A poll regarding opinions of evolution
I'm really curious what the thinkers here think of evolution. My list of options probably isn't exhaustive, but I hope there's an option that's close enough to your take your you to select it. If there isn't, please post what sort of option I should have included to match what you think.
This might not be worth specifying, but please don't take the past tense nature of the questions to imply that that means evolution stopped. "Happened" is of course compatible with "and still happening".
This might not be worth specifying, but please don't take the past tense nature of the questions to imply that that means evolution stopped. "Happened" is of course compatible with "and still happening".
Comments (87)
I must say this is a cop-out somehow more ridiculous than the "God made the Big Bang then pissed off".
:up:
Isn't this just the definition of deism?
But Epikuros was also a materialist:
But²:
Then I invite you to consider that evolution is in essence entirely "accidental". The randomness of the mutation of genes that bring about an organism's constitution that may or may not encourage survival or reproduction has no "evolutionary dimension" to it, and so to talk about human existence in terms of evolution is to say only that whatever we are, it is simply fortunate enough to have survived and reproduced through the geological ages.
There is nothing beyond this that evolution can speak to regarding qualitative features of our existence, and therefore evolution is not at all a useful tool of discovery as to the nature of what we really "are". This is good news for those who want to take issue with the scientific reductionism that plagues our understanding of what it means to be human. Evolution is vacuous at doing so.
Worse than this. Before one is a deist, one has to affirm that world was made by God at all, then one is stuck with defining terms, terms like 'god' and divine will of intent (for what is creation without intent?), the conditions of creation that are otherworldly (certainly God did not create as we do, out of wood and steel and electronics.
The point is prior to complaining about something absurd, one has to see that the absurdity assumes a more fundamental absurdity, a metaphysical one: Is one even making any sense at all in the question? A bit like complaining that the measurements for a flat earth lack symmetry, or the like.
Where did you get that impression?
"What is deism in simple terms?
belief in the existence of a God on the evidence of reason and nature only, with rejection of supernatural revelation ( theism ). belief in a God who created the world but has since remained indifferent to it."
DEISM Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
Quoting Astrophel
I'm not a deist, but I don't see that the position that something created the universe any more or any less problematic than to say that the universe was uncaused. The deist needn't posit anything to do with intent or purpose either. He need only say the universe was caused by some cause. As to what caused the deistic god to come into being, the deist lays the mystery there, in the god, the thing that defies causation.
Whether this solution ultimately resolves anything, I doubt it, but I don't think anything truly resolves the question of the origin of our existence.
I believe Im most certainly an outlier, but Ill answer the question just the same.
In short, evolution happened naturally, such that Nature itself is thoroughly teleological in its nature (Ill, however imperfectly, lean on Aristotelian metaphysics for this affirmation). Given any system of what is now commonly enough termed panpsychism, this naturally occurring, teleological evolution then occurred since the commencement of the current cosmos long before life came into being (here granting a Big Bounce model of the universe). Its very cumbersome to properly explain via justifications, but there you have it.
I didnt select the first option due to the implicit differences in what Nature is deemed to entail: namely, modern day naturalism will tend to associate teleology with the supernatural, which is distinctly different than the position I endorse regarding Natures immanent characteristics.
That said, neither does this perspective fit into any of the other options, including the third option. Rather than being guided by a superlative psyche, evolution is pivotally guided by natural constraints in conjunction with the will of all beings (which thereby actively undergo the process of evolution). For one example, in sexual selection, lifeforms' choices regarding mates (this in tune with Darwins own works) will guide the outcomes of evolution in conjunction with natural constraints on what can and cannot besuch that each such individual lifeform is then a being (of varying degrees of intelligence) that guides the trajectory of evolution (akin to being a drop of water in an ocean, from which the ocean itself is constituted). This metaphorical ocean consisting of the total sum of all coexistent lifeforms beingeither genotypically or, for me far more importantly, phenotypicallythat via which variations emerge; with these variations again being culled, or selected for, by what in ultimate appraisals are universal constraints.
Im not here intending to argue for all this. Just wanted to address the curiosity regarding different vantages on the issue of evolution.
The theological equivalent to "sognaresexual" and "herstory".
You've never read Venus on the Half-Shell, then?
As was told, the protagonist who wants an answer to "why are we birthed only to suffer and die?" at long last arrives on that planet where God lives. The inhabitants of that planet, God's favorite creatures, these being beer-drinking giant cockroaches of extreme intelligence, inform the protagonist that God decided to forget himself a long time ago and that now no one knows where he's at. So the protagonist's question gets answered by the leader of the cockroach bunch instead with, "Well, why not?".
The best take on Deism I've so far come to know.
Suppose there was no "origin"? Suppose, as Spinoza reasons, existence is eternal (and merely reconfigures itself every tens of billions years (à la Epicurus ... or R. Penrose))? I'm partial to as parsimonious a metaphysics as can be conceived.
I'm not sure I follow the analogy.
My take on deism is that it is not posited to give you something to pray to, to bring meaning into your life, or to satisfy anything other than addressing the question of where the universe came from. It's more analagous to evolution theory than to theism.
If I were to ask why you believe in evolution, you'd say it's because that's what the evidence shows. You wouldn't think to answer that question by explaining to me how evolution gives your life meaning or purpose. So too with the deist. He claims logic and reason leads him to believe that something created the universe, but he wouldn't think how he needs to explain how that belief gives life meaning.
I will admit I have not read most books out there, philosophy or not.
Quoting Hanover
A non-word made up in modernity by people who most likely did not understand the mechanisms of their own language, giving a label to a variety of something meanwhile they ignore all the other endless varieties. A theist is a theist no matter the flavour, one doesn't get a little special badge for one's own variety because one is lofty from one's complete ignorance of grammar essentially redditry/Dunning-Kruger.
And I just made a super awkward sentence because I didn't want people to think I am referring to someone specific by saying "you".
Sorry if it is rude but there is no nice way to judge it, the individuals involved should have not committed the crime instead.
The theory of evolution has token value; its relevance is in declaring it in order to gain social approval.
I'd suggest that the word "eternal" is not a word found in physics' books, but is a borrowed theological word. The word infinity avoids the religious baggage, but it too is purely conceptual, not fully coherent, and certainly not empirically verifiable.
If you say X is eternal and X is all there is and from X all new combinations and variations arise, how do you parse out your claims from the deist's? It sounds remarkably theistic actually, particularly those traditions that give a nod to pantheism and consider the implications of Spinoza: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1807957/jewish/Pantheism-and-Judaism.htm
How is it a "cop out?" It seems to flow naturally from panentheism and the classical understanding of Providence. The idea that nature itself is a theophany, organized in accordance with Providence according to the Divine Will and that nothing happens miraculously "for no reason," is pretty much the standard in the classical/medieval tradition. Evolution seems to fit in there fine, except for the time table, but even among the Patristics there is plenty of disagreement about the plausibility of a strict 144 hour interpretation of creation.
Only in the post-Reformation world where nature is essentially a distinct, subsistent entity and God is no longer being itself does it make sense to talk about the creation of man as a sort of Humean miracle where God acts in creation in a sui generis manner that is distinct from God's acts in nature. In such a view, God is less than fully transcedent and becomes an entity that sits outside the world. In this view, God is to some degree is defined by what God is not, and indeed is defined in terms of finitude (Hegel's bad infinite), and this also causes follow on problems for the interaction of freedom and Providence.
Notably, the way the question is framed here implies this distinction. Evolution occured "naturally" or God guided it. I don't think this is a proper distinction for Origen, St. Maximus, St. Thomas, etc. St. Paul's writings frequently invoke the same event twice with human agents the focus of one telling and God's agency in the center. This makes sense from the frame of a God who is "within everything but contained in nothing," (St. Augustine) but becomes very different if it is taken as a sort of causal relation between a God who lies outside the world acting in response to nature (e.g. in Romans 1 we have people abandoning God for idols and then apparently God gives them over to the idols they have already turned to God for some reason is making people do what they are already choosing to do, something that crops up in many places). None of the thinkers mentioned thought God formed man out of clay using hands, or that God had a body that walked across the Earth. "Since we are Gods offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone" (Acts 17:29).
