An Eternal Universe or an Eternal God?

Both the affirmation AND THE DENIAL
of a creation point originate from
 deep theological instincts

I was very interested in the following post by Bruce Gordon on the North American Intelligent Design (NAID) web site Science & Culture ...

 On the BGV Theorem and Eternal Cyclic Cosmology | Science and Culture Today

It's not another of those plastic NAID articles which sets so-called "natural forces" over and against "intelligent intervention design", but instead probes the deep question of an initial creation point. It's particular concern is the defense of the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin (BGV) theorem. This theorem tells us that the geodesics of any universe subject to an on going average expansion, when traced back in time, will converge onto a singularity - that is, an infinitesimal point where it is likely that 0/0 divisions lead to indefinite results which our current physics cannot handle; in short a place where known physics breaks down. When this happens all information is lost and it is impossible to reverse the clock any further back. Therefore the singularity effectively becomes a creation point; a point where the universe starts.  

The BGV "creation point theorem" has been a God-send to those theists who support the Kalam arguments for a creator God such as William Lane-Craig. Contra-wise, it has also been a target for atheists who feel uncomfortable about a creation point and who have therefore tendered physical models which attempt get round this theorem. Bruce Gordon is doing a series of articles that critiques such attempts to overthrow the BGV theorem (*1)

Although Gordon looks as though he is doing a thorough & worthy job I'm not sure that I would want to be too strongly committed to BGV myself. For example, some of the critics of the theorem point out that space-time may not be a continuum (*2) and this puts a question mark over the assumption of geodesic continuity which BGV uses. However, a mere question mark over BGV would not necessarily invalidate BGV; rather it would just have the effect of telling us that BGV cannot be regarded as settled theoretical science which in turn would unsettle attempts to use it in Kalam style arguments. 

But even from a Biblical point of view it is not immediately clear to someone like myself that the Genesis 1 account, where we read about a sequence of separations which impose organization on an existing ontology, teaches a definite creation point; in this connection the semantic intent behind Gen 1:1 is important  - but I'll leave that question to the theologians. 

Whether or not BGV is valid or whether or not Genesis 1 teaches an absolute beginning is not something I'm going to discuss here. What I would like to point out in this post is that for both atheists and theists so much hangs on the question of whether or not the cosmos had an absolute beginning. Why do theists put so much investment in absolute beginnings and why do atheist seek to theoretically overthrow absolute origins in favor of an eternal universe? 

I've already criticized Kalam-like arguments for putting too much stress on the contingent boundary conditions needed at a creation point when in fact it is clear that the cosmic organization mathematically implicit in the "algorithms" of physics entails a highly contingent logical boundary everywhere and everywhen (*3). The question then is this; what motivates both theist's and atheist's deep interest in potential creation-points where indefinite 0/0 divisions entail a breakdown of known physics? The likely (subliminal?) mindsets which drive this interest on both sides of the debate is something I've only recently become cognizance of: My strong suspicion is that the underlying obsession with arguments which  tender either creation-points or anti-creation-point models is a theological mindset common to both theists and atheists. With atheists that mindset may well be subliminal.

If atheists can find alternatives to BGV and convince themselves that the cosmos might just possibly be eternal, where does that put the concept of an eternal God? Is there room for two eternal entities? i.e both God & the cosmos? In attempting to give the cosmos an eternal existence atheists are giving it a quality once thought to only pertain to God. Although to be sure atheists haven't proved it, an eternal cosmos would suggest that like theism's God, the ontology of the eternal cosmos must therefore have an underlying logical necessity which was once thought to only be inherent to the ontology of the Divine (*5). In short for anti-creation-point atheism the cosmos has become a kind of eternal "god", in so far as it has created the Stars, the Earth and its living hosts. But this atheist "god" is an impersonal soulless "god" of utter dispassionate indifference; it has absolutely no sentient awareness, let alone any interest, in our continued existence. According to atheist physicist Brian Cox the huge cosmic machine will, without a scintilla of regret one-day extinguish us. As Brian says.....

In 10 trillion years the last star will fade. The universe becomes a void without light, life or meaning. The darkness will last forever. As the stars fade so does all possibility of life and meaning.

That sums up the "hope" and outlook of many an atheist; this is where their logic takes them. What atheists believe to be an insentient cosmic machine (*4) has of course no interest in calling us to account for our failure to live up to the demands of the superego. No surprise then that some theists are brazen enough to suggest that a cosmos with a complete indifference to our morality explains what is behind motivated atheism's enthusiasm for eternal universes.

