Science/Environment God does not exist, yet...

[Lester Burnham]

This radio show (audio or transcript) has an interesting discussion about whether the universe is fine tuned for life and the different varieties of anthropic principle.

This caught my eye

Paul Davies: The problem about whether the observable universe can ever become all-knowing, that is omniscient, depends on whether it can process an infinite amount of information in the future of the universe that is left. Now in many cosmological models that's the case, but our present evidence suggests that the rate of expansion is getting faster and faster and under these circumstances basic physics says that there will be some sort of horizon in space that will form and this horizon will prevent, even in principle, an infinite amount of information from being processed. It means , in effect, one loses track of anything that follows beyond that horizon. It's like a black hole inside out. If that was the case then any super being or super intellect however powerful would only be able to process a finite amount of information and so therefore think a finite number of thoughts and have a finite number of experiences. But that conclusion rests on the assumption that the universe is going to go on accelerating. But we don't know that, it could be that in the very far future the rate of acceleration is going to diminish and the size of the horizon will grow larger and larger. And under those circumstances there will be no limit to the amount of information that could in principle be processed within a given volume of the universe.
​

In other words, if the universe does not expand forever, at some point an infinite amount of information will be able to be processed. A finite universe would be evolving towards a supreme point of complexity and consciousness. It's not a God in the religious sense, existing outside space and time. It's a scientific phenomenon. As Arthur C. Clarke said 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'.

The future existence of a Godlike entity opens up some interesting possibilities.

A entity capable of processing an infinite amount of information would be able to create complex virtual realities in which the inhabitants would not be aware that they were in a virtual universe. We could be in one right now.

If the fate of the universe is to one day begin contracting, collapse back on itself and return to a single point - the Big Crunch - could some extremely sophisticated form of intelligence and technology meddle with that? It would seen unlikely, but we consider the problem as intellectual short people compared to the being(s) that might exist in ten billion years.

If the Big Crunch is inevitable would this lead to a new Big Bang from singularity? Or does it lead to a Big Bounce as proposed by scientists such as Martin Bojowald and Peter Lynds. Bojowald claims that some properties of the universe that collapsed to form ours can be determined - a quantum bridge. This
video explains the physics of Loop Quantum Cosmology (skip to about 8.30 for Big Bounce, discussion of whether the universe will collapse at 16.00). Could a super intelligent and powerful entity create the conditions that sets up fine tuning after the big bounce? Or does the existing fine tuning remain - leading to another universe that evolves towards consciousness?

 

[Pessimistic]

We could be in one right now

Can god transcend the laws of physics ?

Maybe god exists in our DNA

Maybe the force of star wars fame is more relevant to us than the philosophy of man 6000 years ago

The cutest thing is it lasted so long, and everyone loves a tradition

 

[evo]

Paul Davies is a bit of a goose when it comes to this subject, IMO.

A number of the theoretical physicists - or at least the journalists who relay what they're saying - abuse the term infinite far too often. An "infinite amount of information" is a contradiction in terms/ concepts.

The other problem of this view is thinking that this physical universe is 'everything'.

 

[Lester Burnham]

Paul Davies is a bit of a goose when it comes to this subject, IMO.

A number of the theoretical physicists - or at least the journalists who relay what they're saying - abuse the term infinite far too often. An "infinite amount of information" is a contradiction in terms/ concepts.

Scientists do use the concept of infinity quite often eg a singularity has infinite density, infinite temperature, and infinite space-time curvature. But I think you have a point about infinite amount of information. However, within the Bekenstein bound the amount of information that can be stored within the universe is large enough to consider these possibilities.

The other problem of this view is thinking that this physical universe is 'everything'.

Please expand.

 

[evo]

Scientists do use the concept of infinity quite often eg a singularity has infinite density, infinite temperature, and infinite space-time curvature. But I think you have a point about infinite amount of information. However, within the Bekenstein bound the amount of information that can be stored within the universe is large enough to consider these possibilities.

If you say something is 'large enough' this is a clear implication that it is not infinite. Infinite means not finite. Any thing ( even if it is concept such as information) that can be described, quantified, is the opposite of infinite; it is finite by definition!

See this gets to the heart of the looseness with which some of these scientists use the term. They think in terms like 'infinite temperature' which is fine for the various scientific models they building but then forget that it is merely a technical term when they extrapolate and talk about the whole 'universe'

Please expand.

Well even if you look at Paul Davies rather ill thought out model one can already see that this physical universe doesnt describe 'everything'. What about the purported all seeing being, in his model that is going to be 'outside'. Thats even before one considers potential ideas such as multiverses or what gave rise to this universe.

 

[evo]

Further, to this idea of infinite information. "information" isn't a thing-itself - at least not in the way Paul Davies is conceiving its existence - it is dependent on the conscious being who is collecting it, so to speak.

 

[little graham]

Further, to this idea of infinite information. "information" isn't a thing-itself - at least not in the way Paul Davies is conceiving its existence - it is dependent on the conscious being who is collecting it, so to speak.

If there is infinite 'information' then theres also 'infinite disinformation". That the laws of the universe. For there be light, there must be dark, for there to rain, their must evaporation. for there to calm, there need to be storms.

For there to be science, there needs to be religon...

 

[madmug]

If there is infinite 'information' then theres also 'infinite disinformation". That the laws of the universe. For there be light, there must be dark, for there to rain, their must evaporation. for there to calm, there need to be storms.

For there to be science, there needs to be religon...

Nice one centurion!

However 'science' came out of human observation. It was not deliberately 'antireligious' in its intent. It was merely mans observation of the natural world, studied & recorded so that other could test the same observations & come to the same conclusions.

It was Religious leaders who opposed 'science' as it didnt adhere to their written Dogma. They demanded ignorance, control & certainty. Not freedom, discovery & understanding.

 

[Pessimistic]

Theres also plenty of examples of religion funding science, they were just a bit disingeneous in letting the discoveries they didnt like out

 

[madmug]

Theres also plenty of examples of religion funding science, they were just a bit disingeneous in letting the discoveries they didnt like out

Yes, the boys at the Spanish inquisition say high!

 

[Pessimistic]

You have to say the spanish inquisition was pretty impressive by any measure. Prevailed for half a millenia which is good for totalitarian regimes of any era. Thats about 20 generations of thought control.

The extreme aspects where rebellion is dealt with are most well known. But the wonder is the less violent but all pervasive thought domination of almost everyone. The social structures to maintain this would have been huge

 

[JeffDunne]

Science it could be argued is a product of religion.

Or more specifically, it's a product of religion's requirement to be seen as the holder of ultimate truth. Leaders that could predict natural phenomena would always be seen as having the ear of the gods by those that didn't know better. As they say, be careful what you wish for.

As for the 'infinite knowledge' discussion in the OP, I'd argue a machine (biological or otherwise) can never understand it's own complexity so no entity could ever possess infinite knowledge (even though that in itself doesn't make sense as evo pointed out)

 

[Lester Burnham]

If you say something is 'large enough' this is a clear implication that it is not infinite. Infinite means not finite. Any thing ( even if it is concept such as information) that can be described, quantified, is the opposite of infinite; it is finite by definition!

See this gets to the heart of the looseness with which some of these scientists use the term. They think in terms like 'infinite temperature' which is fine for the various scientific models they building but then forget that it is merely a technical term when they extrapolate and talk about the whole 'universe'

Scientists like Frank Tipler don't use the word infinity loosely. He's a Professor of Mathematical Physics who has written a book solely about the subject, complete with dozens of complex equations. It's a shame he goes on to link it all to Christian mythology because many people have rejected his theory because of that.

Here's David Deutsch reviewing Tipler's work (+ Tipler's comments ).

The key discovery in the omega-point theory is that of a class of cosmological models in which, though the universe is finite in both space and time, the memory capacity, the number of possible computational steps and the effective energy supply are all unlimited.

I believe that the omega-point theory deserves to become the prevailing theory of the future of spacetime until and unless it is experimentally (or otherwise) refuted.​

http://129.81.170.14/~tipler/physicist.html

Anyhoo, if, for arguments sake, we accept that infinite computing power is not possible, in practise, the universe is still evolving towards increasing computational power, complexity and consciousness. In the distant future that might create entities that possess what we would consider Godlike powers. Humanity is likely to be just another stepping stone in evolution.

Well even if you look at Paul Davies rather ill thought out model one can already see that this physical universe doesnt describe 'everything'. What about the purported all seeing being, in his model that is going to be 'outside'. Thats even before one considers potential ideas such as multiverses or what gave rise to this universe.

Let's not get bogged down with Paul Davies! But yeah, it doesn't get us past the problem of what ultimately created everything. But neither does saying it was by something 'outside'. It merely shuffles the question one step - what created that which is on the outside?

 

[clogged]

Further, to this idea of infinite information. "information" isn't a thing-itself

It is described as such by Claude Shannon, as a physical thing. You type words into a database via the wires of the Internet because of Shannon's theory.

