Multiverse - Higgs boson - String - Anthropic Principle

[The Black Swordsman]

In the sense of the discussion Siro linked in the video above, there was some discussion of the mathematical results of the QM equations allowing divergent realities. The snow-covered car pulls out of the parking lot and one multiverse has it turn to the right while the other has it turn to the left. And the astute QM theologian allows that there are infinite possible solutions to the unversal wave equations. Delightful possibilities.

So according to the math, if fifty swat team members unloaded their semi-automatics on you, fifty rounds per clip and say ten clips, there would be bullets flying literally everywhere but one "solution" to the mathematical equations would have them all miss you. That's the world for me!!!!!!

I just thought that was good for a laugh.

Lets take just one of the fine tuned constants. The cosmological constant. If it was 1 part in 10^120 off one way or the other the universe would not even exist. The big bang would have collapsed on itself one way and the other way the universe would have expanded too fast the other way. 10^120 is a number so large that if you were to add up every single atom in the entire universe it would not even come close.

Keep in mind this is just ONE of the constants.

Atheism has been completely on the defense since these discovers in the last century. Atheists like to say as more and more science has been discovered god gets smaller and smaller. Keep in mind they don't mention a single discovery since 1859.

I simply don't have enough blind faith to be an atheist.

 

[Siro]

A human living against swat members requires no explanation. The 50 swat members does.

Humans living because of fine tuned universe requires no explanation. The universe being fine tuned still does.

The flaw in your analogy lies in the fact that we already know the chance of each solider hitting their target, making 50 misses extremely unlikely. But we do not know the chance of the universe being the way it is. It could be that reality began 14 billion years ago, and that all of reality is constrained within the 4 dimensions that we observe. That would make the cosmological constants a very unlikely coincidence. But the truth could be closer to the countless theories that do not accept the notion of the observable universe encompassing all that can possibly exist, making our existence very un-noteworthy.

I am of course making the assumption that your knowledge does not exceed that of the rest of mankind.

 

[MVP]

I simply don't have enough blind faith to be an atheist.

Yet you have faith in flying winged horses.
No atheist have any blind faith ( or any faith for that matter) by the way so you are way off. As always.
We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence.

 

[babe]

Lets take just one of the fine tuned constants. The cosmological constant. If it was 1 part in 10^120 off one way or the other the universe would not even exist. The big bang would have collapsed on itself one way and the other way the universe would have expanded too fast the other way. 10^120 is a number so large that if you were to add up every single atom in the entire universe it would not even come close.

Keep in mind this is just ONE of the constants.

Atheism has been completely on the defense since these discovers in the last century. Atheists like to say as more and more science has been discovered god gets smaller and smaller. Keep in mind they don't mention a single discovery since 1859.

I simply don't have enough blind faith to be an atheist.

I have to take it one step further. I count it as knowledge on my part that there is more to our life and circumstances than can meet the eye of "science" as we want to construe it as limited to our sense-perception and tools for measurement and quantification. "knowledge" of different kind, perhaps, but just as certain.

mathematical equations are a strange reality. The solutions to the wave equations depend on things "fitting" together in an additive way to "exist" at all, and any "solution" that involves elements that don't add up just have a "zero" existence or destructively interfere with each other to add up to nothing.

I suspect that is the mathematical case for the constants we have conceived of as necessary for our universe to exist.

 

[babe]

Yet you have faith in flying winged horses.
No atheist have any blind faith ( or any faith for that matter) by the way so you are way off. As always.

our current crop of atheistic believers in science do have faith in their perception and measurements and logical principles as a set they ferverntly believe to be "science". I'd say it's a kind of "blind" faith that disallows any other possibilities. . . . .

 

[MVP]

our current crop of atheistic believers in science do have faith in their perception and measurements and logical principles as a set they ferverntly believe to be "science". I'd say it's a kind of "blind" faith that disallows any other possibilities. . . . .

Well, since English is not my first language I may not know what other meanings of word "faith" is. To my understanding it is confidence or trust in deity, or in the doctrines or teachings of a religion. Or trust in something what may happen in the future but we have no proof? For example - can I say that I have faith that Corbin will be fired one day? Does it equal "I hope/trust"?

 

[The Midnight]

PKM.. what have you done?!?!

 

[Dr. Jones]

PKM.. what have you done?!?!

I'm enjoying it. Like I said in post #1.. a nice break from groundhog day.

 

[The Midnight]

I'm enjoying it. Like I said in post #1.. a nice break from groundhog day.

It's slowly turning religious again though, is it not?

 

[Dr. Jones]

I never expected everyone to play by the 'rules.'

 

[The Midnight]

Babe vs Siro

Black Sword vs AKMVP


This will be fun...

 

[babe]

Well, since English is not my first language I may not know what other meanings of word "faith" is. To my understanding it is confidence or trust in deity, or in the doctrines or teachings of a religion. Or trust in something what may happen in the future but we have no proof? For example - can I say that I have faith that Corbin will be fired one day? Does it equal "I hope/trust"?

A very fair point to make. A lot of people use the word "faith" quite exclusively in relation to a belief in a "God" defined by some religious tenets. You're within your rights to do so.

I think the English dictionaries all allow some other uses, such as mine, as well. I used the word in a more general sense as "reliance on a belief held to be true" while sorta calling science and human knowledge as a whole something that is continually progressing or changing in response to new findings by ongoing researchers, sorta taking scientific fact off the pedastal of absolutism and equating it roughly with other kinds of human belief systems which are also changing as people find other ideas to include in the set of much-loved but mutable "truths".

Since I don't closely follow even the LDS Church's mutable doctrines on the character, personhood, and identity of "God", preferring my own, I'm probably using the term "God" to mean whatever it will mean one day when we actually have a common experience of knowing and even being in the presence of "God". Until then, I think it's fair for all of us to have some freedom in using the word to fit a concept roughly corresponding to whatever it is we owe our world and/or universe to. . . . . who knows, maybe some Vernadskyesque fundamental force of nature, even. Wouldn 't hurt us humans to spend a little time explaining our use of terms in this discussion. . . . .

 

[Siro]

A very fair point to make. A lot of people use the word "faith" quite exclusively in relation to a belief in a "God" defined by some religious tenets. You're within your rights to do so.

I think the English dictionaries all allow some other uses, such as mine, as well. I used the word in a more general sense as "reliance on a belief held to be true" while sorta calling science and human knowledge as a whole something that is continually progressing or changing in response to new findings by ongoing researchers, sorta taking scientific fact off the pedastal of absolutism and equating it roughly with other kinds of human belief systems which are also changing as people find other ideas to include in the set of much-loved but mutable "truths".

Since I don't closely follow even the LDS Church's mutable doctrines on the character, personhood, and identity of "God", preferring my own, I'm probably using the term "God" to mean whatever it will mean one day when we actually have a common experience of knowing and even being in the presence of "God". Until then, I think it's fair for all of us to have some freedom in using the word to fit a concept roughly corresponding to whatever it is we owe our world and/or universe to. . . . . who knows, maybe some Vernadskyesque fundamental force of nature, even. Wouldn 't hurt us humans to spend a little time explaining our use of terms in this discussion. . . . .

I don't know many people who seriously think science to be the absolute unchanging truth. I realize that your generalized definition of faith requires such view of science, but if we're playing a word game, you can define anything generally enough as to become applicable to whatever argument you're making. Science, like I already asserted several times, is the best explanation for a series of observations, for the time being. Of course there need be standards of how to pick one theory over another, but those standards must lie within consensus reality. That is why the scientific method does not contain criteria such as "conforming with this guy's strong feelings", or "evoking the greatest amount of spirituality". Many do not share that view of reality, and unless one can display the validity and relevance of one's faith, it shall remain only pertinent to the holder of that faith. We can all agree that naturalistic mechanisms are part of our shared reality, and that they do explain an incredible number of phenomena. Does that introduce an element of faith to science? Maybe. I couldn't care less about faith so loosely defined. I am more interested in the one that causes people to reject obvious and overwhelming evidence in order to keep the worldview they acquired in their youth.

 

[The Midnight]

I don't know many people who seriously think science to be the absolute unchanging truth. I realize that your generalized definition of faith requires such view of science, but if we're playing a word game, you can define anything generally enough as to become applicable to whatever argument you're making. Science, like I already asserted several times, is the best explanation for a series of observations, for the time being. Of course there need be standards of how to pick one theory over another, but those standards must lie within consensus reality. That is why the scientific method does not contain criteria such as "conforming with this guy's strong feelings", or "evoking the greatest amount of spirituality". Many do not share that view of reality, and unless one can display the validity and relevance of one's faith, it shall remain only pertinent to the holder of that faith. We can all agree that naturalistic mechanisms are part of our shared reality, and that they do explain an incredible number of phenomena. Does that introduce an element of faith to science? Maybe. I couldn't care less about faith so loosely defined. I am more interested in the one that causes people to reject obvious and overwhelming evidence in order to keep the worldview they acquired in their youth.

OK I'm not a scientist or a philosopher, but I just want to point out something:

- What is Science? Is science not simply a set of theories and laws derived from our observation about the Universe? (i.e., we know that the gravitational pull on earth is constant because each time we measure it, the number remains the same).

- However, when one wants to understand the origin of the Universe, one has to investigate the conditions which "existed before the Universe".

- Is this then not where the limitations of Science is reached?

- How can we use our observations from this particular Universe to make inferences/theories/predictions about the conditions which existed before this Universe came to be?


That sounded like a big leap of faith if you ask me....

 

[The Black Swordsman]

Yet you have faith in flying winged horses.
No atheist have any blind faith ( or any faith for that matter) by the way so you are way off. As always.
We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence.

I don't believe in a flying winged horse, it is found no where in the Qur'an.

I learn towards Max Planck's definition of faith as "a working hypothesis."

To an atheist the universe is the most exquisite masterpiece ever constructed by nobody

 

[Siro]

OK I'm not a scientist or a philosopher, but I just want to point out something:

- What is Science? Is science not simply a set of theories and laws derived from our observation about the Universe? (i.e., we know that the gravitational pull on earth is constant because each time we measure it, the number remains the same).

Science is the human activity where previously unanswered questions are probed through systemic methods based on logic and rationality. Experiments and observations allow the creation of theories. Those theories offer predictions, such as the constancy of gravity. So no, we don't know gravity is constant because it is so each time we measure it. We know it's constant because the best theories that explain the mechanics of its workings predict that constancy. If observations were to contradict the predictions, then we must evaluate the details of the explanatory theory.

- However, when one wants to understand the origin of the Universe, one has to investigate the conditions which "existed before the Universe".

- Is this then not where the limitations of Science is reached?

- How can we use our observations from this particular Universe to make inferences/theories/predictions about the conditions which existed before this Universe came to be?

Spend a couple of minutes evaluating what you said, and you'll find the mistake in your logic. We did not actually see the big bang happen. It happened BILLIONS of years before we even existed. Yet, we are able to extrapolate the likelihood of that event based on the current state of the universe. Similarly, one can hypothesize extra-cosmic conditions that can give rise to big bangs. Mathematics are incredibly powerful and sophisticated, and they are perfectly capable of examining such abstract concepts.

So the conditions that existed before the big bang are just as much the realm of rational inquiry as the conditions that lead to a tornado. In fact, ALL achievable answers lie within rational inquiry, since no other method has shown to do anything. After all, we had your religion, and others like it, for tens of thousands of years. And in a few hundred years of science, we managed to surpass the achievements of our forebears a million times over.

And why should it be any other way? Why should there be a cut off point where serious study is no longer sufficient, leaving unjustified random feelings as our tool of choice to solve unanswered riddles?

In short, can rational inquiry find a solution to every problem? Maybe, or maybe not. But if science can't find an answer, then nothing can. That is a simple fact, since the alternatives lack a convincing meaning outside of their faith-baseness.

This post is intended to add to the discussion in general, so don't feel obligated to respond point by point.

 

[The Midnight]

Science is the human activity where previously unanswered questions are probed through systemic methods based on logic and rationality. Experiments and observations allow the creation of theories. Those theories offer predictions, such as the constancy of gravity. So no, we don't know gravity is constant because it is so each time we measure it. We know it's constant because the best theories that explain the mechanics of its workings predict that constancy. If observations were to contradict the predictions, then we must evaluate the details of the explanatory theory.




Spend a couple of minutes evaluating what you said, and you'll find the mistake in your logic. We did not actually see the big bang happen. It happened BILLIONS of years before we even existed. Yet, we are able to extrapolate the likelihood of that event based on the current state of the universe. Similarly, one can hypothesize extra-cosmic conditions that can give rise to big bangs. Mathematics are incredibly powerful and sophisticated, and they are perfectly capable of examining such abstract concepts.

So the conditions that existed before the big bang are just as much the realm of rational inquiry as the conditions that lead to a tornado. In fact, ALL achievable answers lie within rational inquiry, since no other method has shown to do anything. After all, we had your religion, and others like it, for tens of thousands of years. And in a few hundred years of science, we managed to surpass the achievements of our forebears a million times over.

And why should it be any other way? Why should there be a cut off point where serious study is no longer sufficient, leaving unjustified random feelings as our tool of choice to solve unanswered riddles?

In short, can rational inquiry find a solution to every problem? Maybe, or maybe not. But if science can't find an answer, then nothing can. That is a simple fact, since the alternatives lack a convincing meaning outside of their faith-baseness.

This post is intended to add to the discussion in general, so don't feel obligated to respond point by point.

I don't think you can assume that to be true. Nobody knows what the conditions are like before all matter, space and time ever existed.

 

[Siro]

I don't think you can assume that to be true. Nobody knows what the conditions are like before all matter, space and time ever existed.

Sounds good. I expect you'll stop telling me it was your god then. Neither of us knows, so let's move on to a different question that we can hope to answer. Replacing every unknown/unknowable answer with each individual's favorite story serves absolutely no purpose.

 

[The Midnight]

Sounds good. I expect you'll stop telling me it was your god then. Neither of us knows, so let's move on to a different question that we can hope to answer. Replacing every unknown/unknowable answer with each individual's favorite story serves absolutely no purpose.

Well I guess that's the difference between you and me... I try to keep an open mind about people's experiences and don't simply dismiss/belittle them.

 

[Siro]

Well I guess that's the difference between you and me... I try to keep an open mind about people's experiences and don't simply dismiss/belittle them.

You don't. Otherwise, you'd be investigating the other thousand religions that use the same defense for their faith. But I don't care about the openness of your mind. Who has the time to investigate an endless ocean of superstition? However, I can't understand why the argument "well, it's my faith. Why can't you just consider forming your worldviews in accordance with my personal feelings?", is worth anyone's time. It just feels completely personal.