Posted on 09/29/2017 5:45:11 AM PDT by C19fan
We are made from stretched quantum fluctuations. At least that’s cosmologists’ currently most popular explanation. According to their theory, the history of our existence began billions of years ago with a – now absent – field that propelled the universe into a phase of rapid expansion called “inflation.” When inflation ended, the field decayed and its energy was converted into radiation and particles which are still around today.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
If the whole Universe is inflationary, then I’d better spend my money before it loses all its value.
So, their latest theory is being used to either ‘prove’ or ‘ disprove’ another theory!
Trump’s fault!.......................
Fascinating to me is the fact that, in 5 different passages, the Bible actually describes the universe as having been "stretched forth" by God. Not that "quantum fluctuations" mean much more to me than "disgronification"; but "stretched" sure has meaning.
Seems religious to me.
I think the article - on purpose or not - points to a problem that is exponentially larger, as it spans all fields of science and not merely the field the author is writing about.
She points to it when she says:
“It is a practice that, to say it bluntly, has become commonplace because it results in papers, not because it advances science.”
Even “peer reviewed” has lost the meaning of “merit” it once had.
As a teenager, I bought Hubble’s book. I don’t know that I really appreciated it at the time, but I did understand red shift and blue shift of light. Steady State and Big Bang were contending theories at the time.
As I learn more, I know less. Maybe the universe is only 10,000 years old.
While no one has filled in all the details of the past, too many are certain they know the “science” of the matter. We’ve lost the ability to recognize the difference between mere speculation and relatively secure knowledge.
Science originated within Christian countries and centuries. This could be coincidental, or Christianity may provide a good basis for science. I realize that today anyone can do science - Christian, atheist, Jew, etc.
A relatively new kid on the block is Marxism. Marxism holds that there is a morality greater than telling the truth - advancing the cause. This belief provides a good foundation for junk science, to the extent that junk science advances the cause.
Marxism provides a handy label. Marx and Engels were successful in advancing their views. However some of their views preceded them. They were both “ahead of” and “within” their time. The same applies to Darwin.
Generally, the 19th century was a time when many intellectuals wanted to reject God and Christian morality (not necessarily in that order). Dostoevsky said, “Without God all things are permitted.” This certainly includes advancing scientific theories, not on their merits, but due to their presumed effects.
“We are made from stretched quantum fluctuations.”
spaghettification?
And then a miracle happened.
On the other hand, the pagan belief in multiple, erratic Gods messing with the natural world in unpredictable ways discouraged people from trying to figure out how it all worked.
Now scientists are trying to tell us that it is all random after all. Yes in our world there are laws, but they are just one set of laws out a huge number of possibilities.
This possibility is beginning to discourage some scientists. Instead of searching for the ultimate set of laws, scientists now believe they are just discovering the one set of laws out of 10^500 that happen to work in our little neck of the woods.
That, plus a gluon or two of Taffydazium
As I learn more, I know less.
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I just watched a YouTube video that states the more we learn, the more we find out what we don’t know.
https://youtu.be/JTvcpdfGUtQ?t=8m48s
Agnotology is the study of ignorance.
That was fun.
There is another approach that identifies specific things we can not know. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle said that we could not know both the location of an electron and its momentum. That’s the first “can’t know” principle that I read about. I saw a list of similar principles, but I don’t remember them.
Alright, now that’s funny.
I was reading recently about Einstein. He was a strict determinist and didn’t believe in free will at all. In fact, he doubted whether God had free will, and said his greatest goal was to find out if God had any choice in the way he made the Universe.
Most of the founders of quantum mechanics like Einstein and Schroedinger rejected it. They thought it was a stop gap until the true theory was found.
Though I don’t agree with Einstein’s philosophy, it served him well for most of his career.
Your post, and your mention of free will is interesting.
It seems to me that a sensible person would tend to accept body and mind. Some philosophers have asked if we might be body only, or mind only. I don’t think either position can be disproved. Still, a sensible person would reject those positions.
The process of scientific inquiry has generally focused on the natural, the physical. Atheists have latched onto this generally successful endeavor, and falsely claimed it as their exclusive domain.
I think few atheists understand the implications of consistent main-line atheism. It means a rejection of the unseen: free will, making a decision, right and wrong, self-awareness, mind, beauty in music, art or nature, kindness, love. Main-line atheism may “explain” these things, as in explaining a mirage. Fundamentally, it denies they exist or are true.
Main-line atheism is philosophy, not science. It can not be disproven, or proven. At the end of the day, a sensible person must reject it. We simply have too much experience, data if you will, that the unseen elements (listed above) are real
It seems to me that a sensible person would tend to accept body and mind. Some philosophers have asked if we might be body only, or mind only. I don’t think either position can be disproved. Still, a sensible person would reject those positions.
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That reminds me of how scientists argued for centuries about whether light is a particle or wave. Now we know it’s both, as is matter.
The key to atheists rejecting theism is to come up with a definition of God that is easy to reject. And I think that theists are mostly responsible for giving them the definitions.
The history of philosophy is a mess with all its different “isms” mainly because an “ism’s” proponents position themselves to reject all the other “isms.” They should take a cue from science and the reality of wave-particle duality.
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