This seems pretty essential to the metaphysics, not something ad hoc; it is God "in whom we live and move and have our being," (Acts 17:28, repeated every Mass). And this jives with interpretations of the two creation stories in Gen 1 and Gen 2, with Gen 1 describing the birth of eidos through Divine Logos in Gen 1 (Object/Ground - Logos) and the second as focusing on the material creation and introduction of spirit (Object/Ground - Interpretant/Spirit).
The Jewish tradition contains these sorts of conceptions as well. IIRC, Rashi also has it that Gen 1 relates to forms.
I also wonder about the possibility of 'no origins' as such, with cycles in the earth and the wider cosmic sense, including other worlds and universes.
I agree with much of your post in regard to the issue of evolution. But I would like to verify what you interpret by the term "Deism".
Are you using a different sense of the term than that of the proverbial God as watchmakersuch that the whole of the universe is equivalent to a watch which, once built, is then left to operate on its own devices?
I ask because this just specified sense of Deism so far appears to me to alight to this metaphysical position:
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Whereas, were Deism to be understood as strictly addressing the belief that "God/Divinity can be know through reason alone and that revelations should be shunned as evidence", this so far seems to me to be utterly nondescript, for it can then encompass most anything theistic: e.g., everything from monotheism to pantheism, if not even animism, can thereby then be validly claimed to be forms of Deism. But this so far doesn't seem right to me. Or am I not understanding the issue properly?
I wasn't thinking of deism at all. I was thinking of the understanding of the relationship between God, Providence, and nature in ancient and medieval Christianity and Judaism.
Are you saying the random mutation of genes that leads to superior survival and reproduction is intentional in some way??
That all evolution is in essence entirely accidental is a mischaracterization of evolution via natural selection. In short, NS is the favoring of certain varieties of lifeforms by natural constraintssuch that this metaphorical favoring by Nature is itself not a matter of chance. The following is a more longwinded but robust explanation that to me amounts to the same:
Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection
---------
Quoting Astrophel
While @wonderer1 will speak for himself, for my part, not everything that can be teleological will necessarily be intentional, i.e. due to the intentions of agents. Gene mutations, here assuming a teleological cosmos to begin with, will then be an example of such.
That stated, the more intelligent the lifeform the less genotype will play a direct role in the lifeforms successful survival and reproductionand, by extension, in natural selection. It is not genotype but phenotype (which will include behavior, and which is heavily dependent on environmental history, typically coined nurture) that determines which carnivore gets to eat sufficient herbivores so as to then reproduce, and which herbivore gets to sufficiently evade carnivores so as to then reproduce. And the more intelligent the phenotype, the more intentions will play a significant role in this very process wherein certain varieties of lifeforms are favored by natural constraints.
As to different varieties of lifeforms emerging from intentions, there is sexual selection at play in the animal kingdom (as well as in at least some plants and fungi) and, more recently, its been proposed to occur in bacteria as well. Wherever one deems for intentions to start in the evolutionary tree, intentions will then logically play a role in evolution via sexual selectionthis such as in terms of which variations of lifeforms get to come about in the next generation.
Right - but isnt there some sense in which even the simplest life forms act intentionally? Not [I]consciously[/i], of course - but a living thing by definition seeks to maintain itself and continue to exist. So I wonder if in some abstract sense whether that adds up to a very primitive intentionality.
Yes, good point. This is where philosophical issues enter the picture ... the problem of other minds applied to real world applications regarding lesser lifeforms, this all the way down to prokaryotic monocellular organisms. And once you get to this juncture, there then is no rationally easy divide between monocellular organisms and the individual somatic cells of a multicellular organism, to include individual neurons to boot.
I've read Thompson's Mind in Life, but don't recall him addressing intentions per se. Maybe someone else with better recollection can chip in here.
In short, however, though I have my biases of opinion which lead me to the conclusion that there is at the very least some minuscule measure of intentionality in all life, I don't know of any means to properly justify this. Again, it relates to the problem of other minds as pertains to lifeforms whose awareness types are quite alien to us.
I will however say that I cannot conceive of intention occurring devoid of an intended goal, this as done by a consciousness or not. The two - an intention and its intent - go together like "unmarried" and "bachelor". And this intending of a goal, to me at least, necessitates forethought of one type or another - however alien such forethought might be to our own - and, hence, as per Thompson, some at least rudimentary kind of mind. Ameba can, for one extreme example, be observed to behave in such manners: intending to consume smaller amebas as their prey and to avoid larger amebas as their predators, and exhibiting forethought regarding what they perceive as other in the process - obviously, this devoid of any CNS. (Ameba have also be evidenced capable of learning new behaviors, which again to me logically necessitates some form of forethought.) But, also obviously, this is far removed from modern day consensus on what in fact is the case.
With all that stated, I'll also mention the following for the kick of it: I have at times pondered the possibility that the very primitive intentionality you've addressed might conceivable occur within every single neuron building new synapses for the sake of stimulation and nourishment. Such that the neuron's nucleus holds some, again, exceedingly primitive intentional role in the firing of its axon subsequent to sufficient dendritic stimulation. On one hand is sheer sci. fi., but on the other it's one extreme of where this allowance for all life being in some way intention-endowed, and thereby intentional, goes.
I've rambled a bit, but in my defense its very late at night where I'm at. :smile:
Easily. Simply put Deism posits a separate X & Y: 'the uncreated creator deity' and its 'created world(s)/universe(s)' in which the latter is temporal and the former eternal (i.e. causa sui). However, my "claim" is acosmist (Spinoza) and/or atomist (Epicurus), therefore, in either case, not deistic.
Quoting Jack Cummins
This corresponds to 'no edges' (in space). If existence (i.e. everything that exists) is the effect, then its cause (i.e. origin) is non-existence (i.e. nothing-ness that is also the absence of any conditions for any possibility of existence) which is nonsense, no?
Well said.
----
As a general apropos to possible religious/spiritual views, Buddhism, for one example, has had this creed of "no origin" for a few millennia now.
Well no. I was asking a question regarding the following claim.
Quoting Astrophel
Do you understand the role that natural selection plays in evolution, and that natural selection is not random?
But I think the deeper questions are why did life begin in the first place - was this, as Jacques Monod claims in 'Chance and Necessity' a 'biochemical fluke', the fortuitious product of an essentially chemical process? That's where I think people feel that the process is random.
Then there's the question of whether evolution was always bound to produce rational sentient bipeds such as ourselves, and, if so, why? When it seems equally feasible that it might have reached stasis billions of years ago as blue-green algae. But then the idea that evolution gives rise to higher intelligence is categorised as orthogenesis, which is a no-go. Or maybe none of those questions are scientific questions per se but philosophical questions prompted by scientific discoveries.
