Why is a \"designer\" so compelling? (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Tuesday, July 14, 2009, 19:41 (5609 days ago) @ dhw

Matt has opened this thread with various statements and questions, in response to the argument that life is too complex to have come about by chance.
> 
> For two reasons I doubt if you'll get many responses. One is that David is our only regular contributor who thinks a designer is "compelling". Perhaps you should have asked why "chance" is so compelling ... and perhaps you should also ask why you didn't ask that?! In my post of 12 July I challenged your statement that chance was less "unsatisfactory" than design, asked for your criteria, and asked why one should believe in an explanation one found unsatisfactory. You did not answer.***
> - I actually have answered that, in the post you had responded to. - If we invoke a creator, there isn't really anything we can say or do or study about it. We just invoke it. It's also unfalsifiable, which is one of my criterion for accepting something--anything--as truth. - You can attack this by asking, "Well then, why do you accept axioms, as axioms are tautologies?" - The answer is that axioms are assumptions that must be made in order to prove something true or false. To say that at this point a creator god is necessary for either life or human intelligence is to say that all possible avenues of exploration have been exhausted. We need only (and should only) invoke axioms or assumptions if and only if they are absolutely necessary, or if we're in the completely theoretical, such as when they played around with Euclid's 5th postulate to create a new mathematics--hyperbolic geometry. - However no new knowledge or theoretical mathematics would be created by taking on a creator axiom, because unlike say, Euclid's fifth postulate, there is nothing more you could actually concretely say or theorize using it as a construct. From a practical standpoint it's an entirely useless axiom. - Chance on the other hand, is an entire mathematical truth that is extensively well studied. That by itself makes it rationally superior, in my estimation. A creator if invoked is useful purely in a metaphysical framework... not in any practical problem. - Please keep in mind that I also only invoke chance insofar as to provide a general boundary to the problem at hand. We do not have enough information to be able to say what the chances really are for life to come about at all, let alone whether or not it was created. If scientific abiogenesis pans out, it still doesn't kill the idea of a designer. - >I'm sure you don't mean to give this impression, but you sound like someone who thinks he knows all the answers, and is now testing his students. 
> - That's where people like you will always be appreciated! If I could edit out the line I would. I'm a person that prefers brevity and am not easily offended, but I can see exactly what you mean in how it comes across awfully bad as most people don't have thick skin. Whereas, the wording wouldn't offend me, I recognize (now) that it would be arrogant in most contexts. - > This ties in with your last post on "Chance v Design", in which you wrote: "From your initial treatise, I really felt that you were arguing against chance from a position of ignorance. It's clear you're not, and I do hope I wasn't seen as insulting your intelligence." I appreciate the latter remark, and being asked to defend one's views is not an insult. The discussions have been informative and for the most part enjoyable. But ... and this is where I hope my comments may be useful to you ... perhaps as a possible future teacher of undergraduates and postgraduates, you might take a couple of tips from an old hand. Don't assume that your students are ignorant, and keep in mind that while you are assessing them, they are also assessing you. If, for instance, your logic comes under fire or you are asked a challenging question, it will not be enough to congratulate the student on having passed your intelligence test, and then announce that you are going to end the discussion because you're not really interested. 
> - My hope is that I'll get students who challenge me. I wish I knew a better word for ignorance because it has such negative connotations, as does naive, and other similar words I've played around with. I hope I've answered your challenge satisfactorily.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"