Seth wrote:Coito ergo sum wrote:Seth wrote:
Hypothesis: Hypothesis: GOD caused the Big Bang to occur.
Exactly.
Hypothesis -- check.
Any evidence for that hypothesis being true? - No.
Not yet you mean.
That's what that always means. In the year 500 there was no evidence for an expanding universe.
That always means "not yet."
Seth wrote:
Reason to believe the hypothesis is true? None.
There's no less, and probably more reason to believe this universe was created by the inhabitants of some other universe than there is to believe that the Big Bang "just happened."
There is no less, since both are none.
There isn't more, since there is the same. Well, that is, unless you have some of which I am currently unaware, and I am always willing to hear out a person who claims such evidence exists. Have at it.
Seth wrote:
Ought one believe things about which there is no reason to believe? No.
Tell it to the theoretical cosmologists who came up with the membrane universe notion.
The don't "believe" it. They are theorizing it, as that term is used in theoretical physics. And, they do have, at least, a "reason" to theorize it, since the mathematics works. That's where they get membrane theory from. It's a mathematical theory in theoretical physics. It is deemed "good" because it has an internal consistency within certain specified assumptions.
Nobody except fucking idiots and scientific illiterates "believe" stuff like that to be "true." There is no evidence for membrane theory. There is no reason to "believe" it. However, it is a nice theory to inquire about because if the assumptions are true, then the math works.
Seth wrote:
Ergo, ought one believe in this "GOD" thingy of which you speak? It necessarily follows that "no" is the answer to that question.
It's as sensible as believing that there are membrane universes or that the Big Bang "just happened."
Sure. It's stupid to believe that the Big Bang "just happened," because the only answer that we have as to how the Big Bang happened is "I don't know." Even the math only goes back to about a Planck's constant unit of time AFTER the Big Bang. We don't know if it "just" happened, whatever you mean by that. And, nobody "believes" in membrane universes. It's, as I said, a mathematical construct that is valid under certain assumptions, meaning it has an internal consistency.
Even the physicists advancing the notion don't claim to know it to be true or to have been validated, or to have been supported by any evidence. But, then again, nobody has faith in it, either. They say "that's an interesting theory you have there -- the math works under those assumptions, and it has an internal consistency -- but, call us when you can prove it."
The gods theory(ies) is just a bit short of that, though. There aren't any mathematical theories in theoretical physics or anywhere else -- no formulas working with certain assumptions that have an internal consistency -- none of that. All we have with the gods theory(ies) is stuff people claim to be true without ANY basis -- not even a mathematical basis.
Seth wrote:
Might the hypothesis still be "true" despite there being no reason to believe in it? Yes. Just like any other statement, that much can be said. I can posit a hypothesis that this universe is the sixth attempt of a monster to create a cosmic plaything. Using the same thought process you use, Seth, we must keep an open mind for that and "look for evidence" of the monster in all experiments. However, using simple logic, we find that while the monster hypothesis is a hypothesis, there is no evidence for it - therefore there is no reason to believe the hypothesis is true, and we ought not, as a result, believe in the monster because we ought not believe in things about which there is no reason to believe.
Again, tell it to the theoretical cosmologists who don't think it's all that silly to believe in membrane or bubble universes, even though there is absolutely no evidence of their existence.
Objection. Lack of foundation. You do not have an example of a cosmologist that "believes" in membranes and bubble universes. They have theoretical physics - which is math - that works under certain assumptions and presents an internal consistency based on those assumptions. That's what they "believe." They can only say, though, that membrane theory works IF -- and only IF - the assumptions are true, and there isn't any proof for those assumptions, so we don't know.
Again - the god theory or theories doesn't have any sort of theoretical physics to it. Feel free to set forth the "God Equation" that shows that under X, Y, and Z, etc., assumptions, the math works out to demonstrating the existence of a god or gods. As far as I know, there isn't any.
Until then, though, you have an apples to oranges comparison between god-belief and M-theory. The former has nothing but assertions and mysticism behind it. The latter, while not based on any physical evidence, at least has "reason" behind it because the mathematics works (under the stated assumptions). And anyone who wants to can sit down and check the math. Nobody is asking you to just assume that a theoretical physicist has some sort of secret knowledge that is denied to you, or that you don't have access to.
Seth wrote:
Might there be a monster, anyway? Sure, but we still have no reason to believe it, and it is UNreasonable to believe in such things - by definition - axiomatically. If there is no reason to believe in X, then belief in X is unreasonable, gods and monsters included.
So, it was unreasonable to believe in muons and quarks eh? I see.
