"natural theology > notes > 2015

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Dawkins, Richard, The Selfish Gene , Oxford UP 1976 Amazon: Editorial review: 'Inheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson, and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enormous change in the way we see ourselves and the world with the publication of The Selfish Gene. Suppose, instead of thinking about organisms using genes to reproduce themselves, as we had since Mendel's work was rediscovered, we turn it around and imagine that "our" genes build and maintain us in order to make more genes. That simple reversal seems to answer many puzzlers which had stumped scientists for years, and we haven't thought of evolution in the same way since.' Rob Lightner
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Dawkins, Richard, Climbing Mount Improbable, W. W. Norton & Company 1997 Amazon editorial review: 'How do species evolve? Richard Dawkins, one of the world's most eminent zoologists, likens the process to scaling a huge, Himalaya-size peak, the Mount Improbable of his title. An alpinist does not leap from sea level to the summit; neither does a species utterly change forms overnight, but instead follows a course of "slow, cumulative, one-step-at-a-time, non-random survival of random variants" -- a course that Charles Darwin, Dawkins's great hero, called natural selection. Illustrating his arguments with case studies from the natural world, such as the evolution of the eye and the lung, and the coevolution of certain kinds of figs and wasps, Dawkins provides a vigorous, entertaining defense of key Darwinian ideas.'
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Dawkins, Richard, The God Delusion, Houghton Mifflin 2006 Amazon Editorial Review From Publishers Weekly 'The antireligion wars started by Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris will heat up even more with this salvo from celebrated Oxford biologist Dawkins. For a scientist who criticizes religion for its intolerance, Dawkins has written a surprisingly intolerant book, full of scorn for religion and those who believe. But Dawkins, who gave us the selfish gene, anticipates this criticism. He says it's the scientist and humanist in him that makes him hostile to religions—fundamentalist Christianity and Islam come in for the most opprobrium—that close people's minds to scientific truth, oppress women and abuse children psychologically with the notion of eternal damnation. While Dawkins can be witty, even confirmed atheists who agree with his advocacy of science and vigorous rationalism may have trouble stomaching some of the rhetoric: the biblical Yahweh is "psychotic," Aquinas's proofs of God's existence are "fatuous" and religion generally is "nonsense." The most effective chapters are those in which Dawkins calms down, for instance, drawing on evolution to disprove the ideas behind intelligent design. In other chapters, he attempts to construct a scientific scaffolding for atheism, such as using evolution again to rebut the notion that without God there can be no morality. He insists that religion is a divisive and oppressive force, but he is less convincing in arguing that the world would be better and more peaceful without it.' Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Feynman, Richard, QED: The Strange Story of Light and Matter, Princeton UP 1988 Jacket: 'Quantum electrodynamics - or QED for short - is the 'strange theory' that explains how light and electrons interact. Thanks to Richard Feynmann and his colleagues, it is also one of the rare parts of physics that is known for sure, a theory that has stood the test of time. . . . In this beautifully lucid set of lectures he provides a definitive introduction to QED.'
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Gatlin, Lila L, Information Theory and the Living System, Columbia University Press 1972 Chapter 1: 'Life may be defined operationally as an information processing system -- a structural hierarchy of functioning units -- that has acquired through evolution the ability to store and process the information necessary for its own accurate reproduction. The key word in the definition is information. This definition, like all definitions of life, is relative to the environment. My reference system is the natural environment we find on this planet. However, I do not think that life has ever been defined even operationally in terms of information. This entire book constitutes a first step towar dsuch a definition.'
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Gould, Stephen Jay, Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life, Ballantine 1999 'Just as science has its limitations, so has religion.If life's evolutionary history cannot resolve the riddle of life's meaning, so the religious belief concerning the creation of the world in six days, taken literally, cannot dictate or interfered with the factual conclusions in the empirical realm of cosmology. Science and religion, then, embody two logically distinct magisteria, each having its own style of enquiry, its own set of standards and norms, and its own test of legitimacy. Neither of them encompasses all enquiry. Into this framework comes Gould's core declaration: science and religion occupy two equally important but uttelry different Non-Overlapping Magisteria, or NOMA.' S Nomanul Haq, Nature, 400: 830-31, 26 August 1999back

Hawking, Steven W, and G F R Ellis, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time , Cambridge UP 1975 Preface: Einstein's General Theory of Relativity . . . leads to two remarkable predictions about the universe: first that the final fate of massive stars is to collapse behind an event horizon to form a 'black hole' which will contain a singularity; and secondly that there is a singularity in our past which constitutes, in some sense, a beginning to our universe. Our discussion is principally aimed at developing these two results.'
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Lonergan, Bernard J F, Insight : A Study of Human Understanding (Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan : Volume 3), University of Toronto Press 1992 '. . . Bernard Lonergan's masterwork. Its aim is nothing less than insight into insight itself, an understanding of understanding'
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Pais, Abraham, 'Subtle is the Lord...': The Science and Life of Albert Einstein, Oxford UP 1982 Jacket: In this . . . major work Abraham Pais, himself an eminent physicist who worked alongside Einstein in the post-war years, traces the development of Einstein's entire ouvre. . . . Running through the book is a completely non-scientific biography . . . including many letters which appear in English for the first time, as well as other information not published before.'
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Popper, Karl Raimund, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, Routledge and Kegan Paul 1972 Preface: 'The way in which knowledge progresses, and expecially our scientific knowledge, is by unjustified (and unjustifiable) anticipations, by guesses, by tentative solutions to our problems, by conjectures. These conjectures are controlled by criticism; that is, by attempted refutations, which include severely critical tests.' [p viii]
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Weyl, Hermann, and translated by H P Robertson, The Theory of Groups and Quantum Mechanics, Dover 1950 Jacket: 'This book is devoted to the consistent and systematic application of group theory to quantum mechanics. Beginning with a detailed introduction to the classical theory of groups, Dr Weyl continues with an account of the fundamental results of quantum physics. There follows a rigorous investigation of the relations holding between the mathematical and physical theories.'
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Links

Active intellect - Wikipedia, Active intellect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The active intellect (also translated as agent intellect, active intelligence, active reason, or productive intellect) is a concept in classical and medieval philosophy. The term refers to the formal (morphe) aspect of the intellect (nous), in accordance with the theory of hylomorphism. The nature of the active intellect was the subject of intense discussion in medieval philosophy, as various Muslim, Jewish and Christian thinkers sought to reconcile their commitment to Aristotle's account of the body and soul to their own theological commitments. At stake in particular was in what way Aristotle's account of an incorporeal soul might contribute to understanding of the nature of eternal life.' back

Adam Davidson, The V.C.s of B.C., ' In general, we know few details about economic life before roughly 1000 A.D. But during one 30-year period — between 1890 and 1860 B.C. — for one community in the town of Kanesh, we know a great deal. Through a series of incredibly unlikely events, archaeologists have uncovered the comprehensive written archive of a few hundred traders who left their hometown Assur, in what is now Iraq, to set up importing businesses in Kanesh, which sat roughly at the center of present-day Turkey and functioned as the hub of a massive global trading system that stretched from Central Asia to Europe. Kanesh’s traders sent letters back and forth with their business partners, carefully written on clay tablets and stored at home in special vaults. Tens of thousands of these records remain. One economist recently told me that he would love to have as much candid information about businesses today as we have about the dealings — and in particular, about the trading practices — of this 4,000-year-old community.' back

Andrew Dickson, Jon Ronson: How the response to Operation Fortitude shows the power of social media, 'The author of a book about public shaming on social media says today's response to Border Force's plans to check people's visas on the streets of Melbourne shows how Twitter and other platforms can also be used to positive ends. Jon Ronson's book So You've Been Publicly Shamed is about how social media can become an instrument of control and how public shaming on forums like Twitter can have a devastating effect on people's lives.' back

Anselm of Canterbury - Wikipedia, Anselm of Canterbury - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033 – 21 April 1109) was a Benedictine monk, an Italian medieval philosopher, theologian, and church official who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. Called the founder of scholasticism, he is famous in the West as the originator of the ontological argument for the existence of God. In 1720, Anselm was recognized as a Doctor of the Church by Pope Clement XI. back

Australian Government, Royal Commission into Institutional Resonses to Child Sexual Abuse, 'NOW THEREFORE We do, by these Our Letters Patent issued in Our name by Our Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia on the advice of the Federal Executive Council and under the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia, the Royal Commissions Act 1902 and every other enabling power, appoint you to be a Commission of inquiry, and require and authorise you, to inquire into institutional responses to allegations and incidents of child sexual abuse and related matters, and in particular, without limiting the scope of your inquiry, the following matters: . . . ' back

Continuous function - Wikipedia, Continuous function - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'IIn mathematics, a continuous function is a function for which, intuitively, "small" changes in the input result in "small" changes in the output. Otherwise, a function is said to be a "discontinuous function". A continuous function with a continuous inverse function is called "bicontinuous".' back

Divine grace - Wikipedia, Divine grace - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Broadly, divine grace refers to God's gifts to all humankind, including life, creation, and salvation. More narrowly but more commonly, grace describes the means by which humans are granted salvation (and to some, saved from original sin). Grace is of central importance in the theology of Christianity, as well as one of the most contentious issues in Christian sectarianism.' back

