On point of fact, there is no "balancing so-and-so just right" there in, say, the planet. There is no "balancing" at all. There would be *if* the fundamental nature of reality was, factually, planet-ic.
Of course that would be wonderful if it were the case as it would permit the Non-Theist to appeal to appearances, to the appearance and behavior of the real-thing we call a planet and claim that planets do in fact "dance" and "balance".
You know, just as we "dance" and "balance", the fundamental nature of Human-ic being the fundamental nature of reality.
Like tornadoes "dance" and "twirl" and "balance", the fundamental nature of tornado-ic being the fundamental nature of reality.
But of course the Non-Theist is lost, believing that in fact the fundamental nature of reality is, in fact, something other than the fundamental nature of reality.
That's the problem with natures. Once you start to claim one, you need more then appearances. Otherwise you're inclined to see design where there is none.
And so it goes from bottom to top, at every level.
It's painful that this has to be said, but, it must: location and size and level are all irrelevant given that the fundamental nature of reality is, from top to bottom, at every level, the fundamental nature of reality.
It's painful that this has to be said, but, it must: location and size and level are all irrelevant given that the fundamental nature of reality is, from top to bottom, at every level, the fundamental nature of reality.
Should have said "from bottom to top" so that it reads:
It's painful that this has to be said, but, it must: location and size and level are all irrelevant given that the fundamental nature of reality is, from bottom to top, at every level, the fundamental nature of reality.
Sorry, the last two comments on this page should have been addressed to you.
Also:
It's about the fundamental nature of reality, not about nothing-but. That's a false dichotomy.
In order for it to work one would have to claim that there is no fundamental nature of reality, causal or otherwise, physical or otherwise. One would have to claim that, in fact, reality has no explanation, that there is no such thing as an explanatory terminus. Not that we cannot find it, or that we cannot know it, but that it does not exist.
Some context on the fallacy of "Nothing-But" applied to the fundamental nature of reality:
"Even Quantum Gravity and String Theory start with the Action Principle, so even a Multiverse Model needs these principles to get off the ground.
How did Nature come to understand these principles (allow me the anthropomorphism)? How did they get 'built into her fabric'?
Those principles have to be postulated; as yet, we don't have anything more fundamental from which these principles can be derived. If there is something more fundamental (it would be cool if there is), then where did that come from?
This is where the question of design starts." (by Victoria_PhD)
There's a reason that is where the question of design starts.
Because whatever reality's fundamental nature is, it is that from bottom to top, at all levels.
I want to see if your own terms are good enough for you.
I claim this:
“If you’ll only zoom out far enough you’ll see it. Don’t look too close. Zoom out a bit more, and expunge a few layers of fact. See that planet there, and that sun there, see how the planet and the Sun dance together, one leading, one following, both trying to adjust so that, in love’s reciprocity, they may dance better and better ……and …..better. And ever better still. The beauty of it all. Of course real things really aim, really dance, really seek, really love, really balance. And all that “trying” really does make them “better” at “loving”. The awe of planets. The awe of the planet-ic. What *a* *nature*. It’s just incredible.”
Now, are you intellectually, philosophically, and scientifically satisfied with my investigation into the nature of things?
Should I have permitted the perceived nature of things to define the fundamental nature of reality as I asserted those truth-claims?
scbrownlhrm, you continue to baffle me. I should probably understand where you're coming from by now, but I really don't.
You're a theist, and a Christian, as I understand it. For the last several days you haven't been saying what you believe so much as telling me what I must believe. Is that right? You've been trying to tell me there's nothing but physics, and a universe that "maps to" physics as its ultimate reality has no room for design, because that would split reality into two when it's really one, and assert a contradiction, undesigned design. But you don't believe that, do you? You just think I should have to be trapped in such a view of the universe if I'm a non-Theist. Or something like that. Is that right?
I've tried to show you how that's not the way I view things. Now you're telling me... what!?
1) That I don't want to map reality to physics.
I never said any such thing. I love physics. I believe reality is physical. Fundamental mathematical physics is true, but it's not the whole story. If it were, we could only talk to each other in mathematical equations. Reality does "map to physics" if that just means that all physical phenomena can be described in terms of mathematical physics. But -- going with the metaphor -- it's like physics gives you a map of the globe, but it has no borders drawn on it. It's useful to draw lines that physics doesn't tell you how to draw -- for instance around a tornado, or a planet, or the activity in a brain that corresponds to the act of planning your day.
2) That I believe that "a planet is the actual nature of reality."
Do I believe planets are real? You bet I do. Don't you?
3) But you say, "reality isn't planet-like at all. Sure, it looks designed..."
What on earth!!??? What does the reality of planets have to do with looking or being designed? Planets are rocky chunks accreted from debris of supernovae that are caught in the gravity well of a star. They don't look designed to me.
4) You say "the actual nature of reality" and "the fundamental nature of reality" "isn't planet-ic at all. That's the problem with natures. Once you start to claim one, you need more then appearances. Otherwise you're inclined to see design where there is none."
I don't know what you think I think, and I don't know what you think. Other theists on this website believe the universe and life ARE designed. I DON'T. But you, a theist, are accusing me, an atheist and a materialist, of denying physics and claiming "natures" which causes ME to be "inclined to see design where there is none." But I don't see design anywhere except in the brains and material culture of human beings! (Evolution can be spoken of as designing, but only by analogy to human designing.)
5) You also say "you need more than appearances." So you think I'm talking about appearances, although I said I thought I was talking about real entities on levels of reality above that of fundamental particles.
I don't know whether you've switched from being a Christian to being some kind of New Age adherent of some supposedly-physics-based view of reality which is absolutely one, with no separate beings, or...?
I'm just flummoxed. And I've already spent FAR too much time on this. So, it would be nice if you could tell me, succinctly, without sarcasm (because I don't know what you really believe so I can't read your sarcasm) what YOU (NOT I) really believe about the subject matter we've been discussing.
"But I don't see design anywhere except in the brains and material culture of human beings..."
Yes, we know. Non-designed brains design things. It's very human-ic. And if you zoom that same lens out far enough you'll see those same terms concluding that planet's and suns design dances. Until we had microscopes and physics we use to think that was the case.
The nature of reality does not change because of size, location, or level.
The nature of things is the nature of reality. The perceived nature of things is not the nature of reality.
Gerald our Christian / dualistic beliefs don't matter given that we are not the ones asserting that non-designed neurons design things. We use to think the same of all sorts of things of course. Until microscopes and physics. These days the word "design" means lots of things to lots of Non-Theists. Its a kind of dualistic syntax which they use when it comes to that word. Some prefer to stay at only the higher levels, like planets, suns, and neurons. Some prefer to investigate further. It's like a box of chocolates.
This is truly ridiculous. A serious intellectual discussion should not be a guessing game, especially not a one-sided guessing game like we've been having. In order to talk intelligently and to the point and in order to make what little progress might be possible, each side should understand what the other's position is, so they can speak to their true objections. It's the responsibility of each side to make his or her position clear.
Instead you have been attacking me, without ever explaining on what grounds. So I've been guessing: "Do you mean this? Well in that case, I'll answer your objection this way." To which you reply, "No no. You're chasing ghosts. It has nothing to do with that," and then you'll mount another attack. Each time I think I MAY understand, you say I'm missing the point.
Is this a game with you? Is this what Stand to Reason teaches: in order never to lose an argument, never explain your position, never get pinned down? If so, what's the point? To convince me I'm wrong without ever telling me what you think is right? How does that benefit anybody? Or is it that you are so afraid that, if you stated your position, you couldn't defend it, that you resort to this -- sniping attacks without giving away your position? Or is it that you simply don't know why you think I'm wrong, you just know you do, but you're completely incapable of articulating what's been bothering you?
I could make another guess about what you really believe -- something about "natures". You've been talking about natures recently. But I'm done with this stupid game.
You know what I believe. I don't know what you believe. I will commend you for refraining from overtly cryptic and mythological language in this thread. But what you haven't yet done, and which you really need to do, is -- not to argue, not to attack, but simply to explain in as clear and straightforward a way as you can, what design is TO YOU; where it can be found in our world; and what are the requirements (physical, metaphysical, supernatural or whatever) for it to exist. Or if that's not the crux of the matter, then explain to me what is, and what you believe is true about it. Perhaps what you need to do is tell me what YOU believe "the fundamental nature of reality" is.
If you find it painful to explain (because you can't believe I'd be so stupid not to agree with you) just grit your teeth and say even what is most obvious to you about the subject (because if it's obvious to you, it's very likely not to be obvious to me.) Can you do that -- without telling me what I believe, or why I'm wrong? And (this is important) without sarcasm or humor? Because (since you are a puzzle to me) I won't get it; you'll just confuse me.
Your investigation into the nature of design is akin to my investigation into the nature of dance. We're both stopping way too soon, for one thing. But there are other problems too.
Were you intellectually satisfied with my investigation, with its conclusions about verbs such as dance, seek, love, reciprocity, design, balance, and so on?
If not, why not?
Also, it just isn't possible to add to the fundamental nature of reality such that, if we add enough layers, we actualize [Reality + 1], so to speak. Yet you seem to imply that you want to claim that "property" somehow adds to reality's fundamental causal nature.
That is one reason why the claim that physics, reality itself, is in part undesigned (the fundamental causes / forces which actualize neurons) and in part designed (the fundamental causes / forces which actualize laptops) just won't do.
That claim is going to have to be earned. Semantics included.
If it's *not* what one means by asserting that nondesigned neurons design laptops then it's not clear how laptops can be designed if the totality of causes / forces which actualize them are *not* *doing* the verb *design*. It's also not clear that, if you do *not* mean that part of reality / physics actually is designed, how you can possibly rise above a purely epistemic / analogous tool of linguistics. Because if your are *not* making a claim about the nature of reality, then your semantics and your verbs do not communicate true things about the nature of, well, reality.
Why isn't all of reality, all of physics, nondesigned?
If all of reality, all of physics, *is* nondesigned, then the fundamental causes / forces which actualize laptops are *not* *doing* the verb *design*.
On *doing* *design*, any claim that reality's fundamental causal nature, the wellspring of cause and being, actually is in part (now, at long last) nondesigned and in part designed, will have to explain how it is that a fundamental nature is not really fundamental at all, or, will have to explain if reality's fundamental nature always been that way, part designed and part nondesigned.
If, instead one is *not* referring to the fundamental nature of what is *happening*, then one's linguistic use of the term design isn't relevant.
I asked you for a POSITIVE account of what you DO believe about this topic. Instead you told convoluted stories about what SOMEBODY ELSE would have to explain, or cannot explain. You also asked me questions, and told me what "just won't do." I don't want to know what won't do. I want to know what, according to you, WILL do.
Please try to understand: I do not share your basic assumptions. The steps you take in your claims about what will NOT work may seem logical to you, but they make NO SENSE to me. I do not want to try to guess what the underlying assumptions are which make you say these things. I WANT YOU TO TELL ME.
You don't seem to know how to do this.
Although I still want a positive account from you, I will make a few comments:
The question of whether physics itself is designed (that is, the set of physical laws which govern the universe) as far as I'm concerned has never been on the table. That's a cosmological question which (at least at the present time, and most likely forever) is completely unanswerable. I have not discussed it, and don't believe it is relevant. I think we can take the physical laws as given and go from there. You quote Victoria_PhD to the effect that the question of where the laws come from is "where the question of design starts." Since the laws were from the start, they are the earliest thing we can ask the design question about. But the way I see it, asking whether other things are designed or are capable of designing are different questions, which can be answered, whereas the cosmological one cannot.
You say of Victoria_PhD's statement, "There's a reason that is where the question of design starts. Because whatever reality's fundamental nature is, it is that from bottom to top, at all levels. Else: dualism." That is utterly unintelligible to me. If you want to make that assertion, you have to A) explain it, and B) justify it.
The way I look at it, design has nothing to do with "the fundamental nature of reality." Designing is an act, a stage of making, of deciding what features an object will have. Whether an object was designed or not is an historical question about its origin. It's not a question about its nature.
You seem to disagree, but I do not know and cannot fathom what your view is.
To me, the act of designing something is just one among many kinds of activities that animals engage in, like urinating or doing crossword puzzles. If I claimed that John did a crossword puzzle, and you said, "if that's true, then the fundamental nature of reality was crossword-puzzle-doing from the very beginning, because whatever reality's fundamental nature is, it is that from bottom to top, at all levels," that would be no more confusing to me than your actual statements about design.
Can you see we have a fundamental problem of communication here? I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!
"Can you see we have a fundamental problem of communication here? I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!"
I empathise.
The difficulty is that scbrown doesnt know what he/she is talking about either. He/she is simply talking utter rubbish.
"Also, it just isn't possible to add to the fundamental nature of reality such that, if we add enough layers, we actualize [Reality + 1], so to speak. Yet you seem to imply that you want to claim that "property" somehow adds to reality's fundamental causal nature"
I rest my case. The worst type of word salad imaginable - riddles, rhymes, intrigues, none of it described in simple terms or plain English. Dreadful.
The dude has been asked to provide the evidence by which he/she thinks ID is correct - none forthcoming.
What scbrown fails to acknowledge - which blows his/her perncious variation of poppycock right out of the water - is that science has been going on for a long time without any of this philosophwibble being a concern. And yet scbrown is quite happy to type away on some internet connected device about how non theists cant possibly do x, y or z. The irony is not lost on me.
If you disagree with any of the premises in this comment, feel free to clarify.
Two points. First, Non-Theists such as yourself state that you are not making claims about the fundamental nature of reality, and, other Non-Theists do claim to being doing just that. Both are in part looked at here, so you’ll see both discussions moving along in parts. Secondly, it is tedious as we weave, with words, what is actually *happening* inside of all *Networks*, both macro and micro, so the few forays into those “word-weaves” describing what *happens* inside of networks, whether macro or micro, require a bit of patience.
On the whole, the primary problem with your approach is that you don’t seem able to present a cohesive and consistent use of the word design. You are in fact, unless you can clarify, asserting that a very large box, [Box A], is (really) void of (real) design, and is the totality of nature’s unicity (one physics), realty’s fundamental nature, the wellspring of all cause and being, and that, at the same time, there is a smaller box, [box b] within the larger [Box A] which is just full of design.
But that’s absurd.
That’s not really a problem for you though, as there are two very good options remaining, as we’ll get to.
