mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (01/28/84)
About Larry's thesis of "compact divine intervention", if you have a
non-reproducible process, then you can use it to explain almost
anything. Indeed, by Occam's Razor (which is what the Spanish
Barber uses) alone, divine intervention is the simplest expalnation
for any process.
John Hobson
=============
No. Divine intervention is not the "simplest" explanation of any
process, but it is the simplest to invoke. It needs no mind.
Occam's razor includes not only the rules that describe a process,
but also the boundary conditions that must be specified in order
to achieve the state being described. Divine creation (in one way
of looking at it) involves very simple rules. God does it at whim.
But the boundary conditions then have to include the Laplacian
description of the position and motion of EVERYTHING at the moment
of creation, each thing individually. That's a lot more complex
than starting with a homogeneous ylem at the time of the big bang
and defining some laws of process that get from then to now. Of
course we don't know what all those laws are, and their details
will inevitably be vastly complex as successive symmetries break
down at lower and lower energy levels.
Anyway, it seems that Occam's razor shaves quite well, but it cuts
the throats of creationists.
--
Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt