Detecting design or intent in nature

[watchamadoodle]

This is the rebuttal I like:

We notice design by comparing it to non-design. We recognise a watch in a forest as designed because it never occurs in nature, as opposed to all the plants around it, which do occur in nature. So it's reasonable to conclude the watch is designed, as we also have experience of them being designed.

With the universe, we don't have anything to compare it to. What would a "non designed" universe look like, if not like this?

Let's say we have 2 rocks and 1 watch. Depending on the type of classification, we might decide that the watch has more in common with one of the rocks than the two rocks have in common with each other.

I wonder if the difference is that a designed system can be described accurately with fewer parameters than a non-designed system by using patterns. For example, a rock has random bumps and pits. We probably need a huge matrix to describe the rock. Meanwhile the watch contains geometric shapes that can be described with only a few parameters (e.g. the face is a circle with a radius).

Of course we have those Japanese gardens that are designed to look random and natural. And we have abstract paintings that look like somebody spilled paint by accident on the canvas. Those designed systems contain asthetic design patterns like complementary colors, balance, etc., but there is still a lot of chaos like a natural system.

Also, we have excellent scientific explanations back almost to the Big Bang. I can't remember where I heard it, but some reliable guy said that even if some "God" designed the singularity, that God couldn't predict how it would have played out. And there's no evidence any God has interfered since then. So no design today, or at least no reason to think there is design.

What if causality is an illusion? Maybe the universe is like a book that God wrote and we are reading that book. We become attached to the main character in the book (our physical body) so much that we forget that we are not that physical body. We think we are making choices, but actually we are just observing choices that have already been made by God when he wrote the book. The illusion of causality is created by progression of the plot.