Graceware

 A growing an ongoing sense of wonder for me is how the universe contains both order and apparent chaos.

( esp in biological systems where nature can seem to be quite cruel); my work area.







One can, just by accepting grace as a given, go a long way in life . We are called to be like children . 

While I hate to make all the basis for wonder and humility sound too simple to my cynical friends . life as we know it is in one way at least, simple. If our forefathers didn't believe in the unity and good order of the Universe ( Genesis 1) we might never be here having travelled a long way in one direction. - eg through the forces , the periodic table, and now beyond.   

 Should we ever eliminate possibilities, causes and structures  ?  We  can't resolve IMO  where the boundaries are between  particles, forces  and radiation - we just use approximate terms because the physical relations are mostly predictable .
Einstein seems to say Mass and Energy are certain and are interrelated
I won't say any more lest I expose how little I know 

 Maybe a better way of describing what we now do know about the earth , our own universe and the universe that is running away from us , is that it  its amazingly complex , wonderful and highly structured  BUT we may not know very much still . For our understanding it has ,at least ,a 3D structure  but why not 4 or 5 dimensions or something still quite invisible to us? ,

The full truth about structural things is simply not known or fully told , maybe even because as some recents have realized , humans want to ignore reality and put themselves at the centre of it . ( I would  agree with Mal there ) 

 The expanding universe doesn't yet seem to impact on our basically steady state approach to life on earth,but maybe one day it will ?.Who knows ?   Who cares?
 Should  we not all continue to use the solid things to build into knowledge of the not so solid - like waves . And for all the armchair speculators - get a degree before you disagree?  

Hoyle's  reasonable assertion from the physical facts in the early 1900's that " there is not sufficient time for natural selection to produce the life that we see on earth , is similar to the actual process of finding the truth  about the expanding universe . Some predicted it from the maths ,  but proof only came when Hubble had a telescope  strong enough to observe it ( 1929)

I agree with the idea  that we shouldn't limit the truth because what we do know is still limited and some analogy or framework  that some smart arse invented , and most took as gospel, may come back to bite us .- a full stop when there is none . 

Similarly , if we had allowed for the fact that life was planted on earth  we would not have allowed adaption by natural selection to give everyone an excuse to ignore their Creator and talk all sorts of rubbish about how everything " naturally progresses".  IT may make many feel better but it gives a unsustainable and  unworkable  lead to our children because there are some destructive consequences for poor choices and they can find productive positivity in choosing better than their genes and feelings may seem to dictate.

 If we listen to our minds and our own logic , let alone those of us we meet ,we can be expected to be confused .We are after all, only children . 
The thing I like about growing older is that any honor glory and power we seek to attach to ourselves diminishes as the God who came at Bethlehem by his humility, gentle kindness, widom and love  inclines us to seek to honor and glorify the majesty of God. 

 

This of course is a very big question because like all humans ever , it can seem to be that way --- and we don't like it.
. God does not appear in our everyday ( at least in ways we think we would like him to----that's an essay in itself , the genie, the doting mother, the frowning or condemning father, the person who locks all the doors or would  .you add some below )   

THEN those of us who do CARE want an analogy to help us get ourselves and others motivated to CARE MORE................
We may not all  believe in Evil ......but perhaps we should ? 

Nature modelling

 A new perspective is needed , but it needs to be more powerful than the confused messages from nature , the most powerful of which is actually dog eat dog and survival of the fittest .Nature can be very cruel -- something we as humans reject as evil for ourselves. 

Nature modelling /worship, has in the last century alone, justified the greatest of evil . previous to that it kept people in the dark and we know it frm studying who used the idea and how it worked ut in their lives   

That's not logic teaching us , that's experience teaching us .  Are we good learners or desperate and easily deceived  ones ? Evil again ? 

GK Chesterton , provides a closer analogy for consideration  .ie  Nature is our Sister.She is not as some say ..... our Mother . 

Dostoyevsky said that if there is no God,  then everything is permitted and his  testimony circumscribes history and all the history of good will and our attempts to make it  work in the West.   http://graceware.blogspot.com  

We can't rid the world of man's evil , but we can fight it down deep where it originates.

 In some ways  we are agreed that dealing with evil is the issue .

And you  the reader , are not alone mate .  Famous believers like JOb and Tevye ( fiddler on roof ) and we could go on --are tempted to blame God 

 God must be a brilliant mathematician; that's as well and a physicist and a chemist (see previous posts on water and the three amigos ( C N and O) 
There is no going back on that because in the last few decades alone , the universe has revealed its absolutely incredible reliance on the correct and most beautiful numbers. ie the ones that make it work .The constants that since the big bang propelled the pieces to create the parts that eventually came to produce us - the creatures that could appreciate the inherent art in it all . Have you ever read Carlyle? 
I'm a practical scientist so I do appreciate the mechanical ( and I love to make things out of wood and steel), but as I have got older and more into this amazing place and its hidden spaces, the more I have wondered on how much better the universe works than how human's work and how much we doll up our meagre mechanistic creations ( but that another matter  for another time ) 

The Creator is very very good at numbers and insists on using the right numbers to get things done. WE know about precision but God knows more  about it and the additional reality of wriggle room ; the reality of resilience - how much plasticity and variation is still there in ALL the numbers  remember the uncertainty principle 
The universe maybe mostly  mechanism ,but not totally so . 
Everyone who ever builds or makes anything knows that if you don't get the right numbers, even the most basic of machines , recipes or whatever .will not work - Infact, nothing in all creation will ever work ,if the numbers aren't right ; even if you left your ingredients  sitting around on a planet for billions of years . 

So what's with this idea of the determinist's that the machine just grows things because of selection of random mutations. god is in the mutations ? Whatever this faith is it is not a very concrete thought for the day and all them self determined days before us . 
No, sorry BUT that business of natural selection is only one mechanism that explains how variation occurs in living systems: how life adapts to changing homes ;how resilience is built into creation.  it doesn't explain the big picture of creation  . 

Evolution and adaption doesn't explain everything , only some things .
If we were really honest and big picture questioning  we would see that the discovery of the reality  of some evolution in nature came along at just the right time to be adapted to a philosophy - to bolster up the stale old but now re growing faith in pure progress in 19 Cent - which was steaming along because of the genuine growth of science and the  positive products of the industrial revelations .
But the wrong process stuffed into an organ is  still is a sore in the living thing and needs to be cast out.
Faith in progress is still a huge  sore today. Despite the catastrophic an inhumane  failure of atheistic revolutions around the world over the last century , thesis and antithesis still produce grinding tyranny as a result of people adopting faith in "The Synthesis" a predictable consequence often of  someone's narrow and mere self centered arguments.(eg  his greed, my need).    

SURE it a choice . You can believe selection of mutations is a good God substitute but you are saying random mutations are everything ; you are believing we have no control over anything.  

God is the one who not only knows how to make numbers work ; he knows exactly how many of each , and more importantly the rate and other equations between the various molecules numbers and particles ( if "particles " is ultimately what we are dealing with when we talk numbers )  .
You can presume, as some do, that there is no God,  but that makes any answer to "who started it" ' who do I thank "or blame " so distant and deterministic that any tweaking , adaption and co-adjustment since the  start at infinity if known ,unreasonable and not worth chasing.  
Yes you can just wonder , and wonder with all the cynics till the cows come home , why nothing ever changes ever and ever since.  Strangely evolutionary determinism has determined that any new numbers are dim lights to  one simple stupid process whose first name is now used where it doesn't necessarily fit. 

Myths and legends based on trying to find the right  numbers

1. The numbers of bulls killed by the Emperors when planning the future ( Emperor Julian )

2.  The overly simple promotion of the mechanics of democracy.
A good democracy is much more than numbers but many dumb post moderns refuse to go further than trust the wisdom and glory that comes from numbers over 51% ( maybe related to simpleminded faith in progress ) 
 Many post moderns make the mistake of thinking  democracy works when you have a majority (eg Timor &Thailand ) . After all, if there no God there has to be a formula --an simple evolved synthesis  so they think that's it 51% is thought by the determinists to have magic powers. ( and they want us to believe they aren't religious) 
 The new religion of automatic  progress means magically good stuff  comes out of the oven complete ; out of history of thesis and antithesis ,. This is despite eall the atrocious blind determinism of these twentieth century experiments' with it show --- Hegel Marx and all the rest ( incl the recent )were wrong -it does not work  Even Robespierre and Napoleon changed their minds about what works. They tried killing people to get the right numbers. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0tafP8HOok 
3.  Add one of you own  

