Who designed the ID designer(s)?

Or the designer(s) was/were sufficiently simple as to not need to be designed

Without a definition of 'complex' there is no argument at all, surely?The main point I was driving towards is whether the perceived complexity in nature REALLY indicates intelligence in the designer.So that moves towards your questioning of whether a designer has to be more complex than the systems which it designs.Is a simple set of rules capable of generating complex structures actually a design of high complexity?Fundamentally, if the 'ultimate designer' IS complex ID is purely religious in nature. If one allows design by simple rules (which may have come about via purely natural process) one eliminates the 'intelligence'.

This draws my mind back to something I said several years ago (somewhere on this forum) .... some of the best designs are remarkably simple.Increasing 'Complexity' is most often a sign of very poor design.So is it perhaps the case that the designer does not HAVE to be more complex than the systems it designs, but that often in 'intelligent' designs one is striving for the simplest way of accomplishing something?One could, therefore, argue the development of a simple set of rules that generates the diversity of life we see is far more complex a design task than designing a mamalian eye.That thinking would (based upon prior experience) simply push the 'designer' question back out of the biological world and into the chemistry or physics of the universe.However, if the set of rules are very simple they could equally come about naturally as via design.

Yes ... without a clear distinction between complex and non-complex one cannot go much further.Taking a sort-of intuitive concept of complexity, then I would argue that many artefacts of human design are of greater complexity than humans.Functionally the human body has low complexity (given a view of complexity that relates to number of functions and interactions). There are few functions, and the interactions between the functions are few and pretty obvious.If we go into each 'sub-system', then we start to see more complexity (as one would expect), but are even those biological processes that complex compared to an airliner? [Note: still really depends on exactly what one means by complex].However, the complexity of the artifact does not necessarily mean that the design task was difficult; quite the reverse usually.

Brains are not structurally complex, but they exhibit complex behaviours.The 'complexity' in this case comes from our inability to figure out exactly how it works -- which is not necessarily a measure of complexity at all.

That IS a fair summary of my reasoning there.

My intention was to suggest (1) ... that is if any designers actaully exist they were of such low complexity that they could easily come-about by natural processes.However, if something of low complexity can create something of greater complexity, then we don't need a designer at all.When I mentioned simple rules I also pointed out thet they could have arisen naturally.But here's the rub ... if we conclude (1):The designers were sufficiently simple to arise naturally.
They could design entities more complex than themselves.
Those entities could design entities more complex than themselves.Etc.We could separate ID from the origin and set it purely as an alternative to evolution.In which case ID would (in my opinion) fall over for a whole other set of reasons.

Yep ... case 1.BUT case 1 does not preclude the scenario in which a designer (or race of designers) came about naturally, the designed some life for their own amusement I can't see anything BUT faith in ID myself ... well apart from incredulity.