Intelligent Design Theory is one criterion for scientific investigation to look for. It may be sought in micro or macrophycsical parameters, or even within philosophic parameters for the cosmos as a whole with clumps of matter within.
If the standard theory of cosmology is correct, and just one Universe exists, the fine-structure physical constants are against-the-odds and indirect evidence of 'design'.
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Scientific method, logic and etc.Voted for by GaryCGibson.
Scientific method, intelligent design paradigmata and sundry other theories are sticking points for some reasoning about philosophical subjects pertaining to reality. An aspect of the issue is the meaning of words and terms used to describe concepts and the way they are put together.
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Scientific means knowledge, and to know probably could be said to mean to have a concept that is accurate regarding of the way something is. Knowledge of science today could mean to have an accurate understanding of what science is about and what it does formally as a profession. One should know something about its history too as well as of its methods.
If one wants to make an abstract of fundamental reasoning processes involved in scientific method, yet keep it very simple and reduced to virtually logic representation, it should be possible to compare it to logical propositions and syllogisms used in symbolic logic. One of my favorite symbolic logic methods is term logic wherein everything is reduced to a plus or minus, yet a philosopher named W.V.O. Quine wrote a book on the fell-swoop method of logic in which took everything apart and reduced it to its component parts. That technique is easier for this brief essay.
Of course I don’t wish to represent what follows as Quinian at all, instead its just simple literals in forms. If one wants to know what some thing named Z is made of, one could add together various letters and determine if they add up to Z. Here I will say that Z is made up of D + O- F. One could try adding together letters at random to see if they make a Z, yet one could also try an orderly and systematic off putting together all of the various combinations of letters to determine if a Z can be produced. That would be a scientific method.
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One can make a supposition about the truth or validity of nearly any sort of verbal proposition and that is what logic does. Of 256 possible syllogistic forms only 23 are valid. That means that of 256 ways one might put together a verbal argument that could be put in the form of a syllogism, only 23 of those arguments would have any chance of being true based on their own logical structure. Scientific method is about making valid logical propositions that can be tested and proven to be true or false as can syllogisms.
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Formal logic has more techniques than syllogisms of course, and almost any proposition can be tested for validity or at least inconclusiveness. An essential aspect of logic is that even though the premises may add up to the entire conclusion, the conclusion and or premises may for themselves be inherently unable to prove whatever point one is making. Logic then has an implicit limit of being true just relative to it’s own structure or mode. Modal logic has many symbolic presentations such as that of the logic of necessity. Geometers and mathematicians of other sorts can do math in number systems and topologies that have their own internal logic of necessity and consistency. From such paradigms or worldviews deductions can be made regarding necessary values as if the entire scientific theory were a sort of large jigsaw puzzle.
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Occasional paradigm shifts occur and the entire math and formal logic representation of the physical cosmos changes. One can think of the change from Newtonian to Einsteinian gravitational theory, or of geology paradigms, or of atomic physics to quantum mechanics as paradigm shifts with new logic and maths. Intelligent design as a scientific theory is just another thing to look for in the cosmos, or philosophically of the entire cosmos. It is a phenomenal ordering of relations, rather than just a theory for itself such as evolution theory.
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In formal logic perhaps intelligent design theory could be represented in several ways, one of which would be that in researching Z one discovered that the way it is made is by assembling the components G,O,D, in that order, yet that would be too obvious. In irreducible complexity, perhaps one would find that Z is made up of A + G +U + () and unknown quantity that cannot be found in the alphabet, or at least then one would need to say that the particle would be discovered in the future, or alternatively the complexity of the arranged letters could not be made by an natural process. It’s only a theory anyway. Quantum entanglement has been shown to occur in labs, and that’s where subatomic particles affect other particles at a distant location without any physical contact in normal space-time. The interesting thing about that is that it seems a sort of physical event that violates the known laws of physics and space-time.
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Quantum entanglement could be a deontological equivalent of a presenting of plurality from monistic criteria. Entanglement means that the laws of uncertainty are violated and fulfilled simultaneously, and perhaps the pre-collapse selection exists outside of the order of the universe in space-time history that has for 14 billion years approx. followed a shape-direction along lines of the laws of entropy increasing disorder.
