The Arguments "For" and "Against" Creative Intelligence (Human or Divine)

First, the argument against creative intelligence:

We once thought that the apparent design we see exhibited in biological organisms (e.g. an eyeball) requires the creativity of divine intelligence. But we now know that this is not true. We need only invoke genetic evolution (random variation of genes and natural selection working in tandem) in order to account for the apparent design.

Likewise, we once thought that the apparent design we see exhibited in human artifacts (e.g. a pocket watch) requires the creativity of human intelligence. But we now know that this is not true. We need only invoke memetic evolution (random variation of memes and natural selection working in tandem) in order to account for the apparent design.

"The whole point about evolutionary theory is that you do not need anyone to direct it, least of all consciously." (source: pg. 239, "The Meme Machine" by Susan Blackmore)

"We once thought that biological design needed a creator, but we now know that natural selection can do all the designing on its own. Similarly, we once thought that human design required a conscious designer inside us, but we now know that memetic selection can do it on its own." (source: pg. 242, "The Meme Machine" by Susan Blackmore)

Second, the argument for creative intelligence:

The "argument for creative intelligence" is basically the same argument as the "argument against creative intelligence." The only difference is a matter of interpretation.

We now understand how human creativity works in the world. It works by memetic evolution, which can also be described using the "two-stage model of free will" - a model which separates the free stage from the will stage.

In the first stage, alternative possibilities for thought and action are generated, in part indeterministically.
In the second stage, an adequately determined will evaluates the options that have been developed.

If, on deliberation, one option for action seems best, it is selected and chosen. If no option seems good enough, and time permitting, the process can return to the further generation of alternative possibilities ("second thoughts") before a final decision.

(source: Wikipedia: Two-stage model of free will)

Ernst Mayr called biological evolution a "two-step process", in which random variations in the gene pool are followed by law-like natural selection.[1]

Free will is also a two-stage creative process – first random and "free", then a lawful "will". First chance, then choice.

(source: Wikipedia: Two-stage model of free will)

Likewise we now understand how divine creativity works in the world. It works by genetic evolution. (It also works by "quantum Darwinism" and "cosmological natural selection" (Darwinian processes applied to cosmology).)

"What the critics of evolution consistently fail to see is that the very indeterminacy they misconstrue as randomness has to be, by any definition, a key feature of the mind of God. Remember there is one (and only one) alternative to unpredictability - and that alternative is strict, predictable determinism. The only alternative to what they describe as randomness would be a nonrandom universe of clockwork mechanisms that would also rule out active intervention by any supreme Deity. Caught between these two alternatives, they fail to see the one more consistent with their religious beliefs is actually the mainstream scientific view linking evolution with quantum reality of the physical sciences." (source: pg. 213 "Finding Darwin's God" by Kenneth R. Miller)
 
A divine creator implies a pre-existence of creation. A divine creator also implies an existence independent of creation. A divine indepence then implies an existence outside of creation too. A divine existence outside creation implies an existence not subject to the physical or temporal laws that define creation. If proof of that divine existence requires it be defined by those laws, but that divine existence is not defined by those laws, how could we obtain that proof?

I suppose the same could be said of a something we have created and hold in our minds eye like a scene of beach and a man walking along the sand. We must exist before that creation, our existence is independent of that creation and we are not subject to it in any way. But suppose that man on the beach that we say hold continously in our imagination required proof of our existence, how could he obtain it without our intervention?
 
I suppose the same could be said of a something we have created and hold in our minds eye like a scene of beach and a man walking along the sand.

Yes, the dreamer of a dream transcends the dream and yet is immanent with it.

We must exist before that creation, our existence is independent of that creation and we are not subject to it in any way. But suppose that man on the beach that we say hold continously in our imagination required proof of our existence, how could he obtain it without our intervention?

Spiritual enlightenment is analogous (actually, it is more than analogous) to the experience of having a lucid dream (a dream in which one "wakes up" to the fact that one is dreaming). That's the only proof there is, and that's the only you need.
 
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