Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Please Read OP)

Brian Shanahan · 29-04-2014 7:56pm

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

If you're like me you probably read it in Terry Pratchett's, Ian Stewart's and Jack Cohen's first collaboration The Science of Discworld. The specific example they used was to develop a circutory system which could reliably distinguish a direct current and an alternating one, and by evolutionary adaption it was eventually worked down to a system of 21 (IIRC) circuits out of an original system of 100. The scientist who developed the system thought he could do away with five, but the system stopped working if the circuits were taken away, even though one of them wasn't connected to anything else. I'll see if I can dig out the book out of my attic later on and put up the details properly.

Found the book, and the passage in question is on page 211 of (my very dog eared and foxed copy of) the 1999 paperback Ebury Press edition:

Adrian Thompson, an engineer has had a hobby since 1993 of evolving circuits and the authors discuss an example. First he took two inputs, one a frequency at 1 kilohertz and the second a frequency at 1,000 kilohertz. Then he took a circuit board with a field programmable gate array, with 100 logic cells. He then used a computer to randomly generate fifty pairs of codes for the cells and culled the "least fit" recombining the "fittest" for each successive generation down the line.
These are the results:
First Gen The fittest were circuit pairs that returned a steady five volt response no matter what the input was.
220th Gen The fittest circuits were those which replicated the inputs, i.e. if you put in a 1kH input it would output a 1kH signal, and so on, just like if you ran the signal through a bare wire.
650th Gen The output at a low Hertz was steady but still variable at the high Hertz.
2,800th Gen Two seperate signals depending on the input, and while there were glitches these were mostly steady.
4,100th Gen All glitches ironed out, no further substantive evolution was observed past this point.

The structure of the result was very strange, it used 100 logic cells, but it actually only needed 32 of them. It didn't bother with a "clock" (which would tick constantly to have a base rate) which would need more than 100 logic cells, and which no human engineer would exclude from their designs. And of the 32 necessary cells, it looked like five others could be removed, as they weren't electrically connected to the rest of the system, but removing them killed the system as a whole.

One final thing the name of the chapter this account is in is The Descent of Darwin. I highly recommend anyone to go out and buy this book(it is out of date in some areas though) and its three sequels. They are a very good primer for the layman in some of the most interesting areas of science and also give a strong overview of the fundamentals of the scientific method.

nagirrac · 30-04-2014 12:58am

smacl wrote: »

The answer is obviously 42, an we're just here to figure out the question

..or whatever or whomever started the experiment moved on to another one, and abandoned this one

smacl wrote: »

If we take the universe as being both infinite and non-deterministic, the God of the gaps will never be squeezed out, and religious belief can hence never be disproved. God can however be dismissed as being as no more or less probable than any other unsubstantiated fantasy that anyone could care to describe. Note that even in the world of computing and automata, we have the notion of non-determinism, and I don't believe the universe is deterministic in any meaningful sense.

I had a lengthy reply written but the non deterministic universe ate it

I'll try and recreate it later

Just on this, do the laws of physics not suggest a deterministic universe? Classical physics certainly does, special and general relativity does, QM with the exception of the dreaded measurement problem does.

Morbert · 30-04-2014 3:55am

nagirrac wrote: »

Just on this, do the laws of physics not suggest a deterministic universe? Classical physics certainly does, special and general relativity does, QM with the exception of the dreaded measurement problem does.

Well, quantum mechanics says the probability amplitudes associated with classical properties evolve deterministically. It doesn't let us say the properties themselves evolve deterministically.

nagirrac · 30-04-2014 5:06am

Morbert wrote: »

Well, quantum mechanics says the probability amplitudes associated with classical properties evolve deterministically. It doesn't let us say the properties themselves evolve deterministically.

Is here anything else in physics that has been experimentally demonstrated to be non deterministic?

nagirrac · 30-04-2014 5:15am

smacl wrote: »

You're certainly not alone in considering that approach, evolving adaptive neural networks look very promising albeit rather unpredictable. My knowledge of AI is also rather lamentable, but I suspect as we learn more about how the brain and the mind interact, we will at some stage in the future be able to create a fully self aware artificial intelligence. If this can be done on a state machine, and that state can be backed up to some persistent medium, we'll effectively create the first immortal.

Network building slime.