Fall of Man - Wikipedia, Fall of Man - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In Christian doctrine, the fall of man, or simply the fall, was the transition of the first humans from a state of innocent obedience to God to a state of guilty disobedience to God. Though not named in the Bible, the concept for the Fall comes from Genesis chapter 3. Adam and Eve live at first with God in a paradise, but the serpent tempts them into eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which God forbade. After doing so they become ashamed of their nakedness and God consequently expelled them from paradise. Many Christian denominations believe that the fall corrupted the entire natural world, including human nature, causing people to be born into original sin, a state from which they cannot attain eternal life without the gracious intervention of God.' back

Fast Fourier transform - Wikipedia, Fast Fourier transform - Wikipedia, 'A fast Fourier transform (FFT) is an efficient algorithm to compute the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) and its inverse. There are many distinct FFT algorithms involving a wide range of mathematics, from simple complex-number arithmetic to group theory and number theory; this article gives an overview of the available techniques and some of their general properties, while the specific algorithms are described in subsidiary articles linked below.' back

Feynman diagram - Wikipedia, Feynman diagram - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In quantum field theory a Feynman diagram is an intuitive graphical representation of a contribution to the transition amplitude or correlation function of a quantum mechanical or statistical field theory' back

Fiction - Wikipedia, Fiction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Fiction describes people, places, events, and/or complete narrative works derived from imagination, in addition to, or rather than, from history or fact.' back

Gauge theory - Wikipedia, Gauge theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In physics, gauge theory is a quantum field theory where the Lagrangian is invariant under certain transformations. The transformations (called local gauge transformations) form a Lie group which is referred to as the symmetry group or the gauge group of the theory. For each group parameter there is a corresponding vector field called gauge field which helps to make the Lagrangian gauge invariant. The quanta of the gauge field are called gauge bosons. If the symmetry group is non-commutative, the gauge theory is referred to as non-abelian or Yang-Mills theory.' back

Metanoia - Wikipedia, Metanoia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Metanoia (from the Greek μετάνοια, metanoia, changing one's mind) in the context of theological discussion, where it is used often, is usually interpreted to mean repentance. However, some people[citation needed] argue that the word should be interpreted more literally to denote changing one's mind, in the sense of embracing thoughts beyond its present limitations or thought patterns (an interpretation which is compatible with the denotative meaning of repentance but replaces its negative connotation with a positive one, focusing on the superior state being approached rather than the inferior prior state being departed from).' back

Michael Jeffrey, Australia cannot remain secure in a food and water insecure world, 'History has shown on many occasions that when food supplies fail, governments fall and people fight. The opposite is also true: a well-fed world is a more peaceful world. Most of the instability today is in those regions where soils and water are scarce and food supplies unreliable: well-fed places such as North America, Europe and Australasia are far more peaceable. Hunger is one of the underlying triggers for division and conflict.' back

Michael Salter, Why does it take victims of child sexual abuse so long to speak up, 'The paradox is that, in order to detect sexual abuse, we depend on abused children to speak out, but they are often in environments in which they can’t rely on support or understanding. In this impossible situation, non-disclosure is a way that victims of abuse protect themselves from further betrayal and harm. Extricating themselves from unsupportive environments and finding opportunities to speak about their abuse is a complex and fragile process that can take many years. It seems that the pertinent question in “historical” abuse allegations is not: Why didn’t victims say something at the time? Rather, it should be: Why do abuse victims have to wait so long to speak and be heard?' back

Michael Salter, Jimmy Savole, Gary Glitter and the paedophine rings, 'Some of Savile’s associates have linked his behaviour to the “hedonistic culture” of the 1960s and 1970s, where teenage girls supposedly “threw” themselves at famous men. These men, in turn, “never asked for anybody’s birth certificate”. This suggests that sexual abuse is a situation in which adult men are sexually targeted by minors rather than the other way around. These inversions of responsibility are common among sex offenders. However, they circulate in the wider community as well, and victims of sex offences are often held responsible for their own victimisation.' back

Passive intellect - Wikipedia, Passive intellect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Aristotle gives his most substantial account of the passive intellect (nous pathetikos) in De Anima (On the Soul), Book III, chapter 4. In Aristotle's philosophy of mind, the passive intellect "is what it is by becoming all things."[1] By this Aristotle means that the passive intellect can potentially become anything by receiving that thing's intelligible form. The active intellect (nous poietikos) is then required to illuminate the passive intellect to make the potential knowledge into knowledge in act, in the same way that light makes potential colors into actual colors. The analysis of this distinction is very brief, which has led to dispute as to what it means.' back

