Argument for God from Reason

[IWantGod]

I’m not sure who this Metaphysical Naturalist is, but I can’t believe he hasn’t noticed this.

Metaphysical naturalists assume that because we have our experience in the natural order of things that our mind and will must be a natural process. It’s an assumption that has never been rationally justified, and by justified i don’t mean proven, i mean shown to be a coherent possibility.. The idea is simply a by-product of their materialist ideology; essentially they are trying to push a circle into a square hole…To defeat my argument some will goes as far as to say we don’t actually will anything and reasoning does not exist at least not as a goal directed act of the intellect. It shows the lengths some are willing to go to deny any thing that could possibly be characterized as non-physical.

I fear you have carefully constructed a straw horse, named it Metaphyscal Naturalist, and successfully chopped it to pieces.

Well they can always go for the other option and say that nature is fundamentally goal directed. But that just helps the theist even more. It seems that they are on the horns of a dilemma, short of asserting that we are not rational minds with a goal directing freewill and thus in effect rejecting our everyday experiences as minds. .

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Metaphysical naturalists assume that because we have our experience in the natural order of things that our mind and will must be a natural process.

Sort of. If all we experience, observe and measure seem to be explained in rational terms, then there is no per se reason why our minds are any different.

It’s an assumption that has never been rationally justified, and by justified I don’t mean proven, I mean shown to be a coherent possibility. The idea is simply a by-product of their materialist ideology; essentially they are trying to push a circle into a square hole.

I don’t think that’s altogether correct. If everything we know is rational, then it is not unreasonable to suppose that what we don’t know is also rational. If you want to posit an exception, I think you will have to explain why.

To defeat my argument…

You haven’t made an argument. You’ve just said that the assumption that the mind is rational is wrong. You haven’t said why.

… some will goes as far as to say we don’t actually will anything and reasoning does not exist at least not as a goal directed act of the intellect. It shows the lengths some are willing to go to deny any thing that could possibly be characterized as non-physical.

Perhaps they will. I’ll wait for the argument and say something different.

 

[IWantGod]

Sort of. If all we experience, observe and measure seem to be explained in rational terms, then there is no per se reason why our minds are any different.

A rational process of the intellect is where one acknowledges a logical consistency between things or propositions or identifies something inconsistent. It is a recognition of a necessary differentiation or duality. It’s not by accident that we enter this process , but rather it is a goal directed effort of the intellect being that truth is its rational end.

The universe is rational but obviously not in the same way the mind is. It does not know rational ends or will itself to that end.The metaphysical naturalist would rightfully say that if metaphysical naturalism were true that the universe is not goal directed to rational ends. it’s behavior is just logically consistent because the impossible cannot happen, which is not the same things as being goal directed to an end.

You are conflating the two and saying because the universe is rational that it would make sense that there was a rational mind. Yes a mind cannot do the logically impossible; it’s similar to the universe in that respect, but the mind has something the metaphysical naturalist’s universe does not have. We can willfully seek truth and understanding… That’s goal direction.

The universe is not essentially an act of reasoning, but that act of reasoning is a process that we do everyday. Obviously this is inconsistent with the universe of a metaphysical naturalist who says that all is physical and physical processes are directionless (not goal directed) and blind to it’s natural end.

Therefore i am justified in making an essential distinction, a metaphysical differentiation if-you-will, between physical processes and the nature or activity of the intellect or mind.

 

[IWantGod]

Chaos theory has nothing to do with what you are implying. The idea that chaos is the efficient cause of purpose is not a premise of Chaos theory, and is incoherent metaphysically speaking. That order arises from random events or that one cannot predict an event is neither here or there. It’s irrelevant.

Chaos theory - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Chaos theory is a branch of mathematics focusing on the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions. ‘Chaos’ is an interdisciplinary theory stating that within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals, self-organization, and reliance on programming at the initial point known as sensitive dependence on initial conditions. The butterfly effect describes how a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state, e.g. a butterfly flapping its wings in China can cause a hurricane in Texas.[1]

Small differences in initial conditions such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation yield widely diverging outcomes for such dynamical systems, rendering long-term prediction of their behavior impossible in general.[2][3] This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future behavior is fully determined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved.[4] In other words, the deterministic nature of these systems does not make them predictable.[5][6] This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos. The theory was summarized by Edward Lorenz as:[7]

 

[Dan123]

Defining intelligibility, for instance, a book is intelligible. We have satellites looking for intellegible signals from space, the main assumption being that intelligibility implies intelligence, as in intelligent life. My belief the universe is intelligble, as in reasonable, is that reason at all exists, for if the universe were unreasonable, then reason itself would be unreasonable.

This is like the 'you walk on a beach and among the sand you find a watch" watchmaker argument. The problem is the discern ‘design’ by contrasting it with things we don’t see as designed, otherwise we’d pick up every piece of sand and see the same design we see in a watch. Likewise we discern ‘intelligible’ signals from space by looking for ones that DON’T look like what we normally see the universe produce. We look for ones that have structure and form that are different.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

A rational process of the intellect is where one acknowledges a logical consistency between things or propositions or identifies something inconsistent. It is a recognition of a necessary differentiation or duality. It’s not by accident that we enter this process , but rather it is a goal directed effort of the intellect being that truth is its rational end.

