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reggieM
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I’m not well-versed in that text at all. I’ll look into it.
- Status
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reggieM
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No - it’s not.
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reggieM
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TalkOrigins states “… we have no idea …” After years of research, they do not have any evidence that abiogenesis is even possible. In fact, if they had evidence of any possibility at all, the probability would be greater than zero. But they do not have that much.
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rossum
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We have 12 billion year old photons. You can’t get more direct than that. We measure the Sun using 8 minute old photons. Are you saying that we cannot directly measure the Sun?
rossum
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Gaber
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And yet here we are. At least I am. Wtever the chances overall of anything happening, ultimatley it is 50/50: it does or it doesn’t. And on your opinin of “not likely that this could have happened” you base a theory of existence? on “not likely?”
Well, OK, It didn’t happen by direct creation, nor by chance, nor by design, yet it “did,” so what’s left? And is the past tense even applicable? If so, how and why? And how do you support that?
You might consider giving an explanation on what you think the difference between “life” and “life forms” is and how you arrived at that conclusion. (Sounds of gears grinding, backfires, straining metal, escaping steam, grunts under pressure. other backfiring noises…smoke…) OH! Life forms are the expressions of what gives them life, Life itself, the source of all forms, as we percieve them to be from our human perspective, whether they are animate or not, and in whatever scale or dimension. Ultimately, they are not distinct from each other, only seeming to be from the perspective of attachment.
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reggieM
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We have trees that are over 100 years old. When I analyze the tree regarding its origins is my measurement taking place in 1912?
You can only directly measure something in the condition it is in today – in today’s time. You have to infer the condition it was in yesterday since we cannot directly measure anything happening in yesterday-time.
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rossum
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Then you can never directly measure anything. Light takes a nanosecond to travel 30 cm. If you are six inches from your tree, then at best you are looking 0.5 nanoseconds into the past. And that does not take into account the transmission times along your sensory nerves from your sense organs to your brain.
Everything we sense is in the past.
rossum
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reggieM
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Going back to this … and adding it to another point we were discussing:
We have to start with some assumptions, or first principles. All science does that. We don’t have to prove every axiom of science in order to do scientific research. We accept Some of them would be:
– every effect has a cause
– the whole is greater than the parts
– when we observe statistical patterns we can make claims with “confidence”
– our observations are reliable (we are mentally stable, non-biased)
– the universe conforms to mathematics, logical thinking and reason
There are many more – those are just off the top of my head.
So, science has to start with those ideas and cannot prove them.
The same is true with the Design Argument – either the ID version or the teleological version.
The assumptions about science are the same as above, based on first principles that we agree on.
But the point you’ve been probing at is regarding the Designer and the nature of Intelligence.
The design argument assumes these points:
– Intelligence exists.
– We can observe different kinds of intelligence (human, animal, synthetic)
– We are generally accurate in distinguishing intelligent things from non-intelligent
– Intelligent things are profoundly different than non-intelligent
– Whatever possesses intelligence is potentially more powerful than that which does not possess intelligence
– Because of that power, intelligence can create things that non-intelligence cannot create.
– Design and purpose necessarily come from intelligence.
– We can generally and reasonably tell the difference between things that have been designed with intelligence and things that have resulted from non-intelligence.
Those are mostly definitional and axiomatic. Science cannot really prove any of those points – they’re assumptions that are common to human experience.
However, if before a person can start talking about the Argument from Design, any of those points is disputed or opposed – then that has to be sorted out first.
There’s no sense in talking about the actual argument if the basic assumptions are rejected.
In that case, you can’t really use science to prove any of the axioms. In the same way, you can’t use science to prove that we can reasonably infer causes from effects. You have to start by accepting certain axioms before you can do science.
Usually that means an agreement on the definition of terms. You can’t really prove that the definition is correct since it’s just a consensus agreement on what a word means. But once you have terms that can be used and agreed-upon, you can move forward with arguments.
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reggieM
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It doesn’t work that way. We consider the “present” to fall within those nano-seconds of time. That’s why we accept an eye-witness testimony on something since it was directly observed in the present. That’s what we mean by “directly observed”.
