The question of “intelligent design” is subtler than theists or atheists make it.
Narrowly construed, intelligent design speaks specifically to the design of living intelligence on our planet. The intelligent design hypothesis is that intelligence existed before any of the design of living intelligence on earth took place and that the pre-existing intelligence participated in the design or creation of biological intelligence on earth. The uintelligent design hypothesis is that biological intelligence on earth arose without the participation of any prior existing intelligence.
In either case, we live in a universe which includes the possibility of intelligence. We do not speak as often as where the universe comes from as we do of the much easier question of what happened once it was here. What might the conditions be to produce a universe in which intelligence can arise, either because it is in the universe from the very start, as in most theism, or because things are lined up so that when the inevitable mechanistic processes of the universe proceed, intelligence is created?
By metaphor, consider a complex domino-toppling set-up with rube goldberg contraptions everywhere in it. If we look at this universe starting an attosecond after the finger pushing the first domino is out of frame, we would say that the evolution of this universe proceeds without intelligence. But I wonder, doesn’t this rather miss the point of how this universe was set up so that when it proceeded following a simple set of rules which did not include intelligence it would present an intelligent message at the end?
So we live in a universe where intelligence exists, that much we know. And within the framework of intelligent design considered narrowly, it seems most likely that the biological intelligence we are aware of arose from the inevitable (read pre-determined or mechanistic) toppling of dominoes, one into the other, building structures mindlessly that came together mindlessly, that provided the ground in which more complex structures were built mindlessly etc etc until at some point minds appeared, mindlessly.
But how important is it, or in what way is it important that if we start the movie an attosecond after the big bang, the part of the whole thing that we can see that lead to the evolution of mind on earth proceeded mindlessly, if we have no idea about what was going on one attosecond BEFORE the big bang?
If you believe it is likely we are in a simulation, then you do believe in intelligent design preceding the push of the first domino to let the simulation proceed. Indeed, what is the difference between living a simulation vs living in a “real” universe? Both proceeed in law-determined fashion from a starting point that has a lot of structure and potential in it.
From another point of view, we can say the design of the Tesla S motor vehicle is by evolution not intelligent design, because it has arisen from the inevitable toppling of dominoes mindlessly since an attosecond after the big bang. That some of the complex patterns that happened just before the emergence of the Tesla S describe themselves both as minds and as the intelligent designers of the Tesla S seems besides the point in really understanding what is going on.
We live in a universe that has conscious intelligence in it. The theists claim intelligence came first, and then the material universe came about under the influence or direction or under something to do with the intelligent universe.
The atheists claim the material universe, WITHOUT intelligence came first, and then arose intelligence.
The real question is whether it is possible to formulate a predictive hypothesis which involves an intelligent creator which has lower Kolmogorov complexity than hypotheses without an intelligent creator. No religion has come close to formulating such a hypothesis. Of course it difficult (or even impossible) to prove there is no such hypothesis because of the uncomputability of Kolmogorov complexity.
Btw, there are models in which it makes sense to speak of “before the big bang”, look up “eternal inflation”.
Is it possible to formulate a predictive hypothesis which involves an intelligent creator of the Tesla S (a car) which has lower Kolmogorov complexity than hypotheses without an intelligent creator? All I see is the swirl of a complex bunch of chemicals building structures randomly that are chosen for persistence, and with fluctuating entropy such at there are numerous instances of fantastically complex structures that arise as part of this mindless drama. How is the Tesla S particularly less an effect of evolution than the nest of the bower bird or ants stroking aphids in their underground farms?
The Tesla S is an effect of evolution. But it was also created by an intelligent creator. A causal chain is allowed to have more than 2 nodes. The model of the universe as science understands it has low Kolmogorov complexity and involves an intelligent creator of Tesla S, but not an intelligent creator of h. sapiens.
So then if an intelligence created the conditions for the big bang and then set it going, and the big banged universe proceeded mechanistically without intelligent intervention, and part of that proceeding was evolution, and (among other things) what came from evolution was our intelligence, then we would say that “intelligent design” is the wrong hypothesis for explaining evolution. Even if the original intelligence creating the conditions for the big bang had as a requirement for its design of the pre-big-bang conditions that the big banged universe would lead to the spontaneous development of intelligence.
then we would say that “intelligent design” is the wrong hypothesis for explaining evolution.
