I got lots of thoughtful comments to yesterday’s post on whether the Big Bang was intelligent by definition. I wasn’t planning on following up on the topic, but I feel I owe it to you. Here are the top objections that people raised, along with my replies. If you didn’t read yesterday’s post, read it first.
Objection 1: The Big Bang is an event, not a thing.
I think most people realized I was referring to both the universe and what it did. People are the sum of their matter plus their actions. The universe is a sum of its matter plus its actions. To keep things simple and colorful, I’m going to call the universe and everything it does the Big Bang.
Objection 2: The Big Bang had no intentions. Intelligence requires intention.
You can’t have intentions without free will. And free will is an illusion, according to plenty of prominent scientists and big thinkers. At best, free will has never been defined in any way that would not apply equally to a human or a coin sorting machine. The coin sorter “chooses” which tube to redirect the nickel to in a deterministic fashion. Your brain chooses what to have for lunch in the same way, just more complicated, and with the illusion of intention. The Big Bang (okay, the universe) has no intentions, but neither do you, because it’s a nonsense superstition. You only have the illusion of intentions. So intentions must not be a necessary component of intelligence.
Objection 3: According to evolution, unintelligent processes can cause emergent phenomena, such as intelligence. The Big Bang was an unintelligent process, and the intelligence emerged later. (Implied: Duh!)
By this reasoning, people are not intelligent either. People are a collection of dumb molecules. The intelligence we exhibit is an emergent property of people, not a quality of the people themselves. No molecule in a human body is itself smart. Yet we still say the person as a whole is intelligent. And we generously include as “the person” all of his body parts that are not directly involved in producing intelligence. Your lungs, for example, are every bit as important as your brain in supporting the emergent intelligence you produce. They are both 100% necessary.
If I build a computer and the computer creates a spreadsheet, we don’t credit the computer with the creation. We credit the one who created and programmed the computer. People are every bit the machines as computers, but more complicated and moist. The Big Bang created people, and is therefore the ultimate author of what we in turn create. (Remember, we have no free will. We’re just like the computer in that way.)
Objection 4: But what created the Big Bang!
If there was a “before” to the Big Bang, I have no problem including it in the process and calling it intelligent. But there is no evidence to persuade me that time even existed before the Big Bang, so “before” might be a nonsense concept. And I certainly have no evidence for a sort of God with a personality and a to-do list.
Objection 5: It’s just semantics. All you did was say that whatever produces intelligent results must be intelligent. It’s a circular definition.
Of course it’s semantics. That’s the whole point. We’re trying to figure out what the word “intelligent” means. If the best definition that anyone can offer is circular, then it’s silly to say the universe does or does not have an intelligent designer. The phrase would have no meaning. But if we CAN define intelligence in some meaningful way, then we might be surprised to find that the definition applies equally to humans as to the Big Bang. (After you remove your superstition about intentions, and clear up your thinking about emergent properties.)
Objection 6: Dawkins said, “An intelligent life is intelligent enough to speculate on its own origins.”
My cat has intelligence, but I doubt she’s doing much speculating on her origins.
I think those were the best objections I got. Let me know if I missed any objections that are better than the ones I listed.