[net.origins] A Rational Universe

beth@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Beth Christy) (07/02/85)

From: dan@scgvaxd.UUCP (Dan Boskovich), Message-ID: <347@scgvaxd.UUCP>:
>	                                I can't believe that a scientist
>	    who prides himself in being rational, intelligent, and
>	    objective can look at a world that behaves according to certain
>	    laws of nature and mathematics, at a race of individuals who
>	    can reason, learn, experience a myriad of emotions and argue
>	    that all of this can just as reasonably be explained by chance.

But isn't it the case that the "certain laws of nature and mathematics" that
the world behaves according to are nothing more than an attempt by humans to
understand the universe?  When you throw a ball, the universe doesn't stop
and calculate where the ball should land.  The ball just goes where it goes,
and the universe just does what it does.  And if you look at things without
the preconceived (very human) notions of physics, the universe *does* seem
pretty random.  You can set a baseball pitching machine to throw a hundred
pitches in exactly the same way, and no two balls will land in exactly the
same place.  We call it "experimental error", and it's our way of saying the
order that we've created doesn't quite cover everything.  And Heisenberg has
shown that we *can't* cover everything.

*We've* set up an "order" with the one and only purpose of describing the
universe.  So it's no surprise that universe appears ordered.  But it's
humans that have imposed the mathematical order on the universe, not a
supernatural force.

-- 

--JB                                 All we learn from history is that
                                       we learn nothing from history.