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Post by Occam's Spork on Aug 4, 2020 0:27:48 GMT 10
---So why are you here, exactly? One could quite legitimately ask the same question of grasshoppers. Or fleas. Or bacteria.Are you suggesting that none of these serve a purpose? Try removing one, and see how the universe is affected...
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Post by Occam's Spork on Aug 4, 2020 0:29:31 GMT 10
My mind is the result of evolution - brains evolved Regarding the mind, we do say that an educated and knowledgeable person has a cultivated mind. Once you bring "cultivated" into it you're talking about conscious targeted human agency rather than natural selection. It takes a cultivated mind to understand that. Pim gets it!
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Post by pim on Sept 13, 2020 0:50:20 GMT 10
Yes, the universe looks like a fix. But that doesn't mean that a god fixed itWe will never explain the cosmos by taking on faith either divinity or physical laws. True meaning is to be found within naturePaul Davies Tue 26 Jun 2007 09.07 AEST First published on Tue 26 Jun 2007 09.07 AEST www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/jun/26/spaceexploration.comment?CMP=Share_iOSApp_OtherScientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth - the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient "coincidences" and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist. Change any one of them and the consequences would be lethal. Fred Hoyle, the distinguished cosmologist, once said it was as if "a super- intellect has monkeyed with physics". To see the problem, imagine playing God with the cosmos. Before you is a designer machine that lets you tinker with the basics of physics. Twiddle this knob and you make all electrons a bit lighter, twiddle that one and you make gravity a bit stronger, and so on. It happens that you need to set thirtysomething knobs to fully describe the world about us. The crucial point is that some of those metaphorical knobs must be tuned very precisely, or the universe would be sterile. Example: neutrons are just a tad heavier than protons. If it were the other way around, atoms couldn't exist, because all the protons in the universe would have decayed into neutrons shortly after the big bang. No protons, then no atomic nucleuses and no atoms. No atoms, no chemistry, no life. Like Baby Bear's porridge in the story of Goldilocks, the universe seems to be just right for life. So what's going on? The intelligent design movement has inevitably seized on the Goldilocks enigma as evidence of divine providence, prompting a scientific backlash and boosting the recent spate of God-bashing bestsellers. Fuelling the controversy is an unanswered question lurking at the very heart of science - the origin of the laws of physics. Where do they come from? Why do they have the form that they do? Traditionally, scientists have treated the laws of physics as simply "given", elegant mathematical relationships that were somehow imprinted on the universe at its birth, and fixed thereafter. Inquiry into the origin and nature of the laws was not regarded as a proper part of science. But the embarrassment of the Goldilocks enigma has prompted a rethink. The Cambridge cosmologist Martin Rees, president of The Royal Society, suggests the laws of physics aren't absolute and universal but more akin to local bylaws, varying from place to place on a mega-cosmic scale. A God's-eye view would show our universe as merely a single representative amid a vast assemblage of universes, each with its own bylaws. Rees calls this system "the multiverse", and it is an increasingly popular idea among cosmologists. Only rarely within the variegated cosmic quilt will a universe possess bio-friendly laws and spawn life. It would then be no surprise that we find ourselves in a universe apparently customised for habitation; we could hardly exist in one where life is impossible. If Rees is right, the impression of design is illusory: our universe has simply hit the jackpot in a gigantic cosmic lottery. The multiverse theory certainly cuts the ground from beneath intelligent design, but it falls short of a complete explanation of existence. For a start, there has to be a physical mechanism to make all those universes and allocate bylaws to them. This process demands its own laws, or meta-laws. Where do they come from? The problem has simply been shifted up a level from the laws of the universe to the meta-laws of the multiverse. The root cause of all the difficulty can be traced to the fact that both religion and science appeal to some agency outside the universe to explain its lawlike order. Dumping the problem in the lap of a pre-existing designer is no explanation at all, as it merely begs the question of who designed the designer. But appealing to a host of unseen universes and a set of unexplained meta-laws is scarcely any better. This shared failing is no surprise, because the very notion