Why is Seeing the Glaringly Obvious So Hard?

_{Barry Arrington

November 15, 2019

Intelligent Design}

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Yesterday I had an exchange with Seversky that illustrates something I have observed countless times over the years. Materialists have a blind spot regarding how their own arguments undermine, well, their own arguments. Here is the exchange:

Johnnyb wrote:

The reason for this is the precise theorem that Hoffman states – in evolutionary competition, fitness beats truth.

To which Sev responded:

Unless fitness is truth in which case there is no competition. How does Hoffman – or Plantinga – distinguish between “fitness” and “truth”? Are they comparing like with like?

I wrote:

But Sev, you know for a certain fact that according to your own premises fitness and truth are not the same. For 99% of human existence, 99% of humans have believed in a God or gods. Your premises compel you to say that evolutionary forces caused that state of affairs (for the simple reason that, under your premises, there are no other alternatives). You also say that a belief in a God or gods is a false belief. Therefore, simple logic applied to your own factual premises demands the conclusion that evolutionary forces selected for a false belief.

Sev:

I agree that evolution can select for false beliefs, religion being a possible example, but not that it mostly or always does. Human beings survive better in groups than on their own. Religious belief, even if false, can help to bind such groups together more tightly and make them more resilient in face of challenges. At that level, it is advantageous in terms of survival. On the other hand, believing that tigers are big, cuddly pets who just want to play is probably not going to be so advantageous and, over time, those holding such beliefs are less likely to survive and pass on that belief.

Barry

“I agree that evolution can select for false beliefs . . .” Then you have given away the store. If evolution can select for false beliefs, who is to say when it has selected for a false belief as opposed to a true one. You advance a candidate for what you believe to be a true belief (human beings survive better in groups). Yet, you admit that evolution may have caused you to believe that even though it is false.

It never ceases to astound me that seemingly intelligent people (and I count Sev among such), can’t seem to grasp the glaringly obvious end of the logic. If our beliefs are the product of blind material forces, we can NEVER know whether we believe them because they are actually true or because those blind material forces caused us to believe them even though they are false.

