Design at many levels
| September 30, 2007 | Posted by Granville Sewell under Intelligent Design |
In the popular media, the picture that we get of the ID controversy is this: primitive man attributed many phenomena in Nature to design, science has progressively removed the need for the design hypothesis from these phenomena one by one, and now a group of religious fanatics is trying to make a last stand in biological origins, where things are most difficult to explain. The true story is very different; in fact, we are discovering that primitive man was NOT wrong in attributing many phenomena to design, the design just dates back much futher than he imagined, to the origin of the universe. Science is discovering that not only life itself, but a wealth of chemical phenomena that makes life interesting, owes its existence to the astronomically improbable and finely tuned values of the basic constants of physics, such as Planck’s constant, the charge and mass of the electron, the speed of light, the gravitational constant and on and on. Michael Behe, in “The Edge of Evolution,” wisely devotes several pages to this topic, and quotes a National Academy of Science report which acknowledges that it is not unreasonable to see design in the “remarkable and inspiring character of the physical universe”.
But design in the universe can be seen at yet another level. Those who want to avoid the obvious conclusions from fine-tuning argue that there must be a large number of other universes with the same laws, but random values for the physical constants, and one was bound to get the values right. But even this truly unscientific hypothesis fails to address the question of why the basic laws of physics and mathematics are what they are. The assumption seems to be that the fundamental laws of mathematics, and even of physics, could not have been different and therefore need no explanation. But why, for example, are the effects of the fundamental forces of physics on the fundamental particles of physics given by solutions to a (complex-valued!!) eigenvalue partial differential equation, the Schrodinger equation? I can only see two possible “explanations”: 1) it produces the wealth of chemical phenomena (given the right values for the constants) that makes life possible and interesting and 2) it provides some very interesting mathematical problems to keep partial differential equations experts like me entertained. I don’t know of any alternative explanations, do you?
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Albert Voie showed that this applies to origin of life. http://www.idnet.com.au/files/…..atural.pdf
Hmm, interesting.
Makes it sound like design is easily observed by the way information is encoded into memory… That self replication argument is pretty good.
You probably know this old joke:
A Physician, an Engineer, and a Lawyer were discussing their professions. They were trying to determne which profession had been around the longest.
The Doctor said “Doctors were first. In the good book, it states that Eve was created from one of Adam’s ribs…..That required the first surgery. So Doctors were here first.”
The Engineer said, “NOPE, it also said, before Adam and Eve, that God created the heavens and the earth fron chaos. That required a lot of plans and engineering work, so Engineers were here first.”
The Lawyer said, “Guys,who do you think created chaos?.”
LOL,,,gpuccio
If there are an infinite number of universes then in an infinite number of them a God-like entity was spawned in the first picosecond of creation. His mind would be composed of all matter and energy in the universe and his thoughts instantly translated into physical reality. He then created the earth and all other living things just by thinking it.
How do we determine if we are in such a universe or rather in a universe where the only sentient presence is recent and human?
An infinite multiverse explains everything, anything, and thus explains nothing. The only rational way to proceed understanding the universe we inhabit is to presume it was designed and the physical laws that govern it are fixed, immutable, rational, and inviolable. If these physical laws can be broken by whim or by chance then all bets are off. Fortunately for us it appears the universe is rational so we have a fighting chance of figuring out how everything works instead of being stymied by unpredictable, irrational violations of physical laws.
There is another interesting thing about the possibilities of an materialist world of infinite multiverses. That is the fact that in their world our thoughts are material also. If our thoughts are instantiated in the material world there is noting to stop it from becoming the blueprint of some other material form of that thought, in fact it happens all the time – think of writing, robots etc.
Like if you think of a spaghetti monster and you have an instantiated infinite number of universes then in some or an infinite number that spaghetti monster must be real in all the blueprint attributes you and I gave it separately. Just think if the material realities of our thoughts – Stephen King’s included, meet each other? In fact, in an infinite reality that has to happen because if you can think about jumping between universes or space time curves touching at different points then it will happen.
Lucky for us this is not part of our reality and we can empirically conclude that reality is uniform in its created state and our thoughts are metaphysical with limited impact on our physical reality.
Who ever guessed that the materialist will open the “gates of hell” with their multiverse hypothesis. I always thought metaphysics, ghosts and spaghetti monsters are part of religious thinking.
Just another reason why I am not a materialist or believe in an infinite causal regression.
“Math is thus religion not science. As such it should not be taught in schools.”
Lord Calvin certainly agreed with this as well . . .
http://www.evolutiondebate.info/CalvinHobbs.jpg
Dave wrote:
“If there are an infinite number of universes then in an infinite number of them a God-like entity was spawned in the first picosecond of creation.”
Interesting thought.
Another problem with the multiverse hypothesis is that it just moves the problem back one step. Specifically, how do all these multiverses come about — what does the spawning? There must be something that does the spawning, and that something must, in turn, operate within parameters that allow multiple universes to be spawned. In other words, whatever causes the multiple universes to come into existence must itself have some boundary conditions within which to operate. How did those conditions get set up? Well you could posit an infinite regress, but it would not be a pretty argument . . .
Carl,
It is not a formal system from your viewpoint, but from outside?
There may be a formal system in place which we have yet discovered, that predicts order and chaos which you cannot see from inside the system.
There may indeed be formal language and rules. Multiverse is not a problem in my opinion for Christians. There may be millions for all we know. The problem is associating that possibility with different values. As in life would be different with different constants. That is the ender as least objectively to me. And that is not from a “Christian” value. I have problems with that intuitively.
You’re asking us to believe that constants change in a different universe. You ask why is that absurd? I ask then why do they stay the same here? If this is not a formal system? Can there be different states? Yes, of course, just like there are different isotopes.
Truth is you don’t know by current understanding and couldn’t possibly know unless you were the Creator or were informed by the Creator. For now, it is about discovery.
(ha! thanks Albert Voie! I only just perused part of his paper… “That the rules of inference, like the laws of motion and the rules of mathematics, are
larger than Homo sapiens, and we have just progressively discovered them rather than having created them.”)
Good, I’m not having some off the wall thoughts. Glad I took a peak at his paper re: Goedel.
Plus, what we think of as formal systems or not, may be diddly to someone looking in upon the universe we live in, that has greater knowledge.
Therefore, a Creator can indeed tell inhabitants within the system what will happen, not by command order or will only, but by knowing the system can predict the future outcomes and consequences of peoples behavior either as individuals or groups. And can do so without monitoring. Today, we can do this statistically with games like baseball even though some would say the game is not a formal system. You can predict winners and losers by critical stats if they follow them.
I add, that the Creator can establish the rules for winning the game and seeing the universe for the first time from the Creators view if those rules are accepted and followed.
This happens in our social constructs daily and can easily be a pattern of larger truths currently unseen.
This is why someone like Yeshua can say, he came to set the captives free and then taught the rules of freedom…
“Yeshua said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great mitzvah. 39 A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The whole law(rules) and the prophets depend on these two mitzvot.” () emphasis mine.
Matisyahu 22:37
http://www.searchgodsword.org/.....&l=en
Note that he said, the prophets as well, because a false prophet would lie about God’s will and warnings to his people, itching their ears with only sweet sayings. And a true prophet does not change his mind on a whim, which is what happens in another religion.
The underlying rules we discover in life are patterns that we follow to recreate. In the end, this is why Design wins over randomness. One only need to think about a future scenario. Planets will not be created or terraformed by chance by our future generations. They will unfold by programmatic instructions sets based upon fundamentals we have discovered to be eternally true and predictable.
In re: (38).
The term “formal system” is a technical piece of vocabulary. Something can be described by means of a formal system without being a formal system. That’s why the universe isn’t one.
And, at risk of repeating myself, I am not urging or endorsing in any way the multiverse hypothesis. I find it an intriguing piece of metaphysical speculation, but only in the sense of a mental exercise analogous to “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” For me, nothing truly important stands or falls with the multiverse hypothesis.
The reason the multiverse hypothesis is getting play is because of the fine tuning hypothesis. It is needed to counteract it.
Even with the multiverse hypothesis there is the problem with the OOL hypothesis and the timing of the Big Bang. There isn’t enough time or resources to even get to the plate let alone all the way home.
