You: I'm sorry but I cannot allow you to use the concept of cooperation in your argument for design.

If two or more things are cooperating, then they are, by definition, working together to achieve a common goal. Without a goal, they are doing nothing more than interacting. Since a goal implies a design, you cannot prove that parts of a natural system are truly cooperating until you have first proven that a design exists.

Aaron: Don't you see? That is precisely my argument! Your wave example notwithstanding, there are systems of things in nature that cooperate, such as the organs in the human body. You yourself said that things cannot cooperate unless they are designed to do so, and from this we can conclude that there must have been a designer of the universe!

You: No, you don't understand. The organs in a human body are doing nothing more than interacting with each other, they have no common goal.

Aaron: Of course they have a goal. They are working together to keep a person alive.

You: Organs do nothing more than react to their environment. We see a goal in their actions, but they don't make it their goal to keep a person alive any more than water makes it a goal to get to the bottom of a hill. Organs and other natural machines are merely following natural laws.

Aaron: We seem to be in disagreement on the definitions of several words. Let me twist and restate our argument a bit so that we can start off again on fresh ground.