Science, Worldviews & Society, 1: An argument from necessary (thus, eternal) truth to the reality of God as eternally contemplative . . . and, designing . . . Mind

Looks like a definite snipe and run rather than face and resolve by LT. KF kairosfocus

As to 'mind', the following is an interesting talk on,,, The Mystery of Perception During Near Death Experiences - Pim van Lommel - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avyUsPgIuQ0 bornagain77

Let's highlight a main point: as the watch shows, computation is not contemplation, where from common experience, we know design to be characteristic of the contemplative mind, AND to result in characteristic empirical signs such as functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information. Signs that on search space challenges, are not plausible as results of blind searches relying on chance and necessity without design. In the case of the fine tuned cosmos, much of that information is mathematically precise, raising issues of the contemplation required to do mathematics: programmers program, machines compute based on programs. So, what best explains a cosmos like that? KF kairosfocus

So far, it looks like LT may be doing a smear and run troll raid. Let's see if he will come back and set things right. It's a pretty serious thing for him to be spreading false accusations. KF kairosfocus

If there be any such creature as unchangeable, eternal, truth (small t) in the Naturalists'/Materialists' worldview, then that creature would have to, because of the Big Bang, of had a 'random' beginning. Eddington puts the problem that 'truth' presents to the Naturalists/Materialists like this:

"I have no “philosophical axe to grind” in this discussion. Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature is repugnant to me. I am simply stating the dilemma to which our present fundamental conception of physical law leads us. I see no way round it; but whether future developments of science will find an escape I cannot predict. The dilemma is this: Surveying our surroundings, we find them to be far from a “fortuitous concourse of atoms”. The picture of the world, as drawn in existing physical theories shows arrangements of the individual elements for which the odds are multillions to 1 against an origin by chance. Some people would like to call this non-random feature of the world purpose or design; but I will call it non-committally anti-chance. We are unwilling in physics that anti-chance plays any part in the reactions between the systems of billions of atoms and quanta that we study; and indeed all our experimental evidence goes to show that these are governed by the laws of chance. Accordingly, we sweep anti-chance out of the laws of physics–out of the differential equations. Naturally, therefore, it reappears in the boundary conditions, for it must be got into the scheme somewhere. By sweeping it far enough away from the sphere of our current physical problems, we fancy we have got rid of it. It is only when some of us are so misguided as to try to get back billions of years into the past that we find the sweepings all piled up like a high wall and forming a boundary–a beginning of time–which we cannot climb over. A way out of the dilemma has been proposed which seems to have found favour with a number of scientific workers. I oppose it because I think it is untenable, not because of any desire to retain the present dilemma, I should like to find a genuine loophole. But that does not alter my conviction that the loophole that is at present being advocated is a blind alley." Eddington AS. 1931. The end of the world: from the standpoint of mathematical physics. Nature 127:447-453.

The “way out of the dilemma” that Eddington references, and which he rejects, is: “If we have a number of particles moving about at random, they will in the course of time go through every possible configuration, so that even the most orderly, the most non-chance configuration, will occur by chance if only we wait long enough.” And indeed we find this 'randomness generates truth' postulate of Naturalists/Materialists every where we look in physics that gives us strong evidence for God. i.e. Why did the universe come into being with such finely tuned initial parameters and constants? Well, the Naturalist responds, there is this undetectable infinity of randomly generated multiverses, and we just so happen (lucky us) to live in right one.,,, Why is the Cosmic Background Radiation extremely homogenous? Well you see, the Naturalist replies, there was this initial rapid inflation of the universe that created a infinity of other bubble universes that we cannot detect, and that, you see, is what 'smoothed out' the Cosmic Background radiation to be so homogenous.,,, Why does the wave appear to collapse upon conscious observation in the double slit? Well, the Naturalist replies, there really is no wave collapse, it is just that every time you try to observe a particle it will create a quasi infinite number of other universes just like this one, except for the fact that one of your other quasi infinite selves, which 'split off' in these other undetectable quasi infinite parallel universes, sees the particle in another position than the position you see.,,, And that is the Naturalists main modus operandi when confronted with 'truth'. Confronted with unchangeable, eternal, truth, as with the creation of the universe and the fine-tuning of the universe, they throw a random infinity at it. And when confronted with consciousness having anything to do with quantum mechanics, Naturalists threw another random infinity at it. (As well Feynman 'brushed infinity under the rug' but that is another story). Naturalists are not ever really seeking 'the Truth' (capital T) so much as they are trying, for whatever severely misguided reason, to avoid 'the Truth':

