a destructive dilemma for Steven Hawking

This in response to his claim that our universe is the result of a fluctuation in a quantum field, and that this dispenses with the need for a Creator.

Question: can this field also go out of existence? [did SH say quantum field or quantum law?]

(A) If no, then quantum field is a necessary being. In that case, I will argue, the quantum field will exist always and everywhere, that is, in every possible universe.

Let me demonstrate (or try to demonstrate) that point by indirect argument. Suppose the quantum field simply must exist but it exists in some universes and not in others. If I ask Hawking can give no answer. For as the points out, the field is prior to matter. So there is no difference in the "environment" inhabited as it were by diverse quantum fields. To put it in scholastic language, there is no matter to individuate this (quasi-) form called the quantum field. So it is either everywhere (that is, in every possible universe) or individuated.

Next premise in my argument is that IF the quantum field is a necessary being AND (just established-->) it doesn't vary from universe to universe, then neither do the laws of nature. This argument assumes that these laws are a function of quantum field.

In that case, there will not be a multiplicity of universes with diverse laws of nature. It will follow that there is no "lottery" that would make it likely that some universes are not life friendly while many are not. One will not be able to argue that our universe is life-friendly simply because we won the lottery. Instead it will seem that the multi-verse is as finely tuned as our universe.

(B) 2nd horn: If yes (that is, our universe's quantum field is capable of going out of existence), then wouldn't the same be true for all universes? And given an infinite amount of time, wouldn't all quantum fields go out of existence? In such a case, wouldn't it be impossible for any matter to come into existence? And if the multi-verse is eternal, wouldn't it be extremely highly probable that every universe has already gone out of existence. In that case, nothing would exist right now.

But since things DO exist right now, it is evident that (B) the second horn of this dilemma cannot be true.

But that leads to the following destructive dilemma If (H) Hawking is correct, then (AvB) A or B is true; but (~A*~B) both A and B are false; therefore (~H) Hawking is incorrect.

P F Strawson's Freedom and Resentment: the argument laid out

Here is a summary and comments on the essay Freedom and Resentment by PF Strawson. He makes some great points, and when he is wrong, it is in such a way as to clarify things a great deal. My non-deterministic position is much better thanks to having read this. I’ll summarize it in this post and respond in a later one. In a nutshell: PFS first argues that personal resentment that we may feel toward another for having failed to show goodwill toward us would have no problem coexisting with the conviction that determinism is true. Moral disapprobation, as an analog to resentment, is likewise capable of coexisting with deterministic convictions. In fact, it would seem nearly impossible for a normally-constituted person (i.e., a non-sociopath) to leave behind the web of moral convictions, even if that person is a determinist. In this way, by arguing that moral and determinist convictions can coexist in the same person, PFS undermines the libertarian argument ...

Dembski's "specified compexity" semiotics and teleology (both ad intra and ad extra)

Integral to Dembski's idea of specified complexity (SC) is the notion that something extrinsic to evolution is the source of the specification in how it develops. He compares SC to the message sent by space aliens in the movie "Contact." In that movie, earthbound scientists determine that radio waves originating in from somewhere in our galaxy are actually a signal being sent by space aliens. The scientists determine that these waves are a signal is the fact that they indicate prime numbers in a way that a random occurrence would not. What is interesting to me is the fact that Dembski relies upon an analogy with a sign rather than a machine. Like a machine, signs are produced by an intelligent being for the sake of something beyond themselves. Machines, if you will, have a meaning. Signs, if you will, produce knowledge. But the meaning/knowledge is in both cases something other than the machine/sign itself. Both signs and machines are purposeful or teleological...

If the universe is eternal and determinism is true, then...

...in that case it would be possible in principle to retrodict the past ad infinitum. The present would either contain an infinite amount of information or the universe would be cyclical, albeit (methinks) in a manner analogous to the plot of the Lorenz attractor.

The Human Question

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