One point I will note, is that the strictly scientific attitude to h. sapiens treats them - or us - as another species, as an object of scientific analysis. Which is fine, as far as it goes, but when that begins to serve as the basis for philosophical or (anti)religious ideologies then it oversteps the mark, and where the science begins to morph into scientism:
[quote=Is Evolution a Secular Religion, Michael Ruse; https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1082968]There is professional evolutionary biology: mathematical, experimental, not laden with value statements. But, you are not going to find the answer to the world's mysteries or to societal problems if you open the pages of Evolution or Animal Behaviour. Then, sometimes from the same person, you have evolution as secular religion, generally working from an explicitly materialist background and solving all of the world's major problems, from racism to education to conservation. Consider Edward O. Wilson, rightfully regarded as one of the most outstanding professional evolutionary biologists of our time, and the author of major works of straight science. In his On Human Nature, he calmly assures us that evolution is a myth that is now ready to take over Christianity. And, if this is so, the final decisive edge enjoyed by scientific naturalism will come from its capacity to explain traditional religion, its chief competition, as a wholly material phenomenon. Theology is not likely to survive as an independent intellectual discipline.[/quote]
Quoting javra
Buddhism actually has a rather strange and not very well known creation story. The Aggañña Sutta is a discourse by the Buddha, in which he talks to two monks, Vasettha and Bharadvaja, about the origin of society and social classes. In the sutta, the Buddha describes how beings originally lived in a celestial realm and subsisted on joy or radiance. They later became attracted to a substance that appeared on Earth, and as they consumed it, they gradually lost their luminosity and celestial nature. The story goes on to describe the gradual formation of physical bodies and also how social divisions eventually emerged among humans. In Mah?y?na cultures, such as Tibet, there is also the cosmological mythology of Mt Meru, which is the mythological axis of the Universe and the centre of the world. It is of course thoroughly outmoded by scientific discoveries, something which has been a cause of disquiet in Buddhist culltures (notwithstanding the Dalai Lama's frequent expression that Buddhist doctrine must always recognise empirical facts when they're presented, Mt Meru being no exception.)
There have been some fanciful modern folk mythologies attempting to map Buddhist re-birth against evolutionary history, although I don't think they're part of indigenous Buddhist culture, which knew as little about biological evolution as did the West before Darwin. And none of which is particularly germane to Buddhism generally, which, overall, is probably not as susceptible to the apparent threat to their dogmas posed by natural origins.
Even the randomness of mutations is questionable, and is being investigated moreso these days, due to the availability of modern technologies.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04269-6
I will second this affirmation. Ones either consciously held or else unconsciously maintained metaphysical presuppositions will guide how one makes sense of the empirical data regarding evolution. Yes, theres the Young Earther museums where humans are depicted as cohabiting Earth with dinosaurs but, more seriously, the very issue of whether there is any real stochasticity in the cosmos will in turn determine whether one believes either that evolution could only have resulted in the lifeforms that it has or, otherwise, that evolution could have resulted in a tree of life very different to the one we currently know of. Likewise, whether or not evolution tends toward any certain end will in large part be contingent on whether one finds a teleological cosmos at all possible, which is an issue of philosophy rather than of science.
Quoting Wayfarer
Very true. I nevertheless yet find natural selection to be very intertwined with much of the human phenotype, behavioral as well as physiological. As an undergraduate I did some independent research (with human participants) regarding the evolutionary history of human non-verbal communication via facial expressions. Specifically, back then there was a prevalent notion among ethologists and cognitive scientists alike that the human smile evolved from out of the primate fear-grimace (in short, we smile so as to show fear and thereby appease those we smile to, taking away presumptions of aggression, and thereby reinforcing friendships). The experiments I conduced gave good reason to support the conclusion that our human smile evolved from the primate play-face (in short, an exposing of weapons (for primates these being teeth and esp. canines) in playful mock-aggressionbasically, this with the intent of expressing Ive got youre back when done not as a laugh but as a sincere smile). The details will not be of much use here (though I relish them), but the issue remains: either way, our human smile (and, for that matter, all our basic and universally recognizable human facial expressions) evolved from lesser primate facial expressions, and together with the expressions so too the emotions thereby expressed. Although this does not play into humans far superior magnitudes of cognition, it does illustrate just how intimately many a defining feature of being human is associated with our biological past from which weve evolved as a species. Hard to think of a more prototypically cordial human image than that of a smiling face.
Quoting Wayfarer
Thanks for that!
There is of course many a diverse creation myth worldwide that explains the origins of the world as it currently is, often via what is relative to the culture some form of axis mundi. Still, to the best of my current knowledge, only in the West are there creation myths regarding the origin of existence of itself, this so as to affirm that time had a beginning. Theres the primordial Chaos of Ancient Greco-Roman religions and, or course, the Abrahamic religions notion of creation ex nihilo by a supreme incorporeal psyche that dwells beyond time. (Both in terms of how they are commonly interpreted.) Im so far thinking the two creation myths of Buddhism youve addressed yet present a beginningless eternity of time? Please let me know if you know them to be otherwise such that they specify a beginning to time's occurrence. Interesting stuff to me.
I do see the sense of this, of course. But my comment brought to light the "qualitative features of our existence": it seems right to say that genotypical "errors" that produce phenotypical features are affected by the actual behavior these features encourage and produce. If a gene, accidently modified in the process of meiosis, for, say, stronger muscles, is present in an offspring, and this exceeds the abilities of competitors in survival and reproduction, then the intentional acts of this organism will allow for this trait to dominate, and a new gene pool will arise, and on and on. So yes, it is not as if intent, will, even "choosing" and the like are absent from an analysis the evolutionary process simply because genotypical accidents or errors produce phenotypical tendencies.
But this is not what I want to consider. Evolution dos not determine what it is that stands as a possibility for a manifest characteristic. It is like the bouncer at a bar, say, that denies admittance for some while denying others. The principle of acceptance or denial certainly is determinative, but, if you can stand the analogy, who comes forward seeking admittance is not at all determined at the front gate. Those possibilities are qualitatively indeterminate. So when evolutionists (and all reasonable people are. The point here steps beyond science) attempt to talk about what a human being is, they have nothing to say about the basic givenness that "made it past" the gate bouncer. Our ability to reason, feel, understand, experience the world in all its qualitative richness is a matter for analysis entirely beyond the reach of evolution in a qualitative analysis.
I can very much respect this point of view in certain respects - especially when it comes to interpretations such as those of Social Darwinism. Nevertheless, I could present the case that the metaphorical bouncer at the bar is the constraints of objective reality itself, such that that life with is most conformant to objective reality (else least deviates from its requirements) will remain present to the world. But I'm not sure if this very abstract way of thinking about evolution is a worthwhile avenue to here investigate - especially since it makes use of the notion of an objective world which, on its own, can be a very slippery thing to identify. Yet tentatively granting this, it will be true that the possibilities of what can be will be qualitatively indeterminant, but this only in so far as these myriad possibilities nonetheless yet sufficiently conform to objectivity. Hence, as one physiological example, why there has never been an animal with binocular vision whose eyes are vertically (rather than horizontally) aligned: such positioning would be contrary to the objective world's constraint of needing to optimally detect stimuli against the horizon (best short example I could currently think up).
I've also just posted to Wayfarer. The second paragraph in that reply, to me at least, presents the case that some of what makes us human is intimately entwined with our evolution from other primates. This, namely, as per our human smile. Curious to know what you make of it.
:100:
Not entirely, no. But I would suggest an apriori argument, and as such has nothing to do with the nuances of evolutionary thinking, in the same way a philosophical critique of science has nothing to do with any particular science. Simply put, prior to ANY talk about how evolution is explained, there is the foundational concept in place, which is the random mutation of genes. Even if traits are produced and the survival of which is determined by nonrandom conditions, like the attractiveness of food or a sexual feature leading to overt behavior of choosing, comparing, and so on, this nonrandomness itself has its basis in randomness. Non randomness occurs within the more basic assumption of random events. At root what is determinative is the nature of traits themselves, and natural selection has nothing to do with these possibilities. An inquiry into the nature of human affectivity is not informed by the way generational groups' genetic and manifest features survive or disappear. They in fact DO survive and disappear, but this says nothing about what it is.
Read the response. You may find some ground of agreement.
-Evolution happened naturally, the current array of species on earth evolved
-Evolution happened, but it was a guided process by a divine or intelligent being
These two are not in contradiction. God is understood to be outside of/beyond nature in tradition theology. That said, divine explanation has no place in science classrooms. The point of science is to understand the natural world by looking at nature and understanding its underlying mechanisms.
