Principles of reason seem as jeopardized by an evolutionary account as moral principles are (which are, i take it, just another form of principles of reason anyway), because principles of reason are not part of the physical landscape in which evolutionary forces are operating. Even if they accurately describe that landscape, the fact remains that they are not part of it, and as such all that needs to be posited is the belief in such principles, not the principles themselves.

So to explain why we have the beliefs we do about the sizes and shapes of things in our immediate environment we posit actual sized shaped things in our immediate environment. Being disposed to form approximately accurate beliefs about them would get selected for. So in that case positing the actual existence of what the beliefs are about helps explain why we have them.

But in the case of principles of reason, we do not have to posit the principles themselves, but only the beliefs in them. It is believing in the truth of the law of non-contradiction that helped my father breed more successfully, because by believing in it he would have avoided (for longer) being killed by something shaped and sized. But as it is the shaped and sized thing that would have killed him, not a principle of reason, then we do not have to posit any principles to explain why my father survived and bred.

I don't yet see a way around this. Nothing stops one from supposing that there really are principles of reason, but their actual existence would be pure coincidence given a wholly evolutionary account of our development.

that it is psychologically impossible to believe, — Richard B

That seems false and also not to provide us with a reason to think it solipsism false.

It is not psychologically impossible to believe that you are the only mind in existence. It may not be a very reasonable view - though that's what is at issue - but there is nothing impossible about it. If you are in any doubt about this, just imagine what you'd believe if you woke up as the sole survivor of a nuclear holocaust. You'd believe you're the only mind in existence. That's to believe solipsism is true. It's entirely psychologically possible to believe it, then.

But more importantly, being psychologically incapable of beileving something is not evidence that the proposition in question is false. I find myself psychologically incapable of believing I will die. But that is not evidence I am immortal.

I once received a letter from an eminent logician, Mrs. Christine Ladd-Franklin, saying that she was a solipsist, and was surprised that there were no others. Coming from a logician and a solipsist, her surprise surprised me — Richard B

All that quote from Russell does is reveal how illogical Mrs Christine Ladd-Franklin is. That is, it reveals that she's not very good at understanding the implications of a thesis - which is surprising in a logician. Russell is making fun of Ladd-Franklin, not making fun of solipsism.

Mind without physical body assumption is not simpler than mind with body, because you must explain on how the mind ended up with no body. How can mind operate without body is far more complicated than starting with mind with body which is empirically and logically natural and sound. — Corvus

I think you have missed the point. Posits are not expalined, that's what makes them posits. Positing two things is more complicated than positing one, other things being equal. thus, I posit one thing - a mind - and I see how far I can go with it.

Whether the mind is a material or immaterial thing is actually beside the point. If you posit a material mind then you have not explained it, but posited it. If you posit an immaterial mind then you have not explained it but posited it. If you posit non-mental material things then you have posited them and not explained them. And so on.

It's what the term means. And that's how I am using it. Solipsism is the view that one mind - and one mind alone - exists.

it's not even a view about what minds are made of, as it is entirely compatible with physicalism about minds.

Monism is the view that one kind of stuff exists. The two are not equivalent, for there is no inconsistency in holding that only one mind exists but that the mind in question is made of two kinds of stuff.

Simplicity speaks against that and so it is implicit in my case that the mind that is being posited is a simple thing and not a complex thing.

The point, though, is that solipsism has a very long and well established meaning: it is the view that only one mind exists. But please do not drive this discussion into a discussion of the use and abuse of the term solipsism. That is a linguistic matter and not a philosophical one and it is the philosophical case for thinking that there is one mind and one mind alone that I am interested in testing the credibility of.

The OP is based on the assumption, it claims, but assumptions are only accepted as reasonable and intelligible when it makes sense or is supported by evidence. — Corvus

I don't think that can be true as that generates an infinite regress. So unless we say that every assumption is as reasonable as any and all others, then some assumptions have to be acknowledged to be self-evidently true. That is, our reason represents them directly to be true, rather than us having to infer their truth from other representations of reason.

For example, the claim that, other things being equal, we have reason to believe a simpler thesis is true, is itself a self-evident truth of reason (or 'apparent' one, as we shouldn't rule out the possiblity it may be false). So, the assumption that the simpler thesis is true is more reasonable than the assumption that the more complicated theory is default true.

But these issues take us too far afield, I think. All I am doing is testing whether the solipsist evolutionary theory really is the simpler one. What status the epistemic virtue of simplicity has, how it vies with other virtues, is another matter.

