Sunday, April 20, 2008

String theory?

After speaking to my friend Splendid Elles on the string theory and other universes I came across this video.

It seems strange; according to Elles it would eliminate any need for God, but then again it seems completely compatible with God of some sort. Religions have been predicting the existence of other universes for the past 10,000 years.

12 comments:

Evolved Rationalist said...

Couldn't you have been more creative with the site name? :)

*wink*

Keep learning. You still have a long way to go, but you're getting there.

Created Rationalist said...

Well I could hve been, But it was a friendly parody your site :)

And I am going to follow the evidence wherever it leads

Josh said...

um... this is a strange post.

Scientifically, you can't really prove or disprove the existence of God. Since 'god' is a very dynamic term, you can always define it in a way that it's existence is possible, no matter what our knowledge is.

And this: Religions have been predicting the existence of other universes for the past 10,000 years? Please, show me a specific example! This sounds like something similar to fulfilled prophecies, where the meaning only becomes clear _after_ the supposedly prophesized event has happened.

I don't know of any religion that _specifically_ predicted the strangeness of even the quantum / relativistic / biological world, and if it did exist, that information would be powerful evidence that there is something to that religion. For example, imagine if Jesus had said something like "Thine energy is equal to thine mass times the speed of light multiplied unto itself." I would have to setup and take notice of something like that.

Instead you get vague references that could really mean anything, and because of that, hold little if any real meaning at all.

Josh said...

You're moderating this site? Here's a hint: if you're serious about science, any appearance or opportunity for censorship will throw up a bit red flag for people to wonder about....

Created Rationalist said...

Um, Josh, the reason I moderate is to make sure no one uses vulgare language, hate speech or anything like that. I m very open to discussion thats not the reason I moderate.

And to your other post I agree that God's existence cannot be completely proven (I don't know where that came in to the conversation). And when I refer to "other worlds" you should of course know I am referring to the afterlife or the kingdom of God/the gods. No religion predicts a world as strange as the one revealed by quantum physics and possibly the string theory. And if one of these other universe is heaven it would definitely not be in the traditional sense.

Josh said...

In the original post, you state:

according to Elles it would eliminate any need for God, but then again it seems completely compatible with God of some sort.

This statement does not reflect the nature of science itself, as there isn't a 'need' for god. God is not a part of science in any way, as it is not a scientific question.

That is not to say certain characteristics that some believers have about god aren't scientifically falsifiable. My only point is that the general idea of god is something science cannot prove or disprove. I'm glad to see that you agree with this, but it seems at odds with the statement I quoted above. There is no intersection between god and string theory, whether it's 'compatible' or not.

So you agree that your statement 'Religions have been predicting the existence of other universes for the past 10,000 years,' is misleading at best, given the context of your original post?

In the context that you were writing, it definitely seemed to say that religions predicted the implications of string theory. As I pointed out, that would be an amazing fact at the very least. Someone as not familiar with string theory or modern science in general could come along and say 'ah ha! religion has predicted and confirmed modern science!' and of course, they would be very wrong.

Josh said...

Regarding moderation, imo it creates a much more open atmosphere when you moderate after posting to the website rather than before. You get the same results without defaulting to censorship, which beyond causing trust issues, can also put a crink in ongoing discussions in the comments.

I note that you seem to have changed it! Good for you! I think you're one of the rare Christian blogs to do so.

Created Rationalist said...

I understand how that would confuse people, thanks for pointing that out Josh.

Anonymous said...

Because I'm a lazy bum, now I'm finally bothering to comment on a blog post kind of about me.

I didn't say it would eliminate any need for a deist god or your Judeo-Christian god. However, we were talking about cosmology at the time, I believe, and string theory does provide a theory of how the universe started.

Josh said...

splendidelles,

that goes along with what I was saying. If we say, 'god created the universe' but we have empirical evidence that it's say, the collision of branes, then the claim that god did it is a falsifiable claim. No, branes did.

But who made the branes? You can't ever completely answer the question

Created Rationalist said...

There is still the question of how the bulk universe was created, which science may find out or that may be the ultimate first cause

Josh said...

do you mean the multi-verse?

That's what I'm saying. You can always go up another layer.

Talking about the "ultimate" first cause has several problems. If you assume that everything requires a cause of some sort, then you can never find the 'ultimate' cause, because if you did, your premise that everything requires a cause is false, and you've not gotten anywhere.

When the explanation of 'god' is used in causal arguments along these lines, I find the usage isn't so much a theological statement, but more of a logical stop-gap. Basically, "we need something here, so let's call it god."