Friday, October 29, 2010
Analogies and Disanologies
Cleanthes argues that the universe is like a machine and hence likely designed by intelligent creator. Philo, on the other hand, proposes that it is equally probable that the universe is like an animal or vegetable and the order in the universe may be the result of generation, vegitation, or instinct. He even suggests that chance could produce our universe. Who is right? Given the order and seeming purpose to the universe, what is the most likely explanation? Or are none of them more likely than the other (and hence agnosticism the only rational position)?
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of the Three characters that Hume rights about, Philo is easily the most logical. He is also easily the wisest arguer. Instead of trying to prove one specific point, he realizes that it is incredibly difficult, and in fact probably impossible to prove that any one of these explanations is more probable than the others let alone true. Man cannot know the true nature of the universe for a plethora of reasons. The first and most simple being, people have not explored nearly enough of the overall cosmos to truly know anything for certain. People haven’t traveled farther than the moon, how are they supposed to know the miniscule and tiny aspects of the nature of the rest of our galaxy let alone our universe. This was even truer in Hume’s time when they lacked the high powered technology that is helping us slowly learn about our universe. In addition if there is in fact a god, it seems very unlikely that humans would be able to fathom his nature and to truly understand what and how he is. Even if we knew everything about our universe we would be incapable of knowing for certain how the nature of the universe reflects upon this god. All explanations could be true including the chaos argument. It is not so much that they are all equally likely cause to be honest they are all incredibly unlikely it is more that they are all equally unlikely. No argument has been able to solidly justify itself without proper scientific evidence. Even scientific arguments which have a much higher probability of being true, are not provable and are missing pieces. Thus it is evident that we as people with limited frames of reference are incapable of properly judging which view is more probable and thus agnosticism wins out.
ReplyDeleteCleanthes analogy of the universe being a machine fails to prove the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being for two reasons. First, Cleanthes ignore why machines are created. We humans make machines either because it makes our lives more convenient (hence why we have cars) or for personal entertainment (hence why we have TVs). Personal entertainment is a self-serving end, and thus it would mean that God did not create the world out of benevolence if that was his mutant, indicating that God is not omnibenevolent. However, similar to how an omnipotent being cannot create a rock so heavy he cannot lift it, an omnipotent being could not possibly creating something that would make his life more convenient. He can already do everything that can be done, thus he would not need a machine like the universe.
ReplyDeleteCleanthes argument also fails to establish the world as a machine. Though he says that the universe must be a machine because it works as well as something that a human intelligently designed, that is simply not true. Many flaws can be found in the universe, such as the unideal adaptations discussed in class. However, one does not need to mention such adaptations to prove that the universe is imperfect. Though many religions claim that God created man to be the center of the universe, scientists are sure that one day the sun is going to destroy the Earth. If the universe was designed intelligently, a benevolent and all-powerful God would have avoided creating such a catastrophe. Philo's belief that the universe is like a life form (an animal or a vegetable) makes more sense since those die naturally as well, though these analogies were never intended to prove God in the traditional sense, only that Cleanthes is wrong.
Cleanthes says that the world is “nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machine.” (15) He uses the analogy that the universe is like machine to prove that God is the creator of the world and that God exists. His argument follows:
ReplyDelete1. The world is analogous to a machine.
2. Both machines and the world have parts (the world has more parts, therefore it is more complex).
3. Both are created (creator of the world has to be a higher intelligence because it is more complex).
4. The creator is God; therefore God exists.
There are many flaws to Cleanthes’ argument. First, God cannot be compared to humans. If they were analogous, then God would be finite just as humans are. Philo explains that by making the argument above, Cleanthes ‘renounces all claim to infinity in any of the attributes of the Deity. For, as the cause ought only to be proportioned to the effect, and the effect, so far as it falls under our cognizance, is not infinite.” (35) Philo also brings up the point that if God were perfect, humans would be perfect (based on the analogy that Cleanthes has previously made). He uses the smallest example of imperfection in the world by saying a peasant would not be able to recite the Aeneid perfectly. Philo proposes many objections to Cleanthes’ argument dealing with infinity, perfection, unity, and generation. He suggests that even if we can establish a creator of the universe, we can’t prove that he is any of these things.