This is the thing I find difficult to demonstrate. I can see that a rational intellect detects order and consistency in the universe, but do not see that that deductively means that the intellect is searching for truth. It may not be searching for anything, although I think human and animal intellect probably invariably does involve a search, if not for intellectual truth then for enough information to find food or a mate,

You are conflating the two and saying because the universe is rational that it would make sense that there was a rational mind.

Well really I was trying to understand what Kei was saying. But insofar as a mind is a product of a rational universe, then, yes, a mind has to be as rational as everything else. I think you’re trying to demonstrate that the mind is more than just ‘rational’ (ie includes ‘purpose’). This ‘purpose’ has either been added to the mind as it was formed, from something outside the rational universe, or is an integral part of the rationality of the universe, which we cannot easily or directly perceive, yet.

I find this idea very attractive, but I’d like to hear AndrewAxland comment on it. Convincing a person who wants to be convinced is much easier than convincing a person who doesn’t, even if each is as rational and unbiased as each other.

 

[tafan2]

This is not what chaos theory is about.

 

[Dovekin]

Chaos theory is relevant, because it posits a world (chaos) that is notintelligible, but has intellible structures within it. (See the bold faced sentence in IwantGod’s quote)

This is a direct negation of Kei’s argument that only the intelligible can be described intelligently.

There are lots of other answers, like astrology. Planetary motions are analyzed to describe human behaviors. Intelligence here looks at a system that is intelligible in some ways, and generates an order that does not exist. intelligence is acting, but the order it finds is a phantom. Intelligibility does not imply that there is inteligence about behavior in the stars.

In chaos, and in astrology, we find intelligence acting to find order, and finding order that either is transient or does not exist within the universe examined.

 

[Kei]

My main point is, without an argument here, that reason needs to be reasonable, which only occurs if the world in which we are in is formed with reason. Else, if the world were irrational, it would be irrational to be “rational.”

Indeed, one cannot even conceive of a world formed without mind, as the act of conception is required.

 

[Dan123]

If the universe were any different than it is, we would consider that to be reasonable, as it’s what we observe around us. But I still think this will be hung up on definitions. What would an irrational world look like, can you give an example?

 

[Kei]

If the universe were any different than it is, we would consider that to be reasonable, as it’s what we observe around us. But I still think this will be hung up on definitions. What would an irrational world look like, can you give an example?

This is not an argument about what would be ‘reasonable’ for the universe, but rather looking at the fact of reason. I, in fact, cannot conceive of a world conceived without reason as I am a reasonable being, and therefore any world I conceive of is being conceived with reason. I can try, like saying “Oh, there’d be no cause asnynd effect, no uniformity of laws, yadda yadda” but in the end the exercise is doomed to failure, as the conception of any world requires a conceptualization.

 

[hmikell7]

Another great way of “proving” God can be found in quantum physics, specifically that part dealing with the 4th up to the 10th dimensions. It doesn’t really do anything to prove God per se, but an argument can be presented which makes it more reasonable than not to assume God’s existence. I wrote my term paper on it last quarter, interesting stuff.

 

[Dan123]

I guess the problem is how do we know such a universe is even possible?

 

[Kei]

That sounds like an interesting term paper. Could you pm me a link maybe? I have a friend who was a nuclear physicist and have a great interest in ie QM.

 

[Kei]

I think if an irrational universe seems impossible, that a world is not possible that is not formed through reason, then that would demonstrate the existence of reason prior to our own universe. Though I am not claiming that.

 

[Dan123]

I guess I object in either direction to assuming something is or isn’t possible based on whether our brains can conceive of it, especially at the level of existence itself. It could simply be the case that universes that are irrational can exist but they don’t product the type of life that sits around wondering how it all came to be. So I’m not sure that leads us to any conclusions about the existence of reason predating the universe, whether reason can exist outside a mind, whether a mind can exist without a matter based component such as a brain, and whether a reasonable universe can only arise from an act of a being capable of reason.

But if nothing else certainly sparked a lot of discussion which is always valuable.

 

[IWantGod]

What is an “irrational universe”?. If you are talking about a universe where the logically impossible happens then obviously that universe does not exist.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Indeed, one cannot even conceive of a world formed without mind, as the act of conception is required.

No. Who do you mean by one? Lots of people clearly can think of a mindless universe, even if organisms with a mind are a result of it. You can’t establish a truth simply by stating what you think might be one; you have to explain how it is true, and I don’t think this has been done yet.

I, in fact, cannot conceive of a world conceived without reason as I am a reasonable being, and therefore any world I conceive of is being conceived with reason.

You may not be able to conceive of a world conceived without reason, but there are plenty of other people who can.

Another great way of “proving” God can be found in quantum physics, specifically that part dealing with the 4th up to the 10th dimensions.

It’s a pity that your ‘proof’ has not yet received general acceptance.

What is an “irrational universe”?. If you are talking about a universe where the logically impossible happens then obviously that universe does not exist.

I can envisage an irrational universe. Part of the rationality of our universe is that successive moments in time are minimally different from one another. If successive states of the universe had no relationship to each other, that would suggest irrationality.

 

[IWantGod]

If successive states of the universe had no relationship to each other, that would suggest irrationality.

You mean events that have no causal relationship between one another? Events arbitrarily following one-another?

.

 

[Kei]

You don’t understand my point.
You can conceive of a world without minds within it. You cannot conceive of a world without mind, however, because the act of conceiving of such a world is done by you, with your mind.
You can attempt to conceive of a world created without reason, but you cannot, as you are conceiving of it with your reason.