rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Pesmard Flurrmn) (01/23/85)
> Purpose/Design implies Intelligence which implies Personality. There. > Of course you recognize the Telelogical Argument for the existence of God. > The counters have been: 1) not everything has a purpose - but this still > doesn't speak to things that do, 2) nothing has purpose - which I think runs > counter to what we observe and makes it pretty hard to get from work to home > and back again the next day. Let's look at a doorknob. What happens after it falls off a door, after the building has been torn down, after civilization itself has disintegrated at the hands of ... What is its purpose? No, not now, I mean then. In the future. The point being: purpose exists only in context. Purpose exists for the doorknob at this moment clearly because of its situation owing itself to the elements of design and planning. Which brings us to 3) : things have purpose only in the context of their usage. What is the purpose of a fish? Of a rock? To have some predesignated purpose prior to actual usage or non-usage is to ASSUME a predesigner. It's putting the cart before the horse. Like when Jeff Sargent (in net.singles, where he has on rare occasions been known to post) declared that "sex is intended as a total union". To assume that because we see/envision a certain purpose for something, it must have been "designed" with that purpose in mind, is blatantly erroneous. And I has thought such teleological arguments had been debunked as anthropocentric and presumptive. So why are you bringing them into the discussion? (By the way, is "telelogical" related to logic transmitted over telephone or telecommunications lines? :-) To use a particular example, let's use the evolutionary model, which states that minor mutations in life forms result in either a beneficial or a detrimental change in the characteristic makeup of an organism. The mutations that are beneficial survive. The detrimental ones don't. And, in fact, the non-mutations don't either, since the beneficial ones result in organisms that survive better and "beat out" the non-mutated competition in the race for survival. (Grossly and inadequately oversimplified, but hopefully you get the idea.) Were the beneficial mutations planned/designed? Were they destined to survive? Leading to "Why are WE here?" type questions. "WE" are here because "we" are those who survived. If it wasn't us, it would have been someone or someTHING else. You might say (as you have) that these are not "good" answers that satisfy people. Well, people seek "good" answers when asking questions on income tax (like "you will get a $1000 refund") but that doesn't mean they're going to get them. The fact is, and I know that this has been and will continue to be denied, that many people dislike evolution, and all of this non-teleological bent, simply because they don't like it: it doesn't fit with the way they would like the world to be, it leaves their life and "destiny" in the realm of chance or luck, or (worse?) a sort of modified Heisenbergian determinism that lacks a determiner, leaving *them* without a predefined "purpose". And they simply don't like that. So they choose another explanation of the universe, a primitive one in existence for thousands (perhaps millions) of years, that has been eroded and worn down over the years and shown to be flawed and full of presumptive holes, but one which they choose to continue to believe (or revert to) because it fills their needs, regardless of the actual truth of things. It is in this that the greatest danger of religion lies: the notion of faith, as Sargent has quoted, being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see, REGARDLESS of the evidence of the real world, a sort of glorification of ignorance and know-nothingism and (of course) wishful thinking. Often at the expense of those who would commit sacrilege by questioning such a status quo. > Let's weigh evidence. Make a case. I don't expect to > change your mind, only to hear what you have to say. Which should be > interesting because sometimes you DO have some good stuff to say. Uh oh. Compliments (of a sort) from Ken. I should respond in kind, but the absolute best that comes to mind is "You're less presumptive and abrasive than usual." But at least you're trying. (Readers are invited to fill in a joke at this point regarding some double entendre within the previous sentence.) > Feel free to bring in other sources (quotes?!) if you wish. Thanks, but no thanks. Perhaps, later on, I'll quote Dr. Frisken... > But what do you say to someone who > looks at the universe and sees order, design, - the face of God. I say "Look again. You're imposing your own preconceived criteria onto the universe, choosing to believe that someone/something planned the universe to be exactly as you picture it to be through your not so careful analysis." I'd also say that, if there is a god, you still seem to be engaging in preconception of the worst sort when you pigeonhole the universe into the particular design that you believe it to have, believing that certain books offering a rather limited and primitive picture of creation hold more truth than the evidence of the world around us, and I'd say that the picture that careful analysis of the world provides is much more fascinating than the wishful thinking children's fantasy version (AND, that you limit the power of the god you believe in when you believe YOUR version of the truth over that of the real world IT created, according to your belief). > And please, leave the 'wish it's so' argument behind. Sorry. Can't do that. Not when, at the very bottom, it's the only thing supporting such teleological arguments as you've described. But *I'll* leave it behind if you (and others) will. Which will leave very little to argue about. Wouldn't that be nice? > And oh yes. You can have the last word. Is this it? :-) -- "Does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body? I dunno." Rich Rosen {ihnp4 | harpo}!pyuxd!rlr
rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Pesmard Flurrmn) (01/29/85)
> Purpose/Design implies Intelligence which implies Personality. There. > Of course you recognize the Telelogical Argument for the existence of God. > The counters have been: 1) not everything has a purpose - but this still > doesn't speak to things that do, 2) nothing has purpose - which I think runs > counter to what we observe and makes it pretty hard to get from work to home > and back again the next day. Let's look at a doorknob. What happens after it falls off a door, after the building has been torn down, after civilization itself has disintegrated at the hands of ... What is its purpose? No, not now, I mean then. In the future. The point being: purpose exists only in context. Purpose exists for the doorknob at this moment clearly because of its situation owing itself to the elements of design and planning. Which brings us to 3) : things have purpose only in the context of their usage. What is the purpose of a fish? Of a rock? To have some predesignated purpose prior to actual usage or non-usage is to ASSUME a predesigner. It's putting the cart before the horse. Like when Jeff Sargent (in net.singles, where he has on rare occasions been known to post) declared that "sex is intended as a total union". To assume that because we see/envision a certain purpose for something, it must have been "designed" with that purpose in mind, is blatantly erroneous. And I has thought such teleological arguments had been debunked as anthropocentric and presumptive. So why are you bringing them into the discussion? (By the way, is "telelogical" related to logic transmitted over telephone or telecommunications lines? :-) To use a particular example, let's use the evolutionary model, which states that minor mutations in life forms result in either a beneficial or a detrimental change in the characteristic makeup of an organism. The mutations that are beneficial survive. The detrimental ones don't. And, in fact, the non-mutations don't either, since the beneficial ones result in organisms that survive better and "beat out" the non-mutated competition in the race for survival. (Grossly and inadequately oversimplified, but hopefully you get the idea.) Were the beneficial mutations planned/designed? Were they destined to survive? Leading to "Why are WE here?" type questions. "WE" are here because "we" are those who survived. If it wasn't us, it would have been someone or someTHING else. You might say (as you have) that these are not "good" answers that satisfy people. Well, people seek "good" answers when asking questions on income tax (like "you will get a $1000 refund") but that doesn't mean they're going to get them. The fact is, and I know that this has been and will continue to be denied, that many people dislike evolution, and all of this non-teleological bent, simply because they don't like it: it doesn't fit with the way they would like the world to be, it leaves their life and "destiny" in the realm of chance or luck, or (worse?) a sort of modified Heisenbergian determinism that lacks a determiner, leaving *them* without a predefined "purpose". And they simply don't like that. So they choose another explanation of the universe, a primitive one in existence for thousands (perhaps millions) of years, that has been eroded and worn down over the years and shown to be flawed and full of presumptive holes, but one which they choose to continue to believe (or revert to) because it fills their needs, regardless of the actual truth of things. It is in this that the greatest danger of religion lies: the notion of faith, as Sargent has quoted, being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see, REGARDLESS of the evidence of the real world, a sort of glorification of ignorance and know-nothingism and (of course) wishful thinking. Often at the expense of those who would commit sacrilege by questioning such a status quo. > Let's weigh evidence. Make a case. I don't expect to > change your mind, only to hear what you have to say. Which should be > interesting because sometimes you DO have some good stuff to say. Uh oh. Compliments (of a sort) from Ken. I should respond in kind, but the absolute best that comes to mind is "You're less presumptive and abrasive than usual." But at least you're trying. (Readers are invited to fill in a joke at this point regarding some double entendre within the previous sentence.) > Feel free to bring in other sources (quotes?!) if you wish. Thanks, but no thanks. Perhaps, later on, I'll quote Dr. Frisken... > But what do you say to someone who > looks at the universe and sees order, design, - the face of God. I say "Look again. You're imposing your own preconceived criteria onto the universe, choosing to believe that someone/something planned the universe to be exactly as you picture it to be through your not so careful analysis." I'd also say that, if there is a god, you still seem to be engaging in preconception of the worst sort when you pigeonhole the universe into the particular design that you believe it to have, believing that certain books offering a rather limited and primitive picture of creation hold more truth than the evidence of the world around us, and I'd say that the picture that careful analysis of the world provides is much more fascinating than the wishful thinking children's fantasy version (AND, that you limit the power of the god you believe in when you believe YOUR version of the truth over that of the real world IT created, according to your belief). > And please, leave the 'wish it's so' argument behind. Sorry. Can't do that. Not when, at the very bottom, it's the only thing supporting such teleological arguments as you've described. But *I'll* leave it behind if you (and others) will. Which will leave very little to argue about. Wouldn't that be nice? > And oh yes. You can have the last word. Is this it? :-) -- When you're omniscient, everything's a tautology. Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr