The Watchmaker: my fav argument

[John 6IX Breezy]

I don't see how that could be falsified. 

Hmm I'm viewing "design-ability" as a property that things have (or could be shown not to have).

I'm here borrowing from J.J. Gibson's "ecological approach to perception" in which he introduces the concept of affordances. Objects have properties like "graspability," which exist by virtue of there being animals with limbs in an environment with surfaces that allow grasping. (The theory is about how animals perceive these "affordances" but that's less important.)

What I'm claiming here is that objects also have a property of "design-ability." Which exists by virtue of them being "designable" or "creatable." A pencil, for example, is something that can be designed. And if there is any doubt, we can easily conduct an experiment and attempt to design and create a pencil.

The claim that "everything in the universe is designable" is falsifiable because other claims with the same structure are as well (e.g. "everything in the universe is graspable" is false—the moon isn't graspable). Simulation Theory is important because it allows us to test the design-ability of the universe virtually.

If anything in the universe cannot be designed, then intelligent design is falsified.

[Fake Messiah]

What we learned in this thread:

- God created the universe and everything in it

- God is perfect because reasons since there is no evidence for his (yes, he's a guy) perfection because his creation is deeply flawed

- God is most probably evil because he deliberately makes sadistic flaws in his creation

- there isn't anything that could disprove that God created the universe and everything in it

- that people get high on Christianity

[John 6IX Breezy]

[Edit: Double post]

[Belacqua]

I'm here borrowing from J.J. Gibson's "ecological approach to perception" in which he introduces the concept of affordances. Objects have properties like "graspability," which exist by virtue of there being animals with limbs in an environment with surfaces that allow grasping. (The theory is about how animals perceive these "affordances" but that's less important.)

It's always dangerous to assume one understands after five minutes of Googling, but I think I see what Gibson means. 

If I'm understanding right, it's in line with some fundamental ideas in phenomenology -- that we never perceive the world "raw," as sense data, but always in relation to how we use it. So we don't walk out the door and wonder about the extended flat matte grey hard level surface. We just immediately perceive that it's a place to walk (i.e. a sidewalk) and know what to do. I'm thinking that Gibson would say we perceive its "walkability" first and foremost. 

Sometimes I do a thing with my students where I have them look up and focus on the ceiling, and then I ask them what color are the chairs they're sitting in. Surprisingly often they can't say. When they came into the room they properly perceived the chairs and properly sat down on them -- nobody fell on the floor -- but they only saw the use of the chairs and not the full range of sense qualities. Not the color. So Gibson would say that sit-ability was the quality that interested them and they didn't bother to look beyond that. I'm guessing. Is that basically right? 

Obviously we can be mistaken about these qualities. (Affordances?) I might perceive a gap in the wall as a place to walk through, when in fact it's a large window with clean glass, and I end up bumping my nose. So the ____-ability of something would be falsifiable. 

What I'm claiming here is that objects also have a property of "design-ability."  Which exists by virtue of them being "designable" or "creatable." A pencil, for example,  is something that can be designed. And if there is any doubt, we can easily conduct an experiment and attempt to design and create a pencil.

Again, this is all new for me. My first instinct is to be wary of jumping from a theory about perception to a method of falsifying propositions about the world. 

It's true that we could think of things as design-able or not design-able. But this seems likely to be learned not through sense experience or instinct (like eat-ability or jump-over-ability) but through what we have learned conceptually of what things are intentionally designed and what things are natural. Someone who grew up in a religious household might have been taught that God designed everything, and therefore that person would perceive trees as designable, whereas someone from a different kind of culture would habitually separate the designed from the natural. 

So what we perceive as designable will be predetermined by the metaphysical assumptions we have about the world. There's a danger of begging the question. 

The claim that "everything in the universe is designable" is falsifiable because other claims with the same structure are as well (e.g. "everything in the universe is graspable" is false—the moon isn't graspable). Simulation Theory is important because it allows us to test the design-ability of the universe virtually.

If anything in the universe cannot be designed, then intelligent design is falsified.

This is tricky. If we can show that any one thing cannot be designed, then the idea that everything is design-able is falsified. But that doesn't mean that nothing at all is intelligently designed by God. There could be randomness built in, in which some things are allowed to evolve randomly, while others are made intentionally. 

Or God could design the system and the natural laws, and then put them in motion so they evolve in a pre-determined way. Would that be considered designed or not designed? The idea of God as a constantly hands-on demiurge fashioning each thing like a potter on a wheel would be wrong, but the idea that God made the thing come about as it is could still be possible. As if God designs through the Butterfly Effect -- by making a tiny change a million years ago, he ensures that there is a particular kind of thing today. If God "sees" all time and space simultaneously, that wouldn't be incredible. (The Christian idea of God as that which at each moment holds the universe and its laws in existence makes this different from Deism.) 

I don't know! But I'm much more likely to take "designed" as an analogous term, which has a different meaning when applied to God as when it's applied to people. Just as "love" or "know" is completely different in each case.

[Ravenshire]

The universe is designable—that's the claim that needs to be falsified.

*throws flag*
Shifting the burden of proof. This is a fifteen yard penalty and a loss of down.


Seriously, you make the claim, the burden is on you to prove it, not on anyone else to disprove it.

So, prove your claim. I'll wait.

[Belacqua]

*throws flag*
Shifting the burden of proof. This is a fifteen yard penalty and a loss of down.

Oh you're playing sports.

Seriously, you make the claim, the burden is on you to prove it, not on anyone else to disprove it.

So, prove your claim. I'll wait.

If your goal is to "win" something, then you can make declarations about the burden of proof and see what your "opponent" can do.

On the other hand if you're a grown-up interested in figuring things out in good faith, then you can make your best arguments for and against things without pretending it's sports. 

If you have some arguments against the design-ability of things in the world, we'd be interested in hearing what you have to say. Snarkiness and pointing to the rulebook don't really help.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Grown-ups don't try and win and winning = bad faith? That's news. It's also false 

No, what doesn't help is unfounded condescension and baseless appeals to motivation.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Shifting the burden of proof. This is a fifteen yard penalty and a loss of down.

I'm a science student not a law student. We falsify things in science not prove them beyond a reasonable doubt.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Simulation theory is a bunch of woo and your conceptions of designability would neither demonstrate nor falsify anything. And we don't need to falsify your wacky speculations.

[Silver]

I'm a science student not a law student. We falsify things in science not prove them beyond a reasonable doubt.

Then you also understand that science does not concern itself with matters of religion on a professional level. What you do with your personal life and believe outside your work should not conflict with science.