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10/20/2009 10:00:50 AM · #576 |
| I like your essay Ross, but it's a bit too biased in its word images to be doing anything but preaching to the choir. Replace "prison" with a home and the person sitting by the crackling fire and the "outside" with an arctic storm and suddenly it all seems different. So while you express your view well, it is too loaded to mean too much to me. I'll stay snuggled by the fire, thank you. ;) |
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10/20/2009 10:19:53 AM · #577 |
I see your point Jason, and had thought the same myself (it IS a little biased).
TBH, your descriptors do the same thing for me (personally). I had always envisioned the entire scene as being terrific weather outdoors inside AND outside the prison walls. Hmmm - then again, I thought of it more like 'community with high walls of defense' more than some dark horrid dungeon. Still, your point is made.
I'm not the author though, and have simply presented it 'as found'. |
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10/20/2009 10:27:01 AM · #578 |
| That wasn't Dawkins was it? :) Seems too prosaic for him. |
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10/20/2009 10:30:21 AM · #579 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I'll stay snuggled by the fire, thank you. ;) |
Wasn't Ross' parable a reworking of some CS Lewis tract from way back when? That sounded more like yours? I guess "bias" could be considered a two-way street.
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10/20/2009 10:31:11 AM · #580 |
Originally posted by rossbilly:
Though I'm not sure of the author, this piece provides for some interesting conversations... |
That's a variation of Plato's Cave allegory— usually depicted in reverse, with disbelievers inside the cave/prison, and the faithful as those who literally "see the light." However since Plato's "truth" was referring to Greek gods, it's also an ironic demonstration of its own fallacy. |
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10/20/2009 10:38:02 AM · #581 |
Originally posted by david_c:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I'll stay snuggled by the fire, thank you. ;) |
Wasn't Ross' parable a reworking of some CS Lewis tract from way back when? That sounded more like yours? I guess "bias" could be considered a two-way street. |
Oh yeah, I'm not saying mine is no less biased. I'm just pointing out that many times pictoral descriptions like this gain there strength merely by the words chosen rather than the power of the thought behind it. Dawkins' Pink Unicorn and Flying Teapot are good examples as well. The examples are purposely chosen to emphasize maximal absurdity. |
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10/20/2009 10:38:18 AM · #582 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
If gravity, according to relativity suddenly has a gravitational field measurement of "infinity", something is broken. |
Yes - the theory of relativity is broken. It's acknowledged that the theory has fundamental limitations. Quantum physics addresses some of them on the sub-atomic level. You might recall we had an e-mail conversation where I mentioned the unrealized quantum theory of gravity that would address singularities like "infinite gravity". You pooh-poohed. :-) An unrealized theory doesn't address anything, but (not being a physicist) I would expect that there are very good reasons for physicists to assume that a quantum theory of gravity, or a unified theory, are worthy goals to seek, and quite within reach.
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Perhaps a good compromise is to quote the wiki for Black Holes (under singularity). It might give the sense you are going after: |
There you go. My sum of my understanding of both relativity and quantum theory comes from Stephen Hawking, and it is well reflected in that quote.
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
So everything we currently know fails to work and we hope to have answers in the future. But at this point, frankly, that starts to sound scarily like some scientific version of faith. :) |
Mr. Friesen, I'm shocked. You of all people know that theorizing, proto-theorizing, and revision of theory are not whispers of faith and sweaty-browed acts of fervent belief.
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
So once again we're back to the point that everything we know points to a beginning known as a singularity. Beyond that we can know nothing, so to speculate that such a singularity need not be created is no better than to speculate that it does. |
It's much better to speculate that it is not created. In the entirety of our understanding of the universe, nothing is created. Not a single thing. When we have a broken theory, we should immediately invoke the supernatural as the likeliest explanation for the parts not addressed by its flaws? Come come. Whip out that Occam, for corn sakes. |
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10/20/2009 10:40:32 AM · #583 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
What is invoking a whole new set of laws and processes if not "magic"? |
Math? |
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10/20/2009 10:44:55 AM · #584 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Dawkins' Pink Unicorn and Flying Teapot are good examples as well. The examples are purposely chosen to emphasize maximal absurdity. |
To be fair to the good doctor (that's Dawkins, not you), neither are his invention. The Pink Unicorn comes from atheist discussions on Usenet in the nineties, and the teapot is Bertrand Russell's. |
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10/20/2009 12:25:14 PM · #585 |
Originally posted by Louis:
It's much better to speculate that it is not created. In the entirety of our understanding of the universe, nothing is created. Not a single thing. When we have a broken theory, we should immediately invoke the supernatural as the likeliest explanation for the parts not addressed by its flaws? Come come. Whip out that Occam, for corn sakes. |
You know me well enough to know I don't just leap to the supernatural and refuse to budge. I'm more than happy to explore and explain with science. My point, in this case, is more to illustrate that what we currently know is completely broken when it comes to things like singularities. No tool we currently have can make sense of a singularity. I'm not saying we may never understand them in the future, but go back and read Shannon's first post about Singularities and judge whether it reflects a "we pretty well know it all but need to fill in a few tiny blanks" sentiment. This is the attitude that drives me a bit batty and gets Robert using words like hubris.
