So God is learning. How wonderful! Do you suppose that God has finished learning and we are his final product, or is He still making mistakes and we will ultimately be exterminated like all failed products before us?
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Intelligent design and extinctions
- Thread starter smilingsynic
- Start date
So God is learning. How wonderful! Do you suppose that God has finished learning and we are his final product, or is He still making mistakes and we will ultimately be exterminated like all failed products before us?
Quote from james_bond_3rd:
So God is learning. How wonderful! Do you suppose that God has finished learning and we are his final product, or is He still making mistakes and we will ultimately be exterminated like all failed products before us?
1. I didn't say God. I offered one possible explanation for an intelligent design process.
2. As a software engineer, I don't think I am learning even when I have to re-write most of my codes.
3. It is possible that some of us will ultimately be exterminated. Why isn't it possible?
Quote from yip1997:
I am trying to offer an explanation (not a proof) here.
Design is a process and it might be an iterative process. A mass extinction might be part of the process to create a better product (in this case a better creature).
Consider software design. Sometimes you need to delete most of the old codes (or start fresh) in order to make a better software product.
I appreciate the serious answer, which is what I rarely get when I ask a question on this forum.
That said, shouldn't an allegedly intelligent designer of the universe anticipate design flaws?
Besides, species become extinct when they can no longer adapt to their ever changing environment. Why doesn't this allegedly intelligent designer use its powers to keep the environment steady.
It doesn't make any sense. It is hard to believe that an intelligent designer who created the universe could be so incompetent.
Quote from yip1997:
2. As a software engineer, I don't think I am learning even when I have to re-write most of my codes.
Not a very good practice. Do you have a reason to rewrite your codes? If you do, was that reason known before you wrote the previous version? If not, then you are learning.
But why in explanation offer - 'intelligent' as part of a design process, rather than simply the distinct process of design?Quote from yip1997:
I am trying to offer an explanation (not a proof) here.
Design is a process and it might be an iterative process. A mass extinction might be part of the process to create a better product (in this case a better creature).
Consider software design. Sometimes you need to delete most of the old codes (or start fresh) in order to make a better software product.
You put forward software design which requires intelligence to summon extinction as a means of enabling improvement. It appears your suggestion would be extinction requires intelligence, therefore 'intelligent' design is the process.
However you will be aware how a spider will mess up during it's own web design process and often eat the web to start over. Unless the spider is 'intelligent' in the way I think you suggest a software designer need be, the extinction of the web did not require an 'intelligent' design process to achieve a better product.
The spider of course is not 'intelligent' and neither is the design process it employs, sometimes only to the extinction of its web. Apart from certain separate explanations (for no reason you have yet offered) of a design process where the software engineer and the spider require some other sort of pre-designing outside of themselves , leading to a rather unintelligent design process of infinite regress, then intelligence is not a common connection between them for the extinctions they can both perform.
Male lions perform extinction and will kill the cubs of another pride if they get the chance to take it over. A strong healthy dominant male need only be away a few days rogering another Lioness somewhere, later to return to the pride and find some bastard has killed its offspring and shagged the missus. So it calls the interloper out, maims and kills it, but is vulnerable and incurs wounds itself, which can result in secondary infection and death.
You now have a load of dead lions all over the place and one lioness impregnated by an inferior male. Another is up the duff without the genes which gave the best match to the dominant male for 'better design'. The dominant male being the one which did the maiming, whose offspring were killed , but one of which unwittingly and inadvertently would have carriied a gene mutation that could protect next generations against the secondary infection their old man died from.
Such flaws do not suggest an "intelligent" design process. Those spider and lion events keep occurring, generation after generation. Such shortcomings are inherent all over the biological world, where it is irregular and unpredictable circumstance which overcomes continuous error. It's a design process which does not fit with the word or meaning of intelligent.
As a process of 'intelligent' design and product improvement, would you even think of continually destroying, let alone wiping to extinction, a whole lot of different software in that way, including one piece that was working really well and had every chance of being the next generation of high end code, just because you were flaunting with a mac one day and dropped it in which meant letting a virus onto your pc that kept eating your fav game? Surely that would hardly be much to do with an 'intelligent' design process.
It seems that we have different definition of "intelligence". "Intelligent" is not the same as "perfect". Being intelligent doesn't mean that one can't make mistakes. You guys are intelligent, but you all have made mistakes in your life. Have you done anything that you regret now?
Ask the top software engineers you know and they will tell you they have re-written their codes, or they will like to rewrite their old codes if they have the time to do so. Ask the top engineers in Microsoft if they want to rewrite their OS.
If we change the topic to "God and extinctions", I might agree with some of your arguments.
Is God perfect? I don't know! In a "perfect" world, there is no such concept as being inperfect.
Is God "improving"? I don't know!
What is the definition of "God"? What is "God"? We need to agree on the meanings of God before we can continue the meaningful discussion on "God and extinctions".
Ask the top software engineers you know and they will tell you they have re-written their codes, or they will like to rewrite their old codes if they have the time to do so. Ask the top engineers in Microsoft if they want to rewrite their OS.
If we change the topic to "God and extinctions", I might agree with some of your arguments.
Is God perfect? I don't know! In a "perfect" world, there is no such concept as being inperfect.
Is God "improving"? I don't know!
What is the definition of "God"? What is "God"? We need to agree on the meanings of God before we can continue the meaningful discussion on "God and extinctions".
Quote from stu:
But why in explanation offer - 'intelligent' as part of a design process, rather than simply the distinct process of design?
Such flaws do not suggest an "intelligent" design process. Those spider and lion events keep occurring, generation after generation. Such shortcomings are inherent all over the biological world, where it is irregular and unpredictable circumstance which overcomes continuous error. It's a design process which does not fit with the word or meaning of intelligent.
Einstein wondered whether or not God had a choice in the way 'he' set up the Universe. Maybe the Designer had no alternatives ( consider the 'fine tuning' necessary for sophisticated life ) and thus The Design may not be differentiable from Intelligent Design. In any case the trend has been from microbes to Universe-aware thinking beings so the design is working so far. It doesn't have to be efficient or kind to lions and spiders to be effective.
Quote from james_bond_3rd:
Not a very good practice. Do you have a reason to rewrite your codes? If you do, was that reason known before you wrote the previous version? If not, then you are learning.
There are many reasons. For example, project schedule, market timing etc. We all have limitations. Because we are intelligent, we know how to work around under our constraints.
....then intelligent , unintelligent, dumb and unintentional design all make mistakes. So? How does that therefore suggest intelligent design?Quote from yip1997:
It seems that we have different definition of "intelligence". "Intelligent" is not the same as "perfect". Being intelligent doesn't mean that one can't make mistakes. You guys are intelligent, but you all have made mistakes in your life. Have you done anything that you regret now?
Ask the top software engineers you know and they will tell you they have re-written their codes, or they will like to rewrite their old codes if they have the time to do so. Ask the top engineers in Microsoft if they want to rewrite their OS.
If we change the topic to "God and extinctions", I might agree with some of your arguments.
Is God perfect? I don't know! In a "perfect" world, there is no such concept as being inperfect.
Is God "improving"? I don't know!
What is the definition of "God"? What is "God"? We need to agree on the meanings of God before we can continue the meaningful discussion on "God and extinctions".
Are you saying intelligent design is equally possible along with the other 3 design process?
Except the other 3 are what is actually observed and common to natural design.
Therefore why propose, one that isnât common to the natural design process, could be common to that process ?? Why do that?
btw .. do you think a spider is intelligent ? Is it needing the capacity in that âintelligent design processâ a software engineer does, to realize a mistake?