Ah, philosophy.

I haven't done much philosophy lately; at least, not in the sense of writing anything down. I have rationally and critically examined ideas and claims around me, constantly, and in that sense, I've been doing philosophy. (Actually, I've got an idea about what philosophy is: an emotion, not a process, and so I can't actually do philosophy so much as feel it, but that's for another post.) I've got to say, I've missed the taste of it.

Anyway, Mike alerted me to the fact that Scott Adams is doing more writing that approaches the intellectual effort of a first-year philosophy student. His first attempt at philosophy is available for free; I recommend it if you're curious about that sort of thing, but it's not the kind of critically developed philosophical text that takes years to develop. His current foray into the battles of the mind is about as well-planned as our current military action in Iraq.

Here's the crux of the argument: People are intelligent. Intelligence is expressed through actions. Actions depend on pre-existing actions. Since actions express intelligence, those necessary previous actions must also express that same intelligence. The Big Bang started it all; without it, nothing. Therefore: The Big Bang is intelligent.

Being a lazy bastard, I'll take the easiest route to dismantling this argument. It's not my thought; the argument that follows was developed in some form by both Socrates and, I believe, one of the ancient Buddhists. It's a simple parts-to-whole analysis: Think of your car. Now think of your left rear tire. These are two distinct concepts, yes? So it's reasonable to say that your left rear tire is not your car. How about your engine? Well, no. It's useful to having a car, but you wouldn't say that the engine is the car.

So let's say you take your engine and your left rear tire and all the other bits that make up your car, and throw them in a pile. Is it a car yet? No. No, it's not. It needs to be organized. So let's say you pile smaller parts on top of larger parts. It's organized now, right? Still not a car, though. It's only once you get all the parts working together by attaching them to each other in a fairly specified way that you've got yourself a car.

So how does this relate to Scott Adams' claims? Well, I'm willing to grant him the idea that there is intelligence. And that that intelligence is possessed by people, who express it through actions. But where does it begin? I feel it begins with me. I am intelligent. I also have that intelligence, in part, because my parents have intelligence, and are directly responsible for my birth. I am not, however, willing to say that my parents' intelligence(s) is identical to my own; I have my own mind. It may have been shaped by my folks, but it is not theirs; I do not know their thoughts the same way that I know my own. They had to, at some point, create an intelligence (or a host for it) which is mine and not theirs. My own intelligence had to be generated at some point. So, if intelligence has to be generated, then it isn't logical to say that because there is intelligence now, the Big Bang must have had intelligence.

Okay, that's a long ramble, so I'll stop soon. I'll keep thinking about this problem, though; think of this as a first draft in my refutal of Adams' blog.