Count Lucanor
In order to be convincing, the target audience must be open to the possibility of being convinced. What takes place here, which is a common practice among many debaters, is to commit indiscriminately a practice that's deleterious to the quality of the debate and attribute it to the opponent. Fine, I shell make lemonade. Let us try a checklist:
You debate from the atheist position, which proposes:
- There is no God. There is no "Conscious… designer… first cause…". There is no need for such things and atheists are allergic to such terms.
Check
- Randomness (in respect to the universe) is "
causes and effects in a given system, which
produce unpredictable outcomes, with the
lack of any system or structure of reality". “They (matter) all originate from previous states of matter.
Check
This concept of randomness is evident in this exchange:
Ranvier
Atheism, non-theism, anti-theism, doesn't offer any explanation or a path to understand our existence other than a "random" accidental emergence of life. No meaning, no purpose, no direction, nothing...
Count Lucanor
Well, actually, that "other than" will still be an explanation of our existence, even though you may not be pleased with it. All that is required for identifying a purpose in a rational being is that there may be an explanation to look for.
This is puzzling, since the first sentence affirms:
“No meaning, no purpose, no direction, nothing...” as the
explanation in itself. While in the second sentence:
“All that is required for identifying a purpose in a rational being is that there may be an explanation to look for”.
How does one read this? We already have an explanation, which is nothing… yet the “rational” people may identify some purpose in a search for the purpose in nothing. Such rational is beyond my logic, which is further conflicted by the following exchange:
Ranvier
How can we infer anything about the “number of outcomes”?
This was in reference to the number of universes but let us roll with that...
Count Lucanor
By simple observation we can realize that a dice will behave following the basic laws of nature and its geometry will determine the possible outcomes.
So again,
randomness of “reality” becomes complicated by
not being so random after all, since things are determined by the order in the laws of nature and each event that shaped matter in a geometry that has a certain number of outcomes.
- This is why the laws of nature are difficult to establish in this instance, perhaps because it contradicts the above theory of randomness. Did they come from randomness or are these just human inventions? Is there any pattern to the laws of nature and where do these laws come from? You answer with a question to a question each time:
"On the basis of what you assume that it must "come from" somewhere?"
This is perhaps an instance when things just are the way they are, randomly, and there is no purpose in asking why they are the way they are.
No check on that one yet
Let us continue with the "randomness" by return to previous post
Count Lucanor
No. Again, you're confusing randomness with unlawfulness. If a dice is thrown in the air, the resulting number will be unpredictable, considering all the options available, but that does not mean the dice will behave unaffected by gravity and other physical forces, nor it will produce a number not available among the dice options. The same way, the cave is the result of well known natural forces, not needing a purpose. And the circumstance of someone being lost in it may also be the result of other contingent, unpredictable factors, all of which coulde be traceable to the material causes of life on Earth, without the need of a divine designer.
Ok, let us try this again to dispel my “confusion”.
On one hand you claim that the cause and effect are random events in a random universe with random laws of nature.
On the other hand, the laws of nature act upon the dice according to such laws, which is no longer random because there is an order and predictability to the laws of nature. Something must give; we can’t have it both ways.
Not to mention that the cause and effect we observe is quite logical in itself and not random, in that there is always an effect for the cause, where something doesn’t appear out of “nothing”.
This brings us to this exchange:
Ranvier
I already offered my break down of the “logic” and the rationale of the “confused” people that contradict any logic for any purpose.
Count Lucanor
But so far the only one contradicting his own "logic" has been shown to be you. You said that finding an explanation of existence defined purpose, but then you deny that same possibility.
Which explanation are you referring to? The explanation of: "…random accidental emergence of life. No meaning, no purpose, no direction, nothing...”?
This brings us to this exchange:
Ranvier
Therefore, there should be no surprise that there isn’t any purpose for “reason”, hence the bewilderment in arguments for morality, human laws, or any given path for the future. Where do these things come from and why do we need them?
Count Lucanor
These things are part of the actual circumstances of existence. There are some conditions now, from which I depart to reach a future condition.
Ok, I’m not sure what that means? The actual circumstances of this random existence render us capable to feel pain and pleasure, therefore, we respond in a certain way to given circumstances. But how does the above sentence explain any purpose in the human laws, morality or a specific path for the future?
Where does such “purpose” come from in a random purposeless reality?
This is why I keep asking for a comprehensive atheist view that makes a logical sense in explaining not only where should we go but why do we even care where we go.