And so begins the next great cycle.
Dumaurier makes a series of illogical claims painted as impregnable truths.
Boris shows there's no inherent truth in the claims.
Dumaurier spouts lots of quotes.
Enjoy, repeat...
<hr>
"Does not the existence of chaos prove the existence of order? ~Yes!"
Chaos does not exist; there is only order (due to your beloved causality, no less). What we call 'chaos' is merely an illusion of unpredictability stemming from complexity. This is just one example of some of the binary constructs (chaos/order) that we create, where only one member of the pair actually makes sense.
<hr>
"If there were no existence, could nonexistence be realized. Never!"
If there were no existence, we wouldn't be having the conversation, much less realizing anything. This is another example of a juxtapposition of two concepts, of which only one reflects reality.
<hr>
"Is this contingent world the source of imperfections? Yes!"
"Can the creation be perfect and the creator imperfect? Impossible!"
Does anybody else sense a self-contradiction here? Which one is it Dumaurier: is the creation perfect or imperfect? And how the heck do you classify it as either, when you have nothing else to compare it to?!
<hr>
"Are not the imperfections of the contingent world in themselves proof of the perfections of the Creator? Yes!"
Would you be so kind as to point out just what part of this world is imperfect, and in what way? Perfection is a relative concept; it only applies within a comparison between two tangible sets of features (and even then the criterion of perfection is arbitrarily defined). What two tangible entities are you comparing? What is your criterion for perfection?
<hr>
"
If there were no power, could weakness be imagined? Never!
If there were no weakness, could power be imagined? Never!
If there were no wealth, could poverty be imagined? Impossible!
If there were no poverty , could wealth be imagined? Impossible!
If there were no knowledge, could ignorance be imagined? Never!
If there were no ignorance , could knowledge be imagined? Never!
If there were no knowledge, would there be ignorance? Never!
"
These are all fundamentally the same; I'll take the knowledge/ignorance duo as an example. Knowledge in the sense it's commonly used is a concept that makes sense only with reference to an animal. Within that context, it denotes memory, skills, and theories formed or acquired by that animal from direct experience or from other animals. Thus, knowledge is synomymous to experience, and ignorance to lack of experience. Note that the ultimate reference -- experience -- is a singular concept (at least in English), and that you obtain its opposite by literal negation: <u>in</u>experience. What we have then, is a formation of a binary pair by negation of an existing concept to obtain an opposite. However, you could never start with the opposite and arrive at the source -- because the opposite (inexperience) cannot exist prior to the source (experience); it can only be defined as a function (a Boolean negation) of the source.
You have listed several examples of such binary formations obtained by Boolean negation of a singular extant concept defined directly by observation.
The literal manifestation of a concept does not 'prove' that a literal manifestation of that concept's negation actually possesses an independent existence. Darkness is defined as opposite to light, yet it simply means absense of light. Hence, light must exist and be known before darkness can be defined.
That is all you are showing with your listings of opposites. There is no evidence for God in the fact that we can apply simple Boolean operations to percepts.
<hr>
"Is man in certain particulars governed?
~Yes!
Does not a thing that is governed need someone/something to govern it?
~Yes!
Is not a characteristic of contingent beings dependency?
~Yes!"
So far so good, but...
"Is not this dependency an essential necessity?
~Yes!"
is already questionable (it doesn't apply to your God, does it?), and
"Therefore, is there not an independent being whose independence is essential?
~Yes!"
is simply false. Instead of independent being, we can have independent physics, and be governed by that. So you see, the 'independent being' is <u>not</u> essential.
<hr>
"Is it not so that unless the Creator possessed all perfections He would not be able to create because He'd be like His creation?
~Absolutely!"
Not so at all. We humans regularly reproduce, thus 'creating' other humans -- but we are not any more perfect than our children. A creator can definitely create things that are just as 'perfect' (whatever that means) as the creator itself. In fact, a creator can make things more sophisticated than itself. For example, a simple program that prints out random letters will, given enough time, reproduce all the world's known literary works of genius. All one needs is a computational medium (such as spacetime, for example) within which the creator and its products can evolve.
<hr>
"
Is it not so that there is an Eternal Almighty One Who is the possessor of all perfections, because unless He possessed all perfections He would be like His creation?
~Yes!
"
In light of the above discussion, No. Without an apriori assumption of an Eternal Almighty One, that statement is a total non-sequitur.
<hr>
"
Is it not so that the existence of a piece of bread proves that it has a maker?
~Yes!
"
By itself, it proves nothing. We need a whole lot of assumptions to hold before we can name, or even demonstrate, a maker. If we assume conservation of matter and energy, and causality, then existence of a piece of bread proves that it (and its components) had a well-defined history. If we assume known physical laws, then the spontaneous formation of a piece of bread is unlikely, and we'd tend to attribute it to a more complex physical process, involving computation and knowledge, which we'd vaguely classify as 'life'. Further, possessing knowledge of Earth's life and its varied behaviors, we would be likely to conclude that a piece of bread was made by members of the species Homo Sapiens.
Existence of any object or phenomenon in the universe (including bread, paintings, stars, planets, and furniture) derives squarely from laws of physics and initial conditions at Big Bang (which specified position and momenta of all particles since). The laws of physics themselves originate within an unknown (and probably inaccessible), 'outer' reality. Whether they are dictated by other laws, by themselves in a closed loop, by a deliberate will, or by some other mechanism our limited brains can't even fathom -- is a question that will not be resolved any time soon (and probably never).
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I am; therefore I think.
