Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Hometrees and supernovae

One of the stock objections to creationism is that it carries with it the notion that some natural objects have illusory histories. When we see a supernova, we see a nonevent. We see something that never really happened. And that, in turn, imputes deception to God.

But while this objection is superficially plausible, it fails to think very deeply about the basic nature of creativity. Indeed, it fails to take into consideration the nature of human creativity, much less divine creativity.

For example, in James Cameron’s Avatar there’s a Hometree that looks older than a Sequoia. To judge by the sheer size of the tree, it would have taken longer to grow than a Sequoia.

In Avatar, the Hometree has an implied history. And this is true of fiction in general. A novelist or playwright usually begins his story at some point within the ongoing history of the world. His characters have implied parents, implied grandparents, implied great-grandparents, and so on, even if those ancestors never actually figure in the timeline of the narrative.

Same thing with their surroundings. Say you place the characters in New York City around 2000 or 1965 or 1940. Whatever decade you place them in, that cityscape still has an implicit history which antedates the timeline of the story.

Yet, within the world of the story itself, the story doesn’t begin at the beginning. Rather, the story begins as if New York City came into being a moment before, in 1940–complete with all those period buildings from decades earlier.

And that’s because what a creative artist like Cameron does is to objectify his idea of the Hometree. Cameron created the Hometree, not by putting the entire history of the Hometree on film, from the time it was a little seed in the ground, but by putting his idea of a grown tree on film. And that’s because Cameron is only interested in just a part of Pandora’s history. Although Pandora has a beginning, he doesn’t begin at the beginning. Rather, he begins at that stage in Pandoran history where he wants to tell his story. He skips ahead to his favorite part of the story. But to tell that part of the story, he gives that timeline the temporal effects of an earlier phase in the same continuous storyline. An implicit past. For the present has an implicit past.

This is something we take for granted when we read a novel or see a movie. We understand that an artist instantiates his full-orbed concept of the plot, characters, and so on. It existed in his mind as a complete, finely-detailed idea. But when a creationist proposes that God’s creativity is similar in this respect, eyes roll and fingers wag.

Yet that's how Gen 1 depicts creation. Creation is a series of speech-acts. God is an oral storyteller. A cosmic bard. He makes the world by telling a story. By verbalizing the story of the world. The world is the spoken word of God.

Now, you might say that this is nothing but a metaphor. Sure. But it’s a creative metaphor. And creativity literally instantiates an idea rather than a process.

Of course, human creativity must employ some preexisting medium to objectify a concept. But divine creativity is making the medium itself.

Mind you, this is not a full-blown argument for creationism. My point is simply that the charge of deception is oddly obtuse.

16 comments:

  1. I haven't seen Avatar, but I thought the illustration was good.

    A very insightful post.

    God is a story-teller. The greatest of all; and unique in that He gives existence and life to the stories He tells. They become true events, real history.

    Furthermore, God is not constrained to tell the story the way we would, or the way scientific consensus tell us it must have happened. And it is not deception on God's part to do it His way.

    It is self-deception on our parts when we interpret it the way we think He must have done it and come up with inconsistencies, which we attribute to God being a liar. We, not God, are the liars.

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  2. Have you ever read Omphalos? It's a nicely written defense of this position.

    Trouble is, this position is unverifiable, unfalsifiable, and logically indistinguishable from "Last Thursdayism", the proposition that the Universe was created in toto last Thursday. It's fun, but doesn't go anywhere.

    As to whether or not indications of a past that didn't happen can be considered "deceptive", I'm not qualified to judge. Suffice it to say that if God exists, He has done a superb job of hiding His presence.

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  3. Yes, I read Omphalos several years ago.

    But what if the correct position happens to be unverifiable and unfalsifiable? Why assume that truth must accommodate our man-made criteria?

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  4. Steve: of course it might well be that the truth is unverifiable and unfalsifiable; in fact, I suspect that at least parts of it are. But I don't see any point in advancing such a position without any evidence for it, such as evidence for the existence of God and, assuming God exists, evidence that this God set up the world in such a way. Last Thursdayism, or 4004 BCism, are just as tenable, and just as informative, as Brain-in-a-Vatism.

