Detecting design or intent in nature

[downbeatplumb]

Is this wretched demi-bee
Half asleep upon my knee
some freak from a menagerie?
No!!! It's Eric the half-a-bee!

To bee or not to bee.
Buzz is the question.

[Cyberman]

Whether 'tis nobler in the hive
To suffer the stings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take a swarm against a sea of pollen
And, by opposing, buzz them.

[downbeatplumb]

Eric is a lonely bee.
It's hard to pollinate.
When you only have one wing.
And flying isn't great.

[Chili]

Well, and I would call it the height in that peace is found in the greater good that is visible in the tradition that surrounds us. It is where a child can be a child and cold can be cold with the unknown known remaining the distant unknown in the freedom that is given to belong without any tension to be. It is like a walk on the beach along the shores of the greater good not visible to us, instead of, and just opposite to a walk on the catwalk were we are on exhibition for everyone to see, including preacher who does not belong to make evil known as an opposite there.

Then, if the sense of belonging suggest that all learning is done from what is prior to nature in us, it will be natures duty to expose the icon in us and we will bow gently when we encounter as if it was a spectator in us until we do. It is from here that, as we journey along the shores of wide waters we find that every bush is a burning bush in the same way, we will finally take off our shoes as one of those too.

A predominant concept is the distinction between within and without.

This is for sure, and orthodox and modern would do that to, as you will show.

But Sartre promotes the use of materialist narrative to modify and read sexual identity.
Foucaultist power relations implies that the task of the writer is social comment. In a sense, if textual desublimation holds, we have to choose between neosemiotic
capitalism and textual discourse. Lyotard’s critique of Foucaultist power relations holds that context is created by communication. Thus, the primary theme of the works
of Rushdie is the role of the participant as writer. The premise of Baudrillardist hyperreality suggests that narrativity is capable of deconstruction, given that Lacan’s essay
on materialist narrative is invalid. But Sontag uses the term ‘textual desublimation’ to denote a submaterial whole.
Derrida uses the term ‘materialist narrative’ to denote the dialectic, and eventually the meaninglessness, of pretextual sexual identity. But Brophy states that the works
of Tarantino are postmodern.
If capitalist rationalism holds, we have to choose between textual desublimation and neotextual capitalist theory. Thus, the subject is interpolated into a Foucaultist power relations that includes language as a totality.

So here we are and I liked your first "but" and am from the old school myself where tradition is the final word in every sentence that we make, and this is true whether we say it or not.

I know all the names that you use to present what I would call 'chaos' in society today, and even think that a simple advertisement on TV is already an infringement on my privacy and will at least try to do just opposite to what they want me to do. But I would normally forget, I mean "who cares," but it is an insult just the same.

This would be a matter if integrity, I suppose, as if I have something to protect that is mine as prior by nature in me, and therefore proceed with caution when I read these moderns, who are modern only as not proven yet.

And that is my point here, where the Law of Excluded Middle including Identity is never greater than the problem that I see, personally here, and take comfort in my ability 'to see' or it would never be mine from the start. There are many good things about this too, in which there is always a challenge before me and never a day without something to do.

So could it be that chaos is opposite to orthodoxy?

[The Grand Nudger]

Never seen a troll take to the bait so enthusiastically.

[Cyberman]

Can I wash off the trollnip now? I tend to attract all the neighbourhood cats and that's not the kind of pussy I'm after.

[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.

---

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?

---

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.

[IATIA]

Because evolutionary systems have only been observed coming into existence in the presence of intellect(s)

Says who?

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.

You have to show that intellect is required.

[The Grand Nudger]

Intelligence is not human. Intelligence is intelligence.

all your observations of it -are-. Your conclusion will have to concede, if you're still pretending to base it on observations, that it was human intelligence that created these systems, even the system that yielded human intelligence

...because that's the only intelligence you have observations of to make statements from.

Because evolutionary systems have only been observed coming into existence in the presence of intellect(s)

human intellects - of course, this isn't true, I'm just trying to keep the deceit to a minimum. One of the more ironic twists, is that in the manner you';re likely using the word....intellect will always be present when observation is occurring......nub.

and since humans could not have been present when the evolutionary system which created us came into existence,

bingo, your observations cannot be cast into that point in the past where you want them to be. I like how it's "presence" now..lol, guess what, presence is insufficient, your argument is DOA. Did you know that there are lightbulbs present when I take a shit? Guess that means that lightbulbs cause me to take a shit.

we can use the evolutionary system which created us to infer the existence of a non human intellect.

trouble is that it doesn't require an intellect, no more so than your examples of evolutionary systems require intellect, mere presence is insufficient for operation, and your observations all involve human intellect, as does your concept of observation.

[Heywood]

Intelligence is not human. Intelligence is intelligence.

all your observations of it -are-. Your conclusion will have to concede, if you're still pretending to base it on observations, that it was human intelligence that created these systems, even the system that yielded human intelligence

...because that's the only intelligence you have observations of to make statements from.

You're making the same blunder that Esquilax is making. You are conflating intellect with human. They are different qualities. They are not inextricably linked. Consider this proposition:

Only human intellects have been observed transmitting the value of pi via radio waves.

It is really two propositions:
1. Only humans have been observed transmitting the value of pi via radio waves.
2. Only intellects have been observed transmitting the value of pi via radio waves.

Now suppose we observe the value of pi transmitted via radio waves originating from a source from which no human could be or have ever been. Such an observation would falsify proposition 1 but it would in no way falsify proposition 2. The two propositions are not inextricably linked.

Observing an intelligent signal would from another solar system would be an indirect observation of non human intellect. Observing an evolutionary system which could not have required humans falsifies the proposition that all evolutionary systems require humans. It does not falsify the proposition that all evolutionary systems require intellects. As long as all evolutionary systems whose circumstances of origins are known.....are found to require intellects.....the proposition that all evolutionary systems require intellects is still very reasonable. It is much more reasonable than the contrary proposition held by many atheists which has virtually no observational evidence to back it up.