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It is important to remember that the entire perception of spatial relations in the universe, and of distance scales, temperature and density of matter and energy are experienced within human criteria, and one might ask what is that distance or time to God, or absolutely, in some value system for-itself. The time and space might not be equal to one second, and the distance to a meaningless representation. Space-time shape and deployment though pervaded by the physics of relativity and sundry unknown factors such as dark energy may have extra-dimensions through which more fundamental particles pass. Quantum entanglement for the present seems to add to the logic of science something like hidden an inexplicable channels through space time and possibility in such a way as to transcend normal laws of physics. Physics theorists seem to need to just write inclusively about that strange, alien entity without understanding it.
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Cosmological theories change all the time in recent years, remarkably so in fact, yet the laws of God are constant. write a bit more, or repost, on some other derivative subjects.
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Humanity has a history that impacts it’s present destiny. The social organizational inertia fueled by operant use-truths’ is difficult to resist or to change. Once theory or politics become dogmatic and ossified, as has happened with the scientific theory of evolution, organizational resistance to continuing advance of rational thought is natural as the essential content of the valued intellectual paradigm is of financial and social value to the masses of followers that took up the belief as good economic minded pragmatist followers.
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Organizations have a history of being created by brilliant individuals top accomplish some purposes, perhaps in business that are subsequently taken over by the majority of non-creative mankind that simply desire power and wealth yet haven’t the creative intellect to achieve that. The Stalin’s of this world are far more common than the Edisons.
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Human history’s most ancient organization is probably slavery. Once human cultures become at all settled they tend to take on slaves, and that practice is probably more than 20,000 years old. Only in the last few hundred years has slavery been removed from advanced civilizations generally, while the tendency to exploit mankind still exists. Peace in Europe was brought through the facts of nearly 40 million deaths in the Second World War. Peace rests uneasily on the shoulders of humanity and repression is always seeking new technical forms.
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Some aspects of the scientific establishment are subject to the laws of inertia that resist sudden changes of direction, or of established dogma. Misunderstandings of paradigm parameters and universal validity may hinder scientific progress. Maybe I can illustrate with a bit of literal representationalism...
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Scientific weltanshauungs may be considered as T/Content Symbols. In period A or TA/Content may have been Ptolmaic astrophysics or P...thus TA/P. Concurrent to T/C's are JC T/C's, or JudeaoChristian T/Contents of cosmology paradigms...JC-T/C's. These TA/P's and JC/TC's are not always on the same time/content sheet of music obviously. The Christian cosmology contewnt is founded on the Bible's scriptural authority and is interpreted against popular beliefs; that is as today secular or popular education instruction tends to be what a majority of people of faith have for a cosmology as well...since cosmology isn't a prime research area of Christian believers. Christians may place obsolete Scientific T/Content into intepreting the book of Genesis' cosmology.
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Scientists and the educational bureaucracy may have right now a TB/Darwin or post-Darwinian evolutionary paradigm content. The scientific establishment may resist any JC-TC/Content as anthema to its TB/Darwin content that has moved beyond the TA/Content from perhaps Ptolemy to Copernicus/Newton and Darwin. Science has more than TB/Darwin Content however, it also has TC/Einstein-Pauli-Guth-Wittan content or TC/EPGW. Some Christians have leaped from the JC-TA/Rehobmian era cosmology to interpret Genesis with the TC/EPGW scientific parameters. In the clash between TB/Darwinians and JC-TC/EPGW Christians regarding what parmaters of intelligent design mean, the Darwinian establishment is in pursuit of a straw man argument, or at least disregarding the cosmological content of post 19th century points of view that Christians use in discussing what intelligent design parameters are and so forth.
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Three overwhelming human needs still exist on the Earth today. In old English’ earth’ was a word meaning ‘is’. One need for the Earth is a continuing liberalization of humanity into sober self-respect of universal human rights. Too many forces of oppression from debauchery to authoritarian and mass organizational socialism or corporatism would deplete the concept and content of individual liberty into extinction.
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The second imperative facing humanity is of course that of environmental continuity and health for life on Earth. The non-creative majority dominating most mass human social organizations with commercial and economic power exploit rather than conserve or adapt adequately human relationships to life on Earth. The root word of liberal is ‘living’. A dead liberalism subducted into the tectonics of mass social organizations will not serve mankind well. Ice core’s from Antarctica that sampled the Co2 content of the atmosphere of the plant over the last 650,000 years found the present day carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere is 27% higher than that of any other point in that time period. Human industrial and transport affluence is a prime cause of that. It is also believed that historical most mass extinctions on Earth have coincided with periods of high carbon dioxide content and lower oxygen content.
