Why the "painting" argument of Intelligent Design doesn't prove anything

by B_Deserter 15 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  LtCmd.Lore

  god I hate it when people embed things that auto-play.

  I agree, sorry about that, I didn't realise youtube autoplays.
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  dawg

  Yea Oradade, but that was pretty damn interesting, after I crapped in my pants from this voice from nowhere, I sat down and watched it, pretty awsome.
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  Odrade

  Yeah, it was a good one. I had 8 tabs open and was trying to listen to music. I had a hell of a time finding that damn voice so I could pause it.
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  funkyderek

  B_Deserter:

  Excellent post. While the complexity of life seems a lot like the complexity of designed objects, and we intuitively expect both to have similar properties, on a closer inspection we find there are significant differences.

  By far the most important difference is the ability of life to replicate itself. This allows a sort of "research and development" where no designer is needed because the method used is simply trial and error. Successful improvements are rolled out on a large scale while unsuccessful ones quietly disappear. We, who turn up after trillions of iterations, find that this system works so well that we think it must have been designed from the top down. But then we realise that it only works so well because any component that doesn't work is ruthlessly removed.

  Deputy Dog:

  How about first life? Who designed that?

  A good question, and it's certainly tempting to simply posit an originating intelligence and declare the problem solved. But that raises more questions than it answers, the most obvious being: Where did the originating intelligence come from? Given the complete absence of intelligent beings who are not the products of evolution by natural selection, it seems completely unreasonable to invent them just to solve a scientific problem.

  While we don't yet know for sure how life began, there's nothing impossible about a spontaneous autocatalytic reaction which in combnation with the powerful ratchet effect of natural selection is really all that is necessary to begin the chain reaction that led to life as we know it.

  Satanus:

  Life wasn't designed. Life derived from consciousness. Consciousness is.

  All the available evidence suggests that consciousness is a property of certain forms of life. There is no known way for consciousness to exist except as the result of a long and gradual process of evolution.

  BurnTheShips:

  For those with faith, no proof will ever be necessary.

  Quite true. Faith by its nature is largely immune to evidentiary concerns.

  For those without faith, no proof will ever be sufficient.

  Here I disagree. For those without faith, only proof will ever be sufficient. It is proof that we look for, unwilling (and unable) as we are to accept your claims on faith.
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  Satanus

  Funky
  
  'All the available evidence suggests that consciousness is a property of certain forms of life.'
  
  Would you say that there is life without consciousness. It has been demonstrated that some plants, like trees react to being damaged. Bacterias react to outside stimulii. How can consciousness be measured?
  
  'There is no known way for consciousness to exist except as the result of a long and gradual process of evolution.'
  
  This i agree w. Of course, i see evolution in other areas besides in the strictly material universe.
  
  S
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  funkyderek

  Satanus:

  Would you say that there is life without consciousness.

  Absolutely, most life in fact. Consciousness seems to require a large and complex brain (or, hypothetically a similarly complex network structure), something that most life forms are missing.

  It has been demonstrated that some plants, like trees react to being damaged. Bacterias react to outside stimulii.

  Response to stimulus is not consciousness. Even most human reactions have nothing to do with consciousness. Have someone tap your knee in just he right place and your leg will move, completely outside your conscious control.

  How can consciousness be measured?

  It's difficult even to define consciousness but dictionary.com gives a reasonable working definition: awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.

  From what we can deduce humans definitely have consciousness and other large mammals and some other animals may have it to a lesser extent. We can be reasonably sure that plants and bacteria are not conscious because they don't appear to have anything that they could be conscious with.

  Of course, i see evolution in other areas besides in the strictly material universe.

  Where do you see that? I'm not aware of the existence of anything that is not in the "strictly material universe" and I don't think you are either. But if you have some evidence of such, I'd certainly be interested.