Why would anybody want to think of him/herself as "designed"?
Watching from the sidelines while people quarrel over things like the origin of humans has often left me shaking or scratching my head.
A big head scratcher is the concept of design in that aforementioned quarrel.
Maybe it is just a figure of speech. Maybe neither side of the quarrel uses "design" in the conventional sense like in the work of an architect, engineer, etc.
If they are using "design" in that conventional sense, that is strange.
I find it very awkward and counterintuitive to say "I was designed..."
Speaking of design, proponents of intelligent design theory say things like if you find a clock its features and properties tell you that it was designed by somebody, while the features and properties of a human body tell you...
Comparing humans to clocks? Seriously?
Maybe this is an example of a category error? I don't know. I have not yet more than barely grasped the concept of a category error.
And I smell a false dichotomy. Either something is random or it is designed, the thinking goes. Well, not every non-random thing is deliberately designed. Some things are improvised. Just because you can't say "X was designed to..." does not mean that X was random.
Designing something means planning, deliberation, conceiving, etc. Designing something is a process. Some people tell us that the evidence clearly shows that things like humans, the Earth, etc. were designed. But I bet if you ask them to describe the process through which those things were designed they would not have anything to tell you. If God "designed" humans, did he first form a mental conception? That was followed by a night of sleep and then a day at the drafting table, maybe? Some tests in the lab were next, maybe?
It is not just theists who think in terms of "design". Naturalists, it seems to me, think the same way--they just have a different conclusion (the evidence does not support an "intelligent designer").
I don't have a divinity degree from seminary, but I did have extensive repeated exposure to Christian thought growing up in a couple of churches. I don't recall anything implying, let alone directly stating, that humans were designed like an alarm clock is designed. I have only encountered it as an adult navigating through the intellectual and political worlds.
Even if we were not "designed", I do not see how that falsifies theism.
If you want to tell me that humans are the result of an artist's inspiration, that makes more sense. We were created like a painting or a poem is created makes more sense.
Saying that we were "designed" like a car or an alarm clock sounds strange. Yet, apparently it is a joy for some people to say that about themselves.
A big head scratcher is the concept of design in that aforementioned quarrel.
Maybe it is just a figure of speech. Maybe neither side of the quarrel uses "design" in the conventional sense like in the work of an architect, engineer, etc.
If they are using "design" in that conventional sense, that is strange.
I find it very awkward and counterintuitive to say "I was designed..."
Speaking of design, proponents of intelligent design theory say things like if you find a clock its features and properties tell you that it was designed by somebody, while the features and properties of a human body tell you...
Comparing humans to clocks? Seriously?
Maybe this is an example of a category error? I don't know. I have not yet more than barely grasped the concept of a category error.
And I smell a false dichotomy. Either something is random or it is designed, the thinking goes. Well, not every non-random thing is deliberately designed. Some things are improvised. Just because you can't say "X was designed to..." does not mean that X was random.
Designing something means planning, deliberation, conceiving, etc. Designing something is a process. Some people tell us that the evidence clearly shows that things like humans, the Earth, etc. were designed. But I bet if you ask them to describe the process through which those things were designed they would not have anything to tell you. If God "designed" humans, did he first form a mental conception? That was followed by a night of sleep and then a day at the drafting table, maybe? Some tests in the lab were next, maybe?
It is not just theists who think in terms of "design". Naturalists, it seems to me, think the same way--they just have a different conclusion (the evidence does not support an "intelligent designer").
I don't have a divinity degree from seminary, but I did have extensive repeated exposure to Christian thought growing up in a couple of churches. I don't recall anything implying, let alone directly stating, that humans were designed like an alarm clock is designed. I have only encountered it as an adult navigating through the intellectual and political worlds.
Even if we were not "designed", I do not see how that falsifies theism.
If you want to tell me that humans are the result of an artist's inspiration, that makes more sense. We were created like a painting or a poem is created makes more sense.
Saying that we were "designed" like a car or an alarm clock sounds strange. Yet, apparently it is a joy for some people to say that about themselves.
