Dunno, but it seems your metaphysical principle is similar to Rousseau, 1762, or maybe Paley, 1802.

Close enough, methinks.

Welcome.

My posts will not be huge paragraphs, Google searches, or filled with big words that will distract from what I'm simply saying. — Joe Mello

As compared to who?

And the Metaphysical Principle that I discovered long ago (and that has never been refuted by any scientific discovery, or even known by any scientist) that is the foundation under the "necessity" for the existence of an omnipotent power in the creation and evolution of our Universe is this:

No combination of lesser things can create a greater thing without something greater than the greater thing added to the lesser things. — Joe Mello

Can you connect this to an example to illustrate your point in action?

So you'll be defending the Christian/Catholic idea of god from the perspective of the traditional arguments, possibly Aquinas' Five Ways?

Perhaps do a bit of a search to see how these arguments have been explored earlier.

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!
We are glad you are here. :flower:

No combination of lesser things can create a greater thing without something greater than the greater thing added to the lesser things. — Joe Mello

Why does this feel like circular reasoning?
@Banno I'm lost again like a cat in a paper bag. You know the kind....

Hello Joe Mello. Welcome to the Philosophy Forum. My name is Javi and I am from Madrid. Glad to have a person with such experience as you.

Oh, and I spent five years in a Catholic Monastery forty years ago, although I have never been religious for a single day

Wow! Interesting indeed. I always felt so indifferent in terms of religious education/groups. I guess I would have lived the same experience as you!

No combination of lesser things can create a greater thing without something greater than the greater thing added to the lesser things. — Joe Mello

Why don't you just say that any form of organized existence, or order in general, must be created by a mind or something mind-like? I think clearer terms like "order" are easier to discuss than the more ambiguous terms like "greater".

And the Metaphysical Principle that I discovered long ago (and that has never been refuted by any scientific discovery, or even known by any scientist) that is the foundation under the "necessity" for the existence of an omnipotent power in the creation and evolution of our Universe is this:

No combination of lesser things can create a greater thing without something greater than the greater thing added to the lesser things. — Joe Mello

Except there is no evidence to support such an a priori necessity. Contrary to what he aimed to demonstrate, Newton's physics work without the hand of God. Evolution is a down up rather than top down order.

No combination of lesser things can create a greater thing without something greater than the greater thing added to the lesser things. — Joe Mello

This is an assertion for which no evidence exists to support it. That lack of evidence has induced an awe in ignorance of an explanation. That ignorance of an explanation has led you to conclude something that is already devoid of the necessity of proof, by it's complete lack of evidence. There is nothing indicating that the universe, which is far mpore complex, majestic, and amazing than any super-celestial artist, is not of itself so. I have a better assertion for you:

No combination of ignorance, evidence, emotion, or observance has ever indicated that the universe isn't great enough to have been responsible for the creation of all lesser systems therein contained.

Now that is an assertion for which all evidence gathered to date is strengthend by.

Also the concept of such a force has been used for mass genocide too many times, meaning you need to throw it out before you become so corrupted by it as to fall into the same self-hatred, human-hatred, and fear that allows people to walk the himmelstrasse, for I will not walk it with you. Real philosophy won't fucking stand for it any longer, especially not with another global conflict incipient, conducted by the same people who share this kind of mystical view, and who will unfuckingdoubtedly claim Got Mit Uns. Join us here, on earth, friend. Where you belong, and where philosophy needs you now more than ever, as the hour grows late for us as a species.

No combination of lesser things can create a greater thing without something greater than the greater thing added to the lesser things. — Joe Mello

That's an opinion. Not a principle. And since we can't prove it or disapprove it via science it will remain one. Welcome to the forum.

I spent five years in a Catholic Monastery forty years ago, although I have never been religious for a single day. — Joe Mello

Thinking laterally, you were the accountant or cook?

Welcome.

No combination of lesser things can create a greater thing without something greater than the greater thing added to the lesser things. — Joe Mello

Many of the posters before me on this thread have expressed their skepticism about this statement, a skepticism I share. Groups of lesser things creating a greater thing without something greater being added is one of the primary ways the world organizes itself, e.g. chemistry creating life and biology creating mind.

Seems like maybe you're itching to provoke a fight more than you are just introducing yourself.

No combination of lesser things can create a greater thing without something greater than the greater thing added to the lesser things. — Joe Mello

Problem is that the something greater than the greater thing needs to be created, and the greater thing of that greater thing needs to be created, and the greater thing of that greater thing needs to be created... If a great thing doesn't require a creator then creation doesn't require a greater thing.

No combination of lesser things can create a greater thing without something greater than the greater thing added to the lesser things. — Joe Mello

Sounds like knowledge – an explanatory process (e.g. historical, formal & natural sciences) – to me, Joe. It might be the worst cultural ratchet (racket?) we primates have come up with except for all the others tried in the last fifty millennia. Consider this (if you haven't already) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_of_Infinity ...

Btw, welcome to our sandbox! :smirk:

Thinking laterally, you were the accountant or cook? — praxis

:rofl:

Tom, you labeled my post according to your ideas about Catholic apologists, and then told me to look up your and other's arguments against these Catholic apologists.

What you didn't do is ponder the simple metaphysical principle that I provided. In other words, you already have all the answers and don't expect to find any new ones when it comes to any mention of God.

