[ExI] Science or Scientism?

[Stuart LaForge]

John Clark wrote:

> If God existed, that is to say a intelligence who created and operates
> the world, then Teleology, the idea everything has a purpose or goal,
> should be one of the fundamental aspects of physics;

If we do happen to live in a simulation, then would you consider the
simulator to be a god or a superhero? The operator of the simulation need
not have been the creator of the simulation. The operator could simply be
an end-user rather than the developer. Furthermore such a person need not
have any purpose or goal for the universe beyond their own entertainment.

To quote Constantine from the Keanu Reeves movie of that name, "God is a
kid with an ant farm, lady. He's not planning anything."

> a world with
> Teleology should
> exhibit different phenomenon than a world without it and so should be
> accessible to the scientific method.

Teleological language is deliberately avoided or obscured in science. This
was not always the case. Newton framed a lot of his ideas in terms of
teleological deism. Suggesting that God was like a clock-maker who made
the universe like a clock and then stepped back and watched it work.

And in the field of biology, teleological language is nearly impossible to
avoid. Even arch-atheist Dawkins had to resort to labeling genes as
"selfish" and organisms as "survival machines" which implies purpose and
goal-driven behavior.

One could just as easily say that the thermodynamic purpose of nature is
to maximize entropy, systems seek the lowest energy state, or that the
universe has the goal of expanding. But mainstream science purposely
avoids such language specifically to side step any theological
implications.

So the seeming lack of teleology to the universe could simply boil down to
conventional linguistics and semantics.

Stuart LaForge