You would imagine if single celled amoebea with no brain, let alone a mind, can do this, it should be a doddle for us to recreate

http://www.nature.com/news/how-brainless-slime-molds-redefine-intelligence-1.11811

It's been reproduced in the US since the Japanese paper was published.

nagirrac · 30-04-2014 5:44am

smacl wrote: »

I see no reason to suspect that these patterns are constructs, and am quite happy to wonder and be held in awe by what is natural.

I don't, which of course dismisses Abrahamic religion in the first instance. Other religions and less specific notions of God follow shortly thereafter.

Just on these references to God, a pantheist does not believe in a supernatural God. Pantheists, depending on where they are on the pantheism to panentheism spectrum, believe that all of nature, including what we have discovered and not discovered, is God or a manifestation of God. This is why the religious, when they have spiritual experiences, claim to feel the essence of God as God is everything and the reason for everything.

I agree the concept or at least the written description of the concept of the Abrahamic God is implausible. I think you have to take into account that most religions make efforts to describe God, which is likely impossible, the timeframe this particular effort was written in, and the religions that inspired it.

smacl · 30-04-2014 8:14am

nagirrac wrote: »

Just on this, do the laws of physics not suggest a deterministic universe? Classical physics certainly does, special and general relativity does, QM with the exception of the dreaded measurement problem does.

Even using Newtonian physics, closed systems are only deterministic given exact preconditions, which demand knowledge of relative position, energy levels, velocity, spin, etc... for every element in that system. The tiniest variations of these preconditions can lead to potentially huge difference in outcome as shown with chaos theory. If we allow the universe to include continuous variables, such as position in space, velocity etc... we have an infinite number of potential pre-conditions for even the simplest of closed systems.

When I say that I don't believe the universe is deterministic in any meaningful sense, I don't believe it is possible or will ever be possible to measure the current state of the universe to predict a future state to a degree of accuracy where we could say predict a persons future actions with any level of confidence. As such, even when predicting the output for very simple, largely closed systems, we allow for random error (as well as attempting to eliminate systematic error). Once we start measuring preconditions on any physical system, we take multiple redundant observations in order to allow us better understand the random errors in our measurement. We state results from a statistical perspective with stated confidence, acknowledging error and interference factors.

tl;dr Outside of pure maths, there are very few absolutes. As such, probability trumps determinism, and hence I tend towards non-determinism.

smacl · 30-04-2014 8:44am

nagirrac wrote: »

Network building slime.

You would imagine if single celled amoebea with no brain, let alone a mind, can do this, it should be a doddle for us to recreate

http://www.nature.com/news/how-brainless-slime-molds-redefine-intelligence-1.11811

It's been reproduced in the US since the Japanese paper was published.

I remember discussing this with a friend when it first came out, and we reckoned it should be quite easy to figure out a rule base to repeat this experiment using cellular automata. What is does illustrate very well is how complex systems can be developed from very simple goal seeking self replicating systems, which further suggests that everything universe derives from the culmination of natural process.

smacl · 30-04-2014 8:58am

nagirrac wrote: »

Just on these references to God, a pantheist does not believe in a supernatural God. Pantheists, depending on where they are on the pantheism to panentheism spectrum, believe that all of nature, including what we have discovered and not discovered, is God or a manifestation of God. This is why the religious, when they have spiritual experiences, claim to feel the essence of God as God is everything and the reason for everything.

My understanding of pantheism is admittedly limited. While I understand that pantheists consider God to include all of the natural universe and perhaps more, do you believe this God is in any sense self aware or sentient for example. If so, why? If not, what distinguishes a pantheist notion of God with an atheist sense of wonder for the observed and imagined?

My understanding of the universe is that it is unknowable primarily as a result of scale rather than any specific content, and am hence drawn towards contextualism to limit scope when considering any given problem.

robp · 30-04-2014 12:52pm

Turtwig wrote: »

None of this explains why nothing has to be the default.

What is "outside" the universe (or multiverses) is that something or is that nothing? If it's nothing, how does something expand into it?

Also if we assume time and the universe are part of the same then the universe always existed. But, I digress.

You are missing the point. There is something. We are compelled to explain it. Rationally we have no choice but to try to understand why there is not nothing. If you treat something as a default and not needing of explanation then you are avoiding the question.

nagirrac wrote: »

The "nothing" that theoretical physicists talk about is not nothing as in "the absence of anything". We have no example in the physically observable universe of the absence of anything, it is a mathematical or logical construct of the human mind.

This view is deeply problematic though. As its a means to avoid a perfectly valid scientific question: is there an eternal universe and is it even possible. As if its not then nothingness has to be considered.

robp · 30-04-2014 1:07pm

Penny 4 Thoughts wrote: »

I think I understand what you mean with the two options, what I wasn't following is why if the universe didn't always exist that must mean there was nothing. I appreciate that there wasn't a universe, but could there could have been other non-universe things, such as God or the multiverse or a proto-universe? I'm not suggesting there was these things, but they aren't ruled out by science?

Our universe took its form with the Big Bang but when we say multiverses we are really talking about the same universe. There could be many parts of the universe but there is always only one universe as such. I am making the case that our universe had a beginning. There may be a multiverse / proto-universe (unlikely) but if there was it had a beginning too. This beginning combined with many other fascinating features of our universe show the existence of God.

marienbad wrote: »

And that question why if in all of recorded history has any phenomena attributed to God,gods witchcraft,curses, spells ,whatever, turned out to be just our own ignorance waiting for our knowledge to catch up, and if that is the case then is that still not the most reasonable explanation now ?

My simple answer: it hasn't always turned out to be our ignorance.

marienbad · 30-04-2014 3:21pm

robp wrote: »

Our universe took its form with the Big Bang but when we say multiverses we are really talking about the same universe. There could be many parts of the universe but there is always only one universe as such. I am making the case that our universe had a beginning. There may be a multiverse / proto-universe (unlikely) but if there was it had a beginning too. This beginning combined with many other fascinating features of our universe show the existence of God.

My simple answer: it hasn't always turned out to be our ignorance.

Examples please.

Morbert · 30-04-2014 3:49pm

marienbad wrote: »

Examples please.

Chaotic inflation, which is turning out to be more and more likely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7FBER4NXT0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_inflation

Eternal Inflation is an inflationary universe model, which is itself an outgrowth or extension of the Big Bang theory. In theories of eternal inflation, the inflationary phase of the universe's expansion lasts forever in at least some regions of the universe. Because these regions expand exponentially rapidly, most of the volume of the universe at any given time is inflating. All models of eternal inflation produce an infinite multiverse, typically a fractal.

Current data and theory suggests the universe did have a beginning of some kind ("Eternal Inflation" is future-eternal, but not past-eternal). But this beginning does not imply some supernatural creation event.

Morbert · 30-04-2014 3:54pm

nagirrac wrote: »

Is here anything else in physics that has been experimentally demonstrated to be non deterministic?

Quantum physics is the fundamental language of physics. All other physics is an approximate limit of quantum physics.

There is a vast range of experiments which demonstrate fundamental probabilistic behaviour, from radioactive decay to electrodynamics.

smacl · 30-04-2014 5:22pm

Morbert wrote: »

Chaotic inflation, which is turning out to be more and more likely.

Watched the video, but way over my head tbh. Is there an idiots guide to quantum mechanics and string theory yet

nagirrac · 01-05-2014 1:18am

Morbert wrote: »

There is a vast range of experiments which demonstrate fundamental probabilistic behaviour, from radioactive decay to electrodynamics.

Probabilistic in the same sense as probabilistic in QM i.e. fundamentally random? I am rapidly getting out of my depth here, but are nondeterministic and probabilistic not different concepts? This is such a confusing topic, as the same terms can mean different things in physics, computer science / mathematics, and philosophy.

If we stick to a discussion about nature, does nondeterministic not suggest we have no idea what nature will actually do, whereas probabilistic means we have studied nature's behavior and know the possible range of outcomes?

nagirrac · 01-05-2014 1:27am

Morbert wrote: »

Chaotic inflation, which is turning out to be more and more likely.

I have been trying to wrap my head around the implications of the recent South Pole experiments that appear to give strong support to inflationary theory. Is this a reasonable way of thinking about it (from a cosmological layperson):

Inflation happened before the big bang, and is still occurring outside our local space time universe. The big bang wasn't a beginning event, it was a slowing down or virtually stopping of inflation that resulted in our local universe, and there may be any number (trillions) of other similar universes with their own big bangs kicking them off.

Its no wonder its called the preposterous universe

marienbad · 01-05-2014 1:30am

Morbert wrote: »

Chaotic inflation, which is turning out to be more and more likely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7FBER4NXT0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_inflation

Current data and theory suggests the universe did have a beginning of some kind ("Eternal Inflation" is future-eternal, but not past-eternal). But this beginning does not imply some supernatural creation event.

