1 Argument from Religious experiece (codetermenate)
2
Argumemt from Transcendental signifiers(You are here)
3 The Cosmological argumemt
4 The Fine tuning argumemt
5 Hartshorne's Modal argument
1. Any rational, coherent, and meaningful view of the universe must of necessity
presuppose organizing principles (Ops)
2. It is the nature of thought to organize explanatory principles under a simgle over arching principle such as logic, reason, math (This over arching principle is the TS)
3. Mind organizes sense data and thiught ito rational stirctires managed by TS.
4. Modern Thought rejects TS outright or takes out all aspects of mind. Therefore, Modern thought fails to provide a rational, coherent, and meaningful view of the universe.
5.Mind organizes thought into structures dominated by the TS
6.Concept of God unites TS with universal mind therefore offers best explanation for a view that is Rational, Coherent, and Meaningful.
In deed in Derridian thought God is the ultimate Transcendental signfier.In fact Derrida was the inspiration for this argument, Not because he would agree with it, it takes his assumptions about the TS then proves him wrong in his conclusions
OP 's make sense of the universe and explain hierarchies of conceptualization:
effects need causes, conclusions are mandated by premises, meaning in language
is organized by rules of grammar. (RCM (rational, coherent, and meaningful) =
Hierarchical order).This premise is rooted directly in observation, a coherent
view of the universe requires OPs, and observation. That a rational and coherent
view requires a principle that organizes reality according to some aspect of
logic or math should be obvious. That's really no different than saying to
really understand things we need a logical coherent view. At this point the
skeptic might assume that the argument is a design argument or that it is saying
that “laws imply a law giver.” Jerome E. Bickenbach and Jackqueline M. Davis
tell us that the argument “laws require a law giver” is the fallacy of
equivocation.
[1] Right they are, since scientists don't mean the term
“laws” in the sense that early modern scientists such as Newton and Boyle meant
it. They really meant a divine command that the universe must behave in a
certain way. The term “law” is a hold-over from a former age. “The laws of
physics, and other scientifically discovered laws of nature are principles
formulated by scientists (not prescribed by lawmakers) in order to describe
regularities and patterns observed in the natural world...while there may be a
God this is not shown by taking the existence of laws of nature as evidence.”
[2]
Whether or not physical laws are evidence of God remains to be seen, but this
argument is neither design nor laws imply a law-giver. First, it's not a design
argument to the extent that the inference is not drawn from design per se.
Design works through either fitness, function, or the resemblance to things we
know are designed. Since it does turn upon order there is overlap with design,
especially the latter kind (resemblance to known design). Yet the point of
inference is not taken from resemblance to known design but to the all pervasive
nature of necessary to contingent order.
Secondly, the argument is not based upon the assumption laws imply a law giver.
That idea assumes that physical laws are a simple list of rules mandated by a
God. That concept of God is based upon the Suzerain model. The argument does not
assume a set of rules but a more organic relation. The point of inference does
not turn upon a set but upon one central, simple, and elegant idea that frames
and grounds the metaphysical hierarchy in a single all-encumpasing first
principle. Since I don't assume that scientists speak of “laws of physics” in
the same way we speak of “laws of traffic” or The U.S, Code Annotated, or
Black's Law Dictionary, then there is no fallacy of equivocation. How I connect
physical “law” to a prescriptive sense without reducing description to
prescription will be dealt with in chapter four. Above I point to grammar as an
example of a TS. The skeptic might argue that grammar is just cultural, that
would be wrong. First of all it doesn't have to be innate to be an example. If
language is just cultural constructs ideas might still be formed in their
function from logical necessity (not the actual signifiers themselves but the
concepts to which they point). An example would be the logical rule A cannot be
non A. That is not arbitrary, but self evident. A thing cannot be other than
itself. Thus the logical law marks the fact as a road map marks geography, but
like a map the two might not always line up. In that case, if grammar is a
purely cultural construct, its still an example of hierarchical
conceptualization. Secondly, there is a lot of good evidence that generative
grammar is genetic. Children of one month old can distinguish between different
phonemes in a language, such as “b” and “p.” Researchers know this by reaction
of the infant to the sound. A phoneme is a unit of sound in a word. Two such
studies are one by Kuhl and one by Scott, et al.
