Teleological Argument (Aquinas)

[ratiocinator]

So therefore phenomena on which it may require original and/or creative thinking to shed some light.

I'm sure it does, but that doesn't justify thinking it's magic (supernatural).

 

[PureX]

But said source can 'just be' without explanation.

Double standards or what?

It's a mystery.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

So therefore phenomena on which it may require original and/or creative thinking to shed some light. This requirement frequently stumps the unimaginative, of course.

Imagination is great - that's where hypotheses come from.

So what's your hypothesis?

Can you even explain what you mean by "supernatural"?

 

[RestlessSoul]

I'm sure it does, but that doesn't justify thinking it's magic (supernatural).

We could disappear down a rabbit hole for hours, just trying to agree on a meaning of the term ‘supernatural’; and I don’t see much mileage in doing so. The fact remains, we don’t yet have a scientific materialist theory for consciousness. If we are prepared to consider the possibility that consciousness may be fundamental, at least to human experience, as time and space, or energy and matter, are fundamental, we may begin to develop new* perspectives on the material world and our place in it.

* actually not that new. Eastern philosophers have been thinking that way for centuries.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

We could disappear down a rabbit hole for hours, just trying to agree on a meaning of the term ‘supernatural’; and I don’t see much mileage in doing so.

Until "supernatural" can be defined, statements like "maybe consciousness is supernatural" are meaningless.

The fact remains, we don’t yet have a scientific materialist theory for consciousness.

We also don't have a "supernatural" theory for consciousness.

If we are prepared to consider the possibility that consciousness may be fundamental, at least to human experience, as time and space, or energy and matter, are fundamental, we may begin to develop new* perspectives on the material world and our place in it.

* actually not that new. Eastern philosophers have been thinking that way for centuries.

This all sounds great, but actually developing a new perspective involves fleshing out and justifying that new perspective. It's not just a matter of saying "it's too hard to find the answers I want the regular way, so I'll look at things a way that's more convenient (without considering whether that way is actually better)."

 

[Balthazzar]

I think the lights came on one day ... after a very long period of much less activity of the conscious and aware kind. I think things came to be through natural processes, not necessarily spurred by an intelligent creator. Although, intelligence would appear to be part of the becoming. I just kind of doubt intelligence was the cause. It is part of the result and consequence of the many changes occurring in the universe.

 

[Balthazzar]

"In science the human self observes the material world; philosophy is the observation of this observation of the material world; religion, true spiritual experience, is the experiential realization of the cosmic reality of the observation of the observation of all this relative synthesis of the energy materials of time and space. To build a philosophy of the universe on an exclusive materialism is to ignore the fact that all things material are initially conceived as real in the experience of human consciousness. The observer cannot be the thing observed; evaluation demands some degree of transcendence of the thing which is evaluated." UB 1955 IMOP

What we observe in nature, or the natural order of things is not God rather the habits of God. I don't know why it's not obvious to all this thinking that in order to observe the universe one must be apart from it. The 5th Way" of Aquinas is one man's observation of innate habits in nature. This doesn't prove anything other than someone observing something which other observers can agree is an observation.

I'm not certain that the observer cannot be the thing observed, nor that evaluation demands transcendence. Maybe transcendence is the product of being part of the observed, as opposed to being the whole of it. Although, we may actually be the whole of it all, viewing ourselves from inside ourselves as ourselves as if we are only part of the whole. It's like examining a clipped fingernail no longer attached to the finger. Being the mind of matter as matter with a mind, having developed awareness as a separate entity from the entity itself is quite a mind boggler to chew on.

That's us. Were' little brain synapses belonging to the cosmic mind.

 

[LuisDantas]

To me each and every one of Aquinas' Five Ways is a statement of aesthetical preference for a certain belief, nothing more.

Together, as well as separately, they say that Aquinas wants very much to believe that a Creator God with some of the attributes of Abraham's model of deity exists.

That is fair. But there is no argument for the existence of any deity in there; there are instead statements that explain in which god Aquinas wants to believe.

 

[Ostronomos]

You appear to have forgotten to include the evidence or reasoning that for anything supernatural. If your example about our own awareness is supposed to be it, it's about as convincing as "wow, this is difficult to understand, it must be magic!"

I understand your criticism of my use of the word "Supernatural". However, there is the Hollywood version and then there is the reality version, which is supported by Quantum biology and the so-called spiritual experience of oneness. I doubt you have ever experienced oneness with the infinite.

