The Physico-theological Argument
Hello, I would like to understand something about the physico-theological argument.
The argument claims that because the world is complex/ordered (whatever you call it), it must have a designer. In order to stop the regression of a designer who also requires planning, that designer must be outside the world, meaning not limited to our laws of physics and is the one who determined them, so he – there should be no designer. It is not clear to me why Musk is a designer if we know in the world that things can be designed without a designer, certainly not intelligence, when perhaps the most familiar example is evolution in the world of biology through natural selection and other secondary mechanisms?
In other words, just as we previously did not know how the world of biology, which appears to be designed due to the environmental adaptation of each organism, was designed, and then we discovered that there was a completely proven non-intelligent designer, so we can explain complexity in other areas of life, without any designer with intentions.
It has nothing to do with the laws of physics. That creator must be causeless. Causality is not related to the laws of physics, but rather it is a philosophical principle. Naturally, if he created the world and the laws of physics, he would not be subject to them either.
We have no knowledge of planners without a planner. Where did you get that from?
Evolution is irrelevant, as it operates within very specific and complex laws of nature, without which it would not have occurred. The question is not how creatures were created. The answer to that is evolution. The question is how evolution was created, that is, the laws of nature that dictate and govern it.
I elaborated on this matter in the third conversation, in the first place, and in many other places.
I drew this directly from evolution. Evolution is not an intelligent designer (it is a biological phenomenon that occurs due to certain laws of physics) but it did lead to a certain 'order'. More accurately, to the adaptation of each organism to its environment. This means that as long as there is some mechanism of order in the laws of physics, such as evolution operating under certain conditions and creating order, we have an explanation for the physico-theological argument that there is no intelligent creator.
The question is this – why infer an intelligent designer, if we know of physical phenomena that create order and complexity without any intelligent designer (albeit under certain conditions)? That is, just as a human being looks at the world and it seems complex to him at the atomic level because of his limited cognitive abilities, so too a human being looks at the natural world and it seems wonderfully ordered to him because of the adaptation of each organism to its environment. In the case of a human being who looks at the natural world, he has an explanation that is not intelligent design. The question is why does Musk infer an intelligent designer in the case of a human being who looks at the world at the atomic level that is 'complex' according to the physico-theological argument, rather than an adaptation that is not planned similar to what happened in the natural world? In other words, it is possible that order was created thanks to a mechanism of order in the laws of physics themselves rather than an intelligent designer who created the laws so that order would be created.
I hope I am understood.
And to that I answered. Evolution creates order only because it operates within certain natural laws. Therefore, the one who creates order is the one who created the laws. Evolution teaches nothing about the spontaneous creation of order.
I understand, but something in the terminology is still not clear to me. Is this the physico-theological argument – that the one who created the laws is actually the one who created the order? I meant more the issue of complexity according to which there is supposedly an intelligent designer. So what bothered me is that perhaps there is no designer, but a mechanism in the laws of physics that created order. Who created the laws (and thus the order) is a different question than the argument I referred to in the title of the question.
But if this is the main claim of the physico-theological argument, it leads me to the matter of the principle of causality and the Big Bang.
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