The Builders And Iran

[sparhawk]

As long as Penrose sticks to math and physics, he is ok. It only becomes ridiculous when he starts to abuse physics to explain the mind or the existence of the universe with it.

[Arumakani]

Maybe God deserted him in his youth and he wants to get his revenge Many Oxbridge types always think they are right...

Edited September 4, 2006 by Arumakani

[OrbWeaver]

Wasn't Penrose that guy that came up with the crackpot theory of quantum behaviour being responsible for consciousness in the human brain, simply because quantum behaviour and consciousness are slightly "woo-woo" concepts which sound like they could be related?

[sparhawk]

God could only desert him if he knew that he exists...

[Arumakani]

God could only desert him if he knew that he exists...

 

Maybe he had believed in God as a youth. Sometimes people try and rationalise things as something that God was involved in. If this beomes a reccurence in a negative manner then possibly and purely hypothetically revenge by disproving the existence results... Dunno to tell you the truth.

 

Maybe Sparhawk knows Orb. I dunno, save for the fact he works or worked a lot with Hawking and was suggesting in the future when energy sources are difficult to come by an orbiting power station around a black hole could provide energy.

[Domarius]

Hey - someone was tellling me about this documentary they saw about ... oh man I forgot the term. Quantum physics or something equally impressive sounding.

 

Anyway, they'd realised they understood the basic laws of the universe, but not understand why those laws were in place. Why 2 planetary bodies have a gravitational pull, etc. etc.

 

They ran a series of simulations to simulate the universe being created. What they found was that only with the exact parameters in our current universe, did the universe get to create itself. Any slight adjustment to the parameters, and nothing happened. Nothing got created.

 

So from this they were saying, why does it have only be these exact laws that work? How did they come about?

 

And from that, they were saying, science kind of proves god exists, at least, some kind of guiding purpose for things to happen just exactly the right way.

[Ishtvan]

Hmm, that argument seems a bit circular, Domarius. We evolved to survive in the current form of the universe, so we can look back and say it's amazing that the constants were just right to create this form that we evolved in, but there's no reason to believe that some form of life wouldn't have come about eventually even if the universe had developed differently. It's pretty subjective to say "nothing would happen" if the constants weren't right (does that mean it wouldn't expand at all, it would expand so much that no solids would form, or what?). The universe would still exists in some form, and some form of life could still potentially appear within it.

 

Also, for all we know there could be some unknown natural process that varies the physical constants over time, and maybe the universe went thru a bunch of unstable iterations where "nothing happened" until the constants were finally right for the current expansion we see now.

[Crispy]

So from this they were saying, why does it have only be these exact laws that work? How did they come about?

 

And from that, they were saying, science kind of proves god exists, at least, some kind of guiding purpose for things to happen just exactly the right way.

Not at all.

 

The "choice" of parameters is just a consequence of what constitutes stable physical laws. If you just randomly generate sets of physical laws, of course most of them won't produce very "interesting" results.

 

As for why we're so lucky that we managed to score the only set of physical laws that work - well, think about it: If we hadn't, then we wouldn't be here and we wouldn't be debating this!

 

I think the makers of that documentary were biased.

[obscurus]

Yes, the old anthropic principle. Assuming the multiverse therory was correct, then there are an infinite (or infdefinate) number of universes, of which only a few will have the sort of physical laws that will allow things that we recognise as life to exist.

 

Actually, you can play with some of the parameters quite a bit and still get some interesting things to happen, but they might not be anything like what we experience in this universe.

 

The documentary you saw proves nothing about the existence or otherwise of an intelligent designer, it simply shows that, unsurprisingly, we live in one of the few possible configurations of a universe that can sustain us.

 

And there is also no reason that different parts of the universe couldn't in principle have radically different laws - we asssume the laws of physics are uniform across the universe, becasue that is a good starting point and makes sense, but we have limited evidence to support this, beyond observations from light that was sent aeons ago. Who knows what has happend to the Andromeda galaxy in the millions of years since the light from Andromeda reached the earth? Perhaps the laws of physics there changed in some bizarre way, and we wont find out for a long, long, time.

[obscurus]

Anyway, they'd realised they understood the basic laws of the universe, but not understand why those laws were in place. Why 2 planetary bodies have a gravitational pull, etc. etc.

 

They ran a series of simulations to simulate the universe being created. What they found was that only with the exact parameters in our current universe, did the universe get to create itself. Any slight adjustment to the parameters, and nothing happened. Nothing got created.

 

So from this they were saying, why does it have only be these exact laws that work? How did they come about?

 

And from that, they were saying, science kind of proves god exists, at least, some kind of guiding purpose for things to happen just exactly the right way.

 

 

No, it proves nothing of the sort as the above posts illustrate.

 

The problem here is people asking the question "why?", which can only apply to things that have minds. I can ask you "why did you say that?", becasue you have a mind, intentions and thought process (at least, I reasonably assume you do). I cannot ask a rock "Why do you sit there?" - the rock has no thoughts or intentions, it just is. I can ask myself, "how did this rock get here?", becasue it assumes nothing of the rock, and I can then come up with hypotheses for testing. I might then, after extensive testing, develop a theory whihc explains the position for the rock, which might still be somewhat wrong, but it would still be a useful model, and should predict the position of other rocks if it is any good.

 

This is not evidence that the universe has a mind, intentions or deliberate planning. There is no reason "why" a particular set of physical constants generate a habitable universe. It is just that some will produce universes with properties that make life likely, most won't.

[Domarius]

It's pretty subjective to say "nothing would happen" if the constants weren't right (does that mean it wouldn't expand at all, it would expand so much that no solids would form, or what?). The universe would still exists in some form, and some form of life could still potentially appear within it.

