Re: [asa] Creation and Incarnation

Correction: The last sentence should read "With classical mechanics it's a
stretch."

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
----- Original Message -----
From: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>
To: "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>; "Keith Miller"
<kbmill@ksu.edu>; "American Scientific Affiliation" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2006 4:21 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] Creation and Incarnation

> Moorad -
>
> It's an exaggeration to say "the chain of physical cause-and-effect is
> indeed interrupted." The chain has to begin at some point of phase space
> but from then on is not interrupted. & it doesn't care whether the
> initial conditions are specified by a "conscious agent" or not. If you're
> going to pursue that line of thought you'll end up with a Berkelian
> idealism in which there is no particle & no motion unless there's a
> conscious agent observing the system.
>
> That would be more plausible with QM. With QM it's a stretch.
>
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>
> To: "Keith Miller" <kbmill@ksu.edu>; "American Scientific Affiliation"
> <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2006 2:33 PM
> Subject: RE: [asa] Creation and Incarnation
>
>
> When we teach Newtonian mechanics, we usually say that a given force, via
> Newton's second law, gives rise to acceleration on a particle of mass m
> and the solution of Newton's equation is deterministic and depends on two
> constants of the motion, usually initial position and velocity. The whole
> description is purely physical, however it takes a conscious agent to set
> up the initial conditions and that agent is not part of Newton's equation
> but exercising his/her free will set up the particular initial conditions.
> Consequently, the chain of physical cause-and-effect is indeed interrupted
>
>
>
> Moorad
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of Keith Miller
> Sent: Sat 8/26/2006 10:11 AM
> To: American Scientific Affiliation
> Subject: Re: [asa] Creation and Incarnation
>
>
> David Opderbeck wrote:
>
>
> So, I tend to think of the operation of natural laws as a chain of
> causation. I know this analogy can't be pressed very far because of
> quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle, but it still seems sound
> to me at a basic level, and it seems to be how natural scientists operate
> at a practical level. When natural scientists examine a phenomenon, they
> try to suss out the physical causes of the phenomenon. At a macro level,
> Science seeks to do this through the entire chain of causation, all the
> way back to fundamental physical laws (and perhaps, in the case of some
> cosmological science, before that to the cause of the physical laws).
>
> If a human choice is inserted into the chain of causation, it seems to me
> that the resulting phenomenon no longer falls purely into the realm of the
> natural sciences. Like you said, science (I'd clarify and say the natural
> sciences) can't fully determine the causes of things like Nebuchadnezzar's
> choice of which city to attack. So, if a conscious decision of an
> autonomous agent is involved, at some point the chain of causation is
> interrupted and the natural sciences are incapable of determining fully
> the truth of what happened. (Footnote -- I think I'd distinguish this
> from Michael's comment about his collie puppy -- natural science, as I
> understand it, presumes some sort of determinism for non-human choices;
> otherwise, the concept of natural selection would make no sense at all.)
>
>
> I think that your error here is your statement : "So, if a conscious
> decision of an autonomous agent is involved, at some point the chain of
> causation is interrupted..." I would argue that there is no necessary
> reason that the chain of physical cause-and-effect need to be interrupted
> by the action of human choice. At the physical level, I see no reason for
> a break in the continuity of neural activity, biochemical activity, etc.
> AT THAT LEVEL there still could be a complete account. However, that
> account would not explain everything of interest to us. There are issues
> of the meaning and reason for that choice that transcend the mere physical
> description.
>
> I think that this distinction is critical. I do not see any a prior
> reason why the continuity of physical cause-and-effect need every be
> broken by the exercise of either God's purposive will or ours. A complete
> cause-and-effect description would therefore be theoretically possible --
> even if practically unrealizable. But, again that physical level
> description does not address many questions that are of interest to us.
> If fact some of our most important questions.
>
> This is the view of Donald McKay, the British neuroscientist, as I
> understand his writing. He argues against "nothing buttery" in which the
> possibility of a complete physical description/explanation means that all
> of physical reality can be reduced to such a description. I am trying
> here to make that same point -- a complete physical description in no way
> eliminates the validity of other complementary descriptions, and the
> action of supernatural agents or free choice does not require gaps in the
> physical description.
>
> Keith
>
>
>
> Keith B. Miller
> Research Assistant Professor
> Dept of Geology, Kansas State University
> Manhattan, KS 66506-3201
> 785-532-2250
> http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill/
>
>
>
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Received on Sat Aug 26 16:35:07 2006