Further to The multiverse: Hi, Nonsense, meet Budget (This Perimeter Institute conference could be a party’s over signal; time to sweep up the streamers and bust balloons, and get back to evidence-based science):
Columbia mathematician Peter Woit is following the proceedings and notes,
You can follow a lot of what is going on at this conference on Twitter, here. For example, I was glad to hear about this comment from Dimopoulos
There is no difference that we know right now … between the story of divine intervention and the multiverse.
It’s great to see a conference on fundamental physics where the multiverse is coming in for some appropriate skepticism.
Nonsense, meet Prayer Beads. He has a wonderful plan for your life.
Update: One thing to say about the multiverse, it does provide an excuse for an endless number of popular articles mulling it over. Just today, there’s Caleb Scharf and George Johnson.
Oh dear. It seems Nonsense had to run off to an interview with two pop sci news sections and three pop sci mags, and was not able to discuss matters with either Budget or Prayer Beads.
That’s conferences for ya.
See also: Multiverse cosmology at your fingertips
Follow UD News at Twitter!
as to:
Actually there is, according to Bruce Gordon and others, a huge difference between divine intervention and the multiverse.
Here is the last power-point slide of the preceding video:
“There is no difference that we know right now … between the story of divine intervention and the multiverse.”
I beg to differ. Divine Intervention rules, Multiverse drools. No comparision.
Divine Intervention can create a Multiverse by definition. “Oh, but a Multiverse can create Divine Intervention”. Well, Divine Intervention came first. More eternal than eternal Multiverse. Outside eternal.
Sean Carrol compares Multiverse to Australia:
https://mobile.twitter.com/seanmcarroll/status/613043720795992066
Crikey.
BA77,
Do you have an updated link to that essay? That website is no longer active. It looks very … interesting. I’d especially like to see where he came up with [1 / 10^(10^123)] x infinity = 1.
You’ll recall his tease for that post from UD in 2010:
Yeah, that’s a bit sloppy to be sure.
Edit: Minor edits to the above quote since some characters got mangled.
PS to #4: Here’s an archived version.
Warning: Click that link at your own risk. BA77, you might want to remove this particular essay from your set of links. It’s reeeally bad.
daveS, you seem to think that I should respect your opinion on matters. Your mistaken in your assumption. I don’t.
Whereas, since Dr. Sheldon called the BICEP gravitational wave findings bogus immediately when they came out (gave it a 1 in 10^60 probability of being correct), whereas others belittled him harshly as an IDiot for doing so, I respect his opinion since he was vindicated.
i.e. He has earned my respect in these matters whereas you have lost it a few months ago for what I perceive to be a inherent dishonesty towards the evidence.
That’s just the way it works in my book.
I thought I let you know what I thought of your lack of integrity already!.
BA77,
I don’t doubt that Dr Sheldon is an accomplished physicist. It’s his mathematics in that essay that I take issue with. It contains several obvious, elementary errors, one of which nullifies his entire thesis (see the 2nd to last paragraph, 3rd sentence).
You don’t have to respect my opinion—if you’re at all interested in disseminating accurate information, just ask anyone with the slightest background in mathematics what they think of that essay.
Talk to the hand
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8Fyf4R-nzI
Ok, I guess you win.
A few notes on infinity. In the following video, it is held that Georg Cantor was eventually driven insane trying to mathematically ‘tame infinity’.
Subsequently, apparently through the work that Georg Cantor had started trying to mathematically ‘tame infinity’, Kurt Gödel was later able to formulate the incompleteness theorem:
Kurt Gödel’s part in bringing the incompleteness theorem to fruition can be picked up here:
Moreover, Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness theorem is intimately connected to No Free Lunch Theorems and to Dembski and Marks’s Law Of Conservation Of Information:
A few more notes on infinity: Interestingly, the quantum wave state is mathematically described as infinite dimensional:
Moreover, a photon, whilst in its quantum wave state, can theoretically be encoded with an infinite amount of information:
Robert W. Boyd succeeded in encoding an entire image worth of information onto a single photon whilst it was in its quantum wave state
Now my question to materialistic atheists is this, “Exactly what ’cause’ has been postulated throughout history to be completely independent of any space-time constraints, as well as possessing infinite knowledge, so as to be the ‘sufficient cause’ to explain what we see in the quantum wave collapse of a photon?
To go on with infinity:
Feynman tried to ‘brush infinity under the rug’:
Feynman rightly expresses his unease with “brushing infinity under the rug” here:
I don’t know about Feynman, but as for myself, being a Christian Theist, I find it rather comforting to know that it takes an ‘infinite amount of logic to figure out what one stinky tiny bit of space-time is going to do’:
Max Tegmark, Dr. Multiverse himself, wants to get rid of infinity since infinity, at least the way he uses infinity as a source for ‘random miracles’, (Bruce Gordon post 1), predicts everything and therefore predicts nothing:
Actually, contrary to what Tegmark may prefer to believe, the incorrect ‘assumption’ that needs to be retired from science is his atheistic philosophy of materialism since it is that philosophy that postulates infinite randomness as a foundational presupposition.
