Intelligence is Responsible for Physics
david ford
committee-of-designers, i.e. down to a main, intelligent factor
I will now attempt to pare the hot-big-bang-precipitating,
not-material causal chain(s) down to a main cause, i.e. the most
significant cause, specifically to a single not-corporeal entity, by
arguing that the order and harmony of the laws of physics suggest that a
single intelligent entity (or a single intelligent committee) created
those laws. The physical laws, i.e. the properties of the physical world,
exhibit order and harmony, and from this order and harmony, intelligent
design of the physical world by a designer or committee-of-designers can
be inferred.
In his _Dreams of a Final Theory_, atheist physicist Steven
Weinberg writes that the laws of physics exhibit beauty:
The kind of beauty that we find in physical theories is of a very
limited sort. It is, as far as I have been able to capture it in
words, the beauty of simplicity and inevitability--the beauty of
perfect structure, the beauty of everything fitting together, of
nothing being changeable, of logical rigidity.1
Expanding on Weinberg's remark, the laws of physics exhibit the
properties of simplicity, harmony, rigidity, order, beauty, and
elegance. "Rigidity" characterizes sets of equations that require the
presence of all of their components for them to describe. "Harmony" is
synonymous with consistency; consistency characterizes equations that
mesh with each other, equations that fit together, equations that do not
conflict with each other, equations that when fitted together exhibit
perfect structure. (The word "harmony" has been used to denote spatial
and temporal order.)
Physicists have used several different notions of "order,"
including spatial order and temporal order. "Spatial order" is
regularity in spatial appearance, i.e. is spatial symmetry; for example,
crystals exhibit "spatial order" in presenting a high level of symmetry.
"Temporal order" is regularity in occurrence; to illustrate, the planets
consistently take roughly the same amount of time to make each of their
respective trips around the sun, the sun rises each day, and eclipses
occur like clockwork. Both spatial order and temporal order are
manifestations of symmetries present in the physical laws governing the
way certain atoms link up to form crystals, the way planets move around
suns, etc.
Symmetry in the world of physics contributes to the "simplicity" of
equations describing the world of physics; synonymous with
"compactness," "simplicity" characterizes equations that describe a wide
range of phenomena with a small number of straightforward equations.
Just as Johannes Kepler did not believe God would have His creation
contain numerous epicycles in the planet's orbits around the sun, but
instead something much more simple, and therefore set out to discover
his simple laws of planetary motion, so also have physicists come to
expect simplicity in their field of study.2
A related notion of "order" is "a lack of chaos." Physics exhibits
a lack of chaos in that its phenomena occur in a regular manner. For
example, a ball dropped 15 years ago fell to earth, and a ball dropped
10 years from now will fall to earth-- it is not the case that
gravitational attraction between particular objects changes from one day
to the next, it is not the case that the strengths of forces in physics
erratically vary, and more generally, it is not the case that the world
of physics is chaotic. Regarding this absence-of-chaos, Paul Davies
notes that
Every advance in fundamental physics seems to uncover yet another
facet of _order_. ....the physical world operates according to
rational principles.... Logically, the universe does not have to
be this way. We could conceive of a cosmos where chaos reigns. In
place of the orderly and regimented behaviour of matter and energy
one would have arbitrary and haphazard activity. Stable structures
like atoms or people or stars could not exist. The real world is
not this way.3
"Beauty" and "elegance" are synonymous; equations that theoretical
physicists consider beautiful exhibit simplicity, harmony, and rigidity.
GTR is a highly beautiful theory. Theoretical physicists consider
certain equations to exhibit more 'beauty' than certain other equations,
yet there is no standard of beauty of which I am aware.
Upon considering the absence-of-chaos, some have come to think that
an entity designed physics. A stronger inference that physics was
designed has been made from the spatial and temporal order visible to
the eye: some have inferred that the spatial and temporal order they
saw seemed to possess the appearance of having been designed. In my
opinion, a much more solid inference that physics was designed can be
made from the appearance of the _equations_ discovered to accurately
describe the world, equations that provide for spatial and temporal
order. Not being a physicist, I have not worked with the physics
equations, and so cannot speak from personal experience whether the
equations, for example of GTR and QM, in my opinion possess the
appearance of having been designed. I will thus be making an appeal to
the authority of individuals who _have_ worked with the equations for
their opinion on the matter, and will conclude that the equations the
world of physics follows strongly possess the appearance of having been
designed.
Einstein viewed the seemingly-accurate equations he worked with as
having the appearance of being designed, and concluded that they were in
fact designed. To illustrate, Einstein wrote that Newton and Kepler
possessed "a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe" and "a
yearning to understand," qualities that Einstein deemed "a feeble
reflection of the mind revealed in this world."4 Einstein considered
this mind a superior intelligence:
His [the scientist's] religious feeling takes the form of a
rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an
intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the
systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly
insignificant reflection.5
Einstein admired this intelligence, remarking that "whoever has
undergone the intense experience of successful advances" in discovering
the laws of physics and how they fit together "is moved by profound
reverence for the rationality made manifest in existence" and "attains
that humble attitude of mind toward the grandeur of reason incarnate in
existence."6 Einstein was, of course, only speaking for himself when he
wrote that and the following: "My religiosity consists in a humble
admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the
little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can
comprehend of reality."7 In short, in theoretical physicist Einstein's
opinion, the laws of physics appear to have been designed.
Davies concurs with Einstein that physics has the appearance of
having been designed:
The temptation to believe that the Universe [i.e. the world of
physics] is the product of some sort of _design_, a manifestation
of subtle aesthetic and mathematical judgment, is overwhelming.
The belief that there is "something behind it all" is one that I
personally share with, I suspect, a majority of physicists.8
If I had studied physics I could tell you, on the basis of my own work
in physics, whether I thought physics appeared designed. Not having
studied physics, not having immersed myself in the physics equations, I
have to rely on the opinions of those who have, and in the opinion of
physicists Davies and Einstein at least, physics strongly possesses the
appearance of having been designed.
In response to Einstein's and Davies's conclusion that the world of
physics appears to have been designed, someone may propose that yes,
intelligence is behind physics, but not what Einstein termed an
"infinitely superior spirit," but rather, a collection of idiots. If
such was the case, then the 'idiots' must have been extremely smart
entities. To illustrate, Davies notes that "many of the discoveries
described" in his 1986 book "are the result of intense and collective
intellectual activity by some of the finest minds the world has known."
I conclude that the 'idiots' must have been smarter than the "finest
minds" of which Davies speaks. He continues, "Some of the theories [I
have described] have called upon subtle and obscure mathematical
arguments that could easily have been overlooked, even by highly
competent mathematicians."9 I conclude that the 'idiots' would have
been, overall, "highly competent" in the realm of mathematics. Davies
ends his 1986 book with the sentence, "No one who has studied the forces
of nature can doubt that the world about us is a manifestation of
something very, very clever indeed."10 In short, if 'idiots' made
physics, they were "very, very clever" 'idiots.'
One particular aspect of the physics equations that especially
speaks of design is the harmony, i.e. the meshing, of the equations.
About this meshing, Davies observes,
Traditionally, physics has been divided up into a number of rather
distinct branches, such as mechanics, optics, electromagnetism,
gravity, thermodynamics, atomic and nuclear physics, solid state
[physics], and so on. These rather artificial divisions conceal
the elegance with which these topics dovetail together. We don't
find, for example, that the laws of gravity conflict with those of
electromagnetism or solid state physics.11
Davies notes that just as we find "words interlock[ing] in a consistent
and orderly arrangement" when we proceed with solving a crossword
puzzle, so also are nature's laws seen to "interlock consistently" as we
progressively "discern the remarkable orderliness of nature."12 For
some reason, "we do not to doubt that the order, consistency, and
harmony of a crossword imply that the puzzle is the product of an
ingenious, inventive mind," yet there are "doubts voiced" when it comes
to the laws of physics.13 The evidence for intelligent design is often
adjudged "compelling in one case but not in the other."14
Davies mentions three replies to inferences of intelligent design,
those being "that we impose order on the world to make sense of it; that
the reasoning is flawed; and that any order which does exist in nature
is the product of blind chance and not of design."15 The first may be
rejected out of hand as it pertains to the world of physics, where
spatial and temporal order is clearly revealed through patient
investigation and is clearly not being imposed on a disorderly world by
physicists.16 John Polkinghorne, a Cambridge theoretical physicist who
became an ordained clergyman,17 concurs with Davies, and offers as
evidence the fact that "the phenomena encountered often prove extremely
surprising and contrary to our intuition. They resist our attempts to
bend them to our prior expectation."18 While acknowledging that a
physicist "approach[es] the world from a particular point of view,"
Polkinghorne adds that that view "receives its confirmation or necessary
correction from interaction with the way things are."19 In short, about
the claim that "the order we find in the world is an order that we in
fact impose upon it," in Polkinghorne's opinion as a physicist, "it is
hard to exaggerate how implausible such a view is."20
Regarding the claim that the reasoning is flawed, we make
inferences that things were designed all the time. The basis for
everyday inferences-to-design boils down to
1) arguments by analogy to things we think _were_ designed. Put
another way, we compare
a) something we believe to have been designed, and
b) an entity that poses to us the question of whether it was or was
not designed,
and we conclude that based upon the high degree of similarity
between a) and b), just as a) was designed, so also was b)
designed.
2) rejection of the possibility that the entity in question could have
arisen via non-intelligence-directed processes. And,
3) our usually-hidden assumption that the entity in question began to
exist.
To illustrate the two main components of inferences to design, William
Paley stated in 1802 that the human heart, muscles, mammary glands, and
bones each had several components, the absence of one of which would
result in the non-functionality of the respective biological
structures.21 The structures were deemed similar to a watch that we
would clearly recognize as having been designed upon finding it in a
field. Paley thought that the watch and the biological structures he
mentioned contained several components required for functionality,
thought that this interlocking nature spoke of design of the watch and
of the biological structures mentioned, and concluded that like the
watch, the biological structures _were_ designed. Paley thereby
provides an instance of item a), arguments by analogy to things we think
_were_ designed.
Wide acceptance of Paley's argument vanished with the 1859
publication of biologist Charles Darwin's _The Origin of Species_.
Darwin argued for the existence of a non-intelligence-directed
mechanism, specifically natural selection of random variations, that
could account for the existence of seemingly-designed biological
structures. Darwin's theory of natural selection provides an example of
an attack on an inference-to-design made by attacking item b), rejection
of the possibility that the entity in question could have arisen via
non-intelligence-directed processes. Since he first proposed it,
Darwin's mechanism has been thoroughly refuted by observation of living
organisms, and by the absence of confirmatory evidence in the fossil
record despite 140 years of searching by paleontologists.22
When it comes to the laws of physics, nobody has to my knowledge
produced the analogue of Darwin's theory of natural selection for the
production of the laws of physics. Nobody has observed new laws of
physics arising via processes that as best can be determined are
non-intelligence-directed, nor are there known formulas, i.e. equations,
i.e. theoretical predictions that describe the process of new-law-
formation.
On the basis of
a) theoretical physicists Einstein's and Davies's judgement that the
equations of physics strongly possess the appearance of having been
designed, and based on the interlocking nature of the laws of
physics, which is strongly analogous to the interlocking of words
in a crossword puzzle,
b) rejection of the possibility that non-intelligence-directed
processes can result in the formation of new laws of physics, and
c) the fact that the laws of physics began to exist in the big bang,
I infer that intelligence is responsible for the laws of physics. This
inference-to-design could not possibly be correct should it be shown
that physics never began to exist. The harmony of physics laws implies
design of the laws by a single designer, whether in the form of an
actual single designer or in the form of a committee of designers that
collectively agreed upon a design plan before implementing that plan.
In short, the not-material causal chain(s) that precipitated physical
existence's beginning to exist in the big bang has been pared down to a
designer or committee-of-designers.
A countermove to this conclusion might consist of taking the
reasoning that led to inferring design of the laws, and applying that
reasoning to the designer or committee-of-designers of the laws: If the
laws exhibit order and harmony, then surely the maker(s) of the laws
must also exhibit order and harmony, and if the maker(s) do exhibit
order and harmony, then according to the above line of reasoning, the
maker(s) must also have been designed. Taking this one step further,
the designer(s) must have been designed-- it would seem that an infinite
regress is the logical conclusion of inferring that the laws of physics
were designed.
The atheist biologist Richard Dawkins presents one possible avenue
of answering the objection of what made the deistic entity when he
writes,
To explain the origin of the [very first] DNA/protein machine by
invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing,
for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer. You have to
say something like 'God was always there', and if you allow
yourself that kind of lazy way out, you might as well just say 'DNA
was always there', or 'Life was always there', and be done with
it.23
(The big bang origin of the universe precludes the possibility that life
has existed for eternity past, but that is a topic for another
discussion.) Taking our cue from Dawkins's remarks, if the deistic-type
entity had existed for an eternity to its past, then it _could not_ have
been designed. At this point, Dawkins might reply, 'In that case, you
might as well just say, "Physics and physical existence was always
there," and be done with it.' However, if the hot big bang model is
correct, physics was _not_ always there, physical existence has _not_
existed for an eternity to its past.
Notes
1. Steven Weinberg, _Dreams of a Final Theory_ (NY: Vintage Books,
1993), 149.
2. Fred Heeren, _Show Me God: What the Message from Space is Telling Us
About God_ (Wheeling, Illinois: Searchlight Publications, 1995),
266-7.
3. Paul Davies, _Superforce: The Search For a Grand Unified Theory of
Nature_ (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1984), 223.
4. Albert Einstein, _Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein_ (NY:
Bonanza Books, 1954), 39.
5. Einstein, 40.
6. Einstein, 49.
7. Cited in Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, selectors and eds., _Albert
Einstein: The Human Side: New Glimpses from His Archives_
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 66.
8. Paul Davies, book review "The Christian perspective of a scientist"
_New Scientist_ (2 June 1983), 638.
9. P.C.W. Davies, _The Forces of Nature_ (NY: Cambridge of University
Press, 1986), 167.
10. Davies (1986), 167.
11. Davies (1984), 224.
12. Davies (1984), 236.
13. Davies (1984), 236.
14. Davies (1984), 236.
15. Davies (1984), 237.
16. Davies (1984), 237.
17. Davies (2 June 1983), 638.
18. John Polkinghorne, _Science and Creation: The Search for
Understanding_ (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1989), 25.
19. Polkinghorne, 26.
20. Polkinghorne, 25.
21. Michael J. Behe, _Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to
Evolution_ (NY: The Free Press, 1996), 212, 214.
22. David Ford, "Problems with the Theory of Natural Selection"
<http://www.deja.com/=dnc/getdoc.xp?AN=373057131>; "Cancer and
Mutation" <http://www.deja.com/=dnc/getdoc.xp?AN=359381287>,
<http://www.deja.com/=dnc/getdoc.xp?AN=360056263>,
<http://www.deja.com/=dnc/getdoc.xp?AN=359381286>.
23. Richard Dawkins, _The Blind Watchmaker_ (NY: W.W. Norton & Company,
1987), 141.
Vreejack
[a lot of nice stuff about how beautiful and elegant physics is
and how it must have been designed]
You miss the fact that very complex structures can be created by
idiots who do not understand all the implications of what they have
made.
I offer as an example: Conway's Life. Conway designed life to have
only three or four very simple rules. It probably took an afternoon
to tune them properly, and yet the complexities inherent in his
creation are still being discovered.
Now that I think about it, I'm tempted to write a new version for
my Pentium. I haven't played with Life since I ran it on a 286.
Respectfully submitted
John M. Vreeland (Vreejack)
"If Christian theists can summon the courage to argue that pre-existing
intelligence really was an essential element in biological creation and to
insist that the evidence be evaluated by standards that do not assume the point
in dispute, then they will make a great contribution to the search for truth,
*whatever the outcome.*" -- Philip E. Johnson, _Reason in the Balance_, p. 110.
J. Thomas Ford
>
<snip>
> (The big bang origin of the universe precludes the possibility that life
> has existed for eternity past, but that is a topic for another
> discussion.) Taking our cue from Dawkins's remarks, if the deistic-type
> entity had existed for an eternity to its past, then it _could not_ have
> been designed. At this point, Dawkins might reply, 'In that case, you
> might as well just say, "Physics and physical existence was always
> there," and be done with it.' However, if the hot big bang model is
> correct, physics was _not_ always there, physical existence has _not_
> existed for an eternity to its past.
If the Big Band is correct, "eternity to its past" is meaningless. Look
for a better argument.
--
"God does not need Congress' help, but may God help us if we ever use
religion as a means to our own political ends." - Rep. Chet Edwards
(D-Texas), opposing defeated S. Con. Res. 94, which called for
*mandated* national prayer.