[3] More on this in a
subsequent chapter.
Western thought has always assumed Organizing principles that are summed up in a
single first principle (an ἀρχή) which grounds any sort of meaning: the logos or
the transcendental signified (TS). When I have made this argument skeptics have
argued that there is nothing in science called an “organizing principle.” One
opponent in particular who was a physicist was particularly exercised about my
use of this term. While there is no formal term such that scientists speak of
the “organizing principles” along side laws of physics or Newtonian laws, they
speak of organizing principles all the time. A google search resulted in
320,000,000 results.
[4] On every page of this search we see articles by
cell biologists, cancer researchers, environmental biologists. Mathematicians,
physicists, and so on. Yes there are also articles by crack pots, new age
mystics, people with all kinds of ideas. There is even a book by a physicist who
argues that the scientific thinking of the poet and dramatist Johann Wolfgang
Goethe is valid in modern terms of quantum theory. He talked about organizing
principles.
[5] An Article in Nature entitled “Organizing principles”
discusses a famous experiment in developmental biology: in 1924 carried out by
Hilde Mangold, a Ph.D. student in the laboratory of Hans Spemann in Freiburg.
“It provided the first unambiguous evidence that cell and tissue fate can be
determined by signals received from other cells…This experiment therefore
demonstrated the existence of an organizer that instructs both neuralization and
dorsalization, and showed that cells can adopt their developmental fate
according to their position when instructed by other cells.”
[6]
M.J. Bissell et. al. Discuss malignancy in breast cancer. “A considerable body
of evidence now shows that cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix (ECM)
interactions are essential organizing principles that help define the nature of
the tissue context, and play a crucial role in regulating homeostasis and tissue
specificity.”
[7] All objects in nature are connected to other objects.
This can be demonstrated easily enough, as William Graham makes clear in
discussing “Natures Organizing Principles.”
[8] He turns to ecosystems as
an example. Fish in a school work by individually possessed set of common
principles such that they act in unison without a leader. These are not
evidences of God they are not a design argument. They merely serve to bring home
the point there are organizing principles about. I know this general informal
use of the term does not mean that the Ops I want to talk about exist. But it is
clear there are plenty of structures that organize and guide the way things turn
out we do not have an understanding of what organizes the OP. Yet modern science
still seeks a logos or a TS that would bind them all together and unite them in
one over arching principle. A skeptic could argue that there are self organizing
structures in nature. The self organizing structure supposedly doesn't require
an outside source to exist, that would defeat the principle of the necessity of
organizing principles. Self organizing systems do exist, although they may not
be truly self organizing. A self organizing system is one in which the
organization is decentralized or distributed throughout the system. Examples
include crystallization (snow flakes), swarms of bees or birds, or neural
networks. There are two problems with trying to use self organizing against
OP's. First, there are contradictions within the concept. self organizing is
part of dynamic structures, but dynamic laws operate locally. They can't produce
large structures (like a universe).
[9] Moreover,
Extending the familiar notion of algorithmic complexity into the context of
dynamical systems, we obtain a notion of “dynamical complexity”. A simple
theorem then shows that only objects of very low dynamical complexity can self
organize, so that living organisms must be of low dynamical complexity. On the
other hand, symmetry considerations suggest that living organisms are highly
complex, relative to the dynamical laws, due to their large size and high
degree of irregularity.[10]
Secondly, the term itself (“self organizing”) is a misnomer. Systems are not
organizing themselves, they are being organized by physical laws and properties.
As the Johns article points out self organizing systems are limited by
“dynamical laws,” thus the prior conditions under which the system emerged
(physical laws) is a limit on the system. An example of physical laws limiting
self organizing is entropy.
[11] The Gershen and Heylighen article shows
that according to the second law of thermodynamics entropy in an isolated system
can only decrease, thus, “[self organizing] systems cannot be isolated: they
require a constant input of matter or energy with low entropy, getting rid of
the internally generated entropy through the output of heat('dissipation')..”
[12]
John Collier finds that, “Self-organization requires an entropy gradient that is
external. But this need contain no further organization...”
[13] He goes
on to say that new “selves” can emerge within the system but as stated above it
does depend upon external forces. The article deals with self organizing systems
and questions of identity. He defines self organizing as “a process by which
larger scale (macro) order is formed in a system through the promotion of
fluctuations at a smaller (micro) scale via processes inherent in the system
dynamics, modulated by interactions between the system and its surroundings..”
[14]
Apparently even his definition of the process defeats the argument that self
organizing is indicative of some kind of emergence from true nothingness. Some
of the questions he explores include:
1) What is the self that organizes ? 2) Why is it a self ? 3) What is it for a
process to be inherent to the system dynamics ? 4) What does it mean for
interactions with the surroundings to modulate rather than determine or
control ? Maturana holds that there are no satisfactory answers to the first
two of these questions, if for no other reason than that the self that
supposedly organizes does not exist at the onset of organization.
Self-organization appears to require a sort of lifting oneself by the
bootstraps without having even boots at the beginning. Self-organization thus
appears to be an oxymoron, or at least a misnomer. Autopoiesis is a
self-producing process that presupposes an organized self (Maturana and
Varela, 1992 : 43ff).[15]
Collier finds that Maturana and Varele are wrong, Autopoiesis does not explain
the process of self organizing. The “new self” that emerges is changed enough to
deserve the name self organizing, but it is not a process whereby a self creates
itself apart from external forces.
[16] Of course we need not think of God
interacting with new entities as each new process comes up. Clearly there is a
law-like regularity that must be set up in advance of the effects it produces.
We explore that law-like regularity in chapter four (are laws of physics
descriptive or prescriptive?). Suffice to say self organizing systems do not
negate the necessity of a TS.
A skeptic who is a physicist pointed out to me that science doesn't recognize
anything called an “organizing principle.” Yes it does, they just don't call it
that. Sometimes they are called “laws of physics,” or “natural laws.” But the
concept is not limited to laws. There is an organizing principle grounding and
influencing anything organized. Alphabetical listings, political ideas against
or for which the group needs to be organized, necessity and contingency, any
principle which forms the basis for organizing something, but science recognizes
this too. They are also called “causes.”
Op's can be categorized and understood in relation to a few key principles that
describe their relation to each other, such as mathematics, language, thought,
culminating in one overarching first principle or ἀρχή (are-kay) that makes
sense of it all. Just reason might be said to make sense of thought. TS's are
first principes and they vie for status each one as the first principle (TSED).
I've already discussed the logos of the Greeks and the use made of that concept
in various ways. Kant's categories and abstract principles that regulate our
understanding of everything, which corresponds to Ops to some extent or perhaps
transcendental signifiers. I spoke of Paul Davies and his assertion that laws of
physics have replaced God in the works of modern physicists, and in his own
ideal along those lines as well. There's another aspects in which modern physics
sees a TS. In principle this concept of a single elegant idea that explains
everything is what science has been working toward for years. John Horgan says
of Steven Weinberg, “In his 1993 book Dreams of a Final Theory, he extolled
particle physics as the culmination of 'the ancient search for those principles
that cannot be explained in terms of deeper principles.' He predicted that 'the
convergence of explanations down to simpler and simpler principles will
eventually come to an end in a final theory.'”
[17] A skeptic might
question the scientific veracity or the idea of a single principle that reveals
explanations built into the logical structure of nature. Yet in Dreams of a
Final Theory, Weinberg tells us, “this is what our science is about: the
discovery of explanations built into the logical structure of nature.”
[18]
David Deutsch a quantum physicist at Oxford produced a constructor theory that
is a framework that unites all physical theories and eliminates the impossible
in hopes of finding the basic principle that explains it all.
