I didn’t manage to discover why this article is supposed to interest me. This whole discussion has already come out of every possible hole.
Anyway, it doesn’t sound innovative, and it seems to me that it Precisely falls into the atheistic arguments (which is a shame, because it doesn’t have to). After all, atheists usually argue that finding a watch is different from finding the world because a watch is something I know people make, whereas a world is not. You are trying to expand the definition to something that has “an inherent potential to be desired by an intelligent being,” except that your definition is very vague (it seems to me that “complex” and “unique” are clearer), and certainly not helpful when nobody has any idea why this intelligent being wanted to create the world.

It is supposed to interest you because of the discussion that took place in this thread: https://mikyab.net/Responsa/In response to P. Harari’s article, “So What About Judaism?”/

In that thread you got tangled up in the question of why a sequence of 1,2,3,4,5,6 indicates intelligent design of the die (or of the throw), since its probability is equal to that of every other sequence, and you wrote at the end that because of this question you are left with an intuition that says there is a difference, but not with an explanation: “Maybe sometimes there is something formal, I don’t know. Intuition is fine by me…
123456 is indeed special. It’s true that you could also find an explanation for the series 3415365, and then I’ll have to decide whether it’s random or not, and probably my intuition will decide that it isn’t.
You want a special case where the number of combinations that allow it is small (in your words, and I think that is very imprecise), and that exists to exactly the same degree in 6666 and in 2232. If you want, you can find a function that allows 2232 just as much (I didn’t try to build one because it’s not interesting). It’s a simple mathematical matter, not something one needs to be persuaded about.”
I gave a grounding for that intuition and explained that there is no need to arrive at a definition showing why 123456 is more special than 482939 (why should I care that that function is simpler?) but only that it can be desired by someone intelligent with higher probability than the other sequences.
That is the plain meaning of this intuition, and that is why we would infer the existence of an intelligent writer if we saw in the desert an inscription made of stones saying “bread and wine,” because that sequence can be desired by someone intelligent even without an external purpose.
So too with the universe: if out of infinitely many systems of laws there is one that allows life (for the sake of simplicity), and that one is precisely the one that actually exists, it is reasonable that someone selected it from the other systems, because this result can be “desirable” to someone intelligent, since it is different from the others and “aesthetically pleasing” (in Ido’s terminology) to someone who understands what each system of laws does.
There is absolutely no need to remain with intuition.

Apparently only I didn’t notice that I got tangled up.
In any case, I still didn’t manage to understand why, in your opinion, a sequence of many repetitions of 123456 could be desired by someone intelligent more than any other sequence.

Yishai, from your messages it is clear that you did not read the article I wrote. Of course I cannot demand that (after all, it’s 15 pages), but when that is the case I don’t understand your skepticism and cleverness. There is a really critical point here (in my opinion) that people are missing, and if you want to understand I can explain it more briefly than in the article. If you don’t want to, then we’ll part as friends and you can remain in your mistake (which is a shame, because from your messages on the site you seem open-minded and critical).

First, I am still not dealing with a proof of God, but with drawing conclusions from a die throw.
I don’t care whether this weakens the proof of God or strengthens it; it is simply the truth regardless of its implications for proving the existence of God. I will just note that not only does this not weaken the proof of God, but without this foundation there is no proof at all (see below).

We both agree that a sequence of 1,2,3,4,5,6 repeating itself a thousand times indicates that someone intelligent caused it, unlike a sequence of 512432, which does not indicate intelligent intervention.
Now the question arises: why do we infer that, given that every sequence has the same probability? And you give an answer: “Intuition says this is special.” I argue that no intuition is needed here and there is a simple explanation, and sheer objective specialness is of no help to us at all.
Your “tangling” consists precisely in this. Read again the discussion in the Q&A thread I referred you to earlier, and say honestly whether the commenter “Moshe” came away from there with a clear answer. He said that a sequence of 1,2,3,4,5,6 merely arouses psychological amazement and has no objective uniqueness over the other sequences, and you answered him that the very fact that he chose specifically that sequence indicates that he feels it is objectively special, and he answered you that this is mistaken, and that psychological amazement also explains why he chose that number.

