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At Mind Matters News: Physicist: Science, by nature, can’t have a theory of everything

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Such a theory is a sort of religious quest that has united philosophers, theologians, and scientists, But is it possible? Marcelo Gleiser doesn’t think so:

As Gleiser puts it, “The very process of discovery leads to more unknowns.” And they may be smaller or larger. For example, in 1977, Carl Woese (1928–2012) almost accidentally discovered a Third Kingdom of life, the Archaea — which are neither bacteria nor more complex life forms (eukaryotes). The fifth and sixth [fundamentsal] forces may be out there too.

News, “Physicist: Science, by nature, can’t have a theory of everything” at Mind Matters News (December 6, 2021)

Science is not, at any time in the foreseeable future, going to be all tied down and delivered in a box.


You may also wish to read: Can quantum physics, neuroscience merge as quantum consciousness? Physicist Marcelo Gleiser looks at the pros and cons of current theories. The problem is, if we assume that “the mind is nothing more than the brain,” there may be nothing we can discover about how it works.

and

Does science disprove free will? A physicist says no. Michael Egnor: Marcelo Gleiser notes that the mind is not a solar system with strict deterministic laws. Apart from simple laws governing neurons, we have no clue what laws the mind follows, though it does show complex nonlinear dynamics.

Also: Astronomer: We can’t just assume countless Earths out there. He points out that the Principle of Mediocrity is based on faulty logical reasoning. Marcelo Gleiser notes that the starting point of the Mediocrity Principle assumes countless Earths. That’s not a conclusion from evidence. It’s bad logic.

Takehome: As Marcelo Gleiser puts it, “The very process of discovery leads to more unknowns.” And they may be smaller or larger than our current knowns.

Comments
And the fine tuning of Dark Energy makes the problem that atheists have with the "fine tuning in the extreme" of Dark Matter pale in comparison. Specifically, Dark Energy, (also known as the 'cosmological constant'), is fine tuned to a staggering 1 part in 10^120. (For comparison sake, the universe is held to have 'only' 10^80 particles in it.)
The 2 most dangerous numbers in the universe are threatening the end of physics - Jan. 14, 2016 Excerpt: Dangerous No. 2: The strength of dark energy ,,, you should be able to sum up all the energy of empty space to get a value representing the strength of dark energy. And although theoretical physicists have done so, there's one gigantic problem with their answer: "Dark energy should be 10^120 times stronger than the value we observe from astronomy," Cliff said. "This is a number so mind-boggling huge that it's impossible to get your head around ... this number is bigger than any number in astronomy — it's a thousand-trillion-trillion-trillion times bigger than the number of atoms in the universe. That's a pretty bad prediction." On the bright side, we're lucky that dark energy is smaller than theorists predict. If it followed our theoretical models, then the repulsive force of dark energy would be so huge that it would literally rip our universe apart. The fundamental forces that bind atoms together would be powerless against it and nothing could ever form — galaxies, stars, planets, and life as we know it would not exist. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/two-most-dangerous-numbers-universe-194557366.html
At the 6:09 minute mark of the following video, Hugh Ross comments on the ‘disturbing implications’ that "dark energy”, i.e. the cosmological constant’, has given atheistic astrophysicists
Astrophysicist Hugh Ross - Incredible Astronomical Discoveries & Dark Energy - 2018 video https://youtu.be/c9J9r7mdB6Q?t=367
And here is the ‘disturbing implications’ paper from the atheistic astrophysicists, that Dr. Ross referenced in the preceding video, (that was withdrawn because of mounting evidence for a Cosmological Constant (Dark Energy)), that speaks of the ‘disturbing implications’ of the finely tuned expanding universe (1 in 10^120 cosmological constant). In short, the implications of Dark Energy were ‘disturbing' for them since it quote-unquote “would have required a miracle” and the result could not have been the result of a quote-unquote, "naturally occurring fluctuation",
Disturbing Implications of a Cosmological Constant - Dyson, Kleban, Susskind (each are self proclaimed atheists) - 2002 Excerpt: "Arranging the universe as we think it is arranged would have required a miracle.,,," “The question then is whether the origin of the universe can be a naturally occurring fluctuation, or must it be due to an external agent which starts the system out in a specific low entropy state?” page 19: “A unknown agent [external to time and space] intervened [in cosmic history] for reasons of its own.,,,” Page 21 "The only reasonable conclusion is that we don't live in a universe with a true cosmological constant". http://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-th/0208013.pdf
And here are the 9 lines of evidence that Dr. Ross mentioned which came out shortly after the preceding paper was listed as a preprint on the Los Alamos’s website. Evidences which made Dyson, Kleban and Susskind ultimately pull their paper from consideration,, since the evidence became overwhelming that we do indeed live in a universe with a 'true cosmological constant',,,
Accumulating Evidence for Dark Energy and Supernatural Design - 2011 Excerpt: I (Hugh Ross) often refer to nine different lines of observational evidence that establish dark energy’s reality and dominance in my talks. These nine are: 1.radial velocities of type Ia supernovae; 2.WMAP of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR); 3.ground-based measures of the CMBR; 4.Sloan Digital Sky Survey of galaxies and galaxy clusters; 5.Two-Degree Field Survey of galaxies; 6.gravitational lens measurements of distant galaxies and quasars; 7.distributions of radio galaxies; 8.galaxy velocity distributions; and 9.x-ray emissions from galaxy clusters. In the last several years, astronomers have added seven additional lines of observational evidence confirming the reality of the finely tuned cosmological constant, bringing the total to sixteen. These seven are: 10.Lyman-alpha forest measurements; 11.polarization measures of the cosmic microwave background radiation; 12.stellar ages; 13.cosmic inhomogeneities; 14.gamma-ray bursts; 15.evolution of galaxy clustering; and 16.galaxy cluster angular size measurements. https://reasons.org/explore/publications/tnrtb/read/tnrtb/2011/12/05/accumulating-evidence-for-dark-energy-and-supernatural-design
In his video, Dr. Hugh Ross also listed several Bible verses that ‘predicted’, (long before the cosmological constant was even known about), God alone ’'Stretching out the Heavens’. The following site lists several verses from the Bible that speak of God alone ‘Stretching out the heavens'
Bible References to God Stretching Out the Heavens http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Nave-html/Faithpathh/stretch.html
The following Bible verse is my favorite out of that group of verses since it, indirectly, refers to the, rather astonishing, miracle of Jesus walking on water.
Job 9:8 He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea.
Thus in conclusion, it is highly ironic, even hypocritical, that Seversky would try to lecture anyone about practicing science properly since Seversky himself (via his Atheistic presuppositions), adamantly, refuses to practice science properly and to follow the scientific evidence to where it leads.bornagain77
December 8, 2021
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Seversky remarks that, "Perhaps CNET should stick to technology and not try branching out into science." And perhaps Seversky should take his own advice and refrain from science until he can be fair towards the empirical evidence? First off, atheists have no direct observational evidence that Dark Matter and Dark Energy are even real particles in the first place, and that they are not merely figments of their imagination. As far as observational science is concerned, both Dark Matter and Dark Energy are simply 'invisible' to direct experimental observation.
Table 2.1 – Hugh Ross – Why The Universe Is The Way It Is? Inventory of All the Stuff That Makes Up the Universe (Visible vs. Invisible) Dark Energy – 72.1% Exotic Dark Matter – 23.3% Ordinary Dark Matter – 4.35% Ordinary Bright Matter (Stars) – 0.27% Planets – 0.0001% Invisible portion – Universe – 99.73% Visible portion – Universe – .27% https://books.google.com/books?id=U5LToA5PI-UC&pg=PA37#v=onepage&q&f=false
Verse:
Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
This is not the first time that Atheistic Materialists have had to invent 'invisible' particles out of thin air in order to 'explain away' a finding in science. For instance, Atheistic Materialists also invented the ‘inflaton’, the “graviton’, and "supersymmetric particles' out of thin air.
Has Cosmic Inflation Been Discovered? – March 17, 2014 Excerpt: Harvard cosmologist Avi Loeb gives this admission (about inflation) at the end of the Space.com article: “Still, there is much more to learn about our universe’s first few moments. For example, astronomers still have no idea what the substance that propelled inflation — dubbed the “inflaton” — actually is,” Loeb said. ,,, “We really need to understand what this substance — this inflaton — is. And until we do that, it’s just like dark matter or dark energy — we give it a name, but we don’t know what it is.” http://crev.info/2014/03/has-cosmic-inflation-been-discovered/ The Edge of Physics: Do Gravitons Really Exist? Excerpt: As it stands, we are far from definitively proving it exists. As Fermilab senior physicist Don Lincoln wrote in a post: “Gravitons are a theoretically reputable idea, but are not proven. So if you hear someone say that ‘gravitons are particles that generate the gravitational force,’ keep in mind that this is a reasonable statement, but by no means is it universally accepted. It will be a long time before gravitons are considered part of the established subatomic pantheon.” https://futurism.com/the-edge-of-physics-do-gravitons-really-exist Where are all the squarks and gluinos? The future of supersymmetry is in serious doubt. - Jan 2021 Excerpt: The ATLAS collaboration, made up of hundreds of scientists from around the world, have released their latest findings in their search for supersymmetry in a paper appearing in the preprint journal arXiv. And their results? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. After years of searching and loads of accumulated data from countless collisions, there is no sign of any supersymmetric particle. In fact, many supersymmetry models are now completely ruled out, and very few theoretical ideas remain valid. While supersymmetry has enjoyed widespread support from theorists for decades (who often portrayed it as the obvious next step in advancing our understanding of the universe), the theory has been on thin ice ever since the LHC turned on. But despite those initial doubtful results, theorists had hoped that some model of tuning of the theory would produce a positive result inside the collider experiment. While not every possible model of supersymmetry has been ruled out, the future of the theory is in serious doubt. And since physicists have invested so much time and energy into supersymmetry for years, there aren't a lot of compelling alternatives. Where will physics go from here, in a universe without supersymmetry? Only time (and a lot of math) will tell. https://www.livescience.com/no-signs-supersymmetry-large-hadron-collider.html
Moreover, neither Dark Matter nor Dark Energy, via their fine tuning, offer any support for the atheist's belief that the universe is the result of some mindless random quantum fluctuation. As the following articles explain, Dark Matter "is ultimately one of the reasons for the existence of life on Earth" and also represents, “fine-tuning in the extreme,”
The Dark Matter 'conspiracy' - Apr 30, 2015 Excerpt: One of the most surprising scientific discoveries of the 20th century was that spiral galaxies, such as our own Milky Way, rotate much faster than expected, powered by an extra gravitational force of invisible 'dark matter'. Since this discovery 40 years ago, we have learned this mysterious substance, which is probably an exotic elementary particle, makes up about 85 per cent of the mass in the known Universe, leaving only 15 per cent to be the ordinary stuff encountered in our everyday lives. Dark matter is central to our understanding of how galaxies form and evolve and is ultimately one of the reasons for the existence of life on Earth – yet we know almost nothing about it. "One of the surprising findings of this study was that spiral galaxies maintain a remarkably constant rotation speed throughout their disks," Dr Cappellari said. "This means stars and dark matter conspire to redistribute themselves to produce this effect, with stars dominating in the inner regions of the galaxies, and a gradual shift in the outer regions to dark matter dominance." But the 'conspiracy' does not come out naturally from the models, and some fine-tuning is required to explain the observations. http://phys.org/news/2015-04-dark-conspiracy.html Dark Matter Deniers Exploring a blasphemous alternative to one of modern physics' most vexing enigmas. By Steve Nadis|Thursday, May 28, 2015 Excerpt: If dark matter is responsible for such uniform rotation speeds, it would require an extraordinarily precise distribution of the invisible stuff – “fine-tuning in the extreme,” as Milgrom calls it. “It’s like taking 100 building blocks and throwing them on the floor, and lo and behold, I see a castle. http://discovermagazine.com/2015/july-aug/15-dark-matter-deniers
bornagain77
December 8, 2021
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Perhaps CNET should stick to technology and not try branching out into science. As others have pointed out, "dark energy" is the repulsive force hypothesized to account for the observation that the more distant galaxies are the faster they seem to be moving away from us. "Dark matter" is hypothesized to account for the observation that the visible matter of galaxies is not sufficient to exert the gravitational force necessary to hold them together. There has to be something else there that we can't see to provide the additional mass, that something else being "dark matter".Seversky
December 7, 2021
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BA77, Yes, it's not the most technically precise article. Hopefully the scientists behind it know what they are talking about.EDTA
December 7, 2021
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EDTA, not to be too picky, but, uhh, your article is conflating Dark Matter with Dark Energy. per your article,
The universe is expanding extremely fast. Every second, stars are sailing away from each other, galaxies are entering new cosmic territory, and oddly enough, it's happening way too quickly. Even the most elegant calculations suggest there isn't sufficient matter in space to account for the speedy movement. That's where dark matter comes in. What if there's an invisible force making the cosmos spread out? We can't see it and we don't quite know what it is.
Dark ENERGY is held to be "the invisible force making the cosmos spread out."
Dark energy Not to be confused with Dark fluid, Dark flow, or Dark matter. In physical cosmology and astronomy, dark energy is an unknown form of energy that affects the universe on the largest scales. The first observational evidence for its existence came from measurements of supernovae, which showed that the universe does not expand at a constant rate; rather, the expansion of the universe is accelerating.[1][2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy
Whereas Dark MATTER is held to be "a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe.",,,
Dark matter Not to be confused with Antimatter, Dark energy, Dark fluid, or Dark flow. Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe.[1] Its presence is implied in a variety of astrophysical observations, including gravitational effects that cannot be explained by accepted theories of gravity unless more matter is present than can be seen. For this reason, most experts think that dark matter is abundant in the universe and that it has had a strong influence on its structure and evolution. Dark matter is called dark because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not absorb, reflect or emit electromagnetic radiation, and is therefore difficult to detect.[2] Primary evidence for dark matter comes from calculations showing that many galaxies would fly apart, or that they would not have formed or would not move as they do, if they did not contain a large amount of unseen matter.[3] ,,, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter
bornagain77
December 7, 2021
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Forget a theory of everything. We just need an explanation for the phenomenon that spawned the concept of dark matter. Link to article on galaxy that isn't playing by the rules: https://www.cnet.com/news/mysterious-galaxy-without-dark-matter-puzzles-astronomers/EDTA
December 7, 2021
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Interestingly, although free will itself is not contained within the 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. As Steven Weinberg, an atheist, explains, “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 because it undermined the Darwinian worldview from within. Yet, regardless of how he and other atheists may prefer the world to behave, quantum mechanics itself could care less how atheists prefer the world to behave. For instance, this recent 2019 experimental confirmation of the “Wigner’s Friend” thought experiment established that “measurement results,, must be understood relative to the observer who performed the measurement”.
More Than One Reality Exists (in Quantum Physics) By Mindy Weisberger – March 20, 2019 Excerpt: “measurement results,, must be understood relative to the observer who performed the measurement”. https://www.livescience.com/65029-dueling-reality-photons.html
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?” https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140220112515.htm
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 the quantum experiments are truly free and are not determined by any possible causal influences from the past for at least the last 7.8 billion years, and that experimenters themselves are therefore shown to be truly free to choose whatever measurement settings in the experiments that he or she may so desire to choose so as to ‘logically’ probe whatever aspect of reality that he or she may be interested in probing.
Cosmic Bell Test Using Random Measurement Settings from High-Redshift Quasars – Anton Zeilinger – 14 June 2018 Abstract: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 in our quest to find the supposed ‘theory of everything’. 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 free will 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 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/in-time-for-american-thanksgiving-stephen-meyer-on-the-frailty-of-scientific-atheism/#comment-741599 Video and Verse:
Jesus Christ as the correct "Theory of Everything" - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpn2Vu8--eE 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
December 7, 2021
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Another very important place where ‘platonic perfection’ is now shown to be ‘perfectly reached’ in the universe, (as far as our most precise testing 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 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. https://phys.org/news/2017-06-universe-flat-topology.html Job 38:4-7 “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? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?
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 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 randomness, as atheists presuppose, or governed by some other of the infinitude of ‘platonic topologies’ that were possible, modern science and technology would have never 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. http://www.space.com/2613-scientists-question-nature-fundamental-laws.html
Nor, if platonic perfection were not present for the flatness of the universe would we have eventually been able to deduce the ‘platonic perfection’ that is revealed in the ‘higher dimensional’ mathematics that lay behind Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. More interesting still, these findings of ‘platonic perfection’ for the higher dimensional mathematics that lay behind Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are VERY friendly to overriding Christian presuppositions of life after death as well as the presupposition of God upholding this universe in its continual existence.
January 2021 Whereas atheists have no observational evidence that the Multiverses that they postulated to ‘explain. away’ the fine tuning of the universe are real, nor do Atheists have any evidence that the ‘parallel universes’ that they postulated to ‘explain away’ quantum wave collapse are real, Christians, on the other hand, can appeal directly to Special Relativity, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics, (i.e. our most precisely tested theories ever in the history of science), to support their belief that God really does uphold this universe in its continual existence, as well as to support their belief in the reality of a heavenly dimension and in the reality of a hellish dimension.” https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/closer-to-truth-are-there-really-extra-dimensions/#comment-722947
Most everyone who is looking for the next scientific theory to superseded the ‘platonically perfect’ theories of relativity and quantum mechanics are looking for a purely mathematical theory in order to do so. Yet mathematics is, for the most part, held to be deterministic and therefore, by default, the Agent Causality of God, or of people, will never be contained within a supposed mathematical ‘theory of everything’. As George Ellis noted in his critique of Max Tegmarks’s book “Our Mathematical Universe”, presupposing that we ourselves can be reduced to a mathematical description “is a view that assigns to mathematical structures a degree of agency that they are not otherwise thought to possess.”
Physics on Edge – George Ellis – August 2017 Excerpt: Tegmark has argued that every consistent mathematical structure exists in some disconnected universe. Tegmark also believes that nothing else exists beyond the consistent mathematical structures. Tegmark is himself nothing more than a consistent mathematical structure. This is a view that assigns to mathematical structures a degree of agency that they are not otherwise thought to possess. http://inference-review.com/article/physics-on-edge
In fact, our ability to devise new mathematical theorems is itself dependent on us having free will and/or agent causality. As the following article notes, “Creating new axioms (in mathematics) and free will are shown to be different aspects of the same phenomena: the creation of new information.”
Algorithmic Information Theory, Free Will and the Turing Test – Douglas S. Robertson Excerpt: Chaitin’s Algorithmic Information Theory shows that information is conserved under formal mathematical operations and, equivalently, under computer operations. This conservation law puts a new perspective on many familiar problems related to artificial intelligence. For example, the famous “Turing test” for artificial intelligence could be defeated by simply asking for a new axiom in mathematics. Human mathematicians are able to create axioms, but a computer program cannot do this without violating information conservation. Creating new axioms and free will are shown to be different aspects of the same phenomena: the creation of new information. http://cires.colorado.edu/~doug/philosophy/info8.pdf
Thus free will necessarily precedes any mathematical description that we may devise of the universe.bornagain77
December 7, 2021
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As to:
Culturally, the impulse to unify goes back to the notion of unity found in monotheistic faiths. Even if most physicists searching for a TOE are non-believers, they are heirs to old Platonist ideals of mathematical simplicity and symmetry that were later translated, in particular by Saint Thomas Aquinas, as attributes of the mind of God. Indeed, the image of “knowing the mind of God” keeps coming back in popular physics texts, most famously in Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time.,,, "A physical theory can only be proved wrong, never right, at least in any permanent sense. This is because every theory is necessarily incomplete, always ready for updates as we learn more about the physical world." – Marcelo Gleiser
The "Platonic perfection' reached by our current theories of science kind of throws a big ole monkey wrench in his belief that current theories can be 'updated'. There is simply no experimental 'anomalies' in current theories, (as there were experimental 'anomalies' with Newton's theory of gravity), that might give someone a toehold in which one might be able to eventually 'update' our current theories. 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 science has a history of reaching for perfect agreement between the immaterial mathematics that describe a facet of this universe and the experimental results that measure those mathematical predictions. Copernicus, (who was heavily influenced by Platonic thinking), imagined (incorrectly) that the planets move in perfect circles (rather than ellipses). Later, Newton, for allowing God could adjust the orbits of the planets, was chastised by Leibniz, (and even Laplace, 'no nee for that hypothesis') for having a “very narrow ideas about the wisdom and the power of God.”.. i.e. For having a narrow view of the perfection of God.
“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
And indeed 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. That is to say, as far as experimental testing will allow, there is no discrepancy to be found between what the mathematical descriptions of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics predict and what our most advanced scientific testing of those 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 combination of special relativity and quantum mechanics, also now joins the list of perfect mathematical descriptions of the universe in which we can find no deviation from what the mathematics predict and what our best experimental testing can discern. In other words, as far as we can tell, ‘platonic perfection’ is 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, 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/
Perhaps Nima Arkani-Hamed will someday reach the same conclusion as Einstein and Wigner did and conclude that the explanation must be that such 'perfect mathematical descriptions' are a miracle?
On the Rational Order of the World: a Letter to Maurice Solovine – Albert Einstein – March 30, 1952 Excerpt: “You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world (to the extent that we are authorized to speak of such a comprehensibility) as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori, one should expect a chaotic world, which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way .. the kind of order created by Newton’s theory of gravitation, for example, is wholly different. Even if a man proposes the axioms of the theory, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected a priori. That is the ‘miracle’ which is constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands. There lies the weakness of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but “bared the miracles.” -Albert Einstein,,, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences – Eugene Wigner – 1960 Excerpt: ,,certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin’s process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,, It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here, quite comparable in its striking nature to the miracle that the human mind can string a thousand arguments together without getting itself into contradictions, or to the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind’s capacity to divine them.,,, The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning.,,,
bornagain77
December 7, 2021
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As to:
Physical theories are data-driven, based on a painstaking process of empirical validation; any hypothesis must be vetted by experiments before it is accepted. And even when it is accepted, and the hypothesis is sometimes elevated to the level of a “theory,” such as in the general theory of relativity or the theory of evolution, this acceptance is always temporary. A physical theory can only be proved wrong, never right, at least in any permanent sense. This is because every theory is necessarily incomplete, always ready for updates as we learn more about the physical world. - Marcelo Gleiser
Perhaps Marcelo Gleiser would be so kind as to tell us exactly what experiments have vetted the, ahem, 'theory' of evolution before it was accepted?
"We are told dogmatically that Evolution is an established fact; but we are never told who has established it, and by what means. We are told, often enough, that the doctrine is founded upon evidence, and that indeed this evidence 'is henceforward above all verification, as well as being immune from any subsequent contradiction by experience;' but we are left entirely in the dark on the crucial question wherein, precisely, this evidence consists." - Smith, Wolfgang (1988) Teilhardism and the New Religion: A Thorough Analysis of The Teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books & Publishers Inc., p.2 “On the other hand, I disagree that Darwin’s theory is as `solid as any explanation in science.; Disagree? I regard the claim as preposterous. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to thirteen or so decimal places; so, too, general relativity. A leaf trembling in the wrong way would suffice to shatter either theory. What can Darwinian theory offer in comparison?” (Berlinski, D., “A Scientific Scandal?: David Berlinski & Critics,” Commentary, July 8, 2003)
Indeed far from being a 'theory', Darwinism functions more as an 'anti-theory', "called upon to cover up embarrassing experimental shortcomings and legitimize findings that are at best questionable and at worst not even wrong."
"Evolution by natural selection, for instance, which Charles Darwin originally conceived as a great theory, has lately come to function more as an antitheory, called upon to cover up embarrassing experimental shortcomings and legitimize findings that are at best questionable and at worst not even wrong. Your protein defies the laws of mass action? Evolution did it! Your complicated mess of chemical reactions turns into a chicken? Evolution! The human brain works on logical principles no computer can emulate? Evolution is the cause!" - ?Robert B. Laughlin, Nobel laureate – Physics - A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down (New York: Basic Books, 2005), 168-69)?
Darwinian evolution, (contrary to what Marcelo Gleiser has apparently falsely been led to believe), simply does not qualify as a scientific theory, i.e. as a hard science.
Top Ten Questions and Objections to ‘Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics’ – Robert J. Marks II – June 12, 2017 Excerpt: “There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. Examples include electromagnetics, Newtonian mechanics, geophysics, relativity, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, optics, and many areas in biology. Those hoping to establish Darwinian evolution as a hard science with a model have either failed or inadvertently cheated. These models contain guidance mechanisms to land the airplane squarely on the target runway despite stochastic wind gusts. Not only can the guiding assistance be specifically identified in each proposed evolution model, its contribution to the success can be measured, in bits, as active information.,,,”,,, “there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,” https://evolutionnews.org/2017/06/top-ten-questions-and-objections-to-introduction-to-evolutionary-informatics/
,,, Indeed, Darwinian evolution is more to be classified as a unfalsifiable pseudoscience, even as a 'blind-faith' religion for atheists, than it is to be classified as a hard 'theory' of science that was 'vetted by experiments' before it was accepted. Darwin himself admitted that his theory was quote unquote "grievously hypothetical, and large parts are by no means worthy of being called induction.”
Anti-Science Irony Excerpt: In response to a letter from Asa Gray, professor of biology at Harvard University, Darwin declared: “I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science.” When questioned further by Gray, Darwin confirmed Gray’s suspicions: “What you hint at generally is very, very true: that my work is grievously hypothetical, and large parts are by no means worthy of being called induction.” Darwin had turned against the use of scientific principles in developing his theory of evolution. http://www.darwinthenandnow.com/2011/10/anti-science-irony/
Adam Sedgwick himself was nothing less than scathing of Darwin ignoring the inductive methodology of the scientific method., (i.e. experimentation)
From Adam Sedgwick – 24 November 1859 Cambridge My dear Darwin, Excerpt: I have read your book with more pain than pleasure. Parts of it I admired greatly, parts I laughed at till my sides were almost sore; other parts I read with absolute sorrow, because I think them utterly false and grievously mischievous. You have deserted – after a start in that tram-road of all solid physical truth – the true method of induction, and started us in machinery as wild, I think, as Bishop Wilkins’s locomotive that was to sail with us to the moon. Many of your wide conclusions are based upon assumptions which can neither be proved nor disproved, why then express them in the language and arrangement of philosophical induction?- As to your grand principle – natural selection – what is it but a secondary consequence of supposed, or known, primary facts. Development is a better word because more close to the cause of the fact.”,,, ,,, (your conclusions are not) “ever likely to be found any where but in the fertile womb of man’s imagination.” Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873) – one of the founders of modern geology. – The Spectator, 1860 https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2548.xml
And to this day, Darwinists still have no experimental research that would establish Darwin’s theory as being a true scientific theory,
"as a theology graduate from Christ’s College, Darwin set out on a mission to discover the natural laws of evolution with a passion. Darwin Then and Now reveals how the emerging nineteenth century philosophies influenced Darwin to eventually abandon the Scientific Method. Darwin conceded that The Origin of Species was just “one long argument from the beginning to the end”—not a scientific treatise. DARWIN, THEN AND NOW highlights Darwin’s top 15 contradictions in arguing for natural selection. Just two years before the publication of The Origin of Species, in writing to a friend, Darwin confided, “I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science.” With more than 300 quotations from Darwin, DARWIN, THEN AND NOW is an exposé on what Darwin actually said concerning his “point of view” on the origin of species. After 150 years of research with more than 700 references from scientists, DARWIN, THEN AND NOW chronicles how the scientific evidence is clear: there are no “successive, slight” changes in the fossil record, embryology, molecular biology, or genetics to support Darwinism or neo-Darwinism. Even the popular twentieth-century Central Dogma theoretical mechanism of evolution has been abandoned. Today, a cohesive mechanism of evolution and evidence of a Tree of Life continues to remain as elusive as Darwin infamous drawing – “I Think.” - Darwin, Then and Now – by Dr. Richard William Nelson – Book Preview
Verse:
1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test everything; hold fast what is good.
bornagain77
December 7, 2021
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Just skip theories and observe reality.polistra
December 6, 2021
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