Free Will and Determinism

Scientific investigations into choice

Somebody recently asked me the following question:

....what about free will, how do you think that plays in, given that neurons and synapses are Newtonian in that they are composed of a set of functions/algorithms that can used by neuroscientists to describe their patterns?

Here is my brief answer:

We all have the first person experience of making choices. But when these choices are examined from a third person perspective they can only be experienced as “external observer” perceptions, perceptions upon which the third person bases his theoretical constructs such as neurons and synapses. The first person “I story” is one of a complex stream of conscious qualia but the third person “You story”, which is the story of “me” when seen from the perspective of “you”, is a story of the dynamics of aggregates of material elementa. (although there is nothing to stop the third person "empathising in" the first person perspective from the "You story")

I’m not at all adverse to the idea that the third person perspective of mind, a perspective that only directly perceives mind as the dynamics of material elementa, may ultimately be accessible to a full description by some version of quantum theory. But even if this is true we must realise that quantum theory is merely a descriptive map; that is, a map composed of formal tokens, a map which is not the “thing-in-itself”, but merely a representation of it. For example we may succeed in constructing a perfect computerised simulation of a car using the formal tokens of 1s and 0s, but the simulation is never the car itself no matter how good it is. Likewise it is conceivable that some version of quantum theory applied to aggregates of particles perfectly describes the mind of man, but it can never be the mind of man itself. Though formal tokens of some conjectured complete theory of mind may have a point by point conformity with human consciousness, those tokens are, when all is said and done, only a representation of reality, not the reality itself, a reality that includes a rich first person story of consciousness composed of such things as a sense of purpose, meaning and choice.

The formal theoretical model, for obvious reasons, is not the thing it depicts, but the formal model does bring out one important lesson. Such complex things as “choice” and “purpose” are not going to be found down at the level of small numbers of material elementa but rather they will be found and defined at the aggregate level; that is in the organisation of large quantities of material elementa in all its complex dynamics. Choice and purpose are features of complex configurations of elementa and therefore an intricate object like “choice” is not defined for individual elementa such as neurons.

Important Caveats

When thinking about this subject it is best not to speak in too confident tones about the ultimate accessibility of the human mind to theoretical description. Several caveats must be borne in mind:

1. Quantum Mechanics, as currently understood, only provides probabilistic description. If this situation persists then in the sense I suggested in this post the mind, like any other dynamic aggregate of elementa, is humanly speaking a system that is indeterministic.

2. Even if the mind is accessible to a complete quantum description, it may nevertheless be such a complex organised aggregate that it is beyond the human mind to self-describe itself.

3. We need to keep an open mind about the apparent completeness of our theories: There is no guarantee that quantum theory provides the complete theoretical tool box for the third person perspective.

Fullerenes – an Example of Reducible Complexity.

A large fullerene: notice the smattering of pentagonal tiles giving rise to a spherical shape.

Having chanced upon a picture of a fullerene sphere (See above) on the internet, the question of how such structures can come about, given the providence of physics alone, suddenly dawned to me. How could a fullerene form incrementally carbon atom by carbon atom? To ultimately connect up into a sphere the carbon hexagons and pentagons have to tile in such a way as to form a sphere. Thus if we envisage an atom by atom formation of the structure it at first sight seems that the atoms need to somehow know in advance just what fullerene they are constructing so that they can arrange themselves accordingly.

So how do fullerenes form without the hands of some intelligent agent directly arranging the atoms appropriately? The only way I could think of was some kind of quantum tunneling straight through to the potential well of the structure thus allowing it to spring into sight as a fait accompli in one quantum jump. However, this is unlikely because as structures get larger the volume of the multidimensional space they occupy increases rapidly. The sought for structure then occupies such a small volume element in that space that a quantum jump to it is then highly improbable.

However, it seems that Nottingham University has come to the rescue. Using an electron microscopy technique that allows them to actually watch the formation of a fullerene, they have come up with the fullerene formation scenario. A short article on the Nottingham University Web site contains this crucial passage:

In their collaborative study the direct transformation of a graphene sheet into a perfectly formed fullerene ball has been observed for the first time - a process that for more than two decades was thought to be impossible. They observed that the fullerene ball is formed by removing carbon atoms one-by-one from the edge of the graphene sheet. Pentagons of carbon atoms can then form at the edge of the sheet allowing the graphene sheet to curve into a bowl shape. Eventually, as the graphene sheet continues to lose carbon atoms the complete fullerene ball is formed.

(See http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/Chemistry/News/FullereneformationinNature.aspx ) 

It looks, then, as though the "long standing puzzle"  of fullerene “irreducible complexity” has or is being solved; there is, after all, an incremental path through to these structures. The providence of Physics I call that.

A Meccano Fullerene - Pity I don't have enough Meccano strips in my set to make it.

Determinism and Indeterminism

Wolfram's Ideas Have Some Implications For Indeterminism

Somebody recently asked me to comment on the nature of determinism and indeterminism. Here is my answer:

Here is some waffle re. your questions:

Let’s assume every physical thing constitutes a pattern or structure of some kind and that the job of physics is to come up with a description of these objects using generating functions or algorithms. The functions/algorithms used to describe these physical patterns or structures constitute a theory. On this view, then, something like Newtonian theory is composed of a set of functions/algorithms that can used to describe the patterns of the world around us.

If we take on board this rather sketchy model of physics (which is in fact the way I personally understand physics at the moment) some things obviously follow. The class of compact or small algorithms/functions is relatively limited for the fairly obvious reason that small objects are by definition constructed with a relatively small number of parts and therefore these parts can only be juxtaposed in a limited number of ways. In contrast the physical objects theories attempt to describe may be huge in comparison. Thus for obvious combinatorial reasons the number of possible physical objects is far greater than the number of physical theories that can be constructed.

However, the ideas of Stephen Wolfram have some interesting implications here. He believes that the majority of relatively small algorithms can, if given enough time, compute everything that can be computed. If I understand Wolfram aright then this means that if given enough time any given (finite) physical pattern/structure can be described by a physical theory if “theory” in this context is understood as a kind of algorithm or function. Admittedly Wolfram’s ideas are conjectural but if they hold true it means that there are no finite objects out there that cannot be described using a theory. If a theory is given enough computation time it will eventually describe any stated physical system. The problem of the mismatch between the number of succinct theoretical systems and the huge number of physical objects that can be described is surmounted because we allow physical theories indefinite amounts of execution time to come up with the goods.

If Wolfram is right (and I have gut feeling he is), and if we define indeterminism as a physical system that cannot be described with an algorithm or function, then it seems that on this basis there are NO (finite) systems that are indeterminate – all systems can be calculated from a basic algorithm given enough execution time. Therefore, if we want a definition of determinism/indetermism that does justice to the fact that some systems seem less humanly tractable than others we need to change the definition of determinism.

In spite of the fact that (according to Wolfram) everything is in principle deterministic it is clearly not so from a practical human angle. Some objects are, from our perspective, “more deterministic” than others and therefore my proposal is that determinism and indeterminism are not a dichotomy but the two ends of a spectrum.

Some physical objects have a pattern that is highly ordered and we can quickly rumble the algorithm that can be used to calculate it with a relatively short execution time. We can then use the algorithm to “predict” between the dots of observation and therefore in this sense the pattern is deterministic. However, as the pattern becomes more and more complex, locating the algorithm that will describe it becomes more and more difficult because of the increasing difficulty of finding an algorithm that will describe the pattern in a convenient execution time: Most highly complex physical systems will only be generated after an impractical execution time and thus humanly speaking the system is indeterminist. Thus physical systems move from a deterministic classification to an increasingly indeterministic classification as they require longer and longer execution times to be generated by an algorithmic "theory". In this connection I suspect that the randomness of quantum mechanics is, from human point of view, practically indetermistic.

Finally to answer your question:

....is it true that for a model to *completely* predict everything within a system it would have to be at least as large (in terms of information content) as the system it was predicting, or is there a case in which a model could *completely* predict everything within a system but not be at least as large (in terms of information content)?

I’m not going to answer this question in terms of “information content” as we would get embroiled in the technical definition of information, but instead I’ll answer it from an intuitive and human stand point. One of the benefits of mathematical theorising from a human point of view is that in most cases the theory is not as large and complex as the system it is “predicting”. Think of the Mandelbrot set and compare it with the algorithm used to generate it: It is very easy to remember the algorithm but not a bit for bit map of the set itself. If physics is to the structures it predicts as the Mandelbrot algorithm is to the Mandelbrot set then in terms of bit for bit data storage the models of physics, like the Mandelbrot algorithm, are in human terms much smaller than the objects they compute. However, it seems that there are many objects out there, like history and God, that are not humanly theoretically “compressible” and therefore they will ever remain narrative intense subjects.

Dumb Design

.....coming to a  Dumb Design blog near you

This post by GilDodgen on Uncommon Descent betrays a measure of extremism typical of some parts of the anti-evolution movement. One doesn’t even necessarily have to actually accept evolution to see that Dodgen has a caricatured and distorted view of evolutionists. Here are the salient issues raised in the post:

1. Dodgen was once a militant atheist. That’s the first warning sign: This man isn’t the sort who is going to believe things by halves and probably thinks everyone else should be as highly convicted and polarised as he is.

2. Dodgen titles his post Why Secular and Theistic Darwinists (sic) fear ID. So where does this implied accusation leave Christians like Sir John Polkinghorne, who is an evolutionist and justifies his claim to being an Intelligent Design Creationist because he sees the providence of God in the conditions required to make evolution a fruitful process. Thus does Dodgen try to drive a wedge between Christian evolutionists and their belief in the providence of God.

3. Dodgen is at his worst when he defines evolution in way that would no doubt have warmed his heart when he was an extreme atheist:  God-guided evolution” was an oxymoron, since “evolution,” as defined in the academy and by its major promoters, is by definition undirected and without purpose. Like all theories evolution purports to describe reality using a set of principles that succinctly embody information about the patterns displayed by the structure of reality. As I have often remarked on this blog evolution must be highly resourced by information to work; this information, if it exists, is found in the layout of configuration space. This information provides a probability envelop that can be said to direct evolution in the sense that this envelop constrains what is possible. Only the descriptive information embodied in this envelop is within the terms of reference of evolutionary theory but terms such as “intentional” and “purpose” are not within evolutionary theory’s remit. Once again notice how Dodgen’s comments have the effect of denigrating and defaming Christian evolutionists by accusing them of aiding and abetting those who propose a purposeless, godless universe.

I don’t think people like Dodgen are theoretically competent enough to deal with the matter of evolution, whatever its status. He still has cognitive legacies from his extremist past to cope with and these impair his judgment (in fact he’s still an extremist, so nothing has changed there). If evolution is false then apparently Dodgen simply doesn’t have the where-with-all to equip him for the job of refuting it and he should be fired.

The Narrow Cosmic Performance Envelope

The Cosmos must have a very particular performance envelope if evolution is going to get anywhere very fast. (i.e. 0 to Life in a mere 15 billion years)

Brian Charlwood has posted a comment on my Blog post Not a Lot of People Know That. As it’s difficult to work with those narrow comment columns I thought I would put my reply here. Brian’s comments are in italics.

You say //So evolution is not a fluke process as it has to be resourced by probabilistic biases.// so it is either a deterministic system or it is a random system.

I am not happy with this determinism vs. randomness dichotomy: To appreciate this consider the tossing of a coin. The average coin gives a random configuration of heads/tails with a fifty/fifty mix. But imagine some kind of “tossing” system where the mix was skewed in favour of heads. In fact imagine that on average tails only turned up once a year. This system is much closer to a “deterministic” system than it is to the maximally random system of a 50/50 mix. To my mind the lesson here is that the apparent dichotomy of randomness vs. determinism does no justice to what is in fact a continuum.

A deterministic system requires two ingredients:

1/ A state space

2/ An updating rule

For example a pendulum has as a state space all possible positions of the pendulum, and as updating rules the laws of Newton (gravity, F=ma) which tell you how to go from one state to another, for instance the pendulum in the lowest position to the pendulum in the highest position on the left.

Fine, I’m not adverse to that neat way of modeling general deterministic systems as they develop in time, but for myself I’ve scrapped the notion of time. I think of applied mathematics as a set of algorithms for embodying descriptive information about the “timeless” structure of systems. This is partly a result of an acquaintance with relativity which makes the notion of a strict temporal sequencing across the vastness of space problematical. Also, don’t forget that these mathematical systems can also be used to make “predictions” about the past (or post-dictions), a fact which also suggests that mathematical models are “information” bearing descriptive objects rather than being what I can only best refer to here as “deeply causative ontologies”.

A random system is a bit more intricate. It can be built up with

1/ A state space

2/ An updating rule

Huh? Looks the same. Yeah, but I can now add the rule is updating. Contrary to deterministic systems, the updating rule does not tell us what the next state is going to look like given a previous state, it is only telling us how to update the probability of a certain state. Actually, that is only one possible kind of random system, one could also build updating rules which are themselves random. So you have a lot of possibilities, on the level of probabilities, a random system can look like a deterministic system, but it is really only predicting probabilities. It can also be random on the level of probabilities, requiring a kind of meta-probabilitisic description.

If I understand you right then the Schrödinger equation is an example of a system that updates probabilities deterministically. The meta-probabilistic description you talk of is, I think, mathematically equivalent to conditional probabilities. This comes up in random walk where the stepping to the left or right by a given distance are assigned probabilities. But conceivably step sizes could also vary in a probabilistic way, thus superimposing probabilities on probabilities. i.e. conditional probabilities. In the random walk scenario the fascinating upshot of this intricacy is that it has no effect on the general probability distribution as it develops in space. (See the “central limit theorem”)

Anyway, these are technical details, but let's look at what happens when we have a deterministic system and we introduce the slightest bit of randomness. Take again the pendulum. What might happen is that we don't know the initial state with certainty, the result is that you still have a deterministic updating rule, but you can now only predict how the probability of having a certain state will evolve. Now, this is still a deterministic system, the probability only creeps in because we have no knowledge of the initial state.

But suppose the pendulum was driven by a genuine random system. Say that the initial state of the pendulum is chosen by looking at the state of a radio-active atom. If the atom decayed in a certain time-interval, we let the pendulum start on the left, if not on the right. The pendulum as such is still a deterministic system.

But because we have coupled it to a random system, the system as a whole becomes random. This randomness would be irreducible.

This would classify as a one of those systems on the deterministic/random spectrum. The mathematics of classical mechanics would mean that any old behavior is not open to the pendulum system, and therefore it is not maximally random.; the system is constrained by classical mechanics to behave within certain limits. The uncertainty in initial conditions, when combined with mathematical constraint of classical mechanics, would produce a system that behaves randomly only within a limited envelope of randomness; the important point to note is that it is an envelope, that is, an object with limits, albeit fuzzy limits like a cloud. Limits imply order. Thus, we have here a system that is a blend of order and randomness; think back to that coin tossing system where  tails turned up randomly but very infrequently.

So, if you want to say that there is a part of evolution that is random, the consequence is that the whole of it is random and therefore it is all one big undesigned fluke.

No, I don't believe we can yet go this far. Your randomly perturbed pendulum provides a useful metaphor: Relative to the entire space of possibility the pendulum’s behavior is highly organized, its degrees of freedom very limited. Here, once again, the probabilities are concentrated in a relatively narrow envelop of behavior, just as they must be in any working evolutionary system – unless, of course, one invokes some kind of multiverse, which is one (speculative) way of attempting maintain the “It’s just one big fluke” theory. Otherwise, just how we ended up with a universe that has a narrow probability envelope (i.e. an ordered universe) is, needless to say, the big contention that gets people hot under the collar.

Epistemic Humility

The Taleb paradox:  He may be abrasive and arrogant, but he knows a thing or two about Epstemic Humility. See here

A couple of Web posts of interest:

1. Human Cognitive Limits

I was interested in this Times Online article by Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees which is entitled We may never discover how the universe ticks. In the article Rees writes:

But we should be open to the prospect that some aspects of reality — a unified theory of physics, or a full understanding of consciousness — might elude us simply because they’re beyond human brains, just as Einstein’s ideas would baffle a chimpanzee

2. The logical limits of a purely descriptive paradigm

This post on Uncommon Descent refers to Mathematician Oxford John Lennox' rebuttal of some of Stephen Hawkin’s recent claims. Lennox is quoted as saying:

But contrary to what Hawking claims, physical laws can never provide a complete explanation of the universe. Laws themselves do not create anything, they are merely a description of what happens under certain conditions.

….which is very much in line with the comments in my last post about the descriptive role of physics; physics can only go as far as a maximally “compressed” descriptive narrative of the Cosmos and therefore provides no ultimate logical necessity. Since the “data compression” operation of physical description aims to reduce content down to the “simple as possible”, that content will not contain its own explanation; it is simply too simple for that. As far as the search for Aseity is concerned physics, with its program of progressive reduction to the elemental, is likely to be proceeding in exactly opposite direction; for there is only one other place to look for self-explanation, and that is in the a-priori complex, probably the infinitely a-priori complex. Therefore, understanding the concept of Aseity may elude us for the same reason Rees has given us: Viz: simply because it is beyond human brains, just as Einstein’s ideas would baffle a chimpanzee.

Not a Lot of People Know That.

The 64 billion dollar question: Is physics mere description or is it intentional causes?

In this post on Cornelius Hunter’s blog, “Darwin’s God”, Hunter remarks on an insect that appears to have bifocal lenses:

Take a close look at this organism—a very close look. Now answer these questions: Are you an evolutionist? Was this bug created by random mutations? Is it a Lucretian concoction? For evolutionists the answer is yes, all organisms must be such concoctions, and in so saying they are their own accuser—this is not about science.

And then there is the complaint that those mutations really aren’t random. So the mutations knew what to design? Of course not, but, but … But what? Of course the mutations are random with respect to the design. And that is the issue at hand.

Or there is the retort that natural selection remedies all. Those mutations aren’t random at all, they have been selected by a reproductive differential. But of course this after the fact selection does not dictate which mutations should occur. All selection does is kill off the useless mutations. The fact that most mutations don’t work doesn’t help matters as evolutionists imagine, it just reduces the chances of evolution’s miracle stories. The mutations are still random, there are simply fewer (far fewer) of them to work with because most don’t survive.

When evolutionists complain that mutations really aren’t random one gets the feeling that Hunter thinks they are playing against the rules of their own game. But as I have made clear before in this blog, if evolution has occurred in exactly the way conventional evolutionists claim, then for it to produce the results in sufficient time (~ a few billion years) the cosmic system must be highly constrained and therefore far from random; that is, physical laws have to eliminate so many possible states that among the possibilities remaining the class of evolutionary outcomes must be large enough to return a realistic probability of evolution. The physical laws would have to achieve this result by insuring that the class of viable organic structures form a connected set in configuration space (Something I have said many times in this blog). This would imply that this class of structures is not evenly distributed in configuration space; for if they were they would be too thinly dispersed for evolution to jump the intervening spaces between different organisms via stepwise diffusion. This connected object in configuration space would have to be implicitly encoded by the laws of physics. To the ID theorist’s objection that the laws of physics could not encode such a complex, information rich object, my reply is that the alternative object they are proposing is as equally complex and information rich; for, conversely, if as the ID theorists insist the class of viable organisms is not connected (that is, organisms are “irreducibly complex”), then this highly complex information rich disconnected structure would also be implicit in physics. Interesting meta-questions here are these: What subset of elegant physical laws implies a reducibly complex of set of organic structures? What is the size of this subset relative to the class of all elegant physical laws?

I have said things like the foregoing many times in this blog. It amounts to saying this: Whatever way we look at the aspect presented to us by the visible cosmos, we cannot get away from the fact that its probabilities are highly skewed in favour of life, whether or not life has evolved. But it seems that not a lot of people know that; folk opinion is that somehow evolution makes creating organic forms a trivially logical outcome; that is, it is thought of as a kind of “creation made easy” story. But it simply isn’t easy: In the greater scheme of all possible physical regimes, those regimes that favour evolution are so rare as to be miraculous. In fact I submit that the computational complexity of locating a system that entails evolution is far greater than that of directly locating viable organisms. Not a lot of people know that.

The fact is that evolutionary logic has the effect of obscuring the highly weighted probabilities that necessarily resource it. Therefore those who dislike a bias in the probabilities because it smacks of “creation” will naturally be attracted to evolutionary theory because it obscures the bias. So perhaps Hunter is right to complain about those evolutionists who want to have their cake and eat it: They want a system which generates organic configurations that is both random and yet not random.

