Taking my lead from Plato in the Sophist, I understand "to exist" as convertible with "to be able to act.". If "pure concepts of understanding" do not exist, they can do nothing. So, we can safely ignore them in all contexts. On the other hand, if you insist that they do something, it is a corruption of language to say that they do not exist.
By the way, existence is transcendental, applying to all reality.
Nothing can "create" anything unless it is operational -- and nothing can be operational unless it actually exists. Thus, it is incoherent to say they do not exist. How can anyone say anything relevant to reality about what does not exist?
I can't relate this sentence to anything in my experience. Perhaps you could illustrate it with an example?
It is not a predicate in Aristotelian metaphysics either. That does not mean that we have no concept of existence. The concept of existence reflects an indeterminate capacity to act. The specification of a being's capacity to act is given by its essence.
I have no idea what this means. We reason to the existence of God. And, we can reason hypothetically, prescinding from the question of actual existence. I will grant that we cannot reason to existence except from existence.
This sentence is incoherent. To know something specific (a tode ti -- a "this something"), we must have some means of ostentation, of identification, of pointing "it" out. If we cannot do that, and Kant says we can't with noumena, then we can't know "it" vs. something else. We can know, by analogy with our continuing experience of novelty, that there are things we do not know, but absent some means of identification, we cannot say it is a this rather than that that we do not know.
The same sentence assumes facts not in evidence. We do not know that there are any intrinsic limitations to our understanding, nor is it clear that we ever could know that there were such limits. To know that there were such limits we would have to know that there were facts we could not know -- a contradiction in terms.
— Dfpolis
Perhaps, but not to the separation of noumena and phenomena that Kant posits. I know of no sound argument that would lead us to reject the notion that phenomena are how noumena reveal their reality to us. Do you have even one?
I accept that you are not a Kantian, but I do not see that I am misunderstanding Kant.
The more general question is why have any explanations at all? Aristotle is on the right track in beginning his Metaphysics by observing that "All humans by nature desire to know." To be human is to be knowledge-seeking. That is the reason that many young children tire parents out with incessant "Whys?" Aristotle, after years of studying his predecessors, found that there are four basic types of explanation: material, formal, efficient and final. What stands before us, the given (datum), is because it is made of this stuff, in this form, by this agent, for this end.
Of course, not everyone notices, or cares, about the same projections of reality. If you go to a good movie with articulate friends, the conversation after can turn to plotting, character development, set design, costuming, cinematography, scoring or a myriad of other aspects which integrate to give the movie its impact. Not everyone will notice or care about many of these aspects, but they are still part of what is given in the movie. What anyone notices or cares about will depend on their nature and experiential background. It is the same with modes of explanation.
I did not say that some phenomena yield more readily to a teleological approach to prediction than to a mechanistic one to justify teleology generally, but to rebut the often-heard objection that it has no predictive value. Of course it does. Most predictions of human behavior are based on understanding individual goals.
While increasing predictability gives theories (modes of understanding) utility and evolutionary survival value, there is more to the human desire to know. We not only seek utility, but intellectual satisfaction. That is why humans study fields such as theoretical physics, mathematics, metaphysics and theology without hope of application.
As I just said, it was not intended to be. "Ought" is based on the relation of means to ends. If we are ordered to some natural completion, to some end, then we ought to effect adequate means. (This is, itself, a teleological argument.) As we have a natural desire to know, then we ought to employ the means of satisfying that need. Aristotle's study of his predecessors can be seen as an empirical study of the modes of explanation that satisfy human curiosity. Among them is the teleological mode.
If we have an end (telos), how can we not have teleology? The idea of teleology is that the end is latent in a prior state because the on-going operation of some intentionality (e.g. a human commitment, or the laws of nature) will bring it to fruition. How can we even speak of an end if this is not so?
