Responding to SNP and others, yes, I think that natural law is exactly what the founders of Western science in the late Middle Ages said it was, "We are thinking God's thoughts after Him..." We can get "information" from matter only if inductive reasoning is valid, and inductive reasoning is valid only if there is an intentional, intelligent cause who is the creator of the matter. That is what the cosmological argument for God tells us. To make sense of the empirical world, including causality, there must be an intelligent designer behind it all.

Hi, Joe,

..Thanks for your kind words. I think it is far past time that theologians got involved in these debates, so that they can recover their sense of intellectual credibility....

Hi, Edwin,

..Yes, I would say that physical experiments, which involve inductive reasoning, necessarily require an intelligent designer behind them. Only that, so far as I can see, can give what Kant called the "objective unity of apperception", that is the unity, the connection between the events actually tested (e.g., of water freezing) and those examples of the same thing (water freezing) which are impossible to test (too far away, in the remote past or future, etc). If there is no such connection, then the the events actually tested of water freezing at 32 degrees F. tell us nothing at all about all the other real or potential events -- which is,of course, what the "laws" of nature are all about. We want to be able to predict future such events. The predictions are meaningless without that connection of the same intelligent designer causing all of them.

Dear Hoang cao Hai,

I suspect that we agree that there is an objective, absolute truth, and that most truth are not relative. Maybe none of them are. Certainly the important truths must be objective, not subjective. I am not sure just where your theory leads, but it does sound interesting.

Dear Henry,

Thanks for your post. Interesting that we both think Berkeley had a lot to contribute to this discussion, but use his stuff in quite different ways. I do not understand why you say that "because of the Bible we have no causal theory...." For Berkeley, is not God the cause of the whole phenomenal world, everything that we perceive? And is not His being the cause of things that which gives them an order and therefore makes science possible?

Also, I am puzzled by your assertion that space is itself a substance. What could be the qualities of this substance that would make it the source of all else? And how would that differ from most theories of evolution already out there?

Just a heads up for everyone.

..I had put my name as Fernen Earle Fox, which is correct, but I use my middle name, Earle. In signing up for the contest, I had to put my first name in, so did, but I changed it to F. Earle Fox to make my point that Earle is what I use. But I know who Fernen is and will respond to that also.

Blessings to All...

Hi Earle,

Thanks for replying to my comment.

Below, you asked Henry Lindner, the following: "I am puzzled by your assertion that space is itself a substance. What could be the qualities of this substance that would make it the source of all else? And how would that differ from most theories of evolution already out there?"

I will answer for myself, because Henry and I differ in this. Einstein said,"There is no space absent of field." In other words, the gravitational field fills space completely. Although you may or may not think of this field as a 'substance', it is considered to have energy (Maxwell taught us fields have energy) and hence mass (Einstein taught us energy has mass equivalence) and a number of writers of books on gravitation consider it a substance (as do I). Your question implies that you think of space as 'empty' ,but it is entirely possible that the primordial gravity field gave rise to space. Your second question, about what qualities would make it the source of all else is the topic of my essay, which I again invite you to read. You will then see how this differs from 'most theories of evolution'.

I assume that you do not think the universe is 6000 years old, or whatever, and I further assume you must feel that things fit together intelligently, if they are the product of Intelligent Design. Of course you may think that everything exists as 'pieces', but I find it much more intelligent to design a universe as the unfolding of ONE in the beginning. I would be interested in your take on my essay, and caution you not to jump to conclusions.

Best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Hi, Eugene,

Well, I see that I am in for an education. My freshman year was my last of math courses, trig and calculus. Got the highest grade in the final exam. But, majoring in philosophy and heading for theology, I thought math would not be of much use. Yet then I did my DPhil at Oxford (it turned out to my surprise) on the cosmological argument for God, and sort of as an add-on, made some comments about relativity and quantum mechanics. I wish I had taken more math, but I usually can ferret out the philosophical drift of such stuff as is in this contest, which is my main interest. Most of my adult life has been in pastoral work, personal counseling, human sexuality, etc. But always with an ear to the ground on philosophy of science, which has come back as my main focus to get my DPhil thesis published. (My main project in life has been to get Christians to recapture their intellectual credibility. Tough job!)

