Irreducible Complexity (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, January 11, 2010, 18:26 (5429 days ago) @ xeno6696

MATT: In order to say something ISN'T by chance, we have to be able to exclude chance from the explanation [...] But in order to exclude chance as a cause, you have to demonstrate that 4 or 5 happened by the result of some will. Which I believe is systematically impossible.-We may have gone as far as we can go on this thread, but there are still a few bones I'm gnawing at, just in case there's a bit of marrow left. You seem to be concentrating now on explaining why we cannot exclude chance, but I have never disputed this. What I dispute is your insistence that ALL order literally arose by chance (see later). Even if 1, 2 and 3 were the indispensable chance forerunners to 4 and 5, that doesn't exclude design at levels 4 and 5. And so while I agree with your reasoning above, it also works inversely: "In order to exclude design as a cause, you have to demonstrate that 4 or 5 [life and consciousness] happened by the result of chance. Which I believe is systematically impossible." Again and again, the argument boils down to what we as individuals regard as credible, or as David says: "the odds for chance at each level of organization". -You say: "Chance is the consciousness of the universe; just as you or I wouldn't be human w/o a consciousness, neither can the universe be the universe without chance." True, but even if a theist accepts the big bang and the formation of matter as chance events (I'd better leave out our planet), it needn't stop him from saying the universe wouldn't be the universe without design. -On the subject of complexity, you give the example of tossing 100 chemicals into a pot. Chemistry is not my subject, and as you are a literary man as well as a scientist, let me change the example. If we put 500 letters in a hat, drew them out one by one and laid them side by side, I would say the resultant gibberish was not complex. But if they formed a Shakespeare sonnet, I'd say the result was complex. The gibberish has no interconnected parts. The sonnet has. Perhaps, though, in our definition, we should add the rider that the interconnected parts must form a meaningful whole.-Hence I argue that the greater the complexity, the greater the need for intelligence. You have "borrowed a page" from me to argue against intelligence because we only have the paradigm of human intelligence to follow, and life doesn't use our design methodologies. This, however, is precisely the argument I have used to counter the absurd claim of people like Rosenhouse, Christina and others that life and evolution are exactly what we would expect of a chance creation. They can't possibly know that. Once again, the argument cuts both ways. All these arguments cut both ways. And that's why I don't believe in a designer, but equally I don't believe in the inventive genius of chance, and I don't believe we can say that all order arose by chance. I wonder, though, in the light of your reservations concerning life and consciousness, whether you might consider a slight adaptation. Your premise is that the universe, matter and our planet were formed by chance, so how about "all order arose out of chance" instead of "arose by chance"? That would at least leave some options open for you.