The Rule Of Law: Reviewing The Grand Design, II
Posted in Books, Cosmology, Physics, Science on | 6 minutes | 7 Comments →
Chapter 2 of The Grand Design is titled The Rule of Law, and the authors give us a brief history of the concept of natural laws. If nothing else, it was an excellent vacation from what would have been an mundane bus ride otherwise. It was a good chapter, with a little bit of everybody: Aristarchus, Ptolemy, Aristotle, Galileo, Epicurus, Pythagoras, Democritus, Kepler, Newton, Descartes… even Thomas Aquinas and William Dembski get a brief mention [okay, I’m kidding about Dembski, and that’s no offense to him]. The authors gave a valiant effort at summarizing the history of natural law in a few pages, and they do a mighty fine job if you ask me.
Not surprisingly for a book that purports to answer life’s ultimate questions through science, the authors begin by drawing a dichotomy between natural and supernatural explanations. They introduce Viking mythology and Klamath legend to imply that supernatural explanations are inherently rooted in ignorance, noting that after a while, people began to notice that the moon would eclipse even if they forgot to do their little ritual.
There were gods of love and war; of the sun, earth, and sky; of the oceans and rivers… these gods appeared inscrutable, and people at their mercy. But with Thales of Miletus about 2,600 years ago, that began to change. The idea arose that nature follows consistent principles that could be deciphered. And so began the long process of replacing the notion of the reign of gods with the concept of a universe that is governed by laws of nature, and created according to a blueprint we could someday learn to read. [p17]
The biblical theist knows this is only part true. While the Bible certainly ascribes behavior to supernatural entities like angels and demons, nowhere in scripture do we find support for a mischievous pantheon of gods arbitrarily interfering with the natural world. Sure, the gospels record that a legion of demons entered into a flock of pigs and subsequently drowned them, or that Moses was able to part the Red Sea – and these are certainly instances of “interfering with the natural world” – but what I mean is that concepts like “gods of agriculture” don’t seem to exist in scripture. Rather, even though other spirit-beings are said to exist, they appear to be constrained within strict parameters, and scripture conveys the idea of a single, sovereign God Who ordained a natural world that follows laws. My point is that the gods reason replaced were likely a figment of the human imagination in the first place. I would imagine that atheists reading this might be thinking, “How in the world do you know the God of the Bible is not?”
Been there, done that.
The authors move on to discuss the Ionian philosophers, giving proper credit to each for their roles in the discovery of natural laws. The authors summarize their definition of natural law as,
…a rule that is based upon an observed regularity and provides predictions that go beyond the immediate situations upon which it is based. [p27]
On the subject of determinism vs. free will, the authors write,
Though we feel that we can choose what we do, our understanding of the molecular basis of biology shows that biological processes are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry and therefore are as determined as the planets. [p30,31]
I hear this often from naturalists, and I scratch my head every time. If this is true, the implications are pretty unsettling. I know, I know… “we can’t reject a fact just because it’s consequences are unwelcome.” That’s not what I’m about to do. Rather, I’m going to argue that the undeniable tendency towards justice is a powerful argument against determinism. Human beings strongly believe that certain actions should be praised, and certain actions should be condemned. While there is certainly disagreement between cultures on the specifics, there are also areas of universal overlap. For example, even professional thieves dislike thieves, if you know what I’m saying. There are strong cultural stigmas against taking the property of another. You might be asking yourself, “What in the world does that have to do with determinism?” If determinism is true, concepts like culpability and justice lose any real-world basis. How is it fair to punish a person for something they couldn’t have not done? In response to the atomists, Epicurus reportedly said it was, “better to follow the myths about the gods than to become a slave to the destiny of natural philosophers.” I agree.
The authors introduce the concept of scientific determinism:
It is Laplace who is usually credited with the first clearly postulating scientific determinism: Given the state of the universe at one time, a complete set of laws fully determines both the future and the past. This would exclude the possibility of miracles or an active role for God. [p30]
Yet, earlier they told us philosophy was dead! Here we are only two chapters in, and they’re apparently using philosophy – not science – to lay the groundwork for the book’s central claim. Continuing in this vein, they close the chapter with,
This book is rooted in the concept of scientific determinism, which implies that… there are no miracles, or exceptions to the laws of nature. [p34]
These types of ideas seem to come up often in (a)theist discussion. I often wonder why atheists, skeptics, naturalists and even some Christians perceive miracles as violations of natural law. I would imagine that miracles are more accurately described as one law usurping another. This is exactly what we find with the concept of air travel: planes don’t violate the law of gravity per se, they temporarily usurp it with another set of laws (i.e. propulsion). Though I understand the tendency, I object to defining miracles as “exceptions” or “violations” of natural law. Under this model, what we call “miracles” are actually just not-yet-understood applications of not-yet-understood natural laws. Quite simply, I think the argument is a false dichotomy: that God’s creation inexorably follows natural laws doesn’t mean God can’t intervene either by natural law, or otherwise. We shan’t use philosophy to parcel and constrain reality.
The authors introduced another concept worth mentioning: effective theories:
In physics, an effective theory is a framework created to model certain observed phenomena without describing in detail all of the underlying processes. [p32]
All of this is serves as build-up to the discussion of model-dependent realism the authors unleash in the next chapter.
ram0singhal
says...divine….
Either people believe there is current or people do not believe there is current…. Knowing the current is religion ,……. knowing the use of current is science,……. Believing and not believing ……….both are philosophies.
the cosmic intelligence is beyond every known and unknown dimension but with in love of no dimension….
the dimension of oneness is science of macro vision…..and modern science is micro vision…..
it is the micro vision great scientist Stephen Hawking is talking….in
The grand design…….
vision of two eyes merging only brings the dimension of depth….similarly God or cosmic intelligence will appear only with oneness of emotional intelligence….right brain…our soul…the eternal part…and logical intelligence….the left brain….our body…the non eternal part….
talking with partial vision of logical intelligence….Mr. hawking
comments is more of his own belief not the knowing….
Science is a micro vision to know nature, religion is a macro vision to know God
Science and religion are two ends of one chain only.
Nature is reflection of God.
Science is a search of reflection. Religion is a search of God.
Religion is to know your inner cosmos. science is to know your outer cosmos.
love all…….
http://ram0singhal.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/atom-signature-of-god/
Ron Krumpos
says...In “The Grand Design” Stephen Hawking postulates that the M-theory may be the Holy Grail of physics…the Grand Unified Theory which Einstein had tried to formulate and later abandoned. It expands on quantum mechanics and string theories.
In my e-book on comparative mysticism is a quote by Albert Einstein: “…most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and most radiant beauty – which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive form – this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of all religion.”
Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity is probably the best known scientific equation. I revised it to help better understand the relationship between divine Essence (Spirit), matter (mass/energy: visible/dark) and consciousness (fx raised to its greatest power). Unlike the speed of light, which is a constant, there are no exact measurements for consciousness. In this hypothetical formula, basic consciousness may be of insects, to the second power of animals and to the third power the rational mind of humans. The fourth power is suprarational consciousness of mystics, when they intuit the divine essence in perceived matter. This was a convenient analogy, but there cannot be a divine formula.
cl
says...Thanks for stopping by. Those were two interesting takes on the matter. I’ll take a peek at the blog and the book when I get a second.
woodchuck64
says...True. But if I want to do X, and I do X, could I have done differently? Yes, but only if I didn’t want to do X, which leads to contradiction.
These sorts of problems with non-determinism (which in a nutshell are why I’m an atheist believe it or not) make me think that the real problem might be with our understanding of culpability and justice.
cl
says...Hey there. Sorry to delay in that other discussion at Common Sense Atheism. At times I get so sick and tired of the same old people and their flippant remarks that it leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I don’t even want to visit the site. Really, it’s like a big joke. Atheists are supposed to be the ones that have this penchant for rationalism and cold logic. It also irks me that Luke doesn’t say anything about it. If I had a popular blog – not that I want one – I would rebuke every person who preferred personal attacks to logical arguments. Anyways…
I’m not so sure about that. It could be that I want to do X, but upon reflection, realize that Y is preferrable. In this case, I would no longer want to do X, yet, I don’t see any contradiction there.
Yeah, I feel you. One can think themselves silly just thinking about it. I’m not quick to align myself in either camp, to be honest. Parts of the Bible seem to strongly favor determinism. Sometimes I wonder if life isn’t the result of decisions we made long before the universe was born.
Thanks for being cool.
woodchuck64
says...cl
No problem at all, I don’t expect you to hang out any place that doesn’t practice mutual respect. Contributors worth reading don’t take the cheap shots. Luke should speak up, but both he and Alonzo seem to have an embargo on replies to you going on; rather silly since you raise questions that have not been thoroughly answered/explored. But, hey, I shouldn’t take sides, here, I’m sure you guys have a long history :-)
I mean at the time of final decision after all deliberation and consideration. At that time, I find that I’m doing Y because, ultimately that’s what I wanted to do the most. I can indeed look back and remember that I also wanted to do X, but I wanted to do Y more. So could I have done differently? Only if I didn’t really want to do Y the most.
For me, the deterministic view undermines the idea of sin/redemption. It doesn’t undermine the idea of God or first cause, but it seems to undermine the idea of a personal God or one that truly cares about humanity.
Ditto.
cl
says...I’ll take that into consideration. Most atheists I know disbelieve for evidential reasons. This seems like a different objection altogether.
Although, today I got to wondering: how could we disprove determinism? Is it possible to “prove” that somebody “really” could have done otherwise in any given scenario? I understand that some people believe certain experiments prove determinism [cf. Brasil-Neto JP, Pascual-Leone A, Valls-Sole J, et al. Focal transcranial magnetic stimulation and response bias in a forced-choice task. See also Sohn, Y. H., A. Kaelin-Lang and M. Hallett. 2003 The effect of transcranial magnetic stimulation on movement selection. J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatry. 74: 985-987 for dispute of those results].
What kind of experiment could disprove determinism? I’ve heard people proffer things like “non-causal relations,” but, the question remains intriguing.