Posted on 06/23/2008 3:05:46 PM PDT by betty boop
What is Life/Non-life in Nature?
by Jean F. Drew
Everywhere we see the “behavior” of life/non-life (death) in nature; but that doesn’t tell us what life/non-life IS.
Darwin’s theory of evolution doesn’t help with this question. It presupposes the existence of life axiomatically, and then proceeds to speak of the origin and evolution of species. Its fundamental assumption is that biological evolution is a wholly naturalistic, material process governed by the laws of physics and chemistry, with random variation and natural selection as the principal drivers of the system. Central to the Darwinist view is that life forms — species — evolve into completely other, more complex species; and this is so because all living beings are members of a Tree of Life that is rooted in a single common ancestor (the theory is silent on where the common ancestor came from).
But Darwinist theory doesn’t tell us what life is, or where it came from, just how it evolves (or speciates) under purely materialistic and naturalistic constraints. It is not a theory of life, and I think Darwin would agree with that.
This does not prevent theorists from speculating that, given the preferred scientific cosmology of a material universe of infinite size and unlimited duration — no beginning, no end — anything that can happen, will happen in time. Therefore, it is plausible to suppose that life itself may have originated from random chemical reactions that somehow “lucked out” and “stuck,” giving us the origin of life and its ubiquity and persistence henceforth.
The important point is that Darwinism rests on a certain cosmology, or world view. That worldview is increasingly being falsified by modern physics. (See below.)
It seems doubtful that an investigation carried out at the level of physical chemistry can demonstrate the emergence of life from non-living matter. This is called abiogenesis, which describes the situation where non-life (inorganic matter) spontaneously bootstraps itself into a living organism.
Miller and Urey attempted to demonstrate abiogenesis under laboratory conditions, using simulated lightning strikes on a suitable “pre-biotic soup.” They got a bunch of amino acids. But amino acids are the building blocks of living systems, not living systems themselves.
Wimmer got a better result in his attempt to create a polio virus, a living organism. He actually succeeded! But his “recipe” involved far more than the material “cell-free juice” he used as his culture: He introduced information into the mix: Wimmer began with the information sequence of RNA which he synthesized to DNA (because RNA cannot be synthesized) and then synthesized the message from DNA to RNA. When he added the message to a cell free juice, it began transmitting and duplicating. And he got himself a polio virus — a living being….
But the important thing to bear in mind is that, although Wimmer was successful in creating a living being, he was not the author of the information that led to this result. It was already “there” — and no scientist claims to know its source. Indeed, physics so far has been unable to locate any source for this type of life-generating information within the physical world. In other words, scientists recognize the indispensable requirement of information to living systems, they see that it is indeed “there”; but they cannot say how it got there, or from whence it came.
Consider also that the universe itself seems to be “informed,” in the sense of displaying evidence of some remarkable “fine-tuning” that guides its evolution. Physical chemistry itself rests on, is informed by, deeper principles: the physical laws, which in turn depend on certain ubiquitous universal constants — the speed of light; the value of pi; Plank’s constant; Plank time; the resonance precision required for the existence of carbon (a necessary element for life); the explosive power of the Big Bang precisely matched to the power of gravity (its density precisely matched with the critical density of the universe); the delicate balance in the strong nuclear force; the precise balancing of gravitational force and electromagnetic force; the meticulous balance between the number of electrons and protons; the precision in electromagnetic force and the ratio of proton mass to electron mass and neutron mass to proton mass; the Big Bang’s defiance of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and gravity’s cumulative effect; etc., for examples.
If the universe were at bottom “random” in its evolution, these instances of evident fine-tuning would be inexplicable. The fact is we cannot say whether a system is random or not without knowing its symmetrical properties.
The “fans of random” speak and act as if they think the problem of symmetry is irrelevant to their concerns. Yet to the extent that they recognize the universe conforms to physical laws (and usually they do), the symmetry problem cannot be obviated. For laws demonstrate the property of what mathematicians call symmetry. A symmetry of some mathematical object — and the physical laws are inherently mathematical structures — is any transformation that preserves the object’s structure.
A practical application of the principle of symmetry can be found in Einstein’s observation (in his 1905 paper on Special Relativity, the same that gave us his magnificent unification of mass and energy, e = mc2) that the laws of nature are the same for all observers, regardless of their particular space-time positions.