of physical law has its origins in theology. The idea of absolute, universal, perfect, immutable laws comes straight out of monotheism, which was the dominant influence in Europe at the time science as we know it was being formulated by Isaac Newton and his contemporaries. Just as classical Christianity presents God as upholding the natural order from beyond the universe, so physicists envisage their laws as inhabiting an abstract transcendent realm of perfect mathematical relationships. Furthermore, Christians believe the world depends utterly on God for its existence, while the converse is not the case. Correspondingly, physicists declare that the universe is governed by eternal laws, but the laws remain impervious to events in the universe. I think this entire line of reasoning is now outdated and simplistic. We will never fully explain the world by appealing to something outside it that must simply be accepted on faith, be it an unexplained God or an unexplained set of mathematical laws. Can we do better? Yes, but only by relinquishing the traditional idea of physical laws as fixed, perfect relationships. I propose instead that the laws are more like computer software: programs being run on the great cosmic computer. They emerge with the universe at the big bang and are inherent in it, not stamped on it from without like a maker's mark. Man-made computers are limited in their performance by finite processing speed and memory. So, too, the cosmic computer is limited in power by its age and the finite speed of light. Seth Lloyd, an engineer at MIT, has calculated how many bits of information the observable universe has processed since the big bang. The answer is one followed by 122 zeros. Crucially, however, the limit was smaller in the past because the universe was younger. Just after the big bang, when the basic properties of the universe were being forged, its information capacity was so restricted that the consequences would have been profound. Here's why. If a law is a truly exact mathematical relationship, it requires infinite information to specify it. In my opinion, however, no law can apply to a level of precision finer than all the information in the universe can express. Infinitely precise laws are an extreme idealisation with no shred of real world justification. In the first split second of cosmic existence, the laws must therefore have been seriously fuzzy. Then, as the information content of the universe climbed, the laws focused and homed in on the life-encouraging form we observe today. But the flaws in the laws left enough wiggle room for the universe to engineer its own bio-friendliness. Thus, three centuries after Newton, symmetry is restored: the laws explain the universe even as the universe explains the laws. If there is an ultimate meaning to existence, as I believe is the case, the answer is to be found within nature, not beyond it. The universe might indeed be a fix, but if so, it has fixed itself. · Paul Davies is director of Beyond, a research centre at Arizona State University, and author of The Goldilocks Enigma paul.davies@asu.edu
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Post by Occam's Spork on Sept 14, 2020 12:29:50 GMT 10
Multiverse theory doesn't answer any questions, it only delays them. Even if we go down the line over many universes we are still stuck with the question of 'how did the original one start?'
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Post by pim on Sept 14, 2020 14:27:19 GMT 10
I’m uncomfortable with the conflation of science and theology that your “First Cause” hypothesis involves.
But Occam be warned: before we get too deep into this the trolls will jump in and attempt a hijack. I’ve already got Trickles on Ignore so I can leapfrog him. I’ll do the same to KTJ if he pulls his usual abusive “fart in a crowded lift” stunt. My aim is to dialogue with you and other people of good faith such as Fat and to do so without interference from the trolls.
The problem with “First Cause” is that your entire argument is built on the notion that all other possible First Causes are excluded but one: a divine First Cause. And the gravamen of your argument is that since a spontaneous natural Big Bang couldn’t have occurred therefore there was a conscious transcendent Agency that flicked a cosmic switch that tripped off the beginning of Everything. But what if developments in physics show that a spontaneous Big Bang could have occurred? You say, or rather St John’s gospel says “In the Beginning was the Word”. To which a physicist might answer “In the beginning was the laws of physics”. I can’t prove to you that the Big Bang happened spontaneously anymore than you can prove that it happened through a divine Agency. Statistics? Or faith? You’ve taken your pick and you’ve chosen faith. Personally I don’t know. It seems to me that the paleo atheists crave certainty as much as a biblical literalist. An agnostic on the other hand not only accepts doubt but welcomes it. I can live with uncertainty.