So my question still stands then -that god so far in human history did not provide the answer to any conundrum outstanding ,it was just a question of our knowledge catching up ?

nagirrac · 01-05-2014 3:26am

smacl wrote: »

My understanding of pantheism is admittedly limited. While I understand that pantheists consider God to include all of the natural universe and perhaps more, do you believe this God is in any sense self aware or sentient for example.

I believe all of life is aware to some degree, and maybe by mechanisms that are still beyond our comprehension, and the evidence is starting to support this claim. So the question is (for a believer) whether God is a form of life or is the reason for life.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2009.01313.x/abstract;jsessionid=62BC45BD99E14D0BE5F2DB59C422A8B6.f03t03

The more research I have come across on animal and more recently plant studies, the more obvious it is that many attributes that we think of as human are also present in the animal and plant kingdom. Obviously they are more highly developed in humans, but without brains or even any nervous system, we are finding behavior in plants that we would have described previously as consciousness in human studies. This dovetails nicely with my research on shamanic religions (where I believe all religions originated and there is quite a bit of evidence to support this), and with my own religious practice, as it gives a glimmer of credence to the claim that all life forms have some degree of awareness.

smacl wrote: »

If so, why? If not, what distinguishes a pantheist notion of God with an atheist sense of wonder for the observed and imagined?

I have made this point on here before that there is virtually little difference between an atheist and a pantheist. Einstein is a case in point, he is claimed by both atheists and pantheists, and with some justification given his various pronouncements in his lifetime. From what I have read of his writings on the subject, he did not believe in a personal God, was critical of organized religions, but was a pantheist ("I believe in Spinoza's God"). It is quite possible to be religious without adhering to any dogmatic faith.

smacl · 01-05-2014 9:27am

nagirrac wrote: »

it gives a glimmer of credence to the claim that all life forms have some degree of awareness.

I suspect the danger here is undue anthropomorphism, as in the article that refers to the brainless slime redefining intelligence. All life forms are goal seeking to some extent when searching for food and the opportunity to reproduce, and this can give the appearance of intelligence, as even simple greedy goal seeking systems can solve quite complex problems. This makes them aware insofar as they react to their environment, and arguably self aware as they also can react to their own presence in their environment, but this is neither intelligence or self awareness in the more common understanding of those terms. I wouldn't consider the intelligent slime any more or less intelligent or self aware than a corresponding cellular automata simulation running on a computer for example.

nagirrac · 01-05-2014 1:47pm

smacl wrote: »

I suspect the danger here is undue anthropomorphism, as in the article that refers to the brainless slime redefining intelligence. All life forms are goal seeking to some extent when searching for food and the opportunity to reproduce, and this can give the appearance of intelligence, as even simple greedy goal seeking systems can solve quite complex problems. This makes them aware insofar as they react to their environment, and arguably self aware as they also can react to their own presence in their environment, but this is neither intelligence or self awareness in the more common understanding of those terms. I wouldn't consider the intelligent slime any more or less intelligent or self aware than a corresponding cellular automata simulation running on a computer for example.

I appreciate the danger, but if you look at the history of evidence based thought in this area it is quite interesting. In older cultures it was commonplace to attribute human like attributes to animals. More than anything else it was Christianity that suppressed this view (similar to the suppression of a lot of older religious thought in general) and elevated humans to a special position. Frankly, the idea that animals do not have human like attributes is early 20th century pseudoscience.

Take things like emotions and language. Why would we think that animals that have literally identical brain structures and neurochemicals to ourselves would not feel emotions and have language capabilities. Have you ever seen a jealous house cat in action? I have a family member who had to evict a cat as it morphed from a seemingly loving ball of fluff into a raging scratching monster when a newborn baby entered the house and made several attempts to attack the unwelcome new arrival. Its not anthropomorphism to attribute jealousy to cats, when neurological studies have shown they have identical brain structures associated with emotions and neurochemicals to ourselves (Bruce Fogel, "If your cat could talk").

The common understanding of intelligence and self awareness is the human centric understanding, and one (at least when it comes to many animals), we should abandon. One of the mistakes made imo in early behavioral studies and psychology was ignoring animals as a rich source of study. Recent studies for example are identifying several animals as intelligent and self aware in very much the "human" understanding of these terms, elephants, dolphins, apes, etc.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-science-is-in-elephants-are-even-smarter-than-we-realized-video/

I love elephants, the fact that we still allow them to be held in captivity and hunted for their tusks is an absolute travesty.