But how can something unextended 'expand'?

On reflection, it doesn't even matter if we suppose only extended things to exist, for the solipsist thesis is still the simpler one. If the single mind I am positing is an extended thing (I see no reason to suppose it is, so this is just for the sake of argument), then nevertheless, by supposing that it has the disposition i described - the disposition for it to put itself in a mental state that closely resembles the one it starts out being in - then all the work can be done.

You are proposing various possible conditions for our experience. Solipsism imagines there is no way to verify other beings because they have to be produced by my activity. — Paine

That's a strawman. Solipsism is the view that only one mind exists. What I am arguing is that we can explain what needs to be explained more efficiently using that minimal posit than we can by supposing there to be something non-mental, such lots of extended objects (perhaps the mind is an extended object - but the same applies)

I'm having trouble parsing this one — Wayfarer

That knowledge cannot exist absent minds isn't in dispute. It doesn't raise a problem for the 'truth requires a mind' thesis.

It is the thesis that truth requires mind that seems to face a problem, for that theory entails that if no minds exist, there are no truths (yet it seems metaphysically for there to be no minds yet for there to be truths, for something can exist and not be a mind, and under such circumstances it would be true that it exists.

That's a different point. My point is that my thesis is simpler than the alternative. That is what jkop is disputing.

Other things being equal, we have reason to suppose the simpler of two theses to be true. There is no claim there that this is a guarantee of truth. And we can wonder why the simpler would be more likely to be true. But that we have more reason to think the simpler of two theses is true is not what's in dispute here.

We don't appeal to evolution in the same sense. Your appeal to evolution omits the mind, as you just assume that it exists, and that experiences appear in it, and from then on you describe an evolution of experiences. — jkop

Yes, but we are both appealing to evolutionary processes. You're positing billions of physical things, I'm positing one mind. In terms of simplicity, my theory assumes less than yours.

Skip the old terminology, because physical or neutral monisms do not only describe matter. — jkop

No. I don't understand what you mean. There are two types of thing possible: immaterial and material. That is, extended or unextended. If you think there's a third, then you need to tell me what you're talking about, as those seem to exhaust the logical space available.

Electromagnetism, gravitation, and the weak and the strong nuclear forces are not discrete things that "get each other going". They're ubiquitous and continuous. — jkop

We're talking about 'things'. Types of thing and number. You're either positing more kinds of thing than I am (if 'electromagnitism' is a thing - which it isn't, of course) or a greater number of one kind of thing. Either way, your theory is more complex than mine.

I am familiar with Searle's view. I don't think you've addressed my points. My theory posits a mind and a disposition in that mind to produce similar mental states to whatever mental state it starts out being in. That's incredibly simple. One kind of thing and just one of it. And one disposition. You're clearly assuming loads more. It seems - given that you think there are more than just two kinds of entity - that you're assuming (by your own view, not mine) numerous kinds of thing, and also very many instances of them. All of that is assumed 'before' the evolutionary processes are then invoked to explain all else. All I assume is one mind and one disposition.

You don't help your own cause by supposing that in addition to physical entities there is something called 'eletromagnitism' - that complicates matters and doesn't simplify at all.

Likewise, you have not simplified matters if you get minds out of matter, for we all have to start with something. I am starting with a mind. You're not. But it is no virtue to have been able to explain how minds arose by supposing a very complicated backstory involving the interaction two or more kinds of thing. That's a vice.

What one could do, perhaps, is reduce existence to truth. That is to say, perhaps what it is for something to exist, is simply for the proposition 'this thing exists' to be true. In that way one could explain why it is a necessary truth that if something exists, it is true that it exists. The proposition 'this thing exists" is not true in virtue of the fact the thing exists, but instead, the thing exists because the proposition is true.

But that wouldn't fully overcome the problem that it appears possible for there to be no minds and for something to exist - and thus for it to be possible for it to be true that something exists, absent any minds.

There's also the problem that such a reductive analysis also seems false. The proposition "X exists" seems to be true 'in virtue' of X existing, rather than X's existence being in virtue of the proposition's truth.

Yes, only minds can know things. However, it doesn't seem to be a necessary truth that there can be knowledge without minds. The opposite - that there can't be any knoweldge without any minds - seems to be a necessary truth. By contrast, it does seem to be a necessary truth that if something exists, then it is true that it exists. It's that apparent self-evident truth of reason that seems inconsistent with the conclusion that truth depends on minds. And so it is that apparent self-evident truth of reason that ideally needs to be debunked, for otherwise the thesis that truth depends on minds at least appears to be false

We can certainly conceive of many propositions that seem troublesome, such as that 'no minds exist'. That seems capable of being true, yet it would not be capable of being true given the thesis that truths require minds.

