tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39714085789150398942024-03-13T11:15:15.399-07:00God and Rationality. Logic, Evidence, Science and Faith.Does rational thought enable us to explain ourselves and our world? If so, how, and to what extent? Is all science valid and authoritative? What about history and archaeology? Philosophy? Is Christianity a fully rational worldview?Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3971408578915039894.post-48071988645382509952021-08-21T04:47:00.033-07:002021-09-06T01:42:04.989-07:00'What I cannot Create I do not Understand'<p><br /></p><p>Richard Feynman was a very gifted man, a remarkable thinker, a physics pioneer. Like many very gifted people, he seemed to have little appreciation of quite how special his real gifting was. </p><p>Feynman seemed to like spinning his own myth regarding his personal life. He stored up anecdotes enough to fill a book or two. You can still buy them. Some of this material is not at all politically correct by modern standards, and rightly so. But he also encouraged equality in the workplace and had a tenacious concern for truthfulness and realism there, which I'm getting on to. Nearly everyone other than he saw his real gifting. We don't remember the man for his womanising or trickster antics. We remember him as someone with a profound, natural, apparently-effortless, insight into physics. Someone with the ability to explain difficult concepts to the rest of us; the less gifted.</p><p>Feynman illustrated a combination of brilliance with necessary condescension. By that I mean the ability to put himself in the shoes of his students, intellectually. He could condescend in a benign way to bless the rest of us. For me this was second-hand, through books taken from his lectures. (Condescension, if realistic and genuine, is not inherently bad, and knowing others' limitations when teaching is good and necessary). Feynman could adapt concepts he understood very clearly and make them as simple and amenable as possible. Would that we all had had lecturers like that.</p><p>Feynman was the hero of that far more widely known and appreciated physicist, Sheldon Cooper. (You probably know Sheldon was the central character of 'The Big Bang', a popular TV comedy series).</p><p>Feynman displayed humility and awe toward his teaching subject. And so on to the point of my post. </p><p>Found on his blackboard at Caltech at the time of his death in the top left corner was a simple statement.</p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><i>'What I cannot create I do not understand'. </i></span></p><p>We don't know exactly what he meant, or what led him to write this. Perhaps a pervading awareness of his terminal physical illness brought this phrase to him. Doctors could not transform or recreate the malignant tissue of his rare form of cancer. Doctors can't create tissue directly, period. We can indeed grow certain tissues. We analyse nature, we play with and rearrange nature, but ultimately we do not truly create anything. To truly create is to bring about from nothing. Or from nothing within the creation, anyway. </p><p>To prove our understanding, we must demonstrate it in action. This is a hard wall for hard science. 'Do the experiment for us'. The engineer understands this. Conjecture is one thing, working practice resulting in hard product may be quite another. Sometimes we fail to acknowledge the line between these.</p><p>Feynman's statement certainly applies to deep past science. Can we create life from inanimate matter? Can we set it up to evolve and populate? In this case, we have the constituent matter readily available. We have the right atoms. But the answer is 'No'. We are nowhere near those goals. Our theories, in truth, remain theories until we can test them.</p><p>Can we invoke a universe from nothing? Can we provoke a universe (or the beginnings of one), seed it to unravel, from an initial set of conditions we engineer, as a physical reality? No. We cannot. </p><p>Is science useless then? Of course not. To see its limitations simply means you have stopped worshipping it. </p><p>Underneath the quote, in another box, Feynman wrote 'To solve every problem that has been solved'. Again we weren't party to his thought processes or context. But that second sentence is achievable, by definition, by mankind corporately. It's an unrealistic aim for one man, although mankind could in principle achieve it. That's to say, all problems, with their solutions, so far achieved, could be brought together in one place for general access. 'Wikipedia' is trying to get there and doing a pretty fair job.</p><p>Feynman's two statements are boundaries. They are the two banks of a precipice, a precipice between God's type of knowledge and power and our own. </p><p>There's a huge veil and a huge chasm between the sum of our knowledge, and the ability to truly create; to create as Christ, in His divinity, has created.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3971408578915039894.post-44121716281287703972021-06-14T02:58:00.038-07:002021-06-20T23:28:57.312-07:00A Very Brief Summary So Far: Limits of Science. Seven Points.<p>1) <b>Scientific, materialistic reductionism is a valid, powerful and reasonable method. However it is an inherently limited mode of investigation</b>. Using logic itself, it can be shown to be logically restrictive. In particular, it precludes mechanisms which are outside of its own 'natural' sphere. There's an analogy to be had with Godel's incompleteness theorems here. </p><p>2) It's true that the 'sphere' of what is designated 'natural' will likely expand, and it already includes many inferences we cannot observe directly. However there remains a strong possibility that there are mechanisms completely outside of our ability to discern. <b>Physical mechanisms could easily be enshrined in law, but, being defined by a higher being, man may lack the intellectual, perceptive or investigative capacity to uncover them.</b></p><p>3) <b>The substantiation of a cosmos remains a singular event, as far as we know, and a supernatural one.</b> Mathematical law may be self-consistent and correct, but that does not mandate an associated, substantiated, consciously-perceived, physical existence. This event of cosmos-incipience is necessarily supernatural.</p><p>4) <b>Science also assumes that physical law and biological law are fixed and in that sense 'eternal'.</b> We back-extrapolate in time using the same laws that manifest today. We can't prove this is a valid assumption to use.</p><p>5) The next two points are unapologetically Judeo-Christian. <b>All this connects with theology. </b>What we can know of both God and creation, using our natural observations and reasoning, is going to be limited and subject to possible fundamental error. <b>We need revelation from God.</b> We need to believe He has engineered a supernatural ability within the human spirit to receive revelation and conviction about eternal, spiritual matters. </p><p>6) <b>God writes in simple ways for our benefit, not His</b>. He knows in glorious intricacy how He created everything, us included. Consider this. God allows us, using simple procedures and acts of the will, to initiate complex processes, like reproduction or digestion! We still don't fully understand them. Indeed when we didn't understand them at all, we were still able to 'perform' them! In a similar fashion, He has given us a conscious existence we have relatively little real understanding of. We are entrusted with an existence we don't fully understand, but even so we are still given real freedoms to act, freedoms to initiate and change the course of events. We can have simplistic notions of how we interact with 'reality', but they still 'work'. God hands off to us, in our conscious existence, certain responsibilities. We were told, in the beginning, to populate and subdue the earth. Fulfilling our responsibilities does not require us to fully understand how they work. We don't need to know how God gave us the capacity to fulfil them. God relates to us in simple everyday language, pertinent and practical.</p><p>God's actions, and His intent toward us, as taken from Genesis, may likewise look simplistic, especially if we are inclined to intellectualism. They are simple for our sake. They are practical and pertinent. They are received by relational trust, through love. But the mode of communication works. They give us the necessary information. God's Word, His revelation, remains true through the ages and into eternity. All we can rightly do, if we wish, is consider the manner in which they are true, and the manner of the revelation. We can suggest and discuss details of the science behind creation. The important impetus of God's revelation is open to all to discover though, scientific in thinking or not. We are to meekly receive the Word of God, because it is uniquely able to save our eternal souls. Our souls will transcend the present creation anyway. The means for that transcension are known to God alone; our main job is to trust Him.</p><p>7) <b>The truly important issues for us are in the relational and spiritual realms</b>. Believe in God. Trust Him. Respond thankfully to His initiative in Christ. Keep trusting Him. The truly significant element of the Bible is received as it is lived. It is a living book, and absorbed as such. Its impetus hits us fully when we live in the presence of the God who ultimately authored and compiled it. It imparts ever increasing life as we grow in yielded obedience to Him.</p><p>There you are. The seven points overlap and interact of course. What do you think? Feel free to comment.</p>Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3971408578915039894.post-26209202140467147812021-06-14T01:26:00.021-07:002021-06-18T05:01:27.715-07:00Steady State Cosmos, Steady State Laws, or Neither?<p>I'm a creationist because I believe we were created by God. What does that look like? Like Genesis. But if we want to expand on that? There are many in the creationism camp who think the world and its environment were formed 'mature'; as is. (Or rather 'as was'). In other words while there is an appearance, to modern Western man, of an evolving earth and cosmos, no such very slow maturation, from tiny initial seed beginnings, actually occurred. That is an illusion. The Big Bang is an illusion, an incorrect inference.</p><p>What if science does indeed have this badly wrong? What if we have dialled incorrect assumptions into our big picture thinking, thinking based on the scientific method? That method has limitations, and is a method with inherently and arbitrarily restricted scope. I just discussed some of the often-overlooked limitations in my last post.</p><p>Here I want to look more at the 'looking back deep into time'. Or 'back extrapolation'.</p><p>Science looking at recent time is a powerful method, giving clear results. But 'deep time'? Why might we get things wrong with that?</p><p>Reductionism always assumes this one present and constant reality, one framed by the same laws and equations. One framed by other observed constraints, such as the arrow of time. On planet Earth, by biological decay and death. By reproduction and birth. But what if a supernatural agent has shifted the very framework of reality at different times or places? What if our steady-state assumptions are not warranted? What if the current backdrop as investigated by us, from within it, is a 'temporary' arrangement? What if we have a) assumed it's permanent without justification, and b) as a result, have fooled ourselves into thinking we have successfully back-extrapolated to beginnings and obtained the 'big picture'?