A case for Natural Design

Well, now that you put it that way, I am forced to slightly qualify my answer to you. In agreeing that "the hawk is a great design" is exactly what I mean, I overlooked your now apparent emphasis on the word 'great'. I do not mean to introduce a value system. From a certain point of view, the hawk's design may be great in the sense of 'beautiful', 'marvelous', or some other subjective supelative, but to show you what I mean I would like to replace the word 'great' with some more objective term, like 'well adapted'. However, as you may notice - it's how it feels to me anyway - this does not convey the meaning of the word 'design' I have in mind as well as saying "The hawk is a great design".Let me put it this way: when I say to you "look at that car's design", I am asking you to see the car not as a car, but as a design, to look at what the car looks like, design-wise. I am asking you to look at the result of a design process, and calling that a design.I hope this makes it clearer what I mean. I don't think he was introducing anything as high flying as a value system, he was just expressing his admiration for how the world works. I think he was speaking as Dennett the person, not as Dennett the philosopher.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

1) Actually, as I said, you did....it was the neon green statement AND I conceded the point.- - sigh - -2) Well, I think as do many others that snowflakes, wrt to NATURE, function as a form of precipitation, and the purpose of precipitation is to provide moisture to plants, animals, etc.Maybe you meant to ask me for some other function and purpose?? Or a different definition?3) If I am "wrong" and you are "...assuming nothing of the kind." then why did you specifically ask me "what function and purpose does a snowflake have?"?Look, obviously snowflakes are not a biological system. In one of your posts it seemed that you were trying to claim that there is design without intelligence and for you that seemed to be supported by the absence of function and purpose as well...maybe I got that wrong. However, that is why I thought you were biased because even though it might not be the function and purpose you have in mind that doesn't mean that function and purpose is non-existent.....does that make sense?

Hello Parasomnium, Me too.The bottom line is that energy has become sentient. It is a mystery as to what this energy is or from whence it came and why. All we know is that through the various manifestations of this energy the universe has become concious.From the singularity that yet defies human comprehension and physical laws the stage has been set to allow, through natural processes, the emergence of : space, time, matter and life on this small obscure little planet. The fundalmental forces that tie all that exist are in perfect harmony.It can be no other way. If it were so by just the most infintesimal amount every single necessary element to the cascade of life would collapse. And yet through all this seemingly incomprehensable complexity there seems to be a element of sublime simplicity.Energy, (it seems) wants to exist. It wants to manifest life. It wants to become concious. It wants to become sentient.All this from a singularity that is by definition supernatural in that it does not adhere to the laws of nature. Who are we to say what
or who is responsible for the emergence of nature.*edit typos..This message has been edited by 1.61803, 08-03-2005 11:26 AM

I think your willingness to tackle the design question is admirable, but the substrate does indeed make a massive difference when speaking of emergence/evolution or creation of life.Life is not just biological. It is also physical and chemical, and perhaps other less well-known areas as well, such as spiritual.

And what evidence that life has a 'spiritual' aspect to it? Does all life have a 'spiritual' aspect? How about a bacteria?YOu seem to make a claim for something that is not testable. You can't even provide a way to show that it actually is a component to life.

Ramoss, spiritual traditions whether biblical, Buddhist and pretty much most others posit that the spiritual realm underlies all physical existence. Paul proclaimed for example that "in Him we live and breathe and have our being" and the Bible also declares "the whole earth is full of His glory." "Glory" can be thought of a shining of God's presence or attributes in that context.So whereas maybe only some like Hindus think a bacteria has a soul or something, all think the Spirit of God, the Divine, or a Universal Spirit animates the life-force that gives existence to all living things, and really that God, or a spiritual force is the source giving existence to all non-living things.Imo, an objective analysis of QM principles indicates QM is probably researching principles and the arena formerly known as "spiritual."For example, the quantum physicist Anton Zellinger quotes the gospel of John in drawing the parallels to his work and conclusions in proclaiming information is the root of anything, and that this is what quantum physics shows. He references "In the beginning was the Word..." to make the point this is really a very old idea, which QM has given scientific data to support.There are other parallels in the basic principles of QM. It appears that QM in studying the fundamental nature of physical existence has verified the basic spiritual paradigm of what underlies and maintains physical reality.So in reality, I can provide a great deal of supporting data and documentation that shows that spirituality is fundamental to physical existence. The evidence is the fact that what could be termed predictions of spiritual traditions, the basic generic perspective of a spiritual realm, are borne out in the principles and data we see in QM.This message has been edited by randman, 08-04-2005 04:50 PM

That is the claim. However, just because a lot of people believe it doesn't mean that 'spirituality' is anything more than biochemical reactions in an analog organic neural net.It is an emotional thing with you, but you can not show that 'spirituality' exists outside of the function of the brain, and in specific the human brain at that (although there might be indications in elephants, and some of the other primates).If you want me to take that claim seriously, give me direct evidence that 'spirituality' is more than an effect of brain function.You can pull QM quotes out of the air all you want, but QM does not
show any relationship to the gospel of John. You might have quoted the religious opinion of one scientist.. but that does not make it any more than his personal opinion.

