Re: [asa] An Intelligent Design Riddle

>>> Schwarzwald <schwarzwald@gmail.com> 10/20/2009 7:33 PM >>> said,
quoting Gribbin:

"The intelligence required to do the job may be superior to ours, but it
is
a finite intelligence reasonably similar to our own, not an infinite and
incomprehensible God. The most likely reason for such an intelligence to
make universes is the same as the reason why people do things like
climbing
mountains or studying the nature of subatomic particles using accelerators
like the LHC – because they can. A civilization that has the technology
to
make baby universes might find the temptation irresistible, while at the
higher levels of universe design, if the superior intelligences are
anything
at all like us there would be an overwhelming temptation to improve upon
the
design of their own universes. This provides the best resolution yet to
the
puzzle Albert Einstein used to raise, that ‘the most incomprehensible
thing
about the Universe is that it is comprehensible.’ The Universe is
comprehensible to the human mind because it was designed, at least to some
extent, by intelligent beings with minds similar to our own. Fred Hoyle
put
it slightly differently. ‘The Universe,’ he used to say, ‘is a put-up
job.’
I believe that he was right. But in order for that ‘put-up job’ to be
understood, we need all the elements of this book."

***

Ted comments. If our minds are like those of the creator, then the creator
is a "personal" God. This isn't necessarily Christianity, as Schwarzwald
notes, but it's at least monotheism: one creator (since the universe has a
single mathematical structure) who is a personal being. You still need the
Incarnation to get Christianity, and that is no small step -- it is crossed
only by special revelation -- but it's entirely consistent with
Christianity. For the true Platonists (and Gribbin's universe might be
consistent with Platonism), the Incarnation is scandalous: Plato's God
didn't muck about with us. For the Christian Platonists, however, the
Incarnation was the greatest miracle. (I agree with them.)

Ted

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Received on Wed Oct 21 09:22:47 2009