Why did 'negentropy' become a factor of consideration? It was because it appeared anomalous, in an analogous way to altruism appearing anomalous to 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. — Wayfarer

I don't get it. You are complaining because science presumes that "anomalies" have rational explanations?

The requirement is not to make nature conform to some particular law. It is to discover the laws by which nature is ruled.

Thermodynamics has had to be rewritten because it was realised that the early set of laws did not explain the counter-action of negentropic structure. Prigogine got a Nobel for getting the rewrite going.

So as usual, you are complaining about science being a process of rational enquiry rather than sticking to its prejudices come what may.

Only science is founded on a method of systematically challenging its prejudices. It is designed to uncover its own errors. And after everything has been doubted, then that is why there can be confidence in what has managed to survive.

But go ahead and keep sticking up for a method of enquiry that avoids self-critical examination.

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. — Agustino

What is the first cause if not something come from nothing.

And now we have folk stamping their feet impatiently, saying why hasn't science cracked the final mystery? — apokrisis

You've shifted the goalposts. I was responding to your argument of the universe being 'fundamentally a process of disordering'. I pointed out that an order might be said to exist, prior to any process of 'disordering'.

And not all mysteries exist to be solved, they're not simply fodder for science. Science is not omniscience, it is not all-knowing - and you can't expect it to be, if you think it's the product of adaptive necessity.

I prefer a unitary story where our Universe must be the best of all possible universes. — apokrisis

'Best' in what terms? Fastest route to non-existence? Most efficient at realising maximum entropy? Isn't that what you just said we're doing a 'great job' at, via global warming? Don't you think that's cynical?

No knowledge with regards to the very far future and the very far past counts as "strongly" supported. — Agustino

So you just ignore the evidence of the Heat Death being all around us? And you ignore the fact that we can look out into the sky and see the start of the Universe because it takes billions of years for distant light to reach us? And you ignore the fact that we can create both the early and final states of the Universe to some degree in a particle collider or other experimental apparatus.

Is there no limit to your ability to ignore the observable so you can maintain your articles of faith?

also, my arguments are not 'complaints' - the fact that you frequently characterise them as such is condescending, you're assuming the authoritative mantle of science, and responding to others here as if they're disgruntled customers who don't understand what science is saying. Don't think I can't see through it.

What is the first cause if not something come from nothing. — praxis

It can well be the one and only uncaused given, for instance. You’ll note that regardless of metaphysics adopted, there will always need to be such an uncased given. For instance, logically, and not playing with words: if something emerges from nothingness, then this can only translate into nothingness caused something to be. Then, in this scenario, nothingness (defined by the absence of anything) is itself an uncaused non-entity/process-given from which something emerges.

And, as others have mentioned, the first cause need not be a deity … no more than nothingness need be a deity.

I was responding to your argument of the universe being 'fundamentally a process of disordering'. I pointed out that an order might be said to exist, prior to any process of 'disordering'. — Wayfarer

That is why you need to pay attention to the actual science. Prigogine showed how order arises emergently and so is not prior but immanent.

We know that is true from observation. So if you want to argue that order might exist prior, then it is up to you to formulate that as a particular hypothesis which takes account of emergent order as its constraint.

We have a world in which we observe order emerging from disorder (as negentropic dissipative structure) everywhere we look. Even human society/global warming is direct evidence of this natural story at work.

So if you want to posit something else in addition, then you need to provide a better motivating basis as there is so much of our actual world that doesn't need your kind of deus ex machina explanation now.

why does 2 plus 2 equal 4? — Wayfarer

We can conclude that we don't currently know.

We can conclude that a designer designed it this way. But if we conclude this we are left with the question of whether that designer was designed, and if that designer was designed, was that designer designed, and if that designer was designed, was that designer designed...

That is why you need to pay attention to the actual science. — apokrisis

Sign on the door says "philosophy forum".

Prigogine showed how order arises emergently and so is not prior but immanent. — apokrisis

In case it wasn't spelled out, Prigogine was born into a universe whose workings he studied, on the basis of which he formulated his theories. The basic order which underlies everything existed prior to Prigogine and his work.

