7 replies to this topic

[Chaim613]

I enjoy reading seforim which elaborate on the teleological proof,i.e. that we can conclude a "Designer" based on the design in nature. Nature, as Rabbi Miller writes extensively about, has tremendous intelligence. My question is how we deal with some counterarguments raised by later [non-Jewish] philosophers on this approach:

1- Snowflakes have very complex design, no two are alike...yet they do not imply the existence of a designer.

2- That it is merely "our experience" which implies intelligence. For example, the letters ABC carved onto a tree would cause someone to conclude that somebody carved them. However, there is nothing intrinsically complex about the shapes of the letters. An alien from another planet would just perceive these symbols as mere scratches on the trunk. It is our experience that tells us that the letters ABC never form spontaneously via the processes of nature, not the complexity or design.

thank you,
Chaim

[Rabbi Shapiro]

I enjoy reading seforim which elaborate on the teleological proof,i.e. that we can conclude a "Designer" based on the design in nature. Nature, as Rabbi Miller writes extensively about, has tremendous intelligence. My question is how we deal with some counterarguments raised by later [non-Jewish] philosophers on this approach:

1- Snowflakes have very complex design, no two are alike...yet they do not imply the existence of a designer.

2- That it is merely "our experience" which implies intelligence. For example, the letters ABC carved onto a tree would cause someone to conclude that somebody carved them. However, there is nothing intrinsically complex about the shapes of the letters. An alien from another planet would just perceive these symbols as mere scratches on the trunk. It is our experience that tells us that the letters ABC never form spontaneously via the processes of nature, not the complexity or design.

thank you,
Chaim

"Philosophers" actually use such "counterarguments?" You're kidding. They're not counterarguments; the first is a misunderstanding of the argument to begin with. Or a dishonest subterfuge. The second is an error in logic.

1 - Nobody said a complex design implies a Creator. The point is purpose, not complexity. And also the fact that everything needs to exist at once in order to work. A snowflake may be complex but its design serves no purpose. It does not show awareness of anything else in nature. Stomach acids have a purpose; they digest the food. They know that the food is there, they know how to digest it, either by design or accident. But the stomach lining protects the stomach from being digested. The stomach is aware of the food and knows how to digest it and the lining is aware of the acid. Or it is not awareness, but accident and coincidence. That is the argument. It has nothing to do with snowflakes. Put a monkey at a keyboard for a few hours and he will produce a very complex design, but he will not produce an essay. The essay is not more complex in design than the gibberish of a monkey but it is much more purposeful and "aware." Each word, each letter, works in tandem with the next to form a functioning end-product. The snowflake is like the money's gibberish; a human eye is like the essay. But not an essay - it's more like the Library of Congress to the thousandth power. (The symmetry in the snowflake does not change things.)

Plus, in order for this organism to survive, the entire thing had to exist at once - the stomach acids without the lining would not work, and the lining without the acids would be useless baggage. Nature, in order to function, must function together. Males and females had to "evolve" simultaneously, with not even one generation's margin of error. If a male would have evolved without a female counterpart, good-bye species; same for females without males. Both sets of reproductive systems had to exist at once in order for it to work, and there is no second chance.

2 - It is not our experience that tells us nature had to have a designer; it is the fact that nature had to have a designer that caused our experience to be such. Even without any experience, simple logic says that the odds of the dandelion knowing how to attract bees by producing a bright yellow color, and then discarding it after its purpose was completed, and then stretching itself high over the rest of the weeds to catch the wind, which will propel dozens of little parachute-equipped seeds all over -- and the odds of the little flower being able to produce that little seed and parachute, which shows awareness of thousands of different factors -- is nil. Accident does not produce between millions (and even more than millions) of components that collaborate with each other. That is not our experience. That is math. The odds of that happening are too slim.

Remember: We are not talking complexity; we are talking about awareness and purpose. That's not a subjective criterion. It's objective.

Besides which, your example of the ABC on the tree is an error in logic. The alien was unable to recognize design in the letters. Fine. Lack of ability to recognize design does not imply there is no design. Agreed. Where design is not recognized, it could still be there. But that does not imply that when design IS recognized it may not be there.

Experience is merely a method of obtaining the information necessary to recognize design. And who says it is not a valid method of obtaining information?

