Robotics & design

Brother Danny said:

“Re your analogy with robotics and "design":
Let's compare, shall we?”

“Scientific laws state that matter and energy are conserved, not created or destroyed.”

Yes, Danny, we’ve all heard of the law of conservation. We’re children of the scientific age too, you know.

But are you using “law” descriptively—or proscriptively in terms of what is possible?

God is not bound by natural law. God owns the whole house; he’s not a house-burglar who must “break” into his own home. He has the key.

“The Big Bang is a singularity out of which space-time was created, but not energy. The idea is that matter, in the form we all know and love -- atoms, did not exist until after the BB cooled. That doesn't mean that matter/energy were "created" by the BB, and in fact, we would be declaring "something from nothing". First, the singularity is an artefact of inadequate mathematics to deal with quantum gravity, and it will "disappear" after we have the models necessary. Second, the singularity is a uniquely "unphysical" event, in which infinite density is posited, and infinite mass, without volume.”

i) I never appealed to the Big Bang.

For the record, I’m an indirect realist. As such, I don’t have much use for scientific theorizing about the origins of the world, whether in the form of conventional cosmology or creation science.

ii) Are you or are you not a materialist? If so, what are mathematical entities?

iii) I think you’re getting carried away with hyperbolic language about “infinite” mass and “infinite” density.

“Back to your [godawful] analogy:
we know human beings
we know the sorts of activities they employ, and the objects they use
we know the materials that they use, and how they manipulate them

thus, in archeology, "finding a designer" is trivial”

i) Yes, that’s warmed over Hume. Been there, done that.

It assumes that the design inference is an argument from experience. Wrong.

How do I know that a watchmaker is trying to make a watch? I don’t have direct access to his intentions.

Yes, I can observe him making a watch, but I cannot observe his intention to make a watch.

So I can only judge by the effect. If it’s a timepiece, then I assume he intended to make a watch, and not a flowerpot.

Thus, I infer design on the basis of the watch rather than my experience of the watchmaker.

ii) You’re criterion would also render it impossible to judge whether an alien spacecraft was a product of intelligent design.

After all, we don’t know aliens. We don’t know what sorts of activities they employ, or the objects they use, or the materials they use, or how they manipulate them.

iii) Indeed, by your yardstick we could never learn anything at all. For if we can only learn from experience, then we can never learn anything for the first time.

“We do not know the universe's proposed "D"esigner.”

Actually, we do. It’s called revelation.

And aside from Scripture, we can infer the unknown from the known.

“We do not know the sorts of activities/mechanisms/objects that "D"esigners use [to make universes, or anything else]”

Our ignorance of the process is irrelevant to our knowing that an effect must have had a cause.

“We do not know how matter can be created ex nihilo, and scientific laws contradict this.”

Two basic blunders:

i) Creation ex nihilo doesn’t “violate” any laws of nature, for creation is what instantiates the forces of nature in the first place. No creation, no natural laws. The laws of nature are a consequence of creation, not a barrier to creation.

ii) Even if it were a violation of natural law, so what? From a Christian standpoint, natural law is merely a synonym for providence. God is not bound by the ordinary course of nature.

“Can we say non sequitur, from the flaws pointed out above?”

I agree. Your flawed rebuttal is a non sequitur. Happy now?

“Every unfalsified prediction of science is evidence that supports the uniformity of natural law.”

In that event, it only takes a single false prediction to falsify the uniformity of nature.

Since there are plenty of these to choose from, you’ve disproven your own thesis. Thanks a bunch.

“What "substantiates" the view of nature as "interruptible" rather than your faith and dogmatic attachment to dusty scrolls of uncertain origins by unknown authors?”

i) You seem to suffer from short-term memory loss. As I already explained, any observational testimony for the regularity of nature must share equal time with observational testimony for the miraculous.

Predictions are only as good as observers to confirm them.

ii) Not all predictions are scientific predictions. There are also prophetic predictions. The argument from prophecy is a stock argument in apologetics.

iii) Belief in the miraculous isn’t limited to past events, as I also said before.

iv) Belief in the uniformity of nature, which is, in the nature of the case, radically undetermined by any available or attainable evidence, is a textbook specimen of dogmatic faith.

v) To say the Bible was written by unknown authors is a naked assertion bereft of any supporting argument.

By contrast, there is an extensive body of scholarly literature defending the traditional authorship of Scripture.

“What axiomatic stance do you have? Nature is uniform...except when God intervenes...which I know by...the Bible?”

i) You have skewed the alternatives by treating uniformity as the standard of reference, against which any “interruption” would be an inexplicable anomaly. Once again you resort to a rhetorical gimmick in lieu of a real argument.

ii) Science is supposed to be based on observation and discovery, not stipulative definitions of what can happen in advance of the fact.

iii) The Bible is one of my sources of information.

iv) But I also don’t come to the table with your preconceived notion of what is possible. All you’ve done is to cloak your prejudice in the name of science.

“As I said in the beginning, much of this post seems to revolve around Hume vs. religious believers. Those who agree with Hume are going to stack up on one side, and side with science and UN and naturalism, etc., and those who disagree are going to stack up on the other side.”

The uniformity of nature is not a scientific deliverance. And it’s not a precondition for doing science.

Likewise, naturalism is not a scientific deliverance. And it’s not a precondition of doing science.

“I am not a philosopher”

Yes, and it shows.

“But I've done enough science to know ‘superstition’ and ‘miracles’ are non-answers to the reality of our cosmos. They are faith objects. They connote no more secure knowledge than leaving a blank or gap and admitting, ‘I don't know, but I believe...’"

How would doing science yield your conclusion?

Miracles were never intended to be the answer to every phenomenon. If a “natural” explanation will suffice, fine.

The fact that a “natural” explanation may be sufficient under ordinary circumstances is irrelevant to those cases wherein it cannot account for the phenomenon.

“We *know* that every human being in recorded history has died a physical death,”

This is not inconsistent with Scripture, for Scripture has a doctrine of mortality.

“Excepting those recorded in "Scriptures"”

And Scripture gives a reason for the exceptions.

“Which also record lots of other goodies, like that the earth was created before the stars, that the plants were created before the sun, that the "days" were present before the sun,”

And the problem with all this is what, exactly?

“That 10 plagues were poured out on Egypt (though there is no evidence for it, and evidence to the contrary), that a Exodus occurred where 600,000 men (not counting women and children) left Egypt and wandered for 40 years...(ditto on the evidence)...”

I already responded to Dagood’s post. Try again.

“SOOO...you guys stick with your religious faith, I'll call it superstition, and I'll stick with a universe in which flippant magical Beings don't do miracles every couple of thousand years and let the "well-oiled machine" run the rest of the time. I'll stick with naturalism, because it works, and I have evidence, and not faith, that it does.”

i) This is an ignorant caricature of the opposing position.

You impute a deistic framework to Scripture, in relation to which any miracle would be a deus ex machina.

Since that is not an accurate characterization of the Christian worldview, you are burning a strawman.

ii) In what sense does naturalism “work”? Can naturalism explain abstract objects like numbers? Can naturalism explain consciousness?

iv) To say that you have evidence instead of faith conveniently ignores, without so much as an argument, an extensive body of apologetic literature in which various lines of evidence are brought to bear in defense of the faith.

All you’ve done is to lock yourself into a windowless room and unscrew the light bulb, then pat yourself on the back because you don’t see any evidence to the contrary.

SOOO…you guys stick with your irreligious faith. I’ll call it superstition and prejudice, and I’ll stick with observation, testimony, and discovery instead of dictating to the universe what it’s allowed to do.