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An argument for a God

#1
Magical Realist Offline
Here's a seemingly logical argument for the existence of some sort of God or ultrapersonal Mind.

1) The whole is always greater than any of its parts.

2) Humans are parts of a whole.

3) Therefore that whole is greater than humans.

Now science assumes that the whole is INFERIOR to the human. That it is unconscious, inanimate, and impersonal compared to the conscious, animate, and personal human. But that contradicts premise 1. A whole cannot in principle be inferior to any of its parts. Indeed, the whole is greater than even the sum of its parts, as demonstrated with consciousness, life, societies, and other emergent phenomena. Is this a legitimate argument for the whole being some sort of ultrapersonal, transcendental Mind which arises out the coexistence of all things as consciousness and life arises from matter? Is this the Receptacle of Plato that contains all things in a nurturing of all their states and possibilities?




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#2
C C Offline
Computers connected in a network produce a systemic whole that is greater in functional status than a single computer (as well as greater in size). Humans interacting as a society produce a systemic whole that is greater in functional status than a single human (as well as greater in size).

But two computers added to a pile of 20 dead fish and 15 rocks just adds more to an already existing, disorganized and miscellaneous heap. There's the count of the parts (sum) plus the "new thing" they collectively produce: The aggregate or non-system called a heap. But the heap is only greater than its parts via size, not status (inferior <--> superior values).

The universe is more like a heap: A whole greater than its parts via size rather than tight-knit operational quality. It's composed of a miniscule amount of special integrated procedures (people, computers) mingled with a bogglingly larger amount of non-intelligent or scheme-less stuff (dead fish and rocks). There are supposedly lots of systems that lack personhood (weather, atoms, planetary systems, Saturn's rings, etc); but they're gravitationally combined together in more of a dynamic jumble than conforming to an overarching functional ego (most of it is dark matter immune to even electromagnetism). The components of the cosmos could potentially be bound to a common fate by gravity, but so are lesser heaps / aggregations which similarly lack interdependent teamwork as performing patterns and purposeful structures.

The fundamental principles which seem to regulate the universe, or make it possible to begin with, aren't particular concrete objects found somewhere. It's indeed as if they're atemporal and aspatial -- transcendent to beginnings and endings and causal frameworks. God, in order to qualify as such, must logically precede (rather than temporally precede) everything else. Otherwise that Provenance would be contradictorily subservient itself to location and origin (time and space and causality should then instead be the ultimate concepts treated as deities).
#3
Magical Realist Offline
True enough. A quick inventory of objects in the universe starting with your own living room immediately unveils the aggregate quality of wholes, at least when related on nothing more than the fact that they all exist. Eventually we end up with a bricolage of dirty socks, clocks, chairs, trees, skulls, mud, neutrinos, etc.

Being is the widest of categories. In itself it is empty of qualities, and so embraces all qualities, objects, principles, events, processes, and places. But in what sense is all this stuff a whole?

Etymologically "universe" means: "to turn into one thing". In what sense IS every thing one thing, if at all? An aggregate or pile of objects are connected solely by virtue of spatiotemporal location. The objects are related based on little more than being thrown together in the same place and time. They are units in a sum, or members of an arbitrary set. But are they really parts of a whole, the whole taken as an identity over and above the mere sum of its parts?

If we rewind the history of the universe far enough we come to a single point, a singularity of near infinite mass and energy. "One thing" out of which ALL things evolved and emerged and metamorphed into being. There is, iow, relatedness of identity here, a true wholeness beyond the mere haphazard randomness of common location, and despite the apparent discreteness and diversity of the parts. This identity is revealed at the quantum level, where everything is an energetic structure of the same particles and forces.

Fundamentally all things are forms of a basically 12 billion year old system of particles and energies. Even time and space is part of this system, woven into the baroquian fabric like some endlessly unfurling fractal. Whatever happens is part of this whole, connected by a common energetic medium of photons, electrons, and ions. All things are connected spatiotemporally, as an aggregate, but they are also connected ontically, as manifestations of one underlying Being. A Being which by and large remains transcendent and unknowable in itself while being revealed only in its many apparent instantiations. Whether that Being is conscious or personal or alive in itself? Such is the nature of the ongoing mystery I guess...
#4
Yazata Offline
Magical Realist Wrote:Here's a seemingly logical argument for the existence of some sort of God or ultrapersonal Mind.

1) The whole is always greater than any of its parts.

'Always'? Unless it is purely quantitative, 'greater' seems to imply a value judgement. I'm not convinced that big complex things are necessarily more valuable than small simple things.

Quote:2) Humans are parts of a whole.

What's a 'whole'? Simply a set, composed of unrelated elements? Or is there a suggestion that the elements of the set will always come together to form a higher unity?

Quote:3) Therefore that whole is greater than humans.

Quantitatively. Bigger and more diverse, perhaps.

Quote:Now science assumes that the whole is INFERIOR to the human. That it is unconscious, inanimate, and impersonal compared to the conscious, animate, and personal human.

I'd say that the idea that it's consciousness, animation and personality that give reality its value is anthropocentric. It seems to expand our own human characteristics into cosmic values. (That's the basic theistic impulse.)

Quote:But that contradicts premise 1. A whole cannot in principle be inferior to any of its parts.

I don't accept the premise. Combining things with other things doesn't always make everything better. It depends on what it is we are combining and how we combine them.

Quote:Indeed, the whole is greater than even the sum of its parts, as demonstrated with consciousness, life, societies, and other emergent phenomena. Is this a legitimate argument for the whole being some sort of ultrapersonal, transcendental Mind which arises out the coexistence of all things as consciousness and life arises from matter?

I'm unmoved.

I'm not convinced that the universe contains any inherent values at all. It isn't good, it isn't beautiful.

It just is.

It's human beings that deem different aspects of it beautiful or good.

If human beings ever expand into the larger universe (something I increasingly doubt will every happen) we may indeed encounter things that we find exceedingly beautiful and good, things that might seem to us to be transcendent in some way. We will project that on whatever it is that we encounter.

But I don't see any plausible reason to believe that the universe itself will be conscious, animate or personal... or divine.


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