Why would anybody want to think of him/herself as "designed"?

WISDOMfromPO-MO

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.

ProbablyTrue

The most common philosophical questions are things like: why am I here? What is life all about? What purpose do I have in life? Etc. These questions all assume some intrinsic meaning or purpose to existence. Being designed, in a loose sense, means that you were created for some purpose, or at the very least you are not an accident. Most theology would tell you that purpose is to worship/serve god.

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.

gurugeorge

↪WISDOMfromPO-MO

Strictly speaking, "designed" is really just a shorthand for the evolutionary explanation for the existence of organisms. Nothing is actually designed by evolution in a literal sense, it's rather that the product of evolution appears as if designed.

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.

Wayfarer

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. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

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:

In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper—namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.

My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world.

Marchesk

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. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

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.

Jan Sand

As someone trained and professionally operative as a designer I am aware what the word means. It means to produce something that functions properly in an environment. Life probably started as a random accumulation of chemical/physical substances waving up and down on the surface of the sea or a large puddle. It needed to utilize energy to multiply and sustain. As time passed it grew in slightly different ways as it encountered slightly different environments and the more efficient of those ways was more successful so there was more of it to fool around in adjacent environment. It no doubt tried many different ways to grow and some of them were total failures and they died.That growing and trying and dying is what any design process is all about. It didn't need a designer, it was just an automatic process and there were lots of failures and enough successes to keep the process going. That's the essence of design and it doesn't need cups of hot coffee to keep it going.

Jan Sand

The automatic processes of trial and error and building on successes typical of the dynamics of natural evolution where the only agendas are survival in the current ecology to reproduce and elimination out of inability to adapt and survive under natural pressures were modified by directed variation of goals under human influence of human breeders of animals and plants which accelerated evolution in desired directions. Animals such as dogs and cattle and various fowls changed far more rapidly in their features in selective breeding than the much slower processes of natural evolution permitted. It should not be viewed as unnatural since humans also are a product of nature but might be considered that evolution itself had evolved. Nevertheless, the tools of this process change remained rather primitive until modern genetic engineering gained basic understanding of the mechanics of reproduction which can radically modify fundamental forms that can be inherited.

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.

ProbablyTrue

It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.

How do you differentiate the two?

Edit: In others*.

Jan Sand

Peoplereply="ProbablyTrue;130224"]

↪ProbablyTrue

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.

ProbablyTrue

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. — Jan Sand

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.

Cuthbert

"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."

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.

Wayfarer

Life probably started as a random accumulation of chemical/physical substances waving up and down on the surface of the sea or a large puddle. — Jan Sand

The warm little pond.

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. — 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.

Jan Sand

Something designed is put together with intent to serve a purpose. Evolution is an automatic process with a purpose to survive and proliferate. If an artist uses somewhat random processes to create an object,that randomness is purposeful. Jackson Pollock paintings are not random,they just use different methods for applying pigment and if they were not pleasing, Pollock rejected them and tried again.That is not random.

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'. — Wayfarer

Yeah, I'm familiar with him. I wasn't sure if you shared his opinion on that particular part of his essay or not.

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. — 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.

Wayfarer

↪ProbablyTrue

As far as ‘design’ goes, I find the common view of the ‘appearance of design’ deeply unconvincing. One of the implications of this view is that the only agents who actually design anything are h. sapiens - as everything in nature that mimics or emulates design, is in reality the consequence of chance rather than design. You see that here:

Evolution is an automatic process with a purpose to survive and proliferate. — 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.

Akanthinos

Jackson Pollock paintings are not random,they just use different methods for applying pigment and if they were not pleasing, Pollock rejected them and tried again.That is not random. — Jan Sand

'Nature' doesn't reject and retry, tho. Talking about design in evolution is a metaphorical use.

T Clark

↪Jan Sand

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:

↪apokrisis

After that, you can just skip ahead and read his posts. It really opened my eyes.

Jan Sand

The process of environmental selection and automatic elimination of creatures who cannot survive is an undeniable design process.When successful survivors are exposed to successive variations of environments further selection and elimination develops successful creatures in a wider range of environments. As this automatic procedure continues the combined operation of variations of preceding successes and elimination is an undeniable design process for creating highly adaptable successful living creatures. Evolution thereby is an undeniable design process.

_db

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. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

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. :-|

Jan Sand

There is no implication in my description of the mechanics of evolution favoring the creation of any species but successful ones in regard to the environment, whatever that may be. No doubt humans are rather clever but it seems to me they have a ways to go before they grasp the essentials of social success.

WISDOMfromPO-MO

I don't think you're seeing the point, but then it's a really big issue. — Wayfarer

"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.

WISDOMfromPO-MO

Being designed, in a loose sense, means that you were created for some purpose, or at the very least you are not an accident. Most theology would tell you that purpose is to worship/serve god. — ProbablyTrue

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?

WISDOMfromPO-MO

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. :-| — darthbarracuda

Yet, a clock/watch is used as an analogy.

Nobody thinks that a clock/watch was made with the clock/watch "in mind".

Wayfarer

It may not be the point that is trying to be made, but it seems to be a logical conclusion of such thinking, nonetheless. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

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.

WISDOMfromPO-MO

The idea that humans are like mechanisms of any kind is pushing the analogy too far — Wayfarer

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.

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. — 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.

He says that ‘a deity capable of engineering all the organized complexity in the world — 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?

must already have been vastly complex in the first place ..." He calls this "postulating organized complexity without offering an explanation." — 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.

However as numerous critics have pointed out, the classical understanding of deity is precisely not a complex being at all, but is utterly simple. — 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.

Which is why I said, the underlying issue is really intentionality rather than design. — 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.

Wayfarer

Designed or accidental/random--I don't see what difference it makes. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Like I said.....

Akanthinos

Who says that things that exist--organized or not; complex or not--must be the result of a process? — WISDOMfromPO-MO

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.

WISDOMfromPO-MO

Like I said..... — Wayfarer

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.

Wayfarer

↪WISDOMfromPO-MO

Intentionality might have been a poor choice of words. All I meant was that the ‘argument from design’ is only one aspect of a much larger issue.

Cuthbert

I don't think arguments from design are valid. But the problem they are trying to address is a good one. Given that there is a material universe, why isn't it just an undifferentiated soup of stuff?

Rich

A couple of points:

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.

Why would anybody want to think of him/herself as "designed"?

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