I'm not sure why I would have to accept this. Some deflationist view could just say "to exist" is used in a variety of ways depending on what you mean. For example, numbers "exist" in some sense, idea exist in some ways, middle earth in the LOTR "exists" — Marty
However, Kant had already demonstrated causation to be ideal at the point he addressed the idea of existence not being a real predicate. — Marty
If indeed existence wasn't a real predicate, then the application of concepts like, "the ability to act" could have applied t — Marty
It is not "the ability to act" in a being that's existence, it's merely existence itself separate from any predication for Kant. — Marty
how can their be a reality at all to experience, unless we have transcendental tools to experience it in the first place? — Marty
That is why in order to form knoweldge, we cannot have concepts alone but also use our sensibility in receptivity. — Marty
The question is worked backwards for Kant: how can their be a reality at all to experience, unless we have transcendental tools to experience it in the first place? — Marty
You would have to somehow create a theory in which we readily just receive the world without any cognitive tools. — Marty
However, Kant has already told us that intuition without concepts are empty, as concepts without intuitions are blind. Such content could never get us any form of justification without the other, and never enter into the logical space of reasons. — Marty
The categories of space-time are constitutive of all experiences, as all experiences will include them. In terms of the pure concepts of understanding: quality, quantity, modality and relation are also contained as forms of existence. — Marty
It's not only that we have no concept of existence, it is that existence isn't a concept! — Marty
For even you yourself changed the prediction of "existence" to mean "the ability to act" — something, in which for Kant, would have been independently applied to existence. — Marty
It means what I have now written above. — Marty
If we do have such humility, it would already seem to point out some utter limitations. Thus creating the Noumea. — Marty
As I take it the only reasonable interpretation of Kant is the dual-aspect interpretation. — Marty
I'm not asking the general question. I'm asking the specific one: why teleological explanations at all? I'm not talking about a universal skeptic, just a teleological one. For there could be the possibility of someone inventing a fifth form of causation. One compatible with the others, yet used specifically because the other forms of causation under-determine it's form of explanation. However, the form of causation is used ad-hoc. The person then can't appeal to "I'm just asking questions! Just the facts, please!" — Marty
I'm also looking for a reason why future mechanical explanations could not replace teleological predictions. — Marty
Why does under-determination stand as an argument at all? — Marty
Yes, but then one could just tailor teleological causation to things agents have and not the entire world. — Marty
The further question is whether or not we should apply this to the natural world. — Marty
How do we form a criterion to know which one is teleological and the other one not to be? — Marty
Teleology = mechanism + purpose (extra weight) — TheMadFool
Teleology does not entail mechanism. — Dfpolis
No but teleology = mechanism + purpose — TheMadFool
No, it does not. The concept of teleology is that agents act for ends. It does not presuppose any specific mechanisms (say classical or modern physics). So, it does not entail what is required to give a mechanistic explanation. — Dfpolis
Then why are you putting mechanism and teleology in the blender - trying to mix it so we can't tell the difference? — TheMadFool
This violates the principle that no signal can travel faster then the speed of light. — Dfpolis
Very small and irrelevant point. In a vacuum. In media light travels slower. Cherenkov radiation is an example of something traveling faster than light in that medium. Mix the media and under the right circumstances, I travel faster than the speed of light! — tim wood
I do not see that I have. No one else seems confused. Is there some specific thing I said that you think confuses the two? — Dfpolis
So, if every living thing has its own goal then isn't the one single purpose, which I think would vindicate your claim, missing? — TheMadFool
I discuss the evidence for the existence of goals in evolution in my paper. There is no claim that the goal of the cosmos is a single species. — Dfpolis
Imagine two worlds of fish and water, A and B. World B has a God but world A doesn't. World A corresponds to only mechanism and world B corresponds to teleology.
In world A, random mutations in genes colliding with the environment would be able to produce streamlined bodies for fish.
In world B, God would purposefully make fish bodies streamlined.
To an observer from outside the two worlds would appear indistinguishable but, in the absence of knowledge about God's existence or non existence, the observer would choose the simpler theory and say mechanism, not teleology. — TheMadFool
If "God" then he wouldn't be omniscient. Is it that he's just tinkering around with toys? — TheMadFool
Also, to an evolutionary paradigm, teleology is redundant isn't it? I don't know how to say this but imagine a world with certain rules and we're in it. It's to be expected that our form and function would be shaped by the rules in that world. It would ''appear" as though we were designed for that particular world. Yet, there is no purpose or teleology as such. Just an inevitable result of constraints (laws/rules) shaping matter and energy. I guess I'm saying evolution would be indistinguishable from teleology. If so, Ockham's razor would have us accept simple mechanistic evolution over teleology. — TheMadFool
Imagine two worlds of fish and water, A and B. World B has a God but world A doesn't. World A corresponds to only mechanism and world B corresponds to teleology. — TheMadFool
In world A, random mutations in genes colliding with the environment would be able to produce streamlined bodies for fish.
