Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

The unthinkable universe strangely points where materialists dare not boldly go

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

Salvo 44 From retired nuclear engineer Regis Nicoll at Salvo 44:

We know from experience that when an object, like a car, absorbs energy by crashing into another object, it suffers damage. If I want my car repaired, I don’t just let it sit and expect it to return to its original condition by itself. Rather, I take it to a body shop, where it will be restored by the skillful hands of trained technicians. And yet, when one of my desk’s atoms gets damaged from bumping into one of its neighbors, it quickly returns to its original condition, all on its own. This is very strange.

Equally strange is the phenomenon of the electrons’ “orbit.” Unlike the Earth, whose orbit is slowly spiraling toward the sun, the electrons in an atom are held in fixed regions. But the real mystery is why, given its positively charged nucleus and negatively charged electrons, the atom doesn’t quickly self-destruct. In fact, according to the laws of electrodynamics, atomic annihilation should occur in less than a microsecond.

The stability—indeed, the very existence—of the atom suggests something supra-natural. But since the materialistic worldview does not allow for that, its adherents were challenged to discover a mechanism by which atomic stability could be maintained. However, instead of making a discovery, they settled for coming up with a term, “quantum confinement,” which is a scientific label describing, rather than explaining, the phenomenon. More.

Naturalism, in general, is a label rather than a grapple with facts.

See also: The Big Bang: Put simply, the facts are wrong.

Comments
LOL ! Quantum confinement is a phenomenological model. Would you say converting multibody body problem to 2 body problem too is just 'scientific labeling' ?! Wonder what this 'Nuclear Engineer' did for 30 long years.uncommon_avles
April 17, 2018
April
04
Apr
17
17
2018
12:32 AM
12
12
32
AM
PDT
Seversky Naturalism, inasmuch as it means anything, to me means broadly the study of the nature of phenomena that are observed to exist, however indirectly; Easily refuted. If something is possessed of a 'nature' it can be understood employing methodological naturalism. The refutation: Mental phenomena have a 'nature' only so far as one can observe the signs or effects of the mental phenomena. They do not have such a nature as to the origins of mental phenomena because mental phenomena can and do exist independent of nature. This is easily illustrated as the abject failure of methodological naturalism in the search for a cause or etiology of something like schizophrenia, much less a cure. It is also supported in the mushrooming research into the healing properties of clinical psychedelic application, which in case you haven't noticed, is a field of study of yours truly. This research has a somewhat pathetic tangential component in that the researchers, to maintain credibility in the 'scientific' (read materialistic) literature, have to bow down to materialists in government and in the medical sciences by doing useless MRI studies of blood flow in the brains of subjects under the influence of psilocybin. This activity violates the motto of psychedelic research: "set and setting are utmost in importance" which you would understand if you've had the unpleasant experience of MRI imaging. Since psychedelics have proven an invaluable tool in psychotherapy, the materialists are determined to prove that the benefits can be had by forcing similar "brain changes" by other methods avoiding the powerful spiritual experiences that accompany successful psychedelic treatment. These powerful spiritual experiences are of course labelled "hallucinations" by the rulers of materialistic science, and so we have to find a way to fix brains without "hallucinations" according to them. Which can easily be laughed at, as the research authors themselves have stated over and over for decades that the type of EXPERIENCE the subject reports having is directly correlated to the degree of relief of symptoms and the related signs or addictive behavior which are achieved. I have posted the following video before but here is a chief researcher herself stating the obvious: the success of an ibogaine session to halt addiction appears dependent upon the type of experience the patient has. This flies in the face of philosophical naturalism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syztZcpj69Ugroovamos
April 16, 2018
April
04
Apr
16
16
2018
11:03 AM
11
11
03
AM
PDT
Excellent post. Thank you.Truth Will Set You Free
April 16, 2018
April
04
Apr
16
16
2018
07:07 AM
7
07
07
AM
PDT
Seversky:
Naturalism, inasmuch as it means anything, to me means broadly the study of the nature of phenomena that are observed to exist, however indirectly; what makes a phenomenon itself and not something else. On this view, even God, if such a being is observed to exist, would be a natural phenomenon. He would have a nature which makes Him something other than random chaos and which, in principle, we could study.
By this, ID becomes naturalistic; as naturalistic as the 2nd law of thermodynamics, as long as the design inference continues to prove as reliable.
There’s no need for any “supra-natural” explanations, just a better understanding and better theories of the natural world.
This requires that humans are capable of observing and understanding the self-necessary root of such. I have great doubts, even expecting a divinely engineered human mind; and there's no reason to believe it's reducible to the "dog logic"++ produced by hypothetical unguided evolutionary processes.LocalMinimum
April 15, 2018
April
04
Apr
15
15
2018
11:37 AM
11
11
37
AM
PDT
Naturalism requires what we observe to be produced by nature. And seeing that natural processes cannot account for the origin of nature it fails.ET
April 15, 2018
April
04
Apr
15
15
2018
08:43 AM
8
08
43
AM
PDT
Naturalism, inasmuch as it means anything, to me means broadly the study of the nature of phenomena that are observed to exist, however indirectly; what makes a phenomenon itself and not something else. On this view, even God, if such a being is observed to exist, would be a natural phenomenon. He would have a nature which makes Him something other than random chaos and which, in principle, we could study. Quantum theory has revealed the nature of material or physical reality at the sub-atomic scale. To that extent it is a materialistic theory. Yes, the phenomena observed at that level are weird and counter-intuitive but, to borrow from Samuel Johnson, knowing that doesn't change the fact that it hurts when you stub your toe against a rock. I don't know where our nuclear engineer got this idea that the Earth is spiraling into the Sun. According to what I found on a Google search, if anything the Earth is moving away from the Sun, although by such a tiny amount annually it has no observable effect. And, if our current understanding of the nature of the physical world is correct, electrons orbit nucleii, satellites orbit planets and planets orbit stars because they are at the cusp of the balance of forces acting on them. As long as that balance is undisturbed they will continue serenely on their way. But we can disturb the balance of forces that gives an atom its form by shooting sufficiently energetic particle into it. We can split the atom. And if a massive body like a wandering black were to enter our solar system, it wouldn't have to hit anything. The massive upheaval it would cause to the balance of gravitational forces in our solar system could be catastrophic for the Earth. There's no need for any "supra-natural" explanations, just a better understanding and better theories of the natural world.Seversky
April 15, 2018
April
04
Apr
15
15
2018
07:27 AM
7
07
27
AM
PDT

Leave a Reply