 

[Lester Burnham]

As for the 'infinite knowledge' discussion in the OP, I'd argue a machine (biological or otherwise) can never understand it's own complexity so no entity could ever possess infinite knowledge (even though that in itself doesn't make sense as evo pointed out)

Good point. Godel demonstrated that there are different sizes of infinite but I don't think that applies here. How about 'near infinite'? How about a billion billion times our current computational power?

 

[clogged]

I thought it was Cantor that demonstrated different sizes of infinite.

 

[Lester Burnham]

Yep, meant to say Cantor. Was is the middle of reading about the Halting problem and Gödel's incompleteness theorems.

 

[Pie eyed]

We could be in one right now

Can god transcend the laws of physics ?

Maybe god exists in our DNA

Maybe the force of star wars fame is more relevant to us than the philosophy of man 6000 years ago

The cutest thing is it lasted so long, and everyone loves a tradition

Basically you, not you personally, are just constantly redefining "God" to suit the current holes in science.
The biblical God has had no place in modern existence, since the inception of the scientific method, with observation, data collection and evidence based conclusion.
Arguably it has taken some longer than most to get the gist but the majority of those can fall back on ignorance of the facts or simply having been lied too by a mob of self promoting social misfits.
I could argue God exists in me, that the term refers solely to my self awareness.....but that is not the God we have shoved down our throats by the established religion. My God likes everyone and insists fishing and other leisure pursuits should come before commerce or manual toil. Taxes are definitely out.

 

[Sydney Bloods]

This radio show (audio or transcript) has an interesting discussion about whether the universe is fine tuned for life and the different varieties of anthropic principle.

This caught my eye

Paul Davies: The problem about whether the observable universe can ever become all-knowing, that is omniscient, depends on whether it can process an infinite amount of information in the future of the universe that is left. Now in many cosmological models that's the case, but our present evidence suggests that the rate of expansion is getting faster and faster and under these circumstances basic physics says that there will be some sort of horizon in space that will form and this horizon will prevent, even in principle, an infinite amount of information from being processed. It means , in effect, one loses track of anything that follows beyond that horizon. It's like a black hole inside out. If that was the case then any super being or super intellect however powerful would only be able to process a finite amount of information and so therefore think a finite number of thoughts and have a finite number of experiences. But that conclusion rests on the assumption that the universe is going to go on accelerating. But we don't know that, it could be that in the very far future the rate of acceleration is going to diminish and the size of the horizon will grow larger and larger. And under those circumstances there will be no limit to the amount of information that could in principle be processed within a given volume of the universe.
​

In other words, if the universe does not expand forever, at some point an infinite amount of information will be able to be processed. A finite universe would be evolving towards a supreme point of complexity and consciousness. It's not a God in the religious sense, existing outside space and time. It's a scientific phenomenon. As Arthur C. Clarke said 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'.

The future existence of a Godlike entity opens up some interesting possibilities.

A entity capable of processing an infinite amount of information would be able to create complex virtual realities in which the inhabitants would not be aware that they were in a virtual universe. We could be in one right now.

If the fate of the universe is to one day begin contracting, collapse back on itself and return to a single point - the Big Crunch - could some extremely sophisticated form of intelligence and technology meddle with that? It would seen unlikely, but we consider the problem as intellectual short people compared to the being(s) that might exist in ten billion years.

If the Big Crunch is inevitable would this lead to a new Big Bang from singularity? Or does it lead to a Big Bounce as proposed by scientists such as Martin Bojowald and Peter Lynds. Bojowald claims that some properties of the universe that collapsed to form ours can be determined - a quantum bridge. This
video explains the physics of Loop Quantum Cosmology (skip to about 8.30 for Big Bounce, discussion of whether the universe will collapse at 16.00). Could a super intelligent and powerful entity create the conditions that sets up fine tuning after the big bounce? Or does the existing fine tuning remain - leading to another universe that evolves towards consciousness?

that's not what the quote said.
what he's talking about is the hubble volume expressed as an event horizon.
Basically, very basically it comes down to the speed of light.

with an ever expanding universe it's impossible know everything because nothing travels faster than the speed of light, as the universe becomes larger it takes longer for light to get to any point.

when we say the observable universe we talk about what we can actually "see".
everyone understands what a light year is? its how far light travels in an earth year.
we can only see things that's light has reached us or is closer than the light behind it that has reached us.
it is postulated that their are in fact parts of the universe that is simply so far away.
that the 13.8 billion years the universe has existed, simply isn't enough time for those far flung galaxies and stars light to reach us. we call this the hubble limit or volume or bubble, etc, etc.

What davies is talking about is an idea that in the centre of the universe (theres no actually centre but we don't have time for that) there's actually a physical point at which the ever expanding universe has its own hubble limit an area where by the universe as it keeps expanding and speeding up can never possibly receive all the light to that point no matter how big it grows (it grows larger the more light or information reaches it) there will always be information/light beyond it. (this of course is a fallacy as there's no centre of the universe and an event horizon isn't a physical thing annnd I'm getting off track. The point is if any one point in the universe can't see EVERYTHING then nothing within the universe can)

basically what this means is even if there was a god within the universe the laws of physics says it can't possibly be all knowing, even if it could instantly understand everything its observes, there will always be things it cannot observe and thus cannot know based on how the universe works.

However If the we took friedmann model eventually the universe would contract until it reached a point where all light from all time could reach a single point there would never be an unobservable universe because the universe itself is getting closer together. In that case if their was a supreme being within the universe then could become all knowing.

of course there's no sign of the universe slowing down so what this means is it seems the universe if anything is set up to prevent the possibility of an all knowing god existing in it.

Davies is not saying that a physical point will develop where all information "will be" processed. merely for the capacity for all information to be processed then hubble limit needs be larger than the universe.

 

[Pessimistic]

Basically you, not you personally, are just constantly redefining "God" to suit the current holes in science.
The biblical God has had no place in modern existence, since the inception of the scientific method, with observation, data collection and evidence based conclusion.
Arguably it has taken some longer than most to get the gist but the majority of those can fall back on ignorance of the facts or simply having been lied too by a mob of self promoting social misfits.
I could argue God exists in me, that the term refers solely to my self awareness.....but that is not the God we have shoved down our throats by the established religion. My God likes everyone and insists fishing and other leisure pursuits should come before commerce or manual toil. Taxes are definitely out.

One of my thoughts, which I have never seen written or theorised is that in jesus day or even the start of he old testament stuff lifetimes were very short and education was limited. The possibility for an individual to personally collect enough information and form enough wisdom to define their own spirituality would be rare.

I can then see how desirable it would be for 'prophets' to exist to provide guidance for the people of the time.

We know that jesus suffered an horrific death in his early thirties. But that would have been a typical lifespan for the times

Thats why I think its perfectly reasonable for us to define spirituality for the times, our times.

The bible certainly promotes paternal right s to the extreme (perfectly OK to murder or sacrifice members of your family.
I note thAt christ is not attributed with saying this, but plenty of people over the course of christianity have theorised that this is reasonable behaviour.

There was nothing special about those times. According to biblical teachings god found the state of affairs so bad he went through the whole chapter of sending his only son down to sort us out

'He' apparently hasn't seen the need to do so again, even though the first part of the 1900s seems to have been particularly horrific two wars and the invention of weapons powerful enough to wipe out mankind

 

[Lester Burnham]

However If the we took friedmann model eventually the universe would contract until it reached a point where all light from all time could reach a single point there would never be an unobservable universe because the universe itself is getting closer together. In that case if their was a supreme being within the universe then could become all knowing.

of course there's no sign of the universe slowing down so what this means is it seems the universe if anything is set up to prevent the possibility of an all knowing god existing in it.

Yeah if the universe is expanding forever then no future 'God' can evolve. Tipler (and others) argues that the universe is not expanding forever. But in the video (16.00) Dr Ivan Aguillo says 'current observations are compatible with a universe that will expand forever'. However under Loop Quantum Gravity theory our universe was once infinitely big then contracted until it reached the minimum size then produced a bounce that made our current universe which is expanding forever.

 

[Sydney Bloods]

Yeah if the universe is expanding forever then no future 'God' can evolve. Tipler (and others) argues that the universe is not expanding forever. But in the video (16.00) Dr Ivan Aguillo says 'current observations are compatible with a universe that will expand forever'. However under Loop Quantum Gravity theory our universe was once infinitely big then contracted until it reached the minimum size then produced a bounce that made our current universe which is expanding forever.

doesn't that model also require the universe itself that an atomic structure?
seems overtly complicated, the very laws of physics need to change at some point to start "the crunch" including the speed of light and of course the whole objects in motion stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.
My brains too small to accept such notions that support the idea that all our known laws will simply "change". seems too much like deus ex Machina.

 

[Fire]

A computer can process information; potentially infinate amounts of it. That's not a trait of being godlike by any stretch.

 

[Fire]

Yeah if the universe is expanding forever then no future 'God' can evolve. Tipler (and others) argues that the universe is not expanding forever. But in the video (16.00) Dr Ivan Aguillo says 'current observations are compatible with a universe that will expand forever'. However under Loop Quantum Gravity theory our universe was once infinitely big then contracted until it reached the minimum size then produced a bounce that made our current universe which is expanding forever.

How can something infinate contract?

 

[telsor]

Yes I Do!