Comments

JaD
All the subjectivist has are moral opinions he believes are true for him.
Correct.
However, no-one else is obligated to accept his moral opinions.
Unless they share the same moral opinion, or one can convince the other if the value of his moral opinion.
The subjectivist is then left with a “morality” that has no moral obligation.
Not preventing same sex marriage is a subjective moral value. It started as something that was only believed by a small minority of society. By argument and rational logic this minority has convinced the majority of society about the moral value of not preventing it. You might argue that this is A legal obligation, not a moral one. But how is this any different than something like murder. There have always been people who don’t feel morally obligated to not kill other people. It is society that imposes this moral value, and others, in their legal systems, whether criminal or civil. KF is partially correct when he says that subjective morality is nothing more than might and manipulation make right. I would add self interest, cooperation and the ability to predict and extrapolate consequences of actions and how these consequences could negatively impact your self interest.Ed George_{November 17, 2019
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Barry
The materialists whine about the length of BA’s posts. I guess since the can’t refute his posts they feel like they have to say something.
If you are so enamoured of BA77’s writing style and arguments, why have you never given him admin rights to post OPs as you have with KF, Johnyb others?Ed George_{November 17, 2019
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as to:
That’s why nobody engages with those comments. They’re just too logically powerful.
correction:
That’s why no atheist, such as myself, hardly ever engages with those comments. They’re just too logically powerful* and the intellectual bankruptcy of my atheism will be exposed for all to see.
There, all better! *The logic is not really all that powerful, as John_a_designer pointed out in comment 42, it's just basic logic 101. A few related notes:
Naturalism and Self-Refutation – Michael Egnor – January 31, 2018 Excerpt: Furthermore, the very framework of Clark’s argument — logic — is neither material nor natural. Logic, after all, doesn’t exist “in the space-time continuum” and isn’t described by physics. What is the location of modus ponens? How much does Gödel’s incompleteness theorem weigh? What is the physics of non-contradiction? How many millimeters long is Clark’s argument for naturalism? Ironically the very logic that Clark employs to argue for naturalism is outside of any naturalistic frame. The strength of Clark’s defense of naturalism is that it is an attempt to present naturalism’s tenets clearly and logically. That is its weakness as well, because it exposes naturalism to scrutiny, and naturalism cannot withstand even minimal scrutiny. Even to define naturalism is to refute it. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/01/naturalism-and-self-refutation/ Is God Real? Evidence from the Laws of Logic - J. Warner Wallace Excerpt: All rational discussions (even those about the existence or non-existence of God) require the prior foundation of logical absolutes. You’d have a hard time making sense of any conversation if the Laws of Logic weren’t available to guide the discussion and provide rational boundaries. Here are three of the most important Laws of Logic you and I use every day: The Law of Identity Things “are” what they “are”. “A” is “A”. Each thing is the same with itself and different from another. By this it is meant that each thing (be it a universal or a particular) is composed of its own unique set of characteristic qualities or features. The Law of Non-Contradiction “A” cannot be both “A” and “Non-A” at the same time, in the same way and in the same sense. Contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time. The Law of Excluded Middle A statement is either true or false. For any proposition, either that proposition is true, or its negation is true. There is no middle position. For example, the claim that “A statement is either true or false” is either true or false. These logical rules are necessary in order for us to examine truth statements. We also need them to point out when someone is reasoning illogically. We use the Laws of Logic all the time; you couldn’t even begin to read or reason through this blog post if you didn’t employ these laws. In fact, you’ve never had an intelligent, rational conversation without using these laws. They’re not a matter of subjective opinion; they are, instead, objectively true. So, here’s an important question: “From where do the transcendent, objective laws of logic come?” As an atheist, I would have been the first to describe myself as rational. In fact, I saw myself as far more reasonable than many of the Christians I knew. But, I was basing my rationality on my ability to understand and employ the Laws of Logic. How could I account for these transcendent laws without the existence of a transcendent Law Giver? (1) The Objective Laws of Logic Exist We cannot deny the Laws of Logic exist. In fact, any reasonable or logical argument against the existence of these laws requires their existence in the first place. The Objective Laws of Logic Are Conceptual Laws These laws are not physical; they are conceptual. They cannot be seen under a microscope or weighed on a scale. They are abstract laws guiding logical, immaterial thought processes. The Objective Laws of Logic Are Transcendent The laws transcend location, culture and time. If we go forward or backward a million years, the laws of logic would still exist and apply, regardless of culture or geographic location. The Objective Laws of Logic Pre-Existed Mankind The transcendent and timeless nature of logical laws indicates they precede our existence or ability to recognize them. Even before humans were able to understand the law of non-contradiction, “A” could not have been “Non-A”. The Laws of Logic were discovered by humans, not created