Disproving Odin - An Experiment in arguing with a theist with Theist logic

[polymath257]

That’s true the elephant did not begin to exist until some matter took the form of an elephant. But the elephant’s existence is more than just the matter of which it is made. In fact, the matter out of which it is made will change as the elephant grows from conception through its maturity. And upon death the matter will remain even after the elephant has ceased to exist. That’s all we have been saying. The existence of the elephant began at some point and ended at some later point.

Any theory of existence must account for something, like an elephant, to persist in its existence despite undergoing change. Limiting yourself to only material and efficient causes cannot account for either.

Unfortunately, that’s all I have time for today, JennyA. I wish I had time to explain more about intelligible objects.

But the elephant consists of nothing other than the matter of which it is made and the processes that this matter undergoes. Your argument is, at the extreme, a version of the Ship of Theseus. It is a matter of our classification and the continuity of causal links rather than anything inherent in the object itself.

Again, Aristotelian philosophy was a good beginning, but it is outdated. We have learned a few things in the last 2300 years.

My basic position is that everything supervenes on the physical: once we know everything about the physical situation, we know everything there is to know. So, ideas are processes in our physical brains, with commonality between brains sufficient to say when two different brains have the 'same idea'. Conventions and language are, again, shared ideas in the brains of people holding to those conventions or languages. Mathematics is a type of formal language and, again, is a common set of ideas shared and hence ultimately supervenes on the physical.

The notions of causality in Aritotelianism are also outdated. For one thing, final causes only eists when there are minds that can plan. So the vast majority of things do not have final causes at all. Formal causes are simply shapes and not reasonably called causes at all. Material causes are, in essence, simply composition, and are again not really causes at all. So efficient causes are the only aspect that is close to something meaningful at all.

But the problem is that there are usually several contributory causes, not a single efficient cause. Furthermore, it is quite possible for the full collection of contributory causes to be insufficient for the event to occur. There is, in addition to any causes, a further randomness in the universe which is non-causal in nature. So, the idea that everything *must* have a cause is faulty. If your 'reason' dictates that everything that begins to exist must have a cause, then your reason is faulty and needs to be brought up to date with modern discoveries.