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The Naturalists’ Conundrum

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Kantian Naturalist writes that almost all naturalists (including, presumably, himself) believe selection tends to favor true beliefs.

I don’t know why he would say this, because Neo-Darwinian Evolution (“NDE”) posits that selection favors characters that increase fitness as measured by relative reproductive fecundity. Per NDE, selection is indifferent the truth. It will select for a false belief if, for whatever reason, that belief increases fitness.

Now the naturalist might say that it is obvious that true belief must increase fitness more than false belief. Is it obvious? Consider the conundrum of religious belief from an NDE perspective:

1. By definition the naturalist believes religious belief is false.

2. The overwhelming majority of people throughout history have held religious belief.

3. Therefore, the naturalist must believe that the overwhelming majority of humans throughout history have held a false belief.

4. It follows that natural selection selected for a belief that the naturalist is convinced is false.

We can set to one side the question of whether a particular religious belief is actually false. The naturalist, by definition, believes they all are, and therefore he must believe that natural selection selected for a belief he thinks is false.

What is the naturalist to do? Indeed, if the naturalist concedes that natural selection at least sometimes selects for false beliefs, how can he have any confidence in his own conviction that naturalism itself is true?

Appeals to “the evidence” won’t save the naturalist here. Both sides of the religion issue appeal to evidence.

Comments
Box as to this comment of yours: "It’s surprising to me that you, as a Christian, consider matter to be the foundation of reality." I have no earthly idea how you pulled that particular thought out of what I said: you said: Box you state: ‘Besides I believe we are spiritual beings so I also do not associate my freedom with the quantum mechanic framework.’ To which I responded: "So, the foundation of reality is not allowed to inform your worldview because you are ‘spiritual’??? Please do tell how you intend to hold your worldview is real if it does not conform to reality! I’m all ears!" Despite your reading that I was a reductive materialist out of that (I have no idea how you did it), I was merely pointing out that you seem fairly nonchalant, in your sentence, as to tossing out our best description for the foundation of reality (quantum mechanics)simply because you are 'spiritual'.bornagain77
December 21, 2012
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Actually, I think I want to say this more emphatically... As such, it highlights a lack in humans, and not any shortcoming in God’s character or nature.Phinehas
December 21, 2012
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It is also interesting to point out that this 'eternal' framework for time at the speed of light is also testified to in Near Death Experience testimonies:
'In the 'spirit world,,, instantly, there was no sense of time. See, everything on earth is related to time. You got up this morning, you are going to go to bed tonight. Something is new, it will get old. Something is born, it's going to die. Everything on the physical plane is relative to time, but everything in the spiritual plane is relative to eternity. Instantly I was in total consciousness and awareness of eternity, and you and I as we live in this earth cannot even comprehend it, because everything that we have here is filled within the veil of the temporal life. In the spirit life that is more real than anything else and it is awesome. Eternity as a concept is awesome. There is no such thing as time. I knew that whatever happened was going to go on and on.' Mickey Robinson - Near Death Experience testimony 'When you die, you enter eternity. It feels like you were always there, and you will always be there. You realize that existence on Earth is only just a brief instant.' Dr. Ken Ring - has extensively studied Near Death Experiences 'Earthly time has no meaning in the spirit realm. There is no concept of before or after. Everything - past, present, future - exists simultaneously.' - Kimberly Clark Sharp - NDE testimony
‘Time dilation’, i.e. eternity, is confirmed by many lines of scientific evidence but basically the simplest way to understand this 'eternal framework' is to realize that this higher dimensional, ‘eternal’, inference for the time framework of light is warranted because light is not ‘frozen within time’ yet it is also shown that time, as we understand it, does not pass for light. This paradox is only possible for time at the speed of light if temporal time is a lower dimensional time that was created from a higher dimension that ‘contains all temporal time’,,,Yet, even though light has this ‘eternal’ attribute in regards to our temporal framework of time, for us to hypothetically travel at the speed of light, in this universe, will still only get us to first base as far as the eternal framework of quantum entanglement, and/or quantum teleportation, is concerned.
