RE: The Watchmaker: my fav argument
March 7, 2021 at 6:32 pm
(This post was last modified: March 7, 2021 at 7:01 pm by polymath257.)
There are many situations where feedback loops naturally and spontaneously produce high levels of complexity. This shows that complexity alone is not evidence for a designer.
But the question of when an artifact *does* lead to the conclusion of an intelligent designer is one that is quite relevant in many areas of study. For example, in archeology, it is important to be able to decide whether something was produced naturally or produced by an agent intent on producing that object. And this means that archeologists have a number of ways to decide such maters.
Among other things, the first question is whether the natural environment *could* have produced something like the object in question. Are there natural processes in that environment that could have given rise to that object without the intervention of an agent?
So, for example, the way bones break because of a fall is quite different than the way they break if a tool is used to break them. Depending on the type of break, we might be able to tell an agent was using a tool to break the bone instead of it being from a fall, or even from a postmortem breakage.
But to answer this requires a pretty thorough understanding of what sorts of things can be produced in the environment in question.
So, for a watch on a beach, there are no natural processes that would produce the type of regular, interconnected wheels made out of materials not directly around. THAT is why we can conclude some intelligence was involved.
In contrast, we *know* that living things naturally and spontaneously produce more complexity over time. So, having complex living things is NOT good evidence for a designer. The complexities seen are well within the capabilities of the environment present.
When it comes to the universe as a whole, the problem becomes one of dealing with what is expected if no intelligence is present verses what is expected if some type of intelligent agent is present. The difficulty is that we don't *know* the 'environment', meaning the basic parameters and whether they *can* be different. So, at very least, there is simply not the type or quality of evidence to point to a designer.
As for the argument that the universe seems to be 'tuned' for life, that is also quite an extreme speculation over the evidence we have. In point of fact, of course, the vast majority of the universe is deadly to any form of life we know. Most of it is a deep vacuum. Other areas are in the cores of stars. So even in the best situation, we can have life only on those few planetary surfaces that are just the right distance from their parent star.
If anything, then, the universe seems to *allow* for life, but NOT to be 'tuned' for life. if it were actually *tuned* for life, we would expect life to be *much* more common and a larger part of the universe to be amenable to its formation.
Another aspect is that *simplicity*, and not complexity, is often the hallmark of an intelligent agent. An example (admittedly fictional) would be the monolith from 2001 A Space Odyssey. Here, the simply, rectangular form with precise ratios is fully enough to show an intelligent agent. Here, we have an environment without the relevant material *and* the fact that rectangular corners, especially with precise lengths in the ratio 1:4:9 are not produced naturally. nature tends to be more 'sloppy' and thereby *more* complex.
If, instead, we had an outcropping of material found locally, with crystals of various sizes and with impurities common and of other materials found in the environment, the complexity would be high, but the conclusion of an intelligent agent would be unjustified.
And, in fact, many of the intelligently made objects are recognizable as such because they are smooth, have sharp corners, or have other *simple* aspects that contrast strongly with the types of things that nature produces, which tend to be more chaotic and have complexity at multiple levels.
But the question of when an artifact *does* lead to the conclusion of an intelligent designer is one that is quite relevant in many areas of study. For example, in archeology, it is important to be able to decide whether something was produced naturally or produced by an agent intent on producing that object. And this means that archeologists have a number of ways to decide such maters.
Among other things, the first question is whether the natural environment *could* have produced something like the object in question. Are there natural processes in that environment that could have given rise to that object without the intervention of an agent?
So, for example, the way bones break because of a fall is quite different than the way they break if a tool is used to break them. Depending on the type of break, we might be able to tell an agent was using a tool to break the bone instead of it being from a fall, or even from a postmortem breakage.
But to answer this requires a pretty thorough understanding of what sorts of things can be produced in the environment in question.
So, for a watch on a beach, there are no natural processes that would produce the type of regular, interconnected wheels made out of materials not directly around. THAT is why we can conclude some intelligence was involved.
In contrast, we *know* that living things naturally and spontaneously produce more complexity over time. So, having complex living things is NOT good evidence for a designer. The complexities seen are well within the capabilities of the environment present.
When it comes to the universe as a whole, the problem becomes one of dealing with what is expected if no intelligence is present verses what is expected if some type of intelligent agent is present. The difficulty is that we don't *know* the 'environment', meaning the basic parameters and whether they *can* be different. So, at very least, there is simply not the type or quality of evidence to point to a designer.
As for the argument that the universe seems to be 'tuned' for life, that is also quite an extreme speculation over the evidence we have. In point of fact, of course, the vast majority of the universe is deadly to any form of life we know. Most of it is a deep vacuum. Other areas are in the cores of stars. So even in the best situation, we can have life only on those few planetary surfaces that are just the right distance from their parent star.
If anything, then, the universe seems to *allow* for life, but NOT to be 'tuned' for life. if it were actually *tuned* for life, we would expect life to be *much* more common and a larger part of the universe to be amenable to its formation.
Another aspect is that *simplicity*, and not complexity, is often the hallmark of an intelligent agent. An example (admittedly fictional) would be the monolith from 2001 A Space Odyssey. Here, the simply, rectangular form with precise ratios is fully enough to show an intelligent agent. Here, we have an environment without the relevant material *and* the fact that rectangular corners, especially with precise lengths in the ratio 1:4:9 are not produced naturally. nature tends to be more 'sloppy' and thereby *more* complex.
If, instead, we had an outcropping of material found locally, with crystals of various sizes and with impurities common and of other materials found in the environment, the complexity would be high, but the conclusion of an intelligent agent would be unjustified.
And, in fact, many of the intelligently made objects are recognizable as such because they are smooth, have sharp corners, or have other *simple* aspects that contrast strongly with the types of things that nature produces, which tend to be more chaotic and have complexity at multiple levels.
