Tell That To The Mouse

_{Barry Arrington

October 20, 2014

Intelligent Design}

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StephenB takes down a materialist in five words:

Feser:

Take a few bits of metal, work them into various shapes, and attach them to a piece of wood. Voila! A mousetrap.

Attach? Voila? There are millions of ways to attach pieces of metal to wood. Only one of those combinations will trap a mouse. The trick is to arrange those pieces so that they will function as a mousetrap.

Or so we call it. But objectively, apart from human interests, the object is “nothing but” a collection of wood and metal parts.

Tell that to the mouse . . .

Oh my sides . . . gasp . . .

Comments

E.Seigner #33: You would have a point, if Feser understood God’s sustaining power as distinct from creative activity. But Feser would argue that God’s sustaining power is creative activity.
You are probably right about Feser. In an article titled 'Classical theism', he affirms your statement about his position:
Feser: For classical theism, to say that God creates the world is not merely, and indeed not primarily, to say that He got it going at some time in the past. It is more fundamentally to say the He keeps it going now, and at any moment at which it exists at all. As Aquinas says, to say that God makes the world is not like saying that a blacksmith made a horseshoe – where the horseshoe might persist even if the blacksmith died – but rather like saying that a musician makes music, where the music would stop if the musician stopped playing. - - [my emphasis]
So, according to Feser, classical theism conflates God's sustaining and creative powers. I'm going to ponder over the question if this indeed prohibits making a distinction between primary and secondary causes of design, as intended by StephenB.Box_{October 22, 2014
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E Seigner- Read "Nature, Design and Science" by Del Ratzsch. It should cure your ignorance.Joe_{October 22, 2014
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StephenB
Humans can take God-made materials and design other things with them, and they can also refrain from using those raw materials. Thus, the raw material of sand can be re designed or further designed into a sand castle or the raw material can be left in an undesigned heap. So it is with countless other raw materials. It is very easy to detect the difference between the God-made raw materials that have been used for human made design and those which have not. No prior experience or cultural prompting is necessary to make that distinction. When humans design artifacts in this way, they always leave physical evidence that indicates intellectual activity. That same kind of physical evidence can be found in nature, which indicates that another designer was at work. I think that is a good argument.
I thinks this is a bad argument, because unless we've seen God make an artefact the way man does it, all we know about God's creation is nature. Moreover, every man-made artefact decays when neglected. The artefact gradually loses all signs and traces of having been an artefact and seamlessly merges into natural substances. This suggests that the distinctive value of the proposed categories of artefacts and natural objects is rather limited. In the human world (of culture and civilization) the category of artefacts may have some meaning, but nothing beyond. I see no way of inferring any higher designers based on this. At most Martians perhaps. StephenB
On the question of detecting the difference between the presence of design indicators in a sand castle and their absence in an undesigned heap of design, I will spend no more time trying to convince anyone who claims to doubt it. I simply don’t believe them, and I would prefer not to questions their honesty in a public forum.
And I resent the mischaracterization of my argument as some sort of denial of the difference between a dump of sand and a sand castle. I have not said they are the same. I simply attribute radically less meaning to the difference. Their substance is the same, the shape differs. This is a rational moderate common-sense view of both their sameness and of their difference. All you do is look at the difference and disregard the sameness. StephenB
You believe that all the raw materials are God made. So do I. However, faith-based statements are empty without some kind of rational justification. Philosophy and science play important roles in that context. ID provides empirical evidence that our faith in God’s creation is grounded in reality and not simply in our hopes and wishes.
Actually, given philosophy, belief is no factor at all for me. In contrast, science, particularly modern science only deals with probabilities and therefore leaves plenty of room for doubts and for insurmountable epistemological gaps. Science only studies appearances. It's wiser to study presuppositions about appearances and this way more directly get to the fundamental reality. StephenB
The world’s most famous atheist philosopher, Anthony Flew, came to believe in God after studying ID’s arguments for design.
If I were familiar with his work, maybe I would care, but I have not even heard the name before. So, he was not as famous as you suggest. And without knowing any details I'd suspect the ID's arguments you talk about were more likely the classical arguments from design, where design is treated as a universal. StephenB
With respect to ID’s methods, I really don’t care to go over that territory again. Kairosfocus has presented the flow chart and outlined every step in the sequence. If you are interested, the information is available.
That information sucks and blows in many diverse ways. And I don't want to go over that again either. StephenB
I am not referring to God’s sustaining power. Yes, that part is always direct. I am referring to God’s creative activity. In that context, I think Feser holds to indirect fashioning or secondary causes.
You would have a point, if Feser understood God's sustaining power as distinct from creative activity. But Feser would argue that God's sustaining power is creative activity. Moreover, it's direct and immediate creative activity. The sustaining power is not a negligible side-aspect of God's creative power, but the primary aspect. In contrast, the aspect that causes things to look "fashioned" is secondary. The reason to prioritize the aspects of God's creative power this way and not the other way is that this which looks to us like God's sustaining power is in truth God's timeless act of creation, whereas the power which causes things to look "fashioned" to us is only a matter of human perception. The sustaining power is God's point of view, therefore it's the true act of creation, while the other is critters' point of view, therefore only seeming creation. See how defining the terms and clarifying the background metaphysics is important? Box
Here you seem to reason like this: God sustains everything direct end ceaseless therefore God designs everything direct and ceaseless. IOW you don’t distinguish between God’s sustaining power and God’s creative activity. This conflation seems to be the ground for your rejection of any distinction between primary and secondary causes of design.
There is a distinction, but it's construed another way. The kind of creation that makes things look shaped is spatiotemporal and contingent, therefore secondary. The sustaining kind is direct and ceaseless, therefore primary.E.Seigner_{October 22, 2014
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StephenB #28: I accept Aristotles distinction between nature and art. Accordingly, I allow that God could have used both nature (indirect causation) and art (direct causation) to fashion His world.