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

Of note: If we allow that ‘God can play the role of a person’, (for who could deny Him that possibility “IF” He exists), as even the author of the incompleteness theorem himself allowed that God could do,,

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

,, ‘if’ we allow that possibility that ‘God can play the role of a person’, (and how could a person who believes in the absurdity of infinite multiverses deny at least that possibility?), ‘if’ we allow that possibility then we find a very credible reconciliation between the finite world of the 4-D space-time of General Relativity and the infinite world of ‘timelessness’ of Quantum Mechanics. A very credible reconciliation that does not wind up in the ‘anything goes’ epistemological pit of logical absurdities as string theory, m-theory, parallel universes, and the multiverse does,,,

The Center Of The Universe Is Life – General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Entropy and The Shroud Of Turin – video http://vimeo.com/34084462

,,,in fact, unlike all these outlandish multiverse scenarios which have no empirical support (and which undermine our ability to rationally practice science in the first place), we find a reconciliation between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, in the resurrection event of Christ, that has a surprising amount of empirical support. For instance, it is now shown that the process in which the image was formed on the Shroud of Turin had to be a ‘quantum process’, not a classical process:

The absorbed energy in the Shroud body image formation appears as contributed by discrete values – Giovanni Fazio, Giuseppe Mandaglio – 2008 Excerpt: This result means that the optical density distribution,, can not be attributed at the absorbed energy described in the framework of the classical physics model. It is, in fact, necessary to hypothesize a absorption by discrete values of the energy where the ‘quantum’ is equal to the one necessary to yellow one fibril. http://cab.unime.it/journals/index.php/AAPP/article/view/C1A0802004/271 “It is not a continuum or spherical-front radiation that made the image, as visible or UV light. It is not the X-ray radiation that obeys the one over R squared law that we are so accustomed to in medicine. It is more unique. It is suggested that the image was formed when a high-energy particle struck the fiber and released radiation within the fiber at a speed greater that the local speed of light. Since the fiber acts as a light pipe, this energy moved out through the fiber until it encountered an optical discontinuity, then it slowed to the local speed of light and dispersed. The fact that the pixels don’t fluoresce suggests that the conversion to their now brittle dehydrated state occurred instantly and completely so no partial products remain to be activated by the ultraviolet light. This suggests a quantum event where a finite amount of energy transferred abruptly. The fact that there are images front and back suggests the radiating particles were released along the gravity vector. The radiation pressure may also help explain why the blood was “lifted cleanly” from the body as it transformed to a resurrected state.” Kevin Moran, optical engineer Scientists say Turin Shroud is supernatural – December 2011 Excerpt: After years of work trying to replicate the colouring on the shroud, a similar image has been created by the scientists. However, they only managed the effect by scorching equivalent linen material with high-intensity ultra violet lasers, undermining the arguments of other research, they say, which claims the Turin Shroud is a medieval hoax. Such technology, say researchers from the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (Enea), was far beyond the capability of medieval forgers, whom most experts have credited with making the famous relic. “The results show that a short and intense burst of UV directional radiation can colour a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin,” they said. And in case there was any doubt about the preternatural degree of energy needed to make such distinct marks, the Enea report spells it out: “This degree of power cannot be reproduced by any normal UV source built to date.” - per 'The Independent' UK

Verse and Music;

Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Metallica & San Francisco Symphony Orchestra – Nothing Else Matters – music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziThYl6B2vw

Also of important note is the fact that physics reveals two very different 'eternities' to us. An orderly 'eternity' for Special Relativity and an 'Infinity Chaotic' eternity for General relativity:

“Einstein’s equation predicts that, as the astronaut reaches the singularity (of the black-hole), the tidal forces grow infinitely strong, and their chaotic oscillations become infinitely rapid. The astronaut dies and the atoms which his body is made become infinitely and chaotically distorted and mixed-and then, at the moment when everything becomes infinite (the tidal strengths, the oscillation frequencies, the distortions, and the mixing), spacetime ceases to exist.” Kip S. Thorne – “Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy” pg. 476 Two very different ‘eternities’ revealed by physics: https://uncommondescent.com/cosmology/the-no-black-holes-uproar-a-week-later/#comment-489771

i.e. Black Holes are found to be ‘eternal’ singularities of destruction and disorder rather than singularities of creation and order such as the extreme order we see at the creation event of the Big Bang. Needless to say, the implications of this ‘eternity of destruction’ should be fairly disturbing for those of us who are of the ‘spiritually minded’ persuasion!

