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 (whether an underlying mechanism of can explain the primitive truths of the overlying mechanism is another, interesting question). So there always seems to be an "aiming toward" that makes mechanical processes possible: in the case of non-cognizant beings, it will be an aiming toward equilibrium. In the case of cognizant beings--some state already considered desirable by the operator/aimer.
In an earlier blogpost I did an analysis of how one might find a machine and yet not know what it is supposed to do. In such a case one may provisionally describe how its parts interact (we can't yet say how the parts "function" because the function of the whole is not yet known) in law-like language. Well those laws themselves will have primitive explanans (like gravity in Newt's theory) that cannot be explained mechanically--at least not within that system.
The last qualification hints at a problem: where does explanation stop? Or (to be ontological rather than epistemic) what is more basic--aiming force or being pushed?
The correct answer is one of the two following possible points:
1. every apparently primitive force within a system is itself the result of a mechanism, which is the result of a system that has a primitive force that is itself the result of a mechanism...etc... ad infinitum.
2. That there is a first force, which operates teleologically in the sense already described. (Aristotle's Physics, Book VII seems, in the opinion of Helen S. Lang, to be making this point. Note also, that this is not so much an unmoved mover as it is first in a series of movers that are at the same time undergoing motion). OR there is a kind of heirarchy (ala Polanyi) of levels of operation and at each level there is a first force... or that in virtue of which the whole is an entelechia, in which case (thinking Aristotelian-ly here, the primary striving of substance might come to prominence in an interesting way).
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 (whether an underlying mechanism of can explain the primitive truths of the overlying mechanism is another, interesting question). So there always seems to be an "aiming toward" that makes mechanical processes possible: in the case of non-cognizant beings, it will be an aiming toward equilibrium. In the case of cognizant beings--some state already considered desirable by the operator/aimer.
In an earlier blogpost I did an analysis of how one might find a machine and yet not know what it is supposed to do. In such a case one may provisionally describe how its parts interact (we can't yet say how the parts "function" because the function of the whole is not yet known) in law-like language. Well those laws themselves will have primitive explanans (like gravity in Newt's theory) that cannot be explained mechanically--at least not within that system.
The last qualification hints at a problem: where does explanation stop? Or (to be ontological rather than epistemic) what is more basic--aiming force or being pushed?
The correct answer is one of the two following possible points:
1. every apparently primitive force within a system is itself the result of a mechanism, which is the result of a system that has a primitive force that is itself the result of a mechanism...etc... ad infinitum.
2. That there is a first force, which operates teleologically in the sense already described. (Aristotle's Physics, Book VII seems, in the opinion of Helen S. Lang, to be making this point. Note also, that this is not so much an unmoved mover as it is first in a series of movers that are at the same time undergoing motion). OR there is a kind of heirarchy (ala Polanyi) of levels of operation and at each level there is a first force... or that in virtue of which the whole is an entelechia, in which case (thinking Aristotelian-ly here, the primary striving of substance might come to prominence in an interesting way).
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