Mike Keas on the myth that a big universe is a problem for religion

_{Denyse O'Leary

October 12, 2021

Cosmology, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Religion}

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Philosophy of science prof Mike Keas is one of the contributors to The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos (2021) and a free excerpt from his chapter is available. He reminds us of Christina apologist C.S. Lewis (1898–1963)’s approach:

“Whatever space may be in itself … we certainly perceive it as three-dimensional, and to three-dimensional space we can conceive no boundaries,” he writes. So we naturally feel that the cosmos is huge. What if we discovered nothing but our own sun and moon in such seemingly infinite space? “This vast emptiness would certainly be used of God,” Lewis notes. In that case, atheists would argue that no God would create such vast amounts of wasted empty space.
Lewis runs through the other options: “If we discover other bodies, they must be habitable or uninhabitable: and the odd thing is that both these hypotheses are used as grounds for rejecting Christianity.” If there are billions of habitable planers, then the skeptic would likely say that this means humans are not special. We would be lost in a crowd of aliens, or so the story goes.
Lewis continues: “If, on the other hand, the Earth is really unique, then that proves that life is only an accidental by-product in the universe, and so again disproves our religion.” In that case, atheists might further complain that no God would create trillions of sterile planets-what a lousy design.
Do you see the problem? No matter how God might have made the universe and life, skeptics would surely complain about something to the point of disbelief What we have here isn’t truth-seeking, but rather, game rigging.
Mike Keas, “The Big Myth: Big Universe Is a Problem for Religion” at Evolution News and Science Today (October 12, 2021)

There’s a lot of that about these days.

Comments

Like time, God is not bounded by concepts of distance and space. He is above and beyond all of these dimensions, so it is foolish for us to sit here and make proclamations that the universe is "too big."OldArmy94_{October 15, 2021
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Regarding the title, any atheist who makes the argument that a big Universe means that God does not exist is making a theological argument rather than a logical one. Who is to say that God considers bigger as better? Or that God cares about cubic parsecs of mostly vacuum? Perhaps God values complexity rather than size? Then a single human brain is more complex (and therefore interesting to God?) than an entire, lifeless galaxy. As a spiritual being, the spiritual aspects of his creation would be most important to him. At least that would make more sense than saying a huge three-dimensional volume is somehow beyond the pale for an eternal, non-material, spiritual being. Atheists should avoid making naïve assumptions about God!Fasteddious_{October 14, 2021
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if some human dictator told you your life would have meaning and purpose as long as you
:) have to: ...wake up and come to work if you want to be paid . ...pay bus ticket if you want to travel. ...stop at red light if you want to keep your licence. ...have to sign in if you want to post a comment. etc.Hanks_{October 13, 2021
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Seversky,
Also, on the question of purpose and meaning, if some human dictator told you your life would have meaning and purpose as long as you did exactly what he said, no questions asked, would you go along with that?
Or imagine a Sherpa guide providing guidance to a team of mountain climbers on the approaches to Mount Everest.team. How stupid would it be to ignore the Sherpa's advice based on an erroneous supposition or a slander that the guide was a dictator on a power trip? The scriptures tell us that God is incredibly creative and loving, but also needs to ensure justice. Furthermore, there's a terrible spiritual war in progress in which humanity has been ensnared and captured. But God launched a rescue operation with the intent of leading us to safety. "Follow me if you love life" is what the rescuer tells us. Unfortunately, some people reply, "Who made you the boss of me? I'll find my own way out."
Say to them: ‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die . . . ?’ - Ezekiel 33:11 (NKJV)
-QQuerius_{October 13, 2021
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Chuckdarwin @9,
Atheists look at the wrong side of a cross stitch. They see the chaos and nothing more than the chaos. By turning it around, which is the side that those of us who believe in God do, shows the beauty of everything.
Why do people say things like this?
Because perspective makes a huge difference! In light of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Ptolemaic astronomy isn't wrong, but the Copernican model makes the math much simpler. Similarly, one's perspective on God has a profound impact on how we interpret life--whether it makes sense or no sense. -QQuerius_{October 13, 2021
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Seversky, although advances in quantum mechanics have now proven that humans, via there free will, have a choice in what type of reality gets presented to them, humans are still not responsible for 'collapsing the wave function' in the first place. God is responsible for 'collapsing the wave function'. Hence, the universe can manage quite well for 13.7 billion years, or however long, without any particular human being around. All the closing of the free will loophole really did was not prove that humans created the universe, as you disingenuously are trying to hold, but prove that humans can not possibly the result of the laws of physics as Darwinists hold. As Weinberg himself stated, "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.,,," As to your second comment,,,, that you would try to falsely portray God as a cruel dictator, instead of as infinitely holy and good as He actually is,, is very telling of your 'emotionally' grounded, not 'logically' grounded, mindset against God. You, via your imagination, imagine a straw man version of God that is cruel and evil, instead of infinitely holy and just as He actually is. You rightly reject this imaginary evil and cruel God that you have constructed in your imagination all the while forgetting that you have constructed a fictitious strawman version of God that bears no resemblance to the God the vast majority of Christians worship. Of course we reject your evil and cruel straw man version of God that you have constructed in your imagination because that is not the living and real God that we have come to personally know and love.bornagain77_{October 13, 2021
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OT: Just premiered:
Human Evolution: The Monkey Bias — Science Uprising, Episode 8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGzXAgFSbnk
bornagain77_{October 13, 2021
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Bornagain77/6
In other words, since humans themselves are brought into the laws of physics at their most fundamental level, then humans are therefore, obviously, empirically shown to have far, far, more significance, value, and dignity in this universe than atheists have presumed.
If human beings are essential to the laws of physics at their most fundamental level then how did the Universe manage for the 13.7 bn years before we appeared? Also, on the question of purpose and meaning, if some human dictator told you your life would have meaning and purpose as long as you did exactly what he said, no questions asked, would you go along with that?Seversky_{October 13, 2021
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Why do people say things like this?
A better question. Why do trained biologists refuse to answer questions on biology? jerry_{October 13, 2021
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Atheists look at the wrong side of a cross stitch. They see the chaos and nothing more than the chaos. By turning it around, which is the side that those of us who believe in God do, shows the beauty of everything.
Why do people say things like this?chuckdarwin_{October 13, 2021
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Here are a few supplemental notes that further solidify the fact that our lives are not nearly as meaningless and inconsequential as Stephen "chemical scum' Hawking, and other atheists, try to claim that they are via the fallacious Copernican Principle and/or the Principle of Mediocrity,
"The very conditions that make Earth hospitable to intelligent life also make it well suited to viewing and analyzing the universe as a whole." - Jay Richards – Privileged Planet Privileged Planet – video playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ohuG3Vj_48&list=PLbzQ4aXdqWD-9kjFsSm-cxNlzgrkJuko7 ?entire video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmIc42oRjm8 Linked from Appendix C from Dr. Ross's book, 'Why the Universe Is the Way It Is'; Probability Estimates for the Features Required by Various Life Forms: Excerpt: Requirements to sustain bacteria for 90 days or less: Probability for occurrence of all 501 parameters approx. 10-614 dependency factors estimate approx. 10^-303 longevity requirements estimate approx. 10^22 Probability for occurrence of all 501 parameters approx. 10^-333 Maximum possible number of life support bodies in observable universe approx. 10^22 Thus, less than 1 chance in 10^311 exists that even one such life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe without invoking divine miracles. Requirements to sustain unicellar life for three billion year: Probability for occurrence of all 676 parameters approx. 10^-859 dependency factors estimate approx. 10^-303 longevity requirements estimate approx. 10^22 Probability for occurrence of all 676 parameters approx. 10^-578 Maximum possible number of life support bodies in observable universe approx. 10^22 Thus, less than 1 chance in 10^556 exists that even one such life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe without invoking divine miracle Requirements to sustain intelligent physical life: Probability for occurrence of all 816 parameters approx. 10^-1333 dependency factors estimate approx. 10^-324 longevity requirements estimate approx. 10^45 Probability for occurrence of all 816 parameters approx. 10^-1054 Maximum possible number of life support bodies in observable universe approx. 10^22 Thus, less than 1 chance in 10^1032 exists that even one such life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe without invoking divine miracle http://d4bge0zxg5qba.cloudfront.net/files/compendium/compendium_Part3_ver2.pdf 16 Steps to Generating Advanced Life | Dr Hugh Ross - July 13, 2017 Excerpt: Naturalists, materialists, deists, and most theistic evolutionists would answer that the chemicals on early Earth spontaneously self-assembled into a simple cell that was able to reproduce. From there, the cell’s daughters evolved to produce all the life-forms that have ever existed throughout the past 3.8 billion years. Such a history requires that life make at least 16 transitional steps in order to generate advanced life-forms.,,, ,,, Evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala notes that, from a Darwinian perspective, each step is highly improbable. Taking into account just a few of these steps, Ayala determined that the probability of intelligent life arising from bacteria to be less than one chance in 10^1,000,000.(1) Physicists John Barrow, Brandon Carter, and Frank Tipler calculated the probability of all 16 steps occurring to be less than one chance in 10^24,000,000.(2) To get a feel for how miniscule this probability is, it is roughly equivalent to someone winning the California lottery 3,000,000 consecutive times where that individual purchases just one lottery ticket each time. Realistically, this probability is indistinguishable from someone winning the California lottery 3,000,000 consecutive times where the individual purchases no tickets at all. https://bcooper.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/16-steps-to-generating-advanced-life-dr-hugh-ross/ “In Barrow and Tippler's book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, they list ten steps necessary in the course of human evolution, each of which, is so improbable that if left to happen by chance alone, the sun would have ceased to be a main sequence star and would have incinerated the earth. They estimate that the odds of the evolution (by chance) of the human genome is somewhere between 4 to the negative 180th power, to the 110,000th power, and 4 to the negative 360th power, to the 110,000th power. Therefore, if evolution did occur, it literally would have been a miracle and evidence for the existence of God.” - William Lane Craig - If Human Evolution Did Occur It Was A Miracle - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUxm8dXLRpA “Reason and science compels us to see what previous generations could not: that our existence is an outrageous and astonishing miracle, one so startlingly and perhaps so disturbingly miraculous that it makes any miracle like the parting of the Red Sea pale in such insignificance that it almost becomes unworthy of our consideration, as though it were something done easily by a child, half-asleep. It is something to which the most truly human response is some combination of terror and wonder, of ancient awe, and childhood joy.” Eric Metaxas – Miracles – pages 55-56
Verse:
Isaiah 45:18-19 For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens, who is God, who formed the earth and made it, who established it, who did not create it in vain, who formed it to be inhabited: “I am the Lord, and there is no other. I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth; I did not say to the seed of Jacob, ‘seek me in vain’; I, the Lord speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.”
bornagain77_{October 13, 2021
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And yet, 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 provides an empirically backed reconciliation, (via the Shroud of Turin), between quantum mechanics and general relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”. Here is a fairly recent video where I make precisely that case
Jesus Christ as the correct “Theory of Everything” – video https://youtu.be/Vpn2Vu8–eE
And here are a few relevant notes from studies on the Shroud of Turin showing that both gravity and quantum mechanics were dealt with in Christ’s resurrection from the dead. In the following video, Isabel Piczek, (a particle physicist who made a sculpture from the Shroud image), states,,, ‘The muscles of the body are absolutely not crushed against the stone of the tomb. They are perfect. It means the body is hovering between the two sides of the shroud. What does that mean? It means there is absolutely no gravity.’
“When you look at the image of the shroud, the two bodies next to each other, you feel that it is a flat image. But if you create, for instance, a three dimensional object, as I did, the real body, then you realize that there is a strange dividing element. An interface from which the image is projected up and the image is projected down. The muscles of the body are absolutely not crushed against the stone of the tomb. They are perfect. It means the body is hovering between the two sides of the shroud. What does that mean? It means there is absolutely no gravity. Other strange you discover is that the image is absolutely undistorted. Now if you imagine the clothe was wrinkled, tied, wrapped around the body, and all of the sudden you see a perfect image, which is impossible unless the shroud was made absolutely taut, rigidly taut.” Isabel Piczek – Turin shroud – (Particle Physicist explains the ‘event horizon’ on the Shroud of Turin) – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27Ru3_TWuiY
Kevin Moran, an optical engineer, describes the Shroud Image in this way, “The unique front-and-back only image can be best described as gravitationally collimated. The radiation that made the image acted perfectly parallel to gravity. There is no side image. The radiation is parallel to gravity,,,”
Optically Terminated Image Pixels Observed on Frei 1978 Samples – Kevin E. Moran – 1999 Discussion Pia’s negative photograph, from 1898, showed what looked to be a body that was glowing, but slightly submerged in a bath of cloudy water. This condition is more properly described as an image that is visible, at a distance, but by locally attenuated radiation. The unique front-and-back only image can be best described as gravitationally collimated. The radiation that made the image acted perfectly parallel to gravity. There is no side image. The radiation is parallel to gravity and, if moving at light speed, only lasted about 100 picoseconds. It is particulate in nature, colliding only with some of the fibers. It is not a continuum or spherical-front radiation that made the image, as visible or UV light. It is not the X-ray radiation that obeys the one over R squared law that we are so accustomed to in medicine. It is more unique,,, Theoretical model It is suggested that the image was formed when a high-energy particle struck the fiber and released radiation within the fiber at a speed greater that the local speed of light. Since the fiber acts as a light pipe, this energy moved out through the fiber until it encountered an optical discontinuity, then it slowed to the local speed of light and dispersed. Discussion The fact that the pixels don’t fluoresce suggests that the conversion to their now brittle dehydrated state occurred instantly and completely so no partial products remain to be activated by the ultraviolet light. This suggests a quantum event where a finite amount of energy transferred abruptly. The fact that there are images front and back suggests the radiating particles were released along the gravity vector. The radiation pressure may also help explain why the blood was “lifted cleanly” from the body as it transformed to a resurrected state.” https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/moran.pdf
Moreover, besides gravity being dealt with on the Shroud of Turin, the Shroud also gives us evidence that Quantum Mechanics itself was dealt with. In the following paper, it was found that it was not possible to describe the image formation on the Shroud in classical terms but they found it necessary to describe the formation of the image on the Shroud in discrete quantum terms.
The absorbed energy in the Shroud body image formation appears as contributed by discrete (quantum) values – Giovanni Fazio, Giuseppe Mandaglio – 2008 Excerpt: This result means that the optical density distribution,, can not be attributed at the absorbed energy described in the framework of the classical physics model. It is, in fact, necessary to hypothesize a absorption by discrete values of the energy where the ‘quantum’ is equal to the one necessary to yellow one fibril. http://cab.unime.it/mus/541/1/c1a0802004.pdf
Moreover, the following rather astonishing study on the Shroud, found that it would take 34 Trillion Watts of what is termed VUV (directional) radiation to form the image on the shroud.
Astonishing discovery at Christ’s tomb supports Turin Shroud – NOV 26TH 2016 Excerpt: The first attempts made to reproduce the face on the Shroud by radiation, used a CO2 laser which produced an image on a linen fabric that is similar at a macroscopic level. However, microscopic analysis showed a coloring that is too deep and many charred linen threads, features that are incompatible with the Shroud image. Instead, the results of ENEA “show that a short and intense burst of VUV directional radiation can color a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin, including shades of color, the surface color of the fibrils of the outer linen fabric, and the absence of fluorescence”. ‘However, Enea scientists warn, “it should be noted that the total power of VUV radiations required to instantly color the surface of linen that corresponds to a human of average height, body surface area equal to = 2000 MW/cm2 17000 cm2 = 34 thousand billion watts makes it impractical today to reproduce the entire Shroud image using a single laser excimer, since this power cannot be produced by any VUV light source built to date (the most powerful available on the market come only to several billion watts)”. Comment The ENEA study of the Holy Shroud of Turin concluded that it would take 34 Thousand Billion (trillion) Watts of VUV radiation to make the image on the shroud. This output of electromagnetic energy remains beyond human technology. http://www.predatormastersforums.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=3014106
So thus in conclusion, when we rightly allow the Agent Causality of God back into physics then a very plausible solution to the number one unsolved mystery in science today, (of finding a bridge for the ‘infinite mathematical divide’ that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics), readily pops out for us in that, as the Shroud of Turin gives witness to, both Gravity and Quantum Mechanics were dealt with in Christ’s resurrection from the dead. As William Dembski noted, (although he was not directly addressing the ‘infinite mathematical divide’ that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics), “The Cross is a path of humility in which the infinite God becomes finite and then contracts to zero, only to resurrect and thereby unite a finite humanity within a newfound infinity.”
The End Of Christianity – Finding a Good God in an Evil World – Pg.31 – William Dembski Excerpt: “In mathematics there are two ways to go to infinity. One is to grow large without measure. The other is to form a fraction in which the denominator goes to zero. The Cross is a path of humility in which the infinite God becomes finite and then contracts to zero, only to resurrect and thereby unite a finite humanity within a newfound infinity.” – per the design inference
I firmly believe that the Christian founders of modern science, (who very much viewed their practice of science as a way of worshiping God), would all be very pleased to learn that Christ’s resurrection from the dead provides us with a very plausible solution to the number one unsolved mystery in modern science today, i.e. the solution to the quote unquote ‘theory of everything’.
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_{October 13, 2021
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On top of all that, and completely contrary to the Copernican Principle and/or the Principle of Mediocrity, in quantum mechanics we also find that humans, (via their free will), are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level. As the late Steven Weinberg, who was an atheist himself, stated in the following article, “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, who was 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 Weinberg and other atheists may prefer the world to behave, 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 a 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
As well, 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 the late Steven Weinberg, and other atheists, may have preferred the universe to behave, with the closing of the last remaining ‘freedom of choice’ loophole in quantum mechanics, it is now empirically demonstrated that “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.” As well, to state the glaringly obvious, this is yet another VERY powerful line of empirical evidence that directly falsifies the Copernican Principle and/or the Principle of Mediocrity. In other words, since humans themselves are brought into the laws of physics at their most fundamental level, then humans are therefore, obviously, empirically shown to have far, far, more significance, value, and dignity in this universe than atheists have presumed. As much as it may hurt an atheists’s feelings to know this, and as far as our best science can now tell us, we are not merely “chemical scum” as Hawking, via the Copernican Principle, tried to imply that we were.
