Let's study ID: our mind must come from mind (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, February 26, 2022, 23:33 (789 days ago) @ David Turell

A philosopher's approach:

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2022/02/taylor-on-cognition-teleology-and-god.html#more

"Taylor begins by asking us to consider a couple of scenarios. Suppose you are traveling by train through the UK and, peering out the window, you see an arrangement of stones in a pattern that looks like this: THE BRITISH RAILWAYS WELCOMES YOU TO WALES. You would naturally assume that the stones had been deliberately arranged that way by someone, in order to convey the message that you are entering Wales. Now, it is possible in theory that the stones got into that arrangement in a very different way, through the operation of impersonal and purposeless natural causes.

***

"Taylor’s point is rather this. Even if you could reasonably entertain the latter possibility, what you could not reasonably do is both accept it as the correct explanation of the arrangement of stones and at the same time continue to regard that arrangement as conveying the message that you are entering Wales. The arrangement could intelligibly be conveying that message only if there is some intelligence behind its origin, which brought it about for the purpose of conveying the message. If, instead, the arrangement came about through unintelligent and purposeless causes, then it cannot intelligibly be said to convey that message, because it could not in that case intelligibly be conveying any message at all.

***

"I hasten to emphasize again that Taylor’s point has nothing whatsoever to do with probabilities, and in particular nothing to do with how likely or unlikely it is for arrangements of the kind in question to form via natural processes. He allows, for the purposes of the argument, that that could happen. His point is rather that, no matter how complex and orderly are the arrangements of physical components that might be generated by purely impersonal and purposeless natural processes, they could never by themselves generate something with intentional or semantic content. (This way of putting things is mine rather than Taylor’s.) This is not a point about probabilities, but rather a conceptual and metaphysical truth. Neither stones nor marks on a rock have any inherent connection with any semantic content we might decide to convey through them. The content they might have must derive from a mind which uses them for the purpose of conveying such content. Delete such a mind from an explanation of the arrangements of stones or marks, and you delete the semantic content along with it.

***

"We could take the deliverances of our sense organs and neural states to have genuine intentional or semantic content. Or we could take those organs and states to have arisen through entirely impersonal and purposeless natural processes. What we cannot reasonably do is both of these things at once. In particular, we cannot intelligibly both take these cognitive faculties to have arisen through entirely impersonal and purposeless processes and at the same time regard them as having genuine intentional or semantic content – as conveying any message about cats on mats, the ringing of doorbells, rain tomorrow, or anything else.

"The cases, Taylor argues, are in all relevant respects parallel. Delete mind and purpose from your account of the origin of the arrangement of stones or the marks on the rock, and you delete any semantic content along with them. Similarly, if you delete mind and purpose from your account of the origin of our cognitive faculties, then you delete any intentional or semantic content along with them. You can have one or the other account, but not both.

"Now, our cognitive faculties do in fact have intentional or semantic content. We really do have perceptual experiences with the content that the cat is on the mat, thoughts with the content that it will rain tomorrow, and so on. Since this is intelligible only on the supposition that our cognitive faculties originated via some mind and its purposes, there must be some intelligent being that brought us about with the aim of having our cognitive faculties convey to us information about the world around us.

***

"But if so, he does not explain how. Indeed, he makes only modest claims for his arguments, and leaves it an open question what relevance they might have for religion. If the chapter can be said to defend theism, it is a purely philosophical theism that does not entail (though it also does not rule out) a specifically Jewish, Christian, or Muslim conception of God and his relationship to the world.

"Taylor does address several objections that he suggests some readers might take to be obvious, but which in fact simply miss the point. For example, some may point out that our cognitive faculties are not always reliable. As Taylor says, this is irrelevant. The point isn’t that our cognitive faculties convey accurate messages, but rather that they convey any message at all."

Comment: it is a long complex review of another philosopher's view in a new book and its simplest conclusion is if we have working minds they were sourced from a working mind. This is an argument from a philosophic view and not a theological one. For completeness review the entire article.