[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!]

[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.

[gore3000]

I'd greatly appreciate your input

In the discussion of Platonism over Aristotelian 'realism' it seemed to me that the Platonist side was left a bit weak. For example, our senses only see points of light, particular sound frequencies, etc. Is this reality? Does this tell us anything useful? It certainly is some sort of information, however it seems to me that unordered information is not useful. A single frequency of sound has little meaning, however when ordered in a time wise fashion, it will have meaning. Same for sight, a single bit of light has little meaning but when ordered by the concept of space, it gains meaning. Thus these 'concepts' seem to be what give order to reality and give us the ability to function within it.

[ALS]

Entry Word: impressive
Function: adjective
Text: 1
Synonyms MOVING 2, affecting, poignant, touching
Related Word august, grand, imposing, majestic, noble; splendid, superb; arresting, notable, striking
Antonyms unimpressive
2
Synonyms GRAND 2, gorgeous, lavish, luxurious, splendid, sumptuous

[betty boop]

A-G, this is marvelous! It'll take me some time to digest it all. But certainly, coming to evolution through the "back door" of physics and math looks like a project whose time has come! It'll certainly be fun to try!!! Thank you so much for this extraordinary post.

[ShakeNJake]

Wow. Great start. Yeah, a bit tough to wade through for the non-scientist, but you have put into words much of what I have thought all along, from a religious viewpoint rather than a scientific one. I have many times attempted to explain to others the concept of God, existing outside of time and space, no beginning and no end.

I see you have read Gerald Schroeder's work. His small book about time, relativity and the 6 days of creation is excellent reading.

Please ping me for updates and further discussion along these lines.