[Avodah] [Areivim] what came first?

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, December 18, 2007 1:09 am, Saul.Z.Newman at kp.org wrote to Areivim:
:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/science/18law.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin
:   .. the laws of Nature or the universe?  those who believe in Science
: also have conflicts

It's not really "conflicts" as a large unknown. Iba'i lehu, not tiyuvta.

Mark Twain is credited as writing: "[a] believer in God must explain
one thing, the existence of suffering; the nonbeliever, however, must
explain the existence of everything else."

This was also a central part of the machloqes Newton and Leibnitz:
Newton used science to explain the how of the universe, and religious
alchemy to explain the "why". He therefore found the inverse square
law, unifying celestial mechanics and apples falling from trees. But
didn't ask what causes the attraction we call gravity. Leibnitz was
dissatisfied leaving things as being about such "spooky action at a
distance".

A number of serious flaws in the article.

1- The Greeks who got science started were monotheists -- including
their two very examples -- Pythagoras and Plato. It's unclear the
notion of a lawful universe would have gotten off the ground without
it. Pagans have no reason to look for order; reality is described in
terms of moody gods and the battles between them.

2- It also ignores the notion of a multiverse, that this universe is
one out of infinitely many, and only happens to be one that makes
sense since we couldn't be here to ask the question otherwise.

Personally, I call that a theology, one which replaces a Personal G-d
with another kind of infinity, but the article doesn't even explore
one of the leading areas in this discussion.

3- It ignores the philosophy of Kant and Mach, that understandable
laws of nature exist because they describe the world as our minds
perceive it. Thus, "nature" and the laws come from the same mind. The
world as it is "out there" is actually incomprehensible. All the order
is caused by patterns we impose on reality. This is actually a
philosophy Einstein subscribed to.

(A Lubavitcher would say the only thing "out there" is HQBH, and
everything else is our perception.)

I also believe it's the core of REED's peshat in the Maharal, that the
difference between olamos is perception, and the difference between
experiencing teva and neis is similarly so. See
<http://tinyurl.com/2rw5ya> (an entry from my blog), or better, MmE I
pp 304-312.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
micha at aishdas.org        brought an offering. But to bring an offering,
http://www.aishdas.org   you must know where to slaughter and what
Fax: (270) 514-1507      parts to offer.        - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv