Design and the intelligence hypothesis

That's true but an exploration of that would be a parallel discussion of this one. Because otherwise we will start to get certain posters saying "Hah you cannot prove X so therefore Y must be true" and the usual nonsense.It's an interesting question however - maybe you should propose it in the cosomological area (where all the big brains hang out!) because I suspect you will get a far fuller answer there (on this grey manchester day).

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AbE: I agree that the most parsomonius solution is naturalism. At some point the IDers have to accept that there is either a timeless/eternal being with phenomenal universe creating powers (everyone else calls him God, but the IDers seem to go beserk at the suggestion) or that the universe is the result of a sequence of natural, albeit unexplainable, circumstances.

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ABE: This is the crux of the matter, the IDers always shy away from this question by saying that it's only important to know that a designer exists not how he/she was designed. This is of course rot, the next level of evasion is that the Designer exists outside of our universe and therefore is not constraited by the same "laws" of ID as the rest of us (but doesn't everything complex require a designer...??). Of course this,again, is just a dodge. Both of those are to get around the infinite regression that ID otherwise suggests (I've never understood how Iders can claim it's NOT about God).Now my problem has always been this - If at one level, the designer does not need to designed - why couldn't the universe just POOF itself in existance.This message has been edited by Charles Knight, 25-Jul-2005 08:19 AM

And that's fine and I have no problem with it. In fact that the only way I can see the christian god existing.

I think we have to be very careful here - we are in the intelligent design forum and thus we should be concentrating on how this infinite regression is a problem for and an element of Intelligent Design. While we could could get into the issue of the christian (or muslim for that matter) God - is that not more of a faith question?

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Occam's razor asks why introduce a unecessary premise when a self existant universe is sufficent to explain the universe.
Ok,, the universe is self existant, you accept your apriori premise out right . The jury is still out on that one. A uncaused big bang is still not fact. Quantum fluctuations and virtual particals emerging from non space causing a uncaused big bang. Hmmm. Or Brane theory that suggest Membranes from other dimentional universes colliding resulting in our big bang. Hmmm. And this is not inviolation of the razor?

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See this is why creationists and other like it (whatever you position maybe) get a bad name. You are conflating many issues and saying hey "if x is not possible then how about Y and Z and W - why are they possible!"Occam's Razor as applied to intelligent Design and it's conceptual framework says that within that framework - that it a designer does not need for the Designer - then the universe is the only step we need, any further adds a level of complexity that we don't need. This has nothing at all to do with the "truth" behind quantum theories or anything else. Those ideas stand or fall on their own.I'm getting confused - why are we in the intelligent design forum if we all want to discuss issues that have very little to do with intelligence design.This message has been edited by Charles Knight, 26-Jul-2005 07:14 PM

No...read what I'm saying. ALL I am discussing is the concept of intelligence design as laid out by the discovery institute (Discovery Institute | Public policy think tank advancing a culture of purpose, creativity, and innovation.).That's it! That's all I'm saying! I'm not saying anything about design as a concept at all! Do you understand what I'm saying?

Actually to clarify - it USED to be the case that the threads would fall over at 300 posts or so - that is no longer the case (or so I believe).However for historical reasons, we as a COMMUNITY have decided that we like the 300 post limit as it concentrates the mind and have kept it.(That's about it isn't it).