February 09, 2005
Origin Ruminations 2
I need to write more. I have had so many ideas in my head recently of things I've wanted to write about I'm simultaneously at both a loss as what to write and trying to stitch all the ideas into one big long entry.
Yesterday, I revisited my entry where I argue for the existence of an intelligent designer, as placeholder. The problem with evolution/The Big Bang theory is it illuminates a fallacy of scientific reasoning.
Scientific reasoning absolutely relies on the examination of cause and effect and their inter-relation. Working backward from here every effect had a cause, and that cause was the effect of a separate cause, which this separate cause itself was the effect of yet another cause, ad infinum. Put another way, every effect is both a falling domino (effect) and a domino that will fall upon another domino and cause it to fall (cause). This is not where the problem lies.
The problem lies at the ends of this chain. It is possible and reasonable for a cause to have no effect, but it is logically implausible for an effect to lack a cause.
Back to evolution/The Big Bang. These are both explained as a series of cause->effect/cause->effect/cause->effect, etc. But, the problem lies within the effect-less cause. This requires that something was the instigator of this cause. Logically this instigator must have some special status. From this an intelligent designer follows. if you insist on the lack of an ID the theory in and of itself collapses in logical impossibility.
(For the record half of this is cribbed off my Philosophy prof's lecture last night, but it elaborates on my uncomfortableness with some of the related science.)
Speaking of logical impossibilities, what is the CAUSE of the EFFECT you posit as the "Intelligent Designer?" You have solved no problems whatsoever with this supposed display of iron logic; you have only placed another step between yourself and the fact that you DO NOT KNOW the nature or identity of the posited Prime Mover - and what put Him/Her or It into motion.
Besides which, what is there about the nature of a massive explosion of radiation from a singularity that implies the necessity of an Intelligent Design? If massive explosions required intelligent designs to originate, someone other than George Bush would be President of the United States.
Please forgive me; I owe you and your readers a sincere apology for the anonymous comment above. My only lame excuse to offer is following too many blind links, too late, too exhausted and slightly intoxicated. Generally I give bloggers the courtesy of examining their archives before making wild comments, but the subject matter of this, your very topmost post last night, rather slapped me in the face with memories of useless arguments against fundamentalist zealots and I shot my mouth off anonymously without thinking.
Of course, I still don't see what useful purpose positing the placeholder - or, perhaps more aptly, the fig leaf - of a possible ID over the nakedness of simply admitting ignorance serves, but I see now the history of your posted thoughts on the subject are far subtler, than this one single footnote encompassed.
Have you given much thought to the Vedantic/Buddhist cosmologies? Buddhism, in particular, seems to do very nicely without speculating about Prime Movers; both Buddhism and Hinduism clearly consider the whole universe a single, unified, conscious, eternal, super-material entity: within which, all matter - including all self-conscious mortal lifeforms - appear to exist only as consequences of attachment to misperceptions and delusions about the ultimately underlying reality. While the idea puts one no closer to knowledge concerning the far distant origin of things, it certainly pulls the props out from under many of the logical contradictions and difficulties inherent in the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic worldviews.
Sincere apologies again for my earlier rudeness. I was an ass.
Apologies again: I think the word I meant to use above should be "supra-material," in the sense that the unified conscious universe supposedly preceded and served as the efficient cause of the subsequent appearance of matter.
Marshal,
Apology accepted. I must admit though, I appreciate directness, and comments! I love comments on my blog. (okay, okay, what can I say I'm a narcissist.)