Normal people, including people who make the above counter-argument, actually think the exact opposite. We can run an experiment with two rooms A and B. A is in disarray with things in no particular order and B is neat and objects have been arranged in a discernable pattern. If someone, anyone, were to be taken into the two rooms and asked which room probably had an occupant then the answer would invariably be room B. I don't think anyone will/can disagree with this deduction. — TheMadFool
We can make a distinction between things that people make and things that aren't made by people. — Terrapin Station
I just thought of something and would like your opinion on it.
Consider the universe as the universal set U. Now the design argument works by picking a subset D consisting of human-designed objects and then generalizes it to the set U.
Now, someone may reject the design argument by referring to another subset of U, call it R, which consists of objects that have order e.g. a flower but obviously isn't human-designed.
As you can see both arguments are on an equal footing, referencing a subset of U and then generalizing to U itself. — TheMadFool
You have a point but if order is insufficient to prove a designer can you give me a counterexample? — TheMadFool
I don't bemoan the lack of life in the enormously overwhelming proportion of the universe.What would be the intent/goal of the designer? Why would it create an enormous universe that is mostly inhospitable to life? What's the point? — Harry Hindu
It seems to me that disorder doesn't necessarily mean that their isn't a designer either. — Harry Hindu
Why would it create an enormous universe that is mostly inhospitable to life? — Harry Hindu
The point though, is that there is a number of problems with your approach. The first problem is that if it requires that we see a person making the thing, or that particular type of thing, in order to say that the thing is artificial, then when we find something which has already been made, and we haven't seen a person making that type of thing, we have no way to make any judgement as to whether or not it's artificial. — Metaphysician Undercover
This isn't a good example because the water molecules are chaotic to observers without complete information. To those who possess the right information the molecules will be behaving in accordance with the laws of physics. — TheMadFool
Correct but order definitely involves an agent with intent or a plan if you will. — TheMadFool
Order and order-makers may be randomly generated by a preponederantly choatic universe. — ZzzoneiroCosm
When we get info that we're wrong, then we make the adjustment that we need to make. — Terrapin Station
Here's the proof:
1. Order can only be achieved by an orderer.
2. Only intelligent planners can be orderers.
3. Planners and orderers have order inside of themselves. They are ordered.
4. Nobody can order himself from scratch.
5. Therefore orderers must be ordered by a previous orderer.
6. This leads to infinite regress of orderers.
7. This is possible.
8. But it does not exclude the chain of events, that an orderer can be created by chance in a chaotic system. — god must be atheist
They are mutually exclusive, yes. But they are both possible.To introduce #8, you must reject the conclusion stated as #5. These two contradict each other. But #5 is produced as a conclusion from #1, #3, and #4. So, the order which an orderer has, can only have been produced by a previous orderer, And #8, that an orderer could be produced by chance is excluded by these premises. — Metaphysician Undercover
We can run an experiment with two rooms A and B. A is in disarray with things in no particular order and B is neat and objects have been arranged in a discernable pattern. If someone, anyone, were to be taken into the two rooms and asked which room probably had an occupant then the answer would invariably be room B. I don't think anyone will/can disagree with this deduction. — TheMadFool
They are mutually exclusive, yes. But they are both possible.
Much like it is possible that god exists, and possible that god does not exist. One excludes the other, but both are possible.
You have to see that. If you don't see that, then you can't see how your criticism isn't right. — god must be atheist
The fact that order appears out of chaos, however, does not strike me as particularly special, or even as being such hint. — alcontali
Say that a thing maximizes its own integrity. If it can enter a situation in which other things contribute to its own integrity, it may favour to stay in that situation. If these other things can also maximize their own integrity by maintaining that situation, then none of the things involved, is willing to change the situation. Such situation may be highly improbable, but once it exists, it will refuse to disappear. So, that creates a new, stable thing consisting of a game-theoretical equilibrium between sub-things. — alcontali
So, incredibly complex and orderly situations tend to arise pretty much spontaneously from chaos. As far as I am concerned, they do not necessarily point to an underlying design. They could just arbitrarily be satisfying the conditions of particular game equilibria. — alcontali
How could you ever get info that you're wrong though? If, being created by design required , by definition, that the thing be created by a human being, — Metaphysician Undercover
Not by a human being. What I wrote is "I'm using the sense of 'natural' where it's distinct from 'made by a person.'" I chose those words carefully. "Person" is broader than "human." There can be persons of different species, or even "supernatural" types of persons, if there were to be such things. — Terrapin Station
We learn that we're wrong, when we are, via an investigation into the object in question. Again, we're not simply in the dark when it comes to scientific, forensic, etc. investigations. We can formulate hypotheses and then discover that our assumptions were wrong. The butler didn't kill Mr. Jones, the cook did, for example. We can discover such things via systematic investigations. — Terrapin Station
OK, what defines "a person"? Is a beaver a person, or a bird a person? Is a rock a person? — Metaphysician Undercover
How would one know that one is all-knowing? Would that even qualify as "knowledge"? It seems to me that "all-knowing" is an incoherent term and doesn't make sense to apply that to an entity. It makes more sense to just say the "god" IS the universe. If that is the case, then I prefer to use the term, "universe", and not "all-knowing god", as that includes all sorts of unnecessarily loaded implications.I claim that an all-knowing mind that is capable of creation would not create. It could know instantly what would happen when in this universe. So why go through the effort of making a model, when you know precisely what the model's state and vectors will be at any time in the infinite expanse of time? — god must be atheist
There is nothing wrong with the criticism, because the one (if it is correct) excludes the possibility of the other. So you could say that each of them, or both of them are possible, but it is incorrect to say that they are "both possible", as this implies the two of them collectively.
And you state at #8 "it does not exclude the chain of events...", when actually 1 - 5 does exclude that chain of events. By saying this you imply that the two possibilities are not mutually exclusive, when actually each one excludes the possibility of the other. — Metaphysician Undercover
that an orderer can be created by chance in a chaotic system. — god must be atheist
No, it doesn't. That was my point - that we need to reject this notion that order and design go hand in hand. It is the goal that we need to determine as the goal is the design.Correct but order definitely involves an agent with intent or a plan if you will. — TheMadFool
How would one know that one is all-knowing? — Harry Hindu
It's not. You should think about it more objectively. Claiming a god exists is a positive assertion without any evidence. It is an unfalsifiable claim.There is nothing to know about god. I am on the opinion that there is nothing humans can learn or know about god until things in this world fundamentally change, furthermore, it is not even guaranteed that there is a god or there are gods, it is a belief that there are gods, not knowledge, much like the opinion that there are no gods is not knowledge, but opinion. — god must be atheist
Claiming a god exists is a positive assertion without any evidence. It is an unfalsifiable claim — Harry Hindu
You should think about it more objectively. — Harry Hindu
The problem with this analogy is that you already assume the existence of "a thing", and this implies order. "A thing" is an ordered existence. Lack of order would actually mean a lack of things. In Aristotelian terms a lack of order would simply be the "potential" for existence of a thing. So if you are describing how order comes out of non-order, you cannot start with the existence of a thing, because this is to presume the existence of order already. — Metaphysician Undercover
Maybe you do believe this, but you seem to misunderstand what "chaos", or complete lack of order really entails. — Metaphysician Undercover
"Intelligent design" theory acknowledges that mere order is insufficient, instead requiring "specified complexity" to count as evidence of design. Its proponents cite well-established scientific fields, such as forensics and archaeology, that have particular methods and criteria for distinguishing intentional agency from natural processes.The relevant feature between the universe and a watch is order - a specific arrangement of parts following a set of principles/laws. — TheMadFool
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