The Power of Prayer?

[Fenris]

No, because unlikely things happen all the time. This is why probability is not prophecy. Probability tells you, "Don't bother with the lottery, it's throwing your money away." And, in most instances, this is true. But what it ignores is the fact that somebody does win the lottery. When you have a large enough sample of events over enough time, even very unlikely events occur. Looked at from that POV, the fact we exist is no more remarkable than the fact that eventually, someone wins the lottery. It's a super-lottery, if you will.

Keep in mind also that quantum theory suggests with pretty high degree of certainty that things didn't have to turn out as they are in our universe - and that in fact, there are countless alternate universes, and in most of them, things are quite different, and we didn't happen at all. In that regard, we're the lottery winner in the cosmic lottery. Some reality had to end up this way, just based on the probability, and it was ours.

I am certainly aware that there is a parallel-universes hypothesis of quantum physics. I wasn't aware that it was conclusively proven. Do you mean to say that virtually all quantum physicists accept it, and that it's been tested and verified experimentally?

[Fenris]

You're both confusing design with implicate order. It's an important technical difference.

Psychologically, it's a matter of projection. We live in a world we've very much shaped to our own purpose. Most of the complicated things in the world were made by us in order to do something for us. So we project that on the universe.

But this is not true.

Projection is sometimes a problem, I agree. It's generally easier and safer for me to spot it in myself than in other people, though.

At any rate: this makes no sense. The concept of the Creator God predates both us and Newton by millennia- it dates back to a time when people lived in a much wilder, uncontrolled environment. It's not modern at all.


BTW, Ozbat, you're wrong about the odds. The odds are in fact 1, because you're asking the question in the first place. It's the anthropic principle: we can ask questions about how this universe supports sentient life because it supports sentient life; in some other universes, this does not apply.

The anthropic principle delights and astonishes me. After all these centuries of skeptics laughing at the medievalists for believing that earth was the center of the universe, we come to this: the seriously-advanced idea that the universe needs an observer to exist.

And, since we know of no aliens, that would be us.

We really are the center of the universe! Not physically, but effectively, in that it needs us to exist.

I have serious doubts about this idea. For that matter, I have serious doubts about the parallel-universe idea. I'm with Martin Gardner- if an infinite number of invisible, undetectable universes doesn't violate Occam's Razor, what does?


So anyway, to return to the design idea:

We actually mean by design rational manufacture to achieve an optimal end. The sole vector of the universe as an ultimate end is to cool to absolute zero, which doesn't achieve a whole helluva lot for a computer that size.

Hm? The sole vector of the computer I'm typing on right now is obsolesence, the junk pile, and eventually complete disintegration. That doesn't mean that the designer had disintegration in mind as his main purpose. The end of a design, i.e. its purpose, is not the same as the end of a design in the chronological sense. Some things- all things, actually- are used, and then used up.


Instead of being a great big rational computer that operates on linear logic, the univese is a great big supra- and infra-rational computer that operates on evolutionary and emergent logic.

As I've said before, this is a paradigm shift from positivism that has enormous implications at every level: epistemological, ontological, ethical, political -- the whole nine yards -- because it's an as above, so below principle.

But we should be careful not to project our modern preconceptions onto the universe. The universe is not a computer at all: at least, there is no evidence that it is computing anything in particular. This is an appealing but completely groundless metaphor.

(I'm sorry, Douglas Adams!)


Our psychology is not a pre-determined, ideal "soul" designed by heaven, but is instead a constantly and continually (re)created sum of a series of emergent properties. Even this sentence I'm writing has emerged from a competing array of possible sentences -- that's the way synapses work: evolutionary and emergent.

This is a fascinating paragraph that's leading me off in all kinds of directions. (Emergently!) But it's not an argument against design, unless you're saying that we'll never be able to develop Artificial Intelligence because of emergent qualities.

What this is, actually, is an intriguing suggestion of how free will might have some place in neurology. (Really, aside from the Calvinists, how many western religions believe that the soul is predetermined? Design vs. Free Will has always been a thorny issue for theologians, but modern philosophy is perhaps clearing it up.)

...Argh! I don't have time to finish this just now. More later! (Hopefully.)

[Wesley Dodds]

The anthropic principle delights and astonishes me. After all these centuries of skeptics laughing at the medievalists for believing that earth was the center of the universe, we come to this: the seriously-advanced idea that the universe needs an observer to exist.

But Paul's right -- the odds are 1. It happened.

It's not even an argument, it's a truism.

I think Paul just means the weak anthropic principle, not the loonier versions that postulate that the purpose of the universe was to give rise to an observer.

[Fenris]

But Paul's right -- the odds are 1. It happened.

It's not even an argument, it's a truism.

Dr. Quincy, the eminent forensic scientist, examined the corpse carefully. "There's a thirty percent chance that he died of natural causes, and a seventy percent chance that he was poisoned," he said, thinking out loud.

"What, are you crazy?" his assistant asked. "The odds are a hundred percent that he's dead- the body's right in front of you!"