There is an extreme irony in all this because there is a back handed acknowledgement by anti-ID evolutionists of the ID theorist’s contention that a probabilistic skew betrays the contrivance of intelligent agency, effectively "loading the die". The anti-ID evolutionists find great difficulty in coming to terms with skewed probabilities and thus default to evolution because at first sight it seems to satisfy the requirement of providing a physical system whose probability weightings have not been “rigged” by an intelligence. But, in fact, evolutionary theory has the effect of hiding probabilistic weightings in a huge hinter land of physical logic. For example, when genetic research workers look at what seems be an apparently short evolutionary route between two organism in terms of genetic changes, evolutionary change looks deceptively easy. But what is very easy to miss here is that in actual fact the two organisms are embedded in a huge field of possibilities, a field that must be explored in order to move from one organism to the other. Unless the logic of real physics cuts this space down considerably the size of the exploration space between two organisms separated by N genetic jumps is, in big ‘O’ notation:

O( EXP(N)),

… an expression that entails a very large number. Thus, if it is not appreciated that some kind of underlying physical regime is required to reduce the size of this space in order to make it a tractable search problem, evolution can give the false impression of being a logically trivial outcome tantamount to “creation from nothing”. Thus, Hunter is probably right when he says:

Indeed, evolutionists insist that evolution must be true—a fact every bit as much as the fact that the earth is round, that the planets circle the sun, or even gravity. Yes, there must be no question about evolution. Religion drives science, and it matters.

When it finally does sink in that a working version of evolution (At least as far as cosmic durations are concerned) demands a very high level of probabilistic weighting, the first port of call for those who feel uncomfortable with a system “rigged” in favour of life is, of course, the multiverse. The multiverse spreads the butter of probability evenly over of a huge field of platonic possibilities and this makes it look as though there is no “somebody” out there who “cares” enough to “fix the figures”. The sheer size of the required multiverse is testament to the unimaginably enormous space of platonic possibility. For the multiverse must be big enough to generate enough random trials to eventually produce living configurations.

But even then the multiverse hits another problem: A system of laws that generates an enormous number of trails with no bias toward particular outcomes seems an incredibly powerful resource given that it is logically unwarranted; for it doesn’t answer the inevitable question about its own origin. Thus even an object as complex as the multiverse does not have the property of aseity.

Physics is a passively descriptive system: It provides the generating algorithms that embody information about the configuration of our cosmos. If we are looking for “causes” that go deeper than mere succinct descriptive mathematical entailments, physics will not deliver: Physics provides no answers to the question “why?” if that question is posed with motives that subliminally expect answers in terms of the intentional causes of a creative sentience. Thus, if we are not going to give ourselves the option of assuming that a highly complex sentient object with the property of aseity is an a priori and irreducible feature of existence we must accept that in the final analysis the flat descriptive world of physics, once it has done its job of compressing a full description of the cosmos in the smallest possible mathematical narrative, leaves us facing an impenetrable wall of descriptive brute fact. Therefore physics has no way of satisfying those who are nagged by a deeply felt curiosity arising out of the intuition that “causes” go much deeper than mere compressed description.

The Attack of the Internet Boids

No pranks, thanks: The 4chan user boids may swoop down on anyone, anytime.

I've just had my attention drawn to the 4chan web site phenomenon. Here is article on BBC news about it. It seems to be a web site that propagates a kind of organized trolling. One particular example of this “trolling in unison” that amuses me just a little bit is this one reported by the BBC:

Using the "Anonymous" persona, its tactics have included urging users to google the phrase "Scientology is a cult", pushing it to the top of Google Hot Trends, as well as staging real-world protests. In response, the Church of Scientology has labeled them "terrorists" guilty of "hate crimes".

In fact if you put “Scientology is....” into Google you get a recommendation with a general form of :

Scientology is (expletive deleted)

That should give the Scientologist lawyers a way to earn their crust. I wonder if they will dare to nobble Google and attempt to rig its recommendation algorithms?

However, chan4 users dish out mob justice and that can go over the top. The cruel women who was caught by CCTV dumping a cat into a wheelie bin was outed by the many eyes and ears of 4chan users and she has since more than paid for her crime. Also, amongst other pranks, YouTube has been flooded with pornographic videos by 4chan users acting in unison.

It’s instructive to compare 4chan with the readers (or “raiders” as I call them) of PZ Myers' blog, Pharyngula. At Myers prompting his many readers descend on some of the meaningless internet polls and give the poll creators a result they don’t want (but often the result they deserve). They also gave the hegemonic Real Catholics a nasty shock after PZ published Real Catholic, Michael Voris' video denunciation of democracy.

All in all it’s a lesson in system theory and self organization. We are probably dealing with a power law effect here: I suspect that the number of 4chan users dwarfs even PZ Myers readership; as one might expect if the distribution of web site user populations follows a power law. The users of 4chan are behaving like boids: The individuals follow a dynamic based on a relatively simple reaction to total group behavior and yet what emerges is single collective identity that has a modicum of intelligent behavior. Given that their eyes and ears are everywhere they are a force to be reckoned with. However, it’s a form of mob rule and their justice will be gut justice and not very discerning or even very just for that matter. Given the nature of this kind of mobsterism one can see why “An eye for an eye, a tooth for tooth…” actually advanced the cause of justice in the wild Middle East, circa 1250 BC.

Problems in Young Earth Creationism Part 4: Star light travel Time; the Umpteenth YEC ‘Solution’

YECS: Hunting for the star light equivalent of warp factor 9.9 drive

If this keen looking YEC blogger is anything to go by then it looks as if it is back to drawing board on the star light travel time problem at Answers in Genesis. In part 2 of this series I discussed the theory of AiG writer Russell Humpheys who posited an asymmetrical big bang with a centre of gravity in the vicinity of the Earth. This model implied that the Earth found itself in a gravitational well as the universe expanded and it was hoped that this well would slow down time on Earth to the point where a few minutes or hours on Earth equated to billions of years worth of light travel time in the rest of the cosmos. But the signs are that this theory is now water under the bridge: AiG theorist Jason Lisle is claiming he has paper in peer review which allows star light to reach our shores “virtually instantaneously”.

In this web article at creation.com Jason Lisle, writing pseudonymously as “Robert Newton”, may give clues as to the direction his thoughts are taking. There Lisle toys with idea of the difference between observed time and calculated time: Observed time is the time when an astronomical event appears to happen as seen from Earth whereas calculated time is the time the event occurred in the past calculated with the formula Time = Distance of event/Speed of light.

So, using this distinction Lisle moots the idea that when the stars are created on Day 4 in the Genesis 1 account the Bible is using observed time rather than calculated time. However, in order to remain consistent with calculated time Lisle suggests that creation was a sequence of concentric phases starting at the edge of the universe and working inward until about 6000 years ago the Earth was created. In Lisle own words:

Since the Bible indicates that the stars were visible on Day 4, we now compute the (calculated) time at which they were created. Alpha Centauri (a star 4.3 light years away) must have been created about 4.3 years 'before the beginning' (before Day 1) in order for its light to have reached Earth on Day 4 of the Creation Week. Likewise, a star 10 light years away must have been created about 10 years before Day 1. A star one billion light years away must have been created about one billion years 'before the beginning' and so on. So, we see that more distant stars were created earlier than nearby stars. The time of creation depends on the distance from Earth. So what appears to be simultaneous according to observed time, now appears to be spread out over a long period of time. Which view is the 'correct' picture? They both are—each according to the chosen convention of time measurement.

But how can a star be created before the beginning? We must remember that the Bible's statement 'In the beginning' (Genesis 1:1) is a measure of time, and therefore must be the 'beginning' as measured according to observed time. So although the beginning of the universe occurs simultaneously everywhere on Day 1 according to observed time, the beginning of the universe (just as with the stars) occurs at different calculated times depending on the distance from Earth. Day 1 occurs much earlier for places in the universe that are more distant from Earth than nearby places.

So, we present the following picture of Creation as described in Genesis, but converted from observed time to calculated time—first, God creates the most distant sections of 'space'. This occurs billions of years ago. About14 four days later, stars are created in those areas of space. As time passes, this creation process moves inward; space is created nearer to Earth, and stars are created four days later. About 4.3 years before Earth is created, 'the beginning' occurs for the space near Alpha Centauri. Four days later Alpha Centauri is created. Finally the Earth is created, but the starlight has not yet reached Earth; God provides a temporary light source. Four days later, God creates the Sun, the planets and the moon. At this point, (thanks to God's innovative method of creation) all the light from all the stars reaches Earth at exactly the same time. This may seem an unusual method by which to create a universe, but then is there a 'usual' method by which universes are created? This method is compatible with the Word of God; and it is compatible with all astronomical observations of which I am aware. The God who created space and time should have no difficulty creating and placing the stars where and when He desires.

Well, I wouldn’t call that an “innovative method of creation” but a rather a contrivance to ensure that the AiG dogmatism of a 6x24hrs creation period remains in place. In any case according to this theory parts of the universe, in terms of their own local time, are billions of years old and will therefore display “old universe” features such as an “old Earth” geology wherever there are planets subject to geological processes: This, I suspect, will look like theological equivocation and casuistry to religious ultras who much prefer the more straightforward creationism where God said his magic words of creation 6000 years ago and the whole caboodle popped into existence in the space of a few days. Notice also the geocentric touch and feel about the model Lisle is mooting – the Earth is near the centre of a sequence of concentric phases of creation. This does have some similarities with Russell Humphreys’ solution: Both solutions imply a geocentricity where concentric circles have increasing age (measured locally) as one gets further from Earth; although in Lisle’s model the mechanism of concentricity is down to creative fiat rather than a concentric gravitational warping of space time.

I have a hunch, however, that in his latest paper Lisle has something a little more subtle up his sleeve. Hints of this, perhaps, can be gleaned from the creation.com web article I have referenced. In this article Lisle notes the practical and theoretical difficulties of synchronizing two separated clocks. Because of these difficulties the only sure fire way of measuring the speed of light is to use only one clock to measure this speed by sending light from the clock on a path that reflects back to the clock – thus, experimental determinations that measure the speed of light using a “there and back” journey are referred to as the “two way” speed of light. But if we measure the speed of light in this way how do we know that the speed in one direction is the same as that in the other? Well, we can’t be sure about it, for given this experimental technique it is conceivable that the speed of light in one direction is different to the other even though the average speed is measured as c. In 1963, on this basis, a physicist called Edwards re-hashed relativity by only postulating that the two way speed of light was a constant equal to c. Edwards found that without making a commitment to the one-way speed of light, all the results of special relativity still held. This paper by Chinese physicist Jian Qi Shen introduces and develops Edwards ideas.

OK, so strictly we can only really be reasonably sure of the “two way speed of light”. Conceivably, then, the speed of light could be anisotropic. In fact in the extreme case the speed of light could be nearly infinite in one direction and travel from A to B almost instantaneously. Or, another way of looking at it: If the one-way speed of light is an unobservable then perhaps the one way speed of light is a meaningless quantity and we can just simply postulate that the time light takes to travel in one direction is almost instantaneous….. Wait a minute….Did I just say instantaneous? Are you thinking what I am thinking? Perhaps the light from those distance stars gets to Earth instantaneously! Eureka!

Not so fast. Let’s look at this a little more closely. If the speed of light from the stars to the Earth is very large or perhaps even infinite then that means the speed of light from the Earth to the stars is around c/2 as required to preserve a two way speed of c. In theoretical terms what this effectively means is that the light cones are radially skewed toward the Earth in a way not unlike they are around an object with a gravitational field such as a black hole (See the diagram below). In fact in order to produce a near instantaneous journey from the stars to Earth all light cones must be lying on their sides in the general direction of Earth! Thus if I am anticipating Lisle correctly then he will be obliged to centrally place the Earth in a circularly symmetric gravitational field; perhaps he might even be suggesting that the Earth is near the middle of some sort of cosmic sized black hole! Such a solution takes us back to a geocentric cosmology not unlike that of Humphreys’ cosmology. If this is how Lisle is doing things then one might expect this cosmic gravitational field to have cosmic predictions that could be tested.

Is Lisle suggesting Earth is in or near a Black Hole?

Anticipations apart I suppose I will have to wait and see what Lisle comes up with. But in the meantime let me round up the different solutions to the star light travel time problem proposed by YEC theorists; at least the ones I’m aware of. If anyone knows of any other attempts please let me know.

Attempt 1: Photons of light were created in mid flight no more than 6000 light years from the Earth. This is the YEC “mature creation” fall back solution. It was proposed as a possible solution by Whitcomb and Morris in their 1961 book “The Genesis Flood”. Its untestability makes it an epistemic brick wall. YECs who want to do science have all but dropped it.

Attempt 2: Variable speed of light: This idea has been enthusiastically mooted by some YEC creationists but this article at the Institute for Creation Research doesn’t think much of it and neither does AiG, the latter appropriately categorizing it under its “Far out Claims” page, where it gets lumped together, in fact, with the "Moon Landing Conspiracy"!

Attempt 3: 5D spherically symmetric expanding universe. (See here) I haven’t investigated this one fully, but it seems to be a geocentric cosmology which like Humphreys’ model entails galaxies billions of years old measured on local time but only a few thousand years old when measured using the much dilated Earth Time.

Attempt 4: An asymmetrical big bang entailing the Earth to be in a time dilated gravitational well – This is Russell Humphreys solution; see part 2 of this series.

Attempt 5: The Bible uses observed time. A solution mooted by Jason Lisle as above.

Attempt 6: Anisotropy in the Speed of light (?). Lisle’s new solution currently in peer review. I can’t wait!

Notice how there has been a drift toward geocentricity. The abominable incorrigible Dr Bouw, YEC geocentrist, will be pleased; he is a long time advocate that the cosmos physically, not just spiritually, revolves round the Earth (literally!)

