At issue is, the origin of the order on which life depends. Even for life to begin to evolve spontaneously, there have to have been a sequence of prior causes - matter other than hydrogen has been generated by stellar explosions which created carbon and the other elements. And those in turn also rely on there being the exact conditions for the material universe to form, for example, the apparent 'fine tuning' of carbon resonance, discovered by Fred Hoyle, which was behind the formulation of the anthropic cosmological principle.

So you can say that 'life arose spontaneously on an early Earth', but the conditions which enabled that to happen go back a long while before that - right back to the emergence of the Universe from the singularity. That in any case is the basis of the various arguments from natural theology, as they will then say that the conditions for the emergence of life were woven into the fabric of the Cosmos, which they take to be the evidence of a higher intelligence.

However experience shows that no such arguments are ever convincing, otherwise there would be nothing to debate.

Intelligent design just gives us an infinite regress. — Nils Loc

However experience shows that no such arguments are ever convincing, otherwise there would be nothing to debate. — Wayfarer

With no indisputable argument or proof presented amongst all of the great minds in this world, there must be a missing element or two that humans either haven't yet discovered, or will never be capable of understanding.

There has to be a truth that solves the paradox of creation and existence - i.e. If we were created by some intelligent force, what created the intelligent force? What created the structure within which its thoughts are processed? If we were not created by some intelligent force, how did something come from nothing, or how could something have always existed?

There has to be a truth that solves the problem of infinite space and nothingness - i.e. How can there be no end to space? If there is an end to space, what is on the other side of that border? Nothingness? What is nothingness?

The real question is why are things (the universe) such that statistically, they will tend towards the fastest dissipation of energy? — Agustino

But what is a statistic except the canonical example of order emerging from chaos?

And could even an omnipotent God make a world that lacked the intelligibility of evolution as a general statistical principle - the inescapable logic of stating that what works is what survives?

With no indisputable argument or proof presented amongst all of the great minds in this world, there must be a missing element or two that humans either haven't yet discovered, or will never be capable of understanding. — CasKev

Remember the lesson of Socratic humility - 'all I know is that I know nothing'. The whole problem with trying to prove a 'first cause' is that this is a hubristic attitude, and I do find that amongst the ID proponents. That is why I think agnosticism is a pretty good attitude - but not a kind of apathetic, shrugging 'what do we know' agnosticism, so much as a real sense of un-knowing, being alive to the mystery. Both scientists and the religious can have that sense, and there's no reason they should be in conflict. That's why there can be, and are, religious scientists.

@Caskev - Incidentally if you want to read what I consider to be a very good essay in philosophy of religion, have a careful read of this and it's second part http://biologos.org/blogs/archive/rediscovering-human-beings-part-1

If Crapshootism were an effective sleeping aid there would be whole shelves dedicated to it in the self-help section. — praxis

All self-help is crapshootism ;)

The chaos and order scheme hasn't been addressed or worked out at all. No one knows what this means. — Nils Loc

Yes I've worked it out here:

I think repetition and pattern don't really get to the essence of order. Repetition and pattern are only one kind of order, more specifically the order that arises by having separate things arranged in such and such a way. But, essentially, order is a determination. This means that absolute disorder or absolute chaos must be impossible, for it entails the absence of any determination, and the absence of any determination is just non-being, nothing.

You may think of absolute chaos as two balls moving in empty space absolutely chaotically, without any rhyme or purpose. But that too isn't absolute chaos, because the balls are still determined in-themselves as balls, and also in relation to one another. So all that we're dealing with in reality will be different degrees of order - we can never deal with infinite chaos, for such a thing is incoherent - the negation of all determinations is its own negation.

