Intelligent Design cannot explain the origin of intelligence

[firstfloor]

I assume you all know where babies come from. So what was it that the intelligent designer is supposed to have designed?

[rossum]

Were you hoping that the Christians here had not considered these things and would come to your way of thinking?

No. I was trying to show up one of the major failings of DI-ID. DI-ID studiously avoids discussing the designer, and this question forces some discussion of what their designer is and is not.

As a minor quirk of mine, too many Christians casually say, "God created everything" and similar incorrect statements. At best God created everything except Himself, so sometimes I can get diverted into that related discussion.

rossum

[rossum]

I assume you all know where babies come from. So what was it that the intelligent designer is supposed to have designed?

The stork?

rossum

[Adrift]

No. I was trying to show up one of the major failings of DI-ID. DI-ID studiously avoids discussing the designer, and this question forces some discussion of what their designer is and is not.

As a minor quirk of mine, too many Christians casually say, "God created everything" and similar incorrect statements. At best God created everything except Himself, so sometimes I can get diverted into that related discussion.

rossum

Ok, that's cool. I think probably you'll find very few on this forum who actually hold to DI-ID. So you may be wasting your time. Most of the theists here accept some sort of Theistic Evolution. A few accept Young Earth Creationism.

Out of curiosity, why is it important to you to point out flaws in Intelligent Design, or what the designer is/is not?

[oxmixmudd]

I do see it that way. Outside implies "not inside". Being outside is not the same as being both inside and outside. You made a definite statement of "outside", not a statement of "both outside and inside" as would be implied by omnipresence.

No, actually, it doesn't, at least not in all cases. Let me give two examples. Suppose you have a plane P and a line segment in the plane, LM. Now all the points of the line are 'inside' the plane. And the points of the plane that are in common with the line are 'inside' the line seqment. But it is also true that the plane is "outside" the line. Indeed, infinitely many points of the plane lie outside the line segment. And so the plane is outside the line segment, but also contains the line segment, and so is also technically 'inside' the line segment.

The second example is that while in dealing with a specific set of planar points and a bounded polygon, one can consider the set of points inside and outside to be disjoint, nothing says that some other set, say a 3 dimensional object that intersects both the outside and inside points from the perspective of the plane must also be considered to be disjoint. That 3D object then can be seen as being both inside and outside the polygon. That is, inside and outside are only disjoint sets from a certain perspective - in this case from the perspective of the polygon itself.

Both of these are much closer analogies to my comments about God and time than your insistence the sets are mutually exclusive. First, if God is capable of existing at >1 moment in time (as implied by Jesus' statement "Before Abraham was, I am"), then His relationship to time is more like the plane, while our relationship to time is more like the line. He can then exist both outside of time and inside of time, as the plane can be considered to be both outside and inside the line. Likewise, God is NOT time, but rather the author of time. Thus, again, He is like a 'something else' that happens to intersect with time in a fashion distinct from and 'beyond' how we do. And thus, again, He is and can be both inside and outside time.

Taking the Plane/Line example a bit further. Suppose that there can be >1 time dimension just as there are likely >3 spatial dimensions (i.e. String Theory). God as defined in scripture must be able to function in these alternate time dimensions even though we cannot - for He is the author of all there is. Consider then that while in 1 dimension a given point on a line can only directly access the two adjacent to it. in two dimensions from a position 'outside' the line, all points on the line are directly accessible. Thus in two dimension points can be accessed on the line 'simultaneously' that from within the perspective of the line can only be accessed sequentially. Thus the 2D vantage point allows access both outside time and inside time. Thus God can be 'outside' time (at all points in time 'at once'), yet also interact with a 1 dimensional time line in a way that is perceived from within the line as being 'inside' time.

A subset in contained within the superset. Outside and inside are disjoint sets; both are subsets of "inside and outside".

But, as pointed out above, 'inside' and 'outside' are relative to a set S and a subset of S, B of boundary points defining some sort of 'enclosure' (e.g. a polygon in a plane). Sets that encompass both the inside and the outside of B (or more) can in fact be described as both inside and outside the enclosure. Consider a Tree that grows outside a house, but whose roots have burst through the floor. The tree is now both inside and outside the house. inside and outside applies to the points that are not the house as they relate to the house. Once you start trying to relate another set - the tree - to the house, you have now moved beyond a simple disjoint 'inside' and 'outside' mapping. And again, God is NOT time. So the simple 'two disjoint sets' model of inside and outside time does not apply.

Same thing. Omnipresence implies both outside and inside; both, not just one. There is also the problem with beginnings and endings. God acting in time does have beginnings and endings to His actions.

And I never implied just one. You know God as described in the Bible interacts in time/over time with mankind per the text of scripture. I have pointed out that God is ALSO outside time in term of being an >1 moment in time (in fact at all moments in time) and in that He has no beginning, no end. So at this point in our conversation you can no longer claim to be misled by the fact I did not directly say BOTH or ALSO. Now I think you should have been able to infer it, but accepting you honestly did not, at this point you now know my intent and we really should move on to the broader point. Understanding that God is not merely in time but ALSO outside time, it is clear that one can't demand He have an origin or a beginning, which is a concept required only from within one specific linear conception of time.

The Buddhist approach to these questions can be somewhat different. For example, cause and effect are seen as mutually contingent, neither having a non-contingent independent existence.

rossum

That is completely valid from WITHIN the context of a linear perception of time. But it is not a valid extrapolation to the conception of God's relationship to time that is implied in scripture.


Jim

[37818]

In ID intelligence (the intelligent designer) comes first.

Precisely. The uncaused intelligence. Being that very uncaused Existence which is effectively omnipresent and what is omnipresent is effectively omniscient and what is omniscient is the uncaused intelligence.

Are you saying that intelligence is simple?

Yes, in that it is the absolute uncaused omniscience being the uncaused Existence. Complexity is of what is simple. There can be no complexity without the simple.

If intelligence is simple, then there is no need for any designer, since simple things can arise from natural causes.

Well, natural causes, as you are asserting would be built upon a preexisting simple as to how it would would constitute the appearance of design. From the uncaused existence. An uncaused cause which is both of uncaused existence and something else being contingent on uncaused existence. Uncause cause is both eternal without origin being of uncaused existence and temporal which is not eternal. A second entity being both the first entity and itself as a second entity. Being as it were, of the first entity - uncaused Existence.

Any reading of the ID literature shows that they consider living things, such as humans, to be complex and hence require design.

Yes. But where when do they explain how this comes from what is simple? Even proponents of evolution do not know that answer.

Since humans are intelligent, while simpler organisms like jellyfish are not, that makes intelligence a complex property, not a simple property.

So it would seem. But our intelligence involves "thought." Omniscience just knows - being omnipresent - possessing everything that would or could be without it ever being. Uncaused existence effectively infinite. Cause is always finite and temporal. An uncause cause would be two things not being only the one uncaused Existence. And being uncaused was always of the one absolute omniscience. Again, uncaused Existence is effectively omnipresent and what is omnipresent is effectively omniscient.

I do not accept that intelligence is simple, so I do not accept that your "the simple precedes the complex" is a good description of intelligent design. It is, however, a good description of evolution where simple organisms like jellyfish precede complex organisms like humans.

It does not change the fact the complex cannot exist without the simple which it consists.



I do agree that your objections are note worthy.