Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Ideal Intelligent Design Conference

johnnyb asked over at UD to make proposals for a mid-level ID conference. Here is my proposal: 

1. Practical, useful applications of ID to hard domains, and hard aspects of other domains: engineering, science, mathematics, economics, politics, psychology. The use of ID must depend unequivocally on ID theory, there must be no way to account for the application other than within an ID paradigm, as formally defined by Dembski's complex specified information. Even better if it is derived from CSI.  Examples: CSIC and stock market predictions.

The emphasis here is something that will make a lot of money/wealth, and unequivocally based on/derived from ID.  This topic should be the primary focus of the conference.  Bonus points if it can be shown ID is the best paradigm for making a lot of money/wealth.

2. New areas of intellectual investigation, new kinds of concepts that ID implies.  Includes solving well defined, hard, unsolved problems, such as problems with epistemology and inductivism in philosophy. Again, previous qualification applies, cannot be accounted for, derived from any other sort of theory.  Examples: linking epistemology to ontology and CSI extracted from natural sciences.

3. Metaphysical, philosophical foundations/implications of ID. I.e. libertarian free will, tensed theory of time (in reference to W. Craig's distinction between A/B theories of time), real contingency, synthetic truths, substance dualism? etc. Bonus points for showing ID is compatible with concepts that are traditionally considered anti-thetical to ID, such as atheism, physicalism, determinism etc.  Examples: atheism and supernaturalism.

4. Debunking faux Intelligent Design concepts. Consists of showing a supposedly ID concept can be accounted for within a paradigm antithetical or ambivalent to ID.  Example: Neoplatonism.

5. Showing existing concepts not already connected to Intelligent Design can only be accounted for within ID.  Examples: capitalism and SETI.

6. Experiments, proposals for practical experiments to falsify/verify ID.  Emphasis will be on experiments that either already have results, or show great promise of generating results within 1 year.  Example: Stylus and CSIC.

I am not interested in using ID as a "metaphor" for concepts that aren't unambiguously implicated by ID. For example, hard-Calvinism would not be ID, even though it would qualify as Creationism. So, in general, the conference would accept anything that can be shown to unambiguously implicate ID, and nothing antithetical nor ambivalent to ID.

This conference is the only way for ID to make true intellectual progress.  It is the only kind of ID conference I am interested in.

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