The Laws of Nature Predestined Beings that Know and Create

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Confront reality
Oct 25, 2016
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If you believe in the Big Bang then you must believe that the Laws of Nature predestined that beings that know and create would eventually arise.
 
It is Mind that has composed a physical universe.

I am starting with George Wald because he is an authority on biological evolution. He is a Nobel Laureate in Physiology / Medicine and he is an expert in his field. He is also an atheist. So he is an impartial witness:

"When it comes to the origin of life, we have only two possibilities as to how life arose. One is spontaneous generation arising to evolution; the other is a supernatural creative act of God. There is no third possibility...Spontaneous generation was scientifically disproved one hundred years ago by Louis Pasteur, Spellanzani, Reddy and others. That leads us scientifically to only one possible conclusion -- that life arose as a supernatural creative act of God...I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation arising to evolution." - Scientific American, August, 1954.

Many people mistakenly think that evolution is limited to biological evolution. To those people I say... it isn't. In fact, biological evolution is barely a blip when it comes to the evolution of Creation.

Many Christians oppose having this discussion. To those people I say... the Bible tells us that God the Father reveals Himself through His Creation. So that man will be without excuse.

It is preference for an outcome that prevents reality from being seen. Growth filled communities examine all side of an issue to arrive at objective truth.

George Wald's conclusion that "it is Mind that has composed a physical universe" can be proven by studying the evolution of Creation. Along the way, we will compare this evidence with what the Bible has to say about it. But first, let's try to understand why George Wald came to his conclusion that "it is mind that has composed a physical universe." Here is what George Wald wrote in 1984:

“In my life as scientist I have come upon two major problems which, though rooted in science, though they would occur in this form only to a scientist, project beyond science, and are I think ultimately insoluble as science. That is hardly to be wondered at, since one involves consciousness and the other, cosmology.

The consciousness problem was hardly avoidable by one who has spent most of his life studying mechanisms of vision. We have learned a lot, we hope to learn much more; but none of it touches or even points, however tentatively, in the direction of what it means to see. Our observations in human eyes and nervous systems and in those of frogs are basically much alike. I know that I see; but does a frog see? It reacts to light; so do cameras, garage doors, any number of photoelectric devices. But does it see? Is it aware that it is reacting? There is nothing I can do as a scientist to answer that question, no way that I can identify either the presence or absence of consciousness. I believe consciousness to be a permanent condition that involves all sensation and perception. Consciousness seems to me to be wholly impervious to science.

The second problem involves the special properties of our universe. Life seems increasingly to be part of the order of nature. We have good reason to believe that we find ourselves in a universe permeated with life, in which life arises inevitably, given enough time, wherever the conditions exist that make it possible. Yet were any one of a number of the physical properties of our universe otherwise - some of them basic, others seemingly trivial, almost accidental - that life, which seems now to be so prevalent, would become impossible, here or anywhere. It takes no great imagination to conceive of other possible universes, each stable and workable in itself, yet lifeless. How is it that, with so many other apparent options, we are in a universe that possesses just that peculiar nexus of properties that breeds life?

It has occurred to me lately - I must confess with some shock at first to my scientific sensibilities - that both questions might be brought into some degree of congruence. This is with the assumption that Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality - that the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create.”

George Wald, 1984, “Life and Mind in the Universe”, International Journal of Quantum Chemistry: Quantum Biology Symposium 11, 1984: 1-15.

So before we begin our examination of how Creation evolved, first we must discuss the limitations of science.

Science proves the existence of laws, theories, principles, et al or it disproves the existence of laws, theories, principles, et al. Science is never conclusive because laws, theories, principles, et al are always subject to revision if new data comes along - up to and including refuting the laws, theories, principles, et al.

Some people have said that science can't disprove the existence of something. I say to those people, if science can't really disprove the existence of something, then science can't really prove the existence of something either.

So, we are left with having to accept that practically speaking, science does prove and disprove the existence of laws, theories, principles, et al

or

That everything is taken on faith as nothing can really be proven.

So for the purposes of this discussion, we will assume the former; that practically speaking science does prove and disprove the existence of laws, theories, principles, et al.

Throughout history the concept of authority has been accepted in every society. For instance, John the Baptist, who was recognized as a great prophet in his day - as evidenced by Herod's treatment of John - served as the authority for establishing Jesus as the Messiah. The reason I am mentioning this is that both atheists and Christians should accept the concept of authority and the importance of it as well.

Professor George Wald rightly identifies that we live in a universe where the laws are such that the evolution or creation of intelligent life with a mind like ours seems to be the order of nature, and that the laws are so finely tuned that even minor changes would produce different results. Mind you science still does not know how life made the leap from non-living matter to life, Wald is saying that after the leap was made, given our conditions and physical laws, intelligent life with a mind like ours was destined to evolve.