It is evident that there are symmetries in nature, and also that mathematics has been amazingly successful in teasing them out. A favorite story is Reimann’s geometry of curved spaces. He “created” this geometry at a time when no one believed that geometry could be other than flat (Euclidean). So Reimann put his geometry on the shelf where it sat for about 50 years, gathering dust. Then a friend of Einstein pointed him to Reimann’s geometry (and Ricci’s tensor) as possible keys to the elucidation of the problems of special relativity. And they exactly did the trick.
Indeed, mathematicians have been so good at doing this sort of thing — creating mathematical systems with an eye to symmetry, and finally beauty — that Eugene Wigner marveled about “the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics” in its ability to model and describe nature.
At this point, it seems useful to widen our purview and revisit cosmology, for now we are speaking of the universe as a whole, and cosmology is the branch of knowledge that deals with the universe as an integrated and (some would say) even living system (in some fashion).
Cosmology is conventionally defined as: (1) a branch of philosophy dealing with the origin, processes, and structure of the universe; and (2), the astrophysical study of the structure and constituent dynamics of the universe, with a particular eye on the construction and modeling of a comprehensive theory that describes such structure and dynamics. The latter is the scientific approach. Note that (2) does not explicitly address the question of origin.
Indeed, questions of origin, both of the universe and of life, seem to be troubling to many scientists. Historically, their preferred cosmology has been the eternal universe model, wherein the universe, thought to be infinite in size, just always was, having no beginning or end; it just goes along in periods of expansions and contractions in a sort of self-conserving “boom and bust” cycle forever (no second law of thermodynamics to bother it).
Now in an infinite, eternal universe, anything can happen. And so this “classical perspective” of biology anticipates that the origin of life involves “random chemicals reacting for eons and finally lucking out, resulting in a living cell coming together,” as Harold Morowitz explains it.
But then satellite observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation starting in the 1960s provided striking evidence that the universe actually had a beginning. That is, it is not eternal, and it is not infinite. The CMBR — which is universal in extent — is thought to be the “echo” of the original “big bang,” which constituted the creation event of the universe in which we live, and which powers the cosmic space-time expansion. Thus the universe truly can be thought to have “initial conditions.”
The troubling thing about the big bang/inflationary universe theory is the suggestion that the universe was either created out of nothing, or if it was created out of something, then there’s no way we can detect or prove that cause. Using a “time-reversal symmetry transformation” here — running evolutionary time “backwards” like a videotape played in reverse — the laws of physics break down at the Planck Era — 10–43 of the first second following the big bang. “Prior” to that, there is no space, no time, no physical laws of nature, no matter; it’s pure nihil: Nothing.
The nothingness “before” the creation of the universe is the most complete void that we can imagine — no space, time or matter existed. It is a world without place, without duration or eternity, without number — it is what the mathematicians call “the empty set.” Yet this unthinkable void converts itself into the plenum of existence — a necessary consequence of physical laws. Where are these laws written into that void? What “tells” the void that it is pregnant with a possible universe? It would seem that even the void is subject to a law, a logic that exists prior to space and time. — Heinz Pagels
Which of course is precisely what Genesis says: The Creation is “ex nihilo,” initiated by and proceeding according to the Word, the Logos of God, Who Is the Law of the Void as well as of the Creation, the “logic that exists prior to space and time.”
Evidently this is not a scientific statement, though I believe it is a truthful one. Still it is true that some physicists (and biologists) find the idea of a beginning of space and time out of nothing deeply disturbing for whatever reason. Taking into effect the evidence that leads to this conclusion, some have sought a “non-theistic” explanation for the phenomenon of the Big Bang. This cosmology grudgingly acknowledges that the universe did have a beginning, postulating its origin as a random fluctuation in a universal quantum vacuum field. But of course, this line of reasoning is silent about where the universal vacuum field itself came from in which a random fluctuation can occur, or how time and space got started so that events can occur in it.
This view (non-theistic cosmogenesis) is fallacious, however, because sudden quantum appearances don’t really take place out of “nothing.” A larger quantum field is first required before this can happen, but a quantum field can hardly be described as being “nothing.” Rather, it is a thing of unsearchable order and complexity, whose origin we can’t even begin to explain. Thus, trying to account for the appearance of the universe in a sudden quantum fluctuation doesn’t do away with the need for a Creator at all; it simply moves the whole problem backward one step to the unknown origin of the quantum field itself. — M. A. Corey
Whether your cosmology is philosophical or scientific, ultimately it rests on an unknown that is directly unknowable, a mystery. Scientists just as much as anybody else ponder the origin question, despite the fact that their formal methods cannot help them much there.
Cosmologically speaking, scientists get much better traction with the problem of constructing and modeling a comprehensive theory that describes, not the origin, but the structure and dynamics of the universe. But even here, they run into “mysteries.” Such as evidence for the almost eerie fine-tuning of the universe necessary for the inception, evolution, and support of Life. As Freeman Dyson put it, “The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming.”
Take just one example from among many, the just mentioned universal vacuum. Because the vacuum is not “nothing,” it has energy, specifically “vacuum energy” — the energy content of empty space. Ian Stewart notes:
As it happens, the observed value [of vacuum energy] is very, very small, around 10–120, but it is not zero.
According to the conventional “fine-tuning” story, this particular value is exactly right for life to exist. Anything larger than 10–118 makes local space-time explode; anything smaller than 10–120 and space-time contracts in a cosmic crunch and disappears. So the “window of opportunity” for life is very small. By a miracle, our universe sits neatly within it.
But Stewart is a tough-minded mathematical scientist, and so evidently feels constrained to add:
The “weak anthropic principle” points out that if our universe were not constituted the way it is, we wouldn’t be here to notice, but that leaves open the question why there is a “here” for us to occupy. The “strong anthropic principle” says that we’re here because the universe was designed specially for life to exist — which is mystical nonsense. No one actually knows what the possibilities would be if the vacuum energy were markedly different from what it is. We know a few things that would go wrong — but we have no idea what might go right instead. Most of the fine-tuning arguments are bogus.”
What a relief that Professor Stewart thinks that only “most” of the fine-tuning arguments are bogus, and not all of them! One of the things likely to “go wrong” under his scenario would be the end of life as we know it on this planet, and with it intelligence. But other than that, his is a respectable argument, even though it would probably be entirely moot under different values for the vacuum energy, since intelligent beings probably would not then be around to entertain it.
There is an abundance of evidence from the precision of the fundamental values of the universe that contradicts the theory that a universe compossible with life can arise (or indeed actually rose) from an “accident.” Just as “nothing comes from nothing,” the laws of nature cannot have been established via a random process. There is nothing implicit in the meaning of “random” that contains any motive spring for it to generate order, organization, higher complexity. It is simply “random”; i.e., it reflects no law in its behavior. The people who say that the universal evolution is nothing more than the effect of a process of matter in its motions and “pure, blind chance” — as Nobel laureate Jacques Monod claims — rely on the same reasoning that says, if life can be spontaneously generated from non-life, then similarly order can come from disorder.
Which is the same sort of problem, it seems to me, involved in all the multiverse and parallel universe and “panspermia” cosmologies one finds littering the landscape these days. The latter — panspermia theory — seems to be a particular favorite of atheists such as Francis Crick and Sir Fred Hoyle.
Panspermia theory holds that life on Earth was seeded here by space aliens. I gather anything that avoids the conclusion that the universe, and Life, is a divine creation, and thus has a spiritual dimension (which would include such things as intelligence, law, information, etc., all the “non-phenomenal” aspects that “tell” phenomena “what to do”) is what is being sought in such fanciful imaginings. Such theories seem ultimately designed to forbid anything that is immaterial from having causal impact in the universe. But if you say that, then where does physical law fit in, where mathematics, or logic, or intelligence, or information? Not to mention the evident universal constants? None of these are material entities.
But the fact regarding these exotic cosmologies is, not a one of them can be falsified, or subjected to replicable experiments. All these cosmologies are works of pure philosophical imagination dressed up in the language of scientific jargon.
However, that doesn’t mean the adherents of such imaginative speculations are bad scientists. Here’s Sir Fred Hoyle, a “non-Darwinian evolutionist,” contented atheist, and honest thinker:
No matter how large the environment one considers, life cannot have had a random beginning… there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in (1020)2000 = 1040,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.… the enormous information content of even the simplest living systems… cannot in our view be generated by what are often called “natural” processes,… For life to have originated on the Earth it would be necessary that quite explicit instruction should have been provided for its assembly… There is no way in which we can expect to avoid the need for information, no way in which we can simply get by with a bigger and better organic soup, as we ourselves hoped might be possible a year or two ago.
