Intelligent Design vs. Casino Universe

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Let's start with the intelligent design actually being intelligent.

Do you reject the idea of intelligent design and intelligent designer or you dispute the intelligence aspect of the design and blame the intelligent designer for the results?

further wrote:

I would expect that an intelligent designer would make teeth that don't fall out.

The problem is not that they are falling, but rather that there is no new row of teeth under them ... like the way they were with the dinosaurs.
If you think that the falling of the teeth is evolutionary degradation you may ask the fans of the evolution theory how does that happen?

further wrote:

... and knees that don't fail so easily.

The knees fail not because of system error in the design, but because of intoxication of the tissues and acidification of the blood. The design has nothing to do with this. You cannot blame a manufacturer of a laptop for example, that the laptop doesn't work ... after you have dropped it into a bucket of waste water.
As far as the acidification of the potable water and of the air is concerned you may ask the fossil fuel apologetics about that.

further wrote:

An intelligent designer wouldn't dangle an appendage off the large intestine that has no use but gets inflamed and bursts unexpectedly.

We don't know for sure whether the appendix 'has no use' for it participates in some key metabolic pathways.

further wrote:

An intelligent designer wouldn't make the reproductive system so susceptible to disease.

This is not fault of the designer. It is a result of promiscuous intake of antibiotics and other 'medications' with delay intoxication and chaos causing effect ... and also as a result of the cleaner having stolen the detergent and washing the toilet with dirty water.

further wrote:

And an intelligent designer wouldn't wire war into the brains of humans.

The brains of humans are another case of intelligence ... or rather retardedness - I cannot say for sure.

further wrote:

Even now, the most civilized human societies spend a substantial part of their resources developing the capability to kill each other.

How did you come to know that they are 'most civilized' ... if they are killing each other like wild beasts.

further wrote:

There is no real evidence for an intelligent designer.

... and there is no real evidence that the game theory can create at first and after that subject to evolution the universe.

further wrote:

If there is an intelligent designer, it is clear that He is completely inept

... or maybe that we are missing something.

3 Replies

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

Why not expect that an intelligent designer would simply set things in motions and allow everything to sort itself out?

If there is a GOD...and if the GOD did intelligently design things...apparently this is the way the GOD did it.

Which, by the way, seem perfectly reasonable to me. I wonder why it doesn't to you...and I suspect that has to do with you wanting there to be no gods.

This is meaningless Frank.

You have used the words "intelligent", "design", and "god" in a way that strips them of all meaning. Allowing everything to sort itself out doesn't require intelligence. Setting things in motion is design. A god that isn't involved in the development and running of the universe isn't a god.

I could replace these words with any adjective, verb and noun and have it say pretty much the same thing.

Quote:

Why not expect that a blind tickler would simply set things in motions and allow everything to sort itself out?

If there is a MOUSE...and if the MOUSE did blindly tickle things...apparently this is the way the MOUSE did it.

Which, by the way, seem perfectly reasonable to me. I wonder why it doesn't to you...and I suspect that has to do with you wanting there to be no mice.

If the word "God" means absolutely nothing, then I believe in it.

1 Reply

@Herald,

Herald,

Quote:

Do you reject the idea of intelligent design and intelligent designer or you dispute the intelligence aspect of the design and blame the intelligent designer for the results?

You asked me what evidence I would expect to find if there were an intelligent designer. I answered you.

I see no evidence of an intelligent designer. The evidence we see is exactly what we would expect to see as the result of a pattern of random mutations, taking place over a very large period of time, being selected by an organism's ability to survive and reproduce.

The added advantage of the scientific view of things is that it doesn't rely on a talking snake to explain anything.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Nothing stochastic about any of that ...

You may claim that there is nothing stochastic if you can arrange the puzzle of the "intermediate" fossils of the major animal groups; Tiktaliik rosacea; fish, full amphibians; 'fish-pot'; "descent trees " of organisms (protists, plants, and animals) ... and prove that this 'ecosystem' is able to reduce the CO2 of the air from 7000 ppm to 185 ppm.
You can design the biosphere with and without the Punctuated Equilibrium, if you wish.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I see no evidence of an intelligent designer.

