Introduction to a Science of God: Fathoming the Intelligence Behind Intelligent Design

#10 If free will exists then events would proceed differently. Davem

With regards to the meaning of 'intelligence' (and 'design' for that matter), I submit for your consideration: Design: The culling of potential solutions in the abstract. Intelligence: The ability to detect and recognise patterns. The latter definition derives from an observation I made a few weeks ago while considering the alleged ability of intelligence to create CSI. What I noticed was that CSI is in fact the one thing intelligence can't produce. The following (tidied up) example illustrates the point: I'm thinking of a number between 0 and 340 billion billion billion billion. What is it? All I'm asking for is a mere 128 bits of CSI - far less than ID theory would say is contained in a single forum post. So why can nobody here supply it? Supposedly, intelligence can leverage its understanding of meaning and purpose - very well: if I tell you the number in question is the WEP key for my wireless router, does that help? Clearly, intelligence cannot simply emit CSI on demand. Any biological problem analogous to that of my router's WEP key - for instance a short 64 bp protein functionally isolated in permutation space - would be equally intractable. Gleefully measuring vast quantities of CSI, is, therefore, not good news for ID. Now imagine that in reply to your guesses I report a numeric value, rather than simply 'yes' or 'no'. An attentive reader might deduce the meaning of the value (the number of digits guessed correctly) and attain the result in relatively short order. But still, in no single step would intelligence be generating 128 bits of CSI. On the other hand, if I tell you which binary digits you got right, it should only take you two guesses to hit the jackpot. What we're seeing is that the ability of intelligence to generate CSI is entirely dependent upon the existence of patterns in the problem-space. It is only by apprehending those patterns and extrapolating from them that intelligence can perform its design function: culling potential solutions in the abstract rather than having to try them for real. Therefore, I submit that it is not irreducible complexity or CSI that ID should be looking for, but the patterns in problem space that would allow an intelligence to do its job. Peeling

#10 Imagine if the conditions that existed at the moment of the Big Bang could be recreated precisely, and then an identical bang occurred. Would not everything unfold exactly as it has? And would not the very thoughts in our minds have their identical time in that world? Every leaf falling, and every wave cresting exactly the same at the same moment in time (so to speak)? This is, to borrow a phrase from G. K. Chesterton, "an attack on thought itself." Consider for a moment the implications of the materialist, cause and effect, naturalism that this question encapsulates. If it is true then the very word I am typing are simply the outworking of an extremely complex closed system of cause and effect and any comprehension you may have of what my thoughts actually are on the matter, what you comprehend from these words is only that which has been "programmed" into your mind. The automobile I drive was designed by mindless forces and the accident I will have on Tuesday is as precisely ordained, and as meaningless, as the interaction of billiard balls when struck by the cue. Unless our minds are capable of stepping outside of the natural chain of cause and effect that we observe in the inanimate, and at least some of the animate, universe then thought has nothing to do with reason. All thought is simply the action of mindless matter within or without our physical selves and cannot be caused, prevented, or modified by our selves. Our selves as agents are simply an inexplicable illusions... ghosts in the machine. dgosse

I think we will have to wait till Dr. Fuller's next post. I don't know about you guys, but these long periods in between postings sure does keep me in a state of suspense. Eager to hear more about Dr. Fuller's ideas about design and the designer. Platonist

The place to begin, as noted by SalGal, is the definition of intelligence. A definition wasn't so hard to find before Darwin, it was understood that there existed a "difference in kind" between the cunning and industry of animals and the reason in humans. Animals appear to exhibit some intellectual capacities and some industrial capacity, but it is of a very limited sort. #14There is lots of things that are designed in the world that we would not say are intelligently designed. We have listed several in the past such as beaver dams, spider webs, bee hives, rabbit warrens, birds nests etc. But that is not what we mean by intelligent in intelligent design. As far back as we have literature we know that human beings have made this distinction. Animals make some extremely complex artifacts, but they do so in a fashion different from the manner in which humans produce artifacts. We once had two distinctions, that of "Cunning" which related to a native skill that is not the product of reason and art, and ratio "Reason" for the skills that are developed in Reason and Art. Cunning applied to animals and native human talent whereas ratio applied to humanity alone. Only man is capable of ratio which is the power to use one's mind to comprehend the "nature" of the world. The very concept of "nature" is itself an abstraction produced by the reason. This capacity to comprehend the idea of "nature" and our existence within that which we call "nature" makes it possible for us to act with intention to shape the external world in a planned and orderly manner. A long, long, time ago, in a place far, far, away there lived a man named Aristotle whose claim to fame was his ability to think and categorize. When he was fitting humanity into his grand scheme of categories he wasn't sure where to put him. He recognized the "animal" body as putting humanity in with the other animals, but there was a difference in kind when it came to man's capacities. Obviously there is an immeasureable difference between the mental capacity of animals and humans, and that difference is not a difference in quantity, but quality. The difference is what Aristotle (and we) call ratio dgosse

