What criteria do people use to infere that some intelligence has taken place? For instance when people say 'Artificial Intelligence', what do they mean in a nutshell? What can intelligent things do that blind forces cannot do? I think there are two main things that only an intelligent thing can do:
1.)Bring together factors that can work together to cause something, especially from among the factors that cannot make such cause.
2.)Bring together several entities that are different in several ways but are all similar in at least one way.
These are the two criterias that, when we intuitively see, we suspect that an intelligent being was at work! An intelligent being is not necessary to make something happen that is merely 'very unlikely' to happen by chance. Happening upon one ten diggit number is as 'highly unlikely' as happening upon any other number. But if we see a number like 7.456434566890543221 on a computer screen, we can say confidently that someone was just blindly typing on the keyboard, or that a chicken was randomly picking some grains that were lieing on the keyboard. But if we see the number π correct to 10 decimal places, no one can say that it was simply pecked by chickens that kept mistaking the keyboard buttons for grains! What is the difference between the two numbers? The answere is that in the latter, we have a series of numbers that work together to calculate the area of a circle. If we swap some numbers with others, it can nolonger calculate that area. We unwittingly use the criteria 1. Similarly, a chicken can peck nhf on a keyboard. But we don't expect it to similarly peck 2πr^2! We don't espect a chicken to pick symbols that work together to calculate the area of a circle!
Now of course anything can cause anything else. A single stone can block the way.But if several factors seem to cooperate to block the road is when we reason that someone intelligent did it. If the stone was perfectly spherical, and then a smooth road was dug for it to roll down through an otherwise rough terrain, then we can reasonably infere that an intelligent thing did it all. Only intelligent entities are able to pick approriate factors from amongst many and then integrate them so that they work together to bring about a single effect. Normally, it is intuitively obvious to infere intelligence. But articulating what we do in the process is also good. Modern scientists are fond of saying 'we should not rely on intuition'. So it is best if we can show that it is not just intuition that is at work. We can also unambiguously define the criteria and make totally objective judgments using logical inferences.
Again note that 'probability' argument is red herring here. It is not that 'it is unlikely' for a chicken to peck 2πr^2 on a keyboard. It is also 'unlikely' for the chicken to peck vhn! In other words inference of intelligence is not an argument from ignorance. We can say exactly what an intelligent thing itself DOES, not just what blind things, such as 'chances' CANNOT DO. To reasonably believe that intelligence took place, you don't need to rule out the posdibility of 'chances'. We only need to identify the event itself using the criteria of what intelligent things DOES and not what non intelligent things DON'T DO. This is how we infer anything else! When you see a lion comming, you don't have to rule out the possibility that 'it is just a dream' in order to escape! We judge that x=y by discerning similarity between x and y, not by looking for a difference between x and z!
Now what if 'chances' bring together factors that bring about a singe effect? Lets say the effect is siphoning water out of a drum. So we need a flexible pipe and then some means initiating the event placing the pipe apropriately so that one of its end is immersed in the water and the other end stays outside and is held below the water level in the drum. What I want to argue is that it is actually the multiplicity of causes that makes us think that a phenomenon involving bringing together of various factors to cause a certain effect is due to chances. So a tornado blows into a store and hurl a pipe all the way to a place just near a drum filled with water. Next, a small stone nearby rolls down and press one end of the pipe. Then just at the right time, a whirlwind blows the pipe so that it erects upwards but without pulling it off the stone. Then a strong wind blows horizontally, bending the pipe towards the drum, and so on and so forth until a siphon is made that draws the water out of the drum.
Now what if, instead of the winds doing all that, we saw a single object doing it all? We will never hesitate to say that the object in question is an intelligent being. The point is that we don't actually need to know the detail things that create the effects, when we think that all those events are, in some way, integrated and can be seen as a single entity. This is why we don't need to open people's skulls and see the detailes of things going on in the brain in order to conclude that a human is intelligent! If the chicken actually pecked π correct to 10 decimal places, we will never hasitate to present this as a convincing evidence that chickens infact know maths enough! In other words, like I said, we never realy rule out 'chance' when inferring that 'some being is intelligent'. All we need to do is understand the 'oneness' or 'interconnectedness' in the various events that could be said are 'happening by chance' and then simply watch out what the thing, which may be a set of many things, is doing! In the case of the wind, if we see the wind as a SINGLE thing doing various things, rather than seeing it as to be composed of seperate particles, then we will only conclude that the wind itself is intelligent, rather than saying that since the phenomenon was due to wind, then it was just a series of chances!
We can even argue that if the universe is seen as a single entity, or as sufficiently interconnected things rather than as a multitude of seperate things, then the concept of 'chance' itself looses any meaning! If a bulldozer pushes some sand, the sand will be aligned and we won't say 'the are aligned by chance'. But if different objects pushed the different sections and thereby aligning the sand is when we entertain the possibility of 'chance alignment'. If a single person called for a meeting, we don't say 'the people met there by chance'. But we can say so if several independent people called for individual people to meet at a venue only for the venue to happen to be the same for all the people called! In other words 'chance' has no meaning in the context of a single thing causing several things. It only has a meaning in the context of several things causing several things.