Light and Quantum Entanglement Reflect Some Characteristics Of God – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4102182
i.e. Hypothetically traveling at the speed of light in this universe would be, because of time dilation, instantaneous travel for the person going at the speed of light. This is because time does not pass for them at the speed of light, yet, and this is a very big ‘yet’ to take note of, this ‘timeless’ travel is still not instantaneous and transcendent of our temporal framework of time as quantum teleportation and entanglement are, i.e. Speed of light travel, to our temporal frame of reference of time, is still not completely transcendent of our temporal time framework since light appears to take time to travel from our temporal perspective. Yet, in quantum teleportation of information, the ‘time not passing’, i.e. ‘eternal’, framework is not only achieved in the speed of light framework/dimension, but is also ‘instantaneously’ achieved in our lower temporal framework. That is to say, the instantaneous teleportation/travel of quantum information is instantaneous to both the temporal and speed of light frameworks, not just the speed of light framework. Information teleportation/travel is not limited by time, nor space, in any way, shape or form, in any frame of reference, as light is seemingly limited to us in this temporal framework. Thus ‘pure transcendent information’ (in quantum teleportaion experiments) is shown to be timeless (eternal) and completely transcendent of all material frameworks. Moreover, concluding from all lines of evidence we now have (many of which I have not specifically listed here); transcendent, eternal, infinite information is indeed real and the framework in which ‘It’ resides is the primary reality (highest dimension) that can exist, (in so far as our limited perception of a primary reality, highest dimension, can be discerned).
“An illusion can never go faster than the speed limit of reality” Akiane Kramarik – Child Prodigy - Artist
bornagain77
December 21, 2012
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Box: "Do you situate the eternal heaven (and hell) in our current expanding and dying universe" No I consider them both, heaven and hell, to be on a higher dimension 'eternal' plane than this temporal dimension, though, paradoxically, hell is a 'higher dimension 'eternal' plane' in which it is found that souls descend into it rather than ascend into it. Notes: It is important to note that higher dimensions are invisible to our physical 3 Dimensional sight. The reason why ‘higher dimensions’ are invisible to our 3D vision is best illustrated by ‘Flatland’:
Dr. Quantum in Flatland - 3D in a 2D world – video http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/9395/Dr_Quantum_Flatland_Explanation_3D_in_a_2D_world/
Perhaps some may think that we have no scientific evidence to support the view that higher ‘invisible’ dimensions are above this 3 Dimensional temporal world, but a person would be wrong in that presumption. Higher invisible dimensions are corroborated by Special Relativity when considering the optical effects for traveling at the speed of light. Please note the optical effect, noted at the 3:22 minute mark of the following video, when the 3-Dimensional world ‘folds and collapses’ into a tunnel shape around the direction of travel as a ‘hypothetical’ observer moves towards the ‘higher dimension’ of the speed of light:
Approaching The Speed Of Light – Optical Effects – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5733303/
The preceding video was made by two Australian University physics professors. Here is the interactive website, with link to the relativistic math at the bottom of the page, related to the preceding video;
Seeing Relativity http://www.anu.edu.au/Physics/Searle/
As well, as with the scientifically verified tunnel for special relativity to a higher dimension, we also have scientific confirmation of extreme ‘tunnel curvature’, within space-time, to a eternal ‘event horizon’ at black holes;
Space-Time of a Black hole http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0VOn9r4dq8
It is also interesting to point out that a ‘tunnel’ to a higher dimension is also a common feature of Near Death Experiences. One tunnel is found for accelerating to the speed of light
“I was in a body, and the only way that I can describe it was a body of energy, or of light. And this body had a form. It had a head, it had arms and it had legs. And it was like it was made out of light. And it was everything that was me. All of my memories, my consciousness, everything.”,,, “And then this vehicle formed itself around me. Vehicle is the only thing, or tube, or something, but it was a mode of transportation that’s for sure! And it formed around me. And there was no one in it with me. I was in it alone. But I knew there were other people ahead of me and behind me. What they were doing I don’t know, but there were people ahead of me and people behind me, but I was alone in my particular conveyance. And I could see out of it. And it went at a tremendously, horrifically, rapid rate of speed. But it wasn’t unpleasant. It was beautiful in fact. I was reclining in this thing, I wasn’t sitting straight up, but I wasn’t lying down either. I was sitting back. And it was just so fast. I can’t even begin to tell you where it went or whatever it was just fast!" – Vicki’s NDE – Blind since birth - quote taken from first part of the following video Near Death Experience Tunnel - Speed Of Light - Turin Shroud - video http://www.vimeo.com/18371644 The NDE and the Tunnel - Kevin Williams' research conclusions Excerpt: I started to move toward the light. The way I moved, the physics, was completely different than it is here on Earth. It was something I had never felt before and never felt since. It was a whole different sensation of motion. I obviously wasn't walking or skipping or crawling. I was not floating. I was flowing. I was flowing toward the light. I was accelerating and I knew I was accelerating, but then again, I didn't really feel the acceleration. I just knew I was accelerating toward the light. Again, the physics was different - the physics of motion of time, space, travel. It was completely different in that tunnel, than it is here on Earth. I came out into the light and when I came out into the light, I realized that I was in heaven.(Barbara Springer)