E.Seigner #29: Here you are losing the Thomistic (and Feserian) notion that God incessantly sustains everything in existence. This sustaining action is also termed a causal relationship, without which the universe would immediately dissolve.
E.Seigner, as StephenB points out in post #31, there is an important distinction between "sustaining" and "designing". "Everything is sustained by God" is not to be conflated with "everything is designed by God".
StephenB #28: By anti-ID presupposition, I simply mean the dubious man-made rule that God must fashion everything indirectly, or through a secondary process. There is no reason to limit God in that way.

E.Seigner #29: If you understood my point just above, then you understand that this assumed/proposed rule of yours does not apply to Feser. The sustaining action is direct and ceaseless.
Here you seem to reason like this: God sustains everything direct end ceaseless therefore God designs everything direct and ceaseless. IOW you don't distinguish between God’s sustaining power and God’s creative activity. This conflation seems to be the ground for your rejection of any distinction between primary and secondary causes of design.Box_{October 22, 2014
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Here you are losing the Thomistic (and Feserian) notion that God incessantly sustains everything in existence. This sustaining action is also termed a causal relationship, without which the universe would immediately dissolve.
Oh, I fully agree with that. I am not referring to God's sustaining power. Yes, that part is always direct. I am referring to God's creative activity. In that context, I think Feser holds to indirect fashioning or secondary causes. St. Thomas did not. Aquinas was a Young Earth Creationist. Feser is miles away from that position and even claims that Thomistic philosophy requires secondary causes (in the creative context, not the sustaining context) This is obviously wrong. Aquinas believed that God made man through primary (direct) causes, so his philosophy of nature could not possibly have required secondary causality in nature.StephenB_{October 21, 2014
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E Seigner
And since everything is ultimately God-made anyway, what is the point of this exercise?
Humans can take God-made materials and design other things with them, and they can also refrain from using those raw materials. Thus, the raw material of sand can be re designed or further designed into a sand castle or the raw material can be left in an undesigned heap. So it is with countless other raw materials. It is very easy to detect the difference between the God-made raw materials that have been used for human made design and those which have not. No prior experience or cultural prompting is necessary to make that distinction. When humans design artifacts in this way, they always leave physical evidence that indicates intellectual activity. That same kind of physical evidence can be found in nature, which indicates that another designer was at work. I think that is a good argument. On the question of detecting the difference between the presence of design indicators in a sand castle and their absence in an undesigned heap of design, I will spend no more time trying to convince anyone who claims to doubt it. I simply don't believe them, and I would prefer not to questions their honesty in a public forum. You believe that all the raw materials are God made. So do I. However, faith-based statements are empty without some kind of rational justification. Philosophy and science play important roles in that context. ID provides empirical evidence that our faith in God's creation is grounded in reality and not simply in our hopes and wishes. The world's most famous atheist philosopher, Anthony Flew, came to believe in God after studying ID's arguments for design. He would not have been persuaded by your belief that God made everything. He wanted evidence and he received it. As he put it, "Super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature." What moved him was the information found in DNA. Others have been persuaded by the scientific evidence for design in the cosmos, especially the evidence for finely tuned physical constants that are necessary for the existence of life. With respect to ID's methods, I really don't care to go over that territory again. Kairosfocus has presented the flow chart and outlined every step in the sequence. If you are interested, the information is available.StephenB_{October 21, 2014
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StephenB
By primary cause, I mean direct; by secondary cause, I mean indirect. Thus, God could fashion man directly out of the earth’s dust, or He could fashion man indirectly through an evolutionary process. Either way, he is causing man to exist. Since I accept Christian revelation, I believe that God’s intellect and will are involved.
