>According to my understanding, the word "intervene" has deistic
>overtones. The cosmos is like a machine: it runs smoothly according
>to natural law and is only perturbed by divine intervention.
And you are correct. I was not using "intervene in that sense." To me the
idea that the cosmos runs smoothly according to the laws of nature except
when God intervenes is problematic. My view is that God continually
sustains and upholds nature. He is a consistent overseer, and He has
designed consistent, rational secondary processes and assigned the
properties of the entities in nature in such a way that they function
smoothly _under His providential oversight_.
One way to look at intervention might be the following. Imagine a computer
running an artificial life program of the (perhaps impossibly distant)
future, in which the "creatures" in the artificial life program have
something that passes for consciousness. They live in an artificial world
within the computer in which they have some capabilities of sensing their
environment and acting upon it. But their sensory and manipulation
capabilities are strictly limited to a set determined by the programmer.
Now suppose the programmer decides to "intervene" by starting a process
elsewhere in the computer that eventually results in a detectible change in
the AL environment. Suppose for example, that he creates a new sensory
capability. I put "intervene" in quotes above for a reason, because there
is a sense in which the programmer has _not_ intevened: He has used the
normal capabilities of the computer in standard ways. So he has certainly
not intervened in the functioning of the computer at the hardware level.
If he creates the new capability in a separate area inaccessible to the AL
environment, he hasn't intervened in the AL environment either. Assuming
(and I do) that the only means the AL creatures have of determining that
time has passed is by a clock that is part of the AL environment itself and
only runs during the time slices the AL environment gets, the AL creatures
wouldn't even be able to detect that the computer that is their home is
doing anything different from what it has been doing. What about when the
innovation is actually intorduced into the AL environment? _That_
certainly qualifies as intervention -- from the programmer's point of view.
But the programmer can choose whether the creatures will be able to detect
his intervention when he adds the capability. He can make it appear in
such a way that the creatures simply "discover" it and have no reason to
believe it hasn't always existed, or he can make it appear in such a way
that it's clearly something new that has appeared suddenly. If he does the
former, no intervention will be detectible. If he does the latter, it will
be obvious that he has intervened. Truly though, he has intervened in
either case. And yet in another sense he hasn't intervened, because he has
not used any capabilities not provided for by the computer and its
software.
>
Does that help?
Bill Hamilton | Chassis & Vehicle Systems
GM R&D Center | Warren, MI 48090-9055
810 986 1474 (voice) | 810 986 3003 (FAX)
hamilton@gmr.com (office) | whamilto@mich.com (home)