Appreciating Design and Designer – Vern Poythress

_{Denyse O'Leary

September 4, 2022

Intelligent Design, Mathematics}

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Philip Cunningham draws our attention to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReATRww8jVc

Rev. Dr. Vern Poythress (PhD, Harvard; DTh, Stellenbosch) is distinguished professor of New Testament, biblical interpretation, and systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. His books include Redeeming Science, Redeeming Mathematics, and Redeeming Philosophy, or Chance and the Sovereignty of God.

Of related note, he adds:

A Biblical View of Mathematics – Vern Poythress – Doctorate in theology, PhD in Mathematics (Harvard) Excerpt: 15. Implications of Gödel’s proofB. Metaphysical problems of anti-theistic mathematics: unity and plurality

Excerpt: Because of the above difficulties, anti-theistic philosophy of mathematics is condemned to oscillate, much as we have done in our argument, between the poles of a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge. Why? It will not acknowledge the true God, wise Creator of both the human mind with its mathematical intuition and the external world with its mathematical properties. In sections 22-23 we shall see how the Biblical view furnishes us with a real solution to the problem of “knowing” that 2 + 2 = 4 and knowing that S is true.

Comments

Chucky, do you ever deal with cognitive dissonance or have episodes of existential crisis? What confidence do you have that Jesus isn't the son of God? What will you tell God when you meet him face to face? What thoughts allow you to sleep at night while you deny the sovereign Lord of Glory?zweston_{September 6, 2022
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we can agree that I am a member of Hominidae
Are you sure? You are certainly a troll. Are they hominidae?
I don’t have a tail to chase
Yes you do Trolls have tails. https://media-01.imu.nl/wp-content/uploads?url=jennyluco.com/2018/01/troll-bridge-kidlit-illustration-929x838.png?v=1516648240682jerry_{September 6, 2022
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BA77 Since, I assume we can agree that I am a member of Hominidae, I don't have a tail to chase.........:-)chuckdarwin_{September 6, 2022
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CD asks for the Theistic model, pretending to have no knowledge of it. And yet he apparently knows enough about the Theistic model to definitively say that his deistic model is to be favored over it. This is rhetorical trollish behavior. I have much better things to do today than chase a Darwinian troll's tail around in a circle.bornagain77_{September 6, 2022
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BA77/20 Again, you haven't addressed my question and Meyer's three-page discussion of "competing worldviews" as your point of reference is sophomoric and superficial. Meyer's discussion in no way approaches a fleshed out scientific model. Moreover, he data-fits to confirm his theistic bias. His "explanation" as to why deism cannot explain the origins of life, but theism can, is complete rubbish. His explanation that deism is inadequate to deal with "later" infusions of information and thus periodic tinkering is necessary, again, is motivated reasoning at its worst. Any "god" capable of creating a universe is clearly powerful and clever enough to front-load his/her/its creation to account for every contingencyab initio. In fact, such a God would be infinitely more powerful and creative than a theistic God. I believe I made all these points to Querius months back. And again, instead of describing the "theistic model" Meyer alludes to, you deflect by hurling insults at me and Darwin because of my blog name. That is the type of insult you'd expect from a gaggle of junior high school girls, not someone that fancies himself as some type of erudite polymath.........chuckdarwin_{September 6, 2022
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CD, you accused me of not addressing your question. But I did address your question and even gave you the page numbers in Meyer's book where he defines the four worldviews, and/or models, seeking to explain the 'prime reality' question. Moreover, you yourself revealed that you have some knowledge of what the "Theistic model" actually entails when you, (falsely I might add), claimed that Meyer had no reason to prefer theism over deism. You simply have no way of making that claim unless you have or, at least, think you have enough knowledge of what the Theistic model actually entails so as to conclude that your deistic model is a better fit to the scientific evidence. In short, you have, apparently unwittingly, revealed yourself to be disingenuous and insincere. Moreover, I seem to remember someone, Querius I believe it was, asking you some very penetrating questions about your deistic model that revealed some of the gross inadequacies of your preferred model, and you not addressing those questions put to you. And him calling you out on your evasiveness in answering those questions. Thus again, you reveal yourself as being intellectually insincere. An intellectual insincerity which is not surprising for someone who takes his blogging handle after that scientific charlatan named Charles Darwin. A scientific charlatan who argued for his theory, not by any compelling empirical, and/or mathematical, evidence mind you, but by inept, 'schoolboy', Theological argumentation in which he pronounced on what God would and would not do. (Much like CD is trying to do right now when he says we should prefer his deistic model over Theism)
Charles Darwin, Theologian: Major New Article on Darwin's Use of Theology in the Origin of Species - May 2011 Excerpt: The Origin supplies abundant evidence of theology in action; as Dilley observes: I have argued that, in the first edition of the Origin, Darwin drew upon at least the following positiva theological claims in his case for descent with modification (and against special creation):?1. Human beings are not justified in believing that God creates in ways analogous to the intellectual powers of the human mind. 2. A God who is free to create as He wishes would create new biological limbs de novo rather than from a common pattern. 3. A respectable deity would create biological structures in accord with a human conception of the 'simplest mode' to accomplish the functions of these structures. 4. God would only create the minimum structure required for a given part's function. 5. God does not provide false empirical information about the origins of organisms. 6. God impressed the laws of nature on matter. 7. God directly created the first 'primordial' life. 8. God did not perform miracles within organic history subsequent to the creation of the first life. 9. A 'distant' God is not morally culpable for natural pain and suffering. 10. The God of special creation, who allegedly performed miracles in organic history, is not plausible given the presence of natural pain and suffering. https://evolutionnews.org/2011/05/charles_darwin_theologian_majo/ Charles Darwin's use of theology in the Origin of Species - STEPHEN DILLEY Abstract This essay examines Darwin's positiva (or positive) use of theology in the first edition of the Origin of Species in three steps. First, the essay analyses the Origin's theological language about God's accessibility, honesty, methods of creating, relationship to natural laws and lack of responsibility for natural suffering; the essay contends that Darwin utilized positiva theology in order to help justify (and inform) descent with modification and to attack special creation. Second, the essay offers critical analysis of this theology, drawing in part on Darwin's mature ruminations to suggest that, from an epistemic point of view, the Origin's positiva theology manifests several internal tensions. Finally, the essay reflects on the relative epistemic importance of positiva theology in the Origin's overall case for evolution. The essay concludes that this theology served as a handmaiden and accomplice to Darwin's science. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=376799F09F9D3CC8C2E7500BACBFC75F.journals?aid=8499239&fileId=S000708741100032X
An example of Darwin pronouncing on what God would or would not do is where he asked, in response to ‘Paley’s eye argument’, “Have we any right to assume that the Creator works by intellectual powers like those of man?’
Charles Darwin’s use of theology in the Origin of Species – Stephen Dilley – 2011 Excerpt page 46: “Unsurprisingly, Darwin’s response to Paley’s eye argument became a ‘centrepiece ’ of a chapter dedicated to addressing the strongest objections to evolutionary theory.77 Darwin noted that it seemed prima facie ‘absurd in the highest possible degree’ that an organ as intricate as the eye ‘could have been formed by natural selection’.78 Instead, he wrote, “It is scarcely possible to avoid comparing the eye to a telescope. We know that this instrument has been perfected by the long-continued efforts of the highest human intellects; and we naturally infer that the eye has been formed by a somewhat analogous process.”79 Darwin offered two questions as an immediate reply, writing in the very next sentences, ‘But may not this inference be presumptuous? Have we any right to assume that the Creator works by intellectual powers like those of man?’80 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227159863_Charles_Darwin%27s_use_of_theology_in_the_Origin_of_Species
Please note that Darwin is not arguing that the eye is not designed, or providing any evidence that the eye came about 'naturally, but Darwin is instead arguing a purely theological argumentation. Again, Darwin was a scientific charlatan, (and an inept theologian I might add)!bornagain77_{September 6, 2022
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BA77/18 There is no reason for Meyer to prefer theism over deism other than personal preference. His entrenchment in Christianity drives his “stunning conclusion.” But you haven’t addressed my questions…….chuckdarwin_{September 5, 2022
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CD: "Meyer talks about this “Theistic model” incessantly. So, what exactly is it and where can one find a definitive description of it?" You might want to look at pages 219-221 of Stephen Meyer's book, "Return of the God Hypothesis", to see a description of the four worldviews that are competing against one another to answer the "prime reality' question.
Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe Excerpt: Meyer argues that theism—with its affirmation of a transcendent, intelligent and active creator—best explains the evidence we have concerning biological and cosmological origins. Previously Meyer refrained from attempting to answer questions about “who” might have designed life. Now he provides an evidence-based answer to perhaps the ultimate mystery of the universe. In so doing, he reveals a stunning conclusion: the data support not just the existence of an intelligent designer of some kind—but the existence of a personal God. https://www.amazon.com/Return-God-Hypothesis-Compelling-Scientific/dp/0062071505
bornagain77_{September 5, 2022
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In the following video Stephen Meyer speaks on multiverse models and found the Theistic model to be ‘favored’ over the anti-theistic multiverse, and/or ‘multimess’, models.
Meyer talks about this "Theistic model" incessantly. So, what exactly is it and where can one find a definitive description of it?chuckdarwin_{September 5, 2022
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Ba77 at 15, So much for the Bang in Big Bang. “The Big Bang represents an immensely powerful, yet carefully planned and controlled release of matter, energy, space and time. All this is accomplished within the strict confines of very carefully fine-tuned physical constants and laws. The power and care this explosion reveals exceeds human mental capacity by multiple orders of magnitude.” This certainly does not point to chaos but a controlled release of matter and energy. However, the public, including me, has been picturing a classic explosion and TV programs continue to portray the Big Bang as an explosion, complete with blast sound effects. See how it "violently exploded" around the one minute point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdPzOWlLrbErelatd_{September 5, 2022
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Relatd, "It (the universe) is not flat." Hmm,,, OH well,
How do we know the universe is flat? Discovering the topology of the universe – by Fraser Cain – June 7, 2017 Excerpt: We say that the universe is flat, and this means that parallel lines will always remain parallel. 90-degree turns behave as true 90-degree turns, and everything makes sense.,,, Since the universe is flat now, it must have been flat in the past, when the universe was an incredibly dense singularity. And for it to maintain this level of flatness over 13.8 billion years of expansion, in kind of amazing. In fact, astronomers estimate that the universe must have been flat to 1 part within 1×10^57 parts. Which seems like an insane coincidence. https://phys.org/news/2017-06-universe-flat-topology.html
Also of note, your picturing/imagining of the Big Bang as an explosion is incorrect as well,
“An explosion you think of as kind of a messy event. And this is the point about entropy. The explosion in which our universe began was not a messy event. And if you talk about how messy it could have been, this is what the Penrose calculation is all about essentially. It looks at the observed statistical entropy in our universe. The entropy per baryon. And he calculates that out and he arrives at a certain figure. And then he calculates using the Bekenstein-Hawking formula for Black-Hole entropy what the,,, (what sort of entropy could have been associated with,,, the singularity that would have constituted the beginning of the universe). So you've got the numerator, the observed entropy, and the denominator, how big it (the entropy) could have been. And that fraction turns out to be,, 1 over 10 to the 10 to the 123rd power. Let me just emphasize how big that denominator is so you can gain a real appreciation for how small that probability is. So there are 10^80th baryons in the universe. Protons and neutrons. No suppose we put a zero on every one of those. OK, how many zeros is that? That is 10^80th zeros. This number has 10^123rd zeros. OK, so you would need a hundred million, trillion, trillion, trillion, universes our size, with zero on every proton and neutron in all of those universes just to write out this number. That is how fine tuned the initial entropy of our universe is. And if there were a pre-Big Bang state and you had some bounces, then that fine tuning (for entropy) gets even finer as you go backwards if you can even imagine such a thing. ” Dr Bruce Gordon - Contemporary Physics and God Part 2 - video – 1:50 minute mark - video https://youtu.be/ff_sNyGNSko?t=110 WHY THE BIG BANG IS NOT AN EXPLOSION - By Sten Odenwald - May 14, 1997 Excerpt: the event that created the universe and everything in it was a very different kind of phenomenon than most people -- or, at least, most nonphysicists -- imagine. Even the name "Big Bang" originally was a putdown cooked up by a scientist who didn't like the concept when it was first put forth. He favored the idea that the universe had always existed in a much more dignified and fundamentally unchanging, steady state. But the name stuck, and with it has come the completely wrong impression that the event was like an explosion. That image leads many of us to imagine that the universe is expanding because the objects in it are being flung apart like fragments of a detonated bomb. That isn't true.,,, So, how should we think about the Big Bang? Our "fireworks" image of the phenomenon depends on five basic requirements: 1) A preexisting sky or space into which the fragments from the explosion are injected; 2) A preexisting time we can use to mark when the explosion happened; 3) Individual projectiles moving through space from a common center; 4) A definite moment when the explosion occurred; and 5) Something that started the Big Bang. All of these requirements in our visualization of the Big Bang are false or unnecessary, according to GR. Preexisting Space? There was no preexisting space. The mathematics of GR state unambiguously that three-dimensional space was created at the Big Bang itself, at "Time Zero," along with everything else. At that beginning, there were no separations between particles anywhere. This is another way of saying there was no three-dimensional space,,, space is not a passive stage across which objects dance but a full-fledged member of the cast. GR treats galaxies and "space-time" together, giving a very different picture of what happens than if they were treated separately, as most of us tend to do.,,, Perhaps the strangest truth to emerge from general relativity is the expansion of space. Like spots glued to the surface of a swelling balloon at eternally fixed latitude and longitude points, the galaxies remain where they are while space dilates between them as time passes.,,, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/1997/05/14/why-the-big-bang-is-not-an-explosion/7164578f-5b06-407b-b69a-e97377145ac5/ "The Big Bang represents an immensely powerful, yet carefully planned and controlled release of matter, energy, space and time. All this is accomplished within the strict confines of very carefully fine-tuned physical constants and laws. The power and care this explosion reveals exceeds human mental capacity by multiple orders of magnitude." Prof. Henry F. Schaefer - closing statement of the following video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=901f7oC_Pik&feature=player_detailpage#t=360s
bornagain77_{September 5, 2022
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Relatd, flatness is a topological property of the cosmos not something like the earth is flat. KFkairosfocus_{September 5, 2022
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Ba77 at 12, I must say that this "flatness" idea is not understood by me. Hubble deep space images show galaxies going way, way back, with some just faintly visible. The universe is set in three dimensions. It is not flat. The CMBR is a big deal. But how did the expansion unfold right after the Big Bang? I do picture a typical explosion. If you could visualize a stick of dynamite exploding in the air, it would detonate as a ball-shaped area of fire. I picture the expanding universe as a ball, but things don't just happen on the surface of the ball but inside it as well. And after it began to cool, the various elements began to form on their own? Free hydrogen to lead?relatd_{September 5, 2022
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Relatd, you do realize that the inflation model is an atheistic model that is based on reductive materialism do you not? And that It was postulated to try to 'explain away' the fine-tuning of the “flatness” of space and the near perfect uniformity of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR)? In other words, the theory is a futile attempt to get around the implication of Intelligent Design!
