Teleological Argument (Aquinas)

[PearlSeeker]

It seems that what you're saying is:

- every effect needs a cause.
- every cause has an intent behind it.

No. This is taken out of context. The causes and effects in question were "regular cause-effect relationships, where causes have specific, determinate effects." BTW I am not the author of that outline.

I see a lot wrong in this argument, but the one issue I'm focusing on right now is that things just don't "exist as ideas" or "exist in the mind."

The concept of a thing is not the thing itself. It's a mental model of the thing.

Forming a mental image of something is not the same as forming an intellectual idea of something. Intellect is not the same as imagination.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

No. This is taken out of context. The causes and effects in question were "regular cause-effect relationships, where causes have specific, determinate effects."

What would a cause and effect that isn't a "regular cause-effect relationships, where causes have specific, determinate effects" look like?

BTW I am not the author of that outline.

Sure, but I presume that you posted it because you agree with it... right?

If you don't actually agree with it, that's fine. I'm only talking about it because I thought you put it forward as an explanation of your position.

Forming a mental image of something is not the same as forming an intellectual idea of something. Intellect is not the same as imagination.

What do you see as the difference?

... and does that difference matter? I'm saying that real-world objects don't "exist in the mind" in any sense. Whether we're talking about the mental image of a thing or the "intellectual idea"

 

[PearlSeeker]

And the elliptical orbit is a consequence of the inverse square law for the force of gravity. No 'goal' is required: only that masses attract each other in that way.

ALL that is required is that things have properties that determine their interactions. Having properties does NOT imply the existence of an intelligence. In fact, intelligence is a *consequence* of things having properties.

Yes, I strongly disagree with Aquinas.

Having properties doesn't explain anything. For example a knife has to be solid and sharp in order to cut. These properties are the mechanism by which knife manifests its final cause (to cut). "An ordering or tendency to an act belongs to a thing existing with a potency to that act" (Aquinas).

Is law a description or cause? It also doesn't explain why for example masses attract each other in a particular way.

 

[LuisDantas]

They can but I'm interested in regular inherent patterns.

What about them?

 

[LuisDantas]

Having properties doesn't explain anything. For example a knife has to be solid and sharp in order to cut. These properties are the mechanism by which knife manifests its final cause (to cut).

Not sure of what your point is here. Knives do not have a "cause" as such to manifest, do they?

Solid and sharp objects turn up spontaneously in various circunstances. They can potentially serve as knives. That they can function as knives is indeed explained by their material properties and their shapes.

What is left to explain?

"An ordering or tendency to an act belongs to a thing existing with a potency to that act" (Aquinas).

Is law a description or cause?

In political contexts laws are usually causes.

In natural sciences, they are very much descriptions. It is difficult to imagine how they could possibly be causes.

It also doesn't explain why for example masses attract each other in a particular way.

I don't know what would qualify as an explanation for your purposes. The obvious answer in this particular case would be "because gravity acts on them". But I take it that you feel the need for something else?

 

[Ostronomos]

Atheism is fundamentally lacking in the understanding that human beings are not 100% material. Hence why they make the category error of assuming the subjective world is irrelevant in arriving at truth. A truth they so desperately wish they possessed.

One X, Therefore One God

X = matter or non-object. Information can have meaning without matter. This is how a misunderstanding of reality can be created by mind. Reality is comparable to self-configuration. Wisdom is information coming from a single source (reality). Meaningless information comes from many (objects).

My belief was incorrect we create meaning, just as our minds contain a self-configuration of reality, which is self-configurating along with reality (psychologists are still unclear as to what the mind is). Where the mind is not static and therefore not concept, it is self-configuring and therefore unbound. The SCSPL is intrinsic as well as is spacetime due to structure S which distributes over S (self-distributive). Spacetime is thus transparent from within. Where objects in reality are s, possessing the structure of one that merges the concepts and is self-dynamic and self-perceptual that is S. S is amenable to theological interpretation.

 

[Ostronomos]

No!
Noöne's proposing random accident. That's not what natural selection is. Natural selection selects; it cherry-picks.

Any assertion of a strictly naturalistic view is an assertion of random accident. The deist is far more noble in his declarations than the atheist.

 

[Valjean]

Any assertion of a strictly naturalistic view is an assertion of random accident. The deist is far more noble in his declarations than the atheist.

I don't understand. How are you defining "naturalistic?" How is determinism random accident?

 

[LuisDantas]

Any assertion of a strictly naturalistic view is an assertion of random accident. The deist is far more noble in his declarations than the atheist.

"Noble" is not the proper word here. With some good will I might grant "idealistic". Or not.

 

[PearlSeeker]

You realize that there's an implicit - and unintelligent - filtering effect going on here, right?

In the early days of the solar system, things did zigzag erratically. Lots of material banged together, got pulled into the Sun, or flung off into space; what we have now is what's left billions of years later. It's nearly a tautology to say that form of the Solar System billions of years after its formation will only be that which can survive for billions of years. Everything else is gone with no intelligence required to make it happen.

In fact, the solar system itself is evidence of disorder. How do you think all the planets formed? It was by chaotic movement, along with the effects of gravity, causing material to collide and accrete together.

And even then process "failed" sometimes. The asteroid belt is the remanants of material that never managed to coalesce into a planet.

