Re: [OT] voting
On Mon, 2003-12-08 at 18:12, s. keeling wrote:
> Incoming from Paul Morgan:
...
> Anything extrauniversal can have no effect on that universe. Variable
> is out of scope. That much is knowable.
That's just wordplay. You implicitly define extrauniversal as meaning
altogether outside and not intersecting with the universe, so your
statement is not knowable but tautological. Paul obviously does not use
the word in the same way. The creator by definition does affect the
universe he has created and sustains, and so on your terms is not
extrauniversal. He is a being of a different order. He is necessarily
far beyond his creation (just as you are far beyond anything you are
able to create) and no part of his creation is able to understand
anything about him which he does not reveal.
Most of our knowlege of God comes by revelation. In the creation itself
he reveals only his eternal power and deity; demonstrated, among other
things, by the immense and beautiful complexity of living systems. Paul
cited DNA. On a "higher" level, photosynthesis and blood-clotting are
two very complex systems which need every part of them to work and the
failure of any one part of which would kill the organism. This kind of
irreducible complexity, of which continuing research reveals more and
more, reinforces Paley's argument from design, which has demonstrated
the truth of creation for at least 2500 years. (Socrates cited the
obvious design of the eye, and Cicero employed the argument from design
against Lucretius and the Epicureans.)
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On Mon, 2003-12-08 at 19:11, John Hasler wrote:
> > 2. The watchmaker is extrauniversal by definition, and anything
> > extrauniversal is unknowable.
>
> Occam's Razor.
"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate" (plurality is not to be
posited without need), or, the simpler hypothesis is to be preferred.
That tells nothing about the truth of a proposition; in the end it is
only a principle for selecting more elegant arguments. Elegance is not
equivalent to truth.
Applying Occam's razor to Debian packages, you could rationally claim
that their apparent design is a delusion; the idea of a designer is
merely an unnecessary multiplication of hypotheses and packages simply
evolve by random mutation (bits getting switched by cosmic rays). That
is clearly a simpler hypothesis, since it leaves out a multiplicity of
unnecessary elements (the Debian maintainers)!
--
Oliver Elphick Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight, UK http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
GPG: 1024D/3E1D0C1C: CA12 09E0 E8D5 8870 5839 932A 614D 4C34 3E1D 0C1C
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"For I am the LORD your God; ye shall therefore
sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am
holy." Leviticus 11:44
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