God and Order

[irichc]

Problem:

Is it rational to suppose that disorder generates order?

Before I answer, I should explain what do I understand by “order� and “disorder�.

Definition 1:

I call a real unity to that which has an individual movement.

Demonstration of the implicit proposition:

The disparity of movements proves that real unities exist. Otherwise, the same thing could be moved in opposite directions, which is nonsensical.

Corollary:

Someone could object that two different things can move in the same direction. Nevertheless, their direction won’t be exactly alike or they will be the same thing. Thus, there are as many “things� as directions.

Definition 2:

Movement is the self-succession of a real unity.

Axiom:

It is obvious that order implies multiplicity. A real unity alone can’t be ordered or disordered, because it lacks a relative place. Same could be stated of movement, which bears multiplicity too.

Then, order would be the property which gives a consistency to the movement. A real unity, as it has been said, isn’t ordered or disordered. However, when it moves it presupposes a place among multiplicity, since there is no possible movement in the void.

Proposition 1:

Movement is an accident.

Demonstration:

Let’s say that a real unity moves (or it is moved) in a multiple environment. So, as far as the real unity is identical to itself in every different state of its movement, we can affirm it is the same real thing which is moving. That is to say, change affects it accidentally, not substantially.

Proposition 2:

Order can be understood as the characteristic of some kind of movement.

Demonstration:

If a real unity lost its identity with movement, it wouldn’t exist movement at all, but a succession of multiple different things. I call it a disordered movement.

Proposition 3:

Order appears to be the actual possibility of any real unity to move in the whole set of things without being confused with it. That possibility is only given by the movement (as an individuation principle) and particularly by the ordered movement.

Demonstration:

By Propositions 1 and 2.

Proposition 4:

Every notion of order implies the notion of real unity.

Demonstration:

By Proposition 3.

Proposition 5:

It is impossible that order can be generated by disorder.

Demonstration:

If that “generation� forces us to think of movement, it isn’t conceivable that a disordered movement generate an ordered movement (by Proposition 3). Even though, every notion of order presupposes a real unity (by Proposition 4), therefore it implies necessarily something which is previous to movement, and which isn’t itself ordered or disordered, but orderer. I’m speaking of God.

Greetings.

Daniel.

[Yahweh]

Quote:

Axiom:

It is obvious that order implies multiplicity. A real unity alone can’t be ordered or disordered, because it lacks a relative place. Same could be stated of movement, which bears multiplicity too.

Arent you establishing the axiom you are trying to prove?


In any case, here is plenty of order that occurs without creator. For instance a fast moving stream will sort rocks; large rocks will be in areas of faster water, smaller rocks will be in areas of more sluggish water; and in between is an even grade of rocks sorted by size.

Plenty of order, it could even mimic "intelligence" depending on the criteria you define, all on its own. No designer necessary.

[neutrino_cannon]

I'm probably under qualified to comment here, as my understanding of the post was less than I would have liked. Nevertheless, I shall, because my neurons are badly in need of exercise.

Definitions from onelook:

Quick definitions (Unity)


noun: the quality of being united into one
noun: an unreduced or unbroken completeness or totality
noun: the smallest whole number or a numeral representing this number

I assume that you are using the second definition, as none of the others would make any sense. The first one almost seems like a adjective.



Quick definitions (Movement)


noun: the act of changing the location of something (Example: "The movement of cargo onto the vessel")
noun: the driving and regulating parts of a mechanism (as of a watch or clock) (Example: "It was an expensive watch with a diamond movement")
noun: a major self-contained part of a symphony or sonata (Example: "The second movement is slow and melodic")
noun: a natural event that involves a change in the position or location of something
noun: a group of people with a common ideology who try together to achieve certain general goals (Example: "He was a charter member of the movement")
noun: the act of changing location from one place to another (Example: "The movement of people from the farms to the cities")
noun: a change of position that does not entail a change of location (Example: "Movement is a sign of life")
noun: a euphemism for defecation (Example: "He had a bowel movement")
noun: a general tendency to change (as of opinion) (Example: "A broad movement of the electorate to the right")
noun: an optical illusion of motion produced by viewing a rapid succession of still pictures of a moving object (Example: "The succession of flashing lights gave an illusion of movement")
noun: a series of actions advancing a principle or tending toward a particular end (Example: "The movement to end slavery")

I assume you are using the identical definitions that sane people use, i.e. that of movement as something moving.

