Suppose the first thing is to establish what is meant by "blind". I would take that to mean an absence of teleology. There is order in nature, which some people find divine, but it is questionable whether this order exists for a particular purpose.
I don't know about any one else, but I only find it annoying when someone throws out what they suppose is a provocative statement and orders a discussion. The OP offers no other remark than the obvious that God and blind nature are not the same. A six-year old can say that! Then he informs us that blind nature is indeed blind. Naturally, the first intelligent respondent asks what is meant by 'blind'. I say, 'intelligent,' but excuse me, exchemist, maybe not intelligent enough. I suggest that we don't feed the troll.
The problem with asking questions like this is that "blind nature" and "god" are just compound concepts dependent on belief. They dont really have any meaning of their own.
Oh, I don't know. I just took it as one of those university general paper type questions. I usually try to be initially tolerant towards people who start threads, unless the subject matter is obviously provocative or stupid, since it is easier to respond than to initiate: certainly I start very few threads myself. Unless of course the poster has past form as a troll or nitwit. Anyway James has asked the question so let's see what - if anything - we get.
If we are a product of blind nature then there is no purpose to our existence. Yet we create purpose. Those who believe in God definitely create purpose whether delusional or not. Yes. Every human being, atheist or not, is trying to fulfill some sort of teleology. Whether it is working a factory job or writing about science on sciforums. I don't know whether you believe in God or not, but whatever it is I won't waste my life on earth.
Well that is not what I was saying. This was that some people see the order in the universe as evidence of a divine creator - with whatever teleological or other implications they associate with that. But I agree most of us seek purpose to our lives, in some way. Most religions provide an aspect of such a purpose, bound up with culture and tradition. Non-believers also seek purpose to their lives, but have to work out for themselves what they think that should be. The degree to which they articulate this, even to themselves, seems to vary widely from person to person.
One of the major differences between blind nature and God is that blind nature makes mistakes whereas God ultimately fulfills the purpose of Its design. A person can fail to achieve their purpose to life by following blind nature as opposed to God. Not only culture and religion but science as well provides purpose to people's lives. I know of a Quantum theorist who believes that we can know more than what our 5 senses tell us. A priori knowledge gained in lieu of the empirical. I'm not sure whether or not this is a false belief.
Blind nature sounds like the theory of randomness, whereas God is more about order and determinism. If you look at humans, we prefer order and control. Very few people prefer to live in the chaos of war where nothing is permanent for very long, and one has to react to a constant flux of unpredictable change beyond your control. Humans try to create order; habits, structure and personal possessions, so the main capacitance of things is ordered, but with some flux of change for excitement and fun. Since humans like order and control, and if we assume God is higher than human, a simple extrapolation implies order at the top of the food chain. One would logically conclude that if humans like order and God made man in his image, God also liked order first and would design his universal house to be full of order. This allows the universe to make sense to humans, who like order, since a random universe has no cause and effect. This is not the case.
Do you believe that if there were no determinism and that every cause and effect, action and reaction, were spontaneous, humans would still be able to make sense of reality and their lives?
Well, yes, in as much that laws and theories can be derived from action and reaction, continuity and existence. Reality operates with certain coefficients. These can be estimated and tested, and predictions and planning made therefrom. Hell, isn't that why God gave us statistics?
This requires an a priori assumption that there is a purpose to "blind nature". Once you remove this assumption, it becomes clear that "blind nature" makes no mistakes, as mistakes only exist relative to a purpose. Your argument here seems to imply that there is an objective purpose to life... which would be yet another a priori assumption. And if you are not making this assumption, and accept that people determine their own purpose, then how can following God lead to success if your deem God to be irrelevant to your purpose in life? Following an irrelevancy would surely lead to failure. And bear in mind that Man is not infallible, and he can fail in his pursuit of whatever he determines his purpose to be irrespective of what he follows.
You know the ideas of "blind" nature and "mistake" are judgement calls, anthropocentric judgement calls. Its ends may not coincide with what you call good or what might please you personally, but that doesnt make nature "blind", its just not following the agenda that you imagine it should. Nature doesnt make mistakes, it is as it is like it or not and since the way it is, is the only way it can be, its perfect unto itself. You can either deny it and fight or accept and use it. The laws by which the universe behaves are not up for debate and are neither good nor evil. As for god, when people are left to divine gods purpose, as often as not, you get the inquisition or jihad or something equally horrible. The really heinous thing is that when people profess to know gods purpose it cloaks them in an imagined moral superiority that, as often as not, defies good sense, intelligence, or any sensitivity to human suffering. On the brighter side, it does sometimes make harmless fatalists of them, making them beleive that what ever event is "gods will" and i suppose on that account the concept of god does save the rest of us some trouble. So there is really no "blind nature vs. god" debate. Imo it makes about as much sense as middle schoolers doing batman vs superman.
Interesting point. Here is a question for anybody: Is Langan's work any good? I mean is it testable? How can a God in the imagination become real? How can a spirit be real?
You'll have to help me: I do not know Langan. Janine? Toronto? If so, from a 30sec web search it appears she may argue in favour of a view of God as something people imagine, I suppose possibly a cultural construct (though I'm guessing). But can you point me towards anything I can read quickly (I have no appetite for a book on her ideas)?
He is definitely correct and that is easy to demonstate. All baby know it falling is undesirable - will protest if you briefly let them. They even know not to crawl over the edge of a cliff at birth. Some babies can immediately crawl (baby calf can even walk immediately and many do so as they "hit the ground" following birth. My MD father delivered many babies, one was briefly place stomach down on the bed next to his mother. Dad turned his attention back to baby just as it was crawling towards the edge of the bed! That was years before the lady head of the psychology department at Cornell, some years before I was student there, invented the "virtual cliff" experiment, in which a large stiff sheet of glass covers a small table and extend well beyond the table's edge. No baby even those that can almost immediately crawl will crawl beyond the edge of the table - they know from birth that is a bad idea. Baby also know at birth the correct arrangement of two eyes, a nose and mouth that is a face. If you make correct arrangement ins a "line drawing" of these items with in a slightly elliptical shape (major axis vertical) and present it to their field of vision, they will look at it and soon become bored. If however the mouth is basically vertical and one eye is above the other along side the mouth, (or other not natural arrangements) the baby will stare at it much longer before turning its eyes away and quicly return to look angain - as if to say "what the hell is going on - that is not right!" All sorts of experiments have been done with an simple object, like a ball, (or a more complex one like a doll) steadily moving on a table towards a screen which briefly hides the object. The baby will expect the object to emerge form the other side. If it does then stops moving, soon the baby loses interest in it. If however a red ball went in and a blue cube emerges than the baby will stare at it much longer, Or one doll goes in and two emerge, etc. Babies have a great deal of correct understanding at birth of many natural things in the world - violate that and they know something strange has happened. You can even show that they know 3 and 4 objects are different - can count a little at birth! Perhaps the most important thing they know innately is how to correlate - or in simple terms how to learn. For example, if many times "a" if followed by "b" when it is followed by "c" they know that is "wrong." - They have learned that b is "supposed" to follow a. All learning is based on this ability to correlate and it is innate, not learned.
Wow, I was wondering how long it would take... For 4 whole posts it seemed as though you were actually able to discuss something (even if 1 of those 4 was merely the opening question with none of your own thoughts) without reference to Langan. But it just wasn't to last. And your 5th post is almost a non-sequitur... A discussion is flowing and you suddenly ask, rather out of the blue, whether Langan's work is any good, testable etc. For those that are aware of your utter devotion to his CTMU it comes as no great surprise you would look to crowbar in his name and work anywhere you can, but in the context of this discussion, even one you set up yourself, it comes out of the blue. But in answer to your question: the general consensus is that his work is interesting but ultimately unscientific, untestable, and he wraps it in a language that seems aimed at keeping serious review away. But what has this to do with the comment you were responding to, or to the discussion at large?
