NEXT
BACK
Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia; Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.
Forum
Recent Posts
Big Bang Theory theme :
Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state . . .
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started
What is Matter?
A product of Energy and Laws.
What is Energy?
The power to do, to be, to act, to create. In physical transactions, energy is both creator (Enformy) and destroyer (Entropy).
What is Law?
Limitations on action;
rules governing creation; embodied Intention; imposed Will.
What is Context ?
Initial and existing conditions modify each iteration of causation by changing variable values.
Big Bang :
What are the odds?
Design Theory vs Chaos Theory . . . . . . . . Sigh!
http://www.debate.org/forums/Science/topic/21442/
Post 14. February 07, 2018
Coincidence vs Creation
Laws of Nature’s God
In the beginning there was only the Singularity, a point-of-potential in an ocean of infinity. That non-local non-space-time mathematical "object" seemed to function like a computer program, or like DNA codes, or like a cookbook recipe. There was no actual stuff inside the infinitely small vessel, except the power to become something, indeed everything that would become our burgeoning universe.
What that message-in-a-bottle contained was immaterial information (codes) specifying the permissible forms for matter & energy to take, and rules for combining & interacting. Those initial conditions (seed values) pre-set a range of probabilities and limiting laws. In the form of mathematical algorithms, they were the sole content of the creative act, which computed the odds of reality. For example, Energy and Laws in Context yeild Matter : ((E x L) = M), reset conditions, repeat the operation, and you have evolution. The product of such recursive calculation is the physical universe, which repeatedly converts Energy into Matter and back again1.
Physicists tend to take Matter & Energy for granted, without questioning their origins, or their philosophical meaning. Matter is merely the furniture of Nature. Energy is the builder of natural things. But as Materialists, they have a problem with the Laws of Nature, since laws are normally found only in human Culture. Laws are aspects of human thought & behavior, as exemplified in Government and Religion.
Therefore, Physicists typically define Natural Laws as merely “observed regularities in evolution”. Which allows them to ignore the origins of those laws, and the intention behind them. But, when government officials make decisions, they are required to interpret the intention of the lawmakers. Moreover, any lawmaker of Nature would have to be an intentional entity, existing prior-to the execution of those laws in the Big Bang. If so, then the observed regularities of physics are the result of Choice, not Chance; of Causation, not Correlation; of Creation, not Coincidence.
The process of evolution can be construed as an ongoing reckoning of Cause & Effect events. Another way to put it is to say that Natural Selection is the product of freedom-of-action (randomness) and constraints-on-action (selection). In this case, Natural Selection can be described as the Intention of the Programmer who designed the process. So design guides each step of the creation. Each change in evolution is a choice, pre-determined, not by fixed values, but by algorithms & variables.
In human cultures, we can easily distinguish the works of Nature from the products of human intention. That's because Nature is on auto-pilot, while humans have hands on the wheel. So when we look at the universe as a whole, it is apparent that some kind of agency was necessary to produce, not only something from nothing, but order from disorder. That's why the Big Bang looks so much like an act of deliberate Creation. And the limiting laws of Nature look like divine Design.
Viewed from outside, the sudden emergence of our Cosmos from an invisible "point" looks more like a deliberate act of magic, than a routine event of evolution. So, was the origin of our world a coincidence or a creation? In any case, the Cosmic Bang was a rare event, not a mere regularity . . . No?
End of Post 14
Note 1 :
Best-selling historian of the future, Yuval Noah Harari says that “organisms are algorithms”. Mathematical Physicist, Roger Penrose says that “mass and frequency are the same thing”. In algorithms, the rate of recursion is the frequency.
Program :
A set of operations upon data, and the order of those actions. A datum is a fact, a piece of information. An order is a limitation upon activities : this-then-that.
Algorithm :
in mathematics and in computer programming, they are simple problem solving procedures. So in evolution, what is the problem, and who is the solution seeker?
Autopilot :
a cognitive state in which you act without self-awareness
Note:
This topic is continued on the BothAnd Forum at
Click Here
Richard Dawkins :
“A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without.”
This assertion assumes an intervening deity. In that case, nature would act erratically, as divine whims move chess pieces around. Such over-ruling of natural laws would make the scientific method impossible. But if the supernatural “presence” is a Programmer, not a meddler, then our autopilot world would work as expected.
A systems Architect encodes the rules & goals for his project, then enters the Execute command, and sits back to see what happens. The intention of the designer of the machine and its codes is thereby embodied in the system as the aim of the algorithm. Dawkins might not call this preternatural “presence” a god, but it is still transcendent and immanent, creative and intentive. So what would you call it?
Singularity :
“The initial singularity was a point of infinite density thought to have contained all of the mass and space-time of the universe before quantum fluctuations caused it to rapidly expand in the Big Bang and subsequent inflation, creating the present day Universe.” ____Wiki
Reality Check :
Infinite density of space-occupying matter is impossible for human minds to imagine, or for computers to calculate. So it might be better to think of it as “information density”, which being immaterial, takes up no space at all.
That kind of data density wouldn’t produce heat, so the “hot dense state” of the Big Bang is not a scientific description, but simply a dramatic poetic metaphor. Also, the diffusion of density was not a bomb-like explosion, but merely the magical “poof” of a unique idea occurring in a mind.
