Premise ONE

The cosmos will do what ever is necessary to be consistent with itself.

This premise is simple a rephrasing of an idea that TP introduced at telic thoughts.

Quote:
My modest philosophical suggestion is that a possible purpose of the universe is to do whatever it takes to exist and be consistent with itself.
end quote"

My head hurts just trying to understand the basics of QM and I don’t think that this discussion will hinge on the subtleties of that discipline so I won’t go into detail as to why TP believes premise one is true. TP might want to fill us in on any details that he feels are relevant in this regard.

This sort of thing sounds to my ears to be pantheistic but instead of flowing from ancient Hinduism or Buddhism it is actually based on a sort of scientific neo pantheism that you find in consciousness centered interpretations of Quantum Mechanics like the Orch OR hypothesis.


You will also hear this sort of neo pantheistic statement made in the omega point type hypothesis that you find in such books as Robert Wright’s Nonzero http://www.nonzero.org/and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man The first time I came across this kind of thing was in Tipler’s work the Physics of Immortalalty.

For folks like Tipler and Wright this sort of thinking seems to be rooted in among other things the strong Anthropic principle pared with QM but if we wished to avoid all philosophical baggage we could convey basically the same concept using language flowing from a weak anthropic principal for example we could say

A Cosmos must be consistent In order for us to observe it.
Or
Only a Cosmos that is consistent will contain observers.

As a Christian I prefer to ground axioms of this type in the God of the Bible instead of the creation and I am in lucky because consistency is a major attribute of the Christian God that is according to scripture reflected in his created universe.

119:89Yahweh, your word is settled in heaven forever.
119:90Your faithfulness is to all generations. You have established the earth, and it remains.
119:91Your laws remain to this day, For all things serve you.

This verse conveys the same concept as our 1st premises namely that the universe will be consistent but instead of the Cosmos itself insuring that consistency it is grounded in the faithfulness (consistency) of God. Therefore a Christian might say:

If the Cosmos is not consistent its creator is not faithful and therefore not worthy of worship.

You can see that with a little explanation premise one can be accepted by Christians as well as folks like TP. We have already brought to light hidden agreements between two sides of the culture war and we are just getting warmed up
This agreement does not extend to everyone some nihilists don’t expect to see consistency in the cosmos and in some forms of Monotheism the sovereignty of God is emphasized at the expense of this kind of consistency. In Islam for example God is pictured as being above his laws so that he is not in any way bound by them. Allah is under no obligation to follow natural laws. He does as he pleases.
It is important to note that an inconsistent can’t be trusted anything might happen at anytime in a world like this Science and theology are both impossible.
If we are on the same page and TP has no major objections we will next move to the more contentious premise two.
Peace

modest proposal and invitation to discuss


I’ve recently been involved in an interesting discussion on the Intelligent Design blog Telic Thoughts http://telicthoughts.com/interest-in-quantum-consciousness/#comments
with a bright fellow who goes by the pseudonym Thought Provoker. I have great respect for this person as an independent thinker who is unafraid to follow the evidence where it leads. It appears however, that as is often the case when people as different as TP and myself try to have a dialogue we were speaking past one another and the logic behind my position is still not clear to him. I really want to do everything I can to try and overcome the large cultural divide and explain position so that I can be understood by someone Like TP. So I thought I’d give it another go if he is willing

Who knows our little discussion could help to bring postmodernists and fundamentalists together and bridge the red state blue state divide. And we can learn to live in peace and harmony hold hands and sing politically correct campfire songs. We can only hope. If nothing else I hope to clarify my own thoughts in this matter and have some fun.

Because of the obscure nature of our discussion and because it combines not only cutting edge science but philosophy and theology as well I thought it best to move it here to this old unused blog space I had lying around. That way we can slowly work through the issues when we have time and not distract from the cool things that go on at Telic Thoughts. Be forewarned I am very busy and Internet chat is not top priority in my life so this might take awhile. I find that I can better get my head around something if I take a thorough but leisurely pace. Don’t you?


since we come from radically different backgrounds TP and I had some trouble in our first encounter with words. Sometimes what I intended to convey was not picked up and I’m sure that my friend felt the same way. Therefore it might be best to carefully define our terms first so that ambiguity or equivocations are kept to a minimum.

Defining our terms

Now for some definitions of terms that are bound to come up and a little commentary as to why they might be important. I have endeavored to use standard dictionary definitions where possible although I have not always chosen the first one

Universe: the totality of all matter and energy that exists in the vastness of space, whether known to human beings or not.

In our discussion I originally wanted to use the more common term universe but as you can see there is no mention of non physical laws in this standard definition.

Cosmos: the universe considered as an ordered and integrated whole

Although less common than universe the term conveys the exact concept I’m looking for. I think TP would approve of this term as well. In this case the cosmos would include physical laws and might include such philosophical concepts as the multiverse.

Consistent: Free of contradiction, containing no provable contradiction

This term is very important for our discussion. A cosmos in which the speed of light was both always constant and always changing would contradict itself.

Real: having actual “physical” existence

I put the term physical in italic to emphasize that I believe something can have real physical existence and not be made of matter. Scientific laws real have actual existence in the sense that they have a quantifiable effect on the rest of reality but are not composed of matter or energy. Although I’m not a materialist I want my argument to make sense to a materialist.

Moral: regarded in terms of what is known to be right or just, as opposed to what is officially or outwardly declared to be right or just

This is the kind of natural law (as apposed to logical or mathematical) that my argument hinges upon. I contend that moral laws are laws in exactly the same way as logical mathematical and scientific laws. I realize that TP disagrees but I believe I can make the case that he is being inconsistent when he does this. I expect to spend a lot of time on this issue

Law: a statement of a “scientific” fact or phenomenon that is invariable under given conditions

In this definition "scientific" simply means empirical and testable. It is important that we distinguish law in this sense from law in the sense of binding or enforceable rule or piece of legislation

Consequence: something that follows as a result

In our former discussion I often used the term penalty to describe the result of violations of natural law and this caused TP some understandable difficulty. He suggested we use the term oscillation. I now think a better word would be consequence.

As in “The consequence of an unstable and inconsistent wavefunction is non existence” or “The consequence of any action is an equal and opposite reaction”

Evil: contrary to natural (logical mathematical scientific or moral) law


We are used to thinking of evil in a strictly human centered sense. It’s important however to understand that for the purpose of our discussion a true statement that violates the laws of logic is evil. The same goes for a true axiom that violates the laws of mathematics. The same goes for a real perpetual motion machine

Christ event: The sacrificial death of an innocent individual that is fully God and fully human at the same time and that is qualified to serve as a federal representative of both parties, followed by evidence for the acceptance of this act.

The theological term for this is the passion of Christ but I think Christ event sounds cooler don’t you agree?

Christianity: The religion that basis its existence on the reality of the “Christ event” and endeavors to explore and live out its implications.

This definition specifically rules out religions based only on following Christ teachings and religions that don’t recognize the deity of Christ. I’m not being exclusive here just trying to be precise as to my definition.


My argument

If TP or anyone else for that matter is willing to engage in discussion here and we can agree to terms I will try and prove the following syllogism. Please note for the sake of clarity I’m interested in discussing with folks that are at least willing to assume sentence number 1 is true.

1) The cosmos will do what ever is necessary to be consistent with itself.
2) If the moral law is a real (and it is) and the Christ event did not happen the cosmos is inconsistent with itself.
Therefore….
3) Christianity is necessarily true.


If I get a responce to this post and if we can agree on our terms. I will address the premises of my syllogism one at a time in upcoming posts

What do you say are you game TP???