"Involved" or "causal" as in being the actual cause? When you rename primary and secondary causes as direct and indirect, this still does not make the necessary distinction. As a minimum, you need to distinguish between an efficient cause initiated by an agent (also called instrumental causes) and inert efficient causes (let's call these natural causes). The distinction is necessary for you, if you want to make the point you aim at. StephenB
I accept Aristotles distinction between nature and art. Accordingly, I allow that God could have used both nature (indirect causation) and art (direct causation) to fashion His world.
Here you are losing the Thomistic (and Feserian) notion that God incessantly sustains everything in existence. This sustaining action is also termed a causal relationship, without which the universe would immediately dissolve. StephenB
By anti-ID presupposition, I simply mean the dubious man-made rule that God must fashion everything indirectly, or through a secondary process. There is no reason to limit God in that way.
If you understood my point just above, then you understand that this assumed/proposed rule of yours does not apply to Feser. The sustaining action is direct and ceaseless. StephenB
In any case, I think that God may have created man using both direct and indirect means. I am committed to neither position. I think we should be open to both prospects. For the record, Aquinas believed that God created man directly and in finished form. Feser would disagree, I think. That is an important thing to disagree about. So much so, that I would say that Feser is not a Thomist in that sense.
I don't think Feser is much bothered about the scientific facts of how man emerged. Metaphysically there are several senses in which God created man directly. God sustains man in existence from moment to moment, so in this sense God is direct cause even now. Feser would find it too limiting to say that in nature you have only secondary indirect causes, and this is what you are saying. StephenB
ES: Man creates artefacts, whereas God’s creation is natural order. StephenB: Perhaps, but that doesn’t mean that there are no similarities.
It means that the similarities should not be overblown or overinterpreted. ID theory is very guilty here. StephenB
It would, indeed, be a mistake to treat the natural order as if were an ontologically a man made artifact, but it would not be a mistake to treat the natural order as if it contained components that are similar to a man made artifact.
And what is the reliable method of telling the similar components apart from the components that are not similar? Is it the means of attributing some bit-values here and there? And let's say you find those components in nature that are as if man-made artefacts, then how do you distinguish them from actually man-made artefacts and determine the similar artefacts to be ape-made, alien-made, or God-made? And since everything is ultimately God-made anyway, what is the point of this exercise?E.Seigner_{October 21, 2014
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E. Seigner
In your response, primary and secondary causes need defining. Are primary causes equated with will, intent, etc. i.e. “intelligent causes”? If yes, then are you really equating divine cause (God) with human will and intellect, both being primary causes? Is there or is there not, to use ID terminology, a “striking and obvious” difference between natural objects (invariably God-made) on one hand and man-made artefacts on the other?
By primary cause, I mean direct; by secondary cause, I mean indirect. Thus, God could fashion man directly out of the earth's dust, or He could fashion man indirectly through an evolutionary process. Either way, he is causing man to exist. Since I accept Christian revelation, I believe that God's intellect and will are involved. Among those things that are striking, I would include the machine-like elements in cells and the finely-tuned constants in the cosmos.I think they stand out as being more than mere products of a law-like process.
It looks to me that among your presuppositions you are ignoring the Aristotelian concept of artefact (as explained by Feser in the blog post), but this concept (namely, artefact) gives tremendous additional nuance to your supposed “Anti-ID Presupposition”, and excludes at least Darwin from there. I don’t know who Collins is.
I accept Aristotles distinction between nature and art. Accordingly, I allow that God could have used both nature (indirect causation) and art (direct causation) to fashion His world. It is the art, for the most part, that ID tries to detect. By anti-ID presupposition, I simply mean the dubious man-made rule that God must fashion everything indirectly, or through a secondary process. There is no reason to limit God in that way.
