The Watchmaker: my fav argument

[Angrboda]

I was highlighting where you had said the things you denied saying.  And no, you apparently don't remember what you wrote.

I don't deny saying those things.

Go play in traffic. I quoted you doing exactly that.

[Belacqua]

It makes no sense to say we see motion and structures all around us and in the galaxy but I betcha most of universe is empty. 

Really big structures can have lots and lots of empty space. 

What are the basis of such model? It’s the same with life elsewhere in universe: we predict that there is life elsewhere in universe and NOT that there is not.

I don't know why a designer would make the universe this way. I'm only arguing that the inhospitable nature of the universe -- with lots of "empty" space -- is not an argument against a designer. Maybe it's an argument against a designer who likes people the most. But maybe not.

After all, it requires no effort for God (as Ground of Being and the actualization of all potentialities) to make a lot of space. And we know that people have the very best place in the universe for people to live, with all the room and resources that we need (if we used them wisely). So a God who "liked" people best still might make a universe in the way that our universe is.

I have yet to hear a predictive (and not after the fact) basis of predominant empty space in the universe building upon design argument.

I haven't heard one of these either. But I don't see why that militates against a designer.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Musicians often say that music occurs in the space between the notes. There's also no reason to suspect creation ends with us. We may be early brush strokes in an otherwise empty canvass awaiting to be filled.

[Belacqua]

Musicians often say that music occurs in the space between the notes. There's also no reason to suspect creation ends with us. We may be early brush strokes in an otherwise empty canvass awaiting to be filled.

I've also been thinking that an argument involving beauty might be possible here. If we stop thinking of creation in economic terms, then our judgments become different.

The idea that a reasonable God wouldn't waste so much effort on space that's inhospitable to humans is primarily economic. It's about use, efficiency, and waste. That doesn't make sense for an omnipotent deity of course. But it also doesn't make sense if we approach things from an aesthetic standpoint. Liberal bourgeois values often consider resources spent on aesthetic pleasures to be wasted. But that's very much a contingent opinion of our own time. Other cultures don't necessarily think that way. 

It's too bad we can't talk here about the Apollonian vs. the Dionysian, because the desirability of waste figures into that. 

Not so long ago some very prominent art people considered vast empty spaces to be beautiful. The whole Romantic/Gothic school thought that way. William Morris, for example, took an expensive trip as far north as he could go -- to Iceland and the Arctic Circle -- because people at that time thought the "frozen waste" to be sublime. He could have gone to the Bahamas, but he found the empty frozen places to be better. 

There's also an ancient school of thought in China and Japan, in which the veiled, the misty, the humanly incomprehensible, is seen as more beautiful than what is seen clearly.

So if a God did make the universe for beauty it's entirely possible that he wouldn't share our current taste. It might be that the parts we consider to be wasted, from an economic mindset, would be the most important ones, from a different viewpoint. There is a Platonic argument to be made here, I think, in that beauty is inherently connected to the divine. 

It's very hard to extricate our economic ideology from our supposedly objective scientific analysis.

[vulcanlogician]

It's too bad we can't talk here about the Apollonian vs. the Dionysian, because the desirability of waste figures into that. 

It's too bad those who argue design typically don't bother to mention the Apollonian vs. the Dionysian. Because that's an interesting argument.

It doesn't give sufficient support to the argument or make it more plausible than competing theories. But it's a pretty good defense.

[Foxaèr]

In psychology, the term imaginary audience describes a kind of belief common in adolescence where people think they are the center of everyone's attention. I think you might be approaching scripture the same way.

Of course, I'm the center of attention. Everyone knows that, whether they're willing to admit it or not.

[Mister Agenda]

So what's the operational definition for undesignability?

I defined it as "not designable" or "unable to be designed." I'll maintain it as that unless someone shows why things like "not graspable," "not bright," and "not on" are likewise invalid descriptions.

That's not an operational definition, it's just the meaning of the term in a dictionary sense. An operational definition is 'a description of something in terms of the operations (procedures, actions, or processes) by which it could be observed and measured'. If no one can give an operational definition of 'not graspable' or 'not bright' or 'not on' that a reasonable person would find acceptable, then those would lack operational definitions as well.

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Why does everything have to be designable if Intelligent Design is true?

Simply because that is a claim of the theory. Design is intelligence-dependent, meaning that it obviously varies across the gradient of species. But Intelligent Design as a theory encompasses everything because that is what it predicts that gods, or simulations, can do.

If I create a computer simulation, which I can't actually do because I'm deficient in programming; I'm sure I wouldn't have to design every last detail. Some things would be designed and some things wouldn't. If it's possible in principle for something to be undesignable and my simulation included things I didn't design; potentially among the things I didn't design could be something that is undesignable.

I personally don't think anything is undesignable in principle, though making something with quantum-level precision may be impossible, for instance, that doesn't make it undesignable. I think the idea of something being undesignable in principle is both incoherent and unfalsifiable.

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When was this and what was the source of the quote?

Somebody on this forum had it as his signature. It was by H.L. Mencken or somebody like that.

I couldn't find that quote; but here's one I did find related to the ocean that you might find amusing:

Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and missing? That's the way the mind of man operates.--Mencken

[Rahn127]

Typically I understand design to mean "a biological intelligent creature taking existent raw materials and shaping them in a certain way that natural means cannot produce."

In this way, we can differentiate a naturally occurring item and one that was designed by a biological intelligent creature.

But now let's say that this biological intelligent creature has advanced enough to create a Star Trek replicator that can scan a naturally made orange and replicate that orange exactly to the point where you cannot tell the difference between the two.

I think at this point we might actually say that both oranges are natural.

A tree is a product of nature and it makes an orange.
A biological intelligent creature is a product of nature and it makes an orange.

Something to think about

[Mister Agenda]

Hmm the story is about God's dealings with Man is it not? And so the narrative logically revolves around us. But the book of Job has many examples in which we are not the center of God's actions, motivations, or desires (including the first chapter where we find out we might not even be the only planet).

By coincidence I happen to have recently re-read the first 8 chapters of Job (KJV); but I missed the verse indicating there might be other planets. I would be very interested if you would elaborate on that. I'm aware of the one that describes God hanging the earth upon nothing; but nothing that indicates a comprehension that the 'moving stars' are actually planets. I'm not a Bible scholar though; maybe I'm missing something; or maybe it's later in the book.

[The Grand Nudger]

Flirting with quranic miracles territory, frankly.

If we found out that we were the only show in the universe the faithful would shout hosanna - and if we find out that there are other shows in the universe the faithful would insist that their magic book already told us so.