Physicist and author Sean Carroll discusses the scientific embarrassment that there is no consensus on what quantum mechanics means:
The special role for observation in quantum mechanics makes many scientists uneasy. The notion that a mind or Mind may be necessary for the emergence of reality at a fundamental level makes materialists squirm.
Carroll's favored interpretation of quantum mechanics eliminates the need for a Mind. His explanation is Everett's Many Worlds Hypothesis: at each quantum interaction, the universe splits into as many universes as there are different quantum states, and each quantum potentiality actually happens in its own new universe, each of which is eternally separated from the mother universe. In other words, countless new universes are created continuously at each moment, for each quantum particle that interacts with another quantum particle.
Please understand: he means countless actual universes, continuously being created from every quantum state in the universe.
For Carroll, who is an atheist, the invocation of an infinite number of universes arising continuously makes a lot of sense. It obviates the need to invoke a Mind.
It simplifies things, in an atheist sort of way.
It is a measure of the desperation of atheists that Carroll sincerely believes that the creation of octillions of new independent universes every nanosecond serves as a much simpler explanation for reality than the explanation that the universe is created by a Mind.
:-/
The special role for observation in quantum mechanics makes many scientists uneasy. The notion that a mind or Mind may be necessary for the emergence of reality at a fundamental level makes materialists squirm.
Carroll's favored interpretation of quantum mechanics eliminates the need for a Mind. His explanation is Everett's Many Worlds Hypothesis: at each quantum interaction, the universe splits into as many universes as there are different quantum states, and each quantum potentiality actually happens in its own new universe, each of which is eternally separated from the mother universe. In other words, countless new universes are created continuously at each moment, for each quantum particle that interacts with another quantum particle.
Please understand: he means countless actual universes, continuously being created from every quantum state in the universe.
For Carroll, who is an atheist, the invocation of an infinite number of universes arising continuously makes a lot of sense. It obviates the need to invoke a Mind.
It simplifies things, in an atheist sort of way.
It is a measure of the desperation of atheists that Carroll sincerely believes that the creation of octillions of new independent universes every nanosecond serves as a much simpler explanation for reality than the explanation that the universe is created by a Mind.
:-/
When I hear such (pseudo) scientific explanations I am reminded of Roman 1:20:
ReplyDelete"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."
See no truth, hear no truth, speak no truth!
Yet another Bible verse that is clearly wrong. The fact that we have this sort of discussion over and over proves that God’s eternal power and divine nature are not clearly seen, and there are plenty of “excuses” (compelling reasons) to believe God had nothing to do with the nature of the world.
Delete-KW
KW, you really are without excuse!
DeleteQuantum mechanics is, by far, the most impressive and successful theory in science. Ever.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, take a gander at Table 12 (the others are interesting, too) in:
A Snapshot of Foundational Attitudes Toward Quantum Mechanics (2013)
Fascinating. Obviously the Copenhagen Interpretation is the 'correct' one, because it's favoured by 42% of respondents and 42 is the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything (Google calculator proves it).
DeleteInteresting that the respondents note that consciousness isn't necessary to resolve the measurement problem. No need for a mind or even Mind.
They're all just interpretations. One respondent claimed to use more than 2 in the same day.
How does one measure, without a mind?
DeleteMichael,
DeleteBecause there's no measurement problem. There's no measuring taking place.
As you well know, I'm an atheist and a materialist, and I don't find the idea that 'a mind or Mind might be necessary for the emergence of reality at a fundamental level' embarrassing or make me squirm.
ReplyDeleteThe Many Worlds Interpretation is just an interpretation. Just as the Copenhagen Interpretation. And the many other interpretations. They're just models of reality predicting the results of experiments on a quantum scale and they all do equally well, because they're human descriptions of the mathematical equations.
Which model corresponds to reality is very much up in the air, because the appropriate experiment hasn't been devised and performed.
A mind isn't necessary for observation. A mindless detector will do fine. The observation is supposed to 'collapse the wave function' in the Copenhagen Interpretation. If you fire electrons at a double slit in a barrier singly at a cathode ray tube, you'll get an interference pattern, as though electrons were waves not particles.