Personally I find the notion of a godless universe which is indifferent to the biosphere on the third rock from a middling star in the outer reaches of an average galaxy to be as mind boggling as the notion that in all the vastness of the universe a butterfly on this planet can’t flap its wings without a divine benevolent creator being aware of it. It’s so complex that the endless debate over the “First Cause” trivialises theology - and theology is far from trivial. As far as I’m concerned it could all come down to an endless series of Big Bang followed by a Big Crunch followed by another Big Bang, then another Big Crunch and so on. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. As far as I’m concerned your question “Who flicked the switch that triggered the first Big Bang?” is not very interesting. Who knows? And with the greatest respect to you, who cares? If there is a God, surely there’s a lot more to Her than being just the Switch Flicker! My understanding of the term “theology” is that it’s a study of the nature of the divine and of religious belief. It isn’t a field of study that I’ve ever engaged in in a formal way but I’m sure you have and I’m not going to disrespect you by pretending that you need me to tell you what “theology” is. All I know, as an educated layman who’s read a book or two, was brought up in a particular liturgical tradition, sung the odd hymn and who has said the odd prayer, is that I want there to be a lot more, a heck of a lot more, to theology than a debate about a God Who Flicks a Switch.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Sept 15, 2020 3:40:50 GMT 10
If we dodge the question and presume we live in an oscillating universe as you suggest, it doesn't really resolve anything. It only creates more questions ad infinitum. (Where did the universe that created this one come from, and where did that one come from? And so on...) Inevitably we will need to reach an end to these questions and we must move on to the realm of speculation, but do we have sufficient reason to do this? If a thing cannot create itself, then it is said to be “contingent” because it is dependent upon something outside of itself to explain its existence. The Universe, therefore, is a contingent entity since it cannot cause or explain its own existence. This is the reason I reject the idea of an oscillating universe outright. Now I do leave room for the possibility for the process itself to be infinite, but if we allow that; then it is only by personal bias that we reject God who we describe as having this exact Characteristic. (If we allow for an infinite universe, why must we reject the notion of an infinite Creator?) My reason for believing in God is also scientific, in part. 'Effects cannot be greater than Causes' (E.g. you can’t give what you do not have to give), is a well-known axiom of Causality. So far as scientific knowledge goes, natural laws have no exceptions. Material effects without adequate causes do not exist. Also, causes never occur after the effect. In addition, the effect never is greater than the cause. If intelligence exists, God is (at least) intelligent. If Morality exists, God is (at least) Moral. If atheists/Darwinists/materialists believe, by faith, that our minds arose from mindless matter without intelligent intervention, then logically that must apply to themselves and their assertions about existence as well. (Mindless matter can only produce mindless matter, Non-intelligence can only produce non-intelligence, etc) So why ought we even consider this? ...So it is not an intelligent assertion, nor can it be, to suggest we arose from mindless matter. If we observe that some intelligence (Whatever name you want to ascribe to it), which is infinite, and moral, etc created the universe... Isn't that definitively 'God'?
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Post by pim on Sept 15, 2020 9:57:53 GMT 10
I'm in a hospital waiting my turn for some elective surgery so I won't get into a detailed response because I expect to be interrupted at any moment. To me the question of causality doesn't arise and is a separate question from the question of faith. To you it's central whereas to me it's an interesting academic discussion. A naturally occurring big bang and subsequent abiogenesis doesn't preclude faith in a transcendental divine ... Whatever. The issues of big bang and. ... (sorry, got interrupted by a colonoscopy - a first for NTB!! )
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Post by Occam's Spork on Sept 15, 2020 23:30:10 GMT 10
It'll be difficult to find any example of life coming from non life anywhere in our frame of reference. I don't find it as hard of a leap to embrace the idea of a higher intelligence creating order.
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Post by Gort on Sept 16, 2020 0:02:43 GMT 10
Before: After:
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Post by pim on Sept 16, 2020 0:16:36 GMT 10
It'll be difficult to find any example of life coming from non life anywhere in our frame of reference. I don't find it as hard of a leap to embrace the idea of a higher intelligence creating order. I don’t have a problem with either proposition. I agree that abiogenesis is a challenge to get your head around. But so is the notion of a divine creator. Just because a concept is difficult and confronting doesn’t ipso facto make it “wrong”. As far as I’m concerned it’s a scientific question, not exclusively theological. Yes it has theological ramifications but that points to its depth as a question, it doesn’t invalidate it. I don’t want to go over these points again when I posted fulsomely on the subject here : newstalkback1.proboards.com/post/130090/quote/8640
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Post by Occam's Spork on Sept 16, 2020 0:20:18 GMT 10
Louis Pasteur is often credited with conclusively disproving the theory of abiogenesis with his famous swan-neck flask experiment. He proposed that “life only comes from life.” Go where the science leads, pim. Have a glass of milk, and think that over.
