Quote of the Day

_{Barry Arrington

March 6, 2013

Intelligent Design}

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“I disagree that Darwin’s theory is as “solid as any explanation in science.” Disagree? I regard the claim as preposterous. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to thirteen or so decimal places; so, too, general relativity. A leaf trembling in the wrong way would suffice to shatter either theory. What can Darwinian theory offer in comparison? ”

David Berlinski

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It is interesting to note that 'higher dimensional' mathematics had to be developed before Einstein could elucidate General Relativity, or even before Quantum Mechanics could be elucidated;
The Mathematics Of Higher Dimensionality – Gauss and Riemann – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/6199520/ The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences - Eugene Wigner - 1960 Excerpt: We now have, in physics, two theories of great power and interest: the theory of quantum phenomena and the theory of relativity.,,, The two theories operate with different mathematical concepts: the four dimensional Riemann space and the infinite dimensional Hilbert space, http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html
One peculiar thing about the higher dimensional 4-D space time of General Relativity is that it 'expands equally in all places':
Where is the centre of the universe?: Excerpt: There is no centre of the universe! According to the standard theories of cosmology, the universe started with a "Big Bang" about 14 thousand million years ago and has been expanding ever since. Yet there is no centre to the expansion; it is the same everywhere. The Big Bang should not be visualized as an ordinary explosion. The universe is not expanding out from a centre into space; rather, the whole universe is expanding and it is doing so equally at all places, as far as we can tell.
Thus from a 3-dimensional (3D) perspective, any particular 3D spot in the universe is to be considered just as 'center of the universe' as any other particular spot in the universe is to be considered 'center of the universe'. This centrality found for any 3D place in the universe is because the universe is a 4D expanding hypersphere, analogous in 3D to the surface of an expanding balloon. All points on the surface are moving away from each other, and every point is central, if that’s where you live.
Centrality of Earth Within The 4-Dimensional Space-Time of General Relativity - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/8421879
And higher (infinite) dimensional quantum mechanics is also very mysterious in that consciousness is found to be the 'ultimate universal reality':
"It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is the ultimate universal reality" - Eugene Wigner - (Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in Wheeler and Zurek, p.169) 1961 - received Nobel Prize in 1963 for 'Quantum Symmetries' Four intersecting lines of experimental evidence from quantum mechanics that shows that consciousness precedes the quantum wave collapse of material reality (Wigner’s Quantum Symmetries, Wheeler’s Delayed Choice, Leggett’s Inequalities, Quantum Zeno effect): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G_Fi50ljF5w_XyJHfmSIZsOcPFhgoAZ3PRc_ktY8cFo/edit
Of related note; there is also a mysterious 'higher dimensional' component to life:
The predominance of quarter-power (4-D) scaling in biology Excerpt: Many fundamental characteristics of organisms scale with body size as power laws of the form: Y = Yo M^b, where Y is some characteristic such as metabolic rate, stride length or life span, Yo is a normalization constant, M is body mass and b is the allometric scaling exponent. A longstanding puzzle in biology is why the exponent b is usually some simple multiple of 1/4 (4-Dimensional scaling) rather than a multiple of 1/3, as would be expected from Euclidean (3-Dimensional) scaling. “Although living things occupy a three-dimensional space, their internal physiology and anatomy operate as if they were four-dimensional. Quarter-power scaling laws are perhaps as universal and as uniquely biological as the biochemical pathways of metabolism, the structure and function of the genetic code and the process of natural selection.,,, The conclusion here is inescapable, that the driving force for these invariant scaling laws cannot have been natural selection." Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, What Darwin Got Wrong (London: Profile Books, 2010), p. 78-79
Of related interest is that mathematics was shown to be incomplete by Godel:
Kurt Gödel - Incompleteness Theorem - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/8462821
i.e. the 'truth' of a mathematical equation is not within the mathematical equation itself but the 'truthfulness' of the equation must be imparted to it from God:
BRUCE GORDON: Hawking's irrational arguments - October 2010 Excerpt: Rather, the transcendent reality on which our universe depends must be something that can exhibit agency - a mind that can choose among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bring into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them. This is what “breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe.” Anything else invokes random miracles as an explanatory principle and spells the end of scientific rationality.,,, Universes do not “spontaneously create” on the basis of abstract mathematical descriptions, nor does the fantasy of a limitless multiverse trump the explanatory power of transcendent intelligent design. What Mr. Hawking’s contrary assertions show is that mathematical savants can sometimes be metaphysical simpletons. Caveat emptor. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/1/hawking-irrational-arguments/
