Formal Debate: Busterdog and Willtor

[busterdog]

Response: The nature of the inferences are not quite the same. Once the object of a prediction is in the past, it is the same. When one looks back, one perceives the effects and infers causes. Looking forward, one perceives the causes and infers effects.

Here is an example of the sort of difference:

1. You decide to make a campfire. You stack wood together over some kindling and light the kindling. You infer that by morning the wood will be reduced to charcoal and ashes. You infer this because you have some knowledge of the nature of the process (fire) and a cause with sufficient conditions to produce the effect.

2. You come upon a fire pit with charcoal and ashes. You infer that there was a fire here at one point. You arrived at your inference because you have some knowledge of the nature of the process and the effect.

Knowledge of the second sort is more certain than knowledge of the first, provided sufficient evidence remains to say anything at all. That is because as far as the second is concerned, it is constrained. Nothing can influence the effect. One can explore and study causes and perceptions may change but both cause and effect are fixed. As to the other, even if the effect is fixed (as in the mind of God) there is no practical means (and possibly no means at all) to calculate the effect because there is no way to measure the influences of all of the causes converging on a moment until the moment is past. That's why in lab so much effort was taken to minimize foreign causes that might unduly influence an experiment. That's why, in principle, it is better to perform many experiments.

The recent discovery of diamonds in basement granite required a major revision in the relative timeframe for the creation of basement granite. This was no campfire.

Isn't the appearance of light from distant stars, a present effect here on earth and look backwards, caused by at least three different variables: 1. the properties of space; 2. time; and 3. distance and can you reliably account for them all?

Question: I'm not suggesting the other person thinks that Scripture has no integrity. On the contrary. The other person (let's say, from the future, come to visit) merely has a different interpretation of a passage. Let's take the resurrection of Christ. He says the resurrection account is figurative and he points you to other figurative passages (such as the fixity of the Earth) and shows you that you agree that they are figurative. Furthermore, he argues, "how often do we say that such-and-such a person is resurrected when, after his death, his teachings suddenly become apprehended and lived?" He, too, is entirely persuaded that the Scriptures are infallible and inerrant. But, like the Earth being fixed, Jesus' resurrection is a metaphor.

I don't mean for you to argue with this reasoning. Simply, is his reasoning valid? If not, go back to how you would try to persuade an ancient Father that the Earth was round/traveled around the Sun. Would you still try to convince him by pointing to other figurative passages?

There is no writer in the world who does not use both literal truth and figurative truth. We simply distinguish intentions here as we do in any other book. And, ultimately, if one wishes not to receive the literal truth of the resurrection, who can argue successful that they have no choice on the point?

 

[Willtor]

The recent discovery of diamonds in basement granite required a major revision in the relative timeframe for the creation of basement granite. This was no campfire.

Isn't the appearance of light from distant stars, a present effect here on earth and look backwards, caused by at least three different variables: 1. the properties of space; 2. time; and 3. distance and can you reliably account for them all?

Response: I couldn't account for any of them at this time. What I can do is suggest a methodology by which they can be made to give account. When you say that an analysis of these particular properties is necessary it seems to me that you will accept this methodology and now you wish to become concerned with the particular data. Is this correct?

There is no writer in the world who does not use both literal truth and figurative truth. We simply distinguish intentions here as we do in any other book. And, ultimately, if one wishes not to receive the literal truth of the resurrection, who can argue successful that they have no choice on the point?

Question: You wouldn't argue the point with him? Is his reasoning valid?

 

[busterdog]

Response: I couldn't account for any of them at this time. What I can do is suggest a methodology by which they can be made to give account. When you say that an analysis of these particular properties is necessary it seems to me that you will accept this methodology and now you wish to become concerned with the particular data. Is this correct?

There is no methodology for all of the variables in evidence to be measured completely. The medium through which light moves is a big question mark. To return to several of the questions above, we can witness enough of the unknowable to know that it is very large indeed, even if we can't measure or predict how it will behave or determine how it has behaved in the past. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy

If the space between a star and earth has inherent energy, can the theoretical fluctuation of that energy and its variable effect on that light be ruled out?

Question: You wouldn't argue the point with him? Is his reasoning valid?

If I understand you, no, I don't think the reasoning is valid. It has some basis, ie, it is not crazy talk, but it is not correct and valid. I would argue that in speaking with me, you will use a variety of idioms, some inteding to convey literal truth and some figurative truth. If I don't know you at all and how you speak, and if my life depends on figuring out which is which, I have a big problem and must be very careful in assuming I have distinguished them properly.

 

[Willtor]

There is no methodology for all of the variables in evidence to be measured completely. The medium through which light moves is a big question mark. To return to several of the questions above, we can witness enough of the unknowable to know that it is very large indeed, even if we can't measure or predict how it will behave or determine how it has behaved in the past. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy

If the space between a star and earth has inherent energy, can the theoretical fluctuation of that energy and its variable effect on that light be ruled out?

Response: I'm afraid I'm not a physicist; not even an amateur one. However, the article you've cited seems to suggest that vacuum energy is the lowest possible state of energy. I suppose this means that energy won't move from the vacuum to a particle.

That aside, this very theory is based on reasoning from observation which is the methodology I'm advocating. If you are right and this does somehow turn around all thinking about the age of the universe, this is a line of argument based on sense and reason. My whole argument is that this methodology - not interpretations of Scripture (even if the Scriptures themselves are right) - should be used to argue these points* not whether modern scientific thinking is correct. Merely that its methodology is sound.

This is why I said at the outset "only sense and reason should be used to support or oppose evolution" and especially included "oppose" in my wording. If evolution (and the rest of modern scientific thinking along with it) falls apart because sense and reason show that they are faulty, what is that to me? The particulars die but the methods are precisely what was used to refute them.

By arguing these points on a scientific basis my thesis is being supported even if my particular views are not.

* - actually, I was just arguing that evolution should be evaluated using these means. But generalization is okay, too.

If I understand you, no, I don't think the reasoning is valid. It has some basis, ie, it is not crazy talk, but it is not correct and valid. I would argue that in speaking with me, you will use a variety of idioms, some inteding to convey literal truth and some figurative truth. If I don't know you at all and how you speak, and if my life depends on figuring out which is which, I have a big problem and must be very careful in assuming I have distinguished them properly.

Question: This is very clear thinking as I see it. But it also means that you did not persuade the Church Father by showing him passages that you both agreed were figurative and then argued that another particular Biblical view was also intended as a figure. Now, it is true that there are Greek philosophers of his time who say that the world is round. But they have used observation and reason to argue it. Would you, at any point in the conversation, refer to their work?

 

[busterdog]

Response:

I'm afraid I'm not a physicist; not even an amateur one. However, the article you've cited seems to suggest that vacuum energy is the lowest possible state of energy. I suppose this means that energy won't move from the vacuum to a particle.

That aside, this very theory is based on reasoning from observation which is the methodology I'm advocating. If you are right and this does somehow turn around all thinking about the age of the universe, this is a line of argument based on sense and reason. My whole argument is that this methodology - not interpretations of Scripture (even if the Scriptures themselves are right) - should be used to argue these points* not whether modern scientific thinking is correct. Merely that its methodology is sound.

This is why I said at the outset "only sense and reason should be used to support or oppose evolution" and especially included "oppose" in my wording. If evolution (and the rest of modern scientific thinking along with it) falls apart because sense and reason show that they are faulty, what is that to me? The particulars die but the methods are precisely what was used to refute them.

By arguing these points on a scientific basis my thesis is being supported even if my particular views are not.

* - actually, I was just arguing that evolution should be evaluated using these means. But generalization is okay, too.

My thesis: there is too little that we can "sense" for reason to be of much help. Without lots of time, there can be no evolution. The universe must supply that time. If you can't prove that enough time exists, you have a problem proving evolution. To prove that there has been enough time, you must look at cosmology, which doesn't provide enough information that can be "sensed".

Lets look at our sample, and what it is that "sense" offers us. Quoting from http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people6/Peebles/peebles-con5.html

Classic hubble/big bang cosmology: we infer the existence and steady-state behavior of 95% of unobserved actual mass in the universe from the mere 5% that we can observe.

Okay. Let us choose an example. First, let's notice that you and I are made of atoms that go under the general name of baryonic, "bary" being heavy -- a historical term. We are made of material that is to us visible. The striking evidence that we have from studying the property of the universe in the large is that you and I, and baryons in general, make up only 5% or so of the mass of the universe. A little shocking, but we'll have to live with it. [There is] pretty convincing evidence that there is dark matter that is not baryonic and whose properties are mysterious. Such stuff was known already in the 1930s.

We have also at various times required vacuum energy to explain the coherence of the universe and more recently, the apparent acceleration of expansion of the universe. That's a lot of something to accelerate the whole freaking universe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant

The corollary to the cosmological effect of vacuum energy are its local, observed effects on orindary objects in a laboratory, such as two plates of metal driven together like ships in the unfortunate position of sharing the same wave trough, which inevitbably leads to collision. And how much energy is intrinsic to that tiny bit of space? "Absurd amounts."

Oh, sorry, lambda is dark energy, it is the matrix of dark energy, it is Einstein's cosmic constant. To these people it was an ugly appendix. They had a reason in part for thinking that, because we have the horrible problem in quantum physics that zero-point energy is real and important, and is there, and it exists not only in material objects but in fields, such as electromagnetic field, but a naïve sum of the zero point energy belonging to the electromagnetic field and other fields of nature gives you an absurd energy density with all of the properties of dark energy, Einstein's cosmic constant, except one: its numerical value is ridiculous. "Forget about it, there must be something wrong with zero point energy" for fields. I know of nothing wrong with it. The argument is clean, except the answer is absurd. It's an illustration of how we have, on the one hand, a secure, well-tested theory, but on the other hand, it's only an approximation, there are holes to be filled by the next generation.

What is now charming is on the one hand, people recognize there ought to be a zero of energy that would behave like Einstein's cosmic constant, Lemaître's dark energy. It ought to exist, and through a series of experiments that began again in the 1930s by Edwin Hubble, who drove the development of a big telescope to make the measurements, a 200-inch telescope on Mount Palomar, by great scientists in the sixties, when that telescope was at last finished, in particular [experiments by] Allan Sandage, driving forth the observations that might check for this dark energy, then just in our generation, here at Berkeley, Saul Perlmutter leading a group to carry on those efforts, and at last succeeding and showing us, of all things, that dark energy exists. The stuff that Einstein introduced, then discarded, that Lemaître fought for, that many serious scientists discarded again, is there. What a neat story!

Is it not odd that we are confident to infer the behavior of the unobserved 95% of everything based on data limited to the 5% of mass that can be observed? Don't we wonder whether the 95% may be doing something other than simply giving us a comfortable picture of the 5% we "sense" here and now? Add to this that all we can see of the 5% is seen "through" a medium of "empty" space seething with absurd amounts of (unseen) energy? And we presume to measure this across time?

Do we really sense much of anything? How do we have any idea whether what we sense is even statistically significant? Is it sound reasoning to assume a predictable behavior of 95% of something that is by definition unobservable, except by inference? The 5% allegedly aggregates into really hot balls and then experiences phenomenal explosions. What does the 95% do? Just sit there and pull the other 5% at a constant rate? Why can't it change like a hot star, for example, and push or pull at different rates on the 5% based upon unknown properties? And must the co-existent, unobserved energy also interact with its dark, unobserved companion at constant rates?

Question: This is very clear thinking as I see it. But it also means that you did not persuade the Church Father by showing him passages that you both agreed were figurative and then argued that another particular Biblical view was also intended as a figure. Now, it is true that there are Greek philosophers of his time who say that the world is round. But they have used observation and reason to argue it. Would you, at any point in the conversation, refer to their work?