I read through some of the comments on your paper (which I just downloaded but haven't read yet), during which I began to think that what you folks are having to do is to reinvent the whole mind and causality of God from within the cosmos, so as to come to some rational explanation of the cosmos. There is a field of theology which sees the cosmos as inventing itself, that is, God is the cosmos inventing itself. It has a name which does not come readily tripping off my tongue. A lot of it spun off of Hegel's notions of religion.

My paper in this contest is a very foreshortened presentation of some of the ideas in my D Phil thesis. The much revised text is done, but still needs an index and some formatting. Hopefully out by the end of this year, or early next year. It is available online in pdf format for perusal until it gets published (http://www.theroadtoemmaus.org/EM/ShpMl/PEG/00PEG.htm).

I will read your paper, and papers of some of the others who have commented on your paper. So I will probably pop up there on your blog.

Blessings, Earle

Hi Earle,

If, like the Blues Brothers, you're on a mission from God, I can't think of a better one than the one you've chosen: "(My main project in life has been to get Christians to recapture their intellectual credibility. Tough job!)"

You say: "I began to think that what you folks are having to do is to reinvent the whole mind and causality of God from within the cosmos, so as to come to some rational explanation of the cosmos. There is a field of theology which sees the cosmos as inventing itself, that is, God is the cosmos inventing itself."

Recall the words "In the Beginning". While there are some here who wish to 'explain' this as all deriving from mathematics (misguided, at best, in my mind) most of us do not, and certainly I do not, make any claims about the root cause in the beginning. But, in view of the modern Big Bang picture, and in the classical picture of science as 'understanding the Mind of God', it is fair game to try to tie it all together in terms of what we know, both objectively and subjectively. That is what I attempt to do. Thank you for downloading my essay. I very much look forward to your comments on my blog.

I have downloaded your thesis. At 260 pages, it will be a while before I can read it. You focus on the key 'problem' for many physicists, "the personal nature of the cosmos". I am interested in what you have to say.

Blessings back at you Earle,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

6 days later

Dear Earle,

In your essay, I especially liked your following conclusions:

«Leaving God out of the picture will keep us limping with epistemological, quasi-ontological explanations - leading, as today, to the breakdown of scientific understanding.»

«It may be that the Biblical worldview will be the only substantive answer available to return physics to a proper self-understanding. Both the Bible and science demand objective truth. Ideas have consequences. Ideas at the metaphysical level have cosmic consequences. »

«Seekers of truth, ie, scientists, thus should never allow the philosophical world to format the cosmological discussion so as apriori to exclude the possibility of a personal creator. The discussion needs to be reformatted at the metaphysical level, where metaphysical question is no longer the abstract "what is pure being". »

«Small children are the first metaphysicians.»

John Templeton has good words: «This thought brings about the question: Do Scriptures need interpreting to accommodate an expanded notion the universe?»

In the first essay FQXI 2012 I interpreted the Greek «Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος

"(In the Beginning Was The Logos ...") as a Super Axiom, which must lie at the base of knowledge, especially physics and mathematics. On the basis of this Super Axioms and method of ontological constructing I built a model of the Space-Time of 12 measurements.

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1362

Your opinion about the possibility of a metaphysical interpretation of the Logos? Am I right to follow the covenant of the John Templeton?

Consider, too, please, my essay this year http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1796

With kind regards and best wishes,

Vladimir

Another "heads up" for every one. This is a post I made on George Kirakosyan's blog, but think it might be helpful for understanding my position for others as well.

.........................

Physics that can be realistic: George Kirakosyan -#1804

Dear George,

I agree with your ideas that the philosophy of physics has run aground. Physics itself keeps on going, but we do not know why or how because we have lost any sense of an adequate theory of causality. And I agree that there seems to have developed an ingrown attitude which does not want to discipline itself to the requirements of logical and empirical investigation. A strange kind of science! It used to be us Christians who were accused of that intellectual betrayal (some rightly so), but now it is scientists themselves who are doing it. When our project violates either of the two fundamental laws of all rational discourse, we need to back up and get back to the drawing board, rather than act as though our profound errors are the latest wisdom.

