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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Maybe the best obit GC will receive. Thanks.
First off everyone who has criticized my posts here has come away with the conclusion that I think "god did it". I've said directly that I do not believe in a god that created the universe. You all are assuming that since I question your stance I, by default, "accept the easy answer that "God did it."" That is simply not true, and if you read me carefully you will see that.
Second, I would argue that the atheists to which I refer do absolutely exist. I would imagine from your brief post that you probably don't fall into that camp, but plenty who post here at Salon do, and I would suggest that they can be found out by the personal slurs and emotional affront they take to having their beliefs challenged. Surely, nothing could be less scientific than to believe that one's theory is not worth investigating further. Yet, that is exactly what these atheists suggest; their viewpoint is beyond reproach, and everyone else is full of it. That, in a nutshell, is the approach of fundamentalism, and it runs directly against the scientific method we all (myself included) hold dear.
I'm not saying that "someone who calls himself an atheist is uninterested in those questions and yet claims to have the answer to everything". I'm saying that SOME who call themselves atheists are uninterested, and they tend to be the ones yelling the loudest.
There is not a single theory or discovery in the history of science that has not ultimately been surpassed or even dismissed as quaint by the passage of time. The materialists that I refer to do not speak as though they understand this. They speak as if they are Right, even Righteous. They very often do not say "I don't know" when confronted with a question of cosmic origin; they very often DO say "you are an idiot" for posing the question.
I give full due and respect to these people as being better able to navigate reality than a fundamentalist Christian. They certainly are. It is far better for everyone to have people blinded by science rather than blinded by religion. But, blind is blind.
My complaint is simply that via their pedantry they dismiss that which can't be known. But, as physics shows us, the un-known is every bit as much a part of the universe as is the known.
I criticized you specificly and only because you equated atheism with religion, thus demonstrating that you have no idea what you're talking about.
They very often do not say "I don't know" when confronted with a question of cosmic origin; they very often DO say "you are an idiot" for posing the question.
Every scientist and athiest I know is very willing to say "I don't know" to these questions and not a one will say "You are an idiot" for posing it. Of course, after saying "I don't know" they tend to continue with "We have to do much more research".
There is not a single theory or discovery in the history of science that has not ultimately been surpassed or even dismissed as quaint by the passage of time
Not exactly. Newton's laws still hold true, E=MC2 still holds true. Sure, one adds to the other, but it doesn't really "surpass" it or render the former quaint.
jazztao wrote:
The atheists I am referring to are strict materialists. They believe (yes, believe) that everything can be boiled down to a material event involving chemical/electrical processes. That's fine as far as it goes. But that's just the point: it only goes so far.
Strict Materialism is a dead end, and NO sensible person who claims to be an atheist buys that anymore, because s/he knows it is inadequate to describe multifold manifestations of fields, and sub-quantum scale energy. Thus, PHYSICALISM is the more apt name for modern materialsm. I believe there is a book available from American Atheists, that goes into this in great deal, entitled The Atheist Handbook to Modern Materialism or words to that effect.
These atheists are not saying that they can't determine the source of the universe, they are saying the source of the universe is chemical/electrical processes. They refuse to ask the question, "Where did these processes come from?", "How did they begin?" They have no answer as to the origin of the processes. Period. Yet, they believe they have "the ultimate answer".
Those atheists are idjits if they say that, since the temperatures of the early (photon-radiation) era cosmos don't permit ordinary chemical electrical processes. They DO allow quantum ones.
WHERE did the processes come from? May I point you in the direction of a fabulous work of scientific merit?
I reference here the paper by T. Padmanabhan, 1983, ‘Universe Before Planck Time – A Quantum Gravity Model, in Physical Review D, Vol. 28, No. 4, p. 756.) the instantaneous formation of the universe by a possible quantum fluctuation arose when the conformal part of space-time is treated as a quantum variable.
Without going into all the complex mathematics entailed, Padmanabhan employed integrals related to the “action” (J) as a function of time. He proceeded by solving for the expansion factor S(t) using two separate energy equations, one of which (2.15 in his paper) bears a remarkable resemblance to the basic quantum wave potential equation I derived earlier. The potential energy term is remarkably similar to that for the quantum harmonic oscillator.
The most masterful section in his paper is III. ‘Geometry of the Quantum Universe’ wherein spacetime itself is taken to be in a particular quantum state U(q, t). (Where U(q, t) = exp [iE/h INT dt/ S 3(t)] f(q)) He then assumes “stationary states” (given by the variable Q) for the early universe that are independent of time and for which all the dynamics “are contained in S(t)” (ibid., p. 28). The form of the expression for his “energy content” of the universe, e (t) also bears a remarkable structural similarity to the equation given earlier for total energy in an expanding cosmos.
The conformal factor Padmanabhan uses is a, which is a purely quantum mechanical parameter, defined from his equation (2.24):
a = S^ 6 (t) omega ^2 (t)
thereby fixing the state of the universe to be compatible with a harmonic oscillator of frequency a. (Which we know has solutions in terms of Hermite polynomials H _n (q)) To make a long story short, and leave out lots of formalism, he then considers a series of different solutions for the respective energy equations, including for an “open”, “flat” and “closed” model cosmos. It’s found all the spacetimes are non-singular (e.g don’t have an associated singularity or infinity) and start with some minimum value of expansion factor. “Classical” (non-quantum) limits are achieved by setting a = 0, thus S(t) = 0.
NONE of his hypothetical basis is exotic at all. Indeed, Hermite polynomials are well known to all quantum physics students since they are a key part of the solution to the quantum harmonic oscillator.
I suggest you read his paper before despairing that modern physicalists are unable to explain cosmic origin. And if there is such explanation, it means we can refrain from importing exotic supernatural agents and committing ignotum per ignotius
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