There is evidence of the existence of muons and quarks. For example, there has been evidence for quarks since at least 1968 when they did deep inelastic scattering experiments at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. All six flavors of quark have since been observed in accelerator experiments; the top quark, first observed at Fermilab in 1995, was the last to be discovered. All that evidence can be found at either your local library, or at a university library, and the experiments that discovered them have been verified and re-verified, and subjected to testing. And, the evidence was consistent with the mathematics.
Muons were discovered in 1937 in what is called the "cloud chamber experiment." New Evidence for the Existence of a Particle Intermediate Between the Proton and Electron", Phys. Rev. 52, 1003 (1937). In the Rossi–Hall experiment in 1941, muons were used to observe the time dilation (or alternately, length contraction) predicted by special relativity, for the first time. The experiment worked.
Seth wrote:
Science has a long history of speculation and theorizing about things unknown. Hypothesizing and speculating about the nature of things is the first step in the scientific process of finding ways to test those hypotheses.
Yes, but it's not done by making shit up. All the things you mention - M-theory, bubble universes, quarks and muons -- all of those things were calculated mathematically first, as part of theoretical physics. That's not the same thing as daydreaming, or wish-thinking, or just making something up like "There is a GOD" and then claiming that is the same thing as quark theory in the early to mid-20th century.
When you raise stuff like quarks and muons, you MAKE my point, Seth. That favors exactly what I'm saying. If you would read up on muons, quarks and M-Theory you'd see that the "hypotheses" bear absolutely no resemblance to the "gods hypotheses." Can you see the difference?
Seth wrote:
Whether or not there is evidence satisfactory to you about the existence of God, there are a good many people who claim to have had personal experiences with God, or a heareafter (like those who have had near-death experiences and have reported interesting and unexplained phenomena associated with the experience). You would discount their experiences because you cannot yourself experience what they did, or replicate it in a lab.
I don't "discount" it at all. It is what it is. It is a claim about a personal experience that is unverifiable. There are as many of those as there are people. Probably more. When one doesn't take their word for it, one isn't "discounting" anything. There is just nothing to be done with some person's claim that they saw angels in the hallway of a hospital. All that anyone can do is say,"O.k. - you say you saw them. Good for you." What ought we do with that? Believe it?
Seth wrote:
But that's the nature of interactions with another sentient creature capable of making conscious choices to act or not act. It may choose to act and give evidence to one person and not act and deny evidence to another person. Therefore, such experiences are not amenable to scientific falsification because they are one-off voluntary events not physical properties of the universe.
Right, that's why we ought not believe them. And, that is PRECISELY the thing that quark theory and muon theory and M-theory aren't. You've just described precisely why quark theory, muon theory, and M-theory are not the same thing as these "personal experiences" you want everyone to believe.
Seth wrote:
You cannot prove scientifically that I told my girlfriend that I love her before she just went to the store, but it happened nonetheless.
It's also not a scientific theory. We can prove scientifically that quarks and muons exist, and M-Theory is supported by theoretical physics (albeit without physical evidence). I don't believe that you told your girlfriend anything, or that you even have a girlfriend. The only thing I "believe" is that you've said so. But, it doesn't matter from a scientific standpoint, because it's not a scientific theory anyway. It's just your assertion which may or may not be true.
Seth wrote:
You cannot prove that God, or something like god, meddled with evolution of life on earth to guide it down specific pathways, but then again you cannot prove God did not do so.
Nobody can prove that God did not do so, or that it did do so, very true.
The key point is that there not only is no evidence for "God" (your constant capitalizing of that word, and you refusal to use any references to other gods, implies that you assume that there could only be one -- it has made me conclude that you are a believer in one of the versions of the Christian God) -- but not only is there no evidence for "God" but there isn't any theoretical physics/math for it either. It's made up from whole cloth.
Seth wrote:
But that does not mean that it did not, or could not have happened.
Here you do your usual "pushing at an open door." Nobody says that it's been proven that it did not or could not happen. You just got through reading my post, for example, where I specifically stated -- outright - explicitly - and I gave it a full paragraph for emphasis, that the fact that there is no evidence or reason to believe it does NOT mean that it did not happen. You started arguing the point that isn't at issue. You do that a lot. It's one of your techniques.
No scientists or physicists claim that it's been proven that God does not exist or could not exist. Almost no atheist has concluded that either. However, to say that it hasn't been disproven is meaningless, because a bazillion things haven't been disproven, and as far as "could not exist," well, almost anything "could" exist, especially when you start with the assumption that it isn't constrained by physics or any universal laws. Of course -- there could be a billion gods, and maybe they're all hot bikini models with penchants for vigorous and enthusiastic fellatio. I don't know. Maybe. Could be. It's not been proven wrong.