natural theology > notes > 14 january 2007

Notes

[Notebook: DB 60 Spotlights]

[Sunday 14 January 2007 - Saturday 20 January 2007]

[page 77]

Sunday 14 January 2007

'An intelligence service, particularly a counterespionage service, depends on its memory and sense of history; without them it is lost.' Wright page 235

Page 236: 'The ancient dilemma of all counterespionage services; in order to investigate, you have to risk approaching and interviewing people, and thus the risks of leakage or publicity increase exponentially the more intense the inquiries you make.'

Hawking and Ellis: 'First there is the question of local laws satisfied by the various physical fields. They are usually expressed in the form of differential equations. Secondly there is the problem of the boundary conditions for these equations and the global nature of their solutions. This involves thinking about the edge of space-time in some sense. Hawking and Ellis, page 1

[page 78]

The 'edge' of god is the boundary between consistency and inconsistency.

Zygon abstract:

The classical model of God perfected by Aquinas bears a number of similarities to the initial singularity predicted by relativistic cosmology. In particular, from a logical point of view, it embraces all possibilities, ie in the medieval exposition of an Aristotelian term, God is pure act. Aquinas derives all the classical properties of god from this axiom.

Following this analogy, we can understand the big bang by analogy to the doctrine of the Trinity. Here, by modelling god as a transfinite network, we show that there is no apparent inconsistency between the classical notion of god and the Universe as we know it.

Aquinas proves the existence of god using arguments analogous to Aristotle proof for the existence of an unmoved mover. In each of Aquinas' five proofs, some aspect of the Universe is shown to be unexplainable by the Universe and therefore attributed to God. A similar argument was used by Lonergan in Insight. Lonergan's error is ignorance of quantum mechanics which leads him to postulate an unexplainable empirical residue in the Universe as a consequence of the assumption of continuity.

[page 79]

Cohen showed that Cantor's continuum hypothesis was independent of set theory, thus bringing to fruition Hilbert's feeling that logical continuity and permutational infinity are the true bases for explanation of reality,

Poorly expressed, but tart-up-able.

Monday 15 January 2007

Tuesday 16 January 2007

Wednesday 17 January 2007

Thursday 18 January 2007

Friday 19 January 2007

Saturday 20 January 2007

Related sites

Concordat Watch

Revealing Vatican attempts to propagate its religion by international treaty

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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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Pears, Iain, An Instance of the Fingerpost, Random House 1997 Jacket: 'Anyone who reads this will want to tell their friends about it ... This novel combines the simple pleasures of Agatha Christie with the intellectual subtlety of Umberto Eco ... don't let it pass by unread.' Sunday Times
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Wright, Peter, and Paul Greengrass, Spycatcher, Dell 1988 Amazon customer review: The Real MI5, June 14, 2002 'I'd been dying to read this book since I first heard Rosselson's song Ballad of a Spycatcher (basically the plot and best lines of Peter Wright's book). The book more than lived up to expectations. Although the style is sometimes dry and methodical, for the most part Wright takes the reader from the early "flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants" stages of his work in counterintelligence as his branch of MI5 takes on a Soviet spy network 15 times its size, through the middle years when brilliant inventions and tactics are leaked to the Russians by an unknown, high-level source, through his heartbreaking autumn years when proving or disproving suspicions means long interrogations that can ruin the reputations of good men or let traitors slip away. Wright is a great guide through the arcane world of real MI5 work, and he has a splendidly British sense of humor that breaks the tension when needed. This book totally changed the way I thought of the British Secret Service.' A reader
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