Proof of ID: An essay (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, June 27, 2015, 08:08 (3438 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Design is indeed the issue. You asked if anyone could find a flaw in the ID argument presented by the article. I have pointed out that man-made designs (campfires, buildings and technology) are not “natural structures”, and that is how we know they were designed by humans. We have no precedent for “natural structures”, and so we have no way of knowing whether they are or are not designed by an intelligent mind. That is what I see as the flaw in the argument. -DAVID: The use of human designed objects is just an example of how we can detect design. the evidence is strongly suggestive of design in nature, but I agree not absolute proof, which is what you always want.-We know from precedent, observation and experience that man-made objects are designed. There is no precedent, observation or experience that can tell us the source of “natural structures”. That is the flaw in the argument of your ID article. As for “absolute proof”, I know as well as you do that it is impossible, but that is always your get-out clause. At the risk of becoming a philosophical soporific, let me reiterate that while I find it impossible to believe in chance as the designer of life in all its complexity, I find it equally impossible to believe in a sourceless, eternal, universal, immaterial mind. Since neither theory is supported by any proof, let alone “absolute proof”, I remain agnostic. -dhw: Most panpsychist theories do go back to a universal divine consciousness, but of course they too offer “no explanation of where that came from” - other than the non-explanation of ‘first cause', which can apply equally to non-conscious primal energy. So you pays your money and you takes your choice: inexplicable from the top downwards, or inexplicable from the bottom upwards.-DAVID: Just accept that something must be eternal, no beginning, no end.-I did so long ago. What I do not accept - or reject - is the theory that the “something” (energy and matter?) has a mind.