Sure. I would use them similarly to the way I use science now. Now I use modern science to show how the literal Word is plausible, not necessarily to prove it. For the ancient writer, I would show a plausible worldview consistent with the very limited use of the movement of the sun in Psalms.

 

[Willtor]

My thesis: there is too little that we can "sense" for reason to be of much help. Without lots of time, there can be no evolution. The universe must supply that time. If you can't prove that enough time exists, you have a problem proving evolution. To prove that there has been enough time, you must look at cosmology, which doesn't provide enough information that can be "sensed".

Lets look at our sample, and what it is that "sense" offers us. Quoting from http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people6/Peebles/peebles-con5.html

Classic hubble/big bang cosmology: we infer the existence and steady-state behavior of 95% of unobserved actual mass in the universe from the mere 5% that we can observe.

We have also at various times required vacuum energy to explain the coherence of the universe and more recently, the apparent acceleration of expansion of the universe. That's a lot of something to accelerate the whole freaking universe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant

The corollary to the cosmological effect of vacuum energy are its local, observed effects on orindary objects in a laboratory, such as two plates of metal driven together like ships in the unfortunate position of sharing the same wave trough, which inevitbably leads to collision. And how much energy is intrinsic to that tiny bit of space? "Absurd amounts."

Is it not odd that we are confident to infer the behavior of the unobserved 95% of everything based on data limited to the 5% of mass that can be observed? Don't we wonder whether the 95% may be doing something other than simply giving us a comfortable picture of the 5% we "sense" here and now? Add to this that all we can see of the 5% is seen "through" a medium of "empty" space seething with absurd amounts of (unseen) energy? And we presume to measure this across time?

Do we really sense much of anything? How do we have any idea whether what we sense is even statistically significant? Is it sound reasoning to assume a predictable behavior of 95% of something that is by definition unobservable, except by inference? The 5% allegedly aggregates into really hot balls and then experiences phenomenal explosions. What does the 95% do? Just sit there and pull the other 5% at a constant rate? Why can't it change like a hot star, for example, and push or pull at different rates on the 5% based upon unknown properties? And must the co-existent, unobserved energy also interact with its dark, unobserved companion at constant rates?

Response: All measurements that anyone takes are across time. Sometimes it isn't across very much time, but it's still across time. That aside, no doubt we'll discover more properties of the other 95% of the universe (and even the 5% of baryonic matter that is visible to the eye).

But I think that most of the scientists who have discovered and are discovering the things you are citing are not discouraged by their findings into thinking that they cannot make meaningful inferences. Certainly I am not discouraged when I work to reverse-engineer a piece of software and make a discovery that leads me to conclude that I was only working with a very limited scope. Typically it doesn't negate my prior work.

Sure. I would use them similarly to the way I use science now. Now I use modern science to show how the literal Word is plausible, not necessarily to prove it. For the ancient writer, I would show a plausible worldview consistent with the very limited use of the movement of the sun in Psalms.

Question: I'm afraid I don't understand. You would use Greek round-earth philosophy to show an early Father that his literal understanding of a flat/stationary earth is plausible? And you're arguing that the Psalms are literal in these matters?

 

[busterdog]

Response:

All measurements that anyone takes are across time. Sometimes it isn't across very much time, but it's still across time. That aside, no doubt we'll discover more properties of the other 95% of the universe (and even the 5% of baryonic matter that is visible to the eye).

But I think that most of the scientists who have discovered and are discovering the things you are citing are not discouraged by their findings into thinking that they cannot make meaningful inferences. Certainly I am not discouraged when I work to reverse-engineer a piece of software and make a discovery that leads me to conclude that I was only working with a very limited scope. Typically it doesn't negate my prior work.

Sorry about that long winded point. As Winston Churchill said, it takes longer to write something shorter.

Our only view of the past is through a medium with enormous amounts of dark energy. "Ancient" starlight arrives here apparently though the medium of a "void" with the energy of many suns in a cubic centimeter.

