On design and 'designoid,' which is which in the image here in the post below.

So far I have read two examples of designoids from Dawkins:

1. the human eye,

2. the hillside which etc. etc. etc. appears to viewers to look like a profile of Kennedy.

​

Designoid is a new word coined by Dawkins, you are an expositor of Dawkins' designoid.


I must ask you to be definite and be brief, because in much words there can slip in a lot of qualifications, equivocations, reservations, appeals to all kinds of human considerations, invocations of learning and prestige by the user of many words and self-invented words, I must ask you to be definite and concise:

1. Is designoid an appearance of design, or

2. Is it a design without a designer.​

I know the meaning of appearance, design and designer, and I trust that you also know what is appearance, what is design, and what is a designer, because these are words already known and used by people to communicate effectively among themselves to share their thoughts about appearance, about design, and about designer.


I am not in the habit of playing tripping game by insisting on clear and economical definitions of terms, but until we get our words mutually understood in unison, we will never get to come to conclusions that stand at least a chance of being accepted by us both.

Otherwise someone would continue to bring up the charge that his interlocutor does not understand a word as it should be understood, etc., etc., etc.





Pachomius

 

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Designoid is the appearance of design.

suff. (-oid)
A suffix or combining form meaning like, resembling, in the form of; as in anthropoid, asteroid, spheroid.​

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So is there a test then for the difference between a designoid [without designer] and a design [with designer], to avoid jumping to subjective conclusions?

How do we differentiate between the appearance of design and the presence of one?

Or are we just making it all up as we go along?

Actually philosophical thinking takes very little account of the person, it deals or should deal, purely with concepts.

 

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Yes. It's called reverse-engineering.

Actually it doesn't. A good philosopher always remembers the hermeneutical approach; whether the subject is purely conceptual or otherwise, context is always significant. But in any case, that wasn't my point. The point I wanted to stress was blind judgementality.

 

Could you apply that to Dawkins example of Kennedy's profile in a hill vs the human eye for clarification?

Philosophy is contextual? Thats a new one for me. I don't see "blind judgementality" in focusing on concepts rather than who initiated them. Quite the reverse.

Doesn't the hermeneutical approach apply traditionally to religious interpretation? Or rather interpretation of texts which are not scientific in their makeup?

 

Both. Designoid is not a new scientific term, or any radical new idea. It's just an attempt by Dawkins to explain how evolution works. His book to read on the subject is The Blind Watchmaker.

Evolution means that complexity does not require a complex agent for explanation. If a complex agent (a God) is required to explain complexity, then God must have a God. But evolution is not complex, it is the passive action of life. Either a gene is passed on or not. The DNA code accumulates those changes. Nothing but nature is required.

 

Why? Can God not design evolution?

 

We can see all it's working parts. It's unnecessary to postulate a God. Evolution can even be replicated on a basic level in a computer.

 

I can see all the working parts of a computer too. I don't comprehend how understanding the working of a process precludes the notion that someone designed it.

 

Sure.
If there had indeed been a designer, then the apparent image would have been much too accurate. In other words, intentional design doesn't grope about its objective, and that directive requires a level of efficiency in means that can reveal the designer.

Apparently.

Again, you miss my point. Pach has decided what he thinks of Dawkins' ideas not only without having read any of his work, but also asserting that he refuses to do so.

Nope. It once did indeed, but after Positivism the Continental philosophers began to make extensive use of the approach (they had to do something... hehe)....

 

Your argument is full of holes. What if the objective of the designer is to keep the design flexible to permit easy modulation under changing circumstances? Building a football field with a running track around it does not mean the objective is to have runners around the field. Maybe the designer wants to ensure that the football field can be expanded without breaking up the stadium if future standards change.

You mean he has heard of Dawkins concepts and would like to know the basis of his argument?

So philosophy has moved from deconstructing to interpretation. Do you see this as progress?

 

First, you say that "Designoid is not a new scientific term, or any radical new idea."


I am a student of the history of words, please just let me know when in time did the word designoid appear in the English language.

You can use the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language on Historical Principles (unabridged edition) as source for your answer; that work is a very reliable authority on the first appearances of a word in available written records of the English language.


Now, as to designoid denoting both (according to you reporting on behalf of Dawkins):

1. an appearance of design, and

2. a design without a designer.​

Why then did you say that I misunderstood the word designoid when I took it to mean the appearance of design?

Was my understanding correct or not that for Dawkins designoid means an appearance of design, even though you can say that it is not the complete understanding of the word, because it also means design without a designer.


Anyway, since designoid means both appearance of design and design without designer, can you just say that designoid means an appearance of design only because there is no designer involved?


So, for the purpose of this thread, in just ten words, can we agree that for Dawkins as explained by you, designoid means:

appearance of design only because there is no designer involved.​

Or you have to tell me again that I have misunderstood your words whatever.





Pachomius

 

We have a problem with this word because a design commonly implies a designer. We have to break up the meaning into two ideas.

1. The design. Commonly this means the configuration of parts as chosen by a designing agent.

2. It can also mean the configuration of parts alone, with no other implications.

Dawkins invented a new term which separates these ideas. "Designoid" means an object with a configuration of parts, but no designing agent.

It appeared in his book "The Blind Watchmaker". This book was intended to counter the common notion that complex objects always imply a designer, which is your assumption. The common argument was that, if you walk along a beach and find a watch, you assume someone designed (and built) the watch at some point, because it's complex, and couldn't come about through the random interaction of natural parts. However, evolution is a game-changer, and a consciousness-raiser. It is one of the most revolutionary scientific theories in the history of mankind. It says that simple things, which happen to be iterative (repeating), combined with a selection agent (not intelligent, but the natural selection of survival vs. non-survival), can work together to lead to forms that develop over time. The direction in which they develop is towards greater fitness defined as the ability to reproduce itself in a given environment.

