3 ms·

Wait, I'm confused. You express disbelief at the recommendation of a book against intelligent-design, but you seem to end your comment in the opposite tone: >

Wait, I'm confused. You express disbelief at the recommendation of a book against intelligent-design, but you seem to end your comment in the opposite tone: > ...yet, these all are strong evidence there is no designer beyond it all. It's mere chance, bits on a string selected by nature. Are you saying that you believe that random processes are the designer?

cristianpascu 13y ago
Sorry for the confusion, I was ironic.
- jonahx 13y ago
  I am still confused. So your non-ironic argument -- your serious argument -- is one for intelligent design? How is that the most upvoted comment on HN? Because honestly, the only way my mind can make sense of that fact is by postulating the existence of an all powerful being able to bend reality to his will....
- jeffbr13 13y ago
  Ah, I see, it's difficult to parse before coffee... But it's not just > mere chance, bits on a string selected by nature but an incredibly complex and chaotic system ("the universe") with billions of feedback loops, with agents both affecting the universe and being affected by it and their own actions. It's not surprising that with all the processes occurring (many of them [chaotic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory), if not truly random) we get emergent behaviours, and then even more emergent behaviours on top of those! You can define "Life" to be the set of self-sustaining phenomena, and there are remarkably few of those. But then that's what makes it exciting! Large phenotypes (individual organisms) consist of billions of cells each doing their own thing and interacting with others in very specific ways, and every one of these is in turn a complex system of proteins and molecules doing the same, which are all complex arrangements of atoms, etc. The complexity of life on earth is owed to exceedingly hospitable conditions and the good luck of not one, but multiple levels of self-sustaining mechanisms bootstrapping themselves. But it still took literally billions of random events for those to occur. Each level works according to the interactions of those below, but they each exist due to exceedingly good luck.
- sampo 13y ago
  You have the honor of being the first creationist I have met in Hacker News!

cristianpascu 13y ago

Sorry for the confusion, I was ironic.

jonahx 13y ago
I am still confused. So your non-ironic argument -- your serious argument -- is one for intelligent design? How is that the most upvoted comment on HN? Because honestly, the only way my mind can make sense of that fact is by postulating the existence of an all powerful being able to bend reality to his will....
jeffbr13 13y ago
Ah, I see, it's difficult to parse before coffee... But it's not just > mere chance, bits on a string selected by nature but an incredibly complex and chaotic system ("the universe") with billions of feedback loops, with agents both affecting the universe and being affected by it and their own actions. It's not surprising that with all the processes occurring (many of them [chaotic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory), if not truly random) we get emergent behaviours, and then even more emergent behaviours on top of those! You can define "Life" to be the set of self-sustaining phenomena, and there are remarkably few of those. But then that's what makes it exciting! Large phenotypes (individual organisms) consist of billions of cells each doing their own thing and interacting with others in very specific ways, and every one of these is in turn a complex system of proteins and molecules doing the same, which are all complex arrangements of atoms, etc. The complexity of life on earth is owed to exceedingly hospitable conditions and the good luck of not one, but multiple levels of self-sustaining mechanisms bootstrapping themselves. But it still took literally billions of random events for those to occur. Each level works according to the interactions of those below, but they each exist due to exceedingly good luck.
sampo 13y ago
You have the honor of being the first creationist I have met in Hacker News!