Feser’s actual position is that God can create anything, but it would definitely be in full accord with creation in general. God creates nature.
If I understand Feser correctly, he thinks that God created nature to produce man through indirect (secondary) causation. If I am wrong, I am open to correction. In any case, I think that God may have created man using both direct and indirect means. I am committed to neither position. I think we should be open to both prospects. For the record, Aquinas believed that God created man directly and in finished form. Feser would disagree, I think. That is an important thing to disagree about. So much so, that I would say that Feser is not a Thomist in that sense.
In contrast, humans create more or less discordantly with regard to natural order. Man-made creation is artefacts of various sorts and degrees.
I think that is true to some extent, though I am not sure about the "discordant" part. Humans do often plan their work and work their plan.
Man creates artefacts, whereas God’s creation is natural order.
Perhaps, but that doesn't mean that there are no similarities.
To treat natural order as if it were ontologically a man-made artefact is the error of ID theorists, according to Feser.
It would, indeed, be a mistake to treat the natural order as if were an ontologically a man made artifact, but it would not be a mistake to treat the natural order as if it contained components that are similar to a man made artifact. By analogy, it would be a mistake for a doctor to treat a person, who is a composite of body and soul, as if he were a metabolic processor, but it would not be a mistake for a doctor to analyze a person's metabolism, as long as he understands that his patient is, ontologically, a composite of body and soul. Similarly, it is not a mistake for an ID theorist to detect machine like components in a cell as long as he understands that the organism that contains the cell is not, ontologically, a machine.StephenB_{October 21, 2014
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E.Seigner:
Based on what observations or presuppositions should natural forces be distinguishable from intelligent agents?
Based upon the assumption of materialism. You know. Stuff just bumping into other stuff, by chance. Toss in the occasional "natural law" in the requisite nod to actual science. Chance and Necessity.Mung_{October 21, 2014
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Alan Fox
There you have it. God creates sand. Man creates sand castles.
From a theological or faith-based perspective that is correct. God creates the raw materials that man can use or not use for design, which in this case, is sand. Thus, the pile of sand delivered by a dump truck was not used to design anything, but the other pile was transformed into a sand castle. From a scientific perspective, apart from the aforementioned faith based assumption, it cannot be determined if everything was designed. However, science can draw inferences about those artifacts and organism that leave design clues.StephenB_{October 21, 2014
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Alan Fox:
There you have it. God creates sand. Man creates sand castles.
And Alan creates obfuscations.Joe_{October 21, 2014
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Oops Seigner!Alan Fox_{October 21, 2014
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E Siegner:
Man creates artefacts, whereas God’s creation is natural order
There you have it. God creates sand. Man creates sand castles.Alan Fox_{October 21, 2014
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@Barry Stop distracting. Let people have a discussion on the topic. StephenB
Good question.
Indeed. And this is at least the third time I bring it up. Thanks for trying to answer. In your response, primary and secondary causes need defining. Are primary causes equated with will, intent, etc. i.e. "intelligent causes"? If yes, then are you really equating divine cause (God) with human will and intellect, both being primary causes? Is there or is there not, to use ID terminology, a "striking and obvious" difference between natural objects (invariably God-made) on one hand and man-made artefacts on the other? It looks to me that among your presuppositions you are ignoring the Aristotelian concept of artefact (as explained by Feser in the blog post), but this concept (namely, artefact) gives tremendous additional nuance to your supposed "Anti-ID Presupposition", and excludes at least Darwin from there. I don't know who Collins is. Feser's actual position is that God can create anything, but it would definitely be in full accord with creation in general. God creates nature. In contrast, humans create more or less discordantly with regard to natural order. Man-made creation is artefacts of various sorts and degrees. Man creates artefacts, whereas God's creation is natural order. To treat natural order as if it were ontologically a man-made artefact is the error of ID theorists, according to Feser. I hope you will clarify the distinction of primary and secondary causes.E.Seigner_{October 21, 2014
