> It's the old mistake of assuming that the relationship
> between the universe in toto and whatever is
> __"outside"__ it can be understood by analogy to a
> relation between entities _inside_ the universe, in
> this case the relation between designer and designed.
Yes, and this old mistake is already a compound error, because it implicitly assumes that there's something "outside" the universe, or even that the universe has an "outside" at all. The simplest hypothesis is that this is all there is -- how would one prove otherwise?
Anyway, I had to de-lurk, because my .sig is so appropriate.
-- John S Costello joxn.costello at gmail.com "In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time." -- Edward P. Tryon