“The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies. We are so insignificant that I can’t believe the whole universe exists for our benefit.,,,” – Stephen Hawking – 1995 TV show, Reality on the Rocks: Beyond Our Ken,
Hopefully atheists will soon get over the sad fact that there is a purpose for their existence and that they are not merely chemical scum in short order. :) One final note, although, as has been shown in this post, both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics have combined, (in a rather dramatic fashion), to overturn the Copernican Principle, and to return humanity back to centrality in the universe, never-the-less, General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics still simply refuse, mathematically, to be combined into a single overarching ‘theory of everything.
Quantum Leaps – Jeremy Bernstein – October 19, 2018 Excerpt: Divergent series notwithstanding, quantum electrodynamics yielded results of remarkable accuracy. Consider the magnetic moment of the electron. This calculation, which has been calculated up to the fifth order in ?, agrees with experiment to ten parts in a billion. If one continued the calculation to higher and higher orders, at some point the series would begin to break down. There is no sign of that as yet. Why not carry out a similar program for gravitation? One can readily write down the Feynman graphs that represent the terms in the expansion. Yet there remains an irremediable difficulty. Every order reveals new types of infinities, and no finite number of renormalizations renders all the terms in the series finite. The theory is not renormalizable. https://inference-review.com/article/quantum-leaps Jeremy Bernstein is professor emeritus of physics at the Stevens Institute of Technology. Why Gravity Is Not Like the Other Forces We asked four physicists why gravity stands out among the forces of nature. We got four different answers. Excerpt: the quantum version of Einstein’s general relativity is “nonrenormalizable.”,,, In quantum theories, infinite terms appear when you try to calculate how very energetic particles scatter off each other and interact. In theories that are renormalizable — which include the theories describing all the forces of nature other than gravity — we can remove these infinities in a rigorous way by appropriately adding other quantities that effectively cancel them, so-called counterterms. This renormalization process leads to physically sensible answers that agree with experiments to a very high degree of accuracy. The problem with a quantum version of general relativity is that the calculations that would describe interactions of very energetic gravitons — the quantized units of gravity — would have infinitely many infinite terms. You would need to add infinitely many counterterms in a never-ending process. Renormalization would fail.,,, Sera Cremonini – theoretical physicist – Lehigh University https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-gravity-is-not-like-the-other-forces-20200615/
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And while that finding by Dr. Neil Turok is certainly very interesting, that finding is a bit disappointing in that is just gives life in general a ‘middle’ position in the universe, and still does not give humanity in particular, a ‘middle’ position in the universe. Yet, Dr. William Demski, (and company), in the following graph, have refined that estimate of a ‘geometric mean’ with better data, and have given us a more precise figure of 8.8 x 10^26 M for the observable universe’s diameter, and 1.6 x 10^-35 for the Planck length which is the smallest length possible.
Magnifying the Universe https://academicinfluence.com/ie/mtu/
And that more precise figure for a ‘geometric mean’ does indeed give humanity in particular a ‘central’ position in the universe. Dr. Dembski’s more precise interactive graph points out that the smallest scale visible to the human eye (as well as the size of a human egg) is at 10^-4 meters, which ‘just so happens’ to be directly in the exponential center, and/or geometric mean, of all possible sizes of our physical reality. This is very interesting for the limits to human vision (as well as the size of the human egg) could have, theoretically, been at very different positions rather than directly in the exponential middle and/or the geometric mean. Needless to say, this empirical finding directly challenges, if not directly refutes, the assumption behind the Copernican Principle and/or the Principle of Mediocrity. Now let’s get back to observers themselves being central in the universe. Whereas Einstein, when he first formulated both Special and General Relativity, gave a ‘hypothetical’ observer a privileged frame of reference in which to make measurements in the universe, In Quantum Mechanics we find that it is the measurement itself that gives each observer a privileged frame of reference in the universe. As the following article states, “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,”,,,
Experiment confirms quantum theory weirdness – May 27, 2015 Excerpt: Common sense says the object is either wave-like or particle-like, independent of how we measure it. But quantum physics predicts that whether you observe wave like behavior (interference) or particle behavior (no interference) depends only on how it is actually measured at the end of its journey. This is exactly what the ANU team found. “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” said Associate Professor Andrew Truscott from the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering. http://phys.org/news/2015-05-quantum-theory-weirdness.html
Likewise, the following violation of Leggett’s inequality stressed ‘the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it.’
Quantum physics says goodbye to reality – Apr 20, 2007 Excerpt: They found that, just as in the realizations of Bell’s thought experiment, Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it. “Our study shows that ‘just’ giving up the concept of locality would not be enough to obtain a more complete description of quantum mechanics,” Aspelmeyer told Physics Web. “You would also have to give up certain intuitive features of realism.” http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/27640
Moreover, this recent 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 Experimental test of local observer-independence – 2019 Excerpt: ,,, If one holds fast to the assumptions of locality and free-choice, this result implies that quantum theory should be interpreted in an observer-dependent way. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.05080.pdf Quantum paradox points to shaky foundations of reality – George Musser – Aug. 17, 2020 Excerpt: Now, researchers in Australia and Taiwan offer perhaps the sharpest demonstration that Wigner’s paradox is real. In a study published this week in Nature Physics, they transform the thought experiment into a mathematical theorem that confirms the irreconcilable contradiction at the heart of the scenario. The team also tests the theorem with an experiment, using photons as proxies for the humans. Whereas Wigner believed resolving the paradox requires quantum mechanics to break down for large systems such as human observers, some of the new study’s authors believe something just as fundamental is on thin ice: objectivity. It could mean there is no such thing as an absolute fact, one that is as true for me as it is for you. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/quantum-paradox-points-shaky-foundations-reality
Because of such consistent and repeatable experiments like the preceding from quantum mechanics, Richard Conn Henry, who is Professor of Physics at John Hopkins University, stated “It is more than 80 years since the discovery of quantum mechanics gave us the most fundamental insight ever into our nature: the overturning of the Copernican Revolution, and the restoration of us human beings to centrality in the Universe.”
