Maybe this will help… here is your statement about Dan:
Soooo, @jongarvey
What is the effect of the “limiting factor” ? I dont even remember those words.
I remember Dan saing that there is a finite amount of unfo on the tip of the cue stick.
And i remember my saying the cue stick in Behe’s model represents God… not some God uses.
So… if this is what your very long post was about, what would you change in my wording above?
Well, I don’t think that Behe said the cue stick is God, or someone would have to be playing him. But either way, if the game is ballistics of billiards, the way the balls bounce is the result of simple physical laws, and the cue tip can only do so much.
If you want to say the cue tip is an infinite God (I’m not understanding what that means, though), then the limiting step is the first ball in line. All information except trajectory, velocity and spin are lost by the nature of the ball.
Here’s a more philosophical answer. Billiard cues (or balls, if you prefer) are created with certain potentia. A billiard ball can move and spin, but it can’t become flat, change its elasticity or anything else necessary to add information to the system without ceasing to become a billiard ball.
God can, of course, do that - but it’s then no longer a frontloaded, law-driven situation but one in which the law of billiard balls changes. I don’t see why that isn’t obvious to all.
So that is why your post was so long!
It had to be long to take a metaphysical model and turn it to dust. I will explain:
Yes, Behe never mention the cue stick as God. He didnt have to and didnt need to.
He also probably never expected someone to suggest “limits of the cue stick” as some kind of problem.
If the Pool Shot model has any value, it is because the balls represent all the energy (usually folks agree that matter did not exist for a while) at the time of the big bang.
And finally, the point of the story is how tye balls interact when sent into motion!.. the cye stick is not the point. If you like, i can use a version of Pool Shot Scenario thst has a cue stick for EVERY ball!
The only thing that defeats the entire category of various Pool Shot scenarios would be the premise that the balls (or at least some of them) act in authentically random ways.
Well, in that case we can use a pool shot scenario in which God carefully makes each ball and places it exactly where he wants… but it’s of little more explanatory use than yours quoted here, as others have been saying on this thread.
Hmmm… im not sure what you mean here.
The Pool Shot Model shows that “design” can be built into creation that doesn’t require any ongoing miraculous “intervention”.
@jongarvey.
Isnt that sufficiently interesting for an I.D. supporter to represent?
The whole question is the nature of such a “design”, and whether it’s possible given what we know of our universe. We both seem to exclude (ontological) chance, since it is the opposite of design - it intervenes unexpectedly.
That doesn’t leave much for God to work with. A design that needs no “intervention” (your term - I prefer something like “management” or “involvement”) has to be one based on initial information unfolding on some predetermined pattern - or in other words, according to laws of nature. It is a deist scheme, pure and simple.
The discussion has been whether that’s even plausible in practice, because the initial conditions of creation, and the laws of nature unfolding from them, do not contain sufficient information to predict the outcomes we have. Hence the initial conditions are like the billiard shot (or the cue), and the behaviour of the universe thereafter follows the relatively simple laws of nature, and it’s not that accurate a machine.
As far as an IDist like Behe admitting it as a model, that’s been covered above: if such a scheme did work, then it would be every bit as designed as special creation. “Design” (aka final causation) simply requires an intention that is actualized. There must be sufficient means to make it happen (efficient causes), but those are outside the realm of design itself. Behe is saying “I’m open to any viable set of efficient causes, provided final causation is allowed.” Other ID theorists have said the same (Dembski comes to mind).
The rest of the argument is whether any actual “without supernatural intervention” process could provide those sufficient means. Dan thinks not, Paul thinks not, and I think not. Dembski thinks not, again on informational grounds.
And that’s one reason that ECs tend to lower the bar by making the evolution of the universe a semi-autonomous process that was only ever planned enough to produce “something”, which a fatherly God smiling approves like a child’s crayon scribble. They at least don’t over-estimate the determinism of natural processes - except when they say that, at least, God intended mankind.
And by the term “Ontological Chance” you mean something that doesnt just “appear” to be random… but is random from God’s perspective. The reason this is rarely discussed is due to such a view being relatively low in priority to tye average Creationist.
And even here, with True or Ontoligical Randomness, we can imagine some folks allowing that not even God knows the future behavior of things with Ontol.Randomness; while others would say the future behavior of Ontol.Random items WOULD be known by the True God.
Ive brought us to this particular side of randomness to point out that a human with free will (with divine foreknowledge) has pretty much the same affect as Ontol.Random objects (WITH divine foreknowledge).
@jongarvey, is this something we both can agree upon?
I would like to know that ive navigated the hazardous shoals of logic correctly… at least from your perspective!
