Physicists are more preposterous than fundies?

_{Denyse O'Leary

August 23, 2015

Cosmology, News, Physics}

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We thought everyone knew that, but no matter.

A reviewer for the Spectator, introducing Christophe Galfard’s The Universe in Your Hand: A Journey Through Space, Time, and Beyond thinks he is surprising us by telling us that:

Physicists have a nerve. I know one (I’ll call him Mark) who berates every religious person he meets, yet honestly thinks there exist parallel universes, exactly like our own, in which we all have two noses. He refuses to give any credit to Old Testament creation myths and of course sneers at the idea of transubstantiation. But, without any sense of shame, he insists in the same breath that humans are made from the fallout of exploded stars; that it is theoretically possible for a person to decompose on one side of a black hole and recompose on the other, and that there are diamonds in the sky the size of the moon.

If the fundamentalists of the American Midwest want to advance exegesis, they should send their preachers to MIT. Parallel worlds; entire universes smaller than the size of a subatomic particle; the fact that there is real, visible evidence that all possible existences (some of which would have led to the worlds of two noses) were at one stage frozen in time, and that this evidence comes from looking up at the sky when sitting on a sunlounger in the middle of the Pacific Ocean; that there are universes inside universes inside universes, encased like bubbles … all this, says Galfard, ‘may (and should) sound completely crazy to you (it does to me, but I like it)’; yet there are sound and consistent arguments, each built out of the basic ideas of GCSE physics, to justify every word. More.

The maddest argument can be internally sound and consistent. The only thing that gets in the way is the only universe we know of.

See also: How we got to the point where this stuff is thought of as science.