So then:
“Nondesigned neurons design laptops…..”
And:
“Designing is an act, a stage of making, of deciding what features an object will have. Whether an object was designed or not is an historical question about its origin. It's not a question about its nature….”
I agree that your claim that what you mean by design is *not* making a claim about the fundamental nature of reality, and hence of the fundamental nature of laptops and hence about the fundamental nature of neurons, and hence of Man or of any new property. It can’t be. What is *happening* in all such state of affairs just isn’t anything that nature herself has not always been *doing*, has not always *housed*. The fundamental causes and forces which (through history/time or through timelessness or via any other X you wish to add) actualize, bring about, (real) neurons and the fundamental causes and forces which actualize, bring about, (real) laptops are all part of one nature, one wellspring of both cause and being. They are all fundamental, they are all what we call nature, and they are all what we call reality.
We don’t disagree that your claim-making is *not* functioning over “there”.
The Christian grants that you are not speaking about the fundamental nature of things in your claim that nondesigned neurons design things.
Let’s look at it both ways, one claiming that such *is* a claim about the whole of reality’s nature and one *not* claiming that (such as yourself). Please clarify any items which you disagree with.
As I’ve stated several times, Christians are not the ones claiming that non-designed neurons design things. The Non-Theist is. So it is the Non-Theist’s terms which need to be unpacked. Well, of course, there is a growing tide of younger, bolder Non-Theists who reject your semantics as Rosenberg-esc and Churchland-esc conclusions about the nature of things grow more popular, and for good reason.
One of the reasons that tide is growing is because we all know that, on Non-Theism’s terms, the fundamental nature of what is *happening* at the macro level and the quantum level are the *same*. There is one fundamental nature of reality, one fundamental wellspring of cause and being which feeds the whole show, which *is* the whole show, there is, simply, one nature, one reality. Neuron networks and planetary networks are all saturated with, constituted of, that very *same* reality when it comes to what is *happening*. There is, as we agreed, one physics.
That is why we agree that you are not and cannot point to anything that is not both the totality of that which is outside of neurons even as it is also the totality of that which is inside of neurons.
Given Non-Theism: Prior to physics we use to observe repeating patterns in all sorts of things. We therefore concluded that on this or that *level* there occurred “funneling” of the more disperse array of X’s into the more “ordered” or “dense” or “compact” array of X’s and believed, really believed, that either the gods were busy designing or else the X’s themselves were designing dances. The planets and the suns and gravity all interface even as the neurons and the stimuli all interface, and some, well, a shrinking group of Non-Theists, really, still today, believe one of those two things. The verb, the *doing* of dance and of design as to what is *happening* really is something brand new about reality. But then came physics and microscopes.
Here is my investigation into the nature of things, into what is *happening*. Let me know if this is intellectually, philosophically, and scientifically satisfying for you as we explore what is *happening* in planetary and neuronal networks. It shouldn’t be.
Begin what will be an intellectually unsatisfying investigation into what is *happening*, or, simply, into the nature of things:
We can still, even today, talk about suns and planets interfacing with other forces and another trillion bits (think from quark and up, its real) of repeating patterns (information) such that even higher levels of yet another (real) trillion bits of repeating patterns (information) all begin to funnel into yet another layer of now one trillion X 100K of (real) repeating patterns (information) and, before long, a new property emerges, and we rightly conclude that suns and planets design dances. All sorts of dances in fact. If you zoom out far enough, you can expunge enough factual distinction to have no need of the horse, and just watch this planet and that sun "dance" and "aim" and "balance this and that just-so" and, in that "reciprocity" get their two-step a bit tighter, and by that “reciprocity” go on to thereby "love" each other, and thereby get a bit more polished, better and..... better, as they design, even invent, the property of "dance". Invention. Designing. It's all there. And all the chaos which was funneled into order is there to see, from quarks upward through interfacing a trillion-trillion bits of data within the Network. It’s real. Its particles are real. The chaos was real and the funneling is real and the particles are real and the interfaces are real and the Network is real The funneling of trillions of bits of repeating patterns progressively stack level upon level of layers. The Non-Designed actually did Design, and Aim, and Love, and Dance, and Funnel, and Improve, and get Better, and Balance, and Weigh, and Invent.
We rightly conclude that we actually saw something *added* to the fundamental nature of reality. Prior to what we just observed it was, truly, [Reality] and now that dances have been both designed and invented there in that (real) network, it is [Reality + 1]. That is what “Property” grants us when it comes to the nature of what is *happening*. Within the whole that is [Reality], within what reality actually, always, unceasingly *does* there is, in fact, now a brand new *does* within the fundamental causal nature of reality. It’s called dance/design.
Replay:
Turning our necks to look down into our electron microscopes, into our skulls, well it's all the same fundamental nature of reality there too. The same patterns repeat and “design” the way all funnels everywhere “design” and hence the new “property” of “dance” emerges. From bottom to top. In fact, we can even keep the syntax of “property” and of “emerge” going and talk to one another as if some sort of “addition to reality” really did take place such that prior to these dances there was [Reality] and, now, after the dances were designed and invented, there is now [Reality + 1]. Within the whole that is [Reality], within what nature always, unceasingly *does* there is, in fact, now a brand new *does* within the fundamental causal nature of reality. It’s called dance/design.
We arrive, then, here:
Non-designed X’s dance, seek, love, engage in reciprocity, design, balance, invent, lead, follow, aim, try, and so on.
Indeed, we can think like that, and talk like that, and write like that, because it’s true.
End what will be an intellectually unsatisfying investigation into what is *happening*, or, simply, into the nature of things:
Were you intellectually, philosophically, and scientifically satisfied with my investigation, with its conclusions about what is *happening* there in those verbs such as dance, seek, love, engage in reciprocity, design, balance, invent, lead, follow, aim, try, and so on?
If not, why not?
The problem:
The Non-Theist seems to actually believe that the fundamental nature of reality is something other than the fundamental nature of reality in that he seems to really believe that the nature of particle in motion in the history of neurons factually “adds something” to the fundamental nature of reality with respect to his truth-claims about what is *happening* at those higher levels such as the network of [neuron/stimuli] or of [planet/sun/gravity/quarks and up]. “Property” means [Reality + 1], so to speak. (Granted, some do not mean to make claims about the nature of reality, which is looked at soon).
Another problem:
“Designing is an act, a stage of making, of deciding what features an object will have. Whether an object was designed or not is an historical question about its origin. It's not a question about its nature….”
This merely repeats the unfortunate thinking we observed with our planets, suns, quarks, electrons, and so on in other networks.
It goes something like this:
There too, in all those networks, both macro and micro, we find chaos turning into order, we find stages of making, we find decisions (streaming out of a real and complex array of trillions of interfacing forces, causes, and stimuli (literally)) about what features objects will have. Obviously on the grand scale this is all part of one historical continuum leading up to the flourishing of planet, life, and laptop. Given that the continuum streaming out of the wellspring of cause and being is, well, one historical continuum, then clearly there is, from A to Z, stages of making and history and decisions about what features objects will have. In all such Networks, both macro and micro, both outside of neurons and inside of neurons, we find one physics even as we find the needed content, the actual observation of, that which *is* dance, seek, love, engage in reciprocity, design, balance, invent, lead, follow, aim, try, as per the earlier inane investigation into the nature of what is *happening*.
Another problem:
The Networks which actualize, bring about, the totality of substrate behind planet, life, and laptops and in fact do dance, invent, and so on, may be challenged by the Non-Theist saying that we must zoom in closer, and that indeed the Network of neurons is the *only* funneling into which our zooming-in ought to be looking. “Zoom in, but not too much” so to speak. Yes, he is acknowledging that other (higher and lower) levels exist, but he is, you see, merely describing what is happening in those new, emergent layers where we find new properties and, well, behold, what *was* [Reality] with respect to reality’s fundamental causal nature is *now*, with this newly emerged causal property, [Reality + 1] with respect to reality’s fundamental causal substrates.
But that anti-intellectually ignores other (real) Networks which also (really) invent new (real) properties like solar systems and flourishing life and then it just begs the question about what is *happening* there inside of Networks.
Challenge: It just isn't possible to add to the fundamental causal nature of reality such that, if we add enough layers, we actualize, bring about, [Reality + 1], so to speak. Yet the Non-Theist (nondesigned neurons design things) seems to imply that he wants to claim that the thing that is "property" somehow adds to reality's fundamental causal nature, in fact to reality. The problem with that is this: the very concept of reality’s fundamental causal nature is that it is fundamental, it is nature, and it is reality.
If the Non-Theist (such as yourself) forfeits making claims about reality itself, well then that’s even worse, as we’ll get to.
That is why the Christian agrees that the Non-Theist’s concession that his claim about design is *not* making a claim about the fundamental causal nature of laptops and neurons, and hence about Man or anything else. It can’t be. What is *happening* in all such state of affairs just isn’t anything that nature herself has not always been *doing*, has not always *housed*.
What causes love, what is love? (This is perfectly acceptable if our Non-Theist friends would simply be consistent). Well just look at physics and particle in motion and the cooperation it takes within large networks to design and invent new things like solar systems and flourishing life and laptops. What is dance? What is design? What is Seek? What is Decide? Well just look at physics and particle in motion and you see it. The Non-Theist does not like that syntax and so he, first, prefers the term Network, and, secondly, begs the question about what is *happening* in all such *networks* which invent and design *new* and complex ends towards flourishing by insisting that we *only* zoom in on *one* network. But, he assures us, he is *not* claiming anything about the fundamental nature of reality with respect to man, or decide, or dance, or love, or design. He is merely describing large arrays of interfacing causes, forces, and summations.
Again that is fine.
What isn’t fine is [1] the inability to be consistent with one’s syntax once outside of com-boxes and out interfacing with real people all while making claims about reality herself and [2] begging the question as to what is *happening* inside of all sorts of observed networks which invent new and complex ends towards goals such as planets and life and laptops and flourishing and solar systems balancing all such ends towards those genuine goals within an incredibly complex and intricate Network of interfacing patterns amid the macro/micro totality that is nature herself, physics itself, reality herself.
Fatal crash:
Given that the Non-Theist concedes that he is not making any claims on the nature of reality, and therefore on the nature of (real) neurons, and therefore on the nature of (real) laptops, he begins to trade away the ontological (causal nature) for the epistemological (dance, seek, design).
The claim that physics, reality itself, is in part nondesigned (the fundamental causes / forces which actualize, bring about, (real) neurons) and in part designed (the fundamental causes / forces which actualize, bring about, (real) laptops) just won't do as an assertion. If that is *not* the claim, well we’ll get to that soon.
If that *is* the claim: That claim is going to have to be earned. Semantics included.
Breaking it down:
[1A] The *it* that is the fundamental causal nature, that is, well, fundamental, that is nature, that is reality. This is nondesigned.
[2A] the fundamental causes / forces which actualize, bring about, (real) neurons
[3A] the fundamental causes / forces which actualize, bring about, (real) laptops
Assertion A: The claim tells us that although [2A] and [3A] are (real) parts of [1A], and [1A] is in fact (really) nondesigned, there is, somehow, in [3A] that which is (real) “design” even though (real) “design” is *not* part of [1A].
Seriously?
Let’s repeat that, on [1A], [2A], and [3A] again:
Assertion A: The claim tells us that although [2A] and [3A] are (real) parts of [1A], and [1A] is in fact (really) nondesigned, there is, somehow, in [3A] that which is (real) “design” even though (real) “design” is *not* part of [1A].
Let’s unpack it another way, this time allowing the Non-Theist to reject [1A]:
Assertion B:Reality itself has (the claim goes) parts that are nondesigned and parts that are designed. That is to say, at a higher level, physics/reality itself reveals to us parts of her (physics/reality) which are nondesigned and parts of her (physics/reality) that are designed. “Nondesigned things design things”. The Non-Theist in fact *rejects* the premise that, right now, the whole of the fundamental nature of reality, that the whole of all of physics, that the whole of reality itself, *is* *non*designed, that is to say, the Non-Theist *rejects* number [1A] above.
Now, on “Premise A” (with [1A] still intact) if that is what one means by asserting that nondesigned neurons design laptops then it's not clear how (real) laptops can be (really) designed if the totality of causes / forces which actualize them, which bring them about, are *not* *doing* the verb *design*.
On “Premise B” ([1A] is rejected) well this asserts that the fundamental rock-bottom of reality sums to [Design/Nondesign] – ad infinitum. Design at the Root of the thing we call reality is unmasked, and so, of course, our Non-Theist friends reject Premise B.
If the Non-Theist rejects “Premise B” (and therefore retains [1A]) then he does *not* mean to assert that parts of reality’s fundamental nature, all of physics, of “reality herself”, are (really) nondesigned and other parts of “reality herself” are (really) designed. Therefore, he cannot possibly claim to be speaking of anything about the nature of reality, that is to say, he cannot rise above a purely epistemic tool over inside of linguistics. He has conceded the ontological (causal nature) for the epistemic (dance, design).
That leaves us with a mess, as we are left then with “Premise A”, as in:
Assertion A: The claim tells us that although [2A] and [3A] are (real) parts of [1A], and [1A] is in fact (really) nondesigned, there is, somehow, in [3A] that which is (real) “design” even though (real) “design” is *not* part of [1A].
That mess is unpacked in the following manner:
[1B] No claim about reality’s fundamental nature, all of physics, reality herself, is being made by the Non-Theist such that the fundamental casual nature of reality, nature herself, is nondesigned, for no assertion to the contrary is offered by the Non-Theist.
[2B] Laptops are, therefore, *not* designed in the sense of [1], in the sense of making claims on par with reality’s fundamental nature, with reality herself.
[3B] Laptops *are* part of reality.
[4B] The *it* that is the fundamental causal nature, that is, well, fundamental, that is, well, nature, that is reality, is nondesigned.
We are again forced into the obvious question as before, only put another way: How is a (real) laptop that is part of reality itself, and part of nature herself, factually (really) designed if it is a real part within a reality that is factually (really) nondesigned?
Let’s repeat that:
How is a (real) laptop that is part of reality itself, and part of nature herself, factually (really) designed if it is a real part within a reality that is factually (really) nondesigned?
If the Non-Theist is *not* making a claim about the nature of reality, then his semantics and his verbs do not communicate true things about the nature of, well, laptops, as per [1A – 3A] and [1B – 4B] above and the painful questions which followed.
