Telesmith Posted January 9, 2008 Share Posted January 9, 2008 So I’ve been thinking lately about what it means for a thing to be designed. Mainly this is in reference to the teleological (watchmaker) argument. In this arguments, a parallel is drawn between recognizing human design and applying it to the universe as a whole, from there deducing a designer of the universe. Where I’m seeing the trouble though is in just how it happens that humans design things. Let’s take the watch for example, being as it is most often cited as an object of obvious design. How did our modern watch come about? It was the result of thousands of years of incremental improvements in time telling. The watch could not have been without the prior invention of springs and gears. Such can be said of springs and gears as well. We move back far enough in the history of time telling and we arrive at very rudimentary devises, some naturally occurring, with which to tell time. It is clear that the watch developed slowly, built on the foundations of previous technologies. Isn’t this true of all human design? My imagination fails to see a technological advancement that has no evolutionary history. Have humans “designed†anything in the way we mean design to be taken in the teleological argument? It seems as though when we say God designed the universe we mean something quite different from when we say humans design things. Therefore, the argument from design makes a faulty comparison. We cannot infer divine design by appealing to human design. It seems as though what we traditionally mean by design is a misunderstanding of the mechanism by which things develop. Theists therefore, are appealing to a concept that simply doesn’t exist. Any thoughts/rebuttals/refinements? Am I totally missing the point here? Has this occurred to anybody else? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Telesmith Posted January 10, 2008 Author Share Posted January 10, 2008 There I go again, thinking I have a new idea only to do a little research and embarrass myself. Spoke too soon, again! Ah well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The-Captain Posted January 10, 2008 Share Posted January 10, 2008 There I go again, thinking I have a new idea only to do a little research and embarrass myself. Spoke too soon, again! Ah well... That happens to me alot... heres a link to a site I use alot that has good easy to read rebuttals to alot of the common arguments (theological/scientific). Its by no means comprehensive but its a good starting point and covers alot of bases. Here ya go hope its some help A Skeptics Guide Not a bad guide and if you havent read it before and get something from it pass along any thanks to White Raven23 who originally gave me the link. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted January 10, 2008 Share Posted January 10, 2008 What's important to understand about the teleological argument is that it compares human designed objects against not-human designed objects. It's a contrast to show "design" vs "undesigned". And then from this say that the Universe is designed too, which is in essence to say that our comparison was not between desgined and undesign, but between designed and designed and the first premise suddenly is halting. Either the first or the second premise is false or inconclusive, so the final conclusion is not obvious at all but just a mind-trick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted January 10, 2008 Share Posted January 10, 2008 There I go again, thinking I have a new idea only to do a little research and embarrass myself. Spoke too soon, again! Ah well... There's nothing wrong with this. So what if someone else thought of it first? If people only said unique ideas very little would be said (especially in xian theology). Look at it this way instead...your idea has merit considering all those who "agree" with you and you thought it up on your own. Not too bad. mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWIM Posted January 10, 2008 Share Posted January 10, 2008 There's nothing wrong with this. So what if someone else thought of it first? If people only said unique ideas very little would be said (especially in xian theology). Look at it this way instead...your idea has merit considering all those who "agree" with you and you thought it up on your own. Not too bad. mwc I "thought" I designed my own cartoon caracter once, and really liked it. (on paper, quite a while ago) But it turned out to look so "Family Guy" like, that I eventual concluded that it was too close and would merit copyright infringment so I didn't pursue it. This was BEFORE I ever saw a FG episode. So, it is *very* possible to re-invent things unknowingly. With this many people in the world, it is easy for two people to come up with the same thing. Sorry if that was a bit off topic, but your post about people coming up with the same thing by accident struck a chord with me.Also made a little graphic while learning adobe illustrator that I thought would be good (more recently), and discovered later it looked too much like "Dora the Explorer", again too close for safety. Don't know why I do that, unless the image is subconsiously there already from seeing it somewhere and registering it in my subconsious only. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted January 10, 2008 Share Posted January 10, 2008 I "thought" I designed my own cartoon caracter once, and really liked it. (on paper, quite a while ago) But it turned out to look so "Family Guy" like, that I eventual concluded that it was too close and would merit copyright infringment so I didn't pursue it. This was BEFORE I ever saw a FG episode. Well, did you invent it or not? Copyright infringement is different from you saw the character and stole it. He simply got to market with it before you did and you avoided a lawsuit but that didn't mean you didn't create an original character. But that's not really where I was going with what I said above. So, it is *very* possible to re-invent things unknowingly. With this many people in the world, it is easy for two people to come up with the same thing. People usually aren't simply sitting in a bubble. So with common influences come common ideas. That a person never heard a specific argument from those influences doesn't mean they won't come up with the same. Einstein had his e=mc^2. What if, having never heard any of that but having heard roughly what Einstein had heard, someone walks out of some backwoods and puts forth e=mc^2? Genius or moron? Just because Einstein did it already doesn't mean this 2nd guy didn't pull off an amazing bit of work. Sure he wins no prizes and has to get the news that it has been done but he should be happy that he actually came to the same conclusions as an Einstein. He should be encouraged and keep going. This was my basic point. It's not embarrassing to discover your idea has been done when you discover it has merit. If the guy walks out of the backwoods and says the universe is held together by magical pixie snot then he might want to go back home and stop having ideas (or telling people about them at least). Personally, I think that if you look around too closely before moving ahead you'll find that pretty much everything has been done and that unique twist that may have been added by you might never be as a result. mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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