Natural Teleology: More Thomas Nagel (The limitations of science)

by David Turell , Saturday, February 09, 2013, 16:03 (4086 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw:You say God's personality was fixed at his beginning, but according to you he had no beginning. And the fact that we cannot truly know his personality doesn't mean he hasn't got one, or that it does not share the characteristics of his creations.-You are critically correct. It is hard for me to not to imagine a beginning for anything. I think we share His characteristics in a small way, but what that makes of Him we cannot know.-> dhw: And why should whatever personality he has be fixed? Maybe his basic characteristics are, in the same way that heredity fixes many of ours, but if he doesn't know the future, then he's going to learn something, and learning something automatically involves movement of some kind. So why assume that he had goals in mind, did all this planning, engaged in all this detailed scientific analysis and execution, and yet had no human-like reasons for doing so (e.g. boredom, entertainment, curiosity, education) and himself underwent no development?-It goes back to my complexity argument, Why create the complexity of life if there is no goal in mind? Why create life at all? I am not implying God is human-like or not human-like. I just don't know. The evidence strongly implies teleology. There is obvious directionality in creation of the universe and life. That requires a planner. One does not plan without analysis and introspection.
 -> dhw:If God exists, it makes perfect sense to me that our consciousness mirrors his, but self-awareness requires a self to be aware of, and so it also makes perfect sense to me that the attributes of the creature mirror the attributes of the creator. Perhaps rather than call it an anthropomorphic view of God, we should call it a deomorphic view of man.-You are very likely correct. We and God reflect each other,but it is always my point that we have no guide as to how far to carry that comparison.
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> dhw:I agree, and have always agreed, that nothing can come of nothing. I don't know why that makes God a necessary being. Your argument that life is too complex to have assembled itself by chance is fine with me, but that has no bearing on the "nothing" argument.-Yes, it does. We must have a planner for the complexity. We agree there is a first cause. By philosophic definition that is 'necessary'.-> dhw: If eternal, unselfconscious energy as "first cause" did come up with the magic formula by sheer luck or by "intelligent" cell-like experimentation, you wouldn't need God. I think you should stick to your complexity argument!-Your if, "the unselfconscious energy" (ue) as a first cause is an extremely unreasonable proposal for my 'planner' of complexity. 'Sheer luck' is chance in sheep's clothing. Your ue is a philosophic dead end, because it requires chance, which you, yourself, have rejected. -You've said you reject the idea of God because you cannot imagine such a being. I can't either. You have more imagination than I do. You are a playwright with lots of imagination behind your work, but you won't carry our agreements to a logical conclusion despite the imagination problem. God must exist to explain what we both see.