It looks as though the YECs are trying to produce as many possible solutions in the hope that at least one will be right; a million star light travel time solutions can’t all be wrong! That’s one way to do science I suppose, but the underlying subliminal motive is, I suspect, a negative agenda of science subversion. It is sufficient for the purposes of the YEC cause to simply throw doubts on the scientific consensus by muddying the waters with a plethora of possibilities that in the purview of their supporters is enough to demonstrate science to be riddled with arbitrary, even prejudiced assumptions. In short a kind of subliminal conspiracy theory ethos underlies the modern YEC movement. Because the modern YEC community is completely hung up on the 6x24hrs hypothesis and can’t back out without becoming an even bigger laughing stock, this hypothesis is assumed to be utterly secure and therefore everything must revolve round it. The social inertia of the YEC movement keeps them going: They can all slap one another on the back at their conferences and commiserate about how worldly and corrupt the assumptions of science have become.

Technical Note

The final page of Jian Qi Shen’s paper sums things up well. Here he makes some remarks that are worth noting. He derives the metric for the Edwards space-time. He expresses this metric in terms of what he calls the “Edwards parameter” designated as X (X will vary with the velocity of the observer). This parameter is a measure of the anisotropy in the speed of light, or if you like just how much the “light cone” is “leaning over” in space-time. Here then is a screen shot of the last page of the paper:

(Read the last page of this paper here)

The important points Jian Qi Shen brings out are as follows:

At first sight the Edwards space-time looks to be a curved space-time. However, it is not a curved space-time because the metrical tensor does not vary from place to place; this follows because X, the skew of the light cone, is a constant for a given observer. As Jian Qi Shen points out, starting from the Edwards space time one can get back to an overtly flat space with the appropriate coordinate transformation. Curved space-times, that is, space-times where gravitational fields are present, only exist when there is a differential on the skew of the light cone; that is when that skew varies from location to location – technically speaking, when the “Riemann curvature tensor” doesn’t vanish. It is for this reason that I anticipate that Lisle will have to posit a cosmic gravitational field because he needs the anisotropy of the speed of light to vary from place to place. He requires this because the skew in the light cones must be radially directed toward the Earth regions of the cosmos. This will mean that X is no longer a constant for a given observer, thus giving rise to a gravitational field.

Millennium Problem Solved? Read All Abaht It!

Some interesting news for complexity theorists is breaking on Good Math, Bad Math.

Computational Irreducibility Begins to Bite

One way to think about prime numbers is as follows:

Take a one dimensional binary pattern with all the bits set to zero. Now take the number a and starting at bit 2a set the binary bits at 3a,4a,5a etc, thus effectively describing a periodic pattern of set bits with an interval of a. This simple selection scheme for setting bits can be represented by the elementary mathematical function y = an + a where n =1,2,3,4..etc and where values of y gives us the locations of the bits that must be set.

Now, let us carry out this process of setting bits for all values of a = 2,3,4,5,6,7…. until limited by the length of the binary pattern. When this procedure has been completed all the bits that have not been set are placed at bit locations whose position value is a prime number. Basically a prime number is a number that doesn’t get selected by any of the periodic selection schemes defined by the equation with form y=an+a.

Now consider the mathematical object called “The Ulam Spiral of primes”, a concept that I got from this very interesting blog post by Mark Chu-Carroll. In the diagram below the natural numbers are arranged in spiral pattern and the primes are plotted in red.

If this process is continued and viewed from a distance this is what you get:

As MarkCC puts it:

Look at how many diagonal line segments you get! And look how many diagonal line segments occur along the same lines! Why do the prime numbers tend to occur in clusters along the diagonals of this spiral? I don't have a clue. Nor, to my knowledge, does anyone else!

Intuitions about it are almost certainly wrong. For example, when I first thought about it, I tried to find a numerical pattern around the diagonals. There are lots of patterns. For example, one of the simplest ones is that an awful lot of primes occur along the set of lines f(n) = 4n²+bn+c, for a variety of values of b and c. But what does that tell you? Alas, not much. Why do so many primes occur along those families of lines?

Interpreting this spiral diagram in terms of the 1-D binary pattern model, these 2-D spiral models are another way of generating a “bit set” selection scheme, except that these schemes are not periodic but instead the space between selections is increasing in proportion to value of n – this leads to the n² term in MarkCC’s expression. What MarkCC is telling us is that some of these selection schemes pick up a high frequency of primes. He then asks the pertinent question:

Why do so many primes occur along those families of lines?

When I heard that question the first useful thought I had was to think of Stephen Wolfram’s work on computation and in particular of his concept of computational irreducibility. Taking our cue from Wolfram the answer may be that there is no answer to this question of “why?” other than to carry out the computation itself. Let me explain:

The time required to arrive at certain computed patterns cannot be shortened beyond a minimum computation length. Wolfram brings this concept out into sharp focus: He tells us that this irreducibility means what it says: Once we have the minimum length computation in our hands there is, by definition, no other computation available to demonstrate the result any quicker.

If computational irreducibility applies to the case in point then it would mean that the only way to show up those diagonals with a high incidence of primes is to do the long calculation of generating the spiral and the primes. When we ask the question “why” in this context we are, I suggest, looking for a succinct analytical answer to the question in the form of some relatively simple algorithm demonstrating the pattern in a relatively short execution time; in other words an analytical short cut. But according to Wolfram there may be no simpler way of demonstrating the pattern than to do it the long way. Or rather, the long way is in fact the short way because there is no shorter way to do it!

Of course, we don’t know for a fact that this particular problem is computationally/analytically irreducible. But even if it is reducible we may still find that the solution to the meta-problem of determining whether or not a task is reducible is a computation that itself is plagued by the limits of computational irreducibility.

I believe the generality of Wolfram’s views on this subject are valid. I also believe that it is possible to get an intuitive feel for why they are valid. As I have already said, when human beings ask “why?” they are asking for an answer in the form of some “short” algorithm that succeeds in arriving at an answer in a “short” execution time. We are human after all and we have limited space and limited time. Unsurprisingly, then, we want answers to be reached using as little space and time as possible. But if we are going to limit space and time the computations that are open to algorithmic demonstration are going to be accordingly limited; the reason for this is fairly obvious: As soon as we make stipulations limiting computational resources those stipulations automatically exclude the overwhelming number of computations that utilize either large algorithms or large execution times (or both). The number of short algorithms executing in short time is a limited resource and their allocation to problem solution runs out long, long before they have covered the whole domain of solutions. Thus the absence of a simple analytical solution to the question of the spiral and primes may be evidence of the demand pressure on the relatively short supply of succinctly performing algorithms: The demand for fast succinct algorithms outstrips their supply and thus most problems will have irreducibly long winded solutions.

The Myth of God Incarnate

Who needs a liberal theologian to interpret the Bible’s message when we’ve got Saint Paul here to do the work for us? See here for the story (The above picture of PZ Myers was taken while he was playing on the rides at the local creationist doctrinal bargain basement) .

Problems in Young Earth Creationism Part 3: Egocentricity Geocentricity.

The incorrigible Doctor Bouw: Answers in Genesis don’t like the look of him

As a natural follow on from my two blogs on Young Earth Creationism (here and here) I must make mention of this guy, Gerardus Bouw a fundagelical geocentrist. That’s right, you didn’t mishear me, I said geocentrist; that is, somebody who believes the Earth to be stationary and at, or near, the centre of the universe.

In my last blog in this series I looked at the theory of YEC Russell Humphreys who, as he tried to solve the YEC starlight problem, took a lurch toward geocentricity. However, in spite of that Bouw is not exactly flavor of the month with mainstream YECs. One of the Answers in Genesis writers, Danny Faulkner, had a very sharp exchange with the incorrigible Doctor Bouw . But more about that later.

So, just how can someone seriously maintain an eccentric a geocentric view in the light of today’s knowledge? Well, you’d be surprised. Here’s how it can be done in two stages:

Stage 1: Coordinate system change.

The first stage involves a mathematical trick, a trick that is valid even under established astrophysics: One simply selects a coordinate system where Earth is at the origin, stationary and does not rotate. But if you do this don’t be surprised if one’s equations of motion turn out to be a noncovariant, complicated, and inconvenient. Coordinate systems are often selected for their mathematical convenience in the sense that one selects the system that makes the equations of the problem one is interested in as simple and convenient as possible. For example, if one is studying the proper motions of stars it is unlikely that one would choose a coordinate system that set the Earth’s rotation to zero because the stars would then possess huge rotational velocities that would increase in proportion to their distance from earth.

However, if one is so minded there is nothing to stop one using the Earth as a stationary non-rotating frame even though it may return rather perverse equations of motion. In fact going a step further, one can be completely non-committal about the interactions between heavenly bodies and proceed purely kinematically – that is, one proceeds only on the basis of the observed motions in the sky without regard to any dynamical theory of motion that posits the use of fields. This kinematic approach was, by necessity, the approaches of Ptolemy (2nd C) and Tycho Brahe (16th C) because these astronomers predated mechanics and gravitation. By creating models that superimposed a variety of circular motions Ptolemy and Tycho returned schemes that gave reasonable fits to what was observed in the heavens. In fact I suspect that if one tries hard enough using the Ptolemaic and Tychonian methods of using "wheels within wheels" to build the periodic motions in the heavens even better fits could eventually be achieved. The reason for this is that what is being carried out is a form of Fourier analysis of the motions. By the introduction of more and more harmonics in the form of circular motions one is effectively introducing more free variables that can be adjusted to improve fit. In fact Bouw himself seems to use the trick of multiplying variables (or “entities” as Occam would have it) in his desire to make a better fit: He does this by carefully distinguishing between what he calls geocentrism and geocentricity. According to Bouw:

In geocentricity, the earth is static, but not necessarily at the center if the universe. In geocentricity the earth is actually offset from the geometric center of the universe.

Thus, offsetting the Earth adds another free variable that can be adjusted to improve the fit of a geocentric frame of observation.

Stage 2: Positing an Ontologically Static or Preferred Frame.

Stage 2 is really the stage that sorts out the heathen from the cranks true believers. If one is going to insist on using a coordinate system that makes the linear and rotational motion of the Earth zero then there must be a good physical reason why this preferred frame of reference is used. Just to claim that the Earth is stationary on the basis of sheer strength of assertion is not enough – one has to make clear that it is stationary with respect to something, presumably something significant and important enough to warrant one’s claim. At a quick reading of Bouw’s views it seems that he posits something he calls the plenum (to be identified with the Biblical firmament in his estimation). The plenum is an ether like substance that provides the stationary absolute frame of the cosmos. With respect to that frame, according to Bouw, Earth is stationary and near the centre. And with respect to that frame the stars on the edge of the universe are rotating at unbelievable speeds as they circumnavigate the cosmos all in one day! In Bouw’s view the cosmos has some kind of holistic property that holds it all together as it rotates round the Earth.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie.

I’ve no idea how Bouw explains such things as the dynamics of the weather which are affected by the centripetal accelerations that effectively define what "a rotating Earth" means. It looks to me as if Bouw is engaged in a one man rewrite of physics. But frankly the details of Bouw’s theories are not at the top of my hit list. In any case I suggest we leave him to his own devices and not mix with him for reasons that will perhaps become clear as I move onto to the next section. Like many other fundagelicals (such as we see at Answers in Genesis) Bouw believes he speaks with the authority of the Word of God and thus his righteous wrath is terrible to behold, as the man from Answers in Genesis, poor Danny Falkner, found out!

Geocentricity and the Bible

Let me say from the outset that the Bible is certainly geocentric in its point of view and for good reason: Suffice to say here that the Bible was written by arcadians whose natural perspective was that of an Earth rotationally and linearly static, with all motions being referenced with respect to this frame. A coordinate system where the Earth is stationary and not rotating is far more useful to the man in the street or the man working the furrow than a system where the Earth is considered to rotate. The arcadian's “coordinate system” which posited a static Earth as a preferred frame is perfectly valid for their purposes (But it is unlikely that they had in mind anything like Bouw's “plenum”.) In fact even today at the level of street and furrow a static Earth is a more useful frame than the frames used by astronomers who have other purposes.

However, let me now give you a sample of Bouw’s use of the Bible. His use of scripture is certainly worth comparing with that of YEC Russell Humprhreys. In my last blog entry on this subject I indicated how Humphreys was anxious to show that the Bible proved the Earth to be in a gravitational well. The following quote contains the “proof text” he pulled out of the hat:

But in a creationist cosmos having a center of gravity, if you were to travel outward from the center you would, on the average, go steadily "upward" in a gravitational sense. On a large scale, the heavens would be at a higher gravitational "altitude" than the earth. As Isaiah 55:9 says: "For as the heavens are higher than the earth . . ."

Now, compare that merciless violation of a Biblical metaphor with the way Bouw uses scripture in the samples provided below: (See here for the source of the quotes below)

Bouw: The earth is immobile as seen from outside the universe, that is, as seen from the third heaven, the location of the throne of God. (Note: a footstool is not a footstool if it is moving – Isa. 66:1.) And why heliocentrism instead of a-centricity or acentrism? Because the modern acentric model still divides the universe into unrelated sections; and because it was founded on the worship of the sun.

My Comment: Notice how the footstool metaphor has been interpreted to convey a literal message about motion! Are we then to interpret this to mean that the Earth is literally a footstool? Does it mean that God has feet and legs? Is it intelligible to talk of God as if He is an out-sized humunculus with a stationary frame of reference? Whether or not the Earth is moving when viewed outside the universe depends on entirely on the frame of reference – we could quite easily use a frame of reference which puts the Earth back into motion. What I think Bouw really means here is that the Earth is static with respect to his conjectured “plenum”. Notice the innuendo linking the heliocentric solar system with Sun worship. I bet the fundagelical Faulkner loved the hint that he is a crypto sun worshiper! Bouw is looking for some deep spiritual crime to hang his righteous wrath on: To this end he can satisfy himself that there is an idolatrous slant in current science, a sin punishable by death in the Old Testament.

