But this too is part of the “observer problem” though I suspect tortoise disagrees that there is such a thing.
Nevertheless, once the observer has supposed a domain or system, he has lost objectivity – particularly so if he is part of the domain or system.
And once he has made an observation, he has further constrained the domain or system to the limits of his subjective encoding/decoding (syntax, language, consciousness and so on).
For such reasons I aver that only God is objective; God is Truth.
That is not to say we should throw up our hands and give up trying to understand things. Not at all. But concerning issues of reality, we should always remember that we are like the ten blind men trying to describe the elephant.
One may grab the trunk and say the elephant is like a rope, another the ear and say it is like a fan, another the leg and say it is like a tree and so on. All are partly right and all are clearly wrong. We must realize our blindness – quit insisting our view is the only view - and dig deeper for a better understanding of the elephant.
Which brings me full circle to the original point which seems to be flying overhead like geese in this sidebar: the issue is not what a thing such as life (or an elephant) looks like but what it “is”.
From a strict perspective there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this idea. The obvious limitations is that it would be true if and only if we were discussing our universe in isolation (which from the perspective of humans, we effectively are) and God is completely external to our universe. Thought that fact really does not help us because humans cannot evaluate God in such a manner.
If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: mathematics does not allow a part of a system (like humans) to be objective about a system (like our universe). That's where things like Bayes' theorem comes in (which interestingly, many scholars would attribute to Laplace). Just don't run too far afield with this.
And once he has made an observation, he has further constrained the domain or system to the limits of his subjective encoding/decoding (syntax, language, consciousness and so on)....
Which brings me full circle to the original point which seems to be flying overhead like geese in this sidebar: the issue is not what a thing such as life (or an elephant) looks like but what it “is”.
Exactly my point, Alamo-Girl. I don't know why so many seem to find it so difficult to grasp. Thank you ever so much for writing, and for your kind encouragements!