Design

[tonyrey]

Your implication that science is the best interpretation of reality overlooks the fact that it is based on two metascientific principles: the intelligibility of the universe and the power of reason which imply that we do not exist for no reason or purpose whatsoever.

Pascal made the important point that we are superior to the universe because there is no evidence it is aware of its existence whereas we are aware the universe exists - a fact we tend to take for granted but it is an astonishing achievement that such minute beings can comprehend the vastness of time and space as well as explain its fundamental laws and principles. Hindsight, insight and foresight enable us to transcend our environment and control ourselves as well as influence the course of events. In our secular society the power of the mind is greatly underrated even though it is our primary datum and sole certainty. No wonder materialism is rampant and mental illness is widespread when spiritual values and principles are neglected. “By their fruits you shall know them”…

 

[tonyrey]

How else do we explain the upward movement of simple organisms toward the arrival of humanity? All those simpler organisms were necessary to pave the way, but how could they be necessary without Someone directing their progress toward the human?

Indeed! The fatal flaw in materialism is its atomistic approach and obsession with analysis at the expense of synthesis. The mind is reduced to brain activity and the self is regarded as an illusion! All our thoughts and decisions are supposed to be the product of physical events like natural selection. It is no wonder Design is regarded as a fantasy when we ourselves are regarded as impotent and impersonal cogs in the machine of nature and incapable of directing our own behaviour. Persons don’t even exist in the scientific scheme of things.

 

[Vonsalza]

For anyone who uses materialism as their only standard, you’re probably right.

For the overwhelming majority of us who use it as one tool among a collection of tools, you may be committing reductionism.

If I think every problem in the world is solvable with a hammer, I’m in big trouble when I finally encounter a hex-nut.

 

[rossum]

Wikipedia: Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all phenomena, including mental phenomena and consciousness, are results of material interactions.

That is philosophical materialism. I am not a philosophical materialist.

According to materialism…

According to philosophical materialism. I am more of a methodological materialist. When dealing with the material I use materialist methods. I do not sacrifice a chicken to my RS232 interface lead to get it to work, I use a soldering iron.

What you are describing is not materialism as a philosophy.

Exactly, I am not a philosophical materialist.

BTW - materialism never cured cholera. Medicine, which is practiced by people holding quite diverse beliefs does that.

How many chickens does one have to sacrifice to Tlaloc to cure cholera? Alternatively should we use the material methods of modern medicine, developed using methodological materialism?

rossum

 

[rossum]

Materialism is usually defined as the monist doctrine that matter is **the only reality **and that the mind, the emotions, etc, are merely functions of it.

I am not a philosophical materialist, obviously, since I am Buddhist. I am more of a methodological materialist.

There is plenty of evidence throughout the world and throughout history that prayer is very often successful.

I would dispute that. You need to count the number of failures as well as the number of successes. If 100 people buy a ticket in a church lottery and 100 of them pray to win, that give is a 1% success rate for prayer. Sell 1,000 tickets and the rate gets worse. How many cancer patients prayed? How many died? Does prayer to Vishnu or Thor have a better or worse success rate than prayer to YHWH? There is a lot of confirmation bias in stories about prayers that worked; very few people tell stories of prayer that didn’t work: “I asked God to regrow my amputated arm, but He didn’t.”

When scientific studies have been done, Benson et al (2006) Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer, they show that prayer has no effect on outcomes.

You need to explain the source of your power of reason and self-control…

No I do not. I suggest that you read the Parable of the Poisoned Arrow. There are many impractical questions.

rossum

 

[Charlemagne_III]

No I do not. I suggest that you read the Parable of the Poisoned Arrow. There are many impractical questions.

rossum

No question is impractical if it gives vital knowledge. Yes, one must remove the arrow, but the metaphysical question behind removing the arrow is whether life is or is not worth living. Without first answering that question one way or the other, removing the arrow is tremendous trivia.

