Science and Religion Message Board 3501-3850 (some missing)

I only have a minute......shoot!

You met an angel? How and what happend? Did the angel speak? Was it male or female looking? Or something different? Very interesting. I am reading a book by Nora Lamm, a women from China, as you probably read on the other board. She said an angel appeared to her as a child.

Hi, Linda! Thank you for the link. I’ve bookmarked it to peruse at leisure later (busy day, what with school shootings and a lot of emergency meetings for the juvenile justice committee...). I do have certain "preconceived notions" that do not follow the evolutionist line of thought. If evolution is entirely pointless and ultimately destructive, why does it matter? Ah, well. We all have day jobs!

Follows the First Law (As Above, So Below) rather well I think.

I’ll admit to predudice in favor of the extradimensionality of time, Leszek, based on purely subjective experience which cannot be empirically quantified. By acknowledging time in a model which accounts for each of its aspects, Free Will is not abrogated, it’s just modified by the focus of consciousness - attention. I see it in four aspects rather than the three described in the TGD model, including Not-Time. Real determinacy would proceed from Not-Time and overrule will if we were to find our attention focused at that point on the frequency, but in my experience of it, that pretty much means you’re dead. About as big a paradigm shift as I can imagine!

Just a quickie... for me the fascination with chaos/Mandelbrots, etc., etc., is that these are mathematically tractible examples of how incredibly complex and unpredictable patterns and behaviors can be specified by remarkably simple and deterministic rules. The link to religion, in my mind at least, is that religion claims that complexity has to be the direct result of intelligent design, and that simple and non-sentient agents cannot possibly cause complex results. Yet here we have examples of complexity as a result of blind and simple agents.

The science of chaos is just a metaphor for how evolution could result in complexity without a mind directing its every decision.

If you only have a minute I can't explain, Linda, but I have done so on this board and will spend some time backtracking to give you the details. It was (is?) spectacular! §:o)

I have to confess I didn't understand your post. If our actions are the result of deterministic processes, then we cannot have free will, only the ilusion of free will. How can we tell the difference between real free will, where we actually are separate from the universe we see and we determine the outcome of physical events, from the illusion of free will?

Rats, a can of worms... never mind.

Okay, Linda! I’ve run my errands and searched the backlog to find the link. It begins at or about here -

and goes from there through 40 or 50 posts of questions and explanations. The best I can do at this point, but explaining the etiology of all this is sort of why I’m here. The Not-Time thing came in the early posts, 1000 or before, I think.

Well, maybe it is a can of worms, Leszek. Have you an aversion to worms? As I said, it’s the tunneling action between timespaces that represents Not-Time, and it’s anybody’s guess whether thoughts and actions are arrested in the tunnel because we’re simply not paying attention, or "providence" intervenes to make us halt the logging in midstream. Logging is Free Will, a decision on our parts. Not-Time, as far as I know, doesn’t intervene directly in the process of consciousness very much.

But at some point our entire consciousness gets arrested "between time." All of it. Then we die, and the process of consciousness transforms its phase to operate in Not-Time and whatever subdivisions it holds that work on that level of reality. Looks to me like our short lives are governed by the existence of Not-Time, but that we are free to will thoughts and ideas within it for as long as we’re here. Not-Time is just a mechanism on this level, a baseline to the frequency of time, not a normal reality. Does this compute with you in any way? I’m still working it out myself... §:o)

E=mc2

That’s about as simple as anybody’s ever going to make it, Leszek. It’s got a flip-side and an inside-out, but it’s as easy as pie and allows us to end creation and life with the touch of a button. Aren’t we brilliant? Why, we have more power than God based on that little equation! Shall we take bets on whether we ignite the atmosphere? Shall we design something even worse?

...of course we will. Because we CAN, and God isn’t standing on Mount Olympus telling us not to. God must be dead. Just ask what’s-his-face the so-great philosopher of modernity. Oops. Can’t... he’s dead.

Need a moral paradigm? How about "Love One Another?" Is that too hard? Can it ever be made simpler? What’s not to understand? ...ask Slobodan. Hitler. Pol Pot or Sherman on his march to the sea. Torquemada or Cortez or any other would-be god in human form.

We are a sorry lot, aren’t we?

I have been looking for an intelligent rebuttal to the following idea for quite some time and have yet to receive one. If anyone who reads this has an explanation to what I'm about to discuss please email it to me to the following address: [email protected] as I do not have the time to check this message board often. With that out of the way, let me present my argument. Science has proven the law of cause and effect. For example, if an object is moving then something had to exert energy upon that object to cause it to move. Scientists claim that everything in the known universe follows this law as it is a universal law. With that understood, let me pose the following question. I will assume that there was a Big Bang to create the universe for the sole purpose of presenting my question. The Big Bang happened when there was an extreme amount of matter brought together by intense gravitational forces. The pressure became so intense that there was a "Big bang" and the universe started with that initial explosion and is continuing to expand even as I type this. My question is this. Where and how did the atoms and molecules that originated the Big Bang come into existance? Looking at these basic molecules as the result, what was their cause? In other words, why is there simply nothingness? Logic tells the thinking individual that something or someone that does not follow our natural laws, which is by definition "Super"natural, had to create these initial molecules, otherwise there would simply be nothingness. This is indisputable by all of sciences' laws. Thus, logic and science both prove that there absolutely HAS to be something that is supernatural. I will not propose my theory as to what that what or who is since this forum is not the place to enter into that discussion. However, the scientific fact still remains that something supernatural had to create the initial materials necessary to begin the sequence of our expanding universe. I will be anxiously awaiting a

E=mc² is not the kind of law that leads to complexity. For that you need you need recursive rules where events are regulated by feed-back loops. The results of the operations of such simple rules are truly remarkable, and I find it impossible to believe that in the real world, complexity isn't governed by rules of that type.

As to whether god is dead and why we can't love one another, well, I don't think god ever existed, and our inability to live with each other peaceably is probably a result of the operation of recursive rules too :)

This is asking "why is there something rather than nothing"? Outside of religion, there is no answer to this yet, and there is no way of guessing which of the many religious answers that have been given is true.

Leszek Rzepecki - Saturday, 05/22/99, 12:58:35am (#3511 of 3511)

This is asking "why is there something rather than nothing"? Outside of religion, there is no answer to this yet, and there is no way of guessing which of the many religious answers that have been given is true.

You could have fooled me :-)

Whatever. I'll just point out that not only is there no way of determining from first principles which of the many religions is true, there is no way of determining whether any of them are true. They can't all be true, but they can easily all be false. You pays your money and takes your choice.

I also fail to follow the logic in asserting that science "proves" the existence of the supernatural.

This depends on whether you see Relativity as a function of simple observation, or if one suspects it describes an actual geometric functionality of Time, Leszek. That’s of course arguable due to the inconsistencies and oppositions presented by quantum theory. One or both are wrong, or perhaps there is a missing factor (or two) related either to incomplete understanding of Time or misinterpretation of field interactions.

I am of the personal opinion that one of these days a solution will be found that can unite the complex phenomena of quantum dynamics with the universal overview described by Einstein’s simple equation. I could be wrong. Lord knows I wouldn’t be the first! If perchance I am right, the complexity of the entire universe is a function of Time and that would be the ultimate simplicity leading to ultimate complexity. Talk about feedback loops!

The nature of who and what we are. This is what Einstein intuited, though even he did not really understand the underlying complexity that could proceed from this. It is contained, however. Or so I believe. It just needs tweaking.

Derrick - I am not convinced that science cannot define the "something" out of "nothing," as I know of at least one branch which is actively pursuing just that. This involves a sort of counting backwards to zero operation, bringing our understanding of "why" to within nanoseconds of the Big Bang event. Creation. The rules which governed the evolution of the universe in Time from that event were established both just prior to the event (expansion of dimensionality) and in the formation of matter from energy in the progression of the event. I wouldn’t rule out the ability to define that at some point if I were you, and I sure wouldn’t agree that this indicates anything "supernatural." It’s just something we are still defining.

First Cause is another matter entirely. There is no way science can quantify what existed prior to existence, and this may indeed be related to our spiritual connection to the creator which pre-existed creation. Yet there is nothing to indicate which particular human definition of spirituality (contained in the various political institutions of religion) is correct. Or indeed if any of them are correct. It’s a matter of individual preference entirely, including preference for any given political manifestation of Christianity. IOW, there is no "universal truth" contained in religion, and no manifestation of the religious impulse can legitimately claim so despite the political desire to do so anyway. That’s overweaning pride, not Truth.

I’d rather treat my own belief in the saving grace of Jesus Christ as God’s mission to me personally. I accept that grace and am thankful for it every day of my life. This does not mean God’s mission to people whose spiritual impulse is culturally or personally different from mine cannot also enjoy a special mission. I don’t think it would hurt any of us to let our political preferences work for ourselves, and quit trying to force

...and quit trying to force our personal beliefs on everybody else.

If there'sone thing I'm sure of, it's that that which we do not understand greatly exceeds that which we do. :) Ever onward, upward and outward...

Amen, Leszek! The following short-as-I-can-make-it explanation is for you and Cliff and Andrew and Rosemary and all my other friends on this board, whom I value more highly than you can know...

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Meaning, naturally enough, that many people who wish to postulate the existence of their own versions of what is supernatural haven’t researched the empirical realities they seek to debunk. This is understandable, but no one should be particularly surprised if it won’t wash.

I also recognize that my own incomplete understanding of the phenomena I have encountered in the process of my son’s miracle and subsequent death may not wash in the end. I know that, but will continue to try and define it anyway. Leaves me open to rebuttal, but I’m used to that. Helps to formulate a more complete theoretical base.

I do not postulate that anything I have experienced is "supernatural," only "extra-natural." Those anomalies that Murphy dictates will occur because they CAN occur, out of the uncertainties of uncertainty - probability. The anomalies are no less real because they’re unusual, they are simply the flip side of what is probable.

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I believe that beings - life forms - which exist in a separate physical dimensionality from our own can and sometimes do make themselves apparent to human beings. I cannot prove this empirically, but I have experienced it. This does not mean I believe that the separate physical reality isn’t inherant in the nature of the universe, or even in the nature of who and what WE are. Because I have experienced the reality of beings who exist in a separate physical dimensionality, I am able to better understand the miracle my son experienced and which is eminently empirical.

The evidence and legal testimony which exists regarding that miracle is indisputable. No one - including the bad guys - has attempted to refute it and will not because it can’t be done. This factual underpinning of the miraculous is what eventually led to the theft of my son’s life and a most amazing amount of official involvement in blatant (and demonstrable) obstruction designed to prevent this case from ever reaching the public arena. There is immense political pressure to prevent just what we are actively engaged in doing, up to and including the "gag order" now in place which prevents me from releasing the data. Next hearing is Monday in that matter, and then we go straight to appeal.

What I will tell you (because I don’t much care what they do to me) is that I have now been cycled through the entire bureaucracy of state government, and have been told by each and every one that no one is responsible for the investigation or prosecution of crimes. No one. This includes the Attorney General, the Inspector General of the Department of Health, the Agency for Health Care Administration, the Bureau of Emergency Medical Services, the State’s Attorney, and the state’s Department of Law Enforcement. I kid you not. I’ve got it in writing from all levels, and we’re talking murder.

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I can’t be specific, but this constitutes a blatant violation of both state and federal Constitutions. Due Process and Equal Protection are being completely and thoroughly denied through 6 years and 10 months of bureaucratic runaround. Demonstrable fraud, conspiracy and even a final act that takes the whole thing to first degree, and that doesn’t even consider the conflicting testimony at trial which further establishes fraud and obstruction of justice.

Fear not! The longer they drag this out, and the more obstruction we encounter from official sources, the worse it’s going to be when the house of cards finally falls. Or maybe not. It is entirely possible that we will be gagged to death, and the "system" will successfully prevent all public knowledge of the miracle as well as the murder. They are expending a huge amount of resources toward that end, and we have nothing but our faith and our voluminous evidence. We are just one family, so can be squashed if the powers that be determine that is what must occur.

They are terrified. We are not (I’m here, after all). Therein lies our strength.

For that you need you need recursive rules where events are regulated by feed-back loops. The results of the operations of such simple rules are truly remarkable, and I find it impossible to believe that in the real world, complexity isn't governed by rules of that type.

You can convert any recursion to iteration. You can convert any iteration to recursion. If you practice conversions enough then recursion is not too remarkable.

As to whether god is dead and why we can't love one another, well, I don't think god ever existed, and our inability to live with each other peaceably is probably a result of the operation of recursive rules too :)

First, about the funny part. Every recursion must have a basis. If it does not it is ill defined. It looks like your reality has surface as basis. Then it recurses into depths. That is unusual. Usually surface properties come from depths. I think you say deep properties come from surface. Is this what you mean?

I read Zarathustra long ago, so I may have a fact wrong. Zarathustra came down from the mountain to the marketplace. He said God was dead. Also he said we killed Him. Zarathustra said God's death came before man's rise to the Overman (Superman). The Overman does not need the opiates Judaism and Christianity. To take them away makes a fearsome chasm. The Overman is proud of the chasm.

This is poetry. Nietzche called himself a poet. Also Sprach Zarathustra has much philosophical truth. It has much emotion too. It seems like religion to me. And very hard to read in some chapters. I think people read it literally. I think people make too much of one line. That line is early in the book. I think very few know Zarathustra's real message?

the formation of matter from energy

Forget physics, think philosophy or religion. An idea is that matter is one way energy expresses itself. Scientists may not like that. It may not help them make theories. But it can help a person make a world view.

If there'sone thing I'm sure of, it's that that which we do not understand greatly exceeds that which we do. :) Ever onward, upward and outward...

I heard a Christian theologian talk once. He said similar things. He said that knowledge is like a balloon. When knowledge expands, the surface area of ignorance expands. I think it is true. We have more open questions in science than ever before.

What does one say? With children, I say with my heart I am sorry your son was taken. Your notes confuse me. Your thought was orderly before. Here you sound like ranting. But I do not think that. You must be very upset. I wish healing for you.

Will it is. I don’t know which of my posts is giving you link trouble, but I hear you. Actually, my thoughts are quite well ordered, as usual. It’s just that in speaking about experience - especially amazing or unusual experience - there are not many unidefinitional words to use. "Amazing," for instance, or "unusual." The adjectives of everyday language are inadequate to express many things. Science and mathematics are a good example. Epiphany is another. This is a failing of the language or perhaps of myself as a user of language.

I am physically and emotionally fine, thanks. §:o)

Well, Einstein is the one who defined matter as energy in the first place, Will. That’s physics, and I’ve never met a physicist who didn’t understand this. What I’m discussing in the Big Bang countdown (through Higgs and across the Desert to Unification and then approaching the Singularity) is a determination of the "rules" energy followed in order to evolve the universe we see. That’s matter in the conglomerations we perceive through the senses Life has developed for us to sense it with.

Scientists don’t have any problem with matter as energy, or even with energy as potential matter. Their theories deal with exactly this mystery, though now that we are at the extreme of available power to go further, something’s going to have to give. I’m guessing cosmological events, occurring just when we manage to design measuring devices sensitive enough to measure them.

Philosophy may enter the debate at some point, but religion shouldn’t. It has no base of reference, and as Keith has said, cannot benefit by putting its eggs in an interpretational basket of scientific theory. Its own interpretational baskets earn them far more riches and power than they’ll ever get from science.

Joy, I can't pretend to understand all that you say, no doubt because of the constraints under which you labour. It always sounds to me, when you describe your difficulties, that you need the services of one good investigative journalist who is yearning to 'make their name,' to give it the requisite publicity necessary to solve the problem. Probably better, from what I DO understand of your difficulties, if that investigative journalist came from England say, or Australia maybe. The BBC or the ABC. It's fairly obvious that CNN aren't too interested!! This would at least ensure that all knowledge is not retained in too small an enclave. However as a Christian I would like to say that as I read your posts, Roman's chapter 8, verses 28 to 39 came immediately to mind, and that is my prayer for you this Monday.

To those interested in the religion-human embryonic stem cell (HESC) controversy, a patients advocacy group, consisting of the Diabetes, Cancer, Parkinson's, Aging Research, spinal cord injuries advocates and others, has come out in favor of lifting the Congressional ban on HESC research. His eminence, Cardinal Keeler, Archbishop of Baltimore and Director of Right-to Life Foundation, plans a vigorous opposition, as I am sure fundamentalist religions plan as well. The question is whether or not one set of religious beliefs should impose their will on research that might benefit countless others who don't have the same beliefs. I spoke to a woman recently who said she would stop her cancer treatments if this kind of research had any part in it. That's fine, she can choose whatever treatment she wishes, or none at all. A poll showed that 74% of Americans favored HECS research, as long as the embryos weren't created specifically for research purposes but were leftovers from IVF, and the parents gave consent and did not intend to ever use them, and received no financial rewards.

Joy, each time I read one of your three-part posts, such as your most recent one, I can not help but feel the pain you have suffered with the loss of your son and an emotional kinship and affinity for your situation. And yet, when I give the matter further thought, I find it very difficult to believe your situation is as simple as you seem to indicate: basically, that someone in government, through evil intent, desiring to avoid widespread dissemination of your son's miracle, purposefully and intentionally murdered your son--and is powerful enough to avoid rightful prosecution.

It is clear that you believe your son's death was a result of murder. You have said as much. However, the reluctance of the different state and federal officials you mentioned in prosecuting the case would indicate to me that even if one or more of them agreed with you that the cause of your son's death actually was murder, none of them believe that they would be able to obtain a conviction, were they to prosecute the case. Prosecutors typically refuse to prosecute cases they think they would lose. And so, as you have previously noted, they told you your only recourse was to sue--which is what you have done.

Not knowing the facts of the case, specifically, it would be foolish for me to speculate further on the merits of your legal case except to say that I can easily imagine circumstances under which I might lean the other way were I on a jury deciding the case. I would not desire to lead you to believe otherwise. However, I will also say that I continue to feel great sympathy for you in the loss of you son, whatever the true cause of his death, and I hope you find peace in your heart with respect to his death regardless of the outcome of the legal matter.

Dawn, with respect to the poll you cited, I find it difficult to believe most people really attach a significant difference between embryos created specifically for the research purpose and embryos left over from IVF procedures. It seems to me that this is a rather technical issue requiring some fairly significant explanation before most people would have much more than a very basic notion of what was actually being discussed, and the nature of the explanation could easily skew the results of the survey. And, also, the phrasing of the question can have a significant effect on the answers obtained.

In short, I don't believe it. I think 74% is a ridiculously high percentage of people in favor of a scientific research topic in possible conflict with religious ideals. Most people in this country are religious people who hold dear to their religious ideals.

On the other hand, a patients advocacy group, such as the one you describe, can be very effective on the talk shows. Lots of people watch the talk shows, and say whatever you will about then, talk shows create a forum that permits comprehensive explanations of relatively complex issues. If the people the advocacy group sends out to the talk show are effective, the message, itself, can be effective. We shall see, perhaps.

Space, gravity, energy and other things that matter...

(ducking the rotten produce being flung at me....)

I though we had pretty much decided that everything is an expression of the gravitational field of space-time.

If I extrapolate that (by means of a short detour through super-string theory) I come up with the state or information content of the singularity.

It isn't a Bobby K. style leap across a major chasm to get to "the will of God" from there.

and Joy -- If time is a field I am going to go hunting Morlocks with H.G. Wells. If it is dimensional we may have a slight problem with Q.M. It time is neither, uh.... I'm a tad more confused than when I started out. ;-)

I guess I must have missed that, Keith. How did we come up with that? As I understand it, gravitation represents a force in nature, one of at least four. How did it become everything?

I would tend to question whether you can ever know when you have gotten to "the will of God," whatever that might be.

I do not think there is much question but that time is dimensional. Being a dimension, it would seem to me that time could hardly be considered a field: any more than a spatial dimension might be considered a field. But then, maybe you know something I don't :-)

Well, Einstein is the one who defined matter as energy in the first place, Will. That’s physics, and I’ve never met a physicist who didn’t understand this.

My writing is bad. I am sorry. I said "may" to mean that I did not know. It was literal. I know the e = mc^2. But I learned it was about quantities in conversions. No one taught me it said that energy IS matter. Thank you for explaining.

I was thinking about the creative power. The One that makes all things BE. For many years I have thought of Being as a power.

A few words(probably the less from me the better)

I've kept up with this board(and read a lot of things that makes my head spin at 7:30 in the morning when the caffeine is just beginning to filter between the cracks in my brain)and have enjoyed, without complete understanding, the topics of discussion.I haven't had much to say, because, simply, my knowledge is far too insignificant to really provide any insight.

But, anyhow a couple of posts ago I read this:

Who says they did? Time doesn't have a beginning or end, why is matter different, matter being that which can be neither created or blah blah?

All of it's KNOWN laws, just because there isn't a law on the books, doesn't mean there isn't a law which can't dispute it.

No it proves there is something we don't understand yet, if you want to call that god, enjoy.

Only if you believe they were created.And it is belief, not a fact.

Joy -

I guess I echo Cliff when I say that I, too, hope you can find something resembling peace at the end of all this.

Actually, I rather like Rosemary's idea of an investigative reporter looking into the problem. Given any thought to that?

Now,(ahem) as Andrew would say - PEDANT ALERT!

Science, of course does not deal in "why". That is the one question science properly should not ask, even if, as you have stated previously, it stumbles into such an answer inadvertently. Science may ask "how", it may ask "what" or "where" or "when", even "who"; but teleology is beyond the scope of science.

I apologize for allowing my frustration to show. I never cease to be amazed, but I’m not really worried. Everything will work out fine in the end. A simple matter of simple justice which is not as simple as it ought to be.

I have not said anyone in government is involved in anything but protecting those who were involved. It’s an automatic position that ordinary people have to literally fight their way through. It’s a matter of the power of privilege which comes under the auspices of government to protect and maintain, vs. the intended or unintended abuses of that power. The regulators of privilege are also its protectors. That’s "business as usual." But it is frustrating. I’ll try to refrain! §:o)

Welcome back, Rosemary! I sincerely doubt press would be useful, and am not looking for it. But thanks for the thoughts and the verses. You know I knew this, and am not concerned about my son’s existence in Not-Time. I just want the small justice of my society - on the level of the living, not the dead - which is warranted so that others are not similarly abused. THAT’s political, and must be done according to the rules and regulations which govern the political world. Meaning we have to jump all the hurdles, no matter how tired we get. Otherwise it just fades away, which is what those hurdles are designed to accomplish.

We’re confusing our terms, Larry. "Why" is IMO exactly the question asked. Why does matter predominate over antimatter? Why does matter congregate into the forms and patterns it does? Why is there matter at all? Why does life follow similar patterns? Etc., etc., etc. You see these "whys" as "hows." Mere semantics.

Exactly, Keith! GUT particle’s (possibly a magnetic monopole) supersymmetrical nature binds gravity, the "consciousness" particle’s supersymmetry may bind time. Only it happens to be massless, so probably isn’t an actual field phenomenon. It tunnels through perception. In a way, we can think of dimensions as "supersymmetrical." Whatever their nature is, they are vectored (exist and/or interact) in such a way that the symmetry cannot be broken by a consistent operation in this timespace, and each dimension is relative to all other dimensions as dimensionality is perceived.

There could be a simple answer out there, but we’re so hung up on technicalities that we’re not seeing the forest for the trees.

Joy -

It's more than just semantics. This is a firmly held concept regarding the place of science in the scheme of things. Precision in language is particularly important in scientific discourse. "Why" implies that there is an a priori reason for the occurance of something. There may indeed BE an a priori reason, but science cannot properly ask this question, and has nothing to say about it. Teleology is properly within the scope of philosophy and religion.

Are you suggesting that science by definition excludes cause from its studies of effect? That’s not what I was taught in science class, but I admit that was a few years ago. Have things changed? Why?... oops. I mean How? §:o)

Joy -

No, Joy, cause and effect remain fair game, subject to inquiry by science. It's just that science has no business assigning an a priori *reason* for a cause to produce an effect.

Joy,
I think Larry is saying that science should not attempt to determine if there is a purpose to quantum tunneling, but only describe the phenomona. Cause and effect are allowed (if not, in fact, required!) but "meaning" (or "essense" if you remmeber that thread) is not.

I tend to agree. A well rounded understanding probably incorporates science, phylosophy and some element of faith, but each should be distince unto themselves, even as we intergrate their lessons, lest we loose the unique value of each.

Cliff -- Sorry... sometimes you feel like a nut! :0)

We are seeing things differently, I’m afraid, though I don’t think we’re far apart. Was Newton not defining the cause of the orderly motions of planets when he theorized the nature of gravity? Sure, he and a hundred other great minds could have spent generations documenting all the ways that planets move just for the exercise of gathering the data, but what good would it be if there were no a priori presumption that something causes planets to behave the way they do?

I agree that Newton did not come out with "I guess I’ll invent gravity and then try to find things that gravity regulates." This is probably what’s wrong with physics as a career choice these days. They’ve theorized causes far beyond their ability to observe or produce effects, so are reduced to defending what they cannot prove. Just like politicians and religions do.

Science attempts to uncover truths, to proove theories. It deals with facts.

Religion deals with myths.

Yes, both can co-exist. We are biological beings but we are also spiritual beings.

The science book can explain the biological but we must turn to our religions to explain the spiritual.

I think I disagree. I see no reason science can not deal with the "spiritual" provided, of course, it is real. It might be difficult to get science to deal with otherworldly stuff if it turns out it is all in one's head. Science won't do that, of course. You can't make science lie. But I think it has been demonstrated that science can deal with the "mental" as well as the "physical."

Karen Saucedo -- I must simply interject one statement. You said that religion deals with myths. True enough. However, having said that, I am obligated to say that Christianity is not a stereotypical religion insomuch as that it deals with facts. It is clearly stated that we as Christians must be prepared to give an answer as to WHY we believe. As being an ex-atheist, I have since been overwhelmed with the amount of factual data that is non-subjective in nature that clearly describes the evidential reality of Christ as being exactly who He claimed to be, the Creator of our Universe.

Christianity is not a stereotypical religion insomuch as that it deals with facts.

Name some religions that dont deal with facts. Be specific.

It is clearly stated that we as Christians must be prepared to give an answer as to WHY we believe.

And why other religions are no good to believe in?

As being an ex-atheist, I have since been overwhelmed with the amount of factual data that is non-subjective in nature that clearly describes the evidential reality of Christ as being exactly who He claimed to be, the Creator of our Universe.

Unable to go from absolute denial to uncertainty. Instead one absolute becomes another. Absolute denial to absolute certainty. Psychologists call this reaction formation. As atheist did you use "facts" of Bible as weapons? As believer do you use other "facts" as weapons? Have you really changed? Let go and accept. Accept forgiveness given through grace of God. Let go of "factual data." I say to you, it is harder for a man with factual data to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.

The "purpose" of quantum tunneling is part and parcel of the phenomenon of quantum tunneling, Keith. As I said, high energy physics is so far out on a limb because of their projected causes that they have no choice but to make the data fit. If we’ve got fundamental particles that tunnel in, through and out the other side of this timespace in predictable ways, there is a reason for this action related to the nature of the field.

There’s nothing mystical in the attempt to define the purpose of tunneling, as it has nothing to do with God and everything to do with field interactions. The field vector with an unbreakable symmetry (via a consistent action in one timespace) must revector itself in however many timespaces it takes to break the symmetry and align itself to the field it seeks to interact with. What this "means" is that the vector cannot transfer all its energy on one level. It’s sort of a multidimensional model of the difference between Alpha and Beta, that’s all.

Karen, I agree we are beings with a double nature, and that we tend to confuse the one with the other too easily. Spirituality deals with the symbolic mythologies hardwired into the Collective Unconscious. Religion, on the other hand, is politics. Facts have never figured highly in politics! §:o)

Your post is confusing to me. I'm not rejecting cause and effect. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear initially (wouldn't be the first time).

I'm saying that science does not involve itself with the teleological sense of the "why" word. It does not assign a deterministic reason or plan for cause and effect. Please tell me you understand what I mean, now I'm getting worried about my ability to communicate.

I understand what you’re saying, Larry! Science has no business involving itself in the philosophical discussion of "why" life began or "why" the universe decided to appear. In that, the basic "why" questions are really "how" questions that science is charged to answer if it can.

I’m just considering that there are many ways that science cannot avoid the "why." When medicine studies diseases, it must seek cause, and cause is "why." When physics seeks the "how" of universal creation of something from nothing, "why" is inherant in that quest as well. It only becomes a problem when things get honed so precisely that the Big Why looms large.

I don’t think it’s going to present much of a hurdle so long as the old guard doesn’t try to answer the Big Why. As I said, they’ve already projected their causes up to the Singularity and this means they are forced to make the effects fit into the mold. Very questionable, as there are no further effects they are capable of generating or observing that would "prove" their causes. In the meantime, the rebels have been busy for almost half a century actively looking at alternative resolutions without any preordained causes. These are far more interesting and exciting than anything the priesthood has to offer.

Honestly, Joy, sometimes you exhaust me:) Couldn't you just have said that we (all of us) often use "why" in the colloquial, non-teleological sense, just as you have used it in the above quote? (Because otherwise, most certainly, cause is NOT "why")

Okay, Larry. Your definition can rule the roost if it means that much to you, though I do not agree with the definition. §:o)

Why is not an inherently teleological question. It’s simply "why." Why I got Lyme disease is that I managed to run afoul of a deer tick in the garden. Why it attacked my vertebrae is because I’ve got past spinal injuries that make handy targets. Why I don’t have Lyme now is because I finally got enough antibiotics to kill ‘em all. Why the little buggers had to die is because they’ve got no business in my body.

"Why" is no more mystical than "how." If I were a magician, the "how" of my magic trick would be the well-guarded secret, while the "why" is because I’m getting paid to perform magic tricks. Easy for anyone to understand. It still boils down to semantics, since one person’s "how" is another person’s "why."

Joy -

Last post about "why" (I promise!).

I disagree with your assertion that "why" is not inherently teleological. But we are allowed to ask teleological questions of ourselves, and our actions. We (that is, science) are simply not allowed to ask such questions of nature. To do so implies a guiding hand or plan behind the cause-effect.

OK, not another word from me on this subject. See what trying to be a pedant can do?

<raises one eyebrow like Mr. Spock...> The semantic distinction you make is related to the difference in our belief systems rather than to any specific implication of the words as words? Because I see cause as the "why" of the effect, and "how" as the process by which effect proceeds from cause, I am somehow making a religious point?

Phase transition, on a macroscopic scale... A drop of water vapor crystallizes into a snowflake. Why? The temperature dropped to the point of transition. How? The molecules slow their movements until they become fixed into bonded patterns. The liquid becomes a solid. Cause of transition = Why. Effect of the transition = How. I’m not asking Who! §:o)

(Lips sealed) (:#

Being. I agree that existence is a power in our own biosphere, Will. I even have a strong suspicion that Consciousness qualifies as a force of the universe, though physics isn’t going to agree any time soon. There are some fascinating projects going on all over the world in the effort to define and quantify Consciousness. A lot of it is medicine and psychology, but there are some physical models of interest too.

How do you mean "Being as a power?"

Darn, Larry! You were supposed to say "Who’s on First..." §:o)

How do you mean "Being as a power?"

The more I think, the more I dont know. It is not something I state as a belief. It was a scrap of something in my old studies. I can't dig it up. Sorry.

"Is there only room for one or the other?" There is room for anything if a group of people believe it.

"If both can co-exist, what is the common denominator?" Does there NEED to be a common denominator?? Actually, as human knowledge advances, I believe that both science and religion will alter their current perspectives, neither will be proven false, and both will complement each other.

"What are the roles that science and religion should play in our world today?" Science must continue to advance research and provable results. Religion needs to be understood as two separate things. First, we have organized religion. They all contain similar tenets to guide behavior but can be used to manipulate personal choices in some very negative ways. Second, we have spirituality, i.e., a prevalent aspect of humaness. Morality should NOT be based on what this or that organized religion tells you to do. Morality is derived from respect for other human beings like yourself.

Welcome, Jacquie. I saw your post on the Suggestion board and came here to get the URL so I could post the link, and here you are! Dawn has been attempting to bring the subject into discussion, but she knows a whole lot more about it than I do, and since we can’t find anyone who disagrees that it’s important research, it’s been a little slow.

I think that with reasonable oversight, the ability to reproduce stem cells in the laboratory pretty much negates religious objection predicated on abortion. I can’t really believe the government bigwigs would preclude by law any research promising to benefit them personally, so suspect the ban is a cloning reaction. Maybe the advocacy groups should produce a slick, easy-to-follow report outlining the potential benefits, the proposed protection against cloning entire humans, and explain clearly the difference between Dolly the Sheep and growing a new heart and lungs for someone who desperately needs them.

Armed with good information and an adequate oversight plan, I think Congress could be persueded to lift the current ban. How do you see the controversy?

I also see spirituality and the religious impulse and two separate manifestations of the human animal, Jacquie. Spirituality is inate, while religiousity is a socio-political expression of subjective spirituality. Religion attempts to codify and govern spirituality in the objective world, and works better or worse depending on how misguided the interpretations are. The underlying morality is fairly universal, however.

The problem comes from interpretations which insist on projecting the sins of the flock onto everyone outside the flock. This allows believers to attack outsiders at will, while ignoring or glorifying their own inattentiveness to morality. Whatever morality society could generally agree upon would still have to be instilled in the populace by some means, logically by the public school system in the current climate.

Unfortunately, the schools have been teaching for 2 generations that concepts like "good" and "evil" are entirely relative to the situation (completely subjective judgments), which means they have no basic morals to teach. How does society manage to agree on some basics in lieu of a definition of evil?

Joy Busey -

Rats! Wish I'd thought of it!

LOL, Larry! "Who’s on First" is used around my house to make silly disagreements even sillier. My 9-year old grandson has all the lines on both sides of the debate memorized, and you wouldn’t believe how often just trying to convince him to do his homework ends up as Abbot and Costello... §:o)

Joy Busey -

Bending at waist,tapping ashes from cigar* That's the most ridiculous thing I ever hoid!

Two honks for you, Groucho! <honks the little guy with the yellow wig...>

Re: Religious Politics...

The roots of our problems are deep and getting deeper, I’m afraid. While I applaud organized Christian efforts to promote the sanctity of life and counsel young people against abortion (from which their opposition to stem cell research comes), I can find no evidence in history that human life has ever been considered "precious" by the Church or anybody else. I am also forced to wonder who is paying the vociferous protesters to spend their time harrassing people rather than offering sincere counseling and financial help with alternatives. Whenever I am confronted, I ask how many abused, troubled and unadoptable (2 and older) children these people have adopted, and why they’re not home attending to that child.

We have artificially delayed legal maturity because the culture is too complex to do anything else. Would the religious right be ready to accept the mass innoculation of children to prevent physical maturity until we can manage to teach them the basics? I doubt it. Women were once considered "Old Maids" if they weren’t married by 16. Today, a pregnant 17-year old is a "social problem." Just ask the valedictorian of that religious school, whose honors were stripped because she DIDN’T get an abortion. Very sad, very contradictory, and extremely hypocritical. The RR is granting themselves no glory by assuming the Pharisee role in modern society.

Would you please elaborate a bit more your concept of spirituality? As you say it here, it is just a word that you leave floating around.

Here I think you are confusing relativity with subjectivity. Good and evil are relative to the situation, but are socially codified concepts, not subjective ones. Clearly, sibjectivity has an influence on morality (and this is why morality evolves in time), but can't be pulled out of the social morality.

The best parallel I can come up with is the Saussurean model of language. The semiotic relation between sign and signifie' is arbitrary ('dog' is dog in English, perro in Spanish, chen in french, cane in italian...) but socially codified and not subjective. Subjectivity operates, over long periods of time, and in accordance with certain social groups, to change certain parts of the language (like the term 'cool' that, in American english, doesn't indicate just 'low temperature' anymore, but 'socially prominent').

I am not sure, on the other hand, where your "absolute" morality wold come from.

Joy Busey: The inability to find some opposition to stem cell research on these message boards is amazing! Have you tried the anti-abortion posters??

You stated that ". . . the schools have been teaching . . . that concepts like "good" and "evil" are entirely relative to the situation . . . which means they have no basic morals to teach." Relativistic morality is exactly what I do believe makes sense. For me, a basic morality is based on mutual respect for other living beings (not just humans). But there is no "absolute" moral answer for every situation because each has different circumstances attached. It's okay to kill in self-defense or to save an innocent victim. If you believe that to be true, then you do not believe in an absolute moral value that ALL killing is wrong. Another good reason for accepting the relativistic model is that it respects differences among cultures.

Hi Jacquie, how are you?
I do believe that morals are absolute, but that thier application is relative.

It will always be wrong to kill, but it is easily concievable that killing may be the least wrong in certain situations.

Sometimes life hands us a staff and directs us to the dragon, but more often it is a windmill. :-)

This is where a synthysis of the analytical prowess of science and the phylosophical guidance of spirituality provide the means to navigate reality. Faced with a hurdle; I must be able to gague the effects of any action I may take. I must also be able to discern the morality of any such action.

The absolutism of morality is in is conceptual existance, not in a hide-bound, inflexible set of "rules." The Pentacostal sects used to know this; They went out and acted, as the situation demanded, under the guidance of their religion. I don't know when they abandoned rationality in favor of a pendatic approach, but it does appear that they have. (The Baptists and Catholics aren't far behind!)

I like Keith’s definition of absolutes which are applied relativistically. We live in a relative world, and this must of course modify any absolute we encounter. In my experience of young people, however, there is a lot of sincere confusion about morality and ethics. For young minds coming to terms with the various rules and regulations of the world they live in, absolutes are good. Most of the academic subjects they are taught deal with absolutes, which only become non-absolute when they learn more.

I am of the opinion that until and unless public schools accept responsibility for protecting the little kids (and the nerds, dorks, geeks, etc., etc.) from the cruelty of the bullies, they’ve got no business requiring attendence. Not many parents can afford private school. If a kid can’t manage to behave, send him/her to an "alternative" school with even stricter rules. If the kid still can’t comply, he/she will likely end up in jail, where the rules are still stricter and as absolute as society can ever make them.

Teaching children that the rules don’t apply to them is not preparing them for life in the real world. Mouth off to your boss and you are likely to lose your job. Get frustrated and punch out the customer, you’re likely to be arrested for assault. Smash your neighbor’s windshield and you’ll be both arrested and sued. THAT’s the real world.

On this, I wholeheartedly agree with you, but I still am not clear about your "absolute morality" position. If you are starting to teach absolute morals, than all you are doing is to instill dogmatism, which leads quite naturally to the disregard for another's view which, in turn, leads to the intolerance you are (and rightly so) complaining about.

Do you think that the jocks you mention ever have any doubt that their "view" of the world is not the correct one? If anything, we do not promote enough doubt regarding one's views.

On the absolute tip, here's my two copper disks.

The list of moral absolutes which should be taught is very small, maybe five lines or so, stating things like: violence is never the first solution to a problem, do unto others as you would have them do unto you( to quote a famous book, in fact almost all religious texts), just because a person is different, doesn't mean they are less of a person than you.... etc.

I'm sure there is are better phrasings of these concepts, but if everyone did their best to follow them, things would probably be a lot happier.

P.S.
I still would like to hear your definition of spirituality as opposed to religion (I think I have more or less a good idea of your concept of religion, but I am quite murky about your concept of spirituality).

Morality is absolute. It is imoral to kill. It is imoral to steal. etc.

We need to establish these guiding principals first, and then deal with the situational requirements. A robber points a gun at me; I am armed and have the option to kill him, thereby preventing his killing me. I choose to shoot. This is not a moral action, but it is the lessor of the imoral actions (from my perspective, of course) available to me. (Some would say acepting your own demise is the greater moral action -- I respect, but do not share that opinion.)

We can deal with Robin Hood and other forms of socialism another time. :-)

The absolutes are absolute standards of belief. Much like detailed battle plans; they rarely survive initial contact with reality. We need to hold them as beliefs, but we need to integrate our actions, guided by belief, as we judge through rational thought.

This almost serves as a mini-model for the greater integration of the results (*) of science and religion in the practice of living.

(Never integrate the process!)

I’m going to bow to Sir Keith and Mr. Warr in this one, Simone! We make a large mistake in assuming that children can sort relativities when what they really need are absolutes. Arrested childhood is at the root of most criminal behavior, as I have encountered so many times it also qualifies as a semi-absolute.

The difference between spirituality and religion is entirely political. One’s spirituality is one’s own personal relationship with that which is divine. Religion is the political expression of that, which may or may not exactly coincide with inner beliefs, but which is tolerated because it is a political manifestation of inner beliefs.

Which, of course, doesn’t make any of it "True," as religionists are so wont to assert. Absolutes? Good and evil are absolutes, and we all pretty much know the difference. We are not, however, able to codify that adequately without crossing some religio’s truth. I think it’s time we tried to do so, but I’ve been known to be flat-out wrong. Who knows? §:o)

I can agree that certain rules of moral conduct (like not to kill) are so widely applicable and so well introduced in our mindset to be considered to all practical purposes as absolute. Whether we can philosophically consider them as absolute, I am not so sure.

The moral imperative not to kill, for instance is applied indiscriminately to all individuals only after the adoption of human right (an illiminist concept) into the bourgeois moral code. 3,000 years ago in Egypt, killing a slave was very different than killing a wealthy aristocrat (just like in XX century America....).

When you say the lessor of immoral actions from your perspective you are already relativizing your morality. Moreover, what if you kill the person without irrefutable proof that the person was going to kill you (as opposed to merely robbing you)?

Again, you are making morality (and morality in such a relevant matter as killing a person) a matter of opinion. If "don't kill" were really a Kantian imperative, how could there be different opinions on whether in a certain circumstance killing is an excusable action?

We know that children have a tendency to radicalize the opinions that are given them. Don't you think that, giving them too many absolute (I am not talking about "thou shalt not kill" type of morality) we will create strongheaded people who will be, later in life, incapable of relativizing when relativization would indeed be a necessity?

And, how far would you go in teaching absolute morality. I will gladly teach children that killing is absolutely wrong (and will sit down and be happy when they will refuse to go fight in a war), but how far would you go? Would you teach them a particular sexual morality as absolute, for instance?

hummm..... we are getting entangled here (please, understand me, I am a staunching atheist, and I don't have too much practice with the divine). If spirituality is personal, then, I assume, you get to determine what is divine and what is not.

But divine is that which is pertinent to a god, therefore, by choosing what you consider divine you choose what you consider god. So, in your definition, spirituality is one's personal relationship with that which one chooses to call god. If I call god my car, then I am spiritual every time I am driving :)

Obviously, this is not what you mean by "spiritual" so, the way I see it, there are two options. (1) there is something that, by common agreement, pertains to the idea of god, and makes a certain concept a possible target of spirituality. This would bring back spirituality into the political arena. (2) spirituality pertains to a certain psychological state, independently of the idea of god on which it fixates. This would make spirituality part of psychology.

Exactly, Simone! This is precisely what spirituality "is." If you wish to worship your car, that’s fine, but what will you do with it when it dies a gnarly death? No matter... you can worship the next car. Or whatever takes the place of true "other-ness" in your own mind. Until and unless we as humans understand that we have this tendency and drive within us, denying it will only cause more problems.

Hey... don't get me wrong... I was using the car only as an example. I am not one of those people who worship their sport cars, SUVs, or whatever want to call those things.... I am for public transportation :-)

We know that we have this tendency and drive within us, the question we haven't come to terms with is whether and when this "spiritual" drive can be useful in your life.

Should we retract in the cozy subjectivity of whatever makes us feel spiritual, or should we recognise that even our spiritual drive is a psychological manifestation of our mind and analyze it as objectively as we can?

We should examine it as objectively as we can, of course, and try to come to some general conclusion about how much of it is "real and how much of it is ego-projection. We won't like it, though...

We should examine it as objectively as we can, of course, and try to come to some general conclusion about how much of it is "real and how much of it is ego-projection. We won't like it, though...

To refrain from killing is a moral absolute in that there is no qualification. It is always imoral to kill.

but.....

The quantification of situational applications of this principal demand that we scale the morality and imorality of our actions. We have room to disagree with the specific quantification, but only within a socialy accepted range.

I may be judged to have acted as moraly as was possible in the situation if I shoot an armed intruder in my house, but almost certainly not if I take violent preventitive action (such as shooting all of my neighbors to prevent them from walking their dogs on my lawn.)

BTW: I realize that the dictionary may disagree with me, but; I only define morals as such when they are of the universal set. Murder is a boo-boo, but eating pork is breaking a social rule. (If for no other reason than the clear understanding that my argument for absulutism in guiding principals becomes gibberish if I do not restrict "morals" to the universal prohibitions.) ;0p

The question posted for this message board asks whether or not science and religion coexist. The answer to that is yes. They are inseperable. Scientific methods exist so that we can test and determine the reasons and causes for certain obvious truths, such as gravity. Religion is inheritently subjective as it deals with such things that are not able to be tested using acceptable scientific methods. However, this does not necessarily make religion a dispensable fantasy. Religious truths must be examined in the greatest part using other investigative methods, such as searching historical and manuscript evidence. Simply because a subject must inheritently be reviewed and investigatived by other than scientific methods, this does not make the subject any less substantial, valid, or relevant to our everyday lives.

Keith Fosberg: Hi there! Nice to find a friendly foe once more!! I haven't seen any on the abortion board yet. :-) Of course, you realize that I do not believe morals are absolute. Is it always wrong to have premarital sex? Is it always wrong to have sex with every older woman in town when you hit puberty? Most people in this country would say "yes," but what about those tribal customs in parts of Africa? Are generations of Africans now frying in Hades?

It is not always wrong to kill. There is a lot of support for the death penalty which causes death AFTER the fact rather than as a preventive measure. Those are not just differences in how morality is applied relatively. Those are two different moralities (as with abortion). What say ye?

Joy Busey: I agree that kids must be armed with the common-sense knowledge that you mention here: "Mouth off to your boss and you are likely to lose your job. Get frustrated and punch out the customer, you’re likely to be arrested for assault. Smash your neighbor’s windshield and you’ll be both arrested and sued. THAT’s the real world." However, these examples deal with the reality of your boss having an authority conflict and getting rid of a stressful employee while the other two examples deal with the realities of civil and criminal law. They may cross over to "morality" in that they demonstrate disrespect for other people, but none are violations of moral absolutes. The reality of the world in which we live is that life is complex, rapidly changing, multi-cultural, and has many, many gray areas in which a variety of moral solutions may be found for a single problem. Look at criminal law. Should we execute teens who kill because some believe that they'll never grow up to be anything but a cancer on society OR should be educate them, love them, rehabilitate them, turn their lives around, and return them to productive lives? I don't really think you can enjoin those two very different moralities into one absolute rule.

Simone Santini: Great posts. I agree that spirituality is a subjective experience. We can be pretty certain that it results -- like everything else -- from a nice mix of brain chemicals. Spirituality does not depend on "otherness" or "divineness" while morality relies more on what is fair and just in a civil society than linking with spirituality. Since we're all in this mess together, we should concern ourselves with morality because our existence is tied together rather than fear a lightning bolt.

Your query: "Should we retract in the cozy subjectivity of whatever makes us feel spiritual, or should we recognise that even our spiritual drive is a psychological manifestation of our mind and analyze it as objectively as we can?" Analysis is good. How about this question? Is this psychological manifestation experienced by each individual or is it a commonality which links all individuals as one -- divided only by the spacio-temporal physicality of our being.

Standards are absolute, but applications are not. It is always wrong (perhaps "undesireable" would be a better term) to kill, but that is, on occasion, the most correct responce available in a given situation.

On the killing morality theme:

It is always wrong to kill, there are circumstances in which killing may be the only option, but this does not make killing right, only the most logical thing to do in the situation. We should teach( like Joy said) young children absolutes, when their sense of the world expands, the situations which modify this absolute can be explained. How many 5 year olds will have someone else's life in their hands? If a 5 year old is pointing a gun at me, I'd hope the only thought running through their mind is "killing is wrong". The choices that modify the absolute go hand in hand with responsibility, which in turn comes with age, maturity and experience.Making the choice to end someone's life should be something you have to deal with as an adult, if ever.

At this point I will have to ask you what is the difference in principle between murder and eating pork... :)

Both are social rules. THe fact that I, personally, think murder is always wrong, while I enjoy eating pork (what would like without prosciutto be...:) doesn't endow any of these moral principles with any a priori validity.

You have to specify what kind of investigation. If you mean comparing evidence from different independent manuscripts and looking for commonality, this is normal historical analysis, and falls well within the scientific tradition.

If you are talking about selecting arbitrarily one of the manuscripts and taking it at face value, then I see no reason to doubt the existence of Pinocchio... it's in the book!

YOu should make your proposed methodology more clear.

Again, the general statement is true ("I would like to see a movie" is not a statement that I would analyze using the scientific method), but you must put forth your method of examination and make it clear.

Refraining from the consumption of pork products benifits societies where food preservation is less than adequate.

There are no societies where murder is not detrimental. Murder is clearly and absolutely wrong. Since the distinction between intra-species slayings of any nature and intra-species slayings that are murders can be unclear and rather interpretive; It is a good practice to avoid killing whenever possible.

I agree that spirituality is a subjective experience. We can be pretty certain that it results -- like everything else -- from a nice mix of brain chemicals.

Were you coauthor of Star Wars Episode I? We learn in it this. People receptive to The Force have elevated level of microorganism. In their cells. The microorganisms pick up The Force. Then pass it on to person. So level of spirituality is measured with blood test.

Of course we ask if the microorganisms host micro-microorgranism, and if those host micro-micro-orgranisms, ad infinitum. This is absurd. Putting subjective into physical objects has infamous history. In philosophy I mean. There is the homunculus regress. And Descartes' meeting of physical and spirit at pineal gland. I doubt diffuse "brain chemicals" will stand test of time either.

First of all, please let me point out that I am not defending murder... :) I am a pacifist, in favor of non violence, and the closer I get to a gun is when I ask directions to a policeman. :)

There is, I believe, a subtle distinction between unversality and absolutism. THe way I see it, universality is an empirical disadvantage that, for some reason, applies to all societies. If you say that a certain moral form is absolute, then you make it true a priori, without even having to determine whether it is detrimental to a society.

Well, on this, of course, I wholeheartedly agree.

I posted this message on the Darwin board in response to another message, but I think it may be of interest here too:

If you say that the bible has evidence of the existence and actions of god, then obviously your belief is not based on the bible, otherwise the mere bible stating that god exist would be enough for you. But if you look for evidence out of the bible, you are back in the scientific arena in which you have to abide to strict verification rules. If you don't look for evidence, but merely believe in the existence of god because the bible says it, then why choose the bible? Can't I choose the Veda or, for what it matters, Pinocchio and believe in everything they say?

YOu see, it seems to me that christianity is taken between these two possibilities: either believe the bible without justification (and in that case you can't make a case of why one should choose the bible over other books), or look for external verification (and in that case you are back in an epistemological mode in which all seems to deny the existence of god).

There are no societies where murder is not detrimental. Murder is clearly and absolutely wrong. Since the distinction between intra-species slayings of any nature and intra-species slayings that are murders can be unclear and rather interpretive; It is a good practice to avoid killing whenever possible.

The pride is lions social stucture. Young males not members of pride cannot reproduce. A male may fight male in pride. Wounds are perhaps mortal. Young male with new pride kills offspring of predecessor. This makes females estrous. He impregnates them. He propagates his own traits. As soon as possible.

Lactating human females can go long without ovulating. Consider that.

P.S. -- I wonder about 50,000 years ago. Did older men keep harems? Did young men battle with older men? To get opportunity to reproduce?

P.S. -- I wonder about 50,000 years ago. Did older men keep harems? Did young men battle with older men? To get opportunity to reproduce?

You know, Freud wrote about the habit in prehistoric tribes of younger males killing their father to obtain his women. I am not sure if he meant this as an actual historical habit or as an allegorical tale (and, then, Freud was wrong about so many other things....:), but the concept is interesting and, certainly, from the point of view of the survival of the tribe makes a lot of sense.

Of course, if this were true, it would be the ultimate relativization of the immorality of murder...

I would just point out that ritual killing was practiced by many Mesoamerican groups such as the Maya and the Aztec. There are probably other cultures around the world that practiced (still practice?) ritual killing.

Distasteful as it may be, I think we must regard the idea of immorality of killing to be relative and not absolute.

You know, Freud wrote about the habit in prehistoric tribes of younger males killing their father to obtain his women. I am not sure if he meant this as an actual historical habit or as an allegorical tale (and, then, Freud was wrong about so many other things....:), but the concept is interesting and, certainly, from the point of view of the survival of the tribe makes a lot of sense.

Jung is much better source on mythology. Still respected.

Everyone knows Freud was very interested in Oedipus. But many myths tell of young men sent away from home. They must find another group. There are two ways to get into a group. Battle to get in. Or complete heroic feats. Either case is demonstration of vitality. Part of sexual selection in evolution.

My main point. Myth suggests young men were driven away. This to avoid battle with father. Also to avoid inbreeding. Everything went wrong with Oedipus. Thats why we call it tragedy. :-(

Tread lightly, Larry... this is awfully close to the assertion that the existence of evil somehow "proves" there's no such thing as evil. Sacrificing virgins to volcano gods has never stopped a volcano from erupting. We can say with some authority that murder is detrimental to society, because we know that murder won't stop the volcano.

