Paul Nelson says:
> Here's a puzzle for you. Every e-mail message you've
> sent me is an example of CSI. The messages are real
> physical patterns, encoded on magnetic media (although
> they might have been encoded in sand, brick, ink, God
> knows what). What natural cause accounts for these
> patterns?
>
> Or is it reasonable for me to infer an agent, namely
> Richard Wein, at a computer somewhere in the UK?
Am I correct, Paul, that you are using the term "natural causes" here to
denote only those causes within the "creaturely system" [the universe,
considered to be a creation that was given being by a Creator] that do not
involve the intentional actions of sentient, rational creatures? Are there
"creaturely causes" that are not "natural"? Would the action of Richard
Wein, for instsance, be an example of a non-natural creaturely cause?
And when you refer to an "agent," are you thinking of agents within the
creaturely system or outside of the creaturely system?
I ask such questions because I find the ID literature very equivocal on the
question of whether or not the "intelligent causes" and "intelligent agents"
of which it speaks so frequently are causes/agents within the creaturely
system or agents/causes from outside the creaturely system.
And if the ultimate goal of IDT is to make claims for the empirical
detectability of action by agents outside the creaturely system, then the
distinction between creaturely and non-creaturely agents is far more
relevant than the distinction between natural and non-natural causes within
the creaturely system.
Howard Van Till
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