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I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I had a discussion
recently with a gentleman who was interested in my father's work but had some
concerns that the scientific ideas might interfere with his own personal
religious beliefs (he told me he was very religious and had no interest in
any science that tried to prove there is no God). I told him that, while my
father was not a religious man and recoiled from orthadoxies of any kind, his
work actually leaves plenty of room for the "existence of God". Specifically,
it's the fact that "epistemology tells us nothing about ontology in complex
systems"; one of the key differences my father pinpointed between simple systems
and complex systems. In other words, knowing how the universe works does not
tell us about creation of the universe. Knowing how living organisms do what
they do does not answer the origin of life question. That doesn't mean there IS
a God... but it doesn't mean there isn't. It simply doesn't address that
aspect.
Tim's mention of what my father called "immanent
causation", which was discussed only briefly in Essays on Life,
Itself, and a few other places, begins to address the ontology question.
But that was one of the areas my father began to feel it might be prudent not to
write about in any detail.
Judith
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