Do you agree with this?

[GiantOreo]

"For a complex object to exist, you need an even more complex creator of the object."

Do you agree? Why or why not?

Thanks.

[Laurentius]

Caleidoscopes are not highly complex devices:
http://www.iconcepthk.com/images/kaleidoscope.gif
However, they can randomly generate complex images:
http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h135/carloslorenzo/Caleidoscope.jpg

[GodLessWarriorMA]

I do not agree with the statement: "For a complex object to exist, you need an even more complex creator of the object."

1. The word complex is subjective. A simple grain of sand becomes extremely complex when viewed with the aid of an electron microscope just as the faintest point of light in the sky actually represents a distant galaxy containing millions of stars.

2. A complex object, such as the crystalline structures of minerals in various phases, can form dynamically based on the fundemental laws that govern our universe. (Counterexample)

On a side note, if one feels that the statement is true, then there exists the possibility that the 'creator' could actually represent 'multiple creators'

[Laurentius]

The word complex is subjective. A simple grain of sand becomes extremely complex when viewed with the aid of an electron microscope just as the faintest point of light in the sky actually represents a distant galaxy containing millions of stars.

I was too thinking of the fact that there is no simple thing in "creation" that I could refer to as simple in itself.

[Smohg]

"For a complex object to exist, you need an even more complex creator of the object."

Do you agree? Why or why not?

Thanks.

The statement contradicts itself. If you have to have a more complex creator, than you would need something more complex to create it.

Continue into infinity. There would be no "original" creation, as there would be nothing there to create it, thereby contradicting the statement.

[Laurentius]

The statement contradicts itself. If you have to have a more complex creator, than you would need something more complex to create it. Continue into infinity. There would be no "original" creation, as there would be nothing there to create it, thereby contradicting the statement.

Which may be the strongest counter-argument against the above implied creator necessity extracted from the universe complexity.

[GiantOreo]

When I was talking about something "complex" I was talking about stuff like life and black holes.

[Godless Dave]

"For a complex object to exist, you need an even more complex creator of the object."

Do you agree? Why or why not?


No, I don't agree. I can't think why that would be the case, and anyway, I've seen snowflakes.

[Laurentius]

When I was talking about something "complex" I was talking about stuff like life and black holes.

Exactly.

My first post was and GodLessWarriorMA's second argument show that complex structure can occur naturally.

On the other hand, the simplest quark seems to have a complex existence.

Smohg's argument is an excellent example of lateral thinking: the idea of a creator for complex objects is ruled out by the very presupposition that complex entities cannot exist unless they have a creator.

[johno]

Perhaps I am missing something, but I'm a hell of a lot more complicated than a one-celled zygote, and certainly no less complicated than my father.

johno

[toth8]

"For a complex object to exist, you need an even more complex creator of the object."

Do you agree? Why or why not?

Thanks.

Why would the creator have to be "more complex"? I'd think in general it takes a complex entity or system to create complexity.

[JamesBannon]

Personally I've always thought that this kind of argument is somewhat silly. Firstly because there are innumerable counter-examples of complexity being generated from the interaction of very simple components; and secondly because it all depends on what level of description one is using.

[Janus]

"For a complex object to exist, you need an even more complex creator of the object."

Do you agree? Why or why not?

Thanks.


Obviously not, we know for a fact that this is false thanks to Darwin.

My guess is that what you mean to say is "For an intelligent being to design and create a complex object, he/she must hold a representation of this object in his/her mind, and this representation must be as complex as the object itself. Therefore, the creator must be at least as complex as the object itself."

I agree with that.

[chapka]

"For a complex object to exist, you need an even more complex creator of the object."

Do you agree? Why or why not?

Thanks.

No, because I don't understand what you mean by "complex".

[unrealist42]

Complexity arises from the simple. It is an accumulation of the simple over time.

Did the modern automobile spring up fully formed in the mind of some person upon glimpsing a wheel?
I think not.

Lack of understanding of complexity is due to ignorance of the chain of events that brought it about. In seeking to understand this chain many become bewildered and seek simpler answers, like some god, to explain it. This only obscures the question even further and makes the seeking of the understanding of complexity even more difficult.

Others are not satisfied with this explanation and delve deeply into understanding the chain of complexity. These people are called scientists and they have met with quite a bit of success.

[Samhain]

Complexity arises from the simple. It is an accumulation of the simple over time.

Did the modern automobile spring up fully formed in the mind of some person upon glimpsing a wheel?
I think not.

Lack of understanding of complexity is due to ignorance of the chain of events that brought it about. In seeking to understand this chain many become bewildered and seek simpler answers, like some god, to explain it. This only obscures the question even further and makes the seeking of the understanding of complexity even more difficult.

Others are not satisfied with this explanation and delve deeply into understanding the chain of complexity. These people are called scientists and they have met with quite a bit of success.

Evolution, whether it be biological, psychological, sociological or mechanical, does not necessitate that a "thing" would become more "complex" as it evolved.

[Draconis]

Probably you need the creator to be intelligent and more complex if the thing created has some purpose.

[David B]

"For a complex object to exist, you need an even more complex creator of the object."

Do you agree? Why or why not?

Thanks.

Snowflakes look complex to me.

http://www.bentley.sciencebuff.org/collection.htm

Perfectly good naturalistic explanations for them, though.

No more needs to be said.

You do not need a more complex creator for a complex object to come into being.

End of sports.

David B (first heard of Bentley a few days ago, while watching a film called 'Snow Cake')

[Dupesh]

a complex thing could just be a group of less complex things that are together. complex doesn't imply design.