The fact that we don't see something does not necessarily mean that it does not exist. I don't see for example the natural radiation background of the atmosphere but I cannot claim that it does not exist.

maxdancona wrote:

The evidence we see is exactly what we would expect to see as the result of a pattern of random mutations ...

The circumstance that one can break a window by throwing a stone at it does not mean that all the windows are made by throwing stones ... in the quartz sand perhaps.
The very idea of constructing DNA by means of mutations is ridiculous from the very beginning.

2 Replies

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Quote:
Why not expect that an intelligent designer would simply set things in motions and allow everything to sort itself out?

If there is a GOD...and if the GOD did intelligently design things...apparently this is the way the GOD did it.

Which, by the way, seem perfectly reasonable to me. I wonder why it doesn't to you...and I suspect that has to do with you wanting there to be no gods.

This is meaningless Frank.

You have used the words "intelligent", "design", and "god" in a way that strips them of all meaning. Allowing everything to sort itself out doesn't require intelligence. Setting things in motion is design. A god that isn't involved in the development and running of the universe isn't a god.

I could replace these words with any adjective, verb and noun and have it say pretty much the same thing.

Quote:
Why not expect that a blind tickler would simply set things in motions and allow everything to sort itself out?

If there is a MOUSE...and if the MOUSE did blindly tickle things...apparently this is the way the MOUSE did it.

Which, by the way, seem perfectly reasonable to me. I wonder why it doesn't to you...and I suspect that has to do with you wanting there to be no mice.

If the word "God" means absolutely nothing, then I believe in it.

Okay...so "believe in it."

Most of the atheists here seem to argue from the perspective of humans being some really great thing...some great "intelligence" as it were.

But we humans MAY BE as insignificant and lacking in true intelligence to truly intelligent "non-gods" as amboebae are to humans.

It is becoming quite the fashion, by the way, that whenever someone presents an argument that calls into question one of the tenets of the "there are no gods" sect...it immediately is discarded as "meaningless."

What I have offered IS NOT meaningless.

What it does is to undermine one of the basic, and most often used, arguments against intelligent design.

You by the way, Max, are forgetting one of the basics of these kinds of arguments...using "intelligent design" the way I always use it, rather than Intelligent Design or ID...as some are careful to do.

Quote:

Allowing everything to sort itself out doesn't require intelligence.

And do you honestly consider that a compelling argument for saying that it cannot be the way things are?

I certainly do not.

Quote:

Setting things in motion is design.

Yes, it is. Did you mean to write "Setting things in motion is not design?"

Quote:

A god that isn't involved in the development and running of the universe isn't a god.

Is that something from your hymn book...or are you going to explain why that cannot be?

1 Reply

@Herald,

Quote:

The very idea of constructing DNA by means of mutations is ridiculous from the very beginning.

How is it ridiculous?

The Biblical alternative is an omniscient space alien speaking DNA into existence. That sounds far more ridiculous to me.

3 Replies

@Herald,

Herald wrote:

The very idea of constructing DNA by means of mutations is ridiculous from the very beginning.

I do agree with Max on his comment about this sentence.

The sentence is ridiculous on its face.

And I can tell you there was a guy here once who went through the math and probability in great detail...and came up blank.

1 Reply

@Herald,

H that's a very good q. For what it's worth (very little hereabout) the apodictical existential pantheist maintains that terms like God and Intelligent Design are merely sounds caused by the pattern of circulation of electrons in our mental circuits

In fact everything I'm now conveying can be so described. But because dualism entails so much paradox and contradiction our patterns don't allow it. Everything is It, Her; all the activity therein She thinking, an example of "Intelligent Design," though perfectly natural in all respects, the term "supernatural" smelling of the impossible

Quote:

... or as the classical understanding of God in a new light.

Yes H, exactly

Quote:

In order to operate the evolution should have some rudimentary intelligence (to perform the natural or artificial selection).