Like every good story we should start at the beginning. Unfortunately for us science can not help us much for the very beginning of Creation. Leon Lederman, American experimental physicist and Nobel Laureate, states it thusly:

"In the very beginning, there was a void, a curious form of vacuum, a nothingness containing no space, no time, no matter, no light, no sound. Yet the laws of in and this curious vacuum held potential. A story logically begins at the beginning, but this story is about the universe and unfortunately there are no data for the very beginnings--none, zero. We don't know anything about the universe until it reaches the mature age of a billion of a trillionth of a second. That is, some very short time after creation in the big bang. When you read or hear anything about the birth of the universe, someone is making it up--we are in the realm of philosophy. Only God knows what happened at the very beginning."

According to Professor Lederman, who is also the Director Emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the laws of nature were already in place before the very beginning of Creation. While it may be contested that the laws of nature existed before the very beginning, it is uncontested that the laws of nature were in place within a billionth of a trillionth of a second. Therefore, for all practical intents and purposes, the laws of nature have been in place since the very beginning of time and have not changed since then.

Another point that Professor Lederman - who is also the founder and Resident Scholar at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy - makes is that before the very beginning "this curious vacuum held potential." We shall see the role potential plays throughout the evolution of Creation.

For those who wish to know more about Professor Lederman, I am attaching a link to his wiki page. Professor Lederman's credentials are quite impressive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_M._Lederman

In November of 1919, at the age of 40, Albert Einstein became an overnight celebrity, thanks to a solar eclipse. Eddington’s experiment had confirmed that light rays from distant stars were deflected by the gravity of the sun in just the amount he had predicted in his theory of gravity, general relativity. Since then, general relativity has been reaffirmed in a myriad of other ways.

General relativity was applied to the structure and evolution of the universe as a whole. The leading cosmological theory, called the Big Bang theory, was formulated in 1922 by the Russian mathematician and meteorologist Alexander Friedmann. Friedmann began with Einstein's equations of general relativity and found a solution to those equations in which the universe began in a state of extremely high density and temperature (the so-called Big Bang) and then expanded in time, thinning out and cooling as it did so.

That the universe had a beginning is widely accepted within the scientific community. The Big Bang theory has been independently validated by Hubble and Slipher - who discovered that spiral galaxies were moving away from earth - and the discovery and confirmation of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964.

It is widely accepted within the scientific community that the very early universe conditions should have generated matter and antimatter in equal amounts. The inability of matter and antimatter to survive each other should have led to a universe with only a bit of each left as the universe expanded. Yet today's universe holds far more matter than antimatter. For reasons no one yet understands, nature ruled out antimatter.

The cosmic evolutionary phase of Creation - the development of space, time, matter and energy from nothing - occurred quickly. It was during this phase that hydrogen and helium were formed from sub-atomic particles.

The stellar evolutionary phase of Creation saw the development of complex stars from the chaotic first elements. The chemical evolutionary phase - the development of all chemical elements from an original two - occurred through supernovas which created and flung the heavier elements across the galaxies (i.e. stardust).

These are the three phases in the evolution of non-living matter. Each phase evolved from a less complex state to a more complex state. During each phase matter had to reach its potential before the next phase could begin as each phase built upon the previous phase. Each phase was pre-destined to occur, because the physical laws existed at the very beginning of Creation.

Which brings us back to Professor Wald. Nobody knows if life made a spontaneous leap from non-living matter to living matter. If it did, it most likely involved long chains of matter in hot and wet conditions. For all anyone knows, God turned non-living matter into living matter. Professor Wald puts it thusly:

"When it comes to the origin of life, we have only two possibilities as to how life arose. One is spontaneous generation arising to evolution; the other is a supernatural creative act of God. There is no third possibility...Spontaneous generation was scientifically disproved one hundred years ago by Louis Pasteur, Spellanzani, Reddy and others. That leads us scientifically to only one possible conclusion -- that life arose as a supernatural creative act of God...I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation arising to evolution." - Scientific American, August, 1954.

But regardless whether God provided the spark of life or whether non-living matter spontaneously made the leap to life, evidence clearly shows that the evolution of human intelligence was pre-ordained by the laws of nature the moment the first living cell entered Creation.

Professor Wald recognized that consciousness was what the universe was created for and that is why he said, “Life seems increasingly to be part of the order of nature. We have good reason to believe that we find ourselves in a universe permeated with life, in which life arises inevitably, given enough time, wherever the conditions exist that make it possible.

It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create.”
 

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