</p><p>I've already, last post, pointed out that by assuming science is always naturalistic, we limit science as a method. It has a restrictive mode of operation. Mechanisms beyond our familiarity are screened out before they get a chance for consideration. A corollary of this is that science can never be considered a technique with universal efficacy, universal powers of explanation. </p><p>Further than that, with science, we are always doing this exercise in back-extrapolation. In doing this, we are assuming our basic governing laws and equations, as well as being discoverable, have remained constant throughout. Perhaps laws have pertained in the past that we don't and maybe can't 'get'.</p><p>When we question what God has said in Genesis, we may be insisting on this steady state back extrapolation in our worldview. What if laws and time have changed fundamentally? What if reality cohered in the past, to physical law, but in a very different way? There I go, I'm already using terms like 'past'. We verbalise, and we conceptualise, starting from the familiar. Sure, that can and has got us a long way. Too many thought experiments without physical reality checks, whether retrospective or predictive/verified, and we can easily deceive ourselves about long-range science. We need to acknowledge we always reason with what we've got. That's the real essence of naturalism. Without revelation from a truthful higher source, we would have no option.</p><p>Heisenberg said that 'we investigate reality as it presents to our modes of investigation' and not 'reality itself'. We have no choice there. There's actually a further qualification. In science, we investigate reality as it is now, and assume the underlying, bottom-rung 'fabric' always was the way it is. If there is a theory of everything, what if it has changed, or even morphed, since the times recorded in early Genesis?</p><p>Instead or questioning the Word of God, we need to humbly acknowledge our limitations. We need to admit that we of necessity bring unproven assumptions to the table when we attempt to reason our way into the past.</p><p>It's unlikely we could understand, or even relay, an adequate report of, the process of creation. Likewise a sudden, God-ordained transition in the framework of our existence, in the past, might be undetectable to us. It may leave no trace, or traces which we misinterpret when view through our own paradigms. All we can do is investigate the existence we find ourselves in, using tools available from within. Using our minds, methods and instruments, which materialist-reductionists take to have been derived, evolved, produced from within.</p><p>The Bible discusses the end, as well as the start, of this physical age, in several places. The end, apparently, is also beyond anything but allegorical description.</p><p><i>But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.</i><b> <i>But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.</i></b></p><p><b>(2Peter 3:8-10)</b></p><p>What if we live in a cosmos with a tentative, transitory, stability? A cosmos with the illusion of great age, when subjected to certain modes of investigation? A cosmos which was fundamentally different before, even in the time of the first man and woman? Not only in the framing physics but also in terms of the characteristics of biological life? Were there biological species not succumbing to death? Not reproducing by the present sexual means? Were we once like that? Having a fixed maturity rather than requiring a process of maturation? What if we have deluded ourselves about our origins, because we <i>want </i>to delude ourselves? Because we are too proud to face our limitations and assumptions about life?</p><div><div><b><i>And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.</i></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>(Revelation 6:14)</b></div></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Is our problem not that the Bible is a dated, or incorrect, book? Rather that we have deluded ourselves about our present existence by effectively worshipping it as final reality? and deluded ourselves by worshipping ourselves, by filing to acknowledge our limitations and necessary assumptions? </div><div><br /></div><div>The Bible is the written Word of God. It will prove true. Our job is to meekly receive it. There are mysteries currently hidden from us, and from our most effective and earnest investigative techniques. The techniques have some real power, don't get me wrong. I'm a scientist and an engineer. But don't worship them. Don't carry them outside of reasonable and proven remit.</div><div><br /></div><p> </p>Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3971408578915039894.post-72223683826302057502021-06-13T13:29:00.029-07:002021-06-14T02:39:57.435-07:00What sort of Explanation are we hoping to get to with Naturalism?<p>When man investigates anything at all, using the 'Greek' mode of thought, he looks for causes for the effects he observes. This is the essence of the scientific method. Not only that, it is also the essence of the general western mode of thought. In many or most things. We look for predictive and explanatory powers. For this we look for an underlying theory, mechanism or set of laws. These laws then 'cause' all the emergent structures and behaviours of our experiments. Indeed, ultimately, they 'explain' everyday life. Or so it seems.</p><p>What is interesting to me is the types of cause we are able to admit into our scientific thinking.</p><p>With science, we are generally looking for causes we already understand, at least to a degree. I'd agree that with physical science, we often have a good or excellent understanding of how reality behaves. In science, we limit ourselves to naturalistic causes. Naturalistic causes are means and mechanisms which arise in the natural world around us. That's why we call them 'natural', to distinguish them from 'supernatural'.</p><p>We could argue about whether there even is a 'supernatural'. We could also discuss what would count as supernatural. I'll keep it relatively simple.</p><p>But how can we ever know that the means and mechanisms, behind everything and anything, were already in place for us to see? We can, with science, often infer realities we can't see directly. Sub-atomic particles like quarks, as an example, are inferred, along with the rules they behave under. Scientists would include them as part of natural explanations. Why? Not because they can be observed; they can't. But because they clearly exist within this creation and because they obey laws. We can make real predictions with them. </p><p>Isn't it clear that to assume all causes will be amenable to this kind of analysis and explanation is really a leap of faith? How can we really know we'll always be able to detect and understand the mechanisms and laws behind what we see? Yet science insists we will. The very definition of science restricts us to things we are already able to understand.</p><p>It is good to look for explanations, and this is not a call to defeatism or ceasing investigation. We won't find out unless we try. It is certainly possible we will be able to comprehend an underlying law or process in a certain scenario or remit. There may be no understanding at present, and understanding may develop with time. As an example, and whatever you think of Darwinism, there was clearly a mechanism for conveying the attributes of organisms onto their progeny. Although within his lifetime no-one had any real idea how the inheritance of traits occurred, it was evident that it did occur. You only had to observe your own family over a couple of generations to establish that. Of course the science of genetics and DNA followed on. Darwinism, if correct*, had a deeper potential theoretical underpinning.</p><p>It is perfectly reasonable to infer that a mechanism exists to explain the behaviour you observe. It's also reasonable to start by asking if it is one humanity is able to grasp, understand and use predictively.</p><p>It's at this point scientists and others usually jump the gun. They make an associated leap and infer that there always will be a mechanism of this type. One we can understand. A naturalistic one.</p><p>We need to be truthful and objective here. We need to note that</p><p>1) There is no solid reason to assume all mechanisms, all causes, are going to be 'naturalistic'. In other words, arising from within the creation we see.</p><p>2) Our idea of 'naturalistic' includes the assumption that our species can understand it.</p><p>3) We probably don't have a rigorous definition of 'naturalistic' anyway. What exactly fits into that category of explanation? </p><p>Anyhow, at some point, of necessity, we'll wind up tracing things back to something that 'just is'. Look at the overall flow of science. We've attempted to trace man back to an ancestral species, then to a primordial cell, then to chemical elements, then to particle physics, then to a basic field theory or other 'theory of everything'. This we don't have, but we are travelling hopefully and may get there. If we do, we can then ask, 'why is there a universe, one we experience consciously, built around that theory?' It's one thing to have an elegant set of formulas constraining the behaviour of everything, another to explain why there's an 'everything' corresponding to the mathematical laws. And why is the mathematics behind the laws even 'true'? Does mathematics need a universe to be valid? For example, is Euclidean geometry* just 'true', or is it only true in a universe like ours, with our consciousness? </p><p> I'd suggest there is no precedent whatever for the creation, or substantiation, of an experienced reality associated with any physical-mathematical law or laws. We can't consider this conflation of maths and physical substantiation as an inevitability</p><p>A creation like ours necessarily derives from a supernatural event, even if the laws associated with the event are themselves 'natural'.</p><p>My conclusion on naturalism? There seems an inevitable point coming where we will have to ditch it, in this one place at least. </p><p>We'll come to a line in reductionism where it's unrealistic, unreasonable even, to expect a naturalistic explanation. In fact, there are probably other such places, such as the beginning of life.</p><p><b>Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.</b></p><p><b>(Hebrews 11:3)</b></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;">*Euclidean geometry is<b>, </b>physically speaking, an approximation, of course.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;">*I don't think it is correct, in the big picture. I use it as an example to highlight the flow of scientific investigation and discovery. There is much sound science in genetics.</span></p>Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3971408578915039894.post-49524199534774813792021-05-04T02:45:00.023-07:002021-05-24T14:09:59.260-07:00Eric Hedin's Course on the Remit of Science 'Cancelled', and the Basic Logical Hole in Naturalism<p>Eric Hedin is a PhD physicist originating from the University of Washington. He's done post-doctoral research on plasma physics at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. </p><p>Eric has just published a book through the Discovery Institute in Seattle. He began a course at Ball State University, with the approval of the University authorities. 'Boundaries of Science' was an exploration of where science might fade off in efficacy. This is a theme that also interests me of course. Science has become 'god' for many. Adherents to a 'hard scientific worldview' consider it to have limitless capacity and potential for uncovering truth and dismissing superstition and blind faith. They look at technical progress, and understandably perhaps, make a leap of reasoning. They assume science can answer all questions and, with technology, solve all problems. Provided of course we stay the course and don't lose faith in science itself. And there, of course, lies the rub. Is it appropriate and reasonable to have this sort of pervading faith in the scientific method?