The Argument for Intelligent Design
The argument starts with the major
premise that where there is design, there must be a designer. The minor premise
is the existence of design throughout the universe. The conclusion is that
there must be a universal designer.
In a recent
conversation, the major premise was argued as untrue, that it does not
logically follow that where there is design, there must be a designer.
Presented as evidence was an article describing an experiment of electrical
circuits with adaptable chips as proof that there can be design without a
designer.
Definition of
terms: what is design?
Design is any particular purpose or function an object or system
has.
I call it
"intelligent" design because a purpose cannot exist without someone
to intend it; if something has meaning, there had to be someone to mean it. The digestive system digests
food even if we want to give it the meaning of the nervous system, instead. Our
meaning it doesn't give or change its function; it only makes us look stupid (and all meaning would be a product of our imagination - we would be living our lives according to the product of our imagination...).
The fault I've
revealed in this experiment for the purpose of disproving intelligent design is
that there is an intelligent agent (Dr.
Thompson) organizing and arranging parts built (intended) to be adaptable for
the purpose (design) of finding an answer to a problem. Experiments always
have intelligent designers and purposes.
Below, I've
copied and pasted a majority of the article of the experiment my friend
presented as an argument against the major premise. I've added my commentary in
[red]. The full article can be found here: http://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/
ON THE ORIGIN OF
CIRCUITS BY ALAN BELLOWS
[1] This machine’s task [task - function - purpose - design] was to single out the best possible pairings from
the group, then force the selected couples to mate so that it might extract the
resulting offspring and repeat the process with the following generation. As
predicted, with each breeding cycle the offspring evolved slightly, nudging the
population incrementally closer to the computer’s pre-programmed [designed by an intellect] definition of the
perfect individual [Final Cause].
[2][...] rather they were clumps
of ones and zeros [mathematical axioms given to it
by an intellect] residing within a specialized computer chip [designed to inhabit this particular form of data]. As
these primitive bodies of data bumped together [behaving
according to their nature as mathematical axioms] in their silicon logic
cells, Adrian Thompson— the machine’s master— observed with curiosity and
enthusiasm.
[3] The concept is roughly
analogous to Charles Darwin’s elegant principle of natural selection, which
describes [if it only describes, then it doesn't explain
(the cause) anything, right?] how individuals with the most advantageous
traits are more likely to survive and reproduce [According
to what standard? If life and reality have no meaning, why would random matter
consider life to be more advantageous than death? Why would our instincts such
as eating when hungry, drinking when thirsty, sleeping when tired, be
subordinate to the more important instinct of self-preservation?}. This
process tends to preserve favorable characteristics by passing them to the
survivors’ descendants, while simultaneously suppressing the spread of
less-useful traits [assuming life is better than
death].
[4] As a test bed, he [the guy doing the experiment - the intelligent designer
and agent cause of this process] procured a special type of chip called
a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) whose internal logic can be completely
rewritten as opposed to the fixed design of normal chips [Ok, so we start with a chip intentionally designed so
that its internal logic can be rewritten]. This flexibility results in a
circuit whose operation is hot and slow compared to conventional counterparts,
but it allows a single chip to become a modem, a voice-recognition unit, an
audio processor, or just about any other computer component [Nothing else in reality - just a computer component. It
has intended (purpose) limits]. All one must do [the
Agent with intelligence] is load the appropriate configuration [that's a small task that requires no intelligence,
right?].
[5] The informatics researcher [intelligent designer] began his experiment by
selecting a straightforward task [task - function -
purpose - design] for the chip
to complete: he decided that it must reliably differentiate between two [only two] particular audio tones [So, of all the possibilities, the intelligent designer has
already limited the possibilities of what this chip will do: differentiate
audio tones - one specific task - and only between two possible tones of all
the possible tones that exist]. A traditional sound processor with its
hundreds of thousands of pre-programmed logic blocks would have no trouble
filling such a request, but Thompson wanted to ensure that his hardware evolved
a novel solution [This evolution required someone
to ensure the evolution]. To that end, he employed a chip only ten cells
wide and ten cells across— a mere 100 logic gates [A
mere 100 logic gates.]. He also strayed from convention by omitting the
system clock, thereby stripping the chip of its ability to synchronize its
digital resources in the traditional way [If this
has any importance later at all, remember that it took an intelligent designer
to know of the 'traditional way' and to stray from it].
[6] He cooked up a batch of
primordial data-soup by generating fifty random blobs of ones and zeros. One by
one his computer loaded these digital genomes into the FPGA chip [this is all supposed to be guided by no intelligent
agent, remember...], played the two distinct audio tones [only these 2 out of all of the possibilities],
and rated each genome’s fitness according to how closely its output satisfied
pre-set criteria [that no intelligent agent
pre-set; that was 'just there']. Unsurprisingly, none of the initial
randomized configuration programs came anywhere close. Even the top performers
were so profoundly inadequate that the computer had to choose its favorites [There were no computers at the big bang. Random matter
could pick favorites? Please, explai- I mean describe] based on tiny
nuances. The genetic algorithm [algorithm - a
process or set of rules to be followed...with no designer and no lawgiver. Glad
it's obedient to nothing] eliminated the worst of the bunch, and the
best [why who’s standard?] were allowed to mingle
their virtual DNA by swapping fragments of source code with their partners.
