Thinking About Creation: Intelligent Design and Choice

[Ishkur23]

Your argument is a fallacious paradox.

Choice quite simply can not exist in a Universe created by an omniscient deity who can intervene at any time for any reason without leaving any evidence.

Think about that.

[gamesbok]

This is metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. That Physics, at the quantum level must be statistical, but it does not indicate choice. Indeed, the very successful physics that is based on this statistical variability, has no mechanism, no criterion for choice. The very fact that the outcomes of sub-atomic reactions are predictable according to precise statistics indicates that there is NO choice involved.

[thebadger587]

Intelligent design cannot possibly explain anything because anything complicated enough to design life itself requires an explanation. Who designed the designer?

ID hasn't had a new idea since William Paley was debunked by David Hume, before Darwin's time.

Evolution is a fact. The universe didnt just poof into existence by magic. Get over yourself, get educated, and make the choice to lose weight.

[jhbbunch]

Creationism said that genetics would prove once and for all that we were unique. It has now shown that chimps are closer to humans than they are to gorillas. It has shown that chimps and humans are far closer to each other than members of creationist 'kinds' (like the cat family) are. OW and NW vultures separate at the avian (bird) level. One is related to storks, the other is related to hawks. Baraminology makes no sense of genetics. It is a joke.

[Bacchant33rd]

my comments have been erased...

[macguy]

Hmm, interesting video! Couldn't an evolutionist, however, just use that quantum openness as something which existed forever in the laws of nature but simply wasn't as you would say, "amplified"? Are all living things applicable to choice? Just a few thoughts and apologies if any misrepresentations of your video is in my questions.

[baraminology]

No apologies necessary. The question isn't whether or not openness has been around, the question is whether or not there has been something around to take advantage of it. Having an "openness amplifier" doesn't do any good if there is no outside entity of which to amplify.

[notyoursister]

Well desertfile sure kicked your ass. did it hurt much?

[baraminology]

I encourage _everyone_ to watch the desertphile video. I thought it was a great parody of evolutionists, although it was a little unfair to their intelligence. Most evolutionists are not as unthinking as that video lampooned them to be.

[cptnsdmy]

You should have just said: "I'll spare you the details -GODDIDIT!"

Like ID, you're vacuous; but you're consitently vacuous, I'll give you that much.

[baraminology]

So what are your answers to the questions at the end?

[cptnsdmy]

Please just look up 'vacuous' in the dictionary.

[lordsong7]

Darwinists are such losers

1. The 1st use of the words Intelligent and design in an origins context was 261 years ago - P. de Maupertuis in "Derivation of the laws of motion and equilibrium".

2. The "scientific method" was invented by a creationist.

3. The term "natural selection" was coined by creationist Edward Blyth before Darwin

4. Contrary to Darweener propaganda, not all IDists are biblical creationists. All Islamics are IDists!

You bozos don't know 'science' from 'Mad Magazine'.

[alienspy07]

First off, 'Darwinism' is different from evolution, and has been dead for quite some time now.

1)Today it is used for political purposes

2)That doesn't change the fact that evolution is consistant with the scientific method

3)Edward Blyth's definition was different from Darwin's- and incorrect for that matter. Darwin did get a lot of influence from Blyth, however, and that's no secret.

4)All people who identify themselves as IDists are biblical creationists.

[Epyon42]

Look, Dembski basically made shit up. When the hell have those terms been used like that before? It's a bunch of lame logical proofs, there's nothing physical, nothing concrete.

[Desertphile]

"Look, Dembski basically made shit up."

Hell, he wasn't even the first. A German scientist named Muller debunked Dembski's claims more than 100 years ago.

[baraminology]

Actually, the term "Darwinism" (actually more often, neo-Darwinism) is used quite often in the scientific literature. See for example this paper - "General Stress Response Regulator RpoS in Adaptive Mutation and Amplification in Escherichia coli" (Genetics 166:669-680 - you can find it on google) - note that it compares possible outcomes against Lamarckian, classical Darwinism, and neo-Darwinism, pointing to neo-Darwinism as the right choice.

[Desertphile]

That is not how you Creationists use the word.

[Wordsmith21]

To Desertphile -- Creationists, to my knowledge generally use the definition of I.D. set forth by its originator (Dr. Behe). They recognize "creation" is compatible with I.D., but most ALL claims that the two are interchangable most frequently advanced by evolutionists. This in a semantic attempt to avoid consideration of its demonstrable scientific (cause-and-effect)capabilities­. (Except where SETI is involved?)

[Desertphile]

"Creationists, to my knowledge generally use the definition of I.D. set forth by its originator (Dr. Behe)"

Yes, for political reasons. ID, however, is Biblical Creationism.

[baraminology]

Jogayot -

Thanks for watching! However, I missed your answers to the questions. Does choice exist and what are the implications?