The table is black. There is order. The table is not white. This seems to be a negation, but every negation is ultimately an affirmation, for nobody actually saw a table that is 'not white'. They saw a table which has some determination with regards to color - but it wasn't the color they expected - so they say it's not white. This "not white" is an underhanded way of affirming its real color. Thus, there is no pure negation. Determination is always prior to negation. — Agustino

I'm not sure what the problem is exactly. Maybe someone could state it in a single sentence for us cognitive plebeians. Intelligent design just gives us an infinite regress. — Nils Loc

The problem is the apokrisis-like attempts at the problem are "resolving" the problem with a restatement of the problem in different words. Intelligent design doesn't give us an infinite regress, it says that there must be an intelligence at work which can account for increasing order.

That in any case is the basis of the various arguments from natural theology, as they will then say that the conditions for the emergence of life were woven into the fabric of the Cosmos, which they take to be the evidence of a higher intelligence — Wayfarer

Unfortunately for theists and their claims of higher intelligence, the Cosmos turns out to be fundamentally a process of disordering. It is a cooling/spreading bath of radiation. So it is a misdescription of nature to talk about its order except as the least amount emergently needed to organise the most efficient entropic flow.

Unfortunately for theists and their claims of higher intelligence, the Cosmos turns out to be fundamentally a process of disordering. — apokrisis

Says you.

Says our observations. Pick a quarrel with the facts for a change.

But what is a statistic except the canonical example of order emerging from chaos? — apokrisis

Well we have to be careful how we define those terms. Chaos and order are not opposite terms, since there is an asymmetry between the two. Chaos is a relative term. Something is chaotic in comparison to a higher degree of order. But absolute chaos, as I've mentioned in my first post in this thread, is incoherent. A minimum of order is always necessary.

So the real question is how do higher degrees of order emerge from lower ones?

And could even an omnipotent God make a world that lacked the intelligibility of evolution as a general statistical principle - the inescapable logic of stating that what works is what survives? — apokrisis

That's not the question. Of course what works is what survives. But why do higher degrees of order work better than lower degrees of order?

Unfortunately for theists and their claims of higher intelligence, the Cosmos turns out to be fundamentally a process of disordering. — apokrisis

The end of the Universe is itself speculative. It's not sure that it is like that. And even if so, homogeneity isn't necessarily disorder, nor is this necessarily final, for we do not know what will happen once this occurs. Maybe quantum fluctuations would re-create the Big Bang.

'No reason to get excited', the thief he kindly spoke. 'For there are many here among us, who think that life is but a joke. But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate. So let us stop talking falsely now, the hour is getting late.'

Intelligent design doesn't give us an infinite regress, it says that there must be an intelligence at work which can account for increasing order. — Agustino

Yes, it is a continuous exploration and experimentation via creative will. As we, and all life forms, are evolving we are learning and also trying out new things. When I learn to dance or a new Tai Chi form, or singing, or playing piano, I am actually experiment and training my whole body, all of my cellular intelligence, to do new things. This is the process of evolution. It is neither chaotic nor determined. It is exactly as we are experiencing it, a process of creative evolution.

Intelligent design doesn't give us an infinite regress, it says that there must be an intelligence at work which can account for increasing order. — Agustino

How did the designing intelligence arise? and was it intelligently designed?

How did the designing intelligence come about? — praxis

The designing intelligence is a required element to account for reality as we perceive it, but we have no grounds to that would require the designing intelligence to "come about". That's why it is "First cause". Now you will say why can't universe be first cause? That still doesn't change the fact that this first cause needs to be intelligent.

That's why it is "First cause". — Agustino

Calling something 'First cause' is ignoring the paradox of creation and existence, not solving it.

Order from Chaos
In Lord of the Rings, one of the hobbits knocks a bucket down the — MikeL

"The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work. — tolkien

Of course the analogy from Tolkien will lead to intelligent design. By their choice of analogy shall ye know them. I'm puzzled that it's 'materialist' to think i.d. is bollocks, but there you go. Wouldn't just a healthy dose of scepticism drown the quasi-Christian beast?

Calling something 'First cause' is ignoring the paradox of creation and existence, not solving it. — CasKev

The solution is that something is a brute fact since non-existence is impossible.