</p><p>Hedin sought to examine issues here, rather than indoctrinate people into his own Christian faith. However, he was accused by Jerry Coyne, a well-known atheist and evolutionary biologist, of proffering a 'religiously infused science course'. This was an interesting accusation, and it is certainly very possible Mr Hedin was partially motivated by a desire to steer minds into further thought; examining the case for the Biblical Creator.</p><p>Actually atheists and agnostics have written on the limitations and possible blind spots of the scientific method as well. I have previously mentioned two popular-level books addressing such concerns. The first is 'a Different Universe' by Robert Laughlin, the second 'What We Cannot Know' by Marcus du Sautoy. </p><p>Why is Coyne so edgy and keen to shut this sort of thing down? Does he have logical and reasonable grounds? </p><p>More profoundly, is the near absolute reverence for the scientific method, held by many scientific thinkers, well-founded? Is it as logical and rational as they say? I've addressed this before, but Hedin states the paradox embedded in scientific naturalism very succinctly. I don't know if the way the argument is presented is original to Hedin. But I'll re-state the essence of it here. Naturalism, incidentally, is a science-related term for the quest to explain everything by purely natural means, i.e. to exclude the supernatural or mystical. </p><p>Hedin basically says, very simply: </p><p>1) Science seeks explanations of observed phenomena that rely solely on natural causes.</p><p>2) A scientific model makes testable predictions about natural phenomena allowing us to revise or abandon the model if the predictions do not agree with observations. </p><p>Makes a lot of sense on the surface. But definitely not complete sense. The Big Question. Is definition 1) subject to the scrutiny of definition 2)? In other words, is <i>science</i> subjected to its own constraints? If we define and treat science <i>itself</i> as a scientific model, do we then subject it to the scientific tests and possible adjustments set out in 2)? The answer, in the general thinking of most scientists, is 'No'. We don't use the method of science to prove or disprove the scope of science itself. If we tried to, the case for the all-sufficiency and supremacy of the tool of science would disassemble. <b>It's an unwarranted</b> <b>precondition</b> (or at best, a tentative working assumption) <b>to say that any model of reality must be based only on what we presently consider to be natural causes.</b> To assume point 1) is actually a constraint on our truth-searching, if our aim is to pursue reality by any and every possible means. This assumption that point 1) can be adopted, without limiting our thoughts, postulates and activities, is widely made but usually not explicitly stated. It's a precept which must be adopted before we can get started with science. But it's actually an arbitrary precept. It came out of 'thin air'. Science is a way of looking at reality, but in truth it is only an arbitrarily constrained way.</p><p>Scientists usually start with this assumption and work with it in the background. A little thought shows that what we defined with point 1) is actually only a restrictive patch of reasoning, not the sum total of all possible logical reasoning.</p><p>We can see that the scientific method is not saying, 'let's look at everything we might glean about reality using logical thought'.</p><p>Instead, it's saying, 'let's assume everything about reality can be explained using what we already know about reality'.</p><p>This really (sorry) is not nearly as logical as hard science reductionists like to think, or to tell us.</p><p>Robert Laughlin, the Nobel Laureate author I mentioned, was aware of this paradox. He mentioned unease about how we use concepts derived from everyday observation, such as waves and particles, to attempt to penetrate to the very core of absolute reality. Stated another way, he noted that, yet-to-be-discovered, underlying physics manifests to us, in the form of particles and waves. The reality itself is very unlikely to be correctly, adequately modelled using those particle- and wave- paradigms. Yet our whole mathematical set of constructs revolves around spatial constructs like waves, and integer counts of objects such as particles.</p><p>In scientific and indeed mathematical thinking, you can never reduce back to nothing. In fact you cannot even reduce back to just one commodity or variable. This is because all causes and all equations are relationships between <i>multiple</i> parameters.</p><p>If there's a transcendent Creator, as Hedin and myself believe, then what we can understand of His Creation will be discernible and comprehensible only because He made it possible for us. Not because we are really smart and on top of the search for underlying causes.</p>Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3971408578915039894.post-76971655464760973782020-12-20T00:58:00.012-08:002020-12-20T01:34:54.975-08:00Anthropocentric Reasoning<p>We usually reason from our own sense of self-importance. That statement might get you hopping. That is often true socially and relationally. We tend to see the world as it affects us, more than as it affects other people. We have a filter. That filter governs our outlook over what immediately affects our lives. Do we see a workplace challenge, for example, objectively, or predominantly in terms of what is likely to happen to us?</p><p>There's also a corporate potential for blinkered thinking with mankind in general. Man has a certain filtered outlook. This is what I'm calling 'anthropocentric reasoning'. Our reasoning is an attempt to model reality so we can act positively toward our environment. (Often with 'me' at the centre when we define 'positively', see first paragraph!) Science is an attempt to model reality, to anticipate outcomes, to affect them where possible. </p><p>What is 'reality?' We really don't know, even for the 'world' we do see and perceive, measure and investigate. As Stephen Hawking said: 'there is no model-independent view of reality to be had'. What he is saying is that there is no relationship with whatever reality really is for mankind unless you somehow picture it, imagine it, find a way to mentally conceive of it. With physics, the best conceptions are mathematical ones. This is the story of science, to find that model for whatever you are considering. In the case of physicists, they are trying to model everything, and they're looking for a theory of everything. They don't have it. They have two chunks of pretty good understanding which unfortunately don't meet in the middle. They're called the Standard Model and General Relativity. In certain scenarios the agreement between the two we would expect is not there. We are missing something major in our conceptualisation of the ultimate physical reality of this particular created order, or realm. </p><p>Beyond the fact that our attempts to model the universal fabric of our existence have stalled, there's something else to say, hard to deny. We ourselves, as humanity, are filters on how we are able to perceive reality. We are only so smart, and only so capable, in terms of perception. We are bounded by five senses, plus instrumentation geared to feeds only those senses. We could very well be constrained within a lesser existence, lesser when compared to All Things. I believe we are. We are not normally able to perceive the full nature of all realities. God is. He decided we wouldn't be able to, for His reasons. </p><p>The proud soul will not admit this, but it is obviously true. A greater being can constrain the existence of a lesser. The greater spirit can constrain the perception, the perspective of existence of the lesser.</p><p>Listening to really smart guys, by human standards, like Roger Penrose and Sean Carroll, it seems glaringly obvious to me that they are not even close to having a handle even on this present reality. They use terms defined within our current existence, such as 'beginning', to attempt to extrapolate how the universe got here. They talk about the possibility that time is not fundamental, but a subjective outcome from other things. Are the 'other things' final reality? We don't know. How would we know? That deferral will never end. Perhaps that' a good thing for physics funding and careers! In the end, we live in a framed existence, bounded by God. And our ability to comprehend it physically is also bounded. By God. </p><p>The writer to the Hebrews understood this. He understood by Divine revelation, not human reasoning.</p><p><b><i>But Christ came as a High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and <u>more perfect</u> <u>tabernacle</u> (not made with hands, that is, <u>not of this creation</u>)</i></b></p><p><b>(Hebrews 9:11)</b></p><p>Concerning realities yet to be revealed Paul says:</p><p><b><i>But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—</i></b></p><p><b>(1 Corinthians 2:9)</b></p><div><br /></div><p><br /></p>Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3971408578915039894.post-31067546027039788562018-12-13T02:38:00.001-08:002018-12-13T02:38:13.626-08:00Emergence. A Paradox at the Heart of Reductionism.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Some people are trying to tell us that everything evolves (in a very general sense of that word) out of the interactions, and self-organising tendencies, of very simple particles, and/or mathematical equations.<br />
<br />
Stuff around, like us, is simply confusingly complex manifestations of really simple stuff. Simple in principle, simple in variety, that is. The mathematics is hard for most of us, and intractable for specialists.<br />
<br />
That's the story. The simple stuff is the outcome of a process called 'reductionism'. The complex stuff, like bacteria, hippopotamuses, religion, arguments about where to eat and iTunes catalogues of 60's music, is down to 'emergence'. There are layers of emergent behaviour, we are told. Things like evolutionary biology and sociology.<br />
<br />
All this begs a question or two.<br />
<br />
If our processes of analysis are 'emergent' and ultimately down to the emergent mechanism of evolution by natural selection, then how can we even be sure our thinking is 'objective'? Can we know we are seeking the truth, or are we just trying to survive by saying the right things?<br />
<br />
I've aired that one before here and there. More fundamentally though there's a point about the whole idea of emergent behaviour. I'm going to highlight this paradox in a certain way after Robert B. Laughlin, a Nobel Laureate Physicist. In 'A Different Universe' (it's a book, not a cosmos), Laughlin points out that we use emergent phenomena, and in particular waves, energy and particles, to try to describe and model underlying final reality. Laughlin himself is rather uncomfortable about this.<br />
<br />
In my own words,<b> we are using emergent phenomena as the basis for our attempts at reductionist models.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
This is paradoxical. A little thought should show us this is very likely not going to get us to 'final truth' about Physics or anything else.<br />
<br />
So much for the rationality espoused by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and company.<br />
<br />
Now an honest person will tell you there are many places where our present rational understanding fades off into inherently unknowable mystery. Direct personal experience of absolutely nothing, of the infinitesimal, and of the infinite would be one. My focus here, our attempts to model fundamentals using outcomes of fundamentals, is another. Richard Dawkins' successor at the Oxford Simonyi Chair, Marcus du Sautoy, is on to this idea of what lies beyond rational analysis. It has led Marcus to doubt at least the finality of his atheism.<br />
