My friend (and friend of ours) Bob Kurland gave the presentation “Our Goldilocks Universe” at the Institute for Theological Encounter with Science and Technology on anthropic coincidences.
There's an old joke where the Physicist has to stop working, because it's become Chemistry. Too bad Scientists don't know enough to stop when the question has become Theology.
(But of course many scientists don't consider Theology to be a valid Science, this even after Theology gave birth to Science... talk about arrogance!
"Multiverse" in fact is an escape from Theology which was right all along, there was a First Mover.)
The Source, our term for the ultimate mover in regression hypnotism circles, reveals itself in many ways, including the fact that both children and adults can sometimes remember previous lives in intricate and verifiable detail...The inevitable conclusion being that the soul is immortal..It also reveals itself, through its agents, by suspending its own "laws"..Fifty years ago, I was driving south from Seattle on I-5, with the intention of going to the race track in Renton, when a multi-car accident started to unfold in front of me...Then time froze, and I drove around the accident safely, at which poinr normal time resumed...I described this to my friends and girlfriend when I got back, we shrugged, and went out for pizza...I suspect I was spared because much later in life I did a lot of work with children, including our own, and may have helped some on their way...Such experiences are not that uncommon, as Gladwell's book Blink demonstrates, and I ran into another guy who had a similar experience on the NY Thruway...
But it's also revealed by the sheer impossibility of certain species, like the Octopus or the long-necked Giraffe being produced by evolution, and by the incredible functioning of the human body, with trillions of transactions every second, chemically and physically, functioning with an incredibly low failure rate...There is a spiritual purpose to everything in our lives...
All of these arguments lead back to one thing (if you believe it possible) that is the ultimate cause. Now, where that cause came from, no one can, or will ever know, unless that ultimate cause reveals itself. Everything else, all these arguments, creationism v. evolutionism, laws v. properties, multiverses, are we in a simulation, are all unprovable. Interesting to discuss and debate, but without an opportunity to reach a final conclusion. And that’s where faith comes in. Faith in God, faith in physics, faith in whatever you believe to be real and accurate and true. You can explain the world and the universe fairly well using any of the aforementioned belief systems, while not knowing if any are true.
'It is the Spirit that quickens (moves, or makes alive), the flesh (matter) does nothing.'
My great friend and mentor Doug taught me this simple principle that I have found to be both a profound philosophical outlook and a consistently useful rule for everyday living:
"Whatever is has to have a reason why it is the way it is."
Thus begins our descent into delusion courtesy of the Enlightenment. Reason is a very useful tool but it shouldn't be presumed to be an omnipotent god, anymore than mathematics (and statistics most of all). There may indeed be a reason, but there is no reason that should be accessible to our minds which are a product of that which is. That is the double-stacked assumption behind that sentence.
We play with terms we don't actually perceive, for example, one million years - which is still (presumably) the blink of an eye in cosmic time. That's over 12,000 human lifetimes and no one knows their genealogy over that span; there is no experience of it we tap into. It is pure abstraction - useful, but not something we can concretely understand/experience. We simply don't perceive it, and reason is supposedly based on what we can perceive. Here I favor the Aristotelian over the Platonic.
Multiverse?
There's an old joke where the Physicist has to stop working, because it's become Chemistry. Too bad Scientists don't know enough to stop when the question has become Theology.
(But of course many scientists don't consider Theology to be a valid Science, this even after Theology gave birth to Science... talk about arrogance!
"Multiverse" in fact is an escape from Theology which was right all along, there was a First Mover.)
It's a magician's trick of getting you to look at the shiny pretty while the real action continues elsewhere. Interesting, but a distraction.
Was/Is
The Source, our term for the ultimate mover in regression hypnotism circles, reveals itself in many ways, including the fact that both children and adults can sometimes remember previous lives in intricate and verifiable detail...The inevitable conclusion being that the soul is immortal..It also reveals itself, through its agents, by suspending its own "laws"..Fifty years ago, I was driving south from Seattle on I-5, with the intention of going to the race track in Renton, when a multi-car accident started to unfold in front of me...Then time froze, and I drove around the accident safely, at which poinr normal time resumed...I described this to my friends and girlfriend when I got back, we shrugged, and went out for pizza...I suspect I was spared because much later in life I did a lot of work with children, including our own, and may have helped some on their way...Such experiences are not that uncommon, as Gladwell's book Blink demonstrates, and I ran into another guy who had a similar experience on the NY Thruway...
But it's also revealed by the sheer impossibility of certain species, like the Octopus or the long-necked Giraffe being produced by evolution, and by the incredible functioning of the human body, with trillions of transactions every second, chemically and physically, functioning with an incredibly low failure rate...There is a spiritual purpose to everything in our lives...
All of these arguments lead back to one thing (if you believe it possible) that is the ultimate cause. Now, where that cause came from, no one can, or will ever know, unless that ultimate cause reveals itself. Everything else, all these arguments, creationism v. evolutionism, laws v. properties, multiverses, are we in a simulation, are all unprovable. Interesting to discuss and debate, but without an opportunity to reach a final conclusion. And that’s where faith comes in. Faith in God, faith in physics, faith in whatever you believe to be real and accurate and true. You can explain the world and the universe fairly well using any of the aforementioned belief systems, while not knowing if any are true.
When you don't know if it's true or not, you don't risk your life and/or liberty for it.
Wonderful stuff. The turtles ultimately are standing on something — er, someONE.
Thanks, Ron.
It's the law of non-contradiction, all the way down. And all the way up to a noncontradictor!
'It is the Spirit that quickens (moves, or makes alive), the flesh (matter) does nothing.'
My great friend and mentor Doug taught me this simple principle that I have found to be both a profound philosophical outlook and a consistently useful rule for everyday living:
"Everything for a reason, nothing for nothing."
"Whatever is has to have a reason why it is the way it is."
Thus begins our descent into delusion courtesy of the Enlightenment. Reason is a very useful tool but it shouldn't be presumed to be an omnipotent god, anymore than mathematics (and statistics most of all). There may indeed be a reason, but there is no reason that should be accessible to our minds which are a product of that which is. That is the double-stacked assumption behind that sentence.
We play with terms we don't actually perceive, for example, one million years - which is still (presumably) the blink of an eye in cosmic time. That's over 12,000 human lifetimes and no one knows their genealogy over that span; there is no experience of it we tap into. It is pure abstraction - useful, but not something we can concretely understand/experience. We simply don't perceive it, and reason is supposedly based on what we can perceive. Here I favor the Aristotelian over the Platonic.
Great article. Great illustration.
Everyone has foolishly overlooked the Anthropic Ice Cream Principle:
The universe exists so that humankind can exist and eat ice cream.
"My ways are not your ways. I'm mysterious folks. Live with it."
-Rowan Atkinson, Keeping Mum (2005)
https://www.facebook.com/magmanewsph/videos/mr-bean-gods-mysterious-ways/979755005431682/
Once one starts worrying or even wondering about this stuff, one emulates the Oozelum bird.
It is interesting, good for an hour but no more, as it does not lead anywhere.
God, Chance, Multiverse, the best is to assign each a day or two per week and then just keep calm and carry on.
One finds that it makes absolutely no difference regardless of one's endeavours.
Some airports are so huge that your connecting flight might just as well be in another universe.