I think they would argue that the personality of the designer is an extrapolation of the designers we know and there is some basis for assuming a universe designer would prefer non-boring universes. If all you knew was that there was a universe designer, and you were shown this universe, would you be surprised by it? Not surprised at the particulars (e.g., the moon is that exact size and Saturn is exactly X amount of miles from the sun), but rather surprised the universe the designer designed is full of complexity and life? — RogueAI

That is exactly why I don't claim to know anything about the hypothetical designer of the universe. As an agnostic, and Bible unbeliever, I have no direct revelation from God, and no personal relationship. But I do have professional training and experience as a designer (architect). So I feel that I know something about how design works : from immaterial idea (concept) to material instantiation (something that did not exist before).

For example, if the product of design is "full of complexity and life", I must assume that the designer intended to create that kind of product/result/embodiment. Also, the designer must have the potential (creative & constructive power) for such characteristics. A human designer can have one of many personality types. But the Cause of a whole universe must have the potential for all possible types. Not just the tyrannical ruler or loving father personalities. :nerd:

the Ontological contingency of the whole world --- something from nothing --- would be a priori instead of a posteriori. — Gnomon

Are you suggesting the world came from nothing? This would entail a temporally prior state of nothingness, which is metaphysically impossible.

I suggested that there was a first cause - an initial state, that exists uncaused. It didn't come from anything, because that would imply it was caused. If you believe the world itself is contingent, then how do you account for the contingency, ontologically? I argued that the first cause/initial state must be necessary, specifically because it's existence is not contingent upon anything.

Your probability estimate*2 would be plausible if the universe was eternal and exists (just happens to be) without any reason or cause — Gnomon

My probability estimate is based on a finite past with a large number of contingent events having occurred during the course of its existence, due to quantum indeterminacy. Quantum collapse is statistical - there is a finite probability associated with the outcome of each collapse, and it is therefore calculable, in principle - actual numerical probability applies.

An initial state implies:

• a finite past, not an eternal one,
• that time commences from the initial state forward.
• there is no state of affairs that precedes the initial state

You said "first cause does not entail a being that acts with intentionality". That's true, the Big Bang could have been a cosmically destructive explosion, instead of the creative beginning of a world of living and thinking creatures. But the improbability of accidental existence of a 14billion-year-train-wreck, which produces sentient beings who act with intention, does imply an intentional act of creation. — Gnomon

You're assuming the Big Bang was the beginning of material reality. I don't think many cosmologists would agree with you on that. We simply don't know what preceded it. I believe the past is finite for philosophical reasons: it would imply a completed process of infinitely many, temporally sequenced steps.

"Accidental" existence? I indicated that the initial state (whatever it may be, and that includes a creator) exists as brute fact. As I showed, it's not contingent because there is nothing prior to account for (F or ~F) - where F is the first cause/initial state. Does your definition of "accident" allow for "accidents" that are metaphysically necessary? Traditionally, the term has been considered to imply contingency.

But the improbability of accidental existence of a 14billion-year-train-wreck, which produces sentient beings who act with intention, does imply an intentional act of creation. :smile: — Gnomon

So...you think it MORE probable that a intentional being (with enormous power and an enormously complex mind) that happens to exist uncaused is MORE probable than the gradual development of beings with small power and limited intellect over the course of billions of years in an enormous universe! (fully consistent with entropy, as described in statistical thermodynamics)?

You seem to treat intelligent life as a design objective, rather than simply a consequence of the way the world happens to be. This is the issue I was referencing when I suggested you were taking a restrospective view of the current state of the universe, and noting the enormous number of low probability events along the way to our existence. Reminds me of a quote of John Earman's":

“Imagine, if you will, the wonderment of a species of mud worms who discover that if the constant of thermometric conductivity of mud were different by a small percentage they would not be able to survive.”

Were mud different, mud worms would not exist. So what? Were the universe different, we wouldn't exist. So what?

Here's a relevant quote from Richard Feynman:

“You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight... I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!”

The point is, the mere fact that something improbable has occurred is not at all remarkable. It would be worth investigating only if it were a statistical anomaly. But our world is no more, and no less, likely than any other. It happens to have intelligent beings in it, but alternative worlds that might otherwise have come into existence would have had other sorts of things in it that would be improbable.

So their case is hopeless, i think. It depends upon them mistakenly thinking they're entitled to stack the deck in their favour by inferring personality traits that their only evidence for would be based - queston beggingly - on the assumption that this is the approximately the kind of world an intelligence would design. — Clearbury

Usually the design proponent likens the designer to an all-powerful, omnibenevolent god, who would prefer universes with life in it, but that has problems too when you think about all the suffering that goes on in the natural world.

Still, like I said earlier. Suppose all you know is that a universe designer exists and you're presented with a universe that lasts a trillionth of a second before it collapses in on itself. Out of all the designs it could have come up with, it settled on that one? I would be surprised. Wouldn't you?

Are you suggesting the world came from nothing? This would entail a temporally prior state of nothingness, which is metaphysically impossible. — Relativist

No. Just the opposite. I agree that such a notion is "metaphysically impossible". Lawrence Krauss wrote a book named A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing. But, his "nothing" turned out to be a strange sort of something : a fluctuating quantum field, complete with governing laws and empowering energy. So, his "nothing" simply meant "no gods".

And yet, his powerful & lawful mathematical field has most of the characteristics of a First Cause, including Reason in the form of mathematical logic, but excepting Intention in the form of an idea to be implemented. Do you act with Intention? If so, how do you think that ability to foresee the future emerged from nothing but random fluctuations? :nerd:

You're assuming the Big Bang was the beginning of material reality. I don't think many cosmologists would agree with you on that. We simply don't know what preceded it. I believe the past is finite for philosophical reasons: it would imply a completed process of infinitely many, temporally sequenced steps — Relativist

Apparently, since you "don't know" the cause of the beginning, the "speculative" Multiverse hypothesis --- "infinitely many, temporally sequenced steps" --- must be just an article of faith for you. I agree that "we don't know what preceded" the Big Bang. So, any preternatural Cause we might postulate is a shot in the dark. That's why I am not a Theist or a Multiversist, but an Agnostic speculating philosopher.

Yet, lack of hard evidence has never deterred philosophers from reasoning about the unknowable. Therefore, just as astronomers reasoned backwards from current conditions to guess at the original state of the cosmos, I observe the world 14B years after the Big Pop, and reason back to the logically necessary conditions required to explode a near-infinite universe into being. One of those conditions is the Potential for Life & Mind must have preceded the Bang. :wink:

The multiverse is a speculative idea that's not considered proven, and there's no direct evidence that it exists. ___Google AI overview

Although some scientists have analyzed data in search of evidence for other universes, no statistically significant evidence has been found. Critics argue that the multiverse concept lacks testability and falsifiability, which are essential for scientific inquiry, and that it raises unresolved metaphysical issues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse

So...you think it MORE probable that a intentional being (with enormous power and an enormously complex mind) that happens to exist uncaused is MORE probable than the gradual development of beings with small power and limited intellect over the course of billions of years in an enormous universe! (fully consistent with entropy, as described in statistical thermodynamics)? — Relativist

Yes. We no longer debate the evidence for "gradual development", just take it for granted. What we do debate is how that process began : by accident or by design? If you don't see evidence of Design in the world, then your definition of "design" may be different from mine. In college, I participated in a Design by Accident exercise, and the lesson learned was that the result of accidents is Chaos instead of Cosmos.

Please note that I make no assertions about a "complex mind". Instead, the world-causing mind is assumed to be Simple in the sense of unitary, yet with enormous Potential. The complexity of our universe came into existence when infinite Potential transformed into finite Actual in an "enormous" act of Creation. Prior to the Bang, Infinity/Eternity is a simple all-inclusive concept implying "all things possible".

Moreover, it is obvious that the Cause of the Big Bang possessed "enormous power". Regarding the notion of "uncaused first cause", perhaps we should just say "eternal Cause". Which would apply to a God or a Multiverse. If you prefer to think that random rolling of dice produced our lawful and orderly world, I can't prove otherwise. But you can't prove that the initial conditions (like computer settings) just happened without intention. That's a belief, not a fact. :smile:

The point is, the mere fact that something improbable has occurred is not at all remarkable. It would be worth investigating only if it were a statistical anomaly. — Relativist

I'm not competent to judge the statistical improbability of a universe popping into existence, from who knows where or when or how. But if anyone is qualified, perhaps Nobel laureate Roger Penrose is the guy. In a previous reply to Relativist, I noted :
Obviously, Roger Penrose's interest has been piqued by the improbability of our existence. So, he has taken the time to put a number on that near impossibility. If the calculated odds of 10^10^100 to 1 do not sound like a miracle to you, then you may be impervious to philosophical curiosity. :cool:

Apparently, since you "don't know" the cause of the beginning, the "speculative" Multiverse hypothesis --- "infinitely many, temporally sequenced steps" --- must be just an article of faith for you — Gnomon

Nope. There may, or may not, be a multiverse. Either way, it has no relevance to anything I've said. Perhaps you misunderstood my use of the term "this universe". I just meant the actual universe, as opposed to any non-actual, possible universes (where the possibilities are due to the instances of quantum indeterminacy in our history).

