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Logic problem (First Cause)

>>I think that hume wasn't talking about an animal creating itself out of its own free will but rather in the sense that evolution designed the animals according to what they did and what they needed. This would equate to the animal designing itself. >>

I'm not so sure if this was what Hume was arguing. I think he was writing during the 1700s, i.e. before Darwin. Granted, there were evolutionary theories floating around, but they weren't nearly as popular.

ebola
 
Molybdenum said:
There's very little of value in western philosophy, but I can't resist...

No offense, but this is absolute nonsense. Just as an example, we get the entire field of logic from western philosophy. And from the development of logic by Aristotle, we get the sciences and basically every other discipline you can think of because logic is their backbone.

Proto, are you supposed to point out logical fallacies or just refute his argument with your own argument?
 
Isn't the better response to Paley's "watchmaker" argument, to point out that the watchmaker himself is inherently more complex than any watch he might create, and therefore the watchmaker must have been the product of some intelligent mind?

This may seem to play into the theologian's argument. I.e., I seem to be agreeing that a human is more complex than a watch and so must have been the product of intelligent design. However, remember we are in an analogy where GOD is the watchmaker and the Universe is the watch. So, what it comes down to is that if the Universe is so intricate and coordinated so that it must have been intelligently designed, and whatever created the Universe must be more intricate and coordinated than the universe itself, then you must conclude that if the Universe has to have an intelligent maker, then so does God.

If you choose to believe something complex enough to design and create the Universe was NOT the product of intelligent design, but rather always existed, then why not just believe that about the Universe?

~psychoblast~
 
states the obvious:
good damn point!
God explains little because his/her/its existence raises the question, "who made God?" you can say he's self-starting or outside of time, but perhaps we should just say this about the universe...or say the universe is god a la Spinoza and the Buddhists, etc.

ebola
 
^^^ well, I think it implies that we are all a part of some great cosmic horserace to take over the universe. As soon as there is only 1 species of lifeform left in the universe, the game is over and somebody wins a prize. That prize is to be the designer of the next universe.
 
No offense, but this is absolute nonsense.

There's plenty of practical value in logic and science, which are products of western philosophy and not western philosophy itself. I dislike western philosophy as a method of discovering absolute truths about reality or god, which is the issue at hand in this dicussion. Logical systems will never do better than building useful constructs for manipulating reality, no matter how detailed and precise these constructs are. Unfortunately this issue is not particularly amenable to debate since it deals with the limits of a system that is a priori asserted to not have any. (An a priori argument at the basis of logic? Help!)

This argument is a good example of my issues with philosophy. It's a fun mental workout but it gets us no closer to reality. Perhaps it points out the futility of logic in answering certain questions. It's disappointing that so many take this stuff seriously rather than enjoying the mental gymnastics and moving on.
 
Molybdenum said:
There's plenty of practical value in logic and science, which are products of western philosophy and not western philosophy itself. I dislike western philosophy as a method of discovering absolute truths about reality or god, which is the issue at hand in this dicussion. Logical systems will never do better than building useful constructs for manipulating reality, no matter how detailed and precise these constructs are. Unfortunately this issue is not particularly amenable to debate since it deals with the limits of a system that is a priori asserted to not have any. (An a priori argument at the basis of logic? Help!)

This argument is a good example of my issues with philosophy. It's a fun mental workout but it gets us no closer to reality. Perhaps it points out the futility of logic in answering certain questions. It's disappointing that so many take this stuff seriously rather than enjoying the mental gymnastics and moving on.

First off, logic is a field of study within the general area of philosophy and it was developed by western philosophers. Hence, it is part of western philosophy just like Plato's Theory of the Forms or any other work by a western philosoher. We can all thank Aristotle for the development of logic.

Second, as for disliking western philosophy for explaining the universe around us, well, good luck trying to find "truth" any other way. It is only through logic that we can "know" anything. We "know", for example, that gravity exists because of logic.

Do not forget that logic is simply the study of argumentation. Principally, to determine whether an argument is "good" or "bad". We use this study of arguments to form our own arguments, whether it is to pursuade another about a political ideal or to provide substantial evidence that M-Theory is indeed correct.

From this study of argumentation has come an unimaginable amount of knowledge from the sciences, which not only provide a better understanding about the world around us, but also provide technological breakthroughs that make our lives easier. Using the gravity example, once logic was used to "prove" gravity exists, scientists knew that some substanctial amount of force must be used to escape gravity. Hence, the rocket.

And this is but one example of how the use of logic has not only told us more about the universe around us, but provided a substantial breakthrough in technology. Plenty more exist.

Consider the flipside of logic, which is faith. Faith may bring one comfort, but will not lead to any sort of "truth" that can be experiementally verified. In other words, if you seek "ultimate truth", you will not find it through faith; you will only find it through reason and logic.
 
well, I think it implies that we are all a part of some great cosmic horserace to take over the universe. As soon as there is only 1 species of lifeform left in the universe, the game is over and somebody wins a prize. That prize is to be the designer of the next universe.

Except this view is species-centric. It is the current formulation of a view that has been around for a long time, generally growing broader and broader.

See, it used to be that people viewed life as a cosmic horserace in which the goal was for your FAMILY to win. Then people got a sense of community and viewed it as a cosmic horserace in which the goal was for the COMMUNITY to win (similar to fans of their local football team). Then people got a sense of national pride, and many still see life as a cosmic horserace in which the goal is for their NATION to win. That's patriotism.

Nowadays, some people take this a step further and reach your view, that the goal is for the human species to "win" the game of life by defeating or subjugating all other life forms.

Except, looking back on the trend, don't you see that there is an alternative way for "us" to win other than defeating the "others" we are competing with, is to expand our view of "us" to include those others. The concept of "us" can keep expanding until theoretically it includes the whole universe. Then life becomes a game you cannot lose. This is similar to the concept of ego loss that is often associated with enlightenment, when you cease to think your yourself as the tiny spark of life trapped in your tiny sack of flesh and start thinking of yourself as the universe, albeit the universe peering at itself through one particular set of eyes, affecting itself though one tiny set of hands.

So, anyway, why not pretend life is a game where our PLANET can win (i.e., the children of the Earth eco-system including both humans or nonhumans); or why not pretend life is a game where bipedal beings of intelligence similar to ours can win (i.e, we team up with all aliens who are physically and mentally similar to us). You pick your species as your team. See how arbitrary that is?

~psychoblast~
 
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