Well apparently, literally nothing happened. Nothing grew, it just stalled and stayed that way indefinetly.

 

Also, for all we know there could be some unknown natural process that varies the physical constants over time, and maybe the universe went thru a bunch of unstable iterations where "nothing happened" until the constants were finally right for the current expansion we see now.

Yeah that's possible I guess.

 

Unfortunately I didn't see the doco personally, so I can't give answers. Wish I knew where I could read more about it.

 

Sorry I didn't reply directly to anyone else. You all make good arguments, but I only have more or less the same thing to say I said in reply to Ishtvan.

[sparhawk]

They ran a series of simulations to simulate the universe being created. What they found was that only with the exact parameters in our current universe, did the universe get to create itself. Any slight adjustment to the parameters, and nothing happened. Nothing got created.

 

Personally I have two arguments against this.

 

1. In newer research it appears that the parameters are not THAT instable and follow quite logically from the process involved. I think it was something about the Higgs-field, that could server as a potential explanation, but I have to look it up again. The exaplanation was such, that it wouldn't requiere any special parameterising, because it followed naturally from the characteristics of that field.

 

2. In infinity, there are a lot of room for parameters. So if the universe existed in infinite variations before and after ours (and tehre is no reason to assume differently), then there is bound to have a configuration that works. Actually I'm pretty sure there are a lot of configurations that would work. BUT! The big BUT! We are here in THIS partuicular universe because it is one of them that work. f it were not working we wouldn't be here to wonder about that it indeed works. So this is kind of a selffullfilling prophecy, because sentient beings can only evolve in a universe that is not purely chaotic, and they they will wonder what happened that exactly this configuration came into existence. But this would be the wrong question, because we can ONLY wonder about this particular configuration that allows us to exist in the first place. In a universe that wouldn't work for us, there would be nobody there to wonder about.

[sparhawk]

And there is also no reason that different parts of the universe couldn't in principle have radically different laws - we asssume the laws of physics are uniform across the universe, becasue that is a good starting point and makes sense, but we have limited evidence to support this, beyond observations from light that was sent aeons ago. Who knows what has happend to the Andromeda galaxy in the millions of years since the light from Andromeda reached the earth? Perhaps the laws of physics there changed in some bizarre way, and we wont find out for a long, long, time.

 

Somehow I always have a problem with such an assertion. I don't really think that the basic laws of the universe are suspect to big changes. And even IF they change, they are still the basic laws of the universe. I don't see much point in saying that the laws are different.

[Bob Obo]

Somehow I always have a problem with such an assertion. I don't really think that the basic laws of the universe are suspect to big changes. And even IF they change, they are still the basic laws of the universe. I don't see much point in saying that the laws are different.

There are theories around that such universal constants aren't so universal. For instance that the speed of light has changed since the creation of the universe. I think its a good idea to assume nothing, other than that physicists are probably making it up as they go along...

Edited September 5, 2006 by Bob Obo

[sparhawk]

Even if the constants are chaning over time, and thus are not so constant in truth, it still will be basic laws of the universe. There is no way around it.

[obscurus]

I don't really think that the basic laws of the universe are suspect to big changes. And even IF they change, they are still the basic laws of the universe. I don't see much point in saying that the laws are different.

 

 

Neither do I, and my working assumption (and that of most scientists) is that the laws of the universe are pretty stable and constant, except around black holes and other wierd singularities where they break down. But as a scientist, I have to leave room for doubt and uncertainty, and remember that this is a working assumption, and it is conceivable that there are pockets of the universe where the physical laws or constants are a bit different.

 

@Domarius

 

You can't construct a limited model of the universe using the few laws we currently know about and very limited processing power to draw firm conclusions about what sort of universes are possible. There are also plenty of other simulations that predict all kinds of wierd and wonderful universes (most of which are not compatible with life as we know it), but they still get off the ground, so to speak.

 

If anyone claims to have done modelling to the extent that they have simulated every possible variation of the laws of physics, and then claim that there is only one possible configuration that makes us possible, then you know instantly they are bullshitting, becasue there simply isn't enough processing power in the universe to do that. Even to simulate this universe exactly would require a quantum computer with at least as many atoms as are in this universe.

 

This sounds very much like a bunch of religious nuts trying to hijack science to advance their agenda of enforcing a version of natural history based on Christian beliefs. Unfortunately physics is the one branch of science that often declares all kinds of theories which have no experimental evidence or observations as their basis - it is pure theoretical conjecture based on mathematics. The physical laws might be able to be described by mathematics, but it doesn't follow that the universe is mathematics, and physicists should avoid getting too carried away with their ideas until they have bothered to actually test them.

[Domarius]

Well, speaking of universes;

 

http://www.tenthdimension.com/flash2.php

Click on "The Tenth Dimension" logo up at the top left, then click the 0 at the bottom of the spinning DNA looking thing.

[sparhawk]

Neither do I, and my working assumption (and that of most scientists) is that the laws of the universe are pretty stable and constant, except around black holes and other wierd singularities where they break down. But as a scientist, I have to leave room for doubt and uncertainty, and remember that this is a working assumption, and it is conceivable that there are pockets of the universe where the physical laws or constants are a bit different.

 

Even if the laws are changing, they are not changing simply at will, but according to some rules. If the speed of light is today c and tomorrow it is c+/-2*10E+4 there is a reason to it, which is hinting at a more fundamental mechanism.

 

Even to simulate this universe exactly would require a quantum computer with at least as many atoms as are in this universe.

 

Which obviously is impossible. A computer that accurately models a particles would need to be bigger then the universe, in which case it would expand the universe and the computer would need to be even bigger.