[comiezapr]

"For a complex object to exist, you need an even more complex creator of the object."

Do you agree? Why or why not?

Thanks.

I hate to come in so late on this and post something so long ...

Theres two words that are really problematic in this statement:

For a complex object to exist, you need an even more complex creator of the object.

The two words are the most obvious choices for problematic words: complex and create.

Object and exist can both be problematic philosophically but we can simplify pretty easily. Stipulate exactly what things to count as objects: ducks, people, trees, etc. That takes care of what an object is; an object is one of those things in that list. Then you take that list of objects and group them all together into a set. What exists is what is a member of that set. For example if our list reads:

Bob, Joe, Mindy, My Computer, Surge Protector, A Book, A Pencil

Then we take those things and put them in a set thusly:

{Bob, Joe, Mindy, My Computer, Surge Protector, A Book, A Pencil}

and say that "existance" refers to that set and that if something exists then its a member of that set! Tada!

So now we have a refined statement:

For there to be a member, call it A, in the set "existance" there needs to be a more complex member, call it B, in the set "existance" that has created A.

Complexity can be disambiguated in two ways:

1) The mathematically precise definition of complexity. This says, rougly, that the degree of non-randomness of a system is a measure of its complexity.

2) The rather subjective idea of complexity. I dont really know what this says but its something like "more processes required to sustain or create it means its more complex".

The mathematically precise definition isnt apropriate, so we use another philosophical trick (like the one with existance) and say that there is some relation "equal or lesser complexity" that applies to our objects and make an ordered list:

Bob, Joe, Mindy, My Computer, Surge Protector, A Book, A Pencil

This series would start with the most complex things and then work its way down to the least complex things. Its just like a group of numbers ordered acording to the "less than or equal to" relationship ....

10,10,10,7,5,4,1

Only here the relationship is "Less than or equal complexity." You can notice that Ive allowed for things to be equally complex: Bob, Joe and Mindy are all humans and presumably equally complex, or at least well say they are. I will call these orderings of objects "complexity orderings".

So we have a nice list that corresponds to our relationship "equal or lesser complexity". Now we make some more sets; all objects that are "equally complex" are put into a set, then the sets are ordered:

{Bob, Joe, Mindy}, {My Computer}, {Surge Protector}, {A Book}, {A Pencil}

This is like taking our previous example with numbers and putting them first in sets acording to the relationship "equal to" and then ordering the sets in terms of the relationship "less than":

{10,10,10},{7},{5},{4},{1}

These will be called "strict complexity orderings".

Presumably we have enough of an idea of "complex" in the intuitive sense to make a strict complexity ordering that we at least somewhat agree on.

So we make the statement in a more refined manner again:

For there to be a member, call it A, in the set "existance" there needs to be another member, call it B, in the set "existance" that, in the strict complexity ordering, is in a set that is greater than the set A belongs to that also created A.

Were doing great! To recap our clarifications:

Objects are just the things we agreed to call objects.

Exists has been replaced by a set, in this case the set of things we call objects, and to exist is just to be a member of this set.

Complexity was hard to define so we just decided to make a relation "equal or lesser complexity" and made an ordered list of items called a "complexity ordering" that reflected how the objects we had were to be ordered acording to this relation. Then we made a strict order by seperating the "equal" and "lesser" parts of this ordering.

Now for create. This is clearly the hardest because our philosophical trick wont work as easily. When we were encountered with a word like "exist" where theres some disagrement as to what exists we just stipulate a set of objects and say "hey, exists just means that its a member in this set!" This is, in philosophical terminology, taking the extension of a term. We did the same with "complexity". It was kind of vague what complexity was so we just curtailed that debate and made an ordered list of items and said "well, this ordered list represents a total ordering, in terms of complexity, of all the objects there are. To be "more complex" IS to just be higher in the list." Again, we took the extension.

"Create" is different. Its clearly a relation: X created Y. So we could make a list of items and order them in terms of "created":

Joe, Computer, A Book

Here joe created a computer which created a book. It seems to work, but it doesnt order all of the objects that exist! There will be many lists:

Joe, Computer, A Book
Mindy, A Pencil
Bob, A Surge Protector

So how do we deal with this. Really, we dont. We make all of our lists and add some terminology: if an object (A) is higher on a list than an object (B) then we say "B is greater than A creation wise". We also call these lists "creation orderings". We have enough analysis to put our statement in crystal clear terms:

For there to be a member, call it A, in the set "existance" there needs to be another member, call it B, in the set "existance" that, in the strict complexity ordering, is in a set that is greater than the set A belongs to that also is greater than A creation wise.

So everything now hinges on our stipulations about creation orderings, strict complexity orderings, and what counts as an object. We have brought ourselves down to an incredibly clear statement with very well defined areas of debate (provided you accept my analysis).

So, finally, my response:

I would say that the statement is false. There are things that are objects that are the greatest elements in thier creation orderings. Humans are an example. Humans created alot of things but arent, themselves created. They can loosely be said to be created by an event (im thinking of evolution here) but events dont count as objects and so dont count as anything that the "created" relation can apply to; nor, incidently can the "equal or lesser complexity" relation apply to it.

We could exand our domain of objects that exist (and the domain of things that the relationships "created" and "equal or lesser complexity" apply to) to include things like events and processes and the statement would still be false. I believe a Human is greater in complexity than the process that created it, evolution.

I think the point of disagrement is now very easy to identify between anyone participating in this debate, which is why i offered this analysis.