The "immanence" argument is this: that science is able to 'reverse engineer' the 'secrets of life' by physical and mathematical analysis, by examining and disassembling the mechanisms of cells, stars, and planets. The intent of naturalism is to show that nature contains its own ground or cause. At this point, it has not.

You didn't answer the question about cynicism and climate change.

we are left with the question of whether that designer was designed..., — praxis

or 'who made God?', as I said. As long as you think that's a question, there is no answer.

For instance, logically, and not playing with words: if something emerges from nothingness, then this can only translate into nothingness caused something to be. — javra

It can simply mean that the cause is unknown.

or 'who made God?', as I said. As long as you think that's a question, there is no answer. — Wayfarer

It's a perfectly valid question. The fact that no one knows the answer doesn't make it a bad question.

Utter lack of determination is a logical contradiction, for it aims to be a determination itself and fails. — Agustino

Well either you believe in the relativity you advanced or you don't. Or is inconsistency OK in your metaphysics? [rhetorical question]

The very fact of determination would demand its dialectical "other" of indeterminancy. How could determination arise except as a departure from the undetermined?

You have shown you get the logic. So be prepared to follow it through in every argument. If individuation is a thing, then so is vagueness.

You may think of absolute chaos as two balls moving in empty space absolutely chaotically, without any rhyme or purpose. — Agustino

I can't help it if your ability to imagine "absolute chaos" is so improverished.

The question whether the first cause is "immanent" - what does that even mean? - hasn't been addressed — Agustino

You are just prevaricating. It is clear that an evolutionary metaphysics is very concerned with "first cause". And it's standard answer (as old as metaphysics) is that the triggering event becomes indistinguishable from chance.

That is what we should expect from an acceptance of dialectical reasoning. If what emerges is the opposition of two things - here, the necessary and the contingent, or purposeful creation vs meaningless existence - then the vagueness which spawned them must be a state where we can no longer tell the difference. The first cause must look as much like one as the other. The first action must be both deliberate and accidental - and so also, the least of either.

As you would expect, science now gets it. In the theory of spontaneous symmetry breaking, it all starts with "a fluctuation". We can define "first causes of the vague kind" (sounds like a movie title, hey?) in terms that are as much a definite action as a definite accident.

So science brings dialectical precision to metaphysics. And it cashes that out in terms of the measureable.

We now actually know that there is a "quantum Planck-scale" at which definite actions and definite accidents blur into each other indistinguishably. We can give a size to "a fundamental fluctuation". And this starting point is chimeric. It is as much the one thing as the other. And so really neither, if we are being honest.

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. — Agustino

I only argue that the degree of order is that which is matched to the degree of disordering. Thermodynamics is all about balance and equilibrium. Surely you've heard that mentioned?

So human society is negentropy that is matched by its capacity for entropification. For every city built, a matching amount of frictional heat must be produced. There are no perpetual motion machines.

It is telling that you need to misrepresent my argument to this extent to keep your religious argument going.

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? — Agustino

What can I say? I thought you were a smarter fellow. But when you resort to arguments as weak as these, it just looks like you have run up the white flag.

The intelligent designer solves a problem. — Agustino

As I've argued, you have to show first there is still a problem. Science is explaining the emergence of order very nicely. The ancient metaphysics of a dialectically self-organising cosmos - metaphysical naturalism - is proving true. Exhibit A is the quantum fluctuation. Exhibit B is Big Bang cosmology.

So now the focused attention is going towards the question of "the first fluctuation". The point at which the "triggering cause" becomes indistinguishably a composite of Aristotelean final and efficient causes.

If you want to keep doing metaphysics at this stage of human history, you've got to do a better job of keeping up with the play. The question about "first cause" goes beyond the dichotomous categories you thought were fundamental.

It can simply mean that the cause is unknown. — praxis

I actually like this option as regard ultimate metaphysical beginnings: the metaphysical beginning is currently unknowable.

Still, when claiming that nothingness is a metaphysical substratum to what is, one has a clear definition of what is meant by “nothingness”.

