This OP suggests that if we buy into the premise that life arose out of nothing, we must also accept that because there was no intent, life should also drift out of existence just as easily. — MikeL

What if many random patterns were somehow generated and some of them happened to be self-reproducing? If the patterns are subject to wear and tear, then eventually would we not have only those that are self-reproducing? For me the strangest or most mysterious aspect is the very beginning. My current thesis is that we cannot escape brute fact at some point, whether we call this brute fact "God" or something more metaphysical as opposed to theological. To be clear, I think this is brute fact for us, as a function of human cognition.

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

Nice point. This is where I'm coming from. How is a creator an explanation? How is a creator not just one more part of the creation, ultimately? As soon as we add this creator object to our notion of all that exists? It seems that any answer to the question has to be a disappointing answer. It makes me question the question. On the other hand, answer candidates obviously have emotional relevance. So that suggests that what is going on is debate over grand narratives, a clash of visions about man's place and purpose (if any) in the universe.

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. — Rich

This seems like a very accurate description of our most immediate experience as human beings. Whatever else is going on, creative evolution is here now.

What if many random patterns were somehow generated and some of them happened to be self-reproducing? — t0m

That would be fine. Conceptually, I have no problem with the idea that life might have originated through random patterning. The point though is that the random patterning continues to alter through time. This is evolution. The problem is that the pattern of life has no reason to cling to the pattern of the environmental landscape in order to survive. It should randomly drift out of life, just as it drifted in. According to the theory of life, in the 3 billions plus years since life began, this hasn't occurred even once. Why shouldn't life have evolved and de-evolved at least several times by now?

If the patterns are subject to wear and tear, then eventually would we not have only those that are self-reproducing? — t0m

Yes, but can you see what happened though to your possibilities. They narrowed. What is there to ensure that those self-reproducing lifeforms continue to survive through time when they and their environment are both subject to change? If we had a winning combination for life, then random drift through environmental change and mutation should have knocked it out by now. Instead the opposite is true. There appears to be a contradiction at work.

For me the strangest or most mysterious aspect is the very beginning. — t0m

A lot of us feel the same way and talk about it quite a bit. Certainly saying there was a beginning does not negate the possibility of a creator for that beginning.

How did the designing intelligence arise? and was it intelligently designed? — praxis
Nice point. This is where I'm coming from. How is a creator an explanation? How is a creator not just one more part of the creation, ultimately? — t0m

I think that infinite regress pre-supposes increasing complexity. It may not be the case. In which case regress would not be infinite and we can close our loop.

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

But what if something is a brute fact simply because of the way we reason as humans? Also, why is non-existence impossible? Respectfully, does "non-existence is impossible" have a sufficiently unambiguous meaning in the first place?

The problem is that the pattern of life has no reason to cling to the pattern of the environmental landscape in order to survive. It should randomly drift out of life, just as it drifted in. According to the theory of life, in the 3 billions plus years since life began, this hasn't occurred even once. Why shouldn't life have evolved and de-evolved at least several times by now? — MikeL

Interesting question. I'm no expert, but my conjecture/understanding is that most mutations are "bad" and do cause that particular organism's pattern to drift away. Or rather "bad" is nothing but this pattern's "unsuccessful" relationship with its environment. Other mutations are compatible, and that allows for increased complexity. No doubt this is counterintuitive. To be frank, I take it on trust, just as I take lots of specialized knowledge on trust. But, indeed, it's no small assertion to say that human beings emerged from muck over billions of years. It's hardly absurd to question such a narrative.

As far as the process not starting again, that is an interesting point. I vaguely recall scientists working with primordial soup to see if they could manage non-biogenesis. A layman might think or hope that this could be done. This would be more impressive than cold fusion. I'm assuming it hasn't been done. Surely it would cause a commotion.

I think that infinite regress pre-supposes increasing complexity. It may not be the case. In which case regress would not be infinite and we can close our loop. — MikeL

I definitely don't think it's absurd to close our loop. We can just hypothesize that the origin transcends human intelligence. I suppose my view is something like that. But for me this is not an explanation but rather a strategic retreat inspired by a questioning of the question. On the other hand, a final explanation doesn't make sense to me. So perhaps I'm a "theist" of brute fact. If I can understand God metaphysically (according to my current understanding of understanding), then I don't see why I couldn't ask after His nature. Why wouldn't the nature of God Himself also be contingent? In other words, why would God have exactly that nature?

