What Richard Dawkins knows about how nothing causes something

_{Denyse O'Leary

August 11, 2013

Atheism, Culture, News}

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Will countries with failing currencies recruit him next, one wonders?

Back to science tomorrow.

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Me, being much more curious in my endeavor to understand where everything might have come from than to propose that 'nothing created everything' and leave it there and hope that no one notices the sheer intellectual laziness I devoted to the question, I propose a rather much more modest endeavor in that we try our best to understand where a single photon of energy might have come from so that we may warrant, however weak, any further conclusions as to where the entire universe might have come from. And in that regards,,,
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences - Eugene Wigner - 1960 Excerpt: We now have, in physics, two theories of great power and interest: the theory of quantum phenomena and the theory of relativity.,,, The two theories operate with different mathematical concepts: the four dimensional Riemann space and the infinite dimensional Hilbert space, http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html
It is found that a ‘uncollapsed’ photon, in its quantum wave state, is mathematically defined as a ‘infinite information' state:
Wave function Excerpt "wave functions form an abstract vector space",,, This vector space is infinite-dimensional, because there is no finite set of functions which can be added together in various combinations to create every possible function. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function#Wave_functions_as_an_abstract_vector_space Explaining Information Transfer in Quantum Teleportation: Armond Duwell †‡ University of Pittsburgh Excerpt: In contrast to a classical bit, the description of a (photon) qubit requires an infinite amount of information. The amount of information is infinite because two real numbers are required in the expansion of the state vector of a two state quantum system (Jozsa 1997, 1) http://www.cas.umt.edu/phil/faculty/duwell/DuwellPSA2K.pdf Quantum Computing – Stanford Encyclopedia Excerpt: Theoretically, a single qubit can store an infinite amount of information, yet when measured (and thus collapsing the Quantum Wave state) it yields only the classical result (0 or 1),,, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-quantcomp/#2.1
Thus every time we see (consciously observe) a single photon of ‘material’ reality we are actually seeing just a single bit of information that was originally created from a specific set of infinite information.
Job 38:19-20 “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings?” “When I consider what marvelous things men have understood, what he has inquired into and contrived, I know only too clearly that the human mind is a work of God, and one of the most excellent.” Yet the potential of the human mind “… is separated from the Divine knowledge by an infinite interval.” (Poupard, Cardinal Paul. Galileo Galilei. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1983, p. 101.)
Also of note:
Single photons to soak up data: Excerpt: the orbital angular momentum of a photon can take on an infinite number of values. Since a photon can also exist in a superposition of these states, it could – in principle – be encoded with an infinite amount of information. http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/7201
It is important to note that the following experiment actually encoded information into a photon while it was in its quantum wave state, thus destroying the notion, held by many, that the quantum wave function was not 'physically real' but was merely 'abstract'. i.e. How can information possibly be encoded into something that is not physically real but merely abstract?
Ultra-Dense Optical Storage - on One Photon Excerpt: Researchers at the University of Rochester have made an optics breakthrough that allows them to encode an entire image's worth of data into a photon, slow the image down for storage, and then retrieve the image intact.,,, As a wave, it passed through all parts of the stencil at once,,, http://www.physorg.com/news88439430.html Information in a Photon - Robert W. Boyd - 2010 Excerpt: By its conventional definition, a photon is one unit of excitation of a mode of the electromagnetic field. The modes of the electromagnetic field constitute a countably infinite set of basis functions, and in this sense the amount of information that can be impressed onto an individual photon is unlimited. http://www.pqeconference.com/pqe2011/abstractd/013.pdf Information In Photon – Robert W. Boyd – slides from presentation (slide 17) http://www.quantumphotonics.uottawa.ca/assets/pdf/Boyd-Como-InPho.pdf
Here is a more rigorous measurement of the wave function which establishes it as 'physically real';
Direct measurement of the quantum wavefunction - June 2011 Excerpt: The wavefunction is the complex distribution used to completely describe a quantum system, and is central to quantum theory. But despite its fundamental role, it is typically introduced as an abstract element of the theory with no explicit definition.,,, Here we show that the wavefunction can be measured directly by the sequential measurement of two complementary variables of the system. The crux of our method is that the first measurement is performed in a gentle way through weak measurement so as not to invalidate the second. The result is that the real and imaginary components of the wavefunction appear directly on our measurement apparatus. We give an experimental example by directly measuring the transverse spatial wavefunction of a single photon, a task not previously realized by any method. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v474/n7350/full/nature10120.html
bornagain77_{August 12, 2013
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Alan Fox then by all means please enlighten us why you are not so confident, that may clarify your position much better.Andre_{August 12, 2013
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...we also have KeithS, Dr Liddle, Alan Fox, WD400, all suffering from the same delusion that something can just magically “poof” into existence from nothing. Hell they even believe that nothing can create specified complexity!
I can't speak for others of whose views you claim intimate knowledge but it is not correct for me, if I interpret your colourful phraseology correctly. I provisionally think it is correct to say that the sum total of matter and energy in this universe is a constant. So "nothing can create specified complexity" is either true (if you think, as I do, that it is not a scientifically measurable quantity - i. e. it is a human construct, a reification) or false if "specified complexity" can be given an operational definition, in which case it cannot indeed be "poofed". You can live in hope that such an operational definition may emerge, one day. Me, I'm not so confident.Alan Fox_{August 12, 2013
