Why you should think that the First-Cause has to be an Intelligent Cause

[Vonsalza]

The last two comments, from Aloysium and Bradskii, do seem to me to sum up the essence of the discussion. I agree with them both. Certainly, one is struck, as Darwin was and Aloysium is, by the “beauty, the grandeur and intricacies of the music and movements” of the natural world; but I agree with Bradskii that that is an emotional, rather than a reasoned, argument for the “First Cause” being an “Intelligent Cause.”

I’ll largely agree. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I don’t need God for “is”. God doesn’t solve the prime mover issue any better than secular theories. They’re all appeals to the unknowable or the seemingly impossible.

What I need God for is “ought”. The ultimate source of “the ideal”. Whatever that may be.

 

[AlNg]

We know that physical reality is not fundamental reality or necessary reality because it changes

But God is fundamental and yet He does change, at least according to the Scriptures which say that God changed His mind.
Exodus 32:14.
Further God came down from heaven and became man.

 

[AlNg]

Evil is not a real thing in itself

Children who suffer in a war is a real thing and it is an evil thing.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Evil is not a real thing in itself

Children who suffer in a war is a real thing and it is an evil thing.

Yes, of course. But what is evil is the privation of goods they experience, for example, what is naturally fulfilling and healthy (physically, mentally
and emotionally) for a human being.

Consider, if there were no children there would be no suffering of children. The evil they experience doesn’t exist in itself but must exist in something, insofar as the absence of a good must be in something. For example, there’s an empty room with no people in it. That’s not evil. There’s anither room with children who’ve had to go without food in it. That’s a situation in which we say there is a physical evil: the hunger. But that physical evil doesn’t exist by itself, but only in there being something or someone actual experiencing the privation.

 

[o_mlly]

Your basic error is the assertion that an effect cannot exceed the cause. The Wright Flyer (an effect) was better at flying than the cause (the Wright Brothers). Your point fails.

Try pounding a nail into a board with your hand. Does the use of a tool (hammer) make the nailed board as an effect any different? No. The cause of the nail in the board is the one who pounds the nail.

The flying machine, like the computer, as an argument that an effect can exceed its causes is fallacious.

The Wright Flying machine w/o the Wright Brothers in it does not fly. The Wright Flying machine w/o the Wright Brothers design and construction does not exist.

 

[Wesrock]

The notion that an effect cannot exceed its cause, that is, the Principle of Proportionate Causality, takes into account all causal factors, not just one factor.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

Those that avoided life threatening environments by virtue of a genetic make up that they were lucky enough to have that prompted them to do so, passed on their lucky move-away-from-heat (for example) genes to offspring which did the same.

Possibly to some extent. OTOH reliance on Lysenkoism or Lamarckism is alleged to have caused the death by starvation of 30 million people.

I agree that Lysenko inadverantly caused the death of millions. But have absolutely zero idea how that might be pertinent. And even less of an idea (if that is possible) why Lamarck was mentioned.

 

[AlNg]

But have absolutely zero idea how that might be pertinent. And even less of an idea (if that is possible) why Lamarck was mentioned.

Acquired characteristics are not passed on. True that this is different from saying that those who survive because of specific genetic makeups passed on their genes. But it was wrongly believed to be related.

 

[Bradskii]

Well, yes. It was believed at one point. But I’m bemused by the fact that it bears no relationship at all to what was being discussed.

 

[rossum]

We do not hold that good and evil are opposing substances, anymore than actual light and darkness are opposing substances. We are not dualists in that sense.

Christians may not hold that. I am not Christian. Nagarjuna has some interesting things to say when two terms are defined in terms of one another.

• double recursion: see recursion, double.
• recursion, double: see double recursion.

Apply that insight to the entire dictionary. Every word in the dictionary is defined in terms of words in the dictionary. What do you have left when all the self-references are removed?

Nagarjuna has been summarised as: “The ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth.”

Whatever you think is an ultimate truth, isn’t.

rossum

 

[rossum]

The Wright Flying machine w/o the Wright Brothers in it does not fly. The Wright Flying machine w/o the Wright Brothers design and construction does not exist.

Irrelevant. We both agree that the Wright Brothers cause the effect of the Wright Flyer. That effect exceeded the ability of the Wright Brothers to fly.

The effect may exceed the cause. Your general point fails.

rossum

 

[Wesrock]

Nagarjuna has been summarised as: “The ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth.”

Sounds pithy and deep. Ultimately self refuting, though.

 

[Wesrock]

o_mlly:

The Wright Flying machine w/o the Wright Brothers in it does not fly. The Wright Flying machine w/o the Wright Brothers design and construction does not exist.

