the universe is designed

[Whitney]

I am just curious as to what the criteria are to determine "design".  Are there criteria or is it simply a subjective interpretation?

S/he can tell you next week after the 7 day ban is over.

[Squid]

I am just curious as to what the criteria are to determine "design".  Are there criteria or is it simply a subjective interpretation?

S/he can tell you next week after the 7 day ban is over.

I feel a Dembski reference appearing in the future.

[skevosmavros]

(Delurking again, despite my better judgement, to make an overly long post - no time to make a shorter one! Sorry!)

I enjoy discussing the collection of topics surrounding "the design issue", but I know many atheists are sick of it.  After reading the entire thread, here are a couple of thoughts that I find often come up in this debate.

Fine Tuned For Life
The point of my reference earlier to Douglas Adam's puddle analogy is to suggest that despite appearances, the hole may not be designed to exactly fit the puddle's shape.  Instead the hole's shape is completely undesigned, and the puddle has conformed to the shape of the hole thanks to natural unguided-by-intelligence forces.  Similarly, what many are suggesting here is that the universe is not fine tuned for life-as-we-know-it, but that life is fine tuned for the universe-as-it-is.  If the universe had been different, then life would have been different (perhaps even unrecognisable to us as life, or perhaps no life at all).

The natural unguided processes by which existing life adapts and speciates in response to the universe-as-it-is is quite well understood - biological evolution.  Evolution is life fine-tuning itself to the way things are in the universe.  The process by which non-life organises into something we would label "life" is much less well understood.

In short, not only does life appear to be fine tuned to the universe, but the best explanation we have for how that fine tuning occurs does not require a guiding intelligence - the variations/mutations are essentially random, and the non-random selection process is unguided.

False Opposites
Another common feature I see in this debate is the use (perhaps unwittingly) of false opposites or false dilemmas.  Statements like this: "Either it is X or Y, and Y makes no sense, so it must be X", but on closer examination it turns out that X and Y are not mutually exclusive or opposites, but in fact could both be false or both be true at the same time.

Specifically:  "It is either designed or random".  This is a very common assertion (sometimes phrased as a question) that I think is based on a misunderstanding.  The true opposite of "designed" is not "random", it is "undesigned".  The true opposite of "random" is not designed, it is "ordered".  So by splitting this false opposite apart, we end up with two true opposite pairs:

• Random vs Ordered
• Designed vs Undesigned

A good sign that a pair are true opposites is that a certain thing cannot be both options at the same time - something cannot be both random AND ordered at the same time, cannot be both designed AND undesigned. Of course, complex things can contain both designed and undesigned elements, but the individual elements cannot be both designed and undesigned at the same time.

I claim that things CAN be either one of these two opposite pairs at the same time because random/ordered and designed/undesigned are not mutually exclusive.  I claim that things can be:

• designed AND ordered,
• undesigned AND ordered,
• undesigned AND random,
• designed AND random

A lot depends on definitions, but here are some simple off-the-cuff non-rigorous non-mathematical definitions (these are what I mean by these terms, I'm not proposing them as official or universal definitions):

• Designed - Conceived and planned out by an intelligent mind.
• Undesigned - Not the result of planning or design.
• Random - disordered and unpredictable
• Ordered - contains regularity, allows prediction

I stress - I'm NOT using a mathematical definition of random, more of a "common sense" or dice roll meaning (which I think is the meaning used by the original poster).  I fully realise that in a sense, truly random events, events that cannot be predicted even if we have all the information, may not exist on the macro scale, but I'm working with what I have been given.  The original poster is not arguing "there is no such thing as random forces", she is arguing "random forces cannot create apparent design/order".

• An example of something that is designed and ordered would be a computer - evidence for it being designed is plentiful (from the existence of the actual design documents, to artifacts within the computer strongly suggesting design - labels, machining marks, components that we also know are designed, etc), and there is a predictability and order to the computer's structure and operation (computers have common design features, and behave in (mostly!) predictable ways, while also containing both intended and unintended variety).
  
• An example of something that is undesigned and ordered would be a snowflake - there is no evidence of it being designed (no design documents, no internal evidence left behind by an intelligence, simple unguided procsses seem to be at work), and there is predictability and order to its structure (once snowflakes form, I can confidently predict they will have six points -- so despite variation in final appearance, there is clearly some non-random process at work).
  
• An example of something that is undesigned and random would be the fluttering sound of wind rushing through trees (there is no evidence that the sounds are the outcome of design, and they cannot be predicted (see note above about randomness)).
  
• An example of something that is designed and random would be the output from a random number generator (the output is the result of intelligent design, yet there is no order to the output, it is completely unpredictable (see note above about randomness)).

In short - Something can be both undesigned AND not random.  I personally call such things "natural".

All the best,

[skevosmavros]

Gah, not only was my long reply so slow in coming that the original poster was banned in the meantime, but Sophus made one of my points in about one tenth of my word count!  

[xSilverPhinx]

thank you for agreeing with me

I'm not saying that because we can never prove that the universe wasn't designed that it means that it is intelligently designed, however.

take stonehenge.  we can't prove humans designed it, but would be ridiculous to think that it was the result of random forces.  it's the same with the fine-tuned universe.

Stonehenge is a bad example. The universe by itself will not produce a Stonehenge on its own, it needs external intelligent forces (engineers). You're sticking with man made examples, and though some people don't get it for some reason, the universe is not a man made structure.  :cool:

this is just a statement of faith, nothing more.

