Chris
How so? If a simple computer program can choose, how is choice supernatural?
Choice, in humans, is simply the selection of one alternative from among two
or more alternatives, as grasped by consciousness. How is that supernatural?
You choose whichever action seems preferrable to you at the time of
choosing. It's merely the process of evaluating the alternatives and
selecting the one with the highest evaluation at the moment. THIS is
supernatural? I repeat: How so?
> Extreme
>materialists, such as socio biologists, go so far as to suggest choice
>doesn't even exist in humans. They have thought up complex just-so stories
>to explain an "evolution" of all human traits, including altruism, by
"random
>mutation and natural selection". Most of the extreme materialists I've
known
>claim free will, like "the appearance of design" in nature, is merely an
>illusion.
>
>Do you believe free will exists?
Chris
*I* do, but not in the sense in which a typical Christian would mean it. You
have free will if you are acting according to your judgment and not out of
some form of external-to-judgment compulsion. I wouldn't WANT to act in any
other way; it would be suicidal.
But, free will or not, we still have choice. Choice does not require
indeterminism. Indeterministic free will IS an illusion, created by simple
confusion, ignorance, and superstition. We experience free will, not
indeterminism.
And, so far, "the appearance of design" in nature appears to be an illusion,
too, for similar reasons. How do we determine what's designed and what's
not? We do it by the fact that things that are designed are DIFFERENT from
what we see in Nature, and in certain specific ways. My computer keyboard is
recognizable as an object of design because it is DIFFERENT from anything we
know of in Nature. It did not GROW, it doesn't look like something that
arose by erosion, it has almost nothing but components that are known
products of human design. Further, when we analyze a computer keyboard, we
don't find any reproductive mechanism, and yet, we know that there are
millions of computer keyboards. Organisms in Nature simply don't have the
kinds of traits that truly distinguish all KNOWN examples of design.
Instead, they have ORDER, which is an inevitable aspect of anything that
exists, and they have specific general traits that would be expected of
things that evolve without design (metabolism, self-reproduction (or at
least reproduction in situ, as in the case of viruses), variability, a
mechanism for storing information from generation to generation (genes), and
so forth). In short, they are almost specifically LACKING in any signs of
design. Are they held together by rivets, screws, glue, nails, wire, solder,
etc.? Are they made out of components that are known to be designed and
manufactured? Do they have trademarks or manufacturer's logos stamped on
them? Are they made of plastic and metal and strips of wood (i.e., boards)
cut from trees? Have we ever seen a Designer making them, as we have seen
people making things?
And it doesn't get any better if we get into details; it gets worse, much
worse, Behe's desperate ploy notwithstanding. Instead of finding the
PUT-togetherness of design, we find the THROWN-and-GROWN-togetherness of
evolution. We find a chaos of the useful and the non-useful in the genes,
for example. We find that no large organism that we've ever studied has a
clean genetic structure; it's an unGodly mess in there; If it's designed,
it's designed very badly, very sloppily. It's the kind of stuff we find from
beginning computer programmers; a jumble. If it's designed, the designer is
an idiot. Any second-year engineering student could do better (and often
DOES do better!!!!!!!!).
REAL evidence of design is very specific, and nearly every KNOWN instance of
REAL design that we know of shows it, except in cases where the design is
INTENDED to look like non-design (and often, even then we can detect the
specific design evidence, as in the case of "natural" looking artificial
flowers). Even Jackson Pollack paintings show specific evidence of human
design (the weaving of the canvas, for example, is not known to occur in
nature, and we know humans can and do make canvas, and the specific chemical
composition of the paint is also designed).
No, design in nature is an illusion of the same sort that causes some people
to see the Virgin Mary in the water stains on the sides of buildings, and
bunny rabbits in clouds, and "irreducible complexity" in molecules, and some
to believe that other people are secretly plotting against them. You can
"see" design in absolutely anything, if you set your mind to it, or if you
are predisposed to confuse pattern and structure with design, and if you are
willing to suspend objectivity (or are unable or unwilling to achieve it).