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  5. ZILCH SAID:

    "But I don't see any point in advancing such a position without any evidence for it, such as evidence for the existence of God and, assuming God exists, evidence that this God set up the world in such a way."

    Which is done in Christian apologetics, natural theology, and philosophical theology.

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  6. Rho: I have exactly as much at stake in Last Thursdayism as you have in The Matrix: zilch.

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  7. Except you can't show that it's inaccurate. It's just as probable as not-last-Thursday-ism, on naturalism.

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  8. Depends on what your criteria are for accuracy, Rho. I'm willing to take real-world evidence for the age of the Earth at face value until I see some good reason not to do so. There's no evidence whatsoever for Last Thursdayism, or the Matrix, or for any number of similar fantasies that are likewise unverifiable and unfalsifiable- so even if I can't "prove" that they are false, I can most certainly assert, with evidence, that they are not in the least probable, unless God exists and is a trickster, in which case all bets are off.

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  9. ZILCH SAID:

    "Depends on what your criteria are for accuracy, Rho. I'm willing to take real-world evidence for the age of the Earth at face value until I see some good reason not to do so."

    Well, that's philosophically naive. How does the "real-world evidence" cast doubt on Last Thursdayism?

    "There's no evidence whatsoever for Last Thursdayism, or the Matrix, or for any number of similar fantasies that are likewise unverifiable and unfalsifiable."

    And what's the evidence for the contrary?

    "- so even if I can't "prove" that they are false, I can most certainly assert, with evidence, that they are not in the least probable..."

    How would you probabilify Last Thursdayism? What are the odds? How did you arrive at that figure?

    "...unless God exists and is a trickster, in which case all bets are off."

    Do you also think that James Cameron is a "trickster"?

    "There's no evidence whatsoever for Last Thursdayism, or the Matrix, or for any number of similar fantasies that are likewise unverifiable and unfalsifiable."

    Suppose you were alone with your grandmother when she died. Suppose you heard her last words. Since your memory of her deathbed statement is unverifiable and unfalsifiable, should you dismiss your memory out of hand?

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  10. Steve says:

    Well, that's philosophically naive. How does the "real-world evidence" cast doubt on Last Thursdayism?

    In that case, I'm proud of my philosophical naivete- I'll stick with the scientists, thanks. Living as though the real world is more or less as it appears has got me, and you, from life's beginning until now, to the point where we can chat about this stuff on the Internet- so I'll stick with it.

    That means the burden of evidence is on the side of hypotheses which propose that the world is not as it seems, and there's no evidence for them. Ask for evidence against them, and I'll ask you for your evidence against Diminutive Underwear Drawer Dwarves- I bet you don't have any. It's a chumps game, because there is an endless number of such silly scenarios one can dream up.

    How would you probabilify Last Thursdayism? What are the odds? How did you arrive at that figure?

    My probability figure for Last Thursdayism is the same as yours for Last Tuesdayism- wanna bet? In any case, it's bootless to try to reckon the probability of a one-off event, no part of which has ever been observed. One can do it, but the numbers are meaningless.

    I said:

    ...unless God exists and is a trickster, in which case all bets are off.

    You replied:

    Do you also think that James Cameron is a "trickster"?

    As far as I know, neither he nor anyone else claims that Avatar is a film of a real world, or that Cameron is God, so there's no trickery involved.

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  11. ZILCH SAID:

    "In that case, I'm proud of my philosophical naivete..."

    At which point you forfeit any claims of rational superiority for your own position.

    "I'll stick with the scientists, thanks."

    And how, again, do the scientists argue against Omphalism or Last Thursdayism?

    "Living as though the real world is more or less as it appears has got me..."

    Are you really that dense? The appearances are thoroughly consistent with Omphalism and Last Thursdayism. So the appearances are insufficient to adjudicate the issue one way or the other. Russell admitted that. That was the point of his thought-experiment. Empirically equivalent hypotheses.

    "...and you, from life's beginning until now, to the point where we can chat about this stuff on the Internet- so I'll stick with it."