The two fundamental laws are the law of non-contradiction - a statement that is self-contradictory cannot be true, and the law of sufficient cause (sometimes mistakenly called the law of sufficient reason) - every event must be explained by a cause sufficient to account for it. Without both of those laws, science cannot even get off the ground. The first governs logic, the second governs empirical evidence.

They are part not only of science, they are a part of common sense growing up as children. Children do not think of laws as such, but they begin before five years old to understand the meaning of truth versus falsehood, and what makes a good explanation. In order to do that you have to have at least a practical, common sense version of the two laws.

I am astonished at the depth of the problem, all the more so since getting into FQXi and hearing the discussions. Many physicists are upset at the problem.

As you indicate, the problem is partly a moral one, where researchers and publishers will not allow challenges to the accepted model.

I think the problem is deeper even than that. It comes from a lack of an acceptable causal theory, and is ultimately a spiritual problem. Western science began because the Biblical worldview alone proclaimed that the creation was good, orderly, and could be improved. No pagan religion said that. It began in the late middle ages when the Greek gift for logical thinking was combined in Europe with the Biblical focus on the particular, the personal, time, and history - exactly the realm of the natural sciences. The Biblical worldview also has an adequate understanding of causality - God as creator and other freewill persons as co-creators with God and each other. 'Causing' and 'creating' are almost synonymous.

Today, when scientists "get religion", it is often Eastern religion, such as Hinduism or Buddhism, as Carl Sagan did some decades ago. Scientists were already in the 1960's and 1970's choosing pagan religion over secularism. Instead we must return to our Western foundations in Biblical religion with a personal creator God, not an impersonal, mystical essence of "oneness".

The oneness of Eastern religions never produced science, and cannot sustain it. The "oneness" of pagan religion is mystical, abstract, not dynamic, not involved with relationship. The "oneness" of Biblical religion, on the other hand, is very dynamic, specifically involved with relationships, and is creation-affirming, not "world-denying". An active, creative God is the center of that oneness. That is why science arose only in the Christian west. It is a controversial position, but my essay gives my reasoning for saying all this.

You might also be interested in another project called "Common Sense Science" which you can find at CommonSenseScience.org. They are already rewriting some of the basics of science to deal with the very issues our topic addresses.

The first page of their website gives a clear description of their work. It could have been the basis for an essay in this contest...! Here it is:

.....

WHAT IS COMMON SENSE SCIENCE? (CSS)?

Common Sense Science is a body of theory regarding matter and forces that describes the physical world using geometric models, absolute time and Galilean space in a way that strives to be consistent with experimental observations and free of internal contradictions. The foundational principles of CSS theory are based upon the law of cause and effect and the assertion that the universe and all natural phenomena are fundamentally electrical in character.

These principles have led to the derivation of a universal force law that applies on all scales ranging from the sub-atomic to the cosmic domain and to the development of physical models for elementary particles, nuclei, atoms and molecules. Although the new models are novel and in many ways strikingly different from the standard model of elementary particles, they have an inherent simplicity and physical form that appeals to common sense. One reason for this is because the CSS models can be visualized and analyzed using the math and physics commonly found to hold true at laboratory scales.

.

Best wishes, Earle Fox

Dear Vladimir,

Your response is much appreciated. I have downloaded your paper and will respond to you as well. I am in the midst of preparing to move to another city, so free time is scarce, but hope to answer in a couple of days. This is one of the most important topics of our time, I think. Getting the right answer affects so many things we believe and the way we think of the future.

The problem behind the problem is, I think, the loss of an adequate theory of causality. We had one, but lost it over the last several centuries. But more on that when I get time. You might look at the response I sent to George Kirakosyan today (July 17).

Best wishes, Earle Fox

    Honourable Fernen,

    Thanks for your kind attention to my work. I want say first that I am not belong of the group of technical people who can take in account only experiments and math calculus to be build ,,indisputable correct,, science. I am fully realised the huge roles of the morality and of a healthy-logic judgments in the natural science. (That you can see in my work!) Moreover, I know there are many observations and fair criticism coming from the holy fathers who simply enchant with their accuracy and usefulness. You have mentioned fair criticism of Bishop Berkeley and I will remembering amazing remark of father Ockham, these are very valuable lessons to arrogant technicians in my view(to whom will able to perceive those!)

