So what is it about all these artificial limbs, artificial joints, pace-makers, hearing aids, eye correction devices and what not? Is it because man thinks he’s capable of improving on the original design? In other words whose design exactly, does he think he’s trying to improve upon? Obviously if there was no recognizable design in the first place, what on earth does he think he’s trying to change?
Whereas if he does change it, surely he can’t just impliment something arbitrarily and say, “Okay, that’ll fix it.” It has to be recognizable or, at the very least intelligible to the overall design, otherwise it won’t work, right? Which is to say nothing happens arbitrarily and, it requires sophistication in order to make things work. Doesn’t that suggest to you the possibility of Intelligence behind the Design? So, what exactly is a design anyway, if it wasn’t laid out in an intelligent fashion? Indeed, how would we recognize it?
Or, perhaps what we should be asking is what is intelligence in the first place, when related to the overall scheme of things? Is it an independent process that exists outside of the Universe? Hmm … Sounds too much like God now doesn’t it? Or, could it be that the Universe follows the intelligence of the overall design, of which our intelligence is merely the outcropping or, manifestation of? Of course that doesn’t leave us with much more of an option than to suggest Intelligence created intelligence either now does it?
Artificial limbs etc are replacements for parts that are too impaired. Unfortunately, we cannot make them “like new”.
And there are ways in which the “design” could be improved upon. That’s partly why so many problems arise in old age, a point at which evolution doesn’t get much of a say.
Of course our bodies seam to fit together nicely and have a design, but only because they have to be consistent in order to function correctly. There is a design, but I wouldn’t say it was created intelligently, or else we wouldn’t have these problems would we?
We are improving upon ourselves because this is what we have. We can’t change it, so we improvise and better it the best we can.
I’m sure it is possible to have a creature that is designed much better than we, but it would seam to me that our way of life today definetly keeps evolution at a stand still. How can we possibly improve through evolution now by living a sheltered life, in safe homes we have built, with much technology, laws to protect us from eachother etc.
I know I’m being very vague, but I’m having trouble developing the idea that is in my head to disprove your claims that we have been created with an intelligent design. I hope someone feels free to help develope this.
Iaschus said : - “Yeah, it’s too bad we weren’t designed to live forever, right? But then again maybe I’m referring to our soul here?”
Ya, it’s nice if you can lower yourself enough to believe in such a fairy tail idea such as the soul. I myself find that irrelevant in providing any help in this matter. It is just another unproven theory that holds as much stance as my saying there isn’t one. But at least my stance would not require the proof of its existence.
Without structure there would be no intelligence. Therefore the notion of intelligence must coincide with structure. And, since structure gives rise to even more structure, why can’t intelligence give rise to intelligence? In otherwords since the laws of physics have always existed (in some form), why shouldn’t the same thing apply to intelligence?
Back to basics here. There is a general assumption of design, even by those who refute it in this discussion.
Sorry if the point I make has been taken for granted, but there is always the possibility of no design at all?
First of all, it seems to point away from God when we look at how imperfect the human body is in comparison to, say, another animal such as an eagle - our eyes allow forward vision and a little peripheral, but their eyes allow forward and sideways detailed vision. We are both hunter species - how come our eyes are not ‘designed’ in the same way?
Secondly, and this is my favourite ever argument to refute design, it can be assumed that as, for example, a tree works just right to perform all the tasks it needs to, it has been designed specifically in this way to perfrom this way.
But if you work backwards and ask what would happen if the tree had not been designed in such a way, we find that it wouldn’t carry out it’s functions as well or might even fail to carry them out at all - the tree that is not designed, or is of a different design, is not a ‘good’ (as Aristotle would have it) tree as it does not fulfil it’s functions.
So we have a tree that is ‘designed’ to be perfect in one view, or a tree that is not designed at all and is perfect because IT HAS TO BE in order to be here!
Oour improvements in this ‘design’ seem to clarify the fact that we are not designed at all… because obviously the perfect design would not have these defects.
If it can be accepted that we have to be like this or we would not survive, an intelligent design need not come into it!
Sorry I may not be too clear, I’ve been unwell recently so my words may be a bit muddled. Also, as a newbie, i may have jumped in both feet first. Ah well, better both feet than staying dry.