That is the result you'll get 100% of the time, regardless of whether there's a mindless and switched off detector pointed at one of the slits, or a scientist in the laboratory taking time off for a coffee break or even a God outside the Universe not taking any interest in what's happening.
It's only when a measurement is made that electrons stop behaving as waves and act as particles in the Copenhagen Interpretation. Particles in the Copenhagen Interpretation don't actually exist. Electrons are actually just fluctuations in the electron field, with a maximum probability of being present in one location and a non-zero probability of being virtually everywhere else. Observation just collapses the probability wave to a single point and the electron becomes a particle. But most of the time it behaves as a wave. Observation, and it needn't be by a mind, is just a special case, not actually related to what is commonly happening in reality.
The Many Worlds Interpretation is just another interpretation. Some physicists, and it seems that Sean Carroll is one, believes that observation causes splitting of the Universe. Others don't, using the analogy of a library with a very large number of copies (perhaps an infinite number) of the same novel, starting with exactly the same page 1, and then deviating slightly in the plot so the ending differs.
In the Many Worlds Interpretation, electrons are particles and also able to interfere with electrons in adjacent universes.
They're just interpretations of the bizarre world of quantum mechanics, describing it using human terms. Humans just don't have the mental imaging to be able to picture what is happening at the very minute scale of quantum mechanics.
Copenhagen Interpretation - no particles, probability waves in the corresponding field, observation in special cases, not necessarily by a 'mind', collapses the probability wave to a point, and a particle 'appears' transiently.
Many Worlds Interpretation - particles exist, and also a large number of parallel universes, many of which are similar with a similar but not identical arrangement of particles and the most similar particles across parallel universes are capable of interacting and causing an interference pattern on the double slit experiment, making the particles look like waves.
Which interpretation is correct and corresponds to reality is a moot point. I personally favour the Copenhagen Interpretation, in which particles don't exist, until a quantum interaction occurs. Which includes colliding two beams of protons at almost light velocity in the Large Hadron Collider. No mind making observations of the collisions here, just recording the pieces resulting from the collisions of the wave functions.
Pretty funny, bach. You accept with equanimity the concept that countless new universes are being created each nanosecond, but you ridicule Christians who believe in God and Heaven.
DeleteChristianity is much more plausible and rational than atheism.
People believe in some strange shit, don't they? Countless universes, panspermia, aliens....
DeleteAnd the arrogance and pride is laughable. Why, Hoo just posted an idiotic comment a few days ago allegedly from some (apparently equally moronic) colleague of his implying he could design a better human genome. OK, pal, I'll take you up on that. "Where's the beef?" as the Burger King lady used to say.
Michael,
DeleteGo back and reread my comment. I don't accept with equanimity that countless universes are being created every nanosecond. I wrote that I favour the Copenhagen Interpretation.
Reading competency isn't one of your skills.
The problem interrupting quantum physics is the problem of translating the theory to English. The quantum realm is so far removed from our every day experience that it is essentially impossible to translate the theory to the spoken or written word and then claim that the translation adequately describes the “truth” of the situation.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, our nature and experience endow us with a very visceral notion of time. Our language is built around our shared experience of time and imposes structure on our conversations that may not be appropriate to accurately describe the “reality” of a situation. Time is a tricky concept in physics, often simply imposed on theories to make them describe what we see, but never arising from the theories themselves. Until we have a better understanding of the true nature of time, any of our interpretations of quantum mechanics are doomed to be left wanting.
-KW
Adm. Boggs,
DeleteI think you misunderstood KW's point. Not only does it not contradict Feynman's quip, it explains why "nobody understands quantum mechanics." It is impossible to reduce quantum mechanics to our essentially classical everyday experience.
I hope you have taken to doing crosswords in the morning. If not, I highly recommend that activity.
Hoo
One of the more interesting aspects of multiverse theory is that there are many paths to the multiverse, the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics being but one of them (and one of the least compelling in my opinion).
ReplyDeleteFrom the inevitability of repeating configurations of space in an infinite single universe, to the formation of an infinite number of pocket universes caused by the local collapse of a superluminal inflation field, modern cosmological observations support the notion of a multiverse because there is nothing in the most successful theories that preclude them from happening.
It gets better. The bubble universes that are spawned by an inflation field may themselves be infinite in extent, with the expanding bubble wall always observed to be the time zero big bang event for observers in the bubble. Multiverses within multiverses, and nothing consistent with observation to rule them out.
The Copernican revolution continues. The history of science has been a history of revealing the universe to be bigger and grander than anyone has ever imagined, over and over again. Even if there is no multiverse, the puny universe described in the Bible is a joke that only serves to illuminate the limits of human imagination.
-KW
Ahhhh, Grasshopper. Master say "Fool without Wisdom should stuff dirty sock in mouth, pound sand. In this way, Wisdom may be achieved next life."
Delete--- Tu-Ning, Musical Master, Foo King Monastery
@KW:
DeleteYou intentionally avoid the point I and other honest people have made in this thread.
Whatever the truth about multiverses, you atheists are awfully selective about what hypotheses you deem preposterous and what you deem plausible. And your selective invocation of Occam's Razor is plainly a rhetorical device, not a quest for truth.
Your whole worldview is devoted to denying God, no matter how preposterous the construct.
Michael,
DeleteYou remain clueless about quantum mechanics. The Feynman quote, that if you think that you understand quantum physics, then you don't understand quantum physics - applies to you (and also me).
The Copenhagen Interpretation provides no support for the existence of God. Doesn't exclude the existence of God. The Many Worlds Interpretation is an attempt to avoid the conclusion that particles don't exist. They're all waves. Wave-particle duality doesn't exist, until there's a quantum interaction and the wave function collapses to a point (a difficult concept to get one's head around I admit).
There are no photons. Light consists entirely of waves. The afterglow of the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago initially consisted of light radiated from a plasma of 3000 Kelvin with a given wavelength. With the subsequent enormous expansion of the Universe, the wavelength has stretched to that corresponding to a temperature of 2.7 Kelvin.
The photoelectric effect involves a high energy wave of light intersecting with the wave of an electron in a metal, causing both to collapse to points and kicking the electron free - which then reverts to a wave. Happens all the time (I have one on my roof), with or without a God. I don't have to sit on my roof all day observing it and making it happen. Nor does God (if God exists) have to observe it either to keep it happening.
There are so many versions of the Multiverse. The quantum multiverse isn't parsimonious, and on that ground alone, unlikely to be true. Extremely Un-parsimonious and extremely unlikely to be true. But there are other hypotheses of the multiverse, including separate regions of this Universe having different physical laws and constants, but which are so far away that they are forever unobservable.
The Universe is huge. The Visible Universe, with the expansion of space, is now 92 billion light years in diameter. What lies beyond is a matter of conjecture. Is the entire Universe 1000 times larger? Or is it infinite?
We live in the only Universe not requiring a God. We could be living in any number of different Universes, including one consisting of just the solar system and the few thousand stars visible to the naked eye, or even one just consisting of the Milky Way Galaxy, as was believed by most astronomers in the early 20th century,; in both cases I would concede that God was a good explanation. But we don't.
@bach:
Delete[We live in the only Universe not requiring a God.]
WTF are you talking about?
Michael,
DeleteAgain. Reading competency isn't one of your skills. Go back and reread my comment again. We could live in any one of an infinite number of universes, including one that consists of just the solar system and the few thousand stars visible to the naked eye. If we lived in such a universe, I'd concede that the existence of God was a very good explanation. I'd agree that 'game's over - God exists'.
But we don't. We live in a very non-parsimonious universe with at least a hundred billion galaxies each with at least a hundred billion stars. That at least we can see.
