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Lubos lists two options concerning ID.
*The theory that God has skillfully engineered our world, or has carefully chosen the place for His creation among very many possibilities.
*And the theory that there are uncontrollably many possibilities and "ours" is where we live simply because most of the other possibilities don't admit life like ours.
There is also a third option besides these two. This option might be called Intelligent ReDesign: briefly IRD. This option is rather democratic and does not leave all responsibilities for God: every conscious entity redesigns universe in time and length scales characteristic for it.
IRD has developed from the need to resolve the paradoxes of quantum measurement theory and is behind TGD inspired theory of consciousness.
In TGD framework the arena of quantum dynamics is the "world of classical worlds" understood as the space of certain 4-D space-time surfaces in certain 8-D imbedding space. These surfaces are analogous to Bohr orbits and their classical dynamics obeys certain variational principle which is not completely deterministic if determinism is understood in the conventional sense of the word. This makes space-time dynamics capable of providing classical correlate for quantum non-determinism and intentionality. This is necessary if one wants to speak of re-design assuming quantum- classical correspondence.
Quantum states are superpositions of classical worlds. Simplifying unashamedly, the building brick of conscious experience is moment of consciousness and is identifiable as a recreation of the Universe in quantum jump replacing the quantum state of the Universe by a new one. Self is second basic notion: using equally unashamed over-simplification, self is to quantum jump what molecule is to atoms meaning that sequences of quantum jumps can integrate to selves.
Self hierarchy corresponds very closely to the hierarchy of bound states having the entire universe at the top: if one wishes, one can call this highest level self God. There are selves below us and above us, each of them being able to perform IRD in the length and time scale characterizing the self.
This picture conforms with the determinism of physical laws since the non-determinism of quantum jumps does not interfere classical space-time dynamics nor the quantal "Shroedinger" dynamics in the world of classical worlds. Non-determinism is in the quantum jump replacing deterministic world with a new deterministic world and thus outside the space-time and state space. Fractal "Quantum God" is like a theoretician hopping around in the space of solutions of field equations.
What makes RD IRD is that this process is governed by a variational principle guaranteing evolution: quantum jump by quantum jump quantum universe becomes more complex and more information rich. Negentropy Maximation Principle states that the informatio
I believe it was Einstein who said, in his search for a unified theory, that he wanted to know if God had any choice or not.
So at least he admitted it was an open question that could go either way -- quite apart from the question of whether his use of the word "God" was just a verbal shorthand for "the intelligent laws" of nature (in Lubos's nice phrase).
In any case, I have a prediction to make: The problem will remain forever unanswered. Why do I feel this way? Because it seems silly to suppose that our generation is so special it will find all the answers, leaving nothing for the hundreds or even thousands (or millions) of generations to come to discover.
God is not that malicious!
BTW, Lubos's intelligent discussion of this whole issue shows that it is at least a topic worthy of discussion, which is more than the ACLU seems to want to admit.
Of course these types of discussion should take place in the prefaces of high school science books, not within the body of the texts themselves -- though I suppose one of those Box inserts textbook publishers are so fond of might also be an appropriate place.
The kids deserve a little philosophy too don't you think, the better to make the medicine go down?
Dear Luke,
Einstein had said many interesting things in his life and he was really great. But still, I think it is fair that we now have better insights and tools to have a good idea whether God or Nature had a choice.
We still don't quite know the answer but Einstein could not have known it at all.
You say that we can't resolve this question because our generation would be special. Well, there have been many other special generations before us. One generation landed the first people on the Moon and discovered the Standard Model, for example. Their life was much easier, I would say, and not only in science.
There's no physical law that we can't find the truth. Of course there is also no opposite physical law.
I absolutely think that science textbooks and classes should become somewhat more cultural in their style and breadth, to include philosophy and discussion of wrong alternatives. Otherwise people will find it increasingly remote. But still, I think they should be on the scientific side.
Best
LM
Since you labeled me a "creationist", I think it is fair to ask what your definition of a creationist is.
Is it just a synonym for theist?
Dear David,
I definitely did not want to insult you. Please don't get upset without a good reason.
A creationist is a person who believes that one of the most crucial insights about our existence and the existence of our Universe is that they have been *created* by a supreme being, and that this insight should have a significant impact on our lives including science.