Moreover, Godel, who was perhaps Einstein's closest confidant at Princeton, also had this to say
The God of the Mathematicians - Goldman Excerpt: As Gödel told Hao Wang, “Einstein’s religion [was] more abstract, like Spinoza and Indian philosophy. Spinoza’s god is less than a person; mine is more than a person; because God can play the role of a person.” - Kurt Gödel - (Gödel is considered one of the greatest logicians who ever existed) http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/07/the-god-of-the-mathematicians
And when one allows God into math to make it 'complete' then one finds a very credible reconciliation between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics into the infamous 'theory of everything':
General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Entropy, and The Shroud Of Turin - updated video http://vimeo.com/34084462 Romans 11:36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen. Natalie Grant - Alive (Resurrection music video) http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=KPYWPGNX
bornagain77_{March 6, 2013
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Barry, that's a perfectly good reason to avoid an Epicurean interpretation of evolutionary theory, but that's different from the theory per se. As someone who both has some philosophical training under my belt and understands evolutionary biology fairly well (for a non-specialist), it seems quite clear to me that it would be a category-mistake to call natural selection a law. But one can point that out without rejecting the idea that natural selection plays an important role in producing macroevolutionary patterns, such as speciation.Kantian Naturalist_{March 6, 2013
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KN: “Maybe biological explanations in general are just different from physical explanations?” AF: “Physical laws are descriptive; results of observations and thus provisional and subject to revision.” You both fail to grasp that Darwinists assert that natural selection is a “physical explanation” or a “physical law” as you have used those terms. In other words, according to them, natural selection acts as a mechanical necessity in exactly the same way that gravity makes an apple drop to the ground. And the sillier ones will tell you that it is established as well as the laws of gravity. Berlinski is making a point about that silliness. It is good to see you agree with him.Barry Arrington_{March 6, 2013
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Box, I think one of the few things you and I agree upon is that reductionism is intellectually bankrupt. (Granted, that's a pretty huge thing to agree upon!) As to whether the top-down organization of living things qualifies as a law, I hesitate -- likewise for biogenesis -- because I don't know how such claims can be put into a mathematical form. For while I do think it is true that living things have a top-down, hierarchical organization -- indeed, I think it is a necessary truth! -- I haven't the slightest idea how to mathematically represent that truth, and so I'm leery of calling it a law of nature.Kantian Naturalist_{March 6, 2013
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What about the law of biogenesis? Thats a law of biology. Its supported by every single observation in the history of mankind and not contradicted by any known evidence. I would put it up there with the law of gravity.kuartus_{March 6, 2013
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Kantian Naturalist: Maybe biological explanations in general are just different from physical explanations?
What does that tell us about reductionist ambition?
Kantian Naturalist: For one thing, there are not (to my knowledge) any laws of biology, so the fundamental task of biological theories is different in kind from the task of physical theories.
I would like to propose a biological law – on which we more or less agreed - : *Organisms are organized top-down*.
Kantian Naturalist: The task of a physical theory is to explain why the laws hold, to the extent that they do. That’s not so for biology. If there are no laws of life, then biological explanations are just different in character than physical laws, (..)
Maybe biology needs a new paradigm. Maybe the search for bottom-up explanations for life is coming to an end.
Kantian Naturalist: (..) and so it’s a mistake to so much as hold them against physical theories, (..)
Maybe the mistake is the metaphysical naturalistic confinement.Box_{March 6, 2013
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Physical laws are descriptive; results of observations and thus provisional and subject to revision.Alan Fox_{March 6, 2013
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Maybe biological explanations in general are just different from physical explanations? For one thing, there are not (to my knowledge) any laws of biology, so the fundamental task of biological theories is different in kind from the task of physical theories. The task of a physical theory is to explain why the laws hold, to the extent that they do. That's not so for biology. If there are no laws of life, then biological explanations are just different in character than physical laws, and so it's a mistake to so much as hold them against physical theories, let alone think that biological theories suffer by the comparison.Kantian Naturalist_{March 6, 2013
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