Cosmologists assume that natural quantum fluctuations allowed the Big Bang to happen spontaneously. Now they have a mathematical proof.
One of the great theories of modern cosmology is that the universe began in a Big Bang. This is not just an idea but a scientific theory backed up by numerous lines of evidence.
For a start, there is the cosmic microwave background, which is a kind of echo of the big bang; then there is the ongoing expansion of the cosmos, which when imagined backwards, hints at a Big Bang-type origin; and the abundance of the primordial elements, such as helium-4, helium-3, deuterium and so on, can all be calculated using the theory.
But that still leaves a huge puzzle. What caused the Big Bang itself? For many years, cosmologists have relied on the idea that the universe formed spontaneously, that the Big Bang was the result of quantum fluctuations in which the Universe came into existence from nothing.
That’s plausible, given what we know about quantum mechanics. But physicists really need more — a mathematical proof to give the idea flesh.
Today they get their wish thanks to the work of Dongshan He and buddies at the Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics in China. These guys have come up with the first rigorous proof that the Big Bang could indeed have occurred spontaneously because of quantum fluctuations.
The title is misleading. As always, this gets down to the definition of 'nothing'. 'The Big Bang could have occurred spontaneously because of quantum fluctuations' just move the question one step back, as one could ask - where did quantum fluctuations come from?
In my experience (I did a lot of reading, as a philosopher of religion) usually one side argues that 'nothing' is 'really' nothing and therefore nothing could come out of it, while the other argues that 'nothing' is a 'something with intrinsic properties, such as quantum fluctuations'.
If you are interested in the debate between this two positions, you could watch this debate between William Lane Craig (who argues for the first position) and Sean Carroll (who holds the latter):
On October 27 2014 18:11 SixStrings wrote: Jesus fuck, we're two posts in and you already start dragging religion into this?
Man, get lost...
Why so hostile? I'm not draggin religion in it, I am simply stating the point of views involved in the contemporary debate about the beginning of the universe.
@SoSexy: It's not nothing, it's metastable false vacuum. ;P There's already some work about that iirc. You make it sound like going a step back is pointless, don't spam with shit, we're not dealing with philosophy/religion here, we're dealing with physics/mathematics - step by step.
From what I can see after a quick skimming, it's a fairly simple proof. They don't explain a few things in detail. Dunno, I'm probably not qualified to comment on it, but it's kinda neat and simple. Not sure if some flaws will come out after reviews and public scrutiny.
edit: if there's religion in it, it's not a debate. it's a waste of time. haven't watched the video, but since one guy is a christian something/philosopher, I highly doubt it will be enlightening.
Finally we have a nice thing going on about the creation of universe itself (!!! ffs), and you come in and spoil it with bullshit, that's not actually related to the OP in any real way.
Like it or not, topics like the beginning of the universe emply a vast range of philosopical concepts (being, nothing, existence, coming into being) which are being discussed since Thales and are not bullshit.
Therefore, I will give my opinion anyways and I won't be silenced by your bad manners. If you want to discuss with me, bring it to PMs, here we discuss the thread.
It is bullshit compared to this actual article. Thales and others have just talked and not provided any tangible apparatus for the creation of universe.
While philosophy is nice and all, it's not really "concrete".
As for you calling us impolite, I consider your "polite" posts actually impolite towards this subject, science that went into this and the OP. Do you know how much effort and "real" thinking went into all this before coming to this step? Do you know how many benefits humanity gained from it? Your post belittles that.
I have no intention of "discussing" it with you lol. Waste of time, especially since you have shown no real knowledge on the subject, and wish to discuss something that's not really related to the OP.
Fluctuations is a concept of nothingness that describes the nothingness is actually unstable on its own. It flactuates so it brings energy into existence or disappears same energy in the same amount. This happens a lot in the vacum. The definition of nothingness and philosophical explanations does not really matter that much here. Science moves step by step unlike religious concepts.
Besides you can make the same argument about any form of godlike being. The "what is before it?" paradox will always be there unless we get to a circle like explanation of everything. Discussing this kind of stuff without enough information is useless and impatient, it will lead you to wishful thinking and decieving yourself.
Well, but he's right, you need to have proper definitions of what you're talking about before calculations make any sense, that's not even "philosophical" it's just that you can't apply logic if you don't know what you are talking about. The thing is, you can't talk about before the big bang, because time exists only if matter exists, so it's a valid question to ask what should have fluctuated. Why do reasonable people get offended by someone mentioning philosophy so easily offended and can't just keep an open mind?
On October 27 2014 18:49 Chairman Ray wrote: I'm kinda curious about this topic, so can we all do our part in not letting this thread get closed?
They're basically using relatively simple cosmological and quantum mechanics stuff, then connected it, to show it can be used to show that the universe can be created out of false vacuum fluctuations. Obviously, a lot of work went into getting to the stuff I call "simple", and it seems simple when you use it, but getting to some of it in the first place can be anything but simple.
As it's relatively simple (at least it seems so to me, maybe I'm wrong), we shouldn't wait too long until someone of note (or more of them) reflect on it to support it (or not).
@post above: we're not discussing philosophy here. we're discussing science. we're not discussing how/why the false/true/whatever vacuum exists. we're discussing what comes out of it. once this step is over with, we go on to the next step, even though there's already people doing that and some explanations exist (which somewhat solves your issue with definitions).
I, for one, am really interested in the end of their conclusion where they say they'll look at rates of particle creation while that first expansion is going on, and if it can generate the amount of particles that are present today. That should be fairly enlightening, and could probably give us a rough estimation on various "constants" that we can connect to each other.
You guys sure arent polite. There is actually a lot of philosophy involved in quantum physics on various levels. Just not the kind of philosophy commonly associted with the word. I am talking about question from the areas of philosophy of math, science, methodology etc. There is no science-philosophy oposition. Philosophy is science (well the part of it that matters at least).
On October 27 2014 18:51 TzTz wrote: Well, but he's right, you need to have proper definitions of what you're talking about before calculations make any sense, that's not even "philosophical" it's just that you can't apply logic if you don't know what you are talking about. The thing is, you can't talk about before the big bang, because time exists only if matter exists, so it's a valid question to ask what should have fluctuated. Why do reasonable people get offended by someone mentioning philosophy so easily offended and can't just keep an open mind?
Because we can only describe nothingness as we know it. And everybody knows it that we describe it as we know it. Bu we also know that fluctuations exist and happening. So telling "there is no nothingness" just for the sake of it and not providing any math or some sort of system behind it is useless. I mean this is a science thing, if you want to put some idea there you need to do it in sicence's way.
On October 27 2014 19:06 Cynry wrote: Could someone point to a document explaining or explain himself what is a false/true/whatever vacuum ?
From what I know, false and true vacuums are states of lowest possible energy. Basically the closest thing we can get to 'nothingness' but not nothingness because absolute nothingness cannot exist in physics.
This article is really interesting, but not that groundbreaking in my opinion (then again im an astrophysicist, not a theoretical physicist, so i dont understand every detail of that article). I'll try to explain some basic cosmology so you guys can get an idea of what's up with this, but this is essentially me trying to condense at least an entire master's degree class into a single post, so this will probably be a little confusing.
