Why God??!!

[Elok]

It's not frequency of interference that matters, it's that the interference is not directly needed for the general continuation of the system. It alters the course of the system, but the system continues what it was doing, only working with different parameters.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
Things do not have to be verified in a controlled experiment before they exist (as you point out yourself later on in your post).

Rogan, I was responding to the part of your message about the Judeo-Christianity god having observable consequences, not about whether something exist or not.

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
The difference between God and your green elves is that I have personal experience of his existence (which I cannot 'prove' to you) whereas you have no (admitted) experience of your green elves.

You think you have a personal experience with your god. I am surprised that you did not investigate this further to see if such an experience was only caused by wishful thinking or mere hallucinations.

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
So my God has had an observable effect in my universe (if not under reproducable experimental conditions), whereas your green elves have not.

What is this effect, and how could one verify this effect is indeed caused by the entity you asserted?

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
This is an interesting point though. Have you personally performed experiments that prove to you that General Relativity (for example) is true, or do you just trust the observations of others? If you have not, are you not just taking GR's validity on faith?

Not so. As I pointed out before, these theories can be tested, verified, and falsified. I am talking about the underlying methodology, not about any theories in general. So, how do you falsify the Judeo-Christian god?

Furthermore, "faith" is "firm believe in something without proof." Therefore, such cannot be applied to a person's acceptance of scientific theories in general. I think we went over the same grounds before, why are you bringing up the same point again?

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
String theory cannot be tested in the forseeable future, and will not be testable in my lifetime. I guarantee that I will meet God long before string theory is tested....

This is a red herring. Remember, science can be wrong, but Christianity is always right.

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
Prove it. The thing is, you can't.

Of course I can't -- but Boris can. Just provide him with a round trip airplane ticket to the UK, I think he will be glad to appear to you in person. You can even take pictures of him to compare to those posted by Spiffor.

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
Proof is highly dependent on definition and is highly subjective. I may believe the evidence for some phenomenon to be greater than for another while you may see things the other way round - and both viewpoints may be equally valid. Even when one can adopt very exact definitions of 'proof' (as in physics) there can be disagreements as to whether or not the assumptions made invalidate the proof. God's existence is as certain to me as Boris's existence is to you.

This is sophistry, Rogan, and you know it. I feel sorry to see you flailing about, trying desperately in an attempt to shore up your faith that you know you cannot provide any evidence for.

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
The problem is that you are trying to apply scientific ideas to intrinsically non-scientific things. You have to learn when science is applicable and when it is not - what sort of statements science can make and what sort of statements it cannot make.

I did not start applying science to "non-scientific" things. I was applying science to bogus Creationism and Intelligent Design theories. Boris was using an analogy replying to BK84 when you jumped in and started "applying science to non-scientific things" (such as little elves on electrons).

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Just provide him with a round trip airplane ticket to the UK, I think he will be glad to appear to you in person.

Don't be so sure. If he's as insufferable IRL as he is here, it might not be worth the effort.

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Kucinich
Let me put it this way: do you seriously believe the Gospels hold up to scientific rigor?

The inability to perform an experiment to determine whether or not a theory is true or false does not invalidate the theory. There are plenty of things in history which now cannot be proven true or false. You may doubt them all you like, but they cannot be disproven scientifically.

A fact is a true statement about the universe. All facts are scientific.
A scientific statement is a statement about the universe, which may be true or false.

And what determines whether or not something is 'true'. Do you have a criterion for this, or is something only true if you say so?

If you're referring to mechanism, how gravity works (for example: "gravity works through the influence of gravitons on particles"), then science CAN and DOES answer that.

Now this is interesting. So you are saying that science explains the interactions of gravitons on particles. Care to explain how?

But if you asked "Why are there rocks?" the answer would be "no reason, because they weren't made by a sentient being." But if you asked "How is it that rocks exist?" the answer would be some complicated thing about planetary formation and stuff.

Lets just put this one down to a disagreement of the definition of 'why'. I would have answered the 'Why are there rocks?' question with the planetary formation explanation.

1) There is not necessarily one universal law, therefore science CANNOT be about it. There is no reason why a universe couldn't have five hundred billion different physical laws that are not part of some whole. Science is just about discovering the laws, and sometimes different laws are just different cases of the same.

Although I agree with the first statement (ie. There is not necessarily one universal law) I completely disagree with the rest. Science always strives to make its theories more inclusive, because it is by being inclusive that we become more predictive. For example, GR is crap at explaining things at small distances, while the Standard Model of particle physics can't explain physics in a gravitational field (despite your earlier claim). It is only by unifying the two theories will we be able to describe quantum mechanical observations in a gravitational field. Five hundred billion laws cannot be predictive in any constructive sense as an observation can only invalidate one law at a time (at best) - since science is supposed to be predictive they are not a satisfatory conclusion.

2) So basically, you're asking "what caused the laws to be this way?" The answer is, of course, they just are.

It my turn now ...

The point is that it is not a question that science can ask. "they just are" is a completely empty answer

The physical laws cannot be "caused" by something, because they are the laws by which the universe operates. In order for God to make the law some way, there would have to be laws already in place. You're just getting back to the (fallacious) argument that there must have been a cause for the universe, in which case you must accept an infinite number of creators.

You keep trying to answer non-scientific questions using science. The fact that your previous question had no scientific answer should have given you a clue that you cannot apply science to God. Incidentally, God is not even necessary here - all that is required is some non-predictive process (see below) to nulify any scientific attempt to answer the question.

[q]Then you just mean it is wholly random. That is just the opposite extreme (on the scale of how probabilistic the laws are) from determinism - every outcome is equally likely. There is still a law - it's just that "the state of the universe at each point in time is wholly random". Clearly, there must ALWAYS be a law, because the laws are simply the rules by which the universe operates, and so to claim that there are no laws is to claim that there is no universe. [/QUOTE]

No again. 'random' is not the same as 'non-predictive'. A random process will give you perfectly predictable results on a statistical level. So, given enough time and data, you should be able to give a probability of the next measurement giving a particular result. For a non-predictive system, it wouldn't matter how long you observed, you couldn't give a prediction because it does not follow any rule (although as I pointed out before, you could never prove that it wasn't just some random system with a very odd distribution).

Why do you say that something cannot exist if it has no governing rules?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Elok
It's not frequency of interference that matters, it's that the interference is not directly needed for the general continuation of the system. It alters the course of the system, but the system continues what it was doing, only working with different parameters.

This is true for ANY element of a closed system.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
The inability to perform an experiment to determine whether or not a theory is true or false does not invalidate the theory. There are plenty of things in history which now cannot be proven true or false. You may doubt them all you like, but they cannot be disproven scientifically.

You actually can perform historical experiments - you make a theory, and see if new documents uncovered support it.

And what determines whether or not something is 'true'. Do you have a criterion for this, or is something only true if you say so?

Huh? I've never claimed any specific facts. I've just given the definition of a fact. Generally, when a theory is supported by enough evidence, we call it a fact, because we think it is one. We can be wrong.

If you're referring to mechanism, how gravity works (for example: "gravity works through the influence of gravitons on particles"), then science CAN and DOES answer that.

Now this is interesting. So you are saying that science explains the interactions of gravitons on particles. Care to explain how?

What do you mean? I'm sorry, we don't actually have a quantum theory of gravity yet, and if we did, I probably wouldn't understand the equations (and neither would you).

But if you asked "Why are there rocks?" the answer would be "no reason, because they weren't made by a sentient being." But if you asked "How is it that rocks exist?" the answer would be some complicated thing about planetary formation and stuff.

Lets just put this one down to a disagreement of the definition of 'why'. I would have answered the 'Why are there rocks?' question with the planetary formation explanation.

And you would have been wrong! Or, if you're just using "why" to mean "how", then when you ask "why is there life" the answer is "a hell of a lot of organic molecules in solution over a billion years,random bounc around and sometimes form more complex, self-replicating molecules."

1) There is not necessarily one universal law, therefore science CANNOT be about it. There is no reason why a universe couldn't have five hundred billion different physical laws that are not part of some whole. Science is just about discovering the laws, and sometimes different laws are just different cases of the same.

Although I agree with the first statement (ie. There is not necessarily one universal law) I completely disagree with the rest. Science always strives to make its theories more inclusive, because it is by being inclusive that we become more predictive.

Nope. If I have fifty bazillion theories, one describing the result of a certain situation (and there are only fifty bazillion possible situations), then I can predict just as well as if I had one theory that could be applied to any.

2) So basically, you're asking "what caused the laws to be this way?" The answer is, of course, they just are.

It my turn now ...

The point is that it is not a question that science can ask. "they just are" is a completely empty answer

What caused God to be that way?

He just is.

If "it just is" is insufficient, then you MUST admit an infinite number of creators.

No again. 'random' is not the same as 'non-predictive'. A random process will give you perfectly predictable results on a statistical level. So, given enough time and data, you should be able to give a probability of the next measurement giving a particular result. For a non-predictive system, it wouldn't matter how long you observed, you couldn't give a prediction because it does not follow any rule (although as I pointed out before, you could never prove that it wasn't just some random system with a very odd distribution).

For that, it would actually HAVE to follow some sort of law, because it would have to have knowledge of the previous values spewed out by (for lack of a better term) it's random number generator, to make sure there is no statistical pattern.

Why do you say that something cannot exist if it has no governing rules?

Because by existing, it behaves, and that behavior is according to rules (the rules that determine how it behaves).

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Elok
As for understanding modern biology, in the sense it's argued about the most at least, it describes a process far too slow to be observed by humanity in real time, and at any scale it happens over the course of several generations. With genetic engineering, evolution as a principle can only become less important to know. It's academic knowledge.

1. The saying of "One cannot understand modern biology without knowing evolution" (paraphrased) does not refer to the process itself, but about things like various biological mechanisms and machinary, about how organisms came about, etc. For example, one cannot understand how the immune system work without evolution.

2. It is not necessarily a slow process. Knowledge of evolution is a potent weapon against pests and diseases. They have short life cycles and evolve very quickly.

3. In fact, there are many instances of observed speciations.


As for explanation, I might need explanation myself, but for example, the argument about the "shape of the universe" a few weeks back.

Originally posted by Elok
The idea that the universe has a shape is incomprehensible, to me at least, because the word "shape" implies an ending, and the idea of a point where space itself ends is self-contradictory; "in the space outside the universe" is like "a shade of yellow that's like, not yellow, and stuff." If there's no more physical space past a certain point, there is no "past a certain point" at all, as we understand space at least.

Space has a shape if space is finite. The space inside a hollow sphere is definitely finite, because you cannot go to a point outside the sphere from within without going through the shell.

Originally posted by Elok
At the same time, the idea of space going on forever is equally incomprehensible, because our concept of reality is of relations; we think of every single thing, even the universe itself, as a fixed quantity, and the idea of forever is quite literally immeasurable. We might say that the universe goes on forever, but nobody can really adjust to that mentally. It's like "with liberty and justice for all," something we repeat without understanding in any real, visceral sense.

I suppose that has to do with how a person's mind works. Some people have no problems with abstract ideas, with concepts that cannot be visualised. Others can't.

Originally posted by Elok
It's a quirk of human thought; we can't bear the idea of the finite or the infinite, because both force contradictions in our understanding of the world.

What are you talking about?

A thing is either finite or infinite. AFAIK, humans have no problems grasping with ideas and things that are finite, because we are finite. It is the infinite that escapes us.

Originally posted by Elok
We think of all things in context, and context demands both a complete knowledge of the surrounding objects and a greater unrelated field in which the objects in question interact-the known and the unknown.

I don't think that's true, for all of us start with zero knowledge. If that's true, nobody could ever learn or understand anything.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Don't be so sure. If he's as insufferable IRL as he is here, it might not be worth the effort.

See, this comment proves that Boris Godunov is a real person. No bot is capable of making this sort of remarks.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kucinich
Because the universe is defined as the set of everything that exists

I think you have confused the universe with the Universal Set (in Set Theory).

If that's true, there's no way that our universe could arise.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Lincoln
The intended receiver of informaion is the componant parts of the machine just as your computer and this program we are using here receives the benefit of intelligent input in it's programming. Surely you would not deny that there is intelligent input into a computer program or the computer itself.

The fundamental, critical difference is the computer I am using is not the intended receiver. People who read this thread behind their computers are the intended receiver. This is not the case with DNA. There's no intelligent receiver.

Furthermore, it is quite disingenuous to draw this analogy, because we all know that humans program computers and use them. This is not the case with DNA, either.

Originally posted by Lincoln
In a cell the various chemical reactions are directed by the information within the DNA. Now, I have explained this about 4 or 5 times in the other thread that Boris referred to. If you don't like my answer then that is your privilege but at least have the courtesy of not repeating the falsehood that I did not answer it.

loinburger has made an excellent reply to this part, I am just going to reiterate a point I made in "The Great Information Debate, Part II."

What is the meaning of this DNA "information," as opposed to its purpose? Consider this sentence. The purpose of it is to convey an idea. This is distinctly different from its meaning. So, what is the meaning of DNA "information?"

To extend your logic further, what is the meaning of a copper sulphate crystal? Surely copper sulphate molecules follow a very precise pattern of arrangement as directed by "information" somewhere.

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Kucinich
You actually can perform historical experiments - you make a theory, and see if new documents uncovered support it.

True, except that there is a finite set of data. You cannon make more data, so you eventually come to a point where you have all the documents and such, and can verify no further. This is different from true science, where one can keep producing data as long as one wants.

Generally, when a theory is supported by enough evidence, we call it a fact, because we think it is one. We can be wrong.

Exactly. One can never prove a statement to be 'true' with the scientific method - you can only give a probability of it being true. But you make supposedly 'scientific' statements claiming them to be 'fact', when they are just suppositions.

What do you mean? I'm sorry, we don't actually have a quantum theory of gravity yet

But you claim was that science DOES (your capitalisation) explain it....

and if we did, I probably wouldn't understand the equations (and neither would you)

I am pretty sure I would. In fact, I gave a lecture on quantum gravity just yesterday (who do you think I am?)

And you would have been wrong! Or, if you're just using "why" to mean "how", then when you ask "why is there life" the answer is "a hell of a lot of organic molecules in solution over a billion years,random bounc around and sometimes form more complex, self-replicating molecules."

From dictionary.com:

why: For what purpose, reason, or cause; with what intention, justification, or motive:

The word why can be used in the sense that I intended: as in what was the 'cause'. Since it was my sentence, I reserve the right to use whatever meaning I like.

Nope. If I have fifty bazillion theories, one describing the result of a certain situation (and there are only fifty bazillion possible situations), then I can predict just as well as if I had one theory that could be applied to any.

No you cannot, because you would need to make 'fifty bazillion' measurements in order to disprove your 'theory', rather than potentially one for the unified theory.

For that, it would actually HAVE to follow some sort of law, because it would have to have knowledge of the previous values spewed out by (for lack of a better term) it's random number generator, to make sure there is no statistical pattern.

There is no problem with a non-predictive system following a pattern. It is just that the past pattern has no bearing on the future choices.

Because by existing, it behaves, and that behavior is according to rules (the rules that determine how it behaves).

What do you mean by 'behaves'? Do you mean conforms to some rule? I have just pointed out that it does not need to. I agree that it has o conform to some rules in order to be observed by us (I think this is what you are meaning), but that does not mean that all its behaviours can be predicted.

[Elok]

If space is "finite," then you are saying there is a certain point past which there is no space, right? But if that's so, there's no "past a certain point" at all, because there's no space as we understand it. What am I missing?

ITO biology, I'm talking about the idea that evolution was the mechanism of development for life on earth. That the unfit are weeded out, as in the immune system, does not imply by itself that life on this planet evolved from single-celled organisms, which is what everybody gets in a tizzy about. It's obviously in the nature of living things to compete with each other. Capitalism is nothing but a form of evolution, after all. We are all familiar with competition. If we all still thought the Earth was made in six days, though, would it matter at all?

[Mart]

In order to have "space" beyond the space we know we need additional dimensions, like sphere has finite surface, but no begin or end - but there is something beyond sphere in third dimension. Sphere surface is two-dimensional curved in third dimension.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I think you have confused the universe with the Universal Set (in Set Theory).

There's no meaningful definition of universe other than the universal set (yes, I know what it is).

If that's true, there's no way that our universe could arise.

Why?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
True, except that there is a finite set of data. You cannon make more data, so you eventually come to a point where you have all the documents and such, and can verify no further. This is different from true science, where one can keep producing data as long as one wants.

How is that some necessary aspect of science, that you can keep doing so?

Exactly. One can never prove a statement to be 'true' with the scientific method - you can only give a probability of it being true. But you make supposedly 'scientific' statements claiming them to be 'fact', when they are just suppositions.

ALL statements of fact are suppositions, just ones that have a reasonable chance of being true (if you're doing it right).

What do you mean? I'm sorry, we don't actually have a quantum theory of gravity yet

But you claim was that science DOES (your capitalisation) explain it....

Because scientists hadn't explained relativity in 1700, does that mean that science doesn't explain it? Science, the study of the universe, explains it. It takes a while, though.

I am pretty sure I would. In fact, I gave a lecture on quantum gravity just yesterday (who do you think I am?)

And your point is? I was trying to say that my personal inability to explain higher-level physics is meaningless.

And you would have been wrong! Or, if you're just using "why" to mean "how", then when you ask "why is there life" the answer is "a hell of a lot of organic molecules in solution over a billion years,random bounc around and sometimes form more complex, self-replicating molecules."

From dictionary.com:

why: For what purpose, reason, or cause; with what intention, justification, or motive:

The word why can be used in the sense that I intended: as in what was the 'cause'. Since it was my sentence, I reserve the right to use whatever meaning I like.

BUT, if you are using it for cause, you MUST admit that it's not requiring some intelligent being, and that you are really asking "how".

No you cannot, because you would need to make 'fifty bazillion' measurements in order to disprove your 'theory', rather than potentially one for the unified theory.

Huh? I'm talking about predictions. You can disprove parts of a theory, you know.

For that, it would actually HAVE to follow some sort of law, because it would have to have knowledge of the previous values spewed out by (for lack of a better term) it's random number generator, to make sure there is no statistical pattern.

There is no problem with a non-predictive system following a pattern. It is just that the past pattern has no bearing on the future choices.

What do you mean by 'behaves'? Do you mean conforms to some rule? I have just pointed out that it does not need to. I agree that it has o conform to some rules in order to be observed by us (I think this is what you are meaning), but that does not mean that all its behaviours can be predicted.

No, I don't mean "conforms to some rule", I mean it does stuff (inaction is included in this). It somehow has to decide (for lack of a better word) what stuff to do. The mechanism for deciding is called a natural law.