 

[rossum]

No question is impractical if it gives vital knowledge.

Agreed, but the question about the origin of human reson does not do so. All we need to know is how to use that reason to help attain enlightenment. Buddhism is a very practical religion:

One day the Buddha met an ascetic who sat by the bank of a river. This ascetic had practised austerities for 25 years. The Buddha asked him what he had received for all his labour. The ascetic proudly replied that, now at last, he could cross the river by walking on the water. The Buddha pointed out that this gain was insignificant for all the years of labour, since he could cross the river using a ferry for one penny!

Yes, one must remove the arrow

Of course, but do not delay removing the arrow by asking irrelevant questions.

rossum

 

[Aloysium]

. . . How many chickens does one have to sacrifice to Tlaloc to cure cholera? Alternatively should we use the material methods of modern medicine, developed using methodological materialism?

rossum

Since I doubt anyone has carried out the experiment, I couldn’t offer you any evidence-based answer to your chicken cure. One should have some sense of how reality is put together, but always remain flexible.

Modern Science does not use material methods; it is based on the philosophy of science.

People turn to not only medical science, but also to chiropractic, homeopathy, naturopathy, Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine. Healing is a complex process and human activity. It involves bringing about a state of well-being in the various spheres of our being - the physical, psychological and spiritual.

What you are suggesting, with its focus solely on the material, sounds as though it comes from someone having had little contact with the health system. It makes for bad medicine on a personal level, in terms of bedside manner. Additionally, that sort of restricted view, along with other non comprehensive approaches poses a significant obstacle to society’s attempt to develop efficient and cost-effective medical health-care.

 

[edwest2]

Thomas Aquinas:

"The Fifth Way: Argument from Design

"1. We see that natural bodies work toward some goal, and do not do so by chance.

"2. Most natural things lack knowledge.  

"3. But as an arrow reaches its target because it is directed by an archer, what lacks intelligence achieves goals by being directed by something intelligence (sic).

 "4.Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God."

Ed

 

[rossum]

"1. We see that natural bodies work toward some goal, and do not do so by chance. (emphasis added)

Assuming the conclusion.

rossum

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Assuming the conclusion.

rossum

Assuming they do not is also assuming the conclusion.

One can no more prove there is no design than one can prove there is no God.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Of course, but do not delay removing the arrow by asking irrelevant questions.

rossum

Assume the arrow has been removed.

Can we then ask questions not relevant to the arrow?

 

[inocente]

No question is impractical if it gives vital knowledge. Yes, one must remove the arrow, but the metaphysical question behind removing the arrow is whether life is or is not worth living. Without first answering that question one way or the other, removing the arrow is tremendous trivia.

Seemed to me maybe the point is that first responders ought not waste time asking victims metaphysical questions before providing cardiopulmonary resuscitation. And if metaphysical questions are not relevant at such a critical time, perhaps they are never relevant.

 

[rossum]

Assume the arrow has been removed.

Can we then ask questions not relevant to the arrow?

Ask me in nirvana.

rossum

 

[rossum]

One can no more prove there is no design than one can prove there is no God.

Correct. If God is as described, then every grain of sand is individually designed. This makes it impossible to test any design detector. Since everything in the universe is designed there is no undesigned thing with which to test the design detector. A battery, a switch and a green bulb would do as well. There is no need to connect the red bulb since it will never be activated.

In a created universe everything is designed, so design is not a useful description; it is merely a synonym for “exists”. In a non-created universe some things are designed and some things are not, so design becomes a useful concept.

rossum

 

[tonyrey]

How else do we explain the upward movement of simple organisms toward the arrival of humanity? All those simpler organisms were necessary to pave the way, but how could they be necessary without Someone directing their progress toward the human?

Blind, physical necessity is a hopelessly inadequate substitute for the power and wisdom of the Creator who plans and guides the entire process of development from mindless atoms to autonomous persons with a capacity for unselfish love and dedication to the universal principles of liberty, equality and fraternity.

From an objective point of view everything is contingent and nothing is necessary. Since there is no scientific reason why anything should exist - let alone develop - there must be a metascientific explanation which satisfies the following criteria:

   (i) Adequacy:  Random mutations and natural selection do not explain how living organisms became more complex and organized nor how they have survived in spite of overwhelming odds nor how they have become rational beings. 
       
  (ii) Economy: NeoDarwinism presupposes a plurality of unrelated factors – persons, values, physical energy and the laws of nature whereas Design provides a source of unity.

“The supreme being remains a mere ideal, it is yet an ideal without a flaw, a concept which completes and crowns the whole of human knowledge… This highest formal unity… is the purposive unity of things.” (Kant)

 (iii) Intelligibility: It is incomprehensible how rational beings have emerged from inanimate particles which lack hindsight, insight and foresight. The obscurity of NeoDarwinism stems from the assumption that the process of evolution is mechanistic and undirected. The atheist Medawar conceded that "We still seek a theory of Order in its most important form, that which is represented by the complex functional and structural integration of genetic messages."  
       
 (iv) Consistency: It is impossible to reconcile the indeterminism and determinism of NeoDarwinism ("Chance and Necessity" - Monod) with the power of self-determination, moral responsibility and the right to life.

 (v) Precision: NeoDarwinism is based on generalisations from insufficient paleontological evidence and presupposes the existence of living organisms and the process of replication. 

  (vi) Probability: The immense complexity of the human brain ("its chances were infinitely slender" - Monod, "a feat of fantastic difficulty" - Medawar, "a monster of improbability"- Dawkins) reveals the extreme improbability of NeoDarwinism. "Random sequences are the antithesis of prescribed genetic information... All known metabolism is cybernetic – that is, it is programmatically and algorithmically organized and controlled." (Trevors & Abel) 

  (vii) Verifiability: It is impossible to verify the NeoDarwinist theory that all biological, intellectual, aesthetic, moral, social and spiritual development is due to random mutations and natural selection whereas Design is confirmed by personal experience and the evidence of poets, artists, composers, mystics and saints.

  (viii) Fertility:  NeoDarwinism is infertile because it restricts explanation to physical causes and excludes holistic, teleological and spiritual explanation. Yet "... to regard all order in the world as if it had originated in the purpose of a supreme reason... opens out to our reason, as applied in the field of experience, altogether new views as to how the things of the world may be connected according to teleological laws, and so enables it to arrive at their greatest systematic unity". (Kant)

 

[Charlemagne_III]

In a non-created universe some things are designed and some things are not, so design becomes a useful concept.

rossum

Who says the universe is not created? And who has proved it?

 

[rossum]

Who says the universe is not created? And who has proved it?

You left out half my point. In a designed universe the concept of design is useless because everything is designed from the most complex living organism to a simple hydrogen atom. Design does not allow us to make any useful distinctions since everything is designed.

Only in a non-designed universe does design allow us to make useful distinctions between the designed and the non-designed. The non-designed category is absent in a designed universe.

rossum

 

[inocente]

In a designed universe the concept of design is useless because everything is designed from the most complex living organism to a simple hydrogen atom. Design does not allow us to make any useful distinctions since everything is designed.

Though ID is a god-of-the-gaps theology - only some things are designed. God didn’t design mud, rocks or anything which is explained naturally, God only designed things not yet explained (or which the ID fan doesn’t realize have been explained).

 

[rossum]

Though ID is a god-of-the-gaps theology - only some things are designed. God didn’t design mud, rocks or anything which is explained naturally, God only designed things not yet explained (or which the ID fan doesn’t realize have been explained).

Not exactly. ID is a designer of the gaps untheology. ID was designed (!) to get round the legal prohibition on teaching religion in US public schools. So the designer is never God (except when talking to church audiences).

For any believer that God created the universe, then everything in that created universe must be designed.

rossum