Footnotes

*1 See the following link for another of Gordon's articles:

Past-Eternal Loop Quantum Cosmology Gets the Bounce | Science and Culture Today

*2 My own (highly speculative) notions around Quantum Non-linearity which derive quantum gravity from the approximations of the diffusion equation are of this ilk: Gravity and Quantum Non-Linearity - Timothy Reeves - Google Books

*3 See this post Quantum Non-Linearity: The Kalam Argument Sucks.

*4 See: TheRiddleOfTheSphinx.pdf - Google Drive.

See also: cosmicPerspective3.pdf - Google Drive

*5  I am unaware of any really convincing ontological arguments for God any more than I'm aware of ontological arguments demonstrating the logical necessity of the observed cosmos. See Carrier, R for a failed attempt to generate an organized cosmos from probability theory.

On The Meaning of Life

 

Picture from Quantum Non-Linearity: The Fate of Man, by William Shakespeare

In this post by PZ Myers we find our grumpy atheist responding to a less than 60 second video by a cherub faced American Catholic who challenges atheists over their response to the question of the meaning of life. Here's PZ reaction to that video (My emphases)....

My answer to that question is simple: there is no meaning to life. We just are. We exist, and then we try to rationalize our existence, and everyone comes up with a different explanation because our brains will happily spin their wheels in the absence of anything of substance to grapple with.

Maybe you disagree, and maybe you have the one true meaning of life. That’s fine, go ahead and tell me what it is, but if you could, please also tell me what objective evidence you have to support your proposed purpose. Also tell me what makes this purpose a property of life — is it shared with spiders and clams and sugar gliders and ants? After all, they live, too.

That reaction aligns nicely with atheist Galen Strawson's response which I mention here:

Quantum Non-Linearity: Galen Strawson on "Why is there something?"

In the foregoing post I quote Strawson telling us that:

I don’t for all that think the universe has a purpose. I think it just is.

... which in turn aligns with Bertrand Russell who said that....

I should say that the universe is just there, and that's all [there is to it!]

So yes, atheists do hit an impenetrable logically contingent barrier (*1) when it comes to the purpose of our highly organized cosmos, if indeed they can even give a coherent meaning to terms like "purpose" when it comes to the cosmos at large. 

But Myers is not at all being unreasonable in asking for objective evidence of anyone who (like myself) has opted for the search for meaning, purpose and the Divine (see Acts 17:23-28). I also agree that we instinctively try to rationalize and make sense of life.  But as I said in a footnote to this post:

Christianity has a strong existential component in its evidences; that is, Christianity is partly dependent on the testimony of personal experiences. This slant toward anecdotal evidence, of course, cannot qualify as being on the same footing as the formal and sharable evidences of our science which depends on an a-priori high organization. (See also here)

But in spite of that I don't think Christian conclusions are as variable, arbitrary and subjective as PZ makes out: I'm sure I've got a lot of common ground with Catholics and even with cultic fundies like Ken Ham (*2). But I doubt I have very much in common with spiders who probably have no where near the minimum intellectual apparatus needed to formulate questions of meaning! Anyway, nice try PZ, but let's both keep searching for the truth and live the moral lives our superegos tell us we should live; at least we have that in common!

Footnote

(*1) And once again, we can write-off conceited blowhard Richard Carrier's attempt to explain order in terms of disorder. (See here for more on disorder)

(*2) However let me acknowledge that a crypto-cultist like Ken is likely to regard my faith as utterly inferior (See here for Ken's opinion of those Christians who don't support the theme of his theme park; to him they are barely Christian!)

And Again: Where North American ID goes wrong

                    Time for another critique of North American ID

North American ID tends to veer toward political partisanship
Picture from: https://www.discovery.org/

On several counts I can give a cautious endorsement to the North American Intelligent Design (NAID) movement. But this is a very qualified endorsement as I have criticisms of both their intellectual position and their cultural & political posturing (*3). See for example my criticism of Casey Luskin in this series. Moreover, my acceptance of the intelligent design argument for God is very cautious compared to NAID culture; for given that we are extrapolating from our experience with the works of human and animals (& aliens?) who act within the created context, to the works of a very Alien Totalizing Being who is postulated to be The Context of creation, it seems a bit of a stretch to claim that we can uncritically use what we observe of human and animal intelligence as a model for the intelligence of God. However, I would certainly concede that given the remarkable and irreducible organization of our cosmos, which for me most forcibly emerges in the descriptive effectiveness of the elegant algorithms of physics, there is a compelling intuition that by analogy the cosmos itself has its origins in an all embracing intelligence. This feeling is further reinforced when set against the arguments of arrogant atheist blowhard Richard Carrier who deludes himself with his misconceptions about probability theory as he attempts to account for physics as an aspect of randomness. 