Speak about the metaphysical principle after you have given it some thought.

I have no appetite to engage a Skeptic apologist riding along a rail, if that is who you are.

Mwww, but have you heard this simple principle before?

No scientific discovery has shown to us that, for example, a combination of the elements created the first ancient bacteria. Or that living tissue created thought.

To take the existence of life and thought as simply evolving from a primordial soup of the elements is not scientific, but just a materialist's only conclusion within the parameters that materialist has erected.

The dismissal of this principle under the auspices of what it sounds like is not a philosophical accomplishment.

AWA, you're not going to attack me with a list of undergraduate logical fallacies, are you?

Anyway ...

Sometimes the way we "feel" is our own doing and not someone else's.

Hello, javi, mucho gusto.

Religious bible thumpers and skeptic textbook thumpers have the same problem -- they never stop reading, put down their books, and experience.

Now ...

Using the example of life evolving from the elements, the metaphysical principle I provided can be thought upon like this:

Taking physical elements and adding to them a lesser thing, such as light, to create a living being would be an absurdity.

Taking physical elements and adding to them an equal thing, such as other elements, to create a living being would be an impossibility.

Taking physical elements and adding to them a greater thing, such as a living being, to create a living being would be a redundancy.

But taking physical elements and adding to them a greater thing than a living being, such as an omnipotent being, to create a living being would be a metaphysical possibility.

MU, you are wandering into purpose.

The metaphysical principle I provided you is a journey into existence.

God's omnipotent existence would be the power behind the existence of evolution within the physical universe.

God's divine mind would be the "why", not the "how"?

And every skeptic I have ever met refuses to understand the simple fact that, for example, a living being is "greater" than a rock.

When I tell a skeptic that a mother holding her dying child is a greater reality than the death of a star, that skeptic cannot for the life of him agree. It's truly dumbfounding.

F4, your thinking that evolution is a down up order is an absurdity.

You have concluded this because the parameters of science that have been drawn by philosophically inept scientists only allows you to think in this way.

The thinking of evolution as a top down order is supported by every failure of scientists to move past theory to proof where evolution is evolved.

A scientist going into a lab and creating a living being from the physical elements is and will always be an absurdity.

Garrett, your trust in your thinking is scary.

dimo, your post is the epitome of an opinion, just like your placing science (math, the second degree of abstraction, actually) at the top of the intellectual chain is an opinion.

It is indeed a principle. But, more importantly, to understand it takes years of disciplined thinking, beginning with a line by line understanding of Aristotle's Metaphysics, then progressing from the simple metaphysical principles he discovers to greater ones.

And science does nothing but support the principle. Show me a scientific discovery where a scientist combines things and creates a totally different and greater thing. An ice cube is not it.

praxis, if this is philosophy forum, and you're on it, then why do you not have an understanding that an infinite line of finite things is illogical.

An omnipotent God is not finite and therefore the only thing that could exist infinitely.

Your confidence in yourself must be very popular with everyone but the ladies.

T Clark, show me where you have discussed this principle before.

And philosophical debate is only a fight to someone looking for a comfy pillow to rest his empty head upon.

180, human beings are the spokespersons for reality. There are no others.

Knowledge is the adventure of a lifetime when we seek it through talent, humility, sacrifice, experience, and so much more that the gift of our humanity has provided us.

I have found that a skeptic likes to look up into outer space because he has never discovered the greatness right where he stands, within himself.

Your ignorance of your own greatness will keep you from the knowledge of who you actually are until you breathe your last breath in this body and this knowledge is revealed to you in the next instant.

Tom, you labeled my post according to your ideas about Catholic apologists, and then told me to look up your and other's arguments against these Catholic apologists. — Joe Mello

Actually, no, that's not what I meant. I thought it might be useful as a newbie for you to see how these kinds of debates played out here, given the argument you raised comes up regularly, that's all.

There's always room for more cranks and dogmatists here.

Save the homily for those (who probably don't) need it and check out the link in my previous post. Or not.

Tom, you just labeled me a newbie, crank, and dogmatist.

And you refuse to ponder a metaphysical principle, but only speak about your time spent in this groupthink.

There are no crowds of wisdom, only a single wise person.

I spent five years in a Catholic Monastery forty years ago, although I have never been religious for a single day. — Joe Mello

Greetings and welcome! Interesting you felt it necessary to include that disclaimer! I have an MA in Buddhist Studies and am a technical writer, so we have something in common.

No combination of lesser things can create a greater thing without something greater than the greater thing added to the lesser things. — Joe Mello

I'm generally on the idealist side of the fence and have always been opposed to materialism. Don't quite know what to make of this, though. What I do see are some primary distinctions between inorganic, living, and rational sentient beings, and that you can't get to the latter from the former. I don't necessarily endorse any form of creation theory, but I'm of the view that the nature or essence of life and mind is beyond the purview of the objective sciences.

180, a multi-universe is illogical.

There cannot be an infinite line of finite things.

A philosophy forum should be populated, at least, mostly with people who studied philosophy well enough to reason out basic logical problems.

How can a universe becoming another universe and another universe and so on be a logical explanation for the beginning of the first universe?

Only an omnipotent infinite being can be the logical beginning of a finite universe.

Materialists are very guilty of throwing a bunch of crap against the wall and then pointing to it as if it's something other than a bunch of crap.