>David
>> I suggest that the absence of a designer/maintainer/creator/sustainer is
>> incomprehensible. Without such a presence I see no reason for why
>> anything or any laws of nature should exist one way or another in any
>> particular form. Without such an enforcer/realizer of the laws of nature,
>> what criteria ought we use in evaluating how things would/could be
>> different? Anything goes and nothing goes. It seems to me that such a
>> presence is a prerequisite for the actualization of any concept of nature
>> at all. Just because our formulations of the laws which describe the
>> workings of the physical/natural world make no *explicit* reference to
>> such a presence, that is no reason to think such laws would also obtain
>> and continue to be upheld and enforced in the absense of such a presence.
>> Neither is it a reason to suppose that there would be any natural world to
>> so describe anyway.
>
>Chris
>Well, as your words "I see no reason" suggest, this is about as perfect an
>argument from ignorance as one can get.
DB
Actually, it was not intended to be any argument of any type at all. It
was just my perspective on the situation.
CC
>I was tempted to say, "I see no reason" why anyone should take your argument
>seriously, since it effectively begins with an admission that you simply
>fail to see any reason why there should be laws of nature.
DB
No one is supposed to take it seriously *as an argument* -- but merely to
appreciate my perspective on the situation.
CC
>But, I will, anyway.
>
>Given your obviously Platonic view of the laws of nature, I can see why you
>hold such a view. You are clearly thinking of the laws of nature as things
>in their own right, not as merely reflections of how things behave because
>of what they *are*. Apparently, in a non-designer universe, you would expect
>square objects to behave like spherical ones, and spherical objects to
>behave like needles, and asbestos to burst into flame.
DB
Not at all. I do not see the laws of nature as "things in their own
right". I merely seem them as descriptions of how the designer/being
giver tends to operate that to which physical being has been given. I
agree that such laws reflect the behavior of how things seem to operate,
but not because of what those things *are*. I do not see sufficient
cause within things to explain their own existence or operation in and of
themselves. Since I cannot imagine a non-deigner universe, I cannot say
how objects would behave. I can't imagine the existence of such a
universe or its objects in the first place. I have no reason what to
expect from a universe that I cannot begin to imagine. Hence my phrase
"anything goes and nothing goes". This is not intended to be an
expectation of lawless logic-violating action. It is intended to reflect
an inability to have any idea of any expectations at all.
CC
>But, that's now how things work, designer or no designer.
DB
How would you know?
CC
>The only thing
>that's required is that there be some basic substance (if there isn't,
>nothing exists anyway, so the question would be moot).
DB
Your "only thing that's required" is a very big requirement. What make's
you think anything ought to exist? True, if nothing exists there is not
much behavior to describe. Note, I'm not definitely claiming nothing
could possibly exist. Rather, I'm admitting I cannot *imagine how*
anything could exist. I'm completely agnostic regarding any physical
existence, universe, substance or behavior in the absense of one who
gives being to all that is.
DB
>> Without such an enforcer/realizer of the laws of nature,
>> what criteria ought we use in evaluating how things would/could be
>> different?
CC
>Logic, silly. The principle that what a thing is, *IS* what it is.
DB
But what makes you think that such a thing would be (so that you could
apply logic to it)? I'm sorry, to appear so silly.
DB
>> Anything goes and nothing goes.
CC
>Only if we presuppose that logic does not apply, in which case you have no
>logical basis for this claim.
DB
I already explained my statement here. It would be nice to have some
sort of 'given' so logic could be applied. Where would the given come
from, and what would that given be? What would make some specific setup
be and "go" rather than some other situation be and "go"?
DB
>> It seems to me that such a
>> presence is a prerequisite for the actualization of any concept of nature
>> at all.
CC
>Where did you get the ludicrous idea that someone is actualizing a concept
>of nature? Nature just *is*.
DB
So you think it's a ludicrous idea that the things of nature need to be
actualized from a conceptual realm of hypotheticals? What makes you
think that nature just is? *Why* is it? How can it *be*?
DB
>> Just because our formulations of the laws which describe the
>> workings of the physical/natural world make no *explicit* reference to
>> such a presence, that is no reason to think such laws would also obtain
>> and continue to be upheld and enforced in the absense of such a presence.
CC
>Why do you think the laws of nature are "upheld and enforced"?
DB
Well, because what they describe actually happens. I see no other
reason for such a situation to exist.
CC
>Do you think
>there is something "upholding and enforcing" the fact that different parts
>of the perimeter of a square are different distances from the center of the
>square? If so, why? Why do you think that there has to be something ensuring
>that the corners of a square are further from the center of the square than
>the midpoints of the side are? Do you think that there must be some designer
>"upholding and enforcing" the "law" to the effect that half of a distance is
>shorter than the whole distance? If so, *why*?
