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

Yeh, that's essentially what I meant. But, I would not claim that this
represents the TE position, just a possible scenario (one which I am
inclined toward). It's not a killer persuasive argument, but it is
useful in developing plausibility in some lay settings where the more
technical arguments are just too arcane for much of the audience.
Thanks - JimA

Iain Strachan wrote:

>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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Received on Tue Mar 1 09:41:10 2005