Physics and God

[curlyqlink]

It cannot tell us a word about red and blue

Erwin Schroedinger said that science-- physics-- cannot tell us a single thing about color? A fundamental property of light??!!

[Virgil]

Well I won't pretend I don't wonder about this myself or have doubts about my beliefs. It often strikes me that the human condition is just too remarkable to not be special and that God must be involved. But that is just a feeling I often get, I can't support it in argument and the vast majority of the time I don't believe it.

Edit: One thing though, you say "I have grown to see that order does not come about by chance." well I don't see order, I see chaos. At least, chaos with a certain regularity about it.

Hey don't think I don't have doubts either. We're not too disimilar after all. We just err on opposite sides.

Edit: And I see order within the chaos.

[Pendragon]

Evidence? there is none that cannot be satisfactorily explained by a simpler and more plausible theory.
The infinitesimal chance of something not happening does not mean that if it does happen we have free licence to start inventing pixies, fairies, angels, and gods to make sense of it.

I've said it before, chance is bad science. I notice they always bring up things like you mention when discussing chance proving them wrong, but when they want to say life formed (simple celled) by chance and that man evolved from a common ancestor as apes, then chance is OK. No, chance being next to impossible is bad science and just wrong thinking. God is the simplest explanation for our world.

God Bless

Pen

[DapperDrake]

Our understanding of physics and reality isn't good enough to say what the chances are, its an assumption based purely on the fact that it seems remarkable. For all we know it could be inevitable.
So we don't know that the chance was infinitesimally small, i.e. the chance that the universe would be able to support all these fine balances and the further chance of somewhere in the countless trillions of trillions of trillions of star systems the conditions would be right to foster life, we just don't know.
And we know absolutely nothing of the cause or reason for the big bang so any talk of chances related to that are pure speculation.

I'd like to take the liberty of quoting an excerpt from one of Einstein's essays:

The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.

But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself.

This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task. (This thought is convincingly presented in Herbert Samuel's book, Belief and Action.) After religious teachers accomplish the refining process indicated they will surely recognize with joy that true religion has been ennobled and made more profound by scientific knowledge.

[zolasdisciple]

Our understanding of physics and reality isn't good enough to say what the chances are, its an assumption based purely on the fact that it seems remarkable. For all we know it could be inevitable.
So we don't know that the chance was infinitesimally small, i.e. the chance that the universe would be able to support all these fine balances and the further chance of somewhere in the countless trillions of trillions of trillions of star systems the conditions would be right to foster life, we just don't know.
And we know absolutely nothing of the cause or reason for the big bang so any talk of chances related to that are pure speculation.

I'd like to take the liberty of quoting an excerpt from one of Einstein's essays:

yeah you can only guess.

[mangueken]

the more I ponder the universe the more I cannot see things as having come together by chance. There is an order to it, a consistency, and a pattern that defies randomness. For such an order to exist it would have to violate the notion of entropy, the second law of thermodynmics.

Just because you can't imagine it only talks about your capacity to imagine and not science. http://www.amazon.com/Scientists-Con.../dp/0393050904 This book will help you understand why the second law of thermodynamics argument you present is wrong as well as explain the history of the ID movement.

[Virgil]

Just because you can't imagine it only talks about your capacity to imagine and not science. http://www.amazon.com/Scientists-Con.../dp/0393050904 This book will help you understand why the second law of thermodynamics argument you present is wrong as well as explain the history of the ID movement.

That's clearly an ideologically driven book. I don't get into these religious ideological battles. If you're so smart, why don't you explain it to me.

[islandclimber]

That's clearly an ideologically driven book. I don't get into these religious ideological battles. If you're so smart, why don't you explain it to me.

neither do I.. well at least most of the time I try not to... sometimes it is just so hard though I like to discuss things rationally rather than the "you're wrong, I'm right and I don't need to prove it, it is fact" arguments that this religious section is so amazing for...

I agree though, that appears to be quite a biased book...

[mangueken]

That's clearly an ideologically driven book. I don't get into these religious ideological battles. If you're so smart, why don't you explain it to me.

The reasons why:
1. This is a forum for readers
2. Reading the other side, if nothing else, helps clarify one's own views
3. I thought you might be interested
4. I thought others might be interested
5. You should have asked me kindly

[Virgil]

The reasons why:
1. This is a forum for readers
2. Reading the other side, if nothing else, helps clarify one's own views
3. I thought you might be interested
4. I thought others might be interested
5. You should have asked me kindly

You are right, I was rude. Nonetheless I'm just not interested in one of the religious battles. Thanks for the info. I probably will never read it though.

[islandclimber]

Erwin Schroedinger said that science-- physics-- cannot tell us a single thing about color? A fundamental property of light??!!

I just noticed this.. I think you miss the point of what he was saying... completely.. literal interpretations of what someone says don't always give what is meant... if you actually read the quote you would realize Schroedinger was saying science can't tell us about passion, love, feelings, interests, desires... about beauty, about wonder, about awe... can't tell us why we feel such wonder about a beautiful painting, or why we think a sunset is beautiful, or why we fall in love with someone else... why do we climb mountains? why do we surf? why do we snowboard? why do we read books? why do we write poetry? science can't explain this... science can't explain the things we enjoy in life and that is what is being said...

[NikolaiI]

My opinion, islandclimber, is that God does exist. There are near infinite world systems. We are somewhere in the middle; whether we stay where we are, go up or down, depends on the actions of humans... it's predicted that we are in an age of decline; lifetimes will become shorter, morality will become less; but before we experience the worst of this age, we'll have about 10,000 years of a golden era, which began about 500 years ago. And this is just prediction, it isn't necessarily set in stone, at least as far as I understand it... so it could go either way.

Anyway physics is good, but only if it is done and used for Good. Rather, only if it done and used for God. You see physics used for ourselves, with no mention of God is not good. Godless society is not good. God is the most important thing. Lord Jesus Christ said, the most important thing to do is love God with all of yourself. The second most important is to love your neighbour as you would yourself. I read a really wonderful book called "Works of Love" by Soren Kierkegaard. He explains this well, and it's quite clear-- if you follow Jesus' words logically; the way to love your neighbour is to help them love God. To be helped to love God is to be loved truly.

Physics is part of the universe. Part of us exists in the physical dimension. We are governed by the laws of nature, or physics. God is not in opposition to physics; merely physical laws are part of the administration of the universe.

So what is God? God is one thing, originally; yet He is Supreme and unlimited. God is not merely the universe, or reality; but the universe is one form of God. God is the Supersoul-- of which all individual souls are parts and parcels. Each soul is like the Supersoul, yet is limited and exists only in one body. In the body, the soul spreads throughout, and so is conscious of the entire body. The Supersoul knows all that the individual souls know, but the individual souls do not know beyond their own limits. In every body exist both an individual soul, and the Supersoul. The Supersoul is made up of all souls, which are its fragmented parts.

What is God? God is the complete whole-- we are all parts. This does not mean any person here is God-- no, God is Supreme and none of us are supreme. We are finite, while God is infinite.

There is an argument, why is God conspicuously absent? Why cannot we see Him? But He is not absent; He is here in His commandments. He exists here by His words, by his disciples, He is also present in the heart of every living entity. God is the Whole-- yet He is more than that, since He is the source of the Whole. God is the source of the universe; and the universe cannot be more than Him, nor can we be more than Him. Thus He is infinite. But to the question of why we cannot see Him; that is answered by understanding that He is the whole. He is reality-- yet, He is the source of reality, so reality is not exactly Him. We cannot see reality, yet we can understand logically and rationally that reality exists; we are all part of reality, we exist in reality. Similarly, since reality is resting in its source, so are we too connected to God. This is very, very important, that people can search this out... always search and you will be satisfied. Believers, for Heaven's sake, are not irrational. Belief in God is rational as belief in something you might call reality. Except it's a little bit more complicated to understand that reality has a non-dualistic source. But it's true... the only question is whether or not this source is personal or impersonal, and I'll leave that up for debate.

Yippie, I didn't lose it!

[El Viejo]

Our entire society would be seen by our forebears as flagrantly consorting with the devil. We grant equality to those decreed by God to be inferior. We expose our bodies in unseemly ways. We violate God's will by easing pain, fighting disease, correcting his divinely administered defects. We dare to scrutinize the heavenly spheres and reveal them to be imperfect, not living. We fly, yet have no wings. We dare to teach others what we've learned.

Fortunately, God still has His faithful. They reap the benefits of fire, electricity, email, but chastely preserve themselves from the practice of critical thinking, by which such things came to be in our hands. They learn by rote, but do not measure or examine the unknown themselves. They do not allow themselves to be thrust into the cold, bright, noisy world but retreat into a soft, cozy, muted womb where they can imagine the universe to be whatever they wish, where they can dwell upon the meaning of red and blue, but never defile them by touching them.

[islandclimber]

Our entire society would be seen by our forebears as flagrantly consorting with the devil. We grant equality to those decreed by God to be inferior. We expose our bodies in unseemly ways. We violate God's will by easing pain, fighting disease, correcting his divinely administered defects. We dare to scrutinize the heavenly spheres and reveal them to be imperfect, not living. We fly, yet have no wings. We dare to teach others what we've learned.

Fortunately, God still has His faithful. They reap the benefits of fire, electricity, email, but chastely preserve themselves from the practice of critical thinking, by which such things came to be in our hands. They learn by rote, but do not measure or examine the unknown themselves. They do not allow themselves to be thrust into the cold, bright, noisy world but retreat into a soft, cozy, muted womb where they can imagine the universe to be whatever they wish, where they can dwell upon the meaning of red and blue, but never defile them by touching them.

ummm is this supposed to insult all religious people in the forums.. because it is kind of offensive... did you even read the lecture I linked at the start. do you even realize that a huge number of prominent scientists (coming up with these discoveries you speak of) are religious, are christian even.. which sounds like the main religious group you are attacking.. I mean your post is entirely condescending, arrogant and offensive... and entirely false...

read the article at the start maybe before posting in this thread... and then you won't be so quick to post nonsense.. it is about physics and god, and it is by a quite prominent chemist who is also a christian.. and he brings up many physicists who are also religious... but no, religious people shut themselves away from helping in progress, from discovery, from science, from examining things... yes, of course you are right because you are an atheist, and atheists have the monoply on the truth, right???

[El Viejo]

Erwin Schroedinger said that science-- physics-- cannot tell us a single thing about color? A fundamental property of light??!!

This could be a fun discussion by itself.

Is color a fundamental property of light?

Using arbitrary measures that we've concocted we describe electromagnetic energy as being waves of various lengths. The spectrum is vast. A tiny sliver of it tickles our retinas and we perceive it as light. Gradations of frequency within that range we call 'colors.' The rest is the same stuff, but is it light if we can't see it? Does it still have color?

A small segment in the range of another sort of wave we perceive as sound. We've named discrete frequencies with letters of the alphabet. Is it still sound if we can't hear it? Is a frequency still a "C" if we can't hear it?

We see only one 'octave' of light ranging from infrared to ultraviolet. But like sound, in which we can hear a repeating pattern, there is a repeating pattern in in light, arguably with 'reds' we can't see? Are they still colors?