Creation astronomy from a rocket scientist

“I really dont know why you are posting Hoffman.”

Hoffman’s work, which is based on evolutionary theory by the way, may help explain why there is a great divide between “creationists” and “evolutionists”.

Creationists and ID advocates are probably mostly people who begin with an assumption of revealed knowledge about creation, such as the Bible, and then look for ways to reconcile observable phenomena and data with such a priori assumptions.

However, most scientific materialists probably begin with an assumption that all real scientific knowledge must begin with data from observations. Some may feel that religious beliefs or articles of faith have no place at all in the realm of scientific inquiry.

A scientific materialist may reject any proposition of a creationist simply because the creationist may be unwilling to accept where the evidence leads. And the creationists may be unwilling to accept the well-supported theories advocated by the scientific materialist because it may contradict or appear to contradict the assumptions of the creationist.

Hoffman himself does not identify as Christian (other than having a Christian upbringing, as far as I know). The bottom line is things are not always as they appear to be. I suspect that there is “truth” from both perspectives, but apparent contradictions lead to endless debates.

“A Scientific Theory is a broad explanation of observed phenomena which is internally and externally consistent.”

Duh. And? What makes you think my statement is in any way inconsistent?

“Sorry FRiend, not even close.”

Do you believe scientific theories are “provable”? They are falsifiable but not provable.

In science, “proof” or evidence supports a theory or it does not. It may falsify a theory so that it is discarded or adapted to the new data. But theories are not “proven”.

Empirical evidence is proof, but the underlying theories confirmed by such evidence are always subject to change.

Theorems, on the other hand, can and should be proven because they are mathematics (or formal logic). In fact, a theorem must be proven, based on given axioms, in order to be considered a theorem.

For example, Pythagoras gave us a theorem for calculating dimensions of triangles.

In science a law can and is proven because it is generalization of data either expressed mathematically or with formal logic. However, even laws can be revised because phenomena may be encountered that require modifying a law for special cases (or scope). We see this with Einstein and Newton with regards to gravity.

Mathematical theorems are based on inductive reasoning. On the other hand, scientific theories are based on deductive reasoning. Theories always contain both observational and theoretical components. Thus, they contain synthetic statements and analytic statements. They have theoretical axioms and rules of correspondence.

Likewise, scientific laws are either empirical or theoretical. Empirical laws generalize only empirical / observable phenomena. Theoretical laws use inductive logic to explain empirical laws.

It is problematic that debates about “Intelligent Design” and “Creationism” often evoke responses by those driven by scientism to attribute to science unwarranted ontological and epistemological powers. These are not the realm of science but of philosophy and religion.

I suspect that questioning whether space-time is a fundamental reality might be likely to evoke an irrational, illogical, and emotionally-driven response from those who are heavily vested in scientism and scientific-materialism. Such responses are not scientific.

Donald Hoffman’s formal MUI theory uses evolutionary game theory to show that our perceptions of an independent reality MUST be illusions. He has put forward a theory that addresses the so-called “hard problem” of how consciousness emerges. Scientific materialism generally presupposes (with absolutely no evidence) that consciousness MUST be an emergent property of the brain.

Hoffman explains that this “Reductive functionalism has been mathematically formulated and disproven. The disproof is called the scrambling theorem. Each reductive functionalist theory of the mind-body problem is therefore false.”

http://cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/Chapter17Hoffman.pdf

In the same chapter, here are some testable predictions of the theory:

1— “No physical object has real values of dynamical physical properties (such as position, momentum, spin) when it is not observed. If we find definitive evidence otherwise, my theories would be in ruins. The experimental evidence so far is that quantum objects violate Bell’s inequalities, which is often interpreted as a refutation of local realism; such an interpretation is exactly what is predicted by the interface theory of perception. However, other interpretations such as Bohm’s, which keeps realism at the expense of locality, and Everett’s, which keeps realism at the expense of counterfactual definiteness, are not ruled out.”

2— “No physical object has any causal powers. I call this doctrine epiphysicalism: Consciousness creates physical objects and their properties, but physical objects themselves have no causal powers. This is the converse of epiphenomenalism, which claims that physical objects, such as brains, create conscious experiences, but conscious experiences themselves have no causal powers. If any physical object were shown to have causal powers, my theories would be in ruins.”

3— “Every perceptual capacity can be represented by the conscious-agent formalism. If there were some perceptual capacity whose formal statement could not be represented within the formalism of conscious agents, then the conscious-agent formalism would be falsified. This claim about conscious agents and perceptual capacities is analogous to the claim that is made about Turing machines and effective procedures. The Church-Turing thesis states that every algorithm can be instantiated by some Turing machine. Were someone to produce an algorithm that could not be so instantiated, then the Church-Turing thesis would be falsified, and Turing machines would be an inadequate representation of algorithms. Similarly, the Conscious-Agent thesis states that every perceptual capacity can be instantiated by some conscious agent. Were someone to produce a perceptual capacity that could not be so instantiated, then the Conscious-Agent thesis would be falsified. The Conscious-Agent thesis is effectively the claim that conscious agents are an adequate formalism to represent all conscious perceptual experiences.”

Additional predictions are here:

http://cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/Hoffman-Stevens-Handbook.pdf

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