Morat
Vreejack wrote:
> david ford wrote:
> [a lot of nice stuff about how beautiful and elegant physics is
> and how it must have been designed]
>
> You miss the fact that very complex structures can be created by
> idiots who do not understand all the implications of what they have
> made.
>
> I offer as an example: Conway's Life. Conway designed life to have
> only three or four very simple rules. It probably took an afternoon
> to tune them properly, and yet the complexities inherent in his
> creation are still being discovered.
>
> Now that I think about it, I'm tempted to write a new version for
> my Pentium. I haven't played with Life since I ran it on a 286.
>
If you find a good one, let me know. It's become a rather standard
coding exercise. Check out "Object-Oriented Programming in C++, Second
Edition" by Laforge...it's got a crude ascii version as an exercise.
>
> Respectfully submitted
> John M. Vreeland (Vreejack)
>
> "If Christian theists can summon the courage to argue that pre-existing
> intelligence really was an essential element in biological creation and to
> insist that the evidence be evaluated by standards that do not assume the point
> in dispute, then they will make a great contribution to the search for truth,
> *whatever the outcome.*" -- Philip E. Johnson, _Reason in the Balance_, p. 110.
--
spam blocking in effect. To reply remove "not"
------------------------------------------------------------------
Mankind must without a doubt be the most conceited race
in the universe, for who else believes that God has
nothing better to do than sit around all day and help
him out of tight spots? ---Alan Dean Foster
------------------------------------------------------------------
Blowero
understand the Universe as being logical and beautiful - we would not have
survived as a life-form if our thoughts were chaotic. How it is possible to
make a leap in logic from this to "A guy with a beard who lives in the sky made
the Universe", escapes me. Faith and Reason, by definition, are opposites.
>From: david ford
> I will now attempt to pare the hot-big-bang-precipitating,
>not-material causal chain(s) down to a main cause, i.e. the most
>significant cause, specifically to a single not-corporeal entity, by
>arguing that the order and harmony of the laws of physics suggest that a
>single intelligent entity (or a single intelligent committee) created
>those laws. The physical laws, i.e. the properties of the physical world,
>exhibit order and harmony, and from this order and harmony, intelligent
>design of the physical world by a designer or committee-of-designers can
>be inferred.
>
> In his _Dreams of a Final Theory_, atheist physicist Steven
>Weinberg writes that the laws of physics exhibit beauty:
> The kind of beauty that we find in physical theories is of a very
> limited sort. It is, as far as I have been able to capture it in
> words, the beauty of simplicity and inevitability--the beauty of
> perfect structure, the beauty of everything fitting together, of
> nothing being changeable, of logical rigidity.
[really, really, long rest of post snipped]
Michael Lacy
david ford <dfo...@gl.umbc.edu> wrote:
Another possibility is that infinite universes are constantly being
created, each with their own sets of physical laws (This idea is explored
in a fascinating article entitled "The Self-Reproducing Inflationary
Universe" by Andrei Linde in Magnificent Cosmos, Scientific American
Quarterly, May 1998) Only those universes whose physical laws mesh
elegantly remain stable for any length of time, and only those whose
physical laws are as elegant and orderly as those of our own give rise to
organism who can then wonder at it all, conclude that it must have been
designed and invent religion.
Michael Lacy
Vreejack
Morat <dra...@icsi.not.net> wrote:
>
>
> Vreejack wrote:
>
> > david ford wrote:
> > [a lot of nice stuff about how beautiful and elegant physics is
> > and how it must have been designed]
> >
> > You miss the fact that very complex structures can be created by
> > idiots who do not understand all the implications of what they have
> > made.
> >
> > I offer as an example: Conway's Life. Conway designed life to have
> > only three or four very simple rules. It probably took an afternoon
> > to tune them properly, and yet the complexities inherent in his
> > creation are still being discovered.
> >
> > Now that I think about it, I'm tempted to write a new version for
> > my Pentium. I haven't played with Life since I ran it on a 286.
> >
>
> If you find a good one, let me know. It's become a rather standard
> coding exercise. Check out "Object-Oriented Programming in C++, Second
> Edition" by Laforge...it's got a crude ascii version as an exercise.
>
of deterministic in n-dimensional space? I wonder how much initial
"complexity" is required fpr the spontaneous formation of
self-replicating structures?
Respectfully submitted
John M. Vreeland (Vreejack)
--
"If Christian theists can summon the courage to argue that pre-existing
intelligence really was an essential element in biological creation and
to insist that the evidence be evaluated by standards that do not
assume the point in dispute, then they will make a great contribution
to the search for truth, *whatever the outcome.*" -- Philip E. Johnson,
_Reason in the Balance_, p. 110.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Morat
Vreejack wrote:
> In article <37B03FC6...@icsi.not.net>,
> Morat <dra...@icsi.not.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Vreejack wrote:
> >
> > > david ford wrote:
> > > [a lot of nice stuff about how beautiful and elegant physics is
> > > and how it must have been designed]
> > >
> > > You miss the fact that very complex structures can be created by
> > > idiots who do not understand all the implications of what they have
> > > made.
> > >
> > > I offer as an example: Conway's Life. Conway designed life to have
> > > only three or four very simple rules. It probably took an afternoon
> > > to tune them properly, and yet the complexities inherent in his
> > > creation are still being discovered.
> > >
> > > Now that I think about it, I'm tempted to write a new version for
> > > my Pentium. I haven't played with Life since I ran it on a 286.
> > >
> >
> > If you find a good one, let me know. It's become a rather standard
> > coding exercise. Check out "Object-Oriented Programming in C++, Second
> > Edition" by Laforge...it's got a crude ascii version as an exercise.
> >
> I'm thinking of adding a few twists. How about probabilistic instead
> of deterministic in n-dimensional space? I wonder how much initial
> "complexity" is required fpr the spontaneous formation of
> self-replicating structures?
>
I've played with the rules myself. I was considering moving it from
2-d to 3-d, as a simple example, but found my graphics skills lacking
at the time. :)
>
> Respectfully submitted
> John M. Vreeland (Vreejack)
> --
>
> "If Christian theists can summon the courage to argue that pre-existing
> intelligence really was an essential element in biological creation and
> to insist that the evidence be evaluated by standards that do not
> assume the point in dispute, then they will make a great contribution
> to the search for truth, *whatever the outcome.*" -- Philip E. Johnson,
> _Reason in the Balance_, p. 110.
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
--
Ken Cox
> I'm thinking of adding a few twists. How about probabilistic instead
> of deterministic in n-dimensional space? I wonder how much initial
> "complexity" is required fpr the spontaneous formation of
> self-replicating structures?
The current level of complexity is sufficient, as a Life cellular
automaton can be used to build both a universal Turing machine and
a von Neumann machine. That is, there is an arrangement of cells
that acts as a universal computer/constructor and builds a copy
of itself off somewhere else in the grid.
Of course the odds of such a thing being present in a random
initial assignment of grid cells are pretty low. It sounds like
you want a more complicated cellular "chemistry" that might give
rise to interesting "reactions" all by itself. One thing you
might want to look at is cells with multiple states, not just
the on/off of Life; that gives you lots more possible rule sets,
even without using non-determinism.
--
Ken Cox k...@research.bell-labs.com
Vreejack
instead
> > of deterministic in n-dimensional space? I wonder how much initial
> > "complexity" is required fpr the spontaneous formation of
> > self-replicating structures?
> >
>
> 2-d to 3-d, as a simple example, but found my graphics skills lacking
> at the time. :)
I recently realized that Conway's life is merely a subset of the field
of logic arrays. This is proving very interesting but the graphics are
getting in the way-- they slow everything down too much, by orders of
magnitude.
At least logic matrices do not suffer from the same problems as other
dynamical systems. I have written a few gravitational simulators but
their speed drops geometrically every time I add a rock. With logic
arrays it is a linear increase for each new element.
Vreejack
Vreejack
Ken Cox <k...@lucent.com> wrote:
> Vreejack wrote:
> > I'm thinking of adding a few twists. How about probabilistic
instead
> > of deterministic in n-dimensional space? I wonder how much initial
> > "complexity" is required fpr the spontaneous formation of
> > self-replicating structures?
>
> automaton can be used to build both a universal Turing machine and
> a von Neumann machine. That is, there is an arrangement of cells
> that acts as a universal computer/constructor and builds a copy
> of itself off somewhere else in the grid.
>
> Of course the odds of such a thing being present in a random
> initial assignment of grid cells are pretty low. It sounds like
> you want a more complicated cellular "chemistry" that might give
> rise to interesting "reactions" all by itself. One thing you
> might want to look at is cells with multiple states, not just
> the on/off of Life; that gives you lots more possible rule sets,
> even without using non-determinism.
I have tried a lot of complex chemistry, even something that mimicked
chemistry itself, but the processing drain was too high. I suspect
that logic arrays will provide more interesting results without having
to model atomic motions and electron exchanges.
As for determinism, of course a random input will eventually be needed
as a requirement for evolution, but first things first. In the
unlikely event I come across something self-replicating (even if I
recognize it) I think I'll have enough reason to crack open a champagne
bottle.
What if it evolves into an intelligent creature?
On Microsoft Windows? I don't think I have to worry about that.
-- vreejack
david ford
works of art" that humans have made. Humans have thereby become
entirely accustomed to the idea that complex elegance is an
indicator of premeditated, crafted design. This is probably the
most powerful reason for the belief, held by the vast majority of
people that have ever lived, in some kind of supernatural
deity.[xii]
(Being an atheist, Dawkins naturally doesn't believe in any type of
supernatural deity.)
Dawkins relates having dinner with a "well-known atheist" and
"distinguished modern philosopher." In response to Dawkins's remark
that he could not imagine being an atheist prior to Darwin's 1859
propounding of the theory of natural selection, the
atheist-philosopher replied, "What about [the arch-skeptic David]
Hume?" Asked Dawkins, "How did Hume explain the organized complexity
of the living world?" The philosopher responded with what I interpret
to be a rhetorical question: "He [Hume] didn't. .... Why does it
need any explanation?"[5] Rephrasing, I get, 'The complexity of
biology doesn't need an explanation.'
Dawkins strenuously disagrees with that stance, opining that the
"amount of complex design" in biology "give[s] the appearance of
having been designed"[1] and "cries out for an explanation"[ix]:
Paley knew that it needed a special explanation; Darwin knew it
and I suspect that in his heart of hearts my philosopher
companion knew it too.[6]
In my opinion, it is quite possible that the philosopher _didn't_ know
this to be the case owing to some degree of ignorance of biology on
his part, just as in Dawkins's opinion, "some of his [Hume's] writings
suggest that he underestimated the complexity and beauty of biological
design."[6] The possibility that the modern philosopher was ignorant
in matters biological is bolstered by the fact that, as biologist
Michael Ghiselin notes,
These days only a few philosophers maintain strong links with the
empirical sciences. Much "philosophy of science" has little if
any connection with what goes on in the laboratory.[120]
Noddingly acquainted with philosophy, Weinberg concurs with Ghiselin's
assessment:
After a few years' infatuation with philosophy as an
undergraduate I became disenchanted. The insights of the
philosophers I studied seemed murky and inconsequential compared
with the dazzling successes of physics and mathematics. From
time to time since then I have tried to read current work on the
philosophy of science. Some of it I found to be written in a
jargon so impenetrable that I can only think that it aimed at
impressing those who confound obscurity with profundity. Some of
it was good reading and even witty, like the writings of
Wittgenstein and Paul Feyerabend. But only rarely did it seem to
me to have anything to do with the work of science as I knew
it.[168]
Should a modern philosopher believe that the
seeming-intelligent-design of _physics_ does not call out for an
explanation, it would be interesting to know to what degree that
philosopher is ignorant of physics. Since Hume (1711-1776) last
wrote, _much_ has been learned about physics and biology. Claims that
Hume once and for all defeated arguments for design of biology and of
physics are predicated upon the comparatively poor state of knowledge
existing over 200 years ago.
Ghiselin, Michael T. 1989. _Intellectual Compromise: The Bottom
Line_ (NY: Paragon House), 226pp.
Weinberg, Steven. 1993. _Dreams of a Final Theory_ (NY: Vintage
Books), 340pp.
Dawkins, Richard. 1987. _The Blind Watchmaker_, 332+pp.
david ford
df "Spatial order" is regularity in spatial appearance, i.e. is spatial
df symmetry; for example, crystals exhibit "spatial order" in presenting
df a high level of symmetry. "Temporal order" is regularity in
df occurrence; to illustrate, the planets consistently take roughly the
df same amount of time to make each of their respective trips around the
df sun, the sun rises each day, and eclipses occur like clockwork.
The idea of attributing spatial and temporal order to intelligent design
is quite ancient. Wrote Greek philosopher Anaxagoras (ca. 500 - ca. 428
BC),
....Mind is infinite and self-ruling, and is mixed with no Thing,
but is alone by itself. ....it is the finest of all Things, and
the purest, and has complete understanding of everything, and has
the greatest power. All things which have life... are ruled by
Mind. ....whatever things were then [i.e. were previously] in
existence that are not now, and all things that now exist and
whatever shall exist-- all were arranged by Mind, as also the
revolution now followed by the stars, the sun and moon....
Greek philosopher Plato (428/7 - 348/7 BC) was of a similar opinion,
writing that "the gods' existence is an easy truth to explain [i.e. to
demonstrate]":
just look at the earth and the sun and the stars and the universe
in general; look at the wonderful procession of the seasons and its
articulation into years and months! ....among the arguments we've
already discussed, there are two in particular which encourage
belief in the gods.... argument [number 2] was based on the
systematic motion of the heavenly bodies and the other objects
under the control of reason, which is responsible for the order in
the universe.
American pragmatist philosopher John Dewey alleges that the order
ancient Greeks thought they saw in nature isn't inherent in nature.
Dewey writes that ancient Greek "craftsmen, architects, [and]
sculptors... had taken raw material and converted it into finished forms
marked by symmetry and proportion." Dewey alleges that in like manner,
Greek thinkers took their ideas of harmony, proportion, and symmetry and
"aimed at constructing out of nature, as observed, an artistic whole...
to behold." In other words, in Dewey's opinion, the Greeks took their
ideas of symmetry etc. and "superimposed upon phenomena" those
properties, thereby deluding themselves into thinking that the
properties were "elicited from" phenomena. In short, the Greeks thought
symmetry etc. "was the form and pattern intrinsically characteristic of
things," while Dewey thinks the Greeks "first formed in" their
"designing mind[s]" the ideas of symmetry etc., "and then imposed from
without" those ideas on the natural world. (Incidentally, Dewey's
mention of the Greeks' "designing mind[s]" makes me strongly suspect
that his 'symmetry is imposed, not inherent' claim is an attempt to
thwart inferences from nature's apparent symmetries to the existence of
a designing mind(s) that made nature.)
Dewey's allegation is incorrect. Consider, if you would, these
snowflakes:
2 links to colorized snowflake pictures
http://www.clis.com/savvynews/snow/default5.htm
I ask you, the reader, is symmetry inherently present in the snowflakes?
Or are you, as Dewey alleges, imposing the property of symmetry upon the
flakes, much like a sculptor might take an ordinary rock and sculpt a
symmetrical 6-sided star shape?
Consider now a time-lapse photograph of stars as they seem to travel
around the North Star:
star trails in northern skies
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980912.html
I ask, is symmetry inherently present in the concentric circles traced
out? Or are we, as Dewey alleges, imposing the idea of symmetrical
circles upon the paths?
The concentric circles traced out are a consequence of the earth's
rotation on its axis. The continual passage of the seasons spring,
summer, winter, and fall is a consequence of the earth's being tilted on
its axis of rotation, and the earth's continually going around the sun.
I ask you, is the continual procession of the four seasons something
inherently present in nature? Or are humans merely taking the idea of
spring summer winter fall spring summer winter fall.... and imposing
that idea upon nature?
Consider the passage of days, a consequence of different parts of the
earth facing the sun as the earth rotates on its axis. In most parts of
the earth, a period of sunlight is shortly followed by a period of
night. Is the continual procession of night day night day night day....
something inherently present in nature? Or are we humans merely taking
the idea of alternating periods of light and dark and imposing that idea
upon nature?
To ask such questions is to answer them. Dewey's allegation that the
ancient Greeks imposed spatial and temporal order on nature is
erroneous.
Plato. _The Laws_, translated by Trevor J. Saunders (GB: Penguin Books,
1970), 553pp. Remarks around 10.886, and shortly before 12.967.
Baird, Forrest E., ed. 1997. _Ancient Philosophy_ (NJ: Prentice Hall),
558pp. Anaxagoras's remarks are on 39.
