Posted on 01/27/2009 6:59:07 AM PST by betty boop
Edited on 01/27/2009 7:16:52 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Dear Sister in Christ: it is so seldom that I find myself in disagreement with you that I feel that I must avail myself of this opportunity! ;-)
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Of course, that letter has meaning -- to the one who wrote it. By the same token, God's Word has meaning (it is His Word) -- whether or not we choose to read it!
That letter and the Bible are both "repositories of meaning" -- stored and encoded information that is capable of conveying meaning -- independent of whether or not there is a receiver.
Or -- did I miss a definition of "meaning" that indicates otherwise?
Certainly the message has meaning to the sender. And to the receiver it will also have meaning. Whether the two are the same, who knows.
The message, intrinsic to itself is just a message. The conveyance, a conveyance.
If I pick up a message sent by someone to you and read it, it will have meaning to me. Even then, it may not be the same meaning as it would have to you or the sender of it.
Creation itself is such a repository. (emphasis mine)
But God is not holding the conveyance accountable in Romans 1:20. He is holding us, the receivers, accountable.
Certainly I agree with you that "every aspect of the Universe is sending intelligible messages." The Universe is an intelligible structure, and humans are intelligent beings. As such, the Universe is the "sender," and humans the "receivers." My earlier point was only that "meaning" is only possible for intelligent, self-reflective, conscious beings capable of making judgments. Most of the "information processing" that goes on in Nature is done by entities that do not appear to have this form of consciousness. But the business of Nature gets done notwithstanding.
Please forgive me for belaboring the point, but that is why the Shannon model is so critically important IMHO. It does not deny messages have meaning; it simply avers that "successful communication" is independent of meaning; that is, it doesn't focus on the particular meaning of the message, but rather on the mechanism of its successful communication. Or as George Gilder puts it, Shannon's model concerns itself, not with the "content" of the message, but with its "conduit"; or more simply, its concern is with the medium, not with the message per se. The message could be something richly meaningful — say, Shakespeare's Hamlet — or it could be something utterly mundane (i.e., "blow your nose"). The Shannon model handles all messages in the same way because successful communications of every kind have exactly the same structure. Thus, the model has universal applicability.
You wrote that "the main job of science is to decipher the meaning of those messages." Well, it seems that you and I and TXnMA are all agreed about this. Aristotle would have agreed with this. But how do the vast majority of scientists understand their role today? I hazard the opinion that most aren't concerned with the meaning of Nature, but with how Nature can be instrumentalized and harnessed to human goals.
For Aristotle, meaning was the essential thing. He proposed that we could never meaningfully understand a phenomenon of nature if we could not describe it in terms of four causes — material, formal, efficient, and final — with the description given in natural language.
But a couple of things happened early in the history of science of the most momentous importance. Beginning with the pre-Socratics, the foundations of mathematics and geometry were laid. From that point on, the natural sciences gradually began to speak of their discoveries in the language of mathematics, not natural human languages; and eventually to formulate it as a predictive tool. (Evidently Aristotle tried to resist this mathematizing tendency.) And this represented a tremendous advance for the natural sciences; for mathematics seems to have an uncanny ability to model nature. It is "unreasonably effective," as Eugene Wigner put it. None of this would have come as a surprise to Pythagoras, I feel pretty sure.
A second great revolution was Sir Francis Bacon's expulsion of final causes from the scientific method in the late 16th century.
A final cause refers to purposes and goals — to teleology. Now I don't know how to find meaning in a phenomenon if I don't know what it's for. But evidently, scientists do not worry much about such matters nowadays.
You wrote that "the statistics of the message is interesting, but the meaning of those messages is crucial." Probability theory is the sine qua non of the increasing mathematization of the natural sciences. Hillel Furstenberg (Department of Mathematics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) has remarked that the great beauty of statistical mathematics is that "probability theory uses human ignorance systematically to create a useful scientific discipline. This in itself is something of a miracle."
However, the efficacy of probability theory depends on the "Law of Large Numbers," which basically states that when there is a sufficiently large number of chance events, there is a very high probability, practically a guarantee, that certain outcomes will occur. But this circumstance does not obtain in macroevolutionary theory, focusing as it does on unique events, not the law of large numbers. Except to note that Darwinism also vigorously eschews teleology, the ramifications of this situation go beyond the scope of the present writing....
Must close for now by saying I'm a Christian, a lower-case "c" creationist, a student of science with a background in philosophy, culture, and history. I'm no academic or working scientist; but I hear what many, if not most of them are saying nowadays.
My conclusion is that if the natural sciences want to "reduce" Nature to a method which is agnostic with regard to either purpose or meaning in Nature, then that just leaves a whole lot for philosophy/theology to do.
