The Ingredient Complexity Argument – Dawkins
Hello Rabbi Michi,
In “God Plays Dice,” p. 219, in connection with Dawkins’ claim regarding “Hoyle’s Fallacy,” you write this:
“Daukens assumes that God must be complex, since his complexity is a necessary conclusion from the complexity of his creation. This conclusion is based on the desired assumption that creation by God is random and blind, as we explained above.”
I appreciate your clarification:
- What is the explanation of the phrase “Creation by God is random and blind creation?”
- What is the connection between the assumption that the creation of the world was done blindly and the complexity of the creator? That is, why does assuming that the creation was done intentionally change anything in the context of the complexity of the creator?
If something X that is complex is created by a deterministic machine then the complexity of the machine must be greater than the complexity of X. But if a volitional and intelligent entity creates X then it does not have to be complex. It builds the machine from a program that it itself creates and not from a structure that is embedded in it. Such an entity must be intelligent but not necessarily complex.
Think of a person creating a machine versus a robot creating it. The robot must be very complex because the entire structure of the machine lies within itself. The person, on the other hand, needs to be intelligent but not necessarily complex.
But isn't it true to say that the human mind must be more complex than anything it creates?
What is the definition of “complex” in this context?
In my opinion, no. The mind is spiritual and therefore does not have the complexity of a machine. It has an intelligence that can create complexity.
We are repeating ourselves, which is unnecessary because in any case this is just a side point. Even if God is complex, he does not need a cause (a cause of himself).
Dawkins was talking more about perfection in my opinion. If the world is so ordered, the order must also be no less ordered, unless there is no order and the order was created by improbable randomness. Either way, atheism must be assumed. By saying that God does not have to be a creator you are only making his existence less plausible than the world. It is absurd to say that God does not have to have a cause as part of an argument that talks about order or complexity..
If the mind is spiritual, then why is it the brain that performs the thinking process?
We will never discover a pure mind that thinks without mechanical aids.
So, God is not a position on the familiar!
No?
Ohad,
I have already explained why I disagree. When the Creator is an intelligent being, then order is not inherent in him but created by him. I see no point in repeating that over and over again. What I wrote that I argued makes him less reasonable than the world is a collection of words that I was unable to make sense of. I think you did not read my words and the argument as I presented it.
.,
How will a pure mind that thinks without a brain or other mechanical aid be revealed to you? Do you have tools that can see non-material things? Everything that appears here in the world appears through a material medium, and so does the mind.
The claim that the mind thinks is refuted from within. Thinking is a mental act, and the mind is a physical being. At most, it can be said that we think through the brain, not that the brain thinks. I dealt with this in several places in the discussion on emergentism. You can search here.
So God is not orderly and not complex? Necessarily simple and a bit messy? That's a good explanation but it sounds a bit problematic to me as a description of the God of Judaism. Besides, I don't see any logic in assuming that God is intelligent when we know that there can be ordering mechanisms that create order without an intelligent designer, with evolution being the most familiar.
You can of course scoff all you want, but there are excellent explanations here for all your questions. You are repeating things that have already been answered, and I see no point in continuing. I'll end here.
Just one point that was raised here (and answered in parallel threads). There is no creation of order without planning. The laws of nature are what enable evolution, and the planner created them. Therefore, evolution is irrelevant to the discussion in any way. I expanded on this in the book God Plays Dice and in the article that summarizes it.
I'm not mocking anything, I'm just explaining why mechanisms of order such as evolution show that it is problematic to assume a designer. Evolution is relevant because it created one of the arrangements we know without any designer, which shows that order can be created under our laws of nature without a designer. So you ask what created the laws of nature, but that's a completely different question. The argument is about order in the world, not about the order of the laws of nature. The laws of nature created black holes and exploding stars and other things where the last thing they mention is order. So I'm just asking why the assumption of order and therefore order exists despite mechanisms of order that remove the need for a designer (the first day I thought of it, to the best of my memory). You didn't address that directly. In any case, I would love an article that summarizes God playing dice.
I was asked about my argument, not yours. My argument deals with laws, not reality. If you want to attack an argument you're making, go for it. But why here?
An article that summarizes part of it: https://mikyab.net/%d7%9e%d7%90%d7%9e%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%9d/%d7%9e%d7%91%d7%98-%d7%a9%d7%99%d7%98%d7%aa%d7%99-%d7%a2%d7%9c-%d7%99%d7%97%d7%a1%d7%99-%d7%90%d7%91%d7%95%d7%9c%d7%95%d7%a6%d7%99%d7%94-%d7%95%d7%90%d7%9e%d7%95%d7%a0%d7%94/
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