Comments (46)
These questions probably made a lot more sense outside the lens of evolution, but even evolution could be construed as a convoluted means of design. Evolution might also be seen as a more artistic expression of design in that the artist doesn't necessarily know what the final product is going to be when they start.
The argument from design(clock comparison) has fallen out of favor in light of evolutionary biology. It's still used with regard to cosmology though.
The major underlying idea is a sense of meaning. It's unsettling to think that we're just floating in space making up purpose for our own lives.
But it would be too prolix and tedious to preface every explanation with the whole evolutionary argument, so the shorthand is used.
However, I suspect this foreshortening does give some hostages to fortune, in that some people perhaps think of evolution as in some sense as some kind of unitary, god-like power. It's perhaps natural for religious people to make this mistake (they think the evolutionist is substituting a sort of materialistic god-like being for God), but rationalists shouldn't make this mistake (which I think some do, perhaps unconsciously), and should always be clear that it's just a shorthand placeholder for the full explanation.
Strictly speaking the evolutionary argument shows how things that appear as if they have been designed can come about without anything actually designing them. It's an accidental process, certainly, but it's also cumulative (good accidents are kept, bad accidents aren't), and the cumulativeness is how you eventually get the appearance of design.
But even in the above paragraph, you'll notice I've used the words "good" and "bad" - and even that can give the appearance of purpose. But really, "good" just boils down to "happens to fit in with the ecosystem in a way that allows the organism to survive and reproduce", and "bad" means the opposite.
I don't think you're seeing the point, but then it's a really big issue. It's not so much 'design' that is at stake, but 'intentionality'. In the olde world, not only did things have a purpose, but they existed for a reason. The Earth at the centre of the Universe, and mankind as Imago Dei, and all part of a plan.
With the Scientific Revolution, mankind suddenly found itself adrift in the appalling vastnesses of space, the 'accidental outcome of a collocation of atoms' in Russell's words. Freud remarked that ‘the self-love of mankind has been three times wounded by science’, referring to the Copernican revolution, Darwin’s discovery of evolution, and Nietzsche’s declaration of the Death of God.
So the implications are much greater than simply 'design'. Indeed the metaphor of design was one of the artefacts of the advent of modernity; Descartes' notion of a clockwork universe was more machine than organism, with the wheels set in motion by a deist God who had no real presence in the world.
This often does manifest as Nietzsche's foretold nihilism; nihilism might not be anything dramatic or even noticeable, it might just be a sense of indifference, a sense that nothing matters, a sense of disconnection and anomie. There is the assumption that 'science has shown' that life is a cosmic accident, and that the Universe has no inherent meaning. Whereas, in an intentional world, in which you play a part, there is a very different dynamic.
As far as origins go, I've never doubted the paleontological and evolutionary account; I grew up on Time Life books. But since 'new atheism' has enlisted evolutionary biology in support of scientific materialism, my attitude has changed somewhat. I am reminded of the oft-quoted passage in Thomas Nagel's essay, Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion, which I think nails some of the undercurrents of this whole debate rather well:
What about designed like a replicant in the Blade Runner movies, or Data on Star Trek?
Why should feet or breath stink? Why does male pattern baldness exist? What about anti-aging and anti-cancer genes?
I'd like to be more naturally athletic. Like a tiger, or at least, Lebron James. Why can't I just turn pain off? Or desire, when it's inconvenient or inappropriate? Or for that matter, emotion. Why must I be subject to them?
And so on.
This is a far more radical evolution of evolution and although huge understandings have been achieved, humanity is just at the beginning of gaining the tools for these efforts. The human mind which has achieved ways of modeling successes and failures in this enterprise before moving on to actually creating new species now has in its power to transfer innovative characteristics of totally unrelated living creatures and the vast library of living beings from which these accomplishments can be utilized indicates that immense possibilities have been opened. Humanity itself is likely to change to adapt itself to completely different environments in space and on other possible planets so that the future may hold humans that are not recognizable as human except from their ancestry and the world will become much stranger than we now know.
How do you differentiate the two?
Edit: In others*.