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ES:
Barry . . . however, who label fellow theists as Darwinians are talking past rationality.
Maybe it's time for DDD#15: Latching onto an Irrelevancy as a Means to Distract OK, I mislabeled Feser and admitted the error. ES now brings it up over and over and over as if that were relevant to the specific issue raised in the OP. It is not relevant to that issue, and I can only assume he continues to harp in it as a means of avoiding discussion of that issue.Barry Arrington_{October 21, 2014
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E. Seigner
God created nature, right? Therefore, when God creates, nature is the outcome. And God is intelligent agent, right? If yes, then how do you reconcile these facts with your attempt “to distinguish what natural forces are able to accomplish versus what intelligent agents are capable of accomplishing”? Based on what observations or presuppositions should natural forces be distinguishable from intelligent agents?
Good question. ID Presupposition: Some things can be fashioned directly through primary causes and some can be fashioned indirectly through secondary causes. God can use any process he chooses. (Dembski, Meyer, Aquinas) Anti-ID Presupposition: Everything must have been fashioned indirectly through secondary causes. God would not create any other way, and I will have it so. (Feser, Collins, Darwin) Observation: Some features in nature appear to have been fashioned directly through primary causation, leaving clues which indicate that they have been tinkered with in ways that natural laws cannot explain. ID's response: let's investigate the matter by following the evidence wherever it leads. Anti-ID's response: let's not investigate the matter. The evidence may challenge our ideology.StephenB_{October 21, 2014
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E Seigner
I have been called “materialist” and “Darwinian” for expressing these same views. Let’s apply labels consistently now.
Here you have a good point. Clearly, you are not a materialist and should not be characterized as such.StephenB_{October 21, 2014
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E Seigner:
If yes, then how do you reconcile these facts with your attempt “to distinguish what natural forces are able to accomplish versus what intelligent agents are capable of accomplishing”?
So every death is murder and all rocks are artifacts- really?Joe_{October 21, 2014
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Andre
Maybe we are speaking past each other.
You mean you and I? We haven't talked that much, so maybe yes. Barry and KF, however, who label fellow theists as Darwinians are talking past rationality. Andre
I hold that EVERYTHING has been designed by God. EVERYTHING inside this universe is also His. There is however a very important distinction that I have not seen you speak about or try and defend. As a rational intelligent being it seems to me that I have a certain capability to distinguish what natural forces are able to accomplish versus what intelligent agents are capable of accomplishing.
God created nature, right? Therefore, when God creates, nature is the outcome. And God is intelligent agent, right? If yes, then how do you reconcile these facts with your attempt "to distinguish what natural forces are able to accomplish versus what intelligent agents are capable of accomplishing"? Based on what observations or presuppositions should natural forces be distinguishable from intelligent agents? Andre
How do you suppose we can know what reality is like if we can’t separate what minds can do versus what natural laws can do? Would we even be able to contemplate the notion of God if this was not possible?
The separation is called objective versus subjective, not natural forces versus intelligent agent.E.Seigner_{October 21, 2014
