbalancing directions, and some of them would have actually yielded better results if adjusted slightly because the value we actually have is not right at a calculated ideal but merely close enough to be survivable. And that's just if you only pay attention to the ones that seem anywhere near right at all and completely ignore the ones that are obviously wildly off:
•Fraction of the universe's overall apparent timeline during which life was or will be impossible
•Fraction of the universe that is, even during this life-sustaining era, empty space, where we can't live
•Fraction of remainder that's stars or black holes, where we can't live
•Fraction of remainder that's planets where we can't live for a variety of reasons
•Fraction of any inhabitable planet that's wasted on uninhabitable internal volume instead of surface area
•Fraction of the only known inhabitable planet's surface that's uninhabitable, either to any life or at least to ours

You're looking at something the size of a stadium where life can exist on a single atom, and blathering about how marvelously fine-tuned for life the stadium is because it contains that atom. A truly finely-tuned stadium would be able to sustain life all over it, not restricted to an atom.

When I do experiments, I repeat them under varying conditions until I get the constants in my control software to the point that the controls work. Why could a cosmic intelligence not do the same?

If it did, then there's nothing special about the constants in this universe anyway; this is just the latest of we-have-no-clue-how-many attempts that didn't work before and we just don't live in one of those others (because we can't)... which is completely indistinguishable from a scenario in which multiple universes exist or have existed without "creators" and we just don't live in one of those others (because we can't).

 

[Thor 2]

if we teach the jewish version in schools +darwin
don't we also have to teach every other made up creation myth ?
why only the christian/jewish version and not all the others ?
if one fairytale deserves equal time with science then they all do

btw how many creation myths do we have ?
and how many were lost as the religion died or was wiped out
was there ever a religion without one ?

A good point that I have made myself before.

The only reason the Christian/Jewish and arguably Islamic creation story is given air time, is because these religions are the flavour of the day, in most of the World.

 

[Delvo]

The point of the puddle analogy is simply that it is not an amazing coincidence that the hole is exactly the right shape for the puddle.

That's what makes it a bad analogy for the subject of physical constants that could, with different values, have made life not just different but impossible. The alternatives on the cosmic side of the analogy and the puddle side of it are not equivalent: a universe where life can't possibly exist is not a universe where it could but would just be different, and a differently-shaped puddle is not physical impossibility of puddles.

The puddle story assumes going in from the start that wherever else the water could have ended up would have been another puddle, which, in the cosmic counterpart, is the equivalent of all possible universes being able to host life. Putting that assumption in at the beginning means you can't draw it as a conclusion at the end.

Genetics is probably the most elegant of designs.

You just said that, for example, the more elegant way to grow birds with no teeth is to give them genes for crocodile teeth and other genes to make those genes not work, rather than just not giving them genes for teeth in the first place. We must have opposite ideas of the meaning of "elegant".

Normally it is atheists who argue that the there is no need for a cause for the universe - that is simply "IS". I submit that my claim is that your mental processes are part of the dream of a Cosmic Intelligence that simply "IS". They are equivalent as to un-caused origin.

But they are not equivalent in their numbers of entirely made-up, unnecessary, evidence-free components getting inserted. Ours is 0; yours is at least 1.

Now you claim that intelligence somehow formed from dumb particles after the Big Bang. I submit that it is simpler to assume that the Intelligence was always there.

No, adding 1 extra thing (or more in this case, when we consider a brain to carry out these cosmic intellectual functions, and a world for that brain to live in) makes it more complex, not simpler.

 

[acbytesla]

That's what makes it a bad analogy for the subject of physical constants that could, with different values, have made life not just different but impossible. The alternatives on the cosmic side of the analogy and the puddle side of it are not equivalent: a universe where life can't possibly exist is not a universe where it could but would just be different, and a differently-shaped puddle is not physical impossibility of puddles.

The puddle story assumes going in from the start that wherever else the water could have ended up would have been another puddle, which, in the cosmic counterpart, is the equivalent of all possible universes being able to host life. Putting that assumption in at the beginning means you can't draw it as a conclusion at the end.

You just said that, for example, the more elegant way to grow birds with no teeth is to give them genes for crocodile teeth and other genes to make those genes not work, rather than just not giving them genes for teeth in the first place. We must have opposite ideas of the meaning of "elegant".

But they are not equivalent in their numbers of entirely made-up, unnecessary, evidence-free components getting inserted. Ours is 0; yours is at least 1.

No, adding 1 extra thing (or more in this case, when we consider a brain to carry out these cosmic intellectual functions, and a world for that brain to live in) makes it more complex, not simpler.

No, the point of the puddle analogy is simply that it is a post hoc analysis.

 

[Meadmaker]

Out of where? How did you arrive at that conclusion. Ideas come from minds. Excrement comes out the rear end. At least in my case it does.

Normally it is atheists who argue that the there is no need for a cause for the universe - that is simply "IS". I submit that my claim is that your mental processes are part of the dream of a Cosmic Intelligence that simply "IS". They are equivalent as to un-caused origin.

Now you claim that intelligence somehow formed from dumb particles after the Big Bang. I submit that it is simpler to assume that the Intelligence was always there.

As for experiencing the Cosmic Intelligence, I have, and I retained the memory. It also explains the supernatural and God and Satan because nothing is impossible, despite the rules being fairly consistent. My explanation is the equivalent of the law of large numbers where nothing is impossible except I don't make the axiomatic assumption that the laws of physics just "ARE" and always "WERE".

Do tell.


On the general subject of intelligent design, I have no problem with people who say they believe in cosmic intelligence, or God, or whatever. I have no problem with people saying that they don't think it's possible for life to have evolved without intelligent guidance. I disagree with them, but I can't prove them wrong. They are simply stating a part of their belief.

Where I get into a bit of a tiff, though, is when they say that this belief of theirs is some sort of scientific theory, that one can use science to demonstrate that there must be a God, because science proves that evolution without guidance is impossible. That claim is made by a lot of intelligent design proponents, and it is balderdash.

 

[Dave Rogers]

So you are a law of large numbers follower, then.

If, by that, you mean that I'm honest enough to admit that there are large numbers on both sides of the equation rather than just the side I want there to be large numbers on, then yes.

Dave

 

[Pixel42]

No, the point of the puddle analogy is simply that it is a post hoc analysis.

Exactly. Pointing out that it is not an exact analogy where it doesn't need to be an exact analogy is what PartSkeptic did too. It is an exact analogy for the point it is making. A different combination of values for the universal constants might have produced no life, different life, similar life or identical life, but we're here so the actual combination must obviously be one that's compatible with our existence. It is not an amazing coincidence.

 

[Dave Rogers]

And let your competition hire it? And put you out of business?

What's funny here is that you don't even realize you're agreeing with me.

Dave

 

[Cosmic Yak]

Did our cell phones evolve, or did they evolve guided by intelligent design?

Are cell phones alive?

In a few decades they will be, and humans will be just memory. The robots will see themselves as products of intelligent design, not evolution. How long before their intelligent designer are worshiped?

You appear to have misread my post.
Are cell phones alive? Now, not in some speculative AI future.
Are they alive now?

 

[PartSkeptic]

I am going to focus on one aspect at a time in the hope of getting away from the tactic of "Use the facts, when the facts fail, use logic, and when logic fails confuse the debate".

The Sub-topic here is The Fine Tuned (for Life) Universe argument.

A point has been made that the probability that the fundamental constants of the universe are what they are is 1.

Which expert atheist presents this argument? Thus avoiding any probability analysis. Please give me references.