The Human Question

Here is a sketch of an argument about divine foreknowledge and human freedom.  It works by applying the logic of foreknowledge to God's own actions, shows the absurdity at that level, then applies it to God's foreknowledge of created actions.  If we are free, then it is because God freely created us.  For if God's knowing what is going to happen causes that thing to happen, then God's knowing what God is going to do forces God to do that thing.  But God does know what God is going to do, so that, ex hypothesi, everything that God does would be something that God has to do.  God would be a robot, if foreknowledge implied causal necessity.  And of course, in such a case, the creation of the universe would be necessitated rather than free, and our action would likewise be necessitated.  But given that we are free, it follows that God created us freely AND foreknowledge does not involve coercian.

Hi Xxxx and Yyy Gee it's great that we're talking about this.  Xxxxx, you tried to set up some sort of philosophical discussion site... maybe facebook is better than email for this sort of thing.  In any case, I'd like to reply in as gracious and thoughtful a manner as you all did. Xxxxx:  If freedom is an illusion then SCIENCE is an illusion as well.  That is because science exists only because scientists BELIEVE that they are able to choose the more rational of two alternative explanations.  But if--contrary to appearances--they are coerced into choosing as they do by unseen forces, then they are mistaken in their belief in their ability to choose what is more reasonable.  Science, like every other supposedly rational enterprise, would therefore be an illusion.  Or to put it in other words:  there would be no such thing as scientific knowledge. Yyy: You argue clearly and thoughtfully.  I would say that there may be a proof of God's ex...

Where was quantum theory before Einstein and Plank thought of it:  in a state of superposition?

Doesn't this problem dissolve if cognition is related to comportment (bodily interaction) as an adverb is to a verb? Is that the jist of Heidegger's destruction of Cartesian dualism?

Scientists say that the speech areas (those that kick in when we are hearing or expressing) are larger in humans than in other primates.  Yes, but why?  I know it's supposed to be in our genes, but I can't help but wonder about how much of the larger size of these areas is a function of practices rather than DNA.  Consider the brain of a violinist: the area responsible for the control of his hand movement is larger than it is for non-violinists (who don't use hand skills with the same level of precision).  This largeness, however, is a function of practices.  It's large because he's a violinist rather than vice versa. Why can't the same be true for humans vis-a-vis non-humans?  In other words, it may be the case that humans have larger areas for communication than non-humans have for the same because humans are such intensive communicators.  Perhaps the average Joe is, in comparison to the bonono, a maestro at gesturing. I need to restudy about t...

David Hume divides knowledge into matters of fact, which are about things outside of our minds abut admit of no necessity, and relations of ideas, which involve necessity but do not inform us about the outside world. What if I had a hunch that all 3x4x5 triangles are right triangles?  That is, a hunch based upon a pattern I have observed in drawings of such triangles in the past.  Such a hunch or expectation would be a matter of fact, based upon experience, measurement, rather than a relation of ideas.  BUT what if I later proved tomyself (with the help of the Pythagorean formula) that such a triangle HAD to be a right triangle (with appropo qualifications re Euclidian vs. non-Euclidian geometry)?  The latter is, in Hume's schema, a relation of ideas; so it is not supposed (in Hume's opinion) to give one information about matters of fact. But it does.  Ask yourself:  after learning the Pythagorean formula don't you know MORE about the drawing of the ima...

If it provokes evolutionary scientists to develop strict algorithms for demonstrating the randomness of mutation, as opposed to "looks like a duck" arguments (e.g., what Dawkins says about the vagus nerve of a giraffe).

What if a wave is to a particle as a verb is to a noun:  might matter ultimately a kind of gerund?

If your rich uncle took you down the street to see a dog jump through a hoop, you might say "big whoop, but thanks anyways."  But if he took you to India to see the elephants parade in front of the Taj Mahal, etc., you would say, "Wow, awesome uncle: you have really treated me special!" The bigger and more beautiful/mysterious the universe is, the better the show God has put on for us (where 'us' signifies all rational beings) Related point:  To argue that considering the large size of the universe should us feel insignificant is to argue in a kind of circle, for it assumes a materialistic view of what constitutes significance/insignificance. Significance is about beauty, not about size.  And if the beauty of the cosmos is for us, then we are significant indeed.

I've just glimpsed at the article (How to Derive Ought from Is, by John R. Searle, The Philosophical Review, vol.73, no. 1), so my opinion about it is almost guaranteed to be be subject to revision... But it seems to me that making a promise does cocreate an ought.  But I might add that the very act of living in community whose members understand themselves and each other as cooperating in achieving a common life, the sharing of which is itself regarded as inherently desirable.... the very act of living together under such circumstances, while not being a promise, achieves much of what a promise achieves in terms of expectations from others.  Treat it as an implicit promise if you will: I am not committing to that, but I am committing to its being like a promise.  In any case, my point is that this quasi-promise likewise creates certain oughts.  Another derivation of ought from is, but the "is" in this case is "being one of us" or something like that.

http://www.angelfire.com/linux/vjtorley/thomas1.html

This book is a must-read: http://books.google.com/books?id=F2seCz7wmfQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=hans+jonas&hl=en&ei=nl3wTPSaFoSs8AaPn5zhCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

Try flying at 30,000 feet and looking down.