I think we all agree on this!
And so, if it is accomplished without any miraculous engagement, then God’s design is veiled by the normal operations of natural law (also Behe’s point of the model) … and thus qualifies as Evolution just as much as Evolution lacking in any initial design by a divinity.
Do we agree on this @jongarvey?
I hope so, because im pretty certain that this is @swamidass’ view as well.
The difference between what you write and what @Dan_Eastwood writes is: at least i understood what Dan wrote!
What do YOU think the sentence you wrote (above, in this post) actually mean in layman’s terms?
If it means what i think it means… im not sure it matters!!!
Ontological chance is, as you say, “random from God’s perspective” - which by definition would mean “unpredictable or of unknown cause from God’s perspective”, making God’s prediction of it an oxymoron - he can’t know what is unknown to him. That’s why I say it doesn’t exist.
But creationists are not the issue here - it’s TEs who fudge what they mean by “chance,” and the confusion is compounded by IDists who, also, don’t define what they mean by chance when discussing whether God could use it. It’s crucial in any discussion of divine action.
Regarding free-will: biblically, since God knows our thoughts “from afar off” (Ps 139) neither the future choices, nor the reasons for them, are hidden from him. In the simplest understanding, they are therefore factors he could plan the universe round. If indeed he is not even more involved (consider Gen 50:19-20; Acts 4:27-28).
So I say: human choice exists, within the providence of God. Ontological chance is incoherent, so doesn’t exist. otherwise, i agree they’re identical!
I suppose your description of WHY so many ECs come to the scenario of “Approx.Guidance.Only” (to coin a self-explanatory phrase!) Is on the mark.
But i think it is wrong minded for you to encourage this viewpoint. It isnt YOUR view, is it?
Is it the view of @swamidass?
< Joshua, please place coin in the slot to indicate you are responding! 
We dont have to convince atheists of anything… but we do have to sound plausible to the Creationists.
And this whole “approximately/kinda/almost” role of Hod sounds just a bit preposterous!
It is not God predicting or NOT predicting something that makes it truly random! You are making a logical mistake here.
It is God HAVING COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE of whether something APPEARS random, or ACTUALLY IS random that should define True Randomness!
Can we agree on this much thus far?
I dont need to fall on my sword over the few times any of this matters.
But honestly… every time you bring in randomness (even when it is not the issue ) it forces us to revisit the topic again… and for no particular reason.
This thread, for example, in your. Iew, why did ontoligical randomness enter into the discussion?
If we both say: there is no such thing as Ontoligical Randomness… can we both promise not to bring it up again?
[Edit: @jongarvey. New sentence added just before tge last one!]
Granted such a thing were possible, it would certainly qualify as evolution, AND as design. However, it would cut across the standard scientific opinion on evolution, ie that it is open-ended and NOT determined by laws.
The question of being “veiled” is one I’ve argued with Josh about. God is only hidden if we make metaphysical assumptions about causes, ie that “laws” operate “naturally” without God, and that contingency is “chance.”
But if, instead, you start from theology, then “laws” are God’s faithful and regular actions, and “contingencies” are God’s free choices. In that case, he’s revealed in evolution, and not veiled at all.
Therefore “directed evolution” would be either (or a combination of) God’s “frontloaded laws” (aka “general providence”) or his occasional actions (aka “special providence.”) Which of them is true is a matter of scientific research, as long as you read “laws” and “chance” as “faithfulness” and “choice.”
Incidentally, that is how I came to the origins question back in 2010: God governs evolution, but does he do it through laws or through active management? It’s still valid.
Oh, it matters OK. It’s about whether deism should finally be junnked.
But since you ask, my sentence means: “It is not likely that any purely frontloaded process could do what God wanted it to.”
It would be good for you to get a handle on the “principle of sufficient means” as it’s basic, and I will certianly refer to it agin.
How did I encourage it simply by describing it? I’ve spent 8 years calling it out as incoherent at BioLogos.
So you dont consider this even a POSSIBLE scenario ?!
And so you must reject Behe’s use of the Pool Shot Model categirically as impossible?
And, ultimately, yoh reject Geneal.Adam as well? If yoi dont reject Heneal.Adam, your explanation will no doubt helo me understand how you are procesding these elements.
Can you please reconcile the two positions?:
the Pool Shot Model is not plausible… but @swamidass’ Genesl.Adam is plausible?
The “Principal of Sufficient Means” (which is a horribly obtuse label!) is a philosophical “what if” Toy… trying to impose itself on theologically-motivated metaphysics.
Why would go along for THAT ride to nowhere?