Information is the key to life, just as it is the key to the fundamental structure and evolution of the universe, from the beginning. One conjectures the universe has the structure and dynamics it has because these were “programmed” in at the beginning. And this structure evidently was primed for life.
Again, this is what Genesis tells us: The Universe has an intelligent cause that is outside of space-time. Physics and biology acknowledge the necessity of information for the rise and maintenance of life, but assign no cause for this information within spatiotemporal reality. But if it cannot be found “there,” then where can it be found?
See Genesis. And consider this observation, from Albert Einstein:
“The natural law reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.”
Scientists recognize so well that the universe has fundamental structure that they are encouraged to propound “grand unified theories,” GUTs, or “Theories of Everything.” The standard model of physics today recognizes four fundamental forces in nature: the nuclear strong, the nuclear weak, electromagnetism, and gravity. So far, all have been conveniently “reconciled together,” or unified — except for gravity, which continues to resist being fitted into any kind of “grand unified” model thus far.
Regarding the four fundamental forces, here are some more interesting thoughts from Ian Stewart:
Other types of forces could in principle give rise to other types of universe, and our ignorance of such possibilities is almost total. It is often claimed that without the particular forces we have, life would be impossible, proving that our universe is amazingly fine-tuned to make life possible. This argument is bogus, a wild exaggeration based on too limited a view of what constitutes life. Life like ours would be impossible — but it is the height of arrogance to assume that our kind of life is the only kind of organized complexity that could exist. The fallacy here is to confuse sufficient conditions for life (those aspects of our universe on which our kind of life depends) with necessary ones.
It is interesting that here Stewart reduces life to the definition, “organized complexity.” The description appears to be general enough to encompass everything (everything material at least), yet at the same time, is useless to provide insight into the living nature of actual, particular living beings.
Be that as it may, it seems Stewart is working to a doctrine, to a particular world view, in giving his analysis. And he seems to recognize this in what follows:
The view that a Theory of Everything must exist brings to mind monotheist religion — in which, over the millennia, disparate collections of gods and goddesses with their own special domains have been replaced by one god whose domain is everything. This process is widely viewed as an advance, but it resembles a standard philosophical error known as “the equation of unknowns” in which the same cause is assigned to all mysterious phenomena…. “Explanations” like this give a false sense of progress — we used to have three mysteries to explain; now we have just one. But the one new mystery conflates three separate ones, which might well have entirely different explanations. By conflating them, we blind ourselves to this possibility.
When you explain the Sun by a sun-god and rain by a rain-god, you can endow each god with its own special features. But if you insist that both Sun and rain are controlled by the same god, then you may end up trying to force two different things into the same straightjacket. So in some ways fundamental physics is more like fundamentalist physics. Equations [brief enough to fit] on a T-shirt replace an immanent deity, and the unfolding of the consequences of those equations replaces divine intervention in daily life.
Despite these reservations, my heart is with the physical fundamentalists. I would like to see a Theory of Everything, and I would be delighted if it were mathematical, beautiful, and true. I think religious people might also approve, because they could interpret it as proof of the exquisite taste and intelligence of their deity.
Exactly so — that would be my takeaway!
To sum up, it appears that a model of the universe that stipulates that all that exists — life and non-life — is simply the product of random transformations of “matter in its motions” has been falsified by modern physics. To the extent that information — which presupposes intelligence — plays a role, we have to acknowledge that other, immaterial factors are at work. Which of course we do, to the extent we realize and acknowledge the universal existence of physical laws, of finely-tuned cosmic values, and of the symmetries in nature. To do so, we have to put a check on randomness as a possible explanation for the nature or structure of things.
But we cannot eliminate randomness altogether. In the final analysis, it seems to me the universe lives in the dynamic tension that obtains between that which is changeless (the symmetry), and that which is changeable (a symmetry-breaking event). Or as Leibniz put it, at the level of fundamental universal principles the universe must consist of something that does not ever change, and something that is capable of changing.
For example, consider the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The first is a conservation law — matter cannot be either created or destroyed — that is, matter is unchangeable; i.e., it is “symmetrical” under all known conditions. The second law “breaks the symmetry” of the first; and if it couldn’t do that, then probably nothing would ever happen in our universe.
The most amazing thing to me is that evidently, as a consequence of such a fundamental tension, we live in a “guided” universe, but not a wholly deterministic one.
And the Guide does not seem to reside in the system — at least, as far as science can tell.
