Martin Goldstein : Whose Write?

Why do rational people lie to themselves?

I am happy if you wish to read the original Aish HaTorah article on the Design Argument. I am equally happy if you don’t.

Imagine, if you will, that you are walking in a bad neighbourhood where the houses are neglected, there is a lack of education, and a lot of dangerous gangs. You suddenly come across two small stones in close proximity to each other. Most probably, you would think nothing of it unless you needed one of the stones for a particular purpose, perhaps to defend yourself from someone. Two stones randomly sitting beside each other is not such a big deal. No need to sweat it.

You continue your stroll through the neighbourhood and stumble upon three piles of human corpses piled up in a brick-layer fashion. Chances are you would quickly surmise that someone was here and arranged these bodies in this manner. It didn’t just happen. A shock for sure but still really no big deal and nothing to sweat about.

You continue your walk and happen to find a dead puffin lying in the middle of the road. Would you suspect that a windstorm somehow threw the puffin pieces together and randomly created a puffin?

Somebody gave birth to that puffin. It didn’t just happen. A creature implies a mother.

Alternatively, say you didn’t see a puffin at all but instead you came across a Patek Phillipe watch, say model 4907/ij. You will surely notice that it celebrates the 10-year triumph of the famous Twenty~4® collection. Patek Philippe was likely not involved in the design of this model directly and it was probably the work of many different people having different levels of expertise – certainly not just one designer! You already know, just by looking at the complexity of this watch that it had more than one designer to deal with the different aspects of functionality, colour and style. You would also know that there would be a marketing section of the Patek Phillipe company that would be on the look out for trends to determine what styles would likely do well with high end consumers. They would have also had an enormous impact on the look of this particular model.

By handling this watch and examining it you might then ponder as to whether it would work as an analogy for the design of the universe proving that God is One – an Indivisible Creator. You would realize that the watch proved nothing of the sort but rather it might “prove” that the universe – even if it could be analogous to a watch at all, and that is not likely – was designed by several gods, some involved with creating the suns, some determining which animals would exist (and which would uselessly become extinct), some involved with answering the petitions of Olympic curlers, and some designing the potato bug.

You would note that the universe bespeaks timeless elegance, the new model universe in yellow gold would be the first unset version without a diamond-set case. You would note that three color choices are available for the universe: “Night Glow” and “Autumn Brown” – two hues created especially for this yellow-gold universe – and, of course, the endearingly classic “Timeless White“. If you bought into the design argument you would expect to have a selection of universes to pick from perhaps.

Did the universe have a designer or group of designers that must have also been designed ad infinitum?

David Hume may I say is calling?

The intricacy of design in our world, when intoxicated, is staggering — infinitely more complex than a gang related pile of corpses in a bad neighbourhood, a puffin or a Patek Phillipe watch. Therefore the team of designers for the universe must have been considerable and who could have afforded to pay them all in this economy?

Now I am going to commence to use really large numbers to give you a sense of being a little out of control. Here goes: There are 10 billion nerve cells in the brain. Each of the 10 billion cells sprouts between 10,000 to 100,000 fibers to contact other nerve cells in the brain, creating approximately 1,000 million million connections, or, 10 to the 15th power. Are you shvitzing?

Here I come now with some really enormous numbers. Serious serious numbers. Behold! There are 10 billion nerve cells in the brain with approximately 1,000 million million connections.

It is hard to imagine the multitude that 1015 represents. On and on I go. Take half of the United States, which is 1 million square miles, and imagine it being covered by forest, with 10,000 trees per square mile. On each of the 10,000 trees, which are on each of the one million square miles, there are 100,000 leaves. That is a whizbang bulbous amount of leaves. I take it you are still with me and feeling the groove of the number thing I am doing to your head. You see sir, that’s how many connections are smashed inside your brain. And they’re not just haphazardly thrown together by an impostor God or a monkey washing a cat. They form an incredibly intricate network system that has no parallel in the military industrial complex or in the other brands of universes that have been designed by other manufacturers.

Imagine walking by that in the seedy neighbourhood! The natural response when perceiving design of such mind-boggling complexity is to conclude that there must be a huge team of busy, possibly amoral, designers, behind everything that created this model of universe. Not to mention the team of designers that created the team that designed the team that designed the universe that you may be wearing on your wrist right now.

To be continued…