I said it has to do with being consistent in thinking about and accepting claims that have the same amount of evidence — Harry Hindu

Show me evidence that god does not exist. It is the same amount that god exists -- zero.

Because I'm not the one making the claim that some thing exists! If you are, then define that thing if you expect me to believe in it too. — Harry Hindu

I don't expect you to believe anything. I only expect you to accept that the belief in it is just as valid and has equal probability of being true as not believing in it.

You are really seriously troubled by not noticing the difference between "what is" and "what can be".

You seek proof of "what is" when that proof does not exist. You fault me for not providing that proof; I never promised that proof to you.

You must get out of the groove of what you THINK I am talking about. You think I am insisting that god exist. Far from the truth. I insist that there is no proof for god's existence, and there is no proof against god's existence. Therefore the two outcomes are equivalent to each other in probability values.

THIS if you can't understand, then I don't know how else to explain to you, @Harry Hindu.

There is no such thing as equivalence in English expressions. Each expression is unique. I don't see imaginary things, and that's why I don't see equivalence in English expressions. — Metaphysician Undercover

How do you think then the word Equivalence came about? "Equivalence in expressions is a thing which does not exist." -- entry in the great Encyclopaedia by @Metaphysical Undercover.

Yeah, there's not one universal defintion. That's why I said to use whatever common definition you prefer. My comments didn't hinge on a particular definition. It's just that I don't want to argue about definitions of personhood.

Yeah, there's not one universal defintion. That's why I said to use whatever common definition you prefer. My comments didn't hinge on a particular definition. It's just that I don't want to argue about definitions of personhood. — Terrapin Station

The question of the thread is how to tell the difference between design and no design. You refer to personhood; something can only have been designed if it was created by a person. Now you say that one is free to define "person" however one pleases. So you have made absolutely no progress toward answering the question. The distinction between design and no design is made according to whether or not there was a "person" involved, but an individual is free to use whatever definition of "person" that one might dream up. How is that useful?

I do believe you are headed toward a circle, and you would define "person" as an agent which is capable of creating by design. Is this what you were thinking of? If not, then elucidate, tell me what you believe constitutes being a person, as this is what you have mentioned as the criteria for making the distinction between design and no design.

If you'd prefer not to argue about what constitutes personhood, then why partake in this thread, where you have already stated that personhood is the criteria for distinguishing between design and no design?

Why does a perfectly normal person infer a designer/occupant from a well-ordered room/space and then contradict him/herself by rejecting a designer for the universe which too is well-ordered? — TheMadFool

It is interesting to compare the role of a human designer to something like a creator of all that we know as our universe. We are in an awkward position to opine upon the matter.

Does reason favour one side over the other? I think it comes down to the following options:

a) God exists, and created the Universe
b) God does not exist and the Universe was created (by itself?)
c) God exists, and did not create the Universe

I think that (a) and (c) are either redundant or mutually exclusive. If that is the case, we are left with (a) and (b). Now, can scientific study ever settle the issue? Can faith ever settle the issue? I believe the former is possible, but the latter is never possible: as long as there is faith, facts will never be sufficient to convince everyone, or the "faithful few".

My question again is, are we bound to accept (a) over (b) by the sheer weight of reason? I don't think the argument about a designer can be settled without settling the argument on the existence of God. Arguing about design does seem to miss the point.

And for the Faithful, the argument against the existence of God can will never hold any credence, because they choose to believe.

Show me evidence that god does not exist. It is the same amount that god exists -- zero. — god must be atheist

You have to start with defining god so that I may show the incoherence of the concept.

Actually, that is how all "God Exists" thread should start - in defining the "god" they are talking about. There have been countless versions throughout human history. Which one are you talking about?

you have made absolutely no progress toward answering the question. The distinction between design and no design is made according to whether or not there was a "person" involved, but an individual is free to use whatever definition of "person" that one might dream up. How is that useful? — Metaphysician Undercover

It's useful because it is elucidating the falseness of the problem in the first place (although that may well not have been Terrapin's intent).

Why do we have a word 'designed' as a categorising term to distinguish from other apparently ordered matter? What does it mean to say something is 'designed'? It means put together with intent. But intent is a property of persons not objects. So we cannot see in an object the intent of the person.