So one could believe that a) evolution is natural and b) that it was guided by divine provenance and there is no contradiction. God will use nature to carry out his plans.
Panentheism.
As a Jew, not the understanding that I was brought up with. The bush doesn't set alight because divinity inheres in it, but because God, at that moment, invested it with his divinity. Once the revelation stopped, the bush stopped burning and returned to its normal non-divine state.
There's also this idea of gradients of divinity as demonstrated through the construction of the temple with the tabernacle at the center (inner chamber, outer chamber, outside.)
Not necessarily. One interpretation of Deism is that G*D is the universe*1. For example, G*D may exist eternally as a disembodied spirit, but occasionally transforms --- for no known reason --- into a physical material form. In that case, the Big Bang would be a birth event, and it took almost 14B years to mature into a world with self-conscious creatures. From that point onward, homo sapiens are god's way to "know thyself" (self-realization). Hence, our interactions with Nature constitute our relationship with G*D, and G*D's dealings with man. This is similar to some ancient notions of eternal formless deity (rational creative power : Brahma, Logos) and a temporal constructive demi-god (demiurge)*2*3.
However, the notion of gradual evolution (maturation) of the physical world is a rather recent cosmological & teleological concept. So the ancient god-models may not fit any of the Evolution-based options in the OP. But the Deist model emerged, along with modern empirical Science, in the 17th century, so 18th century Darwinian evolution should fit neatly into the general concept of a Nature God. Such an immanent deity does not "interfere" with natural processes, but is undergoing constant changes & transformations, just as the human body does during its allotted years. And we can assume that the Big Sigh, in about 10 trillion years, will mark the death of G*D's current incarnation. :smile:
PS___ I suppose a Deist could check None or All of the Above options.
*1. Deism's immanent deity :
Influence of Deism since the early 20th century There is thus no theological need to posit any special relationship between God and creation; rather, God is the universe and not a transcendent entity that created and subsequently governs it.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Deism
*2. Platos Timaeus
The universe, he proposes, is the product of rational, purposive, and beneficent agency. It is the handiwork of a divine Craftsman (Demiurge, dêmiourgos,) who, imitating an unchanging and eternal model, imposes mathematical order on a preexistent chaos to generate the ordered universe (kosmos).
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-timaeus/.
Note --- In the immanent nature-god model, Chaos would be the "pre-existent" formless eternal spirit that takes on the material form of the physical universe we know and love. Presumably, Chaos-god has no properties or qualities that we humans could know or love, other than abstract mathematical Logic.
*3. Hindu Creation Myth :
For Hindus the universe was created by Brahma, the creator who made the universe out of himself.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zv2fgwx/revision/7
Deism is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge and asserts that empirical reason and observation of the natural world are how we come to know god. ___ Wikipedia
So if its not random, and indeed these findings are
Then what is it that provides direction? Arent we back to orthogenesis, that being evolution in which variations follow a particular direction and are not merely sporadic and fortuitous? That is a very different picture to orthodox neo-Darwinism. I asked ChatGPT for a synopsis:
But the times they are a changing. I would say that orthogenetic has fallen out of favour more for philosophical reasons, than for empirical, as it re-introduces the whole idea of intentionality and indeed ( :yikes: ) something like intelligent design.
There have been a couple of references provided on the Forum the last year or so suggesting a shift in favour of a more orthogenetic view (I dont have time to dig for them right now but might later.) And philosophically, that is definitely a challenge to the prevailing paradigm.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
My issue isn't whether evolution fits there. But how god is used as an explanation, which is essentially god of gaps. One of the options is "Evolution happened, but it was a guided process by a divine or intelligent being". To put it simply, there is no reason to think this. Where our human knowledge has accounted for some phenomenons, God is forcibly inserted even though it is not parsimonious to do so. The same can be applied, less ridiculously, to the Big Bang. But we have to separate God and prime mover; God is a prime mover with intention and personality a mind , a prime mover is just that.
If causal determinism based on the invariances we refer to as laws of nature were the actuality, then life would be an inevitable part of the unfolding of the cosmic process.
Quoting Wayfarer
Under the deterministic scenario what appears as direction is just the result of the inevitable unfolding of the cosmic process. But this would not imply any externally or transcendently imposed intention or "telos".
That there are drivers other than the main drivers doesn't seem like a surprising thing to find, in light of a an up to date view on evolution. It is called the "modern synthesis" not the "ultimate synthesis". Modern technology has given us the ability to look through millions of haystacks for needles, in gathering the data needed to get a better look at the degree of seeming randomness involved. I don't think scientists are on the verge of finding the hand of God at work.
Quoting Wayfarer
Always. But that doesn't make Theodosius Dobzhansky's statement any less valid, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."
Indeed not. Interesting that Dobzhansky also wrote quite a religious book called the Biology of Ultimate Concern which discusses religious and philosophical ideas in relation to evolution. Synopsis here.
That also resonates with Julian Huxley's evolutionary humanism:
[quote=Julian Huxley, Evolution and Meaning;https://reasonandmeaning.com/2014/02/24/evolutionary-biology-and-the-meaning-of-life/]Man is that part of reality in which and through which the cosmic process has become conscious and has begun to comprehend itself. His supreme task is to increase that conscious comprehension and to apply it as fully as possible to guide the course of events. In other words, his role is to discover his destiny as an agent of the evolutionary process, in order to fulfill it more adequately[/quote]
Constraints on reality itself is an interesting thought. I imagine genetic research will one day be able to determine if DNA and its molecular combinatory possibilities has such a limit. I imagine AI will one day be able to say whether or not a binoculared animal would be possible, that is, whether it is conceivable that there be a genetic counterpart to the physical idea of being binocular. I can't see why not, though this would be something only occurring in an environment that allowed for such a thing to manifest, that is, once the series of genetic accidents leads to a generational tendency, and this tendency is further encouraged by the survival advantages it produces, sure; why not? AI could do this is a lab in some future world in which the human genome is mastered and surpassed?
Just a bit of musing, but I think the matter would have to be framed not in terms of actual familiar environmental conditions we that evolution deals with in trying understand our own evolved constitution, but in terms of what is molecularly possible for the self replicating DNA. This, I suspect, has no limits, though this would be for a geneticist to say.
Quoting javra
Or that of a tortured face, on the noncordial side of it. Weird to keep in mind that our conception of what the "smile" was way back before it evolved into what it is now is an interpretative imposition produced by our current phase or order of evolvement. One way that confounds this conversation about evolution is to see that whatever we say, we ourselves are doing so from a position of endowed evolved features, which will move on as the geologic ages do (unless, as I suspect will happen, AI takes the steering wheel away from evolution and replaces it with genetic engineering. Talk about everything changing!). Our very thinking about things has no privileged pov on access to "objective" statements about what is the case in the world. Not that the smile did not undergo its transformation as you are convinced it did, or that this is not a good theory. It is deeper than this. Thinking itself and the meanings of things is IN the evolved hard wiring, so being right and being a good theory simply issues from this. Odd to say this, perhaps, but to think the idea of evolution rigorously, following through, leads only to one place, which is a radical relativity and hermeneutics.
But that aside, I think the face is a window to the soul. Truly and no kidding. But this is not a ridiculous religious idea learned in catechism. It comes out of a proper analysis of our existence. Long story, though. I think of that smile, and I am led to joy, pleasure, eustasy, bliss, and all the rest, behind it. I think overt features are incidental. One has to drop the physicalism and make the move toward the psyche, and its evolution.
Im willing to question evolution, but I am just as willing to assume it. Evolution makes sense and follows from all current evidence. It happened, or better, continues happening now. Darwin was a brave genius.
I dont know that you had to add naturally other than to elaborate that evolution is a moving process of parts changing over time. But if evolution doesnt happen naturally, it is not evolution. Thats why intelligent design doesnt make sense. If God directed evolution, evolution would not be what evolution appears to be in the first place.
