[lbo-talk] The Ungodly Delusions

Matt lbo4 at beyondzero.net
Tue Oct 24 09:50:39 PDT 2006


On Tue, Oct 24, 2006 at 08:19:17AM -0700, Dwayne Monroe wrote:
> Ravi:
>
> my start at atheism was when I finally mustered up
> enough courage to ask one of my teachers why certain
> laws were so ... why did objects attract each other in
> proportion to their masses and inverse proportion to
> the distance separating them? Why is Xeno's paradox
> not really a paradox?
>
> [...]
>
> ...................
>
>
> I do see your point (and appreciate the replacement of
> deism with 'scientism' in the hot seat) but hope you
> realize that in those specific cases the cause of your
> distress was probably your teachers not really knowing
> (and I mean, *really* knowing) what they were on
> about.
>
> Do you suppose Newton would have experienced similar
> difficulties answering your inverse square law
> question? Or any of the astro-navigators who
> calculated Spirit and Opportunity's successful
> journeys to Mars?

Well, in String Theory in Theoretical Physics the question is really more about fundamental constants and why, given the infinite possibilities, a universe exists with constants that are set "just so" to give us all the macroscopic stuff like inverse square laws which makes this universe so hospitable to human life. From the persepctive of probability and within the shortcoming of String Theory, there's no reason that the incredibly improbable event that is existence ought to be, at all.

In String Theory, the collection of all possible universes is known as the Landscape, and some physicists have proposed the Anthropic Principle - that if the fundamentals weren't the way they are we wouldn't be here to figure them out - as the explanation surrounding this universe vis a vis the Landscape.

Leonard Susskind has a book about this: "http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316155799/ref=wl_it_dp/102-6838729-1449754?ie=UTF8&coliid=I16YIL3S0BVAQT&colid=4AYE7AC6JTRZ"

ST, while the primary focus of most of the world's theoretical physicists, hasn't given up much in terms of experimental predictions or testability. Yet the problem of the incompatibility between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics (and the Standard Model) remains a great focus in the field. Loop Quantum Gravity is a runner-up theory to String.

A recent book for lay people by Lisa Randall is a good introduction to String Theory: "http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060531088/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b/102-6838729-1449754?ie=UTF8"

Matt

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