A sentence incidentally written by a random process iterated a million times is indistinguishable in every way from a sentence written that way with intent apart from by its history. Same for any object. It is only by its history which we can distinguish objects ordered by intent from objects ordered by chance.

You have to start with defining god so that I may show the incoherence of the concept.

Actually, that is how all "God Exists" thread should start - in defining the "god" they are talking about. There have been countless versions throughout human history. Which one are you talking about? — Harry Hindu

To me, any definition will do.

Because we have no evidence of god, we have no evidence of god's alleged quality, quantity, capability, wishes, demands, if any and if they exist in the first place.

You ask me to define something that we have no reliable evidence of. "Define the thing that nobody has seen, heard, eaten, touched, was touched by, etc etc".

So... this is not a request I could fulfill, and I assert, that nobody else human can define god with any degree of certainty.

Of course you can define God: the God-concept exists, regardless of the actual existence of the God- Being. So we have to show that the God-concept corresponds to reality (how) or it does not. Even then we can be wrong.

https://www.iep.utm.edu/god-west/

Is it irrational to hold to the God-concept in the light of "no evidence" or the contrary? Once you admit God as Being, then God as Creator immediately follows.

Strangely enough, none of the arguments for Design appear to be conclusive, or to put it another way, arguments for design are not arguments for God's existence, these fall within the category of circumstantial evidence, it would seem.

There are a number of classic and contemporary versions of the argument from design. This article will cover seven different ones. Among the classical versions are: (1) the "Fifth Way" of St. Thomas Aquinas; (2) the argument from simple analogy; (3) Paley's watchmaker argument; and (4) the argument from guided evolution. The more contemporary versions include: (5) the argument from irreducible biochemical complexity; (6) the argument from biological information; and (7) the fine-tuning argument. — Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy

The IEP apparently shares the same view, however it does not bode well for Intelligent Design.

If this is correct, then design inferences simply cannot do the job they are asked to do in design arguments for God's existence. Insofar as they presuppose that we already know the right kind of intelligent being exists, they cannot stand alone as a justification for believing that God exists. It is the very existence of the right kind of intelligent being that is at issue in the dispute over whether God exists. While design inferences have a variety of scientifically legitimate uses, they cannot stand alone as arguments for God's existence. — IEP

Now you say that one is free to define "person" however one pleases — Metaphysician Undercover

No. I specifically did not say that. I said that any of the common definitions of personhood would do.

Why do we have a word 'designed' as a categorising term to distinguish from other apparently ordered matter? — Isaac

Actually I wouldn't be inclined to make such a distinction, it appears like if it is ordered, it must have been designed, so there is no need for that distinction.

It means put together with intent. But intent is a property of persons not objects. So we cannot see in an object the intent of the person. — Isaac

I believe it is a mistake to restrict "intent" to persons, claiming that only persons have intent. As in my earlier examples, things like beehives, beaver dams, and birds nests, exhibit intent, and we would not call the authors of these things persons. Yes, persons have intent , but they are not the only things with intent. So I think that we must widen the category of things which have intent, beyond just persons. That's what I was getting at in my discussion with terrapin, the use of "person" is generally restricted to refer to human beings only, but evidence indicates that beings other than human beings definitely have intent.

A sentence incidentally written by a random process iterated a million times is indistinguishable in every way from a sentence written that way with intent apart from by its history. Same for any object. It is only by its history which we can distinguish objects ordered by intent from objects ordered by chance. — Isaac

I don't believe this at all. Any "random process" which produces a sentence would necessarily have been created with that intention. Likewise, it is contradictory to say that objects could be ordered by chance, because then they would not be ordered. So all you are doing here is reciting contradictory nonsense.

No. I specifically did not say that. I said that any of the common definitions of personhood would do. — Terrapin Station

As I've been trying to explain to you, beings other than persons create and do things with intent. So I find your assertions to be unacceptable. One does not have to be a person to create by design.

As I've been trying to explain to you, beings other than persons create and do things with intent. So I find your assertions to be unacceptable. One does not have to be a person to create by design. — Metaphysician Undercover

So what common definition of personhood are you employing?

What I consider the most common, a person is an individual human being.

it is contradictory to say that objects could be ordered by chance — Metaphysician Undercover

How. What law of physics/nature prevents things from appearing ordered by chance. By definition, a chance event can result in any consequence it is not artificially restricted to chaotic looking one's. A random throw of the dice, with no intent, can still land 1,2,3,4,5,6.

