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Cogito ergo sum

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Implications of a Multiverse on Christian Faith

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  • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
    Hypothesis: "Supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation". It's reasonable to describe these models as hypotheses.
    We can always broaden definitions. However multiverse models of cosmology don't constitute scientific hypotheses.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
      My equivocation arises from the fact that there is as yet no definitive interpretation of quantum mechanics. But the fact of quantum mechanics is beyond doubt so obviously a valid interpretation must exist.
      Aye, but when people point out that there's no evidence for the multiverse, responding to Shunya who is talking about Chaotic Inflation, it makes no sense to then talk about interpretations of quantum mechanics which would be something else.

      But of course you do. I disagree. Wittgenstein says there are no realms of phenomena whose study is the special business of a philosopher, and about which he or she should devise profound a priori theories and sophisticated supporting arguments. There are no startling discoveries to be made of facts, not open to the methods of science, yet accessible "from the armchair" through some blend of intuition, pure reason and conceptual analysis. I think he's spot on.

      This is not to say that philosophy doesn't have its uses, but it’s limited to the available data.

      ... Without scientific input you’re left with little more than logically consistent conjecture.
      We certainly don't disagree on that! That's been the position of Scholasticism since Aristotle taught that we abstracted what a thing is, from its accidents (how it appears to us in history). If we were disembodied entirely, without any senses, or any experience, its hard to tell what if anything we could tell about the world. A lot, if not all, of what's in our minds comes from interacting with the world and experiencing it.

      However Wittgenstein was doing something a bit more radical than merely saying that we should base inference on empirii, he, and the entire Vienna Circle of philosophers were trying to do away with metaphysics. So if you ask the question "What is an electron, really?" or "Is the Everett's interpretation true?" He would answer "Those questions are categorical nonsense, as are any attempted answers to them." This is a few steps too far, and I imagine you'll agree.

      Certainly, philosophy is the glue that holds together the scientific structure by ensuring self-consistency and avoiding false inferences. But it can only clarify and reformulate the truths contained in existing scientific models, theories and laws; it cannot uncover new facts about nature.
      That depends again on how wide a field you imagine science to be. I said this view would either be false, or trivial. Would you include such discoveries as deductive reasoning, because that could be subsumed under logics, which could be subsumed under mathematics, which you might say is a subfield of science? Sure I have no problem with that, then what was once called philosophy is now called science. Then we're simple using different maps and are arguing uselessly about borders. However if your borders cover just about everything, including metaphysics "We get to discuss interpretations of quantum mechanics, because quantum mechanics is a field of science. Those metaphysical discussions are therefore scientific and not philosophical" Then the statement "There's only a few spots left for philosophy" isn't all that important.

      Fact of the matter is you'd still left with discussing what causes are, what qualia are, whether reductionism makes sense (many philosophers of biology would disagree), so on and so forth. The kind of ways that scientists attack problems are amenable to these situations. You can't test the A theory or B theory of time. You can't test Everett's interpretation (unless you're crazy enough to think the suicide test actually makes sense). These questions are more appropriate the domain of philosophy, who study the results and discuss how they are to be understood.

      Philosophy and science both have their part to play, but science is the dominant discipline.
      That depends on what you mean by 'dominant'. If you more important to the world economy? Then there's no question at all that some subfields of science are extremely important, with the rest being insignificant. If you mean in terms of popularity, then its a mixture of the latest results of science, coupled with bad pop philosophy, used to tell stories of what we're discovering. In terms of actually understanding what is going on? Then its largely philosophy.

      I suggest that your bias against atheists is a defence mechanism on your part in order to retain your belief in a deity. I'm not biased against theists other than to think their views are not grounded in reality and thus irrelevant.
      "You're biased and I'm not!"

      Yeah okay, whatever you say Tassman.

      Uh, Jedidiah I think you mean.
      Yup, mistyped.

      Well it would, or should be, to the extent that your knowledge regarding the facts of the universe would be greatly expanded.
      It wouldn't be that much of an increase in knowledge, just another few results. It would be fascinating to know though, even excitingly dizzying.

      How you want to fit a deity into it is up to you, I don't see the need.
      I still don't see any problem at all. God would still need to exist whether the universe is chaotic inflationary and therefore larger than we anticipated, or whether it was infinitely old, etc... He would still be timeless, omnipotent, omnipresent, the sustainer of all things, the first cause of all that happens and the final cause towards which ultimately aims. I'm all ears if you see a tension.

      Fine tuning is not vexing to most scientists.
      That's certainly not the impression I'm getting, what with high energy physicists proposing, and some still adamantly insisting, on the supersymmetry theory in order to save the Standard Model from the hierarchy problem. Any good physicist should feel discomfort at fine-tuning in their theories, as it automatically makes the prior probability of the theory smaller. Whether or not its also an existential problem depends, but its definitely a technical issue that begs for further exploration.

      The improbability of the universe’s “fine tuning” is either unknown or irrelevant. It’s a ‘god-of-the-gaps’ argument that the proponents cannot win in principle because they can never prove conclusively that the values of these parameters cannot be natural. But they keep trying.- Stenger paraphrased.
      That's a fair take, though I don't think Victor Stenger was in any way successful at answering the argument. His book A Universe From Nothing stands out as one of the worst books on philosophy by an atheist I have ever had the misfortune of reading. Even when I was an atheist it sounded odious and wrong from the outset, and he certainly didn't disappoint me. His attempts at explaining away fine-tuning don't fare much better. However he is right that for anyone advancing any arguments about fine-tuning, actually arguing that these parameters can be tuned is something that would be up to the proponent of the argument to show.

      I don't use the argument for those and other reasons. My biggest is that from the argument you couldn't show that God exists, only perhaps that something very powerful and intelligent exist, but only a being like other creatures just very powerful.

      And whilst the fact that most cosmologists are atheist proves nothing in itself, it says that those who know most about how the universe functions see no need to invoke a deity to explain it.
      My impression is different, they imply that a deity could provide an ultimate explanation for some problems that they don't see solutions to, but they don't believe in one, so here's a bunch of other efforts.

      The reverse is true of course re theists.
      No doubt about it.

      None of this is relevant really in that there is at this stage no definitive, established evidence of a multiverse. Until such time as there is my views on multiverse et al will remain, as I said at the beginning, equivocal.
      Agreed.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
        We can always broaden definitions. However multiverse models of cosmology don't constitute scientific hypotheses.
        Back to the 'argument clinic' are we?
        “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
          Aye, but when people point out that there's no evidence for the multiverse, responding to Shunya who is talking about Chaotic Inflation, it makes no sense to then talk about interpretations of quantum mechanics which would be something else.
          No it’s not. The multiverse is merely one of several possible interpretations of quantum mechanics; it’s an attempt to deal with problems associated with the wave-function collapse as I'm sure you’re aware.

          We certainly don't disagree on that! That's been the position of Scholasticism since Aristotle taught that we abstracted what a thing is, from its accidents (how it appears to us in history). If we were disembodied entirely, without any senses, or any experience, its hard to tell what if anything we could tell about the world. A lot, if not all, of what's in our minds comes from interacting with the world and experiencing it.

          However Wittgenstein was doing something a bit more radical than merely saying that we should base inference on empirii, he, and the entire Vienna Circle of philosophers were trying to do away with metaphysics. So if you ask the question "What is an electron, really?" or "Is the Everett's interpretation true?" He would answer "Those questions are categorical nonsense, as are any attempted answers to them." This is a few steps too far, and I imagine you'll agree.
          Interestingly, Aristotle illustrates Wittgenstein’s very point. For Aristotle philosophy was the means for finding truth, but it didn't keep him from making many profound errors of fact. Virtually every conclusion he reached about the physical world was wrong, because he didn't have the all-important input of the modern physical sciences.

          That depends again on how wide a field you imagine science to be. I said this view would either be false, or trivial. Would you include such discoveries as deductive reasoning, because that could be subsumed under logics, which could be subsumed under mathematics, which you might say is a subfield of science? Sure I have no problem with that, then what was once called philosophy is now called science. Then we're simple using different maps and are arguing uselessly about borders. However if your borders cover just about everything, including metaphysics "We get to discuss interpretations of quantum mechanics, because quantum mechanics is a field of science. Those metaphysical discussions are therefore scientific and not philosophical" Then the statement "There's only a few spots left for philosophy" isn't all that important.

          Fact of the matter is you'd still left with discussing what causes are, what qualia are, whether reductionism makes sense (many philosophers of biology would disagree), so on and so forth. The kind of ways that scientists attack problems are amenable to these situations. You can't test the A theory or B theory of time. You can't test Everett's interpretation (unless you're crazy enough to think the suicide test actually makes sense). These questions are more appropriate the domain of philosophy, who study the results and discuss how they are to be understood.
          Science comprises the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. And given that there’s no substantive evidence of anything other than the “physical and natural world” that covers just about everything. The rest is merely how about how we talk about it.

          That depends on what you mean by 'dominant'. If you more important to the world economy? Then there's no question at all that some subfields of science are extremely important, with the rest being insignificant. If you mean in terms of popularity, then its a mixture of the latest results of science, coupled with bad pop philosophy, used to tell stories of what we're discovering. In terms of actually understanding what is going on? Then its largely philosophy.
          It's science that provides empirically verifiable answers, not philosophy. If there’s conflict between a verified scientific conclusion and an academic philosophical conclusion, it’s the latter that must give way to the former…as Aristotle discovered.

          "You're biased and I'm not!"

          Yeah okay, whatever you say Tassman.
          So there!!!

          It wouldn't be that much of an increase in knowledge, just another few results. It would be fascinating to know though, even excitingly dizzying.
          It would be on a par with the realisation of the heliocentric universe as opposed to the previous model of geocentricism. Only more so.

          I still don't see any problem at all. God would still need to exist whether the universe is chaotic inflationary and therefore larger than we anticipated, or whether it was infinitely old, etc... He would still be timeless, omnipotent, omnipresent, the sustainer of all things, the first cause of all that happens and the final cause towards which ultimately aims. I'm all ears if you see a tension.
          I’m with Laplace: “I have no need of that hypothesis”.

          That's certainly not the impression I'm getting, what with high energy physicists proposing, and some still adamantly insisting, on the supersymmetry theory in order to save the Standard Model from the hierarchy problem. Any good physicist should feel discomfort at fine-tuning in their theories, as it automatically makes the prior probability of the theory smaller. Whether or not its also an existential problem depends, but its definitely a technical issue that begs for further exploration.



          That's a fair take, though I don't think Victor Stenger was in any way successful at answering the argument. His book A Universe From Nothing stands out as one of the worst books on philosophy by an atheist I have ever had the misfortune of reading. Even when I was an atheist it sounded odious and wrong from the outset, and he certainly didn't disappoint me. His attempts at explaining away fine-tuning don't fare much better. However he is right that for anyone advancing any arguments about fine-tuning, actually arguing that these parameters can be tuned is something that would be up to the proponent of the argument to show.

          I don't use the argument for those and other reasons. My biggest is that from the argument you couldn't show that God exists, only perhaps that something very powerful and intelligent exist, but only a being like other creatures just very powerful.
          Nevertheless, fine-tuning remains a ‘god-of-the-gaps’ argument that the proponents cannot win in principle because they can never prove conclusively that the values of these parameters cannot be natural.

          My impression is different, they imply that a deity could provide an ultimate explanation for some problems that they don't see solutions to, but they don't believe in one, so here's a bunch of other efforts.
          Not really! Invoking a deity in such situations is merely another 'god-of-the-gaps' argument, which is hardly the scientific approach.

          No doubt about it.


          Agreed.
          “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
            Of course the hypothesis is based on observed phenomena. However, there is zero evidence confirming the hypothesis.
            Actually from the scientific perspective this is false. There is constant research on proposed Multiverse theories and related hypothesis and models that indeed falsify and confirm these theories based on evidence. Some have been found false and discarded in this process. Others continue to be tested when new knowledge becomes available through research. The nature of the present research is that Multiverses are indeed possible, based on the present knowledge of our universe and quantum Mechanics.

            Part of your negative view of Multiverse theories is the demand for some kind of 'proof' to confirm theories and hypothesis, based on a religious agenda. Based on the reality of scientific knowledge there is no such thing as 'proof' of anything when it comes to the scientific methods of falsification. All scientific knowledge concerning the advanced cutting edge of science is subject to change skeptical reevaluation and falsification. This is includes problematic theories concerning things like 'What causes gravity?'

            Once you move past Newtonian science, virtually all the science of falsification is based indirect falsification methods for confirming theories and hypothesis.
            Last edited by shunyadragon; 10-24-2015, 08:34 AM.
            Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
            Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
            But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

            go with the flow the river knows . . .

            Frank

            I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

            Comment


            • Once you move past Newtonian science, virtually all the science of falsification is based indirect falsification methods for confirming theories and hypothesis.
              Which is a type of negative proof - called falsification.
              . . . the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; . . . -- Romans 1:16 KJV

              . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: . . . -- 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 KJV

              Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: . . . -- 1 John 5:1 KJV

              Comment


              • Originally posted by 37818 View Post
                Which is a type of negative proof - called falsification.
                No it is not negative proof since nothing is proven in science. We're back to high school science here.
                Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                go with the flow the river knows . . .

                Frank

                I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by 37818 View Post
                  Which is a type of negative proof - called falsification.
                  Falsification has to do with observation, if there is no observable physical evidence of a thing, of a theory, in which its truth can be observationally verified or nullified, then it is not falsifiable and it is not science. The notion of god for instance is a belief for which there is no observational evidence by which it could be either confirmed or shown to be false, and so as a belief, it has nothing to do with science. It is unfalsifiable.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by JardinPrayer View Post
                    The Question:

                    If we are part of a multiverse, as string theory and expansion theories are suggesting, it has been proposed that everything that can exist does exist somewhere and somewhen. It is theorized that there may be many iterations of each individual. The many worlds theory proposes that each time we make a choice, we split our reality and create a world where each choice is made. I know this is separate from the multiverse theory, but there are some crossover implications and I am still trying to understand where one line of thought ends and the other begins. For purposes of this discussion, I'm hoping to dialogue about an omnipotent creator God who is responsible for all I've just described and how meaningful (or meaningless) my decision for Christ is in this world if there are an infinite number of me's where some choose and some do not choose Him.
                    Under the paradigm that God cares about each individual and their ultimate fate (not to mention the lilies of the field), it's safe to say that your decision remains meaningful to Christ regardless of what else might exist. What God might choose to do in a parallel universe doesn't negate that fact. What another you chooses to do in a parallel universe doesn't negate that fact either. Presumably, a different universe entails a different set of facts and a different set of outcomes. That doesn't invalidate the outcome of this universe.

                    Moreover, it could be argued (reasonably, imo) that there aren't really an infinite number of you even if there are infinite parallel universes. Strictly speaking, 'you' entails your decisions and thoughts and feelings, etc. Some other entity that looks just like you and shares those decisions/thoughts/feelings up to a certain point stops being you when those decisions diverge. There isn't an identical you in each universe, just a nearly-identical you. It might sound like splitting hairs, but this is the philosophy forum (not to mention it's an important distinction).

                    And finally, we could posit that a person drawn to Christ will do so in all possible worlds. There's little enough to counter such a position for all that it may be ad hoc. You could take it further and claim that a person can't actually be saved unless they do so in all possible worlds, but that's getting a bit far out on the proverbial limb for my comfort.

                    I don't know if you're still following this thread, but I thought I'd take a stab at it anyway.
                    I'm not here anymore.

                    Comment

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