Friday, March 4, 2011

Questions About Reality

My husband is reading a book, to review it, "Is God a Mathematician? And I had not really connected that dot to another in my thinking. Was the American Revolution based on an understanding of Newton's empiricism, and understanding of "Nature"? Or did the Founders really think their revolution was a "New Creation"?

I don't know enough about the history of law to know what the foundations of Law were. But, it would be an interesting story. Our nation has been based on Greek and Roman understanding of law and liberty. Were the Founders looking at "Nature" as a law, when the DOI says that "they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights". These rights were granted "BY MEN". So government is what protects these rights in the "real and political world"!

Science was the revolution of an enlightenment. Man was not the center of the Universe, but a part. This paradigm shift shook Christiandom to its roots. Man wasn't looked upon as a special creation. Then came Darwin's evolutionary theory, which associated man to the animal Kingdom. No longer was man created in "God's image", but an animal image. How did this affect man's understanding of himself, the world in which he lived and what these theories meant to man's life in the real world?

In mathmatical theory, there is a disagreement about whether man discovers the "laws of Nature' OR man "creates expressions that describe Nature" more effectively. Which is it? Does it matter?

Everything rests on theory. As the saying goes, "the Devil is in the details"!

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