At Mind Matters News: A physicist defends imperfection in our universe: It’s essential

Hey, it’s the best of all possible worlds. The perfect imperfects. Why would we expect anything less? jerry

Another very important place where ‘platonic perfection’ is now shown to be reached in the universe, (as far as measurement accuracy will allow), is for the ‘flatness’ of the universe.

“When a geometry is described by a set of axioms, the notion of a line is usually left undefined (a so-called primitive object).” per wikipedia "The Universe today is actually very close to the most unlikely state of all, absolute flatness. And that means it must have been born in an even flatter state, as Dicke and Peebles, two of the Princeton astronomers involved in the discovery of the 3 K background radiation, pointed out in 1979. Finding the Universe in a state of even approximate flatness today is even less likely than finding a perfectly sharpened pencil balancing on its point for millions of years, for, as Dicke and Peebles pointed out, any deviation of the Universe from flatness in the Big Bang would have grown, and grown markedly, as the Universe expanded and aged. Like the pencil balanced on its point and given the tiniest nudges, the Universe soon shifts away from perfect flatness." ~ John Gribbin, In Search of the Big Bang How do we know the universe is flat? Discovering the topology of the universe – by Fraser Cain – June 7, 2017 Excerpt: With the most sensitive space-based telescopes they have available, astronomers are able to detect tiny variations in the temperature of this background radiation. And here’s the part that blows my mind every time I think about it. These tiny temperature variations correspond to the largest scale structures of the observable universe. A region that was a fraction of a degree warmer become a vast galaxy cluster, hundreds of millions of light-years across. The cosmic microwave background radiation just gives and gives, and when it comes to figuring out the topology of the universe, it has the answer we need. If the universe was curved in any way, these temperature variations would appear distorted compared to the actual size that we see these structures today. But they’re not. To best of its ability, ESA’s Planck space telescope, can’t detect any distortion at all. The universe is flat.,,, We say that the universe is flat, and this means that parallel lines will always remain parallel. 90-degree turns behave as true 90-degree turns, and everything makes sense.,,, Since the universe is flat now, it must have been flat in the past, when the universe was an incredibly dense singularity. And for it to maintain this level of flatness over 13.8 billion years of expansion, in kind of amazing. In fact, astronomers estimate that the universe must have been flat to 1 part within 1×10^57 parts. Which seems like an insane coincidence. - per physorg

Verse:

Job 38:4-5 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?

Moreover, this ‘insane coincidence’ of ‘plantonic perfection’ being reached for the axiomatic ‘primitive object’ of the line just so happens to be necessary for us to even be able to practice math and science, (and apply technology in our world), in a rationally coherent manner in the first place:

How do we know the universe is flat? Discovering the topology of the universe – by Fraser Cain – June 7, 2017 Excerpt: We say that the universe is flat, and this means that parallel lines will always remain parallel. 90-degree turns behave as true 90-degree turns, and everything makes sense.,,, https://phys.org/news/2017-06-universe-flat-topology.html Why We Need Cosmic Inflation By Paul Sutter, Astrophysicist | October 22, 2018 Excerpt: As best as we can measure, the geometry of our universe appears to be perfectly, totally, ever-so-boringly flat. On large, cosmic scales, parallel lines stay parallel forever, interior angles of triangles add up to 180 degrees, and so on. All the rules of Euclidean geometry that you learned in high school apply. But there’s no reason for our universe to be flat. At large scales it could’ve had any old curvature it wanted. Our cosmos could’ve been shaped like a giant, multidimensional beach ball, or a horse-riding saddle. But, no, it picked flat. https://www.space.com/42202-why-we-need-cosmic-inflation.html

Simply put, if the universe were not ‘ever-so-boringly’ flat (and if the universal constants were not also ‘ever-so-boringly’ constant), but the universe were instead governed by some random topology, as atheists presuppose, then modern science and technology would, in all likelihood, never have gotten off the ground here on earth.

Scientists Question Nature’s Fundamental Laws – Michael Schirber – 2006 Excerpt: “There is absolutely no reason these constants should be constant,” says astronomer Michael Murphy of the University of Cambridge. “These are famous numbers in physics, but we have no real reason for why they are what they are.”,,, The observed differences are small-roughly a few parts in a million-but the implications are huge (if they hold up): The laws of physics would have to be rewritten, not to mention we might need to make room for six more spatial dimensions than the three that we are used to.”,,, The speed of light, for instance, might be measured one day with a ruler and a clock. If the next day the same measurement gave a different answer, no one could tell if the speed of light changed, the ruler length changed, or the clock ticking changed. Per space DOT com

Nor, if platonic perfection were not present for the overall flatness of the universe would we have eventually been able to deduce the ‘platonic perfection’ that is now revealed in the ‘higher dimensional’ mathematics that lay behind Special Relativity, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics. Of related interest to 'platonically perfect' higher dimensional mathematics describing this universe, "Special Relativity,, offers stunning confirmation that Near Death Testimonies are accurate ‘physical’ descriptions of what happens after death, i.e. going to a ‘higher timeless/eternal dimension’, i.e. heavenly dimension, that exists above this 3-D temporal realm."

December 2021 - Thus in conclusion Einstein himself may not have personally believed in life after death, (nor in a personal God), but Special Relativity itself contradicts Einstein and offers stunning confirmation that Near Death Testimonies are accurate ‘physical’ descriptions of what happens after death, i.e. going to a ‘higher timeless/eternal dimension’, i.e. heavenly dimension, that exists above this temporal realm. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-mind-matters-news-einstein-believed-in-spinozas-god-who-is-that-god/#comment-741908

Also of related interest to the 'platonically perfect' higher dimensional mathematics that describe this universe, although free will itself is not contained within the 'higher dimensional' equations of quantum theory itself, free will is, none-the-less, necessary for us to properly understand how the equations of quantum mechanics actually work. Namely, free will is necessary in order for us to complete the measurement process within quantum mechanics. As the late Steven Weinberg, an atheist, explained, “In the instrumentalist approach (in quantum mechanics) humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level.,,, the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.,,, In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure,,, Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,,”

The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics – Steven Weinberg – January 19, 2017 Excerpt: The instrumentalist approach,, (the) wave function,, is merely an instrument that provides predictions of the probabilities of various outcomes when measurements are made.,, In the instrumentalist approach,,, humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level. According to Eugene Wigner, a pioneer of quantum mechanics, “it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness.”11 Thus the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else. It is not that we object to thinking about humans. Rather, we want to understand the relation of humans to nature, not just assuming the character of this relation by incorporating it in what we suppose are nature’s fundamental laws, but rather by deduction from laws that make no explicit reference to humans. We may in the end have to give up this goal,,, Some physicists who adopt an instrumentalist approach argue that the probabilities we infer from the wave function are objective probabilities, independent of whether humans are making a measurement. I don’t find this tenable. In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure, such as the spin in one or another direction. Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,, http://quantum.phys.unm.edu/466-17/QuantumMechanicsWeinberg.pdf

In fact Weinberg, again an atheist, rejected the instrumentalist approach precisely because “humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level” and precisely because it undermined the Darwinian worldview from within. Yet, regardless of how he and other atheists may prefer the world to behave, the experimental results of quantum mechanics itself could care less how atheists prefer the world to behave. As leading experimentalist Anton Zeilinger states in the following video, “what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.”

“The Kochen-Speckter Theorem talks about properties of one system only. So we know that we cannot assume – to put it precisely, we know that it is wrong to assume that the features of a system, which we observe in a measurement exist prior to measurement. Not always. I mean in certain cases. So in a sense, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.” Anton Zeilinger – Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism – video (7:17 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4C5pq7W5yRM#t=437

Moreover, although there have been several major loopholes in quantum mechanics over the past several decades that atheists have tried to appeal to in order to try to avoid the ‘spooky’ Theistic implications of quantum mechanics, over the past several years each of those major loopholes have each been closed one by one. The last major loophole that was left to be closed was the “setting independence” and/or the ‘free-will’ loophole:

