Starts with: Intro to what the lecture will be about, Intelligent design and non-intelligent debate, what should be attitude of jews, especially scientists, to whether should teach intelligent design or evo etc inpublic schools, in yeshivas, what should our attitude be towards efficacy of prayer etc. VaEschanana, God answers MR, that is the prupose, not wish fulfillment etc. Ahmadinejad H-denier, my note on internet why antisemites are h-deniers.
There are extremists on both sides, atheism and fundemnatalism.
This part is useful for big bang material, general science/torah, and a little less dry: Science and religion, two basic assumptions, two methods, therefore two diff conclusions, no surprise they differ, but this is not a contradiction. Can believe God created all according to natural law, but does miracles etc, and science describes correctly how the universe would operate (and would emerge) IF there was no God or if God did not intervene etc. little about breishis/bb ?
Then various things and then I return to bible/evo etc….
If God is NOT acting, all happens according to naturalistic explanation, but if God does exist and interfere then…..
Noson says its ½ hours already. So I get back to Itelligent design
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[Then a comment by Noson, cant hear since he’s on the phone to me, maybe that I was getting a lot into big bang rather than general issues? Then various things and then I return to bible/evo etc….]
If God is NOT acting, all happens according to naturalistic explanation, but if God does exist and interfere then…..
..
I feel it’s an open question, religious people don’t have to have an agenda
The intelligence in the int design would not be the chumash’s God., and certainly not lead to a literal rendition of Genesis, 6 days , resting etc, so never get to Breishis via Int design.
……..
a few minutes later: “I do believe there will be a convergence…..to explain I’ll talk about issues involving Mind, and free will.
Noson says ‘push it more’ and I’m asking what he means. I think he says to stay on topic of intelligent design since that seems to be the topic, and I say yes, but they also talk of intelligent debate,b butI say I’ll maybe stress it more in the beginning.
Half-way point of tape side 1
Why I believe that sci and religion will converge
…science and consiousness, qp…..this inter is not popular among physicists, but the reason it is not popular is that humans are not believed to be special….I believe consciousness IS fundamental to the universe, mind-body problem…some…I think frankly are not conscious..further issue regarding free will. Responsibility for actions.. Noson asks something:…
True FW and the primacy of Mind: When sci and phil’s look into the issue of fw they generally look into why it is that we fele that we are free, why would humans evolve with brains that think ‘we are free and are morally repsonsible’, not that they ostuklate that we really ARE free, that we are morally responsible, and from the perspective of the….of the univierse…have to be independent of the intial conditions created by that divine being…..acausal non-random…chain of events, very diff than anything else in the universe, and I believe that as religious people, not only orthJews, I bleive that…..an acausal type of interaction. Given that FW is the type to act according…therefore good reason to believe fw…collapses wave function…(if science eventually encompasses all that,) the kind of description that science will come up with will be far more spiritual than at present.
Why there are law of nature….will be related to the fact of the existence of consciousness, free will, and therefore the issue of the design of the un, cosmology, as a result….consciousness…
However……
….so we shouldn’t have the agenda to promote ID, it will just discredit it…
I mention to noson having quotes form Einstein, Whitehead, Darwin….
….. emergence of fw being, garden of eden story….Wheeler….
Similarly one can look at another aspect of the diff bet relig and sci, biblical criticism, question of the flood: if mind is primary, then what happens in the mind is primary, and the moral choices in the mind are primary, then if God present to prophet,….the choices made are of the greates significance. Rambam re Avraham angels and Bilaam are vision . I would say maybe the flood account and the creation account are descriptions of prophecy, not that they didn’t happen, it happended on the most meaningful plane “just because it didn’t happen doesn’t mean it isn’t true” Aryeh Kaplan, hapenings in God’s mind….
..free willed moral decision, which as I said before, catalyzed the mergencee of the universe
Some other issues …significance…humans are insig bec are tiny specs in the galaxy…sig exists as a concept only bec there are minds which have this concept….FW’ed moral activity, bec they are smaller etc
The physics of Brain & Mind: In GR a star is simple bec is s.s., easier than dynamics than swirling gasses of a pice of star, like weather….the most interesting phen would expected to be in most complex interactions, ie in human brain.
Penrose: imagine if these types of interactions are associated also to Mind: QP: nonlocality, acausality; GR: wormholes, time-strangeness,…
[I mention but don’t discuss the ant fugue] a few more minutes about brain, mind.
So to sum up I think that there will be convergence…science (after knowing how to describe Mind) will come up with theories that sound like design, but I don’t think we should push this question, it’s a scientific quesiotn and should be left to science.