touchstone said...
“I can't rebut what I don't have, Steve. You've not given me an argument for what constitutes *enough* survival resources for Adam so we can see your work in declaring Adam unfit for survival over the last million or more years.”
You fall back to one retrenchment after another. I spent a lot of time deconstructing your evasive endeavor to shift the burden of proof. Your response was to evade that as well.
You’re now reduced to semantic ploys about whether the argument was cast in “categorical” terms or not.
***QUOTE***
I present an astronomical phenomenon, one of the most studied in all of astronomy, and pointed out that the measurements involved
Is it all just a mystical dream, Steve? Is that your scientific argument here? If not, then how do you account for the 170,000 years implied by the speed of light?
It's not a trick question, or a trap. I'll show my work:
1. Feb 1987, light from supernova reaches earth.
2. Trigonometric measurements and light curve analysis agree on a distance from earth at approx. 167,000 light years.
3. If earth is 167,000 light years from the source of light (the supernova itself), then the shortest possible time it could have taken to get here is 167,000 years. Since light travels at most 1 light-year/year (hence the name!), if we observe light from a source 167,000 mile away, the universe must be at least 167,000 years old.
So there's my argument. If you want to press on the trigonometry or light analysis, there's a whole mess of published papers we can consult on it.
Now, how does a YEC account for this phenomenon? Can YECs explain something like this scientifically?
***END-QUOTE***
1.To judge by your pervasive performance up until now, I seriously doubt that you would understand any explanation that threatens your commitment to theistic evolution.
You have TE etched onto your spectacles. You can only see the evidence through your TE spectacles.
2.The observable evidence is not the point at issue here. Rather, what’s at issue is the interpretive framework.
At a philosophical level, this is the issue:
i) Dating is a chronometric function. Dating involves the measurement of time. The apparent (or real) passage of time.
ii) Measurement involves a metric. The application of a metric to the thing to be measured.
iii) Time and space don’t come to us in brightly labeled metrical units. Rather, we apply a metric to time.
iv) Time and space are continua. We divide up space and time, but our subdivisions aren’t given in nature. That’s simply an imposition on our part for our own convenience.
The temporal continuum is not, itself, subdivided into discrete moments or instants.
*We* can subdivide the temporal continuum into a sequence of isocronic or equidistant intervals, but that is not given in nature. It is not, on the face of it, an objective feature of the temporal continuum.
v) Time is not a “thing.” Rather, it’s a mode of being. A subsistent mode of finite things.
How do you measure a mode? Does a mode have an intrinsic topology or metrical structure?
vi) So this raises the question of whether time itself has an intrinsic metric. Or is time internally amorphous?
That’s not an easy question to answer. Indeed, the question may be unanswerable. It cannot be experimentally disproven since any chronometric experiment presumes the prior adoption of a metric rule, so the exercise is moving in a circle.
You can dismiss these metascientific questions with adjectives like “mysticism,” but adjectives are no substitute for arguments.
Is Poincaré a mystical dreamer? Or John Lucas? Or Adolf Grünbaum, &c?
3.At a theological level, this is the issue:
Did the set of contingent internal relations which constitute the physical universe come into being incrementally (cosmic evolution), or did God instantiate the set *as* a set (creation ex nihilo)?
When you talk about light reaching the earth from a distant star, that involves a relation between two objects.
There are two different way in which that internal relation could obtain: (i) incrementally or (ii) simultaneously.
Now, if you’re going to assume the posture of methodological naturalism, then science cannot speak to the issue of creation ex nihilo since, by definition (a la methodological naturalism), that would be a metascientific question.
So, by your own chosen definition, the scientific evidence can never run counter to a side-effect of fiat creation.
You can, if you like, dismiss creation ex nihilo as a mystical dream. If so, you excommunicate yourself from historic Christian orthodoxy.
Or you can affirm creation ex nihilo, but pretend that it should never be allowed to figure in our scientific models. If so, your disjunction is arbitrary.
To deny the impact of creation ex nihilo on the inaugural system of internal relations which constitute the physical universe is a form of functional atheism—in which you secularize the event to the point where primary causality excluded, and all that remains is the brute fact of second causes.
You think it’s very important to classify answers as scientific or “mystical.”
I think it’s more important to classify answers as true or false.
:::SNIZZZZ!!!!:::
ReplyDeleteHi Steve,
ReplyDeleteYou said:
You fall back to one retrenchment after another. I spent a lot of time deconstructing your evasive endeavor to shift the burden of proof. Your response was to evade that as well.
You’re now reduced to semantic ploys about whether the argument was cast in “categorical” terms or not.
In an earlier post about Adam, you made this claim:
ii) Assuming evolution to be true, man did not have the wherewithal to survive.
That's a categorical claim. Evolution *could* not be true, according to this claim. It's fine to make the claim, but as it is, it's just naked assertion -- ipse dixit. If your claim has any epistemic strength we should be able examine the criteria for this claim. Specifically, what would (proto-)man have needed to survive?
You made the claim, not me. If you can't supply even a rudimentary framework for determining what would be sufficient for survival, then let's call your claim what it is - a naked assertion.
You said:
1.To judge by your pervasive performance up until now, I seriously doubt that you would understand any explanation that threatens your commitment to theistic evolution.
I understand you feel that way. But others reading might appreciate you actually addressing the question. Perhaps they are able to understand.
You said:
2.The observable evidence is not the point at issue here. Rather, what’s at issue is the interpretive framework.
I specifically used the word "scientifically" to constrain the discussion to a scientific plane. I'm quite interested to see if you respond to scientific questions with meta-scientific critiques. If you do, I believe my major thesis here is established -- you cannot engage on science, because science destroys your paradigm. You are divorced from it, and must resort to meta-scientific critiques.
I really *am* interested in how you address the scientific questions implicated by SN1987A, by the way. You can offer as much philosophical critique of science as you'd like, but that doesn't prevent you from actually taking up the science question itself, from within your own interpretive framework.
At a philosophical level, this is the issue:
Note: I've asked scientific questions, hoping for a scientific answer, but expecting only meta-science. Here we are looking at meta-science.
i) Dating is a chronometric function. Dating involves the measurement of time. The apparent (or real) passage of time.
Sure.
ii) Measurement involves a metric. The application of a metric to the thing to be measured.
Yep.
iii) Time and space don’t come to us in brightly labeled metrical units. Rather, we apply a metric to time.
No one here said they did, Steve.
iv) Time and space are continua. We divide up space and time, but our subdivisions aren’t given in nature. That’s simply an imposition on our part for our own convenience.
How do you know that subdivisions *aren't* given in nature. Suppose I assert -- for the sake of argument -- that time *is* fundamentally quantized, just as spatial dimensions are quantized. On what grounds do you reject the assertion that space-time is fundamentally quantized into indivisible, absolute chunks?
There are several threads currently active in physics that are pursuing the idea that space-time *is* fundamentally quantized, and that Lorentz symmetries break down at or near the Planck scale due to this quantization. Moreover, there's some good observational evidence (type in 'GZK limits' in you Google box for more) that fits with this idea very well.
I don't know where you got the idea that space or time *must* be continua. A little bit of Googling will show that this is not a fact in evidence. You might try Googling for "loop quantum theory", for example. Or thumb through the index of the many quantum theory books there on your desk.
The temporal continuum is not, itself, subdivided into discrete moments or instants.
As above, you've got no basis for this claim. There are a number of competing physics theories that are predicated on the notion that there *is* a quantum "chunking" at work.
If you have knowledge that this is not the case, you can help them by waving them off their wild goose chase.
I'm undecided as to how compelling those theories are. But to hear physicist friends who attend conferences on these issues, it's very much an open question. I'll spare you a cavalcade of links, but if you dispute this, I'm ready to provide an avalanche of scientific work that operates on the idea that space-time is *not* a smooth continuum.
v) Time is not a “thing.” Rather, it’s a mode of being. A subsistent mode of finite things.
How do you measure a mode? Does a mode have an intrinsic topology or metrical structure?
How do you know this? If space-time *is* fundamentally quantized, then time *is* a thing in the most direct immanent sense. These appear to be more categorical statements without any identifiable support.
You said:
vi) So this raises the question of whether time itself has an intrinsic metric. Or is time internally amorphous?
That’s not an easy question to answer. Indeed, the question may be unanswerable. It cannot be experimentally disproven since any chronometric experiment presumes the prior adoption of a metric rule, so the exercise is moving in a circle.
This works on the assumption that we can only "know" through direct measurement. That's not a limitation in practice. If the quantized model of space-time perfectly predicts and explains physical phenomenon, then it's by definition useful knowledge. Meta-scientific critiques do not change the fact that a successful prediction is a successful prediction.
In any case, we can use "time" as descriptive language to refer to physical change, but labels and philosophical musings don't affect the underlying physics, whatever they are.
You can dismiss these metascientific questions with adjectives like “mysticism,” but adjectives are no substitute for arguments.
