Does the Designer need a designer?
Richard Dawkins asks the question 'If complexity requires a designer, who designed the designer?' Good question. But does the designer need a designer?
Dawkins' answer is that evolution needs a crane to lift it up by 'its own bootstraps'. Without a crane nothing gets going. Or so he argues. (Mount improbable is understood to be a crane.)
But do all kinds evolution need a crane of sorts? Dawkins seems to forget that God is not a material, physical being. Apparently God would be 'nothing less than mind' (Keith Ward)
Does mind need a crane to evolve into complexity?
If mind is, in the beginning, simple it can evolve purely through contemplation. This has happened here on earth. For centuries people have been studying mathematics and now mathematics is one of the greatest and most evolved bodies of knowledge in the world.
In set theory numbers begin by a process of iteration and partition.
Start with /
Iterate //
Reiterate ///
and so on ///////////////////////////
Partition each step; /, //, ///, …
and this gives us numbers which are the beginning of mathematics. Number Theory begins with the most primitive concepts.
The discipline of Pure Number Theory evolved, over the centuries, from the contemplation of numbers. This is an evolution of mental things without the necessity of a crane.
If God, in primitive form, spends eternity thinking about numbers could He not become complex, by contemplating primordial abstractions, without the need for a crane? This seems to be one way in which God's Mind could evolve into complexity.
Dawkins' answer is that evolution needs a crane to lift it up by 'its own bootstraps'. Without a crane nothing gets going. Or so he argues. (Mount improbable is understood to be a crane.)
But do all kinds evolution need a crane of sorts? Dawkins seems to forget that God is not a material, physical being. Apparently God would be 'nothing less than mind' (Keith Ward)
Does mind need a crane to evolve into complexity?
If mind is, in the beginning, simple it can evolve purely through contemplation. This has happened here on earth. For centuries people have been studying mathematics and now mathematics is one of the greatest and most evolved bodies of knowledge in the world.
In set theory numbers begin by a process of iteration and partition.
Start with /
Iterate //
Reiterate ///
and so on ///////////////////////////
Partition each step; /, //, ///, …
and this gives us numbers which are the beginning of mathematics. Number Theory begins with the most primitive concepts.
The discipline of Pure Number Theory evolved, over the centuries, from the contemplation of numbers. This is an evolution of mental things without the necessity of a crane.
If God, in primitive form, spends eternity thinking about numbers could He not become complex, by contemplating primordial abstractions, without the need for a crane? This seems to be one way in which God's Mind could evolve into complexity.
Comments (43)
It’s not something that Dawkins has forgotten - it’s something that he has never known. Like most people nowadays, he has no understanding of the classical tradition of theism, the basis of which is ‘the Uncreated’: ‘one infinite source of all that is: eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, uncreated, uncaused, perfectly transcendent of all things and for that very reason absolutely immanent to all things‘ [from D B Hart, The Experience of God.]
Nearly of the ‘new atheist’ arguments are likewise based on a misconception of what it is they’re doubting; ‘straw God’ arguments, you might say. But they’re so utterly convinced of their own fundamental rectitude that it is impossible to point this out. But the caricatures which Dawkins makes out of God - the Flying Spaghetti Monster, orbiting teapot, celestial potentate - are indeed the figments of his own imagination. Just as he says.
Most definitely the designer needs a designer. How can you justify something as complex as 'God' to have clicked himself into existence. Even if that were a plausible explanation for his existence, wouldn't that imply that God is his own designer, therefore, he would have a designer. The real question that should be asked is; How did God come into existence? How is he able to step in and out of time (This is an ability of his implied by his omniscience). There has to be a logical explanation for his abilities for him not to entail a contradiction because a logical explanation cannot entail a contradiction. If 'God' was all knowing, powerful etc. There would be no room for doubt on whether he exists or not.
Not if the designer can know abstract mathematical complexity. This complexity can then be the basis for physical complexity.
The question is not about God's existence it is about how God can be complex without a designer. If abstract knowledge can exist in God's mind you have complexity right there; mathematical complexity.
According to classical theology, God is not complex. I know that seems counter-intuitive, but it's part of the specification.
Quoting GreyScorpio
Strictly speaking, never did, except (according to Christians) voluntarily, by becoming incarnate as Jesus (and according to Hindus, in numerous other forms and avatars). But in the normal course of events, God is not among the inventory of 'things that exists', being transcendent. 'Existence' is what 'transcendent' is transcendent to.
Quoting GreyScorpio
Again according to classical theology, humans are free to ignore God. It's part of what freedom entails; if humans were compulsorily made to know God then they wouldn't be free.
I understand this - Kant did say that existence is not a predicate meaning that you can't explain God in terms of whether he exists or not because existence is not an adjective. But surely if God is completely supremely perfect and supremely logical then it is only fair to say that those that exist can only act on those that exist. It would be illogical to say that those that exist can act on those that don't and vice versa.
Quoting Wayfarer
This would seem to downplay God as to what he is said to be. To be complex is almost another property that God should hold just like omnipotence and omnibenevolence. How can something so simple create a universe as complex as this. I understand that you could say that it may be complex to us but simple to God, but then that would entail that this being is not as people say he is.
That's not something I would care to try and explain, or to expound on, but that is the classical understanding nonetheless. The problem is that we're situated in a generally very anti- or non-religious culture, and have learned about such ideas second-hand, often from sources who also have no real exposure to the traditional understanding. So misconceptions abound. Many of the atheist polemics against God are based on just those kinds of anthropomorphic projections.
In any case, questions such as the nature of the divine simplicity are not really intelligible from the viewpoint of analytic philosophy. They come from a very different kind of mind, and a different age. It takes a lot of work to understand what it's actually saying.
There's a current philosophical theologian, by the name of David Bentley Hart, whose book The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness and Bliss, attempts to address these subjects. The point he makes is that the God that is understood by the classical tradition, and the God that is disputed by many atheists, are profoundly different:
And one of the facets of that, is the 'divine simplicity'. But it takes some work to understand.
Quoting GreyScorpio
Very good point. How I would answer that (and I know my view is almost universally contested on the forum) is that the philosophical understanding of the relationship of God and creation was mainly derived from the Greek tradition, principally neoplatonism, and was originally grounded in the idea of the 'great chain of Being'.
Now, the point about the great chain of Being, is that on different levels or 'domains', things exist in different ways. The reality of beings is determined by their proximity to the source - the source being the One (in neoplatonism) or, of course, God in mainstream theology (although whether these really are the same is in my view debatable.) But the hierarchy is based on an implicit understanding of 'degrees of reality', within which 'the world' - which is, roughly speaking, the domain of the empirical sciences - is only partially real, or an admixture of real and unreal, being and non-being.
This is still visible in the 17th Century philosophers, Liebniz, Spinoza and Descartes [sup] 2[/sup], but the hierarchical understanding of the nature of reality has been almost entirely eclipsed in subsequent Western culture. The result of which is that we inhabit a 'one-dimensional universe' comprising things that either exist, or don't. There's no conception of modes of being, which was the subject of the older modal metaphysics. So, strictly speaking, we don't even understand how to ask the question, about what the meaning of the existence of God is, because if it's not something that's 'out there somewhere', then there's no conceptual space for it to be.
And the celestial potentate - Alan Watts was discussing that in the sixties, long before Dawkins got involved. Watts had a typically nuanced perspective on that. Although he pointed to how comic that myth was, and how ironic it was that America was so proud of being a republic yet favoured a monarchic theology, he also stood up for it, saying that it was no less idolatrous than Protestant idolisation of the Bible, Paul Tillich's notion of Undifferentiated Ground of Being or an Enlightenment atheist's reverence for Progress. Watts was very pro-myth. He saw it as poignant that Protestant ministers would become enthused by all sorts of interesting notions of God in the seminary but then be expected to trot out simplistic Stern-Daddy-God platitudes to their congregations, because they paid his wage.
Well, perhaps in the original. But it has become part of the rubric of atheism as a kind of symbol for something that might exist, but for which there can be no evidence. (Actually Bill Vallicella has a pretty good article on it here.) That said, I quite like Russell, and he certainly had a much greater depth of understanding than many since. I got into University through a 'mature age entry exam' (a quaint custom), the great bulk of which was a comprehension test on Russell's Mysticism and Logic (just the kind of thing I went on to then study.)
