Design versus Argument

[orion]

Herman Hesse, in his weird classic Steppenwolf gave some great philosophical quotes, of which my favourite is:

"...human life is but a bad joke, a violent and ill-fated abortion of the primal mother, a savage and dismal catastrophe of nature"

I found this summary below (in italics) of the design versus accident argument on the Royal Institute of Philosophy website. The "Swinburne" mentioned is a philosopher who argues that the world we live in is so finely balanced, so unique to support intelligent life, that it must have been "fine tuned" by some divine actor. In his summary Richard Norman gives an excellent riposte to such a world view.

To me (orion), this argument of whether the universe is designed or random confirms the absurdity of human existence as espoused by Camus. In answer to:

"Design" : If GOD did design the universe as we know it, where in hell (pun intended) did he sprout from? If he had a higher purpose, where did it come from? and so on into infinity and absurdity. Religionists will say "He was always there", well, where is "there", and how can he have been there for ever? What is His purpose?

"Accident" : If the universe is a burp of primal nature, a random and indifferent accident then it hardly needs me to re-iterate the absurdist view: if we are alone, life is meaningless, hence definitely absurd. This is the only "meaning" I can attach to the brutal farce of human life - it is absurd.

The article was a lot longer but I only cut and paste the summary, but the bare essentials of Norman's position are succinctly given in it.

Enjoy:


Swinburne’s argument, reduced to its bare essentials, has this form:

Premise 1: There must be some further explanation of why the initial conditions and laws of the universe were such as to produce plants and animals and humans.

Premise 2: The explanation cannot be a scientific explanation.

Conclusion: So it must be a personal (purposive) explanation. (purposive=GOD)

I agree with Swinburne’s second premise. Necessarily, if what we want to explain are the facts which science starts from, then science cannot itself explain them. But it doesn’t follow that, because there is no scientific explanation, there must be a personal explanation. The alternative is that there is no explanation at all (that is, we should reject the first premise). Swinburne thinks that this is unacceptable. He says: ‘To suppose these data to be just brute inexplicable facts seems...highly irrational.’ (p. 53) But all explanations have to come to an end somewhere. If you ask theists why there exists an omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent god, there is no further explanation they can give. If God is the explanation of everything else, then the existence of God has to be just a brute inexplicable fact. It seems to me to be a great deal more rational to accept, as our brute fact, the existence of a certain kind of universe. After all, we do have the best possible evidence that this universe, unlike God, actually exists!

Richard Norman is professor of philosophy at the University of Kent and author of The Moral Philosophers (Oxford University Press)

[friendlyskies]

Read Dawkins' "The God Delusion" for further discussion.

One thing Dawkins harps on a bit is that, in the creationism vs. evolution debate anyway, the "design" vs. "accident" argument is a fallacy. Evolution is no accident, it's incremental trial and error, where few errors go unpunished. Well, except in times of plenty. And those rarely last.

[coldharvest]

both sides are going to be right pissed off when they find out God's a scientist.

[Sri Lanky]

There's a guy sitting in a bus shack
He's got the bus shack blues
went in for a snooze
'cause he ran out of booze

He comes from the boreal forest
now he's in the dead forest
he's dead
couldn't see the trees from the forest

Cultural genocide
Cultural suicide
Just ask Britney
'cause this is E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G

[friendlyskies]

both sides are going to be right pissed off when they find out God's a scientist.

Nah, scientists are usually more entertained by absurd comedy, like Monty Python. God seems to get a giggle from the gorier humor, straight-to-video horror stuff, like Leprechaun V: Leprechaun in the Hood. (An apt analogy for the current situation in Iraq?) From the evidence available, I'm guessing God is a troubled teen.

[orion]

both sides are going to be right pissed off when they find out God's a scientist.

Both Einstein and Hawking believe in the possibility of a creator universe. The series of accidents from the Big Bang (which we can now see as close as 320,000 years after the singularity "exploded") through the emergence of star systems to the microscopic window of opportunity for intelligent life (us) to develop and question the nature of the universe, is so small, so improbable, that Einstein and co cannot rule out the possibility of divine intervention of some kind. In fact Einstein talked about "Reading the mind of God" in his work.

I'm sceptical, the universe is indifferent to us, another series of cosmic accidents will wipe us out in another few billions of years as if we never existed. We are nothing, a freak in the universal brew. Enjoy it while it lasts.

[friendlyskies]

Both Einstein and Hawking believe in the possibility of a creator universe.

Dawkins calls this common misconception, usually based on the "God doesn't play dice" Einstein quote, another fallacy. Dawkins says that this and other quotes by Einstein and Hawking are taken out of context and used by creationists to prop up the lie (and this is a lie) that most scientists believe that there really is a creator who cares deeply about who you have sex with and what you wear, things that will determine whether you get a harp and/or 72 white raisins upon dying, or spend all eternity in flames. Most scientists, Dawkins argues, do not believe in this sort of deity.

Some scientists, of course, are deeply religious, but in general most scientists are either agnostic or atheist, according to Dawkins, and this category includes both Hawking and Einstein. Dawkins says that if you review their writings in context, both are refering to the wonder and beauty of complexity of nature and the universe, as opposed to a self-aware creator.

I, of course, have never met either of them, but Dawkins book is well researched and he knows these guys.

[friendlyskies]

Erm, "knew" these guys, in the case of Einstein.

Anyway, no one knows whether there is a self-aware, omnipotent, omniscient creator God who really believes that people who reject Him should be killed (Deuteronomy 17:12 and 13:13; 2 Chronicles 15:12-13), along with anyone who fights with their parents (Exodus 21:15; Proverbs 20:20), anyone who has sex outside of marriage (Leviticus 21:9; Deuteronomy 20:20); or who reads the horoscope column out loud to a friend (Leviticus 20:27) etc etc ad nauseum. Heck, maybe there is.

But most scientists are skeptical. They just think the universe is awesome in and of itself, and in no way requires us to kill astrologers, even if they do seem a bit silly to the astronomers.

[Sri Lanky]

We are the universe aware of itself.

Other than that,we aren't supposed to know....in fact,we know nothing.

Knowledge is ego(there's that word again).

[Sri Lanky]

Knowing nothing is the only thing we know.

[el3so]

Enjoy it while it lasts.

Amen to that.