Here are the notes.
Agree? Don’t agree? Let’s hear from you in the combox.
He’s been a faithful commenter over the years.
120 Replies to “Philip Cunningham argues: Jesus Christ is the correct Theory of Everything”
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Come on. This is just dumb.
There are very good reason to have various beliefs, but this video is borderline retarded.
Mike1962 states,
Now Mike, without knowing the specific reason why you think “this video is borderline retarded” I can only assume that you hold that the entire premise of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead providing the correct solution to the theory of everything is what is “borderline retarded”.
And indeed such a proposition, at first glance, should invoke such a response of being ‘borderline retarded’.
It is indeed an extraordinary claim,,, and as the often misused mantra states, ‘extraordinary claims’ demand extraordinary evidence’.
But that ‘extraordinary evidence’ is precisely what I provided in the video.
For instance, in the video I made the extraordinary claim that the Copernican principle, and/or the principle of mediocrity, (which is widely accepted as unquestionably true), has been overturned by both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
Is that extraordinary claim what you find “borderline retarded’ Mike?
If so, it is the scientific evidence itself that you are finding to be “borderline retarded’. i.e. It is the scientific evidence that you have a problem with not with my claim.
In other words, in science, in order to refute a claim that you find to be ”borderline retarded’ you cannot just say that you find it to be ‘borderline retarded’ but you must instead present the actual scientific evidence that empirically demonstrates that it is in fact a false claim.
And you simply don’t have the empirical evidence to refute my ‘borderline retarded’ claim.
As George Ellis himself stated, “I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations… You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds…”
Moreover, in the interest of time, in the video I excluded some evidence that further drives this ‘borderline retarded’ point home.
For instance, there are ‘anomalies’ that are now found in the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation’ (CMBR) that are found to strangely line up with the earth and solar system.
At the 13:55 minute mark of this following video, Max Tegmark, an atheist who specializes in this area of study, finally admits, post Planck 2013, that the CMBR anomalies do indeed line up with the earth and solar system
Here is an excellent clip from “The Principle” that explains all of these ‘anomalies’ in the CMBR in an easy to understand manner.
Moreover besides the earth and solar system lining up with the anomalies in the Cosmic Background Radiation, Radio Astronomy now reveals a surprising rotational coincidence for Earth in relation to the quasar and radio galaxy distributions in the universe:
And with the Ashok K. Singal paper, it is now the large scale structures of the universe, on top of the CMBR anomalies, which drive the final nail in the coffin for the belief that the earth does not have a ‘preferred’ position in the universe.
As the following article, (with a illustration) explains,
What is interesting about these large scale structures of the universe, i.e. quasar and radio galaxy distributions in the universe, (i.e. distributions that reveal a “surprising rotational coincidence for Earth”), is that the tiny temperature variations (in the CMBR) correspond to the largest scale structures of the observable universe.
Thus, contrary to the presumption of atheists, far from the temperature variations in the CMBR being a product of randomness as they presuppose in their ‘inflation’ model, the temperature variations in the CMBR correspond to the ‘largest scale structures of the observable universe’ and these ‘largest scale structures of the observable universe’ reveal “a surprising rotational coincidence for Earth”. Moreover, we were only able to discover this correlation between the tiny temperature variation in the CMB and the largest scale structures in the universe via the ‘insane coincidence’ of the universe being fine-tuned to at least 1 in 10^57 flatness.
In other words, the “tiny temperature variations” in the CMBR, to the largest scale structures in the universe itself, reveal teleology, (i.e. a goal directed purpose, a plan, a reason), that specifically included the earth from the start. ,,, The earth, and our solar system, from what our best science can now tell us, is not some random cosmic fluke as atheists had presupposed.
The scientific evidence for a ‘privileged’ earth is what it is no matter how ‘borderline retarded’ some people may believe the finding to be.
And Mike, as I further pointed out in the video which you found to be ‘borderline retarded’, besides general relativity overturning the Copernican principle, quantum mechanics itself also now overturns the Copernican principle.
Although, in the video, I listed several evidences from quantum mechanics to drive this point home, for me personally, the strongest evidence from quantum mechanics that overturns the Copernican principle is the closing of the ‘setting independence’ and/or ‘free will’ loop hole.
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 the 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, with human observers, via their free will, now being brought into the laws of physics at their most fundamental level, and with the overturning of the Copernican principle by both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, then it now becomes, at least, theoretically plausible for God, via his son Jesus Christ, to bridge the infinite mathematical divide that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
And as I further argued in the video, when we rightly the Agent Causality of God ‘back’ into physics, as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned, and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands with the closing of the free will loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company, 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”.
And Mike, as I further pointed out in the ‘borderline retarded’ video, the Shroud of Turin itself gives us empirical evidence that both gravity and quantum mechanics were dealt with.
So a key piece of evidence for establishing the validity of the ‘borderline retarded’ claim that I made in the video is the Shroud of Turin itself.
So in order for you to ‘easily’ refute my ‘borderline retarded’ argument you can simply show that the Shroud of Turin is a fake.
Good luck with that. The Shroud of Turin simply refuses to be refuted despite numerous attempts to refute its authenticity.
In fact, the evidence for the Shroud’s authenticity keeps growing stronger in spite of numerous attempts that tried to prove it was merely a medieval forgery.
Here is a timeline of facts that supports the Shroud’s authenticity:
And I hold that the Shroud of Turin is indeed the ‘extraordinary evidence’ that is required to meet the demand of the ‘extraordinary claim’ that I made in the video that Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead does indeed provide us with the correct solution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’.
Basically, we have a clothe with a photographic negative image on it that was made well before photography was even invented. Moreover, the photographic negative image has a 3-Dimensional holographic nature to its image that was somehow encoded within the photographic negative well before holography was even known about. Moreover, even with our present day technology, we still cannot replicated the image in all its detail.
My question to atheists is this, if you truly believe some mad genius forger in the middle ages made this image, then please pray tell why did this mad genius save all his genius for this supposed forgery alone and not for, say, inventing photography itself since he surely would have required mastery of photography to pull off the forgery? Not to mention mastery of laser holography? Moreover, why did this hypothetical mad super-genius destroy all of his scientific instruments that he would have had to invent in order to make the image? Leonardo da Vinci would not have been worthy to tie the shoe laces of such a hypothetical mad genius!
As Silver Asiatic commented,
Thus Mike, you may personally find the proposition that Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead provides us with the correct solution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ to be a ‘borderline retarded’ proposition but, aside from your initial gut reaction, you simply have not provided any actual scientific evidence as to why the proposition should, in fact, be considered ‘borderline retarded.’
Are we just suppose to take your personal opinion that it is ‘borderline retarded’?
Mike, that simply is not how science works!
After all, with the overturning of Copernican Principle by both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, and with the overturning of the ‘free will’ loop hole in quantum mechanics, then it now becomes, at least, theoretically plausible for God, via his son Jesus Christ, to bridge the infinite mathematical divide that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
So again Mike, aside from your initial gut reaction of the proposition being ‘borderline retarded’, you simply have not presented any scientific evidence that would refute the VERY scientifically plausible claim that I have laid out in the video.
The arrangement of the evidence you provide, BA, is not necessarily and exclusively evidence that the being and spiritual cosmology derived thereof for the “god” of the Bible is actually “God.”
I call this the “Talking Tiger” problem. If I meet a tiger that can talk, claims to be God, predicts events before they happen or are known, and can generate all sorts of marvelous, inexplicable events that look like magic … should I believe him? Should I adhere to what the talking tiger says are my spiritual rules and adopt his metaphysical perspective?
The only way to “prove” that the only reality that exists is the one described by the Bible is to show, logically, that it is the only possible world, and we both know there isn’t a chance of that. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on one’s perspective,) if we go by logic, every possible world necessarily exists, and the one described by the Bible would, generally speaking, just be one of an infinite number.
But then, that’s why faith is necessary in that perspective, right?
To tell you the truth WJM, I have no idea what you are going on about.
The empirical evidence is what it is. I laid out my case for Jesus Christ providing the correct solution to the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ from the empirical evidence itself. i.e. The empirical evidence that we currently have in hand for this universe, is what supports my claim, not the non existence of empirical evidence for any other ‘possible’ universe.
To go beyond what the empirical evidence itself allows you to claim is, clearly, to engage in unfounded philosophical speculations. Amusing, perhaps even educational, but it is not science.
Again, to go beyond the empirical evidence itself and engage in rampant speculation about other undetectable universes is simply not how science works!
The empirical evidence itself is what has the final say in science. At least, that is the way that it is suppose to be. And that is what I have appealed to in my argument.
If you want to engage in philosophical speculations about other ‘possible worlds’, I suggest you write for, or look up, Dr William Lane Craig writings. I’ve seen him engage in that sort of argument fairly knowledgeably.
BA said:
Other than the fact I, and countless others, have actually, empirically experienced some of those other “possible” universes, okay.
I don’t know about TOE, but Tom Brady is the Super-GOAT!
Brady looked like a chump in the 2nd half. The defense saved him.
ET, yes exactly! Brady inspired them with his performance and leadership. Kinda like how JC and the HS inspired the apostles.
Mike1962 “ Come on. This is just dumb.
There are very good reason to have various beliefs, but this video is borderline retarded.”
Just borderline? 🙂
Steve Alten2, since Mike1962 did not reply to my response to him, and you have apparently joined with him in condemning the video as being ‘retarded’, perhaps you like to state, (presuming you even bothered to watch the video before condemning it), the exact reason why you personally find the argument(s) made in the video to be ‘retarded’.
Or is it beneath your dignity to even give Christ’s resurrection from the dead serious consideration as to being a plausible explanation for the quote unquote ‘theory of everything’? i.e. As a plausible explanation for the main. purpose for why the entire universe even exists in the first place?
Hmmm, since Mike and Steve resorted to mocking the video instead of engaging the arguments put forth in the video, I think this is a fitting response for them:
Hi BA 77
This model sounds interesting. I hope you will continue to develop it.
BA77,
you have certainly put on the table a collection of exotic food for thought that is not the sort of stuff we commonly read in headlines or chyrons scrolling across TV screens. That is in itself a service, starting with yup there is a String Theory For Dummies out there that goes beyond say Wikipedia.
I am reminded of the challenge of bounded rationality. We are finite, fallible, morally and intellectually struggling, too often ill-willed and downright cruel. At our best, “we see through a glass darkly.” (In the case of telescopes, fairly literally; on the micro side, that’s a pretty good analogy.)
Physics and Mathematics are likely the number one and number two test cases. There is reason to believe the Wigner problem of astonishment at relevance of Math to Physics and its power in summary and accurate prediction, even giving the tools to think about what is on our collective plates is quite remarkable. Astonishingly, the cosmos and its contents are amenable to mathematical modelling, which can be astonishingly reliable. As a partial answer, as you know, I have suggested — pivoting on the quantitative implications for the distinct identity of any possible world W with some aspect A that marks it apart from a near neighbour W’ that we can recognise W = {A|~A} and onward see 0,1,2 immediately and from that extend to N by von Neumann succession, thence N,Z,Q,R,C,R* etc as necessary framework to any W — that a certain core of Math is universally valid across actualities and possibilities; giving high confidence in applicability of Math. Math, here being understood as [the study of] the logic of structure and quantity, i.e. an exposition of logic of being, with a core as identified in part being necessary, world framework entities partly constitutive of any W. Necessary entities are of course eternal, there is no W in which say 2 began to exist at some point, or can cease from being constitutive fabric threaded through W and all its constituents. Never mind its abstract, non active causal nature, it is part of the logic of possibilities that universally and eternally constrains being.
Such is shocking, a shock that forces us to contemplate the infinite, the eternal, necessity of being, root of reality. Indeed, in what sense, can such abstract entities hold being at all much less pervasive eternal reality? We are aware of debates among Mathematicians, all the way from platonic realism to utter fictionalism of mind games played with an apparatus of increasingly esoteric symbols on the tax payer or endowment dollar that somehow by strange coincidence happen to be often effective at least for things of interest.
We have on the table, a reason to see why abstract logic model worlds spun out from historic extensions of tally sticks and land surveys of Nile-flooded land then greatly extended once Algebra, Coordinate Geometry and Calculus opened up worlds of applications and once we saw that Euclid’s space wasn’t the only possibility, will be in some cases universal and in others good enough to guide us in our particular in-common actuality.
Turning to the puzzle-filled depths of modern physics and the attempts to synthesise a grand, synoptic view of the very large and the very small, actuality and possibility, it is perhaps unsurprising that we keep on running into conundrums. The map is not equal to the territory is, after all proverbial. Theoretical frameworks are in the end models and as Lakatos modified Kuhn, theories are born, live and die with “refuted” character. That is, big enough theories bristle with puzzles and anomalies. We are humbled into competing research programmes duly dressed up in sophisticated mathematical apparatus, but on the pessimistic induction, none of them rise to moral certainty, much less fact-uality. They would not be allowed to convict a defendant in court.
We see through a glass darkly, we know in part, we prophesy in part.
So, another helping of humble pie, please.
As for Logos, there is no good reason to reject that our astonishingly mathematically ordered, fine tuned world with finite, fallible creatures capable of the freedom to reason and do Math and Physics, is akin to a mathematically ordered model, instantiated. So, that we would sometimes be able to think some of God’s simpler thoughts after him, hearing an echo of Eternal Mind, is in the end reasonable and responsible. Where, fact one is our own conscious, rational selves in a partly intelligible to us world.
I am not about to delve on the Shroud, but before we even look at such, there is pretty good reason to ponder a creation coming from powerful mind and of course that Mind would be root reality, World Zero so to speak.
W_0 being, a necessary world framework, eternal being with power to create worlds, including at least one inhabited by creatures with sufficient freedom to be rational and responsible, embodied beings governed by the oughtness of first duties of reason, not by mere cause-effect chains of initial conditions, signals and codes playing out blindly in some computational substrate.
Where, such moral government of a responsible, rational creature further constrains W_0. After Hume’s surprise at seeing arguments post W_0, which go is-is then inexplicably leap to ought, and after Socrates’ argument on the Euthyphro dilemma, we see that W_0 must non-arbitrarily bridge the is-ought gap. That requires that W_0 exhibits inherent goodness fused with thoroughgoing utter wisdom, rendering deceitful talking tigers detectable on failing that test and pointing to the sole serious candidate to be W_0, i.e. we have a bill of requisites for the God of Ethical Theism.
The objector is invited to put up a coherent, adequate alternative _______
prediction, pretty hard to do.
KF
Mathematics confronts
Thanks for the feedback Bill Cole and KF.
To put another reason on the table as to why I find the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to be a VERY plausible solution that bridges the infinite mathematical divide that separates General Relativity from Quantum Mechanics,,,
,,, to bridge that infinite mathematical divide between the two theories, it is interesting to note how each theory handles entropy.
Both theories handle entropy in, essentially, completely different ways. In Quantum information theory we now find that, “an object does not have a certain amount of entropy per se, instead an object’s entropy is always dependent on the observer.”
In the following 2011 paper, “researchers ,,, show that when the bits (in a computer) to be deleted are quantum-mechanically entangled with the state of an observer, then the observer could even withdraw heat from the system while deleting the bits. Entanglement links the observer’s state to that of the computer in such a way that they know more about the memory than is possible in classical physics.,,, In measuring entropy, one should bear in mind that (in quantum information theory) an object does not have a certain amount of entropy per se, instead an object’s entropy is always dependent on the observer.”
And as the following 2017 article states: James Clerk Maxwell (said), “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.”,,,
,, “quantum information theory,,, describes the spread of information through quantum systems.,,,
Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,
Whereas in General Relativity we find that entropy is a property of the system, not of the observer who describes the system.
In fact, in General Relativity we find that ‘supermassive black holes are the largest contributor to the observable universe’s entropy.’
As Penrose himself stated, “the singularities in black holes would be expected to be totally chaotic”,,,
Just how entropically destructive black holes actually are in touched upon in the following quote by Kip Thorne,
And since ‘spacetime ceases to exist’, then the ‘eternity’ that is found at a black hole can rightly be called an ‘eternity of decay, death, and destruction’.
