Life with purpose

That's why I meant literally. Definitely some use to using it metaphorically, like the radio metaphor of consciousness. Consciousness isnt LITERALLY being transmitted to the body like radio waves.

But the Idealists I mention do think of reality as a kind of programmed simulation, just the underlying substrate is consciousness itself.

Which makes a certain kind of sense, in that programs are ultimately mental constructs resting on the mathematical truths of computer science.

However, there is another aspect to the argument and the sceptics have a point: most of the evidence presented as a challenge to neo-darwinism comes from ID proponents and, in particular, the scientists working for the Discovery Institute. That is a very Christian-Conservative organisation - not something I would be drawn to because I'm neither a Christian nor a Conservative. 

I'm not a Christian (or any religion for that matter), and also am not a conservative, so I also find these orientations of the DI mildly offensive. However, I find their scientific arguments for design in evolution so valid and compelling that I feel forced to give their position high credit for overturning the major pseudo-scientific "religion for atheists" of our time - Darwinism. The sceptic "argument" that the DI's scientific arguments are invalid because of the underlying belief that "God did it" is a classic example of the well known phony debating tactic, where obviously the religious orientation and political orientation of a person don't relate at all to the logical and scientific validity of that person's argument. I don't think the Darwin zealot skeptics have a point at all.

But if their questions are valid and the science behind their research can be checked - even if we don't agree with their ideological conclusions (God did it) - we should consider those questions. It seems to me that the reason the neo-Darwinist mainstream refuses to engage with the DI scientists has more to do with the motivation of the DI than the results of the research. I've often seen the argument that they don't engage because the DI research is not scientific and the reason it is not scientific is that it proposes a supernatural cause. Science, they maintain, is based on methodological naturalism which, by definition, excludes the supernatural.

I don't think there is any "if" any more, after the research already conducted. Especially as continued ground-breaking mainstream research into the molecular biology of cells continues to reveal layer after layer of additional intricate and complex designs, seemingly without limit. Darwinists are being forced to merely give occasional lip service to their faith (if remarking at all on how such new layers of complex design might have evolved Darwinistically).

Regarding the Darwin zealot skeptics' dismissal of ID because it is not scientific (in that it supposedly proposes a supernatural cause), most of the researchers and writers for ID in the DI and also not in the DI have repeatedly made clear that the scientific goal of ID is solely to establish that there must have been an intelligent origin of the incredible design of life - and that determining the nature of this intelligent designer or designers is not part of this scientific enterprise.

and that determining the nature of this intelligent designer or designers is not part of this scientific enterprise.

I know we've debated this but I just cannot [see] the validity of this refusal to engage the very crux of the question.

For myself I don't have a reason to reject ID, after all I have no problems with Proofs of God or Fine Tuning, but I will say it feels really hard to evaluate the argument.

Fine Tuning I can grasp by reading a single article. And what helps is even those who would deny there is/are Fine Tuner(s) still accept the constants are very refined. The deniers thus look, IMO at least, rather silly. [Though one can be somewhat agnostic about the whole thing, I'm thinking more about the people who start waxing on about the Multiverse.]

But with ID I simply could not tell someone else what the exact argument is or how to evaluate it from a layperson perspective. It makes me feel like I have to go back and get a bachelor's degree in Biology at minimum.

I know we've debated this but I just cannot [see] the validity of this refusal to engage the very crux of the question.

For myself I don't have a reason to reject ID, after all I have no problems with Proofs of God or Fine Tuning, but I will say it feels really hard to evaluate the argument.

Fine Tuning I can grasp by reading a single article. And what helps is even those who would deny there is/are Fine Tuner(s) still accept the constants are very refined. The deniers thus look, IMO at least, rather silly.

But with ID I simply could not tell someone else what the exact argument is or how to evaluate it from a layperson perspective. It makes me feel like I have to go back and get a bachelor's degree in Biology at minimum.

This reminds me - I recall that you indicated that when you had time you might come up with a list of possible intelligent designers, and I think, crucially of how their identity might be scientifically established. My point has been (in part) that this question of the nature of the designer(s) is very difficult if not unanswerable in any scientific way because it is long past any possibility of observation, and scientific analysis of the living designs and the fossil records themselves can't yield anything on the question beyond the obvious inference of the intervention of conscious intelligence of some kind. In other words, it's a dead end - not a scientific question, as has been realized by the ID researchers. Totally in the realm of speculation not science, albeit perhaps interesting speculation.

This reminds me - I recall that you indicated that when you had time you might come up with a list of possible intelligent designers, and I think, crucially of how their identity might be scientifically established. My point has been (in part) that this question of the nature of the designer(s) is very difficult if not unanswerable in any scientific way because it is long past any possibility of observation, and scientific analysis of the living designs and the fossil records themselves can't yield anything on the question beyond the obvious inference of the intervention of conscious intelligence of some kind. In other words, it's a dead end - not a scientific question, as has been realized by the ID researchers. Totally in the realm of speculation not science, albeit perhaps interesting speculation.

Ah yeah I do need to make that list, but I wanted to dig deeper into the history of Ufology.