[19] The
concept of uniting theories and the meta law are organizing principles. The
meta-law is a transcendental signifier, so where is the TS? That's the reality
in the real world that these theories point to. The physicists are talking about
things like gravity. The ideas in their minds that point to the TS are
impersonal forces of nature; that single structure might well point to God and
the physicists would have no way of knowing it or ruling it out. We have a
couple of ways. One of them is to follow the logic of the argument. Clearly the
premises are not ruled out by physics.
I have used TS and OP in a seemingly interchangeable way and this may lead one
to ask “which is it?” TS is a form of OP. I usually use OP in speaking of ideas
that are known to be either naturalistic, or if constructed, the notion of
something no one disputes. The latter might be bigotry (most people agree it
exists), or that of freedom. The former might be a more easily demonstrated idea
such as cause and effect. TS is more theoretical and might be metaphysical such
as justice, or the absolute soul, God, or the Buddha mind. TS is an organizing
principle but I tend to use the term of more theoretical ideas, or ideas not as
easily demonstrated to which some may or may not give ascent. If there is an
actual TS, it organizes the organizers, the OP's. The TS tends to be the next
wrung up in the metaphysical hierarchy; yet since TS organizes it is an OP.
The TS is necessary and cannot be abandoned. Even attempts to abandon it result
in the adoption of new Transcendental signifiers that refer to to the perennial
concept of the ultimate first principle. One example of this replacement theory
is that of Derrida trying to break down ethics, the attempt leads to the
establishment of a new TS for ethical paradigm, i.e., “differance.”
[20]
The goal of difference as the answer to hierarchy and becomes the new principle
around which the ethical paradigm is structured. An example of imposing a new OP
in science would be the paradigm shift. An example of imposing a new TS is the
atheist abolishing God talk from her vocabulary and putting science in its
place. Or Marx with the same motivation makes ideology his version of God or the
TSED, the top of the metaphysical hierarchy.
Finally, TS as a term stands for the top of the metaphysical hierarchy. The
actual thing at the top itself is the TSED, the object of belief to which all
TS's point. In other words as transcendental signifiers point to one reality at
the top, the transcendental signified. so any given transcendental signifier
might be wrong, but there has to be a Transcendental Signified. The words that
describe the reality may very but there is a reality there. That which is all
pervasive and mutually exclusive is not necessarily part of the definition but
it flows out of the nature of being the top of the metaphysical hierarchy. It is
clear that for some examples of the TS it is exclusive, such as “God.” We can
understand this tendency of all OP's to be summed up in and explained by the TS
as hierarchical ordering, This is what I call “metaphysical hierarchy,” the TS
functions as the top of the Metaphysical hierarchy. This forms a major part of
the argument because the TS is the best explanation for the hierarchy.
It would be more technically correct to say postmodern thought rejects TS. But
modern thought may keep TS's such as reason but doesn't allow them to be
connected to mind. I use the term “modern” here to mean contemporary, no
reference to the academic schools. I've already described this process. They
reject God but leave in place an organizing principle in terms of laws of
physics as a mindless principle that can take the place of a creator. It is
impossible to do without OPs, all attempts to do so have ended in establishment
of a new organizing principles: such as the Derrida and ethics examples I just
go through describing (see chapter 2 for greater depth). We cannot organize
without a principle of organizing. Chapter two is all about this example of
Derrida and ethics. The way the OP's are summed up in TS's is hierarchical and
suggests the basic reason for hierarchical ordering. Modern thought either
reduces the TS to laws of physics or rejects it out right but in either case
fails to unite the grounding function of the TS in such a way as to explain a
coherent hierarchical ordering in the universe with an understanding of what it
means to be. I don't know who invented the term “transcendental signifier,” but
Derrida took it over in a sense and made it famous. It actually refers to any
universal concept in human understanding. There are so many TS's because it's
not limited to one notion, but also because it refers to or includes the
ultimate first principle. That means it's basically about the areas of reality
of which we know so little, thus there are many different ideas about it. Yet
the hierarchical nature implies a single first principle. There are many
different ideas, God, the life force, the over soul, the Buddha mind, being
itself, but they all point to a single first principle at the top, The
discussion is always about which one: reason, logic, math, God.
