Interesting Items...

I couldn't possibly comment.:D (Or admit to thinking that. You know what the thought police are like;)). But if the cap fits........
 
Well, on the human scale, the universe is pretty damn predictable, unlike the theistic view that you pray and things happen, for which there is no evidence whatsoever. So, given that the theist view flies in the face of all evidence, predicts nothing and proposes an unnecessary god axiom, comparing that with things that actually work is strange, BH.

I know there is a distinction between equations and reality. I do not however subscribe to the Platonist or phenomenological views, which are both dead ends as far as trying to understand ourselves or the world are concerned.

Anyway, who said the GUT was only about cosmology? The same was once believed about relativity.
 
Black Hole said:
To say you prefer to think the universe is governed by a set of physical equations that "just are" rather than have been defined by some divine being in a massive thought experiment is a belief system in itself.
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This is something that has worried me for some time. Both science and our legal system (and in some ways politics) are becoming so complex that for most people the 'results', disseminated by those who (claim to) understand them, have to be taken on faith. I don't see it ending well.
 
Scientists who ponder the beginning and the end of the universe (or its rebirth by some means) produce no practical benefit, so could be considered in the same category as art - an activity which enriches the human condition. But they are funded from a separate pot than art, albeit the pot is provided from the same source - our taxes. Overall, that doesn't sound very different from the established church, does it (OK, so the church raises its own tax - or used to, and now survives on the interest / return on investment from the huge riches it once exacted).
 
Supernatural explanations explain everything and nothing, whereas cosmology gives an insight into what really happened and what will happen. Who can say what will come of pure research into unifying QM and relativity? Most mathematical advances started as pure research, you have a goal in mind but achieve what you can.

Religion is a counselling service, nothing more, but with an insidious side that claims to know everything. False implies everything in logic, as you are well aware of, I am sure.
 
Mike0001 said:
cosmology gives an insight into what really [might really have] happened and what will [might] happen
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That's what I mean by "overselling".

It's all very well to poo-poo religion, and some people have cynically exploited it over the centuries, but nonetheless it is a window on the deeper human psychological makeup and is foolish to disregard, just as it is foolish to disregard art. I have some otherwise intelligent and learned friends, surgeons and the like, who have faith (for want of a better expression). I don't understand why that is, I don't see the need and can argue effectively against it, but these are people who cannot be simply dismissed as stupid for believing what they do. I want to come to an understanding of why that is, but it is very difficult to tease out. Some of it can be put down to indoctrination from childhood, but not all.

Did you see this month's Sky at Night special from the observatory at Vatican City? They have astrophysicists every bit as engaged with cosmology and the Big Bang as any other secular establishment. It's just that they are studying it (and contributing to world study) from the viewpoint of God's Great Work. The results come out the same, regardless of their having a different world view.
 
Black Hole said:
That's what I mean by "overselling"
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As I said "insight into", I don't see why you felt the need to change the wording.

But saying that daddy in the sky made everything is never going to give anyone any insight into anything, apart from anthropomorphization. As for a deep insight into our psyche, bullpoo, unless you mean "not answering the question."
 
17168477378920373325.jpg Google is taking the piss! You will not see this image if you block ads.
 
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Okay, so how do you explain the human predisposition to belief in a creator? You think that in itself is not worthy of study? I am not saying there is a creator, but the predisposition is another area of investigation just as cosmology is, and knowledge of the human psyche informs the ability to work with it instead of against it and is at least as valuable.

And yes, "insight into what really happened" is not the same as "insight into what might have happened". You can never say what really happened, because there will never be clinching proof (no matter how well the maths fits the observations). For all your knowledge and intelligence, your mind is just as closed as those you dismiss.
 
Black Hole said:
You can never say what really happened, because there will never be clinching proof (no matter how well the maths fits the observations).
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But there is no need for that level of certainty. A level of doubt when evidence is overwhelmingly against you is a sign of psychosis. If I said to you, come to the pub, and you said that you might be abducted by aliens if you went out, I would say there was a very small but non vanishing probability of that. If you then said that it was still a possibility, that you don't drive because a meteorite might hit your car, that you hate to walk because you might forget how to move your legs, well, I would draw certain conclusions of highly irrational behaviour.

We live our lives by ignoring unlikely things happening, things that might happen with small, very small, probability. What are the probabilities that, with all the data we have accumulated about physics, that someone died, started to rot, then came to life? That someone walked on water? All the evidence is against it, and anyone who has any respect for truth should do their best to fight such silly nonsense for what it is.
 
Trev said:
Because they can think of no logical explanation of how we came to be here?
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There does not have to be a logical explanation, and religion provides none, either. Just because you can ask a question

Why are we here?

it does not follow that the question is meaningful or has an answer. If I ask

How many oranges make a banana?

What is the colour of eternity?

Is a freeze frame hotter than a thought?

each is a more obviously meaningless question. It is a grammatical question, but is not necessarily meaningful.

With the old big bang, people would say, yes, but what happened before the big bang, ignoring the fact that there was no before. Time did not exist except in the universe, and so asking for a before was meaningless. Would you ask what happened a mile before the big bang?

With a bounded universe model, similarly, you can't ask what happens if you walk up to the boundary and stick your finger outside. It doesn't work like that.
 
Trev said:
Dynamo did it.:roflmao: I saw it on TV with my own eyes, so it must be true.
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We visited Lindisfarne a few years back and went for a meal in the hotel. The barman was Polish. My wife went and ordered some bottles of water. She then held one up and asked

Is this still water?

The look of surprise and terror on the barman's face was a treat. Do miracles still happen?
 
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