Given that we are said to live in a post-truth age, we ought to pay attention when an astrophysicist offers to explain what truth means to a scientist:
Even the most successful scientific theories imaginable will, by their very nature, have a limited range of validity. But we can theorize whatever we like, and when a new theory meets the following three criteria:
● it achieves all of the successes of the prevailing, pre-existing theory [in this case, no fine-tuning or a multiverse],
● it succeeds where the current theory is known to fail,
● and it makes novel predictions for hitherto unmeasured phenomena, distinct from the prior theory, that pass the critical observational or experimental tests,
It will supersede the current one as our best approximation of a scientific truth.
Ethan Siegel, “Ask Ethan: What Does ‘Truth’ Mean To A Scientist?” at Forbes
See also: Ethan Siegel 2014: The multiverse is not the answer
Ethan Siegel 2019 An Astrophysicist Makes Clear Why A Multiverse MUST Exist
How to talk yourself into believing in a multiverse Ethan Siegel edition, 2018
Logic vs. the multiverse: Gunter Bechly offers some insights
and
Ethan Siegel tackles fine-tuning at Forbes
Also: Is there life Post-Truth?
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Siegel says the following goalposts need to be passed for a new theory to be accepted as provisional or approximate truth by science:
It occurs to me he grossly overestimates the openmindedness of the scientific community. A new theory may meet these criteria but will inevitably be rejected if it conflicts with the prevailing Zeitgeist or paradigm. An example of this is the hypothesis that fine tuning is real and that intelligence in the origin of the universe is the explanation of fine tuning. This concept meets requirement (1): it certainly doesn’t invalidate the Standard Model of physics. It certainly meets requirement (2) – it explains the hitherto mysterious and unexplainable fact of the incredibly fine tuning of much of physics for the existence of life as we know it . And it meets requirement (3) – repeatedly, new physics research has revealed new particles and interactions that continue to be apparently “fine tuned”. Also, consider the well-known discovery by Fred Hoyle that the carbon resonance and its nucleosynthesis in stars had to be very finely tuned for this element (essential to life) to have its required and observed abundance. Hoyle successfully predicted this fine tuning based on the hypothesis that fine tuning of carbon nucleosynthesis must be the case since abundant carbon is essential for our existence.
But despite this the hypothesis of intelligence in the origin of the universe as the explanation for fine tuning is taboo because it involves teleology.
‘ it achieves all of the successes of the prevailing, pre-existing theory [in this case, no fine-tuning ‘ so the current consensus standard SCM -LCDNM even if they do assert this, does not mean the actuality, and if not the actuality, a new hypothesis merely has to say fine tuning, all else being = and it outweighs the current model.
Just like w/in ID outweighs NDT if the actuality is ID,
by the way, SPIRAL cosmological redshift and hypothesis slaughters SCM-LCDM based on SPIRAL it being a far higher probability description of the empirical observations.
Siegel is reciting the standard dogma for the faithful. I’m sure he knows that it takes at a minimum the retirement of an entire generation of scientists for any theory to get jettisoned in favor of another. But every so often at Forbes, WSJ, PBS, etc., they have to speak the party line.
Interestingly, Ethan Siegel offers this particular example for us to determine whether or not something is scientifically true:
And yet, exactly where does this ‘perfect sphere’ and/or the ‘perfect oblate spheroid’ exist for scientists in order for them to be able to determine the truth of whether the earth is a sphere or not? There simply are no geometrically perfect spheres in the universe for them to compare the earth to in order for them to be able to determine the truth of falsity of the claim that the earth is a sphere.
As Dr. Michael Egnor points out, “Mathematics is entirely about concepts, which have no precise instantiation in nature,,”
And as M. Anthony Mills points out, the fact that mathematical objects are immaterial falsifies the reductive materialism of the Darwinian worldview since “these “abstract objects” are not material. Thus, one cannot take science as the only sure guide to reality and at the same time discount disbelief in all immaterial realities.”
Some atheists can argue, and have argued, that these immaterial mathematical objects independently exist in some sort of timeless platonic realm and that they do not need God in order to explain them. Max Tegmark argues that very point in his 2015 book “Our Mathematical Universe”
In the following article, George Ellis remarks that “Tegmark has argued that every consistent mathematical structure exists in some disconnected universe. Tegmark also believes that nothing else exists beyond the consistent mathematical structures. Tegmark is himself nothing more than a consistent mathematical structure. This is a view that assigns to mathematical structures a degree of agency that they are not otherwise thought to possess.”
To refute Tegmark’s belief that every consistent mathematical structure exists in some disconnected universe, I would like to introduce Tegmark to Kurt Gödel.
Gödel has shown, with his incompleteness theorems, that no scientific cosmology, which of necessity must be highly mathematical, can have its proof of consistency within itself as far as mathematics go. In absence of such consistency, all mathematical models,,, fall inherently short of being that theory which shows in virtue of its a priori truth that the world can only be what it is and nothing else. This is true even if the theory happened to account for perfect accuracy for all phenomena of the physical world known at a particular time.”
To further clarify this devastating point about Godel’s incompleteness theorems in regards to Tegmark’s mathematical mutiverse,,, DAVID P. GOLDMAN states that ‘we cannot construct an ontology that makes God dispensable. Secularists can dismiss this as a mere exercise within predefined rules of the game of mathematical logic, but that is sour grapes, for it was the secular side that hoped to substitute logic for God in the first place. Gödel’s critique of the continuum hypothesis has the same implication as his incompleteness theorems: Mathematics never will create the sort of closed system that sorts reality into neat boxes.’
Thus contrary to what Tegmark and other atheists might like to presuppose, the fact of the matter is that these perfect mathematical objects, (that Ethan Siegel was comparing the earth to to see if it was ‘true’ whether or not the earth was truly a ‘perfect sphere’ and/or a ‘perfect oblate spheroid), do not exist independently of the mind of God, nor, (if we did not in fact have immaterial minds), would we be able to grasp the concepts of these perfect mathematical objects in the first place. As Johannes Kepler noted, “Geometry is unique and eternal, a reflection from the mind of God. That mankind shares in it is because man is an image of God.”
Thus Ethan Siegel, unbeknownst to himself, in his appeal to a ‘perfect sphere’ and/or a ‘perfect oblate spheroid to determine the truth of the claim that the earth is a sphere, was in fact appealing to the Mind of God in order to find out the truth of the claim. In fact Ethan Siegel, again unbeknownst to himself, just validated “The Argument from Truth” for God’s existence.
Moreover, ever since modern science was born in medieval Christian Europe, science has had a history of looking for ‘platonic perfection’, and assuming the Mind of God to be behind that ‘platonic perfection’. That is to say, that science has a history of reaching for perfect agreement between the immaterial mathematics that describe a facet of this universe and the experimental results that measure those mathematical predictions.
Copernicus, (who was heavily influenced by Platonic thinking), imagined (incorrectly) that the planets move in perfect circles (rather than ellipses). Later, Newton, for allowing God could adjust the orbits of the planets, was chastised by Leibniz, (and Laplace) for having a “very narrow ideas about the wisdom and the power of God.”.. i.e. For having a narrow view of the perfection of God.
Normally, as mentioned previously by Dr. Michael Egnor, and as Ethan Siegel himself alluded to in his article, “Mathematics is entirely about concepts, which have no precise instantiation in nature,,”
And indeed for most of the history of modern science in the Christian west, finding ‘platonic perfection’ for the mathematical descriptions of the universe has been a very elusive goal. This all changed with the discoveries of Special Relativity, General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. That is to say, as far as experimental testing will allow, there is no discrepancy to be found between what the mathematical descriptions of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics predict and what our most advanced scientific testing of those predictions are able to measure.
As well, quantum electrodynamics (QED), which is a combination of special relativity and quantum mechanics, also now joins the list of perfect mathematical descriptions of the universe in which we can find no deviation from what the mathematics predict and what our best experimental testing can discern. In other words, as far as we can tell, ‘platonic perfection’ is reached for QED:
As Nima Arkani-Hamed, the discoverer of the amplituhedron, stated “It seems inconceivable that this intricate web of perfect mathematical descriptions is random or happenstance. This mystery must have an explanation.”,,,
Another very important place where ‘platonic perfection’ is now shown to be ‘perfectly reached’ in the universe, (as far as our most precise testing will allow), is for the ‘flatness’ of the universe.
Moreover, this ‘insane coincidence’ of ‘plantonic perfection’ being reached for the axiomatic ‘primitive object’ of the line just so happens to be necessary for us to even be able to practice math and science, (and apply technology in our world), in the first place:
Simply put, if the universe were not ‘ever-so-boringly’ flat (and if the universal constants were not also ‘ever-so-boringly’ constant), but the universe were instead governed by randomness, as atheists presuppose, or governed by some other of the infinitude of ‘platonic topologies’ that were possible, modern science and technology would have never gotten off the ground here on earth.
Nor, if platonic perfection were not present for the flatness of the universe would we have eventually been able to deduce the ‘platonic perfection’ that is revealed in the ‘higher dimensional’ mathematics that lay behind Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
More interesting still, these findings of ‘platonic perfection’ for the higher dimensional mathematics that lay behind Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are VERY friendly to overriding Christian presuppositions of life after death as well as the presupposition of God upholding this universe in its continual existence. The beginning of the following video goes over some of those VERY friendly Christian implications
At the end of his article Ethan Siegel also claimed that all scientific theories are merely provisional and that “The failure of a theory is actually the ultimate scientific success: an opportunity to find an even better scientific truth to approximate reality.”
In an effort to help Ethan Siegel “to find an even better scientific truth to approximate reality”, might I suggest allowing the agent causality of God “back’ into physics as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned?
For instance, Sir Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Michael Faraday, and Max Planck, to name a few of the Christian founders who presupposed the Agent Causality of God to be behind physics:
Most everyone who is looking for the next scientific theory to superseded the ‘platonically perfect’ theories of relativity and quantum mechanics are looking for a purely mathematical theory in order to do so. Yet mathematics is, for the most part, held to be deterministic and therefore, by default, Agent Causality will never be contained within a supposed mathematical ‘theory of everything’. As George Ellis noted in his critique of Max Tegmarks’s book “Our Mathematical Universe”, presupposing that we ourselves can be reduced to a mathematical description “is a view that assigns to mathematical structures a degree of agency that they are not otherwise thought to possess.”
In fact, our ability to devise new mathematical theorems is itself dependent on us having free will and/or agent causality. As the following article notes, “Creating new axioms (in mathematics) and free will are shown to be different aspects of the same phenomena: the creation of new information.”
Thus free will necessarily precedes any mathematical description that we may devise of the universe.
Interestingly, although free will itself is not contained within the equations of quantum theory itself, free will is, none-the-less, necessary for us to properly understand how the equations of quantum mechanics actually work.
As Steven Weinberg, an atheist, explains, “In the instrumentalist approach (in quantum mechanics) humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level.,,, the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.,,, In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure,,, Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,,”
In fact Weinberg, again an atheist, rejected the instrumentalist approach precisely because “humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level” and because it undermined the Darwinian worldview from within. Yet, regardless of how he and other atheists may prefer the world to behave, quantum mechanics itself could care less how atheists prefer the world to behave.
For instance, this recent 2019 experimental confirmation of the “Wigner’s Friend” thought experiment established that “measurement results,, must be understood relative to the observer who performed the measurement”.
Moreover, although there have been several major loopholes in quantum mechanics over the past several decades that atheists have tried to appeal to in order to try to avoid the ‘spooky’ Theistic implications of quantum mechanics, over the past several years each of those major loopholes have each been closed one by one. The last major loophole that was left to be closed was the “setting independence” and/or the ‘free-will’ loophole:
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.
Moreover, here is another recent interesting experiment by Anton Zeilinger, (and about 70 other researchers), that closed a technical loop-hole and insured the complete independence of the measurement settings in a Bell test by using the free will choices of 100,000 human participants instead of having a super fast randomizer determine the measurement settings (as is usually done in these quantum experiments).
Thus regardless of how Steven Weinberg and other atheists may prefer the universe to behave, with the closing of the last remaining free will loophole in quantum mechanics, “humans are indeed brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level”, and thus these recent findings from quantum mechanics directly undermine, as Weinberg himself stated, the “vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.”
Moreover allowing free will and/or Agent causality into the laws of physics at their most fundamental level has some fairly profound implications in our quest to find the supposed ‘theory of everything’.
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”.
In the following video Isabel Piczek 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.
The following article, (which is behind a paywall), states that ‘The bottom part of the cloth (containing the dorsal image) would have born all the weight of the man’s supine body, yet the dorsal image is not encoded with a greater amount of intensity than the frontal image.’
Kevin Moran, who is an optical engineer who worked on the mysterious ‘3-Dimensional’ nature of the Shroud image, states that,, ,,, “The radiation that made the image acted perfectly parallel to gravity. There is no side image.,,, 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,,, 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.”
In the following paper, the researchers 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.
And to further drive this point home, the following study ‘concluded that it would take 34 Thousand Billion Watts of VUV radiations to make the image on the shroud.’
Moreover, the overturning of the Copernican principle by both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics adds considerable weight to my claim that Jesus’s resurrection from the dead is the correct ‘theory of everything’
Verse and video: