From: Alexanian, Moorad (alexanian@uncw.edu)
Date: Sun Sep 07 2003 - 11:49:44 EDT
One ought to be careful in the use of words. For instance, “If quantum is the simplest explanation of the world consistent with the observed facts.” This statement is not at all accurate. Quantum mechanics is a theory of the physical aspect of reality not of the world. The statement “observed facts” includes not only the data used to define the subject matter of science, data collected by purely physical devices, but also data collected by conscious, rational beings that are not accessible to purely physical devices. Therefore, if one is doing unadulterated science, then that science has nothing whatsoever to do with religion. If a supposedly physical theory has religious implications, then that theory is not purely scientific but has been adulterated with extraneous assumptions.
Moorad
-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of Glenn Morton
Sent: Sun 9/7/2003 10:31 AM
To: Steve Bishop; asa@calvin.edu
Cc:
Subject: RE: MHW - a different theological deduction
Steve wrote:
a couple of comments
-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Bishop [mailto:stevebishop_uk@hotmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2003 3:12 AM
>This appproach completely blunts Occam's razor!
I don't believe it does blunt Occam's Razor. If quantum is the 'simplest
explanation of the world consistent with the observed facts. Thus if it
leads to quantum splitting, then that is what Occam's razor would require.
Occam's razor doesn't require the world be simple, just that it not be made
more complex than necessary.
Similarly, if inflation generated MWH is the simplest explanation of the
origin of the universe, consistent with particle physics (from which Higgs
fields come), then that isn't unnecessarily complexifying the world to
beleive in MWH from that source.
>The MWH is in many ways a faith position. Each world is created ex nihilo.
No, they are not created ex nihilo as defined by philosophers. They are
created from pre-existing fields and the vacuum,
“The ultraearly universe may one day be triumphantly subsumed into some
overarching theory that applies from the Planck time (10-43 seconds) onward.
Indeed some physicists already claim that our universe evolved essentially
from nothing. But they should watch their language, especially when talking
to philosophers. The physicist’s vacuum is a far richer construct than the
philosopher’s ‘nothing’: latent in it are all the particles and fields
described by the equations of physics. In any case, such a claim doesn’t
bypass the philosophical question of why there is a universe. To quote
Stephen Hawking, ‘What is it that breathes fire into the equations?…Why does
the Universe go to all the bother of existing?’” Martin Rees, Before the
Beginning, (Reading, Mass: Helix Books, 1997), p. 161
>It has many theological implications many of which are incompatible with a
Christian worldview.
On this we agree and you have ennumerated them much better than I did.
Thanks.
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