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Author Topic:   Why complex form requires an Intelligent Designer
Parasomnium
Member
Posts: 2224
Joined: 07-15-2003


Message 58 of 165 (358252)
10-23-2006 4:02 AM


KBC's crucial mistake
KBC1963 writes:
DNA controls every aspect of integrated growth.
This is your crucial mistake. If what you say were true, then, for example, identical twins should have the same fingerprints. Interestingly, they don't. So there must be other factors that influence development.
I know what it takes to create mechanically functional form.
I have no doubt that you know what it takes to create mechanically functional form intelligently. But there are other ways of achieving the same results, if not far superior ones. They have been hinted at already by several respondents here, and it would be prudent if you addressed the argument of genetic algorithms.
Finally, a refutation from pure logic: if there were an infinite array of forms to choose from, then how does an intelligent designer ever make a choice? In order to decide whether a form is to be chosen or should be discarded, it has to be at least considered. With an infinite number of forms to consider, the intelligent designer will never make an actual choice.
Edited by Parasomnium, : No reason given.
Edited by Parasomnium, : No reason given.

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.
Did you know that most of the time your computer is doing nothing? What if you could make it do something really useful? Like helping scientists understand diseases? Your computer could even be instrumental in finding a cure for HIV/AIDS. Wouldn't that be something? If you agree, then join World Community Grid now and download a simple, free tool that lets you and your computer do your share in helping humanity. After all, you are part of it, so why not take part in it?

Replies to this message:
 Message 60 by subbie, posted 10-23-2006 9:13 AM Parasomnium has not replied
 Message 64 by Taz, posted 10-23-2006 1:23 PM Parasomnium has replied

  
Parasomnium
Member
Posts: 2224
Joined: 07-15-2003


Message 68 of 165 (358322)
10-23-2006 2:34 PM
Reply to: Message 64 by Taz
10-23-2006 1:23 PM


Re: KBC's crucial mistake
gasby writes:
Parasomnium writes:
With an infinite number of forms to consider, the intelligent designer will never make an actual choice.
Actually, if the intelligent designer is infinitely knowledgable, it could no doubt be able to consider an infinite number of forms.
O, sure. But considering an infinite number of forms takes an infinite amount of time, even for an infinitely knowledgable intelligent designer. Therefore, the designer would never reach the point where he chooses one of them. There's always one more to consider.

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.
Did you know that most of the time your computer is doing nothing? What if you could make it do something really useful? Like helping scientists understand diseases? Your computer could even be instrumental in finding a cure for HIV/AIDS. Wouldn't that be something? If you agree, then join World Community Grid now and download a simple, free tool that lets you and your computer do your share in helping humanity. After all, you are part of it, so why not take part in it?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 64 by Taz, posted 10-23-2006 1:23 PM Taz has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 69 by kuresu, posted 10-23-2006 2:44 PM Parasomnium has not replied
 Message 70 by Taz, posted 10-23-2006 3:11 PM Parasomnium has replied

  
Parasomnium
Member
Posts: 2224
Joined: 07-15-2003


Message 84 of 165 (358388)
10-23-2006 6:15 PM
Reply to: Message 70 by Taz
10-23-2006 3:11 PM


Don't mess with
gasby writes:
For all we know, the intelligent designer could perceive and recognize instantaneously an infinitely number of objects.
That doesn't make one iota of a difference.
Suppose we number the forms the intelligent designer has considered. If the intelligent designer has considered an infinite number of forms, then there cannot be among them a form with the highest number, otherwise the number of considered forms would be finite.
So, even if the designer has considered an infinite number of forms instantaneously, in one fell swoop, there must be at least one form with a number higher than any of the forms the intelligent designer has considered, which therefore has not been considered.
Hence "there's always one more to consider". Such is the nature of infinity. If you mess with it, it bites you in the arse.
By the way, this is becoming infinitely off-topic.
Edited by Parasomnium, : No reason given.
Edited by Parasomnium, : No reason given.

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.
Did you know that most of the time your computer is doing nothing? What if you could make it do something really useful? Like helping scientists understand diseases? Your computer could even be instrumental in finding a cure for HIV/AIDS. Wouldn't that be something? If you agree, then join World Community Grid now and download a simple, free tool that lets you and your computer do your share in helping humanity. After all, you are part of it, so why not take part in it?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 70 by Taz, posted 10-23-2006 3:11 PM Taz has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 85 by Taz, posted 10-23-2006 6:45 PM Parasomnium has not replied

  
Parasomnium
Member
Posts: 2224
Joined: 07-15-2003


Message 143 of 165 (358689)
10-25-2006 2:27 AM
Reply to: Message 141 by NosyNed
10-25-2006 1:13 AM


Re: More complex designer?
Nosyned writes:
It merely states that whatever the ID is it must be more complex than that which it designs.
I don't see that this holds. We have examples of design by very unintelligent things. Maybe (I'm not sure) they are less complex than the design output.
The argument about the complexity of the designer comes from ID reasoning itself. ID-ists reason that life is too complex to have arisen "by pure chance", as they often put it. It is so complex that it must have been designed by an intelligence. It is the level of complexity that prompts them to say this. Critics of this line of reasoning have two venues to attack it.
First, there is the question of how to measure complexity. ID-ists notoriously neglect to define and/or quantify complexity. And if they do define it, they usually end up conflating Shannon entropy with thermodynamic entropy, en passant misunderstanding the second law of thermodynamics.
Second, their reasoning that if something is too complex to have arisen naturally, it must have been designed by an intelligence, backfires on them. Humans are too complex to have arisen naturally, the reasoning goes. Yet, the critics may observe, humans are not intelligent enough to create life. So an intelligence that is capable of creating life is surely more complex then humans, and must therefore itself be too complex to have arisen naturally. So the critics ask the ID-ists: who created the creator? And who created the creator's creator? And so on.
It's not that the critics themselves think that this ID reasoning holds, but that if ID-ists want to use it, they have to realise that it isn't a satisfactory explanation, because it raises an infinite regress of ever more unexplained complex beings.
Edited by Parasomnium, : No reason given.

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.
Did you know that most of the time your computer is doing nothing? What if you could make it do something really useful? Like helping scientists understand diseases? Your computer could even be instrumental in finding a cure for HIV/AIDS. Wouldn't that be something? If you agree, then join World Community Grid now and download a simple, free tool that lets you and your computer do your share in helping humanity. After all, you are part of it, so why not take part in it?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 141 by NosyNed, posted 10-25-2006 1:13 AM NosyNed has not replied

  
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