https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/790100
I would like to introduce an argument in response to the "Who Designed the Designer?" question. The question of "Who Designed the Designer?" is often asked as a challenge to the concept of intelligent design or the existence of a creator. It assumes that if everything in the universe requires a cause or a designer, then the designer itself must also have a cause or a designer. — gevgala
The Designed Designer (or Caused Causer) challenge assumes that the postulated First Cause exists within the normal space-time system of sequential causation. The implicit argument seems to deny a concept that is typically assumed as an axiom by Design proponents : Eternity. "Eternity" (like "Zero") makes no sense from a real-world perspective. The notion of a spaceless & timeless state is an Ideal concept, and is meaningless to a Materialist/Realist. Yet idealistic philosophers play around with non-existent notions all the time. Since Eternity is abnormal though, they may try to make Timelessness more sensible by defining it as an undefined quantity of Time. Which merely dodges the essence of Eternity.
For example, Aristotle made a distinction between Potential & Actual. He didn't present a mathematical definition of "Potential", but today we could think of Potential in statistical terms. A mathematical "state" is an abstract quality similar to Eternity or Infinity, with unlimited possibilities, until a quantity is specified. So a statistical state is unreal (a mathematical variable : X) until something (a Causal input) provokes it to manifest as a real object with real properties & values. That actualization event is similar to a quantum particle that suddenly transforms from a holistic wave into a particularistic piece of matter. The Potential for that particle existed mathematically (Schrodinger's equation) even though the Actual dot of matter was undetectable in its entangled (holistic) state. But in Designer arguments, "Potential" is equivalent to "non-existent", for all practical purposes*1.
Aristotle tried to bypass the non-existent implications of Eternity, as an infinite progression of causation, by proposing a hypothetical "First Cause" or "Unmoved Mover", as a logic stopper. Still, the first instance of causation must logically be preceded by some kind of impetus. So, centuries later, Spinoza defined his First Cause as a self-caused Necessary Being*2. And he postulated that the real world is a physical manifestation of a metaphysical Potential. For example, the marble Taj Mahal was the real manifestation of an ideal concept in the mind of the designer : Ustad Ahmad Lahori. Of course, even spooky philosophers can't define a hypothetical Being into real world existence. So, to this day, the Designer of this "Grand Design"*3, remains an Idealistic concept that may or may not be imagined as a completely separate category from normal physical existence.
*1. What is fallacy first cause? :
This is the mentality of a savage or mystic who regards existence as some sort of incomprehensible miracle - and seeks to "explain" it by reference to nonexistence. Existence is all that exists, the nonexistent does not exist; there is nothing for existence to have come out of - and nothing means nothing.
https://www.wa4dsy.net/skeptic/firstcause.html
Note -- Potential is a metaphysical state of being that is able to transform into a physical form of existence. Some thinkers cannot conceive of metaphysical (ideal) existence.
*2. Spinoza's First Cause :
God is the infinite, necessarily existing (that is, self-caused), unique substance of the universe. There is only one substance in the universe; it is God; and everything else that is, is in God.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/
*3. THE GRAND DESIGN
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THE MANIFESTATION OF DESIGN
Taj_Mahal_2%2C_Agra%2C_India.jpg