Overwhelming evidence for Design?

[Peter_Plato]

Tell me. Which part of a hand assigns its intrinsic purpose? If the purpose is assigned by something external to the hand, then the purpose is extrinsic.

There is no part that assigns its function. It is the essential form of the hand itself that determines what the hand is for and therefore determines the purpose of the hand. If the hand was not formed the way it is it could not carry out its purpose or function. The nature of the hand itself determines it purpose, that is why it’s purpose is intrinsic. There is no need to have something external to the hand determine what it is for, because its shape, form or intrinsic nature clearly shows its purpose.

I deny that this purpose is intrinsic. Hence it is not an “undeniable” intrinsic purpose.

Undeniable in the sense of undeniable by any clear thinking rational being.
I deny that you can think. My denial has nothing to do with your capacity to think as your denial makes no difference as to whether the purpose of something is intrinsic or not. Any hand in existence does not require your permission to carry out its inherent function of picking things up.

If I had a flower at the end of my arm I could not use it to pick things up, no matter how hard I applied my extrinsic powers to the fllower to make it carry out my externally imposed purpose for it. The reason a hand works for the purpose of picking things up is that its form allows it to. My external intervention makes no difference to its success if the form didn’t allow the function to be performed.

 

[rossum]

I’m going to be rude and butt in. The whole point of something being intrinsic is that it is not assigned by anything other than its very nature. Therefore, no “part” of the hand assigns it its intrinsic purpose. Its intrinsic purpose is virtually synonymous with its existence.

You talk about something’s “very nature”. I reject that concept. It is a form of reification, and I reject all forms of reification.

You are creating two things, the hammer and the ‘nature of the hammer’. If things all have a nature, then you also have ‘the nature of the nature of the hammer’ and so on in an infinite regress. There is a hammer. Just a hammer. A piece of metal with a handle. It is an error to see extra things, like a ‘nature’ or an ‘essence’ sitting behind the hammer. Those extra things are not part of the hammer, but are added by our brains as part of the process of perception and analysis.

An arachnophobe seeing a spider will also sense fear. That fear is not part of the spider, but is something added by the arachnophobe. Similarly with the ‘nature’ of the hammer. It is additional to the hammer, not part of the hammer.

rossum

 

[prodigalson2011]

You talk about something’s “very nature”. I reject that concept. It is a form of reification, and I reject all forms of reification.

I disagree. I don’t think it is reification at all, for reasons I will address below.

You are creating two things, the hammer and the ‘nature of the hammer’. If things all have a nature, then you also have ‘the nature of the nature of the hammer’ and so on in an infinite regress. There is a hammer. Just a hammer. A piece of metal with a handle. It is an error to see extra things, like a ‘nature’ or an ‘essence’ sitting behind the hammer. Those extra things are not part of the hammer, but are added by our brains as part of the process of perception and analysis.

Au contraire! You are creating one thing: the hammer. The nature of the hammer is an immaterial part as well as a necessary condition of the hammer (see my response to your next statement.) In even conceding that such a thing as a hammer exists, you are ascribing unto it a nature. A “hammer” is a real thing. A real thing whose purpose is to exert highly concentrated force to other objects; usually nails. Are we justified in saying that this is the nature of the hammer? Yes. Why? Because that is the known objective for which it was created. It may be used for other things, certainly, but its primary purpose is well known and universally agreed upon.

Even if we were to accept that what I have been doing is a fallacy of reification, you would then be guilty of commiting the same fallacy yourself. How so? By defining a hammer. You say it is a piece of metal (which, admittedly, is objective and detached enough so far) with a handle. But why a handle? Why is it a handle and not just a long piece of wood? Why is it wood and not just a certain arrangements of atoms? It is wood because you know that wood is a collection of atoms with certain properties; a nature. It is a handle because you know it is intended to be gripped. A hammer did not just appear out of nowhere, it was created for a purpose.

On the other hand, if you were to define it as simply “a piece of metal with a long piece of wood attached,” you create an obvious falsehood. Not just any piece of metal with a long piece of wood attached would be accepted as a hammer. Hammers have distinctive proportions that govern their ability to fulfill their purpose. Anything else is just a piece of wood and a stick; not a hammer at all. You might call it a hammer, but then I might call myself a whale. It doesn’t make it so, unless you reject all definitions out of hand, in which case discourse of any kind is pointless.

But ultimately, the point is that if there were no “intrinsic nature” to a hammer, then human beings couldn’t even conceive of one to create it. The nature precedes the object; not the other way around.

