That’s because it is a strawman. Surely a strawman isn’t the best you can do?
Except doesn’t the spontaneous order in absentia of the state still require intelligent actors?
Not too pick on you again, sirmonty, but you put the question so succintly … This is really just a general comment, seeing as I was the one who created this thread (and, thus, I am responsible for raising the entire evolution=libertarianism and creationism=totalitarianism-metaphor).
Just a quick remark:
We do have plenty of examples of spontaneous order without looking at either the evolution of organisms or economies. One would be the formation of stars - which is well-described in physics, stand up to everything else we postulate about the world, and does not require sentient components, nor supreme guidance. Unless one wants to push further back the question of guidance (i.e. “god created the laws of physics and blahblah”, which is missing the point about ID entirely. That would be more like theistic evolution where god is not strictly required) then this is a perfectly valid example of order created from simple interacting parts.
Don’t worry about “picking” on me, I’m a big boy. I can wipe my own ass. [:P]
Ok that’s great but I was just pointing out where his analogy itself is faulty (or at least not completely parallel, if you will).
What has metaphysics ever been correct about? When has metaphysics ever increased the sum of human knowledge. Sorry philosophers, but you cannot discover the nature of the universe.
My, my, how you athiests just can’t get over the fact that science is secular and cannot reflect any religious outlook. Neither am I a creationist, nor do I put my religious preferance into my scientific knowledge of both cosmology and evolution. In fact, to pretend that there’s a spantanous order in the universe that reflects the spantanous order of the markets is poetry that doesn’t belong in a scientific analysis, and from a scientific persepective I strongly feel that entropy is the “designer” of the universe as it is.
That’s irrelevant to the analogy, though. That there is no overarching creator imposing the order from outside is what is relevant.
My my, how you like to lie.
Want to try again with some honesty?
The existence of an overarching creator imposing order in the physical sciences is infalisfiable, and ergo impossible to truly know; ergo, that statement means absolutely nothing in the physical sciences.
That, as Rand remarked, existence exists and only existence exists.
Was there a point to your statement?
What is existence? Existence is not falsifiable therefore any propositions about true existence are useless, therefore it is all but inacessible to the human mind, it is only possible to speak of the world as it is. Again, metaphysics fails to contribute anything.
Yes, that every single statement that you’ve been making is pure philosophy and cannot bear scientific inquiry.
The law of identity and the law of contradiction are metaphysical postulates, without which no knowledge is even in principle possible. Most of the present philosophy of the mind is metaphysics. If you’re not a philosopher, don’t presume yourself in a position to stridently deny the existence of an entire branch of philosophy. How does one argue against existence, exactly? Solipsism? But even then you admit something exists…
Are both empirical statements about the world, that’s no metaphysics.
And if it cannot be backed up by scientific inquiry, since it is about the physical world, it is absolutely useless.
Metaphysics has lead humanity down the wrong path of knowledge for over a mellenia, it is only since Newton’s sucesses where Descartes failed that the chains of metaphysics have finally been cast off of the pursuit of knowledge. But I do not deny the fact that phiosophers can so often presume they can reason out what can never be reasoned by the limited power of the human mind.
From a scientific point of view, I ackowledge the world as it is is without the assumption that it is the surpreme existence.
All that is.
If you think metaphysics has failed to contribute something there, you might want to understand it as a bulwark against the idiot multi-realmers.
Let’s scientifically enquire regarding 2 + 2 = 4.
Do you understand your category error now?
What do you think metaphysics is? Statements about the structure of the world. The law of contradiction (and the law of identity from which it derives) certainly are such claims, and certainly are not testable in any sense in which the word “empirical” is normally deployed. Any empirical proof presupposes them from the get go.
An unfalsifiable statement and ergo only metaphysics and therefore garbage.
The theory of multiple universes is metaphysics. At least for physics, it is a theory that states the reason why quantum flucuations are undetectable in the macro scale is that the fluctuations bleed, excuse the loose terminology, into other universe and are therefore not seen in this one.
Alright let us: mathematics is an a priori science ergo 2+2=4. You fail at realizing something being “scientific” depends on the intrinsic nature of the science itself.
Metaphysics is a displine of the nature of the world that can only be supported on human reasons sans any empirical evidence. That is my definition.
Then out the window the law of contradiction goes, because it cannot be supported by empirical evidence itself.
No, empirical experince supports the law principle of contradiction. A tree can only be a tree and not also a car. A house can only be a house and not also a flag pole. Your statement makes little sense.