You'd expect a reasonably competent philosopher to be aware of Leibniz!
A continental rationalist concept called the "Principle of Sufficient Reason" easily accounts for his argument. That is to say that the incredibly complexity and unlikeliness (and thus question of probability implying intelligent design -> God) depends on the validity of contingent possibilities... look at that structurally as analysing each individual deterministic event that formed this universe in terms of it's context.
It holds that contingent possibilities are not really contingent. For example, suppose on Monday I go and buy a lottery ticket. In the UK, the odds of me hitting the jackpot in the standard draw are a smidgen under 14'000'000 : 1. I think we can all agree that the possibility of me winning on a single ticket are fantastically unlikely. See how that is analogous to the state of the universe if not intelligently designed.
However, suppose last Monday, I bought a lottery ticket and on the draw, I won the jackpot. Nice seven-figure sum, LA hotel room, naked and sleeping adonis figures, lines of coke, empty bottles of Stolichnaya and pink/purple typewriters all about the place. To me now, because deterministically contingent possibilities, no matter how complex, are in fact not contingent, the odds of me winning on last weeks ticket are 1, whereas next weeks ticket that hasnt been drawn yet is still 13'900'000 : 1.
Look at it, as I often say, as a game of chess, judged on the moves that could have been made, not the moves that were made, in order to establish the context of each individual constituent move. Since in a future game the moves are yet to be made, we have nothing to look at, so continent possibilities and actual possibilies are indistinct at this stage, hence the probability. Of course, look at it from the present -> past perspective, it's fairly obvious to see here how this refutes the argument by design / teleological argument for God's existence.
A continental rationalist concept called the "Principle of Sufficient Reason" easily accounts for his argument. That is to say that the incredibly complexity and unlikeliness (and thus question of probability implying intelligent design -> God) depends on the validity of contingent possibilities... look at that structurally as analysing each individual deterministic event that formed this universe in terms of it's context.
It holds that contingent possibilities are not really contingent. For example, suppose on Monday I go and buy a lottery ticket. In the UK, the odds of me hitting the jackpot in the standard draw are a smidgen under 14'000'000 : 1. I think we can all agree that the possibility of me winning on a single ticket are fantastically unlikely. See how that is analogous to the state of the universe if not intelligently designed.
However, suppose last Monday, I bought a lottery ticket and on the draw, I won the jackpot. Nice seven-figure sum, LA hotel room, naked and sleeping adonis figures, lines of coke, empty bottles of Stolichnaya and pink/purple typewriters all about the place. To me now, because deterministically contingent possibilities, no matter how complex, are in fact not contingent, the odds of me winning on last weeks ticket are 1, whereas next weeks ticket that hasnt been drawn yet is still 13'900'000 : 1.
Look at it, as I often say, as a game of chess, judged on the moves that could have been made, not the moves that were made, in order to establish the context of each individual constituent move. Since in a future game the moves are yet to be made, we have nothing to look at, so continent possibilities and actual possibilies are indistinct at this stage, hence the probability. Of course, look at it from the present -> past perspective, it's fairly obvious to see here how this refutes the argument by design / teleological argument for God's existence.
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