-------

I'm not debating whether or not we exist- it's clear, outside of Philip K. Dick stories, that we do. I'm debating the probable causes of that existence.


I think Paul just means the weak anthropic principle, not the loonier versions that postulate that the purpose of the universe was to give rise to an observer.

Awww. But we'll see!

õ
Because Paul doesn't shy away from radical ideas!

[JeffreyWKramer]

I am certainly aware that there is a parallel-universes hypothesis of quantum physics. I wasn't aware that it was conclusively proven. Do you mean to say that virtually all quantum physicists accept it, and that it's been tested and verified experimentally?


As far as I know, it is has not been experimentally validated, and I think we'd hear about it, if it was. However, the existence of parallel universes is pretty much an insecapable conclusion drawn from the things we do know about the nature of quantum reality, and the concept derives from the same theory set which has allowed for physicists to predict and eventually confirm lots of other quantum hypotheses. At least as far as my own readings indicates, this seems to be pretty much the consensus opinion of most quantum physicists.

That's why I stated that this was "a high degree of certainty" - it is a theoretical construct that seems all but certain to be correct, but has not yet been experimentally confirmed.

[JeffreyWKramer]

BTW, although this has nothing to do with the current discussions, any arguments in this thread or really the topic of this thread, I did want to point out something to any of the theoretical-science geeks who may have missed it. SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN recently did a special edition on time, and most of the articles deal with the theoretical physics of time. Fascinating stuff, as I read through it... some of the articles, I'm having to read a couple times to absorb, plus giving myself plenty of time between the articles for the concepts to perculate and sink in. Highly recommended, though, for those interested in high-concept theoretical wonkery but who don't happen to be active theoretical/research physicists.

[Paul McEnery]

Projection is sometimes a problem, I agree. It's generally easier and safer for me to spot it in myself than in other people, though.

At any rate: this makes no sense. The concept of the Creator God predates both us and Newton by millennia- it dates back to a time when people lived in a much wilder, uncontrolled environment. It's not modern at all.

But it's not ancient, either. Your original God is animistic -- or pantheistic, if you like, which appears to be what we're coming back around to. These things go in cycles.

1st Animism -- the world itself is sacred and alive.
2nd Paganism -- worship of totems and what not. At this point, separate tribes being to develop.
3rd Skyfather cults -- these go along with the tribe developing a priesthood and chiefdom, and an inclination towards conquest.
4th Paganism redux -- the skyfather is too far away, so we worship lesser gods (Greek and Roman Pantheons; Vodun).
5th Judaic abstraction -- Buddha, Judaism, Islam, Christianity all come up with a God you access in your own heart, and operate as a social ethics.
6th Skyfather cult redux -- Your empire gets big enough the Emperor becomes God (or the voice of God), like Rome (and the Holy Roman Empire), China, Japan.

With each of these stages, the cosmology gets more complex, until we finally reach Aquinas trying to reconcile the rediscovered Greek science with the "recently" developed Christian theology of centralized power, which lands us with the first version of the philosophers God.

All the next stages are Western, and we know them well. At this point, we've got a more complex society whose relations need codifying, which leads to strict atheism and fundamentalism at the poles, and a denser syncretism in the middle, as people intermarry. And then we've got the new philosophical and scientific advances to reconcile with our religious experiences, which leads to again leads to fundamentalism and atheism at the two extremes, and a dense, active syncretism in the middle -- newagery, magic, cults, Philip K. Dick, etc.

So the Creator God comes in at two different stages in a life cycle -- the death knell of tribal living as it grows too big or encounters other tribes, and the birth knell of hierarchical systems.

It's worth pointing out that the Zoroastrians, Greeks, Shintoists, Hindus, Babylonians, and many, many other mythologies don't start with an almighty Creator God, but rather many different stages of differentiation as the world comes into being in a more orderly and personal state out of primal chaos; i.e. ontology recapitulates ontogeny.


The anthropic principle delights and astonishes me. After all these centuries of skeptics laughing at the medievalists for believing that earth was the center of the universe, we come to this: the seriously-advanced idea that the universe needs an observer to exist.

And, since we know of no aliens, that would be us.

We really are the center of the universe! Not physically, but effectively, in that it needs us to exist.

I have serious doubts about this idea. For that matter, I have serious doubts about the parallel-universe idea. I'm with Martin Gardner- if an infinite number of invisible, undetectable universes doesn't violate Occam's Razor, what does?

What Ozbat was talking about, the surprising depth of structure in the micro-level, has led to some interesting research that quantum structures actually compete against each other, and their environment is consciousness.

So it wouldn't be exactly true to say the universe needs us, more that we're partners in continual creation -- what your Vatican astronomer guardedly says. Which is to say, a universe with certain parameters will create sentient beings, who in turn will (by observation) further define the parameters.

Whether this effect has any backdating involved, we couldn't yet say; but time and space don't appear to be as concrete as the positivists imagined.

As for the other universes, well, it seems to me that Occam's Razor demands their existence, whether sequentially or in some other co-existent sense that's really difficult to grasp.



Hm? The sole vector of the computer I'm typing on right now is obsolesence, the junk pile, and eventually complete disintegration. That doesn't mean that the designer had disintegration in mind as his main purpose. The end of a design, i.e. its purpose, is not the same as the end of a design in the chronological sense. Some things- all things, actually- are used, and then used up.

Sorry, I'm lazily conflating terms. The mathematical use of the term computer, from back in Turing's day, means simply a program that (hopefully) terminates. IOW, an instantiated calculation. At that level -- and this is what Adams was getting at, btw -- the point is for it to deliver an answer, which just might be 42. You can, of course, rig up "computers" or computations that don't terminate. But you're not dumb enough to clog up a Cray with one of them.

So yes, the termination of a computation is important. And the termination this universe is shooting for is absolute zero.


But we should be careful not to project our modern preconceptions onto the universe. The universe is not a computer at all: at least, there is no evidence that it is computing anything in particular. This is an appealing but completely groundless metaphor.

I'm not sure that it's exactly a metaphor as much as examining the universe in a particular aspect; in the same way, we can think of brains as computers. In both senses, we're thinking in the mode of information, and asking how the processing takes place. The further, interesting, question is how information processing leads to consciousness; i.e. how do we create minds.


This is a fascinating paragraph that's leading me off in all kinds of directions. (Emergently!) But it's not an argument against design, unless you're saying that we'll never be able to develop Artificial Intelligence because of emergent qualities.

What's been discovered is that we can't create true AI using linear processes and rational design. You have to build emergent systems -- or, more accurately, you have to set up the parameters in such a way that emergence will happen.

As above, so below.


What this is, actually, is an intriguing suggestion of how free will might have some place in neurology. (Really, aside from the Calvinists, how many western religions believe that the soul is predetermined? Design vs. Free Will has always been a thorny issue for theologians, but modern philosophy is perhaps clearing it up.)

...Argh! I don't have time to finish this just now. More later! (Hopefully.)
Oh come on, the implanted soul goes back millennia in our tradition, just like Aristotle's "final cause". We can now see both of them as a groping metaphor for our genetic predeterminants.

[Paul McEnery]

BTW, although this has nothing to do with the current discussions, any arguments in this thread or really the topic of this thread, I did want to point out something to any of the theoretical-science geeks who may have missed it. SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN recently did a special edition on time, and most of the articles deal with the theoretical physics of time. Fascinating stuff, as I read through it... some of the articles, I'm having to read a couple times to absorb, plus giving myself plenty of time between the articles for the concepts to perculate and sink in. Highly recommended, though, for those interested in high-concept theoretical wonkery but who don't happen to be active theoretical/research physicists.
C'mon, spill. I bet it does.

[JeffreyWKramer]

C'mon, spill. I bet it does.


Have to do with this argument? Not so far as I can see at this point. But then, I'm still struggling with a lot of the articles, and am only about 2/3 through the issue. I'm not very familiar with either the current physics concepts of time, or the philosophical view of the subject, and it turns out they have a lot in common, enough that the physicists have been consulting the philosophers. One of the articles in the issue is about that.

Some really deep, interesting stuff. Or maybe I'm just stupid about the subject. Read it and decide for yourself.

[OzBat!]

Okay, cherrypicking here as I respond to posts that looked interesting to me, so if I appear random and disjointed, it's because I am!Hee!
I think there must be boundaries to science. I don't know what they are- save for extreme cases of the infinite sort- but it's interesting to try and feel around the edges.there's plenty of boundaries to science. There is a length known as the Planck length, 10-33 centimeters, that is indivisible. The same thing is true of mass, energy, and even time. There is a unit of time which cannot be subdivided: 10-43 seconds. We're getting into the realm of the quantum physicists here, where if you break matter into smaller and smaller pieces you eventually reach a point where those pieces - electrons, protons, et al. - no longer possess the traits of objects. Although they can sometimes behave as if they were a compact little particle, physicists have found that they literally possess no dimension.

Speaking to somebody else's assertion previously that science and religion are irreconcilable: the ancient Hebrew scholar Nachmonides, writing in the 12th century, concluded from his studies of the text of Genesis that the universe has ten dimensions: that four are knowable and six are beyond our knowing.

Particle physicists today have also concluded that we live in at least ten dimensions. Three spatial dimensions and time are directly discernible and measurable. The remaining six are "curled" in less than the Planck length (10-33 cm) and thus are only inferable by indirect means. I love syncronicity!

There is some conjecture that these ten (or more) dimensions were originally integrated, but suffered a fracture as a result of the events summarized in Genesis Chapter 3. The resulting upheaval separated them into the "physical" and "spiritual" worlds. There appears to be some Scriptural basis for an original close coupling between the spiritual and physical world. The highly venerated Onkelos translation of Genesis 1:31 emphasizes that "...it was a unified order." The suggestion is that the current physics, including the entropy laws, ("the bondage of decay") were a result of the fall.

