[...]
>>
>My point was that intelligent input is required for the economy to
>"evolve". Whether this input comes from inside or outside the system,
>whether or not the intelligent agents are coginzant of their exact part in
>the whole -- these are irrelevant.
This is not irrelevant if you want to argue that the system as a
whole is designed by intelligent agents who are part of the system.
I realize that this is probably not what you were arguing, but it
was one of the design possibilities I was trying to exclude.
Let's take the example of panspermia which was brought up recently.
A really extreme side branch of such an idea might be that we
were intelligently designed by green men from outer space. This
really doesn't address the issue of the origin of life since the
little green men didn't design themselves, nor did they create
the universe, no matter what Frank Tipler says ;-).
To take the economy as a designed system in the sense that
creationists use the word would require an intelligent agent
that transcends the system.
>Nonintelligent agency cannot generate a
>complex system such as an economy.
How do you know?
If the intelligent agents are not aware of the effects of their
actions on the global dynamics then how can it be that their
intelligence is responsible for said global dynamics?
>Blind Watchmaker evolutionary theory
>argues for the evolution of complex systems with *no* intelligent input
>from any source; thus the economy analogy fails.
>
Perhaps we were talking past each other. I did not mean to imply
in any way that the economy was analogous to Blind Watchmaker
evolution. A better analogy wrt the economy is to say that there
is no Watchmaker, blind or otherwise.
Brian Harper | "If you don't understand
Associate Professor | something and want to
Applied Mechanics | sound profound, use the
The Ohio State University | word 'entropy'"
| -- Morrowitz
Bastion for the naturalistic |
rulers of science |