People who describe God do it in terms wherein its powers and intellect are unlimited, On that basis it is not possible to prove or disprove its existence. Investigations on reality can only be based on observation and possibilities that can be confirmed. So far these indications indicate that there is no necessity to posit the existence of a god.We have to settle for that.
I agree with you, except with the caveat that a god could prove its own existence, so long as it conformed to some anthropomorphic idea we have of it.
My question to Wayfarer is an attempt to understand what he sees as an important distinction between a person who does not believe in god and hopes there is none, and a person who does not believe in god and is either indifferent or hopes there is one. My guess is(correct me if I'm wrong Wayfarer) he sees the former as having lost objectivity.
I'm also curious whether he finds the anti-god attitude problematic with regard to local atheism or just global atheism.
I think that's right. A thing may be neither random nor designed: e.g. a beehive or a bird's nest. It may be designed to be random: the output of a random number generator. It may be randomly designed: an art work created by randomly flicking paint. On the one hand: random vs non-random. On the other hand: designed vs not designed. The 'argument from design' conflates the two.
The warm little pond.
Quoting ProbablyTrue
Well, the quote is from Thomas Nagel - you may or may not be familiar with him, but he's a respected philosopher, a rare breed in today's world. His point is that he wouldn't like to think that there's a God. I don't really know why he feels that way, except that maybe it's like a feeling of having made a losing bet, as he's always been a professed atheist. So maybe it's like 'gee I hope I don't turn out to be wrong'.
I think for many self-described atheists, the question of the existence of God is something that has been sealed shut. It's a box marked 'solved', with tape around it, and it sits safely on a shelf, with no further examination required. But if you suspect that it might not be, that it might actually be still a 'live case' then it causes a lot of further questions. It might not be a sealed box, but a Pandora's box, after all.
Interestingly, Nagel's next major work after that quoted, was called Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False. It amplified some of the ideas expressed in that essay and it created a lot of hostility, even scorn amongst the secular intelligentsia. As far as they're concerned, the box is safely sealed.
Yeah, I'm familiar with him. I wasn't sure if you shared his opinion on that particular part of his essay or not.
Quoting Wayfarer
I think for most atheists, the question they view as sealed is one about specific gods; e.g. the Abrahamic god. This of course is only a local atheistic view, not global. But once one has disposed of the more traditional conceptions of god, conjuring up a new, less involved version seems unnecessary.
Being open to the question is a fine thing, but what are the practical implications? Is it about a mental posture?
Maybe shelving the question entirely is a reactionary response to the ideological tyranny of the traditional gods; a fear that leaving the door open wide enough for a new one might allow the old ones to get a foot back inside.
This seems a bit off-topic now so I'll leave it. Maybe I'll start a topic on this later this week.
Quoting Jan Sand
The use of 'automatic' is mechanistic, as if evolution a self-perpetuating machine. But ‘evolution’ isn’t an agent. Nowadays we routinely say that evolution ‘does’ this or ‘does’ that, but evolution doesn’t ‘do’ anything; it’s a process of selection, or self-selection.
I think there’s a kind of hidden anthropomorphism in this conception, whereby evolution has been endowed with the creative ability previously attributed to God, but re-conceived as the ‘blind watchmaker’. Nothing happens for any purpose, other than the propagation of the genome, and that occurs via a process which is to all intents indistinguishable from a chemical reaction, which gives rise to the illusion of purpose. But the only real purpose is the propagation of the genome.
'Nature' doesn't reject and retry, tho. Talking about design in evolution is a metaphorical use.
There was a facinating discussion a few months ago - On the transition from non-life to life. For me, it really came alive when Apokrisis got involved. Here is a link to where his contribution got really interesting:
After that, you can just skip ahead and read his posts. It really opened my eyes.