Yes, in a kind of abstract way. We see the entire Megillah as form of evolution, "starting" with a big, heavy, black blob of uniform composition, then the BB from which you and I arise

Just how it comes about, what apparently makes the humanoid such an important part, we perhaps shall never learn

2 Replies

@dalehileman,

dalehileman wrote:

H that's a very good q. For what it's worth (very little hereabout) the apodictical existential pantheist maintains that terms like God and Intelligent Design are merely sounds caused by the pattern of circulation of electrons in our mental circuits

In fact everything I'm now conveying can be so described. But because dualism entails so much paradox and contradiction our patterns don't allow it. Everything is It, Her; all the activity therein She thinking, an example of "Intelligent Design," though perfectly natural in all respects, the term "supernatural" smelling of the impossible

Quote:
... or as the classical understanding of God in a new light.
Yes H, exactly

Quote:
In order to operate the evolution should have some rudimentary intelligence (to perform the natural or artificial selection).
Yes, in a kind of abstract way. We see the entire Megillah as form of evolution, "starting" with a big, heavy, black blob of uniform composition, then the BB from which you and I arise

Just how it comes about, what apparently makes the humanoid such an important part, we perhaps shall never learn

Not really sure of what you were trying to say here, Dale...but I am almost certain that I disagree with almost everything after the first "H."

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

I disagree with almost everything after the first "H."

Yea Frank it's all very controversial

..and I'll concede our approach might be pure nonsense (or maybe even not so pristine), we'll never know

0 Replies

@Frank Apisa,

My point is this, Frank. If we are going to have any kind of rational discussion about whether there is a god or not, or even if there might be a god or not, then we have to have some kind of understanding about what the word "god" means.

If the word "god" can mean some sort of pattern of existence, or a certain mathematical "truth" that encompasses the possibilities of what can or can't be, then sure. This is a lot different than a being who imitates the neurochemical processes in the human brain we experience as jealousy and love and anger and spite.

When I am discussing with Harald, at least I know what he has in mind when he says the word "God". With you, it is very difficult to respond to your argument because it seems the word "god" could mean anything from a anthropomorphic being to mathematical concept to a grape jelly bean.

(Incidentally I find the idea that a grape jelly bean set the Big Bang in motion ultimately leading to this discussion to be quite intriguing and impossible to refute).

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

What is DNA max?

One thing it assuredly isn't is that spiral of little coloured balls you might have seen on TV in a program designed to get scientific wannabees gawping in awe whilst couch potatoing and nibbling on chocolate chip-cake.

Such programs, the impressive ones I mean, are spin on behalf of the scientific profession in the service of preparing the public for its eventual takeover of the reins of government. A sort of softening up.

Science is dreadfully boring. At 28 I could take it no longer.

Now a talking snake whispering in your ear that you can have anything you want off the sap if you play your cards right, my dear, is not in the least boring. Wearying maybe for a while but when the destructiveness becomes manifest that won't be boring either.

But I can understand why feminists are opposed to such metaphors. And why the prophets gnashed their teeth at the consequences.

1 Reply

@dalehileman,

Quote:

H that's a very good q. For what it's worth (very little hereabout) the apodictical existential pantheist maintains that terms like God and Intelligent Design are merely sounds caused by the pattern of circulation of electrons in our mental circuits

That's more like D.M. Armstrong in The Materialist Theory of Mind.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Quote:

My point is this, Frank. If we are going to have any kind of rational discussion about whether there is a god or not, or even if there might be a god or not, then we have to have some kind of understanding about what the word "god" means.

If the word "god" can mean some sort of pattern of existence, or a certain mathematical "truth" that encompasses the possibilities of what can or can't be, then sure. This is a lot different than a being who imitates the neurochemical processes in the human brain we experience as jealousy and love and anger and spite.

When I am discussing with Harald, at least I know what he has in mind when he says the word "God". With you, it is very difficult to respond to your argument because it seems the word "god" could mean anything from a anthropomorphic being to mathematical concept to a grape jelly bean.

(Incidentally I find the idea that a grape jelly bean set the Big Bang in motion ultimately leading to this discussion to be quite intriguing and impossible to refute).

Max, I understand you position and your considerations. I was annoyed with your dismissal of what I had to say…and I was more negative than necessary in my response. I apologize.

But the basics of what I said matter in these kinds of discussions.

Here, we are not actually discussing the existence of any gods. (I agree with you that Herald seems to be thinking of a god like that pitiful creature from the Bible.)

But, there is still the possibility that a GOD exists. You, Max, may be that GOD. You don’t really know that anything out here actually exists…except for yourself and what you call “your thoughts and perceptions.”

You…as the GOD…MAY HAVE set all this in motion as a way of entertaining yourself…and are allowing all parts of it (the “discoveries” and such)…to unfold in an order that is essentially random.

What is happening…what has happened…what will happen…may all be the result of intelligent design way beyond anything you can even imagine…and the “intelligent design” part was to keep it all hidden from yourself. I would make the puzzle more fun.

Herald is full of soup. You can read what he is writing and easily see that he is. It is more difficult to see your own nonsense.

It is absurd for him to argue that he can logically show that “all of this” has to be the result of intelligent design…BUT IT IS EQUALLY absurd for you to argue that it is not.

Mostly, those two opposed absurdities arise from the fact that neither of you know whether there is intelligent design at work or not. You are each making wild, blind, guesses about the REALITY.

I could go on, but I’ll wait for a response to this so far.

1 Reply

@spendius,

spendius wrote:

Such programs, the impressive ones I mean, are spin on behalf of the scientific profession in the service of preparing the public for its eventual takeover of the reins of government. A sort of softening up.

Hear Hear!

Religion (including Christianity) has had the reins of government for far too long. A hell of a lot of good that has done us.

1 Reply

@spendius,

The reason the pattern of circulation of electrons in our mental circuits is not random is due to the "preferred pathways" effect, aka the "rabbit run", which is presumable caused by the laziness of biological substance and its evolutionary tendency to run in grooves along the lines of least resistance.

Setting obstacles in the way in order to preen with pride at overcoming them is contra-indicated by evolution which is why proper evolutionists don't do it. So much so that the body signals its disapproval at a fairly early part of such proceedings.

That's why whips are so essential in horse-racing. Horses do not know that a career as a stallion awaits them if they win all their races.

0 Replies

@maxdancona,

Quote:

A hell of a lot of good that has done us.

Well max, I feel it has been wonderful all things considered. Not perfect but Rome wasn't built in a day and they were working with much easier materials than human nature.

0 Replies

@Frank Apisa,

I don't understand exactly what you are trying to say, and it doesn't seem that you are responding to my points so maybe there is balance.

It seems that word "GOD" in all of your posts can be replaced with the word "SOMETHING". And, of course you are correct.

You don't seem to be saying anything more than this. If that is the case, then I agree that there is a distinct possibility that "SOMETHING" exists. If you want to continue this conversation more, then you need to start defining the term "GOD" in better terms. If I can be GOD, then anything can. I may have even eaten GOD for breakfast. It doesn't mean anything.

Same with the word intelligence. I define intelligence by comparing it with the human brain. By my definition, something that is intelligent will approximate the behavior of a human brain given the same inputs. Do you mean something different than this?

If any process that happens (having nothing to do with the electro-chemical processes in the brain) can be considered "intelligent" then I really can't answer the question.

Quote:

Mostly, those two opposed absurdities arise from the fact that neither of you know whether there is intelligent design at work or not

When I hear the tern "intelligent design", it has a clear meaning to me based on my understanding of the religious and cultural ideas that "intelligent design" comes from. This makes it possible for me and Herald to have a discussion because we understand and agree on the meaning of the term. Clearly the Intelligent Designer in mind is the Judeo-Christian God with all of its power and personal foibels. The Judeo-Christian God is clearly "intelligent" in the human sense and not only acts with an anthropomorphic purpose, but also feels jealousy, happiness and rage and is motivated by desire.

When you say that "you don't know whether there is an intelligent design", what do you mean by "intelligent design"? Do you include the possibility that the Judeo-Christian God exists as the Bible states?

It seems like you are saying that "Something may have caused something". It is awfully difficult to argue with that.

2 Replies

@maxdancona,

Explanations of why some things cannot be explained are generally good fodder for conversation.

2 Replies

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