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A third imperative for humanity is that of spiritual renewal and faith in a materialistic world culture with blinders on about even the veracity of their own scientific theories such as evolution to preclude any philosophical and rational consideration of scripture, intelligent designs in nature from any possible source past present or future, and of course interruption of organizational power inertia. Intelligent design is not a synonym for a particular creation theory or paradigm associated with some fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible, instead it is as the term implies a label for any and all researches into reality that investigate elements of design for all or any portion of the universe from any source. It is unscientific to a priori or before the fact rule out that possibility, or two assert it proven without evidence. Christians relying upon scriptural authority may associate the paradigms of Genesis with cosmological knowledge, and perhaps find the same value in correlation as might a discoverer of an ancient map or verbal description of the western hemisphere dated 2000 B.C. find similarities in that map, if such existed, to the actual north and south American continents.
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Scriptural association of the Genesis cosmogony with contemporary scientific cosmology is an interesting and informative practice for amateur theophysicians’ research. One hopes that the investigations are within the will of God and teleologically correct and even blessed—a word from old English meaning sprinkled with blood…an etymology from the words bleed and bled, in this case from the atoning, redeeming blood of the Lamb of God Jesus Christ.
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The physics of God in creating the Universe will always be beyond the ken or understanding of humanity at some point, because it is unlikely that God actually has a need for a specific finite physics other than his will. Humanity thirty four hundred years ago would not have been able to comprehend any sort of modern multi-dimensional quantum mechanics that are represented in present micro-cosmological theories, and they are at best temporal phenomenal descriptions of a limited presentation of a pluralistic character useful for-humanity. The physics of creation given for people of such simple understanding thousands of years ago would need then to be non-specific yet truthful and yet given in such a way as to be consistent with later technical scientific investigations.
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A part of scriptural association is of course to understand the contextual and historical origin of the book of Genesis as best as possible. The earliest written fragments of Genesis believed to remain in direct continuity are posited to have been written by the J or Jehovist writer during the reign of Rehoboam approx. 975 B.C.
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Jews (in old English ju was another word for ‘you’ which gives Martin Buber’s I/ Thou a different shade of meaning) gained literacy during Egyptian captivity yet had a non-scriptural worship tradition retroactive to the era of Abraham. Following the Exodus the worship tradition may have begun accumulating some written fragments, yet the acts of the Jews in the desert and in Israel until the time of Rehoboam were perhaps largely priestly, liturgical, rule based and with a limited number of discrete written historically valid ‘papers’.
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The flood story would possibly have been within the knowledge of the Jewish tradition dating back at least to the time of Abraham in Ur before 2000 B.C. The tales of Gilgamesh and the Babylonian/Sumerian/Akkadian flood story with Utnaphishtim have been discovered in cuneiform tablet fragments as old as 2200 B.C. Avrm or Abraham would have known of the flood story and interpreted it within the geo-values of that era in which world probably referred to the Tigris-Euphrates floodplain. After Exodus the Jews probably encountered creation and flood stories from Syria as well as Babylon and other of course Egypt, and were of an informed position when correlating that with what information they received through direct inspiration of God.
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The J writer may not have included the entire present book of Genesis originally, instead redactors from the P or Priestly writer to those in or following the Babylonian captivity in the 7th century B.C. may have put more of their historical written materials into the book of Genesis with the loss of their Temple worship at Jerusalem.
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Scriptural association with contemporary physical cosmological concepts may benefit from better comprehension of ancient historical element that pertain to the composition of the book of Genesis such as cultural anthropology, history and religious and language developments. The representative language of Genesis should not perhaps be simply naively interpreted into today’s paradigms of science, yet if so the paradigm is remarkably similar to general parameters of evolution.
The prose poem ‘Footprints’ has as a subject paradigm analogy of the relational role Jesus Christ/God has to mankind. The redeeming presence of Jesus Christ is transcendent and ‘lifts’ one out of the mundane or extreme secular roles and relationships that rule, sometimes inflexibly or with oppression, the secular world of human social reality.
‘Footprints’ is about relationships and not about economics or politics. Some purely corrupt secularists tend to interpret everything within a Marxist materialist paradigm and misunderstand how any Christian could believe in a power of God to transcend worldly relationships. In old English ‘hebban’ meant ‘to lift’, obviously the writer of ‘Footprints’ analogized the power of Jesus Christ ‘to lift’ the troubled soul on the beach walking with God out of the mundane and practico-inert through the relationship of faith or even epiphany. ‘Hebban’ may be a cognate of a world for ‘heaven’ incidentally, yet for the cosmologically naïve or unsophisticated people of ancient Israel to lift ‘up’ would have been as good a concept for heaven’s location as anyplace. That is heaven is a place away from the gravitationally bound, temporal world of oppression, pain and death, regardless of its locale in some better place or Utopia of God beyond this world or even Universe. If it was located in an extra-dimensional alternative universe humanity then and now would not comprehend the physics of it, which are inevitably ever beyond any comprehension by a sentient being other than God.