Penny 4 Thoughts · 01-05-2014 9:31pm

robp wrote: »

Our universe took its form with the Big Bang but when we say multiverses we are really talking about the same universe. There could be many parts of the universe but there is always only one universe as such. I am making the case that our universe had a beginning. There may be a multiverse / proto-universe (unlikely) but if there was it had a beginning too. This beginning combined with many other fascinating features of our universe show the existence of God.

Isn't that the point of the multiverse idea though, that it doesn't have a beginning, it is an eternal infinite ether of universes that pop in and out of existence?

Asking where that came from or where it began would seem to make no more sense than asking where an eternal God came from or started.

nagirrac · 01-05-2014 10:43pm

Penny 4 Thoughts wrote: »

Isn't that the point of the multiverse idea though, that it doesn't have a beginning, it is an eternal infinite ether of universes that pop in and out of existence?

Morbert will hopefully be along to set us all straight, but my understanding is that the big bang (which is the strongest supported theory by far), was effectively the "cause" of our space time universe. The more tentative science is that prior to that event (we are talking trillionths of a second) there was an event called cosmic inflation where an infinitesimally small object with the mass of roughly an apple doubled its size at a rate approaching infinity and quickly became the size of our observable universe or larger. This is thought to be still going on, so the size of the total universe is massive compare to what we observe. Our universe is thought to be a region of the inflating universe where inflation effectively stopped or at least slowed dramatically, and multiverse theory is that there are any number of universes similar to ours, all within the inflating universe.

The above is my quick summation of reading Max Tegmark, who depending on the scientist you talk to is regarded as a genius or stark raving mad.

http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/04/21/guest-post-max-tegmark-on-cosmic-inflation/

Penny 4 Thoughts wrote: »

Asking where that came from or where it began would seem to make no more sense than asking where an eternal God came from or started.http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-science-is-in-elephants-are-even-smarter-than-we-realized-video/

But we do ask, because we are curious primates. The current theory that the big bang was the beginning is not a satisfactory one, and science will continue to search for evidence for what, if anything, came before that. By definition of course anything eternal did not get started. We have no scientific evidence that I know of that the universe is eternal, at least into the past.

tommy2bad · 01-05-2014 10:46pm

nagirrac;
The common understanding of intelligence and self awareness is the human centric understanding,

I'v always thought that intelligence, like most things, is a continuum going from 0 to whatever a really clever thing gets numbered.
We tend to assume that we are the measure of all things and one of the things about religion is it's intention to move that 'we' into second place. If religion had a moto it should be "It's not all about us!" Strangely secularism has produced more movement in the definition of our place in the sceam of things than organised religion ever did. I say organised because the mystical tradition has never failed to humble man but once organised like everything else it transforms into tribalism.

Odd thought! If an infinite number of possible universes is possible then in at least one of them God exists and thus exists in all of them by definition. Really the argument we should be having is whether or not God is even possible?

smacl · 02-05-2014 7:42am

tommy2bad wrote: »

Odd thought! If an infinite number of possible universes is possible then in at least one of them God exists and thus exists in all of them by definition. Really the argument we should be having is whether or not God is even possible?

Strange things start to happen when you introduce infinity as a multiplier in probability expressions and you risk falling foul of several paradoxes. As you say, for any wild fantasy that you care to imagine, if it is possible in an infinite universe (or infinite set of finite universes within a multiverse), it must exist not just once, but an infinite number of times. So for any such imagined thing, it is either possible and is infinitely replicated, is impossible and doesn't exist at all, or the universe or multiverse isn't infinite and hence it may or may not exist.

The Christian notion of God however adds rather more complication, insofar as by definition He is a singularity, not to mention omniscient, omnipresent, and as the creator of this infinite universe, either exists outside of it or created himself. As such, considering the set of infinite possibilities within an infinite universe doesn't say anything much about the probability of His existence.

My knowledge of modern physics is pretty lamentable, but I think one of the conclusions of the big bang theory is that the universe is not infinite. While I struggle to conceptualise a boundary to space and time, I've no problem attributing that to my limited imagination.

nozzferrahhtoo · 02-05-2014 8:42am

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

If you're like me you probably read it in

That was it exactly, thank you. Actually I must re-read that book. It is the only one from that series of books I do not currently have on my shelf. The books, taken as a collection, are like a more comic version of Bill Brysons History of Nearly everything. I sometimes wonder had he been a collaborator on THEIR series of books, what the result might have been like

nagirrac wrote: »

You would imagine if single celled amoebea with no brain, let alone a mind, can do this, it should be a doddle for us to recreate

Alas imagination would indeed be all it is. There is no reason to think that such things should be a doddle. Quite the opposite in fact, though Human Hubris does not like this conclusion in general.

Recreating the things that millions of years of evolution have produced is proving quite the task for us. Refer again to the electrical experiment I mentioned about that Brian expounded upon. We had enough trouble understanding and re-creating the results of that relatively minute time period.

Alas I hear this used as an argument by theists quite often. That somehow this complexity that we are unable to reproduce is indicative of god. Which for me is.... as _best_.... a complete non-sequitur. As if our inability, with our brains, to create life means that the only way life could have been created on earth is by the actions of an even greater mind.

nagirrac wrote: »

Just on these references to God, a pantheist does not believe in a supernatural God. Pantheists, depending on where they are on the pantheism to panentheism spectrum, believe that all of nature, including what we have discovered and not discovered, is God or a manifestation of God.

This is another one of those cases where it seems to me the "ist" (be it theist or otherwise) is using a large amount of words to say precisely nothing. All you appear to be doing is linguistically collating all of everything.... and slapping the label "god" on it. It says nothing at all, does nothing at all, adds nothing at all.... except perhaps to obfuscate any meaningful conversation by bringing in the centuries of metaphysical baggage that the word "god" entails.

It just smacks to me of people steadily realising that there simply is no substantiation for the idea that a god might exist... so they dilute the meaning of "god" into almost nothing in a fetid and fetish need to simply hold on to the word and not let it go. Your description of "Pantheist" above tells me nothing whatsoever except you appear to worship the WORD "god" and want to hold on to it by any means necessary.

What is it about the word "god" that gets you so excited that you need it so badly?

nagirrac wrote: »

Have you ever seen a jealous house cat in action? I have a family member who had to evict a cat as it morphed from a seemingly loving ball of fluff into a raging scratching monster when a newborn baby entered the house and made several attempts to attack the unwelcome new arrival. Its not anthropomorphism to attribute jealousy to cats

It is assumption however. You see the response you describe above and simply jump to the conclusion "Jealousy" when several other equally likely (at this time) conclusions are available to you. Such as for example the cat reacting to an intruder in it's territory. Or reacting a a human which is moving and acting in ways the cat is not accustomed to from human behavior.

Not saying it is NOT jealously either. But smacl warned about undue anthropomorphism and perhaps one warning sign you should watch out for when heeding such a warning is your willingness to jump to an undue anthropomorphic conclusion instantly when observing one single change in a cats behavior.

Penny 4 Thoughts · 02-05-2014 2:16pm

nagirrac wrote: »

Morbert will hopefully be along to set us all straight, but my understanding is that the big bang (which is the strongest supported theory by far), was effectively the "cause" of our space time universe. The more tentative science is that prior to that event (we are talking trillionths of a second) there was an event called cosmic inflation where an infinitesimally small object with the mass of roughly an apple doubled its size at a rate approaching infinity and quickly became the size of our observable universe or larger. This is thought to be still going on, so the size of the total universe is massive compare to what we observe. Our universe is thought to be a region of the inflating universe where inflation effectively stopped or at least slowed dramatically, and multiverse theory is that there are any number of universes similar to ours, all within the inflating universe.

The above is my quick summation of reading Max Tegmark, who depending on the scientist you talk to is regarded as a genius or stark raving mad.

Oh, maybe I'm getting my terminology wrong

I understood the multiverse to be a set of infinite universe that exist parallel but independently to each other, and which can have different physical laws. So the big bang would just have been our universe springing into existence in this soup of multiple universe, along side a trillion other ones.

If I am following correctly robp is arguing that the universe started and before that there must have been nothing except God. I accept that is a possibility but I don't follow the logic that it is the only possibility. The multiverse as I understood it would seem to also be a possibility.

nagirrac · 02-05-2014 5:24pm

Penny 4 Thoughts wrote: »

I understood the multiverse to be a set of infinite universe that exist parallel but independently to each other, and which can have different physical laws. So the big bang would just have been our universe springing into existence in this soup of multiple universe, along side a trillion other ones.