Essentially, the most accepted cosmological model for the behavior of the universe in large scales, called the lambda-cold dark matter model, predicts among other things that the universe MUST have had to go through a period of extremely accelerated expansion in its early stages.
The reason for this is the existance of three very basic problems im lambda-cdm models that do not include inflation. These are called the flatness problem, the horizon event problem, and the magnetic monopole problem. In order:
1) Flatness: we know from empirical observation that the structure of space-time is flat. Ideally, it could be any kind of 4-dimensional surface with positive, negative or null curvature (just to picture things, in 3 dimensions a sphere has positive curvature while a plane is flat). Not only is the universe flat, but it can be shown easily that the further back in time you go, the more flat the universe gets. This is seriously bizarre; why the hell would the universe be absolutely perfectly flat at its start, when it can assume any possible value for its curvature while still following the same exact physical rules? It's an amazing coincidence, and it's extremely unlikely to just so happen by chance.
2) Horizon distance: this is even wierder. Basically, most photons existing in the universe are part of what is called CMB, or cosmic microwave background. These photons were emitted together billions of years ago, when the universe was still extremely hot. In fact, it was so hot that photons kept interacting with matter, keeping atoms from forming, bouncing from one nucleus to the other instead of being free to go their own way. As soon as the universe cooled enough, the photons suddenly stopped interacting with matter so strongly, and were free to go their own way. This radiation permeates the entire universe. By studying the CMB you can easily see that it was emitted at the same exact temperature at every point in the sky. On paper this makes sense, but if you look at things more carefully, you realize that light (and therefore, information) at the time of the CMB emission did not have time to travel through the entire sky as we see it. In fact, you can divide the sky in roughly 20000 patches of equal size; each of those would be able to transmit information within itself, but not to its neighbours. If these patches can not transmit any information to each other (ie, they can not reach the same temperature), why the fuck are they at that temperature?
3) Magnetic monopoles: this comes from more complex quantum mechanics stuff so i won't go in detail about it. Essentially, some quantum mechanics models predict that magnetic monopoles should exist, and their presence should be easily detectable. So why do we not see them? Is it possible that the universe evolved in a way that made them disappear?
Inflation theories solve all these problems. Inflation essentially states that there was a period in the early history of the universe, during which the expansion of the universe was INSANELY fast. This solves the 3 problems of traditional lambda cdm models: 1) Even if you start with a very curved universe, if you stretch it immensly it ends up being very very flat. 2) If the universe expands extremely fast for a while, then before it expanded it was extremely tiny, to the point where it could exchange information with every part of it, reaching the same temperature easily. 3) Slightly more complex, but ideally even if magnetic monopoles exist, the expansions "stretches" them so much that they become insanely rare, almost non existant.
How here's the problem: well shit if everything becomes perfectly uniform, how come the universe we see isn't uniform? Why do we see stars, globular clusters, galaxies, galaxy clusters and superclusters? So far, you'd think that inflation would make everything perfectly homogeneous.
However, what does happen is that when you first start with your tiny, small universe before inflation, it isn't perfectly homogeneous because of quantum mechanics. At a very very tiny scale the universe isn't empty: particles are constantly destroyed and created, according to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle: E*t>h, where E is the energy, t is the time, h is planck's constant. As long as a pair of particles of energy E exist for a time shorter than t, in order to respect the uncertainty principle, they are free to be born out of nothing, and return to nothing shortly after. This phenomenon is called vacuum energy. The way it ties into inflation is simply that these fluctuations are blown to huge sizes when infllation starts, and are what forms the large scales structures like galaxy superclusters that we see today.
Inflation was first formulated in 1981, so again, the idea of quantum fluctuations being the origin of the structures currently observed in the universe isn't new.
On to the article: this is just one of many models of inflation.
In the article, the authors are demonstrating that one way to generate the really fast expansion i was talking about in the previous post is to assume there is some kind of force, or potential, at work. Again, nothing new, this has been done forever.
The interesting thing about it is that they show that this force/potential/field (they are all the same essentially) MUST be treated with quantum mechanics. It is possible to write very very simple inflation models that use classical mechanics instead; this article shows that those models aren't accurate and you need to use quantum mechanics (which is where unfortunately my knowledge falls short) to treat inflation correctly. Given certain hypothesis, they also find a way to avoid the singularity problem - ie, everything going to either zero or infinity at the exact time of the creation of the universe as we know it. This is generally extremely hard to do, because our knowledge of advanced quantum field theory, like grand unification theory or quantum gravity, is still extremely limited (or well, almost non existant).
The whole point of having a correct inflation model is, of course, to find some sort prediction that can be confirmed by an experiment. This hasn't happened so far for inflation, because it's really complex shit.
Math proofs alone do not prove anything. It's extremely easy for a good theoretical physicist to construct a model of generally complex stuff (say, quantum gravity), that is prefectly fine mathematically and is internally consistent. It's much, much harder to find some way of actually demonstrating that same model in a lab, and until then, no theory can be considered "proved" or "confirmed".
Back in the day when i created a thread about how dark energy is proven, people complain about me using the word "proven" instead of something like confirmed or re-confirmed. Showing that universe can pop itself out with quantum mechanic could be the cause of big bang itself. Which doesn't contradict with my original title i believe.
On October 27 2014 20:51 skinnyQueen wrote: Any paper published on arXiv.org is worthless. It literally means that the paper got rejected by all other peer reviewed journals.
That is such a bold statement and simply not true.
On October 27 2014 20:51 skinnyQueen wrote: Any paper published on arXiv.org is worthless. It literally means that the paper got rejected by all other peer reviewed journals.
That is such a bold statement and simply not true.
Indeed, you can send your paper there in pre-print so other people can see your work earlier and critique it. Also it allows people to see your work for free. Some people have links in there Arxiv papers to it's journal entry so you can quote their work.
On October 27 2014 19:06 Cynry wrote: Could someone point to a document explaining or explain himself what is a false/true/whatever vacuum ?
First look at this little conceptual image I made :
A false vacuum is a state which a system is at a localized minimum energy but not the extremum minimum energy. So a system in a false vacuum giving enough energy can fall into it's true vacuum state. It's like having a large round boulder on a small dip on a bigger hill. You have to push the rock a bit before it starts speeding down the rest of the hill.
So in the article in the conclusion they mention a quantum vacuum fluctuation of the false vacuum to the true vacuum they mean a fluctuation in energy allowed from the uncertainty principle Energy*time>h/4*pi. The uncertainty principle as stated is for real particle, for virtual ones (or quantum fluctuations) we write Energy*time<h/4*pi and if the Energy end up being bigger then the hill we can "fall" from a false vacuum to the real one.
Equally I support what Teoita said with my limited knowledge of Astrophysics since I'm studying theoretical physics. We can get into a debate of his definition of vacuum energy is another time but he said the important part quantum fluctuations are allowed by the uncertainty principle.
On October 27 2014 19:37 Teoita wrote: Completely misleading title, plus none here actually knows anything about cosmology
Cool article though.
generalizing much without actually knowing? I'm not working in that field and I'm far from an expert or even decent, but I have read a few books (not popular science books, real books) about it and I know the basic and some "advanced" equations, principles etc.
On October 27 2014 20:51 skinnyQueen wrote: Any paper published on arXiv.org is worthless. It literally means that the paper got rejected by all other peer reviewed journals.
lol what?
There have been plenty of papers (even high profile) there that have been published in peer reviewed journals, because the author(s) wanted it to be publicly available or for other reasons.
On October 27 2014 19:06 Cynry wrote: Could someone point to a document explaining or explain himself what is a false/true/whatever vacuum ?
uhm, here's something to get you started (although I don't like linking to Wikipedia for this, but I guess it can give you some idea): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_vacuum
google shows up some more.
Basically, false vacuum is a state of the field that's a local minimum, but not a global minimum. That means that it's "trapped" in a higher energy state, and can go to a lower state (another false vacuum that's lower, or even true vacuum) by some process (eg. creating particles).
On October 27 2014 20:51 skinnyQueen wrote: Any paper published on arXiv.org is worthless. It literally means that the paper got rejected by all other peer reviewed journals.
lolno
at poster above me: it doesnt have to be a minimum. As long as the potential isn't very inclined, you can assume you are in a false vacuum state. For example, commonly used potentials in inflation look like this:
If your scalar field is close to V0 you are in a false vacuum state, if you are where the minimum is you are in a true vacuum state.
On October 27 2014 20:51 skinnyQueen wrote: Any paper published on arXiv.org is worthless. It literally means that the paper got rejected by all other peer reviewed journals.
That's not really true. There are many reason to publish something on arXiv, and "it's worthless" is not the only one. There's a lot of good research published on arXiv, it's just that you can find some trashy one (and you can find trashy research in bad journals anyway). You can try to look for the author of a paper, and if he is legit (like he have some papers accepted in good conferences and is in a lab), the paper itself is probably legit.
Btw I was surprised the paper was that short. Is it normal in this field ?
On October 27 2014 18:11 SixStrings wrote: Jesus fuck, we're two posts in and you already start dragging religion into this?
Man, get lost...
Why so hostile? I'm not draggin religion in it, I am simply stating the point of views involved in the contemporary debate about the beginning of the universe.
You linked William Lain Craig, a known charlatan whose entire career is based on misrepresenting science and inappropriate use of scientific language. He has about as much credibility as Chopra or some other new age fraud.
On topic; Lawrence Krauss has spoken about this many times, and I've listened to several fascinating lectures on the topic from him. I recommend them to anyone who is interested in the subject. Suffice to say, I now know enough about quantum theory to understand that I know nothing about quantum theory.
On October 27 2014 21:26 skinnyQueen wrote: You're all right. Not every paper on arXiv is trash, but this one certainly is.
Please elaborate on why. Toeita's very informative posts seem to suggest that there is a lot of intriguing information in the article.
Math proofs alone do not prove anything. It's extremely easy for a good theoretical physicist to construct a model of generally complex stuff (say, quantum gravity), that is prefectly fine mathematically and is internally consistent. It's much, much harder to find some way of actually demonstrating that same model in a lab, and until then, no theory can be considered "proved" or "confirmed".
Outside of mathematical models, what methods exist by which to demonstrate quantum theories to be true or false? Do we currently even possess any? I am not aware of any method that is both falsifiable and demonstrable, but I fully concede I don't know anywhere near enough on the subject.
I suppose something like CERN or similar projects could be used, but given the costs and committment involved, it may not be very practical.
On October 27 2014 21:26 skinnyQueen wrote: You're all right. Not every paper on arXiv is trash, but this one certainly is.
Please elaborate on why. Toita's very informative posts seem to suggest that there is a lot of intriguing information in the article.
Just clarifying, i also know fuck all about quantum field theory, hence why i was curious.
edit:
Outside of mathematical models, what methods exist by which to demonstrate quantum theories to be true or false? Do we currently even possess any? I am not aware of any method that is both falsifiable and demonstrable, but I fully concede I don't know anywhere near enough on the subject.
I suppose something like CERN or similar projects could be used, but given the costs and committment involved, it may not be very practical.
I'm not really sure tbh. Current particle accelerators are most definitely not enough to study inflation, as they don't reach energies high enough. The only study regarding experimental proofs of inflation that i'm aware of is the study of the polarization of the CMB photons, which in some way i don't understand very well is tied to inflation. In fact, about one year ago a research team working with an experiment called BICEP2 claimed to have found evidence that confirmed inflation in the CMB, but that claim was later refuted; most people now believe it was a mistake in their handling of data coming from another experiment. Just check out wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background#Polarization
The big problem with studying stuff that happened before the emission of the CMB is, essentially, that photons from that time do not arrive to us. The universe was "opaque" to photons until the CMB was emitted: as i wrote earlier, no photon was free before that time, so we can't (currently) see any kind of information about it. It's like looking at a wall and trying to guess what is in the room behind it. If the wall isn't transparent, you'll never see anything.
In the future (next 50+ years i guess) we will have astrophysical data not just from photons, but also from neutrinos and gravitational waves, which should allows to study eras farther back in time than the CMB emission. For now, we don't really have any way of proving a theory like inflation because of technological limits.
Quantum field theories in general...well, there's two issues here. Quantum field theory is what was used to write the standard model of particle physics for example, which so far has held up extremely well over the years (in fact, annoyingly too well lol). We know that at the very basics, the fields that moderate particle interactions are in fact quantized, so -some- quantum field theories are in fact correct. The recent discovery of the Higgs boson was a huge step forward in that sense. We also know that our current theories (ie the standard model) aren't entirely correct, since a) we can't quantize gravity and b) on a lot of predictions, general relativity disagrees with quantum field theories (ie particle physics). Regarding moving forward and finding (and proving) the existance of grand unified theories (essentially, a theory that unifies the strong, weak and electromagnetic interaction in a single force) and, further on, quantum gravity (or, finding some theory that makes general relativity and quantum mechanics agree, while also describing gravity as a quantized field), we currently do not have means to test that in a lab, which is why these theories are so varied. In fact, this stuff is so complex that for many of these theories (string theory for example), the math needed to write them fully doesn't exist yet.
On October 27 2014 22:04 Jockmcplop wrote: Mathematicians show that the process of inflation is quantum mechanical in nature.
Bunch of people on forum argue about assumptions that were never made.
Surprise me TL go on.
I've always been surprised about how very specific areas in specific fields of science get debated by people who are not involved in that specific field of science let alone involved in that specific area of that specific field. It is similar to having a medical doctor work on a satellite. But I guess that is why we have the internet so everyone can become an expert in under 30 minutes of wiki-ing.
And in the words of Feynman "Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists." Any child can ask why, a scientist spends years/decades/centuries trying to find out.
On October 27 2014 18:00 SoSexy wrote: The title is misleading. As always, this gets down to the definition of 'nothing'. 'The Big Bang could have occurred spontaneously because of quantum fluctuations' just move the question one step back, as one could ask - where did quantum fluctuations come from?
In my experience (I did a lot of reading, as a philosopher of religion) usually one side argues that 'nothing' is 'really' nothing and therefore nothing could come out of it, while the other argues that 'nothing' is a 'something with intrinsic properties, such as quantum fluctuations'.
If you are interested in the debate between this two positions, you could watch this debate between William Lane Craig (who argues for the first position) and Sean Carroll (who holds the latter): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0qKZqPy9T8
Where did quantum fluctuations come from? Where did god come from? It's the same question so why would you choose god instead of something that could make sense? And yea people who are exposed to mental illnesses are also exposed to believing in god because its the same part of the brain that controls it. It would be about damn time that people started to accept that religion is an illness. And yea where mental illnesses usually come from? Unstable childhood. Be nice to your children people.
So off topic, sorry. I'm mad. Eager to see if I get banned, nuked or left alone for saying how it is.
Any kind of ability to think scientifically is helpful here by the way. Instead of trying to figure out exactly where we came from, why we are here etc. The best thing that this study does is prove mathematically that inflation can be caused by quantum fluctuations. People are so eager to try and generalize this into something that we can almost feel or touch.
In fact, as far as i'm aware, it has pretty much answered only one question: Is inflation caused by quantum fluctuations?
On October 27 2014 22:34 Teoita wrote: More like, can it be caused by quantum fluctuations given a few hypthesis?
Even better.
I'm no scientist, but I am interested in philosophy and the philosophical basis of science. You have to know what questions are being asked and answered by a scientific experiment before you discuss it. No-one is trying to prove or disprove God with this stuff. It also enrages me when new age idiots piggyback on quantum mechanics they don't understand. You cannot interpret this stuff in terms of who we are, why we are here and where we came from. You just can't. Science is based on asking one question at a time to build up a picture, a symbol of what certain parts of the observable universe are like and how they work. How can you even do that when everyone wants every question to be our ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything?
It's really funny seeing people here talk down about philosophy. Praise the logic used in the mathematical proofs discussed in the paper, and then insult the study of various problems in the universe which people attempt to solve using pure logic. Sure, you can go ahead and say particular people in the field, but don't insult the entire field. And I'm not even a philosopher. Also, thanks for explanation Teoita, really helpful for people interested in the subject without the basis to understand all of it.
On October 27 2014 22:04 Jockmcplop wrote: Mathematicians show that the process of inflation is quantum mechanical in nature.
Bunch of people on forum argue about assumptions that were never made.
Surprise me TL go on.
I've always been surprised about how very specific areas in specific fields of science get debated by people who are not involved in that specific field of science let alone involved in that specific area of that specific field. It is similar to having a medical doctor work on a satellite. But I guess that is why we have the internet so everyone can become an expert in under 30 minutes of wiki-ing.
And in the words of Feynman "Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists." Any child can ask why, a scientist spends years/decades/centuries trying to find out.
It's easy for a scientist to say 'science>philosophy' based on immediate practical success. But would science even exist without philosophy? Wasn't the birth of modern science during the seventeenth century a philosophical process in the first place? It's similar when you compare math with physics. Math is more abstract, but no one would dare to say that it's useless in science; it's actually the opposite. On the other hand, math is based on logic which was originally a branch of philosophy.
On October 27 2014 22:04 Jockmcplop wrote: Mathematicians show that the process of inflation is quantum mechanical in nature.
Bunch of people on forum argue about assumptions that were never made.
Surprise me TL go on.
I've always been surprised about how very specific areas in specific fields of science get debated by people who are not involved in that specific field of science let alone involved in that specific area of that specific field. It is similar to having a medical doctor work on a satellite. But I guess that is why we have the internet so everyone can become an expert in under 30 minutes of wiki-ing.
And in the words of Feynman "Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists." Any child can ask why, a scientist spends years/decades/centuries trying to find out.
It's easy for a scientist to say 'science>philosophy' based on immediate practical success. But would science even exist without philosophy? Wasn't the birth of modern science during the seventeenth century a philosophical process in the first place? It's similar when you compare math with physics. Math is more abstract, but no one would dare to say that it's useless in science; it's actually the opposite. On the other hand, math is based on logic which was originally a branch of philosophy.
I think he is missing out on what philosophy is actually about. Without an epistomological basis, science has nothing at all. We have to know what it is we are trying to find out before we can find it out, and we have to know whether it is something that can be known. Concrete answers to those kind of questions can and have been answered by philosophy.
It has long been a problem of science that many of its greatest people think that science is EVERYTHING and that no other field of study can be useful.
There is, however, a problem with the way philosophical questions arise from scientific papers/theories. You cannot make philosophical assumptions about the world based on quantum mechanics, for example. It just shouldn't and doesn't work. People can try, but in the end all we have is mathematics and demonstrations that the 'stuff' of quantum mechanics exists. People confuse a TV visualization of an electron with the reality of said electron, and think they can find some understanding of the universe from that visualization. Nope. Not going to happen. You have to understand the reality of it to be able to say anything about it. That's something that only a very limited portion of society can do i'm afraid.
Also, it's no coincidence that math and philosophy were extremely close to each other in ancient Greece, where essentially both "moderen" math and philosophy started off.
I really wish I had more time to pull up my mathematical and scientific knowledge a bit, even Teo's fine posts for the layman are proving a bit tough for me. I feel my brain has atrophied working in dead-end jobs for too long
If there's any parts you don't get feel free to ask. As i said, it's a lot of stuff condensed together, so i'd be surprised if it was easily understandable
That's pretty much what I had concluded, minus the points about background radiation being undetectable by our current tech base, I did not know that. Thanks for the info.
Edit: that's why it sounded wierd lol, I thought you were talking about a separate form of background radiation. Yeah, from what I understand, we can measure everything up to a few microseconds past the big bang, but past that physics as we understand it breaks down. Also I always think of a tortoise when I see your name, I guess that's why the e always escapes me.
Nah the CMB is easily detectable, it was first detected in the 60's. Measuring its polarization accurately is a different matter altogether though.
What i was getting at is that you can see photons up to the moment of emission of the CMB, but nothing behind it (or farther away from us, or farther back in time), because it acts like a wall.
I didn't know that was Teo's field actually so was cool to know. One of the best TL strat writers and also a guitar baller, dat man crush is growing...
On October 27 2014 22:04 Jockmcplop wrote: Mathematicians show that the process of inflation is quantum mechanical in nature.
Bunch of people on forum argue about assumptions that were never made.
Surprise me TL go on.
I've always been surprised about how very specific areas in specific fields of science get debated by people who are not involved in that specific field of science let alone involved in that specific area of that specific field. It is similar to having a medical doctor work on a satellite. But I guess that is why we have the internet so everyone can become an expert in under 30 minutes of wiki-ing.
And in the words of Feynman "Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists." Any child can ask why, a scientist spends years/decades/centuries trying to find out.
