Lost marbles (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 13:10 (5505 days ago) @ David Turell


> > > > When you take an argument that says "Life is so complex, it must have been designed," you make a series of assumptions to unanswered philosophical questions.
> > > 
> > > I don't know what the 'unanswered questions'are. What are they?
> 
> You have not answered my question, asking for indentification of 'unanswered questions'. -I... can't rephrase them any other way. But I'll try.-1. The question of design itself: How do you know that something is designed? I've brought up fractal mathematics before, but fractal mathematics both models complex structures we see in life AND can do so randomly. This is important because it makes it less clear that complex structures *must* be designed. If you say "Life is so complex, it must be designed," you take as an assumption that we can actually tell the difference between design and chance. If we could, we wouldn't be here. You would agree that all creatures to whatever degree they can operate on free will? (Operationally, I'm viewing instinctual drives as a form of free will.) Natural arches, as I brought up before, are complex structures that clearly weren't designed. Where is the bar for design here? This leads to the next philosophical issue...-2. That we can tell the difference between natural and supernatural. As dhw has caught me again and again, where is the bar? If God is supernatural, he isn't natural. If God is natural, then he isn't supernatural. But how do you tell the difference between the natural and the supernatural? By asserting "Life is so complex, it must be designed," you assert an answer to #1 and to #2--and one follows the other. You claim you can use the scientific method to prove this, which is its own philosophical problem...-3. The point of this is, that science only works because of the assumptions provided by naturalism, which must be agnostic to creator gods. You create a philosophical dilemma here of how to make science become non-agnostic to a creator, but still fundamentally answer all of the questions it has in the same manner. The assumption I'm talking about is "At best, we cannot discern the difference between the natural and the supernatural." If we can use science to make claims on God, than this assumption turns into "We CAN tell the difference between the natural and the supernatural."-4. An assertion that natural and supernatural are artificial distinctions. The only thing you've got left to possibly deal with questions 2 & 3 is to assert that the line between "natural" and "supernatural" is false. But at this point you actually take philosophy backwards about 700 years, because now, God can be the cause of anything that happens in our daily lives. It reopens questions of free will (esp. if there is no distinction between ourselves and God). It is the ultimate Vedantic nightmare... (I say this b/c I'm not a fan of Vedantism.) -5. Probability limits. Probability limits only work when you can experimentally demonstrate the action you're testing, in this case--that life was designed. The absurdity of this should be apparent! (Please, no offense intended!) You would need to be able to demonstrate that an invisible force of some kind is at hand that caused life to emerge from the muck.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"