The entropy laws reveal a universe that is "winding down." It had to have been initially "wound up." This windup - the reduction of entropy, or the infusion of order (information) - is described in Genesis 1 in a series of six stages. The terms used in this progressive reduction of entropy (disorder) are, erev and boker, which ultimately led to their being translated "evening" and "morning." Which brings me to one of JWK's queries:
And, what is meaning suggested in the original, or as close to same as we have?Erev is dark, obscure randomness; it is maximum entropy. As darkness envelopes our horizon, we lose the ability to discern order or patterns. The darkness is "without form and void." From this term we derive the current sememe for "evening," when the encroaching darkness begins to deny us the ability to discern forms,shapes, and identities.

Boker is the advent of light, where things begin to become discernible and visible; order begins to appear. This relief of obscurity, and the attendant ability to begin to discern forms, shapes, and identities has become associated with dawn or "morning," as the early twilight begins to reveal order and design. Evening and mornings constituted the principal stages of creation. Six "evenings" and "mornings" became the "days" constituting the creation "week." And yet, the interesting question still is, how do you want to define Him?It's important to accept that many of the assertions about "God" insist on Him having a material reality -- I take this as an inevitable corollary of having created and interacted with a material universe. If that's the case, then the nature and existence of God are indeed testable, or can at least be framed as testable hypotheses.I'd disagree with that. Another discovery of the physicists is that a subatomic particle, such as an electron, can manifest itself as either a particle or a wave. This chameleon-like ability is common to all subatomic particles. Called quanta, they can manifest themselves either as a particle or a wave. There is compelling evidence that the only time quanta ever manifest themselves as particles is when we are looking at them. This duality of nature could be considered to have some correlation to God.

Lots of people like to point out that Einstein got his maths wrong: when astronomer Willem de Sitter corrected a mathematical error, he found Einstein's equations predicted that the universe was finite - Space-time, matter, and energy had a beginning. On top of Einstein's theory of relativity demonstrating that time is flexible and mutable, then it is possible for time to come into existence-and also to pass away again; there can be a beginning and an end to time. If our space-time domain is the direct creation of God, then once He created the cosmos, in order to organize and uphold the galaxies, solar system and its life forms, the Creator must be able to act simultaneously, inside and outside the space time domain. I consider this to be the master template for how subatomic particles operate - they can be both particles and waves. God can be both inside and outside His creation, physically or otherwise.

As for whether or not we'll ever be able to detect direct evidence of God, I guess that would depend on whether or not we ever get access again to any of those dimensions wrapped up in less than the Planck length. I don't see that happening any time before God redeems and restores his creation back to it's Genesis 1 "unified order".

[OzBat!]

EDIT: dammit! My formatting has vanished! In case anybody is confused up above, the Planck length is 10 to the -33rd power centimetres! Is there any way to force this board to recognise HTML <SUP> </SUP> commands?

And of course, as soon as I posted that up above, I'm looking at the last page and you're already talking about Quantum Physics and time. Great stuff!

Now I need to find a copy of that Scientific American - it sounds really interesting. Hopefully it's got big block point sections for the total layman like me!

[OzBat!]

BTW, Ozbat, you're wrong about the odds. The odds are in fact 1, because you're asking the question in the first place. It's the anthropic principle: we can ask questions about how this universe supports sentient life because it supports sentient life; in some other universes, this does not apply.As Fenris so adequately pointed out, The fact that we exist is indeed 100% true, but it utterly ignores the scale of the requirements to make it happen, if indeed it was a chance process. To say that the odds to make it happen was 1 is totally incorrect.

If you bet the farm on a broken down old nag winning the Golden Slipper at 1000-1 odds and it impossibly comes in first, you don't suddenly claim it was 1-1 odds on favourite do you? You take your 1000-1 winnings and run! The results afterwards do not alter the odds beforehand.No. The odds were infinitessimally small that this outcome would happen at any particular instant in any given quantum reality, but when one considers the vast time and the infinite quantum possibilities, it is almost a foregone conclusion that this outcome would occur somewhere, at some time.The problem with this is that we're dealing with it in THIS particular Quantum reality. Those infinitessimally small odds would have had to have been replicated in each and every one of those quantum possibilities, until eventually one of them paid off, against the odds - they're not applied across the range. At this point, we're getting wayyyyy beyond the bounds of observability or even inferrability; it's pure speculation, unless we're suddenly part of the pre-crisis DCU and able to visit these alternate dimensions personally and confirm the hypothesis.

[Wesley Dodds]

As Fenris so adequately pointed out, The fact that we exist is indeed 100% true, but it utterly ignores the scale of the requirements to make it happen, if indeed it was a chance process. To say that the odds to make it happen was 1 is totally incorrect.

If you bet the farm on a broken down old nag winning the Golden Slipper at 1000-1 odds and it impossibly comes in first, you don't suddenly claim it was 1-1 odds on favourite do you? You take your 1000-1 winnings and run! The results afterwards do not alter the odds beforehand.

