The Intelligent Designer is so complex...

...that the Intelligent Designer could not have sprung into being on his/her/its own, thus the Theory of an Intelligent Designer Designer.


discuss.

I can't refute that logic.

This derives from the assumption that consciousness or sentience requires complexity. This hypothesis has not been conclusively tested, as neither state is easily seperable in perception from the need to communicate through complex means such as language.

Then you admit that no designer was needed for "life" to emerge.

Non sequitur much?

If sentience requires complexity, then that makes an intelligent designer prior to life arising unlikely.

If sentience does not require innate complexity, then it leaves the existence of sentient beings prior to the arising of complex life forms a distinct possibility.

I don't think you know what that means.

This also assumes time only flows in one direction.

-Ghoti

Editing to add: Wholey Chao! This was my 1000th forum post!

As in, what you said as a next step does not actually follow logically from what I said.

non se·qui·tur (nn skw-tr, -tr) n.
1. An inference or conclusion that does not follow from the premises or evidence.
2. A statement that does not follow logically from what preceded it.

-Ghoti (glad to be of help)

That could only be drawn from the supposition that this thread is the only place we've ever held discourse.

Or that time really exists outside of our own perception of it. Perhaps another time on that one.

ok lets get real, no one is going to know anything about God, or a designer of the universe, but we if we can make the world a better more friendly place by having faith in something then run with it. Why do we try to prove the existance of god anyway? it's impossible. God is all of us and what we do reflects upon us all.

You are all assuming the original statement is my personal view. It isn't --it's a statement that I'm asking you discuss.

I don't even believe that we live in a "creation". I think it's all chaos.

To expand on my counter-argument (for the sake of discussion or whatever).

If one drops the assumption that consciousness is the product of complexity, it leaves open the possibility that a sentient entity could pop into and out of existence much in the manner of an elementary particle.

As such, and I kind of like this theory because it gibes with my own recall, consciousness without form could exist prior to the formation of the current universe. Or more precisely, could come about in the same moment of the first creation of space and time, as time as we know it was also created at that point.

I agree with this --which is why I wonder why advocates of Intelligent Design believe that
"life" is the product of complexity.

I consider myself an intelligent designer.
My designs are all nicely planned and well thought out.

If another intelligent designer had a part in my emergence, I'd like to meet them.

It also assumes that we aren't all merely delusions sent to you by an evil demon.

EDIT: Which, of course, we are.

Acually, I do, but I pretend I don't because I don't think anyone is actually following their religions and, therefore, not worthy of my holy knowledge. Sorry, better luck next life.

All of these "arguments" assume cauasality and logic. Fools!

Ulrika posted?

"Which came first?" becomes a really tricky question before the existence of time.

If consciousness is a simplicity, then it could have much more easily arisen than the complex life forms we see today. Conscious beings might then seek to drive the creation of complexity, just to have something to do.

My own observation of life forms suggests (doesn't prove but suggests) an active intent to survive and improve themselves. All the discovered mechanisms of evolution would be valid methods of going about it.

If the universe was the product of a creator then it most certainly was not the result of intellegent design. It bears all the hallmarks of a rush job done at the last minute as a deadline approaches. I should know, its how I work most of the time.

Now, this I agree with!

But could a non-complex (but sentient (whatever that would mean)) being have created the complex life forms we see now? Isn't that the whole point of the ID argument? That the complexity is "irreducible", and therefore a non-complex being could not have created it, just as ID argues that non-complex natural processes could not have created it either.

Frankly I've not been following the specifics of the ID case. I thought the examples presented had to do with chemical processes and cellular mechanics, these processes being rather complex and not functioning as anything in particular as subsets of the main process.

We would be talking about mechanics in these examples. Physical forms, and whether they could arise as a natural progression from very simple pieces to the complex form seen in action. More particularly, whether they could do it on their own or need some outside organizing influence.

Any complexity can be pulled apart into very simple components. Vice versa, huge complexities can be created by the combination of very simple building blocks. A simple sentient entity working with the building blocks of matter could derive complex forms, much in the manner of a child creating a city out of Legos might.

My question about consciousness is a philosophical one, and a very old point of contention between the materialist and spiritual views of the world. Does consciousness exist as itself, or must it be an emergent condition of very complex systems?

A lot of current science fiction has the view that the latter is not only necessary but inevitable. I guess we'll see if the 'net ever starts talking back to us.