Intelligent Design....?

[VitalOne]

Design doesn't have to be designed? But it can be caused? Hmmmm. If an intelligence "causes", but doesn't "design", isn't it then all just a big accident?

The intelligent cause could be anything, it could even mean that the cells are in someway aware or conscious...ID doesn't care about the implications although religious fundementalists have used it is a tool making it appear so...

 

[RoyLennigan]

The intelligent cause could be anything, it could even mean that the cells are in someway aware or conscious...ID doesn't care about the implications although religious fundementalists have used it is a tool making it appear so...

I've always imagined a plethora of types of 'intelligence'. It seems to me that an intelligence is a complex system of billions or more transistors (a transistor can be quite a few things, natural or manmade) that work somewhat cohesively to create trillions or more connections, based on data input. From this definition, it seems possible that even a planet might be in some sense 'aware'. Or possibly the entire universe. But their awareness is based on a language wholly unlike ours. And their perspective of the passage of time would be vastly different.

 

[valich]

???

 

[EndLightEnd]

I've always imagined a plethora of types of 'intelligence'. It seems to me that an intelligence is a complex system of billions or more transistors (a transistor can be quite a few things, natural or manmade) that work somewhat cohesively to create trillions or more connections, based on data input. From this definition, it seems possible that even a planet might be in some sense 'aware'. Or possibly the entire universe. But their awareness is based on a language wholly unlike ours. And their perspective of the passage of time would be vastly different.

Id agree, and reminds me of the episode of South Park I watched last night. It followed the life of lice hair, and was quite funny how it depicted one single lice trying to convince the others that the world was 'aware' and 'conscious' of their presence and horrible things were coming (lice shampoo).

Nowadays the world is being networked at a faster and faster rate. If you could see the connections like lights from space, Id imagine they would look similar. 'Nodes' (similar to nerve cells) are the cities which have filaments that spread outward connecting more and more people everyday.

I believe we are on the path to global consciousness, and this is one of the first steps, getting all the separate parts connected adequetly for efficient data exchange.

 

[RoyLennigan]

Id agree, and reminds me of the episode of South Park I watched last night. It followed the life of lice hair, and was quite funny how it depicted one single lice trying to convince the others that the world was 'aware' and 'conscious' of their presence and horrible things were coming (lice shampoo).

Nowadays the world is being networked at a faster and faster rate. If you could see the connections like lights from space, Id imagine they would look similar. 'Nodes' (similar to nerve cells) are the cities which have filaments that spread outward connecting more and more people everyday.

I believe we are on the path to global consciousness, and this is one of the first steps, getting all the separate parts connected adequetly for efficient data exchange.

I had an idea that we are on the same path as the single-celled organisms that pioneered multicellular organization. Like primitive algae, we act individually, but striving for a collective goal. The next step for them was a loss of self in exchange for being part of a more powerful collective. We are entering the stage of being a more powerful collective. After this we will lose our sense of self in exchange for a sense of being part of the greater whole. But we will not lose individuality. Individuality--or diversity--is most beneficial to the whole. By being individuals who are ultimately devoted to the collective, then we become one conscious entity, like an ant hive.

 

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Oh joy, a bunch of worker ants.

 

[RoyLennigan]

Oh joy, a bunch of worker ants.

If you take everything for granted, then everything is dead to you.

Why is it that you are so bitter and rejecting, IAC?

 

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Rejecting of the "Global Mind," and the "Global Village," and "Cave Mothers," and "Mother Earth," and "Father Time," and "Collective Consciousness," and "Earth is an Organism," and "God is Everything," and "Harmonic Convergences," and astrology? Then yes.

 

[guthrie]

The intelligent cause could be anything, it could even mean that the cells are in someway aware or conscious...ID doesn't care about the implications although religious fundementalists have used it is a tool making it appear so...

It could indeed. However, ID advocates have come up with no successful scientific method of testing their ideas.

Also, all bar one of the major pro-Id people I am aware of are actually religiously motivated Creationists. THe one is Steve Fuller, a post modernist sociology professor who thinks that dominant paradigms are too pwoerful and things like ID need some positive discrimination.
Needless to say, he has no idea how to do science.

 

[RoyLennigan]

Rejecting of the "Global Mind," and the "Global Village," and "Cave Mothers," and "Mother Earth," and "Father Time," and "Collective Consciousness," and "Earth is an Organism," and "God is Everything," and "Harmonic Convergences," and astrology? Then yes.

You reject it before you even understand it, which is unwise.

 

[IceAgeCivilizations]

Such is foolishness according to the Bible, are you a "Father Time" guy?

 

[VitalOne]

It could indeed. However, ID advocates have come up with no successful scientific method of testing their ideas.

Also, all bar one of the major pro-Id people I am aware of are actually religiously motivated Creationists. THe one is Steve Fuller, a post modernist sociology professor who thinks that dominant paradigms are too pwoerful and things like ID need some positive discrimination.
Needless to say, he has no idea how to do science.

Religious advocates naturally adapt Intelligent Design and mandate it being taught in schools, however the major supporter of ID (the Discovery Institute) does not. In fact they went against a new PA bill that would allow ID to be taught in schools...

As for ID, it is fully testable and disprovable, to disprove it you should have to show using objective evidence that the simplest forms of life arose from a naturalistic cause rather than an intelligent cause...to this date (since the 1950s) no one has been able to prove a naturalistic explanation which is why panspermia is becoming more popular....right now they have naturalistic explanations, but these explanations are not based upon objective evidence but rather spurious speculations...

Testing their ideas is easy, it is tested in the sameway anyone judges what is considered to be intelligent design, like say for instance a super computer you wouldn't conclude had no intelligent cause, nor would you conclude that the Egyptian Pyramids are no different from natural mountain formations....similarly since even the simplest forms of life have hundreds of thousands of parts working together that read, interpret, translate, and repair code (genetic code, a set of instructions telling the cell what to do) it indicates clearly an intelligent design.....biologists have said that the simplest cells are as complex as super computers....

 

[Stryder]

This might seem comical, or perhaps even vulgar to some however how about this for proving both "For" and "Against" at the same time.

Let's say you have your "God", but typically he's not a very impressive person. Perhaps quite average, perhaps quite slothful, perhaps even a bit of a drunk.
Now this "God" guy (since the term of the name/word "God" has only been given ascension by people telling stories for generations and if they are anything like fisherman and their '...tales of the one that got away', then they are obviously enormous whoppers)...

He's out on this deserted planet and his a little caught short from drinking his mountains of Beer he packed for a journey (A journey of from where and where to, is not in question afterall this mans "God" you don't ask such questions... well, perhaps you would if you knew him back then but this is tangenting from the story.)

He decides that he needs to take a leak. Well there's no bushes, so he doesn't really have that element of modesty, however since the planet is "Deserted" he just slashes right where he stands creating a nice little pool of urine.

Once he's finished, off he goes (weaving too and fro from the alcohol induced drunkeness) and to where he goes... well that's another story.

However what I can say is that hundreds of thousands of years pass and that pool of piss mutates considering it has all the building blocks of life at an extremely low quantity. Since it was unleashed upon a planet devoid of anything that might be dangerous to the lifeforms within that urinal pool, the live, they replication, they become more impressive super-organism structures and strive for dominance over the planet.

Until we reach the present day, where you're sitting here, reading this and finding out that you are all evolved from a pool of piss, Pissed by "God" himself. And not just that, I'm the drunken wino that stopped off on earth during a time travel tour and just happened to need to take a piss, and (laughing) I pissed on all of you.

Don't even ask where this came from.
What the above tries to suggest is how an ordered occurance could trigger a butterfly effect of entropy, to which order is then found and applied. Mankind argues that it can only be one or the other but it's probably more accurate to suggest both, something started the ball rolling and entropy kicked in with natural selection.

 

[RoyLennigan]

Such is foolishness according to the Bible, are you a "Father Time" guy?

What do you mean by this?

Also, how do you interpret that the Bible implies that all things are not tied together? Or do I misunderstand you?

 

[IceAgeCivilizations]

I think you're feigning ignorance, so we'll leave it at that.

 

[RoyLennigan]

I think you're feigning ignorance, so we'll leave it at that.

If you do not wish to hold a conversation just say so, no need to take jibes. Not everyone is out to get you.

 

[RoyLennigan]

Such is foolishness according to the Bible, are you a "Father Time" guy?

what is a "Father Time guy"?

 

[guthrie]

Religious advocates naturally adapt Intelligent Design and mandate it being taught in schools, however the major supporter of ID (the Discovery Institute) does not. In fact they went against a new PA bill that would allow ID to be taught in schools...

And yet, IIRC, their inhouse "expert" Dr Dembski was on hand to offer some advice in a certain trial that ID'ers like to ignore...

As for ID, it is fully testable and disprovable,...

Really? Care to give me a few examples of how to test the idea and how it has been tested in the past?

to disprove it you should have to show using objective evidence that the simplest forms of life arose from a naturalistic cause rather than an intelligent cause...

I'll give you an example of how you are wrong. Can I prove that there is not an elephant in space anywhere in the universe?
No, of course not, not without searching the entire universe. Hence why science depends on experiments done for means of falsifiability. You come up with an idea, for example that evolution through mutation and natural selection can produce new, different creatures, and then you go and see if it can, for example by the mutations of fruit flys.

to this date (since the 1950s) no one has been able to prove a naturalistic explanation which is why panspermia is becoming more popular

Nobody needs to prove a naturalistic explanation. Science doesn't need to go in for PROOF.
Panspermia isnt even that popular anyway. It is merely one possibility amongst many that contributed to the rise of life on this planet. Go look up abiogenesis.

....right now they have naturalistic explanations, but these explanations are not based upon objective evidence but rather spurious speculations...

So you claim. Oddly enough, we have so much evidence baacking it up that you couldnt read it all in your lifetime.

Testing their ideas is easy, it is tested in the sameway anyone judges what is considered to be intelligent design, like say for instance a super computer you wouldn't conclude had no intelligent cause, nor would you conclude that the Egyptian Pyramids are no different from natural mountain formations....

Really? So in that case you can explain to me how ID advocates have used their intelligence recognition abilities to separate design from non-design?

similarly since even the simplest forms of life have hundreds of thousands of parts working together that read, interpret, translate, and repair code (genetic code, a set of instructions telling the cell what to do) it indicates clearly an intelligent design.....biologists have said that the simplest cells are as complex as super computers....

And? Your just hand waving. Come back when you've read some science.

 

[river-wind]

As for ID, it is fully testable and disprovable, to disprove it you should have to show using objective evidence that the simplest forms of life arose from a naturalistic cause rather than an intelligent cause...to this date (since the 1950s) no one has been able to prove a naturalistic explanation which is why panspermia is becoming more popular

Panspermia has gained ground for a number of reasons, but not at the expense of a naturalistic cause for life. Even if Earth's life came from somewhere else, life still had to start somewhere.

We are able to create light-reactive, growing, reproducing spheres in the lab. we are able to create organic compounds from inorganic compounds in the lab. Not full cells, certainly, and not anything complicated enough to call life, no. But the building blocks are in place, so I don't see the leap from where we are to a full man-made cell to be anything more than a gulf in time and effort.

If/once man creates a cell, however, people who believe in creation will certainly just start arguing that since man could create, then clearly God did too. It's not a reasoned position, and does not include a falsafiable threshold where the idea would no longer apply to a different, incompatable dataset.

It is not, in that manner, ever "wrong", as it's correctness cannot be tested (by design), however, neither is it ever "useful".



for those who aren't familiar with the formal study of Logic, this:

I'll give you an example of how you are wrong. Can I prove that there is not an elephant in space anywhere in the universe?
No, of course not, not without searching the entire universe. Hence why science depends on experiments done for means of falsifiability. You come up with an idea, for example that evolution through mutation and natural selection can produce new, different creatures, and then you go and see if it can, for example by the mutations of fruit flys.

giving about a specific example of the practice of generalization; without a solid understanding of the idea, and why inductive reasoning is useful, then no amount of fruit-fly examples will make a lick of sense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic#D...tive_reasoning

If we pull 95 marbles out of a bag of 100, and all of them are red, we can inductively gather that there is a high probability that *all* the marbles in the bag are red. We can't say for certain, as a single yellow marble would invalidate the theory (at which point we would still be able to say "nearly all the marbles in the bag are red"), and until we have pulled out every marble, we don't know if there are any yellow marbles or not. However, the chances of pulling 95 red marbles in a row out of a bag containing 95 red and 5 other-colored marbles is so small that the chances of the bag containing only 5 yellow marbles at this point are close to insignificant.

In cases where we need to make a choice in life based on the pull of the next marble, pure randomness offers us little hope of making anything but a foolish decision. In the cases where inductive reasoning allows us to use generalization to make informed (though certainly not always correct) decisions, it is *useful* for use to do so.

To simply say "I refuse to make a generalization on the next marble pull until I see all 100, then I'll know for certain" would be a nice way to go about life, if we expected to live forever and eventually know everything. Until we are what creationists consider God.

Until that point, we have science to help us make effective and useful choices, based on the most recent number of marble pulls so far.

 

[VitalOne]

I'll give you an example of how you are wrong. Can I prove that there is not an elephant in space anywhere in the universe?
No, of course not, not without searching the entire universe. Hence why science depends on experiments done for means of falsifiability. You come up with an idea, for example that evolution through mutation and natural selection can produce new, different creatures, and then you go and see if it can, for example by the mutations of fruit flys.

You're not disproving a negative. You're proving a positive. If tommorow someone generated bacteria in a lab from naturalistic means the Intelligent Design idea would've been completely disproven. You would've proven that the reading, interpreting, translating, etc...of genetic code arises from purely a naturalistic cause as opposed to a intelligent cause. Therefore Intelligent Design IS a science...

Take for instance if I say crystals must have been intelligently designed because they show ordered patterns, this can be disproven by showing objective evidence for a naturalistic cause (crystallization)

Science isn't based of if something can happen, its based off objective evidence...

Nobody needs to prove a naturalistic explanation. Science doesn't need to go in for PROOF.
Panspermia isnt even that popular anyway. It is merely one possibility amongst many that contributed to the rise of life on this planet. Go look up abiogenesis.

Thank you, finally someone fully admits that modern science is not fully based upon empirical evidence but rather spurious speculations, even though science is supposed to be fully based off objective evidence...

Really? So in that case you can explain to me how ID advocates have used their intelligence recognition abilities to separate design from non-design?

Intelligent Design advocates have defined design using terms "irreducible complexity" and "specific complexity".

Irreducible complexity is defined as "a single system which is composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the basic parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning"

An example of specific complexity is given "A single letter of the alphabet is specified without being complex. A long sentence of random letters is complex without being specified. A Shakespearean sonnet is both complex and specified"

A computer shows signs of irreducible complexity, where in if you removed the basic parts the computer would cease to work. The code of a software program shows specific complexity....

The simplest forms of life (bacteria) show irreducible complexity, where in if you took out the basic machines that translate genetic code, the whole system would stop functioning correctly. Genetic code shows specific complexity, they are direct instructions (code) for the cell....