Derrididan background of the argument part 1
Derridian Background part 2
Because this is my own original argumemt, I invented iot,
Dr. Randal Rauser Interviews me on the TS argumemt.
https://randalrauser.com/2019/01/god-in-a-transcendental-signifier-a-conversation-with-joseph-hinman/
My new book
God,Science, Ideology (GSI) makes the argument that New atheism is not scientific in its appraisal of God belief, but uses science ideologically. I begin with a discussion of what scientism is, the name I used to tag the atheist ideology of science as the only valid form of knowledge. I Then explore the historical development of this trend,I lay it at the feet of the French Philosophes of the French revolution.
Sources
[1] Jerome E. Bickenbach and Jackqueline M. Davis, Good Reasons for
Better Arguments: An Introduction To The Sills and Values of Critical Thinking.
Calgary: Broadview Press, 1996, 189.
[2]Ibid.
[3]Patricia Kuhl, “Early Language Acquisition: Cacking the Speech Code.” Nature reviews Neuroscience 5, (Nov.2004) 831-843, doi:10.1038/nrn1533. Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences and the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington,Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. See also: Sophie
K Scott et al, “Categorical speech representation in human superior temporal
gyrus. Is Categorical perception a fundamental property of speech perception?"
Nature Neuroscience,(2010). 13: 1428-1432.
[4]Google search, organizing
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[5]Henri Bortoft, Wholeness of Nature of The Universe: Goethe’s
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Books originally published by Steiner Books,1971, 1985, re worked version 1992,
69. Henri Bortoft, (1938 – 29 December 2012) received undergraduate degree at
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studiedQuantum Physics with David Bohm.
[6]Barbara Marte, “Milstone 1:
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[7]viiM.J. Bissell, D.C Radisky,
and A. Rizki, “The Organizing Principle:Microenvironmental Influences In The
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[8]viiiWilliam Graham, “Natures Organization Principles,” Nature’s Tangled Web:
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[9]ixRichard Johns, “”Self Organizations in Dynamical Systems,”
Synthese, Volume 181, issue 2,( July, 2011) 255-275 Johns is in the Dpartment of
Philosophy, University British Columbia.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid., 258.
[12]Carlos Gershen and Francis Heylighen, “When Can We Call A System Self
Organizing?” Advances in Artificial Life, Berlin Heidelberg: Springer, Volume
2801 of the series Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2003, Gershen is from
Mexico, he earned his Ph.D. from University of Burssels in interdisciplinary
studies. He studies self organizing systems.
[13]John Collier, “Self
Organization, Individuation, and Identity,” Revue Internationale De Philosophie,
2004/2 (n 228) 151-172, 172. John Collier is a philosopher at University of
Natal. The University of Natalis in Durbin South Africa, it has now become The
University of Kwazulu-Natal. Collier is from Canada, he has taught at MIT and
published extensively on self organizing systems.
[14]Ibid., 151.
[15] Huberto R. Maturana and Francisco J. Varele, The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of HumanUnderstanding. Boston: Sambhala,, 43ff.
[16]xviCollier, “Self Organization...” op. cit.
[17] John Horgan, “Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg
Still dreams of a final Theory,” Scientific American, (May 1, 2015) Graham isa
marine biologist. Online resourse, URL
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/nobel-laureate-steven-weinberg-still-dreams-of-final-theory/
accessed 9/20/15 John Horgan was staff writter, A teacher at Stevens Institute
of Technology, Horgan is the author of four books, including The End of Science,
1996, re-published with new preface 2015; and The End of War, 2012, paperback
published 2014.
[18]Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory: Scientists
Search For the Ultimate Laws of Nature. New York: Vintage, reprint edition,
1994, 10.
[19]Zeeya Merali, ”A Meta-law to rule them all: Physicists Devise a
Theory of Everything.” Scientific American, (May 26, 2014) online rfesource URL
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-meta-law-to-rule-them-all-physicists-devise-a-theory-of-everything/
accessed 9/20/15.
[20]Derrida misspells “difference” for special reasons dealing
with his theory “deconstruction.” Se chapter three on “the Derridian Background
of the Argument.