Someone who was a “direct observer” of an event is not a person who arrived a day after it ended and inferred what happened.
And that’s the point – especially on the question of origins and science. That’s why testing is done in labs – to “directly observe” what happens. This is different from inferring causes from historical data.
Even still - it’s also a major challenge for abiogenesis research or even evolutionary models since even if a laboratory model showed successful results, the researchers cannot directly observe how the same test would have happened in the conditions on earth a billion years ago.
At best, they can try to simulate those conditions, but that is a speculative exercise – based on many unproven assumptions.
— back to the previous point, you have to start with assumptions that are agreed-upon.
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rossum
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You might. As a physicist I don’t. As a Buddhist I don’t. Detailed analysis of reality is required by both. What appears as the “present” is fluid, as Einstein pointed out. Is the sun in the “present”, after all what we see is eight minutes old. Where is the boundary to be drawn between the present, as one nanosecond and the past at 12 billion years? Any boundary has to be something arbitrary and subjective. Hence my wish to avoid it as both physics and Buddhism wish to avoid importing subjective elements.
I can “directly observe” a photon here and now. How does the age of that particular photon affect the fact of my direct observation? A 1 nanosecond old photon from 30 cm away. An 8 minute old photon from the sun. A four year old photon from Alpha Centauri. A 12 billion year old photon from a quasar. All photons are observed in exactly the same way. Where is the real difference?
rossum
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reggieM
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I think the Buddhist approach to these kinds of questions is admirable.
It’s a question of the assumptions that you import into your conclusions. You could accept that it’s impossible to directly observe anything – for reasons you gave. You could also accept that even if it was possible to immediately sense a thing you’re only observing your senses and not the thing. You assume that your senses are giving a correct representation of reality but you cannot prove that. People who we call insane think they’re observing reality correctly also.
Your subjective interpretation of the sensory data is a constant. Even less esoterically, you can misunderstand what you think you observe. That’s why science seeks consensus on various conclusions – and even that does not prevent widely-supported conclusions from being overturned by contradictory evidence.
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rossum
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Agreed.
Your 1 is false in modern science, though it was accepted in classical science. Cause and effect behave very strangely in quantum mechanics. This assumption has been downgraded from universal to restricted applicability.
Your 2 is not always true, though it can be in many cases.
I agree with your three. On four, I would say “usually reliable”. There are instances where observations can be deceptive, a mirage for instance.
On five I would phrase it differently, “The universe can be modelled through mathematics, logical thinking and reason.” That makes a statement about the scientific model, not about the universe. Scientific theories are all models, they are not the actual reality. When the Newtonian model of gravity was replaced by the Einsteinian model, there was no actual change in the universe. The model changed; the universe didn’t. The models/theories are constructed from mathematics, logical thinking and reason; the scientific universe is constructed from space, time energy and matter that we know of so far.
Science does not do “proof”. All science does is “the best we have so far.” All of the underlying assumptions are constantly tested to see if they work. An example is the cause and effect assumption which failed when we started looking at the quantum level. It is now restricted to the non-quantum areas of science. The great success of science is a good reason to accept that we have a reasonably good set of assumptions.
Science has no proof because everything is provisional. Mathematics can have proof because it works in terms of axioms, which are permanently fixed for each theorem: Pythagoras’ Theorem is proved within the axioms of Euclidian geometry. Science works in terms of reality, and our knowledge of reality is constantly changing as science discovers more. All scientific knowledge must be provisional because we do not yet know everything about reality.
There is a famous quote from, I think, Lord Kelvin, at the end of the nineteenth century about there being only two outstanding problems in physics: the black body problem and the precession of the orbit of Mercury. The black body problem was solved by Quantum Mechanics, and the problem with Mercury’s precession was solved by General Relativity.
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reggieM
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That was a very good explanation (as follows) – helping to clarify my own thought. Thanks.
As you said, this assumption was tested and revised, so it was a principle that was useful and yet was not (and still could not be) explained or entirely validated.
The idea I was considering was that if there is something that is called “a whole”, then the analysis and exercise involved in breaking it down into constituent parts is “reductionist” – it’s moving from the greater to the lesser – reducing to components. A multi-cellular organism is reduced to single cells and parts of cells. A molecule is reduced to atoms. That’s the mechanistic view and it’s built on that assumption. Just for curiosity, what are some examples where the opposite of this concept is true?
That’s an interesting way to re-phrase it – but in either case, it remains an assumption. Also, in the example you gave, the universe didn’t change, but logical thinking and reason didn’t change either. The foundation of mathematics didn’t change. So, I think it remains true to say that “the universe conforms to mathematical and logical thought” in the sense that we didn’t create logic because of discoveries in space, time energy and matter. Logic and mathematics “worked” first and then we discovered that the universe was intelligible through those methods.
The difference is how we used our assumptions to learn more. The assumption was that it was possible to understand more about the universe using mathematical models. So, mathematics was applied and then results measured. This is one of the basic aspects of the argument from design which looks for an explanation for “why would the universe be intelligible through mathematics”? I think science can only say “it just is” and that “we know it is because it works”. But that doesn’t explain why the universe has this property of being understood so well and so accurately through mathematics and logic.
We could turn it around in the way you phrased it: Why does logic work so well in understanding aspects of the universe that we’ve only just discovered? Why does a modelling language (mathematics), discovered by humans on one planet in the universe, work so well in describing properties of the entire universe?
Agreed.
That is interesting, and I agree that it is correct from the materialist view of scientism. In that view, all of reality is accessible to science. That’s an assumption. That is one assumption that science cannot test because it starts with the idea that there is nothing outside of science at all – so there could be no reference point beyond science. It’s a self-referencing point of view based on something that cannot be validated or tested.
If everything is reducible to physics, then the understanding of all of reality is a problem for physics.
In the materialist view, everything is reducible to the atomic and sub-atomic level – and is all a question of physical properties of matter and the material forces that act on them.
Biological problems are problems for physics to solve. Ideas of human spirituality are fully explainable through mathematical models.
But the Buddhist view and the Catholic (Abrahamic) view reject that kind of materialism.
If there are some things not reducible to physics, then there is something in reality that is not physical, and science cannot have access to that part of reality.
There are assumptions built into:
– the work of science
– the argument from design
– our acceptance and rejection of spiritual/religious beliefs
The argument from design uses basically the same assumptions as materialist-science starts with. If a person brings spiritual beliefs into the argument (as you do), then this brings some other assumptions. But those are necessary to have a broader-view of reality than what materialism and science alone can offer.
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rossum
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Something where the parts are mere repetition. A crystal or a honeycomb for example. Adding more identical units does not make any major change. Adding hydrogen to oxygen makes an obvious change to the properties. Adding more sodium and chlorine to a salt crystal does not make any obvious change, beyond making the crystal larger.
Notice that logic, reason and mathematics are all human mental constructs that we find it useful to apply to reality. Reality is not a human mental construct. It is a great mistake to assume that a human mental construct is reality. Any human mental construct can only ever be a model of reality. Mistaking the model for reality leads to many errors. We must always rework our models if they do not conform to reality; some people attempt to rework reality to conform to their models. A big mistake.
The error I can see here is a reification of “mathematics”, as if it has a separate existence. Mathematics was designed (yes, designed) and built by humans. The design observed is in the design of mathematics. The universe is intelligible through mathematics because mathematics was designed by people to help them make sense of the universe. The design is a property of the model, mathematics, and not a property of the universe. By mistaking the designed model, mathematics, for the universe an incorrect description, “designed”, is assigned to the universe, when that description actually belongs to the designed mathematical models we are using.
A model is designed, obviously. That does not mean that the the thing modelled is also designed. For example, here is a model of the Trinity:
Does the existence of that designed model mean that the Trinity is itself designed? It is essential to separate the model from the reality that is being modelled. Failing to do so leads us into errors.
Because humans have designed logic and mathematics for just that purpose, and generally they meet the purpose for which they were designed.
That is not an assumption of science, it is an assumption of materialism. Science assumes that science can only deal with a specific range of phenomena. Any phenomena outside the stated range are not part of science. Science itself makes no statement as to whether of not the set of non-science phenomena is empty. Materialism states that such a set is empty. Religions state that it is not empty.
Correct.
The argument from design is correct in that it observes design in many places. It is incorrect in thinking that the observed design reflects reality. It is observing design in models of reality. We all have our own internal model of reality in our heads. Those models are designed, but those models are not reality. The design argument confuses reality with its model, and so is in error.
rossum
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edwest2
Guest
I would just like to add that, at one time, due to a greater respect for scientific authority, I simply assumed that if a scientist said something was true or accurate, I would accept it uncritically.
Thank to threads like this one, and similar, I’ve had to throw that away. I watched on TV as a scientist explained that if a planet was the right distance away from its sun, had water and the ‘building blocks of life’ (amino acids), then life would appear. That is totally, 100%, not provable - at all.
If I was a being with a lifespan of a few billion years, I would suddenly see a fish in my prebiotic soup! What nonsense. What a bald-faced conjecture with no basis in fact.
Which is why I watch these discussions and sincerely wonder: Are they about teaching things that we can actually show to be true or are they mostly just long-winded excuses to deny God, to deny the fact that Science does not matter to Him - that is, he can perform miracles, even in the present, without science or technology? Is this just another repetition of the constant, and I mean constant, repetition of the totally schizophrenic: “Your Bible is a book of myths and fairy tales, and just borrows a bunch of stuff from Sumerian or [fill in the blank] legends/myths?” Quickly followed by: “Your Bible is wrong, here, here and here, according to science.”
Make it one or another please. But some can’t. It is clear that the mission of some is this: “If there’s no scientific explanation for it then it never happened.” Why should they care? To reduce the Bible, especially Genesis, into a book of symbolic, not actual, events. That is wrong. If someone doesn’t believe in the Bible or God, that’s their choice, but don’t come here and tell Catholics that God needs science to perform miracles.
Just stop it, please.
Peace,
Ed
Thank to threads like this one, and similar, I’ve had to throw that away. I watched on TV as a scientist explained that if a planet was the right distance away from its sun, had water and the ‘building blocks of life’ (amino acids), then life would appear. That is totally, 100%, not provable - at all.
If I was a being with a lifespan of a few billion years, I would suddenly see a fish in my prebiotic soup! What nonsense. What a bald-faced conjecture with no basis in fact.
Which is why I watch these discussions and sincerely wonder: Are they about teaching things that we can actually show to be true or are they mostly just long-winded excuses to deny God, to deny the fact that Science does not matter to Him - that is, he can perform miracles, even in the present, without science or technology? Is this just another repetition of the constant, and I mean constant, repetition of the totally schizophrenic: “Your Bible is a book of myths and fairy tales, and just borrows a bunch of stuff from Sumerian or [fill in the blank] legends/myths?” Quickly followed by: “Your Bible is wrong, here, here and here, according to science.”
Make it one or another please. But some can’t. It is clear that the mission of some is this: “If there’s no scientific explanation for it then it never happened.” Why should they care? To reduce the Bible, especially Genesis, into a book of symbolic, not actual, events. That is wrong. If someone doesn’t believe in the Bible or God, that’s their choice, but don’t come here and tell Catholics that God needs science to perform miracles.
Just stop it, please.
Peace,
Ed
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Gaber
Guest
This ia all correct and well said. The “design” hypothesis is no more than mistaking the map for the territory. To say that “the universe conforms to mathematical and logical thought” is essentially bass ackwards. Mathematical thought and logic tend to conform to the structure of the Universe and to that degree are useful. We don’t know what we are missing by using them the way we do. As for logic, it is too sharp a blade to be in the hands of most, judging from the blood spattered “arguments” on here. Those "logics’ are most usually generalizing from a single premise or low orders of logic not capable of the task of inclusivity to measure the Universe, just as our miinds are not.