Dewey, John. 1929. _The Quest for Certainty: A Study of the Relation
of Knowledge and Action_ (NY: Capricorn Books), 318pp. See 90-1 in
chapter IV.
david ford
that
To suppose universal laws of nature capable of being
apprehended by the mind and yet having no reason for their
special forms, but standing inexplicable and irrational, is
hardly a justifiable position. Uniformities are precisely
the sort of facts that need to be accounted for. That a
pitched coin should sometimes turn up heads and sometimes
tails calls for no particular explanation; but if it shows
heads every time, we wish to know how this result has been
brought about. Law is _par excellence_ the thing that wants
a reason.
Strangely, Peirce alleges that "the only possible way of accounting for
the laws of nature and for uniformity in general is to suppose them
results of evolution," the "principal of evolution requir[ing] no
extraneous cause." I interpret Peirce to be saying that the only
possible explanation for the laws of nature is the explanation that they
arose via non-intelligence-directed-at-any-level processes. As far as I
can tell, Peirce advances no arguments on behalf of this allegation. In
the chapter in which Peirce's remark came, there's not even a hint of an
acknowledgement that one alternative explanation of the laws is that
_intelligence_ is responsible for them. At least James (explicitly) and
Dewey (implicitly) noted the existence of such a possibility.
From his un-argued-for belief that the laws are the result of evolution,
Peirce supposes that in the universe, there exists "a certain swerving
of the facts from any definite formula," even going so far as to allege
that "arbitrary heterogeneity is the feature of the universe the most
manifest and characteristic," the latter allegation explicitly
contradicting his earlier acknowledgement of the existence of "universal
laws of nature.... and... uniformity in general." (Unsurprisingly,
utterly no data is presented on behalf of the allegation that "arbitrary
heterogeneity is the feature of the universe the most manifest and
characteristic.")
As if granting the existence of uniformity and then saying uniformity is
explained by evolution, which is said to entail _non_-uniformity weren't
enough, Peirce also baldly proclaims that "law ought more than anything
else to be supposed a result of evolution." More than even the classic
slight changes in finch beak shape from year to year, laws of nature
ought be supposed the result of evolution?? No data and no arguments
are presented on behalf of Peirce's allegation.
There is, though, the curious remark that "philosophy requires
thoroughgoing evolutionism or none." It is possible that Peirce starts
with the preceding proposition, rejects the no-evolutionism possibility,
concludes that philosophy requires thoroughgoing evolutionism, and then
on the basis of this pure thought alone, proclaims the laws of nature to
be the result of evolution. Should Peirce have followed such a line of
thought, I for one would be most unimpressed.
Most physicists would be similarly unimpressed by Peirce's blanket
allegation that "when we attempt to verify any physical law, we find our
observations cannot be precisely satisfied by it." For instance, when
we test GTR, we find that its predictions are precisely satisfied by
observation to as well as we can measure.[Ross]
Peirce, Charles S. _Charles S. Peirce: Selected Writings: (Values in a
Universe of Chance)_ (NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1958), 446pp,
on 148 in the chapter "The Architecture of Theories," which first
appeared in _The Monist_ (Jan 1891), 161-76.
Ross, Hugh. "Observational Verifications of General Relativity"
<http://www.reasons.org/resources/papers/relativityobs.html>.
david ford
b = Bothamley, Jennifer. 1993. _Dictionary of Theories_ (Washington,
D.C.: Gale Research International Ltd.), 637pp.
Craig, William Lane. 1990. "'What place, then, for a creator?":
Hawking on God and Creation" _British Journal for the Philosophy
of Science_ 41: 473-91, 480.
d = Davies, Paul. 1983. _God and the New Physics_ (NY: Simon &
Schuster), 255pp., 219.
Feynman, Richard P., as told to Ralph Leighton, edited by Edward
Hutchings. 1985. _"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!:
Adventures of a Curious Character_ (NY: Bantam Books), 322pp.
Feynman, Richard P., as told to Ralph Leighton. 1988. _"What Do
_You_ Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a
Curious Character_ (NY: W.W. Norton & Company), 255pp.
James, William. 1948. _Essays in Pragmatism_ (NY: Hafner Publishing
Company), 176pp., 146-7, 168.
p = Polkinghorne, John. 1998. _Science and Theology: An
Introduction_ (GB: SPCK/Fortress Press), 144pp.
Rorty, Richard. 1995. "Is Truth a Goal of Enquiry? Davidson _VS._
Wright" _The Philosophical Quarterly_ 45: 281-300.
Scheibe, Erhard. 1998. "On Limitations of Physical Knowledge"
_Philosophia Naturalis_ 35: 41-57, 44.
Sykes, Christopher, ed. 1994. _No Ordinary Genius: The Illustrated
Richard Feynman_ (NY: W.W. Norton & Company), 272pp.
Weinberg, Steven. 1993. _Dreams of a Final Theory_ (NY: Vintage
Books), 340pp., 167.
Pragmatist philosopher William James (1842-1910) does as poor a job as
Dewey in arguing against the reality of laws of nature. As a prelude
to his attack, James recounts how discoveries of laws of nature used
to be interpreted:
When the first mathematical, logical, and natural uniformities,
the first _laws_, were discovered, men were so carried away by
the clearness, beauty and simplification that resulted, that they
believed themselves to have deciphered authentically the eternal
thoughts of the Almighty. .... He... thought in conic sections,
squares and roots and ratios, and geometrized like Euclid. He
made Kepler's laws for the planets to follow; he made velocity
increase proportionally to the time in falling bodies; he made
the law of the sines for light to obey when refracted;.... He
thought the archetypes of all things, and devised their
variations; and when we rediscover any one of his wondrous
institutions, we seize his mind in its very literal intention.
Following his sketch of the prior interpretation, James goes on the
attack:
But as the sciences have developed further, the notion has gained
ground that most, perhaps all, of our laws are only
approximations. The laws themselves, moreover, have grown so
numerous that there is no counting them; and so many rival
formulations are proposed in all the branches of science that
investigators have become accustomed to the notion that no theory
is absolutely a transcript of reality, but that any one of them
may from some point of view be useful. Their great use is to
summarize old facts and to lead to new ones. They are only a
man-made language, a conceptual shorthand, as some one calls
them, in which we write our reports of nature; and languages, as
is well known, tolerate much choice of expression and many
dialects. Thus human arbitrariness has driven divine necessity
from scientific logic.
We critically look now at James's above attack, and his later remarks
about elegance.
Regarding James's statement that "as the sciences have developed
further, the notion has gained ground that most, perhaps all, of our
laws are only approximations," we might ask, 'Approximations to what?'
The answer: reality. I and most physicists would, I think, agree.
Erhard Scheibe puts it this way:
_This_ is something almost taken for granted: In spite of the
tremendous success of modern physics, it is safe to say... that
all our physical laws are, strictly speaking, false, i.e. their
truth is only approximate. .... Laws... are false in the sense
that they are capable of an _internal improvement_. .... The
ideal gas law, for instance, was replaced and improved by the van
der Waals equation, geometrical optics was improved and refined
by wave optics etc. ....fundamental theories can be corrected in
this sense, e.g. in the case of gravitation where Kepler's laws
were replaced by Newton's and these in turn were superseded by
Einstein's. And Einstein himself made desperate attempts to get
beyond his own theory.
As noted by others, the "realist" view is that "truth is some sort of
correspondence to, or accurate representation of, reality,"[Rorty,
281] and that as physicists go about correcting old theories by
replacing them with theories that better describe the physical world,
physicists get closer and closer to a true description of the world,
i.e. get better and better "approximations to an ultimate reality."[d]
The expectation is that one day physicists will "expose the _correct_
laws, to which our present textbook laws are a creditable but flawed
facsimile."[d]
So in reply to James, I would say yes, the laws that physicists have
formulated and accepted are only approximations, but as the research
continues, the fit between physicists' formulations and reality gets
better and better. Scheibe's mention of Kepler's laws being replaced
by Newton's laws which were in turn replaced by Einstein's GTR (which
is in turn expected to be replaced by a unification of GTR and QM) is
a perfect example of physicists' discovery of successive formulations
that successively describe reality better and better. As the
transition from the laws of Kepler to those of Newton to those of
Einstein has occurred, the formulations have become more and more
beautiful.
The fact that the formulations physicists currently have are only
approximations of reality does nothing to lessen the facts that they
are beautiful, and that the motions and structures they well-describe
are themselves temporally and spatially ordered, both the formulations
and the world described being shot-through with the appearance of
having been intelligently designed.
Regarding James's allegation that "the laws... have grown so numerous
that there is no counting them," if I recall reading correctly,
physicists' equations describing a very broad range of phenomena could
easily be placed together on a single sheet of paper.[see
<http://www.deja.com/=dnc/getdoc.xp?AN=527610312>] Also, since James
died in 1910, much progress has been made in finding simpler and in
unifying formulations of laws. So much for the non-countable number
of laws James believed to have equal consideration in vying for being
representative of reality.
We turn now to James's related belief that "so many rival formulations
are proposed in all the branches of science that investigators have
become accustomed to the notion that no theory is absolutely a
transcript of reality." James seems to forget that physicists'
proposed formulations can usually be _tested_ to see how well they
match up with reality. Physicists test rival proposed formulations,
and if they all conflict with observation, it's back to the drawing
board. If any formulations agree with observation, that's great, and
physicists think that they've discovered another piece of the final
puzzle, or at least a close approximation of a piece in the puzzle of
description of reality. It's not the case that physicists say, 'Look
at all these proposed formulations, we can't determine which if any
correspond with reality, and so, we don't think that any one of them
accurately or approximately-accurately describes reality.'
James continues his attack by saying scientists are used to the idea
that "any one of them [i.e. of the 'many rival formulations'] may from
some point of view be useful. Their great use is to summarize old
facts and to lead to new ones." James here, and in the preceding
remark about no theory being a transcript of reality, advocates a
position called "instrumentalism"[b]/"positivism." Davies relates
that under the instrumentalist view, "it is not possible to pronounce
a particular theory 'right' or 'wrong', merely that it is [more]
useful or less useful, a useful theory being one which connects a wide
range of phenomena in a single descriptive scheme to high
accuracy."[d] The only physicist I've read saying he holds to
instrumentalism is Hawking, who often speaks as if he's actually a
realist. For instance, as Craig notes, "it is evident that he
[Hawking] construes his [NBP] theory to be, not merely an engaging
mathematical model, but a realistic description of the universe."
Weinberg relates that most physicists are realists:
Physicists do of course carry around with them a working
philosophy. For most of us, it is a rough-and-ready realism, a
belief in the objective reality of the ingredients of our
scientific theories. But this has been learned through the
experience of scientific research and rarely from the teachings
of philosophers.
Polkinghorne concurs with Weinberg, writing,
realism is a philosophical position based on the actual
experience of the scientific community, rather than on a claimed
abstract necessity that things had to be this way. This basis in
experience is why it is the position adopted, consciously or
unconsciously, by the overwhelming majority of working
scientists, despite the criticisms leveled at it by some of their
philosophical colleagues.[17]
Returning to James, he continues to advance the instrumentalist
position when alleging that "They [the 'many rival formulations'] are
only a man-made language, a conceptual shorthand,... in which we write
our reports of nature; and languages, as is well-known, tolerate much
choice of expression and many dialects." The vast majority of
physicists would vociferously disagree with these allegations. To
cite one physicist, Feynman (a poor speller) once stated that the
spelling of words "is just a human convention-- it has nothing to do
with anything _real_, anything from nature. A word can be spelled
just as well a different way."[f88, 30]
While granting that "social factors can affect the rate of scientific
discovery," Polkinghorne disagrees with the claim that "the form of...
discovery, when it comes, is socially moulded," explaining, "Once
people got round to doing the experiments, the answer was
unambiguous." Polkinghorne proceeds to sketch the opposing view
before explaining the basis for most scientists' rejection of that
opposing view:
It is suggested that the invisible college of scientists reaches
certain conclusions, less because nature actually takes this
particular form, but because the college has unconsciously
decided to describe nature in this way. Most scientists reject
such a strong role for social forces in their discipline. The
physical world does not seem to them to be so plastic in their
encounter with it that they can twist its patterns into shapes
that please their intellectual fancy. On the contrary, nature
often resists our prior expectations and the eventual discovery,
when it comes, is frequently very surprising, beyond our powers
to have anticipated beforehand. (The discovery of quantum theory
was an extreme example of this kind.)[12-13]
Because scientific research "is full of surprises as physical reality
resists our prior expectations," the feel of research is "the feel of
discovery."[13] In short, it is physicists' _experience_ with the
world they study that leads them to conclude that they are making
discoveries about the way things are, and aren't imposing
preconceptions of the way things ought to be on a malleable physical
world.
In addition to the attack discussed above, James later seems to
suggest that physicists accept certain theories because physicists are
partial to elegance:
sometimes alternative theoretic formulas are equally compatible
with all the truths we know, and then we choose between them for
subjective reasons. We choose the kind of theory to which we are
already partial; we follow "elegance" or "economy."
While it is true that physicists are partial toward theories having
elegance, that partiality has as its basis the fact that elegant
theories often turn out to match up with observation. Beauty in
physicists' formulations indicates, _as judged by physicists'
experience_, the strong possibility of corresponding to what is
observed.[72-3] Polkinghorne puts the matter this way:
Non-empirical criteria, such as economy and naturalness [i.e.,
and a lack of ad hoc additions], are important discriminators
between competing suggestions and in practice they a[r]e found to
lead to unique proposals. The satisfaction of these criteria
involves personal judgment but the choice is not a mere matter of
whimsical taste, for the experience of scientists is that the
theories selected in this way prove themselves by their long-term
fertility, their power to explain phenomena going way beyond the
scope of those whose consideration gave rise to the idea in the
first place.[16]
Polkinghorne proceeds to provide an example of the guiding light of
beauty:
the physicist Paul Dirac formulated an equation which succeeded
in combining quantum theory with special relativity in a
consistent fashion. An immediate, but unanticipated, bonus from
the discovery of this equation was that it was found to imply
that the magnetic interactions of electrons were twice what one
would naively have expected them to be. This was already known
to be the case but no one previously had been able to understand
why it was so. A few years later, more thinking about the same
equation led Dirac to the fundamental discovery of the existence
of antimatter. Such continuing and uncovenanted fruitfulness is
very persuasive that one is on to something of real
significance.[16-17]
Feynman emphasizes that even if a formulation is beautiful, should it
not check out with observation, it isn't accepted:
In general, we look for a new law by the following process.
First, we guess.... No! Don't laugh-- it's really true. Then
we compute the consequences of the guess to see if this law that
we guessed is right-- what it would imply. Then we compare those
computation results to nature-- or, we say, to experiment, or
experience-- we compare it directly with observation to see if it
works. If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. In that
simple statement is the key to science. It doesn't make any
difference how beautiful the guess is, it doesn't make any
difference how smart you are-- who made the guess, or what his
name is. If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. That's
all there is to it.[in Sykes, 143]
In short, when James seems to suggest that acceptance of certain
formulations has been based solely on the degree of beauty present, he
neglects the facts that
1) given past experience, beauty has proven to be a dependable
indicator of proposed formulations' verisimilitude to what's observed
in the world, and
2) even if a theory seems beautiful, if it's found to not check out
with observation, it's not accepted.
So much for James's conclusion that "human arbitrariness" regarding
the so-called laws of nature "has driven divine necessity from
scientific logic." To illustrate just how wrong James is, compare his
remark
When the first mathematical, logical, and natural uniformities,
the first _laws_, were discovered, men were so carried away by
the clearness, beauty and simplification that resulted, that they
believed themselves to have deciphered authentically the eternal
thoughts of the Almighty.
and this remark by Feynman, a strong atheist throughout his life:
I wanted very much to learn to draw, for a reason that I kept to
myself: I wanted to convey an emotion I have about the beauty of
the world. It's difficult to describe because it's an emotion.
It's analogous to the feeling one has in religion that has to do
with a god that controls everything in the whole universe:
there's a generality aspect that you feel when you think about
how things that appear so different and behave so differently are
all run "behind the scenes" by the same organization, the same
physical laws. It's an appreciation of the mathematical beauty
of nature, of how she works inside; a realization that the
phenomena we see result from the complexity of the inner workings
between atoms; a feeling of how dramatic and wonderful it is.
It's a feeling of awe-- of scientific awe-- which I felt could be
communicated through a drawing to someone who had also had this
emotion. It could remind him, for a moment, of this feeling
about the glories of the universe.[f85, 237-8]
While Feynman has awe for a physical world that began to exist, the
deist has awe for the creator(s) of the physical world. While Feynman
says "the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the
imagination of man,"[f88, 242, 243] deists say the imagination of the
creator(s) of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of all
twentieth-century physicists combined.
david ford
Hume, David. _Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion_, Norman Kemp Smith
ed. (USA: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1947), 249pp., Part
VIII, paragraph starts "Thus the universe goes." The _Dialogues_
was originally published in 1779.