by humans. (2) All Conceptual Laws Reflect the Mind of a Law Giver All laws require law givers, including conceptual laws. We know this from our common experience in the world in which we live. The laws governing our society and culture, for example, are the result and reflection of minds. But more importantly, the conceptual Laws of Logic govern rational thought processes, and for this reason, they require the existence of a mind. (3) The Best and Most Reasonable Explanation for the Kind of Mind Necessary for the Existence of the Transcendent, Objective, Conceptual Laws of Logic is God The lawgiver capable of producing the immaterial, transcendent laws preceding our existence must also be an immaterial, transcendent and pre-existent mind. This description fits what we commonly think of when we think of a Creator God.,,, https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/is-god-real-evidence-from-the-laws-of-logic/
Verse, quotes, and notes:
John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” ‘the Word’ in John1:1 is translated from ‘Logos’ in Greek. Logos is also the root word from which we derive our modern word logic http://etymonline.com/?term=logic What is the Logos? Logos is a Greek word literally translated as “word, speech, or utterance.” However, in Greek philosophy, Logos refers to divine reason or the power that puts sense into the world making order instead of chaos.,,, In the Gospel of John, John writes “In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). John appealed to his readers by saying in essence, “You’ve been thinking, talking, and writing about the Word (divine reason) for centuries and now I will tell you who He is.” https://www.compellingtruth.org/what-is-the-Logos.html "Think of the irony: a professor of philosophy, who is paid only to reason, uses reason to argue against reason. Welcome to the bowels of atheist metaphysics. It would be funny if it were not so dangerous to our culture and to our souls" - AN ATHEIST ARGUES AGAINST REASON And thinks it is the reasonable thing to do MICHAEL EGNOR MAY 24, 2019 https://mindmatters.ai/2019/05/an-atheist-argues-against-reason/ “Atheists can give no reason why they should value reason, and Christians can show how anyone who believes in reason must also believe in God.” Cogito; Ergo Deus Est by Charles Edward White Philosophy Still Lives Because God Isn't Dead The Argument From Reason - resource page http://www.reasonsforgod.org/the-argument-from-reason/
bornagain77_{November 17, 2019
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Several years ago on a different site I got into a discussion about same sex marriage. Our interlocutor had responded to a question in the OP.
Here’s an answer to your question… There is nothing “essentially true” about marriage. Marriage is what we agree it is (or what most of us agree it is.) There is no “essential truth” about anything.
I replied: It is self-refuting to say there is ”no ‘essential truth’ about anything.” Didn’t you notice that you’re making an essential [indeed universal] truth claim about truth. Furthermore it takes the legs out from under every argument you have been making. Why should I even consider an argument that’s not true? This is why I have given up trying to argue with moral subjectivists. They don’t understand the irrationality of their argument. Logic 101 says you can’t prove anything deductively unless you begin with a factually true or self-evidently true premise. Again, the premise there is “no ‘essential truth’ about anything,” is self-refuting, which is basically the argument the subjectivist is making. All the subjectivist has are moral opinions he believes are true for him. However, no-one else is obligated to accept his moral opinions. The subjectivist is then left with a “morality” that has no moral obligation. What value is such a moral system? The answer is obvious: zero value.john_a_designer_{November 17, 2019
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That's why nobody engages with those comments. They're just too logically powerful.DerekDiMarco_{November 17, 2019
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The materialists whine about the length of BA's posts. I guess since the can't refute his posts they feel like they have to say something.Barry Arrington_{November 16, 2019
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DDM
@Ed: those numbers look way too low.
My understanding is that these are based on an arithmetic mean. A better indication would be the median or other robust estimates of the central tendency. Something like algorithm A from ISO 13528.Ed George_{November 16, 2019
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@Ed: those numbers look way too low.DerekDiMarco_{November 16, 2019
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Average word count per comment by year for BA77 2007: 329 2008: 211 2009: 302 2010: 275 2011: 367 2012: 416 2013: 414 2014: 501 2015: 573 2016: 706 2017: 797 2018: 786 2019: 998 I can only assume that BA77 is three times more convincing in his arguments in 2019 than he was in 2007. :) that is impressive.Ed George_{November 16, 2019
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Moreover, Gödel’s incompleteness theorem has now been extended to physics and is not just some abstract mathematical limit that prevents there from ever being a mathematical ‘theory of everything’ but is now shown to be, in actuality, a defining feature of reality: In the following article entitled ‘Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics’, which studied the derivation of macroscopic properties from a complete microscopic description, the researchers remark that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, The researchers further commented that their findings challenge the reductionists’ point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”
Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics – December 9, 2015 Excerpt: A mathematical problem underlying fundamental questions in particle and quantum physics is provably unsolvable,,, It is the first major problem in physics for which such a fundamental limitation could be proven. The findings are important because they show that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, “We knew about the possibility of problems that are undecidable in principle since the works of Turing and Gödel in the 1930s,” added Co-author Professor Michael Wolf from Technical University of Munich. “So far, however, this only concerned the very abstract corners of theoretical computer science and mathematical logic. No one had seriously contemplated this as a possibility right in the heart of theoretical physics before. But our results change this picture. From a more philosophical perspective, they also challenge the reductionists’ point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.” http://phys.org/news/2015-12-quantum-physics-problem-unsolvable-godel.html
Simply put, despite how much people may believe that there must be a single mathematical ‘theory of everything’ that exist out there somewhere, there, in fact, never will be a single mathematical theory of everything that links the microscopic world of quantum mechanics to the macroscopic world of General Relativity. And yet, all is not lost in our search for a "Theory of Everything" and/or in our search for truth with a capital T. I firmly believe that the true reconciliation of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity into the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ was successfully accomplished in Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead. And that this fact is testified to by noting the physical details that are revealed in a detailed examination of the Shroud of Turin. Basically and succinctly, 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), by rightly allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics then that 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:
Overturning of the Copernican Principle by both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/we-are-invited-to-consider-a-simpler-perspective-on-the-laws-of-physics/#comment-680427 (February 19, 2019) To support Isabel Piczek’s claim that the Shroud of Turin does indeed reveal a true ‘event horizon’, the following study 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.’,,, Moreover, besides gravity being dealt with, the shroud also gives us evidence that Quantum Mechanics 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. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/experiment-quantum-particles-can-violate-the-mathematical-pigeonhole-principle/#comment-673178 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/experiment-quantum-particles-can-violate-the-mathematical-pigeonhole-principle/#comment-673179
To give us a small glimpse of the power that was involved in Christ's resurrection from the dead, the following recent article found that, ”it would take 34 Thousand Billion Watts of VUV radiations to make the image on the shroud. This output of electromagnetic energy remains beyond human technology.”
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 to several billion watts )”. Comment The ENEA study of the Holy Shroud of Turin concluded that it would take 34 Thousand Billion Watts of VUV radiations to make the image on the shroud. This output of electromagnetic energy remains beyond human technology. http://westvirginianews.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-study-claims-shroud-of-turin-is.html
Verses:
John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 8:32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 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.
Supplemental notes:
Twenty Arguments God’s Existence – Peter Kreeft Excerpt: 11. The Argument from Truth This argument is closely related to the argument from consciousness. It comes mainly from Augustine. 1. Our limited minds can discover eternal truths about being. 2. Truth properly resides in a mind. 3. But the human mind is not eternal. 4. Therefore there must exist an eternal mind in which these truths reside. https://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm#11 Dr. Ed Feser – The Immateriality of the Intellect – video Excerpt: 1: Formal thought processes can have an exact or unambiguous conceptual content. However, 2: Nothing material can have an exact or unambiguous conceptual content. So, 3: Formal thought processes are not material. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNi0j19ZSpo
bornagain77_{November 16, 2019
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Hazel, an atheist, states
“My position is that there is no capital T truth,”
she also holds her position to be subjective:
I don’t think my belief that there is no truth with a capital T is a truth with a capital T. That should be obvious.
Why she personally believes that she gives no reason. Which is just as well because if she could give a coherent, irrefutable, reason why there is no objective Truth with a capital T then it would mean, of course, that it is objectively true that there is no truth with a capitial T. In other words, Hazel's personal opinion is self-refuting. i.e. If true then not true! Very much similar to the liar's paradox, i.e. "akin to the well-known liar’s paradox: "This statement is a lie." If the statement is true, then (as it says) it is not true, but a lie."
Why Evolutionary Theory Cannot Survive Itself - Nancy Pearcey - March 8, 2015 Excerpt: Gray has essentially said, if Darwin’s theory is true, then it "serves evolutionary success, not truth." In other words, if Darwin’s theory is true, then it is not true. Self-referential absurdity is akin to the well-known liar’s paradox: "This statement is a lie." If the statement is true, then (as it says) it is not true, but a lie.,,, Of course, the atheist pursuing his research has no choice but to rely on rationality, just as everyone else does. The point is that he has no philosophical basis for doing so. Only those who affirm a rational Creator have a basis for trusting human rationality. https://evolutionnews.org/2015/03/why_evolutionar/