So you need multiverses and then a lot of smoke and mirrors for OOL along with a few special incantations such as “overwhelming evidence.” This is the materialist strategy in a nutshell. Which is why Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice is my metaphor for the materialist crowd.
Carl,
Yes, I’m aware of formal systems definition, but I stand by my comments…
“There may be a formal system in place which we have yet discovered, that predicts order and chaos which you cannot see from inside the system.”
“There may indeed be formal language and rules.”
And I point out there is not always full agreement on rigid outlines of “formal systems.” and boundaries of the defintion are stretched at times to the dismay of many I’m sure.
That is why I stated “language” and “rules.”
You may see this as to wide a concept for formal systems, or unacceptable, but I do not.
My intention was not to corner you in anyway. I agree. It is intriguing for multiple reasons
I was surprised at chaos theory long ago producing patterns in software runs. The thought of it was very surreal seeing a symetry where once it was thought none existed. Likewise I’ve always been interested about blackholes and disagreed with past and current theory on what they are as to how they became blackholes.
Not that I have the current knowledge to comprehend the detail of math and physics in the proposals put forward.
But my suspicion was/or still is, they are simply wrong. I thought of the universe as interacting with other features we simply cannot see and that galaxies where much like whirlpools in water, or tornados, hurricanes, vortexes with a need for being fed, but not as some gravity effect. To me, they were thermal disturbances like anything we see in our field of view today, or even behavior like water in a jeddy. But not gravity related to a dead star sucking stuff in. I think they start due to thermal convections. I think as instruments get better in the future, this can be detected at the critical points of termperature differences in the universe.
I tend to think of multi-verses as part of the equation, but not from some random path, but as a beautiful symetric pattern we just cannot see yet from inside our “formal system.” Yeah, I know, you and probably everyone else disagree with me .
But, as to patterns, some of the latest news may be confirming my ideas in cosmology. Confusion in expectations are music to my ears with regard to watery like existence of the universe on the outside. A recent story on WMAP in Science is interesting…
hattip: CreationSafaris.com
http://creationsafaris.com/cre.....#20071002c
“Investigators looking for harmonics in the CMB seem to have found surprising alignments. The quadrupole, octupole and other harmonics appear to have axes that line up with each other. Furthermore, they are in the plane of our solar system. Even more bizarre, they are aligned with the line of equinoxes. What’s going on here? Is this a clue that we occupy a special position in the universe? Some cosmologists, uncomfortable with such notions which the Copernican Principle was supposed to dismiss, have called this alignment the “axis of evil.””
cont…
Please, understand, this is all speculation and fun for me to entertain some thoughts as what I suspected is there was always rotation of the universe and the galaxies I see as large funnel systems at different stages of creation, existence and dissipation. Likewise, I think the Universe is similar and can dissipate over time, but not the way Cosmologist have thought over the years.
Everything in life we see is spinning or moving even in the deep cold recesses. These systems, vortexes, thermal, centrifical are all living off of the thermal differences. A dead star is dead and essentially canon fodder for the collions that may take place in such a system. The Xrays emanating from “black holes” are results of collisions, nothing more.
And this next statement is going to read truly weird. But, I think some light we see in space is due to a light source outside our own universe.
OK, that was fun
[...] the way, in a previous (Sept 30) post I addressed another interesting and related question, with implications for ID: why on Earth should [...]
Hi bFast.
I was thinking about your thinking on a infinte number of universes not being enough. My thinking is that an infinite number of universes is enough and the reason is as follows. But first let me say that I am in no sense a mathematical genius so if I get terms confused I hope that it won’t get in the way of the reasoning or the comprehension thereof.
I’ll start by saying I don’t think that it is a good idea to use an inifite number of values. Whether you obtain the infinite number of values by going any any direction forever or by because there are inifite values between any two values.
With regard to the latter it seems that we need to look at sets of ranges of values i.e. their is a range of values for which the strong nuclear force will work, however small the range is. The set being the range of values for each requirements i.e. strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, etc.
With regard to the former it is not clear that we can go indefintely in any direction for any force in fact that does not appear to be possible. For example a partical has a finite minimum size.
So it seems – to me anyway -that the set of ranges of required values is not infinite.