Yes, this is clearly not what “intelligent design” means. Even if you accept a version of the strong anthropic principle, in that “physical laws and/or initial conditions at the Big Bang are expressly constrained so as to promote the development of human-like intelligence”, this is not at all the same as positing that evolutionary dynamics are irrelevant. In fact, such a difference could even affect your stance about physical laws more generally; for instance, if it turns out that evolution does not matter after all, this makes the Boltzmann brain paradox that much stronger, which in turns introduces other requirements, and so on.
I asked about this atheist/simulation thing on an open thread several months ago.
What I came up with is that the most natural cluster of theism includes as part of the definition that the “simulator” is ontologically basic, and did not evolve into existence.
With that definition in mind, I am an atheist who is not willing to make the claim that our material universe came before any sort of intelligence.
What I cam up with is that the most natural cluster of theism includes as part of the definition that the “simulator” is ontologically basic, and did not evolve into existence.
Interesting. Do you believe that the big bang evolved into existence? If so, from what or why do you believe it evolved in to existence? If not, how different are you from a theist since the material universe is for all intents and purposes the machine on which the simulation we live in is run on?
I am using the world evolve very generally, in such a way that it should not be confused with biological evolution, but it is plausable to me that the universe evolved somehow without an intelligent simulator, but that is not the claim I was talking about.
It is also plausible that an intelligent simulator ran a simulation of our universe, but if so there would have to be some plausible reason for that simulator to exist. Evolving is a plausible reason. Just existing because he is god is not.
In practice this is very different from theism, in that it is probably best to continue on as though we were not a simulation, at least until we can figure out who our simulators are and need to use them to escape heat death or something.
It is also plausible that an intelligent simulator ran a simulation of our universe, but if so there would have to be some plausible reason for that simulator to exist. Evolving is a plausible reason. Just existing because he is god is not.
Really? To me it seems just as ridiculous to require an infinite regress of finite causes one after the other as it does to finally get back to a first cause. I will happily admit that NEITHER of these choices makes any kind of intuitive sense to me, I consider that likely to be a defect of human reason which had no gain to be made by coming up with a way of dealing with such abstractions in the environment in which it evolved.
In practice this is very different from theism, in that it is probably best to continue on as though we were not a simulation, at least until we can figure out who our simulators are and need to use them to escape heat death or something.
Ah I love it! Engineering reason, things that don’t change what is best for us to do are not worth sorting out. My intuition after stacking everything in that I’ve already thought about, read about, and discussed with others, is that we are not in a simulation. But unfortunately I don’t know what that means. In some straightforward sense our universe is a distributed calculator of the time-evolution of all physical laws, known and unknown, and continues at every moment that i am aware of to update itself. So whether we call it a simulation or not, it is not at all clear to me that there is a real difference mechanistically between being in a simulation and not being in a simulation.
I wonder if I am in Omega’s “human farm,” his constructed toy that shows humans living for the amusement of Omega, just as humans have “ant farms” for our amusement and edification. I might as well just behave as though I am not in Omega’s human farm, I’ll never really know if I am anyway, and this is my life either way. It would be a shame wasting it being unhappy because I suspected it was all a bad joke.
A thing we know for sure about the universe is that we are in it. As far as that goes perhaps it is tautology. But the properties we observe about ourselves I don’t believe are tautological, are they? Properties such as our conscious intelligence, there is nothing tautological about observing in myself that I have this, and that I am in the universe and that therefore the universe has this as part of it?
Further enhancing the question, how is it any more logical to assume a pre-existing material universe without any intelligence in it, and “observe” that intelligence arises in it without requiring intelligence to already be in it in any sense of those words, vs. presuming that there was a pre-existing intelligence universe from which a material universe arises, which is essentially the theist viewpoint? IF it has to be one of the other, if either intelligence or material has to come first, then to the extent humans can conclude anything from scientific observation, they can see evidence of a material universe going back 12, 14 billion years, but clear evidence of intelligence going back only a few hundred million years at best. But being the results of observations, would it break logic if observational science were to lift the veil of the big bang and peak back a second before the big bang and catch a glimpse of a thumb pushing over the first domino? Yes I describe it in anthropomorphic terms using thumbs and dominos, but I fail to see anything tautological in what I’m talking about. My prior is we would not see a thumb pushing over the first domino, but it is only a prior.
The question of “intelligent design” is subtler than theists or atheists make it.
Narrowly construed, intelligent design speaks specifically to the design of living intelligence on our planet. The intelligent design hypothesis is that intelligence existed before any of the design of living intelligence on earth took place and that the pre-existing intelligence participated in the design or creation of biological intelligence on earth. The uintelligent design hypothesis is that biological intelligence on earth arose without the participation of any prior existing intelligence.
In either case, we live in a universe which includes the possibility of intelligence. We do not speak as often as where the universe comes from as we do of the much easier question of what happened once it was here. What might the conditions be to produce a universe in which intelligence can arise, either because it is in the universe from the very start, as in most theism, or because things are lined up so that when the inevitable mechanistic processes of the universe proceed, intelligence is created?
By metaphor, consider a complex domino-toppling set-up with rube goldberg contraptions everywhere in it. If we look at this universe starting an attosecond after the finger pushing the first domino is out of frame, we would say that the evolution of this universe proceeds without intelligence. But I wonder, doesn’t this rather miss the point of how this universe was set up so that when it proceeded following a simple set of rules which did not include intelligence it would present an intelligent message at the end?
So we live in a universe where intelligence exists, that much we know. And within the framework of intelligent design considered narrowly, it seems most likely that the biological intelligence we are aware of arose from the inevitable (read pre-determined or mechanistic) toppling of dominoes, one into the other, building structures mindlessly that came together mindlessly, that provided the ground in which more complex structures were built mindlessly etc etc until at some point minds appeared, mindlessly.
But how important is it, or in what way is it important that if we start the movie an attosecond after the big bang, the part of the whole thing that we can see that lead to the evolution of mind on earth proceeded mindlessly, if we have no idea about what was going on one attosecond BEFORE the big bang?
If you believe it is likely we are in a simulation, then you do believe in intelligent design preceding the push of the first domino to let the simulation proceed. Indeed, what is the difference between living a simulation vs living in a “real” universe? Both proceeed in law-determined fashion from a starting point that has a lot of structure and potential in it.
From another point of view, we can say the design of the Tesla S motor vehicle is by evolution not intelligent design, because it has arisen from the inevitable toppling of dominoes mindlessly since an attosecond after the big bang. That some of the complex patterns that happened just before the emergence of the Tesla S describe themselves both as minds and as the intelligent designers of the Tesla S seems besides the point in really understanding what is going on.
We live in a universe that has conscious intelligence in it. The theists claim intelligence came first, and then the material universe came about under the influence or direction or under something to do with the intelligent universe.
The atheists claim the material universe, WITHOUT intelligence came first, and then arose intelligence.
The real question is whether it is possible to formulate a predictive hypothesis which involves an intelligent creator which has lower Kolmogorov complexity than hypotheses without an intelligent creator. No religion has come close to formulating such a hypothesis. Of course it difficult (or even impossible) to prove there is no such hypothesis because of the uncomputability of Kolmogorov complexity.
Btw, there are models in which it makes sense to speak of “before the big bang”, look up “eternal inflation”.
Is it possible to formulate a predictive hypothesis which involves an intelligent creator of the Tesla S (a car) which has lower Kolmogorov complexity than hypotheses without an intelligent creator? All I see is the swirl of a complex bunch of chemicals building structures randomly that are chosen for persistence, and with fluctuating entropy such at there are numerous instances of fantastically complex structures that arise as part of this mindless drama. How is the Tesla S particularly less an effect of evolution than the nest of the bower bird or ants stroking aphids in their underground farms?
The Tesla S is an effect of evolution. But it was also created by an intelligent creator. A causal chain is allowed to have more than 2 nodes. The model of the universe as science understands it has low Kolmogorov complexity and involves an intelligent creator of Tesla S, but not an intelligent creator of h. sapiens.
So then if an intelligence created the conditions for the big bang and then set it going, and the big banged universe proceeded mechanistically without intelligent intervention, and part of that proceeding was evolution, and (among other things) what came from evolution was our intelligence, then we would say that “intelligent design” is the wrong hypothesis for explaining evolution. Even if the original intelligence creating the conditions for the big bang had as a requirement for its design of the pre-big-bang conditions that the big banged universe would lead to the spontaneous development of intelligence.
That makes sense and is a reasonable distinction.
Yes, this is clearly not what “intelligent design” means. Even if you accept a version of the strong anthropic principle, in that “physical laws and/or initial conditions at the Big Bang are expressly constrained so as to promote the development of human-like intelligence”, this is not at all the same as positing that evolutionary dynamics are irrelevant. In fact, such a difference could even affect your stance about physical laws more generally; for instance, if it turns out that evolution does not matter after all, this makes the Boltzmann brain paradox that much stronger, which in turns introduces other requirements, and so on.
I asked about this atheist/simulation thing on an open thread several months ago.
What I came up with is that the most natural cluster of theism includes as part of the definition that the “simulator” is ontologically basic, and did not evolve into existence.
With that definition in mind, I am an atheist who is not willing to make the claim that our material universe came before any sort of intelligence.
Interesting. Do you believe that the big bang evolved into existence? If so, from what or why do you believe it evolved in to existence? If not, how different are you from a theist since the material universe is for all intents and purposes the machine on which the simulation we live in is run on?
I am using the world evolve very generally, in such a way that it should not be confused with biological evolution, but it is plausable to me that the universe evolved somehow without an intelligent simulator, but that is not the claim I was talking about.
It is also plausible that an intelligent simulator ran a simulation of our universe, but if so there would have to be some plausible reason for that simulator to exist. Evolving is a plausible reason. Just existing because he is god is not.
In practice this is very different from theism, in that it is probably best to continue on as though we were not a simulation, at least until we can figure out who our simulators are and need to use them to escape heat death or something.
Really? To me it seems just as ridiculous to require an infinite regress of finite causes one after the other as it does to finally get back to a first cause. I will happily admit that NEITHER of these choices makes any kind of intuitive sense to me, I consider that likely to be a defect of human reason which had no gain to be made by coming up with a way of dealing with such abstractions in the environment in which it evolved.
Ah I love it! Engineering reason, things that don’t change what is best for us to do are not worth sorting out. My intuition after stacking everything in that I’ve already thought about, read about, and discussed with others, is that we are not in a simulation. But unfortunately I don’t know what that means. In some straightforward sense our universe is a distributed calculator of the time-evolution of all physical laws, known and unknown, and continues at every moment that i am aware of to update itself. So whether we call it a simulation or not, it is not at all clear to me that there is a real difference mechanistically between being in a simulation and not being in a simulation.
I wonder if I am in Omega’s “human farm,” his constructed toy that shows humans living for the amusement of Omega, just as humans have “ant farms” for our amusement and edification. I might as well just behave as though I am not in Omega’s human farm, I’ll never really know if I am anyway, and this is my life either way. It would be a shame wasting it being unhappy because I suspected it was all a bad joke.
This sounds too much like an anthropic argument, which reduces to tautology. We see ourselves in the universe because the universe contains us.
A thing we know for sure about the universe is that we are in it. As far as that goes perhaps it is tautology. But the properties we observe about ourselves I don’t believe are tautological, are they? Properties such as our conscious intelligence, there is nothing tautological about observing in myself that I have this, and that I am in the universe and that therefore the universe has this as part of it?
Further enhancing the question, how is it any more logical to assume a pre-existing material universe without any intelligence in it, and “observe” that intelligence arises in it without requiring intelligence to already be in it in any sense of those words, vs. presuming that there was a pre-existing intelligence universe from which a material universe arises, which is essentially the theist viewpoint? IF it has to be one of the other, if either intelligence or material has to come first, then to the extent humans can conclude anything from scientific observation, they can see evidence of a material universe going back 12, 14 billion years, but clear evidence of intelligence going back only a few hundred million years at best. But being the results of observations, would it break logic if observational science were to lift the veil of the big bang and peak back a second before the big bang and catch a glimpse of a thumb pushing over the first domino? Yes I describe it in anthropomorphic terms using thumbs and dominos, but I fail to see anything tautological in what I’m talking about. My prior is we would not see a thumb pushing over the first domino, but it is only a prior.