Another way of Looking at Design (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 15:12 (5490 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt on the subject of design: [...] the end result is a hodgepodge of fairly structured but messy parts, that gets the job done, but not always well. Design performed in the manner I described in the first paragraph, would result in much more efficient systems that we could most definitely say "this was designed"...If we're intelligently created, it's obvious to me that the design is suboptimal (especially in terms of the wear and tear on the human body).-This is not another way of looking at design ... it's the Dawkins, Jason Rosenhouse and Greta Christian way of looking at it, and I'm afraid you will get the same response from me now as you had previously. All your views are based on the designs you know, which of course are made by humans. But in view of the fact that no human has ever succeeded in designing a machine that can replicate itself, repair itself, feel emotions, think its own thoughts, question its own existence, write novels, plays and symphonies, how the heck do you know what such a design should be like? The very fact that despite our astonishing, conscious intelligence, we are unable to come up with the goods could be taken ... and is taken by some ... as an indication that we are the product of a greater designing intelligence than our own.-But your argument doesn't even work at the human level. Can you name a single human-designed machine which does not eventually show signs of wear and tear, break down, and eventually "die"? You are not arguing against design at all here. You are simply arguing that a designer ought to create what you personally would consider to be the perfect machine ... which is equally outside the scope of your experience. We needn't go too far into theology, but if there is a designer, what makes you so sure he could or would want to create a machine that went on for ever without a hitch? What makes you so sure that a designer would not want to create a mechanism which would come up with all kinds of weird and wonderful variations for his entertainment (Deism), or for his surprise and delight as they evolve into conscious reflections of himself (Frank's process theology)? The mechanism, of course, lies in the cells which underlie the whole process. With such a scenario, it's not each finished product that has been individually designed, but simply the mechanism that gives rise to each product via evolution. That, incidentally, is an account that makes theism and evolution perfectly compatible.-Anyway, when you or others have succeeded in designing "democratic" cells that produce life, different organs, different species, consciousness etc., let me know and I will gladly acknowledge your qualification to tell us what such cells ought to be like!