Trilobite eyes (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, March 31, 2013, 16:48 (4047 days ago) @ David Turell

David recommended an essay by Stephen L. Talbott, which demonstrates the "illusion of randomness", and which David took to be evidence for Intelligent Design. Talbott himself, however, is an opponent of IDhw (quoting Stephen L. Talbott): "Although the word has its legitimate uses, you will not find me speaking of design, simply because — as I've made abundantly clear in previous articles — organisms cannot be understood as having been designed, machine-like, whether by an engineer-God or a Blind Watchmaker elevated to god-like status. If organisms participate in a higher life, it is a participation that works from within — at a deep level the ancients recognized as that of the logos informing all things. It is a sharing of the springs of life and being, not a mere receptivity to some sort of external mechanical tinkering modeled anthropocentrically on human engineering."-DAVID: This is the same cop out Nagel uses. There is a nebulous third way ,a 'logos' at the center of life that is just there all by itself, out of nowhere. What is that 'logos that informs all things' and where did it come from? Again out of thin air, an uncaused cause? Again horse manure. A theory that stops short of any conclusion, after presenting all that reasonable logic and coming to the edge of the precipice. A third way or no way!-It must be very frustrating for you that so many of the scientists you quote in support of your God theory turn out to be opponents of it. You must wonder why they find it so hard to see your carefully hidden God. Strangely perhaps, I wouldn't dream of rejecting your theory as vehemently as Talbott does. I don't believe it, but I don't reject it (= disbelieve it) because however unlikely all the explanatory hypotheses seem, one of them must be close to the truth. However, I really can't allow you to get away with the above. What you have written describes your own hypothesis perfectly:-"There is a nebulous way, a god at the center of life that is just there all by itself, out of nowhere. What is that 'God that informs all things' and where did it come from? Again out of thin air, an uncaused cause?"-You do a wonderful job of defending your own faith, but you have always admitted that ultimately reason is not enough ... one must take a gigantic leap. If you then criticize others for leaping in a different direction, or for not leaping at all, you simply enter the realm of pots and kettles.