Question:
Why isn't all of reality’s fundamental nature, all of physics, reality itself, right now, nondesigned? It seems that is the better option for the Non-Theist given that it avoids the absurdity of [1A – 3A] and [1B – 4B] above.
Premise:
If the fundamental nature of reality, if all of reality, all of physics, *is* nondesigned, then the fundamental causes / forces which actualize, bring about, laptops are *not* (really) *doing* the verb *design*.
“Premise Flip-Flop”, let’s look at another possibility for you Gerald:
Let’s say the Non-Theist wants to “start” with “Premise A” (all which precedes neurons) and then change the fundamental nature of reality, change the wellspring of all cause and being, once neurons arrive and claim, from then on, “Premise B”. Well then:
Any claim that reality's fundamental causal nature, the wellspring of cause and being, truly (now, since the arrival of neurons) is in part nondesigned and in part designed will have to explain (firstly) how it is that a fundamental nature is not really fundamental at all, or, it will have to explain (secondly) if reality's fundamental nature, reality’s wellspring of all cause and being, has always been that way, in part designed and in part nondesigned, and, it will have to tell us (thirdly) whether or not reality’s fundamental nature, reality’s wellspring of all cause and being, *reverts* back to the earlier fundamental nature, the former wellspring of all cause and being, once the thing we term *neuron* no longer exists.
Clarification: The previous example of “Premise Flip-Flop” is not dualism. Not even close.
In closing:
Obviously if, when describing those higher layers of networks, the Non-Theist is *not* referring to the fundamental nature of what is *happening*, and is *not* asserting that reality itself, physics itself is, right now, in part non-designed and in part designed, then his linguistic use of verbs such as dance, seek, love, engage in reciprocity, design, balance, invent, lead, follow, aim, try, and so on, are not helping and in fact are muddying the waters.
Why?
Because then we must ask this, and we must expect an answer or a clarification:
How is a (real) laptop that is part of reality itself, and part of nature herself, factually (really) designed if it is a real part within a reality that is factually (really) nondesigned?
If you reject Premise A, and Premise B, and Premise Flip-Flop, then please clarify your terms relative to the *doing* of the verb *design* by whatever causes or forces you wish to employ as such relates to the rest of nature, to those same causes and forces – to the fundamental causal nature of the totality that is reality. As stated at the start, you don’t seem able to present a cohesive and consistent use of the word design. You are in fact, unless you can clarify, asserting that a very large box, [Box A], is (really) void of design, and is the totality of nature’s unicity (one physics) and that, at the same time, there is a smaller box, [box b] within the larger [Box A] which is just full of design.
But that’s absurd.
Your only options seem to be “Premise B” or else “Premise Flip-Flop”. If you go with “Premise B”, well that finds us with Design right there in the mix at the very Root of the thing we call reality. Privation’s pains emerge conjoined with The Good. That’s just too dangerous for you, so, instead, if you go with “Premise Flip-Flop”, well that is fine, only, you’ll have to offer those three explanations and how it is your explanations satisfy what one faces in that premise (the flip-flop premise). That looks just too painful to try to take seriously. But try if you want to. Just be consistent with your syntax through all parts of the totality that is “reality/nature”.
Your best option seems to be “Premise A”.
But, again, that’s just absurd.
So you are left with one of three options:
[1] A = Absurdity
[2] B = God in the mix all the way as privation’s pains emerge conjoined to The Good
"Christians are not claiming that nondesigned neurons design laptops"
We know humans design laptops. Or is that a contentious claim?
The debate is about the provenance of biological organisms. You (I assume) are claiming biological organisms were designed (4th time....) so you need to define design and how to detect it.
Stop waffling on about "nonedesigned neurons" because its totally irrelevant
"A box without design inside of it isn't a box with design inside of it"
lol wut? Utter garbage.
As usual you are completely avoiding the point and creating some weird side argument.
The POINT is the evidence for the ID assertion that biological organisms are designed. If you want to defend that assertion then YOU SCBROWN - YES YOU - need to say what you mean by design.
All of your guff doesnt not change that one iota.
All of your word salad posts do not change those facts.
It's obvious why you resort to such long winded, factually incorrect, over verbose posts.
Yeah, that is pretty silly. You'd think our Non-Theist friends could do better. An interesting question is how long will our Non-Theist friends keep finding ontological distinctions where there are, at best, only epistemological distinctions. Fortunately, an increasing number of younger, more bold, more hungry Non-Theists eager to expunge are emerging.
I wonder -- did you spend even one minute considering my request for a POSITIVE account of YOUR position? If you did, why did you reject it? It it because it was too hard? You would actually have to examine your own ideas, find the gaps, the signs of that lack of cohesion and consistency you're always accusing "Non-Theists" of, then think hard and figure out how to fill the gaps, and then explain the resulting picture to me. But no, it's much easier to invent positions I'm supposed to hold (which are framed in the universe of your unexamined assumptions)and then prove how hopeless your versions of my position are.
“Let’s look at another possibility for you Gerald.” -- Really!!!
“How is a (real) laptop that is part of reality itself, and part of nature herself, factually (really) designed if it is a real part within a reality that is factually (really) nondesigned?”
me:
“How is a (real) dog that is part of reality itself, and part of nature herself, factually (really) canine if it is a real part within a reality that is factually (really) noncanine?”
What's the fallacy here? It's that a property of the whole must belong to every part. If Sam weighs 160 lbs, then his head weighs 160 lbs. If the universe is nondesigned, then a laptop is nondesigned.
“If the fundamental nature of reality, if all of reality, all of physics, *is* nondesigned, then the fundamental causes / forces which actualize, bring about, laptops are *not* (really) *doing* the verb *design*.”
me:
How does that argument go?
(1) The fundamental nature of reality was not created by a designer.
(2) Fundamental causes/forces bring about laptops.
(3) Therefore the causes/forces that bring about laptops are not really doing the verb “design”.
(3) is a non sequitur. It does not follow from (1) and (2). You would have to add at least one necessary condition on “forces doing the verb ‘design’”, AND you would have to add some logical connection between (1) and the necessary condition . For instance,
(1) The fundamental nature of reality was not created by a designer.
(1’) All fundamental causes/forces are included in the fundamental nature of reality.
(A) Only what is created by a designer has a designer’s 'vital force'.
(B) Anything lacking a designer’s 'vital force' cannot really do the verb “design”.
(2) Fundamental causes/forces bring about laptops.
(3) Therefore the causes/forces that bring about laptops are not really doing the verb “design”.
Now all you have to do is come up with your versions of the missing premises and justify them.
You said your argument had nothing to do with philosophy of mind, but that's exactly what it is, philosophy of mind. What you are really claiming is that the physical brain as understood by science -- that "wad of neurons" -- is incapable of producing mental functions like designing. A Christian could be expected to call on the soul to pinch hit.
Either that or you are claiming that the brain is only capable of fulfilling that function if it is the result of divine creation and not evolution. That is, the very same physical organ would have different causal powers depending on whether Genesis or the Big Bang is true. Such an implausible claim would require a strong argument,
We don't yet know how it does it, but we have ample evidence that the brain is responsible for mental functions, including higher mental functions. All that verbiage above about planets and funneling forces is supposed to convince us that the brain can't produce the mind. I don't understand how it does. All I have is guesses. But the evidence is very strong that it does -- much stronger than any of your far-fetched analogies.
No one is claiming your use of the verb design is wrong.
It’s correct on Non-Theism.
It’s just not consistent as it tries to draw ontological distinctions where there are none.
That’s the problem.
There’s no need for a Christian to try to draw ontological distinctions between (real) networks and (real) products (design) given that there are only epistemological distinctions to be made and given that the Christian is not claiming that, on naturalism, there are ontological differences to be made within “one physics” when it comes to what causes what.
You’re begging the question as you keep telling us there are real (ontological) distinctions between what is *happening* outside of Networks and inside of Networks even as you try to claim it is all “one physics”. Factually speaking, this is simply a matter of what causes what.
That pesky word “cause” is where you are begging the question in your use of verbs.
[A] Let’s define network: A composition of fundamental causes and forces (that “one physics”) which just is the totality of a massively complex array of interfacing / interacting causes and forces which actualize, cause, bring about, goals towards flourishing. Flourishing includes life, happiness, health, and so on.
[B] Let’s define life, health, and happiness, on naturalism: A composition of fundamental causes and forces (that “one physics”) which just is the totality of this or that neurobiological tissue.
See how easy that is? [A] causes [B].
Even easier, and just as (painfully) obvious: The “what causes what” pushing and causing and driving the whole show within [A] is the *same* “what causes what” which we find pushing and causing and driving the whole show within [B]. It’s a scientific fact: That *same* “what”, should we ask “What causes what?” not only brings them about but also constitutes their very being – keeps them going – right here, right now. I know you disagree, but you have to disagree in order to claim that a Big Box void of X, or a universe void of X, has within it little boxes full of X. Unfortunately you won’t find any need for your equivocation. It’s all one physics. It’s all observable. It’s all in Time/History. There’s just no need for your attempt to try to foist epistemological distinctions off as ontological distinctions.
That is why there is no need for A-T Meta ghosts, though you seem determined to chase them. All that is needed is consistency. Honesty. Science. You can have the verb design or any other verb. But you need to include science with them.
There are more networks than these, but, these two should do for the purpose of looking into your flawed methodology:
You keep telling us there is a (real) ontological difference between the fundamental causes and forces, that one physics, the “what” at the causal level which just is the totality of a massively complex array of interfacing / interacting causes and forces which actualize, cause, bring about, “goals” towards “flourishing” and stomachs goaled towards flourishing life and solar systems goaled towards flourishing life and trees goaled towards flourishing life and massively complex and intricate cosmological networks goaled towards flourishing life and brains goaled towards flourishing life and beaver dams goaled towards flourishing life and ant’s complex colonies goaled towards flourishing life and bird’s nests goaled towards flourishing life and two story houses with central heat and air goaled towards flourishing life and planetary systems goaled towards life itself and the flourishing thereof, for example.
But you never show us this supposed ontological difference in what causes what in all of those massively complex arrays of interfacing / interacting fundamental causes and forces within the “one physics”. You know, “Networks”. You’re trying, and failing, to draw real ontological distinctions where there are none to be found.
That is where you are begging the question. Epistemic distinctions (dog, beaver dam) do not equate to differences in the fundamental causes and forces (the “one physics”) which [A] bring then about and which [B] constitute their very being – keep them going, right here, right now. Time and history are in all networks and therefore do not grant any one network any factual “difference” from any other network.
Yet you want to (arbitrarily) slice out this or that part of the continuum and tell us it is ontologically different at the causal level from the rest of the continuum. You are, remarkably, trying to foist the utility of epistemic distinctions as (real) ontic distinctions.
Rather than show us any factual, real, ontological difference within the “one ontology” or the “one physics” or the “what causes what”, you simply appeal to those A-T Meta ghosts and yet you’ve been reminded that this is not about ghosts, nor mind.
It’s about consistency. It’s about not begging the question. It’s about ontology, causes, forces, and physics. Very simple. If you mean to tell us that there is “one physics” and yet you then tell us that you also have different causes / different forces (different what’s) which [1] brings about / causes, and [2] constitutes, and [3] sustains or “keeps it going” – that which is product A vs. product B vs. product C vs. product D well then you’re either confused or dishonest.
It’s that simple.
Let’s see if you can be honest with your own tools, your own terms:
Your terms forget, or expunge, the fact that prior to physics we use to observe repeating patterns in all sorts of things. We therefore concluded that on this or that *level* there occurred “funneling” of the more disperse array of X’s into the more “ordered” or “dense” or “compact” array of X’s and believed, really believed, that either the gods were busy designing or else the X’s themselves were designing dances. The planets and the suns and gravity all interface even as the neurons and the stimuli all interface, and some, well, a shrinking group of Non-Theists, really, still today, believe one of those two things, really believe that the verb, the *doing* of dance and of design as to what is *happening* really is something brand new about reality.
But then came physics and microscopes.
See, this is why Christians love science. It just simplifies everything.
Methodology:
Here is my investigation into the nature of things, into what is *happening*. Let me know if this is intellectually, philosophically, and scientifically satisfying for you as we explore what is *happening* in a few different massively complex networks. There are more networks than these, but, these two should do for the purpose of looking into methodology.
Begin investigation into massively complex networks which design things:
We can still, even today, talk about suns and planets interfacing with other forces and another trillion bits (think from quark and up, its real) of repeating patterns (information) such that even higher levels of yet another (real) trillion bits of repeating patterns (information) all begin to funnel into yet another layer of now one trillion X 100K of (real) repeating patterns (information) and, before long, a new property emerges, and we rightly conclude that suns and planets design dances. All sorts of dances in fact. If you zoom out far enough, you can expunge enough factual distinction to have no need of the horse, and just watch this planet and that sun "dance" and "aim" and "balance this and that just-so" and, in that "reciprocity" get their two-step a bit tighter, and by that “reciprocity” go on to thereby "love" each other, and thereby get a bit more polished, better and..... better, as they design, even invent, the property of "dance". Invention. Designing. It's all there. And all the chaos which was funneled into order is there to see, from quarks upward through interfacing a trillion-trillion bits of data within the Network. It’s real. Its particles are real. The chaos was real and the funneling is real and the particles are real and the interfaces are real and the Network is real The funneling of trillions of bits of repeating patterns progressively stack level upon level of layers. The Non-Designed actually did Design, and Aim, and Love, and Dance, and Funnel, and Improve, and get Better, and Balance, and Weigh, and Invent.
We rightly conclude that we actually saw something *added* to the fundamental nature of reality. Prior to what we just observed it was, truly, [Reality] and now that dances have been both designed and invented there in that (real) network, it is [Reality + 1]. That is what “Property” grants us when it comes to the nature of what is *happening*. Within the whole that is [Reality], within what reality actually, always, unceasingly *does* there is, in fact, now a brand new *does* within the fundamental causal nature of reality. It’s called dance/design.
Replay:
Turning our necks to look down into our electron microscopes, into our skulls, well it's all the same fundamental nature of reality there too. The same patterns repeat and “design” the way all funnels everywhere “design” and hence the new “property” of “dance” emerges. From bottom to top. In fact, we can even keep the syntax of “property” and of “emerge” going and talk to one another as if some sort of “addition to reality” really did take place such that prior to these dances there was [Reality] and, now, after the dances were designed and invented, there is now [Reality + 1]. Within the whole that is [Reality], within what nature always, unceasingly *does* there is, in fact, now a brand new *does* within the fundamental causal nature of reality. It’s called dance/design.
