First Cause (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, September 23, 2011, 19:04 (4810 days ago) @ David Turell

As we have moved way off the subject of epigenetics, I'm rather belatedly putting our discussion under a different title, in the hope that others might extend it from their own perspectives.-DAVID: We are not going round and round. Since matter and energy are the same in two different forms, first cause is energy. And to get to 'now' that energy had to be teleological. To become teleological by chance (back to Darwin) is beyond my abililty to believe. Remember the zoo of particles is highly ordered and involves symmetry and supersymmetry to make this universe from the Big Bang. Organization of that sort requires planning by an intellect that creates purpose.-Since I have no explanation as to how we got here, there is no way that I am going to reject this argument. If the universe is designed, then obviously there is a God. However, to state that we and our universe are the result of purposeful planning is not to make it so. An atheist would reject the claim that "to get to 'now' that energy had to be teleological". He/she would also reject the claim that evolution is teleological. And he/she would (I presume) argue that the First Cause is mindless energy producing an infinity and eternity of random combinations, one of which eventually leads to 'now'. I am as dissatisfied with this explanation as I am with your own, but I cannot reject it. We do not and cannot know whether our universe is the result of purpose or chance. Even though the zoo of particles is highly ordered, and I too find it impossible to believe that the wonders of Nature, including our own astonishing intelligence, are the product of chance, I find it just as impossible to accept the logic of there being an infinitely more astonishing intelligence than ours which was not designed. In other words, if "organization of that sort requires planning by an intellect that creates purpose", one can scarcely argue that an organizing intellect of that sort that creates purpose does not require planning. It would be like saying that a computer must have been designed by a human brain, but the human brain can't have been designed ... a combination of ideas which you and I cannot swallow (although an atheist can). I'm afraid the magic formula "First Cause" doesn't make it any the more logical. And so, stuck between two exitless labyrinths, I remain on my picket fence.