Jim Al-Khalili's documentary yesterday on "nothing"



Some of the theories are indeed incredible. Dark matter for instance is a postulate that cannot be proven, but must be inferred to exist, because it's existence is neccessary to explain other observable phenomena.

When we speak of before the big bang (itself and inadequate metaphor) we cannot speak meaningfully, as there was no "before". The BB brought time and space into existence, so there can be no "before". But, in general, science is not committed to a particular theory, unlike theology, which begins from the postulate that there is a God. If we had no notion of God, we would not infer his existence (as the type of being he's supposed to be) from what we know about the world. And science, unlke religion, is predicated on the possibility being proven wrong. Though how you might do this in some instances is beyond me!

Immanuel Kant in the 18th century suggested that we can know nothing of the world as it is in itself, only what we observe. And what we observe is directly related to us and our minds and senses. This was (and is still)deemed a deeply unstatisfactory answer. But I tend to agree with him. Bridgeman a modern physicist has suggested that the deep structures of reality may be forever beyond us, and beyond language to describe. Again a view I agree with.
 
RMCF said:
Is there real evidence to back up half of the stuff they come out with?
Click to expand...

Yes is the simple answer. Trying not to be glib, but the nature of a theory is that it is based upon observation, measurement and evidence. So it couldn't be presented as a theory if it isn't a valid assumption.

Theories present the most likely reason for an observation. It's never absolute and hence how theories change over time or, as with quantum theory, almost overnight. We observe different things that can't be explained by the existing theory and so have to come up with a new theory.

I'd take one exception to the above reference to dark matter not being proven. It can, in fact the have "seen it" to some extent based upon the effects it has on other matter. Similar (or even more mysterious) is dark energy. But these "dark" titles are just fill in descriptions, they aren't meant to be taken literally. We've observed effects that cannot be explained by current undertsanding and so present a theory that there is an unobserved energy or matter having that effect. Doesn't mean we will never prove it exists or observe it.

RMCF said:
I know these scientists always say that they can prove everything, and they are often atheists who laugh at the idea of others believing in an almighty God.
Click to expand...

This is a slightly eroneous statement. None of "these scientists" say they can prove everything. In fact they're pretty upfront as to what they don't know. Also, remember while scientists they are trying to present an educational television show about an extremely complex and largely incomprehensible aspects of physics. It looses a lot in translation.

Again, this notion of laughing atheists. There are some confrontational atheists out there, some of who are scientists. However, three of the main ones (Dawkins, Myers, Kane) have had to face confrontational interference in education from the religious right all their careers (several decades), their ire is a reactionary one based on misinformation being put out by creationists regarding evolution.

And also, the two tv presenters under discussion here, well you may have used bad examples. While both would be atheist, both are firmly in the non-confrontation and tollerance camp. Their brief is to educate and make science more interesting and accessible, can't say they haven't failed.

Is there one example of the laughing at atheists? And the grandaddy of them all, Carl Sagan, not only superb educator, but one who was extremely understanding of religion while he himself was an atheist.

RMCF said:
but if you actually listen to some of the stuff they come out with, it sounds just as wacky as the 'God' idea.
Click to expand...

Now that's not far off to be honest. Once you get to the quantum stuff it really is mind bending and alien to us. But that's because we're set up for observing through light and three dimensions, this stuff has no relation to our reality. A bat "sees" through echo location and sound (kind of), try explaining the beauty of the Mona Lisa to a bat. Not going to happen, it's beyond their "reality". We're talking particles and sub particles that could exist across numerous other dimensions, we'll never directly observe it for ourselves, but we can observe (as we are) the effects of that.
 
I still haven't got the hang of multiquote but anyway...

 

There's nothing contradictory there to my statement. When the evidence is there to contradict or change a theory, it is changed. The speed at which it changes is irrelevant and it can take a while, but that's a matter of personalities and usually people with vested interests in keeping their "party line" or theory as the "answer". Dirac (first to theorise anti-matter) didn't particuarly like Feynman, specifically Feynman's work on QED. Largely because Feynman got there first and it made Dirac's theory look pretty silly and implausible, but also because Dirac thought Feynman's mathematics ugly.

But, no one says theories are absolute or the truth. They only represent the best explanation we can provide for what has been observed. The theories are then handed over to experiment to test them. If they don't stand up to repeated experiment, they aren't accepted. That's the point. The strongest statement that would be said is that the overwhelming amount of evidence indicates that this is what happens (example evolution).