Critics Respond to Stephen Meyer’s New Book (Without Mentioning Him by Name) Brian Miller - October 16, 2021 Excerpt: Siegel’s Argument Siegel attempts to find a loophole for the conclusion of a cosmic beginning by appealing to the theory known as eternal chaotic inflation. Inflationary theory was initially developed to explain the fine-tuning implied by the “flatness” of space and the near perfect uniformity of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). The flatness represents the lack in curvature of space that the theory of general relativity would normally predict. According to the standard Big Bang model, the lack of curvature required the mass density of the early universe to have been fine-tuned to greater than 1 part in 1060 (a 1 with 60 zeros behind it). Inflationary theory attempts to explain the flatness of space and the uniformity of the CMBR without the need for such extreme fine-tuning.,,, https://evolutionnews.org/2021/10/critics-respond-to-stephen-meyers-new-book-without-mentioning-him-by-name/
Nov. 2021 - The interesting thing about theoretical physicists trying to ‘explain away’ the fine-tuning implied by the “flatness” of space and the near perfect uniformity of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) with their multiverse-inflationary model is that the Bible, (long before the “flatness” of space and the near perfect uniformity of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) were even discovered), is on record at to ‘predicting’ the “flatness” of space and the near perfect uniformity of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR).,,, etc.. etc.. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-cnn-the-problem-with-the-big-bang-theory/#comment-739874 Verses:
Job 38:4-5 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? Proverbs 8:26-27 While as yet He had not made the earth or the fields, or the primeval dust of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was there, when He drew a circle on the face of the deep, Job 26:10 He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.
bornagain77_{September 5, 2022
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Ba77 at 6, I expect more from you than "Rel. well if you prefer imagination over reality so be it." That was not my point. When data comes in that does not fit known models, then what? No need to discard those models. They may still contain some useful ideas. But more ideas are needed to explain any new data that does not fit. So, I would use my imagination in that case. I would talk it over with others who are capable of providing relevant input. In fact, I would get one or more people to brainstorm with. We would all throw out ideas. The moment we hit on something that seems plausible, we extrapolate our new idea onto the data. It may fit only part of the data but it's a start. A part of the puzzle has just been filled in and then we go on to the rest. That's what I'm talking about.relatd_{September 5, 2022
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Sev, I don't disagree that both imagination and empiricism are necessary to do science. Yet, I disagree very strongly that imagination should be untethered from empirical testing as it is with these multiverse theories. (and, I might add, as it is untethered from empirical testing with Darwinian 'just-so story' telling)
Physics on Edge - George Ellis - August 2017 Excerpt: Theoretical physics and cosmology find themselves in a strange place. Scientific theories have since the seventeenth century been held tight by an experimental leash. In the last twenty years or so, both string theory and theories of the multiverse have slipped the leash. Their owners argue that this is no time to bring these subjects to heel. It is this that is strange.,,, Carlo Rovelli has responded to Dawid: "… The very existence of reliable theories is what makes science valuable to society… Dawid’s merit is to have emphasized and analyzed some of the non-empirical argument that scientists use in the “preliminary appraisal” of theories. His weakness is to have obfuscated the crucial distinction between this and validation: the process where a theory becomes reliable, gets accepted by the entire scientific community, and potentially useful to society. The problem with Dawid is that he fails to say that, for this, only empirical evidence is convincing.36" Hear, hear. http://inference-review.com/article/physics-on-edge - George Ellis is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Complex Systems in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Sociobiology: The Art of Story Telling – Stephen Jay Gould – 1978 – New Scientist Excerpt: Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers “Just So stories”. When evolutionists study individual adaptations, when they try to explain form and behaviour by reconstructing history and assessing current utility, they also tell just so stories – and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance. https://books.google.com/books?id=tRj7EyRFVqYC&pg=PA530 “... another common misuse of evolutionary ideas: namely, the idea that some trait must have evolved merely because we can imagine a scenario under which possession of that trait would have been advantageous to fitness... Such forays into evolutionary explanation amount ultimately to storytelling... it is not enough to construct a story about how the trait might have evolved in response to a given selection pressure; rather, one must provide some sort of evidence that it really did so evolve. This is a very tall order.…” — Austin L. Hughes, The Folly of Scientism - The New Atlantis, Fall 2012
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Sev, did you not read the paper in the OP?