This relates to that analysis of mechanism where a person discovers a machine/or/device and tries to analyze it without guessing its purpose....he would describe it in lawful language. The new point is that engineering (techne/ars in Greek/Latin) is able to use nature for achieving human purposes precisely by thinking of nature as an instrument.  In order to give a supervening purpose to nature, it must describe it in a manner that is, in a sense, ateleological.  And that language is naturally mathematical.  A cook counts how many eggs; a cosmetologist talks about hair length, a farmer talks in geometrical language about how to plow the field. Could we include hypothetical reasoning w/ mathematical? That's probably not 100% on target, but I do think I'm on to something...

Every mechanistic account presupposes something that drives the mechanism AND which itself is not driven by the mechanism. This is not an argument for God (at least not immediately) but for entelecheia. Consider the Newtonian explanation of planetary motion.  It presupposes gravity, which is itself NOT explained mechanistically.  Rather, gravity is a tendency toward a state that is not yet acheived. Nothing "pushes" gravity: rather, it's an unpushed pusher or an unpulled puller or something like that. Consider a regular hand-driven device.  Say, an old-fashioned coffee-grinder.  The hand that is driving the grinder in that system is like gravity in Newton's explanation of planetary motion, i.e., a force that is not forced by another.  Such forces are.... teleological: that is, they can be described in terms of aiming toward something but CANNOT be explained mechanically--at least not in terms of the wholes and parts that make up the system in question (whe...

In Frank Jackson's thought experiment, Mary  knows everything a scientist can know about the color blue but has never sensed it.  Later, when she did sense blue, (Jackson points out that) Mary would know something new that she hadn't known before. BUT what would we say if someone gave Mary black&white-only night/day vision goggles and had her walk around the blue-lit world without letting her actually see the blueness of blue things, but while giving her blue detector so that she would be able to respond to blue colors in a manner roughly as adequate as those of us who have been allowed to use our eyes normally? Would she still know what blue is?  (To those of you who would say that, even though knowledge is knowing how to interact, yet she wouldn't know what blue is because her behavior would never be equivalent to that of a blue-seer, I would reply ad hominem, asking whether you think a computer could really act like a human being.  If you think the answer ...

natural selection and selfish gene: both helpful metaphors that impute something like agency to nature.

A lot of what Freud said seems unscientific in the sense that it's hard to imagine how to test, or, if it has been tested, it has not been found to be universal trait in human nature (Oedipus complex, for example). How ready have some been to accept Freud's speculative remarks.  But how much higher they place the bar for ID. Truth is, I don't think ID can clear the bar.  If I took the double standardness as supporting the genuiness of ID, then that would be pretty lame.  But it is interesting how we raise our standards of demonstration when someone proposing something that we don't want to believe.

More important is the fact that our species is centered upon the universe.

a conditioned response that is derived from a conditioned response that is derived from a conditioned response...etc.... can't work ad infinitum.  Must start with an unconditioned response.  Sure, this argument goes backward in time.  But it makes the logical point, at least.  And it shows that some terms imply the existence of another term (conditioned implies unconditioned).

The following is an ironic/dialectical argument against the assumption that the mere claim that to every physical state there is a mental state (and vice versa) would, if granted, imply that mental states are not immaterial. First reply: Mental states may still be thoroughly immaterial, but also capable of downward causality upon physical (this is not my position, but I'm just pointing out the non-sequitur in the physicalist argumetn). Second reply: Or even if we posit ONLY bottom-up causality, we'd have a superfluous, epiphenomenal, mental state... which would be absurd... but not incapable of existing apart from matter.  Especially if the cognition had somehow transcends the limitations of space and time. Comment: Yes, the latter does seem to be grasping at straws, and I'm not that inclined to be a dualist.  But I thought it interesting to point out the non-sequitur in the physicalist basis for denying the existence of the non-physical.  And I think it's importa...

Somewhere in an earlier blogpost I give a list of explanations offered by scientists that were motivated by materialism and failed in one way or another...this post was not anti-science but rather a suggestion that theories so motivated may be taken cum grano salis. Add to that list: B F Skinner, steady state theory.

Hey Tim, Remember that wiki article you linked me to?  Maybe we could discuss it in the comments of this link.  Sound good?

... may be that it distracts so many from doing natural theology.

1. When arguing against the anthropic principle, he accuses its adherents (quoting Dawkins) to carbon chauvinism.  That is, not being open to the possible that there exist other, non-carbon-based life forms.  But the anthropic principle does not pretend to establish that only one kind of life exists: it simply establishes that any form of life would be impossible if not for the fine tuning of the universe.  This argument by Shermer is a non-sequitur. 2. He argues against the uniqueness of this world, saying there may be multiverses, etc. Well, where does he think the burden of proof lies regarding this controversy?  Does he place the same light burden of proof on those who say what he wants to hear? 3. He points out that humans are not the center because there may be other rational organisms.  Okay, so the universe is not homosapiocentric: is that a big deal?  For the purposes of theism, it would be very sufficient if--at some future date--an even more ...

its focus on intervention conforms to their focus on divine Will.

Dawkins thinks its great to ask what the meaning of each thing is, but not everything as a whole.  Why?  Could it be.... special pleading?

I wonder how the metabolism of a neural cell is related to its receiving and transmitting neurotransmitters: is there something meabolic about neurotransmission?  I know that the neurons metabolize nutrients that are in no way neurotransmitters, but I am asking something different here... about how the cells are related to neurotransmitters.  That is, at some crude level of understanding, one might say that the neurotransmitters are "ingested"; but they don't function as nutrients in the cells that receive them.  They instead function as....triggers?   That said, is there more of a similarity than one might point out by making an initial crude comparison? Also, could neurotransmission be an example of how a higher function transforms lower ones... which was described as appropriation in my dissertation?

BD cites the following as a defense against the criticism that IDers use of mechanistic reasoning when doing ID stuff.  According to BD, this article distinguishes two senses of the word 'mechanistic,' which two terms are confused by critics of ID: Polanyi, Michael.  "1960s Life Transcending Physics and Chemistry," in the August 1967 of Chemical and Engineering News.

One bit of evidence that it might be is the fact that (I think in chapter 19 of The Design Revolution ) BD makes an analogy with art (not art as in paintings but art as in techne: e.g., the art of ship building, medicine, carpentry, etc.), saying that, just as the art of shipbuilding is not in the wood, and the art of letter writing does not reside in the letters, so too the art of building life lies not in the stuff that constitutes life (as with the other two cases) but in its designer. I am not remembering this very clearly, but it IS worth noting that he may be denying that an inner teleological principle guides the actions of cells, etc.... I dunno.

That is, a version of ID that places all of the intervention at the point of the creation of the first cell. Noteworthy: that it is consistent with neo-Darwinism simply for the reason that the latter is a theory of biodiversity rather than biogenesis.

Still working through my notes on Dembski... and after that I have plenty to say about the end of Shermer's Why Darwin Matters . But this claim by BD is interesting: his professed approach to science is that of a constructive empiricist.  That is, he looks at a scientific hypothesis as a source of fruitful prediction more than as an accurate representation.

If you have a utilitarian understanding of God (as beholden to the principle of seeking the greater good for the greatest number), then a philosophical reflection on the problem of pain is capable of making you an atheist.  And as a matter of fact, a lot of pain related arguments against the existence of God rely upon a utilitarian understanding of good and evil.  But to make such an objection is to assume that the only or best reason for affirming God's existence is likewise utilitarian. Perhaps the uitilitarian/deist thinks that God made the world for God's pleasure, and has since left it alone (as in "been there, done that").  But such basis for theism, if it exists, would be a straw-man.  If you are a theist in the face of pain, it is because you have a non-utilitarian understanding of God: God wants you to be fulfilled in the exercise of your freedom by living that freedom in communion with Him.  God wants you to be childlike in your trust, but an adu...

Aristotle compared the acquisition of knowledge to wax taking on the shape of a seal.  I prefer to think of it (and must have gotten this from somewhere--don't know where) to a hand grasping something, with the interior of the hand taking on the shape of that which has been grasped (or perhaps I should say "the surface of the hand" in order to avoid the impression that I am imputing a kind of interiority--I am not sure that I want to go there).  This metaphor captures how knowledge, and cognition in general, always involves active and passive aspects,with language being the way we reach out at things that we can't actually touch.

One justification often offered by believers sounds something like this, "If I didn't believe in God then my life would have no meaning, but I can't life without meaning; therefore, I believe in God."  As stated it seems to be something like, "I feel like thinking this way, therefore I do so."   But it is helpful to compare this argument to the following argument, which commits no such fallacy: "If my life is meaningful, then there is a meaning for every other thing and for the totality as well; but my life does have meaning; therefore..." The above argument relies upon the reflective recognition of one's own life as being meaningful as a basic truth.  But it links this to a claim that goes beyond the individual who makes the reflection.  And the logical form is such that, to deny the consequent (i.e., that "there is a meaning for every other thing and for the totality as well") is to deny the antecedent (i.e., that "my life...

Dembski argues that the arrangement of parts in the human eye, far from being the result of a bumbling design, it necessary to get enough blood flow to enable sensitivity to minimal levels of light (as low as one photon).

We imagine that animals do courageous things because of natural selection.  But natural selection can only select from what has been put forward by random variation.  So how does a new kind of behavior arise?  If it's via random variation, then no law-like answer can be given regarding the origin of the genotype.  But we can relate different aspects of the phenotype to each other.  That is, the new behavior has to be related to appetite and cognition.  Otherwise, animals might as well be zombie-like behavior machines.  Assuming they are not zombies, mutation must result in a new cognition regarding the desirability or (more precisely) the usefulness of the behavior. But inasuch as non human perception is like that of humans, the perceptions underlying courageous behavior and other irascible-appetite-related behavior is a complex judgment.  Amazing to imagine that a mutation would give rise to THAT! (ain't doubting it--just amazed)

Test any philosophical claim that thinks that it is required by the scientific method with the following:  would adhering to it make impossible for the form of human agency to arise that is involved in doing science?  Such as the free pursuit of the knowledge of truth?  The ability to refer back to past beliefs? etc.?  If so, then such a claim can hardly be based upon a respect for the efficacy of the scientific method.

Math soliter is descriptive, not explanatory. And the description has to do with quantity (DUH!) But the quantity deals first of all with form in the sense of shape. (note atomists) But when applied to the explanation of natural phen, math can refer to quality in the sense of disposition, as in force, for example, as well as action and passion... after a fashion... too late to finish... wife sez blogging not my buz at this hour...

Saying that most of the universe is inhospitable to life is like saying most of the uterus is unsuitable to the embryo.

this is a short note I'm jotting down just to myself regarding a potentially fatal flaw in my thesis re abstraction Concept=H Phantasm at time one=P1 Phantasm at time two=P2 Given: that P1 is not identical to P2 But P1 is isomorphic with H and P2 is likewise isomorphic with H How could all of this be consistent? Only if both Ps have H as a kind of inner focal point, so that this focal point is itself isomorphic in both cases YET the non-focal points are aliomorphic (if there is such a word). Only if we can de reify the relation between H and P can the theory be salvaged. Simply stating the need to do so does not establish that it is so.

That's what my mum says when both alternatives seem unfair. Shermer first points out that humanity is not the center of the universe, as was pointed out by Copernicus, and THEN points out that most of the universe (temporally and spatially) is inhospital to life.  These two statements are certainly mutually consistent.  But the additional premise one would in each case add in order to draw a conclusion opposed to the anthropic principle might not be so consistent.  For the (non-controversial) claim that we are not the center of the universe is made in opposition the pre-Copernican claim that we are at the center.  So in order for the pre-Copernican view to be valid , the earth would have to be surrounded by the non-living remainder of the cosmos.  But if that is the case, then Shermer will object that most of the universe (i.e., that which surrounds us) is not living). In other words, no matter how the universe is arranged, Shermer will take that arrangement...

Michael Shermer first criticizes the ID/creationist crowd for committing the fallacy of false dilemma (although he doesn't use that name exactly), and THEN he asks us to chose between methodological naturalism and methodological supernaturalism.

We are free in choosing finite goods only inasmuch as the object of our striving is infinite. There may be a mathematical analog of freedom. Our choice is never between the infinite and the finite, but rather between two or more finitudes.  And at least one of them is consistent with our longing for the infinite.

We both consider the ETI (extra-terrestrial intelligence) possibility integral to our reasoning about God.  He argues that if a sufficiently advanced ETI were to appear, then we would think of it as divine. What is much more worth pointing out is that classical theism argues for the existence of a being that is infinitely greater than any possible ETI or angel. Time to hit the books, Mike!

Then religious opposition to descent with modification would die out AND atheists would say that ID is "just a theory." Seriously, they would insist that an ETI did it.

Functionalism: I don't yet understand that well, but it's the claim that the same form (as in consciousness) can be instantiated in different types of matter (neurons, computer program). Non-reductive/asymmetric physicalism: somethin' I'm conjuring up, says that while a given state of matter corresponds to one and only one form (to a given neural state there corresponds only one cognitive state)... while all that is true, its converse is not, for the same cognitive state can be instantiated in more than one condition of the same form.  There is a kind of parallel between the two, except for the fact that the latter doesn't indicate whether many different types of organisms (or machines) may have the same cognitive state.

Suppose you encounter a machine whose purpose you cannot fathom.  You can analyze how each part pushes and pulls the other and even the various ways in which the combined parts may act.  You can describe those movements in terms of laws.  And these laws are laws open to the possibility of having one purpose or another.  That is, you can know HOW the parts behave without determining whether they even have a purpose. Suppose, however, that the evidence is overwhelming that it is indeed a human built machine:  in such a case you can can know THAT the whole has a purpose without knowing WHAT the purpose is.  In a sense, the purpose is not the sum of the parts, but rather the same sum in relation to a specific purported purpose had by the one who designed it. BTW: I don't know what the purpose of this analysis is...

That's my name for how a natural scientist qua natural should be with respect to questions of providence.  But this silence is that of one filled with wonder and openness to mystery.  How about "methodological wonder"?

Fact mentioned by Michael Behe in a debate with Stephen Barr:  that some biology textbooks say that the process of evolution is "undirected" (it's worth noting that Eugenia Scott, head of the National Center for Science Education, said that this adjective should be deleted from science textbooks, and that she justified this by saying that it's already implicit in the term "random") My thought about that is that natural science is not competent to use the words "directed" or "undirected." That is, natural science doesn't have the word "directed" as part of its vocabulary.  Intelligent design, if it's a science at all, is a social science, not a natural science. This is most obviously true in the case of physics.  Consider how physics is not competent to describe, index or demonstrate the existence of "direction" or "indirection" in the case of human agency:  what sort of physics experiment--using...

Dembski seems to be using a quantitive approach to demonstrate that novel biostructures could not have arisen as a result of either chance (or rather, that the improbability is such that it is as good as impossilbe [he multiples the number of quarks in the cosmos by the number of plank moments or something like that to get the denominator for the inverse of his threshold of so-improbable-that-it-is-as-good-as-impossible) or necessity.  He concludes that these forms have arisen as a result of specified complexity.  But the specified in this term is another name for something that a rational being, especially an engineer, would think of.  So it's kind of a way of talking about teleology via quantification.

Waaaay back a scientist is supposed to have disproven this thesis by producing urea. But urea is to organic molecules as trash is to food.  Couldn't they have tried something a bit more interesting? Isn't this kind of like finding something that looks just like the stuff you put in trash or garbage disposal and say that this proves that a human cook is not necessary to make dinner?

Continuing that division between the quantitative treatment of things in nature and the analogical-to-human agency approach that is brewing in this blog: Add that communicative acts are human acts par excellence. Then note that can't treat everything as a little person: treat non-persons some as instruments OF persons. And add that to treat them via math is to treat them simply in relation to each other AND (perhaps) as being manipulated by me.  Push and pull.  stuff like that.  Not communicative.  Non-telic.  Ergo math is the logic of instruments in relation to each other. On the other hand can treat them as word-like: as instruments of human agents interacting with each other. Not quite sure what all this means or where leading, but--PTL--it seems to be promising.

I am surprised and impressed at how well-argued much of this book is.  But the following things said by him in The Design Revolution seem quite propagandistic, nutty, creationist or a combination thereof 1. That "Darwinism" (the very use of this name is, in my opinion, problematic, because Darwin made use not only of his own explanatory mechanism but that of Lamark) makes no predictions other than vague ones about the pathways of evolution. I would reply by saying that there are many pre/retro -dictions that neo-Darwinians have made and had confirmed.  But the only currency Dembski is accepting is precise knowledge of the mutations that brought about macro evolution. He is not giving credit at all where an enormous amount is due. To make this objection I must distinguish between predictions that could have been made simply on the basis of the acceptance of descent with modifications (i.e., a prediction that could as easily have been made by a  Lamarkian or possibly ...

ID is neither sufficient nor necessary to buttress natural theology.  But it is interesting.  And it's not irrelevant.

The difference is, according to Dembski, that Miller denies that you can be scientific about that.

One can apply it to the mathematized, mechanistic universe... showing it needs a pusher of sorts. But such an argument may be embarrassed by momentum (as I am by my spellllling), etc. Secondly one can apply it to entelecheia-rich universe:  here the first mover is a final cause.  But there is also the need for the first moving mover, which is not pushed but acts for the sake of a final cause.  And that final cause is an unmoved mover.  The latter is a more adequate consideration of motion.

How does symmetry as discussed by Stephen Baars relate to specified complexity as discussed by Dembski?  Could the former defeat the latter?  That is, can the symmetry found in non-living things explain the functionality found in the living?

This needs a catchy name--badly.  Also, maybe this is more accurately called an improvement on methodological naturalism.  But here goes (parsimony is #2 in the following list): 1. Conservation of wonder:  When describing the explanandum, don't make it sound less interesting than it really is.  For example, don't describe a sonnet as a meaningful combination of letters: it's more than that.   2. Prefer the familiar to the exotic.  When explaining, strive to come up with explanations that rely on analogies with what is more familiar... when doing so is adequate to the task.  In other words, assign the types of properties associated with quarks only as a kind of last resort. 3. Distinguish rather than separate.  Look for how two things are different aspects of the same whole.  As in electo/magnetism.  4. Identify the limits of the applicability of your analogies:  Every analogy limps if you make it walk far enough.  Th...

At one point he affirms a kind of law of conservation of information, but at another point he says that a simple roll of the dice can increase the amount of information.  Is the latter an exception because of the role of a human intelligence?  But that intelligence did not know the outcome: it could have been replaced by a dice rolling machine, etc.  Or a natural event could have caused the dice to roll.  In such a case, would information have been increases or decreased?

How mathematical operations require the infinite: they don't require an explicit affirmation of the infinite any more than reasoning requires an explicit affirmation of the principle of non-contradiction.  But they do require an openness to the applicability of the form of the operation to more numbers. And if numbers had a limit, X+1, where the operation would not work, then our knowledge about the form of the proposition would not be genuine knowledge.  We wouldn't even be able to know how to apply the operation to known numbers IF we denied that it could apply to others.  An openness to an unbounded applications is necessary in principle for us to be able to know what we do about numbers within the bounds that we have found them so far.

The clock seems to be a deistic representation of nature as a closed system. A musical instrument would be a theistic representation of nature as designed by God to be used by God to produce beauty through its connection to God.  Not a closed system Dembski points out that St. Gregory Nazienzen's comparison of nature to a lute is a more apt representation of nature.

To the theist who is not familiar with ID, this program seems to be problematic in the two following ways: 1. ID makes it look like theism is grasping at straws.  For the proponent seems to find it necessary to refer to the miraculous to give a a justification of theism (here "theism" is the conviction that there is a provident God).  But to rely on the supernatural to justify theism seems to involve the assumption that natural phenomena offer no evidence for the existence of God.  The proponent of ID seems, therefore, to be oblivious to the appropriate role played by natural theology in the defense of theism against its critics. 2. ID advocates seem to be convinced that they can actually demonstrate that miraculous interventions have occurred.  Such a conviction is thoroughly problematic, for miracles are by nature an object of faith rather than of demonstration.  And to claim to demonstrate what cannot be proven is to make the critical listener suspect that ...

That's what happened when Darwin looked to Malthus for notions of the struggle for survival, competing for limited resources, and (in a later edition) survival of the fittest. Something like that might be the case when Dembski looks to a melange of disciplines he places under the umbrella "design theory" (e.g., forensics, cryptology, etc. and perhaps information theory) to empower his argument for intelligent design.

stipulated definition of 'non physical': not constrained to a particular time or place in our universe. This definition is useful for talking about how something can be other than nothing, yet not be a thing locatable in our universe. It prescinds from the consideration of whether or not immaterial beings exists.  For imateriality is immaterial to this sort of discussion (at the same time, there is a methodological openness to the possibility that another discipline may be able to consider that question).

That's the correct contrast, rather than between the terms "intelligent design" and "unintelligent design." For "intelligent design" is redundant and "unintelligent design" is a contradiction. Let's take away the word "design" and replace it with the non loaded term "functionality." Oh well, that sounds good at least for the present.

HLA Hart describes how a space alien might look at the behavior of humans at a traffic signal (actually, he talks about "behaviour"... ). It might try to formulate descriptive laws but fail to understand the law that really comes into play in this situation (i.e., the traffic law communicated by the lawmaker to the citizen and then enforced by the police). Just as the alien would be impressed with the highly accurate (upper 90%) description of the behavior of vehicles and believe erroneously it is on the verge of coming up with a comprehensive account of vehicular behavior at traffic lights...... so too is the positivist (who is, as a matter of fact, ALIENated from his own human nature) imagine or at least hope that he is going to come up with a lawful account of human behavior.

In order to think Aristotelians naive about substantial form (that is to think that the talk of substantial form is the silly positing of what you can neither experience nor measure), you have to be naive about matter: that is, you have to look at it as being, ultimately, extension or generic STUFF. It is like the space that fills the area of volumes in geometry. Pure solidity. If such a conception is correct, then yes, it is silly to talk of substantial form. If there is no pure extension, no monistic stuff, then there is only activity at every level... in which case, the most basic activity might be related to all others as being is to action in the phrase "action follows being." Such an activity is none other than substantial form.

Seriously, when it comes to gaps in our understanding of nature, Dembski says that they are either the result of chance or of design. Third alternative, anyone? (as in hidden necessity)

Bill Dembski has a witty argument that, if you posit an infinite number worlds exist, all talk about probability breaks down. I may not have his argument just right, but here goes. In one possible universe, Rubenstein sits down an hits keys randomly on the piano, but beautiful music comes out. How do you know that you are not in that universe? Etc. He seems to be onto something. But what would he say about the possibility that we live in an infinitely old and oscillating universe? With an infinite number of future possible universe scenarios, wouldn't the same thing happen as he described with an infinite number of universes? So if he were confronted with this question would he be forced to argue as well that we live in a finitely aged universe? If he said "no," would this response weaken the point he made with the Arthur Rubinstein example? (mentioned in earlier post)

At one point in his Design Revolution he indicates that the design component could have been placed in matter with the big bang at the beginning of the universe (my comment: in this case ID would fall under the anthropic principle). At another point (chapter 19) he suggests that information enters ex nihilo (with a little help from quantum indeterminacy)--not at the beginning of the universe, but--after the creation of the universe. I suppose both could be affirmed as partial explanations, so it is not a case of a clear-cut inconsistency. But why isn't he clear on this? Maybe he is treating this issue an an empirical one and is exploring two possible options that would both be consistent with the very general thesis that some type of ID at some time helped originate the present species. Also, maybe the talk of ex nihilo another way of saying that design is not something that you can quantify. It's a kind of qualia , as in the qualia that escape description of sensation ...

Call it strong variationism or strong randomness or strongly random variationism (none of these sound quite right... this is a work in progress). It makes a strong claim about the role of random variation in generating new species. It takes for granted Darwin's understanding of the role of natural selection, as that is not really where the controversy lies. And it allows one to separate the role of variation from controversies about Darwin's opinion regarding divine providence, Lamarkianism (that is, it would seem, on the basis of The Descent of Man , that Darwin himself was willing to attribute a role to use/disuse, now discredited source of variation), racism, eugenics, etc. And it allows us to contrast that with weaker roles that might be given to random variation, again without any unneeded historical baggage.

This point is by Bill Dembski: it's possible that Rubenstein knows nothing about piano yet hits keys randomly right before perfect music plays. His point is to show that if an infininte number of universes get rid of the anthropic principle, it gets rid of a whole lot of other stuff besides (including, I would add, science).

Interesting point by Bill Dembski in The Design Revolution: that Robert Boyle introduced a mechanistic view of the world in order to safeguard theism from the immanent teleology of Aristotelianism, which in his view did not seem as open to the divine. Makes me anxious to reread Timaeus on the nature of nature. Every mechanistic universe needs a non-mechanistic motor: think of gravity for Newton: it is not mechanically caused. Interesting that Aristotle's thoroughly non-mechanistic universe does have some push and pull to it: spheres drive much of the movement that occurs on earth. But the natural movement of the four elements as well as organic activity are not mechanically driven. Most importantly, the spheres while themselves responsibile for pushing a lot of things around, are drawn by love of what is higher. Aristotle may have rejected a lot of what Plato proposed, but when it came to the Good being supreme, he would have agreed with his teacher, albeit while describing ...

Evolution is a kind of movie-like presentation of nature, whereas the observation of chance/purpose/necessity here and now is a kind of snapshot, or maybe a quick videocam shot. Some of those who are schooled in evolution may also be taught that it offers evidence that nature is purposeless, even though they may spontaneously regard the world as purpose-laden when they take a momentary "snapshot" of their present situation. And even though that videocam/snapshot like glimpse of the world in which one lives may well offer one sound reasons to affirm the purposefulness not only of human striving but of the world in which we live, nevertheless, the movie/narrative with the theme that evolution-shows-that-life-has-no-overall-given-meaning can easily trump the camshot of one's lifeworld. I recall what Giussani said about observation and how we must make sure that it is not squelched by ideology. And we must be sensitive to how ideology can be conveyed through a narrative tha...

...to make us able to think of the infinite? Uh, that's intended as a rhetorical question. Thought of the infinite is not more complex than other thought. If you think otherwise, then may I ask you: in order to be of the infinite, must thought itself be infinitely complex? If not consider whether such thought is actually SIMPLER than a lot of thoughts that we and other animals may have in a day. Yet thought of the infinite is qualitatively different, higher, than those other, more complex thoughts. In fact, it is a necessary condition for having a genuinely mathematical thought... as well as any other sort of thematization of what is or may be universally and necessarily true. But let me unpack the above just a little. Consider how math presupposes the ability to think of a kind of infinite. Straight lines in geometry for example, are conceived of as being the same no matter how small you go. The possibility of infinite precision is implicit in the concept of a line. M...

then is a liberal a social Lamarkian? Well, a Marxist definitely is!

How about defining it as an instance of functional complexity? And treating the list of properties as following necessarily from this definition? Okay, this is very diamond-in-the-rough (or perhaps zirconium...) but here goes my thoughts on the matter: (Complexity) Many diverse parts (functional) acting for the sake of the whole I think I need to add something like "not as the instrument of another" or something like that. Given that they act together as one whole and given entropy, etc., the organism will need to posses more order than its surroundings (homeostasis). It will therefore need to take in energy (nutrition), which it will use to sustain its readiness to interact with its environment so as to preserve its own being (homeostasis again?), but which will eventually break down (death), so that in order for that life form to continue it will need to duplicate itself (reproduction), which, upon occurring, will involve both development (growth) to maturity and...

... to acknowledging that our universe is contingent? Matter doesn't have to be this way: in fact, the matter called "our universe" doesn't have to be at all... (see Aquinas's 3rd way for more). And don't the various hypothetical universes have to be individuated in some way? (I dunno, but it seems so). That is, don't they have to have something different about them: otherwise, there would be no explanatory gain in positing them.

He uses the archer analogy: Aquinas would like that! (in fact, I think he does use it in the Summa contra gentiles ). He admits that ID cannot prove classical theism: a Hindu or deist may subscribe to ID. May I add that a polytheist may feel right at home with ID: after all, there's no reason why there can't be as many intelligent sources of design as there are species of organism. He never says that scientific creationism is stupid! I think this is a rhetorical move on his part (he's trying to get them onto his bandwagon): uh, let's call it "rhetorical silence." But doesn't Dembski's make some Darwinians wonder whether Demski is secretly a card carrying creationist? If he is silent on this issue, it's not because of a commitment to saying the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth: it's rather a commitment to persuading someone with whom he does not in fact agree when it comes to the issue of descent with modification. The...

[Sketch of a longer post:] Really, I mean bifocal. Science as we know it is always doing the following two things together (or at least when it is functioning well): looking at nature in terms of analogies with human agency and in terms of what can be quantified. To do just one of these two is to depart from science and, well, to embarrass oneself (and I can't do either of the two, which is even more embarrassing). 1st way of looking at nature: Mathematical p.o.v. nature as placeable within Cartesian coordinates and describable according to quantitative laws of nature. Such descriptions take atom like wholes for granted and ignore final or formal causality. Or rather you might say that they reduce formal = pythagorean shape whatever lawful description can be used, etc. Temptation is to look at material substrate as ultimately being this intert monistic stuff (sorta like pure extension of Descartes) The treat material universe monistically monistic stuff or atom. Replace ...

Behe's argument for intelligent design hinges upon the notion of irreducible complexity found in nature. But if you ask. me (uh, nobody did...), what's more interesting than irreducible complexity is irreducible simplicity: that is, the way in which higher level operations are related to lower level operations. Scientists and philosophers who recognize this irreducibility often refer to it as "emergence." Polanyi discusses it in The Tacit Dimension. Aquinas talks about something quite similar as well (especially when he compares how the sensus communis is related to the proper senses). I'll call this characteristic "emergence" without intended to subscribe to any particular explanation of how these higher level powers arise in the first place. Although Behe doesn't mention emergence, the complexity that he calls "irreducible" has a couple of similarities to emergent properties. Both involve a whole that relies upon its many parts...