That it takes "confidence," or faith, does seem to mean we are not talking about "knowing" outside of our very small slice of time.

How is it that you use the term "no doubt"? Is that again an inference about another time -- a future in which we will hopefully have enough "sense" data to justify we we have reasoned out now?

Question: I'm afraid I don't understand. You would use Greek round-earth philosophy to show an early Father that his literal understanding of a flat/stationary earth is plausible? And you're arguing that the Psalms are literal in these matters?

Sorry.

I would use the plausibility of an interpretation to loosen up the way one looks at the scripture. This is your method, and a good one as far as it goes. When working with the early fathers, it would indeed support a literary interpretation of the psalms that requires a metaphorical use of idioms that might otherwise seem to refer to a flat earth or geocentrism. So, I would use whatever science is available to do two things: 1. make a six day creation plausible to retain a literal interpretation; or 2. make a round earth in a copernican solar system plausible to correct an erroneous literalism about flat earth geocentrism. I think the second form of logic may the inverse of the first. But, the companion part of the argument is always the literary one. Literary rules distinguish idiom from literal narrative.

 

[Willtor]

Sorry about that long winded point. As Winston Churchill said, it takes longer to write something shorter.

Our only view of the past is through a medium with enormous amounts of dark energy. "Ancient" starlight arrives here apparently though the medium of a "void" with the energy of many suns in a cubic centimeter.

That it takes "confidence," or faith, does seem to mean we are not talking about "knowing" outside of our very small slice of time.

How is it that you use the term "no doubt"? Is that again an inference about another time -- a future in which we will hopefully have enough "sense" data to justify we we have reasoned out now?

Response: I use the term "no doubt" because people are always proposing hypotheses and experiments to test them. No matter how the experiments turn out (for or against or undetermined with respect to the hypothesis) they tell us something. I would amend my previous statement, then, to except the possible scenario that no experiments will ever be performed again.

All that said, and I hesitate to bring it up again, all of the points that you are arguing are matters of sense and reason. If the physical matters you are using to undermine discussions of the age of the universe are real, they have been learned through sense and reason. If they really demonstrate that we have been entirely mistaken about the age of the universe or whatever else, _that_ will have been an inference from sense and reason. When I began this debate I misunderstood your position and thought that you believed that knowledge of the physical universe should come from Scripture.

Here is my proposal, then: since you are arguing entirely from sense and reason, and not at all from Scripture, I propose that you concede that knowledge of the physical universe should be given entirely to sense and reason to the exclusion of Scripture. On my end, I will concede all of the particulars and defer to you on all of them without exception in the context of this debate.

Before you agree keep in mind that my concession is far more limited than yours. I concede for the purposes of this debate because I admit that I am not knowledgeable in the matters you are discussing and you would do better to debate these points with someone else (e.g. Shernren). You would be conceding altogether because although I am willing and eager to discuss the interpretation of Scripture as you make your case you have forgone that and have made your arguments from sense and reason alone.

Sorry.

I would use the plausibility of an interpretation to loosen up the way one looks at the scripture. This is your method, and a good one as far as it goes. When working with the early fathers, it would indeed support a literary interpretation of the psalms that requires a metaphorical use of idioms that might otherwise seem to refer to a flat earth or geocentrism. So, I would use whatever science is available to do two things: 1. make a six day creation plausible to retain a literal interpretation; or 2. make a round earth in a copernican solar system plausible to correct an erroneous literalism about flat earth geocentrism. I think the second form of logic may the inverse of the first. But, the companion part of the argument is always the literary one. Literary rules distinguish idiom from literal narrative.

Question: In one case the man should reinterpret Scripture to align with knowledge that comes from sense and reason. In the other case, he should reinterpret Scripture to your way and ensure that knowledge from his sense and reason align with it. Is this correct? You say literary rules should distinguish but you and he cannot agree on literary rules because you are taking flat/moving earth and genesis creation passages differently.