A Biblical View of Mathematics – Vern Poythress – Doctorate in theology, PhD in Mathematics (Harvard) Excerpt: 15. Implications of Gödel’s proof B. Metaphysical problems of anti-theistic mathematics: unity and plurality Excerpt: Because of the above difficulties, anti-theistic philosophy of mathematics is condemned to oscillate, much as we have done in our argument, between the poles of a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge. Why? It will not acknowledge the true God, wise Creator of both the human mind with its mathematical intuition and the external world with its mathematical properties. In sections 22-23 we shall see how the Biblical view furnishes us with a real solution to the problem of “knowing” that 2 + 2 = 4 and knowing that S is true.,,, B. A Christian epistemology of mathematics, founded in the knowledge of God 22. The image of God is a foundation for mathematical a priori How do we come to know and discuss mathematics (b), that is, the thoughts and knowledge of human mathematicians? Here, for the first time, we must focus on the Christian view of man. How does man fit into the picture of mathematics? We can have no other starting point than the “definition” of man provided by Scripture: man is the image of God (Gen.1:26-30; cf. Gen. 2:7; I Cor. 11:7). As such, his talk is to imitate receptively, on a finite level, the works (naming, Gen. 2:19; 1:4; governing, Gen. 1:28; Ps. 22:28; improving, Gen. 2:15; 1:31), and rest (Gen. 2:2; Ex. 20:11) of God. Man’s mind is created with the potential, then, of understanding God (though not exhaustively). He has the capability of,understanding the aggregative, quantitative, spatial, and kinematic aspects of God’s rule, since he himself is a ruler like God. Thus he can generalize with confidence from 2 + 2 = 4, etc., to 2,123,955 + 644,101 = 2,768,056. Here we have the first step in a Christian answer to the epistemological problem of a priori/a posteriori (§§12-15). The a priori capability of man’s created nature really corresponds to the a posteriori of what is “out there,” because man is in the image of the One who ordained what is “out there.” At the same time, man’s mathematical reasoning is not always right, his intuitive expectations are not always fulfilled (cf. examples in §12), because man is the image of God the infinite One. Since God is incomprehensible, His mathematics sometimes baffles us, and it is to be expected that it should. Gödel’s proof (§15) perhaps articulates one specific instance of a principial limitation on man’s knowledge in comparison to God’s. 23. Revelation is a foundation for mathematical a posteriori Next, we should ask how a man comes to know mathematical truths that he hasn’t known before. This, one might say, is the a posteriori side of mathematics. The Bible answers that God reveals to men whatever they know: “He who teaches men knowledge, the Lord, knows the thoughts of man, that they are but a breath. Blessed is the man whom thou dost chasten, 0 Lord, and whom thou dost teach out of thy law” (Ps. 94:l0b-12). “But it is the spirit in a man, the breath of the Almighty, that[makes him understand. It is not the old that are wise, nor the aged that understand what is right” (Job 32:8-9; cf. Prov. 8). The Lord’s instruction sometimes comes, of course, by way of “natural” revelation (Ps.19; Isa. 40:26; 51:6; Prov. 30:24-28). Thus we can do justice to the real novelty that is sometimes found in a new mathematical theorem. Note that, in the Christian framework, the a priori of man’s nature and the a posteriori of God’s universe and His revelation complement rather than compete with one another. http://frame-poythress.org/a-biblical-view-of-mathematics/
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Bornagain77/6
Even Einstein’s ‘thought experiments’ were not considered empirical science until he had empirical evidence that his ‘thought experiments’ actually matched physical reality.
Doesn't that rather suggest that imagination comes first and empirical testing comes after, that without imagination you have no ideas to test but without a method of testing you have no way of knowing if your ideas are true? In other words, both imagination and empiricism are necessary to do science?Seversky_{September 5, 2022
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Bornagain77/1
And to state the obvious, if your ‘anti-theistic’ worldview can’t make sense of the ‘simple’ fact that 2+2=4, and why mathematics should be applicable to the universe in the first place, then your ‘anti-theistic’ worldview can’t possibly be true.
How does your theistic "worldview" make sense of the simple fact that 2+2=4? I don't remember God handing down lessons in basic arithmetic in the Bible.Seversky_{September 5, 2022
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Rel. well if you prefer imagination over reality so be it. Just don't claim you are doing empirical science when you simply imagine something to be true with no empirical evidence that it is indeed true... Even Einstein's infamous 'thought experiments' with hypothetical observers were not considered empirical science until he finally had empirical evidence that his 'thought experiments' actually matched physical reality.
Introduction to special relativity Excerpt: Einstein’s approach was based on thought experiments, calculations, and the principle of relativity, which is the notion that all physical laws should appear the same (that is, take the same basic form) to all inertial observers.,,, Each observer has a distinct “frame of reference” in which velocities are measured,,,, per wikipedia The happiest thought of my life. Excerpt: In 1920 Einstein commented that a thought came into his mind when writing the above-mentioned paper he called it “the happiest thought of my life”: “The gravitational field has only a relative existence… Because for an observer freely falling from the roof of a house – at least in his immediate surroundings – there exists no gravitational field.” http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node85.html
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Einstein famously said: "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.relatd_{September 5, 2022
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Rel: Paul Steinhardt, Albert Einstein Professor in Science and Director of the Center for Theoretical Science at Princeton University, is hardly a wise-cracking teenager and he is in fact one of the originators of the inflation model. Moreover, his critique of the inflation model, in academic circles, and since he is one of the originators of the theory, is taken fairly seriously.
Physicist Slams Cosmic Theory He Helped Conceive https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/physicist-slams-cosmic-theory-he-helped-conceive/
You also said something about a 'profound lack of imagination' on Steinhardt and companies part. Well I would beg to differ and say that the inflation model itself suffers from an over-abundance of imagination that is untethered to any sort of empirical reality.
Why Most Atheists (must) Believe in Pink Unicorns - May 2014 Excerpt: Given an infinite amount of time, anything that is logically possible(11) will eventually happen. So, given an infinite number of universes being created in (presumably) an infinite amount of time, you are not only guaranteed to get your universe but every other possible universe. This means that every conceivable universe exists, from ones that consist of nothing but a giant black hole, to ones that are just like ours and where someone just like you is reading a blog post just like this, except it’s titled: “Why most atheists believe in blue unicorns.” By now I’m sure you know where I’m going with this, but I’ll say it anyway. Since we know that horses are possible, and that pink animals are possible, and that horned animals are possible, then there is no logical reason why pink unicorns are not possible entities. Ergo, if infinite universes exist, then pink unicorns must necessarily exist. For an atheist to appeal to multiverse theory to deny the need of a designer infers that he believes in that theory more than a theistically suggestive single universe. And to believe in the multiverse means that one is saddled with everything that goes with it, like pink unicorns. In fact, they not only believe in pink unicorns, but that someone just like them is riding on one at this very moment, and who believes that elephants, giraffes, and zebra are merely childish fairytales. Postscript While it may be amusing to imagine atheists riding pink unicorns, it should be noted that the belief in them does not logically invalidate atheism. There theoretically could be multiple universes and there theoretically could be pink unicorns. However, there is a more substantial problem for the atheist if he wants to believe in them and he wants to remain an atheist. Since, as I said, anything can happen in the realm of infinities, one of those possibilities is the production of a being of vast intelligence and power. Such a being would be as a god to those like us, and could perhaps breach the boundaries of the multiverse to, in fact, be a “god” to this universe. This being might even have the means to create its own universe and embody the very description of the God of Christianity (or any other religion that the atheist otherwise rejects). It seems the atheist, in affirming the multiverse in order to avoid the problem of fine-tuning, finds himself on the horns of a dilemma. The further irony is that somewhere, in the great wide world of infinities, the atheist’s doppelganger is going to war against an army of theists riding on the horns of a great pink beast known to his tribesman as “The Saddlehorn Dilemma.” https://pspruett.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/why-most-atheists-believe-in-pink-unicorns/
Of related note:
How the Multiverse Points to God: A Conversation with Stephen Meyer (May 2022) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaJZMc-e1aI
bornagain77_{September 5, 2022
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"multimess"? Seriously? Who writes this stuff? Teenagers? Instead of behaving like scientists they sound like kids. A "We don't know" would have been more scholarly. That article resorts to irrational thinking as opposed to coming up with other ideas that can be compared to the observed data. I picture a room full of teenagers with degrees just throwing up their hands in surrender to a profound lack of imagination.relatd_{September 5, 2022
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Moreover, to make matters much worse for 'anti-theistic' philosophies, Gödel's incompleteness theorem has now been extended into quantum physics. In the following article entitled ‘Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics’, which studied the derivation of macroscopic properties from a complete microscopic description, the researchers remark that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, The researchers further commented that their findings challenge the reductionists’ point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”
Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics – December 9, 2015 Excerpt: A mathematical problem underlying fundamental questions in particle and quantum physics is provably unsolvable,,, It is the first major problem in physics for which such a fundamental limitation could be proven. The findings are important because they show that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, “We knew about the possibility of problems that are undecidable in principle since the works of Turing and Gödel in the 1930s,” added Co-author Professor Michael Wolf from Technical University of Munich. “So far, however, this only concerned the very abstract corners of theoretical computer science and mathematical logic. No one had seriously contemplated this as a possibility right in the heart of theoretical physics before. But our results change this picture. From a more philosophical perspective, they also challenge the reductionists’ point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.” http://phys.org/news/2015-12-quantum-physics-problem-unsolvable-godel.html
This finding that you can't mathematically derive macroscopic properties from a complete microscopic description is utterly devastating to the reductive materialistic theory of Darwinian evolution, and also to the reductive materialistic theory of inflationary cosmology. Simply put, the reductive materialistic theories of Darwinian evolution and Inflationary cosmology will never have a 'complete' mathematical, and therefore scientific, theory that explains the macroscopic properties of biology and cosmology.