But isn't the fundamental problem or challenge that all of this speaks to the fact that it appears possible for propositions to be true in the absence of any minds, which is inconsistent with the idea that truth requires minds?

I think truth does require minds, because propositions seem to be best understood as thoughts or something like that, and thoughts require minds. But i would admit that this generates a problem, for it seems a necessary truth that if something exists, then it is true that it exists, yet that would not be a necessary truth given the thesis under consideration.

I take it to be self-evidently possible. It seems manifest to reason that if something exists, then it is true that it exists. That seems like a necessary truth.

One can use other examples, of course. For instance, it seems true that 2 + 2 = 4 even if there are no minds.

This may in fact be false, but that our reason represents such things to be possible is apparent evidence of the thesis's falsity unless, that is, there's good reason to think such representations are false.

Thank you for clarifying. I think that is the direction I would go in too - that is, I would deny that truths can exist absent all minds. But then that incurs a seemingly very heavy cost, namely that one would have to deny that it is metaphysically possible for something to exist without any minds existing. Yet that does seem to be metaphysically possible.

It does not seem to be metaphysically possible for something to have a shape without having a colour - even though shape and colour are distinct properties of a thing - but it does seem to be possible for something to exist absent any minds. That is, minds do not seem to be to existence what colour is to shape. Given this, wouldn't you need a way of debunking what our reason tells us on this?

I am interested in the nature of truth. I am late to this discussion. But am I right in thinking that the issue here is that truth seems to require minds - as truth is a property of propositions and propositions are mental states - yet the existence of something does not seem to require there to be any minds. Yet if something exists, then it is true that it exists. And so as something can exist absent any minds, then we have a puzzle on our hands. Would that be correct? And if it is, what is your way of resolving it?

But is mental monism simpler than physical or neutral monism? The latter two seem far more plausible, because of the genetic evolution required for background capacities to arise before anything resembling a mind could begin to identify objects and states of affairs. — jkop

I accept a case is needed for thinking that mind monism is simpler than physical monism, but I don't see that you've made a case there for thinking physical monism is simpler. Appealing to evolution is not going to do it, as I am appealing to that too. My account is an evolutionary one.

I will use the traditional terminology of materialist monism and immaterialist monism. The materialist monist posits one kind of substance: material substance. The immaterialist posits one kind of substance: immaterialist substance. So far, one is as simple as the other.

But in order to get the job done, the materialist monist needs to posit not just one kind of substance, but lots of particular instances of it. I am defending solipsist immaterialist monism, not just immaterialist monism. I am positing ONE mind. So, one instance of the kind of substance in question.

Perhaps this is what the materialist monist can do too, though it is hard to see how given that their whole story depends on material objects interacting with another. So it looks as if one needs at least two to get things going.

So immaterialist solipsist monism does seem to me to be simpler, and thus rationally to be preferred. It posits one instance of one kind of thing, not many instances of one kind of thing.

It can also be noted that what it posits - a mind, one's own - is a thing of a kind we know for certain to exist. By contrast, material objects are speculative. Yes, perhaps my own mind is such a thing, just one that has conscious states. I do not rule out the possibility. But that is all it is: a possibility (and disputed at that). Until the matter is settled, then positing that there is something more basic that my mind is made of is to go beyond the evidence.

I say this, because even if the two types of monism are in one sense no more or less complex than one another, the above consideration breaks ties.

I am not sure. As this is a solipsistic theory, then I am the mind in question and I do not seem to be a god. The theory would need to explain my apparent lack of power, not confer on me more power than I have.

In fact, on reflection this is an attempt to explain the appearance of order by appeal to random processes and a single disposition, and so like the more familiar evolutionary theories, it dispenses with the need for there to be a designer or any kind of guiding hand. Admittedly, there turns out to be a mind at the heart of it all, but the mind in question - my mind - seems as much a victim of its circumstances as it would be under a physicalist alternative. For my mind is just the venue in which random processes play out and become, due to the associative disposition, sufficiently similar to one another that they appear to me, the experiencer, to be describing a place.

Even the small amount of control that I seem to me to have over matters, will turn out to be illusory on this view. For my experience of, say, willing my arm (or 'arm', as there is no arm there in reality, just a certain sort of experience) to move, will not have caused the arm to move. As the only reason why I have the experience of the arm moving in accordance with my willing experience is that these two experiences have been had before and one seemed to be sufficiently similar to the previous one for my mind, having experienced one again, to recal the other and thereby to bring it to mind.

I turn out to be even more a victim of my circumstances on this analysis than I would be on a physicalist analysis, and so in a way even less godly, even though everything that exists apart from me myself, exists as states of my own mind. I am the venue for it all, but not the controller, for what's controlling matters is just that single associative disposition (which I have no control over having). It disposes me to recall similar experiences, but as I do not 'will' it to do so, I am powerless (though will appear, due to willings themselves being experiences and so capable of being similar to one another), though will appear to have some power.

What a rude person you are. I won't be responding to you again.

Whole as in 'entire'. What's odd?

Not sure what you mean. If supposing a wholly evolutionary story is correct lands us with a reality bereft of principles of reason - something I am unsure it does, but that it at least seems to do - then exactly what kind of backstory needs to be supposed in order to restore them to the scene remains an open question. We can know that a wholly evolutionary story is false, without having to know what the true whole story is.

Plato thought that moral principles require Forms. I think there are good reasons to resist that view. But if moral principles do require Forms, then that's going to be true of principles of reason more generally. Forms do not feature in an evolutionary story of our development. The 'whole' story would therefore need to include them in some way.

I am not endorsing the Platonic view about the ontology of moral principles and principles of reason more generally, just pointing out that it's a view that does not seem correctly characterized as 'teleological', yet is in the mix and is, perhaps - coherence pending - part of the whole story.

So you have given up on working out what we ought do, and decided that we only do what we evolved to do? — Banno

No, because it seems premature to conclude that there are no moral principles in reality until the paradox is resolved. Plus I am not sure how i can really reach the conclusion that there are no moral principles without assuming the reality of principles of reason, and those are just as much jeopardized by the evolutionary account as the moral principles are.

Given that at the moment I take this to be puzzling and do not see a clear way to resolve it, I continue to believe in the reality of moral principles.

Wholly? As opposed to partially? — Banno

Yes, as opposed to partially. An evolutionary account can be true and not the whole story. If we have evidential reason to think that there really are principles of reason given a wholly evolutionary story of our development, then a wholly evolutionary story wins, probably. But if we find that we have no reason to think there are any principles of reason given a wholly evolutionary story of our development, then it doesn't and we have reason to think it's only partial and not the whole story.

I should adjust my view a little, for if I am wrong and the idea of a mind coming into being is less problematic a starting assumption than the assumption of a mind that comes into being from nothing, or that somehow brings itself into being, then I will simply make those assumptions instead. I think that it still has the neverending story implication, though i admit that it would need to be framed as an 'other things being equal' implication - so, as long as the mind persists, this is what will happen. Having said this, that is probably the implication of the original thesis too, as even if the mind has always existed, that does not strictly entail that it always will. So I will modify the implication: other things being equal, this is a neverending story in that, so long as the mind whose experiences it is composed of persists, the story is fated to start over and over and get longer every time...potentially for an infinite amount of time.

I don't think so. You said you could not find moral principles in an evolved world. I pointed out that you are looking int he wrong place. — Banno

As I hope I have now clarified, that was not the argument I made. The point is not about where one looks, for it really does not matter by what mechanism we come to believe in moral principles (the same argument would go through even if moral principles were seen with the eyes). The point is about whether one needs to posit the actual principles in order to be able to explain why a belief in them would confer a reproductive advantage, or whether the belief alone would do the trick.

As for the matter under debate: well I take the paradox that an evolutionary account of our development to present us with is that if we are wholly evolved, then we have no reason to think we are. And so if we have reason to think we are evolved, we also have reason to think that's not the entire story. Whether that's really the situation we find ourselves in is the matter under contention. And so we are not entitled to take it for granted that we are wholly evolved, so long as that assumption generates the dilemma I described.

By 'question begging' I mean the vice of assuming the truth of that which needed to be demonstrated.

You have strawmanned my argument. I gave, I think, a relatively detailed explanation of why we would have reason to conclude there are no moral principles in reality (just a widespread belief in such things) given an evolutionary account of our development. I did not merely point out that moral principles are not sized, located and shaped things and then conclude on that basis alone that they do not exist (as you're implying). I explained why a disposition to form approximately accurate beliefs about the size location and shape of things would confer a reproductive advantage if there actually are such things, whereas a disposition to form a belief about a moral principle would (depending on its content) confer a reproductive advantage even if the principle did not exist. And it is on that basis that I concluded we would have reason to think the principles themselves did not exist. (On parsimony grounds: if we do not have to posit any actual principles in order to explain how the belief in them would have conferred an advantage, then parsimony tells us not to posit the actual principles, just the beliefs in them...which are now all false, of course).

