near to death episodes (Endings)

by John Clinch , London, Thursday, March 06, 2008, 10:49 (6104 days ago) @ David Turell

Yes, but are these limits in principle or limits adumbrated by what is possible to understand given the current state of knowledge? - I do not have blind faith in anything and I'm under no illusions about the technical difficulties involved in (re)creating life artificially or understanding how it came to be in the first place. It's a tough nut to crack, for sure, but one cannot extrapolate from our present difficulties and conclude that we will never know. I make no claim grander than, from what I know, I think we will come to understand this problem over the coming decades. - But to go further, as dhw has done, and to draw conclusions about the possibility of an interventionist deity from this lack of knowledge, is to make one's theology a hostage to fortune. It will just fall away in the face of the scientific progress that I believe (we can't know, of course) will yield an eventual result. It's just an agnosticism-of-the-gaps. - To address your concluding comments, there are actually very few scientists indeed who subscribe to the strong anthropic principle. I understand it and I confess that a part of me finds it appealing and consoling (two most unhelpful features of any philosophy, particularly natural philosophy). But I have given it much thought over the years and I have concluded that it is, at heart, just a version of Berkelerian idealism. The weak anthropic principle is, on the other hand, a useful tautology possessing great explanatory power.