Thus it seems to me if the Guide could construct a universe finely-tuned and primed for life on the most global scale — i.e., that of the whole universe — then it should be child’s play for this Source to prime and guide any living (or non-living) sub-unit of the universe — preeminently biological creatures; and of these, Man above all.
Given that the universe evidently has been left deliberately incompletely determined, or underdetermined (Planck’s constant reminds us of this), then not only the “free development” of nature has been left intact (subject only to the natural symmetries), but so also has human free will been left wholly intact.
Given the splendors of natural reality, and the uncanny facility that man has for exploring and understanding them, really all I can say is: I am on my knees in gratitude, thanks, and praise, and all glory be to God — in Whom we live and move and have our Being.
But Jesus is a RESURRECTED Saviour who sits at the right hand of the Father in Heaven, interceding for us. He not only died but He came back to life and is coming again. There IS a difference. He was a REAL person, not a false god. He actually lived, had a body, a soul.
Prove it
People like Josephus, a historian at the time of Jesus, has recorded things about his life. You may not be willing to hear anything we have to say about Jesus, his humanity or his divinity. It has been proven that He lived through the people who wrote about Him in the Bible. But if you don’t believe in Jesus, you may not believe in the Bible either, so what’s one to do with you, Soliton?
No you didn’t. I was speaking of how besieged cities, as a “common practice,” were treated if they offered more than token resistance against their invaders. If your response was to any other part of my msg, then it would have made even less sense. I then asked whose culture still enthusiastically embraces the indiscriminate slaughter of children and noncombatant men and women and who does not. You couldn’t bring yourself to answer. Would have gagged on the reply, I imagine. So you had to shift the ground to avoid conceding an unpleasant truth you couldn’t face.
I could have replied much more harshly. Considering your response, I could have inquired if you were suggesting that our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are engaging in the same sort of indiscriminate slaughter as are the Islamic savages who infest the area. That’s the accusation Socialist/Marxists hurl at our armed forces. Do you agree? It seems that you do.
I could have then gone on to ask if you were also suggesting that Christians are unreservedly a bunch of murdering racists and bigots, who revel in the indiscriminate slaughter of Middle East innocents by our troops (Middle East. Get it? Dark skinned people. Those racist American Christians). Guess you do make that connection.
Oh, how you love to scramble your terms. First, it was the Quakers. They actually did something to relieve the suffering of the slaves (and maybe the Unitarians a little). But, not those filthy racist Fundies, whom Quakers can’t relate to. Then it became just simply ‘Christians’ who did everything in their power to oppress the former slaves. Guess that lumps all the Christians together as racist, bloody-minded killers of innocent women and children. Except the Quakers (and maybe the Unitarians)? Possibly you subscribe to the notion that Quakers, being much too nice, aren’t really Christians. Nor the Unitarians either? They are Deists, so a little credit can be thrown their way?
What was the original proposition again? That Muslims are just as likely to be right as the Jews and Christians. You immediately focused on Christians and their many transgressions (apparently even dismissing the Jews from your thoughts – such single mindedness is admirable). Guess JS1138 has registered his answer: It’s the Moslems who are right. It’s those awful Christians who fly very big planes into very tall buildings at very high speeds. It’s Christians who delight in the slaughter of millions of innocents (an especially delightful circumstance if the victims are dark skinned).
Oh yes, and it was Charles Darwin along with a small band of determined atheistic evolutionists who freed the slaves.
For the mind stuck in rejecting God, there is no evidence or witness testimony that could rise to the level of proof. The game is fixed/rigged in the mind of the determined doubter. Eyewitness testimony that doesn’t fit the predetermined goal is dismissed out of hand. It is strange in deed to witness such determined blindness, but it is becoming more and more prominent. And for the record, if anyone wishes to understand just how compelling is the eyewitness testimony to the resurrected Jesus, the books by Gary Habermas are an excellent starting point. Following Gary’s marvelous work one can seek out the writings of William Lane Craig to get a solid ‘proof apologetics’ reading.
As usual, you seriously outgun me when it comes to discussions like this. But I think it's important not to extend my comments beyond the narrow scope in which I was making them, which was in the context of some saying that "now" doesn't really exist. (Poorly paraphrased.)
To begin with, there are some significant similarities in the sense of control systems and human cognition. After all, humans are 'machines' when it comes to accomplishing physical activities -- and we're subject to many of the same sorts of 'control' problems that our inventions have to overcome. I did not intend to imply that that encompasses all of human cognition ... but it is at least part of what we are.
