Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site decwrl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-apple!arndt From: arndt@apple.DEC Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Re. A Rational Universe Message-ID: <3047@decwrl.UUCP> Date: Tue, 9-Jul-85 11:01:04 EDT Article-I.D.: decwrl.3047 Posted: Tue Jul 9 11:01:04 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 11-Jul-85 07:37:04 EDT Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP Organization: DEC Engineering Network Lines: 65 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)" I think she doesn't understand what Heisenberg said. I'm not at all sure what, "And if you look at things without the preconceived (very human) notions of physics, the universe *does* seem pretty random." means??? 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. Why couldn't one just as rationally say that if one didn't believe in the 'laws' of order coming from a GUT theory (Superforce) one could see 'order' coming from a metaphysical source? I mean since, according to her thinking, 'order' is a product of our minds (scientific solipsism?) why are not metaphysical answers just as valid? Besides, science rejects her interpretation of what it is scientists are doing. That is, imposing order. This is a common argument against 'design' used by those who reject a 'designer' behind it all. (you know who) May I quote from Paul Davies in SUPERFORCE - he's not a Christian and does believe in evolution and not in God (see his GOD AND THE NEW PHYSICS). Speaking of the argument Beth uses: "(that) we impose order on the world to make sense of it. The point here is that the human mind is most adept at finding patterns amid a tangle of data, a quality which presumably confers evolutionary advantages on us." "Nevertheless, the argument is not wholly convincing when applied to science. There are objective ways of determining the existence of order in a physical system. The order of living organisms, for example, is clearly not a figment of our imagination. When it comes to fundamental physics, the laws of nature find expression in mathematical structures which are often known to mathematicians well in advance of their application to the real world. The mathematical description is not simply invented to give a tidy mathematical description of nature. Often the fit between the world and a particular mathematical structure comes as a complete surprise. The mathematical order EMERGES as the physical system is analysed." "A good example is provided by the eleven-dimensional description of the forces of nature. The mathematical 'miracle' that the same laws which govern the forces can be expressed in terms of some previously obscure geometrical properties of a multidimensional space must be considered amazing. The order that is being revealed here has not been imposed, but has emerged from lengthy mathematical analysis." "No physicist would seriously believe that his subject matter was in fact a disorderly and meaningless mess, and that the laws of physics represented no real advance of our understanding. It would be ludicrous to suppose that all science is merely an artifical invention of the mind bearing no more relation to reality than the constellation of Pisces bears to real fish." p 237. Regards, Ken Arndt