Occasional mutations were introduced into the fruit of their digital loins when
the control program randomly changed a one or a zero here and there.
{[7] [This paragraph just shares
the progress of the experiment.] Around
generation #650, the chip had developed some sensitivity to the 1kHz waveform,
and by generation #1,400 its success rate in identifying either tone had
increased to more than 50%.}
[8] Finally, after just over
4,000 generations [not Biblical generations],
test system settled upon the best [designer's
standard?] program. When Dr. Thompson played the 1kHz tone, the
microchip unfailingly reacted by decreasing its power output to zero volts.
When he played the 10kHz tone, the output jumped up to five volts. He pushed
the chip even farther by requiring it to react to vocal “stop” and “go”
commands, a task [design] it met with a few
hundred more generations of evolution. As predicted, the principle of natural
selection ["natural" containing design
and "selection" according to the standard of the designer"] could
successfully produce specialized circuits using a fraction of the resources a
human would have required. And no one had the foggiest notion how it worked.
[9] Dr. Thompson peered inside
his perfect offspring to gain insight into its methods, but what he found
inside was baffling. The plucky chip was utilizing only thirty-seven of its one
hundred logic gates, and most of them were arranged in a curious collection of
feedback loops. Five individual logic cells were functionally disconnected from
the rest— with no pathways that would allow them to influence the output— yet
when the researcher disabled any one of them the chip lost its ability to
discriminate the tones. Furthermore, the final program did not work reliably
when it was loaded onto other FPGAs of the same type.
[10] It seems that evolution had
not merely selected the best code for the task [the
purpose given it by the intelligent designer, Dr. Thompson], it had also
advocated those programs which took advantage of the electromagnetic quirks of
that specific microchip environment. The five separate logic cells were clearly
crucial to the chip’s operation, but they were interacting with the main circuitry
through some unorthodox method— most likely via the subtle magnetic fields that
are created when electrons [which act according to
their purpose] flow through circuitry, an effect known as magnetic flux.
["Magnetic flux of the gaps", I'd call
it.]
[11] Engineers are experimenting
with rudimentary adaptive
hardware systems, [See? Designed to be adaptable] which marry
evolvable chips to conventional equipment. Such hybrids quickly adapt to new
demands by constantly evolving and adjusting their control code. [...] Similarly,
researchers speculate that robots might one day use evolution-inspired systems
to quickly adapt to unforeseen obstacles in their environment. [How much intelligence went into creating reflexes. You'd
have to program robots to prefer life, though.]
[12] Modern supercomputers are
also contributing to artificial evolution, applying their massive processing
power to develop simulated prototypes. The initial designs are thoroughly
tested within carefully crafted virtual environments, and the best candidates
are used to breed successive batches until a satisfactory solution has evolved.
[Pretty neat!]
[13] These evolutionary computer
systems may almost appear to demonstrate a kind of sentience as they dispense
graceful solutions to complex problems. But this apparent intelligence [information contained in the chip; not in the same sense
as intelligent design] is an illusion caused by the fact that the
overwhelming majority of design variations tested by the system— most of them
appallingly unfit for the task [design]— are
never revealed. According to current understanding [which
is why you can't base "chaos" on whether we understand phenomena or
not], even the most advanced microchips fall far short of the resources
necessary to host legitimate intelligence. On the other hand, at one time many
engineers might have insisted that it’s impossible to train an unclocked 10×10
FPGA to distinguish between two distinct audio tones. [About
how many years before man walked on the moon could man have predicted he could
walk on the moon? If no man could predict it, does that mean it took no design
to make man walking on the moon happen? Tell NASA no.]
[14] There is also an ethical
conundrum regarding the notion that human lives may one day depend upon these
incomprehensible systems [implies life is better
than death]. There is concern that a dormant “gene” in a medical system
or flight control program might express itself without warning, sending the
mutant software on an unpredictable rampage [chips
can get cancer, too]. Similarly, poorly defined criteria might allow a
self-adapting system to explore dangerous options in its single-minded thrust
towards efficiency [chip gender theory?],
placing human lives in peril. Only time and testing will determine whether
these risks can be mitigated. [Have faith and hope,
people!]
[15] If evolvable hardware
passes muster, the Sussex circuits may pave the way for a new kind of
computing. Given a sufficiently well-endowed Field-Programmable Gate Array and
a few thousand exchanges of genetic material, there are few computational roles
that these young and flexible microchips will be unable to satisfy [so we just need an agent to organize the FPGA's and
genetic material and we're good to go!]. While today’s computers politely
use programmed instructions to solve predictable problems, these adaptable
alternatives may one day strip away such limits and lay bare the elegant
solutions that the human mind is reluctant— or powerless— to conceive on its own. [Reason+Revelation].
