Thursday, May 04, 2006

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.

10 comments:

  1. Danny didn't do science very well either if he can't grasp the relationship between energy and matter. Guess those guys slamming photons into atoms were wasting their time...

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  2. Well done Steve. I have been having a similar discussion with an individual in a theology list. He is a theistic evolutionist because he also asserts that God is subject to the laws of nature. Thank you for your well reasoned response to naturalism; it has given me both encouragement and ammunition.

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  3. Eklektos,

    Duane? Duane Ertle?

    Care to explain my error in more detail?

    Are you the "Bones of Contention" Duane Ertle that pops up in CreationTalk long enough to make a dolt of himself by confusing velocity and acceleration? The one who claims that Einstein was wrong?

    Steve,

    I'm going to start a post on DC soon about cosmology. In the meanwhile, check out Dawson's response regarding ex nihilo-esque silliness.

    Best,
    D

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  4. I'm not whoever you think I am. Nor do I have a problem with Einstein, and as relativity does not prove the BB anyway why bring him up? Bones of Contention deals with paleoanthropology and not cosmology, hence is irrelevant too. You might remember that my post was in response to your assertion that energy formed the universe and not matter. But while energy can be converted to matter the reverse is true also. So you still have to account for the energy, and this offers no solution. You might worry less about deflecting criticism by implying I’m whoever this person is that you seem to have a problem with and dealing with the issue at hand.
    As energy can be converted to matter, and vice versa they are simply states. If you have a problem with that I suggest you take it up with particle physicist. If neither matter nor energy existed then it would have to be created from nothing if the materialist vision were true. That would be ex nihilo(from nothing). If you claim it’s eternal you would have to provide some reason to believe that; other than the alternative's unpalatable to you. Just so stories won't get it. The reason material causes are assumed is philosophical, not scientific. Hawkings and Ellis admit as much when they wrote, "We cannot make cosmological models without some admixture of ideology". Hawkings and Ellis, "The Large Scale Structure of Space and Time"
    Dawson's post is rather tepid, largely consisting of question begging and circular reasoning laced with unsupported polemic. Cosmology has no explanation for the origin of anything prior to the BB, and indeed claims that we cannot know anything prior to it. This makes the foundation of BB cosmologies unfalsifiable. As we are dealing with the question of the origin of the components of the universe his charge of false dichotomy rings quite hollow. If quantum mechanics is a function of a universe that did not exist prior to the BB you are left with a problem. If you want to claim that natural laws existed in lieu of the universe then give us a "rational" reason to believe that. You are back to assuming what materialist claim is not unsupported belief, or what you call superstition. Either you can demonstrate in a "rational" way the origin of the universe from the beginning or you can't, and of course you can't. The oscillating universe, which is the most common eternal existence theory, is nothing more than a unproven assertion. Most cosmologist believe that the universe left unchecked will simply suffer heat death, as its expansion is actually accelerating with no end in sight. In order to escape this observation and make their cosmology work materialist have theorized a host of unobserved material such as the oort cloud, dark matter, and positron regions.
    Once again we see that materialist claims of “rationality” are rife with philosophical assumptions and holding others to a standard they do not observe themselves. I’m afraid I don’t have the faith for such convoluted thinking. I may presuppose a God, but you must presuppose a plethora of things. Such a worldview is hardly "simpler".

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  5. You might remember that my post was in response to your assertion that energy formed the universe and not matter. But while energy can be converted to matter the reverse is true also. So you still have to account for the energy, and this offers no solution.
    Um, I didn't claim that "energy formed the universe". The universe is matter and energy, and there is no reason to suppose that they ever were created, and the 1st Law neatly dispenses with your presupposition that they were.

    The present state of the universe, with space-time, is indeed a particular arrangement of matter and energy. My point was that in our present state, matter is in the form of atoms. My point was also that during and before the BB, matter did not exist in this state, so that, yes indeedy, energy and matter conversion is what gave rise to the present universe.

    Nothing I said is above a bright 8th-grader's grasp. But, you quite clearly miss it:
    If neither matter nor energy existed then it would have to be created from nothing if the materialist vision were true.

    No. The universe is not temporally "eternal" because time itself is related to the existence of space-time, which is itself dated 13.7 Bya. However, matter and energy were not created at that point, but were converted to into the present state of the universe, space-time.

    Are you getting it yet?

    And yes, Einstein's equations do indeed posit the beginning of space-time. His self-professed greatest blunder (in which he really meant that he was not true to the science, and manipulated it) was the "cosmological constant" that he injected to attempt to correct for the beginning of space-time. Maybe you ought to go read Einstein before accusing me of being ignorant of good ol' E=mc2.