We have no way of calculating the "before" odds. All we know is that the horse won the race -- we don't know whether the before odds were 1,000,000,000 to 1 or 1.

We don't know and we have no way of calculating it, and I think it's more justified that because we know the horse won the race (good ol' weak anthropic principle) -- and in the absence of any evidence for magic, psychic powers, mystical energy, or whatever -- we assume that the horse won the race through natural causes, not because a divine hand came down, took the horse up, and plunked it down before the finish line.

[OzBat!]

Cute. But I'm not talking about magical powers or divine intervention or quantum dopplegangers there. We're talking about requirements in the physical world.

The astronomically small odds have been computed on small samplings of just some of the natural, physical, observable requirements that Fenris brought up a few pages back: covalences, gravity, atomic masses of essential elements in star generation, stuff like that.

[Wesley Dodds]

Cute. But I'm not talking about magical powers or divine intervention or quantum dopplegangers there. We're talking about requirements in the physical world.

The astronomically small odds have been computed on small samplings of just some of the natural, physical, observable requirements that Fenris brought up a few pages back: covalences, gravity, atomic masses of essential elements in star generation, stuff like that.

Well, it is saying that gravity, covalences, etc. couldn't have happened or developed, it had to be through the mystical intercession of God. God would have had to overturn natural laws. Why God couldn't create a universe that would produce these things through fixed natural laws I don't know.

You can't calculate the "probability" of gravity, atomic mass, anything like that. We have absolutely no way of knowing what the probability of these "requirements" occuring is, or even if they are true requirements or there are other hypothetical forces that would work still lead to life -- life that would then look back and say that there could be no other possible way.

[OzBat!]

Sorry, but science has been trying to do exactly that for quite a while.

Physicists love the "fine-structure constant," a, which combines the velocity of light, c, the electric charge on a single electron, e, Planck's constant, h, and the so-called vacuum permittivity, e0: a = e2/2e0hc.

Arnold Sommerfield introduced this in 1916. He was a pioneer in applying the theory of quantum mechanics to electromagnetism, this quantifies the relativistic (c) and quantum (h) qualities of electromagnetic (e) interactions involving charged particles in empty space(e0). It has consistently been measured at 1/137.03599976, and has endowed the number 137 with a legendary status among physicists (it will often open the combination locks on their briefcases). An article in the Scientific American, June 2005 states the following:

"If a had a different value, all sorts of vital features of the world around us would change. If the value were lower, the density of solid atomic matter would fall (in proportion to a cubed), molecular bonds would break at lower temperatures (in proportion to a squared), and the number of stable elements in the periodic table would increase (1/a). If a were too big, small atomic nuclei could not exist, because the electrical repulsion of their protons would overwhelm the strong nuclear force binding them together. A value as big as 0.1 would blow apart carbon."

When compiling the many physical and mathematical subtleties which make up our universe, scientists have discovered that a slight variation in any of them militates against the existence of life. At the cosmic level, if the earth was either closer or more distant from the sun; if the earth was larger or smaller; if the sun was larger or smaller, etc. - any of these variations would render life impossible. Even at the atomic and sub-atomic level, the slightest variation in any of the primary constants of physics - some as sensitive as one part in over 1,000,000 - causes life to be impossible.

this is the appearance of apparent design, the "anthropic principle," that Paul and Jeffrey keep refering to, since they yield the impression that the universe was designed specifically for man. The application of this perspective has even been the basis for some discoveries, such as Sir Fred Hoyle predicting and then discovering in 1954 the previously unknown energy levels in the Carbon-12 atom from his sensitivity to the prevalent patterns of numerical design in the universe. The "fine-structure constant" is an esoteric example of this same "anthropic principle."






And thus endeth the fullest extent of my physics knowledge! Most of it cribbed from notes copied from sources over the years, and now unidentifyable. Dammit!

[Sam]

I have serious doubts about this idea. For that matter, I have serious doubts about the parallel-universe idea. I'm with Martin Gardner- if an infinite number of invisible, undetectable universes doesn't violate Occam's Razor, what does?

But they aren't undetectable. The only reason anybody suggested them is that we've noticed some really strange bits of physical evidence in the world, and parallel universes are one possible way to explain those strange bits of evidence.

Parallel universes certainly aren't *proven* -- they're one of several equally bizarre explanations for the bizarre empirical evidence -- but they're not just some random invention.

As for the anthropic principle, Douglas Adams summed up the ridiculousness of the argument fairly well:

"Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for."

[Paul McEnery]

But they aren't undetectable. The only reason anybody suggested them is that we've noticed some really strange bits of physical evidence in the world, and parallel universes are one possible way to explain those strange bits of evidence.

Parallel universes certainly aren't *proven* -- they're one of several equally bizarre explanations for the bizarre empirical evidence -- but they're not just some random invention.

As for the anthropic principle, Douglas Adams summed up the ridiculousness of the argument fairly well:

"Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for."
I tend to think that the specificity of this universe that Ozbat gives us in such loving detail does imply rather strongly the other universes.

But no, it's not clear what sort of existence they have. I think that bit in Planetary when the old century babies conjure up a Justice League world that decides to fight for its existence might be the real model.

Which is to say, this universe is competing with other possible universes to be the universe in existence. And quite possibly, having an observer to interfere with its quantum processes, even at the macro level, may be what gives this universe the edge.

So far.

*now, where's my smiley of sepulchral doom*

[Hoss]

Pre-Crisis Earth 1 Superman was a better TV anchor than he was an actual reporter. I can prove it.

[OzBat!]

I saw him present a science interest piece once. He sucked! None of the samples of periodic table element Krypton that I've ever heard of ever did HALF that crap he came up with!

[Wesley Dodds]

Unfortunately, I don't know physics anywhere as near as well as I know biology, so I can't identify the rot. Most of it sounds like nonsense but I don't know enough about physics to know if it actually is nonsense.

I know biology well enough to know most of the arguments against evolution are rot, but I'm completely helpless before physics.

[Roquefort Raider]

How many tries did Edison take at the light bulb? Does that mean that it is nonsense to believe that the GE in my kitchen isn't just made up of materials that spontaneously appeared out of nowhere with out any prompting and then by coincidence just banged around until they became a light bulb?

That is essentially the watchmaker argument. The difference between a light bulb and living things is that light bulbs were designed and streamlined to perform one specific function as well as possible, while living things remain poorly-assembled things among which only the less-defective survive.

There are many types of light bulbs. They have different shapes, sizes and colors. They can even be based on different priciples (incandescence vs fluorescence, for example). Even so, there aren't any "quasi-light bulbs". When Eddison tried and tried again to create a working light bulb, he made many duds that ended up in the bin but didn't become new branches in the light bulb family tree. Light bulbs didn't evolve: their design was tested and scrapped, redrawn, retested and re-scrapped, until things worked... A point after which all further modifications were minimal.

Not so with life: From Ribozymes to jumping genes to viruses to bacteria to eukaryotic cells to multicellular critters, we can see repeatedly how things that worked a little got mixed and matched and clumsily put together to increase their chances of being replicated, until we arrived at the very complex living world of today. When I looked at a light bulb, (and with the help of a "light-bulbs for dummies" book, maybe) I can see how each piece fits with the others to give an optimal and economical effect. With a living body, I can marvel at how many different systems fit beautifully together to permit life; still, I have to wonder at many things that look incredibly awkward. Why our retina is designed backward, for example, as if light was expected to come from within the head. Why we have useless and often dangerous wisodm teeth or appendix. Why we are sensitive to certain viruses that won't harm other animals. Why we have jumping genes that can cause serious disease. And so on. It's a bit like looking at a functional light bulb that would have a boat anchor and a bologna sandwich trapped in it: we could be amazed at how it works, but wonder about the necessity of the bologna.

Considering our limited experiences trying to mimic the workings of the natural world and the processes that we’ve had to follow to get there, I’m not sure how it can be considered irrational to believe that a greater intelligence designed us.

For what it's worth, I don't view such beliefs as irrationnal: just unproven and, as far as I can tell, unnecessary. But for all I know, there might be a being that acted as the Grand Artificer who set up what we could call the Cosmic Fireworks (or the Big Bang) and designed it exactly right for the Human species to appear. In fact, I believe that's what God was doing in Arthur C. Clarke's Rama series.

[Wesley Dodds]

Not so with life: From Ribozymes to jumping genes to viruses to bacteria to eukaryotic cells to multicellular critters, we can see repeatedly how things that worked a little got mixed and matched and clumsily put together to increase their chances of being replicated, until we arrived at the very complex living world of today.

Mmmmmm, biology porn. Sexy.

[Hoss]

It's a bit like looking at a functional light bulb that would have a boat anchor and a bologna sandwich trapped in it: we could be amazed at how it works, but wonder about the necessity of the bologna.



Well, as far as the appendix and wisdom teeth, wouldn't the anchor make sense if at one time the light buld needed to float on water? I understood that as some point in the past both wisdom teeth and the appendix had functions as far as processing foods that are no longer necessary.

I can see it as the code for a program that has been updated yearly for the past 5 million years. You're bound to have some old pieces of outmoded code that stay around for the blink of an eye or two before they are fully processed out of the system.


But I fully understand that as far as understanding the mechanics of the post big bang universe there is no need for a designer. Though I believe that pure science will keep banging its head against the wall as far as why there is matter and energy in the first place until they come to terms with God.

[Roquefort Raider]

Well, as far as the appendix and wisdom teeth, wouldn't the anchor make sense if at one time the light buld needed to float on water? I understood that as some point in the past both wisdom teeth and the appendix had functions as far as processing foods that are no longer necessary.

I can see it as the code for a program that has been updated yearly for the past 5 million years. You're bound to have some old pieces of outmoded code that stay around for the blink of an eye or two before they are fully processed out of the system.


That is a good analogy. Useless or detrimental biological features do tend to disappear over time, even when they had a function in the past. In fact, it is the very basis of the evolution of species: bits and pieces appear, change or are lost over time in such a way that they may help critters to better perpetuate. (The bones of our ears, used for hearing, used to be gill arches witha respiratory function. The same goes for insect wings, which used to be gill-like appendages on some ancient invertebrate ancestor).

In the fanciful example I gave, however, we would still have to wonder why the designer saw fit to put an anchor at all in his primordial light bulb. It could be that he started with an anchor and wondered if it wouldn't be possible to make it into something that would emit light, and refined his design over time; such a concept, however, bespeaks of a clumsy tinkerer more than an omnipotent creator. As far as godly interventions go, I'm more open to the idea of a supreme being snapping his fingers to get everything started in such a way that evolution would happen the way he had planned, without the need for further intervention. (Precisely because we don't see traces of such interventions).

Though I believe that pure science will keep banging its head against the wall as far as why there is matter and energy in the first place until they come to terms with God.

Banging my head against a wall is what I do best in the lab!

[Fenris]

But it's not ancient, either. Your original God is animistic -- or pantheistic, if you like, which appears to be what we're coming back around to. These things go in cycles.

1st Animism -- the world itself is sacred and alive.
2nd Paganism -- worship of totems and what not. At this point, separate tribes being to develop.
3rd Skyfather cults -- these go along with the tribe developing a priesthood and chiefdom, and an inclination towards conquest.
4th Paganism redux -- the skyfather is too far away, so we worship lesser gods (Greek and Roman Pantheons; Vodun).
5th Judaic abstraction -- Buddha, Judaism, Islam, Christianity all come up with a God you access in your own heart, and operate as a social ethics.
6th Skyfather cult redux -- Your empire gets big enough the Emperor becomes God (or the voice of God), like Rome (and the Holy Roman Empire), China, Japan...

So the Creator God comes in at two different stages in a life cycle -- the death knell of tribal living as it grows too big or encounters other tribes, and the birth knell of hierarchical systems.

If I understand your analysis, the God-the-Creator concept appeared somewhere around #3, which is... well, ancient. Which is what I said: the concept was neither Newtonian nor modern. Whatever we may say of it, it wasn't created as a psychological projection of modernists living in air-conditioned luxury.


It's worth pointing out that the Zoroastrians, Greeks, Shintoists, Hindus, Babylonians, and many, many other mythologies don't start with an almighty Creator God, but rather many different stages of differentiation as the world comes into being in a more orderly and personal state out of primal chaos; i.e. ontology recapitulates ontogeny.

This doesn't surprise me, as I don't expect all religions to say the same thing. I'm not sure how that factors into your cycle system, though.


What Ozbat was talking about, the surprising depth of structure in the micro-level, has led to some interesting research that quantum structures actually compete against each other, and their environment is consciousness.

*Sniff*

I smell a radically-unproved hypothesis which sounds cool to laymen. How exactly is this sort of thing being tested?


So it wouldn't be exactly true to say the universe needs us, more that we're partners in continual creation -- what your Vatican astronomer guardedly says. Which is to say, a universe with certain parameters will create sentient beings, who in turn will (by observation) further define the parameters.

Whether this effect has any backdating involved, we couldn't yet say; but time and space don't appear to be as concrete as the positivists imagined.

Okay, so that puts the Anthropic Principle in a new light. So far our hypotheses are:

1) God created the universe.
2) The multiverse includes every possibility.
3) Anthropic Time-Travel.


As for the other universes, well, it seems to me that Occam's Razor demands their existence, whether sequentially or in some other co-existent sense that's really difficult to grasp.

Hm? Occam's Razor demands the simplest, smallest explanation that reasonably covers all the data. An infinite series of invisible universes is about the most extravagant hypothesis imaginable.

(Heck, at least with the God hypothesis you're only dealing with a single invisible entity!)


Sorry, I'm lazily conflating terms. The mathematical use of the term computer, from back in Turing's day, means simply a program that (hopefully) terminates. IOW, an instantiated calculation. At that level -- and this is what Adams was getting at, btw -- the point is for it to deliver an answer, which just might be 42. You can, of course, rig up "computers" or computations that don't terminate. But you're not dumb enough to clog up a Cray with one of them.

So yes, the termination of a computation is important. And the termination this universe is shooting for is absolute zero.

Yes, but again: this is nothing so much as evidence that the universe is not a computer. Metaphorically, or in any other meaningful sense. It might be considered as a tool of some other kind, but I think you've shown that it cannot be a computer.

(I'm not clear why we're debating this, though: I never thought that the universe was God's computer, and neither do most Christians that I'm aware of.)


õ
The idea sounds pleasantly Far Side-ish!

[DracoMalfoy]

Prayer cannot heal the body but it can mend the spirit. Or at least make you feel better about yourself as you lay sick and dying in pain.

[Fenris]

We have no way of calculating the "before" odds. All we know is that the horse won the race -- we don't know whether the before odds were 1,000,000,000 to 1 or 1.

We don't know and we have no way of calculating it, and I think it's more justified that because we know the horse won the race (good ol' weak anthropic principle) -- and in the absence of any evidence for magic, psychic powers, mystical energy, or whatever -- we assume that the horse won the race through natural causes, not because a divine hand came down, took the horse up, and plunked it down before the finish line.

As far as I can tell, the whole point of the Anthropic Principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle) is to deal with the staggering improbability of existent life. That's why it was invented. And that's why the drastic expedient of the Many-Worlds Hypothesis is invoked: the only way to make it plausible is for the universe to cover every last single possibility.


õ
Which is to say, some extravagant explanation is inevitable!

[Fenris]

But they aren't undetectable. The only reason anybody suggested them is that we've noticed some really strange bits of physical evidence in the world, and parallel universes are one possible way to explain those strange bits of evidence.

Parallel universes certainly aren't *proven* -- they're one of several equally bizarre explanations for the bizarre empirical evidence -- but they're not just some random invention.

Hello, Sam!

Either I'm misunderstanding you, or else I'm communicating poorly.

Let me try a case in point. Back at the start of the 20th century, Einstein developed his Theory of Special Relativity. He suggested various tests for it, such as measuring the "bend" of light during a solar eclipse. Those tests verified the theory, and all was well.

Special Relativity existed as a theory before the eclipse, but it wasn't detected. It was in pure-hypothesis form. It was a neat idea which Einstein hoped would explain things- but, as he himself insisted, it needed testing before it could be taken very seriously. Einstein was a hero of the scientific method.

If I'm not mistaken, that's where the Many-Worlds hypothesis is now. It's a neat idea that would explain many things. But it hasn't been demonstrated, and therefore we can't put too much scientific authenticity on it yet.


As for the anthropic principle, Douglas Adams summed up the ridiculousness of the argument fairly well:

"Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for."

Hee!


õ
Maybe the universe was created by the Improbability Drive!

[Paul McEnery]

This doesn't surprise me, as I don't expect all religions to say the same thing. I'm not sure how that factors into your cycle system, though.

It factors in because Judaic theism was formed in the crucible of Babylonian captivity. Basically, many of the OT myths are repurposed Babylonian myths with the new Judaic theism supplanting the old Gods. I'm thinking particularly of Bel and the Dragon, which was authored rather than redacted during the captivity, which clearly speaks of a conscious choice between three gods: Tiamat (the Dragon), Baal (Bel) and Yahweh. In this story, Yahweh is actually a cipher for Marduk, the dominant Babylonian God, who fulfills the same role of being top of the hierarchy (Marduk is the eye in the pyramid on your dollar bill) and being the institutor of order.

How you can be the foundation of order if you're at the peak of the pyramid is a question the story does not address.

So yeah, Judaic theism emerges from this background.


*Sniff*

I smell a radically-unproved hypothesis which sounds cool to laymen. How exactly is this sort of thing being tested?

Pol, I think, dug this up a year or two ago. But now I can't find it either here or online. Which annoys me.


Okay, so that puts the Anthropic Principle in a new light. So far our hypotheses are:

1) God created the universe.
2) The multiverse includes every possibility.
3) Anthropic Time-Travel.

Defining anthropic time-travel more closely -- and yes, I could very easily go with this -- the quantum levels of reality do seem to compete against each other, and their environment is us. This may well mean that this is the only universe, and quantum selection is the universe's analogue to apoptosis. Some versions of quantum selection may have the seemingly paradoxical effect of selecting for an event that happened billions of years ago. That's a bit outlandish, but within the realms of possibility.

[Paul McEnery]

Ooh, wait.

That means I've got an insane explanation for the power of prayer!

Going into a trance state means visiting the quantum plane and selecting possible universes. If you're any good, you pick the universe where you get your result.

Naturally, other people are up to the same game.

So we live in a Wanda-esque universe where different probabilities are constantly shifting which universe gets picked.

Which is why, every now and again, that thing you just put down on your desk has gone missing. And then unaccountably shows up in exactly the same spot you just looked at 15 minutes ago.

I find this disturbingly plausible.

[OzBat!]

It factors in because Judaic theism was formed in the crucible of Babylonian captivity. Basically, many of the OT myths are repurposed Babylonian myths with the new Judaic theism supplanting the old Gods.You definitely need to read Chaim Potok's Wanderings: History of the Jews. The care and detail with which the jews kept their sacred works was amazing. If anything, I'm more inclined to believe that other civilisations picked up myths and legends from their contacts with the jews, not the other way around.

[Paul McEnery]

You definitely need to read Chaim Potok's Wanderings: History of the Jews. The care and detail with which the jews kept their sacred works was amazing. If anything, I'm more inclined to believe that other civilisations picked up myths and legends from their contacts with the jews, not the other way around.
That's, like, really history, then, and not a novel?

I'll keep an eye out.

[OzBat!]

Definitely a history, told with a (good) novellists' style. Very readable. And about 5 pages of references in the back! Man sure covered his bases!