So far (in the simples possible terms):

Stuff moves.

Alright, I can go with that, because stuff, in fact, does move. Or best I can tell, it moves.

Quick definitions (Real)


noun: an old small silver Spanish coin
noun: any rational or irrational number
adjective: being or occurring in fact or actuality; having verified existence; not illusory (Example: "Real objects")
adjective: being value measured in terms of purchasing power (Example: "Real prices")
adjective: founded on practical matters (Example: "A recent graduate experiencing the real world for the first time")
adjective: not to be taken lightly (Example: "Statistics demonstrate that poverty and unemployment are very real problems")
adjective: (of property) fixed or immovable (Example: "Real property consists of land and buildings")
adjective: possible to be treated as fact (Example: "His brief time as Prime Minister brought few real benefits to the poor")
adjective: not synthetic or spurious; of real or natural origin (Example: "Real mink")
adjective: coinciding with reality
adjective: having substance or capable of being treated as fact; not imaginary
adjective: being or reflecting the essential or genuine character of something
adverb: used as intensifiers; `real' is sometimes used informally for `really'; `rattling' is informal (Example: "A really enjoyable evening")
name: A surname (rare: 1 in 50000 families; popularity rank in the U.S.: #6342)

I'll assume the third definition.

Here the old (well, young actually) neurons are having some trouble.



Quick definitions (disparity)

noun: inequality or difference in some respect


So the fact that movement is not universally uniform proves that more than one thing (stuff, plural of thing) exists? I'm curious as to why you dismiss the idea of something moving in two opposing directions as nonsensical, perhaps merely because it is out of your experience?

A pigeon, for example, can be moved in all different directions at once, it merely requires the correct shotgun.

In any case, I'll go along with you on this one.

Stuff (plural of thing) exists, you can prove this by watching things (or stuff) go in multiple directions at once. This is called preschool.

Quote:

Someone could object that two different things can move in the same direction. Nevertheless, their direction won’t be exactly alike or they will be the same thing. Thus, there are as many “things� as directions.

So direction, in your definition, is speed, vector, and position at a given moment right? In this definition, if I send two musket balls out of a double-barreled Kodiak gun, due north, they are not going in the same direction because while they share the same vector, they are separated by the distance between my gun's barrels.

If I fire two shots double taps from an AR-15, they are not going the same direction because they are separated in time, even though they will travel exactly the same path.

It would seem, by extension of this principle, by "things" you mean fundamental particles, and your definition of direction is rather strict.

Quote:

Movement is the self-succession of a real unity.

Gotcha, stuff goes from here, to there, in a direction which can be defined by a three dimensional coordinate, a time, and another time and three dimensional coordinate. Or, at least for linear travel.

All right, with you so far (or at least, traveling on the same vector, if I was really with you, we'd be the same people right?)

Quote:

It is obvious that order implies multiplicity. A real unity alone can’t be ordered or disordered, because it lacks a relative place. Same could be stated of movement, which bears multiplicity too.

I thought you were going to explain what you meant by order before launching ahead and leaving my poor neurons behind?

Oh well, the definition that always worked for me is that a more ordered system takes less data to define. Therefore, a perfectly ordered system would be definable by a datum, or possibly by no data.

If the later is true, then order does not necessarily imply multiplicity, although a larger (and more multiplicitous, i.e. more stuff) system is not necessarily more complex than a small one.

A real unity, with no place relative to any other real unities will have no direction, by your definition, or at least any that can be measured. That does not mean, however, that it cannot be defined. It can be defined with the least possible data (e.g.


thing)

And is therefore the most orderly possible system, with the possible exception of no real unity which is defined as *no thing*
or just:


Which meets my definition of order, as I missed yours (through lack of my reading or of your writing, I am unsure).

Quote:

Then, order would be the property which gives a consistency to the movement. A real unity, as it has been said, isn’t ordered or disordered. However, when it moves it presupposes a place among multiplicity, since there is no possible movement in the void.

Oh there it is!

As I explained, it's easier to define no movement (when movement is impossible without reference) than it is to define multiple unities with similar direction.