It's my opinion based on what I already know (self organisation) and belief (that the universe does not have an intelligent creator).

this is the if you roll a trillion sided dice a triilion times you will hit the right number eventually fallacy. this is where atheists routinely go wrong.  in order to design something, you don't have to hit a hole in one in golf.  that's not what design is.  you have to hit 100 holes in one in a row.  think about designing a car.  it's design does not depend on you hitting a hole in one, it depends on you making numerous decisions and making them in exactly the right way.

I think of it more in terms of you're here to say the universe is "fine tuned" because the tuning of the universe allowed it in the first place, and there is no goal.  

Once again, a car is not a good example, it does not self organise like the atoms do in a star. As for organic chemistry, amino acids do self organise, and some have even been found on objects from space. The cellular wall of a simple proto cell also self organises in water. RNA is a bit trickier, it's a simple molecule but as far as I know nobody's proven it to assemble itself yet.

not sure what you mean

Are you familiar with Douglas Adams' puddle quote?

"Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!'  

We're the self-centered  puddle and the hole is our universe.

(just in case my choice of words has left you confused, I meant egocentered sort of in the same way as geocentrism is egocentered and not in the selfish individual sense)

you're still supposing that getting it right to create a universe is similar to hitting a hole in one in golf.

No, chance never even crossed my mind. I'm saying that if an observer were to come to awareness in one room (doesn't matter which) because the conditions allowed that result, then that observer would think that those conditions were specifically set so that they could come into awareness. It's thinking that oneself is special enough to warrant an entire universe's creation.

The fine tuning argument sounds sort of like a computer simulation sort of universe to me...everything's coded in and pre programmed to reach specific results.  :hmm: Both are actually quite simple. And if you're going to calculate a probability basis for this, you'd have to have a wider picture rather than what you think the odds are for a light to sensitize special paper in this universe. The odds are quite high, in fact. In fact, based on what we can predict physically happens, we can say with absolute certainty that photosensitive paper will react with light when exposed to light.

Certain light wavelengths come into contact with light sensitive paper and transform the parts to reflect their wavelengths (colour), sort of in the simplified way light interacts with photosensitive cells in our retinas. The camera is a simplified version of an eye, it's black inside so that light doesn't reflect and leave the photosensitive paper white (that's why they come in those capsules, and if you open the camera while it's exposed, it'll ruin the negative photo. It's got a lens which direct the light rays onto the paper (which would be analogous to the retina) after those are in place it's basically the light that works on paper which transforms when it does.

The chemical/physical things that take place are actually very likely because of their properties. Photosensitive paper will interact with light whether in a camera or not.

the point is that the universe's constants probably require more precision than either of the 3 mad made constructs.

The precision they require are a direct result and calculation of physics such as gravity, centre of mass ect. Those come first, and those are inherent to the universe.

there is a big difference between a snow flake and say the simplest dna code in the simplest organism, or even our planet.  the snow flake has no interacting parts that cause an operation.

Yeah, I used to to show self organisation, not metabolism.

again the fact that we're here really in no way defeats the thesis that fine-tuning requires intelligence.  what we say does not matter.  an object is fine-tune irregardless of human observation.  if all humans died tommorrow the great pyramids would still be fine tuned

Why does it require intelligence?


Were all the factors that make the building of the pyramids possible fine tuned for the pyramid? Or was the construction of the pyramids as they are the possible result of all the necessary factors? (gravity, centre of mass, how much weight the limestone bricks can take, etc)

Like I've repeatably said, we can never actually know whether those fundamental laws were calculated and "pre programmed" so that the universe could order itself in accordance. But there's no proof that they were, there's plenty of proof many people think of it that way, though.

We came into existence out of the interaction between matter and energy respecting those parameters, so naturally they have everything to do with our existence. But while you say observers/life was the goal (the universe is the way it is so that[/i] we can exist), I say that's what whatever observer in a given universe would say about the universe which allowed for that observers existence (we exist because[/i] the universe is the way it is).

[/quote]
no, if the universe were composed of parameters that were ever changing and that really didn't matter and there were no evidence of fine-tuning then the case for atheism would be much stronger. let's take darwin's hypothesis that the cell was just a mere blob.  well if that was the case than natural selection would be much more plausible however as is the case the cell is composed of perhaps 40  or 50 parts and the dna code is written of thousands, if not millions of lines of code.[/quote]

I never said the parameters change. They've been fixed since the beginning of the universe, it's just they depend on interactions (the strength of gravitational force depends directly on mass and distance, for example) but gravity does what it does and will do what it has always done. The same with the other fundamental forces.
The fact that they depend on circumstances is what allowed for such variability and complexity in the universe in the first place.

You're talking about a an organic structure that we would recognise as a true cell nowadays. The first organic structures were not as complex as a simple modern bacterial cell, and we're getting very close to a comprehensive theory.

[Sophus]

My PC is currently being stubborn but I believe this is the video where Dan Dennett explains the (in my opinion obvious) differences between art such as Andy Goldsworthy's and the art of Mother Nature. Methinks thou should watcheth it, harriet_tubman!

[youtube:3qdxf5xe]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_9w8JougLQ[/youtube:3qdxf5xe]

[pinkocommie]

I love Andy Goldsworthy!  <3 <3 <3  And great point, too.  The more I hear from Dennett the more I like him.

[elliebean]

Wow, great lecture.  [/spoiler:35lncl9p]