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Author
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Topic: Time and Design
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Noel Rude
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Member # 516
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posted 10. December 2002 16:38
The materialist enterprise affects the way we think about everything -- including TIME. Our natural sense (they call it "subjective time") is that the past cannot be retrieved and that the future is not yet decided, which contrasts terribly with the nowless fourth dimension of the physicists. In his delightful little book, The Character of Physical Law, Richard Feynman has a section on the subject. He says (am remembering -- don't have the book before me) that in all of physics there is really no place for our sense of the flow of time -- though the arrow of time is seen as a consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
So I wonder, does bringing Design back into the picture change things?
Thus John Horgan's (The End of Science) conclusion that science is at an impasse. Yes, of course, there is yet much to work out in the given theories, much technology yet to be born, but at a basic level of understanding we are treading water -- theorists everywhere are moving into speculative philosophy for which there is no conceivable empirical grounding. Let me suggest that ID may provide a solution. If teleology is a fundamental component of reality, this means that all our theories will have to be adjusted.
If, for example, the agency behind design is fundamental, then perhaps the now of time is also basic. If Einstein had considered agency to be fundamental, his theories would have come out differently.
When you look at modern cosmology it is for all the world a Greek cosmos -- it is certainly not the Hebrew world with its emphasis on agency and history, life and action, ethics and creation. In the materialist's universe there is no NOW inhabited by agents, only a flat fourth dimension across which events are spread. In the Hebrew world the physical is the playground of the will and the arrow of time is fundamental (and unique in world culture). The world is stable just like the canvas upon which the painter paints -- the stability serves to contain (and constrain) our creativity -- the cosmos is there to be enjoyed.
ID, if it grows, will ricochet throughout all of knowledge -- just as materialism has -- but maybe materialism has reached a dead end. There will be no grand unification for materialist reductionism. But when design is integrated into the models we have, then maybe science will spread its wings again -- I predict.
What we're really disputing is "elementarity" -- what's basic in the cosmos and what's derivative (or "supervenes"). If chance and necessity alone explain the world then there's really no place for now -- if agency is included then now is where you put it -- the past is totally determined and the future is only partially determined -- but now is the only door into a future which does not exist -- yet.
I see where Nicholas Wolterstorff ( God and Time: Four Views, ed. G. E. Ganssle. InterVarsity, 2001) argues for a God-in-time philosophy, and Christopher Langan (Theory of Everything), who cogently notes that nothing can be outside of everything, nevertheless seems to see time as derivative -- not fundamental. But if teleology is fundamental for him, maybe I misunderstand.
Anyway can we brainstorm? I'm not physicist enough to critique physics, but if there're any physicists ready to integrate linguistics -- call me!
[ 10. December 2002, 18:27: Message edited by: Noel Rude ]
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Regvi
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Member # 586
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posted 10. December 2002 18:05
Quote:
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When you look at modern cosmology it is for all the world a Greek cosmos -- it is certainly not the Hebrew world with its emphasis on agency and history, life and action, ethics and creation. In the materialist's universe there is no NOW inhabited by agents, only a flat fourth dimension across which events are spread. In the Hebrew world the physical is the playground of the will and the arrow of time is fundamental (and unique in world culture). The world is stable just like the canvas upon which the painter paints -- the stability serves to contain (and constrain) our creativity -- the cosmos is there to be enjoyed.
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I have read both Hebrew and Greek writers, and I haven't found any basis for your assertion. The view of time in Homer and in the Hebrew Bible is very similar and commonsensical. Can you support your claims with specific references to Hebrew and Greek writers?
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Noel Rude
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posted 10. December 2002 18:46
Maybe I should ask your pardon for the broad stereotype -- though I have commonly heard it said (don't ask me where) that whereas the Greeks were fixated on Being, the Hebrews were most interested in doing and history -- thus we might compare Aristotle's ten categories of being and the Torah's ten commandments. Also most sources say that our idea of linear time is Hebrew and that just about all other cultures have subscribed in one way or another to "the eternal return". The Greeks are included and, whereas they gave rise to wonderful science, it could never flower because it was not joined to belief in progress in the general society.
Also I recall now a most interesting article in Azure -- here let me get it -- it says: "Science, like poetry, is the fruit of paganism", and "pagan science gave birth to technology" meaning the mighty works of the ancient world as well as those in our own time. History, on the other hand, is Hebrew ...
