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Genesis 1:1: Declarative models and causal reasoning
1. Genesis 1:1: Declarative models and causal reasoning
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. [kjv]
εν αρχη εποιησεν ο θεος τον ουρανον και την γην [lxx]
Genesis 1 is a
declarative model of creation and not a
procedural or
imperative model of creation. It says
what happened but not exactly
how it happened.
Word processors are declarative - WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get).
Microsoft Word is "What you see is what you hope to get".
Spreadsheets are declarative (a simple functional language).
Programming languages such as C, C++, Java, Python, etc., are imperative or procedural.
2. Declarative models
Genesis 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. [kjv]
και ειπεν ο θεος γενηθητω φως και εγενετο φως [lxx]
When you "
declare" something, like the "
Declaration of Independence", you state that something is what you want it to be.
A
declarative model of a system is a model that describes the
what of a system but not the
how or
why of a system.
The declarative part of what the system does is (often) explained in a model without getting into details of ordering of subparts of the system.
The control part of how the system does it and the order in which things are done is not (usually) explained in a model.
This distinction made is made in computer science and software engineering (and other areas).
3. Judea Pearl: Casual reasoning
Judea Pearl relates the following about causal reasoning.
In the beginning, as far as we can tell, causality was not problematic. The urge to ask WHY and the capacity to find causal explanations came very early in human development. The Bible, for example, tells us that just a few hours after tasting from the tree of knowledge, Adam is already an expert in causal arguments. When God asks: "Did you eat from that tree?" This is what Adam replies: "The woman whom you gave to be with me, She handed me the fruit from the tree; and I ate." Eve is just as skillful: "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
4. Judea Pearl: Casual reasoning
Judea Pearl continues about causal reasoning.
The thing to notice about this story is that God did not ask for explanation, only for the facts: It was Adam who felt the need to explain - the message is clear, causal explanation is a man-made concept. Another interesting point about the story: explanations are used exclusively for passing responsibilities. Indeed, for thousands of years explanations had no other function. Therefore, only Gods, people and animals could cause things to happen, not objects, events or physical processes.
5. Functions and logic
Functional languages such has Scheme, LISP, etc., are more declarative (but not a lot).
Logic languages such as Prolog, are declarative, but special-purpose in practical use (best for depth-first problems needing backtracking).
6. Information
Information can be difficult to define.
Digital data is everywhere - as in reality (quantum mechanics).
Information is data that has value depending on a "point of view".
Information requires intelligence. Statistics means nothing to a rock.
Information and randomness are related, as in AIT (Algorithmic Information Theory).
Information and statistics (and data science) are related, as in a fair "coin flip".
Information and computer science, as in computation and language theory, are related.
7. Evolutionary arguments
Information, more than a few hundred bits, cannot arise by chance.
Life requires huge amounts of information, millions to billions of bits.
Information exits in life as in DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) (6,000,000,000 bits in each of 1,000,000,000,000 cells in the human body)
An
equivocation is when the same word is used that has (or is given) more than one meaning. The deception is to slide the meaning of one word onto the same word in various contexts. Genetic example:
male/female in terms of sex/gender
8. Life
Life cannot arise by chance (with probability approaching 1.0), given random attempts with all needed data, at each point in the known universe.
[379 bits] 6,000 (six thousand) years is not sufficient.
[380 bits] 15,000 (fifteen thousand) years is not sufficient.
[390 bits] 15,000,000 (fifteen million) years is not sufficient.
[400 bits] 15,000,000,000 (fifteen billion) years is not sufficient.
[410 bits] 15,000,000,000,000 (fifteen trillion) years is not sufficient.
Information exits in life as in
DNA (6,000,000,000 bits in each of 1,000,000,000,000 cells in the human body), Since the missing part is an actual infinity of time or space, some resulting theories are the following.
Repeating universe theory
Multi-verse theory
9. Chance reasons
Science
cannot prove God.
Science
cannot disprove God.
Information transcends science.
Coded information: book,
DNA, etc.
The
DNA code has
64 (6 bit) instructions that each code for an amino acid, start or stop code, etc. An average human has about
1,000,000,000,000 copies (cells) each with about
6,000,000,000 bits of coded information of
DNA.
1. Life requires huge amounts of coded information.
2. Coded information cannot arise by chance.
This proves a creator outside of time and space with probability approaching
1.0 (certainty).
10. Avoiding the conclusion
To avoid this simple conclusion, it is necessary to not precisely define information or make it be everything and everything. Computer science, sometimes called informatics, is the study of digital information and how it can be used to solve problems. Ask a computer science graduate, at any level, if they ever in their coursework defined information or used any definition of information in their work.
11. Genesis 1:1
KJV: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Hebrew: בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ׃
Greek: εν αρχη εποιησεν ο θεος τον ουρανον και την γην
12. Bible
Over the years, Biblical scholars, with little if any scientific knowledge, and perhaps not much relevant Biblical knowledge, have attempted to create and promote theories to reconcile what they
think (opinion) the Bible says with what they
think (opinion) would be scientific to explain
how it happened.
theistic evolution
gap theory
day-age theory
apparent-age theory
punctuated 24 hour theory
scientific creationism (including a literal 6 day creation)
Any discussion of these theories is of very limited use but one should be aware that they exist and that there are people who promote these theories as if they both fit the Bible and are relevant to science today.
13. Inerrancy progression
1 Blivet fork
2 Ideas on the fork
3 Bible meanings
4 Logical errors
5 Reality systems
Two people can see the same thing in different ways. Sometimes both are true in some sense.
14. End of page
