ant wrote:Identifying a vastly superior intelligence or anyything it has designed would also be beyond or understanding.
It's astounding how hubristic some people are about Nature being blind and the universe being born from nothingness.

There could be a naturalistic deity that created everything and went to sleep. You're right that it's hubristic to say a god exists. Or to say that no definition of god is possible.

You're trying (poorly) to put words in my mouth.
You're also spinning like a top, once again.

Please be nice.

Ant wrote:Identifying a vastly superior intelligence or anything it has designed would also be beyond our understanding.

That might be the ultimate dragon in the garage. It exists, but man is not capable of detecting or understanding it.

ant wrote:You're trying (poorly) to put words in my mouth.
You're also spinning like a top, once again.

Please be nice.

Are you saying you only pretend to be an agnostic?

LanDroid wrote:

Ant wrote:Identifying a vastly superior intelligence or anything it has designed would also be beyond our understanding.

That might be the ultimate dragon in the garage. It exists, but man is not capable of detecting or understanding it.

I think we can rule out the existence of dragons on this planet. As far as dragons existing within one of countless universes that science posits exists, I do not know.

Intelligence that exceeds ours, the way we exceed an ant's intelligence (who are quite literally near oblivious of our existence) is another matter.
But of course we have modest people like you and Interbane to tell us that homo sapien intelligence is vigorous enough to rule that out.

You're so humble it's annoying, Lanroid.

Flann:
This sentence exists materially on a screen as codified language but it's meaning transcends the material constituents because of it's precise specified arrangement.

Here is where we can say "the algorithm done it"

He found explaining the origin of genetic information difficult and talked about energy infused into matter creating something akin to a designed order.

Marshall introduced the idea of the potential of the second law of thermo dynamics and the Suns energy as part of pre Cambrian development, again, another difficult proposal, particularly to a lay audience. (there is a thread here on Booktalk.org dedicated to the second law).

He used the analogy of a foundation and different structures being built on that foundation. Once a particular structure is built on it it's fixed, and so he says that once it is committed to the body form of a jellyfish or a sponge it can't be messed with after that.

I think the analogy of a buildings foundation was easy to understand, That foundation represents common structure, the rest of the building makes the structure unique, these structures are built over long periods of time.

I thought what was said about sponges was quit interesting, Sponges have no organs, but yet they have all the requisite base genetic ingredients necessary for organ development. (sponges, go figure!)

Even this implies restrictions to further evolution of these organisms I think.

When growth is restricted, a new branch is formed, life goes on.

This is blind and unguided and I think Meyer showed it doesn't produce the kind of order that can be equated with genetic information which is complex and specified.

Who's to say that sometime soon genetic information wont be so complex, and specifics I like, precise detail in nature such as Fibonacci numbers, how golden that nature does such a thing.

For Marshall this means there isn't so great a need for tremendous amounts of new genetic information for the Cambrian animals since it is so structured or unfolds in his words, for economical use of genetic information in many ways, often towards the same ends in different organism.

Were talking about terrestrial life, there should be an economics of commonality.

A lion or a tree are astonishing constructions and matter producing consciousness is hard to explain in material terms alone.

Which is why people like Marshall, Lennox, Meyer, Dawkins etc... have their respective works cut out for them, I don't envy the work, I can sometimes admire though.

Matter producing consciousness; When I think about this... I can only imagine the necessity of survival, the propagation of life, the variation time allows or forces... and how these things among others such as eusocial behavior, all that is morality and life... Well I think, its just a fluke!, I let you guess as to that to which I reflexively thank for it.

Here is where we can say "the algorithm done it"