It's a joy only because it offers an alternative to the depressing notion that we exist by accident. It's comfy to think our bodies were made "with us in mind", as if it's all a great gift. It's kind of sad how people will froth at the mouth when they marvel at the cherry-picked beauty of a biological system. :-|
"Paley's argument proceeds by identifying what he takes to be a reliable indicator of intelligent design:
"Suppose I found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think … that, for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for [a] stone [that happened to be lying on the ground]?… For this reason, and for no other; namely, that, if the different parts had been differently shaped from what they are, if a different size from what they are, or placed after any other manner, or in any order than that in which they are placed, either no motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or none which would have answered the use that is now served by it" (Paley 1867, 1).
There are thus two features of a watch that reliably indicate that it is the result of an intelligent design. First, it performs some function that an intelligent agent would regard as valuable; the fact that the watch performs the function of keeping time is something that has value to an intelligent agent. Second, the watch could not perform this function if its parts and mechanisms were differently sized or arranged; the fact that the ability of a watch to keep time depends on the precise shape, size, and arrangement of its parts suggests that the watch has these characteristics because some intelligent agency designed it to these specifications. Taken together, these two characteristics endow the watch with a functional complexity that reliably distinguishes objects that have intelligent designers from objects that do not." -- Design Arguments for the Existence of God
I do not see any way around the conclusion that such thinking says that humans are designed like a clock, skyscraper, aircraft carrier, etc. is designed.
It may not be the point that is trying to be made, but it seems to be a logical conclusion of such thinking, nonetheless.
But comparing humans to a clock/watch means that God is not very good at designing some things.
If humans were designed to worship/serve god, and if the overwhelming majority of humans have not worshipped/served God, then God did a lousy job of designing.
Do people think about what they are saying?
Yet, a clock/watch is used as an analogy.
Nobody thinks that a clock/watch was made with the clock/watch "in mind".
Sure, that’s perfectly true. I think the comment I was reacting to was your ‘comparing humans to alarm clocks’ and what you see as the weird implications of design. Which is why I said, the underlying issue is really intentionality rather than design. The idea that humans are like mechanisms of any kind is pushing the analogy too far, as humans are organisms, and there are profound differences between the two, starting with the obvious fact that machines really are designed. So the whole analogy is that, just as a complex object like a watch must have a builder, so too must a complex world in which there are living things have one. Fred Hoyle recapitulated the idea in his ‘junkyard tornado’ argument https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkyard_tornado
In any case, Richard Dawkins has written a number of books specifically to show, in enormous and painstaking detail, what is wrong with ‘the argument from design’, including his ‘Blind Watchmaker’, ‘Unweaving the Rainbow’ and others. He says that ‘a deity capable of engineering all the organized complexity in the world, either instantaneously or by guiding evolution ... must already have been vastly complex in the first place ..." He calls this "postulating organized complexity without offering an explanation." However as numerous critics have pointed out, the classical understanding of deity is precisely not a complex being at all, but is utterly simple.
I think that it is a false analogy to begin with, never mind how far it is pushed.
How do I know? I know because of the properties that the argument says corresponds between the two.
A watch has the function of keeping time. If anything were different about the size, arrangement, etc. of the parts of the watch, the function of keeping time would not be possible.
A human has the function of...
Uh, I don't think they ever tell us what the function of a human is that corresponds to a watch's function of keeping time.
I am sure that that barely scratches the surface.
I am sure that I could think of and list other discrepancies if I had the time and energy.
Quoting Wayfarer
We say that much earlier human societies/cultures were not complex. Yet we say that their creations, such as Egyptian pyramids, were complex.
Go figure.
Quoting Wayfarer
I think that we already have fallacies there alone. Who says that everything in existence must be the product of a recent human invention called engineering? Who says that things that are not organized or complex were not "engineered"?
Engineering is a process.
Who says that things that exist--organized or not; complex or not--must be the result of a process? Who says that things cannot exist due to appearing or being made to appear spontaneously?
Quoting Wayfarer
I think that that is a valid criticism.
Like I already said, if you ask the people who say that humans were "designed" by God for the steps/process of that design, they probably have nothing to give you.
The drafting table that God used, was the finish cherry or oak?
Maybe it was "espresso". It seems like most of the ready-to-assemble furniture these days says on the package that the finish is "espresso". So, speaking of design, maybe the people designing the furniture today are just now catching up with God's tastes.