It's easy for a scientist to say 'science>philosophy' based on immediate practical success. But would science even exist without philosophy? Wasn't the birth of modern science during the seventeenth century a philosophical process in the first place? It's similar when you compare math with physics. Math is more abstract, but no one would dare to say that it's useless in science; it's actually the opposite. On the other hand, math is based on logic which was originally a branch of philosophy.
The border between science and philosophy are in my view rather nebulous, and often transitory. Basically, when we don't know and can only speculate, we call it philosophy. When we can actually investigate and can perform reproducible and consistent results, we call it science.
Science springs from philosophy, but is never beholden to it. The empirical will always supersede the purely theoretical.
I didn't know that was Teo's field actually so was cool to know. One of the best TL strat writers and also a guitar baller, dat man crush is growing...
On October 27 2014 23:41 Wombat_NI wrote: I actually do now, you have piqued my curiosity.
I really wish I had more time to pull up my mathematical and scientific knowledge a bit, even Teo's fine posts for the layman are proving a bit tough for me. I feel my brain has atrophied working in dead-end jobs for too long
As an example, I think most people have heard about the Higgs field and how it is responsible for giving mass to all other particles. The Higgs field is in a vacuum that we pretty much just assume to be a 'true' vacuum (it is implemented that way in the Standard Model). If the Higgs potential is more complex, it might be the case that it is currently in a false vacuum and might jump to the true vacuum at some point (this is possible because Quantum Mechanics is weird). If that happens, the way the Higgs field interacts with other particles changes, and that directly changes their mass. This has consequences that reach so far that the universe is pretty much guaranteed to go to shit.
On October 27 2014 23:41 Wombat_NI wrote: I actually do now, you have piqued my curiosity.
I really wish I had more time to pull up my mathematical and scientific knowledge a bit, even Teo's fine posts for the layman are proving a bit tough for me. I feel my brain has atrophied working in dead-end jobs for too long
As an example, I think most people have heard about the Higgs field and how it is responsible for giving mass to all other particles. The Higgs field is in a vacuum that we pretty much just assume to be a 'true' vacuum (it is implemented that way in the Standard Model). If the Higgs potential is more complex, it might be the case that it is currently in a false vacuum and might jump to the true vacuum at some point (this is possible because Quantum Mechanics is weird). If that happens, the way the Higgs field interacts with other particles changes, and that directly changes their mass. This has consequences that reach so far that the universe is pretty much guaranteed to go to shit.
On October 27 2014 22:04 Jockmcplop wrote: Mathematicians show that the process of inflation is quantum mechanical in nature.
Bunch of people on forum argue about assumptions that were never made.
Surprise me TL go on.
I've always been surprised about how very specific areas in specific fields of science get debated by people who are not involved in that specific field of science let alone involved in that specific area of that specific field. It is similar to having a medical doctor work on a satellite. But I guess that is why we have the internet so everyone can become an expert in under 30 minutes of wiki-ing.
And in the words of Feynman "Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists." Any child can ask why, a scientist spends years/decades/centuries trying to find out.
It's easy for a scientist to say 'science>philosophy' based on immediate practical success. But would science even exist without philosophy?
Yes. Both fall under the umbrella of 'inquiry'. But instead of talking about that, let's talk about particles.
On October 27 2014 22:04 Jockmcplop wrote: Mathematicians show that the process of inflation is quantum mechanical in nature.
Bunch of people on forum argue about assumptions that were never made.
Surprise me TL go on.
I've always been surprised about how very specific areas in specific fields of science get debated by people who are not involved in that specific field of science let alone involved in that specific area of that specific field. It is similar to having a medical doctor work on a satellite. But I guess that is why we have the internet so everyone can become an expert in under 30 minutes of wiki-ing.
And in the words of Feynman "Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists." Any child can ask why, a scientist spends years/decades/centuries trying to find out.
It's easy for a scientist to say 'science>philosophy' based on immediate practical success. But would science even exist without philosophy? Wasn't the birth of modern science during the seventeenth century a philosophical process in the first place? It's similar when you compare math with physics. Math is more abstract, but no one would dare to say that it's useless in science; it's actually the opposite. On the other hand, math is based on logic which was originally a branch of philosophy.
The border between science and philosophy are in my view rather nebulous, and often transitory. Basically, when we don't know and can only speculate, we call it philosophy. When we can actually investigate and can perform reproducible and consistent results, we call it science.
Science springs from philosophy, but is never beholden to it. The empirical will always supersede the purely theoretical.
I didn't know that was Teo's field actually so was cool to know. One of the best TL strat writers and also a guitar baller, dat man crush is growing...
I have been spurned. Sudoku is the only option.
I see what you mean. Scientific discoveries can't be linked directly with philosophy, but they are. You can't make 'discoveries' in philosophy, it's more about slow processes that can last decades or centuries, but they will change deeply the way you think, and also the way you do science.
The limit of the empirical is that you can check that a statement is true for X different cases one by one, but you will never be able to prove that it is true for infinite cases. You can , instead, do that with a theoretical proof. The limit of the theoretical is that nothing ensures you that you didn't make mistakes in the logical steps. So you need to check if it actually works in reality. In this area of physics where you study what happened 13 billion years ago it's hard to empirically check if what you found out in theory is true. So from this point of view, it's related with philosphy.
On October 27 2014 18:00 SoSexy wrote: The title is misleading. As always, this gets down to the definition of 'nothing'. 'The Big Bang could have occurred spontaneously because of quantum fluctuations' just move the question one step back, as one could ask - where did quantum fluctuations come from?
In my experience (I did a lot of reading, as a philosopher of religion) usually one side argues that 'nothing' is 'really' nothing and therefore nothing could come out of it, while the other argues that 'nothing' is a 'something with intrinsic properties, such as quantum fluctuations'.
If you are interested in the debate between this two positions, you could watch this debate between William Lane Craig (who argues for the first position) and Sean Carroll (who holds the latter): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0qKZqPy9T8
Where did quantum fluctuations come from? Where did god come from? It's the same question so why would you choose god instead of something that could make sense? And yea people who are exposed to mental illnesses are also exposed to believing in god because its the same part of the brain that controls it. It would be about damn time that people started to accept that religion is an illness. And yea where mental illnesses usually come from? Unstable childhood. Be nice to your children people.
So off topic, sorry. I'm mad. Eager to see if I get banned, nuked or left alone for saying how it is.
On October 27 2014 22:04 Jockmcplop wrote: Mathematicians show that the process of inflation is quantum mechanical in nature.
Bunch of people on forum argue about assumptions that were never made.
Surprise me TL go on.
I've always been surprised about how very specific areas in specific fields of science get debated by people who are not involved in that specific field of science let alone involved in that specific area of that specific field. It is similar to having a medical doctor work on a satellite. But I guess that is why we have the internet so everyone can become an expert in under 30 minutes of wiki-ing.
And in the words of Feynman "Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists." Any child can ask why, a scientist spends years/decades/centuries trying to find out.
