Copyright © 2023 Tomás Morales Duran. All rights reserved
« When Gilgamesh finally finds Utnaphistim, the survivor of the Great Flood, and asks him to reveal the secret of his immortality, he rebukes him, telling him that fighting against the destiny of every human being is useless and diminishes the joys of life ».
He who rebels against destiny, paying for it with the joy of life, is he whose ignorance makes him live in the mirage of freedom.
Stone, Clock and Eye.
William Paley, in 18th century England, maintained that life, complex and perfect, is similar to the mechanism of a clock. And if watches are created by watchmakers, life must be created by God.
This is Paley's argument:
«Suppose, in crossing a heath, my foot stumbled upon a stone, and if I were asked how the stone came to be there; I could answer that, according to my knowledge, the stone could have been there forever; and perhaps it would not be very easy to demonstrate the absurdity of said response. But suppose I found a clock on the ground, and you asked me how the clock appeared in that place; I wouldn't even think of the answer I had given before, and I wouldn't say that the clock could have been there forever. But why would this answer not work for the watch as for the stone, why is it not admissible in the second case as in the first? Well, because of the following: when we inspect the clock, we perceive something that we cannot discover in the stone, that its various parts are framed and united with a purpose, that is, that they were formed and adjusted to produce movement, and that movement is regulated to indicate the time of day; that if the different parts had had a different shape than they have, or had been placed in another way or in another order, no movement would have been made in that machine, or none that would respond to the use it now has..»
Therefore, the existence of the watch implies the existence of a watchmaker. Because, what's in your head that those pieces could have been created exactly that way and put together that way, without someone with that purpose having done it?
For Paley, the difference between the stone and the watch is purpose, and for there to be a purpose there must be someone who has a purpose, so this argument is based on intention. This is his way of demonstrating the existence of a creator God, who is the one who has the purpose of the complex design of life.
Although organs as complex and precise as the eye seem to suggest the existence of an intelligent design capable of shaping life on Earth, Richard Dawkins dismantles this fallacy and argues that the natural selection of species does not obey any pre-established plan, it lacks of purpose or objectives and only acts with the precision of an amazing blind watchmaker.
This argument is based on randomness. It denies the purpose, but it also denies that it is subject to a pre-established plan.
It doesn't explain the stone, nor does it explain the clock.
And the explanation he gives for the eye is incorrect: he asserts that natural evolution is not perfect and that the eye has been arrived at through trial and error, thousands of small mutations, some unsuccessful, that chance has placed until reaching to the eye.
Paley gratuitously introduces God, while Dawkins unnecessarily inserts randomness. Both Paley and Dawkins require magic to support their arguments. The difference between Paley's hypothetical creative God and Dawkins' creative chance is that this chance, apparently, has no purpose, although in practice they are the same.
Dawkins changes a God to pray for a chance to fear.
But chance does not exist since everything is conditioned. Things don't happen by chance but by causality, so Dawkins' argument falls apart.
Without randomness the purpose is inoperative. Since it is inoperative, one cannot speak of design: there is no design if there is no prior purpose and without purpose, there is no designer, so Paley's argument is dismantled.
Dawkins maintains randomness but at the same time denies purpose, while Paley maintains purpose, so he does not need randomness.
Now we are going to explain the stone, the clock and the eye.
Let's start from a truth: " everything is conditioned ."
The mechanism of conditionality is fixed and immovable, and since the conditions themselves are immovable, we can see that they really do submit to a pre-established plan. And since there is no purpose in the rules of conditionality, no one is needed to establish them.
Since the dice were thrown at the beginning of the Universe, all the conditions that describe it from beginning to end were already there. And not only physical models and laws, or the evolution of species, but much more closely, how a watchmaker makes the elements he needs, uses the knowledge that has come to him and is conditioned to assemble the watch with the one Paley tripped over. He also explains the succession of mutations that give rise to the eye or even how the stone was formed and reached Paley's foot.
There is no design, because there is no intention. It obeys a pre-established plan, because there is no freedom. And no God is needed because the rules of conditionality do not need one.
Paley, Dawkins.
The blind watchmaker's mechanism is kamma. It doesn't matter, whether it's a stone, a watch or an eye.
As Utnaphistim told Gilgamesh 4,750 years ago: " fighting against the destiny of every human being is useless and diminishes the joys of life ."
By the way, Dawkins in 2013 was chosen as the world's most important intellectual by Prospect magazine's global survey of thinkers . I still think we are going backwards like crabs...