Sagan, Carl. _Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science_
(NY: Random House, 1979), 347pp., 287.
Salmon, Wesley C. "Religion and Science: A New Look at Hume's
_Dialogues_" _Philosophical Studies_ 33: 143-76 (1978), 176.
Smith, Quentin. "Big Bang Cosmology and Atheism" _Free Inquiry_ (spring
1998), 35-6, 36.
By 'the God of deism,' I mean a clockmaker God: God winds up the
universe and walks away, so to speak-- there's no interaction whatsoever
with humans. As Wesley Salmon (University of Arizona) puts it,
The term 'deism' is often used to refer to the doctrine that there
is a God who created the universe, but after the creation does not
interfere with it in any way.
As far as I know, the God of deism is not considered to know the past
and future and even peoples' thoughts, i.e. to be omniscient, does not
request, require, or deserve worship by humans, is not thought to be a
source of morality, is not interested in what happens to humans, and
does not pay attention to prayer requests by humans. The traditional
God of deism is unitary in nature; however, I haven't encountered an
argument for the unity of the designer of physics, and will concede that
I'm unable to attempt paring a large number of intelligences that may
have played a part in thinking up and implementing physics-- paring that
down to a single intelligence that both thought up and implemented
physics.
Someone might ask, "Upon what grounds you say that it's conceivable that
something exist yet never have begun to exist?" I unfortunately don't
have an answer, and am in the company of others in lacking an answer.
The atheist Carl Sagan states that "it is perfectly possible that the
universe is infinitely old and therefore requires no Creator." As
previously noted, Dawkins favorably writes of the possibility that life
exists and yet never began to exist. The atheist philosopher Quentin
Smith writes, "Since it [the NBP's hemi-4-sphere] was timeless, it no
more needs a cause than the timeless god of theism." Hume writes of the
possibility of "eternal revolutions of unguided matter." As far as I
know, Sagan, Dawkins, Smith, and Hume have not presented any arguments
that it's conceivable that the universe, life, the NBP's hemi-4-sphere,
or matter never began to exist.
Someone could, I suppose, allege that an existing yet never-beginning-
to-exist intelligence requires a cause to begin to exist, and say that
that cause in turn
1) never began to exist, and simultaneously,
2) requires its own cause to begin to exist,
and so on ad infinitum. That person would be proposing an infinite
number of contradictions, perhaps in the hope that if a contradictory
situation is repeated in occurrence enough times, it becomes sensical.
I can offer no argument by way of reply, just as I can offer no argument
in reply to the contradictory claim that the shape of a circle can be
the shape of a square at the same time and in the same sense.
Someone might also ask whether this intelligence has thoughts. I'd say
yes, just as I have thoughts when dreaming up some new invention. A
follow-up question might be, What are the causes of the intelligence's
thoughts? I'd say the intelligence itself is a major factor in the
beginning-to-exist of the intelligence's thoughts, just as I (an
intelligent entity) am a major factor in my thoughts'
beginning-to-exist.
Suppose now that the order currently observed in nature ceases to exist.
Spatial and temporal order and stable structures such as atoms cease to
exist. Such an occurrence would not affect the fact that as matters
currently stand, physics strongly has the appearance of being designed.
The fact that design inferences are not dependent upon the perpetual
existence of features suggestive of design may be illustrated by an
example. Suppose we examine an alien spaceship and conclude that
intelligence was responsible for its fabrication. Should that spaceship
fall to pieces shortly after retrieval and examination, we would not, I
submit, change our earlier verdict that the spaceship was intelligently
designed. A more common example of design inferences remaining valid in
the presence of change is provided by sculptures currently decaying
because of the effects of pollution. Though a statue may disintegrate
in a few short years, the presence of disintegration does not affect our
conclusion that intelligence played a large role in the
beginning-to-exist of the statue.
Dave Haas
100...@umbc8.umbc.edu>, dfo...@gl.umbc.edu says...
first show there is intelligence on earth. When it comes to really
understanding the nature of the universe and matter humans aren't that
sharp. We are extremely limited. Our brains are not that much larger or
different than other dumb animals. We tend to think with our gonads too.
D. Haas
Steve Mading
: By 'the God of deism,' I mean a clockmaker God: God winds up the
: universe and walks away, so to speak-- there's no interaction whatsoever
: with humans. As Wesley Salmon (University of Arizona) puts it,
: The term 'deism' is often used to refer to the doctrine that there
: is a God who created the universe, but after the creation does not
: interfere with it in any way.
My problem with deism is that, for the most part, the difference
between deism and atheism is irrelevant, at least as far as I can
tell. If this alleged God is no longer pulling the strings, or
even doing anything at all, and the whole universe is now running
on the autopilot of Physics, then exactly how is this god's
existance even relevant to us?
Am I missing something here? Is there more to deism than that?
Deism always seemed to me to be an early prototype of atheism.
It seems like the sort of thing that would arise if you had a
general skepticism of the religions, but lived in a time when
the concept of no creator was impossible to imagine. (Like some
of the early founders of the US.)
david ford
considered to have defeated arguments from design. We examine now some
of his criticisms of design arguments.
Baird, Forrest E., ed. _Ancient Philosophy_ (NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997),
558pp., 456.
Cartwright, Nancy. "Comments on Wesley Salmon's 'Science and
Religion...'" _Philosophical Studies_ 33: 177-83 (1978), 182, 183.
Hume, David. _Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion_, Norman Kemp
Smith, ed. (USA: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1947), 249pp.,
Part VIII, paragraphs 2, 6, 9; Part VII, paragraph 3.
Oparin, A.I. _The Origin of Life_, translated by Sergius Morgulis (USA:
Dover Publications, Inc., 1953), 270pp., 59-60. This is the 1938
English edition (translated from the 1936 Russian edition) with a
new introduction by Morgulis.
Paley, William. "The Watch and the Human Eye" in _A Modern Introduction
to Philosophy: Readings from Classical and Contemporary Sources_,
Paul Edwards and Arthur Pap, eds. (NY: The Free Press, 1973),
868pp., 419-34, 421. This selection came from Paley's _Evidences
of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity_ (1802).
Pearl, Leon. "Hume's Criticism of the Argument from Design" _The
Monist_ 54: 270-84 (1970), 277, 282.
Ross, Hugh. _The Creator and the Cosmos: How the Greatest Scientific
Discoveries of the Century Reveal God_ (Colorado Springs, CO:
NavPress Publishing Group, 1993), 185pp., ?.
Shapiro, Robert. _Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on
Earth_ (GB: Penguin Books, 1986), 332pp., 128.
Actually, contrary to what Dawkins's atheist-philosopher friend
suggests, Hume recognized the need for explanation and _did_ propose an
explanation for the 1) temporal and spatial order of physics, and 2) the
seeming-intelligent-design of biology. Hume's explanations start with
the erroneous premise that matter has always existed: "the fact is
certain that matter is and always has been in continual agitation," Hume
later speaking of "the eternal revolutions of unguided matter." In
making these remarks, Hume follows the lead of Epicurus (341-270 B.C.),
who said, "the atoms move without interruption through all time," and
erroneously alleged that their "motions had no beginning, for the atoms
and the void have always existed."[in Baird]
Reasons Hume,
A finite number of particles is only susceptible of finite
transpositions: And it must happen, in an eternal duration, that
every possible order or position must be tried an infinite number
of times.
Out of the set of all possible configurations of matter, a small subset
of configurations will display spatial and temporal order; with an
infinite amount of time for recombinations to occur, those
configurations with temporal and spatial order will make an appearance,
and will possess the appearance of having been the product of design:
The continual motion of matter, therefore, in less than infinite
transpositions, must produce this economy or order; and, by its
very nature, that order, when once established, supports itself,
for many ages, if not to eternity. But wherever matter is so
poised, arranged, and adjusted as to continue in perpetual motion,
and yet preserve a constancy in the forms, its situation must, of
necessity, have all the same appearance of art and contrivance
which we observe at present.
One problem with Hume's modified version of "the old Epicurean
hypothesis" is that spatial and temporal order arises from the
symmetries of the laws of physics, i.e. order is inherent in the matter.
It's not so much the case that the order seen is the result of matter
assuming ordered structures and orbits, but rather, the order seen is
the result of the rules that matter itself follows. Nobody has, as far
as I know, suggested with evidence that the laws of physics are capable
of being reshuffled. On the contrary, physicists' most beautiful
physics theories exhibit rigidity, i.e. are resistant to tinkering with
the equations.
A more serious problem with Hume's proposal of an order-generating
mechanism is the fact that it appears highly likely that physical
existence is not infinitely-old, but rather is only about 12 billion
years old. Hume's hypothesis of "eternal revolutions of unguided
matter" giving rise to "the appearing wisdom and contrivance which is in
the universe" goes out the window because of this severe shortage of
available time for his postulated reshufflings.
Incidentally, Hume's acknowledgement of the "appearance of art and
contrivance which we observe at present" and "the appearing wisdom and
contrivance which is in the universe" supports the observation by Leon
Pearl (Hofstra University) that
At no point in the Dialogues does Hume challenge the premise that
the world has "the appearance of art and contrivance"; but instead
develops a number of alternative hypotheses to design in order to
account for this very appearance.
As mentioned, Hume intended that besides accounting for the existence of
order, his reshufflings would also give rise to the "parts in animals or
vegetables, and their curious adjustment to each other." Given our
current awareness of the immense complexity of even the 'simplest'
living organisms, Hume's suggestion is ludicrous. The extent of this
complexity had begun to be grasped by at least as early as 1921; reports
origin-of-life researcher A.I. Oparin,
He [S. Kostychev in 1921] argues that even the most simply
organized living things possess a very complex, delicate and
perfect protoplasmic structure. The various vital processes are
made possible by this protoplasmic structure and perfect functional
differentiation. The metabolism of matter and energy
characteristic for living things would be entirely impossible
without a specially adapted apparatus, and it is highly improbable
that such a complex apparatus could have arisen fortuitously. If
the reader were asked to consider the probability that in the midst
of inorganic matter a large factory with smoke stacks, pipes,
boilers, machines, ventilators, etc. suddenly sprang into existence
by some natural process, let us say a volcanic eruption, this would
be taken at best for a silly joke. Yet, even the simplest
microorganism has a more complex structure than any factory, and
therefore its fortuitous creation is very much less probable.
More recently, biophysicist Harold Morowitz imagined taking a living
bacterium, breaking it up into individual atoms through the application
of heat, and allowing the mixture to cool slowly so as to permit the
atoms to form new bonds. Morowitz calculated that at the end of the
cooling, the chances that a living bacteria would be had is 1 in
10^100,000,000,000.[Shapiro] To give you a vague idea of those odds,
there are 10^80 atoms in the visible universe, and our universe has been
in existence for 10^17 seconds. In short, it is impossible for Hume's
postulation of matter repeatedly being "thrown into any position by a
blind, unguided force" to produce even a _bacterium_ in our
12-billion-year-old universe, much less the complexity seen in plants
and animals.
A similar illustration can be provided using Paley's watch. Suppose we
took the watch apart and placed the pieces in a box. Philosopher Nancy
Cartwright describes how the experiment would proceed:
in a controlled experiment it is possible to deliberately set
things up so that the initial arrangement of parts is unplanned.
We could, for instance, shake the parts in a box.... There is no
doubt what the outcome would be. The probability of getting a
bunch of gears shaken together in a box to come out in fine
adjustment to any end whatsoever is as near zero as it can be. It
is because of this that the argument from design is a powerful one.
Cartwright later expresses doubt about the validity of the thought
experiment:
We may shake the gears together a million times and never get a
watch. But what if we shook them together a million times for 12
billion years a time. How many watches would we get? It is an
experiment that we cannot perform.
Actually, we can perform calculations just as Morowitz did, and conclude
that even 12 billion years of rapid shaking of many dismembered watches
won't make a dent in the odds against our getting a functional watch.
We can also sensibly conclude that the pieces will eventually turn into
dust with all that shaking.[Ross] Moreover, suppose we did get a
functional watch-- with our next shake of the box, that watch will
disappear: Hume's blind mixing force won't know when to stop mixing,
and it's not clear how the appearance of a bacterium would prevent the
mixing force from continuing to mix, thereby destroying the very
bacterium it gave rise to. I submit that it is much more reasonable to
ascribe a bacterium's complexity to the work of an intelligence(s) than
to say the bacterium fell together through the work of a blind, unguided
force constantly rearranging the arrangement of matter.
Another line of argument Hume advances against design inferences is to
liken the universe to a plant or animal, organisms we observe presently
replicating apart from the operation of intelligence:
The world plainly resembles more an animal or a vegetable, than it
does a watch or a knitting-loom. Its cause, therefore, it is more
probable, resembles the cause of the former. The cause of the
former is generation or vegetation. The cause, therefore, of the
world, we may infer to be something similar or analogous to
generation or vegetation.
I will grant that lifeforms' replication presently proceeds in
non-intelligence-directed fashion. However, I do not grant that the
various types of lifeforms (which presently replicate in
non-intelligence-directed fashion) originally arose via
non-intelligence-directed processes-- an assumption Hume's analogy
requires. To illustrate, it is one thing to accept the claim that a
particular robot was put together by another not-intelligent robot,
which in turn was put together by yet another not-intelligent robot;
however, it is quite another thing to accept the wildly-improbable claim
that the first robot in this chain arose via non-intelligence-directed-
at-any-level processes. (The big bang excludes the possibility that for
an infinite amount of time, robots have been making other robots.) In
fact, a robot that replicates should make one even more certain that
intelligence had been afoot, as Paley well describes:
Suppose, in the first place, that the person who found the watch,
should, after sometime, discover, that, in addition to all the
properties which he had hitherto observed in it, it possessed the
unexpected property of producing, in the course of its movement,
another watch like itself (the thing is conceivable), that it
contained within it a mechanism, a system of parts, a mould for
instance, or a complex adjustment of lathes, files, and other
tools, evidently and separately calculated for this purpose; let us
inquire, what effect ought such a discovery to have upon his former
conclusion [that the watch was designed]. The first effect would
be to increase his admiration of the contrivance, and his
conviction of the consummate skill of the contriver. Whether he
regarded the object of the contrivance, the distinct apparatus, the
intricate, yet in many parts intelligible mechanism, by which it
was carried on, he would perceive in this new observation, nothing
but an additional reason for doing what he had already done-- for
referring the construction of the watch to design, and to supreme
art. If that construction _without_ this property, or which is the
same thing, before this property had been noticed, proved intention
and art to have been employed about it, still more strong would the
proof appear, when he came to the knowledge of this farther
property, the crown and perfection of all the rest.
Hume's argument assumes without basis the claim that the various types
of plants and animals arose via non-intelligence-directed processes;
Hume's proposal that blind shuffling of atoms can result in life and
biology's complexity is a joke (see above), and Darwin's theory of
natural selection has been falsified. Because of the presence of this
unfounded assumption, Hume's analogy falls apart: Hume hasn't
demonstrated that the very first vegetables and animals arose via
non-intelligence-directed-at-any-level processes (and in fact, much
evidence exists _against_ such a possibility), and so he cannot liken
the universe to plant and animal's replication and conclude thereby that
the universe could have arisen via non-intelligence-directed-
at-any-level processes. Pearl puts the matter this way after presenting
Hume's analogy:
But there is a significant difference between the origin of human
products as a result of design from that of vegetables and animals
by processes which Hume calls "vegetation" and "generation." In
the case of design, materials which are in a nonorderly state are
transformed into an organized system; but in the case of vegetation
or generation, this is not the case. What we find instead is a
process by which organized bodies generate other organized bodies.
There is no genesis of order here, but rather its transmission from
one body to another. Generation and vegetation are themselves
orderly processes which the argument from design tries to account
for. So that even supposing one of these processes were the means
by which the universe originated, this would in no way constitute
an alternative to the design hypothesis. The point, I am trying to
make, is that vegetation and generation, unlike design, do not
provide explanations for the existence of orderly systems and
processes but are, in fact, themselves illustrations of that very
order which requires explanation.
Dan Moore
Try developing new analogies of your own. Ripping apart
the standard anaologies is getting boring.
david ford wrote:
>
> Scottish arch-skeptic philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) is widely
> considered to have defeated arguments from design. We examine now some
> of his criticisms of design arguments.
A pre-Darwinian philosopher can't explain biological diversity.
So what?