We arrive, then, here:
Non-designed X’s dance, seek, love, engage in reciprocity, design, balance, invent, lead, follow, aim, try, and so on.
Indeed, we can think like that, and talk like that, and write like that, because it’s true.
End what is, IMO, an intellectually unsatisfying investigation into what is *happening*, or, simply, into the nature of things:
Were you intellectually, philosophically, and scientifically satisfied with my investigation, with its conclusions about what is *happening* there in those verbs such as dance, seek, love, engage in reciprocity, design, balance, invent, lead, follow, aim, try, and so on?
If not, why not?
Are you happy with the distinctions drawn there?
If not, why not?
Do you think investigating other massively complex arrays of interfacing / interacting causes and forces which actualize / cause things will help?
It's kind of comical, or ironic, but the more we push to the bottom of the semantics here and what those semantics are actually referencing, the more it looks like the whole show in fact speaks towards the Non-Theist's own use of the word "design".
Do you really believe that rearranging the fundamental causes of reality actually changes the fundamental causes of reality?
I ask you that question and grant you whatever naturalistic reality you wish, whether the singular ocean of elementary footing beneath all of reality which carries us to, say, the quantum vacuum which is a “rolling sea of energy that underlies all of physical reality” or into, say, what constitutes the irreducibility of the “singular and seamless continuum of particle (or whatever) in motion”, or into (as some incoherently demand), say, a full and complete illusion in an ocean of “Ontological Stasis” wherein temporal becoming is, in fact, fiction.
Do you really believe there are ontic-breaks in the history of becoming when it comes to The-Now? The Big Bang is the only such possible fracture line I see. Is there another?
Evading what causes what in the mammoth array of Networks which we have yet to discuss isn't going to help you retain the intellectual right to make your odd claims about Big Boxes, little boxes, and verbs.
The Christian claim is not relevant to the Non-Theist's claim. It's just not a Christian claim that we are exploring here. What we are exploring, or what is of interest, is the Non-Theist’s definition of design, of verbs, of causes, and of which boxes have or don't have those very same verbs, those very same causes.
And all fully granting:
1 - Networks
2 - Ontic-Histories of becoming
The problem is not the claim that the universe does not have dogs in it, and, then, dogs (canine) showed up, and so for a time there were dogs (canine) in both the Big Box and the little boxes. That trades on the epistemic (unless the Non-Theist wants to embrace essentialism) rather than the ontologically causal. The root problem is the business of the bizarre claim that there is a universe void of X, a Big Box void of X, but, within that Big Box, there are little boxes just full of X, and that is a problem for two reasons.
Before we get to those two reasons, here is why the Doggy / No Doggy line of reasoning is irrelevant:
There is this: The *it* which [1] brings about / causes, and [2] constitutes the very being of, and [3] literally sustains and “keeps it going” – that which is product A vs. product B vs. product C vs. product D.
Regarding [1], [2], and [3] there, we ask:
Am I brought about by / caused by something *different* than the fundamental causes and forces saturating any massively complex network of interacting / interfacing causes and forces which [1] brings about / causes, and [2] constitutes the very being of, and [3] literally sustains or “keeps it going” any other X we find in the universe?
Of course not.
Am I, or is my very being constituted of something *different* than the fundamental causes and forces saturating any massively complex network of interacting / interfacing causes and forces which [1] brings about / causes, and [2] constitutes the very being of, and [3] literally sustains or “keeps it going” any other X we find in the universe?
Of course not.
Am I, right now, right here, literally sustained and “kept going” by something *different* than the fundamental causes and forces saturating any massively complex network of interacting / interfacing causes and forces which [1] brings about / causes, and [2] constitutes the very being of, and [3] literally sustains or “keeps it going” any other X we find in the universe?
Of course not.
The Box problem is a *verb* problem, a *cause* problem, a “nature *does* act x” problem. So, now, back to the two reasons the Big Box / little box *is* a problem:
First, as mentioned already, the Non-Theist’s terms are begging the question when it comes to all sorts of Networks, Goals, Causes, and Flourishing. Those same terms are also begging the question on ontological history when it comes to temporal becoming given that we’ve not been shown any ontic-break in any history. We happily grant the Big Bang given that all sorts of constants seem to "come from" there, but of course anyone is free to show us another breakpoint where one factual continuum of physics / reality / nature stops and another starts. The ontological continuum that is the history of the Moon from, say, “a few moments before it formed till now” is not the ontological history of the moon and if the Non-Theist thinks it is well then he is free to run with that definition.
Secondly, the Non-Theist’s terms seem to imply that the thing called “property” means (or grants) a brand new "does" or a brand new *verb* when it comes to what *was* [Reality], as it now becomes [Reality + 1] in that the terms seem to infer that within the whole that is [Reality], within what nature always and unceasingly *does* there is, in fact, now a brand new *does*, a brand new*verb* within the fundamental causal nature of reality. What is that brand new *does* or that brand new *verb* added to the fundamental nature of reality? Well it’s called “dance/design” on the Non-Theist terms.
It exists in small boxes within the Big Box, but not in the Big Box.
But rearranging reality's fundamental causes/forces does not change reality's fundamental causes/forces.
Therefore:
There are no new *verbs*.
There is no new *does*.
Big Box or little box.
The problem of course is that such an assertion (a brand new *does*, and brand new *verb* within reality) can only mean one of two things. [A] The fundamental causal nature of reality is not fundamental at all and/or that such a bottom of reality does not even exist, or [B] that brand *new* kind of *does*, that brand *new* kind of *verb* is not new at all, and in fact what the Non-Theist observes as design has been a *does* and a *verb* that has always been present within nature, in all networks, in the Big Box.
If we entertain [A], well good luck with that. Dualism might help, but that’s not the point here. If we entertain [B] well then we end with design from the get-go and, thereby, a designer.
The best option for the Non-Theist is to race into conflation and equivocation, otherwise, the particular *what* which his own semantics are actually *referencing* will find that the proverbial “whole show” evokes “design”. And that is fully granting Networks and Ontic-Histories of becoming and that is just granting or assuming that Non-Theists mean to keep the scientific right to assert those unjustified claims about [1] Big Boxes and [2] little boxes and [3] Nature’s *does* / *verbs*.
We also grant the ontic-history:
And so we ask what part in the continuum of physics (real causes, real forces) isn't part of the *history* of The-Now? How far back does the continuum, the *history* of coming to be, go? Where is that "seam"? Can the Non-Theist point to that "ontic-break", to that seam where "one physics" and “one continuum” and “one ontic-history” stopped and some other, new, separate physics, history, continuum, began?
But of course the ontic-history of the ontic-now began at the (ontic) beginning. We need not be wedded to the Big Bang here. Why? Because if we posit Big Bang Cosmology, or, it seems, any “beginning” at all, or even NO beginning, well the conclusions are…. wait for it…. all the same in that, either way, “IT” (whatever it is) soaks up, subsumes, constitutes, and sustains the whole array of Network/Networks and also the singular ontic-history of “Now” as all streams from the epicenter of “IT”.
When it comes to Boxes and Networks and Verbs and Does-es and Histories, well, it seems the whole show must be, on the Non-Theist’s own terms, “verbed”, or, well, let’s call it “designed”.
It’s very peculiar.
If X is designed, well, then, the obvious question which warrants an answer is…….
We can add the statement that rearranging reality's fundamental causes/forces does not change, or subtract from, or add to, reality's fundamental causes/forces. We only have the verbs we have.
If we believe that "Property" grants a change in the fundamental causes/forces within nature, then we are not looking at nature herself *as* nature herself. We are looking at a slice at a time and claiming to find something brand new in the fundamental causes/forces within nature. And then that error simply leads to "stacking" into "layers" of error.
"Canine" is the arrival of a new arrangement of causes/forces, it is not the arrival of new causes/forces.
"Property" at the tips of our neurons "doing" something "new" is a fallacious claim by Non-Theists when it comes to "nature does / I do". Not only am I part of nature herself, but I do not exceed her. In fact I cannot exceed her. I have only her verbs. And she has only her verbs. Such is the Non-Theist's reality.
What is needed in this conversation is what has been sought here: intellectual consistency about one's verbs, one's own causal paradigm, in all networks (and there are many of those), in all boxes both Big and small, and in all ontic-histories.
It has not been forthcoming.
___________
If the verb "design" is present, it is present everywhere, or else it is nowhere, even on the Non-Theist's own terms of Networks, Boxes, Verbs, and Ontic-Histories. As we push the semantics here, the "what" which the Non-Theist is in fact "referencing" seems to confirm, even compel, the presence of design in Network after Network after Network throughout the ontic-history of this current reality. If, then,"that" is in fact present everywhere (and the Non-Theist's terms seem to compel it) and yet we find "that" to be soaked through with frustration, with both Good and Good Minus Something, with the pains of what Christianity terms "privation", well that fact is even more evidence not for no-design but for a very peculiar statement about Man and Reality which we find in only one genre on planet Earth.
And then I pointed out why you are *still* begging the question on the one hand, and why it all *still* does not get you anywhere, well, except closer to design being pretty much everywhere.
In case you missed it, that business about design being everywhere, that was me, but using your start-ups, your premises. As it turned out, they work quite well to getting to this, to me:
Design is pretty much everywhere.
If you want to know why I believe that, well, because I ran with your premises. Networks, emerging properties, and ontic-histories.
A few (explained) corrections of several (explained) errors on your part allowed me to get to the same end..... design.
Explaining to you why I believe in ontological design from the very beginning using your own premises as my means of evidence towards that conclusion *is* telling you about my beliefs.
The reason I believe in ontological (God) design is because of what we learn from nature's networks, ontological histories of becoming, properties, and physics. How some of that plays out is in preceeding comments.
I don't believe in ontological (God) design "despite" nature's array of causal networks, ontological histories of becoming, properties, and physics, but "because" of them.
The Non-Theist's own terms of Networks, Boxes, Verbs, Ontic-Histories of becoming, and Properties (and physics), affirm my conclusions. As we push the semantics here, the "what" which the Non-Theist is in fact "referencing" seems to confirm, even compel, the presence of (ontic) design in Network after Network after Network throughout the (ontic) history of becoming of this current reality.
All your posturing about ontology. There is no observation we can make, even in principle, that can determine that what we observe is, in any ontological sense, real.
So what on earth are you on about? Physics is neutral on ontology.
"I don't believe in ontological (God) design blah blah blah" - you really dont make sense and dont have any cogent arguments. So I dismiss everything you say as word salad and waffle.
"You" are only as real as the array of Networks after Networks after Networks saturating all throughout the history of becoming of your current reality, of which you are a part.
Ontologically speaking, that is. There's no such thing as nature's "new" fundamental causal reality.
If design is present anywhere, it is present everywhere.
"Explaining to you why I believe in ontological design"
This suggests to me that you hold that the fundamental nature of reality (which is what ontology deals with) is designed.
How can you know that?
"If design is present anywhere, it is present everywhere"
Why? Demonstrate that this is the case.
"Equivocations not withstanding"
Why this qualification?
You see scbrown, my hypothesis is that you havent got the faintest clue what you are talking about and merely spew forth content that you cut/paste from around various forums.
And I have plenty of evidence to back that up because you have been called out on talking rubbish by loads of people online. Shall I post the links again?
What I'd like you to do is write in clear English or not bother. Im leaning towards the latter as the best option.
We are merely applying, consistently, the Non-Theist's own criteria, using his own verbs according to his own referents. It's not a God conclusion. It's s Non-Theistic conclusion.
If you don't like Network after Network, after Network, in the only ontological history of becoming we know of, and verbs which referent those very causes/forces, then take it up with Gerald.
"We are merely applying, consistently, the Non-Theist's own criteria, using his own verbs according to his own referents."
Word salad. Be specific and stop waffling rubbish.
"Because they're his criteria."
What criteria are you on about?
ITS VERY SIMPLE SCBROWN. You claim biological organisms were designed, YOU need to define what 'design' means.
WHich you have totally failed to do and this is the 5th time I have asked you to do that.
All your phiolosowibble has no bearing or impact on that simple requirement. We dont need to talk about ontology. We are talking about phenomena - no ontology required.
From bottom to top:
On point of fact, there is no "balancing so-and-so just right" there in, say, the planet. There is no "balancing" at all. There would be *if* the fundamental nature of reality was, factually, planet-ic.
Of course that would be wonderful if it were the case as it would permit the Non-Theist to appeal to appearances, to the appearance and behavior of the real-thing we call a planet and claim that planets do in fact "dance" and "balance".
You know, just as we "dance" and "balance", the fundamental nature of Human-ic being the fundamental nature of reality.
Like tornadoes "dance" and "twirl" and "balance", the fundamental nature of tornado-ic being the fundamental nature of reality.
But of course the Non-Theist is lost, believing that in fact the fundamental nature of reality is, in fact, something other than the fundamental nature of reality.
That's the problem with natures. Once you start to claim one, you need more then appearances. Otherwise you're inclined to see design where there is none.
And so it goes from bottom to top, at every level.
It's painful that this has to be said, but, it must: location and size and level are all irrelevant given that the fundamental nature of reality is, from top to bottom, at every level, the fundamental nature of reality.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 01, 2016 at 07:20 AM
Correction:
This,
Should have said "from bottom to top" so that it reads:
It's painful that this has to be said, but, it must: location and size and level are all irrelevant given that the fundamental nature of reality is, from bottom to top, at every level, the fundamental nature of reality.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 01, 2016 at 07:24 AM
Gerald,
Sorry, the last two comments on this page should have been addressed to you.
Also:
It's about the fundamental nature of reality, not about nothing-but. That's a false dichotomy.
In order for it to work one would have to claim that there is no fundamental nature of reality, causal or otherwise, physical or otherwise. One would have to claim that, in fact, reality has no explanation, that there is no such thing as an explanatory terminus. Not that we cannot find it, or that we cannot know it, but that it does not exist.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 01, 2016 at 07:35 AM
Some context on the fallacy of "Nothing-But" applied to the fundamental nature of reality:
There's a reason that is where the question of design starts.
Because whatever reality's fundamental nature is, it is that from bottom to top, at all levels.
