That was the number one definition of "person" in my OED, "an individual human being". That's why I chose it. For "personhood" I find "the quality or condition of being an individual person". What else did you have in mind? — Metaphysician Undercover
Clearly that order arose by design. You specified the desired order, you threw the dice intentionally to create that order, and succeeded in creating that order. — Metaphysician Undercover
The problem is that accidents and mistakes are inherent to intentional acts. So if someone is trying to produce one thing, and instead they produce something not quite as intended, this does not mean that the thing produced was not designed. — Metaphysician Undercover
The universe displays order, and the property of having been designed, as described above in my proposal, with the concept of "inertia". — Metaphysician Undercover
. If something actually existed without order, it could not even appear to us at all. It would be so random, from one moment to the next (and that's an extremely short time), that it could not even appear to our senses which are programmed to perceive order. For example, some people propose that this sort of randomness exists at the quantum level. But this randomness doesn't even appear to our senses at all. — Metaphysician Undercover
Therefore, I believe that if a "state" appears to us, it is necessarily designed, because we could not perceive a disordered state. — Metaphysician Undercover
But as I explained to Terrapin, this is not actually how we make such a judgement. We actually judge in the opposite way. We find all sorts of things which we believe were designed, and we judge that they were created with intention, by people. — Metaphysician Undercover
in reality we cannot judge intention through observation, and we really observe to see whether the thing was designed, then conclude that it was made with intention. There is no way to observe intention in action, so we must judge the characteristics of the thing to determine whether there was intention. — Metaphysician Undercover
What is the measure of complexity? What is its unit value? How is it defined?
I think the quote makes sense, but only intuitively and qualitatively, not quantitatively.
If it's not quantifiable, then talking about multiples of the quality is meaningless.
I.e. "the Mona Lisa is 5.4 times more beautiful than "The Scream" by Munck." Beauty is not quantifiable. The same problem exists with complexity. — god must be atheist
Everything physical behaves according to the laws of physics. If the laws of physics are "order", then everything physical is thus ordered. You were asking for examples for order arising out of Chaos. But since everything physical is already ordered, where would such examples come from? — Echarmion
It is interesting to compare the role of a human designer to something like a creator of all that we know as our universe. We are in an awkward position to opine upon the matter. — Valentinus
No, mere complexity is also insufficient; "intelligent design" theory requires specified complexity and/or irreducible complexity to count as evidence of design. Again, the plausibility of such an approach depends on one's opinion of the underlying assumptions. — aletheist
Firstly, I think you are equivocating ordered and 'design'. The way in which a designer makes designs, which are ordered, is fundamentally different from the way nature orders. A designer, by necessity, intervenes on otherwise inanimate material to construct a particular design. A designer, by necessity, is an external force that designs something external to it. Order or patterns, on the other hand, is a more encompassing term and includes designs (i.e. patterns constructed, by an external agent) or self organized patterns. In nature, order and patterning is intrinsic to nature itself. I.e. a 'dog', cat, snowflake are all self organized; those things don't have external agents constructing them, hence they are not 'designed'.
Secondly, even if we equivocate order and design, that heuristic does not support the conclusion. I.e. Even if every design we know has a designer, not every design necessarily has a designer. In the same way that there being clouds in the sky does not imply rain. If rain then cloudy and if designer, then design, yes both of these are true but they are not exhaustive - i.e. the antecedent can still be false while the conclusion true. — aporiap
We're talking about a state which 'appears' designed. One which has a type of order we recognise from other states we know to be designed. — Isaac
Personhood is a core concept in ontology. — Terrapin Station
Order is a subjective opinion, it's just a pattern we recognise. — Isaac
I could as easily have accidentally dropped the dice, if they landed 1,2,3,4,5,6, I'd say "oh look, that's an order I recognise". Nothing to do with intent. Same thing would happen if they were my phone number, but to you that would just be random. — Isaac
Possibly, but that principle doesn't extend to an object created entirely by accident, without the intention to make anything at all. — Isaac
No. This is the main issue. You're conflating 'ordered' with 'designed', the two do not describe the same thing at all, that is the very crux of the matter, you can't just assume it. — Isaac
What you described was a perfectly adequate working description of 'order', and yes, the universe exhibits such structure. But how can you justify saying it also bears the hallmarks of being 'designed' simply because you've recognised 'order'? — Isaac
Yes, all this is true of 'order', but my statement was about appearing to have been 'designed' a different property from merely being 'ordered'. — Isaac
Same conflation. 'designed' in the first part, 'ordered' in the second. The two terms are not simply interchangeable.