I prefer matte black.
Quoting Wayfarer
Which is probably why a lot of these attempts to support belief in the existence of God with the scientific method, cosmology, etc. sound so ridiculous.
But I do not think that a lot of it really is about God, faith, spiritual well-being, etc. I think that it is mostly culture wars being fought for political gain.
Quoting Wayfarer
Thanks to Google I was just now able to take a random, 10-minute crash course in intentionality.
Everything that I saw said that intentionality is about mental states.
Designed or accidental/random--I don't see what difference it makes.
Like I said.....
Complexity studies categorises two types of complexity; organized and disorganized. Disorganised complex systems are like large scale social phenomenon, they are studied mainly through the lenses of statistics. Organised complex systems are, specifically, living beings, machines, and some rare forms of mineral and chemical reactions.
A system, organised or not, is always a process. In system theory, a description of this process is accepted as a valid definition of the system.
Intentionality is, here, a false flag. Evolution theory now has a pretty good grasp on the idea of attractors, which somewhat validate the use of design as an analogy (with strong restrictions), but intentionality goes beyond the bounds of this analogy. Especially since intentionality is rather nebulous, and it's pretty certain neither Brentano nor Husserl would've admitted to the validity of its usage here.
If it is about intentionality, and if design has nothing to do with intentionality, why are people bringing arguments for and against design into it?
I am trying to understand.
1) Explaining human existence as the result of God's Design is no different than explaining human existence by Natural Evolution. Both explanations are based upon faith that such forces exist.
2) In so far as the evolution of the human body and mind is concerned, it is no different than anything else, it is the result of a process of creative experimentation. In other words, just like art, it is a continuous process of learning and change.
Both are belief, theories, expressed in a set of propositions. Stating this does not help anyone. The reason one is prefered is not that it is not constituted by beliefs, but because of the reasonnings one goes through in justifying those beliefs.
Quoting Rich
Evolution is not art. Nature is not art. Art, as artefact, is opposed to Nature, and as creativity it is opposed to science. Art is a form of pursuit of knowledge, even if it is a knowledge in its purest form, and a pursuit without designs.
Quoting Cuthbert
Do you mean 'valid', or 'true'? Because I don't readily see why all arguments from design would be a priori invalid. It could be the case that something such as an intelligence had a hand in our creation. It's just that it seem like little evidence could ever be brought forward to support this.
There is always goal oriented reasoning whether it be God-based or Natural Evolution based. They are equivalent. One can interchange the phrases without loss. Of course, one will always maintain their reasoning is superior to the other. That is the nature of the conversation.
Quoting Akanthinos
Actually it is. It is the creative expression of mind that is exploring. It's pretty interesting what we are coming up with.
It is completely different, in that there is abundant evidence for evolution by natural selection - fossils, DNA studies, geological data - and zero evidence for 'God's design', beyond inference that it is 'what must have happened'.
Equivalence of goal isn't equivalence of proof isn't equivalence of belief.
take :
1) I want to eat. I know there is food in my fridge because I put it there and have no reason to think someone else might have taken it. I hold the belief that the food that I believe to be in the fridge will satisfy my goal of wanting to eat.
2) I want to eat. I know that food is something that happens from time to time in the world (i.e. I hold the belief that food is). I hold the belief that if I remain immobile and do nothing, I will likely obtain food, because I believe that food is just a statistical occurence of the world, and that this food will satisfy my goal of wanting to eat.
I, in both 1) and 2), expresses the same goal. The whole object of both these reasonnings is to arrive to the point where I have formulated what is necessary for me to formulate in trying to satisfy my goal of eating. But it is however evident that 2), even tho it might be tangentially a valid reasonning, does not share the same a priori plausibility in formulating what is necessary to arrive to our goal. See H. Putnam for the necessity to thematize a priori plausibility in the comparison of the worth of theories, Philosophy of Logic, p. 56-69
I don't think arguments from design are valid.