Closing the ‘free will’ loophole: Using distant quasars to test Bell’s theorem – February 20, 2014 Excerpt: Though two major loopholes have since been closed, a third remains; physicists refer to it as “setting independence,” or more provocatively, “free will.” This loophole proposes that a particle detector’s settings may “conspire” with events in the shared causal past of the detectors themselves to determine which properties of the particle to measure — a scenario that, however far-fetched, implies that a physicist running the experiment does not have complete free will in choosing each detector’s setting. Such a scenario would result in biased measurements, suggesting that two particles are correlated more than they actually are, and giving more weight to quantum mechanics than classical physics. “It sounds creepy, but people realized that’s a logical possibility that hasn’t been closed yet,” says MIT’s David Kaiser, the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and senior lecturer in the Department of Physics. “Before we make the leap to say the equations of quantum theory tell us the world is inescapably crazy and bizarre, have we closed every conceivable logical loophole, even if they may not seem plausible in the world we know today?” per science daily

And now Anton Zeilinger and company have recently, as of 2018, pushed the ‘free will loophole’ back to 7.8 billion years ago, thereby firmly establishing the ‘common sense’ fact that the free will choices of the experimenter in these quantum experiments are truly free and are not determined by any possible causal, 'local-realist', influences from the past for at least the last 7.8 billion years.

Cosmic Bell Test Using Random Measurement Settings from High-Redshift Quasars – Anton Zeilinger – 14 June 2018 Abstract Excerpt: This experiment pushes back to at least ? 7.8 Gyr ago the most recent time by which any local-realist influences could have exploited the “freedom-of-choice” loophole to engineer the observed Bell violation, excluding any such mechanism from 96% of the space-time volume of the past light cone of our experiment, extending from the big bang to today. https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.080403

Thus regardless of how Steven Weinberg and other atheists may prefer the universe to behave, with the closing of the last remaining free will loophole in quantum mechanics, “humans are indeed brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level”, and thus these recent findings from quantum mechanics directly undermine, as Weinberg himself stated, the “vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.” Moreover, allowing free will and/or Agent causality into the laws of physics at their most fundamental level has some fairly profound implications for us personally. Specifically, when we rightly allow the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics, (as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned, Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Max Planck, to name a few of the Christian founders,,,, and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands with the closing of the “freedom-of-choice” loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company), then rightly allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead bridges the infinite mathematical divide that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics and provides us with an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”

December 2021 - When scrutinizing some of the many fascinating details of the Shroud of Turin, we find that both General Relativity, i.e. gravity, and Quantum Mechanics were both dealt with in Christ’s resurrection from the dead. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/in-time-for-american-thanksgiving-stephen-meyer-on-the-frailty-of-scientific-atheism/#comment-741600 Jesus Christ as the correct "Theory of Everything" - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpn2Vu8--eE

Verse:

Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

bornagain77

Ever since modern science was born in medieval Christian Europe, science has had a history of looking for ‘platonic perfection’, and assuming the Mind of God to be behind that ‘platonic perfection’. That is to say, that modern science has a history of reaching for perfect agreement between between any immaterial mathematics that might describe a facet of this universe and the experimental results that measure those mathematical predictions. Prior to Kepler, Copernicus, (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543), postulated (incorrectly) that the planets orbit in "Platonically perfect" circles, (rather than orbiting as ellipses as Kepler later discovered). Later, Isaac Newton, for allowing God could adjust the orbits of the planets, (to correct supposed orbital imperfections that would be created by perturbations), was heavily criticized by Leibniz, (and also by Laplace of all people), for having a “very narrow ideas about the wisdom and the power of God.”.. i.e. For having a narrow view about the 'perfection' of any mathematics that God might use for this universe.

“Leibniz, in his controversy with Newton on the discovery of infinitesimal calculus, sharply criticized the theory of Divine intervention as a corrective of the disturbances of the solar system. “To suppose anything of the kind”, he said, “is to exhibit very narrow ideas of the wisdom and power of God’.” – Pierre-Simon Laplace https://books.google.com/books?id=oLtHAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73

I hold that both Newton and Leibniz, (and even Laplace himself), would all be very pleased by what modern science, (via the long term stability of the solar system's planetary orbits), has now revealed about the wisdom and power of 'God's thoughts' in creating our solar system.

“You might also think that these disparate bodies are scattered across the solar system without rhyme or reason. But move any piece of the solar system today, or try to add anything more, and the whole construction would be thrown fatally out of kilter. So how exactly did this delicate architecture come to be?” R. Webb - Unknown solar system 1: How was the solar system built? - New Scientist – 2009 Is the Solar System Stable? By Scott Tremaine - 2011 Excerpt: So what are the results? Most of the calculations agree that eight billion years from now, just before the Sun swallows the inner planets and incinerates the outer ones, all of the planets will still be in orbits very similar to their present ones. In this limited sense, the solar system is stable. However, a closer look at the orbit histories reveals that the story is more nuanced. After a few tens of millions of years, calculations using slightly different parameters (e.g., different planetary masses or initial positions within the small ranges allowed by current observations) or different numerical algorithms begin to diverge at an alarming rate. More precisely, the growth of small differences changes from linear to exponential:,,, As an example, shifting your pencil from one side of your desk to the other today could change the gravitational forces on Jupiter enough to shift its position from one side of the Sun to the other a billion years from now. The unpredictability of the solar system over very long times is of course ironic since this was the prototypical system that inspired Laplacian determinism. Fortunately, most of this unpredictability is in the orbital phases of the planets, not the shapes and sizes of their orbits, so the chaotic nature of the solar system does not normally lead to collisions between planets. However, the presence of chaos implies that we can only study the long-term fate of the solar system in a statistical sense, by launching in our computers an armada of solar systems with slightly different parameters at the present time—typically, each planet is shifted by a random amount of about a millimeter—and following their evolution. When this is done, it turns out that in about 1 percent of these systems, Mercury’s orbit becomes sufficiently eccentric so that it collides with Venus before the death of the Sun. Thus, the answer to the question of the stability of the solar system—more precisely, will all the planets survive until the death of the Sun—is neither “yes” nor “no” but “yes, with 99 percent probability.” https://www.ias.edu/about/publications/ias-letter/articles/2011-summer/solar-system-tremaine

Although not 'Platonically perfect', none-the-less, the preceding evidence for the long term stability of our solar system is very impressive evidence as far as God 'getting the math right the first time'. And although, for most of the history of modern science in the Christian west, finding ‘platonic perfection’ for the mathematical descriptions of the universe has been a very elusive goal, this all changed with the discoveries of Special Relativity, General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics in the early 20th century. Which is to say, as far as measurement accuracy will allow, there is no discrepancy to be found between what the mathematical descriptions of Special Relativity, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics predict and what our most advanced scientific testing of those mathematical predictions are able to measure.

“Recent experiments have confirmed, to within one part in one hundred million billion (10^17), that the speed of light does not change when an observer is in motion.” Douglas Ell – “Counting To God” – pg. 41 – 2014 “When this paper was published (referring to the circa 1970 Hawking, Penrose paper) we could only prove General Relativity’s reliability to 1% precision, today we can prove it to 15 places of decimal.” Hugh Ross PhD. Astrophysics – quote taken from 8:40 mark of the following video debate - Hugh Ross vs Lewis Wolpert – Is there evidence for a Cosmic Creator https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLMrDO0_WvQ Introduction to The Strange World of Quantum Mechanics Excerpt: quantum mechanics is the most successful theory that humanity has ever developed; the brightest jewel in our intellectual crown. Quantum mechanics underlies our understanding of atoms, molecules, solids, and nuclei. It is vital for explaining aspects of stellar evolution, chemical reactions, and the interaction of light with matter. It underlies the operation of lasers, transistors, magnets, and superconductors. I could cite reams of evidence backing up these assertions, but I will content myself by describing a single measurement. One electron will be stripped away from a helium atom that is exposed to ultraviolet light below a certain wavelength. This threshold wavelength can be determined experimentally to very high accuracy: it is 50.425 929 9 ± 0.000 000 4 nanometers. The threshold wavelength can also be calculated from quantum mechanics: this prediction is 50.425 931 0 ± 0.000 002 0 nanometers. The agreement between observation and quantum mechanics is extraordinary. If you were to predict the distance from New York to Los Angeles with this accuracy, your prediction would be correct to within the width of your hand. In contrast, classical mechanics predicts that any wavelength of light will strip away an electron, that is, that there will be no threshold at all. http://www.oberlin.edu/physics/dstyer/StrangeQM/intro.html Experimental non-classicality of an indivisible quantum system – Zeilinger 2011 Excerpt: Page 491: “This represents a violation of (Leggett’s) inequality (3) by more than 120 standard deviations, demonstrating that no joint probability distribution is capable of describing our results.” The violation also excludes any non-contextual hidden-variable model. The result does, however, agree well with quantum mechanical predictions, as we will show now.,,, https://vcq.quantum.at/fileadmin/Publications/Experimental%20non-classicality%20of%20an%20indivisible.pdf

As well, quantum electrodynamics (QED), (which is a 'unification' of special relativity and quantum mechanics), also now joins the list of 'Platonically perfect' mathematical descriptions of the universe in which we can find no deviation from what the mathematics predict and what the measurement accuracy of our best experimental testing can discern. In other words, as far as we can tell, elusive ‘platonic perfection’ is also reached for QED:

The Most Precisely Tested Theory in the History of Science – May 5, 2011 Excerpt: So, which of the two (general relativity or QED) is The Most Precisely Tested Theory in the History of Science? It’s a little tough to quantify a title like that, but I think relativity can claim to have tested the smallest effects. Things like the aluminum ion clock experiments showing shifts in the rate of a clock set moving at a few m/s, or raised by a foot, measure relativistic shifts of a few parts in 10^16. That is, if one clock ticks 10,000,000,000,000,000 times, the other ticks 9,999,999,999,999,999 times. That’s an impressively tiny effect, but the measured value is in good agreement with the predictions of relativity. In the end, though, I have to give the nod to QED, because while the absolute effects in relativity may be smaller, the precision of the measurements in QED is more impressive. Experimental tests of relativity measure tiny shifts, but to only a few decimal places. Experimental tests of QED measure small shifts, but to an absurd number of decimal places. The most impressive of these is the “anomalous magnetic moment of the electron,” expressed is terms of a number g whose best measured value is: g/2 = 1.001 159 652 180 73 (28) Depending on how you want to count it, that’s either 11 or 14 digits of precision (the value you would expect without QED is exactly 1, so in some sense, the shift really starts with the first non-zero decimal place), which is just incredible. And QED correctly predicts all those decimal places (at least to within the measurement uncertainty, given by the two digits in parentheses at the end of that). http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2011/05/05/the-most-precisely-tested-theo/ Bohemian Gravity – Rob Sheldon – September 19, 2013 Excerpt: Quanta magazine carried an article about a hypergeometric object that is as much better than Feynman diagrams as Feynman was better than Heisenberg’s S-matrices. But the discoverers are candid about it, “The amplituhedron, or a similar geometric object, could help by removing two deeply rooted principles of physics: locality and unitarity. “Both are hard-wired in the usual way we think about things,” said Nima Arkani-Hamed, a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., and the lead author of the new work, which he is presenting in talks and in a forthcoming paper. “Both are suspect.”” What are these suspect principles? None other than two of the founding principles of materialism–that there do not exist “spooky-action-at-a-distance” forces, and that material causes are the only ones in the universe.,,, http://rbsp.info/PROCRUSTES/bohemian-gravity/

As Nima Arkani-Hamed himself, the discoverer of the amplituhedron, stated “It seems inconceivable that this intricate web of perfect mathematical descriptions is random or happenstance. This mystery must have an explanation.”,,,

Physicist: It’s Not The Answers We Lack, It’s The Question – February 24, 2019 Excerpt: “It seems inconceivable that this intricate web of perfect mathematical descriptions is random or happenstance. This mystery must have an explanation. But what might such an explanation look like?” Nima Arkani-Hamed https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/physicist-its-not-the-answers-we-lack-its-the-question/

Not to be too forward on daring to advise a genius of Nima Arkani-Hamed's caliber on anything, but might it be too bold to suggest to Hamed that the correct explanation certainly looks to be very much like "God's thoughts" just as the Christian founders of modern science originally held? bornagain77

As to: "an expectation that the universe will be symmetrical and thus Platonically perfect, is very often disappointed" Whilst there are many places in physics, such as asymmetry, where the universe is found not to be "Platonically perfect", (and/or 'mathematically perfect'), there are a few rather important places in physics where, (as far as measurement accuracy will allow us to tell), 'Platonic perfection' has now been discovered. But first a little background and history. As far as 3-D Euclidean geometry is concerned, there are no 'Platonically perfect' objects to be found in the universe. As Dr. Egnor observed, "no actual triangle is perfect, and thus no actual triangle in nature has sides such that the Pythagorean theorem holds. There is no real triangle in which the sum of the squares of the sides exactly equals the square of the hypotenuse."