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Post by Gort on Sept 16, 2020 0:28:04 GMT 10
Carl Sagan Cosmos - The Stuff of Life
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Post by Occam's Spork on Sept 16, 2020 8:00:06 GMT 10
Sorry, as far as I know: Frankenstein is still fiction. Life from dead matter simply doesn't happen.
I defy you to demonstrate otherwise and thus make history by being the first to prove it.
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Post by pim on Sept 16, 2020 10:40:46 GMT 10
Louis Pasteur is often credited with conclusively disproving the theory of abiogenesis with his famous swan-neck flask experiment. He proposed that “life only comes from life.” Go where the science leads, pim. Have a glass of milk, and think that over. I drink past your eyes milk. I’m not going to enter into a “prove/disprove” exchange over abiogenesis. The jury’s still out. I don’t care if they never prove/disprove it. Part of me hopes they don’t find some bug on Venus or Mars or Titan or Europa and call it ET. If they discover that, say, Mars contains a biosphere with its unique ecology, could you imagine the ethical issues that will raise? A new cause célèbre for the Green movement that pits miners against ecologists but this time on an interplanetary scale, as presciently described in Kim Stanley Robinson’s excellent Mars Trilogy. We’re very familiar with those sorts of battles here in Australia where a British mining company Conzinc Rio Tinto recently blew up a cave in the Western Australian desert containing artefacts that date human occupation of this island continent back to nearly 50 000 years ago. There were Neanderthals in Europe back then and your part of the world no human or humanoid had ever set foot. Miners have captured the conservative parties here, and have a foothold in the progressive parties as well, they have poisoned the well of our politics and have made public debate here toxic. I can’t stand the idea of humanity spreading that toxic culture throughout the solar system of development at all costs. The redneck’s creed: if it moves, shoot it, if it grows chop it down and if it sparkles or rusts dig it up, leave a big hole in the ground and sell it. Why hype up manned missions to Mars if in the end you’re just spreading the same old shit only instead of it being confined to Earth you’re spreading it through the galaxy? One small step for man and there goes the galactic neighbourhood. Returning to abiogenesis, I’m not setting out to “prove” anything. Statistically the chances of you existing or any of us for that matter, including myself, are infinitesimal. And yet here we are. You exist, and I exist, because at a particular moment a particular sperm cell joined with a particular egg. Change the time of the event and everything else changes. True there may well have been a pregnancy but it wouldn’t have been you. Or me. Also, given that the science tells us that when a man ejaculates he squirts out hundreds of millions of sperm cells, and that in order for the resulting pregnancy to have you as an outcome it had to have been a particular sperm in amongst all those untold squillions of wrigglers, you start to get an idea of the random nature of it all: the chances of you coming into being were smaller than my chance of winning the $50 million jackpot prize when I buy a lottery ticket. And yet here you are. I don’t deny that your life-from-life argument is a powerful one Occam and it might even be right, but you haven’t convinced me that abiogenesis is impossible. The only way that science can resolve that debate is by replicating abiogenesis in a test tube in a lab. I know that they’ve tried and the results haven’t been encouraging. Doesn’t disprove it though. Just shows that the odds are against it. Until they do it. It’s like nuclear fusion. Get that one right and we’ve got cheap non-polluting energy forever. Hallelujah and we’ve found the holy grail. Not in our lifetimes. What interests me more about abiogenesis is that even if they prove that it’s scientifically doable or that it can occur naturally, the implications for finding ET aren’t a sure fire thing. All they will have done is shorten the odds that abiogenesis happens on other planets. Humanity could spend the rest of its existence as a species searching for ET and still come up with nothing. When you contemplate the possibility that we on this planet are “it”, that we’re alone in the universe, it’s pretty awesome. You remember that first Star Trek movie when one of the Voyager probes comes back all enhanced by an alien culture and turned into a conscious life form? The news that the two Voyager probes are now beyond the heliopause and are entering interstellar space without having encountered anything biological is an indication that ET, if he’s out there is too far away to make any difference to us. It’s the randomness of it all, the hit & miss nature of everything, that I find rather awesome. Abiogenesis leaves open the possibility that nothing is inevitable - including life itself ...
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