philosophy of science: meaning and functions (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, September 28, 2018, 10:16 (2037 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: Ok, so, where we all seem to agree:
• 1:The complexity of existence implies design.
• 2:Point one does not give clear indication of the nature or number of said designers or the method of creation, except in the following ways:

a) Any designer(s) must have a frame of reference upon which to base their design(experience).

b) The complexity, harmony, and homeostatic nature of the design implies prior planning(forward thinking/Imagination/Abstract Reasoning)

c) Defining a motive requires self-awareness.

d) A designer/creator can not create a design which he/she/they do not have the resources to create, therefore, the creation is always inferior to the creator.

• 3:Because of the 'frame of reference' requirement, must have a mind, even if it is dissimilar in terms of scale to our own.

Is that correct so far? Feel free to add/edit. It would be nice to have a groundwork that we all agree on so we stop arguing the same tired points.

I’ve inserted a, b, c etc. for ease of reference. Many thanks for this attempt to systematize the discussion. Firstly, 1 and 2 (d) encapsulate my own dilemma. In all respects, a designer would have to be superior to what he designs, and so if the complexity of existence implies design, the even greater complexity of the mind that does the designing also implies design. So who designed the designer? The great philosophical fob-off is “first cause”, as if that explained anything. It requires as much faith to believe in an “always there” mind as to believe in the chance appearance and gradual evolution of minds out of ever changing combinations of matter.

2 (a) This can only mean that your designer has created life before, and before, and before…Maybe. David thinks so (see below). Impossible to imagine – as are eternity and infinity.

2 (c) Yes indeed, and if your God exists, I do not think it is unreasonable to assume that he did have a motive. That is what we keep discussing: not whether he had a motive, but what it might have been. But the guessed-at motive also entails guessing at his nature, because we are trying to read his mind. So we look at his works, or at what different people have written about him, and we can draw any number of conclusions.

DAVID: You and Tony can believe He was bored. I don't. I envision God as eternal and with the purpose of creating thinking humans, which I suspect He has done many times in the past. […] As God is imagined, we humans can only guess what He is exactly like.

Yes, we can only guess. Yes, your imagined God would have to be eternal, unless he himself was designed. We’ve argued ad nauseam over “the” purpose of creating thinking humans, as you agree he may have had other purposes (including proving himself and even providing himself with a spectacle), and although you don’t like guessing at his purpose for creating thinking humans, you came up with his wish to have a relationship with us (while remaining hidden). Why would he want to have a relationship with us?

TONY: And even that agreement is limited. For some reason, no matter how many times I say I disagree with that particular word because of the connotations, it keeps getting implied that I am in full agreement. My limited agreement is that as a single entity, God, eternal or not, would have reached a point beyond which it was impossible to grow without the presence of another entity. DHW reworded it as boredom, and I got tired of arguing the point. He can call it what he likes. However, I still think boredom is the wrong word.

You wrote: “For god to create one offspring, your idea of boredom and/or loneliness is likely spot on.” I didn’t reword anything. However, you limited it to what you believe to have been your God’s one and only direct creation – Jesus – and then argued that the relief of boredom/loneliness ended there, and afterwards he needed more entities to enable him to “grow”. My point, of course, is that “growing” would be the continuing antidote to boredom and isolation.

(I’ll leave the two of you to squabble over the meaning of your God’s names and the need for him to “grow”.)

DAVID: I don't think God feels any sort of 'eternal isolation'. That would clearly be only a human feeling. In my view He has been around eternally before anything else.

dhw: So you agree that he was eternally isolated, but you don’t think he felt it. I must say I’m surprised that a God “who has our thoughts” didn’t have our thoughts. I suggest that, if he exists, he felt it and that’s why he created the universe and life. At least it’s a logical progression.

DAVID: Of course He has our thoughts, and your logic is human logic.

You are happy to use human logic when discussing design, what other logic can we use, and how do you know that God’s logic is different from ours?