Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Thinking critical]

That is how is it whether you like it or not. The alternative is more ridiculous.

Which alternative? I can think of a few. The one I spoke of, that Nature functions in an intelligent way, is far less ridiculous than the idea that Nature is a mindless and aimless process that just happened to produce conscious creatures.

Really? How can a process be inherently intelligent independent of an intelligent agent?
Why is the emegence of conscious beings through the process described by the theory of evolution contingent on intelligence?
It appears you are simply anthromorphising the process in that it is your opinion that because humans require a degree of intelligence to design or create things that nature is also reliant on the same prerequisite.

[Alias]

Which alternative? I can think of a few. The one I spoke of, that Nature functions in an intelligent way, is far less ridiculous than the idea that Nature is a mindless and aimless process that just happened to produce conscious creatures.

That one is kind of chasing its own tail, innit? Intelligence invents consciousness. If consciousness requires an intelligence to produce it purposefully, who or what produced intelligent, purposeful Nature?
Back to Gawd.

What are the other alternatives among those few?

[ThomasHobbes]

That is how is it whether you like it or not. The alternative is more ridiculous.
There is no "sheer creativeness". Your emotive language is blinding you to the basic facts of the situation. Take a look at your appendix, and tell me what the hell gawd was doing when he left it there.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2007-10-10/s ... gan/693946

That is not an argument.

[Karpel Tunnel]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2007-10-10/s ... gan/693946

That is not an argument.

Sorry, I thought it was obvious. It seemed like you were saying that the appendix has no purpose, so why would God have left it in us/put it there in the first place. I linked you to a useful function that has finally been found for the appendix. I assume you chose the appendix because it has long been thought to be useless - sort of like the tonsils were viewed also. Now we know these organs are not useless.

I could be wrong. You did not lay out your whole argument. But it seemed reasonable to assume that it was grounded on the appendix not having any useful function. But it does have one.

Perhaps you could flesh out the point you were making with the appendix example to the other poster. Then I will know if I interpreted correctly and we can take it from there.

What did you mean when you brought up the appendix above?

[Felix]

Alias : That one is kind of chasing its own tail, innit? Intelligence invents consciousness. If consciousness requires an intelligence to produce it purposefully, who or what produced intelligent, purposeful Nature?

I was saying that consciousness or intelligence is integral to Nature, not that it's a product of Nature... nor the reverse, that Nature is the product of an intelligent agent.

[Belindi]

Felix wrote:

I was saying that consciousness or intelligence is integral to Nature,

I'd rather say " Order is integral to nature". Or "Order doesn't depend from minds but would exist if there never had been minds."

[Alias]

I was saying that consciousness or intelligence is integral to Nature, not that it's a product of Nature...

But you do say that complex, conscious, purposeful life is a product of Nature.
If consciousness and intelligent purpose can be integral to Nature, then why cannot those properties be integral to Life?
If those properties cannot arise spontaneously through accidental processes, how did they get into Nature?
Where, for that matter, did Nature come from?

nor the reverse, that Nature is the product of an intelligent agent.

That's not the reverse, that's the necessary pre-condition of the alternative you propose.

One of "a few" alternative, of which we have yet to hear the others.

[Felix]

But you do say that complex, conscious, purposeful life is a product of Nature.

In the same way as the oak tree is a product of the acorn, yes.

If consciousness and intelligent purpose can be integral to Nature, then why cannot those properties be integral to Life?

They can be, in which they case they could not be considered "accidental."

That's not the reverse, that's the necessary precondition of the alternative you propose.

It's not a necessary precondition (that Nature is the product of an intelligent agent), creator/created or cause/effect are not the only possibilities. What is the necessary precondition for the existence of the universe?

[Felix]

Belindi: "Order doesn't depend from minds but would exist if there never had been minds."

I suppose, but if order crashed in the universe and there was no one there to hear it, would it make a sound?

[Alias]

[conscious, purposeful life is a product of Nature.]

In the same way as the oak tree is a product of the acorn, yes.

And what is the acorn a product of, if not an oak tree? (Even so, I'm not convinced that acorns have intelligent aims.)
You don't see that as circular reasoning?

[why cannot those properties be integral to Life]
They can be, in which they case they could not be considered "accidental."

Why? If they were purposefully put into life, something had to put them in there. If Life invented them deliberately, Life would have had to have a conscious will before those properties existed. To call it 'accidental' or 'incidental' or 'integral' or 'it just is' all mean undesigned. Designed would presuppose an intelligent agency before the existence of intelligence.
And there we have the same circle.

It's not a necessary precondition (that Nature is the product of an intelligent agent), creator/created or cause/effect are not the only possibilities.

It's a precondition of your statement :

that Nature functions in an intelligent way, is far less ridiculous than the idea that Nature is a mindless and aimless process that just happened to produce conscious creatures.

You don't see that
- if life can't become conscious without an agent [Nature] that deliberately made it conscious
-then Nature can't have become conscious without an agent that deliberately made it conscious
but
-if Nature can be conscious without an agent having made it so
-then life can become conscious without an agent [Nature] having made it so.
?
I still haven't seen the other alternatives to the mindless process of matter-energy interactions.

What is the necessary precondition for the existence of the universe?

The non-existence of the universe? I have no frickin idea. Doubt I'll ever find out.
But if it had an inherent intelligence before there was any life in it, then intelligence is not a property of life, and complexity in life present no more problem than complexity in the inert universe.

[Thinking critical]

You don't see that
- if life can't become conscious without an agent [Nature] that deliberately made it conscious
-then Nature can't have become conscious without an agent that deliberately made it conscious
but
-if Nature can be conscious without an agent having made it so
-then life can become conscious without an agent [Nature] having made it so.

Great point Alias, this is simply another version of god the intelligent designer, whereas here, god is replaced with nature. The argument still leads to infinite regress.
As I pointed out earlier, this attempt to assign properties to nature in order to explain why life is how it is, is a logical fallacy that Hume frequently talks about. Humans often have a tendency to anthropomorphimize gods and nature then assume processes which are more familiar to our own way of understanding.

[ThomasHobbes]

What did you mean when you brought up the appendix above?

It is a vestige of a more complex organ.
It has evolved to a point of being completely unnecessary.

[Alias]

It is a vestige of a more complex organ.

Yes - possibly a secondary stomach for storing and perhaps fermenting fibrous plant material. However, the caecum is so far down the digestive tract that no nutrient could be retrieved from its product, so it's more likely to be retaining mineral salts, perhaps water, and to prepare indigestible matter for painless excretion.
However, all primates and several other species also have an appendix, which would be a highly coincidental vestige for unrelated animals with different diets to have in common; so

It has evolved to a point of being completely unnecessary.

according to that cited article, it does have a use - presumably from quite a long way back in evolution - of storing needed bacteria, in case of gastrointestinal extinction events. That's what made it worth keeping. ..
I mean, that's why the individuals that had retained this vestigial organ survived severe dehydration and gut-purging epidemics.

[Felix]

Alias wrote:
-if Nature can be conscious without an agent having made it so
-then life can become conscious without an agent [Nature] having made it so.

You are reading me too literally, I never said that Nature made life conscious, I did say that intelligence is integral to Nature and this is reflected in Life. It's not a matter of one producing the other but of one being instrumental to the other, just as the acorn is the means for generating the oak tree - or vice versa, depending upon how you look at it.

[Belindi]

Belindi: "Order doesn't depend from minds but would exist if there never had been minds."

I suppose, but if order crashed in the universe and there was no one there to hear it, would it make a sound?

It would be cause of itself so nothing could cause it to crash.