From: ingles@bluejay.engin.umich.edu (Ray Ingles)
Subject: Re: The "God Does Not Exist" Proof
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 92 23:24:34 EDT
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor
Distribution: world,local


In article <1992Apr13.174611.1@ulkyvx.louisville.edu>, pralmo01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu writes:
> >> >>Without perfect foreknowledge of uncreated universes (something I do not accept
> >> >>as a necessary characteristic of God)  it is impossible to tell what 
> >> >>will happen in an
> >> >>autonomous environment due to non-linearities in certain features of 
> >> >>reality (not even considering free beings).  This is a clear result
> >> >>of modern dynamics.  The mechanical universe of Leibniz is dead, killed by
> >> >>a non-linear oscillator.  It is therefore somewhat rediculous to me to 
> >> >>hear people argue that God must have had the means to stop certain 
> >> >>individual evil things from occuring, simply be refusing to create 
> >> >>those universes.  God may be able to run simulations of the universe,
> >> >>but he can't tell which simulations will correspond to which actual universe.
> >> > 
> >> > Why should God's omniscience be limited to the physically possible?
> >> > 
> >> 
> >> I am not talking about 'physical impossibilites' I mean (here and
> >> everywhere) impossible for God=logically impossible.  Modern dynamics
> >> says that many systems (perhaps most) have later states which cannot
> >> *in principal* be predicted exatcly from earlier states, even for God.
> > 
> >  This is not true. I've noticed that you seemed not to know a
> > lot about QM in other threads, now it seems that you do not
> > understand nonlinear dynamics ("Chaos") well either.
> >  What ND says is, for certain classes of systems, the future
> > output of the system is sensitive to the initial conditions.
> > A very small change in the initial conditions will lead to a
> > vast change in the final output.
> > 
> > Ray Ingles                  || The above opinions are probably
> >                             || not those of the University of
> > ingles@caen.engin.umich.edu || Michigan. Yet.
> 
> 
> If God wants the universe to be autonomous, then he must allow qm
> probabilities to act indpendent of his wishes.  Thus, all dynamical systems
> have uncertainties in initial conditions not smaller than those required 
> to satisfy the Heisenberg relations.  Nonlinear dynamics predicts that 
> most such systems will have later states which are unpredictable due to such 
> uncertainties.    

 What you say is true about quantum uncertainty, but I was
unaware that you thought that QM probabilities were truly
random and not controlled by God. I had gathered that you
thought otherwise, since in another thread you seemed to be
proposing that, since the universe couldn't run its own
physical laws, it must be God running them.

> The world is not purely classical.

 No kidding. :-> I thought the world you were proposing was,
since you only mentioned 'non-linearities,' and not 'non-
linearities + QM uncertainty.'

> Joe Deasy

Sincerely,

Ray Ingles                  || The above opinions are probably
                            || not those of the University of
ingles@caen.engin.umich.edu || Michigan. Yet.

 BTW, what, if anything, is the difference between random
decisions and free willm, notably God's free will?
Newsgroups: alt.atheism