"Ami Chopine" writes
in message <000f01bfc19e$2369e800$3f8df4d0@vh2>:
> There is one little problem with this analogy.
>
> All the participants in the economy are intellegent.
Could you expand on why this is a problem for the analogy? From
what I can see, economic complexity occurs *in spite* of
intelligence -- meaning that less global planning still means
that more complexity comes out.
Cliff's point, it seems to me, is that our economy evolved into
an unfathomably elaborate thing precisely because it wasn't
intelligently conceived. It was the result of tiny, usually
obvious steps over time taken by individuals in order to keep
the economy working. No person ever planned anything completely
like it, nor would they have the intelligence to predict it.
Our economy is now vastly greater than the sum of its original
parts.
Think about asking the question "who designed our economy?".
The answer obviously isn't a single person or intelligence;
however, answering "human beings" has some problems. How can
we be said to have designed something that large when all we
did was individually add small steps to a process with solving
only simple, short-term goals in mind?
Some, of course, have added larger steps and thought further
ahead than others, but the point is that no person or group can
claim that they designed, envisioned, planned or predicted
today's economy in its entirety and therefore there is a real
problem calling it "intelligently designed". It's complexity
is a *consequence* of the way we spend money and the complex
reasons we have for the choices we make, but the intelligence
required to spend money is really not all that remarkable.
> Also, having some personal knowledge of communist economies, they are never
> as simple as the original planner set up. They just evolve differently.
> Black markets, bribery, mafia all thrive in such an economy.
>
> This is the thing that leads me to ID. I just see too much
> purpose. Sure, I can see simple changes, such as antibiotic
> resistance occuring all the time, and within a design paradigm
> occuring without intervention.
What purpose specifically? If we can see purpose in antibiotic
resistance (and I can, superficially), doesn't that suggest that
our idea of purpose is flawed?
> But I find it difficult to believe that some complex things occured without
> purpose, or some direction. I have no problem with things getting there
> naturally, but I think there must be more than _natural_ selection at work.
>
> Consider the wing. I still think there is far too much of a hump to
> overcome for natural selection to be the only way it happened. There would
> be two possibilities: a hopeful monster, or a clumsy intermediary.
Actually, with feathers accounted for (warmth), the idea of
running creatures using the aerodynamic features of feathers
(strong but lightweight extensions) for leaping or short glides
seems to make any hopeful monster unnecessary.
> But what if there was intellegent selection? What if that is
> the form that ID takes?
Seems unncessary.
>
> Ami Chopine
>
>
> > Consider the complexities of our economy; consider the various
> > ways we spend money and the complex reasons for the choices
> > we make, where the money goes next and why etc etc. It's an
> > unfathomably elaborate thing. Then compare the economy a
> > communist planner might set up, with simple specification of
> > required production and directed consumption. Why is a designer
> > required on grounds of complexity, when the natural order can
> > generate complexity ad infinitum?
> >
> > --
> > Cliff Lundberg ~ San Francisco ~ 415-648-0208 ~ cliff@cab.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri May 19 2000 - 13:01:15 EDT