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Similitude
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| Posted 12/11/2011 2:00 PM (GMT -6) |   | | D: Since I know that you are NOT going to work against parsimony (Gasp! Heaven forbid!! )...
Jeff: INDEED! :)
D: then you would say that you AGREE with Hartshorne on THAT particular point...right? I mean an unoriginate originator and an infinite regress of contingent originators are MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE IDEAS.
J: I would say you could have both--the ONE necessary being AND an infinite regress--as MERE logical possibilities (in the deductive sense). I just don't see why anyone WOULD posit that. What we are trying to explain (and most parsimoniously) is the contingent existence of those beings we believe are contingent in that order we call the "world" or "universe." Minimizing necessary beings in that explanation is the RATIONAL way to go. THAT we are agreed upon.
Insomuch as we believe beings in that order are contingent, it follows that the order itself is CONTINGENT. For that order consists OF those very beings and their ordered behavior.
Post Edited (Similitude) : 12/11/2011 1:03:34 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 12/11/2011 2:30 PM (GMT -6) | | Not at all. Even Greg talks as if a necessary being is that kind of being that exists FROM everlasting TO everlasting. Thus, a necessary being that is ALSO omniscient must be posited to have POSSIBLY experienced and infinite set of DISTINGUISHABLE (if only temporally distinguishable) conscious states. I see no way to get around the literal NECESSITY of CERTAIN infinite regresses.
Post Edited (Similitude) : 12/11/2011 1:36:26 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 12/11/2011 3:32 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Jeff: It is Hartshorne's argument that fails. Because it assumes our creator HAS to be necessary.
Tom: Not so. All that it assumes is that “a” necessary being exists and explain all that exists contingently. If you want to suppose that this necessary being created our world through a contingent demiurge (or ten, or a thousand), go for it. Hartshorne won’t in principle stand in your way on the basic of logic per se, though he has other arguments for just going straight to the necessary source. And I’m happy to agree that parsimony cuts through the intermediate contingent creators and takes us straight to a necessary creator (and explanatory closure). You still posit a necessary being. Hartshorne’s logic is airtight. What you can’t do—and what explains nothing because all its infinity of particularized explanations together require explanation—is claim that an infinite regress of contingent beings explains why our world, or anything at all, should exist instead of nothing.
Jeff: What we are trying to explain (and most parsimoniously) is the contingent existence of those beings we believe are contingent in that order we call the "world" or "universe."
Tom: But we want explanatory closure, not an infinite deferral. I can posit my parents to explain my contingent existence and have explained something, yes, and enough to "explain my contingent existence." There’s a measure of explanatory value in positing my parents as an explanation of my existence, but it’s an explanation that demands an explanation by begging the question, “My parents are contingent, so what explains their existence?” and it explains nothing to simply extend the deferral of explanation infinitely as your regress does. There is no explanation of why anything should exist instead of nothing in such a regress. Thus, logic and not parsimony leads us to options of greater explanatory value.
Jeff: Even Greg talks as if a necessary being is that kind of being that exists FROM everlasting TO everlasting. Thus, a necessary being that is ALSO omniscient must be posited to have POSSIBLY experienced and infinite set of DISTINGUISHABLE conscious states. I see no way to get around the literal NECESSITY of CERTAIN infinite regresses.
Tom: But the necessary temporal status of the one necessary being who alone gives us explanatory closure doesn’t mean there can be no vicious infinite regresses at all. A single necessary being who is eternal is one thing. If there is an infinite regress of moments in his life, so be it. Hartshorne thought so. But an infinite regress of created/contingent beings is another thing altogether. The former grants us explanatory closure. The latter is just the infinite deferral of explanation, a single unending question mark? “Why does our contingent world exist?” Answer: “Ask our contingent creator.” “Why does our contingent creator exist?” “As his contingent creator”…ad infinitum. Really, Jeff. I can force myself to consider arguments for the possibility of such a regress (like you say, there are some smart folks out there who think it makes sense). But I can’t take you seriously when you say such a regress possesses the same explanatory value as a necessary being.
Jeff: I agree THAT we should minimize beings.What I disagree with is that a necessary being is known to exist A PRIORI. I say we infer it BY parsimony ONLY.
Tom: I don’t infer it parsimoniously. Contingency of being can’t explain contingency of being with any sense of closure.
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Tom: Do you grant, Jeff, that an infinite regress of only contingent beings is itself contingent and utterly void of all necessity?
Jeff: In one sense it is. But I’m only contending that one or more beings with the causal capacity to originate other beings NECESSARILY has/have existed into the infinite past--otherwise, nothing would exist right now, per my 1) & 2). That’s the only KIND of necessity we need to account for to account FOR present CONTINGENT beings. But once we want to explain MORE than that, we have to choose between multiple conceivable options in terms of their relative explanatory value.
Tom: Two things. A) You’re attributing the needed necessity to an infinite regress of contingencies. The Ref just flagged you on a foul. Nothing about your regress can be necessary or embody the needed necessity. All its members are contingent. It’s all contingent, and by its definition nothing exists necessary. There’s nothing in it for ‘necessity’ to hang its hat on. And B) we DO want to explain more. Much more. Like, why does something rather than nothing exist at all? And when we jump to this level (the ONLY level worth discussing), an infinite regress does not have the same explanatory value as a necessary being. Who cares about finding the least amount of metaphysical wherewithal to account for our particular universe while infinitely deferring what’s needed to account for why there should be anything at all?
Do you agree that a necessary being has more explanatory value than an infinite regress of contingent beings? If yes, then it’s not parsimony that guides your choice. Parsimony is only useful in adjudicating explanations of equal explanatory value. So…do you think an infinite regress of contingent beings explains all that a necessary being explains?
Tom
"The aesthetic value the world has for God is in expressing, not constituting, the aesthetic value God eternally finds within Godself." Greg BoydPost Edited (Tom) : 12/11/2011 2:35:53 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 12/11/2011 4:59 PM (GMT -6) | | | Tom: If you want to suppose that this necessary being created our world through a contingent demiurge (or ten, or a thousand), go for it.
Jeff: There's more logical possibilities than that, though. There's the possibility that the demiurge is HE out of whom and FOR whom is our creation. That would make the god of OUR scriptures NON-necessary. Only parsimony solves the problem TOTALLY.
Tom: All its members are contingent. It’s all contingent, and by its definition nothing exists necessary. There’s nothing in it for ‘necessity’ to hang its hat on. And B) we DO want to explain more. Much more. Like, why does something rather than nothing exist at all?
Jeff: It doesn't matter if all the members are contingent so long as the currently existing contingent beings of OUR universe are accounted for BY them. What is NECESSARY in that mere regard is THAT something with the relevant/sufficient originating causal capacity has ALWAYS existed such that something was able to generate US at the relevent time consistently with my 1) & 2). That's ALL it takes. And that IS one SENSE in which existence is necessary regardless of whether there is a necessary being.
Tom: Do you agree that a necessary being has more explanatory value than an infinite regress of contingent beings?
Jeff: Of course. That's what I've been saying over and over again. Because it renders parsimony a REAL criteria and not MERELY a sentient one. As D says, simplicity can be nuanced. We want to believe that parsimony is a normative criteria for choosing between otherwise deductively valid explanations that corresponds to the way reality is--not merely a satisfying one. For if it's not a real one, then believing I'm in a matrix is just as TRULY plausible as believing otherwise, even though that belief is not near as satisfying.
We want to avoid that dead-end skepticism that gets us NOTHING MEANINGFUL in the sense of TRUE VALUE. It's a mere logical possibility that all my inductive inferences have only seemingly corresponded to my experience by PURE COINCIDENCE rather than by BENEVOLENT/COMPETENT design , but will cease to correspond thus in one minute. But can humans truly believe that over any prolonged period of time? That's what I don't believe. Parsimony is of immense value in our view of how design relates to epistemology.
Post Edited (Similitude) : 12/11/2011 6:20:29 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 12/12/2011 12:22 AM (GMT -6) | | I wanna jump off a building.
Tom: Do you agree that a necessary being has more explanatory value than an infinite regress of contingent beings?
Jeff: Of course. That's what I've been saying over and over again. Because it renders parsimony a REAL criteria and not MERELY a sentient one.
Tom: No, Jeff. Listen, a necessary being doesn't have more explanatory value than an infinite regress of contingent beings BECAUSE of parsimony in any way, shape, matter or form.. Parsimony is only called upon when competing possible explanations all have the SAME explanatory value. One determines the explanatory value of competing views on their own merits, independent of parsimony, and then compares the views given their inherent explanatory values. What does a view explain? What does a view not explain? ONLY if competing views have equal explanatory power does one THEN call parsimony off the bench and asked it to play its part--and we make the simpler choice. But parsimony isn't what gives the possibility of a necessary being more explanatory value than the (so-called) possibilty of an infinite regress of contingent beings. The possibility of a necessary being has more explanatory value because a necessary being EXPLAINS MORE (independent of any appeal to parsimony) than an infinite regress of continent beings.