All murders are killings but not all killings are murders.

You lads might wish to reexamine your arguments from this perspective.

Hmmm, Keith. "All murders are killing, but all killings are not murders." What is it about murder (in our empirical understanding) delineates this qualification? Might it then be applied to that which purposefully is "anti-life" in all manifestations?

...Evil being, after all, "live" spelled backwards.

Sacrificing virgins to volcano gods has never stopped a volcano from erupting.

Sacrifices closest to us were in meso-America. I think anthropologists now read Aztecan inscriptions. (I may have nation wrong.) Sacrifices were more complex than control of nature. If you depict them as bad technology, you miss point.

We must consider the good sacrifice does society. Our technological mind values the individual. But the group is more important in some societies. Relationship of group to forces of nature was important. This does not mean control of nature. Symbolic content of sacrifice is to keep in good relationship. The sacrifice may not matter to nature. But it does to people. So technological failure is not issue.

I think some people agree to be sacrificed. It is important service to society. We techies have hard time understand old culture. If they could not control, they must have been in darkness. I dont think so.

We techies have hard time seeing our own human sacrifice. Our favorite god gives speed and mobility. In U.S. we sacrifice more than 40,000 people annually. In car wrecks. Researchers have studied accidents heavily. No mystery how to reduce deaths. But our society prefers human sacrifice. The price to be demigods in roaring chariots.

Is there a big difference? Sacrifice by commission. Sacrifice by omission.

I think there's a very big difference between omission and commission, Will, and in something like sacrifice of individuals, it's even more glaring. "WE" aren't sacrificing anyone but ourselves to our greed for speed. Is death the enemy?

I do not think so. Death is universal in all generations. Volcanoes, tornadoes and hurricanes, tidal waves, lightning strikes and simple gravity-related phenomena will kill the majority before disease and old age do, but so what? That's life.

We know better than that, or at least have the capacity to know better. We can kill everybody and everything on this entire planet about 400 times over right now with the bombs we've got in cold storage, more built every day. So what? That's death.

Extinction. Is that the most we're good for?

Joy, you insist that death, itself, is not the enemy, and you also indirectly indicate that premature death of people is also not the enemy. However, the mere existence of bombs capable of killing large numbers of people is a most intolerable evil.

Fair enough, I guess. But how does that address the question of human sacrifice that Will raised?

Also, if premature death is not an enemy, how can an instrument of premature death be an enemy?

Just asking.

Extinction. Is that the most we're good for?

That is what 99.99% of species have been good for. Why is existence toward an end? Not just for itself? George Carlin said maybe nature just put us here for plastic. Shiny bits of plastic will be on earth for thousands of years. Now no need for humans.

I think there's a very big difference between omission and commission, Will, and in something like sacrifice of individuals, it's even more glaring. "WE" aren't sacrificing anyone but ourselves to our greed for speed. Is death the enemy? I do not think so. Death is universal in all generations. Volcanoes, tornadoes and hurricanes, tidal waves, lightning strikes and simple gravity-related phenomena will kill the majority before disease and old age do, but so what?

Which "WE"? I spoke of communal we. The sacrifice is in PREVENTIBLE wrecks. Operator error is a cause in 96% of wrecks. Operator often kills someone else. More than half of deaths are people outside of autos. 2/3 of pedestrians killed at intersections have light to go. That does not seem like sacrificing ourselves to me. Many deaths are children not placed in restraints. Children didn't choose that. Our society knows what is happening. Each year the deaths are comparable to all of Vietnam. The majority preventible. Our society (collective we) could reduce the sacrifice. But issue has no political popularity. No will in our society to spend resources. No will to sacrifice some techno-godhood instead of people.

But my real point was this. We have techno mainstream culture. We have gods we do not admit. We sacrifice to them. These parts of culture have mutated. They have not gone away.

No I dont believe we are better people than Azteca. Maybe worse.

Cliff and Will - Perhaps extinction is the goal, and if so we certainly have the means to do it. Sacrifice of the few for the many is thus rendered obsolete. I see a difference in terminology when I climb into a car and take my chances with idiots on the road, knowing what my chances are. If the priesthood grabs me, trusses me up and tosses me into a volcano, that's something else entirely.

It's a lie. The priests (of whatever designation) who would deliberately sacrifice individuals are telling the majority that this induced death will prevent deaths caused by the volcano, because the volcano god wants death. That's a lie.

When the government priests tell us that we must strap ourselves and our children into relatively safe positions in our cars, the attempt is to save lives and it's not a lie. People who do not obey the law and end up dead are not "sacrificed" by anyone else. They've taken their chances and lost.

John Templeton, the 86 year old billionaire financier who lives in the Bahamas, has established a foundation with the goal of understanding God and spirituality through science. There is also a Center for Theology and Natural Sciences at Berkeley. The Templeton Foundation has a war chest of $800 million, and is funding projects like "Imaging brain activity in forgiving people," and teaching chimps to operate joysticks that will allow them to scroll through a gallery of mug shots of their companians before and after fights to see how long they remember and how emotionally charged the memory is. (All this is from a recent issue of SCIENCE magazine). Mostly it seems scientists and religionists hold symposia and debate, which is interesting but doesn't go anywhere.

Murder was okay in the OT, as long as it was someone in the other tribe. God didn't have any qualms about killing the other tribe's kids himself, in spite of his commandment that "Thou shalt not kill."

It's a lie. The priests (of whatever designation) who would deliberately sacrifice individuals are telling the majority that this induced death will prevent deaths caused by the volcano, because the volcano god wants death.

If human sacrifice is consistent with culture, what is the yard stick?

I see a difference in terminology when I climb into a car and take my chances with idiots on the road, knowing what my chances are.

People who do not obey the law and end up dead are not "sacrificed" by anyone else. They've taken their chances and lost.

My in-laws were driving my nephew and two neices home eleven years ago. A step van crossed over the line and hit them. Head on, left side. Only my mother-in-law and one neice survived. Neice is scarred. My wife went down into depression. After years of nothing we divorced. She is asexual to this day. I call that badly scarred. But my family did not go on the road. We did not take our chances. We lost big time anyway.

I dont mean to drop a ton of bricks on you. But your limited idea of loss is part of problem. Often it is innocent bystanders who suffer most. And it offends me that I cannot use roads at reasonable risk. It should be my right. Yet WE judge the sacrifice to be acceptable. WE could lower speed limits and make enforcement stricter. But WE really dont want that. WE could make enforcement of restraint laws tougher. But WE dont want to pay for cops to do that.

If you agree with communal WE, good for you. But I dont and that makes me a sacrifice. A sacrifice that may sacrifice again. I have been dragged to altar once. I dread a second time.

You may like this report. From Los Alamos, on quantum computing.

Simone Santini, you say in your post 3563 .. "If anything, we do not promote enough doubt regarding one's views." Later you describe yourself as a staunch atheist. The word staunch, as well as carrying the meaning 'loyal,' also has connotations of 'watertight,' or 'airtight.' And you certainly come across to me anyway, as being very patronising of those of us who believe in a Creator. Would you care to try and explain to me why you are a staunch atheist?

I am very sorry to hear of your horrible loss, Will. I also wish the communal "we" was more willing to address the problem. There is, however, an element of radomness (chaos?) involved in something like automobile accidents, which you can address by avoiding highways or being very careful. This does not mean you can avoid encountering accidents or death in the course of your life. Including your own.

"I dont mean to drop a ton of bricks on you. But your limited idea of loss is part of problem."

I’ve climbed that pile of bricks a number of times in and out of my own family, Will. I can’t imagine what gave you the idea that I have a limited idea of loss. I simply see accidents and acts of God (weather, etc. in insurance terms) as part and parcel of life and death on planet Earth. Aging and disease work the same way. Some people get a relatively long amount of time, some people do not get much time at all, and no matter how much or how little time we get it’s never quite enough. Death is devastating, but it is universal. If you understand that too much death is attendant upon vehicular traffic, you should work to have it addressed wherever you can.

I still see it as very different from murder. If you want a good example of societal human sacrifice, war is much better suited.

And thanks for the link, Will. It's still over my head, but then, quite a bit is over my head! §:o)

If you want a good example of societal human sacrifice, war is much better suited.

I'll take the example. But I wont run with it. Except to say the lambs are bred to be willing.

Will. I can’t imagine what gave you the idea that I have a limited idea of loss.

Its my bad writing. When my daughter does not help. I meant just the loss in auto wrecks. I once sent regrets over your loss. I remember.

Thanks, Will, and I wish both you and your daughter healing (your ex-wife as well). As for lambs, I’d have to agree. That’s why I said the number of tri-folded flags and medals in my collection have nothing to do with God.

I’ve lost both my brother and my son to injuries from automobile-related incidents, and my husband lost an uncle (on whose stomach he was cringing under a mattress) in a tornado. The place where I was born is now a volcano. I’ve seen the death from floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, war, and even nuclear accidents. I do know the difference between death and murder. It’s a human definition of a human act. Because murder is human, it qualifies as evil. If we fail to make this definition, we’ve got no business blaming God for anything.

I do know the difference between death and murder. It’s a human definition of a human act.

I admire you for taking responsibility. For the definition. People are afraid to do that. It is godlike thing we must do. Consciously or not.

Brief note about our culture. Negligent homicide is defined. Negligent manslaughter too. The driver who killed my in-laws went to jail. For manslaughter. Too bad threat of punishment is weakest behavior control.

Because murder is human, it qualifies as evil. If we fail to make this definition, we’ve got no business blaming God for anything.

I dont blame God for anything. When I try to see like God I see this. Evil is essential to life. Just as good is. (The real Will Blake wrote "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.") But when my view is human I want to stamp out evil.

Why did no one write When Good Things Happen to Bad People? People want to know God's reasons When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Why no similar interest in flip side? And what about this? When People Do Good Things Without Love. I confess this book is about me. But then there must be another book. When People Do Bad Things Without Malice. The premise makes some people rage. People respond very differently to the four topics. There is some interesting psychology here. Psychology of religion and ethics.

Joy -

I still stand by my last post.(BTW, since I don't believe there is such a thing as evil in the cosmic sense - evil is what we say is evil- then I can hardly be accused of a "post hoc ergo propter hoc" argument concerning the existence of evil:)

I also know the nature of duality, and one need not be a god to figure that out. That's no reason for humans not to make value judgments and act on them - like making laws against homicide and enforcing them. In many occurances we term "accidental" there is negligence, and I'm glad the offender was brought to task in your case. Whether negligence is necessarily evil is harder to say. Intent, on the other hand, is murder in the first degree.

I don't think there's any cosmic evil either, Larry, unless E.T. turns out to me nastier than we are. Far as I've been able to tell, humans are both the perpetrators and definors of evil. Thus we should know what it is.

I use the term "staunch" as an attempt to humorous self-denigration. I thought it was quite evident...

I don't know if I come across as patronisine. It is not my intention, so my being patronising could be more a sign of poor command of the English language than a sign of a firm belief.

Anyway, I am an atheist for a number of reasons. For one thing, I find the concept of "god" very well defined. Were I to believe in god, in what would I believe? In the pantheistic god of Spinoza or in the anthropomorphic patriarch of the bible?

If I were to believe in a pantheistic god, how would that belief be different from a simple endorsement of an objective reality or (if we want to maintain a certain unity of god) of the quantum field?

As to the antropomorphic patriarch (or variations thereof), I simply found no reason whatsoever to believe in his/her/its existence. Let me, for the sake of simplicity, limit to the god of the bible.

There is an old book that says this and that about god. Apart from what the book says, I have no reason to believe in the existence of god. I could either accept the word of the bible at face value, or look for other clues. The first alternative is philosophically very weak, and raises all sorts of problem, with which I will be happy to entertain you if you are interested. The second approach brings the god problem in the natural realm in which there is no evidence to grant consideration to the hypothesis.

The god hypothesis

... too long again....

The god hypothesis is epistemologically very expensive, and we should have a very compelling reason to do it. I simply found no such compelling reason.

I can't guarantee that I won't find such compelling evidence tomorrow morning. I might. I am just stating that today I have no reason to believe and that, in any case, my belief will not come from taking the bible at face value.

... too long again....

The god hypothesis is epistemologically very expensive, and we should have a very compelling reason to do it. I simply found no such compelling reason.

I can't guarantee that I won't find such compelling evidence tomorrow morning. I might. I am just stating that today I have no reason to believe and that, in any case, my belief will not come from taking the bible at face value.

I never took the Bible at face value either, and still don’t, Simone. It was just where the verses were... psalms or proverbs or stories we talked about in Sunday School. I grew up, went looking around at other belief systems, and came back to Christianity because it suited my nature.

Then I experienced a series of things that made me take it a whole lot more serious. I haven’t left my empirical mind behind. The closer I look, the more I see the mind of God. Perhaps that’s because I’m looking for Him. Perhaps it’s because He wants me to find Him.

Can you be more specific about this?

That is very plausible. I have no douby that if ou want to believe, you can concoct plenty of reasons to do so. I just consider this approach epistemologically very weak.

Well... this is a petitio principii, don't you think.... ;-)

Well, I don’t automatically equate discovery with creation, and I don’t automatically file creation under the heading of "mundane" just because it exists. Scientists have a tendency to see things this way. First there’s an anomaly that gets them all excited. Then somebody defines it as a Pulsar, and Pulsars automatically become just another mundane manifestation of the boring old universe with nothing miraculous or wonderous about it.

I see existence itself as miraculous. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in Pulsars, it means I think they’re a darned amazing manifestation of existence. There’s nothing wrong with seeing things this way. Nobody’s paying me to produce weapons of mass destruction or clone rich Texans or dump toxic wastes and heavy metals as "inert ingredients" into exported fertilizers, so I am free to believe in something more than the brilliance and essential goodness (or, in Evolutionist mindset, the complete uselessness) of human beings.

I’m not looking for science to prove or disprove the existence of God. Belief in God doesn’t mean I don’t believe science can (and does) adequately define the phenomena of existence in empirical terms most of the time, given enough time. How does belief in a creator effect the study of creation in any way?

It’s a Time Warp!!!! Deja-vu...

March 28, 1979 - "Owing to a relief valve glitch, we experienced a core meltdown before a scheduled outage, and lost 20 tons of enriched uranium between about 4:30 a.m. Tuesday and 8:30 p.m. Wednesday night. Unfortunately, this material appears to be unrecoverable in this timespace. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, and again repeat that there is no danger to the general public..."

Sorry, I couldn’t resist. §:o)

While CNN core dumps may contain masses of intellectually toxic waste, at least they aren't radioactive! :)

How annoying that they should have lost those posts, I'll try again ..

Simone .. it's an incredibly amazing world, and we are all so different aren't we? You examined different 'gods' and found some reason to dismiss each. Joy has always had her 'companion' and faith in "something greater" which we refer to as God for ease of typing. I examined the possibility that there might be a Creator, and found that there is no empirical proof either way, but to my surprise, I felt that what evidence there was, came down in favour of a Creator.

If your use of words is anything at all to go by, your command of the English Language is superb, however, because I frequently have to look up words you are using, and because I am somewhat daunted by your apparent intellect, I often find your posts difficult to understand.

No thanks.

Well that was easily said wasn't it .. so anyone who believes is completely irrational. I'll bet you temper this in your next post with some high faluting tripe about my genetic programming leaving me with an inadequate ability to process information as well as you can.

Simone continued ..

This sentence doesn't make much sense to me, I've tried looking up epistemologically and therefore having it read .. "The god hypothesis with regards to it's method and validation, is very expensive," and all I can think of is that you're saying .. "I can't be bothered."

Don't hold your breath Simone, I don't think you got "zapped" this morning .. you definitely have to WANT to at least examine what information we have. And I definitely recommend that you do not take the Bible at face value, it's worth a lot more study than that.

Joy, good morning ..

The latter is definitely the case, especially theologically. Speaking only for myself of course, my natural self STILL doesn't care for the idea that there is a Creator and I must thank Him for my existence.

Well, that conclusion might well depend on the sensitivity of the detector, Leszek! LOL

Oh, I'm not looking to thank Him for anything in particular, Rosemary. I've got a few questions I think He's the only one who can answer.

Hmmm... testing yet again...

Is anybody out there?

Rosemary Behan - Wednesday, 06/02/99, 6:47:50pm (#3628 of 3631)

OK, sorry for the hype... I will try to make my point as clearly as I can.

The gist of it could be: "yes, believing in god is irrational, but that is not necessarily wrong." Scientists too make hypotheses that can't be justified rationally. For instance, if you want to be a scientist you must assume that events in the world can be predicted or, if you want, that there is a certain order in the world. There is no rational justification for this assumption: it seems to work, and we keep doing it.

The difference is in what I called the "epistemological cost" of the hypothesis of god. In a few words. Assume that a piece of paper suddenly flies off from the desk next to the window, floats for a while, and then falls to the ground. I can start wondering what happened. I can think that it was the draft from the window, that an invisible man is in the room, or any other hypothesis. All these are perfectly respectable hypotheses, since I can verify them (I can lock the door and look for the invisible man, for instance).

Yet, somehow, the draft hypothesis is more economical, since it explains the same facts (the paper flew away) using phenomena that I am familiar with, and using the same theory (fluid dynamics) that I use to explain other phenomena. The invisible man hypothesis requires me to postulate invisibility just to explain the flight of my paper: it is a very "uneconomical" hypothesis.

In this sense I said that god is a very expensive hypothesis. It seems like most phenomena can be explained just by making reference to well known natural laws, without any need to bri

One thing you can say about my posts.... they are never short... :) Here is the rest:

In this sense I said that god is a very expensive hypothesis. It seems like most phenomena can be explained just by making reference to well known natural laws, without any need to bring in the hypothesis of god. Since the god hypothesis is very expensive (in the sense in which the invisible man was expensive in my toy example), we should only do it when we have to and, from my point of view, we don't have to.

Simone, I understand your use of "economical" in terms of the hypotheses you have presented, but I don’t recognize as valid the automatic uneconomical a priori assumption that "nothing" was the cause of whatever effect is being described.

I said before that had Newton not surmised there to be an a priori cause to the observable effects of gravity, there could have been no theory of gravity for science to test and refine. The "nothing" assumption automatically negates speculation on cause, and is counterproductive to honest inquiry. This seems far more costly than the assumption of cause... the turtles get bigger all the way down, as Keith would point out if he were here. (Are you okay, Keith?) §:o)

Joy Busey - Thursday, 06/03/99, 1:22:49pm (#3635 of 3635)

But science doesn't make the assumption that "nothing" is the cause of anything. Quite the contrary, science is essentially causal, except that it doesn't mind saying that we have no idea what the cause of certain things are, and we don't know if we'll ever know.

There is quite a large gulf between this admission of ignorance and the (in my view) gratuitous hypothesis that god made everything. This would leave you with the old question "who made god" and if you answer that god always was and always will be, you are subject to your very own objection: you are assuming that "nothing" was the cause of god.

(This, of course, assuming that the goal of science is to trace causality, which is not so clear: many see the goal of science as building models to explain certain observations).

Where I see a deep difference is that, in science, you are ready to question the assumption that a certain thing is the cause of a certain other thing, while the god hypothesis, by its nature, do not lead to such a refutation (you can always find a way to sneak god back in). This is the basic philosophical difference. If you allow me the paradox: even if science proved the existence of god, it would still be the anthitesis of religion.

A very thoughtful post Simone, as was your immediate previous post.

Rosemary inferred a perjorative connotation of the word "irrational", but, as you rightly and eloquently explained, that is not necessarily the case, as both religion AND science can proceed fruitfully from irrational bases.

I particularly like your paradox: If science proved the existence of God, it would still be the antithesis of religion. Amen.

Rosemary Behan:

P.S.

I believe you are being unfair to me, here. I admit that my posts are sometimes obscure, and that can come across as condiscending, and I consider it my fault, but you have to admit that I never ever tried to belittle or diminish anybody in any way. If I gave you that impression, I apologize.

Simone Santini .. OK, I now understand what you mean when you talk about 'expensive.' But I would have thought that such reasoning was not very scientific. So because I DID examine the possibility of a Designer, [the invisible man and the expensive possibility] my 'irrationality' is further demonstrated? If that's the case, then I think the funding for some 'way out' investigations by scientists should cease immediately.

I suspect you mean .. in the nicest possible way of course, .. that for the "irrational" masses who don't understand the empirical world, religion is a source of comfort. It keeps them happy, keeps them relatively moral and out of the hair of those who are doing the "real" work in this world. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm CONVINCED that there is "order" in the world, what's more I believe there is a rational justification for it .. the problem is, you think it's irrational, which makes it almost impossible to achieve any degree of communication between us.

I don't think this statement is quite correct. If you didn't mind not knowing what the cause of various things are .. then you wouldn't be making such strenuous efforts to find them.

Your use of the word gratuitous [unwarranted], brings me back to the reason I first posted. You asked for an increase in our reasoning pro

You asked for an increase in our reasoning processes of 'doubt.' Now, I can freely and truly say to you, as I have said many times, that I sometimes doubt the existence of God .. can you say the same in reverse? The use of the word 'gratuitous' indicates that you cannot, which makes a nonsense of your plea.

OK, I'll try to explain using what limited logic I have in my irrational brain. I start with the premise that "something exists." IOW, I am bypassing the possibility that we cannot prove anything exists, that maybe all of reality is an illusion. Maybe even the illusion is an illusion, maybe there is no one having the illusion. If you wish to take those things into account, then we will find it impossible to talk about this issue. So my argument is addressed to people who do exist and leave the objections to that initial assumption to the philosophers who must affirm my starting point in order to deny it.

If something exists now, we must affirm one of three things about it. It is either eternal, created by something that is eternal, or self created. [Please tell me if you can think of any other alternatives.] Now the one that you and many many folk would have me believe, is the latter, because that mind-set does not wish to acknowledge the possibility of anything eternal. So, like the French skeptics during the Enlightenment, I was first told .. "the God hypothesis is no longer necessary because now we know that the Universe came into being by spontaneous generation." Spontaneous generation of course, meant at that time, that "something" .. came from nothing. These days people speak of the origin of the Universe in terms of quantum motion and combinations of space, time and chance. Lots of new and v

Lots of new and very long words that I don't understand are used to convey this thought, but that's what it comes down to. So the question I ask myself is .. what would have to happen for something to create itself? Well, that's nonsense, for something to create itself, it would have to exist in order to create. In fact it would have to exist before it existed if it were to create it's own existence. For something to create itself, it would have to be and not be at the same time and have the same relationship.

That leaves me with chance. But what is chance .. my dictionary says, "Something that happens as the result of unknown or unconsidered forces." Chance describes a mathematical relationship of factors, it is a mathematical abstraction with no real existence. So since it is nothing, it cannot DO anything .. so to say that the world was created by 'chance,' is to say that it was created by nothing. It is more accurate to say .. "We don't know how the Universe came into being, chances are it was this or that .. we just don't know." But that is not to say that the world came by chance in the sense that chance was the causal power.

But must reality be logical? Doesn't the quantum theory and the motion of particles which appear unpredictable or random mean that they are indeterminate? I probably ought to be precise about what I mean by indeterminate. To be indeterminate, is not to be nondeterminate. Rather it means that we don't know why the particles behave the way they do. That is not the same as saying that their motion is caused by nothing, or by chance.

So while it may be a popular idea socially these days, I cannot abandon the idea of God to the 'self created' theory. So how about if the world is eternal? Or what about Keith's oft stated idea of the turtles .. an infinite series of finite causes? Suppose there were some first cause in the series that was not self-existant, what would happen if that being ge

Suppose there were some first cause in the series that was not self-existant, what would happen if that being generated another and then the first died? Well it couldn't have been eternal, but the Universe could continue with the second, which begets a third and so on. We are talking about an infinite series, and by definition, an infinite series has no first in the series, which is why I discard it.

So if self creation isn't a possibility for me, how about self existence? As I said, self creation involves a contradiction, to create itself, something would have to be and not be at the same time and in the same relationship. But for something to exist eternally in and of itself, has no contradiction. So I'm back to your question, doesn't the law of cause and effect apply to God as well as to the world? Who caused God? The law of causality says that for every effect there is a cause .. an "effect" by definition is something that requires a cause. But God does not have a cause because He is eternal and self existent. Being eternal, He is not an "effect." Since He is not an "effect," He does not require a cause .. He is uncaused. Note the difference between an uncaused, self existent eternal being, and an 'effect' that causes itself through self creation. "Ex Nihil, nihil Fit," is what I usually say. If something exists now, then something has always existed.

I must credit RC Sproul for his help in making this explanation, he is far better at it than I. You may disagree with me Simone, but perhaps, even though it's "expensive," you could at least acknowledge that some folk who believe, have done some 'rational' thinking about it.

So the question I ask myself is .. what would have to happen for something to create itself? Well, that's nonsense, for something to create itself, it would have to exist in order to create. In fact it would have to exist before it existed if it were to create it's own existence. For something to create itself, it would have to be and not be at the same time and have the same relationship.

It is definitely absurd to say the universe created itself. But the argument you give also shows the absurdity of the existence of God. It says volumes about the human condition that one argument cuts both ways.

If you are courageous, you will admit to both absurdities and not just one. You will have to find your meaning in the midst of meaninglessness. Some Christian philosophers have used the term faith to refer to acts of belief and existence in the face of absurdity.

If you are not courageous, you may latch on to some dogma. You may well believe a book because the book itself says it is True. You may take a path handed to you by your parents and reassure yourself by proclaiming to all that your way is True. It may be that the more certain you sound, the greater your faith will seem to you.

The essence of religion is making a way for yourself without succumbing to the appeal of an opiate that dulls your sense of the ultimate uncertainty of existence. Success in religious practice is not to find proof that others can see, but to make or accept a relationship with some Other which may or may not be perceptible to anyone but yourself.

The existence of the Universe, and the absurdity of the Universe's existence and the Creator's existence for exactly the same reasons is central to any mature religious perception, in my opinion. To put it simply, religion is about pressing on when you really cannot know anything for sure.

Cindy Blake helped with the last post.

Rosemary,

just a brief post, I will elaborate tomorrow (it is past midnight on the west coast...), but I think I have to rectify this:

You are wrong. What I meant is this. At the basis of every system, including science, there is some assumption that is irrational or, better yet, para-rational, in the sense that we can't justify it rationally. For science, it is the assumption that the world has an order, that experiments can be replicated, and so on.

So, what I am saying is not that irrationality is good for "the masses" while the "elite" is very rational. Quite the opposite, in fact: there are always assumptions that we can't justify rationally.

Where I think science is superior is in trying to make as few of these assumption as possible, and in trying to question them continuously to see if we made some that is unwarranted.