The subject here is designed/not designed. In order for there to even be a category 'not designed' it has to be the case that some force can produce a state of affairs which are 'not designed'. Are you suggesting it is somehow impossible for this state of affairs to nonetheless appear to be designed by chance?

What I consider the most common, a person is an individual human being. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's not a common definition of "personhood."

That's why I said any definition is fine, but it has to be a common definition of personhood.

To me, any definition will do.
— god must be atheist

How about Zeus?

Because we have no evidence of god, we have no evidence of god's alleged quality, quantity, capability, wishes, demands, if any and if they exist in the first place.

You ask me to define something that we have no reliable evidence of. "Define the thing that nobody has seen, heard, eaten, touched, was touched by, etc etc".

So... this is not a request I could fulfill, and I assert, that nobody else human can define god with any degree of certainty. — god must be atheist

Then how could a human even come to have the concept of "god" in their head if there is no reason (evidence) for them to have it?

Reasoning entails using reasons to support some claim. If there isn't a reason to claim something, why claim it?

Then how could a human even come to have the concept of "god" in their head if there is no reason (evidence) for them to have it? — Harry Hindu

For the same reason or mental process which enables humans to create fiction.

It only takes a leap of faith to take fiction for reality.

Reasoning entails using reasons to support some claim. If there isn't a reason to claim something, why claim it? — Harry Hindu

There are tons of reasons. 1. To help you oppress a great number of people at once, without too much effort. 2. To help you make people behave in certain ways that you want them to. 3. To get their monies and to get them to serve you in other ways. 4. To help you explain unexplainable phenomena you encounter in your life (this is historical) 5. ETC.

For the same reason or mental process which enables humans to create fiction. — god must be atheist

Exactly. Now what does "fiction" mean?

Is there a difference between Zeus being a god and being fiction, or not? If there is, how do you show it?

Exactly. Now what does "fiction" mean? — Harry Hindu

I'm not going into a discussion of infinite regress of questions by you asking me to define things for you. Sorry; that's not my cup of tea.

1. To help you oppress a great number of people at once, without too much effort. 2. To help you make people behave in certain ways that you want them to. 3. To get their monies and to get them to serve you in other ways. 4. To help you explain unexplainable phenomena you encounter in your life (this is historical) 5. ETC. — god must be atheist

So the definition of god is "mass delusions propagated by the elites in culture"?

Is there a difference between Zeus being a god and being fiction, or not? If there is, how do you show it? — Harry Hindu

So sorry, you have to answer these two questions for yourself. I am not going into an infinite regress of enlightening you.

So the definition of god is "mass delusions propagated by the elites in culture"? — Harry Hindu

Please understand: I am not your paid teacher.

Typical. :roll:

How. What law of physics/nature prevents things from appearing ordered by chance. By definition, a chance event can result in any consequence it is not artificially restricted to chaotic looking one's. A random throw of the dice, with no intent, can still land 1,2,3,4,5,6. — Isaac

Consider the definition of order: "a specified sequence". Without the "specified" part, the sequence might appear to be ordered, but it is not. So the chance throwing of the die might produce 1,2,3,4,5,6, but it was not specified and therefore not ordered. A chance occurrence, by the meaning of "chance", cannot be an ordered occurrence by the meaning of "ordered". Whether or not one might say that a chance occurrence appeared to be ordered, or vise versa would depend on context, and what exactly would be meant by this.

The subject here is designed/not designed. In order for there to even be a category 'not designed' it has to be the case that some force can produce a state of affairs which are 'not designed'. Are you suggesting it is somehow impossible for this state of affairs to nonetheless appear to be designed by chance? — Isaac

There is a problem with the idea of a force producing a not-designed state, if the existing state is already designed. That force must come from within the existing designed state, an would therefore be part of the design. How could you say that the outcome of a design is not designed? Perhaps we could appeal to accidents or mistakes, but I think that the not-designed state could only come from a not-designed state.

And, as I explained above, it is impossible by way of contradiction for a designed state to come by chance. So it doesn't make sense to say that a designed state could "appear" to be designed by chance. It's like saying that a hectogon appears to be a circle. If you know it's a hectogon (designed state), and are calling it such, then you know it's not a circle (created by chance), so it doesn't make sense to say that it appears to be a circle (created by chance), when you know it's not.