I do, by the way assume that's what you mean by "consistency". Going back to the gun analogy, a system involving a three round burst is more ordered than one involving three shots at different targets, because the bullets from the three round burst are all going along the same path, separated in time.

I'm curious, what happens when you have multiple unities separated only by a distance, and all are moving along the same vector? There is no relative movement anywhere in the system, but there are multiple unities. Is there any way to prove that those unities exist separately of each other?


Quick definitions (Accident)


noun: anything that happens by chance without an apparent cause


OK, not quite sure what that means. I'll assume that it means all relative movement in the universe is without apparent cause (?)

reading, reading, reading...

It appears that you then propose a second definition of order:

Quote:

Order appears to be the actual possibility of any real unity to move in the whole set of things without being confused with it. That possibility is only given by the movement (as an individuation principle) and particularly by the ordered movement.

In which case, an extremely ordered system composed of identical unities with no movement relative to each other, though each unmistakable because it had unique relative position to the other objects, would not be ordered (?), because each could be mistaken for the other due to their identical-ness and lack of relative motion.

Or does that not count because under your definition, relative position counts as a criteria of direction?

It would appear, individuation goes down with increasingly ordered movement, or in the case that it goes up, your definition of order is dissimilar (possibly even opposite) of that used by most other people.

Eeenteresting.

This would imply that disorder is that which causes movement to be a substantive change to unities, rather than an accidental one.

Also, disordered movement (as you define the term) would be that which can cause a unity to become a string of stuff that fills in the area that the unity moved through, kind of like multiple exposure of an athlete in a strobe light, except that all the stuff shown in the multiple exposures are real, and with an infinite number of exposures.

Sine position is criteria for direction, under your definition, a unity would then hold multiple directions, a possibility which you already discounted as absurd.

Disordered movement is therefore absurd, and since order, as you define it, is given by the property of ordered movement, if (as would make sense) disorder is given by the property of disordered movement, then disorder is absurd.

Order cannot come from disorder (maybe), but disorder cannot exist. An orderer is not necessarily implied, as disorder couldn't have existed in the first place.

[Gestahl]

Quote:

Originally posted by irichc
Problem:

Is it rational to suppose that disorder generates order?

It is, in fact, because it happens in the real world.

Complete chaos in the guise of quatum foam creates particles all the time. Though most are destroyed again.

Order comes out chaos because there are forces at work that tend to reinforce each other. What we define as "order" is nothing more than a perception of permanence and patterns in the things we see.

Given that:

1) Forces are at work amongst objects that can bring about order.

Personally here, I think any force will do, but I am not sure about the metaphysics here yet. Especially the subtleties with infinite versus finite space/time.

2) Stable configurations can occur (i.e. there are stable solutions)
3) Things are changing (i.e. there is energy in the system... remarkably, this is always the case as far as we can tell in reality).

Right there you guarantee that order will arise somewhere, somehow (assuming infinite time, etc.).

Now, for finite times, you need to set up forces that both can bring things into order, and modify that order (or introduce disorder) to most efficiently create order.

Gravity for the first and the other three forces for the latter work pretty well ;-).

Although, I do have one question for you... what is order?

A nuclear reactor melting down has a spectacular order and regularity in the nuclear reactions' progression, but I don't think that is what you mean....

As a side note to what you are thinking about, try this one on for size. Scientists, seeking to study Jupiter's great eye, and wondering where it could come from (it is a highly stable, 300 year old storm the size of a small planet). When they did some simulations, they found that given a rotating planet that size, that spot would sponaneously form. I did not include this above, because there was already some "order" there.

[bignickel]

I'm curious why irichc has not replied to this thread.

irichc: have you any clarifications to make to your post, now that others have asked for clarification?

Do you have any counterpoints to make to the poster's well-worded arguments (especially considering the time they took to type them out)?

You just wouldn't be here to give this forum your philosophy, without asking for feedback, because, of course, your philosophy is perfect, would you?

[EdipisReks]

is "God & Order" the new Dick Wolf show coming this fall?

[daenku32]

There is no disorder. Everything is exactly where the laws of physics caused them to be.

[Ipecac]

Don't snowflakes effectively disprove this argument?