Needless to say, to those of us who are of, shall we say, a spiritually minded persuasion, this finding of an eternity of death, decay, and destruction at the singularity of the black-hole should be a fairly sobering realization.
Moreover, to point out the obvious implication in all this, in order to successfully unify quantum mechanics and general relativity then the ‘infinitely destructive’ entropy associated with General Relativity, via black holes, must be successfully dealt with, And I would also hold that, since mathematics is at a dead end as to bridging the infinite mathematical divide between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, then the ‘infinite death and destruction’ that is intimately associated with General Relativity must necessarily be dealt with by the ‘observer who describes the system’ in Quantum Mechanics.
And, of course, as a Christian I would hold that that ‘Observer’ describing the system is exactly what we have in Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead by God.
In regards to gravity being dealt with, and to quote from Isabel Piczek, a particle physicist who has studied the Shroud of Turin in detail,
It is such consistent findings like these, findings that pull together seemingly irreconcilable facts,,,, it is such consistent findings like these that continually pulls me back to postulating Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead as the correct solution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’.
Like the proverbial missing piece of a puzzle that is finally found, Christ’s resurrection from the dead fits a little too perfectly into the final hole of the puzzle to bring the puzzle to a satisfactory completion, whereas all other pieces offered as a correct solution have failed miserably to fill that final hole in the puzzle.
Bornagain77 “ Hmmm, since Mike and Steve resorted to mocking the video instead of engaging the arguments put forth in the video, I think this is a fitting response for them:”
Sorry, there were serious arguments made in the video? I must not have noticed them. Perhaps you can present the best argument in less than a hundred words. I won’t hold my breath.
SA2, project, much? KF
Steve Alten2
So nothing, absolutely nothing, in the video is worthy of your attention? And is only worthy of your ridicule?
Well, thank you so much for blessing us with your towering scientific intellect. An intellect that is so far superior than ours that your decree is enough to render all counter arguments moot.
But then again, others not so enamored with your intellect, (like everyone else save for yourself), may question just how solid your scientific decrees are, especially given that you believe that unguided Darwinian evolution can produce a human brain
BA posted the text version of his video at a link on the video page. It is just a long version of the kind of things he posts here all the time, full of quotes. The basic idea is that he believes John 1:1 is the heart of the matter, and he thinks quantum mechanics prove that God and Jesus are behind it all. There is nothing new in the video that we all haven’t scrolled by before.
VL, I cannot but notice how twice you have scrolled by direct responses to cases. First, in a previous thread you said how I could not address divorce [even though I had long ago done so in your presence], then when I explicitly did so again you went poof. As this was your talking point to side track the value and relevance of first duties of reason, that speaks and not in your favour. Above, I took time to recognise some very useful references BA77 has raised, that have standing whatever you may give his arguments — I didn’t know there is a for dummies on string theory, it seems the series has broadened out well beyond how to do web sites and use various programmes. That is noteworthy. BA77 quite often has food for thought clips and links well worth pondering, but calculated rhetorical dismissiveness — and yes, that is how you begin to come across –will miss such.One does not have to agree with BA77 to recognise that he has raised fairly serious matters across time and should be treated with the modicum of courtesy that News has accorded him. I further took time above to speak to themes being debated by Mathematicians, as News has been highlighting and to which in part BA77 is addressing, i/l/o the Wigner issue on applicability of Math, something that is dealt with in more detail in a linked paper. It turns out that those issues tie to fairly serious world roots questions. Perhaps, those can be looked at. KF
PS: On Jn 1:1, the idea that communicative reason himself is the root of reality is not something to be brushed aside as though it is to be tagged as Christian/religious and sidelined as if that were automatically unserious. I would suggest that a fine tuned cosmos set up at an operating point conducive to C-chemistry, aqueous medium cell based life should give pause. Especially when we find alphanumeric code and molecular nanotech execution machinery in said cells. As Crick realised by March 19, 1953 in his letter to his son Michael. Code — language; algorithms — goal-directed and purposive. All built on what the fine tuned cosmos is set up to deliver. The old apostle has a serious point. At least for those not inclined to indulge Monod-Lewontin a priori materialistic question begging or fellow traveller assertions.
KF, as I recall your post on divorce, most of what you posted was from the Bible, which isn’t an argument, or referenced “natural law”, which just another judgment call. Also, although you didn’t say it directly and clearly, your position seemed to be that divorce just because people didn’t want to be married to each other was immoral.
But you actually missed the whole point of my question, which was not whether divorce was moral or not, but rather how do we deal with the fact that people have different opinions. As I recall, your answer to that was some people reason well, and some don’t.
One of the frustrating things about you and BA is that you can’t answer in a clear, succinct paragraph or two, and your long, repetitive, rambling, quote and injections filled posts are not conducive to discussion.
Here’s a test case. Do you believe there is one objectively correct answer to this question: Is it immoral for two people to get divorced when they don’t feel like they want to be married to each other?
Can you just answer that question in a sentence?
Viola Lee dismisses John 1:1 and insinuates that John 1:1 has nothing whatsoever to do with quantum mechanics.,,, (he has ‘scrolled past’ the argument before so it is OK for him to ignore it now,,, is how he is apparently reasoning)
Yet Anton Zeilinger, who’s experimentalist shoes Viola Lee, nor I, are worthy to tie, begs to differ with Viola Lee’s assessment that Quantum Mechanics has nothing whatsoever to do with John !:!
And here are a couple of more quotes that are very friendly to Zeilinger’s overall point,
And here is a quote that I am particularly fond of,
The only thing I see that quote directly contradicting is the reductive materialistic philosophy that undergirds Darwinian thought.
And I certainly don’t see any substantial contradiction with John 1:1
Perhaps Viola Lee would like to point out exactly how that quote is substantially different from what we read at the beginning of John:
Viola Lee “ There is nothing new in the video that we all haven’t scrolled by before.”
Be honest. How fast can you scroll past them? I can do it in 2 to 3 seconds on my iPhone, but I have worn a groove into the screen doing so. 🙂
VL, my comment specifically annotated and drew out a natural law argument made by Jesus [itself something that is noteworthy on the overall discussion], your dismissiveness is therefore duly noted as indicating lack of serious engagement. I add, especially as the specific challenge you repeatedly put up dismissively was that I was unable to articulate from general first duties to particular cases, divorce being introduced as a less toxic example. That is, on fair comment you were simply trying to score dismissve rhetorical points. As for oh people have diverse views, they have diverse views on any number of subjects, that is why warrant — an aspect of prudence — informed by issues of truth and right reason becomes vital. Including that the suggested relativism is self-referentially incoherent: to claim there are no objective moral truths or truths in general is to make a truth claim and if it is focussed on morality, a moral truth claim, which is immediately self-defeating. KF
Kf: Do you believe there is one objectively correct answer to this question: Is it immoral for two people to get divorced when they don’t feel like they want to be married to each other?
Can you just answer that question in a sentence?
Steve Alten2 thinks he is being clever and humorous,
Yet willful blindness in neither clever nor humorous, but is, in reality, sad.
Bornagain77 “ Steve Alten2 thinks he is being clever and humorous,”
Nope. Just observant.
Bornagain77, I have one question. Does your God believe in informed consent? Or does he believe that those with power have the right to impose their will?
OK, maybe it is two questions. 🙂
Whatever Steve, I am more than confident that unbiased readers can clearly see whom is being fair and who is flippant.
Bornagain77, really? Then how do you defend your God impregnating a woman who was in awe of him, in spite of her being engaged to another man?
Did she feel that she had a choice? I don’t think so.
Maybe we should have a discussion about a being of power using his position of authority to impregnate a teenage girl.
I realize how this sounds. My main point is that the morals of 2000+ years ago are different than they are today. Modern morality would never condone the Christ narrative if it involved our daughters. We would be calling the police.
Steve Alten2
You use morals as if you believe they exist. You cannot believe in morality without freewill, which evolutionists deny even exists. Without freewill, there is no conscious choice to do right or wrong, which means there is no right or wrong. There is only what is determined by action and reaction with no mind involved, since the mind is an illusion.
VL, it is obvious that in your mind you have redefined what marriage is into an essentially temporary cohabitation contract with a unilateral reserve short-notice walkaway clause. That is manifestly ruinous for family, for child nurture, for sound community and for civilisation; as is currently playing out under colour of law. The main issue, however was not debating such redefinitions, it was your attempt to claim that in effect first duties are so abstract that I would prove unable to articulate to specific matters. You ignored case after case of my showing how they are inescapably embedded in argument, even objections. You have also obviously sidelined the fact that there are entire connected bodies of knowledge complete with state papers pivotal to the rise of modern liberty and constitutional democratic self-government. Which, speaks for itself. I will content myself with noting how you run afoul of Locke in a pivotal passage that directly undergirds the relevant state papers of 1776 and 1787 – 9. Your problem, at root is not with me, it is with the line from Duplessis-Mornay, to William the Silent of Orange and the dutch declarants of 1581, with Rutherford and Lex Rex, with Locke (with Hooker and all the way back to Aristotle, with Justinian’s Corpus Juris along the way), with Cicero and those behind him, with Alfred the Great and his Witans in The Book of Dooms (foundational to the Common Law System), with Archbishop Samuel Langton in Magna Carta, with Blackstone’s 1765 articulation of the Common Law system, with Jefferson, the drafting committee and the rest of the 56 declarants of 1776; and many more, including now often unacknowledged founding figures of our civilisation, Paul of Tarsus, Jesus of Nazareth, Moses of the Nile. I could again point to Copi as my favourite intro to logic text and any number of other works on related subjects, etc etc etc. But that would only be detail, the core point was clear from the beginning. KF
PS: Locke and Hooker, with Aristotle, on duty to neighbour:
SA2, the dismissive incoherence and village atheist level crudities speak for themselves. You have run away from the focal issues laid out by BA in his onward linked, not to mention my supplement in 14 above (regarding focal themes), through distractive joking on disrespectful scroll past. That is trollish disrespectfulness. I will append Plato on your manifest attitude. KF
PS: Plato in the opening remarks from The Laws, Bk 10, on matters foundational to civilisation . . . and BTW in that context he makes the first discussion on follies of evolutionary materialism and on the design inference on record:
Words worth pondering. Are we serious or are we fundamentally un-serious, imagining we already know and can impose a priori evolutionary materialism, dismissing those who have another opinion. Then, eventually stigmatising, scapegoating, slandering and censoring them . . . the ugly path now emerging as a McFaul Colour Revolution continues before our appalled faces.
PPS: On your slanderous caricature of the incarnation (implying indictment of God as Adulterer), suffice to note that this was not an “impregnation.” Your crude, hostile caricature suffices to expose a fundamentally ill willed ignorance and disdainful trollish disrespect. I suggest, you take this as due warning that you are headed in the wrong direction.
PPPS: On elaborating a worldview on comparative difficulties, addressing a wide range of considerations at 101 level, kindly cf here on in context.
PPPPS: Plato’s warning to the ages, as has been highlighted many times here at UD over the years, but which of course is studiously ignored by those only too eager to rush over the cliffs being sign-posted:
I need not point onwards to the further warning in Ship of State.
BR, prezactly. However, the elaboration — as I already linked in 17 above (but was predictably ignored on) — is necessary too. KF
Steve Alten2, Viola Lee and Mike1962 have condemned the video referenced in the OP as being ‘retarded’ and/or ‘borderline retarded’ without giving a specific reason as to why they find it to be as such.
Yet if they were given to reason, instead of to cheap rhetoric, then it might be possible to have a fruitful discussion with them on the matter.
But alas, they feel no need to state their reasoning for thinking the video is ‘retarded’ and/or ‘borderline retarded’.
So I am left to guess as to what their supposedly reasonable objections to the video might be.
Perhaps, like David Hume, they feel that a man rising from the dead is impossible and therefore that is what is to be considered ‘retarded’ and/or ‘borderline retarded’ in the video.
The reason why David Hume held that a man rising from the dead would be impossible is because it would be a violation of the laws of nature.
Yet Hume made that argument about a miracle being a violation of the laws of nature back in the 1700’s when it was (wrongly) assumed that the universe has always existed. But we now know that that assumption of his is wrong. It is now known that the entire universe came into being approx. 14 billion years ago.
And the Big Bang represents the biggest violation of the laws of nature imaginable. Namely, all of the laws of nature themselves, along with all the energy and the mass of the universe, as far as we can tell, suddenly came into existence.
If fact, so distasteful is the idea of an absolute beginning to the universe for atheists that atheists are left in the rather awkward position of trying to deny that the Big Bang represented an absolute beginning of the entire universe:
Denyse O’Leary has an excellent condensed history of this ‘Big Bang denialism’ by atheistic scientists:
Moreover, David Hume simply had no right to assume that the laws of nature were completely ‘natural’ in the first place.
In 2007 Paul Davies stated, “,,, the very notion of physical law is a theological one in the first place, a fact that makes many scientists squirm. Isaac Newton first got the idea of absolute, universal, perfect, immutable laws from the Christian doctrine that God created the world and ordered it in a rational way. Christians envisage God as upholding the natural order from beyond the universe,,,”
Atheists, with their ‘bottom up’ materialistic explanations, simply have no clue why there should even be universal laws that govern the universe in the first place:
Eugene Wigner himself considered ‘the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind’s capacity to divine them’ to be ‘two miracles’,
Thus for David Hume to self-servingly presuppose that the laws of nature were completely natural and that the laws of nature therefore preclude the possibility of any further miracles from even being possible, was, intellectually speaking, a severely disingenuous and dishonest thing for him to do.
Moreover, as if that was not bad enough for Hume’s thesis that a miracle would be a violation of the laws of nature, in quantum mechanics, (and as I mentioned in my ‘borderline retarded’ video), humans, via their free will, are now brought into the laws of nature at their most fundamental level.
As Steven Weinberg, who is an atheist himself, states in the following article, ‘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.
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,
Moreover, with human observers, via their free will, now being brought into the laws of nature at their most fundamental level then it now becomes, at least, theoretically plausible for God, contrary to what Hume assumed, to miraculously bring a ‘dead man’ to life, i.e. to resurrect Jesus Christ’s sinless body from the dead.
And as I also touched upon in my video, indeed it was the main thesis of my video, is that God resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead also happens to provide us with a VERY plausible reconciliation between quantum mechanics and general relativity in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead, and as evidenced by the Shroud of Turin, apparently bridges the infinite mathematical divide that separates the two theories,
Dr. William Dembski in this following comment, although he was not directly addressing the ‘infinite’ mathematical divide that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, offers this insight into what the ‘unification’ of infinite God with finite man might look like mathematically:, Specifically he states, “The Cross is a path of humility in which the infinite God becomes finite and then contracts to zero, only to resurrect and thereby unite a finite humanity within a newfound infinity.”
And as I stated previously in this thread,, “It is such consistent findings like these, findings that pull together seemingly irreconcilable facts,,,, it is such consistent findings like these that continually pulls me back to postulating Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead as the correct solution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’.
Like the proverbial missing piece of a puzzle that is finally found, Christ’s resurrection from the dead fits a little too perfectly into the final hole in the puzzle to bring the puzzle to a satisfactory completion, whereas all other pieces that have been offered thus far as a correct solution have failed miserably to fill that final hole in the puzzle.”
At 25, I wrote,
In response, I got KF’s reply at 32. I will have to translate:
KF, can you just answer that question in a sentence? Answer: “No, I can’t”
KF, Do you believe there is one objectively correct answer to the question about the morality of divorce?
Answer: He doesn’t clearly answer that question, although he seems to be saying that “Yes”, he does believe there is an objectively correct answer.
It is clear that he thinks divorce is bad for society: “That is manifestly ruinous for family, for child nurture, for sound community and for civilisation; as is currently playing out under colour of law.”
But stating that is not the same as answering the question about there being an objectively correct answer. It is his, and others, opinion, but there are others who believe that there are counterbalancing positive reasons for allowing divorce, so telling me his opinion does address the man question of how we decide when different people make different more judgments.
He also supplies a long list of references that show what??? That there are first duties to reason? I accept that.
That still doesn’t address the questions I’ve asked.
