The Incompatibility of God and Matter

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Consul
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Re: The Incompatibility of God and Matter

Post by Consul »

ernestm wrote: November 8th, 2022, 8:52 amAgain, I am not interested in opinions.
Then you're not interested in philosophy, which abounds with opinions.

"Once the menu of well-worked-out theories is before us, philosophy is a matter of opinion. Is this to say that there is no truth to be had? Or that the truth is of our own making, and different ones of us can make it differently? Not at all. If you say flatly that there is no god, and I say that there are countless gods but none of them are our worldmates, then it may be that neither of us is making any mistake of method. We may each be bringing our opinions to equilibrium in the most careful possible way, taking account of all the arguments, distinctions, and counterexamples. But one of us, at least, is making a mistake of fact. Which one is wrong depends on what there is."

(Lewis, David. Philosophical Papers. Vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. p. xi)
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
ernestm
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Joined: March 5th, 2018, 4:27 am

Re: The Incompatibility of God and Matter

Post by ernestm »

Consul wrote: November 9th, 2022, 11:24 am
ernestm wrote: November 8th, 2022, 8:52 amAgain, I am not interested in opinions.
Then you're not interested in philosophy, which abounds with opinions.

"Once the menu of well-worked-out theories is before us, philosophy is a matter of opinion. Is this to say that there is no truth to be had? Or that the truth is of our own making, and different ones of us can make it differently? Not at all. If you say flatly that there is no god, and I say that there are countless gods but none of them are our worldmates, then it may be that neither of us is making any mistake of method. We may each be bringing our opinions to equilibrium in the most careful possible way, taking account of all the arguments, distinctions, and counterexamples. But one of us, at least, is making a mistake of fact. Which one is wrong depends on what there is."

(Lewis, David. Philosophical Papers. Vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. p. xi)
I am interested in rational arguments, not statements of personal opinions based on personal judgments.


This is the first presentation of my LAZY CREATOR ARGUMENT. It has five parts:
1. Evolution is unfalsifiable
2. The Intelligent Design argument requires too much belief.
3. A Wise Designer would consider evolution a tool.
4. The Bored Designer Argument
5. The Lazy Creator Theory
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1. EVOLUTION IS UNFALSIFIABLE
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When evolutionists have found a functional difference between species, but can't imagine a reason for it, journals gladly publish statements of the difference with a conclusion of there being "no identifiable selection pressure" because 'soft selection" might be found. The common term referring to 'co-occurrence,' soft selection means that the gene for the functional difference is close to one which is undergoing hard selection. This 'gene linking' results in its more likely propagation from successful individuals, even though the gene is totally unrelated to any selection force.
~
It will be about 20,000 years before gene maps could even possibly exist for all the hypotheticals already attributed to soft selection. Karl Popper, the greatest philosopher of science in the 20th century, would have dismissed all such hypotheticals as 'pseudoscience' in his early years, but at the end of his life, he did relent, admitting evolution could be considered 'soft metaphysics' instead.
~
Whatever one regards as the appropriate discipline for evolution, nothing can disprove the theory. Soft selection can explain any species anomaly whatsoever, making the theory of evolution impervious to falsification for up to about 20,000 years.
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2. INTELLIGENT DESIGN REQUIRES TOO MUCH BELIEF
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Strangely, the exact reverse of the same argument is frequently used to 'disprove' the existence of God. Aristotle was the first to say that the existence of order in the universe implies a divine agent, now referred to as the 'argument from intelligent design.' The most recent popular rebuttal is that no evidence of order in the universe is even acceptable as evidence, which is exactly the reverse of the argument for evolution.
~
After discussing this argument with several thousand people, it became apparent that skeptics found 'order implies design' required them to believe too much is intentionally designed.
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3. A WISE DESIGNER WOULD CONSIDER EVOLUTION A TOOL
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This post names a NEW debate for the first time: 'the argument of wise design.' The problem as I see it is that a divine Creator might have welded evolution as a tool, which transforms all explanations for evolution into evidence for a Creator, and totally changes what a Creator would consider as the purpose of the material universe.
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4. DEDUCTION ONE: THE BORED CREATOR ARGUMENT
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If there is a Creator who intentionally used evolution as a tool, then it was 13.8 billion years before we showed up. Before us, there were oodles of stellar phenomena to experience. But the physical laws are rather automated. It would be pretty for a while. But like a baby watching clothes flop around inside a front-loading washing machine, eventually, a Creator would just get bored of the swirling pretty colors around black holes and whatever.
~
Such a Being would want to see the actions of beings capable of making choices that are at least somewhat independent of physical mechanics. WHAT IS ACTUALLY NECESSARY FOR THAT? The creation of life is really the long pole, after which everything is fairly automatic. In 1925, Engels observed that a herd species only needs opposable thumbs connected to a brain for civilization to evolve. According to Marx's theory of dialectical materialism, after the physical evolution of our species, a new selection process starts, 'social evolution.'
~
If the purpose of a Creator was merely to create a herd species with hands and a brain, then quirks of evolution that otherwise could appear disproof of intelligent design become irrelevant.
The doctrine of intelligent design doesn't entirely approve of 'wise design,' because it still lingers in the faint hope that our exact physique was intended in every detail, all the way down to zits. But if the Creator used evolution as a tool, then the purpose was only to result in a species LIKE us, rather than us in specific. The details of the natural world around us, and our specific physiological nature, would only be coincidental. That leads to the final question: how much more than a herd species with hands and a brain did the Bored Creator need to make?
~
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5. THE LAZY CREATOR THEORY
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And here is the crux of the matter. To be of interest to divine consciousness, how much would it matter exactly what life is like on our planet?
~
Maybe such a being would lazily throw a gamma ray here and there, to see if zebras with different-width stripes show up, perhaps not thinking about it too much or trying to be too accurate. That would make far more sense in the universe as we know it. After all, wise people use tools so they don't need to do unnecessary work. The amount people credit even a hypothetical Being with the power to create a universe with less intelligence than a chimpanzee and less wisdom than an idiot is truly amazing.
~
Aside from such idle pastime, what would be the real interest of a Creator? To design life capable of independent choice. For that, we know the periodic table needs to have carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and a variety of bits to kink molecules. So suppose a Creator went through the immense effort of producing the elements necessary for life in the Big Bang. How much does the REST of the periodic table really matter? If the Creator is wise, and therefore doesn't expend unnecessary effort, some combination of elements to permit life is all that's necessary. The rest of the periodic table would be kind of arbitrary to the necessary goal.
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