But this also seems to apply to metaphysical and physical theories. Is (ultimate) contingency necessary? Is necessity necessarily local or only between entities? I ask these questions from my current understanding of my own understanding (to understand is to find or postulate necessary if probabilistic relationships). If there is radically different kind of experience in God, then the whole issue leaves metaphysics behind. I'd like to say that I'm open to that. It's scary, of course. I'm used to being alone down here at this point. Death is the devil I know in the sense that I'm used to the idea of my mortality.

That death is inevitable, and unconquerable, eternal, and the ultimate reality is quitter talk. — Wosret

But what if this "quitter talk" is used within a larger strategy for success? Do individuals who frame themselves or even the species in these tragic terms necessarily quit or fail? What if these dark visions are the dissonance in the music or aggressions against ideologies understood as restraints?

The 'seeker types' (of which I regard myself as one) are not especially interested in scientific accounts of the Universe...What they might be seeking in philosophy is more along the lines of principles to live by. — Wayfarer

First, great post. Also, for background, I relate to this "seeker" type. Principles to live by. Yes.

But the underlying assumption of science is that the Universe simply is, it has no inherent meaning, direction or purpose. — Wayfarer

Is this uncontroversial? I think of it as a method. Ideally (as I understand it) it offers testable predictions. Maybe Popper oversimplifies, but I understand it as falsifiable prophecy. Expect this measurement at tis time and place. Also, doesn't thermodynamics deal with direction? The arrow of time? Aren't the postulated "laws" themselves inherent meaning? So is the problem perhaps the assumption that scientific meaning is the only important meaning? On quantifiable matters, science seems trustworthy. But not all objects of human interest are quantifiable. I think of the intelligibility (ordinary world, language) that we are thrown into. Science emerges from that and helps us deal with that --along with other cultural accumulations.

Evolutionary theory is one of the especially-contested subjects in this matter, perhaps because it ultimately does bear upon humankind's account of itself, and is strongly ideological for that reason. — Wayfarer

Very good point. For many this is a hot subject. On the other hand, the first-person richness that is already here and undeniable arguably deflates that issue, at least for some. If I discover that I am not in fact mortal, that's a game changer. If the world suddenly becomes utopia, that's a game changer. But if the world is going to stay the same and I'm going to stay the same, then our mysterious source doesn't matter much, if at all. Only subjective experience matters here. If "God" is a word I use for the order I find in things, for instance, why bother with the metaphysical assertions? Perhaps as art or piety. Perhaps for political reasons. I get that. Is metaphysics science, poetry, religion or something else? It's seems deeper than all three in some sense, at least in its ambition. That's how I fit it into the "seeker." It wants to get behind or under other forms of knowledge or questioning.

Socrates' method of dialectic consisted in showing what something (Justice, the Good, or whatever) cannot, contrary to what his interlocutors might think it is, be. This is done by revealing inconsistencies that negate the proposed definitions. It is really a logical practice of negation. — Janus

Well, that would be if we only consider dialogues like Euthyphro where no positive conceptions are left standing. However, in other dialogues, like Republic, it is shown more clearly that dialectic is a technique of logical critique that is meant to create the right hierarchy of ideas in the soul, and thus bring the soul in harmony with itself.

It is really a logical practice of negation. — Janus

So much more than this, I would say it's a logical practice of seeing into the nature of things, which involves negation of appearances as much as it involves the affirmation of reality.

it is obvious that matter in its totality, considered without limitation, can have no figure, and that figure applies only to finite and determinate bodies. — Janus

Yes, but just as obvious is that matter cannot be "totalized" or considered in its totality, for there is no actual infinite. Spinoza's philosophy is a philosophical attempt at totalization.

figure applies only to finite and determinate bodies — Janus

Yes, this is certain. At the same time, there can be no infinite bodies, as per above.

So since figure is nothing but determination and determination is negation — Janus

See here's the difference for me. Figure is indeed nothing but determination, however determination is not negation. If we take particular examples, when we say "the table is white", then we don't really mean that all colors apart from white are negated. We rather affirm the being of white. "Not white" cannot exist. You could say that determination implies negation, but negation never has being. If I say "the table is not white", then I don't really mean there is such a thing as "not white" that I see. I never see "not white" - rather I see another color, so my saying that it's "not white" really means that I expected it to be white, but alas it was a different color.