Also, KF writes, “VL, it is obvious that in your mind you have redefined what marriage is into an essentially temporary cohabitation contract with a unilateral reserve short-notice walkaway clause.”
Three things about that sentence:
1. I have not stated a position, as I’ve made it clear that the I’m interested in the meta-question of our we decide when different people have different moral judgments.
2. There are a large number of “definitions of marriage” throughout different cultures and different time periods. Assuming, as KF seems to be doing, that the definition of “til death do us part” is the definition of marriage is just another example of his thinking that the correct moral answer is the one provided by him and the cultural traditions that he inhabits.
3. I note without further comment how loaded he describes the position of consensual divorce.
At 36, BA writes, “Steve Alten2, Viola Lee and Mike1962 have condemned the video referenced in the OP as being ‘retarded’ and/or ‘borderline retarded’ without giving a specific reason as to why they find it to be as such.”
No, I have not done that: I have not “condemned” the video nor been a part of the discussion calling it retarded. I just said that it was just a long version of the kind of things he posts here all the time, full of quotes, and that there was nothing new in it.
Oops: too late to edit. In 37 above, it should read “so telling me his opinion does not address the main [not “man”] question.
Kairosfocus “ SA2, the dismissive incoherence and village atheist level crudities speak for themselves.”
What incoherence? In 2021 it is considered completely inappropriate, if not illegal, for a person in a position of authority to take advantage of a young woman under his command. Is God exempt from this? Or is our current ideas of abuse of power wrong?
Sorry Viola Lee, but I still fail to see how ‘scrolling past’ my video and my responses is to be considered, in any way, a serious response on your part. Steve and Mike called the video ‘retarded’ and/or ‘borderline retarded’, and you say there is ‘nothing new to see here’, yet you apparently fail to realize that simply stating that ‘there is nothing new to see here’ is not an actual reason as to why you find the argument(s) not worthy of your attention.
In other words,. Ignoring the arguments before, and ignoring the arguments now, is not a response to the arguments. It is sticking your head in the sand and hoping that the arguments go away.
As to the one issue that you did raise about John 1:1 and quantum mechanics, I did address that concern of yours, and yet you ignored it also.
https://uncommondescent.com/theory-of-everything/philip-cunningham-argues-jesus-christ-is-the-correct-theory-of-everything/#comment-723360
I also note that you have instead tried to take this thread off on trivial unrelated tangents about morality.
I find it highly disingenuous on your part that you will devote so much time on a thread dedicated to my video discussing trivial issues that have nothing to do with my video,,, but ignore the meatier issues that I have laid on the table with my video.
If you are going to do as such, I suggest you find a new thread to carry on your unrelated discussion.
BA writes, “Sorry Viola Lee, but I still fail to see how ‘scrolling past’ my video and my responses is to be considered, in any way, a serious response on your part.”
No, it was not a serious response. I just wasn’t someone involved in calling it retarded.
BA writes, “I find it highly disingenuous on your part that you will devote so much time on a thread dedicated to my video discussing trivial issues that have nothing to do with my video.”
KF brought it up and directly addressed me at 20, and I responded to him, and he responded back. Often threads do not stay on one track. And the question of whether there are objectively correct positions on moral issues is not trivial.
Since KF has posting privileges, and since you want to completely ignore the video without even dignifying it with a serious response, and since what you guys are talking about has nothing to do with the video directly, then I suggest that you two take your off topic discussion to a new thread.
SA2, Why do you assume Mary was impregnated against her will?
VL (& attn BA77), you have continued to set up and knock over strawmen, which explains easily what you did to BA77 and what would happen were I ill advised enough to try to give in effect a one liner answer to a substantial issue. I note for record that I stand by my response at 24 above and as onward linked, where I again note that an issue pivoting on implications of our morally governed human nature will be settled coeval with that nature. The direct relevance to this thread is we see a habitual pattern of rhetoric by way of strawman fallacy. It is sadly predictable that issues of significance from BA77’s remarks, or from my own comments towards it will never get a responsible response on such rhetorical patterns. Therefore, I will now turn to the substantial matters which the OP points to or suggests. Those who resort to scroll by, distract, belittle and dismiss have thereby already conceded that they have nothing to contribute of substance. That is now settled, we may proceed substantially. KF
I stand dismissed.
BA77,
As I noted in 14 above, simply a link to String Theory for Dummies is a substantial contribution, as have been many of your clips and links over the years. That is worth noting.
As regards the Shroud of Turin, my key cross check is that there is a matching sudarion of Oviedo, with a separate history from C8 on and a plausible back-trace to being evacuated from ME ahead of conquest. This tends to undermine dismissals on oh there was a C14 date, which was done on reworked parts of the cloth. Which suffered fires etc. The pollen types give it provenance and so it is a remarkable object in its own right.
While I am not sure on claims regarding image formation, I am fairly confident no one else is certain either. So, while a speculative construction is interesting, that remains a subject for future resolution.
When it comes to grand unification theories, we are still in a world of speculation. The math is beautiful but not definitive, on these theories. Empirical support lags, still. We await evidence.
That said, the power of Mathematics speaks, as does the significance of cosmological fine tuning and the discovery of alphanumeric and partly algorithmic code in the cell, heart of biological life.
That convergence does suggest personal unification at the root of worlds.
Which is of course anathema to those locked into a priori evolutionary materialistic schemes and their fellow travellers. Where we separately, strongly, know these schemes are self-referentially incoherent and necessarily false.
More can be said but these are key to seeing through the matter.
KF
VL, for substantial, sad cause. KF
Yes, I am sad, along with other emotions and opinions, but for different reasons than you are, KF.
But, I accept that I have been dismissed. However, I’ll point out that once you dismiss someone it’s contradictory to keep calling them back with further comments.
F/N: It seems to me we need to take a bite on string theory, so, let’s start with Wiki as a first summary:
Linked, are branes:
We have crossed over into a new wonderland and need to get some footing on basic concepts. This is only a bare start. Next read, here https://astrogeekzco.com/2018/08/06/string-theory-explained-in-simple-words/ and here https://www.space.com/17594-string-theory.html
KF
VL, you were asked to respond for record. You had your opportunity. I wish it had been used differently on your part. Now, back to wonderland. KF
Lecture notes https://www.lpthe.jussieu.fr/~israel/notes.pdf with another set http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/use.....string.pdf
KF, I did respond. Look back at 21 and 37. You just don’t like my responses, which is different than not responding.
And if you don’t want to talk about it anymore, why don’t you quit talking about it???
KF at 47 you state,
Actually there are quite a few points to unpack here. As to the claim that “The math is beautiful”, it just so happens that the subtitle of Sabine Hossenfelder’s book is “How Beauty Leads Physics Astray”
Moreover, although I am very sympathetic to the idea that mathematically beautiful theories are far more likely to be correct mathematical descriptions of physical reality than ‘ugly’ mathematical theories are, there is, none-the-less, a strong case to be made that String Theory is certainly not to be considered a beautiful mathematical theory.
And Sabine Hossenfelder weighs in here on the ‘ugly duct tape’ that is now holding together the supposedly ‘beautiful’ mathematical theory of String Theory:
So much for the claim that String Theory is a ‘beautiful’ mathematical theory.
KF, as to your claim that “Empirical support lags, still. We await evidence (for string theory).”
Actually, it is not only that “Empirical support lags”, it is that the empirical evidence that we now have in hand directly contradicts what the theory predicted.
As the following 2019 article explains, “If supersymmetry (SUSY) is the solution to the hierarchy problem, then the lightest superpartners should definitely be accessible by Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The fact that it hasn’t found any, thus far, is enough to eliminate virtually all models of SUSY that solve the very problem it was designed to solve.”
And as Sabine Hossenfelder pointed out in the following 2019 video, because the Large Hadron Collider has failed to detect any of the many particles that were predicted to exist by String Theory, via Supersymmetry, then String Theory should now rightly be classified as a highly dubious, if not an outright falsified, scientific theory.
Moreover, as the following 2021 article points out, ‘After years of searching and loads of accumulated data from countless collisions, there is no sign of any supersymmetric particle. In fact, many supersymmetry models are now completely ruled out, and very few theoretical ideas remain valid.’ And the article even goes on to state that “Where will physics go from here, in a universe without supersymmetry? Only time (and a lot of math) will tell.”
Thus, String Theory, (via the falsification of supersymmetric particles that should have been readily accessible to the Large Hadron Collider if string theory were actually true), is found to be, basically, purely a mathematical fantasy with no detectable connection to the real world.
In short, String Theory, for all practical purposes, and as far as experimental science itself is concerned, is now considered to be dead as far as being a viable candidate for that hypothetical mathematical ‘Theory of Everything’.
BA77, ever since Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity was on the table and was put to use cosmologically, there has been a challenge to unify the large and the small scales; the latter shaped by the quantum revolution. Over the past fifty years, string theory has become the candidate to beat. It is challenged but there is no other strong contender on the table; a current issue is, are there matched bosons and fermions, some of which should be in reach of the LHC. The strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravitational forces are on the table as the observed types. Electromagnetic already shows a unification, from C19. In C20, there was electroweak, and BTW along the way magnetic forces can be seen as relativistic terms on electric forces where charges are in relative motion. The big question is unification with gravitation. So, we see a struggle. KF
KF states:
And as I mentioned in the video, Godel’s incompleteness theorem for mathematics has now been extended into quantum physics itself, in that it is now proven that “even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,,” and that “the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”
As should be needless to say, we can now be extremely confident that, mathematically speaking, the microscopic descriptions of quantum mechanics will never be successfully extended to the account for the macroscopic descriptions of General Relativity.
To repeat, the ‘incompleteness’ and/or the insurmountable difficulty ‘lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”
With the bringing in of Godel’s incompleteness into quantum mechanics, this is NOT just some esoteric point about the philosophy of mathematics but is a concrete statement about physical reality and, more particularly, about the inability of mathematics to ever bridge the gap from a ‘complete’ microscopic description from quantum mechanics to a macroscopic description of General Relativity.. (and please note that this ‘insurmountable difficulty’ also applies to the inability of the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution to account for the macroscopic structures of biological form.)
KF then states:
And my contention is that string theory, far from being merely ‘challenged’, and as far as empirical science itself is concerned, is simply a mathematical fantasy with ZERO observable connection to the real world. To repeat Hossenfelder’s 2019 lecture video, as Sabine Hossenfelder pointed out in the following 2019 video, because the Large Hadron Collider has failed to detect any of the many particles that were predicted to exist by String Theory, via Supersymmetry, then String Theory should now rightly be classified as a highly dubious, if not an outright falsified, scientific theory.
That is how science is suppose to work. If a theory predicts something and its predictions are confirmed to be true by empirical testing, then the theory gets to live to fight another day. If its predictions are falsified, (as the predictions of string theory have now been falsified in so far as we have been able to test those predictions), then the theory is SUPPOSE to die a ignoble death and be tossed onto the heap of falsified scientific theories.
As Feynman himself, the main founder of Quantum Electrodynamics, noted, “If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is… If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.”
KF you stated “It is challenged but there is no other strong contender on the table”, but that is precisely my point. My precise point is that only Christ’s resurrection from the dead, not some hypothetical mathematical theory, successfully bridges the infinite mathematical divide between general relativity and quantum mechanics.
KF you go on to mention the success that has thus far been had in unifying special relativity with electromagnetism and/or what is commonly known as Quantum Electrodynamics.
After nearly two decades of work, it only became possible to unify Special relativity and Quantum Mechanics when the “infinite results” between the two theories were dealt with 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 referred to this mathematical sleight of hand as “brushing infinity under the rug.”
In the following video, Feynman rightly expresses his unease with “brushing infinity under the rug.”,,, Specifically he stated, “Why should it take an infinite amount of logic to figure out what one stinky tiny bit of space-time is going to do?”
And while that ‘brushing infinity under the rug’ is certainly provocative enough, what is often overlooked in their ‘brushing infinity under the rug’ , when they unified Quantum Mechanics with Special Relativity, is that when they ‘brushed infinity under the rug’ they also ended up brushing ‘quantum measurement’ itself under the rug in the process.
That is to say, although they unified special relativity and quantum mechanics together in QED by “brushing infinity under the rug”, this unification between special relativity and quantum mechanics into Quantum Electrodynamics has left the entire enigma of Quantum Measurement on the cutting room floor.
Yet quantum measurement is precisely where conscious observation makes its presense fully known in quantum mechanics. As the following researcher stated, “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it.”
As should be needless to say, conscious observation is a rather important detail to be left on the cutting room floor in that particular renormalization of infinity. And since consciousness itself is indeed something very important that needs to be explained, (i.e. indeed science would not even be possible for us if conscious observation did not first exist for us), then any purported theory of everything that tosses our conscious observation by the wayside, in its attempt to find the final ‘theory of everything’, necessarily cannot be the right first step in that direction.
Such an endeavor to claim a ‘theory of everything’ whist completely ignoring conscious observation can be classified as a misguided endeavor at best.
And one wonders what else would be tossed by the wayside if someone were ever able to find a way to renormalize the ‘infinite infinities’ that divide quantum mechanics from General Relativity.
As the following theoretical physicist noted, “You would need to add infinitely many counterterms in a never-ending process. Renormalization would fail.,,,”
Moreover, if theoretical physicists, in QED, can’t even get the first step right in their quest to find a final ‘theory of everything’ it would seem that all our efforts to find that ‘final theory’ of everything thus far have been in vain.
But all hope is not lost. As touched upon in the video, when we rightly allow the Agent Causality of God back into physics, (as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned), and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands with the closing of the free will loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company, 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”.
As was also mentioned in the video, the Shroud of Turin does indeed give us empirical evidence that both quantum mechanics and gravity were indeed dealt with in Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
Thus KF, to repeat what I said earlier, “It is such consistent findings like these, findings that pull together seemingly irreconcilable facts,,,, it is such consistent findings like these that continually pulls me back to postulating Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead as the correct solution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’.
Like the proverbial missing piece of a puzzle that is finally found, Christ’s resurrection from the dead fits a little too perfectly into the final hole in the puzzle to bring the puzzle to a satisfactory completion, whereas all other pieces that have been offered thus far as a correct solution have failed miserably to fill that final hole in the puzzle.”
Suckerspawn “ SA2, Why do you assume Mary was impregnated against her will?”
I didn’t say it was done against her will. The Bible clearly states that she accepted it. My point is that if a God fearing person is told that the vengeful God she worships wishes to impregnate her, would she really feel that she had much choice in the matter?
SA2, there you go again, with demonising, belittling projections. And that in a context that is clearly toxically distractive. Thanks for telling us attitude, onward intent is therefore inferred prudentially. KF
BA77, the key point is, we are not seeing an imposition. There has been an exploration, there is a unification, one with challenges. There is an ongoing test inasmuch as that the energy levels at stake in the LHC at CERN are now where some suggested particles should begin to pop up. So far, elusive, but then it took 40+ years for our friendly little “God particle” — the Higgs Boson — to come pose for pictures. KF
PS: Speaking of which, per Wikipedia:
What honest Science looks and sounds like. Honest reporting, too.
KF ignores the fact that many of the predictions of String Theory now have been experimentally falsified and repeats his claim that string theory is merely being ‘challenged’
So to repeat, the following 2021 article points out that, ‘After years of searching and loads of accumulated data from countless collisions, there is no sign of any supersymmetric particle. In fact, many supersymmetry models are now completely ruled out, and very few theoretical ideas remain valid.’ And the article even goes on to state that “Where will physics go from here, in a universe without supersymmetry? Only time (and a lot of math) will tell.”
Scientifically speaking, that is simply devastating to a scientific theory and certainly does not speak of a scientific theory that is merely being ‘challenged’,,
But anyways, KF goes on to hope that String Theory might yet be saved because of the verification of the existence of the Higgs boson. Yet, as Sabine Hossenfelder pointed out in her lecture that I referenced, the Higg’s boson was not a prediction of String Theory, nor was it a prediction of the Standard model. Indeed, the prediction of the Higgs boson was a prediction that was made before the standard model was even finalized.
Moreover, besides the Higgs boson not being a prediction of String Theory, nor being a prediction of the Standard Model, the Higg’s boson also presents its own ‘fine-tuning’ problems that defy explanations from string theory,
In fact, as Hossenfelder goes on to note, the prediction(s) from String Theory for the existence of new particles was a ‘prediction’ that was made in order to avoid the implications of the fine-tuning of the laws of nature. Specifically she said, “new particles must appear” in an energy range of about a TeV (ie accessible at the LHC) “to avoid finetuning.”
… This was the argument why the LHC should see something new: To avoid finetuning and to preserve naturalness.
I explained many times previously why the conclusions based on naturalness were not predictions, but merely pleas for the laws of nature to be pretty.”,,,
Thus, the Higgs boson, instead of bringing resolution to the ‘fine-tuning problem’ that String Theorists were, and are, trying to ‘explain away’, actually exasperated the ‘fine-tuning problem’ for them.
Of course, the fine-tuning of the laws of nature directly implies the existence of a ‘fine-tuner’, i.e. of God, and, needless to say, predicting the existence of new particles simply because you don’t like the implications of the fine-tuning of the laws of nature, and because you want to ‘explain away’ the fine-tuning of the laws of nature, is not to be considered a scientific prediction in the least, but is to be considered merely a philosophical prediction based on atheistic predispositions. Atheistic predispositions that wish to see the universe as being ‘undesigned’ rather than as being designed.
Moreover, as Luke Barnes explained about extreme fine-tuning within the standard model itself, “Within this equation, there are twenty-six constants (laws of nature), describing the masses of the fifteen fundamental particles,,,, ,,, Compared to the range of possible masses that the particles described by the Standard Model could have, the range that avoids these kinds of complexity-obliterating disasters is extremely small. Imagine a huge chalkboard, with each point on the board representing a possible value for the up and down quark masses. If we wanted to color the parts of the board that support the chemistry that underpins life, and have our handiwork visible to the human eye, the chalkboard would have to be about ten light years (a hundred trillion kilometers) high.,,,”
As should be needless to say, that is a rather gargantuan problem of fine-tuning that the laws of nature present to particle physicists, who are given to atheistic predispositions, to try to ‘explain away’ by merely postulating the existence of new ‘natural’ particles in String Theory.
Moreover, as was pointed out previously, it simply makes no sense whatsoever to believe that a ‘bottom up’ explanation from particle physics will ever be capable of giving an adequate explanation for the laws of nature, much less ever be capable of giving an adequate explanation why the laws of nature are finely tuned.
String theorists simply lack the proper footing to ever be able explain the laws of nature. As the old joke goes, ‘you can’t get there from here’.
And as the previously cited extension of Godel’s incompleteness into quantum physics stated, it is now proven that “even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,,” and that “the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”
To repeat, and as should be needless to say, we can now be extremely confident that, mathematically speaking, the microscopic descriptions of quantum mechanics (and/or the standard model) will never be successfully extended to the account for the macroscopic descriptions of General Relativity (and/or of the laws of nature).
To repeat, the ‘incompleteness’ and/or the insurmountable difficulty ‘lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”
With the bringing in of Godel’s incompleteness into quantum mechanics, this is NOT just some esoteric point about the philosophy of mathematics but is a concrete statement about physical reality and, more particularly, about the inability of mathematics to ever bridge the gap from a ‘complete’ microscopic description from quantum mechanics to a macroscopic description of General Relativity..
In short, the quest for a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’ via String Theory is nothing less that a Alice in Wonderland pipe dream that belongs squarely in the fairy tale section at the library.
Here are s few supplemental notes as to the ‘top-down’ explanations of Design advocates vs. the ‘bottom-up’ explanations of atheistic materialists, i.e. “bottom-up explanations which seek to avoid any implications of intelligent design.
Acartia Stevie:
Your “point” is a strawman.
TEST — log in issues
ET, at this point, the issue is to identify then refuse to feed the troll. That is a sad place to be but with now insistent resort to village atheist rhetoric that seems to be where we are with AS2. KF
BA77, my point of concern is that the Higgs Boson popped up after 40 years. With that on the table, I am not about to dismiss the String theory framework. I will also say that from my early days in 6th form, I saw the anomies connected to a point particle and felt this was idealisation. A string naturally has size and vibration modes that are quantised, with room for rolled up dimensions. I can see why it is appealing even before we go into the ways it ties together particles and space; I can live with a multiverse of some kind. I want to see a definite thick stake through the heart first before I rule it dead. Challenged, but not dead yet. KF
KF, again, the Higgs prediction DID NOT arise from the String Framework. And to pretend as if it lends credence to the String framework is misguided at best.
In fact, as I pointed out, the extreme fine-tuning of the Higgs boson itself created more problems than it solved for those who are beholden to String Theory.
I am more than comfortable that I have stated my case clearly in post 61.
Much like Darwinian evolution, if String Theory were a normal science instead of basically being a belief system, it would, because of its many failed predictions, now be considered falsified.
BA77, commenting is open to me again, so I note. The issue with Higgs is not directly about strings but about pace of experimental discoveries in modern high energy physics. Billions have to be mobilised it seems and there is now one test site. KF
Bornagain77 @36,
That’s because they did not watch more than three minutes the video before rejecting it on ideological grounds. It’s acknowledged that Viola Lee is actually focused on the ethics of divorce.
While Dr. Cunningham speaks slowly and stumbles over words, most of the video consists of quotes from physicists. If you’re impatient as I sometimes am, a transcript is located here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LgOgrJuWLXqgIAr6Au3MkfIilyV7-MDEz9dy5WniEHw/edit
My first question is which of the quoted physicists are they willing to identify as “borderline retarded” or making “nothing new” assertions?
My second is do they object to applying Kurt Gödel’s theorems to mathematical incompatibility between ETR and QM?
Waiting with baited breath . . .
-Q
KF states:
Well I guess that is about as much of a concession from you that I will ever get that String Theory has failed miserably as the much hyped ‘theory of everything’.
Which has been precisely my point all along, i.e. “Like the proverbial missing piece of a puzzle that is finally found, whereas all other pieces that have been offered thus far as a correct solution for the ‘theory of everything’, i.e. string theory etc.., have failed miserably to fill that final hole in the puzzle. Christ’s resurrection from the dead fits a little too perfectly into the final hole of the puzzle to bring the puzzle to a satisfactory completion,
KF, you go on to note that even though the Higgs is not about string theory per se, but is,,
Actually, I believe Smolin, Woit, and Hossenfelder are all on record as to questioning the wisdom of throwing good money after bad. They hold that the overall amount of money dedicated for scientific research is limited and far too much money is being spent chasing this particular rabbit down the hole. They hold that the money could be spent far more wisely in other areas of research that hold much more promise.
From what I have seen from the minuscule returns from the LHC, despite the enormous expenditures, I agree with their sentiment.
For me the problem is not about breaking particles into smaller and smaller pieces, i.e. pushing Humpty Dumpty off the wall harder and harder, but is about the fact that all the King’s horses and all the King’s men can’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again. i.e. It is about people recognizing the fact that string theory has failed miserably as that hoped for overarching mathematical ‘theory of everything’.
That a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’, in which God is completely neglected, would fail should not be all that surprising. (Remember, as Hossenfelder pointed out, String Theory was suppose to ‘explain away’ the fine-tuning of the laws of nature.).
Modern science, (as far as any mathematics that might describe this universe are concerned), has apparently completely forgotten its Christian roots in which any math that might describe this universe were held to be the ‘thoughts of God’, and has regressed back into the determinism of the Ancient Greeks in which math is held to have a necessary “Platonic” existence and that math does not have a contingent existence,, i.e. an existence that depends on the Mind of God.
As Paul Davies noted, “Christians envisage God as upholding the natural order from beyond the universe, while physicists (today) think of their laws as inhabiting an abstract transcendent realm of perfect mathematical relationships.”
Philosophically speaking, this is a major step backwards for modern physicist to take. Modern science was only, and finally, able to gain a foothold in medieval Christian Europe with the quote-unquote “outlawing” of the deterministic and/or necessitarian view of the universe that had dominated the philosophical thought of the ancient Greeks.
In fact, in ancient Greek thought, and apparently in the thought of the majority of present day theoretical physicists, “the mathematical realm is (seen as) a rival to God rather than a path to him.”
As Edward Fesser recently explained, “There is also a very different answer, in which the mathematical realm is a rival to God rather than a path to him. According to this view, mathematical objects such as numbers and geometrical figures exist not only independently of the material world, but also independently of any mind, including the divine mind.”
Perhaps the most succinct quote on how the early Christian founders of modern science actually viewed any mathematics that might describe this universe is the following quote by Kepler which he made shortly after he discovered the mathematical laws of planetary motion.
In fact, so foreign is the concept, now-a-days, that any mathematics that might describe this universe are the thoughts of God, that more than a few feathers were ruffled when Wigner, (and Einstein), stated that the applicability of mathematics to the universe was a ‘miracle’, (Einstein even disparaged ‘professional atheists’ in the process of calling it a miracle),,
Thus in conclusion, String Theory not only is a failed scientific theory because it predictions, in so far as we have been able to test them, have been falsified, but it also is a failed scientific theory because it has regressed back into the philosophical dead end of the Ancient Greeks in which math is seen, as Feser put it, as a rival to God rather than a path to him.
Might it be too obvious to point out the fact that my quote-unquote ‘theory’ of Jesus Christ providing the correct solution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ does not suffer the from Feser’s pointed criticism of being “a rival to God rather than a path to him”?
Querius thanks for the support in face a such hostility. Although I have to correct the fact that I am not a Dr. in that I do not have a PhD. Which is perhaps a very good thing since, (since I don’t have the respect that goes with having a PhD.), I have to be very careful to reference my facts very carefully.
As you pointed out, “which of the quoted physicists are they willing to identify as “borderline retarded” or making “nothing new” assertions?”
And I also like the second very important point that you pointed out, “My second is do they object to applying Kurt Gödel’s theorems to mathematical incompatibility between ETR and QM?”
That development of bringing Godel’s incompleteness theorems into quantum physics is certainly far more devastating to finding a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’ than, apparently, most theoretical physicists have yet realized.
70
Hi Q. I’d like to clear some things up.
First, I had nothing to do with calling BA’s video retarded. Among other things, I’ve worked with handicapped children, and that is a slur that I would never use about anyone.
Second, without any supporting evidence, you wrote, “That’s because they did not watch more than three minutes the video before rejecting it on ideological grounds.” It is true that I didn’t watch it because I don’t like videos in general. Instead I read over the notes accompanying the video, so it is wrong to imply that I just summarily rejected it on ideological grounds.
As to your comment, “It’s acknowledged that Viola Lee is actually focused on the ethics of divorce”: that is because KF brought the subject up from another thread, and so I responded and we pursued the subject for a while. Threads often go off on tangents, but I didn’t initiate the tangent.
What I did say was that the video wasn’t worth my time. The reason is that it was almost all repeats of quotes and points that he has made countless times before.
For, instance, he has quoted Feynman about “brushing infinity under the rug” many times, and draws conclusions about the significance about that that I think are false. He often refers to Godel’s incompleteness theorem but again finds significance in physics that I don’t think applies. He’s talked about the Copernican principle many times. He takes one particular view of the measurement that questioned by many eminent physicists, he’s quoted Wienberg multiple time, he’s quoted Zeilinger about the Word of God multiple times (and I’ve watched that video and it’s not the endorsement BA wants it to be), he makes unfounded significance, I think of the “free will” test of Bell’s theorem, and of course there is a long part about how the Shroud of Turin, which has appeared countless times in his posts, is both true and significant.
I’m not about to wade into that morass. But I’ll emphasize that it is all repetitive – there was nothing new there, and that is why I dismissed it.
Ironically, you say we “rejected it on ideological grounds”. But the heart of BA’s argument is his imposition of Christian ideology on the physics, Many physicists of different religions grapple with some of the issues he discusses, including the theory of everything. I can assure you that an explanation that involves the agent causality of God, John 1:1, and all the other religious trappings, held together by Jesus and the Shroud of Turin, would never make a dint in the world of real physics.
And last, you write, “My second is do they object to applying Kurt Gödel’s theorems to mathematical incompatibility between ETR and QM?”
Godel’s theorem is a sophisticated argument involving sets of sets in pure mathematics that is about the natural number system. I don’t think it automatically transfers over to whether we can find some overriding mathematical theory that ties ETR and QM together. Just invoking Godel’s theorem as an arguments that a reconciliation is impossible, therefore Jesus, is ideology trumping facts at its finest.
P.S.
At 70, BA says, “That development of bringing Godel’s incompleteness theorems into quantum physics is certainly far more devastating to finding a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’ than, apparently, most theoretical physicists have yet realized.”
Maybe that is because most theoretical physicists, if they are even aware of the issue, are unpersuaded that it means no unifying math for ETR and QM will be found, much less that the solution is acknowledging God and Jesus as the foundation of all science.
I am not a theoretical physicist and neither, so far as know, is anyone else here. If this is true then it is also highly unlikely that anyone here is able to grasp the finer details of the esoteric mathematics from which relativity, quantum mechanics and string theory are constructed. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
If the above is true then any comments or criticisms of these theories made here are based on highly simplified versions created in attempts to make them accessible to some extent to a lay audience.
That being the case, pontificating on the strengths and weaknesses of the theories, their predictive power or lack thereof, their alleged over-reliance on the notion of beauty of mathematical constructs is highly presumptuous. Especially so when these theories are being judged by the extent to which they lend support to the religious presuppositions of some.
If you are actually interested in the science then by all means quote the criticisms of Sabine Hossenfelder or Peter Woit, for example, but you should also give the proponents of the theories being criticized equal time to explain and defend their positions.
Otherwise, listing cherry-picked quotes which do not necessarily reflect the considered opinions of the authors and leaping wildly across the many gaps in our understanding to unwarranted inferences of support for religious beliefs may be comforting personally but it is not scientific.
Good post, Sev. I like this particularly:
BA77, while, yes it is very expensive, high energy physics is our best bet at understanding the fundamental components of the physical world and reducing them to a coherent view of the whole. To be a Science, there is need for experiment, which requires a rather large high vacuum, with accelerators of particles. Such often use superconducting coils for magnets and of course there is attached a huge concentration of computing power; it is no longer a matter of stacks of photo plates sent up by balloon to capture natural high energy events and the days of a table top two- D’s based cyclotron are long past. The energy bill alone is monstrous and the army of technicians and scientists will come with a serious payroll. It is no accident that the basic WWW technology came from a physicist there developing a means to share papers. That spin off alone probably justifies the accumulated cost; similar to the payoffs from the Moon Landing programme. The cost is big enough that in the ’80’s the US Gov’t balked at funding a competing site, the super conducting super collider. The 40+ year effort that brought the Higgs boson to pose for the cameras is a high water mark, but one that tells us that this stuff now moves on a decadal scale. In that context the exposition of string theory since the 60’s — requiring comparatively small change to pay for the metaphorical chalk and chalk boards — has put on the table a controversial and empirical support challenged theory, but one that is the candidate to beat. To date, we still await a stout stake through the heart. KF
Sev (attn VL):
The first reality is, that string theory lacks empirical warrant and has run into trouble with runaway infinities that stymie the renormalisations that rescued earlier conundrums. That is a matter of public knowledge, not a distortion of what may be said by particular spokesmen. Further to this, the dominance of a controversial theory on budgets for empirical work and the decades of so far fruitless effort point to a potentially degenerative research programme.
The trick of suggesting out of context, religiously motivated quotes to dismiss such concerns is a strawman fallacy.
Next, there is on the table, at 14 above, another set of considerations that link to the nature of reality through the lens of foundations of mathematics i/l/o another key public fact, Wigner’s astonishment at the uncanny effectiveness of Mathematics. The result of that is to draw out aspects of logic of being amenable to study through the logic of structure and quantity [= math] informed by the principle of distinct identity, core of logic and right reason. We see that there are indeed necessary world framework beings or entities that will extend to every actual or possible world, at the heart of Mathematics, starting with N,Z,Q,R,C,R*. That is a key result with deep import for not only why major aspects of Math are universal but also they establish by concrete example that necessary eternal entities that are framework to any world are real.
