The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything

[martin48]

Just typical of God. Begins to lose the argument so starts shouting

i am god

and you are not...

[Prospero]

What the hell are you people talking about?? Everybody knows that the Earth is a huge flat disc, set on the backs of 5 giant elephants, who are in turn standing on the back of a really huge turtle. All else is a hoax.

I read that a famous phycisit - sadly can't remember who - was offered something like this view of existence during a public debate. I think it was several turtles at base.

He asked the lady what was beneath the turtles.

Her response "It's turtles all the way."

[martin48]

On Wittgenstein's limitations of language, I think Humpty Dumpty (in Through the Looking Glass) put it better.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."

Science is about making observations of the world. It then tries to explain those observations and make predictions. It is the predictive power of science that is its real strength. It confirms these predictions through more experiments or observations. Religion can not predict - if something happens then it is God's will. Miracles have a "place" in religion but not in science. Returning to the Big Bang - so much evidence points to a singular beginning of the universe so let's us take it as accepted. We can not observe anything before this point (if indeed there was anything) so science starts explaining at this singularity. Is this a restriction of science? Is this somehow less than satisfying? It is, in a sense, the best we can do. Is it less satisfying than accepting that the universe always existed or that some being/force/whatever always existed? There are no observations or experiments that we can to to test the existence of this being. God and his plans are "revealed" to us. This does not satisfy me - but it does others. We can not make predictions with the concept of a divine being. If we can not predict then we lose the very essence of humanity

Martin, thanks for the link, which both provides the explanation I was looking for, while failing to confirm that it is true - by which I mean absolutely true. As with the eloquent answer Trish supplied, these explanations are locked into a language which by its nature is not and never can be absolutely true. The key point (as I read it) that Hawking makes is this:

Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang, are simply not defined, because there's no way one could measure what happened at them.

The key concept which makes this argument vulnerable, is the idea of measurement, of the beginning of time -and indeed, time itself- as a measurable thing. In the 1930s Wittgenstein argued that language cannot describe anything absolutely, but that society agrees that the rules of grammar give what language is being used for its intelligibility, even if these rules, and words and meanings, are temporary:

But let's not forget that a word hasn't got a meaning given to it, as it were, by a power independent of us, so that there could be a scientific investigation into what the word really means. A word has the meaning someone has given to it. (Wittgenstein, 'The Blue Book', [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1972: 28]).

In another discussion of time, Wittgenstein imagines logs floating down a river, and an observer noting when they bang into each other, and the way the observer appears to be measuring time to notice a difference in the frequency with which the logs bang into each other:

But if we say time passed more quickly between logs 1 and 100 than between logs 100 and 200, this is only an analogy; really nothing has passed more quickly. To say time passes more quickly, or that time flows, is to imagine something flowing. We then extend the simile and talk about the direction of time. When people talk of the direction of time, precisely the analogy of a river is before them. Of course a river can change its direction of flow, but one has a feeling of giddiness when one talks of time being reversed. The reason is that the notion of flowing, of something, and of the direction of the flow is embodied in our language.
http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/wittgenstein-and-river-of-time.html

Could it be that one reason why Hawking cannot -or does not- speculate on life before the measurable beginning of the universe is because he doesn't have the language to describe a condition without time -or rather, there is no agreed language to describe it, and the point of disagreement is that whereas science 'understands' infinity as literally impossible to measure, religious believers insist that this is precisely the point of understanding God, but who themselves commit what for science is the heresy of not asking questions of God but of merely submitting their silence as proof of their belief?

But why does science find it hard, or impossible to describe something that is not measurable, perhaps beyond mathematics?

The paradox of language is that we agree that words can mean something that can be verified, and something that cannot be verified. Wittgenstein would argue that it is entirely possible for someone to describe as a memory something that 'happened tomorrow': I do not know what will happen tomorrow, but I can argue that I remember on the 1st April that I expected an event to happen on the 2nd April that happened, because I remember it -in reality, once they have passed, there is no difference between the 1st or 2nd of April, I am therefore able to argue, linguistically, that I was able to remember an event that 'took place' in 'the future'. I think this is crucial in religious belief where the belief in eternity is a necessary component of the spiritual comfort that believers seek: that life has meaning and has always had meaning, that we never 'really die' but just move on to another condition. I once had a genial argument about the existence of God with a Muslim (to be specific, an Ahmadi) and he said, as I recall it: 'there has to be a God, otherwise life would be meaningless, and that would be unbearable'.

