I declare...this ID stuff is getting interesting, but is moving
far enough off-topic to offend many readers - maybe most.
Nevertheless, after adding the OT caveat to the subject line - I
will attempt to show the breakdown in logic of both Jeff and Jed.
It is not hard to find ;-)
Except for the obvious semantic problem.... whatever that ID
impetus or intelligent "force" turns out to be - the "hidden
influence" which is finally ascertained to be the formative
influence for life, then that force will then be labeled as
"God."
Why? If some day people make intelligent robots, which by
definition did not self-assemble, they would not be obligated to
call humans God--
Whoa... since when did "obligation" enter the picture for robots?
It is only an obligation if it is programmed that way. The "God
concept" is mostly about the human mental process and its
instinctual (pre-programmed) evolutionary underpinnings, as Freud
and others pointed out - i.e. one way that the "pack mentality"
gets expressed in modern society.
Notice the coincidence of Id and ID....
Robots will not suffer from this problem, unless we explicitly
program into them our own developmental weaknesses. We are born
with an Id (instincts) - and a capacity for Superego - more akin
to the 'herd' mentality (and the "follow-the-leader-of-the-pack,
at all costs, the kind of overwhelming compulsion that keeps
idiots in public office who shouldn't be behind bars). The
superego is more herd mentality than any real 'sense of
community,' or more specifically it is the imago of paternal
dominance, which is easily translated into love of God, once the
individual reaches a certain age (the age when he can see that the
real-father is way too frail to be the idealized-father.
the imago of parental (paternal) authority
Jeff continues - "Humans would simply be another link in the chain
God used to make them (if they happened to be religious robots).
So... we are to some extent lesser gods already, aren't we? ...
but we all knew that from the scriptures.
And Jed said: "Wrong, wrong WRONG. I find this argument very
annoying, as I have said before. It solves nothing. It just pushes
the problem off to another
planet. Somewhere, sometime intelligent life must have evolved
entirely by natural forces."
Huh? What makes you think so? There is no evidence of "natural"
evolution anywhere. Randomness, it should be added, is too big an
obstacle for any kind of unaided evolution to overomce.
Statisticians have actually attempted to prove this - but then
again, statisticians can prove anything. Evolution is stochastic -
not random - huge difference. Actually a huge two letter
difference = ID.
JR: "Since it happened somewhere there is no reason to think it
did not happen again on earth."
Whoa...we have yet to establish any evidence whatsoever that it
happened elsewhere. That argument of random-no-design is totally
empty. A figment of someone's imagination. Note: any stochastic
process is FAR from truly random, although *always* partly random.
Jeff added, "Finally, ID isn't supposed to solve anything--it is
supposed to open up the debate to a wider range of hypotheses."
On that we agree, but then again, if you appreciate open-minded
re-appraisals of the god-concept - then why did you add "Well,
maybe that force [composite-meme]does [provide ID], but it doesn't
look anything like the God of Christians, Jews, or Muslims."
On that we strongly disagree. I think there is almost a tautology
of being able, on closer re-examination, to find all images and
triats of God through lesser (cultural) accumulations of memes.
Science is merely adding more sophisticated memes to the equation.
And finally - the $64 question: If "God" is just another part of
the Universe but not the Creator of it and outside of it, why
worship him/it at all?
Freud would say it is not a question of "why" as you (any
individual) really have zero real choice in the matter... at least
until the individual is able to give up something major - not
exactly the ego, as traditional religion would have it, but
instead - the super-ego.
Jones