That goes far beyond math, as it points to a finitely remote root world I labelled W_0 above, which is source for other worlds such as we inhabit. Finitely remote as a stepwise, finite stage successive causal sequence of periods cannot traverse an actually transfinite span. That world obviously has dynamical capability to source and sustain contingent [~14 BYA] worlds such as ours.
Where, the evident fine tuning of our world fitted to C-chemistry aqueous medium cell based life, the alphanumeric and algorithmic code in such life, further elaboration of information rich functionally specific structures and more point to world-building powerful intelligence as core to the necessary being eternal entity at heart of W_0.
This is then multiplied by the presence in our local world W_L, of inescapably morally governed creatures with first duties of right reason. Duties that appear in your attempted dismissals above: to truth, to right reason, to prudence, to sound conscience, to neighbour, so too to fairness and justice etc. Such Cicero-nian first duties are inescapable (even objections are forced to rely on them implicitly to have any persuasive traction), so too, inescapably true and self evident. Root reality has to account for that too, on pain of incoherence in the heart of our rational ensouled life. (Rational animality.)
There is a bill of requisites in the root of reality to account for such moral government: inherent goodness inextricably entangled with utter wisdom.
So, regardless of ideologies to the contrary, it is quite reasonable to identify the heart of W_0 as the God of ethical theism. Yes, beyond math into logic of being [= ontology] and metaphysics [= the philosophical study of reality and its core components], but not any particular theology or religion. Albeit, amenable to the Judaeo-Christian framework that has been so pivotal to our civilisation.
In that context, there is nothing particularly reprehensible in examining a curious artifact of Antiquity, the Shroud of Turin. Given the Sudarion of Oviedo, the presence of reworked cloth and the presence of pollen and dirt tracing to Jerusalem, there is no particular implausibility in such being the cloth burial shroud for one certain Jesus of Nazareth. One whose death is surrounded by a mystery attested to by 500+ unbreakable witnesses, the resurrection of the dead. While the Shroud is not necessary evidence, it is reasonable evidence and the image on it does have remarkable properties. That a high energy event accounts for such, is not to be dismissed out of hand. Though, such is also challenging to duplicate, e.g. 3-d, x-ray like image formation with superficial degeneration of surface fibres. Presence of coins on eyes, flowers, blood and wounds consistent with an all too familiar history and the like.
I do not stake my faith or the Christian faith on it, but it is a remarkable object, one that may indeed reflect a high energy event.
So, I suggest a little less obviously ideologically convenient dismissiveness.
KF
Viola Lee @70,
Um, I tried to acknowledge that you were not immediately dismissive of the video, but that you were actually focused on the ethics of divorce. Sorry, I guess I wasn’t clear.
On your point that all the arguments have been touted before and thus are (apparently) boring to you doesn’t make them irrelevant–but at least if you have an open mind.
This presentation is actually the first time that I’ve seen Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness theorems applied by respected physicists to the problems reconciling the mathematics of ETR and QM . I found that part of the presentation particularly interesting.
Coincidentally, I had an informal discussion on this topic about a year ago with a mathematician who suggested the application of Gödel’s theorems to the nature of Reality purely as a speculation and we left it there as such. Frankly, I’ve never read such a proposal in any of the books I’ve read on QM.
Do you have any references that I could follow up on?
There’s very little crossover between the scientific method and concluding God as the agent of why anything exists at all versus non-existence. The reason is simple. All science is based on a methodical analysis of causality from things that can be measured. However, “Nothing” (i.e. non-existence) cannot be the Cause of Everything in the universe: space-time, mass-energy, probability, dark matter, dark energy, the laws of physics and so on. This is not possible because a cause is Something and not Nothing.
Thus, a causal agent must exist outside of this universe–just as proponents of the multiverse speculation have been asserting for many years. But even they don’t know whether this is a multiverse spawning universes or a cosmic turtle laying eggs. Or a sentient God.
However, the causal agent cannot be defined scientifically by its effects alone, only that it must exist outside our universe and that there must ultimately be the first cause. That the agent for our existence might actually be the Son of God is a conclusion based on a relatively reasonable faith.
Why do I consider it reasonable?
As a Hebrew named Johanan wrote almost 2,000 years ago, “In the beginning was the Logos . . .” which we understand as the concept of logic, communication, and information. And this sentient Logos personified created and sustains everything. And this is where some of the quotes in the presentation about QM and the nature of reality come into focus.
-Q
Q, communicative reason himself. KF
Finally Viola Lee states some of the exact reasons why he doesn’t think the video is worth his time.
He states:
“For, instance, he has quoted Feynman about “brushing infinity under the rug” many times, and draws conclusions about the significance about that that I think are false.”
HUH? But wait a minute, Exactly WHY does Viola Lee think that it is false? Are we suppose to just take Viola Lee’s word for it that he personally finds it false and therefore we can rest assured, on his authority alone, that it is a false conclusion? Sorry Viola Lee but that is not how it works. You have to give your specific reasoning as to why you think it is false.
In the video, I quoted Feynman directly on his uneasiness with ‘brushing infinity under the rug’, i.e. ““Why should it take an infinite amount of logic to figure out what one stinky tiny bit of space-time is going to do?”, and then I simply noted that, personally, I find it interesting that Richard Feynman, an atheist, would have been so bothered by his “brushing infinity under the rug.” (since) As for myself, being a Christian Theist, I find it rather comforting to know that it takes an ‘infinite amount of logic to figure out what one stinky tiny bit of space-time is going to do’:
The reason why I find it rather comforting is because of John 1:1, which says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” ‘The Word’ in John 1:1 is translated from ‘Logos’ in Greek. Logos also happens to be the root word from which we derive our modern word logic.
So that it would take an infinite amount of logic to know what a tiny bit of spacetime is going to do is pretty much exactly what one should expect to see under Christian presuppositions.
Thus my reasoning in the video is straight forward.
Feynman, an atheist, was uneasy that it took an “infinite amount of logic to figure out what one stinky tiny bit of space-time is going to do”, and I merely pointed out that, for a Christian Theist via John 1:1, it is to be, pretty much, expected that is should take ““infinite amount of logic to figure out what one stinky tiny bit of space-time is going to do”.
Nothing strained or forced in my resining. It is all straight forward.
But hey, Viola Lee personally thinks my reasoning is false without stating his exact reason for why he personally thinks it is false. I guess that means it is case closed, right? Oh Well,,,
But alas, others not so enamored with Viola Lee’s towering intellect may not be so impressed with Viola Lee’s personal assurance that there is ‘nothing to see here’ and want to know exactly why the Christian should not take comfort in the fact that it takes ““infinite amount of logic to figure out what one stinky tiny bit of space-time is going to do”.
After that hand waving dismissal, Viola Lee goes on and states this ‘reason’ for why his dismissed my video,
“He often refers to Godel’s incompleteness theorem but again finds significance in physics that I don’t think applies.”
HUH? So again we are just suppose to Viola Lee’s word for it that Godel’s incompleteness theorem does not apply to physics?
For crying out loud Viola Lee, But WHY do you personally think it does not apply to physics? i.e. What is your exact reasoning?
In the video, I listed my exact reasons for why I think Godel’s incompleteness theorem does apply to physics. Specifically Godel’s incompleteness theorem, contrary to what you believe, HAS now, in fact, been extended to quantum physics.
Shoot, even Stephen Hawking himself reluctantly admitted that Godel’s incompleteness had direct implications for the quote-unquote ‘theory of everything’
But hey, Viola Lee personally does not think Godel’s incompleteness applies to physics and so I guess we can just rest assured that the matter is settled??? But then again, others not so enamored with Viola Lee’s towering intellect may not be so impressed with Viola Lee’s personal assurance that there is ‘nothing to see here’.
Viola Lee lays out more of his ‘reasoning’ for dismissing my video,
“He’s talked about the Copernican principle many times.”
Yeah? And so what? That the Copernican principle is overturned by both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics is not a matter of opinion but is a matter of fact. A fact which I referenced in my video. Simply mentioning that I talked about the Copernican principle in my video and then saying nothing else is CERTAINLY NOT a refutation of my position in the video. Again, it might be very helpful for you to realize that others are nearly as enamored with your intellect as you seem to be.
Viola Lee goes on,
“He takes one particular view of (quantum) measurement that questioned by many eminent physicists,”
Hey,, now we are finally getting somewhere, but alas we are left completely in the dark as to who is doing the questioning and why they are questioning it. i.e. are they objecting for empirical or philosophical reasons? or etc.. etc..?
Oh well so much for that supposed refutation of my video,,,, Viola Lee then goes on,
“he’s quoted Wienberg multiple time,”
Yeah, and so what? I am particularly fond of Weinberg’s paper entitled ‘The trouble with quantum mechanics’ because, number 1, Weinberg is brilliant and, number 2, because he is brutally honest. Which happens to be a lethal combination for his atheistic worldview.
Viola goes on,
“he’s quoted Zeilinger about the Word of God multiple times (and I’ve watched that video and it’s not the endorsement BA wants it to be),”
Hey, what do you know,,, Viola Lee finally refers to something other than his own authority to decide if something is significant or not. But alas for Viola Lee, it is my video that he references and I have the exact quote handy, Here is the quote in full context,,
Sure Zeilinger’s quote is measured, but the quote is what it is and he does indeed mention John 1:1 in a favorable light.,, Considering it is Zeilinger himself stating it, I will take that ‘endorsement’ anytime!
Viola Lee goes on
“he makes unfounded significance, I think of the “free will” test of Bell’s theorem,”
Actually atheists are the ones who have adamantly tried to claim that free will is merely an illusion. So finding that our free will choices are indeed a integral part of the measurement process is not a minor development. Zeilinger himself, in one of his interviews, (I can’t recall which one right now), mentioned that he thought this particularly experiment was very significant experiment. Hossenfelder herself was so disturbed by the implications of this particular experiment that she ended up postulating ‘superdeterminism’, (where it is held that all of our choices were somehow ‘super determined’ prior to the Big Bang), to try to get around the implications of the experiment.
Apparently they strongly disagree with Viola Lee’s assessment that the test has “unfounded significance”.
Viola Lee goes on,
“and of course there is a long part about how the Shroud of Turin, which has appeared countless times in his posts, is both true and significant.
I’m not about to wade into that morass. But I’ll emphasize that it is all repetitive – there was nothing new there, and that is why I dismissed it.”
Again, HUH?? WHAT?? For crying out loud, you have waded into nothing. You entire post thus far has been nothing but a tour de force of hand-waving dismissiveness. NO reasons whatsoever have been given for why you personally find any of my arguments unpersuasive. You just state that you find them personally unpersuasive and expect your own personal opinion to carry the weight of making your case for you. That simply is not how it works Viola Lee. No matter how impressed with your own intellect you may be.
Viola Lee goes on,
“Ironically, you say we “rejected it on ideological grounds”. But the heart of BA’s argument is his imposition of Christian ideology on the physics, Many physicists of different religions grapple with some of the issues he discusses, including the theory of everything. I can assure you that an explanation that involves the agent causality of God, John 1:1, and all the other religious trappings, held together by Jesus and the Shroud of Turin, would never make a dint in the world of real physics.”
Well actually Viola Lee has already openly stated his hostility towards ‘Christian ideology’ in this thread when he got into a discussion with KF about divorce, so it hardly surprising that he would try to oppose Christianity at every turn,,,, but anyways, despite his severe animosity towards Christianity, modern physics, i.e. the world of ‘real physics’, just so happened to be born out of Christian metaphysics in medieval Christian Europe, thus it is not so much that I am ‘imposing’ Christian ideology onto physics as I am showing that the ‘Christian ideology’ from which modern physics originally sprang, is also very favorable to the ultimate resolution of modern physics by providing a VERY plausible resolution to the much sought after ‘theory of everything’.
Contrary to what Viola Lee believes, ‘Christian ideology’ and modern physics have a very intimate and entangled history together.
Viola lee goes on
“And last, you write, “My second is do they object to applying Kurt Gödel’s theorems to mathematical incompatibility between ETR and QM?”
Godel’s theorem is a sophisticated argument involving sets of sets in pure mathematics that is about the natural number system. I don’t think it automatically transfers over to whether we can find some overriding mathematical theory that ties ETR and QM together. Just invoking Godel’s theorem as an arguments that a reconciliation is impossible, therefore Jesus, is ideology trumping facts at its finest.”
Again, Viola Lee apparently completely ignores the fact that Godel’s incompleteness theorem has now, in fact, been brought into quantum physics.
Viola Lee goes on
“P.S.
At 70, BA says, “That development of bringing Godel’s incompleteness theorems into quantum physics is certainly far more devastating to finding a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’ than, apparently, most theoretical physicists have yet realized.”
Maybe that is because most theoretical physicists, if they are even aware of the issue, are unpersuaded that it means no unifying math for ETR and QM will be found, much less that the solution is acknowledging God and Jesus as the foundation of all science.”
Oh goody, now not only is Viola Lee, with out any reference, stating his own personal opinion as authoritative, but apparently Viola Lee has now mastered the art of mind reading and has deduced the exact reasoning for why any theoretical physicist may accept or reject bringing Godel’s incompleteness theorems into quantum physics.
As I stated before, Viola Lee’s entire post has been nothing but a tour de force of hand-waving dismissiveness.
At 73 Viola Lee finally appeals to somebody other that himself. Unfortunately for him. he appeals to our own resident atheist Seversky as an authority,
Viola Lee, despite how enamored you may be by Seversky’s quote since it agrees with your own anti-Christian bias, the fact of the matter is that science is not based upon Seversky’s materialistic and/or naturalistic worldview, but science, every nook and cranny of it, is instead based upon the presupposition of Intelligent Design.
Contrary to what many people have been falsely led to believe by Darwinian atheists, about Intelligent Design supposedly being a pseudo-science, the fact of the matter is that all of science, every nook and cranny of it, is based on the presupposition of intelligent design and is certainly not based on the presupposition of methodological naturalism.
From the essential Christian presuppositions that undergird the founding of modern science itself, (namely that the universe is rational and that the minds of men, being made in the ‘image of God’, can dare understand that rationality), to the intelligent design of the scientific instruments and experiments themselves, to the logical and mathematical analysis of experimental results themselves, from top to bottom, science itself is certainly not to be considered a ‘natural’ endeavor of man.
Not one scientific instrument would ever exist if men did not first intelligently design that scientific instrument. Not one test tube, microscope, telescope, spectroscope, or etc.. etc.., was ever found just laying around on a beach somewhere which was ‘naturally’ constructed by nature. Not one experimental result would ever be rationally analyzed since there would be no immaterial minds to rationally analyze the immaterial logic and immaterial mathematics that lay behind the intelligently designed experiments in the first place.
Again, all of science, every nook and cranny of it, is based on the presupposition of intelligent design and is certainly not based on the presupposition of methodological naturalism.
Moreover, presupposing methodological naturalism, instead of Intelligent Design, as the starting presupposition for ‘doing science’ actually drives science into catastrophic epistemological failure.
Thus, although the Darwinian Atheist may firmly believe that he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for naturalistic explanations over and above God as a viable explanation), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists themselves are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to.
It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science, indeed more antagonistic to reality itself, than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.
Viola Lee @ 73, I agree.
Kairosfocus @77,
Yes, and logic, wisdom, and information. And likely conscious free will choices as noted by contemporary researchers in quantum mechanics.
The reason I keep posting this quote is because the people cannot recognize their their ideological attachments are also willing to simply brush off the most intensely tested and experimentally verified branch of the most exact science known to mankind. This is a pity.
-Q
Bornagain77 @78,
What you’re pointing out is that the “modern” way of thinking assumes that unsupported assertions refutes ALL other logic, experimental science, expertise, and any logic. I’ve mentioned before that a bot could easily be programmed to respond to any subject with similar spectacular refutations (lol) such as
(i.e. “We” as in “me and my tapeworm.”)
“Professing themselves to be wise, they became . . . ” – Paul of Tarsus
-Q
Q writes, “… willing to simply brush off the most intensely tested and experimentally verified branch of the most exact science known to mankind.”