As an aside, as a teenager one of my favorite science fiction (more fantasy) books was 'the Maker of Universe' series, by Philip Jose Farmer. In the first book, a disillusioned retired elderly professor of languages discovers a gateway into an alternate universe in a cupboard in the basement of a house he's inspecting. He later passes through the gateway to enter a Garden of Eden world in an artificially created pocket universe.
He later meets the Lord and creator of the pocket universe, who reveals that the Earth also lies in a pocket universe, a perfect copy of the Lords' home universe, and that the Earth's universe consists just of a space extending about twice the distance of Pluto, with a barrier on which is projected images of stars and galaxies.
He's staggered by the idea that an apparently enormous universe is just an illusion. And completely misses the fact that the Earth's universe is a perfect copy of the Lords' universe, which is also a pocket universe with it and everything in it, including the Lords, artificially created.
Mind blowing stuff.
Your reading skills haven't improved since you claimed that Benjamin Libet's research showed that a person is aware of a touch sensation before the action potentials have reached the person's brain. And that it possibly indicates that the peripheral nervous system is self aware.
Due to the accelerating expansion of the universe, observers in the far distant future may find themselves living in a galaxy that seems to be alone in the void, with all the other galaxies and the cosmic microwave background radiation red-shifted to such long wavelengths that they are no longer observable. They would be unable to make the observations that lead us to the big bang theory, inflation, and the multiverse. I feel kind of sorry for them because they will never know what we know, because what we know is literally unimaginable.
Delete-KW
As an additional remark, God could exist outside of this apparently spatially infinite Universe or could exist in the extra 7 dimensions of space that String Theory postulates exists at every point in regular space, but just infinitely curled up (although I doubt that String Theory is true, and I'd be extremely surprised if it was true).
DeleteThe existence of God has to be established on other grounds. And it would be a help if you'd define what God actually is. Is God an entity with which one can engage in conversation and a question and answer session (as you seem to do)? Or is God the entity envisaged by Aquinas in which any human characteristics, such as anger, is just a metaphor?
The universe isn't proof of God's existence. 'Something didn't come from nothing', because if you add the positive energy encompassed in ordinary matter (4-5%), dark matter (24%), dark energy (72%) and ordinary energy (0.1%) and the negative energy of gravity, it comes to zero. Nothing. The universe is 'nothing' and it came from 'nothing'.
KW,
DeleteActually, it might still be possible for an hypothetical observer in a future Universe in which all galaxies in the Universe except for the ones in the local group have 'dropped' over the 'horizon' of what's visible if they could still detect the leftover radiation of the Big Bang as coming from everywhere in the Universe.
Possible. But extremely difficult. It would take a genius of staggering ability to pull off such a feat. Einstein didn't quite manage to do it, putting the cosmological constant into his equation of General Gravity, to avoid the Universe collapsing (similar to Newton having God giving the planets an occasional nudge to keep them in the right orbits).
bachfiend: There are no photons. Light consists entirely of waves.
DeleteThat's silly, bachfiend. Photons certainly exist.
Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric effect relies on light's energy being quantzied in portions of 2.7 eV (blue light). Light consisting of photons of a lower energy simply cannot knock out electrons from a solid because its photons are not sufficiently energetic.
A red shift in Compton scattering can only be understood in terms of recoil experienced by a photon bouncing off an electron.
Hoo
Hoo,
DeleteI concede your knowledge of quantum mechanics is greater than mine. But the point I was making that light as a particle only exists when light as a wave interacts with other quantum entities - such as the wave of an electron in a metal - at which point both waves collapse to a point (a particle) and energy is transferred kicking the electron free - which then reverts to a wave.
That's my visual understanding of it. If light consists entirely of particles, then how could the photons from the afterglow of the Big Bang, at 3000 Kelvin, cool down to 2.74 Kelvin in the subsequent 13.7 billion years? The photons would have had to start off with fairly high energy (orange perhaps?) and then cool down to microwave. It's easier to think of light consisting entirely of waves.
Bach, The farther into the future you go, the larger the antenna has to be in order to detect the increasingly long wavelengths of the red shifted radiation. While it may be theoretically possible to build arbitrarily large antennas, at some point they become so large they become impossible in practice.
DeleteWhen a currently visible galaxy “disappears” over the horizon, what we are really saying is that the light from that galaxy has been red shifted to such an extent that it is no longer detectable. At some point the light emitted by the distant galaxy will not reach us because the recession speed is superluminal, but light emitted prior to the attainment of superluminal recession will continue to reach us for an infinitely long period of time at ever increasing wavelengths. The CMB, already the most red shifted light observable, will effectively disappear well before some of the higher frequency radiation from the receding galaxies does.
-KW
The short answer, bachfiend, is that light behaves as both particles and waves. In fact, any wave, not just light, has a discrete nature if you examine it with a fine enough resolution.
DeleteSound waves in solids might seem continuous, but turn out to be discrete. The energy of a sound wave with frequency f is an integer multiple of hf, where h is Planck's constant. At levels of intensity accessible to human hearing, the wave energy seems to change continuously, but in reality it changes in tiny but nonetheless well-defined steps. When the energy of a sound wave becomes of order hf, its discrete nature becomes noticeable. Not to a human ear, of course. We can detect the effect by examining thermal properties of solids, where low-frequency waves get "frozen out" at low temperatures. As with light, sound waves can be described as a stream of particles carrying energy and momentum and known as phonons.
Photons in the Bog Bang were indeed high-energy. They did not so much cool down since the Universe became transparent: that would assume exchange of energy with some environment, which did not happen as photons have been flying through empty space freely ever since. The large red shift in their frequency is easiest to understand in the wave picture (the Universe's expansion stretched the wave). John Baez has a good pedestrian explanation of the cosmological red shift.
But the fact that we think of light as of a wave does not mean that this wave is not a stream of photons.
Hoo
KW,
DeleteI'm going to have to think about it more. My understanding is that as galaxies drop over the horizon of visibility, it's because the intervening space is expanding faster than the speed of light. And the expansion will continue at faster and faster speeds. So the light emitted 'now' will never reach us.
The afterglow of the Big Bang will never disappear. Because it's everywhere. It will always be possible to detect some light from the afterglow because there will always be some point in the early Universe located at such a position in relation to a future observer that the intervening space has expanded just enough to match the time since the time when the early universe cooled enough to become transparent.
Agreed. Very difficult to detect. Perhaps impossible. And it would take a genius to work out the cause.
Remember, the expansion of the universe is accelerating. At some point, while many of the existing red dwarf stars are still shining, the wavelength of the CMB will pass the size of the solar system. I doubt any civilization will build an antennas bigger than our solar system. Granted they might, but some later civilizations (if they are still possible) will be dealing with wavelengths a significant fraction of a light year long, then light years long.
DeleteThe cosmic horizon, interestingly, will look allot like the event horizon of an idealized black hole. When some poor sucker falls through the event horizon of a black hole he might not even realize it, and we will never see what subsequently happens to him. What we would see if we could build the gigantic instruments necessary, is the traveler stuck on the event horizon, moving ever more slowly, and emitting increasingly long wavelength radiation. Of course in reality there is no such thing as an idealized black hole.
-KW
"It is a measure of the desperation of atheists that Carroll sincerely believes that the creation of octillions of new independent universes every nanosecond serves as a much simpler explanation for reality than the explanation that the universe is created by a Mind."
ReplyDeleteIt is a measure of their desperation ... and their intellectual hypocrisy (aka 'intellectual dishonesty'): for, suddenly, they're silent about Occam's Razor.
All this hand wringing about different interpretations of quantum mechanics is philosophical bullshit that makes no difference either in science or outside of it. All of the modern interpretations of QM make identical predictions about experimentally verifiable aspects. (Bohm's silly joke is complete nonsense that no one takes seriously anymore.)
ReplyDeleteIf you crack open any serious textbook on QM, there is either no discussion of interpretations or there is some cursorial overview. The Copenhagen version has been and remains the commonly accepted standard.
