No Higgs Boson?

[little_monkey]

Sounds like a fancy way of saying "nothing" to me.

I'm not in the business of defending Hawking's theory. You can address your concerns to the man himself. Here's his email address:

S.W.Hawking@damtp.cam.ac.uk

[phank]

has anyone seen a universe appear out of nothing for absofreakinglutely no reason at all? No? It defies all logic! Gee that was easy. Got any more?

I smell an error here. We have good evidence that our universe exists. We can deduce with a high probability of being correct, that some phenomena, or sequence of phenomena, resulted in our universe. What we can NOT do right now is more than speculate about what the pre-existing conditions may have been, or what the phenomena resulting from them might have been. But our lack of knowledge does NOT imply that the universe appeared "out of nothing for absofreakinglutely no reason at all." You error lies in presuming that if the reason is not known, THEREFORE there is no reason! This is equivalent to looking at a skyscraper, being unable to imagine how or why it was constructed, and therefore assuming it just "appeared for absofreakinglytely no reason at all."

If an entire universe can appear out of nothing, why can't a mountain appear out of nothing? Or even move from one place to another? Or the entire universe disappear into nothing?

And you repeat the same error. You do NOT KNOW that the unverse appeared out of "nothing". You again assume that if the process is unknown, it must not exist at all. But you are saying that universes appearing for unknown reasons due to unknown processes, is THEREFORE the same as mountains appearing out of "nothing". In fact, how mountains are built and how they move is very well understood. Mountains are not universes, and very different principles apply. EVEN IF you don't know how EITHER ONE works, this doesn't make them the same.

You believe something that is so completely unbelievable and yet you balk at something a trillion, trillion trillion times more trivial happening.

Nobody said this. We observe a universe. We observe that as we look further away and thus back in time, the unverse is increasingly smaller the further we look. The history of that universe is quite well documented and well understood right back to as far as we can observe. This is not something someone "believes in", this is a matter of observation. And quite different from something not only not observed, but not observed for reasons well understood. We use different terms (cosmology and geology), with very very different areas of interest and research, because these are very different things. It's dishonest to pretend they are the same.

That is what defies logic, LM. What is a mountain appearing compared to an entire universe?

An extremely different process, based on different principles, with no known resemblance.

No, postulating NO cause and effect outside the universe is problematic. There is no evidence for it. nada.

This is ambiguous. If you are equating 'no cause' with 'no KNOWN cause', then this is a conceptual error. But I'm rather surprised you raise the notion of evidence, considering that we have no evidence for the cause of universes, and plenty of evidence for the cause of mountains.

[pancreasman]

I also wonder about the whole 'cause and effect' thing. Cause and effect is a human concept to describe the relationship between two events in time, where A always precedes B and B never occurs without having A precede it. Because we see it so regularly in our little sliver of observable events in the universe we assume it is always true in the universe. I'm ok with that (up to a point) but to speculate that the principle of cause and effect holds outside of the universe and outside of time strikes me as stretching the boundaries of reasoning. Our brains ought not to try to get too big for their boots.

In a mathematical analogy, we know that in the set of rational numbers, all numbers can be expressed as the ratio of two whole numbers. It's a 'law' of rational numbers. We might be tempted to think this is 'always' true if we lived in rational number land. However, simply trying to find the rational number solution of the square root of 2 would show us our supposed universal law does not apply outside certain limits.

As has been said in this thread by theist and non-theist alike, I think cosmological musings are the very worst places to pin an argument either for or against theism.

[phank]

I also wonder about the whole 'cause and effect' thing. Cause and effect is a human concept to describe the relationship between two events in time, where A always precedes B and B never occurs without having A precede it. Because we see it so regularly in our little sliver of observable events in the universe we assume it is always true in the universe. I'm ok with that (up to a point) but to speculate that the principle of cause and effect holds outside of the universe and outside of time strikes me as stretching the boundaries of reasoning. Our brains ought not to try to get too big for their boots.

This is not a very rigorous description. Cause and effect are not determined by simple chronological order. It's not being claimed that A precedes B, but rather that A resulted in a change of conditions that made B possible, if not inevitable. Indeed, it's regarded as a logical error to argue that since A preceded B, THEREFORE A caused B. This chronological order might provide a HINT that there is a causal relationship, but it doesn't mean there IS such a relationship. That sort of relationship must be far more tightly coupled.