I guess I don’t see this. Who is brushing off quantum mechanics? There are very large issues about interpreting what we know of quantum events as to they pertain to metaphysical questions about the nature of reality, but I don’t see people “brushing it off.” I’ve read a number of books by different people on the subject, and they all take the reality (pun intended) of QM events quite seriously.
seversky:
You just described materialists and evolutionists. Nicely done
Viola Lee states that,
That reminds me of this following interview with Anton Zeilinger in which he states at the 9:00 min mark:,,, “the main issue (with quantum mechanics) is interpretation. What does it mean for our view of the world.,,, “emotional” fights happen over what it means,,,”
I also really, really like Zeilinger’s observation at the 15:45 min mark since it fits in so well with my video in the OP:,,, specifically Zeilinger states, “the fact that some of the brightest minds in physics have been working on this issue, (i.e. The unification of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics), for 80 years now at least, and have not found a solution means that the solution will be extremely deep. It will be extremely significant if somebody found it, and it will probably be in a direction where nobody expected it.,,,”
🙂
But anyways let’s leave that particular quote to the side for now and get back to ‘interpreting’ quantum mechanics,,,, why in the world are there ’emotional fights’ over such a seemingly innocuous thing as interpreting what the experiments of quantum mechanics are telling us?
Well, you can bet your bottom dollar that it is the same exact reason why so many atheists get so angry when you point out the fact that life gives us abundant evidence of having been intelligently designed. Indeed, it is why so many atheists devote hours upon hours on the internet trying to defend the completely scientifically bankrupt idea that is Darwinian evolution. They simply don’t the world to be like that. EVER, PERIOD!
Thomas Nagel,,, a prominent American Philosopher who is an atheist, and who honestly confessed that, “the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False”,,,
Thomas Nagel, an atheist and prominent American Philosopher, referred to this irrational ’emotional’ response by him, and other atheists, to resisting the idea that God is behind life and the universe, as the “cosmic authority problem”, and he even states, “I don’t want the universe to be like that.”
What in the world does ‘wanting’ the universe to be a certain way have to do with being scientifically honest enough to accept the way the universe actually is?
But anyway Querius, that is quite the telling quote from Nagel and nicely sums up what we are actually dealing with in our dealings with atheists. Rebellion against God, plain and simple!
Thus Querius it is not so much that the ‘modern way’ of thinking makes atheists so irrational, but it is the simply the age old problem of rebellion against God that makes them so impervious to reasoned argumentation. The Old Testament (and even the New Testament) is literally chock full of examples of rebellion against God.
And as the famed mathematician Leonard Euler noted way back in 1747, “If these people (atheists) 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.”
Yes indeed, if only atheist would be reasonable then “it would be quite easy to steer them away from their errors;”
Verse:
Bornagain77,
Wow, what a fascinating quote from Euler! Thank you. This is reassuring in a negative sort of way.
It also reminds me of several modest discoveries that I thought I made One in particular, I posted online for comment and was strongly criticized until someone found that it had been previously discovered and published. No apologies were forthcoming, of course. Just silence.
Sadly, humanity’s natural inclination is to keep our eyes tightly shut, our mouths wide open with blah blah blah, and our ears plugged. Then, when we get overwhelmed with guilt, stress, and complexity, we turn to . . . drugs, denial, and despair. It’s always ABC: Anything But Christ. And yet, somewhere deep inside there’s a tiny yearning.
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.” – Jesus, Revelation 3:20 (NASB)
-Q
Viola Lee,
The question that I asked you in @76 was not rhetorical.
I’m asking since you indicated familiarity with Gödel’s incompleteness theorems with regard to QM.
Thanks,
-Q
Q, you write, “Viola Lee, the question that I asked you in @76 was not rhetorical… I’m asking since you indicated familiarity with Gödel’s incompleteness theorems with regard to QM.”
Hmmmm, I said I wasn’t familiar with that. What I said about Godel was “Godel’s theorem is a sophisticated argument involving sets of sets in pure mathematics that is about the natural number system. I don’t think it automatically transfers over to whether we can find some overriding mathematical theory that ties ETR and QM together.”
I agree with you that I have never seen anything about Godel and QM (although I am just a casual educated layperson, IANAP). What I understand about Godel’s theorem is that it says in any axiomatic system there will be true statements within the system that nevertheless can’t be proved within the system. That is, it is about purely mathematical systems, so I don’t think that it automatically becomes true about mathematical descriptions about the real world, such as some possible unification of QM and general relativity.
Sort of like QM itself, people tend to apply Godels’ ideas to things beyond the bounds of what they applies to.
Pierre d’Arcis “The case, Holy Father, stands thus. Some time since in this diocese of Troyes the Dean of a certain collegiate church, to wit, that of Lirey, falsely and deceitfully, being consumed with the passion of avarice, and not from any motive of devotion but only of gain, procured for his church a certain cloth cunningly painted, upon which by a clever sleight of hand was depicted the twofold image of one man, that is to say, the back and front, he falsely declaring and pretending that this was the actual shroud in which our Saviour Jesus Christ was enfolded in the tomb, and upon which the whole likeness of the Saviour had remained thus impressed together with the wounds which He bore.”
“This story was put about not only in the kingdom of France, but, so to speak, throughout the world, so that from all parts people came together to view it. And further to attract the multitude so that money might cunningly be wrung from them, pretended miracles were worked, certain men being hired to represent themselves as healed at the moment of the exhibition of the shroud, which all believed to the shroud of our Lord. The Lord Henry of Poitiers, of pious memory, then Bishop of Troyes, becoming aware of this, and urged by many prudent persons to take action, as indeed was his duty in the exercise of his ordinary jurisdiction, set himself earnestly to work to fathom the truth of this matter.”
“For many theologians and other wise persons declared that this could not be the real shroud of our Lord having the Saviour’s likeness thus imprinted upon it, since the holy Gospel made no mention of any such imprint, while, if it had been true, it was quite unlikely that the holy Evangelists would have omitted to record it, or that the fact should have remained hidden until the present time. Eventually, after diligent inquiry and examination, he discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed.”
“Accordingly, after taking mature counsel with wise theologians and men of the law, seeing that he neither ought nor could allow the matter to pass, he began to institute formal proceedings against the said Dean and his accomplices in order to root out this false persuasion. They, seeing their wickedness discovered, hid away the said cloth so that the Ordinary could not find it, and they kept it hidden afterwards for thirty-four years or thereabouts down to the present year.”
Viola Lee,
I guess I misunderstood when you said in 19,
Apparently, you weren’t thinking of Gödel’s theorems, which as I said was quite surprising to me that they were actually being considered by a serious physicist in terms of the incompatibility of ETR and QM.
Since Reality seems to be mathematical–the wavefunction is nothing tangible, only interacting probabilities until observed, it’s not implausible that Gödel’s theorems could apply to to these as well as the mathematics underlying ETR. Of course, Gödel’s theorems apply to systems of counting numbers, but it’s not really a stretch to apply the same concepts to whole numbers and even rational numbers, perhaps followed by irrational, imaginary, and other types of numbers.
Are you familiar with any work extending Gödel’s theorems to any of these other number systems?
-Q
ET, by their projections (and cognitive dissonance) shall ye know them. KF
Q (attn VL),
Godel is about irreducible complexity of axiomatisations of mathematical systems, using counting numbers and arithmetic as yardstick. As the chain of sets N,Z,Q,R,C,R* etc is constructable from N, which in turn builds up from {} –> 0 via von Neumann succession of sets, thee result on N logically pervades Mathematics and its extensions.
We should note that most mathematical operations are extended from those of arithmetic, perhaps with an injection of structures [e.g. matrices etc], limits involving series and sequences of partial sums etc.
Meanwhile, distinct identity and its provision of 0,1,2 in any possible world brings the chain in in any reasonable logic model world, including those intended to provide physical models of our world (and the many forks on many worlds interpretations.)
The key point is, we have good reason to accept and acknowledge that
The grand result is that faith as responsible confidence in the face of irreducible Johnson uncertainty is embedded in all significant mathematics and logic pervaded disciplines. In Rumsfeld’s terms, we have a known known that there will be known unknowns and likely unknown unknowns.
This is a context in which I take significant cognisance of the Euler identity, stated in the full traditional form that explicitly joins together the five key numbers in our systems of Mathematics, to known infinitely fine precision:
0 = 1 + e^(i*pi)
The four number form is often presented as just the same, to trivialise; certainly, that has been seen here at UD. That simply reflects failure to distinguish an algebraic transformation from the epistemic significance of a key result. Here, that five key numbers reflecting entire domains of mathematics with extensions to vast provinces of sci-tech, are locked together coherently to infinitely precise convergence.
That lends confidence to working in practical mathematics, that we have no material reason to dismiss coherence, regardless of abstract possibilities.
KF
SA2, your suggestion of fraud fails, by way of undesigned coincidence of artifacts with geographically and administratively separate histories. Start with, how did these two entities happen to have the same unusual blood type [and matching patterns], centuries before such was known? The Shroud is not a main offer of proof of the Christian faith, but it deserves a more responsible discussion than we too often see. Selective hyperskepticism, is ever and irretrievably a fallacy. KF
F/N: SEP, on Godel:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel-incompleteness/
>>Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems
First published Mon Nov 11, 2013; substantive revision Thu Apr 2, 2020
Gödel’s two incompleteness theorems are among the most important results in modern logic, and have deep implications for various issues. They concern the limits of provability in formal axiomatic theories. The first incompleteness theorem states that in any consistent formal system F
within which a certain amount of arithmetic can be carried out, there are statements of the language of F which can neither be proved nor disproved in F. According to the second incompleteness theorem, such a formal system cannot prove that the system itself is consistent (assuming it is indeed consistent). These results have had a great impact on the philosophy of mathematics and logic. There have been attempts to apply the results also in other areas of philosophy such as the philosophy of mind, but these attempted applications are more controversial . . . .
In order to understand Gödel’s theorems, one must first explain the key concepts essential to it, such as “formal system”, “consistency”, and “completeness”. Roughly, a formal system is a system of axioms equipped with rules of inference, which allow one to generate new theorems. The set of axioms is required to be finite or at least decidable, i.e., there must be an algorithm (an effective method) which enables one to mechanically decide whether a given statement is an axiom or not. If this condition is satisfied, the theory is called “recursively axiomatizable”, or, simply, “axiomatizable”. The rules of inference (of a formal system) are also effective operations, such that it can always be mechanically decided whether one has a legitimate application of a rule of inference at hand. Consequently, it is also possible to decide for any given finite sequence of formulas, whether it constitutes a genuine derivation, or a proof, in the system—given the axioms and the rules of inference of the system.
A formal system is complete if for every statement of the language of the system, either the statement or its negation can be derived (i.e., proved) in the system. A formal system is consistent if there is no statement such that the statement itself and its negation are both derivable in the system. Only consistent systems are of any interest in this context, for it is an elementary fact of logic that in an inconsistent formal system every statement is derivable, and consequently, such a system is trivially complete.
Gödel established two different though related incompleteness theorems, usually called the first incompleteness theorem and the second incompleteness theorem. “Gödel’s theorem” is sometimes used to refer to the conjunction of these two, but may refer to either—usually the first—separately. Accommodating an improvement due to J. Barkley Rosser in 1936, the first theorem can be stated, roughly, as follows:
First incompleteness theorem
Any consistent formal system F
within which a certain amount of elementary arithmetic can be carried out is incomplete; i.e., there are statements of the language of F which can neither be proved nor disproved in F
.
Gödel’s theorem does not merely claim that such statements exist: the method of Gödel’s proof explicitly produces a particular sentence that is neither provable nor refutable in F
; the “undecidable” statement can be found mechanically from a specification of F
. The sentence in question is a relatively simple statement of number theory, a purely universal arithmetical sentence.
A common misunderstanding is to interpret Gödel’s first theorem as showing that there are truths that cannot be proved. This is, however, incorrect, for the incompleteness theorem does not deal with provability in any absolute sense, but only concerns derivability in some particular formal system or another. For any statement A
unprovable in a particular formal system F, there are, trivially, other formal systems in which A is provable (take A
as an axiom). On the other hand, there is the extremely powerful standard axiom system of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory (denoted as ZF, or, with the axiom of choice, ZFC; see the section on the axioms of ZFC in the entry on set theory), which is more than sufficient for the derivation of all ordinary mathematics. Now there are, by Gödel’s first theorem, arithmetical truths that are not provable even in ZFC. Proving them would thus require a formal system that incorporates methods going beyond ZFC. There is thus a sense in which such truths are not provable using today’s “ordinary” mathematical methods and axioms, nor can they be proved in a way that mathematicians would today regard as unproblematic and conclusive.
Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem concerns the limits of consistency proofs. A rough statement is:
Second incompleteness theorem
For any consistent system F
within which a certain amount of elementary arithmetic can be carried out, the consistency of F cannot be proved in F
itself.
In the case of the second theorem, F
must contain a little bit more arithmetic than in the case of the first theorem, which holds under very weak conditions. It is important to note that this result, like the first incompleteness theorem, is a theorem about formal provability, or derivability (which is always relative to some formal system; in this case, to F itself). It does not say anything about whether, for a particular theory T satisfying the conditions of the theorem, the statement “T is consistent” can be proved in the sense of being shown to be true by a conclusive argument, or by a proof generally acceptable for mathematicians. For many theories, this is perfectly possible. >>
KF
F/N, trivially, principle of explosion applies, where [A AND ~A] => any claim, C. From falsity or incoherence, anything. The implication is, axiomatisations that capture all true claims do so by this means, incoherence. KF
Since the conversation has turned to Godel, and since Godel’s proof is a large part of my argument that there will never be a mathematical ‘theory of everything’ that bridges, i.e. ‘renormalizes’, the ‘infinite infinities’ that separate the macroscopic descriptions of general relativity from the microscopic descriptions of quantum mechanics, i.e. “the quantized units of gravity — would have infinitely many infinite terms. You would need to add infinitely many counterterms in a never-ending process. Renormalization would fail.,,,”
Since Godel’s proof is a large part of that, I will clip the Nature abstract from which the physorg article that I cited is based:
Again, the implications of this proof are clearly laid out in the physorg article by Professor Michael Wolf. Specifically, “even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,,” and that “the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”
Again this finding is simply devastating to any mathematical theory, such as sting theory and/or M-theory, that hopes to bridge the ‘infinite infinities’ that separate the microscopic descriptions of quantum mechanics from the macroscopic descriptions of general relativity, to become the quote unquote final ‘theory of everything’.
Of related sidenote, It is interesting to note how this plays into the ancient dichotomy between forms, and/or essences, with ‘sensible things’ i.e. Sensible bodies are in constant flux and imperfect and hence, by Plato’s reckoning, less real than the Forms which are eternal,
Darwinists deny the reality of forms and or essences. As Egnor explains,
With their denial of true forms and/or essences, Darwinists lose the ability to even define what a species actually and truly is
I point all this out since it has been known since ancient times that the ‘sensible bodies’ which are in ‘constant flux’ can never give rise to the forms and/or essences which are the true objects of our knowledge.
Likewise, I hold that it is also obvious that the microscopic descriptions of quantum mechanics, which describe the ‘constant flux’ of elementary particles, can never give rise to the macrscopic ‘form’ of General relativity.
In short, the impossibility of ‘bottom-up explanations for ‘form’ has been known about since ancient times.
Hence, God, and only God, “was free to create this particular form of world among an infinity of other possibilities.”
Undecidability is a key word in the context of Godel.
re 90, to Q:
When I said, “There is nothing new in the video that we all haven’t scrolled by before.”, you replied, “Apparently, you weren’t thinking of Gödel’s theorems, which as I said was quite surprising to me that they were actually being considered by a serious physicist in terms of the incompatibility of ETR and QM.”
I think BA has mentioned Godel many times, but maybe you hadn’t seen previous statements of his.
Then you say, “it’s not implausible that Gödel’s theorems could apply to to these as well as the mathematics underlying ETR. Of course, Gödel’s theorems apply to systems of counting numbers, but it’s not really a stretch to apply the same concepts to whole numbers and even rational numbers, perhaps followed by irrational, imaginary, and other types of numbers.”