On the problem of biological form - Marta Linde-Medina (2020) Excerpt: Embryonic development, which inspired the first theories of biological form, was eventually excluded from the conceptual framework of the Modern Synthesis, (neo-Darwinism) as irrelevant.,,, At present, the problem of biological form remains unsolved. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12064-020-00317-3 Top Ten Questions and Objections to ‘Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics’ – Robert J. Marks II – June 12, 2017 Excerpt: “There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. Examples include electromagnetics, Newtonian mechanics, geophysics, relativity, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, optics, and many areas in biology. Those hoping to establish Darwinian evolution as a hard science with a model have either failed or inadvertently cheated. These models contain guidance mechanisms to land the airplane squarely on the target runway despite stochastic wind gusts. Not only can the guiding assistance be specifically identified in each proposed evolution model, its contribution to the success can be measured, in bits, as active information.,,,”,,, “there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,” https://evolutionnews.org/2017/06/top-ten-questions-and-objections-to-introduction-to-evolutionary-informatics/ Robert Jackson Marks II is an American electrical engineer. His contributions include the Zhao-Atlas-Marks (ZAM) time-frequency distribution in the field of signal processing,[1] the Cheung–Marks theorem[2] in Shannon sampling theory and the Papoulis-Marks-Cheung (PMC) approach in multidimensional sampling.[3] He was instrumental in the defining of the field of computational intelligence and co-edited the first book using computational intelligence in the title.[4][5] – per wikipedia Pop Goes The Universe - Scientific American - January 2017 - Anna Ijjas, Paul J. Steinhardt and Abraham Loeb Excerpt: “If anything, the Planck data disfavored the simplest inflation models and exacerbated long-standing foundational problems with the theory, providing new reasons to consider competing ideas about the origin and evolution of the universe… (i)n the years since, more precise data gathered by the Planck satellite and other instruments have made the case only stronger……The Planck satellite results—a combination of an unexpectedly small (few percent) deviation from perfect scale invariance in the pattern of hot and colds spots in the CMB and the failure to detect cosmic gravitational waves—are stunning. For the first time in more than 30 years, the simplest inflationary models, including those described in standard textbooks, are strongly disfavored by observations.” “Two improbable criteria have to be satisfied for inflation to start. First, shortly after the big bang, there has to be a patch of space where the quantum fluctuations of spacetime have died down and the space is well described by Einstein’s classical equations of general relativity; second, the patch of space must be flat enough and have a smooth enough distribution of energy that the inflation energy can grow to dominate all other forms of energy. Several theoretical estimates of the probability of finding a patch with these characteristics just after the big bang suggest that it is more difficult than finding a snowy mountain equipped with a ski lift and well-maintained ski slopes in the middle of a desert.” “More important, if it were easy to find a patch emerging from the big bang that is flat and smooth enough to start inflation, then inflation would not be needed in the first place. Recall that the entire motivation for introducing it was to explain how the visible universe came to have these properties; if starting inflation requires those same properties, with the only difference being that a smaller patch of space is needed, that is hardly progress.” “…inflation continues eternally, generating an infinite number of patches where inflation has ended, each creating a universe unto itself…(t)he worrisome implication is that the cosmological properties of each patch differ because of the inherent randomizing effect of quantum fluctuations…The result is what cosmologists call the multiverse. Because every patch can have any physically conceivable properties, the multiverse does not explain why our universe has the very special conditions that we observe—they are purely accidental features of our particular patch.” “We would like to suggest “multimess” as a more apt term to describe the unresolved outcome of eternal inflation, whether it consists of an infinite multitude of patches with randomly distributed properties or a quantum mess. From our perspective, it makes no difference which description is correct. Either way, the multimess does not predict the properties of our observable universe to be the likely outcome. A good scientific theory is supposed to explain why what we observe happens instead of something else. The multimess fails this fundamental test.” https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/sciam3.pdf
In the following video Stephen Meyer speaks on multiverse models and found the Theistic model to be ‘favored’ over the anti-theistic multiverse, and/or ‘multimess’, models
Stephen Meyer Discusses the Big Bang, Einstein, Hawking, & More - Science Uprising Expert Interviews https://youtu.be/m_AeA4fMHhI?t=1252
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Of related note to 'anti-theistic' philosophies having no real clue exactly why 2 + 2 = 4, Godel's incompleteness theorems were, in large measure, born out of the fact that mathematicians could not mathematically prove that 1+1=2. You can pick up some of the details of that fact at 10:00 minute mark of the following video,
BBC-Dangerous Knowledge – Part 3 of 5 https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdoj7y
A humorous example of 'anti-theistic' philosophies having no real clue exactly why 2 + 2 = 4 is provided in the following debate between Lawrence Krauss and William Lane Craig. In the debate Lawrence Krauss wears a T-shirt underneath his dress shirt. On that T-Shirt it says that 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
2+2=5? (Lawrence Krauss vs William Lane Craig) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOrlIOm6eGM Lawrence Krauss Contradicts HImself by Denying Logic (2+2=5?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so0TOp1GMQE
And in the debate Krauss even went on to state that 'for extremely large values of numbers we have to change the rules". Which is just plain nonsense. The 'rules' of mathematics state that 2+2 always equals 4, and that 2.5+2.5 always equals 5. There is never any need 'change the rules' of mathematics in order to make extremely large values of 2 equal 5. In fact, the 'rules' of math are considered so unbendable, so unbreakable, that if physical observation disagrees with what the mathematics of a particular scientific theory predicts then the 'rules' of mathematics certainly do not change to accord with that scientific theory, but instead the entire scientific theory is called into question and a 'new' mathematical scientific theory must be formulated in order to take into consideration that disagreement between mathematics and physical observation. For instance, Einstein's entirely new mathematical theory of general relativity was, in large measure, confirmed by the fact that Newton's mathematical theory of gravity could not 'mathematically' account for Mercury's orbit whereas Einstein's new mathematical theory could,
Einstein’s general relativity reveals new quirk of Mercury’s orbit - 2018 Warped spacetime affects the planet’s motion in several ways Excerpt: Before the famous physicist came up with his theory of gravity, known as the general theory of relativity, scientists’ predictions for Mercury’s motions were slightly off: The planet’s orbit disagreed with expectations. When Einstein realized that general relativity accounted for the mismatch, it was the first sign his theory was right https://www.sciencenews.org/article/einstein-general-relativity-mercury-orbit
Einstein (and Wigner) even went on to call the applicability of mathematics to the universe a 'miracle', and even chastised 'professional atheists' in the process of calling it a miracle.
On the Rational Order of the World: a Letter to Maurice Solovine – Albert Einstein – March 30, 1952 Excerpt: “You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world (to the extent that we are authorized to speak of such a comprehensibility) as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori, one should expect a chaotic world, which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way .. the kind of order created by Newton’s theory of gravitation, for example, is wholly different. Even if a man proposes the axioms of the theory, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected a priori. That is the ‘miracle’ which is constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands. There lies the weakness of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but “bared the miracles.” -Albert Einstein http://inters.org/Einstein-Letter-Solovine The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences – Eugene Wigner – 1960 Excerpt: ,, The great mathematician fully, almost ruthlessly, exploits the domain of permissible reasoning and skirts the impermissible. That his recklessness does not lead him into a morass of contradictions is a miracle in itself: certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin’s process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,, It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here, quite comparable in its striking nature to the miracle that the human mind can string a thousand arguments together without getting itself into contradictions, or to the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind’s capacity to divine them.,,, The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning. https://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~v1ranick/papers/wigner.pdf
And the last time I checked, miracles are considered to be the sole province of God:
definition – Miracle – a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency. “the miracle of rising from the grave”
And to state the obvious, if your 'anti-theistic' worldview can't make sense of the 'simple' fact that 2+2=4, and why mathematics should be applicable to the universe in the first place, then your 'anti-theistic' worldview can't possibly be true. Verse and quote:
John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” ‘the Word’ in John1:1 is translated from ‘Logos’ in Greek. Logos is also the root word from which we derive our modern word logic? http://etymonline.com/?term=logic What is the Logos? Logos is a Greek word literally translated as “word, speech, or utterance.” However, in Greek philosophy, Logos refers to divine reason or the power that puts sense into the world making order instead of chaos.,,, In the Gospel of John, John writes “In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). John appealed to his readers by saying in essence, “You’ve been thinking, talking, and writing about the Word (divine reason) for centuries and now I will tell you who He is.” https://www.compellingtruth.org/what-is-the-Logos.html
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