Why only one Designer

As one who believes in "GOD is the creator of all that is, seen and unseen" do you not have some sympathy for the whole single first cause thing?Isn't a "creator of all that is, seen and unseen" a single first by definition?

Wouldn’t parsimony be the reason for citing a single first cause designer rather than 1655 (or whatever) of them?Although if one is going to cite parsimony the whole idea of intelligent designers (single or multiple) is in trouble anyway.

OK. Surely parsimony comes into play here? If someone proposes a convuluted setup of designers - A committee of designers who design a designer that then designs a designer that then designs our universe - That is surely less parsimonious than a single designer.A no designer at all is less parsimonious than one. No?

You don't think parsimony has any role to play when investigating reality scientifically?

Our experience of reality indicates that the parsimonious conclusion is significantly more likely to be correct than not doesn't it?Do you at least agree that the no designer conclusion is the most parsimonious? This much at least would seem incontrovertible. No?

Not as I understand parsimony.Can you parsimonioulsy explain how this zebra came to be the only zebra in Africa?

Fair point. Why?

My understanding is that parsimony stipulates the least number of assumptions.On the basis that we know that the universe exists but have no evidential reason to think that any designer does the path of least assumptions would seem to be that the universe exists without the need to assume the prior existence of a designer.No?

So as far as you are concerned we might as well just randomly guess or role a dice as apply parsimony to a situation where competing but otherwise equal explanations are available?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Yep. That makes sense.

OK. If we were discussing designers in isolation as opposed to first causes then what you say here would be very definitley true. But if we are talking about first causes then a single first cause must surely be more parsimonious than multiple first causes. Right? On the pure designer front everything you say here is true. But on the first cause creator front (which is surely what the underlying issue is here) parsimony would stipulate no designer at all, followed by a single designer, followed by two designers and so on and so forth.Surely the less uncaused or self caused entities under consideration the less assumptions we require? Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

As Subbie has pointed out - "The fewer assumptions that a hypothesis relies on, the less likely it will be that one of the assumptions will turn out to be unsupportable" So essentially the more parsimonious a proposal is the less likely it is to be wrong.Do you at least agree that the no designer conclusion is the most parsimonious? This much at least would seem incontrovertible. No? Don't be evasive. If you have legitimate reasons for disputing that parsimony is a valid method of eliminating the most likely to be wrong proposals then let's hear your arguments.

Maybe. But given our experience of the causal nature of reality and the rather fundamental role of cause and effect in our most reliable method of investigating reality (i.e science) sweeping aside the whole issue seems more like a debate tactic than a genuinely thought out position. Which seems to be just another way of stating the parsimonious conclusion that the universe (which we know exists) is the first entity in the causal chain rather than unparsimonioulsy working back through layers of "bosses".

So doesn't this suggest that the most parsimonious hypothesis is that no intelligence was involved in the formation of the universe which we know to exist? That it was instead the result of mindless physical processes?

Well this seems obvious to me too. But jar seems to be disputing this. I am not sure on what basis he disputes this. But he does.