The reason the alien is unable to recognize the design in the letters is simply because he lacks the information that would tell him these figures on the tree are not random scratches. He does not know the language. That's like a colorblind person not being able to recognize the fact that the dandelion turns yellow. It is not a lack of experience but a lack of information that is the alien's problem. Information can be obtained by experience, or other means, but it is not the lack of experience per se that is causing the alien to not see the design here but a lack of knowledge, i.e. the knowledge that ABC are letters as opposed to random marks.

What in the world does that have to do with the fact that where we do have knowledge of what constitutes a design, that a design must have a designer?

The lack of experience will result in a lack of recognition; but that does not invalidate the information obtained from experience that will result in recognition.

[shaya]

why does the complexity of a snow flake not imply a designer?

[Rabbi Shapiro]

why does the complexity of a snow flake not imply a designer?

Because it could happen randomly, by accident. With no plan or purpose, freezing cold would randomly cause snowflakes to be formed in random patterns the way it does. The fact that a snowflake was created with this pattern as opposed to another pattern could happen randomly, since the patterns do seem to be random and without purpose.. And that's why the entire argument does not start. Because the snowflake pattern is in fact random and purposeless. Like putting a monkey at a typewriter - he will produce a complex but random design. Useless gibberish. The snowflake design is useless as well. But of course the monkey at the typewriter would never produce the Library of Congress because its enormous complexity is functional and purposeful, and thus screams out that it had a designer with a purpose in mind. Nature was clearly not produced by a monkey at a typewriter, or any other random way. It could never have come by accident. Absent accident, the only other alternative is Design.

[shaya]

if we believe that EVERYTHING in the world has a purpose, just b/c we don't know a particular purpose for a particular thing why would that mean that it is purposeless? if we rely on our understanding of what is purposeful and what not isn't it a dangerous road? maybe all the things we find purpose in, became the purpose after the fact?
isn't this the wrong approach scientist went with years ago (and still nowadays) with proclaiming that certain stuff is meaningless until they found the purpose for it and change their mind?

[Rabbi Shapiro]

if we believe that EVERYTHING in the world has a purpose, just b/c we don't know a particular purpose for a particular thing why would that mean that it is purposeless? if we rely on our understanding of what is purposeful and what not isn't it a dangerous road? maybe all the things we find purpose in, became the purpose after the fact?
isn't this the wrong approach scientist went with years ago (and still nowadays) with proclaiming that certain stuff is meaningless until they found the purpose for it and change their mind?

We believe everything may have a purpose, but not everything has to have a discernible purpose. When I say that snowflakes have no purpose I mean no apparent purpose that can be identified by observing the snowflake. The Encyclopedia Britannica, on the other hand, has a purpose that can be readily identified. We are trying to prove purpose in nature here, and so you can't use as proof a purpose that nobody can find.

[achdus]

i still dont see how we can say on anything if there is purpose or not, just like we didnt know what the appendix or tonsils are for, i guess what im saying that we cannot have an opinion if there is purpose in anything

[Rabbi Shapiro]

i still dont see how we can say on anything if there is purpose or not, just like we didnt know what the appendix or tonsils are for, i guess what im saying that we cannot have an opinion if there is purpose in anything

You're right that we cannot ever conclude that there is NO purpose in something - like they thought about tonsils - but we can conclude that there IS purpose in something - which is why tonsils and the appendix were exceptions, as opposed to the brain or heart or stomach or fingers which nobody ever claimed is purposeless.

The fact that you cannot see some purpose does not mean it is not there - it may mean your vision isn't good enough. As in the case of the tonsils. But if you clearly do see a purpose, then you know it is there.

But please don't confuse purpose in the sense of "beneficial" with purpose in the sense of "by design" (as in "he did this on purpose", which means by design). One can argue that the entire dandelion population of the world has no benefit, but we certainly can see that it was designed as opposed to coming into existence by accident. Because the dandelion shows awareness of intricate scientific details of its surroundings, as well as how to expediently leverage those details, and to be able to create the mechanisms needed to do so, all of which are needed at the same time for them to work, down to the cellular and atomic level - of the only two possibilities that can cause anything to happen - accident or intelligence - by process of elimination, we conclude that it must have been created by intelligence.