Even if we did accept this, it would simply be the claim that all ordered things must have been designed, which is the very issue. — Isaac
Do you have any evidence for this? I don't judge things that way for one. — Isaac
We can. We just ask. — Isaac
Maybe it’s because the way we define ‘design’ differs. What did you think of my definition.Assuming that I am conflating design and order what could be the reason for that? Could it be because the inference that order implies design(er) is a well-founded heuristic? — TheMadFool
My understanding of ‘irreducible’ in the term irreducible complexity is irreducible with respect to function - ie, the object cannot function unless all its parts are present, functioning and arranged in a necessary way. I don’t think this necessarily implies designer. I can think, for example, of a protein, which by that definition is irreducibly complex. A functional protein is formed by an unguided, semi-stochastic process of protein folding.@aletheist made a pertinent remark viz. that complexity itself isn't sufficient to infer a designer. We need irreducible complexity. What is your opinion on irreducible complexity which basically states that if object x is irreducible complex then it shouldn't be possible for an object y, through small increments, to become x?
To this issue of irreducible complexity I simply draw your attention to human creativity. Which is a sign of greater designing ability - a computer program that is task-specific or an artificial intelligence that evolves and adapts and can make your morning coffee or crunch numbers for a space program?
I don’t think order implies a designer - part of that is because the examples of natural, order - snowflakes, molecules, galactic filaments- are so numerous and we know the mechanisms and none of them require an external intelligent designing agent for their generation. — aporiap
If it is a "pattern we recognize" then it is something within the thing itself (objective). — Metaphysician Undercover
if a person happens to judge that there is order in the outcome, then there actually is order in that outcome. — Metaphysician Undercover
The fact that you happened to drop them makes that particular aspect of the thing created (the precise time of the roll or something like that), unintentional, but it does not remove the intent which was behind the act as a whole. — Metaphysician Undercover
An accident, or mistake only occurs as part of an intentional act, so "object created entirely by accident, without the intention to make anything at all", is just contradictory nonsense. — Metaphysician Undercover
So the subject wants to justify the claim of "order", by pointing to something real, a real order in the object. The only recourse for the subject is to appeal to an ordered creation (design). — Metaphysician Undercover
This is another nonsensical point of departure. Look around you, in your house, at all the objects. How many of these objects do you judge to have been created with intention? — Metaphysician Undercover
How many of these objects have you observed a "person" or some such thing, creating? — Metaphysician Undercover
Did you make the judgement that certain things were created intentionally, by imagining, or referred to in your mind, images or propositions about how the things were actually produced, manufactured by equipment and human beings, or did you make the judgement simply by seeing something about the object? — Metaphysician Undercover
I don't know of anyone who would think about the manufacturing process when making the judgement that an object was intentionally designed. — Metaphysician Undercover
Isn't the more natural way of making such a judgement to look for evidence of sculpting on the stone itself? — Metaphysician Undercover
the person asked might not know the truth, might pretend to know the truth when not knowing, or might not speak the truth (deception). — Metaphysician Undercover
The artifact often lasts a lot longer than the person who made it, in this case there is really no reliable person alive to ask. — Metaphysician Undercover
Actually, we do not really know these mechanisms. We can describe these processes to an extent, provide a partial description of them, but not enough to say that a designing agent is not necessary. As I explained a couple posts back, the fundamental aspect of such processes, which we take for granted, inertia (the tendency for things to remain the same as time passes), which is how we describe temporal order, cannot be accounted for without an appeal to a designing agent. — Metaphysician Undercover
No, I'm saying there is no such thing as 'actually' order. Order is entirely a subjective judgement, no 'actually' about it. — Isaac
I don't agree with your interpretation. I think it defines away the meaning of intent. Why is 'carrying the dice' and intentional act and not just 'going about my day' (which happened to involve carrying dice), or 'living my life'. — Isaac
The subject wanting to justify some judgement does not in itself mean that they must then be capable of doing so. I want to fly but I can't. — Isaac
Snowflake formation, molecule formation is known with sufficient detail. — aporiap
How does inertia require a designing agent? — aporiap
Just to open it up even further...what do we think there is design at all? For example I think determinism fits poorly with design. Snowflake patterns, evolution and me making a bowl on a pottery wheel, it's all just dominoes falling. — Coben
I don't mean to be pestering, but what quantum mechanicals unknowns? All the quantum mechanics needed to understand basic subatomic interactions is well characterized: orbital geometries, bonding interactions between orbitals. The activities of the relevant subatomic particles - electrons and protons, are well known.This is obviously untrue, as evidenced by the unknowns within quantum mechanics. Just because we can observe enough of the process to make us believe that we understand it, doesn't mean that we actually understand the activities of those subatomic particles involved in these processes. And until we understand those activities of those subatomic particles, we cannot say that they haven't been designed to behave in the way that they do. — Metaphysician Undercover
We are working with different definitions of inertia. Your definition, the tendency of parts of an object to remain together over time, is not the same as the traditional definition of inertia, the tendency of an object to maintain its state of motion - either continuing at a certain velocity or remaining at rest. I don't think either of these require a designer.Do you understand that every massive body is composed of parts? And, the parts within a massive body are not necessarily arranged in the way that they are, so as to make that particular mass. However, as time passes, the mass retains its composition, (parts not flying off in different directions), and this is inertia. This requires that the parts are "ordered" to maintain the existence of that massive body. As I explained to Isaac (who has now ignored my explanation and opted for an absolutely useless definition of "order"), the only way that we know of, by which these elements could be ordered like this, is through design.
