philosophy of science: meaning and functions (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, September 15, 2018, 11:45 (2261 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: Because the first cause, I believe, was energy. It is reasonable, then, to assume that the first attempts at reproduction would also be in the form of energy, before moving on to converting energy to matter.

DHW Why is that reasonable? The only form of reproduction we know of is material. I thought you believed the first cause was a unique “spiritual” (as opposed to material) entity you call God. Do you imagine him reproducing himself as other gods? See also below on “spiritual beings”.

TONY: : Because in our observed experience, like begets like.

So did your God “beget” lots of gods like himself, or has he remained unique?

TONY: Creating, spawning, birthing, whatever you want to call it, but yes, you have his first direct act of creation. The jiggling of Mary has nothing to do with this part, honestly, but if you are ok with the idea of a spiritual soul attached to human flesh, and also ok with God having designed DNA, then why is it unreasonable for him to splice a bit of custom DNA and attach energy to the fertilized zygote?

DHW They are big “ifs”, but for argument’s sake I’ll accept them. How does this explain the “first direct act of creation” as being an immaterial mind giving birth to another immaterial mind? And again, what is the purpose?

TONY: Of course they are "big ifs". The purpose is life, growth, development. There reached a point where it could no longer grow in isolation.

“It” presumably means your first cause energy which you call God. So it needed other forms of life to enable itself to grow and develop. Would it be wrong to assume that the only way your God could develop would be through learning from new experiences? In which case, whether he/it started by creating other gods, or simply moved straight to creating material cells is actually irrelevant to the question of purpose. He created material cells because he wanted new experiences from which he could grow and develop. And why did he want to grow and develop? Could it be that he was not satisfied with just being there all on his own, doing and learning nothing?

DHW: In previous posts you have insisted that we should not believe in things that haven’t been observed (a major and justified objection to my hypothesis that intelligent cells may be capable of inventiveness that goes beyond their powers of adaptation), but here you are conjuring up visions of unknown life forms which you appear to regard as possibly even more real than those we know. Again, what is the purpose? This whole discussion began when you insisted that we should look for the purpose of everything, not just of ourselves.

TONY: It is a possibility. You have no problem considering that there is a "something" immaterial that interacts with your material body, so why should the consideration of a "something" that doesn't need a material body be such a stretch?

You are right. I have never said that God’s existence is not a possibility, and I have never rejected the possibility that there is a soul which survives the death of the material body, and so I should not reject the possibility that your God also created other gods, angels, devils and whatever other unknown life forms anybody cares to imagine. However, we are still stuck with your question concerning their purpose, and according to you, the purpose is that these will enable him to grow and develop to “fullness”.

dHW: .. if God exists, the purpose of the universe and of the life he created may have been to provide a spectacle that would relieve his boredom (and which by the way would also increase his “fullness”, through all his new experiences). ..

TONY: It just seems to trivial to me, honestly, for the amount of effort that would have needed to go into creating all the way see.

DHW: The greater the spectacle, the greater the relief and indeed the satisfaction of creating something so fascinating. Besides, why is it more trivial than your God and his spiritual “spawn” aspiring to some nebulous kind of “fullness”?

TONY: When I can articulate that clearly, I will.

Until then, I have to say I see very little difference between your concept of the “purpose of everything” and my own theistic hypothesis. Your God had had enough of his isolation, and wanted something other than himself to focus on so that he could have a fuller existence. Sort of relieving the boredom, wouldn’t you say?