Quoting andrewk
What I had in mind was Dawkins' remark that the God of the OT is one of the 'nastiest characters in literary history' and like an oriental despot. Of course, Alan Watts is a completely different matter, one of my all-time favourite writers, even despite my disillusionment when I learned about his alcoholism. But he's a terrific writer and I would recommend his books to anyone - especially The Supreme Identity, Way of Zen, and Beyond Theology.
I highly doubt that anyone has ever understood the claims of classical theism. It is the nature of that beast, that there is an element of unintelligibility there. That is what atheists like to poke fun at. But the unintelligibility inherent within such theism is the result of the deficiencies of the human intellect, trying to gets some principles to approach what is beyond the intellect's present ability to apprehend.
This is a common, but not essential, difference between the atheist perspective and the theist perspective. The theist recognizes the vast reality which is beyond the capacity of human understanding, and that the unintelligibility of God is a reflection of this. The atheist tends to believe that all reality can be brought into human understand, like a theory of everything, or something like that.
I think you are correct in this. Try to get hold of Simone Weil's Letter to a Priest.
My experience is quite the contrary of this. Most theists I've encountered do not recognise that at all. Instead they write and speak at length about alleged properties of God - what She can do, what She wants, what She thinks, what She has said, what books She has dictated.
The theist that agrees that God is unintelligible and we can say nothing meaningful about Her is a rare beast indeed - but all the more admirable for that.
Sophisticated notions have God as the necessary being for existence, and not some additional thing of complexity that needs explaining.
Of course one is free to disbelieve that there is any such thing as a necessary being. But then one can also turn around and say that the complexity of QM in the vacuum necessarily existed to get the universe going, or whatever it was.
The explanation for why anything exists is going to run into an infinite regress, brute existence, or unknowns.
I completely agree, but does the idea of a necessary being sound logical to you? If anything this would disprove that there is a God overall as it would always lead to an infinite regression. How does a necessary being become necessary and what warrants that? Would that not then imply a designer also?
I'm just prodding here by the way.
As outlined in my first post, mathematics rests on very primitive concepts (essentially number as a set). If primitive knowledge can exist in God's mind it can evolve into mathematics, which is non physical complexity. But in God 'evolve' does not require time; perhaps God spontaneously knows mathematical truth, yet there is a logical abstract evolution in mathematics; one thing leads to another, endlessly.
Why should a omniscient being's mind be able to evolve, however? And I do admit that it is extremely logical to base God on primitive mathematics that can't be denied. But is this correct to do so? God is a being that should not depend on anything at all (I see where this also fails because if he doesn't depend on anything then he doesn't have a designer) But, God depending on God is still a dependence.
Necessary means it's impossible for the being to not be necessary, so there is no becoming. By definition, it can't be the case that God wasn't necessary.
But only if you accept the definition. One could also say that God's existence is brute. Something has to be either necessary, brute, or have an infinite past.
The physics of what led to the Big Bang could be necessary if they were self-explanatory such that it was illogical and impossible for there not to be such physics. Or they could be brute, or there could have been an infinite number of big bangs in an infinite multiverse, or infinite cycle of bangs and collapses.
I don't think you can get around running into one of those options when talking about how anything exists. So criticizing the idea of God on those grounds doesn't really accomplish anything.
Maybe (mathematical) knowledge is an intrinsic part of God's existence.
That doesn't even resemble theology to me.
The point was made in my first post. You dismissed it and came back with some contradictory statement so I gave up, and went for the one-liner.
Quoting andrewk
This is contradictory. To say "God is unintelligible to the human intellect" is to say something meaningful about God.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I can see no logical connection between lacking a belief in God and believing that everything can be understood. I know know-it-all theists and mystical, I-know-nothing atheists, as well as know-it-all atheists and mystical, I-know-nothing theists. The two dimensions are orthogonal.
At best there could be a correlation but I don't even see any sign of that. Do you have any evidence for this claim other than a throwaway line here or there from a celebrity atheist?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover OK, then let's use a version of Socrates' famous dictum. The humble theist says 'the only thing I know about God is that I know nothing else about God'. It is, in my experience, a rare theist that exhibits that humility. It seems that Kant may have been one, and some mystics.