Well, look. Design science is being done all over the place. It just doesn’t call itself that. The results reported in thousands and tens of thousands of sophisticated basic research papers literally cry out for at least a nod to the possibility of design. And if the researchers weren’t afraid, that’s probably just what you would see. Microbiology today is design science. Go look at the journals. The best way for researchers to describe the incredible discoveries that are being made is through the language of design. Darwin and friends thought that if we could only look into the cell, we would find it to be very simple. Just the opposite has happened: the more minute our observations, the more complex the cell appears to be. These studies are pure science—pure investigations into how things work. Darwinism is mentioned less and less in study reports because the evolution metanarrative adds no interest to the story. The results are astonishing enough in their own right to be news. As for the famous analogy, you might want to take a look at what Hume did to it before you waste too much more time talking about it. There are much better ways to do what you claim to be trying to do. Theodicy in particular is toxic. allanius

"For most IDists — notably Dembski — intelligence is a physically real source of physically real information. It appears to me that reification and anthroporphism are running amok." Come on, give me a break. It may be hard to define just what intelligence is, but that does not mean it does not exist. Something exist that causes space ships, symphonies, computer programs, works of art and life forms to come into existence. Now say that it is hard to pin down just what that thing may be is one thing but to call it "reification and anthroporphism are running amok" is the output of an intelligence with an agenda. One that is destructive rather than constructive. And this is from one who has done scholarly work for 35 years. "Why, Jerry, do you declare beehives, beaver dams, and rabbit warrens unintelligent? Is it simply because you don’t want intelligence to apply to entities you consider subhuman? (I believe that “sub-” begs various questions.)" I am one of the people here who has said that there is no clear definition of intelligence and brought up the examples of beehives, beaver dams etc. to show the common definition of the term is difficult to pin down. Yet I too believe there is something unique about human intelligence. So I would rather pursue trying to pin that down rather than be a master of quibbles. There are probably a thousand activities that one could point to that are uniquely human and the question is just what is the difference between a species that possesses the characteristics to do these things and those that don't. I would suggest that one with 35 years of experience set their efforts in that direction. In the nature of quibbling or sniping from afar, there is the fatuous remarks about the definitions of species, life and science. There is no accepted definition of species and any discussion of it leads one in circles. The ability to procreate definition falls apart in so many ways even though it is often a useful concept. We are dealing with life here all the time, especially in OOL discussions so just what is life. And then there is the ultimate insult to ID and that it is that it is not science. So I suggest you take your quibbles which you seem to like to do and stuff them and try to use your 35 years experience to construct and not try throwing wrenches into the gears. jerry

I think this thread is proceeding well. Lots of interesting statements here. Platonist

Maybe my fears are ungrounded, but I have been always struck that when the media put out a boilerplate account of a key ID concept like ‘irreducible complexity’, they tend to interpret the ‘irreducibility’ as something like ‘unfathomability’. But in fact, the spirit of the concept is to show how things had to be put together in a certain way to serve a certain function, such that even minor changes would render the thing dysfunctional. This strikes me as the very opposite of ‘unfathomability’. If anything, it speaks to the hyper-rationalism, or at least hyper-mechanism, of ID thinking.

I think that "irreducibility" leads to "unfathomability" in that it leads into a dark room where there is no explanation of how the purported "irreducible complexity" came about. Meanwhile, I'm interested in this language, although it was not really germane to your purpose for bringing the quotation:

With the aid of improved technology, the formerly fuzzy “canals” of biology (Darwin’s blobs of gelatinous combinations of carbon) are not becoming fuzzier and more easily explained by non-ID theses — [remainder of quotation omitted]

How would anything be "more easily explained by non-ID theses" if it were "fuzzier?" It has always seemed to me that "blobs of genatinous combinations of carbon," or the like, are much more susceptible to a teleological explanation. If we have no idea whatsoever how something works, it is more likely to be an implementation of some intention (albeit, one that is beyond our own experience and capabilities). The more we know about cellular construction and function, the more we can formulate hypotheses about how it arose. pubdef

Jerry,

There are no accepted definitions of life, science, species and intelligence.

