The Problem With Message Theory

2009.04.09   prev     next

Walter Remine, a man I admire (in particular for his resurrection of Haldane’s Dilemma), recently made a three-part post to Uncommon Descent in which he described his Message Theory, which is essentially the idea that the creator(s) of this universe purposely made the kind of world that would communicate the existence of those creator(s) to us. In Remine’s words:

This, he thinks, is how our creator(s) communicate the message to us that they created us.

But I have a problem with this idea. William Dembski’s work (e.g. No Free Lunch) essentially boils down to the claim that it is mathematically provable that Darwinian evolution doesn’t work — that is, that Darwinian evolution doesn’t generate even mildy complex adaptations, or even mildly complex rearrangements of existing ones, and is limited to the very simple kinds of adaptational reactions described by Michael Behe in The Edge of Evolution.

That, in turn, means that any lifeforms intelligent enough (i.e. humans, not cats) to examine physics, math, and their own biological origins, must inevitably discover that they were designed. So, what Remine interprets as an intentional message — one that the creator(s) want to send us — may instead be nothing more than an unavoidable consequence of designing creatures smart enough to discover the things that Behe and Dembski have discovered.

Is there any indication that our creators went out of their way to communicate this “message” to us? Remine apparently thinks so — he describes it as a remarkable discovery. But I think a much more likely explanation is that our creators simply wanted a world rich with opportunities for interesting adventure, and with the intention of making a species that could blossom forth from the ultra-easy cradle planet, to eventually populate many planets throughout the universe. In other words, just as it is impossible for creators to have a species running around on Earth that is incapable of survival, and just as it is impossible for creators to set up a Darwinian process that will craft advanced lifeforms automatically, so it also might be impossible for creators to make a species that can develop advanced technologies, but that will not figure out the things that Behe and Dembski have figured out. Or if it is possible, it might be extremely troublesome and artificially limiting to make such a species; i.e. the creators would have to go very far out of their way to avoid sending Remine’s “message.”

If Remine could show that an invented universe populated with species as intelligent as humans typically would not include his “message,” then I would suspect he’s on to something. But I don’t think he’s shown that, nor do I think it can be shown. Beyond a certain level of math comprehension and biological discovery, it may be impossible, or pointlessly difficult, to prevent your created species from discovering proofs that it was created.

And: If life on Earth was designed by some sort of at least loosely united design team (say, freely reusing each others’ code, typically by modifying existing species), that team would have to go very much out of its way to prevent its loosely united nature from being exposed to intelligent human minds. So the unified nature of life we see is indicative of nothing more than maximum convenience on the part of the coders. Human coders do the same thing every day, and they’re not trying to send a “message” of unity to future generations or anyone else who might study that code.

Maybe our creators aren’t trying to send us a message at all. Maybe we can deduce some things about our creators just because we’re smart little fuckers. Big deal.