OK, so let's delve a little deeper into this then. Let's assume that there are aspects of reality which appear to be unintelligible to human beings. The theological approach is to assume that these parts of reality are inherently intelligible, but require a higher intelligence, such as God, to understand. The atheist approach denies the higher intelligence, God, leaving the atheist with the assumption that there are aspects of reality which are inherently unintelligible.
So the difference is in the way that we judge "unintelligible". The theist assumes an absolute, God, and any aspect of reality cannot be validly said to be unintelligible, just because human beings cannot understand it. The theist refers to a God which could understand it. The atheist assumes no such absolute, and if a part of reality proves to be unintelligible relative to human beings, the atheist can validly claim that this aspect of reality is inherently unintelligible. So the theist places the reason why anything appears to be unintelligible squarely on the deficiencies of the human intellect. There is no other reason why something could appear to be unintelligible because there is nothing that is unintelligible (principle of sufficient reason). The atheist however, is justified in claiming that unintelligibility is a feature of reality itself, that there are aspects of reality which are purely random or some such thing, which by their very nature are impossible to be understood.
I agree with this - Ayer said anything that is unfalsifiable (Which is proven by theological statements about God) has no meaning.
Yes that is approximately my position, although (1) I would replace 'claiming' by 'speculating' and (2) it would be overly simplistic to describe me as an atheist tout court. But I do know people who strongly self-identify as atheists that, like me, expect reality is ultimately unintelligible to humans or to any finite being.
Perhaps we are not in disagreement then.
Perhaps not in disagreement on this point, but I think that the atheist's perspective is unphilosophical, and unwise.
The reason is that if we allow speculation into the possibility that certain aspects of reality are inherently unintelligible, then these speculations will inevitably turn into claims by some atheists. So when we reach something which appears to be unintelligible, many atheists will be quick to claim that the unintelligibility is inherent within the thing. So we have instances like people claiming random chance mutations in evolution, abiogenesis, and those who argue, that the universe emerged from some unintelligible vagueness.
If we accept such claims, as some do, then there is no need to inquire further, we claim to know that such and such aspects of reality are inherently unintelligible, and therefore can never be understood by any intellect, so there is no point in trying. This would be a philosophical laziness don't you think, to end the inquiry with the conclusion that the thing cannot possibly be known?
So what's the point in even speculating into this possibility? There is no way to prove that things are inherently unintelligible rather than just unintelligible due to intellectual deficiencies, unless you know that the intellect inquiring is the best possible intellect, so this is meaningless speculation. Such speculation can only lead to two conclusions, 1) that it's wrongful speculation, or, 2) the conclusion that there is something inherently unintelligible. But to conclude that something is inherently unintelligible is blatantly unphilosophical, and wrong, and 1) is that the speculation itself is wrong. Therefore the only philosophical approach is to assume that everything is inherently intelligible given the appropriate intellect.
I don't think it's philosophical laziness, or unphilosophical. It's just saying 'I see no way to proceed in that direction so I won't try'. Instead one focuses one's philosophical efforts on other things like ethics, politics and finding meaning in life, that are likely to be useful. To me that just looks like a judicious allocation of limited resources.
It's a bit like how scientists won't entertain ideas about perpetual motion machines. We cannot prove they're impossible. We have a scientific law that says they are, but scientific laws have been revised many times over the years, so it's not inconceivable that that one could be revised too. But the prospects of that happening seem so slim that scientists choose to spend their efforts in more promising fields.
I wish the best of luck to those that like to speculate in metaphysics. I doubt they will ever come up with something that is not hotly contested. But if they do I will be delighted to read about it, and will give great kudos to those that came up with the innovation.
By the way, the first place I came across a suggestion that the universe was unintelligible was in Stella Gibbon' book "Cold Comfort Farm", in which Flora, the protagonist, reads a book by the Abbé Fausse-Maigre - a RC priest - which is described as proclaiming the fundamental unintelligibility of the world. Suggestions of unintelligibility are not particularly associated with atheists.
Whereas, it was precisely the 'medieval synthesis' that was torpedoed by the scientific revolution.
Just some historical context.