Do you act with Intention? If so, how do you think that ability to foresee the future emerged from nothing but random fluctuations? — Gnomon

Yes, of course. We form intentions and act upon them. This ability emerged through evolution- there's clearly a survival value.

Yes. We no longer debate the evidence for "gradual development", just take it for granted. What we do debate is how that process began : by accident or by design? If you don't see evidence of Design in the world, then your definition of "design" may be different from mine. In college, I participated in a Design by Accident exercise, and the lesson learned was that the result of accidents is Chaos instead of Cosmos. — Gnomon

A Japanese Cosmologist has estimated the probability that a self-replicating molecule could have formed by pure chance. See this. The probability is low in any given instance, but the larger the universe is, the more likely it would occur at least once. And this is a worst case scenario. This is sufficient to start evolution.

The development of complexity over time is consistent with statistical thermodynamics. See this.

I make no assertions about a "complex mind". Instead, the world-causing mind is assumed to be Simple in the sense of unitary, yet with enormous Potential. — Gnomon

How could a mind intentionally create a universe that would lead to life, unless it could somehow figure out how the universe would evolve? This seems to require considerable knowledge. How could it even work things out in the absence of time?
Theist philosophers claim "God" has magical knowledge (i.e. omniscience; knowledge that wasn't developed but just exists). That is at least coherent. How do you account for your "world-causing mind" having the ability to design a complex universe that will produce life over the course of billions of years? Did it acquire knowledge by trial and error, and reasoning?

Moreover, it is obvious that the Cause of the Big Bang possessed "enormous power". Regarding the notion of "uncaused first cause", perhaps we should just say "eternal Cause". Which would apply to a God or a Multiverse. — Gnomon

Define "power". Certainly, the inflationary period was a low entropy/high energy state.

No, I don't agree the first cause is/was eternal. As I said, I believe the past finite. But even if you define "eternal" as existing at all points of time, it doesn't imply the first cause fits that, because the first cause was a specific statements of affairs that at its initial conditions. But if we set aside the temporal evolution of reality, we could perhaps say that reality (as a whole) is eternal (existing at all times).

If you prefer to think that random rolling of dice produced our lawful and orderly world, I can't prove otherwise. But you can't prove that the initial conditions (like computer settings) just happened without intention.

Neither position can be proved deductively, but it's reasonable to draw an inference to best explanation.

We know that complexity can arise from simpler conditions (again, see this).

We also have empirical evidence that minds are dependent on the physical: memories are lost due to disease and trauma. Knowledge is an organized set of memories, memories that are developed over time.

The alternative depends on ad hoc assumptions: an unembodied mind is metaphysically possible; that knowledge needn't be physically encoded nor caused/developed over time. Of course, all of these things are logically possible, so faith in such things isn't vulnerable to being disproven. But if you think this is somehow a better explanation, then please make the case.

I'm not competent to judge the statistical improbability of a universe popping into existence, — Gnomon

I hope you don't rely on this false dichotomy to make your case. As discussed before, finite past does not entail "popping into existence". If you agree the past is finite, then you should agree that the initial state exists as necessary brute fact (unless you make some addition hoc assumption that exempts a "god" from being a brute fact). The question is: which is the more plausible brute fact?

Obviously, Roger Penrose's interest has been piqued by the improbability of our existence. So, he has taken the time to put a number on that near impossibility. If the calculated odds of 10^10^100 to 1 do not sound like a miracle to you, then you may be impervious to philosophical curiosity. :cool: — Gnomon

Are you making an argument from non-aurhority? Penrose is a physicist, not a metaphysician. He seems to be treating life as as objectively special, which strikes me as chauvinism. Life, especially intelligent life, is important to us. That doesn't imply it is objectively important. Objectively, it is a type of object. This universe (the one that we know exists) happens to have produced types of objects that we label as "living". You and Penrose seem to be treating this type of object in a privileged way. I get it, that this is the nature of religion: that we are special to God.

I acknowledge it's possibly true - but arguments such as Penrose, or proponents of the Fine Tuning Argument, tend to overlook that their arguments depend on the (Theistic) premise that we are something more than a type of thing. If there is no God, who wished to create intelligent beings, then we are not objectively special. So to assume we're objectively special is what entails a God. Fine-tuning arguments add no support to the position.

Usually the design proponent likens the designer to an all-powerful, omnibenevolent god, who would prefer universes with life in it, but that has problems too when you think about all the suffering that goes on in the natural world.

