Philosophy Now Forum

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 1:01 am**

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 12:34 am Absolutely no one knows how the laws of the universe came to be, nobody even has a clue, so any proposed explanation is pure speculation.

There are good hypotheses, and better hypotheses, and bad hypotheses. Which kind is "randomness did it"?

Even you have reverted, without good reasons, to the claim that Theism is irrational.
If I have said that, and I probably have, it was because theism is irrational; childishly irrational. I was merely stating a fact.

How do you know? What's your evidence? Or are you, like the various Atheists I mentioned, simply making that claim on hope?

Suppose we say -and I most certainly don’t say this- that the universe must have been created by God. That doesn’t mean it was created by your God; the Bible God. It could be a God of some other religion, or a God we have never even heard of.

You are correct. So if we were to seek out any further information on that, it would completely depend on that "god" having revealed something to us. If we just guess, we won't know God.

But you think that your God was the “first cause”, so that must mean that you consider a first cause possible.

I'd put it much more strongly: mathematically, we can be certain there was a First Cause. There's really no grounds for doubt of that left, I would argue.

Why, then, could the laws of nature not be the first cause.

Because nature, and all its laws, are contingent. They're perishable beings, the existence of which was not necessary, at all. They could have been other than they are, or not existed at all. So nature can't be its own first cause, anymore than you can be your own father.

We actually know they exist and that they govern the universe, and it is provable, whereas the existence of God is purely a matter of whether you happen to believe a particular story written in a particular set of texts, the veracity of which is completely uncheckable.

But it's not uncheckable, at all. Rather, a claim should be judged on its veracity, on its conformity to reality. And the claim that God exists, and exists as a certain Person is a claim about reality.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 1:38 am**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 1:01 am
Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 12:34 am Absolutely no one knows how the laws of the universe came to be, nobody even has a clue, so any proposed explanation is pure speculation.
There are good hypotheses, and better hypotheses, and bad hypotheses. Which kind is "randomness did it"?

I suggest "randomoness did it" is probably a "good" hypothesis. "A benevolent creator of the world did it" is a "better" hypothesis and "A malicious creator did it" would be a "bad" hypothesis. Since there seems to be as much good as bad in the world and since both good and bad seem to befall pretty much anyone regardless of their deeds or religious convictions, I suggest "randomness" is also the more ACCURATE hypothesis.

How does that sound?

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 2:17 am**

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 12:59 am Works just as well to accomplish what?

It is intuitively obvious that the “order” that IC talks about — which he says is “God’s arrangement” — preexisted the manifestation of the universe.

That order is built into … everything.

He is right when he focuses on design — latent organizing force. Part-and-parcel of the manifest order.

But whatever that is does not demonstrate the providential God of Christianity. IC goes off the rails with all that.

One can explain those 3 paragraphs with a different paradigm. Similar, but distinct and different.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 2:27 am**

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 2:17 am
Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 12:59 am Works just as well to accomplish what?
It is intuitively obvious that the “order” that IC talks about — which he says is “God’s arrangement” — preexisted the manifestation of the universe.

That order is built into … everything.

He is right when he focuses on design — latent organizing force. Part-and-parcel of the manifest order.

But whatever that is does not demonstrate the providential God of Christianity. IC goes off the rails with all that.

One can explain those 3 paragraphs with a different paradigm. Similar, but distinct and different.

How could "order preexist the universe"? It's like saying order pre-existed anything actually being in order. Order is a state of affairs and you can't have a state of affairs without affairs in existence. As far as the universe being in "order", that's debatable.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 2:27 am**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 1:01 am
Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 12:34 am Absolutely no one knows how the laws of the universe came to be, nobody even has a clue, so any proposed explanation is pure speculation.
There are good hypotheses, and better hypotheses, and bad hypotheses. Which kind is "randomness did it"?