Gosh.
T
"The aesthetic value the world has for God is in expressing, not constituting, the aesthetic value God eternally finds within Godself." Greg BoydPost Edited (Tom) : 12/12/2011 12:58:15 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Asher
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| Posted 12/12/2011 1:30 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom: I wanna jump off a building.
That's why philosophy should always be done with a net. | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 12/12/2011 6:51 AM (GMT -6) | | | Tom: ONLY if competing views have equal explanatory power does one THEN call parsimony off the bench and asked it to play its part--and we make the simpler choice.
Jeff: Right, Tom. But it's BECAUSE of how I GET to a necessary being (by parsimony) that THAT inference identifies my creator/designer AS a necessary being. So does positing a necessary being explain HOW there can be anything at all NOW in a way that a infinite regress won't? NO. Because both of those routes satisfy my 1) and 2).
But the LEGITIMACY of moving, by parsimony, from a conceivable series of 100 to less sans-creational beings DOES buy me something--that MY creator is a necessary being. So in that sense, positing APPROPRIATELY that there is a necessary being to solve my 1) and 2) EXPLAINS how I can know that necessary existence is an ATTRIBUTE of my creator, given the a priori teleological requirement OF a creator.
But unless infinite regresses are inherently irrational (in which case Corey is right after all about tne inconceivability of a necessary-temporal being since we can't, then, ACCOUNT for a necessary CONSCIOUS/KNOWING being), an infinite regress ACCOUNTS for existence [my 1) & 2)] just as a necessary being plus some finite number of creations does. The only way this could be false is if my 1) & 2) aren't all that needs to be satisfied. And you haven't explicitly said what else DOES need to be satisfied to account for current contingent existence.
Post Edited (Similitude) : 12/12/2011 5:57:23 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 12/12/2011 7:13 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: And you haven't explicitly said what else DOES need to be satisfied to account for current contingent existence.
Tom: You're kidding, right? I mean, you have to be pulling my leg. After all I've said you can't see where I've mentioned the need to explain something more crucial and (yes!) even more parsimonious than your 1) and 2)?
Jeff: I'm not kidding Tom. A necessary being explains our own contingent existence PRECISELY because a necessary being satisfies my 1) & 2). But so does an infinite regress of creators. All that is necessary for my 1) & 2) to be satisfied is THAT there is ALWAYS at least ONE being in existence prior to our own creation by a BEING. This is satisfied by:
1) Precisely one necessary being with creative powers sufficient to explain our contingent creation,
2) A finite series of creators with the oldest existing necessarily,
3) An infinite regression of creators.
But of course we're trying to explain WAY more than that. That I exist isn't even important if I'm not sentient, e.g. No sentience, no value. No value, no importance. Existence per se isn't even interesting. But if my 1) and 2) are true, and if 3) beings are temporal sans creation, we have to explain our contingent existence BY one or more sans-creational beings. There's no getting around THAT.
Post Edited (Similitude) : 12/12/2011 6:29:00 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 12/12/2011 7:40 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom: You're kidding, right? I mean, you have to be pulling my leg. After all I've said you can't see where I've mentioned the need to explain something more crucial and (yes!) even more parsimonious than your 1) and 2)?
Jeff: I'm not kidding Tom. A necessary being explains our own contingent existence PRECISELY because a necessary being satisfies my 1) & 2).
Tom: That's not what I'm shaking my head about. You said I hadn't explicitly mentioned anything OTHER THAN your 1) and 2) which requires explaining which only a necessary being could explain. But I have repeatedly mentioned what needs to be explained other than your 1) and 2). What I thought you must be joking with me about is that you really don't know what that request for explanation is.
There's more to be explained than your 1) and 2), of more interest, consequence and relevance.
Tom
"The aesthetic value the world has for God is in expressing, not constituting, the aesthetic value God eternally finds within Godself." Greg Boyd Post Edited (Tom) : 12/12/2011 7:09:00 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 12/12/2011 8:05 PM (GMT -6) | | | I agree. WAY more. The question is, is that WAY more stuff explained by a priori arguments or not? I say precious little is categorical. Everything that is important to us is inferred IMO.
