Like a Phoenix from the Ashes... And Other Bombastic Metaphors

I completely forgot that I had not deleted this blog, so I shall begin reusing it. I need a place to practice my writing style and need some kind of outlet to write down the various thoughts that percolate in my brain during the day. I don't really expect to be profound or expect anyone out in internet land to listen to me. But that's okay. I probably don't have much of interest to say.

I'll clean up the other blog posts as I see fit, but it may take me awhile to get to them.

A "Reason" For All This

A relative of mine, who is an atheist scientist, once said, "The behavior of the electron is purely statistical, which gives a problem to anyone who thinks there is any 'reason' for all this."

An explanation of what he means. Scientists have noticed that the behavior of subatomic particles is in some way "statistical" or "random". For example, it is impossible for us to know the exact position and velocity of a particle at the same instant; if we know more of one, we know less of the other and vice versa. Furthermore, this is not a failure of the instruments we use to find these data; it is something inherent in the theory. This injects some uncertainty into our knowledge of the physical aspect of the universe. Not only are there things we don't know, there are things we can't know.

There are two main problems the aforementioned comment, though. First, it places the limits of knowledge in the mind of man and, second, it is a classic case of equivocation.

Our inability to measure nature exactly does not imply nature is itself random. Our scientific theories of Nature can only tell us so much. Claiming that what our theories can't tell us must be false or nonexistent is like the fisherman who claims what his net doesn't catch isn't fish. In fact, it is the very idea of the unknown that pushes Science forward. It is the apparent irregularity in nature that drives us to find the real regularity behind it. Our theories may simply not be sophisticated enough to fully explicate the real precision that Nature exhibits. We haven't dug deep enough.

But for the sake of argument, let's assume he is correct in saying that Nature is physically random. There is still a problem. He equivocates on the meaning of "randomness". He conflates epistemological randomness with physical randomness. He wants to say that Nature behaving randomly on a physical level implies that there is no overarching rhyme or reason to it. He wants to say that because my room is a mess it must have no occupant. Physical randomness (a messy room) says nothing about epistemological randomness (whether an occupant of the room or, say, God, exists).

Christianity of course places all full knowledge in God. He can know everything about Nature. We strive to know more and more as he allows, but we still have limits.

Miracles

Finally got the gumption to post something new. It only took me ten months, but I promise I'll start posting more often (for those of you who actually follow my blog).

One common objection to miracles is that if they were true, they would be breaking the Laws of Nature. If God exists, why would he break His own Laws? Would he not then be contradicting Himself?

But think about this: in formulating his Laws of Motion was Newton proving Einstein’s theory false? Of course not. Newton was explaining all the current astronomical data available to him. Later on, astronomers gathered more data that then falsified Newton’s theory because it could not explain the data. Einstein’s theory then explained all the data available at the time of its formulation.

But furthermore, as Christians we know that we can’t know everything about the universe. We do know that God rules Creation according to His Law, but we cannot claim to know this Law perfectly without claiming omniscience. We have no reason to think that Einstein’s Laws will not be falsified by more astronomical data, or that any other future theory will not be falsified. But science is not some hopeless endeavour. We are coming to a greater understanding of the Laws of Nature progressively, but we will never understand them perfectly. That kind of knowledge is left to the Lord. So there are Laws of Nature, I would call them Meta-Laws, through which God governs that universe; furthermore, we will never grasp these Meta-Laws, but that does not imply they are irrational or unLaw-like, because knowledge of the universe is not arbited by man. God’s action through miracles is part of this Meta-Law structure. He understands its rationality, whether or not we do or ever will.

But someone who argues that the Laws of Nature prove miracles impossible is arguing the same way as someone who says that Newton proved Einstein false. They are arguing that scientific law, as we currently understand it, proves that any aberration from that law must be impossible. But someone working under Newtonian physics wanting to prove Einstein must be false is arguing this way as well. They discount the possibility of their being a higher, Meta-Law structure to which the laws of physics and the workings of miracles conform. How do they know this? The only way is by claiming omniscience; they know exhaustively how the universe and can thus make claims as to how it cannot work. If man cannot know it, it cannot be true.

