King Follet Discourses

[asbestosman]

Of course, Mormonism DOES countenance an endless chain of procreation and copying with no original design.

Please tell me someone gets this simple point about ID and Mormonism.

I've argued the point before in the past. In fact there's another problem with an endless chain of existence for design: endless chain means there's been infinite time for the improbable to happen. Now granted, this problem can be overcome by claiming that the sort of randomness allowed by this string of universes is constrained in such a way that certain design by chance alone is impossible not merely improbable, but one needs evidence for such an assertion.

[Tarski]

Each human life, each plant, each planet, each star is unique - not a copy of something else, I would call that creative. Each leaf on each tree is unique - look at the veins, fingerprints - these are all unique.... humans mass produce things that are not unique, God creates things that are not mere copies.

Unique = creatively designed.

So when you look at life, it is not the complicated mechanisms of cell division, not the incredible genius of the circulatory system, not the cleverness of the immune system that impresses you. You do not see divine intelligence in the very design or idea of photosynthesis, or in the wonderful interconnectedness of the ecology. You do not feel that the design of the human eye shows intelligence.

It is just the fact that each version has little nonfunctional differences that impresses you??? Well if chance can account for anything it can account for that.

(are you being serious?)

[asbestosman]

They only use Ubuntu in heaven.

Of course. It all makes sense. Ubuntu is basically the result of taking Debian and then adding the design from other pre-existing releases. They don't do much (if any) unique development themselves. I should have known. Ubuntu: the OS of heaven.

[Thunderfire]

Please tell me someone gets this simple point about ID and Mormonism.

I get your point and it is well made. While I do not believe in Eternal Progression/exaltation, I would still like to take a stab at defending Intelligent Design from a LDS perspective.

Let's say 100 people were put into a room and asked to create an earth and inhabit it with people and animals. Of course, all of them would construct something "similar" to a certain point. But then each of them would add their own unique touch to it. The creation would end up how "they wanted" it, with the changes they desired from what they experienced in the one they came from.

Are there similarities? Of course there is. Some people have no creative bone whatsoever in them and would copy the original completely. But then others may begin to see outside of the box and come up with something entirely new. Here is one last thing to consider: These same 100 people are asked to "paint a picture". That is the only instruction given.

Some would use oils and others may use watercolors. Some may use charcoal while others may think completely outside of the box and use some medium no one ever thought of before. Then, some may "paint" a landscape, an animal, even a self portrait. Everyone completed the task, and to a certain extent all of them painted a picture (no intelligent design there). But then you would have 100 entirely unique paintings through intelligent design.

[Ahab]

OK, for anyone who has a logical bone in their body this analogy should make the point.

Suppose that the universe was infinite and that there were an infinite number of habitable planets and that there always were such planets.

Now imagine that humans and their favorite plants and animals only come from other humans and plants and animals of the same kind by biological reproduction and no other way. These have always existed in this universe we are imagining. They live on a planet until using up the resources of one planet they move to the next using technology past down from an infinite past 9also no beginning to this technology). There was never any beginning to this.

In this imaginary scenario, there is no God, just some humans barely smart enough to reproduce and build the spaceship in time to move to the next planet.

No God at all.

It might help you if you think of God as the most supreme being in all of existence, even if the most supreme being in all of existence includes some bad apples who are the same kind of being but not as advanced as individuals of that kind of being can get.

Why you want to try to interject the idea that there is no God is your own issue, I suppose, but there is no reason why any good scientist should jump to that conclusion, or even hold to the idea without any corroborating evidence to support that position.

Now, a certain one of these humans named Behe comes along and says "hey! look how well designed these bodies are? Who thought this up in the first place? It must have been a a great intelligence"

Well, he would be wrong and yet there is no contradiction if you are willing to countenance an endless chain of procreation and copying.

Whereever a "human" comes from, ANY person who knows how to make one should get at least some credit for being able to make one, don't you think?

To those of us who know how to make one it's just one of the many things that we do, but I can easily see how someone who doesn't know how to make one would think it would take some kind of intelligence and some kind of planning to make.

Tell me, Tarski, have you learned how to make one yet, complete with some kind of intelligence to put into everyone that you make, as well as a spirit that will continue to live on forever even when the spirit is separated from its body?

[Uncertain]

OK, for anyone who has a logical bone in their body this analogy should make the point.

Suppose that the universe was infinite and that there were an infinite number of habitable planets and that there always were such planets.

Now imagine that humans and their favorite plants and animals only come from other humans and plants and animals of the same kind by biological reproduction and no other way. These have always existed in this universe we are imagining. They live on a planet until using up the resources of one planet they move to the next using technology past down from an infinite past 9also no beginning to this technology). There was never any beginning to this.

In this imaginary scenario, there is no God, just some humans barely smart enough to reproduce and build the spaceship in time to move to the next planet.

No God at all.

Now, a certain one of these humans named Behe comes along and says "hey! look how well designed these bodies are? Who thought this up in the first place? It must have been a a great intelligence"

Well, he would be wrong and yet there is no contradiction if you are willing to countenance an endless chain of procreation and copying.

So, if we are willing to countenance an endless chain of procreation and copying, then the leap from observed complexity to the presumption of a designer is spurious.

Of course, Mormonism DOES countenance an endless chain of procreation and copying with no original design.

Please tell me someone gets this simple point about ID and Mormonism.

Hi Tarski,

Certainly if God is merely replicating eternally existing patterns he can not be said to be the designer of those patterns. However this does not mean an argument from complexity is necessarily invalid. For example take a nuclear power plant the contractors who built the plant were working from blueprints. Preexisting patterns they themselves did not design but nevertheless without them the nuclear plant would never have come into existence. At least the particular instance of the nuclear plant they are working on. Similarly I would imagine LDS could argue from a similar premise. God may not have been the original designer of the human body or bacterial flagellum etc. but God was directly responsible in producing such things on this world. And they could presumably argue this on the basis of complexity i.e. such things are to complex to come into existence by undirected processes hence God did it. Even if God was not the original designer of the "blueprints" the finished product is to complex for undirected processes to follow that blueprint hence God played a vital role in ensuring examples of those preexisting patterns are found on this earth.

Now don't get me wrong I am by no stretch of the imagination an intelligent design advocate and I think you make a good point above. But I don't think it is the "death blow" to LDS arguments based on biological complexity.

However I do think it is a death blow to those who would argue the design i.e "blueprints" are so complex an intelligent agent must be responsible. If LDS teaching on this is correct no intelligent agent designed the human body or bacterial flagellum instead these things are just platonic forms eternally existing.

Best,

Uncertain

[Tarski]

Tell me, Tarski, have you learned how to make one yet, complete with some kind of intelligence to put into everyone that you make?

Umm, well in the same sense as your God, Yes. It's procreation! Not hard.

[Analytics]

To those of us who know how to make one it's just one of the many things that we do, but I can easily see how someone who doesn't know how to make one would think it would be take some kind of intelligence and some kind of planning to make.

Tell me, Tarski, have you learned how to make one yet, complete with some kind of intelligence to put into everyone that you make?

Your dad hasn't told you about the birds and the bees yet?

[Tarski]

Hi Tarski,

Certainly if God is merely replicating eternally existing patterns he can not be said to be the designer of those patterns. However this does not mean an argument from complexity is necessarily invalid. For example take a nuclear power plant the contractors who built the plant were working from blueprints. Preexisting patterns they themselves did not design but nevertheless without them the nuclear plant would never have come into existence. At least the particular instance of the nuclear plant they are working on. Similarly I would imagine LDS could argue from a similar premise. God may not have been the original designer of the human body or bacterial flagellum etc. but God was directly responsible in producing such things on this world. And they could presumably argue this on the basis of complexity i.e. such things are to complex to come into existence by undirected processes hence God did it. Even if God was not the original designer of the "blueprints" the finished product is to complex for undirected processes to follow that blueprint hence God played a vital role in ensuring examples of those preexisting patterns are found on this earth.

Now don't get me wrong I am by no stretch of the imagination an intelligent design advocate and I think you make a good point above. But I don't think it is the "death blow" to LDS arguments based on biological complexity.

Uncertain

Well it hardly shows God like intelligence to procreate my spirit body and then allow my mother and father to meet to do the rest. Since everything else is off the shelf I don't know what you imagine god did and when.

It sounds more like animal husbandry to me.

[Ahab]

Umm, well in the same sense as your God, Yes. It's procreation! Not hard.

Why do you call it "procreation"?

Most people I know who refer to "procreation" are recognizing God's part of the process, with God being the one to create the spirit to inhabit the body they make with someone of the opposite sex as their part of the "procreation" process.

Once you know how to do and have successfully done the "creating" part at least once, instead of only the "procreating" part, then I think you'll be on to something that I'm pretty sure you don't even realize exists just yet.

[Uncertain]

Well it hardly shows God like intelligence to procreate my spirit body and then allow my mother and father to meet to do the rest. Since everything else is off the shelf I don't know what you imagine god did and when.

It sounds more like animal husbandry to me.

Well I myself believe God had nothing to do with constructing the human body I am not an intelligent design proponent. But to play devils advocate yes the blueprints are not original to God but nevertheless without God those blueprints could never be implemented. And we can know this because the human body is to complex for undirected process to produce. Like my example nuclear power plants do not spontaneously assemble themselves by undirected processes. Intelligent agents follow already existing blueprints to build such a complex structure. Yes they may not have been the original designers of the structure but nevertheless the structure is to complex to randomly self assemble. To directly answer your question God manipulated evolution according to a preexisting design in order to produce extraordinarily complex biological structures. Biological structures that are so complex they could not have arisen without Gods guidance sure God did not produce the original blueprints but so what? The core of the argument is biological structures are to complex to arise through undirected processes hence an intelligent agent was needed whether this intelligent agent was following preexisting patterns or he designed those structures from scratch is immaterial to the core of the argument.

Best,

Uncertain

[mfbukowski]

Please tell me someone gets this simple point about ID and Mormonism.

Well it is not politically correct for me to agree with the "enemy" (you) but in this case I must confess that you definitely have a point.

If we look at the philosophy of Whitehead- you have just essentially described his understanding of "God"- he thinks God is the universe which has evolved.

I really don't want to argue with Mormons about it, but in my opinion, ID cannot be "scientific" because it is not the objective of science to search for "design". My personal opinion is that that is a shortcoming of true "science" and I wish science WOULD do that, but if wishes were horses....

But I don't find your point particularly potentially harmful at all to Mormonism- I think it is just a logical consequence of KFD as you have I think correctly pointed out.

In another thread, this link was posted:

This insight snapped into focus one day while one of us (Lanza) was walking through the woods. Looking up, he saw a huge golden orb web spider tethered to the overhead boughs. There the creature sat on a single thread, reaching out across its web to detect the vibrations of a trapped insect struggling to escape. The spider surveyed its universe, but everything beyond that gossamer pinwheel was incomprehensible. The human observer seemed as far-off to the spider as telescopic objects seem to us. Yet there was something kindred: We humans, too, lie at the heart of a great web of space and time whose threads are connected according to laws that dwell in our minds.

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/may/01-the-biocentric-universe-life-creates-time-space-cosmos/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=/

Of course anyone who knows what I think will see immediately how this relates to what I have been saying as well as perhaps giving it some sort of scientific veracity.

I would think thinking Mormons would be excited to see such an article- I certainly was!

[Joseph Antley]

Well, I am not impressed with the intelligence of a God who can only procreate and manage the procreation of animals whose body plan he had no hand in designing.

You should be, since without it neither you nor I would exist. Because that's my point: despite whether our God was the first one to think up the idea of a mortal human body, he's the one who created it, and per Mormonism, the initial creation of human bodies requires a divine creator.

If the main premise of ID is that the human body is so complex that there must be an intelligent external force at work, that only requires that there is an intelligent being who made us, not that that same intelligent being came up with the idea.

Regardless of whether that theological insight "impresses" you are not isn't relevant to whether it's logically consistent with the idea of ID.

I am also not impressed with the intelligence of someone who doesn't get the point.

I get your point. I don't think you've even attempted to get mine.

[mfbukowski]

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[semlogo]

It might help you if you think of God as the most supreme being in all of existence, even if the most supreme being in all of existence includes some bad apples who are the same kind of being but not as advanced as individuals of that kind of being can get.

Why you want to try to interject the idea that there is no God is your own issue, I suppose, but there is no reason why any good scientist should jump to that conclusion, or even hold to the idea without any corroborating evidence to support that position.

Whereever a "human" comes from, ANY person who knows how to make one should get at least some credit for being able to make one, don't you think?

To those of us who know how to make one it's just one of the many things that we do, but I can easily see how someone who doesn't know how to make one would think it would take some kind of intelligence and some kind of planning to make.

Tell me, Tarski, have you learned how to make one yet, complete with some kind of intelligence to put into everyone that you make, as well as a spirit that will continue to live on forever even when the spirit is separated from its body?

Are you trying to give Tarski the birds and the bees talk?

[mfbukowski]

Well, I am not impressed with the intelligence of a God who can only procreate and manage the procreation of animals whose body plan he had no hand in designing.

I am also not impressed with the intelligence of someone who doesn't get the point.

Just what aspect of the human body do find impressive? Well, God didn't think it up.

That's ok- you don't understand his greatness at all. He will understand you are a puny mortal. In order to organize all THIS- I think he knows a bit more about everything than everyone you do admire, so I find that inconsistent.

[Uncertain]

You should be, since without it neither you nor I would exist. Because that's my point: despite whether our God was the first one to think up the idea of a mortal human body, he's the one who created it, and per Mormonism, the initial creation of human bodies requires a divine creator.

