.Teleology is a projection of nature that explains its processes in terms of ends or goals.
.1. It assumes vitalism, some extra life force beyond the laws of nature.
.4. It is “mentalistic,” assuming mind in nature when there is none.
.…mechanistic and teleological explanations are not in conflict.
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Since mechanism focuses on means, while teleology focuses on the consequent ends they are not opposed, but complementary.
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3. This objection is based on irrational either-or thinking. As noted earlier, finality and mechanism are not op¬posed, but related as ends and means.
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Mechanisms can serve ends and ends require means.
Our inability to know matter directly is not at all like Kant's claim that we can never know the noumenon. Why? (1) Because what we know is not something separate from the object, but an aspect of what it is now. If we could now nothing of the noumenon, this would be impossible. (2) We do know object's potential to change by analogy with similar cases. Again this is impossible for Kantian noumena. — Dfpolis
First, this is a very strange claim for a Kantian. In Kant's view, time is not a noumenal property, but a "form" imposed by the mind. — Dfpolis
I have already given counter examples. I do not have the same properties I had as a child, but I am still the same person. — Dfpolis
If one is fully committed to physical determinism, one is necessarily committed to the proposition that the laws of nature, together with the prior physical state, fully specify future states. — Dfpolis
Mind in nature is a conclusion drawn from the data of teleological processes, not a premise in deriving them. Thus, the “mentalistic” objection is question begging. Rather than engaging the evidence, it uses an a priori denial of the conclusion to reject data. — Dfpolis
“Nature” is an unfortunate word to use, because, to many, it refers to this physical universe (…and you’ve used it that way). I don’t think that teleology is always meant in that way, in that context, on that scale.
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Intent as the basis of how things are—Yes. — Michael Ossipoff
Of course such matters, on the scale of how things are, overall—the matter of the nature or character of Reality--aren’t provable or meaningfully assertable or debatable. — Michael Ossipoff
I define faith as trust without or in addition to evidence. The convincingness of reasons or justifications for faith are at least as subjective and individual as is the convincingness of evidence. — Michael Ossipoff
Likewise, a metaphysical “mechanism” (such as I propose) for there being our lives this physical world, as inevitable and metaphysically-self-generating, is NOT in conflict with Theism. — Michael Ossipoff
One thing that the Atheists are right about is their “Argument from Evil”. — Michael Ossipoff
But what about those bad parts, temporary though they may be? Do you really think that Benevolence would make there be those? — Michael Ossipoff
I’ve been proposing a metaphysics that uncontroversially explains our lives and this physical universe as inevitable and self-generated …but things are still as good as they can be, given that inevitable system’s inevitable bad-parts. — Michael Ossipoff
The form which is united with matter, complete with accidentals, in the case of individual, particular things, cannot be the same form as that which occurs in the mind through abstraction, because this form is the thing's essence, without the accidentals. — Metaphysician Undercover
So the form which appears in the mind, in knowing the object through its essence, is not an aspect of the object itself because it is not the actual form which the material object has. — Metaphysician Undercover
For Kant we can't give any identity to noumena, because that is unknowable. — Metaphysician Undercover
And for Kant time is an intuition required as a condition for the apprehension of phenomena. — Metaphysician Undercover
To be the person that you are, it is necessary that you had the exact same properties as you had, this morning, yesterday, the day before, the day before, the month before, the year before, and when you were a child as well — Metaphysician Undercover
Mind in nature is a conclusion drawn from the data of teleological processes, not a premise in deriving them. Thus, the “mentalistic” objection is question begging. Rather than engaging the evidence, it uses an a priori denial of the conclusion to reject data. — Dfpolis
No, that response is what's question-begging. — Terrapin Station
I give detailed arguments for the origin of the operative laws of nature and their intentional character. — Dfpolis
Also, evidence without reasoned analysis can teach us nothing. — Dfpolis
As I said before, there is the fact of processes tending to determinate ends, and there is the conclusion that tending to a determinate implies a mind intending that end. There is a tendency to confuse these, but they are separate issues. Clearly, there are ends in nature: physical processes tend to well-defined final states; grains of wheat sprout wheat stalks, not oaks; spiders build webs to catch insects. These processes are part of nature, even if they point beyond nature. — Dfpolis
I think we can both reason by analogy and make strict deductions leading us to an understanding of the existence and general character of God. Of course, a finite mind can't know an infinite being in any proportionate way. — Dfpolis
I think we can both reason by analogy and make strict deductions leading us to an understanding of the existence and general character of God. Of course, a finite mind can't know an infinite being in any proportionate way. — Dfpolis
Cart before the horse?