The role of the observer is no longer viewed as crucial. Theory of quantum measurements has been advanced far enough to provide enough indications that an observer is unnecessary. All that is needed for the "collapse" of the wavefunction is quantum entanglement with the environment, which is easy to get and, in fact, hard to avoid. Wojciech Zurek had a readable article in Physics Today that can be found here: arXiv:quant-ph/0306072.
Hoo
If God’s head popped out of a cloud and told me Christianity is true, I’d say “oh my God, we live in that small subset of universes in which the collapse of the inflation field resulted in the formation of pure mind with the ability to manipulate the nature of his pocket universe and act as a creative force”.
ReplyDeleteOf all the theories in physics, multivese theory is the one that is most friendly to Christianity. They’re just too stupid to realize it yet.
-KW
KW,
DeleteAgreed, to some extent. I'd personally put my bet on String Theory, with its 7 extra dimensions of space, as being the most friendly to Christianity. God could be hiding in the 7 extra dimensions, be everywhere, including in us, and be absolutely undetectable. As if He doesn't exist.
I don't think String Theory is true though.
[Of all the theories in physics, multivese theory is the one that is most friendly to Christianity. They’re just too stupid to realize it yet.]
DeleteWe Christians proposed the existence of other realities long before you came on the scene. But you're right-- the invocation by atheists of countless other universes forever closed off to observation in order to elide the cosmological argument or the fine-tuning argument is an enormous boost to Christianity, because it shows how desperate atheists are to deny the truth.
Rather than admit that the universe was created by an Intelligence, you hysterically invoke an infinity of other random unobservable universes as part of your "science".
Anything-- just anything-- to avoid admitting the existence of the One Who Must Not Be Named.
The Multiverse argument exposes you for the intellectual frauds you are.
Ever notice when it starts to get sciency here the religious folk just kind of disappear?
ReplyDelete-KW
You atheist-dullards mistake your science (of highly variable quality) for metaphysical arguments. Since they are just bad incoherent metaphysics, those of us who understand the real arguments feel little need to participate.
DeleteIt matters little whether there are 7 dimensions in String Theory or 4 or 21. God ain't in any one of them, because he's not a "thing" in creation.
We have little to discuss with you when you revert to idiot scientism, just as mathematicians have little to discuss with interlocutors who begin singing kindergarten nursery rhymes.
If you like to discuss the nature of the Observer who collapsed quantum waveforms before man existed, or the logic of creation of the universe from nothing, you'll get quite a discussion.
Which dimension in String Theory God uses to hide is not a discussion we are interested in. We are laughing too hard to type.
Egnor: If you like to discuss the nature of the Observer who collapsed quantum waveforms before man existed, or the logic of creation of the universe from nothing, you'll get quite a discussion.
DeleteLOL. This reminds me of angels pushing planet orbs. Turned out later planets moved nicely on their own and the angels lost their jobs.
No conscious observer is necessary for the collapse of a wavefunction. Any sort of environment creates entanglement, thereby converting a pure state of a physical system to a mixed one.
Hoo
[LOL. This reminds me of angels pushing planet orbs.]
DeleteSays a man who believes that the continuous creation of infinite universes is a plausible scientific theory...
Dr. Egnor,
DeleteI do not think that multiverse is a scientific theory and I don't care for it as a philosophical concept.
Hoo
Why is it invoked?
DeleteYou invoked it in this thread, so go ask yourself.
DeleteHoo
Ok:
DeleteMike, why is the multiverse invoked?
Well, gee Mike, it seems to me that it is a way to elide the cosmological argument and the fine tuning argument.
Ya' know, Mike, I agree with you. It sure looks like a bunch of atheist scientists are mightly uncomfortable with the enormous body of scientific knowledge that implies a Mind as the ground of existence.
Do you mean, Mike, that they make up really preposterous theories rather than accept the obvious-- the the universe was created by God?
Yep, Mike, that's what it looks like to me.
Roses are red,
DeleteViolets are blue.
I'm a schizophrenic,
and so am I.