But anyways, although Hazel, (for whatever severely misguided self-refuting reason), may find it desirable to deny that truth with a capital T exists, science itself, especially physics, is predicated on the belief that truth with a capital T exists. The practice of science itself is not only a search for various truths about reality but is also, ultimately, primarily a search for the truth with a capital T about reality. The search for the ultimate truth about reality in science takes the form of trying to find the hypothetical final mathematical ‘theory of everything’. It is hoped that this hypothetical final ‘theory of everything’ will be ‘capable of describing all phenomena in the universe.’
Theory of everything Excerpt: a theoretical framework revealing a deeper underlying reality,,,, a single theory that, in principle, is capable of describing all phenomena in the universe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything
In its present form this search for the "Theory of Everything", i.e this search for truth with a capital T, entails trying to mathematically unify general relativity and quantum field theory, (which is the unification quantum mechanics and special relativity), As the following article states, “The first attempt at unifying relativity and quantum mechanics took place when special relativity was merged with electromagnetism. This created the theory of quantum electrodynamics, or QED. It is an example of what has come to be known as relativistic quantum field theory, or just quantum field theory. QED is considered by most physicists to be the most precise theory of natural phenomena ever developed.”
Theories of the Universe: Quantum Mechanics vs. General Relativity Excerpt: The first attempt at unifying relativity and quantum mechanics took place when special relativity was merged with electromagnetism. This created the theory of quantum electrodynamics, or QED. It is an example of what has come to be known as relativistic quantum field theory, or just quantum field theory. QED is considered by most physicists to be the most precise theory of natural phenomena ever developed. In the 1960s and ’70s, the success of QED prompted other physicists to try an analogous approach to unifying the weak, the strong, and the gravitational forces. Out of these discoveries came another set of theories that merged the strong and weak forces called quantum chromodynamics, or QCD, and quantum electroweak theory, or simply the electroweak theory, which you’ve already been introduced to. If you examine the forces and particles that have been combined in the theories we just covered, you’ll notice that the obvious force missing is that of gravity (i.e. General Relativity). http://www.infoplease.com/cig/theories-universe/quantum-mechanics-vs-general-relativity.html Quantum field theory – History Excerpt: ,,, (Quantum field theory) QFT is an unavoidable consequence of the reconciliation of quantum mechanics with special relativity (Weinberg (1995)),,, The first achievement of quantum field theory, namely quantum electrodynamics (QED), is “still the paradigmatic example of a successful quantum field theory” (Weinberg (1995)). per wikipedia
Interestingly, “Although quantum field theory is fully compatible with the special theory of relativity, a relativistic treatment of quantum measurement has yet to be formulated.”, i.e. conscious observation was dropped by the wayside in QFT!
Not So Real – Sheldon Lee Glashow – Oct. 2018 Review of: “What Is Real? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics” by Adam Becker Excerpt: Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and their contemporaries knew well that the theory they devised could not be made compatible with Einstein’s special theory of relativity. First order in time, but second order in space, Schrödinger’s equation is nonrelativistic. Although quantum field theory is fully compatible with the special theory of relativity, a relativistic treatment of quantum measurement has yet to be formulated. https://inference-review.com/article/not-so-real
In other words, they left conscious observation itself, (which is, IMHO, by far the most interesting aspect of quantum mechanics), on the cutting room floor when they unified special relativity and quantum mechanics. Richard Feynman (and others) were only able to unify special relativity and quantum mechanics into Quantum Electrodynamics by quote unquote “brushing infinity under the rug” with a technique called Renormalization.
THE INFINITY PUZZLE: Quantum Field Theory and the Hunt for an Orderly Universe Excerpt: In quantum electrodynamics, which applies quantum mechanics to the electromagnetic field and its interactions with matter, the equations led to infinite results for the self-energy or mass of the electron. After nearly two decades of effort, this problem was solved after World War II by a procedure called renormalization, in which the infinities are rolled up into the electron’s observed mass and charge, and are thereafter conveniently ignored. Richard Feynman, who shared the 1965 Nobel Prize with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga for this breakthrough, referred to this sleight of hand as “brushing infinity under the rug.” http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/tackling-infinity
And whereas special relativity, by ‘brushing infinity under the rug’, has been semi-successfully unified, (i.e. save for quantum measurement), with quantum theory to produce Quantum Electrodynamics and/or Quantum Field Theory, no such mathematical ‘sleight of hand’ exists for unifying general relativity with quantum mechanics. General relativity, as the following articles show, simply refuses to be mathematically unified with quantum mechanics in any acceptable way. In technical terms, Gravity has yet to be successfully included into a theory of everything since the infinities that crop up in that attempt are not renormalizable as they were in Quantum-Electrodynamics.
Does quantum mechanics contradict the theory of relativity? Sanjay Sood, Microchip Design Engineer, Theoretical and Applied Physicist – Feb 14, 2016 Excerpt: quantum mechanics was first integrated with special theory of relativity by Dirac in 1928 just 3 years after quantum mechanics was discovered. Dirac produced an equation that describes the behavior of a quantum particle (electron). In this equation the space and time enter on the same footing – equation is first order in all 4 coordinates. One startling by product of this equation was the prediction of anti matter. It also gave the correct explanation for the electron’s spin. Dirac’s equation treats an electron as a particle with only a finite degrees of freedom. In 1940s Dirac’s equation was incorporated into the relativistic quantum field theory that’s knowns as quantum electrodynamics (QED) independently by Feynman, Schwinger and Tomonaga. This is the theory that describes the behavior of electrons and photons and their interactions with each other in terms of relativistic quantum fields that have infinite degrees of freedom. QED allowed extremely precise calculation of anomalous magnetic dipole moment of an electron. This calculated value matches the experimentally measured value to an astonishing precision of 12 decimal places! The integration of Einstein’s general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics has proved to be far more difficult. Such an integration would give a quantum theory of gravity. Even after a sustained effort lasting more than half a century, no renormalized quantum field theory of gravity has ever been produced. Renormalization means a theory that’s free of infinities at zero distance or infinite energy because 2 point particles can interact with each other at zero distance. A non renormalizable theory has no predictive value because it contains an infinite number of singular coefficients. https://www.quora.com/Does-quantum-mechanics-contradict-the-theory-of-relativity Unified field theory Excerpt: Gravity has yet to be successfully included in a theory of everything. Simply trying to combine the graviton with the strong and electroweak interactions runs into fundamental difficulties since the resulting theory is not renormalizable. Theoretical physicists have not yet formulated a widely accepted, consistent theory that combines general relativity and quantum mechanics. The incompatibility of the two theories remains an outstanding problem in the field of physics. Some theoretical physicists currently believe that a quantum theory of general relativity may require frameworks other than field theory itself, such as string theory or loop quantum gravity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_field_theory#Current_status 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.
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DerekDiMarco @ 30 Thank you so much for your psychoanalysis. Will you be sending a bill or is this a public service?Barry Arrington_{November 16, 2019
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Hazel “ Might doesn’t make it right” Barry is correct either might doesn’t make it right is true (T) or it is false. If it’s true your wrong ,it is true (T) if it’s false then it’s not true (T) Pick your poison. Vividvividbleau_{November 16, 2019
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If there isn't any capital T truth then there isn't any capital R reality. And that is just crazy talk because the capital T truth is the capital R reality. And there is a capital R reality to our existenceET_{November 16, 2019
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Hazel
Might doesn’t make right, Barry
You say that as if it is objectively true that I did something wrong. That is amusing coming from someone who disputes the existence of objective truth.Barry Arrington_{November 16, 2019
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Rudeness is often born of insecurities.DerekDiMarco_{November 16, 2019
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Here is an argument that is not rooted in just subjective belief or opinion. Let’s begin with a proposition that appears to be self-evidently true from both the theist and non-theist perspective: If the universe is all that exists there is no ultimate purpose and meaning to human existence. However, while that premise is self-evidently true it doesn’t logically follow that the universe is all that exists. But just for the heck of it, let’s try it out anyway by plugging it into a simple argument.
Premise #1: If the universe is all that exists there is no ultimate purpose and meaning to human existence. Premise #2: The universe is all that exists. Conclusion: There is no ultimate purpose and meaning to human existence.
The argument of course fails because we have no way to prove premise #2 is true and if premise #2 is not true, the conclusion does not follow. Nevertheless, there are at least a couple of implications that we can derive from this so-called argument. First, even though there is no way to prove that Premise #2, “The universe is all that exists,” is true, it’s still possibly true, the same way that the claim that “pink unicorns exist” could be true, though it’s not self-evidently true. So those who claim that it is true have the burden of proof to prove it’s true. In other words, it cannot be claimed as some kind of “default position.” Second, if there is no way to prove Premise #2 then the materialist has no solid basis for knowledge or any claim of truth. The materialist is left with only his opinions and beliefs. This leaves him with an untenable and self-refuting truth claim that must be accepted by faith. That, however, undermines the whole atheistic-materialist project which claims to be based on reason, facts and logic. Furthermore, it doesn’t explain why humans appear to be hardwired to seek higher purpose and meaning that goes beyond the immediate survival needs of an accidentally evolved species of hunter-gatherer apes. Why, for example, did the Egyptians build the pyramids? In other words, there is no explanation (other than empty hand waving) for why this should be true from a purely naturalistic evolutionary perspective. So the atheist-materialist is confronted with a second unresolvable metaphysical dilemma: it’s self-evident that humans seek higher meaning and purpose. Why would anyone want to become an atheistic-materialist if it’s a world view which one must accept blindly by faith? Ironically that puts materialism in a category that is worse than the very worst of pseudo- religions. It’s nothing but deluded pretension to argue otherwise.john_a_designer_{November 16, 2019
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Aaron1978
Not trying to make anyone mad when it comes this but I agree with Hazel when it comes to posting inside of someone’s comments
I have to agree, unless Barry is going to grant that power to everyone. Which, obviously, would be crazy. I have more of an issue when KF deletes what a commenter says and includes something like [Snipped for vulgarity]. I would rather that he removed the entire comment than remove part of it.Ed George_{November 16, 2019
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Might doesn't make right, Barry: kf has had a great deal to say about this! :-)hazel_{November 16, 2019
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Never thought I’d see someone say “stay out of my comments” That kind of wigged me out, Not trying to make anyone mad when it comes this but I agree with Hazel when it comes to posting inside of someone’s comments I know I’m nothing special I’m just voicing my opinionAaronS1978_{November 16, 2019
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Stay out of my comments, Barry! And yes, I've never denied that there might be truth with a capital T. UD Editors. UD reserves the right to add comments to any comment. Those who disagree with this policy are free not to post comments on our site. hazel_{November 16, 2019
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Cute, ba, but, no, I don't think my belief that there is no truth with a capital T is a truth with a capital T. That should be obvious. UD Editors: So, Hazel, you are admitting that your statement that there is no truth with a capital T may, for all you know, be wrong and that, for all you know, there may well be truth with a capital T. Good for you. That's progress.hazel_{November 16, 2019
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"My position is that there is no capital T truth," save of course for her capital T truth that there is no capital T truth, :)bornagain77_{November 16, 2019
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"[Some physicist see these new developments] as compelling evidence for intrinsically observer-dependent theories such as Quantum Bayesianism." ----------------------------------------------------------------- And from Wikipedia: ...some philosophers of science have deemed QBism a form of anti-realism. The originators of the interpretation disagree with this characterization, proposing instead that the theory more properly aligns with a kind of realism they call "participatory realism", wherein reality consists of more than can be captured by any putative third-person account of it. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Somewhere out there, the ghost of Alfred North Whitehead nods and softly chuckles.BPS from AZ_{November 16, 2019
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Except you cannot possibly know that, hazel. So your position isn't based on anything beyond your personal bias.ET_{November 16, 2019
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My position is that there is no capital T truth, JAD.hazel_{November 16, 2019
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Tjguy, from The Origin of Theoretical Population Genetics (University of Chicago Press, 1971), reissued in 2001 by William Provine:
Natural selection does not act on anything, nor does it select (for or against), force, maximize, create, modify, shape, operate, drive, favor, maintain, push, or adjust. Natural selection does nothing….Having natural selection select is nifty because it excuses the necessity of talking about the actual causation of natural selection. Such talk was excusable for Charles Darwin, but inexcusable for evolutionists now. Creationists have discovered our empty “natural selection” language, and the “actions” of natural selection make huge, vulnerable targets. (pp. 199-200)
Thanks for the honesty Will. Natural selection is incapable of producing biological complexity.ET_{November 16, 2019
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Barry vs. Hazel @ 9 & 10:
Hazel: the vast majority of the people who do respond to me here are merely dismissive and don’t actually engage my points Barry: If you had actually raised a point, I probably would have engaged with it. Instead, your argument amounted to “evolution causes everything except when it does not, in which case some mysterious and unnamed material force causes it.” You were asked several times to provide evidence for your asserted mysterious and unnamed material force. You ignored those requests for obvious reasons. have my own personal standard when it comes to interacting with our regular interlocutors. Hazel: Barry, you’re hopeless. Your statement following “your argument amounted to” is just a distorted, inaccurate description of what I said. I can’t discuss things with people who can’t do better than that.
I have my own personal standard when it comes to interacting with our regular interlocutors. I usually only engage under two conditions: First, our interlocutor must be willing to ask and answer honest questions. Second, they need make a logically valid argument, which can be stated using succinct fact based premises. Being argumentative is not the same as making a valid argument. Neither is pretension and posturing, obstruction or obfuscation. Reasonable people know how to make reasonable arguments. Here is an honest question: Are personal beliefs and opinions sufficient to establish any kind of (capital T) Truth? Apparently Hazel believes so. In other words, her “argument” is: I believe that proposition X is true. Therefore, X is true. Why? Because that’s what Hazel believes so that settles it.john_a_designer_{November 16, 2019