That said, I wasn't really intending to extend my analogy very far at all -- it was really no more than an observation of the similarity in the problem being solved; i.e., how to bridge the gap between sensing and processing; and how to think about the "time constant" of the human system, and the environment in which it's acting.
If one focuses solely on the difference between "then," "now," and "later," I think one must accept that there really are epistemological difficulties with the "now." There's a finite-duration gap between sensing and understanding that (I think) cannot be bridged. And again, that's a problem also faced by control systems.
I probably failed to clearly place this activity within the bigger picture, however, which is where "human perception/cognition" more properly resides.
Specifically, humans don't exist merely within a cyclic control loop; we also understand ourselves to be operating within a continuum that includes both past and future. Even if the aforementioned lag between sensing and processing imposes a short period of uncertainty about "now," our awareness of context allows us to operate as if that lag did not exist. And despite the lag between "actual" and "perceived" now, I think there's no serious doubt that an objective "now" actually exists.
Our lives are made much easier by the fact that the world around us typically operates with a much longer time constant. Sporting events tend to push us to and beyond that cognitive limit, of course, as do things like warfare.
I wonder, r9etb — what is your view, your opinion, of this matter? How do we "square" the historical data with science?
To broaden things beyond the original narrow scope, I think it's just a plain fact that (aside from autonomic responses) humans don't actually spend all that of our mental efforts dealing with the "now." And, beyond that, we don't even spend all that much time "on the time line." This thread is a great example: the subject matter has very little indeed to do with the day-to-day issues that define my life. My thoughts -- and those of most folks, probably -- tend to range very far from our moment-to-moment activities, a lot of the time. And I think that stands as evidence that we humans have a (very limited) ability to take a "God's-eye view" of reality. And that is the proper context in which to address the slippery question of "now."
And to answer your question, I think it's only at this level that we can "'square' the historical data with science." From that perspective, science is really just one of several (many?) different ways of viewing and assessing reality -- and one, moreover, that is pretty much useless unless it's applied in conjunction with those other means of perception.
This is made clear by your discussions of Bohr and Einstein's views -- they're not talking about "evidence" per se, nor the interpretation of it; rather, they're talking about the overarching reality within which that activity takes place. And yet there's no serious doubt that both gentlemen were engaged in "science" when they were wrangling at a philosophical level with the issues raised by quantum mechanics. At that level, the "science" and "philosophy" (and also religion) are essentially inseparable -- to attempt to separate them into separate and exclusive forms of cognition is not just unnecessary, it's positively harmful to our attempts to come to grips with "reality." And thus we must conclude that our FRiend Coyoteman's comment about science vs. religion vs. philosophy -- while ideologically appealing to some -- are not really all that compelling after all.
You’re exactly right. It’s like pouring money down a big hole. Josh McDowell’s books are also very good. He started out as a non-believer/skeptic and ended up believing in his own research. I pray Soliton will do the same. Thanks for your reply.
Josephus was born after Jesus died
I would say that Christian nations are not a full century removed from this kind of behavior. More to the point, I would argue that nominally Christian nations have become less savage as they have become more secular. Our own nation provides numerous examples. I mentioned slavery, but there is also the forced relocation of the Cherokees, to cite just two examples.
What a spurious comment. Do you give yourself little stars for ‘gotchas’ you perpetrate at FR? ... And BTW, little solitary wave, there were still living in Josephus’s day probably hundreds of eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus. Are you aware of the Historical events by which Josephus became a Roman certifierd Historian since he was previously an ascetic Jew?
Read your Bible again
Are you aware of the Historical events by which Josephus became a Roman certifierd Historian since he was previously an ascetic Jew?
I am unaware of any certification process for becoming a RCS (Roman Certified Historian). I am looking at my copy of Josephus The Jewish War as I type. He was born a Jew and died a Jew as best I can tell.
In my view, this testimony stands in sharp contrast to the observation of the physical world, that the lag between physical sensory perception and cognition cannot be physically closed. IOW, the observation itself points to the physical being just a subset of "all that there is."
Thank you for your outstanding essay-posts, dearest sister in Christ!
I think I could make the case that many Freepers wouldn't consider Unitarians and Quakers to be Christians. Stick around on the religion threads and hardly anyone qualifies.