    Maybe you ought to read a paper on the cyclic model, which is indeed becoming mathematically modeled, and does not violate the 2nd LoT, because the 2nd LoT is a state function and all one must do is set the net entropy = 0 relative to an observer:
    Steinhardt: In the new cyclic model, the entropy created during one cycle is diluted during the period of accelerated expansion, but is not draw together (i.e., remains dilute) during the contraction period. The total entropy of the universe as a whole increases steadily from bounce to bounce, as demanded by the second law of thermodynamics. However, the entropy from the previous cycle is spread to regions beyond the horizon during the period of dark energy domination. So, as far as a local observer is concerned, the entropy density and the total entropy within the horizon is driven to zero each cycle and the universe appears to begin afresh.. (source

    In order to escape this observation and make their cosmology work materialist have theorized a host of unobserved material such as the oort cloud, dark matter, and positron regions.
    I won't defend astronomers with the oort cloud, nor cosmologists with dark matter. I know that they have some indirect evidence of the Oort Cloud, just like in particle physics, where all evidence is indirect and arises from atom smashing. You've been reading too much AiG/ICR pseudoscience. With respect to cosmologists, I seriously expect some major changes to the Standard Model, especially the incorporation of M-theory and its subsequent mathematics, applied to resolve the long-standing problems of flatness, magnetic monopoles and horizon inflation. Read Here for more on Dark Matter.

    Your statement here was rife with irony:
    If you claim it’s eternal you would have to provide some reason to believe that;
    I already did, doof -- the Law of Conservatioin. And what reason do you provide to believe your God is eternal? Right, it's presupposed and axiomatic.

    The oscillating universe, which is the most common eternal existence theory, is nothing more than a unproven assertion.
    I'd love to first hear your definition of "proof". I'd also love to see you talk to a real cosmologist about it. I'm going to start a thread on cosmology at DC, and address and review most of the strengths and weaknesses of the Standard Model and cyclic theories there.

    I may presuppose a God, but you must presuppose a plethora of things. Such a worldview is hardly "simpler".
    Um, like what? I presuppose that I can trust my senses and my mind, and that matter/energy is all there is, because it was never created and cannot be destroyed. Everything else logically follows. Hardly a "plethora"

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  6. Steve,

    I have decided not to address most of the points in your post due to time constraints. Suffice it to say that anyone who discounts naturalism/materialism on the basis of how I argue it (or fail to) is already convinced it cannot explain such concepts as Steve questions. A few works on Physicalism that were reviewed on written by my freethought group advisor include:
    1) A Physicalist Manifesto
    2) How to Be A (Sort Of) A Priori Physicalist (copy & paste this into Word to fix the text size)
    3) Chalmers' work

    To answer your question about numbers:
    Do "numbers" exist other than as a concept? Do concepts exist other than inside minds? Do minds exist which do not supervene on the physical brain?

    The object quantifications "1" and "pi" supervene on the physical/material entities which they describe (the latter, a ratio of the attributes of a physical object -- a circle)

    What is your explanation for numbers? God poofed them, and there they were? Or they are eternally existent, since there is this "3-in-1" God?

    Anyway, thanks for the petty barb about my admission that I am not a philosopher (and don't claim or try to be). What are you, in real life? I'm betting you're no philosopher either, from your posts. More of an armchair apologist and defender of Calvin, I'll bet.

    Back to the object at hand -- I'll write on cosmology soon, and materialism, if time allows.

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  7. The present state of the universe, with space-time, is indeed a particular arrangement of matter and energy. My point was that in our present state, matter is in the form of atoms. My point was also that during and before the BB, matter did not exist in this state, so that, yes indeedy, energy and matter conversion is what gave rise to the present universe.

    This is simply the eternal universe theory. You’re dodging the issue. Where did it come from? Don’t evade the question, I covered the eternal material problem.

    No. The universe is not temporally "eternal" because time itself is related to the existence of space-time, which is itself dated 13.7 Bya. However, matter and energy were not created at that point, but were converted to into the present state of the universe, space-time.

    Yes Danny, we are aware that time came into existence with the BB, but as you posit the existence of some form of matter(and of course we never specified a form, merely that it existed and must be accounted for)existed when there was no BB, so the use of the term before would apply. The matter at the bottom of a gravity well is still matter, account for it. You’re playing semantic games. Offer some proof.

    And yes, Einstein's equations do indeed posit the beginning of space-time.

    That’s not the BB. That’s a bait and switch. Einstein in fact rejected the compression of matter into a black hole, ie to a singularity. Nobody debates the start of space/time. The question is how? All you did was assume the BB. Again, I never mentioned E=MC/2

    I’ll skip the cyclic drivel, which is no more proven than that monkeys wrote Shakespeare. Don’t assume facts exist where they don’t. Dark matter, and the rest are not proven, they are merely posited. If you can prove them then do it! Show us your peer reviewed paper which show the observation of any of the items I mentioned. I’m aware there is literature which claims that they exist, but no observations!

    Um, like what? I presuppose that I can trust my senses and my mind, and that matter/energy is all there is, because it was never created and cannot be destroyed. Everything else logically follows.

    I’ve just shown that it doesn’t logically follow, it must be assumed. A system which is built on ignoring evidence and manufacturing things to plug the leaks has little that logically follows. What logically follows is that it’s a bad system.

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  8. A quick note on this rhubarb.:

    First, the singularity is an artefact of inadequate mathematics to deal with quantum gravity, and it will "disappear" after we have the models necessary.

    Translation: "we know what we're claiming now is wrong, but don't worry, 20 years from now we'll replace this with something right; trust us! During the interval believe our wrong model and abandon your faith."

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  9. I'm not giving up my faith no matter what the scientists discover!

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  10. Amen, Brother Sokiko!

    Hallelujah!

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