Also, the whole anthropomorphization (mistaking the map, the nature of our own minds as 1/1 with Reality) of the hypothesis put forth by “design” advocates on here is based on the idea of cause and effect, of which, in the last analysis, there is none. The only empiricall and correct statement anyone can make about existence is “I am.” And that itself is further reducible.
So after “I am,” all mentality is conjecture parochially inculcated accordiing to the paramaters of the mind and the local attachments it makes. Universals, such as maths, tend to take one out of this self absorption to the degree they are generalized over all of expereince, but in themselves are still mental.
Only by going beyond the mind can any substantial basis for the expereince of existence be seen. All the rest is conjecture based to greater or lesser degree on the interpretation of subjectivley perceived commonality and most usually pertinent to the bandwidth of human sense limitations.
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reggieM
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True, in terms of the content of the parts – a large salt crystal can only be reduced to small salt crystals, so the parts are the same as the whole. But the whole is a “large salt crystal” and that is greater than what small crystals are in terms of size (great differences in weight, shape, portability, permanence, etc).
In any case – the assumption that “the whole is greater than the parts” is used in science in general even if not in every situation.
Ok, but the existence of a model is not the proof of design. The fact that some aspects of reality “fit” a model, however is a proof of design. Human constructs and behaviors are part of reality. We observe that they conform to predictable models – so, we conclude that they are designed. That’s how we know that animals have intelligence, for example. We model their behaviors and recognize design versus randomness which is a sign of non-intelligence. It’s not the model that we’re measuring but the reality. Of course, it also depends on how well something fits the model and how sophisticated and precise the model is.
Interesting points – but I disagree.
- I think there are things which exist purely as mathematical entities. They don’t correspond to nature or reality. The infinite succession of numbers in the calculation of Pi, for example. The square root of 34. With that, I don’t think anybody invented how that would work. Mathematics is more of a discovery than something designed, although it is a model that was built.
- While mathematics was invented to make sense of some things, it was not invented to describe complex properties of the cosmos or measure features of natural laws. Mathematics was later applied to the cosmos and it was discovered that the universe could be precisely defined by various mathematical equations. That was accidental and not designed. It says something about the properties of the universe and not of the model. The properties of the universe have this surprising characteristic – that they can be measured precisely by mathematics. That is not explained by the model. Other things in nature cannot be precisely measured by mathematics – for example, what the precise outdoor temperature will be exactly one year from today. Or where, precisely the next big hurricane will strike. There are better examples of randomness but those are just off the top of my head.
- As above, there are models and there are models. There is some beauty in how a model is created – some are more powerful than others. Just because a model is built and even if it accurately describes some part of reality, it doesn’t mean that we’ve discovered design. Forensics has this problem. If the model is too generalized, then “parts of reality” (evidence from a crime scene) will fit it with 100% accuracy. But the model does not say enough – it’s not precise enough.
As above, it depends what kind of model we’re looking at and why it was created. A shamrock is a model of the Trinity. But we’re talking about God so we have to use a wider range of knowledge when we evaluate that model.
How well does the Trinity fit the model of a two-dimensional painting? That’s the first problem. But beyond that, we can find it remarkable that God Himself is intelligible at all. That says something about both God and our own intelligence. Do we see aspects of Design in the Incarnation and the Resurrection? Yes – because those were predicted and purposeful acts. So, we can see God’s Designs in the universe, in those specific cases.
So, our human models can recognize the purposeful actions of God. That says something about God and our models – that God makes Himself understood, and that our models (reasonable understanding) are capable of grasping the supernatural.
The existence of the model itself is not proof that a thing was designed.
The model has to be precise and accurate enough.
– Most importantly – the model has to be built within the context of certain assumptions which are necessarily imported into: building the model, making observations, and interpreting results.
Clearly, when building a model to “fit” the Blessed Trinity, there have to be a lot of assumptions that come along with that first.
True – good correction.
That brings us back to our discussion on assumptions and how we apply them. One of the assumptions of science is that we can observe design. We know when a lab-experiment has been designed versus any variety of accidental occurrences. We know when a scientist makes (designs) a prediction before an event.
If those things do not represent reality (which could be argued), we still have to put them in some kind of category.
We have to start with the assumption that we can observe something true about reality. We also have to assume that logic and mathematics work well enough for us to understand reality correctly. When we have those things in place, then we can observe the universe and recognize that aspects of reality fit the models we create.
Why does that happen? Why would the universe be constant and predictable enough that we could build models that make it understandable? That’s a question both about the models and the universe itself.
If we discovered alien beings that arrived on earth and the beings could speak fluent English – that would say something about the aliens and not about the model that we used to measure their characteristics. That would actually be a very strong clue about design and purpose – somehow they had to learn English. It could not have been an accidental process caused by natural laws and matter alone.
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rossum
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The existence of the model is enough. A model is, by definition, designed by the modeller.
You have things precisely backwards. Reality fits the model because the model was designed to fit reality. This Douglas Adams quote seems appropriate here:
This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’
Human constructs are trivially designed, by humans. Human behaviours are learned, and so also designed.
We have a model for animal behaviour and we have a model for intelligent behaviour. We are comparing two models. We are not comparing reality with reality. Remember that we can have no direct observation of reality. All we can ever have is the model inside our heads. That is why the brain-in-a-jar or Matrix hypothesis is impossible to refute, but the actual existence of the external reality must be assumed.
Mathematics is initially built on reality. When you put two more rocks on a pile of three rocks then you get a bigger pile with five rocks. Mathematics expresses this as 3 + 2 = 5. I agree that many parts of mathematics do not directly correspond with reality, they are purely logical constructions. The physicists leave those parts to the mathematicians.
Remember, mathematics does not match reality; mathematics matches various scientific theories which model reality to a greater or lesser degree of accuracy. Again, you are trying to equate the model with the thing modelled. They are not the same, they are very different. Mathematics is a useful tool in building models of reality. That does not mean that mathematics was actually used to construct reality. An architect can design a building on a piece of paper. The actual building is made out of concrete, not out of paper.
Pure mathematics wasn’t. Applied mathematics was. By definition, what physicists use to model the world is applied mathematics.
Why is the quality of the model important? All scientific theories fall short of the reality they model. While I agree that the Trinity picture was not a very good model, it was a model, and it illustrated (sorry!) my point about the existence of a designed model not implying design in the object modelled.
I agree.
I disagree. The existence of the model, no matter how accurate, or inaccurate, says nothing about the design, or not, of the object modelled.
Not strictly an “assumption”, but a “tested conclusion” of science. The ability to observe design is derived from other more fundamental assumptions: the ability to observe and the general reproducibility of results.
Agreed.
Not an assumption. We use logic and mathematics because they work, not because of any assumptions. If we found something that worked better, then we would use that. We have already rejected other methods that didn’t work, like examining the livers of sacrificial victims. Science retains methods that work and rejects methods that don’t work. By now science has a tool-set of methods that can build high quality models.
Yup, the hole fits the puddle exactly. The hole must have been made just for this puddle. You have put the cart before the horse: the models are designed to fit reality, not vice versa.
rossum
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reggieM
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We’re using terminology in a different sense. A plot diagram is a model. When we observe how data appears (say weather patterns) on the diagram we say “the data fits the curve”. That’s a manner of expression. It means that we see an aspect of reality that “conforms to a pattern”. It wouldn’t make much sense to explain that “the wind doesn’t really come down into your software and align itself to your chart!”
We’re looking for evidence. We don’t change the plot diagram to fit the data – the diagram is a fixed model. It is intended for prediction. We then observe how the dots are displayed on the chart. They’re either totally random, or they are in a shape/line form of some kind.
When we see the data on a chart forming an extremely regular pattern (the pattern of sound waves in music), that is evidence of something non-random.
That’s how we look at survey data, for example. We want to know if there is design or meaning in the pattern. We can tell if there is no message at all – because the pattern is random.
So again, we don’t change the model to fit reality. Then it’s not a predictive model. The prediction either works or it doesn’t. We don’t go back and change the model and then claim victory for the prediction that occurred. Yes, we can refine the model to improve it but that’s different.