That's not a common definition of "personhood."

That's why I said any definition is fine, but it has to be a common definition of personhood. — Terrapin Station

That was the number one definition of "person" in my OED, "an individual human being". That's why I chose it. For "personhood" I find "the quality or condition of being an individual person". What else did you have in mind?

As I suspected, I still think you are seeking some definition of "person" which will make your argument circular. A "design" is something only created by a "person" A "person" is the type of thing which could create a "design". What's the point?

.

So the chance throwing of the die might produce 1,2,3,4,5,6, but it was not specified and therefore not ordered. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not at all, I could previously specify that the 'order' I'm looking for is 1,2,3,4,5,6, then it is a 'specified sequence'. I then throw the die six times, it lands 1,2,3,4,5,6 exactly as I specified. It has not now become the case that the order arose by design, it arose by chance.

Whether or not one might say that a chance occurrence appeared to be ordered, or vise versa would depend on context, and what exactly would be meant by this. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, but this is exactly the context here. The OP is about the argument from design. The fact that the universe 'appears' to be designed, ordered etc. So if you say, "everything that appears ordered/designed is ordered/designed by definition" then you've either just begged the question, or defined away the distinction the whole investigation was trying to examine. The question is a simple one - does something appearing to us to be ordered/designed mean that some intentional force must have ordered/designed it? It's about what we can inductively assume from the evidence of order. If you want to say that the term "order" automatically implies a designer simply by the use of the term, then (apart from completely disagreeing with you) we'll just need another word to describe things which look like things which are ordered but might not be.

How could you say that the outcome of a design is not designed? Perhaps we could appeal to accidents or mistakes — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes - by appealing to accidents and mistakes. What's wrong with that? Are you going to define away 'accident' now?

it is impossible by way of contradiction for a designed state to come by chance. — Metaphysician Undercover

We're not talking about a designed state. We're talking about a state which 'appears' designed. One which has a type of order we recognise from other states we know to be designed.

It's like saying that a hectogon appears to be a circle. If you know it's a hectogon (designed state), and are calling it such, then you know it's not a circle (created by chance), so it doesn't make sense to say that it appears to be a circle (created by chance), when you know it's not. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, we're not talking about states we know to be designed. We're talking about states which bear a resemblance to those we know to be designed and what we can rationally glean from that. I'm saying that if we call a state 'designed' on the grounds that it was intentionally made that way, then it is reasonable to conclude that states which appear to be designed (ie ones which look superficially similar but whose history we do not know) may not actually be so, if we can point to states which look designed/ordered, but which we know to have happened by chance, or without intent. We have examples of such states.

Not at all, I could previously specify that the 'order' I'm looking for is 1,2,3,4,5,6, then it is a 'specified sequence'. I then throw the die six times, it lands 1,2,3,4,5,6 exactly as I specified. It has not now become the case that the order arose by design, it arose by chance. — Isaac

Clearly that order arose by design. You specified the desired order, you threw the dice intentionally to create that order, and succeeded in creating that order. Any other set of throws would have been a mistake, or failure in succeeding at doing what you were trying to do. When someone proceeds in the process of trial and error, and has success, we cannot say that the success was not designed.

Yes, but this is exactly the context here. The OP is about the argument from design. The fact that the universe 'appears' to be designed, ordered etc. So if you say, "everything that appears ordered/designed is ordered/designed by definition" then you've either just begged the question, or defined away the distinction the whole investigation was trying to examine. The question is a simple one - does something appearing to us to be ordered/designed mean that some intentional force must have ordered/designed it? It's about what we can inductively assume from the evidence of order. If you want to say that the term "order" automatically implies a designer simply by the use of the term, then (apart from completely disagreeing with you) we'll just need another word to describe things which look like things which are ordered but might not be. — Isaac

I don't see your point here. Are you suggesting that we could judge something as having order, when in reality it really has absolutely no order, and what we thought was order was just an "appearance" of order? I think that's nonsense, because even for the thing to appear to us as something which could be judged, requires that it has some kind of order. Don't you agree that this is the way that the human body with its sensual apparatus works, we only sense things that are orderly?

I think what we are lacking here, and why there is such a gap between what you are saying and what I am saying, is a clear indication of what "order" and "disorder" mean, how such things would manifest in the world. Here's what I propose. Consider that we live in a world in which time is passing. Also, as time passes things change. What I think is that if when time passes in the world, there is a continuity of existence (sometimes expressed as inertia), then there is order in the world. For a thing which is composed of parts, to maintain its composure as time passes, requires that the parts are ordered to do this. So for instance, as time passes I see that the objects around me (which are composed of tiny parts) remain intact, as the objects which they are. I know that it is possible for these things to be annihilated, so I conclude that the parts are "ordered" so as to make the things around me remain intact as time passes. "Disorder" would imply that all the parts of all the things in the world would exist in any random way from one moment to the next. Can you agree with this proposal, and if not, why not?

Yes - by appealing to accidents and mistakes. What's wrong with that? Are you going to define away 'accident' now? — Isaac

I just threw that suggestion in, to see how you would respond. The problem is that accidents and mistakes are inherent to intentional acts. So if someone is trying to produce one thing, and instead they produce something not quite as intended, this does not mean that the thing produced was not designed. It just means that the thing produced did not come out quite in the way that it was planned. But this does not remove the fact that the thing's existence was planned.

This brings up the issue of one thing having many different aspects. We can look at a thing as a whole, and say that it was planned, or designed, but there might be certain aspects of the thing which were not designed, they came into being accidentally, or by mistake, even though the thing overall was designed. Generally this is due to the designer failing to grasp all the intricacies or complexities of the situation, or materials being used. Something like that might cause a mistake or accident. Do you agree with this line of thinking? If so, let's apply it to the universe as a whole. The universe displays order, and the property of having been designed, as described above in my proposal, with the concept of "inertia". However, there may still be certain aspects of the universe which don't seem to have any order at all. This would not mean that the universe is without order, it would just mean that there may be mistakes in the design.

We're not talking about a designed state. We're talking about a state which 'appears' designed. One which has a type of order we recognise from other states we know to be designed. — Isaac

Again, I see this as an unsound distinction. If something actually existed without order, it could not even appear to us at all. It would be so random, from one moment to the next (and that's an extremely short time), that it could not even appear to our senses which are programmed to perceive order. For example, some people propose that this sort of randomness exists at the quantum level. But this randomness doesn't even appear to our senses at all. We have to set up a complex apparatus to determine that such a disorder might actually be something real.

Therefore, I believe that if a "state" appears to us, it is necessarily designed, because we could not perceive a disordered state. This is a real, sound premise, because our perceptual systems of sensation could not make any sense out of a disordered state, so a "disordered state" could not appear to us. And since a "state" must have temporal extension, "disordered state" is actually contradictory. So your premise of a state which appears to be ordered, but is actually disordered, is contradictory, therefore unsound.

I'm saying that if we call a state 'designed' on the grounds that it was intentionally made that way, then it is reasonable to conclude that states which appear to be designed (ie ones which look superficially similar but whose history we do not know) may not actually be so, if we can point to states which look designed/ordered, but which we know to have happened by chance, or without intent. We have examples of such states. — Isaac

Here, you are taking Terrapin Station's faulty premise. You assume that we judge between designed and not designed on an analysis of how a thing was created. Was it created by a "person", with "intent", or not. But as I explained to Terrapin, this is not actually how we make such a judgement. We actually judge in the opposite way. We find all sorts of things which we believe were designed, and we judge that they were created with intention, by people. In fact, the nature of intention is such that even if we watched a person create something, we would have no way of concluding from this observation that the thing was created with intention. Intention is not observable. So in reality we look for certain features of things, which indicate that they were made with intention, and we judge that way.

This is why we need to go beyond the premise "if it was intentionally made, then it was designed", to accurately determine whether a thing was deigned or not. That premise is just circular, because in reality we cannot judge intention through observation, and we really observe to see whether the thing was designed, then conclude that it was made with intention. There is no way to observe intention in action, so we must judge the characteristics of the thing to determine whether there was intention. So we need a good description (like the one I proposed above) which can be used to distinguish order from disorder in things, and then we can apply this. This sort of principle allows us to determine which aspects of the intentional object were mistaken, or unintentional. With yours and Terrapin's premise, "if it was intentionally made, then it was designed", we have no principle to distinguish the unintentional aspects of the intentional thing.