And "outside the universe and outside of time" is a notion lacking any operational definition, and as such is just noise. We don't know what these phrases MEAN.

In a mathematical analogy, we know that in the set of rational numbers, all numbers can be expressed as the ratio of two whole numbers. It's a 'law' of rational numbers.

Well, no, it isn't. It is the definition of a rational number. Think here of the set of all principles used to separate numbers into types, for convenience in determining other relationships.

We might be tempted to think this is 'always' true if we lived in rational number land. However, simply trying to find the rational number solution of the square root of 2 would show us our supposed universal law does not apply outside certain limits.

It's always true because we DEFINED it that way. But of course rational numbers do not comprise the set of all possible values. The square root of 2 illustrates that there is an infinite number of irrational numbers between any two rational numbers. So for arbitrary convenience, we define another class of numbers. For yet other puposes, the set of all rational and irrational numbers is incomplete, and we must use the square root of minus one to create another flavor of values, useful for yet other sorts of calculations. The real challenge is to understand why our mathematics is so unexpectedly useful in devising descriptions of the real world that can be so amazingly predictive.

As has been said in this thread by theist and non-theist alike, I think cosmological musings are the very worst places to pin an argument either for or against theism.

Understood. When you get right down to it, the ONLY argument for theism that is not easily dismissed is simple personal testimony. About the only USEFUL response to "the bible says it, I believe it, that settles it" is something like "Uh, OK, whatever..."

[pancreasman]

This is not a very rigorous description. Cause and effect are not determined by simple chronological order. It's not being claimed that A precedes B, but rather that A resulted in a change of conditions that made B possible, if not inevitable. Indeed, it's regarded as a logical error to argue that since A preceded B, THEREFORE A caused B. This chronological order might provide a HINT that there is a causal relationship, but it doesn't mean there IS such a relationship. That sort of relationship must be far more tightly coupled.

And "outside the universe and outside of time" is a notion lacking any operational definition, and as such is just noise. We don't know what these phrases MEAN.

Well, no, it isn't. It is the definition of a rational number. Think here of the set of all principles used to separate numbers into types, for convenience in determining other relationships.

It's always true because we DEFINED it that way. But of course rational numbers do not comprise the set of all possible values. The square root of 2 illustrates that there is an infinite number of irrational numbers between any two rational numbers. So for arbitrary convenience, we define another class of numbers. For yet other puposes, the set of all rational and irrational numbers is incomplete, and we must use the square root of minus one to create another flavor of values, useful for yet other sorts of calculations. The real challenge is to understand why our mathematics is so unexpectedly useful in devising descriptions of the real world that can be so amazingly predictive.


Understood. When you get right down to it, the ONLY argument for theism that is not easily dismissed is simple personal testimony. About the only USEFUL response to "the bible says it, I believe it, that settles it" is something like "Uh, OK, whatever..."

I am nothing if not vague and imprecise and reserve the right to be so ... sort of.

[Sparko]

I'm not in the business of defending Hawking's theory. You can address your concerns to the man himself. Here's his email address:

S.W.Hawking@damtp.cam.ac.uk

what a cop out.

[Sparko]

I smell an error here. We have good evidence that our universe exists. We can deduce with a high probability of being correct, that some phenomena, or sequence of phenomena, resulted in our universe. What we can NOT do right now is more than speculate about what the pre-existing conditions may have been, or what the phenomena resulting from them might have been. But our lack of knowledge does NOT imply that the universe appeared "out of nothing for absofreakinglutely no reason at all." You error lies in presuming that if the reason is not known, THEREFORE there is no reason! This is equivalent to looking at a skyscraper, being unable to imagine how or why it was constructed, and therefore assuming it just "appeared for absofreakinglytely no reason at all."

And you repeat the same error. You do NOT KNOW that the unverse appeared out of "nothing". You again assume that if the process is unknown, it must not exist at all. But you are saying that universes appearing for unknown reasons due to unknown processes, is THEREFORE the same as mountains appearing out of "nothing". In fact, how mountains are built and how they move is very well understood. Mountains are not universes, and very different principles apply. EVEN IF you don't know how EITHER ONE works, this doesn't make them the same.

Nobody said this. We observe a universe. We observe that as we look further away and thus back in time, the unverse is increasingly smaller the further we look. The history of that universe is quite well documented and well understood right back to as far as we can observe. This is not something someone "believes in", this is a matter of observation. And quite different from something not only not observed, but not observed for reasons well understood. We use different terms (cosmology and geology), with very very different areas of interest and research, because these are very different things. It's dishonest to pretend they are the same.

An extremely different process, based on different principles, with no known resemblance.

This is ambiguous. If you are equating 'no cause' with 'no KNOWN cause', then this is a conceptual error. But I'm rather surprised you raise the notion of evidence, considering that we have no evidence for the cause of universes, and plenty of evidence for the cause of mountains.

Thanks for making my point for me.

So if a mountain did suddenly appear out of "nowhere" then it would not automatically "be against all logic" would it? Scientists would say, like you do above, that's it is obvious that the mountain does exist and it wasn't there a minute ago, therefore there must be some logical natural explanation for it, even if we don't know what it is right now.

Right?

[Ansgar Seraph]

Forgive me, phank, but I'm going to omit some of your responses in areas where we agree, where our disagreement has been settled or seem superfluous to the meat of discussion. If I've omitted something you think important to address, please feel free to call my attention back to it.

OK, I agree with you...I think. You are saying that long before the advent of science, the universe was considered consistent, EXCEPT when it wasn't! And science presumes as an axiom that this does not happen. I don't think we're disagreeing here. Science considers it axiomatic that the universe is consistent and understandable, that there are NO violations, and that the nature of reality as we know it simply can't violate itself. I agree this is a philosophy and can't be empirically determined. Of course, if it weren't the case, science wouldn't work...

I will note, however, that your statement about miracles and "science" are not one and the same: science does not hold as an axiom that there are no interventions into nature. Science, as a philosophy, holds that such interventions would be outside the scope of experimentation and repetition and are so outside its limitations. Your philosophy takes it as axiomatic that inconsistencies in the universe do not happen; science merely acknowledges that such events would not fall into its scope.

I'm not sure I understand you here. Yes, granted there's no time machine, and so there's no way to go back and examine historical events. We have only recorded observations of various provenance. And the further we go back, the more incomplete and more thoroughly massaged those observations become. My reading (of quite a bit of history) is that given hopelessly incomplete data from often unreliable sources, which almost always see what they want and expect to see (as do we all), doing any verifiable analysis is problematic. Did Nero REALLY fiddle while Rome burned? I don't regard the answer to this question as being a matter of philosophy. Unless you mean something different with the term.

Your statement was that "of the many many explanations of things science has provided over the centuries, NOT ONE has ever required anything supernatural . . . "

My point was that you are artificially limiting the scope of history to a subset that supports your point. We have reports of miracles today; the paragraph about incomplete histories is a red herring. What you seem to be doing, from my perspective, is conflating your philosophy with Science; for a history or account to be valid, it must pass through scientific verification or occur within the boundaries you believe to be set by science. Thus, "history" becomes "that history which has been verified by or can rationally be deduced by scientific principles." My objection is that this is a self-limiting, invalid response when the very question involves potential action outside of scientific principles.

It holds as I intended it. Nearly all specific human events, if not all of them, are highly contingent and coincidental. Enormously unlikely, like specific bridge hands. But that there will BE human events is certain, just as SOME bridge hand is certain.

If not, how are miraculous things distinguished from coincidental things?

Again, this is a reductionalist perspective that doesn't hold. In the same way that one might separate human agency from random chance, one might separate supernatural agency from random chance. If an individual finds $100 in their desktop drawer, it may be the effect of improbable, yet deterministic, randomness. Or it might be the effect of agency. The more improbable an event, the greater rationale for entertaining the possibility that the event was not random. Obviously, this attitude runs its risks, as seen often in the objections YECs make over evolution (which is a series of not-very-improbable-at-all events but we'll use it, anyhow). But the opposite attitude runs its high risks, as well, as seen often in the attitudes and behaviors of cynics who refuse to believe in agency or altruism, for example.