Note my comparison with religious beliefs. Presumably you agree that an evolutionary account of how adaptive it may have been to believe in God does not provide us with reason to think there actually is a God? it provides us with reason to think God does not exist, as we can explain why people are disposed to believe in God without having to posit God. That's the same argument. An evolutionary account of belief in God implies atheism, not theism; and an evolutionary account of our belief in moral principles implies moral nihilism, not moral realism.

I don't think it does have a start. i admit that the idea of there being something that exists eternally is probably problematic. But I think the idea of there being something that came into existence is probably as, if not more, problematic (as that would involve the mind coming into being from nothing....which seems more problematic than the idea of something just existing forever).

As I see it, the account I am working on is not an attempt to explain everything. It is an attempt to explain as much as possible with as little as possible. So i posit a mind (which is unexplained) and a disposition to recall experiences that resemble one another sufficiently - which is also unexplained - and a process of the mind churning through random thoughts (a process that is also unexplained).

The account presupposes such things, rather than explaining them. And I don't deny that's a deficit as there's reason to want an explanation of those things too. But as i see it, the account nevertheless explains all else with those 3 posits, and so is simpler than competitors. Other things being equal, this is a simpler explanation of the nature of what's going on than, say, one that posits a physical world in which there is evolution by natural selection. There's more clutter with that explanation than there is with the solipsistic one, it seems to me, plus the physicalist explanation has us take our experiences to be 'of' a world outside, which is to make an assumption - one that introduces a lot of clutter - beyond what the solipsistic one does.

Well, you would think that... it's what you evolved to think. — Banno

That's question begging. Whether that's the whole story or not is precisely what the paradox calls into question.

I think this has the same implication as before though: that this is going to turn out to be a neverending story, though one that will start over and over and over, getting longer and longer every time it restarts.

I think that's an open question. Depends on how the paradox is resolved.

Cheers, though I can't really take any credit as others have made it and I too just find it to illustrate the point quite vividly.

I believe it was Locke who first argued that size, shape and location are objective features of things, whereas colour is not (things merely have a disposition to cause colour sensations in us, but the colour isn't there on the object itself). He didn't make an evolutionary argument for that, but I believe he's the first to have suggested that colour is projected onto the world by us, whereas size, shape and location are real features that we perceive (more or less accurately).

I'm sorry, but I don't think anything you just said addresses anything I said.

Upon further reflection, I think this evolutionary vindication of solipsism can be simplified further.

All that needs to be supposed in order to be able to account for all else, is a mind that is having (initially) random experiences and a disposition in that mind for it to recall an experience - and thereby to have that experience again - when that experience seems to resemble sufficiently another.

Here's what I mean. Let's say the mind has experience A, and then experience B - and experience B seems closely to resemble experience A. Now the mind becomes disposed to experience B again if it ever experiences A again. Then later - and this will eventually happen, of course - the mind will have the experience of B and it will be followed by C, an experience that seems to resemble B. So now the mind has become disposed to experience B if it ever experiences A again (and it will, of course), and then to experience C (for this is what it is disposed to experience if it ever experiences B again, which it will). And thus when the mind next experiences A, it will experience A-B-C. And this sequence of experiences will closely resemble one another.

Over time the mind will develop a disposition to experience B, then C, then D, then E and so on, when it experiences A again. And that's what is going on - this sequence of experiences is just a very long chain. And there we have it: everything that needs to be explained has been explained by just positing a mind, a disposition, and random experiences.  

The problem, as I see it, with this line of reasoning is that it will discredit too much. For everything I have just said about the impression there are moral principles, applies more generally to the impression there are principles of reason. Given an evolutionary account of our development, there is no reason to think there are any such principles in reality that the appearances reflect. Merely being disposed to believe in such things is what would have conferred the reproductive advantage on our ancestors.

But if we conclude that therefore there are no principles of reason in reality, then we are concluding that we have no reason to believe anything.....including that! Yet we only have reason to think an evolutionary account of our development is correct if we in fact have reason to believe it. And if there is in fact reason to believe it, then at least some principles of reason exist. And so something has gone wrong somewhere, it seems to me....though it is not entirely clear where..... The paradoxical situation this creates is that either an entirely evolutionary account of our development is true - in which case we have no reason to believe it is true (for there are no reasons to believe anything under those circumstances), or we have reason to believe an evolutionary account of our development is true, in which case we also have reason to think it is not the whole story, for if it were we wouldn't have any reason to believe it

To elaborate further, consider the difference between the size, shape and location of physical things versus their colour. It would have conferred a reproductive advantage on our ancestors to develop faculties of sense that gave them fairly accurate impressions of the size, shape and location of physical things in their immediate environment. Why? Because if you make systematic errors in judgement about those things, then you'll be killed by those physical objects quite rapidly. Your reproductive career will be over before it began.

That account is vindicatory of the impressions of the size, location and shape of things (at least in our immediate environment). That is to say, such an evolutionary account explains why our sight and touch will be fairly accurate in what they tell us about the size, shape and location of things immediately around us.

But now consider colour. Although seeing things as coloured would aid in us being able to perceive their size, shape and location, it wouldn't matter what particular colours things are. What would matter is just that we perceive them to have some colour and that we perceive contrasts. Specific colours would not particularly mater. And thus, an evolutionary account of the development of our faculty of sight would give us reason to think that the actual colour of things in reality may not very reliably match the colours we perceive things to have.....in fact, parsimony would favour us concluding that in reality nothing has any colour at all and that colours are projections of our mind that enable our faculty of sight to work, but are not features of the things we perceive by means of them.

So that's a debunking account of colour: given an evolutionary account of our development, it is more reasonable to suppose colour is not a feature of reality but a projection of our mind.

Thus thought our sight gives us the impression there are coloured, sized, located and shaped things, it is acutally only the size, location and shape that we have reason to think are real features of teh mind-independent objects, not colour.

The impression there are moral principles and moral values is akin to the visual impression of a coloured world. It conferred an advantage on our ancestors to get the impression things were coloured, but not because things are actually coloured, but because that way they could get the impression of the actual size, shape and location of things (features things really have). And likewise, getting the impression there are moral principles conferred an advantage because it encouraged behaviour that was adaptive, rather than because there were actual moral pricniples there to be perceived and whose misperception would kill one.

I do not think there exist any moral principles if an entirely evolutionary account of our development is true. This is because of a distinction - often missed in the moral domain - between appearances and reality. An evolutionary account of our development would include an account of how it was adaptive for us - or rather, our ancestors - to get the impression that some ways of behaving are called for, and others forbidden (and called for and forbidden by some external authority). But that is not an evolutionary account of how morality developed. No. It is an evolutionary account of how it conferred an advantage on our ancestors for reality to 'appear' to them to have a moral aspect to it. No mention is made of morality itself. And so an evolutionary account of our development makes no mention of any real moral principles or values, just the appearance of such things.

To suppose that an evolutonary account of our development somehow vindicates the reality of morality is, I think, every bit as confused as thinking that an evolutionary account of how it people got the impression there was a god or gods vindicates religious beliefs. That is to say, it does not vindicate them at all, but undermines them.

I have certainly assumed a mind. And perhaps time too - though I am not sure it was essential that I do so, as I think time too can probably be given the same kind of analysis (not yet sure about it).

But it wouldn't matter if I was assuming time, for that wouldn't make the thesis more complicated than its non-solipsistic alternative. That is, I think that any theory about how things have come to be how they are, would probably need to assume time. And so that I have assumed time does not - not in itself - make the theory unnecessarily complicated.

I am not sure I follow your point.

Yes, I think simplicity demands it must be a mind without a physical body, as a physical body would be less simple than a mind that had no body.

Yes. If you start out with an idea about this person's personality and desires, then you've rigged things.

So, you have to ask 'what are the odds that there would exist a person who wanted to create a universe such as this and in this manner - whatever that turns out to be - and had the ability to do so?' And to figure that our, you have to consider all the various possible ways a person could be and possible abilities a person may have. The odds are going to turn out to be everybit as large as the odds of teh universe arising by chance processes

I don't see how that will affect the argument.

If the odds, given certain background assumptions, of this world arising by chance are 1 in a million, or one in 10 billion trillion, the point is that those are also the odds that there would be a person who happened to want to create a universe such as this in that manner (in fact, the odds of that are longer given that they'd also have to have the ability to create it).

Anything chance can do, an intelligence can do. And anything an intelligence can do, chance can do. But chance is a simpler explanation, and so it wins by default. This is partly why I think design arguments are hopeless. The current rash depend upon people being impressed by long odds (even though no matter how long they may be, the argument is going to fail)