At 11:37 PM 08/31/2000, you wrote:
>From: Susan Brassfield Cogan <Susan-Brassfield@ou.edu>
>[...]
> >"evolutionist" is fine. Evolutionary biology cannot detect the
> >supernatural. Therefore it has nothing much to say on the subject except
> >"get your religious beliefs out of my face." Life did not arise
> >"accidentally" from inert chemicals. Physics is not accidental which is why
> >people refer to "laws" of physics.
Richard
>I think this is misleading. Our present understanding (based on quantum
>physics and chaos theory) is that physical laws do give rise to true
>randomness. Thus the origin of life probably was a random event, i.e.
>"accidental". But random does not mean unlikely or without cause.
Chris
Although I agree with the "accidental" nature of the origin and evolution
of life, quantum mechanics does not require indeterminism and thus true
randomness. Certain interpretations of the mathematical descriptions do
(most notably, the "Copenhagen" interpretation), but those are essentially
*philosophical* claims, because there is no way to establish indeterminism
empirically, even in principle.
Chaos theory allows deterministic things to *appear* indeterministic, but
does not actually require that anything *be* indeterministic.
What does it mean for something to appear deterministic? Simply that we
don't see a causal pattern (or actual causes). It is an argument from
ignorance. There is not, even in principle, a means of conclusively
eliminating possible determining factors.
Nevertheless, as is easy to show, even a strictly deterministic world can
be *effectively* random in certain respects, because of extreme sensitivity
to slight variations in initial conditions, and because of the richness of
those initial conditions. Thus, even in something as relatively simple as a
spherical container full of some gas (at one atmosphere, say), we cannot
measure the positions and velocities of molecules with sufficient accuracy
to predict their locations with precision for even a quite small fraction
of a *second*. Thus, for nearly any purpose we might wish, we can use such
a setup, with some sort of molecule detector, as the basis of a
random-number generator.
That is, even though it might be (and is, in my view) absolutely
deterministic, it may as well be indeterministic as far as such uses are
concerned.
This, I think, is just as bothersome to people like Bertvan, who require
that the Universe be warm and fuzzy, as true randomness would be. And yet,
the people who most reject randomness in the world are often the first to
assert it in human beings (in the form of indeterministic free will). Chaos
theory shows that we don't need indeterminism as an actual explanatory
"mechanism" (or *lack* of mechanism) in either case; the world is rich
enough to provide us with all the explanatory lack of (known) mechanism we
could want -- and then some.
I think the opposition to naturalistic "randomness" is deeper in the case
of those who hold so illogically to design theory. I think it's residual
childishness, a desire to feel that they are being watched over, taken care
of (or that they will be taken care of), etc., or even just a means of
fending off loneliness or the feeling of living in a bleak universe. We
naturalistic types don't see a naturalistic universe as being bleak (in
general), but people who don't have the naturalistic sense of the basic
*reality* of the Universe, and of the mind's ability to grasp its inherent
lawfulness, often feel that a Godless (or "designerless") universe would
be, somehow, empty and meaningless, because they seek their own meaning in
life from sources outside themselves and their needs as human beings.
Though we atheists typically reject nearly all variants of Christian Gods
as at best stupid, we have no reason to fear the existence of a *real* God
if there should turn out to be one, because such a being would, presumably,
be a *rational* being. But theists typically *do* have reason to feel
threatened by the prospect of a Godless universe. Most are not even able to
conceive of an objective basis for making choices in life if it is not
handed to them from some source "authority."
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Sep 01 2000 - 00:59:59 EDT