Bouw: One of the arguments that creationists use against geocentrists is that geocentricity destroys the credibility of the creationist in the eyes of unbelievers like these two men. What makes them hard to win to the creationist cause is that they clearly see the hypocrisy. They have more insight into the nature of the argument than Faulkner has, for they cannot be “snowed” by illogical arguments. Geocentrists find that most atheists will acknowledge, as de Morgan, that geocentricity is science, whereas they will never admit that of creationism. Indeed, on a personal note, it was people like Danny Faulkner and Hugh Ross who converted me to atheism in my teen years. How? Because according to them, science led the way to the truths of heliocentrism and evolution while the Christian scholars needed thirty years or more to “come around.”

My Comment: According to Bouw AiG have not gone far enough: They must embrace geocentrism in order to help spread the Gospel rather than compromising with the heliocentric scientific conspiracy. However, I haven’t noticed ex-atheists queuing up to become geocentrists

Bouw: Here are the three strongest geocentric scriptures.

Joshua 10:13 says:

And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Isnot this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

Ecclesiastes 1:5 says:

The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

And Malachi 4:2 says:

But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.

In Joshua 10:13 it is the sun that is said to stand still. God could have said “And the earth stopped turning so that the sun appeared to stand still,” but he didn’t. In effect, Faulkner claims that since it was inconvenient for God to tell the truth, he promoted the commonly accepted story, although the Holy Ghost knew it not to be true. How then can God say that he is the God of Truth and the Spirit of truth? Indeed, God’s creative power is such that his very speaking “the sun stood still” would instantly have transformed the acentric cosmos unto geocentric. It has been noted by scholars that God cannot lie because if he ever did, then the “lie” would immediately come to pass and it would instantly no longer be a lie. This they believe because God spoke the universe into being when it was not. So in a very real sense, to be consistent, those that reject the geocentric model must also reject the creationist model.

In Ecclesiastes 1:5 it is the sun that ariseth, goeth down, and hasteth. Again, God could just as well have spoken the “geokinetic truth” by simply adding the sense “seemeth to” before each of the three actions. That is, to say instead “The sun also seemeth to arise, and the sun seemeth to go down, and seemeth to haste to his place where he arose. Why did God persist in his geocentric “error”?

My Comment: Those scriptures are explained as the natural and perfectly acceptable geocentric frame and perspective of the arcadian (and moreover of any modern man in the street). But for Bouw anxious to accuse of heinous error it’s an all or nothing dichotomy: The concept of “perspective” isn’t in his book, and he doesn’t allow different perspectives to be right at the same time. Witch hunters have never been very sensitive to the notion of perspective and for Bouw the choice is between his version of geocentrism or apostasy. Notice also Bouw’s view that God “spoke the universe into being” in the manner of the magician who says “hey presto!”. In this respect his views are very similar to AiG’s concept of a God of Magic.

Bouw: In the light of this, his (that is Danny Falkner) charge that geocentrists “offer a very easy target of criticism for our critics” is revealed as sheer nonsense. Evolutionists, atheists, and agnostics in the know can easily shame creationists on the issue of geocentricity by simply pointing out the hypocrisy of their insistence that the days in Genesis 1 are literal while the rising and setting of the sun is not. Likewise, to insist that the rising of the sun is figurative while the rising of the Son is literal is also hypocrisy. Given that the geocentric model is pure physics, mathematically tractable, and realistic, and consistent with Scripture, we conclude that the creationist’s desire to reject it can only be for the sole purpose of appearing intellectual and acceptable to the world, which desire is enmity with God (James 4:4). The creationist movement is fortunate that evolutionists don’t understand these simple issues, for if they did, creationists would be shamed and held contemptible even more than they are now.

My Comment: It seems that Faulkner doesn’t want to look as though he is “with” Bouw! The self righteous indignation of Bouw (always the prerogative of those who know they are right) boils over and he shouts “hypocrite!” What Bouw is unlikely to appreciate is that Faulkner is probably right; AiG would be held in even more contempt if they became geocentrists.

****

Bouw has given the YECs at AiG a taste of their own medicine; namely, a dose of crass Biblical literalism. This literalism is used as a pretext for a self righteous tirade toward those who don’t share their interpretations and who are then accused of compromise. This whole incident is a fine example of how fundagelicalism often works against itself when two opposing sides who claim to have the very “Words of God” meet and slug it out in the name of the Lord. The irresistible force meets the immoveable object! Bouw’s approach to the Bible is like that of Humphreys, only more so, thus inadvertently caricaturing and satirising AiG. Indeed, if we are to accept AiG’s approach to scripture then why not go the whole hog and, as one fundagelical preacher once put it, believe “the Bible tells it like it is” and accept Bouw’s geocentrism? No, the Bible tells it like arcadians saw the universe and that must be borne in mind. But for Bouw and AiG religion is all about their elaborate trappings of piety; namely, their concepts of right practice and right belief. And if one doesn’t accept these elaborations one may come in line for some heavy shepherding: For Bouw gives dark hints about the association of heliocentrism and idolatry and AiG writers refer to Christians who disagree with them as merely “professing” Christianity. Religionists such as AiG and Bouw pay lip service to God’s Grace: For them salvation is intimately bound up with assent to their doctrinal articles about cosmology and a move away from these beliefs is treated as a potentially grave sin. Such is the authoritarianism of those who identify their interpretations with the very Words of God.

The Anti Gravity Road Show.

John Hutchinson's House: Style over content?

I was interested to see that the web site American Antigravity (headed up by Tim Ventura*, I think) has come back on line again. It’s a fascinating mix of off-beat techno-wizardry spiced up with rumour of the impending riches of a paradigm shifting science just round the corner. I was interested to see the pictures of the Hutchinson road trip showing John Hutchinson’s laboratory-cum-house.

Inside: Wall to wall electronics

The great, legendary and eccentric Hutchinson himself appears in the pics. This guy doesn’t use wall paper but instead decorates his house with heavy duty electronic appliances salvaged from defunct naval ships that have been teleported into the Arizona desert. However, just how much is style and how much is real content I’ll never know!

Ground breaking pioneers or just lads at play?: Tim Ventura far left, John Hutchinson third from left.

What a bunch of lads. They make me laugh. The academic establishment just can’t derail their show and quash the rumour of ground breaking science. In fact any attempt to do so just adds fuel to their fire! How utterly annoying for all those serious academics! At one time everyone, apart from the odd Galileo or Luther, believed in the establishment. Now that the “rationalists” are at the helm, however, no one believes the establishment! “Unstable self-defeating philosophies” is the phrase that comes to mind. The seeds of antithesis are buried deeply in the “rationalist” mindset.

* I did a post on Tim Ventura here