<br />
Now Richard Dawkins, for himself and his followers, is pretty good at working God out, and deciding why He can't be there. But, dear Richard, you are limited to using the creative activities of God in an attempt to deduce the absolute nature of God. A similar paradox to that above. Logically and rationally you are limited to at best partial success here, surely.<br />
<br />
The best man can hope for is for the Infinite One who created us from Nothing we know about to reveal Himself as He chooses through avenues we can, at some level and to some degree, comprehend.<br />
<br />
I believe that is actually precisely what He has done. Read the first chapter of John's Gospel. Then the rest.<br />
<br />
Like Maxwell, look at the created world also.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3971408578915039894.post-78458836268012455082016-10-20T03:01:00.001-07:002018-12-13T01:52:14.894-08:00The Essence of Christianity in Regard to Creation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have been writing another blog concentrating on the Bible.<i style="font-weight: bold;"> </i>It is <a href="http://flowoffreedom.blogspot.co.za/">http://flowoffreedom.blogspot.co.za</a><br />
<br />
I accidentally posted on this blog an article about James, the brother of Jesus, from that blog. This one is primarily about science. I have removed it. However, I want to state Christian belief regarding the Big Picture of why we are here. Whether (Catholic Priest) Lemaitre's Big Bang is essentially correct or not, the mind and power behind creation are Christ's. Whatever ideas and convictions on behaviour man has, the heart behind mankind and creation is that of Jesus Christ. It all stands somewhat at odds with the naturalist/reductionist/evolutionist framework of mainstream science, but maybe less than is currently claimed by some popular atheist thinkers and writers. Mainstream Christianity has Christ as both God and man, and as both creator and redeemer. 'Project Humanity' is therefore seen as the highest realisation of the purposes of Almighty God. In the Genesis 1 account God describes the creation as 'very good' only after man is made. It was merely 'good' before that.<br />
<br />
Morally, Christ was perfect. In the sense of priesthood, he was, as God, offered for our sins by God. In His pre-incarnate state, He was the prime agent of all creation, seen and unseen.<br />
<br />
One of the most succinct statements about Jesus Christ is found near the beginning of Paul's letter to the Colossian Christians from the New Testament section of the Bible.<br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<b><i>He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. </i></b><br />
<b><i>(Colossians 1:13-20 ESV)</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
Note the phrase<b style="font-style: italic;"> 'I</b><i style="font-weight: bold;">n him all things hold together'. </i>This is Physics' sought after Grand Unified Theory according to the Bible. We are not given equations!<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Elsewhere Paul summarises the death and resurrection of the Christ (in Greek), or Messiah (in Hebrew).<br />
<b style="font-style: italic;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-style: italic;">Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, .....</b><b><i>he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, .....Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. </i></b><b><i>Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me (Paul). (taken from 1 Corinthians 15v4-8)</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>In theology there is a concept known as the 'hypostatic union'. 'Hypostasis' is a Greek word and it carries the meaning of an actual, concrete, physical existence. The hypostatic union is the living, concrete, foundational reality of God and man combined in the actual physical person of Jesus Christ. We cannot be saved unless we realise that the Christ who died for us has such a nature.<br />
<br />
<b><i>By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. </i></b><br />
<b><i>(1 John 4:2)</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<b><i>Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. </i></b><br />
<b><i>(1 John 4:15)</i></b><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Jesus Christ therefore was most certainly known in the usual ways of brotherhood and parenthood to his family, first as a boy and then as a man. His brother James only later came to see him as also being God incarnate.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But because Jesus was in one sense so utterly normal as a human being, James did not see the realities of his deity. But we do know that his humanity was quite normal and unexceptional. Jesus had all the characteristics and bodily functions of a regular mortal human being.<br />
<br />
<b>Scientific Objections</b><br />
<br />
Obviously, recent conclusions accepted as 'mainstream', drawn by those attempting to use the scientific method to examine the deep past, stand at odds with the Biblical creation story. This is an extremely brief overview of this potential conflict of worldview.<br />
<br />
A major common objection regarding origins is the view held of elapsed time. Mainstream cosmology implies billions of years have passed since 'the beginning'. The Bible has a few thousand years. But Genesis 1 uses the Hebrew word 'yom' for day. 'Yom' can, as with English, refer to a period of time other than 24 hours. Example 'The day of the steam locomotive is over'. Anyway, our day is based on solar system dynamics, and the solar system was not in place until day 4. And the Bible itself uses 'yom' in the 'day-epoch' sense as early as Genesis 2v4.<br />
<br />
Another is the fossil record as interpreted by Darwinism. Here, previous cataclysmic judgements by God are a possibility, as evidenced by the fact that Genesis 1v2 may be rendered accurately in Hebrew as 'the earth <i>became </i>void and without form'. It is increasingly seen that the fossil record does not reflect a progressive, gradual evolution. It is true that radiometric dating seems to present an obstacle to a young <i>total</i> creation.<br />
<br />
Within the Christian camp, many attempts have been made to patch up long range science and the Biblical revelation. Francis S. Collins and his followers at Biologos.org seems to have a lot of support. They accept most of the essentials of mainstream science. The Intelligent Design community seek to use rational and probabilistic analysis to falsify the 'unguided, stochastic' view of how biological life arose. Young Earth Creationists seek to cohere all observed data with a totally literal understanding of the early chapters of the Book of Genesis from the Bible.<br />
<br />
I do not know the detailed answers, but I believe in Christ as Creator and Redeemer; the only Way to the only true God.</div>
<br />
I am not against science, I like it. I am against the misguided, and often ultimately illogical, attempts to remove God (in Christ) from our picture of creation.</div>
Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3971408578915039894.post-28891389898550304692016-04-21T04:24:00.001-07:002018-10-23T03:08:59.390-07:00Are we too locked in to certain lines of enquiry? Fashion hits Science?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Science and reason protagonists rightly see the scientific method as a good tool to deal with prejudice and to minimize subjectivity when looking for underlying mechanisms in the world around us.<br />
<br />
But can we claim an absolute ability to extricate ourselves from our own biases? We need to, if we are to personally rely completely on rationality.<br />
<br />
Here I will explore these thought a little, and suggest we look at one reason why we cannot remove our biases completely. Essentially the reason is fashion. Or what Germans call 'zeitgeist'. Fashion can make us focus and exclude other possibilities.<br />
<b><br /></b>
I like Roger Penrose's wonderful 'The Road to Reality'. He dances seemingly effortlessly around the broad and varied terrain of higher mathematics. The adventure of higher maths is set out as an open invitation for the reader. Interestingly for me, Penrose also muses thoughtfully on the interactions of mathematics with physics and with the human experience of consciousness.<br />
<br />
Well into the book, Penrose notes that, in his opinion, some areas of currently orthodox astrophysics are rooted in questionable assumptions. He addresses, for example, inflationary theory (p753). This is the now widely held assumption that the early universe underwent a period of rapid inflation. He looks at this theory with some gentle questioning skepticism.<br />
<br />
Later in the same book, Penrose discusses likely further progress in astrophysics and cosmology. He makes the point that certain theories become fashionable and channel research effort, whether theoretical or experimental.<br />
<br />
It is obvious that ideas in astrophysics are complex and multi-faceted. They are often based on multiple assumptions. Truly representative experimental validations are normally not feasible. It is not unreasonable to question existing conclusions when these were made under demanding constraints. Even if the conclusions have become widespread orthodoxy.<br />
<br />
Further than this, Penrose notes that once an idea has taken hold, it tends to self-re-enforce. An idea or 'meme' is defined and established. A blinkeredness can then very easily take over. An exclusive orthodoxy develops. Other approaches and theories are denigrated. Penrose looks at how this tendency outworked in recent history with string theory. A survey was made of then-contemporary papers concerning the perplexing area of quantum gravity. At the time the survey was taken, for this subject, there was a very strong bias toward research papers based on string theory, compared to papers based on other approaches. It is then easy to see how the popularity of the theory strengthens, at the expense of research into others. Is this warranted and what are the results for effective investigation of the original subject, here quantum gravity? Human factors are probably at play here! (this means that,for the reductionist, the conscious attributes cosmology and evolution supposedly gave us in actual fact start to subvert our ability to enquire accurately!).<br />
<br />
How much of the fashionability of, say, string theory, is warranted? Does its present popularity represent the accuracy of the theory? That is an open question in general. Theories <i>can</i> become popular because they are already fairly popular. There may be a culture and an inertia in academic circles, and a fear of being found dissenting, but wrong. There may be a further fear of triggering the real fear of unorthodoxy in others, especially if the others have power over you, maybe regarding funding decisions or powers of appointment to academic positions. It is true that this tendency to fit in might correct itself after a period of time, as the chosen theory succeeds or fails. However as the issue being researched gets more complex, the required correction might get less realisable. There may also be the fear that the entire big picture of, in this example, astrophysics/cosmology as it stands might come tumbling down. Can we allow that to happen? If not, why not? What if we think it is best to hide our doubts, maybe even from ourselves? Similar concerns might apply to the geology/anthropology/evolutionary biology picture. Or indeed religious/political/philosophical beliefs. In all cases, at least some of the details may be highly questionable. When there are so many variables to fit together, do we really have the big picture correct? Our worldviews need to be subject to this sort of scrutiny if we are claiming to be champions of reason..<br />
<br />
Such problems mean the scientific method is most reliably applied to arenas where all facts can be carefully defined and/or controlled, and multiple experiments performed. This is the arena routine engineering uses. It is about proof of the pudding. Would you really want to be the test pilot of an aircraft built using principles with a similar level of abstraction and lack of rigour to those associated with cosmology or evolutionary biology? Or do you just want to believe it all for reasons you are hiding from yourself?</div>
Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3971408578915039894.post-27629846301711189382015-11-12T01:58:00.001-08:002015-11-13T07:15:32.422-08:00Modelling Outside our Frame of Reference and Creation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This is less about science and more about the philosophy of explanations.<br />
<br />
Quantum Theory and to a lesser extent General Relativity involve throwing away everyday assumptions and intuition based on everyday experience.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Quantum Theory works beautifully mathematically but is seemingly impossible to conceptualize.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
General Relativity is easy enough to conceptualize but involves counter-intuitive departures from everyday expectation.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Regarding Quantum theory, Niels Bohr, a pioneer in the field, stated (I quote from Jim Baggott's 'The Quantum Story'- excellent if narrative more than attempting mathematical rigour):</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
These (quantum mechanical electron orbital) models have been deduced, or if you prefer, guessed, from experiments, not from theoretical calculations. I hope that they describe the structure of atoms as well, but only as well, as is possible in the descriptive language of classical physics. We must be clear that, when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.'</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There remains a great deal of truth in this statement. Quantum Theory plays by certain mathematical rules, and does so with beautiful precision. For the discoverers of the rules, there must have been quite a bit of exhilaration involved along the way. This is clear in the writings of say Heisenberg. However, attempts to understand the behaviour of the Quantum scale world have failed to pull it into an everyday intuitively-correct framework of logic. That is to say, our mental picture of what is really happening in the Quantum world fails to crystallize out, to the exasperation of many. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The dynamics of reality are clearly bigger than our conceptual abilities.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Why do atheists try to patronize God then? Surely it is the most ridiculously patronizing and doomed exercise imaginable. Even if a person says they don't believe in him, hypothesize him. It is still daft to try to work him out.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
When it comes to origins (carefully avoiding the emotive and suggestive word 'creation'), somehow the descriptions of how the Big Bang happened seem to me to be exercises in delusion. Maybe that is because I don't understand a lot of the maths and concepts well enough. Or maybe I am registering the analytic mind stretching itself further than it can sanely and reliably go. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I believe in creation. By God. In six time periods or ages. I don't know how he did it in the rigorous, analytical sense.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Read Genesis 1 and 2. He uses poetry to describe how he did it; for the same reasons Bohr alludes to in the quote above. A connective picture illustrating certain points deemed by the author to be important using a framework familiar to the recipients. An exercise in necessary condescension from a Greater Mind to a lesser.</div>
</div>
Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3971408578915039894.post-30093930858463038702015-02-10T12:26:00.000-08:002015-02-10T12:26:06.398-08:00Beginnings, the flow of time, and cosmology<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I am not a great mathematician. I am not a great physicist. I have learned a bit of both. However, I have a bit of fun reading cosmological theories.<br />
<br />
Some people are wonderful at abstract conceptualization. I admire the founding figures of 20th century physics, the Schrodingers, Diracs and Einsteins. I do not have too much trouble at least starting to get my head round Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity, and I understand the magnificence of their correlations with directly observed simple phenomena such as atomic spectra and time dilation.<br />
<br />
However, Big Bang cosmology seems to require philosophical abstractions of such a degree that we have completely lost touch with everyday reality.<br />
<br />
We conceptualize out from a zone of familiarity. Our zone of familiarity from birth entails 3 spatial dimensions and a consciousness that registers time as a dimensional one way arrow experienced as an infinitesimal 'position', our ever present instant. We draw back our every abstraction and equate it to this familiar framework.<br />
<br />
Space Time expanded from a singularity, we are told. Where exactly was the singularity? What did space expand into? Expand is a term which assumes the existence of space. Time 'started'. Start is something that happens at a point in time. How can time start? What was there before time? What does before mean if there is no time? <br />
<br />
If my statements are meaningless, then so are these terms when used by cosmologists.<br />
<br />
Bottom Line: The created cannot conceptualize the Eternal and Infinite.</div>
Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3971408578915039894.post-89417226564319701952015-01-04T11:54:00.000-08:002017-10-02T01:57:09.090-07:00Variables and Consciousness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
'Variables' means something to most people. They are a concept, of course. I am going to use the terms 'variable, 'parameter' and 'concept' loosely and somewhat interchangeably here, because I cannot think of better words to explain myself. Variables are things we attach a, variable, value to. The value could be numerical, or it could be a description of how strongly an abstract variable like 'determination' is displayed by a person. We would say that a person displays 'limited' determination or 'strong' determination in achieving goals, for example. There are variables in maths, physics, chemistry. There are variables in economics. There are also less tangible, more subjective variables, belonging to spheres such as sociology, art, psychology, or morality. Examples? Virtue, evil, success, beauty.<br />
<br />
Hitler's idea of evil was different from most non-Nazis. A Greenpeace member's idea of a virtuous or successful life might differ from that of an investment banker. 'Evil' and 'success' are subjective concepts and variables, in men's minds at least. But that is an aside. My point is that there are variables which have meaning for the human mind and are abstract rather than concise and concrete, like those of say physics.<br />
<br />
Life is rich with variables,or parameters. Those variables associated with the physical, material framework of our existence, belong to the 'hard' sciences and mathematics. We are inclined to see these as having a reality even if there was no human or similar life. Things like spatial position, relative time, angular momentum, charge, quantum spin state, electrical resistance. All these would have existence, most would say, even if we were not present to observe and evaluate them.<br />
<br />
However, as I said, there are also those variables associated with consciousness. Things like plausibility, accountability, attractiveness, approval. These are all variables by which humans measure other people or situations. It can be argued very strongly that these concepts are products of consciousness and have no meaning apart from the presence of conscious entities like man. They are relational variables (in the psychological sense of the phrase). We 'measure' them, or put a value on them, in order to evaluate people and circumstances. But they require consciousness, and a relational and emotional life, in order to have any meaning whatsoever. Yet we use these concepts, and attach values to them, quite routinely. 'Mary has a very plausible reason for not being able to attend next week' etc. The abstract concept here is of course 'plausibility'.<br />
<br />
Some variables associated with consciousness relate to how positive life around us seems. Beauty, interest, pleasure are all things we seek. They have no concrete means of measurement, no consensus agreement on their values. Yet they are very important to us. 'I find Alan interesting'. 'Paris is the most beautiful city I have ever been to' etc etc.<br />
<br />
Where do these variables come from? Did they evolve within us as simple chemical responses of the mind? This would be the position of most evolutionists and scientific reductionists.<br />
<br />
If so, those variables have no meaning if you take conscious entities like us out of the picture. If there were no people or higher animals to experience these concepts, these concepts would vanish. They were not there until we were there.<br />
<br />
If that is the case, you cannot invoke them to explain how we got here! Here I am looking at the line of evolutionary processes which supposedly produced conscious beings. I know evolution can take place in 'molecular machines', organisms with no consciousness (as far as we know); I'm not talking about that here. I'm talking about conscious struggles for survival. Think about this. It makes no sense for us to need 'fear of death' or 'will to survive' as being already there to explain how we gained 'life and consciousness'.<br />
<br />
The need for survival springs from 'the will to live'. The will itself, and the sense of self or individuality, are abstract concepts or variables associated with conscious life. We have just called on an aspect of consciousness to describe how consciousness evolved.<br />
<br />
This is clearly nonsense, yet evolution by natural selection hinges on it, when attempting to explain advanced life, using these types of argument all the time. We retrospectively attribute conscious attributes to inanimate matter or extremely primitive organisations of matter to describe how it attained consciousness. The question, of course, is 'Which came first?':<br />
<br />
Attribute of Consciousness OR Consciousness.<br />
<br />
If you think the attributes of consciousness were already there in the background, before us, then Who possessed them and defined them 'in the beginning'??!!<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3971408578915039894.post-63456734305611270512014-03-08T00:29:00.000-08:002017-10-02T02:08:10.095-07:00Theory of Everything? Physics itself seems to have hit a limit<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I love science. but I do not worship science. I have a BSc in Applied Physics with Electronics dating from the early 80's. I was taught physics in a pragmatic way; things that were solidly understood in context with a view to making engineers and scientists who could fabricate the next generation of electronic devices. I pursued a career in this arena for many years. I have been involved in the design of electronic circuits in areas such as telecommunications, aerospace and industrial test. I have some grasp on science, especially where it relates to engineering.<br />