That's the controversy with String Theory. It does provide answers, pretty much all of them, but it's unlikely that we'll ever have the technology to test them, so to many physicists it's an interesting hypothesis, but nothing more than philosophy.

horusd said:
To infer from effects a cause is fair enough. But no evidence exists as such of the existence of either dark matter or energy. They simply have explanatory power at the moment, but that could and probalby will change
Click to expand...

Again, no real contradiction in what I said. The use of the "dark" terms is a handy reference for discussions of the observations and in terms of explaning the issue to a wider public. Like the big bang, it's not an ideal term, but they need a term.

Based upon how the observed universe is behaving and the amount of energy we know about and can measure, the sums don't add up. So there's something else acting, something we can't yet see, something we may never see, if our current theories on relativity etc are correct. This seems the most likely because when you add in a constant to the existing theories, you get a more accurate sum. So it's more likely (at the moment) that the current theory is largely right and this is an energy we can't observe.

Dark matter is similar, it's just a term, but it gets reported as being a "thing". We just can't account certain things based upon the matter we know about and can measure, so as above, theorise there's matter we can't yet see.
 

But does this argument not also explain that there may also be a 'God' too, although many disbelieve based on the fact that its just too incredible to actually exist.

If we think some things are barmy due to our limited knowledge and understanding then surely a 'God' is just as likely as some of the stuff that Hawking comes out with?

No?
 

Um, no. That's the quick answer. Yes some parts of it are largely incomprehensible to us at the moment, but that's just because we've evolved to be limited to certain senses and certain observations. We have a very good grasp of what is the reality we know in physiscs etc, but it isn't "reality" as such.

Now that's where science fiction writers can have. Field day with extra dimensions, etc. However, what we know so far is explainable to a large degree, there are gaps, there are mysteries, but nothing we've learned of so far requires a "creator". That's all Hawkins or anyone is saying (in usual cagey science speak) that the mysteries we have in science still don't need a God as an explanation. Before we had a good or even rudimentary grasp of physics we did need a God to fill in the blanks. Now, physics has explained our "reality" fairly absolutely and even with as limited a knowledge as we have of the quantum world we don't need supernatural interference to start them or maintain them.

Even the more confrontational atheists say "there probably is no God" and their aggressive words are against fundamentalist organised religion.

There are other issues by introducing a God such as how did he get there, who created him etc. But the you get into philosophy nor science.
 
To assume God is an the ultimate explanation of reality is to close off all other options. There is no reason to assume He must be, apart from faith-based reasons.

God could (in some unknown and non-rational way) be the cause, but we have no way of explaining how he could. All reasons given by theology are fairly easily dismissed. A common example would be that God created the universe, and thus ( we must assume) existed before it. But no existence is possible because existence requires a time & place to exist in. As the universe & time came into existence together God could not have preceded it. Also, creation is an act. To create requires a time and place, and so no creation can be done prior to the existence of space and time. You could argue that God caused himself and brought both himself and the universe into existence at the same time. But as David Hume ( philosopher) pointed out, nothing can create itself.

So is this the end of the God debate? Well, maybe not. Bruce Hood , research psychologist at Bristol wrote Supersense. He claims that humans are defaulted to "see " unseen forces in the world, including God. This relates to our brain structure.

And as Bridgeman pointed out, the ultimate nature of reality may be beyond our ability to know & describe. This may point to a sense that there is more ( such as a transcendent God) that is beyond explanation. Wittgenstein (philospher) famously said " ...of that of which we cannot speak, we must pass over in silence."

Some knowledge is indeed unspeakable and inaccessible to science. Think about dancing, driving, walking. You cannot objectively explain these in a real way that equates to knowledge, the only way of knowing them is to do them, and religion and believe in God may be like thiskind of knowledge. As Yeats said, you cannot seperate the dancer from the dance.

The ancient Greeks knew that they was a difference between objective knowledge and knowledge understood in doing /experiencing something. Thus we have the division between Logos and Mythos. That which is known objectively and that known by experience.

Dawkins and his crew set-up God as an objective hypothesis, and then proceed to (easily) disprove it. But this may be unfair. Knowledge of God may be a different type of knowledge. Indeed, Aquinas claimed we cannot "know" God as such, only what he is not. Religion may have set itself up by claiming God is evidenced in the world objectively.

