“The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.” So begins this new offering.
I’ve been away from UD for some time, and there is a very simple reason. Trying to convince people, who choose to believe otherwise, that random errors cannot produce complex computer programs, as in living systems, is a hopeless task. The anti-science materialist is a nearly completely lost cause. (I say “nearly” because I am a rare exception.)
However, from time to time I check in on the latest attempts of materialists to peddle their irrational wares to easily seduced victims.
By the way, if “the cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be,” wouldn’t that completely invalidate String Theory, which depends on 10 or 11 dimensions of space-time in order that its mathematics make sense?
Just asking.
It is useless to argue against tautologies such as particular definition of “cosmos”.
That opening statement “The cosmos is all there is …” was Carl Sagan, probably from the original Cosmos TV series. I recognize the voice.
I expect that astrophysicists take those dimensions to be part of the cosmos.
So nature gave rise to nature. The sad part is there are people who buy into that.
Gil:
Leonard Euler, often praised here for the genius of his mathematics, also had some insights into people who are beyond the reach of reason:
But we should keep in mind that the debate is not for those but for others who are less fixed in their ideology and who can be shown clearly the behaviour Euler described.
Gil,
after seeing how the challenge of a bright red ball on a table has been responded to, you have a point.
SteveO,
So do you.
KF
PS: SO, you are citing Euler — one of the greatest ever mathematicians — in his reply to the freethinkers, regarding a defense of revelation. Let me link: http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/.....2trans.pdf
“If these people maintained the slightest rigor, the slightest taste for the truth, it would be quite easy to steer them away from their errors; but their tendency towards stubbornness makes this completely impossible.”
Leonard Euler
After years of dealing with a few fairly dogmatic, and pretty rude, atheists that quote from Euler rings especially true for me. Indeed, if some of the more entrenched atheists were open to reason even in the least then the argument from reason should at least give them pause for thoughtful consideration:
“One absolutely central inconsistency ruins [the popular scientific philosophy]. The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears… unless Reason is an absolute, all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based.”
—C.S. Lewis, Is Theology Poetry (aka the Argument from Reason)
C.S. Lewis, Reason, and Naturalism: An Interview with Dr. Jay Richards – audio
http://www.idthefuture.com/201.....alism.html
The Argument From Reason – resource page
http://www.reasonsforgod.org/t.....om-reason/
The Argument from Reason – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKX-QtEo2fI
Neil,
Check out Brian Greene’s fabulous PBS series on string theory, entitled The Elegant Universe. You can stream it for free online.
The 10, and eventually 11 dimensions which Ed Witten’s mathematics used to unify the theory, clearly imply extra-cosmological realities, since our cosmos is by definition a space-time (i.e., four-dimensional) realm.
Actually, I expect that those extra dimensions do exist — a realm in which our timeless and spaceless souls exist.
Of course, the notion that random errors filtered by natural selection can produce the complex information-processing technology found in living systems is simply absurd. It is for such things that the term no-brainer was invented.
Seeing as this thread on ‘Cosmos’ has ventured into extra dimensions and Leonard Euler, I think to further elaborate on Euler’s Identity and how his work relates to the Cosmos in general is not too much of a stretch for this thread:
First a little background so as to increase the effect of Euler’s Identity and how it relates to the ‘Cosmos’. It is found that mathematics is ‘incomplete’:
i.e. the ‘incompleteness theorem’ shows that the ‘truthfulness’ of any mathematical equation is not held within the equation itself but is dependent on God to derive its ultimate truthfulness:
Now with that point established, onto Euler’s Identity:
The following is the very ‘different’ equation, from the equations normally associated with physics, that is found to have striking correspondence the ‘macro’ structure of the universe (Cosmos) as well as striking correspondence to how the universe (Cosmos) operates:
Believe it or not, the five most important numbers in mathematics are tied together, through the complex domain in Euler’s number, And that points, ever so subtly but strongly, to a world of reality beyond the immediately physical. Many people resist the implications, but there the compass needle points to a transcendent reality that governs our 3D ‘physical’ reality.
(of note; Euler’s Number (equation) is more properly called Euler’s Identity in math circles.)
Moreover Euler’s Identity, rather than just being the ‘most enigmatic equation’ in math, finds striking correlation to how our 3D reality is actually structured,,,
The universe is found to actually be a circular sphere which ‘coincidentally’ corresponds to the circle of pi within Euler’s identity:
The finely tuned ‘flatness’ of the entire universe, which ‘coincidentally’ corresponds to the diameter of pi in Euler’s identity, is found on this following site:
This following videos show that the universe also has a primary characteristic of expanding/growing equally in all places, which ‘coincidentally’ strongly corresponds to the ‘e’ in Euler’s identity. ‘e’ is the constant that is used in equations of math for finding what the true rates of growth and decay are for any given mathematical problem trying to find as such in this universe:
This following video shows how finely tuned the ‘4-Dimensional’ expansion of the universe is (1 in 10^120);
Here are the verses in the Bible, which were written over 2000 years before the discovery of the finely tuned expansion of the universe by ‘Dark Energy’, that speak of God ‘Stretching out the Heavens’; Job 9:8; Isaiah 40:22; Isaiah 40:24; Isaiah 48:13; Zechariah 12:1; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 42:5; Isaiah 45:12; Isaiah 51:13; Jeremiah 51:15; Jeremiah 10:12. The following verse is one of my favorites out of the group of verses:
Towards the end of the following video, Michael Denton speaks of the square root of negative 1 being necessary to understand the foundational quantum behavior of this universe. The square root of -1 is also ‘coincidentally’ found in Euler’s identity:
Now I find it extremely strange, miraculous even, that the enigmatic Euler’s identity, which was deduced centuries ago, would find such striking correlation to how reality is actually found to be structured by modern science. In pi we have correlation to the ‘sphere of the universe’ as revealed by the Cosmic Background radiation, as well pi correlates to the finely-tuned ‘geometric flatness’ within the ‘sphere of the universe’ that has now been found. In ‘e’ we have the fundamental constant that is used for ascertaining exponential growth in math that strongly correlates to the fact that space-time is ‘expanding/growing equally’ in all places of the universe. In the square root of -1 we have what is termed a ‘imaginary number’, which was first proposed to help solve equations like x2+ 1 = 0 back in the 17th century, yet now, as Michael Denton pointed out in his video, it is found that the square root of -1 is required to explain the behavior of quantum mechanics in this universe. The correlation of Euler’s identity, to the foundational characteristics of how this universe is constructed and operates, is something that should be enough to send shivers down any decent mathematicians spine.
Dr. William Dembski has even related 1 and 0, which are also found in Euler’s identity, to theology here:
Of note: I hold ‘growing large without measure’ to be a lesser quality infinity than a fraction in which the denominator goes to zero. The reason why I hold it to be a ‘lesser quality infinity’ is stated at the 4:30 minute mark of the following video:
The mystery doesn’t stop there, this following website, and video, has the complete working out of the math of Pi and e in the Bible, in the Hebrew and Greek languages respectively, for Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1:
Further discussion relating Euler’s identity to General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and :
supplemental note:
Music and verse: