The updated “Standing on the Unknown” appeal
What does the rabbi say about the updated “Standing on the Unknown” appeal?
The appeal is that we assume that some machine and some painting (the Sistine Chapel, for example) have a designer because we have some understanding of how such things can be created.
Even if we haven’t known computer engineers or painters, and have never seen a computer or a painting, the mechanism of creating these things is understandable to us.
Even if we don’t succeed in drawing such a special painting ourselves, and we don’t even know such special colors, we will generally know the process of painting, which is essentially drawing lines of color.
The same goes for the machine, even if we have no idea how to build a computer, and have never seen such an engineer, we understand what the process of creating a computer looks like. It’s all about connecting material parts to each other, which is a completely understandable and familiar process (even though we don’t know how to create even a simple computer).
The same goes for unknown footprints in the sand. Even if we don’t know of an animal that can make such tracks (and even if we haven’t known any walking animals, and we were flying in the air ourselves), we will assume that there is one, because the process of making tracks in the sand is a simple and understandable process (even if these are the first tracks we have seen).
What is not true of the special laws of the world is that we have no understanding of what the process of enacting natural laws, or determining physical constants, should look like. We are not talking about court rules or the like, but about realistic laws.
This is also why most people who see a snowflake (for the first time) will not think that someone created it, because we have no understanding at all of how to create such a thing.
Is the appeal right? It seems very intuitive…
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I read. I'm not talking about the weak appeal you refer to in the book, it's really weak to say that because I don't know of such a factor, then there is no creator (as Elia Leibovitz wrote about the Sistine Chapel).
I'm talking about the process of creating the complex thing.
In all of the Rabbi's examples (painting, traces in the sand, airplane, clock, washing machine, factory with a talented manager), although none of the factors known to us can create them, the way of creation in general is completely clear, it involves assembling material parts together in a special way/stepping on sand/touching paint on fabric/enacting legal laws.
Regarding the laws of the world, we have no idea what the process of enacting physical laws might look like, even in a very general and crude way, and therefore it is much less likely to offer an explanation for the thing.
This is a different appeal that does not tickle the old-fashioned appeal, and it negates most of the power of the physico-theological view, which is built on dogmatic comparisons between real natural laws (which we have no understanding of the possibility of their creation) and the laws of a factory, a clock, a plane tracking in the sand, etc., whose pattern of creation is clear.
Does the rabbi have any explanation for the appeal?
I see no difference, and therefore no new appeal. In any case, I don't understand why there should be a dispute.
The difference is simple.
Eliya Leibowitz's argument is that an explanation is not acceptable if it invents unknown entities.
Clearly, the argument is wrong and the Rabbi tastefully rejected it with the help of the parable of the sand traces, in which we invent a new animal to explain the sand traces.
My argument is that in the event that we have no perception of the formation pattern of a complex object (we are unable to conceive of the possibility of a process of creating a natural law), we will not invent that something created it.
Now you can easily see that the parable of the sand traces, which succeeded in debunking Eliya's argument, does not refute anything of my arguments.
Regarding the sand traces, we have a clear idea of what the process of creating such traces looks like.
By the way, this is clearly the only reason why everyone will agree with you about all the examples you bring (airplane clock, etc.) and not everyone will agree about G-d and the laws of nature.
Do you have a parable that refutes my arguments? (Like the parable of the consistency that refutes Elia's argument)?
Again I don't understand what I have to refute. I claim that every law has a legislator, as we know with other laws. In a factory there are rules of operation that the manager has enacted and enforced. So who is the manager of the laws of nature? It's not about constructing natural laws (they are not applicable) but about enacting them. So the question about their formation is not relevant to the point, and is definitely related to other examples on the other hand, just like the footprints in the sand. I don't see any difference.
Does the Rabbi have an example of a complex thing from which we conclude that there is a component even though we have no beginning to understand and perceive the process of its creation?
Every explanation in physics begins with the discovery of a phenomenon and the assumption that there is something that causes it, even if we do not understand how that something does it.
In the past, when humanity discovered the stars, it concluded that there was a natural phenomenon that caused them, even though it did not know how it could happen. Even today, when we see that there is an acceleration in the rate of expansion of the universe, physics assumes that there is a ‘dark energy’ that balances the speed. How it does this magic, no one really knows. Only after they assumed that there was such a thing, did they begin to develop theories about how it happens.
Strange question. If I have no idea about the process of its creation, how can I bring it as an example of something that has a component. There are no examples because this is an explanation and not the result of direct experience.
I didn't understand the meaning of this strange sentence: When humanity discovered the stars, it concluded that there was a natural phenomenon that caused them?
Your last argument is the reasoning behind my words. When we have something before us, we conclude that it has a cause and then we develop a theory of what that cause is. This is exactly what happens in relation to the world/its laws and to God.
As far as I'm concerned, we've figured it out. All the best.
All I wrote was an answer with examples of R (stars, dark energy, etc.).
As an example of something *that we assume* has an explanation.
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