I.D., Cosmological Arguments, and Epistemic Tension
Some proponents of Intelligent Design claim that it is not inherently theistic. Here I argue that Intelligent Design probably reduces to theism given defenses of cosmological arguments, and that any attempts to avoid a reduction to theism do not work; and thus I.D. is not on identical methodological footing with naturalistic evolution. I further argue that a proponent of both nontheistic Intelligent Design and most cosmological arguments must drop one of these things to avoid epistemic tension. I do not argue here that either Intelligent Design or naturalistic evolution is likely true or false, that one methodology should be preferred to the other, or that we should be neutral with respect to methodology*.
Consider the following thesis of Intelligent Design:
ID1: The cause of the first life (self-replicating organism) on Earth is best explained by Intelligent Design.
If true, this conception of I.D. implies that the first life was caused by some sort of intelligence not originating on Earth. This alone is not necessarily theistic, but if I.D. best explains life on Earth, what best explains life not on Earth? Maybe it’s some form of intelligence (aliens, A.I.) that arose naturally elsewhere in the universe. But then we must ask, what best explains that?
The reasoning behind I.D. is that life is best explained by intelligence because of information content in the genome, specified complexity, or something similar. This hypothetical otherworldly life would almost certainly also exhibit these traits. So I.D. must explain that as well.
This move can be made for every natural form of life in the universe: earth life to alien life 1, alien life 1 to alien life 2, etc. But once these jumps are exhausted, and all natural life is accounted for via a natural intelligent agent(s), the only place left to go is to the supernatural.
This again does not necessarily imply theism; there are several possible moves here. One is an appeal to abstract objects as a cause of an intelligent agent. But this has implications for the cosmological argument. William Lane Craig, in responding to some objections to his Kalam cosmological argument, argues that abstract objects are distinguished from concrete objects by their inability to stand in causal relations[1]. If this response to objections is dropped, then it is a trivial matter to object to the KCA by positing an abstract object as the cause of the universe. If it is not dropped, then an appeal to an abstract object as the cause of the first life in the universe cannot be made.
Another possible move to “save” I.D. from theism is to posit a contingent supernatural intelligence (i.e. an angel, a ghost, etc.) But this has implications for liebnizian and thomistic cosmological arguments, which require causal principles that state every contingent thing or instance of coming into existence must have a cause.[2] If this principle is accepted, these arguments conclude that there must be a god. To drop this for the sake of non-theistic I.D. means that such arguments don’t go through.
A further concern for positing either abstract objects or a contingent supernatural intelligence is that they are ad hoc – they are being posited solely to “save” nontheistic I.D., and have no other basis. This has implications for Robin Collins’ fine tuning argument. His argument relies on a restricted version of the Likelihood Principle (“an observation e counts as evidence in favor of hypothesis h1 over h2 if the observation is more probable under h1 than h2”), which adds that LP can only be applied to cases where a hypothesis is not ad hoc.[3]
In conclusion, nontheistic Intelligent Design has no viable options for explaining the first life in the universe which to not also undercut various cosmological or fine tuning arguments for God; thus there is epistemic tension between positing both a nontheistic Intelligent Design and such arguments; and perhaps even between nontheistic Intelligent Design and theism due to the case for theism being greatly weakened by nontheistic I.D.
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*These debates are, I believe, separate issues.
[1] William Lane Craig, “The Kalam Cosmological Argument”. The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. pg. 193
[2] Alexander Pruss, “The Liebnizian Cosmological Argument”. The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. pg. 25
[3]Robin Collins, “The Teleological Argument”. The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. pp. 205-206
Epic Music Time
I’m not a Christian myself; but this song is really, really good:
The Presup Challenge
The Presup Challenge:
Define a formal logic, complete with syntax, semantics, a deductive system, and a meta-theory. Then we can talk about whether it’s absolute or not.
UPDATE: The Beginner Presup Challenge
Complete this logic practice quiz:
Which of the following are well-formed formulas:
1. ¬¬P
2. (¬P ↔Q ⊃ R)
3. (Q v (P ↔R))
4. (P ∧ Q ∧ R)
5. (P ∨ Q)
Construct truth tables for the following:
1. ¬
2. ↔
3. ⊃
4. C
5. ∨
6. ⊻
Conduct a Moorean Shift on the following:
(P ∨ Q) ⊃R
R
∴ (P ∨ Q)
Conversation With Sye Ten Bruggencate
This is a verbatim personal correspondence I had with Sye Ten Bruggencate via email dated 28 April 2012, regarding my blog post found here. Honestly, after this I’m so frustrated by the inanity of it all that I’m not going to debate logic with someone unless they’ve at least read an introduction to logic text. I don’t have the time or the patience for stuff like this.