Back to basics here. There is a general assumption of design, even by those who refute it in this discussion.
Sorry if the point I make has been taken for granted, but there is always the possibility of no design at all?
First of all, it seems to point away from God when we look at how imperfect the human body is in comparison to, say, another animal such as an eagle - our eyes allow forward vision and a little peripheral, but their eyes allow forward and sideways detailed vision. We are both hunter species - how come our eyes are not ‘designed’ in the same way?
Secondly, and this is my favourite ever argument to refute design, it can be assumed that as, for example, a tree works just right to perform all the tasks it needs to, it has been designed specifically in this way to perfrom this way.
But if you work backwards and ask what would happen if the tree had not been designed in such a way, we find that it wouldn’t carry out it’s functions as well or might even fail to carry them out at all - the tree that is not designed, or is of a different design, is not a ‘good’ (as Aristotle would have it) tree as it does not fulfil it’s functions.
So we have a tree that is ‘designed’ to be perfect in one view, or a tree that is not designed at all and is perfect because IT HAS TO BE in order to be here!
Oour improvements in this ‘design’ seem to clarify the fact that we are not designed at all… because obviously the perfect design would not have these defects.
If it can be accepted that we have to be like this or we would not survive, an intelligent design need not come into it!
Sorry I may not be too clear, I’ve been unwell recently so my words may be a bit muddled. Also, as a newbie, i may have jumped in both feet first. Ah well, better both feet than staying dry.
You want some evidence of intelligence in design. Then how about PHI. The divine ratio now it doesn’t get any odder then that. I myself cannot see anything but design in this.
If you have six differnt color dice if you roll them all and then examine the probably of that paticular combination comeing up will be 1/46656 or less than one-thousanth of one persent.
This is getting into the lottery paradox. Take a simple raffle, where every ticket bought has a counterpart in the big rotateing barral thing. Let’s say a million tickets are sold, no more than one to a person. For every ticket, there is an extreemly small chance of winning. Yet, at the same time it is an absolute certiany that someone will win. Thus it is an absolute certianty that someone with an extreemly small chance of winning before the draw will indeed win.
Intressing thing is that in these lottery cases, the winners have a tendancy to thank God as well. Which can be really annoying to all the losers, who might start to question how they have offended God. So when your praiseing God for all the trees and things, try to remember there maybe poor smucks who got the crappy universe.
I don’t quite follow you. No one can not get the divine proportion.
And in the lottery there is no certainty of a winner at all, there is a probability that a very small percentage of participants that enter will win but there is no proportion.
wow This is horrible. I’m seeing what I want to see and not what it is that is actualy written. Yes the raffle example does make sense sorry about that. But how do you relate it to the divine proportion-- as to that I’m still at a loss.
Although, I would like to point out that ‘lottery’, isn’t completely synonomous with the state run lotteries in the US.
Well what I’m suggesting is that no matter what the particular details of the universe are they are just as unlikely as anything else that could of happened. For instance in our universe we have a lot of thing converging on this golden ratio this is anlaogous to rolling all sixes, but if instead their were no convergance this would be anlaogous to rolling a one on the red dice, a two on the orange dice, a three on the green dice… An analysis of the probablility shows that neither one was more likely. So if we lived in such a universe with no ration, we might remark on the improbableness of the variety of the world, instead of the consistency.
To make the claim more abstractly the fact that something was extreemly unlikely to occur (like winning that huge raffel), doesn’t imply and sort of intelligence guideing it.
The term lottery as far as I know applies generally to numbers games. The senstance “My friends and I held a lottery to see who got to pick the movie” is valid. Of course the only reason I called it the Lottery Paradox is that is how I read it somewhere. If I were nameing it today, I’d call it the raffel paradox so that there would be less confusion.
Or, could it be that the Universe follows the intelligence of the overall design, of which our intelligence is merely the outcropping or, manifestation of? Of course that doesn’t leave us with much more of an option than to suggest Intelligence created intelligence either now does it? 
This is horrible. I’m seeing what I want to see and not what it is that is actualy written. Yes the raffle example does make sense sorry about that. But how do you relate it to the divine proportion-- as to that I’m still at a loss.