(September 5, 2014 at 9:12 am)Michael Wrote: Hello Tonus. A couple of points come to mind.Yes, but if we are pointing to human experience as determining what is reasonable to expect, I think we go off the rails once we point to "an uncaused mover." In dealing with the issue of infinite regress, to accept some form of outside agent automatically puts the initial premises on shaky ground. If there has to be an uncaused agent, why isn't the universe itself that uncaused agent? If it's possible for an uncreated and infinite factor to exist, why isn't the universe that uncreated and infinite factor? What makes an infinite universe without a beginning less acceptable than an infinite creator without a beginning?
The first is that I don't see any problem of a logical syllogism pointing outside of itself. Inference seems a valid way of knowing to me, though I accept it carries some more risk, just as a scientist knows extrapolation is inherently more risky than interpolation.
"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