There are absolutely no hypotheses worthy of the name, because no one has the faintest idea. There isn't even a hint of a hint about the origins of the laws of the universe. That's a fact.

IC wrote:
Harbal wrote:]If I have said that, and I probably have, it was because theism is irrational; childishly irrational. I was merely stating a fact.
How do you know? What's your evidence? Or are you, like the various Atheists I mentioned, simply making that claim on hope?

Hope? Why would I hope one way or the other? My life does not revolve around my lack of belief in God, and if I were to discover there really was a God, my life would not revolve around that, either. Theism is basically a belief in the supernatural, which I consider to be irrational.

IC wrote:
Harbal wrote:Why, then, could the laws of nature not be the first cause.
Because nature, and all its laws, are contingent. They're perishable beings, the existence of which was not necessary, at all.

I hate to break this to you, but your assumption that God created the laws of nature doesn't mean a thing. If there was a first cause, and I don't think we know enough about "reality" to even be able to logically deduce that there was, it is far more likely to have been something of which we have evidence of existence rather than the main character in an ancient mythology.

They could have been other than they are, or not existed at all

That, given our current level of knowledge and understanding, is impossible to say; not just for you, but for anybody.

IC wrote:
Harbal wrote:We actually know they exist and that they govern the universe, and it is provable, whereas the existence of God is purely a matter of whether you happen to believe a particular story written in a particular set of texts, the veracity of which is completely uncheckable.
But it's not uncheckable, at all. Rather, a claim should be judged on its veracity, on its conformity to reality. And the claim that God exists, and exists as a certain Person is a claim about reality.

If you think the claims of the Bible conform to reality, you must be severely out of touch with reality. The biblical accounts of God are pure fantasy; nothing more than myth. How can you fact check mythology, and what sane person would even bother to try?

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:44 am**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Feb 03, 2024 11:55 pm Chaos does not produce order. Order declines into chaos.

The first part is wrong. Chaos can produce order. The second part is right. Order overall, as in the universe, will eventually dissolve into disorder. Chaos is double-edged. It can produce order through randomness and destroy it by the same means. If a god existed, it would have invented Chaos first to produce results.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:47 am**

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 1:38 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 1:01 am
Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 12:34 am Absolutely no one knows how the laws of the universe came to be, nobody even has a clue, so any proposed explanation is pure speculation.
There are good hypotheses, and better hypotheses, and bad hypotheses. Which kind is "randomness did it"?
I suggest "randomoness did it" is probably a "good" hypothesis. "

What's "good" about a hypothesis that is actually swimming upstream against known scientific laws, such as the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and against every experiment you might devise in hope to prove it?

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:49 am**

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 2:27 am There isn't even a hint of a hint about the origins of the laws of the universe.

Well, unless you include revelation. Then, there just might be.

IC wrote:
Harbal wrote:]If I have said that, and I probably have, it was because theism is irrational; childishly irrational. I was merely stating a fact.
How do you know? What's your evidence? Or are you, like the various Atheists I mentioned, simply making that claim on hope?
Hope? Why would I hope one way or the other?

Are you going to answer the question? Or are you just tacitly admitting that you have no evidence at all?

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:50 am**

Dubious wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:44 am Chaos can produce order.

And your example of that would be...

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:56 am**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:50 am
Dubious wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:44 am Chaos can produce order.
And your example of that would be...

...one among many, though I'm certain you won't let facts get in the way of anything your prejudices tell you.

https://phys.org/news/2006-04-chaosorde ... overy.html

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:07 am**

Dubious wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:56 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:50 am
Dubious wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:44 am Chaos can produce order.
And your example of that would be...
...one among many, https://phys.org/news/2006-04-chaosorde ... overy.html

You should read your own article.

Conclusion:

"This is of course basic research," said Brandt. "But what you can learn from this is that complex systems... sometimes behave in a very unexpected way, completely opposite to your intuition or expectation. … It will be interesting to see if the mechanism that we have found can actually be put to some use."