    I my opinion there must be no contradiction between honest science and God's creation. But I cannot discuss on this matter because is not my theme, and my task I see to understand how is builded the substance? (But not by whom and for what?) Your work covers a wide range of issues and can be very useful for the formation of a more effective scientific methodology. That is why I have rated it as good and valuable.

    Long live you and best wishes,

    George

    Dear Earle,

    Thank you for providing this alternative viewpoint. It is always needed when searching for truth. Very good rating from me. My view is from a different angle. Perhaps, God or Nature is using space discretely to carry out His works.

    Best regards,

    Akinbo

      Dear Earle,

      In addition to what I said above, I saw on Eugene Klingman's blog where you said, "I now see space, not as a container in which "things" reside, but as a mental and perceptual coordinate system by which we keep track of where and when we are". This is the relationist view as opposed to the substantivalist view. Now let me ask:

      Is it being implied by the relational view of space and as suggested by Mach's principle that what decides whether a centrifugal force would act between two bodies in *constant relation*, would not be the bodies themselves, since they are at fixed distance to each other, nor the space in which they are located since it is a nothing, but by a distant sub-atomic particle light-years away in one of the fixed stars in whose reference frame the *constantly related* bodies are in circular motion?

      NOTE THAT in no other frame can circular motion between the bodies be described in this circumstance except in the 'observing' sub-atomic particle.

      I will come back here for answer or if you have not read my essay you can visit my blog.

      Regards,

      Akinbo

      Dear Earle,

      I have down loaded your essay and soon post my comments on it. Meanwhile, please, go through my essay and post your comments.

      Regards and good luck in the contest,

      Sreenath BN.

      http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1827

      Dear Fernan,

      You look for a unifying principle and find a mind-like God. I say that that concept is just a projection of our own minds onto the Cosmos. Our linguistic consciousness is actually a late product of Cosmic evolution--we must look to the Cosmos for our answers. When we look for a cause of light's fixed velocity, of inertia, and of gravity we find that "space" itself must be the cause, it must be a substance. We have no theory of this substance precisely because Berkeley said Science should only count, measure, and predict because there is no cause except God. Indeed, the ether idea has been taboo precisely because is the natural philosophical alternative to God-spiritualism. It is time for our species to again begin using our minds to understand and explain the Cosmos, as did the pre-Socratics and Aristotle. Philosophy has been suppressed since the ascendance of Christianity, recall Justinian's destruction of the schools in Athens.

      I wonder if you seriously believe in Berkeley's theory that all Cosmic phenomena are apparitions fed to our minds by God--that God is running a spiritual Matrix just like the computer Matrix run by the machines in the movie. If you believe this, then you can actually say that God is the cause of everything. If you don't believe it, then you need to have a theory of why light moves at c, relative to what, what causes inertia, etc.

      The Cosmos has indeed evolved--from subatomic particles, to atoms, to molecules, to complex molecular machines we call life, to living things with nervous systems, to living creatures with language. This is not really debatable, is it? You may say that mind-God caused this evolution. I say that we need not posit any cause except that which is evident. The Cosmos does exist and it is a self-evolving being. If you want to call Cosmos "God", it's OK with me.

      All the evidence points to space as the source of all fundamental physical phenomena, and therefore of the evolution of this complexity. How and why this space exists and has the capacity to support this evolution towards linguistic creatures is the most profound question. It is a mystery, but at least it is a real mystery and not an anthropocentric fantasy that replaces the mystery with a name, "God". We can create a theory of space--it only needs to be sufficiently complex to support the fundamental phenomena. Once it produces subatomic particles, then they go on to produce atoms, and atoms molecules, and molecules bacteria, etc.

      Henry

      Earle,

      Thank you for that very well written and argued grounding in reason to counter the excesses of Wheelers provocative but crazy idea. I couldn't agree more with your fundamental and undeniable truth "Contemporary science has no secure theory of causality which has led to a questioning of science itself."

      I also champion causality in my essay, but not just Einstein's causality, I show that mathematics cannot describe all of nature by reducing it to just numbers and computation. A causal but not precisely computable resolution of the EPR paradox emerges without demanding 'spookyness'.

      I have derived a cyclic universe, discussed elsewhere, but even then an origin is equally required. It's just a case of 'when' which becomes a meaningless question.

      It was a pleasure to encounter your essay. Thank you. I hope you'll read mine, and if you feel it worth endowing with points so it may be more noticed then I'd be most grateful. I'd also be very interested in your views as I had virtually no concious thought of biblical matters in writing it.

      Thank you, and bless you.

      Peter

      Dear Edwin Klingman - Aug 2

      (I wrote a lengthy post yesterday, Aug 1, which seems to have disappeared. I have saved this response offline to be safe. Maybe the other one will turn up. This response will apply to many others who have written on my blog....)

      Reading your essay, I totally agree with your notion that the "beauty" of the math does little to prove that a theory is true. There are two ways to show the truth of a theory: Either it is logically necessary, or it corresponds to some observable facts. The beautiful simplicity of a theory might recommend it over a more complicated theory which proves the same thing, but it does not show the truth of it.

      The whole point of empirical science is to provide a way of finding the truth of non-logically-necessary statements, statements about the contingent, experiential world of daily routine, the world of personal relationships. A Scottish philosopher at about the end of the 19th century, John Macmurray) remarked that all thought is for the sake of action, and all action is for the sake of relationship.

      I am not sure that is 100% correct, but largely on target. It is far more our personal relationships than it is philosophy by itself which compels us to truth-speaking (at least for ordinary folks, which most of the time is all of us). When we become inconsistent in relationships we often pay a high price - relatives and friends get mad. Philosophy, to be helpful, must filter down (or up) to ordinary life, family, job, religion, etc. That means it must conform to observable fact as well as abstract logic.

      As you quote Smolin, "There is a cheapness at the core of any claim that our universe is ultimately explained by another, more perfect world standing apart from everything we perceive." Exactly. It renders "the boundary between science and mysticism porous."

      I begin to question your paper when you say things like, "...we can assume that only one real field existed initially. If so, it could evolve only through self-interaction."

      That, I think, is the real challenge for your view - showing in what sense "fields" can have a personal identity (which is what you seem to imply). The cosmological argument for God is workable, I think. I have my doubts that a similar argument can work from within the cosmos. On the cosmological argument, we would not evolve only through self-interaction. Our evolving first would be caused by our intelligent designer existing outside the cosmos of contingent existence (natural law) and then would be in freewill partnership and cooperation with our intelligent designer (moral law). The goal of it all would be a community: the kingdom of heaven, a community based on love (the two great commandments - to love God and neighbor). The natural world functions primarily as the stage upon which the community is to happen.

      You are, of course, taking the non-theological approach, or, at least as you say, trying as far as possible, to work out things with only what a secular view can work with. (Would you say that the word 'secular' fits your paper?) My essay was written to challenge precisely that assumption, that we can logically or empirically justify and explain the existence of science without the God-assumption.

      There is no solely logical argument that God exists. The ontological argument fails, I think. The cosmological argument proves only that it is not apriori irrational to believe in God. The case from then on depends on the empirical evidence, personal experience, the testimony of others, and revelation (God making himself known).

      So, metaphysics, in my view, tries to answer the question, "What must we assume to be true in order for the project of empirical science (i.e., a rational cosmos) to make sense?" I do not take the Greek approach, which is typical of the pagan world, asking, "What is the nature of pure Being?" That, I suspect, is an impossible question to answer, leading nowhere.

      The case for gravity, or any other aspect of the cosmos, such as space itself (as other contestants are trying to develop), being a cause, especially a cause with freewill, intelligence, and purpose, seems to me a bit daunting, much more so than the case for God acting from outside the contingent cosmos. I will try to address that later.

      Blessings, Earle

      Dear Earle,

      I'm glad you come back to the forum! I'm waiting for you on my forum. Your opinion is very valuable to me.

      With best wishes and regards,

      Vladimir