ID as a Cultural Phenomenon (Humans)

by dhw, Thursday, September 24, 2009, 22:04 (5537 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt has raised a number of interesting points under "Irreducible Complexity" and "ID", and since much of the material overlaps, I'm shifting it all to this thread. "Irreducible Complexity" needs to be reduced!-First, I'd like to say a big thank you for your comments about the forum. We've had a few nasty moments, but for the most part the discussions have been rational, amicable, and for me extremely instructive. This has been largely thanks to David and George, who have both contributed virtually from the start, representing opposite viewpoints, but continuing to probe without resorting to stabbing. I must add that your own contributions have given us a very welcome injection of energy and new ideas. Muchas gracias, amigo!-You wrote: A state of unsurety to me is [...] something of a badge of courage. [...] And to be frank, there's nothing to be right or wrong about here. -It probably takes more courage in the USA than in the UK to be an agnostic. Of course we have our share of fundamentalist theists and atheists who consider each other or agnostics to be total idiots, but in general I feel there's more apathy than interest, while among those who do care, perhaps there's a greater degree of tolerance. As for right or wrong, well, there has to be an "ultimate truth" of some kind, but I don't think we'll ever know it.-You wrote: My greater overall point is that for either raw materialism or immaterialism, the conclusions of no god and there is a god are purely filled in by philosophical predisposition on the matter. If you do not have this predisposition, the data is clearly inconclusive.-I'm not sure that either David or George would say their conclusions are based on philosophical predisposition (though maybe they won't identify with "raw"), but that is for them to say. I'm 100% in agreement about the inconclusiveness of the data ... but who knows, maybe my philosophical predisposition favours inconclusiveness.-I offered the concept of a God that was not perfect, omniscient and omnipotent. You wrote: Here we are presented with the fact that the creator is imperfect. [...] Since that might be the case, we would have no way of telling the difference between God and our own selves. My statement is that this line of thinking is projecting humanity for our own sake.-My speculation (ugh, not fact!) runs in the opposite direction from yours: i.e. that the projection goes from God to us, in that design generally reflects the designer. All the phenomena of consciousness, emotion, will etc., could scarcely have come into existence independently of the experience of the being that designed them. I don't think, for instance, he would have been surprised at manifestations of love (or hate) as something totally alien to him, since he had created them. For me this view renders the relationship between God and our world far more comprehensible, and at a stroke does away with the intellectual contortions necessary to explain such contrasts as good and evil. But "no way of telling the difference between God and our own selves"? I think there are vast differences. We don't even know what form he might take ... a universal mind can hardly be compared to a tiny finite body. That mind is incalculably more intelligent, more knowledgeable, more creative than ours. The human mind simply boggles at its inventiveness. We're not talking only of life on Earth, but of everything else that's out there, of which we know only a fraction. Just as I would argue that mentally and emotionally we differ from animals by degree, I would argue that we differ from God by a degree that's beyond measurement, but it still makes sense to me that if he's there, we are in some respects his reflections. -You agree that almost all cultures believe in something spiritual, but "this something is so incredibly vague and abstract that it becomes meaningless." -I would not equate vagueness and abstractness with meaninglessness. Indefinability, unknowability, maybe. If there's a designer (I really like your distinction between ID and design, by the way ... very useful), I'd say its nature is unknowable; we can only speculate on it (as I've done above), and all religions are based on such speculations. You say, "a truth can only be truth if it remains such regardless of your frame of reference". Clearly such objectivity is impossible here, but I'm not sure that truth is always what matters. Love, beauty, music etc. have a reality and hence a meaningfulness for each of us, though their essential nature may be indefinable and unknowable, and concepts vary from one society to another. Maybe all concepts of the designer are asymptotes (I had to look it up, and it's a really good image). There's no way they can actually join up with the thing itself, but maybe they do come close in their own way. On the other hand, of course, there may not be any "thing" for them to come close to.