A Working Draft Design Argument

[GrandizerII]

Another way to point out the key flaw in the argument:

Beings that can walk are able to do so because they have been predetermined ultimately by a first cause to do so, therefore this first cause must be the one who is walking.

Surely, Acrobat would disagree with this, but essentially this is what he seems to be arguing except replace "walk" with "assign values and meanings".

[Anomalocaris]

The fundamental reason why acrobat is stuck in this rut is probably his brain, during its entire primate evolutionary history, didn't have much room to improve his ancestors' chances of survival by deducing why natural events occurs and changing how natural events occur, until near the very end of his own evolutionary history.   


It did, however, have a long history of being able to improve his ancesters' chances of survival through advancing them socially in their packs by deducing the intentions of their mates.    So fast forward to now,  the part of Acrobat's brain that attempted to make sense of things in social context by assigning intentionality to a causal agent remains overactive.   He is instinctively driven to trust it, however wrong it is.    Compare to the strength of that social part of his brain, the part of his brain which reasons out causes in empirical, material context is weak, and cries with nothing more than a small, easily ignored voice, however right it might be.    

He feels strongly all things must ultimately have a first cause with intentionality probably because he still "thinks" with his instincts, and his instincts are still much more that of a sociable monkey than rational man,  to put it figuratively.

[Abaddon_ire]

P2-If reality possess value and meaning, we can use logic to infer a cause, from an effect. I.E. That which possess values and meaning, indicate intentionality, authorship, design, etc..

That is quite a big IF. Why should reality have value and meaning except that which WE intentionally assign to it. Reality need not have any meaning at all. Any such value and meaning is intentionally assigned by minds, ours.

P3-Determinism is true. To ask for proof of determinism, implies it’s true. The question itself requires determinism to be true, preceding factors to reach x conclusion, the conclusion is drawn from previously existing causes.

I suspect this premise is mere filler to separate P2 from the HUUUUUGE leap in P5.
Besides, we already know that determinism does not always hold. Thus P3 is false. Given any premise is false, then the entire argument is falsified.

P4-All preceding factors, have preceding factors of their own, until one reaches a point which posses no preceding factors, i.e a first cause, or a type of  uncaused singularity, that’s the ultimate determining cause of all causes, all knowledge, all past and future, events, all values and meanings, etc..

Except it has been determined that this is not the case for the same reason as P3.

P5- Since reality possess values and meanings, that are ultimately rooted in the first cause, reality is an intentional work, authored designed, a novel.

False. Since reality does not possess "values and meanings" except those assigned by a mind or minds, and we also know that human minds are assigning "values and meanings" to reality ALL THE TIME, no other mind is necessary. Parsimony and Occam apply. Note how a leap of logic happened between P2 and P5, where P2 stated "If reality possess value and meaning" a conditional, straight to P5 "Since reality possess values and meanings" as a certainty with NO ATTEMPT TO JUSTIFY SUCH A WILD LEAP.

The intervening P3 and P4 added nothing to such a leap and were lumped in to give the appearance that this unjustified leap had been made. It has not.

A logical argument falls if ANY of it's premises fails. P2, P3, P4, and P5 fail.

No soup for you.

[GrandizerII]

@Abaddon_ire,

Depending on which interpretation of quantum mechanics is true, determinism may or may not always hold. We don't really know which one is true yet, so I'm not confident determinism does not always hold.

[Pat Mustard]

His conclusions simply do not flow from his premises, again they are assertions. For example he simply asserts determinism is true for nothing more than the simple fact we have a word for it. Truth does not work that way. Actually, IMO proving the universe is deterministic is actually harmful to the god hypothesis, not helpful.

If it’s harmful, then it should just be accepted for the sake of Argument. I’d point out that all request to demonstrate, assumes determinism a priori. Just like a request to decipher what’s true, assume objective truth a prior

Why? While I personally come down on the side of determinism, why should I accept in a supposed proof an unproven assertion?

I guess the question could be what makes a first cause a God? Either way I didn’t use the word God in my argument. You’ll still have first cause, that assigns meaning and values to reality in a deterministic universe, even if you don’t want to call it God.

Your question is a nonsense. Onto the second sentence, you may not outright state it, but your whole argument is about proving that a god exists, and not just a generic god, but the impossible being of the Abrahamic faiths. And finally we don't have a first cause (you haven't proven it you've simply asserted it), especially if you are using the cosmological argument, because that flat out states that everything that exists must have a creator independent of itself.

PS I see that acrobat doesn't even try to begin to argue against my pointing out that value is a subjective judgement position, one that varies with time and perspective.

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P2-If reality possess value and meaning, we can use logic to infer a cause, from an effect. I.E. That which possess values and meaning, indicate intentionality, authorship, design, etc..

That is quite a big IF. Why should reality have value and meaning except that which WE intentionally assign to it. Reality need not have any meaning at all. Any such value and meaning is intentionally assigned by minds, ours.

Plus his conclusion simply does not follow from his premise. There is no connection from "things have objective value and meaning" to "there must be a first cause". That is about as logical as saying "if the first car I pass by on my way to work on 27/11/2019, then Dublin will win the Liam McCarthy in 2025". You simply cannot infer that his conclusion happens based on his premise.