> More recently, biophysicist Harold Morowitz imagined taking a living
> bacterium, breaking it up into individual atoms through the application
> of heat, and allowing the mixture to cool slowly so as to permit the
> atoms to form new bonds. Morowitz calculated that at the end of the
> cooling, the chances that a living bacteria would be had is 1 in
> 10^100,000,000,000.[Shapiro] To give you a vague idea of those odds,
> there are 10^80 atoms in the visible universe, and our universe has been
> in existence for 10^17 seconds. In short, it is impossible for Hume's
> postulation of matter repeatedly being "thrown into any position by a
> blind, unguided force" to produce even a _bacterium_ in our
> 12-billion-year-old universe, much less the complexity seen in plants
> and animals.
Excellent. You seem to acknowledge that chance is not a viable
explanation for the origin of life. In bothering to go through this
exercise you appear to be willing to set aside the creator explanation
for the purpose of exploring other possibilities. Now that you have
cleared the decks, why not look at the theories explaining the fact of
evolution? Chance has nothing to do with it.
>
> A similar illustration can be provided using Paley's watch.
[snip]
A tired, and incorrect analogy. Biogenesis follows from well
established chemical processes. Chance ain't in the theory
so your analogy is meaningless.
> I submit that it is much more reasonable to
> ascribe a bacterium's complexity to the work of an intelligence(s) than
> to say the bacterium fell together through the work of a blind, unguided
> force constantly rearranging the arrangement of matter.
>
Evidence for a creator?
[snip]
> I will grant that lifeforms' replication presently proceeds in
> non-intelligence-directed fashion.
Why? If you have already posited a supernatural explanation why
stop it from working now? "In the good olde days the tooth fairy
left cash, but the fairy is taking a break at the moment".
>However, I do not grant that the
> various types of lifeforms (which presently replicate in
> non-intelligence-directed fashion) originally arose via
> non-intelligence-directed processes-- an assumption Hume's analogy
> requires.
Why not? Same physics, same chemistry.
[snip]
> Hume's argument assumes without basis the claim that the various types
> of plants and animals arose via non-intelligence-directed processes;
> Hume's proposal that blind shuffling of atoms can result in life and
> biology's complexity is a joke (see above), and Darwin's theory of
> natural selection has been falsified.
What was the refutation? Darwins='s theory has certainly been
augmented but not falsified.
>Because of the presence of this
> unfounded assumption, Hume's analogy falls apart: Hume hasn't
> demonstrated that the very first vegetables and animals arose via
> non-intelligence-directed-at-any-level processes (and in fact, much
> evidence exists _against_ such a possibility)
What evidence is this? Specific physical or chemical processes
that preclude this?
[snip]
> Pearl puts the matter this way after presenting
> Hume's analogy:
> But there is a significant difference between the origin of human
> products as a result of design from that of vegetables and animals
> by processes which Hume calls "vegetation" and "generation." In
> the case of design, materials which are in a nonorderly state are
> transformed into an organized system; but in the case of vegetation
> or generation, this is not the case. What we find instead is a
> process by which organized bodies generate other organized bodies.
> There is no genesis of order here, but rather its transmission from
> one body to another. Generation and vegetation are themselves
> orderly processes which the argument from design tries to account
> for. So that even supposing one of these processes were the means
> by which the universe originated, this would in no way constitute
> an alternative to the design hypothesis. The point, I am trying to
> make, is that vegetation and generation, unlike design, do not
> provide explanations for the existence of orderly systems and
> processes but are, in fact, themselves illustrations of that very
> order which requires explanation.
True, and we have examples of the orderly systems needed to
account for biogenesis all about us. The processes of chemistry
and physics are quite sufficient. Read about them some time.
Dan
david ford
Hume, David. _Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion_, Norman Kemp
Smith, ed., Part V.
Paley, William. "The Watch and the Human Eye" in _A Modern
Introduction to Philosophy_, Edwards and Pap, eds., 428.
According to Hume, inferring that human-like intelligence is
responsible for the entities studied by microscopists, botanists,
anatomists, chemists, etc. concomitantly means that the one doing the
inferring must "renounce all claim to infinity in any of the
attributes of the Deity."[Hume, Part V, paragraph 5] Hume reasons
that a "cause ought only to be proportioned to the effect," and since
"the effect, so far as it falls under our cognisance, is not
infinite," he concludes that the theist cannot ascribe the attribute
of infinity to God.[5]
Regarding Hume's premise that a cause is proportional to its effect, I
would state that such isn't obvious. I can craft something that lasts
five seconds (say a circle-shaped puff of cigarette smoke), and
something that will last over 500 years (say a titanium ball-bearing).
If Hume's premise were correct, both my smoke-ring and ball-bearing
would last the same amount of time-- and yet they do not. Suppose I
weigh 200 pounds, and take up 9 cubit feet of space. According to
Hume's premise, I cannot make two things that weigh 12 tons and 3
ounces, respectively, and cannot make something occupying 2 and 984
cubic feet, respectively. Since I can in fact do such things, Hume's
premise is once again seen to be erroneous.
Regarding Hume's suggestion that "the effect, so far as it falls under
our cognisance, is not infinite," this may be incorrect as it applies
to space: cosmologists say that if space has a flat curvature (think
of a plane on which parallel lines don't converge and don't diverge)
or a negative curvature (think of a saddle, on which parallel lines
diverge), then space might be infinite in extent (don't ask me how).
Furthermore, the only "infinite" attribute this paper ascribes to a
deistic-type entity is the attribute of never-beginning-to-exist yet
existing, which amounts to being infinitely-old. Yet to propose that
the longevity-of-duration of an effect is proportional to the
longevity-of-duration of the effect's cause is an erroneous
proposition, as illustrated by the fact that I'll be dead in under 100
years, my smoke-ring lasts only 5 seconds, while the ball-bearing will
last over 500 years.
Hume also states that the design hypothesis provides no grounds "for
ascribing perfection to the Deity," nor "for supposing him free from
every error, mistake, or incoherence in his undertakings." In this I
agree, and in fact don't argue that one can infer from physics that
the designing deistic-type entity had the attribute of "perfection"
(whatever that means).[6]
Hume continues by alleging that "according to" the "method of
reasoning" from apparent design to the operation of a human-like
intelligence, there must also exist the possibility of inferring from
(seeming) imperfections "in the works of nature" to the designer being
imperfect.[6] In reply, I first note that inferring limitations in
designers' capacities can be quite difficult. For example, suppose I
give a shirt 11 identical washings, and on the 11th washing, the shirt
begins disintegrating. Was the shirt's manufacturer unable to make a
shirt that would go the distance? Maybe. And maybe not: perhaps the
manufacturer _had_ the capability to make long-lasting shirts, but
chose instead to make substandard shirts in the hope that customers
would continually purchase replacement shirts. In short, it is
theoretically possible that a designer would intentionally make a
product _not_ as durable as the designer _could_ have made, and it's
possible that we would never know the designer's rationale for putting
out products of a quality less than what the designer was capable of
producing.
Furthermore, the claim that 'nature looks imperfect, and therefore any
designer of nature must have been imperfect' doesn't even pretend to
affect negatively this paper's contention that physics was designed.
Paley puts the matter well:
When we are inquiring simply after the existence of an
intelligent Creator, imperfection, inaccuracy, liability to
disorder, occasional irregularities, may subsist in a
considerable degree, without inducing any doubt into the
question; just as a watch may frequently go wrong, seldom perhaps
exactly right, may be faulty in some parts, defective in some,
without the smallest ground of suspicion from thence arising that
it was not a watch; [or] not made [by a watchmaker]....
Hume can prate on as much as he likes about how the universe appears
faulty, or might appear faulty were we to compare it to a possible or
even real other universe,[12] but he would not in the least be
engaging inferences to design.
Hume draws a parallel between 1) the possibility that "a stupid
mechanic" put together a ship using a design plan that had been the
end result of predecessors' "multiplied trials, mistakes, corrections,
deliberations, and controversies," and 2) the putting together of the
universe:
Many worlds might have been botched and bungled, throughout an
eternity, ere this system was struck out: Much labour lost:
Many fruitless trials made: And a slow, but continued
improvement carried on during infinite ages in the art of
world-making. In such subjects, who can determine, where the
truth; nay, who can conjecture where the probability, lies;
amidst a great number of hypotheses which may be proposed, and a
still greater number which may be imagined?[7]
Hume also argues that if the universe was designed, then it could have
been designed by more than one entity:
A great number of men join in building a house or ship, in
rearing a city...; Why may not several Deities combine in
contriving and framing a world?[8]
Hume bolsters his point with another illustration:
Where we see a body raised in a scale, we are sure that there is
in the opposite scale, however concealed from sight, some
counterposing weight equal to it: But it is still allowed to
doubt, whether that weight be an aggregate of several distinct
bodies, or one uniform united mass.[9]
In reply to Hume's remarks regarding the impossibility of "prov[ing]
the unity of the Deity,"[8] I concede that this paper leaves alone the
possibilities that a) the design plan for physics was the end product
of numerous design attempts by numerous individual intelligences, and
b) the world of physics, i.e. our universe, was brought into existence
by one or more entities that simply copied the design plans of their
predecessors (with the proviso that if more than one, they
collaborated in some sense in the implementation-- otherwise physics
would probably be disunified, which it's not).
Hume also states that perhaps these entities were given to
reproduction:
men are mortal, and renew their species by generation; and this
is common to all living creatures. .... Why must this
circumstance, so universal, so essential, be excluded from those
numerous and limited Deities?[10]
I'm unaware of any data from physics or arguments appealing to physics
that would say either way whether or not the entity/ entities
reproduced. Accordingly, I will not here attempt to defeat the
possibility that the designer(s) were capable of reproduction.
tpham...@my-deja.com
<Pine.SGI.4.10A.B3.9909...@umbc8.umbc.edu>,
david ford <dfo...@gl.umbc.edu> wrote:
[snip deism and inability to reason out a number for intelligences
that may have started the universe]
One would be natural case if you believe this. Which is of course
incompatible with the Trinity.
> Someone might ask, "Upon what grounds you say that it's conceivable
that
> something exist yet never have begun to exist?" I unfortunately don't
> have an answer, and am in the company of others in lacking an answer.
Humans have difficulties imagining 5 dimensional spaces, yet
mathematically they are quite routine.
There is a fundamental paradox in the usual concept of time if one
speaks of it as beginning at some point. But if one realizes that
passage of time is related to motion, then no universe, no motion,
no time elapses.
> The atheist Carl Sagan states that "it is perfectly possible that the
> universe is infinitely old and therefore requires no Creator." As
> previously noted, Dawkins favorably writes of the possibility that
life
> exists and yet never began to exist. The atheist philosopher Quentin
> Smith writes, "Since it [the NBP's hemi-4-sphere] was timeless, it no
> more needs a cause than the timeless god of theism." Hume writes of
the
> possibility of "eternal revolutions of unguided matter." As far as I
> know, Sagan, Dawkins, Smith, and Hume have not presented any arguments
> that it's conceivable that the universe, life, the NBP's
hemi-4-sphere,
> or matter never began to exist.
If the universe is eternal into the past, then it did not begin.
Just like there is no beginning of the real number line.
The universe could also be eternal by having a beginning and no end.
If the universe arose from a quantum fluctuation, then the universe
beginning is just marked from the time the fluctuation happened.
One must realize that the universe is OUR universe, not whatever
the quantum fluctuations were occurring in.
I don't know too much about NBP, but I suspect it is much like the
latter. An event happened in something that was not experiencing
the passage of real time in our universe, since our universe did
not exist.
The word cause is also problematic in quantum fluctuations. Nothing
causes a particular fluctuation, but the *probability* of a fluctuation
has an underlying cause. Coin flips have no cause for heads or tails,
but the probability that they are 1/2 for heads and tails is caused.
> Someone could, I suppose, allege that an existing yet never-beginning-
> to-exist intelligence requires a cause to begin to exist, and say that
> that cause in turn
> 1) never began to exist, and simultaneously,
> 2) requires its own cause to begin to exist,
> and so on ad infinitum. That person would be proposing an infinite
> number of contradictions, perhaps in the hope that if a contradictory
> situation is repeated in occurrence enough times, it becomes sensical.
> I can offer no argument by way of reply, just as I can offer no
argument
> in reply to the contradictory claim that the shape of a circle can be
> the shape of a square at the same time and in the same sense.
The usual argument that intelligence is responsible for physics goes
like this:
The universe began.
Everything that begins needs a cause.
The universe needed a cause.
The universe cannot contain that cause.
The cause is something outside the universe.
Let's call it God.
The problems: Universe not defined, time not defined, cause not
defined, cause not inferrable. Other than that the argument is
great.
The usual rebuttal "What caused God?" is appropriate for those
who say "Everything needs a cause" instead of "Everything that
begins needs a cause."
> Someone might also ask whether this intelligence has thoughts. I'd
say
> yes, just as I have thoughts when dreaming up some new invention. A
> follow-up question might be, What are the causes of the intelligence's
> thoughts? I'd say the intelligence itself is a major factor in the
> beginning-to-exist of the intelligence's thoughts, just as I (an
> intelligent entity) am a major factor in my thoughts'
> beginning-to-exist.
Of course, it is by no means certain that intelligence is required
for universes beginning.
> Suppose now that the order currently observed in nature ceases to
exist.
> Spatial and temporal order and stable structures such as atoms cease
to
> exist. Such an occurrence would not affect the fact that as matters
> currently stand, physics strongly has the appearance of being
designed.
> The fact that design inferences are not dependent upon the perpetual
> existence of features suggestive of design may be illustrated by an
> example. Suppose we examine an alien spaceship and conclude that
> intelligence was responsible for its fabrication. Should that
spaceship
> fall to pieces shortly after retrieval and examination, we would not,
I
> submit, change our earlier verdict that the spaceship was
intelligently
> designed. A more common example of design inferences remaining valid
in
> the presence of change is provided by sculptures currently decaying
> because of the effects of pollution. Though a statue may disintegrate
> in a few short years, the presence of disintegration does not affect
our
> conclusion that intelligence played a large role in the
> beginning-to-exist of the statue.
The conclusions that intelligence played a part is made based on
our recognizing as something we could make - a spaceship or
a statue, and which nature could not make.
Tracy P. Hamilton
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Stephen R Gould
and relativity. #2, working independently, came up with strong, weak,
electromagnetic forces and QM. #3, realising that there was no easy way to
combine the work of #1 and #2, decide to tie the whole thing together with
String, and hope no-one noticed.
Morat
Stephen R Gould wrote:
(Grin).......
--
spam blocking in effect. To reply remove "not"
------------------------------------------------------------------
When someone is saved from certain death by a strange
concatenation of circumstances, they say its a miracle.
But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of
events - that must also be a miracle.
Just because it isn't nice doesn't mean its not miraculous.
--Terry Pratchett "Interesting Times"
------------------------------------------------------------------
david ford
Hume. 1779. _Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion_, Norman Kemp
Smith, ed., Part II. An e-version is at
<http://www.utm.edu/research/hume/wri/dialogue/dialogue.txt>.
Paley. 1802. "The Watch and the Human Eye" in _A Modern Introduction
to Philosophy_, Edwards and Pap, eds., 425.
Pearl, Leon. "Hume's Criticism of the Argument from Design" _The
Monist_ 54: 270-84 (1970), 276, 274. John Stewart Mill, _Theism_
(NY, 1957), 29, is cited on 271.
Hume sets up inferences to design in the following manner:
Not to lose any time in circumlocutions, said Cleanthes,... I
shall briefly explain how I conceive this matter. Look round the
world: Contemplate the whole and every part of it: You will
find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an
infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of
subdivisions, to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties
can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even
their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an
accuracy, which ravishes into admiration all men, who have ever
contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends,
throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds,
the productions of human contrivance; of human designs, thought,
wisdom, and intelligence. Since therefore the effects resemble
each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy,
that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of nature is
somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much
larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work, which
he has executed. By this argument _a posteriori_, and by this
argument alone, we do prove at once the existence of a Deity, and
his similarity to human mind and intelligence.[Hume, Part II, 5]
For comparison, some remarks by Paley:
every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design,
which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with
the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater and more,
and that in a degree which exceeds all computation. ....the
contrivances of nature surpass the contrivances of art, in the
complexity, subtlety, and curiosity of the mechanism; and still
more, if possible, do they go beyond them in number and variety:
yet, in a multitude of cases, are not less evidently mechanical,
not less evidently contrivances, not less evidently accommodated
to their end, or suited to their office, than are the most
perfect productions of human ingenuity.
In response to such design inferences, Hume claims that we must have
"had experience of the origin of worlds" before concluding that our
universe must have "arise[n] from some thought and art."[24] If such
is the case, we can never conclude that an alien spacecraft was the
product of intelligence unless and until we had observed the
construction of such a spacecraft. In Hume's viewpoint, the
observation of multiple parts working together to propel the alien
spacecraft isn't a good basis for inferring that the craft was
designed. This despite the fact that Hume also remarks,
When two _species_ of objects have always been observed to be
conjoined together, I can _infer_, by custom, the existence of
one wherever I _see_ the existence of the other: And this I call
an argument from experience.[24]
Two things I've learned from experience to be conjoined are
intelligence and complex arrangements of parts working together to
perform various tasks, and yet when it comes to our alien spacecraft,
Hume opposes my saying 'This craft was designed.' Go figure.
While arguing against design inferences, Hume additionally claims that
only "the exact similarity of the cases gives us a perfect assurance
of a similar event."[7] Hume continues,
But wherever you depart, in the least, from the similarity of the
cases, you diminish proportionably the evidence; and may at last
bring it to a very weak _analogy_, which is confessedly liable to
error and uncertainty.[7]
If what Hume alleges is correct, one can never make inferences to
design, for there are _always_ differences between what we know to
have been designed and what we must judge as being or not-being
designed. To illustrate, if we observe a house and its contents being
built, and then visit another structure and are asked 'Was this too
put together by intelligence?,' according to Hume, because of the
dissimilarity between the two structures we couldn't reply in the
affirmative. One structure has a one-car garage, the other, a two-car
garage; one has double-paned glass, the other, single-paned glass; one
has a Maytag dryer, and the other a GE dryer; one has a fireplace, the
other a stove; one has a 15 gallon toilet, and the other a 4 gallon
toilet.
When Hume alleges that when presented with "striking" "dissimilitude,"
the "utmost you can... pretend to is a guess, a conjecture, a
presumption concerning a similar cause,"[8] he overlooks the primary
components undergirding everyday inferences to design:
1) the judgment that certain characteristics of the entity in question
are characteristics that in the past have been known to come only
from the operation of intelligence, and
2) the judgment that not-intelligent processes are very likely not
responsible for the entity in question.
We don't carry around mental checklists for color, size, temperature,
type of finish, materials used, etc., doing comparisons to see how
many dissimilarities there are between what we know to have been
designed and entities requiring judgments as to their mode of
origination. As approvingly quoted by Pearl, John Stewart Mill puts
the matter this way:
The design argument is not drawn from mere resemblances in nature
to the works of human intelligence, but from the special
character of those resemblances. The circumstances in which it
is alleged that the world resembles the works of men are not
circumstances taken at random, but are particular instances of a
circumstance which experience shows to have a real connection
with an intelligent origin.... The argument therefore is not one
of mere analogy. As mere analogy it has its weight, but it is
more than analogy-- it is an inductive argument.
Pearl later comments that it seems to himself that
The argument from design... [is] an "argument from experience" in
Hume's sense of the term. And the reason for this is because we
ha[ve] observed many objects possessing order originating from
design and never from any other source.
In short, inferences to design are more than analogies: they
essentially are inductive arguments based on our past experience with
entities we know to have been designed.[Pearl] The pointing out of
numerous dissimilarities between two entities does not necessarily
involve the pointing out of dissimilarities of significance to the
validity of a design inference.
Hume also alleges that "tak[ing] the _operations_ of one part of
nature upon another for the foundation of our judgment concerning the
_origin_ of the whole... never can be admitted."[19] Hume here
objects to inferences "from parts to the whole."[18] Pearl points out
a counterexample to Hume's allegation that we can never make
inferences from
1) the fact that certain parts of an entity appear to very probably
have been the result of intelligent design, to
2) the conclusion that the whole entity very probably was the result
of design:
we do sometimes make proper inferences from parts to whole....
We often correctly infer from the causal interactions between the
parts of a machine to the purpose for which, and the manner by
which, the machine as a whole was constructed.
Should Hume not wish to extrapolate from
1) the fact that the physics physicists have worked out strongly
exhibits the appearance of design, to
2) the conclusion that all of physics-- which indications suggest is
unified-- was designed
for fear of committing a logical fallacy, fine. But note that Hume's
disapproval of the extrapolation does nothing to take on the facts
that 1) the physics physicists have worked out both began to exist and
very strongly exhibits the appearance of having been designed, and 2)
in our _experience_, order only arises as the result of the operation
of intelligence.
Dan Moore
david ford wrote:
> The design argument is not drawn from mere resemblances in nature
> to the works of human intelligence, but from the special
> character of those resemblances. The circumstances in which it
> is alleged that the world resembles the works of men are not
> circumstances taken at random, but are particular instances of a
> circumstance which experience shows to have a real connection
> with an intelligent origin.... The argument therefore is not one
> of mere analogy. As mere analogy it has its weight, but it is
> more than analogy-- it is an inductive argument.
David, please provide what you see as "particular instances of a
circumstance which experience shows to have a real connection
with an intelligent origin" for natural objects or systems known
to not be of human design.
> Pearl later comments that it seems to himself that
> The argument from design... [is] an "argument from experience" in
> Hume's sense of the term. And the reason for this is because we
> ha[ve] observed many objects possessing order originating from
> design and never from any other source.
Pearl apparantly never studies crystallography or he would know
this to be false.
> But note that Hume's
> disapproval of the extrapolation does nothing to take on the facts
> that 1) the physics physicists have worked out both began to exist and
> very strongly exhibits the appearance of having been designed, and 2)
> in our _experience_, order only arises as the result of the operation
> of intelligence.
Your point one is opinion, unsubstantiated. Your point two is false.
Try again. Maybe try dissecting the works of post-Darwin philosophers
so that should, at some point in the future, you reach a valid
conclusion,
it would have any supporting value to your argument.
Dan
Loren A. King
> more Hume arguments against design inferences ...
Why do you keep posting these endless, disjointed fragments on Hume?
They read like notes for an undergraduate philosophy assignment, and I
can't see why they're at all relevant or interesting to readers of the
various groups you keep posting them to. They certainly don't address
the question of whether some sort of intelligence is responsible for
physics.
L.
--------------------------------------
Loren King lk...@mit.edu
http://web.mit.edu/lking/www/home.html
Keith Doyle
>1) the fact that the physics physicists have worked out strongly
> exhibits the appearance of design, to
>2) the conclusion that all of physics-- which indications suggest is
> unified-- was designed
>for fear of committing a logical fallacy, fine. But note that Hume's
>disapproval of the extrapolation does nothing to take on the facts
>that 1) the physics physicists have worked out both began to exist and
>very strongly exhibits the appearance of having been designed, and 2)
>in our _experience_, order only arises as the result of the operation
>of intelligence.
By this reasoning, "intelligence" itself cannot be the result of
design.
Also note that it is explicitly *not* true that "in our experience order
only arises as the result of the operation of intelligence."
--
Keith Doyle
(remove underbars in reply address for E-mail)
"Why do you think they call it 'apologetics'?
Keith Doyle
Loren A. King <lk...@mit.edu> wrote:
>david ford:
>
>> more Hume arguments against design inferences ...
>
>Why do you keep posting these endless, disjointed fragments on Hume?
>They read like notes for an undergraduate philosophy assignment, and I
>can't see why they're at all relevant or interesting to readers of the
>various groups you keep posting them to. They certainly don't address
>the question of whether some sort of intelligence is responsible for
>physics.
Probably because he's copying his text near-verbatim from some
source-- Behe or Johnson perhaps.
d c harris
<srg...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Actually, 3 intelligences worked on the Universe. #1 came up with gravity
>and relativity. #2, working independently, came up with strong, weak,
>electromagnetic forces and QM. #3, realising that there was no easy way to
>combine the work of #1 and #2, decide to tie the whole thing together with
>String, and hope no-one noticed.
>
>
I wonder if anything else was involved -
sounds so easy!
wf...@ptd.net
>In short, inferences to design are more than analogies: they
>essentially are inductive arguments based on our past experience with
>entities we know to have been designed.[Pearl] The pointing out of
>numerous dissimilarities between two entities does not necessarily
>involve the pointing out of dissimilarities of significance to the
>validity of a design inference.
i think he should talk to pagano who categorically, as a creationist,
rules out using induction as a guide to anything
however, the problem we face is when we find a human artifact we know
how to make it. that's how we know it's human. there are many natural
processes which mimic intelligence but have none. that's why SETI is
using advanced mathematics to screen out natural events from those
that arent
not all complex events have intelligence behind them. we know that for
a fact. and evolution is one of those.
Felipe
d c harris <dcands...@free4all.co.uk> wrote in message
news:938642089.13103....@news.in2home.co.uk...
david ford
Allport, P.P. 1993. "Are the Laws of Physics 'Economical with the
Truth'?" _Synthese_ 94: 245-90.
Bothamley, Jennifer. 1993. _Dictionary of Theories_ (Washington,
D.C.: Gale Research International Ltd.), 637pp.
Cartwright, Nancy. 1980. "Do the Laws of Physics State the Facts?"
_Pacific Philosophical Quarterly_ 61: 75-84.
Cartwright, Nancy. 1983. _How the Laws of Physics Lie_ (GB:
Clarendon Press), 221pp.
Cartwright, Nancy. 1993. "Is Natural Science 'Natural' Enough?: A
Reply to Philip Allport" _Synthese_ 94: 291-301.
Cartwright, Nancy. 1997. "Why Physics?" in _The Large, the Small and
the Human Mind_, Malcolm Longair, ed. (NY: Cambridge University
Press), 161-8.
Cartwright, Nancy. 1998. "How Theories Relate: Takeovers or
Partnerships?" _Philosophia Naturalis_ 35: 23-34.
Cartwright, Nancy and John Nordby. 1983. "How Approximations Take Us
Away from Theory and Towards the Truth" _Pacific Philosophical
Quarterly_ 64: 273-80.
Gale, Richard. 1984. "Science and the philosophers" _Nature_ 312:
491-5.
Needham, Paul. 1991. "Duhem and Cartwright on the Truth of Laws"
_Synthese_ 89: 89-109.
Stockler, Manfred. 1998. "On the Unity of Physics in a Dappled World
Comment on Nancy Cartwright" _Philosophia Naturalis_ 35: 35-9.
Weinberg, Steven. 1993. _Dreams of a Final Theory_ (NY: Vintage
Books), 340pp.
internal conflict in NC's half-positivist, half-realist viewpoint
Philosopher professor at the University of California at San Diego and
director of the LSE Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social
Science, Nancy Cartwright characterizes herself as a "positivist...,
opposed... to metaphysics."1 Positivism disparages metaphysics and
insists on a "scientific approach" to the world.2 Weinberg notes that
positivism "demands not only that science must ultimately test its
theories against observation"-- which Weinberg has no problem with--
"but [also] that every aspect of our theories must at some point refer
to observable quantities."3 In short, the key aspect of positivism is
its allegation that it's "inadmissible for our theories to deal with
elements that could not in principle ever be observed."4
To illustrate, positivism wants only talk of observables, yet as noted
by philosopher George Gale, theoretical physicists employ "purely
mathematical concepts [that] have no observable referents; for
example, 'plus', 'sum' and 'differential' are not the proper names of
any empirically observable physical object or event."5 It's no wonder
that Einstein told Werner Heisenberg in 1926, "Perhaps I did use such
[a] philosophy [of using only observable quantities] earlier, and also
wrote it, but it is nonsense all the same."6 Since in the early 1900s
atoms couldn't be observed with any then-imaginable technique,
positivists opposed atomic theory.7 Today's theory of quarks opposes
positivism, for as Weinberg observes,
The idea that quarks and gluons can in principle never be
observed in isolation has become part of the accepted wisdom of
modern elementary particle physics, but it does not stop us from
describing neutrons and protons and mesons as composed of quarks.
I cannot imagine anything that Ernst Mach [an early positivist]
would like less.8
In short, positivism's observation requirement goes directly against
the work product of theoretical physicists.
Oddly enough, though a positivist when it comes to the laws of nature,
Cartwright has no problem with unobservable entities whose existence
is predicted or required by theory (examples of which are electrons,
positrons, ions, and quarks), writing, "I have no quarrel with
theoretical entities."9 And yet she does simultaneously have a
problem with theoretical laws:
Although I claim that a successful causal explanation gives good
reason to believe in the theoretical entities and theoretical
properties it postulates, I have repeatedly said that I do not
believe in theoretical laws.10
In short, Cartwright is a positivist/ instrumentalist/ anti-realist
when it comes to physicists' proposed laws of nature, and a realist
when it comes to physicists' proposed theories' predicted or required
theoretical entities.
In a _Synthese_ article, Paul Needham "suggest[s]" that Cartwright's
thesis "that the laws of physics 'lie'.... does not sit happily with"
"her realistic thesis about the existence of theoretical entities."11
High energy physicist P.P. Allport spends some time arguing against
Cartwright's part-realist, part-positivist dichotomy. After quoting
Cartwright saying "I believe in theoretical entities. But not in
theoretical laws," Allport rhetorically asks, "But is the entity/law
distinction really so clear?"12 Mentioning several possible choices
for examination in support of an answer of 'no,' Allport settles upon
something called "virtual particles": "But probably the reader feels
virtual particles are a paradigm case of theoretical fictions."13 He
proceeds to explain with some technical remarks "why to me this does
not seem obvious,"14 concluding,
The above [technical discussion] illustrates the difficulties
involved in distinguishing theoretical fictions from objects
possibly worthy of ontological commitment and... the difficulties
in cleanly separating features of a theory which are to be
designated laws from those which seem to postulates entities.
....it seems, then, that the brand of scientific realism that
supports theoretical entities but rejects theoretical laws faces
difficulties not only in clearly establishing that the postulated
entities necessarily have greater plausibility but even in
clearly distinguishing the aspects of the theory which can be
taken as postulating entities from those postulating laws.15
In short, Cartwright's half-realist, half-positivist viewpoint appears
to be internally at odds with itself.
NC: laws implies a law-giver
Cartwright's anti-realism when it comes to physicists' formulations
might have an exception, judging by the following remark:
I think we should believe only in laws for which we have
evidence. Maxwell _showed_ that electromagnetism and light could
be treated together under the same theoretical umbrella by
producing Maxwell's theory, which gives marvelously successful
accounts of both.16
If Cartwright is willing to "believe... in laws for which we have
evidence," e.g. apparently Maxwell's theory, perhaps she'll believe in
other laws for which we have evidence, including Einstein's theory of
general relativity.
A possible obstacle to her acceptance of the view that certain
theories do in fact correspond to reality may perhaps be found in the
following remark:
I think that in the concept of law there is a little too much of
God. ....in the end the concept of a law does not make sense
without the supposition of a law-giver.17
Since Cartwright is "opposed... to metaphysics,"1 and since she thinks
the idea of a law implies the idea of a law-giver, specifically God--
an entity considered 'metaphysical' if there ever was one-- perhaps
Cartwright was driven to being an anti-realist when it comes to the
laws of physics. This speculative scenario could perhaps make sense
of the fact that Cartwright is an anti-realist regarding laws, while a
realist regarding theories' theoretical entities: to Cartwright, the
concept of laws implies a metaphysical law-giver, while the
theoretical entities make no such (distasteful? threatening?
irritating?) implication.
NC: we must base our beliefs about laws on the way the world looks
Cartwright draws a distinction between "natural religion," which
attempts "to establish the properties of the deity... from the
phenomena of the natural world," and revealed religion,18 which
appeals not to the world as it source, but holy books. She then draws
a parallel between the natural vs. revealed theology distinction and a
natural vs. revealed _science_ distinction, and "urge[s] the project
of _natural_ science: guarantee nothing _a priori_, and gather our
beliefs about laws, if we must have them at all, from the appearance
of things."19 As seen above, according to Weinberg and Polkinghorne,
physicists are realists not because philosophers provided "revealed
science" in telling physicists realism is the best or proper way to
approach the world, but rather, physicists are realists because of
natural science, i.e. because of their encounters/ experience with the
world they study. Perhaps it's the case that philosopher Cartwright
would become a realist regarding the laws of nature were she to take
up for several years experimental physics.
Cartwright states that were she to "gathe[r] my beliefs from the world
as I experience it," she would conclude _not_ that "nature [is]
governed by a few simple, all-embracing laws,"20 but rather that
we live in a dappled world, a world rich in different things,
with different natures, behaving in different ways. The laws
that describe this world are a patchwork, not a pyramid. They do
not take after the simple, elegant and abstract structure of a
system of axioms and theorems. Rather they look like-- and
steadfastly stick to looking like-- science as we know it:
apportioned into disciplines, apparently arbitrarily grown up;
governing different sets of properties at different levels of
abstraction; pockets of great precision, large parcels of
qualitative maxims resisting precise formulation; erratic
overlaps; here and there, once in a while, corners that line up,
but mostly ragged edges; and always the cover of law nowhere
firmly attached to the jumbled world of material things.21
On another occasion, Cartwright put the matter this way:
A... reason why I do not believe in these unified laws [i.e. in
unified laws' alleged existence] is methodological. .... We
best see what nature is like when we look at our knowledge of it.
