(November 22, 2016 at 7:33 am)robvalue Wrote: 1. It seems to me there is a paradox.
2. I don't think this paradox can be allowed, so I invent something to plug the paradox.
3. Hey presto, no paradox.
That's the issue I have with it. If every A has quality B and this leads to an endless regression, then your options are to accept that there is an infinite chain or to dismiss the premise. If you introduce an A that does not have quality B, you haven't 'solved' the problem, you've invalidated the premise. If the 'mover' and 'cause' arguments are approached with no preconceived ideas, you would throw the premise out.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