However, as I have suggested in this short paper, I nevertheless take a rather reserved attitude toward the simple extrapolation of design arguments for God using Bayesian ideas. For me a faithful & personal God is an a-priori feature of my world view (Hebs 11:6), a feature which not only promotes a successful epistemology but also makes ultimate sense of a seemingly senseless world, a world whose irreducibly contingent organization is otherwise destined to remain an enigma. On this account God is not a simple inductive extrapolation from observation but rather the initial step in an abductive approach which gives anthropic meaning and purpose to the world (*1). Without this sense making world view one is left with little but a bleak absurdity where nothing makes sense (see Brian Cox). So, whilst I'm in sympathy with the general thrust of the NAID movement (but not their politics) I would nevertheless want to point out that they have over invested in the following points of view.....

1. The so called explanatory filter: When applied to human, animal and even alien activity, activity which takes place within the creation this filter works. But it all too easily leads to naive "God of the Gaps" thinking when applied to divine activity. This has mislead NAIDs to commit to needless subliminal "God-of-the-gaps" thinking as evidenced by their total commitment to anti-evolutionism.

3. Anti-evolutionism: OK, I can accept that some theists, from a theological point of view, might find evolution difficult to stomach. But we cannot rule out evolution on the basis of the category mistake that it classifies as a "blind natural force". If the Divine is as totalizing as Christian theology suggests then there is no such thing as "blind natural forces" incapable of filling explanatory gaps which according to NAID otherwise need filling with the interventions of divine design. If the process of evolution as commonly conceived has taken place in relatively short cosmic times then it is itself a remarkable work of creation. If you are going to argue against evolution it must be from empirical grounds not on the basis of God-of-the-gaps intuitions about the inability of "blind natural forces" (sic) to fill a gap that can only be filled with divine hocus-pocus. 

2. Anti-Junk DNA: There is no obliging need for theists to commit themselves one way or the other on this question; again, it must be on empirical grounds that this dispute is settled. Who can tell just what a contextually totalizing Being would or would not want to do with redundant/random coding in his DNA. My own uncompiled computer code is usually littered with the developmental legacy of historical but now redundant coding, so who knows what the Great Unknown of the Divine Mind might do. 

4. Information can't be created by "blind natural forces"? This is false: See here. Grumpy atheist PZMyers has recently & rightly taken NAID Stephen Myer to task on this one - see here: I have to roll my eyes when a creationist says information! Behind the NAID view on information generation is their subliminal "God-of-the-gaps" mentality; for them any sophisticated information becomes a "gap" incapable of being filled with "blind natural forces" and therefore demands deity intelligence to fill it. (*2)

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The notion that only enigmatic intelligence can create information may be based on the idea that somehow human intelligence should be categorized as a mysterious incomprehensible and transcendent process. To support this NAIDs may point to Roger Penrose's ideas about intelligence making use of non-computable processes.

I have critiqued Penrose's work here.  This work appears to have its origin in the fact that no finite system can fully be "self-aware". Full "self-awareness", for finite systems, opens up the potential for self-referencing contradictions. However, an outside perspective of an ontology external to a subject intelligence can be fully aware of the processes of that subject intelligence. 

Apart from my criticisms above, the following post on Science and Culture is much more to my liking than NAID knee-jerk anti-evolutionism....

Inscrutable Dice, Hitchcock’s Beans, and Cosmological Fine-Tuning | Science and Culture Today

However. I suspect some of the issues this writer raises can be short cut once we get a handle on the concept if randomness.  Theorems around randomness have no bounds as to the sizes of the sets to which they apply. 

Footnotes
*1 Christianity has a strong existential component in its evidences; that is, Christianity is partly dependent on the testimony of personal experiences. This slant toward anecdotal evidence, of course, cannot qualify as being on the same footing as the formal and sharable evidences of our science which depends on an a-priori high organization. 

*2 What I would concede however is that there is a cosmic sized "gap" everywhere and everywhen in as much as the descriptive nature of science is incapable of furnishing logical closure on the ultimate question of existence. 

*3 I also look askance at the mutual backslapping tribal culture that is the NAID community. This culture is not conducive to independent interest-free thinking;  it creates conflicts of interest.  It is probably true to say however that the gelling of their tribal culture has been encouraged by the vociferous and unfair opposition they have received from some quarters. See here

Atheist's Corner

Below are some quotes from a couple of UK's well known atheists; Alice Roberts and Brian Cox (*1). From their media appearances alone both come over as nice people. Although they are unlikely to have a great deal of respect for my own God seeking quest they strike me as polite people who would not be rude about it. But whatever! Let me now look at those quotes:

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ALICE ROBERTS:

MY COMMENT: I assume that by "non-religious people" Alice means people who don't kowtow to deities of any form and in any case have no proactive or practical belief in them. I don't know the history of non-belief myself but I'll take Alice's word for it that such people have always existed. I would nevertheless want to comment that my feel for history suggests that non-religious people of this ilk were usually in a minority, although this may not be true of modern Western societies. Moreover, it does seem that even in this modern age belief in deities or at the very least a mystical feeling that "there is something out there" is still very widespread; this fragment of observational evidence could be bundled together with other evidences to help build a case for theism. 