In world B, God would purposefully make fish bodies streamlined. — TheMadFool
To an observer from outside the two worlds would appear indistinguishable but, in the absence of knowledge about God's existence or non existence, the observer would choose the simpler theory and say mechanism, not teleology. — TheMadFool
There is no claim that the goal of the cosmos is a single species. — Dfpolis
That means the universe has no teleology. Shouldn’t it be having one if your theory is true? — TheMadFool
so they programmed the physics of its function and let a computer test them on a form over and over, just like evolution. — Christoffer
If there was a God, that god would most likely just have "started the universe", the simulation argument. We haven't been specifically created, we would be the result of the evolution of the universe. — Christoffer
In that case, our known universe, in which our laws of physics etc. exist, would be its own and the existence of a God is irrelevant to us because we are most likely irrelevant to that god. — Christoffer
it's illogical that a God would specifically design something over letting it evolve itself. — Christoffer
If there was a god, it would exist outside of this universe and wouldn't care for the internals of this universe. — Christoffer
I'm a constant skeptic so I would never accept the idea that there is a god even outside our universe, — Christoffer
In general, logic still points to there being a physical reaction or change that made the big bang since the mathematical statistics points to dead matter being the majority of our universe and organic matter or thinking creatures/beings to be in so low quantity that it's illogical that its likely there to be an intentional creation and more of a reaction. — Christoffer
This concept is why I reject any notion that God has any link or guidance towards us humans because it's a self-indulgent, narcissistic delusion of grandeur about ourselves and our meaning to the universe. — Christoffer
If there was a god, he logically and statistically wouldn't know about us, at all and he wouldn't care. — Christoffer
This is the well-known generate and test strategy of AI, which I discuss in my paper. — Dfpolis
The problem is that physics tells us that there are no random processes except possibly quantum measurement. That means that before the advent of intelligent life, the evolution of the cosmos and its biological species was completely deterministic (as is the design program you cite). The generate and test strategy only works because the range of acceptable designs is implicit in the preprogrammed test criteria. So, there is no question of having ends, there is only a question of how those ends are encoded.
As for the simulation argument, it has many logical flaws. One of the most glaring is that whether or not the universe will evolve life depends on the precise values of its physical constants. The chance of a simulation having the right combination is minuscule (cf. the physics behind the fine-tuning argument.) — Dfpolis
This is a faith claim, the truth of which is, at best, unclear. — Dfpolis
On what assumptions? Please note that I see evolution as an excellent and well-founded scientific theory. My question if why it would be illogical for God to choose other means to effect His ends? This seems like the kind of a priori reasoning that is antithetical to empirical science. — Dfpolis
Sound arguments demonstrating the existence of God do so on the basis of His concurrent, ongoing operation within the universe --on His immanence rather than on His transcendence. — Dfpolis
find this attitude troubling, for it is unscientific. A scientific mindset requires openness to the data of experience -- to what is given -- not being closed to possibilities a priori. — Dfpolis
So, the fact that a bulk of a pyramid's substance is not in its capstone is an argument that the capstone is not intentionally placed? — Dfpolis
I do not think that seeing God as relevant to human existence requires a grandiose self image. First, data-based arguments show that God continually maintains our existence. Thus, it is merely acknowledging truth to see ourselves as utterly dependent on God. Second, as human self-realization can only occur under laws of nature maintained by God, any successful human ethics must be based on an adequate understanding of that reality. It is not that God makes up arbitrary laws for us to follow, but that God has authored our entire ontology — Dfpolis
Your view would seem to require a God Who cannot but attend to a single species -- so that attending to us would occupy God's entire attention and make us the center of reality. Mine sees God as capable of more than such tunnel vision and concern. In short, you have constructed and rejected a straw man. — Dfpolis
Again, this only applies to your straw man god, not to the infinite and omniscient God of classical theism. — Dfpolis
You method seems to be to replace the God whose existence has been proven by Aristotle, Ibn Sina, the Buddhist Logicians and Aquinas with one that virtually no one believes in, but which you can easily reject. — Dfpolis
What I was referring to is that if I were to play devil's advocate with the idea of a god, it would in that case, most probably, be one who has no idea of our existence. — Christoffer
