Evolution through the Back Door

Various | 6/15/2003 | Alamo-Girl

[Alamo-Girl]

I'm working on an article to organize some thoughts on a new approach (grounded in math/physics) to the subject of biological evolution.

I would greatly appreciate your critiques, comments, additional or preferred sources, etc.

Thank you!

[Alamo-Girl]

I'd greatly appreciate your input and/or your pinging anyone else you think might have input! Hugs!

[PatrickHenry]

Good Lord, A-Girl. This thing will take days to digest. Massive work. I'll dig into it a bit at a time.
[I'm just ape over you!]

[No Dems 2004]

I'm sorry, Alamo-Girl, but I don't have the time to wade through everything here! From what I glean, you seem to believe in special creation, which I utterly adhere to.

Personally, I believe that evolution is blasphemous nonsense. The beginning is in Genesis 1. God once described Himself as "I am that I am" and He is the "Beginning and the Ending". Since He is the "Beginning" we don't need to try to figure out when the universe started. I did a tremendous amount of study on evolution in high school, and I reject the theory of evolution in its entirety, whether or not so-called scientists try to combine theological elements with it or not.

Am I correct in assuming that you believe the same thing?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for your willingness to give me a hand! I'm looking forward to your input. Hugs and *smooches*!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for your insight! Indeed, we would agree on most things. This particular article is oriented to approaching evolution from the math/physics angle.

There is another article where we've collected various Freeper views on creation and the patriarchs. That article and its continuation addresses Genesis specifically. If you are interested and/or would like to state your views there, here's the link: Freeper Views on Origins

[PatrickHenry]

It appears that I am not the only one who concludes it was to counter the obvious theological importance of that discovery - that the multi-verse theories were proposed. But that strategy is only clever by half since even a multi-verse must have a beginning.

I've only progressed a little way. I have a quibble here. I understand that the multi-verse scenario wasn't proposed for theological purposes, but rather to explain the remarkably congenial set of physical laws we observe. When I say "explain," I use that term in the scientific sense -- by which I mean providing a comprehensible, natural, cause-and-effect, testable explanation. Yes, it's "naturalism," but only procedural naturalism, the kind that science is stuck with. No way to ever preclude supernatural explanations. And no reason not to search for natural ones.

The so-called "fine tuning" of the universe is interesting, and one can duck the issue and say that it's just the way things are, or (I see this as another dodge) that what we observe are indeed only one set of an infinite array of physical laws. Of course, anyone can put a theological spin on these issues, and you seem to have done so. Personally, I doubt that cosmologists are really sitting around looking for ways to sabotage religion. I suspect that there are perfectly good and understandable reasons for the physical laws we observe, but as with other scientific problems, it will take time to dig out the answers.

[Rudder]

Those who are threatened by the concept of evolution are insecure in their religious faith.

[js1138]

This is really a placmarker, because I haven't tead it all. A couple of quick comments, not necessarily directed at you.

There is a tendency in FR threads for some to reason from the necessary existence of God, directly to the existence of the Christian God, complete with whatever attributes some particular church or demonination ascribes to God.

Second, it is quite reasonable to hypothesise that God exists only through the existence of the universe; that is, God cnnot be said to have attributes except those those that manifest themselves through existence. I used to think this was called Deism, but correct me if I'm wrong about this.

[dark_lord]

According to Sir Karl Popper, when given two theories an experiment will decide one true and one false. But in wave-particle duality one experiment proves the electron is a wave, another proves it is a particle.

Strictly speaking, these experiments "prove" is that what they are seeing is neither a particle nor a wave. Which of course physicists have known for a while. They know that using the concepts of "particles" and "waves" are just that -- concepts.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your comments on that point!

I included the excerpt from Hawking's lecture and the article on Martin Rees to illustrate that the multi-verse motive is transparent, at least in those instances. But as you say, the meaning is in the eye of the beholder.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your comments!

Indeed, it is impossible for me to speak of someOne I personally know as a hypothetical. So I will always speak of God in the Judeo/Christian context.

There are of course other concepts of God. One of these is the "collective consciousness" to which you are speaking. But that would not be reasonable in the context of a Creator, IMHO, since there is always a beginning, a cause - and a collective consiousness follows.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your post!

Indeed, they are both constructs with their own sets of problems - hence quantum field theory.

[JmyBryan]

Whenever you talk creationism, you simply can't get past the chicken or the egg conundrum. It's obvious the "chicken" always comes out of some "egg", ie undifferentiated self into differentiated self. Beginnings are arbitrary, dependent on your perception of time - an immense aspect of what we call consciousness. In physics time/space is same thing. We only have glimpses of other times - life spans of other creatures, altered states of perception. God must be absolute time or timelessness, yet an infinity of times. Your Kabbalistic teachings state categorically that God is ultimately formlessness, void, chaos, nothingness (Ain). Consciousness is recognition of otherness - or binary good/evil, on/off reality - a direct reflection of one's differentiated state. Number comes next, counting the on/off occurences. Whenever the counting starts is the beginning, though the on/off may or may not have been eternally present in God - no beginning per se. In this complexity, arguments of the betterness of creation or evolution would seem to exclude ultra-complex explanations of yet unperceived timelessness and creations. We will never fully grasp the ultimate void (beginning) unless we perceive undifferentiatedness - meaning no consciousness or memory in the sense that we can describe it to one another in linear time-dependent symbolism (language).

All that gobbledygook leads to one question: Is the process of differentiation named creation or evolution? From my perspective it's all about the intent of describing the process. Is mystery mechanical or is mechanical mysterious? Both perspectives can lead to greater knowledge. All that matters is honest exposition.

[MHGinTN]

[Bookmarking this thread.] Forgive this intrusion by an amateur.

Because our understanding of the nature of time is not yet complete, it is just as functional to say that a Creator is at work as to say there is not a Creator at work. If one starts with the notion that a Creator of spacetime and all attached to such a reality has a nature greater than the spacetime reality, the likelihood that such an Creator would use evolution (in some manifestation) as a process useful in the ongoing creative effort is acceptable. Nothing yet has 'falsed' that notion. Is it possible some future 'discovery' will false the notion? Well, the answer to that, on a personal, level depends on the level of openness one brings to the debate. In the last analysis, believing there is a Creator at work but we don't grasp the complexities yet is preferrable, to this amateur. To believe otherwise holds the potential for a possibly unpleasant surprise once one is 'beyond' the confines of spacetime as we experience it. Why chance the alternative when nothing compels one to reject the notion of a Creator at work? [Perhaps the 'divine ambivilence' is a part of the plan for evolving the creation. What if there IS a part of our nature that is not confined to spacetime?]

[sourcery]

A quick scan gives me the impression that you have produced a thesis of meritorious intellectual content. But I don't have time to fully consider it right now. So I'm bookmarking for later perusal.

[PatrickHenry]

You have far more philosophical audacity than I do. I'm not even going to try to debate whether God had a beginning, or where God was before the universe began (I think of this as the "homelessness" issue, and it's quite beyond my limited powers to solve). Ditto for the Plato/Aristotle debate about the "reality" of abstractions. These are obviously outside of the limits of biological evolution. But they're delicious questions.

The biological development of consciousness is, in my opinion, still a good avenue for research; but I don't pretend to know any answers there. I may have something to say about the "free will" issue, if time permits (and if I'm not predetermined to ignore it).

I'm dazzled by the effort you've put into this. [Enthusiastic smooches!]

[MHGinTN]

"They know that using the concepts of "particles" and "waves" are just that -- concepts. dark_lord " [In a whisper, so as to avoid flames ...] I'm betting that it is our limited understanding of the nature of time that yields this ambiguity, this duality of particle and wave. Will the antrhopic principle help to resolve this paucity on time? Oh my, that is the conundrum!

[Nebullis]

This article will attempt a new approach - starting at the mathematics/physics angle - to explore the much argued subject of biological evolution.

With all due admiration for your unbounded energy, this is not a new approach at all. You'll encounter a host of mathematicians and physicists who have published articles in places like PRL, J. Theor. Biology, Theor. Pop. Biology, Statistical Physics, J. Mathematical Biology and others. There are hundreds of those researchers who have put forth simple and, sometimes, silly models of evolution. Fields such as thermodynamics, emergence, adaptive systems, and mechanics have all been applied to biological evolution. And don't forget the evolutionists who have developed strong mathematical models of evolution. Names like Smith, Fisher, Haldane, Wright come to mind. The hope is that one of these days, the mathematicians and physicist who devise elegant, clean, simple models of evolution might bother to learn some actual biology.

[knarf]

I'll need more than an afternoon to comprehend all of this, but ... thanx AG.

(Now ... where did I put those stackers???)