I finally got around to reading this substack article.
This new way of formulating a definition of ID comes very close to the metaphysical principle of intelligibility or sufficient reason for existence (PSRE). In Thomistic existential metaphysics information can be equated to a 'record of decision-making' by an outside source within an essence or formal cause or exemplar in the mind of an artisan, human or divine. This is the amount of yes-no, exist-don't-exist decisions that go into assembling an essence. The larger the number of decisions, the greater the amount of information in that exemplar. The more information goes into an essence, the more existence must be given to that essence in its 'act of to be', to bring that essence from a mere real 'potential existence' (an existible, a possibility) to a real but actual being. Thus existence becomes a measure of information in the essence. The PSRE becomes an accounting principle for 'sufficient reasons' to invoke the actual existence of a potential existence or 'existible' (essence or exemplar).
There are 2 extrinsic sufficient reasons in the PSRE to account for the existence of a being which does not exist of itself (does not have sufficient information intrinsic to itself to output the information it does). The first extrinsic sufficient reason of a contingent being is called its efficient cause, its realizing or actualizing 'raison d'être', that which makes it a reality or actuality, pulls it from non-existence into existence. The second extrinsic sufficient reason is as follows: we say that a means which is not willed for its own sake but in view of an end has its extrinsic sufficient reason in that end. Thus we see that the extrinsic sufficient reason for existence is either the efficient or final cause (See 'God, his Existence and his Nature' vol 1, by Reginald Garrigou Lagrange, p 183).
It is not surprising that your new definition of ID in informational terms tracks closely the PSRE because the amount of existence given to an essence tracks the amount of information in that essence. In that sense the PSRE is convertible into a PSRI, a 'principle of sufficient reason for information', which is what your new definition of ID does. It also not surprising to find that this new definition of 'intelligent' design hovers so close to the principle of 'intelligibility' (the PSRE). For these reasons I think this is a much better definition of ID, because it acknowledges its metaphysical roots in the amount of external decision-making that goes into intelligently designing an essence or potential existence before bringing it into existence.
Thanks Marc. I always appreciate the measured Aristotelian perspective you bring to intelligent design and to my work in particular. The connection you draw between existence and information in the PSR_ (fill in the blank with an E or an I) seems spot on. Regarding the new definition, I think it is more accurate. That said, it's probably best presented after people understand the simpler definition that I still continue to give as a first approximation: "Intelligent design is the study of patterns in nature best explained as the product of intelligence." I'm going to be in Poland next week for a big ID conference -- https://faithandscience.pl/program/ -- and I fully expect to be interacting with Thomists/Aristotelians. I plan to use the simpler definition as a first salvo, but then probably in discussion will bring in the new definition. --Bill
Wow, thanks so much for posting this Bill. Hope you faired ok in the aftermath of Beryl? I really like how you have synthesised the various concepts/definitions relating to this topic. I especially like the inclusion of ‘Capacities’. Does this new definition of ID bring it more in-line with Informational Realism? It would be great (speaking for myself at least) if you could use your classic golfing parable to help illustrate the subtle nuances of these suggested changes to the definition of ID. I really appreciated this parable to help my understanding of the metaphysics of information presented in your ‘Being as Communion’ publication. Thanks again, Jeff
Bill wrote: "Intelligent design is the study of systems whose information output is best explained as the result of intelligently inputted external information rather than the inherent capacities of the systems."
I'm not sure what "information output" means.
I'm trying to work out how I would say the above... how about...
Intelligent design is the study of systems whose information **content** is best explained as the result of **an injection of** external information rather than the inherent capacities of the system **and its surroundings**.
While I love the informational theme, my feeling is that information can be a really slippery term because it is so difficult to quantify, and thus is often intuitive rather than empirical.
I don't think this realistically gets us any closer to anything we could use in practice. If I offer you two smoothed pebbles, one of which was shaped by the action of the sea and sand, the other of which I tumbled at home in one of those polishing machines for the purpose of making jewelry, but which otherwise have indistinguishable form and physical properties, how would these information measures distinguish the designed pebble from the natural one?