Art and the Bible

I recently finished reading Art and the Bible by Francis Schaeffer. His whole emphasis during the book is demonstrating that God is in fact interested in beauty, that art criticism is not relegated to the eye of the beholder. A fantastic beginning book for anyone trying to push God into the corners of creation and develop a standard of beauty from Scripture (which I am trying to do). This won't really be a book review, more of merely a summary.

He begins by saying Christ lord over the whole man, not just his soul. This includes everything man sets his hand, including the arts and culture. He quotes Francis Bacon as saying, "Man by the Fall fell at the same from his state of innocence and from his state of dominion over nature. Both losses, however, can even in this life be some part repaired ; the former by religion and faith, the latter by the arts and the sciences."

Next he points out that Moses was given the Ten Commandments at the same time and by the same God who gave him instructions to construct the Tabernacle, a masterpiece of beauty and architecture. All sorts of art forms are present in the Tabernacle: representational art (the cherubim), natural art (the candlestick was decorated with flowers and blossoms), and art that got its inspiration from nature but did not copy it exactly (blue pomegranates, which don't exist in nature, were embroidered on the priestly garments). All of these were thought worthy to be brought into God's most Holy presence.

Then there's Solomon's temple. Much of it was constructed to look pretty, and that's it. "And he [Solomon] garnished the house with precious stones for beauty." II Chron. 3:6. No pragmatic function or practical utility, simply beauty to look beautiful. The two free-standing columns in the front of the Tabernacle supported no architectural weight, it simply supported decoration. And not all of this art were of specifically religious subjects like angels or cherubim; some of it was of nature. This means art does not necessarily have to be of religious objects but can be "secular" in that sense and still be worthy of bringing glory of God. Schaeffer then points to various specific verses in the Bible where God's people employ the use of drama, poetry, dance, and other art forms to God's glory. God doesn't sneer at it, He revels in it.

Schaeffer then goes on to develop standards by which to judge art. It's all very interesting but I don't want to bother going into it right now. Everyone who calls themselves a Christian should read this book and see what God really has to say on the subject of beauty and art. As my rhetoric teacher is fond of saying, concerning nature and beauty and art, "God wasted his time with it; why aren't you?"

Make Up Your Mind

I find it very striking how modern evangelicalism comes up with ideas that are in fact contradictory but simultaneously encourages them. A few that have been on my mind:

1. Christians are strongly encouraged to read their Bibles daily, through and through. And yet theologians are viewed as snooty, up-stuck, intellectual elites whose only goal is to interpret the Bible how they want and then verbally pummel anyone who disagrees.

2. Christians are encouraged to "know their Bibles" and yet there is hardly any effort to apply it, except as an encouragement to "be nicer" to people on a daily basis. When anyone makes a suggestion to actually *change* anything (believer to infant baptism, believe to infant communion, practicing excommunication) everyone becomes recalcitrant.

Why the schizophrenia?

An Old Fallacy In A New Packaging

I remember a few years ago my college chemistry professor was talking about atomic theory and how successfully it was applied at the beginning on the 20th century. Concerning whether atoms actually exist or whether they are simply a convenient fiction, he said, "Of course we know they exist, we can take pictures of the damn things!"

This is in fact begging the question. The existence of atoms is the very assumptions of the theory. If we "took pictures" of them and found out they were not atoms, it would show the theory to be self-contradictory; the fact that the pictures we can take (using electron microscopes) show them to be atoms shows only that the theory is consistent.

Dr. Bitterwolf I expect would argue that this is proof that the world is just a bunch of atoms colliding with each other. But he'd be arguing using a petitio principii. But that tends to happen when you absolutize science.

Mathematics: God Is Not Silent

Just finished a fantastic book, Mathematics: Is God Silent? by James Nickel. So I will be posting a review of the book. But first, my own observations about mathematics and math education.

Mathematics is a subject area for which most people, even many Christians, hold the notion that it is somehow absolutely true or "set in stone" or everyone would agree it is true.

I'll get Nickel's book in a later post. First, my own thoughts on the subject. And by "my own thoughts" I mean it is a combination of some other readings I've done and my own critiques and distillations of those readings. I'm not so smart that I thought all this stuff up entirely on my own but I really wouldn't be able to tell you which thoughts I read elsewhere and which ones were the result of those thoughts fermenting in my mind.

So, first a refutation of some commonly held notions about mathematics.

1. Mathematics is a science, not an art.

It's both.

Here's an analogy. Let's say you are standing on one side of a large room and you want to get to the other side. Unfortunately, you're stuck in a maze. In order to get where you are going, you need tofollow some part of the maze. However, simply following the maze won't necessarily get you to your goal. You could wander in a maze for years, always following the corridors but never to your destination. In other words, simply following the rules isn't enough. There is something more. Getting through a maze requires ingenuity, cleverness, and sometimes genius. And this kind of mental acuity is not developed simply by studying rules.

Mathematics is much the same way. You must learn how to think logically and learn the rules of proofs, like following the corridors of a maze correctly. In order to become a skilled mathematician, you can't simply know the rules, you can't just follow the corridors in a maze. You have to possess a mental agility that allows you to get where you want to go given a certain set of constraints. How did McGyver (boy I'm dating myself now) get out of the stickly situations he was in?: imagination leaning against the constraints of the situation he was in. You must possess imagination. One of the beset way to develop this is to memorize proofs of other mathematicians and be able to rewrite them from memory. In other words, you want to learn how other mathematicians have solved their problems.

2. To become a good mathematician you should only study the modern stuff. Studying older stuff is interesting but useless.

Incidentally, this is a good argument for studying historical mathematics, like Euclid, Archimedes, Newton, Gauss, etc. Is there a tough math problems that's so far escaped modern mathematicians? Try studying mathematics of the past for awhile then. The reason those mathematicians are so famous is they often solved problems in a very clever manner, approaching the problem in a way that previous mathematicians hadn't even considered. If you want to solved a difficult math problem, then it would be useful to learn that cleverness.

3. In order to be a productive mathematician, you only need to study mathematics, old or new.

This is a lot like saying that in order for a flower to grow all it needs is water; sunlight is for nancies. Studying more mathematics, historical or not, isn't enough. To develop one's imagination in different directions, it's also useful to study good literature and history. To think that all this knowledge is totally unrelated and that Shakespeare will have no effect whatsoever, however subtle, on your study of geometry is implicitly assuming that all knowledge is unrelated. Knowledge is not simply a collection of facts. All of this stuff is stored in one mind and if you study geometry and develop your logical thinking skills then turn around and try your hand at writing good poetry, you're disciplining that same mind, albeit in different directions.

It's simply historical fact that some of the largest contributions to mathematics came from mathematicians who just made stuff up. One must follow the rules of logic to develop a branch of mathematics but the beginning of that branch must (usually) be simply invented. There are a number of instances of entirely new branches of mathematics growing out of other mathematics. Differential equations naturally grows out of calculus. Topology grows naturally out of set theory. And many branches cross paths. Differential geometry is (what else?) calculus and geometry crossing paths.

But logarithms, calculus, and set theory are all examples of mathematicians creating mathematics out of thin air. That kind of genius does not come out of an undeveloped imagination. A mind merely drilled in the machination of logic doesn't know how to think outside that mindset and won't produce the kind of genius required to invent mathematics of that caliber. Napier, Newton, and Leibniz all participated in an educations era when college education was primarily liberal arts. Cantor may not have, but that doesn't invalidate my point. A fully orbed, inventive, productive mathematician will also have read Herodotus, Homer, Aristotle, Anselm, and Aquinas.

The state of mathematics today should give us an indication of this truth. Mathematics today has been called a "mass of details without focus". Supposedly, there have been more theorems produced in the last century than all previous centuries combined. But mathematicians have been largely only educated in mathematics, and only modern mathematics at that. And you can be productive with an education like that; all you'll really be able to produce are theorems that don't too far from the branch whence they came and furthermore they won't be anything too profound. They'll be so specific and exacting and narrow as to be virtually worthless, though will be in the strict sense "true" but wont' really say much of anything of value.