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Mr. Mushrooms said:
Whoop-de-fucking-doo?    Nice expression of emotion you've got goin' on there.

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If only you could have heard the specific intonations it would have had if I had been able to speak it.

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I never said that because these were created by a mind, all complexity was created by a mind.

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  Your other examples are poor analogies.

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  The question remains, would we posit these were created by a mind or natural forces?

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I personally suspect that they were created by a mind that was utilizing natural forces. Asking if they were created by either/or is a trick question.
I accept donations of mushrooms.

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Why would we assume design in these crop circles and not natural forces?

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Because we've developed the ability to presume that we know how to discern the difference?

I personally wouldn't go so far as to assume that all crop circles have a mind behind them as a creator.... the Sun and electromagnetism can be some pretty wild phenomenons...

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Yes, some people have admitted to making the circles, but some still argue there is evidence against it.

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Is this related to the point you're trying to make?
Meaning, do you want, with this thread, to discover whether or not ALL the crop circles are made by men? If not, what's the purpose of this thread?
Its just that I find it funny that even the title of the thread contains "intelligent design" in it, but you still say that it has nothing to do with it.

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As I said to John, I'm not discussing intelligent design in this thread.  I only want to know if you thought a mind was behind their creation or natural forces were.

Without anyone stepping up and admitting they created these would you have thought they were the result of natural forces or made by a mind?

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OrgoneConclusion said:
It is called the fallacy of wearing your opponent down. In short, start 5 or 6 threads on basically the same subject and throw a tantrum when not every one of your redundant points is addressed equally in all threads.

Philosophy students should know better than to use such a tactic unless they are doing it deliberately, in which case it is intellectual dishonesty and not mere oversite or ignorance.

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I know math isn't your strong suit, but if you check the record at least 3 other threads were started by others.  And for me, I've been picking mushrooms. 




Nominated for picture of the month by the moderator of the contest:






Total morels, 1,565, total weight 27 lbs. 13.7 oz.

And I'm going out picking tomorrow too.

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deimya said:
Because there's a loaded social and cultural context surrounding them. Because there's a record of many people discussing about them profusely, hoaxers, debunkers, scientists and lay persons. Because many of us have run through crop fields and played with long grasses.

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Actually no, the first recorded crop circle was in 1678.  Long before there were debunkers or scientists or a social or cultural context, yet it was recognized as design.

What I'm driving at is this.  Design is assumed when two criteria are met: an improbable object and a recognizable pattern.

Consider these objects I found in the forest last year.





This was the first time I had seen such a thing in the forest (or elsewhere).  I immediately assumed design based on improbability and the recognizable pattern.

What would you assume?

All the parts of the object(s) were natural, even found in the area.

The point is that we recognize design when we see it.  Design being defined as a product of a mind.  There is no magic or hidden motive in the thread.  I just wanted to make the obvious, obvious.  In fact, the only thing that will hold us back from recognizing or admitting design seems to be theological prejudice.

What a pity.

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fireworks_god said:

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  Your other examples are poor analogies.

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I don't see how they were. In advance of any explanation as to why you think they are poor analogies, which would be necessary to actually discuss the idea of them being poor analogies, I'd like to say that, from what I've gathered regarding earlier civilizations of humans and how they judged matters like these, things like hurricanes, storms, and other devastating, complex phenomenons that we currently tend to refer to as being natural were, in fact, personified and interpreted as having specific intent.

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MushroomTrip said:


Just for the sake of the argument, yes, I would be inclined to think that a mind (human, by the best guess) is behind the crop circle phenomenon.
At the risk of repeating myself, what are you trying to hint here? I fail to see the philosophical content in simply making a thread that asks people if they think crop circles were made by people or not.

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zouden said:


There's a reason no one suggested that God made the crop circles

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You can take the smirk off you face now.  The first crop circle was attributed to the Devil.

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BlueCoyote said:


What is mind ?

And what's its difference to nature ?

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Mr. Mushrooms said:
Design is assumed when two criteria are met: an improbable object and a recognizable pattern.  The point is that we recognize design when we see it.  Design being defined as a product of a mind.  There is no magic or hidden motive in the thread.  I just wanted to make the obvious, obvious.  In fact, the only thing that will hold us back from recognizing or admitting design seems to be theological prejudice.

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MushroomTrip said:

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Mr. Mushrooms said:
Design is assumed when two criteria are met: an improbable object and a recognizable pattern.  The point is that we recognize design when we see it.  Design being defined as a product of a mind.  There is no magic or hidden motive in the thread.  I just wanted to make the obvious, obvious.  In fact, the only thing that will hold us back from recognizing or admitting design seems to be theological prejudice.

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So, the toast with Jesus face on it is designed? Also, did Al Bundy create Elvis when he sweated him?

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I don't know about Bundy and Elvis but I wouldn't conclude Jesus on a piece of toast to be designed.  Would you?  The difference would be in the recognizable pattern.

Did it look like this:



or this:



or this:



Which of those would you say are designed?

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Mr. Mushrooms said:
The point is that we recognize design when we see it.  Design being defined as a product of a mind.  There is no magic or hidden motive in the thread.  I just wanted to make the obvious, obvious.  In fact, the only thing that will hold us back from recognizing or admitting design seems to be theological prejudice.

What a pity.

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deimya said:
They contrast with what you feel of the surrounding organic feeling the forest gives.

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zouden said:

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Mr. Mushrooms said:
The point is that we recognize design when we see it.  Design being defined as a product of a mind.  There is no magic or hidden motive in the thread.  I just wanted to make the obvious, obvious.  In fact, the only thing that will hold us back from recognizing or admitting design seems to be theological prejudice.

What a pity.

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Theological prejudice? You mean, lack of belief that an invisible man lives in the sky and made everything one particularly busy week? Come on. If anything it's the other way around: your theological prejudice causes you to want to find design.

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Why you're absolutely correct.  Without my belief in an invisible man in the sky I couldn't tell which toast had Jesus in it.  Here's a clue: it's not the last one.  As Kenneth Miller would say, "Just tryin' to help." 

This is good enough I'll repeat it.  If design isn't falsifiable, how was Darwin's theory accepted as proof of lack of it?  You can't have your cake and eat it too.