Q&A: Various Questions.
Various Questions.
Question
Hello and blessings,
A. In the discussion about the physico-theological proof, you brought the counterargument raised on the Hofesh website. You responded as you did. I wanted to ask: does the fact that we cannot observe different outcomes indicate, from another angle, that this really is reverse statistics?
That is, we know the world as it is today. It seemed there that the Rabbi starts from the assumption that this form is, if not the optimal one, then at least something very close to that in terms of sophistication. But we cannot know that, since all that stands before our eyes is our world, as it “came out.” Perhaps, on the contrary, even this world is ruled by a great deal of disorder relative to a world we do not know.
In short: relative to what do I determine that this world is complex?
B. In volume 2 you wrote about theories reminiscent of Kabbalah that were practiced in other regions. Could I please get references/examples?
C. A somewhat strange question. Why do you not only allow, but even respond to, all the trolls swarming around your site? I am not talking about stubborn disputants who were not blessed with especially great intellectual abilities, but about people for whom it is obvious that their entire aim and purpose is to satisfy warped psychological needs?
Answer
A. It seems to me that I explained it there. There is an objective measure of complexity (entropy), and it does not depend on comparisons to other alternatives. I never said anywhere that this is the most complex world possible. What I said is that this level of complexity is unlikely to have arisen by chance. That is all.
B. There are several well-known ones (yin and yang versus male and female, and kindness and severity). It would be worth asking scholars of religion and scholars of mysticism. That’s not my field. There is lots of material on these things. See, for example, a bit here at the beginning:
https://www.ybz.org.il/_Uploads/dbsArticles/Pe-110_Huss_Sofi.pdf
But that’s just something I happened to find right now with a few keystrokes.
It is hard to ignore even the similarity between Gurdjieff’s mystical thought (the Ray of Creation) and the kabbalistic sefirot. Even Gurdjieff himself speaks about similarities between different systems. And likewise, in the introduction of Rabbi Shabbetai Donnolo the physician to his commentary on Sefer Yetzirah, you can see that he actually learned the idea from non-Jewish mystics.
C. I try to answer everyone, because you cannot always know who is a troll and who is just writing carelessly. Who doesn’t understand and who is just being stubborn and repeating the same thing again and again. Still, there comes a stage where I give up and stop answering, and in extreme cases, when it is clear that this is a troll, I delete it. I am very sensitive to silencing and censorship, and therefore I try not to do that.
Discussion on Answer
Thanks, likewise regarding C.
Thank you