Else: dualism
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 01, 2016 at 07:44 AM
Gerald,
I want to see if your own terms are good enough for you.
I claim this:
“If you’ll only zoom out far enough you’ll see it. Don’t look too close. Zoom out a bit more, and expunge a few layers of fact. See that planet there, and that sun there, see how the planet and the Sun dance together, one leading, one following, both trying to adjust so that, in love’s reciprocity, they may dance better and better ……and …..better. And ever better still. The beauty of it all. Of course real things really aim, really dance, really seek, really love, really balance. And all that “trying” really does make them “better” at “loving”. The awe of planets. The awe of the planet-ic. What *a* *nature*. It’s just incredible.”
Now, are you intellectually, philosophically, and scientifically satisfied with my investigation into the nature of things?
Should I have permitted the perceived nature of things to define the fundamental nature of reality as I asserted those truth-claims?
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 01, 2016 at 10:06 AM
scbrownlhrm, you continue to baffle me. I should probably understand where you're coming from by now, but I really don't.
You're a theist, and a Christian, as I understand it. For the last several days you haven't been saying what you believe so much as telling me what I must believe. Is that right? You've been trying to tell me there's nothing but physics, and a universe that "maps to" physics as its ultimate reality has no room for design, because that would split reality into two when it's really one, and assert a contradiction, undesigned design. But you don't believe that, do you? You just think I should have to be trapped in such a view of the universe if I'm a non-Theist. Or something like that. Is that right?
I've tried to show you how that's not the way I view things. Now you're telling me... what!?
1) That I don't want to map reality to physics.
I never said any such thing. I love physics. I believe reality is physical. Fundamental mathematical physics is true, but it's not the whole story. If it were, we could only talk to each other in mathematical equations. Reality does "map to physics" if that just means that all physical phenomena can be described in terms of mathematical physics. But -- going with the metaphor -- it's like physics gives you a map of the globe, but it has no borders drawn on it. It's useful to draw lines that physics doesn't tell you how to draw -- for instance around a tornado, or a planet, or the activity in a brain that corresponds to the act of planning your day.
2) That I believe that "a planet is the actual nature of reality."
Do I believe planets are real? You bet I do. Don't you?
3) But you say, "reality isn't planet-like at all. Sure, it looks designed..."
What on earth!!??? What does the reality of planets have to do with looking or being designed? Planets are rocky chunks accreted from debris of supernovae that are caught in the gravity well of a star. They don't look designed to me.
4) You say "the actual nature of reality" and "the fundamental nature of reality" "isn't planet-ic at all. That's the problem with natures. Once you start to claim one, you need more then appearances. Otherwise you're inclined to see design where there is none."
I don't know what you think I think, and I don't know what you think. Other theists on this website believe the universe and life ARE designed. I DON'T. But you, a theist, are accusing me, an atheist and a materialist, of denying physics and claiming "natures" which causes ME to be "inclined to see design where there is none." But I don't see design anywhere except in the brains and material culture of human beings! (Evolution can be spoken of as designing, but only by analogy to human designing.)
5) You also say "you need more than appearances." So you think I'm talking about appearances, although I said I thought I was talking about real entities on levels of reality above that of fundamental particles.
I don't know whether you've switched from being a Christian to being some kind of New Age adherent of some supposedly-physics-based view of reality which is absolutely one, with no separate beings, or...?
I'm just flummoxed. And I've already spent FAR too much time on this. So, it would be nice if you could tell me, succinctly, without sarcasm (because I don't know what you really believe so I can't read your sarcasm) what YOU (NOT I) really believe about the subject matter we've been discussing.
Posted by: Gerald Lame | June 01, 2016 at 10:10 AM
Gerald,
See my comment "Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 01, 2016 at 10:06 AM"
It's an analogy.
Size and location and level change nothing.
Did my investigation into the nature of things satisfy you?
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 01, 2016 at 10:15 AM
Gerald,
"But I don't see design anywhere except in the brains and material culture of human beings..."
Yes, we know. Non-designed brains design things. It's very human-ic. And if you zoom that same lens out far enough you'll see those same terms concluding that planet's and suns design dances. Until we had microscopes and physics we use to think that was the case.
The nature of reality does not change because of size, location, or level.
The nature of things is the nature of reality. The perceived nature of things is not the nature of reality.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 01, 2016 at 10:31 AM
My last comment was posted before I noticed that there was a new page (4, this one). I'll get back to you on your comments since.
Posted by: Gerald Lame | June 01, 2016 at 10:40 AM
Yeah, that's one feature of this format which ought to be changed....... have done it a few times myself.....
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 01, 2016 at 10:47 AM
Gerald our Christian / dualistic beliefs don't matter given that we are not the ones asserting that non-designed neurons design things. We use to think the same of all sorts of things of course. Until microscopes and physics. These days the word "design" means lots of things to lots of Non-Theists. Its a kind of dualistic syntax which they use when it comes to that word. Some prefer to stay at only the higher levels, like planets, suns, and neurons. Some prefer to investigate further. It's like a box of chocolates.
Funny, that.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 01, 2016 at 11:13 AM
Gerald,
You stated I said you were looking at appearances rather than particle motion.
I didn't.
I said you need more than appearances.
You *are* describing particle movement, and not appearances.
That's the problem.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 01, 2016 at 11:56 AM
This is truly ridiculous. A serious intellectual discussion should not be a guessing game, especially not a one-sided guessing game like we've been having. In order to talk intelligently and to the point and in order to make what little progress might be possible, each side should understand what the other's position is, so they can speak to their true objections. It's the responsibility of each side to make his or her position clear.
Instead you have been attacking me, without ever explaining on what grounds. So I've been guessing: "Do you mean this? Well in that case, I'll answer your objection this way." To which you reply, "No no. You're chasing ghosts. It has nothing to do with that," and then you'll mount another attack. Each time I think I MAY understand, you say I'm missing the point.
Is this a game with you? Is this what Stand to Reason teaches: in order never to lose an argument, never explain your position, never get pinned down? If so, what's the point? To convince me I'm wrong without ever telling me what you think is right? How does that benefit anybody? Or is it that you are so afraid that, if you stated your position, you couldn't defend it, that you resort to this -- sniping attacks without giving away your position? Or is it that you simply don't know why you think I'm wrong, you just know you do, but you're completely incapable of articulating what's been bothering you?
I could make another guess about what you really believe -- something about "natures". You've been talking about natures recently. But I'm done with this stupid game.
You know what I believe. I don't know what you believe. I will commend you for refraining from overtly cryptic and mythological language in this thread. But what you haven't yet done, and which you really need to do, is -- not to argue, not to attack, but simply to explain in as clear and straightforward a way as you can, what design is TO YOU; where it can be found in our world; and what are the requirements (physical, metaphysical, supernatural or whatever) for it to exist. Or if that's not the crux of the matter, then explain to me what is, and what you believe is true about it. Perhaps what you need to do is tell me what YOU believe "the fundamental nature of reality" is.
If you find it painful to explain (because you can't believe I'd be so stupid not to agree with you) just grit your teeth and say even what is most obvious to you about the subject (because if it's obvious to you, it's very likely not to be obvious to me.) Can you do that -- without telling me what I believe, or why I'm wrong? And (this is important) without sarcasm or humor? Because (since you are a puzzle to me) I won't get it; you'll just confuse me.
Posted by: Gerald Lame | June 01, 2016 at 07:51 PM
Gerald,
This may help:
Your investigation into the nature of design is akin to my investigation into the nature of dance. We're both stopping way too soon, for one thing. But there are other problems too.
Were you intellectually satisfied with my investigation, with its conclusions about verbs such as dance, seek, love, reciprocity, design, balance, and so on?
If not, why not?
Also, it just isn't possible to add to the fundamental nature of reality such that, if we add enough layers, we actualize [Reality + 1], so to speak. Yet you seem to imply that you want to claim that "property" somehow adds to reality's fundamental causal nature.
That is one reason why the claim that physics, reality itself, is in part undesigned (the fundamental causes / forces which actualize neurons) and in part designed (the fundamental causes / forces which actualize laptops) just won't do.
That claim is going to have to be earned. Semantics included.
If it's *not* what one means by asserting that nondesigned neurons design laptops then it's not clear how laptops can be designed if the totality of causes / forces which actualize them are *not* *doing* the verb *design*. It's also not clear that, if you do *not* mean that part of reality / physics actually is designed, how you can possibly rise above a purely epistemic / analogous tool of linguistics. Because if your are *not* making a claim about the nature of reality, then your semantics and your verbs do not communicate true things about the nature of, well, reality.
Why isn't all of reality, all of physics, nondesigned?
If all of reality, all of physics, *is* nondesigned, then the fundamental causes / forces which actualize laptops are *not* *doing* the verb *design*.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 01, 2016 at 08:49 PM
Gerald,
On *doing* *design*, any claim that reality's fundamental causal nature, the wellspring of cause and being, actually is in part (now, at long last) nondesigned and in part designed, will have to explain how it is that a fundamental nature is not really fundamental at all, or, will have to explain if reality's fundamental nature always been that way, part designed and part nondesigned.
If, instead one is *not* referring to the fundamental nature of what is *happening*, then one's linguistic use of the term design isn't relevant.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 01, 2016 at 09:15 PM
scbrownlhrm,
I asked you for a POSITIVE account of what you DO believe about this topic. Instead you told convoluted stories about what SOMEBODY ELSE would have to explain, or cannot explain. You also asked me questions, and told me what "just won't do." I don't want to know what won't do. I want to know what, according to you, WILL do.
Please try to understand: I do not share your basic assumptions. The steps you take in your claims about what will NOT work may seem logical to you, but they make NO SENSE to me. I do not want to try to guess what the underlying assumptions are which make you say these things. I WANT YOU TO TELL ME.
You don't seem to know how to do this.
Although I still want a positive account from you, I will make a few comments:
The question of whether physics itself is designed (that is, the set of physical laws which govern the universe) as far as I'm concerned has never been on the table. That's a cosmological question which (at least at the present time, and most likely forever) is completely unanswerable. I have not discussed it, and don't believe it is relevant. I think we can take the physical laws as given and go from there. You quote Victoria_PhD to the effect that the question of where the laws come from is "where the question of design starts." Since the laws were from the start, they are the earliest thing we can ask the design question about. But the way I see it, asking whether other things are designed or are capable of designing are different questions, which can be answered, whereas the cosmological one cannot.
You say of Victoria_PhD's statement, "There's a reason that is where the question of design starts. Because whatever reality's fundamental nature is, it is that from bottom to top, at all levels. Else: dualism." That is utterly unintelligible to me. If you want to make that assertion, you have to A) explain it, and B) justify it.
The way I look at it, design has nothing to do with "the fundamental nature of reality." Designing is an act, a stage of making, of deciding what features an object will have. Whether an object was designed or not is an historical question about its origin. It's not a question about its nature.
You seem to disagree, but I do not know and cannot fathom what your view is.
To me, the act of designing something is just one among many kinds of activities that animals engage in, like urinating or doing crossword puzzles. If I claimed that John did a crossword puzzle, and you said, "if that's true, then the fundamental nature of reality was crossword-puzzle-doing from the very beginning, because whatever reality's fundamental nature is, it is that from bottom to top, at all levels," that would be no more confusing to me than your actual statements about design.
Can you see we have a fundamental problem of communication here? I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!
Posted by: Gerald Lame | June 01, 2016 at 11:42 PM
Gerald
"Can you see we have a fundamental problem of communication here? I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!"
I empathise.
The difficulty is that scbrown doesnt know what he/she is talking about either. He/she is simply talking utter rubbish.
"Also, it just isn't possible to add to the fundamental nature of reality such that, if we add enough layers, we actualize [Reality + 1], so to speak. Yet you seem to imply that you want to claim that "property" somehow adds to reality's fundamental causal nature"
I rest my case. The worst type of word salad imaginable - riddles, rhymes, intrigues, none of it described in simple terms or plain English. Dreadful.
The dude has been asked to provide the evidence by which he/she thinks ID is correct - none forthcoming.
What scbrown fails to acknowledge - which blows his/her perncious variation of poppycock right out of the water - is that science has been going on for a long time without any of this philosophwibble being a concern. And yet scbrown is quite happy to type away on some internet connected device about how non theists cant possibly do x, y or z. The irony is not lost on me.
Mike
Posted by: Mike | June 02, 2016 at 08:51 AM
Gerald,
If you disagree with any of the premises in this comment, feel free to clarify.
Two points. First, Non-Theists such as yourself state that you are not making claims about the fundamental nature of reality, and, other Non-Theists do claim to being doing just that. Both are in part looked at here, so you’ll see both discussions moving along in parts. Secondly, it is tedious as we weave, with words, what is actually *happening* inside of all *Networks*, both macro and micro, so the few forays into those “word-weaves” describing what *happens* inside of networks, whether macro or micro, require a bit of patience.
On the whole, the primary problem with your approach is that you don’t seem able to present a cohesive and consistent use of the word design. You are in fact, unless you can clarify, asserting that a very large box, [Box A], is (really) void of (real) design, and is the totality of nature’s unicity (one physics), realty’s fundamental nature, the wellspring of all cause and being, and that, at the same time, there is a smaller box, [box b] within the larger [Box A] which is just full of design.
But that’s absurd.
That’s not really a problem for you though, as there are two very good options remaining, as we’ll get to.
So then:
And:
I agree that your claim that what you mean by design is *not* making a claim about the fundamental nature of reality, and hence of the fundamental nature of laptops and hence about the fundamental nature of neurons, and hence of Man or of any new property. It can’t be. What is *happening* in all such state of affairs just isn’t anything that nature herself has not always been *doing*, has not always *housed*. The fundamental causes and forces which (through history/time or through timelessness or via any other X you wish to add) actualize, bring about, (real) neurons and the fundamental causes and forces which actualize, bring about, (real) laptops are all part of one nature, one wellspring of both cause and being. They are all fundamental, they are all what we call nature, and they are all what we call reality.
We don’t disagree that your claim-making is *not* functioning over “there”.
The Christian grants that you are not speaking about the fundamental nature of things in your claim that nondesigned neurons design things.
Let’s look at it both ways, one claiming that such *is* a claim about the whole of reality’s nature and one *not* claiming that (such as yourself). Please clarify any items which you disagree with.