You wrote in your previous message: “It seems to me that ‘complex’ and ‘unique’ are clearer.” That sentence is completely mistaken. Complex and unique are properties that are not relevant in themselves to proving the existence of some intelligent being that caused them. You argue that when one finds a die that gives the sequence 1,2,3,4,5,6 a thousand times, one should infer that someone intelligent caused it. Why? Because it is ‘unique.’ You treat uniqueness as an objective property detached from the presumed cause that brought it about.
It sounds as though in your definition the word “unique” means: “If we built a ‘truth machine’ and asked it: ‘Which is more unique: 1,2,3,4,5,6 or 512432?’ it would say that 1,2,3,4,5,6 is more unique.” How does that definition contribute to the question we are asking: why assume that an intelligent factor caused the sequence 1,2,3,4,5,6 rather than the sequence 512432? Your answer says: “Because it’s unique,” but it is totally irrelevant whether a truth machine would decide that this result is special, because that contributes absolutely nothing to the answer to that question. An answer to that question needs to be something like: “There is a higher probability that someone intelligent made the sequence 1,2,3,4,5,6 than that he made the sequence 512432, and therefore only regarding the first sequence do I assume it was produced by someone intelligent.”

The same applies to “complex.” Here too you took some special property of the laws at the macro level, and on that basis you determined that the system of laws was designed by God, and it is unclear what entitles you to do that. If we recall the physico-theological proof, one of its assumptions is: ‘A simple thing does not become complex at random.’ Let’s present this simply: there are 1,000 possible systems of laws, and only system no. 323 yields complex life. Now the physico-theological argument comes and says: “In a lottery among systems of laws, system no. 323 would not be obtained randomly, because its probability is one in a thousand.”
And here is my question: what is the meaning of this assumption? After all, we could dress this assumption onto the other 999 systems of laws as well and it would be true at exactly the same level; for example: “System no. 415 (which does not create life) would not be obtained randomly, because its probability is one in a thousand.” Why should I care that system 323 was judged by the truth machine to be “special”? How does that contribute to the argument? What difference does it make what some secret machine in some basement room that no one knows produced? (= that is a figurative description of the fact that, in your view, this is something objective)

One cannot escape my foundation on this issue. The foundation is this:
The fact that system no. 323 yields life causes it to have a high potential (relative to the other results) to be chosen by someone intelligent in an intelligent choice, that is, a choice that understands the various possibilities and their significance, and not a spontaneous choice (for example, spontaneously locking onto system no. 927, without there being anything special about it according to the chooser’s understanding).
I stress that this is clearly also what lies within your intuition, because if the probability that an intelligent person would cause a sequence of die throws of 1,2,3,4,5,6 were equal to the probability that he would cause any random sequence whatsoever, then there would be no reason at all to distinguish between the two and say that the first was probably caused by a person and the second is random. No reason in the world.
You asked why a sequence of 1,2,3,4,5,6 has a higher potential to be chosen by someone intelligent than any other sequence. The reason is precisely because the sequence is beautiful in his eyes. Even if that sequence were not objectively special, as long as it is special in a person’s eyes that is enough to increase its potential to be chosen.
Think about the following example: you arrive in the desert and see stones arranged like bowling pins: first one stone, then two, then three, like that up to a hundred (creating a kind of triangle). Presumably you would infer that someone intelligent arranged that. Why? After all, the probability that a random wind caused that is equal to the probability that it caused any other sequence. And the answer is simple: because such an arrangement of stones is special in human eyes, and therefore it has a higher potential to be chosen by a person than the other possible arrangements of stones, and it does not matter whether this specialness is objective or not.
According to my approach, all the definitions used to define the specialness of a certain result (complexity, design, fit, uniqueness, etc.) are not the root of the matter, but only the ‘device’ by which the result becomes desirable to an intelligent being.
And the proof of this: if billions upon billions upon billions of systems of laws created life, and only one system of laws did not allow it, and that very one that does not allow life were the one that actually existed—I would infer the existence of God who chose precisely that system of laws (I assume you would not disagree with me), even though it is not special in a positive sense, but only different from the rest of the systems of laws (still fine-tuned for ‘non-creation of life’), because its difference gives it a high potential to be chosen in an intelligent choice by someone who understands what each system of laws includes and notices its uniqueness (even if it is negative).
That also explains why one should infer that the die thrower is cheating if one gets a sequence of a thousand digits of pi, and all the other examples.

y, a question that I think is important. You wrote:

If billions upon billions upon billions of systems of laws created life, and only one system of laws did not allow it, and that very one that does not allow life were the one that actually existed—I would infer the existence of God who chose precisely that system of laws (I assume you would not disagree with me), even though it is not special in a positive sense, but only different from the rest of the systems of laws (still fine-tuned for ‘non-creation of life’), because its difference gives it a high potential to be chosen in an intelligent choice by someone who understands what each system of laws includes and notices its uniqueness (even if it is negative).

