Design & Intentionality

Paley's Argument of Design

P1: I can distinguish between what has the characteristics of design and what doesn't

P2: What has been designed must have a creator

P3: I can perceive design in the universe

C: Therefore, the universe must have a creator.

On Putnam's Argument of Intentionality

Putnam argues that for something to in itself (without another agent acting upon it) represent something else, intentionality is needed. In order for intentional representation to exist, the agent that creates must know of what it is creating. The example is given of an ant unknowingly drawing a perfect image of Winston Churchill in the sand. Even though the sand drawing looks like Churchill to us, it doesn't necessarily represent Churchill in itself, as our knowledge of Churchill ascribes meaning to it.

Implications On Creation

You stumble across a watch in the forest. Miles away from civilization, you perceive its intricate watch face carved with the initials of what you assume to be its previous owner. Coincidence is no argument, so you must assume that someone made this watch at some point.

This argument can be extrapolated to refer to the universe as a whole, arguing for a creator or a God. While Aquinas' argument may be fallacious due to its reliance on and ultimate rejection of causality, the analogy stands as the easiest-to-understand attempt to prove the existence of a creator.

Ultimately, design, in many ways relies on the intention of a creator. A watch may not be perfect, but its creator at least attempted to "create" or bring something into existence.

This line of thought brings up the idea that "A term refers to an object only if there is an appropriate causal connection between that term and the object." In light of a different analogy, from Putnam's writing, the ant's design of Winston Churchill in the sand would signify intentionality.

The image of Winston Churchill cannot represent anything in and of itself on any inherent scale, for, Putnam argues, the intent of the ant was previously unknown to man. Yet the initial intentionality of the ant could never truly be discovered, and this leads to the relationship between art and the artist.

What does intentionality mean for our creation? Can we know if we're designed or not? Can there be a God if we're not designed?

Human Life

Above is a famous example of the triangle of life (or death). Students going through high school or college tend to make sacrifices in at least one vertices of diagram, (as we did with sleep working on this project), visually representing the impossibility of perfect balance.

Moreover, even if a student appears to have all three (which would be a complete rarity), they will never be in the absolute middle of the triangle, because equilibrium in that regard would mean absolute perfection, and so long as we are finite beings, we cannot be perfect.

God

Descartes claims that God is the most perfect, infinite, existing being in the universe, yet there is a fatal fallacy, as the equilibrium point of all three states being true could not be true. The triangle of life can be correlated with the triangle of God, and therefore, we can look at the correlation between God and life respectively.

Perfection should not imply existence in the same way that not having a social life does not imply having good grades.

PHR380-Final-Project-Ep-3.mp4

Transcript (edited for clarity)

Episode III: Design & Intentionality

[00:00] Genie: Putnam, on the second page of his Brains in a Vat, states that, "So it may seem that what is necessary for representation, or what is mainly necessary for representation, is intention, but to have the intention that anything should represent Churchill, I must have been able to think about Churchill in the first place.

[00:20] Henry: So if we think about this in combination with Paley's watchmaker analogy, and we think about the implications of that for the creation of the universe, we can have the possibility that a creator that once existed set the universe in motion and evolution by extension in motion, so that would mean that the creator would only need to be intelligent and powerful enough to be able to create the universe and set it in motion. And if you think about creation, right, I can create something that I don't fully understand, and I can also create something that I won't fully understand in the future once changes take place. So that means it's possible that the creation of humans was not only not intended, but also not even thought about by the creator. And that brings up the existential question, were humans meant to exist in the first place? And if we weren't, that means that or actually you just don't know if we know if humans represent humans in themselves, and therefore to make humans represent humans, sentience is necessary in some form to ascribe meaning to humans in that case. So on an individual basis, we can say that specific humans are created with intention, I guess by their parents, but we can't make the same conclusion for all of humanity ultimately.

[01:48] Genie: And I think creators by definition have unintended intentions to begin with, and so I suppose we can never truly know whether we were meant to be created or we could never truly know if we as humans are humans, or if ants are ants that were created with any level of intention, we can't assume the intentionality of ants, the watch that has been made, or even people, and therefore we can't know when we're thinking about creators that they were designing the picture of Winston Churchill or doing any action. So we could so the question then would be, could we ever make such assumptions? We talked about art and the artist in class, but what if that extended beyond to God and us as human beings? Can we ever know the distinction between design and intentionality of any creation to ever exist? Is there a natural law and order that all subjects must follow? And if God didn't know what he was designing, would he have created us in the first place, if he had absolutely no unintended intentions?

[02:53] Henry: Right that brings to the question of evil in the world, because it's a lot more probable to think that evil could exist in the world, if we see it as an unintended consequence of the creator creating something that created us, and us being beings capable of evil, or, perhaps in the original creation, evil wasn't even thought about, or in fact, we have created the conception ourselves.

If God didn't necessarily create us specifically with intention or thought, does that mean that we don't have creators? And even more, does that mean that since we don't represent humans in ourselves, does that mean by calling ourselves humans, we have created humans?

[03:35] Genie: And this refers back to Putnam's idea, where he says if a creation was created with no intention, then it doesn't represent that creation. And I think when it comes to humans, if we were to accept that we created ourselves, then we as humans by definition cannot represent the ideal being, or even the existential being of a human itself, because we are the ones who had no intention to begin with. In a way we could consider objects certain objects to be more perfect, but in reality, perfection doesn't exist insofar as an object is in existence in the physical world, because there comes a point in time where perfection just becomes absolutely impossible. It's a merely idealistic state that cannot be achieved. And this honestly reminded me of the relationship triangle, the triangle where sleep, socializing and studying are all on separate corners and you essentially can't have all three because you will never achieve a perfect state of equilibrium between all three. And I think this comes back to if we replaced sleep studying and socializing with God, perfection, and infinite or finite relationships, he can be infinite if he's not perfect, but God cannot be infinite if he is perfect and exists, and if he is perfect and he does exist as Descartes says, then there must have been a predecessor to God and God must ultimately be finite.

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