He still wrote about Jesus, even a description of him. Your mind is just closed to anything about Him. I pray for you that you will investigate with an open mind, for yourself. Blessings. mary
Radio(television) waves are "LIGHT".. as fully as infra red, micro waves and sunlight.. Radio waves carry music, talk, news, and other kinds of data(FM) <- like garage door opener signals.. Light can hold much "information"..
Light transduced by the human brain decrypts all vision.. The images are there whether the eye sees them or not.. Images of what is or seems to be..
The ghost in the machine may not be a ghost at all but some form of "light".. spectors of a spirit.. Light is NOT matter(photons).. yet is real.. There is only a little jump in logic to seeing matter become spirit.. Is matter / light in essence or can light become matter?..
What spirit/Spirit is no one knows.. as fully as few or no one knows what "light" is.. Some it is a "wave".. a field of something.. Spirit may be as real as any matter.. maybe more real than matter.. Light may be the source of what matter "IS".. and matter is just light stored as water is storage for hydrogen and oxygen.. and crude oil is storage for a range of other chemicals..
Beautifully said, r9etb! Perhaps needless to say, I so agree. (I couldn't resist adding the bolds. )
And granted, "there are some significant similarities in the sense of control systems and human cognition," as you describe. But you aren't willing to push the analogy too far, for you recognize there are significant differences as well....
For as you wrote:
...humans don't exist merely within a cyclic control loop; we also understand ourselves to be operating within a continuum that includes both past and future. Even if the aforementioned lag between sensing and processing imposes a short period of uncertainty about "now," our awareness of context allows us to operate as if that lag did not exist. And despite the lag between "actual" and "perceived" now, I think there's no serious doubt that an objective "now" actually exists.If humans indeed lived "merely" within a cyclic control loop, then there would be no human freedom and, with no freedom, no human creativity. For purpose-built controllers "merely" execute their programs (as written for them by human beings). Controllers have no "freedom" to do anything else. I gather researchers in artificial intelligence are aware of this constraint and are trying to figure out how to get around it. Probably they have a way to go here, assuming what they seek is even possible at all.
I thought this was so insightful:
My thoughts -- and those of most folks, probably -- tend to range very far from our moment-to-moment activities, a lot of the time. And I think that stands as evidence that we humans have a (very limited) ability to take a "God's-eye view" of reality. And that is the proper context in which to address the slippery question of "now."Yes; but very limited. For the "God's eye view" is from eternity, while our view is bound by our spatiotemporal position and "the arrow of [linear] time." To imagine what such a view might be like, it would be to see all past, present, and future, of all that there is, ever was, or ever will be, all "at once," in what we humans would call an "instant" of time. We cannot even begin to imagine what such a view would be like!
Anyhoot, it seems the "God's eye view" would be of an eternal Present, an eternal Now. Since my faith teaches that man is made in the "image" (or likeness, reflection) of God, on that basis we may believe that man possesses something like the capacity to experience this Eternal Now, albeit in some far "weaker" fashion. And though I here drag the "squishy matter" (scientifically speaking) of the soul back into the discussion, If the human mind can experience anything like an Eternal Now, the soul would likely be the "sensorium" of it....
So here I'm mixing up science and religion! But I think this is permissible, provided we clearly understand in which "baileywick" we are working/thinking at the time, and properly disclose such details to the reader. Which I have just done. :^)
For it seems we are agreed, r9etb, that science, philosophy, and religion ought not to be separated, regarded as "hostile" to one another — not if we want to gain the biggest, most comprehensive view of Reality that can be obtained by the human mind.
I find your essay/posts so delightful to read and think about, r9etb. Thank you so very much for your wonderful contributions to this thread!
Every time the claim is made that there is "no evidence" for a global flood some 4350 years ago, I am compelled to reply "not so fast" and submit the following article:
At some time around 2300 BC, give or take a century or two, a large number of the major civilisations of the world collapsed, simultaneously it seems. The Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia, the Old Kingdom in Egypt, the Early Bronze Age civilisation in Israel, Anatolia and Greece, as well as the Indus Valley civilisation in India, the Hilmand civilisation in Afghanistan and the Hongshan Culture in China - the first urban civilisations in the world - all fell into ruin at more or less the same time. Why? …
Some decades ago, the hunt for clues passed largely into the hands of natural scientists. Concentrating on the earlier set of Bronze Age collapses, researchers began to find a range of evidence that suggested that natural causes rather than human actions, may have been initially responsible. There began to be talk of climate change, volcanic activity, and earthquakes - and some of this material has now found its way into standard historical accounts of the period. Agreement, however, there has never been. Some researchers favoured one type of natural cause, others favoured another, and the problem remained that no single explanation appeared to account for all the evidence….