Correct, this is generally how multiverses were thought of. There are many models for multiverses, up to recently at least they have all been highly speculative based on abstract mathematical models. The physics and scientific community are split into two camps on these, one regards it as valid scientific inquiry and the other regards it as pseudoscience and says it should be properly labeled as philosophy. The argument is if you can't experimentally test it against predictions to verify or falsify it, then it is not even a scientific hypothesis let alone a theory.

The recent discoveries on gravitational waves is a bit of a game changer as it is based on observation and experiment. It suggest that there is one universe that came about by chaotic inflation as I previously described, and that there are potentially an infinite number of bubble universes similar to ours within this inflating universe.

Penny 4 Thoughts wrote: »

If I am following correctly robp is arguing that the universe started and before that there must have been nothing except God. I accept that is a possibility but I don't follow the logic that it is the only possibility. The multiverse as I understood it would seem to also be a possibility.

We don't know whether the universe started or not, it could be past eternal and the inflation event was not a beginning. Whether one universe or an infinite number started, we are still left with the same question of what if anything existed before, with no means currently of knowing scientifically.

Morbert · 02-05-2014 7:45pm

Penny 4 Thoughts wrote: »

I understood the multiverse to be a set of infinite universe that exist parallel but independently to each other, and which can have different physical laws. So the big bang would just have been our universe springing into existence in this soup of multiple universe, along side a trillion other ones.

In some ways, chaotic inflation is the inverse of a bubbling soup. When you boil soup, it is produces local regions of inflating bubbles. In chaotic inflation, the soup is inflating and it produces local regions that stop expanding. Inflation always dominates the soup globally, and so it never entirely cools. Instead, it eternally and continuously produces cooled bubbles.

The "multiverse" is simply an exponentially expanding (inflating) universe with regions that stop inflating and "decay" into "ordinary" universes like ours. Each decayed region can have its own set of physical constants. The beginning of our universe, ironically, would not be characterised by a "big bang" but rather a "big decay".

However, while this model of inflation is eternal into the future, it is not eternal into the past. The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem states that such a model must be "geodesically incomplete". It cannot be extended indefinitely into the past. There are models which attempt to skirt around the BGV theorem, but it is correct to say that our current best evidence suggests the universe had a beginning.

If I am following correctly robp is arguing that the universe started and before that there must have been nothing except God. I accept that is a possibility but I don't follow the logic that it is the only possibility. The multiverse as I understood it would seem to also be a possibility.

Robp is more or less correct in assuming the multiverse would have a beginning, at least according to our current knowledge.

However, this beginning does not imply God exists. Instead, it simply means a correct model of the universe will not have a time parameter that extends eternally into the past. It could instead emerge from more objective and fundamental timeless physics.

Morbert · 02-05-2014 8:17pm

nagirrac wrote: »

Probabilistic in the same sense as probabilistic in QM i.e. fundamentally random? I am rapidly getting out of my depth here, but are nondeterministic and probabilistic not different concepts? This is such a confusing topic, as the same terms can mean different things in physics, computer science / mathematics, and philosophy.

It really boils down to defining terms. Let's call them type-1 and type-2 indeterminism.

"Type-1" indeterminism simply means incomplete knowledge will always effect our ability to predict events. Chaos theory is the field dedicated to the study of type-1 indeterminism.

"Type-2" interminism is fundamental, and does not pertain to lack of knowledge. It instead means the fundamental workings of the universe are different to our classical experiences. You cannot know the position and momentum of an electron simultaneously for the same reason you cannot know if blue is bigger than spaghetti. As a question, it simply doesn't make sense.

If we stick to a discussion about nature, does nondeterministic not suggest we have no idea what nature will actually do, whereas probabilistic means we have studied nature's behavior and know the possible range of outcomes?

I don't think there is any hard and fast terminology rule. The reason I referred to QM as "probabilistic" is because even though we cannot determine what we will observe in an experiment, we can determine how the probabilities evolve. In quantum mechanics, each possible outcome of an observation has a complex number [latex]c[/latex] associated with it, where [latex]|c^2|[/latex] will give you the probability of observing that outcome. We can exactly determine how those c numbers change with time. Schrodinger's cat, for example, has two numbers [latex]c_{dead}[/latex] and [latex]c_{alive}[/latex] associated with observing its health. By applying the schrodinger equation to the system, we can see how these two numbers change with time.

Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Please Read OP)

Comments