Your arguments about memory don't make much sense -- we do have memory, and there is no problem with memory being deterministic.

Check out the Schwartz reference at the end of the video.

As for chaos theory, we will cover some interesting implications of chaos theory (specifically Stephen Wolfram's findings on cellullar automata, specifically rule 110).

[Wordsmith21]

Braaminology -- You've provided me with a lot to think about. Particularly as you better define (in identifiable, and probably mathematically supportable terms) what I.D. is and what it isn't.

I respect your personal acknowledgment of God being the causal source of "choice", but this has no bearing on the scientific (cause-and-effect) points you raise. Attempts to focus on this honest expression to belittle the concept speaks loudly to their lack of scientific objection.

[zukester100]

That is because evolutionists like to define "origins" as science. It has everythign to do with science(baraminology), nothign to do with origins, especially evolutionism. Origins is not science, origins is not ONLY naturalistic. Naturalism is a belief that this Universe is al lthere is and therte is no Creator-which is unscientific and religious to hold to. Science is not naturalism. Naturalism is a religion and not science.

[jogayot]

1. we have memories! imagine for a moment us not having either short or long term memory. now you see pen on the table and choose to pick it up, but next moment you do not remember what you started to lift your hand for... i'll omit the problem of choosing where you look and just say you are seeing a scene of which table and pen therein is only part of. you remember that particular choice and thanks to memory you are able to execute on it, free from any future distractions or sub choices,

[jogayot]

2. yet the memory of the choice is not free, just the opposite, it's set, if it were to change you'd be lost again to the whims of each momentary choice. and DNA at the most basic level of living things is just that: memory allowing to further in time what was decided before. there happen small changes to it that are either beneficial or not. it happens over thousands of generations of innumerable populations of given types interacting simultaneously with different spacial environments.

[jogayot]

3. each time two mates join their DNA is recombined and replicates. and do not try to imagine some simple tools humans designed like computer or a jumbo jet. there is more connections between neurons in each human brain than atoms in the universe. and there are many atoms in the earths oceans yet if you would take only a glass of water there are so many of them that if you'd put it back into ocean, wait for it to mix,

[jogayot]

4. then draw new glass statistically speaking you'd have there some of the atoms from the original glass....!!! hope this is some food for thought.

[Wordsmith21]

Jogayot -- If I follow you, we can look at memory as part of a "programmed" capability (like instinct).

Baraminology's point goes beyond its simple application, but to HOW the program arrived. Is there ANY scientific (or mathematical) explanation (other than by intentional design) that you can suggest?

[jogayot]

and instinct is just animal version of intentionality... answering baraminology at length...

[baraminology]

jogayot --

You're still avoiding the question. You are confusing the memory of the choice with the choice itself. Can you choose, or is it predetermined (even if uncalculable), or just merely stochastic across a set? You seem to be arguing for it being predetermined, yet not wanting to say so. Is choice real or an illusion? If you think choice is an illusion please be plain and say so.

[jogayot]

1. i'm not avoiding the question, you ARE by taking your own personal feeling of free will/choice/ability to design as evidence for there being some higher up designer, there: all questions answered. i readily admit that there are still glaring holes in our understanding. but i'm explaining to you how intentional design works, at least how it works as i know it myself, even if i interpret something as designed, i only know the process of designing from within myself. any way you look at it

[jogayot]

2. you will always come up against the circular problem of needing the intelligent program to design world and ultimately our intentionality. of course you can always escape into the idea of eternal, infinite god thru some logical argument which quite ironically is only knowable to us - the intentional designers, but i'm comfortable with explanation of gradual build-up of chemical and physical interactions selectively promoted by environment over long (yet finite) period of time.

[jogayot]

3. that at the moment due to our physical time constraints or lack of conclusive evidence about the conditions at the moment of first strand of proto-RNA replicating we ourself do not know exact recipe of life is not an argument to deny steadily growing evidence that evolution happened in the past, that galaxies move away from each so they must have been at some point in past extremely close together, and many others, all discoverd by OUR (and only OURS, not thru some word handed from above)

[jogayot]

4. previous discovieries and inventions... which accidently support and strenghten each other to weave one story as opposed to arbitrary literary tone of the bible. and as far as "choice" goes... no, there is no such thing as "choice" outside of cause and effect chain, there logically can not be because then whole fabric of reality breaks down. that's why quantum world seems so spooky, still even there everything has couse and effect moving with maximum speed of light.

[jogayot]

5. And if there is "choice" happening at the very low level of the universe in particular case we can not know about it until knowledge of what it actually was reaches us or in general we can merely state that there is such and such set of possibilities and each possibility has such and such chance to be the one particular event. Weird, I myself think about it like this: no there was not definite moment that world was created, "creation" happens in each quantum event, but that's only me.

