Careful with that razor!

It is not an uncommon argument against teleology that the appearance of design and finalized function is but a cognitive illusion generated by our brains for survival value. The first thing that strikes me about this claim is how seriously it complicates the attendant claim that our cognitive capacities are merely and wholly evolved by [...]

Why the arguments for atheism are moral arguments, and why that matters

At ST Ia Q2 A3, where Aquinas offers his well-known “five ways” of proving God’s existence, he notes and replies to two objections. To paraphrase, the first is that “infinite goodness” is incompatible with the existence of “evil”; the second, that citing God is “superfluous” as an explanation for the world’s existence. It’s pretty evident [...]

Beware the Magnevonian Myth!

In an earlier post, “Actions and events…” (at my FCA blog but also available here), I described three bodily motions (a., b, and c.), which, though they all look the same and produce the same effects, are not the same action at all. I claimed that intentionality, as a non-physical ascription of formal coherence, needs [...]

The steps you take are not the steps taking you…

Imagine you are walking on a mildly populated sidewalk downtown one afternoon. You walk from your office, to the elevator, then out the doors, along Park Street, turn onto Haven Street, and finally reach Bends (on step #N), a local sub shop. It is a logical necessity, that at every point along your way, you [...]

The Four Horsemen of the Causocalypse!

(Hmm… “the Causocalypse”… I am reminded once more how some things sound better sung to heavy metal in one’s head than they look on a computer screen. Bu the show must go on!)
“Not all that glitters is gold,” as they say.
Now let’s “Aristotelianize” the saying: “Not all that displays finality is conscious.”
Point being, AGENCY IS [...]

Design space? Selection pressure? Neither––or all of the above?

“The notion of order is inseparable from that causality, which is itself an order of dependence. … The ability of a living being to move itself, even though it be only to assimilate and grow, involves therefore the organization of heterogeneous parts of which it is composed. This is why one says of living bodies [...]

A is to B as…

The material (as sheer undifferentiated causal space) is to the physical (or, corporeal) as the physical is to the sensible.
The sensible is to the mental (i.e., as the realm of percepts) as the mental is to the intellectual (i.e., as the realm of concepts).
The intellectual is to the mental as the divine is to the [...]

Causa negatur est…

…consecutionis eadem abrogatur sunt. To do away with the cause is likewise to do away with the effects. [My apologies for the undoubtedly wonky Latin!]
With that in mind, consider the following from Mortimer J. Adler:
At the same time that the Heisenberg uncertainty principles were established, quantum physicists acknowledged that the intrusive experimental measurements that provided [...]