Now I am off to bed... more tomorow :)

My thanks to Cindy for bringing out the depth of Will's thoughts.

Science is supperior in describing and predicting the behaivior and nature of the universe. Science is an unsuitible tool for illuminating the depth of human spirituality.

Science can explain the dynamics and emotions of my relationship with my daughter; it can not explain why I love her.

Most, if not all, physical processi are infinatly reducible, spiritual awareness is not.

We need both disciplines in our lives, and a clear understanding of when and how to apply each. Devaluing either only leads to imbalance.

Will Blake, you love a good argument don't you sir? -)

It is of course, the prerogative of thousands to disagree with me. Isn't it amazing that we can come to so many different conclusions? I would like to hear why you think the existence of God is absurd.

I've never heard that, could you please name them for me?

No to the first, I will find my post on this if it interests you. No to the second, my parents were not Christian. And the longer I walk with my faith, and the deeper I delve, the greater the problems, theodicy for one. But not the problems you have sir.

Thankyou for telling me what you believe and don't believe. Try and believe me when I say to you that I am NOT trying to persuade you to believe as I do.

I agree with Keith.. science and religion are two different subjects.You can not use the bible as a reference to science, and science will never provide the answers to my questions about God.

Will Blake, you love a good argument don't you sir? -)

[No writing help. Sorry.] I intended post as kindness. You seemed to struggle. So my daughter and I worked hard. To offer my best 32 lines. Now I struggle to understand your angry response. Did it hurt to be told the following?

I would like to hear why you think the existence of God is absurd.

I've never heard that, could you please name them for me?

These may be best places. To start reading.

Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be

My post had paragraph on courage. Balancing paragraph on non-courage. Latter had MAY in every sentence. But you respond as if accused. I had no desire to accuse. We worked hard to avoid accusing tone. What is wrong?

Will Blake,

I so sorry you misunderstood me, in fact I wasn't angry at all, but rather amused. You see the signal at the end of my statement? This symbol -) is a sign that I am smiling because it's so difficult to communicate that in the written word. I don't make that symbol very often, so I can assure you that when it's there, it is because I am indeed smiling. In fact you remind me of my father, I also don't mean that with any disrespect, but he loves to argue, he just positively enjoys it. It's one of the highlights of his day.

The argument Ex Nihil, Nihil Fit, says in simple form, that if something exists NOW, then something must have existed THEN. It is not an argument for Yahweh, the God of the Christian Bible, it is an argument for "something." Which 25 years ago or so, I used in my debate [with myself], as to whether or not there could be a Creator. I didn't mean to imply that this argument was irrefutable, just that those who believe, haven't necessarily arrived at their conclusion without using their reasoning faculties. OK?

I have read both the author's you mention, Kierkegaard, was the unintentional founder of existentialism. Philosophically, his target was the "system." He attacked all attempt to systematise all of reality, because such attempts left out the most important element of human experience, namely existence. He believed deeply in the subjectivity of truth rather than an objective theory of knowledge. This emphasis on the subjective, led Kierkegaard to his paradoxical understanding that genuine faith calls for a 'leap of faith.' A passionate commitment to God in the face of uncertainty and objecti

objective reasoning. He believed that the free choice of faith alone brings authentic human existence. I personally both agree and disagree with him .. which is quite normal for me. -) BTW, he was fiercely critical of the Lutheran church and especially hard on cleric's. Those words have a particular truth for me.

Tillich, again with a Lutheran background .. [do you originate from that part of this wonderful world?] Again, he was very heavily influenced by existentialism. In his work Systematic Theology he argued that God should be viewed as 'the ground of being, known to man as ultimate concern.' That it is with participation in this 'ground of being,' that man receives his own being. Man must face nonbeing. That when he does so, and courageously affirms himself in the face of nonbeing, he is expressing ultimate concern. I'm afraid I disagree with him.

I apologise for giving you the wrong impression, I'm afraid it's very easy to do in this form of communication.

Simone, may I call you by your first name? I have indeed done you an injustice, I'm afraid I took out on you, some frustrations that have been building for some time. I am frankly very tired of being metaphorically patted on the head and told that I'm stupid because I believe in God. Always of course, said with this great big cheesy smile to let me know that although I'm stupid, I still have 'worth,' but I really ought, like the child in the Victorian era, go sit in the corner and keep quiet, because I'm not quite capable of understanding such things.

There is a lot of truth in that, and the truth always hurts. I was poorly educated, and I'm struggling to understand scientific theories. I'm making progress, but it's very slow.

I don't doubt that, but you see if you spent ten minutes in the company of theologians, or those who are seriously trying to understand their Creator, you would say the same thing of them. They are constantly and seriously questioning to see if the assumptions they have made are correct or incorrect. I think you would feel that this is a wasted exercise .. and here is the great divide that I deeply believe we should make some effort to cross.

Rosemary,
I'm afraid that linear logic is going to break down somewhere at or about the begining of the experiantial time-line.

Where there is no space there is no time (or infinite time, but we can quibble about possitive and negative infinities another time.) Space and time leapt outward from nowhere, imeadiatly establishing a linear progression towards infinity.

All "existance" was present in the singularity, but not in a form that could be described as space-time. ((Space-time)gravitation)) (there is a term for this critter) is a "satisfied state." Why did this sate of existance fragment into gravity and space-time? dunno, but I suspect that it did so because God wanted it this way, but in any case; effects can occur spontainiously if there is no linear progresion of time (entropy, etc..)

I remember the night I learned that there had been war in Heaven. The Devil rebelled against God, and when he rebelled against God, he was able to attract one third of the Angels in Heaven to his side. The Devil and his Angels made war against God and the Angels who remained loyal to God. The forces of God defeated the forces of the Devil and the Devil and his Angels were put out of Heaven and fell to earth.

When Brother Pearcy revealed these events, he did not display any doubt as to the facts. The words he spoke were spoken with authority. The possibility that he might be mistaken did not even occur to me. At the time, I was certain that he knew what he was talking about, and believed it every word, absolutely.

I am no longer so trusting of authority figures such as Brother Pearcy. Today, I strongly suspect that Brother Pearcy was mistaken. Since he indicated total belief, I suspect that he firmly believed what he said. I do not and have never doubted his sincerity. But I think he was mistaken. I also happen to think that you are mistaken in a number of similar respects.

Will Blake, you love a good argument don't you sir? -)

Sarcasm is often accompanied by a smile.

I didn't mean to imply that this argument was irrefutable, just that those who believe, haven't necessarily arrived at their conclusion without using their reasoning faculties. OK?

Actually, not OK. You've used your reasoning faculties to go only halfway. You embrace the absurdity of a self-creating universe, but shun that of a self-creating god.

I have never been Lutheran or Existentialist, but the works I mentioned were of value to me. They both relate naturally to the state of people who complete the line of reasoning, and how one can live in that state. Both emphasize courage and faith. Incidentally, Kierkegaard likened faith to a swimming motion, not a leap. That is potent symbolism, I think.

I could have suggested Thus Spoke Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche, which fits the topic but does not fit you. I could also have pointed to Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which treats the impossibility of talking about many things, but which I don't recall as particularly encouraging.

[with Cindy B.]

I am no longer so trusting of authority figures such as Brother Pearcy.

I have terrible memories of the wanton indoctrination of children by adults at church. I am sure that many of my Sunday School teachers did not believe what they were saying, but that they were "storing up treasures in heaven" by getting kids to believe.

When I eventually had the Bible Stories for Children rug pulled out from under me in Bible courses at the university, I was terribly angry with my church teachers for the pretzel contortions they had made my young identity to suffer. Now I just sigh at the thought of the waste.

Mr. Blake,

As for the accusation of sarcasm, I thought I gave you an adequate explanation for that remark, it was a joke, I put a little smile at the end to indicate that it was a joke. Now if it was a joke in poor taste, then I apologise, it wouldn't be considered so here, but I don't know what else I can do. If you will please explain to me just why you think I am either angry or being sarcastic it will help me not to make such mistakes in future. Sometimes I use a phrase that in America is interpreted quite differently from here, but I fail to see one of those either so I am at a loss.

Keith, goodness me, I'm struggling to understand your post, never mind respond to it. It's a bit like watching Aussie Rules on television, I don't know what the players are doing, and the commentators keep using terms I'm not familiar with. First you'd better check that I've understood you properly.

You seem to me to be saying that my logic breaks down at the moment of Creation. Because after Creation we have both space and time, but there was neither before. I have noticed both you and Joy frequently use the term 'singularity,' but I'm afraid I don't know precisely what it means. I've always guessed that it was, "the sum of whatever was behind the Big Bang" .. is that correct? Then we come to the reason why my logic breaks down .. that "effects can occur spontaneously if there is no linear progression of time (entropy, etc..)" Sorry to be a nuisance Keith, but I really would like to understand what you are trying to teach me, can you put this more simply for me?

PS. Put heaps and heaps of photos of the children in your new place, and keep adding lots and lots more, eventually it will help.

Cliff, it's been a while, I was afraid you had abandoned us .. welcome back. Yes, we've all had the odd bits of mis-information thrown at us. I'm still very sad about the brontosaurus, I was very fond of that 'wee beastie.' I too believed every word, absolutely. To quote you, I'm no longer so trusting of authority figures in the world of science. However, point taken and fair enough.

That's the wonderful thing about science, it rejects arguments purely from authority :) It demands evidence.

Of course, as a practical matter, these days no-one can be expert on every field the way one could be in Newton's day, and understand almost all the science in almost all the fields - those were the days of the gentleman scientist, with some contributions from paid patronage posts. So today, we have to trust authority in fields not our own to some extent. However, we do so on the basis that there are many experts within a field, and that work in that field is subject to peer review before it is accepted. And it is always accepted into the scientific canon only provisionally, pending further evidence.

The difference between the scientific and religious canons, of course, is that the scientific canon is subject to constant review and revision. The religious one is written on tablets of stone, and finds it hard to adjust to changing circumstances and new knowledge.

At least I have the option in principle of testing the scientific canon empirically, since that it how it was created, and find out for myself how true it is. With institutionalized religion, I always have to bow to authority.

Leszek I agree ..

Because of my ignorance, I have to do that ALL the time. But ..

I think you should remove the word "before." It's the same in the world of religion, I just successfully copied a link for Eric [a first for me] about a fellow I could wish had to be 'peer reviewed' BEFORE he spoke!! However you're right, the tablets of stone are unchanging, and if very little else does, that 'does' bring me some measure of comfort.

Pardon my short-on-coffee intrusion, but I’m having a little trouble understanding your post too, Keith. First for Rosemary, the term "singularity" applies to mathematics mostly in this theoretical realm. It occurs whenever one or more factors becomes an infinity, and is usually treated as an incomplete understanding - in which case the infinity is "renormalized" so the rest of the equation can be worked out. Singularity describes what lies at the center of a black hole, for instance. It means we cannot define the states of matter and energy except to say this factor or that have stretched themselves to infinity and we don’t know what that really means.

The Singularity at the beginning of time represents the point from which the universe originated. Shrink what "Is" down to the Big Bang, and eventually all the factors become infinite.

As for experience, this is moderated through the machine. The machine regards the passage of time as the effects of entropy, probably because the machine is physically subject to the effects of entropy. Entropy in the larger universe (and on occasion in organic life) is not an absolute, however, it is more a result of probability on a macrocosmic scale.

So I’d modify the experiential "reality" of time and entropy with the supposition that God must exist beyond space-time, thus our consciousness inside the machine which contemplates God is not necessarily subject to the limitations of space-time.

Will, on what basis do you suggest your "teachers" were not sincere? It is one thing to suggest that someone is mistaken and have caused harm as a result--which, of course, they undoubtedly did--in my case, as well as your's. It is another to suggest hypocrisy. I think you need evidence for that. Where is your evidence?

Entropy in the larger universe (and on occasion in organic life) is not an absolute, however, it is more a result of probability on a macrocosmic scale.

Glad you're back.

Let's say entropy is maximal for the current volume of space occupied by the universe. (I sidestep thorny issues of cosmology of which I am dimly aware.) As you suggest, ordered localities exist with high probability nonetheless. These localities can even be negatively entropic. I have a growing hunch that this accounts for the emergence of life.

To be more specific, the earth is not only highly ordered at the moment, it is not as orderly as it will eventually be. It seems that with the negative entropy of a cooling volcanic planet an enormous variety of orderly systems are likely to emerge. The most entropic, or complex, of systems have characteristics we refer to as life. These systems are individuals, societies, and ecosystems.

I generally oppose physical reductionism, but in the origin (not evolution) of life we necessarily talk about biochemistry, and perhaps even some physics. So I suggest that a cooling planet breeds a great deal of order, and some of that order may turn out to satisfy somebody's definition of life.

From a more religious perspective, negatively entropic planets are marvels of the universe. To make life part of the overall ordering of a rare stone in a huge universe is not to demean it.

[with Cindy Blake]

Thanks, Will - and hello to Cindy as well!

You’ve got a real point, which I don’t think needs massive amounts of Ph.D.s to understand. It is indeed highly likely that planetary dynamics plays a vital role in the pockets of negentropy existing in the universe, though so far ours is the only one we know about for sure. Energy systems and energy itself cannot be created or destroyed in this timespace, it can only be transformed or transferred. This can fairly easily be thought of as a contribution of the planet itself to the increasing complexity of the life forms it evolved.

I think you and Cindy are on to something... §:o)

Will, on what basis do you suggest your "teachers" were not sincere? It is one thing to suggest that someone is mistaken and have caused harm as a result--which, of course, they undoubtedly did--in my case, as well as your's. It is another to suggest hypocrisy. I think you need evidence for that. Where is your evidence?

My personal experience with people in a particular Protestant denomination is not going to be backed up by any evidence. It is my experience. But I can tell you this. I went to a university supported by that denomination. I was at ground zero, among the pre-ministerial students and the most righteous. I saw "up close and personal" the people who went on to be Sunday School teachers. Some truly believed, and I had a great deal of respect for them. Many more were big-time hypocrites, living one way throughout the week and talking another way on Sunday. "It doesn't matter, because I know that Jesus has forgiven me," was one of their favorite phrases. They wriggled out of any Christian teaching that would require them to live much differently than anybody else.

Here's a specific example. I know a guy who spent the night with a girl on an athletic team trip. I was there. He was dating the school's beauty queen, and when confronted by some guys he argued that it was different for guys than for girls, and that he was going to have "clean fabric" when he married. He ultimately married the beauty queen, and went on to be a petty manager in an insurance company and a Sunday School teacher at his church.

I definitely recognized many of my Sunday School teachers among my peers when I hit adulthood. I saw few whose words matched their actions as my mother's did throughout my childhood. In short, I think I have some basis for detecting

Cindy is home from the university. She is with me this summer. :-) Sometimes she rewrites. If it interests her. Sometimes she adds good ideas. I am proud of her.

I know you must be very proud of your daughter, Will. I’ve got mine here out of University for the summer as well, which means I have an actual field hand for the garden!!! Joy of joys, grandma doesn’t have to be on her hands and knees in the hot sun this year to do anything but harvest... Though I do admit certain sprains associated with teaching 9-year old grandson the fine points of bow staff combat and double sword dancing in contradiction to certain gravity-related phenomena associated with living on a mountainside... §:o)

Ah, well. Figure if one can adjust one’s perceptual balance to how the trees grow rather than how the optical illusion of flat ground appears - "mountain legs" as opposed to "sea legs" - counting coup on real flatland is easy as pie! Worse than a ropes course, I’m tellin’ ya.

Which tells me (so I can tell my grandson the grasshopper) that things are indeed not always as they appear to be. One needs one’s inner ear to "listen" to the earth in order to maintain balance as well as to distract one’s opponent into misjudging balance. The eyes can deceive, so all the senses are necessary to perceive relative "truth" in any given situation. Even then we are still limited to the machine, though one can gain much appreciation for the miraculous design of the machine in the process.

Actually, just because a scientist ups and says something, doesn't introduce whatever hare-brained idea into the scientific canon :) (or into the religious one, in the equivalent case)

What I'm referring to is not merely publication, that's difficult enough and has to pass muster by peer review in any reputable journal (read: any journal taken seriously by scientists), but it has then to make it into the text books and what I can only describe as scientific "folklore" - where even if the idea is wrong, it has remarkable longevity... a favorite scientific pastime is pointing out textbook errors and wondering over how long they survive! - Biblical scholars do not share that hobby, I find :) Entry into the scientific canon is profoundly difficult for any idea, and generally meets great resistance... the successful interlopers have much going for them.

I'm not one to denigrate comfort, whatever the source... but I find my comfort in change from ideas that don't work to ideas that do. I find change is necessary to life. The eternal verities are all very well, but what to do when they aren't verified by experience? My answer is to welcome the improvement with open arms :)

gravity-related phenomena associated with living on a mountainside...

Newtonian I presume.

Which tells me (so I can tell my grandson the grasshopper) that things are indeed not always as they appear to be. One needs one’s inner ear to "listen" to the earth in order to maintain balance as well as to distract one’s opponent into misjudging balance. The eyes can deceive, so all the senses are necessary to perceive relative "truth" in any given situation. Even then we are still limited to the machine, though one can gain much appreciation for the miraculous design of the machine in the process.

Very poetic. Like Kubla Khan's Xanadu. "A miracle of rare device, those sunny domes, those caves of ice."

Miraculous machines stop working. Eventually. I suppose this is in your mind. Probably conscious. If unconscious I beg no offense.

My response is trite. You know it already. Preciousness of life comes from immanence of death. Philosophy does not replace loss however. Death becomes less abstract. Our elders leave us, we see ourselves going. Its very real. Very immediate. Feelings, understanding, not words.

It is good you enjoy beauty of youth. For its own sake. Perhaps you feel like me. I wish I could make kids understand. How beautiful they are. I wish they could enjoy it. Before its gone. Well, its joy for us anyway.

How very kind of you to term me poetic, Will. In reality, however, I was speaking politely about falling flat on my bum more than a few times this past week. My inner ear (which has a balance bubble just like a carpenter’s level) isn’t what it once was.

It could just be eyesight, though. I know very well the machine eventually ceases to function. It can go out suddenly like a lamp in the midst of its prime, or it can fail one spark plug, carburator or cam shaft at a time. It doesn’t really matter, does it?

I am really talking about bow staff and swords. Grasshopper (actually we call him "Godzilla Boy" around here) is very determined to learn. A student’s determination is often more vital than a teacher’s balance. Thank goodness...

Life is time. That is all it is. What matters is what we do with our time.

I guess you got me told, Will. Excellent points. I think I would consider a couple of the examples you gave as evidence.

I suppose it is possible, and I suppose also that it is possible that this is a view of reality that you have been given to understand by the leprechauns.

However, that presupposes the existence of leprechauns, and since I have no evidence to support either the existence, nor the non-existence of leprechauns, I can not say for sure if that is possible, or not possible.

I’ve got fairies in the spring, Cliff! Actually, I had a grandpa who believed in leprechauns totally, so I never ruled ‘em out.

I know I have claimed a number of hats here that no one apart from those who know me in reality can take with anything but a grain of salt. I also know my life passed the point of credibility more than 20 years ago, so I’m not concerned about whether anyone takes it seriously. I once told you that I am a warrior, and this is true. In the tradition I speak of, it is the sacrifice of time which is an enemy - in my case murder (twice) - in this timespace. The theft of time.

I’m a pretty good warrior. Good enough that I’ll probably live to be a hundred. Or maybe the thieves will get my time in the end too. My grandson and daughter are here to convince me otherwise. Besides, bow staff and swords are so much more elegant than shooting snakes and tin cans with a pearl-handled six-gun... though not as much fun and a whole lot more painful.

I had a birthday yesterday, and my grandson (bless his heart) told me I still had miles to go before I’m "Old." Who am I to argue with a kid who learned his moves from me, and can knock me off the darned mountain whenever he likes with the swipe of a bow? He’s good. Maybe better than our son. That would be a heck of a something to leave behind!

Although I suppose I can not say I know you "in reality," Joy--whatever that means, I am convinced that you do exist--which is more than I can say for leprechauns.

It is the manifestation of your existence as revealed in your posts that sometimes puzzles me. You say you are a warrior and seem to take pride in your being a warrior. Fair enough. But, tell me what is so great about being a warrior.

I think I would prefer to be known as a peacemaker.

Let me attack this from another angle...

One, or the, chief difficulties in discussing pre-relitivistic events is that there is no linear progression of time (or logic) until the universe attained certain critical values. Linearity is so ingrained upon our thought process that there is no linguistic device to describe events that do not answere to the linear god, so if I happen to use "before" or "previous," please bear in mind that these terms do not, in this case, indicate a cause/effect pattern.

There is always the same "amount" of universe (~70% of which is a "property" of gravitation it appears.) The singularity, or monobloc, describes the universe in a state where space-time and gravitation are a single, united (<<something>>). The universe occupies no space, but contains infinite space, it experiances no time yet contains all of time.

This is an environment that is utterly and completely foreign to our entire spectrum of thought. Cause and effect have no meaning in this realm. This is an environment where something can just "happen" with no root cause. It is also the perfect clay, where the most trivial of pertrebutions can alter billions of years of evolution in the system.

Some people stare infinity in the face and percieve a mighty machine that can generate anything with no plan or motive; I see the mind and will of God.

Maybe we needn't discern the purpose of creation; perhaps it is sufficient that it is.

Cliff, if you look closely you will find that Joy IS a peacemaker. She doesn't do it as the 'typical' peacemaker does .. by appealing to the combatant's sense of justice. As a 'warrior,' her weapon is humour, and she wields it like a master, I'm forbidden of course, but I really 'covet' that gift.

Keith, great, hope there will be no difficulties with shared access?

I think [but there is definitely some doubt] that I have understood the gist of what you are saying. But I have some questions. With my finite mind, of course I can't understand "before." I can't imagine 'not space,' and definitely not 'not time.' But I didn't think I was trying to define the "something." Just say that there IS something. The rest of the argument I put before Simone, was to try and answer the question, why those who try and understand something of the character of God, believe Him to be eternal, and don't go with your 'turtles.' They may be wrong, but it seems like a possible and logical argument to me. However I certainly don't feel that it is something one MUST believe, just interesting.

I'm tempted to ask, "how do you know?" But you seem so sure, and what do I know anyway.

Well here we are in agreement, there is of course no NEED, it is a personal question whether or not that is sufficient.

Okay, you have told me what she does not do as a peacemaker. Now could you tell me kindly what you think she does. Joy said she was a warrior. What I want somebody to tell me is what is so great about being a warrior.

Though I agree that Joy sometimes displays a sense of humor, it certainly did not appear to me that she had any appreciation at all for my attempt at humor about leprechauns.

Now can you tell me what you mean when you say you are "forbidden"? Sounds like...nevermind, you tell me.

There really is no difference in the potential between an uncaused, autonomanous universe and an uncaused creator.

I think both views suffer on their own. The mechanics of the universe are devoid of passion without their painter and the painter is not apprciated unless one looks at the details of his brush-marks.

Each view does have meaning of its own; If you seek only the clarity of the mechanism then you may have no need of God, as you may have no need of science if you seek only purpose.

Why should we deny ourselves half the available meaning in our lives though?

Joy, this is post-script to my yesterday's post on the Religion Today board, presented to your grandson and Cindy and (of course) to All Children (-no age bar-); having an idea of your broad interests and observations, think this will be liked. Actually, it is a `Game for Children' (given here, assuredly not for self-advertisement), devised in course of my work and published long ago. [Believe was not wrong to think the Birthday was yours - even if, my wishes stand.]*

This is played by two members (say) A and B. First, A can correctly decide "whether a number c lies between two numbers x and y, or not"; meaning A clearly understands the definition : the numbers occurring between two numbers x and y (with say, x < y) are x, x+1,..., upto y-1. Now the game runs as follows. A writes all numbers from 1 upto ANY desired numner N in ANY desired order; say, as i(1),i(2),...,i(N) and writes N+1 as the last (N+1)th number (- meaning, i(N+1) = N+1). Next A chooses some number k between 1 and N, and forms the list of N answers to the question "Does k lie between (i(1),i(2));(i(2),i(3));etc;(i(N),i(N+1))?" as an ordered sequence of yes (y) or no (n). Now A supplies merely this list to B, who would then determine the number k chosen by A.

For example, let N=7 and start with the arrangement, say 7,1,4,3,6,2,5,8. Choose k=3 (say), so that the list of seven answers is (y,y,y,y,y,y,n) which alone B gets to see. The formula which B uses for finding k is the following: Note the position of y's in the list. We have y's at 1,2,3,4,5,6 th places. Now +6-5+4-3+2-1 (that is, alternating signs starting with + for the largest, in reverse) gives k as equal to 3 (!). Of course, the game is interesting when B knows the rule, but A does not.

SeS

Keith thankyou, I'll treasure the following, it's a 'keeper.'

Cliff, it was a tongue in cheek reference to the tenth commandment, what on earth did you think? As for the leprechauns, and speaking for myself and not Joy. It does have some humour perhaps [I can't really remember] the first or second time you hear it. Trouble is that I truly believe there IS some very good evidence around, for a 'designer,' it is not however, politically correct to say so in the US at the moment. In the UK on the other hand, it is coming back into fashion in many university circles. But to continually have your thoughts and ideas put on a par with the tooth fairy, fails to appeal after a while.

I wonder if you would try and answer a question for me. Those with 'faith,' are sometimes asked why they are so 'upset' by the theory of evolution. Science as described to me on this and the evolution board supplement their deterministic natural laws with 'chance' processes. These have not [yet] provided anywhere near all the answers. My question is, why are scientists so 'upset' when asked why they don't consider three elements in their endeavours .. necessity, chance and design?

Design pre-supposes a conclusion, at the least; a designer.

This could be the fact of the matter (as I and, obviously, you suspect) but it is a poor way to learn of a process to defer all lack of understanding to a higher power.

Science does not deny a designer, but the scientific method does not allow a-priori assumptions of cause. Science is a method to discern the process, nature and behaivior of systems, not their meaning.

Consideration of the designer is a personal, subjective issue; science needs to work for everyone, whether they face Mecca to pray, count the rosary or flit naked through the forest!

What’s not to appreciate, Cliff?

There’s nothing so great about being a warrior. It’s an approach to life in this world, that’s all. The goal is justice, and injustice is the "enemy." Injustice can be confronted with swords or bows, but that’s never accomplished much more than bloodshed. It can be confronted with courage, but that presupposes a "Just" tribunal of appeal, for which there is no evidence. It can be confronted with humor, which tends to become strained when injustice is rampant. I could as easily say I am a clown (which I am), but that would limit me to only one approach.

I would have to ask rhetorically where we get our strange notion of justice, since there is no existent authority on this planet to define or administer such a thing. It would seem to me that such ethereal concepts as empirical "truth" and ultimate "justice" must have come from fairies, and because we all know fairies are as fictional as leprechauns, why do we insist on deluding ourselves?

It was indeed my birthday, SeS, so thank you for the best wishes (though I refuse all requests for numerical precision based upon certain female prerogatives for withholding such information).

Your logic game is too much for my meager talents, though it does remind me of a few card tricks one can perform without a Svengali deck. I was never much good at those, either, since forcing a draw is easier. That’s the "logic" of close-up parlor magic... the trick is accomplished as soon as a victim/volunteer agrees to participate. Sleight of hand, sleight of mind.

As to your previous question about how women cannot escape the wheel without first reincarnating as a man, that was in one of those tomes the Krishnas at the airport sold me. A commentary by the resident Swami. The question was what sort of existential brownie points did the 40,000 wives of Krishna get for being married to the god. Answer was that they only had one manly incarnation to go before they could get outta here. (I laughed about that one for years).

Of course I recognize this is probably the personal predudice of the commentator, much like the many erroneous interpretations put forth by ubiquitous Biblical commentators. Still, it wasn’t a very good way of appealing to the "weaker sex" in seeking converts, was it? §:o)

Will Blake & Joy Busey -

For a really interesting discussion on the topics of Entropy, Information, Language and the emergence of Life, I recommend the book "Grammatical Man" by Jeremy Campbell (Touchstone-Simon&Shuster).

I used quotes from it on the Defending Darwin board, but in light of recent discussions on this board, it seems appropriate that I mention the book here too.

The topic of entropy as it applies to information systems (Shannon's 2nd theorem) is particularly interesting, and I believe you made a reference to Shannon's 2nd theorem in a recent post, Will.

Ooops! Maybe the above should have been posted to the Evolution board. That's where I read your post about Shannon, Will. Oh well, you'll see it here then.

Ain't going there, Larry. Been there, done that, and I am infinitely less informed about such things as evolution than Leszek. In truth, evolution doesn't much bother me one way or the other, except for the apparent counter-productiveness of human evolution in the overall scheme of things. I believe in First Cause. Last cause is simply evolution gone awry.

Joy -

So you think humans are counter-productive too, eh? I sometimes think we are the parasitic species of the earth's homeostatic mechanisms.

Edwin O. Wilson once said that if humans disappeared from the earth tomorrow, no great tragedy (for earthly homeostasis); but if ants were suddenly to disappear, great calamaties would befall all other creatures on earth, since ants are so tightly woven into the ecological fabric.

Well, we're the only colonizing species which refuses to operate within our specific function, so Wilson is probably right, Larry. As my mother used to say, we're too darned smart to be happy. Is this evolutionary excess?

There are two classes of people who will always struggle to make you feel stupid: the people who want you to think they know more than they actually do, and the people who are afraid that all they know don't make them too bright anyway, so don't feel too bad :) (and, please, don't tell me to which category you think I belong :).

But the point is that no theologician I ever knew was willing to seriously question the assumption that god exist. I can't help but having the impression that, as science finds new facts about the world, theologicians are struggling wither to deny these facts or to fit them into their preconceived "god" scheme.

I have never seen them start a serious discussion with the words "OK, let us assume that there is no god..." and see where the argument might lead them.

... I will continue in the following post...

... and here it goes....

To make an example. One of my favorite philosphers is St. Thomas Aquinas. He set to prove that the whole philosophy of Aristotle was in perfect agreement with the bible (Aristotle lived in the 5th century B.C. and, as far as I know, never heard of the bible).

Thomas was an extraordinary philosopher, and, in his attempt, wrote one of the best commentaries of Aristotle. Yet, reading them, you feel that something doesn't ring true. The thing that doesn't work is that, for every problem, Thomas already had a preconceived answer. It doesn't matter how complicated things were, he could not admit that the bible were false and therefore, when all was said and considered, the bible had to be true.

I am afraid that most theologicians are more or less the same: they are very capable in fitting all facts into the theological scheme, but they are unwilling to question whether the scheme is right or whether it should be changed.

Keith,

I'm not asked 'science' to make an assumption of 'cause.' Science starts with a theory, and then sets out to see if it can prove it, and then use it [hopefully] for the benefit of mankind. It seems to me that there is a 'fear' here, that if design is admitted as a 'theory,' that this will stifle scientific enquiry. My question is, where does this fear come from. They are not being asked to embrace a philosophical idea. In fact, admitting the possibility of 'design' just might benefit humanity a great deal. My 'vestigial structure' of a coccyx might become a crucial point of contact with muscles that attach to the pelvic floor. My appendix might be considered in a different light and be found to be a functioning component of the immune system. Junk DNA, instead of being considered as something left over from the long, undirected evolutionary process, might be found to have a function. There is simply no reason why 'design' should be an anathema to science, it seems to me that it could foster enquiry along a wider front. The 'fear' seems unreasonable to me.

Simone, actually the reason why I have wanted to communicate with you is precisely because when I first encountered you on the religion board, you demonstrated the ability to 'listen' alongside what appeared to me to be a 'daunting' intellect.

You are of course quite right, but that is because a 'theologian' has already answered that question, or they couldn't BE theologians. Now I admit that there are many people of faith who do not appear to have asked that question in it's entirety, who seem to accept at some intuitive level that there is a Creator, but that is certainly not true for all, and not true for me.

Again, you are right, there is no doubt that some scientific findings have 'rocked the boat' for some people. But as you will see in my reply to Keith above, this works both ways .. and should IMHO, be for the good of both. Keith for example, is not a Christian, but a Deist who is not only very interested in all things scientific, but understands them too, which is more than I can say for myself. BTW, have you accepted my reasoning as regards why we consider the Creator to be eternal, and the teleological question of Ex Nihil, Nihil Fit?

If things are positive he then formalises what he has at this stage as a hypothysis.

He can now devise a formal and exhaustive regimen of testing in the attempt to invalidate (yes, I meant to say that) his hypothysis. There is no real set rule as to when this idea "graduates" to become a theory, but it is generaly assumed that you have a theory when no way is known at the time to disprove the idea.

If there is general agreement that no way can even be (reasonably) imagined to disprove the idea it becomes a law.

If we look at a rose and say, "God did that," we have touched upon an important truth, but we have revealed nothing of how the rose came to be a rose.

Trying to define God through science is like trying to paint your house with a garden rake; you can show vigorous and determined effort, but you shant accomplish much of any worth, and may break a thing or three in the process.

Keith, yes, I wrote my post very badly indeed.

Let me try again, in many branches of science, and without getting into 'proportions,' lets say half of the scientists believe in the 'design' scenario. This does not adversely affect their scientific studies. However, in the biological realm, this is not only NOT the case, it is considered completely politically incorrect to start with such an assertion. This is either because the biologists are 100% certain that they have empirically proved that such a 'design' scenario is incorrect, or there is an element of 'fear' involved. Whichever, my point is that it is in fact their branch of science that suffers, and as a result of that, the layman at the bottom of the chain suffers .. because .. [Surgeon]"While I'm in here, I may as well remove that appendix which she doesn't need anyway."

IMHO, the scientist ought to be able to ask the how, why and wherefore of the rose, and include in that questioning, ALL possibilities, WITHOUT bringing philosophy into it at all. If this is not the case, why not? What is the reason for excluding the 'design' possibility? As a deist, you should be able to see that I'm not asking for belief in any particular 'god,' or any particular religion .. but why is the 'design' possibility not included along with chance and necessity. Or put another way, how come we have so many chemists, physicists and mathemeticians who have some form of faith but who continue to work in their field

I disagree with the second part. In this country, we have a disinterested tribunal of appeal. I think there is justice in a disinterested tribunal. It is the ideal.

I strongly disagree, Joy. I see no need for fairies to arrive at a concept of justice and fairness. It is as simple as the words expressed by one of the great philosophers of all time: Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: Matthew 7:12.

Nothing difficult about that, Joy. It just makes sense. Just societies are built upon that, or similar foundations. I desire justice for myself, and in order to have justice for myself, I will support justice for you. If you have a quarrel with a neighbor, I will support justice for both you and your neighbor alike.

True justice comes in the form of a disinterested tribunal of appeal. There is no better justice than disinterested justice. Again, it is the ideal.

Disinterested how, Cliff? In not knowing anything about it? Yeah. We've been there, and are now going before a 3-judge panel. Why? Because the general public is not qualified to analyze technical medical records.

I've got fraud on several levels. I've got motive and opportunity. And I've got an emergency Life Flight helicopter denied permission to land until the patient was certifiably dead...

None of which was allowed to be presented to a jury asked to decide who is responsible. Several of these defendants are going to jail for homicide. The civil jury never knew that, because it's "inadmissible."

This is justice? What in the world would make me think this represents anything other than the shaft? Is this the best we can do?...

Maybe so. In which case, you can have my membership card in the human race. I'm outta here.

Sorry Keith, rest of message ..

Or put another way, how come we have so many chemists, physicists and mathemeticians who have some form of faith but who continue to work in their field, but the same is not true in the biological realm? It's not that the work of the chemists, physicists or mathemeticians is done in order to prove their philosophical position, because it's not. I suppose it's not an important question Keith, I guess I'm just "wondering" out loud!!

I think here you have put your finger on what I consider the fundamental difference between science and religion (and the source of my little paradox according to which, even if science would prove the existence of god, it would still not be religion). Once theologicians come to the conclusion that god exist (througth whatever reasoning or inspiration they will get there), the assumption is not questioned anymore. Once this is estabilished, the existence of god is a datum, and all we have to do is to concile all the facts with this datum.

Science has no such cast-in-stone concept. Everything in science is open for further examination and consideration.

So, from a certain point of view, whether we determine facts that deny the existence of god is secondary. What is really different between science and religion is an attitude. Science never considers any discovered truth as final, but always as a partial finding open to rejection or improvement.

Not really. First of all, theologician seem more to accept an Ex nihilo, Deus fit, since they assume that god simply is. But, as I said in a previous post, let assume that I can't show you a mechanism by which matter can be created from energy. Can't I just assume that energy simply is? Isn't my assumption as justified as yours, with the advantage of being simpler, since all I have to do is to assume the existence of energy, while you have to assume the existence of god?

Rosemary, I would have to say that most scientists of my acquaintance at the PhD level in the biological sciences are atheists, agnostics, or at the very most deists, rather than true bible believers. This is partly because the skepticism you need to do science is incompatible with the unquestioning acceptance of the bible fundamentalist Christian sects demand these days, but that isn't the main reason.

(And while I realise you are not of their number, your voice is regrettably swamped.)

Be that as it may, I have to wonder why so many scientists - and they aren't all biologists by any means - are atheists etc. One reason is that to be able to do science at all, you have to make the operating assumption that events occur in this world through the operation of natural laws, not by divine intervention. If they occurred by divine whim, there would be no predictability, and science would be impossible. So at the very least, god works within certain rules, and never moves outside those rules, as far as we are aware.

So does that mean that god, should he exist at all, is bound by those rules? Perhaps. But scientists have been unravelling the rules without coming across anything that might be a deity. Like the Energizer bunny (don't know if you see that ad down under :) naturalistic rules just keep on trucking. Since science has never yet had to resort to theological explanations of any phenomena - i.e. scientists have never had to admit necessary and logical defeat - they are rightly skeptical of the necessity for a god, except perhaps as a prime mover - hence the deism you find among some scientists.

My own view is not to believe in entities I can't measure, quantify and define. That doesn't mean they aren't there, but I don't see how I can understand them if I can't measure and quantify them.

Hi there :)

I agree - there seems to me to be no reason not to suppose that "energy is", or "the universe is", rather than assuming that a much more complex entity, God, "is". For me, it's Occam's razor. It is simpler to assume that the universe exists for its own reasons - chance or necessity I know not - than to assume that some vastly more complex being brought it into existence. After all, that just begs the quesion of where that vastly more complex being came from. A still more vastly complex being? Just does not compute.

I guess basically that's why I'm an atheist... the existence of gods simply needlessly multiplies entities that I can't explain. I hate not having an explanation for something! :)

I realise that your tongue was in the vicinity of your cheek for this remark, but it interesting to note that many a theist, I suspect, would use the same sentence to defend their deployment of faith :-)

I am not sure why it might be that the general public is not qualified to analyze medical records. It should not be that difficult to understand the side effects of medicines and so forth. I would think that a jury is probably as likely to understand the causes and effects of medical treatment as a 3-judge panel.

However, I think I may have used the wrong word when I used the word "disinterested." I think now that I might have used the word "disfavored" instead. What I mean is that in a dispute, either civil or criminal, neither side should be allowed to take unfair advantage of the other side. I must admit that admissibility of evidence is rather arbitrary sometimes, but if the rulings are made in a disinterested (there is that word again) fashion, I think it is the best one can hope for.

I think that is a more reliable form of justice than resorting to the pronouncements of either Gods or fairies.

I think I can understand why you did not see much humor in the "leprechauns" thing, Rosemary. Perhaps I should apologize. On the other hand, I think I shall say the following:

Why do you continue to harp on this idea of a "fear" of the concept of "design," Rosemary? There is no such "fear" of which I am aware. Furthermore, I am not aware of any reason why there should be any such "fear." Science don't care. Also, is it possible that you might see that your accusation implies dishonesty and insincerity. I have never accused you of dishonesty or insincerity.

Keith I acknowledge that there are folk publically carrying around the label 'Christian,' whose ignorance is not sublime, and whose agenda is anything but polite or clear, but I hope that doesn't label everyone with the same brush and that some form of conversation may be held with others.

Simone, thanks for breaking up my rather routine day ..

I will agree that since visiting this American message board, I have not seen anyone other Christian acknowledge that they go through periods of doubt. I would however consider this to be the 'norm' here, in Australia and England, which are the only three countries that I can speak about with any degree of knowledge. I have consistently admitted here that I am constantly questioning my faith, and that there are certain problems for me that are unanswered. And much like any scientist, I seek answers all the time. However, although I don't fit exactly in the 'box' [does anyone?], I would refer to myself as more of a theologian than not. Honesty also compels me to admit that I seek the answers within the faith paradigm. Nothing involving humans is completely 'pure' is it?

Certainly, you and millions of others do just that, I have no quibble. What I was seeking when I first corresponded with you, was an acknowledgment, that even if I went through what you describe as the 'expensive' route, that my differing viewpoint was nevertheless arrived at with rational thought rather than an intuitive leap of logic.

Leszek .. thankyou for not including me with the unquestioning 'fundamentalist Christian sects.'

Any half way decent theologian will tell you that Divine intervention is a very rare phenomena indeed. It would be the contention of most theists that God does indeed work within the rules of the world He created.

I have answered that above, no, because He is outside His Creation, but observation will insist that He breaks those rules extremely rarely, it shouldn't impede scientific investigation.

Again, a theist wouldn't expect to 'come across' God within the natural laws of this world. Gracious Leszek, that would be pantheism.[tsk tsk .. grin.]

I'm certainly not asking science to resort to theological explanations, I know where to go when I want one of them!! But rather asking why a theoretical assumption of 'design' would necessarily be considered as you say .. 'a logical defeat.' Is it a truly unhelpful theory? Or is there more to it than that?

Cliff, good afternoon, it's particularly lovely here at the moment. Bright sunny days and frosty nights, a lovely combination.

The reply to that must be .. "Thankyou, .. I think!"

Do I harp on? I'm very sorry, I didn't mean to do so, but was seeking answers. I can understand why so many Christians are 'threatened' by the apparent anti-god nature of the knowledge of scientists. I am not so able to 'see' the other side so I am making enquiries. I am, I think you will remember, convinced that I should make some efforts to understand the conflict in order to build bridges. I probably won't be able to build any bridges on these boards, but if my understanding increases, I may be able to contribute something on the local level here in New Zealand.

In the strict sense, I know you are correct, but such is unfortunately not always the case. Just as I walk along my path with some very strange companions, so too do scientists. And those 'strange companions' seem to get a lot more publicity than all the rest. Would you like to give me an explanation for their behaviour?

If I have given the impression that I consider anyone with whom I converse on this board to be either dishonest or insincere then I deserve your contempt and apologise most sincerely. I do not LIKE hearing criticism of Christians, mainly on the religion board, especially when it contains so much truth. Truth that when I look at myself, I find I too am guilty of. Please allow me to say that I do not stand on a platform that gives me any right whatsoever to judge another.

Cliff, a postscript to my last that came to me while I was posting, I think I WAS more than a little puzzled, and perhaps therefore not entirely clearsighted about the accusations of a gentleman recently.

That's why I became a scientist... I hate unrsolved mysteries :)

I'm not sure of the answer, Rosemary... my gut tells me it's because we project our human feelings on to a divine designer, so that if we assume that such a designer does intervene, there would be an element of whimsy and unpredictability about it that would make science impossible. So since science is possible, we conclude that either god doesn't exist, or that he operates only within natural laws. Either way, we anticipate that by studying natural laws (which are called laws because they are never contravened) we can predict future events.

Phenomena such as evolution fall into the category of physical laws - they are subject to the laws of chemistry and physics, which have never been contravened as far as we know. My guess is that scientists realise that once the universe has been set into motion, no further intervention is required on the part of the creator, because the physical laws take care of everything.

As to the question of a prime mover, some scientists think there is one, others don't. There isn't any way of addressing this question scientifically, at least at present, so I don't know what to say about that. Since I can't disprove that physical laws were designed as opposed to simply occurring randomly in this universe, I really have little to add.

All I can suggest is that in an infinite number of universes, we shouldn't be surprised to find a few that made intelligent life like ours possible. But that doesn't mean that our universe wasn't designed by an intelligence - all it means is that once that intelligence set events in motion (assuming an intelligence as a prime mover), it took a back seat and merely observed.

For a really interesting discussion on the topics of Entropy, Information, Language and the emergence of Life, I recommend the book "Grammatical Man" by Jeremy Campbell (Touchstone-Simon&Shuster).

I had forgotten about that one. I have colleagues who say complexity emerges when a species adapts to minimize environmental surprise (entropy). The environmental history is considered to be a string of symbols (grammatical sentence), so the individual that has best captured the grammar is least surprised by (minimizes the entropy of) the next environmental state.

I have some problems with making both time and environmental state discrete, rather than continuous, but I agree that it is an interesting way of thinking about things.

[with Cindy]

Well, we're the only colonizing species which refuses to operate within our specific function, so Wilson is probably right, Larry. As my mother used to say, we're too darned smart to be happy. Is this evolutionary excess?

Perhaps you've heard of organized criticality. Think of adding grains to the peak of a sandpile. Some will simply settle in locations. Others will cause modest shifts in regions of the pile. Others will causes major avalanches. Although there is organization in the sandpile, it is difficult to predict when the avalanches will come.

If each level of evolutionary complexity is a new grain of sand, perhaps homo sapiens is the grain the precipitates a catastrophic avalanche.

Kurt Vonnegut says that humans, if they survive, will evolve to be more like seals, so they can spend more time doing what they really like to do -- sunning at the beach. George Carlin says that earth could only get plastic by giving rise to homo sapiens. Now that humans have given earth enough plastic to last an eternity, there is no further use for the species.

[with Cindy writing, irreverence my own]

For me, it's Occam's razor.

Of course, this could be wrong. As you acknowledge, you choose your fundamental assumptions as a matter of taste.

But I don't believe you have chosen then most parsimonious assumptions. I believe that starting with "I am" (though not for the stupid reason that you think) is the cornerstone of a more parsimonious foundation.

After all, that just begs the quesion of where that vastly more complex being came from. A still more vastly complex being? Just does not compute.

Starting with the external, when perception is inherently private, just does not compute with me.

Ah, but why not wash these mysteries away by laying them all on the shoulders of God? I would rather say that perhaps my interest in science was spurred by my wanting to know `answers,' but my actual involvement in science has allowed me to be comfortable with the fact that there are just things I cannot explain. I expect the same is true of you, yes?

Leszek, you always write such interesting posts.

You will travel with the former, and I will take the latter .. I might break out in song shortly, something about the high road and the low road, I wonder who will get to Scotland first?

Are you serious about an infinite number of Universes? What are the grounds for such thinking?

Andrew, my youngest has gone to the first NZ showing of THAT film, so I'm up late.

Gracious, do you have the erroneous opinion that those with faith think they have all the answers? What I can't explain is greater than that for which I have an explanation. What is more, I have frequently explained something, only to find that I was wrong. Hate eating humble pie too!!

Not only was the main bad guy allowed to argue multiple fault among a dozen other physicians, he was also allowed to proffer the "Miracle Defense." We were not allowed to counter either argument.

The "Miracle Defense" consists of testimony from a number of involved physicians that our son’s survival of the initial trauma was a genuine "Miracle," thus he had no good excuse to be alive. Because he had no good excuse to be alive, they had no duty to treat the injuries. They basically argued that because "God" originally intervened to save our son’s life, keeping him alive was also "God’s" job. We were not even allowed to challenge the presumption of "God" as our son’s primary physician based on the actual regulatory statutes delineating fiduciary responsibilities. God is not licensed to practice medicine in that state.

Aside from being an outstanding example of how the judicial system is totally screwed, this entire situation is incredibly absurd to the point of insanity. You get a compound fracture of the femur after being hit by a Mack truck, and it’s a "Miracle" you weren’t killed. This does NOT absolve physicians from treating your compound fracture, nor does it absolve them of responsibility for your later agonizing death of gangrene because they refused to treat your compound fracture. This is basically the whole thing in a nutshell, and it in no way constitutes justice.

The precedent set in this case is something the whole nation should be very concerned about. God has been officially rendered liable for the deliberate acts of human beings, and if that is allowed to stand we’re in big trouble. Perhaps this is something the radical right could use in their attempts to get prayer back in school, since if God is legally responsible for evil in the American judicial system, the public schools had better start paying him some heed, don’t you think?

If we manage to make ourselves extinct along with most other mammilian species on the planet, we will have proven ourselves to be the errant grain of sand, and plastic-eating microbes will then evolve to be the dominant species. It won’t matter to us, of course, nor will it matter to the "God" upon whom we heap blame for our own evil.

Sort of makes all our strivings, hopes, dreams and educational game-plans somewhat useless though. I’m often glad I’m not a child or teenager right now, looking forward to a future that is not worth participating in. It’s sort of a shame that people are designed to reproduce before they are mentally mature enough to realize what a waste of DNA it is, or we could come to a rational decision to cut it all short by simply not reproducing.

...Guess we could blame God for that oversight as well, couldn’t we?

Condolences :-)

Gracious, no! I was merely pointing out that the `science provides all the answers' line of thinking is as hollow as the `God provides all the answers' line of thinking. There are, as you know, proponents of either fallacy to be readily found.

However, do not let me sound anti-science for a moment :-) I still maintain that between the scientific method of gaining knowledge and one based on faith, the former wins every time. But here we differ :-)

Rosemary:

Just thought I'd interject here....

The multi-universe (or meta-universe) hypothesis is a byproduct of both cosmological and particle physics models. This is neither the forum to discuss this, nor is there room. Suffice it to say that many of the hypothetical models for the Big Bang, combined with qunatum mechanics, allow for the idea of these multiple universes. I use hypothetical, as opposed to theory on purpose. Theories are by their very own nature testable - they make predictions which can be checked.

To my knowledge, none of the current multi-universe hypothesis allow for testable (observable) predictions. However, this may change. In a nutshell, our universe can be considered to be a sort of "bud" off a meta-universe, sealed off, isolated and yet connected. This is allowable under some inflationary hypothesis. However, I suspect most physical scientists don't give it much thought - it is an intriguing mathematical consequence, but untestable.

If you are truly interested, consult your local bookstore. However, be VERY careful. There are lots of "quacks" out there with very little understanding of the physics/mathematics. Beware "Quantum Love and Happiness".... Perhaps contacting your local University's Astro/Physics Department would be a good place to start. I would also suggest "The First Three Minutes" by Weinberg, and if you are really keen, Alan Guth (one of the originators of Inflationary theory) has a popular book out as well (as I recall, could be wrong)...

Greetings, Devon. I stopped reading "X-Men" comics when things got so complicated in alternative universes that I couldn’t keep up. I would submit that the theory of multiplication as applied to the universe is the scientific equivalent of the god-concept people like Leszek reject as being untestable and unprovable. It appears to me to be the very same principle.

The basis for this hypothesis is uncertainty in the first nanoseconds of the Big Bang, when the parameters and rules for the universe we experience were established. Since physics cannot account for "why" things organized themselves as they have, they postulate that there must be an infinite number of other possible organizations which co-exist ours and account for indeterminancy. This is a cop-out, you know, much more irrational than to presume that the universe we actually live in was designed to support our existence on purpose.

Hi Joy

Hhhmmmm.....

It's not quite the copout you envisage. The notion of a meta-universe is allowable under the mathematics, but it is untestable (although I have been hearing that some of the ideas from string theory may be testable in the near future). We can (and do) test quantum mechanics and general relativity (and they pass), and the multi-universe scenario is allowable under these frameworks (however it is NOT required). Yes, this sounds close to being a Star Trek episode. However, I have to disagree with you regarding it's rationality. The construction of these hypotheses are rational (in the physical/mathematical sense). That doesn't mean they are correct, just that the logic and construction is consistent, and do allow for our current observed universe and it's physical conditions (and in the process solving a few problems eg. magnetic monopoles, the horizon problem). I suggest we wait and see, new results from string theory may provide some intriguing suggestions. And Inflation may be completely wrong - we still have to nail down the mass density of the Universe. Currently it looks like the Universe is a little underweight, so inflation won't really work (although QM allows for possible "branching universe", I would prefer to leave thos to Trekkies).

I have heard serious physicists make the same absurd assertions about Free Will and the choice it represents, Devon. That every time a human makes a choice, the opposing choice and ramifications thereof spins off into some alternate universe as an actuality. Who it’s actual for are our infinite twins who inhabit those alternative universes without any consciousness. Very bizarre.

I have previously likened consciousness in this timespace to a particle function along a wavelength of timespace. If my son is still alive in an alternate reality, I should be able to shift my focus of consciousness along the wavelength to be conscious in the same universe as him. I cannot do that, and it’s not because of any genetic weakness on my part or on his. Far as I can tell, my son (and others who are no longer part of my experience) do not exist in timespace anymore.

I choose personally to believe they do exist outside of timespace, but I’m not willing to guess which of the infinite possible other timespaces physics likes to postulate they now exist in. What if I guessed wrong, and ended up in a timespace where dinosaurs were the dominant species? It makes far less rational sense to me that science would postulate such experiential chaos just to rationalize their disbelief in design. Seems desperate to me, but then, I’m an EX-physicist on purpose. §:o)

I’ve been wading through it crippled by a lack of Microsoft anti-Christ software to unzip the working papers, but am getting a good overview of the three-tiered timespace and tunneling consciousness monopole. I still am not convinced that the action itself involves by necessity any alternative universes, though.

Let us suppose - and this is an enormous supposition :-) - that the words in the above sentence may be made to have tangible meaning. Why would the assertion you make then follow. IOW, why should your son's presence in an `alternate reality' entail your ability to share consciousness with him?

Joy

I'm not sure I followed all of your post - I suspect I have wallowed into the middle of a thread. However I did follow your TGD link. At the risk of sounding condescending, uhhh, you really have to be careful with what's on the Web. This situation is one that has popped up with my students. The link you provided is to a homepage maintained and linked to the Theoretical Physics Division at the Univ. of Helsinki. So far so good. However, the person whose page it is, is not listed anywhere as faculty, student or staff ( that I could find - doesn't mean he isn't, just makes it unlikely). I checked the lanl pre-print database, and he has 11 submissions, several of which were stated as "corrections". I checked if any of his work had been cited by anyone else - no luck. I then checked for any peer-reviewed publications - in both the NASA Physics and Astrophysics databases, and the Springer Verlag Physics database. I came up with one paper, on which he was second author (of 2), in a conference proceedings in 1991. Here lies the crux of the matter. Anyone can write a paper on physics (or anthropology or oncology or..) and post it to the Web and to preprint servers. The key is to get it published in a peer reviewed journal. The peer review is one of the cornerstones of scientific development and discourse, without it there would be little constructive science and communication. It provides both a filter and a check. Unfortunately, the author of your website has (to my knowledge) not produced anything considered credible by his peers.

Cheers.

Okay, Andrew. I understand that you are defining my labeled "Not-Time" to be the alternative universe of existence, and that death (demise of consciousness on this level) automatically places our consciousness in the "other" universe. I’ll buy that premise, though not on an infinite level of uncertainty.

I will agree that the limitations of our consciousness in this timespace make it impossible to consciously inhabit other timespaces concurrently except in imagination. I would then have to submit that if imagination is the determinor of whether or not alternative universes exist, those that science postulates are no more believable than those which religion postulates. Fair enough? §:o)

I never said I bought it, Devon. I said it was interesting, as well as the peripheral applications being currently researched by others who are linked on that site. I’ve been interested in monopoles for many years as a matter of curiosity, but that’s due to a background in practical partical physics and the quest for the Singularity at the beginning of Time. Gravity may be reality, but we cannot yet define what it "Is."

The theoretical application of a hedgehog vector to a "massless monopole" to explain the functioning of consciousness is one of those things that will never be adequately defined by experiment. We can’t isolate any such animal as a "massless monopole." We can only theorize about how the field vectors will align themselves. This is perfectly valid as speculation, and could account for a lot of phenomena we won’t examine scientifically because they represent the "other" side of probability. That "other" side exists in the very premise of probability. This cannot be denied by any serious scientist.

P.S. on practicality of application - A jury must first be informed of the standard treatment, its efficacy, and its applications. Then, of course, there must be some resort to treatment. Neither of which apply in this case, as this information was deemed "inadmissible." The standard treatment is well known and 98% effective, but in order to receive treatment the nature of the condition must be properly diagnosed. In our case it was properly diagnosed, it just wasn’t properly (or truthfully) reported. The physicians simply decided not to do anything about it, since our son had no "good excuse to be alive." The jury bought that excuse in spite of the demonstrable lies we were told, but which were also deemed "inadmissible" to present in evidence.

In other words, those deciding the causes and effects of medical treatment must first know that medical treatment was available, and what its effect might be. If there was no medical treatment offered despite its availability, there’s nothing to argue.

Judges are not likely to be so easily distracted.

Yes :) So far, no scientific theory has ever been able to explain everything, despite all the best efforts of physicists. I don't lose sleep over it, even though I'd rather be in a position to explain everything. I just have to accept that I cannot know everything, and that not all problems will be resolved in my lifetime. I can live with that :)

Yes, it's a serious theory... it's born of the idea that the universe is just a quantum fluctuation - if that's true (and who knows) then we can have an infinite number of such fluctuations, so eventually, we would have to come across a universe with the laws that allow us to exist. In such circumstances, we just happen to be living in a universe that permits us to exist, otherwise we wouldn't be living at all. There may well be billions and billions and billions of universes... :)

As to the choice between god not existing or operating only within natural laws, I agree it's a matter of temperament which choice a body makes. One is no less logical than the other :)

Let me see... You are an atheist because you don’t like not having "answers," but you can live just fine knowing for a fact science can’t produce the "answers." You reject the notion of a "Not-Time" realm of conscious survival of death, but the complete illogic of billions and billions of concurrently existent universes doesn’t bother you at all. This is somewhat confusing, Leszek.

Given the lack of empirical evidence for either hypothesis, how can you say that belief in infinite universes concurrently existing and all originating at the same point is logical? Energy conservation alone makes the notion absurd in the extreme. Fact is, the multi-version of the universe is just another of those mathematical factors that grow to infinity whenever scientists look too closely. A device and nothing more, renormalized back to rational for purposes of the equation itself - which also represents nothing real. The very demonstrably empirical fact that we exist in THIS universe right now and not elsewhere would tend to support the more limited viewpoint of design. There is no equivalent logic as far as I can see! §:o)

If we manage to make ourselves extinct along with most other mammilian species on the planet, we will have proven ourselves to be the errant grain of sand, and plastic-eating microbes will then evolve to be the dominant species.

Unless the earth was simply going for a more festive appearance. :-)

Of course, microbial species already are the dominant species of the earth, and we tend to be too be too self-absorbed to see as much.

So far, no scientific theory has ever been able to explain everything, despite all the best efforts of physicists.

With emphasis on physicists, I suppose. :-) Actually, you've recently posted (maybe on the Evolution board) the reason that even physicists are not engaged in a program of explaining absolutely everything. They are constantly modeling, and model selection entails a decision of which phenomena to account for and which to ignore.

Without this selectivity, the entropy of the model must equal the entropy of the modeled entity. That is not good. Inherently, we consider a good explanation of something to be less complex than the thing itself. Modeling is essentially data compression with loss of some details. So science is as much about culling as extraction of information in empirical data.

[with Cindy]

I'll go along with that, generally :) Although a model isn't necessarily simpler than the real phenomenon, for all practical purposes in the real world, it always is. All we are interested in scientifically is which of the competing models for a natural phenomenon has the higher predictability. We shouldn't assume that just because a model is highly predictive, it is an accurate representation of reality, mapping it point for point. It may just be an excellent fake! :)

Joy, I have to say you completely bamboozle me with your talk of a "'Not-Time' realm of conscious survival of death". I really haven't the faintest idea what you mean, which is why I don't usually respond to those posts. I don't even know where to begin.

I haven't claimed there is evidence for multiple universes, I just mentioned them as a hypothetical possibility in a conversation with someone else. I neither believe or disbelieve in them. I can't address your particular idea of the real nature of the universe, as I just don't grasp it at all. What we have here is a failure of communication, and I am not pointing any finger of blame. I just don't have anything even faintly resembling a handle on the concepts you throw out. That's not to say they aren't valid, but I have no way of assessing that question, so I just don't know. Sorry :(

Joy, you should realise that in scientific terms, I'm a very linear thinker, with a reductionist need to break phenomena down to their simplest components. Sometimes that's a virtue, sometimes a handicap and limitation.

However, to get an idea past my mental gates, it has to be connected in some way to concepts I am familiar with. This is why I have been a biochemist rather than a relativistic physicist - my feet need to be firmly grounded in concepts I can understand and analogize. That's also why I have great sympathy with Einstein's complaint about quantum mechanics. Though Einstein seems to have been disproven on that point, it is something I find extremely elusive intellectually, and so I wait for a more familiar and prosaic sort of explanation. Of course, I may be waiting in vain, the world may be even crazier than Bohr thought, and I may be plumb out of luck.

Whatever the fact of the matter, I will deal with it :)

All we are interested in scientifically is which of the competing models for a natural phenomenon has the higher predictability. We shouldn't assume that just because a model is highly predictive, it is an accurate representation of reality, mapping it point for point. It may just be an excellent fake! :)

Of course, if a seemingly complex entity were described perfectly by a simple model, that would be great. It would mean, of course, that the entity was not really complex.

We typically face trade-offs with models, however. Several vying models fit the data imperfectly, and they may not be of the same complexity. We have to apply Occam's Razor. But what do you do if a model with larger errors is simpler than a model with smaller errors? This is not well defined in physical modeling, because of the "excellent fake" issue you raise.

In statistical modeling, however, recent years have brought principled approaches to trading off model complexity and residual errors. One that is well known is the minimum description length principle. The general idea is that it takes some number of bits to encode the model (which explains the data) and some number of bits to encode the residuals. The best model is the one for which the sum of description lengths for the model and its errors is minimized.

[with Cindy]

Devon, what a lovely name. Thankyou for your helpful reply. I'm afraid my reading has to be even more 'populist' than those mentioned, I'm a complete ignoramus when it comes to these things. Still I like reading explanations such as I get here, they give me an inkling.

Leszek, well at least that gives me a better idea of what a quantum fluctuation is, I didn't have the foggiest before. I guess at the moment I simple don't know enough to comment, but thanks.

Simone, having asked the question and having read the answers from Devon, Joy and Leszek, would you say this is an "expensive" theory, [sorry Devon,] 'hypothesis?'

Of course you can; I would have expected nothing less :-)

I do not see this as logically inconsistent in the least. I can only speak for myself in saying that my activity in science arose because of a desire to obtain answers - it seemed, and seems, that science offers the best method for gaining knowledge. And, again only for me, atheism is a consequence of this epistemological method. However, even though science offers me the best access to knowledge, I realise it is incomplete, and I content myself with that. What's confusing about this? :-)

And surely you do not mean to assert that you do not have a similar view as regards your faith? That is to say, do you believe that your faith provides you with all the answers?

Here's an apropos remark by Joy:

While I don't go as far as Joy does in dismissing a multiuniverse theory as more irrational than a single universe theory, she does have a point that we cannot explain *why* the universe has the laws that it has, and that this is one reason physicists have postulated multiple universes. As to figuring out which of the various theories is the least expensive (as you succinctly put it), I don't think we have the information to do that. Whichever way go, we are stuck with infinities. Is an infinite god really less expensive in the bits of information needed to describe him (see the link below) than infinite multiple universes? Which infinity is larger? *shrug* Also, remember that if the universe is a quantum fluctuation, like a virtual particle that physicists say the vacuum is bubbling with, there is no net energy creation at the end of the day, because the energy used to create then universe is eventually returned to the vacuum from whence it came. Or perhaps there is only one way to construct a universe. Well, who knows, your guess is as good as mine :)

Agreed - that seems to be a better way of defining Occam's razor than the phrase I usually use, avoid the needless multiplication of entities, because it takes a model's error in description into account. We have to have a way of rejecting simpler models when they are less accurate than more complex ones.

I’m sorry this seems so obscure to you, Leszek! It’s pretty obscure to me as well, which is why I am not able to communicate it better. First, I have actually experienced the "flip-side" of probability - even as applied to supposed absolutes like gravity - more than once in my sojourn on earth. This may be a result of my own skepticism, which doesn’t allow for me to automatically ignore such anomalies as large stones floating over cornfields, which the vast majority of humans who drive by such a thing would rationalize away in microseconds by simply telling themselves it was an illusion. I’m the sort of person who stops the car, climbs over the fence, and gets right up next to it to check it out.

So when I mention "Not-Time" as a realm of being or consciousness beyond this timespace, that’s exactly what I’m describing. This could be described variously by anyone who had experienced it or knew of its reality from some empirical means. Thus for me it represents the "flip-side" of conscious reality in this timespace, or the "alternate universe" inherant in the probability factors that determined the existence of this universe. You mention that theory predicts an infinite number of such alternates, while I strongly suspect there are only one or two. I assert the lower number of alternates because of the demonstrable reality that we inhabit only one universe right now. Any additional possibilities are meaningless, thus nonexistent for all practical purposes in relation to us or our consciousness.

It’s really not so hard to understand. I find one or two specific alternatives more rational than an infinite number of shadowlands which exist only to demonstrate the complete unlikelihood that we exist at all. There is a good deal of human tradition, mythology and apparent consciousness-based connection with this "other" universe, which I do not believe should be discounted just because we th

<ARGH!> ...which I do not believe should be discounted just because we think we are so sophisticated these days. I see no real evidence that humans are anything more or less than they ever were. We’re clever, but not as clever as we’d like to think we are. Ignoring the entire "irrational" aspect of our existence is useful in the laboratory, but it doesn’t make for a very thoughtful or fulfilled life on earth.

You certainly speak for me and almost every scientist I've ever known :)

For me, atheism springs from an application of Occam's razor, because I can't know whether god is a necessary entity for the existence of the universe or not - those parts of the universe I can understand - biology and biochemistry - don't need a god to keep them going. There have been lots of attempts to prove that god is a necessary entity, at least as a prime mover, but none have been successful, and today we also have competing and at least equally plausible alternatives.

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing... I think it's just confusing :)

It seems to me that large stones floating over cornfields is a vanishingly rare phenomenon. Where I live, I see cornfields every day, but we have no large stones in lower Delaware (except in my landscaping, and none of those are missing), so perhaps that explains it :) I would certainly agree that anyone who has a habit of observing phenomena that are inexplicable by normal causality is to be forgiven for thinking the universe is far stranger than it appears to those who do not see such phenomena. I have never had an experience remotely like that, and I'm sure I'm not unique.

So forgive me for being unable to understand things I don't even have the apparent capacity to experience :) I have similar difficulties when wrestling with the mysteries of relativity and quantum mechanics. As I said, that's why I became a practitioner of empirical rather than theoretical science :)

I am sorry to intrude into this thread (this is a lie: I love to do it... :), but I think the crux of the matter here is the semantics of the term "believe." If he is a good scientist, Leszek does not "believe" in multiple universes the way Joy believes in the survival of consciousness.

The multiple universe is an hypothesis (which I find plagued by many problems, but this sesms to be a characteristics of good hypotheses) or, if you want, a tentative model designed to explain certain findings. It could prove false next week and, I believe, Leszek would have no problem recognizing it false, nor would his scientific attitude and outlook need to be updated because of this. We just created a good model that didn't happen to be true; it happened before and it will happen in the future.

Joy's belief in the survival of consciousness seems to me of a different nature. For one thing, I don't know of any reliable observation that would be explained by postulating the survival of consciousness in "Non-Time" (whatever that may be: from where I stand it seems like a nice label with no real content). It also seems that Joy's philosophical investment in this survival is much more than Leszek's investment in the universe model, and resembles more Leszek's investment in the scientific method as a whole.

So, in this sense, the comparison between Joy's survival of consciousness and Leszek's universe model is flawed. The correct comparison should be with Leszek's scientific method.

You’re absolutely right that floating stones are a rare phenomenon, which is precisely why it caught my attention. Conversely, I fully understand that its vanishing rarity would cause most other people to glance right over it and keep on going. A shadow, a mirage, a spot on the lens... there are hundreds of ways to rationalize such a thing away. This explains a lot about why we consider such things vanishingly rare. It’s the oddball like me who would do a double take and slam on the brakes. And I’ll be the first to admit I’m vanishingly rare! §:o)

I am fully in favor of a class of human endeavor which exists for no other reason than to empirically test and quantify the nature of nature on this level, which by definition excludes contemplation of any other levels of existence. I am not in favor of this realm of inquiry being empowered to forcefully foreclose all other areas of human inquiry, which is in fact what is occurring educationally.

You understand the difference between theory and fact. What is being taught about science in schools, however, does not make this distinction. Too many working scientists who have the benefit of graduate and post-graduate knowledge don’t sit in primary/secondary classrooms and really listen to what it is the teachers are teaching. If they did so, they would be shocked.

We have traded one priesthood for another, when the meaningful truths are somewhere in between. I think that’s detrimental to overall human progress, regardless of whether or not more than one or two of the members of any given science class go on to learn the truth. Had they been taught the truth in the first place, we’d be a lot better off.

Well, this is the deal. The real hypothesis here is that the vacuum is not vacuum at all. Because of the uncertainty principle, there can be fluctuations, creation of particle/anti-particle pairs, and all that. The real scientific hypothesis is the uncertainty principle, which is a beautifully economical hypothesis because it can be applied to explain a lot of phenomena in physics and is used, for instance, in the design of the integrated circuits in the computer you are using.

Taking this hypothesis at the origin of the universe, and taking it to its extreme conclusion, somebody came up with this notion of infinite universes. There are a number of alternatives. There can be something wrong in the derivation; we can have applied the principle in a situation in which (for causes that we still don't know) doesn't apply; or the model can be true.

With the exception of the first alternative (which will only drive crazy the editor of the journal that published the paper...) the others will teach something. If the hypothesis is contraddictory or false, it will teach that the uncertainty principle doesn't apply in that specific situation and, hopefully, why. Otherwise it will teach a lot about the universe.

I went to this length about this (admittedly marginal) model to try to make an example of how a scientific model should never be taken as a religious fact. It is just a model that we derived from some (unexpensive) hypothesis, and, even if false, can teach us something.

You are right, Simone, in that Leszek has never experienced the existence of alternative universes and cannot quantify the hypothesis. The hypothesis exists to avoid the sticky subject of determinism. This is the ONLY reason it exists. The fact is that we exist in this universe. The "belief" of scientists who know they cannot demonstrate veracity is indeed as much an object of faith as anything ever postulated by religion.

"the comparison between Joy's survival of consciousness and Leszek's universe model is flawed. The correct comparison should be with Leszek's scientific method."

Leszek has never seen or touched a floating stone, so is unqualified to say with any authority that I am wrong (mistaken, lying, imagining things) when I say I have actually seen and touched a floating stone. All he can do is tell me he’s never encountered such a thing. This in no way makes my experience anything other than what it was, since there’s always the possibility that he might someday encounter a floating stone. This possibility, in my experience, is far more likely than the possibility that he will encounter live dinosaurs in a theoretical alternate universe.

The same is true of my experience of conscious survival of death. All that empirical science can do is say the experiential nature of the phenomenon is not quantifiable under its criteria. It has no authority to pronounce such experiential phenomena non-existent. Those whose belief systems are limited to their own specific areas of inquiry are not qualified to pronounce value judgments on the experience of other areas of inquiry. The existence of physics does not negate the science of biochemistry. The existence of biochemistry does not negate the science of medicine. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera..

As to the first sentence, you are too good for me to need to remind you of the anthropic principle... ;)

As for the second point, I never said that science doesn't make any para-rational assumptions. Science, however, strieves to keep their number as limited as possible, and their nature as simple as possible. We don't know if we can demonstrate veracity, and the safest hypothesis is to assume that we can't. That too is subject to revision.

This is a problem of burder of proof. You say that you have ancountered a floating stone, and I say that, according to all observations of other people, there is no such a thing. Who has the burden of proof? Usually, the person who states that something is the case has the burden to prove that, at least, there is ground for consideration.

This is little more than common sense. If I told you that, by holding my picture in your hand, you can jump from the 10th floor of a building and fly, would you accept my statement at face value or would you expect me to prove it to you by jumping first?

So, you have experienced something that convinced you of the continuation of consciousness after death. As in the jump from the building case, the burden of proof is yours. You have to show us at least indications (we know that positive proof doesn't exi

.. the end was:

So, you have experienced something that convinced you of the continuation of consciousness after death. As in the jump from the building case, the burden of proof is yours. You have to show us at least indications (we know that positive proof doesn't exist in science) that your experience was related to an actual continuation of consciousness and not (pardon the impudence) to bad digestion..

Joy,

just to make things clear (I feel a little bad about the digestion pun...): I don't deny that people have subjective experiences of many things. I am wary, however, of taking one's subjective experience at face value without corroborating them with independent observations or, at least, incorporating them in a philosophy that struggles to increase their objectivity.

This opens the door to all sorts of delusions and possibly even to solipsism. It is remarkable, in my view, how people seem perfectly capable of using common sense in the prosaic occurrences of their everyday life, but they seem to abandon said common sense in more fundamental areas.

If I have a very strong feeling that tomorrow is going to be very very cold, I don't automatically go out in the morning wearing a heavy coat but, being june in southern California, I at least ccount for the possibility that I might be wrong. If I dream that my wife is cheating on me, I don't automatically ask for a divorce, but I check first.

In everyday life, people who follow their premonition without checking for objectivity usually end up with land deals in Florida...

You've asserted before, in any number of posts, that you imagine yourself to be so different from other members of our species as regards skepticism, or in this particular case, curiosity.

Joy, we are all special and different in our own ways, but there are a great many things we share with the rest of the human species, and one of these is curiosity. Curiosity is a hallmark (one of several, to be sure) of the human species. It is one of the major reasons we evolved the way we did.

Your assertion that the vast majority of people who might encounter such an anomalie as you describe would merely "rationalize it away" is balderdash. We aren't built that way. We are boundlessly curious, it's one of the things that makes us human.

As for skepticism, I can buy that some people are more skeptical than others, but to assert that your skepticism is of a quality and quantity so vastly greater than the rest of humanity...well, I don't think so.

I don't for a moment doubt that you saw what you saw. I very MUCH doubt that what you saw would be of no interest to the meanest intelligence.

As I understand it, it is impossible *in principle* to perfectly describe a complex entity in a model less complex than the entity. In fact, a perfect description of a complex entity would always be more complex than the entity and further, the simplest description of a complex entity would be the entity itself.

The gospel according to von Neumann.

But what about fractals? and... doesn't DNA do just that?

We should be careful not to mx notions here. There are many definitions of complexities. Kolmogorov complexity refers to the smallest number of bits of information necessary to describe a sentence. If something is complex in the sense of Kolmogorov then, by definition, it can't be described in a simple way.

What we mean usually, however, is not "complex" in this technical term, but "complicated." A human being is complicated but not complex in this sense because the DNA alone is capable of specifying it.

An exception is the human brain. It is too complex (in the Kolmogorov sense...) to be completely specified by DNA, so the DNA contains a sort of "general plan" of the brain, while the details are filled in by evolution-style competitive mechanisms during its development. At least, this is the currently most likely explanation.

There is a fascinating non-technical account of this theory in Terrence Deacon's "The symbolic species."

Obviously, the human brain is part of a human being, so if just one part of a human is complex enough not to be described by DNA alone, then the entire organism is also complex enough.

But simply saying that DNA describes the human being is NOT an explanation that is itself simpler than the human organism. DNA contains a sort of "general plan", not just for the brain but for the entire organism. DNA contains far more information than it needs to generate a human organism, it also contains information (redundancy) to allow for evolutionary novelties.

I think I'll continue to regard the human organism as complex, not merely complicated.

I am not saying I am more curious than the next guy, I’m saying I happened to notice the stone so I stopped to examine it. If such a thing caught your attention, I’d expect you might stop and examine it also. The meat of the matter is whether or not it would catch your attention, or whether at 45 or 50 miles per hour your brain would feed you some good excuse to write it off as reflection or illusion. Probability tells me you’d likely never notice.

4-leaf clovers in a field of clover wouldn’t necessarily catch your attention either. I can pick ‘em out like pansies to make a boquet. If you went looking for puffballs in the forest for the first time, you’d more likely than not fail to see a one. If you knew a partial eclipse was scheduled for our mushroom-picking time, or you might seek out fancy equipment so you could view that eclipse. I’d see it reproduced exactly a thousand times on the forest floor while picking the mushrooms. There are many things which are easily overlooked in the natural world because our attention is focused elsewhere, or not focused at all. This in no way means they aren’t real or don’t exist.

Not knowing at the time that I might be required to supply physical "proof" of the phenomenon of a floating stone, I plumb forgot my camera, Simone. But you wouldn’t believe a picture anyway. When I touched it, it nearly broke my leg falling, so if that stone were sitting in my livingroom it would be nothing but a stone, and since you’re not in my livingroom, it still wouldn’t mean anything to you. Belittling the experiences of others (which you term subjective but may be entirely objective in reality) in an impersonal forum is easy, isn’t it?

You can’t see the arteriogram films of brain plumbing anomalies I have sitting in a big envelope right here in the desk, either. Does that make my claims entirely subjective? Or maybe I never had a son at all... you can’t tell, nor can you legitimately demand "proof" for any such assertion on my part. Is this supposed to be productive dialogue, or is it a test of credentials for the right to make any assertion at all?

oops... fluke time. You are right, of course.

Fair enough. I just wanted to point out that there are many different definitions of "complexity" (there is even one that depends on the observations, like when you see a periodic motion through a time window that does not coincide with the period of the motion), and we should be clear of what definition we are using.

If you use algorithmic complexity, then to say that a complex system can't be encoded in a compact way is a truism. I don't think we have anough information on the human body, on its biochemistry, and on self organizing processes to make that call at the current state of knowledge.

Allow me to give you an example of my model of reasoning.

A flying stone is a highly unusual event (many people have never seen one), in direct contrast with a number of experiences (stones seem to always fall if left alone) and with some models that I trust quite a bit (although never absolutely) because they allow me, by and large, to make very good predictions.

As such, I require a pretty convincing case in favor of the flying stone. If you say "I saw a flying stone," the most obvious explanation is that you had an illusion. This would bring the phenomenon in the field of commonly observed experiences (people have illusions all the time). If you gave me a photograph, I would search for manipulation (again: common sense), or for some obvious trick.

If the experience of the floating stone were repeated under controlled condition (which exclude all the previously mentioned tricks and possibility of illusion) then, as a good scientist, I would accept the floating stone. As a comonsensical scientist, I would first attempt to explain the floating stone using some known principle (the "economy" principle). If I can't, then things would start to be interesting. I would start looking for original explanations and hope that the explanation of the floating stone will also be useful to give a new perspective over a whole bunch of phenomena (an ad hoc explanation, like a "stone genie") would not be very interesting.

I would still, of course, look for explanations in a naturalistic context. I might not find one, in which case I would put aside the floating stone for a future generation of physicists (after, of course, having written a whole series of long papers on the "Physical Review"... :)

For me, atheism springs from an application of Occam's razor, because I can't know whether god is a necessary entity for the existence of the universe or not - those parts of the universe I can understand - biology and biochemistry - don't need a god to keep them going.

To elaborate just a bit on what I've said before, Occam's razor brought me to contemplation of myself, because I could not justify the claim that I could perceive reality. From that base of self contemplation I was able to reenter the world.

I suspect you agree that I have a radically simple starting point. Perhaps we could say that Occam's razor cuts two ways, one leading to radical subjectivity and the other leading to radical objectivity. What do you think?

Different statements demand different verifications. I can accept a completely prosaic statement at face value. This is not good science, but is part of the normal relations between human beings. If I tell the world that I have in front of me a copy of "Ulysses," probably most people would believe me although, in reality, I have no such a book in front of me.

The normal interpersonal trust goes that far. Of course, if I lie constantly about the books I have in front and I am caught, after a while people will stop believing me. Declaring that I have "Ulysses" here is nothing out of our ordinary experience. If I declared, however, that I have here with me next monday's edition of the New York Time, I am sure I would rise quite a few eyebrows, and it wouldn't be long before somebody would call my bluff.

Normal interpersonal face value acceptance only goes so far: tell me that you have arteriogram films in front of you, and I will believe you without problems; tell me that you saw a floating stone, and I will start asking questions...

As I understand it, it is impossible *in principle* to perfectly describe a complex entity in a model less complex than the entity.

Note that I wrote seemingly complex. Successful models reveal that phenomena are less complex than they appeared to be. The complexity of a phenomenon is often defined in terms of the simplest model or the shortest computer program generating the data. (The relevant names here are Kolmogorov and Chaitin, not von Neumann.)

a perfect description of a complex entity would always be more complex than the entity...

For a computer program generating a pseudorandom sequence of numbers, there are infinitely many ways to modify the program without changing its output. All of the programs are perfect descriptions of the sequence. But the complexity of the series is defined to be the shortest program's length in algorithmic information theory.

the simplest description of a complex entity would be the entity itself.

That sidesteps the notion of description. We generally don't include entities as candidate desriptions of themselves. Let the entity be a large bitmap image of a fractal. Consider that a computer program represented with relatively few bits can generate the entity. Which is the simpler description?

I'm in two minds... :)

Seriously, I'm not quite sure what you mean by that, either how application of Occam's razor leads to both subjectivity and objectivity, nor how either of them is radical, so I'll wait for explication.

Meanwhile, as to our perceptions, yes, they are subjective... in fact I'd go as far as to say it is impossible to have an objective perception. However... we can always compare our perception to the perceptions of other people, and to the consequences of our actions on those perceptions. If we agree with others, we are more sure those perceptions correspond to outside reality - i.e. are objective in a practical sense, and if decisions made on the basis of our perceptions have favorable consequences, our assumptions of their objectivity is further strengthened.

So total objectivity is impossible, as all we are really directly aware of is the functioning of our nervous system and everything else is filtered through that system, but we have reasonable hopes of achieving a decent facsimile of objectivity. I think that's the best we can do.

I'm having a grand time on the board today, and learning lots of things. Like Joy, when out walking, I can pick the four leaf clovers out without really putting much effort into it. However I think it's because I was 'country' raised .. such things seem to "stick out" as being unusual. Or perhaps it's got something to do with my 'wingspan!!' After reading Will Blake's post on Evolution, we all measured our height in comparison with our wingspan. The only son I had available was 100% exactly, my husband was an inch higher than the wingspan, and my reach was a good two and a half inches more than my height. [Giggle] .. you see what your conversations have got me doing, and I don't even know what benefit or not I have from having long arms .. except perhaps I'm nearer to the apes than others?!!! No, my knuckles do not graze the ground as I walk.

Didn't mean to steal your observation on fractals. As for DNA, the many-to-many relationship of genes and traits implies a compact encoding.

Quite correct. This thread started with my informal remarks. In my previous post, I mentioned that the length of the shortest computer program generating the data was one yardstick, but I left ambiguous my mention of models. In a previous post I had discussed the minimum description length principle with Leszek. In this case, the minimum length of a compact description of a model plus the length of a compact description of the model errors is the complexity of the data. I should have included Jorma Rissanen's name in connection with this MDL principle. In any case, you cannot talk about complexity without establishing something as the yardstick.

[more to come]

There is some redundancy in the human genome allowing for error correction and neutral mutations. But it is not required for evolutionary novelties. Computational simulations of evolution for engineering purposes omit redundancy and obtain fine results nonetheless.

I have to side with Simone, while mentioning that cellular automata are still viable models of neural routing processes. To clarify a bit, even at birth a compact description of the routing of axons and dendrites and capillaries requires more bits than does a compact description of the baby's genes.

So where does the information come from? For one thing, the womb is not a sensory deprivation chamber. Information supplied by the uterine environment affects neural development. Other information comes from the long-term unpredictability of interacting nonlinear processes. I don't care if the interacting nonlinear processes are cellular automata or if they derive from neural Darwinism. Initial conditions are specified with some imprecision, so the trajectory of the global developmental process is unpredictable. This uncertainty in outcome is equivalent to gain in information.

So a neonate really is much more complex, in the sense of compact description, than his or her genes.

[with Cindy Blake]

[Cindy Blake]

I don't even know what benefit or not I have from having long arms .. except perhaps I'm nearer to the apes than others?

And well adapted to reach to heaven.

so I'll wait for explication

I'd love give it. Some other time though.

[Cindy Blake]

Hasta luego, y'all.

We're outta' here for a long trip. It's mostly been fun to help Dad with his posts, but his tempest in a teapot posts at 3 a.m. have been weird.

Will/Cindy .. I didn't say .. "I'll wait for explication," in that post or anywhere else. Oh well, it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things does it?

Speaking of "Hasta luego", my wife and I are off to Italy for 2 weeks starting this Sunday, so I'll say "Adio" to everyone.

Will and Cindy, have a great time where ever it is you're going. (Shall I infer it is somewhere south of the border since you said "hasta luego"?)

Play nice, y'all.

Gee whiz... I'm jealous. Everybody gets vacations but me, since this is where everybody I know comes to spend their vacations! Have fun Larry, Will and Cindy! §:o)

I think you understood what I was saying better than most, Rosemary, and you’re right. It’s a matter of environment and the focus of attention. I’ve lived in all sorts of different kinds of places, but cities are the least condusive to the observation of natural phenomena.

If you can see over the buildings in a city, you’re still not likely to see the stars. One can read books, look at pretty pictures and follow astronomy, but there’s nothing like laying in the grass on a moonless night and seeing a comet streaking across three quarters of the sky. If one pays attention, one can note that excess nitrogen in the soil leads to four-leaf clovers, and knows they are easily found in those "dark green" spots where the animals do the watering. Seeking puffballs to stuff for dinner means you’ve got to look in the shadows on the forest floor, because they don’t grow in the sunlight, even though it’s the sunlight that reaches for attention.

It’s sometimes a little frustrating to deal with so many brilliant empirical minds who swear allegiance to the natural world and its rules, but who don’t actually experience much of that world. And it never ceases to amaze me that some of the most intelligent people can be the most patronizing about the natural world. Amerinds have been curing skin cancer for hundreds of years with plant products the chemical engineers just now think they invented. As recently as the mid-1980s the "Official" position statement of the American Medical Association reiterated that there is absolutely no reason to believe that diet effects health. <sigh>

Understandable in the context of such an admittedly unusual observation, Simone. You might have asked the circumstances of the encounter, or how it managed to catch my attention. You might have asked about the scene and setting, the size and mineral nature of the stone, and how high above the ground it floated. You could have enquired about whether I detected any movement or sound and what conclusions I might have drawn as to what precipitated the phenomenon. I can think of at least a dozen pertinent questions, which I did in fact ask myself at the time. You didn’t ask even one.

So what we actually have here is automatic rejection of my experience in exactly the same way your own brain might have led you to ignore the phenomenon had you driven past that cornfield that day. There is a large difference between healthy skepticism and a closed mind. The attempt to portray my experience as completely subjective, hallucinatory or dishonest is self-preservation of your own preconceived notions, not honest inquiry designed to determine the credibility of my statement or the possible nature of the phenomenon.

My post was maieutic. I was trying to illustrate a modus operandi, not debate on the particular experience you were talking about. It would be quite silly to try and dissect it and reach a conclusion on the Internet.

I was merely pointing out what the cornerstone of scientific investigation would be in the presence of an extraordinary statement like the presence of a floating stone. I would try to make sure if your subjective experience corresponds to an actual event, I would try to make sure that the stone is actually a stone and that it was flying (as opposed, for instance, to be on some kind of support because the farmer's kids were organizing an elaborate prank), and so on.

Once I have estabilished that your subjective experience can be replicated (this is quite important for a finiding like this one), I would start trying to reduce the flying stone to the world of everyday experience. If I failed, I would declare it an unexplained phenomenon, and I would apply immediately for a grant.

So, I was not diminishing your experience. I was merely using it as a model to see how, had I the possibility, would explore the finding. My point was to point out, once again, that the characteristics of science is not a corpus of findings, but a method of investigation.

This is another example of my position that the difference between science and certain belief systems are methodological and not factual. I have no problems with statements that certain plants can cure certain diseases.

I don't even have a problem if you tell me that putting the hands of a shaman on certain parts of the body can cure cancer. What I contest is that you ask me to accept these statements using different standards than those to which I would hold any scientist.

If you state that plant A cures disease B, you have to show me empirical data that the plant is actually effective, including statistical dta showing that the success rate using a certain plant is better than the success rate due to normal human resilience, that there is no placebo effect, that the experiment was double-blind, and you took all precautions to avoid biases, and so on.

To reiterate: I am ready to accept any factual statement that you might want to make, as extraordinary as it might be. What I will do, however, will be to hold you to very strict standards as to the proof of your statement.

I fully agree with your stated criteria, Simone. I would note for general interest purposes, however, that the stone was not flying. Flying stones are a dime a dozen... I fly them off the mountainside regularly. Replication would be entirely dependent upon the theorized causes of the phenomenon where it originally occurred, which was a freshly plowed field. The plow had struck the stone, which was approximately 120 pounds of quartzite gneiss, and may have caused a vibrational frequency that could be repeated. When I touched the stone, it fell. This may indicate a dampening effect on whatever electrical field the vibrations were generating. Before I touched it I measured the distance to the tree line, checked for upright supports and overheads by running my arm over and under it. I walked around the entire circumference as well, and heard a high-pitched hum like a tuning fork.

All water long ago under the bridge, and as you said not something I can demonstrate to you on the net (or anywhere else, given certain restrictions on subsequent research). What I can say is that I once encountered a floating stone.

The important thing to remember is that nature is either probable or it is absolute. It cannot be both. If effect exists due to probability, the lesser probability that an opposing effect may be observed is written into the rules. Such an opposing effect will be rare, but is not "impossible." The real law belongs to Murphy, and Murphy says that if it can happen it surely will happen at some point. This is perfectly natural.

In the field of pharmacology, I’d ask what makes you believe that long trial and error did not lead to the identification of plant alkaloids and resins which are effective against certain physical conditions? The tradition of medicine is much more ancient than the chemical synthesis of alkaloids and production of artificial drugs mimicking natural substances. Is the non-European status of native doctors the reason for bias?

I have a sister who was for years the "world’s foremost expert" (in Eurocentric academic terms) in American Mandrake as a treatment for cancer. She earned her Ph.D. in plant physiology with her work, since monopolized by Sandoze. Her interest began in general terms through her acquaintance with a native healer who pointed out to her the growth habits of Mandrake, and the fact that nothing else grew within its root-range.

American Mandrake is one of those "untested" active ingredients in the poltice my father-in-law’s Cherokee grandmother taught him to produce for treatment of skin cancers. Another is the ubiquitous Pokeroot, known locally as "Cancer Root." All things natural are not automatically suspect just because science hasn’t yet been convinced by double-blind placebo studies. Agreed they should be so tested, but they should not be automatically rejected as "Witch-Doctoring."

I do believe that, and I not contesting it. Medicine is a trial-and-error business, and, although Europeans were remarkably bad at medicine until last century due to philosophical biases, many populations discovered useful treatments in the plants that surrounded them.

All I was pointing out was the necessity of testing all claims, whether relative to a new drug or relative to the effects of a plant or whatnot to the same strict standard.

Regarding medicine, I am under the impression that the "business" aspect of medicine prevents some of these claims to be taken seriously (you understand... you can't patent the American Mandrake...), but this has nothing to do with the philosophy of science.

I would say that, as long as you demand rigorous testing (including testing for placebo and so on), you are in the clear (scientifically speaking) whatever treatment you may suggest.

Sorry for my rather obvious bias the "other way" in such things, Simone, which I am properly called to account for. My husband descends from a long line of native healers, and my pioneer forebears learned their medicine from the natives as well. I reproduced the poltice with strict guidance to give to my mother for her skin cancers (sun-induced variety of basal cell carcinoma) after I saw how the retin-A peel her doctor gave her had ravaged her face. She was preparing to start again... I told her to wait and let me give her something to heal the damage before she decided to damage herself on round 2 of harsh chemical action.

The various ingredients have to be wildcrafted at different times of year and processed differently. Some (mandrake, pokeroot and Scotch pine) have to be tinctured in alcohol, the herbs (heal-all, chickweed and cleavers) must be sun-steeped in olive oil for a fixed time, the whole thing blended with beeswax, etc... but it worked. The sores healed beautifully in no time, leaving her skin looking great. When she went back for the second peel, her doctor told her she didn’t need it. The cancer was gone.

I’ve supplied a total of 3 batches to my mother’s physician, who has submitted it for analysis. It’s not mass produceable due to the complex combination of precursors and alkaloids. Even if it is determined in the lab to be effective, years of testing are still appropriate and necessary. I do understand this, as anyone could market anything in this world even if they hurt people. This must be guarded against. Meanwhile, I make a batch a year and distribute it according to need.

Joy Busey - Monday, 06/07/99, 11:46:47am (#3684 of 3782)

[Joy, by `-no age bar-', just meant the `child in one' can possibly remain with growth; afterall, age is history, which btw is just BTW, incidental (- a `particular case').]

Actually, the game is for children to play - as given here, even if A and B know the rule interest remains as they do not have proof it works right always; had only thought children can enjoy playing it. Liked the phrase `Sleight of mind', which seemingly describes almost everything.

Surely, you recognise [in the (...)-part] that this question is addressed in a special case, and doesnt automatically generalise; of course, it is for that guru to explain, but if you wish I can do so (IMO). BTW, they are called "Krishna devotees" worshipped by Krishna himself. I shall address other points in next post, if it interests you.

Linda Hoyt - Saturday, 06/12/99, 2:15:53am (#14711 of 14720)

Thank you, reading by itself rewards my posts. Wish could contribute more frequently.

Like for everybody, there is "my truck to haul coal on to".

Namaste to all,

SeS

SeS - Yes, I know it was the predudicial bias of the teacher. Religions of all varieties are rife with such mininterpretations, including Christianity to a very large extent. During that time in my life when I was looking around at the other major - and some minor - religions of the world, it was refreshing to discover that hypocracy was not confined to Christianity. Once that lesson is learned, one can re-examine quite a bit of "Truth" on spiritual levels without assigning hypocracy to the faiths, but to the human beings who practice the faiths.

Ahhh... A point on which we agree.

I’m happy we can agree on this, Dave. I found when I went looking that what I rejected in the faith I grew up with wasn’t a problem with the faith itself, but with egotistical and erroneous interpretations. When I found the same problem in other faiths, I realized I never lost what I was looking to find.

But what points do we disagree on?

Such as the time when I was baptised in college, dunking in a river. My heart was most assuredly in the right place. However, the assistant pastor, a rather odd guy, kept asking me, "are you sure your conviction was true? Are you sure?"

If I wasn't sure, I wouldn't have asked to be re-baptised!

Unfortunately as is typical of many exclusive denominations, he believed a few "additional" things that, although entirely clear to him, are, at best, vague hints in the Bible. The problem is when people do this to the exclusion of paying attention to those points in the Bible which are found throughout the entire Bible, repeated many times and on many different occasions, yet say and mean the same thing.

I suscribe to the philosophy that God didn't create hurdles in his word so that only the most astute would "get it." He's a merciful God, and such wouldn't be merciful.

Instead, the important points are all too clear, such as when the pharisees asked Jesus to sum up the Mosaic law and he replied, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself."

Sounds pretty simple to me, and it's more than enough to change one for a lifetime!

Joy, I'm not sure of specifics, as it seems like our earlier conflicts were thousands of posts ago. Well, I'll be a... They were!

Let's start with something easy:

1. I believe that God is the sovereign of the entire Universe, not only of that which we know, but of all that exists, regardless of our level of comprehension.

Do you agree with this statement?

If it's that easy, perhaps you'd care to provide a proof for an otherwise unsupported assertion :)

This goes to the heart of the difference between science and religion. Religion makes assumptions that it enshrines as dogmas without any way of proving them. Science insists that its theories have evidence to back them up. Now of course, the evidence doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be reasonable and plausible, and we have confidence in the theory in proportion to the quality of the evidence - we do not have equal confidence in all scientifi theories.

Not only that, but science insists that its theories be capable of disproof... what religion could say the same? Religion holds every dogma dear and absolute. Science has a more practical approach.

So as far as knowing the world is concerned, science is a much more reliable guide than religion. How many practical inventions did any theologian make?

Leszek, my turn [big grin] ..

Not entirely, the dogma's and doctrines are to be discussed .. preferably "in house," AFTER the big one. The assumption that there is a Creator. And this I would suggest, has at least as much 'plausible and reasonable' evidence as the case against. Fair enough? And I personally would not be so dogmatic as to say that it is impossible to prove that there is no Creator, so I think I still fit in your criteria. However ..

I think you've got me there. -)

Oh, Rosemary, you're my favorite Christian, next to my mother, of course! :)

I'll agree that as the question of the existence of a creator cannot be proven or disproven - at least not in the light of any knowledge we have accumulated to the present day - one can flip a coin and decide there is or isn't a creator. Or more seriously, struggle with the issue as I know you have done and settle on a position that is intellectually and emotionally comfortable.

So I don't really argue about whether there or isn't a god, because I cannot answer the question, and have never heard an argument good enough to answer it for me.

However, I think that as we learn about the world through science, we can begin to make informed judgements about what the character of a creator would have to be, assuming such a creator to exist, based on the character of the creation (by their works shall ye know them, or something like that :)

In other words, I find it comfortable to exist in a state of doubt about god's existence, but i have fewer doubts about what god is if he exists. Which is why I'm agnostic at heart, but atheist in practice (in real life one has to pee or get off the pot), as I've concluded that any creator of a universe of this kind is not looking to be worshipped or even known - I guess by worship I mean awed adulation, though it's more complicated than that.

Yes, I do agree with this statement, Dave, even if I am a tad uncomfortable with the term "sovereign." I believe God to be pre-existent to the universe of His creation. I believe God knew exactly what He was doing. Worse, I believe God does occasionally interfere directly with life on Earth. I don’t claim it happens all the time (time being relative, after all), but divine intervention is one of those lesser probability factors that occurs because it can occur.

"Sovereign" is a human conception so greatly misused by humans that it has earned a suspicious connotation which invites rebellion. I do not believe submission by force is an adequate answer for rebellion of the human spirit, as God exists in the "image" each one of us carries around inside ourselves. I believe there are many rooms in the mansion. I have chosen to follow Jesus through the door He opened for me.

I could be wrong, of course, so I don’t seek to convert anyone or to usurp their Free Will through forced adherence to biblical admonitions. The descent of modern Christianity into the pit of pride and sectarian will-to-power (and the claimed power to judge that which is reserved for God alone to judge) is detrimental to the faith. The shepherds who lead their flocks into gross error know this. They’ve always been hiding among us, and they’re laughing all the way to the bank...

Maybe I am guilty of tetrapiloctomy (a neologism from Umberto Eco... the art of splitting hair in four), but...

Given the status of our knowledge (and I am not saying that it is necessarily true), time and space are inherently related, which means that, before the universe existed, time did not exist either. So, what do you mean exactly when you say that god pre-existed the universe?

Some of your statements also have a suspiciously intensional flavor, which make me suspect that you regard god essentially as a big guy (the "big" part is an extrapolation of mine, but certainly, knowing exactly what one is doing sounds a lot human to me).

Now, once Carl Sagan wrote that whether or not one belives in god depends a lot on what one means by god. A mld pantheism is philosophically easier to justify than the belief in an anthropomorphic patriarch like you seem to propose.

If anything resembling certain ideas of god actually exists, what makes you think that we can apply human categories to it?

Rosemary, I have to dissent on this. Theologicians make much stronger assumptions than just to say "there is a creator." I can say (I am making up things, here, not reporting scientific facts) that the universe came up from a random fluctuation in an energy field which always existed (just like god always existed...). In this sense, the random fluctuation would be the "creator" of the universe, yet, somehow, it wouldn't qualify as god.

Many religions make the additional assumption that god is an active entity to which certain intensional predicates can be ascribed. In other words, whatever god is, it desires certain things, likes, dislikes, is capable of love, anger, and all that (this is very evident in the biblical tradition, more hidden, but present, in other traditions).

In other words, as I mentioned in my previous message, this creator always has some human characteristics. This assumption is hidden in the sentence "there is a creator," but it is there, and it is much harder to justify than the simple assumption of a "creator"

Wow! Didn’t know I was opening so many worm-cans Simone! §:o)

First, time and space are indeed the dimensional quadrants of the universe as we have thus far determined, though geometry still defeats us when speaking time ("expansion" of parameters unlimited by the speed of light), and time itself is relatively undefined apart from entropy and the speed of light. We haven’t defined all the things it’s relative to. One of the things time is relative to (in addition to geometry and motion) is perception, or consciousness. Which is also poorly defined. So long as we are able to trace origin to the Singularity at the beginning of Time (big bang and all it entails), time may very well be relative to whatever’s on the "other side" of that Singularity as well. I call it "Not-Time," only because I don’t know a better label.

I don’t see God as a Charlton Heston look-alike sitting on a throne watching our every move. In fact, I don’t see God at all except as something in me that I recognize to be more than me, and which I can also recognize on occasion in others. I’d have to guess this sort of anthropomorphism is indiginous to the "image" we supposedly carry around with us, and possibly the time-consciousness link to Not-Time.

There would be no spiritual aspect of human nature nor speculation about Not-Time if we weren’t in some manner able to comprehend it. I’d guess our comprehension is firmly linked to our comprehension of our selves, which explains why the revelation of God is progressive in human history. God is always just beyond the reach of our understanding, and our understanding is incomplete.

Choosing a religion must be like going to Baskin Robbins -- there are many wonderful flavors, each will taste good in its own way, and no one can be proven to any better than any other.

Ultimately, you are better off if you don't eat much, especially on a daily basis. I prefer fruit and vegetables.

By now you should know me better than that... ;^)

But, you will have to admit, not everything that you can recognize as more than you would qualify as god. There is an intensional component in all common concepts of god that, if not anthropomorphic, at least endow god with a consciousness much like the human.

To say that something is "more than you" in the sense in which I think you are using the term, implies a moral judgment and, ultimately, a recognition of humanity. There are many things that are "more than you:" a car is faster than you, a building taller.... but you wouldn't, I believe say that any of these things is "more than you."

You reserve, it seems, this denotation for certain characteristics that look suspiciously human.

What’s so suspicious? If our comprehension of God is intrinsically linked to our human psychology (consciousness), we cannot "see" God on terms other than those we can comprehend (or hope to comprehend). You’ll notice a large variety of religious expression in this world, and sublevels of those. There are even levels and sublevels of disbelief. Human understanding is as individual as innate intelligence and the capacity to recognize (and overcome) perceptual limitations. Personality, environment, culture... there are lots of reasons people see things differently.

Trust me, Rosemary , it truly is impossible to prove that there is no Creator.

I am personally of the opinion that mankind evolved from "lower" forms of life (however "lower is defined). But even if it were possible to prove that mankind did, in fact, evolve from "lower" forms (and how would I convince you even if the current evidence was a thousand times clearer than it actually is), how would I, or anyone, show that at each subsequent step none of the multitude of "lower" forms from which we evolved were not created by a Creator?

It is not plausible, much less possible.

I that the god that the conventional religious people believe in is a personification (athropomorphic) of the concept of the infinite. As an extropian, I am capable of dealing directly with the concept of infinity and, therefor, have no need to identify with an athropomophic concept of god. I believe the reason that people believe in conventional religion is because they believe it offers the only possibility of living forever in an infinite realm. I consider the publication of the Cosmological Anthropic Principle (and the follow on book, The Physics of Immortality) to be the first time that a purely scientifically derived concept of infinite life has been created to demolish conventional religion's monopoly on the promise of infinite life. In other words, belief in the concept of god as a being is no longer neccessary for the possibility of universal resurection and infinite life. Although I believe that Tipler's cosmology has now been shown to be incorrect, I do believe that a scientifically derived concept of infinite life (we call it UI, ultimate immortality) will emerge in the next 20-50 years, and will eventually largely replace conventional religious ideology as the driving force of humanity (by this time called post-humanity).

I believe that this concept of ultimate immortality, coupled with a libertarian system of ethics and morality, can provide the basis for civilized behavior in our interpersonal relationships, individual liberty, and positive human achievement. Given this, I cannot see any reason why I should accept the notion of an anthropomorphic god, nor do I see any socialogical benefit in doing so.

Free Yourselves

Leszek .. wow, well I can't blush, at least I never have, but the feeling is mutual. Imagine if you can living in an inner city vicarage, difficult, but try. [wry smile] 99.9% of the folk who knock on my door, bring me their problem to share with them!! I can think of only two people who occasionally come just to share a cup of tea. Otherwise my neighbours are meths drinkers, glue sniffers, prostitutes, quite a few folk who ought to be in the care of a mental institution, and several old old men. They all call too, some of them because they're so jolly lonely, but I think on the whole, I have been stagnating in a sense, and this experience, talking to all of you, has been wonderfully stimulating and I thank you.

OK, I realise you'll be hypothesising, but that's quite an interesting idea. I remember months ago you having a conversation about the spine, and how you thought this could have been better arranged. My back with it's long surgical scars agrees. But can you give me a positive .. something that has perhaps taken your breath away as you contemplated it?

I know you'll correct me if I'm wrong, but would I be right in saying that you've come to this conclusion because you see no evidence of His 'interest or care?' Are there other reasons? I can see how all those fossils are a problem for you .. IOW, perhaps I might say that you are very pragmatic, generally speaking, rather than a dreamer, but is there any particular thing that, when you came across it made up your mind for you?

Simone ..

No, I don't think what you are saying is necessarily true. There are Deists, who just believe in a Creator, but who ascribe no more to that Creator .. that is where it finishes. I too made a Deistic type of decision long before I began to read the Bible to see if that Creator had communicated with His creation. And it was many years before the Bible convinced me. I would point you to one of my previous posts, but I can't for the life of me remember when or where it was. However, I think the only assumptions that you can make about a Creator are .. that He is "Other." Certainly not like us. That He is a 'higher power,' because we can't create a world, and that He is sovereign. By that I mean that if there is no God, then as Dostoyevsky said, "All things are permissible." The anthropomorphising you refer to, comes from His attempt to communicate with us, and our poor attempts to understand, IOW's the Bible, but "there is a Creator," doesn't necessarily mean the Biblical one.

Just as there are scientist and scientists, so there are theologians and theologians, are you referring to a particular type or denomination? And may I ask what is your particular branch of expertise? I shouldn't really be on this board, because I have no scientific knowledge to share [shrug], but I can't quite make myself leave. And if it's not too nosy, what is your first language? Simone is a female name in New Zealand, and yet you gave me the distinct impression the other day that you were male .. if you're trying to confuse me, you

[oh darn] .. you are succeeding!