The deal with design vs. designoid is that it is possible to tell the difference between them by certain key features. Designed things can make sudden leaps of design change, with no intermediate transitional forms. Designoid things can be recognized by strange design solutions that could only have come about if the design was limited to intermediate steps that each would increase fitness.

 

I thought it meant the appearance of design, without a designer?

Regardless, its hard to see how the random subjective Kennedy on the hill [designoid] which not everyone can see, can be compared to the not so random natural selection-resulting eye, which anyone can objectively identify as a system designed for vision and not anything else.

As usual, Dawkins is a sloppy thinker.

 

You are again into writing many words unnecessarily, please develop the skill and habit of using few words and attending to the question at hand.

Otherwise I will stop reading your posts and replying to them because it is a waste of my time and labor.

Now, either you accept what I have gotten from you that designoid means:

appearance of design only because there is no designer involved,​

or add some more words to it or remove some words from it, or forget about exchanging thoughts with me on what is designoid and what is design, because you are wasting my time and labor.

About the word designoid, you say that it is not a new term and not a new concept in science, but I am asking you when it was first used in the English language.

Just tell me when it was first used in the English language and give instances of its use and the dates and the writings where it appeared, in order to show me that it is not a new term and not a new concept in science.

Otherwise don't say that the word designoid is not a new term and not a new concept in science.


Please don't waste my time and labor.


And also divest yourself of the habit of claiming that people don't understand you correctly or Dawkins correctly, because it could be due to the fact that you are unintelligible, and not because readers of your words cannot get what you mean, or you keep bringing in more and more obfuscations parading them as profundities.

Now, just tell me did I get you and Dawkins correctly that for you two designoid means appearance of design?



I have to tell you that you have wasted my time and labor for nothing except to read your verbosity in aid of what to you seem to be your most learned way of writing many words to say things which are not relevant to the question at hand.

You don't believe that, that you are full of irrelevant and empty volubility? Well then, don't believe it; but I am not here to waste my time and labor with your parade of verbosity in aid of your pretension to profundity in words and in what? ideas, but to what purpose to the question at hand?





Pachomius

 

You miss my point.
From the perspective of, let's say, a detective of sorts, who is trying to determine whether or not a thing was designed, if it was assumed that the object in question was an artifice, then one could formulate a design plan that would bring about said artifice.
From this perspective, given the relevant level of sophistication of knowledge (engineering, for example) required, the most likely developmental path towards creating the artifice would become obvious. That then, when compared to the object in question, would reveal whether or not the object was an artifice (design) or a designoid.

Think of this example: a farmer's fallow field in late Spring/early Summer will appear to be regarded as a design: the regular, grid-like growth of the normal local vegetation in the filed will seem to be 'too-regular'.

?
You didn't read the OP?
Yes, in short. He has not, and indeed refuses to read Dawkins, but nonetheless began this thread.

That's a matter of perspective.
I would have to say no, but not for the reasons you're thinking of.
I say no because the view that the work of philosophy was (and/or is) deconstruction is incorrect. The work of philosophy always has been that of interpretation.

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Side note:
I have to say SAM, I'm always glad when you drop in here. Your critical 'eye' is refreshing.

cheers

 

Mod Hat

Pach,

All of your questions have been answered numerous times by a variety of people on here. Your stubborn refusal to recognize them, as well as your exhortations to others to change their language to suit you is not only tiresome but unproductive. In short, it is you who is guilty of wasting the time and labour of others.
Consider this a verbal warning for trolling/meaningless posts.
The next time you will receive a temp ban.

 

That is more or less correct.


As far as when the word first appeared, Dawkins invented it, and used it first in the book I mentioned above. I said it's not a scientific term, because it isn't. It's only term used by Dawkins to help explain things better to the layman. I went on to explain how the word is used in a broader context, because it is that broader context which is more important. Anyway, I hope we cleared it up and can move on.

 

But wouldn't that assume that the detective was at least familiar with the method of design? As Carl Sagan has aptly said:

To make an apple pie from scratch, you need to start with the universe [or something of the sort]

How does the knowledge that we think we know of part of the process, give anyone the expertise to decide what it means? Isn't that like what you are accusing Pach of doing?

Exactly. But an eye, with its rods and cones and dilating pupils and colorful irises and tear ducts to keep it moist and a nerve that has to travel to the brain before you can interpret what it sees. Thats a coarse and rudimentary designoid, not a fine tuned instrument of vision.

He's asking questions. If its interesting he will read it. I have read the science based books of Dawkins but I have never found him philosophically a sound thinker.

I beg to differ. I think phislosophy clarifies concepts for people. I do not think it interprets what people think.

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That worries me.

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The sloppy thinking you identify is what Dawkins was objecting to - with an example that was clear to you, apparently, and thus well chosen.

You reveal, once again, that you (like Pachomius here) have not read Dawkins either.

The testing process is called "science", and it proceeds by, among other things, proposing mechanisms and comparing the predictions of such hypotheses with subsequently collected data.

If you could not only see them, but formulate laws and mechanisms that explained their self-organization into their present configuration and operations; if you were surrounded by pieces and subassemblies of them at all levels of scale and complexity, recombining and functioning and falling apart again before your eyes; if the predictions of your hypotheses of self-assembly had been checked against the findings of multiple investigations in dozens of fields of inquiry; would you then rest content with the assumption of a designer of that finished product?

And if this pattern had been repeated thousands of times - the assumption of a designer proving inadequate, misleading, uninformative, contradicted - over and over and over again, with no counter-examples, how would you greet the latest version? With skepticism, one hopes.