As I’ve stated several times, Christians are not the ones claiming that non-designed neurons design things. The Non-Theist is. So it is the Non-Theist’s terms which need to be unpacked. Well, of course, there is a growing tide of younger, bolder Non-Theists who reject your semantics as Rosenberg-esc and Churchland-esc conclusions about the nature of things grow more popular, and for good reason.
One of the reasons that tide is growing is because we all know that, on Non-Theism’s terms, the fundamental nature of what is *happening* at the macro level and the quantum level are the *same*. There is one fundamental nature of reality, one fundamental wellspring of cause and being which feeds the whole show, which *is* the whole show, there is, simply, one nature, one reality. Neuron networks and planetary networks are all saturated with, constituted of, that very *same* reality when it comes to what is *happening*. There is, as we agreed, one physics.
That is why we agree that you are not and cannot point to anything that is not both the totality of that which is outside of neurons even as it is also the totality of that which is inside of neurons.
Given Non-Theism: Prior to physics we use to observe repeating patterns in all sorts of things. We therefore concluded that on this or that *level* there occurred “funneling” of the more disperse array of X’s into the more “ordered” or “dense” or “compact” array of X’s and believed, really believed, that either the gods were busy designing or else the X’s themselves were designing dances. The planets and the suns and gravity all interface even as the neurons and the stimuli all interface, and some, well, a shrinking group of Non-Theists, really, still today, believe one of those two things. The verb, the *doing* of dance and of design as to what is *happening* really is something brand new about reality. But then came physics and microscopes.
Here is my investigation into the nature of things, into what is *happening*. Let me know if this is intellectually, philosophically, and scientifically satisfying for you as we explore what is *happening* in planetary and neuronal networks. It shouldn’t be.
Begin what will be an intellectually unsatisfying investigation into what is *happening*, or, simply, into the nature of things:
We can still, even today, talk about suns and planets interfacing with other forces and another trillion bits (think from quark and up, its real) of repeating patterns (information) such that even higher levels of yet another (real) trillion bits of repeating patterns (information) all begin to funnel into yet another layer of now one trillion X 100K of (real) repeating patterns (information) and, before long, a new property emerges, and we rightly conclude that suns and planets design dances. All sorts of dances in fact. If you zoom out far enough, you can expunge enough factual distinction to have no need of the horse, and just watch this planet and that sun "dance" and "aim" and "balance this and that just-so" and, in that "reciprocity" get their two-step a bit tighter, and by that “reciprocity” go on to thereby "love" each other, and thereby get a bit more polished, better and..... better, as they design, even invent, the property of "dance". Invention. Designing. It's all there. And all the chaos which was funneled into order is there to see, from quarks upward through interfacing a trillion-trillion bits of data within the Network. It’s real. Its particles are real. The chaos was real and the funneling is real and the particles are real and the interfaces are real and the Network is real The funneling of trillions of bits of repeating patterns progressively stack level upon level of layers. The Non-Designed actually did Design, and Aim, and Love, and Dance, and Funnel, and Improve, and get Better, and Balance, and Weigh, and Invent.
We rightly conclude that we actually saw something *added* to the fundamental nature of reality. Prior to what we just observed it was, truly, [Reality] and now that dances have been both designed and invented there in that (real) network, it is [Reality + 1]. That is what “Property” grants us when it comes to the nature of what is *happening*. Within the whole that is [Reality], within what reality actually, always, unceasingly *does* there is, in fact, now a brand new *does* within the fundamental causal nature of reality. It’s called dance/design.
Replay:
Turning our necks to look down into our electron microscopes, into our skulls, well it's all the same fundamental nature of reality there too. The same patterns repeat and “design” the way all funnels everywhere “design” and hence the new “property” of “dance” emerges. From bottom to top. In fact, we can even keep the syntax of “property” and of “emerge” going and talk to one another as if some sort of “addition to reality” really did take place such that prior to these dances there was [Reality] and, now, after the dances were designed and invented, there is now [Reality + 1]. Within the whole that is [Reality], within what nature always, unceasingly *does* there is, in fact, now a brand new *does* within the fundamental causal nature of reality. It’s called dance/design.
We arrive, then, here:
Non-designed X’s dance, seek, love, engage in reciprocity, design, balance, invent, lead, follow, aim, try, and so on.
Indeed, we can think like that, and talk like that, and write like that, because it’s true.
End what will be an intellectually unsatisfying investigation into what is *happening*, or, simply, into the nature of things:
Were you intellectually, philosophically, and scientifically satisfied with my investigation, with its conclusions about what is *happening* there in those verbs such as dance, seek, love, engage in reciprocity, design, balance, invent, lead, follow, aim, try, and so on?
If not, why not?
The problem:
The Non-Theist seems to actually believe that the fundamental nature of reality is something other than the fundamental nature of reality in that he seems to really believe that the nature of particle in motion in the history of neurons factually “adds something” to the fundamental nature of reality with respect to his truth-claims about what is *happening* at those higher levels such as the network of [neuron/stimuli] or of [planet/sun/gravity/quarks and up]. “Property” means [Reality + 1], so to speak. (Granted, some do not mean to make claims about the nature of reality, which is looked at soon).
Another problem:
“Designing is an act, a stage of making, of deciding what features an object will have. Whether an object was designed or not is an historical question about its origin. It's not a question about its nature….”
This merely repeats the unfortunate thinking we observed with our planets, suns, quarks, electrons, and so on in other networks.
It goes something like this:
There too, in all those networks, both macro and micro, we find chaos turning into order, we find stages of making, we find decisions (streaming out of a real and complex array of trillions of interfacing forces, causes, and stimuli (literally)) about what features objects will have. Obviously on the grand scale this is all part of one historical continuum leading up to the flourishing of planet, life, and laptop. Given that the continuum streaming out of the wellspring of cause and being is, well, one historical continuum, then clearly there is, from A to Z, stages of making and history and decisions about what features objects will have. In all such Networks, both macro and micro, both outside of neurons and inside of neurons, we find one physics even as we find the needed content, the actual observation of, that which *is* dance, seek, love, engage in reciprocity, design, balance, invent, lead, follow, aim, try, as per the earlier inane investigation into the nature of what is *happening*.
Another problem:
The Networks which actualize, bring about, the totality of substrate behind planet, life, and laptops and in fact do dance, invent, and so on, may be challenged by the Non-Theist saying that we must zoom in closer, and that indeed the Network of neurons is the *only* funneling into which our zooming-in ought to be looking. “Zoom in, but not too much” so to speak. Yes, he is acknowledging that other (higher and lower) levels exist, but he is, you see, merely describing what is happening in those new, emergent layers where we find new properties and, well, behold, what *was* [Reality] with respect to reality’s fundamental causal nature is *now*, with this newly emerged causal property, [Reality + 1] with respect to reality’s fundamental causal substrates.
But that anti-intellectually ignores other (real) Networks which also (really) invent new (real) properties like solar systems and flourishing life and then it just begs the question about what is *happening* there inside of Networks.
Challenge: It just isn't possible to add to the fundamental causal nature of reality such that, if we add enough layers, we actualize, bring about, [Reality + 1], so to speak. Yet the Non-Theist (nondesigned neurons design things) seems to imply that he wants to claim that the thing that is "property" somehow adds to reality's fundamental causal nature, in fact to reality. The problem with that is this: the very concept of reality’s fundamental causal nature is that it is fundamental, it is nature, and it is reality.
If the Non-Theist (such as yourself) forfeits making claims about reality itself, well then that’s even worse, as we’ll get to.
That is why the Christian agrees that the Non-Theist’s concession that his claim about design is *not* making a claim about the fundamental causal nature of laptops and neurons, and hence about Man or anything else. It can’t be. What is *happening* in all such state of affairs just isn’t anything that nature herself has not always been *doing*, has not always *housed*.
What causes love, what is love? (This is perfectly acceptable if our Non-Theist friends would simply be consistent). Well just look at physics and particle in motion and the cooperation it takes within large networks to design and invent new things like solar systems and flourishing life and laptops. What is dance? What is design? What is Seek? What is Decide? Well just look at physics and particle in motion and you see it. The Non-Theist does not like that syntax and so he, first, prefers the term Network, and, secondly, begs the question about what is *happening* in all such *networks* which invent and design *new* and complex ends towards flourishing by insisting that we *only* zoom in on *one* network. But, he assures us, he is *not* claiming anything about the fundamental nature of reality with respect to man, or decide, or dance, or love, or design. He is merely describing large arrays of interfacing causes, forces, and summations.
Again that is fine.
What isn’t fine is [1] the inability to be consistent with one’s syntax once outside of com-boxes and out interfacing with real people all while making claims about reality herself and [2] begging the question as to what is *happening* inside of all sorts of observed networks which invent new and complex ends towards goals such as planets and life and laptops and flourishing and solar systems balancing all such ends towards those genuine goals within an incredibly complex and intricate Network of interfacing patterns amid the macro/micro totality that is nature herself, physics itself, reality herself.
Fatal crash:
Given that the Non-Theist concedes that he is not making any claims on the nature of reality, and therefore on the nature of (real) neurons, and therefore on the nature of (real) laptops, he begins to trade away the ontological (causal nature) for the epistemological (dance, seek, design).
The claim that physics, reality itself, is in part nondesigned (the fundamental causes / forces which actualize, bring about, (real) neurons) and in part designed (the fundamental causes / forces which actualize, bring about, (real) laptops) just won't do as an assertion. If that is *not* the claim, well we’ll get to that soon.
If that *is* the claim: That claim is going to have to be earned. Semantics included.
Breaking it down:
[1A] The *it* that is the fundamental causal nature, that is, well, fundamental, that is nature, that is reality. This is nondesigned.
[2A] the fundamental causes / forces which actualize, bring about, (real) neurons
[3A] the fundamental causes / forces which actualize, bring about, (real) laptops
Assertion A: The claim tells us that although [2A] and [3A] are (real) parts of [1A], and [1A] is in fact (really) nondesigned, there is, somehow, in [3A] that which is (real) “design” even though (real) “design” is *not* part of [1A].
Seriously?
Let’s repeat that, on [1A], [2A], and [3A] again:
Assertion A: The claim tells us that although [2A] and [3A] are (real) parts of [1A], and [1A] is in fact (really) nondesigned, there is, somehow, in [3A] that which is (real) “design” even though (real) “design” is *not* part of [1A].
Let’s unpack it another way, this time allowing the Non-Theist to reject [1A]:
Assertion B: Reality itself has (the claim goes) parts that are nondesigned and parts that are designed. That is to say, at a higher level, physics/reality itself reveals to us parts of her (physics/reality) which are nondesigned and parts of her (physics/reality) that are designed. “Nondesigned things design things”. The Non-Theist in fact *rejects* the premise that, right now, the whole of the fundamental nature of reality, that the whole of all of physics, that the whole of reality itself, *is* *non*designed, that is to say, the Non-Theist *rejects* number [1A] above.
Now, on “Premise A” (with [1A] still intact) if that is what one means by asserting that nondesigned neurons design laptops then it's not clear how (real) laptops can be (really) designed if the totality of causes / forces which actualize them, which bring them about, are *not* *doing* the verb *design*.
On “Premise B” ([1A] is rejected) well this asserts that the fundamental rock-bottom of reality sums to [Design/Nondesign] – ad infinitum. Design at the Root of the thing we call reality is unmasked, and so, of course, our Non-Theist friends reject Premise B.
If the Non-Theist rejects “Premise B” (and therefore retains [1A]) then he does *not* mean to assert that parts of reality’s fundamental nature, all of physics, of “reality herself”, are (really) nondesigned and other parts of “reality herself” are (really) designed. Therefore, he cannot possibly claim to be speaking of anything about the nature of reality, that is to say, he cannot rise above a purely epistemic tool over inside of linguistics. He has conceded the ontological (causal nature) for the epistemic (dance, design).
That leaves us with a mess, as we are left then with “Premise A”, as in:
Assertion A: The claim tells us that although [2A] and [3A] are (real) parts of [1A], and [1A] is in fact (really) nondesigned, there is, somehow, in [3A] that which is (real) “design” even though (real) “design” is *not* part of [1A].
That mess is unpacked in the following manner:
[1B] No claim about reality’s fundamental nature, all of physics, reality herself, is being made by the Non-Theist such that the fundamental casual nature of reality, nature herself, is nondesigned, for no assertion to the contrary is offered by the Non-Theist.
[2B] Laptops are, therefore, *not* designed in the sense of [1], in the sense of making claims on par with reality’s fundamental nature, with reality herself.
[3B] Laptops *are* part of reality.
[4B] The *it* that is the fundamental causal nature, that is, well, fundamental, that is, well, nature, that is reality, is nondesigned.
We are again forced into the obvious question as before, only put another way: How is a (real) laptop that is part of reality itself, and part of nature herself, factually (really) designed if it is a real part within a reality that is factually (really) nondesigned?
Let’s repeat that:
How is a (real) laptop that is part of reality itself, and part of nature herself, factually (really) designed if it is a real part within a reality that is factually (really) nondesigned?
If the Non-Theist is *not* making a claim about the nature of reality, then his semantics and his verbs do not communicate true things about the nature of, well, laptops, as per [1A – 3A] and [1B – 4B] above and the painful questions which followed.
Question:
Why isn't all of reality’s fundamental nature, all of physics, reality itself, right now, nondesigned? It seems that is the better option for the Non-Theist given that it avoids the absurdity of [1A – 3A] and [1B – 4B] above.
Premise:
If the fundamental nature of reality, if all of reality, all of physics, *is* nondesigned, then the fundamental causes / forces which actualize, bring about, laptops are *not* (really) *doing* the verb *design*.
“Premise Flip-Flop”, let’s look at another possibility for you Gerald:
Let’s say the Non-Theist wants to “start” with “Premise A” (all which precedes neurons) and then change the fundamental nature of reality, change the wellspring of all cause and being, once neurons arrive and claim, from then on, “Premise B”. Well then:
Any claim that reality's fundamental causal nature, the wellspring of cause and being, truly (now, since the arrival of neurons) is in part nondesigned and in part designed will have to explain (firstly) how it is that a fundamental nature is not really fundamental at all, or, it will have to explain (secondly) if reality's fundamental nature, reality’s wellspring of all cause and being, has always been that way, in part designed and in part nondesigned, and, it will have to tell us (thirdly) whether or not reality’s fundamental nature, reality’s wellspring of all cause and being, *reverts* back to the earlier fundamental nature, the former wellspring of all cause and being, once the thing we term *neuron* no longer exists.
