First Blog

  Nature and Thomas A. Edison We consider a quote from Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931) and a natural consequential commentary. “Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, [and] love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the religions.”   Thomas A. Edison Do you agree? Myself? I have opinions but on this one, I am unsure. But consider… It may have taken a countless number of big bangs to create a Universe capable of life. It is said our particular universe has embedded within it just the right array of constants, unexplainable by any theory, that makes life as we know it possible. This is commonly called the “fine-tuned universe.” And this is aligned with the Universe of philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632

  Abraham Lincoln, if truth be known, was not a religious man, but he did understand prayer. Partly, he viewed prayer as deep introspection, without the external pressures of life, seeking wisdom and calmness to carry on. In managing a deadly war, Lincoln needed internal guideposts to carry on. Many personalize this through a Divine spirit, and this helps with understanding, gives reverence, and connects to others. It helps cut through the impossible to possibility. Anyway, even the most devout atheist needs prayer, if only to give reverence to life, to elevate life above a chemical jungle of automatic process. Prayer has great merit and should be practiced by all.

You hear an explanation of something almost everyday.   What do you do?   First of all, you consider it mostly on the surface of the brain.   Some new input, as it were. Then comes the decision.   You can Understand what was explained Believe what was explained Accept what was explained. These three key words, understand, believe, and accept comprise a gross summary. But they typify three principles by which the brain or mind holds explanations. There are variations, exceptions, and exclusions. Just one is important now, and that is you may take the explanation as an example of several others in your mind, none of which have any of the attributes.   It sort of sits there awaiting further processing. Before getting to the picayune details, note that understand, believe, and accept are mostly exclusive, meaning one does not imply the other.   For example, you may accept global warming into the future, but neither understand nor believe it.   Similarly, you ma

June 24, 2016 The Constant Conundrum of Science - and Lately for Us A ll Most scientists envision the world where their theories are taught to all children at the appropriate time in their education.   They believe in standardized instruction of their theories.   To most, this is the ultimate affirmation of truth; such theories are carried to the next generation increasing their likelihood of survival in the test of time..  At any rate, this seems to be current thinking among practitioners and researchers in many subjects – that their accepted theory has reached something of an ultimate maturity – that future changes will not be revolutionary but at most mildly evolutionary – that we are within only a few discoveries of the final truth. Remarkably, it is an artifact of our modern era for scientists to believe that we have the final and ultimate theory.   We are there, they believe, with just a few more details to fill in. Indeed, the entire 18 th and 19 th cent

On politics. Invoke science and you gain advantage.  It does not matter if the argument is valid, much less true. Mostly, the arguments are so complex that few can question the findings. For some interest groups, everything, that is every single thing in life, is political.  Family, industry, and religion issues, all are political. Let me note the very far left believes exactly this.  For them, all is politics. They say, "We must have faith in our leaders."  This is the mantra of the unthinking servant to the master. This gives the masters license to the excesses of power. The truth is maligned and distorted to the lessons of the masters, toward their control and containment of all thought. On God. Can there be a unified theory of religion and science?  This has been debated forever.  What is stunning is that no substantive progress has been made. Let me fill in a few details. The god debate never ends.  It probably never will.  Partly, this is becaus

My dad used to say if you want a serious problem to solve, find one that no one has yet solved. Knowing now that the best minds work on the hardest problems, these unsolved or open problems must be difficult. In this short piece, we talk about time, its elusive meaning, and its close cousin of order. The God Problem.  Is there or isn't there?  Those that believe do believe on faith, an inner sense of knowing.  Those that don't mostly believe it is only a matter of time and the endeavors of science to solve there is no God.  But suppose such a solution is offered?  The universe is this way or that...  But who made the universe is the next level.  But suppose the universe is this way or that?  Then how were the laws created?  And when this is resolved, how did the laws come into place?  In short, what ever is resolved, the next question is "Why's that? Who did that?"  The God Problem is one of infinite regression for the scientist, but solvable by act of faith alone

I love evolution theory ; I love creationism .  These are active and competing theories of human and life's existence, one based on contemporary scientific methodology and the other based on traditional, though religious beliefs.   Both involve a level supplemented by plausibility arguments. Both try to tell us where we are on a chronological scale and within a broad scheme of events.  The first tells us where we came from, how long it took, what were the steps, and ultimately how we got here.  It doesn't explain how it happened, but does assume it did happen.    The current evolution theory is consistent, contiguous, though evolving and incomplete.     Science should explain the how - but hasn't done so yet.  Science conjectures, theorizes, i.e. guesses on at the marvelous processes.  The problems are difficult.   In contrast, the creationist (i.e. religious) viewpoint explains the origins, with the "how" being a Devine intervention.  With the how "establi