And I still don't quite understand why. Scientific research, of which there has been more than a single mind can grasp, has NEVER encountered a miracle. Now, I tend to think in concrete terms (i.e. the shroud of Turin dates from the time it was discovered, the pigment dates from the same time, the pigment was based on something unavailable at the time and place of Christ, there was a known thriving cottage industry at that time and place (Turin) producing fake "artifacts" of this sort, etc. etc.) And so when I ask for an example of a verified, investigated miracle and you retreat into philosophical meanderings, I become frustrated and disappointed. To me, a statement claiming there are no exceptions is refuted by an exception. Not by claims of philosophical orientation or by semantic redefinitions or the like.

Ah, there you go again! Has science never encountered a miracle or has science never verified a miracle? You still seem to conflate the ideas, even though they are clearly not the same.

And we've been over the problem of a "verified, investigated miracle." You have agreed that such a thing cannot occur. Yet you keep using it as evidence for the soundness of your philosophy! When I retreat into "philosophical meanderings," it's not because I've never experienced something unexplained by science or heard reports from people I fully believe to be credible. It's because you are making foundational philosophical contradictions. Given reports or investigations or miracles, you would rightly state that not having an immediate scientific answer does not verify the event as a miracle.

If you're getting frustrated and disappointed over this hurdle, I can only point out that it is a philosophical hurdle of your own design. If your declaration of what is possible rests at what science can verify then you are asking for something you have already pre-determined to be impossible to provide.

Yes, I quite agreed with Chesterton, I think. I will agree again. The realist is constrained by the slings and arrows of outrageous reality, whereas the spiritualist is fettered only by the limits of his imagination.

Nah, you can't agree with Chesterton if you don't understand what he wrote! The very question he's addressing is what Reality includes and the specific limitations set upon what that might be by the naturalist. Chesterton would argue that you're not constrained by reality — rather, that you have determined what is acceptable reality.

I think I understand. But I'll repeat, I think the null hypothesis is that there are no imps. A null hypothesis, at least as I understand it, is NOT an inflexible dogma. For that, you'd need to consult Jorge, becca or JohnMartin. Instead, the null hypothesis says that what is not in evidence should not be presumed. And if there are no imps in evidence, neither the realist nor the spiritualist is saying there's no such thing as an imp. But the realist says, pending any relevant data, CLAIMING there's an imp is Making Stuff Up. Same with miracles. They are not entirely ruled out, but because violations of the principles of the universe constitute such a wildly extraordinary claim, we'd need astoundingly solid evidence. Not phillosphical navel-gazing.

What is not in evidence or what is not scientifically verified? Again, these are two very different things. People may not report sightings of imps, but many people, with very many backgrounds and levels of mental soundness, have reported supernatural experiences. There may be no imps or demons or angels . . . but "evidence" and "scientific evidence" in this case mean different things. Asking for the latter necessarily reduces the "supernatural" to natural phenomena, making for a rather circular argument.

I get lost at this point, I'm afraid. To me, alleging the impossible (as we defined it) requires Certainty. Doubt would prohibit the allegation from the start. And has been written (often enough for me to encounter in multiple places), the religious mind might be right or it might be wrong, but it does not doubt. Religion largely exists to battle against doubt.

Well, that certainly (hah!) hasn't been my experience in the faith, nor that of nearly all the theists I know. Nor even of virtually all of the authors I've read, modern or ancient. You'll find some people who espouse complete and utter certainty of every aspect of their faith . . . but such true certitude is very rare.

OK, please understand that this is a very difficult distinction for me to grasp. Even such knowledgeable and thoughtful people here as Jim admit to no doubts about their gods. I am certainly not a theologian, but I recognize that doubt is essential for everyone, regardless of faith or profession. Investigating the material world is very humbling - nearly every scientific hypothesis fails the tests, proving the scientist wrong, and must be discarded. Contrast this with religious claims, which can't be tested. JohnMartin has been asked what evidence would change his mind. So has Jim, so has Jorge. The responses equate to the same answer - nothing can. They KNOW. Maybe the Christian theology makes impossible demands on the faithful?

I'll let every one speak for himself, of course, but my perception of Jim and Jorge is quite different than yours. I don't see absolute certainty as being intrinsic to their spiritual lives. Even Jorge, when you get him talking about something unrelated to YEC, can express doubts about various things. Now, even if any of the above or myself "know" that God exists, this does not equate to certainty. To "know" something means to have warranted belief as to its truth-state. I know, for example, that the earth revolves around the sun . . . but I can certainly entertain doubts about the truth-state of the claim!

Sigh. Hopefully, we now understand one another better. I said there were no verified exceptions to the null hypothesis. I think this is the case. Claiming that there CAN be no exceptions is philosophical. Claiming that there HAVE BEEN no verified exceptions is simply a statement of fact. And yes, I understand that science takes as an axiom that there CAN BE no exceptions, because exceptions would undermine the edifice of science and render the scientific method useless. If a philosophy is the same as a set of axioms, then this is part of the philosophy of science.

Well, what you said was that every investigation into possible exceptions turned out not be exceptional after all, without exception. Again, that's a different claim than that there are no verified exceptions. You can certainly claim that there have been no verified exceptions to the null hypothesis of naturalism but you also have to acknowledge that you've set a standard which guarantees that there will be no verified exceptions to the null hypothesis of naturalism!

And of course the scientific method would not be rendered useless should it be true that supernatural forces might abrogate natural laws. So long as natural laws operate according to custom for the vast majority of the time, the scientific method would still produce entirely usable results. What you take as axiomatic isn't a property of science but rather a property of your own philosophy. You've merely claimed that the limitations of the scientific method are the limitations of reality. Science itself makes no such declaration.

—Sam

[Ansgar Seraph]

Sam,

If you have the patience and interest, here is a wonderful online book overlapping much of this and similar discussions. It's not difficult reading, the guy's style is very approachable, but it's still a whole book...

No time, unfortunately. I'm already behind on several books I'm supposed to be reading . . . including the book pertaining to the thread Jim started last week (two weeks ago? Man, I'm behind). Any road, I don't see how the subject pertains to this discussion. While we've agreed that there are many people who take refuge in authoritarianism, the arguments themselves do not rest on authoritarian grounds.

—Sam

[little_monkey]

what a cop out.

What, you're not man enough to discuss your contempt for science with Hawking? Or are you afraid that he will make a fool of yourself? I believe the real copt out comes from you.

[little_monkey]

This is not a very rigorous description. Cause and effect are not determined by simple chronological order. It's not being claimed that A precedes B, but rather that A resulted in a change of conditions that made B possible, if not inevitable. Indeed, it's regarded as a logical error to argue that since A preceded B, THEREFORE A caused B. This chronological order might provide a HINT that there is a causal relationship, but it doesn't mean there IS such a relationship. That sort of relationship must be far more tightly coupled.

But pancreasman has a point. If A is the cause of B, then A must have occurred in time before B. You are lucky that Roger Penrose is not here to debate, he would be scolding you as he considers this principle to be more profound that Relativity. ;-)

[robrecht]

But pancreasman has a point. If A is the cause of B, then A must have occurred in time before B. You are lucky that Roger Penrose is not here to debate, he would be scolding you as he considers this principle to be more profound that Relativity. ;-)

This is supposedly implicit in Hawking's most recent denial of God. Essentially since time was created at the Big Bang, God could not have been a prior cause. Unfortunately, this argument is completely ineffective against the traditional view that God and his causation exist outside of time. This is what I was referring to above as another instance of Hawking's apparent ignorance of theology.

Thanks, Robrecht

[pancreasman]

This is supposedly implicit in Hawking's most recent denial of God. Essentially since time was created at the Big Bang, God could not have been a prior cause. Unfortunately, this argument is completely ineffective against the traditional view that God and his causation exist outside of time. This is what I was referring to above as another instance of Hawking's apparent ignorance of theology.

Thanks, Robrecht

I have never understood how the phrase 'existing outside of time' is anything other than meaningless noise.

[robrecht]

I have never understood how the phrase 'existing outside of time' is anything other than meaningless noise.

It is not meaningless to believers, but it is noise to those who believe there is no such 'existence'.

Thanks, Robrecht

[pancreasman]

It is not meaningless to believers, but it is noise to those who believe there is no such 'existence'.

Thanks, Robrecht

Could you explain it to me then?