Operationally, creationists are people like those who have blog like yours with name like yours (He Lives) and who are giving lectures about Cosmological Intelligent Design - like you - and similar topics.
Respectfully Yours
Lubos
To answer the last sentence: yes, it seems to me that the word "theist" in your sense is not too different from "creationist" as long as the theism requires to abandon evolution.
Note that such a definition of "creationist" is not too broad. Many Catholics would fail to be classified as creationists according to this definition.
No problem. I am not insulted, nor was I upset--it was a serious question. It is useful to know what one means by the term "creationist".
Your definition is:
"A creationist is a person who believes that one of the most crucial insights about our existence and the existence of our Universe is that they have been *created* by a supreme being, and that this insight should have a significant impact on our lives including science."
By that definition, by all means, I am a creationist. You also wrote:
"To answer the last sentence: yes, it seems to me that the word "theist" in your sense is not too different from "creationist" as long as the theism requires to abandon evolution."
Here it gets a little murky--for how would you classify a theistic evolutionist? There are certainly those (perhaps myself--you couldn't know) that agree with your first definition of creationist and yet do not abandon evolution. Are they creationists?
You don't have to answer--it's not really important. I just meant to point out that this is one of those terms, just like "Darwinist", that gets used all the time without being defined.
You also described me as a "former" nuclear physicist--not sure when I crossed of from current to former--but that too is not important.
Lubos doesn't see any difference between the term "former"... and...
"Reformed"... views of a nuclear physicist."
He also thinks that Lenny... suddenly revived Intelligent Design - an alternative framework for biology that almost started to disappear.
He must also thinks that Kansas, Delaware, Ohio, New Mexico, Montana, Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama, etc... are on Mars.
Dear David,
I would personally clasify theistic evolutionism as a slightly inconsistent viewpoint on the topic, but again, no insult intended. Some of the people with this approach whom I know are very fine people.
I will erase the adjective "former" to avoid undesirable controversies. The crossover probably starts at the moment when the importance of lectures with religious goals exceeds those whose goals are related to nuclear physics. Religion is compatible with nuclear physics, but nuclear physics does not work as an appendix to the Bible.
All the best
Lubos
“A person like me who expects the parameters of the low-energy effective field theory to emerge from a deeper theory - which is not a religious speculation but a straightforward extrapolation of the developments of the 20th century physics - indeed does believe in some sort of "intelligent design". But of course its "intelligence" has nothing to do with human intelligence or the intelligence of God; it is intelligence of the underlying laws extending quantum field theory.”
Forgive me if I'm misinterpreting, but this appears to posit that there is an intelligence—a directing, operative capacity for decision—intrinsic to the laws underlying, for example, quantum field theory (and, I'd presume, other at least equally valid theories). While, if I've summarized correctly, I agree intuitively that there seems to be some capacity for algorithmic decision intrinsic to the function of the universe, this would seem to only substitute the intelligence of a god with the intelligence of an immensely complex machinery. To extend the Clarkian, "any sufficiently complex machination will be indistinguishable from God".
I only bring this up because that viewpoint, as I'm finding myself, is quite hard to differentiate from a simple materialistic or deterministic formulation of a god. I don't think it's either, rather conceding that the grandeur and interworking of the universe as a whole and as a collection of pieces is quite awe-inspiring, and so I'm not surprised that some more reverent folks would prefer to wave their hands and personify all that as a god. Still, every time I think or hear about this sort of stuff, like the cellular automata approach to a computational universe, I have to wonder what the general laity and the creationist-minded can see as being substantially different than a more approachable and simpler creationism.
Tangentially, pronouncing the universe to be designed intelligently because there are structures of irreducible complexity, especially being (supposedly) analogous (if grander) to artifacts of human design…well, that smacks of hubris. It sounds like, "Well, the universe looks like something we'd build if we were omnipotent and really smart." Of course there are echoes in other structures of something that might smack of an intelligence like ours—this is consistent with the idea that human intelligence is a subset, wholly contained by a broader set of intelligences. If we see intelligence in the universe, it is, of course no accident, as we should think it unlikely to have developed an intelligence unlike any kind of deciding algorithms found anywhere else. To assume so simply sets humanity upon a pedestal made of vapor and not much wit.