<br />
We humans like to control our environment and that means understanding it and modelling it. Beyond trying to understand other people, which can be problematic, it seems easier to predict the behaviour of the matter around us. (Yes, I know other people are also made of matter; that is another discussion!) Matter seems to be fairly predictable and we formalise this predictability into maths-based behavioural laws. This activity has progressed astonishingly well in recent centuries. The behaviour of liquids, solids and gases, electromagnetism, mechanics and electric circuit elements, for example, has proceeded superbly. These areas continue to be refined and expanded. We can use aerodynamics and other disciplines to design multi-million dollar aircraft and they fly and behave much as expected.<br />
<br />
However well-established physics still tends to look at reality in contextual nibbles. We identify a scenario and then choose a law. We want to understand how a radio wave travels from the Mars Rover. We choose Maxwell's equations. Maxwell's equations are nearly a couple of hundred years old, but they work just fine. Or we want to calculate the temperature rise of a solar boiler. We use thermodynamics. We may need other physics disciplines as well to refine our result, (such as GR for the Mars Rover) but the point is, we choose the best law for the context.<br />
<br />
If we stretch our law too far, errors accumulate and we make mistakes. Our calculations no longer work well. We find the mistake by experimental data which doesn't agree with the law. Experimental verification with real world data is an essential part of science. Even Einstein's famous thought experiments needed verification. Einstein himself acknowledged this. However as the scientific enterprise attempts to progress further, it seems to be drifting more and more into unverifiable abstractions. Both Physics and Evolutionary Biology seem to be doing this. A thought experiment will do, never mind solid data and mathematical predictors. It is interesting that as scenarios get more and more complex, involving deep time and/or space, science as a whole is loosing it's firm handle on reality. Many would agree with me. Many are reluctant to say and do not want to be controversial or defeatist. Another human tendency; we like to uphold the credibility of our current enterprise. The Catholic Church used to be very guilty of this, but the issue is less the Catholic Church, more human nature at large. Again, another discussion there. But if we are not careful, science will fall to the very sort of deceptions it sought to remedy. Copernicus sought to remedy blind orthodoxy with evidence and mathematical models. These days a lot of big picture 'science' also makes do with little of either. Engineering as a discipline tends to address these problems fairly fast and close the program; real world results are needed soonish. But contemporary big picture science...?<br />
<br />
Despite spectacular progress in recent centuries, and detailed progress in many areas in recent decades, I believe big picture science is stalling and increasingly bankrupt. Of course I could be proven wrong tomorrow, or next year, but I doubt it very much. <br />
<br />
What do I mean?<br />
<br />
Physics is stalled in a place where Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity cannot be reconciled into a general underlying theory. In some areas of cosmology there are QM and GR effects at play, so we have no model. Cosmology has many areas of huge uncertainty of understanding. As the scenarios increase in complexity, it also gets harder to obtain solidly relevant and accurate data. Both modelling and verification get more and more problematic until we just have to admit we do not really know and we don't have much lead. Suggestions to go beyond the reasonably-effective standard model of particle physics are stalled. More and more abstract concepts, with and without attendant maths, and always without empirical data, are springing up. Supersymmetry, string theory, m-branes, multiple-universes. It is amazing what you can convey with computer graphics and selective interviews and clever narrative, but hard facts in the traditional scientific sense tell another story.<br />
<br />
I think our human ability to conceptualise <em><strong>accurately</strong></em>, both in theoretical maths and metaphysics, is hitting a limit defined, more than anything, by us and our capabilities as organisms. Our own human constraints of being; of perception and intelligence. To the humanist this would represent the death of progress. I am not a humanist. <br />
<br />
In evolutionary biology things are even more deluded. Challenges like the non-progress of non-trivial genotype-phenotype prediction, or the ridiculous presumption that random or arbitrary genotype change will necessarily produce viable and/or useful change in the organism often enough to keep the evolutionary show on the road. I could go on and on- evolutionary biology is extreme presumption, not science. Just-so retrospection, not predictive theory. Again, there are pockets of proven validity, such as virus population change, but they are hardly case proof calibre for the entire discipline. Mathematical models of adequate rigour and sophistication just do not exist and very probably never will.<br />
<br />
Yes, in some areas such as the permeation of microelectronics into the day-to-day, progress in science has been spectacular. Other established areas of engineering have also been pretty successful. But in the big picture theories, science is stalled and largely bankrupt, built on presumption and dodgy orthodoxy.<br />
<br />
As a Christian, I am happy to acknowledge that in this age, we as humans just may not get too much further. The creator who framed our existence also constrained our intellects and perceptive capacity, for the time being at least. We will climb asymptotically to a ceiling of understanding which we will not penetrate. By all means continue trying, with a reasonable part of our resources, but be honestly realistic about the progress.<br />
<br /></div>
Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3971408578915039894.post-17268152168407874372012-09-02T00:34:00.000-07:002015-01-24T06:02:00.136-08:00More on Christian Scientific Worldview<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
One of the hobby horses of atheists and creationists is of course the veracity of the Theory of Evolution. I personally cannot reconcile a worldview informed morally by the God of the Bible with the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. Here I am not saying that evolution by natural selection never occurs. I am saying that I do not believe it pertains in the way it is normally applied as having developed the diversity of life. How we suppose there would have arrived a minimum viable organism for evolution to work with is of course another close to insurmountable hurdle. I know there are fellow Christian believers who see things otherwise with evolution, as I mentioned in a previous post.<br />
<br />
Science proceeds by evaluating evidence and postulating a governing mechanism for that evidence. As more data fits the mechanism, we may call our postulated mechanism a 'theory'. As the theory is applied repeatedly with successful prediction of results, we have a law. When does the theory become a law? Certainly when we can repeatedly get accurate day-to-day numerical predictions based on an equation-based numerical law such as Ohm's law. Evolution is far more complex and far harder to tie down to a numerical model, of course. So is cosmology; the big picture is beyond foreseeable numerical modelling, although some parts of the picture can be modelled. So science is about the plausibility of postulated mechanism. The postulated mechanism on its own is not necessarily good science of course. And here currently accepted 'science' varies widely. <br />
<br />
Now science gets even more subjective when it comes to the relational and psychological arena. A former colleague of mine pointed out that 'ologies' are the more subjective end of science. Yet these areas bear strongly on how religious people such as myself think. It is one thing to talk about the plausibility of a postulated mechanism, here meaning evolution, from the scientific and statistical standpoint. It is another to discuss the character and relational nature of God and the implications they have for that theory. Why do I believe that God did not use evolution by natural selection to develop species into higher forms? Here I am talking about the intent of God, morally speaking, and not about the plausibility of the science. The 'science' has big problems, for sure. But surely the creator redeemer Christ of Paul's Letter to the Colossians would not use natural selection to do a neat experiment in bio-engineering. I do not believe God would have used natural selection in the beginning because it involves cruelty in the form of predation and suffering. <br />
<br />
Of course, today, the selfish instinct for survival is readily seen in the animal kingdom, so how do we explain this? I will return to that question in a minute.<br />
<br />
What is my own explanation for the physical evidence? I am inclined to believe that God used individual acts of special creation, i.e. of intelligent design. Built into these designs is the capacity to diversify through the reproductive process. However the degree of diversification possible within a created species is constrained, again by design. That diversification is of course a basis for selection to work on. However I do not believe Christians can reconcile predation and selective survival with the God of love, <em>unless sin had already entered the world</em>. This is why I believe that, at least for the present episode of creation, the one described in Genesis 1v2 onwards, that species were made by acts of special creation. <br />
<br />
I will now return to the cruelty we see manifested today in the creation. The Bible teaches that the spiritual climate of planet Earth was violated in an event theologians and Bible scholars call the Fall. Here, Satan, a rebellious spiritual being, influenced man in the direction of strife. Man disobeyed God's specific prohibition. He succumbs to temptation. Man is no longer at peace and rest. Straining to better oneself enters into man's heart for the first time. The animal kingdom is under Adams's jurisdiction. What happens to man therefore affects the biosphere in general. I think God allowed psychological and physical changes into the animal kingdom at this time which reflected the cataclysm in the human governance of Earth. Predation entered at the Fall, when sin entered into the physical world through Adam.<br />
<br />
What about the age of the earth itself? I do not necessarily believe in the widely accepted inference that the earth is around 4.5 billion years old. Even the exactitude smacks of self-deception in the scientific community to me. However I accept that the world looks hundreds of millions or billions of years old by radiometric dating and other means. The accepted dating could be badly out, but not by enough to satisfy a young earth creationist. Some say God made the Earth look old to mislead our minds to prove our faith. I cannot accept that. I, and many others, got saved by a process which involved, amongst other things, looking logically at the evidence for the resurrection. Faith is not a call to throw logic away. It is a call to review and revise which facts your logic works on.<br />
<br />
My present conclusions on origins? Taking all these factors discussed into account, I find it hard to reconcile the apparent approximate age of the Earth derived from radiometric dating with a once only, and recent, creation. God could have populated the earth in a very short time by acts of special creation, of course. I believe he probably did, as described in Genesis. But the fossil record does speak of much more ancient extinct species including predators. It seems to me likely that there were previous episodes of creation on earth, episodes that may also reflect falls from the perfect will of God due to rebellion and disobedience in the created orders of the times. These species were then wiped out in judgement. These episodes would then of course be recorded, to a degree, in the fossil record. Genesis 1v2 says that 'the Earth was (or became) void and without form'. As an illustration of this,when we look at the moon through magnifying optics, we see a desolate, and possibly desolated, place. Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, called it 'magnificent desolation'. God could have caused the Earth to become 'without form and void' in a similar way.<br />
<br />
So my doubts about evolution start from a belief in the God of the Bible, and his moral and emotional nature. While he steers the evil for his own purposes, he is not the wilful cause of evil or entities who have become evil, such as Satan. However in addition I have plenty of scientific reasons why I don't believe the theory of evolution by natural selection, at least not in its frequently accepted, all embracing, scope of application. </div>
Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3971408578915039894.post-48571976075587365252012-08-30T04:48:00.001-07:002015-01-25T04:20:53.457-08:00Forming Cohesive Beliefs on Origins<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have looked at some of the current opinions of the scientific community regarding origins of life on earth and have stated reasons for my doubts. I am a Christian. How do I personally integrate a worldview given two very different sources of insight; science and the Bible?<br />
<br />
There are many who seek to drive a wedge between these two sources of opinion. They are generally scientists who are also militant atheists. Often starting in their reasoning with the arguments between Galileo and the Roman Catholic Church concerning the position of the Earth in the solar system and indeed the cosmos, they see science as the stuff of logic and proof, and religion as the stuff of naive credulity.<br />
<br />
This is not reality. In reality, science is a continuum of beliefs about the nature of reality from the readily demonstrable through to the tentatively held hypothesis. In other words, not all science is well agreed upon or widely considered reliable. So there may be realistic 'give' in the scientific outlook, areas where we have to admit that we do not know all the answers.<br />
<br />
Scientific or naturalistic reductionism is the discipline which attempts to explain everything merely by logical processes which can be observed, characterized and understood. Such an approach ends up saying that everything is an accident that came from nothing. Our very conscious experience is an illusion.<br />
<br />
I am not saying that the scientific method is wrong or bad, I am just saying that it must have limitations somewhere as we attempt to describe the big picture of reality. I have set some of these limitations out in previous posts.<br />
<br />
If the Bible is indeed the Word of God, the creator, we need to look at how we might reconcile a Biblical view of origins with a scientific one. Since this is widely seen to have failed, I am looking for legitimate flexibility in both camps in order to reach a harmony. <br />
<br />
How much flexibility is there in the scientific opinions about origins? Just how reliable are the theories about origins? Here we are talking about Big Bang Cosmology, by which the heavens and earth, the latter seemingly pretty insignificant, were formed, and the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, which seeks to explain the development of sophisticated life on Earth. How well-defined and how reliable are these theories?<br />
<br />
On the other hand, what if the Bible is our starting point? (Why do that you ask? Many reasons, two I will give here. Because there is solid logical evidence for the resurrection of Christ, and because the Old Testament lines up well with other disciplines.) How much flexibility might we reasonably allow in our interpretation of Scripture in order to reconcile it with at least some of the conclusions of the scientific communities? For example, can we allow for the possibility that the initial creation account in Genesis Chapter 1 is allegorical and poetic, rather than a literal time line? Can we allow for the possibility that the six days of creation were 'day-ages'? (I use the phrase 'day-age' to mean a period of time described loosely as a day, but actually referring to an epoch. An example would be; 'the day of cheap fossil fuel is over').<br />
<br />
Can we allow for the possibility that there were previous tranches of creation on Earth prior to the present one? This is commonly called 'the Gap Theory', because it implies that a great deal happened, in terms of creation and destruction, between Genesis Chapter 1v1 and v2. God created the heavens and the earth. Then a lot happened regarding which Genesis 1 is silent, and then the earth became void and without form.<br />
<br />
If we take this 'gap' theory on board, we can interpret the fossil record differently to a young earth creationist who argues for a literal reading of Genesis 1 and therefore an earth which is around 6000 years old. There is more flexibility when it comes to setting the dates of rocks and fossils.<br />
<br />
When we read the Genesis account of creation, we are reading an account written in a non-scientific age. We should not be expecting a discourse including for example radiation energy and dark matter. We are looking for a representative description of how things came to be, for a framework from which to proceed. We should not be surprised if the author (ultimately God) uses techniques which simplify things, or even employ cultural assumptions from those times when the story was first told and written. The simplification is for the benefit of the reader, not because the author is ignorant or hiding. </div>
Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3971408578915039894.post-24988476959133207392012-08-23T08:30:00.000-07:002015-01-25T04:25:39.819-08:00Against Intellectual Fascism in Science: Alister McGrath<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This is a book review of sorts. God loves Richard Dawkins, and so should I, but I don't like his books much. Reading parts of 'The God Delusion' reminds me in an odd sort of way of reading parts of 'Mein Kampf' by Adolf Hitler. Hitler was fairly thoroughly convincing for many for a while. Same with Dawkins. They share certain characteristics. (Certainly not all, but bear with me!) There is the same sort of disdain for the dissenter and the same sort of simplistic and blinkered reasoning. Too much isolated reasoning. Too little caution regarding one's own possible underlying flaws, motives and presumptions. Unquestioning followers of both are likely to become fascists of some sort. On politics, I prefer to read Churchill because there is, as almost anyone would agree today, a better feel about it (though still hardly ideal). There is a more rounded, more corporate, more questioning approach to opinions and decision making. On complex matters, dogma is mostly replaced by realistically tenuous, reasonable opinions. Back to Dawkins. Is he a brave straight talker or a simplistic, insular, belligerent propagandist? I go for the latter. But I still love him because God does. <br />
<br />
Now I am not against firm opinions. I believe John 3:16, 10:10 and 14:6 absolutely and dogmatically. I am just dogmatic about different things. I believe I have good reason for that. <br />
<br />
Sorry about the diversion. Back to faith and science. Better perhaps to read some more open-minded books which attempt to reconcile theology/religion with science, books discussing the reasonable boundaries of each discipline.*<br />
<br />
I have enjoyed Alister McGrath 'Why God Won't Go Away' enormously, and also Andrew Parker 'The Genesis Enigma'.<br />
<br />
Andrew Parker adopts a similar worldview to Francis Collins, a leading US geneticist foundational in mapping the human genome. Collins wrote a book called 'The Language of God'. The title refers to the quaternary genetic code realized in the DNA molecule. In the book he attempts to consolidate the theory of evolution using biochemical and genetic evidence. He also opines concerning the room for faith in God in parallel with his acceptance of the mainstream scientific evolutionary perspective. Parker, alternatively, is a researcher in Natural History. He makes much of the fact that there is a similar, even identical order in which things appear in Creation as related in Genesis, and according to mainstream scientific opinion. Mainstream scientific opinion of course sees Big Bang Cosmology and Evolution as being the big picture behind how we all got to be here**.<br />
<br />
I do not agree with Collins and Parker concerning the effectiveness and scope of the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. Parker adopts many of the assumptions of the mainstream view without challenging them. Assumptions like chance abiogenesis, the self assembly of the first living cell purely by chance. Or the inevitability of genetic mutation producing useful change. Parker takes these on board without questioning. These assumptions are, to me, frankly ridiculous. To be more positive, Collins and Parker are of course, gifted, widely-read thinkers, and in the case of Collins, a high achiever in research science. Yet their opinions in these 'big picture' arenas are held in a manner somewhat more realistically tenuous and flexible than those of the New Atheists. The slightly scary intellectual fascism is not there.If Dawkins had been writing to deliberately annoy me, he would have succeeded. Parker and Collins I found easier to bear. But then they are both theists.<br />
<br />
Concerning science, one would have thought that the New Atheists might have avoided the move to simplistic, and ultimately wholly illogical and dogmatic, attempts to suppress reasonable dissent.<br />
<br />
Which brings me back to McGrath. I have not even read all of it yet, but he does a superb job of raising very legitimate and logical objections to some of the New Atheist lines of reasoning. He does so by spelling out inconsistencies and assumptions in their methods which are very hard to ignore once highlighted. In particular, the naivety of the assumption that the scientific method will necessarily be able to probe all reality and truth is dismantled convincingly.<br />
<br />
Bottom Line: Other means of assimilating truth are required. Other than what? Other than accepting the mainstream opinions of the scientific community. Other than endlessly attempting to apply the scientific method until we are conjecturing so much that the reliability of our conclusions is very questionable. I would go for investigating the Bible as a reality reference point. It is based on a Revelation given in Condescension, not on human deductive logic taken to unreliable extremes. <br />
<br />
* On the other hand, maybe read Dawkins anyway if you are a doubter. McGrath tells at the end of his book of how a reader of Dawkins was so struck by the one-sidedness of his arguments that he started attending church to check it out and got soundly converted! Indeed McGrath himself is a former atheist.<br />
<br />
** I would advise people to discriminate in their thinking between
'mainstream opinions of the scientific community' and 'reliable science'.