Nothing wrong with science, of course. Science could never have progressed within paganism (which didn't believe in progress) as it has in the Judeo-Christian world. In fact science is now under attack on many fronts by today's pagans. But still, the article notes (and I quote):
"The pagan philosopher, as Aristotle explained, was not interested in the question of why, in a certain year, rain suddenly fell in the summer in a place where the rains generally come only in winter, but rather of why it tends to rain in the winter. The philosopher was uninterested in the exceptional, the singular, the historical. He dealt with the eternal.
"But it is precisely questions such as why it rained in a given summer that are dealt with in the biblical narrative. The pagans left such questions untouched, because pagan culture found meaning not in deviations from nature's norm, but in the norm itself."
But one hopes for some brainstorming on this topic -- it really should pertain to ID -- but how? I have some ideas but right now hafta get home.
[ 10. December 2002, 18:50: Message edited by: Noel Rude ]
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Mark Szlazak
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Member # 391
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posted 10. December 2002 19:29
Hi Noel.
I just want to make a couple comments. First on the second law of thermodynamics, the direction of time, and various temporal asymmetries. The relationship between these is not well understood. Please read:
http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/stanford/entries/time-thermo/
There is also a narrow review on the The Experience and Perception of Time
Second, materialism is a dead horse even though there are continual desperate efforts to resurrect it by it's ideologues and fundamentalist. Please see:
http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/stappfiles.html
In my view, this changes the significance of the debate between neo-Darwinists and some of the grand rarefied IDers, making these more like extremist positions that came from outdate and erroneous views.
On the one hand you have the machinations of the mechanicians, basing only things that may fit, on beliefs in the existence of fundamental enties that don't anymore have a scientific justification ... kind of like leprechauns. On the other hand, some IDers need real "dumb basic processes" and nothing else, or things to be characterized as such, to give force to the claim that they required or could have been due to a grand rarefied designer.
It almost feels like the arguments about how many angles could dance on the head of a pin.
[ 11. December 2002, 20:46: Message edited by: Mark Szlazak ]
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John Bracht
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posted 10. December 2002 23:44
Noel,
I'm a busy grad student who happened to browse your thread and it was so excellent and thought-provoking I just have to take time to ask a question.
If I understand your brainstorm correctly, you seem to be suggesting that the concept of intelligent agency could provide an adequate grounding for the flow of time. In other words, that intelligent agents, by acting in an intentional manner, see a desired end result, work toward that end, and in the process end up driving the "arrow of time" forward?
If this is your suggestion, I find it both provocative and fascinating! Of course, it brings up many questions as to the precise nature of causality (which from my understanding is not well worked out, philosophically, for either intelligent or unintelligent causes). However, it intuitively makes sense to me that causality (non-intelligent) and time itself might be by-products of intelligent causation (though I can't argue in a rigorous way for that intuition). I think this makes a lot of sense from an intelligent design standpoint, which emphasizes the importance of intelligent agency. Perhaps non-intelligent causality and time itself are byproducts of intelligent agency, and not the other way round. Perhaps we have mis-understood the effects (time, law-like causality) as being fundamental, when in actuality they rely upon far deeper concepts like intelligent causality (which science has generally rejected as a fundamental causal force in the world).
Ok, my question is this: assuming I've paraphrased your idea accurately, how precisely does intelligent agency provide a grounding for the flow of time? How does one get from intelligent agency to time? What (as far as we can determine) is the nature of the link?
Thanks for the thought-provoking post!
Sincerely,
John Bracht
[ 11. December 2002, 01:11: Message edited by: John Bracht ]
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RBH
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Member # 380
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posted 11. December 2002 00:28
John wrote (when he should have been studying!) quote:
Ok, my question is this: assuming I've paraphrased your idea accurately, how precisely does intelligent agency provide a grounding for the flow of time? How does one get from intelligent agency to time? What (as far as we can determine) is the nature of the link?
I am reminded of a distinction Endel Tulving made with respect to human memory. Tulving distinguished between human semantic memory and episodic memory.
Roughly speaking, "semantic" memory is all the knowledge one has that is in some sense timeless - it's not attached to specific occasions or events. Knowledge of the meanings of words, things like knowing the sun rises in the east, knowing things fall down when they're dropped, all that kind of stuff is semantic memory. (Note for Noel: Tulving does not mean "semantic" in the strict sense of linguistics.)
"Episodic" memory, on the other hand, is tied to specific time-space occurrences. One's first kiss, first day in school, (for me) when my dad came home from WWII, the topic of the speech I gave at the Rotary luncheon today, stuff like that is episodic memory. In some sense episodic memory ties together one's life as a coherent narrative - it is a sort of personal history; it gives living in time (a kind of) continuity.
RBH
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Light Jaguar
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Member # 599
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posted 11. December 2002 12:17
Hello there,
I am new to this forum, so I am hoping that anyone will swiftly point out what I should or should not be doing. I have of course digested the requisites, although it is quite a lot to take in! I am impressed by the standard here, although perhaps I shall be too intimidated to post my own brainstorms.
The relationship of time to intelligence is a fascinating topic. My initial suspicion is that it might be a bit difficult to find a fundamentally worthwhile experiment there, but it would be interesting. I have a floating memory (the name Libet I think?) of excitations in the brain occurring before our conscious awareness of them. All kinds of questions there.
May I put a question here? I do not wish to start a new thread with it (maybe it would have been best by email to the Moderator, I'm not sure). I'm right in saying that a new thread must make a positive argument in the area of researchable specs for complex systems? My own view of life structures is that intelligence is inherent within life. But I am not sure how I would succeed in framing a thread that would meet the requirements of the forum. Perhaps members could point me towards successful (or failing that, at least posted) brainstorms of that ilk?
LJ
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Moderator
Administrator
Member # 1
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posted 11. December 2002 12:36
LJ,
Welcome to Brainstorms.
I encourage you to go ahead and start a thread and I'll try to coach you in ways to improve the thread. I'm sure that if you just lay out plainly what you think, the reasons that you think that way, and perhaps even throw in a few references that back up your reasons, that you will be fine.
Good luck. Don't be intimidated ![[Wink]](wink.gif) We'll help you out.
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Noel Rude
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Member # 516
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posted 12. December 2002 23:17
Still hope to get to Mark Szlazak's articles (though my schedule is full and my math is rusty), and as for John Bracht's kind comments and query -- "how precisely does intelligent agency provide a grounding for the flow of time? How does one get from intelligent agency to time? What (as far as we can determine) is the nature of the link?" -- hadn't thought of it quite as he suggests -- quote:
If I understand your brainstorm correctly, you seem to be suggesting that the concept of intelligent agency could provide an adequate grounding for the flow of time. In other words, that intelligent agents, by acting in an intentional manner, see a desired end result, work toward that end, and in the process end up driving the arrow of time forward?
Intriguing idea. That the flow of time might ultimately be affected by intelligent agency (as supposedly quantum theory implicates consciousness?). I have no idea how to "test" for this -- but remember Einstein was not much of an empircist -- he was a dyed-in-the-wool Platonist, and we can be sure that had he been impressed with Agency the reality of now and its flow through time would have been basic -- not just a derivative or "subjective" notion. I'm certainly not qualified to tinker with Einstein, but I'd sure like to see some brilliant young physicists tackle this one and integrate design into physics -- though maybe some of you already have.
Though maybe there should be this caution: Do what we can but avoid an extremist Design Reductionism where we reduce everything to design. Perhaps reality is at once a Complex System. The medieval theologians were reductionists to the point they reduced everything to creatio ex nihilo and thus left God stranded outside of objective reality which then opened the door to materialist reductionists who relegated all that is important to our subjective universes. Maybe it's time for ballance.
The Reality of NOW
What I had in mind in starting this thread was the way that orthodox science (physics) negates the notion of NOW. If I'm not mistaken they say there's no such thing! That's why they speak of our experience as "subjective time" and contrast it with their scientific theory.
If I am correct the orthodox position is that events are strewn across the fourth dimension in much the way that, say, the road from Portland to Pendleton is paved along the spatial dimension. "Now" or "here" may be points, but there is no now moving through time. You've heard of "Block Time"? Apparently this is not seen as a mere abstraction but as the reality.
If this is the case -- if I'm not mistaken here -- then the absence of NOW in physics is a prime area where ID might come to the rescue. Why? Because, as I said, it is now that agency is activated. Our intentions are future oriented (we cannot change the past), we can only act NOW.
Now -- at the risk of making this too long -- here's something else to consider.
ID Predicts Evolution
Linguists distinguish between meaning (words have meaning) and information (the minimal unit of which is the proposition/clause). Meaning IS -- information HAPPENS -- information is an event -- it occurs in time -- and it is always contextual (unlike meaning). This is not quite the same as the distinction RBH mentions ("semantic" vs. "episodic" memory) though it's related if the memory of an event is itself an event -- good thought RBH! My guess is that all information (DNA, computer programming, engineering design) is the same -- it cuts across time. It must be read in some way. Information may lie dormant in books (or in an undisturbed DNA strand), but its purpose is to be read in some context at some time.
Also (in my school of linguistics) information (unlike word meaning) has truth value against some context -- be it real world or fictional. And a clause advances the flow of information if it maintains discourse coherence and adds novelty.
Not only is language (and I dare say all information/design) contextual, it always comes from a perspective. Note how this contrasts with any grand unification theory that proposes to say it all in one elegant formula, or the "front loading" of the theistic accomodationists, or the mystical experience wherein at one instant the total of reality is grasped. Information operates from a viewpoint, sees reality from some perspective, and then advances -- flows -- incrementally. And because information is contextual, it is like these ISCID threads. Even a post that goes nowhere is still rooted in what has gone before or it is incoherent (like me sometimes). Coherence is maintained to the degree that each clause relates to what went before (it has something old, just as it advances with something new.
Information is intentional, goal oriented, but enters the fabric of reality NOW and is read NOW. Information/design is incrementally advanced but with innovative bursts -- it is thus evolutionary in the classic sense -- in the sense that we have not just variation but advancement, something increases -- there is novelty. ID predicts evolution whereas Darwinism is a model for conservation. Chance and necesity are invoked as the materialist's explanation -- they are supposed to account for how evolution is possible -- they do not demand it.
Thus far ID has been an identification strategy -- what are the hallmarks of design and how do we identify them? But there are deeper aspects to design that ought to engender brainstorms. We may not have witnessed "the End of Science" after all.
[ 12. December 2002, 23:31: Message edited by: Noel Rude ]
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Mark Szlazak
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posted 13. December 2002 00:27
Hi Noel.
Instead of time, since that's not really well understood, how about mentally manipulating the rate of the Second Law Of Thermodynamics (SLOT)?
Sounds psychically spooky
My previous posts third URL will direct you to a Quantum Physicists page and there you'll find a work in progress called The Mindful Universe, there's no math since it's meant for non-physicists. SLOT is different in Orthodox Quantum Theory and intent is open to effecting it's rate. See "6. Knowledge, Information, and Entropy" and on.
I mentioned to the author that this reminded me of a Buddhist saying which goes something like this:
"Buddhists believe that world systems come into being, endure for a while, and then slowly disintegrate before being destroyed in a great cataclysm. Naturally, the beings who inhabit the physical universes are not unaffected by these events, and there is some suggestion that it's the moral character of these beings that determines the fate of the world-system. A world inhabited by ignorant and selfish people, for example, would decline at a faster speed than one with a wise and virtuous population. This notion that beings are not just the caretakers of their environment, but in a sense create it, has important implications for Buddhist thinking on ecology."
He said it reminded him of something William James once said.
In a nutshell, we can help determine the speed of the demise of our world and with the existence of quantum non-locality this implies the whole universe. A huge responsibility!
Besides a gas pedal and brakes, it's nice to see that QT is compatible with intent having a creative steering wheel as well ... unlike materialism.
Also, I think you might be interested in another view of Darwinism that is more compatible with modern physics and was the alternate competition to emergent materialism in the 19th century. Darwinists like Ernst Hackel and William Clifford preferred the alternative called Panpsychism. The debate between the two was cut short when the supposed anti-metaphysical philosophy of logical empiricism became dominant. The previous URL points to a nice review by William Seager.
By the way, if my previous post leaves the impression that I'm against a grand designer or God, I'm not and remain open to the possibility, but more from mystics position.
[ 14. December 2002, 22:01: Message edited by: Mark Szlazak ]
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Mark Szlazak
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posted 14. December 2002 20:21
[ 14. December 2002, 20:22: Message edited by: Mark Szlazak ]
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