And since then, it's not like the solar system is static. It's changing itself - and ultimately destroying itself - over time, just on timescales long enough for humans not to notice.

BTW: you do realize that the Moon is itself evidence of disorderly motion, right? It was formed by a catastrophic collision that blew material off of the Earth, some of which accreted to form the Moon.

You realize there is a difference between having a tendency and actually do something?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You realize there is a difference between having a tendency and actually do something?

Yes: what actually happens is evidence of what the inherent tendency is.

In the long term, the tendency of the universe and everything in it is toward heat-death, so I'm not sure how that helps you.

 

[Tomef]

We see various objects that lack intelligence in the world behaving in regular ways. This cannot be due to chance since then they would not behave with predictable results. So their behavior must be set. But it cannot be set by themselves since they are non-intelligent and have no notion of how to set behavior. Therefore, their behavior must be set by something else, and by implication something that must be intelligent. This everyone understands to be God.

Other than the fact that results in this instance are predictable only because we have already observed similar results, you could use the same argument to support evolution. Organisms that are formed or behave in ways that lead to certain results in a certain environment survive and multiply, organisms that are formed or behave in some other way, don't.

 

[PearlSeeker]

What would a cause and effect that isn't a "regular cause-effect relationships, where causes have specific, determinate effects" look like?

Something that that happens by chance. A fortuitous event. For example a garbage man finds million $/€ cash in garbage.

Sure, but I presume that you posted it because you agree with it... right?

If you don't actually agree with it, that's fine. I'm only talking about it because I thought you put it forward as an explanation of your position.

Yes, it seems a good argument to me (for now).

What do you see as the difference?

... and does that difference matter? I'm saying that real-world objects don't "exist in the mind" in any sense. Whether we're talking about the mental image of a thing or the "intellectual idea"

You can form no clear mental image of a chiliagon but you can easily grasp the concept of a chiliagon.

It does matter because ends exists in mind. Idea of a thing in mind is not existing the same way but the essence is the same.

 

[PearlSeeker]

What about them?

They constitute the argument in OP.

 

[PearlSeeker]

Not sure of what your point is here. Knives do not have a "cause" as such to manifest, do they?

Solid and sharp objects turn up spontaneously in various circunstances. They can potentially serve as knives. That they can function as knives is indeed explained by their material properties and their shapes.

What is left to explain?

A knife is a tool for cutting. It entails a purpose (final cause). A natural or made solid sharp object in the form that can be held is a knife, as long as it can serve this purpose for some users. Even when it's not used it still retains it's purpose (it's still a knife), as long as there is someone who can use it. If the users should disappear entirely there would be no knife (even if the object remains). Apart from that users it would just be an object with some material properties and shape.

 

[LuisDantas]

They constitute the argument in OP.

A knife is a tool for cutting. It entails a purpose (final cause). A natural or made solid sharp object in the form that can be held is a knife, as long as it can serve this purpose for some users. Even when it's not used it still retains it's purpose (it's still a knife), as long as there is someone who can use it. If the users should disappear entirely there would be no knife (even if the object remains). Apart from that users it would just be an object with some material properties and shape.

I don't know what to tell you besides that you seem to want real hard to see a ghost in the machine.

 

[PearlSeeker]

Yes: what actually happens is evidence of what the inherent tendency is.

In the long term, the tendency of the universe and everything in it is toward heat-death, so I'm not sure how that helps you.

Yes, this is one possible end... For the purpose of the argument in OP it's not neccessary to know the tendency of the universe.

 

[PearlSeeker]

Other than the fact that results in this instance are predictable only because we have already observed similar results, you could use the same argument to support evolution. Organisms that are formed or behave in ways that lead to certain results in a certain environment survive and multiply, organisms that are formed or behave in some other way, don't.

Yes, evolution is in accordance with the argument.

 

[Polymath257]

Laws can’t be properties. Either they arise from those properties which entities exhibit when interacting with each other, or they determine the nature of those interactions.

Physical laws are the description of how things work. That is all they are. And how things work is based on the properties of things.

If, as you said above, the laws of physics are the basis of causality and cannot themselves be caused, then the laws of physics are more fundamental than the physical entities whose behaviour they describe and predict. Which certainly brings us back to territory explored by Plato (and Kepler and Penrose).

No, the laws of physics are the descriptions of how things behave. Ultimately, the laws would be the description of the properties of all fundamental objects, which would include how they interact. And those properties and ways of interaction are the basis of causality (to the extent it exists).

In a sense, the properties are the fundamental aspect: the various types of object are defined by what properties they have. So, an electron is defined as having a certain mass, a certain charge, a certain spin, etc. Those properties determine the strength of various possible interactions (gravity, electromagnetism, the weak force, etc).

So, the fact that there are 4 known fundamental forces and several proposed fundamental 'particles' is enough to describe what happens in the universe. Those properties lead to certain statistical laws that, on the macroscopic scale, lead to 'causality' and a certain amount of determinism (although it is not absolute).

But, the order that comes out of this all does NOT depend on an intelligence. In fact, intelligence would be an incredibly more complex system that would be based on those fundamental properties.

 

[Polymath257]

They can but I'm interested in regular inherent patterns.

Which are the result of things having regular inherent properties, such as mass, charge, spin, etc. Those properties determine the strength of interactions via the forces of gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force. Those all have feedback loops that produce complexity and larger patterns.