This example avoids the difference in our definition of design, and its influence on the arguments. If you agree with me that self organization is not the same as design then, by definition, order in the universe is not a result of design and you would agree with me that examples such as the one above has no bearing on the question of whether order in the universe is designed.I'd like to refer you back to the notion of complexity when you draw from nature or the universe for examples of undesigned order.
To illustrate take the example of clocks/watches. Chronometers began as sun dials and water clocks. They were then replaced by pendulum or mechanical clocks which were in turn superseded by digital versions. I've heard of people refer to this as "progress" from the primitive to the modern and is understandable in terms of increasing complexity. This increased complexity indicates increased knowledge and designing capability.
Since everything in nature is "surely" better designed than anything we humans are capable of i.e. is even more complex we should actually infer a better, far more knowledgeable designer than no designer; just like a digital watch is better designed than a sun dial. — TheMadFool
I don't mean to be pestering, but what quantum mechanicals unknowns? All the quantum mechanics needed to understand basic subatomic interactions is well characterized: orbital geometries, bonding interactions between orbitals. The activities of the relevant subatomic particles - electrons and protons, are well known. — aporiap
If what you mean by "we cannot say they haven't been designed to behave the way in they do" is that until we have an explanation for why they behave that way, we can't say they haven't been designed to do so, then I'd also disagree saying it's not the forming of snowflakes that's designed, it's the fundamental constants and forces that are designed to be the way they are. — aporiap
The designer would have to be explained as well as, by being able to interact with matter, it must have some sort of form or mechanism of interacting. This implies there's a logic or order to the way the designer works. This order would then need to be accounted for. — aporiap
We are working with different definitions of inertia. Your definition, the tendency of parts of an object to remain together over time, is not the same as the traditional definition of inertia, the tendency of an object to maintain its state of motion - either continuing at a certain velocity or remaining at rest. I don't think either of these require a designer. — aporiap
The first case can be explained by just fundamental forces at work - at small scales [electron to maybe hundreds of kilometer range] electromagnetic force is most influential contributor to bodies maintaining their composition; at larger scales gravity is the most influential contributor.
The second case can be explained by general and special relativity. — aporiap
As a retired Architect, I have some understanding of Design and Blueprints. And I do see evidence of design intent in the world, but the nature of the artist can only be inferred from the nature of the artwork. However, most arguments against a designing deity, point-out the imperfections and failures of the so-called design. So I no longer use those terms in my discussions of a philosopher's First Cause.Why does a perfectly normal person infer a designer/occupant from a well-ordered room/space and then contradict him/herself by rejecting a designer for the universe which too is well-ordered? — TheMadFool
I view the world as evolving like a computer program from basic codes and criteria toward an answer to the programmer's "what if?" question. This notion is supported by physicists who have concluded that the material world is essentially mathematical in nature. — Gnomon
Where could true design occur, if thing, basically, just happen one thing after another? — Coben
I don't know if that argument holds. What I am saying is we are not designers if determinism holds for us. Stuff gets inevitably made, including the plans to make.Let's suppose determinism is true and we lack free will. However one thing is certain - we're capable of rational judgment and analysis which informs us that order is strongly associated with a designer. So, despite a lack of free will, we must conclude that the universe has a designer. — TheMadFool
I don't know if that argument holds. What I am saying is we are not designers if determinism holds for us. Stuff gets inevitably made, including the plans to make.
So I am not sure we even know what 'design' means. Perhaps God has free will. But we have no coherent model for what that is. If we believe in determinism I don't think 'design' is a meaningful concept. — Coben
It certainly wouldn't preclude consciousness nor the ability to comprehend truths - (though as a side note, if one believes one is determined, one can then never be quite sure what is making you believe X is true.) But neither of those is designing, I think. IOW you responded to me saying that determinism precludes design - and I gave a way of looking at what we produce as not design - but writing that 'how we humans design' is a truth.
I think we may be writing past each other here.
My point is if my making a pot was determined in the Big Bang, I don't think it makes sense to think of me as a designer. Nor more than a plant producing a bloom, or a could producing those beautiful, seemingly designed snowflakes.
Personally I am agnostic as far as determinism and free will. But it seems to me if one believes in determinism, design - any design, human, animal - no longer makes sense. Stuff just happens. An architect plans a house, but that plan was determined long before he was born. Atoms bash into atoms, molecules follow their paths. This isn't design, it is just inevitable unfolding. — Coben
1) I don't think determinism precludes correctly recognizing order in the universe. Though if we believe in determinism, its seems to me there is always an asterisk, since we are compelled to believe it and then compelled to think X and Y are the reasons we believe in it, we can never be quite sure if we are being rational or not. 2) I don't see where order necessitates design. 3) I still don't know what design means in a deterministic universe.So you agree that even if determinism were true, we'd still be able to recognize order in the universe and also be able to reason — TheMadFool
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