Still, like I said earlier. Suppose all you know is that a universe designer exists and you're presented with a universe that lasts a trillionth of a second before it collapses in on itself. Out of all the designs it could have come up with, it settled on that one? I would be surprised. Wouldn't you? — RogueAI

The typical "omnibenevolent" designer proposal would be a Straw Man argument on this thread. The OP indicates that Stephen Meyer carefully avoids advocating the "omnibenevolent" bible-god, and focuses his attention on the scientific evidence for an intelligent First Cause.

Your second point is more to the point, except that it assumes the Designer created a Big Bang, which like fourth of July fireworks explodes into a puff of dust*1 full of suffering for sentient beings. Sounds like the human rocket scientists whose trial runs self-destruct after a few seconds.

Yet, that's not what the science says happened. Instead, the ongoing creation event was a sudden expansion of cosmic Potential from a mathematical Singularity seed (computer operating system) into a self-sustaining (14B years) Evolution of novel Variations (mutations ; options) to be naturally Selected based on criteria in the Initial Conditions (preset values for a computer program). De-selection might involve suffering for variables that don't pass the fitness filter. Would you be surprised if you observed such an unlikely event from your privileged position as a philosopher in the nothingness of pre-space? :nerd:

PS___ If you were raised to believe in an omni-benevolent God, as I was, you might be disappointed to go out into the real world, and discover that it's not all benevolence & blessings. My philosophical First Cause is intelligent & creative, and pragmatic, but not loving. Something like the Vulcans of Star Trek.

*1. God's Debris : A Thought Experiment - Scott Adams
https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Debris-Experiment-Scott-Adams/dp/0740747878

ROCKET SCIENCE


COSMIC DESIGNER


COSMIC EVOLUTION

How do you account for your "world-causing mind" having the ability to design a complex universe that will produce life over the course of billions of years? Did it acquire knowledge by trial and error, and reasoning? — Relativist

The default religious answer is Omniscience. But I don't pontificate beyond the bare facts of an inexplicable beginning. Everything else is amateur speculation. And your guess is as good as mine. But, of course, I prefer mine.

The First Cause is a philosophical principle, not a religious deity. But, if you want to conjecture : perhaps an eternal Being passes the timelessness by creating model worlds and learning from failures how to make a world that lasts over 14B sol-cycles.

I don't post on this forum just to parrot scientific facts from "experts". The philosophical fun is in conjecturing beyond what meets the eye, by means of informed inference : reasoning. :smile:

The development of complexity over time is consistent with statistical thermodynamics. See this. — Relativist

I agree. But only if you include in the statistical analysis a complementary principle (law?) to counteract the destructive effects associated with Entropy. My name for that constructive principle is Enformy. :nerd:

Enformy :
In the Enformationism theory, Enformy is a hypothetical, holistic, metaphysical, natural trend or force, that counteracts Entropy & Randomness to produce Complexity & Progress. [ see post 63 for graph ]
1. I'm not aware of any "supernatural force" in the world. But my Enformationism theory postulates that there is a meta-physical force behind Time's Arrow and the positive progress of evolution. Just as Entropy is sometimes referred to as a "force" causing energy to dissipate (negative effect), Enformy is the antithesis, which causes energy to agglomerate (additive effect).
2. Of course, neither of those phenomena is a physical Force, or a direct Cause, in the usual sense. But the term "force" is applied to such holistic causes as a metaphor drawn from our experience with physics.
3. "Entropy" and "Enformy" are scientific/technical terms that are equivalent to the religious/moralistic terms "Evil" and "Good". So, while those forces are completely natural, the ultimate source of the power behind them may be preternatural, in the sense that the First Cause logically existed before the Big Bang.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

How do you account for your "world-causing mind" having the ability to design a complex universe that will produce life over the course of billions of years? Did it acquire knowledge by trial and error, and reasoning?
— Relativist
The default religious answer is Omniscience. But I don't pontificate beyond the bare facts of an inexplicable beginning. Everything else is amateur speculation. And your guess is as good as mine. But, of course, I prefer mine. — Gnomon

Your speculation referred to a "world-causing mind", and you also suggested it has intentionality. Why think this unknown state of affairs is a mind and that it acts intentionally? Labelling it "mind" suggests it has some minimum set of properties common to all minds what are these?

The development of complexity over time is consistent with statistical thermodynamics. See this.
— Relativist
I agree. But only if you include in the statistical analysis a complementary principle (law?) to counteract the destructive effects associated with Entropy. My name for that constructive principle is Enformy. :nerd: — Gnomon

Your "enformy" is based on the false premise that entropy is a measure of disorder. From the paper I linked:

"Misinterpretations of entropy and conflation with additional misunderstandings of the second law of thermodynamics are ubiquitous among scientists and non-scientists alike and have been used by creationists as the basis of unfounded arguments against evolutionary theory. Entropy is not disorder or chaos or complexity or progress towards those states. Entropy is a metric, a measure of the number of different ways that a set of objects can be arranged."