I don’t think lack of plausibility is in itself a very strong argument for anything. I’m not an expert at all on this topic, but from what I’ve read Godels’ proofs apply to axiomatic mathematical systems, not real world mathematical descriptions. As KF points out, Godel’s proofs are about the natural numbers, but it seems reasonable to assume that the undecidability features extends to other axiomatic extensions of the natural numbers. However, I don’t know (and don’t think I would know, as that is pretty esoteric) what mathematical work might have been done on broader extensions beyond the natural numbers.
But I read the article tha BA quoted about spectral gaps. It seems to me that the quote he offers is an example of something I mentioned in 88: ” people tend to apply Godel’s ideas to things beyond the bounds of what they apply to.” It is very speculative and offers no evidence that some argument similar to Godel’s is actually related to the real-world problem they are studying. There are large differences between pure and applied mathematics: between pure axiomatic and logical systems vs. mathematical descriptions of the world that have, among other things, elements of probability and chaos theory which contribute to undecidability.
Oh, gosh, now it seems I can reply to this thread. I shall do so in the future when I have something to say. In general I agree with Viola Lee in that: Godel’s theorems apply to very narrowly defined axiomatic systems so unless you can put physics (or any other system) on that kind of footing then Godel’s work does NOT apply. Sorry.
Interesting. I just saw JVL posts on the Loeb thread, saying what I just said here, but now I can post here but can’t over there. Weird.
Kairosfocus “ SA2, your suggestion of fraud fails, by way of undesigned coincidence of artifacts with geographically and administratively separate histories. Start with, how did these two entities happen to have the same unusual blood type [and matching patterns], centuries before such was known? ”
Do you have a link to the paper that proves that they both have AB? I have searched Google but haven’t found it. Although there are a couple that demonstrate that the blood on the shroud can’t even conclusively be shown to be human.
But now that we are talking about undesigned coincidence, the letter I posted above was written in the Middle Ages and, “coincidentally”, corresponds with the age of the shroud determined by independent C14 tests. Add to that the fact that the linen used is not consistent with that used at the time and location of the crucifixion, that the image does not match up with how bodies were wrapped at the time and location of the crucifixion, and that a forensic examination of the blood pattern on the shroud concluded that it was most likely a fake, and you have sufficient evidence to convince any impartial jury. Far more evidence that you have for widespread coordinated election fraud in the recent election.
“Selective hyperskepticism, is ever and irretrievably a fallacy. ”
I agree. You would be well advised to correct your frequent use of it to make your arguments.
I can post now: it comes and goes.
I like JVL’s quote form the Loeb thread:
I also like this line from KF: “That (Euler’s Identity) lends confidence to working in practical mathematics, that we have no material reason to dismiss coherence, regardless of abstract possibilities.”
That is, Godel’s proof is about esoteric possibilities. It doesn’t cast doubt on the vast body of mathematical knowledge that we can prove.
And JVL, I think the commenting problem is a bug, not something about you, or me, or anyone in particular.
Kairosfocus,
Thank you for the explanation, which I’m going to have to study a bit to disabuse myself of some misconceptions or oversimplifications.
Viola Lee,
I appreciate your response, but it seems odd to me that you confine Gödel’s theorems to a very narrow application. The extensibility of his theorems does seem plausible. For example, why can’t his use of natural numbers be extended to negative whole numbers?
Where exactly do you disagree with the introduction posted on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy? It seems that they also feel extensibility of Gödel’s theorems is plausible.
The article goes on to state
So, I would assume that the operations in, for example, existential logic would also quality, wouldn’t you?
-Q
Querius: I appreciate your response, but it seems odd to me that you confine Gödel’s theorems to a very narrow application. The extensibility of his theorems does seem plausible. For example, why can’t his use of natural numbers be extended to negative whole numbers?
The negative whole numbers are part of the basic axiomatic system of mathematics so, yes, it applies.
So, I would assume that the operations in, for example, existential logic would also quality, wouldn’t you?
I would want it to be shown that existential logic was a formal axiomatic system. Is it?
And yes, it appears the commenting system has been corrected. I hope.
Q, you write, “Viola Lee, … but it seems odd to me that you confine Gödel’s theorems to a very narrow application. The extensibility of his theorems does seem plausible. For example, why can’t his use of natural numbers be extended to negative whole numbers?”
I am a bit confused about why I am not being clear. Above, I wrote,
It seems like I said exactly what you’re saying I didn’t say???
Also, you wrote,
I don’t disagree with that statement at all. Godel’s proofs are, I think, commonly assumed to apply to any axiomatic system. That is what JVL, KF, and I have been saying. I don’t know (because I am not expert enough) whether anyone has actually worked the proofs out for extensions to the natural numbers, but the general conclusions are, I think, assumed to axiomatic systems in general.
And last, you write, “So, I would assume that the operations in, for example, existential logic would also quality, wouldn’t you?”
Formal logic is an axiomatic system, so yes I would assume that Godel’s proofs would apply,
In summary, I don’t think I’m saying anything that disagrees with what you are saying.
In sum, it seems, in order to try to undermine the argument I made in the video that the atheists on UD are now trying to deny that Godel’s proof can be extended to physical systems altogether,, for instance Viola Lee states, “from what I’ve read Godels’ proofs apply to axiomatic mathematical systems, not real world mathematical descriptions.”
Which is an interesting tactic for them to try to take since Turing’s ‘halting problem’ itself was the extension Godel’s proof in computers and was therefore a ‘real world’ example of the fact that Godel’s proof could in fact be extended to physical systems.
In fact, the invention of the computer itself is directly linked to Turing’s desire to make Godel’s incompleteness theorem clearer and simpler, i.e. more ‘concrete’, to understand,
Thus, contrary to what the atheists on UD are trying to say, i.e “from what I’ve read Godels’ proofs apply to axiomatic mathematical systems, not real world mathematical descriptions”, the halting problem itself is proof that Godel’s incompleteness can be applied to physical systems.
Hence, the proof I cited in my video, via Godel and Turing, that the microscopic descriptions of quantum mechanics cannot be extended to the macroscopic descriptions of General Relativity, contrary to what the atheists on UD are trying to insinuate, remains very much a valid proof.
Godel’s proof can, and indeed has, via Turing himself, been extended to physical systems!
Q,
BA77 actually clipped above, abstract from a paper in Nature pointing to undecidability in Quantum theory. Undecidability is a term for when it is concluded that a frasmework [here, Q-theory] faces results that are at least plausibly true but are unreacheable from axioms.
AS2
You have already had link enough above on multiple points of correlation that give reason to conclude the two items came from the same crucified man (from a site in Palestine), complete with confirmation of the blood and water observation. There is no good reason to take your extensive skeptically dismissive clip above seriously.
VL,
The Godel result is anything but narrow; that is why it blew up the grand programme of mathematical unification 90 years ago. The general force is that complex mathematical systems are incomplete or incoherent and there is no scheme to guarantee coherence. Relative to systems we build — logic model worlds — we face the prospect of undecidable propositions. I would suggest that complex theoretical constructs are liable to face such.
The claim in a paper linked by BA77 is that such has actually popped up in Quantum theory.
where, BA77 also aptly bridges to the matter of computability, and uncomputability. From given start-points on a turing machine, certain valid results will be unreacheable. Of course natural halting of a machine is a classic challenge . . . in the real world we can pull the plug or force a halt in software of course, but such is the opposite of creating a feasible algorithm that naturally progresses to a good solution in finite cycles and on recognising such, reports and halts. Where, clearly defined start points, operations, inference or computing rules etc are amenable to such an analysis.
String theory, notoriously is troubled by the infinite.
The trick then is that our theories effectively function like that and are prone to incoherence and undecidability or simple contradiction to valid observation.
KF
Re BA’s post at 106
Turing machines are an abstract axiomatic system: they have certain definite concepts and certain rules to follow. The fact that they can be actualized in a deterministic physical computer is no different than the fact that math is actualized in a series of logical proposition in writing. This is different than describing a real-world phenomena in which we are modeling the system mathematically to see if we have a good model, but which itself may have (almost certainly does have) properties or indeterminacies not included in our model.
So I don’t think BA is correct when he says “the halting problem itself is proof that Godel’s incompleteness can be applied to physical systems.” A computer is a physical manifestation of a logical axiomatic system, to which Godel’s proofs apply, but that is different than saying Godel’s proofs apply to our attempts to create a mathematical model of real-world phenomena.
Also, the “proof” that “that the microscopic descriptions of quantum mechanics cannot be extended to the macroscopic descriptions of General Relativity” is a video where one scientist drew an analogy between their understanding of a situtation and Godel. One quote does not a proof make.
Also, to KF at 107 wrote, “VL, The Godel result is anything but narrow; that is why it blew up the grand programme of mathematical unification 90 years ago. The general force is that complex mathematical systems are incomplete or incoherent and there is no scheme to guarantee coherence.”
Yes, I’ve said that several times. For instance, at 105 I wrote, “Godel’s proofs are, I think, commonly assumed to apply to any axiomatic system. That is what JVL, KF, and I have been saying.” I don’t think we have disagreed about the impact of Godel’s proofs on abstract axiomatic systems ast all.
As to the paper BA points to, note this paragraph towards the end:
Note that the undecidability comes from the predication of some new, weird physics. That is, it comes from ways in which their model is not sufficient to solve the problem. However, rather than assume that this is a product of Godel’s proofs in respect to their model it is more reasonable to assume that this is because their model is incomplete, which seems to be what the quoted paragraph is saying.
VL,
you will note that I have frequently suggested that mathematical axiomatisations, model frameworks and scientific theory frameworks alike compose abstract, logic model worlds, essentially defining start points, rules of computation, elements [suitably symbolised] that are structural-quantitative, and thus set up a core with a definable process to advance to particular states or statements in an abstract space. Those rules are obviously constrained by core logic and core mathematics ties to N,Z,Q,R,C,R* etc and structures built up from them. The fact that N and its extensions will be built in carries with it Godel’s result, once we move beyond toy examples.
These logic model worlds are amenable to analysis on computational theory [simple survey here], and yield to the standard result: many valid states in the world cannot be reached by finite length sequences of computation from a given start-point.
Worse, given our actual atomic-material and temporal constraints on computability and observability [one has to spot and recognise a solution as valid per some criterion to guide reporting and halting on success], blind mechanical succession and/or chance processes cannot be reasonably expected to discover intelligent signals of greater than 500 – 1,000 bits of functionally specific complex information. Where, recall, existence of Autocad etc demonstrates that arbitrary 3-d functional elements and combinations are reducible to coded binary strings in some description language or other.
Where, too, if the direct blind search for a satisfactory target zone in a complex space of n possibilities is challenging, the search space for a golden search on the space, is the collection of subsets, which is directly known to be the exponentially harder search in a space of scale 2^n, the power set.
Put in another frame, powerful creative intelligence is not a manifestation of blindly mechanical and/or dynamic-stochastic computational trajectories. Our creative intelligence is itself evidence of a realm that exceeds computational limits. Mind space, we may term it.
That is, Turing’s analysis (which was about theory of numbers) propagates through other problems reducible to a similar framework. Effectively equivalently, Godel’s analysis blows up any sufficiently complex universal calculation scheme. Including, the proposition that there is a grand continent of effective, evolutionarily ascending functions just waiting for blind physics and chemistry to assemble some first cell based life. Islands of complex function deeply isolated in and not computable by blind search are what we should expect. Starting from the domains for functional proteins in AA sequence space, such islands are also what we observe.
And yes, the design inference challenge lurks here too. It is not about to go away. The config space for 1,000 elements is 1.07*10^301 and bigger spaces can be reduced to chaining sequences from such. But already the first space swamps any computation machine within the material and temporal resources of our observed cosmos. This problem is not going away, it actually comes from statistical mechanics:
In short, we are looking at a class of powerful constraints and the Godel incompleteness, Turing machine challenge is just a start point.
For simple example, there is no universal decoder that can detect and reduce to plain text any arbitrary intelligent signal. The halting problem is extremely powerful. (BTW, this means that detection of design is not algorithmically reducible to a simple framework, instead it is a body of knowledge built up through praxis.)
Whether we program some super computer to run the deductions or do it with chalk on boards step by step makes but little difference, abstract logic model worlds of significant complexity are inherently limited in their power to reach conclusions constrained by finite frameworks defining start points and rules-compliant stepwise successions. Yes, one may then extend the axiomatic or modelling framework, but then the same problems of potential incoherence and/or undecidability continue to haunt the system.
Undecidability and incoherence potential are built-in issues. Godel and Church-Turing rule the roost.
It’s not just Q-theory or Relativity etc, this is a broad, deep challenge.
KF
F/N: JB of UD on axioms ant theorems (on the way to oracle machines):
https://mindmatters.ai/2019/02/why-i-doubt-that-ai-can-match-the-human-mind/
>> cognitive ability is only one aspect of intelligence. Those who think that artificial intelligence will eventually equal human intelligence face many hurdles, including problems of consciousness, emotion, etc. Here, we are looking at only one problem—cognitive ability.
Consider the difference between axioms and theorems. An axiom is a foundational truth, which cannot be proven within the system in which it operates. A theorem is a derivative truth, whose truth value we can know based on axioms. Computers are exclusively theorem generators, while humans appear to be axiom generators.
Computers are much better than humans at processing theorems—by several orders of magnitude. However, they are limited by the fact that they cannot establish axioms. They are entirely boxed into their own axiomatic rules.
You can see this in several aspects of computer science. The Halting Problem is probably the best known. In essence, you cannot create a computer program that will tell if another arbitrarily chosen program will ever finish. In fact, the problem is deeper than that: While the Halting Problem itself comes with a handy proof (which is why it is so often cited), we also find that absent outside information, computers have trouble telling if practically any program with loops will complete without directly running the program to completion. That is, I can program a computer to recognize certain traits of halters and/or non-halters. But without that programming, it cannot tell the difference. I have to add axioms to the program in order to process the information.
Given a set of axioms, computers can produce theorems very swiftly. But no increase in speed allows them to jump the theorem/axiom gap. AI research identifies the axioms needed to solve certain types of problems and then lets the computer loose to calculate theorems that depend on them.
AI research also creates more and more powerful axioms. That is, a previous generation may have started with axioms A, B, and C, but current generations have found more fundamental axioms, D, E, and F which reduce A, B, and C to theorems.
A question now appears: Is there a super-axiom that allows all of these axioms to be reduced to theorems? The answer is no. The same logic that shows that the Halting Problem can’t be solved can be used to show why the super-axiom does not exist. This distinction is essentially the same as the one between first-order and second-order logic.
Computers cannot process second-order logical statements in the same way as first-order logical statements. Some systems are described as second-order logic processors but they work is by picking out a subset of second order propositions, reducing them to first-order propositions, and then processing them as first-order logic. This is identical to the process I mentioned with respect to the Halting Problem. Humans can identify specific traits that will/will not halt and have the computer identify those traits but the computer itself cannot generate them on its own.
In fact, if I were to hazard a guess, I would say that the point where computers break down is infinity. The halting problem deals with identifying programs that will have infinite states and second-order logic deals with propositions that require an infinite number of comparisons. As I mentioned, after humans discover truths about them, we can encode these specific truths as new axioms into the system. But computers cannot discover the truths by themselves. For instance, try to imagine how a computer program (AI or otherwise) could establish the well-ordering property of the natural numbers without using any other second-order logic operation (or even try to do so!).>>
KF
PS: I think the issue is, WP likely has done an update. I am not sure that such can be easily rolled back without losses. There is a whole — relevant! — theory out there that bugs are ineradicable in a sufficiently complex computational entity. Indeed there is a tradeoff where fixing bug A may create at least one other bug B and so forth. Where also, the low hanging fruit get picked first, so onward bugs tend to be increasingly intractable.
Although the invention of the computer itself is directly linked to Turing’s desire to make Godel’s incompleteness theorem clearer and simpler, i.e. more ‘concrete’, to understand, i.e. less abstract, this is still not good enough for Viola Lee to accept the broad applicability of Godel’s proof to the physical universe at large and so he objects thusly,
And yet Godel’s proof applies, not just to any mathematics that does not describe the universe, but also to any mathematics that may describe the universe.