Majorities and clunky mechanisms  that  don't work  One big trouble with the above idea ( worship of a simple technology or a mechanism or named process )  is that the majority can be wrong and the sheep ( or lemmings if you prefer ) can all still go astray . The strong don't always win over the weak ,especially if the weak can see or smell what pong is drawing  the strong .
The numbers of believers or wise people don't matter in a census/ vote - the power of language makes humans have unique potential to solve even the most complex of threats . The odd thing is that the result of informed voting does not depend ,  not on mere facts ( that's a disaster ) but who is wise enough to know which facts to watch.   
A mutation won't always come before an environmental threat kills the animal or plant concerned, so YOU can be behind the response times if you insist ,in your decision to use a very simple theory of how things work . 
 
Democracies that work  Effective democracies work when the leadership trust  that all people are made in the image of God and can make God like decisions  ( pretty amazing mechanism eh !) ,  Its not that leaders always do this but they can . Forget the strong , the aristocracy, the rich , the wise in their own eyes . 
Its informed attitude in action,( language )  not numbers in action that make it work and therefore look for the change of heart in the people ( god in  people ) that makes them insist on good leadership . 

Examples from History 
Abraham that father of many nations, was just a sheep man. yet he won wars for many and gave away the spoils .  
Gideon was told he had too many men to win the battle. God told him the right numbers----much smaller than he thought he needed.   
Jesus had nobody to defend him in court but the world found his case convincing. 

Now to something current 
( you can suggest changes as this needs editing and is for discussion  ) 

Death threats from 

1 Disease 1 
COVID   It is testing for what ? Snowballs in a blizzard ? Presence or absence of what?.
As the causal links from tests up to deaths are questionable , political confidence is even more questionable .
We are called to follow our leader, but please answer our questions ( big problem 18mths since the start) or your credibility over the connections can fail.  

 2  Too much carbon dioxide.  

I won't go into why the Creator let CO2 go sky high for a while ( Carboniferous ages) and then later left us lots of  wriggle room so we could enjoy thrust heat and power.  and plants could grow ( with stomata)  and we go to sleep on a minuscule amount of it present.   
You can worry that its going up ,but I wouldn't and most physicists, plant physiologists  and sound geological earth scientists don't either. 

Please ask questions as this last bit is incomplete but reflects my response  as a scientist with many serious questions on the credibility of public cause agents  in the above areas.  You have a good day .  

   

We know our engine is running ,we don't know what for , but we know we don't want its work to go just anywhere. . The big question for many of us who did our key university studies 50 years ago (in biology, chemisty and physics) is "what have scientists learned in those 5 decades. about how it all works "-;; Following Darwin ,we learnt then that all characteristics were fixed in DNA sequences and selected via phenotype ; random genotype changes in DNA being the only key to any changes up the line .. What if we were too focused on one directional activity. when most of the internal workings are circular? It seems that researchers have learnt that phenotype is not just influenced by the random genotype machine; that there are some changes and communal orientations within cells and with RNA in particular that influence how sequences ( and perhaps other cell components?)actually effect cell function.

This scientific reality can be expected to drive a wedge between those OUTSIDE the simple mechanistic study who see on the one hand "Evolution as the answer to everything " and those who want to insist "God is not dead and still does some creating ". Why not see both evolution and intervention as joint ( partial even) rather than singularly effective forces - esp as that tension maintains the general expectation that what we live with is extremely complex and improbable" . I mean, aren't the very surprising discoveries in physics in the same period only adding to the sense of deliberate creative authorship and using a range of forces - not just one? Prominent biologist Asar Gray wasn't phased by the reality of both evolution and intervention occurring together at the time of Darwin . Why can't we ? New authors like R Kojonen , A Wagner " Arrival of the fittest "and M Denton will hopefully challenge the church to stop resisting evolution simply because it seems to threaten fixed ideas of the Creators influence.

Labels: Australia's summer 2019