The Science of God

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by spy66

 

Surely your entire post assumes the God you are trying to prove?

Well that all depends on your definition of God. Your definition might not be like my definition of God.

My definition of God is based on that God is pure energy. And not a image of a human, a thing or a being of some sort.

Everything is made up by energy. And God is energy! The bible even say so many places in the book.

The energy we are made up by gives us the function and intelligence we have. That should tell us that energy combined gives intelligence and function in one way or another.

Energy is not stupid if it is combined science has proven that. Combined it gives a specific function. Even if its just a rock, tree, water, insect, car or a computer. These things are different types of energy put together and it gives a function in one way or another.

God is just a name of a source of energy. Just like scientists have given the atom the name Atom. The atom is just the name given to a source.



[edit on 27.06.08 by spy66]

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by SugarCube

 

In this whole thread, surely we have promoted the very idea that the manifestation of that source of which we have no comprehension and no cognition could be termed "God"?

Have we? I certainly haven't. No God of the Gaps for me, thank you. How do we know the sum of the universe is not zero? Fact: we don't.

God of Gaps, God of Schnapps, I use the term "God" to describe the "sum" as you reference it, that doesn't mean that I need "God" to fulfil my own soul; simply that within the context of this thread, "The Science of God", it seems reasonable to identity an acme of creation and conjecture that the driving force (i.e. a natural force) could be termed God. Why is that not reasonable? The sum of th universe being zero is a possibility and one that does not preclude the driving force of nature - as we are here to prove.

Originally posted by Astyanax
Preexistence is unnecessary. There are conceptual limits within which the human mind must always work; this is clearly seen in the way the same basic metaconcepts are applied in every field of thought. It makes sense that there should be such limits, evolutionary determined.

Although pre-existence is unnecessary in our own terms of understanding, even when you referenced symmetry breaking you were implicitly acknowledging a causal action. This means that something existed if even beyond our comprehension.

Originally posted by Astyanax
Clearly, spacetime exceeds them (such limits), hence this insistence that there must have been something 'before': it is nothing but a naive (that word again) acknowledgement of those human limits to speak of the infinitesimal and the infinite, to invoke a 'before' and an 'after' and an 'outside'. Frogs in a well, speculating on the nature of the stars.

No infinite quantities have ever been found in nature

The insistence that there must be something before is merely an acknowledgement that the likelihood of our universe being a singular event that has not occured before, or simultaneously in a parallel aspect, is distinctly low. If something can happen, it is not "limited" to think that it can happen multiple times as long as the conditions are correct.

If we are one of a series of events then something has indeed come before. The advancement of knowledge has always been preceded by speculative argument albeit followed by experimentation in support. That is not to say that ATS is the likely source of the "secret of the universe" but it provides a good place to exchange ideas and concepts. Frogs we may be but why shouldn't we speculate on the nature of stars?

On the nature of infinity, I agree that no infinite quantities have been found in nature (per se)** and in truth we will never find it for it is beyond our grasp to enumerate it. However, must can apply ourselves to understand the concept and accept that to exist it must reside beyond our physical universe. If it is beyond our universe, then perhaps we can recognise the whiff of the divine in its presence albeit abstracted as it is?

I must say, I am surprised that you have shown a contrary response to your previous posts and can only assume that you are playing the Devil's Advocate. Either that, or you try to deny that which your own conclusions lead you to.



** It could be argued that all of human activity falls within nature and since we may recognise mathematics as an intrinsic part of nature the existence of infinity within that field also falls under nature.

[edit on 26-5-2009 by SugarCube]

Originally posted by spy66
When you mention a Symmetry Breaking concept. You are actually talking about something opposite of nothing.

No, I'm afraid this has nothing to do with symmetry breaking. Why don't you read up on it? Wikipedia has a good, simple entry. Check out 'spontaneous symmetry breaking' while you're at it. That entry is a bit harder, though.

A concept is a power of something.