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Tom
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| Posted 12/12/2011 8:06 PM (GMT -6) | | Asher: I don't know what to add, Tom, you've summed it up nicely. Either God is (necessarily) or God is impossible. No middle ground possibilities. No strictly logical knock out winner.
Jeff: This is it in a nutshell. There is no knock out proof. Greg admitted it. He said Hartshorne admitted it.
Tom: What Harshorne admitted is that he's a fallible thinker and could be wrong about the conceivability of a necessary being. But what he insisted he could not be wrong about are two things (just reading him again today, dang):
a) That the only argument that can succeed in demonstrating the non-existence of God (a necessary perfect being) is an argument for his impossibility, and that...
b) Any argument for the conceivability of such a being is consequently an argument for its existence. That is, to the extent that one concedes the conceivability of a necessary being, one is bound by logic to concede his existence.
Hartshorne admitted he might be wrong about the conceivability of such a being, yes. That's just epistemic humility. He didn't admit that he could be wrong about the definition of necessary being and the logical entailments of its conceivability (SHOULD be prove to be conceivable). But so long as it is believed to be conceivable, it should be believed to exist.
You're not addressing the substance of my objections. You keep claiming an infinite regress of created beings explains your 1) and 2). Yes, BUT ONLY in the sense that my parents explain my existence. But so long as the so-called explanations are carbon copies of the contingencies they are called upon to explain, you just have infinite deferral. An infinite regress of just contingent beings can't even explain itself, Jeff. So any particular contingency that rejoices in having found an explanation for its existence must grieve the loss of explanation when it realizes that what it took to be an explanation of its own existence itself requires a similar explanation. Why can't you appreciate the vacuity of your regress in terms of explanatory value (of any explanation WORTH having)?
Dude, email me your mailing address. Stink. I wanna mail you my copy of Hartshorne's The Logic of Perfection. Maybe you'll have a mystical moment. But I want it back!
Tom
"The aesthetic value the world has for God is in expressing, not constituting, the aesthetic value God eternally finds within Godself." Greg Boyd | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 12/12/2011 8:11 PM (GMT -6) | | Hartshorne clearly believed the way more stuff can be explained a priori (not everything about it). So does Greg who is essentially Hartshornian! But they do think the existence of a necessary being is a priori...in the Modal/Anselmian sense that conceivability implies actuality where necessity of being is concerned.
But a priori doesn't mean 'obviously self-evident'. Sometimes you gotta dig deep to explicate the truely self-evident nature of a priori truth. It's hard work.
You need a mystical moment Jeff. Come on up to MN. Come to our sweat lodge and we will bake Hartshorne into you.
Tom
"The aesthetic value the world has for God is in expressing, not constituting, the aesthetic value God eternally finds within Godself." Greg BoydPost Edited (Tom) : 12/12/2011 7:14:07 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 12/12/2011 8:51 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
a) That the only argument that can succeed in demonstrating the non-existence of God (a necessary perfect being) is an argument for his impossibility, and that...
b) Any argument for the conceivability of such a being is consequently an argument for its existence. That is, to the extent that one concedes the conceivability of a necessary being, one is bound by logic to concede his existence.
Jeff: a) already entails the conceivability of an alternative to b)--i.e., that God is impossible. Now, I don't believe that it is logically possible to conceive of the imossibility of God. But that's because I believe we believe a priori in DESIGN. But necessary existence isn't necessary to be a designer. The ontological argument, per se, doesn't even EQUATE the necessary being (God, per the ontological view of Him) with the Creator/Designer of us beings which we also believe are contingent.
In fact, the only reason I believe I'm contingent is BECAUSE my contingent existence is the most parsimonious explanation for my experience. It's conceivable that I have existed from everlasting and only recently experienced the conditions that cause me to be conscious and/or remember the past. But why would I infer that when I already have an intuition of final causality that renders my own contingent existence the more parsimonious explanation.
IOW, the intuitions about what we call God have to do with His teleological relation TO us, best I can tell. The perfections we are compelled to infer of Him are precisely those that are necessary to render our own intuitions true and our own modes of inference warranted. Those perfections are teleological benevolence and competence. Other more specific perfections end up being known as corrollaries of these two general ones--like perfect teleological knowledge and perfect invulnerability to opposers of any kind of any of His designs.
But God's necessity is the least relevant attribute to us in terms of our relation to Him. It's only relevant because of parsimony. If there were a series of 100 creators with the original one being necessary and our creator being the last and non-necessary, all would still be lovely so long as our creator is teleologically benevolent and competent. Whether He was necessary would be irrelevant to us in terms of PERFECTIONS. It's relevant because parsimony IS the proper way to explain. So it ALLOWS us to legitimately infer that our creator is a necessary being.
In short, the intuition of DESIGN gets us everything we need. It just does so in combination with our sentient nature. The a priori part is independent of whether the designer is benevolent, malevolent or merely curious (deistic). The rest gets filled in inferentially and correlatively because of what our pleasure-oriented and pain-averse nature compels us to infer.
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Tom
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| Posted 12/12/2011 9:37 PM (GMT -6) | | UnbeLIEVable! Here's Hartshorne's entire book readable online. I'm a magician!
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24369156
Just do chs. 1 and 2 for now. See what you think.
Tom
"The aesthetic value the world has for God is in expressing, not constituting, the aesthetic value God eternally finds within Godself." Greg Boyd | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 12/13/2011 7:20 AM (GMT -6) | | | Tom: But EVEN IF it doesn't equate the necessary being with the creator/designer of us, it DOES rule out an infinite regress of created beings as explaining anything at all.
Jeff: But only BECAUSE of the design stuff, like Asher said. The reason why that's NOT conceivable is because we already are COMPELLED TO believe in a NECESSARY DESIGNER with PERFECTIONS completely independently of the ontological argument. But that's just another way of saying the ontological argument is completely superfluous.
Do you at least follow me on that, Asher?
But thanks for that link. I really do want to see how he articulates it.
And no, I'm not on meds unless you count really strong coffee! :)
Post Edited (Similitude) : 12/13/2011 6:58:29 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 12/13/2011 9:02 AM (GMT -6) | | Hartshorne's ontlogical argument is about perfection of being, not the sheer existence of a sheer necessary being, as if the reasoning that gets you that being gets you a naked necessary being--plop--and some other kind of reasoning gets him dressed and fitted with attributes. There's only one KIND of necessary being which is, per Hartshorne, conceivably necessary, and that's a PERFECT being. That's why the book is called: The Logic of Perfection. So, a non-conscious, non-volitional, non-experiencing necessary being would be, for Harshorne, inconceviable. Beyond that yes, folks disagree. Are we compelled to think of the necessary BEING in terms of perfect being (attributes of perfection)? I think so.
Tom
"The aesthetic value the world has for God is in expressing, not constituting, the aesthetic value God eternally finds within Godself." Greg BoydPost Edited (Tom) : 12/13/2011 8:21:38 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 12/13/2011 10:33 AM (GMT -6) | | In the final paragraph he writes (but please read the whole thing, it's only a page long):
"The positivistic doubt can still be raised. It may be that the best way of dealing with it is via arguments which independently show that God must exist. To this extent the ontological argument may be superfluous. It need not be used, but its validity must be admitted by theists. What cannot, I think, be superfluous is for philosophers to realize that blanket empiricism begs the theistic question. This is Anselm’s great discovery."
One qualification though. In saying the Argument "may be superfluous" in the sense that "it need not be used" because other arguments may "independentliy show that God must exist," he's not saying there can be arguments that both show God must exist AND that the Argument is invalid. That's the point. If there are several valid arguments that show God must exist, all the better. But none can invalidate the Ontological Argument.
Having said that, I could as easily say the OA renders YOUR argument superfluous. But what's the point in somebody who has a valid and true argument for X telling somebody else who has a different but equally valid and true argument for X, "Hey, you're argument is superfluous." Well, so is yours. Superfluous, where equallly valid and true arguments are considered (not equally possible but competing arguments), can only mean less superfluously parsimonious, and I'm not going to argue with you about which of several valid and true arguments (yours or the OA) is more parsimonious. I will say, though, that IF an argument requires us as a premise to conceive of the possibility of an infinite regress of only contingent beings, I can't grant the truth of the argument, for this PARTICULAR regress (however conceivable other particular regresses may be) seems impossible. There can be no successfull argument for a necessary being which has as one of its premisses the conceivability of the non-existence of a necessary being.
Tom
"The aesthetic value the world has for God is in expressing, not constituting, the aesthetic value God eternally finds within Godself." Greg Boyd Post Edited (Tom) : 12/13/2011 3:06:10 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Asher
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| Posted 12/13/2011 11:43 AM (GMT -6) | | http://www.anthonyflood.com/hartshorneontoargsuperfluous.htm
Wow! Thanks Tom. That whole site is a gold mine! | | Back to Top | | |
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