The designing intelligence is a required element to account for reality as we perceive it, but we have no grounds to that would require the designing intelligence to "come about". — Agustino

What's the difference? If the designing intelligence doesn't require a designer then why would anything else.

Chaos is a relative term. Something is chaotic in comparison to a higher degree of order. But absolute chaos, as I've mentioned in my first post in this thread, is incoherent. A minimum of order is always necessary. — Agustino

I certainly agree with that. But it points to a "first moment" that is a vagueness, an utter lack of determination.

Once you accept the basic relativity of all metaphysical categories, then already you are accepting emergence as being what it is about. You are offering the best argument against intelligence design. Any "God" must now be a form of immanent pantheism at best, not some supernatural deity with a grand purpose in mind.

Of course what works is what survives. But why do higher degrees of order work better than lower degrees of order? — Agustino

Who says they do? Surely it is more logical that the degree of order would be the least possible to do what needs to be done?

Again, another strong argument against a supernatural creating deity. If you want to talk about "the divine" in a rational way, there is a reason why "God" gets diluted down to a pantheistic vague striving tendency.

The end of the Universe is itself speculative. — Agustino

Well in fact it is well constrained by observation now. We know - because of dark energy - that a de Sitter state Heat Death is pretty much looking inevitable. And anyway, we are not even 3 degrees away from absolute zero right now. So we know a hell of a lot about the outcome, even if most of this knowledge is less than a century old.

Maybe quantum fluctuations would re-create the Big Bang. — Agustino

What, now you are appealing to emergent chance? Not God descending in chariots of fire to reboot the Heat Death cosmos?

Talk about consistency. :s

So the 'entropic' theory is this - according to thermodynamics life ought not to exist at all, because things are supposed to get less and less organised, whereas living things are highly organised. Life is a manifestation of a principle called 'negentropy'. How to explain? Well it turns out to be the way that the Universe actually gets to realise it's final state, which is heat death, maximum entropy, nothing at all, is to actually become a lot more complicated to begin with. And, here we all are.

How did the designing intelligence arise? — praxis

So that is the 'who made God' argument. 'If you say God made everything, then who made God?' The answer to that question is not easily explained in the context of modern philosophy, as the cultural background has changed so much. But the answer, in terms of the history of ideas, is that there is an heirarchy of causes, within which composite or made things are at the lowest level, and simple or unmade things are nearer the source, as they are not subject to change. Atoms were supposed to provide that, as they are unchanging and indivisible, thereby providing a way for the 'unchanging' to appear in manifest forms (which is the subject of the classical prose poem De Rerum Natura by Lucretius, a canonical statement of materialism.)

So, consider this question - why does 2 plus 2 equal 4? Of course, it's a nonsense question, but in this case, it illustrates the principle of the 'terminus of explanation'. It is no use looking for an answer beyond '4' to the question, 'what does 2 and 2 equal'? The 'uncaused cause' is comparable to that although obviously on a far greater scale, being necessary truth, or the answer to the question 'why does anything exist?' And I'm not preaching here, I'm trying to provide an account of the argument from a generic philosophy of religion perspective.

The designing intelligence is a required element to account for reality as we perceive it, but we have no grounds to that would require the designing intelligence to "come about". That's why it is "First cause". Now you will say why can't universe be first cause? That still doesn't change the fact that this first cause needs to be intelligent. — Agustino

So the way to get rid of a stain on the carpet is to disguise it with a bigger stain?

Great thinking Batman! Wrap your mystery in a bigger mystery. Pretend something useful was said.

Calling something 'First cause' is ignoring the paradox of creation and existence, not solving it. — CasKev

Somewhat missing in these discussions is that science is the one that has demonstrated the Universe had a beginning. The Big Bang happened 13.8 billion years ago.

If you want to talk about Creation these days, it means something pretty precise and physical. That should be a clue as to how helpful a bunch of religious folk tales gathered from various random 2000 year old cultures are going to be.

