Detecting design or intent in nature

[Heywood]

I agree with what you're saying here, however, as what you're talking about doesn't even come close to being "my counter argument," we can hardly say that it fails. Now, I'm going to formulate what my argument actually is, in the same terms that you've used above; I'm under little doubt right now that you're merely willfully misinterpreting what I'm saying, but if I use your own parlance I can hardly be accused of speaking above your comprehension level, and you'll have no excuse.

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Put simply, all we need to do is run both of your above propositions through the premises of the argument you used that began all of this:

Premise 1: Observations are valid means of calculating probability.
Premise 2: Without observations, no valid arguments for the probability of a given concept can be made.
Conclusion: Regarding evolution, the observations we have indicate that intelligence is required for evolution to occur, therefore this is most probable.

Of your two propositions, both pass those premises, but they do so inextricably connected. You cannot say that evolutionary systems require intelligence without adding the corollary that the intelligence involved is human, because if you do that you are violating premise two.

There is a third proposition that you are desperately trying to hide, which is that evolutionary systems, according to the premises of your own argument, have only been observed to come about as a result of human intelligence, or more broadly, via intelligence that arose as a part of the pre-existing evolutionary system that is here on Earth. Two basic problems with your argument come about as a result of this third proposition; the first is that if the only observations you have regarding the origin of evolutionary systems involve exclusively human intellect, then positing that evolutionary systems can come about as the result of non-human intellects necessarily removes you from the observations you place such importance on, as we have none of non-human intelligences creating evolutionary systems.

The second, more insurmountable problem you have, is that the only observations you have are of designed evolutionary systems created by products of other evolutionary systems. Humans evolved, and you've never observed a life form that did not evolve as part of an evolutionary system; your own argument therefore also implies a higher probability of all life being the result of an evolutionary system, as every example you have ever come across did evolve. So, now you're in a position where you either continue insisting that naturally forming evolutionary systems aren't viable as argument, meaning you're positing the existence of an intelligent being that didn't arise as a part of an evolutionary system, that needs to exist in order to create the first one, in which case you're violating your own premises regarding observations that allow you to dismiss the possibility ot naturally occurring systems at all. Or, you're positing the existence of an initial evolutionary system from which the life that eventually designed the others came from, but which had no designer itself, in which case you're accepting the existence of naturally occurring evolutionary systems, and your own conclusion is invalid.

I explained this to you earlier too, in much the same way, and you completely ignored it, as if pretending it doesn't exist makes the problem go away. Let's see if you do the same this time.

I have no observations of intelligence arising anywhere other than earth because I haven't left earth and looked for it. If and when I do, the more worlds and places I examine and find no intellect, the more likely it becomes that earth is the only place where there is intellect. To come to the conclusion, as you would have me to do, that the earth is the only place where there is intellect, requires me to actually make some observations of places other than earth.

The fact that you've failed to inform yourself of the life content of other planets doesn't alter the fact that, as of now you have no observations to confirm that intellects outside of Earth even can exist, and yet you're accepting that they can and using that in your arguments. Earlier on, you were dismissing arguments for natural evolution because nobody had observations of it.

That's called being a hypocrite; it can't be bad when somebody else has no observations, and yet okay when you have no observations, when your entire argument is that observations are required. You aren't consistently applying your own argument, and that makes it a hypocritical, contradictory mess.

Even if that comes to pass, that I come to the conclusion that the earth is the only place which harbors intellect, how does that invalidate the proposition that evolutionary systems require intellect?

Well, it wouldn't, but it would require you to amend your proposition to mean that only humans can create evolutionary systems, or that only Earthbound life that is the product of Earth's evolutionary system can create them, both of which are obviously impossible, contradictory premises. That's kinda the problem I've been driving at this whole time.

Your answer is that we observed an evolutionary system create intellect.

That has never once been even a component of my argument here. You really aren't paying attention to a thing I'm saying, are you?

But we have also observed intellects creating evolutionary systems. The existence of the evolutionary system which created us does not falsify the proposition that said evolutionary system itself required an intellect. You really have no way of knowing what came first....the intellect or the evolutionary system.

But based on observations, which you've been using as the arbiter of probability this whole time, the conclusion one would come to is that humans created the evolutionary system that led to human life existing in the first place, since the only creators of evolutionary systems we've observed are humans. I'm sure you can see the problem with that. It's the whole reason your argument doesn't work.

Your position, to even be tenable, requires you to believe that evolutionary systems can come into existence without an intellect, but you do not have any direct observations to support that position. My position has direct observations of evolutionary systems requiring intellect, and no direct observations contradicting it.

But your emphasis on direct observations also requires you to admit to the existence of a number of other propositions that make your conclusion impossible, the main one being that you've never directly observed a designer of evolutionary systems that was not, itself, also the product of an evolutionary system.

Do you get it now?

Oh, and don't think I've forgotten that you claimed I said something, and then I was able to respond with a quote from the post you were replying to where I said the exact opposite. Do you have anything to say in response to your blatant strawmanning? Or just more if this pathetic "if I ignore it the argument will cease to exist!" crap?

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Sorry for taking a while to get back to you but I've been quite busy lately. I do want to thanks for trying but to be blunt........you've failed.

You do not need to add any "corollary that the intelligence involved is human". Intelligence is not human. Intelligence is intelligence. You are still conflating the two. You could make a separate argument that only human intellect exists because that is all that has ever been observed....but that is a separate stand alone argument. A separate argument to be evaluated on its own merits.

Now there is nothing wrong with the reasoning behind such an argument. If every time you observe an intellect you also observe that intellect belongs to a human being, then it is reasonable to conclude that all intellects belong to human beings. The more intellects you observe and find them to belong to humans, the more confident you can be in your conclusion.

Suppose you observe machinery and find that every piece of machinery you come across it the product of human intellect. It would be reasonable to conclude that all machinery is the product of humans and that all machinery is also the product of intellect. Now suppose that a piece of machinery is observed on the Dwarf Planet called Pluto during the New Horizon probe fly by. Since humans have never visited Pluto before, humans could not be responsible for that machinery. Observation of machinery on Pluto would be an indirect observation of a non human intellect. If you accept that all machinery is the product of intellect, then anytime you observe machinery which could not be the product of human intellect, it infers the existence of non human intellect.

Falsifying the proposition that all machinery is the product of humans does not falsify the proposition that all machinery is the product of intellects. They are not inextricably linked as you suggested.

Because evolutionary systems have only been observed coming into existence in the presence of intellect(s) and since humans could not have been present when the evolutionary system which created us came into existence, we can use the evolutionary system which created us to infer the existence of a non human intellect. In effect we have an indirect observation of a non human intellect....so your argument that all intellects are human....FAILS. It is falsified.