Detecting design or intent in nature

[Heywood]

Ions give up some of their energy as light as the body moves toward thermodynamic equilibrium.

I know where you are going, but the point I am trying to make is there is a lot of stuff happening the system we call a star. It is simply inaccurate to call a star a thermonuclear reaction when there is a whole lot of other stuff going on too. Chas is conflating one process that happens within a star with the star itself. Don't make the same error he is making.

A star is a thermonuclear reactor. It takes protons and makes helium nuclei through a series of nuclear processes. Like any nuclear reactor, it also makes other stuff as well like light, neutrinos, neutrons, lithium, etc. Other stuff the sun does (like be a huge gravitational well) doesn't mean it stops being a thermonuclear reactor.

A star is much more than a thermonuclear reactor and it obviously a very different thing than a tokamak.

He should not be comparing stars with tokamaks. Instead he should be comparing these two propositions:

Processes which result in fusion always require intellect to be implemented.

Processes which result in fusion do not always require intellects to be implemented.


The fact that we have observed stars in various stages of developement without a requirement of intellect falsifies the first proposition.

[Chas]

A star is a thermonuclear reactor. It takes protons and makes helium nuclei through a series of nuclear processes. Like any nuclear reactor, it also makes other stuff as well like light, neutrinos, neutrons, lithium, etc. Other stuff the sun does (like be a huge gravitational well) doesn't mean it stops being a thermonuclear reactor.

A star is much more than a thermonuclear reactor and it obviously a very different thing than a tokamak.

He should not be comparing stars with tokamaks. Instead he should be comparing these two propositions:

Processes which result in fusion always require intellect to be implemented.

Processes which result in fusion do not always require intellects to be implemented.


The fact that we have observed stars in various stages of developement without a requirement of intellect falsifies the first proposition.

Processes which simulate evolution always require intellect to be implemented.

Processes which result in evolution do not always require intellects to be implemented.

[Heywood]

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That could be God sending you a message Chas.

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Your desperation is taking you to new lows.
[/quote]

When I googled for an image of a stellar nursery, that is what came up. I thought it was comical so I decided to use it as a joke.

Don't take it so seriously. I don't think God is really telling you to fuck off Chas.

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Processes which simulate evolution always require intellect to be implemented.

Processes which result in evolution do not always require intellects to be implemented.

Simulated evolution simulates biological evolution by actually evolving variables in a computer. It is real evolution at its heart. It is just not real biological evolution.

[The Grand Nudger]

Simulated evolution simulates biological evolution by actually evolving variables in a computer. It is real evolution at its heart. It is just not real biological evolution.

No, Heywood...it's procedural generation. Any simulation that involved a tinkerer, a fixer, an intellect.... would not be a simulation of biological evolution, and would therefore have no value to the researcher. It would also..-not- be procedural generation.

[Heywood]

Simulated evolution simulates biological evolution by actually evolving variables in a computer. It is real evolution at its heart. It is just not real biological evolution.

No, Heywood...it's procedural generation. Any simulation that involved a tinkerer, a fixer, an intellect.... would not be a simulation of biological evolution, and would therefore have no value to the researcher. It would also..-not- be procedural generation.

You can keep making these assertions. They may re-enforce your fantasy but they say nothing about reality.

[The Grand Nudger]

Heywood, I'm explaining the principles of computing to you. You're pigheadedly sticking to an asinine claim by making further asinine claims about the information I've provided you with, cited, linked, explained, and re-explained - as though you were a child.

If you want to construct a decent argument along these lines, you are going to have to come to terms with this. What you "observed", is not what you though it was. No harm, no foul. Why should you know anything about procedural gens? What you've done since having them explained to you, however, is on you. You could, at any point, incorporate this new information and modify your claim. You would still have to do more work...but it would be a start.

(this refusal to abandon the ground, btw, is how I know your argument is out of gas. This has to be true, for you...even if it isn't. You're more dedicated to the claim than you are to it's accuracy)

[JuliaL]

If the intellect in question is a natural object, not requiring an intellect for its generation, then its design products are also natural.

By this thinking cars are natural products. When people claim that cars need intellect to exist I think you know very well what they mean.

Unfortunately, I don't.
Are you then saying that
the bowers of bower birds are designs produced by intellect?
the nests of sunfish are designs produced by intellect?
the mounds of termites are designs produced by intellect?

If you say yes to the above, you are giving the termites too much credit unless intellect need not be self aware and its production of 'designed' objects need not be intentional. You're leaning more towards special pleading if you claim that animals only act on instinct while humans produce 'real' design or that the 'designs' produced were in fact inherent in the chain of beings that led from the individuals cited back to the unknown, presumed godlike, first designer.

Evolved intellects are not necessarily designed intellects. We are not discussing intellects being designed or even evolutionary systems themselves being designed. What we are discussing is do evolutionary systems require intellects and it seems that they do.

You asked for an instance of an evolutionary system not intentionally designed by intellect. I considered using the flock, the school or the ant colony. But to be more poignant, I offer religion, arising as an emergent property of human interaction. Among humans, tribes leading to nation states and overall society also qualify. You may object that these involve humans and therefore intellects. The involvement of an intellect in a non-intentional role doesn't count if you are trying to make the inference of a personal God being required to kick off humanity or life on earth. Nobody intended to create the tribe. An impersonal cause is consistent with a naturalistic explanation.

[Surgenator]

A star is a thermonuclear reactor. It takes protons and makes helium nuclei through a series of nuclear processes. Like any nuclear reactor, it also makes other stuff as well like light, neutrinos, neutrons, lithium, etc. Other stuff the sun does (like be a huge gravitational well) doesn't mean it stops being a thermonuclear reactor.

A star is much more than a thermonuclear reactor and it obviously a very different thing than a tokamak.

He should not be comparing stars with tokamaks. Instead he should be comparing these two propositions:

Processes which result in fusion always require intellect to be implemented.

Processes which result in fusion do not always require intellects to be implemented.


The fact that we have observed stars in various stages of developement without a requirement of intellect falsifies the first proposition.

First off, there is more than one way to make fusion. A tokamak is a clever design go get fusion. There is also the brute force method that stars use. The fact that stars created fusion by the dumpest way possible suggest no intelligence was involved. What makes people 99.999% sure no intelligence was involved is because a large mass of hydrogen will collapse and thermonuclearly ignite all on its own. It is fundamentally the same as water flowing downhill. It doesn't require intelligence to tell water to go downhill, and it doesn't take intelligence to tell hydrogen to collapse and thermonuclearly ignite.

[robvalue]

Heywood:

"Some sort of Intelligence" =/= "God"

The conclusion of your argument, even if allowed, does not imply the answer that you want it to.

[Ryantology]

system which you know for certain doesn't require an intellect to come into existence or to be a substantial part of it? I cannot. It seems every evolutionary system....including memetic ones, required either intellect to design them or intellect to be the selective mechanism in them. Why then should I make a special case for the evolutaryary system which produced me and believe that somehow it is different and didn't need an intellect to design it or be substantially involved in the selection mechanism?

Who designed the designer? If you do not want to make special exceptions, you are forced to exclude the granddaddy of all special exceptions: the uncaused cause.