Question for athiests/agnostics

[jmac2112]

Hi,

I'm new to this forum, so my apologies if this horse has been beaten to death. What is the FIRST thought that occurs to you when faced with the seeming orderliness and purposefulness of the world? Not to put words into anyone's mouth, but how would you complete the sentence "Yes, there is much order evident in the workings of reality, but....."

I'm hoping to get single sentences for answers, but feel free to write a book if necessary!

Thanks,

John

[daedalus 2.0]

I was going to give kudos to Voco for his post. Well done.

I don't know if it helps of confuses the issue, but if you consider Paley's Watchmaker example, it's as if you have stumbled upon a watch, on a beach made of watches, in a universe of watches.

You can't declare the universe is perfectly designed, then declare that you can tell because of the signs of design among all the chaos.

If you haven't read about ID, I would be careful. It's seductive but has huge flaws, one of the flaws is exactly what we are talking about here. It has flaws right out of the gate; basic, structural problems that are philosophically and scientifically unsound.

And it represents the best attempt to reconcile what you are beginning to argue.


Of course, I realize you have to discover this for yourself.

[jmac2112]

OK, I've pondered what you (Voco and Daedalus) have to say, and I would like to formulate what I think is the principle underlying your statements. I hope that no one objects to this way of discussing the matter. It seems to be a one way street, in which I do all the asking and you do all the answering. However, I think this is because you all understand the principles upon which the theist arguments are base, while I am honestly uncertain about how non-theists think. I find that the only way to know if I really understand what someone is saying is if I can paraphrase or restate it in such a way that the other person says "Yep, that's it!" I will also say that I feel much more intellectual kinship with committed atheist/agnostics than I do with the majority of people who don't seem to give the matter any thought. At least you guys realize what is at stake here.

Having said that, here is my latest formulation of non-theist thinking regarding "order":

In the world around us, there are different modes or states of being involving the internal disposition of the constituent elements of things. We recognize a spectrum regarding these mode or states of being, with "order" at one end and "chaos" at the other, and varying degrees in between. Any value judgments that we make, such as saying that order is good and chaos is bad, are not statements of fact (i.e. do not refer to any sort of transcendent standard of "goodness" or "badness"), but are merely statements about our own feelings. To put it another way, there is no Transcendental Being who puts his stamp of approval on order and looks with an unkindly eye upon chaos. Man truly is the measure of all things.

Does this accurately reflect your understanding of "order"?

John

[daedalus 2.0]

I'll bite. Yes, close enough to move on, Socrates.

[jmac2112]

I'll bite. Yes, close enough to move on, Socrates.

Smile when you say that, mister! Oh wait, you did....

In my formulation above, I said that a non-theist would agree that the concepts of "good" and "bad" are completely subjective, and express nothing more than feelings. On the theoretical side, however, a non-theist would agree that some things in the world display more order than others, e.g. bowling pins are arranged in a more orderly fashion before you bowl a strike than after. My question is, in what sense can this be said to be true? If emperical evidence is the only acceptable sort of evidence, how would you devise an experiment to determine whether one object, or grouping of objects, displays more order than another? I understand that you could weigh the bowling pins, measure them, describe their shapes, describe their positions relative to each other both before and after you have bowled a strike, smash them, smell them, eat them, whatever. But what is the standard by which you can measure their order?

Is my example OK? I fear that I may have stepped over a line somewhere in my premises, thereby invalidating my (implied) conclusion.

John

[realthinker]

I'll bite. Yes, close enough to move on, Socrates.

Smile when you say that, mister! Oh wait, you did....

In my formulation above, I said that a non-theist would agree that the concepts of "good" and "bad" are completely subjective, and express nothing more than feelings. On the theoretical side, however, a non-theist would agree that some things in the world display more order than others, e.g. bowling pins are arranged in a more orderly fashion before you bowl a strike than after. My question is, in what sense can this be said to be true? If emperical evidence is the only acceptable sort of evidence, how would you devise an experiment to determine whether one object, or grouping of objects, displays more order than another? I understand that you could weigh the bowling pins, measure them, describe their shapes, describe their positions relative to each other both before and after you have bowled a strike, smash them, smell them, eat them, whatever. But what is the standard by which you can measure their order?

Is my example OK? I fear that I may have stepped over a line somewhere in my premises, thereby invalidating my (implied) conclusion.

John

What is the significance of "more order"? Crystals are obviously more ordered than liquid water, but what of it?

Aside from that, order can be measured with respect to the degree of conformity within a group of like objects as well as the probability that those objects will be found to be ordered when encountered again. Salt molecules have a definite order within a crystal that can be measured precisely, and will pretty much always be encountered as crystals. Trees are, in nature, not very orderly, either in their placement or in their shape.

But again, what's the significance? Mostly the degree of order that will be recognized has to do with attributes of the substance or objects. Those are natural laws that are simply facts. Obviously the interaction of objects of varying types can affect the probability of order, as water destroys the order of a salt crystal. But that again is based on the attributes of the objects, governed by the laws of nature. I don't know where to go from there.

[jmac2112]

Thanks for replying, realthinker. What I was trying to do in a roundabout way was to open up a big can of epistemological worms. I'm interested in the question of how we know order when we see it, although I could have chosen any number of other abstractions. "Order" expresses a relationship, and as such is not a material object, or at least not a material thing that exists outside of my own head (and yours, and everybody else's). So, although I've seen lots of examples of order, I've never seen order itself. Is our concept of order somehow present in a material way in our brains? If so, do we recognize order by comparing a given disposition of material elements (i.e. an example of order) to the material concept of order that exists in our brains? If so, how can my limited experience of reality give me a concept which will allow me to recognize any and every example of order that I will ever encounter? I mean, assuming that our memories (or internal images, or however you want to characterize the impression that something makes on our brains) of this or that example of order are going to allow us to recognize order whenever we see it, would we not have to somehow compare all of the memories (or internal images, etc.) and abstract from them a universal concept that applies to all cases of order? Is this concept also material? I'm confused as to how matter can comprehend anything, material or immaterial.

What I have written may not apply to what you personally think, but it seems to me to reflect the way someone might try to explain knowledge without resorting to metaphysics. I am very open to correction on this matter (no pun intended).

Thanks,

John