Me:
Sye,
I’ve recently written a critique of the presuppositionalist analysis of logic on my blog that you may be interested in. You’re welcome to respond here: https://dubitodeus.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/logic-math-and-presuppositionalism/
Enjoy! 🙂
Sye: Sorry, but I had to stop at “logic is conventional.”
Me: Umm…what? Are you telling me that you’re not even going to finish reading my response to the core of your apologetic strategy?
Sye: Nah, when you said that logic was conventional, I lost all interest. You see, I could just make a convention that everything you wrote is illogical, and be done with it.
Cheers.
Me: See, if you had read my article, you would understand why what you said is completely irrelevant to the topic. But since you don’t seem to have an interest in actually discussing what I wrote, let’s play this game your way:
How do you account for elliptic geometry?
Sye: With Friday motballs under the twice. (I just made a new convention of logic 🙂
Me: Ok Sye, I have to ask…are you interested in a conversation, or just in being obtuse and contrary?
Sye: I am simply answering a fool according to his folly (Proverbs 26:5). If logic is conventional, you can have no problem with my response,but you do, exposing the fallacy of your view.
Me: “If logic is conventional, you can have no problem with my response”. See, once again, you completely misunderstand conventionalism with regard to logic. What you just said is like responding to a question said in French with, “That doesn’t mean anything. If language is conventional, you can have no problem with my response.”
Just because logics are a convention, doesn’t mean that you can arbitrarily say silly things and then declare that everyone must accept them as not silly. You can create a new convention, but you still have to define rules for that convention. Just like languages – you can create a new language, but you still have to define a grammar. Just like board games – you can create a new board game, but you still have to write down the rules for your game.
But once again, if you read my article, you would already know this. I’d recommend that you read a logic textbook, but if you can’t even read a few hundred words on the subject without deciding to be obtuse, I guess there’s not much hope for that. It’s obvious that you don’t understand logic, but I’m starting to suspect that you don’t want to understand it.
Sye: //”Just like languages – you can create a new language, but you still have to define a grammar.”//
Not according to my new convention.
Me: This is pointless. My blog post renders everything you’ve said irrelevant, and brings up huge problems for your account of logic, yet you refuse to read it. So, do you mind if I post this conversation publicly, so everyone can decide for themselves who “won”?
Sye: Please do.
A Brief Thought About Ethics
This seems to be a correct analysis of natural law and divine command theory:
NL: An act is right or wrong because it does or does not go against proper function of a person’s physical body.
DCT: An act is right or wrong because it does or does not go against God’s will or nature.
Which thesis is supposed to correctly point us to the truth or falsity of moral statements? If it’s both, what does this mean for statements that only one of these apply to, or statements that these apply differently to? If it’s one or the other, how do we tell when to apply which one?
If the above is a correct analysis of the backing of NL and DCT, I think there’s a conflict when we look at things like worship of God. DCT would likely say that worship is obligatory in some way – but NL would say merely that its permissible. The obligation to worship cannot be drawn out from any natural law or proper function. According to NL, it’s ok to not worship God.
Does this seem correct? If not, how can NL and DCT be reconciled?
Also Not Jesus
See my previous posts here and here.
I said that this was leading up to something, so here’s the point:
Examine the facial features and hair depicted in the Shroud of Turin carefully. It resembles the common depictions of Jesus as a thin white man with long, straight hair and a forked or pointed beard. There are no physical descriptions of Jesus in the gospels, or any other contemporary source, so determining what he looked like for sure is rather difficult.
I think it’s quite telling, though, that there are no descriptions of his appearance. If he looked radically different from those around him, it seems likely that it would have been mentioned. So, what did the people around him look like? Like first-century middle eastern jews, of course. It’s likely that Jesus didn’t look anything like the face depicted in the shroud.
cPossibly Necessarily G
A common premise found in most modern ontological arguments is “◊□G”. This of course, according to the S5 axiom of modal logic, implies “□G”. Here I argue that if one does not assume a realist interpretation of modality, then this implies that ontological arguments which use this premise are question-begging. I further argue that a theist is not justified in holding to a realist interpretation of modality, and thus (most) modern ontological arguments are in fact question-begging.
