49 replies to this topic

[applesnail]

Those trouble-making physicists are at it again.
During a panel discussion at the SETIcon II conference in Santa Clara, Calif., over the weekend, scientists discussed the Big Bang and whether there was a requirement for some divine power to kick-start the Universe 13.75 billion years ago.
Unsurprisingly, the resounding answer was: No.
"The Big Bang could've occurred as a result of just the laws of physics being there," said astrophysicist Alex Filippenko of the University of California, Berkeley. "With the laws of physics, you can get universes.
http://news.discover...l#mkcpgn-fbnws1

[IndianDreaming]

Roll over Eccentrica Gallumbits and pour me a pan galactic bargle blaster! - this ones gonna go for a while...

[Thelema]

the now there were laws of physics before the advent of spacetime? Sounds fishy to me>....

[ghosty]

gods.... LOL whateva man, just pour me another beer please!
yes, im sarcastic =)

[whitewind]

"With the laws of physics, you can get universes."

Classic quote. Here's mine:

"With life, you can get plants".

[qualia]

the now there were laws of physics before the advent of spacetime? Sounds fishy to me>....

yeah i thought according to BBT there was nothing before the event. but then:

He then meandered into a classic chicken-and-egg argument: "The question, then, is, 'Why are there laws of physics?' And you could say, 'Well, that required a divine creator, who created these laws of physics and the spark that led from the laws of physics to these universes, maybe more than one.'
"The 'divine spark' was whatever produced the laws of physics. And I don't know what produced that divine spark. So let's just leave it at the laws of physics."

until i see scientists working actively on a theory of consciousness (i.e. something much more complex than "we're just chemicals maaaan"), then i'm going to take their position on god as purely philosophical*; i.e. in the same sense as theology. the truth is we don't even know the nuts and bolts of how human minds work, much less the intricacies of the entire universe.

*and by that i mean with no more authority than a catholic bishop

Edited by qualia, 27 June 2012 - 07:54 PM.

[ghosty]

or more-so, with plants you get life.

[Thelema]

hang on, there was no divine spark needed, but when pressed, he says he knows a divine spark is needed but he doesn't want to go there? This guy sounds like a moron.

[incognito]

How did the laws of physics come to be? From what point did they arrive from? And what was before that?

No one knows nuthin'

Edited by incognito, 29 June 2012 - 04:34 AM.

[∂an]

the whole religion/god/spirituality vs science argument in popular media is a bit tiresome. both can make contributions towards explaining why things are the way they are. physicists that are hell bent on disproving the need for god, and evangelicals that insist on the literal truth of Genesis are not helping.

In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Hawking didn't hold back: "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."

I wonder if Hawking has ever had a 'mystical' experience? There seems to be a tendency for people that have not had paradigm-defying experiences to dismiss those that have as delusional. Its a rare minority of people how have had mystical experiences that are able to explain them away with the delusion argument. Having an open mind and trusting your own perception is the key.

[whitewind]

the whole religion/god/spirituality vs science argument in popular media is a bit tiresome. both can make contributions towards explaining why things are the way they are. physicists that are hell bent on disproving the need for god, and evangelicals that insist on the literal truth of Genesis are not helping.

Actually, one of the reasons atheists tend not to suggest that God is a possibility is the fact that so many nutters jump on it and claim that it's proof that God does exist. It's a bit like when someone comes to the door and says "Have you heard the Word?" and you say "No' and suddenly that's an excuse to take up the next two hours of your time, once they have the foot in the door it's difficult to get rid of them, hours later you wished you'd never opened it in the first place. Politeness must be lost in the face of extreme beliefs.

Why waste your time speculating wildly when there are far more interesting things to discover that can be seen, proved and discussed sanely without having to accept all sorts of dodgy reasoning to explain natural phenomena and the need to bow down to religious laws!?

The Mystical is basically the stuff we don't understand. It's fascinating stuff, but ultimately we are trying to discover what it is, otherwise the quest for the mystical becomes self-serving and ends up going no-where, wallowing in itself and ends up being frustrating. If we see ourselves on a voyage of discovery, then the mystical can be very helpful. In that sense, religious people tend to believe they already have the answers, whereas scientists rarely do. Scientists are chasing the mysteries of the universe, they just tend to think they can be explained using the information we already have - it's like building a jigsaw puzzle, slowly but surely putting all the pieces together. Scientists are chasing the mystical, and maybe mystical experiences can help them imagine new discoveries!