No, a concept is an idea. Its only power is inside people's heads. To have power in the physical world, a concept must be turned into something material - a hoe, for example, or a bow and arrow.

Its hard to talk about the time before the BIG BANG.

However you slice it, there was no time before the Big Bang. Time and space belong to the universe - this universe - of which they constitute the fabric. In terms of spacetime, there is no before, after or beyond to the universe. It is all there is, and all that ever was.

If you don't accept the theories of modern physics and wish to create your own instead, well and good. I won't argue with you, merely ask you to show some physical evidence that what you say is true. But on this thread the ideas of physics are being taken as valid and we are thinking onward from there. Mysticism and pseudoscience, convenient as they may be as a recourse when science lets us down, have no place in it.

I dont believe there can be a science to god. Otherwise that would mean god is bound by logic?

Originally posted by Astyanax

Originally posted by spy66
When you mention a Symmetry Breaking concept. You are actually talking about something opposite of nothing.

No, I'm afraid this has nothing to do with symmetry breaking. Why don't you read up on it? Wikipedia has a good, simple entry. Check out 'spontaneous symmetry breaking' while you're at it. That entry is a bit harder, though.

A concept is a power of something.

No, a concept is an idea. Its only power is inside people's heads. To have power in the physical world, a concept must be turned into something material - a hoe, for example, or a bow and arrow.

Its hard to talk about the time before the BIG BANG.

However you slice it, there was no time before the Big Bang. Time and space belong to the universe - this universe - of which they constitute the fabric. In terms of spacetime, there is no before, after or beyond to the universe. It is all there is, and all that ever was.

If you don't accept the theories of modern physics and wish to create your own instead, well and good. I won't argue with you, merely ask you to show some physical evidence that what you say is true. But on this thread the ideas of physics are being taken as valid and we are thinking onward from there. Mysticism and pseudoscience, convenient as they may be as a recourse when science lets us down, have no place in it.

Mmm i don't know if you understand what you read here.

Her is a snip from Google on Symmetry Breaking.

en.wikipedia.org...

Symmetry breaking in physics describes a phenomenon where (infinitesimally) small fluctuations acting on a system crossing a critical point decide a system's fate, by determining which branch of a bifurcation is taken.

If this topic ain't talking about energy then i dont understand. And you would be right about me.


What does a small fluctuations acting on a system mean?

What is the system it is working on?

You have two different things here. And if non of them have any power (energy) nothing would happen.

Nothing can just breake up, change by it self unless it is exposed to a exsternal power(energy) to create the change.


And this thing needs a space to be in. That creates two different enviorments or energies. Where the dimension of space becomes one power and the (infinitesimally) small fluctuations(more then one) not possible by the way if it is infinite small. being another power.

This sounds like emty space to me. Then you have a system of energy inside it that changes all the time.




[edit on 27.06.08 by spy66]

reply to post by SugarCube

First of all, let me say what a pleasure it is to argue with someone like you. I mean it, as I did the earlier compliment you doubted.

Originally posted by SugarCube
God of Gaps, God of Schnapps, I use the term "God" to describe the "sum" as you reference it...

No, I simply meant the sum of the universe in terms of matter vs. antimatter (I know there is an apparent surplus of the former in the observable universe but this, of course, proves nothing), force vectors, spin components or whatever: a sum of physical quantities.

...[but] within the context of this thread it seems reasonable to identity an acme of creation and conjecture that the driving force (i.e. a natural force) could be termed God.

Ah. The Unmoved Mover, the Uncaused Cause... that blind happenstance when the Singularity broke symmetry to bring spacetime and its contents into existence. If you want to call that God, do so and welcome. It's as nondescript a name as any other, and far less of a mouthful than Singularity.

The sum of the universe being zero is a possibility and one that does not preclude the driving force of nature - as we are here to prove.

My point was merely that, if the physical sum of the universe is zero, something came from nothing.

When you referenced symmetry breaking you were implicitly acknowledging a causal action. This means that something existed if even beyond our comprehension.

No. See above. The original symmetry breaking is uncaused, although its knock-on effects obviously are.

The insistence that there must be something before is merely an acknowledgement that the likelihood of our universe being a singular event that has not occured before, or simultaneously in a parallel aspect, is distinctly low.

Bravo! This sophistry is, however, well beyond anything implied by the OP, who offers us only two options: Steady State and Big Bang with God (hold the fries). Never mind; you're still wrong. I am perfectly willing to accept that the Singularity ain't so singular: but this tells us absolutely nothing about after, beyond and before. I repeat: time and space are of this universe and this universe only. They may have analogues in realities that do not include us; but that is neither here nor there.

Frogs we may be but why shouldn't we speculate on the nature of stars?

No reason at all, so long as we are clear as to the meaning and limits of the terms we use. That is, if we hope for some correspondence between our speculations and reality.

If it is beyond our universe, then perhaps we can recognise the whiff of the divine in its presence albeit abstracted as it is?

Thus we come full circle, my friend. Where you scent a whiff of the divine, I discern the mephitic redolence of fantasy. As to your comment with respect mathematics, conceptual infinities are not infinity. I you think I have been inconsistent in this thread, show me where, and I will attempt to resolve the inconsistency - or (see my signature) admit it.

Once again - what a pleasure to find someone like you on ATS.

reply to post by spy66

If this topic ain't talking about energy then i dont understand.

Physics is the study of energy, so obviously we are talking about energy. But when you attribute will and purpose to energy you merely anthropomorphize. If you want to call dumb-luck symmetry breaking God, purely on the basis that its randomness is acausal (see my reply to SugarCube just above), that's fine by me. I'm going to call my left armpit God. Okay by you?

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by spy66

 

If this topic ain't talking about energy then i dont understand.

Physics is the study of energy, so obviously we are talking about energy. But when you attribute will and purpose to energy you merely anthropomorphize. If you want to call dumb-luck symmetry breaking God, purely on the basis that its randomness is acausal (see my reply to SugarCube just above), that's fine by me. I'm going to call my left armpit God. Okay by you?

What i can say to that is that God created us in his image. God did not create him self in our image. There is a big difference here.

You are misusing the name God because you think God is a thing or a being. Because we humans put names on things.

You have to get the image part right before you can misuse Gods name. Because God is just a name.

reply to post by spy66


God made us in his image? Where did you find this out? The Bible?...We all know the Bible isnt infallible.

Secondly, to Astrynax and Sugar Cube. You both bring up the very interesting point of how matter vs antimatter, matter won. Even though when the bang happened the amount of positrons etc should have been equal.

I ask somebody who knows though, isnt there an equation that explains the imbalance of matter vs antimatter, how there is a side product? I remember my a level teacher a couple of years ago touching upon this but didnt go into it fully?

Thanks

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by SugarCube
First of all, let me say what a pleasure it is to argue with someone like you. I mean it, as I did the earlier compliment you doubted.

Well, they say that illusion is the first of all pleasures Sorry, I couldn't resist that... Thank-you for the compliment (which may now be swiftly withdrawn).

Originally posted by Astyanax
No, I simply meant the sum of the universe in terms of matter vs. antimatter (I know there is an apparent surplus of the former in the observable universe but this, of course, proves nothing), force vectors, spin components or whatever: a sum of physical quantities.
:
Ah. The Unmoved Mover, the Uncaused Cause... that blind happenstance when the Singularity broke symmetry to bring spacetime and its contents into existence. If you want to call that God, do so and welcome. It's as nondescript a name as any other, and far less of a mouthful than Singularity.

I have been somewhat disingenuous as I didn't explain myself properly. In terms of the universe encapsulated within and integrated with space-time, this is a purely physical(/energy) manifestation of the singularity that I believe we both agree on (somewhere between the lines). Such is our universe that it is finite and at some point in the undefined future, definable by science.

To this model, I do not apply the nondescript term of God. Rather, I am proposing that the events of the singularity and universal model incorporating space-time is abstracted within a conceptual container of God to which no dimensional aspects pertain.

Your model is an absolute, self-defining by the nature of space-time and with no external reference point. I propose that it exists in a relative way to an external non-dimensional body (a contradiction in terms I know) that acts as the medium in which the singularity can be sustained and operated according to its internal physics. A metaphor might be the bubble in an infinite body of water (an analogy would have too many contradictory physical attributes!)

Originally posted by Astyanax
My point was merely that, if the physical sum of the universe is zero, something came from nothing.
:
The original symmetry breaking is uncaused, although its knock-on effects obviously are.

Since you referenced Wiki in another post, I include it here to clarify my argument:

Wiki: Symmetry BreakingLink
Symmetry breaking in physics describes a phenomenon where (infinitesimally) small fluctuations acting on a system crossing a critical point decide a system's fate, by determining which branch of a bifurcation is taken. For an outside observer unaware of the fluctuations (the "noise"), the choice will appear arbitrary. This process is called symmetry "breaking", because such transitions usually bring the system from a disorderly state into one of two more ordered, less probable states. Since disorder is more symmetric in the sense that small variations to it don't change its overall appearance, the symmetry gets "broken".

The bold text illustrates a cause, surely? The small fluctuations decide the system's fate. That is causal. Also, I reference the outside observer, in this case "us". We exist within the body that constitutes space-time, whether concentrated to a singularity or exploded to our universe, along with all of the paraphernalia of physicality that the conversion between energy and matter can produce. However, in this instance, the "system" that creates our universe is external (by implication of an "outside" observer) and it is this system that encapsulates our universe, not the singularity. The singularity is merely a state of the universe not a causal force of its own entirety. The original symmetric system is the (nondescript) God that I speak of and we are a product of its noise.

Also from Wiki, concerning Spontaneous symmetry breaking:

Wiki: Spontaneous Symmetry BreakingLink
A common example to help explain this phenomenon is a ball sitting on top of a hill. This ball is in a completely symmetric state. However, its state is unstable: the slightest perturbing force will cause the ball to roll down the hill in some particular direction. At that point, symmetry has been broken because the direction in which the ball rolled has a feature that distinguishes it from all other directions.

The bold text illustrates a conundrum in our context because it indicates an "external" force to the symmetric system if specific to the ball and the hill. However, if we expand this system to include the weather elements (the wind) then we must question whether the effects of wind really constitute "noise" (i.e. true chaos). In effect, we have to expand it right up the limit of the universe itself and the observer has to be abstracted from the scene since they too would be part of the system. In my view, this example is not a very good one as it raises too many questions and clouds the issue.

Originally posted by Astyanax
I repeat: time and space are of this universe and this universe only. They may have analogues in realities that do not include us; but that is neither here nor there.

I agree entirely!

Originally posted by Astyanax
mephitic redolence of fantasy

All conjecture could be said to be fantasy until accompanied by a proof, even then, a universal proof is still constrained by the universe it resides within.

As to your apparent contrary posts, it is more of an undercurrent. You speak of Anaximander as prescient and yet he expounded theories that were received as "fantasy" at the time. You are open minded concerning the universe/singularity yet you appear to limit your cognition of a possible greater system. OK, I agree that the application of the term "God" is my own in the context of this discussion, yet you cannot deny that we do not know either way and that you must accept that there could be a external system to our dimensional existence.

Just one thing, you have a better intellect than to be churlish... Calling your left arm-pit God? You can do better!


[edit on 26-5-2009 by SugarCube]

reply to post by ghaleon12


I was actually just trying to keep this thread as general as possible by excluding terms already associated with modern religion.

So I go camping for the weekend, come back, and my thread exploded. Sadly I missed most of it..

reply to post by spy66

Mmm he can't prove or disprove God. Nobody can. We can only argue if God is created in the image of Man. Or if Man is created in the image of God.

I don't think we get the image part right. Because we don't pay attention to what we Humans or anything else is made up of.
We like everything else are made up by many different types of energy's. What we are made up by is what gives us a shape, function and intelligence.

So energies joined together creates a function shape and intelligence.

We have been conditioned to image God in the shape of a Man a being or just a thing. That's where we go of track i think. We don't pay attention.

Question:
Could God alter or do anything if he was not pure energy?

I was actually doing what the atheists chant: "Prove God Exists!" A tit for tat.



You bring up good points and are accurate. Even the Bible calls God; "Dynamic Energy!"

Throw consciousness in, and we have a super being.


****

You have to get the image part right before you can misuse Gods name. Because God is just a name.

More a description.



[edit on 26-5-2009 by MatrixProphet]

reply to post by MatrixProphet


I dont think you can describe God. Beyond our comprehension. We cannot even begin to label things as good or bad, who are we to say which are which? Or even if they exist. I feel Good and Evil are two sides of the same coin

Originally posted by FeedingTheRat
We don't need a god, we don't need a beginning and we don't need an end. l'chaim.

Seems more like a personal issue than it does with this post. Your reply was off topic btw, but for the sake of argument. Just because we do not need something doesn't mean it is not there. Your post would have been on topic of you maybe would have commented on why you thought there was no beginning or end. You do not have to believe in god, that is not the purpose of this thread. It is discussing god as a scientific concept, leave your personal beliefs / hatreds at the door (unless they can actually add to this thread).

[edit on 26-5-2009 by DaMod]

If people have come to the general agreement of symmetry breaking, why were/are there irregularities within the Universe? clusters of matter etc

Thanks

Brad

[edit on 26-5-2009 by Toughiv]

Originally posted by DaMod
You do not have to believe in god, that is not the purpose of this thread. It is discussing god as a scientific concept...

And I think that's the conflict here. Because the idea of God, or gods, is not science. It is a religious/spiritual concept that is not supposed to be broken down into some kind of formula.

There are those that will conjecture a definition of God in some scientific way, but then it really isn't God is it? It's something else entirely.

I feel it would be more right to say that God does not exist than to try and say the universe is God's brain or something like that. Stuff like the latter just don't make sense to me.

reply to post by JohnG


Just like Einstein said, you will never be able to prove or disprove God, but its better to live life thinking there is a God and be wrong, than to live as if there were no God and find that there is!

Originally posted by JohnG

Originally posted by DaMod
You do not have to believe in god, that is not the purpose of this thread. It is discussing god as a scientific concept...

And I think that's the conflict here. Because the idea of God, or gods, is not science. It is a religious/spiritual concept that is not supposed to be broken down into some kind of formula.

There are those that will conjecture a definition of God in some scientific way, but then it really isn't God is it? It's something else entirely.

I feel it would be more right to say that God does not exist than to try and say the universe is God's brain or something like that. Stuff like the latter just don't make sense to me.

Science has found it's way into alternate dimensions / realities... It is found its way into quantum entanglement... It has found its way into concepts that we cannot even fathom. How is God much more far fetched or beyond the reaches of anything scientific? Heck we even talk about a holographic universe with an outside control mind, that could very well be the god mind also.

There are those that will conjecture a definition of God in some scientific way, but then it really isn't God is it? It's something else entirely.

Science is the study of the "real". If god is in fact real (which we cannot prove only discuss) then it would be a scientific concept would it not. Even the possibility of something like this would still be termed scientific. Especially since we are taking modern religion or current belief systems out of the equation.

I am actually a christian, but as you have noticed I have made no mention of Christianity in this thread, to do so would be off topic.

Obviously we have done well in discussing god as a scientific concept for 11 pages now. Therefore it is possible to discuss said god as said concept.

[edit on 26-5-2009 by DaMod]

Originally posted by Toughiv
reply to post by JohnG

 

Just like Einstein said, you will never be able to prove or disprove God, but its better to live life thinking there is a God and be wrong, than to live as if there were no God and find that there is!

Nailed it. Love it. Work it, work it. Your a LEMUR YOUR A LEMUR!!