[asa] Re: [asa] Re: [asa] Re: [asa] Rejoinder 6D From Timaeus – for Iain Strachan, Jon Tandy and Others

From: Jim Armstrong <jarmstro@qwest.net>
Date: Tue Oct 21 2008 - 23:27:32 EDT

Nice, guys. How about dialing it back a bit as a courtesy to the rest of us, and anyone else who may be looking in? [Friend of ASA]

John Walley wrote:

Gregory, 

I suggest we let Timaeus speak for himself and you not hijack this thread as an excuse to espouse your nonsense and psychoanalyzing me and my presumption, lack of understanding, and absent knowledge. 

Not that it is worth pointing out to you, but Timbo clearly equates the prospect of arriving at a Quattro Pro solely from random mutations of existing WordPerfect code with the concept of TE. 

What is "conveniently absent" is any consideration of a infinitely powerful meta-design built into WordPerfect anticipating random mutations and using them to still create a Quattro Pro and "endless software forms most beautiful" as a result. 

This one-dimensional, simpleton understanding of God's creative powers should be an insult to even social scientists such as yourself. 

Thanks

John 




--- On Tue, 10/21/08, Gregory Arago <gregoryarago@yahoo.ca> wrote:

  

From: Gregory Arago <gregoryarago@yahoo.ca>
Subject: Re: [asa] Re: [asa] Rejoinder 6D From Timaeus – for Iain Strachan, Jon Tandy and Others
To: asa@lists.calvin.edu, "Ted Davis" <TDavis@messiah.edu>, john_walley@yahoo.com
Date: Tuesday, October 21, 2008, 7:20 AM
Hi John, 
 
You wrote: "But you can't deny that as a
programmer I have the ability to write a program that
modifies its behavior at runtime based on external inupts.
We see this everyday."

I doubt that Timaeus is denying it! It is rather your
presumption than his perspective.
 
What remains a challenge for your position, John, is that
you have an unsophisticated understanding of the
similarities and differences between natural sciences,
human-social sciences, applied sciences, humanities, etc.
Your 'hierarchy of knowledge' or 'map of
sciences' is conveniently absent.
 
As a 'programmer' you can and do certainly
'design' things. There is no argument here from
Timaeus. What your hang-up is, it is that you fail to
bridge the gap between your soul and your physical matter.
Is your 'computer code' a spiritual thing or merely
a material thing; it was made, I'm sure you'll
agree, by an en-souled material human being. Is there then
a spiritual dimension to programmed code (even if programmed
by atheists)?
 
ID's main problem is that it (like TE/EC) has no
solution for how to bridge the gap between human-made and
non-human-made things. It is too concerned with the outdated
(i.e. 20th century) 'dialogue between science and
religion,' which simply must give way to a more
holistic understanding of the present and future. Sooner or
later, the human-social sciences will be acknowledged for
their contribution to knowledge that exists alongside, above
and/or beyond the reach of natural science, theology,
philosophy, applied science, etc. 
 
But ASA does not yet seem ready to enter into such an
inclusive conversation. 'Science' to ASA mainly
means 'natural science.' Let's not kid ourselves
otherwise.
 
Gregory


     
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To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message. Received on Tue Oct 21 23:27:59 2008