APPENDIX Z16: Atheist v. Potentialist Atkins* v. Birnbaum
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APPENDIX Z16:
Atheist v. Potentialist
Atkins* v. Birnbaum
consonant with Summa:
“simplicity”
“…The only clue we have at the outset is that the
nal
nal
answer will almost certainly be one of extreme
simplicity,
simplicity,
for only the perfectly simple can come into
existence….
existence….
what we perceive of as complexity may be the
outcome
outcome
of chains of simplicity.”
(p. 7)*
(p. 7)*
a
“…Somehow matter must have been created out of
something resembling nothing….” (p. 11)*
a
Intersecting with Summa:
“Mega-organism”
“…our own nominally civilized, cultivated,
intelligent, and
intelligent, and
reective level of life emerged when organisms
stumbled
stumbled
on a way of passing on
intricate, unpredictable information
intricate, unpredictable information
to others around them and following them. It did so
by
by
inventing language and effectively binding together
all
all
human organisms, past, present, and future into a single
mega-organism of potentially boundlesss
achievement.”
achievement.”
(p.33)*
b
polar opposite to Summa:
“collapse into chaos”
“Aspirations… feed on (purposeless) decay”
“….All change, I shall argue, arises from an
underlying
underlying
collapse into chaos. We shall see that what may
appear
appear
to us to be motive and purpose, is in fact
ultimately
ultimately
motiveless, purposeless decay. Aspirations and their
achievement, feed on [purposeless] decay.” (p. 21)*
a
*a
Peter Atkins, Creation Revisited, The Origin of Space, Time and the Universe
(London, England: Penguin Books, 1992)
*b
Peter Atkins, Galileo’s Finger, The Ten Great Ideas of Sciences, (Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press,
2003)
2003)