So if the universe is one thing, or interconnected things, and the universe does things that looks like the acts of an intelligent being, there is no 'chance' way of explaining away the apparent intelligence simply because 'chance' has no meaning when a single entity is causing several of the things that would have been said 'they are so by chance'.
Comments
When we say that perharps someone intelligently created the world, we are NOT arguing from ignorance. We are making an valid, scientific hypothesis using the method we use in any other investigation! We see that several factors are cooperating to enable life on earth. Without any of these: the sun, the earth, the oxygen, the water, the rain, the CO2 etc, life is impossible. Such bringing together of several factors to cooperate to bring a single effect is the characteristic of intelligent beings.
So let me use the analogy of gravity to debunk the common notion that an hypothesis of an intelligent being other than a human being, who can thus engineer the world in scales not attainable by humans is necessarily 'not science'. We know that massive objects gravitates. So use the following analogy:
Gravitation by massive objects is analogous to 'bringing together of factors that can creat a single effect by intelligent beings.
But then physicist came to notice what looks like a gravitation, but the could not see the massive object that were doing the pulling. So they concluded that there must be unseen, massive objects, which they call them 'dark matter'.
So scientists uses a method of inferences and deny this method to proponents of an intelligent creator!
If we have come to discover that gravitaion is a characteristic of gravitating objects, then when we see gravitation, it is reasonable to suspect the presence of a massive object even if we cannot see one! Likewise if we have seen that making machines is a characteristic of intelligent things, then whenever we see machines, it is reasonable to suspect a presence of some intelligent being even if we cannot see this being!
So this irrefutable debunks the idea that 'study of an intelligent creator is not science'. It exposes the prejudice that modern science has against the idea of unseen creator. The insistence that 'it is not science' is meant to make it illegitimate without sounding malicious! It is meant to defeat any claim of such type by a fiat without any investigation, the way we might, dark matter. Hence the atheist (asurping science) can be assured that no scientific investigation will ever dislodge him off his denialism!
Someone can say before a car, a horse was used to pull wheels. Before wheels, people dragged loads over logs of wood as primitive rollers. Before the did that, they drag loads directly. Someone can use the evidence of such a series of precursors to the marvel machine on the road to suggest that it blindly evolved all the way from pushings of loads. We will never debunk this nonsense if we never demand anything more than a skeleton narration that 'the block evolved by addition of rolers, then due to chances, the rollers evolved into wheels, then the horse attached itself into the wheel and eventually selections and random changes added an engine to the wheels'. If I am debating with such a snake oil peddler, in the presence of a crowd that think that such a gloss over of what might have happened constitude an explanation of how a car came, then sorry me! The advocate of the devil will completely besiege me in the eyes of the crowd. He will 'show' them how 'wrong' I am when I say 'no one have any plausible explanation of how a car came out by chances',.If such a careless perusal constitute an 'explanation', then he has an exellent counter example to seem to debunk my claime that a car is unevolvable fro a wheel without an intelligent agent. It is only by attempting a DETAILED explanation can the implausibility of the nonsense become apparent, and the silliness of the theorist manifest. So we must never allow him not to zoom the lense as this provides an excellent way for the numbskull to cover his ass!
Such is the ridiculous way in which Darwinists press down their critics! They have never explained even single energence of any protein in nature!
A theory can be divided into 3 sections:
1.)A summary gloss over of the explanation.
2.)A detailed explanation of what exactly happen.
3.)An answer to questions and criticisms raised by the audience.
Sections 1 and 3 are dispensable. 2 is not! However, Darwinism lacks 2 and only dwell on 1 and 3, and mostly, 3!!! in 3 they only promise 2 in an example of what some people call 'promisory materialism'.
When trying to check the plausibility of a theory, we don't need to dwell on 1 or 3. We need to dwell solely on 2. If someone says that this protein developed from that one, we need all the details of what went on. Then we check if each transition is plausible. Finaly we check if there is any evidence that all those particular transitions ACTUALLY occured in history. Only after this can we say the proponent has a valid scientific theory!
But we find that Darwinists donnot even have a testable hypothesis of any ACTUAL transition! Then they often ask 'is evolution a theory or fact'. The answer is it is neither! It is not even an hypothesis. It fit more alongside myths!
Molecules, say in some soup, are pushed around by the, often smaller, molecules in the 'soup'. So it is not any different from how wind might blow an object. So initially, molecules were scattered randomly. Suddenly, a 'wind' caused one of them to move precisely to the cell wall. Then another wind blows and brings another molecular just next to the other one. It goes on and on until thaosands of molecules gets assembled precisely to create a motor, a turbine, a gear and a power surply!
Natural selection cannot help anything here because the 'selection' does not make a molecule move from A to B. With or without natural selection, the same phenomenon I said above must happen!
Darwinists don't make such detailed explanation. It is easier to rather form a bulwark that counter-attack what they call 'creationists' who try to explain why blind assemblage of such things are impossible. It is easier to argue whether or not such a thing is possible than to explain exactly how! Such easily puts the opponent on the defence when the Darwinist should be in the defence, 'defending' his theory by explainig exactly what went on, and largely ignoring the critics, like how people who have a point normally behave!
But Darwinist won't attempt any detailed explanation because he cannot think of making any such explanation that one can offer without sounding silly!
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