Science Proves Creation

[Guy Threepwood]

So static, eternal, steady state were predictions of which theory or theories?

The big crunch was a prediction of General Relativity, assuming greater than critical mass density so that gravity would eventually overcome and reverse the post-inflation expansion. It had nothing to do with inflationary theory.

that gravity would win out over inflation yes, that's was the previous theoretical prediction that was proven false.

People can present scientific theories and hypotheses any way they like - it doesn't mean that the theories were developed with that intent. As I understand it, all those hypotheses were based on the evidence available at the time. If that was not the case, then they were not scientific hypotheses.

Then by Hoyle's own rationale + your definition, steady state was never a scientific hypothesis.
But then neither was the Big Bang according to Hoyle.. because, in his opinion, that was based on pseudo-scientific religious arguments from the outset... subjectivity and semantics strike again.

I'm saying that there is a far better, more objective question we can all ask on either side:
not 'is it science or not science' or 'supernatural or not supernatural'
but, 'is it true, or not true?'

That God is supernatural.

^ case in point
Hoyle's 'religious pseudoscience' law lives on. We can still, as he did, label an idea off the table without going to the trouble of examining the substance of it.

Defining God as 'supernatural' and then supernatural as 'disallowed' is similarly a circular argument.

I define God, as many others do: intelligent creator of the universe.

Andre Linde, secular scientist and principle in modern inflationary theory, considers it feasible that we may one day fully reverse engineer our universe to the point that we can create our own. And hence we cannot rule out the possibility that this may be the origins of our universe, an experiment in an 'alien universe'

Is Linde making a 'supernatural' speculation here that must be forbidden by the laws you and Hoyle both obeyed?

 

[Speedwell]

that gravity would win out over inflation yes, that's was the previous theoretical prediction that was proven false.



Then by Hoyle's own rationale + your definition, steady state was never a scientific hypothesis.
But then neither was the Big Bang according to Hoyle.. because, in his opinion, that was based on pseudo-scientific religious arguments from the outset... subjectivity and semantics strike again.

I'm saying that there is a far better, more objective question we can all ask on either side:
not 'is it science or not science' or 'supernatural or not supernatural'
but, 'is it true, or not true?'



^ case in point
Hoyle's 'religious pseudoscience' law lives on. We can still, as he did, label an idea off the table without going to the trouble of examining the substance of it.

Defining God as 'supernatural' and then supernatural as 'disallowed' is similarly a circular argument.

I define God, as many others do: intelligent creator of the universe.

Andre Linde, secular scientist and principle in modern inflationary theory, considers it feasible that we may one day fully reverse engineer our universe to the point that we can create our own. And hence we cannot rule out the possibility that this may be the origins of our universe, an experiment in an 'alien universe'

Is Linde making a 'supernatural' speculation here that must be forbidden by the laws you and Hoyle both obeyed?

No, if you want to convince us that scientists are letting their judgement be clouded out of anxiety to avoid considering that God might exist, you are going to have to have something better to show us than Fred Hoyle. In any case, it seems to me that you only brought him up to amplify your insinuation that scientists are "resisting" ID out of fear that the "designer" it implies will turn out to be God. I suppose it never occurs to you that in reality ID is nothing but pseudoscientific fiction that no respectable Christian should have anything to do with.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

that gravity would win out over inflation yes, that's was the previous theoretical prediction that was proven false.

I think you misunderstand inflation - inflation theory describes a period of quasi-exponential expansion at the earliest time of the universe's existence, where the universe expanded by factor of at least 10²⁶, and ended when the universe was between 10-³³ and 10-³² seconds old. It was so early and brief that it's often said to be before the big bang.

The relatively slow expansion since then is the expansion predicted by Einstein's equations (with some acceleration).

Then by Hoyle's own rationale + your definition, steady state was never a scientific hypothesis.
But then neither was the Big Bang according to Hoyle.. because, in his opinion, that was based on pseudo-scientific religious arguments from the outset... subjectivity and semantics strike again.

Hoyle did some excellent scientific work, but he was an eccentric maverick contrarian with 'exotic' opinions both inside and outside his field; check his biography. It would be a mistake to take his opinions too seriously.

I'm saying that there is a far better, more objective question we can all ask on either side:
not 'is it science or not science' or 'supernatural or not supernatural'
but, 'is it true, or not true?'

Hardly objective; the meaning of truth has been a contentious philosophical issue since records began, and the relationship between science and truth is more complex still. If truth is correspondence to reality (the most popular theory of truth), then how do we know what reality is? all we have are observations and models that predict new observations.

But to address the question, God is generally described or defined as being supernatural, i.e. outside or beyond natural law, and encompassing natural law; so, by definition, not within or subject to natural law.

If your idea of God is subject to natural law, then it not familiar to me. In what sense would such an entity be a god?

Defining God as 'supernatural' and then supernatural as 'disallowed' is similarly a circular argument.

I define God, as many others do: intelligent creator of the universe.

Andre Linde, secular scientist and principle in modern inflationary theory, considers it feasible that we may one day fully reverse engineer our universe to the point that we can create our own. And hence we cannot rule out the possibility that this may be the origins of our universe, an experiment in an 'alien universe'

Is Linde making a 'supernatural' speculation here that must be forbidden by the laws you and Hoyle both obeyed?

No, Linde has a valid point. So, in this scenario, that intelligent creator could be an alien physicist creating one or more 'pocket' universes, including ours, or a member of a technological species running our universe as a computational simulation, and so-on; it could even be, as Linde suggests, future humans. Those, at least, are plausibly physically possible - though highly speculative.

But then why call it 'God'? isn't that likely to cause confusion with the supernatural, omnipotent, omniscient, etc., father figure that most Christians claim to venerate?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

No, if you want to convince us that scientists are letting their judgement be clouded out of anxiety to avoid considering that God might exist, you are going to have to have something better to show us than Fred Hoyle. In any case, it seems to me that you only brought him up to amplify your insinuation that scientists are "resisting" ID out of fear that the "designer" it implies will turn out to be God. I suppose it never occurs to you that in reality ID is nothing but pseudoscientific fiction that no respectable Christian should have anything to do with.

You illustrate the point perfectly. To you a theory that does not promote a materialistic explanation for life or the universe should not even be 'respected'- but you have no bias against it?

I have no desire or need to call Darwinists or materialists or naturalists 'unrespectable' or try to label them out of validity or 'de-platform' them in any way, I think their beliefs are perfectly valid and should be part of the discussion.

I know and love many atheists, I used to be one for decades, & I believe that good respectable people can and in fact should disagree on scientific questions-

that would be the hole essence of science- debating on the evidence, not what some deem 'respectible'

I'ts impossible to take an objective look at any theory, any other way.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

But to address the question, God is generally described or defined as being supernatural, i.e. outside or beyond natural law, and encompassing natural law; so, by definition, not within or subject to natural law.

Hawking described what he called 'imaginery time' transcending time as we know it, in order for any sequence of events to be able to take place beyond all physical reality as we know it, one of many secular phenomena proposed to 'transcend' any natural laws as we can possibly test within reality as we can possibly know it- & hence 'super-natural' in this sense.
And by the exact same logical rationale as is used to describe God as 'supernatural'- whatever label we prefer to use for this necessary transcendence, does not change the substance of it.

Obviously God or the multiverse, would not be restrained by the very laws they created..

No, Linde has a valid point. So, in this scenario, that intelligent creator could be an alien physicist creating one or more 'pocket' universes, including ours, or a member of a technological species running our universe as a computational simulation, and so-on; it could even be, as Linde suggests, future humans. Those, at least, are plausibly physically possible - though highly speculative.

But then why call it 'God'? isn't that likely to cause confusion with the supernatural, omnipotent, omniscient, etc., father figure that most Christians claim to venerate?

certainly not for me.. it's merely one possible version of ID, a proof of principle if you will that an intelligent creator of our universe can exist in an entirely separate realm of physical reality as we understand it. The fact that he does not need to invoke 'religion; of any kind just underscores the point- the possibility exists in a logical, rational sense. The principle survives logically & independently of any religious texts.

But you said God was inherently impossible- while conceding that Linde's speculation of an intelligent creator of the universe- (who as above, inherently transcends physical reality as we can know it) IS possible.

To me that is a little confusing- in terms of what narrower definitions and laws must be introduced to somehow allow Linde's transcendent intelligent universe creator, while utterly forbidding anything we are allowed to call 'God'!

what exactly is that law? I'm genuinely curious.

 

[Speedwell]

You illustrate the point perfectly. To you a theory that does not promote a materialistic explanation for life or the universe should not even be 'respected'- but you have no bias against it?

To me, a discourse which does not adhere to methodological materialism is not really science. It may be a perfectly respectable discourse, but it is not science.

I have no desire or need to call Darwinists or materialists or naturalists 'unrespectable' or try to label them out of validity or 'de-platform' them in any way, I think their beliefs are perfectly valid and should be part of the discussion.

I know and love many atheists, I used to be one for decades, & I believe that good respectable people can and in fact should disagree on scientific questions-

that would be the hole essence of science- debating on the evidence, not what some deem 'respectible'

I'ts impossible to take an objective look at any theory, any other way.

You miss my meaning about "respectability." Let me make it in another way, and not put so fine a point on it: I find ID to be offensive to my theological views and inconsistent with my Christian faith. I cannot fathom why any Christian would want anything to do with it.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Hawking described what he called 'imaginery time' transcending time as we know it, in order for any sequence of events to be able to take place beyond all physical reality as we know it, one of many secular phenomena proposed to 'transcend' any natural laws as we can possibly test within reality as we can possibly know it- & hence 'super-natural' in this sense.
And by the exact same logical rationale as is used to describe God as 'supernatural'- whatever label we prefer to use for this necessary transcendence, does not change the substance of it.

I don't know where you heard that, but imaginary time is nothing to do with transcendence or events beyond physical reality - it's a way of avoiding gravitational discontinuities like singularities in the equations of General Relativity by making the time parameter a complex number (multiplying it by the imaginary root i, the square root of -1). Hartle & Hawking used it in their 'No-boundary' universe model, so that very close to the big bang, time would give way to space, avoiding a singularity and making the universe temporally finite but unbounded in the past. As I understand it, the consensus is that this probably doesn't work, but there are other variations on this theme. See Hartle-Hawking State.

Obviously God or the multiverse, would not be restrained by the very laws they created..

The multiverse is as dependent on its fundamental physics as the universes it spawns; it's not something plucked out of some cosmologist's overactive imagination, it's a prediction of the physics of the fundamental theory, and that physics is required to generate the universes.

But you said God was inherently impossible- while conceding that Linde's speculation of an intelligent creator of the universe- (who as above, inherently transcends physical reality as we can know it) IS possible.

To me that is a little confusing- in terms of what narrower definitions and laws must be introduced to somehow allow Linde's transcendent intelligent universe creator, while utterly forbidding anything we are allowed to call 'God'!

what exactly is that law? I'm genuinely curious.

If you look back, you'll see that I described the God I was referring to.

But if your God is an alien physicist, then it is bound by the same physical laws as the rest of us. Perhaps you could explain in what sense you think it is 'transcendent'?

If the LHC created a pocket universe, would the experimenters at CERN become transcendent Gods? If not, why not?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

To me, a discourse which does not adhere to methodological materialism is not really science. It may be a perfectly respectable discourse, but it is not science.

Hoyle's rationale again.

And by that definition of science, I'm rather less interested in whether or not something qualifies as 'science' and far more interested in whether or not it is actually true

I don't impose any such restrictions on materialism , I don't need to- I can let both compete on a level playing field, because intelligence still wins.

The same cannot be said for materialistic mechanisms- ID must be utterly banished from the playing field to allow naturalism to be the only remaining contender- isn't that a bit of a red flag?

You miss my meaning about "respectability." Let me make it in another way, and not put so fine a point on it: I find ID to be offensive to my theological views and inconsistent with my Christian faith. I cannot fathom why any Christian would want anything to do with it.

what in particular is so offensive?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

[/quote]

I don't know where you heard that, but imaginary time is nothing to do with transcendence or events beyond physical reality

it's inherently untestable, existing beyond what we can possibly observe within nature- an extra dimension.. about as transcendent as it gets

If we want to describe this theoretical phenomena as 'part of the universe' and so not 'transcending it' we can say the same for God in that larger definition of the universe also - i.e. 'all existence' must exist within 'all existence', right?

But if your God is an alien physicist, then it is bound by the same physical laws as the rest of us. Perhaps you could explain in what sense you think it is 'transcendent'?

not sure where you heard that! , as Brian Greene among many others argue, physical laws could be entirely different in other universes

If the LHC created a pocket universe, would the experimenters at CERN become transcendent Gods? If not, why not?

need to run - your post deserves more response later but yes, experimenters at CERN would be intelligent creators of their universe and any life in them (which I submit to you- would need to be very finely engineered in), by definition they would transcend the laws they themselves are creating - they are working above and beyond them.

Certainly they would retain the ability to observe and even interact with their creation if possible, and presumably have certain desires, goals for their sentient creations if they were able to instill that also..

What then, in your opinion, would be the distinction between them and any common definition of Gods?

 

[Speedwell]

Hoyle's rationale again.

And by that definition of science, I'm rather less interested in whether or not something qualifies as 'science' and far more interested in whether or not it is actually true

OK, but you are trying to prove that ID is true using the epistemological rules of science.

I don't impose any such restrictions on materialism , I don't need to- I can let both compete on a level playing field, because intelligence still wins.
The same cannot be said for materialistic mechanisms- ID must be utterly banished from the playing field to allow naturalism to be the only remaining contender- isn't that a bit of a red flag?

ID has not qualified to be on the playing field to begin with.

what in particular is so offensive?

I will spare you a long theological discourse on the nature of divine causality (although I will point out that Traditional Christians have generally rejected ID) and just say this: ID reduces God to the level of an incompetent engineer who cannot get his machine to run without tinkering with it periodically. Surely an omniscient creator ought to be able to devise and sustain a naturalistic system which produces the results He has in mind without the tinkering. I'll admit that I was intrigued by ID when it first came out. But my academic background was in math and I soon saw through Dembski. And God, of course, doesn't need ID, so what's the point?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

OK, but you are trying to prove that ID is true using the epistemological rules of science.

I would say that's the general method that led me to the conclusion yes- not sure I'd say proof- but it's where my money is!

ID has not qualified to be on the playing field to begin with.
I will spare you a long theological discourse on the nature of divine causality (although I will point out that Traditional Christians have generally rejected ID) and just say this: ID reduces God to the level of an incompetent engineer who cannot get his machine to run without tinkering with it periodically. Surely an omniscient creator ought to be able to devise and sustain a naturalistic system which produces the results He has in mind without the tinkering. I'll admit that I was intrigued by ID when it first came out. But my academic background was in math and I soon saw through Dembski. And God, of course, doesn't need ID, so what's the point?

I take your point, though I don't necessarily see the 'incompetent tinkering'- being in his image we are all endowed with the gift a little part of his creativity, we enjoy the creative processes, growth, learning, understanding, reward

And so there has to be desire, will, to progress towards goals, and hence outcomes other than '100% success' in everything that is achieved along the way.
And I would say God does need that creativity- the world needs it to exist- otherwise you are left with an infinite regression of materialistic 'laws' to account for the next- without creativity, how else could anything truly novel ever come into existence?

 

[Speedwell]

I would say that's the general method that led me to the conclusion yes- not sure I'd say proof- but it's where my money is!



I take your point, though I don't necessarily see the 'incompetent tinkering'- being in his image we are all endowed with the gift a little part of his creativity, we enjoy the creative processes, growth, learning, understanding, reward

And so there has to be desire, will, to progress towards goals, and hence outcomes other than '100% success' in everything that is achieved along the way.
And I would say God does need that creativity- the world needs it to exist- otherwise you are left with an infinite regression of materialistic 'laws' to account for the next- without creativity, how else could anything truly novel ever come into existence?

But it need not take place on the material plane of mundane biochemistry. St. Thomas had it figured out 850 years ago:

I answer that, Divine providence imposes necessity upon some things; not upon all, as some formerly believed. For to providence it belongs to order things towards an end. Now after the divine goodness, which is an extrinsic end to all things, the principal good in things themselves is the perfection of the universe; which would not be, were not all grades of being found in things. Whence it pertains to divine providence to produce every grade of being. And thus it has prepared for some things necessary causes, so that they happen of necessity; for others contingent causes, that they may happen by contingency, according to the nature of their proximate causes.
--St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

it's inherently untestable, existing beyond what we can possibly observe within nature- an extra dimension.. about as transcendent as it gets

If we want to describe this theoretical phenomena as 'part of the universe' and so not 'transcending it' we can say the same for God in that larger definition of the universe also - i.e. 'all existence' must exist within 'all existence', right?

Well, no; if you'd followed the link, you'd see that imaginary time is an alternate way of expressing the time parameter in GR to avoid singularities. It may currently be untestable, but it isn't an 'extra dimension' (whatever that's supposed to mean) or transcendent, or a 'larger definition' of the universe.

not sure where you heard that! , as Brian Greene among many others argue, physical laws could be entirely different in other universes

I suspect that what Greene is saying is that the parameters, such as the physical constants and field energies of other universes, could be different, which would produce different macro-scale physics, but the underlying physical regime would the same (e.g. quantum field theory). So you might have different kinds of false vacuum, or a zero-energy Higgs field so all particles travelled at c, or perhaps no emergent spacetime at all.

This is somewhat similar to the situation in String Theory, which potentially predicts more than 10⁵⁰⁰ varieties of universe.

... yes, experimenters at CERN would be intelligent creators of their universe and any life in them (which I submit to you- would need to be very finely engineered in), by definition they would transcend the laws they themselves are creating - they are working above and beyond them.

But they wouldn't be creating new laws, or transcending them, or working 'above and beyond' them (whatever that is supposed to mean) - they'd be forcing part of spacetime into an alternative configuration. The generation of new universes is analogous to a phase-change in matter, e.g. gas to liquid; they might behave differently at macro-scale, but they're governed by the same fundamental physical laws. When you boil a kettle, you don't create new laws, or transcend the steam, or work 'above and beyond' it - you just make steam from water.

Certainly they would retain the ability to observe and even interact with their creation if possible, and presumably have certain desires, goals for their sentient creations if they were able to instill that also..

Almost certainly they wouldn't. Even if the resulting spacetime was similar to that of our universe, it would be a separate universe, causally isolated from the moment of its creation.

Even if we allow them the magical capability of somehow observing the interior of that universe without being vaporised by the initial energy release of its big bang, they'd have to wait for around a billion years for it to cool and settle to provide the possibility of life, and possibly a few more billion years for intelligent life, and then they'd have to find that life among hundreds of billions of galaxies each with hundreds of billions of stars. Then, if we allow them the capability of interaction inside that universe, they'd have to find a way to communicate...

What then, in your opinion, would be the distinction between them and any common definition of Gods?

They would be mortal physical beings living and dying subject to physical laws; not eternal, all-powerful, omniscient, omnipresent, etc., supernatural entities, that transcend space and time (see Attributes of God in Christianity).

That's me done.

 

[FredVB]

Thanks, that was actually more helpful for me to understand. Maybe I can still ask questions. So any observer anywhere in our own observable universe would have the similar perspective which looks like being at the center of all the observable universe. Do those observers have the same observable universe accessable to observation with the same limits that we do here, even if those observers are at the limit of our observable universe, the edge for us? Even if we see nothing further on beyond where they would be, they would see the same observable universe we do to the same limit, with all that is in the same observable universe, while they have the perspective of being in the center, with more seen further off in the other direction, but we see those not further off, with where those observers are at the edge still. How does this work?

I'm sorry, I thought I'd explained that - there isn't really an edge to our observable universe - it's just a name for everything, as far as we can see; there's a limit to how far we can see, and there's stuff further out that we can't see. It's analogous to the horizon on Earth; wherever you are on the surface (assuming a smooth Earth), the horizon is (approximately) the same distance away in every direction, but there's plenty more we can't see.

Someone at the limit of visibility is (just) within your observable universe and vice-versa, but your two observable universes (i.e. what you can each see) only partly overlap, like a Venn diagram (they intersect by the volume of two spheres of the same size whose centres are one radius apart). So you can't see further than them because they're at your limit of visibility, and they can't see further than you because you're at the limit of their visibility. So each of you can't see most of what the other can see.

Is that what you meant?

I did think that way already. I was hearing argument against that already, and this previous post I refer to below sounded like argument that there are completely causally isolated segments of the universe, for all constituent parts in them from anything outside of those segments. I see it is clarified with the thorough explanation, those who say there are totally causally isolated segments of the universe have a mistaken notion.

However, some, like the quilted cosmological multiverse, only require that the observable universe is a very small part of the universe as a whole (which could be infinite in extent). We already have strong evidence that the universe as a whole must be at least 250 times the radius of the observable universe, which means a volume of space that's over 15 million times as large, minimum. Within that volume will be a large number of causally isolated volumes the size of our observable universe, which makes them effectively universes in their own right.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... I refer to below sounded like argument that there are completely causally isolated segments of the universe, for all constituent parts in them from anything outside of those segments. I see it is clarified with the thorough explanation, those who say there are totally causally isolated segments of the universe have a mistaken notion.

Given the evidence for the minimum size of the universe, there must be volumes of space that are causally isolated from each other because the expansion of the universe means they are receding from each other faster than any signal can pass between them. Not sure what you mean by 'totally' causally isolated; either you're causally isolated from a potential signal source or you're not.

 

[FredVB]

Given the evidence for the minimum size of the universe, there must be volumes of space that are causally isolated from each other because the expansion of the universe means they are receding from each other faster than any signal can pass between them. Not sure what you mean by 'totally' causally isolated; either you're causally isolated from a potential signal source or you're not.

I mean you are, causally isolated from anything outside your observable universe, of course, but as there is no limiting boundary containing that observable universe, there are other places far apart in that observable universe, which do not have the same observable universe, and not causally isolated from some places that you are causally isolated from. You sound like you agree with this. But when I have stated it, there was disagreement I have seen even with this.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I mean you are, causally isolated from anything outside your observable universe, of course, but as there is no limiting boundary containing that observable universe, there are other places far apart in that observable universe, which do not have the same observable universe, and not causally isolated from some places that you are causally isolated from. You sound like you agree with this.

Yes; but don't forget that volumes that are beyond the observable limit of our universe by more than the diameter of our observable universe are causally isolated from the whole volume; i.e. you can't place an observer such that she can see the boundaries of both volumes.

As I've mentioned previously, it's theoretically possible that some distant volume has entirely different laws of physics, due to the quantum decay of spacetime to a lower energy state (from 'false vacuum' to vacuum). This discontinuity would expand at the speed of light, but would never reach volumes distant enough to be receding faster than light.

 

[FredVB]

Yes; but don't forget that volumes that are beyond the observable limit of our universe by more than the diameter of our observable universe are causally isolated from the whole volume; i.e. you can't place an observer such that she can see the boundaries of both volumes.

As I've mentioned previously, it's theoretically possible that some distant volume has entirely different laws of physics, due to the quantum decay of spacetime to a lower energy state (from 'false vacuum' to vacuum). This discontinuity would expand at the speed of light, but would never reach volumes distant enough to be receding faster than light.

I understand that. But there is no discontinuity of the universe from there being limit to the observable universe, for a possible observer in far distant place in our observable universe, there would be a different observable universe for there, while our location would be included in that observable universe. Much further away, in that observable universe, and not in our observable universe, another observer would be causally isolated from anything where we are, and we are causally isolated from anything in that location. And so on, for other possible observers, causally isolated from our location and all the locations in our observable universe, still having some areas in their observable universe that are not causally isolated from other areas that are still causally isolated from those observers. So discontinuities are not suggested from that, that I see. There would not need to be gaps where nothing would move through, empty of all bodies and radiation of energy moving through.

 

[AV1611VET]

Discuss...

Science can't prove creation, since science is myopic (as opposed to omniscient).

If the universe was created by a sentient being, then that sentient being would have to communicate this truth to us.

If fact, it would have to be in writing, and that writing preserved for all time.

But even that wouldn't guarantee 100% belief.

As long as people have the ability to doubt, they will doubt.

 

[Speedwell]

Science can't prove creation, since science is myopic (as opposed to omniscient).

If the universe was created by a sentient being, then that sentient being would have to communicate this truth to us.

If fact, it would have to be in writing, and that writing preserved for all time.

But even that wouldn't guarantee 100% belief.

As long as people have the ability to doubt, they will doubt.

What is being doubted is that you have a copy of that writing and the unique privilege of telling us what it means.