[baraminology]

It's amusing that you spent several pages arguing only to end up basically agreeing with me. I think perhaps you were overly-reactionary to the simple idea of a Creationist arguing for design, and assumed I had argued things that I had not. What I argued was: (1) choice happens, (2) choice does not violate physical law, and (3) choice cannot be a mere amalgamation of chance and physical law. If you agree on these points then why did you spend so much time arguing?

[Wordsmith21]

Interesting thought Jogayot --- but in a effort to bring things down to a real-world level, I ask ---

Take a three level assembled pyramid of playing cards. Can one look at this and determine whether it happened by chance and natural laws alone, or whether some "other"

guiding influence was involved?

[jogayot]

to Wordsmith21: 1. of course ultimately one can not know without observing the regression in time of this formation coming into being. but just as well not being able to change your previous choices there is no point in wondering whether you could have made "other" changes. it's always the question of origin. but if i can imagine the pyramid of cards myself there is no point in arguing that it originates outside of me.

[jogayot]

to Wordsmith21: 2. and if the rest of universe seems to have explanation within itself except for origin that pertains to whole of it why presume reason outside of it? breaking casuality for the sake of reestablishing it, just because we objectively do not know is self-defeating.

[Wordsmith21]

to Jogayot -- Interesting "thoughts", but limiting ourselves to "science", the ability to be duplicated refutes chance appearance of a simple pyramid of cards. Chance and natural law are insufficient. The observable production of disorder far exceeds any possibility of "chance" formation.

The same applies to changes in genetic code. With degradation (95%+) exceeding beneficial (even with N.S.) random change cannot be mathematically supported. Or do you know something I don't know?

[jogayot]

to W: we are really hitting the wall here... there is no such thing as chance, only realisation in multiple different forms. which one does not matter. it's enough that degradation is not complete. with enough tries everything is realisable statistically speaking. perhaps point of the universe is simply to realise all possible combination. as far as duplication you might say "most of" possibility of the pyramid of cards is already realised in every human brain.

[Wordsmith21]

To J -- The wall you describe is the one between science and philosophy (metaphysics). Baramin. (and I) try to limit claims to that which are scientific (physically demonstrable). Your concepts are all philosophically based (not physically demonstrable).

I.D. simply explains HOW things that cannot be shown to occur by chance and natural laws alone ... can indeed appear. This concept of external guidance (from any known or unknown source) can, and does, perform this function.

[jogayot]

and tree falling in the forest devoid of human makes no sound, 10-iot, shrug.

[baraminology]

"no, there is no such thing as "choice" outside of cause and effect chain, there logically can not be because then whole fabric of reality breaks down"

Not so. If the universe is open (as quantum theory indicates), then there is no necessary conflict between choice as a real cause and the cause/effect chain of physical law. You should read Schwartz's paper that I referenced.

[jogayot]

to baraminology: 1. no, i do not agree, because you are conflating choice with change, each event has its time-space determination, removing this relation breaks connection to reality, which allows for any form of causation, at the quantum level we see strange things happening because thing doing the changing and one being changed fuse into one.

[jogayot]

to baraminology: 2. but at the macroscopic level the only way i can agree to free will being possible is on account of a form of this co-operative modification (where there are environmental, memory and other signals). but if determination to do/change something was not extant (unchanging) in time we would be on the whims of our constant internal changes, like i described before.

[baraminology]

So here's the big question -- if agency/choice does not exist, then how is one thought better or more right than another? If they are both the product of deterministic or stochastic mechanisms, then how would you know if someone's reasoning is good or bad? You could only say, "it is happenstance that I happen to think that you are wrong." The existence of choice and agency are fundamental to reason. If you get rid of them, you get rid of reason.

[jogayot]

to B: uhm... all thoughts are equally valid, it's their applicability that matters. there is no absolute good or evil. if at all the root of problem is that will is divided. you are mixing reason as applied to couse and effect and rational thought that is based on perceiving causality. I know it's easy to mix up. R. Penrose at the beginning of his "Road to Reality" describes clearily circularity of the problem. And that i keep discussing it here i think it has all to do with set theory paradox.

[jogayot]

stop projecting your psyche onto world and imaginary god... we might feel choice, but please think about it really, what if we had no memory? how would you realize your choice if you could not remember your "choice" but then again would memory work if it was not already determined? stop muddling the waters. read about chaos theory, read what evolution theory really says, we see microevolution happenning in single cell organisms, there is no need to be stuck with 2000+ year old children story!

[quedorf]

I agree with everything you wrote, except one thing. I really don't believe the Bible is a children story. Parts of it are too violent and disturbing for children. Especially the old testament. God has real issues in that one.

[jogayot]

right, but if one wants to create warriors of the cause that might not be too uncomfortable for the young minds. surely world is cruel and those evil evolutionists rationalizing their debauchery are just such wimps when you confront them with god's wrath.