When Darwinists say that ID hinders science because once we decide something is designed, we stop inquiry. That is like saying, “there is no point in studying designs and its designer once we decide something is designed.” This is like saying once something passes our own personal Explanatory Filter, and we recognize design in an artifact, we just give up trying to learn more? I don’t think so.
When I first heard this wonderful piece of music, I wanted to learn more about its architecture, I wanted to study the written notes that generated the music, I also wanted to learn more about the designer, Massenet himself.
[youtube 96d9mlRmjus]
As a child, when I first heard a piano rendition of Massenet’s Meditation I knew immediately no ordinary mind composed the music. Something in this sonic architecture told me the source of the design was not some careless mind just making noise. The sequence of notes in the melody seemed levels above the music I heard on the radio (many of tunes that were popular then are now mostly forgotten). I feared I’d never hear this piece of music again. I didn’t even know the name of the piece.
But eventually I did hear the music again, and then again (like the above youtube video). It was too beautiful for the world to forget. I found out its name (Meditation from Thais) and its designer (Massenet). I learned music theory to understand the architecture of music. I found the notes to the music and spent many hours practicing and playing the notes the designer left for posterity.
The problem with evolutionary materialism is that it looks for square-circles. It looks for random chaotic undirected processes to created coordinated information — that is a search for a square circle. They want to know the mechanism of the designer in terms of mechanical process when such a description may not be even possible in principle if indeed the description of real intelligence cannot be reduced to simple mechanics. Indeed, in some interpretations of quantum mechanics, conscious intelligence is an irreducible given that cannot be explained and decomposed in terms of more elementary concepts.
Perhaps the more compelling question is “what is the nature, the character, the abilities of the designer — who is the designer?” These questions are outside of ID proper, but nothing stops us from continuing to learn and investigate more once we conclude something is designed. On the contrary, knowing something is designed might motivate us to learn even more.
HT: Mapou in Comment, The Enigma of Consciousness