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The point of the legos example is that it is not surprising at all that simple atomistic non-living items can be arranged by random forces in complex patterns.

Thank you, djf, for these marvelous thought experiments!

And yet this propensity of legos — simple atomistic non-living items — to "arrange" in complex patterns is not really random. For there is a "bag" (a constraint) and something (e.g., you in this thought experiment) is "shaking" it. I.e., a "force" that is deliberately applied and is therefore not "random." If the legos seem to "arrange themselves," it is because there are [non-random] "rules" that constrain the types of outcomes that can be achieved by these simple atomistic non-living items when they are "agitated" by this outside force.

As my dearest sister in Christ Alamo-Girl reminds us from time to time, we cannot say what is "random" in a system unless we know what the system IS. To me, the word "random" stands for the (observed) behavior of a collection of objects whose (actual) behavior we don't really understand.... So we intone the word "random," and are thought to be geniuses (rather than ignoramuses).

You wrote:

Everyone, or at least most, hears about TOE. Theory of Everything. It is a model that physicists are trying to put together to explain why things are the way they are and (if possible) what is the meaning.... The one thing that proves is that most physicists are really, really, really bad epistemologists!

It seems to me that physicists and scientists in general aren't all that interested in understanding the "why" of things, merely the "how" of things. If I might put it that way. Questions of value and meaning are beyond the scope of the scientific method anyway. IMHO (FWIW).

One thing's for sure: physicists really are bad epistemologists — if they try to universalize what are actually finite observations. This instantly lands them in what A. N. Whitehead called the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness — a fallacy fairly routine nowadays in both the physical and life sciences.

You wrote:

People have been looking for meaning and knowledge for years without a good description of it. And they ask “What does it mean to have knowledge and communicate?”

To a scientist, it means to have a formal model which captures "knowledge" and provides a suitable language by which it can be communicated (shared with other minds).

But it seems to me that science is not so much about knowledge as it is about data. Data is the raw material of knowledge, not knowledge itself. Something more is needed to convert data into information (knowledge) — and that is mental processing by an observer. And still we are far short at this point of questions of meaning — which belong, not to science, but to philosophy and theology.

I so agree with you here, dear djf:

Ultimately, the processes that happen during life are not due to the material things that humans and legos and the Taj Mahal are made of, but a result of the PATTERNS that make life. If there is an emergent field of science I think is needed, it is the study of patterns and geometry.

Nature is replete with patterns and regularities, the mere presence of which strongly argues that nature is principally not "random" at all at the global level. Such patterns and regularities, involving persistence over time, bespeak of lawful — not "random" — behavior.

And so it is not at all surprising to me that "Any process or system of large complexity when studied in sufficient detail WILL BE SHOWN to be able to be mapped to other systems of large complexity, so that parallels, allegories, and metaphors can be drawn." And can be drawn clear across different knowledge disciplines.

Thank you ever so much, dear djf, for your excellent, mind-bending thought experiments!

Thanks!

Note that my original post is king of a foundation for conclusions that I really didn’t spell out.

I am composing a reply offline and will post later.

;-)

kind of, not king of.

I gotta stop posting in the dark!

Thanks again for inviting me to another wonderful discussion. As before, I will speak from inspired ignorance.

Since we, as Christians, all agree, I presume, that God is the end-all, be-all of everything, He is boundless in space and time. When you consider the implications of “boundless”, then this and most conversations of the sort become meaningless. If He always has been and always will be, the very definition of eternal, then what does “beginning” mean? Why do we bother ourselves with these things other than through a self centered and egotistical desire to “know”?

God IS! God always has been! God will be forever! As A-G offers frequently, God said I AM. That says it all! So why do we discuss this? I suppose it is to try to understand HOW God’s universe works, and ourselves in it. Yet, to try to determine whether things happened because of God or for some other reason is a futile gesture.

Relax! Love it, live it and enjoy it! Let the scientists and engineers learn how it works and how to use it to make even more things work. It is our place to simply love and glorify God.

Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!

As my dearest sister in Christ Alamo-Girl reminds us from time to time, we cannot say what is "random" in a system unless we know what the system IS. To me, the word "random" stands for the (observed) behavior of a collection of objects whose (actual) behavior we don't really understand.... So we intone the word "random," and are thought to be geniuses (rather than ignoramuses).

As an example, a sequence of numbers pulled from the extension of pi would appear random to an observer when they are, in fact, highly determined. Which is to say, any time a person calculates pi to that extent, the same numbers will appear in the same position.

We mere mortals do not know - indeed, can never know - the full number and types of dimensions (e.g. spatial and temporal.) So whereas "randomness" is a very useful construct in mathematics it does not translate to the physical "world."

The same is true of the mathematical term "infinity" because space/time is finite.

As another example, scientists cannot say that massless particles which have no direct or indirect measureable effects do not exist. Or to put it another way, the scientist cannot say a thing does not exist on the basis of his inability to measure (observe) it.

God's Name is I AM.