First, science and life are not used in scientific explanations. Second, and more importantly, scientists do give specific meaning to species and intelligence when the concepts are essential to the research at hand. The fact that the terms have different meanings in different research papers does not indicate that they are used imprecisely. Contrary to what most people think, psychometrists do not believe that "intelligence tests" measure a physical entity. Intelligence is for them a hypothetical construct. In casual speech, they might say things that suggest that intelligence is a cause, but in formal writing they are generally quite careful about indicating that it is an inferred, abstract property. Compare that to ID, which seeks both to infer design and declare that intelligence causes the design. For most IDists -- notably Demski -- intelligence is a physically real source of physically real information. It appears to me that reification and anthroporphism are running amok. The fact is, IDists are so fuzzy in their use of intelligence that it's not clear why materialistic evolutionary processes should not be deemed intelligent. As best I can tell, that just doesn't feel right to them, so they exclude it from their usage without carefully considering definition. Why, Jerry, do you declare beehives, beaver dams, and rabbit warrens unintelligent? Is it simply because you don't want intelligence to apply to entities you consider subhuman? (I believe that "sub-" begs various questions.) Beehives and termite mounds have been associated with corporate intelligence. Why should we reserve the term intelligence for individuals, and not collectives? And to take that a step further, why should we not refer to a species as intelligent, even when the individuals of the species seem dumb to us? You may not feel that an individual beaver "understands" how to build a dam, but the species clearly does. The answers to the questions I pose do not depend on what intelligence "really means," but what conceptualization best advances our understanding of natural processes. As best I can tell, most IDists mean "human-like intelligence" when they say "intelligence." It appears that Steve Fuller will get to the issue of why the intelligence of God, whatever that is, should be like the intelligence of humankind. Perhaps he should say explicitly that he's working on a science of a personal God. Sal Gal

Q: What, in a nutshell, is the Darwinist argument against ID? A: First of all, nature doesn’t exhibit the sort of design that requires a prior intelligence to explain it. But even if nature were shown to exhibit ‘intelligent design’, ID has no way of specifying the responsible intelligence. It might as well be the Flying Spaghetti Monster. So at best ID might undermine the adequacy of Darwinist accounts without advancing anything positive on its own behalf. The import of this analysis is obvious: ID is a science-stopper

This is a miserable mistake. You ask: what is the Darwinist’s argument against ID? You think the argument against ID is logical, rational, or evidentiary? Have you been paying attention? The argument against ID is ideological for 99.9% of opponents. After gaining a marginal footing in the debate, to think that ID should now shed its scientific grounding and win the day by making a better case for God is simply divorced from reality. 1) The only reason ID has made any headway at all is because it has remained true to the observable evidence, and only the observable evidence. 2) ID is s scientific concern. The world’s religions don’t need ID to make the case for God. The last time I looked, the Bible didn’t have a periodic table. 3) Chance and necessity cannot account for the organized nucleic sequencing that animates inorganic matter into living tissue. To defend this evidence, ID does not then ignore it to the liking (nor the emotional needs) of any of its proponents. 4) ID had its hat handed to it in Dover just exactly as it should have. Why? Because it left its scientific grounding, and was used to a socio-political end. It’s hardly the time to repeat that mistake. Mr. Fuller, with all due respect, you are so wrongheaded in this that it’s simply inconceivable that even you could believe what you are saying. In the Darwinist’s (materialist’s) answer to the question you posed above, you write “First of all, nature doesn’t exhibit the sort of design that requires a prior intelligence to explain it.” This is untrue. Why would we move the focus off of this factually flawed defense in order to better explain God (and thereby serve our opponents with all the cultural ammunition they will ever need)? Upright BiPed