That is assuming the designer is/was complex. If you believe science the evolution of structure in the universe has been from the simple to the complex. There were fewer laws at work during the big bang then there are now. In the beginning everything was physics. Now it's chemistry and biology and perhaps we can add music, philosophy, math, etc.
So, the designer isn't necessarily a being more complex than its creation.
I find this to be an odd thought. To me it seems, in a strange way contradictory, to hold an opinion which could never be proven as knowledge. What sense is there in that, why not remain open minded on the subject, undecided, skeptical? You know that opinion requires a judgement that such is the case, so once you move from being doubtful to holding an opinion, you might just as well be making the claim. Your actions will be representative of this opinion, even if you do not go so far as to state the claim.
I can see how, for pragmatic reasons, one might proceed from such a premise, a proposition which could never be proven true, but could in principle be proven false. But any intent, other than the intent to prove that premise false, would be misguided. Conclusions derived from this premise would be very unsound, and therefore misleading. So of what good is such an opinion? Clearly the atheist doesn't entertain this thought in an effort to prove it wrong. All that's left as a possibility, is that this opinion is misleading the atheist.
Quoting andrewk
It's important to distinguish between "unintelligible" due to the state of the human intellect, and "unintelligible" due to the state of the thing which one is attempting to understand. Wayfarer and I went through this argument already. Wayfarer insisted that Aquinas designated God as unintelligible, unknowable, and I insisted that Aquinas designated God as highly intelligible, having the same type of existence as an intelligible object (immaterial). Finally I went to the source, and determined that what Aquinas says is that although God is by His essence most supremely intelligible, He is actually unintelligible to the human intellect because the human intellect is dependent on the material body. So despite the fact that God is the most highly intelligible being of all existence in His essence, God remains unintelligible to the human intellect until the human soul is separated from the body. We were both right, God is most highly intelligible, yet also unintelligible.
The point being that "unintelligible" means something different in theology than what it means to the atheist. In theology there is no such thing as an aspect of reality which is inherently unintelligible, because it is God's creation, and everything God does is with reason. Therefore "unintelligible" can only refer to that which cannot be apprehended by the human intellect. But the atheist allows that "unintelligible" could mean something which cannot be apprehended by any intellect. So to take an atheist definition of "unintelligible", and apply it to theological use of "unintelligible" is equivocation.
As Popper showed us, this is how science in particular, and almost all knowledge, works. We can prove almost nothing true, but we can falsify it. We act as if the theories that are useful and have survived many attempts at falsification are true, and use them to cross roads, send rockets to Mars and cure plague. All while we know that they could be falsified one day.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Maybe to Aquinas, but he is only one person writing in theology. To say that the universe is intelligible because it is intelligible only to God renders the word useless because the Christian definition of God includes that he knows everything, which entails that She knows the reason for everything, so it is by definition intelligible to Her. That definition renders a useful word useless and it would take a great deal of evidence to back up a claim that it is the standard use of 'intelligible' in theology.
In short, to say that something is intelligible if it is intelligible to God is to say nothing at all.
Right, so if your object, or intent, in relation to a particular idea (that something is inherently unintelligible) is to falsify this idea, then doesn't it seem contradictory, or at least hypocritical to adopt this idea as an opinion? To hold as an opinion implies that you believe the idea. To work towards falsifying it implies that you do not believe it, and are skeptical. If you hold it as an opinion you will not be skeptical of it, and you will not work toward falsifying it.
Quoting andrewk
This is not true. The point is to allow that "intelligible" is related to all possible intellects, instead of just human intellects. So to say that the universe is intelligible to God does not render the word useless, it just denies that there is anything which is truly unintelligible, in an absolute sense. Therefore it renders "unintelligible" as useless, in a way. But this is what the principle of sufficient reason does as well. Now the point is that when we use the word "unintelligible", since nothing is unintelligible in an absolute way, we are using it to refer to how things appear to us as human beings, something appears to be unintelligible. It is only unintelligible in relation to whomever finds it to be unintelligible. And this is because that person has a deficient approach.
