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

Iain,

No one, not even atheists, deny that there is underlying constraint.
The "laws of nature", values of universal constants, etc. would
agree. They would say, however, that that's just the way the universe
is and that's what we start with in doing our science. They would
argue that there is no need to explain why things are ultimately the
way they are. You explain things in terms of other things and get as
far "back" as you can at which point you say "that's the way things
are".

Such can be common ground between the Naturalist and the Theist (who
argues that ultimately the properties of the universe are due to
God's creative and sustaining will).

That's why I find myself on the side of Naturalists when it comes to
the scientific claims but on the side of ID when it comes to the
philosophical implications of their alleged scientific claims.

The universe we live in has certain properties. Believing that is the
foundation of all science. The Serpinski gadget remains a valuable
analogy especially if you think about it from the point of view of
applying the simple rules without knowing the outcome in advance. The
function of simple rules produces a complex outcome (in the case of
SG by necessity) whose outcome isn't obvious until one runs the
program. It seems to me that the universe is similarly organized and
that there are hierarchies of "simple" rules. As new agents with new
properties "emerge" from the operation of lower level simple rules,
they function to produce more and more complex behavior. God's
governance can and does operate at all levels, and He, knowing the
beginning from the end, knows the outcome of the program even where
free agents are involved, without running the program.

Seeing the final Serpinski Gadget and knowing the algorithm that
generates it is like having God's view.

TG

>---------- 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.
>
>
>--
>-----------
>There are 3 types of people in the world.
>Those who can count and those who can't.
>-----------

-- 
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Terry M. Gray, Ph.D., Computer Support Scientist
Chemistry Department, Colorado State University
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