There is a higher dimension that the ancients spoke about. And is now supported by String theory.

 

[Ostronomos]

Excuse me, but where did I ever such a thing? To me, it is an absurd notion, since I don't believe in anything "supernatural" at all.

That's because you were not "chosen" to see. Nevertheless it's nothing a little logic can't fix.

 

[ratiocinator]

I understand your criticism of my use of the word "Supernatural". However, there is the Hollywood version and then there is the reality version, which is supported by Quantum biology and the so-called spiritual experience of oneness. I doubt you have ever experienced oneness with the infinite.

There is a higher dimension that the ancients spoke about. And is now supported by String theory.

I do find it funny when people tag on science terms to make vague, hand-waving woo sound more credible. Quantum biology really isn't a thing (at least not that supports any "oneness with the infinite"), as I explained when you did a thread about it:

The Philosophy of Quantum Biology

I read on Wikipedia that vision relies on the quantum mechanical conversion of light signals into action potentials in a process called phototransduction. Where the eye's photoreceptors then absorbs the light signals. Then I read that conscious awareness in the ORCH OR theory starts with the...

www.religiousforums.com

How do you understand the term "higher dimension" and exactly how do you think it relates to string theory?

 

[PearlSeeker]

But what is there to explain that evolution doesn't explain, whether any intelligence is found or not?

The theory of evolution doesn't explain the fundamental relation (final causality) of causes and effects.

 

[PearlSeeker]

No, it's a claim that they do, a typical bit of Feser waffle, and the example at the end was an object manufactured to have a purpose.

It's not just a claim. There are objective patterns in nature studied by science.

The example of matches. The materials themselves ignite - this is what is inherent in nature.

 

[PearlSeeker]

Reality doesn't care what you think of it. Reality is what it is regardless of how you view it.

Exactly. That's how objective patterns in nature are like.

Ultimately, the "end" that any physical process is "aiming at" is the thermal equilibrium of the universe.

Why does this never seem to come up in these discussions (besides the fact that Aristotle didn't know about entropy)?

So you admit there is an end?

 

[ratiocinator]

It's not just a claim. There are objective patterns in nature studied by science.

Patterns or regularities are not the same thing as goals or aims.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Exactly. That's how objective patterns in nature are like.

When a pattern can be explained by unthinking physical forces, there's no need to invoke magical intelligences to explain those patterns.

So you admit there is an end?

In terms of consequences, not ultimate goals.

And selecting one specific consequence of a thing as the thing's "aim" is a subjective value judgment.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

That's because you were not "chosen" to see. Nevertheless it's nothing a little logic can't fix.

I can assure you, logic has absolutely nothing to do with it.

And the suggest that I was not "chosen" makes me blameless -- and who/whatever is doing the "choosing" ridiculously unfair. I wouldn't want anything to do with such a thing, whatever it is.

 

[PearlSeeker]

It's a solid argument, but what does Aristotle really mean by "intelligence" as you put it.

If I were to make a top and set the top to spinning on a desk. Then the role of my intelligence in this end was that I had conceived the end before the end was (possibly) achieved.

Yes, the end is something that exists in the intellect before it exists in reality.

Moreover, I would have taken action to cause the intended end.

From this, are we to understand that Aristotle means that the moon orbits the Earth because an intelligence (which we call God) conceived the notion of the moon orbiting the Earth, intended that the moon orbit the Earth, and took some action to bring about that end?

Yes, the action is required but according to Aristotle nonconscious things act pointing to an end because of their inherent (internal) directedness. They have a kind of autonomy.

"This is “intrinsic” teleology, which must be distinguished from the extrinsic teleology discussed at the start of this post. Aquinas is here referring to the natural, inherent tendency of things in our universe to act for determinate ends with order and regularity, which can only be explained by this principle of final causality; not for some extrinsic “design” imposed upon things externally."

Aquinas’s Argument from Design Part 2: Final Causality

In the first post in this series on Aquinas’s Fifth Way, I introduced and explored several historical examples of different “teleological arguments,” of which the Fifth Way is one…

senshomines.wordpress.com

 

[blü 2]

The theory of evolution doesn't explain the fundamental relation (final causality) of causes and effects.

Neither does the theory of gravity or game theory or relativity &c &c. The fundamental relation of cause and effect is explained by their respective definitions.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Neither does the theory of gravity or game theory or relativity &c &c. The fundamental relation of cause and effect is explained by their respective definitions.

So just a question of semantics then?