Matthew 10:28 “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

In light of this dilemma that these two very different eternities present to us spiritually minded people, and the fact that Gravity is, in so far as we can tell, completely incompatible with Quantum Mechanics (Bohemian Gravity, Sheldon), it is interesting to point out a subtle nuance on the Shroud of Turin. Namely that Gravity was overcome in the resurrection event of Christ:

THE EVENT HORIZON (Space-Time Singularity) OF THE SHROUD OF TURIN. – Isabel Piczek – Particle Physicist Excerpt: We have stated before that the images on the Shroud firmly indicate the total absence of Gravity. Yet they also firmly indicate the presence of the Event Horizon. These two seemingly contradict each other and they necessitate the past presence of something more powerful than Gravity that had the capacity to solve the above paradox. http://shroud3d.com/findings/isabel-piczek-image-formation Particle Radiation from the Body – July 2012 – M. Antonacci, A. C. Lind Excerpt: The Shroud’s frontal and dorsal body images are encoded with the same amount of intensity, independent of any pressure or weight from the body. The bottom part of the cloth (containing the dorsal image) would have born all the weight of the man’s supine body, yet the dorsal image is not encoded with a greater amount of intensity than the frontal image. Radiation coming from the body would not only explain this feature, but also the left/right and light/dark reversals found on the cloth’s frontal and dorsal body images. http://www.academicjournals.org/sre/PDF/pdf2012/30JulSpeIss/Antonacci.pdf

Personally, considering the extreme difficulty that many brilliant minds have had in trying to reconcile Quantum Mechanics and special relativity, i.e. QED, with Gravity, I consider the preceding nuance on the Shroud of Turin to be a subtle, but very powerful, evidence substantiating Christ’s primary claim as to being our Savior from sin, death, and hell: Verse, Apologetic, and Music:

John 8:23-24 But he continued, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins. G.O.S.P.E.L. – (the grace of propitiation) – poetry slam – video https://vimeo.com/20960385 Michael W. Smith – You Won’t Let Go LIVE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNZusL1OHG4

bornagain77

BA77: Thanks. In your honour, I have updated the OP with your first clip. KF kairosfocus

kf a few clock video you may like: OMEGA Co-Axial Chronometer - The perfect mechanical movement - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctj-RDbTBMU related: A Surreal Look at Time - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDnt-JnatxY The Mountain - Inspirational video http://video.yahoo.com/editorspicks-12135647/featured-24306389/the-mountain-24960678.html bornagain77

BA: Thank God. He is not what he was three months ago, and will never be the same again physically; the post op X-rays we looked at this week were heart-wrenching in one sense . . . though in another we must be thankful. But, that is much better than where he was headed. And, he is working on an argument from ability that I look forward to hosting when it is ready. KF kairosfocus

F/N: Had LT troubled to read the main discussion linked from the OP, he would have seen one of many ways that the materialist problem with truth crops up. For, as a watch demonstrates, it can be accurate but not truthful. (Cf. onwards Maverick Philosopher's linked discussion. And no, I am not going to give the link again here.) That is, a watch is an analogue computation in action, not a contemplation with intentionality and moral capacity to address duties of care to truth, fairness and more. Minds are truthful, not material mechanisms, and it is a major commitment of evolutionary materialist, lab coat clad "scientific" naturalism, that the world is based on material entities, and that which points beyond such is routinely scoffed at as "supernatural," or dismissed as a "ghost in the machine," or is mocked as the demonic superstition, or irrationality or delusion. Occam's razor is often called into play to try to dismiss. All of this, LT full well knows, but here wants to play at backing up false accusations so he pretends that it does not exist or if cited, it is a suspected misrepresentation sight unseen. In my native country we use a word for such an attitude: MALICE. Just for completeness, let me actually cite a Nobel Prize holder, Crick in his The Astonishing Hypothesis, 1994, as linked from here in the Google Books result, Ch 1 Introduction, p. 3, namely . . . and I deliberately use a leading ellipsis to underscore the malice in LT's words . . the astonishing hyp addressed by Crick is:

. . . [yes, an ellipsis AND a parenthesis] that "You", your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased: "You're nothing but a pack of neurons." [--> notice the composition of an artificial cite that speaks for but is not literally true to Carroll -- itself a pseudonym -- or to either the fictionalised or the real-world Alice] This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing. [--> and, see how a parenthesis can help us catch what we might have not spotted otherwise?]