You might also, as Yallom ( psychologist) claims, argue that science addresses nothing of any real significance to humankind. Things like life's meaning, love, death, suffering, etc. The things that really matter to us are usually addressed by religion and a belief in God.

I am an agnostic, but I find that atheism's dismissal of religion and God is facile and unconvincing.
 
Last edited:

Again, you're setting up a strawman of Dawkins and others that doesn't exist. Their ire is against the literal interpretation of organised religion that is being used politically to influence either social policy or education. They are clear in their MO and it is only after years of witnessing incorrect (and sometimes harmful) information being passed off as "proof" of a particular religion or dismissing tested evidence based on false assumptions.

So yes they are confrontational (I have stated before in other threads I don't actually like Dawkins that much despite agreeing with him), but that confrontation is born from decades of personal attacks against them and their work. It is understandable.

And so what we're left with is philosophy stating the same point that science points out: we can't prove there isn't a God because you can't prove a negative. But science has narrowed down the circumstances of what a God could be and how it could operate.

Yes, there could well be a God of some form or other. But using the "beyond our reality" argument that science has for the more bizarre quantum stuff to justify a potential for God is a weakness of philosophy because they fail to understand the circumstances of how science works. So yes, some of the aspects of quantum physics is beyond our general comprehension, because it deals with aspects beyond our ability to generally observe. We can grasp Newtonian Physics because we can stand there and see it, quantum is totally different. Even trying to imagine an atom is painful, try then imagining particles that make an atom look like Jupiter.

But, and the big but, is that the theories are backed up firstly by maths. It has to add up and that has to add up with other stuff and it does. It means we can predict effects and predict outcomes and conduct experiments to observe that (Hawkins radiation is an example). The point is that even with all the incomprehensible stuff, we have the maths to say what is or should happen. We have a natural explanation, we don't need a creator of any form for them to occur.

So could there be a God? Yes, it's a possibility, though highly unlikely. Given we have limited the need for it to create or influence anything through theory and experiment, philosophy will have to come up with some new and more convincing thoughts as to the purpose of such a being.

And last, everything from walking to love can be explained. Biology, Chemistry, Physics, etc tell us the what and how and in many cases even they why (but that involves sociology and psychology and they're not a proper science). It's just that people aren't necessarily inclined to like love being defined as a natural bio-chemical response to a set of learned and genetic based responses that to force us to find a solitary parter and establish a stable relationship in order to procreate and raise more bundles of genetic material safely and securely. For one, it makes for really boring unromantic valentines cards.
 
A number of logic flaws:
horusd said:
A common example would be that God created the universe, and thus ( we must assume) existed before it. But no existence is possible because existence requires a time & place to exist in.
Click to expand...
Existence does not require a time and place to exist. Otherwise the universe doesn't exist. Space and time are merely properties of the universe - who knows what the properties of the surroundings are.

horusd said:
As the universe & time came into existence together God could not have preceded it.
Click to expand...
Sure a god could exist before the universe. If I make a universe (a small one I keep in a jar), I existed before it - the time in which I exist is not the time of the universe I made. Occam's razor is applicable in this circumstance however.
Also, creation is an act. To create requires a time and place, and so no creation can be done prior to the existence of space and time.
Click to expand...
Firstly the word "create" isn't necessarily appropriate here - what do you mean by it? i.e. Do you mean a consciousness or a live agent of some sort creating something?
Assuming a neutral understanding of the word to mean to bring about something that didn't exist before that, then the fact that the universe has a beginning means that it was created.
 
Superman when we speak of the universe, we mean everything. We cannot speak meaningfully of other things beyond "everything". Current physics tell us that space & time were brought into existence in the big bang, as was "everything". These, ( S&T), provide the milieu in which existence is possible. Thus you cannot speak meaningfully of what's "around it", or what was "before". "Before" or "around" are temporal or spatial terms. But "everything" cannot be surrounded by something else whilst being everything. This would be a logical nonesense equivilant to saying A and not A simultaneously.

Creation is a causal act. The implication of theism is that God created in this way, and indeed maintains existence. Creation in this way implies a deliberate act. But creating requires S&T. How can creation occur otherwise?
 
Last edited:
LAtrade when you speak of philosophy you seem to conflate it with theism. Philosophy need come up with no reason to defend or indeed denythe existence of god, it is a search for knowledge not a search to prove a view, altho philosophers are free to argue it out, Dawkins and Dennett are philosophers when they speak on God existence.