Cliff ..

I think we'd better say rather that we should wait for tomorrow, or the next day etc. One day we will know, one way or the other. I'm aware that my life may be a life of foolishness. Meanwhile, just as there are no two blades of grass the same, neither are we. One old guy who comes for a cup of coffee occasionally, and who is the ugliest chap I've ever met, severe scars .. although he won't tell me where from. He is totally wrapped up in UFO's, lives and breathes them. He's told me the most amazingly unbelievable stories, but I'm very fond of him and he has a wicked sense of humour. We've all got to try and communicate in some form IMHO. Not agree, but communicate.

I wouldn't say there was any one thing that made me doubt the existence of a caring creator... perhaps the closest would be my knowledge of biochemistry which says there is no reason in principle to suppose that evolution of complex organisms from simple ones requires divine intervention beyond (perhaps) setting up the initial conditions.

However, there are features of the world that give me pause. Among them are the phenomena of predation and parasitism. It must be a terrifying thing to be pursued and caught by a predator. Some insect predators do not feed on their prey, they use them as living incubators for their young. I find this sort of thing difficult to reconcile with visions of a benevolent deity, and they seem more readily explicable by evolution.

Perhaps one of the most amazing examples of parasitism is Sacculina. This is a crustacean that attacks a near relative, crabs. The Sacculina larvae settle on a gap in the crab carapace, and depending on the species, inject a single cell or group of cells into the body of the crab. The larva then drops off and dies. The cell, meanwhile, grows inside the crab creating a network of feeding tubules through the crab's body, and at some point extrudes a brood pouch through the crab's skin to the outside - despite being a crustacean cousin, its entire adult body is nothing but feeding tubules and a brood pouch. It also modifies the crab's nervous system, and completely inhibits the crab's reproductive behavior, turning the crab into a feeding machine for its own young, fooling the crab into thinking the Sacculina eggs are in fact crab eggs, so the crab keeps the brood pouch clean and well-ventilated. Then it releases the larvae, to continue its life cycle. The crab survives in this form of slavery for quite some time, but eventually dies as a result, without breeding.

There are lots of parasites that infest humans too, with equally gruesome life histories. Again, this is the sort of feature that makes me doubt the potential caring benevolence of any possible creator. That's a lot of suffering to bring into a life for no apparent purpose but to preserve the parasite. Again, evolution and a remote and uninvolved deity at best seem to me a better explanation.

That's just a sample of the sort of thing I meant. There may be other ways of looking at these phenomena, but I think they cause grave problems for some kinds of theology.

What's an "extropian," Kurt? I'm curious as to what you see as scientifically derived "UI." Are you talking about the machine, or the consciousness which temporarily inhabits the machine?

Personally, I don't believe in God because I want to live forever. I've got no desire to wreak havoc and mass bloodshed on my "enemies" for a thousand years, be anybody's ruler or tyrant, or spend eternity sitting on a cloud playing a harp. Might there be reasons for faith that you have not considered?

I haven't been around much lately, but I see no one has solved the big question yet, nor has anyone changed his or her beliefs in the last month! I've been busy writing letters and speeches about human embryonic stem cell research, but both Speaker Hasert and Majority leader Lott say there is NO Way that the ban will be lifted, and they are very upset that the NIH bioethics team has suggested that researchers can work with the cell lines and not violate the ban. Both Catholic and fundamentalist right to life organizations are out in full force, although the issue hasn't gotten too much press yet because of Kosovo and Littleton. Scientists appear to be mystified over the objections.

Cliff--if you are still interested, check Brendan McKay's homepage. He has at last published a peer reviewed paper in Statistical Science refuting the Bible Codes. IT's about time!

Rosemary, assuming it is true that there is a creator, it is obviously possible to prove the existence of a creator. Assuming a creator does exist, I would therefore completely agree with your statement that we should wait until tomorrow or the next day. But the contrary is not true. If there is no God, it is not currently possible to prove that God does not exist, and I will assert that at no point in the future will it be possible for anyone to prove that God does not exist.

It is often said that a negative can never be proven. That is not always true; it is sometimes possible to prove a negative. If all possible features of a negative can be proven to be false, then the negative itself is by logical extension is proven to be false. However, since all the various possible features in this case can not even be identified, much less proven not to exist, it can not be proven that God does not exist.

Dawn, of course no one has solved the big question yet, nor has anyone changed his or her beliefs in the last month, but it can be fun to argue. With respect to the stem cell controversy, my comments are on the cloning board.

I have already conceded that the Bible codes were false. Funny, but for a time, I thought it possible that the Bible codes might actually represent proof of a creator. Before that, I thought the Shroud of Turin might hold out that possibility. Nevertheless, just because those possibilities did not pan out does not mean that the proof of the existence of God may not be found tomorrow. I shall continue to watch for such proof--but I shall not hold my breath.

Great post Kurt. I particularly enjoyed these comments specifically:

"I believe life is a positive-sum game where we all can win, providing we show tolorance and respect for each other."

and:

"Everyone will benefit from this, regardless of whatever belief system people choose to subscribe to. There will even be time enough for love."

A Heinlein fan, eh? If you read Dawn’s post, you’ll see some political problems standing in the path of necessary research. I’d like to see some of those problems go away, but

I understand an optimistic outlook, but I wonder if you’ve really considered the inevitable inequalities that will proceed from life extension and the likelihood that the masses of humanity who will not benefit from the technology won’t go peacefully into the night on your behalf. This does not exactly square with your statement about ruling and being ruled, though. The decision of who is qualified to live and who will die for lack of access will be every bit as despotic as ogliarchies have always been.

From what I can tell this is another incarnation of the notion of human perfectability and faith in "progress" as the meaning of history which has been so soundly discredited since the Renaissance. Universal education would surely solve all human problems... liberty would surely result in all humans choosing to do good rather than evil... the generation of wealth would surely solve the inequalities of resources and human poverty... Do you honestly believe the privilege you seek will be extended to all?

Every answer begs a host of new questions. You say you wish to extend your time so you may freely pursue your desires. This presumes a political reality that would allow you that freedom, and that it will not cost the freedom of many other human beings. Would the placation of your personal desires make it easier for you to comfortably compartmentalize the deaths of people who were deemed unworthy of extended life, or do you see yourself as powerful enough in your immortality to "save" the people you love?

The ultimate fulfillment of history is not to be found in history. The time-eternity dichotomy will remain because the parameters of time and space are established and cannot be altered by human desire. No

...No one will "live forever" in time because time is finite by nature. We’d all like to have more time, and time is even now sold to the highest bidders via selective medical care. Life extension won’t solve the problems of history nor will it remove the Eternity against which existence is manifest.

To my limited understanding, your conclusion is not entirely as obvious as you seem to think. I believe Godel (I cannot get those nice umlauts on these CNN pages :-( ) had something to say along these lines. This is aside from the impossibility of it being humanly possible to prove the existence of a Creator.

Human "proofs" one way or the other will always be limited by the rules of logic, Andrew, just like Leszek’s assertion that quantum flux is entirely random, leading to simultaneous existence of infinite universes. He asserts this to counter his bogglement on the "who created the creator" question a creator would pose. As if infinite "other" universes would be easier to quantify and explain.

We exist in THIS universe. Science on THIS planet concerns itself with defining the rules, regulations and parameters of existence in THIS universe. Chaos can be asserted to counter design, but since both chaos and design are impossible (at this point in time) to demonstrate with anything other than logic, the design argument presents far fewer tangental complications. If the goal is to avoid complications, chaos isn’t a very satisfactory argument.

I have to agree with you... even if there is a god, the nature of the universe is such that we cannot prove his existence with present knowledge... I don't know if Gödel had anything to say about that - I never even really understood his proof that it was impossible to prove all the axioms of a given mathematical system! :)

(P.S. Try typing G & o u m l ; d e l - Gödel - without the spaces, and you'll have a pleasant surprise... then buy a cheap book on HTML :)

Well, of course we exist in *this* universe, Joy. Why does that make it impossible for other universes to exist?

In fact, you seem upset I even postulate alternative theories to the existence of a creator... why is that?

Kurt - Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big Lazarus Long fan myself. In fact, I trace 6 of my immediate progenitors to >100+ year lifespans. My son had the same 6 progenators on my side, plus another 4 on his father’s side who lived to be over 95. My son died when he was 21.

Time is entirely relative, and always too short. Things like those "plane crashes" you mentioned are always out there just over our left shoulders even if we happened to know exactly the number of our natural days and years. I can have my DNA cryogenically frozen and give some mortal a gazillion dollars to "reactivate" me when they figure out how... but I’d be a fool to think they’d do it.

I was told in a court of law in April that I had exactly 22 years and 11 months to live. This was a statistic scientifically derived and presented to a jury attempting to qualify what that predetermined time limitation might entitle me to in lieu of a son. It’s public record now, so I’m planning a rather elaborate funeral for the proper date. Would I have grounds to sue if I drop dead before or after the allotted time?

Sorry to seem so facetious, but you’re describing a distant future no one alive today will see, even if all the bugs could be worked out to prevent system crashes. I wouldn’t invest too much faith in it as a personal answer to the tragic contradiction if I were you. §:o)

I’m not upset at the postulation of alternatives, even alternative universes, Leszek! I’m just pointing out that the postulation of intentional creation for this universe is just as valid, exactly as provable, and a lot less confusing with automatic tangental questions. You keep saying that a creator would beg the question of origin on the creator’s level. So you’ve substituted an infinite number of questions which amount to exactly the same thing. You’re free to believe or not believe whatever you like. No problem! §:o)

This was, although not discernibly apparently, exactly my point.

Ouch, Leszek! :-) I normally use the numerical codes (&#246 being the ö) as they are more robust, but they on occasion don't work on CNN or some reason.

I don't mean to tromp on toes, but I do not think Leszek has done any such thing. He has postulated the possibility of postulating alternate universes, and I shall join him in this merry postulation-fest. However, on the subject of the actual cause of this universe, I remain mute. You, however, do not. I would thus assert that it is you who introduces

:-)

I think you mean that the god hypothesis and the no-god hypotheses are equally unprovable at present, right? I haven't seen anyone prove anything about any of them recently, have you? I don't think my questions are any more tangential than yours, whatever you meant by that.

And no, I don't think that alternate universes are any more unlikely in principle than an infinite god. You tell me which would take fewer bits to describe... infinite universes, or an infinite god. Infinity is infinity is infinity is.... etc. ad nauseam.

Besides, if my "infinite number of questions" actually amount to the same thing, isn't that actually a simplification :) - how would you simplify god? Perhaps the infinite universes theory is actually simpler and more plausible than the infinite gos hypothesis... <beg>

I don’t believe in infinite god(s), Leszek. I believe in eternity. There is a subtle difference in the terminology here, which you have meticulously avoided. I probably heard about the multiple-universe theory many years before you did, and thought it was nifty as heck for science fiction purposes. I believe it is an illogical postulation to make in opposition to the idea of a creator (or "intent") for the exact nature of THIS universe, which happens to be the one in which our consciousness is located.

It doesn’t matter how many alternate probabilities caused however many alternate universes in time - or in science fiction terms, timelines - time in all of creation and all possible alternate universes is still measured against Not-Time... Eternity. Existence among choices or probabilities is still existence, and existence is finite.

The egocentricity of human psychology is well documented and well understood. Some religious theology identifies this egocentricity as the sin of pride which prevents us from transcending the tragic contradiction of life (and too often in religious terms makes us erroneously believe we own grace as a secure possession, leading to religious puffery of all types).

You’ll find as you get older, and if you’re committed to others in love-based relationships through your years, that there comes a time when you realize life in time isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. You’ll also run into situations where life is incredibly cruel and unfair. As long as you are the only human who matters to you, it is possible to maintain the psychological distance from the rest of humanity that your quest demands. From there, all you need do is hope you’ve saved enough money to buy a ticket out, hope the flight attendant honors it, and hope the plane doesn’t crash.

I realize I haven’t answered your basic question about "other reasons" for faith. Answer To Question - Sometimes faith has a lot more to do with living than dying.

I knew that, Andrew! I was reiterating it for effect. §:o)

"I shall join him in this merry postulation-fest. However, on the subject of the actual cause of this universe, I remain mute."

...but the postulation-fest IS cause, don’t you see? If Leszek can postulate quantum fluctuation as cause - leading to the infinite "other" possible fluctuations - can I not legitimately postulate that there remains a baseline he’s not considering? The Singularity hasn’t disappeared just through the projection of infinite possibilities after-the-fact. The fact remains that we exist HERE and not elsewhere. The infinite "others" do not supercede the First Cause, though they do present an infinite number of hows and whys that mirror the "where did God come from?" question on a lesser scale.

What is below your baseline? How is your isolated baseline any different than an isolated quantum fluctuation?

The isolated baseline has nothing to do with isolated quantum fluctuation except in case there’s a reason for our personal existence, Andrew. Those inclined to believe we are no different by virtue of our conscious existence and ability to ask these questions than some imaginary alternate self in some alternatively possible universe won’t think it means anything at all. Those who recognize that this universe and all possible alternative universes were preexistent in probability in the Singularity at the Beginning of Time (and all subsequently existing realities) will see First Cause. I guess it’s a choice, and I know you’ve seen as many defenses of the choice as I have. Choice does not supercede reality.

If god isn't infinite or eternal, Joy, then where did it come from? You're just creating even more questions we can't answer. Nothing wrong with that, but it's hardly a simplification.

I haven't "meticulously" avoided anything, Joy, I've answered your confusing posts as honestly as I can.

Oh my, you're that ancient? :) And I thought I was the grumpy old man... have they carbon-dated you yet? Don't sit still for too long... *LOL*

The idea was stated to show that one is not logically driven to accept a creator as the originator of the universe. There are other plausible options. It was not intended as an endorsement of any theory, as I have no more provable ideas about that than you. You may "believe" it's illogical if you like, you haven't managed to prove it's either wrong or illogical, or at least no more so than the god hypothesis.

Personally, I think we have a long way to go before we have a real clue about how the universe originated. Divine fiat isn't high on my list of possibilities, but I don't exclude it either.

...though choice may define reality for individuals relatively speaking (and not necessarily adherent to reality for any other humans), which explains quite a bit, I think. About mental aberrations, I mean, since some humans don't inhabit the same mental space as the rest of us. Is this legal grounds for "not guilty due to inhabitation of alternate universe?" defense?

I can pretty much guarantee I’m older and wiser than you on a number of levels, Leszek. But I’m not inclined to get in a one-up battle on that score here.

"He’s gone to a better place," friends told me because they didn’t know what else to say when my son/father/brother died too soon. There is no possible way of explaining to those who are not me how it feels to know that all you are and hope to be is naught. I was declared officially non-existent in 1981 by an act of Congress. I am far older than that, and have met the adversary more than once in battles you’re not allowed to know about and never will be allowed to know about.

Eventually, if you live long enough, everyone you ever loved is dead. If you’re old enough, death starts looking a whole lot more like a friend than an enemy. You can cluck in dismay, but it effects you not one bit. This is reality for me. Does it mean nothing because it doesn’t effect you directly? Will you tell me "that’s the breaks?" Am I supposed to accept that as final justice?

I set out to test the envelope, and I did. I met the singularity, on MY ground, when I was just 27. So young and foolish ...I will soon cease to exist in time entirely. As if I never was. I’m looking for God because I have some questions I want answered. A lot of us "regular humans" have the same questions in need of asking. You can’t answer them.

Wisdom, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder - as to the rest, you started it, Joy, and I am above finishing it.

I can understand the search for god in an intellectual way, but feel no need to participate. This has been my feeling, unchanged, for almost a quarter of a century. While I have sympathy for the feelings of unfulfilled emptiness some people experience when faced with the possibility there is no god or purpose to the universe, I really don't share them. My feeling also is that people who get bent out of shape when those beliefs are critiqued probably ought not to be on public message boards discussing them.

Whether there is final justice or not, I've no idea, and I'm not going to tell you anything. All I can offer is an opinion, I can't offer absolute truth.

I haven't commented on your other personal statements, and will not do so now, as I am in no position to know what you mean by them, or what experiences you have gone through. Though one day I may check out the acts of Congress in 1981 just out of curiosity to see if any declared anyone non-existent, physically or metaphorically.

No, I can't answer your metaphysical questions, and neither can anyone else. When you die, as we all will, you will either find the answer, or there will be nothing, not even the awareness of nothing. If there is something, I'll deal with it when I have to. I know of nothing in this world that can possibly prepare one for the next. Assuming there is a next, which is a large assumption.

If your experience is different, fine. But don't patronize people because they don't share your particular experiences and views.

...and neither can science or technology in any spectacular manifestation offer an adequate answer. There's a baseline you're ignoring, by choice. That which makes me "Not-You," and which makes you "Not-Me."

I’d never patronize you, Leszek, I promise. It’s just that sometimes you do seem naive, and that makes me think "youth." And youth is envious to a certain extent.

"If I’d only known," the famous last words of more infamous people than me. You’ll have to check the records of the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee if you’re curious, and they don’t much like curiosity... though you’re certainly free to try. Try June, if they let you in that far.

I told you once I’d experienced Not-Time. That is the truth. I do indeed expect to experience it again sooner or later, and I expect to finally be allowed to plead my case. In whatever metaphysical way gives me the answers I seek. But I could be wrong. In which case the wrongs I have participated in righting on this level of time-space will mean a whole lot more than they appear to mean at this point in time. Who knows... or will anybody ever know? It honestly is no big deal.

You sense no contradiction in those statements? *sigh* Whatever, Joy, whatever.

And because science is not yet in a position to offer you the answers you seek, you take refuge in mysticism? *shrug* In science you have a tool for pretty sure knowledge. Unfortunately, it is not a tool we have been able to apply to all questions because it has to be applied sequentially. I see no reason to invoke deities to resolve questions science has not been able to get around to. Nor do i see any need to assume that just because science is not poised to answer a question, that it is in principle unanswerable by science.

In short, Joy, I am willing to give science its head to tackle even questions traditionally believed to be beyond scientific enquiry, simply on the empirical principle that if you don't try to find a prosaic explanation for a phenomenon (as opposed to a supernatural one), you guarantee you won;t succeed.

So I'm happy to let science go as far as it can, without setting limits to its demesne from first (and possibly erroneous) principles.

You would let science "demesne" from first principles? What exactly are those first principles, and how, exactly does a "demesne" proceed from that point?

I’m all for giving science its head, Leszek. More power to it, as it answers nothing anybody ever thought to ask. How many bodies are in the crypt you guard? There’s more than 3,000 in mine. Who? What? Where? When? Why? ...the answers exist. On this level, with meaning in this reality. It would make you sick. That’s why you don’t know about it.

...and why I'm not allowed to say.

§:o(

What I said was, I'm not willing to limit science. Religion seeks to do just that.

Hallelujah!

On the contrary, science only answers the questions people *do* think to ask. That was a bizarre statement.

As to the rest of your post... I obviously cannot comment.

God exists outside of time and is not affected by it. Only such a being could create a system (the universe) which provides the means of measuring time but also provides the dwelling place for all of his created beings. The only feature of God that is of real interest to me is the personal care that God gives to his sons and daughters. He sustains those who call on him providing comfort and material means to live, as well as the desire of their hearts. He promises eternal life and joy to his children and provides proof individually to all who call on his name. Science promises nothing except knowledge that humans are of no value or at least no more value than a cricket. Death signals the final end of a life with no purpose and no destination. If there is no purpose to life, why not kill oneself? The mortality rate for scientists is 100 percent

Yes.

Because then one wouldn't find out what comes next :)

Is this supposed to mean something? The mortality rate for everyone is 100%. And so?

You have some very pretty and life-affirming notions of god. Science can't really adress whether they are true or not directly, but I can look at the creation revealed by science, and test it against a creation I would expect to see were the Christian vision of god true.

I find marked discrepancies, which is why I stopped believing in the Christian god.

There may be some other kind of god/creator - existing in or out of time, though what existence out of time could possibly mean is hard to imagine, as we are slaves to time ourselves.

Perhaps we are actually incapable of imagining what god is like.

You are projecting here, Milt. Obviously I get meaning from a different place than do you.

Which agrees, I think, with the mortality rate for non-scientists. Do I also sense that you are implying an exact correspondence between scientists and atheists?

Hi Milt -- Welcome to ground zero.

I believe that part of the evolution of the universe is the building of purpose. In a small, personal, way this requires that each of us seek and develop our purpose.

We need not be permanently bronzed in the great hall of harps and cherubs to give our own little push to the evolution of the universal moral, spiritual and intelectual unity of this universe. This unity happens in God's time and for God's purposes and to God's design. We are just cogs in the machine.

P.s. Don't get too bound up by the term "evolution" here; it has uses way outside the scope of Darwin's descriptions.

Yes mortality rate for everyone is 100 percent. Bible teaches that all men will die the first(physical ) death. And then there will be a judgement. Revelation talks of the second death where wicked shall die forever. Not much to look forward to.

God says he is the I Am, meaning he doesn't dwell in time and there is no way to relate to his existance. He is. Some bible translations call him the Eternal one. In our terms of time we say he always was but that again is a time related term. He simply exists and there is no other one like him. God gives one identity. My father is rich in houses and lands. He holds the wealth of the world in his hands. He does not coerce. Family membership is by invitation and joining is always voluntary. Whar does science offer that lifts one up in this manner?

Why should it?

Why do we need to be "lifted up" or "comforted" in our view of the universe? Why should creation be "about" us?

There is a certain arrogance in the mosaic faiths that I think is totally beyond the comprehension of the vast majority of their adhearants due to the world-view that these faiths present.

In the vast creation that we can observe we are tiny beyond all reason! The scale of humanity compared to the visible universe can not even be modeled in understandable terms using available comparisons on Earth.

To be a rare and precious part of an inordantly great whole can be very uplifting, so long as one abandons personal recognition in this process.

I really can't accept that I, nor even all of humanity, constitute the "point" of this wonderous creation!

First of all, `Yah, what Keith says!'

Then how am I supposed to know anything about Him? You have given me, thus far, mere assertions based upon your reading of the Bible. I am happy to allow that your faith is based on more than this, and I ask that you explain further.

A hard hearted bunch-perhaps

You are trapped on a tiny speck of real estate somewhere in time and space. With your natural senses you can only see a tiny window in the electro-magnetic spectrum. Likewise with your other senses. Man has no purpose in this universe that science can enumerate. There is no meaning to life other than what value you place it.

Like the 12 step programs. Until you recognize that your life is out of control and dis-belief is your problem, no answer will suffice.

You are alone in a vast universe. A speck of energy that will dissipate and be absorbed into the vast energy supply and no one will remember you. Interestingly, if that is whatyou want, you will have it.

Like I said before, Milt, you are projecting. Just because you have felt alone and out of control without belief does not imply that I do. I personally revel in my smallness and am quite content with the purpose I instill in my own life. It is unfortunate that you are unable to justify your own faith without at the same time insisting that everyone else ought to believe as you do. I am happy to let you believe as your experiences have taught you without condemning you to the flames. Please do the same for me.

And you still have not given us the reasons why you believe.

This is a rather extraordinary sentence. The problem, as was mentioned quite a few times, is that of proof. On what should we rely for confirmation of such sentence? I assume that you reject a scientific epistemology. Could you please elaborate this statement?

This is also quite extraordinary (and independent, I would say, of your previous statement), since it implies a considerable anthropomorphization of god. But how can an anthropomorphic intelligence live "out of time"?

Here too I see a certain contradiction. Life is eternal if it lasts forever, but what is the meaning of forever if god (and, I suppose, the righteous souls) live out of time?

Science doesn't promise anything except that it will try to understand how things really are, without preconceptions. If god exists, that is something we would like to know, but if we are no more valuable than a cricket, that also would be interesting to know.

As I said in an old post, the main difference here is one of epistemology. I illustrated this with my little paradox that, if science proved the existence of god, it still would be anti-religious.

Can't answer all questions at one time but will try to get to each one.

Everything in universe dies. Stars grow and die. The common thread in the physical world is change. All things are in motion. All things vibrate. All things have an end. There are 4 dimensions, time being the one parameter that moves inexorably. Even though our perceptions are geared to a small window of time based probably on our life span, we hypothesize about millions of years and eons and millenia. We talk of the big bang and the final collapse of the univese back into an immense mass of small dimensions to only trigger itself into another cycle of expansion and collapse. Brahma sleeps and when he sleeps he dreams. From our vantage point of 500 years of scientific inquiry of the projected age of the earth, we are looking at .000001 approx of time of the earths history. In the time frame of 4.6 billion years, Science which has only one millionth of a time window is saying we can extrapolate all unknown variables. But the point I wanted to make is this. God is not subject to decay and death. The greater must produce the lesser. By definition God is greater and therefore capable from time standpoint to create the universe. From a purely hypothetical viewpoint, doesn't it make more sense that the creator could have a book produced containing all necessary knowledge. I think you would have to agree that God, if he exists as stated, could certainly produce a bible conraining truth

You are making a number of mistakes in your argument. First of all, death and decay are subjective points of view. From the point of view of the earth, my death is only a transformation in the components of my body. The only decay argument that you can reasonably do is the entropic increase in adiabatic systems. Unfortunately, from the fact that the entropy always increases, you can't deduce the existence of some entity for which it doesn't.

Not necessarily. Self-organization is a means for complex systems to grow without a "greater" system designing them.

If the existence of god is stated, which is a fairly big if. I, for one, do not state the existence of god. One problem is: can you state the existence of god independently of the bible? If you can't, your argument is a petitio principii. If you hypothesize a god, it would be capable of producing the bible, but also the Veda, the native American oral traditions, or Pinocchio. Since these are in contradiction, what makes you believe that the bible is "the" book?

Also, god could have written the truth in a book, but it would not necessarily have done so. Again, what makes you think that it has?

I suppose that, were she to exist, the usual attributes ascribed to God would render your statement correct. However, this is a grand supposition.

Can you explain what you mean by this? At face value, it is plainly untrue.

Where did God come from? I have good reason to believe the universe exists, so I am happy to take this and roll with it. It leaves me with a great deal to do. Why posit something which created the universe?

Necessary for who and for what? I presume you mean for humankind. Well, as I stated before, I am with Keith in thinking that humankind is very far indeed from being the final effect of the Creator's initial cause. We differ in that Keith says this while believing in a Creator, whereas I do not.

Of course He could; He can do as He pleases. But what you are talking about would be, I am guessing, the very same Bible that Christians use (in its many forms, with its many interpretations)? I have read it, and I find it hard to believe it contains the Truth. Here we differ, I am thinking.

And you still have not told me why I should believe in your God.