Is the natural world knowable through the use of human
reason? This is a foundational question. Many questions come to mind
immediately. Do things exist simply because the force of the physical world “wills”
it in the sense that there is no reason for existence? What is the difference
between a universe without god and one with a god who is only will, e.g., the god of many Muslims? In both
cases there is only one response: submission. But, if not knowable by reason, how
is it that we humans find so much regularity in the world?
Reason is the imprint of the regularity of reality on our
brains, as perceived through our senses and interpreted by our brain’s software.
In other words, we appear to be pre-wired to recognize regularity, and “logic” is what we call the regularity of
the natural world that we perceive.
But this can seem to work only at the level of our physical perception, which is to say on earth at “normal” sizes and speeds, but when we discovered the quantum level of reality we discovered that it is not logical in the sense that our perceptual world is; however, there is a strong reason to believe that quantum behavior is actually regular because mathematics (logic) makes extremely accurate predictions of subatomic behavior. Thus, we have found regularity at our level and even at the subatomic level, so back to our original question: Does the regularity of the natural world tell us something about our creator?
The natural world appears to have begun in a very regular
way, yet is becoming more irregular with every passing moment (entropy). Not
only that, but our universe has regularities of a very special kind—they
produce technologically capable sentient beings. I believe a current guess is
that it takes 26 constants accurate to many decimal places to describe the universe
as simply and completely as possible. The point is not how many constants are
needed; the point is that a specific kind of regularity is required for us to
be here, to be able to wonder about the beauty of the regularity we find.
Given these regularities, and assuming that there is a
creator god of some description, you would be betting against long odds to
proclaim that god is not in some sense constrained by god’s nature, which is
regular. This is true, even at the quantum level where we only can have
statistical knowledge because the result of this quantum uncertainty is
regularity. This is even true in many “chaotic” systems, where large-scale
regularity arises out of the apparent chaos. So divine will alone does not
describe God’s creation; divine reason is also needed.
Blog No. 89, Is the natural world knowable?
Is the natural world knowable through the use of human reason? This is a foundational question. Many questions come to mind immediately. Do things exist simply because the force of the physical world “wills” it in the sense that there is no reason for existence? What is the difference between a universe without god and one with a god who is only will, e.g., the god of many Muslims? In both cases there is only one response: submission. But, if not knowable by reason, how is it that we humans find so much regularity in the world?
Reason is the imprint of the regularity of reality on our brains, as perceived through our senses and interpreted by our brain’s software. In other words, we appear to be pre-wired to recognize regularity, and “logic” is what we call the regularity of the natural world that we perceive.
But this can seem to work only at the level of our physical perception, which is to say on earth at “normal” sizes and speeds, but when we discovered the quantum level of reality we discovered that it is not logical in the sense that our perceptual world is; however, there is a strong reason to believe that quantum behavior is actually regular because mathematics (logic) makes extremely accurate predictions of subatomic behavior. Thus, we have found regularity at our level and even at the subatomic level, so back to our original question: Does the regularity of the natural world tell us something about our creator?
The natural world appears to have begun in a very regular way, yet is becoming more irregular with every passing moment (entropy). Not only that, but our universe has regularities of a very special kind—they produce technologically capable sentient beings. I believe a current guess is that it takes 26 constants accurate to many decimal places to describe the universe as simply and completely as possible. The point is not how many constants are needed; the point is that a specific kind of regularity is required for us to be here, to be able to wonder about the beauty of the regularity we find.
Given these regularities, and assuming that there is a creator god of some description, you would be betting against long odds to proclaim that god is not in some sense constrained by god’s nature, which is regular. This is true, even at the quantum level where we only can have statistical knowledge because the result of this quantum uncertainty is regularity. This is even true in many “chaotic” systems, where large-scale regularity arises out of the apparent chaos. So divine will alone does not describe God’s creation; divine reason is also needed.