Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
22
It’s not 50:50. There is no need to invoke Him at all. Except in our hearts’ desire stirred by the story of Jesus.
Quoting myself recently elsewhere if I humbly may:
As long as faith NEVER pretends to know anything that science doesn’t. As long as faith NEVER pretends that it is science’s equal, that it’s a 50:50 split. It’s a 0:100 faith : science-scientism-rationality split using sense data, evidence, reasoning. Faith as the substance of things hoped, yearned for, desired is OK, that makes it 100:100 with scientific rationalism / metaphysical, ontological, philosophical naturalism. As long as the twain never meet. Except of course in feeding back the latter in to the former in the moral nature of God.
It’s as if he thinks extrapolating from this one universe to many is somehow more frivolous than extrapolating from the one we know to its being the only one there is. Both claims are unsupportable at this time. But how many here have taken either of these gnostic positions? I can only think of one.
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
25
LOL!!! True! And I never do.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
26
By definition, there’s only one universe.
Your post brilliantly shows how the “multiverse” fiction is used to stop the application of reason to the laws of physics. It’s an appeal to mystery and magic so that science is no longer useful.
You’re claimed to have certainty about things that you can’t possibly have certainty about, and have failed to support your assertions. Nobody else here [except Klax] claims such certainty - but instead others are more sensibly stating that such things havn’t been shown impossible [and may even be scientifically plausible]. They aren’t going on (like you) about how they’re so certain of anything regarding other universes. You’re the one making claims of certainty that need to be (and haven’t been) supported. When others note that something might be or that it is beyond science (or has been thus far) to rule something out, that’s a much softer, negative claim that isn’t required to bear the burden of proof. If you are so certain that science “has ruled out” some things, feel free to educate us all about this science you know. Your appeal to the 2nd law has been tried before and fails to carry the weight you want to put on it.
And when actual physicists inform us that Newtonian formulations of law don’t work in the early stages of this universe, or that you are failing to correctly apply them - it’s probably best for you to start listening and learning rather than trying to double down on what you’ve decided must be true.
5 Likes
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
30
Ohhhhhh yes I have!
The fictional definition, as all definitions are made up, narrative, is narratively inferred from the narrative of observation. So is that of the “multiverse” narrative, narratively simply narratively using the application narrative of the reason narrative from the narrative laws of the physics narrative. It’s a narrative appeal to the narrative of rationalism once that (the narrative) of empiricism narratively ends.
I think you’re the victim of it! You’re in a chronosynclastic infundibulism!!! Team! What can we do to rescue John?
Sorry I forgot you, Klax! I should have written “Nobody else here … except Klax … claims such certitude.”
You want to rescue John - but fail to see your own very self in his words. What everybody else sees in it all is: “I’m finished with learning anything - and have decided that as the smartest one in the room, there is nothing left for me to do but teach everyone else.” That’s what certitude has come to reveal (at least in the U.S. here these days). There must be a place for teachers, of course - and sometimes a person might actually be the needed one with some given audience. But there is something essential about making that discernment freshly for each new context a person enters into. When one comes into each setting mouth first (rather than ears first), all their stated certitudes are rightly doubted, since the source is recognized as unable to have engaged sufficiently as a learner. The actual veracity of such certitudes may or may not be there of course - but even the ones that may happen to be true (any of us can get lucky - or better yet: make wise choices about who we listen to) will probably be more ably demonstrated by others who show signs of actually having engaged with the associated challenges. In other words, one person’s certainty is not necessarily equal (or as valuable as) another’s in regard to public persuasion - even if the proposition itself is, in the end, true.
[If you want to get some initial sense of who the actual one is in any context that you probably ought to be listening to, look for the trademark humility. Not a foolproof plan, of course, but one could do worse. Steve Shaffner would probably have the most claim to being one of the smartest ones here (in this particular area of discussion), and his words tend to have the most caveats, give-and-take, limiting himself to the solid data such as it is … in other words - the attendant humility of a life-long learner. Not afraid to express certitude where he has it, but not exploding with them in all directions beyond what he can support.]
4 Likes
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
33
Yeah, such prevarication can be quaintly, time passingly charming, but it isn’t meant. He knows what rationalism beyond mere empiricism, data, the right hand of learning requires. It’s just too dirty a job for him. [Don’t blame him.]
What is the reward for destroying the reason people need faith?
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
36
The reason for faith is hope is it not? Positive hope. Not dark, as in ‘I hope you die of a surfeit of lampreys’. Anyone who destroys hope should have a millstone tied round their neck. Like all damnationists.
That’s false. I’ve proven my points. Just because people refuse to accept facts and follow reason, doesn’t mean I don’t have proof. You’re appealing to authority and mystery. It’s best for you to have the courage to follow reason.
The irony! I predicted that after the appeals to mystery and magic to avoid the consequences of the laws of thermodynamics, someone would soon appeal to authority, you immediately write:
You also ignored the link in which shows how appeals to “quantum gravity” are speculative.
@Mervin_Bitikofer wrote, appealing to authority rather than dealing with facts and using reason and appealing to authority in order to support an appeal to mystery, that Steve Shaffner “tends to have the most caveats, give-and-take, limiting himself to solid data,” etc. The reality is that he wrote:
That’s a false claim, stated absolutely, as I proved with the link to an article from RTB. It’s not an opinion that he stated with caveats and “the attendant humility of a life-long learner.” It’s a falsehood that he stated as an established fact, with certitude.
You evidently don’t understand the issue here. The known laws of physics include the Standard Model of particle physics, which is a quantum field theory (or set of theories, more accurately), and General Relativity, which describes gravity. These two theoretical frameworks provide incompatible descriptions of physical reality. Most of the time that doesn’t matter, since gravitational effects are so weak that they don’t matter at all when it comes to observable particle interactions. In the very early universe, however, the energy density was so high that gravity becomes important at the quantum scale, and we do not have a theory to describe what happens in that epoch – we have no quantum theory of gravity. Nothing in the article you linked to says otherwise, or that we do know how physics worked during that period.
I have enough degrees in physics and spent enough years doing physics that I have a reasonable grasp of what is and isn’t known in the field.
7 Likes
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
42
Whatever it is it doesn’t apply to me, I am a good faith enhancer. I am the Shiva of false hope.