Path: ultra.sonic.net!miwok!HSNX.wco.com!news.walltech.com!samba.rahul.net!rahul.net!a2i!bug.rahul.net!rahul.net!a2i!in-news.erinet.com!ddsw1!news.mcs.net!hammer.uoregon.edu!news-xfer.netaxs.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!aristos.demon.co.uk!aristos.demon.co.uk!sam From: Sam Dodsworth Newsgroups: alt.books.cs-lewis Subject: Re: Difficulties with "Miracles" - no quantum mechanics Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 22:10:09 +0000 Organization: Annexia Free Press Distribution: world Message-ID: <36GLiDAB$GLzEwpx@aristos.demon.co.uk> References: <$+4nUCA4AiBzEwZr@aslan.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: aristos.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: aristos.demon.co.uk MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Newsreader: Turnpike Version 3.01 <7c0azr3XvpMr4dZzpifF$I+pPf> Lines: 185 Xref: ultra.sonic.net alt.books.cs-lewis:6829 Apologies for so much included text, but it's been a long time since the last post on this topic, so reminders are probably in order... In article , Andrew Rilstone writes >After a rather silly couple of weeks, I'm trying to catch up with this >discussion.... > >Hopefully I will be more coherent now I have bought a new copy of >"Miracles" and thus have the text in front of me. (My old copy is on >permenant loan to some geezer called Dodsworth. At some point, I >intended to swap the copies over, because I prefer the old yellow spined >paperbacks to the tacky new bluey green ones.) > >In article , Sam Dodsworth > writes >> >> There's certainly nothing in Lewis' definition that requires the >>Supernatural to be outside the universe, although it is, in a different >>sense, outside the system of Nature. This is a point to watch out for >>(and one I hadn't spotted), but I don't think it makes much difference >>to Lewis' actual arguments. > >I think that you have latched onto an important problem with the book >here, but I don't think that the problem is quite as you characterise >it. You are arguing "naturalism is a straw doll; almost no-one is a >naturalist in Lewis's sense". I think the real problem is "Lewis's >definition is inconsistent; his attempt at a rigorous definition does >not define the thing he thinks he is talking about." > >It seems clear that by "supernature" he means something "outside" of >nature. His opening definition is "Some people believe that nothing >exists except nature; I call these people naturalists. Other think that, >besides nature, there exists something else: I call them >Supernaturalists." He also says that a naturalist would not object to an >indwelling or emergent Cosmic Consciousness because "Such a God would >not stand outside Nature or the total system..." Now, I don't think that >(say) Hawking would be prepared to say that he thought that, in addition >to the universe, something else existed, namely, the laws of physics; >nor would Dawkins say that the principle of natural selection was a >thing that existed "other than" nature. According to this first >definition, that of "believing that nothing exists apart from the >universe", then the whole non-religious world (and some religions) are, >indeed, naturalist. > But we're left with the problem that the laws of physics seem to be "basic and original": that is, the universe is an emergent property of the laws of physics and not vice versa. This is why Hawking is keen to have a time start with the origin of the universe; if the laws came into being at the same time as Nature, then we can have a Naturalist "total system", but not otherwise. >When he tries to produce a more rigorous definition -- "what do we mean >by the universe?" and finds that neither "what we percieve" nor "what >exists in space time" are quite adequate to his argument -- I agree, he >gets into difficulties. You point to one difficulty that if >"supernature" means "that which is self-existant" and "nature" means >"that which derives from supernature" then almost no-one is a thorough >going naturalist. Another is the one he partly addresses -- that what SF >writers would now call "parellell universes" are supernatural according >to definition A (they are outside of the universe) but not according to >definition B (they are not original and underived). One could, also, >presumably, imagine a set up in which our universe derives from a Thing >which is in itself derivitive from a greater Thing: both the Great >Things would be supernatural to us (and would fit many definitions of >"gods") but would not be self-existant. > As long as there was an ultimate "basic and orignal" thing, I think this would still be Supernaturalism in Lewis' terms: the intermediate things would just be part of the interaction between the Supernatural and the Natural. >It is, however, possible to give him the benefit of the doubt by >correcting the second definition with reference to the first, and >assuming that when he talks about "a self existant thing" he also means >"which is outside the universe" since that was the definition he started >from. >While I am apologising for the apologist: I have just noticed that, in >another passage you criticised, he writes that "the One self-existant >Thing...is what we call God or the gods." Could we not charitably assume > ^^^^^^^ >that "we" is either the journalistic we, or else means "those of us >brought up in Christendom" -- as one might say "The ultimate reality is >what we call God, but what the Hindu world identifies with the universe >as a whole?" It doesn't matter what we believe - the connection does not, in fact, follow from the argument. We can retrofit the conclusion to our beliefs, but it's still an arbirary assumption that's not subject to proof. >On the straw-doll front, he remarks in the next chapter that all >naturalists are determinists. Now, this is clearly not true: many >naturalists appear to believe in free will. But it is equally clear that >(if Lewis's reasoning is correct) all naturalists *who follow their >belief to its logical conclusion* would be determinists. He pulls a >similar maneover in "Abolition of Man" -- the ideology of the school >text book *if it were followed through to its conclusion* would, indeed, >involve a disbelief in all statments of value, and to agreat extent, a >disbelief in human consciousness. I think that "reductio absurdium" of >this sort is a perfectly legitimate tool of intellectual enquiry. The >problem is that Lewis seems to come perilously close at times to saying >that the logical conclusion is consciously present in the minds of the >people who espouse the original belief, which is pretty obviously not >true. (Of course, by imagining scientific modernisers who know exactly >what the logical conclusion of their beliefs are, and positively want to >get there, he produces perhaps the most compelling set of mad-scientist >villains ever written about -- but "That Hideous Strength" is admittedly >a fairy tale.) > Except that, as I've pointed out before, we have to consider the possibility of Naturalistic systems which are not deterministic. Here is Lucretius, in the Penguin prose translation: "...if all movement is always interconnected, the new arising from the old in a determinate order - if the atoms never swerve so as to originate some new movement that will snap the bonds of fate, the everlasting sequence of cause and effect - what is the source of the free will posessed by living things throughout the earth?... besides weight and impact there must be a third cause of movement, the source of this inborn power of ours, since we see that nothing can come out of nothing. For the weight of an atom prevents its movements from being completely determined by the impact of other atoms. But the fact that the mind itself has no internal necessity to determine its every act and compell it to suffer in helpless passivity - this is due to the slight swerve of atoms at no determinate time or place." Lucretius' philosophy is Epicureanism - a Naturalist philosophy that holds that everyting is part of a total connected system - but free will, like weight or momentum, is an intrinsic property of atoms. > >> >> But we do have, for example, constants that define the relative >>strengths of different kinds of forces, and these constants appear to be >>arbitrary. A change in the constants would affect the universe, but the >>universe canot affect the constants. We also have a theory that the >>universe could spontaneously form out of fluctuations in a vacuum, but >>the vacuum and the laws that describe the fluctuations have to be pre- >>existant. > >It seems to me that Lewis would reject "supernatural" status for the >vacuum and the fluctuations for exactly the same reason that he rejected >"supernatural" status for Saturn and (er...whoever it was who mothered >the Titans) in Greek mythology, or for the cow and the Yawning Gulf in >Norse. They are "the properties" which are on the stage when the play >begins; they are not the author who stands outside it. > And the laws of physics that determine the properties of the vacuum...? They're not space- or time-bound, so we can't regard them as "properties" in the manner of the Titans. >> >> Hawking's specifically trying to show that the beginning of the >>universe was simultaneous with the beginning of time making the universe >>a closed system with no "outside" and no "before", but he requires >>certain physical laws for this to work and he's working as a >>theoretician to propose regularities the experimentalists can search >>for. That looks to me like he's treating the universe as a manifestation >>of the laws of physics and not the other way around. > >At risk of engaging in tail-chasing, what would be the difference >between the following two people: > >1: Believes that the universe is a total system. Believes that that >total system could not be different from what it is. Believes that the >nature of the total system can be summed up in simple rules. > >2: Believes in a series of simple, self-existant rules which caused the >universe. > The first is a Naturalist and the second a Supernaturalist, in the terms of Lewis definition. This is why I think that Lewis' definition of Supernaturalism is inadequate to his task. Sam Dodsworth (sam@aristos.demon.co.uk) "I think there should be more sex and violence on television, not less. Both are powerful catalysts of social change, at a time when change is desperately needed." -J.G. Ballard