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Thank you so very much for your kind encouragements, dear freedumb2003!

How can you apply amorphous musings (no offense) to the modern scientific model?

We are not proposing amorphous musings. Moreover, some of the non-physical causations of which we speak are already being applied, e.g. Shannon's mathematical theory of communications (information theory) in pharmaceutical and cancer research.

On the science and philosophy point, I'll repeat here my reply to a comment you made on a thread that has since gone to crickets:

I will continue to attempt (sometimes with great frustration and loud sighs) to note the science vs. philosophy conundrum we have created (needlessly IMHO) for ourselves.

It seems that betty boop and I are ever standing in the gap. Of a truth, science is rooted in philosophy.

The word "science" itself is simply the Latin word for knowledge: scientia. Until the 1840's what we now call science was "natural philosophy," so that even Isaac Newton's great book on motion and gravity, published in 1687, was The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis). Newton was, to himself and his contemporaries, a "philosopher." In a letter to the English chemist Joseph Priestley written in 1800, Thomas Jefferson lists the "sciences" that interest him as, "botany, chemistry, zoology, anatomy, surgery, medicine, natural philosophy [this probably means physics], agriculture, mathematics, astronomy, geography, politics, commerce, history, ethics, law, arts, fine arts." The list begins on familiar enough terms, but we hardly think of history, ethics, or the fine arts as "sciences" any more. Jefferson simply uses to the term to mean "disciplines of knowledge."

Beginning of Modern Science and Modern Philosophy

And as the terms “science” and “philosophy” have evolved over the years in common usage, there has been an unfortunate tendency among some to posture science as more trustworthy than philosophy by reason of the scientific method.

But that tendency is also a family of philosophies whose labels I defer to betty boop and in general only note that the tendency values sensory perception and reasoning above all else.

And among that family are those who paradoxically hold to physical causation as an axiom (strong determinism) while at the same time declare their personal choices (free will.) If you haven’t already, you should check out betty boop’s wonderful essay on Einstein’s God.

Her essay illustrates how some of the great minds concluded that the first cause was not physical and yet would not admit any subsequent non-physical causation.

I also note that many mathematicians - or scientists with strong mathematical skill - hold theories and speculations which speak beyond physical causation (Tegmark, Rosen, Shannon, Jastrow, et al)

Presuppositions concerning causation are caught up in each person's understanding of what is; it is philosophy. And of course our personal philosophy (whether or not it has a label) derives from our beliefs.

Christians and Jews who believe in God, the Creator, admit to non-physical causation in widely varying degrees. Deists admit to at least one. And so on.

So this, I believe, is at the root of the crevo wars and the never-ending disputes over the intelligent design hypothesis, i.e. the posters' philosophy concerning causation. The debate cannot be science versus philosophy.

Thank you and I was going to ask if it was past your bedtime when I realized I am the one on the East Coast and it is past MY bedtime (I have been traveling coast to coast for 10 years on and off and I still haven’t adjusted!)

I will address just a few points, if you don’t mind.

>>Moreover, some of the non-physical causations of which we speak are already being applied, e.g. Shannon’s mathematical theory of communications (information theory) in pharmaceutical and cancer research.<<

Being in the information processing business, I am certainly familiar with most aspects of information theory. But when asking the underlying question “how much data are needed to ascertain information?” there are no non-physical aspects. There may be gaps that require inference, but no model contains “this gap bridged by God.” A representation of an object (e.g. a relational variable versus a relation) is far from a non-physical entity. It has what we call “informational heft” — meaning from a physical Universe in a physical Universe.

>>It seems that betty boop and I are ever standing in the gap. Of a truth, science is rooted in philosophy. <<

Indeed you do and I enjoy and learn from your posts. But I don’t think we are standing at the gap you think we are. The Universe is made up of rules and those rules have result sets. The result sets are: known true, known false, unknown. If we set aside the first two, then we end up dealing with the unknowns (also known as null in a 3VL [3 value: {1,0,null}] analysis).

Now, any rule applied against an unknown results in an unknown — IRRESPECTIVE OF THE KNOWN QUALITY OF THE RULE BEING APPLIED.

I provide emphasis because I want to point out that any path that leads to an unknown ends up in the same place no matter what led it there.

So, now that we are left with only unknown, we can begin to try to classify the nature of the unknown: never instantiated (we never asked), known to be unknown (we asked and got no answer), axiomatic (we supply an answer when there is no ability to ask), etc. There can be quite a few classifications to unknown data before you end up with a truly null result (Chris Date says proper analysis will never result in a wholly null (”unknown”) result, E.F. Codd says it is irrelevant — go figger).

Now, the interesting part is each of these classifications remove our rule from the “unknown” (3VL: null) category to the identified (2VL) category and can be applied to the rule we are examining. I could go into the entire substructure of why 3VL has no applicability (maybe this is where we “leave the path”?) but I would have to restate a lot of Boolean algebra and that would be pedantic, boring and irrelevant).

So where does that leave us?

Well, it means that in the physical Universe we inhabit, even the most esoteric information theories do not obviate physical answers. The milieu demands exactly the opposite. There is not nor can there ever be a “God in the gaps.” If you wish to rely on an information theory model, then application of that which is not know would result in “God is in all gaps” (again, I refer you to Boolean algebra, substituting God or an ID to the null element).

Bottom line: there are no non-physical causations and they can not be created out of whole cloth from argumentation.

Lord have mercy! Did I write all that? Now it is I who is leading the cast down the primrose path! Remember to bring your boogie board and a wet suit!