But I do believe in God. Like evolution, God is happening too.
But Id rather say answer 4, that evolution never happened, than talk about the God or the evolution posited in options 2 and 3.
I see no need to pit God for or against evolution. The pitting distorts the concepts of both God and evolution, and blurs the distinctions it is trying to integrate in the pitting. I can cross the street by myself, and over time, we living bodies evolve all by ourselves. No need to seek Gods place in these simple motions.
This is a way of looking at human consciousness and intelligence, but it doesn't mean much since we are such a tiny fraction of the cosmos, Animals too are arguably conscious, so it could be said that life itself is, or that percipients constitute, that part of reality in which the cosmic process has become aware. But even life as far as we know is a vanishingly tiny part of the cosmic process.
The idea that humanity could "guide the course of events" presents us with a type of scientific hubris or scientism. Humanity cannot even begin to imagine a plausible way to guide the evolution of the entire cosmos.
There have been unconvincing attempts, for example, see The Physics of Immortality by Frank Tipler
Think also of Teilhard de Chardin. Unbridled anthropocentrism, anthropomorphism and scientism seem to go hand in hand.
Were the only tiny fraction of the cosmos who know what that means. Its amusing in the extreme that objective science, which is a cognitive mode only available to h. Sapiens, then declares its authors insignificant in the grand scheme - a grand scheme that is their own mental creation!
(I have read that that Tipler book is unbridled nonsense, but the Tipler and Barrow book The Cosmic Anthropic Principle seems reasonably well-regarded.)
I doubt many scientists think in terms of a grand scheme, since as I already pointed out, the idea implies the existence of a grand schemer. So, I agree that a grand scheme would be a human conceptualization. much like the idea of 'laws of nature'. You could argue that the idea of laws implies the existence of a lawgiver, but it seems to me it is just the human way of conceiving of what seem to be the strict natural regularizes that are observed.
Obviously, we are not insignificant in the world, when that is conceived as the human world, including all of science and all the other human understandings. That is one perspective. But science presents us with a cosmos that seems to be almost infinitely older and larger than humanity, and as far as we can tell we occupy only a tiny corner, both in time and space of this vast universe.
Yes, science does that, and science is a human enterprise. Please try to understand this point, I am not trying to be confrontational or arguing for its own sake.
I also don't think that how we might prefer to answer that question matters much in relation to the far more important matter concerning how to best live. You probably disagree with me on that too, as it seems to me you treat it as a kind of moral crusade.
I'm no expert on Buddhist beliefs, but a quick Google indicates that there is no single dogma on the topic of Evolution ; instead there are "schools of thought"*1. One description*2 sounds like a world marking-time -- marching in place -- without any progress : perhaps an eternal alternation between Potential & Actual : cosmic vibrations of positive & negative energy. However, the rapidity of alternations might make a series of still-shots look like a movie, to an outside observer.
The oscillating-non-progressive school of thought makes no sense in the light of modern physics, unless you interpret those eternal positive/negative alternations as the essence of creative Energy vibrations (or quantum fluctuations) that could serve as the Cause of our Big Bang model. That flickering-reality notion might accord with the Many Worlds interpretation of Quantum Uncertainty : "This implies that all possible outcomes of quantum measurements are physically realized in some "world" or universe" ___Wiki.
Like Buddhist traditions, modern cosmology has produced a variety of explanations (opinions ; schools of thought) for the existence of our evolving home-world. The Big Bang theory even sets a birth-date for the beginning of our own bubble of space-time. But a "no origin" theory avoids the Creation problem by arguing that Time is only local*3, implying that space-time-vacuum energy is eternally creative of local bubbles. Despite the various hypothetical attempts to work around the empirical evidence for Creation From Nothing, the most logically acceptable explanation*4 for existence is the one with a creation event evocative of Genesis*5. :smile:
*1. No Beginning vs Alternation of Potential/Actual :
[i]There are three schools of thought regarding the origin of the world. The first school of thought claims that this world came into existence by nature and that nature is not an intelligent force. However, nature works on its own accord and goes on changing.
The second school of thought says that the world was created by an almighty God who is responsible for everything.
The third school of thought says that the beginning of this world and of life is inconceivable since they have neither beginning nor end. Buddhism is in accordance with this third school of thought. Bertrand Russell supports this school of thought by saying, 'There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our thoughts.'[/i]
https://www.budsas.org/ebud/whatbudbeliev/297.htm
Note --- "No Reason" ? see *4 & *5.
*2. Buddhism and Evolution :
Buddhists believe the beginning of this world and of life is inconceivable since they have neither beginning nor end. Buddhists believe that the world was not created once upon a time, but that the world has been created millions of times every second and will continue to do so by itself and will break away by itself.
https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/33133
*3. Does time have a beginning? :
After the Second World War, two different schools came to dominate cosmological thinking. One told a story in which time begins at the Big Bang, while in the other, there is no cosmic time and no Big Bang time passes locally, but the Universe remains the same on average. The two schools would go to battle to decide who was right.
https://bigthink.com/13-8/does-time-have-a-beginning/
*4. Is the Big Bang still the most accepted theory?
A wide range of empirical evidence strongly favors the Big Bang event, which is now essentially universally accepted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang
*5. Creation with a Bang :
The most popular theory of our universe's origin centers on a cosmic cataclysm unmatched in all of historythe big bang. The best-supported theory of our universe's origin centers on an event known as the big bang.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/origins-of-the-universe
It was never intended to, but its occupied the space left by the collapse of creation mythologies.
Since any putative "director" logically must exist outside the system to be directed, and thus beyond our capacity to detect it, I think the more relevant question is as to whether we have any good reason to think evolution is directed.
If we observe a billion examples of evolution on other planets and discover that life never gets to the multicellular stage on any of them, that would be evidence that we were either really lucky, or something intervened. Such a finding would definitely give a boost to the hypothesis that evolution here wasn't completely natural.
Quoting Janus
Maybe aliens are interfering. They wouldn't necessarily be beyond our capacity to detect. Although it would beg the question: who interfered in the aliens evolution? It could also be a simulation creator, and it's possible we'll someday be able to detect that we're in a simulation (although I doubt it).
:up:
And it is not like the sample size is really one. We have hundreds of different, isolated, ecosystems in the world where evolution took its own course.
The matter of convergent evolution, and thus the difference between morphological analogy and homology in zoology, is important to note.
It is interesting that as soon as the ancient earth was ready to sustain primitive life, life got started right away.
Yes, that suggests life should be pretty common. Multicellular life took a long time, so that suggests it should be uncommon. But this goes back to my point about sample sizes. We only have this one planet to draw conclusions from. It makes it very difficult.
Yes, but I'd say : "bemusing". The Weak Anthropic Principle*1 seems to be reasonable & uncontroversial. And in accordance with scientific guidelines. But Strong AP interpretations go beyond un-interpreted "self-evident" facts, to infer that intelligent observers were inevitable or even intentional. So, it's conjecture, not verified fact; hypothesis not observation. The authors, both physical scientists, try to make it clear when they cross the line.
The conjecture of 'Fine Tuning" raises the spectre of Intelligent Design. It also contradicts a common presumption of many scientists and philosophers : the Copernican Principle*2, which trivializes your observation that mere human observers & inquisitors are the ones asking the cosmic questions*3. To whom else would it matter if the world was a fortuitous accident? To whom would a world of intrinsic intention (meaning) be regarded as "unbridled nonsense"? To whom would Teleology be a "bad interpretation" of a directional pattern in evolution?
Modern Cosmology traces, in retrospect, the development of a hypothetical initial eruption of energy & matter from an unknown Prior State --- which contradicts the law of thermodynamics : that nothing moves without an internal (animation) or external (momentum) Cause. This uninterpreted model of Origins is satisfactory for the worldviews of Physicalism and Materialism, only if homo sapiens is presumed to be an "insignificant" accident of history. But most of us smart apes tend to hold a higher opinion of our role in an uncaring world : to care about what happens, and to whom it happens. That non-mechanical affect-of-feeling is hard to imagine as a random accident of gambling atoms. Hence, the Hard Problem. :smile:
*1. The anthropic principle is the belief that, if we take human life as a given condition of the universe, scientists may use this as the starting point to derive expected properties of the universe as being consistent with creating human life. It is a principle which has an important role in cosmology, specifically in trying to deal with the apparent fine-tuning of the universe.
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-the-anthropic-principle-2698848
Note --- The uncanny "fine-tuning" of many dimensionless constants was a surprising observation. That those numbers are also necessary to permit life to emerge, was an unexpected inference. Together, those fortuitous "facts" are used in the "FT argument" to imply that evolution is not completely random, but follows rules compatible with "life as we know it".
*2. The Copernican Principle :
Which asserts as a principle based on 17th century observations that we [humans] do not occupy a privileged position in the Universe. To which, the authors reply that our location in the universe is necessarily privileged to the extent of being compatible with our existence as observers.
https://bothandblog7.enformationism.info/page10.html
Note --- If astronomer-occupied Earth is not in a "privileged" position to judge the provenance of their own Life & Mind, where else would be a better perch for observation of the Cosmos as a whole system? Where better, except the view-from-everywhere of a god, or omniscient other-worldy alien?
*3. How The Anthropic Principle Became The Most Abused Idea In Science :
[i]Barrow and Tipler go further, and offer alternative interpretations, including:
a. The Universe, as it exists, was designed with the goal of generating and sustaining observers.
b. Observers are necessary to bring the Universe into being.
c. An ensemble of Universes with different fundamental laws and constants are necessary for our Universe to exist.
If that last one sounds a lot like a bad interpretation of the multiverse, it's because all of Barrow and Tipler's scenarios are based on bad interpretations of a self-evident principle![/i]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/01/26/how-the-anthropic-principle-became-the-most-abused-idea-in-science/?sh=a2235d77d690
Note --- Strong TAP is a "bad interpretation" only because it contradicts the objective empirical science principle of Parsimony : avoiding assumptions & imputations that are not evident. Hence, it is a philosophical conjecture, not a scientific observation. Besides, in practice, the simplest solution is not always the most accurate. The book does not claim that TAP is empirical or verifiable; it's just a hypothesis.
a. Intentional design is taboo for Modern Science. b. Self-creating observers is spooky. c. An infinite multiverse is compatible with Physicalism, but an eternal spiritual Creator is not. And neither is empirically verifiable. So, what would option "d." be?
*4. The Anthropic Cosmological Principle :
In the foreword, prominent physicist John Archibald Wheeler summarized the philosophical meaning of this scientific data : It is not only that man is adapted to the universe . . ., as implied by Darwins Theory of Evolution, but that, the universe is adapted to man. He goes on to assert the central point of the anthropic principle, that a life-giving factor² lies at the centre of the whole machinery and design of the world.
https://bothandblog7.enformationism.info/page10.html
Note --- That "life-giving factor" is what Bateson labeled elan vital, and others Chi or Prana. My own term for the evolutionary engine combines Energy with Information : EnFormAction.
What I see is only that the causal sequence that gave rise to life and mind didnt commence with the formation of earth, or the formation of stars. But the point I was making was simply that the very idea of a vast univere in which we are a mere blip is something that only rational sentient beings understand. Again the objective view relegates us to blip-hood in our own minds.
I've been reading The Huxleys, Alison Bashford. There are many ideas like this in their writings. I think I quoted Julian Huxley already in this thread, along the lines that in h. sapiens, evolution has become self-aware. His brother Alduous, with whom he had a life-long intellectual companionship, was the more spiritually-inclined of the two. Interestingly, the book shows that throughout the generations beginning with T.H.H. ('Darwin's Bulldog') they all pursued themes of the intersection of religion, philosophy and science. It also shows that T H H was scrupulously agnostic, as distinct from atheist, and that he disdained the Dawkin's style of scorched-earth scientific atheism.
Some people are just getting older and desperately clinging onto fantastical notions of randomness. :snicker:
Yes. That's why the quantum physics discovery of an active role for the observer challenged the Copernican Principle, that Earth and its inhabitants entail less than .00001% of the matter in the universe. But your focus on who is doing the observing implies that -- as far as we know -- earthbound subjective observers constitute at least 99% of the sentience in the world. The contrast in those views reveals the values of each commentator : Mind or Matter. :nerd:
Quoting Wayfarer
I noticed that Chapter 2 of the book labeled the insignificant "blips" in the universe as "trustees of evolution". A "trustee" is one who administers the affairs, and makes decisions, on behalf another who is incapable. Hardly a role for a mere blip. :wink:
The Huxleys, An Intimate History of Evolution :
2 Trustees of Evolution: The Intellectual Inheritance
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo187886458.html
Quoting Wayfarer
Ironically, in his book debunking Theism --- although he dismissed it as "watered down theism" --- Dawkins admitted that Deism could be considered the "god of the physicist". It was probably Blaise Pascal, the god-gambling philosopher, who dismissed Deism as "the god of the philosophers. :cool:
The God Delusion :
The debate was titled "Has Science Buried God?", in which Dawkins used a form of an Eddington concession in saying that, although he would not accept it, a reasonably respectable case could be made for "a deistic god, a sort of god of the physicist, a god of somebody like Paul Davies, who devised the laws of physics, ..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion
Have you read any of Australian philosopher Jeff Malpas work? I just finished an article in which he critiques Dreyfus and Spinozas distinction between deflationary and robust realism. They define the former as the kinds of everyday truths that are inseparable from our pragmatic, goal-oriented involvement with the world. The latter refer to scientific truths, which give us access to the things in themselves. Im curious about your reaction to his take on the mind-dependence of the world.
OFF-TOPIC : not specifically about evolution vs alternative theories of how we got to here
Since my knowledge of the long-running Realism vs Idealism debate is minimal, I would also be interested in 's response to the Malpas quote. But, until he replies to your post, I'll muse a bit about my own perplexity toward Kant's Phenomenal vs Noumenal world.
Obviously, Phenomena are what "ordinary" humans sense in the world around them. Ostensibly, that's also what empirical science studies. With the possible exception of quantum scale physics, which is beyond the scope of unaided senses, and requires subjective interpretation of uncertain observations. As an "ordinary" observer, I have never sensed any sub-atomic Phenomena. So, for me, "neutrons" are just as noumenal as nature-spirits. In professional practice, extra-sensory Noumena (dings ; ideas ; symbols ; representations ; mental models) are typically relegated for study by "extraordinary" philosophers and psychologists.
The beginning of that division of labor seems to fade in the mists of ancient time. Some of the early noumenalists were thinkers like Plato and Lao Tse. But Aristotle, in his Physics, seemed to implicitly draw a line between our objective sensory observations of the physical world, and our subjective rational analysis of what we see. The former is what we now know as Physics, and the latter became known as Meta-Physics. Some classify metaphysics are merely "religious dogma". But I think Aristotle viewed it as philosophical extrapolations from phenomenal experience : e.g. First Principles.
For ordinary people like me, the existence of the supra-atomic world is unquestionable, until we get down to the sub-atomic realm, which requires imagination to perceive. So, are such things as entangled Electrons Real or Ideal? Electrons & Photons are supposed to be fundamental to physics, but do they qualify as ding an sich? Although we can sense the heat & light of their passing, if we can't see & touch them, are they really real? If so, in what sense do we have "access" to them? When those elementary particles are entangled, acting holistically, are they real or ideal? These are philosophical questions about physical & metaphysical reality. :smile:
Thing-in-itself :
In Kantian philosophy, the thing-in-itself (German: Ding an sich) is the status of objects as they are, independent of representation and observation.
https://en.wikipedia.org wiki Thing-in-itself
Note --- Are dings physical objects even when nobody is looking at them?
