Supreme will or natural consequence? We have asked ourselves this question about the world countless times since reason opened up to us, an...
Supreme will or natural consequence? We have asked ourselves this question about the world countless times since reason opened up to us, and the answer to this question motivates us, humans, in our search for reality, to know the world ever more thoroughly. The question exists, as perhaps it always will, but its content has changed fundamentally over time.
Originally, we thought that what we did not understand must be operated by a will beyond human intelligence. Therefore, at that time, many events in the world were under divine control, such as the movement of the planets or the phenomenon of lightning.
Then, with the expansion of our knowledge, we understood more and more about the world and how it works as we looked more and more into the mechanisms that operate the world, and there was less and less room in the universe for a higher intention.
If we extrapolate the process of increasing knowledge about our environment, we seem to be getting closer and closer to the view that it may not be necessary to have a supreme will above the human intellect for our world to function. We are in this phase of learning about the world. Apparently, there is less and less role for the Supreme in the functioning of our world. At the same time, the original question acquires a new meaning.
As we understand our world more and more, and as we increasingly displace the need for a superior intellect in our world, we simultaneously replace ourselves in that same position. Not only do we understand the world more and more through the knowledge we acquire as we learn about the world, but our understanding also makes us an increasingly significant creator in our world.
Intelligent design, which we are increasingly displacing from the functioning of our world through our recognition, is increasingly being implemented by us. Not only can we create new things that exist only and exclusively through us, but we are also slowly reaching the point where we can ask the question: is there anything in this world that we could not create?
Our limitations are less and less visible. With more and more knowledge, we are able to create more and more. There seem to be three areas whose existence we do not currently understand, and therefore which we do not seem to be able to create - yet: the existence of the world itself, of life, and of mind. Although we have accumulated knowledge and hypotheses in these areas, the possible superior design may yet hold.
But we are capable of more and more in these areas as well. We are beginning to create worlds according to their own rules, which we now call the metaverse, we are also able to create algorithms that carry the properties of life in a computing environment, which we call viruses, for example, and the Turing test set up to determine the existence of real intelligence that actually exists artificially is becoming easier and easier to pass by our created computing systems that mimic human cognitive abilities. Consciousness is perhaps the only area whose reality we currently understand least and are least able to create ourselves.
As an intervening thought, it is interesting to consider the difference between the world that exists naturally for us and the worlds we create. The worlds we create, artificial life, intelligence, is realized in computer systems through the manipulation of information. The existence of these created systems, the virtual reality, is created by different states of a physical reality that is completely different from the one from which it was created. This is also the basis for the hypothetical assumption that the reality of our world is also created by a completely different physical reality. It is an interesting question whether it is possible to recognize the origin of reality for that which exists in the reality that is created. And it is also interesting to wonder how many levels there might be in the worlds thus created, and whether these levels can or might form a closed circle.
Even today, as our knowledge develops, it is still a theoretical question whether the human intellect is capable of understanding the world in which it exists. Today, as almost never before, human intelligence is not limited by the capabilities of the individual brain. For almost all of our time, and more and more, human ability is determined by collective and therefore theoretically unlimited intelligence, aided by the recent theoretically unlimited information storage and processing capabilities of artificial intelligence. The only theoretical limit to the complexity, and therefore capability, of our intellect is the world as it exists. Given these emerging capabilities of ours, we can safely say that yes, we are certainly capable of understanding the world, and we are also capable of recognizing even the most fundamental operating principles of our world.
And in the Intelligent Design vs. Natural Evolution debate that arises in the course of our understanding of the world that exists for us, we are slowly reaching a new level where we can finally ask the question: is there any state of our existence that was not created by natural evolution, because it could not have been created by natural evolution?
The question is relevant because intelligent design exists in reality, human action is an example of it. The relevance of the question is that if we could theoretically prove that there is a state or process that determines our existence that cannot be produced by natural evolution, then we could justify the existence of intelligent design and a higher intelligence.
