Theory of Evolution Should have never been a part (Civ3)! Part 2

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by -=Vagrant=-


Maybe He is the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert? http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilber...ndex.html#boss

Sounds like the OT god to me!

[Boris Godunov]

Don't let this one die!!!

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
Actually I agree with the stement but probably do not quite see it the same way. Science makes an assumption that all phenomena in the universe can be explained by physical laws in the sense that we are used to. Therefore, science is from the outset unable to model supernaturalism or religion. Indeed, that is why it is called the supernatural - because it cannot be described by science in its traditional sense.

However, as we already discussed, I do not believe that free-will can be accommodated within a traditional scientific approach. That could of course be because we have no free-will, but if we reject that then there is something more than our traditional science. In other words, if we have free-will, then the assumption that science (as we know it) can describe the universe in its entirety is wrong.

Now, it may be that one day some bright spark will have some radical idea which changes the whole idea of science and allows these kind of phenomena to be modelled - in which case science might then be able to describe the idea of a God.

Sorry, I wasn't really asking that question. Maybe I didn't make myself clear.

Take the Christian God. According to orthodox Christian doctrines God has many attributes, but we need to only concentrate on two. One, God is interventionist. Two, God is omnipotent.

With God meddling here a bit, dabbling there some, it seems to me that the consistency base required is gone. If there is some probability that what the accumulation of data does not acccurate reflects nature, science is out the window.

Take a hypothetical scenario. Suppose that this universe is static, but God makes it look like it is expanding, with the background radiation, redshift, the whole works. If that is the case, Cosmology - or at least Big Bang - is trashed.

Take a more extreme case. Suppose that God did create each species individually, but He just made it look like they evolved. There goes a large part of science.

Now look at the most extreme case. Suppose that this universe has just been created 15 seconds ago with apparent age. There goes all of science.

To me then, the belief in the Christian God is fundamentally incompatible with science.

I am just curious as how a scientist can "force" these two to work together.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
We have to be careful with the word 'causality' here, since I think you are thinking of it differently from me. Essentially, I meant that God must be outside time. Thereby, his knowledge of which actions we will take would not in any way predetermine them.

I think we have the same meaning. Not entirely sure though as I have yet to grasp how causality limits the speed information can travel. Sometimes I have to think about things for a while. It took a long time before I accepted the quantum atom over the Bohr model. The kicker was synchrotron radiation.

Think of it this way: imagine you could time travel into the future and secretly observe the birth of your grandson. You overhear your son naming him Simon (for example) and then travel back home. You then know that your son will call his son 'Simon' but you have not taken the decision away from your son - it is still your son's choice to call him 'Simon' - not yours. Of course, God does not need to time travel as such since he is not constrained by time - an omnipotent being is presumably at everytime at once, so to speak, but the idea is the same.

I have a problem or two with this. For one I am fairly certain that time travel cannot be possible if the timeline is fixed. That is my observation will effect my actions which will effect everyone else. Simon would never be born. Someone much like Simon might be born but not simon except on a 4 million or so to one shot and that is only dealing with the conception.

What I am saying is that god makes the choice of what will happen at creation in a non-probabilistic Universe. That is were the cause comes in. The specifics of creation and the results are known to an all-knowing all-powerfull god. His choices at the time of creation fix what will happen. He makes the choices.

Well, I don't understand how people can play Civ III when they can play Civ II or EU2. Civ III also seems kind of boring and futile.

Well I am up to emperor but I am finding that a bit less fun. I like getting a tech lead and kicking ass. On emperor I have two wins and a loss and am on my way to another loss I think. I botched the start and that can be hard to recover from on that level.

I am thinking about installing MOO2 but the thought of going back to 640 by 480 is hindering that decision. I never played it after the final patch.

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Take a hypothetical scenario. Suppose that this universe is static, but God makes it look like it is expanding, with the background radiation, redshift, the whole works. If that is the case, Cosmology - or at least Big Bang - is trashed.

Take a more extreme case. Suppose that God did create each species individually, but He just made it look like they evolved. There goes a large part of science.

Now look at the most extreme case. Suppose that this universe has just been created 15 seconds ago with apparent age. There goes all of science.

To me then, the belief in the Christian God is fundamentally incompatible with science.

I am just curious as how a scientist can "force" these two to work together.

I agree. It could well be this way, but I don't think it would trash science - science is more robust than that.

First of all, I don't think this is really a religious problem. It is also entirely feasable from a scientific point of view that the universe just popped into existence 15 seconds ago, with us as we are, with the memories that we have. This is of course absurdly unlikely to happen (just like all the air in a room rushing over to one corner and suffocating you is unlikely to happen), but given an anthropic principle, who knows....

I also don't believe that God works this way - if He does then I don't want anything to do with him. By far the most elegent way to set things up is to click his (metaphorical) fingers and say 'Bang!'. (As an aside, Genesis does remarkably well in describing all this, considering it is a religious document written by non-scientists thousands of years ago. A scientist writing the book would have put things differently but been much less accessable: "And God said: 'Let there be a local U(1) symmetry!'")

Why would he bother to do it any other way? Since he is outside time, 14 billion years in neither here nor there.

Really the only question which should concern scientists is reproducability. Can my experimental results be reproduced? This is something that we have seen (in the affirmative) for hundreds of years. Scientific laws to not change over time (much - there is new evidence that some of the fundamental constants have been changing over cosmological time frames). Therefore we can be confident of what scientists are doing - the laws which they are discovering are not going to change overnight, so their results will always be useful.

I should point out, this this too is not really a God question. It could well be that there is a phase transition in the laws of physics in space-time, and that we will cross it tomorrow. The laws of physics could change overnight in a universe without a God too. We probably would not wake up in the morning though, so we really shouldn't worry about it too much. (Actually, a friend of mine, who I had lunch with yesterday, wrote a paper on that once...)

As a Christian and I scientist I have no problem with this. Science does not attempt to discover the nature of God, and God does not meddle with our scientific experiments.

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Ethelred
I have a problem or two with this. For one I am fairly certain that time travel cannot be possible if the timeline is fixed. That is my observation will effect my actions which will effect everyone else. Simon would never be born. Someone much like Simon might be born but not simon except on a 4 million or so to one shot and that is only dealing with the conception.

I agree. Time travel is not possible unless we live in a universe like Everett's Many Worlds interpretation of QM, and even then it isn't really time travel. Otherwise one could set up the paradoxes you describe. However, I don't think any of these laws need apply to a creator being. Since God is outside time, he must know what is in our future, because he is there, but he does not produce any of the paradoxes and/or shift in probability because he is the all-powerful God.

In more scientific language, since we have not done any experiments on God, we are unable to predict which physical laws he is bound by. The very definition of omnipotence suggests he would be bound by none.

What I am saying is that god makes the choice of what will happen at creation in a non-probabilistic Universe. That is were the cause comes in. The specifics of creation and the results are known to an all-knowing all-powerfull god. His choices at the time of creation fix what will happen. He makes the choices.

But the universe is not non-probabilistic. Even if you lay aside QM, if we are indeed separate non-deterministic beings with 'souls' (or whatever) then we are enough to affect the universe in an unknown way. God would of course still know what out actions would be (from the earlier argument) but would have no control over the decisions that we make.

I am thinking about installing MOO2 but the thought of going back to 640 by 480 is hindering that decision. I never played it after the final patch.

I had been firing that up occasionally too, but I have trouble getting past the graphics (yes, I know - I am shallow ). The new version of MOO should be out soon. Untill then, why not try EUII? Absolutely brilliant game!