The Futility of Rationalized Agnosticism (was "Goddard's Met

DOUG.BAILEY@ey.com
Tue, 27 Jan 1998 15:11:47 -0500


The general flaw in any attempt to "explain" mystical or spiritual aspects (in
the general meaning of such terms) is that invariably such discussions involve
"leaps" (of faith, perhaps) where the argument is disjointed. I find the same
leaps in the various essays contained at the Goddard Metaphysics site.

The most glaring leap I observed is the "necessity of divinity" as I like to
call it. It is the assertion that something about the universe "just has to
be" spiritual or mystical. This statement is never explained or
rationalized. The general defense to this lack of rationalization is that such
divine affairs defy our abilities to rationalize them. If this is the case
then they fit securely in the realm of Agnosticism, the unknowable. By
"knowable" I mean phenomena of the universe (multiverse) that can be
independently verified by a variety of observers. To me, it does not make
sense to construct elaborate "proofs" of something that is by its very nature
unprovable. Furthermore, is it not a paradox to assert that one can use logic
to prove the existence of something that is allegedly transcendental?

Additional Note on Wiley's "The Nothing that is Everything"
I do not believe that Wiley's argument successfully proves that infinity equals
zero. What he has shown is that infinity minus infinity equals zero, which I
believe is an uncontended point. I am probably reading more meaning into
Wiley's paper than prudence would dictate, but technically the universe is a
zero sum game in that (at least according to theory) there is an equal amount
of positive energy (matter, mc^2, and so forth) and negative energy
(antimatter, gravitational energy, etc.) What evades me is how the zero sum
aspect of the universe can be construed to prove that something about the
universe is "divine". In my opinion, Wiley uses lots of mathematics, logic,
and analogies wholly unrelated to his objective (substantiate the claim that
something about the universe is divine) to obfuscate the leaps of faith he
takes in his paper.

Doug Bailey
doug.bailey@ey.com