But it isn't that hard to make some evaluation of the designers? For example if there's evidence the universe is a simulation, it makes sense those responsible for ID are the makers of the simulation.

ID researchers seems to be avoiding the obvious reality that tinkering with the genetic code in odd places while leaving us with debilitating diseases doesn't seem like something the same being who Finely Tuned the universe would do.

ID really should be a branch of parapsychology, that way the question of designers is set in a proper context.

I know we've debated this but I just cannot [see] the validity of this refusal to engage the very crux of the question.

For myself I don't have a reason to reject ID, after all I have no problems with Proofs of God or Fine Tuning, but I will say it feels really hard to evaluate the argument.

Fine Tuning I can grasp by reading a single article. And what helps is even those who would deny there is/are Fine Tuner(s) still accept the constants are very refined. The deniers thus look, IMO at least, rather silly. [Though one can be somewhat agnostic about the whole thing, I'm thinking more about the people who start waxing on about the Multiverse.]

But with ID I simply could not tell someone else what the exact argument is or how to evaluate it from a layperson perspective. It makes me feel like I have to go back and get a bachelor's degree in Biology at minimum.

I feel the same way. I bought two Stephen Meyer books and was impressed with his approach which seemed entirely scientific to my untrained eyes only to see various neo-darwinists dismiss them as unscientific. I do wonder whether those critics actually read the books because it should be noted that the prominent atheist philosopher and author, Thomas Nagel, recommended Meyer's "Signature in the Cell" for Book or the Year in the Times Literary Supplement. Nagel was, of course, ostracised by the atheist orthodoxy.

I feel the same way. I bought two Stephen Meyer books and was impressed with his approach which seemed entirely scientific to my untrained eyes only to see various neo-darwinists dismiss them as unscientific. I do wonder whether those critics actually read the books because it should be noted that the prominent atheist philosopher and author, Thomas Nagel, recommended Meyer's "Signature in the Cell" for Book or the Year in the Times Literary Supplement. Nagel was, of course, ostracised by the atheist orthodoxy.

IIRC the Nobel physicist Brian Josephson also praised Signature in the Cell so I think the claims it is unscientific is more a smear than an accurate representation.

Ah yeah I do need to make that list, but I wanted to dig deeper into the history of Ufology.

But it isn't that hard to make some evaluation of the designers? For example if there's evidence the universe is a simulation, it makes sense those responsible for ID are the makers of the simulation.

ID researchers seems to be avoiding the obvious reality that tinkering with the genetic code in odd places while leaving us with debilitating diseases doesn't seem like something the same being who Finely Tuned the universe would do.

ID really should be a branch of parapsychology, that way the question of designers is set in a proper context.

As I have pointed out, the ID researchers' plate is already full - just the task in the face of fanatical opposition of firmly establishing the presence of teleology in our evolutionary origins is daunting enough. The researchers have enough of a task in showing the irreducible complexity and unevolvability by undirected purposeless semi-random Darwinian processes of many biological structures. Just establishing this for example with the complex blood clotting mechanism is enough. So what if this system is occasionally disrupted by diseases such as hemophilia - it is important to know that the system itself couldn't have come about by a Darwinian mechanism. That it required an intelligent designer. Trying to answer probably ultimately unanswerable theological questions over why human suffering and disease can exist is outside the area of expertise. 

Biological organisms' incredibly complex systems of multiple subsystems aren't perfect (especially in that they can accumulate faults over time after the original creative system-building). This can be interpreted in various ways as to the nature of the designer(s), and much of this can be perhaps accepted as inevitable, absolutely necessary - the result of any designer having to make multiple design tradeoffs. 

ID theory fully accepts that genetic defects inevitably accumulate, which can disrupt many exquisitely balanced and intricate biological mechanisms. The point of ID research is that it establishes that these systems themselves required creative intelligence in their origin.  Obviously any intricately designed machine-like biological system can later be disrupted by randomly occurring genetic defects.  Michael Behe's latest research shows, in fact, that Darwinistic processes (i.e. random mutation and other genetic variations plus natural selection) inevitably can only break down intricate genetic structures - break genes - not build complex new structures. Mainly because random with respect to survival genetic variations have a vastly higher probability of disrupting genetic structures rather than building improved or new ones. Occasionally, genetically destructive "evolution" can occur by chance producing useful adaptations, but overall, the genome is degraded in the process. Overall, less genetic information, not more. Behe has shown that the Darwinian mechanism just can't build intricate machinery in the first place. It can just break it down.

As I have pointed out, the ID researchers' plate is already full - just the task in the face of fanatical opposition of firmly establishing the presence of teleology in our evolutionary origins is daunting enough.

But we have speculation occurring in other scientific fields, even the article in the original post is speculation.

Physicists speculate about the origins of the universe and the role - or ultimate lack thereof - of an observer/participant. We have brain researchers speculating about the nature of consciousness.

Dembski already posited a list of potential explains for design, including an "impersonal telic process" which isn't design at all. All he'd have to do is lay out a possible research program to see if we can made headway on the options he proposes.

For example there's been some speculation that bacteria use non-local communication to adapt faster, and that turtles store information in their local magnetic field. Are there Psi-type effects that can account for the some of the probabilistic squeezing?

