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From: beth@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Beth Christy)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Re. A Rational Universe
Message-ID: <803@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Jul-85 19:29:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: sphinx.803
Posted: Wed Jul 10 19:29:05 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 12-Jul-85 02:58:40 EDT
References: <3047@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: U. Chicago - Computation Center
Lines: 53

"Who is more foolish: the fool, or the fool who follows the fool?"
  -- Obiwan Kenobe
Yet here I am replying to Arndt.  I must be slipping....

From: arndt@apple.DEC, Message-ID: <3047@decwrl.UUCP>:
>I disagree with a posting by beth.
>
>Beth says the 'order' we see in the universe is a function of our attempts
>to see it. 
>
> "*We've* set up an 'order' with the one and only purpose of
>describing the universe.  So it's no surprise that the universe appears
>ordered.  But it's humans that have IMPOSED THE MATHEMATICAL ORDER ON THE
>UNIVERSE, not a supernatural force. (italics mine)"
>
>[...]
>
>The 'notions' of physics that are 'preconceived' appear to be very few if not
>only one - that there IS order (symmetry) in the universe which makes thinking
>and speaking about it possible!  She appears to be saying is that if there
>is 'order', we can't really tell.

Actually, I was trying a different way of refuting the "design implies a
designer" argument (all the clear, straightforward, effective ways are
being ignored :-)).  I was basically rephrasing the question "if a tree
falls in the forest ...?".  The real question there is "is it 'sound'
because the air is being compressed in certain ways at certain frequen-
cies, or is it 'sound' because those waves are being perceived?" My
question is "is the universe 'ordered' because of the way it functions, or
is it 'ordered' because humans perceive patterns in it?" I don't recall
people marvelling at the 'order' of the universe until they set up
theories that facilitated their understanding of it.  Primitive people
with no 'laws of physics' don't sit around marvelling at how ordered the
universe is - in fact, they make up gods to explain how UNordered things
are(!).  For that matter, we ourselves don't sit around marvelling at how
'ordered' the weather patterns are.  But I suspect that if we ever
identify connections that enable us to predict the weather, eventually
somebody's gonna marvel at the connections and say "isn't it wonderful the
order that exists in weather patterns - they must have been designed".

Which makes me think that "it's 'ordered' because humans perceive patterns
in it".  Which, if true, would invalidate the statement "the order that
exists in the universe implies an intelligent supernatural creator of the
universe" - it does imply an intelligent creator, but a *natural* (i.e.
human) creator of the *order*, not a creator of the universe.

Hell, I've gotta do SOMEthing all evening....

-- 

--JB                                 All we learn from history is that
                                       we learn nothing from history.