The shape of a puddle can be explained by known natural laws. If a puddle formed the perfect shape of a hexagon then it would require an explanation beyond what known laws can produce.
Ok, that’s true. But we work from reasonable assumptions rather than absolute experience of reality – and we can get some agreement from other humans about what it means.
You’re right – we could be completely mistaken about everything we experience, but that’s why we look for common ground in our understanding so we can, at least, communicate what we do experience and develop the human experience.
From that, we trust our judgements. But it is built on trust. We use that every day.
Right. Mathematics was invented for some basic modelling of reality. It worked well enough. But there were surprises when scientists discovered that math was very successful in explaining the universe. That wasn’t an intuitive thing – and it still is not explained today. Many scientists came to the conclusion that the universe was designed to be understood by human beings.
Agreed.
Yes, but you were proving a different point. I didn’t claim that the existence of any model necessarily implies design of anything.
On your Doug Adams example: The model he’s using is very weak.
His model is basically: “Puddles have various shapes.” Yes, that’s true. That model fits the data 100% of the time. But there’s no precision. Obviously, a much more difficult problem is what shape will the next puddle take? That would require some understanding of the amount of rain expected and the shape of the land, etc.
That kind of model might only be accurate 30% of the time – but it’s a much higher quality observation and conclusion.
So, to model the Trinity we need something much more sophisticated than a painting. Is that really an accurate model of the Divine nature? No – it’s just a very rough simulation of the reality.
But beyond that, we’ll get very confused because the data that we have about the Trinity comes from revelation – not from nature. We know facts about the Trinity from revelation (even if you don’t believe the content you can recognize what some of revealed facts are).
I don’t follow that. How would we know that something was designed or not?
We’re probably not clear about what is meant by models.
The hole “model” fits the reality “puddle”, exactly. That’s the opposite of what I said. The reality (water), fits the hole exactly the way the hole that I created (model) was planned. Therefore, the puddle gives evidence of having been designed.
When you divert a river, the water fits the model. It’s not the model fitting the river.
When you build a house, the reality (wood) fits the model. You don’t change the model to fit the wood.
If you find logs in a stream that fit the model of a dam – you know the dam was designed. Because logs do not normally fit into a model of a constructed dam when left to drift randomly.
Yes, we can observe and improve our model. But that’s different than using the model to measure reality. If I predict that the price of gold will go up next month, I did that from a model I created which observed and measured gold prices. The model predicts that gold will go down two months, and then up the next month. The prices (reality) fit the model 100% of the time. So, I can make a prediction.
If the model begins to not-predict the pricing, then it can be changed – so yes, you will adjust your model based on what happened in the past.
But there is no reason to think that any model can be made to fit reality. If it was, then there would be no problem predicting the stock market, for example.
We don’t change the model every month to fit the previous month’s data. We want to see if the data will fit our predictive model.
That’s what casinos use to determine if someone is counting cards or otherwise trying to cheat the game. They’re looking for a pattern in the data. If the data (reality) fits the pattern, then they know they have some intentionality (design).
They want to see if the data will fit the model. Otherwise, if they created a model that fit the data they would never be able to distinguish a pattern.
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tonyrey
Guest
It’s putting the cart before the horse to say we impose order and patterns on reality. If we did there would be nothing to discover - nor would would we have a way to discover it - nor would we have the power to discover it.
Mathematical conventions were invented but the mathematical truths to which they refer were discovered! If mathematics is an **arbitrary **set of rules there is no reason why mathematical descriptions should correspond to physical reality…
- This is where the failure of pragmatism becomes evident.
- To say we use a method solely because it works omits the **reason **why it works.
- To say it just happens to work is absurd.
- It works because the method and the result correspond to reality.
- Nor is it an accident that we can understand the reason why the method works.
- The method works not by Chance but by Design.
- There is correspondence between our mind and reality because both have a **rational **origin.
- This need not be the case because animals survive quite happily without understanding the nature of reality.
- Rational pursuits like philosophy and science are luxuries from a utilitarian point of view.
- Yet for spiritual development rational insight is not a luxury but a necessity!
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