The problem is that Hegel (and Spinoza) invert the Platonic/Aristotelian conception of desire. Here:

It is clear that we neither strive for, nor will, neither want, nor desire anything because we judge it to be good; on the contrary, we judge something to be good because we strive for it, will it, want it, and desire it. — Spinoza

This leads Hegel later on to conceive of self-consciousness not as longing for any external object, but rather as longing for its own self-certainty, where what is external becomes merely a means of self-affirmation. This desire is conceived as a nothingness - a void - that seeks to make itself actual or objectified in the external world. This conception of goodness as a mode of desire/thought is the sign of modernity par excellence.

But the Platonic conception of desire situates goodness in the external object that the soul longs for. Goodness is not a function of the will, but rather of eros, erotic longing. This is lost in modern thinkers.

Our beliefs effect our attitudes and behaviors, and I think probably the inverse as well.

Which ones, for instance? The one that is said to only be able to account for 4% of what must be 'out there'? Or the one which posits infinite multiverses beyond any hope of detection? Or the one that posits infinite parallel worlds? Were any of them the ones you had in mind? (Incidentally, the word 'cosmos' originally meant 'ordered whole'. I think the fact that this definition is now contested, actually mitigates against your claim.) — Wayfarer

Relativity, inflation, Hertzsprung-Russell diagrams, ...



(I'm not big on appeal to etymology.)

*

I think the solution to the question of why life having drifted into order doesn't drift into disorder is simple. It does happen. The pattern can't hold, and when it starts to drift we call it old age and then death. That's why we reproduce.

It does happen — MikeL

Now you are getting it. "It just happens". Remember this for all as scientific explanations for everything. Just remember to write a few hundred scientific words before and after this phrase so it looks really scientific, and you are set. Key words are thermodynamics, cosmic, inertia, entropy, endropisticoloical.

"It does happen" isn't plucked randomly from the air Rich. It is based on reflection that cellular aging theories involve the accumulation of cellular garbage that can't be rid and telomeric shortening. At least that's what it used to be.

Do you have a purpose in your comments, Rich, or are you just trying to stir everyone one up? What's going on with you?

Do you have a purpose in your comments, Rich, or are you just trying to stir everyone one up? What's going on with you? — MikeL

Just underscoring that "It just happened" is no better or worse than "God did it". Neither have any evidence and both are a based upon a certain faith. It is a matter of taste. Nothing special with either explanation and I believe that it doesn't require much to believe in either. Whatever.

I imagine there are those who believe in either consider it to be the Truth.

Just underscoring that "It just happened" is no better or worse than "God did it" — Rich

In my view, "it just happened" is the only "ultimate" explanation, which is to say that the system as a whole must be "unconditioned." Not that he's an authority, but this is also my understanding of Hegel's logic. Explanation can only function "within" the "system," where this system is the conceptual vision or narrative of reality as a whole.

If one says "God did it," then "God" becomes part of the system or the narrative. So instead of "there just was nature," we have "there just was or is a God who created nature." God himself, in other words, must be revealed as contingent to the impious mind that wants to understand. In my view, the projection of personality on God obscures this contingency. I don't claim that this disproves God. I only claim that God cannot function as a "logically" satisfying explanation. One can of course believe and accept the mystery. Similarly one can believe that science is ideal for determining conditions "within" the necessarily unconditioned system.

*I have yet to hear a good argument against the necessity of ultimate contingency. But maybe I'm just stubborn.

In my view, "it just happened" is the only "ultimate" explanation, — t0m

It's not an explanation. It's a punt. Zero discovery because of zero effort. I guess with the time now available one can watch some TV. It's fine. Exploring and understanding nature is not for everyone. Philosophy seems to have become sci-fi story telling.

You're right. It's not an explanation. It reveals the quest for or the question about the "ultimate ground" to be a fool's errand or a pseudo-question. As far as zero-effort is concerned, I think you're quite wrong there. Passionate thinking about this issue led me to this realization on my own. I then discovered that Hegel, for instance, also (for all his rationalism) left the Idea itself unconditioned. Or rather it "conditioned itself in perfect freedom," having no outside.