To continue on.
The conflict of reconciling General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics appears to arise from the inability of either theory to successfully deal with the Zero/Infinity conflict that crops up in different places of each theory:
Dr. William Dembski offers insight into the ‘unification’ of the infinite and the finite:
Of note: I hold ‘growing large without measure’ to be a lesser quality infinity than a fraction in which the denominator goes to zero. The main principle for why I hold growing large without measure to be a ‘lesser quality infinity’ is stated at the 4:30 minute mark of the following video:
And if we allow the possibility that God can ‘play the role of a person’, as even Kurt Gödel himself allowed,,,
If we allow that possibility, then a empirically back reconciliation between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity readily pops out for us:
Verses and Music:
Supplemental note: Infinity also appears here
BA77,
What precisely do you mean by “lesser quality infinity”? Do you mean one is smaller than the other? Can you prove this?
Regarding the WLC argument, Just as x + 1 is finite for all natural numbers x, 1/y is also finite for all 0 < y < x. I don't see that WLC's point allows you to make a distinction between the two. You're invited to prove me wrong, however.
Proof???
The Proof is that Death has Died and Love has Won!
Hallelujah!!!
Besides the clip I listed from Dr. Craig which you took exception to, I intuitively know it to be a ‘higher quality infinity’ because no effort by man, no matter how great, could/can ever bridge the infinite chasm that separated(s) sinful man from Almighty God, but Christ, when He emptied Himself on the Cross, (Philippians 2: 6-9,) was able to bridge that infinite chasm that separated(s) sinful man from Almighty God through his death and resurrection.
You may object to my use of my mathematical intuition to prove the point of the superiority of one type of infinity over another type of infinity, but can you mathematically prove that one + one = two without you yourself using your God given mathematical intuition to do so?
Verse:
BA77,
What does this have to do with the infinities obtained by “growing with out measure” vs. letting the denominator go to zero? I’m not taking exception to WLC’s video, incidentally.
I don’t know. I’m still trying to understand the difference between the two infinities that you have presented, and how one is superior to another.
Here’s what I find ironic: You say Darwinism is unfalsifiable in part because it doesn’t have a rigid mathematical basis (no need to repost the links, I’ve seen them).
Yet you post these strange claims about one infinity being “superior” to another, which are themselves meaningless, and therefore unfalsifiable. It’s the mathematical equivalent of “colorless green ideas sleep furiously”.
Why don’t you hold yourself to the same standards that you hold Darwinists to?
“I hold ‘growing large without measure’ to be a lesser quality infinity than a fraction in which the denominator goes to zero.”
BA77, that may also be the foundation of Eastern Meditative practices? The more one can clear “their” mind (lower the denominator), the closer to God one becomes
daveS, when asked to
‘mathematically prove that one + one = two without you yourself using your God given mathematical intuition to do so?’
You stated that
“I don’t know.,,,”
That is the wrong answer daveS. The correct answer, via Godel’s incompleteness, is that you can’t prove that 1+1=2!
Kurt Gödel – Incompleteness Theorem – video
https://vimeo.com/92387853
Moreover, you say my claim about mathematical intuition is unfalsifiable. Yet, I provided the way in which you, a atheistic naturalist, can ‘easily’ falsify the claim:
Of note: Although neo-Darwinism has no rigid mathematical basis that will allow a straight up falsification by experiment, neo-Darwinism has, none-the-less, since it assumes reductive materialism as true, been falsified experimentally by the finding of non-local, beyond space and time, quantum entanglement/information in molecular biology.
Also of note. Since I can see that daveS is determined to, as he always does, chase his atheistic tail/tale in a circle, I will refrain from engaging him on this thread any further.
I have much better things to do today.
Verse:
2 Peter 1:16
For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
ppolish, I also was enchanted by eastern mysticism UNTIL I learned about their horrific NDE’s:
: All foreign, non-Judeo-Christian culture, NDE studies I have looked at have a extreme rarity of encounters with ‘The Being Of Light’ and tend to be very unpleasant NDE’s save for the few pleasant children’s NDEs of those cultures that I’ve seen (It seems there is indeed an ‘age of accountability’). The following study was shocking for what was found in some non-Judeo-Christian NDE’s:
Near-Death Experiences in Thailand – Todd Murphy:
Excerpt:The Light seems to be absent in Thai NDEs. So is the profound positive affect found in so many Western NDEs. The most common affect in our collection is negative. Unlike the negative affect in so many Western NDEs (cf. Greyson & Bush, 1992), that found in Thai NDEs (in all but case #11) has two recognizable causes. The first is fear of ‘going’. The second is horror and fear of hell. It is worth noting that although half of our collection include seeing hell (cases 2,6,7,9,10) and being forced to witness horrific tortures, not one includes the NDEer having been subjected to these torments themselves.
http://www.shaktitechnology.com/thaindes.htm
Near Death Experience Thailand Asia – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8M5J3zWG5g
Needless to say, the enchantment I once had for eastern mysticism is now gone!
I’ll stick to my Christian roots thank you very much,
As to humbleness being found in Christianity,,, What is that whole Sermon on the Mount thing ppolish?
BA77,
What?? I think you’ve misinterpreted Gödel’s theorem. There are many proofs, depending on what you start with. See Russell and Whitehead, for a famous example, about 2/3 of the way down the page.
No, I said your claim that one infinity is superior to another is unfalsifiable, because it’s nonsensical. How can anyone falsify it, when you haven’t even defined what you mean by “superior” in this context?
One last time, daveS claims
There are many proofs, depending on what you start with.
Therein lies the catch, i.e. ‘depending on what you start with
Godel and Physics – John D. Barrow
Excerpt (page 5-6): “Clearly then no scientific cosmology, which of necessity must be highly mathematical, can have its proof of consistency within itself as far as mathematics go. In absence of such consistency, all mathematical models, all theories of elementary particles, including the theory of quarks and gluons…fall inherently short of being that theory which shows in virtue of its a priori truth that the world can only be what it is and nothing else. This is true even if the theory happened to account for perfect accuracy for all phenomena of the physical world known at a particular time.”
Stanley Jaki – Cosmos and Creator – 1980, pg. 49
http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0612253.pdf
Even Hawking himself at one time admitted, and apparently subsequently forgot, that there cannot be a ‘complete’ mathematical theory of everything,
The nature and significance of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems – Princeton – 2006
Excerpt: ,,Stephen Hawking and Freeman Dyson, among others, have come to the conclusion that Gödel’s theorem implies that there can’t be a (mathematical) Theory of Everything.,,
http://math.stanford.edu/~fefe.....el-IAS.pdf
Taking God Out of the Equation – Biblical Worldview – by Ron Tagliapietra – January 1, 2012
Excerpt: Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) proved that no logical systems (if they include the counting numbers) can have all three of the following properties.
1. Validity … all conclusions are reached by valid reasoning.
2. Consistency … no conclusions contradict any other conclusions.
3. Completeness … all statements made in the system are either true or false.
The details filled a book, but the basic concept was simple and elegant. He (Godel) summed it up this way: “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove.” For this reason, his proof is also called the Incompleteness Theorem.
Kurt Gödel had dropped a bomb on the foundations of mathematics. Math could not play the role of God as infinite and autonomous. It was shocking, though, that logic could prove that mathematics could not be its own ultimate foundation.
Christians should not have been surprised. The first two conditions are true about math: it is valid and consistent. But only God fulfills the third condition. Only He is complete and therefore self-dependent (autonomous). God alone is “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28), “the beginning and the end” (Revelation 22:13). God is the ultimate authority (Hebrews 6:13), and in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3).
http://www.answersingenesis.or...../equation#
i.e. ‘depending on what you start with’ does not get you off the hook with incompleteness.
Now that is absolutely the last word. I really do have much better things to do today than watch daveS chase his tail in a circle.
The last word is all yours.
Hmm. Some quotes by physicists (edit: and AiG’s resident mathematician!), but nothing relating to whether Gödel’s theorem implies that it’s impossible to prove 1 + 1 = 2. I’m satisfied to leave it there as well.
Somewhere in the Multiverse, 1 + 1 = 3, And somewhere else in the Multiverse, Dog Years = 5. In another Universe, Evolution is guided. Oh wait, that’s here:)
Re your #10, BA77, Cantor’s obsession seem to have been a form of narcissistic idolatry – putting personal ambition for fame and greatness in the eyes of the world before everything else; most harmfully before any consideration of God’s providential purposes with regard to himself. A soupcon of Job’s holy resignation would have served him better, as it would all of us, I’m sure.
I suspect it has happened to more than a few very gifted people. Despite Einstein’s keen desire to discover a unified field theory, he always seemed to have a spiritual hinterland, which gave breadth and depth to his character, and seems to have been expressed in his intellectual self-confidence; a self-confidence that did not prevent his expressing admiration for rival scientists, and thereby a magnanimity of character, despite his failures as a family man.
He expressed some interest in matters outside science, such as politics (Socialism), and the very nature of knowledge; seemingly, not knowledge qua book-learning of epistemology, but simple, personal reflection. How many scientists could point at a drawer in their table in their workplace (outside of Academia) and say with a large measure of truth that that was their Research Department!
I get the impression that towards the end of his life, he did feel rather bitter at the intellectual sterility of his later years, but was never self-obsessed in that regard, famously remarking that he only continued to go to work for the pleasure of his conversations with Godel on their way home.
I believe Godel did state his Christian belief, but I wonder if he’d used his status to witness to it more fearlessly, i.e. if his faith had been stronger, beyond holding it as a seemingly largely intellectual concept, he might have avoided the paranoia that afflicted him.
OT…for those of you (like me) who enjoyed Wallace’s “Cold Case Christianity”, you may want to put his next book on your “to read” list:
http://godscrimescene.com
Looks like he will make a strong case for God being “guilty” of creating the Universe. Not a case of accidental or natural creation. Lots of ID facts will be entered into evidence no doubt.
Thanks ppolish, here is a video by that name:
Jim Warner Wallace – God’s Crime Scene – video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9zEqyi1c7Q