and

Imagine a world of religions that naturalism might indeed be able to explain

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Comments

Sev
...simply proclaiming it all as God’s creation is not a explanation in the sense that science needs and most people would actually like.
If it's the truth then we all need it, science or otherwise. Anyone can seek for alternative explanations, but not without admitting that "God created it" remains the best explanation. Failing a better alternative, it is the truth as we understand it. As for 'most people' - I think they accept that God exists and did create the universe with a plan - which includes life after death for humans. It's only a very small minority that think it's worthwhile for science to step outside its own limits and conjecture on what happened before the start of the physical universe. Science does not yet have explanations for what happened within the universe.Silver Asiatic_{August 24, 2015
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Seversky:
These are really hard nuts to crack and simply proclaiming it all as God’s creation is not a explanation in the sense that science needs and most people would actually like.
Newton believed everything was created by a powerful God. Yet, this "handicap" did not prevent him from becoming the father of modern physics. In fact, Newton believed that studying the natural world around him would bring him closer to getting a tiny glimpse of the awesome mind of God. This was reward enough for Sir Isaac. What have you accomplished lately with your little big-bang-materialist-StarTrek physics religion? I, for one, reject the notion that my creator was some non-descript big bang that never really happened.Mapou_{August 23, 2015
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"is not a explanation in the sense that science needs and most people would actually like." So you would prefer a 'scientific' theory that says that there are a infinite number of you in parallel universes with two noses over admitting that this is God's universe created to accomplish exactly what he sees fit to accomplish in it? Namely to accomplish the separation of those who want to be with God for eternity from those who don't. Seeing as the consequences of being separated from God for all eternity, where his presence and all his good and perfect attributes are withdrawn, are unimaginably terrifying, I think what you 'actually like' for the ultimate answer in physics is severely misplaced to put it very mildly:
Bill Wiese - Why Hell is so Horrible - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hd_so3wPw “Einstein’s equation predicts that, as the astronaut reaches the singularity (of the black-hole), the tidal forces grow infinitely strong, and their chaotic oscillations become infinitely rapid. The astronaut dies and the atoms which his body is made become infinitely and chaotically distorted and mixed-and then, at the moment when everything becomes infinite (the tidal strengths, the oscillation frequencies, the distortions, and the mixing), spacetime ceases to exist.” Kip S. Thorne – “Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy” pg. 476 “I started to move toward the light. The way I moved, the physics, was completely different than it is here on Earth. It was something I had never felt before and never felt since. It was a whole different sensation of motion. I obviously wasn’t walking or skipping or crawling. I was not floating. I was flowing. I was flowing toward the light. I was accelerating and I knew I was accelerating, but then again, I didn’t really feel the acceleration. I just knew I was accelerating toward the light. Again, the physics was different – the physics of motion of time, space, travel. It was completely different in that tunnel, than it is here on Earth. I came out into the light and when I came out into the light, I realized that I was in heaven.” Barbara Springer – Near Death Experience – The Tunnel – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv2jLeoAcMI
Verse:
John 15:25 ,,,'They hated me without cause.'
bornagain77_{August 23, 2015
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"simply proclaiming it all as God’s creation is not a explanation in the sense that science needs and most people would actually like." I, like most people, agree with you Seversky. All great Thiest Scientists agree too. F = ma from a part time theologian for example:)ppolish_{August 23, 2015
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As to this claim:
"yet there are sound and consistent arguments, each built out of the basic ideas of GCSE physics, to justify every word."
Actually no, his main claim is certainly not 'justified' by physics. His main claim is:
"yet honestly thinks there exist parallel universes, exactly like our own, in which we all have two noses. "
This is sheer many worlds interpretation (MWI) insanity built out of denying the reality of wave function collapse. It certainly is not a mainstream opinion in physics. And if it is taught as THE mainstream interpretation of quantum physics in GCSE quantum physics then it is a grievous error on whomever constructed the syllabus. Philip Ball recently expressed his dismay with Many Worlds Intepretation here:
Too many worlds - Philip Ball - Feb. 17, 2015 Excerpt:,,, You measure the path of an electron, and in this world it seems to go this way, but in another world it went that way. That requires a parallel, identical apparatus for the electron to traverse. More – it requires a parallel you to measure it. Once begun, this process of fabrication has no end: you have to build an entire parallel universe around that one electron, identical in all respects except where the electron went. You avoid the complication of wavefunction collapse, but at the expense of making another universe.,,, http://aeon.co/magazine/science/is-the-many-worlds-hypothesis-just-a-fantasy/
Several different interpretations are held by leading quantum physicists. On page 8 of the following paper we see just 18% accept Everett’s many worlds. But on page 7 we see that 55% of the scientists accept that the observer plays a fundamental role in the application of the formalism but plays no distinguished physical role page 7 http://arxiv.org/pdf/1301.1069.pdf But then we also see that only 6% say that the observer plays a distinguished physical role….how is that possible? This video at 8:18 mark explains the discrepancy and shows how ‘metaphysical prejudice’ drastically alters what physicists are willing to say they believe about quantum mechanics ‘formalism’ from what they say quantum mechanics actually indicates:
The Measurement Problem in quantum mechanics – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB7d5V71vUE&list=PL1mr9ZTZb3TViAqtowpvZy5PZpn-MoSK_&index=3
Having two noses is small potatoes in the MWI. The following site goes over '10 Mind-Bending Implications'
10 Mind-Bending Implications of the Many Worlds Theory - February 2013 http://listverse.com/2013/02/22/10-mind-bending-implications-of-the-many-worlds-theory/
As mentioned previously, such insanity comes from denying 'the actuality of wavefunction collapse':
The many-worlds interpretation is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts the objective reality of the universal wavefunction and denies the actuality of wavefunction collapse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation
Yet, 'the actuality of wavefunction collapse' was recently established in the following experiment thus falsifying the claim that the wave function does not actually collapse, i.e. thus falsifying MWI:
Quantum experiment verifies Einstein's 'spooky action at a distance' - March 24, 2015 Excerpt: An experiment,, has for the first time demonstrated Albert Einstein's original conception of "spooky action at a distance" using a single particle. ,,Professor Howard Wiseman and his experimental collaborators,, report their use of homodyne measurements to show what Einstein did not believe to be real, namely the non-local collapse of a (single) particle's wave function.,, ,, by splitting a single photon between two laboratories, scientists have used homodyne detectors—which measure wave-like properties—to show the collapse of the wave function is a real effect,, This phenomenon is explained in quantum theory,, the instantaneous non-local, (beyond space and time), collapse of the wave function to wherever the particle is detected.,,, "Einstein never accepted orthodox quantum mechanics and the original basis of his contention was this single-particle argument. This is why it is important to demonstrate non-local wave function collapse with a single particle," says Professor Wiseman. "Einstein's view was that the detection of the particle only ever at one point could be much better explained by the hypothesis that the particle is only ever at one point, without invoking the instantaneous collapse of the wave function to nothing at all other points. "However, rather than simply detecting the presence or absence of the particle, we used homodyne measurements enabling one party to make different measurements and the other, using quantum tomography, to test the effect of those choices." "Through these different measurements, you see the wave function collapse in different ways, thus proving its existence and showing that Einstein was wrong." http://phys.org/news/2015-03-quantum-einstein-spooky-action-distance.html
I would also like to point out that the most profound confusion in modern physics today, the root of such insanity as MWI and Multiverse, is the fallacious belief that blind causality is superior to agent causality in terms of explanatory power. - https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/is-mathematics-intrinsic-to-the-universe/#comment-565812 And when the agent causality of Theists is rightly let ‘back’ into the picture of physics, as the Christian founders of science originally envisioned, (instead of the epistemological self refuting ‘blind’ causality of atheists), then a unification between Quantum Theory and Relativity is readily achieved in the resurrection of Christ from death: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/mathematician-planck-data-disappoints-multiverse-claims/#comment-548425 Verse:
Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Quote:
"I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language." Werner Heisenberg
bornagain77_{August 23, 2015
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It may all turn out to be nonsense but the fact is that physicists are faced with the task of trying to explain some fundamental mysteries such as why did the Big Bang go "bang!" when it did, whence came the laws that govern the observed structure and order of the universe and why is the expansion of the universe apparently accelerating? These are really hard nuts to crack and simply proclaiming it all as God's creation is not a explanation in the sense that science needs and most people would actually like.Seversky_{August 23, 2015
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If "sound and consistent arguments" lead to the nonsense set forth, something is fundamentally wrong with either the theory or the theorists, maybe both.News_{August 23, 2015
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The ideas & evidence for "Many Worlds" and "Multiverses" is evidence for "Flying Horses" and "Thunder Gods", Seversky.ppolish_{August 23, 2015
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Seversky, If Galfard is right about how he derived his voodoo claims (I have no strong reason to doubt it entirely), it just means that GCSE physics is fundamentally flawed. Which means that a major paradigm shift is about to happen. That is all. It also means that Galfard is either an idiot or a con artist. But he's in illustrious company. The physics community is drowning in those.Mapou_{August 23, 2015
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… all this, says Galfard, ‘may (and should) sound completely crazy to you (it does to me, but I like it)’; yet there are sound and consistent arguments, each built out of the basic ideas of GCSE physics, to justify every word.
Seversky_{August 23, 2015
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It's called intellectual incest. When you have a severely restricted meme pool, intellectual incest ensues. The spawns eventually become monstrous and comical at the same time. It kind of reminds me of societies where certain words become taboo and the practice severely restricts the clan's ability to communicate coherently and even think properly. It turns into a vicious circle, a maelstrom of fiendish stupidity.Mapou_{August 23, 2015
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