ID focuses on the central question which is the easiest question: Can we detect design? But clear away the massive confusion there and many more questions arise. Now we could define intelligence as that which produces design—we define things by what they do. What does intelligence do? If designs. But human intelligence—first and foremost—speaks. Mathematics is a specialized subset of human speech where each proposition (function) has variables (x, y, z) that represent numbers. Human speech, on the other hand, juxtaposes propositions (clauses) with arguments (x, y, z) that relate to the proposition via “semantic case roles” (see, for ex., T. Givón’s English Grammar: A Function-Based Introduction. John Benjamins, 1993). Formalist linguistics (such as Noam Chomsky championed) has more or less given up on linguistic universals. Meanwhile, however, the “typological-functionalist” school has been chugging along with Valence Theory (a la Lucien Tesnière), Case Theory (the Prague School), Syntactic Universals (R. M. W. Dixon’s S, A, and O), Prototype Theory (Eleanor Rosch), and Coherence Theory (T. Givón). What can I say they’ve learned that might be pertinent to the question of intelligence? In all human languages the core arguments in a clause are of three semantic roles defined prototypically: “Agent” — the animate instigator of an event “Dative” — an argument where consciousness (but not agency) is relevant “Patient/Theme” — neither of the above The single subject in an intransitive clause might be any of these three (e.g., with verbs 'jump', 'pain', or 'fall'), the two arguments in a unitransitive clause might be any combination of these three (but not two Agents), and a ditransitive clause (‘give’, ‘show’, ‘teach’, etc.) has all three. Note how when we advance a goal to direct object (as in 2 below) that it will be interpreted as a Dative (conscious recipient). 1) They sent a note to Washington 2) They sent Washington a note An old standby in syntax classes is the following. Note the strangeness of 4 which endows “the top of Mount Everest” with consciousness. 3) The university sent an expedition to the top of Mount Everest 4) The university sent the top of Mount Everest an expedition OK, but what we want is a definition of intelligence that uses the precision of numbers—not notions of consciousness and agency. Well you’re never going to get such, or if you do it won’t be as interesting as what I’ve just described. Consciousness involves self awareness, perception of qualia, desire—maybe someday we could develop instruments that measured degrees of these things (we know they come in varying degrees), but that wouldn’t be as interesting as the things themselves. Linguistics provides a disciplined way to talk about these things. I’ve found it interesting that grammar universally separates Consciousness (the Dative) and Free Will (the Agent). I also think it’s interesting that without the fundamental concepts these semantic case roles convey there would be no mathematics because there would be no mathematicians. Rude

I will repeat the following which has been said many times here. There are no accepted definitions of life, science, species and intelligence. All of which we use constantly in our discussions of evolution. That does not mean we do not communicate. It may mean that the fine tuning of some of the discussions needs to be adjusted somewhat though. So to throw out that there is no accepted definition of intelligence may be interesting but it tends to be a side show that may not lead to anything productive. There is lots of things that are designed in the world that we would not say are intelligently designed. We have listed several in the past such as beaver dams, spider webs, bee hives, rabbit warrens, birds nests etc. But that is not what we mean by intelligent in intelligent design. If we want to have a thread some day to thrash out the issue it may be interesting but I am not sure what it would contribute to the basic discussion of evolution. jerry

Sal Gal, "Intelligence" as it relates to ID is just to differentiate between optimal design on one side and apparent design on the other. (Wm DEmbski) It also relates to an agency or agencies other than nature, operating freely. In this context intelligence means what which nature, operating freely, could not or would not produce. (Del Ratzsch) But anyway- the sad part about ID being a science-stopper is that reality demonstrates otherwise. Ya see once the design inference has been reached there is much more work to be done and also more questions are opened that may require answering. IOW far from being a science-stopper the design inference is an impetus to drive future research. (I wonder if these same people claim that archaeology is also a science-stopper?) Joseph

Thanks, Sal, for this clarification, and I see what you mean. But please bear with me in the next few posts as I develop this argument a bit more, since I plan to say what's the point of talking about design as 'intelligent'. I might not provide a definition in the sense you're looking for but I'll try to offer some clarity. Steve Fuller

Prof. Fuller, I'm interested in what you're doing, and I did not pose a trick question in the first comment. You seem to assume that everyone knows what everyone else means by intelligence, just because people use the word a great deal and have a warm, fuzzy feeling that they're communicating. I've done scholarly work related to "intelligence" for 35 years. I can make a very strong case that people, including some very bright scientists and engineers, generally have a very poor idea of what they mean by the term. Back in the mid-80's, when "artificial intelligence" was making a splash, people often told me they had seen or heard of an intelligent computer program. I took to asking them, "Intelligent like a dog, or intelligent like a cat?" They didn't know what in the world I was driving at, but a philosopher like you should. In my opinion, certain ID advocates have purposefully stomped up a cloud of dust around intelligence. With no clean distinction of their political and scientific objectives, it is best for them to stick with plain language, wave their hands, and appeal to intuition. I think you're trying to clarify matters, and I believe you'll encounter big problems ahead if you go on talking about intelligence without giving the term precise meaning. DaveScot points out that Darwinists do not have to define various physical concepts in order to proceed with their science. Well, duh! When you depart from established physics to explain life, then you have to do physics along with biology. We know a great deal about the meaning of "primitive" mass and energy by virtue of standard operations and measurements. How are you going to put intelligence on equal footing with mass and energy? Sal Gal

Imagine if the conditions that existed at the moment of the Big Bang could be recreated precisely, and then an identical bang occurred. Would not everything unfold exactly as it has? And would not the very thoughts in our minds have their identical time in that world? Every leaf falling, and every wave cresting exactly the same at the same moment in time (so to speak)? Michael Haanel

Could somebody with some artistic talent show the Flying Spaghetti Monster throwing some dice with the letters A T G C on it? There you have Darwin's designer/god. Case closed. Next! DaveScot

Well, Dr. Fuller, I just ordered the Nadler book and two of your books. That is the easy part. Reading and understanding them is the next. Reading the review on Amazon, I come down with both Leibnez and and Arnauld and possibly Spinoza because I do not see immediately that they are contradictory. I have had the notion for some years now that the best way to describe the world is the "perfect imperfect" or in other words the world seems to be imperfect from so many ways but is such that any attempt to make it better from God's objectives would make it inferior. So we see what is apparently evil or substandard design or something else that is not optimal but any movement to make anything better will make the total inferior. So I opt for this being the best of all possible worlds, and we have no idea of the mind of God or how it could possibly work and have some sympathy for Spinoza's point of view that because it is the perfect world it is the only possible world. jerry

ID might not have any way of specifying the designing intelligence but that argument is irrelevant. Biology doesn't have any way of specifying the origin of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen either. Does that make biology some kind of religion? Of course not. Try another argument, Steve. That dog doesn't hunt. DaveScot

http://books.google.com/books?id=5QwRIZOiHRQC&pg=PA55&dq=%22charles+babbage%22+%22stochastic%22 Platonist

I think in this case Intelligence means something capable of producing design. Perhaps even the ability to make choices. Platonist

-----SF: "The ‘science of God’ that I shall developing in the next few posts presupposes that we get closer to understanding the ‘intelligence’ behind ID, the more our own mental and physical creations turn out to model what actually happens in nature." OK: Fair enough. I appreciate efforts at trailblazing, and you will find me, for one, sympathetic to any effort at breaking new conceptual ground, or, for that matter, hearkening back to old ideas that were not sufficiently appreciated and applied. Still, I see no problem in saying to Darwinsts or anyone else that our science has simply not progressed sufficietly to the point where it can discern how the actor acts. What is wrong with saying----wait? I don't understand this. So, we have the quote that you consider problematic: ----"With the aid of improved technology, the formerly fuzzy “canals” of biology (Darwin’s blobs of gelatinous combinations of carbon) are not becoming fuzzier and more easily explained by non-ID theses — they are now known to be high-tech information processing systems, with superbly functionally integrated machinery, error-correction-and-repair systems, and much more that surpasses the most sophisticated efforts of the best human mathematicians, mechanical, electrical, chemical, and software engineers." I don't get the problem here. I interpret this phrase to mean that whoever designed life has demonstrated a higher degree of intelligence than has been demonstrated by mankind up to this point. That is obviously true. It says nothing about man's potential; it says something about man's accomplishments so far. How does one translate that comment as a "science stopper." Even at that, why is it so scandalous to suggest that humankind does not have the intellectual capacity to unlock every secret in the universe? I see two possible dangers: We can think too little of ourselves or we can think too much of ourselves. You seem to think that only the first extreme is a problem. Here's a related fact: Our scientific prowess already far exceeds our capacity to provide an ethical framework for handling it. StephenB

I need to see more upfront from you before I answer, since life is short and I don't know where you're coming from. It's clear that I believe that 'intelligence' doesn't make sense without the ascription of agency. Maybe you hold another view but I think in that case you need to tell me exactly what does 'intelligent' add to 'design' in 'intelligent design'. Why won't 'design' simply do, when talking about the natural world? Steve Fuller

I like the idea of a Creator God programing everything into the Big Bang and letting it unfold. A watchmaker-God or Charles Babbage like God. Platonist

Prof. Fuller (and only Prof. Fuller): Please provide a scientific definition of intelligence. Sal Gal