We usually try to answer the question inductively, by inferring the result from our knowledge of the details of the operational processes. But to answer inductively, we need to know the processes, in this case evolution, in detail. Although we know the molecular basis of biochemistry that gives rise to natural evolution, there is still much we do not understand about how the observed states could have arisen from that operational process.
How can all-or-nothing complex chemical molecular mechanisms emerge in a random, aimless, gradual, natural evolutionary way? How can complex, intricate proteins be created in a kind of synthesis that requires the exact sequence of hundreds of nucleotides, and where even the reproductive process sometimes requires the existence of these complex proteins? What natural, random evolutionary processes produce the sometimes explosive evolutionary leaps in the development of species that lead, among other things, perhaps as a side effect, to intelligent self-awareness?
We do not currently know the exact inductive answers to these questions based on natural evolution. It is also possible that these changes cannot occur by natural evolution, in which case intelligent design exists in our world. But it may simply be that our knowledge is insufficient to answer these questions inductively based on the mechanism of evolution as we now know it.
Perhaps we don't know the biochemical process of natural evolution well enough, or perhaps it was impossible chance or perhaps intelligent participation that made certain evolutionary steps possible. An inductive answer that describes reality well seems impossible for the time being.
However, we can also try to answer the question of intelligent design or natural evolution deductively, by looking at what exists from the side of the outcome. There could be significant differences in the outcome of the operation of intelligent design and natural evolution. How can we distinguish between intelligent design and natural evolution if we look only at the outcome?
It is obvious that intelligent design, not natural evolution, created, for example, the automobile as a means of transportation. Why was the car created? To achieve the goal of intelligent intellect, the possibility of faster movement, the artificial extension of the capabilities of the intelligent designer. Intelligent design always has a well-defined purpose, although it may not be readily apparent from the outside. That is the essence of intelligent design. Natural evolution, on the other hand, has a single, well-defined role of blindly adapting to the environment without a specific goal. This is what we call natural evolution.
Progress is characteristic of both methods. Intelligent design does not necessarily produce a perfect form right away. The structure of the car created by intelligent design is also constantly changing, but the important difference is that the changes made to the car by intelligent design are not fundamentally about adapting to the environment, but about supporting the goals of the intelligent designer. It is true that cars have become more aerodynamic as they have evolved, but this change was created not to adapt to the environment and survive longer, but to achieve the intelligent designer's goal of making the vehicle more efficient for the designer.
So, as a general deductive rule, if we recognize that changes in a system are adaptations to the environment, however complex and difficult it is to understand how the system works, then the change is most likely driven by natural evolutionary mechanisms. If we don't know how something came to be, but we can see the adaptation to the environment in the way it takes shape, then it is almost certain that natural evolution is the basis of its operation. Conversely, if the design of a system is not solely about adaptation to the environment, this suggests intelligent design, even if no goals of the functions are recognized. If the process of design is not that of adaptation to the environment, then intelligent design is the reasonable assumption.
This assumption allows us to examine the nature of the changes in our world. The development of life and intelligence in our world is certainly a natural evolutionary process, as are the changes in our natural environment, since we can see that the changes are adaptations to the environment, even if we do not always understand what processes are involved and how they work.
This statement still does not exclude the possible existence of intelligent design, but it does define its place. If a change is not for the purpose of adapting to the environment, we can assume the existence of an intelligent designer, and we should look for the purpose of intelligent design. Because intelligent design has a purpose, it might even mean something to us.
Both life and human intelligence are adaptations to the environment, and their emergence and development are certainly at least mostly the result of a natural evolutionary process. For the time being, there are theoretical obstacles to seeing the same for the emergence of the universe, where intelligent design is not even a deductively excludable conjecture.
However, a method based on deductive reasoning is a generalizable tool for the existence of intelligent design, and thus it is a means for the general search for intelligence. We will never be able to rule out intelligent design with certainty, but the deductive method at least helps us to recognize its place in reality.
No comments