Actually, what I am claiming is that spirituality appears to be fundamental to the existence of inanimate matter.My reasons are that QM principles so dovetail spiritual principles in nearly every spiritual tradition, such as claims that information comes first before matter, shown by QM in demonstrating a probability pattern exists that gives rise to actual specific determinations of matter in specific locations.

If that is your claim, lets see some evidence for it.I want to see the evidence for the spirituality of a piece of granite.

The evidence is that particles and presumably physical objects don't exist first and foremost as a particular form of matter, but exist as a probability pattern.In QM, the particle exists as a probability to appear in a certain manner, and then the definite appearance follows subsequently.So what we thought of as physical or material actually is derived from a prior and larger state that appears to exist outside of normal, observed space-time that is not superluminal. The non-separability aspects of quantum realities demonstrates this superluminal activity, whether superluminal in reality or just from our perspective, there is some doubt, but irregardless, this is indicative of what we would expect if spiritual realms were true, and actually underlay physical existence as spiritual traditions claim.As far as "having" spirituality, that seems to imply a conscious will in the way you use it. The piece of granite's physical existence stems from a prior state, a probability pattern, which originates, imo, in the spiritual realm.Spirituality predicted this, and we see it. So it makes sense to think that state is part of what religions have termed "spiritual" since it fits the aspects and qualites so well that many spiritual traditions have made for thousands of years.

I am no Physicist, but I always thought that that the probabilistic nature of QM results from measurement. I did not think it implies that wavefunctions of particles are intrinsically probabilistic or random. Therefore, I wonder if particles really EXIST as probabilities? My impression is that the probability part of this stems from our "interaction" with wavefunctions when we measure them.

That's a common misconception since for a long time no one had devised a way to tell if it was the intrusion of measurement or something else, but even then the probabilistic aspect was considered real for a variety of reasons. What was in dispute was whether the act of measuring, or the fact something could be measured, caused the collapse of the wave function. The reality of wave/particle duality, or really potential for wave or particle, but existing as a potential was not disputed.But experiments have now been done to show that it is not simply measurement, but the potential for measurement that works to cause the change from one state to the other.The following link helped me understand it a little better awhile back. http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/qphil.html

I am not sure that this is a misconception. My impression is that many Physicists adhere to this view. As of 1997, the Copehagen Interpretation, which was formulated by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, was still probably adhered to be many if not most Physicists according to a poll. This poll was made five years after the Scientific American article that you cited: Shortened link. Use Peek to see how it was done.Regarding the wave/partical duality and measurement, I found Erwin Schroedinger's "Cat in a Box" thought experiment to be very interesting: And again. Plese use this format so that long links don't expand the messagePart of the problem that I am having with this subject is that I don't really understand the topic because I don't understand most of the Physics and Math. When people describe QM using words such as "measurement" and "wavefunction", these have very specific meanings in this context that I cannot truly understand because I don't know the Physics. Therefore, I think I am going to bail out of this discussion so I don't make more of a fool of myself then I already have!This message has been edited by AdminJar, 08-05-2005 01:01 PM

The Copenhagen intepretation supports the probabilistic view of QM.Maybe you didn't realize that. For this thread, the Copenhagen interpretation fully supports my points on this thread. Within that interpretational framework, there finer points but it all agrees with the probabilistic aspect of physical reality.Wave-function just means that prior to observation a particle and some larger objects (maybe everything) exists in a superposition of potential states and places. The wave-function is the design. That means there is a likelihood of the particle appearing in certain places and forms, and believe it or not, that likelihood or potential is what a particle actually is.It takes on a definite form with observation, but this was shown through delayed choice and other experiments to occur, even if no instrusion was made.The materialist idea is that the "physical" is first and determines the design, but QM shows the design, the wave-function, predominates or is first, and that physical form is derivative of the design (wave-function).

Actually, I had always been under the impression that every interpretation of QM takes a probabilistic view. My point in bringing up the Copenhagen interpretation is that it suggests that the probabilistic nature of QM stems from "measurement". In a previous post you said this was a "misconception" and you cited a 1992 Scientific American article as evidence that Physicists no longer subscribe to this idea. However, based on a poll that was taken 5 years after your Scientific American article, it seems that many if not most QM physicists still accepted the Copenhagen Interpretation as of that date.