In Part XI, Philo makes several arguments to what else the world can be compared to. The most promising examples he uses to describe the world are an animal and like a vegetable. He says that the universe “is an animal; and the Deity is the Soul of the world, actuating it, and actuated by it.” (40) The soul makes the animal go; God is the soul of the universe. In this example, he is suggesting that an ultimate cause can be within itself.
Philo also compares the universe to a vegetable. The ultimate cause of a vegetable is a seed; God is the seed of the universe. By using the vegetable and a seed as an example, he implies that an ultimate cause can be an outside source.
Given the order and seeming purpose to the universe, I think the Philo is right and has the more convincing arguments. They are more sensible because they are related to things that we know exists naturally—animals and vegetables, not man-made machines. These arguments are better than Cleanthes’ arguments because they don’t compare the ultimate specifically to a human. The problem with doing that is the problems mentioned earlier (infinity, perfection, etc). Philo gets around this issue by comparing the world to the object and the ultimate creator to the idea of a soul or a seed. I think Philo’s argument with the animal is the most accurate. Comparing the ultimate cause to a soul works because a soul is the mysterious center of an animal just as the ultimate cause is of the earth. As the animal dies, the soul still continues on through other bodies; when parts of the universe dies, the ultimate cause still exists—creating new parts. The last reason why Philo’s arguments are more successful is because he does not specifically say that the ultimate cause is God, but rather leaves the ultimate cause as a mystery. There is no way to prove what the ultimate cause specifically is; therefore Philo’s arguments are stronger because he doesn’t concern himself with that.
In general, Cleanthes’ argument with the machine is very flawed and Philo’s arguments with the animal and vegetable are more reasonable as well as logical.
While the general idea behind Cleanthes' argument does make sense, Philos' reasoning points out that no one can be sure of the nature of the universe, no matter how much sense the explanations may have. Overall, Cleanthes' idea that the universe is similar to a machine makes sense. Everything in the universe is comparable to a piece in a machine, and it is these pieces interactions that make up the whole machine, or in this case, the universe. While on a hypothetical level this idea may work, applying this nature of the universe to a god is inconsistent to other possible explanations. For example, the machine that is the universe could have been created for no other reason than "it just happened." After all, human understanding of the universe is so limited that it is possible that not everything that happens is a cause or effect. Because Cleanthes' argument does not take these considerations into acount, it is not a useful argument in trying to prove God's existence. Cleanthes' argument also does not hold when the idea behind Philo's theories are assessed. While the believability behind Philo's theories of the universe's possibility of being like an animal, or being the result of random occurrances. The reason why these ideas may disprove Cleanthes' is not in their content, but what they represent. Because humans have a limited understanding of the universe, how do we know for sure which idea is correct. For this reason, Cleanthes' idea holds about as much validity as anyone else's, no matter how abstract it may be, as long as they are not able to be proven false. For these reasons, Cleanthes' theory behind the universe is not a useful one.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the idea that our universe was created the way it is now by an intelligent creator is kind of ludicrous. A lot of scientific evidence and even current observations show that the world has, in fact, changed and evolved.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, it certainly seems that in our universe, chance rules. Darwin’s theory of evolution states that it is according to the circumstances and environments of the world, dictated by chance, that organisms develop. While our universe is governed by several laws of physics, the subatomic, or quantum, world is also dictated by probabilities and chance; in fact, in the quantum world, one physicist hypothesized that in certain situations, when a particle travels from one point to another, it actually simultaneously takes all of the possible paths from the initial to final position. This idea is taken even further. It is also hypothesized that the reason why humans is exist is that every possible universe actually exists somewhere in different dimensions, and because every possible combination of circumstances is tried in these infinite universes , the fact that we exist in ours is not actually a surprised at all. The only reason why we are able to question our origin is because our universe has the conditions needed to support life.
Even though chance is very important, however, I don’t think that it rules out the possibility of an intelligent creator. Even if there exists an infinite number of universes, those universes had to somehow come into being with the properties that they have. I find it hard to believe that our universe is something that was created out of nothing. Nothing also cannot cause something. If in the beginning, there was nothing at all, not even an intelligent creator, there is no reason or cause for the sudden appearance of the beginnings of our universe. It seems to me that something, probably an intelligent creator, must have always existed. Otherwise, there would be no reason for the creation of our universe.