Mind-Dependence :
Idealism is the thesis that the world is mind-dependent. In particular, the things we call material objects are dependent on the mind for their existence: to be is to be perceived. Realism is the thesis that the world is mind-independent, so that material objects can exist whether perceived or not.
https://www.colinmcginn.net/mind-dependence/
Note --- Does this mean that ideal entangled electrons wait patiently for a physicist to poke his nose into their business before they reveal themselves as real independent particles?
Obviously a very meaty paper, I have found it and will peruse it later. My initial response is simply that I never deny the fact of objectivity or facts disclosed by the objective sciences (the kind of denial I describe as 'arguing with rocks' as an allusion to young-earth creationism.) But I insist that whatever facts are discovered, are discovered by someone, integrated with or challenging some existing theory, etc - that knowledge always has a subjective pole, and that accordingly objectivity is not absolute. But perhaps that discussion ought to be appended to the Mind Created World thread rather than this one.
My take is - and this is another digression, but what the heck - there is no electron until it is measured. Until it is measured, what exists is a distribution of probabilities that it might be measured at a given place - that probability distribution (or super-position) is what 'collapses' when the measurement is made (the notorious 'wave-function collapse'). That is in line with Bohr's 'no phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is a measured phenomenon'. It is characteristic of the so-called Copenhagen interpretation of physics (which is not a theory, but a collection of aphorisms and essays by Bohr, Heisenberg and others on the implications of quantum theory.)
The reason this is controversial is that it would normally be presumed that 'fundamental particles' would have some objective or determinate reality. In classical discourse the atom - the indivisible or uncuttable particle - was supposed to be enduring and what everything else is 'made of'. So the discovery of the shadowy nature of these so-called fundamental particles was a huge shock not to mention all their other counter-intuitive attributes such as entanglement and unpredictability. Quantum by Manjit Kumar is one of the better popular science books on the subject. Not too hard to read. Also https://chat.openai.com/share/04d0d8cc-9e95-4230-bc00-2ded5d341f9d
Where did he say that?
[quote=Kumar, Manjit. Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality (pp. 219-220). Icon Books. Kindle Edition. ]Niels Bohr would soon argue that until an observation or measurement is made, a microphysical object like an electron does not exist anywhere. Between one measurement and the next it has no existence outside the abstract possibilities of the wave function. It is only when an observation or measurement is made that the wave function collapses as one of the possible states of the electron becomes the actual state and the probability of all the other possibilities becomes zero.[/quote]
which is pretty well exactly what I said. There's another account of the same idea on the third page of the John Wheeler article, Law without Law (.pdf).
OFF TOPIC AGAIN. You might want to move these devolutionary digressions to a new or old thread : Realism vs Idealism or Phenomenal vs Noumenal, or [i]Physical vs Metaphysical.[/i]
Bohr's mysterious comment seems to be implying that the physical phenomenal (real) world is eternally meta-physical noumenal (ideal) until a sentient observer releases it from its non-existent imprisonment in a genie bottle. But Wheeler made a similar -- strange but not quite so spooky -- suggestion : that there is a single-universal-electron, lurking out in the not-yet-real Future, which when probed by an intrusive inquiring mind "collapses" a part of the whole anonymous-set-of-possibilities into the knowable-nameable-Now. If so, we can add Potential vs Actual to the list of digressive dilemmas. :worry:
One electron or no electron :
The one-electron universe postulate, proposed by theoretical physicist John Wheeler in a telephone call to Richard Feynman in the spring of 1940, is the hypothesis that all electrons and positrons are actually manifestations of a single entity moving backwards and forwards in time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe
Quoting Gnomon
In my own attempts to make sense of quantum queerness, I have postulated that an "entangled" particle is unknowable only because it is immersed in a holistic system of particles, like a drop of H2O in the ocean. If so, how does the observer pry-apart the entangled mass of particles in order to isolate a single part from the whole? Does the observer imagine the revealed particle by analyzing part-from-whole, or conjure from scratch, ex nihilo? Does the inquiring mind "create" a real world from scratch, or an ideal world-model from concepts? Is this physics or metaphysics?
Presumably, this question is only a problem for scientists poking around in the invisible foundations of Reality. The rest of us look at a table and see only a functional item of furniture, not a swarm of buzzing atoms. That's merely a matter of scale, not of matter vs mind, right?. We're not creating the Real (physical) world out of Ideal (metaphysical) whole-cloth, are we? There is some pre-existing something out-there for us to see, isn't there? :wink:
From Scratch : American idiom
made from raw materials, or from nothing
Made out of Whole Cloth : American Idiom
completely fictitious or false; made up.
Metaphysical : abstract abstruse esoteric mystical philosophical spiritual supernatural theoretical
Generally speaking, the classical/scholastic view would be that God is both "inside" and "outside" the system. God is not a participant in being, something that sits alongside finite being and would tinker with it from the outside. You can't have a Porphyryean Tree where God's infinite being sits beside created being; there is no univocity of being. Deus est Ens, God is Being Itself. I believe it's St. Aquinas and St. Bonaventure who first start turning to this explicit formulation, but you can see it quite clearly in Patristic commentaries on Exodus 3:14.
But given analogia entis, or anything like it (so Orthodox thought as well), it doesn't make any sense to talk about specifically "observing" the actions of God in "directing" anything in the way we would observe a pesticide causing cancer or one ball moving another. For that to make sense you need the Reformation shift to the univocity of being and a hard distinction between Providence and Nature; the sort of distinction that gets you to Hume's definition of miracles, where a miracle has to be some sort of violation of "the laws of nature."
This is why Calvin would go on to have such a problem digesting Augustine. How can a person have any sort of freedom without constraining divine sovereignty if God sits over here and man over there? Here, Augustine's "God is closer to me than my most inmost self," degenerates into a mere metaphor, rather than being a sort of metaphysical statement.
Transcendent yet immanent. Something the 'new atheists' could never comprehend.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Have a look at The Theological Origins of Modernity, Michael Allen Gillespie, which explicitly addresses this issue. Gillespie shows how a kind of dialectic developed between the scholastic realism of Aquinas and the nominalistic fideism and voluntarism initiated by the Franciscan order. He traces this development through the subsequent centuries through the debates between Luther and Erasmus, and Hobbes and Descartes, among others. (There's a useful synopsis here.)
Quoting Wayfarer
Deleuzes philosophy is transcendent yet immanent in a way that draws upon but goes beyond the modern philosophical resources that underlie the subject-object thinking of the new atheists. By contrast, the classical/scholastic tradition hadnt yet arrived at a notion of subjective consciousness, and as a result, had nothing like the modern concept of the object. Therefore, the notion of the subject-dependent nature of objective experience would be utterly alien to them. By contrast, if the new atheists have trouble comprehending the classical/ scholastic orientation, it is only because they fail to recognize how their own approaches rely on transformations of those earlier ways of thinking.
The modern subject-object scheme the new atheists embrace creates the transcendental out of the resources of the empirical.
Indeed, which is why the term 'objective' only came into popular usage with the dawning of modernity. The pre-moden sense of being was characterised by an 'I-Thou' relationship in the context of the community of the faithful, rather than the isolated Cartesian ego confronting a world of impersonal forces and objects. I see modernity (and post-modernity) very much as a state of consciousness, among other things. We imagine ourselves in ways that were not even conceivable to earlier generations.
The context of the 'new' (now rather second hand) atheism, they are so embedded in the subject-object worldview that they interpret everything through that perspective, without of course seeing that they're doing that. But that has been commented on by a great many critics.
I've never read Deleuze and Lacan and others of their ilk (although I've watched a very interesting video lecture on Lacan's 'register theory' which I found both agreeable and interesting.)