It's easy for a scientist to say 'science>philosophy' based on immediate practical success. But would science even exist without philosophy? Wasn't the birth of modern science during the seventeenth century a philosophical process in the first place? It's similar when you compare math with physics. Math is more abstract, but no one would dare to say that it's useless in science; it's actually the opposite. On the other hand, math is based on logic which was originally a branch of philosophy.
The border between science and philosophy are in my view rather nebulous, and often transitory. Basically, when we don't know and can only speculate, we call it philosophy. When we can actually investigate and can perform reproducible and consistent results, we call it science.
Science springs from philosophy, but is never beholden to it. The empirical will always supersede the purely theoretical.
I didn't know that was Teo's field actually so was cool to know. One of the best TL strat writers and also a guitar baller, dat man crush is growing...
I have been spurned. Sudoku is the only option.
In this area of physics where you study what happened 13 billion years ago it's hard to empirically check if what you found out in theory is true. So from this point of view, it's related with philosphy.
It doesn't matter wether something is easy or hard to prove empirically, especially in a field that is at the edge of technology like physics. Science at its basis still demands that, in order to claim understanding over something, you need to unite a mathematical model with empirical observations that confirm that model, etc etc. Philosophy just requires the abstract/logical part, which is why there is no such thing as, say, philosophers that study elementary particles.
On October 27 2014 23:06 Teoita wrote: Also, it's no coincidence that math and philosophy were extremely close to each other in ancient Greece, where essentially both "moderen" math and philosophy started off.
This is false, sorry. Very little Greek philosophy is very "mathematical," and the most "mathematical" Greek philosophy is the most religious/mystical (Pythagoreanism). It's also very unhistorical to think about "modern philosophy" as somehow being invented in Greece and then transmitted to us through an unbroken lineage. Greek philosophy is very, very different from mathematicized analytic philosophy which dominates the Anglo tradition today.
Hm, fair enough i guess. I havent studied philosophy since high school so i really dont know anything about it. My point was simply that, say, Plato or Aristotle were kind of the starting point in the development of philosophy, exactly like Euclidean geometry was (again, kind of) the starting point for modern math. I wasn't claiming that they are identical (of course, both have made huge leaps forward since then).
The other problem is that if you try to police the boundaries of the discussion to banish "religion" by appealing to a rationalist philosophical tradition supposedly originating in Aristotle (Plato is not going to serve your purposes here) you are going to find that that lineage reaches us first through Islam and then through Catholic Scholasticism. The (fraught, undecidable, and hysterically policed) distinction between religion and science is mostly the product of French Enlightenment rationalists, certainly not the Greeks. But you might not be so happy about the kinds of things those thinkers were saying, either.
If you go around arguing about being and nothingness, you are unavoidably within the coordinates of theological discourse. "Religion" has been there from the beginning, you can't get rid of it. "Atheism" is a position you could hold, but it's still a *theological* position (since denying the existence of God is a claim that contains theological content).
So basically, yeah, y'all are being pretty rude and unthoughtful when you attack that poster on the first page.
People what the fuck? So sexy literally just said that he was a phisolopher of religion and immediately some people jumped at him insulting him and questioning him for no reason. He didn't say "this is false, god is the truth" "fuck science and all it lies" or something like that, he just said he was a phiolopher and people got crazy? I think some people really have severe teaumas with religion...
But anyway, it's interesting but I'm not sure I understand the concept completely
So basically, yeah, y'all are being pretty rude and unthoughtful when you attack that poster on the first page.
Color me surprised. I think a lot of people are made very uncomfortable by the thought that religion, philosophy, and science are quite "bound up," so to speak. Lashing out is one way to deal with that discomfort.
Kudos to Teoita and the few other posters who refrained from dropping a hammer and instead sought to provide some actually useful information.
On October 27 2014 22:04 Jockmcplop wrote: Mathematicians show that the process of inflation is quantum mechanical in nature.
Bunch of people on forum argue about assumptions that were never made.
Surprise me TL go on.
I've always been surprised about how very specific areas in specific fields of science get debated by people who are not involved in that specific field of science let alone involved in that specific area of that specific field. It is similar to having a medical doctor work on a satellite. But I guess that is why we have the internet so everyone can become an expert in under 30 minutes of wiki-ing.
And in the words of Feynman "Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists." Any child can ask why, a scientist spends years/decades/centuries trying to find out.
It's easy for a scientist to say 'science>philosophy' based on immediate practical success. But would science even exist without philosophy? Wasn't the birth of modern science during the seventeenth century a philosophical process in the first place? It's similar when you compare math with physics. Math is more abstract, but no one would dare to say that it's useless in science; it's actually the opposite. On the other hand, math is based on logic which was originally a branch of philosophy.
The border between science and philosophy are in my view rather nebulous, and often transitory. Basically, when we don't know and can only speculate, we call it philosophy. When we can actually investigate and can perform reproducible and consistent results, we call it science.
Science springs from philosophy, but is never beholden to it. The empirical will always supersede the purely theoretical.
I didn't know that was Teo's field actually so was cool to know. One of the best TL strat writers and also a guitar baller, dat man crush is growing...
I have been spurned. Sudoku is the only option.
I see what you mean. Scientific discoveries can't be linked directly with philosophy, but they are. You can't make 'discoveries' in philosophy, it's more about slow processes that can last decades or centuries, but they will change deeply the way you think, and also the way you do science.
The limit of the empirical is that you can check that a statement is true for X different cases one by one, but you will never be able to prove that it is true for infinite cases. You can , instead, do that with a theoretical proof. The limit of the theoretical is that nothing ensures you that you didn't make mistakes in the logical steps. So you need to check if it actually works in reality. In this area of physics where you study what happened 13 billion years ago it's hard to empirically check if what you found out in theory is true. So from this point of view, it's related with philosphy.
One small objection; just because it happened 13 billion years ago, does not mean we cannot prove it empirically, nor that we should relax the standards of proof expected for a theory to be considered substantiated. It mayand likely will be very hard. We may need centuries more before we can say with any certainty one way or the other. In that case, we'll just have to be patient. Nothing learned from philosophy will inform a person about the nature of quantum physics and whatever rules it may operate by.
This is a fairly common misconception; the idea that introspection and spiritual and philosophical pursuits will yield some kind of knowledge or insights that are applicable to realms of science that are totally unrelated to these efforts. Physics would be one of these.
"Atheism" is a position you could hold, but it's still a *theological* position (since denying the existence of God is a claim that contains theological content).
That's not quite true. It is the position of being unconvinced by claims that have not met their burden of proof, not rejecting them as false. It is a position completely devoid of content, and the word itself is more or less worthless as I see it. We don't define ourselves by what we stand in opposition to or simply choose not to give any serious consideration.
Also, as for being rude or thoughtless; my problem was not the content of his argument, it was that he linked a video with WLC, an incredibly dishonest and disreputable person with no scientific credibility.
On October 27 2014 22:04 Jockmcplop wrote: Mathematicians show that the process of inflation is quantum mechanical in nature.
Bunch of people on forum argue about assumptions that were never made.
Surprise me TL go on.
I've always been surprised about how very specific areas in specific fields of science get debated by people who are not involved in that specific field of science let alone involved in that specific area of that specific field. It is similar to having a medical doctor work on a satellite. But I guess that is why we have the internet so everyone can become an expert in under 30 minutes of wiki-ing.
And in the words of Feynman "Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists." Any child can ask why, a scientist spends years/decades/centuries trying to find out.
It's easy for a scientist to say 'science>philosophy' based on immediate practical success. But would science even exist without philosophy? Wasn't the birth of modern science during the seventeenth century a philosophical process in the first place? It's similar when you compare math with physics. Math is more abstract, but no one would dare to say that it's useless in science; it's actually the opposite. On the other hand, math is based on logic which was originally a branch of philosophy.
The border between science and philosophy are in my view rather nebulous, and often transitory. Basically, when we don't know and can only speculate, we call it philosophy. When we can actually investigate and can perform reproducible and consistent results, we call it science.
Science springs from philosophy, but is never beholden to it. The empirical will always supersede the purely theoretical.
I didn't know that was Teo's field actually so was cool to know. One of the best TL strat writers and also a guitar baller, dat man crush is growing...
I have been spurned. Sudoku is the only option.
In this area of physics where you study what happened 13 billion years ago it's hard to empirically check if what you found out in theory is true. So from this point of view, it's related with philosphy.
It doesn't matter wether something is easy or hard to prove empirically, especially in a field that is at the edge of technology like physics. Science at its basis still demands that, in order to claim understanding over something, you need to unite a mathematical model with empirical observations that confirm that model, etc etc. Philosophy just requires the abstract/logical part, which is why there is no such thing as, say, philosophers that study elementary particles.
You are factualy wrong. There are whole segments of philosophy like philosphy of math, science, methodology etc. that are closely related to this. There are people who study those areas. In fact thoretical physics is often borderline philosophy. I myself hold degree in both philosophy and material engineering. And promotor of my master thesis was doing PHD courses on some fundamental math problems for mathematicians and physycists.
On October 27 2014 22:04 Jockmcplop wrote: Mathematicians show that the process of inflation is quantum mechanical in nature.
Bunch of people on forum argue about assumptions that were never made.
Surprise me TL go on.
I've always been surprised about how very specific areas in specific fields of science get debated by people who are not involved in that specific field of science let alone involved in that specific area of that specific field. It is similar to having a medical doctor work on a satellite. But I guess that is why we have the internet so everyone can become an expert in under 30 minutes of wiki-ing.
And in the words of Feynman "Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists." Any child can ask why, a scientist spends years/decades/centuries trying to find out.
It's easy for a scientist to say 'science>philosophy' based on immediate practical success. But would science even exist without philosophy? Wasn't the birth of modern science during the seventeenth century a philosophical process in the first place? It's similar when you compare math with physics. Math is more abstract, but no one would dare to say that it's useless in science; it's actually the opposite. On the other hand, math is based on logic which was originally a branch of philosophy.
The border between science and philosophy are in my view rather nebulous, and often transitory. Basically, when we don't know and can only speculate, we call it philosophy. When we can actually investigate and can perform reproducible and consistent results, we call it science.
Science springs from philosophy, but is never beholden to it. The empirical will always supersede the purely theoretical.
I didn't know that was Teo's field actually so was cool to know. One of the best TL strat writers and also a guitar baller, dat man crush is growing...
I have been spurned. Sudoku is the only option.
In this area of physics where you study what happened 13 billion years ago it's hard to empirically check if what you found out in theory is true. So from this point of view, it's related with philosphy.
It doesn't matter wether something is easy or hard to prove empirically, especially in a field that is at the edge of technology like physics. Science at its basis still demands that, in order to claim understanding over something, you need to unite a mathematical model with empirical observations that confirm that model, etc etc. Philosophy just requires the abstract/logical part, which is why there is no such thing as, say, philosophers that study elementary particles.
You are factualy wrong. There are whole segments of philosophy like philosphy of math, science, methodology etc. that are closely related to this. There are people who study those areas. In fact thoretical physics is often borderline philosophy. I myself hold degree in both philosophy and material engineering. And promotor of my master thesis was doing PHD courses on some fundamental math problems for mathematicians and physycists.
Sure, but for example, philosophy of science is concerned with the definitions, implications and methods of the scientific method, rather than the discoveries/theories themselves. The instant you start building a mathematical model to predict the behaviour world around you, you are by definition studying physics, not philosophy.
I'm not saying that there is no overlap whatsoever between the three fields, what i'm saying is that despite there being some overlap it's usually quite easy to tell which one you are studying. Some problems in modern science do come from philosophy though - for example, the anthropic principle.
too many branches claim the big bang is nonsense anyway, the electrical theory is gaining a bit of ground as most of it can be created in a lab just because mathematics comes to a solution doesnt mean its right, pi has been kinda wrong for years
Electrical theory? Afaik the lambda-cdm model is currently, by far, the favoured cosmological model, and it's not just about math. There are several indipendent observations that all confirm its predictions. These are the commonly accepted alternatives; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-standard_cosmology I dont see anything related to electricity...
The video I posted is not a 'propaganda' (as you would say) video of WLC, but a debate with Sean Carroll, a very prominent atheist astrophysicist. In those 2 hours they discuss basically the same topic of this thread, so it might add some insights to people. Also, I don't know why you call him dishonest or such. Even Krauss, after their debates in Australia, recognised he's an honest man (I can Pm you the link to that).
I wanted to add something about philosophy/science. I think that the line that connects philosophy to the beginning of science lies in the modern age, not in the greek world. Soon after Ockham started to dismantle the medieval construction of Theology as 'scientia naturalis', the first 'scientists' started to study the natural world without refering to the Scriptures. Galileo, for example, was never considered a scientist but a 'natural philosopher'. It is after this period that the distinction became clearer and it led to the well-known figure of the scientist.
On October 28 2014 04:36 Teoita wrote: Well it's pretty much accepted that the scientific method as it's known today began with Newton
I would say more with Galileo, but Newton played a huge part too. + Show Spoiler +
Also, do you know that Newton was a complete nut who really believed the Earth was 4000 years old and who wrote more of religion than of physics? I attended a class of History of Science and I was quite shocked o.o
On October 28 2014 04:36 Teoita wrote: Well it's pretty much accepted that the scientific method as it's known today began with Newton
I would say more with Galileo, but Newton played a huge part too. + Show Spoiler +
Also, do you know that Newton was a complete nut who really believed the Earth was 4000 years old and who wrote more of religion than of physics? I attended a class of History of Science and I was quite shocked o.o
Considering what people knew back then, thinking the earth was 4000 years old wasnt being a "nut"
On October 28 2014 04:36 Teoita wrote: Well it's pretty much accepted that the scientific method as it's known today began with Newton
I would say more with Galileo, but Newton played a huge part too. + Show Spoiler +
Also, do you know that Newton was a complete nut who really believed the Earth was 4000 years old and who wrote more of religion than of physics? I attended a class of History of Science and I was quite shocked o.o
Considering what people knew back then, thinking the earth was 4000 years old wasnt being a "nut"
Ahah you're right, I was just comparing that to his strong scientific side
On October 28 2014 04:34 SoSexy wrote: Squat, just a little off topic: + Show Spoiler +
The video I posted is not a 'propaganda' (as you would say) video of WLC, but a debate with Sean Carroll, a very prominent atheist astrophysicist. In those 2 hours they discuss basically the same topic of this thread, so it might add some insights to people. Also, I don't know why you call him dishonest or such. Even Krauss, after their debates in Australia, recognised he's an honest man (I can Pm you the link to that).