In other words, it doesn't do anything. Nothing is produced more than odd patterns. Certainly there's no suggestion at all that this is in-lab evolution.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:14 am**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:47 am
Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 1:38 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 1:01 am
There are good hypotheses, and better hypotheses, and bad hypotheses. Which kind is "randomness did it"?
I suggest "randomoness did it" is probably a "good" hypothesis. "
What's "good" about a hypothesis that is actually swimming upstream against known scientific laws, such as the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and against every experiment you might devise in hope to prove it?

What? Do you think if we all start believing in God the laws of the universe (which God would thereby have been the creator of) will change? We're probably doing God a favor, exonerating him from culpability in this mess.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:31 am**

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:14 am What? Do you think if we all start believing in God the laws of the universe (which God would thereby have been the creator of) will change?

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. It's certainly unlike anything I ever said or suggested.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:36 am**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:31 am
Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:14 am What? Do you think if we all start believing in God the laws of the universe (which God would thereby have been the creator of) will change?
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. It's certainly unlike anything I ever said or suggested.

The point is, the 2nd law of thermodynamics is a scientific theory based on experiment and observation. If you think it's wrong, then blame God Because if you believe in God, then you must also believe that God created that law of the universe.

1) Or do you believe God didn't create all the laws of the universe?

2) Or do you believe that the 2nd LTD is incongruent with reality?
2b) And if so, what is your evidence that the 2nd law is incongruent with reality?

Let me know which of the above your Ougi board says is true.

Posted: **Sun Feb 04, 2024 6:49 am**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:07 am
Dubious wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:56 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 4:50 am
And your example of that would be...
...one among many, https://phys.org/news/2006-04-chaosorde ... overy.html
You should read your own article.

Conclusion:

"This is of course basic research," said Brandt. "But what you can learn from this is that complex systems... sometimes behave in a very unexpected way, completely opposite to your intuition or expectation. … It will be interesting to see if the mechanism that we have found can actually be put to some use."

In other words, it doesn't do anything. Nothing is produced more than odd patterns. Certainly there's no suggestion at all that this is in-lab evolution.

You do have a major comprehension and reading problem. Based on the quote you extracted from the article - without considering it in toto, or its conclusion - it reneges your theistically based account that Chaos does not produce order. What your limited extraction asserts is that there is more to discover, the article dating from 2006.

Without the least expectation that anything can penetrate your hermetically sealed mind which has all the oxygen pumped out of it consider this another installment you can simply refute as not conforming to your biblical view of creation.

From a fairly long but fascinating report. The first part describes your type!

https://tasmaniantimes.com/2015/08/orde ... mental-d1/

Introduction

There are two competing paradigms or ‘narratives’ underlying most human efforts to understand the existence and order of the universe. The first, oldest and seemingly most – intuitive notion is that the world was (somehow) created complete, perfect and ordered out of nothing. There is often an implication in this notion that all subsequent change has been for the worse, towards degeneration and decay from the original state of perfection. Some version of this notion underlies most religious explanations of the world, and helps to explain why many religions insist that we must adhere to a divinely-ordained moral code, since any movement away from this is a movement away from the original perfection of the world. This essentially religious narrative was expressed philosophically by Plato in his ‘Theory of Forms’1.

The second paradigm is the one which has emerged in only the last 150 years or so from our increasing scientific understanding of the world, namely that order emerges spontaneously but inevitably from chaos or randomness, and that the world becomes more ordered, complex and interesting over time. This source of order was first glimpsed by Darwin and Wallace in the evolution of living things but has subsequently become apparent in all realms of science from quantum physics right up to the emergence of social order and indeed to the very evolution of ideas themselves.

Even if Chaos does not literally produce order, it nevertheless emerges from it. This means that Chaos is a prerequisite for Order to emerge. It denotes a process of emergence and not some done deal put into immediate effect by some cosmic overlord.

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