A lengthy explication from the DI of the issue of whether ID research should try to identify the designer and why it doesn't:

The Short Answer: Intelligent design theory detects design by looking for the very general tell-tale signs that a designer was at work. The tell-tale sign that is usually looked for is a form of information produced only by the action of intelligence called "complex and specified information." When we find complex-specified information (CSI), all we can infer is that the object was designed by an intelligence. The mere presence of CSI does not tell us anything about the identity of the designer. The fact that ID does not identify the designer is only because of epistemological limitations of the scope of this scientific theory. This question is thus left as a religious or philosophical question outside the scope of intelligent design theory.
 

The scientific theory of intelligent design cannot name the identity of the designer, but only detects the past occurrence of intelligent design in the natural world. Intelligent design theory cannot name the designer because it works off the assumption that all designers in general create a certain type of information when they act. While we can detect that type of information in the natural world to infer intelligent design, finding that type of information does not give us any more information about the designer other than that the designer intelligently designed the object in question.

Many types of intelligent agents could produce identical objects with high levels of CSI (Complex Specified Information):

Supernatural Designer                   >  Input of CSI > High CSI Object
Natural Extra-terrestrial Designer  >  Input of CSI > High CSI Object
Human Designer                           >  Input of CSI > High CSI Object

Intelligent design theory can only find the object containing high levels of CSI and works backwards. While it can detect that the object was designed, it cannot discriminate what kind of designer designed the object, nor determine any specific properties about the designer, other than that it was an intelligent agent. All intelligent design theory can infer is that the object was designed. Intelligent design, as a scientific theory cannot identify the identity of the designer.

Intelligent design proponent and biochemist Michael Behe explains how we don't have to know the designer to be able to recognize intelligent design:
"Inferences to intelligent design do not require that we have a candidate for the role of the designer. We can determine that a system was designed by examining the system itself, and we can hold the conviction of design much more strongly than a conviction about the identity of the designer. In several examples above, the identity of the designer is not obvious. We have no idea who made the contraption in the junk-yard, or the vine trap, or why. Nonetheless, we know that all these things were designed because of the ordering of independent components to achieve some end.
[…]
The conclusion that something was designed can be made quite independently of knowledge of the designer. As a matter of procedure, the design must first be apprehended before there can be any further question about the designer. The inference to design can be held with all the firmness that is possible in this world, without knowing anything about the designer." (Michael Behe, Darwin's Black Box, page 196-197).

But shouldn't ID be able to determine the identity of the designer? Epistemology is the study of knowledge, or how we know what we know and involves investigating when a person is justified in holding a particular belief. Many of the objections and questions in this section relate to the specific claims that intelligent design theory makes, or supposedly ought to make. Implicit in many of the questions seems to be the belief that intelligent design is silent on certain issues when it shouldn't be.

A scientific theory makes claims about the natural world based upon observations of the natural world and employing empirically-based mechanisms to explain those observations. A scientific theory cannot make claims which go beyond things that are possible to observe and cannot employ mechanisms which in principle could not be empirically-justified.

Every theory therefore has empirical bounds and limitations. In other words, a theory can only explain those things which are possible to observe and explain using empirically-based mechanisms and the tools and technology available to us. Theories simply are not capable of explaining things beyond their empirical bounds and limitations.

A theory also cannot help the bounds that it has--those bounds are imposed upon it by the laws of physics, the nature of reality, and the ability of humans to innovate and empirically observe the natural world. The fact that a theory has bounds does not make it any less scientific, or any less potent within its empirical bounds; it just means that a theory is constrained by what it is possible to observe in the natural world.

For example, it would be foolish to ask the quantum physicist, "How does quantum tunneling explain how chlorophyll makes plants green?" or to ask the botanist, "What does our current understanding of mechanisms of photosynthesis tell us about fundamental particles that compose atoms?" Such questions extend beyond the empirical bounds and limitations of a theory and the tools used by the scientists in each respective field.

Intelligent design is a scientific theory that also has a particular scope. Intelligent design cannot be faulted if its scope is limited; nor can it be ignored or dismissed on answers it provides to questions within its scope simply because it fails to address a question we would prefer to lie within its scope, but doesn't. Asking intelligent design to answer questions outside of its scope is to make a category fallacy. It is like asking a bachelor to whom he is married, when a bachelor is by definition unmarried. To fault intelligent design theory for not explaining enough, when its empirically-based scope limits what it can explain, is to fall trap to the same mistake.

But what happens when questions are posed to the intelligent design theorist such as, "Who is the designer?" This is surely an interesting and important question. But for the scientist, the question must be asked, "What is the explanatory scope of intelligent design theory?" or more specifically, "How much can intelligent design theory explain based upon observations which are possible from the natural world?" Intelligent design bases its inferences on observations finding the type of complexity produced by intelligent agents when they operate. As noted, when it finds this sort of complexity, it cannot infer more than the mere conclusion that life was designed.

Not identifying the nature of the designer or the methods used is not a cop-out nor does it stem from an unwillingness to be honest about motivations. It results solely from the pure empirical limitations of scientific investigation.