Where I get a bit stuck with Alice's statement is with the meaning of her natural phenomenon vs. supernatural side distinction. If we are working with the assumption that natural phenomenon refers to the patterns of our observations which conform to those highly organised and succinct principles we call "laws" then the natural phenomenon category is simply a construct of our definitions. This definition of the "natural world" as a regime of faithfully operating laws standing in contradistinction to deities has, I believe, only become really clear since the enlightenment. However, given this definition it is then very tempting to rule out the far less tractable world of exceptions to the rule, phenomenal erratics, the experientially bizarre and the startlingly unique as mistaken anomalies because their unmanageable infrequency compromises their sense of reality. So called natural phenomenon is then not just a passive category but a way of proactively sorting out the observational sheep from the goats.

But in any case the so called "natural world" with its remarkable and irreducible organization is in another very real sense highly supernatural; that is, its arbitrary contingency leaves me at least with the feeling of an unnatural contrivance. See in particular evolutionary theory. Crass attempts to trivialize this irreducibility by abusing probability theory or via multiverse concepts don't work for me. 

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BRIAN COX:

MY COMMENT: I wasn't aware this checking principle Brian refers to works as a catch-all principle even for natural phenomenon. Some objects subject to scientific checking such as paleontological, sociological, economic and historical theories, and in particular theories in evolutionary psychology where the intervening mists of time and other epistemic distance factors start to take effect make fact testing problematic. (See here).

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BRIAN: 

MY COMMENT: Well, yes Brian that is not only a very interesting question, but I would rate it as the most significant question of all. But I think Brian is going to have great difficulty answering such a question; for if as I think he has opined the only source of the meaning of life comes from what we personally invest in it then such subjectivity will ensure that life means different things to different people with the inevitable clashes of interest this will imply. 

Brian believes that the universe itself has no objective meaning of anthropic interest because all patterns and objects of interest are destined to die in the inevitable heat death of the universe. This cosmic destiny makes the elegant laws of physics as anthropically absurd as they are pointless.  

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MEANWHILE ON PZ MYERS' BLOG: 

PZ Myers is a really grumpy atheist; that may be because he's got various health issues. I can wish him better health although I won't pray for him as he probably hates the idea of prayer. But then who wouldn't be grumpy if you had to live in a country with a strong mix of Christian dominionists, quasi-fascists in powerful positions and a country which is the source of much Christian fundamentalist and anti-science thinking (like Ken Ham *2); and all that's before we get onto the subject of the breathtakingly egotistical D. Trump. On his blog post here PZ quotes a certain Mano Singham and then adds his own indorsing comment: See below (my emphases):

MANO SINGHAM: I left religion for purely logical reasons. not emotional ones. I found that however hard I tried, I just could not reconcile the scientific view that everything (?) occurs according to natural laws with the traditional religious view that seemed to require an entity that could bypass those laws to act in the world to change the course of events. It took me a long time to overcome the emotional attachment to the religious beliefs (and now he's emotionally attached to science? - ed) that I had. So while I can understand how logical reasoning can make one leave religion, (speak for yourself Mano - ed) I cannot see how it can drive the reverse process.... 

PZ MYERS:  Same here, except that my family faith tradition didn’t have much of an emotional attachment to Christianity, so shedding it was relatively trivial. I agree, though, that there are no good rational reasons to compel return to a faith, which is why I reject any attempts to rationalize it. It feels good to you, it connects you to friends and family, you have fond memories of your time in church (and makes sense of life? - ed) …that’s fine. I believe you. Go ahead, I’m not going to deny your feelings. But if you try to tell me you have compelling, logical, scientific reasons to believe in a god, I’m going to tell you you’re full of sh*t. (like I said, he's as grumpy as hell - ed)

MY COMMENT: Well, yes I'd agree; if you are expecting the verification of theism to be a simple case of testing as one might test accessible physical theories like Hooke's law or theories testable by test-tube precipitate then you won't find that kind of compelling "logical" scientific reason to believe in God. In fact testing for the existence of God, a totalizing personality in whose immanent being we are immersed, (Acts 17:27-28) is even more of an epistemic challenge than testing social, economic and historical theories. Much of the evidence relevant to God's existence revolves round personal anecdote, patchy historical documents, and above all a motivation to bring sense, meaning and purpose to both personal and community life. Perhaps that's what PZ is trying to express in his sentence above which I have emboldened. "God seeking" is an existential reaction whereby the individual seeks to find an all-embracing world view which provides meaning and purpose in life.  Christianity is a golden key which unlocks meaning and explains the human predicament.

The meaning of immanence: Pip, a computer games character,
wants to know where the computer simulating him dwells.

But here is the ironic twist: Just as the simple logic of a scientific  kind isn't sufficient to argue that theism is a logical truism, conversely neither is the elementary observational sampling which reveals very general laws a sufficient logical basis to argue one out of theism as Mano is proposing. If anything the strange & ultimately logically unjustifiable high organization which facilitates our expression of that order as those elegant mathematical laws of physics has a strange way of compelling us (at least myself) to start speculating about a logically true creating and sustaining context beyond them: After all, descriptive science cannot get round the impenetrable logical barrier of contingency; if we are looking for the underlying logic which supports the astounding & startling cosmic order we must look beyond that cosmos; at this point it is a very natural human instinct, in fact a very compelling intuition, to evoke the concept of God as Designer, Creator and Sustainer. But such a conclusion is a proprietary one, one which belongs to the individual; for example I myself cannot reconstruct those "purely logical reasons" (sic) which drove Mano Singham away from theism.

Mano's insistence that the existence of physical laws logically bar the existence of a creating and sustaining entity at whose pleasure the course of events may change capriciously betrays an obvious prejudice in his thinking. After all, few of us bulk at the idea that an otherwise fairly sound theoretical framework (like Newton's laws) may well under certain circumstance be bypassed in favour of a more general theoretical framework (like relativity or quantum mechanics), a framework which is the outer context in which less general patterns of behavior are immersed.  So, I take it that Mano only accepts exceptions to rule if they are the outcome of higher level laws. That is, he has an a priori prejudice which means he cannot accept a theistic outer framework. For him it is "turtles all the way down" where in his case the "turtles" are physical laws. For me, of course, the existence of those remarkable general laws governing a highly ordered cosmos has exactly the opposite effect; it drives me to theistic speculations. 

For Mano the unalterable natural laws cannot be bypassed and therefore he elevates them to a kind natural-law deism. So, conversely if PZ is going to accuse those who "try to tell me you have compelling, logical, scientific reasons to believe in a god, I’m going to tell you you’re full of sh*t." (and he might be right)  then does that mean if you try to tell me you have compelling, logical, scientific reasons to reject God, I’m going to tell you you’re full of sh*t? It would, however, be more polite and true to say that Mano's argument is based on innate gut reaction rather than logic. 

Footnotes

*1  Brian Cox appears to be in a mixed state of atheism and agnosticism: According Brian's Wiki page....

Brian Cox has stated he lacks a belief in deities and is a humanist, but he has sometimes rejected the label "atheist" in favor of saying he has "no personal faith". He has indicated he cannot be sure a God does not exist and that science cannot answer every question

*2  Young earthism is of course an ugly manifestation of Ken's fundamentalism. In young earthism God's created objects are sending out false messages about a history they never had. But even if God downloads created objects "as is" straight into creation, they each presumably are first assembled in the mind of God implying that even in Ken's "as is" creation objects have a history in the sense of a history in the divine mind. 

Classic Dualism

Courtesy of the Faraday Institute

I'm part of a Facebook group called Evangelicals for Evolutionary Creation. This is not to say that I've committed myself to standard Evolutionary thinking, but I feel that this group are worthy thinkers to keep an eye on. However, somebody put the following comment on their FB feed....

So I’m getting toward the end of Origins by the Haarsmas. A question arises, if abiogenesis is true, how does this not prove that life can happen without God? This kind of concerns me and it seems to be an open question in evolutionary creationism.

I believe that "Haarsmas" is a reference to Deborah Haarsma, the current president of Biologos, the Christian evolutionary creation organisation. I didn't comment on this statement as the Evolutionary Creation people are more than capable of critiquing such a breathtakingly naive perspective, a perspective with widespread appeal among both Christians and atheists. On this view it's a binary choice: "Either God did it or evolution did it"

I've no doubt said something like the following many times before: Since the enlightenment Western science has merely shown us that the cosmos is sufficiently organized for us to form succinct mathematical statements describing its dynamics. As many Christians fully understand, those descriptions in and of themselves only tell us about the "how?" of the cosmos and not the "why?" - but the "why?" is only a meaningful question if one first accepts that sentience, intelligence and purpose are a priori features of existence.

 If  anything this strange mathematical descriptive elegance only compounds the enigma of the cosmos and tells us little about absolute origins; that is, the ultimate gap, a gap that descriptive science is logically incapable of filling and if pressed simply leaves us with an elegant-descriptions-all-the-way-down regress. In fact, since we have no logically obliging reason for the continued existence of the contingencies of our cosmic reality that ultimate gap is everywhere and everywhen. 

