Proxy Content
I’m attempting to post more frequently, for my own good, but using the benefit of possible discussion as a carrot. That is, I like exercising my mind and feeling all smart and whatever, but I also want to engender discussion here.
To that end, I’m going to get a little slithery and post (again) what was posted as a comment on a post on the subject elsewhere. It feels like multiple submissions, on which the publishing world typically frowns; but if I think my ideas are worthy of public consumption, I’m beholden to their distribution even if sleazily. Or, at least, I like to think so.
Without further ado (unless you’re into that kind of thing—e-mail if you are, I’ve got plenty to go ’round)…
A person like me who expects the parameters of the low-energy effective field theory to emerge from a deeper theory - which is not a religious speculation but a straightforward extrapolation of the developments of the 20th century physics - indeed does believe in some sort of ‘intelligent design’. But of course its ‘intelligence’ has nothing to do with human intelligence or the intelligence of God; it is intelligence of the underlying laws extending quantum field theory.
LuboÅ¡ Motl’s reference frame: Distasteful Universe and Rube Goldberg machines
Forgive me if I’m misinterpreting, but this appears to posit that there is an intelligence—a directing, operative capacity for decision—intrinsic to the laws underlying, for example, quantum field theory (and, I’d presume, other at least equally valid theories). While, if I’ve summarized correctly, I agree intuitively that there seems to be some capacity for algorithmic decision intrinsic to the function of the universe, this would seem to only substitute the intelligence of a god with the intelligence of an immensely complex machinery. To extend the Clarkian, “any sufficiently complex machination will be indistinguishable from God”.
I only bring this up because that viewpoint, as I’m finding myself, is quite hard to differentiate from a simple materialistic or deterministic formulation of a god. I don’t think it’s either, rather conceding that the grandeur and interworking of the universe as a whole and as a collection of pieces is quite awe-inspiring, and so I’m not surprised that some more reverent folks would prefer to wave their hands and personify all that as a god. Still, every time I think or hear about this sort of stuff, like the cellular automata approach to a computational universe, I have to wonder what the general laity and the creationist-minded can see as being substantially different than a more approachable and simpler creationism.
Tangentially, pronouncing the universe to be designed intelligently because there are structures of irreducible complexity, especially being (supposedly) analogous (if grander) to artifacts of human design…well, that smacks of hubris. It sounds like, “Well, the universe looks like something we’d build if we were omnipotent and really smart.” Of course there are echoes in other structures of something that might smack of an intelligence like ours—this is consistent with the idea that human intelligence is a subset, wholly contained by a broader set of intelligences. If we see intelligence in the universe, it is, of course no accident, as we should think it unlikely to have developed an intelligence unlike any kind of deciding algorithms found anywhere else. To assume so simply sets humanity upon a pedestal made of vapor and not much wit.
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