Claim CI111.2:
An intelligent agent is one that chooses between different possibilities.
Specified complexity (also called complex
specified information)
detects design because it detects what characterizes intelligent agency;
it detects the actualization of one among many competing possibilities.
Source:
Dembski, William A., 2002. No Free Lunch, Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield, pp. 28-30.
Response:
- Specified complexity does not indicate intelligence agency; it merely
indicates copying. When a pattern matches a specification, that can
happen only by coincidence, by the causes of both patterns following
the same constraints, or by some kind of copying of information. The
specified complexity criterion explicitly rules out the first two
possibilities (Dembski 2002, 6-13), leaving only copying.
Consider the following scenario: A person accidentally spills some ink
and creates a complex inkblot on a page of a report. The spill goes
unnoticed until several copies of the report have been made. The
inkblot images in the copies of the report exhibit specified
complexity, as they are complex, and they match a specification (the
original spill). But they achieved specified complexity by copying,
not by deliberate choosing.
- Nonintelligent processes also select between different possibilities.
The machines that select lotto numbers are an example.
References:
- Dembski, William A., 2002. (see above).
created 2003-10-17
