Posted on 01/28/2005 4:28:41 PM PST by metacognative
I agree with you on the importance of the questions. Some might rephrase it "what is the meaning of life?" but the point is the same.
One might wonder what the purpose of a worldview would be if not to answer these questions. Acquire power? Certainly not to discover the truth since it tends to hide or deny the truth.
bump to read later
Who are we?
Why are we here?
Where shall we have lunch?
"42" !
Cheers! Full Disclosure: I had to be the first one to answer that way!
One might wonder what the purpose of a worldview would be if not to answer these questions. Acquire power? Certainly not to discover the truth since it tends to hide or deny the truth.
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if we were to take the three forms of truth suggested on this board: ie philosophical, theological, scientific--and x out scientific--which by definition is explicitely quantifiable...- Then I think it would be appropriate to say that in the cases of both theological and philosophical truth-- truth without love is not truth. Inversely, love without truth is not love.
Truth is that which corresponds to reality. If someone decides to inflict injury on you by revealing some hidden secret of your past or your parents' past, there may not be love but there still is truth.
That is why I suspected messing with "reality" is a back-door attempt at "changing" truth. Ultimately, there exist first principles from which reality can be "realized." Once someone questions those first principles, he undermines the platform from which the questions were launched.
The simple truth definition, BTW, is borrowed from Dr. Geisler.
To an autonomist "reality" is all that is, the way it is
To an objectivist "reality" is that which exists
To tpaine, “reality” is all about us, and it is best defined by the bad things that happen when it is ignored.
To a mystic "reality" may include thought as substantive force and hence, a part of "reality"
To Plato "reality" includes constructs such as redness, chairness, numbers, geometry and pi
To Aristotle these constructs are not part of "reality" but merely language
To some physicists, "reality" is the illusion of quantum mechanics
To Christians "reality" is God's will and unknowable in its fullness.
To the Antediluvians, reality was that Noah was nuts... until the rain began to fall. So their reality wasn't really reality, was it? In the same way, other contradictory "realities" will vanish quickly when the soul leaves the body.
truth without love is not truth.
Truth is that which corresponds to reality. If someone decides to inflict injury on you by revealing some hidden secret of your past or your parents' past, there may not be love but there still is truth.
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ok this example rules out philosophical truth as being a place where the propostion: "truth without love is not truth and inversely love with truth is not love"-- holds true.
I had actually heard this point in the context of some theological propositions--and tried to stretch it over to philosophy. That won't do. So for neither philosophical or scientific truth is the above proposition true.
Since God does not change--I would be interested in seeing your refutation of the proposition in the context of theological truth.
To the Antediluvians, reality was that Noah was nuts... until the rain began to fall. So their reality wasn't really reality, was it? In the same way, other contradictory "realities" will vanish quickly when the soul leaves the body.
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the trouble with this statement is that you have to be beyond the grave to evaluate it properly. In fact, by Grace there is one who has done just that.
1 Peter 3 (New International Version)
18For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, 19through whom[d] also he went and preached to the spirits in prison 20who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also–not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge[e] of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22who has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand–with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.
Thank you for your post and for the excellent choice of Scripture!
On your other points – yes, I do understand thermodynamic entropy v Shannon entropy v Kolmogorov entropy. Yes, I do understand the concept of spontaneous and non-spontaneous processes (and have used your refrigerator example several times to make the point, btw).
Wrt Dembski, I am a strong supporter of Intelligent Design arguments – I do not however believe that anyone mortal is infallible. IMHO, Dembski made two errors.
One, he introduced a new type of complexity (irreducible) which was not necessary and in doing so gave the anti-ID crowd something else to argue about. He could have used functional complexity to make the same point, for instance.
Two, he misappropriated the word “information”. Information is an action, not a message – the meaning or value of the message has no bearing at all on information theory. Claude Shannon is the “father” of information theory and that is his definition of the term. It makes a huge difference when arguing with bio/chemists who prefer to focus on the DNA (message) when the prime issue is the successful communication, the will to live – or as you prefer to argue it as a package, the non-spontaneous process.
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