you can't always tell the designer labels from the faux
It occured to me today that the proponents of intelligent design (generally "conservatives", whatever that means) are also largely propents of the free market. So while "randomness" (i.e., absence of design) is insufficent to create a physical world, it is sufficient--indeed, is superior--as a way to create an economic system. (Maybe "create" isn't the right word here.) There is no contradiction here--just a curiousity. I'm surprised that no one else has picked up on it.
Perhaps there is more to randomness than we think. The brain, the mighty seat of human intelligence, seems to operate on certain physical processes that are in some sense random. Now I don't know much more about what it means to be random than I do what it means to be intelligent; both are mysterious phenomena. But if we stipulate that (a.) our brains are what make us intelligent, and (b.) our brains depend in part on "random" physical processes, perhaps we can conclude that randomness and intelligence are not ultimately incommensurable. Funny that we should spend so much energy in fierce debate over ideas so poorly understood. Why, after all, can't evolution be intelligent?
Perhaps there is more to randomness than we think. The brain, the mighty seat of human intelligence, seems to operate on certain physical processes that are in some sense random. Now I don't know much more about what it means to be random than I do what it means to be intelligent; both are mysterious phenomena. But if we stipulate that (a.) our brains are what make us intelligent, and (b.) our brains depend in part on "random" physical processes, perhaps we can conclude that randomness and intelligence are not ultimately incommensurable. Funny that we should spend so much energy in fierce debate over ideas so poorly understood. Why, after all, can't evolution be intelligent?
posted by logician at 10:38 PM
2 Comments:
I think it's questionable whether evolution can be said to be intelligent because intelligence, at least as I understand it, requires a subject. Of course, it can be useful to attribute goals to the swarm -- to survive, etc. -- and talk about how its actions contribute to fulfilling its goals. But, unless there is some actual central agency directing it, I think the "subject" is just a useful fiction... Our minds are the central agency for the swarm of cells of our body... There doesn't seem to be any similar contender for life as a whole.
Of course, this is all moot since "There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live."
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