How does Complexity demonstrate Design

Couldn't you just define the specification after you had the complexity?

It is when complexity meets specification that we infer design.CF:
Couldn't you just define the specification after you had the complexity?John Paul:
Sure you could. Is that what we currently do now with design specific fields such as archaeology, anthropology's search for artifacts, cryptology, SETI, forensics, etc.?

Then in that case, isn't it a circular argument? Couldn't you argue any complex object, of whatever origin, met some post-hoc specification, and was therefore of intelligent design?

In a complex design is the designer not also complex and if we follow the logic of the statement that complexity indicates design to its apparent conclusion how then does the designer escape being designed?

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You paddle your kayak up the river from your camp to fetch your camera which you left on a rock upstream a bit. The river flows at a uniform 2 mi/hr. You paddle (on still water) at a uniform 3 mi/hr. It takes 30 minutes to reach your camera. If you paddle all the way back to your camp, how long will the return trip take?

i'm starting with behe. so far, he's full of crap. here's the quote i posted earlier: also, irreducibly complex systems may not have subsystems by his own definition (page 38-39). i'm pretty sure any component parts can be read as subsystems of amino-acids, nucleotides, dna, molecules, atoms, and so forth. so, any irreducibly complex system cannot have parts. and so nothing is irreducibly complex. qed.

CF:
Then in that case, isn't it a circular argument? Couldn't you argue any complex object, of whatever origin, met some post-hoc specification, and was therefore of intelligent design?John Paul:
That is why it is called the design inference. Can that inference be refuted/ overturned? Sure. As for post-hoc- wouldn't that be anything, including the ToE, that deals with past events? Seriously I can't tell if something was designed BEFORE it is designed. I can only wait until after and then through thorough study stick to or overturn my initial inference. And if that is circular then there are several investigative venues that stake their reputation on circularity.

Arach:
also, irreducibly complex systems may not have subsystems by his own definition (page 38-39).John Paul:
That is demonstratably false:"Quite the opposite, I clearly wrote in Darwin’s Black Box that even if the individual parts had their own functions, that still does not account for the irreducible complexity of the system. In fact, it would most likely exacerbate the problem, as I stated when considering whether parts lying around a garage could be used to make a mousetrap without intelligent intervention."from:
Irreducible Complexity is an Obstacle to Darwinism Even if Parts of a System have other Functions | Discovery InstituteIf Behe is full of crap neither you or anyone else has been able to show that he is. IOW your words are hollow.

sidelined:
In a complex design is the designer not also complex and if we follow the logic of the statement that complexity indicates design to its apparent conclusion how then does the designer escape being designed?John Paul:
First things first. First we have to understand the design. Then with that knowledge we may be able to ascertain some things about the designer(s).
Yours is a good question for philosophy, right along with where did the matter and energy come from that started all we see (aka the "big bang)?

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Is that what we currently do now with design specific fields such as archaeology, anthropology's search for artifacts, cryptology, SETI, forensics, etc.?

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How interesting that these fields deal with artifacts that, unlike living organisms, do not reproduce. These artifacts require a designer to explain their origin, but living beings owe their existence to a well-understood natural process, the hereditary mechanism of DNA. For your inference to work, you need to make us believe that natural processes do not create living things, or that intelligent agency is necessary for living things to exist. Intelligent agency has never created a tree, a baby, or a bacterium. If you disagree, please offer evidence to the contrary.regards,
Esteban Hambre

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Is that what we currently do now with design specific fields such as archaeology, anthropology's search for artifacts, cryptology, SETI, forensics, etc.?
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MrH:
How interesting that these fields deal with artifacts that, unlike living organisms, do not reproduce.John Paul:
And why should reproduction be a barrier for detecting design?MrH:
These artifacts require a designer to explain their origin, but living beings owe their existence to a well-understood natural process, the hereditary mechanism of DNA.John Paul:
LoL! Where is the evidence that supports your claim? Even Dobzhansky says that prebiological natural selection is a contradiction in terms.MrH:
For your inference to work, you need to make us believe that natural processes do not create living things, or that intelligent agency is necessary for living things to exist.John Paul:
And for your inference to work you need to show us that natural processes CAN do what you claim. So far no one has. We INFER a designer (ID) from the evidence. That inference can be falsified but as of yet has not been. You on the other hand have no reason to infer nature did what you claim because no where has anyone observed nature bring about specified complexity or information rich systems. IOW all you have is a belief system. ID has the evidence- as in every time an information rich system or specified complexity is produced it is produced as a result of an intelligent agency.MrH:
Intelligent agency has never created a tree, a baby, or a bacterium.John Paul:
And neither has nature. So I guess none of this exists.
If you disagree, please offer evidence to the contrary.

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MrH:
Intelligent agency has never created a tree, a baby, or a bacterium.

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John Paul:
And neither has nature.

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You've got to be kidding me. If this is any indication of how thick your blinders are, I give up trying to discuss anything with you. There has to be some rational basis for how we're trying to establish consensus here, but if you're going to deny that trees grow through natural processes, then I'm done.regards,
Esteban Hambre

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MrH:
Intelligent agency has never created a tree, a baby, or a bacterium.
John Paul:
And neither has nature.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MrH:
You've got to be kidding me.John Paul:
Why would I be kidding you? I have asked you to provide evidence and you have yet to do so.MrH:
If this is any indication of how thick your blinders are, I give up trying to discuss anything with you.John Paul:
I have given up "discussing" anything with you long ago. You don't want a discussion.MrH:
There has to be some rational basis for how we're trying to establish consensus here, but if you're going to deny that trees grow through natural processes, then I'm done.John Paul:
You were done well before this. I NEVER said, nor implied, that trees don't grow through natural processes. That isn't even what you asked/ posted. This is what YOU posted "Intelligent agency has never created a tree," , which is very different from trees growing naturally.
You can't even stay focused. You have to twist and misrepresent in every post. why is that?This message has been edited by John Paul, 06-11-2004 10:28 AM

John Paul I beg to differ but is not the point of people saying there is intelligent design is that there is anecessity for a complex system to have a designer? According to Philip Johnson. What could be more complex than a designer that put this together.

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You paddle your kayak up the river from your camp to fetch your camera which you left on a rock upstream a bit. The river flows at a uniform 2 mi/hr. You paddle (on still water) at a uniform 3 mi/hr. It takes 30 minutes to reach your camera. If you paddle all the way back to your camp, how long will the return trip take?

sidelined- you don't understand. Knowing the id of the designer is not relevant when detecting design and trying to understand that design. ID is about the design, not the designer. The designer is less important to ID than abiogenesis (the logical conclusion to naturalism and the ToE) is to the ToE. That said, of course people are interested in knowing the designer. However, as I posted earlier, unless the designer is revealed to us all we have is the evidence to piece together what/ who the designer was/ is.

we are constantly messing up the the relation of math vs logic for any math and logic when it comes to possible empiric sentences that may or must discriminant algebra and geometry. Much threading the eye of a needle would not exist in English if there was some way to use words such but it is very hard to figure this out without using "inference" or induction etc (ie to use BOTH kinds of deductions that Kant did but keep the non apriori descriptively OUT of it). I tried to do so by indicating the difference of the beauty and the sublime but in evo thinking branching processes often dominates ones thought that figureing out where a pile of something is instead of two of them is often difficult (same problem often of figureing out in which thread to post etc etc etc ...).