Intelligent design without a cause?

[bigvindaloo]

Hume said that our understanding of causality can only be acquired through experience. For instance, we only understand that flicking a light switch allumes the bulb from performing the action. The explanation of how this occurs is educated into us, sometimes not.

If we cannot rationally understand causality, in what sense does it make sense to postulate an original cause or intelligent designer of the universe, despite the apparent order we perceive? Any comments?

 

[Willamena]

Hume said that our understanding of causality can only be acquired through experience. For instance, we only understand that flicking a light switch allumes the bulb from performing the action. The explanation of how this occurs is educated into us, sometimes not.

If we cannot rationally understand causality, in what sense does it make sense to postulate an original cause or intelligent designer of the universe, despite the apparent order we perceive? Any comments?

I don't understand the question. If we are understanding causality by flicking a switch, then surely that is a rational understanding?

 

[bigvindaloo]

I don't understand the question. If we are understanding causality by flicking a switch, then surely that is a rational understanding?

It is not rational understanding because it is a posteriori rather than a priori. IF we accept there are certain truths like a Creator, we must assume a priori knowledge. Causation is not one of these.

 

[Djamila]

I think if the Church wants to start making up "scientific" theories, with very little evidence to support their claims - and even that misconstrued - then they should suffer the same fate at the hands of real scientists as scientists did at their hands throughout the last millenium.

So, intelligent design fans, pick your end. Should you be impaled on a stake? Burned at the stake? Chained and tortured to death? It's up to you.

Jokes aside... it's a very disheartening thing, this development in the United States. I sincerely hope such idiocy does not affect any other countries or religious institutions. Faith can always flow with science - the Big Bang is real? Then God did it. Evolution is real? Then God created the conditions of this world, and knew full stop it would happen.

But for religious institutions to attempt to muddy the waters with their own baseless **** is alarming.

 

[bigvindaloo]

I think if the Church wants to start making up "scientific" theories, with very little evidence to support their claims - and even that misconstrued - then they should suffer the same fate at the hands of real scientists as scientists did at their hands throughout the last millenium.

So, intelligent design fans, pick your end. Should you be impaled on a stake? Burned at the stake? Chained and tortured to death? It's up to you.

Jokes aside... it's a very disheartening thing, this development in the United States. I sincerely hope such idiocy does not affect any other countries or religious institutions. Faith can always flow with science - the Big Bang is real? Then God did it. Evolution is real? Then God created the conditions of this world, and knew full stop it would happen.

But for religious institutions to attempt to muddy the waters with their own baseless **** is alarming.

There is a very real philosophical problem with entertaining the possibility that God "did" or "knew full stop" anything. In the meantime, science (a human creation) will continue to strive towards explanation of observable phenomena. All scientific explanation is a posteriori.

 

[Willamena]

It is not rational understanding because it is a posteriori rather than a priori. IF we accept there are certain truths like a Creator, we must assume a priori knowledge. Causation is not one of these.

Forgive my ignorance: I am not familiar with these terms. I have looked them up, but I am still struggling to understand how it is not rational, and what that implies in terms of causation.

'A posteriori' would be turning on the light and expecting illumination: movement from specific experiences to a general law. In terms of causation, this is how most of us derive 'cause'. How is this not a rational understanding?

If this is not a rational understanding, then the entire scientific method is not rational.

Where does "a priori knowledge" fit in?

 

[roli]

Apparently the cause for intelligent design will always remain obscured if this design is continually associated to random chance and apart from an intelligent designer.

As this is the philosophy today, than we are all just purposeless beings wondering as nomads in a world that has no objective,morals or significance in society,and that is hopelessness.

But oh, what a hope to those who have believed and received slavation by the creator by faith and have Him living within their heart and have the assurance and witness of the Holy Spirit ,that is hope and life and eternity.

This salvation event is an observable phenomena, personally and experientially alone apart from logic and science and God is doing some remarkable miracles in the world today,if only those who doubt, dwelt in that circle of influence and experience for a day they would have a different perspective,I believe

 

[d.]

Apparently the cause for intelligent design will always remain obscured if this design is continually associated to random chance and apart from an intelligent designer.

As this is the philosophy today, than we are all just purposeless beings wondering as nomads in a world that has no objective,morals or significance in society,and that is hopelessness.

not necessarily - i'd say that entirely depends on your expectations.

 

[doppelganger]

I think that if I when I understand "God" in the sense of the prima causa or prime mover, i.e. as the "unfathomable cause of all things", then what I am really doing is using the symbol "God" as a substitute for "those things the causes of which are beyond my current discernment or understanding." That's okay for me, as long as I don't conflate it with the spiritual experiences of the absolute (whatever I am calling them) and anthropomorphize the concept and experience of "things the causes of which are beyond my current discernment or understanding" into a being.

the doppleganger

 

[Willamena]

Apparently the cause for intelligent design will always remain obscured if this design is continually associated to random chance and apart from an intelligent designer.

On the contrary, that is the process of divination: determining meaning from random lots. I have (successfully, for the most part) maintained before in debate how ID is a form of divination.

 

[doppelganger]

As far as "intelligent" design, the only "intelligence" and "order" I see in the "Universe" is that cast by my own shadow.

Symbolic language representing experiences of "order" and "purposeful design" are judgments based on subjective experience. They are not communications about objective reality.

the doppleganger

 

[Willamena]

...and anthropomorphize the concept and experience of "things the causes of which are beyond my current discernment or understanding" into a being.

I would say "concretize" rather than anthropomorphize ...were I the one saying it.

 

[doppelganger]

Apparently the cause for intelligent design will always remain obscured if this design is continually associated to random chance and apart from an intelligent designer.

"Randomness" is the yin to the yang of "order" and "purpose." They are all symbols representing judgments of subjective experience.

"Randomness" is a linguistic construct used to describe events whose causes can not be sufficiently determined for us to accurately predict the outcome. It doesn't "exist" as a thing outside of someone's perception and subsequent judgment that events are "random".

Take a six-sided die, for example. There is a distinct set of physical inputs that causes the die to roll a particular number- the way it is held, the force with which it's tossed, the angle, the friction of the surface on which it lands, air currents. . . etc. Once those forces act on it, the result is determined. It will land on one specific side. And if those forces were 100% identical every time, the die would land on the same side every time. But there are so many variables, and even the slightest changes in any of the forces can completely change the outcome. Thus, we perceive the result as "random."

The perception of "randomness" does not change that the result has specific causes. It is merely a question of whether we can account for and measure all of them in order to predict the results with accuracy.

The same is true with "order." I look at the order in systems and see complexity and purpose. If I confuse my internal judgment of "order" or "complexity" with being a trait of the external world, I may then add the additional construct that the "order" I see, being a thing of mind (which it is), must have a mind behind its creation. And to some extent, there is an internal logic to the argument. "Order" and "complexity" must be a creation of mind (it just so happens to be my mind). But do these linguistic constructs have a reality outside of a perceiving mind?

When I look upon the external world and see an "intelligent designer" I am simply projecting my experience of my own self onto the Universe. The "intelligent designer" I perceive is nothing more than a reflection of my self.

the doppleganger

 

[doppelganger]

I would say "concretize" rather than anthropomorphize ...were I the one saying it.

Good point. The word I usually use in that context is "objectify," which I think is more along the lines of what I mean.

Thanks.

 

[Willamena]

The same is true with "order." I look at the order in systems and see complexity and purpose. If I confuse my internal judgment of "order" or "complexity" with being a trait of the external world, I may then add the additional construct that the "order" I see, being a thing of mind (which it is), must have a mind behind its creation. And to some extent, there is an internal logic to the argument. "Order" and "complexity" must be a creation of mind (it just so happens to be my mind). But do these linguistic constructs have a reality outside of a perceiving mind?

I have no dispute with randomness being a judgement, however there is an order to the universe that exists apart from us, upon which we measure time and the progression of changes that are referred to as "cause and effect". You hint at it when you suggest that if we knew all the variables that would lead to an outcome, we could predict it. If there is no external order, then there is nothing to predict. You allude to it again when you say, "...look at the order in systems." Order is a trait of those systems.

 

[Random]

Hume said that our understanding of causality can only be acquired through experience. For instance, we only understand that flicking a light switch allumes the bulb from performing the action. The explanation of how this occurs is educated into us, sometimes not.

If we cannot rationally understand causality, in what sense does it make sense to postulate an original cause or intelligent designer of the universe, despite the apparent order we perceive? Any comments?

I disagree that causation cannot be rationally understood. I believe we affect and effect everything in the Universe every day because our existence is not purely random (though involved chaos and unpredictability, they're not the same thing) and so, on this (karmic) level, where it may be that cause precedes effect or indeed the other way around (a false distinction, like the observer and the observed) we play our roles in the ongoing drama of creation.

Perhaps the order we percieve is only seeming, I can't be certain, but if there is no intelligent designer, then an endless and pointless cycle of reformation is all that humans are fated for...and a world without end is a Hell on Earth, I'm afraid.

A beginningless Universe where the miracle of consciouness must forever remain unexplained is a living Hell, unless there are other planes/realms to move on up to. We cannot mature as a (human) race unless we can come to terms with the natural balance of order and chaos present @ the highest level of comprehension possible in this life. The architect of our existence may be benevolent (God), malevolent (Demiurge/Ego) or indifferent (pantheistic) but some aspect of intelligent design is certain, IMO.

Perhaps it was us, you know. Believers in the pre-existence of Souls sometimes arrive intellectually at a point where they concede the possibility that we collectively concieved of the Universe and made it one of our levels of experiental Reality, for a short time at least. This fits extremely well with the simulation argument and consensus reality theories...it is an extremely intriguing answer the more I contemplate it. Maybe the solution is that in the distant past we were the architects, the intelligent designers of our own Universe and have simply forgotten as the Mind evolved storing more and more information in the depths of our collective unconsious. The answer may be buried there, waiting for us to dig it up.

But I digress. Whether First Cause or First Thought, there is some catalyst to creation. Let's hope it is explicable somehow, hmm?

 

[doppelganger]

I have no dispute with randomness being a judgement, however there is an order to the universe that exists apart from us, upon which we measure time and the progression of changes that are referred to as "cause and effect". You hint at it when you suggest that if we knew all the variables that would lead to an outcome, we could predict it. If there is no external order, then there is nothing to predict. You allude to it again when you say, "...look at the order in systems." Order is a trait of those systems.

On reflection I agree that "order" shouldn't be included. I was using it as a placeholder for "complexity" and "purpose" but it has a more established meaning that could confuse the issue.

That's twice you've corrected me on this thread, Willamena. Thanks.

I've got to be a little more careful.

 

[Willamena]

On reflection I agree that "order" shouldn't be included. I was using it as a placeholder for "complexity" and "purpose" but it has a more established meaning that could confuse the issue.

That's twice you've corrected me on this thread, Willamena. Thanks.

I've got to be a little more careful.

I was going to suggest that you were using order as "purpose", but on second thought I thought that might be presumptuous. I'm glad I was right.

 

[bnabernard]

Who would ever think of combining two flammable gases together to put out fires?

bernard (hug)