“It is more than 80 years since the discovery of quantum mechanics gave us the most fundamental insight ever into our nature: the overturning of the Copernican Revolution, and the restoration of us human beings to centrality in the Universe. And yet, have you ever before read a sentence having meaning similar to that of my preceding sentence? Likely you have not, and the reason you have not is, in my opinion, that physicists are in a state of denial, and have fears and agonies that are very similar to the fears and agonies that Copernicus and Galileo went through with their perturbations of society.” Richard Conn Henry – Professor of Physics – John Hopkins University http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/quantum.enigma.html
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And it is these large scale structures of the universe, combined on top of the CMBR anomalies, which, amazingly, overturn the Copernican principle and strongly support the ‘medieval’ belief that the earth should be considered to have a ‘central’ position in the universe. As the following article, (with an illustration) explains,
“Of course to have an exact position, (or what we would call an ‘exact center’ in the universe), we would need an X axis, a Y axis, and a Z axis, since that will give us three dimensions in Euclidean space. The CMB dipole and quadrupole gives us the X axis and Y axis but not a Z axis. Hence, the X and Y axis of the CMB provide a direction, but only an approximate position. That is why we have continually said that the CMB puts Earth “at or near the center of the universe.” For the Z-axis we depend on other information, such as quasars and galaxy alignment that the CMB cannot provide. For example, it has been discovered that the anisotropies of extended quasars and radio galaxies are aligned with the Earth’s equator and the North celestial pole (NCP)4.,,, Ashok K. Singal describes his shocking discovery in those terms: “What is intriguing even further is why such anisotropies should lie about a great circle decided purely by the orientation of earth’s rotation axis and/or the axis of its revolution around the sun? It looks as if these axes have a preferential placement in the larger scheme of things, implying an apparent breakdown of the Copernican principle or its more generalization, cosmological principle, upon which all modern cosmological theories are based upon.” – Ashok K. Singal4 “Is there a violation of the Copernican principle in radio sky,” Ashok K. Singal, Astronomy and Astrophysics Division, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad, India, May 17, 2103,.. Signal states: “We can rule out at a 99.995% confidence level the hypothesis that these asymmetries are merely due to statistical fluctuations.” – illustration https://i.postimg.cc/L8G3CbXN/DOUBLE-AXIS.png – article http://www.robertsungenis.com/gww/features/Welcome%20to%20Catholic%20Star%20Wars.pdf
Moreover, due to the ‘insane coincidence’ of the flatness of the universe being fine-tuned to within one part to the 10^57, we find that “These tiny temperature variations (in the CMBR) correspond to the largest scale structures of the observable universe.”
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.,,, 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
Thus, (besides the CMBR and the large scale structure of the universe combining to give the earth an ‘surprising’ centrality in the universe, (and due to the ‘insane coincidence’ of the flatness of the universe being fine-tuned to within one part to the 10^57 over the entire history of the universe), our best evidence from cosmology now reveals teleology, (i.e. a goal directed purpose, a plan), that specifically included the earth from the beginning of creation. The earth, from what our best science can now tell us, is not some random cosmic fluctuation as atheists have erroneously presumed within their ‘rapid inflation’ models.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Job 38:4-5 Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who fixed its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched a measuring line across it?
On top of all that, and the further support the Theistic claim that God had humans in mind all along, in the following paper, Robin Collins found that photons coming from the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) are ‘such as to maximize the intensity of the CMB as observed by typical observers.’
The Fine-Tuning for Discoverability – Robin Collins – March 22, 2014 Excerpt: Predictive and Explanatory Power of Discoverability – Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation ,,, The most dramatic confirmation of the discoverability/livability optimality thesis (DLO) is the dependence of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB) on the baryon to photon ratio.,,, ,,, The only livability effect this ratio has is on whether or not galaxies can form that have near – optimally livability zones. As long as this condition is met, the value of this ratio has no further effects on livability. Hence, the DLO predicts that within this range, the value of this ratio will be such as to maximize the intensity of the CMB as observed by typical observers. According to my calculations – which have been verified by three other physicists — to within the margin of error of the experimentally determined parameters (~20%), the value of the photon to baryon ratio is such that it maximizes the CMB. This is shown in Figure 1 below. (pg. 13) This is a case of a teleological thesis serving both a predictive and an ultimate explanatory role.,,, http://home.messiah.edu/~rcollins/Fine-tuning/Greer-Heard%20Forum%20paper%20draft%20for%20posting.pdf
Of related interest to that fact, we also find that we just so happen to also, “Live At The Right Time In Cosmic History to be able to observe the Cosmic Background Radiation”
We Live At The Right Time In Cosmic History to be able to observe the Cosmic Background Radiation – Hugh Ross – video (7:12 minute mark) https://youtu.be/MxOGeqVOsvc?t=431
And to further solidify the fact that humans have far more significance in this universe than atheists have falsely presupposed, (with their erroneous presumption of the Copernican principle), in the following video physicist Neil Turok states that “So we can go from 10 to the plus 25 to 10 to the minus 35. Now where are we? Well the size of a living cell is about 10 to the minus 5. Which is halfway between the two. In mathematical terms, we say it is the geometric mean. We live in the middle between the largest scale in physics,,, and the tiniest scale [in physics].”
“So we can go from 10 to the plus 25 to 10 to the minus 35. Now where are we? Well the size of a living cell is about 10 to the minus 5. Which is halfway between the two. In mathematical terms, we say it is the geometric mean. We live in the middle between the largest scale in physics,,, and the tiniest scale [in physics].” – Neil Turok as quoted at the 14:40 minute mark The Astonishing Simplicity of Everything – Neil Turok Public Lecture – video (12:00 minute mark, we live in the geometric mean, i.e. the middle, of the universe) https://youtu.be/f1x9lgX8GaE?t=715
The following interactive graph, gives very similar ‘rough ballpark’ figures, of 10 ^27 and 10-35, to Dr. Turok’s figures.
The Scale of the Universe https://htwins.net/scale2/
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General Relativity itself, one of the most powerful theories ever in the history of science, makes this point clear. As the late Stephen, ('chemical scum'), Hawking himself explained, ‘our observations of the heavens can be explained by assuming either the earth or the sun to be at rest.,,, the real advantage of the Copernican system is simply that the equations of motion are much simpler in the frame of reference in which the sun is at rest.’
“So which is real, the Ptolemaic or Copernican system? Although it is not uncommon for people to say that Copernicus proved Ptolemy wrong, that is not true. As in the case of our normal view versus that of the goldfish, one can use either picture as a model of the universe, for our observations of the heavens can be explained by assuming either the earth or the sun to be at rest. Despite its role in philosophical debates over the nature of our universe, the real advantage of the Copernican system is simply that the equations of motion are much simpler in the frame of reference in which the sun is at rest.” Stephen Hawking – The Grand Design – page 39 – 2010
And as George Ellis, (a former close colleague of Hawking), stated, “I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations… You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds…”
“People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations… For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations… You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds… What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.” – George Ellis – W. Wayt Gibbs, “Profile: George F. R. Ellis,” Scientific American, October 1995, Vol. 273, No.4, p. 55
And as Fred Hoyle, who discovered stellar nucleosynthesis, himself stated, “Today we cannot say that the Copernican theory is ‘right’ and the Ptolemaic theory ‘wrong’ in any meaningful physical sense.”
“The relation of the two pictures [geocentrism and geokineticism] is reduced to a mere coordinate transformation and it is the main tenet of the Einstein theory that any two ways of looking at the world which are related to each other by a coordinate transformation are entirely equivalent from a physical point of view…. Today we cannot say that the Copernican theory is ‘right’ and the Ptolemaic theory ‘wrong’ in any meaningful physical sense.” – Hoyle, Fred. Nicolaus Copernicus. London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., 1973.
And even as the man himself, Albert Einstein, stated, The two sentences: “the sun is at rest and the earth moves” or “the sun moves and the earth is at rest” would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different CS [coordinate systems].”
“Can we formulate physical laws so that they are valid for all CS [coordinate systems], not only those moving uniformly, but also those moving quite arbitrarily, relative to each other? […] The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either CS could be used with equal justification. The two sentences: “the sun is at rest and the earth moves” or “the sun moves and the earth is at rest” would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different CS.” – Einstein, A. and Infeld, L. (1938) The Evolution of Physics, p.212 (p.248 in original 1938 ed.);
There simply is no empirical reason to prefer the sun, nor any other place in the universe, as being central in the universe over and above the earth being considered central in the universe, in any model that we may choose to make for the universe. As Einstein himself noted,
“One need not view the existence of such centrifugal forces as originating from the motion of K’ [the Earth]; one could just as well account for them as resulting from the average rotational effect of distant, detectable masses as evidenced in the vicinity of K’ [the Earth], whereby K’ [the Earth] is treated as being at rest.” –Albert Einstein, quoted in Hans Thirring, “On the Effect of Distant Rotating Masses in Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation”, Physikalische Zeitschrift 22, 29, 1921 “If one rotates the shell *relative to the fixed stars* about an axis going through its center, a Coriolis force arises in the interior of the shell, *that is, the plane of a Foucault pendulum is dragged around*” –Albert Einstein, cited in “Gravitation”, Misner Thorne and Wheeler pp. 544-545. “We can’t feel our motion through space, nor has any physical experiment ever proved that the Earth actually is in motion.,,, If all the objects in space were removed save one, then no one could say whether that one remaining object was at rest or hurtling through the void at 100,000 miles per second” Historian Lincoln Barnett – “The Universe and Dr. Einstein” – pg 73 (contains a foreword by Albert Einstein)
In fact, as far as empirical science itself is concerned, in the 4 dimensional spacetime of Einstein’s General Relativity, we find that each 3-Dimensional point in the universe is central to the expansion of the universe,,,
Where is the centre of the universe?: Excerpt: There is no centre of the universe! According to the standard theories of cosmology, the universe started with a “Big Bang” about 14 thousand million years ago and has been expanding ever since. Yet there is no centre to the expansion; it is the same everywhere. The Big Bang should not be visualized as an ordinary explosion. The universe is not expanding out from a centre into space; rather, the whole universe is expanding and it is doing so equally at all places, as far as we can tell. http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/GR/centre.html
,,, and since any 3-Dimensional point can be considered central in the expanding 4-Dimensional space time of General Relativity, then, as the following articles make clear, it is now left completely open to whomever is making a model of the universe to decide for themselves what is to be considered central in the universe,,,
How Einstein Revealed the Universe’s Strange “Nonlocality” – George Musser | Oct 20, 2015 Excerpt: Under most circumstances, we can ignore this nonlocality. You can designate some available chunk of matter as a reference point and use it to anchor a coordinate grid. You can, to the chagrin of Santa Barbarans, take Los Angeles as the center of the universe and define every other place with respect to it. In this framework, you can go about your business in blissful ignorance of space’s fundamental inability to demarcate locations.,, In short, Einstein’s theory is nonlocal in a more subtle and insidious way than Newton’s theory of gravity was. Newtonian gravity acted at a distance, but at least it operated within a framework of absolute space. Einsteinian gravity has no such element of wizardry; its effects ripple through the universe at the speed of light. Yet it demolishes the framework, violating locality in what was, for Einstein, its most basic sense: the stipulation that all things have a location. General relativity confounds our intuitive picture of space as a kind of container in which material objects reside and forces us to search for an entirely new conception of place. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-einstein-revealed-the-universe-s-strange-nonlocality// How Einstein Lost His Bearings, and With Them, General Relativity – March 2018 Excerpt: Einstein’s field equations — the equations of general relativity — describe how the shape of space-time evolves in response to the presence of matter and energy. To describe that evolution, you need to impose on space-time a coordinate system — like lines of latitude and longitude — that tells you which points are where. The most important thing to recognize about coordinate systems is that they’re human contrivances. Maybe in one coordinate system we label a point (0, 0, 0), and in another we label that same point (1, 1, 1). The physical properties haven’t changed — we’ve just tagged the point differently. “Those labels are something about us, not something about the world,” said James Weatherall, a philosopher of science at the University of California, Irvine.,,, The Einstein field equations we have today are generally covariant. They express the same physical truths about the universe — how space-time curves in the presence of energy and matter — regardless of what coordinates you use to label things.,,, as Einstein discovered,,, the universe doesn’t admit any one privileged choice of coordinates. https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-einstein-lost-his-bearings-and-with-them-general-relativity-20180314/
In fact, according to the four-dimensional space-time of General Relativity, even individual people can be considered central in the universe,,,
You Technically Are the Center of the Universe – May 2016 Excerpt: (due to the 1 in 10^120 finely tuned expansion of the 4-D space-time of General Relativity) no matter where you stand, it will appear that everything in the universe is expanding around you. So the center of the universe is technically — everywhere. The moment you pick a frame of reference, that point becomes the center of the universe. Here’s another way to think about it: The sphere of space we can see around us is the visible universe. We’re looking at the light from stars that’s traveled millions or billions of years to reach us. When we reach the 13.8 billion-light-year point, we’re seeing the universe just moments after the Big Bang happened. But someone standing on another planet, a few light-years to the right, would see a different sphere of the universe. It’s sort of like lighting a match in the middle of a dark room: Your observable universe is the sphere of the room that the light illuminates. But someone standing in a different spot in the room will be able to see a different sphere. So technically, we are all standing at the center of our own observable universes. https://mic.com/articles/144214/you-technically-are-the-center-of-the-universe-thanks-to-a-wacky-physics-quirk
And to support the claim that even individual people can be considered central in the four-dimensional space-time of General Relativity, I note the often overlooked fact that when Einstein first formulated both Special and General relativity, he gave a ‘hypothetical’ observer a privileged frame of reference in which to make measurements in the universe.
Introduction to special relativity Excerpt: Einstein’s approach was based on thought experiments, calculations, and the principle of relativity, which is the notion that all physical laws should appear the same (that is, take the same basic form) to all inertial observers.,,, Each observer has a distinct “frame of reference” in which velocities are measured,,,, per wikipedia The happiest thought of my life. Excerpt: In 1920 Einstein commented that a thought came into his mind when writing the above-mentioned paper he called it “the happiest thought of my life”: “The gravitational field has only a relative existence… Because for an observer freely falling from the roof of a house – at least in his immediate surroundings – there exists no gravitational field.” http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node85.html
We will get back to observers being central in the universe in a little bit, but before we do that, and to more firmly establish that the earth, (and solar system itself) should be given a ‘privileged’ position in the universe, it is first necessary to point out that anomalies in the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR), (anomalies that were recently discovered by the WMAP and Planck telescopes), ‘strangely’ line up with the earth and solar system, Here is an excellent clip from “The Principle” that explains these ‘anomalies’ in the CMBR, that ‘unexpectedly’ line up with the earth and solar system, in an easy to understand manner.
Cosmic Microwave Background Proves Intelligent Design (disproves Copernican principle) (clip of “The Principle”) – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htV8WTyo4rw
Moreover, as the following paper highlights, we find that Radio Astronomy now reveals a surprising rotational coincidence for Earth in relation to the quasar and radio galaxy distributions in the universe, “implying an apparent breakdown of the Copernican principle or its more generalization, cosmological principle, upon which the standard cosmological model is based upon”,,,
A large anisotropy in the sky distribution of 3CRR quasars and other radio galaxies – Ashok K. Singal Astrophysics and Space Science volume 357, Article number: 152 (2015) Abstract We report the presence of large anisotropies in the sky distributions of powerful extended quasars as well as some other sub-classes of radio galaxies in the 3CRR survey, the most reliable and most intensively studied complete sample of strong steep-spectrum radio sources. The anisotropies lie about a plane passing through the equinoxes and the north celestial pole. Out of a total of 48 quasars in the sample, 33 of them lie in one half of the observed sky and the remaining 15 in the other half. The probability that in a random distribution of 3CRR quasars in the sky, statistical fluctuations could give rise to an asymmetry in observed numbers up to this level is only ?1 %. Also only about 1/4th of Fanaroff-Riley 1 (FR1) type of radio galaxies lie in the first half of the observed sky and the remainder in the second half. If we include all the observed asymmetries in the sky distributions of quasars and radio galaxies in the 3CRR sample, the probability of their occurrence by a chance combination reduces to ?2×10?5. Two pertinent but disturbing questions that could be raised here are—firstly why should there be such large anisotropies present in the sky distribution of some of the strongest and most distant discrete sources, implying inhomogeneities in the universe at very large scales (covering a fraction of the universe)? Secondly why should such anisotropies lie about a great circle decided purely by the orientation of earth’s rotation axis and/or the axis of its revolution around the sun? It seems yet more curious when we consider the other anisotropies, e.g., an alignment of the four normals to the quadrupole and octopole planes in the CMBR with the cosmological dipole and the equinoxes. Then there is the other recently reported large dipole anisotropy in the NVSS radio source distribution differing in magnitude from the CMBR dipole by a factor of four, and therefore not explained as due to the peculiar motion of the Solar system, yet aligned with the CMBR dipole which itself lies close to the line joining the equinoxes. Are these alignments a mere coincidence or do they imply that these axes have a preferential placement in the larger scheme of things, implying an apparent breakdown of the Copernican principle or its more generalization, cosmological principle, upon which the standard cosmological model is based upon? https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10509-015-2388-2
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I like the last line of the article,
For both Jews and Christians, here is the situation: We believe in an omnipotent, infinite God, and modern astronomical discoveries have confirmed that we inhabit a majestic universe befitting just such a creator. The psalmist got it right 3,000 years ago: “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1).
And indeed there is a popular old hymn that I grew up with that reflects exactly this sentiment of awe and wonder that believers have that God created such a vast universe,
Carrie Underwood - How Great Thou Art (Official Performance Video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf6C0L_7-CA
As well there turns out to be a very good scientific reason why the universe is as vast as it is. Specifically, as Rob Sheldon explained, "One grain of sand more, one grain less and we would not be here.”
Bang for the Buck: What the BICEP2 Consortium's Discovery Means - Rob Sheldon - March 19, 2014 Excerpt: “But the inflationary claim is more spectacular because it was even more unexpected. Inflation was Alan Guth’s attempt to explain why the early universe after the Big Bang was so very “flat,”which is to say, why the force of the explosion matched the force of gravity to one part in 10 to the 60. To put this in perspective, there are about 10 to the 80 protons in the visible universe, so 10 to the 20 protons, about one grain of sand, would have unbalanced the Big Bang, causing it either to recollapse into a black hole, or to expand so fast as to never form stars and galaxies. One grain of sand more, one grain less and we would not be here.” Rob Sheldon - Physicist http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/03/bang_for_the_bu083451.html
Thus, aside from any aesthetic value judgement on the size of the universe, there is actually a good scientific reason why the universe is as vast as it is. Moreover, aside from the fallacious Theological argument from atheists that, if they were god, they would have created a much smaller universe, the real 'scientific' argument that atheists have is based upon the Copernican Principle and/or the Principle of Mediocrity, and is not, necessarily, based upon how small or vast the universe may be. There are two 'scientific' arguments that atheists try to use to try undermine the Judeo-Christian belief that, number 1, God created the universe and, number 2, that humans have a special place in the grand scheme of things. These two 'scientific' arguments are the false narrative of human evolution and the other argument is the false assumption that we have no special place in the universe, i.e. the Copernican Principle and/or the Principle of Mediocrity. And while, as I pointed out a couple of days ago, the purported scientific evidence for human evolution is far more questionable than atheists pretend that it is,,,
The evidence from the fossil record and genetics is not nearly as compelling as Darwinists, (and Theistic Evolutionists), have portrayed it to be to the general public. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/doubts-about-william-lane-craigs-creation-account-at-first-things/#comment-738348 Although the supposed genetic and fossil evidence for human evolution is far more illusory and misleading than many people have falsely been led to believe, the one place that even leading evolutionists admit that they have no realistic clue how a particular trait in humans could have possibly evolved is with human language.,,, It is hard to imagine a more convincing scientific proof that we are ‘made in the image of God’, than finding that both the universe and life itself are ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis, and that we, of all the creatures on earth, uniquely possess an ability to understand and create information, and have come to ‘master the planet’, not via brute force as is presupposed in Darwinian thought, but precisely because of our ability to infuse immaterial information into material substrates. Sept: 2021 https://uncommondescent.com/physics/what-steven-weinbergs-pointless-universe-really-meant/#comment-737105
,,, And while the purported scientific evidence for human evolution is far more questionable than atheists pretend that it is, it also important to realize that advances in science have also overturned the atheist's belief that humanity has no special place in humanity. Primarily, via the Copernican principle (and/or the Principle of Mediocrity), atheists erroneously hold that “humans (the Earth, or the Solar system) are not privileged observers of the universe.”
Copernican principle Excerpt: In physical cosmology, the Copernican principle, is an alternative name of the mediocrity principle,,, stating that humans (the Earth, or the Solar system) are not privileged observers of the universe.[1] Named for Copernican heliocentrism, it is a working assumption that arises from a modified cosmological extension of Copernicus’s argument of a moving Earth.[2] In some sense, it is equivalent to the mediocrity principle. – per wikipedia Carl Sagan coined the term ‘principle of mediocrity’ to refer to the idea that scientists should assume that nothing is special about humanity’s situation https://books.google.com/books?id=rR5BCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA187#v=onepage&q&f=false Mediocrity principle Excerpt: The (Mediocrity) principle has been taken to suggest that there is nothing very unusual about the evolution of the Solar System, Earth’s history, the evolution of biological complexity, human evolution, or any one nation. It is a heuristic in the vein of the Copernican principle, and is sometimes used as a philosophical statement about the place of humanity. The idea is to assume mediocrity, rather than starting with the assumption that a phenomenon is special, privileged, exceptional, or even superior.[2][3] – per wikipedia
The late Stephen Hawking, an atheist, succinctly summarized the atheist's 'reasoning' behind the principle of mediocrity here,
“The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies. We are so insignificant that I can't believe the whole universe exists for our benefit. That would be like saying that you would disappear if I closed my eyes.” - Stephen Hawking
And yet, despite the fact that virtually everyone, including the vast majority of Christians today, presently hold that the Copernican Principle is unquestionably true, (and therefore concede the necessary premise of the Principle of Mediocrity to atheists), the fact of the matter is that the Copernican Principal is now shown, via our most powerful theories in science, to be a false assumption. In establishing this fact, first it is important to realize that Copernicus never actually did experimentally prove that the geocentric model was an incorrect description of the universe, and that his heliocentric model of the universe was a ‘more accurate’ description of the universe.
The Tyranny of Simple Explanations – Philip Ball – AUG 11, 2016 Excerpt: Take the debate between the ancient geocentric view of the universe—in which the sun and planets move around a central Earth—and Nicolaus Copernicus’s heliocentric theory, with the Sun at the center and the Earth and other planets moving around it.,,, It is often claimed that, by the 16th century, this Ptolemaic model of the universe had become so laden with these epicycles that it was on the point of falling apart. Then along came the Polish astronomer with his heliocentric universe, and no more epicycles were needed. The two theories explained the same astronomical observations, but Copernicus’s was simpler, and so Occam’s razor tells us to prefer it. This is wrong for many reasons. First, Copernicus didn’t do away with epicycles.,,, In an introductory tract called the Commentariolus, published around 1514, he said he could explain the motions of the heavens with “just” 34 epicycles. Many later commentators took this to mean that the geocentric model must have needed many more than 34, but there’s no actual evidence for that. And the historian of astronomy Owen Gingerich has dismissed the common assumption that the Ptolemaic model was so epicycle-heavy that it was close to collapse. He argues that a relatively simple design was probably still in use in Copernicus’s time.,,, http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/08/occams-razor/495332/
Simply put, just because the earth is not to be considered central in the solar system itself, that does not automatically mean that the Earth cannot be considered central in the universe as a whole. The sun itself, contrary to what Nicolaus Copernicus held to be true in his heliocentric model, is certainly not to be considered central in the universe.
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) was a mathematician and astronomer who proposed that the sun was stationary in the center of the universe and the earth revolved around it. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/copernicus/
Shoot, the sun itself, contrary to what Copernicus held, is not even to be considered the ‘true center’ of the solar system, (much less is it to be considered the ‘true center’ of our galaxy, and even much less than that is it to be considered the ‘true center’ of the universe as a whole).
Scientists Have Pinpointed the True Center of the Solar System – It’s not where you think. – BY Caroline Delbert – JUL 2, 2020 *Researchers are using a new software model to pinpoint the true center of the solar system. * Massive, bossy Jupiter pulls the center slightly out of true with its gravity field. * The true center is just outside of the sun’s surface, depending on where Jupiter is. Excerpt: Even without third-generation GPS technology, scientists have pinpointed the center of our solar system. Yes, we revolve around the sun, but it’s not as simple as the center of the sun. Instead, the shape and interacting gravities in the solar system place the center just outside the sun’s surface. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a33073525/where-is-center-solar-system/
bornagain77_{October 13, 2021
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Interesting points. Atheists look at the wrong side of a cross stitch. They see the chaos and nothing more than the chaos. By turning it around, which is the side that those of us who believe in God do, shows the beauty of everything.BobRyan_{October 12, 2021
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