Or as Borges put it:

Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of a few metaphors.

[martin48]

Actually it's quarks all the way. Back to Lewis Carroll

I read that a famous phycisit - sadly can't remember who - was offered something like this view of existence during a public debate. I think it was several turtles at base.

He asked the lady what was beneath the turtles.

Her response "It's turtles all the way."

[Prospero]

The Hunting of the Quark? !!!

Actually its an infinity of multiverses and in several Jamie is pope and Dan doesn't drink... and I get to meet and marry Trish!

[martin48]

It's worse than this - in some parallel universe I get to meet you and we marry

Thus proving - in a very scientific way - that the idea of multiverses is pure tosh

[Stavros]

On Wittgenstein's limitations of language, I think Humpty Dumpty (in Through the Looking Glass) put it better.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."

Science is about making observations of the world. It then tries to explain those observations and make predictions. It is the predictive power of science that is its real strength. It confirms these predictions through more experiments or observations. Religion can not predict - if something happens then it is God's will. Miracles have a "place" in religion but not in science. Returning to the Big Bang - so much evidence points to a singular beginning of the universe so let's us take it as accepted. We can not observe anything before this point (if indeed there was anything) so science starts explaining at this singularity. Is this a restriction of science? Is this somehow less than satisfying? It is, in a sense, the best we can do. Is it less satisfying than accepting that the universe always existed or that some being/force/whatever always existed? There are no observations or experiments that we can to to test the existence of this being. God and his plans are "revealed" to us. This does not satisfy me - but it does others. We can not make predictions with the concept of a divine being. If we can not predict then we lose the very essence of humanity

Lewis Carroll misses the crucial point -because language works as a social instrument, for one person to 're-invent' or use a word as he or she wants to requires it being accepted by more than than one person, or incomprehension follows. Even if say, after an accident in which I banged my head, I am convinced you understand what I say it is not necessarily the case: if we go into a bar and you order a pint of bitter and I ask for (taking this from Sartre) Two horses of butter I would not be served but might receive a strange look: but if, to me, as a consequence of my accident, tonic water with ice and lemon becomes 'two horses of butter' I have in fact made an entirely reasonable request. For language to work we must agree on the rules. Carroll's poorly written fantasy is about a world where the rules in a dream world change and where absurdity is reality, and rationality challenged.

Although I agree with what you say about science, I will deal with an issue concerning infinity in my reply to Trish's post.

[Stavros]

It’s not that the infinite and the immeasurable are impossible to describe in mathematics.

Indeed, a major and well developed branch of mathematics known as set theory is devoted to the description of infinite cardinal and ordinal arithmetics. It includes countable infinities, uncountable infinities, inaccessible cardinals, Wooden cardinals and concepts pertaining to infinity whose contemplation would make Christ himself go cross-eyed.

Moreover, quantum theory is full of quantities that are immeasurable in principle.

The problem is nature herself and how we respect our own integrity when we endeavor to describe her. Do we fit nature to our most cherished beliefs? or our most ingenious ideas? or do we tailor our ideas to nature? Sure we can always carve out a niche for the gods. As long as the consequences of their shenanigans don’t conflict with observation or intrude upon the light of reasonably established knowledge, no scientist will pay them much in the way of professional attention (Tipler being a notable exception).

The classical cosmologies of Lemaitre, Friedman, Robertson and Walker are self-contained. For each of those models, time is internal...existing within the universe...not without. For these men, there was no time, nor space before the big bang.

Lemaitre took this to mean God existed timelessly and without extension. That He somehow is responsible for the existence of the universe, but that He didn’t create it by a process that took place in time...for that would require the prior existence of time.

Lamaitre’s idea a fine and noble, but baroque and unfunctional add-on to the cosmological understanding of those models. There is simply no need in science for hypothetical contortions that account for nothing. Whether or not they fill a “spiritual” need is not a public question. Whether or not they are metaphysically true, meet a higher truth etc. is not the business of science.

It is however, the business of every higher truth to be downward compatible with the lower levels of reasonably certain knowledge. When claimed scientific knowledge conflicts with claimed spiritual knowledge we have an epistemological problem that can only be settled by examining the scientific claim with the methods and ethics of science. Likewise when spiritual knowledge conflicts with the peaceful pursuit of life, freedom of belief etc., we have an even more serious problem. But when there are no conflicts, people can choose whatever higher knowledge meets their spiritual needs. Go hog wild.

I am not trying to disprove the achievements of science or cosmology, as evidenced in yours and Martin's posts. What interests me is the possibility that infinity is not just a concept but present in the key instrument that science uses to measure: mathematics. It may be a problem of language, and is not practical, but consider the difference between 0 and 1, or between 0 inches and 1 inch. Is there nothing between 0 and 1? Because if so they must be the same thing, and they are not. But just as 1 can be subdivided, how many times is a dilemma. At some point in history, I don't precisely when, it was agreed that an inch is as long as we accept an inch to be, in the same way that we have developed language on the basis of social agreement of its rules. But in a pure sense, mathematics cannot measure an inch with absolute precision, because the space in which it is measured has no boundary, and we can only make a final judgement of an inch by agreeing it is 'this long' and comparing three or four or however many strips of cloth and ensuring they are the same length: we can then create machines and instruments: such as a ruler: to impose this length on space and time.
The truth is that as there are no boundaries to space that can be measured, time also has no boundaries: the languages that we use enclose us within a 'certain world' to comfort us. If you escape the prison-house of language, you are not necessarily free, and you might be lost; or become a rebel, or be diagnosed schizophrenic.

The point is that however many times you sub-divide a number, you can never exhaust its potential to get smaller: 1 never reaches zero: because we live in infinity. We lock ourselves into finite time and space to stop going mad, even though many ancient cultures believe that we live in an eternal world and that when we die we merely move on to another condition. Such cultures had a different conception of time from what we have, and it was more casual and elastic, and shaped more by the seasons than by clocks, which they would not have understood -even as recently as the 20th century people had to be told the meaning of an hour because it was incomprehensible. Some people who convert to Buddhism are attracted by the ability to lose 'the trapping of the modern world', without dying as a result.

The irony is that just as science cannot describe something that cannot be observed, so language cannot explain God to the satisfaction of its users, some of whom dispute that what we actually do see is the creation of God. Another example of language which we accept socially, being used to verify and deny individual choice.

[trish]

What interests me is the possibility that infinity is not just a concept but present in the key instrument that science uses to measure: mathematics.

You are precisely right, “infinity” is not only “present” but nearly omnipresent in the mathematics that physicists typically apply to their professional endeavors. It is generally presumed that the “real number system,” (the one where you can represent quantities using infinite decimal expansions) is the system appropriate measurements of spatial and temporal intervals, temperatures, frequencies, probability amplitudes, etc. etc. The types of equations most frequently used to model physical phenomena (known a differential equations) are integrally entangled in the notion of limit and infinity.

But in a pure sense, mathematics cannot measure an inch with absolute precision, because the space in which it is measured has no boundary, and we can only make a final judgement of an inch by agreeing it is 'this long' and comparing three or four or however many strips of cloth and ensuring they are the same length: we can then create machines and instruments: such as a ruler: to impose this length on space and time.

Also true. Units of length or time (as well as other units of measure) are defined in a standardized way. But the very definition by use of a standard (in spite of so like the use of a vibrating cesium atom to definite a standard second) presumes a background of theory and concedes that no measurement will be exact. This is why the charts and graphs of physicists are sullied at every point with error bars. This is why no one worries whether or not the fine structure constant has a repeating decimal expansion or not.

The truth is that as there are no boundaries to space that can be measured, time also has no boundaries: the languages that we use enclose us within a 'certain world' to comfort us.

Here our agreement depends on which space or which space-time is under discussion. There are whole infinite classes of geometries that mathematicians study. Some have boundaries and some don’t. Most of what pure mathematicians study has no obvious application to cosmology. If, for the moment we restrict our attention to those space-time models of Lemaitre (which satisfy Einstein’s field equations) we find: 1) They are all boundless (there are no walls beyond which the universe doesn’t exist and there is no time beyond which the universe doesn’t exist). 2) They are continua (i.e. the interval between any two points or any two times is infinitely divisible). 3) At any given time they all have a finite age. This latter is not a human failing. Not a failing of human comprehension or mental ability. It would be easy enough for a mathematician to invent cosmological models of universes that never had a beginning...universes which at any given now would have an infinite age. But such models would simply not depict the universe we live in as we now understand it to be. Our universe has a finite age. This restriction is imposed by the Einstein field equations. (As Hawking points out, there are many other laws that impose the same restriction; e.g. the second law of thermodynamics).

There is a conceptual difficulty that very often trips up even agile laymen, “How can the universe be boundless but finite?” At the risk of boring you with an example of which you may already be aware I’ll make an attempt to explain: Imagine the surface of the sphere. Just the surface. Through away the three dimensional space in which it is embedded. We are only interested in the intrinsic geometry of a sphere. This geometry exists independently of the usual embedding. Spherical geometry is a two-dimensional geometry. It has it’s own interpretation of the word “line” and its own axioms. One can develop the theorems of spherical geometry picturing a sphere sitting within a three-dimensional environment, just as you can develop the theorems of Euclidean plane geometry without ever imaging a plane embedded in a three-dimensional surrounding. Embeddings help us picture geometries, but they are not essential to their definition or development. Keeping this independence in mind, go ahead and picture a sphere, because it’s easier to have the picture before you. Draw half a meridian going from the south pole to the north pole. Label the South Pole 0 years and label the North Pole 32 billion years. Label the point where the meridian passes the equator 16 billion years. Continue to subdivide and label the points on the median in this fashion. Think of this meridian as a time-axis. Now imagine the point on the time-axis that you labeled 16 billion years. Label the antipodal point 1 billion light years. Subdivide and label the equator so that the labels indicate this distance all the way around is 2 billion light years. Think of this calibrated equator as a spatial-axis. Now using this coordinate frame you can assign a pair of coordinates to any point on the surface of the sphere. Just look at where the meridian through the given point pass through the equator (that will be the spatial coordinate of the point) and look at where the latitude through the given point intersects the calibrate meridian (the time-axis) and that will be the point’s temporal coordinate. We just invented a two-dimensional space-time geometry. It models a universe that at time zero eases into an expanding phase, reaches it maximal size after 16 billion years and then enters a collapsing phase. After 32 billion years it collapses to a point and the whole show it over. The point of this toy model is to demonstrate that time was born with the universe and died with the universe. There is no time outside the universe. Space was born with the universe and died with the universe. There is no space (three-dimensional or otherwise) outside the universe (remember spherical geometry can developed independently of whether or not the sphere is embedded in another higher dimensional space).
(Disclaimer: This toy model isn’t very physical as it is not designed to satisfy the Einstein field equations. The spatial coordinates in the model shouldn’t be used to measure distances without employing a latitude dependent scaling factor...generally curvilinear coordinates and distances are not always the same things).

The irony is that just as science cannot describe something that cannot be observed, so language cannot explain God to the satisfaction of its users, some of whom dispute that what we actually do see is the creation of God. Another example of language which we accept socially, being used to verify and deny individual choice.

A: Science confirms that the universe had a beginning.

B: Oh so it might have been designed and created.

A: But science also demonstrates within reasonable tolerances that time and space also had a beginning.

B: Damn! Unfortunately that precludes actions such as design and creation that need to take place within the passage of time!

A: Indeed, it’s not that God can’t be observed, but that He has no place to stand and no time exist.

B: If God exists, He is timeless (not eternal but rather outside time) and without extension. He does not act, as actions take place in time. Yet He is responsible for our existence. These would be mysteries we can choose to believe, or not.

A: The question for Christians like Lemaitre would be, “Why those mysteries and not the ones cherished by other religions?” Why can’t we say, “The Hindu gods exist, timelessly and without extension and are responsible for our existence?” What test can be used to determine who is more likely correct?

B: If we had a test, it wouldn’t remain a mystery.

[trish]

Let's agree that in this post the word "spider" shall mean a set of lines from a book, play or poem.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."

This spider has always been one of my most favorite from Lewis Carrol. In part it captures so well what mathematicians actually do to create a precise jargon in which to converse about specific ideas. "Group", "ring", "function", "manifold" etc. are all words who have been shown the boss.