User talk:Dbergan/Tznkai

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Last archived: August 22, 2005

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[edit] From User:Dbergan's talk page

[edit] ID

I'm pretty sure your edits are going to be RV'd by FW and others. They sound a little too much like an apologetic. At anyrate, the article is about ID not the telological argument. I will try to find away to get the point that you want to make across, but quoting ID'ers books isn't the way to do it.--Tznkai 6 July 2005 16:41 (UTC)

I have a policy of RVing any change that eats a refrence, but I don't ignore the changes made. While I believe that Aquanius's proofs are pertinent, the intro is probably not the best place for them. I'm thinking about creating a new section on the interactions of philosiphy and ID but its rather foggy right now. Anyway I understand your position is that ID only posits that a designer can be infered scientificly?--Tznkai 6 July 2005 16:50 (UTC)

Great job with the new section! I'm restoring an older intro because I think the langauge is more neutral (claim is sometimes pejoritive), but feel free to tweak with it--Tznkai 6 July 2005 17:00 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words and approaching intelligent design with such a level head! Its a pain in the ass I know since as a result of the raging public debate ID's definition has gone through as many reinventions as Madonna! Hold fast, I know FW probably agrees with us, but is concentrating on a diffrent section of ID. Don't let it get you down!--Tznkai 7 July 2005 19:25 (UTC)

[edit] And now for something completly diffrent.

Just spent some good money on C.S Lewis's works. I have the paper back version of this[1], I was wondering which of these you reccomended I read first? (Already read Mere Christianity)--Tznkai 15:57, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm a large fan of C.S. Lewis as well. Did you mean to rank them all 1.? He's certainly one of the most straightforward apologists. I think a criticsm he gets but doesn't deserve is about his so-called logical fallicies. I feel he was never applying formal logic, but reason and perspective. While I don't fully agree with the trilemma, that was his reasoning. Have you read the Narnia series?--Tznkai 17:39, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
Narnia is definatly better as a child. I purchased "Out of the Silent Planet" but havn't read it yet. Read all of Narnia a couple times, and even watched the BBC editions on tape. As far as non fiction, I've only read a few excerpts here and there, and Mere Christianity, which paralells my own approach to my faith surprisingly closely.--Tznkai 18:40, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] IC

Was about to head to a friends house. Can it wait 12 hours?--Tznkai 18:39, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Great. Whats this about you getting married?--Tznkai 18:51, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
Congrats! She's too pretty for you!--Tznkai 03:48, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
I have to ask. Did YOU put a bunny sticker on your laptop?--Tznkai 17:22, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Stuff

Few things:

Thanks for the e-mail. Knowing people miss me helps me reconsider diving back into things. Sorry I havn't worked on the IC, as you can see I've been suffering burn out. Working on C.S. Lewis sounds good, the article could use a little fleshing.

Also, have you ever considered just going with theistic evolution? I've found a lot of what drives Christians towards ID is the lack of community support for theistic evolution, the All or Nothing position suggested by both sides.--Tznkai 14:29, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. See, the intresting thing I see is that what you call old earth creation, I call theistic evolution. Sort of anyway. My position is pretty simple. God created everything. God interacts with us in such a subtle and amazing way its impossible to know if it is God or Random Chance. We take it further from aitheistic belief to theistic belief as a matter of faith. To me, science works very well, and evolution runs into speciation and aborogensis and has to scratch its head and kinda grope around. How long that lasts, God only knows. To me, you can make a reasonable and rational case for God driven evolution. C.S. Lewis gave an excellent case for a God driven moral universe. C.S. Lewis can't prove it as science.
I'm not really sure whether I believe that God can/has/will "cheat", breaking natural law. In many ways, I equate natural law with God. To me, He is this mysterious being that conducts his miracles so that it is a matter of faith whether we believe it was happy coincidence or Miracle. Its certainly very intresting to see the places are beliefs seem to overlap, and the places where they differ slightly, especially considering our mutual grounding in C.S. Lewis.--Tznkai 16:41, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] From User:Tznkai's talk page