As Hawking himself reluctantly conceded,
In short, for Viola Lee to hold that Godel’s proof is not applicable to the universe at large is for Viola Lee to, basically, claim that the universe itself is not fully explicable to mathematics.,,, i.e. “a real-world phenomena in which we are modeling the system mathematically to see if we have a good model, but which itself may have (almost certainly does have) properties or indeterminacies not included in our model.”
So does Viola believe that the universe is fully explicable to mathematics or does he believe there will always be “properties or indeterminacies not included in our (mathematical) model”?
Either way, it is ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ for Viola Lee. If the universe is fully explicable to mathematics then Godel’s proof necessarily applies. If the universe is not fully explicable to mathematics then there, obviously, can never be a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything.
And that is precisely my point!
Apparently, unbeknownst to Viola Lee, Viola Lee’s objection that Godel’s proof can’t be applied to the universe at large is making my point for me that I made in the video. i.e. ‘There will never be a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’ that describes all the phenomena of the universe.’
Of course I made my point in my video because of Godel’s proof and Viola Lee is, apparently, trying to make his point in spite of Godel’s proof. But to the same conclusion is apparently being reached by both of us. i.e. There will never be a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’ that describes all the phenomena of the universe.
I’ll leave it to Viola Lee to straighten out exactly where he stands on the question of whether the universe is fully explicable to mathematics or not. But if it is, then Godel’s proof necessarily applies, and if not, then the nearly 100 year quest for a purely mathematical theory of everything has been in vain.
It is also interesting to point out that, as an atheist, Viola Lee simply has no reason to presuppose the universe should be fully explicable to mathematics.
Both Einstein, who discovered General Relativity, and Eugene Wigner, who’s insights into quantum mechanics continue to drive breakthroughs in quantum mechanics,,,,
,,, Both Einstein and Wigner are on record as to regarding it as a miracle that mathematics is applicable to the universe. (Einstein even chastised ‘professional atheist’ in the process of calling it a miracle.
And the last time I checked, miracles were the sole province of God.
So does Viola Lee believe the universe is fully and ‘miraculously’ explicable to mathematics or not?
If so, then Godel’s proof necessarily applies and, as the proof in the paper I cited found, “the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”, and hence the conclusion that there never will be a purely mathematical theory of everything that bridges the ‘infinite infinities’ that separate the microscopic descriptions of Quantum Mechanics to the macroscopic descriptions of General Relativity is a straight forward reading of the paper I cited.
And since Viola Lee apparently disagrees with the conclusion of the paper that I cited from Nature, then I suggest that he write one of the authors of the paper, such as Professor Wolf of Munich, and tell him exactly where he went wrong In his analysis so that Professor Wolf and his colleagues can have a chance to retract their paper from Nature.
Or perhaps Viola Lee can just submit his own paper to Nature showing exactly where they went wrong in applying Godel’s proof to Quantum Mechanics?
Elsewise, it is basically just Viola Lee’s word, (an internet atheist who rails against Christianity, and who self admittedly is not very well versed on Godel’s proof), against the word of a Professor’s, and his colleagues, published work in Nature.
Viola Lee, seems, if you truly want to thoroughly refute their paper in Nature, instead of just throwing stuff on the wall on a blog to see if it sticks, then you have really got your intellectual work cut out for you.
🙂
Verse:
BA writes, “So does Viola believe that the universe is fully explicable to mathematics or does he believe there will always be “properties or indeterminacies not included in our (mathematical) model”?”
Given that QM inherently involves probabilities, I don’t think a mathematical description will ever be able to fully model what is going to happen in all situations. To believe that is to believe the universe is completely deterministic, and I don’t believe that.
BA writes, “If the universe is not fully explicable to mathematics then there, obviously, can never be a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything. And that is precisely my point!”
The fact that all mathematical descriptions of the world are necessarily incomplete because of quantum probabilities doesn’t mean that there can’t be, at some point, a mathematical description that ties together the general fundamentals of QM and general relativity. However, it may be that such a formulation will never be developed because the two phenomena aren’t in fact related in such a fashion. I don’t think that it a necessary truth that the universe can be modelled by a one single mathematical theory of everything. Maybe it can’t be.
But whatever the case, the conclusion “therefore Jesus” is the imposition of a religious belief system that is really not relevant to the situation at all.
Also BA writes, “As an atheist, Viola Lee simply has no reason to presuppose the universe should be fully explicable to mathematics.”
As I have pointed out several times, which BA seems to not get, there are metaphysical positions that fully accept the inherent mathematical nature of reality without there being a personal god, much less one that human beings are capable of knowing details about, much less the Christian God upon which BA builds all his beliefs.
I’m pretty sure that BA has never displayed any curiosity about what I in fact do believe, and I’m pretty sure he actually has no interest in views others than his own. But I do object, not that it will do any good, to his simple black-and-white stereotyped dichotomies about the range of people’s religious and philosophical beliefs.
VL (attn BA77 & Q):
The actual abstract:
2020 full version at Arxiv https://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.04573.pdf
KF
Thanks KF, I note that the date on the pdf is June 16, 2020, so apparently they are still going strong, and have not been refuted, 5 years since they first published their results in Nature in 2015
Undecidability of the Spectral Gap – June 16, 2020
Toby Cubitt, David Perez-Garcia, and Michael M. Wolf
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.04573.pdf
I see that one of the issues in this discussion is the difference between the mathematical statement of general “laws of nature” as are expressed in QM and general relativity (GR), which are generalizations, and the application of those laws to exactly predict events in the real world. The former is a map and the latter is the territory. These are not the same.
Wigner, in his famous essay “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences”, has some interesting things to say about this.
This is the point I am making about the difference between pure mathematics and real-world phenomena. A machine, in the theoretical sense, can manifest a purely mathematical axiomatic system to the extent that “all the relevant coordinates are known so that the behavior of the machine can be predicted.” In this sense, the machine, or the laws of nature that it might model, are subject to Godel’s conclusions.
But the real-world is not a machine, and our knowledge about it is, and can never be, comprehensive. Mathematical laws of nature, as manifestations of axiomatic systems, can never model all the relevant initial conditions of an actual situation in the real world, and thus are only abstract approximations of reality. Given that “the conditional statements (of QM) are probability laws which enable us only to place intelligent bets on future properties of the inanimate world”, the real world does not behave deterministically like a machine, so Godel’s conclusions do not apply. Things in the real world, at the level of individual quantum events, can be undecideable because the relevant initial conditions are probabilistic, not because the generalized mathematical laws of nature which we use to describe them are subject to Godel’s limitations.
P. 7 in the 2020 version:
>>A short version of this paper – including a statement of the main result, dis-
cussion of its implications, an outline of the main ideas behind the proof, together
with a sketch of the argument – was published recently in Nature [CPW15]. We
encourage the reader to consult it in order to gain some high-level intuition about
the full, rigorous proof given in this work.>>
Thanks KF, it appears that not only have they successfully defended their 2015 proof, but, as of 2020, they have now made it more robust.
per wikipedia,
Kairosfocus and Bornagain77,
Thanks for your cogent replies and excellent quotes! I’m now able to belatedly post replies again (woohoo).
Viola Lee,
It seems like you’re not considering a lot of relevant points in these posts–something that I’m admittedly guilty of as well. Perhaps it’s at least partly due to the sheer length of some of the posts, again something I’m guilty of creating. It might seem more productive to consider one point at a time, but the resulting downside is the proliferation of threads that are 1,000+ posts long.
Thus, this dilemma reinforces my conviction that we’re experiencing a manifestation of the dendritic hierarchy of the levels of abstraction that’s inherent in Information. From this statement, one might recognize an analogy between the Mandelbrot set emerging from observable nature and from intellectual information. I think it’s worth thinking about. An emergent phenomenon is that ALL non-trivial true-false questions on tests are False at a sufficiently detailed level of abstraction.
In 108, you make the following point:
I have four issues with your assertion:
1. I don’t think it’s consistent with your previous assertions.
2. Your assertions are unsupported in the sense that you don’t often include reasons why you believe as you do.
3. There’s a false dichotomy between “mathematics” (which serves as models of the Logos) and “the real world.” The real world IS fundamentally Information together with Conscious Measurement approximated by mathematical abstractions from a QM perspective. Heisenberg, Vedral, and others have famously noted (a) that atoms and molecules don’t actually exist unless they’re observed, and (b) Reality is fundamentally Information and the processes in which information interacts. Are you familiar with Finite Element Analysis?
4. Turing machines are easily created both in software (electrons acting as bits in an electronic device) and macro/physically. For example, in high school, I created a macro/physical Turing machine in cardboard that followed several rules and yes, it inevitably did “run off the tape.” In software, there are different types of bugs. One pernicious type of bug that’s hard to identify obeys all the rules but falls through the code into an unexpected error condition. These are often encountered as “occasional” or “non-reproducible” (sic) under most conditions.
-Q
in 112 Viola Lee states that he does not believe the universe will explicable to mathematics because,
Yet Viola hedges his bet a bit with this,
And just in case anyone has missed the inherent hostility that VL has towards Christianity, Viola Lee then states this,
Well, that’s a lot to unpack. So to get started let’s start with VL’s claim that there will never be a ‘theory of everything, (not because of the insurmountable limitation imposed by Godel that was elucidated by Wolf and company mind you), but because in VL’s view ‘QM inherently involves probabilities’
Well,,, since probabilities are indeed amendable to mathematical analysis, (i.e. to talk about probabilities is to in fact talk about math), I don’t necessarily see that, in and of itself, as necessarily being a insurmountable roadblock to there ever being a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything.
But what I do see as being an insurmountable roadblock to there ever being a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything is how the probabilities themselves get into quantum mechanics..
As Steven Weinberg stated, “In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure,,,”
And as I pointed out in my video, Weinberg, an atheist, rejected the instrumentalist approach precisely because “humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level” and precisely 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.
As leading experimentalist Anton Zeilinger states in the following video, “what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.”
And as I further pointed out in my video, Zeilinger and company, as of 2018, closed the last remaining ‘free will loop hole’ in quantum mechanics,
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, besides undermining the Darwinian worldview from within, with human observers, via their free will, now being brought into the laws of nature at their most fundamental level then it now becomes, at least, theoretically plausible for God, via his son Jesus Christ, to bridge the infinite mathematical divide that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
And as I also pointed out in the video, the Shroud of Turin does indeed give us empirical evidence that both quantum mechanics and General Relativity were dealt with in Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
Thus regardless of whatever bias against Christianity Viola Lee, and other people who are hostile to Christianity, may personally have, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, especially with the closing of the last remaining free will loop hole in quantum mechanics, is indeed very much a viable option for solving the long standing mystery of the ‘theory of everything’.
As Zeilinger noted, “the fact that some of the brightest minds in physics have been working on this issue, (i.e. The unification of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics), for 80 years now at least, and have not found a solution means that the solution will be extremely deep. It will be extremely significant if somebody found it, and it will probably be in a direction where nobody expected it.,,,”
And Jesus Christ rising from the dead is definitely a direction where nobody expected it.
But regardless of whether people were looking in that direction or not, that still does not take away from the fact that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is still very much a live option and is very much a plausible solution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything.
That such a solution for the ‘theory of everything’ would even be a live option as to providing a viable solution should definitely be more than enough to raise quite a few eyebrows. i.e. How is it even remotely possible that a supposed ‘ancient myth’ of a man rising from the dead could find itself as a serious candidate to solving the most perplexing scientific problem of our day?
And although many scientists of today, who are totally committed to the doctrine of methodological naturalism, may find this to be quite a unacceptable state of affairs in science, I am fairly certain that the many of the Christian founders of modern science themselves would be quite pleased to see that Christ’s resurrection from the dead provides a very plausible solution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’.
Verse:
In further solidifying Professor Wolf and company’s claim that, via Godel and Turing, “even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,,” and that “the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”
,,, In further solidifying that claim, it is interesting to note how the microscopic descriptions of quantum mechanics have thus far failed to account macroscopic descriptions of the universe.
In inflation theory it is held that “(inflation cosmology) explains the origin of the large-scale structure of the cosmos. Quantum fluctuations in the microscopic inflationary region, magnified to cosmic size, become the seeds for the growth of structure in the Universe.”
Inflation theory was postulated to try to solve the The Monopole Problem, The Flatness Problem,
and The Horizon Problem.
Yet the “Quantum fluctuations in the microscopic inflationary region” predict none of these properties.
As Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University, who helped develop inflationary theory but is now scathing of it, stated, “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”
And in 2017 Steinhardt and company further explained, “…inflation continues eternally, generating an infinite number of patches where inflation has ended, each creating a universe unto itself…(t)he worrisome implication is that the cosmological properties of each patch differ because of the inherent randomizing effect of quantum fluctuations…The result is what cosmologists call the multiverse. Because every patch can have any physically conceivable properties, the multiverse does not explain why our universe has the very special conditions that we observe—they are purely accidental features of our particular patch.”,,,
the multimess does not predict the properties of our observable universe to be the likely outcome. A good scientific theory is supposed to explain why what we observe happens instead of something else. The multimess fails this fundamental test.”
As should be obvious, the failure of inflation theory, (via ‘quantum fluctuations’ generating an infinitude of universes with differing properties), to predict the specific macroscopic properties of our observable universe is a fairly clear example that brings Wolf and company main point home, i.e. “even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,,” and that “the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”
And whereas inflation theory has utterly failed to predict exactly why our universe has the specific macroscopic properties that it does, namely, why the universe is as flat as it is and why the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) has almost at the same temperature in all directions,,, Whereas inflation theory has utterly failed in that endeavor, on the other hand Christian Theism ‘predicted those exact macroscopic properties for our universe thousands of years before those macroscopic properties of our universe were even discovered by modern science.
As to ‘the flatness problem’, the following quote gives us a clue as to just how bad the ‘flatness problem’ is for atheistic astrophysicists to try to ‘explain away’,
In fact, “for it (the universe) to maintain this level of flatness over 13.8 billion years of expansion, in kind of amazing.
In fact, astronomers estimate that the universe must have been flat to 1 part within 1×10^57 parts.
Which seems like an insane coincidence.”
And whereas this ‘insane coincidence’ of 1 in 10^57 flatness was not predicted by inflation theory, (indeed it is a thorn in the side of inflation theory), thousands of years before this exceptional flatness of the universe was discovered, the Bible, on the other hand, is on record as to ‘predicting’ this ‘insane coincidence’ of the universe being exceedingly flat:
Moreover, without some remarkable degree of exceptional, and stable, flatness for the universe, (as well as exceptional stability for all the other constants), Euclidean (3-Dimensional) geometry would not be applicable to our world. or to the universe at large, and this would make modern science, and engineering, for humans, for all practical purposes, all but impossible.
This is certainly very suggestive to the fact that the universe was specifically designed for intelligent creatures, such as ourselves, to be able to use and grow in their mathematical abilities.
Likewise, the Horizon Problem, the fact that the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) has almost at the same temperature in all directions, a problem which inflation theory has failed to ‘explain away’ much less ‘predict’,,, as the following article explains, ““On the face of it, inflation is a totally bonkers idea – it replaces a coincidence with a completely nonsensical vision of what the early universe was like,”
While inflation theory has failed to explain exactly why the Cosmic Background radiation is “remarkably uniform” in all directions that we look, the Bible, on the other hand, thousands of years before it was discovered by modern science, predicted the universe to be “remarkably uniform” in all directions that we may look,
Thus, whereas cosmologist, (who try to explain why the universe is the way it is without any reference to God), have, at every turn, been stymied in their attempts to extrapolate the microscopic descriptions of quantum mechanics to explain the macroscopic structures of the universe, the Christian Theist, on the other hand, can take assurance in the fact that the Bible predicted these macroscopic structures of the universe thousands of years before these macroscopic structures were even discovered by modern science.
I would call those some pretty amazing fulfilled predictions for modern science coming from a book that many atheists try to claim to be nothing but a book of myths.
Quotes and Verse: