Perhaps those who wish to use personhood and talk of dignity would admit that someone is human, and yet not a person (and therefore justify euthanasia being inflicted upon certain people, and so on).
X is human if X has powers a, b, c.
We know X has powers a, b, c if we observe it exercising powers a, b, c.
We do not observe it exercising powers a, b, c. --> We do not know X has powers a, b, c. --> We do not know it is human.
This is not the same as:
We do not observe it exercising powers a, b, c. --> X is not human.
Which would be a invalid conclusion.
Now is the following sound?
X is human if and only if it has powers a, b, c.
It does not seem so.
After all, it might be that:
The conceptum has the power of development, through which it is able to generate the organs needed for rational powers. And, it seems that the conceptum is the same thing as the mature adult, in so far as there is a continuity of existence. There is no external agent observed to be generating a human being from the conceptum; rather the conceptum develops itself.
(Can this be taken as an additional argument for the real distinction between the soul and its powers?)
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Another word on mediocrity
If I were trying to discredit Christianity I would make sure those who appointed themselves to be defenders of Christianity against those relying on contemporary scientific dogma were bad philosophers and not very self-aware.
Stephen Barr on Dawkins, Science, and God
here
How could mathematicians, who study quantity, understand nature to begin with?
Dr. Barr accepts contemporary narrative put forth by scientists about the origin and history of creation, rather uncritically. Not surprisingly, given his training, he uses scientific laws [as expressed in the "language" of mathematics] to explain the universe. Perhaps as a way to counter a charge that his account is reductionistic by affirming that the basic constituents of Creation are, in actuality "profound structures"--more complex that we can guess, because the mathematics used to describe such entities are complex (as evidenced by quantum physics). Hence, the origin of complexity. In response to the objection that it seems he is playing with equivocal notions of complexity (complex entities are complex, basic structures are complex, basic structures therefore completely explain complex entities), he might even argue that those things which are constituted from the basic elements are even more complex than we now recognize. Still, this does not really solve the problem of complexity--either complex things are more complex than basic things, or they are not, and one who claims that they are not is going against our basic knowledge of the world. Ultimately Barr is being reductionistic, even if he thinks his reductionism can serve to prove God's existence. If there is complexity in the basic elements of nature, it is there in potentia, not in actu; what is complex in actu are those actually existing complex things, such as human beings. It's an intellectual sleight of hand to explain complexity through what is more simple. This line of reasoning is valid if one is looking at material causes, but not if one is looking at formal causes. An argument that incorrectly proves God's existence while discarding real differences between substances and their formal causes is a useless argument, no matter how much it may appeal to the scientist who wants to defend his religious beliefs.
*Virtually any reasoning that goes beyond the scientific method and dealing with something other than the object of their experiments; or something that attempts a general [causal] account of reality (fundamental philosophy of nature, or physike)--for example, laying out the basic principles or laws of nature.
Yes, if spiritual activities cannot be quantified, they how can they be explained by quantities?
It may be that minds of the sort we encounter in living organisms arise as a consequence of the activities of complex physical structures. However, that “consequence” cannot be one that is physically explicable, in the sense that it follows logically from the mathematical laws of physics.
However, the deeper understanding provided by the more fundamental branches of science presents us with a very different picture. That order which appeared to “arise spontaneously” from chaos or slime did no such thing. It arose from profound principles of order that were there from the very beginning.
The wonderful structure of the solar system emerged because the dust and gas from which it formed obeyed the deep and beautiful laws discovered by Newton. Those laws in turn flow from the deeper and more beautiful laws of General Relativity discovered by Einstein. The slime from which life arose was made of atoms that had all the structure and intricacy and potentiality that chemists devote their lives to studying. Those laws of chemistry are themselves the consequence of the beautifully elaborate laws of electromagnetism and quantum mechanics, which in their turn come from the even more profound structures studied in “quantum field theory.”
As one moves deeper into nature—to levels about which the natural historian and zoologist can tell us nothing—one encounters not less and less form but increasingly magnificent mathematical structures, structures so profound that even the greatest mathematicians are having difficulty understanding them.
How could mathematicians, who study quantity, understand nature to begin with?
Dr. Barr accepts contemporary narrative put forth by scientists about the origin and history of creation, rather uncritically. Not surprisingly, given his training, he uses scientific laws [as expressed in the "language" of mathematics] to explain the universe. Perhaps as a way to counter a charge that his account is reductionistic by affirming that the basic constituents of Creation are, in actuality "profound structures"--more complex that we can guess, because the mathematics used to describe such entities are complex (as evidenced by quantum physics). Hence, the origin of complexity. In response to the objection that it seems he is playing with equivocal notions of complexity (complex entities are complex, basic structures are complex, basic structures therefore completely explain complex entities), he might even argue that those things which are constituted from the basic elements are even more complex than we now recognize. Still, this does not really solve the problem of complexity--either complex things are more complex than basic things, or they are not, and one who claims that they are not is going against our basic knowledge of the world. Ultimately Barr is being reductionistic, even if he thinks his reductionism can serve to prove God's existence. If there is complexity in the basic elements of nature, it is there in potentia, not in actu; what is complex in actu are those actually existing complex things, such as human beings. It's an intellectual sleight of hand to explain complexity through what is more simple. This line of reasoning is valid if one is looking at material causes, but not if one is looking at formal causes. An argument that incorrectly proves God's existence while discarding real differences between substances and their formal causes is a useless argument, no matter how much it may appeal to the scientist who wants to defend his religious beliefs.
If he relied on an Aristotelian account of nature I wouldn't have any problems with this last part, but it seems more amenable to an early Platonic/Pythagorean understanding, and if so, it has its problems. The danger for scientists who are believers is that they can attempt philosophical arguments* reconciling what they believe as scientists with what they believe as Christians, but being a scientist (and a Christian) is no guarantee that their reasoning is correct.At the foundations of the natural world, we do not find merely slime or dust or some dull insensate stuff. We find ideas of sublime beauty. Dawkins looks at mind and sees atoms in motion. Physicists look at those atoms, and deep below those atoms, and see—or, at least, some of them have seen—the products of “sublime reason,” “a great thought,” a Mind.
In other words, in nature we see a different arrow: It moves from Mind to ideas and forms, and from ideas and forms to matter. In the beginning was the Logos, St. John tells us, and the Logos was God.
*Virtually any reasoning that goes beyond the scientific method and dealing with something other than the object of their experiments; or something that attempts a general [causal] account of reality (fundamental philosophy of nature, or physike)--for example, laying out the basic principles or laws of nature.
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