Clarification: The previous example of “Premise Flip-Flop” is not dualism. Not even close.
In closing:
Obviously if, when describing those higher layers of networks, the Non-Theist is *not* referring to the fundamental nature of what is *happening*, and is *not* asserting that reality itself, physics itself is, right now, in part non-designed and in part designed, then his linguistic use of verbs such as dance, seek, love, engage in reciprocity, design, balance, invent, lead, follow, aim, try, and so on, are not helping and in fact are muddying the waters.
Why?
Because then we must ask this, and we must expect an answer or a clarification:
How is a (real) laptop that is part of reality itself, and part of nature herself, factually (really) designed if it is a real part within a reality that is factually (really) nondesigned?
If you reject Premise A, and Premise B, and Premise Flip-Flop, then please clarify your terms relative to the *doing* of the verb *design* by whatever causes or forces you wish to employ as such relates to the rest of nature, to those same causes and forces – to the fundamental causal nature of the totality that is reality. As stated at the start, you don’t seem able to present a cohesive and consistent use of the word design. You are in fact, unless you can clarify, asserting that a very large box, [Box A], is (really) void of design, and is the totality of nature’s unicity (one physics) and that, at the same time, there is a smaller box, [box b] within the larger [Box A] which is just full of design.
But that’s absurd.
Your only options seem to be “Premise B” or else “Premise Flip-Flop”. If you go with “Premise B”, well that finds us with Design right there in the mix at the very Root of the thing we call reality. Privation’s pains emerge conjoined with The Good. That’s just too dangerous for you, so, instead, if you go with “Premise Flip-Flop”, well that is fine, only, you’ll have to offer those three explanations and how it is your explanations satisfy what one faces in that premise (the flip-flop premise). That looks just too painful to try to take seriously. But try if you want to. Just be consistent with your syntax through all parts of the totality that is “reality/nature”.
Your best option seems to be “Premise A”.
But, again, that’s just absurd.
So you are left with one of three options:
[1] A = Absurdity
[2] B = God in the mix all the way as privation’s pains emerge conjoined to The Good
[3] You’ll have to Flip-Flop
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 02, 2016 at 09:44 AM
"On the whole, the primary problem with your approach is that you don’t seem able to present a cohesive and consistent use of the word design."
Ive already explained this to you 3 times scbrown.
I'll give it one more go. Because on the quote above your post gets off to a very early fail.
YOU are the one claiming biological organisms are designed.
Therefore you have to say what YOU MEAN by that. Then you have to say how you'll detect it.
You are simply shifting the burden of proof.
Posted by: Mike | June 02, 2016 at 10:08 AM
Christians are not claiming that nondesigned neurons design laptops.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 02, 2016 at 10:11 AM
"Christians are not claiming that nondesigned neurons design laptops"
We know humans design laptops. Or is that a contentious claim?
The debate is about the provenance of biological organisms. You (I assume) are claiming biological organisms were designed (4th time....) so you need to define design and how to detect it.
Stop waffling on about "nonedesigned neurons" because its totally irrelevant
Posted by: Mike | June 02, 2016 at 10:34 AM
A box without design inside of it isn't a box with design inside of it.
Nonetheless such seems to be the best our Non-Theist friends can come up with. Of course there are other options, as described.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 02, 2016 at 10:46 AM
"A box without design inside of it isn't a box with design inside of it"
lol wut? Utter garbage.
As usual you are completely avoiding the point and creating some weird side argument.
The POINT is the evidence for the ID assertion that biological organisms are designed. If you want to defend that assertion then YOU SCBROWN - YES YOU - need to say what you mean by design.
All of your guff doesnt not change that one iota.
All of your word salad posts do not change those facts.
It's obvious why you resort to such long winded, factually incorrect, over verbose posts.
Posted by: Mike | June 02, 2016 at 10:54 AM
Yeah, that is pretty silly. You'd think our Non-Theist friends could do better. An interesting question is how long will our Non-Theist friends keep finding ontological distinctions where there are, at best, only epistemological distinctions. Fortunately, an increasing number of younger, more bold, more hungry Non-Theists eager to expunge are emerging.
Very odd, that emergence thing.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 02, 2016 at 11:44 AM
scbrownlhrm,
I wonder -- did you spend even one minute considering my request for a POSITIVE account of YOUR position? If you did, why did you reject it? It it because it was too hard? You would actually have to examine your own ideas, find the gaps, the signs of that lack of cohesion and consistency you're always accusing "Non-Theists" of, then think hard and figure out how to fill the gaps, and then explain the resulting picture to me. But no, it's much easier to invent positions I'm supposed to hold (which are framed in the universe of your unexamined assumptions)and then prove how hopeless your versions of my position are.
“Let’s look at another possibility for you Gerald.” -- Really!!!
Posted by: Gerald Lame | June 02, 2016 at 10:16 PM
scbrownlhrm:
“How is a (real) laptop that is part of reality itself, and part of nature herself, factually (really) designed if it is a real part within a reality that is factually (really) nondesigned?”
me:
“How is a (real) dog that is part of reality itself, and part of nature herself, factually (really) canine if it is a real part within a reality that is factually (really) noncanine?”
What's the fallacy here? It's that a property of the whole must belong to every part. If Sam weighs 160 lbs, then his head weighs 160 lbs. If the universe is nondesigned, then a laptop is nondesigned.
Posted by: Gerald Lame | June 02, 2016 at 10:24 PM
scbrownlhrm:
“If the fundamental nature of reality, if all of reality, all of physics, *is* nondesigned, then the fundamental causes / forces which actualize, bring about, laptops are *not* (really) *doing* the verb *design*.”
me:
How does that argument go?
(1) The fundamental nature of reality was not created by a designer.
(2) Fundamental causes/forces bring about laptops.
(3) Therefore the causes/forces that bring about laptops are not really doing the verb “design”.
(3) is a non sequitur. It does not follow from (1) and (2). You would have to add at least one necessary condition on “forces doing the verb ‘design’”, AND you would have to add some logical connection between (1) and the necessary condition . For instance,
(1) The fundamental nature of reality was not created by a designer.
(1’) All fundamental causes/forces are included in the fundamental nature of reality.
(A) Only what is created by a designer has a designer’s 'vital force'.
(B) Anything lacking a designer’s 'vital force' cannot really do the verb “design”.
(2) Fundamental causes/forces bring about laptops.
(3) Therefore the causes/forces that bring about laptops are not really doing the verb “design”.
Now all you have to do is come up with your versions of the missing premises and justify them.
Posted by: Gerald Lame | June 02, 2016 at 10:56 PM
scbrownlhrm,
You said your argument had nothing to do with philosophy of mind, but that's exactly what it is, philosophy of mind. What you are really claiming is that the physical brain as understood by science -- that "wad of neurons" -- is incapable of producing mental functions like designing. A Christian could be expected to call on the soul to pinch hit.
Either that or you are claiming that the brain is only capable of fulfilling that function if it is the result of divine creation and not evolution. That is, the very same physical organ would have different causal powers depending on whether Genesis or the Big Bang is true. Such an implausible claim would require a strong argument,
We don't yet know how it does it, but we have ample evidence that the brain is responsible for mental functions, including higher mental functions. All that verbiage above about planets and funneling forces is supposed to convince us that the brain can't produce the mind. I don't understand how it does. All I have is guesses. But the evidence is very strong that it does -- much stronger than any of your far-fetched analogies.
Posted by: Gerald Lame | June 02, 2016 at 11:23 PM
Gerald,
No one is claiming your use of the verb design is wrong.
It’s correct on Non-Theism.
It’s just not consistent as it tries to draw ontological distinctions where there are none.
That’s the problem.
There’s no need for a Christian to try to draw ontological distinctions between (real) networks and (real) products (design) given that there are only epistemological distinctions to be made and given that the Christian is not claiming that, on naturalism, there are ontological differences to be made within “one physics” when it comes to what causes what.
You’re begging the question as you keep telling us there are real (ontological) distinctions between what is *happening* outside of Networks and inside of Networks even as you try to claim it is all “one physics”. Factually speaking, this is simply a matter of what causes what.
That pesky word “cause” is where you are begging the question in your use of verbs.
[A] Let’s define network: A composition of fundamental causes and forces (that “one physics”) which just is the totality of a massively complex array of interfacing / interacting causes and forces which actualize, cause, bring about, goals towards flourishing. Flourishing includes life, happiness, health, and so on.
[B] Let’s define life, health, and happiness, on naturalism: A composition of fundamental causes and forces (that “one physics”) which just is the totality of this or that neurobiological tissue.
See how easy that is? [A] causes [B].
Even easier, and just as (painfully) obvious: The “what causes what” pushing and causing and driving the whole show within [A] is the *same* “what causes what” which we find pushing and causing and driving the whole show within [B]. It’s a scientific fact: That *same* “what”, should we ask “What causes what?” not only brings them about but also constitutes their very being – keeps them going – right here, right now. I know you disagree, but you have to disagree in order to claim that a Big Box void of X, or a universe void of X, has within it little boxes full of X. Unfortunately you won’t find any need for your equivocation. It’s all one physics. It’s all observable. It’s all in Time/History. There’s just no need for your attempt to try to foist epistemological distinctions off as ontological distinctions.
That is why there is no need for A-T Meta ghosts, though you seem determined to chase them. All that is needed is consistency. Honesty. Science. You can have the verb design or any other verb. But you need to include science with them.
There are more networks than these, but, these two should do for the purpose of looking into your flawed methodology:
You keep telling us there is a (real) ontological difference between the fundamental causes and forces, that one physics, the “what” at the causal level which just is the totality of a massively complex array of interfacing / interacting causes and forces which actualize, cause, bring about, “goals” towards “flourishing” and stomachs goaled towards flourishing life and solar systems goaled towards flourishing life and trees goaled towards flourishing life and massively complex and intricate cosmological networks goaled towards flourishing life and brains goaled towards flourishing life and beaver dams goaled towards flourishing life and ant’s complex colonies goaled towards flourishing life and bird’s nests goaled towards flourishing life and two story houses with central heat and air goaled towards flourishing life and planetary systems goaled towards life itself and the flourishing thereof, for example.
But you never show us this supposed ontological difference in what causes what in all of those massively complex arrays of interfacing / interacting fundamental causes and forces within the “one physics”. You know, “Networks”. You’re trying, and failing, to draw real ontological distinctions where there are none to be found.
That is where you are begging the question. Epistemic distinctions (dog, beaver dam) do not equate to differences in the fundamental causes and forces (the “one physics”) which [A] bring then about and which [B] constitute their very being – keep them going, right here, right now. Time and history are in all networks and therefore do not grant any one network any factual “difference” from any other network.
Yet you want to (arbitrarily) slice out this or that part of the continuum and tell us it is ontologically different at the causal level from the rest of the continuum. You are, remarkably, trying to foist the utility of epistemic distinctions as (real) ontic distinctions.
Rather than show us any factual, real, ontological difference within the “one ontology” or the “one physics” or the “what causes what”, you simply appeal to those A-T Meta ghosts and yet you’ve been reminded that this is not about ghosts, nor mind.
It’s about consistency. It’s about not begging the question. It’s about ontology, causes, forces, and physics. Very simple. If you mean to tell us that there is “one physics” and yet you then tell us that you also have different causes / different forces (different what’s) which [1] brings about / causes, and [2] constitutes, and [3] sustains or “keeps it going” – that which is product A vs. product B vs. product C vs. product D well then you’re either confused or dishonest.
It’s that simple.
Let’s see if you can be honest with your own tools, your own terms:
Your terms forget, or expunge, the fact that prior to physics we use to observe repeating patterns in all sorts of things. We therefore concluded that on this or that *level* there occurred “funneling” of the more disperse array of X’s into the more “ordered” or “dense” or “compact” array of X’s and believed, really believed, that either the gods were busy designing or else the X’s themselves were designing dances. The planets and the suns and gravity all interface even as the neurons and the stimuli all interface, and some, well, a shrinking group of Non-Theists, really, still today, believe one of those two things, really believe that the verb, the *doing* of dance and of design as to what is *happening* really is something brand new about reality.
But then came physics and microscopes.
See, this is why Christians love science. It just simplifies everything.
Methodology:
Here is my investigation into the nature of things, into what is *happening*. Let me know if this is intellectually, philosophically, and scientifically satisfying for you as we explore what is *happening* in a few different massively complex networks. There are more networks than these, but, these two should do for the purpose of looking into methodology.
Begin investigation into massively complex networks which design things:
We can still, even today, talk about suns and planets interfacing with other forces and another trillion bits (think from quark and up, its real) of repeating patterns (information) such that even higher levels of yet another (real) trillion bits of repeating patterns (information) all begin to funnel into yet another layer of now one trillion X 100K of (real) repeating patterns (information) and, before long, a new property emerges, and we rightly conclude that suns and planets design dances. All sorts of dances in fact. If you zoom out far enough, you can expunge enough factual distinction to have no need of the horse, and just watch this planet and that sun "dance" and "aim" and "balance this and that just-so" and, in that "reciprocity" get their two-step a bit tighter, and by that “reciprocity” go on to thereby "love" each other, and thereby get a bit more polished, better and..... better, as they design, even invent, the property of "dance". Invention. Designing. It's all there. And all the chaos which was funneled into order is there to see, from quarks upward through interfacing a trillion-trillion bits of data within the Network. It’s real. Its particles are real. The chaos was real and the funneling is real and the particles are real and the interfaces are real and the Network is real The funneling of trillions of bits of repeating patterns progressively stack level upon level of layers. The Non-Designed actually did Design, and Aim, and Love, and Dance, and Funnel, and Improve, and get Better, and Balance, and Weigh, and Invent.
We rightly conclude that we actually saw something *added* to the fundamental nature of reality. Prior to what we just observed it was, truly, [Reality] and now that dances have been both designed and invented there in that (real) network, it is [Reality + 1]. That is what “Property” grants us when it comes to the nature of what is *happening*. Within the whole that is [Reality], within what reality actually, always, unceasingly *does* there is, in fact, now a brand new *does* within the fundamental causal nature of reality. It’s called dance/design.
Replay:
Turning our necks to look down into our electron microscopes, into our skulls, well it's all the same fundamental nature of reality there too. The same patterns repeat and “design” the way all funnels everywhere “design” and hence the new “property” of “dance” emerges. From bottom to top. In fact, we can even keep the syntax of “property” and of “emerge” going and talk to one another as if some sort of “addition to reality” really did take place such that prior to these dances there was [Reality] and, now, after the dances were designed and invented, there is now [Reality + 1]. Within the whole that is [Reality], within what nature always, unceasingly *does* there is, in fact, now a brand new *does* within the fundamental causal nature of reality. It’s called dance/design.
We arrive, then, here:
Non-designed X’s dance, seek, love, engage in reciprocity, design, balance, invent, lead, follow, aim, try, and so on.
Indeed, we can think like that, and talk like that, and write like that, because it’s true.
End what is, IMO, an intellectually unsatisfying investigation into what is *happening*, or, simply, into the nature of things:
Were you intellectually, philosophically, and scientifically satisfied with my investigation, with its conclusions about what is *happening* there in those verbs such as dance, seek, love, engage in reciprocity, design, balance, invent, lead, follow, aim, try, and so on?
If not, why not?
Are you happy with the distinctions drawn there?
If not, why not?
Do you think investigating other massively complex arrays of interfacing / interacting causes and forces which actualize / cause things will help?
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 03, 2016 at 05:26 AM
It's kind of comical, or ironic, but the more we push to the bottom of the semantics here and what those semantics are actually referencing, the more it looks like the whole show in fact speaks towards the Non-Theist's own use of the word "design".
Funny, that.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 03, 2016 at 05:39 AM
Gerald,
Do you really believe that rearranging the fundamental causes of reality actually changes the fundamental causes of reality?
I ask you that question and grant you whatever naturalistic reality you wish, whether the singular ocean of elementary footing beneath all of reality which carries us to, say, the quantum vacuum which is a “rolling sea of energy that underlies all of physical reality” or into, say, what constitutes the irreducibility of the “singular and seamless continuum of particle (or whatever) in motion”, or into (as some incoherently demand), say, a full and complete illusion in an ocean of “Ontological Stasis” wherein temporal becoming is, in fact, fiction.
Do you really believe there are ontic-breaks in the history of becoming when it comes to The-Now? The Big Bang is the only such possible fracture line I see. Is there another?
Evading what causes what in the mammoth array of Networks which we have yet to discuss isn't going to help you retain the intellectual right to make your odd claims about Big Boxes, little boxes, and verbs.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 03, 2016 at 07:21 AM
You just can't help yourself. You have to tell me about me instead of telling me about you.
I quit reading.
Posted by: Gerald Lame | June 03, 2016 at 08:18 AM
The Christian claim is not relevant to the Non-Theist's claim. It's just not a Christian claim that we are exploring here. What we are exploring, or what is of interest, is the Non-Theist’s definition of design, of verbs, of causes, and of which boxes have or don't have those very same verbs, those very same causes.
And all fully granting:
1 - Networks
2 - Ontic-Histories of becoming
The problem is not the claim that the universe does not have dogs in it, and, then, dogs (canine) showed up, and so for a time there were dogs (canine) in both the Big Box and the little boxes. That trades on the epistemic (unless the Non-Theist wants to embrace essentialism) rather than the ontologically causal. The root problem is the business of the bizarre claim that there is a universe void of X, a Big Box void of X, but, within that Big Box, there are little boxes just full of X, and that is a problem for two reasons.
Before we get to those two reasons, here is why the Doggy / No Doggy line of reasoning is irrelevant:
There is this: The *it* which [1] brings about / causes, and [2] constitutes the very being of, and [3] literally sustains and “keeps it going” – that which is product A vs. product B vs. product C vs. product D.
Regarding [1], [2], and [3] there, we ask:
Am I brought about by / caused by something *different* than the fundamental causes and forces saturating any massively complex network of interacting / interfacing causes and forces which [1] brings about / causes, and [2] constitutes the very being of, and [3] literally sustains or “keeps it going” any other X we find in the universe?
Of course not.
Am I, or is my very being constituted of something *different* than the fundamental causes and forces saturating any massively complex network of interacting / interfacing causes and forces which [1] brings about / causes, and [2] constitutes the very being of, and [3] literally sustains or “keeps it going” any other X we find in the universe?
Of course not.
Am I, right now, right here, literally sustained and “kept going” by something *different* than the fundamental causes and forces saturating any massively complex network of interacting / interfacing causes and forces which [1] brings about / causes, and [2] constitutes the very being of, and [3] literally sustains or “keeps it going” any other X we find in the universe?
Of course not.
The Box problem is a *verb* problem, a *cause* problem, a “nature *does* act x” problem. So, now, back to the two reasons the Big Box / little box *is* a problem:
First, as mentioned already, the Non-Theist’s terms are begging the question when it comes to all sorts of Networks, Goals, Causes, and Flourishing. Those same terms are also begging the question on ontological history when it comes to temporal becoming given that we’ve not been shown any ontic-break in any history. We happily grant the Big Bang given that all sorts of constants seem to "come from" there, but of course anyone is free to show us another breakpoint where one factual continuum of physics / reality / nature stops and another starts. The ontological continuum that is the history of the Moon from, say, “a few moments before it formed till now” is not the ontological history of the moon and if the Non-Theist thinks it is well then he is free to run with that definition.
Secondly, the Non-Theist’s terms seem to imply that the thing called “property” means (or grants) a brand new "does" or a brand new *verb* when it comes to what *was* [Reality], as it now becomes [Reality + 1] in that the terms seem to infer that within the whole that is [Reality], within what nature always and unceasingly *does* there is, in fact, now a brand new *does*, a brand new*verb* within the fundamental causal nature of reality. What is that brand new *does* or that brand new *verb* added to the fundamental nature of reality? Well it’s called “dance/design” on the Non-Theist terms.
It exists in small boxes within the Big Box, but not in the Big Box.
But rearranging reality's fundamental causes/forces does not change reality's fundamental causes/forces.
Therefore:
There are no new *verbs*.
There is no new *does*.
Big Box or little box.
The problem of course is that such an assertion (a brand new *does*, and brand new *verb* within reality) can only mean one of two things. [A] The fundamental causal nature of reality is not fundamental at all and/or that such a bottom of reality does not even exist, or [B] that brand *new* kind of *does*, that brand *new* kind of *verb* is not new at all, and in fact what the Non-Theist observes as design has been a *does* and a *verb* that has always been present within nature, in all networks, in the Big Box.
If we entertain [A], well good luck with that. Dualism might help, but that’s not the point here. If we entertain [B] well then we end with design from the get-go and, thereby, a designer.
The best option for the Non-Theist is to race into conflation and equivocation, otherwise, the particular *what* which his own semantics are actually *referencing* will find that the proverbial “whole show” evokes “design”. And that is fully granting Networks and Ontic-Histories of becoming and that is just granting or assuming that Non-Theists mean to keep the scientific right to assert those unjustified claims about [1] Big Boxes and [2] little boxes and [3] Nature’s *does* / *verbs*.
We also grant the ontic-history:
And so we ask what part in the continuum of physics (real causes, real forces) isn't part of the *history* of The-Now? How far back does the continuum, the *history* of coming to be, go? Where is that "seam"? Can the Non-Theist point to that "ontic-break", to that seam where "one physics" and “one continuum” and “one ontic-history” stopped and some other, new, separate physics, history, continuum, began?
But of course the ontic-history of the ontic-now began at the (ontic) beginning. We need not be wedded to the Big Bang here. Why? Because if we posit Big Bang Cosmology, or, it seems, any “beginning” at all, or even NO beginning, well the conclusions are…. wait for it…. all the same in that, either way, “IT” (whatever it is) soaks up, subsumes, constitutes, and sustains the whole array of Network/Networks and also the singular ontic-history of “Now” as all streams from the epicenter of “IT”.
When it comes to Boxes and Networks and Verbs and Does-es and Histories, well, it seems the whole show must be, on the Non-Theist’s own terms, “verbed”, or, well, let’s call it “designed”.
It’s very peculiar.
If X is designed, well, then, the obvious question which warrants an answer is…….
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 03, 2016 at 09:46 AM
Clarification:
"Property"
We can add the statement that rearranging reality's fundamental causes/forces does not change, or subtract from, or add to, reality's fundamental causes/forces. We only have the verbs we have.
If we believe that "Property" grants a change in the fundamental causes/forces within nature, then we are not looking at nature herself *as* nature herself. We are looking at a slice at a time and claiming to find something brand new in the fundamental causes/forces within nature. And then that error simply leads to "stacking" into "layers" of error.
"Canine" is the arrival of a new arrangement of causes/forces, it is not the arrival of new causes/forces.
"Property" at the tips of our neurons "doing" something "new" is a fallacious claim by Non-Theists when it comes to "nature does / I do". Not only am I part of nature herself, but I do not exceed her. In fact I cannot exceed her. I have only her verbs. And she has only her verbs. Such is the Non-Theist's reality.
What is needed in this conversation is what has been sought here: intellectual consistency about one's verbs, one's own causal paradigm, in all networks (and there are many of those), in all boxes both Big and small, and in all ontic-histories.
It has not been forthcoming.
___________
If the verb "design" is present, it is present everywhere, or else it is nowhere, even on the Non-Theist's own terms of Networks, Boxes, Verbs, and Ontic-Histories. As we push the semantics here, the "what" which the Non-Theist is in fact "referencing" seems to confirm, even compel, the presence of design in Network after Network after Network throughout the ontic-history of this current reality. If, then,"that" is in fact present everywhere (and the Non-Theist's terms seem to compel it) and yet we find "that" to be soaked through with frustration, with both Good and Good Minus Something, with the pains of what Christianity terms "privation", well that fact is even more evidence not for no-design but for a very peculiar statement about Man and Reality which we find in only one genre on planet Earth.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 03, 2016 at 10:43 AM
Gerald,
I did tell you about you.
I granted you all your premises.
It's all you.
Properties emerging. Designing. Ontic-histories.
All of it.
And then I pointed out why you are *still* begging the question on the one hand, and why it all *still* does not get you anywhere, well, except closer to design being pretty much everywhere.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 03, 2016 at 10:56 AM
Gerald,
In case you missed it, that business about design being everywhere, that was me, but using your start-ups, your premises. As it turned out, they work quite well to getting to this, to me:
Design is pretty much everywhere.
If you want to know why I believe that, well, because I ran with your premises. Networks, emerging properties, and ontic-histories.
A few (explained) corrections of several (explained) errors on your part allowed me to get to the same end..... design.
It's all there.
Yours.
Mine.
Design.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 03, 2016 at 11:04 AM
Gerald,
Just to make it easy:
Explaining to you why I believe in ontological design from the very beginning using your own premises as my means of evidence towards that conclusion *is* telling you about my beliefs.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 03, 2016 at 11:11 AM
Even easier.
The reason I believe in ontological (God) design is because of what we learn from nature's networks, ontological histories of becoming, properties, and physics. How some of that plays out is in preceeding comments.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 03, 2016 at 11:36 AM
Hhmmm....
Yet easier:
I don't believe in ontological (God) design "despite" nature's array of causal networks, ontological histories of becoming, properties, and physics, but "because" of them.
The Non-Theist's own terms of Networks, Boxes, Verbs, Ontic-Histories of becoming, and Properties (and physics), affirm my conclusions. As we push the semantics here, the "what" which the Non-Theist is in fact "referencing" seems to confirm, even compel, the presence of (ontic) design in Network after Network after Network throughout the (ontic) history of becoming of this current reality.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 05, 2016 at 10:12 AM
scbrown
All your posturing about ontology. There is no observation we can make, even in principle, that can determine that what we observe is, in any ontological sense, real.
So what on earth are you on about? Physics is neutral on ontology.
"I don't believe in ontological (God) design blah blah blah" - you really dont make sense and dont have any cogent arguments. So I dismiss everything you say as word salad and waffle.
Mike
Posted by: Mike | June 13, 2016 at 04:15 AM
These words you're reading aren't real.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 13, 2016 at 12:06 PM
The words here are only as real as "you".
The self.
"You" are only as real as the array of Networks after Networks after Networks saturating all throughout the history of becoming of your current reality, of which you are a part.
Ontologically speaking, that is. There's no such thing as nature's "new" fundamental causal reality.
If design is present anywhere, it is present everywhere.
Equivocations not withstanding.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 13, 2016 at 01:59 PM
"Explaining to you why I believe in ontological design"
This suggests to me that you hold that the fundamental nature of reality (which is what ontology deals with) is designed.
How can you know that?
"If design is present anywhere, it is present everywhere"
Why? Demonstrate that this is the case.
"Equivocations not withstanding"
Why this qualification?
You see scbrown, my hypothesis is that you havent got the faintest clue what you are talking about and merely spew forth content that you cut/paste from around various forums.
And I have plenty of evidence to back that up because you have been called out on talking rubbish by loads of people online. Shall I post the links again?
What I'd like you to do is write in clear English or not bother. Im leaning towards the latter as the best option.
Posted by: Mike | June 14, 2016 at 01:18 AM
We are merely applying, consistently, the Non-Theist's own criteria, using his own verbs according to his own referents. It's not a God conclusion. It's s Non-Theistic conclusion.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 14, 2016 at 03:00 AM
If you don't like Network after Network, after Network, in the only ontological history of becoming we know of, and verbs which referent those very causes/forces, then take it up with Gerald.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 14, 2016 at 03:04 AM
Sorry,
Because they're his criteria.
Not mine.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 14, 2016 at 03:16 AM
Still cant answer reasonable questions?
"We are merely applying, consistently, the Non-Theist's own criteria, using his own verbs according to his own referents."
Word salad. Be specific and stop waffling rubbish.
"Because they're his criteria."
What criteria are you on about?
ITS VERY SIMPLE SCBROWN. You claim biological organisms were designed, YOU need to define what 'design' means.
WHich you have totally failed to do and this is the 5th time I have asked you to do that.
All your phiolosowibble has no bearing or impact on that simple requirement. We dont need to talk about ontology. We are talking about phenomena - no ontology required.
So answer the question or desist from posting.
Posted by: Mike | June 14, 2016 at 04:04 AM
You'll have to take up networks and ontological histories of becoming and verbs referencing such with Gerald. It's not my criteria.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 14, 2016 at 05:53 AM
We need not fear being consistent with our verbs and our referents.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 14, 2016 at 05:55 AM
Regardless of the conclusions they lead us into.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 14, 2016 at 05:56 AM