The hunt for natural causes for these human disasters began when the Frenchman Claude Schaeffer, one of the leading archaeologists of his time, published his book ‘Stratigraphie Comparee et Chronologie L’Asie Occidentale’ in 1948. Schaeffer analysed and compared the destruction layers of more than 40 archaeological sites in the Near and Middle East, from Troy to Tepe Hissar on the Caspian Sea and from the Levant to Mesopotamia. He was the first scholar to detect that all had been totally destroyed several times in the Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age, apparently simultaneously.
Since the damage was far too excessive and did not show signs of military or human involvement, he argued that repeated earthquakes might have been responsible for these events. At the time he published, Schaeffer was not taken seriously by the world of archaeology. Since then, however, natural scientists have found widespread and unambiguous evidence for abrupt climate change, sudden sea level changes, catastrophic inundations, widespread seismic activity and evidence for massive volcanic activity at several periods since the last Ice Age, but particularly at around 2200BC, give or take 200 years.
Areas such as the Sahara, or around the Dead Sea, were once farmed but became deserts. Tree rings show disastrous growth conditions at c 2350BC, while sediment cores from lakes and rivers in Europe and Africa show a catastrophic drop in water levels at this time. In Mesopotamia, vast areas of land appear to have been devastated, inundated, or totally burned... Yet what was the cause of these earthquakes, eruptions, tidal waves, fire-blasts and climate changes? By the late 1970s, British astronomers Victor Clube and Bill Napier of Oxford University had begun to investigate cometary impact as the ultimate cause. Then in 1980, the Nobel prizewinning physicist Luis Alvarez and his colleagues published their famous paper in ‘Science’ that argued that a cosmic impact had led to the extinction of the dinosaurs..
He showed that large amounts of the element iridium present in geological layers dating from about 65 million BC had a cosmic origin. Alvarez’s paper had immense influence and stimulated further research by such British astronomers as Clube and Napier, Prof Mark Bailey of the Armagh Observatory, Duncan Steel of Spaceguard Australia, and Britain’s best known astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle. All now support the theory of cometary impact and loosely form what is now known as the British School of Coherent Catastrophism.
These scholars envisage trains of cometary debris which repeatedly encounter the Earth. We know that tiny particles of cosmic material penetrate the atmosphere every day, but their impact is insignificant.
Occasionally, however, cosmic debris measuring between one and several hundred metres in diametre strike the Earth and these can have catastrophic effects on our ecological system, through multimegaton explosions of fireballs which destroy natural and cultural features on the surface of the Earth by means of tidal-wave floods (if the debris lands in the sea), fire blasts and seismic damage…
The extent to which past cometary impacts were responsible for civilisation collapse, cultural change, even the development of religion, must remain a hypothesis. But in view of the astronomical, geological and archaeological evidence, this ‘giant comet’ hypothesis should no longer be dismissed by archaeologists out of hand.
Evidence shows catastrophic climate change around 2350 BC in the civilized world mentioned in the Bible, i.e. "areas such as the Sahara, or around the Dead Sea, were once farmed but became deserts. Tree rings show disastrous growth conditions at c 2350BC, while sediment cores from lakes and rivers in Europe and Africa show a catastrophic drop in water levels at this time. In Mesopotamia, vast areas of land appear to have been devastated, inundated, or totally burned."
The evidence of natural disaster around the world at the same time, to the scientists quoted in this article, suggests comets were the probable cause.
Science of course excludes the supernatural on principle, but we Christians would say such a catastrophe was the will of God whether He used comets or something else to effect His will.
Personally, my musing is that the Noah Flood was worldwide and targeted to destroy utterly (except for Noah et al) all life in which existed the neshama, the breath of life. (Genesis 2 and 6) To the archeologist, that might interpret to "civilizations."
To God be the glory!
“I think there’s no serious doubt that an objective “now” actually exists”
Ein and Stein prove this incorrect. Here is a cool little modeling tool that lets you play with time dilation based on speed and distance traveled. You will see that Ein and Stein age very differently. How can they be said to have an objective “now” shared between them?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/hotsciencetwin/
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