I don't see how you're addressing my criticism. Yes, if we have already established that this world is the product of an intelligence, then one can infer from its character certain dispositions on the part of the designer.

But whether the world is a product of intelligent design is precisely what is at issue. You can't just assume it and then make inferences from it.

So we must start out by asking the question 'is this world more likely a product of intelligent design or chance'? Well, we are not allowed to start out by assuming a designer with a particular character. So, do to the calculation we must consider how many different plans and intentiosn a designer may have. And there's the problem: there are going to be a potential infinite number. Certainly the odds of there being a designer who wished to create a world such as this are going to be everybit as long as the odds that a world such as this arose by chance. And given that the latter is a simpler thesis than the former - it doesn't assume a designer - then the chance thesis is the more reasonable one, other things being equal.

Lawrence Krauss wrote a book named A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing. But, his "nothing" turned out to be a strange sort of something : a fluctuating quantum field, complete with governing laws and empowering energy. So, his "nothing" simply meant "no gods". — Gnomon

You might be interested to know that this book got a savage review in the New York Times from David Albert, who is a professor of physics and expert in interpretations of quantum physics:

The particular, eternally persisting, elementary physical stuff of the world, according to the standard presentations of relativistic quantum field theories, consists (unsurprisingly) of relativistic quantum fields. And the fundamental laws of this theory take the form of rules concerning which arrangements of those fields are physically possible and which aren’t, and rules connecting the arrangements of those fields at later times to their arrangements at earlier times, and so on — and they have nothing whatsoever to say on the subject of where those fields came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular kinds of fields it does, or of why it should have consisted of fields at all, or of why there should have been a world in the first place. Period. Case closed. End of story. — David Albert

Story goes that Krauss reacted furiously to this review and kicked up a huge stink. (This is all 12 years ago mind you.) In the end, Daniel Dennett had to take him aside and tell him to cool it.

Krauss may be a good science writer and communicator, but he's an absolutely crap philosopher as far as many are concerned.

So we must start out by asking the question 'is this world more likely a product of intelligent design or chance'? Well, we are not allowed to start out by assuming a designer with a particular character. So, [to do] the calculation we must consider how many different plans and intentiosn a designer may have. And there's the problem: there are going to be a potential infinite number. Certainly the odds of there being a designer who wished to create a world such as this are going to be everybit as long as the odds that a world such as this arose by chance. And given that the latter is a simpler thesis than the former - it doesn't assume a designer - then the chance thesis is the more reasonable one, other things being equal. — Clearbury

:clap: :100:

IME, woo-woo warriors like @Gnomon can't grok parsimony in either science or philosophy.

Certainly the odds of there being a designer who wished to create a world such as this are going to be every bit as long as the odds that a world such as this arose by chance. — Clearbury

I don't think of God as being like a kind of super-engineer, a cosmic designer who literally oversees all the details of the cellular biology and organic life. Classical theism - not the beliefs of modern-day evangelicals on the whole - says that God is 'simple' (meaning not composed of parts) - not something which is more complex than the Universe that He has created.

The argument that I think is persuasive, at least to me, is the version of the cosmological anthropic argument that stresses the very small numbers of constants that are required to have very specific properties, in order for complex matter of any kind to form. 'Just Six Numbers' is the title of a book on that. Mind you, that book is not an 'argument from design' and its author stays mum on whether he believes in God, presenting that as one among other hypotheses. But the idea that all of what exists is dependent upon a very small number of specific constraints seems more in line with the idea of divine simplicity, than examination of the massive complexity of life and the universe.

As to the argument that the fundamental constraints are 'brute fact', and the existence of anything is dumb luck, I wonder if that amounts to any kind of explanation at all.

I say this, because the idea of God as a designer or super-engineer is wildly mistaken even for those who don't believe in any kind of higher power. I think it arises from attempting to scale up a naturalistic understanding to a cosmic scale, but it's not informed by any kind of insight into the who or what of God.

That said, Stephen Meyer's 'scientific intelligent design' is subject to criticism by other Christians, as I've already noted upthread, on similar grounds (e.g. here and here). For a popular-level insight into classical theism, have a read of God does not Exist, by Pierre Whalon (and no, it's not atheist polemics) and also He Is Who He Is, a review of a book by David Bentley Hart. These might, at least, make it a little clearer what the God is that we don't believe in.