To this, ID Thinker Philip Johnson aptly replied in 1995, in Reason in the Balance. Namely, that Sir Francis should have therefore been willing to preface his works thusly: "I, Francis Crick, my opinions and my science, and even the thoughts expressed in this book, consist of nothing more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules." Johnson then acidly commented: “[[t]he plausibility of materialistic determinism requires that an implicit exception be made for the theorist.” [[Reason in the Balance, 1995. And though RIB is sitting on a shelf nearby I refuse to get the copy, LT needs to learn a lesson about citation and its legitimate uses and why he should not treat others with malice.] GEM of TKI PS: For starters, take truth or even Truth as the name of the abstract entity, the set that collects truths. Truths, in turn being assertions or contemplated assertions whether or not put in verbal or symbolic form, that accurately describe reality. Which set, I assert is impossible to empty of members, so that Truth necessarily exists, it is not a synonym for the empty set. Of which, of course, there is but one such, symbolised { }. And, as a necessarily existent entity, Truth is eternal, having no beginning, no end and is present in all possible worlds. In the case of mathematical truths starting with natural numbers and extensions thereof, they are embedded in the design of our fine tuned cosmos. kairosfocus

KF, I join you in rejoicing over the outlook for your budding young philosopher. Barry Arrington

LT: 1: To me it looks uncommonly like you have restated the problem and presented it as if it were a solution. And, 2: FYI, LT you just made an accusation of dishonesty by deliberate misrepresentation, in a thread I host and in a further context where someone from the Web's fever swamps has been targetting me specifically with that false accusation, as I showed here and up in the linked thread . . . just about two WEEKS ago. So, you are hoist on your own petard, in a context where your error DOES misrepresent, mine demonstrably did not. (FYFI, a minor error in a cite that does not change its meaning, especially as copiously amplified from career-long context as well as the immediate context, is not a deceitful misrepresentation. I know a lot of folks over in the fever swamps of the Internet love to smear people, but in the end that goes to character. Strike 1, LT.) KF kairosfocus

The existence of truth is problematic for the materialist/atheist.

The problem with this premise is that it is false. The existence of lowercase-t truth is no problem at all in materialism, although I prefer the term naturalism. The other problem with the premise is its vagueness, as terms such as "existence," "truth," and "problem" could mean most anything. Everything after the first premise cannot be dealt with at all. It's not even false. What can you do to make the naturalist position clearer? (1) Concrete definition of terms. (2) Real-world examples of the problem under scrutiny. (3) Direct quotations (in context, no ellipses or alterations [as some folks at UD -- you know who you are -- are know quote-miners]) by proponents of naturalism. LarTanner

The existence of truth is problematic for the materialist/atheist. For him, truth must evolve. But how can truth evolve? And if it really evolves, can it be truth? Here is an excerpt from crev.info dealing with this point:

