Suppose I landed on an alien planet and discovered what seemed to be a highly sophisticated machine, all gleaming chrome as the stereotype demands. Can I recognize this machine as being in any sense well-designed, if I have no idea what the machine is intended to accomplish?
I have no idea what the machine is doing. I don’t even have a hypothesis as to what it’s doing. Yet I have recognized the machine as the product of an alien intelligence.
Carefully, Eliezer. You are very, very close to simply restating the Watchmaker Argument in favor of the existence of a Divine Being.
You have NOT recognized the machine as the product of an alien intelligence. You most certainly have not been able to identify the machine as ‘well-designed’.
You are very, very close to simply restating the Watchmaker Argument in favor of the existence of a Divine Being.
Not at all. The problem with the Watchmaker Argument wasn’t the observation that humans are highly optimized; it was the conclusion that, therefore, it was God. And God is a very different hypothesis from alien intelligence in a universe we already know has the capability of producing intelligence.
Carefully, Eliezer. You are very, very close to simply restating the Watchmaker Argument in favor of the existence of a Divine Being.
You have NOT recognized the machine as the product of an alien intelligence. You most certainly have not been able to identify the machine as ‘well-designed’.
Not at all. The problem with the Watchmaker Argument wasn’t the observation that humans are highly optimized; it was the conclusion that, therefore, it was God. And God is a very different hypothesis from alien intelligence in a universe we already know has the capability of producing intelligence.