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F/N: UD reader EP actually went into his garage [dare I say in the land of the White North where a certain UD News Editor hails from?] and did experiments to contrive a mousetrap across a few hours. Turns out, the apparently simple device is a subtle, complex precision contrivance in which very precise arrangements of parts are needed for such a device to work. It is irreducibly complex and full of functionally specific complex organisation and associated information. Victor Co is in no danger of being overtaken by tinkerers banging away and bending coat hangers or the like. And, this brings to focus a point noted above. Namely, that we live in an era where a great many are induced to believe in Big-S Science [say, with a holy hush], and will only address things that are closely tied to empirical observation. (Not realising the self-referential incoherences in adopting such controlling principles.) We must start with people where they are and stay within arm's reach in our first steps of thought. So, ID asks and seeks to answer a simple question with powerful implications: can we, from certain evident and distinctive empirical features of observable things, come to reasonable, well-grounded conclusions about their causal process? Yes. There are traces of causes that are evident. For instance, mechanical necessity leads to low contingency regularities and associated order. Chance linked randomness [of whatever root] shows itself in stochastic patterns that can be reasonably sampled. And, design leads to FSCO/I which is empirically reliable as an index of design and per sampling, is utterly implausible on needle in haystack analysis. The problem is not with the reasoning, which is patently inductively cogent. It is with consequences once one points to FSCO/I in the world of life and the observed cosmos. In a word: ideology. We confront deeply entrenced a priori evolutionary materialism which has even dared to self-servingly redefine science and its methods. Begging big questions and undermining the goal of science to seek out the truth about our world in light of observable evidence. Never mind its self-referential incoherence. And that is the roadblock we face. KFkairosfocus_{October 21, 2014
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LoL! Pointing out Feser's illogical spewage is now attacking him? E Seigner:
ID is instinctively unattractive to many for intellectual reasons.
And yet you cannot say what those are without getting soundly refuted. ES quotes:
First of all, the ID definitions of “intelligence” seem very unscotistic and unscholastic to me. Consider the following: Intelligent Design. The study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the product of intelligence. Intelligence. Any cause, agent, or process that achieves and end or goal by employing suitable means or instruments. Design. An event, object, or structure that an intelligence brought about by matching means to ends. These definitions seem to be designed to lead to the desired conclusion from the outset, but they’re very odd.
LoL! No those definitions are not designed to lead to anything but educating people. Saying otherwise exposes an agenda of obfuscation. Also the definition of "intelligence" flows for the standard dictionary definitions so it is hardly unscholastic. Why does ES think this person's spewage is fatal to ID? She never says. She seems incapable of making a case based on logic and evidence. If I was a religious person I would be thanking God that ES is not an investigatorJoe_{October 21, 2014
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Doan leff orf de Caribbean, mon!kairosfocus_{October 21, 2014
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E.Seigner Maybe we are speaking past each other. I hold that EVERYTHING has been designed by God. EVERYTHING inside this universe is also His. There is however a very important distinction that I have not seen you speak about or try and defend. As a rational intelligent being it seems to me that I have a certain capability to distinguish what natural forces are able to accomplish versus what intelligent agents are capable of accomplishing. I think this is important, because as human beings we want to know things, like CS Lewis said we want to know what reality is like. How do you suppose we can know what reality is like if we can't separate what minds can do versus what natural laws can do? Would we even be able to contemplate the notion of God if this was not possible?Andre_{October 21, 2014
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VJT Scientology generates more articles than ID, but has equally negligible presence outside United States. Try harder to beat them. From Feser, let's move on to Sullivan's views on ID:
First of all, the ID definitions of "intelligence" seem very unscotistic and unscholastic to me. Consider the following: Intelligent Design. The study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the product of intelligence. Intelligence. Any cause, agent, or process that achieves and end or goal by employing suitable means or instruments. Design. An event, object, or structure that an intelligence brought about by matching means to ends. These definitions seem to be designed to lead to the desired conclusion from the outset, but they're very odd.
Rather fatal for a purportedly scientific theory, isn't it? Moreover, he holds the loathed "everything is designed" thesis:
