Re: Paradoxes

On 27/01/2025 3:45 pm, Vincent Maycock wrote:

On Mon, 27 Jan 2025 06:41:43 +1100, MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:
 

On 27/01/2025 3:40 am, Vincent Maycock wrote:

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On Sun, 26 Jan 2025 22:10:59 +1100, MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:
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On 26/01/2025 6:00 pm, Vincent Maycock wrote:

On Sun, 26 Jan 2025 15:54:55 +1100, MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:
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On 26/01/2025 2:56 pm, Vincent Maycock wrote:

On Sun, 26 Jan 2025 14:08:35 +1100, MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:

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Vince, what do you really want to discuss, and why?

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Whether supernatural intervention per se is a properly formed
scientific hypothesis.  My position is that it's not; in fact it may
be not just anti-science but anti-intellectual as well.  I think this
is something that could bear some clarification in ID/evolution
debates.  For example, what distinguishes supernatural intervention
from superstition?
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I suggest a first step is to establish a logical and complete set of
overarching possibilities, which I would state as:
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1. Either the universe has always existed or it came into existence
without supernatural intervention, and in either case it develops
without supernatural intervention; or
2. The universe came into existence with supernatural intervention,
and/or it develops with supernatural intervention
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Would you agree with this, or how would you put it?

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I would say the real first step would be to make some predictions so
we can test the "hypothesis" of supernatural intervention.  But I
think the concept of supernatural intervention is too broad to take
that approach to the data.
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Before we talk about predictions, we need to establish an agreed foundation:
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1. Define God as an agent who exists outside of spacetime.

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Postulating something that does nothing but "explain" what you're
trying to explain is not a good intellectual foundation.
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2. The origin and development of the universe either did or did not
involve intervention by God.
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So far so good?

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#2 is a tautology, so including that helps with nothing.
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My attempt at an incremental approach from first principles doesn't seem
to be working for us. Instead, what are your thoughts on my recent post
"Roger Penrose can’t escape an ultimate explanation for the universe"?

 He may have gotten it wrong.  From
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Mind
 we have, regarding one of his other ideas:
 "Penrose states that his ideas on the nature of consciousness are
speculative, and his thesis is considered erroneous by some experts in
the fields of philosophy, computer science, and robotics."
 And from:
 https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/universe-zero-entropy/
 "We don't need some miraculously low-entropy state to occur to begin
our Universe or to begin the process of inflation. All we need is for
inflation to arise in some volume of the Universe, even a small one,
and for the space within that volume to begin inflating."
 And the multiverse is scientific because it has the laws of physics
that it has to conform to, while an omnipotent creator has no such
helpful restrictions on it.
 

Regarding low initial entropy, Sean Carroll disagrees:
"The second law, the idea of entropy increasing, is an interesting case because near the time of the Big Bang, entropy was very, very, very low. That's why it's been increasing for the past 14 billion years. This doesn't violate the second law, but the question remains: why did the Big Bang have such low entropy? The answer is that nobody knows. This is an open question for cosmology." https://youtu.be/FgpvCxDL7q4?si=-bjJ8GpUwoNOxmq4
But, fair point, who knows? And of course Penrose could be (may well be) wrong.
Let's take any one of a number of phenomena whose explanation is contended in terms of natural vs supernatural explanation, e.g. first cause, low initial entropy, fine tuning, OOL, macroevolution, etc.
Assume that for at least one of these, the contention has some legitimate basis.
The explanation is either the contended phenomena is caused by (i) the action of a powerful agency transcending spacetime (aka God), or (ii) a naturalistic mechanism or process.
I am not saying that this evidence proves God. Nor am I saying that we should therefore cease the search for a naturalistic explanation. I am only saying that God is a valid possible explanation, alongside naturalistic possibilities.
The more certain the available naturalistic explanation(s), the less compelling the phenomena in question is as scientific evidence for consideration of supernatural action. Conversely, if over time all known viable naturalistic explanations are discounted, the phenomena would become stronger evidence for consideration supernatural action (with unknown natural causes remaining a possibility).
To exclude the God explanation as an option out of hand would be the result of belief and not a rational response to the scientific evidence.
An atheistic worldview may preference naturalistic options, and a theistic worldview may preference the God option. We may give more weight and consideration to a particular explanation based, in part, on our belief.
Moreover, science itself can tell us nothing about this postulated agent. That is the task of other epistemological domains (philosophy, theology, personal experience, etc). Nevertheless, science can provide an evidential pointer to God as a possible explanation.
What do you think?