Logically, we hope you noticed that the Darwinian position is self-refuting. Self-refuting positions are not just misguided, they are necessarily false. They can never be true, now or ever. This realization doesn’t dawn on most Darwinians, but it did on Darwin himself (read that quote from his letter to Graham again). Darwin said that this “horrid doubt” always arises in his mind. He worried about this right up to his death, long after he had become famous for his theory of natural selection. How can the convictions of a man’s mind be reliable? In the letter, he had no answer! He never answered that doubt. As far as we know, he died with that doubt in his mind, that everything he had propounded was no more reliable than whatever “convictions” exist in the mind of a monkey or one of the lower animals. To be consistent, Darwin would have had to admit that his views are glorified monkey screeches. They have no necessary connection to truth. What is truth? Ask the Konner-types if truth evolves. Everything else in Darwin’s world changes. If truth evolves, what is considered true today could be false tomorrow. Evolutionary game theorists continually publish articles in leading journals that claim all that we consider good, true and beautiful is the result of behaviors that arise by natural selection, not by purpose or intent. The aimless, mindless processes of selection produce “emergent properties” that only appear to be altruistic, truthful, and good. They really aren’t! They’re just arbitrary states of matter. Even yeast colonies exhibit these behaviors, they claim, trying to assert that human behavior is no different. So why should we view the NCSE as anything but an emergent property among human populations, that gains power for awhile, till the “religious” population grabs the ball? Who is calling what religious, anyway? In Darwin’s world, nothing has meaning. This logical response is so crucial it is worth learning well. C. S. Lewis used it. G. K. Chesteron used it. Now Alvin Plantinga and other modern philosophers are using it. Understood and wielded well, this sword stops the Darwinist in his tracks. We cannot allow a Darwinian to “help himself” to concepts of truth or beauty, because it’s a form of theft. If we told them “get your own dirt” (see joke) they would be empty-handed. If they try to argue that Darwinism is true, we must rap their knuckles and tell them to stop and define truth. Does it evolve? If so, game over. A believer in God, by contrast, has the resources to justify belief in truth, because God, the eternal, unchanging One, is the source of Truth with a capital T. As finite humans we may not always get our views right, but we have the one and only pole star to hitch our arguments to. We can justify our belief in truth. (Note: this is why belief in an impersonal designing “force” is inadequate. A force like gravity does not deal in concepts, and concepts require personal communication.) Some Darwinians try to wriggle out of the straitjacket by appeals to “evolutionary epistemology.” This is the notion that natural selection, to work, required that animals “get the world right” to survive and reproduce. That notion is easily dismissed by repeating the same point: survival has no necessary connection to truth. Survival is pragmatic. What helps an animal survive today might not tomorrow, so what a caveman thinks is true might be false in a million years. At no time would an animal or human know what truth is. Truth must be unchanging. Once again we recommend the Discovery Institute’s recent book, The Magician’s Twin: C. S. Lewis on Science, Scientism and Society for an in-depth look at the “argument from reason” that defeats materialism. But what about theistic evolution? The argument works against that, too. Almost all theistic evolutionists capitulate to the Darwinian notion that natural selection is aimless and unguided. They refuse to think that God intervenes at any stage in the process, because they want to be accepted within the scientific community. But any unguided, aimless, purposeless process has no necessary connection to truth, whether or not they believe in a God behind it. What about those who think God set up natural selection as a “law of nature” that would fulfill His purposes? Sorry, no dice there, either. A law of nature that led inexorably to Adam and Eve would be a contradiction of natural selection’s aimlessness. It would be tantamount to a miracle—indeed, a whole sequence of miracles—so nothing would be gained by theistic evolutionists who want to depend on “secondary causes” (natural laws), not miracles. The logical argument explained above is crucial to your surviving evolutionary evangelists in college, the media, or elsewhere, but there’s also an abundance of empirical arguments against evolution. In June, Stephen Meyer’s new book Darwin’s Doubt will discuss the problem of the Cambrian Explosion in detail. Illustra’s excellent documentary Darwin’s Dilemma provides a one-hour presentation of this problem Darwin himself recognized as a valid argument against his theory. Meyer’s earlier book Signature in the Cell, and our online book here, provide powerful, convincing arguments that work not only to refute evolution, but to provide positive evidence for intelligent design. There are so many empirical arguments against evolution at creation sites and intelligent design sites that our problem is knowing where to stop. Many good resources are available at a collection called True Origin, where you can find discussions about most issues in the creation vs. evolution debate. Naturally we also recommend you avail yourself of our Search bar and categories here at Creation-Evolution Headlines. A final (but important) piece of advice concerning debate strategy. Don’t let the Darwinians define the issue or the terms. They want to corner you into a supposed conflict between “faith” and “science,” but that is a false dichotomy. If you accept their terms, the deck is stacked against you. The truth is, everyone has faith! The question is not faith vs. science, but their faith vs. your faith; their religion vs. your religion; their science vs. your science. You could even demonstrate to the Darwinian, using the argument from reason, that they believe in miracles and the supernatural. The key is to ask the right questions, as Phillip Johnson so ably argued in his book of that name. The debate should be stated, Can you arrive at human reason, and all the beauty and complexity of the living world, by a material process that is fundamentally aimless, purposeless, and unguided? Asked that way, the Darwinian is at the disadvantage. His arguments collapse into monkey screeches. Don’t let him say another word until he can justify the existence of truth, integrity, and morality. As soon as he opens his mouth to argue a point, you have won.

http://crev.info/2013/05/how-students-should-deal-with-evolution-evangelists/#sthash.xp8vicij.dpuf tjguy

Why is it that -- as the blogger Maverick Philosopher pointed out aptly -- while a watch can be accurate, it is not truthful? What does this tell us on the difference between computation and contemplation, thence the deep roots of reality? kairosfocus