Objective Teleology

[ffg]

I assume you are referring, here, to miracles and the like? If not, please explain. If so, I think this is a different line of argument, one worthy but really very different.

You’d think, though, that if contraception were so harmful that we’d see some scientific studies demonstrating this. There are studies showing the side effects of some contracetives (e.g. medical treatments and devices) but I’ve never seen one on condoms which I am using to represent the simplest and least harmful contraception.

Let’s try expanding on an earlier comment, see if we can burn a few more candles of thought.

“You can’t vote your way to right / wrong. You can vote for a right(s) or a wrong(s).”

First let’s ground ourselves with a couple points -

There is truth, because the opposite thought is self-refuting.

For a human, truth is discovered, not created.

The source of truth is the source of ‘right’.

I mentioned this in another thread, but - regardless of the existence of God, we might find humans who get together and create a society. The rules that society creates would be through some method. Some methods are forceful, and rules are forced upon people after someone comes to ‘power’. Some methods give the people of a region a say in society’s rules.

Nowhere in any method is there a creation of what is ‘right’.

You are stuck trying to figure out how what appears harmless through the lens of your life experience is ‘wrong’ in light of the assumption of ‘no God’.

So what we might be able to conclude is if folks reconsider the source of the ‘right(s)’ they ‘know’, they might see there is no authority of what is ‘right’, without God…

Since method’s and rules can change, human’s in no way are the source of truth or ‘right’.

Take care,

Mike

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Let’s try expanding on an earlier comment, see if we can burn a few more candles of thought.

“You can’t vote your way to right / wrong. You can vote for a right(s) or a wrong(s).”

First let’s ground ourselves with a couple points -

There is truth, because the opposite thought is self-refuting.

For a human, truth is discovered, not created.

The source of truth is the source of ‘right’.

I mentioned this in another thread, but - regardless of the existence of God, we might find humans who get together and create a society. The rules that society creates would be through some method. Some methods are forceful, and rules are forced upon people after someone comes to ‘power’. Some methods give the people of a region a say in society’s rules.

Nowhere in any method is there a creation of what is ‘right’.

You are stuck trying to figure out how what appears harmless through the lens of your life experience is ‘wrong’ in light of the assumption of ‘no God’.

So what we might be able to conclude is if folks reconsider the source of the ‘right(s)’ they ‘know’, they might see there is no authority of what is ‘right’, without God…

Since method’s and rules can change, human’s in no way are the source of truth or ‘right’.

While I’m willing to follow a line of thought that, in effect, holds our theistic arm behind our back, I am assuming that the audience is open to the idea of truth and evidence in support/contradiction of truth. I realize that’s not a universal view but there is a vast audience of people who either don’t believe in God or who avoid taking God into account in their daily decisions but who, nevertheless, are sensitive to that which can be observed.

These are the people who would be open to an objective teleology if we can point to it.

Now it is possible that this is an impossible task, there are absolutely no right/wrong or rights without God. Or that whatever godless rights might be asserted are nothing more than veiled might make right. I don’t discount this entirely but I’m not as yet willing to surrender to this view.

I also mentioned in passing that some have argued that Thomas Aquinas never intended to offer a natural law which could stand on it’s own, that he always assumed the existence of God (in fact, argued for it first), before deriving any teleology from the natural world. That his goal was something more modes, simply to show that Christian theology is consistent with the natural world. Again,I don’t discount this entirely but I’m not as yet willing to surrender to this view.

What I want to consider here is whether a person who is
*) open to the truth of the natural world, but
*) closed to the truth of God
Can be shown objective teleology and thus that, for example, homosexual sex is wrong.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

How about the spiritual and psychological effects with which scientific studies are not concerned?

Of course, people ought to be concerned with spiritual and psychological effects that go unnoticed in this life but which might be important in the next. But let’s set those aside for the sake of discussion.

Then there are those spiritual and psychological effects which science could concern itself with but chooses not to. I’m open to the possiblity that there are scientific studies that are not being conducted because they are not interesting to scientists or because they would have unpopular implications. This possiblity interests me greatly but it implies a great anti-Christian conspiracy within the scientific community.

Lastly, there may be spiritual and psychological effects which are well known to scientists but which are not widely discussed in the current political atmosphere. It is well known, for exampe, that homosexual men suffer very high rates of STDs and that, by contrast, chastity/monogamy is virtually STD-proof. I suspect that there are probably some scientists who are well aware of similar spiritual and psychological effects that choose to keep their mouths shut. There is, for example, a vast literature in the new field of “happiness”.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Does the Church teach that human survival justifies incest? There is no reason to believe homo sapiens is intended to live on this planet forever.

Of course it wouldn’t! That’s why Adam and Eve’s children didn’t make any children of their own, and the human race died out thousands of years ago.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Of course, people ought to be concerned with spiritual and psychological effects that go unnoticed in this life but which might be important in the next. But let’s set those aside for the sake of discussion.

Then there are those spiritual and psychological effects which science could concern itself with but chooses not to. I’m open to the possiblity that there are scientific studies that are not being conducted because they are not interesting to scientists or because they would have unpopular implications. This possiblity interests me greatly but it implies a great anti-Christian conspiracy within the scientific community.

Lastly, there may be spiritual and psychological effects which are well known to scientists but which are not widely discussed in the current political atmosphere. It is well known, for exampe, that homosexual men suffer very high rates of STDs and that, by contrast, chastity/monogamy is virtually STD-proof. I suspect that there are probably some scientists who are well aware of similar spiritual and psychological effects that choose to keep their mouths shut. There is, for example, a vast literature in the new field of “happiness”.

I do frequently hear people (esp. religious people) claiming that there may be A. a scientific conspiracy against religious ideas or B. some religious idea that explains scientific findings, and posits other effects science hasn’t measured. My challenge is always: so go do the science yourself! There is nothing stopping a religious organization from funding their own psychological studies, or religious people from undertaking some novel research. You don’t need a bunch of scientists to agree to let you into the science club in order for the scientific method to be available to you.

Science’s great defense is empiricism; if you collect good data, the unpopularity of your ideas will eventually fold.

 

[ffg]

While I’m willing to follow a line of thought that, in effect, holds our theistic arm behind our back, I am assuming that the audience is open to the idea of truth and evidence in support/contradiction of truth. I realize that’s not a universal view but there is a vast audience of people who either don’t believe in God or who avoid taking God into account in their daily decisions but who, nevertheless, are sensitive to that which can be observed.

These are the people who would be open to an objective teleology if we can point to it.

Now it is possible that this is an impossible task, there are absolutely no right/wrong or rights without God. Or that whatever godless rights might be asserted are nothing more than veiled might make right. I don’t discount this entirely but I’m not as yet willing to surrender to this view.

I also mentioned in passing that some have argued that Thomas Aquinas never intended to offer a natural law which could stand on it’s own, that he always assumed the existence of God (in fact, argued for it first), before deriving any teleology from the natural world. That his goal was something more modes, simply to show that Christian theology is consistent with the natural world. Again,I don’t discount this entirely but I’m not as yet willing to surrender to this view.

What I want to consider here is whether a person who is
*) open to the truth of the natural world, but
*) closed to the truth of God
Can be shown objective teleology and thus that, for example, homosexual sex is wrong.

I applaud the drive.

I have nothing more than what I stated early in our back and forth considering the question -

For someone to see a ‘wrong’ without consideration of God (source of ‘right’), the ‘purpose’ is what one can look at to conclude ‘wrong’…

Assuming multiple potential ‘uses’ (lack of a better term) for the subject matter. In the desired case, the reproductive and potentially digestive systems.

Take care,

mike

 

[tonyrey]

There is no reason to believe homo sapiens is intended to live on this planet forever.

A false assertion is worthless…

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

I do frequently hear people (esp. religious people) claiming that there may be A. a scientific conspiracy against religious ideas or B. some religious idea that explains scientific findings, and posits other effects science hasn’t measured. My challenge is always: so go do the science yourself! There is nothing stopping a religious organization from funding their own psychological studies, or religious people from undertaking some novel research. You don’t need a bunch of scientists to agree to let you into the science club in order for the scientific method to be available to you.

Science’s great defense is empiricism; if you collect good data, the unpopularity of your ideas will eventually fold.

This is the ideal but it is not quite the reality. The reality is that science is largely funded through public institutions and that these public institutions have political biases and that these political biases influence what research is funded and therefore what research is pursued. Additionally, there is a similar influence in what research is published; research that is consistent with the established worldview is more likely to be published than that which challenges it. Finally, there are some areas where it is becoming potentially criminal to conduct certain scientific inquirires: dissenters in the area of global warming and sexual freedom are two major targets.

There is, though, another perhaps even more fundamental bias in science: materialism.

If objective teleology is there to be discovered it is quite possible that it might be rejected as unscientific.

Having said all that, I don’t endorse surrender but rather courageous investigation and argument in the face of such challenges but keeping them in mind rather than proceeding naively.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

This is the ideal but it is not quite the reality. The reality is that science is largely funded through public institutions and that these public institutions have political biases and that these political biases influence what research is funded and therefore what research is pursued.

Right, but I was saying that religious organizations could provide funding. Presumably the Catholic Church isn’t in on the conspiracy, and there is no rule against researchers receiving funding from private organizations (e.g. lots of biblical archaeological expeditions.) Also, even if the “famous” journals wouldn’t publish the information due to some conspiracy, there are plenty of other ways to share the findings (e.g. open access journals, conferences.)

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Recently I’ve been thinking about how to make a videogame. Specifically, a game that remembers everything that happens inside the game world, then writes a story about it at the end. While thinking about how to have a computer write a story, I thought that I had some ideas that were relevant to the concept of teleology.

Specifically, I was thinking that stories typically have their character’s plans either succeed or fail, and I would need to know how to tell if some event could be described as the moment a computer-character was thwarted (or, alternatively, represented the moment a computer-character succeeded.)

In order to do that, I realized, I would need some concept of teleology in the game. To get teleology, I would need to make AIs that had some form of intent. How could I do that? Conceptually, I don’t think it is too complicated. What they need is an ability to predict the future.

Of course I don’t mean that they would literally be able to tell the future, but they need some mechanism to ascribe expected outcomes to decisions or events. They would then make their decisions based on those expected outcomes. That way, if the actual outcome violated their expectation, we could describe that outcome-event as thwarting their plans. We could also tell which game events had a purpose, and in whose plan. Some events might even have more than one purpose!

With all that, we’ve just described a subjective teleology. I don’t think there is any point in quibbling about just how smart the computer AIs would be. It doesn’t matter if they are conscious or anything, they just need to be able to choose a purpose, i.e. have an ability to work towards some future state, and we’ve given them that.

In this kind of framework, inside the game, what would an objective teleology look like?

Lets consider the set of things that I allow inside the game, the “physics” of the world. I’m not necessarily talking about things like Newton’s laws of motion, but rather things like “doorObject,” “walk,” “pickUpItem” or “fight.” We might say that there is some sense in which those are objective to the characters inside the game, in that I the creator made them with some purpose in mind (i.e. that I wanted my stories to be able to involve walking, picking up items, and fighting.) But on the other hand, I don’t have a specific story in mind as I design the game. The point of the game is to make an interesting story, not to make some specific story.

We might also say that the game’s “physics” defines some sort of teleology for itself. For example, if I only allow certain kinds of objects in the game world to “walk,” and “walking” always results in a change of location, then we might say that walking has as its purpose “changing the location of certain kinds of objects.” I think that this is fine, and I also think that it is what Fesser attempts to do to defend the concept of a final cause. But I think we must also note that we are no longer using “purpose” in the same sense as we were when talking about our AI. Here we are using “purpose” to essentially mean “effect” as in cause and effect.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Right, but I was saying that religious organizations could provide funding. Presumably the Catholic Church isn’t in on the conspiracy, and there is no rule against researchers receiving funding from private organizations (e.g. lots of biblical archaeological expeditions.) Also, even if the “famous” journals wouldn’t publish the information due to some conspiracy, there are plenty of other ways to share the findings (e.g. open access journals, conferences.)

The problem with this is that religious organizations are primarily directing their resources toward their own operations (e.g. operating churches and schools) and charity (e.g. scholarships and orphanages). One could add scientific research to the list of charities but it would always remain the case that research funded by tax dollars and directed by political priorities would be more attractive to those doing the research.

But I think there is a more fundamental problem that does not require significant expenditures: currently religious and scietific organizations are largely talking past one another. The Catholic Church doesn’t need to replicate the scientific community, it only needs to alter the underlying philosophy.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Recently I’ve been thinking about how to make a videogame. Specifically, a game that remembers everything that happens inside the game world, then writes a story about it at the end. While thinking about how to have a computer write a story, I thought that I had some ideas that were relevant to the concept of teleology…

We might also say that the game’s “physics” defines some sort of teleology for itself. For example, if I only allow certain kinds of objects in the game world to “walk,” and “walking” always results in a change of location, then we might say that walking has as its purpose “changing the location of certain kinds of objects.” I think that this is fine, and I also think that it is what Fesser attempts to do to defend the concept of a final cause. But I think we must also note that we are no longer using “purpose” in the same sense as we were when talking about our AI. Here we are using “purpose” to essentially mean “effect” as in cause and effect.

Yes, it does seem like a very watered down concept of teleology, one that is not going to be very useful for inferring morality.