...since any pattern in nature whatsoever is, insofar as it is patterned, intelligible, one might use a metaphysical argument to infer an intelligence: any intelligible in potency, the argument might go, implies a prior intelligible in act, that is, an understanding intelligence. But this applies as much to non-living things as to living ones. The ancients argued to God from the regularity of the motion of the heavenly bodies without examining their structure for complex specified functional information.
I have been called "materialist" and "Darwinian" for expressing these same views. Let's apply labels consistently now.E.Seigner_{October 21, 2014
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E. Seigner writes:
And the movement is rather local, limited to the United States. In Europe and Asia hardly anyone knows and nobody has any reason to care, scientifically or otherwise.
Hey, I live in Japan. And what about these articles, which suggest ID is spreading in Europe and Asia? http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/contesting-evolution-european-creationists-take-on-darwin-a-609712.html http://www.theguardian.com/education/2006/aug/15/highereducation.students http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/11/turkish_delight_in_intelligent_1002896.html http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/06/asia_is_the_hot060691.html http://www.nature.com/news/south-korea-surrenders-to-creationist-demands-1.10773 And there's Brazil, too: http://www.discovery.org/news/intelligent-design/intelligent-designs-secret-weapon-the-world/6031 Still think it's an American phenomenon?vjtorley_{October 21, 2014
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REC
..and Feser is setting up a point contra reductionism
No, Feser has temporarily abandoned Aristotle's anti-reductionist philosophy and lapsed into Hume's reductionist philosophy in order to launch an irrational attack on ID.
..and Feser has an answer ready: “a falling boulder has that causal power as well, but it is not intrinsically a mousetrap specifically.”
What does the causal power of a falling boulder have to do with the ontological status of a mousetrap?
Perhaps dead mice aren’t the best deciders of logic?
Perhaps a live mouse squirming under the violent pressure of a metal bar and spring understands the objectivity of function better than a misguided philosopher who thinks that the operation of a mousetrap is subjective.StephenB_{October 20, 2014
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I have no idea about the double post here, could moderator erase 9 & 10 [Mod: 10 erased.]DavidD_{October 20, 2014
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E.Siegnor "This website has a history of attacking Feser https://uncommondescent.com/?s=feser" "ID is instinctively unattractive to many for intellectual reasons." I guess that rules YOU out since you are incapable of leaving this forum and are obsessed with coming back here day after day. Perhaps it would be wise for you to try on a new Sock so as to disguise your true identity from all onlookers in view of your arrogant Grand Standing in the above ? You're the one who put yourself on notice before all eye witnesses. Now I would guess the next move is yours.DavidD_{October 20, 2014
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@REC This website has a history of attacking Feser https://uncommondescent.com/?s=feser It's true that Feser's metaphysical commitments lead him to reject ID, but both his metaphysics and arguments about ID are in the open for everyone to see. Dembski, on the other hand, has very inconsistent and sneaky take on his theory's relationship with metaphysics, science and theology. The current bosses of this website have descended to simply slap labels like "materialist" or "Darwinian" on every ID opponent regardless of the person's reasons. ID is instinctively unattractive to many for intellectual reasons. The way the theory's main figures behave makes it also emotionally unattractive. And the movement is rather local, limited to the United States. In Europe and Asia hardly anyone knows and nobody has any reason to care, scientifically or otherwise.E.Seigner_{October 20, 2014
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Where did this exchange even happen? Google reveals a post by Feser in 2010: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/04/nothing-but.html So 4 years later, StephenB came up with a zinger? ..and Feser is an Aristotelian-Thomist, not a 'materialist' in any sense! ..and Feser is setting up a point contra reductionism ..and whatever the severity of the ignorance of the larger context of Feser's post...Barry loves the takedown ..and Feser has an answer ready: "a falling boulder has that causal power as well, but it is not intrinsically a mousetrap specifically" Perhaps dead mice aren't the best deciders of logic?REC_{October 20, 2014
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