If you had no knowledge of other humans, would seeing a human designed artifact imply design?

Question

Let’s use the example of a watch.

Suppose for whatever reason you were not aware of the existence of other humans or factories or any methods known to create watches. Perhaps this could be the result of you being abandoned by your parents or experiencing memory loss or some other weird reason that resulted in this predicament. The reason doesn’t matter for the purpose of this question. What matters is you do not know that other agents like you exist, do not know what factories are, and have never come across anything similar to a watch before.

Now, suppose you come across a watch. Are you now justified in thinking that it was designed by a human, even if it is as a matter of fact designed?

I think something that would make this question even more interesting is if one is not human or one is some kind of robot or even some mind-entity floating in space who has no sort of interaction to the object except for sight and/or only sensory functions. What then?

I personally would say that it would depend upon prior knowledge of what one has, one could possibly try wearing the watch and have some justification that it was made by someone like themself because it fits on their arm.. They could have some justification by relation of prior knowledge. — How why e, Mar 28 '24 at 22:22
Does this answer your question? Is there a general theory of intelligence and design that would allow us to detect the presence of design in an object based solely on its properties? — Mark, Mar 28 '24 at 22:22
The question is not about design detection based solely on its properties. The question incorporates knowledge or the lack of knowledge of potential designers which is key. Hence, I don’t think this is a duplicate. @Mark — Baby_philosopher, Mar 28 '24 at 22:24
I think something that would make your question even more interesting is if one is not human or one is some kind of robot or even some mind-entity floating in space and no sort of interaction to the object except for sight and/or only sensory functions. — How why e, Mar 28 '24 at 22:29
@Howwhye Funnily enough, I thought the same! I’m going to add your suggestion to my question — Baby_philosopher, Mar 28 '24 at 22:30
Let's use the example of the Antikythera mechanism. Let's think about aliens encountering Voyager 1 or 2, currently outside the Solar system. — Scott Rowe, Mar 28 '24 at 22:41
Whatever works for you! I think the point of the question remains the same @ScottRowe — Baby_philosopher, Mar 28 '24 at 22:45
Humans are predisposed to recognize Agency (they even see it where it doesn't exist sometimes). I predict that any human, even without socialization or education would recognize the results of deliberate action. Animals do it also. We see it in ourselves. Anything qualified to be considered an Agent would too. Else, it would be killed off by anything that could. — Scott Rowe, Mar 28 '24 at 22:51
@Baby_philosopher Under your assumptions the person who finds a watch would not understand what this obeect is good for. Hence you cannot draw further conclusions from your example. — Jo Wehler, Mar 28 '24 at 23:14
@JoWehler The person would think: "What a strange creation." — Idiosyncratic Soul, Mar 28 '24 at 23:27
@ScottRowe Cool but the question is about philosophical justification, not what influences human psychology — Baby_philosopher, Mar 28 '24 at 23:34
@Idiosyncratic Soul More probably the person would think: "What an unusual finding(!)". — Jo Wehler, Mar 28 '24 at 23:40
If your example person is a "wild child" they probably won't be thinking philosophically, so you might get further thinking in terms of psychology? — Scott Rowe, Mar 29 '24 at 01:54
The question is not what about what they’d actually do but what they would be justified to believe @ScottRowe — Baby_philosopher, Mar 29 '24 at 02:03

Alistair Riddoch · Answer 1 · 2024-03-29T04:56:13.173

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No. It wouldn't imply design. It would prove design. Design by humans. We do design things.

Would it imply a cosmic supernatural designer? No. We know it is a human design... we got told so in the premise.

There is no need or reason to equate or relate human ability to design with claims or suspicions of a celestial supreme being.

It would be much more natural and logical to think "Hmm, there must be another, or have been another... like me... and dang they are good at making tiny things.".

Since I am seeing the "artifact" on Earth, I would definitely, 100% start with the default position that whomever, whenever made the artifact, they were here on Earth when they did so.

With no knowledge of other beings, on Earth, or any other sort... I would have no reason to jump to aliens, or other "up there in space, where I can't go entity of some sort". None. Unless there was a creater around the artifact.

edited Mar 29 '24 at 04:56

answered Mar 29 '24 at 01:46

Alistair Riddoch

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But who made people (and animals) that can design and build things? There must be a Conservation of Design Effort principle or something, or the universe just wouldn't make sense... – Scott Rowe Mar 29 '24 at 01:57
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The question does not say anything about supernatural design. Secondly, the whole point is that the subject does not know of other humans or that they would have designed the watch. This is not a helpful answer – Baby_philosopher Mar 29 '24 at 02:05
@Baby_philosopher you said... "question does not say anything about supernatural design"... but in fact... you tagged it "INGELLIGENT DESIGN"... and Wikipedia says this about intelligent design... "Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as 'an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins'. So given your tag... you can understand why one might think you are asking about "INTELLIGENT DESIGN". Unless someone else editted your question and put that tag there??? – Alistair Riddoch Mar 29 '24 at 03:44
@Baby_philosopher Also the watchmaker argument is well known as an argument for God. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy – causative Mar 29 '24 at 03:55

If you had no knowledge of other humans, would seeing a human designed artifact imply design?

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