One day it's "greatest", another "infinite", the next "simplest", the day after that "triune", ... One for each occasion. What gives?
How'd you came up with "infinite being" anyway?
"Simplest" is typically an assertion in response to an infinite regress (sometimes humorously called "simpleton").
It's almost like anything goes.
Personification fallacy. — jorndoe
.”Of course such matters, on the scale of how things are, overall—the matter of the nature or character of Reality--aren’t provable or meaningfully assertable or debatable.” — Michael Ossipoff
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I must disagree. I think we can both reason by analogy and make strict deductions leading us to an understanding of the existence and general character of God.
.”I define faith as trust without or in addition to evidence. The convincingness of reasons or justifications for faith are at least as subjective and individual as is the convincingness of evidence.” — Michael Ossipoff
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I agree in a general way. I see faith as justified by worthiness, not evidence.
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To be worth of belief, a doctrine cannot contradict what we know for a fact, it needs to resonate within us, and it must issue in virtuous behavior.
.”But what about those bad parts, temporary though they may be? Do you really think that Benevolence would make there be those?” — Michael Ossipoff
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Without responding in depth, evil, like darkness, has no positive existence. That does not mean we don't encounter it. It only means that it is a void where there should be some good. So, it is uncreated.
.I’ve been proposing a metaphysics that uncontroversially explains our lives and this physical universe as inevitable and self-generated …but things are still as good as they can be, given that inevitable system’s inevitable bad-parts. — Michael Ossipoff
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The problem is not how the universe originated, but that its continuing existence is not self-explaining.
There is no evidence of intentionality in "natural laws." — Terrapin Station
As I've said several times, evidence isn't, and needn't be, proof. — Michael Ossipoff
The (as definitionally goes without saying) subjective nature of our experience, with experience being the center and source of what we know about our physical surroundings, suggests that there’s no more reason to believe in the Materialist’s inanimate and neutral Reality than in is his objective Realist metaphysics. — Michael Ossipoff
But neither what I’ve just said, nor what you said, answers the question about why Benevolence would (in some lives) put us through a pretty horrible experience. …even though it’s temporary, arguably not real, and not-itself-created. — Michael Ossipoff
…hence the Gnostic position, which I agree with, that God didn’t create the physical universes, or make there be them. — Michael Ossipoff
Isn’t continuation inevitable for each timeless, inevitable logical-system? — Michael Ossipoff
Is this necessarily a religious idea, by the way? — Terrapin Station
Abstraction is a subtractive process. It adds nothing to sense data but awareness. So, the universal, abstracted form in the mind is just the individual form in the object of perception with the individuating notes of intelligibility left behind. — Dfpolis
This is clearly an error. The concept of time is not prior to (not intuited as a condition for) our perceptions of the changing world, but one deriving from our experience of change. Babies have no <time> concept, but they do recognize change. — Dfpolis
If you read Kant's Critique of Pure reason, you will see that he claims that time and space are intuitions. — Metaphysician Undercover
That does not make sense. If the "individuating notes" are left behind, then the form in the mind is not the same as the form in the object. — Metaphysician Undercover
Whether the process subtracts or adds, or does some of both, is actually nonsensical, because the mind never has the proper form of the object within, it has something different. So it cannot use this as a base to add or subtract from. It must create the form, using whatever information it has, but the created form is clearly in no way the same form as that which is in the object, it is created separate from the object. — Metaphysician Undercover
If you read Kant's Critique of Pure reason, you will see that time and space are intuitions. — Metaphysician Undercover
These intuitions are not derived from our experience of change, but necessary conditions for the possibility of experiencing change. — Metaphysician Undercover
Of course, since empirical claims can't be proved in the first place. No one is asking for proof. Just any evidence. — Terrapin Station
As I've said several times, evidence isn't, and needn't be, proof.
The convincingness of evidence is subjective, individual, and a matter-of-degree.
Convincingness for Terrapin Station isn't a requirement for evidence. It might not be evidence for you. that doesn't mean that it isn't evidence--Michael Ossipoff
Is this necessarily a religious idea, by the way?
Although if some people are seeing it that way, the assertion that there's evidence of intentionality in natural laws...
By the way, I don't think anyone has said that the laws-of-physics are evidence in support of Theism [or intentionality of Reality itself]. --Michael Ossipoff
...in conjunction with the complete avoidance of providing any of the supposed evidence
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