Re: Creativity, genius and the science/faith interface

From: Lawrence Johnston (johnston@uidaho.edu)
Date: Thu Aug 21 2003 - 11:08:48 EDT

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    Ian - Thanks for that recital of how genius seems to manifest
    itself. Roger Penrose's book Emperor's New Mind also has
    fascinated me over the years since its publication. In spite of
    the peeks he gets into "God's Notebooks", as he puts it, he seems
    to cling to a Naturalistic worldview. He ends up with his best
    hopeful explanation of self-consciousness as some as-yet
    undiscovered laws of physics. In his work he exhausts for us,
    explanations in terms of known basic science. It doesn't seem to
    occur to him that other miracles may have happened, besides the
    Big Bang.

    In talks I often show Penrose's marvelous picture (cartoon,
    really) of God the Creator using a pinpoint to choose the precise
    point in phase space at which to start the Big Bang. [Page 343 of
    _The Emperor's New Mind_.] He says in the title lines of the
    picture that this point is improbable as one part in ten to the
    ten to the 123 power; The point is chosen as the one to start the
    Universe with a minimum entropy, and hence a Universe with all
    this "Free Energy" we enjoy. (so why do we get electric bills in
    the mail? An answer: shipping and handling charges)

    All God's Best, Larry Johnston

    -----------------------------------
    "He has made everything beautiful in its time.
     He has also set eternity in the hearts of men"
     - - Ecclesiastes 3:11, NIV trans

    =======================================================
    Lawrence H. Johnston home: 917 E. 8th st.
    professor of physics, emeritus Moscow, Id 83843
    University of Idaho (208) 882-2765
    Fellow of the American Physical Society
    http://www.uidaho.edu/~johnston/homepage.html =========



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