Friday, February 23, 2007
God to Call Press Conference
Another book has appeared accusing God of the appalling crime of not existing. I can exclusively reveal that He is not happy about this and is considering calling another press conference. There is only one precedent for such a move - the conference He called after 9/11, in which He angrily clarified the Don't Kill Rule. 'Don't kill each other anymore - ever!' He said, 'I'm fucking serious!' God tells me, angry as He is about the repeated charges of non-existence, He will have to wait until after Jeffrey Archer's book launch in Rome on March 19th.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Here's a paper written by Victor J Stenger called 'Where did the laws of physics come from?'
ReplyDeletearxiv.org/vc/physics/papers/0207/0207047v2.pdf
It's a really bizarre paper because Stenger's basic argument is that the laws of physics cannot be otherwise than they are, without either violating coordinate-independence, or failing to account for the experimental data. He then spends the bulk of the paper providing an elementary exposition of the basic laws.
Well, firstly, his basic assertion is false. It's well-understood in the philosophy of science that theory is under-determined by empirical data. Adding the criterion of coordinate-indpendence doesn't change this. If it did, we wouldn't have rival, competing theories of fundamental physics such as string theory, M-theory, supersymmetry, canonical quantum gravity, supergravity etc etc, all of which are coordinate-independent.
Secondly, when people ask, 'Could the laws of physics have been otherwise than they are?' they're considering different sets of empirical data, governed by different sets of physical laws. To argue that the laws of physics must be the way they are because that's the only way to explain the empirical data, is to totally mis-understand the problem!
Gordon:
ReplyDeleteIs that the same as the fined-tuned universe theory (to which a non-religious answer is the multiverse theory)?
It's not the same, Brit, but it's related. The fine-tuning pertains to the so-called 'parameters of physics', but these parameters do pop-up as co-efficients in the laws of physics. For example, the mass of the electron is a co-efficient in the Dirac equation for an electron. But the laws of physics could be otherwise than they are in a more general sense than simply having different values for their co-efficients; they could be different expressions entirely.
ReplyDeleteDawkins et al are quite right that the God hypothesis doesn't explain fine-tuning at all, and simply regresses the explanation to something else which requires explanation, (if God is a well-defined notion at all). The multiverse hypothesis is a better answer.
Bryan, thanks for the link to that brilliant 9/11 angry God article from the Onion, which I hadn't seen before.
ReplyDeleteRe Richard Dawkins' God delusion: I've drawn a short cartoon strip on this theme and would like to add it here as a comment. Am I allowed to do that? Or I can send it by email, if you wish. Anyway it's on my blog (Blaugustine):
www.nataliedarbeloff.com/blaugustine.html
I did email you recently but don't know if you received it.
Do add as comment if you like. I may have mislaid your earlier communcation as I have suffered a horrible tech breakdown this week.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Randy Newman could be prevailed apon to update his classic hymn to atheism "That's why I love mankind"?
ReplyDelete"Man means nothing he means less to me
Than the lowliest cactus flower
Or the humblest Yucca tree
He chases round this desert
'Cause he thinks that's where I'll be
That's why I love mankind
The Christians and the Jews were having a jamboree
The Buddhists and the Hindus joined on satellite TV
They picked their four greatest priests
And they began to speak
They said, "Lord, a plague is on the world
Lord, no man is free
The temples that we built to you
Have tumbled into the sea
Lord, if you won't take care of us
Won't you please, please let us be?"
And the Lord said
And the Lord said
I burn down your cities-how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we
You all must be crazy to put your faith in me
That's why I love mankind
You really need me
That's why I love mankind"
I couldn't manage to insert the JPG file of the cartoon strip here so I'll re-send you my previous email and hope it gets to you.
ReplyDeleteI had forgotten about The Onion. My brother had recommended it to me ages ago. It is laugh-out-loud funny. As for those two books, the launch of one them in Rome is enough in itself to scupper the hypothesis discussed in the other.
ReplyDeleteBlessed are those who use foul language in the cause of righteousness and simple logic.
ReplyDeleteEr...He also called a press conference just over a year ago, here:
ReplyDeleteGod Condemns ‘So-Called Intelligent Design’.