I'm looking for a scientific treatment, and I'm getting meta-scientific treatments. I note that here, and suggest that is the box you must keep yourself in. My hypothesis is that you unable to engage on scientific questions, as you fundamentally reject science as an epistemology. That's your right, but it's also my point. YECs and scientific epistemologies are fundamentally incompatible. That whole 'divorced from science' thing.
Is Poincaré a mystical dreamer? Or John Lucas? Or Adolf Grünbaum, &c?
Not that I'm aware. But I'd be inclined to say so if his best answer to a request for scientific response to a scientific question was: "What is time, really?"
Meta-science and philosophy of science have their place. But for you, it's simply a shield to protect yourself from the scientific implications of you interpretation of scripture.
3.At a theological level, this is the issue:
Did the set of contingent internal relations which constitute the physical universe come into being incrementally (cosmic evolution), or did God instantiate the set *as* a set (creation ex nihilo)?
Steve, I think you are confused about the concept of ex nihilo creation. I subscribe to the Big Bang Theory, and identify this as *the* archetype for ex nihilo creation. In other words, the Big Bang was the creation of something -- everything -- out of nothing.
Cosmic evolution -- the cooling of the universe and formation of galaxies and planets over billions of years is just a *consequence* of the ex nihilo creation of the Big Bang. There's nothing incompatible between the Big Bang Theory and ex nihilo creation. BBT *is* ex nihilo creation.
Unless you are aware of extant material or space-time prior to the Big Bang?
You said:
When you talk about light reaching the earth from a distant star, that involves a relation between two objects.
Steve, I don't know what you mean by a "relation" here. Is there a *physical* relation you are describing here?
There are two different way in which that internal relation could obtain: (i) incrementally or (ii) simultaneously.
Yikes, now it's an *internal* relation. Internal to what.?
Now, if you’re going to assume the posture of methodological naturalism, then science cannot speak to the issue of creation ex nihilo since, by definition (a la methodological naturalism), that would be a metascientific question.
Sure. No problem with that. That's why physicists just shrug when you ask them "What came before the Big Bang?" Unless there is some sort of scientific rationale for a megaverse (sometimes called a metaverse), science has nothing to say about it. It does become metaphysical at that point, and it's not at all controversial for them to view it that way.
So, by your own chosen definition, the scientific evidence can never run counter to a side-effect of fiat creation.
If have observational evidences that agree with each other and across metrics and disciplines that make an ancient universe the run-away best performing model, then a hypothesis that ex nihilo creation happened 6,000 years ago has a conflict to resolve with the evidence and observations that make the case for a much older universe.
So that's a challenge. Not insurmountable. YECs can take refuge in the pleading for mature creation, suggesting the God made the universe look and act precisely as it would if it were billions of years old. An omnipotent God *could* do that, so it can't be dismissed. It just isn't very compelling as a rationale for many who consider it.
My view of ex nihilo creation, though -- that the Big Bang *was* the primary and initial act of creation -- doesn't have this conflict with the observational evidence, however. I don't have to paint creation as a cosmic illusion. I can view God's creation as real, and authentic in that what we observe *does* correspond to the way God made things.
You can, if you like, dismiss creation ex nihilo as a mystical dream. If so, you excommunicate yourself from historic Christian orthodoxy.
As I've said, I fully affirm ex nihilo creation. I just don't place it at 6,000 years ago. I have no idea why you think that ex nihilo creation would be exclusively a YEC concept.
Or you can affirm creation ex nihilo, but pretend that it should never be allowed to figure in our scientific models. If so, your disjunction is arbitrary.
Broadly speaking, ex nihilo creation *does* figure -- prominently -- in my views on creation. God created the universe from nothing, with the Big Bang being the starting point. Science, being predicated on methodological materialism, *can't* make metaphysical inquiries, it's incapable by *design*. So my identification of God as the creator for of the Big Bang is "extra-scientific". It's not "anti-scientific" like the YEC position is, but instead incorporates science into a broader understanding, a metaphysical understanding that God is the creator of the physical universe, and immanent within it.
To deny the impact of creation ex nihilo on the inaugural system of internal relations which constitute the physical universe is a form of functional atheism—in which you secularize the event to the point where primary causality excluded, and all that remains is the brute fact of second causes.
You think it’s very important to classify answers as scientific or “mystical.”
I think it’s more important to classify answers as true or false.
Is mathematics "functional atheism"?
If it is, do you believe in math?
-Touchstone
Steve can't be divorced from science because he never consumated the relationship.
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