Either way, this doesn’t address the issue of order-as-potentiality itself needing to predate (a never absolute) actuality of chaos in order for greater actualities of order to obtain from this chaos. I so far like Agustino’s arguments on this point, though I’ve here likely stated them poorly.

Apropos, as to designers and a first-cause-telos:

Odd thing is, designing requires intentions, and intentions require goals. A designer then, by logical necessity, cannot be identical to the goal(s) it is designing toward. Nor can it have created/designed these goals, for this too would require intentions with pre-set/determinate goal(s) aimed towards.

I grant this doesn’t disprove the possibility of a grand designer. Nevertheless, if the logic here is sound, it does disprove that the first cause can in any way be equivalent to a designer (OK, given that a grand designer were to be, it as psyche/deity would be intending toward this first cause more than any of us are (arguably) … but again, the first cause would be greater than this grand designer).

It's a perfectly valid question. The fact that no one knows the answer doesn't make it a bad question. — praxis

I'm afraid 'who made God?' is not a valid question, because 'the first cause' is by definition something that is unmade. So if the question is, who made that which was never made, then there is no answer. It is like asking, who broke that unbroken vase?

I'm afraid 'who made God?' is not a valid question, because 'the first cause' is by definition something that is unmade. — Wayfarer

The 'first cause' is just a concept indicating a starting point.

So if the question is, who made that which was never made, then there is no answer. — Wayfarer

That's not the question, but the answer to this question is that no one made that which was never made.

It is like asking, who broke that unbroken vase? — Wayfarer

No, it's like simply asking who made the vase.

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. — apokrisis

Pulling the science thing out of the bag. There is no way anyone knows what happened when it happened before any recorded history. In fact, I dare say it is impossible to say what happened an hour ago.

What scientists, who are paid some heavy bucks do, in order to justify their own existence, is to make some gross generalizations, simplifications, estimates, guesses, assumptions, and dare I say adjust observations to fit the goal, and then come up with a story which exactly mirrors Genesis sans God. Then the process of indoctrination begins under the umbrella of Science. In this way it can be taught in schools rather than churches where it really belongs.

Prigogine showed how order arises emergently and so is not prior but immanent. — apokrisis

More precisely, Prigogine's Mind created a story of how his Mind might have happened.

It's really difficult to get Mind out of everything we do.

All in all, observing the way you present science, actually represents the scientific process extremely well. Just make things up as required with the additional phase "science has proved". Evidence has become obsolete in the world of science where words are more than enough as long as it is what the people in charge want to hear. Makes life so much simpler.

It is like asking, who broke that unbroken vase?
— Wayfarer

No, it's like simply asking who made the vase. — praxis

ok then - an unmade vase, a vase which has always existed. (Of course there is no such object, but recall this is an analogy. But my objection stands.)

Prigogine's Mind created a story of how his Mind might have happened. — Rich

Just to be clear, I don't believe that for one moment. Prigogine made a genuinely novel discovery that went a long way towards showing how complex self-organising systems can arise. Dismissing it simply because you don't believe such a thing can be demonstrated might be a mere expression of prejudice, like the apocryphal story of the cardinals who refused to look through Galileo's telescope because they knew in advance that what it revealed could not exist.

An intelligent designer that has always existed?

if you wrote a description of God, then yes, 'always existed' would be part of it. That is the point at issue - all compounded things begin and end, but the First Cause is not among them.

If God always existed, then time is one thing He didn't create. Problem?

all compounded things begin and end, but the First Cause is not among them. — Wayfarer

The 'first cause' is just a concept indicating a starting point, or the limit of our current understanding.

there is a concept of the eternal being outside time altogether - to the divine intellect, everything which is separated for humans in time, is present simultaneously.

Also there's something else I need to say here - actually two things. First is, I am not a Christian apologist or theologian - I am trying to present traditional ideas about these matters.

Second, and a recondite point - 'God' might be considered as 'real but not existing' - that is, everything that exists has a beginning and an end in time and is composed of parts. Whereas, the 'causeless cause' does not come into or go out of existence, and isn't composed of parts.