Furthermore, if we say that the universe is intelligible to God, and unintelligible to human beings, there is no premise here to say that the universe is intelligible only to God. Aquinas and other Catholics refer to angels as intermediary between God and humans. Each angel has providence over some physical existence. So the universe, as a physical object, could be intelligible to an angel. Therefore the point remains, and that is that if the universe is unintelligible to human beings, this does not mean that it is unintelligible to every being. And because there is a point to it, it doesn't render the word "intelligible" useless, it just defines "intelligible" as an absolute, while "unintelligible", in order to account for its common use, is defined relative to the human intellect. The two are not opposed, they are categorically different.
Quoting andrewk
This is not the saying at all, it is a misrepresentation. The saying is that everything is intelligible, what the principle of sufficient reason says. However, some things appear to be unintelligible. Because everything is intelligible, then the reason why things appear to be unintelligible is due to deficiencies in the intellect which is trying to understand them. Or, we could turn the argument around and start with a premise derived from evidence and observations. Many things are intelligible. Different intellects have different capacities. When things appear as unintelligible to one intellect they are often intelligible to another intellect. So when something appears as unintelligible to an intellect, there is no reason to believe that it is unintelligible to every intellect. Therefore there is no reason to believe that anything is unintelligible to all intellects.
Yes, I agree. That is why I do not try to falsify opinions that seem to work well for me. I am open to others' suggestions when they think they have found a falsification, and sometimes they convince me and I change the opinion. But I don't personally set out to try to falsify it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If there is nothing that is 'unintelligible' then the word has no use, because it cannot apply to anything. In everyday life the word 'intelligible' is useful because some things are and some are not, when we take it to mean 'capable of being understood by an intelligent human'. What would be the point of changing the meaning of the word to something that is different from how ordinary people use it, AND has no application?
As for angels, if they are finite, non-omniscient beings then 'intelligible' can make sense if some things are intelligible to them but not to humans. We just change the definition slightly to 'capable of being understood by one of the most intelligent finite beings'. The same can apply to hyper-intelligent alien species in another galaxy. It's only when you change it to 'capable of being understood by an omniscient, omnipotent being' that it becomes meaningless.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It is my opinion that there is good reason to believe that the world is unintelligible to all finite intellects. And in the usual way 'intelligible' is used, that is the same as saying there's good reason to believe the world is unintelligible tout court.
I don't believe that is the way that "intelligible" is normally used. It is a word in which its most common usage is in philosophical discussions like this. Though it is sometimes used in everyday parlance it's meaning is determined from philosophy. It means capable of being apprehended by the intellect, as distinct from being apprehended by the senses, so that we have a distinction between intelligible objects and sensible objects. It appears like it is you who is trying to change the meaning of the word from how it is normally used.
This is a problem in modern philosophy, and it seems to be prevalent in materialist ontology. Individuals will see the usage of a word in a particular way, and want to restrict the word to that vernacular, producing a definition, as a proposition to be adhered to. So for example, you propose that "intelligible" be restricted to "capable of being understood by an intelligent human", rather than the more customary "capable of being apprehended by the intellect". Do you see the unnecessary limitation you are trying to impose? This has two possible bad effects which I apprehend right away.. One is that it may limit the capacity of understanding of anyone who adopts that definition, rendering the person as incapable of understanding usage beyond that limited scope. And the other is that it greatly increases the likelihood of equivocation when the forces of habitual usage cause the usage to exceed those unwarranted limitations.
Quoting andrewk
What do you mean by "finite intellects"? On one hand you propose to limit "intelligible" to intelligent humans, and now you propose all "finite intellects". Consider the possibility a being which has not come into existence yet, which may or may not come into being following the evolution of human beings, and this being would have an intellectual capacity greater than any human intellect. This is not a finite intellect, because it has no physical existence, it is an intelligible proposal, a logical possibility. It has no physical existence, it is just a logical possibility, something which could occur. So it is impossible that it has finite limits, and it is nonsense to speak of such potential in terms of what is "finite", because the premise of "possible" negates "finite" right off the bat. Things which may or may not come into existence in the future do not have finite existence.
See what happens to your restricted sense of "intelligible"? You must make exceptions to allow for beings other than human. Then, being atheist you need to add an exclusion to your exception, ("finite"), to disallow the possibility of God, and you end up with incomprehensible nonsense.