And yet the dualistic view expressed by the above quote is the common default: That is "either God did it or cosmic processes did it"; the underlying assumption of this perspective is that somehow the enigma of cosmic organization has a logical self sufficiency which at best only leaves room for the God of deism or at worst no God at all. Such a perspective might have its origins in the early enlightenment/industrial era when it started to become much clearer that mechanisms (such as a steam regulator & automata) could be developed which meant that machines looked after their own running. The popularist conclusion was that the cosmos must be that kind of mechanism. Such mechanisms appeared not to need any prayerful ritualistic support or mystical input of any kind to continue. On this perspective sacredness seems to have been purged from what was now thought of as a self sustaining profane cosmos. 

But the realization that such mechanisms were so startingly sophisticated enough to beg the question of their design seems to have been lost on many people: One such person in our modern era is (atheist?) theologian Don Cupitt of the Sea of Faith movement. Also, blowhard atheist Richard Carrier is of this ilk. Carrier is so convinced by the sophistry of his flawed view of probability and randomness that he believes probability to be logically sufficient to fill in the God-gap.  And yet Carrier succeeded in identifying that our cosmic context lacks some logically self-sufficient kernel, although Carrier's erroneous concept of probability doesn't provide that kernel. 

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It is surely ironic that the self same virtuoso cosmic organization which for some fills in the God-gap and does away with God actually intensifies the nagging enigma of the absolute origins question; the contingent particularity of that organization is amazing. In fact as I have shown, evolution itself (if it has occurred) is effectively creationism on steroids.  And yet it is the underlying dualism of God vs evolution that much of the North America Intelligent Design movement (NAID) trades on. They will deny it of course, but whenever they open their mouths it is easy to see that they are exploiting the popularist God-of-the-gaps "Intelligence vs blind natural forces" dichotomy. To attack standard evolution on the scientific basis that the evidence is insufficient is one thing but to attack it on the basis of a half-cocked dualist philosophy is quite another - and I put it to the NAID community that although they affect to claim theirs is a scientific dispute their ulterior reasoning is in fact based on the popular appeal of their philosophical dualism, whatever they might claim. That appeal, however, is understandable I suppose because the above quote from a Facebook page is in fact the tip of a huge market iceberg of popularist thinking which the NAID's dichotomized explanations address and by which they make their money, trade and continue in mutual backslapping. For more on NAID see here, here and here.

NOTE: Luskin's God-of-the-Gaps paradigm

As I've made it clear before I don't think much of NAID theorist Casey Luskin's competence as an apologist for Intelligent Design. This post on Evolution News, which describes Luskin's views, cements his reputation as a God-or-of-the-Gaps apologist.  As I've said above I have no intellectual commitment to standard evolutionary theory, but what is clear, evolution or no evolution, one cannot get away from the question of intelligent design. That Luskin is so anti-evolution, a priori, is evidence that he still thinks subliminally in dualist and atheist categories in so far as he believes it to be  a choice between "blind natural forces vs intelligent design"..... where he interprets evolution atheistically in terms of "blind natural forces". Ergo, Luskin is a God-of-the-Gaps apologist whatever he claims. 

Relevant Links

Quantum Non-Linearity: From Spears to Aircraft

Quantum Non-Linearity: Evolution and Computation

The Cosmological Argument

But perhaps the ultimate cause mentioned here

 is another universe?

The weak point in this argument is the "must be God" assertion
which no doubt could be challenged.

As I said at the beginning of this post I've never been very convinced by  some of the traditional arguments for God's existence. In this connection my friend James Knight posted this blog on the Cosmological Argument. In commenting on his post I explained briefly to James why I have a reserved opinion on the Cosmological Argument....

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I suppose it started in the 1970s when I became enamoured of idea that the best we can do in science is describe the patterns of the world. In particular I focused on the subject of randomness as a particular form of pattern that was difficult if not impossible to describe algorithmically. Causation, then, becomes a problematic notion with randomness. As the Cosmological argument makes use of the notion of causation this argument loses it's intelligibility somewhat.

That's not to say that the Cosmological Argument does not express something deeply intuitively true and compelling

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The above explains why I was so obsessed with randomness at an early stage and why I was so determined to crack the question of randomness. (I'm sure professional mathematicians have done a better job, but my PDF on the subject was good enough for my purposes) 

If we are intellectually looking for God it is ironic that blowhard atheist Richard Carrier should identify the area where to start looking; namely, that God is the mysterious logical necessity left when one subtracts out all apparently contingent things. Richard wrongly identifies his logical necessity as probability and randomness. In doing so he appears to misunderstand the ontology of probability.