In some ways we agree. I think there is faith at the basis of every position. We have to at least assume some method for finding the truth and even the existence of a universal truth in the first place.

You're right. It's not an explanation. It reveals the quest for or the question about the "ultimate ground" to be a fool's errand or a pseudo-question. — t0m

Not at all. It takes lots of time, patience, and development of keen observation. But who wants to spend their life exploring and discovering? Far easier to just make up stories.

Who wants to? Scientists and philosophers, of course. I happen to work in science myself, though I'm more passionate about philosophy. It may be that philosophy or the philosopher discovers that "making up stories" is something like the human essence. One such story might be the ultimate story, the objective story, the story not-to-be-revised. The philosopher may, as a finale, put his own chosen role in doubt.

While it is easy to make up stories, it's not so easy to make up the stories that become tomorrow's common sense.

You didn't respond to my notion of the necessity of "brute fact" at the origin of any cosmic narrative.

If I may ask, how do you see yourself here? Are you anti-science? Pro-science? A theist? What's your story? What are you trying to say? I ask sincerely.

If I may ask, how do you see yourself — t0m

Exploring the observations of others and myself that reveal patterns in nature.

I am an explorer of life and nature.

Exploring for observations of others that reveal patterns in nature. — Rich

I can relate to that. I still maintain that the largest pattern that contains all smaller patterns within it must be a "brute fact." The largest pattern just is. To prove otherwise would be to include this "largest" pattern in a still larger pattern. This new largest pattern simply becomes the brute fact. In short, "brute fact" or "it just is" must be the "outside" of any system of patterns. This is not to say that this system cannot grow, but only that it will remain "haunted" by an ultimate contingency. As I see it, this applies to science, metaphysics, and religion.

The largest pattern just is. — t0m

There definitely is. Now to explore the is.

Is that an acknowledgement of the contingency of the is?

Speaking of such exploration, one of the patterns I've noticed and enjoying thinking about is the "fundamental pose" of a personality. These poses vary, but the existence of the pose is something that I find again and again. One of the reasons I like forums is to observe the "wildlife," the other human beings projecting themselves as intellectual personalities. Experimentation is even possible. We "inject" the personality with symbols and see what kind of symbols they will omit in turn. Of course I too am part of the "wildlife," and others "experiment" on me in the same way.

Exploration is detective work. It's takes time and all kinds of experimentation.

"It just happens", is not exploration. It is nothing.

Within the system we do indeed find causes and relations. Perhaps we even find a TOE. But this TOE would have to explain its own existence to be a theory of everything. What it can be is the global pattern from which local patterns can be deduced. It itself cannot be deduced from a higher theory, since it is itself the highest theory by assumption.

That's already the ideal situation. Most human beings (as I see it) have a "tool belt" of maxims or job-specific principles that do not perfectly cohere. We have vocabularies for different aspects of life that are no commensurate. One definition of philosophy might be to make these vocabularies as commensurate as possible -- to understand how all the little patterns fit together into one harmonized "master" pattern.

If there is a master pattern, then (by definition) it is simply the notion of the real. It is the nature of essence of human experience. By definition there is nothing outside this pattern, so it just is what it is. One can very well argue that no master pattern is stable. This is itself a sort of master pattern and therefore problematic. But, again, you really haven't addressed my arguments for ultimate contingency. To sum up, the exploration of exploration itself is what reveals this contingency.

While it is true that in our practical life we often accept a given framework as given, it is not true that the philosophical argument for necessary contingency is "lazy common sense." Indeed, it's a fairly abstract thought. It may even be offensive or terrible to those who think they can explain this brute fact. For instance, some people think that God, as they conceive him or it, is such an explanation. I'm saying that God cannot function this way, that God is not an explanation.

Explanation is local, never global. That's my thesis. This itself, however, can be understood as a vision of "God" as brute fact. Indeed, what is a first cause but brute fact in the first place?

While it is true that in our practical life we often accept a given framework as given, it is not true that the philosophical argument for necessary contingency is "lazy common sense." Indeed, it's a fairly abstract thought. It may even be offensive or terrible to those think they can explain this brute fact. — t0m

It's lazy.

Philosophy needs patience and insatiable curiosity. Or the other way around.

Storytelling is not a life time of exploration and observation. Patience comes with experience.