[∂an]

Why waste your time speculating wildly when there are far more interesting things to discover that can be seen, proved and discussed sanely without having to accept all sorts of dodgy reasoning to explain natural phenomena and the need to bow down to religious laws!?

There needs to be a clearer distinction between religious belief and mystical or spiritual experience. I have no time for religious belief as it based on trust in the culture and society we are brought up in which is clearly more interested in control than in truth. In the same way science is rightly proud and confident of its basis in experiment and hypothesis testing, religion should put more emphasis on experience.

The Mystical is basically the stuff we don't understand. It's fascinating stuff, but ultimately we are trying to discover what it is, otherwise the quest for the mystical becomes self-serving and ends up going no-where, wallowing in itself and ends up being frustrating. If we see ourselves on a voyage of discovery, then the mystical can be very helpful. In that sense, religious people tend to believe they already have the answers, whereas scientists rarely do. Scientists are chasing the mysteries of the universe, they just tend to think they can be explained using the information we already have - it's like building a jigsaw puzzle, slowly but surely putting all the pieces together. Scientists are chasing the mystical, and maybe mystical experiences can help them imagine new discoveries!

Well said! The mystical is a mystery. Interestingly this comes quite close to the classical notion of `God' (or the mystery) as a force not bound to the rules of this world. , who or which exists in some higher dimensional superspace that incorporates our world and much more. I think religion may have many profound things to say about the existence, but just expecting people to believe it without evidence is a recipe for fanaticism.

[goneski]

How did the laws of physics come to be? From what point did they arrive from? And what was before that?

No one knows nuthin'

Why did the laws of physics even 'come to be'? What's stopping them from always having existed?
Also have to remember that the quantum world is far from intuitive and completely different from our understanding of causation..

Or there's multiverse theory, where a vast number of universes with different laws of physics exist. Depending on the laws of physics, some would be stable, some would
be unstable and pop in / out of existence. Using the anthropic principle, we exist in the former because here we are observing it.

Also, for anyone who believes the laws of physics or position of Earth are a kind of 'goldilocks zone', this is BS. Physicists such as Victor Stenger, Lawrence Krauss have shown there's the possibility of many universes with
different physical laws and constants.

Even theorising a "divine spark" is so stupid, naive and childish when extremely intelligent physicists are working their arses off coming up with real theories.

Edited by SYNeR, 30 June 2012 - 08:13 PM.

[goneski]

until i see scientists working actively on a theory of consciousness (i.e. something much more complex than "we're just chemicals maaaan"), then i'm going to take their position on god as purely philosophical*; i.e. in the same sense as theology. the truth is we don't even know the nuts and bolts of how human minds work, much less the intricacies of the entire universe.

I'm sorry, but do you live under a rock?
There are many cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, computer scientists and programmers, philosophers, etc working on consciousness.
Neuroscience is such a massive field at the moment.

Edited by SYNeR, 30 June 2012 - 08:15 PM.

[ThunderIdeal]

IMHO you're coming off a bit arrogant. lots of people here believe there are spiritual aspects to existence. playing the "you're dumb, cuz science" card won't change their minds at all, they've heard it many times.

i appreciate your input, otherwise.

[Xenodimensional]

I'll just leave this here.

Edited by Xenodimensional, 09 July 2012 - 10:56 PM.

[goneski]

IMHO you're coming off a bit arrogant. lots of people here believe there are spiritual aspects to existence. playing the "you're dumb, cuz science" card won't change their minds at all, they've heard it many times.

i appreciate your input, otherwise.

It's all well and good to talk about existence spiritually in a metaphorical and / or philosophical sense.
But -- if you're going to make truth claims regarding the spiritual without evidence -- that's WAY more arrogant than science
could ever hope to be.

Forgive me if I come across as arrogant, but when you see people so swiftly dismiss science, medicine, 'BigPharma' and other things as I've seen on here -- VERY dangerous attitudes, I might add --
you tend to become even more cynical and opposed to ludicrous views.

Of course though, as you've so aptly pointed out -- there's no real reason to state this, as people will continue to believe what they believe.

Don't get me wrong, I like to play the 'what if' game of hypothesising too (simulation theory is a favourite), but it's a whole other thing when people start showing their ignorance, making crazy truth claims,
or quickly descending into a form of universal skepticism that attempts annihilate the very foundations of epistemology and erect in its place a structure even more absurd than that which reality presents.

Edited by SYNeR, 10 July 2012 - 01:57 PM.

[ballzac]

The thing is that very few people in the atheist community actually claim that there is no God. They simply state that they have never been provided with evidence for God. I used to consider myself an agnostic until I stopped listening to what people say atheists believe and started listening to what atheists actually say.

The reason for not positing God as a cause for the laws of physics is this. Consider a succession of causality going back to the 'beginning'. Naturalism says this:

The current universe << The universe in the past << The universe as it began << The laws of physics << ?

Religion says this:

The current universe << The universe in the past << The universe as it began << The laws of physics << God

Really, though, they are ignoring the fact that God, if 'He' exists, has no known explanation, so what they are really positing is this

The current universe << The universe in the past << The universe as it began << The laws of physics << God << ?

Every step in the naturalist view is accounted for by evidence. It does not exclude the possibility of God because God could be part of the question mark. But the problem with the religious view is that, firstly, it claims to know something that no one knows. It inserts "God" without any evidence. Moreover, this is an unnecessary addition because it doesn't actually explain anything. It is simply an intermediary between the beginning of the laws of physics and another unknown. Apologists claim that God is the ultimate explanation because it doesn't need a cause, but this is no different to asserting that the laws of physics to not need a cause, so it still hasn't answered anything. Basically, if you're going to say there was a first cause, you can replace the question mark with this first cause in the naturalistic view, and there is no way to determine whether this first cause has the properties that would qualify it as a God.

I'm sorry, but do you live under a rock?
There are many cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, computer scientists and programmers, philosophers, etc working on consciousness.
Neuroscience is such a massive field at the moment.

Neuroscience has made a lot of progress in exploring the apparent existence of consciousness, but no one has yet come close to explaining why you or I have a subjective experience of consciousness. From a scientific viewpoint, the world looks identical regardless of whether consciousness exists subjectively or not. Yet for me, and presumably every other higher lifeform (and possibly all life, perhaps non-life too), there is also a subjective element to consciousness that is unaccounted for.

[goneski]

Neuroscience has made a lot of progress in exploring the apparent existence of consciousness, but no one has yet come close to explaining why you or I have a subjective experience of consciousness. From a scientific viewpoint, the world looks identical regardless of whether consciousness exists subjectively or not. Yet for me, and presumably every other higher lifeform (and possibly all life, perhaps non-life too), there is also a subjective element to consciousness that is unaccounted for.

Depends how you define 'coming close'. I think Thomas Metzinger does a wonderful job at deconstructing consciousness, the self, and subjectivity.

Phantom limb syndrome, for example, is one phenomenon showing how subjectivity may be an illusion of sorts.
Then there's also alien / anarchic hand syndrome..

http://l3d.cs.colora...gsci/spence.pdf

Edited by SYNeR, 10 July 2012 - 02:08 PM.

[ballzac]

Also, it's worth noting that the majority of the views on God that atheists are opposed to are not speculative, deistic or pantheistic notions of a universal intelligence that may or may not exist. What they argue against is the dogmatic assertions of faith based belief (i.e. organised religions) that make very specific, mostly testable claims which have either been found to be false or are untested. This is what they are up against in most parts of the world. Australia has much less of this, but it's not non-existent.

[ballzac]

Depends how you define 'coming close'. I think Thomas Metzinger does a wonderful job at deconstructing consciousness, the self, and subjectivity.

Phantom limb syndrome, for example, is one phenomenon showing how subjectivity may be an illusion of sorts.
Then there's also alien / anarchic hand syndrome..

But that kind of reasoning still doesn't explain the actual subjective experience of consciousness, as those phenomena would still exist in a universe with no consciousness.

To give another example, how will we ever determine if artificial intelligence is conscious or not? How do we tell if the pain a robot receives is actually experienced subjectively by a 'ghost in the machine'? There is no way to determine what makes one thing conscious and another thing simply appear conscious. You can bring up things like turing tests, but all you can do is ascertain whether the machine is providing an effective illusion of consciousness. You can never determine whether it's 'consciousness' is actually experienced subjectively.