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Mr. Frank, I guess the closest one can get to the 'nothing that equals something' that Dawkins would like to appeal to as creator of the universe, rather than God, would be the outer darkness which Mickey Robinson describes at the 3:20 minute mark of the following video, which he saw during his Near Death Experience: Near Death Experiences -video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HExYnwzLaw4 a bit longer testimony from Mickey: 'In the 'spirit world,,, instantly, there was no sense of time. See, everything on earth is related to time. You got up this morning, you are going to go to bed tonight. Something is new, it will get old. Something is born, it's going to die. Everything on the physical plane is relative to time, but everything in the spiritual plane is relative to eternity. Instantly I was in total consciousness and awareness of eternity, and you and I as we live in this earth cannot even comprehend it, because everything that we have here is filled within the veil of the temporal life. In the spirit life that is more real than anything else and it is awesome. Eternity as a concept is awesome. There is no such thing as time. I knew that whatever happened was going to go on and on.' Mickey Robinson - Near Death Experience testimony - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4045544bornagain77_{August 12, 2013
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Yeah Mark Frank, anything but God will do right? Why is that?Andre_{August 12, 2013
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And I gladly add my name to that list. The beginning of everything, which includes time itself, is so utterly beyond our imagination that appeals to common sense just reveal a lack of imagination.Mark Frank_{August 12, 2013
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Richard Dawkins is not alone, we also have KeithS, Dr Liddle, Alan Fox, WD400, all suffering from the same delusion that something can just magically "poof" into existence from nothing. Hell they even believe that nothing can create specified complexity! It's true look up their responses!Andre_{August 12, 2013
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Now Now News, quit picking on poor little Dickie D. You should help atheists like him understand how nothing can create everything like this following guy was willing to do:
When Nothing Created Everything - JOE CARTER Excerpt: In the beginning was Nothing, and Nothing created Everything. When Nothing decided to create Everything, she filled a tiny dot with Time, Chance, and Everything and had it expand. The expansion spread Everything into Everywhere carrying Time and Chance with it to keep it company. The three stretched out together leaving bits of themselves wherever they went. One of those places was the planet Earth. For no particular Reason – for Reason is rarely particular – Time and Chance took a liking to this little, wet, blue rock and decided to stick around to see what adventures they might have. While the pair found the Earth to be intriguing and pretty, they also found it a bit too quiet, too static. They fixed upon an idea to change Everything (just a little) by creating a special Something. Time and Chance roamed the planet, splashing through the oceans and sloshing through the mud, in search of materials. But though they looked Everywhere, there was a missing ingredient that they needed in order to make a Something that could create more of the same Somethings. They called to their friend Everything to help. Since Everything had been Everywhere she would no doubt be able to find the missing ingredient. And indeed she did. Hidden away in a small alcove called Somewhere, Everything found what Time and Chance had needed all along: Information. Everything put Information on a piece of ice and rock that happened to be passing by the former planet Pluto and sent it back to her friends on Earth. Now that they had Information, Time and Chance were finally able to create a self-replicating Something which they called Life. Once they created Life they found that it not only grew into more Somethings, but began to become Otherthings, too! The Somethings and the Otherthings began to fill the Earth – from the bottom of the oceans to the top of the sky. Their creation, which began as a single Something, eventually became millions and billions of Otherthings. Time and Chance, though, where the bickering sort and were constantly feuding over which of them was the most powerful. One day they began to argue over who had been more responsible for creating Life. Everything (who was forever eavesdropping) overheard the spat and suggested that they settle by putting their creative skills to work on a new creature called Man. They all thought it was a splendid plan – for Man was a dull, hairy beast who would indeed provide a suitable challenge – and began to boast about who could create an ability, which they called Consciousness, that would allow Man to be aware of Chance, Time, Everything, and Nothing. Chance, always a bit of a dawdler, got off to a slow start, so Time, who never rested, completed the task first. Time rushed around, filling the gooey matter inside each Man's head with Consciousness. But as he was gloating over his victory he noticed a strange reaction. When Man saw that Everything had been created by Time, Chance, and Nothing, his Consciousness filled with Despair. Chance immediately saw a solution to the problem and took the remaining materials she was using to make Consciousness to create Beliefs. When Chance mixed Beliefs into the gray goo, Man stopped filling with Despair and started creating Illusions. These Illusions took various forms – God, Purpose, Meaning – and were almost always effective in preventing Man from filling up with Despair. Nothing, who tended to be rather forgetful, remembered her creation and decided to take a look around Everything. When she saw what Time and Chance had done on planet Earth she was mildly amused, but forbade them to fill any more creatures with Consciousness or Beliefs (which is why Man is the only Something that has both). But Nothing took a fancy to Man and told Time and Chance that when each one's Life ran out, she would take him or her and make them into Nothing too. And that is why, children, when Man loses his Life he goes from being a Something created by Time and Chance into becoming like his creator – Nothing. http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/science/sc0120.htm
Verse and Music:
John 15:5 I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. Billy Preston - Nothing from nothing 1975 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_DV54ddNHE
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