your last post: The The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition gives the following definition of "actuality": the state or fact of being actual. In other words: what is, by contrast to what isn't. Is that definition adequate?
Either way though, we are going way beyond life v non-life/death in nature into cosmology - which is fine with me, btw.
To go cosmological, perhaps we could agree to our own specialized definition of "actuality" to include all corporeals and phenomenon within space/time regardless of dimensions as well as space/time itself and everything "beyond" all dimensions of space and time? That would include mathematical structures, information, Platonic forms, qualia, etc.
Or, if you would rather go back to looking only at the intelligent design hypothesis with regard to life, then perhaps we could agree to a mathematical definition for "what is life v non-life/death in nature?"
Let me give this some more thought and get back to you. I'm ready to move on, but it's essential that we have an acceptable definition of "intelligent design" before we do so. The next several steps should be relatively easy, but our entire exercise falls apart if our definition of "intelligent design" is faulty.
And, if we are to reopen the debate on how to more narrowly define the type of features that "intelligent design" contemplates, we will need to entice PatrickHenry back into the discussion, because the primary reason I dismissed the formulation that PH proposed was because it was narrower than 'everything'..
Hey, could you please repost that definition of "Intelligent Design" that we began with as one of our reference points. I think it was from the Discovery Institute. I could go back and find it, but it's buried deep in my comments list by now and you probably have it on hand.
I was always taught to raise an eyebrow at a definition that used within it the word in question. I sense some of the same thing with the definition of intelligent design that has been devised. It is weakened because by saying that reality is explained "by an intelligent cause."
If one takes a definition of "design" alone, what is the result.
The applicable merriam-webster definitions of the noun design are:
1b:... deliberate purposive planning5a:... an underlying scheme that governs functioning, developing, or unfolding : PATTERN, MOTIF
Carrying on in the same vein we have this applicable portion of Merriam-Webster's definition of intelligence:
1 a (1) : the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations : REASON; also : the skilled use of reason (2) : the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (as tests)
Intelligent design appears to = "underlying, grand patterns brought about by intentional, reasoned manipulation of the environment"
Intelligent Design: A hypothesis that given features of actuality are explained by an intelligent cause, rather than by an undirected process such as natural selection.
I am vetoing the idea of narrowing the definition at this stage. We require a definition that will cover any hypothesis that may be classified as an "intelligent design" hypothesis and the above seems to qualify. Now, you asked for a definition of "actuality" and I provided the following dictionary definition:
actuality: the state or fact of being actual.
Then, you responded:
That definition doesn't help because it is inherently vague. It puts us back to the question of "what is all that there is?" - or in the short form, "what is reality?".
To which, I would say: So what? You don't require answers to those questions to classify a hypothesis, and that's all we're doing.
You then continue:
Either way though, we are going way beyond life v non-life/death in nature into cosmology - which is fine with me, btw.
Excellent! Then so it shall be.
To go cosmological, perhaps we could agree to our own specialized definition of "actuality" to include all corporeals and phenomenon within space/time regardless of dimensions as well as space/time itself and everything "beyond" all dimensions of space and time? That would include mathematical structures, information, Platonic forms, qualia, etc.
That is not a "specialized" definition of actuality. Actuality covers all that there is, and if those things exist, then they are inherently included. If they don't, then they are properly excluded.
Or, if you would rather go back to looking only at the intelligent design hypothesis with regard to life, then perhaps we could agree to a mathematical definition for "what is life v non-life/death in nature?"
No, I am not interested in expanding the boundaries of our inquiry, and the above is unnecessary.
So, are we finally settled on our working definition?
Intelligent Design: A hypothesis that given features of actuality are explained by an intelligent cause, rather than by an undirected process such as natural selection.
If so, then we can move onward. As far as I'm concerned, we can agree to revisit this definition as we proceed, and determine at that time if it would be preferable to narrow it.