And while I'm here let me say that I am also unimpressed with Anselm's ontological argument for the necessary existence of God. But I concede that if God is that mysterious logical necessity which Richard Carrier identifies then in that sense the ontology of God makes His existence a necessity. But I suspect that for finite beings like ourselves the true ontological argument for God involves infinities and is likely to be beyond our understanding. However, there is nothing wrong in trying to develop an ontological argument; you never know what you might come up with.

For me God is the kind of explanation one uses abductively; that is, it is the best explanation I can think of which makes human sense of an otherwise senseless cosmos. It gives us the "why"* (rather than the mere scientific descriptive "how") of those astonishing empirical features of our cosmos such as its high organisation, the human compulsion for meaning, purpose & justice and the existence of conscious cognition as the cornerstone of both empirical science and morality. Theism is the crucial intellectual component of a worldview which makes rational sense of our scientific observations on a cosmos which otherwise is entirely absurd. In the beginning God.... (See also Hebrews 11:6ff)

Footnote

* The kind of "Why?" I'm thinking of here only makes sense in a context where sentience is an a priori feature. 

Let's Carry on Carriering Part III

In this post I continue analyzing a blog post by super-duper, self-recommending professional atheist Richard Carrier. 

For most of the last two parts of this series (See Part I and Part II) I was actually getting on quite well with Richard's post titled The Problem with Nothing: Why The Indefensibility of Ex Nihilo Nihil Goes Wrong for Theists • Richard Carrier Blogs

I probably agree with Richard in so far as agreeing that many theists have muffed their arguments re. the existence of God. For example: The cosmological argument, the ontological argument, the fine-tuning argument, the Kalem argument, the first cause argument, the moral argument etc are for the most part polemical bodges.  In fact, we can drop all those arguments in this particular connection as my terms of reference are restricted to a critique of Richard's post; in my opinion his arguments as to the ultimate source of the cosmos are no less bodged than those arguments for God I've listed. (And I say that as Christian myself; for me theism is a retrospective sense making abduction)

As we saw in Part II crucial to Richard's argument is his concept of "Nothing", that is "Nothing" spelt with a capital N. "Nothing" is the hard kernel of irreducible logical truisms that you are left with when you've subtracted all logical contingencies; that is mere logical possibilities. It's unfortunate terminology that he's called it "Nothing" because as we saw in Part II it is clear that Nothing is in fact Something and a very sophisticated Something at that! This is clear because to create Richard's much desired randomness a very sophisticated source of creation is required. Other than that, however, Richard doesn't and probably can't give us much detail about just what constitutes Nothing (= Something). I can go along with Richard's identification of this mysterious irreducible Nothing (= Something). Moreover, it seems that this Something is the origin of our apparently highly contingent universe with all its ordered and random complexities. Wow!

But in the second half of Part II, it became very clear to me that as he developed his reasoning our Richard, in his enthusiasm to debunk theism, is utterly unaware that he goes completely off the logical rails. The consequences of the resulting train cash are then felt throughout the rest of his post. As we get to his Proposition 7 he continues to consolidate his error....

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Richard: Proposition 7: If nothing (except logical necessity) prevents anything from happening to Nothing, then every logically possible thing that can happen to Nothing has an equal probability of occurring.

Every logically possible thing that can happen to Nothing is as likely to happen as every other possible thing that can happen. This is a logically necessary truth. So it again cannot be denied without denying Proposition 1. Or, again, Proposition 4, if you want to desperately wrestle again with what it means for Nothing to be ungoverned by any rules about what happens—but you’ll lose every time; because that’s what Nothing logically entails. So the only way out left is to go all the way back to becoming one of those whackadoos who deny Proposition 1. Good luck with that.

My Comment: Well, as I said in Part II, I would want to enthusiastically embrace Proposition 1 and Proposition 4, but as I also said in Part II, I certainly wouldn't accept Richard's interpretations which he goes on to construct upon these propositions. 

As we've seen Nothing (= Something) is a very mysterious object, and Richard isn't elaborating it. That's fair enough though; we are all a bit in the dark about the Unknown God Something that is the origin of the universe. Richard acknowledges the existence of this Big Unknown in his entirely acceptable Proposition 3 where he says If there was ever Nothing, then nothing governs or dictates what will become of that Nothing, other than what is logically necessary.  Whatever the Big Unknown is it must be logically necessary.

But, and here's the kicker, in the above courier font quote Richard also tells us: 

if you want to desperately wrestle again with what it means for Nothing to be ungoverned by any rules about what happens—but you’ll lose every time; because that’s what Nothing logically entails.

Now compare that statement with Proposition 3 where we read If there was ever Nothing, then nothing governs or dictates what will become of that Nothing, other than what is logically necessary. Notice the difference? Richard has suppressed that Big Unknown; namely, "what is logically necessary". Clearly Nothing is governed by rules; that is the rules of logical necessity, whatever they may be. He also tells us above what he thinks one of those logical rules governing Nothing might be: Viz: 

Every logically possible thing that can happen to Nothing is as likely to happen as every other possible thing that can happen. This is a logically necessary truth.

That is, Richard is trying to get past us the very questionable notion that equal a priori probabilities is a truism from which he can then deduce a dynamic which leads to every possible happenstance that can happen (presumably at random) at some point or other. But as I said in Part II, probability only coherently pertains to observer information about possible happenings. It is therefore contingent upon the existence of an observer whose information may vary from other observers; that is, equal a priori probabilities is an observer relative feature. Moreover, observers able to compute ratios of possibilities (which is how probability is defined) are necessarily very sophisticated entities, entities about which it is unclear whether they are logical necessities or not; certainly, when it comes to individual human observers it seems we are not talking logical necessity.

Richard then jumps from that error to another error: Viz: That of assuming that once one has a probability, it implies a dynamic about what then actually happens: I suspect he is thinking "randomness" here; randomness is a configurational object which does in fact display a highly complex form of contingency rather than being a logical necessity. Moreover, as we saw in Part II randomness does not necessarily follow from an observer relative probability. 

In noting these logical errors there is no need to deny Proposition 1 as Richard's whackdoos do. 

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Richard: In case it’s not obvious, here is why Proposition 7 is logically necessarily the case:

1. For any one possible thing that can happen to Nothing to be more probable than another, some rule, property, or power would have to exist to make it so.

2. By definition Nothing contains no rules, properties, or powers.

3. Therefore, no rule, property, or power would exist to make any one possible thing that can happen to Nothing more probable than another.

4. Therefore, no possible thing that can happen to Nothing can be more probable than another.

So accepting Proposition 1, and thus Proposition 2, you must accept Proposition 7. As Proposition 7 merely states what is logically necessarily the case when 1 and 2. And 1 and 2 entail that that which is logically necessarily the case must always obtain whenever there is Nothing.

My Comment: The foregoing is utterly incoherent. Richard is trying to tell us that Nothing has no rules and yet he has admitted that it is constrained by what is logically true (fair enough) and then goes on to identify what he thinks to be one of those logical truths : Viz equal a priori probabilities (which isn't a logical truth and is observer relative) and then wrongly logically connects this with a dynamic with the ability to generate contingencies (at random?). So again, whilst we can enthusiastically embrace propositions 1 and 2, I must reject proposition 7 which is a fanciful invention of Richard's imagination and is certainly not a logical truism. 

In his proposition 8  Richard continues to build his house of cards.....

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Richard: Proposition 8: If every logically possible thing that can happen to Nothing has an equal probability of occurring, then every logically possible number of universes that can appear has an equal probability of occurring.

This is logically entailed by the conjunction of Propositions 6 and 7. So again it cannot be denied without denying, again, Proposition 1.

My Comment: That's Richard's continued abuse of probability for you! As I've said probability is not logically fundamental or axiomatic.  For probability to be an intelligible concept one must first posit observers sophisticated enough to construct and understand ratios of possibilities. And again, Richard wrongly assumes that probability logically entails the dynamics of random happenstance. So, as with proposition 7, in his botched enunciation of proposition 8 Richard finds himself up a creek without a paddle. He tries to pressure our acquiescence to this nonsense by the intimidating suggesting that if we don't accept it then we commit the cardinal logical sin of not accepting proposition 1. And I thought it was only cult leaders like Ken Ham who try to intimidate! 

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Richard's suggestion as to the potential source of the cosmos is beginning to look suspiciously like the passe notion of a random generator as the source of the cosmos and that we necessarily exist in what by chance is a very ordered part of that immense maximally disordered cosmos. I'm not going to be too hard on him here because this common fanciful invention of the imagination, which conjures up the specter of a meaningless random universe, is a nightmare which confronts us all at some time or other as it did for example Conan-Doyle's hero Sherlock Holmes in the short story, The Cardboard Box:

“What is the meaning of it, Watson?” said Holmes, solemnly, as he laid down the paper. “What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But to what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.”

So, I'm in no position to be judgmental of genuine boarder-line atheists (like for example Mr. mice guy Brian Cox and that should also include Don Cupitt) who are an understandably having a struggle giving meaning to the cosmos.  But in Richard's case we must factor in that he is a professional atheist whose income depends on him fervently, vehemently and vociferously defending his brand of atheism just as theme park manager Ken Ham defends his lucrative brand of young earthism at all costs using the most insulting of spiritual terms about those who disagree with him, as we have seen.

...to be continued

INTERESTING LINKS

1. Sir Richard Attenborough's comments are worthy of applause in my view: 

Quantum Non-Linearity: David Attenborough on God