— Cuthbert
Do you mean 'valid', or 'true'? Because I don't readily see why all arguments from design would be a priori invalid. It could be the case that something such as an intelligence had a hand in our creation. It's just that it seem like little evidence could ever be brought forward to support this. - Akaninthos
I meant 'valid'. I was referring to the false dichotomy referred to near the start of the thread, i.e. the dichotomy between 'random' and 'designed'. Something might be neither random nor designed, e.g. a beaver's dam. To avoid that (false) dichotomy any argument for the existence of a designer-God needs to show that the universe is designed. Showing that it has form and and is non-random is not enough.
As it happens, I think there is a designer God and that, as you say, an intelligence had a hand in our creation. But that's a matter of religious faith. It does not follow in any way from the fact that the universe is ordered. It's the other way round. The ordered universe results from God's creation. And you can grant there is an ordered, non-random universe without believing in a designer God at all. The two propositions are logically distinct.
There is an abundance of evidence that things change. There is zero evidence for some external super-Natural force that governs change whether it be named God its synonym Natural Evolution. But then again, depending upon the tastes of the adherent (purely a matter of nomenclature) one will prefer one naming device over another.
No difference between a belief in Natural Evolution as the Almighty Force or God. As for me, I don't believe in either.
That's a statement of position, not an argument. Do you not see that between 1) and 2) there is a world of difference in validity as an hypothesis? That's about the world of difference that exist beween an explanation in terms of evolution and one in terms of intelligent design. If you do not, you are more than welcome to argue for it. Stating your position once again does not help anyone.
It would be like arguing over the differences between H2O and water. Which word do you prefer? The more "scientific" or the more colloquial? Is there something to argue about?
Quite simply, scientists don't like using the word god so they made up another term Natural Evolution.
Design, as you've deftly pointed out is not used in the traditional sense, but as a somewhat more poetic passive culling-the-herd design rather than active design. Snowflakes are all about the same size, because water. Deer are brown because the ones that weren't got eaten.
A point not often made is that evolution is a relationship to the current environment, a spread of slightly different around a norm. It's not the norm that survives best, it's the best match to the current environment.
This is fascinating. Perhaps thinkers who deny or ignore god are worshipping and serving god as they understand god. Perhaps 'god' is a word for what is highest in human experience.
Let's say one think one is just here accidentally. Even in this situation he or she can (and does?) reach toward what is high and good. The complications arise (in my view) because people can associate opposed concepts with the highest. For some the worship of god has involved hurting strangers. For the others the saving of strangers. For still others a movement away from the social into solitary ecstasies. In short, 'to serve/worship god' can be interpreted as a description of the god-chasing human. To be clear, this 'god-chasing' may include the attempt to articulate a perfect atheism, etc. 'God' is just the 'eerie' or specifically human object of desire, wrapped in thousands of different concepts (the hair on the core), some not yet invented.
This brand of teleology is not uncommon in my experience. I have listened to sermons where it is explained that the central drive of people is worship; all things that humans pursue are in essence an act of worship. If this worship is not of god, it is a perversion of our built-in nature. This claim has the same quality to it as saying all things are hedonistic in that it is unfalsifiable.
You're right that it smells unfalsifiable. But I'm really more interested in describing. I look around and talk to people and they all hold something 'sacred' in a peculiar sense. They put energy into goals that are 'merely' symbolic. A 'failed' painter whom no one pays might obsess over a canvas that he knows no one will ever see. He chases something there. A writer for the right word searches. Participants on philosophy forums have a directedness, a momentum.The political person has a notion of the way things should be. I suppose I was using 'god' as a word for the common core of this less animal object of interest.
The desire to worship reminds me of the desire to love. One might say that the desire to worship is the desire to be in love, the desire to find something in the world so true and beautiful that cognitive dissonance is obliterated. The dizzy compass needle is glad for the strong magnetic field. No doubt there is danger here, too.
Can you learn the same thing from understanding why water is represented physically as H2O as you can by learning that linguistically it is called water? No. "H" stands for something else and something more in H2O than "wa-" stands for in 'water'. That is because the first one is a model, and not a name, while the second is a name and not a model.
I do not understand what you mean. Could you rephrase?