Reflectorites
I am sending this response since I had already completed it, but in line with
my post about reducing my responses, it is my last post on this thread.
On Sun, 02 Jul 2000 23:57:49 -0500, Chris Cogan wrote:
[continued]
CC>But, what I do think is that there *is* some sort of "Dumb
>Stuff"
As per my previous post, I find this term strange and I will use "basic stuff"
instead.
CC>and that what we take as the Universe (sense 2 of
>"Universe" above) is either made out of this stuff (perhaps
>several "layers" deep, via ordinary matter, superstrings, and
>whatever else) or is *in* this stuff in a manner very roughly
>analogous to the way in which different molecular structures
>and arrangements occur in a block of ice or steel, or to the
>way in which waves may exist within a solid (the waves,
>like light reflecting from the underside of the surface of a
>swimming pool, may even "see" the boundary between this
>"stuff" and the external void as a solid surface).
Chris's "Universe (sense 2)" I take to be the observable universe (including
dark matter, etc), which I call U3. There is, AFAIK, no empirical scientific
evidence that there is any other universe but this U3. Indeed, Jastrow says
there can never be, in principle, any such empirical scientific evidence for
what existed before the Big Bang:
"Science has proven that the Universe exploded into being at a certain
moment. It asks, What cause produced this effect? Who or what put the
matter and energy into the Universe? Was the Universe created out of
nothing, or was it gathered together out of preexisting materials? And
science cannot answer these questions because, according to the
astronomers, in the first moments of its existence the Universe was
compressed to an extraordinary degree, and consumed by the heat of a fire
beyond human imagination. The shock of that instant must have destroyed
every particle of evidence that could have yielded a clue to the cause of the
great explosion. An entire world, rich in structure and history, may have
existed before our Universe appeared; but if it did, science cannot tell what
kind of world it was. A sound explanation may exist for the explosive birth
of our Universe; but if it does, science cannot find out what the explanation
is. The scientist's pursuit of the past ends in the moment of creation."
(Jastrow R., "God and the Astronomers," 1992, p106).
The same thought is expressed by Adair:
"The Universe: Created for us? yea or nay? But what or who, is or was; the
Creator? Is there a Primal cause? What was there before the beginning of
space and time? What will be there after the end? We do not know and-
exercising a rare humility-we are not even confident that we can know. If
the universe was born in a quantum fluctuation, the inherent randomness
revealed in quantum mechanics may eliminate the possibility of
extrapolation before that incident. Before the beginning of the universe and
after the end may be beyond the reach of rationality. With dimensions so
distorted that even time may be tied into knots, can we even know what is
meant by "before" or what is meant by "Cause"? Perhaps physicists must
leave the Cause with theologians and philosophers." (Adair R.K., "The
Great Design: Particles, Fields, and Creation," 1987, p.368).
So I will assume that U3 = U1 or U3 =U1+U2. That is, I will assume that
Chris' "Universe (sense 2) and his Universe (sense 1) are one and the same.
CC>I also see no reason, philosophical or otherwise to believe
>that the Universe (sense 1 above) is limited to the Universe
>as scientists see it (sense 2). I don't believe it *isn't* so
>limited, either, but there is no cognitive basis claiming to
>know that it *is* so limited. Scientists, philosophers, and
>Stephen Jones have not been able to find any.
See above. Unless Chris has any empirical scientific evidence that there is a
"Universe (sense 1 ...)" which is different from his "Universe ... (sense 2)" I
will regard them as one and the same.
CC>In short, I don't think that the Universe (sense 1) *did* come
>to be. I think it always was, just as Stephen probably claims
>his God always was.
I do claim that God always was and the universe originally wasn't. So my
position and Chris' are radically different.
I would point out that Chris' "Universe (sense 1)" is as scientific
unobservable as the Christian "God". Indeed less so, because there is good
scientific, philosophical, theological, historical and personal evidence for
the Christian "God", but no evidence whatsoever, AFAIK, for Chris'
"Universe (sense 1)" as distinct from his "Universe (sense 2)".
CC>I think the Universe (sense 2)
>*probably* did come to be, and that, in any case, this is a
>scientific question unless it is established that the Universe
>(sense 2) *is* all the Universe there is and that there was
>absolutely no Universe (sense 1) prior to the coming to be of
>the Universe (sense 2).
Chris has it backwards again. It is not up to science to establish "that there
was absolutely no "Universe (sense 1)" but rather up to those who claim
there is (or was) a "Universe (sense 1)" distinct from the "Universe (sense
2)", to establish their claim.
CC>In any case, the question, as Stephen asks it, is seriously
>loaded, because it *assumes* that the Universe came to be,
>and there is certainly no proof that the Universe (sense 1)
>*did* come to be, or that it *could* come to be.
Chris has, AFAIK, no evidence that there even was (or is) a "Universe
(sense 1)". He just "*assumes* there was.
CC>Stephen offers mythology as philosophy and cosmology, but
>there is nothing about such mythology to recommend it,
Without any empirical scientific evidence that his' "Universe (sense 1)" ever
existed, Chris "cosmology" is just *his* "mythology"!
CC>because any questions that might be asked about my "Dumb
>Stuff" must be asked, in spades, regarding his mythological
>God.
If Chris thinks that the Christian God is "mythological", why is he so
evidently worried about whether He exists? I would be blowed if I would
waste even one minute of my time worrying about whether the gods I
regard as "mythological" (e.g. Zeus, Thor, etc) really exist.
CC>How did *God* come to be, etc.?
Chris seems to have forgotten that what he just wrote that: "Stephen
probably claims his God always was."
I *do* claim that my God, the Christian God, "always was", and so I do
not have to supply an explanation about how He came to be.
CC>Postulating God
>does two things, *neither* of which is cognitively valuable:
>
>1. It *relocates* the questions we would ask regarding the
>Universe and/or "Dumb Stuff" into a realm where there
>is no known possibility of scientifically searching for
>answers to them.
As Jastrow points out above, Chris has the same problem with his
"universe (sense 1)!
CC>It *absolutely* does not *answer*
>them in any *rational* sense. It is simply *assumed*
>that God's baldly-asserted-but-undemonstrated magical
>powers explain all without any need for further real
>thought.
I saw Dawkins make a similar `village atheist' claim on BBC TV in the
library of Mendel's abbey in Brno Czechoslavakia. The theologians he was
debating with just pointed to the *thousands* of theological books lining
the room!
CC>Indeed, one of the *purposes* of the God
>theory is to forestall all that damn *questioning*. The
>arbitrary assertion that "God did it" is supposed to be
>accepted *in place* of a real answer.
If God *did* do it, then "God did it" is the correct *starting point*.
If Chris knows that this is not "a real answer" then he must know infallibly
that God *didn't* do it!
CC>*How* did God do it?
Indeed "*How* did God do it" is IMHO a good question. But it is
something that only those who believe God did do it, and the evidence that
He did it is empirically detectable, *can* work out.
CC>What are His internal causal processes that
>enable Him to do these things? What is God's anatomy
>and physiology (or their theistic equivalents)? Etc
The Christian God doesn't have "internal causal processes" and "anatomy
and physiology".
Besides, one does not have to have details of an intelligent agent's "internal
causal processes" and "anatomy and physiology" to recognise evidence that
He did "do these things".
But one might ask Chris about the "internal causal processes" and
"anatomy and physiology" (or their materialistic equivalents) of his
"universe (sense 1)"?
CC>2. It introduces a raft of *new* questions that are even
>*more* peculiar than the question about whether the
>Universe came to be (and, if so, how) questions such
>as the one above about how God came to be,
See above. To save wasting everybody's time, Chris needs to get it into his
head once and for all, that the Christian God *never* "came to be", but
"always was."
It is *absurd* for Chris to keep asking Christians to produce evidence for
something that they don't even maintain.
CC>and questions about His alleged nature.
Chris should consult any standard Christian systematic theology if he wants
to know what Christians maintain about God's "nature".
CC>There is some faint
>chance of grasping an infinite natural universe,
How?
CC>but how
>do we make sense of claims that some being is
>infinitely powerful, absolutely all-knowing, and able to
>create universes out of absolutely nothing?
That God is "infinitely powerful, absolutely all-knowing, and able to create
universes out of absolutely nothing" makes sense to me and to hundreds of
millions of Christians in all cultures around the world.
Indeed, it even made sense to T.H. Huxley:
"...'creation,' in the ordinary sense of the word is perfectly conceivable. I
find no difficulty in conceiving that, at some former period, this universe
was not in existence and that it made its appearance in six days (or
instantaneously, if that is preferred), in consequence of the volition of some
pre-existing Being. Then, as now, the so-called a priori arguments against
Theism, and, given a Deity, against the possibility of creative acts.
appeared to me to be devoid of reasonable foundation." (Huxley T.H., in
Huxley L., ed., "Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley," Vol. II, 1903,
p. 429, in Morris H.M., "The Troubled Waters of Evolution," 1982, p.105).
If Chris can't "make sense" of it, maybe it is because he doesn't *want* to
"make sense" of it?
CC>*NONE* of
>these questions arise on the assumption that some sort
>of "Dumb Stuff" has always existed.
I note that Chris does not say what *exactly* this "Dumb Stuff" was, just
that it is "*some sort* of `Dumb Stuff'". Presumably that is so he can
always say that it is not bound by any of the laws of physics that observable
matter is bound by? And this from one who demanded that I give details of
the Christian God's "internal causal processes" and "anatomy and
physiology".
It is granted that Chris' assumption that matter has always existed does not
raise the same "questions" that the assumption of an infinite Creator-God
does. But the assumption that matter has always existed raises its own set
of "questions".
For starters:
If matter has always existed, why do we observe it inexorably running
down to lower and lower energy states, until it will eventually not be able
to support life or even atoms? Since there is no known way that this one-
way running down can be reversed, if the same matter had always existed,
why hadn't it reached that final stage an infinitely long time ago?
Or as Montgomery put it:
"... the second law of thermodynamics states that for irreversible processes
in any closed system left to itself, the entropy (loss of available heat energy)
will increase with time; thus the universe, viewed as such a system, is
moving to the condition of maximum entropy (heat death): but (and this is
the significant aspect of the matter for our purposes) if the irreversible
process had begun an infinite time ago-if, in other words, the universe were
uncreated and eternal-the earth would already have reached maximum
entropy; and since this is not the case, we are driven to the conclusion that
the universe is indeed contingent and finite, and requires a creative force
from the outside to have brought it into existence." (Montgomery J.W.,
ed., "Christianity for the Tough Minded," 1982, p.26).
CC>Jones' challenge shows what many of us atheists have
>claimed all along: That theism has no *real* answers to
>questions like "How did life come to be and evolve"?
I have not noticed any *atheist* answers on "How did life come to
be"? Particularly since they have been trying to explain it
materialistically and naturalistically with all the resources of modern
science for the last 40+ years (or longer).
Indeed, as Thaxton, et al., point out, what success they have had, owes
to the intervention of human intelligent design, which indirectly
supports to "theism":
"Over the years a slowly emerging line or boundary has appeared
which shows observationally the limits of what can be expected from
matter and energy left to themselves, and what can be accomplished
only through what Michael Polanyi has called "a profoundly
informative intervention." When it is acknowledged that most so-called
prebiotic simulation experiments actually owe their success to the
crucial but *illegitimate* role of the investigator, a new and fresh phase
of the experimental approach to life's origin can then be entered. Until
then however, the literature of chemical evolution will probably
continue to be dominated by reports of experiments in which the
investigator, like a metabolizing Maxwell Demon, will have performed
work on the system through intelligent, exogenous intervention. Such
work establishes experimental boundary conditions, and imposes
intelligent influence/control over a supposedly "prebiotic" earth. As
long as this informative interference of the investigator is ignored, the
illusion of prebiotic simulation will be fostered. We would predict that
this practice will prove to be a barrier to solving the mystery of life's
origin." (Thaxton C.B., Bradley W.L. & Olsen R.L., "The Mystery of
Life's Origin," 1992, p.185. Emphasis in original.)
But I do notice that Chris emphasises "*real*" which I take to mean
that Chris would never accept any claim by "theism" as real anyway.
CC>Theism's answer is the "Santa Claus" answer: Unanalyzed
>mythological *magic.*
If Christ really believed that "Theism's answer is...mythological *magic*",
why would he even *bother* arguing against it?
Maybe if Chris keeps saying it long enough he might even start to believe
it!
CC>He is utterly unable to give one good
>reason (but only evasions) as to why design, if it is found to
>be real, must be supernatural,
Chris obviously doesn't pay attention to what I say. I have
pointed out on a number of occasions that basic ID theory doesn't
claim the Designer " must be supernatural". I have even quoted
from Behe's "Darwin's Black Box" where Behe acknowledges that
design could be the result of aliens or time-travellers. I
have even added in Fred Hoyle's "Intelligent Universe" as a
possible ID explanation.
CC>because he is unable to show,
>even if life on Earth did not originate naturally, why life
>might not have originated elsewhere and/or elsewhen, and
>then have created our Universe (sense 2) as a toy or research
>project (or whatever) and then gone on to create life on
>Earth and manipulate it along the way.
See above.
If Chris wants to propose that as a theory, good luck to him. I think it is a
pretty weak theory and it would not attract many followers, so I would not
even be *bothered* trying to refute it. I can just leave it to the ashcan of
history to dispose of it.
CC>I don't think any such
>theory is true, but it is vastly superior, both philosophically
>and *scientifically* to his "Santa Claus" story
See above.
[...]
Steve
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"Purpose pervades Hoyle's universe. He has long felt that natural selection
alone could not account for the appearance and rapid evolution of life on
the earth. Some supernatural intelligence must be directing the evolution of
life and indeed of the entire cosmos-although to what end Hoyle does not
know. The universe is an "obvious fix," he remarks. "There are too many
things that look accidental that are not." Sensible scientists will dismiss
such talk as preposterous. But every now and then, in their inevitable
moments of doubt, they may wonder: Could Sir Fred be right?" (Horgan J.,
"The Return Of The Maverick," Scientific American, Vol. 272, No. 324,
March 1995, pp.24-25, p.25)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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