Posted on 03/07/2008 4:40:38 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Progress was so rapid at first, following Galileo et al., that many assumed it could all be figured out eventually. But then some of those philosophers took a closer look and next thing you know there were two groups: one group decided to ignore the problems and keep going with the science and the other group, about a dozen people and their millions of students, decided to become lawyers.
Pascal's Wager
1...You live as though God exists.
If God exists, you go to heaven: your gain is infinite.
If God does not exist, you gain nothing and lose nothing.
2...You live as though God does not exist.
If God exists, the text is unspecified, but it could be implied that you go to limbo, purgatory, or hell: your loss is either null or infinite.
If God does not exist, you gain nothing and lose nothing
Put that in you thinking pipe and smoke it bud!
Wouldn’t a “creator” or “designer” had to have arisen from nothing at some point? Or did he/she themselves have a creator - if so, where did he/she come from? And if one argues that a “designer” is timeless and had no beginning, you are admitting there are eternal things, so why not save a step and say the universe itself (certainly less complex than whoever “designed” it) is itself eternal and didn’t require designing? The easiest answer to all this mess: most people desperately want there to be a higher intellegence (mostly because they want to survive death), and look for ways to justify it. Which is fine and good - but it’s not science.
I’m by no means a mathematician and the light bulb experiment as explained is not really clear but it seems to me that the author is suggesting that order can come from randomness? However in his light bulb experiment, he begins with a clock that ticks off very ordered one-second increments.
bttt
If you can answer that question, I have to imagine you’d be rich. I’ve had some interesting arguments with atheists and antitheists (usually the latter) on this subject.
Personally, I think the “spontaneous creation of matter from nothing” idea is considerably less sound than the idea that God created everything from nothing. The “Big Bang” theory, for example, strikes me as being incredibly illogical. It also posits that all the matter in our known universe (and beyond, no doubt) existed before. Why is this? There’s no good reason for that. Furthermore, where did that matter come from? Why would it come from anything?
It’s one thing that a mathemetician would focus on issues of order in the universe. But his science can’t even replicate disorder— there is no such thing as a truly random number generator that doesn’t take as input some naturally random quantity. Until science can explain randomness, what hope is there that it can explain order?
There are different kinds of order, and random also has different and contrary meanings. We can probably get this topic organized but we will have to focus our efforts considerably beyond the common gut feel kind of understanding.
Yawn
I didn’t say it was science. My point is that the “scientific” explanation for the beginning of the universe is not science either. The scheme you just elaborated essentially assumes that the “universe” is, in one way or another, God.
Some people choose to put their faith into the idea that the origin of matter is random and, by consequence, everything that we think, say, and do is of no consequence at all. Others choose to believe that this life - our lives - have a purpose. What you believe is up to you.
Instances of spontaneous self-organizing order are legion in nature.
Here's an image of TD12, which would become Katrina:
Katrina at Category 5:
>
A heck of a lot more order in the second, of course. And it occured through generally understood physical processes (not all the details are nailed down, of course.)
It is not clear to me that Dr. Paulos fully understands the problem. For example:
> Let me begin by noting that even about the seemingly completely disordered, we can always say something. No universe could be completely random at all levels of analysis.
The issue is not some random pattern, such as predominance of color magenta or funky fractals. The issue is a very particular complexity that allows human life forms to develop.
> Kauffman asks us to consider a large collection of 10,000 light bulbs, each bulb having inputs from two other bulbs in the collection.
Who arranged the light bulbs?
Ok, let’s try this again without the sarcasm. Genes do not turn themselves on and off. That is done by other cellular molecules (proteins and non-coding RNA) which are precisely controlled by other molecules and chemical conditions. These molecules are expressed (generated) from DNA (genes). To generate these molecules both the DNA and the molecules must be present and the molecular and chemical conditions have to be exactly right. Otherwise it just does not happen. Evolutionists do attempt to explain this chicken-and-egg problem by proposing an existence of “RNA World” where all molecular players were RNA. Since RNA degrades if you look at it cross-eye, no actual evidence of this “RNA World” will ever be found. This makes for a rather convenient hypothesis.
It seems that evolutionists are able to make arguments only by ignoring the real life complexity of the Universe and Biology or by proposing un-testable hypothesis.
The problem here is the attempt to rationalize or understand God and his creations. We have finite minds and will never understand Him and the infinite.
Neither is what *science* is doing in regards to origins actually science. All *scientists* are doing is stopping at the first unknown. It's no different. It's just a matter of how far back you go.
Saying that creationists have to explain where God came from to validate their position yet not feeling obligated to explain where the universe came from is hypocritical. That's putting a burden of proof on creationists that scientists are not willing to put on themselves.
Did you ever read Wolfram’s book? It is very thick but full of pictures. He shows that complexity is nearly unavoidable once there are just a couple lines of code in your generating program. He said the program for the universe might run to five lines of code. Kind of interesting.
Well, there's an understatement if I ever heard one.
Hurricane and eye development can be modeled fairly well on computers; as with anything in science, there’s still a lot unknown about the details of why storms intensify and weaken, etc.
Obviously the scientists should have just thrown up their hands and said “Gee, God must be doing it!” and not even bothered to study the organization of hurricanes in the first place.
I checked Wolfram’s book out and flipped through it.
Good. I think that was his main point, that complexity is the natural state of things. Nature, left to its own devices will generate more and more of it until it runs out of space.
This line of reasoning does not support any specific deity, and is equally weighty making any substitution that you wish.
For example:
1...You live as though Leprechauns exists.
If Leprechauns exists, you can get a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: your gain is infinite.
If Leprechauns do not exist, you gain nothing and lose nothing.
2...You live as though Leprechauns do not exist.
If Leprechauns exist, they can torment you on your visits to Ireland, and they will never share their gold with the unbelieving likes of you: your loss is measured in pounds and pounds of gold.
If Leprechauns do not exist, you gain nothing and lose nothing.
Is this line of reasoning sufficient for me to start looking in the dells for the “wee people”? Substitute any other mythical creature that has the supposed powers of reward and punishment, Vishnu, Thor, Odin, Jupiter and run it again.
It supports ALL of them equally well, and since many of the named mythical beings are mutually exclusive, by extension, it supports NONE of them.
That’s how it’s smoked in a properly functioning “thinking pipe”.
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