Ian, I’ve got a crazy week and need to focus – and i think that is a ‘good’ decision, not because I’ve been infected by a ‘meme’ either… Might follow up if I get time

On an instant by instant basis life is quite improbable but the point is that once you get it, it is able to resist change away from it. Non-adaptive systems can’t resisit change from their current state and therefore are more likely to alter. Hence long term complex adaptive states are more likely.

I think goodness is a meme. I think design is a description of conscious activity. I think order is a systems concept that is well defined. I don’t think external intention-based teleology is necessary for any of the above

hmmm… in terms of self-sustaining states, wouldn’t it seem that non-life is more self-sustaining then life? and disorganisation more so than organisation? asexual reproduction than sexual reproduction?

Incidentally this statistical mechanics issue was purely in response to the teleology point

…oh so then you agree that “you don’t have goodness, design or order without some idea of ['intention-ish'] teleology”

I am fascinating by how things tend towards states – it kind of defines everything we know about the world

This is really hard to explain but any state that is self sustaining (such as life) is statistically more likely than a comparable chaotic state, entirely because it is self sustaining. Incidentally you cannot look at a specific state (i.e. the universe right this second) and judge its statistical likelihood because it always going to be infinitely small (a reason why many YEC probability arguments are nonsense). We can however look at types of states and self sustaining states would be expected to be around due to their durability.

Incidentally this statistical mechanics issue was purely in response to the teleology point

((ahh… I’d seen the second law of thermodynamics abbreviated as 2LT, but not ‘SLT’…))
I’m interested in how ‘things’ (as you say) ‘tend towards the more likely states’. Are you suggesting that our current state (complex biological life, etc.) is one of these ‘more likely states’ which the universe simply will statistically ‘tend toward’?

And -again- I doubt any of this is crossing our minds when we call something ‘evil’/'good’, ‘chaotic’/'ordered’???

Second law of thermodynamics, sorry habit

SLT?

Statistically things will tend towards the more likely states (i.e. what the SLT describes) which can mean cycles or patterns emerge which are appear designed for their environment solely because any less well suited state is less likely than it. This means things appear to fit (be designed) but there is no design needed.

I’m finding the distinction hard to see; both at a ‘properties of matter’ level – and at a ‘where the universe/biology/etc. got us to’ level

I think Dawkins distinction of designed versus designoid is a useful one but I think it stands that ‘tendency-ish’ teleology exists regardless of whether there is design-ish teleology or not