In light of this, do you think that some intelligent entity, not necessarily human, necessarily/almost always/in most cases when given the choice (delete the unnecessary parts as you see fit or rephrase) would choose Precisely the system of laws that differs from most of the other systems of laws? If you are indeed claiming that, what do you base it on? And if you are not claiming that, in what way do you infer the existence of an intelligent entity that chose precisely the result in question, from the fact that one system of laws (or a few isolated ones) differs from the overwhelming majority of systems of laws in some property?

Keep in mind that I did read your article. I’m speaking from memory at the moment, but I didn’t see any treatment there of something that would allow me to answer this question.

Hello Ido.
Your question is excellent, and it has been occupying me a great deal these past few weeks.
As I wrote to you in the email (by the way, did you get it?), in the first article I did not deal at all with a proof of God, but only with drawing conclusions about intervention by a factor known to us independently of the special result (human beings), and therefore there was no need to address this point in the article.
We know that human beings see something special in the sequence 1,2,3,4,5,6 (it is beautiful and special in their eyes), and in the inscription “bread and wine” (it has meaning for them), and therefore drawing conclusions about a person who chose them seems reasonable (if indeed the random probability of getting it is negligible).
In the next article I plan to write, I will try to make the transition from the die to our universe, and of course your question will be the central topic of the article.
First, I will emphasize that I assume every honest believer will admit that inferring the existence of God is a more “bold” move than drawing conclusions about a die that gives a thousand 6s, or about a watch in the desert. It seems to me that if we offered believers a choice of whether to put money on the claim that a watch in the desert has a watchmaker, or that the world has God—the overwhelming majority would prefer to bet on the watch (whether they admit it or not). Even so, the believer’s claim is that although this is a more “bold” step, it is still called for (therefore not every difference between a watch and the universe causes the argument for the existence of God to collapse, but at most weakens it).

As for your actual question, I think the way you phrased it is not precise.
You wrote: “Do you think that some intelligent entity… necessarily/almost always/in most cases when given the choice would choose Precisely the system of laws that differs from most of the other systems of laws?” The same question can be directed to a sequence of die throws, that is, to human intelligence. Does my argument necessarily assume that if ten people are allowed to choose a possible die sequence, they will choose one of the special sequences? (1,2,3,4,5,6 or 666666 or 555555 etc.) Necessarily/almost always/in most cases? It seems to me not. It is entirely possible that out of ten people only one will choose the special sequence and the rest a random one, and it seems to me that my argument still stands.

My argument basically says that there are two types of choices among different options:
(1) An intelligent choice that stems from understanding the content or beauty of the chosen sequence, and wants precisely it.
(2) A random choice, which is spontaneous/random fixation on some sequence, not because of any property it has.

An intelligent choice can be made only in two situations:
(1) The chosen sequence has specific significance for a certain person (for example: his birthday is 14-15-02 and therefore he chose the sequence 141502, because of its content).
(2) The chosen sequence has general significance for him (it is beautiful, simple, orderly, and the like).
One can in effect claim the existence of situation (1) regarding any sequence whatsoever, by introducing specific information that I do not possess (why did the die fall on 141502 specifically? Conclusion: that is the thrower’s birthday), and since one must introduce specific information, and this can be done regarding any sequence whatsoever, it is not reasonable to do so.
By contrast, situation (2) represents a choice that belongs to all people, due to some factor x shared by all of them, without the need to introduce specific information, and therefore one need only assume there was intelligent human intervention in the die.

As for random choice, it is certainly possible that the sand scattered in the desert in some random-looking way was scattered there intentionally by a person, but that very act would count as random (if it has no specific meaning for the scatterer), and therefore it is not reasonable to posit an additional entity that intervened randomly in the scattering of the sand, when I already have at my disposal a mechanism that explains the random scattering in exactly the same way (winds blowing in the desert).

My claim is that if I see a special sequence in the die, I should infer that it went through the mechanism known to me as “intelligent human choice,” in the framework of which the probability of getting the special sequence is significantly greater than by randomness. When one mechanism explains the result with high probability, and the other with negligible probability, and there is no need to introduce specific information, I prefer the mechanism that explains the result with higher probability.
Within the class of “intelligent human choice” (without introducing specific information) are found only the special and “ordered” sequences.

It is like taking ten people and asking them: “Take a pen, and use it for what one uses it for, on the sheet in front of you.” It is quite possible that nine people will draw something completely random-looking (a scribble), and only one will write: “I think, therefore I am,” and despite that, if I see in the desert the inscription “I think, therefore I am,” I will assume that a person wrote it, unlike if I see random scattering.
More than that, it is likely that no one has ever written in any desert the following string of letters, “alzabakhdtsht,” whereas there have been many very specific stone scatterings done by human beings in the desert (children throwing stones for fun), and yet if I come across this inscription, I will infer that someone intended it.

As for inferring the existence of God, one must distinguish between two things: (1) Will the die sequences that are special in human eyes be special in the eyes of every intelligent entity? (2) Will the universe, which is special in human eyes, be special in the eyes of every intelligent entity?

My understanding at present is that the “human preferences” for certain sequences in the die do not stem from specific reasons (like a birthday), but rather from something more general and objective (even if not absolutely so). It is hard for me to imagine a thought-system of intelligent creatures (who understand the meaning of every number) that would see something special in the sequence 42632615 but not in the sequence 6666666 (again, without introducing specific information), or that would see something special in a scattering of stones that in our eyes is random-looking, but not in a scattering that creates a bowling-pin triangle (1,2,3,4 etc.). That is regarding the die.

As for the universe, the matter seems to me even less doubtful. When there are many systems of laws that create nothing complex (let us set that discussion aside), and one system that creates sophisticated beings like us, it is hard to imagine an intelligence (= someone who understands the significance of each system of laws) that would see something special in system x, which causes star a to be 10 km from star b, but not in system y, the only one that creates biological creatures with brains and thought.

This still requires grounding and expansion, but those are the ideas in brief (relatively speaking 🙂 ).

Now I noticed that you asked something a bit different (though I think the message is still relevant).
Regarding the case in which all the systems of laws would create life, and only one would not.
The question is what importance that parameter has in the eyes of someone intelligent. It seems to me that such a difference is indeed significant to someone who understands what each system of laws does. It is basically the only system of laws that breaks down every complex structure that comes its way, and it alone does so out of all the infinite possible systems of laws.
Of course every system of laws differs from every other, and one can find a parameter that distinguishes each individual system of laws from the rest. For example: only system no. 596 causes the distance between star a and star b to be 13.297 km; all the other systems of laws produce different distances. So here we found a parameter that distinguishes this system of laws from all the others.
What one really needs to examine is whether the uniqueness of that particular system of laws relative to the others is at the macro level. At the macro level it is hard to attribute uniqueness to the above-mentioned system of laws that creates a random distance between stars.
By contrast, a system of laws that alone does not create life—it is easy to understand that the difference between it and the others is at the macro level, and therefore the thing can be desired and wanted by someone intelligent.

To sum up: not every difference in some property can make a system of laws “desirable,” because one can find such a property for every system of laws, but only a property at the macro level (and perhaps when it is not at the macro level it is not even called a “property”).
The definition may still need sharpening.

y
I read the article and also your response. You are focusing on disqualifying what I said, and that’s fine, but I asked you a simple question: “Why, in your opinion, can a sequence of many repetitions of 123456 be more desirable to someone intelligent than any other sequence?” You are welcome to answer or not answer, but it’s a shame about all the bits being wasted without you answering anything.

Yishai, I absolutely did answer your question. You probably missed it amid the length of my remarks (of course they still need refinement, precision, and shortening, but the principle seems necessary to me), so I will quote the relevant part here:
“You asked why a sequence of 1,2,3,4,5,6 has a higher potential to be chosen by someone intelligent than any other sequence—the reason is precisely because the sequence is beautiful in his eyes. Even if that sequence were not objectively special, as long as it is special in human eyes that is enough to increase its potential to be chosen.” End quote.

Just as a scattering of stones that creates “bread and wine” is more desirable than some random sequence because it has meaningful content for a person (it has linguistic meaning), so too a sequence of throws of 1,2,3,4,5,6 is more desirable than some random sequence because it is beautiful and special *in human eyes*.

This can be presented simply as follows: suppose there were no sequence at all that was special in human eyes / had meaning for him. Then every sequence would be “desirable” to the same degree, x, and of course x would equal 1 divided by the total number of possible sequences. No sequence would be chosen because of its content, but only by random choice, because no sequence would have any uniqueness in human eyes.
Now, in reality, a few isolated sequences stand out in that their content is special (in a stone inscription—there is linguistic meaning to the inscription, and in the throwing sequence—there is aesthetic value in human eyes), whereas the other sequences remain random-looking. So in addition to their basic level of desirability (x), which can result from random choice (and is shared by all sequences), there is another route that can lead to the selection of the special sequences, which causes them to have a higher potential for being chosen, one greater than x.

And as for the stone inscription: in a random throwing of stones, all shapes can come out, including the inscription “bread and wine.” But the inscription “bread and wine” can also be produced by a parallel mechanism, namely “intelligent choice,” while the other random-looking stone scatterings cannot be produced through that mechanism.

Ido, regarding your question: “Do you think that some intelligent entity, not necessarily human, necessarily/almost always/in most cases when given the choice (delete the unnecessary parts as you see fit or rephrase) would choose Precisely the system of laws that differs from most of the other systems of laws?”
I thought about it more, and the answer is definitely no.
Suppose there are a thousand possible systems of laws, and only one creates life, and now we let ten thousand people choose some system out of all the systems of laws.
It is entirely possible that only a tiny minority would choose the special system of laws, but still, when we compare the number of people who chose the special system of laws with the number of people who chose one particular random system of laws, we will find that the number of choices of the special system of laws is greater.
Your question was whether in most cases they would choose the special system, but the right question is whether they would choose it more than *any other single system*.
In the present example, each system of laws would be chosen about 10 times, just as if we conducted ten thousand random drawings among a thousand systems of laws. But among the ten thousand people there would be 10 people (for example) who would say: “I choose system no. 152 specifically because it is the only one that brings life.” That would be an intelligent choice. So overall each system of laws would be chosen about 10 times (including the special system of laws), and in addition another 10 people would choose the special system out of intelligent choice, so overall it would be chosen 20 times, twice as much as any other system.
That difference gets smeared out and disappears when we ask your question (“Will the special system of laws be chosen in most cases?”) because the number of random systems of laws (999) is far greater than the number of special systems of laws (1). So only if the ratio between the probability of choosing the special system and the probability of choosing some random system were greater than the ratio between the number of random sequences and the number of special sequences (in our example, greater than 999 times), then the number of people who choose the special system would be greater than the number of people who choose a random system.

Y
I did indeed miss it, but I was actually right that you didn’t answer. What you answered was why, in your eyes, this sequence can be more desirable. It seems that you assume (and I of course agree) that most human beings are like you in this, and in their eyes too it can be desirable. But the question is why it should be more desirable to someone intelligent. The answer should of course be connected to intelligence, not to the empirical fact that human beings like this sequence. For that it needs to be objectively special.
When you come to discuss the fairness of a die, the potential cheater is a person, not some alien or strange intelligent entity, and then your claim is correct (by the way, in that discussion I think that is exactly what my opponent claimed—that it is a psychological matter), but again, then the word ‘intelligent’ should be removed from it. When talking about the creation of the world, and the suspect is an unknown intelligent entity, one must already have something objective.