Irrelevant. We both agree that the Wright Brothers cause the effect of the Wright Flyer. That effect exceeded the ability of the Wright Brothers to fly.

The effect may exceed the cause. Your general point fails.

rossum

In post# 18 I address the various ways the effect can be in a cause. You’re only thinking about the effect being in the cause formally, which is not what the principle of proportionate causality is limited to.

For someone as scientifically literate as you are, I’m surprised you deny this princicple, given it’s implicit in any scientific inquiry, the scientific method, the laws of thermodynamics (entropy), logic, etc…

 

[rossum]

Pithy indeed. For a fuller explanation see:

There is, then, no escape. Nagarjuna’s view is contradictory. The contradiction is, clearly a paradox of expressibility. Nagarjuna succeeds in saying the unsayable, just as much as the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus. We can think (and characterize) reality only subject to language, which is conventional, so the ontology of that reality is all conventional. It follows that the conventional objects of reality do not ultimately (non-conventionally) exist. It also follows that nothing we say of them is ultimately true. That is, all things are empty of ultimate existence; and this is their ultimate nature, and is an ultimate truth about them. They hence cannot be thought to have that nature; nor can we say that they do. But we have just done so. As Mark Siderits (1989) has put it, “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth.”

– Nagarjuna and the Limits of Thought

rossum

 

[rossum]

For someone as scientifically literate as you are, I’m surprised you deny this princicple, given it’s implicit in any scientific inquiry, the scientific method, the laws of thermodynamics (entropy), logic, etc…

Someone as scientifically literate as me is aware of the existence of emergent properties: properties which are not present in the causes, but which are present in the effects.

Do you think that breathing chlorine while eating sodium metal has the same effect as eating sodium chloride?

rossum

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

For someone as scientifically literate as you are, I’m surprised you deny this princicple, given it’s implicit in any scientific inquiry, the scientific method, the laws of thermodynamics (entropy), logic, etc…

Someone as scientifically literate as me is aware of the existence of emergent properties: properties which are not present in the causes, but which are present in the effects.

Do you think that breathing chlorine while eating sodium metal has the same effect as eating sodium chloride?

rossum

*Not formally present in the causes. (see post# 18)

What you’re proposing is that the effect of breathing chlorine while eating sodium metal is ultimately unintelligible in that the effect, at least a portion of it, has no cause.

 

[rossum]

*Not formally present in the causes. (see post# 18)

How do I tell if something is “formally” present as opposed to merely just ordinarily present? Obviously the difference is important, so I need a metric to decide between ‘formally present’ and ‘ordinarily present’.

What you’re proposing is that the effect of breathing chlorine while eating sodium metal is ultimately unintelligible in that the effect, at least a portion of it, has no cause.

Not so. I am proposing change. An emergent property is new, not present in the causes. No single component of an aeroplane can fly, yet the combination of those components can fly.

You are proposing stasis: nothing new can ever appear because whatever seems to appear was already present in one or more of the causes. As I see it, according to you, at least one of the components (causes) of an aeroplane must have the property of flight.

Perhaps Boeing secretly sacrifice a sparrow for every aeroplane they make?

rossum

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Defeat an idea on its merits, not its age.

Good point. What are the merits of trying to decide whether a snail is higher or lower than a beetle?

 

[o_mlly]

Irrelevant. We both agree that the Wright Brothers cause the effect of the Wright Flyer. That effect exceeded the ability of the Wright Brothers to fly.

The effect may exceed the cause. Your general point fails.

No. Flying is but a special kind of movement. The Wright brothers possess that property. Absent the Wright brothers the flying machine is but a collection of fabric, wires, nuts and bolts.

The flying machine is but another tool, like the hammer, enhancing the Wright brothers existing property of locomotion. The effect does not exceed the properties already resident in its causes.

 

[o_mlly]

Good point. What are the merits of trying to decide whether a snail is higher or lower than a beetle?

As this particular concern was but an attempt to deflect the argument, it, like all deflections, has no merit.

Back to the argument.

What properties must the “Prime Mover” possess?

And, given the evidence of its results, its ‘movement’ must be capable of producing the universe as we observe it.

As we observe the universe, we observe life in plants, animals and rational beings. What caused these properties – life, intelligence, reason – to reside in these beings? Rightly leaving imagination aside, one asks, What can explain the presence of these properties? Good question. I ask you, What have you observed?

Has anyone observed non-life beget life?
Has anyone observed the unintelligent being beget an intelligence being?
Has anyone observed an intelligent being beget a rational being?

If not, then the properties of existence, life, intelligence and reason must reside in the first cause.