When such gross errors of misunderstanding exist even of a modern work such as ‘Footprints’, it is easy to understand that errors of context and meaning of ancient materials in Genesis are as likely to occur.


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petethemeat
January 19, 2006
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GaryCGibson
January 20, 2006
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cosmosis
January 20, 2006
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January 25, 2006
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January 25, 2006
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Good Questions/Comments
"Another question I would like to pose is, when people attack evolution, or attack intelligent design, are we not really building on false assumptions, or saying something else altogether in subtext?" **** --first, please excuse the typos...limited time for a reply... Pierre Telhard Dijardin... http://www.bizcharts.com/stoa_del_sol/plenum/plenum_2.html **** People equivocate many points about many subjects in philosophy and without, it may thus be sometimes obvious that insufficient development of various subjects may exist so that when one juxtaposes ideas or brings them into synthetic analysis there isn't an existing ground for common understanding. Basically one may enter new philosophical ground rather easily nd that isn't unexpected if one considers the brevity of professional education into non-specialized areas or in interdisciplinary subject matter. Telhard Dijardin did write some interesting material, yet it may not be especially new. I have been reading the enneads of Plotinus recently, and it is surprising how much of may modern subjects he developed on the foundations of Plato, the pre-Socratics and probably Genesis. The six groups of none tractates of the neo-Platonist are well covered in O'Briens 1964 book 'The Essential Plotinus'. One can get a better idea of his ideas than on the public domain translation of B.S. Page and _____. ****** There are some people that have written of dialectics in the cosmos, including Plotinus, Hegel, Karl Marx and Di Jardin. The Universe is changing and surely appears to be moving somewhere as far as development goes, and modern cosmologists have also posited a changing, evolving universe perhaps with the dialectics of reason altered more into formations of Marxist dialectical materialism through various universal forces that produce some output or change, ***** The Universe began in a high energy, low entropy state and is moving toward a low energy, high entropy state seemingly as far as physicists can speculate from one beginning trace toward any of several hypothetical ends. ***** Materiality in the Plotinian cosmology or episatemology is the lowest order of 'radiation' from The One Perfect being that exists at the heart of everything, and of which various emmissions and transitions have permitted a material phenomenality to emerge. jesus is posited by me within this scenario to be of The One directly. He extracts people out of the problemes of original sin or imperfection. ***** Telhard's theoria seems much like that of Plotinus, and I am wary about assigning particular values to telogical directions that originate with my own or anyone's persoanl authority which is none on that subject. ***** The Enneads are somewhat difficult to read in the older translations, but the new are good, and it is interesting to learn of such radical philosophical interpretations of Plato (the allegory of the cave describes a mind 'chained' in the material body)that are able to contain contemporary cosmology. ***** The Universe is expanding so far as the universal 'soul' has power to expand-remeber its moving farther away from 'The One', and its like light from the sun or the big bang just drfting off to nowhere. The Uncertainty of virtual particles, of super-string theory and such are a consequence of the unintentional 'radiation' of forms, ideas potential, space/time etc to the Intellect that is a universal and also a pure realm of forms not yet actualized 'down' to materiality. ***** Science must study just materiality of course, yet from the initial higgs field parameters and inflaton to various alt universe and end universal paradigms the math utilzed, as well as descriptions of the state and direction of the Unverse may just fit into any of several possible modal logic analogue topologies I would guess. ***** In a real sense the ultimate questions may be better described or explained by resort to theology than to just physical cosmology, yet one likes the efforts of reason and scientific method and observations to discover what can be known of the physical context of the natural universe. ***** I believe that maybe too much is made of paleontology and evolution theory in relation to naive interpretations of the book of Genesis. Many don't know much about the history of the Bible and paleontology is just a little slice of the cosmological question...any interesting slice yet just a few billions years in a perhaps 13 billion year old universe that is itself subject to Plontinian contextual analysis and philsophical inquiry. http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/BookToCPage.php?recordID=0742.05May 30, 2006
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