Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

  Post 116.  October 4, 2021 . . . . . continued

   The Anthropic Cosmological Principle

   Cosmological Numerology

I was already convinced that the existence of the space-time universe is contingent upon some cause prior to the Original Event, typically called the Big Bang. But this book has given me food for thought to consolidate the notion of a Necessary Being. Which, for the sake of a non-anthro-mophic term, I label simply BEING²³. Most people call that self-existent power-to-exist “God”, but in order to indicate a non-conforming god-model, I it water-down to “G*D”, . As an agnostic, I have no personal experience with anything outside the physical universe. However, as an inductive²⁴ rational thinker, I can infer general conclusions that I can’t see in the specific details.

Even atheistic scientists have been baffled and fascinated by the “Cosmological Coincidences” they encounter as they scan the physical universe. Puzzling over the practical implications of a variety of otherwise meaningless “dimensionless ratios”, some of those seekers reached an intriguing interpretation. It appears that those abstract aspects of the universe’s structure imposed “conditions necessary to generate observers”. Which raised the non-scientific, but philosophical question, “why?” Was the eventual emergence of questioning creatures merely an accidental effect of random evolution? Or was the creation of homo sapiens intentional?

Besides, how could “purely numerological relations”²⁵ have any bearing on trial & error evolution? That doesn’t make any sense for a purely Mechanical system. But it does make sense if the world is, in some sense, Mental. As it happened, dogmatic Materialists simply ignored those questions as heretical. But a few, including the authors of the ACP book, began to study the indications & implications in an open-minded scholarly fashion. Since I’m mostly interested in the philosophical arguments, I won’t comment on their highly technical mathematical and physical exposition here. I’m not qualified to criticize subjects that are way beyond my limited field of expertise.

In one technical exposition though, the book calculates the odds on Miracle vs Certainty, to explain the observed fact that living & thinking beings have in fact been produced by the haphazard physical interactions of matter & energy, and the statistical pruning of Darwinian evolution. That analysis indicates that the odds against Life & Mind are close to impossible. But the fact that we are here proves that the impossible has occurred at least once – against all odds. Hence, the existence of blog browsers is more like a miracle than a certainty.

Even so, some thinkers have concluded – in view of 14 billion years of development –  that Life & Mind were somehow pre-destined, or programmed, and not instantly created from nothing. Therefore, a modern myth of Creation must take that long delay into account. Even some religiously motivated Intelligent Design proponents have abandoned the six day story, and interpreted the Bible account as metaphorical, instead of literal. My own Intelligent Evolution⁸ myth goes even further, to use the analogies & metaphors of modern science to explain the provenance of the human-dominated world of today.

                    Post 116 continued . . . . Click Next

An early blogger

23. BEING :
   In my own theorizing there is one universal principle that subsumes all others, including Consciousness : essential Existence. Among those philosophical musings, I refer to the "unit of existence" with the absolute singular term "BEING" as contrasted with the plurality of contingent "beings" and things and properties. By BEING I mean the ultimate “ground of being”, which is simply the power to exist, and the power to create beings.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

24. Inductive Reasoning :
“Inductive reasoning is the opposite of deductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning makes broad generalizations from specific observations.”
It’s the preferred method of empirical Science.

25. Numerology :
“Numerology is the pseudo-scientific belief in the divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerology
Note – I don’t take traditional mystical numerology seriously. But modern mathematical number theory reveals some amazing “coincidences” in Nature, such as Fractals

The Anthropic

Cosmological

Principle

John D. Barrow

& Frank Tipler

1996

“. . . A series of mysterious coincidences between the numerical values of the the fundamental constants of Nature. The possibility of our own existence seems to hinge precariously upon these coincidences..”

Mathematical vs Mystical Numerology25

ENFORMATIONISM

My personal worldview skirts the fringes of religion and mysticism, but tries to avoid their pitfalls. Any conclusions expressed here are intended as philosophical food for thought, not as religious dogma for faith.