--- In [email protected], "curtisdeltablues" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > They're identical, actually, in that neither answers > > the "why?" question. *Why* did God design the universe > > to be orderly? > > > > "Just how it is" and "Just how God designed it" are > > synonymous, when you think about it: how it is is how > > God designed it; how God designed it is how it is. > > There's no information content in either statement. > > > Thanks for taking a minute on this. I get that he is making a point > that I am missing so I'll give this more thought. > > I agree with your equation of the statement in their ability to > answer "why". I guess I am missing his point about why there is an > imperative to answer "why".
Well, I think the title of the piece suggests what his point is: "Taking Science on Faith." He's not comfortable with that. I did have a glimmer of stepping outside > my own mental constraints that perhaps he is keeping the hope alive > to really answer this question when some scientists have used the > word "God" and some have used "who cares", effectively blowing off > the questions and, to use one of our favorite phrases, stopping > thought on this topic. Is he encouraging scientist to keep up the > good fight of inquiry into this question? Oh, yes, I'm sure he is. Actually he's encouraging scientists to *take it up*, because they haven't so far. At the *very* least, he would like science to recognize that the whole scientific enterprise is founded on a faith issue. But I think he wants to go further than that and actually hash it out. I was thinking that in the world he lives > in, he is surrounded by scientists and probably very aware of the > mental assumptions that are limiting their thinking. For him this > kind of assumption may be blocking a direction of his scientific > interest? I *think*, as I suggested earlier, that what he's looking for is a "theory of everything" that incorporates consciousness as the agent of the creation of the universe. I suspect that's what he means when he says what's needed is a TOE that eliminates external agency. I even wonder if he might not have a glimmering of the self-reference concept. > Or he might just be making a linguistic error by putting why at that > level of abstraction. But given his mental chops, I'll bet I am > just still missing his point. I think that's distinctly likely. ;-) Doesn't mean, necessarily, that you'd go along with it once you had grokked it, but you'd be addressing it differently. I should note that all I've got hold of is the very most elementary aspect of his point.