Paul Krugman, A Moveable Glut, 'But these aren’t just a series of unrelated accidents. Instead, what we’re seeing is what happens when too much money is chasing too few investment opportunities. . . . What’s causing this global glut? Probably a mix of factors. Population growth is slowing worldwide, and for all the hype about the latest technology, it doesn’t seem to be creating either surging productivity or a lot of demand for business investment. The ideology of austerity, which has led to unprecedented weakness in government spending, has added to the problem. And low inflation around the world, which means low interest rates even when economies are booming, has reduced the room to cut rates when economies slump' back

Proslogion - Wikipedia, Proslogion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Proslogion, (also spelled Proslogium; English translation of title - Discourse on the Existence of God), written in 1077-1078, was an attempt by the medieval cleric Anselm to outline the attributes of God and understand how God can have all of his qualities which often seem contradictory.' back

Rachel Browne, 'Some popes gave out the wrong message' retired bishop tells sex abuse inquiry, 'A retired Catholic bishop told a royal commission that the Vatican failed to show leadership on the issue of sexual abuse and Cardinal George Pell had "destroyed" a unified Australian response to victims. Geoffrey Robinson, former auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Sydney, gave a scathing assessment of the Catholic Church's response to victims of sexual abuse committed by clergy, in his evidence at a royal commission. . . . "The messages the popes have been giving out have been very important and I think that some popes gave out the wrong message ... and some archbishops too," he said.' back

Rolf Landauer, Information is a Physical Entity, 'Abstract: This paper, associated with a broader conference talk on the fundamental physical limits of information handling, emphasizes the aspects still least appreciated. Information is not an abstract entity but exists only through a physical representation, thus tying it to all the restrictions and possibilities of our real physical universe. The mathematician's vision of an unlimited sequence of totally reliable operations is unlikely to be implementable in this real universe. Speculative remarks about the possible impact of that, on the ultimate nature of the laws of physics are included.' back

Ruben Andersson, The European Union's migrant 'emergency' is entirely of its own making, 'The emergency is not inevitable: we could treat asylum and labour mobility as questions of justice or opportunity, as some European states did in the postwar era. The choice is political. We can keep militarising the borders or bank on mobility. We can opt for ferries, visas and aeroplane tickets instead of sinking rubber boats, squalid detention centres and makeshift camps. Yet we first need to recognise that powerful interests are stacked against such a move. Indeed, confronting these interests must be at the top of the agenda to have a chance of ending Europe’s self-perpetuating migration emergency.' back

Salvation History - Wikipedia, Salvation History - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Salvation History (German Heilsgeschichte) seeks to understand the personal redemptive activity of God within human history to effect his eternal saving intentions.
Originally conceived in the Christian theological tradition, the Salvation History approach views all events in human history (specifically those recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Deuterocanonical books and the New Testament) as providentially oriented toward the realization of God's plan for the salvation of his chosen people. back

Science - Wikipedia, Science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. In an older and closely related meaning, "science" also refers to a body of knowledge itself, of the type that can be rationally explained and reliably applied. A practitioner of science is known as a scientist..' back

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas: The medieval theological classic online : 'Because the doctor of Catholic truth ought not only to teach the proficient, but also to instruct beginners (according to the Apostle: As unto little ones in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not meat -- 1 Cor. 3:1-2), we purpose in this book to treat of whatever belongs to the Christian religion, in such a way as may tend to the instruction of beginners. We have considered that students in this doctrine have not seldom been hampered by what they have found written by other authors, partly on account of the multiplication of useless questions, articles, and arguments, partly also because those things that are needful for them to know are not taught according to the order of the subject matter, but according as the plan of the book might require, or the occasion of the argument offer, partly, too, because frequent repetition brought weariness and confusion to the minds of readers.' back

Unmoved mover - Wikipedia, Unmoved mover - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The unmoved mover (ού κινούμενον κινεῖ oú kinoúmenon kineῖ) is a philosophical concept described by Aristotle as a primary cause or "mover" of all the motion in the universe. As is implicit in the name, the "unmoved mover" is not moved by any prior action. In Book 12 (Greek "Λ") of his Metaphysics, Aristotle describes the unmoved mover as being perfectly beautiful, indivisible, and contemplating only the perfect contemplation: itself contemplating. He equates this concept also with the Active Intellect. This Aristotelian concept had its roots in cosmological speculations of the earliest Greek "Pre-Socratic" philosophers and became highly influential and widely drawn upon in medieval philosophy and theology. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, elaborated on the Unmoved Mover in the quinque viae.' back

vol VII: Notes

2015

Notes

Sunday 23 August 2015

Monday 24 August 2015

Tuesday 25 August 2015

Wednesday 26 August 2015

Thursday 27 August 2015

Friday 28 August 2015

Saturday 29 August 2015

Further reading

Books

Links