Or as another example, how would these information measures allow us to distinguish between a footprint of my child in cement through an accident, and the footprint of that child we took in clay as a keepsake? They are both the same foot, pressed into hardening materials. I see no intrinsic properties of these footprints, nor any properties that inform any of your information metrics, which would distinguish the designed footprint from the accidental one.
Hi Matt. It's a long-standing point in the ID literature that intelligence can act to mimic natural/chance-based processes. With the smooth pebbles, they could be formed naturally in a running stream or artificially in a rock tumbler. In such cases, there may be no way to distinguish the two types of rocks. This is not a problem or inconsistency for design inferences or design metrics. It simply means that in the effect-to-cause reasoning that is inherent in the logic of design, there's no way to draw the distinction. But compare this to the same pebbles that spell our "John loves Mary" versus a random assemblage. Here the distinction between design and non-design is clear.
Similar considerations hold for your other example. In the same vein, I considered in one of my writings an embossed sign saying "Eat at Joe's" that falls over in a snow storm and embeds a mirror image of "Eat at Joe's" in the snow. The sign fell over by chance, but the message embossed in the snow traces back to an intelligent information act. It's the same type of example as you consider with your child's footprint. The sign could also have been deliberately imprinted on the snow. Design inferences depend on what features of design one is looking at, and the design inferential logic has certain built-in limitations. In any case, the new definition makes much clearer the role of externally applied information in comparison to internally generated information for systems. This, it seems to me, is an advance.
I’m not sure what the new definition of ID gets you.
The argument on design is currently not a rational one. Maybe a few are interested in a logical debate but nearly every atheist isn’t. And they are winning which is frustrating.
An atheist cannot provide a coherent argument for why anything exists let alone how such complex things such as life or Evolution happened. It just did according to them and that with natural selection wins the argument.
Since it is all about politics, then maybe a political approach is necessary. I suggest ID endorse Darwin and natural selection as part of ID. Darwinian ideas obviously fail for Evolution but they are wholly accepted by ID for genetics for many adaptations.
Make Darwin a poster boy for ID and show how his ideas can effect change within a species but that there is minimal to zero evidence that it works for a new species. Force the argument into a new area, the creation of novel proteins. They have no answer.
Also disavow Young Earth Creationism. ID is closely identified with this form of creationism. I asked a high school biology student recently about ID and he replied, you mean creation 6,000 years ago. That was the traditional defense of materialism 20 years ago and still is. This biology student knew zero about the origin of proteins and why it was essential for meaningful change to happen. I’m sure his instructor didn’t either. Natural selection is magical to them.
"Once, however, one of my students came to the graduate assistant room and engaged me in conversation; this would have been, perhaps, 1994. He presented a version of the Argument from Design called the “Fine Tuning” Argument. (I will discuss it some more below.) Again, this made an impression on me; as I found I had no response, there were tears in my eyes, to my consternation. To this day I am not quite sure why. The student left quickly, no doubt tactfully leaving me to my thoughts. Perhaps I was only ashamed that I was unable to respond. But ever after that, as a nonbeliever, I always thought the Fine Tuning Argument was perhaps the strongest argument in the theist’s arsenal."
"The Argument from Design shows only that the universe has some sort of designer or other. An Argument from Morality might add that the designer is benevolent, to some degree, in some way, but not even necessarily personal. But what happens when we combine all the arguments to make a unified case for the existence of God? I’m not sure the idea had ever dawned on me, certainly not with its present vividness. Taken together, the arguments point to a necessary being that exists apart from space, time, and matter. This is the very cause of the universe, which was designed according to orderly abstract laws."
Thanks for the reference. It’s long and right now I have other priorities so reading all of it is probably not going to happen.
I am not sure what the two excerpts are supposed to mean. I believe that all the evidence and logic point to a creator. The argument should then be on the nature of the creator.
My comment above was made 7 months ago and was meant to illustrate the opponents of a creator and specifically ID are irrational but are still winning the day. It is possible to make a thousand relevant and validated comments for/in defense of ID and opponents still dominate with irrelevant irrational emotional comments.
Non logic is dominant and why this is so is the more interesting phenomenon.
Hi Bill,
I finally got around to reading this substack article.
