Fwd: Order from chaos - according to New Mexicans for Science and Reason

This was intended to go to the list, not just Jim.
Sorry!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Iain Strachan <igd.strachan@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 08:43:21 +0000
Subject: Re: Order from chaos - according to New Mexicans for Science and Reason
To: Jim Armstrong <jarmstro@qwest.net>

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 18:01:59 -0700, Jim Armstrong <jarmstro@qwest.net> wrote:
> But I think this is preciesly the point. The illustration shows that a
> pattern (an ordered outcome) may be pre-defined, built into the starting
> conditions, even though the process for expressing the pattern embodies
> randomness. In the illustration, there is not complete freedom, e.g.,
> one must select not just any point, but one specifically referenced to
> one of the vertices each time. However, I do not think that degrades the
> illustration of a progressive evolution with underlying intent and design.
>
> We certainly live in a universe full of constraints. The fundamental
> ones may not be many in number, but their effect is pretty spectacular.
> Is it completely unthinkable that what we experience in our universe is
> the unfolding expression of an extremely clever set of starting
> conditions,

.. I agree with you, Jim, but I think, what in effect you are saying
is that evolution only works because there is underlying intent and
design ... that God encoded the predetermined outcome by making up the
extremely clever set of starting conditions. When God says "Let there
be ...." in Gen Ch 1, what He is in fact doing is choosing with
extreme precision all the laws and physical conditions so that
billions of years later " and it was so ..." all these things He had
purposfully created, came to be. Am I to understand that this is what
the TE position is?

But the problem I have is that the NMSR page is *not* illustrating
that (ie as you put it "underlying intent and design"). Richard
Dawkins and other atheistic scientists want you to believe there is
"at bottom no design, no purpose", and happily seem to use
illustrations like the Sierpinski curve, or Genetic Algorithms with a
pre-determined solution, in order to illustrate the point.

So the Sierpinski gasket is fine as an illustration of a Theistic
Evolutionary perspective, but not as a "no design" argument, IMO.

As an aside, regarding extremely clever starting positions, I seem to
remember Roger Penrose in "The Emperor's New Mind" starting from the
second law of thermodynamics and doing entropy calculations,
calculating the volume of phase space of the initial start point of
the universe available to "the Creator" as being 1/ 10^10^123. There
is a cartoon in the book showing God pointing into a 3-D cube
representing phase space. This is apparently just to get a universe
where stars and planets can exist. In terms of Shannon information,
it is equivalent to putting in 10^123 bits of information, vastly more
than the number of particles in the universe. Penrose doesn't give
any indication of whether he believes in the "Creator" of his thought
experiment, though.

Iain.

-- 
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