I really don't think this is the case at all. For one, Aquinas pretty much constructs Locke's arguments re primary/secondary qualities and Berkeley's arguments re there being "nothing but," ideas. He just rejects both of these. Solipsism, subjectivist epistemic nihilism (and a version of it in fideism) , extreme relativism (Protagoras' "man is the measure of all things) were going concerns going back to the pre-Socrartics. The medievals were aware of these, they just rejected them by in large. They still engaged with them though; Thomas was railing against the Maniches 1,000+ years after there were any Manicheans.
There is plenty of awareness of the subject-dependence of perception in medieval thought. They were aware of and write at length about color blindness, differences in standards of beauty, etc. This is why it hasn't been that difficult to re-adapt scholasticism to modern theories of perception (e.g. virtual realism, pansemiosis).
For example, the entire idea behind "intentions in the media," is that the patterns that become sensory experience exist in the enviornment as potencies, but are only ever actualized by the presence of an observer, who brings their own potency to the interaction. Everything exists relationally in most medieval thought; "things in themselves," i.e., things as they interact with nothing, are epistemicaly inaccessible and make no difference to the world. Only God truly is (Exodus 3:14). Knowledge is always a union, the Platonic vision of the knowing subject ecstatically going beyond themselves in union mixed with the Aristotlean idea of the "mind becoming like," the known. Thus, "everything is received in the manner of the receiver."
What they lack is the Cartesian subject who exists apart from anything else. For the medievals, the thou is always already there with the I. Things are defined by their interactions with other things, the "generosity of being," and we cannot exist outside of this communion (Ulrich's "gift of being.")
This idea that the subject shapes the way in which a thing is known is absolutely central to theology and the anologia entis as well. In the Disputed Questions on Truth, truth itself is held up to be indefatigably bound up in the knowing subject. A key difference then is a preference for the "mind of God" as the gold standard of all knowledge, a view that sees all appearances and all reality, as opposed to the "view from nowhere," which ties to strip appearance away from reality. In medieval thought, appearance has to be part of the absolute, since it is real.
Actually, I've thought a lot in general about how medieval thought is a lot more like post-1930 or so thought than classical or early modern thought. Both contemporary and medieval thought center around the academy to a much greater degree than the two other eras. They both tend to focus on a deep study of core "canonical" texts. They both focus far more on critique. They both are very focused on how the subject shapes knowledge. They both split into two camps, with one camp extremely focused on logic chopping, definitions, etc. They both generate their own impenetrable list of unique terms (e.g., Ulrich is impenetrable because you have to speak Hegelese, Heideggerian, and Scholastic).
You can see the outlines of intertextuality in Al Farabi and Avicenna. Pansemiosis, far from being something new to Continental Philosophy, is all over Bonaventure, Poinsot, etc. The two eras have a lot in common, with both largely looking back to the prior era (classical and early modern respectively).
:up:
It's an interesting area because it ties in with the radical transformation of views on freedom. Freedom goes from primarily being defined in terms of actuality (the ability to do the Good) to bring primarily defined in terms of potency (the ability to [I]choose[/I] anything). This has ramifications throughout philosophy. For example, the opposition to ontology in Derrida and Foucault on the grounds that it limits freedom, or Deleuze's suggestion that this can be bypassed via the recognition of ontology as "creative" relies on particular modern assumptions about freedom and the relation of knowledge to freedom.
Were ontology indeed something we "discover," more than something we create, then a move to dispense with it or to assume we have more creative control over it than we do can't empower a freedom defined by actuality. Knowledge is crucial to actuality. Plotinus uses Oedipus as an example of this. Oedipus is in a way a model of freedom, a king, competent, wise, disciplined, etc. And yet he kills his father, the very thing he had spent his entire life trying to avoid, and so in a crucial way a truth that lays outside the compass of what he can fathom obviously makes him unfree.
I dont have the reverence for philosophical predecessors that you do. I view the thought of individuals as inextricably bound to an intersubjectively formed system of thought , a cultural episteme or worldview that ties multiple thinkers together, despite their differences. These cultural worldviews( classical, medieval, modern, postmodern) succeed each other neither logically nor arbitrarily, but make it impossible to resurrect the past without already reinterpreting it from ones own cultural vantage. Did a neo-Aristotelian thinker from the 13th century like Aquinas leap beyond his eras epistemic limits such as to enable him to grasp and reject what Locke and Berkeley were up to? Call me a skeptic, especially since it is hard to imagine in what way their concepts would even be intelligible without first passing through Descartes, unless you want to argue that Aquinas also knew what Descartes would be up to.
He didn't really need to leap that far. The assertion that only extension in space truly exists goes back to the Ionian materialists and concerns over solipsism go back just as far in both Greek and Hindu thought. St. Augustine, whom Aquinas was intimately familiar with, has several versions of the cogito. Descartes is, himself, riffing off Platonist skepticism (and indeed, the Academy had its own "skeptical period").
The question: "do we understand the world or only our ideas of the world," comes up in a few places, Question 85 of the Summa Theologiae being the one that jumps to mind. Aquinas does not take up considerations that are identical to Locke, Berkley, or Hume, but the chain of reasoning is quite similar.
I don't think the idea that "the notion of the subject-dependent nature of objective experience would be utterly alien to," either classical or, particularly, medieval thinkers, can survive contact with the material. Part of the problem here might be the common tendency of many modern thinkers to assume that the Protestant anti-rationalism and Catholic fideism of their day represented the "norm" for Christian thinkers centuries earlier. This is certainly a theme in Nietzsche, who seems to see all of Christianity through the 19th century Lutheran pietism he is familiar with and project it backwards. But anti-rationalism, like fundamentalism, is a modern movement. So, the myth that everyone was a naive realist vis-a-vis perception and morality until 1600 certainly shows up in otherwise worthwhile texts, but it's completely unmoored from reality.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
It wouldnt occur to you as a useful project to link together the Enlightenmment philosophies of figures like Descartes and Locke with ways of thinking informing the music, art, literature, poetry, sciences and political theory of that era, and then to do the same with Aquinas and the cultural modalities of his era? If we take Rembrandt vs Giotto as an example, do you not see taking place in the historical gap between the two a substantial innovation in construing what makes the human human, an innovation that mirrors the move from the medieval to the modern period in philosophical, scientific and literary modes of thought? Or are thinkers and artists just little islands of rationality and personal feeling only indirectly plugged into larger social conventions and practices?
Absolutely, I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. What I was correcting was the idea that the notion that the subject-dependent nature of objective experience would be alien to medieval thinkers. If anything, the Medievals focus on this [I]more[/I] than many of the early moderns. The latter tends to privilege "things-in-themselves," and focus on a reduction of the world to what can be quantified and plotted. In many ways, the early contemporary period is charting a path [I]back[/I] to notions that were dominant prior to the modern eracorrecting some of its excesses.
This is precisely one of the areas where I think medieval philosophy and contemporary philosophy share a lot of common ground. It's why it's funny that it's also the most neglected era today, because, like I said, there are a number of ways in which they are the two most similar eras.
You might even be able to add "being very dogmatic on certain issues," to the list there too.
A fascinating insight and one I'd never thought of, although I suppose it ties in with the ascendancy of liberalism which understands freedom as freedom of choice.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
The opposition between discovery and creation, knowledge and freedom, is deconstructed in Derrida and Heidegger such that, rather than giving preference to one over the other, they reveal these gestures as co-implied in all actions.
For instance, for Heidegger we always already find ourselves in the midst of a world, and in this sense our world is alway pre-understood by us, recognizable and familiar in some fashion. We know how to make our way around our world in a pragmatic sense. But this world
that we already comport ourselves toward in an understanding way is continually changing itself as a whole in subtle ways, so that the ways in which it is understood, made familiar and recognizable, change along with a changing world. It his means that the world we actually live in is neither unfathomable to us nor under the willful
control of previously learned knowledge.