Reciprocating Bill
Posts: 4265
Joined: Oct. 2006
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| Quote (Lou FCD @ Mar. 03 2010,06:06) | In order to make that comparison, StephenB must assert that the mounds of sand made by natural forces were not designed. Once StephenB understands the significance of that assertion, he will have taken a great big step toward pulling his fucking head out of his ass.
I'm not holding my breath. |
He certainly must be.
StephenB is trying to have it both ways.
He wants to be able to say that if we maintain that human beings are part of the natural world, events that reflect human causation and those that do not (burglars versus tornados) are causally indistinguishable, because both have natural causes.
My response was that a lifetime of experiences with these very different sorts of natural causation enable us to make these distinctions quite effortlessly.
Toronto/lastyearon's question turns the tables on him. They note that StephenB's world view is a mirror image of the claim that human agency is continuous with the natural world: if God is the author of all things everywhere (by means of fine tuning, etc.), then it would follow that all phenomena are in a sense designed, and that design detection ("distinguishing designed objects from the products of natural 'undirected causes'") should therefore be impossible.
This is also wrong, if "detection of human agency" is substituted for "design detection," for the same reason: a lifetime of experiences with these very different sorts of natural causation enable us to make these distinctions quite effortlessly, without resort to placement of these events into different ontological categories - even if we believe in divine authorship of the universe.
Although StephenB wants to attribute to naturalism absurd cognitive impairments, he resists accepting the analogous attribution of impairment when the tables have turned. He has the same lifetime of such experience and knows that his sand-Corvette and a lump of sand are easily discerned as having different sorts of causal histories - one undirected, the other reflecting human agency. But like tornados and burglars, his sand-Corvette example doesn't accomplish what he wants it to accomplish (establish a basis for the detection of Wesley's well-named "rarified design"), and rather simply points to a universal human skill grounded in our long experience with (and adaptation to) the natural and cultural phenomenon of human agency.
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Myth: Something that never was true, and always will be.
"The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you."
- David Foster Wallace
"Here’s a clue. Snarky banalities are not a substitute for saying something intelligent. Write that down."
- Barry Arrington
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