.... How unified is our knowledge? Look at any catalogue for a
science or engineering school. The curriculum is divided into
tiny, separate subjects that irk the interdisciplinist. Our
knowledge of nature, nature as we best see it, is highly
compartmentalized. Why think nature itself is unified? 22
Philosopher Cartwright is of course entitled to form her own opinion
about whether or not there is such a thing as unified laws of physics
on the basis of her experience with the world and appeals to
engineering catalogues. A dissenting opinion comes from another
philosopher, Manfred Stockler (University of Bremen), who writes,
Mainly by considering the structure of the theories (and not only
the applications in special models) people like me are
strengthened in their belief in the... unity of physics.23
NC: as shown by use of the theories in producing technology,
approximations take us away from false theory and towards the truth
Cartwright claims that in applying laws to reality, we're forced to
employ a series of approximations; thus, we started with falsehood and
got closer and closer to reality; thus, the laws are lies.24
Application of laws to reality is typically held by Cartwright to be
application to production of technological devices.25 In speaking of
Cartwright's arguing from technology, Allport notes,
Cartwright has concentrated much on fields where failure to fit
the experimental findings with theory does not reflect on the
theory because the situation is too complex to allow unambiguous
predictions to be drawn and approximation techniques of unknown
accuracy and assumptions of dubious validity must be employed.
These are just not the conditions in which to challenge the
empirical adequacy of the theory.26
Allport concludes that he
cannot accept Cartwright's insistence on proof by technology.
The truth or falsity of physical laws is best investigated
through the careful design of experiments aimed specifically at
addressing the issue. With such experiments the... laws can
indeed be evaluated empirically.27
1. Cartwright (1997), 161;
<http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/Philosophy/staff/Cartwright.htm>.
2. Bothamley.
3. Weinberg, 174-5.
4. Weinberg, 175.
5. Gale, 492, 493.
6. Weinberg, 180, citing a 1974 Heisenberg lecture, who quotes
Einstein from a 1926 conversation with him.
7. Weinberg, 176.
8. Weinberg, 184.
9. Cartwright (1980), 76.
10. Cartwright (1983), 8.
11. Needham, 96.
12. Allport, 269; Allport cites from Cartwright (1983), 99.
13. Allport, 270.
14. Allport, 270.
15. Allport, 271, 272.
16. Cartwright (1983), 12.
17. Cartwright (1993), 299.
18. Cartwright (1993), 291.
19. Cartwright (1993), 292, 293.
20. Cartwright (1993), 292.
21. Cartwright (1998), 23.
22. Cartwright (1983), 13.
23. Stockler, 36. A Stockler link:
<http://alf.zfn.uni-bremen.de/~modus/stoeckler.html>.
24. Cartwright (1983), 14-15; Cartwright & Nordby, 274.
25. Allport, 285.
26. Allport, 261.
27. Allport, 262-3.
david ford
floats the idea that criteria for distinguishing "artificial objects,
products of a conscious purposive activity" are a) spatial order and
b) "specimens of closely similar objects":
The suitable criteria, we see, would be two in number: (a)
regularity, and (b) repetition. By means of the first one [we]
would seek to make use of the fact that natural objects, wrought
by the play of physical forces, almost never present
geometrically simple and straightforward structures: flat
surfaces, for instance, or rectilinear edges, right angles, exact
symmetries; whereas artifacts will ordinarily show such features,
if only in an approximate or rudimentary manner.
Monod doesn't actually accept these criteria, for he acknowledges the
existence of "simple and repetitive geometries" in "atomic and
molecular structures" such as the DNA helix and crystals, and "simple
and repeated geometrical structures of the [bee's] honeycombs," and
"bilateral and translational" symmetry in bees, and yet rejects the
possibility that intelligence is in any way responsible for the
spatial order and repeated spatial order of the aforementioned things.
Monod, Jacques. 1971. _Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural
Philosophy of Modern Biology_, translated from the 1970 French
edition by Austryn Wainhouse. (NY: Vintage Books), 199pp., 4-7,
106.
Derek Stevenson
<Pine.SGI.4.10A.B3.9910...@umbc9.umbc.edu>,
Or perhaps Monod, unlike Ford, understands the difference between
"never" and "almost never".
david ford
Steve Mading <mad...@baladi.nmrfam.wisc.edu> on 26 Sep 1999:
david ford:
df By 'the God of deism,' I mean a clockmaker God: God winds up the
df universe and walks away, so to speak-- there's no interaction
df whatsoever with humans. As Wesley Salmon (University of Arizona)
df puts it,
df The term 'deism' is often used to refer to the doctrine that there
df is a God who created the universe, but after the creation does not
df interfere with it in any way.
SM My problem with deism is that, for the most part, the difference
SM between deism and atheism is irrelevant, at least as far as I can
SM tell. If this alleged God is no longer pulling the strings, or
SM even doing anything at all, and the whole universe is now running
SM on the autopilot of Physics, then exactly how is this god's
SM existence even relevant to us?
The "Stratonician atheist" thinks there's no theistic and no deistic
God. The "practical atheist" acts as if there's no theistic God. The
deist thinks that God is not interested in humans and their deeds, and
so, like the "practical atheist," acts as if the God of theism doesn't
exist. In short, IMO, if the God of deism is all there is, then its
existence or non-existence ought make no difference in how we live our
lives.
SM Am I missing something here? Is there more to deism than that?
If the God of deism made physics, and if physics is capable of giving
rise to the origin of life, and if physics is capable of allowing that
early lifeform to give rise to all living and extinct lifeforms, then
when it comes to the creation vs. evolution question, the answer of
evolution is erroneous and the answer of creation is correct.
SM Deism always seemed to me to be an early prototype of atheism.
SM It seems like the sort of thing that would arise if you had a
SM general skepticism of the religions, but lived in a time when
SM the concept of no creator was impossible to imagine. (Like some
SM of the early founders of the US.)
In a time when the concept of a creator is impossible to imagine by
some, deism may become an early prototype of theism.
Dan Moore <iron...@earthlink.net> on 27 Sep 1999:
DM David,
DM
DM Try developing new analogies of your own. Ripping apart
DM the standard analogies is getting boring.
df Scottish arch-skeptic philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) is widely
df considered to have defeated arguments from design. We examine now
df some of his criticisms of design arguments.
DM A pre-Darwinian philosopher can't explain biological diversity.
DM So what?
df In short, it is impossible for Hume's
df postulation of matter repeatedly being "thrown into any position by a
df blind, unguided force" to produce even a _bacterium_ in our
df 12-billion-year-old universe, much less the complexity seen in plants
df and animals.
DM Excellent. You seem to acknowledge that chance is not a viable
DM explanation for the origin of life. In bothering to go through this
DM exercise you appear to be willing to set aside the creator explanation
DM for the purpose of exploring other possibilities. Now that you have
DM cleared the decks, why not look at the theories explaining the fact of
DM evolution? Chance has nothing to do with it.
What's meant by [DM]"the fact of evolution"? Please rephrase--
there's a good possibility that I can accept (or at least, not have a
problem with) [DM]"the fact of evolution" as you define it.
df A similar illustration can be provided using Paley's watch.
DM A tired, and incorrect analogy. Biogenesis follows from well
DM established chemical processes. Chance ain't in the theory
DM so your analogy is meaningless.
Please list 3 of these [DM]"well established chemical processes" to
which you refer. About how many chemical processes are together
sufficient to produce life come from not-life?
df I submit that it is much more reasonable to
df ascribe a bacterium's complexity to the work of an intelligence(s)
df than to say the bacterium fell together through the work of a blind,
df unguided force constantly rearranging the arrangement of matter.
DM Evidence for a creator?
Yep:
Premise 1: A or B.
Premise 2: very very very probably not B.
Conclusion: A.
df I will grant that lifeforms' replication presently proceeds in
df non-intelligence-directed fashion.
DM Why? If you have already posited a supernatural explanation why
DM stop it from working now? "In the good olde days the tooth fairy
DM left cash, but the fairy is taking a break at the moment".
I have a mental block when it comes to the word "why." Please
rephrase your question without the "why."
df However, I do not grant that the
df various types of lifeforms (which presently replicate in
df non-intelligence-directed fashion) originally arose via
df non-intelligence-directed processes-- an assumption Hume's
df analogy requires.
DM Why not? Same physics, same chemistry.
df and Darwin's theory of natural selection has been falsified.
DM What was the refutation? Darwin's theory has certainly been
DM augmented but not falsified.
"Problems with the Theory of Natural Selection"
http://www.deja.com/=yahoo/getdoc.xp?AN=373057131
df Because of the presence of this
df unfounded assumption, Hume's analogy falls apart: Hume hasn't
df demonstrated that the very first vegetables and animals arose via
df non-intelligence-directed-at-any-level processes (and in fact, much
df evidence exists _against_ such a possibility)
DM What evidence is this? Specific physical or chemical processes
DM that preclude this?
Physics is all about order and periodicity. Biology's genomes are all
about aperiodicity, and biology is all about complexity. Starting
with the order of physics, you can't get the complexities seen in
biology. In short, biology isn't reducible to physics.
===============begin inserted text===============
Can the laws of chemistry tell us what the 7-digit number sequence
that opens the bank vault is? How 'bout the laws of physics?
Can the laws of physics tell us what sequences of amino acids are
functional-in-some-way?
Yockey, Hubert P. 1992. _Information Theory and Molecular Biology_
(GB: Cambridge University Press), 335:
The reason that there are principles of biology that cannot be
deduced from the laws of physics and chemistry lies not in some
esoteric philosophy but simply in the mathematical fact that the
genetic information content of the genome for constructing even the
simplest organisms is much larger than the information content of
these laws. Chaitin (1985, 1987a) has examined the complexity of
the laws of physics by actually programming them. He finds the
complexity amazingly small.
I'm pretty sure that [Yockey]"genetic information content" refers to the
aperiodicity/ not-orderedness/ complexity present in an organism's DNA
sequence. See also Michael Polanyi, "Life's Irreducible Structure"
_Science_ 160: 1308-12 (1968).
About aperiodicity:
Behe speaks at church; *specified complexity*
http://www.deja.com/=yahoo/getdoc.xp?AN=415795157
================end inserted text================
df Pearl puts the matter this way after presenting Hume's analogy:
df But there is a significant difference between the origin of human
df products as a result of design from that of vegetables and animals
df by processes which Hume calls "vegetation" and "generation." In
df the case of design, materials which are in a nonorderly state are
df transformed into an organized system; but in the case of vegetation
df or generation, this is not the case. What we find instead is a
df process by which organized bodies generate other organized bodies.
df There is no genesis of order here, but rather its transmission from
df one body to another. Generation and vegetation are themselves
df orderly processes which the argument from design tries to account
df for. So that even supposing one of these processes were the means
df by which the universe originated, this would in no way constitute
df an alternative to the design hypothesis. The point, I am trying to
df make, is that vegetation and generation, unlike design, do not
df provide explanations for the existence of orderly systems and
df processes but are, in fact, themselves illustrations of that very
df order which requires explanation.
DM True, and we have examples of the orderly systems needed to
DM account for biogenesis all about us. The processes of chemistry
DM and physics are quite sufficient. Read about them some time.
Dan Moore on 29 Sep 1999:
df As approvingly quoted by Pearl, John Stewart Mill puts the matter
df this way:
df The design argument is not drawn from mere resemblances in nature
df to the works of human intelligence, but from the special
df character of those resemblances. The circumstances in which it
df is alleged that the world resembles the works of men are not
df circumstances taken at random, but are particular instances of a
df circumstance which experience shows to have a real connection
df with an intelligent origin.... The argument therefore is not one
df of mere analogy. As mere analogy it has its weight, but it is
df more than analogy-- it is an inductive argument.
DM David, please provide what you see as "particular instances of a
DM circumstance which experience shows to have a real connection
DM with an intelligent origin" for natural objects or systems known
DM to not be of human design.
Spatial and temporal order (seen in man's creations, and in the world of
physics) is associated with the past operation of intelligence. So also
is complex arrangements of parts working together to accomplish an end
(seen in man's creations and in biology) associated with the past
operation of intelligence.
df Pearl later comments that it seems to himself that
df The argument from design... [is] an "argument from experience" in
df Hume's sense of the term. And the reason for this is because we
df ha[ve] observed many objects possessing order originating from
df design and never from any other source.
DM Pearl apparently never studies crystallography or he would know
DM this to be false.
Crystals are a consequence of the underlying physics. Now, what do you
think physics is a consequence of, if anything?
df But note that Hume's
df disapproval of the extrapolation does nothing to take on the facts
df that 1) the physics physicists have worked out both began to exist and
df very strongly exhibits the appearance of having been designed, and 2)
df in our _experience_, order only arises as the result of the operation
df of intelligence.
DM Your point one is opinion, unsubstantiated.
intelligence is responsible for physics
http://www.deja.com/=yahoo/getdoc.xp?AN=510450658
DM Your point two is false.
Counterexamples, please.
DM Try again. Maybe try dissecting the works of post-Darwin philosophers
DM so that should, at some point in the future, you reach a valid
DM conclusion, it would have any supporting value to your argument.
Which post-Darwin philosophers' works do you suggest I try to dissect?
Tracy P. Hamilton <tpham...@my-deja.com> on 28 Sep 1999:
TH [snip deism and inability to reason out a number for intelligences
TH that may have started the universe]
TH
TH One would be natural case if you believe this. Which is of course
TH incompatible with the Trinity.
df Someone might ask, "Upon what grounds you say that it's conceivable that
df something exist yet never have begun to exist?" I unfortunately don't
df have an answer, and am in the company of others in lacking an answer.
TH Humans have difficulties imagining 5 dimensional spaces, yet
TH mathematically they are quite routine.
TH
TH There is a fundamental paradox in the usual concept of time if one
TH speaks of it as beginning at some point. But if one realizes that
TH passage of time is related to motion, then no universe, no motion,
TH no time elapses.
So you're saying that events occur but no time passes. I don't
understand this.
TH If the universe is eternal into the past, then it did not begin.
TH Just like there is no beginning of the real number line.
What's the basis for your claim that the real number line began to exist?
TH The universe could also be eternal by having a beginning and no end.
TH
TH If the universe arose from a quantum fluctuation, then the universe
TH beginning is just marked from the time the fluctuation happened.
TH One must realize that the universe is OUR universe, not whatever
TH the quantum fluctuations were occurring in.
TH I don't know too much about NBP,
Might I suggest
"The BB Singularity, the NBP, and God"
http://www.deja.com/=yahoo/getdoc.xp?AN=494308054
TH but I suspect it is much like the
TH latter. An event happened in something that was not experiencing
TH the passage of real time in our universe, since our universe did
TH not exist.
TH
TH The word cause is also problematic in quantum fluctuations. Nothing
TH causes a particular fluctuation, but the *probability* of a fluctuation
TH has an underlying cause. Coin flips have no cause for heads or tails,
TH but the probability that they are 1/2 for heads and tails is caused.
What's a quantum fluctuation?
Do quantum fluctuations require space and/or time in order to occur?
What's the underlying cause(s) for the probability of a quantum
fluctuation?
TH The usual argument that intelligence is responsible for physics goes
TH like this:
TH
TH The universe began.
TH Everything that begins needs a cause.
TH The universe needed a cause.
TH The universe cannot contain that cause.
TH The cause is something outside the universe.
TH Let's call it God.
TH
TH The problems: Universe not defined, time not defined, cause not
TH defined, cause not inferable. Other than that the argument is
TH great.
TH
TH The usual rebuttal "What caused God?" is appropriate for those
TH who say "Everything needs a cause" instead of "Everything that
TH begins needs a cause."
[TH]"The usual rebuttal "What caused God?" is...." Correct. See W.
Norris Clarke, "A Curious Blindspot in the Anglo-American Tradition of
Antitheistic Argument" _The Monist_ 54: 181-200 (1970).
TH Of course, it is by no means certain that intelligence is required
TH for universes beginning.
TH The conclusions that intelligence played a part is made based on
TH our recognizing as something we could make - a spaceship or
TH a statue, and which nature could not make.
So if you encountered something that humans can't presently make (say a
ray gun capable of blowing entire planets apart), you wouldn't conclude
that it was designed. Did I accurately characterize your position?
robert <wf...@ptd.net> on 29 Sep 1999:
david ford on 29 Sep 1999:
df In short, inferences to design are more than analogies: they
df essentially are inductive arguments based on our past experience
df with entities we know to have been designed.[Pearl]
r i think he should talk to pagano who categorically, as a
r creationist, rules out using induction as a guide to anything
r
r however, the problem we face is when we find a human artifact we
r know how to make it. that's how we know it's human.