Where the boundary between these arises is a subjective matter. I was a development engineer for several years and engineers hopefully use
'reliable science' only. If they don't, planes crash etc etc.</div>
Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3971408578915039894.post-71819627053334325292012-06-13T07:58:00.002-07:002015-01-25T04:34:32.387-08:00Big Bang Cosmology- How Far Back?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB">The current scientific consensus is that
the universe came into being following an event known as the ‘Big Bang’. Matter
expanded rapidly from an extremely hot, extremely dense state, having transmuted from pure energy. Matter and energy then sprang
forth to form the universe as we know it. This conclusion is drawn by interpreting
certain observed information, notably two phenomena, the cosmic microwave
background and the red shift of distant objects. </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Big Bang is a generic expression for
theories of this general nature but which may differ in the understanding of details.
The prevailing detailed theory is the Lambda CDM model.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">On the face of it there is reasonable
evidence for some sort of Big Bang scenario. However as we probe into very
early cosmological time, and try to evaluate what happened when matter first
came into existence, we find there is little theory or consensus. There is an
initial time, called the Planck Epoch, before which it is impossible, according
to current understanding of fundamental physics, to probe. There are no firm
ideas on what ‘seeded’ the Big Bang. There is no understanding of what came before the Big Bang, or indeed whether there was a 'before'.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">We are caught in the flow of time. Richard Feynman sets this out for those who have never considered it in his excellent book 'The Character of Physical Law'. When
considering long gone events, we are left with our imagination and our ability
to extrapolate backwards to form a view of the past. When we do this we rely on
the assumption that there are no sudden changes or unexpected factors, other
than the ones we already know about or have inferred. We often make many large
jumps of conjecture. We assume we have all the information, all the relevant
laws, all the correct theories, all the variables, all the significant factors.
These are big assumptions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It is certainly possible that God could
have used a process similar to the Big Bang to create the Universe. The theory
does have some widely acknowledged problems, such as the matter/anti-matter balance,
and the dark matter/dark energy hypothesis/mystery. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">What the Big Bang Theory certainly does not
do is rigorously explain how everything came from nothing. The prevailing lambda CDM
model for cosmological origins requires the sudden appearance of expanding
space-time. It does not tell us where space-time came from. It also requires immense
radiation energy, again without rigorously explaining where it came from. It requires the background conceptual fabric of mathematics. Does that have an existence independent of any physical reality. If so, why?</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB">If scientists are going to see scientific reductionism as a complete explanation of beginnings, to rid themselves of that word 'creation', then we will have to get beyond this point. I do not believe there are currently any meaningful leads on this one. <u> </u></span></div>
</div>
Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3971408578915039894.post-90919458420136494992012-06-13T06:47:00.000-07:002015-01-25T04:31:35.902-08:00Limitations of the Scientific Method in Probing Truth<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Big Bang Cosmology relies on General Relativity. Fine so far. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity illuminates the fact that there can be previously unsuspected interactions between variables, between commodities we had taken to be separate, such as space, time, velocity, gravity, mass and energy. It shows that our day-to-day experience of space, time and matter are merely a parochial, subjective simplification of reality. In addition to those of general relativity, there may be other governing principles, involving interactions of variables, which the
experiences of our day-to-day lives do not lead us to expect. We infer reality
from the behind the blinkers of our own, parochial, mindset. Our mindset is
derived from our own parochial experience. We extrapolate and hypothesize from
behind the blinkers. Einstein brought the fact that we have these blinkers into
sharp focus. Quantum Mechanics serves to show our blinkers again. It was
eventually inferred from observed data, but is most certainly not obvious or
intuitive from observed data. The scientific method needs data. It looks for patterns in the evidence, for laws behind events, for processes behind phenomena. However, the data is limited by our ability to perceive it, with and without instrumentation. Our capacity to evaluate patterns and explanations is also limited. It is limited by our best human brainpower and our best ability to perceive and conceptualize.
We ourselves are an unavoidable filter on reality itself.
The maths we use in day-to-day life, and the physics principles we use
to design buildings, cars, boats, planes, etc, even Apollo spacecraft, are
those discovered and derived by Sir Isaac Newton. They have served us well and
continue to do so. However it turns out that Newtonian mechanics is a
simplification of Relativistic 'mechanics'. Newtonian mechanics apply at speeds
much lower than that of light. However they remain a simplification of the
richness and sophistication of fuller physics models of reality. I say 'fuller'
deliberately. It looks increasingly likely that Relativity is itself a
simplification of reality which applies only within certain bounds. Can you see
where this line of reasoning could take us? The further we step out of our
little world, with its variables such as velocity and distance all within
certain bounds, and with three-dimensional space and time, the more likely it
is that the laws and behaviors we experience here will no longer be sufficient
to explain and describe everything. I mention 3 dimensional space because,
mathematically, you can have as many dimensions as you like. I mention time
because we experience it as an unstoppable, irreversible flow. In maths, we can
choose any time we like. It is entirely possible, perhaps even probable, that
general relativity will turn out to be a simplification itself.
</div>
Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3971408578915039894.post-46391895838278109352012-05-24T07:56:00.002-07:002012-08-29T06:26:53.282-07:00Which First- Consciousness to Survive or Evolution of Consciousness?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
Evolution by Natural Selection, if valid as a theory, requires certain starting conditions. It requires an organism with survival instincts. This implies consciousness or something close to it, and a consciousness inclined toward self-preservation at the expense of other conscious entities. It requires an environment where it has to compete to survive. It requires a reproductive system to replicate itself, to further it's 'selfish genes'. That system must be able to replicate the organism so that it's basic nature is retained but so that certain adaptions can develop which maintain or improve the viability of the organism. In case that sounds obvious, most random changes (mutations) of any significance to an organism would kill it. Only a very few fortuitous ones would benefit the organism and make it more sophisticated by adding useful structure. Why do so many evolutionary theorists blithely assume that an arbitrary copying mistake in a DNA sequence will translate into useful structure, or even a step toward useful structure? How is it that we can identify an error in genetic codes so readily as an error? And why is it that these errors are so often associated with a disease giving an often very negative survival advantage?<br />
<br />
Back to the title point. To the material reductionist, consciousness is a by product of brain physiology and no more. Our organism under consideration undergoes a genetic mutation which is a stepping stone towards a structure or structural improvement which confers possible survival advantages. As I said in the last paragraph, it is a very big assumption that this will actually happen. Let's suppose it does. As the process proceeds over hundreds and thousands of generations, we start to develop neurological or similar structures which host the illusions of consciousness and identity. These commodities are of course meaningless illusions in the evolutionary scheme caused by chemical firings in the evolved brain. However, please note that evolutionists have a tendency to treat the language and facets of consciousness as things which have inevitably always been present. Things like fear, self-preservation, greed, ambition, hate. (I use these because evolution on the whole relies on negative instincts). Very very interesting! Why! We cannot arbitrarily confer consciousness in all it's magnificence on an organism before that organism has evolved sufficiently to host it. What came first, consciousness or the mechanisms that produce it? Classic Catch 22 stuff. Unless consciousness has some outside existence(!) it is a meaningless by-product of evolution. It is not something you can invoke from nowhere, as so many attempt to, as a starting condition required before evolution can proceed. Where then did it come from?<br />
<br />
It is almost as if evolutionists have slipped up and acknowledged that the parameters of consciousness have some outside and eternal substance beyond the physical brain! Well I agree with them about that! <br />
<br />
To summarize, it is illogical to arbitrarily assign sophistication of action associated with advanced consciousness to simple organisms in order to call upon aspects of that consciousness to theorize about how they might subsequently survive, mutate and evolve. Here, as in very many places, the Theory of Evolution is logical nonsense and therefore unscientific..<br />
<br />
This paradox has been supposedly answered by some evolutionists by saying that an organism doesn't have to display any of the elusive essence of life in order to be selected for genetic continuance. It is merely subject to selection by the environment, they say. A little thought shows that this is no answer to the riddle of whether fitness to survive or survival unto fitness came first. The process of selection is indeed a simple concept which might be applied to an inanimate process like osmosis or diffusion, it is true. Selection, in this life science context, however, can only operate effectively because one creature is more fit in the situation we are considering. Here, the careful choice of words is merely an over-simplification of the realities necessary for evolution by natural selection to work. In other words, we need to define 'natural' carefully, and not just 'selection'. </div>
Simon Packerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497027844180049477noreply@blogger.com0