Flint
Posts: 478
Joined: Jan. 2006
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| Quote | | think you might be misunderstanding a concept here or you are equivocating two concepts into one erroneously. It appears you've confused "CSI" with "Design", |
On re-reading, I think I tried to be very clear. Design is considered as a property. CSI is proposed as a metric for measuring that property. Presumably, this metric is expressed in bits.
| Quote | | but note that Dembski (and Mathgrrl in her question) notes that CSI is the object that has measurement and that certain measures of CSI indicate that something is designed. CSI is not design itself, per se, however. |
Once again, I did not say that CSI is design. CSI is a proposed measure of the AMOUNT of design an object has, PRESUMING that design is a property of an object, and not a process that produces products as a side-effect. CSI relates to design as frequency of light relates to color.
| Quote | | So Mathgrrl has been quite consistent in asking for a rigorous mathematical definition of CSI in order to determine whether or not Dembski's claim is accurate regarding CSI indicating design, not that CSI means design. |
Sigh. Once again, MathGrrl's request makes NO SENSE, UNLESS design is a PROPERTY of an object. If design is not a property in any way, then trying to find a suitable metric for determining the amount of what an object does not possess is meaningless. MathGrrl is requesting a rigorous definition of something that probably does not exist except as the side-effect of a theological requirement.
Let's back up a step here. What we do is, we START with the non-negotiable assertion that organisms (at the very least) are not the result of any natural processes, but instead require the active operation of an intelligent, purposeful, supernatural entity. We simply do not question the POOF theory. Instead, we search for any evidence that the POOF theory must be correct.
Now, here we have a problem, because if design is a process, we've hit a dead end. We can't even begin to describe the POOF mechanism, we can't say HOW it works or WHEN or WHERE it happened. We can only say we know it DID happen, because this is not negotiable.
So we have to say design is a property, like color or mass. And that there's something about the property of design that forbids any formation of Designed objects, EXCEPT the POOF method, whatever that may be. So OK, what is it that distinguishes POOFED objects from non-POOFED objects? How can we tell just from examining an object, without the slightest knowledge of its history, that it was (and had to be) POOFED? There must be SOME quantifiable way of identifying that the POOF process happened and generated the object.
Dembski has suggested CSI as a metric for making this distinction and determination. He says that we can calcuate the amount of CSI an object possesses, and we can (rather arbitrarily) designate some quantity of CSI as being "too much" to have been inserted into that object by any conceivable natural mechanisms. And if we calculate that the amount of CSI possessed by an object exceeds this value, then we can conclude that the object must have been POOFED.
And my point is, Dembski is making the assumption that Design (as quantified in terms of CSI) is a property like color or mass. But if design is a process, and not a property, it makes no sense to design a metric for quantifying what isn't there to begin with.
Let's look at it another way. Let's assume everyone can agree on a suitable means of calculating CSI. Furthermore, let's assume everyone agrees on the number of bits of CSI above which design must be assumed. Even despite this, we STILL can say nothing about the AGENCY of design. Dembski has simply asserted that beyond that limit, POOF can be assumed as the mechanism because natural processes cannot stick that much CSI into anything.
But there is no particular (non-theological) reason to make that assumption. Ordinary biologists can see no limit to the amount of CSI an organism might possess, nor anything that might set such a limit. So even if we grant that design is a property, we STILL cannot rule out any agency that might produce it, except arbitrarily.
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