A Working Draft Design Argument

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Novel characters do not, and cannot, actually assign meanings and values.

Programmed beings could still be able to assign meanings and values to things, even if ultimately they are only able to do so because of how they've been programmed.

The characters in the novel and program are both subject to the determinism of their programs, that which they find of value and meaning is dictated by their programming. The programmed character may have the illusion of dictating that which has values and meaning but thats at best an illusion.

In a world that is not a program or simulation, it is also the case that we can assign things because we have been conditioned to do so, but the difference here is that such a world is not necessarily intentional.

What they have in common with the novel and the programmed characters, is that we’re a part of a deterministic reality, even if you want to reject the idea of an intentional source of this determinism. Like a sort of singularity absent of any intentional elements, that determines past present and future, all choices, meaning, values, truths, and meaning.

You keep wanting to say we ultimately determine/assign values and meanings, but this at best would be an illusion in a deterministic universe, you’d have to credit the singularity for that, just as we would the authors and programmers in my other examples.