[IndianDreaming]

 welcomeRobotZen.jpg   17.21K   0 downloads

Edited by IndianDreaming, 10 July 2012 - 03:43 PM.

[∂an]

The reason for not positing God as a cause for the laws of physics is this. Consider a succession of causality going back to the 'beginning'. Naturalism says this:

The current universe << The universe in the past << The universe as it began << The laws of physics << ?

Religion says this:

The current universe << The universe in the past << The universe as it began << The laws of physics << God

Really, though, they are ignoring the fact that God, if 'He' exists, has no known explanation, so what they are really positing is this

The current universe << The universe in the past << The universe as it began << The laws of physics << God << ?

A "succession of causality" seems too simplistic, no matter if you put physics or God or the great question mark as the initial element.
It implies that the current state of the universe was inevitable given some condition of the universe at an infinitesimal time after the big bang (i.e. given a sufficiently large computer the progression of the universe could be modelled using this boundary condition and the laws of space-time).
I think science is still stuck in the Catholic-creator-god paradigm in that it is looking for some Ur event or force or law (i.e. something of materiality) that will explain everything.
What if the material universe is a manifestation of the mental universe, and vice-versa, and therefore inherently irrational? Maybe a "cycle of interactions" is more appropriate that a "succession of causality"? This is more inline with Eastern spirituality than western religion that seems to have given birth to modern science.

[ballzac]

A "succession of causality" seems too simplistic, no matter if you put physics or God or the great question mark as the initial element.
It implies that the current state of the universe was inevitable given some condition of the universe at an infinitesimal time after the big bang (i.e. given a sufficiently large computer the progression of the universe could be modelled using this boundary condition and the laws of space-time).
I think science is still stuck in the Catholic-creator-god paradigm in that it is looking for some Ur event or force or law (i.e. something of materiality) that will explain everything.
What if the material universe is a manifestation of the mental universe, and vice-versa, and therefore inherently irrational? Maybe a "cycle of interactions" is more appropriate that a "succession of causality"? This is more inline with Eastern spirituality than western religion that seems to have given birth to modern science.

The point of my arguments was not to say "this is how the world works", but to refute the argument that is commonly used by apologists. This "succession of causality" is essentially the Kalam cosmological argument commonly presented by William Lane Craig. The argument goes like this:

P1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
P2. The universe began to exist.
C. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

William Lane Craig's version goes like this:

P1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
P2. The universe began to exist.
C. Therefore, the universe has a cause, and that cause must be the Christian God of the Bible.

What you are basically saying is that those premises may be false, and I agree with you wholeheartedly. But my point was that, even if we ignore most of William Lane Craig's ridiculous conclusion, and make the argument

P1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
P2. The universe began to exist.
C. Therefore, the universe has a cause, and that cause must be a God.

the conclusion still does not follow from the premises. This does not mean that I agree with the premises, just that the syllogism is invalid regardless of whether the premises are true or not.

In order to use science, we have to make the assumptions that the universe exists objectively, and that we can learn something about it. Science is only useful if we can build predictive models of reality. If these assumptions are correct, then science can be of great utility, and this seems to be the case. If they are not correct, then science is an ultimately useless endeavour. The point is that science cannot say anything about how things 'actually' are. All it can do is provide models that can be used to make predictions. Good models can provide many accurate predictions, poor models cannot. However, regardless of whether science can ultimately explain everything, and whether everything can ultimately be described by cause and effect, no religion has ever been able to provide evidence of a creator, and many apologists have asserted knowledge that has proven to be demonstrably false.

My point, in relation to your post, is that this cause-effect paradigm (I don't know what makes you call that a "Catholic-creator-god paradigm") seems at the very least to have utility. It is why we have computers and iPhones, and why we can treat diseases and explore other planets. Philosophically, I agree with your sentiment, but unless you can provide a framework for a new scientific paradigm, then the current scientific paradigm is the best we have.

[self organising systems]

P1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
P2. The universe began to exist.
C. Therefore, the universe has a cause

the conclusion still does not follow from the premises.

that conclusion does logically follow from those premises. an argument can be logically valid without being true. the form of deduction used in that example is called Modus Ponens, and has been used since medieval philosophy. the addition of 'and that cause must be a God' is what does not follow from the premises, the rest of the argument is sound.

Edited by bulls on parade, 10 July 2012 - 06:12 PM.