The Laws of Thermodynamics Prove the Existence of God

[JohnCarpenter]

Appealing first to mystery and then to yourself as an authority, with “the attendant humility", of course.
The link shows that your claims about quantum gravity, which you stated absolutely, are speculative.

[glipsnort (Steve Schaffner)]

@JohnCarpenter

The link shows that your claims about quantum gravity, which you stated absolutely, are speculative.

My absolute claim about quantum gravity is that we do not have a theory of quantum gravity. The link shows that that claim is correct.

You are clearly not here for discussion. I see no reason to continue this conversation.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

@Mervin_Bitikofer

Sorry I forgot you, Klax! I should have written “Nobody else here … except Klax … claims such certitude.”

So you should. The certitude I claim is the of unchanging eternity. What degree of uncertainty of it should I have? How many sigmas? Included in unchanging eternity is all of the laws of phusikos, including quantum gravity that we can’t yet formulate. Should I reasonably doubt that the six measured constants are the same in all space-time bubbles? Or am I past learning whatever and however you can quantify that?

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.

Not my counter Merv. I fail to see myself in his disconnected empty words as I’m not there. A bit like failing to see Jesus in the OT. So the failure isn’t mine. If you have something to teach me by all the techniques of pedagogic in the sciences and humanities, please start. Because none of the above does. I am all ears. I will sit at the feet of any qualified and experienced enough to teach me. Which they’d have to demonstrate in correct categorization.

There is hope for you because you concede that my proposition may, in the end, be true.

It is for me until anyone can rationally, dialectically prove that unchanging eternity, mediocrity is NOT warranted from empiricism to rationalism.

[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.]

I really am not interested in cosmetics. Scientists, philosophers, writers of wrongs, humanitarians never need them except for politics, and even then. There is no other side of the argument against racism, sexism, injustice, but yeah, sometimes you catch more flies with honey. Galileo tried flattery. It didn’t work.

What’s that I hear you say? There are no moral implications for doubting immutable eternity? I beg to differ.

If Steve - whom I love - wants to catch me, he doesn’t need honeyed words. He needs no superfluous humility at all. If he knows that mediocrity does not apply from eternity, that eternity itself truly is just a meaningless narrative, and can demonstrate true reality in Abbott and Costello Heptapod language, great. Teach me.

Or just gimme the sigmas.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

@glipsnort

You are clearly not here for discussion. I see no reason to continue this conversation.

Ah c’mon Steve! Sock it to me!

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

There is the unchanging eternity of the infinite void.

@Dale

@Mervin_Bitikofer

that void of desperation

Slightly paraphrasing the original:

There is a God-shaped void in everyone that only Christ can fill.

[JohnCarpenter]

You didn’t say that we don’t have a theory, or that we’re ignorant. You made a positive claim: “we do know that the known laws of physics don’t work under the conditions early in the universe”.

[glipsnort (Steve Schaffner)]

@JohnCarpenter

You made a positive claim: “we do know that the known laws of physics don’t work under the conditions early in the universe”.

Which is equivalent to the claim that we do not have a quantum theory of gravity, since conditions in the early universe require such a theory.

[Mervin_Bitikofer]

You’re right, I’m appealing to authority - when the authority in the room is a doctorate particle physicist who knows a whole lot more about it than you and me put together. I understand enough of basic physics and science, to at least recognize his modest claims (that our current theories don’t address those conditions) are the plausible ones here, and that your claims (that you know the current laws to be absolute - or apply - all the way back) remain unproven by you or anybody else. [not even just unproven - but unworkable.]

[Astrid]

Is that unproven or lacking in any supporting data whatsoever?

[Mervin_Bitikofer]

@Astrid

Is that unproven or lacking in any supporting data whatsoever?

I don’t understand the distinction your trying to draw there. But in any case, Steve is the one to listen to here.

[glipsnort (Steve Schaffner)]

@Astrid

Is that unproven or lacking in any supporting data whatsoever?

It’s not that the current models are unproven under the conditions of the early universe, it’s that they don’t give a single, consistent description of physical processes. General Relativity is a classical, deterministic theory of continuous fields while quantum mechanics, well, isn’t. If gravity as well as the other forces (strong, weak, electromagnetic) all have to be taken into account to describe what happens to a system, there is just no way to use both at the same time.

Mind you, I’m an ex-physicist, not a current one, and I was an experimental particle physicist, not a theorist, so I can’t begin to evaluate the various attempts to construct a quantum theory of gravity. But I do at least have some idea of what the theorists are talking about.

[Astrid]

Thanks for such a complete response.
My own course of study only included biology in science and that
just hobby / personal interest

[JohnCarpenter]

You’re appealing to authority, mystery and magic, like a true believer.
I’m glad I have a faith that encourages me to accept the findings of science and be reasonable.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

@JohnCarpenter

You’re appealing to authority, mystery and magic, like a true believer.
I’m glad I have a faith that encourages me to accept the findings of science and be reasonable.

You need a tad more faith to be a tad more encouraged, like Mervin actually; you’re in the same boat. Needing to be a tad more reasonable about being a tad more accepting of a tad more of the findings of science.

I am entirely open to reason, still capable of learning if anyone can teach me reasonably, rationalistically from empiricism, that eternity is an illusion. That God is not God.

I find it sadly amusing that those who abjure scientism are so guilty of it.

[gavin_kemp]

Chill mate. Their is no need to be borderline insulting.

@JohnCarpenter

I’m glad I have a faith that encourages me to accept the findings of science and be reasonable.

When you say that you are implying your interlocutor isn’t a reasonable person which is bad for any kind of debate.

Now on your claims. The fact that entropy constantly increases implies a beginning of the universe is an interesting observation but it doesn’t add anything that the big bang doesn’t already say. It implies that the universe has a beginning and that something created, but it says nothing on the nature of that something be that God or some kind of multiverse.
You may find that the multiverse is unreasonable and has no evidence but many will say the same thing of God. Unless you can provide proof that would challenge the idea of the multiverse you can’t claim that the univers has a beginning mean God exists.
The best you can do is argue that one is more reasonable than the other, or that one requires less faith and assumption (that the bases of Occam’s razor). But it worth noting the Occam’s razor is at best a good practice not a proof.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

And the multiverse is perfectly shaved, whereas multiverse+ isn’t.

[gavin_kemp]

Some would argue god is better shaved, other would argue the multiverse is better shaved.

Could you enlighten me on multiverse+?

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

It cannot be argued that God is simpler than the multiverse.

Mutiverse+ is the multiverse plus, in, God. Infinite eternal complexity in more, greater infinite complexity. Anything less than the multiverse in God is more complex: i.e. a single universe in God is meaninglessly, irrationally, absurdly complex[, the worst of all ‘possible’ worlds].

[Astrid]

Do you suppose that entropy applies to dark matter?

[Peter_Bussey]

The issue about entropy in the universe is complicated when gravity is included. Really need a professional cosmologist here, but Penrose said the initial state of the universe was of extraordinarily low entropy although it was extremely uniform (as illustrated by the cosmic microwave background). Things that “can happen” increase entropy, and cosmologists include gravitational collapses in this category. There is a proposal that the ultimate state of a high entropy universe would be one enormous black hole into which everything had fallen. However I doubt that this model works for our universe. At any rate, Penrose was amazed by his calculations of the initial low entropy of the universe. It’s there in his more popular books.