I wanted to add something about philosophy/science. I think that the line that connects philosophy to the beginning of science lies in the modern age, not in the greek world. Soon after Ockham started to dismantle the medieval construction of Theology as 'scientia naturalis', the first 'scientists' started to study the natural world without refering to the Scriptures. Galileo, for example, was never considered a scientist but a 'natural philosopher'. It is after this period that the distinction became clearer and it led to the well-known figure of the scientist.
I never said anything about propaganda. I never even used the word. My objection concerned the use of WLC as some kind of credible source.
As for Newton, he is pretty much the best example I can think of, perhaps alongside Francis Collins of just how compartmentalized the human mind really is. He more or less invented calculus and the field of optics, and he also believed in alchemy. The more intelligent and erudite the mind, the better it can rationalize the preposterous.
Too be fair WLC actually is a reasonably respected theologian and philosopher and most of the philosophical non-religious arguments he brings forth aren't exactly controversial.
Wouldn't true nothingness be a very unstable condition? If there are no laws of physics, or laws about anything else, then there's no law that prohibits the spontaneous appearance something.
Theoretical physicists are basically mathematicians who use maths to explain physical phenomenas.
For anyone like me we no real high-end sciencific knowledge, listen to that lecture from Lawrence Krauss " A universe from nothing" : it doesn't explain everything in detail, but it's quite easy to understand, and that guy has defended the fact that "nothing" really is "something" cause of quantum fluctuations for a long time. I guess he will comment on that discovery soon.
As an aside, theologic discussions have nothing to do in here cause whatever's discovered and discussed in physics has no correlation whatsoever with the existence (or not) of God. Physics just doesn't need God, and physicists shouldn't include God in their equations, cause everytime they've done that, they were wrong (Einstein with his cosmologic constant to have a nice non expanding universe; Newton when he couldn't mathematically explain the erratic movements of the planets on their orbits, ...)
On October 28 2014 04:41 Teoita wrote: Oh yeah the dude was...special. I heard some people blame it on him experimenting a lot with chemistry stuff and breathing mercury fumes and stuff.
He was an alchemist. Mercury intoxication (bread and butter for alchemy) would explain many of his letters and writings, specially borderline paranaioa. Sorry for the little de-rail.
The article is interesting, by they say it is not rigorously proven anyways.
What a pleasant reminder of all those fun quantum mechanics courses in college. I say that also as one damn happy that I no longer need to submit papers analyzing and critiquing the subject. Ahh the bliss!
"Atheism" is a position you could hold, but it's still a *theological* position (since denying the existence of God is a claim that contains theological content).
That's not quite true. It is the position of being unconvinced by claims that have not met their burden of proof, not rejecting them as false. It is a position completely devoid of content, and the word itself is more or less worthless as I see it. We don't define ourselves by what we stand in opposition to or simply choose not to give any serious consideration.
that's the position i'm challenging. first of all that it's meaningful to speak of a "burden of proof," second that it's possible to "be an atheist" as a neutral position. It's certainly ludicrous to say that religious claims are "positions devoid of content," there is an enormous amount of "content."
You certainly do "define ourselves by what you stand against" - just look at the etymological construction of the word 'atheism.' If you didn't, you wouldn't be here arguing about it.
On October 28 2014 06:12 ZerG~LegenD wrote: Wouldn't true nothingness be a very unstable condition? If there are no laws of physics, or laws about anything else, then there's no law that prohibits the spontaneous appearance something.
but then you have to postulate a general tendency for things to happen unless there are laws preventing things from happening. why?
I don't think it invalidates the adoption of atheism as a 'neutral' position, it's just an issue of chronology. God-centred conceptions of creation have existed from the time we have any kind of recorded history, so subsequently of course you're going to posit it as a kind of refutation of those models.
If we were to discuss the issue from a blank slate of a starting point, the idea of 'I don't see proof for this, so I will actively disbelieve it' seems pretty neutral to me.
But there's no such thing as a blank slate for a starting point. It just doesn't exist. And your conception about what would constitute "proof" is based on some sort of epistemological stance which cannot be "neutral." You reject some idea because you are already committed to some other idea which defines when and for what reasons you should believe things.
I should point out, I am also an "atheist" I suppose, but I'm quite opposed to positivist rationalism or scientism which is what most people mean by "atheist." It's just that I believe in being skeptical and atheists tend to be very dogmatic people because they are so self-assured about the obvious truth of everything they think. They are pretty much exactly like fundamentalists in this respect
One day we'll be able to have a science thread that doesn't degenerate into back and forths of awful youtube videos containing monologues from apologists like WLC and Plantinga, and pop public intellectual hacks like Krauss.
On October 28 2014 04:41 Teoita wrote: Oh yeah the dude was...special. I heard some people blame it on him experimenting a lot with chemistry stuff and breathing mercury fumes and stuff.
Unless everyone at the time was sniffing the same fumes, highly doubtful and those people are just turning a blind eye to what was a very big part of natural philosophers at the time. Religion, or more specifically God doesn't really disappear from science until the mid 20th century. More than anything, it's because of religion that we have the basis of modern science, if it wasn't for the fanatical search for proof of God in the world then a lot of research probably wouldn't have come as quickly as it had.
The only reason philosophers still get to claim relevance in this discussion is because QFT, quantum gravity and the formation of the universe are things we don't really understand yet. The operative word here being "yet". Philosophers don't write about germ theory, organic chemistry, or even special relativity. We understand these things and they have moved into the standard toolbox we use to understand the world - there is no debate, no existentialism, only tools with which to shape the world around us. I mean, already people like Nietzsche and Gadamer lamented that philosophy was being reduced to epistemology, essentially beholden to science. That society overall, seeing the enormous success with which the scientific method was brought to bear against virtually every problem facing it simply had moved on from philosophy. Maybe they had a point, maybe there yet remain questions worth asking that are not fundamentally scientific in nature. Personally I'm not convinced - or to paraphrase futurama: "Reality be a harsh mistress".
On October 28 2014 10:30 m4ini wrote: There's me coming into a science thread, expecting a nice discussion over a couple of pages. Turns out, i was wrong. Sadly.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/V2q3IvH.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://universeinproblems.com/images/thumb/4/4d/Inflation_3_2_1.jpg/300px-Inflation_3_2_1.jpg)
I think a lot of people are made very uncomfortable by the thought that religion, philosophy, and science are quite "bound up," so to speak. Lashing out is one way to deal with that discomfort. 