"no actual triangle is perfect, and thus no actual triangle in nature has sides such that the Pythagorean theorem holds. There is no real triangle in which the sum of the squares of the sides exactly equals the square of the hypotenuse." Michael Egnor - Naturalism and Self-Refutation - January 31, 2018

And as Dr. Egnor observed elsewhere, "A perfect sphere is entirely an abstract concept—no actual perfect sphere exists" (in 3-D Euclidian geometry).

What is Abstract Thought? A Reply to Dr. Ali Abstract thoughts cannot arise from material things because a cause cannot give what it does not have MICHAEL EGNOR - JULY 16, 2019 Excerpt: my thought about a real soccer ball in my hand is a concrete thought. My thought about perfect spheres, which the (soccer) ball approximates, is an abstract thought. Whereas the soccer ball is a particular (non-perfect) shape, color, texture, weight, etc., a perfect sphere is defined in an entirely different way. It is the set of points equidistant from its center, with a volume equal to 4/3 pi r^3 in Euclidean coordinates, etc. A perfect sphere is entirely an abstract concept—no actual perfect sphere exists. Abstract thoughts about types are immaterial in origin—they do not, and cannot, arise from brain processes. Immaterial entities cannot arise from material things, because (to paraphrase Thomas Aquinas) the effect of a cause must, in some sense, be in the cause. A cause in nature cannot give what it does not, in some sense, have. ,,, https://mindmatters.ai/2019/07/what-is-abstract-thought-a-reply-to-dr-ali/

And as Ethan Siegal himself noted, "it’s more correct to call it (the Earth) an oblate spheroid than a sphere. And even if you do, calling it an oblate spheroid isn’t the absolute truth, either. There are surface features on Earth that demonstrate significant departures from a smooth shape like either a sphere or an oblate spheroid."

Ask Ethan: What Does ‘Truth’ Mean To A Scientist? – Ethan Siegel – Jul 13, 2019 Excerpt: Let’s consider the following statement: “the Earth is round.” If you’re not a scientist (and also not a flat-Earther), you might think that this statement is unimpeachable. You might think of this as being scientifically true. In fact, stating that the Earth is round is a valid scientific conclusion and a scientific fact, at least if you contrast a round Earth with a flat Earth. But there’s always an additional nuance and caveat at play. If you were to measure the diameter of the Earth across our equator, you’d get a value: 7,926 miles (12,756 km). If you measured the diameter from the north pole to the south pole, you’d get a slightly different value: 7,900 miles (12,712 km). The Earth is not a perfect sphere, but rather a near-spherical shape that bulges at the equator and is compressed at the poles. To a scientist, this illustrates extremely well the caveats associated with a term like scientific truth. Sure, it’s more true that the Earth is a sphere than that the Earth is a disc or a circle. But it isn’t an absolute truth that the Earth is a sphere, because it’s more correct to call it an oblate spheroid than a sphere. And even if you do, calling it an oblate spheroid isn’t the absolute truth, either. There are surface features on Earth that demonstrate significant departures from a smooth shape like either a sphere or an oblate spheroid. There are mountain ranges, rivers, valleys, plateaus, deep oceans, trenches, ridges, volcanoes and more. There are locations where the land extends more than 29,000 feet (nearly 9,000 meters) above sea level, and places where you won’t touch the Earth’s surface until you’re 36,000 feet (11,000 meters) beneath the ocean’s surface. https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/07/13/ask-ethan-what-does-truth-mean-to-a-scientist/#6e03edce7820

Of related interest, it is also intriguing to point out that, surprisingly, both the electron and the sun are now found to have 'near perfect' roundness

What the electron’s near-perfect roundness means for new physics The particle’s most precise measurement yet suggests the LHC isn’t large enough BY LISA GROSSMAN 1:00PM, OCTOBER 17, 2018 Excerpt: "The finding improves the team’s last best measurement (SN Online: 12/19/13) by a factor of 10 to find an EDM (electric dipole moment) of 10-29 electron charge centimeters. That’s as round as if the electron were a sphere the size of the Earth, and you shaved less than two nanometers off the North Pole and pasted it onto the South Pole, says Yale University physicist David DeMille, a member of the ACME team." https://www.sciencenews.org/article/electron-shape-round-standard-model-physics Sun's Almost Perfectly Round Shape Baffles Scientists - (Aug. 16, 2012) — Excerpt: The sun is nearly the roundest object ever measured. If scaled to the size of a beach ball, it would be so round that the difference between the widest and narrow diameters would be much less than the width of a human hair.,,, They also found that the solar flattening is remarkably constant over time and too small to agree with that predicted from its surface rotation. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120816150801.htm

Thus, as far a 3-D Euclidean geometry is concerned, (and although some 3-D objects come very close), there are no 'Platonically perfect' 3-dimensional objects to be found in the universe. Now for a little history of looking for 'Platonic perfection' in the universe. In Medieval Christian Europe, prior to the advent of the scientific revolution, it was believed, via neo-Platonic philosophy and Augustinian theology, that any mathematics that might describe this universe would be "God's thoughts",

Keep It Simple - Ed Feser - April 2020 Excerpt: Mathematics appears to describe a realm of entities with quasi-­divine attributes. The series of natural numbers is infinite. That one and one equal two and two and two equal four could not have been otherwise. Such mathematical truths never begin being true or cease being true; they hold eternally and immutably. The lines, planes, and figures studied by the geometer have a kind of perfection that the objects of our ­experience lack. Mathematical objects seem immaterial and known by pure reason rather than through the senses. Given the centrality of mathematics to scientific explanation, it seems in some way to be a cause of the natural world and its order. How can the mathematical realm be so apparently godlike? The traditional answer, originating in Neoplatonic philosophy and Augustinian theology, is that our knowledge of the mathematical realm is precisely knowledge, albeit inchoate, of the divine mind. Mathematical truths exhibit infinity, necessity, eternity, immutability, perfection, and immateriality because they are God’s thoughts, and they have such explanatory power in scientific theorizing because they are part of the blueprint implemented by God in creating the world. For some thinkers in this tradition, mathematics thus provides the starting point for an argument for the existence of God qua supreme intellect. https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/04/keep-it-simple

Of important side-note; Godel's incompleteness theorems have now all but proven, contrary to what is widely believed in present day theoretical physics, that any mathematics that might describe this universe must necessary be "God's thoughts" since the 'truth' of any mathematics that might describe this universe cannot be fully contained within the math itself. i.e. The math will necessarily be a 'incomplete' mathematical description of the universe as far as 'truth' of the math itself is concerned.

The God of the Mathematicians - David P. Goldman - August 2010 Excerpt: we cannot construct an ontology that makes God dispensable. Secularists can dismiss this as a mere exercise within predefined rules of the game of mathematical logic, but that is sour grapes, for it was the secular side that hoped to substitute logic for God in the first place. Gödel's critique of the continuum hypothesis has the same implication as his incompleteness theorems: Mathematics never will create the sort of closed system that sorts reality into neat boxes. http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/08/the-god-of-the-mathematicians "Gödel's incompleteness theorem (1931), proves that there are limits to what can be ascertained by mathematics. Kurt Gödel halted the achievement of a unifying all-encompassing theory of everything in his theorem that: “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”. Thus, based on the position that an equation cannot prove itself, the constructs are based on assumptions some of which will be unprovable." - Stephen Hawking & Leonard Miodinow, The Grand Design (2010)

To clearly illustrate the fact that the Christian founders of modern science viewed any mathematics that might describe this universe would be "God's thoughts", Johannes Kepler, shortly after discovering the mathematical laws of planetary motion, stated, 'O God, I am thinking Thy thoughts after Thee.'

'O God, I am thinking Thy thoughts after Thee.' - Johannes Kepler - 1619 http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs155/1108762609255/archive/1116089152497.html

Elsewhere Kepler also stated,

“Geometry is unique and eternal, a reflection from the mind of God. That mankind shares in it is because man is an image of God.” – Johannes Kepler

bornagain77