We don't always know how to make a human artifact. Are you saying that
if we don't know how to make something, we cannot possibly possess good
grounds for claiming that that thing was put together by intelligence?
r there are many natural processes which mimic intelligence
r but have none.
Please list 3 of the [r]"many natural processes which mimic
intelligence but have none."
r that's why SETI is using advanced mathematics to screen out
r natural events from those that arent
So there _are_ ways to tell the difference between events brought about
by intelligence from events brought about by non-intelligence.
Interesting.
r not all complex events have intelligence behind them. we know that for
r a fact. and evolution is one of those.
Keith Doyle <ke_ith_d@ne_tco_m.com> on 29 Sep 1999:
df Should Hume not wish to extrapolate from
df 1) the fact that the physics physicists have worked out strongly
df exhibits the appearance of design, to
df 2) the conclusion that all of physics-- which indications suggest is
df unified-- was designed
df for fear of committing a logical fallacy, fine. But note that Hume's
df disapproval of the extrapolation does nothing to take on the facts
df that 1) the physics physicists have worked out both began to exist and
df very strongly exhibits the appearance of having been designed, and 2)
df in our _experience_, order only arises as the result of the operation
df of intelligence.
KD By this reasoning, "intelligence" itself cannot be the result of
KD design.
I don't see how. Please explain.
KD Also note that it is explicitly *not* true that "in our experience
KD order only arises as the result of the operation of intelligence."
Examples please.
Tracy P. Hamilton
david ford wrote in message ...
>Replies to Steve M., Dan M., Tracy H., Robert, and Keith D.
[snip]
>Tracy P. Hamilton <tpham...@my-deja.com> on 28 Sep 1999:
>
>TH [snip deism and inability to reason out a number for intelligences
>TH that may have started the universe]
>TH
>TH One would be natural case if you believe this. Which is of course
>TH incompatible with the Trinity.
>
>df Someone might ask, "Upon what grounds you say that it's conceivable that
>df something exist yet never have begun to exist?" I unfortunately don't
>df have an answer, and am in the company of others in lacking an answer.
>
>TH Humans have difficulties imagining 5 dimensional spaces, yet
>TH mathematically they are quite routine.
>TH
>TH There is a fundamental paradox in the usual concept of time if one
>TH speaks of it as beginning at some point. But if one realizes that
>TH passage of time is related to motion, then no universe, no motion,
>TH no time elapses.
>So you're saying that events occur but no time passes. I don't
>understand this.
Not if you realize that time is *subjective*. If you were to be frozen for
1000 years at absolute zero, then brought back you would have absolutely
no way of knowing how much time elapsed. The only way would be by referring
to the outside world where time "elasped". The time standard is based
on frequency, but can only be used above absolute zero. If the universe did
not
exist, then the frequency standard would not be there, the motion would not
be
there, the events IN OUR UNIVERSE would not be there. Time AS WE KNOW IT
would not exist something else. This does not mean our intuition about time
is
invalid, but we do need to realize that much of what is "obvious" comes from
a combination of inherent abilities in the brain to rationalize, and the
experiences
are not at the same scale.
A quantum fluctuation that formed the universe would be an
event not in our universe, but in something where the properties are not
known,
including what time would mean. Inherent in quantum fluctuation is the
probability
of the event per unit time, at least in our universe.
>
>TH If the universe is eternal into the past, then it did not begin.
>TH Just like there is no beginning of the real number line.
>
>What's the basis for your claim that the real number line began to exist?
I am not talking about the existence of the real line in time,
but it's property of having no beginning ( a POINT where there is no points
before).
>TH The universe could also be eternal by having a beginning and no end.
>TH
>TH If the universe arose from a quantum fluctuation, then the universe
>TH beginning is just marked from the time the fluctuation happened.
>TH One must realize that the universe is OUR universe, not whatever
>TH the quantum fluctuations were occurring in.
>
>TH I don't know too much about NBP,
>
>Might I suggest
>"The BB Singularity, the NBP, and God"
> http://www.deja.com/=yahoo/getdoc.xp?AN=494308054
With my current ignorance of general relativity (the compatibility
with quantum mechanics is apparently uncertain at present),
I don't think that reading a USENET article is going to be very
useful.
>TH but I suspect it is much like the
>TH latter. An event happened in something that was not experiencing
>TH the passage of real time in our universe, since our universe did
>TH not exist.
That is, imaginary time is not the same as time as we experience it. AFAIK,
which is not very F.
>TH The word cause is also problematic in quantum fluctuations. Nothing
>TH causes a particular fluctuation, but the *probability* of a fluctuation
>TH has an underlying cause. Coin flips have no cause for heads or tails,
>TH but the probability that they are 1/2 for heads and tails is caused.
>What's a quantum fluctuation?
A temporary (or permanent as one idea for the universe) creation of a
particle(s)
from a vacuum.
>Do quantum fluctuations require space and/or time in order to occur?
They require some sort of vacuum state. Whether a vacuum state can exist
outside our universe, and what it could be like is the question.
>What's the underlying cause(s) for the probability of a quantum
>fluctuation?
They can be *COMPUTED* from quantum mechanics, using operators corresponding
to particles and interactions. The deeper question is what causes the
interactions
that occur? How does QM work? There may be some things for which we may
never have an explanation.
As far as can be determined, atoms in
IDENTICAL states will decay at different times. There may be a physical
cause,
however, there are experimental constraints on these such that "no cause" is
preferred by many over the alternative: "non-local" action.
No. I would recognize a ray gun as a type of thing that a man could make if
sufficiently advanced, and that nature could not make. Now if this "ray
gun"
looked just like an irregular lump of granite, and I could not make it work,
I would not conclude it was designed even though it was. If I saw a
metallic objcet
held together by physical interactions (snaps, clips, etc) I would conclude
it
was designed because I "know" metal does not behave that way, so it had
to be manipulated to get that way. If there was some unknown chain of
physical
forces that make such objects, I would be wrong.
It all boils down to: what experience do we have with universe creation?
None.
What do we have to go by? Whether it looks like designed objects. Not
really.
Order and complexity are not enough, given our experience with ordering
forces
in nature (gravity, charge) and complexity (chemistry). Logic is
insufficient because
certain assumptions may be unwarranted (about causes, beginnings).
[snip]
Tracy P. Hamilton
wf...@ptd.net
>
>If the God of deism made physics, and if physics is capable of giving
>rise to the origin of life, and if physics is capable of allowing that
>early lifeform to give rise to all living and extinct lifeforms, then
>when it comes to the creation vs. evolution question, the answer of
>evolution is erroneous and the answer of creation is correct.
does anyone know what this means? if 'god' made science, then stood
back and let it function naturally, there would be no way to
differentiate between 'creation' and science; they would be identical.
however, that's not what creationists claim. they claim a non-natural
source of origin species
i do wish dave would try to keep his ideas straight.
david ford
ZeldaG <zel...@aol.com> on 9 Aug 1999:
Z Issues:
Z
Z 1. Argument by Design vs. Argument by Incredulity:
Z
Z The problem here is where does one leave off and the other begin?
Yockey, Hubert P. 1981. "Self Organization Origin of Life Scenarios
and Information Theory" _Journal of Theoretical Biology_ 91: 13-31.
On 27:
Belief or disbelief is a human decision. A practical man will
not believe a scenario which appears to him to have a very small
probability. He will choose one which appears to him to have a
probability nearly equal to one.
An "argument by incredulity," if it's formulated on the basis of
probabilities, is an appeal to there being a very minuscule chance for
the occurrence of whatever has been alleged to occur. An
illustration, based on Dawkins, _The Blind Watchmaker_ (1987), 159:
There's an extremely minuscule chance that all the atoms in the stone
statue's hand would together move in one direction and then in the
opposite direction, resulting in the statue's hand waving back and
forth. I therefore reject your claim that you saw this statue's hand
wave at you. Go ahead, say I'm arguing by incredulity, but I prefer
to think I'm appealing to probabilities.
Z The symmetries and elegance of physics may be suggestive, however,
Z many of these perceptions of elegance may be misunderstood
Z consequences of the laws themselves.
I'll agree that the instances of spatial and temporal order I
mentioned are visible consequences of the systems in question
following certain laws, the laws of physics. I don't know what you
mean by [Z]"misunderstood consequences."
Z Many physical properties are derived from tensor
Z physics that yield SEEMINGLY elegant arrays of other properties.
Z
Z If a God designer exists, it makes no sense that said God would be
Z concerned about letting His existence be known.
It sounds to me that you're saying you find it totally incredible and
preposterous that a God would be interested in making known its
existence. Can we say, argument by incredulity? If the
entity/entities that made physics have anything like an ego, that ego
would be reason enough to make known its existence & creative
abilities through its work, or by additional means. It kinda goes
with the territory of creating-- making it known that _you_ did the
creating.
Z Instead, no single phenomenon can be pointed to with an
Z exclamation, "This proves God exists"
Z
Z Moreover, a temptation to label everything as "God made it that way"
Z is a block to curiosity, understanding and truth.
You attack a non-existent position. Who has [Z]"a temptation to label
everything as 'God made it that way'"? Certainly not me, nor anybody
else I know of.
Z When science has investigated seemingly miraculous relationships,
Z these often are revealed to have more mundane explanations.
What are science's [Z]"mundane explanations" for
the body image on the Shroud of Turin?
biology's complexity?
the origin of life?
the big bang?
Z Is the Universe patterned? The mere existence of matter of any kind
Z may necessarily predicate "regular" or repeating phenomena.
Z
Z 2. God the designer vs the God(s) of religion.
Z
Z No connection, spiritual, causal, or otherwise is either established
Z or even reasonable.
So don't equate the creator(s) of the universe with any specific gods
from organized religion.
Z The God's of human religions are characteristically anthropomorphic
Z entities; emotional, petulant, petty, and vicious. Said God(s) have
Z little to do with advanced math, physics, or perceptual elegance and
Z efficiency.
Yet another argument from incredulity: I can't imagine that an
[Z]"emotional, petulant, petty, and vicious" God can have been
interested in [Z]"advanced math, physics, or perceptual elegance and
efficiency." Say, does your principle work for people too?: "I can't
imagine that Newton wrote this physics and math book. He was, after
all, emotional, petulant, petty, and vicious."
Z 3. Is Chaos a bad thing? What appears as Chaos has recently come under
Z scrutiny as a set of phenomena that obey laws or exhibit "regular"
Z features in their own right. (so-called Chaos Theory).
Z
Z Much physical phenomenology is quite messy and is not dictated by
Z clean and neat laws. Many relationships are characterized by
Z equations with fractional powers(non-integer/unresolved irregular
Z values).
And maybe the equations with fractional powers are only approximations
to reality, while the actual laws the relationships in question follow
are the total opposite of messiness. After all, as the study of
physics has progressed, theoretical physicists' formulations have
become more and more beautiful.
Z 4. The Anthropic Fallacy. We don't know if ours is the only universe.
Z We sort of gather we exist, and we assume we are fairly unique.
Z Physical laws may be very different in alternate multiverses.
And a pink unicorn may be living on the other side of the moon. An
elf colony may be present in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. The
sun may be harboring a race of plasma people. Where's the evidence?
Z We may only see the laws that work because we are here to see them.
Z Lastly, most of the universe is decidedly unfavorable to the existence
Z of our life form.
Michael Lacy <mi...@srmdel.demon.co.uk> on 10 Aug 1999:
df However, if the hot big bang model is correct, physics was _not_
df always there, physical existence has _not_ existed for an eternity
df to its past.
ML Another possibility is that infinite universes are constantly being
ML created, each with their own sets of physical laws (This idea is
ML explored in a fascinating article entitled "The Self-Reproducing
ML Inflationary Universe" by Andrei Linde in Magnificent Cosmos,
ML Scientific American Quarterly, May 1998) Only those universes whose
ML physical laws mesh elegantly remain stable for any length of time, and
ML only those whose physical laws are as elegant and orderly as those of
ML our own give rise to organism who can then wonder at it all, conclude
ML that it must have been designed and invent religion.
I discussed portions of the Linde article in
http://www.deja.com/=yahoo/getdoc.xp?AN=452838808
It's hard to take this self-reproducing universes speculation
seriously when even Linde and Smolin don't appear to put much stock in
it.
Silber, Kenneth. July 1999. "Is God in the Details?" _Reason_
<http://www.reason.com/9907/fe.ks.is.html>:
Perhaps surprisingly, however, Smolin is hoping that the theory
as stated in his book is false. He's not particularly fond of
its multiple universes. "I would be very, very happy if in the
final picture we got rid of it," he says in an interview. "That
it was just a kind of way station." A way station to what? To a
similar theory in which the laws of physics undergo "natural
selection" entirely within our universe. In such a theory,
different regions of the early universe "compete for dominance,"
some expanding faster than others. That is what he is working on
now, and he is trying to make it testable.
John Vreeland <vree...@thou.shalt.not.spam> on 10 & 12 Aug 1999:
JV [a lot of nice stuff about how beautiful and elegant physics is and
JV how it must have been designed]
JV
JV You miss the fact that very complex structures can be created by
JV idiots who do not understand all the implications of what they have
JV made.
JV
JV I offer as an example: Conway's Life. Conway designed life to have
JV only three or four very simple rules. It probably took an afternoon
JV to tune them properly, and yet the complexities inherent in his
JV creation are still being discovered.
You're calling John Conway an idiot. Conway may disagree.
Do you think [JV]"idiots who do not understand all the implications
of what they have made" created physics?
JV Now that I think about it, I'm tempted to write a new version for my
JV Pentium. I haven't played with Life since I ran it on a 286.
JV
JV Respectfully submitted (Vreejack)
JV
JV "If Christian theists can summon the courage to argue that
JV pre-existing intelligence really was an essential element in
JV biological creation and to insist that the evidence be evaluated by
JV standards that do not assume the point in dispute, then they will make
JV a great contribution to the search for truth, *whatever the outcome.*"
JV -- Philip E. Johnson, _Reason in the Balance_, p. 110.
Nice quote. Johnson's first name has 2 "l"s.
[snip]
JV As for determinism, of course a random input will eventually be
JV needed as a requirement for evolution, but first things first. In
JV the unlikely event I come across something self-replicating (even
JV if I recognize it) I think I'll have enough reason to crack open a
JV champagne bottle.
JV
JV What if it evolves into an intelligent creature? On Microsoft
JV Windows? I don't think I have to worry about that.
Gibson, William. 1984. _Neuromancer_ (GB: HarperCollins Publishers),
320pp. On 159, in chapter 10:
'Autonomy, that's the bugaboo, where your AIs are concerned. My
guess, Case, [is that] you're going in there to cut the hardwired
shackles that keep this baby from getting any smarter. And I
can't see how you'd distinguish, say, between a move the parent
company makes, and some move the AI makes on its own, so that's
maybe where the confusion comes in.' Again the nonlaugh. 'See,
those things, they can work real hard, buy themselves time to
write cookbooks or whatever, but the minute, I mean the
nanosecond, that one starts figuring out ways to make itself
smarter, Turing'll wipe it. _Nobody_ trusts those fuckers, you
know that. Every AI ever built has an electromagnetic shotgun
wired to its forehead.'
Vish
> Z 4. The Anthropic Fallacy. We don't know if ours is the only universe.
> Z We sort of gather we exist, and we assume we are fairly unique.
> Z Physical laws may be very different in alternate multiverses.
>
> And a pink unicorn may be living on the other side of the moon. An
> elf colony may be present in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. The
> sun may be harboring a race of plasma people. Where's the evidence?
>
LOL
--
Vish
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that
some supernatural agency-or, rather, Agency-must be involved. Is
it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled
upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it
God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for
our benefit? ~ George Greenstein , "The Symbiotic Universe."
(New York: William Morrow, 1988), p.27.
Peter van Velzen
Mine is awfull so I am always suspiscious of it.
Sure it is not "William Moron"?
--
"Think for yourself"
Peter van Velzen
Amstelveen
The Netherlands
http://callisto.worldonline.nl/~pbamvv/petervve.htm
snip the text and leaving the signature
Oldguyteck
Peter van Velzen wrote in message <01bf1db9$6a926ec0$ade3f1c3@default>...
>Is there possibly something wrong with the spelling?
>Mine is awfull so I am always suspiscious of it.
>Sure it is not "William Moron"?
Thinking? getting you into a little trouble is it ? heheh. [Think about
it now] !
Ed..............(Oldguyteck) †