I don't doubt the value of science, but there is an inherent danger in assuming that ultimate reality is, and can only be, a materialist one. A view called scientism. This might be true, but it also might not. There may also be (as many theists would claim) a "spiritual" reality. And given the unbiquity of religion & belief in god, this is probably the majority view. Dawkins is often an insulting pain in the ass. He refers to his clique as "Brights" implying that those who believe in god are somehow stupid.

When I say that some knowledge is experiental I mean that we embody that knowledge knowing it without really being able to objectivize it. Perhaps a better example of what I mean is music. Science can explain music in objective terms yet completely miss the point of music. A point only known as it is experienced by the listener. Religion may be like this kind of knowledge, requiring ceremony and participation to really "get it". Likewise dance would fall into the same catagory. Being able to explain something in scientific terms does not equate to the same type of "knowing". I would suggest that "love", "suffering" etc fall into the same type of knowing. The alternative is to say that only a materialist view of the world is valid, and this brings us back to scientism.
 
As an interesting aside, the cosmological argument for God often takes the following form:

1.Ex nihilo, nihilo fit. (from nothing, nothing comes). This is a considered a truism known a priori meaning without needing to check this fact thorugh experience. In other words, it cannot be concieved as being otherwise. Another way of saying this is that if there is something, it cannot have come from nothing.

2. Some theists claim that as 1. is true, God's existence is neccessary to explain why there is something rather than nothing. This again is an a priori claim, it could not be otherwise.

Thus God is a neccessary being. We humans are contingent, our existence isn't neccessary in this sense,the universe could exist without us, but as the universe itself exists, God's existence is thus indisputable.

The problem with this argument is that it's question-begging. We are committed to to God's existence simply by virtue of the universe's existence. We live in a world of cause and effect (at least we thought we did until Quantum Mechanics came along!), and thus intuitively we feel that at some point in the past there was a first cause, which was itself uncaused, namely God. This intuitive and mostly sunconcious assumption about the world and cause and effect makes it easy enough to assume God might be the the "first mover", himself uncaused.
 

I know the difference between the two, but do group them together because the both work from the same assumption that there is a meaning to existence. So whether it's establishing evidence of a god or debating meaning and knowledge, it's starting from a point that may well be false. It's likely that there is no meaning. It's likely life and existence is an accident of circumstance.

You're right, I could never "know" dance unless I danced. I'd never know King's crisps unless I ate them. But I can live a full life with out experiencing them. The universe will still exist and still at some point come to an end.

And that's the last flaw of the argument that human consciousness is either at the centre of universal life, linked to the universe or anything more than the bio-electrical mechanism that it is.
 

I would agree with you that humanity isn't the be all and end all. And as for consciousness, we don't really know what this is let alone define it. Yet it's mysterious, and that makes it interesting.

If, for instance, you are aware of yourself and watching yourself , "seeing" and "feeling" your thoughts and feelings, etc (in this sense of consciousness), then what is the aspect of you that is aware of these thoughts and feelings but not itself part of them? The watcher that watches if you will?

If you reduce human consciousness (and humanity itself) to a simple bio-electrical mechanism, then it follows that nothing has inherent value. To value something, you must value yourself, without value, life everything is really meaningless, valueless and empty. Whilst I don't deny that this is a coherent positon, the logical implications would not be to most people's tastes I think.
 

Now forgive me for trailing off on most of these posts, but why must God or a God have to fall in line with our reality or physics? surely logic goes out the window when God is introduced hence the faith bit?
Why can't we speak of other things beyond everything as that is surely what God represents; a being outside of our natural world?
Anyway that's my 2c worth.
 

You hit several nails on the head here MrMan. Must God obey the laws of logic and physics? Who knows? Except God of course IF he exists! God is normally given as the creator, and certainly Aquinas believed God obeyed logical and physical laws. But the creation story throws up several clangers as pointed out earlier.

God is also described as all-powerful, all-knowing, simple (meaning he has no parts) & perfectly good. These attributes of God throw up a lot of questions, and I'll briefly note some of them.

Divine Simplicity: How can a simple being make something much more complex than itself,? I.e the Universe.

Divine Goodness & omnipotence: If both of these are true, how can evil exist? God could have made a world perfectly good unless he isn't all-powerful and/or isn't perfectly good.

Also, if we assume that God has not material existence, how can he create material things? A thought isn't a thing. Logically you cannot think something into existence!
 

The real flaw in the God debate is that man has put forward his own version on what God is, early reasoning allowed us to be told that God is good and God is great, but men have long written what has suited them and if our scientific reasoning has developed over the course of the ages then the reasoning used in the bible should have developed as well, but we are still being fed the same lines.
 
MrMan you suggest reasoning needs to be developed but maybe the problem isn't developing better reasoning, maybe it's reason itself, and consequently it's child, science. I'll be taking a hatchet to fairly detailed argument here, but I think I can show you what I mean.

  • The Enlightenment introduced the age of Reason. Reason is the ultimate and greatest part of man. Through it we can know objective truth.
  • Immanuel Kant demonstrates that we cannot know objective truth, we know the world only as it appears to us, through our senses and our reasoning. What lies beyond these,(what Kant called the noumenal world) we cannot know.
  • But reason (and thus science) only knows the world by comprehending it. We think of something in the world, and by thinking about it, we make it part of us. We define it, characterize it, catagorize it, make it into something in terms of ourselves. If I think about a banana, I subsume it into thought. It is no longer an objective banana, it is my thought about a banana! Thus reason "creates" a world subjectively.
  • Fichte (philosopher) explains this process very clearly;" We comprehend a thing only by contructing it in thought, if we cannot construct it, we cannot comprehend it,. Thus the mind becomes a world creator."
  • So reason leads only to itself and is therefore flawed. Once we reason, we only know reason.The mistake is to assume that reason is the only or the right way to truth. Regardless we must assume that a thing exists (a banana, a universe, etc) before we subsume it into thought. and make it about us.
  • We must assume that there is something that itself cannot be known or even thought about, but is itself a prerequisite for knowledge as it seems to us.
  • Thus reason & scientific reasoning leads only to awareness of ignorance. As Kirkegaard suggests "we hit the unknown and unknowable- the absolute different of which thought cannot even think."
  • Haman (philosopher) suggests that "our faith is neither based on, or subject to reason. "
  • Attempts to "purify" reason, remove it from passion, are flawed because reason is embodied in us and we are always emotional, and affected by culture, beliefs etc.
  • God cannot be argued for without first believing in him. Why? Because I must first believe in order to reason for his existence. Existence is not a predicate. A thing either exists or it doesn't. For example, the historical figure "Napoleon". His works don't demonstrate his existence unless I hear the word and assume he existed. I must first have "faith" that he existed to interpret the word Napoleon as evidence of his existence. So, faith is the beginning and not the result.
 
horusd said:
Divine Simplicity: How can a simple being make something much more complex than itself,? I.e the Universe.
Click to expand...
That's very easy - happens all the time. A fractal for example is a complex shape developed from very simple rules. Many chaotic systems are extremely complex but developed from very simple rules etc. Complexity arises from simplicity all the time.
Superman when we speak of the universe, we mean everything. We cannot speak meaningfully of other things beyond "everything". Current physics tell us that space & time were brought into existence in the big bang, as was "everything".
Click to expand...
I don't think that is correct. The universe is not everything -there are a number of theories of multiple universes in various branches of physics. So the "universe" contains "everything that is within the universe" - not everything. The universe might be defined as everything which flows from the big bang, or everything subject to the rules of this universe or similar - it does not mean everything.
These, ( S&T), provide the milieu in which existence is possible.
Click to expand...
Existence is possible outside this milieu - otherwise the universe doesn't exist. The universe does not exist in a milieu subject to its own rules.
Thus you cannot speak meaningfully of what's "around it", or what was "before".
Click to expand...
It depends on the definition of "around" or "before". If you take them to be attributes of our space and our time - then they are likely inapplicable (i.e. that which surround the universe are not subject to the same rules).
"Before" or "around" are temporal or spatial terms. But "everything" cannot be surrounded by something else whilst being everything.
Click to expand...
The universe isn't everything.
Creation is a causal act. The implication of theism is that God created in this way, and indeed maintains existence. Creation in this way implies a deliberate act. But creating requires S&T. How can creation occur otherwise?
Click to expand...
Outside of space and time - easy. What proof do you have that creation requires space and time. I have evidence that it does not : the universe itself.
 
See below:

 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register