    Are you really that obtuse? The fact that you and I can chat about this on the Internet is perfectly consistent with Omphalism and Last Thursdayism.

    "That means the burden of evidence is on the side of hypotheses which propose that the world is not as it seems, and there's no evidence for them."

    Empirical evidence doesn't favor one position over the other. That's the point. You seem unable to follow the argument.

    "Ask for evidence against them, and I'll ask you for your evidence against Diminutive Underwear Drawer Dwarves. - I bet you don't have any."

    Of course, I don't have much stake in that question one way or the other.

    "It's a chumps game, because there is an endless number of such silly scenarios one can dream up."

    Actually, Russell's thought-experiment is taken seriously in the philosophical literature.

    "My probability figure for Last Thursdayism is the same as yours for Last Tuesdayism- wanna bet?"

    I wouldn't attempt to lay odds. I don't think it's quantifiable.

    However, our respective positions are asymmetrical. I have more than appearances to go by. I have the word of God. Therefore, I have an independent basis on which to eliminate certain hypothetical which is unavailable to you.

    "In any case, it's bootless to try to reckon the probability of a one-off event, no part of which has ever been observed. One can do it, but the numbers are meaningless."

    Then you contradict yourself since you were the one who initially said that "they are not in the least probable."

    "As far as I know, neither he nor anyone else claims that Avatar is a film of a real world, or that Cameron is God, so there's no trickery involved."

    Which nicely overlooks the argument in my post. Go back and pay attention this time to the basic nature of creativity.

    And, of course, the world would be analogous to God's fiction. Try to engage the actual argument the next time around.

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  12. And how, again, do the scientists argue against Omphalism or Last Thursdayism?

    I don't know of any that do. Why bother, when there's no evidence for them? Scenarios which are unverifiable, unfalsifiable, and have no evidence going for them are a dime a dozen.

    Actually, Russell's thought-experiment is taken seriously in the philosophical literature.

    What to you mean by "seriously"? I can see that it's good to work out with such ideas to clarify one's thinking, but if philosophy has led anyone to believe in Last Thursdayism, so much the worse for philosophy. Philosophy is not a good way to get at the truth, unless it is subject to the same constraints as science- that is, it must be based ultimately on evidence from the real world- in which case philosophy is science.

    I have more than appearances to go by. I have the word of God. Therefore, I have an independent basis on which to eliminate certain hypothetical which is unavailable to you.

    Your independent basis is just your claim, for which I have seen no evidence. And as I explained, I don't need a basis to eliminate certain hypotheticals, such as Last Thursdayism: there's no evidence for them, so while they are fun to think about, they don't bother me any more than do leprechauns or æther. You said it yourself, of the DUDDs:

    Of course, I don't have much stake in that question one way or the other.

    cheers from cool Vienna, zilch

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  13. Zilch,

    You're making no effort to engage the argument–probably because you have no counterargument. So you simply repeat the same lame, unresponsive formulas you used before. But I accept your tacit intellectual surrender.

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  14. Yep, you showed me good, Steve. But thanks for taking the time to crush me like a bug. You made me feel important for a few minutes, anyways.

    Look me up if you're ever in town, and lunch is still on me.

    cheers from cloudy Vienna, and toodle-oo.

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  15. Besides the point Van Der Sterren made (the bible provides evidence of a real history), the above comment by Logan seems problematic for other reasons. 6 thousand years is long enough time to account for a great many things I experience. It implies my history is actual, same with my parents, and theirs too. Family history happened. The joy at births was real, for example. Same with mundane things like cars, buildings, etc. Same with all the grass I see on people's front lawns, and their houses too, and them, my neighbors. Indeed, the majority of what I experience fits into the 6000 year time frame. Now, there may be *some* things that I experience which carry only mere appearance of age, but that's better than *everything* coming that way. Why would the fact that some things in my experience don't have actual histories be "just as absurd" as all things lacking histories, especially if those things most important to me have real histories. Clearly, I shouldn't find a belief in a yong earth absurd just if I find last thursdayism absurd.

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