Most theories, once regarded as confirmed, become the basis for further studies directed not at reconfirming the original thesis but getting deeper insights. So what would happen if someone managed to confirm one instance of ID: what research program would follow? What deeper insights might one seek? I suppose one could turn to other events in nature and see if they too exhibit ID. One could keep busy dealing with new apparent counter-examples as well. And one would also keep pretty busy answering the never-ending objections of philosophical skeptics (perhaps one of those objections would be that "ID is just a theory...?"). The latter, however, might be a philosophical rather than a strictly scientific enterprise. But none of these controversies would actually move scientific knowledge forward to a new level. The only way in which that might happen would be by trying to discern what the intelligent designer is like. But that seems likely to be a dead end for science, for (as ...

Integral to Dembski's idea of specified complexity (SC) is the notion that something extrinsic to evolution is the source of the specification in how it develops. He compares SC to the message sent by space aliens in the movie "Contact." In that movie, earthbound scientists determine that radio waves originating in from somewhere in our galaxy are actually a signal being sent by space aliens. The scientists determine that these waves are a signal is the fact that they indicate prime numbers in a way that a random occurrence would not. What is interesting to me is the fact that Dembski relies upon an analogy with a sign rather than a machine. Like a machine, signs are produced by an intelligent being for the sake of something beyond themselves. Machines, if you will, have a meaning. Signs, if you will, produce knowledge. But the meaning/knowledge is in both cases something other than the machine/sign itself. Both signs and machines are purposeful or teleological...

What's amazing about evolution is how mutation would enable an animal not simply to behave in a new way, but to judge situations in a new way: that is to judge instinctively that something desirable or undesirable is to engaged in a certain way. When I think of how much more difficult it is to imagine the cause of alteration of judgment, I can see why Darwin gave in to the temptation to resort to the Lamarkian notion of use/disuse to explain how human cognition evolves. To treat evolution merely in behavioral terms is them like robots or near zombies rather than as judging and experiencing animals.

Proponents of intelligent design deny that random variation combined with natural and sexual selection suffices to originate the present diversity of life forms. It seems to them that any adequate explanation must include an intelligent designer. But they differ among themselves about what that intelligent designer must be like and what it has done. Did it engineer the present life forms pretty much as they are now? Creationists will say yes, but not all IDers are creationists. Did it just engineer the first cell and let the rest unfold? Sometimes ID proponents seem to suggest this (e.g., Michael Behe). Must that engineer have been God? Most will deny that the scientific method could demonstrate that God is the cause of a natural phenomenon; others, however, will insist that ID shows that the world was made by no less than God. Opponents of ID seem to have only the latter crowd in mind. They respond that it is all really religion belief in the disguise of science. Obviously I...

In order for there to be science, the same proposition must be known to have been first proposed, later tested, and finally confirmed/or/rejected. In order for these propositions to be recognized as having been the subject of scientific reasoning, they must have been compared by one and the same person. In other words, I can't know know that I am confirming a hypothesis unless I knew it as an initial hypothesis, then as object of experimental testing and finally as an explanation that has been confirmed or denied. In order for the same person to compare the same proposition at different times, the he or she must keep their identity through time. But if reductive materialism were true, then identity through time would be an illusion. In fact, there would be no such thing as even a momentary identity, for the self would be an illusion. But in such case, there would be no such one to compare the initial hypothesis with its confirming evidence. Nor would there be such a thing ...

This from Descent of Man (henceforth DoM). When a dog recognizes another dog a great distance away, it doesn't think of this or that individual, but of dog in general. This example is weak: you might be unable to distinguish whether THIS dog is Fido or Rover, but you are still thinking of THIS dog at this place and time, not of being-a-dog as common to many individuals at different places and times. The latter and not the former constitutes abstract thought. Sorry, Charlie.

http://the-human-question.blogspot.com/2010/10/math-and-reductionism.html

Darwin he believes that different races have different levels of intellectual ability and that for this reason he expects the better adapted races to replace others. He repeatedly contrasts the "civilized" with the "savage" races, and suggests that the former are more evolved. For example, he points out that those from the African continent have a better developed sense of smell and that this characteristic is even more robust in dogs and chimps. More strikingly, he quotes an expert who compares the jaws of various races, and finds that the shorter jaw and late developed molars in Europeans (in comparison with those of Africans) are evidence that they have been less needed as the former have been eating cooked food longer. He also approvingly quotes at length another scientists who contrasts the impulsive Irish with the frugal Scot, noting with regret how the former are more likely to reproduce. In other words, Darwin is a racist... and a Victorian bigot. W...

Dawkins tells us he is a "good reductionist" (each time I hear this expression, I think of Glinda asking Dorothy "Are you good witch or a bad witch?"), and he takes science as helping to demonstrate this truth. On the other hand, he also agrees that ethical reasoning is a genuine form of human rationality, even though we can't derive our ethical principles from science. I will show how his ethics and reductionism collide with each other. But before I do that let me caution that my criticism does not hinge upon human immortality or the existence of God: those are matters for another discussion. Even one who is agnostic about or hostile to those theses will find Dawkins unable to deliver himself from the horns of the following dilemma. First let me set up the premise: Ethical reasoning cannot take place unless you accept your identity through time, for there is no agency without identity. That is, we must use the word "I" and "you" ...