As Mijin said, we have no reason to believe that an “infinite regression of moved movers” is impossible; and we also have no reason to believe that uncaused things are against the nature of our universe. But more importantly, if we do suppose that there must be at least one uncaused thing, why shouldn’t that thing be the universe? It’s the only thing for whose existence we have any evidence, to begin with. It is no contradiction to suppose that it exists without cause, or that perhaps it caused itself.
Also, did you ever meet a designer who could resist going back to tinker with their designs?
I haven’t, so why isn’t he still around tinkering with his designs? Y’know, making man a less judgmental, war mongering, prick would be a good place to start.
Curious why you think our eyes are wired backwards? It’s arbitrary, just a flow of information.
No, it’s bad design to put the nerves in front of the retina where they block the incoming light and create the blind spot. The nerves should be in back, not the front.
In the human eye, axons run across the front of the retina, converge at the optic disc and plunge through to the back of the retina to form the optic nerve, creating a blind spot where they converge.
As I recall, squid eyes are wired such that the nerves run across the back, with no blind spot.
No. Quite the opposite, actually.
Our eyes also process information upside down - the image has to be flipped at some point. I don’t know if this causes humans any particular vision problems but it’s a needless complication that an intelligent designer would avoid.
Who’s riled up? I just see normal responses.
Why?
I can certainly imagine a hypothetical universe’s timeline in which there was an infinite regression of moved movers. It’s mathematically coherent, which is to say it’s not a logical impossibility. So, then, in what sense is it impossible?
(For that matter, I can also imagine all kinds of spontaneous movements; there needn’t be just one from which everything else flowed)
I had read what suranyi said and considered the (at least) partly-facetious tone, and decided to play debate anyway.
For something that was not intended to be taken as opening a Great Debate, it surely has brought up a lot of interesting points about evolution and its naturally (heh) haphazard paths. And about the emptiness of any claim of Intelligent Design working through biological evolution, with many countering examples given. (Abiogenesis may be a different matter, for all I know.)
- "Jack’
Our universe, as you point out (I think), could not logically contain an infinite regression, in that it does not reach back infinitely. In the abstract, it’s a non sequitur by definition. If all that exists are moved movers–entities that can exist in their current state only from a prior cause–the start of that complex chain that exists in time and space is unexplainable.
Do you have an example? Thanks in advance.
Suppose I say that the movement of a ball 1 second ago was the effect of a movement 1.1 seconds ago, which was the effect of a movement 1.11 seconds ago, which was the effect of a movement 1.111 seconds ago, and so on. Is this impossible? Is this not an infinite regression?
Why respond so vehemently to a message that obviously was not intended to be taken seriously?
Who responded vehemently?
But you’ll ultimately trace it back to a starting point. It’s “infinite” only in the mathematical sense that you can infinitely slice up a time line into smaller segments (theoretically), but that will not change the fact that the time line started at some set point (just as our universe did). It’s infinite, I suppose, in the same way that there are an infinite number of points in a line segment, but that particular line segment is not infinitely long.
In point of fact, there is no logical or mathematical reason why this cannot be the case. It isn’t necessary for there to be a “start.”
Why do you think there has to be a starting point?
How’s that, given a universe composed of moved movers? How might that work?
Because an infinite regression of moved movers is impossible, of course. 