Pierce has some thoughts on the difference between what is real and what exists and the difference between them. He's one of the only people that does.

About to board a seventeen hour flight with no wifi so adios for now.

It would be nice if the metaphysical detail of these kinds of positions felt better worked out.

If this intelligent creator is outside of time and space, then that seems to preclude the possibility of him showing any change. The other side of seeing all the Universe in one block history fashion is that the creator's thinking or intending or intelligence would have to be frozen in a similar fashion. And can intelligence have that quality?

I mean are we crediting this creator with daydreams or boredom or the sudden realisation that he has a better idea?

Isn't it more rational to imagine a creator who sees all existence at once is instead more akin to a pantheistic universal tendency towards existence - an urge to manifest? Then having accepted such a vague notion of the divine - with is mentalistic connotations - just drop the divine part and get on with the naturalistic account?

In the theory of spontaneous symmetry breaking, it all starts with "a fluctuation".
...
So now the focused attention is going towards the question of "the first fluctuation". — apokrisis

Oh here you go again with that irrational nonsense.

We now actually know that there is a "quantum Planck-scale" at which definite actions and definite accidents blur into each other indistinguishably. — apokrisis

The reason why these things appear to blend into each other is that we are lacking the capacity to distinguish them, our theories which deal with these actions are faulty, not because there is some ontic vagueness about them. The vagueness is epistemic.

Symmetry maths says when every permutation is permitted, what emerges is the realisation that some arrangements can't be randomised out of existence. — apokrisis

Care to explain this? To me, it appears to say that symmetry maths says that when every permutation is permitted, then none are omitted.

Then having accepted such a vague notion of the divine - with is mentalistic connotations - just drop the divine part and get on with the naturalistic account? — apokrisis

According to the Western philosophical tradition the whole idea is to return to the divine, or to drop it. But speaking so glibly about such ideas - bashing hit characters on an iPad in an airport lounge - hardly does justice to the gravity of the issues.

So, that I can be clear, it is rather interesting, from an audience perspective, how the human mind works so hard in some instances to deny itself. Certainly creative. No doubt in many cases money is a big motivator. However, the intricacies of such play are mind-boggling. One has to use the mind while at the same time denying it. That takes a tremendous amount of focus to accomplish.

An intelligent designer that has always existed? — praxis

Yes. Common vernacular would call it your mind. Most of use knew we had one until they began teaching us differently in public school. In many cases rather successfully. I'm going to start asking my friends if they think they are chemicals or whether they have a mind. Should be interesting, but then again my sample is somewhat self-selecting.

I am rushing a little now and can't read thoroughly the full comments people are making - although I will go back to them and read.

On the surface we have an interesting approach. I think that proving, as much as anyone can, intelligent design is a two step process.

The first step is to render the 'something from nothing' hypothesis so statistically improbably to be close to impossible and thus fundamentally incredulous as a theory. This OP hopes to make steps in that direction.

The second step is the putting forward of the something from nothing hypothesis as a credible theory. When rivalled against the much weaker something from nothing theory, if, as science likes it to be, it is a winner take all scenario until the next best theory, then intelligent design can trump something from nothing.

It seems that the something from nothing people are not defending their theory, but rather attacking the second step, which has not been formally put forward in this OP. Is there a defence that can be mounted in support of the something from nothing hypothesis that has some real weight?

At best some nucleic acids and amino acids have been produced in laboratory conditions trying to simulate what life on earth might have been like. That is a far step from proving something from nothing. That just shows that the reactants that we use to sustain our life can be created - which is a no brainer. There is no strong directionality to the argument of life arising from nothing - to show I can make bits of rubber does not explain how the racecar appeared.

At best some nucleic acids and amino acids have been produced in laboratory conditions trying to simulate what life on earth might have been like. — MikeL

There is a bit of an issue here. The mind is designing and initiating such experiments. There is creativity and intent introduced by experimenter. Such an experiment must spontaneously self-create. Now, should such a matter actually occur, indeed it would put the miracle of Genesis to shame.