DB
It appears you misunderstand my view. I am not claiming that logical
consequences of defined properties must be externally upheld (although,
on this point I would not want to definitely claim the contrary either).
Rather, I see no square existing in the first place without its creation
into the physical realm of actual existence. Certainly, once we have a
square in existence, the fact that it has certain characterizing
properties logically results in certain other properties holding for it.
I'm just not ready to say that a physical square *would* even exist for
us to measure its various parts, (or that *we* or anyone else would also
exist to do the measuring).
CC
>I note also that here again, you are merely arguing from ignorance (this
>time posing as knowledge), when you say, "there is no reason to think that
>such laws would obtain. . . ." It would be more accurate merely to say that
>*you* see no reason, unless you have a positive proof that there *is* no
>such reason (*do* you?).
DB
It is not an argument, and, thus, not an argument from ignorance. It is
an *admission* (or statement) of ignorance and consequent agnosticism
about what would be and happen.
DB
>> Neither is it a reason to suppose that there would be any natural world to
>> so describe anyway.
CC
>Is this your attempt to revive the long-entombed argument from contingency?
DB
I don't know. Since I've not heard of the argument from contingency I
couldn't say. I'm not trying to argue much of anything other than
explain my inability to imagine the situation of a designerless physical
universe of nature that you asked about.
CC
>Obviously, it is. But, there is a good reason why it was entombed in the
>first place. It's main premise was unsupportable. The main premise had to be
>derived by a crude and invalid inductive argument or by an equally crude and
>invalid *circular* argument. The inductive argument confused substance with
>entities made of that substance, and circular arguments are always invalid.
You could be right if I was making an argument. I suspect that the
nature of inductive arguments is such that they tend to be crude and
deductively invalid (unless they are in the form of a so-called
'mathematical induction' proof). I'm curious, though, about this
confusion of substance with entities made of that substance. I agree
circular arguments are invalid as proofs of some particular point. The
invalidity of an argument doesn't make the conclusion argued incorrect
however. The conclusion could still hold in spite of an invalid proof to
force that conclusion. It's just that an invalid argument doesn't
actually *force* the conclusion argued (nor force its converse, reverse,
inverse, negation, etc. either).
CC
>But, even if we assume that there was/is a designer, we have not really
>resolved the problem, because, now, by exactly the same argument that you
>pose, the *designer* must have a designer, a designer that keeps *it* in
>existence, and keeps *it* functioning according to whatever causal laws are
>"upheld and enforced" in its own substance, in its own nature.
>
>Then, *that* designer must *also* have a designer, and that designer's
>designer, and so on, in an infinitely-escalating hierarchy of designers.
>
>If you try to evade this by saying that the designer is "special," so it
>*doesn't* need a designer, I will simply say that the *universe* is equally
>"special" and doesn't need a designer (which it clearly doesn't, anyway). It
>is not even logically possible that there could be grounds for claiming that
>the designer could be ultimately "special" in this way while a universe
>could not be. Please don't annoy me into proving it; I'd *much* rather have
>you think it through on your own, though I'll give you a hint: What would
>the *designer* be made of?
DB
Thanks for the hint. I hope what I write doesn't annoy you. I expected
you would get to this infinite hierarchy of designers considering you
mistook my expression of ignorance for an attempt at a logically argued
proof of some kind. But since you brought it up in your hint, I suppose
that I would say that the designer is *not* made of nor is a part of
anything physical in nature. I would say "that which is flesh is flesh,
and that which is spirit is spirit" so to speak. My inability to imagine
the *physical* things of *nature* as being self-existent should not be
construed as an expression of an inability to imagine the very concept of
any self-existence at all. I admit that I don't know how such
self-existence works out in the case of the designer. I would expect,
though, that the designer makes His own rules and "keeps *it* functioning
according to whatever causal laws are 'upheld and enforced' in its own
substance, in its own nature". I expect that the deigner self-imposes
various limitations on His actions (and maybe some of those limitations
might have the form of 'rules', but I couldn't say for sure) for dimly
understood reasons, one of which might be a desire for logical
consistency.
BTW, I didn't know the argument you were trying to head off was called
the "argument from contingency". I had sort of remembered it being a
version of the so-called cosmological argument.
I have other thoughts and beliefs concerning the nature of the designer,
but they are not acquired from any inference from the natural world. They
come from what I believe is another revelation.
David Bowman
David_Bowman@georgetowncollege.edu