If the main premise of ID is that the human body is so complex that there must be an intelligent external force at work, that only requires that there is an intelligent being who made us, not that that same intelligent being came up with the idea.

Regardless of whether that theological insight "impresses" you are not isn't relevant to whether it's logically consistent with the idea of ID.

I get your point. I don't think you've even attempted to get mine.

Hi Joseph,

It sounds to me if you read my posts above we are making the same point. You and I have argued whats important is the human body is to complex for undirected processes to produce hence the initial creation is due to an intelligent agent whether that agent followed and existing pattern or not is unimportant to the core of the argument.

However as Tarski as pointed out the "preexisting" pattern is not the product of an intelligent agent. Hence in LDS thought there is at least one example of very complex patterns being produced without intelligent intervention. Given this is the case it seems inconsistent to suddenly argue human bodies are so complex they need an intelligent agent. After all the pattern that produced those bodies did not need such an agent and that pattern must be at least as complex as the human bodies built using that pattern.

Best,

Uncertain

[asbestosman]

Intelligent agents follow already existing blueprints to build such a complex structure.

In principle, unintelligent robots could do the same.

Yes they may not have been the original designers of the structure but nevertheless the structure is to complex to randomly self assemble.

There is a fatal flaw with your analogy. The blueprints were designed by someone else even it if wasn't the people who executed the plans. This destroys the analogy because the key point with Tarski's story is that nobody designed the plans--not even someone way, way before. Another very important point is that (in our abstraction / toy scenarios), there is no difference from an informational / probability point of view for likelihood of existence between the blueprints and the implementation of said plans. Each thing is precisely as complex and as unlikely as the other at least when you also consider the complexity of agents who will execute the plans.

[Joseph Antley]

However as Tarski as pointed out the "preexisting" pattern is not the product of an intelligent agent. Hence in LDS thought there is at least one example of very complex patterns being produced without intelligent intervention.

This is not the case. In LDS thought, human bodies have never been created without divine direction.

[Tarski]

This is not the case. In LDS thought, human bodies have never been created without divine direction.

We are talking about design!

[Uncertain]

In principle, unintelligent robots could do the same.

Hi asbestosman,

Fair enough good point, so maybe unintelligent robots followed a complex biological blueprint to produce humans. The important bit is undirected blind processes cannot follow such complex biological structures. Maybe it was unintelligent super alien robots who were following a preexisting set of complex blueprints or maybe it was God.

There is a fatal flaw with your analogy. The blueprints were designed by someone else even it if wasn't the people who executed the plans. This destroys the analogy because the key point with Tarski's story is that nobody designed the plans--not even someone way, way before. Another very important point is that (in our abstraction / toy scenarios), there is no difference from an informational / probability point of view for likelihood of existence between the blueprints and the implementation of said plans. Each thing is precisely as complex and as unlikely as the other at least when you also consider the complexity of agents who will execute the plans.

I agree with this if you read my post to Joseph Antley post #42 I say the same thing.

Best,

Uncertain

[asbestosman]

After all the pattern that produced those bodies did not need such an agent and that pattern must be at least as complex as the human bodies built using that pattern.

Exactly. There is not difference in the complexity of the pattern and the thing it describes.

There is no way around it. Since no intelligence was required to make the design, and no intelligence is required to execute an existing design (think robots), no intelligence is required. Sure, robots we know of are designed, but not in any way that is significantly different than designing a blueprint as far as complexity goes. Thus if blueprints could exist without design, so could robots.

[Uncertain]

This is not the case. In LDS thought, human bodies have never been created without divine direction.

Sure, but the human body blueprint which must conceivable be at least as complex as the human body was produce entirely without divine intervention. Hence things containing just as much information content as the human body exist entirely without divine guidance or intervention. Hence arguing the human body is so complex God must have played a hand in it's construction is greatly weakened because according to LDS thought we have examples of things just as complex as the human body i.e(the human blueprint) that God had nothing to do with. Read Abestoman's reply to me post #43 he makes the same point. It is special pleading to argue "this" complex thing arose entirely without God while "this" equally complex thing is so complex God must have done it.

Best,

Uncertain

[CA Steve]

Are we at a point where we need to consider it "Intelligent Participation" ?

[asbestosman]

The important bit is undirected blind processes cannot follow such complex biological structures.

If a complex blueprint can conceivably exist without being designed, then so can unintelligent robots. Thus you allow for our physical bodies to exist without being designed. In fact this is already the case if you believe the Father has a body of flesh and bone (as I and Mormons do).