(February 16, 2016 at 9:14 am)Mathilda Wrote:(February 16, 2016 at 1:32 am)Harris Wrote: In short, all science is founded on the assumption that the physical universe is ordered and rational.
No it doesn't. 'Ordered' and 'rational' are concepts laden with connotations of intention and intelligence. Saying that the universe is rational is nonsensical. Only something with intelligence can be rational or irrational. The universe is not intelligent.
Science describes what happens based on observation and can use these descriptions to infer what will happen next. That is all.
The universe wasn't ordered moments after the big bang, it was just radiation.
What you find with non-equilibrium thermodynamics is that ordered islands of complexity can develop within a sea of chaos. Yet entropy continues to increase as a result of this.
First, I am not saying that universe is intelligent. I am saying universe is intelligible. This intelligibility is possible because thanks to certain physical laws all natural events have regular pattern and they are repetitive in nature. This order thus enables our intellect to make predictions of future events by means of rudimentary calculations. Our common conceptual scheme makes our predictions possible even for seemingly random events but within a larger-scale framework in which that randomness is embedded. The randomness and apparent indeterminism of chaotic behaviour are merely artefacts of our epistemic limitations.
“And We created not the heaven and the earth and all that is between them without purpose! That is the consideration of those who disbelieve!”
Shaad (38)
-Verse 27-
Secondly, if “Ordered and rational are concepts laden with connotations of intention and intelligence” then this statement does not override the ordered principles on which our consciousness operate. The reality which produces perceptual experiences in us, and the structure of which science aspires to formulate and control, must somehow be composed of consciousness.
Although the framework of consciousness is not known but I think it would be completely illogical to think that consciousness is not governed by any laws which are responsible to control discipline and order for its interaction with the physical processes both within its own body and in nature at large.