[edit] ID and the design argument

I appreciate your suggestions. FW reverts everything I do. I agree, the article is not about the design argument, so why is it introduced as Aquinas's fifth proof? That's what I was trying to change. Can you just change the language rather than a full revert? David Bergan 6 July 2005 16:45 (UTC)

Yeah, that's pretty much how I read Dembski on this. I'm making another run at it, and keeping the Aquinas reference. This should be more in line with the comments you raised. David Bergan 6 July 2005 16:55 (UTC)

[edit] ID and philosophy of science

I agree, this is getting to be a lot more fun since you and started seeing eye-to-eye. Maybe we should hash some issues out on our talk pages or through email where there is less noise. It sure is interesting stuff once you get past this mentality FW expresses where he doesn't seem to want to give ID a gram of credibility. We wields concepts like observation/intuition/repeatability/a priori/etc around without fully thinking how they apply to other things in science. The claim that natural selection gave rise to different phylums is not observable or repeatable, but most would consider it scientific. Again, it seems more like forensic science to me, though, and the rules are slightly different.

Or consider the term "irreducible complexity". FW says it's an a priori concept. And it is... you make the definition and then see what things fall into that category. But the term "mammal" is also an a priori concept. You make the def and then apply it to monkeys, porcupines, kangaroos, and platipi. Either way you make up the classification first.

Anyway, I would love to discuss these philosophy of science issues if you're interested. David Bergan 7 July 2005 21:17 (UTC)

once you get past this mentality FW expresses where he doesn't seem to want to give ID a gram of credibility. Most of the scientific community doesn't give ID a gram of credibility, but somehow my mentality is the problem. Whatever. FuelWagon 7 July 2005 23:28 (UTC)
He wields concepts like observation/intuition/repeatability/a priori/etc around without fully thinking how they apply to other things in science. I would be so happy if you could, at some point in the future, actually grasp the concept of what it means to know something. When you talk about knowing something, you talk about a religious, dogmatic, absolute meaning of "knowing" something. And then you talk about the scientific community says it "knows" something as if they mean they know it absolutely. This is a religious version of science, and it isn't science. Until you get the distinction, we will forever be butting heads. FuelWagon 7 July 2005 23:28 (UTC)
it seems more like forensic science to me, though, and the rules are slightly different. Read the ID article again. It says ID is attempting to redefine NATURAL SCIENCE. Then go look up the wikipedia entry for natural science. There are many different flavors of science. evolution and similar theories are in the realm of natural science. Not all science is natural science. But natural science is specifically defined as a posteriori, observation only, science. because of this, natural science is filled mostly with hypothesis and theories, and very few hard laws. ID attempts to redefine natural science to include a priori ideas that have no direct observation to back them up. learn the difference between natural science (a posteriori, observation only) and other sciences such as mathematics, which are a priori and no observation. FuelWagon 7 July 2005 23:28 (UTC)
FW, you are formally to stop this discussion here. This is not your place to debate other people's ideas. Do that in your own talk space.--Tznkai 8 July 2005 01:08 (UTC)
As far as I know, it isn't bad manners to take part in a thread on someone else's talk page, especially if you happen to be the topic of conversation/flame/slam. Nor is it a breach of wiki-policy that I know of. But I have no problem honoring your request that I not post on your talk page. Consider it done. FuelWagon 8 July 2005 17:19 (UTC)

[edit] CS Lewis

That's awesome. I'll admit it, I have a CS Lewis fetish... I own nearly everything he has written, including diaries and personal letters. Here's how I rank the books in your new collection:

  1. The Great Divorce: I love this book. In my estimation, it is the greatest book written outside the Bible. It's a quick one or two evening read that I relish at least once a year. It's a fiction book - a story of a bus load of people from Hell that get to experience Heaven and how they react. Really drives home Lewis's point that people in Hell choose to be there. What's scary is that each character you meet in this book will almost certainly remind you of a real-life person... and sometimes yourself.
  2. The Problem of Pain: Lewis considers the Problem of Evil to be readily explained by Free Will... but Free Will doesn't explain why we suffer at nature's hand. He tells us that the reason he was an atheist: he looked at the vast cold uncaring universe and found nothing but a preponderance of emptiness and pain. How could there be a God that allows, much less design, that? Read just chapter 1 to see his powerful feelings as an atheist. The rest of the book answers that feeling, including a defense for why Christians believe in damnation... which is the intellectual foundations for The Great Divorce.
  3. The Abolition of Man: How far should science go? Lewis takes on relativism, genetic engineering and its inevitable conclusions. Pretty intellectual, but not too tough. A good reminder to read every 5 years or so. (I heard that this was the first book of Lewis's to make it in the Great Books series... although I haven't been able to confirm that through the Internet.)
  4. Miracles: A tough read. Especially chapters 3 and 4 (ground-and-consequence Vs. cause-and-effect). However, it is worth it. A whole book called CS Lewis's Dangerous Idea [2] has been written on just those chapters. Be prepared to re-read chapters over and over for understanding. And it would help to have someone to discuss it with. (This idea has taken rent in my brain for years... I refused to skim past it, and thus became obsessed with understanding it.) For sure give this book a shot, but it's not light. Every intelligent person should read it before they die.
  5. Mere Christianity: An excellent, lucid, defense of his faith. I don't read it that often because it is sort of basic, but it's the ideal book for any non-Christian intellectual to find deep answers for what Christianity is really about.
  6. The Screwtape Letters: Fiction. Lewis's most widely-sold book... or at least it was. He wrote about being surprised by how much it sold and how it almost instantly earned the status of being a classic, because he didn't think it was his best. Mere Christianity has probably out-sold Screwtape in the long run, though. It's a collection of letters from a senior devil instructing a junior devil how to tempt his patient. Very insightful look at how temptation can be seen in so many subtle things. A good book, however, I prefer the more intellectual works.
  7. A Grief Observed: This book comes in first if you are going though a time of grief or pain. It's excerpts from an older Lewis's diary after his wife died of cancer. They were only married a couple years, and he was very much in love even though he was in his 50s. It's a struggle of emotions against intellect where he refers to his faith (especially the things he said in The Problem of Pain) as a house of cards that just collapsed.

David Bergan 17:04, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

My edit fixed the numbering. No, Clive didn't do formal logic, but that doesn't mean his arguments are illogical. I find his reasoning to be completely legit. I would even go so far as to say that there isn't a single opinion he shares in his books that I don't hold myself. My father read the Narnia books to me as a child, but I should go through them again now that the movies are coming out. How much CS have you read? David Bergan 17:56, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Irreducible Complexity

Tznkai, could you take a look at the talk section of the IC page? Duncharris is reverting edits like he owns the place, and I don't think he has logical grounds for doing so. [3] Thanks. David Bergan 18:34, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Can it wait 12 hours? Of course. In my opinion, real life always trumps wikipedia. David Bergan 18:44, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

True story. I got engaged on July 15... looking to have the wedding on Dec 31 or sometime in January. I'll link some pictures of us from my user page. David Bergan 19:21, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Theistic Evolution

Thanks for the note, Tznkai. I'm glad to see you're sticking around and would enjoy tag teaming on some non-controversial articles. ID-related articles have a twisted attraction to me... I'm like a moth attracted to the dazzle of a fire. I flicker around, dive in and out, and often get singed in the process. But I can't help it.

As for thesitic evolution... When it comes right down to it, I'm not quite sure what my answer is to a question of "How did all these diverse species come about?" ID (if successful) tells us that there was a designer(s), but it cannot tell us who or how. I am a Christian, but (like St. Jerome and CS Lewis) I think the creation story that starts Genesis is written in a poetic manner, not a scientific one. I do believe in a creator, but there are many way He could have done it. Here are my opinions on each.

6-Day creation. My fiancee holds this position, and I can see its appeal: God doesn't waste any time getting to the humans. Surely a God that can pull off creation in 6 days is a powerful and wonderful God... and if He could do it in 6 days, why would He choose to take billions of years? However, physicists triangulate stars to be more than 10 billion light years away. Meaning that the universe must at least be 10 billion years old. So long as the physicists are accurate (and I see no reason to doubt their calculations), believing in a 6-Day creation also means believing in a deceiving or trickster God. That's not for me. So even though I agree with Melita, that God could create it all in six days (I believe in His omnipotence), it just doesn't seem like He did.

Theistic evolution. Many of my friends take this position, and I can also see its appeal. God wound up all the universe at the beginning such that it would play itself out into human beings after several billions of years. Using Kenneth Miller's analogy, sure it's a great pool player that knocks a ball in with every shot, but it's an even greater player who can knock them all in with one shot. A great and brilliant God, in this vein, would set it up such that in the initial creation act (the Big Bang) it would all be taken care of. He never needs to intervene. He never needs to "cheat", so to speak, and break natural laws. He's like a genius chess player who can solve all the problems with one move, and doesn't need to *poof* any new pieces onto the board.

However, here again, I don't see the scientific evidence. The "theistic" in theistic evolution is meaningless in terms of the science, since it limits God's action to only the beginning. (Some theistic evolutionists also believe that God created the first cell, but either way they accept the evolutionary process as being wholly unaided by God.) So when it comes to things like the human eye and the bacterial flagellum, a theistic evolutionist is no different from an atheistic evolutionist. They both think that it came out of a series of mutations with no outside help. But as it stands, I am currently convinced that irreducible complexity nullifies natural selection... leaving IC components only able to be formed by pure randomness. (You can see my reasoning on the IC talk page, section "Justification".)

So I guess I would have to be considered an old-Earth creationist. The evidence (to me) points to a God who basically put together a miracle for the creation of each "type"* of living organism. The fossil record points to this. (If you think about it, the fossil record for old-earth creationism would look identical to the fossil record for puncuated equilibrium.) Irreducible complexity points to this. But old-Earth creationism really has no imaginative appeal. In comparison to 6-Day, the Old-Earth God is a lazy bum dinking around for millions of years between creating each species... taking His sweet time before making humans, the "crown of His creation." And in comparison to theistic evolution, the old-Earth God is a cheater. He wasn't smart enough to pull it off in one move, so He has to meddle all the time. The only thing one can say about the old-Earth God is that He is mysterious. But I don't pick my beliefs based on how they appeal to my imagination.

And to make things more complicated, the evidence for universal descent seems pretty convincing. (And I think Behe says he believes in universal descent, too.) Thus, we now have species-creating miracles that somehow come out of other existing species. Eagles hatching out of chicken eggs. David Bergan 06:03, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

*I had previously said "species", but I know that some species have been observed to evolve out of others... many species have lots of things in common and going from one to the next doesn't involve leaps over IC components. But at some point in the tree of life (especially at the kingdom/phylum level, and usually at the class/family level) these leaps have to be made. Vertebraes from invertebreas. Four-chambered hearts from three-chambered hearts. Multiple-celled organisms from single-celled organisms. Warm-blooded from cold-blooded. Sexual reproduction from asexual reproduction. Hollow bones from solid bones. I don't think that natural selection is wrong, but I do think it has a limit. And these sorts of leaps are on the other side of that limit. David Bergan 15:53, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

God interacts with us in such a subtle and amazing way its impossible to know if it is God or Random Chance. This is exactly how my friend Ethan says it, one of the friends I mentioned above as believing theistic evolution. Ethan hesitates to say that God performs miracles, but loves to wax eloquently on God's providence and how he comes to belief through faith. To him, nature doesn't show us any deductive arguments that God exists, but it gives us lots of hints. He's a grad student in organic chemistry and feels that there is so much going on with DNA and the cell that it leads him to believe that God planned it from the beginning (ie. the Big Bang).

My belief in God comes through reason instead of faith and feelings. And I'm not talking about ID here. If the theory of evolution were a fact - the fossil record showed us all the transitions, all of biology turned out to be reducible, etc. - I would still believe in God. My belief in God is fully on philosophical grounds... which you can see at User:Dbergan/ImagoDei. It's a page I wrote out for a weekly worldview discussion group I attend. In fact, I'll toss up the major work I wrote for that group, too. User:Dbergan/SummaBergania Those will probably answer most of your questions about my beliefs... and you'll notice that ID/evolution is absent from my creed. It's interesting to me, but not something that would affect my core beliefs.

And no, I don't have a bunny sticker. Yet. David Bergan 18:26, 8 August 2005 (UTC)