Modality, Worlds, and Propositions
What does it mean to say, “◊□G”? The modal operators can be defined in terms of each other, such that ◊x = ~□~x, and □x = ~◊~x. Furthermore, the S5 axiom tells us that essentially only the last modal operator matters, such that □□◊□◊□◊□x = □x. If you accept ◊□G as true, you’re implicitly also accepting □G as true, due to the logical equivalence. But anyway, let’s look at how modal propositions work according to both realism and fictionalism. On realism, possible worlds are no different than our own, and beings which exist in them can look around their world and rightly claim that that is the actual world. On fictionalism, these possible worlds are merely sets of propositions, and these sets exist in the actual world (since the actual world is the only possible world that exists, everything that exists must exist in the actual world). Essentially, modal claims are nothing more than counterfactuals.
In addition to worlds being merely sets of propositions, worlds are merely sets of propositions on fictionalism. There are no beings, no objects, no anything contained within them. On realism, however, there are in fact beings, objects, and things contained within worlds. So, to make the claim “◊□G” something more than merely a counterfactual claim, modal realism needs to be true – for it makes no sense for any object to exist within a proposition. But if it did, then the ontological argument runs into a bigger problem; as this would imply that the object we call “G” (God) exists in the actual world, within a set of propositions.
Far Beyond The Stars
Is modal realism true? Possibly (bazinga). But I don’t think we’re justified in believing it. There are several arguments for this, but I’ll focus on one that is specific to theism. There seems to be a conflict between God’s omnipotence and the very idea of a realist interpretation of possible worlds. Erik Wielenberg gives a charitable definition of omnipotence which I will use here:
x is omnipotent if and only if it is not the case that there is some state of affairs, p, such that x is unable to bring about p at least partially because of a lack of power in x.[1]
Possible worlds are causally and temporally isolated from each other (if they were not, they would be one world). God does of course, as a necessary being, exist in every possible world. But one must wonder whether God can will cross-world acts. For instance, could God will a rock to move from w1 to w2? Or for an atom from w1 to collide with an atom from w2? If he can, then the plethora of causally isolated worlds would seem to collapse into one world, leaving us with fictionalism. If he cannot, the only explanation that seems reasonable would be a lack of power. Modern philosophy of religion tells us that God has all kinds of causal power foreign to us (such as creating the universe ex nihilo). Why then would he not be able to cause things across worlds? There seems to be no contradiction in doing so, and no limit imposed by any of his other attributes.
Ockham’s Ontology
It may be claimed that modal realism has support via Ockham’s razor; because while the realist is only positing additional worlds of the same kind as our own, the fictionalist is positing additional worlds of a different kind than our own – thus the fictionalists’ ontology is inflated, while the realists’ is not. But this seems backwards. The fictionalist is not positing additional worlds at all, but merely sets of propositions. Whatever the fictionalist takes propositions (and sets) to be, no additional kinds of entities are being posited when she talks about possible worlds.
The realist, on the other hand, is positing an additional kind of entity. The realist claims that worlds are indexical, such that a being in any possible world can rightly claim that that world is the actual world. But it is reasonable to say this about the actual world (regardless of whether one is a realist or a fictionalist): The actual world is a world in which we have at least some causal power. But the realist wants to say that there is another kind of world – a world to which we are causally isolated, in which we have no causal power. This alone is not enough to defeat realism, but it is enough to lower our confidence in it.
Are all propositions necessarily true? Are contradictions true?
A critique of fictionalism by a realist may look something like this: “If I say, ‘P is true at w1, and ~P is true at w2′, then fictionalism implies that a contradiction is true, since w1 and w2 exist in the actual world”. But this is a misunderstanding of fictionalism. The correct interpretation of the apparent contradiction is merely a framing of modality in terms of counterfactuals: “P would have been true if w1 were the actual world, and ~P would have been true if w2 were the actual world”.
Another criticism might be offered: “since there are no other real possible worlds, then P -> □P. Thus all true statements are necessarily true”. But this is again solved by talking about modality in terms of counterfactuals: □P just means, “~P would have been true if w2 were the case” is false. In the case of propositions for which this second-order proposition is true, ~( P -> □P) is also true.
So, I think that we are more justified in believing fictionalism over realism, based on the fact that criticisms of fictionalism do not work, and because realisms’ ontology is inflated compared to fictionalism. I further think that the theist is especially committed to fictionalism over realism. Given this, and that ontological arguments which use ◊□G as a premise require realism in order to not be question-begging, I think that such arguments are most likely question-begging.
As always, I welcome questions, comments, and criticisms.
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[1] Wielenberg, Erik (2000). Omnipotence Again. Faith and Philosophy
17 (1):26-47.
Dubito Deus 