In the end, the two great knowledge domains, though seemingly "separate" according to their methods and "mutually exclusive," are finally necessarily complementary for human beings wanting to understand the Universe and their place in it in a meaningful way.
Thank you so much for writing, GGG!
LOLOL, to put it mildly! I'm completely unaware of any process of invention that did not proceed from already existing materials. The only exception to this rule would be: God's "invention," that is the Creation, which furnished all the necessary "existing materials" for all time.
I find it fascinating that some folks nowadays evidently think it is absolutely necessary to "kill off God" in order to free up human creative potential. In a certain way, this line of thinking goes straight to the problem of gnosticism that spirited irish has raised.
Reduced to the bare bones, gnosticism is the belief that there is a form of knowledge superior to that which is given in ordinary human experience that only the "adepts" or "cognoscenti" know about. All other human mortals are simply deluded about the nature of the world and, thus, of their place in it.
It seems that early forms of gnosticism were recessive, "retreats" from the world, a withdrawal into the secret knowledge and away from the world of common human experience.
In contrast, modern forms of gnosticism tend to be aggressive — they are interested in proselytizing this "higher, truer" knowledge. They also do not care about the world of common human experience, which must be "overcome" in order for the gnostic vision to take hold. And because human beings universally and historically experience relations to gods or God, all such divine entities must be eradicated.
But whether ancient or modern in form, gnosticism boils down to a rationalization of the human usurpation of the role of mediator of Truth. It makes man the measure; it is relentlessly "anthropomorphic"; in the process, what begins as egocentrism results in the self-divinization of man.
Modern gnostic systems include: Marxism, materialism, naturalism, positivism, utilitarianism, etc., etc. Indeed, any word ending with the suffix "ism" may be a candidate for classification as a gnostic system of thought.
Eric Voegelin's general term for gnostic systems is "second realities," "alternative realities." The whole idea here is to make the second reality "mask," obscure, and then finally dispense with, the very real First Reality from which it was born. Which seems awfully strange to me. For the constructor of a second reality is very much a natural member of First Reality. Whether he likes First Reality or not, the practical question is: Why would a rational person want to destroy the very ground on which he himself stands?
Seems to me that a kind of "suicide" of the mind and spirit is going on here. But others can make their own judgments about that....
Anyhoot, just some stray thoughts, FWIW.
Thank you ever so much for your excellent essay/post, dearest sister in Christ!
betty wrote, “Eric Voegelin’s general term for gnostic systems is “second realities,” “alternative realities.” The whole idea here is to make the second reality “mask,” obscure, and then finally dispense with, the very real First Reality from which it was born. Which seems awfully strange to me. For the constructor of a second reality is very much a natural member of First Reality. Whether he likes First Reality or not, the practical question is: Why would a rational person want to destroy the very ground on which he himself stands?”
Spirited: This isn’t the easiest subject to tackle in that the answer deals with suffering, and how differently natured people deal with it. Suffering can either lead to patience, strength, and wisdom or it can lead to bitterness, rebellion, deicide, escapism, and other spiritual deformations.
Gnosticism is essentially two things: Elitism on one hand and on the other, escape from suffering through negation of reality and construction of a surreality. The Nassenes are a good example. They taught that the two sexes were wrong, that man is meant to be a hermaphrodite. Male/female sex was therefore wrong, the family and procreation wrong, morality and norms wrong, and so forth.
It’s the way in which this world is ordered, that is, norms, standards, and consequences that gnostics detest. At an even deeper level of pathology,there are those who resent the way in which their bodies are designed. This sort looks with envy upon another who, in the warped view of the envier, ought not have what the envier doesn’t have. On display here is both pride and rejection of the Creator.
Like Lucifer, gnostics are only subcreators, hence they resort to counterfeit. And it’s precisely because their ‘reality’ is actually counterfeit that they must resort to force, terror, and totalitarianism.
One wonders how many scientific discoveries have been sacrificed as a result of the increasing number of scientists who no longer view the Universe as intelligently designed.
I'm at a loss to come up with a reason that a spirit/Spirit might even need gender.. any gender.. Seems that gender was an afterthought in Genesis too.. Very practical for the flesh, it seems, but a pain in the ass otherwise in many ways..
Well, I don’t know about fallen angels, if they were still angels, or if they took on our form, but they were able to breed. Not sure the bible is specific on how this was accomplished- whtehr they remained angels or not
[[or it can lead to bitterness, rebellion, deicide, escapism, and other spiritual deformations.]]
Pick me, pick me- But really though, it seems that adopting a ‘second reality’ would make the whole situation even worse, because you’d be both insane, and bitter with pain
Quick everyone- Nat-Geo is showing their premier “Morphed” series- Right now, we’re ‘learning’ all about how dinos ev0olved into birds- Up next “When whales had legs”
Seems ‘around 208 million years ago’ undersea volcanos erupted releasing methane gas, and dropping Oxygen levels to 12% - wiping out m ost dinos.
Can’t wait for Nat-Geo’s series on how metainformaiton got it’s start- Bet that’ll be an interesting tale.
Thank you for sharing your insights, dear spirited irish!
Here’s the story so far:
The ‘eoraptor’ about 3 feet tall, (Precursor to the modern turkey we’re told) Survives the massives methane/oxygen reduction, whilel iving on a planet with no vegetation (and apparently a lot of other dinos like diploticus, at 160 feet long)(Interesting how we’re not told what these giants supposedly evolved from- it’s just taken for granted that they ‘must have’ evovled from earlier species)(Don’t ask quesitons sir- just keep mouth shut and listen to the story)- the two continiinents had just split apart, causing massive flooding, the earth warms up, and vegetation sprout out of nowhere apparently- covering hte earth
Monilithosaurus has... get ready for it... An advanced brain, three forward looking toes, arms, and bones that are hollow- “Much like the modern turkey” who has “Three toes, a ‘sharp beak’, and can run 20 miles and hour” (How we go from the 3 foot tall species to the monilothesaurus is beyond me, Just reporting the facts as stated by NatGoe)
Millions of years later- Monilithosaurus evolved into velociraptor (Who nat geo has covered head to toe in feathers)
woops- now we go back in time again- Velociraptor is now relaterd to a ‘dinosaur that flew’- the microraptor gui-ia(Sp?) which ‘might be the precursor to the modern turkey “If it can fly”.
Next, microraptor “In order to survive ‘being eaten’” Climb into trees and glides fro mtree to tree- “Just liek hte modern turkey” (Apparently, the 1000’s of other small ground dwellers didn’t ‘need to evolve’ wings and escape to hte trees- ONLY the microraptor did evidnetly)
“We know flight evovled in stages- the hsow then moves to a modern possum that glides, and states “They live in trees ‘just like’ microrapters”
but now the quesiton becomes “Why woudl micro launch itself into the air “The answers is si8mple” We’re assured by natgeo “To catch insects” (Carion was no longer available to it evidently,- but was available to every other land dweller obviously- it’s just the microraptor which ‘couldn’t make it’ in the ground anymore) (Hey, ‘need spurs evolution’ hmmm- funny how need instructs the geentic info that the species ‘needed to fly’, and htus one ‘helpful mutaiton after another’ magically occured- but hey- that’s another story)
Cue Archeoptryx- the first ‘true bird’ acording to nat geo
“Here is ‘hard evidence’ of the theory of Charles Darwin- that one species can evovle into another.”
Not ogign any further but you get the idea- Notice any gaps in the story? This is hte crap they are teachign our kids- and leaving out FACTS liek hte ‘feathers’ discovered on dinos aren’t infact feathers, but are modified scales- a much different composition and structure than feathers- Bah- We’ll just keep that info behind closed doors-
Lot’s of peopel are goign to be watchign Nat Geo’s ‘Morphed” series, and probably won’t take time to quesiton the HUGE gaps- but where were these species gettign their higher info from? When did the dinos get the info to evovle avian lungs, avian nasal passages, avain wishbones, avain sturnums to support the large breast flight muscles that dinos lacked? Etc etc etc? Is there any evidence backign Nat Geo’s huge gap-filled claims up? Nope- just conjecture and assumptions.
Ugggh- The look on the paleantologists face when he saw the archeoptryx fossil for first time was somethign else- “Obviously dinos evolved into birds” he stated. (After all folks, don’t forget, some dinos had three forward facing toes, hollow bones, were warm blooded, and had ‘Feathers’ (Which weren’t feathers) and one palentogologist felt some ‘bumps’ on a velociraptor arm bone.- and because ‘all’ these thigns resemble birds, that means incredible vast networks of metainfo helped to self assemble all the needed structures once mutations evolved them in the proper orders over millions of years (
[[Actually I wonder how many scientists have one view in public and another in private.]]
That small still voice that they try to ignore in private that is working on their hearts you mean?
But whatever the cause, science is not as rowdy in open debate among scientists as say, philosophy or politics or religion. There are disagreements to be sure but, in my view, the positions are not as opposing and/or deeply held.
Dearest sister in Christ, lately I've begun to appreciate what is beginning to look like a plain fact to me: Satan's lies are successful because he knows "how to tell the truth skillfully." Human beings seem to be naturally susceptible to appeals like that. For instance, see the Serpent's persuasion of Adam in heavenly Eden....
Actually, I wonder about that too, GGG. Excellent point.
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