I do not believe in god since there is no evidence for there to be — Christoffer
But, the optimal function of a system or object can still reach its optimal form within the system it exists within at the moment. That, however, doesn't mean it has reached its final form. — Christoffer
we, as we are now, are not the final form and not intended because we are still evolving. — Christoffer
But, the optimal function of a system or object can still reach its optimal form within the system it exists within at the moment — Christoffer
I recommend that you try and understand the conclusion drawn from my entire text instead of deconstructing singular sentences, that is not how the text should be read. — Christoffer
If a god has the all-power knowledge to create at an instant, knowing what is the optimal form of anything, that god would have created that form directly and not allow for evolutionary processes both in biology, — Christoffer
There are no sound arguments for god in the first place. — Christoffer
But people seem to be too biased in their own faith and will only argue within their realm of comfort. — Christoffer
Openness is not the same as being skeptical of the answers given or the observations made. To be skeptical is more scientific than any other way of thinking. Just being "open" means you are never critical and if not, you never try and test your own ideas. — Christoffer
In relation to the existence of God, I will never accept the existence of a god if we can't prove it. — Christoffer
So, the fact that a bulk of a pyramid's substance is not in its capstone is an argument that the capstone is not intentionally placed? — Dfpolis
I see no relation with this example since I was talking about the massive scale of the universe compared to our existence. — Christoffer
If we were the point of the universe, by a creator, there's a big lack of logic in creating that scale of the universe just to have us in it. — Christoffer
You compare that scale to the foundation of a pyramid. If you add nearly an infinite scale to that foundation, then it would show just how irrational that shape would be. — Christoffer
Historians, anthropologists, psychologists and sociologists all point to how gods, God, religion and so on, formed based upon an inability to explain the world around us at the time we couldn't explain through facts and science. — Christoffer
It took us to the 20th century to truly be able to explain the world through the methods we came up with. — Christoffer
it's easy to see how people still try and argue for the existence of God. But it's irrational, illogical, unsupported by evidence and in psychology, it's easy to see how the concept of no purpose or external meaning to our lives frightens us into holding on to a belief that gives us purpose and meaning. But that doesn't mean it's the truth. — Christoffer
No data-based arguments show anything that prove God in any way. Sloppy logic in all these arguments that does not work when deconstructed. — Christoffer
To call my breakdown of the concept of God within the realm of science to be a strawman because it doesn't include your personal perception of the concept of God is seriously flawed as an argument. — Christoffer
The theistic concept of the classical God has changed over and over every time science proved something to be something else than what that religious belief thought at the time. — Christoffer
Philosophers before we established scientific methods, worked within the belief of those times and within the history of science, there was a lot of progress shut down by the church if they couldn't apply the science onto the religious concepts at that time. — Christoffer
I can easily reject any concepts of god through a proper philosophical deconstruction of those arguments. Which has been done by many philosophers throughout history. But it's convenient to ignore them in order to support your already established beliefs, right? Isn't that a biased point of view? — Christoffer
Dfpolis, thanks for this OP — aporiap
For the simple reason that it just seems short sighted to ascribe one specific goal [or even a set of goals] to a physical object or biological entity [it's something like functional fixedness]. — aporiap
Secondly, different objects can perform the same function — aporiap
It's not the object that intrinsically has an end or goal, its the context with the object and their relationships that makes the object repeatedly reach a particular end. — aporiap
I think I'd be fine with the idea of ends if they're restricted to a given contextual relationship [given the context: the setting of cold weather, the man who is cold, the blanket in the room -- the blanket will reach end of keeping man warm]. — aporiap
How does teleology without God work? — TheMadFool
I also think you're conflating coincidence with teleology. Let me refer to the example of the spider web you gave in the last post. To say that spiders build webs to catch insects would be question begging - you're already assuming telos in that statement. — TheMadFool
One explanation for spider webs and their ability to catch insects is simple coincidence. — TheMadFool
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