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Speaking of selection.... Over at crev.info, Coppedge has an interesting series about natural selection showing that even some evolutionists are realizing that it can in now way whatsoever account for what we see. Steve Talbott is writing a book entitled "Evolution as it was meant to be". Ch. 19 is entitled "Let's not begin with natural selection" and he skillfully takes down the concept of natural selection showing it to be mostly wrong. The great thing here is that this is written by an evolutionist and not an IDer or a creationist. But he seems to have been listening to some of our critiques of natural selection and it's inability to explain what we see in nature. Here is just one quote from the article: "It would be truer to say that the famously simple and compelling logic of natural selection, misconceived as the “foundation” of a powerful theory, has been a primary source of hokum in evolutionary thinking. It is a kind of blank template upon which overly credulous biologists and lay people can project their faith. As for the “genuine force” Gould refers to — a supposed causal power over and above those we find actually at play in biological activity — it is a magical invention borne of the refusal to recognize agency in the only place where we ever observe it, which is in the lives of organisms." https://crev.info/2019/11/natural-selection-is-vacuous-ii/tjguy_{November 16, 2019
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Sev, no matter how much you try to twist and spin, your evolutionary 'just-so story', as usual, conflicts with the findings.
The Evolutionary Argument Against Reality – April 2016 The cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman uses evolutionary game theory to show that our perceptions of an independent reality must be illusions. Excerpt: “The classic argument is that those of our ancestors who saw more accurately had a competitive advantage over those who saw less accurately and thus were more likely to pass on their genes that coded for those more accurate perceptions, so after thousands of generations we can be quite confident that we’re the offspring of those who saw accurately, and so we see accurately. That sounds very plausible. But I think it is utterly false. It misunderstands the fundamental fact about evolution, which is that it’s about fitness functions — mathematical functions that describe how well a given strategy achieves the goals of survival and reproduction. The mathematical physicist Chetan Prakash proved a theorem that I devised that says: According to evolution by natural selection, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but is just tuned to fitness. Never.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160421-the-evolutionary-argument-against-reality/ The Case Against Reality – May 13, 2016 Excerpt: Hoffman seems to come to a conclusion similar to the one Alvin Plantinga argues in ch. 10 of Where the Conflict Really Lies: we should not expect — in the absence of further argument — that creatures formed by a naturalistic evolutionary process would have veridical perceptions.,,, First, even if Hoffman’s argument were restricted to visual perception, and not to our cognitive faculties more generally (e.g., memory, introspection, a priori rational insight, testimonial belief, inferential reasoning, etc.), the conclusion that our visual perceptions would be wholly unreliable given natural selection would be sufficient for Plantinga’s conclusion of self-defeat. After all, reliance upon the veridicality of our visual perceptions was and always will be crucial for any scientific argument for the truth of evolution. So if these perceptions cannot be trusted, we have little reason to think evolutionary theory is true. Second, it’s not clear that Hoffman’s application of evolutionary game theory is only specially applicable to visual perception, rather than being relevant for our cognitive faculties generally. If “we find that veridical perceptions can be driven to extinction by non-veridical strategies that are tuned to utility rather than objective reality” (2010, p. 504, my emphasis), then why wouldn’t veridical cognitive faculties (more generally) be driven to extinction by non-veridical strategies that are tuned to utility rather than objective reality? After all, evolutionary theory purports to be the true account of the formation of all of our cognitive faculties, not just our faculty of visual perception. If evolutionary game theory proves that “true perception generally goes extinct” when “animals that perceive the truth compete with others that sacrifice truth for speed and energy-efficiency” (2008), why wouldn’t there be a similar sacrifice with respect to other cognitive faculties? In fact, Hoffman regards the following theorem as now proven: “According to evolution by natural selection, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but is just tuned to fitness” (Atlantic interview). But then wouldn’t it also be the case that an organism that cognizes reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that cognizes none of reality but is just tuned to fitness? On the evolutionary story, every cognitive faculty we have was produced by a process that was tuned to fitness (rather than tuned to some other value, such as truth). http://www.gregwelty.com/2016/05/the-case-against-reality/
And again, given that 'truth' itself is immaterial in its basic essence, these findings against the reductive materialistic framework of Darwinian evolution, by both Hoffman and Plantinga, really should not be all that surprising.
Thus again, given that mind, logic, math, and even truth itself, are immaterial in their basic essence, then it should not be all that surprising for us to learn that Darwinian materialism, (via extensive analysis of population genetics), cannot possibly produce true beliefs and perceptions about the world, https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/johnnyb-nail-head/#comment-687929
bornagain77_{November 15, 2019
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