New Scientist: Our understanding of the cosmos is “seriously wrong”

In his article, Siegel states

In terms of ambition, it's hard to ask for more than to know absolutely everything there is to know about the Universe. That's the ultimate scientific dream: not just to understand the laws that govern reality as fully and deeply as possible, but to understand how every single particle in existence behaved from the moment of the Universe's birth up through the present day.

I certainly can think of a much higher ambition. For instance Einstein's quote comes to mind:

"I am not interested in this phenomenon or that phenomenon," Einstein had said earlier in his life. "I want to know God's thoughts – the rest are mere details." - Albert Einstein

Of course, 'God's thoughts', in terms of being an inaccessible infinity, are far more problematic than Siegel's ambition to "understand how every single particle in existence behaved from the moment of the Universe's birth up through the present day."

Isaiah 55:8-9 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.

Of course Siegel might reply that, although Einstein made that quote, Einstein did not actually believe in a personal God that cared about humans personally but that Einstein's god was more 'abstract'.

The God of the Mathematicians – Goldman – 2010 The religious beliefs that guided Kurt Gödel’s revolutionary ideas Excerpt: As Gödel told Hao Wang, “Einstein’s religion [was] more abstract, like Spinoza and Indian philosophy. Spinoza’s god is less than a person; mine is more than a person; because God can play the role of a person.” http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/07/the-god-of-the-mathematicians

But in response to the claim that Einstein was basically an atheist when it came to believing in a personal God, I would respond that number 1, Einstein, in terms of our ability to comprehend the universe, conceded the reality of 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 http://inters.org/Einstein-Letter-Solovine

And number 2, I would also point out that Einstein' theory of General Relativity itself, regardless of what Einstein himself believed about a personal God, gives us very strong evidence for a 'personal' God who cares about each of us personally:

Overturning of the Copernican Principle by both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/we-are-invited-to-consider-a-simpler-perspective-on-the-laws-of-physics/#comment-680427

I find it extremely interesting, and strange, that quantum mechanics tells us that instantaneous quantum wave collapse to its 'uncertain' 3-D state is centered on each individual observer in the universe, whereas, 4-D space-time cosmology (General Relativity) tells us each 3-D point in the universe is central to the expansion of the universe. These findings of modern science are pretty much exactly what we would expect to see if this universe were indeed created, and sustained, from a higher dimension by an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal Being who knows everything that is happening everywhere in the universe at the same time. These findings certainly seem to go to the very heart of the age old question asked of many parents by their children, “How can God hear everybody’s prayers at the same time?”,,, i.e. Why should the expansion of the universe, or the quantum wave collapse of the entire universe, even care that you or I, or anyone else, should exist? Only Theism offers a rational explanation as to why you or I, or anyone else, should have such undeserved significance in such a vast universe:

Hebrews 4:13 "And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to Whom we must give account." Psalm 33:13-15 The LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men. From the place of His dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works. Psalm 139:7-14 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Moreover, allowing 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), 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 are a few posts where I lay out and defend some of the evidence for that claim: - How Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness Correlate - video - 56:30 minute mark https://youtu.be/4f0hL3Nrdas?t=3389 Verse:

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

Of supplemental note, Siegel's reliance on inflation cosmology as the basis for many of his claims in his article is not nearly as solid as he portrayed it to be in his article: The initial purpose of cosmological inflation was to try to explain why the universe is surprisingly flat and so smoothly distributed, or homogeneous. Yet, Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University, who helped develop inflationary theory but is now scathing of it, states that the idea that inflationary theory produces any observable predictions at all,,, is based on a simplification of the theory that simply does not hold true. "The deeper problem is that once inflation starts, it doesn't end the way these simplistic calculations suggest," he says. "Instead, due to quantum physics it leads to a multiverse where the universe breaks up into an infinite number of patches. The patches explore all conceivable properties as you go from patch to patch. So that means it doesn't make any sense to say what inflation predicts, except to say it predicts everything.

Cosmic inflation is dead, long live cosmic inflation - 25 September 2014 Excerpt: (Inflation) theory, the most widely held of cosmological ideas about the growth of our universe after the big bang, explains a number of mysteries, including why the universe is surprisingly flat and so smoothly distributed, or homogeneous.,,, Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University, who helped develop inflationary theory but is now scathing of it, says this is potentially a blow for the theory, but that it pales in significance with inflation's other problems. Meet the multiverse Steinhardt says the idea that inflationary theory produces any observable predictions at all – even those potentially tested by BICEP2 – is based on a simplification of the theory that simply does not hold true. "The deeper problem is that once inflation starts, it doesn't end the way these simplistic calculations suggest," he says. "Instead, due to quantum physics it leads to a multiverse where the universe breaks up into an infinite number of patches. The patches explore all conceivable properties as you go from patch to patch. So that means it doesn't make any sense to say what inflation predicts, except to say it predicts everything. If it's physically possible, then it happens in the multiverse someplace Steinhardt says the point of inflation was to explain a remarkably simple universe. "So the last thing in the world you should be doing is introducing a multiverse of possibilities to explain such a simple thing," he says. "I think it's telling us in the clearest possible terms that we should be able to understand this and when we understand it it's going to come in a model that is extremely simple and compelling. And we thought inflation was it – but it isn't." http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26272-cosmic-inflation-is-dead-long-live-cosmic-inflation.html?page=1#.VCajrGl0y00

And as the old saying goes, a scientific theory that predicts everything predicts nothing at all. Even Max Tegmark himself admitted that inflation sabotages our ability to make useful predictions. In fact, he stated that because of inflation “we physicists are no longer able to predict anything at all!”

WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? Infinity - Max Tegmark - January 2014 and Feb. 2015 Excerpt: Physics is all about predicting the future from the past, but inflation seems to sabotage this: when we try to predict the probability that something particular will happen, inflation always gives the same useless answer: infinity divided by infinity. The problem is that whatever experiment you make, inflation predicts that there will be infinitely many copies of you far away in our infinite space, obtaining each physically possible outcome, and despite years of tooth-grinding in the cosmology community, no consensus has emerged on how to extract sensible answers from these infinities. So strictly speaking, we physicists are no longer able to predict anything at all! This means that today’s best theories similarly need a major shakeup, by retiring an incorrect assumption. Which one? Here’s my prime suspect: infinity. MAX TEGMARK – Physicist (actually the ‘theory’ that needs to be retired is the philosophy of Atheistic materialism in general) http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2015/02/20/infinity-ruining-physics/#.VOsRyS7cBCA

etc,, etc.. etc.. bornagain77

“The scene is ripe for the emergence of crackpot cosmologies like the multiverse, the computer sim universe, and why the space aliens are taking so long to land. Is that why we see so many of them?” “don’t fret that a better understanding of the universe will leave entertaining crackpots out in the cold. Won’t happen. Can’t.” :) jawa