Originally posted by Shannon:
Very likely the same laws that govern other space-time phenomena, such as gamma ray bursts, quasars, the rapid expansion of red supergiants in their final phases, and the collapse of stellar cores to form neutron stars and black holes (most or all of which were completely unknown a mere 100 years ago). Maybe Big Bang-like events have happened before (the infinite past is a very long time). The triggers for these events may not be completely understood, but there's no reason to invoke magic and superstition to explain them. Heck, we can't even pinpoint the exact trigger for a tornado or earthquake, but only diehard nutjobs still attribute them to divine smiting. |
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10/20/2009 01:15:53 PM · #586 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
go back and read Shannon's first post about Singularities and judge whether it reflects a "we pretty well know it all but need to fill in a few tiny blanks" sentiment. |
Nope. It's a "there's a lot we don't know, but everything we DO know thus far has been explained within the laws of nature and there's nothing to suggest that the remainder won't follow suit" sentiment. The unknown remains unknown on both sides, but for everything else the score is: Proven Natural Explanations— 100%; Proven Supernatural Explanations— zilch. While you're far from alone in rooting for the underdog of superstition, it has failed to be shown correct even once in thousands of years. |
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10/20/2009 01:16:42 PM · #587 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
go back and read Shannon's first post about Singularities and judge whether it reflects a "we pretty well know it all but need to fill in a few tiny blanks" sentiment. |
Nope. It's a "there's a lot we don't know, but everything we DO know thus far has been explained within the laws of nature and there's nothing to suggest that the remainder won't follow suit" sentiment. The unknown remains unknown on both sides, but for everything else the score is: Proven Natural Explanations— 100%; Proven Supernatural Explanations— zilch. While you're far from alone in rooting for the underdog of superstition, it has failed to be shown correct even once in thousands of years. |
How do you prove a supernatural explanation? |
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10/20/2009 01:21:21 PM · #588 |
Originally posted by NikonJeb:
Except for that niggling little item......you cannot prove God's existence.
Therefore, on what rational level is the existence of God supported? |
As I mentioned on page 22, Aristotle articulated this over 2,000 years ago: The cause of an event must be greater or more powerful than the event itself.
I won't waist time and space here to explain this, but you'll have look this yourself. |
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10/20/2009 01:39:11 PM · #589 |
Originally posted by Nullix:
As I mentioned on page 22, Aristotle articulated this over 2,000 years ago: The cause of an event must be greater or more powerful than the event itself.
I won't waist time and space here to explain this, but you'll have look this yourself. |
I remain puzzled as to how this would indicate a rational person's belief in the existence of God.
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10/20/2009 01:44:31 PM · #590 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
How do you prove a supernatural explanation? |
Like this. Good luck. |
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10/20/2009 01:49:10 PM · #591 |
Originally posted by Louis:
In the entirety of our understanding of the universe, nothing is created. Not a single thing. |
I was going to come back to this. All the singularities we are aware of (those at the core of black holes) were "created" in the sense of "formed through a process" (the collapsing of a star). I realize you mean created in the sense that matter is not created from nothing (although this is not necessarily true*), but my question is why would we suddenly speculate that the original singularity, rather than being formed through a process, was eternal? Why is this singularity special and different?
* As I understand it, we currently allow for the spontaneous formation of matter and anti-matter particles. However, they normally annihilate each other and return to the energy field from which they were formed. |
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10/20/2009 02:04:21 PM · #592 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
How do you prove a supernatural explanation? |
Like this. Good luck. |
ya, I agree "good luck" as it's impossible. If we will only allow the scientific method and tools to "prove" such events, then it becomes, in medical terms, a "diagnosis of exclusion". However, we will never exclude everything. Basically, when considering it as evidence to support your position, the game is rigged from the beginning.
If you had a similar bar graph with "events that are natural" and "events that are []ipossibly[/i] supernatural" the bars would look very different because, of course, we don't have explanations for lots of stuff. And while we come up with new explanations all the time, we are also always discovering things that don't have one. |
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10/20/2009 02:18:47 PM · #593 |
Originally posted by NikonJeb:
I remain puzzled as to how this would indicate a rational person's belief in the existence of God. |
The cause of an event must be greater or more powerful than the event itself.
There's a cause to the universe. That cause must be more powerful than the universe.
That cause is something outside of our understand and universe or in other words, God. |
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10/20/2009 02:34:57 PM · #594 |
Originally posted by NikonJeb:
I remain puzzled as to how this would indicate a rational person's belief in the existence of God. |
Originally posted by Nullix:
The cause of an event must be greater or more powerful than the event itself.
There's a cause to the universe. That cause must be more powerful than the universe.
That cause is something outside of our understand and universe or in other words, God. |
A cause to the universe? How about it just is?
And.....if it's outside our undestanding, how does this make God as the conclusion?
If you're a person of faith brought up in that faith in a certain way, I understand that chain of assumptions leading you to that conclusion, but it doesn't make sense outside those parameters.
An erroneous conclusion to a rational, thinking mind.
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10/20/2009 02:40:31 PM · #595 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
If we will only allow the scientific method and tools to "prove" such events, then it becomes, in medical terms, a "diagnosis of exclusion". However, we will never exclude everything. Basically, when considering it as evidence to support your position, the game is rigged from the beginning. |
No, Jason, the supernatural cannot be excluded from verification unless the events themselves are suspect. If you claim you can levitate, read minds or bend spoons, then that should be readily demonstrable. If prayer worked, then there would be substantially better outcomes among the faithful that would shine like a statistical lighthouse. That's not rigging the game, it's basic verification. |
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10/20/2009 02:44:23 PM · #596 |
Originally posted by Nullix:
There's a cause to the universe. That cause must be more powerful than the universe. That cause is something outside of our understand and universe or in other words, God. |
How do you know there is a cause to the universe? You're just making a baseless assumption there. What if I said there is a cause to God (the same assumption) which must therefore be more powerful, and a cause for that cause, and another cause for that cause, ad infinitum? Obviously this is absurd. |
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10/20/2009 02:55:59 PM · #597 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
...my question is why would we suddenly speculate that the original singularity, rather than being formed through a process, was eternal? |
We don't speculate that (at least not in the sense that I think you mean). Relativity fails at the precise moment of the big bang, and so we are left with the anomaly of infinite time receding into the past (with relativity, we can never predict what happened at the zeroth second and thereby discover what caused it). The theory doesn't predict that time regresses infinitely, or that the big bang came from some eternal event. The theory fails, and therefore the calculations produce the mathematical singularity of infinity. |
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10/20/2009 03:07:02 PM · #598 |
I think it might be worth defining the word "singularity", as I think it is sometimes used in popular parlance to mean things it might not necessarily mean. Oxford first describes "singularity" as something singular, i.e., unique, strange, weird, or eccentric. It then describes the mathematical use of the word, to indicate "a point at which a function is not differentiable (i.e. takes an infinite value), though differentiable in the neighbourhood of the point" -- as in the formula for the theory of relativity. Lastly, Oxford supplies the astronomical use: "A region in space-time at which matter is infinitely dense."
In Hawking's books, he uses the word "singularity" to mean the anomaly of a mathematical function that produces an undesirable infinite value. |
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10/20/2009 03:31:26 PM · #599 |
Originally posted by Nullix:
There's a cause to the universe. That cause must be more powerful than the universe. That cause is something outside of our understand and universe or in other words, God. |
Originally posted by scalvert:
How do you know there is a cause to the universe? You're just making a baseless assumption there. What if I said there is a cause to God (the same assumption) which must therefore be more powerful, and a cause for that cause, and another cause for that cause, ad infinitum? Obviously this is absurd. |
That seems to be a trait of people strong in faith, at least in my experience. They don't seem to look very hard for a rational explanation if the explanation "God" answers things.
I'm not saying ALL people of faith, but a major percentage of the seriously devout that I have met exhibit this trait.
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10/20/2009 03:56:46 PM · #600 |
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
...my question is why would we suddenly speculate that the original singularity, rather than being formed through a process, was eternal? |
We don't speculate that (at least not in the sense that I think you mean). Relativity fails at the precise moment of the big bang, and so we are left with the anomaly of infinite time receding into the past (with relativity, we can never predict what happened at the zeroth second and thereby discover what caused it). The theory doesn't predict that time regresses infinitely, or that the big bang came from some eternal event. The theory fails, and therefore the calculations produce the mathematical singularity of infinity. |
I think what I'm getting at is we have ideas of how a black hole forms (and hence the singularity within). The process involves massive stars which collapse upon themselves, etc. I guess I'm at least curious why Shannon would speculate that the original singularity that caused the Big Bang would be uncaused and eternal when the others are not? Is it a different kind of singularity? Is there some other reason it's special?
The whole conversation came up with Shannon asserting that we had no reason not to assume the universe was eternal. I pointed out evidence shows a beginning to it. He countered that the evidence points to a Big Bang, but the singularity itself could have been eternal. I am now countering to say all our other knowledge about singularities within our universe show they are formed and have not existed forever, so why do we want to make that giant leap of assumption about the Big Bang singularity? To sum up, I still feel that the Big Bang provides too much difficulty to the idea that the Universe is, itself, the uncaused cause and that this difficulty is avoided by pushing the uncaused cause of at least one step. |
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