In "The Truth About the Bible Codes," Jeffrey Satinover appears to say something quite similar in a chapter describing William James's views of reason, faith, and spirituality, and the use of quantum physics as a means of metaphorically "bridging" the gap (chasm?) between the vagaries of religious faith and the (so-called) certitudes of scientific determinism.

(That is, if I understood it correctly.)

A quibble: Contrary to what Mr. Pike says, not all logical positions are consistent (see the Incompleteness Theorem)

Oddly enough, he makes the same point (in much better chosen words) that I have whenever faced with a caricature of rationalism.

He is rather silent on illogical positions, though.

Mr. Guinn;

Gödel's Incompleteness Theoreom doesn't in any way claim that there are logical systems that are inconsistent. It says that for any sufficiently complex system, there are statements that are true or false that cannot be proven true or false in the system, i.e. that the system is incomplete (hence the name).

AOG:

Which tends to support the original point, no?

No, because Godel's "systems" are all invented.

They have nothing necessarily to do with reality and tell us nothing about reality.

To say that logical statements get you into trouble is sufficiently broad as to be meaningless. What statement? What kind of trouble?

This little snippet is a good example, though, of what passes for profundity amongst the bloviating class.

Harry:

This is one where your religiosity seems to force you and Jeff to eschew reason. All systems have nothing to do with reality and tell us nothing about reality. They tell us about themselves and ourselves.

I will agree that there is a realm of truth that is inacessible to logical reasoning, namely, that the existence or the origin of the universe cannot be explained within the constructs of time, space and causality as we understand them. However, this is exactly where theism falls down. If god's logic is not our logic, then god cannot be a "personal" being. Theism relies on the personification of god - god is like us. Person-ness is a construct of the world that we know. If god exists, he must necessarily be beyond such a construct. If god were like us, then his logic would be like ours.

Robert D:

God's not necessarily like us. We're made in His image, but it's obviously a rather dim reflection. For all we know we're just the amoeba that evolves into a potentially godlike being eons from now, just as the fertilized ovum is a potential human being but has a lot of developing to do.

AOG:

You are, of course, precisely right. I wish I could figure out how I got it so wrong.

OJ:

They have to say something more than just about the systems and their inventors. Otherwise, they would have no predictive value.

But they do. And they can also distinguish between competing systems making similar claims.

Unlike religious belief, which doesn't, and can't.

Jeff:

Of course it does. For instance, Judeo-Christianity predicted that there would be a marked preference for boy babies over girls even here in the secular rationalist West, something which you argued against. Our religion described the immutability of human nature for more accurately than your prophet, Darwin.

It did?

I missed that.

But if it did, it was wrong. It's a matter of supply and demand. Once they get the balance out of whack, you'll see the demand for girls go up.

It's happened before.

OJ:

Did it make that prediction, or simply observe the facts on the ground at the time?

The difference between Evolutionary mutability and Biblical immutability is utterly meaningless the mere blink of recorded history.

Judeo-Christianity predicts that human nature is immutable and we will always be prone to evil. Darwinism predicts infinite mutability and yet inexplicable self-destructive evil persists.

OJ
That's a pretty weak form of theism you're admitting to. How dim can a reflection get before it stops being a reflection? What you are saying is that god is a personal being, but just barely. You are closer to my line of thinking than I thought.

Robert:

I hope I didn't leave that impression. I don't believe in a personal God at all. I've certainly no experience of Him, though I know many who do. I arrive at belief in him exclusively through the exercise of reason and the aesthetic sense.

OJ, pardon me if you take this as an insult (none intended), but I would call anyone who does not believe in a personal god an atheist. Any traditional Judeo-Christian definition of god will include "personal" as a necessary attribute.

No offense taken. I'm anything but a traditional Christian.

Evolution allows for (but does not predict) infinite mutability over vast expanses of time.

Allows for, and insists upon, are two entirely different things.

Besides, recorded history goes back, what, a very mere 3500 years?

So that means you don't know anything about human nature or its trends before then, do you?

Darwinism does not predict anything. It does not allow for infinite mutability.

Your insistence on misrepresenting what the theory is does not change the theory.

Similarly, reality is what we experience. You find that unsatisfying. But there is no logical reason to be dissatisfied.

Let us assume reality exists. We further assume that we do not apprehend all of it. But, in principle, if we did, then along comes Orrin who says, "Not good enough. I can imagine something beyond even that."

Indeed you could. But your imagination demonstrates nothing except that your imagination is disconnected from reality.

The reality we apprehend is our reality.

Harry:

My argument is won at the point where you're reduced to "let us assume".

Jeff:

Of course we do. We know from the skeletal remains of murdered progenitors and from their decimation of large fauna, etc., etc., etc...

Not so, because if we assume the opposite -- that there is no reality -- you lose that way, too.

OJ:

Okay, that was a bit extreme. But does that evidence give you sufficient knowledge to determine that every feature of human nature has been absolutely fixed over that entire time?

Well, that is a bit extreme, too.

Harry:

My argument is won at the point where you're reduced to "let us assume the opposite". It is the necessity of the assuming that is the point.

Jeff:

No. There's no such thing as sufficient knowledge. But all of the evidence in your material system demonstrates us to have been murderous and destructive since we became human.

True enough. Precisely as murderous and destructive? Maybe more? Less?

An absolute material answer demands rather more evidence than is on offer.

There are no absolute answers, only faith.

Now if only the fervently religious could take on board that faith doesnt' contain absolute answers, nor preclude being wrong.

Within the charade everything makes sense.