In fact if all these things are "guides," then nothing in the universe can be "unguided". Which makes it trivial and useless to talk about things being "guided," since it's only the same as saying that they exist in this universe. Yet you do talk about some things (within the universe) being "unguided," which is contradictory and confusing.
I understand the phrase "natural selection" in the intelligent design hypothesis to mean failures or more specifically failures with respect to apparently random processes, i.e. mutations.
Failures destroy order rising from chaos in a physical system; they are not guides to the order or complexification of that which they destroyed. The mechanism of failure might itself, however, be ordered by other guides in a physical system, including a chaotic system.
For instance, an otherwise successful complex species may become extinct from a tornado destroying its habitat. The natural catastrophe was not a guide to the complexity of the species it destroyed. The tornado itself however was the result of other guides in a chaotic system.
The failure itself will reduce and thus change the potential for order to rise from possibily different combinations of guides. (autonomous biological self-organizing complexity)
All of this of course applies to "certain features" not "all features" - thus the apparently random mechanism of mutation also remains a source of variation which may be reduced by natural selection (failure).
You've said that "space/time, physical causality, energy/matter, physical laws and the [like]" are all "guides". Yet you've also repeatedly described "natural selection" as an "unguided process". How can this be? Natural selection is a process subject to, interwoven with, or participating in all these things.In fact if all these things are "guides," then nothing in the universe can be "unguided". Which makes it trivial and useless to talk about things being "guided," since it's only the same as saying that they exist in this universe. Yet you do talk about some things (within the universe) being "unguided," which is contradictory and confusing.
These are questions in the right direction, I think.
Obviously we can say that something is both guided and unguided simply because things are guided in different ways. Your thinking is/is not guided by me.
What are the kinds of guidance? I have some questions about the terms that distinguish one from the other. Is guidance simply another term for causality?
Initial conditions, as A-G calls them, are determinative for the behavior of matter and can be a "guiding" principles. Is this just another term for the material cause?
The material cause is often intrinsic. And in this regard, the distinction between phenomenon and agent that A-G mentioned is very good. Sometimes the terms intrinsic and extrinsic can be more helpful as they do not restrict it to agency. In any case, intelligence can be either an intrinsic or extrinsic cause.
This distinction is also very important in the definition of things: can something be defined merely with reference to itself? Or to the organism itself? (What's that called, A-G? Self-referential?) Or to the extrinsic features of a larger context in which it behaves/exists?
Even further, is there a principle which guides the totality of existing causes? The question suggests that some things are unguided only from a relative point of view; all things may be considered guided with respect to a larger view, the particulars are a function of a larger structure. Such is often the view of Nature, especially when capitalized.
The existence of Nature does seem to imply that some things are trivial, but not the whole.
Good stuff.
Oh, and the claim that something is science is usually self-referential. Is there anything besides science?