From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: How do Jews reconcile science and philosophy with their faith?
Date: 26 Jan 93 20:30:21 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: ph600fcy@sdcc14.ucsd.edu (Matthew Harrington)

In article <44049@sdcc12.ucsd.edu>, ph600fcy@sdcc14 (Matthew Harrington) writes:
>For example, evolution and the big-bang theory run contrary to the
>account given in the Bible.

So?  Judaism--not even Orthodoxy--isn't a Biblical literal religion.
Anyway, the Bible does not run contrary to modern science, as this
repost of an old article of mine proves beyond the shadow of a doubt.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: The Origin of Cosmic Voids in the Breakdown of the Bicarbonate Mind

In article <5544@skye.ed.ac.uk>, jeff@aiai (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>In article <1991Nov03.222633.11234snow@netcom.COM> snow@netcom.COM (Tim Szeliga) writes:
>>Back in the mid-seventies, I started reading a book called 
>>"The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of The Bicameral Mind"
>>by Julian Jaynes.   [...]

>There are a number of interesting things in the book.  One is the idea
>of the bicameral mind.  I think it works as SF, even if it's not
>actually true.  I don't know enough to say whether it counts as a
>respectable theory or not.  [...]

The forthcoming sequel, Jaynes and Wheeler _The Origin of Cosmic Voids
in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_, should prove even more contro-
versial.  Their thesis is simple, but the conclusions are astonishing.

They start with a simple quantum cosmology.  Like classical cosmology,
it starts off with a prediction of a rather uniform distribution of
galaxies, in conflict with the observed inhomogeniety.  But the
quantum approach has a different theoretical homogeniety: the proba-
bility of observing a galaxy at any point is the same across the
universe, as opposed to the more literal homogeniety of the galaxies
themselves that classical cosmology has to wrestle with.  (Note for
the semi-informed: yes, everyone uses quantum magic to explain the
Big Bang itself, but after 1e-xx seconds everybody except J&W treats
the further evolution of the universe as more or less classical.)  And
when bicameral minds across the cosmos breakdown (called by them the
Little Bang) consciousness--which is the neplusultraque sinequanonque
of radical quantum observation theory--collapses the local aspects of
the cosmological wave function.  It is at that point we are allowed to
speak of actual galaxies.

The early bird species are presumed rather primitive, and hence don't
notice that much beyond their own galaxy, and end up creating a spheri-
cal void around them.  (The "duh" factor: "Where is everybody? Duhhh.")
The fact that we now see a consistent classical universe is interpreted
by Wheeler as the ultimate EPR experiment.  And of course, the inhomo-
genieties are a brilliant postdiction of their theory.

Yet this is just the start of their book.  According to one rumor,
Jaynes secretly converted to Judaism (Orthodox) two years ago, and
is now claiming Talmudic arguments about the ending of the prophetic
era and the very laws of nature changing when the First Temple was
destroyed are actually references to the original Biblical creation.
As well as can I understand it, the "chaos and void" of Genesis are
to be viewed as evidence for the quantum tohu v'bohu, and c6000 years
ago Adam's bicameral mind broke down, retroactively creating the ob-
served gigayears of past history.  I think Jaynes is off the wall
here--for the timing of the first exile is much closer to the other
bicameral breakdowns he discussed in the first book.  If anybody else
who has seen the proofs and has figured this out and is reading this,
let me know.

Wheeler, for his part, now refers to the Hashem, not the Allah, that
lives between quantum jumps.  And he quotes approvingly from Ramban
and Sforno, who point out that the divine spirit hovering over the
darkness comes before the creation of light.  That is, they say, this
darkness is not the absence of light, but a concrete object in its
own right, ie, what Wheeler identifies (for rhetorical purposes only)
with the infamous "dark matter".

Their resolution of the Fermi paradox--most aliens are non-observant
schizophrenic goyim--is probably the weakest part.  As they say, "duhhh".
(Note that "they" here could be the rhetorical aliens I quoted supra.)
And the studies that J&W cite that show that TV/CRT watching leads to
rebicameralization, epilepsy, and compulsive behavior are only parti-
ally convincing.  (For example, their bicam model of a network flamer
ignores all studies that show analogues with LA freeway shooters.)  I
hope they have time in their final revisions to include some of the
various implications of the recently discovered ELVIS amino acid se-
quence (see Kaper & Mobley, SCIENCE, v253, p951-2, and v254, p357-8).
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)    If Apple owned
 NBC, they would sue Nike for comedy-interface copyright violation.