This new way of formulating a definition of ID comes very close to the metaphysical principle of intelligibility or sufficient reason for existence (PSRE). In Thomistic existential metaphysics information can be equated to a 'record of decision-making' by an outside source within an essence or formal cause or exemplar in the mind of an artisan, human or divine. This is the amount of yes-no, exist-don't-exist decisions that go into assembling an essence. The larger the number of decisions, the greater the amount of information in that exemplar. The more information goes into an essence, the more existence must be given to that essence in its 'act of to be', to bring that essence from a mere real 'potential existence' (an existible, a possibility) to a real but actual being. Thus existence becomes a measure of information in the essence. The PSRE becomes an accounting principle for 'sufficient reasons' to invoke the actual existence of a potential existence or 'existible' (essence or exemplar).
There are 2 extrinsic sufficient reasons in the PSRE to account for the existence of a being which does not exist of itself (does not have sufficient information intrinsic to itself to output the information it does). The first extrinsic sufficient reason of a contingent being is called its efficient cause, its realizing or actualizing 'raison d'être', that which makes it a reality or actuality, pulls it from non-existence into existence. The second extrinsic sufficient reason is as follows: we say that a means which is not willed for its own sake but in view of an end has its extrinsic sufficient reason in that end. Thus we see that the extrinsic sufficient reason for existence is either the efficient or final cause (See 'God, his Existence and his Nature' vol 1, by Reginald Garrigou Lagrange, p 183).
It is not surprising that your new definition of ID in informational terms tracks closely the PSRE because the amount of existence given to an essence tracks the amount of information in that essence. In that sense the PSRE is convertible into a PSRI, a 'principle of sufficient reason for information', which is what your new definition of ID does. It also not surprising to find that this new definition of 'intelligent' design hovers so close to the principle of 'intelligibility' (the PSRE). For these reasons I think this is a much better definition of ID, because it acknowledges its metaphysical roots in the amount of external decision-making that goes into intelligently designing an essence or potential existence before bringing it into existence.
Marc Mullie MD
Montreal
Thanks Marc. I always appreciate the measured Aristotelian perspective you bring to intelligent design and to my work in particular. The connection you draw between existence and information in the PSR_ (fill in the blank with an E or an I) seems spot on. Regarding the new definition, I think it is more accurate. That said, it's probably best presented after people understand the simpler definition that I still continue to give as a first approximation: "Intelligent design is the study of patterns in nature best explained as the product of intelligence." I'm going to be in Poland next week for a big ID conference -- https://faithandscience.pl/program/ -- and I fully expect to be interacting with Thomists/Aristotelians. I plan to use the simpler definition as a first salvo, but then probably in discussion will bring in the new definition. --Bill
An excellent clarification and extention of the definition of intelligent design
Wow, thanks so much for posting this Bill. Hope you faired ok in the aftermath of Beryl? I really like how you have synthesised the various concepts/definitions relating to this topic. I especially like the inclusion of ‘Capacities’. Does this new definition of ID bring it more in-line with Informational Realism? It would be great (speaking for myself at least) if you could use your classic golfing parable to help illustrate the subtle nuances of these suggested changes to the definition of ID. I really appreciated this parable to help my understanding of the metaphysics of information presented in your ‘Being as Communion’ publication. Thanks again, Jeff
Without having reading the article yet... :-)
Bill wrote: "Intelligent design is the study of systems whose information output is best explained as the result of intelligently inputted external information rather than the inherent capacities of the systems."
I'm not sure what "information output" means.
I'm trying to work out how I would say the above... how about...
Intelligent design is the study of systems whose information **content** is best explained as the result of **an injection of** external information rather than the inherent capacities of the system **and its surroundings**.
While I love the informational theme, my feeling is that information can be a really slippery term because it is so difficult to quantify, and thus is often intuitive rather than empirical.
I don't think this realistically gets us any closer to anything we could use in practice. If I offer you two smoothed pebbles, one of which was shaped by the action of the sea and sand, the other of which I tumbled at home in one of those polishing machines for the purpose of making jewelry, but which otherwise have indistinguishable form and physical properties, how would these information measures distinguish the designed pebble from the natural one?
Or as another example, how would these information measures allow us to distinguish between a footprint of my child in cement through an accident, and the footprint of that child we took in clay as a keepsake? They are both the same foot, pressed into hardening materials. I see no intrinsic properties of these footprints, nor any properties that inform any of your information metrics, which would distinguish the designed footprint from the accidental one.
Hi Matt. It's a long-standing point in the ID literature that intelligence can act to mimic natural/chance-based processes. With the smooth pebbles, they could be formed naturally in a running stream or artificially in a rock tumbler. In such cases, there may be no way to distinguish the two types of rocks. This is not a problem or inconsistency for design inferences or design metrics. It simply means that in the effect-to-cause reasoning that is inherent in the logic of design, there's no way to draw the distinction. But compare this to the same pebbles that spell our "John loves Mary" versus a random assemblage. Here the distinction between design and non-design is clear.
Similar considerations hold for your other example. In the same vein, I considered in one of my writings an embossed sign saying "Eat at Joe's" that falls over in a snow storm and embeds a mirror image of "Eat at Joe's" in the snow. The sign fell over by chance, but the message embossed in the snow traces back to an intelligent information act. It's the same type of example as you consider with your child's footprint. The sign could also have been deliberately imprinted on the snow. Design inferences depend on what features of design one is looking at, and the design inferential logic has certain built-in limitations. In any case, the new definition makes much clearer the role of externally applied information in comparison to internally generated information for systems. This, it seems to me, is an advance.
I’m not sure what the new definition of ID gets you.
The argument on design is currently not a rational one. Maybe a few are interested in a logical debate but nearly every atheist isn’t. And they are winning which is frustrating.
An atheist cannot provide a coherent argument for why anything exists let alone how such complex things such as life or Evolution happened. It just did according to them and that with natural selection wins the argument.
Since it is all about politics, then maybe a political approach is necessary. I suggest ID endorse Darwin and natural selection as part of ID. Darwinian ideas obviously fail for Evolution but they are wholly accepted by ID for genetics for many adaptations.
Make Darwin a poster boy for ID and show how his ideas can effect change within a species but that there is minimal to zero evidence that it works for a new species. Force the argument into a new area, the creation of novel proteins. They have no answer.
Also disavow Young Earth Creationism. ID is closely identified with this form of creationism. I asked a high school biology student recently about ID and he replied, you mean creation 6,000 years ago. That was the traditional defense of materialism 20 years ago and still is. This biology student knew zero about the origin of proteins and why it was essential for meaningful change to happen. I’m sure his instructor didn’t either. Natural selection is magical to them.
@JerryR
https://larrysanger.org/2025/02/how-a-skeptical-philosopher-becomes-a-christian/
"Once, however, one of my students came to the graduate assistant room and engaged me in conversation; this would have been, perhaps, 1994. He presented a version of the Argument from Design called the “Fine Tuning” Argument. (I will discuss it some more below.) Again, this made an impression on me; as I found I had no response, there were tears in my eyes, to my consternation. To this day I am not quite sure why. The student left quickly, no doubt tactfully leaving me to my thoughts. Perhaps I was only ashamed that I was unable to respond. But ever after that, as a nonbeliever, I always thought the Fine Tuning Argument was perhaps the strongest argument in the theist’s arsenal."
"The Argument from Design shows only that the universe has some sort of designer or other. An Argument from Morality might add that the designer is benevolent, to some degree, in some way, but not even necessarily personal. But what happens when we combine all the arguments to make a unified case for the existence of God? I’m not sure the idea had ever dawned on me, certainly not with its present vividness. Taken together, the arguments point to a necessary being that exists apart from space, time, and matter. This is the very cause of the universe, which was designed according to orderly abstract laws."
Thanks for the reference. It’s long and right now I have other priorities so reading all of it is probably not going to happen.
I am not sure what the two excerpts are supposed to mean. I believe that all the evidence and logic point to a creator. The argument should then be on the nature of the creator.
My comment above was made 7 months ago and was meant to illustrate the opponents of a creator and specifically ID are irrational but are still winning the day. It is possible to make a thousand relevant and validated comments for/in defense of ID and opponents still dominate with irrelevant irrational emotional comments.
Non logic is dominant and why this is so is the more interesting phenomenon.