Re: Archbishop more or less admits there's no God
- From: "pbowles@xxxxxxx" <pbowles@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 07:27:20 -0700 (PDT)
On 31 Mar, 23:54, Andrew <thecr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2009-03-31 08:30:59 +0100, "pbow...@xxxxxxx" <pbow...@xxxxxxx> said:
On 31 Mar, 00:33, Andrew <thecr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2009-03-30 00:05:37 +0100, "pbow...@xxxxxxx" <pbow...@xxxxxxx> said:
On 29 Mar, 23:39, Andrew <thecr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2009-03-29 18:36:42 +0100, "pbow...@xxxxxxx" <pbow...@xxxxxxx> said:
On 28 Mar, 01:29, Andrew <thecr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2009-03-27 18:12:26 +0000, marc_CH <m...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> said:
Andrew wrote:
Why doesn't God ever heal amputees?
Err..because that would contravene the laws of nature that God wrote?
Wow. Stop the presses. You've just said that there is something that
the omnipotent 'god' CANNOT DO. That means he is no more a 'god' than
you or I.
That's a common misunderstanding of "omnipotent". Being omnipotent
doesn't mean that you can do two logically incompatible things
simultaneously.
Why would he be doing two logically incompatible things
simultaneously? If he created the laws of the universe, he did so long
ago - these days they're self-sustaining;
Are they? How do you know that?
Read on to the following sentence. There are strictly mechanical
reasons why objects following an orbit in a vacuum continue to do so
without any external push, for example. No one needs to be patrolling
the universe to ensure nothing goes faster than light because
distortions of space-time as you approach that limit sets a natural
bar nothing can exceed.
Which is to say that there are physical laws that cause these things to
happen. But why are the physical laws what they are?
We don't yet know, although I'm partial to the idea of an underlying
universal geometry in which universes tend to evolve towards a set of
physical laws amenable to life.
That would seem to fit with the current evidence. Forgive me if that
seems a little too damned convenient for me.
It's a strange thing - the universe very often is convenient enough to
fit our understanding of science and mathematics. That's rather how we
judge the accuracy of our models. As a science teacher, you know that
this objection is spurious - you may find it "too convenient" (much as
many people find God "too convenient"), but you can't fault the
reasoning.
I'm not sure if you caught my earlier discussion on this issue or the
analogy I drew with the "creationism debate", so I'll restate it
here.
Traditionally, people have taken a binary approach to this question -
the evidence we have is that the universe is suitable for life. The
explanations favoured are either (1) God did it, or (2) it was an
entirely random process, which can be best explained if there are lots
of universes out there each with its own set of properties.
Both of these solutions are scientifically unpalatable (and, to me, at
least, intuitively so). Most people, in fact, find random chance the
less palatable of the two options. This is where the creationism
analogy comes in. A common trick of creationists is to misrepresent
the development of life on Earth in exactly these binary terms: either
(1) God did it, or (2) it was "blind chance".
We know, of course, that evolution does not proceed by blind chance,
but has a selection mechanism which affects the probability of certain
outcomes (i.e. those which offer a survival advantage persist, while
those that don't die out). It's quite reasonable to suppose the same
is true of the universe - that there is a third way between randomness
and deliberate design.
Let's examine the evidence we have: Out of a sample size of one
universe, we know that one is amenable to life. Plainly one is not a
sufficient sample size to draw any inferences about a probability
distribution. We assume randomness as the default, because that's what
parsimony appears, on the face of it, to demand - it's the simplest
solution.
Therein, of course, we run into a problem. That isn't the full
definition of parsimony, which is "...that best fits the evidence".
Based on the evidence we have, a random probability distribution is
*not* the best fit for our universe. But that doesn't imply that God
is the only suitable alternative, any more than the fact that *random*
evolution doesn't fit the evidence implies that creationism is true.
No doubt there are people who regard natural selection as "a little
too damned convenient" for them, too.
We're at a pre-Darwinian, but 19th Century, stage in our understanding
of the origin of the universe - maybe a pre-Lamarckian stage, but
people are trying to work out what happened, and it's time to
recognise that neither of the options currently on the table is a
suitable or sufficient explanation. Whether there's a universal
geometry that alters the probability distribution in favour of a
universe like ours, or some other factor that produces a similar
outcome, the 'multiverse' is a dead end and God is unnecessary. With
even the possibility of other options, the beginning of the universe
is no longer acceptable as a 'proof of God' (and yes, I know you
didn't present it as one - I'm not putting together a straw man here).
What sustains them?
This is a meaningless question. You point out yourself that the laws
of nature are descriptive. You don't need to maintain a description.
OK. Fair point. What makes sure that that things continue to work in a
consistent way?
Rephrasing the question doesn't make it any more coherent, and it's
veering dangerously close to an intentionalist "why do things work the
way they do?". We observe that the laws are consistent - that, as
you've noted yourself, is why we describe them as being laws. Energy
is always conserved, heat always passes (on average) from a hotter
object to a cooler, etc. There need be no reason this has to be so,
it's just an artefact of the way we categorise things that we
recognise and give names to consistent patterns.
All you're really asking is "Why is a scientific law a scientific
law?" Ultimate causes will of course vary depending on the law, but
some are simply emergent properties of the universe and its component
particles. Gravity, for example, is simply what you get when you have
space-time and some matter to drop in it, and it's there as long as
those components exist and interact. Some may indeed change over time
(as the fine structure constant and/or the speed of light are thought
to have done).
No. There is a fundamental difference between a scientific law and a
legal law. A scientific law is descriptive "this is what things do" and
a legal law is prescriptive "this is what things ought to do".
You're looking at it from a human perspective. If God created
scientific laws, then he was saying "This is what things ought to
do" (in fact "This is what things must do") when he created them.
Or "this is how things are".
This is just semantic. If you're proposing God brought the laws into
being, then there was a time when this was NOT how things are (the
same may well be true if you aren't proposing he brought them into
being), and when God instituted that law he was issuing a decree,
albeit one that particles (and people) aren't capable of breaking.
But actually the human perspective is the
only one that makes sense when we talk of scientific laws. They are
deduced from evidence
And yet you're the one suggesting God put them there. They may be
deduced from evidence, and the terminology we use is our construction,
but there must be something real there from which to draw that
deduction. If I make a deduction about how frogs respond to habitat
loss, the frogs' response to habitat loss is a real phenomenon that
I'm simply describing. So if these laws are real patterns that God put
in place, it makes as much sense to talk about them from his
perspective as from ours.
Phil
.
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