Michael,
ReplyDeleteYou're being extremely simplistic in assuming that the multiverse was invoked to avoid recognizing the existence of a deity.
Humans are very curious about what lies beyond the horizon. Why were there so many expeditions to the Antarctic in sailing ships and in harsh conditions? Robert Scott's ill fated expedition to the South Pole in 1911 was largely scientific. Their return was partly delayed by carting along heavy fossils they'd collected - including those of Glossopteris, which was yet another piece of evidence consistent with the theory of continental drift.
Astronomers in the early 20th century generally believed that the Universe just consisted of the Milky Way Galaxy, albeit larger than nowadays accepted, 300,000 light years across instead of 100,000 light years. To a curious person today it raises the question; what did the astronomers believe to be lying beyond the Milky Way Galaxy?
The actual truth that the Universe is actually huge - the farthest galaxy is 13.2 billion light years away - and old - 13.72 billion years, immediately raise the questions:
What lies beyond the farthest point we can see? Is the Universe even larger? A thousand times larger or even infinite? Are there regions in the Universe with different physical constants, justifying the term 'multiverse'?
Or,
What existed before the Universe? Is this Universe just a bubble off a larger Universe, which buds new universes all the time, again justifying the term 'multiverse', in a different sense?
The multiverse isn't inimical to the concept of a God unless you define God in such a restricted manner that it's incompatible. Thomas Aquinas' concept of God could fit any cosmology you care to devise. Your concept of God, as a person with whom one can have a conversation and engage in question and answer questions (such as asking whether the Garden of Eden story was literally true, really?), is just so stunted that it is consistent with only the most primitive cosmologies.
My suggestion that String Theory was the most Christianity friendly theory wasn't in jest. God could be in the extra 7 spatial dimensions and be present at every point of the Universe, including us. It solves the problem of how a god could control the Universe from a position outside, which, even if the Visible Universe is all that there is, is currently at least 46 billion light years in radius. How a god would be able to negate the speed restriction of the speed of light is beyond me.
QM is, essentially, nothing but a new religion in a post-classical, pseudo-science wrapper. It seems all the scientists are grasping at straws these days, doesn't it? Science has been so bastardized of late. I find it sad. For it has always been my one real love.
ReplyDeleteI am *still* nauseous over watching the $10 billion wasted at the LHC in pursuit of the Nonsense Particle. What an anticlimactic farce. What an immense waste of resources. What typical modern human folly.
It seems to me that “modern man” has a very tough time accepting reality. Of course, one look at the current state of affairs in the world only serves to reinforce that notion. These scientists believe they’re so intelligent, well-educated, and enlightened; yet most of them have absolutely no idea even of who rules over them. And, no – I’m not referring to God.
Once they have acquired the ability to grasp such simple, yet crucial, concepts; and have ceased chasing the pseudo-science gravy train -- then perhaps some of us may begin to take them more seriously. The world already has enough court jesters and ridiculous distractions.
"QM is, essentially, nothing but a new religion in a post-classical, pseudo-science wrapper"
DeleteQuantum mechanics and quantum field theory are the most experimentally confirmed theories that exist.
"What an anticlimactic farce."
The particle was predicted by the theory, then they built a detector and it was detected. It's pretty straightforward ...
"then perhaps some of us may begin to take them more seriously."
If you can't accept one of the most well supported theories in science, why should anyone take you seriously?
WHEN YOU were in school and passed by science club, with their plaid pants buckled over their belly buttons, greasy hair, weird shuffling walk, and stuttering socially awkward personalities --- Tell me.... Is that the place you went to discover the Truth of Existence?
ReplyDeleteWas that the type of person who seemed like a Balanced Thinker? One who was the pinnacle of Wisdom? Or was that a bunch of people who were essentially forced into their Dungeons and dragons playworld precisely because they Did Not have any social capabilities whatsoever?
These origin disciplines attract weirdos . Ive got 4 Mensa members in my extended family and none of them are Scientists because we're not weird. It attracts these socially awkward types who are disposed to atheism. You worship them at your peril.