Re: The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
A concise demolition of Tipler's silly views, but if anything I think it demonstrates the trend among some scientists who use mathematics to suggest they can explain everything. As Martin and Trish have pointed out in various threads science cannot explain everything, which suggests Tipler is deluded in believing not only that he can explain everything but that he has the intellectual means to do so. I suppose the question is this: how limited is mathematics as a tool of explanation? Most of the surveillance technology that is used by google or the NSA or GCHQ is based on algorithms that are the compression of data into numbers, but doesn't recognise poetic licence: so to say in an email 'we bombed in New Haven' is not to say we -assuming 'we' to be a terrorist cell- dropped a bomb in Connecticut but that there was a play of that name performed there -but algorithms searching for that sequence of letters that makes 'bomb' would not know this.
The short answer is "no". Math can not explain everything. Trish and I will go on about Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, which basically states that there are some things which can never be proven in a strict mathematical sense. You can not write a computer program that will be able to tell is any other computer program will terminate or run in a loop for ever. This may seem rather abstract but it tells you you can never locate every computer virus in a system.
On a practical level - the NSA algorithms are somewhat incomplete in another sense - they may fail to take into account the nuances and context of human language but that's not because they are outside the capabilities of math. It's our fault for believing the output of computers!
Re: The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything
Quote:
Originally Posted by
martin48
The short answer is "no". Math can not explain everything. Trish and I will go on about Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, which basically states that there are some things which can never be proven in a strict mathematical sense. You can not write a computer program that will be able to tell is any other computer program will terminate or run in a loop for ever. This may seem rather abstract but it tells you you can never locate every computer virus in a system.
On a practical level - the NSA algorithms are somewhat incomplete in another sense - they may fail to take into account the nuances and context of human language but that's not because they are outside the capabilities of math. It's our fault for believing the output of computers!
And according to Jamie we are destined to evolve into supercomputers which will take advantage of the 'singularity' and the collapsing universe to reign over all time. Curious how nothing ever goes wrong in the future and there is an unlimited supply of energy to keep the lights on...
Re: The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
And according to Jamie we are destined to evolve into supercomputers which will take advantage of the 'singularity' and the collapsing universe to reign over all time. Curious how nothing ever goes wrong in the future and there is an unlimited supply of energy to keep the lights on...
Keep voting Republican and the future will be full of energy and freedom :geek:
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Re: The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything
All the people I know who excel in the sciences are atheists, most all of the regular people I know have no opinion on the subject.
While Darwin and modern science really takes off about two hundred years ago, I think for the scientific mind, DNA=GOD.
Everything that is alive is alive because of DNA, DNA has been silently screaming to live for millions of years, DNA is why we have lungs instead of leaves, hands instead of flippers. DNA is the seed of life.
And the exciting part is that through DNA engineering, we can maybe do what Jesus couldn't do- wipe out many diseases and give your great grandchildren 20-10 vision.
Of course many a sci-fi movie warns us what happens when Man plays GOD.
Re: The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything
DNA is an anagram of AND. This is perhaps appropriate since AND is a logic gate and DNA is a long molecule that codes for the logic and assembly of nearly all forms of terrestrial life.
I wouldn't say, however, that DNA=GOD, especially not for scientific minds. Explanations that invoke God are almost always teleological. I would think, to a scientific mind, this would have to be a feature of any god-equivalent explanation.
Arguments that invoke the random mutation of DNA and the relative reproductive fitness of the corresponding phenotypes are ultimately never teleological. It is not the goal of DNA to propagate mutant copies of itself into the future, rather that it does so is a consequence of contingencies and terrestrial chemistry.
There is nothing in modern science that can replace God. So if science removes Him, won't it leave a hole? Actually it's more like removing the crinkle when you steam a blouse.
Re: The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything
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Originally Posted by
trish
.....DNA is a long molecule that codes for the logic and assembly of nearly all forms of terrestrial life......
NEARLY all or all?
Re: The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything
Quote:
Originally Posted by
buttslinger
NEARLY all or all?
Depends on what you call life and what terrestrial life forms remain undiscovered. (E.g. the infectious agent in madcow disease appears to be a "misfolded" protein called a prion. Like Vonegut's Ice 9, when it's present among other proteins of like kind it causes them to misfold and so the anomaly appears to grow. It can even be transmitted from organism to organism by ingestion. Is it life? I say no, but some disagree.)
Re: The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything
Quote:
Originally Posted by
martin48
Hi, Martin48. For my reply to physicist Prof. Lawrence M. Krauss's above review of physicist and mathematician Prof. Frank J. Tipler's book The Physics of Christianity (New York: Doubleday, 2007), see Sec. 4: "Criticisms of the Omega Point Cosmology", pp. 26 ff. of my following article:
James Redford, "The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything", Social Science Research Network (SSRN), Sept. 10, 2012 (orig. pub. Dec. 19, 2011), 186 pp., doi:10.2139/ssrn.1974708; PDF, 1741424 bytes, MD5: 8f7b21ee1e236fc2fbb22b4ee4bbd4cb. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1974708 , http://archive.org/details/ThePhysic...ryOfEverything , http://theophysics.host56.com/Redfor...ics-of-God.pdf , http://alphaomegapoint.files.wordpre...ics-of-god.pdf , http://sites.google.com/site/physico...ics-of-God.pdf
Additionally, in the below resource are six sections which contain very informative videos of physicist and mathematician Prof. Frank J. Tipler explaining the Omega Point cosmology, which is a proof (i.e., mathematical theorem) of God's existence per the known laws of physics (viz., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics), and the Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model Theory of Everything (TOE), which is also required by the known laws of physics. The seventh section therein contains an audio interview of Tipler.
A number of these videos are not otherwise online. I also provide some helpful notes and commentary for some of these videos.
James Redford, "Video of Profs. Frank Tipler and Lawrence Krauss's Debate at Caltech: Can Physics Prove God and Christianity?", alt.sci.astro, Message-ID: jghev8tcbv02b6vn3uiq8jmelp7jijluqk@4ax.com , 30 Jul 2013 00:51:55 -0400. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...ro/KQWt4KcpMVo , http://archive.is/a04w9 , http://webcitation.org/6IUTAMEyS The plain text of this post is available at: TXT, 42423 bytes, MD5: b199e867e42d54b2b8bf6adcb4127761. http://mirrorcreator.com/files/JCFTZSS8/ , http://ge.tt/3lOTVbp
Re: The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything
Re: The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything
Quote:
Originally Posted by
trish
Quote:
Originally Posted by
buttslinger
Quote:
Originally Posted by
trish
.....DNA is a long molecule that codes for the logic and assembly of nearly all forms of terrestrial life......
NEARLY all or all?
Depends on what you call life and what terrestrial life forms remain undiscovered. (E.g. the infectious agent in madcow disease appears to be a "misfolded" protein called a prion. Like Vonegut's Ice 9, when it's present among other proteins of like kind it causes them to misfold and so the anomaly appears to grow. It can even be transmitted from organism to organism by ingestion. Is it life? I say no, but some disagree.)
All known forms of life (i.e., things that are commonly thought of as being alive) consist of nanoassemblers. That is, all such lifeforms manipulate individual molecules in order to reproduce and to maintain their functioning. Human babies, for example, are constructed molecule-by-molecule through cell division, as the cells intake molecules and chemically process them in order to grow and divide. Through biochemical processes, even individual atoms are manipulated in this manner. For instance, iron atoms are biochemically manipulated as part of the process in making hemoglobin.
Based upon this common view of what life is, prions are a form of life, since they are protein structures which reproduce themselves on the molecular level (in this case, by changing the chiral structure of their structural isomers, especially enantiomers).
But there are also RNA forms of life, such as RNA viruses.
Physicists Profs. John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler devised the definition of life as a process which uses natural selection to preserve its information in their book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1986), with the "Foreword" by John A. Wheeler.
Profs. Barrow and Tipler's definition of life comes the closest to hitting upon that aspect which makes the difference between being alive or dead. Yet this definition of theirs produces what most people would consider weird results. For example, under this definition of life, an automobile car is alive, since it is a pattern that is being reproduced via natural selection, i.e., the natural selection of what patterns of cars humans choose to assemble and to maintain. Tipler freely admits that cars are alive under this definition.
Howbeit, even arrowheads are alive according to this definition.
Yet this strikes people's minds as odd that such could be the case. But in actuality, one runs into even more problems with other attempts at defining what life is, since Profs. Barrow and Tipler's definition of life just reduces life to the fundaments of essential evolutionary biology.
The reason why all attempt to define what life is, as contrasted with things that are not alive, run into situations that seem obviously either ill-defined or absurd is because no distinction can veridically be made. The reason why no such distinction can in truth be made, and hence why all such attempts at making such a distinction must run into problem-cases that are either undefined or ridiculous, is because everything is alive. If literally everything is alive, then of course one is embarked upon a fool's errand to attempt to find the difference between what is alive or not.
In the Omega Point cosmology, all matter eventually becomes superintelligent computing machinery. So also, in the Omega Point cosmology, all event horizons must eventually be eliminated. In other words, not one tiny speck of matter can be left behind. What this means is that even if a blind piece of matter doesn't seem alive right now, it is just the supporting-structure for the lifeform that will eventually grow. Like the inorganic minerals which make up the bones in humans. Or the keratin which make up our toenails and fingernails.