An arachnophobe seeing a spider will also sense fear. That fear is not part of the spider, but is something added by the arachnophobe. Similarly with the ‘nature’ of the hammer. It is additional to the hammer, not part of the hammer.

This is total conflation. The arachnophobe’s fear is obviously something within themselves; it is a reaction to the object. Nor is it “added” to the spider. Noone, not even your hypothetical arachnophobe, if asked to objectively describe the natural purpose of a spider would include invoking fear in that list, unless they were jesting or seriously lacked the ability to distinguish between their feelings and the things that provoke them.

This is not the same with the hammer. The nature of the hammer is not added to it after the fact of its creation; it is the very conceptual reality that gave rise to the invention of the hammer. Man didn’t just stumble upon a hammer and then feel a sudden impulse to drive a nail or break a rock. He desired to drive a nail or break a rock and created a hammer to do so.

 

[ReapReason]

A “hammer” is a real thing.

A hammer is not teleologically real. The idea of a hammer exists in our heads. but the object itself is just a bunch of atoms made in to a shape that best suits our ideological needs. There is no actual thing that has the nature of a hammer existing independently of the idea of it.

Not only that, the suggestion that humans can create true teleologiically meaning that has an actuality beyond the imagination is to suggest that we have the same power as God. The very idea is a heresy.

 

[prodigalson2011]

A hammer is not teleologically real. The idea of a hammer exists in our heads. but the object itself is just a bunch of atoms made in to a shape that best suits our ideological needs. There is no real actual thing that has the nature of a hammer.

By that logic, your head doesn’t exist; it’s just a bunch of atoms made into the shape that best suits the needs of whatever physical processes that create the illusion of you. Therefore even the idea of the hammer doesn’t exist, as there is no mind to hold it. Your argument quickly descends into absurdity. This sort of reductionism is self-negating.

 

[ReapReason]

By that logic, your head doesn’t exist; it’s just a bunch of atoms made into the shape that best suits the needs of whatever physical processes that create the illusion of you. Therefore even the idea of the hammer doesn’t exist, as there is no mind to hold it. Your argument quickly descends into absurdity. This sort of reductionism is self-negating.

It depends what you mean by a head. If a head is simply the “shape” that it happens to have, then I agree that heads don’t exist objectively.

A true head is the teleological activity intrinsic to its being; and it has this nature independently of what humans imagine it to be.

 

[prodigalson2011]

Not only that, the suggestion that humans can create true teleological meaning that has an actuality beyond the imagination is to suggest that we have the same power as God. The very idea is a heresy.

No, it’s not. We believe we were made in the image of God and share in his creative power. How, then, is it a heresy?

Also: "A teleology is any philosophical account that holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature."

So we see that the very idea of teleology stems from our understanding of the human will. Why, therefore, would our creations not share in the finality of purpose of the actions and wills that created them? It is deliberate creation that gives things teleological meaning.

“Have I not told you, ‘you are gods?’” - God

 

[prodigalson2011]

It depends what you mean by a head. If a head is simply the “shape” that it happens to have, then I agree that heads don’t exist objectively.

A true head is the teleological activity intrinsic to its being; and it has this nature independently of what humans imagine it to be.

Your definition says exactly nothing about the nature of a mind. Unless you can define the teleological activity of the mind, you can not say it is a teleological reality. But if you do define it, isn’t that just what you imagine it to be?

 

[ReapReason]

It is deliberate creation that gives things teleological meaning.

No it is not. It is the meaning intrinsic to its being/activity that makes it teleological.

You cannot jump from the idea that we have final causes to the idea that the imposition of our creative ideas on already existing objects literally transforms their objective natures in to the meaning that we subjectively prepare for them. Subjective meaning doesn’t become objective just because we mould objects in to working symbols of the ideologies we create.

 

[Peter_Plato]

A hammer is not teleologically real. The idea of a hammer exists in our heads. but the object itself is just a bunch of atoms made in to a shape that best suits our ideological needs. There is no actual thing that has the nature of a hammer existing independently of the idea of it.

Not only that, the suggestion that humans can create true teleologiically meaning that has an actuality beyond the imagination is to suggest that we have the same power as God. The very idea is a heresy.

You cannot be consistently “atheistic” solely about the nature of a hammer without going down a deep dark path. If you want to claim this hammer concept is subjective, then why stop there? Atoms are also merely the idea of humans, so they don’t really exist either, so nothing really does, it is all in our minds. We have no reason, according to your position, to believe in the existence of anything outside of our minds. What you consistently should be is an absolute idealist, or even a solipsist, if you want to take this track.

I’ve heard this same argument begin with colour. Colour is a subjective perception, therefore colour does not really exist “out there.” The problem is that you haven’t logically proven that. Just because your perception of colour is subjective, that doesn’t preclude an objective nature or existence of colour. Colour may still exist as a reality independently of your perception of it. Colour being subjective to you, does not logic entail it does not or can not exist objectively.

Likewise just because you have a concept of a hammer, not not preclude that the hammer has no objective or essential nature. Something is there that triggers your perception, why exclude the fact that it could be the essential nature of a hammer that triggers your perception of it. You want to exclude that possibility in principle with no warrant for doing so. To me that is inept argumentation.

 

[prodigalson2011]

No it is not. It is the meaning intrinsic to its being/activity that makes it teleological.

And that is exactly what we see in objects created by people. They have meaning inasmuch as they were created for a specific purpose.

You cannot jump from the idea that we have final causes to the idea that the imposition of our creative ideas on already existing objects literally transforms their objective natures in to the meaning that we subjectively prepare for them. Subjective meaning doesn’t become objective just because we mould objects in to working symbols of the ideologies we create.

A hammer is not an “already existing object.” It is a very specific arrangement of preexisting materials. Again, everything in existence, from rocks to trees to people even down to atoms are just such arrangements, so by your definition, nothing has a teleological reality and any argument on the subject becomes void.

Your line of thinking ultimately ends in nothing. You have no argument because there is nothing to have an argument with or about.

But enough about that. The meaning of a hammer is not at all subjective. It is a conceptual reality. The principles that guide the creation and function of hammers are not “ideologies” we create, but facts of nature we have learned. A hammer is not a working symbol, it is a functional reality. Symbols don’t do anything. It is self-evident that symbols can do no more than symbolize something; it represents an external reality. A hammer is not a symbol of concentrated force. It is a tool that, in reality, delivers concentrated force to things outside of itself; it doesn’t just give people the idea that nails are being driven; it actually drives them.

 

[ReapReason]

You cannot be consistently “atheistic” solely about the nature of a hammer without going down a deep dark path. If you want to claim this hammer concept is subjective, then why stop there? Atoms are also merely the idea of humans,.

1. My argument is not atheistic.
2. You are making a straw-man of how I use the word idea by encompassing all standards of conceptual activity.
3. We know atoms exist because we have measured the activity intrinsic to their nature and being. We have then labelled that particular kind of activity with the word atoms.

 

[ReapReason]

And that is exactly what we see in objects created by people. They have meaning inasmuch as they were created for a specific purpose.

False. You may have shaped atoms in such a way that they are suitable to perform a particular job, but it does not therefore follow that the objective intrinsic essential nature of those atoms is pushing nails in to wood (a hammer). A hammer is not the objects objective final cause; a hammer is purely an idea in peoples heads and remains there regardless of the actual objects you use to push nails in to wood.

 

[rossum]

You are creating one thing: the hammer. The nature of the hammer is an immaterial part as well as a necessary condition of the hammer (see my response to your next statement.)

I have a hammer. According to you I also have a ‘nature of hammer’. I remove a single material atom from my hammer. Does the remainder of the hammer, the bulk of it, still have ‘nature of hammer’? I will assume the answer is yes. A polished hammer loses a few atoms in the polishing but is still a hammer.

If ‘nature of hammer’ is in the larger part, and not in the removed atom, then we can be sure that the individual atom does not contain ‘nature of hammer’. Replace the first atom and remove a second atom. That second atom also does not contain ‘nature of hammer’, which remains in the larger part. Repeat the remove/replace with every single atom in the hammer. We can show that each atom individually does not contain ‘nature of hammer’.

Now remove each atom in turn, but do not replace them. We have already shown that each atom does not contain ‘nature of hammer’, so when each atom is removed the ‘nature of hammer’ must stay behind in the rest of the hammer. Continue removing atoms one by one until all the atoms have been removed. Since we have only removed single atoms, then we know that we have not removed ‘nature of hammer’ because we have already shown that a single atom does not contain ‘nature of hammer’. Whatever is left after all the atoms have been removed one by one must be ‘nature of hammer’ because we have shown that we have not at any time removed ‘nature of hammer’. If it was not removed, then if must be whatever is left behind.

Show me this ‘nature of hammer’ that remains after all the atoms of the hammer have been removed.

That is why I do not accept the reified ‘nature of …’ or ‘essence of …’. When you look closely, they cannot be found. They are mental constructs which we find useful in manipulating the world around us, but they are not in themselves the actual world around us. They are part of our internal model of the world. They are not part of the actual world – reification can be seen as the error of mistaking our internal model for external reality.

rossum

 

[JDaniel]

You talk about something’s “very nature”. I reject that concept. It is a form of reification, and I reject all forms of reification.

You are creating two things, the hammer and the ‘nature of the hammer’. If things all have a nature, then you also have ‘the nature of the nature of the hammer’ and so on in an infinite regress. There is a hammer. Just a hammer. A piece of metal with a handle. It is an error to see extra things, like a ‘nature’ or an ‘essence’ sitting behind the hammer. Those extra things are not part of the hammer, but are added by our brains as part of the process of perception and analysis.

An arachnophobe seeing a spider will also sense fear. That fear is not part of the spider, but is something added by the arachnophobe. Similarly with the ‘nature’ of the hammer. It is additional to the hammer, not part of the hammer.

rossum

Rossum:

So, in order to accomplish nailing two pieces of wood together, you have to try out thousands of possible tools? I don’t. I simply look for a hammer. You say that you reject all forms of reification; hmmm? How would you know what all forms of reification looked like?

BTW, your last analogy made no sense. Are you sure you want to leave it the way it is? “Fear” is not a “nature.” It is not the “nature” of anything except “fear,” which, as everyone knows, is not an objectum. But, spiderness is common to all spiders. That’s precisely how I learned, as a kid, not to get bitten - again!

I don’t know . . . sometimes you’re right on target with your ratiocinations and other times, not so much.

 

[prodigalson2011]

False. You may have shaped atoms in such a way that they are suitable to perform a particular job, but it does not therefore follow that the objective intrinsic essential nature of those atoms is pushing nails in to wood (a hammer). A hammer is not the objects objective final cause; a hammer is purely an idea in peoples heads and remains there regardless of the actual objects you use to push nails in to wood.

Again, by that logic, nothing has an essential nature inasmuch as everything is composed of pre-existing matter. I don’t even need to refute your argument, it refutes itself. And, again, you fail to draw a significant distinction. The hammer BEGAN in the head of man. But the concept itself was based on real principles of physics and real materials; arranged into a certain form (which is a necessary consideration in any definition, as I will show presently.) That form was then given real physical shape. Ergo, the hammer really exists.

Moreover, it is fallacious to exclude the arrangement of matter when defining it. This is known as a “modo hoc” fallacy.

The modo hoc (or “just this”) fallacy is the informal error of assessing meaning to an existent based on the constituent properties of its material makeup while omitting the matter’s arrangement. For instance, metaphysical naturalism states that while matter and motion are all that comprise man, it cannot be assumed that the characteristics inherent in the elements and physical reactions that make up man ultimately and solely define man’s meaning.

Consider yourself refuted. Form is as essential a part of things as their constituent matter. Without the distinction of form, we would not be able to distinguish between any two things and therefore would not even be able to hold a coherent debate.

 

[ReapReason]

Again, by that logic, nothing has an essential nature inasmuch as everything is composed of pre-existing matter. .

How do you draw that conclusion? Don’t tell me, you are going to cherry pick something I have said out of context.

 

[ReapReason]

Moreover, it is fallacious to exclude the arrangement of matter when defining it. This is known as a “modo hoc” fallacy.

That depends on the context of the argument, which clearly fail to grasp.

 

[ReapReason]

The hammer BEGAN in the head of man. But the concept itself was based on real principles of physics and real materials; arranged into a certain form (which is a necessary consideration in any definition, as I will show presently.) That form was then given real physical shape. Ergo, the hammer really exists.

1. We are not talking about physics we talking about metaphysic.
2. Nothing in objective reality has the intrinsic nature of hammer. If i used your head for a hammer, the last thing you are going to say is that you now have the intrinsic objective nature of hammer. However I did use you as a hammer none the less. The object changed, but the idea is still the same (* i need an object that can bang in nails, lets call it a hammer.)*. That you can use a natural object to service you imagination, doesn’t really tell us much about its final cause.

 

[prodigalson2011]

How do you draw that conclusion? Don’t tell me, you are going to cherry pick something I have said out of context.

Because you cannot name one objectively knowable thing (excepting God) that is not composed of preexisting matter. If you think you can, go ahead and name one thing to which you can, on your terms, ascribe an objective final cause or intrinsic nature.