bahman wrote: ↑Wed Dec 29, 2021 7:49 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Dec 29, 2021 4:42 am
bahman wrote: ↑Tue Dec 28, 2021 7:47 pm
I didn't get your point about top-down process, evolution. I didn't get your point that why creation is a down-top process.
I thought such concepts were very basic.
It is critical you grasp the point to understand where you stand on your position.
Note:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-down_ ... -up_design
A
top-down approach (also known as stepwise design and stepwise refinement and in some cases used as a synonym of decomposition) is essentially the breaking down of a system to gain insight into its compositional sub-systems in a reverse engineering fashion.
Top down approach starts with the big picture. It breaks down from there into smaller segments.
A
bottom-up approach is the piecing together of systems to give rise to more complex systems, thus making the original systems sub-systems of the emergent system.
Top-down reasoning in ethics is when the reasoner starts from abstract universalisable principles and then reasons down them to particular situations.
Bottom-up reasoning occurs when the reasoner starts from intuitive particular situational judgements and then reasons up to principles.
I was aware of top-down and bottom-up approaches. What I didn't get was that why evolution is a top-down approach.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Tue Dec 28, 2021 4:58 am
In my case of a top-down approach to evolution, that's Darwin's approach to evolution, i.e.
it starts from whatever is empirically observable and justifiable,
therefrom the principles of evolution are inferred as far as the evidences are sufficient to support them.
I agree that Darwinism is a top-down approach in which from the macro-level you deduce something about the micro-level. But the opposite also is correct, namely something from the micro-level, what we call genetic, induces something about the macro-level. Both approaches must be consistent with each other.
Nope.
The point is in this case you are relying fundamentally on the results [R] of the top-down approach.
If you use R to go-upward from R that is not a bottom-up approach per se.
That is still fundamentally a top-down approach where one use the top-down principles to go up and down the processes.
But to stretch and extended beyond R to something intelligent without solid proof is a bottom up approach per se.
You are stopping the infinite regress to speculate a starting point at a 'bottom' with certainty.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Tue Dec 28, 2021 4:58 am
There is no "first cause" to evolution.
This will stretch back [down] to the Big Bang without the certainty of any first instant of a bang.
If we accept that evolution is partly the result of genetic change in species then it follows that one cannot deny the involvement of an intelligent agent in it.
No, it does not follow.
The evidence support the existence of genes but there is
no evidence of any creator creating the genes like in a science lab.
You are merely speculating hastily as driven by an inherent existential crisis which is psychological.
What is real is your psychological state, there is no real intelligent creator.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Tue Dec 28, 2021 4:58 am
In your bottom up approach, you are
assuming there is a sort of 'first cause' that started the first creations that contribute to the subsequent creations until to the creations we can observe at present.
I argued you 'assumption' taken as certainty as the starting point of the present reality is delusional.
Another view is,
the top-down approach is a kind of
Reductionism,
the top-down approach will indicate there is a possible problem of infinite regression.
However the problem is mitigated by limiting the conclusion to what is empirically observable and verifiable.
In the bottom-approach [yours], there is no consideration for infinite regression because the sequel of creations has a certain beginning, thus no infinite regression.
However, this creates a problem of a reality-gap or the First Cause Problem.
Hope you get that?
Considering the fact that bottom-up and top-down approaches are just methods of study and they have to be consistent one can argue playing with the genetic code in an intelligent manner or a blind process leads to the same result. Therefore my argument holds.
As indicated above there is a big difference between the bottom-up and top-down approaches as I had defined them.
The top-down approach do not imply any blind process but each steps down is supported by empirical evidences. How can you say that is a blind process?
What the top-down approach does not do is to conclude there is a starting point [first cause, unmoved mover and the like] with certainty.
We have empirical evidences to infer top-down to some sort of genetic 'code' but there is no evidence of any "coder" [real programmer] at all.
From the top-down approach we infer a top down principles and can use to work it up and down the processes; "up' in this case is not a
bottom-up processes per se.
Your bottom-up approach is an abuse of the top-down
empirical principles in speculating something -an intelligent creator - beyond the limit of the empirical principles.
Obviously you can speculate or fantasize a creator but you cannot provide supporting evidences for it.
Note the extreme of the pure bottom-up approach.
Theists will simply jump to conclusion that God exists based on blind faith and therefrom claimed God created the universe and all things in it.
In your case you are abusing the top-down approach to support your bottom up approach.
It is just like many theists [e.g. WLC] using scientific theories to support their claim that God exists, which indulges in an equivocation and conflating science [empirical] with the transcendental [divine].