Any "God" must now be a form of immanent pantheism at best, not some supernatural deity with a grand purpose in mind. — apokrisis

A natural theologian could easily point to the 'six numbers' which are said to be indispensable for the existence of anything whatever, and ask 'why those? Had it been all a matter of chance, then nothing would exist at all. And those values don't appear to "fall out" of the equations of physics - hence the "naturalness problem"

You can quite reasonably answer that it is unknown whether those values are in any sense intentional, but I don't see how you can prove it.

various random 2000 year old cultures... — apokrisis

Bronze-age sheep farmers! What could they know? They didn't even have telescopes, let alone computers!

So the 'entropic' theory is this - according to thermodynamics life ought not to exist at all — Wayfarer

Why do you persist in misrepresenting the science? Thermodynamics says life must exist if it raises the local rate of entropification.

Science has measured this claim and found it to be true. Stick a thermometer in the air, and yes - thanks to all this human "order" - the planet is warming nicely. :)

Thermodynamics says life must exist if it raises the local rate of entropification. — apokrisis

But what was the motivation behind the question in the first place? Why did 'negentropy' become a factor of consideration? It was because it appeared anomalous, in an analogous way to altruism appearing anomalous to natural selection, until Hamilton came along with his mathematical rationalisations. So there's a motivation here, or a theoretical axiom, which is brought to bear on the question, namely, the requirement to conform to physical laws. What beats me is why you say your philosophy allows for final causes.

What's the difference? If the designing intelligence doesn't require a designer then why would anything else. — praxis

We look at the Universe. We understand that to have lower degrees of order lead to greater degrees of order, there needs to be an intelligence at work. That's where we're at. That's what the intelligence explains. If you have lower degrees of order leading to greater degrees of order by itself that is contradictory - it's the same as having something come from nothing.

Now when we reach the first cause, we have no reason that requires us to go back. There's nothing else that needs to be explained.

I certainly agree with that. But it points to a "first moment" that is a vagueness, an utter lack of determination. — apokrisis

Utter lack of determination is a logical contradiction, for it aims to be a determination itself and fails. Your vague potential is nonsense. A logical impossibility that is the equivalent of absolute chaos. Every lack of determination observable in the world is actually a masked determination. My argument is laid out very clearly here:

I think repetition and pattern don't really get to the essence of order. Repetition and pattern are only one kind of order, more specifically the order that arises by having separate things arranged in such and such a way. But, essentially, order is a determination. This means that absolute disorder or absolute chaos must be impossible, for it entails the absence of any determination, and the absence of any determination is just non-being, nothing.

You may think of absolute chaos as two balls moving in empty space absolutely chaotically, without any rhyme or purpose. But that too isn't absolute chaos, because the balls are still determined in-themselves as balls, and also in relation to one another. So all that we're dealing with in reality will be different degrees of order - we can never deal with infinite chaos, for such a thing is incoherent - the negation of all determinations is its own negation.

The table is black. There is order. The table is not white. This seems to be a negation, but every negation is ultimately an affirmation, for nobody actually saw a table that is 'not white'. They saw a table which has some determination with regards to color - but it wasn't the color they expected - so they say it's not white. This "not white" is an underhanded way of affirming its real color. Thus, there is no pure negation. Determination is always prior to negation. — Agustino

You are offering the best argument against intelligence design. Any "God" must now be a form of immanent pantheism at best, not some supernatural deity with a grand purpose in mind. — apokrisis

Not necessarily, but this is not the point here. We're arguing about a first cause now, which must have certain characteristics. That's all. So we didn't yet reach the point of discussing pantheism, immanence, etc. We didn't even reach the point of calling this first cause God or separate from the Universe for that matter. The question whether the first cause is "immanent" - what does that even mean? - hasn't been addressed (it would also presuppose that there is something which contains the first cause, otherwise, the first cause cannot be immanent ;) ).

Who says they do? — apokrisis

You. That's what your argument entails. It entails that statistically, lower degrees of order will lead to higher degrees of order. And that's precisely what is under the question. You take that as a brute fact, while it clearly asks for explanation as shown by the OP first of all.

