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Personal Cause or Purely Nature – We Know the Difference Part 2

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The FINE-TUNED Evidence Part 2

Researchers know, and study the difference between intelligent agents acting and purely natural results. This understanding is productively used in criminal jurisprudence (CSI), copyright law, patent law, reverse-engineering, cryptanalysis, archeology, anthropology, information theory, etc.

We know the properties that make the involvement of an intelligent agent detectable –

An intelligent agent uses 1) choice to discriminate among a range of options, 2) and the collection of choices fit together in a specific combination, which 3) fits all of the externally established patterns, needed to reach 4) a specified purpose. The result often 5) displays complexity (not order, but high information content, instructions beyond natural laws) not easily repeatable by chance.

On the other hand, nature + chance can only act within mathematical probabilities, physical laws and limits, and has no capacity for reaching purposes or complexity beyond natural forces.

The five aspects above may sound confusing, but people make this distinction between intelligent involvement and natural stuff all the time. Even a child, who saw the Alphabet cereal message on the table, will not for a moment believe the letters just happened to spill that way by purely natural forces + chance. Why? Because the child recognizes choices were made among the  range of letters, and these letters fit in combination to make a sentence, which fits the external pattern requirements of the English language (“external” meaning the rules for English do not control the letters), to reach a purpose. And if that purpose is not fulfilled, likely consequences will follow on the slow child’s tail-end.

While traveling, you come across two rock formations, can you determine which is man-made?

In (1a), natural processes of wind, water erosion, rock fragmentation, gravity, etc., can naturally produce the “Man in the Cliff” in New Hampshire. However, Mount Rushmore (1b) is not within the range of possibility for nature to act to create; instead, clearly an intelligent agent made numerous choices among the options of how to change the rock, and all those choices combine together for the specific purpose of conforming to the external patterns/requirements of the Presidents’ faces. In addition, nature is not capable of that complexity, given any amount of time or chances! Common sense. Incidentally, (1c) shows the often-neglected back-side of Mt. Rushmore.

I mentioned CSI. You come home to find your door wide-open, specific drawers opened and tossed about the room, and specific high-cost items missing. Do you call the police – because you know an intelligent agent was acting with a purpose – or just resign yourself to being a victim of unfortunate occurrences in nature?

When a person says something of meaning to you, writes a purposeful book, builds a functioning mechanism, or carries out a plan, s/he chooses from a range of sound options and  combines them for speech, letter combinations for the book, part combinations for the mechanism, and a combination of actions for the plan to come together and achieve some specific purpose. If you listened to With or Without You by U2, read Hamlet, used an iPhone, or witnessed 9/11, you recognized the hallmarks of intelligent agency, and the very same hallmarks are evidenced in the universe itself, which will be shown in the next article, giving part 3 of The FINE_TUNED Evidence.

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