Yishai
1. I mistakenly understood that you were asking about inferring a conclusion about a *person* who controlled the die, and then there is no need to arrive at objectivity.
2. I don’t think that is what Moshe argued against you. Your discussion there seems to ignore the very foundation I am stating here. You did not discuss the fact that an objectively special result contributes to its having a high potential to be chosen.
It looked something like: “It is objectively special, and therefore there is an intuition that this is not random.” In any case, I understand that you now agree with me that there is no escaping the understanding that specialness / complexity / difference are only parameters that contribute to raising the potential of choosing the special option, and not like all the discussions here until now that treated complexity as special only because it has a positive “special function (biology, chemistry),” like Paley’s watch, as opposed to something that is not complex. In my view, complexity works on two axes: 1. It causes there not to be many complex things and makes the result rare. 2. It provides something different and unique at the macro level.
In the opposite case, where all the systems of laws would create life except for one, that special something flips, but still remains special relative to the rest. According to the old definitions, perhaps in such a case one should not infer that the only system that does not yield life was chosen by intelligent choice, because it is not special in a positive sense like complexity versus simplicity (complex relations among particles versus simple relations); on the contrary, it gives fewer functions and fewer living creatures than the other systems, and is “less special.”
3. Perhaps our terminology regarding “objective” is different. It is certainly possible that you are right. My understanding is that every intelligent entity would see a single system of laws that creates life as special relative to the masses of other systems of laws that do not create life. But perhaps it is better not to use the word “special,” because then it sounds special in a positive sense (biology, chemistry, and so on), and better to use the sense of “unique,” which is a more relative concept—unique in relation to the rest.
On the matter itself, if for example there are a thousand black balls and one white one, I agree that the white one is objectively unique.
So too regarding the universe: a system of laws that brings life is objectively unique.
But regarding the special die sequences, my feeling is that the objectivity of this specialness is “softer,” and is more connected to psychology and to an intelligent consciousness that sees “specialness” Precisely in “simplicity” (after all, simplicity is the parameter that distinguishes the special sequences from the random-looking ones). It is hard for me to say that this is completely similar to the uniqueness of one black ball among a thousand white balls identical to it in every parameter except color. Maybe it is something in between, and maybe it depends on the question whether every intelligent entity would see “specialness” in “simplicity.” But maybe I am mistaken; I would be happy to hear your opinion.
Also think about a long sequence of throws that gives the number “pi”—it is hard for me to see that sequence as objectively special in a complete sense, like the black ball above. It is already a more context-dependent and “specific” kind of specialness, in my terminology.
In any case, the main “novelty” of my argument is not against the claim that this is something objective. I definitely think that a complex world is objectively special relative to the rest. The main novelty is understanding how this specialness helps us understand that if the special sequence came out, then someone caused it intentionally, and as a result the difficulty falls away: why think that a sequence of 1,2,3,4,5,6 was caused by someone, since it is equal in probability to any other sequence? (This question is asked both by someone who admits that the sequence is objectively special and by someone who does not, because even if it is objectively special, that does not make it rarer than any other sequence.)
Even if we use our intuition to explain why we think 1,2,3,4,5,6 is objectively special, this is already a reasonable use of intuition, because it only tells us that this thing is unique in the eyes of every intelligent being, and therefore we return to the clear explanation that the sequence has a high potential to be chosen. This is not like the old intuition: “Intuition says that something special is not created randomly,” which can be applied just as well to any other sequence.

Y,
I read the article and what was said here. I agree with what was said with respect to human beings.
But with respect to *every* intelligent being, not necessarily an alien who in our drawings looks like a human being with a slightly different body… but with respect to an intelligent being *essentially* different—would it too prefer a reality of:
1. Objective uniqueness as you define it—like 1000 balls of color X and one of Y.
2. A system with complex outputs.
3. Uniqueness that we see as unique—for example language, letters, maps, a series of digits, aesthetic forms, etc. etc.

It seems to me that you think [reading between the lines] that even though it may be that not every intelligent entity would choose 1 or 3, it would indeed choose 2. Why is a complex product different from anything else?

The things you answered others on this question are, in my opinion, very unclear and unsatisfying. I would be glad if you would expand on your words, because these ideas are novel and bring a bit of fresh air into the study hall. (Where is Rabbi Michael when you need him… let’s hope his strength wasn’t exhausted by the other reforms so quickly.)

Link to another response article, this time to Ido’s fifth article:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oGDe7oV2YfSMS6wGXzcCHncph9jgjz6O/view

Did Ido respond to all of this?

Daniel
He corresponded with me a bit by email and then disappeared.