Well in fact it is well constrained by observation now. We know - because of dark energy - that a de Sitter state Heat Death is pretty much looking inevitable. And anyway, we are not even 3 degrees away from absolute zero right now. So we know a hell of a lot about the outcome, even if most of this knowledge is less than a century old. — apokrisis

LOL! No, the scientists themselves are not that sure. We don't understand dark energy very well. We can't even predict what the weather will be in 5 days very accurately, you think we can predict what will happen to the Universe in many billions of years? :P In addition, all our predictions assume that the laws of physics will stay the same, and we just don't know that they will.

What, now you are appealing to emergent chance? Not God descending in chariots of fire to reboot the Heat Death cosmos?

Talk about consistency. :s — apokrisis

It's simply called limiting myself to proving one thing and allowing everything else as possibilities. Otherwise I'd have to write you a book.

So the way to get rid of a stain on the carpet is to disguise it with a bigger stain?

Great thinking Batman! Wrap your mystery in a bigger mystery. Pretend something useful was said. — apokrisis

No, you didn't understand it. The intelligent designer solves a problem. There is no problem that is required to be solved in order to postulate a designer for the intelligent designer himself. So why would we do it? That would be irrational. As irrational as not postulating the intelligent designer in the first place. It seems you like dwelling in irrationality though :P

the planet is warming nicely.... — apokrisis

And also, please do acknowledge how cynical this statement is. (If those reading don't understand the cynicism behind this apparently glib statement I will be pleased to offer an interpretation.)

A natural theologian could easily point to the 'six numbers which are said to be indispensable for the existence of anything whatever, and ask 'why those? Had it been all a matter of chance, then nothing would exist at all. And those values don't appear to "fall out" of the equations of physics - hence the "naturalness problem" — Wayfarer

Bleeding hell. The "problem" for science is that those fundamental constants do seem to be "chance numbers".

Everything else about the Standard Model is Platonic-strength maths. The particles are what they are due to the unbreakable regularity of symmetry maths. It is a case of 1+1=2 in that out of maximal disorder arises fundamental invariance. Symmetry maths says when every permutation is permitted, what emerges is the realisation that some arrangements can't be randomised out of existence.

So it is in the face of this fact - disordering creates deep order, the very order that accounts for the formal properties of the discovered constituents of nature - that the material constants of nature seem a strange accident.

The metaphysical questions raised by fundamental physics thus begin at a very clear and specific question now. Can the material constants be reduced to formal arguments. Can they be explained the same way as mathematically emergent necessities or invariances? Or are the material constants "just chance" - contingent facts? And that makes sense as that accepts chance or spontaneity to be a basic fact of existence too. It is metaphysically logical that there would be this dialectical or dichotomistic division at the root of things.

So the foundational question is clear enough. We actually know what needs to be explained. And then the debate within physics gets divided over how the contingency of existence is modelled.

Some go back to ensemble thinking - crisp possibility. For every possible value of a material constant, a world expressing that will exist. That leads to multiverse stories.

I prefer a unitary story where our Universe must be the best of all possible universes. In evolutionary terms, it must have the optimal balance for persisting existence. It out-competed all the other possibilities to become "the one".

It doesn't really matter which of these two choices is correct. The point is that science has arrived at some very clear questions. And done that in less than a century.

That makes a joke of theism that has waffled for thousands of years and got nowhere. World religions couldn't even make up their mind if the Cosmos was born, or was eternal, or recycled endlessly.

And now we have folk stamping their feet impatiently, saying why hasn't science cracked the final mystery? Yet these same folk seem to have no understanding of the very focused and particularised questions that science is now tackling, let alone the metaphysical implications of what now counts as strongly supported knowledge.

what now counts as strongly supported knowledge. — apokrisis

No knowledge with regards to the very far future and the very far past counts as "strongly" supported. You cannot just assume that you can extend your graph indefinitely and the same relations will hold.