And another tunnel in NDE's is found for 'falling'. A man, near the beginning of this video, gives testimony of falling down a 'tunnel' in the transition stage from this world to hell:
Hell - A Warning! - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4131476/
The man, in this following video, also speaks of 'tumbling down' a tunnel in his transition stage to hell:
Bill Wiese on Sid Roth – video http://vimeo.com/21230371
What’s more is that special relativity (and general relativity) also confirm the ‘eternity’ for this higher dimension.
Time dilation Excerpt: Time dilation: special vs. general theories of relativity: In Albert Einstein's theories of relativity, time dilation in these two circumstances can be summarized: 1. --In special relativity (or, hypothetically far from all gravitational mass), clocks that are moving with respect to an inertial system of observation are measured to be running slower. (i.e. For any observer accelerating, hypothetically, to the speed of light, time, as we understand it, will come to a complete stop). 2.--In general relativity, clocks at lower potentials in a gravitational field—such as in closer proximity to a planet—are found to be running slower. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation
i.e. Time, as we understand it temporally, would come to a complete stop at the speed of light (are falling to the event horizon of a black hole). To grasp the whole ‘time coming to a complete stop at the speed of light’ concept a little more easily, imagine moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light. Would not the hands on the clock stay stationary as you moved away from the face of the clock at the speed of light? Moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light happens to be the same ‘thought experiment’ that gave Einstein his breakthrough insight into e=mc2.
Albert Einstein – Special Relativity – Insight Into Eternity – ‘thought experiment’ video http://www.metacafe.com/w/6545941/ “I’ve just developed a new theory of eternity.” Albert Einstein – The Einstein Factor – Reader’s Digest “The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don’t pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass.” Richard Swenson – More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 12
bornagain77
December 21, 2012
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BD: In thinking on this some more, I'm not sure there is really much difference between the God you believe could never create hell and the God that I believe did. I don't want to put words in your mouth, so please forgive me if I get this wrong, but it seems to me that you believe in a God who gives an infinite number of second chances. For you, this is the outworking of His love for us. I don't think that the God I believe in is totally incompatible with this viewpoint. I'm reminded of His "seventy-times-seventy" view on forgiveness, which would seem to reflect, if not validate that perspective. Instead, I think it may be our view of humans that differs, (which could come back around to our view of God, but I'll get to that in a moment). It seems to me that your view of humans is that we'll all eventually get it right, given enough time and opportunities. I have no certainty that this is the case (and question where I could find such certainty). Instead, I think it plausible that the failure to get it right could perpetuate (from lifetime to lifetime, in your view) for eternity. I don't believe that the accumulation of knowledge, or even experience, must automatically bring enlightenment. In fact, this seems at odds with what I see around me and throughout history. If my view of humans holds, then even if reincarnation were the model, some will eternally remain separated from God by choice. And hell becomes more about winnowing out those whom God, in His infinite foresight, knows will never get it right (no matter how many second chances they are given) from those who will/have. In other words, it is an act of separation, not of condemnation. As such, it highlights a lack in humans much more than any shortcoming in God's character or nature. I think that part of the reason I tend toward this perspective is that I believe God has given humans a more radical freedom to choose. If it is guaranteed that everyone eventually gets it right, then is it really a free choice? If it is impossible for anyone to ever choose again, and again, and again, forever to reject God and love and everything that is good and right, then is it really a free choice? In the end, as far as I can tell, the real difference between our positions isn't so much about God's nature as it pertains to love, but God's nature as it pertains to granting humans radical freedom, and what humans might choose to do with that gift.Phinehas
December 21, 2012
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Now all you got to do KN is find some type of ‘natural’ top down mechanism to explain the information we find in life other than intelligence which we know for a fact can generate information.
