Thanks Interbane.Interbane wrote:Going from simple to complex isn't a starting principle. It's a pattern we see in nature, and if it is a principle, it's one reached as a conclusion, rather than a starting condition. We know the elements start from simple and go to complex. We know life goes from simple to complex.
How do you know life goes from simple to complex? I know this is what neo Darwinism maintains.As far as I understand it,in nature life generates life. And the program of life in D.N.A. and it's execution is exceedingly complex and could hardly look more purposeful than it does.The simplest life forms are not simple.
It also appears that in nature genetic information is lost, as exampled in selective breeding and the loss of potential characteristics to subsequent generations. Arguably there is a loss of complexity here and the direction is opposite in these cases.
And by analogy, intelligent humans devise,design and make complex things like submarines for instance. The component parts may be simple but the submarine already exists whole in the mind of the designer and that designer is vastly more complex than the submarine.
Thus, a submarine is constructed from varied and simple components into a complex entity. but is built following the original plan and blueprint created by it's designer.
It would seem that naturalism requires a simple to complex model to explain the complexity of life and the universe.That's Richard Carrier's logic and why he ends up where he does on the origin of the cosmos.