Interesting paper, Bornagain. It's a bit above my pay-grade, but I'm enjoying the challenge. I found this interesting:
Thus the famed chicken-or-egg problem (a solely hardware issue) is not the true sticking point. Rather, the puzzle lies with something fundamentally different, a problem of causal organization having to do with the separation of informational and mechanical aspects into parallel causal narratives. The real challenge of life’s origin is thus to explain how instructional information control systems emerge naturally and spontaneously from mere molecular dynamics (emphasis added). It is this issue which we explore in the remainder of this paper.
So, much as I appreciate the spirit of the challenge there, it seems as though Walker and Davies have already taken it up. (One worry I do have here is whether it's really correct to say that "intelligence" can "generate" "information". It's a fundamental commitment of design theory, and it bothers me terribly -- I don't think that really gets at what's important in the relationship between intelligence and information. More on this as I puzzle it out.)Kantian Naturalist
December 21, 2012
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Re: 197
bornagain77: Box you state: ‘Besides I believe we are spiritual beings so I also do not associate my freedom with the quantum mechanic framework.’ So, the foundation of reality is not allowed to inform your worldview because you are ‘spiritual’??? Please do tell how you intend to hold your worldview is real if if does not conform to reality! I’m all ears!
It’s surprising to me that you, as a Christian, consider matter to be the foundation of reality. I on the contrary consider God to be the foundation of reality; ‘unity’ if you will. In post 162 you seem to argue that there must be a heaven and a hell because ”as far as science can tell us, there are two very different eternities and Christ is the bridge between them”. Do you situate the eternal heaven (and hell) in our current expanding and dying universe, or do you assume that they are necessarily constructed in the same way? Both ideas don’t make much sense to me.Box
December 21, 2012
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KN, I read this and thought you might like it: Assessing the "Algorithmic Origin of Life" (Paul Davies' Recent Paper) - December 18, 2012 Excerpt: It is the functionality of the expressed RNAs and proteins that is biologically important. Functionality, however, is not a local property of a molecule. It is defined only relationally, in a global context, which includes networks of relations among many sub-elements....,, One is therefore left to conclude that the most important features of biological information (i.e. functionality) are decisively nonlocal. Biologically functional information is therefore not an additional quality, like electric charge, painted onto matter and passed on like a token. It is of course instantiated in biochemical structures, but one cannot point to any specific structure in isolation and say "Aha! Biological information is here!",,, ,,,For example, mechanical stresses on a cell may affect gene expression. Mechanotransduction, electrical transduction and chemical signal transduction -- all well-studied biological processes -- constitute examples of what philosophers term "top-down causation", where the system as a whole exerts causal control over a subsystem (e.g. a gene) via a set of time-dependent constraints. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/12/assessing_the_a067541.html Now all you got to do KN is find some type of 'natural' top down mechanism to explain the information we find in life other than intelligence which we know for a fact can generate information: footnotes: "Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day." Norbert Weiner - MIT Mathematician - Father of Cybernetics Programming of Life - October 2010 Excerpt: "Evolutionary biologists have failed to realize that they work with two more or less incommensurable domains: that of information and that of matter... These two domains will never be brought together in any kind of the sense usually implied by the term ‘reductionism.'... Information doesn't have mass or charge or length in millimeters. Likewise, matter doesn't have bytes... This dearth of shared descriptors makes matter and information two separate domains of existence, which have to be discussed separately, in their own terms." George Williams - Evolutionary Biologistbornagain77
December 21, 2012
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In re: Bruce David @ 193:
That’s very interesting. I studied Plato in college, but I don’t remember that he ever called the theory of forms into question. Do you have a reference, or a particular work where he did that?
I believe it's in Plato's dialogue Parmenides.Kantian Naturalist
December 21, 2012
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Ravi Zacharias - Uncovering the New (Age) Spirituality - Part 1 of 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xON0Gw-caksbornagain77
December 21, 2012
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Box you state: 'Besides I believe we are spiritual beings so I also do not associate my freedom with the quantum mechanic framework.' So, the foundation of reality is not allowed to inform your worldview because you are 'spiritual'??? Please do tell how you intend to hold your worldview is real if if does not conform to reality! I'm all ears!bornagain77
December 21, 2012
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BD you ask me to "C’mon BA, fight fair." Now BD, this is an interesting thing for you, of all people, to say. All is good and perfect in your worldview (though not necessarily 'preferable' (weasel word)) thus, as was asked of you before, why are you even 'fighting' so hard to promote your pseudo-religion if there is truly no evil in reality and all is good and perfect??? You contradict your own foundational beliefs by your own hypocritical actions!,,, Tell you what BD, since you seem to rely on 'conversations' so much, let's let our worldviews 'fight' it out, show me from your 'holy book', 'conversations with god', a single, just one, unambiguous prophecy that has come to pass:
1 John 4:1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. Isaiah 41 21 “Present your case,” says the Lord. “Set forth your arguments,” says Jacob’s King. 22 “Tell us, you idols, what is going to happen. Tell us what the former things were, so that we may consider them and know their final outcome. Or declare to us the things to come, 23 tell us what the future holds, so we may know that you are gods. Do something, whether good or bad, so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear. 24 But you are less than nothing and your works are utterly worthless; whoever chooses you is detestable.
Here's my example and the math behind it;
Restoration Of Israel and Jerusalem In Prophecy (Doing The Math) – Chuck Missler – video http://www.metacafe.com/w/8598581
Now BD is this a 'fair fight' between worldviews? If not, why not?bornagain77
December 21, 2012
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BD: A challenge on warrant. KFkairosfocus
December 20, 2012
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KN:
Unless the universe exists for no reason at all. Whether or not that option is intellectually satisfying depends entirely on what one takes intellectual satisfaction to consist of.
Somehow I think it goes deeper than mere intellectual satisfaction, that somehow one is compelled to the conclusion that there must be a cause (in the sense that I defined above). I apologize for not being able to articulate this intuition any better. I think I stand somewhere between you and Stephen on this question. I agree with you regarding the rules of right reason, but I also feel that there is more at stake than just intellectual satisfaction.
I actually think that Aristotle, for all his extraordinary genius, is nevertheless somehow a bit shallow compared to the later Plato, where the “theory of forms” itself is called into question and everything seemingly fixed is made fluid again — a deep insight of the later Plato that went unnoticed (so far as I know) until it was brought forth into the full light of day by Hegel.
That's very interesting. I studied Plato in college, but I don't remember that he ever called the theory of forms into question. Do you have a reference, or a particular work where he did that?Bruce David
December 20, 2012
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If you say that it doesn’t have to have a cause in that sense, then how do you account for its being there? I grant that it doesn’t follow from logic, but doesn’t the existence of the universe cry out for something being responsible for the fact that it exists?
Unless the universe exists for no reason at all. Whether or not that option is intellectually satisfying depends entirely on what one takes intellectual satisfaction to consist of. But that's not quite what StephenB and I are wrangling over -- we're wrangling over the fact that he thinks it's contrary to the rules of right reason to assert that the universe might exist for no reason at all, and that is what I dispute. In the background here, too, lurk my deeper disagreements with StephenB -- that the rules of right reason are fixed and given in advance, waiting to be discovered, and that Aristotle's formulations are perfectly authoritative. I actually think that Aristotle, for all his extraordinary genius, is nevertheless somehow a bit shallow compared to the later Plato, where the "theory of forms" itself is called into question and everything seemingly fixed is made fluid again -- a deep insight of the later Plato that went unnoticed (so far as I know) until it was brought forth into the full light of day by Hegel.Kantian Naturalist
December 20, 2012
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Box, re 182: It occurs to me that those of us who accept reincarnation find the idea of "solidification" to be an anathema partly because we already regard the time between lives as a time that has its own spiritual growth as a result of reflecting on the events of the most recent incarnation. So it is every bit as dynamic an experience as living on Earth. Christians, however, are in the habit of imagining that the time of change is only while we are in a body. Once we die, we are judged and then move on to a static existence---either in Heaven or Hell. Thus, the idea that our character is fixed at the point of death doesn't seem so odd. There is still no warrant for it, however---no empeirical evidence, no logical inference to it as a conclusion, and as far as I know, no such statement in scripture.Bruce David
December 20, 2012
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BA:
as to: “Looks to me like you just confirmed that I do know God, since I know what love is.” No, actually I confirmed that you do not know God nearly as well as you imagine you do, because Hell Actually Was Prepared for the Devil and His Angels,,,
C'mon BA, fight fair. The sentence you quote from me was in response to your Bible quote in 177, "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." You mentioned nothing about God creating Hell as a place for Satan and his followers in that comment.
,,,God never intended for one single person to end up in Hell. It is NOT God’s will that anyone should perish in their sins and go to Hell.,,,
Then He shouldn't put people there, should He? He is omnipotent and the ruler of the universe. He can do whatever He wants. If He doesn't want people to perish in their sins and go to Hell, then He should simply forgive them. It's not that hard. Ordinary people do it every day.Bruce David
December 20, 2012
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KN, re 188: Here are my thoughts on what "causing" the Universe could mean. The universe being contingent means that it isn't self created, right? So if it suddenly comes into being 14 or so billion years ago, it couldn't have created itself. So a cause of the Universe would be something that created it, that was responsible for its coming into being. (It's hard to put that idea into words without using the word "cause".) If you say that it doesn't have to have a cause in that sense, then how do you account for its being there? I grant that it doesn't follow from logic, but doesn't the existence of the universe cry out for something being responsible for the fact that it exists? Anyhow, it does for me, which is one of the reasons that I am a theist.Bruce David
December 20, 2012
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In re: StephenB @ 181: I hate to put it this way, but I think you're arguing in a circle. You claim to have prove that God exists by an appeal to logic alone, but you have a particular interpretation of what "logic alone" commits us to. This just ain't going to jive, because a Kantian can be committed to the same principles as you are, but have a different interpretation of them and so refuse to grant the conclusions you take to be necessary. In particular, what is at stake here is just what mean by "the a priori". A Kantian can happily embrace the thought that metaphysics deals with synthetic a priori judgments, such as the necessary presuppositions of empirical science, and yet also stress that the ground or source of the a priori lies in how our minds organize experience. The a priori-for-us the only a priori that makes any sense to us. I can understand that one might refuse to grant this -- one might insist that the principles of reason must be those of reality itself. OK, fine. But once you have that as your starting-point, proving that God exists is not very impressive, because you've already taken as your starting-point a worldview in which the place for God has already been established. So the 'proof' of God's existence has a "hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!" sort of feel to it. I say all this in order to set the right tone for my specific disagreements with 181, as follows:
It is a violation of the principles of logic to suggest that all entities are contingent. Is that what you are trying to argue?
Well, yes. Or more, precisely, it wouldn't be a violation of any logical principles if all entities were contingent. Typically, the argument for some necessary entity gets going by appealing to the principle of sufficient reason. But that cannot work, period, for several reasons. Firstly, the principle of sufficient reason is at most a useful explanatory strategy. Denying it has no effect on logic per se. There is no logical system which commits us to the principle of sufficient reason. (For that matter, there are logics which reject the principle of non-contradiction. They're quite interesting and have been studied by logicians for quite a while. They have some interesting real-world applications, e.g. in designing AI and search engines.) Granted, I'm distinguishing between logical systems and epistemological doctrines but you know, that's what philosophers have been doing for the past 150 years -- Ernst Cassirer, C. I. Lewis, Rudolf Carnap, etc. all figured out how to deal with the fact that neither Aristotle nor Kant were right -- there is no such thing as a universal logic -- there are many logics, many logical systems. I know it seems crazy, but it's been known to philosophers since the early 20th century, just as there are many geometries and so on. Secondly, to the extent that the principle of sufficient reason works as useful explanatory strategy, it's only in the modest, pragmatic, post-Kantian form of "if you want to have a successful inquiry into nature, you should begin by assuming that any spatio-temporal event has some cause, since you're not going to get anywhere if you don't."
In any case, the concept of cause is analogical. There are differences from one example to another, but we don’t hesitate to refer to each case as a cause because we recognize the logical validity in doing so. Time, space, and matter are contingent realities, and every contingent reality requires an explanation. The word cause serves to describe that dynamic as well as anything else. We may not know HOW the first cause caused time and space in the same way that we know how clouds cause rain, but we do know that a cause is a necessary condition for an effect, and that the time/space/matter formulation is clearly an effect. Without a creator, there is no creation; without a first cause, there is no universe.
Well, let's see here. I can agree that the universe is contingent (from what we can tell), but that doesn't mean that it must have an explanation or a cause. Maybe it does, and maybe it doesn't, and one would have to do the hard work of cosmology in order to see. But the modest, post-Kantian version of the PSR doesn't work here, it just doesn't "scale up," so to speak. If it were true that the universe is an effect, then it would follow analytically (and hence trivially) that it must have a cause. But it just isn't true that the universe is an effect.
No one questions the fact that space and time could not be created in space and time. The point is that they could not have been their own cause.
My point is that we simply do not know what it means to say that they do or do not have a cause, if "cause" is being used in the ordinary sense.
We can logically identify the first cause of the contingent universe as a necessary, self-existent, eternal and immaterial being.
I don't really know what "logically identify" is doing here. Of course one could assert that a necessary, self-existent, eternal and immaterial being is the cause of the contingent universe. I don't really have a problem with you making that assertion; assert all you want, it's all good by me. But you want to claim that it's contrary to the very principles of logic to deny that assertion, and that's where I'm willing to tussle.Kantian Naturalist
December 20, 2012
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In re: MrMosis @ 170
I think that my thinking about causality used to be anchored in material and efficient terms, to the exlusion of other perspectives. I think we can look at our spatio-temporal, every-day-world and life to see when it becomes deficient. If you are a reductionist-materialist sort, I think you can make the claims about causal “forces” “preceding” the universe being unknowlable, or nonsensical. In fact you might point to the very use of the word “preceding” to illustrate the fact. But given you are not such a rigid naturalist, I am not sure why you are not more open to a broader concept of causality, particularly given your admiration for Aristotle.
I'm sorry, but from my standpoint, this is just comparing apples and oranges. Whether there are other kinds of causality besides efficient causality is a completely different question from whether the very concept of causality makes sense when applied to anything outside of our spatio-temporal frame of reference. One can certainly agree with Aristotle that final causality is required to make sense of what we experience -- namely, the teleological organization of living things -- without thinking that any causal concepts make any sense beyond the universe as a whole.Kantian Naturalist
December 20, 2012
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@ Phinehas I just throw in my idea about freedom as well. To have free will is being able to do what you want, being in harmony with yourself. It is not about being able to do what you don’t want to do. So I do not associate free will with being unpredictable (like a quantum). Someone who knows me very well is probably able to predict many of my decisions, but that doesn’t make me less free. Besides I believe we are spiritual beings so I also do not associate my freedom with the quantum mechanic framework.Box
December 20, 2012
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as to: "Looks to me like you just confirmed that I do know God, since I know what love is." No, actually I confirmed that you do not know God nearly as well as you imagine you do, because Hell Actually Was Prepared for the Devil and His Angels,,, "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, PREPARED FOR THE DEVIL AND HIS ANGELS" (Matthew 25:41). ,,,God never intended for one single person to end up in Hell. It is NOT God’s will that anyone should perish in their sins and go to Hell.,,, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, NOT WILLING THAT ANY SHOULD PERISH, but that ALL should come to REPENTANCE” (2nd Peter 3:9). ,,, But He also did not make puppets of men (or of angels), so there is a choice for men to make. A very important choice to make. And living in fairyland where you simply imagine evil does not exist certainly will not protect you from the reality of whether or not you've chosen to accept Christ as Lord of your life: Is God Good? (Free will and the problem of evil) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfd_1UAjeIA footnote, Much like Darwin's Theodological core, your Theodicy is based on a incorrect/incomplete view of God.bornagain77
December 20, 2012
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Box: I'll just throw this out there as an unformed thought... Perhaps choice as we know it is contingent in some way upon space/time or its underlying reality. I'm not a theoretical physicist (I design video games for a living), but I am intrigued by how quantum mechanics opens the door to free will while not denying the possibility of a sovereign God who ordains all. Maybe choice as we know it inheres within the quantum mechanic framework and death takes us beyond this paradigm.Phinehas
December 20, 2012
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Well Box, I tend to focus solely on the science, which as far as science is concerned there are two very different qualities of eternity. You are the one trying to play off on emotions to say it is not possible that a loving God would not allow a 'horrid' hell to exist. Yet if you were to be a little more discerning to what the evidence is actually saying then you would admit that reality, as revealed to us by physics, reveals two very different qualities of eternity. Emotions aside, no matter how horrid or appaling the thought is to you, the physics we have does not support your metaphysics but it does support mine. Looked at in an unbiased, unemotional manner, as is how science is suppose to be, that is all I'm saying when I say I don't know why you would call such a mechanism horrid. As a person sure it is very chilling to me, but that has nothing to do with dealing with reality on reality own terms!bornagain77
December 20, 2012
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@ bornagain77 -162
Box asks: “What horrid mechanism is at work at the moment of death so this is all changed?” bornagain77: I don’t know if I would call it ‘horrid’ (..)
It is puzzling to me that you don’t know. Suppose someone is in the process of dealing with horrible experiences (e.g. Auschwitz). Maybe part of this process is denouncing God, because he cannot love a God who allows this to happen. During that phase he gets hit by a truck. And at the moment of his death his personality ‘solidifies’ …. As a consequence he will burn in hell forever. And you ‘don’t know’ if you would call it horrid? The whole concept of solidifying after death doesn’t make sense to me. We are spiritual beings. We are at home in the spiritual world. What we experience there, in our world, will of course have impact and change us. The solidifying concept doesn’t make sense and is a constricting and horrible idea even without hell. The near death experience testimony by Mickey Robinson (post 162) is very inspirational and left me with the impression that there is more than enough time to change.Box
December 20, 2012
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Kantian Naturalist (@154)
The principle of logic hold for all possible worlds, including those worlds that are empty (contain no entities), but that’s completely different from saying that there are entities which necessarily exist. I don’t see the contradiction between affirming the necessity of the principles of logic themselves and the contingency (non-necessity) of all particular entities, because logical principles aren’t entities.
It is a violation of the principles of logic to suggest that all entities are contingent. Is that what you are trying to argue? In any case, the concept of cause is analogical. There are differences from one example to another, but we don’t hesitate to refer to each case as a cause because we recognize the logical validity in doing so. Time, space, and matter are contingent realities, and every contingent reality requires an explanation. The word cause serves to describe that dynamic as well as anything else. We may not know HOW the first cause caused time and space in the same way that we know how clouds cause rain, but we do know that a cause is a necessary condition for an effect, and that the time/space/matter formulation is clearly an effect. Without a creator, there is no creation; without a first cause, there is no universe.
But the origin of the universe, as the origin of space and time, could not itself have been in space and time.
No one questions the fact that space and time could not be created in space and time. The point is that they could not have been their own cause.
So I don’t think the GCP can apply to the universe as a whole. To treat the GCP as applying to the universe as a whole amounts to treating the universe itself as an object embedded within some larger spatio-temporal framework.
Obviously, the first cause of the universe cannot be embedded within some larger spatio-temporal framework since it must be outside of, and different than time and space to create time and space ex-nilio. Time and space cannot be the cause of their own existence.
So there is a space outside of space, and a time outside of time? That doesn’t make any sense!
That’s right. It doesn’t make any sense. So please stop alluding to it as if someone thinks that it does.
Of course I accept the consensus view of contemporary cosmology, that the universe is of a finite age. (13.6 billion years, according to the last time I checked.) But I don’t think that we can get to “the cause of the universe” by applying the GCP to the universe as a whole.
We can logically identify the first cause of the contingent universe as a necessary, self-existent, eternal and immaterial being.StephenB
December 20, 2012
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Mung re 178: Does that include you?Bruce David
December 20, 2012
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BA re 177: Looks to me like you just confirmed that I do know God, since I know what love is.Bruce David
December 20, 2012
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I consign this thread to HELL!Mung
December 20, 2012
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as to BD's claim: "The question is not whether Hell is a good thing, given that He created it. The question is, did He, could He in His perfect love, create a Hell? My answer is “No.” Not because I know God so well, but because I know what love is." 1 John 4:8 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. Go figure,, :) perhaps you don't know God's love as well as you think BD ! 2 Peter 1:16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.bornagain77
December 20, 2012
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